Associate Editors

Trey Jansen, Eleanor Lowe, Lucy Munro, Dee Anna Phares, Jan Sewell

Editorial Advisory Board

Gregory Doran, Chief Associate Artistic Director, Royal Shakespeare Company

Jim Davis, Professor of Theatre Studies, University of Warwick, United Kingdom

Charles Edelman, Senior Lecturer, Edith Cowan University, Western Australia

Lukas Erne, Professor of Modern English Literature, Université de Genève, Switzerland

Maria Evans, Director of Learning, Royal Shakespeare Company

Akiko Kusunoki, Tokyo Woman’s Christian University, Japan

Ron Rosenbaum, author and journalist, New York, United States

James Shapiro, Professor of English and Comparative Literature, Columbia University, United States

Tiffany Stern, Beaverbrook and Bouverie Fellow and Tutor in English, University of Oxford,

United Kingdom

Editorial Assistants

Christopher Campbell

Penelope Freedman

James Gibson

Sophie Holroyd

Ayako Kawanami

Takashi Kozuka

Esme Miskimmin

Oliver Phillips

Paul Prescott

Charlotte Scott

Will Sharpe

Erin Sullivan

2007 Modern Library Edition

Copyright © 2007 by The Royal Shakespeare Company

All rights reserved.

Published in the United States by Modern Library, an imprint of The Random

House Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York

MODERN LIBRARY and the TORCHBEARER Design are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.

“Royal Shakespeare Company,” “RSC,” and the RSC logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of The Royal Shakespeare Company.

ISBN 9780679642954

eBook ISBN 9780345546562

www.modernlibrary.com

v4.0

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THE RSC SHAKESPEARE COMPLETE WORKS

Contents

Preface

General Introduction by Jonathan Bate

Shakespeare Our Perennial Contemporary

Shakespeare’s Debut: The “Upstart Crow”

The Back Story: Shakespeare of Stratford

The Playhouses

Plague and Poetry

The Lord Chamberlain’s Man

The Ensemble at Work

“Dangerous Matter”: Politics and Religion

The King’s Man

The Great Feast of Languages

Cult and Heresy

The First Folio Restored

User’s Guide

Preliminary Pages of the First Folio

Foreword by Michael Boyd, Artistic Director, Royal Shakespeare Company

William Shakespeare: Complete Works with Introductions and “Key Facts” by Jonathan Bate

Comedies

The Tempest

The Two Gentlemen of Verona

The Merry Wives of Windsor

Measure for Measure

The Comedy of Errors

Much Ado About Nothing

Love’s Labour’s Lost

A Midsummer Night’s Dream

The Merchant of Venice

As You Like It

The Taming of the Shrew

All’s Well That Ends Well

Twelfth Night, or What You Will

The Winter’s Tale

Histories

The Life and Death of King John

The Life and Death of King Richard the Second

The First Part of Henry the Fourth, with the Life and Death of Henry surnamed Hotspur

The Second Part of Henry the Fourth, Containing His Death and the Coronation of King Henry the Fifth

The Life of Henry the Fifth

The First Part of Henry the Sixth

The Second Part of Henry the Sixth, with the Death of the Good Duke Humphrey

The Third Part of Henry the Sixth, with the Death of the Duke of York

The Tragedy of Richard the Third, with the Landing of Earl Richmond and the Battle at Bosworth Field

The Famous History of the Life of King Henry the Eighth

Tragedies

The Tragedy of Troilus and Cressida

The Tragedy of Coriolanus

The Lamentable Tragedy of Titus Andronicus

The Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet

The Life of Timon of Athens

The Tragedy of Julius Caesar

The Tragedy of Macbeth

The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark

The Tragedy of King Lear

The Tragedy of Othello, the Moor of Venice

The Tragedy of Antony and Cleopatra

The Tragedy of Cymbeline

Plays Not in the First Folio

Pericles, Prince of Tyre, by William Shakespeare and George Wilkins

The Two Noble Kinsmen, by William Shakespeare and John Fletcher

Poems and Sonnets

Venus and Adonis

The Rape of Lucrece

To the Queen

“Let the Bird of Loudest Lay” (also known as “The Phoenix and Turtle”)

Shakespeare’s Sonnets

A Scene for Sir Thomas More

(introduction, transcription, and modernized text by Eric Rasmussen)

Charts

Shakespeare’s Works: A Conjectural Chronology

The Houses of York and Lancaster: A Genealogy

Kings and Queens of England: From the History Plays to Shakespeare’s Lifetime

The History Behind the Histories: A Chronology

The History Behind the Tragedies: A Chronology

Acknowledgments

Acknowledgments for Illustrations/Photographs

Index of Plays and Poems

PREFACE

As Shakespeare wrote for a company of actors and as the First Folio was the product of the work of many hands, so this edition is a product of the Royal Shakespeare Company’s principle of ensemble. Jonathan Bate’s role has been akin to that of a theater company’s artistic director: he devised the guiding principles, wrote almost all the introductory materials, and was final arbiter for every editorial decision. He gladly takes responsibility for all the edition’s failings. Eric Rasmussen has been like a stage director overseeing the performance of the complete works: line by line, through nearly a million words of Shakespeare, he has made choices about modernization, punctuation, emendations, and stage directions. He has edited thirty of the thirty-eight plays in this edition and checked the remaining eight, for which primary credit belongs to Eleanor Lowe (King John, 1 and 2 Henry VI, Henry VIII, Coriolanus), Dee Anna Phares (Macbeth and Othello), and Lucy Munro (Pericles). Jonathan Bate edited the poems and sonnets, with assistance from Jan Sewell, Penelope Freedman, and James Gibson.

Héloïse Sénéchal was chief commentary editor, researching and writing the explanatory notes for about half the plays herself and revising the initial work on the other half, which was undertaken by Eleanor Lowe, Jan Sewell, Charlotte Scott, Esme Miskimmin, Penelope Freedman, Christopher Campbell, Takashi Kozuka, and Erin Sullivan. “First pass” edits, establishing the core of the play texts, were undertaken by Sophie Holroyd, Trey Jansen, Dee Anna Phares, and Will Sharpe. Ayako Kawanami and Paul Prescott assisted with text preparation early in the project, and Oliver Phillips with tabular material. Jan Sewell and Trey Jansen played the hugely important role of checking, improving, and proofreading every work. Equally indispensable was our eagle-eyed copy editor, Tracey Day. Over fifteen person-years of editorial labor have gone into the project and every word of Shakespeare has been scrutinized by five or six pairs of editorial eyes—but still, as in every previous edition, there are bound to be errors, and we would like to express our gratitude in advance to any readers who may draw our attention to them via the edition’s website, www.therscshakespeare.com. Every effort will be made to incorporate corrections in later reprints and our forthcoming editions of individual works. Also to be found at the website are an array of supporting materials, including hints on Shakespearean verse speaking with audio examples, a bibliography (readily updatable online as it could not be in print), a more detailed account of our editorial procedures than that provided in the general introduction, and RSC production histories of all the plays.

We gratefully acknowledge the work of our many predecessors in bringing Shakespeare from script to print. We have been especially influenced by the following: John Hemings, Henry Condell, Ralph Crane, Isaac Jaggard, Edward Blount, and their collaborators for the production of the First Folio; Nicholas Rowe and his successors for establishing the modern editorial tradition; Samuel Johnson for principles that helped to shape this edition; the select company of editors—Charles Knight, Charlotte Porter and Helen Clarke, Herbert Farjeon—who stayed loyal to the Folio in the centuries dominated by conflations and Quartos; successive generations of editors for Oxford, Cambridge, and the Arden series; the example of David Bevington; Stanley Wells and his collaborators on the 1986 Oxford edition for a new paradigm against which to measure ourselves.

The theoretical and practical work of many scholars has helped to shape our editorial principles, but special notice should be given to the work of Peter Blayney, Lukas Erne, John Jowett, and Paul Werstine. Our explanatory notes owe an immense debt not only to the commentaries of previous editions, but also to the creators of the Oxford English Dictionary Online, Early English Books Online, and Literature Online, the editors of Athlone Shakespeare Dictionaries, and the work of David and Ben Crystal (Shakespeare’s Words), Ian Lancashire (Early Modern English Dictionary Database and Lexicons of Early Modern English), and Gordon Williams (Dictionary of Sexual Language and Imagery in Shakespearean and Stuart Literature and A Glossary of Shakespeare’s Sexual Language).

We have always been conscious of standing on the shoulders of giants, while being aware that our predecessors will disagree with several of our key principles and hundreds of our local decisions. Such is the process of Shakespearean editing, which will continue so long as the plays are read and performed.

Jonathan Bate, University of Warwick

Eric Rasmussen, University of Nevada, Reno

The forms of Elizabethan secretary hand: the variant strokes suggest how difficult it would have been to read the original manuscripts, which is one reason why the early printed texts are prone to error and the modern editorial process remains so laborious and speculative.

GENERAL INTRODUCTION

Jonathan Bate

“After God, Shakespeare has created most”

(Alexandre Dumas, French novelist whose works have been translated into nearly a hundred languages and adapted into over two hundred films, figures surpassed by Shakespeare alone)

“Shakespeare was conscious of a double or treble reality fused together into one line or a single word”

(Cesare Pavese, Italian poet and novelist)

“Somehow Shakespeare always had something to say to us”

(Ahmed Kathrada, imprisoned on Robben Island with Nelson Mandela)

Shakespeare Our Perennial Contemporary

Hamlet is delighted when he hears the news that the players have returned to Elsinore. He greets them as personal friends. Some of the theater enthusiasts among the courtiers of Queen Elizabeth and then King James, such as the Earl of Southampton, the Earl of Pembroke, and the Earl of Montgomery, would have greeted Shakespeare and his fellow actors in the same way. The circumstances of the fictional acting company at Elsinore reflect those of the real company, the Lord Chamberlain’s Men, that first put on Shakespeare’s Hamlet. Their highest priority is to be available on demand for court performances, if necessary reshaping their repertoire in response to a particular demand, as when Hamlet asks for a speech of some dozen or sixteen lines to be inserted into their tragedy. While waiting to be summoned to the palace, they perform regularly in the city, trying out each new play in the court of public opinion. They are an all-male company, whose teenage apprentices play the female parts. Their business at the box office faces a range of challenges, from state censorship to closure because of plague to rival attractions and in particular a fashionable new company consisting entirely of highly trained schoolboys.

Given that the players in Hamlet are in part a witty self-representation of Shakespeare’s own acting company, it is fair to assume that Shakespeare himself believed as Hamlet does that actors are “the abstracts and brief chronicles of the time.” According to contemporaneous dictionaries, an “abstract” was “a little book or volume gathered out of a greater,” “an abridgement, epitome, summary, compendium, short course, or discourse.” In an age of long sermons, interminable homilies, and closely printed treatises on ethics and politics, plays provided a crash course in the way of the world, an instantaneous mirror of manners and of life. The weighty folio volumes of The Chronicles of England, Scotland and Ireland gathered by Raphael Holinshed and others were anything but “brief.” In a fraction of the time it would have taken to read them—and at a fraction of the cost of buying the book—Shakespeare’s players, as they moved from the Rose to the Theatre to the Curtain to the Globe, offered the London public an abridgement and compendium of the nation’s history.

Their dramatized “chronicles” of times past—whether British, European, ancient Greek, or Roman—were also mirrors of the present. All productions were “modern dress,” with just the occasional period detail such as emblematic togas to represent classical Rome. More money was spent on the purchase of costumes than the commissioning of scripts. The kings, dukes, and ladies in the plays would have looked impressively courtly not least because their wardrobe consisted in part of the secondhand clothes of courtiers: often when aristocrats died, they would bequeath items of clothing to their servants, who would sell them to the players. From his reading and his firsthand experience of submitting his work for the approval of the Master of the Revels, then of performing at court, Shakespeare learned the language and manners of courtiership. So his characters came to speak and to gesture, as well as to be dressed, in the manner of monarchs and their entourage. A Duke of Buckingham or Earl of Pembroke in the audience might have seen himself mirrored in one of his ancestors in the chronicle plays. King James, who claimed descent from Banquo, would have watched “the Scottish play” with close attention. And the followers of the Earl of Essex, who liked to consider him the modern Achilles, would have found rich food for thought in Shakespeare’s deconstruction of the Achillean code of chivalry in his Troilus and Cressida, written soon after Essex’s dramatic fall from Queen Elizabeth’s favor.

Whether set or written in the past, all great plays speak to present times. In Shakespeare, topical allusion is rare—the odd flattering glance at Queen Elizabeth, one conspicuous nod to Essex in Henry V—but the sense of the fictional world on stage as a mirror of the real world beyond the auditorium is pervasive.

Theater is unique among the arts of the word in the degree to which it is public, collaborative, multidimensional, and unpredictable. The greatest playwrights combine many different skills: they share the gift of narrative with the novelist and the epic storyteller, the arts of persuasive oratory with the lawyer and the public speaker, the trick of minting language anew with the poet, the ability to bring the past back to life with the historian, and the capacity to imagine—indeed to shape—the future with the prophet. While doing all this, they have always to think in three dimensions, to write for a body as well as a voice, to animate a stage as well as a page. At the same time, they rely on trust. Whereas the poet or novelist writes in the expectation of a direct relationship between their words, their imagined world and the minds of their readers, the playwright’s work is always incomplete. It is only brought to fruition through the work of intermediaries: the actors and all the other professionals involved in the process of putting on a play.

Theater writing accordingly offers a unique combination of presence and absence. The audience is present in the same room as the performers. This is what makes the ancient and primal art of theater different from such modern media as radio, film, television, DVD, and Webcast. Indeed, the audience’s response helps to shape the performance, which will be subtly different on every occasion. There is always a sense of risk. An actor might forget his lines: Shakespeare plays with the possibility in Coriolanus, when his mouthy protagonist is reduced to silence by the arrival of his pleading family (“Like a dull actor now, / I have forgot my part, and I am out, / Even to a full disgrace”). A stage effect may misfire, as when a faulty cannon burned down Shakespeare’s Globe near the end of his career. A slip in a sword fight may shed real blood (this happened to me when I was playing Macbeth as a schoolboy, probably as punishment for our failure to observe the theatrical superstition of never uttering the title Macbeth but referring instead to “the Scottish play”). An unruly audience may overwhelm the stage (again, Shakespeare plays with the idea when Caliban and his drunken companions interrupt the play-within-the-play in The Tempest, provoking Prospero into an elegy on the evanescence of the theater of human life itself). The authorities may close a show for political reasons, as in Hamlet the usurping King of Denmark closes “The Mousetrap” before it is finished and as the deposition scene in Richard II was too sensitive to be printed or perhaps even to be played.

Shakespeare recognized that human affairs always embody a combination of permanent truths and historical contingencies, of—to use the terms of his age—”nature” and “custom.” At one level, he is “not of an age, but for all time.” He works with archetypal characters, core plots, and perennial conflicts, as he dramatizes the competing demands of the living and the dead, the old and the young, men and women, self and society, integrity and role-play, insiders and outsiders. He grasps the structural conflicts shared by all societies: religious against secular vision, country against city, birth against education, strong leadership against the people’s voice, the code of honor against the energies of erotic desire. But he also addressed the conflicts of his own historical moment: the transition from Catholicism to Protestantism and feudalism to modernity, the formation of national identity, trade, and immigration, the encounter with new worlds overseas, the shadow of foreign powers. He was restricted by the customs of his age, notably when it came to the subordination of women, but at the same time he was prophetic of future ages. Despite the inferior position of most women in his society and the fact that the convention of his theater meant that female parts were played by young men, he gives a remarkable degree of freedom and mental agility to his women.

Shakespeare’s black characters were originally played by white actors with faces blackened by charred cork, but ever since the black singer, actor, and political activist Paul Robeson played Othello to Peggy Ashcroft’s Desdemona in the 1930s, this drama of interracial marriage has been made to address pressing contemporary concerns of ethnic, cultural, and religious difference. In the early twenty-first century, the Islamic connotations of “the Moor” became as significant as his color.

Shakespeare endures because with each new turn of history, a new dimension of his work opens up before us. When George III went mad, King Lear was kept off the stage—it was just too close to the truth. During the Cold War, Lear again became Shakespeare’s hottest play, its combination of starkness and absurdity answering to the mood of the age, inspiring the Polish critic Jan Kott to compare it to Samuel Beckett’s Endgame in his influential book Shakespeare our Contemporary (1961), and both the Russian Grigori Kozintsev (1969) and the English Peter Brook (1971) to make darkly brilliant film versions.

Early in 1934, when the French Socialist government was close to collapse, a new translation of Coriolanus was staged at the Comédie Française in Paris. The production was perceived as an attack on democratic institutions. Rioting pro- and antigovernment factions clashed in the auditorium. The Swiss translator was branded a foreign Fascist. The prime minister fired the theater director and replaced him with the head of the security police, whose artistic credentials were somewhat questionable. What are we to conclude from this real-life drama? That Coriolanus’ contempt for the rabble makes Shakespeare himself into a proto-Fascist? How could it then have been that the following year the Maly Theatre company in Stalin’s Moscow staged a production of the same play that sought to demonstrate that Coriolanus was an “enemy of the people” and that Shakespeare was therefore a true Socialist? Shakespeare was neither an absolutist nor a democrat, but the fact that both productions were possible is one of the major reasons why he continues to live through his work four centuries after his death.

On June 20, 2006, a production of Titus Andronicus directed by Yukio Ninagawa opened at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre in Stratford-upon-Avon (see Plates), as part of a festival in which Shakespeare’s complete works were staged in the course of a year. Titus is a dramatization of the bloody and inexorable logic of revenge in a militarized world where the highest value is placed upon the code of honor. For Shakespeare and his original audiences, imperial Rome was synonymous with such a culture; the Ninagawa production powerfully aligned the play with Samurai codes of behavior (twenty years earlier, the same director had achieved a similar cultural translation in an internationally acclaimed staging of Macbeth). This Titus was an abstract and brief chronicle of several times at once: Ninagawa followed Shakespeare in skillfully collapsing several phases of ancient Roman history into one (primitive, republican, imperial, decadent), while at the same time spectators were conscious of both Shakespeare’s sixteenth-century England and the enduring influence of Samurai Japan. But the play still spoke to the present: that same day in Iraq two American soldiers had their throats slit in revenge for the death in an air strike two weeks earlier of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq. According to the Mujahedeen Shura Council, this ritualized act of vengeance was carried out personally by al-Zarqawi’s successor—just as Titus exacts revenge with his own remaining hand. So long as we have wars, rape, codes of honor, and violent acts of revenge, Shakespeare’s tragic vision will go on being contemporary. So long as we continue to be fascinated by human relationships—children rebelling against parents, mothers struggling to let their sons grow up and break free, best friends falling for the same girl, servants and counselors who are wiser than their masters, ordinary people using jokes as a way of deflating those in authority—his comic vision will also remain alive.

People are not really killed on the Shakespearean stage (whereas people do sometimes really kiss each other, which is one of the important differences between tragedy and comedy). People do not speak highly rhetorical five-beat iambic pentameter verse lines in real life (whereas many lines in Shakespeare, sometimes tragic but more usually comic, are spoken in prose, which is one of the important differences between his work and that of more austere dramatists such as Sophocles and Racine). Shakespearean deaths and Shakespearean speeches are stylized. There can be no such thing as an entirely naturalistic staging of Shakespeare. Stylistically, the kind of drama from which he is furthest is soap opera—though, gloriously, for all the fine language and exotic settings, many of his plots and themes inhabit the same realm as those of soap (boy meets girl, marriage goes wrong, people grow old). Every production has to maintain a delicate balance between creating the illusion of reality and self-consciously acknowledging the theatrical process. Shakespeare loved that duality, which is why one of his favorite devises is what critics call “metadrama”: plays-within-the-play, impersonation and dressing-up, allusions to the world as theater and life as acting, direct addresses to the audience, choric figures who are both inside and outside the action.

In his world, character is not predetermined. People become themselves through action, dialogue, the process of thinking. Drama is a basic tool for discovery of the self, achieved through exile, disguise, soliloquy, and scenic counterpoint. For Shakespeare, value is not absolute. It depends upon reflection, as when a person’s “virtues shining upon others / Heat them and they retort that heat again / To the first giver” (Troilus and Cressida). Shakespeare’s theory of human relativity is made possible by his dramatic medium, by double plots, contradictions between word and action, and the constant presence of a questioning audience.

In our journey through life or a character’s journey through a play, do we find a core of “self” or do we make ourselves up as we go along? In Shakespeare, those with prewritten scripts find their plotted stories disrupted: Prospero, Angelo, the men in Love’s Labour’s Lost, Shylock, Bertram, Leontes, Henry IV, Coriolanus, Lear. The powerful exception is Prince Hal/Henry V, who always remains ruthlessly in control of his master plan even as he gives the impression of being just one of the boys. Those who improvise are the characters who most excite Shakespeare (and us): Hamlet, Falstaff, Lady Macbeth, Beatrice, Rosalind, Viola, the Bastard in King John, Mercutio, Cleopatra, and in their darker way Richard III, Edmund in Lear, and Iago. Those who cannot adapt to change inspire our pity (Richard II, Othello). At the deepest level, Shakespeare’s most successful characters are the best actors.

“Shakespeare’s plays,” wrote Dr. Samuel Johnson in the preface to his edition of 1765, “are not in the rigorous and critical sense either tragedies or comedies, but compositions of a distinct kind; exhibiting the real state of sublunary nature, which partakes of good and evil, joy and sorrow, mingled with endless variety of proportion and innumerable modes of combination; and expressing the course of the world, in which the loss of one is the gain of another; in which, at the same time, the reveller is hasting to his wine, and the mourner burying his friend; in which the malignity of one is sometimes defeated by the frolic of another; and many mischiefs and many benefits are done and hindered without design.” Tragedy and comedy are terms that go back to the drama of the ancient Greeks. In ancient Athens the two kinds were strictly separated. Tragedy concerned the downfall of great men and women, larger-than-life figures, kings and queens, mythical heroes, and antiheroes—Agamemnon, Clytemnestra, Oedipus, Hercules, Medea. Comedy was filled with ordinary people: petulant fathers, unruly wives, clever servants, young lovers on the make. Arbiters of taste have a tendency to shelter themselves under the wings of tradition. For this reason, literary theorists from the sixteenth to the eighteenth century regarded the practices of the ancients as rules to be obeyed rather than examples to be admired. In Shakespeare’s lifetime, Sir Philip Sidney wrote with lofty disdain of the “mongrel tragi-comedy,” which was the staple fare of the London stage. In Dr. Johnson’s century, critical sophistication was frequently regarded as synonymous with French taste—and that meant the rigorous classicism of Racine and Voltaire.

Johnson’s preface to Shakespeare was written in a spirit of English empiricism that did not worry itself about neoclassical rules. “There is always an appeal open from criticism to nature,” he says: Shakespeare’s plays are great for the very reason that they mingle joy with sorrow and high with low. They may not conform to the model of the ancients, but they are true to life. The fall of the mighty is only ever part of the picture. Even Shakespeare’s severest tragedies have their comedians: the Porter in Macbeth, Lear’s Fool. Even his happiest comedies have their malcontents: Jaques in As You Like It, Don John in Much Ado about Nothing. We might go so far as to say that all Shakespeare’s plays are tragicomedies and that is one of the principal reasons why his drama is, as Dr. Johnson also recognized, “the mirror of life.”

Shakespeare’s Debut: The “Upstart Crow”

William Shakespeare was an extraordinarily intelligent man who was born and died in an ordinary market town in the English Midlands. He lived an uneventful life in an eventful age. Like many clever country boys, he moved to the city in order to make his way in the world. Like many creative people, he found a career in the entertainment business.

Public playhouses and professional full-time acting companies reliant on the market for their income were born in Shakespeare’s childhood. When he arrived in London as a man, a new phenomenon was in the making: the actor who is so successful that he becomes a “star.” The word did not exist in its modern sense, but the pattern is recognizable: audiences went to the theater not so much to see a particular show as to witness the comedian Richard Tarlton or the dramatic actor Edward Alleyn.

Allegedly the son of a pig farmer, Tarlton came from the provinces. His trademark costume was a russet suit and buttoned cap. He graduated from the role of tavern jester to that of professional clown. His persona was the country innocent who is apparently baffled by the ways of the city, but whose outsider’s eye gave him the ability to prick the bubble of pretension and anatomize the follies of the age. He died in 1588, but his name lived on for years; it has been claimed with some justice that he was the first Englishman of humble origins to become a national “celebrity.” His role as company clown for the Queen’s Men made possible the roles that Shakespeare wrote for his clowns, Will Kempe and Robert Armin: Lance and Lancelet, Costard, Dogberry and Bottom, Touchstone, Feste, the gravedigger in Hamlet, and Lear’s unnamed Fool. More than this, his status as outsider looking in, countryman in the city, was a kind of model for Shakespeare’s own art, which is at once a quip and a shrug, planned and improvised, involved and detached.

A panorama of Shakespeare’s London, showing the theaters on the south bank of the River Thames, a location on the margins of the city in an area associated with brothels and violent entertainment for the masses: by a pleasing irony, the engraver has captioned the bearbaiting arena “The Globe” and the theater “beere bayting h[ouse].”

Whereas Tarlton the comedian died young, Alleyn the tragedian lived long. He established his fame with mighty roles such as Marlowe’s striding Tamburlaine, but then, like many a modern star, he recognized that there was more money and artistic control to be gained in becoming his own producer than in remaining a hired gun. A skilled entrepreneur, he built a succession of theaters that doubled as bearbaiting houses, and became a very rich man. After dabbling in local politics, he decided to immortalize himself through philanthropy by endowing a college at Dulwich. Two years younger than Shakespeare, he was always a step ahead of him. Alleyn was the man who revealed for the first time that the entertainment business could make you rich, famous, and respectable.

At the royal court, meanwhile, there was a new demand for sophisticated entertainment. A few years before Shakespeare’s birth, Queen Elizabeth I had inherited an England that had oscillated between extremes of Protestantism and Roman Catholicism. The nation was weak and marginal in comparison with the might of Spain on the European mainland, let alone the Ottoman Empire beyond the Mediterranean Sea. Through a delicate balancing act, the young queen kept in play opposing religious faiths, rival courtiers, and multiple diplomatic liaisons. By refusing to submit to any potential husband, she claimed to be married to her people. Through the cultural patronage offered by her courtiers and the mythmaking symbolism afforded by poetry, spectacle, and painting, she shaped an image of herself as a virgin goddess and her nation as a new imperium, a worthy successor to the ancient Roman Empire that had mastered more than half the known world. During the 1580s, John Lyly—who had become the most fashionable writer in the land, thanks to his Euphues, the Anatomy of Wit: Very Pleasant for All Gentlemen to Read (1578)—wrote a series of plays for court performance, composed in finely spun prose and played by talented boy actors from the London choir schools. Lyly flattered the queen while at the same time appealing to the classical learning of the social elite and exploiting the aura of flirtation and femininity that was inevitable in a court where ambitious males vied for Her Majesty’s attention. In Lyly’s hands, courtship was inseparable from courtiership, the vicissitudes of love on stage serving as metaphor for the fickleness of favor in the royal presence chamber.

Shakespeare was an actor before he was a writer. It appears not to have been long before he realized that he was never going to grow into a great comedian like Tarlton or a great tragedian like Alleyn. Instead, he found a role within his company as the man who patched up old plays, breathing new life, new dramatic twists, into tired repertory pieces. He paid close attention to the work of the university-educated dramatists who were writing history plays and tragedies for the public stage in a style more ambitious, sweeping, and poetically grand than anything that had been seen before. But he may also have noted that what his friend and rival Ben Jonson would call “Marlowe’s mighty line” sometimes faltered in the mode of comedy. Going to university was all well and good for honing the arts of rhetorical elaboration and classical allusion, but it could lead to a loss of the common touch. To stay close to a large segment of the potential audience for public theater, it was necessary to maintain the spirit of Tarlton, to write for clowns as well as kings, and to intersperse the flights of poetry with the humor of the tavern, the privy, and the brothel.

In the 1580s and early 1590s, several of Lyly’s plays appeared in print. They offered Shakespeare a model for what might appeal at court: a tumble of clever words, witty banter between lovers, substantial female roles to be played by cross-dressed boys who sometimes slip back into male attire. The women are always one step ahead of the men, more sensitive of spirit, quicker of mind and tongue. A quick study and a brilliant mimic, Shakespeare realized that it was possible to do it all. To write both heroic and villainous roles for serious actors in the vein of Alleyn, as Marlowe had done. To churn out jokes and comic misunderstandings for Tarlton’s successors. And to create linguistically and emotionally challenging female parts to be played by youthful males. To appeal to the queen and the ladies and gentlemen of the court as well as the gallants of the town and the denizens of the Bankside taverns. To find a voice that spoke to both the queen and her commoners.

The chronology and the pattern of authorship of Shakespeare’s early works are impossible to pin down.[1] It seems, though, that by the summer of 1592 he had made his first steps in comedy, history, and tragedy. Many of those first steps—and not a few of his later ones—depended on an art of rewriting existing repertoire rather than creating new plays from scratch. In the late eighteenth century, wrestling with the thorny problem of the authorship of the Henry VI plays, the great scholar Edmond Malone predicted that “A time may arrive, in which it will become evident, from books and manuscripts yet undiscovered and unexamined, that Shakespeare did not attempt a single play on any subject, till the effect of the same story, or at least the ruling incidents in it, had been tried on the stage and familiarized to his audience.” He has almost been proved right.

With The Two Gentlemen of Verona and The Taming of the Shrew, Shakespeare created two very different courtship comedies. The Two Gentlemen, with its language of courtly love and its juxtaposition of the conflicting demands of desire and friendship, was close to the style and preoccupations of Lyly, whereas The Shrew was written in a harsher vein and more robust language, pushing at the borderline between violence and play. It is possible that both comedies were reworkings of existing repertory: the primary source for The Two Gentlemen of Verona may have been a lost pastoral called Felix and Philismena, played at court by the Queen’s Men, while a surviving script published in 1594 as The Taming of a Shrew may reflect a pre-Shakespearean version of the story of the formidable Kate.

Though the evidence is not absolutely decisive, it is probable that Shakespeare’s first tragedy, Titus Andronicus, was also a new version of an old play. When it was published early in 1594, the title page indicated that it had been acted by several different companies. Stylistic analysis has revealed the hand of George Peele in the first act especially, but we do not know whether Shakespeare wrote in active collaboration with Peele or took over an older play by Peele, left the first act more or less intact and reworked the remainder more inventively. Whatever its origins, once in Shakespeare’s hands Titus became a tour de force. As his Shrew put violence into courtship comedy, so his Andronicus put black comedy into bloodstained tragedy. Over twenty years later, Ben Jonson was complaining that audiences were still swearing that “Jeronimo or Andronicus are the best plays yet” (Jeronimo was Thomas Kyd’s hugely popular Spanish Tragedy, foundation text of the revenge tradition and another play from which Shakespeare learned a potent rhetoric).

Comedy and tragedy, but also history: Shakespeare was one of the first to realize that theater could be the medium to make the national past available to a wider audience than the elite who could afford to read large history books. He accordingly domesticated the model of Christopher Marlowe’s Tamburlaine, an epic two-part drama full of elevated rhetoric, reversals of fortune, and energetic battles. England’s disintegration took the place of exotic Tamburlaine’s military career as the central action of his first foray into historical drama. A two-part dramatization of the Wars of the Roses, entitled The First Part of the Contention betwixt the Two Famous Houses of York and Lancaster and The True Tragedy of Richard Duke of York, established Shakespeare as a force to be reckoned with in the London theater world. A few years later, sophisticated Ben Jonson would mock both the language and the staging of these plays—”with three rusty swords, / And help of some few foot and half-foot words, / Fight over York and Lancaster’s long jars”—but in the early 1590s, the high-flown passion of York’s excoriation of Queen Margaret, the “she-wolf of France,” thrilled the ears of playgoers:

O, tiger’s heart wrapt in a woman’s hide!

How couldst thou drain the life-blood of the child,

To bid the father wipe his eyes withal,

And yet be seen to bear a woman’s face?

Women are soft, mild, pitiful and flexible;

Thou stern, obdurate, flinty, rough, remorseless.

Bid’st thou me rage? Why, now thou hast thy wish.

Wouldst have me weep? Why, now thou hast thy will.

For raging wind blows up incessant showers,

And when the rage allays, the rain begins.

The rhetorical formality, the accumulation of epithets, and symmetries of phrasing, would have assisted the actor in memorizing such a speech and then delivering it memorably in the testing environment of an open-air stage. The contrasting play of “tiger’s heart” and “woman’s hide,” the stimulus to the archetypal tragic actions of raging and weeping (which would have been expressed by gesture as well as word), the clash of opposites (“soft” against “stern,” “flexible” against “flinty”), the sense that the face can both reveal and deceive: every aspect of the writing provides rich potential for the actor. At the same time, there is a startling reversal of customary roles. York is a senior actor, a master, but his role is to be humiliated by a boy, the apprentice in the female role. For force of passion and sheer range of expression, the part of Queen Margaret was unprecedented on the English stage. Shakespeare’s audacity in giving such prominence to a mere apprentice, in stretching female representation so far beyond the conventional romantic roles of Lyly’s comedies, was a severe challenge to theatrical custom.

The First Part of the Contention and The True Tragedy of Richard Duke of York appeared in print in 1594–95. The published scripts in pocket “Quarto” or “Octavo” format were shorter versions of the plays than those printed in 1623 in the posthumous First Folio of Shakespeare’s complete works as the second and third parts of Henry VI.[2] The play that the Folio calls The First Part of Henry the Sixth was not published in the 1590s, but it was an undoubted hit on stage. Performed as new or newly revised at the Rose Theatre in March 1592, it juxtaposed the origins of the Wars of the Roses with the battles in France between plain-speaking English Talbot and tricksy French Joan of Arc. In a pamphlet published later that year Thomas Nashe praised the power of the performance: “How would it have joyed brave Talbot, the terror of the French, to think that after he had lain two hundred years in his tomb, he should triumph again on the stage and have his bones new-embalmed with the tears of ten thousand spectators at least, at several times, who in the tragedian that represents his person imagine they behold him fresh bleeding?” Nashe may, however, have had a vested interest in exaggerating the triumph of the Talbot play: stylistic analysis suggests that he had a hand in its writing himself. There are also strong resemblances to the work of two other university-educated dramatists, Robert Greene and George Peele. Perhaps, then, as a result of the success of Shakespeare’s Wars of the Roses plays, Philip Henslowe, proprietor of the Rose, commissioned a new treatment of the earlier part of King Henry VI’s reign from some combination of Nashe, Greene, and Peele—only for Shakespeare to stamp his own mark on it once it was in the hands of the actors.

There is not enough evidence to rule out the possibility that all three Henry VI plays may include elements of collaborative writing or reworking of older plays. In the early years of his career, Shakespeare seems to have been a hired man, a jack of all trades: the bit-part actor who had found a niche for himself as a reformer of old plays was now contributing distinctive scenes to new ones. His stylistic fingerprints have been tentatively identified in a range of plays that apparently belong to the early 1590s: he may have written a powerful scene of domestic quarreling in the admirable detective tragedy Arden of Faversham; since the eighteenth century there have been strong arguments in favor of his authorship of some witty scenes in The Reign of Edward III, where the king attempts to seduce the Countess of Salisbury with some assistance from his court poet Lodowick; there are some notable verbal parallels between his early works and Edmund Ironside, a chronicle-based drama concerning a native English rebellion against the rule of King Canute. In 1595, the old play of Locrine (set in the primitive Britain where Shakespeare would locate King Lear) was printed with a title page describing it as “Newly set forth, overseen and corrected by W. S.” Though there is no evidence to link this “W. S.” to Shakespeare, it does seem that he cut his teeth as a writer in the role of overseer, improver, and new setter forth of old scripts.

It was galling for established writers to see their work being “corrected” by a mere actor. Late in 1592, a pamphlet was published under the title Greene’s Groatsworth of Wit, bought with a Million of Repentance. Prepared for the press by the playwright and printer Henry Chettle, it purportedly contained the dying wishes of the prolific writer Robert Greene, whose life had ended in squalor and poverty a few months before. One section took the form of a letter addressed “To those Gentlemen his quondam acquaintance, that spend their wits in making plays.” The gentlemen in question are recognizable as Christopher Marlowe, Thomas Nashe, and George Peele. The first two had, like Greene, graduated from Cambridge University, while Peele was an Oxford man. Collectively known by scholars as the “university wits,” they had written the best plays of the late 1580s and early 1590s, often working in collaboration with one another. The Groatsworth complains that the players—”those puppets, I mean, that spake from our mouths, those antics garnished in our colours”—were getting rich on the back of the university men’s labor, yet offering them minimal reward. Stop writing for the theater, warns the voice of the dying Greene, or you will end up in my sorry condition. What is more, there is a new threat to the professional writers, coming from within the acting trade:

Trust them not, for there is an upstart crow beautified with our feathers that, with his “Tiger’s heart wrapped in a player’s hide,” supposes he is as well able to bombast out a blank verse as the best of you: and being an absolute Johannes Factotum, is in his own conceit the only Shake-scene in a country. O that I might intreat your rare wits to be employed in more profitable courses: and let those apes imitate your past excellence and never more acquaint them with your admired inventions…whiles you may, seek you better masters, for it is a pity men of such rare wits should be subject to the pleasure of such rude grooms.

The parody of York’s line in 3 Henry VI, with “woman’s hide” wittily changed to “player’s hide,” together with the pun “Shake-scene,” leaves no room for doubt that the person under attack here is Shakespeare, the actor turned redresser of plays. The implication is that the actors, who are not gentlemen but lowly “grooms” in the service of their patrons, are taking the “inventions” of the freelance playwrights and altering them at their “pleasure,” mainly through the agency of the “upstart crow.” “Upstart” suggests Shakespeare’s inferior social origin. Johannes Factotum means “jack of all trades,” an allusion to the perceived breach of decorum whereby he has dabbled in both the vulgar trade of acting and the genteel profession of writing.

The image of the “upstart crow” and the conceit of “Shake-scene in a country,” the latter word perhaps calculated to suggest the opposite of “city” sophistication, suggest that the author of the Groatsworth has in his sights not only Shakespeare’s lack of a university degree but also his rural simplicity. Regional dialects were strongly divergent at this time: when Shakespeare came to London, both his accent and his speech idioms would have seemed provincial. The academic curriculum and social customs of Cambridge would have gone a long way toward homogenizing the Kentish Marlowe and the East Anglian Greene and Nashe in their patterns of thought, speech, and behavior. Shakespeare, by contrast, came straight to London from the Forest of Arden. If there is a self-portrait in his plays, it is probably to be found in a parodic representation of his own much-mocked origins: the figure of William, the country bumpkin in the Arden of As You Like It. It would be no surprise if we were to learn that Shakespeare played this cameo role himself. There had been pastoral interludes in Greene’s comedies, but one of Shakespeare’s hallmarks was the pervasive dramatic pattern of a movement between court and country, city and forest, sophistication and the simple life, a movement that reflected his own double life as London theatrical entrepreneur and provincial Warwickshire property speculator with pretensions to gentility.

The Back Story: Shakespeare of Stratford

Pomewater, Crab, Bitter Sweeting, Pippin, Leathercoat: Shakespeare knew his English apples better than any other dramatist. His language is scattered with flowers that are described with both botanical exactitude and folk knowledge. Damask, musk, and dog rose; the “pale” primrose that is “first-born child of spring”; crocuses with their “saffron wings”; daffodils “that come before the swallow dares”; the blue-veined harebell; “freckled” cowslips; “streaked gillyvors” (bicolored carnations artificially grafted so that some call them “nature’s bastards”); “larks-heels” or larkspurs; “sweet” marjoram; “hot” lavender; the “luscious woodbine” and its “sweet honeysuckle” flower; the eglantine or sweetbriar; “long purples,” an orchid with testicle-shaped roots that Gertrude in Hamlet says maids call “dead men’s fingers” but “liberal shepherds give a grosser name” (the plant was variously known as “priest’s pintel,” “bollock grass,” and “dog’s cullions,” but also as “the rampant widow,” which is ironic coming from Gertrude). The list could extend for pages, as could an account of Shakespeare’s technical knowledge of country pursuits such as falconry—which was one of his distinctive metaphors for relations between the sexes, as when Juliet longs for a falconer’s voice to call back her “tassel-gentle” Romeo or, more darkly, when Othello makes an extended comparison of Desdemona to a “haggard,” the term for a wild or unbroken hawk.

One of the ways in which Shakespeare made the imaginary worlds of his plays seem real was through an art of exactitude. This required greater truth to nature than to history. Historically, King Henry IV died in the spring of the year, but dramatically Shakespeare requires a late-summer mood at the climax of his two-part drama about the relationship between Prince Hal and Sir John Falstaff. He accordingly drops in a casual allusion to Hinckley Fair (a famous cattle market held annually on August 26) and refers to the sowing of the “headland” (the strip at the end of the furrow where the plough turns, which was planted later than the main field), with “red” (spring) as opposed to white (winter) wheat. Two centuries after the play was written, agricultural writers noted with amazement that red wheat was indeed sown on the Cotswold Hills as late as August.

Like Tarlton before him, Shakespeare enjoyed feigning rustic simplicity. He fooled his more urbane rivals by hiding his sophistication behind the pose of the “natural.” The “rude mechanicals” who rehearse their play in A Midsummer Night’s Dream are described as “hempen home-spuns,” suggesting the countryman’s garment of coarse hemp, as opposed to the fine silks and furs of court dress, and yet it is the most seemingly simpleminded of the group, Nick Bottom the weaver, who is granted an intimate encounter with the fairy queen and who achieves a special grace even as he is mocked as an ass. When Shakespeare witnessed his words being played before Queen Elizabeth, he must have felt a little like Bottom himself.

We will never know what drove his ambition, but his father’s ill-fortune may have been part of the story. The human life cycle in early modern England was such that a man often fathered children around the time his own father died. So it was for John Shakespeare. His father Richard, a tenant farmer who lived in the village of Snitterfield, just north of Stratford-upon-Avon, died in 1560 or 1561. John Shakespeare, born in about 1530, had married Mary Arden—daughter of his father’s landlord, socially a cut above him—when he was in his late twenties, by which time he was established as a glove maker and leather dresser in Stratford. William, their first surviving son, was born in April 1564. He grew up to write plays in which a “great round beard” is compared to “a glover’s paring knife,” and the soft kidskin leather known as “cheverel,” used to make gloves, turns into a metaphor for his own most valuable commodity, namely his gift with words. Thus Mercutio jokes about Romeo’s wit of cheverel that “stretches from an inch narrow to an ell broad.” Since “wit” was also a playful term for a man’s sexual organ, the line contains sustained bawdy wordplay that exemplifies the wit it describes. Again, Feste in Twelfth Night says that “a good wit” can handle fragments of proverbial wisdom like a cheverel glove: “How quickly the wrong side may be turned outward!” The capacity to turn things inside out in an instant—whether through verbal pyrotechnics, twists of plot, turns of character, or intellectual reversals—is Shakespeare’s hallmark. It is satisfying that cheverel is one of the signs he hangs above his metaphorical shop: he made his living from his wit where his father had made his from gloves.

John and Mary Shakespeare had five subsequent children, of whom the most intriguing is the youngest, Edmund, who was born in 1580 and later followed William to London, where he became an actor, presumably as an apprentice in his brother’s company. The other survivors, sister Joan and brothers Gilbert and Richard, lived impeccably dull and respectable local lives. The black sheep of the family was John Shakespeare’s brother, William’s Uncle Henry, who frequently found himself on the wrong side of the law, at various times being fined, imprisoned or excommunicated for affray, debt, trespass, refusing to pay his tithes, and going to church in a hat instead of a cap.

By the time William was seven, his father had bought more property and achieved respectability in the town, holding the posts of bailiff and chief alderman of the borough council. This entitled him to send his children, free of charge, to the local grammar school. The King’s New School provided a thorough grounding in Latin. A scene in The Merry Wives of Windsor featuring a clever schoolboy called William being drilled in his grammar has the smack of a personal memory being turned to comic account. The curriculum does not survive, but there was considerable uniformity in what was taught across the Elizabethan grammar school system, so Shakespeare’s classroom experience may be readily inferred from others that do. Boys would remain in the first form until they could read Latin aloud with correct pronunciation and clear expression. They would then proceed to the second form, where they would be introduced to grammar: first the eight parts of speech, then the “concords of grammar and Latin speech to know the agreement of parts amongst themselves.” After this initial grounding, work could begin on set texts, such as “the precepts of Cato with such other little books wherein is contained not only the eloquence of the tongue, but also good plain lessons of honesty and godliness.” More demanding and literary texts were introduced in the third form, typically Aesop’s fables, the poetry of Virgil, Cicero’s letters, and the comedies of Terence. Boys who succeeded in mastering these would eventually be promoted to the fourth form, where there was a demanding regime of daily translation from Latin to English and back again, of readings in more advanced set texts, lessons in the rules of Latin versification, and composition of “epistles.”

This pattern of work offers a glimpse of Shakespeare’s beginnings as an author. Literary creation begins in translation and is inseparable from a program of reading: so it was that nearly all Shakespeare’s plays were reworkings of preexistent texts. The “epistles” that the boys had to write to one another were his first exercise in the art of dramatic empathy: the requirement was to write a letter (in Latin) as if you were a famous figure from a classical story. Thus the boy Shakespeare might have been asked to imagine that he was wise old Nestor “exhorting Achilles by letter, that he bear bravely the snatching away of Briseida by Agamemnon, showing that one must bear even with an evil ruler, and public good must be preferred to private grief” or—being asked to inhabit the opposing side in the Trojan War—to write in the voice of Antenor persuading King Priam “that he should not be unwilling to return the stolen Helen to her Menelaus, either because it was just in itself, or because it would be the part of a very foolish ruler on account of the most shameful love of an effeminate youth and hardly a man Paris to cause that so many very brave men should enter battle.” Another exercise would be to use an incident in the life of, say, Julius Caesar or Mark Antony in order to exemplify some moral or political “theme.” The work of playwriting was an extension of the grammar school repertoire, cunningly adapted so as to be less obviously didactic.

The teaching of style and eloquence was as important as the moral content. From Erasmus’ De Copia Shakespeare learned the art of linguistic amplitude, saying the same thing several times over in a display of rhetorical ingenuity. From Cicero’s letters to his friends and his Offices, a handbook on ethical citizenship, he learned to polish and balance his sentences. He was regularly taught lessons in the art of persuasion. One of the specimen letters in Erasmus’ textbook was on the theme of persuading a young man to marry: Shakespeare’s sonnet sequence would begin with a set of variations on just such a theme, while a dialogue such as that between Helen and Parolles in All’s Well That Ends Well as they debate the pros and cons of virginity wittily imitates and elaborates upon several points made by Erasmus. The schoolroom technique of learning to argue both sides of a question—in utramque partem—was invaluable training not only for lawyers and politicians, but also for dramatists. Shakespeare imbibed his dialogic way of thinking unconsciously through the daily grind of his exercises in the Stratford-upon-Avon classroom. One suspects that his conscious mind would have been more engaged by the stories he encountered: in Ovid he read of erotic obsessions and magical transformations from man to beast, in Caesar he found the technical vocabulary of warfare, and in Sallust the machinations of conspiracy and power politics.

Ben Jonson, writing with the pride and insecurity of the learned autodidact, claimed in his commendatory poem in the First Folio that Shakespeare had “small Latin and less Greek.” Small by Jonson’s prodigious standards is large by ours: Shakespeare seems to have had enough Latin to base his Comedy of Errors and Rape of Lucrece on classical sources that had not been published in English translation. This is less surprising when one discovers that the boys in the upper forms of an Elizabethan grammar school were expected to speak Latin at all times, save when they were assisting in the instruction of the lower forms.

The expectation that the senior boys would teach the junior is in accordance with the time-honored system of learning by means of apprenticeship. On completing their grammar school education, many of the Stratford boys would have been apprenticed into a trade. Richard Field, Shakespeare’s near contemporary, went to London, found a position with a master printer and went on to become a master himself, with special skill in the printing of classical texts. Provided their parents could afford it, the most intellectually gifted pupils went on to Oxford or Cambridge University and thence to a career in the Church or the law. This was the road that Shakespeare did not take and the reason he was regarded by the university-educated writers as an “upstart crow.”

Why didn’t Shakespeare go to university? His father was clearly ambitious and determined. As well as establishing his glove and leather business, he dealt in wool, managed farmland for sheep-grazing, and apparently also practiced a little moneylending. Many of his business deals ended in litigation in the local courts, but that was common in the period. Young Will must have seemed like prime university material: bright as a button and son of the chief alderman of the town council. But in Will’s thirteenth year, his father stopped attending local council meetings. He should have been fined for this (others in Stratford were), but he was not. The local tax assessments show that he was asked to pay less than he should have been, given his status. The clear signs are that he was in financial difficulties, but that his colleagues were initially willing to cut him some slack and give him the chance to set his affairs in order. Business was conducted largely on a credit basis, so a few bad debtors and a lack of cash reserves could cause big trouble. John Shakespeare’s problems seem to have begun when one particular creditor pursued him hard. Over the next few years, he started selling land and trying to raise cash. He mortgaged a house in Wilmcote, the village where his wife had been brought up, to her brother-in-law from Barton on the Heath (a village mentioned in The Taming of the Shrew). Fearful of arrest for debt and consequent social humiliation, he stopped attending church. So at exactly the period when Shakespeare might have gone to university—boys typically went up in their mid-teens—he was needed at home.

John Shakespeare had overextended himself. He was struggling to maintain his young family. The likelihood is that Will spent his late teens as his father’s apprentice in the leather business. According to John Aubrey, one of the earliest, albeit not the most reliable, witnesses to Shakespeare’s life, “he exercised his father’s trade, but when he killed a calf, he would do it in a high style and make a speech.” Shakespeare probably cut up the hides rather than killed the calves, but the anecdote gives a sense of the intellectual frustration of this occupation for a man of his intelligence.

Many portraits have been claimed as images of Shakespeare. The only representation that is unquestionably authentic is the dome-headed engraving on the title page of the First Folio. The painting with the best provenance, going back to Shakespeare’s godson William Davenant, is the so-called Chandos portrait in London’s National Portrait Gallery, with its swarthy look, casually untied collar and stylish single gold earring. Engravings based on the portrait, such as this one, circulated widely in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, shaping the popular perception of Shakespeare.

At the age of eighteen, Shakespeare impregnated Anne (otherwise known as Agnes) Hathaway, a woman eight or nine years his elder. A special licence was issued, allowing them to be married without the usual three prior readings of the banns. A bond had to be provided as surety against any legal irregularity: since William was a minor, the money was put up by some friends of the Hathaways. The marriage took place at the end of November 1582, in a village outside Stratford. These circumstances suggest a degree of haste and concealment: John Shakespeare’s financial problems may have been a factor (one only has to imagine a twist upon Much Ado About Nothing to visualize the potential embarrassment of the groom’s father being arrested for debt during the wedding ceremony).

Susanna Shakespeare was born six months after the wedding, a few weeks after the third birthday of Will’s brother Edmund. About a year and a half later, Anne gave birth to twins, Hamnet and Judith, named after Hamnet (a variant spelling of Hamlet) and Judith Sadler, family friends who would have served as godparents. During the years 1585–87 there were several actions for debt against John Shakespeare in the local courts. He racked up fines for failing to appear in court in answer to them. Three times he was bound over to keep the peace, in circumstances related to the debts. So it was that in the first years of his legal majority, William Shakespeare had to be the breadwinner for a household of four children under the age of seven.

At exactly this point he disappears from the historical record, only reemerging at the moment when the Groatsworth describes him as an “upstart crow.” Did he go to seek his fortune as a soldier in the Dutch wars? A memorable scene in 2 Henry IV, located in his native Cotswolds, reveals his knowledge of the process of recruitment, while play after play is steeped in the technical language of warfare and military life. Did he exploit his “small Latin” and become a lawyer’s clerk, a “noverint” (this was the route toward the theater world taken by another talented, modestly born writer, Thomas Kyd)? Play after play is also steeped in the technical language of the law. In the late twentieth century, there was a popular theory that Shakespeare spent time as a servant in a recusant Catholic household in Lancashire, but the purported evidence was highly circumstantial and is largely discredited.[3] The best hint as to how he spent these so-called lost years comes via Aubury from the son of Christopher Beeston, one of Shakespeare’s acting colleagues, who recalled that he had been “in his younger years a schoolmaster in the country.” It has not, however, been established where or for how long this might have been the case. New evidence may yet be found. Why, for instance, did the distinguished poet and courtier Fulke Greville, whose family home was at Alcester near Stratford, take pride in being known as “Shakespeare’s master”? Was it simply because he was the local lord of the manor or could he have found young Will a teaching position, perhaps on the Welsh border where he had extensive powers of patronage? In several of the plays Shakespeare is unusually interested in Wales and the Welsh language. His most memorable schoolmaster is a Welshman, Sir Hugh Evans in The Merry Wives of Windsor, whose accent and foibles are mimicked with a degree of detail that conceivably hints at affectionate parody of a sometime colleague.

But this is all guesswork. All that is known for sure is that sooner or later Shakespeare tried to restore his family’s fortunes by going to London and becoming an actor. Several of his plays rework originals in the repertoire of the Queen’s Men, the leading company of the late 1580s, who toured widely (they made several visits to Stratford-upon-Avon) and were known for their anti-Catholic propaganda. Perhaps he initially had some association with them. Most of the actors who would go on to be his closest colleagues cut their teeth in the company known as Lord Strange’s Men, so he is highly likely to have been a member of that troupe. In 1592, some of his plays were in the hands of a short-lived, mainly touring, company under the patronage of the Earl of Pembroke. It is not known whether he traveled with them.

The Playhouses

While Shakespeare was still at school in Stratford, James Burbage, leader of the players who toured the land under the patronage of the Earl of Leicester, realized the potential offered by the massive expansion in the population of London that had occurred over the previous two generations: build a permanent playhouse and you have full control of your box office and your programming. You also have the potential to establish an audience base of repeat attendees in a way that was not possible when you were perpetually on the road. In 1576, he took a twenty-one-year lease on a site in Shoreditch to the northeast of the city and set about building a theater, working in partnership with his brother-in-law, John Brayne. Burbage’s playhouse—simply called The Theatre—soon became a landmark. A preacher at St. Paul’s Cross spoke of the “gorgeous Playing-place erected in the fields,” dutifully adding that it resembled “the old heathenish Theatre at Rome” in being “a showplace of all beastly and filthy matters.” The City of London was dominated by puritan-leaning figures who for generations would habitually associate plays with “unchastity,” “sedition,” and “uncomely matter.” That is why the actors relied on the court for patronage and why the public playhouses were always built in the “liberties” on the margins of London, outside the jurisdiction of the City fathers. It is also why Shakespeare took pleasure in teasing or exposing such puritanical figures as Malvolio in Twelfth Night and Angelo in Measure for Measure.

Southwark was an area on the south bank of the river, reached either by ferry or by walking across London Bridge, where the severed heads of executed traitors were displayed on poles as a reminder of the consequence of treason. Once on the south side, you could look back over the river to see St. Paul’s Cathedral towering over the city, but many of the buildings around you were brothels and gambling dens. This was the place for bearbaiting and cockfights. It was here that a new theater, the Rose, opened in 1587. Under the management of Philip Henslowe, it was used by several of the acting companies who over the next few years broke the monopoly of the Queen’s Men. Among those who played there were Lord Strange’s Men. Their patron, Ferdinando Stanley, Lord Strange (later Earl of Derby), had taken over some of Leicester’s Men, just as he followed in Leicester’s footsteps in supporting the publication of translations and other literary works. Richard Burbage, son of James, was a leading figure in the troupe. Several others were to join him in forming the core of a new company, the Lord Chamberlain’s Men, in 1594, after the mysterious sudden death of their patron. Since Shakespeare’s plays first emerge in the repertoire of Strange’s at the Rose, it may be inferred that Burbage, who became his closest colleague, was someone he met very soon after making his way into the theater world.

Elizabethan playhouses were “thrust” or “one-room” theaters. To understand Shakespeare’s original theatrical life, we have to forget about the indoor theater of later times, with its proscenium arch and curtain that would be opened at the beginning and closed at the end of each act. The proscenium arch theater, which held sway from the 1660s to the 1960s, divided the audience from the actors. Stage and auditorium were effectively two separate rooms: the audience looked from one world into another as if through the imaginary “fourth wall” framed by the proscenium arch. The picture-frame stage, together with the elaborate scenic effects and backdrops beyond it, created the illusion of a self-contained world—especially once nineteenth-century developments in the control of artificial lighting meant that the auditorium could be darkened and the spectators made to focus on the lighted stage. Shakespeare, by contrast, wrote for a bare platform stage with a standing audience gathered around it in a courtyard in full daylight. The audience were always conscious of themselves and their fellow spectators, and they shared the same “room” as the actors. A sense of immediate presence and the creation of rapport with the audience were all-important. The actor could not afford to imagine he was in a closed world, with silent witnesses dutifully observing him from the darkness.

Reconstructions of Elizabethan playhouses have relied heavily on this drawing by Arendt van Buchell, purportedly showing the Swan Theatre, which was built in 1596, but recent scholarship has shown that van Buchell was a poor draughtsman and unreliable copyist, so its details, such as the deep thrust stage and thick canopy-supporting pillars, should not be relied upon. The archaeology of the Rose Theatre suggests that Elizabethan stages were usually wider, shallower, and tapered.

Since there is no authentic image of the interior of a Shakespearean theater, we reproduce a hypothetical one, based on various kinds of evidence and designed by Charcoalblue: it is intended to suggest the vibrant atmosphere of the outdoor courtyard playhouses.

Since Shakespeare’s theatrical career began at the Rose, there was enormous interest when the theater’s foundations were excavated in 1989. The stage was revealed to be wide and shallow, trapezoid in shape, like a lozenge. This design had a great deal of potential for the theatrical equivalent of cinematic split-screen effects, whereby one group of characters would enter at the door at one end of the tiring-house wall at the back of the stage and another group through the door at the other end, thus creating two rival tableaux. Many of the battle-heavy and faction-filled plays that premiered at the Rose have scenes of just this sort.

At the rear of the Rose stage, there were three capacious exits, each over ten feet wide. Unfortunately, the very limited excavation of a fragmentary portion of the original Globe site, also in 1989, revealed nothing about the stage. The first Globe was built in 1599 with similar proportions to those of another theater, the Fortune, albeit that the former was polygonal and looked circular, whereas the latter was rectangular. The building contract for the Fortune survives and allows us to infer that the stage of the Globe was probably substantially wider than it was deep (perhaps forty-three feet wide and twenty-seven feet deep). It may well have been tapered at the front, like that of the Rose.

The capacity of the Globe was said to be enormous, perhaps in excess of three thousand. It has been conjectured that about eight hundred people may have stood in the yard, with two thousand or more in the three layers of covered galleries. The other “public” playhouses were also of large capacity, whereas the indoor Blackfriars Theatre that Shakespeare’s company began using in 1608—the former refectory of a monastery—had overall internal dimensions of a mere forty-six by sixty feet. It would have made for a much more intimate theatrical experience and held a much smaller capacity, probably of about six hundred people. Since they paid at least sixpence a head, the Blackfriars attracted a more select or “private” audience. The atmosphere would have been closer to that of an indoor performance before the court in the Whitehall Palace or at Richmond. That Shakespeare always wrote for indoor production at court as well as outdoor performance in the public theater should make us cautious about inferring, as some scholars have, that the opportunity provided by the intimacy of the Blackfriars led to a significant change toward a “chamber” style in his last plays—which, besides, were performed at both the Globe and the Blackfriars. After the occupation of the Blackfriars a five-act structure seems to have become more important to Shakespeare. That was because of artificial lighting: there were musical interludes between the acts, while the candles were trimmed and replaced. Again, though, something similar must have been necessary for indoor court performances throughout his career.

Plague and Poetry

Times were hard for the players in the years 1592–94. In June 1592, the theaters were closed by government order, following a public disturbance. They reopened briefly in the depths of the following winter, but were then closed again for almost a full year, this time due to an increase in plague. The best way of stopping the spread of infection was to prevent public gatherings such as plays, bearbaitings and bowling matches. So just as Shakespeare was establishing himself as a theater writer, his means of livelihood was cut off. Back home, his father had recently been blacklisted for non-attendance at church—not in the category of Jesuits, fugitives, recusants, or people “vehemently suspected to be such,” but among those who stayed away for fear of process for debt (Henry Field, father of the apprentice printer Richard, was on the same list). A case against John Shakespeare was also being heard in the Court of Common Pleas.

With the need to earn money for the family more pressing than ever and his writing gifts established, Shakespeare responded to the closure of the theaters by writing nondramatic verse in the hope of gaining patronage. This was a common strategy at the time, since the publication of a poem with a flattering dedication to a wealthy aristocrat could potentially yield three forms of income—a small cash payment from the publisher, a gift from the patron as thanks for the dedication, and, if one was very lucky, some form of secretarial or other employment in his lordship’s household. Shakespeare (and several other writers, including the same Tom Nashe who seems to have had a hand in 1 Henry VI) targeted Henry Wriothesley, the third Earl of Southampton, ward to Lord Burghley, the most powerful man in England. Southampton was shortly to come into his majority and—it was hoped—a considerable fortune. In the weeks after the closure of the theaters, Shakespeare polished off his witty and erotic Venus and Adonis, a brilliantly inventive imitation of Ovid, and persuaded his Stratford friend Richard Field to print it, complete with a fulsome dedication to Southampton in which Shakespeare promised that he would dedicate his “idle hours” (of which he had many because of the continuing plague) to the composition of “some graver labour.”

The latter came to fruition as the longer, more rhetorically elaborate and more sombre Rape of Lucrece, published a year later in May 1594, with a shorter but more intimate-sounding dedication, suggesting that Southampton had offered Shakespeare some sort of reward. It may have been in Southampton’s household, either in London or at Titchfield in Hampshire, that Shakespeare met the Anglo-Italian John Florio, whose works he would read with profit and who perhaps provoked in him an interest in Italian culture. Like many of his contemporaries, Shakespeare was fascinated by the way that Italy was the home of courtly and artistic sophistication, but also the fount of political and sexual intrigue. The former was exemplified by Petrarch’s love sonnets and Baldassare Castiglione’s handbook on the art of being a courtier, the latter by Machiavelli’s maxim that “might is right” and Pietro Aretino’s heady literary concoctions of satire and eroticism.

Clever, sexy, intuitively responsive to the classics without being academically stifled by them, Venus and Adonis struck an instant chord with educated, fashion-conscious young male readers in London and the two universities. They constituted the principal market for artful poetry, so Field was duly rewarded: Venus and Adonis became the bestselling long poem of the age. It established Shakespeare’s reputation as the absolute master of witty words. This must have felt like a satisfying riposte to the Groatsworth. Furthermore, from this point onward, the financial fortunes of the Shakespeare family greatly improved: there were no more lawsuits against John Shakespeare and a concerted attempt was made to recover Mary Arden’s property in Wilmcote. Within a few years, there were two clear signs that the Shakespeares had been restored to respectability in Stratford-upon-Avon: in 1596, John Shakespeare, almost certainly through his son’s agency, was petitioning for a coat of arms and thus the status of a proper gentleman, and in May the following year William struck an excellent bargain in purchasing New Place, the second-largest house in town.

Shakespeare was probably the first writer in England to become wealthy on the proceeds of his work: by the end of the 1590s, he had bought New Place, the second-largest property in Stratford-upon-Avon. He had also obtained the status of a “gentleman” and a family coat of arms: in this eighteenth-century engraving, it is displayed above the door of his house. The spear on the bend of the coat of arms plays on the bearer’s name: Shakespeare could never resist a pun.

The Lord Chamberlain’s Man

The accumulation of wealth had not, however, come from the poetry. Field and the publisher to whom he subsequently transferred the right to print Venus and Adonis would have taken the profit on sales, and when the Earl of Southampton came of age in 1595 he was found to have far less wealth than expected, so did not prove a munificent patron (a later source speaks of him giving Shakespeare “a thousand pounds” for a purchase, but this is likely to be a gross exaggeration). But in the theater world the cards fell right for Shakespeare. Plague abated and the playhouses reopened in the summer of 1594. The authorities took the opportunity to establish two companies in an effective duopoly, one troupe under the patronage of the Lord Chamberlain (Henry Carey, Lord Hunsdon) and the other under his son-in-law, the Lord Admiral (Charles, Lord Howard). To have two strong companies on hand with repertoires of proven quality and suitability, rather than having to deal with half a dozen companies, who could be difficult to track down when on tour, was the best way of ensuring that royal commands for court performances could always be met at short notice and with the prospect of results that satisfied Queen Elizabeth. The Lord Admiral’s Men, with Edward Alleyn as star and his son-in-law Philip Henslowe as theater manager, were based at the Rose on the south bank of the River Thames, with the plays of the recently murdered Christopher Marlowe (and others influenced by them) at the core of their repertoire. The Lord Chamberlain’s Men, with Richard Burbage as star, Augustine Phillips and later John Hemings as company manager, were based at the theater in Shoreditch, with the plays written or revised by Shakespeare at the core of their repertoire. The premature demise of Marlowe and Greene meant that Shakespeare had suddenly become the preeminent writer for the public stage.

He also invented a new role for himself, that of in-house company dramatist. Where his peers and predecessors had to sell their plays to Henslowe or another manager on a poorly paid piecework basis, Shakespeare took a percentage of the box-office income. The Lord Chamberlain’s Men was constituted as a joint stock company, with the profits being distributed among the core actors who had invested as sharers. Shakespeare acted himself—he appears in the cast lists of some of Ben Jonson’s plays as well as the list of actors’ names at the beginning of his own collected works—but his principal duty was to write two or three plays a year for the company. By holding shares, he was effectively earning himself a royalty on his work, something almost without precedent in English literary history. At the beginning of Shakespeare’s career, theater had been dominated by Alleyn the tragedian and Tarlton the clown. When the Lord Chamberlain’s Men collected their fee for performance at court in the Christmas season of 1594, three of them went along to the Treasurer of the Chamber: Burbage the tragedian, Kempe the clown, and Shakespeare the scriptwriter. That was something new.

We do not know which two plays they performed before the queen that Christmas. The most likely is The Comedy of Errors, a dazzlingly contrived farce of twins and mistaken identity, fashioned from the ancient Roman comedy of Plautus: this was the show they played to a riotous audience of young lawyers at Gray’s Inn on December 28, so it would have made sense also to have given it at court a day or two before. If, as was often the case, the queen had requested mixed fare, the other play might have been The Tragedy of Richard the Third, the historical drama that rounds off the Wars of the Roses begun in the Henry VI plays. Written as a showcase for Richard Burbage, the title role was more demanding in both range and length than anything written hitherto in English drama. Here the arts of self-consciously villainous playacting and self-examination in the form of soliloquy were developed as never before. To judge from subsequent allusions, both admiring and parodic, Crookback Richard was the first of Burbage’s signature roles.

The next four years were the golden period in Shakespeare’s career. In his early thirties and in full command of both his poetic and his theatrical medium, he perfected his art of comedy, while also developing his tragic and historical writing in new ways. In 1598, Francis Meres, a Cambridge University graduate with his finger on the pulse of the London literary world, praised Shakespeare for his excellence across the genres:

As Plautus and Seneca are accounted the best for comedy and tragedy among the Latins, so Shakespeare among the English is the most excellent in both kinds for the stage; for comedy, witness his Gentlemen of Verona, his Errors, his Love Labours Lost, his Love Labours Won, his Midsummer Night Dream and his Merchant of Venice: for tragedy his Richard the 2, Richard the 3, Henry the 4, King John, Titus Andronicus and his Romeo and Juliet. As Epius Stolo said that the Muses would speak with Plautus’ tongue if they would speak Latin, so I say that the Muses would speak with Shakespeare’s fine filed phrase if they would speak English.

For Meres, as for the many writers who praised the “honey-flowing vein” of Venus and Adonis and Lucrece, Shakespeare was marked above all by his linguistic skill, by the gift of turning elegant poetic phrases. Half the plays mentioned by Meres had not been published by 1598, so he must have known them from the theater or by reputation—which is striking, since plays were advertised in terms of their title, content, and the identity of the acting company, not with a credit to the playwright. It is not inconceivable that Meres read some of the plays in manuscript: there are surviving examples of plays from the period being copied for the purpose of private reading (one of them, the so-called Dering manuscript, is a skillfully edited conflation of the two parts of Henry IV). Meres certainly knew that what he called Shakespeare’s “sugared sonnets” were circulating “among his private friends.”

The surprise in the list is the comedy called Love’s Labour Won. Was this a lost sequel to Love’s Labour’s Lost, a play that ends with an offstage death resulting in the delay of a year before the ladies will allow themselves to be won? Or was it an early version of a comedy subsequently revised under another title—As You Like It, perhaps, or Much Ado About Nothing or All’s Well That Ends Well? In 1953, a bookseller’s inventory dating from 1603 was discovered: among the plays listed were not only The Merchant of Venice, The Taming of a Shrew, and Love’s Labour Lost, but also Love Labours Won. This seems to prove that the play was actually printed, with no copies surviving (by no means a unique occurrence—all copies of the first printed edition of Love’s Labour’s Lost are also lost, while only single copies survive of the first editions of two of Shakespeare’s most popular works, Venus and Adonis and Titus Andronicus). The absence of Love’s Labour Won from the Folio may lend weight to the theory that it was an alternative title for a known play, but a lost play could be accounted for by a copyright dispute of the kind that meant that Troilus and Cressida very nearly failed to make it into the Folio. A copy of the Quarto edition of Love’s Labour Won might still turn up, in what would be the most sensational literary discovery of modern times.

By the year 1598 it was clear that Shakespeare’s name was a highly marketable commodity. Several of his plays, as well as the two narrative poems, had been in print for a few years, but it was only now that his name began appearing on the title page, something that was very much the exception rather than the rule when theater scripts were published. A publisher named William Jaggard cashed in on his name by producing a tiny volume of poetry called The Passionate Pilgrim by W. Shakespeare. It included three sets of verses lifted from Love’s Labour’s Lost, together with two Shakespeare sonnets that had been circulating in manuscript and that would eventually form part of the full collection of 1609, but also a selection of songs and sonnets by other authors. When the volume was reprinted in 1612, Jaggard added some work by Thomas Heywood, who immediately objected and in doing so mentioned that he had heard that Shakespeare was also displeased at Jaggard’s sharp practice.

During the years around the turn of the century, Shakespeare perfected his comic art in Much Ado about Nothing, As You Like It, The Merry Wives of Windsor, and Twelfth Night. He brought his sequence of English history plays to a climax with Henry V. And, after the more domestic subject matter of Romeo and Juliet, he turned his tragic muse back to affairs of state with Julius Caesar and Hamlet, Prince of Denmark. Caesar is one of the handful of Shakespearean plays for which we have an eyewitness account of an early performance. It took place in September 1599 at the newly built Globe on Bankside, where the Lord Chamberlain’s Men had rebuilt their theater, following the expiry of the lease on their site in Shoreditch. The spectator was a Swiss student, Thomas Platter. In his journal of his visit to England, he especially noted two aspects of the production: the size of the cast (“nearly fifteen characters”) and the jig at the end of the show (performed by four dancers, two dressed in men’s clothes and two in women’s). He was probably used to reading ancient tragedy, Seneca especially, where the casts were much smaller. The sheer scale and variety of the action of a Shakespeare play was what impressed him. The fact that Platter singled out the closing jig—and that his journal moved directly from play-going to the two other popular “theatrical” entertainments available in Southwark, cockfighting and bearbaiting—may suggest that he did not take the drama all that seriously. He did, however, observe that it had a vital educative role for the native London audience: “With these and many more amusements the English pass their time, learning at the play what is happening abroad; indeed men and womenfolk visit such places without scruple, since the English for the most part do not travel much, but prefer to learn foreign matters and take their pleasures at home.” The suggestion is that for Elizabethan Londoners the theater was not only a medium of mass entertainment, but also a prime source of news, opinion, and political knowledge.

Shakespeare’s personal story during these years was mixed. He made enough money to restore his father’s fortunes and buy a big house, together with the status conferred by a family coat of arms, but success and prosperity were overshadowed by the death in August 1596 of his only son Hamnet, aged eleven. The influence of such a loss on his work is incalculable. It adds peculiar poignancy to Constance’s lament on the death of her similarly aged child Arthur in King John, which may have been written shortly afterward (“Grief fills the room up of my absent child”), but then again King John may have been written earlier. Some five years later, Viola’s moving response to the loss of her twin brother in Twelfth Night, and her joy in the reunion with him, give a very echo to what we may imagine were the feelings of the similarly aged Judith Shakespeare, while Hamlet (the variant spelling of Hamnet) has much to say about fathers and son in the context of death and grief—but Hamlet was an old play from the late 1580s that Shakespeare did not rework into its extant form until around 1600.

The nearest we may come to an immediate reaction to Hamnet’s death is a curious incident that autumn when Shakespeare became involved in a dispute between Francis Langley, the money broker who had financed the building of the Swan Theatre, and an agent acting on behalf of a quarrelsome, litigious Surrey Justice of the Peace who was not averse to sharp practice in his personal affairs. Shakespeare’s part in the affair is mysterious, though it is not impossible that he was engaged in negotiations with Langley at this time with a view to the Lord Chamberlain’s Men playing at the Swan, which would have given them exposure on the south bank of the river, in the backyard of their rival Henslowe, who was still operating out of the Rose. What is intriguing about this brush with the law is its proximity to Hamnet’s death. Hot-tempered dramatists such as Christopher Marlowe and Ben Jonson seemed to be forever getting into street fights (sometimes to the death) and ending up in court, whereas Shakespeare habitually kept his nose out of other people’s quarrels. This time, though, a threat was made and he was bound over to keep the peace: perhaps it was the one occasion where his grief was such that he let his temper fray.

On the financial side of things, he was a less than perfect citizen: in 1597 and 1598, lodging in Bishopsgate, he defaulted on his local taxes, while back in Stratford he was accused of having illegally hoarded a large quantity of malt or grain during a shortage. Letters and legal documents reveal him making loans, calling in debts, and accumulating considerable acreage of land as well as additional properties in and around Stratford all through these years and into the new century. Shakespeare’s father died in 1601 and his mother seven years later, and the family property in Henley Street passed to him, further enhancing his status as one of the town’s wealthiest men.

The Ensemble at Work

Like many crafts, the making of theater is a conservative profession. There is a way of doing things that actors and support staff learn early in their training, then stick by throughout their careers. Customs and techniques are broadly the same in different companies; conventional practices endure for generations. So although the archive of Shakespeare’s company is almost entirely lost, their practices may be inferred from such sources as the papers of Philip Henslowe, manager of the rival Admiral’s Men, and from an array of other fragmentary materials—including the practices of the players in Hamlet and Peter Quince’s amateur troupe in A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

In the absence of typewriters and photocopying machines, reading aloud would have been the means by which the company got to know a new play. The tradition of the playwright reading his complete script to the assembled company endured for generations. A copy would then have been taken to the Master of the Revels for licensing. The theater book holder or prompter would then have copied the parts for distribution to the actors. A partbook consisted of the character’s lines, with each speech preceded by the last three or four words of the speech before, the so-called “cue.” These would have been taken away and studied or “conned.” During this period of learning the parts, an actor might have had some one-to-one instruction, perhaps from the dramatist, perhaps from a senior actor who had played the same part before, and, in the case of an apprentice, from his master. A high percentage of Desdemona’s lines occur in dialogue with Othello, of Lady Macbeth’s with Macbeth, Cleopatra’s with Antony, and Volumnia’s with Coriolanus. The roles would almost certainly have been taken by the apprentice of the lead actor, usually Burbage, who delivers the majority of the cues. Given that apprentices lodged with their masters, there would have been ample opportunity for personal instruction, which may be what made it possible for young men to play such demanding parts.

After the parts were learned, there would usually then be a single rehearsal before the first performance. With six different plays to be performed on every week, there was no time for more. Actors, then, would go into a show with a very limited sense of the whole. The notion of a collective rehearsal process that is itself a process of discovery for the actors is wholly modern and would have been incomprehensible to Shakespeare and his original ensemble. Given the number of parts an actor had to hold in his memory, the forgetting of lines was probably more frequent than in the modern theater. The book holder was on hand to prompt.

When new plays were first performed, a prologue would be delivered. At the end of the show, audience reaction was gauged and alterations might be made before the next performance. Some shows were dropped after one performance, others after three. Thereafter, a successful play would enter the repertoire and probably not be altered any further, though it might be reworked when revived in later seasons.

Backstage personnel included the property man, the tire-man (“tire” being short for “attire”) who oversaw the costumes, callboys, attendants, and the musicians, who might play at various times from the main stage, the rooms above, and within the tiring-house. To judge from a comic exchange in the induction to Ben Jonson’s Cynthia’s Revels, dramatists were prone to make a nuisance of themselves backstage: “we are not so officiously befriended by him as to have his presence in the tiring-house, to prompt us aloud, stamp at the book-holder, swear for our properties, curse the poor tire-man, rail the music out of tune and sweat for every venial trespass we commit, as some author would, if he had such fine eagles as we” (this play was performed by the boy actors—”eagles” is the same metaphor as Hamlet’s “little eyases”). There was often tension between the acting companies and the freelance playwrights from whom they purchased scripts: it was a smart move on the part of Shakespeare and the Lord Chamberlain’s Men to bring the writing process in-house.

Front of house there were the “gatherers” who collected the money from audience members: a penny to stand in the open-air yard, another penny for a place in the covered galleries, sixpence for the prominent “lord’s rooms” to the side of the stage. In the indoor “private” theaters, gallants from the audience who fancied making themselves part of the spectacle sat on stools on the edge of the stage itself. Scholars debate as to how widespread this practice was in the public theaters such as the Globe. Once the audience were in place and the money counted, the gatherers were available to be extras on stage. That is one reason why battles and crowd scenes often come later rather than early in Shakespeare’s plays. There was no formal prohibition upon performance by women, and there certainly were women among the gatherers, so it is not beyond the bounds of possibility that female crowd members were played by females.

The play began at two o’clock in the afternoon and the theater had to be cleared by five. After the main show, there would be a jig—which consisted not only of dancing, but also of knockabout comedy (it is the origin of the farcical “afterpiece” in the eighteenth-century theater). So the time available for a Shakespeare play was about two and a half hours, somewhere between the “two hours’ traffic” mentioned in the prologue to Romeo and Juliet and the “three hours’ spectacle” referred to in the preface to the 1647 Folio of Beaumont and Fletcher’s plays. The prologue to a play by Thomas Middleton refers to a thousand lines as “one hour’s words,” so the likelihood is that about two and a half thousand, or a maximum of three thousand lines made up the performed text. This is indeed the length of most of Shakespeare’s comedies, whereas many of his tragedies and histories are much longer, raising the possibility that he wrote full scripts, possibly with eventual publication in mind, in the full knowledge that the stage version would be heavily cut. The short Quarto texts published in his lifetime—they used to be called “bad” Quartos—provide fascinating evidence as to the kind of cutting that probably took place. So, for instance, the First Quarto of Hamlet neatly merges two occasions when Hamlet is overheard, the “fishmonger” and the “nunnery” scenes.

The social composition of the audience was mixed. The poet Sir John Davies wrote of “A thousand townsmen, gentlemen and whores, / Porters and servingmen” who would “together throng” at the public playhouses. Though moralists associated female play-going with adultery and the sex trade, many perfectly respectable citizens’ wives were regular attendees. Some, no doubt, resembled the modern groupie: a story attested in two different sources has one citizen’s wife making a postshow assignation with Richard Burbage and ending up in bed with Shakespeare—supposedly eliciting from the latter the quip that William the Conqueror was before Richard III. Defenders of theater liked to say that by witnessing the comeuppance of villains on the stage, audience members would repent of their own wrongdoings, but the reality is that most people went to theater then, as they do now, for entertainment more than moral edification. Besides, it would be foolish to suppose that audiences behaved in a homogeneous way: a pamphlet of the 1630s tells of how two men went to see Pericles and one of them laughed while the other wept. Bishop John Hall complained that people went to church for the same reasons that they went to the theater: “for company, for custom, for recreation…to feed his eyes or his ears…or perhaps for sleep.”

Men-about-town and clever young lawyers went to be seen as much as to see. In the modern popular imagination, shaped not least by the film Shakespeare in Love (1998) and the opening sequence of Laurence Olivier’s Henry V film (1944), the penny-paying groundlings stand in the yard hurling abuse or encouragement and hazelnuts or orange peel at the actors, while the sophisticates in the covered galleries appreciate Shakespeare’s soaring poetry. The reality was probably the other way round. A “groundling” was a kind of fish, so the nickname suggests the penny audience standing below the level of the stage and gazing in silent open-mouthed wonder at the spectacle unfolding above them. The more difficult audience members, who kept up a running commentary of clever remarks on the performance and who occasionally got into quarrels with players, were the gallants. Like Hollywood movies in modern times, Elizabethan and Jacobean plays exercised a powerful influence on the fashion and behavior of the young. John Marston mocks the lawyers who would open their lips, perhaps to court a girl, and out would “flow / Naught but pure Juliet and Romeo.”

Scenery was limited, though sometimes set pieces were brought on (a bank of flowers, a bed, the mouth of hell). The trapdoor from below, the gallery stage above, and the curtained discovery-space at the back allowed for an array of special effects: the rising of ghosts and apparitions, the descent of gods, dialogue between a character at a window and another at ground level, the revelation of a statue or a pair of lovers playing at chess. Ingenious use could be made of props, as with the ass’s head in A Midsummer Night’s Dream. In a theater that does not clutter the stage with the material paraphernalia of everyday life, those objects that are deployed may take on powerful symbolic weight, as when Shylock bears his weighing scales in one hand and knife in the other, thus becoming a parody of the figure of Justice who traditionally bears a sword and a balance. Among the more significant items in the property cupboard of Shakespeare’s company, there would have been a throne (the “chair of state”), joint stools, books, bottles, coins, purses, letters (which are brought on stage, read or referred to on about eighty occasions in the complete works), maps, gloves, a set of stocks (in which Kent is put in King Lear), rings, rapiers, daggers, broadswords, staves, pistols, masks and vizards, heads and skulls, torches and tapers, lanterns that served to signal night scenes on the daylit stage, a buck’s head, an ass’s head, animal costumes. Live animals also put in appearances, most notably the dog Crab in The Two Gentlemen of Verona and possibly a young polar bear in The Winter’s Tale.

This image from the title page of an academic play, William Alabaster’s Roxana, may be inspired by an indoor playhouse. It gives a sense of the audience’s closeness to the action, of the tapered stage and its rail, and of the curtain or “arras” across the back. Scholars debate whether some of Shakespeare’s audience members would have occupied the galleries above the stage, as here—in his plays, the space “aloft” is often used for action or music making.

The costumes were the most important visual dimension of the play. Playwrights were paid between £2 and £6 per script, whereas Alleyn was not averse to paying £20 for “a black velvet cloak with sleeves embroidered all with silver and gold.” No matter what the period in the play is, actors wore mainly contemporary costume. The excitement for the audience came not from any impression of historical accuracy, but from the richness of the attire and perhaps the transgressive thrill of the knowledge that here were commoners like themselves strutting in the costumes of courtiers in effective defiance of the strict sumptuary laws whereby in real life people had to wear the clothes that befitted their social station.

To an even greater degree than props, costumes could carry symbolic importance. Racial characteristics could be suggested: a breastplate and helmet for a Roman soldier, a turban for a Turk, long robes for exotic characters such as Moors, a gabardine for a Jew. The figure of Time, as in The Winter’s Tale, would be equipped with hourglass, scythe, and wings; Rumor, who speaks the prologue of 2 Henry IV, wore a costume representing a thousand tongues. The wardrobe in the tiring-house of the Globe would have contained much of the same stock as that of Philip Henslowe at the Rose: green gowns for outlaws and foresters, black for melancholy men such as Jaques and people in mourning such as the Countess in All’s Well That Ends Well (at the beginning of Hamlet, the prince is still in mourning black when everyone else is in festive garb for the wedding of the new king), a gown and hood for a friar (or a feigned friar like the duke in Measure for Measure), blue coats and tawny to distinguish the followers of rival factions, a leather apron and ruler for a carpenter (as in the opening scene of Julius Caesar—and in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, where this is the only sign that Peter Quince is a carpenter), a cockle hat with staff and a pair of sandals for a pilgrim or palmer (the disguise assumed by Helen in All’s Well), bodices and kirtles with farthingales beneath for the boys who are to be dressed as girls. A gender switch such as that of Rosalind or Jessica seems to have taken between fifty and eighty lines of dialogue—Viola does not resume her “maiden weeds,” but remains in her boy’s costume to the end of Twelfth Night because a change would have slowed down the action at just the moment it was speeding to a climax. Henslowe’s inventory also included “a robe for to go invisible”: Oberon, Puck, and Ariel must have had something similar.

As the costumes appealed to the eyes, so there was music for the ears. Comedies included many songs. Desdemona’s willow song, perhaps a late addition to the text, is a rare and thus exceptionally poignant example from tragedy. Trumpets and tuckets sounded for ceremonial entrances, drums denoted an army on the march. Background music could create atmosphere, as at the beginning of Twelfth Night, during the lovers’ dialogue near the end of The Merchant of Venice, when the statue seemingly comes to life in The Winter’s Tale, and for the revival of Pericles and of Lear (in the Quarto text, but not the Folio). The haunting sound of the hautboy is suggested a realm beyond the human, as when the god Hercules is imagined deserting Mark Antony. Dances symbolized the harmony of the end of a comedy—though in Shakespeare’s world of mingled joy and sorrow, someone is usually left out of the circle.

The most important resource was, of course, the actors themselves. They needed many skills: in the words of one contemporary commentator, “dancing, activity, music, song, elocution, ability of body, memory, skill of weapon, pregnancy of wit.” Their bodies were as significant as their voices. Hamlet tells the player to “suit the action to the word, the word to the action”: moments of strong emotion, known as “passions,” relied on a repertoire of dramatic gestures as well as a modulation of the voice. When Titus Andronicus has had his hand chopped off, he asks “How can I grace my talk, / Wanting a hand to give it action?” A pen portrait of “The Character of an Excellent Actor” by the dramatist John Webster is almost certainly based on his impression of Shakespeare’s leading man, Richard Burbage (who was also a skilled painter):

Whatsoever is commendable in the grave Orator, is most exquisitely perfect in him; for by a full and significant action of body, he charms our attention: sit in a full theatre, and you will think you see so many lines drawn from the circumference of so many ears, whiles the actor is the centre …and for his voice ’tis not lower then the prompter, nor louder then the foil and target. By his action he fortifies moral precepts with example; for what we see him personate, we think truly done before us: a man of a deep thought might apprehend the ghosts of our ancient heroes walked again, and take him (at several times) for many of them. He is much affected to painting and ’tis a question whether that make him an excellent player, or, playing an exquisite painter. He adds grace to the poet’s labours: for what in the poet is but ditty, in him is both ditty and music…All men have been of his occupation: and indeed, what he doth feignedly that do others essentially: this day one plays a monarch, the next a private person. Here one acts a tyrant, on the morrow an exile: a parasite this man tonight, tomorrow a precisian, and so of divers others.

Though Burbage was admired above all others, praise was also heaped upon the apprentice players whose alto voices fitted them for the parts of women. A spectator at Oxford in 1610 records how the audience were reduced to tears by the pathos of Desdemona’s death. The puritans who fumed about the biblical prohibition upon cross-dressing and the encouragement to sodomy constituted by the sigh of an adult male kissing a teenage boy on stage were a small minority. Little is known, however, about the characteristics of the leading apprentices in Shakespeare’s company. It may perhaps be inferred that one was a lot taller than the other, since Shakespeare often wrote for a pair of female friends, one tall and fair, the other short and dark (Helena and Hermia, Rosalind and Celia, Beatrice and Hero).

No image survives of a Shakespearean apprentice, but this is Ned Kynaston, last of the “boy actors,” a famous Desdemona and the subject of Stage Beauty (2004), an excellent movie that reimagines the time when actresses first took on Shakespeare’s female parts in the 1660s.

“He that plays the king shall be welcome; his majesty shall have tribute of me: the adventurous knight shall use his foil and target: the lover shall not sigh gratis: the humorous man shall end his part in peace: the clown shall make those laugh whose lungs are tickled o’th’sear: and the lady shall say her mind freely, or the blank verse shall halt for’t”: Hamlet’s welcome of the players to Elsinore suggests that a degree of typecasting—the king, the adventurer, the lover, the humorous man, and so forth—was customary in Shakespeare’s theater, a practice borne out by the tendency of his scripts to use generic speech headings such as “King,” “Clown,” “Bastard,” and “Braggart.” But putting the names of the Chamberlain’s Men to particular parts is almost impossible. Burbage was undoubtedly Richard III, Romeo, Hamlet, Othello, and Lear, but was his apprentice, young Nick Tooley, the original Viola, Beatrice, Portia, and Rosalind? Did “stuttering” Hemings, as he was known, play Polonius and Lafew? When Henry Condell graduated to the status of full company sharer, did he become Edgar in Lear and Malcolm in Macbeth? We know little about Shakespeare’s own acting roles—an early allusion indicates that he often took royal parts and a venerable tradition gives him old Adam in As You Like It and the ghost of old King Hamlet. Save for Burbage’s lead roles and the generic part of the clown, all such castings are mere speculation. We do not even know for sure whether the original Falstaff was Will Kempe or another actor who specialized in comic roles, Thomas Pope.

Kempe left the company in early 1599. Tradition has it that he fell out with Shakespeare over the matter of excessive improvisation. He was replaced by Robert Armin, who was less of a clown and more of a cerebral wit: this explains the difference between such parts as Lancelet, Gobbo, and Dogberry, which were written for Kempe, and the more verbally sophisticated Feste and Lear’s Fool, which were written for Armin.

One thing that is clear from surviving “plots” or storyboards of plays from the period is that a degree of doubling was necessary. 2 Henry VI has over sixty speaking parts, but more than half of the characters only appear in a single scene and most scenes have only six to eight speakers. At a stretch, the play could be performed by thirteen actors. When Thomas Platter saw Julius Caesar at the Globe in 1599, he noted that there were about fifteen. Recent research suggests that a typical Lord Chamberlain’s Men production had a cast of twenty-three (nine sharers, eight older apprentices or hired men, six boys), suggesting that there was less doubling of substantial roles than has sometimes been supposed, but it nevertheless remains suggestive when a major character is absent for a large part of the play. Why doesn’t Paris go to the Capulet ball in Romeo and Juliet? Perhaps because he was doubled with Mercutio, who does. In The Winter’s Tale, Mamillius might have come back as Perdita and Antigonus been doubled by Camillo, making the partnership with Paulina at the end a very neat touch. Titania and Oberon are often played by the same pair as Hippolyta and Theseus, suggesting a symbolic matching of the rulers of the worlds of night and day, but it is questionable whether there would have been time for the necessary costume changes. As so often, one is left in the realm of tantalizing speculation.

“Dangerous Matter”: Politics and Religion

From the summer of 1594 to March 1603 the Lord Chamberlain’s Men played in London with few interruptions. They undertook a limited amount of touring: they are found at Cambridge and Ipswich in the eastern counties in 1594–95, at Faversham in Kent in the summer of 1596, at a private house in Rutland in the Midlands just after Christmas that year (a hurried trip for a one-off performance of Titus Andronicus, before returning to court duties), and on a longer tour to the southeast and southwest in 1597, venues including Dover, Rye, Marlborough, and Bristol. The reason for this longer tour was that the London theaters were closed for a period as punishment for the production at the newly built Swan Theatre of a politically ill-advised play called The Isle of Dogs. It is not known whether Shakespeare traveled with his fellows. In King Lear he reveals his knowledge of the thriving economy of samphire gathering on Dover cliff, so he is likely to have gone there.

Ironically, the only literary composition to survive in Shakespeare’s handwriting is a scene for a play that was never performed and with which he had very limited involvement. It seems to have been sometime around the turn of the century that the Lord Chamberlain’s Men obtained the script of a play about Sir Thomas More that had not been staged, due to political objections from the Master of the Revels who licensed all performances. Shakespeare contributed a skillful scene in which More quelled a rioting crowd through the force of his rhetoric. In a characteristic balancing act, he managed both to animate the ordinary people in the crowd with colorful detail (thus Doll says that More’s care for the people is witnessed by his having “made my brother, Arthur Watchins, Sergeant Safe’s yeoman”) and to argue in More’s voice on behalf of both empathy with the dispossessed (in this case immigrants) and respect for the order of the state (“For to the king God hath his office lent / Of dread, of justice, power and command, / Hath bid him rule, and willed you to obey”). This was not enough to make the play acceptable: “Leave out the insurrection wholly, with the cause thereof,” demanded the Master of the Revels, with the result that it languished in manuscript until the nineteenth century, when a scholar realized for the first time that here were a few precious pages in Shakespeare’s fluent, barely punctuated hand. Contrary to the expectation established by Hemings and Condell’s observation in the preface to the First Folio that when Shakespeare handed his manuscripts over to his acting company there was barely a crossing-out, the scene from Sir Thomas More reveals him in the process of having second thoughts even as he composes.

Since the 1700s, the cult of Shakespeare has been closely bound up with the idealization of Queen Elizabeth I. The plays of Shakespeare have often been set beside the poetry of John Donne, the gentleman-like virtues of Sir Philip Sidney, the global circumnavigation of Francis Drake, the colonial enterprise of Sir Walter Ralegh, and the defeat of the Spanish Armada: these, it has been said, were the fruits of England’s golden age. The reality is that Queen Elizabeth inherited, and Shakespeare grew up in a divided and vulnerable nation. The Spanish threat and the Irish problem would not go away. The queen’s tactic of not marrying was a highly effective way of keeping open a range of possible alliances, but by the 1590s it had created severe anxiety about the succession to the throne. In the period when Shakespeare was writing his plays, the queen and her ministers had come to rely more and more on coercion, threat, and surveillance in order to maintain authority.

At the end of his career, writing in collaboration with John Fletcher, Shakespeare turned his direct attention to the moment that shaped the historical context of his own life: Henry VIII’s decision to divorce Katherine of Aragon and marry Anne Boleyn (or Bullen) in the hope of siring a son to succeed him on the throne of England, an act of high political risk that eventually had consequences for the spiritual life of the entire nation. When Shakespeare’s father John was born, there was no Church other than that of Rome. When Shakespeare was born, there was a new state religion, the Church of England. When Shakespeare’s father was born, he owed a subject’s obedience to the king but a soul’s obedience to God via the Pope. During Shakespeare’s youth, successive Popes excommunicated the Queen of England and licensed her assassination. Drastic measures were taken to protect her safety. Shakespeare lived in a world of government spies, Catholic conspiracies, supposed Catholic conspiracies that were really secret service frame-ups, and public executions of traitors. In 1584, the queen’s Privy Council, their eyes cast anxiously on the claim to the throne of Elizabeth’s Catholic cousin, Mary Queen of Scots, instigated a “Bond of Association for the Preservation of Her Majesty’s Royal Person,” whereby they vowed “to pursue to utter extermination all that shall attempt by any act, counsel, or consent to anything that shall tend to the harm of Her Majesty’s Royal Person, or claim succession to the Crown by the untimely death of Her Majesty; vowing and protesting in the presence of the Eternal and Everliving God to prosecute such persons to the death.” The Bond, to which hundreds of Englishmen signed up, specifically called for vengeance in the event of the queen’s assassination. The world of oaths and factions, plot and counterplot, murder, and seizure of the throne, vengeance, and blood, in Shakespeare’s tragedies and histories should be understood in this historical context.

The public drama had enormous propaganda potential. A play such as Christopher Marlowe’s dramatization of The Massacre at Paris that had occurred on Saint Bartholomew’s Day in 1572 was the perfect way of inflaming the people against murderous Popish tyranny and also creating sympathy for London’s population of exiled Huguenot Protestants. But the drama had equal and opposite subversive potential. In 1597, an order went out for all the playhouses to be demolished as a result of Nashe and Jonson’s “lewd and mutinous” The Isle of Dogs, which had been staged at the Swan. Had the order been carried through, Shakespeare’s career would have been cut short well before he wrote many of his greatest plays. As it was, the Privy Council relented, though for a time performances were restricted to the two trusty troupes, the Lord Chamberlain’s and Lord Admiral’s Men. But plays touching on politics, religion, and international relations always retained the element of risk. The archives of the Revels office are punctuated by entries that reveal the censorship process at work: “this is too insolent and to be changed” scribbled against a speech, or the note “I did refuse to allow a play of Massinger’s because it did contain dangerous matter, as the deposing of Sebastian King of Portugal by Philip the Second and there being a peace sworn twixt the Kings of England and Spain.” A passage about York usurping the crown through popular incitement appears in the original published version of the play that became 2 Henry VI, but not the Folio text. References to Irish rebellion are toned down in the same play and Macmorris’ plea on behalf of the Irish nation is absent from the 1600 Quarto of Henry V. The deposition scene is absent from the first three editions of Richard II. Passages concerning rebellion seem to have been removed from 2 Henry IV. Shakespeare had to change the name of Oldcastle to Falstaff so as not to tarnish the memory of a famous proto-Protestant martyr.

In 1599, severely dangerous matter was published in the form of a history of the reign of Henry IV by Sir John Hayward, a follower of the queen’s restless favorite, the Earl of Essex, in which it was argued that Richard II’s weakness as a ruler was sufficient justification for Henry Bullingbrook’s seizure of the throne. The book was suppressed, but its aura of subversion clung to Shakespeare’s dramatization of the same material: the day before Essex and his followers attempted to seize the court in February 1601, they commissioned a performance of Richard II at the Globe, as if to prepare Londoners for the removal of an anointed but ineffective monarch.

Shakespeare’s political beliefs are as elusive as his religion, his sexuality, and just about everything else about him that matters. Precisely because he was not an apologist for any single position, it has been possible for the plays to be effectively reinterpreted in the light of each successive age. In the four centuries since his death, he has been made the apologist for all sorts of diametrically opposed ideologies, many of them anachronistic—we should not forget that he was writing before the time when toleration and liberal democracy became totemic values. But the political appropriation of him is true to his own practice: he too was a great trader in anachronism. He took the political structures of ancient Rome and mapped them onto his own time and state with fascinating effect. The Rape of Lucrece is set at the moment of transition from monarchy to republic, Coriolanus during the republican era, Julius Caesar at the pivotal moment when a crown is offered and refused but the republic collapses anyway, Antony and Cleopatra ends with the beginning of empire, and Titus Andronicus fictionalizes the Roman Empire in decay, approaching the time when the great city will be sacked by “barbarian” hordes from the north. King Lear and Cymbeline find echoes of the modern in the matter of ancient Britain. The history plays speak at once to the generations before Shakespeare and to his live audience. Several other plays use contemporary Italy as a mirror. Humanist learning and mercantile travel meant that the eyes of the Elizabethans were open to alternative forms of government other than the hereditary monarchy they experienced at home. They had great admiration for Venice, regarding that island city-state as a model of antipapal modernity and trading prowess. Venice had no monarch but a sophisticated oligarchic system, which was observed by English travelers and absorbed by readers such as Shakespeare by way of Lewis Lewkenor’s translation of Contarini’s The Commonwealth and Republic of Venice (an important source for Othello).

Not so long ago, it was commonplace for historians to assert that republican thought had no following in England until well into the seventeenth century—that the intellectual conditions, which made the Cromwellian republic possible only emerged a few years before the extraordinary moment when the English chopped off their king’s head. Recent scholarship has shown that this was not the case: republican discourse, if not overt republican polemic, was widespread in Shakespeare’s time. So, for instance, the anti-imperial Roman historian Tacitus was read, discussed, and admired as the most dispassionate of historians, whose work combined moral insight into the behavior of political actors with an assessment of their value as governors. Several of Shakespeare’s plays may by this light be described as “Tacitean.” The flavor of Tacitus is wonderfully captured in Justus Lipsius’ dedicatory epistle to his translation of the Annals: “Behold a theatre of our modern life: I see a ruler rising up against the laws in one passage, subjects rising up against a ruler elsewhere. I find the devices which make the destruction of liberty possible and the unsuccessful effort to regain it. I read of tyrants overthrown in their turn, and of power, ever unfaithful to those who abuse it.” This could equally well serve as a conspectus of Shakespeare’s history plays and political tragedies.

The association of Shakespeare with Tacitism is especially interesting because it aligns him with the Earl of Essex. Henry Savile, the first English translator of Tacitus, became provost of Eton school through Essex’s patronage and there were a number of other Tacitean scholars and apologists in his circle. Shakespeare’s patron, Southampton, was a follower of Essex, so it must have been a political gesture on Shakespeare’s part to dedicate to him The Rape of Lucrece, a highly Tacitean account of the tyranny of Tarquin and the establishment of the Roman republic. Shakespeare’s most explicit contemporary political allusion is a flattering allusion in one of the Henry V choruses to Essex’s military expedition against the Irish. The commissioning of the performance of Richard II on the eve of the Essex rebellion suggests that the Tacitean faction still considered Shakespeare to be effectively their house dramatist in the last years of the old queen’s reign. But with his usual cunning, Shakespeare somehow managed to throw off the association: Essex was executed for treason and Southampton was sent to the Tower, but the players got away with a reprimand. They claimed that they had only put on the show because they had been well paid to do so.

The King’s Man

Shakespeare sometimes wrote in direct flattery of Queen Elizabeth, as in the epilogue to a court performance on Shrove Tuesday 1599, which our edition is the first to include in the main body of his work (see poem “To the Queen”). And the Virgin Queen is almost certainly the immortal phoenix of the mysteriously beautiful poem that has become known as “The Phoenix and Turtle,” written the same year as the Essex rebellion. But when the old queen finally died in 1603, Henry Chettle expressed surprise that Shakespeare’s “honied muse…dropped no sable tear” in her memory. Though there seems not to have been a published elegy, Shakespeare did perhaps reflect on the end of the era and the uncertain times to come in Sonnet 107, with its reference to the “eclipse” of the “mortal moon” (in classical mythology, the moon was associated with Diana the virgin huntress—and Elizabeth in turn was associated with her).

The new king, James I, who had held the Scottish throne as James VI since he had been an infant, immediately took the Lord Chamberlain’s Men under his direct patronage. Henceforth they would be the King’s Men, and for the rest of Shakespeare’s career they were favored with far more court performances than any of their rivals. There even seem to have been rumors early in the reign that Shakespeare and Burbage were being considered for knighthoods, an unprecedented honor for mere actors—and one that in the event was not accorded to a member of the profession for nearly three hundred years, when the title was bestowed upon Henry Irving, the leading Shakespearean actor of Queen Victoria’s reign.

The King’s Men were given the status of Grooms of the Chamber. Each sharer in the company was given four and a half yards of red cloth from the Master of the Great Wardrobe for the occasion of the new king’s ceremonial procession through the City of London in March 1604. Henslowe’s rival company, now under the patronage of the new queen, enacted a spectacle along the way. It is not known whether the King’s Men performed or marched, perhaps assisting in the bearing of the royal canopy (implied by Sonnet 125?).

King James and his family: Shakespeare began writing in the time of the unmarried Queen Elizabeth, but after 1603, when his company became the King’s Men, he knew that his plays would be performed in front of a royal family—royal weddings and dynastic liaisons become a preoccupation in his later plays.

In August that year, they had to close the theater and spend eighteen days literally “waiting” in attendance at Somerset House during the visit of a special envoy from the King of Spain, while a peace treaty was being thrashed out. This moment of suspension was an important turning point in Shakespeare’s career. Elizabethan Shakespeare was a war poet: the Armada and the campaigns against the Spanish in the Netherlands had overshadowed his whole career. Jacobean Shakespeare was a peace poet: of course he still wrote battle scenes, which were always good box office, but a play such as Coriolanus is equally interested in the question of what happens to a man of action in time of peace. A Scottish king working in harmony with the English court brings peace at the climax of Macbeth, Cymbeline ends with a peace treaty, and Antony and Cleopatra concludes with Octavius becoming Augustus and promising to fulfill his prediction that “The time of universal peace is near.” James liked to see himself as a modern Augustus, at once the bringer of peace across Europe and the founder of a new empire (“Britain,” in contrast to Elizabeth’s “England”). Shakespeare’s Jacobean plays resonate with the new king’s preoccupations: in Macbeth, the Gunpowder Plot, witchcraft, the lineage of Banquo, the practice of “touching” subjects to cure them of scrofula, known as “the king’s evil”; in Lear, the need to unite Britain and the dire consequences of its division; in Cymbeline, Britain as a new Rome and the talismanic Welsh port of Milford Haven, where Henry Richmond landed at the dawn of the Tudor dynasty; in The Winter’s Tale and The Tempest, royal children and dynastic liaisons.

During the early years of the new reign, Shakespeare lodged in Cripplegate at the home of Christopher Mountjoy, a “tire-maker” of French Huguenot origin who may have been involved with the costuming of the King’s Men. A very rare fragment of Shakespeare’s own voice is to be heard in a deposition that he lodged with the Court of Requests in 1612 in a case of matrimonial dispute involving the Mountjoys’ daughter and their apprentice. Shakespeare had helped to facilitate the match, but could not remember the financial details of the marriage settlement. His deposition seemed calculate to offend neither side, to be generous without making any commitments. When pressed, he said that “more to this interrogatory he cannot depose” or that he could “say nothing touching any part or point of the same interrogatory.” To say nothing or to refuse to depose more than a little: he was as guarded before the court as he was in his writing.

An anecdote handed down from an actor in Shakespeare’s company said that he was “the more to be admired” because “he was not a company-keeper,” adding that he lived in Shoreditch, “would not be debauched” and, if invited to go out on the town in pursuit of women, would say that he was not feeling well. And yet the “dark lady” sonnets give the impression of being written in the voice of a man who knows sexual passion, guilt, and, even apparently the mercury-bath cure for syphilis. There is no firm evidence concerning the question of his sexuality, and in particular the degree of homoerotic charge in his idealization of the “fair youth” of his other sonnets—whoever that may have been, if indeed he was a real person at all.

Shakespeare’s productivity rate slowed in the Jacobean years, not because of age or some personal trauma, but because there were frequent outbreaks of plague, causing the theaters to be closed for long periods. The King’s Men were forced to spend many months on the road. Between November 1603 and 1608, they are to be found at Leicester, Coventry, Oxford and Bridgnorth in the Midlands, Bath and Barnstaple in the West Country, Faversham, Fordham, Maidstone and Dover in Kent, Saffron Walden and Dunwich in East Anglia. Attractive as it might be to imagine Shakespeare in Barnstaple shortly before the writing of King Lear, listening to a Devon accent that he then gives to the disguised Edgar, it is possible that he stopped touring with his colleagues in these later years. He may indeed have stopped acting: he is in the cast lists of Ben Jonson’s Every Man in his Humour (1598) and Sejanus (1603), but, unlike Burbage, Hemings, Condell, and the rest, not those of Volpone (1605), The Alchemist (1610), and Catiline (1611). An early owner of a copy of the First Folio scribbled against the names of the King’s Men actors details about his knowledge of them. Against Shakespeare he wrote “least,” or perhaps “ceast,” “for making”—this enigmatic comment might suggest that as “maker” of plays Shakespeare reduced his commitment to acting in them.

With the London theaters closed so much of the time and a large repertoire on the stocks, Shakespeare seems to have focused his energies on writing a few long and complex tragedies that could have been played on demand at court: Othello, King Lear, Antony and Cleopatra, Coriolanus, and Cymbeline are among his longest and poetically grandest plays. Macbeth only survives in a shorter text, which shows signs of adaptation after Shakespeare’s death. The bitterly satirical Timon of Athens, apparently a collaboration with Thomas Middleton that may have failed on the stage, also belongs to this period. In comedy, too, he wrote longer and morally darker works than in the Elizabethan period, pushing at the very bounds of the form in Measure for Measure and All’s Well That Ends Well. It might even be argued that he was turning into a more literary and less theatrical author. The 1608 Quarto edition of King Lear emphasized its status as a “true chronicle history” as much as the fact that it had been played before His Majesty the King at Whitehall on Saint Stephen’s night. One of the two printed issues of Troilus and Cressida in 1609 has a title page again emphasizing history as opposed to theater, together with an epistle conspicuously addressed to the reader as opposed to the playgoer. It was also in 1609 that the sonnets were published, with their many references to the achievement of immortality through the work of the pen. It is not, however, certain whether or not this volume was authorized by Shakespeare himself.

From 1608 onward, when the King’s Men began occupying the indoor Blackfriars playhouse (as a winter house), Shakespeare turned to a more romantic style. His company had a great success with a revived and altered version of an old pastoral play called Mucedorus. It even featured a bear. The younger dramatist John Fletcher, meanwhile, sometimes working in collaboration with Francis Beaumont, was pioneering a new style of tragicomedy, a mix of romance and royalism laced with intrigue and pastoral excursions. A play called Philaster, or Love lies a-bleeding was the prime example. Shakespeare experimented with this idiom in Cymbeline and it was presumably with his blessing that Fletcher eventually took over as the King’s Men’s company dramatist. The two writers apparently collaborated on three plays in the years 1612–14: a lost romance called Cardenio (based on the love-madness of a character in Cervantes’ Don Quixote), Henry VIII (originally staged with the title “All is True”), and The Two Noble Kinsmen, a dramatization of Chaucer’s “Knight’s Tale.” These were written after Shakespeare’s two final solo-authored plays, The Winter’s Tale, a self-consciously old-fashioned work dramatizing the pastoral romance of his old enemy Robert Greene, and The Tempest, which at one and the same time drew together multiple theatrical traditions, diverse reading and, contemporary interest in the fate of a ship that had been wrecked on the way to the New World.

The collaborations with Fletcher suggest that Shakespeare’s career ended with a slow fade rather than the sudden retirement supposed by the nineteenth-century Romantic critics who read Prospero’s epilogue to The Tempest as Shakespeare’s personal farewell to his art. In the last few years of his life Shakespeare certainly spent more of his time in Stratford-upon-Avon, where he became involved in further property dealings and litigation. His voice is heard in an acrimonious dispute over the enclosure of the fields on the Welcombe Hills on the edge of town. As in the Mountjoy case, he was careful to balance his position between the parties. But his London life also continued. In 1613 he composed an impresa, or emblem, to be painted by Richard Burbage and carried during the Accession Day tilt by the Earl of Rutland, one of the old circle of Southampton and Essex. In the same year, Shakespeare made his first major London property purchase: a freehold house in the Blackfriars district, close to his company’s indoor theater. The Two Noble Kinsmen may have been written as late as 1614, and Shakespeare was in London on business a little over a year before he died.

He made his will in March 1616, but soon altered it in order to protect the interests of his daughter Judith, when he discovered that her new husband, Thomas Quiney, had impregnated another woman. The bulk of his estate went to his elder daughter Susanna and her very respectable husband, Dr. John Hall. Shakespeare’s widow would have been entitled to a life interest in a third of the estate. The famous late insertion in the will whereby she is bequeathed the “second-best bed” has been the subject of endless speculation. John and Susanna doubtless got the best bed, but we are unlikely ever to know whether the mention of the second-best one was an affectionate gesture, a slight, a joke, or of some other unexplained significance. The most touching aspect of Shakespeare’s will is the bequest of money to buy memorial rings for his three closest colleagues among the actors, John Hemings, Richard Burbage, and Henry Condell.

He died on April 23, 1616, which may have been his fifty-second birthday. An old but unsubstantiated local tradition claimed that he expired after a drinking bout during a visit from fellow authors Michael Drayton and Ben Jonson. Two days later he was buried. As a tithe owner, he was entitled to a place in the chancel of the parish church. Some doggerel on the stone that covers the grave has been assigned, also by local tradition, to his own pen: “Good friend, for Jesus’ sake forbear / To dig the dust enclosèd here. / Blessed be the man that spares these stones, / And cursed be he that moves my bones.” The sentiments are strictly conventional and the lines could have been written by anybody.

His immediate family died out within two generations, when his library and other possessions would have been dispersed, if he had a library, that is: just as he had the quality of a magpie in his literary borrowings, so the books he read in preparing to write his plays may well have been borrowed rather than owned. At one time or another about 130 surviving books have been put forward as bearing his signature or initials. Among them are copies of Florio’s translation of Montaigne in the British Museum, the Aldine edition of Ovid’s Metamorphoses in the Bodleian Library in Oxford, and Sir Thomas North’s translation of Plutarch’s Lives of the Most Noble Grecians and Romanes in the Greenock Library in Scotland. Most, if not all, of the signatures are forgeries. Not long after his death, a stone monument was erected in Holy Trinity Church in Stratford-upon-Avon. But, as readers and other writers quickly recognized, his living monument was his work.

The Great Feast of Languages

When Shakespeare’s daughter Susanna died in July 1649, just a few weeks after England was proclaimed a commonwealth instead of a kingdom, she was described in her epitaph as “witty above her sex.” “Something of Shakespeare was in that,” continued the verses cut on her gravestone. From the initial reception of Venus and Adonis through the dedicatory material prefaced to the First Folio to this nod toward his daughter’s lineage, Shakespeare was renowned above all for his wit and his mastery of language. He lived in an age when the English language was undergoing a huge expansion, sucking in new words from all over Europe and beyond, and he worked in a profession wholly reliant upon the memorable use of language.

The eloquent and persuasive arrangement of words was the essence of the drama, as John Marston made explicit when he brought the figure of “Rhetoric” onstage near the beginning of his play about playing, Histriomastix:

Rhetoric will put her richest habit on

Of gestures, voice and exornation:

Her tropes and schemes shall dignify her sense

And honour peace with clearest eloquence.

Like all his poetic contemporaries, Shakespeare had a profoundly figurative imagination. Composition was conceived in terms of figures of words, divided into tropes (a word shifted away from its usual context or signification) and schemes (words arranged in expressive patterns), and figures of thought (such as frankness of speech, understatement, vivid description, the structural division of argument, accumulation, refining, dwelling on the point, comparison, exemplification, simile, personification, emphasis, conciseness, ocular demonstration). Tropes and schemes were both a device to assist actors in memorizing their lines and a method of organization to make the words spoken on stage vivid and memorable for the audience.

Even today Shakespeare is admired for certain kinds of rhetorical effect, such as simile (Cleopatra’s “The stroke of death is as a lover’s pinch / Which hurts and is desired”), metaphor (Cleopatra’s “Dost thou not see the baby at my breast / That sucks the nurse asleep?”) and an array of devices of repetition and variation—as when Macbeth imagines how the blood on his hands will “The multitudinous seas incarnadine, / Making the green one red,” which essentially says the same thing twice, first in orotund Latinate phrasing, then in plain monosyllabic Anglo-Saxon. But Shakespeare’s original audience would have taken pleasure in recognizing dozens of elaborate verbal figurations, ranging from catachresis (words wrenched from common usage, as in Hamlet’s “I will speak daggers to her, but use none”) to asyndeton (the omission of conjunctions—as occurs throughout Sonnet 129) to anacoluthon (changing the grammatical construction in the middle of the sentence, in imitation of the way we often speak) to synonymy (repeating the same idea in different terms: “This royal throne of kings, this sceptred isle, / This earth of majesty, this seat of Mars, / This other Eden, demi-paradise”) to anadiplosis (repetition of a word from the end of one line or clause to begin the next line or clause, as in Hotspur’s dying speech, “But thought’s the slave of life, and life, time’s fool; / And time that takes survey of all the world / Must have a stop”) to antimetabole or chiasmus (the mirrored pairing of two clauses—Polonius’ “foolish figure” exemplifed by “ ’tis true ’tis pity, / And pity it is true”) to epanalepsis (the repetition of a word or phrase at the beginning and end of the same clause or sentence—Lear’s “Nothing will come of nothing”) to isocolon (phrases or clauses of parallel structure and approximately equal length) to climax (a series of phrases or clauses in order of increasing importance, often with key terms repeated using anadiplosis and often arranged in the form of tricolon or threefold amplificatio). The rhetorical handbooks listed dozens more such effects.

Shakespeare is sometimes said to have coined more new English words than anyone else, with the possible exception of James Joyce. This is not true. The illusion of his unique inventiveness in this regard was created by the tendency of the Oxford English Dictionary to cite examples from him as the first usage of a word. That was because of his ready availability when the dictionary was created at the end of the Victorian era. Now that there are large digitized databases of sixteenth-century books, it is easy to find prior occurrences for many supposed Shakespearean coinages. Despite this, the list of neologisms remains impressive. To give a random selection of words, Shakespeare is responsible for such verbs as “puke,” “torture,” “misquote,” “gossip,” “swagger,” “blanket” (Poor Tom’s “blanket my loins” in Lear), and “champion” (Macbeth’s “champion me to the utterance”). He seems to have invented the nouns “critic,” “mountaineer,” “pageantry,” and “eyeball,” the adjectives “fashionable,” “unreal,” “bloodstained,” “deafening,” “majestic,” and “domineering,” and the adverbs “instinctively” and “obsequiously” in the sense of “behaving in the appropriate way to render obsequies for the dead” (only in the eighteenth century did the word come to connote “excessive deference”—perhaps as the very result of Richard III’s feigning performance of the word). Many of his coinages are not new words, but old words in new contexts (such as the application of “manager” to the entertainment business, with A Midsummer Night’s Dream’s “manager of mirth”) or new compounds or old words wrested to new grammatical usage. “Lord Angelo dukes it well in his absence” is a good example of the latter in Measure for Measure, and in Macbeth “I’ll devil-porter it no further” offers compounding and grammatical conversion in the same instance.

Though twenty-first-century electronic databases diminish the extent of Shakespeare’s actual coinages, they immeasurably enrich our sense of the astonishingly multivalent, polysemous quality of his language. As will be seen from our on-page explanatory notes, even an apparently simple word may have two or three very different meanings. Early modern dictionaries suggest that Shakespeare and his contemporaries thought of words not as referring to one thing, but as signifiers of a range of subtly related meanings. So, for instance, “conscience,” a key word in Hamlet, is defined in John Baret’s triple English, French, and Latin dictionary of 1574 as “witness of one’s own mind, knowledge, remorse,” thus simultaneously suggesting modern “consciousness” as well as the associations of a guilty conscience. “Honest,” a key word in Othello, is revealed by John Florio’s 1598 World of Words to be within a spectrum of words including “loyal,” “true,” “trusty,” “upright,” “faithful,” “righteous,” “natural,” “good,” “godly,” and “civil,” all of which are wonderfully inapposite for “honest lago.”

One particular area where multiple signification operates extensively in Shakespeare is that of sexual reference. Puns on body parts, such as “thing” and “will” for the penis, “nothing” and “case” for the vagina, have long been recognized in both the comedies and the sonnets, but a long tradition of editorial reticence has meant that it is still not fully appreciated how pervasive sexual innuendo is across the full range of Shakespeare’s works. Our explanatory notes do not shy away from the bawdy energies of “back-trick,” “banquet,” “bauble,” “beard,” “bog,” “Brentford,” “buried face upwards,” “chink,” “clack-dish,” “her very c’s, her u’s, and [‘n’] her t’s, and thus makes she her great P’s,” “focative is caret / And that’s a good root,” “Neapolitan bone-ache,” “out,” “part,” “purse,” “ring,” “stones,” and scores of cognate terms. Words such as “out” do not, of course, always have a sexual connotation, but an exchange such as the following in As You Like It depends on the bawdy pun, whereby Orlando uses the actor’s sense of forgetting one’s lines (“lost for words”) and Rosalind responds as if he intended the bawdy one (“denied entry”). Her reply also depends on “honesty” meaning “chastity,” and “rank” meaning “lustful” and/or “in heat”:

ORLANDOWho could be out, being before his beloved mistress?

ROSALINDMarry, that should you, if I were your mistress, or I should think my honesty ranker than my wit.

ORLANDOWhat, of my suit?

ROSALINDNot out of your apparel, and yet out of your suit. Am not I your Rosalind?

Sexual punning is not only a symptom of the unprecedented extent and exuberance of Shakespeare’s verbal wit, but also a source of his boundless commitment to life. We will fully understand his vision only when we unashamedly acknowledge how he can move in an instant from such uplifting similes and metaphors as “It seems she hangs upon the cheek of night / As a rich jewel in an Ethiope’s ear” and “But, soft, what light through yonder window breaks? / It is the east, and Juliet is the sun” to the sentiment expressed by Mercutio just seconds before, “O Romeo, that she were, O, that she were / An open arse and thou a pop’rin pear,” where the innuendo comes from not only the resemblance of the medlar fruit to a woman’s genitals but also the naughty play on “pop it in.”

Cult and Heresy

In 1612, around the time that Shakespeare was beginning to work in collaboration with John Fletcher, perhaps as a prelude to his retirement, the young dramatist John Webster wrote a preface to his tragedy The White Devil in which he expressed his “good opinion” of the “worthy labours” of his peers in the art of playmaking: the grandiose style of George Chapman, the learning of Ben Jonson, the collaborative enterprise of Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher, and “the right happy and copious industry of Mr Shakespeare, Mr Decker [sic], and Mr Heywood.” Shakespeare’s plays are thus praised for being plentiful in number and well judged in execution. He is placed in the company of Thomas Dekker and Thomas Heywood, two other prolific and highly professional writers who made their living from the stage. But he is mentioned after four writers who, while equally professional and industrious, were better connected to the court and the gentry—Chapman, Jonson, Beaumont, and Fletcher. Four years later, in the spring of 1616, Beaumont and Shakespeare died within a few weeks of each other. Beaumont became the first dramatist to be honored with burial in the national shrine of Westminster Abbey, beside the tombs of Geoffrey Chaucer (the father of English verse) and Edmund Spenser (the greatest poet of the Elizabethan era). Shakespeare was laid to rest in the provincial obscurity of his native Stratford-upon-Avon. That same year, Ben Jonson became the first English dramatist to publish a collected edition of his own plays written for the public stage. He was much mocked for his presumption in doing so, especially under the title of Works, suggestive of an edition of a classical author such as Virgil or Horace. Webster learned many of the tricks of his trade from Shakespeare, but if he had been asked which of his contemporaries would achieve immortality and come to be regarded as the greatest playmaker since the ancient Greek tragedians, he could as well have plumped for either Jonson or the team of Beaumont and Fletcher. Or possibly even Chapman. We now think of Shakespeare as a unique genius, the embodiment indeed of the very idea of artistic genius, but in his own time, though widely admired, he was but one of a constellation of theatrical stars.

How is it, then, that when we reach the eighteenth and nineteenth century Shakespeare’s fame has outstripped that of all his peers? Why was he the sole dramatist of the age who would eventually have a genuinely international, ultimately a worldwide, impact?

One of the ways in which writers endure is through their influence on later writers. Jonson intuited this in his dedicatory poem to the 1623 First Folio of Shakespeare’s collected plays, where he described Shakespeare as a “star” whose “influence” would “chide or cheer” the future course of British drama. Once the Folio was available to, in the words of its editors, “the great Variety of Readers,” the plays began to influence not just the theater but poetry more generally. The works of Milton, notably his masque Comus, were steeped in Shakespearean language. Indeed, the young Milton’s first published poem was a sonnet prefixed to the second edition of the Folio, in which Shakespeare was said to have built himself “a live-long Monument” in the form of his plays. Shakespeare was Milton’s key precedent for the writing of his epic Paradise Lost (1667) in blank verse rather than rhyme. Even later seventeenth-century poets, such as King Charles II’s Poet Laureate John Dryden, who were committed to rhyme, acknowledged the power of his dramatic blank verse. As an act of homage to “the Divine Shakespeare” Dryden abandoned rhyme in All for Love (1678), his reworking of the Cleopatra story.

The London theaters were closed during the years of civil war and republican government in the middle of the seventeenth century. The years after the Restoration of the monarchy in 1660 were characterized by a somewhat schizophrenic attitude to Shakespeare. On the positive side, he was invoked for his inspirational native genius, used to support claims for English naturalness as opposed to French artifice, and for the moderns against the ancients. In a sweeping Essay of Dramatic Poesy (1668), Dryden described Shakespeare as “the man who of all Modern, and perhaps Ancient Poets, had the largest and most comprehensive soul.” He brushed off charges of Shakespeare’s lack of learning with the memorable judgment that “he needed not the spectacles of Books to read Nature.”

Contemporaneously with Dryden, the learned Margaret Cavendish, Duchess of Newcastle, praised Shakespeare for his extraordinary ability to enter into his vast array of characters, to “express the divers and different humors, or natures, or several passions in mankind.” Yet at the same time, the courtly elite had spent their years of exile in France and come under the influence of a highly refined neoclassical theory of artistic decorum, according to which tragedy should be kept apart from comedy and high style from low, with dramatic “unity” demanding obedience to strict laws. For this reason, Dryden and his contemporaries took considerable liberties in polishing and “improving” Shakespeare’s plays for performance. According to the law of poetic justice, wholly innocent characters should not be allowed to die: Nahum Tate therefore rewrote King Lear (1681) with a happy ending in which Cordelia marries Edgar. Tate also omitted the character of the Fool, on the grounds that such a figure was beneath the dignity of high tragedy.

The more formal classicism of Jonson and the courtly romances of Beaumont and Fletcher answered more readily to the Frenchified standards of the Restoration theater. Actors, though, were demonstrating that the most rewarding roles in the repertoire were the Shakespearean ones. Thomas Betterton (1635–1710), the greatest player of the age, had enormous success as Hamlet, Sir Toby Belch, Henry VIII, Macbeth, Timon of Athens, Lear, Falstaff, Angelo in Measure for Measure, and Othello (some of these in versions close to the original texts, others in heavily adapted reworkings). Playhouse scripts of individual plays found their way into print, while the Folio went through its third and fourth printings. By the end of the century, Shakespeare was well entrenched in English cultural life. But he was not yet the unique genius.

Thomas Betterton’s veneration for the memory of Shakespeare was such that late in his life he traveled to Warwickshire in order to find out what he could about the dramatist’s origins. He passed a store of anecdotes to the poet, playwright, and eventual Poet Laureate Nicholas Rowe, who wrote “Some Account of the Life of Mr William Shakespeare,” a biographical sketch published in 1709 in the first of the six volumes of his Works of Shakespeare, the collection that is usually regarded as the first modern edition of the plays. Rowe’s biography offered a mixture of truth and myth, calculated to represent Shakespeare as a man of the people. It tells of how young Will was withdrawn from school when his father fell on hard times, and how he then got into bad company and stole deer from the park of local grandee Sir Thomas Lucy. The resultant prosecution forced him to leave for London, where he became an actor and then a dramatist. There is no documentary warrant for the deer-stealing story. Rowe’s account is a symptom of how every age reinvents Shakespeare in its own image. The road from the provinces to London was a familiar one in the eighteenth century—Samuel Johnson and David Garrick walked it in real life, Henry Fielding’s Tom Jones in fiction. Shakespeare served as exemplar of the writer who achieved success, and an unprecedented degree of financial reward, from his pen alone. The Earl of Southampton may have helped him on his way in his early years, but he was essentially a self-made man rather than a beneficiary of court and aristocratic patronage. For writers such as Alexander Pope and Samuel Johnson, struggling in the transition from the age of patronage to that of Grub Street professionalism, Shakespeare offered not only a body of poetic invention and a gallery of living characters but also an inspirational career trajectory.

If we had to identify a single decade in which the “cult of Shakespeare” took root, in which his celebrity and influence came to outstrip that of his contemporaries once and for all, it would probably be the 1730s. There was a proliferation of cheap mass-market editions, while in the theater the plays came to constitute about a quarter of the entire repertoire of the London stage, twice what they had been hitherto. The promotion of Shakespeare was driven by a number of forces, ranging from state censorship of new plays to a taste for the shapely legs of actresses in the cross-dressed “breeches parts” of the comedies. The plays were becoming synonymous with decency and Englishness, even as the institution of the theater was still poised between respectability and disrepute.

David Garrick (1717–1779), the actor who may justly be claimed as the father of what George Bernard Shaw later christened “bardolatry,” arrived in London at a propitious moment. Shakespeare was growing into big business and the time was ripe for a new star to cash in on his name. As in many a good theater story, Garrick’s first break came when he stepped in as an understudy and outshone the actor who normally took the part. This was followed by a more formal debut, again of a kind that established a pattern for later generations: the revolutionary new reading of a major Shakespearean part. For Garrick, it was Richard III (for Edmund Kean in the next century, it was Shylock). After this, there was no looking back. Garrick did all the things we have come to expect of a major star: he took on the full gamut of Shakespeare, he had an affair with his leading lady (the gorgeous and talented Peg Woffington), and he managed his own acting company, supervising the scripts and directing plays while also starring in them. It was because of Garrick’s extraordinary energy in all these departments that he not only gave unprecedented respectability to the profession of actor, but also effectively invented the modern theater. The “actor-manager” tradition that he inaugurated stretched down to Laurence Olivier and beyond.

It was in the art of self-promotion that Garrick was unique. His public image was secured by William Hogarth’s vibrant painting of him in the role of Richard III (see illustration below), confronted with his nightmares on the eve of the battle of Bosworth Field. The most frequently engraved and widely disseminated theatrical portrait of the eighteenth century, this iconic image simultaneously established Garrick as the quintessential tragedian and inaugurated the whole tradition of large-scale Shakespearean painting. Hitherto, the elevated genre of “history painting” had concentrated on biblical and classical subjects. With Hogarth’s image—created in the studio, though influenced by Garrick’s stage performance—Shakespearean drama joined this august company.

An engraving from William Hogarth’s famous painting of Garrick as Richard III, confronting the ghosts on the night before the battle of Bosworth Field. Painted in the artist’s studio, but influenced by the cluttered and “realistic” stage sets of the eighteenth century—a world away from the bare boards of the Globe.

The climax of Garrick’s career in bardolatry was the Jubilee that he organized in commemoration of the bicentenary of Shakespeare’s birth. The event took place in Stratford-upon-Avon in 1769, on the occasion of the opening of a new town hall, a mere five years later than the anniversary it was supposed to mark. It lasted for three days, during which scores of fashionable Londoners descended on the hitherto obscure provincial town where Shakespeare had been born. The literary tourist industry began here: local entrepreneurs did good business in the sale of Shakespearean relics, such as souvenirs supposedly cut from the wood of the great Bard’s mulberry tree. Not since the marketing in medieval times of fragments of the True Cross had a single tree yielded so much wood. The Jubilee program included a grand procession of Shakespearean characters, a masked ball, a horse race, and a firework display. In true English fashion, the outdoor events were washed out by torrential rain. At the climax of the festivities Garrick performed his own poem, “An Ode upon dedicating a building and erecting a statue to Shakespeare at Stratford-upon-Avon,” set to music by the leading composer Thomas Arne. In the manner of a staged theatrical “happening,” Garrick had arranged for a member of the audience (a fellow actor), dressed as a French fop, to complain—as French connoisseurs of literary taste had complained for generations—that Shakespeare was vulgar, provincial, and overrated. This gave Garrick the opportunity to voice his grand defence of Shakespeare. Though the whole business was much mocked in newspaper reports, caricatures, and stage farces, it generated enormous publicity for both Garrick and Shakespeare across Britain and continental Europe. The Jubilee did more than make Stratford-upon-Avon into a tourist attraction: it inaugurated the very idea of a summer arts festival.

In an age when orthodox religion was facing severe challenges, the cult of Shakespeare was becoming a secular faith. Thanks to the enthusiasm of poets, critics, and translators such as Samuel Taylor Coleridge, William Hazlitt and John Keats in England, J. W. von Goethe and the Schlegel brothers in Germany, Victor Hugo and Alexandre Dumas in France, during the nineteenth-century era of Romanticism, the grammar school boy from the edge of the Forest of Arden became the supreme deity not just of poetry and drama, but of high culture itself.

There was, however, a downside to the apotheosis. Gods have an unfortunate propensity to attract wild-eyed extremists and earnest cranks. A few years after Garrick’s Jubilee, a retired Oxford don named the Reverend James Wilmot went poking around Stratford-upon-Avon in pursuit of relics and reminiscences of the divine William. Disappointed by the paucity of what he found, he became the first person to consider the possibility that the plays might really have been written by someone else. He did not, however, publish his theory.

Fast-forward to the mid-nineteenth century. Bardolatry and the British Empire are in their heyday. It is 1852. An unsigned article in an Edinburgh magazine asks for the first time the question over which so much ink would be needlessly spilt in the next century and a half: “Who wrote Shakspeare?” The author found it hard to reconcile the glories of the plays with our knowledge of Shakespeare’s life—his mealy-mouthed business dealings, his churlish will (that “second-best bed”). Maybe Shakespeare hired someone else to do his writing for him? Within a few years, a favored candidate emerged: Lord Bacon, one of the most learned authors of the age. It did not seem to matter that Bacon’s “new philosophy” of scientific empiricism represented an altogether different species of learning from that of the plays, with their habitual skepticism and casual resort to folk wisdom. Nor that Bacon’s own efforts at drama were distinctly wooden. The theory that “Shakespeare was Bacon” remained popular for half a century, despite numerous reasoned refutations. After the First World War, dozens of other candidates began to be brought forward. Those who found most vociferous support in the twentieth century were aristocrats such as William Stanley, the sixth Earl of Derby, and Edward de Vere, the seventeenth Earl of Oxford.

The love of conspiracy theories that pervaded Western popular culture in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries gave continuing prominence to the “authorship dispute.” One response to the phenomenon is dismissive: what does it matter so long as we have the plays? But there is a repellent snobbery in the idea that a man from an ordinary background could not have written the plays, that the true author must have been an aristocrat in disguise. Shakespeare’s family and fellow townspeople knew his gift: they represented him as a writer on his Stratford monument and compared him to Socrates and Virgil in the inscription upon it. His fellow actors and intimate associates in the running of his theater company, whom he remembered in his will, knew that he wrote the plays: they edited the First Folio and never doubted his authorship. Ben Jonson knew Shakespeare extremely well: Shakespeare acted in his plays, they quoted and parodied each other’s works, he contributed verses to the First Folio (a short poem affirming that the frontispiece was a true likeness of the author and a long epistle praising him as “swan of Avon” and saying that the plays were very good despite their poor attainment in the classical languages). In both his conversations with fellow poet Drummond of Hawthornden and his commonplace book, Jonson discussed Shakespeare’s compositional method and his relationship with the actors. Others who described Shakespeare as both an actor and a writer included Sir George Buc, William Camden, Leonard Digges (stepson of an overseer of Shakespeare’s will), John Davies of Hereford (on at least two occasions), and the author of the academic Parnassus plays. Among those who knew Shakespeare and described him as a writer were Francis Beaumont (who praised the plays specifically on the grounds of their lack of book learning) and Francis Meres, who knew some of the sonnets in manuscript (perhaps including the one with the phrase “my name is Will,” which has always proved mildly embarrassing to proponents of the view that the real author was called Francis or Edward or Christopher or Elizabeth).

The poor quality of the French, the hazy knowledge of European geography and the howlers in the representation of court etiquette in the plays rule out the authorship of any highly educated courtier or gentleman. Specific allusions, for instance to the names of villages around Stratford-upon-Avon and to individuals such as Shakespeare’s schoolmate and publisher Richard Field and the local Somerville family, prove that the author was from Warwickshire. Though Shakespeare lets slip his identity in casual passing allusions of this kind, early modern plays were not autobiographical documents. Nearly all Shakespeare’s plots were taken over from old plays, novels, history books, and other sources. They were not encodings of a secret life at court, as conspiracy theorists like to propose. Indeed, the principal failure of all “disguised aristocrat” fantasies about the authorship of the plays is their failure to account for the deeply collaborative nature of early modern theater: stray speech headings and other details reveal how Shakespeare wrote particular parts for particular actors; allusions to other plays, especially during the period of fierce intercompany rivalry around 1600, reveal that he was in constant dialogue with rival playwrights; the plays have many technical innovations intimately linked to practicalities of the theater, such as the opening of the Globe in 1599 and the introduction of act divisions in response to the move to Blackfriars in 1608: all these are signs of a professional theatrical insider, not an accomplished gentleman amateur. Above all, there is the fact of actual collaboration: the revision of other men’s plays in the early works, the involvement with Thomas Middleton and George Wilkins (author of the first half of Pericles) in the early 1600s, and the co-writing of the last three plays with Fletcher. We know an immense amount about how plays were put together collaboratively and a whole battery of stylometric tests has enabled us to work out which playwright wrote which scenes. The “disguised aristocrat” theory cannot account for this. Besides, all verifiable stylometric tests conclusively rule out every alternative candidate who has been proposed as the true author of Shakespeare.

Other anti-Stratfordian claims reveal astonishing ignorance of the age. How could Shakespeare have been a literary man, it is asked, when he left no books in his will? Francis Bacon (one of the most advanced thinkers of the age), Richard Hooker (the leading theologian of the Anglican faith), and Samuel Daniel (the first English author to publish a collected edition of his literary works) left no books in their wills either. People did not habitually include inventories of their possessions in their wills. How could he have written such brilliant plays when there is so little evidence of his having received a formal education? The roll of the Stratford-upon-Avon grammar school is lost, but Shakespeare was entitled to attend it free of charge, by virtue of his father’s civic office, and the range of knowledge and allusion in the plays matches closely with what he would have learned in grammar school. The comic Latin lesson in The Merry Wives of Windsor and the pedantic schoolmaster in Love’s Labour’s Lost are manifestly the creations of a grammar school boy, not a privately educated aristocrat.

Shakespeare is no different from his fellow dramatists: George Chapman and Ben Jonson were the two most famously learned theater writers of the age, yet there is no contemporary record of either of them having attended school of any kind, let alone university. Jonson probably went to Westminster School, leaving to become a bricklayer’s apprentice before reaching the upper forms—but his attendance is an inference on the basis of circumstantial evidence, exactly as is Shakespeare’s attendance at King Edward’s grammar school in Stratford-upon-Avon. Nor do we know anything about the schooling of Henry Chettle, Thomas Dekker, Michael Drayton, Thomas Heywood, Thomas Middleton, John Webster, and a host of others.

Where are Shakespeare’s play manuscripts and letters? The same place as nearly all the play manuscripts and letters of the other Elizabethan and Jacobean dramatists: lost because nobody at the time thought that the work of these popular entertainers, let alone the details of their lives, were sufficiently important to merit preservation for posterity. Immensely talented dramatists such as Christopher Marlowe, Thomas Middleton, and Thomas Heywood did not even have the benefit of close friends in the theater world to put together collected editions of their plays, as Hemings and Condell did for Shakespeare. It would in fact be more plausible to mount a case that Jonson did not write Jonson (a learned bricklayer?) or that Chapman did not write Chapman (translating Homer without a university degree!) than that Shakespeare did not write Shakespeare. Jonson’s and Chapman’s plays show far more classical learning than those of Shakespeare and as acute an understanding of court intrigue and politics, and yet they too were “uneducated” writers, so why has no one questioned their authorship? The logical conclusion of the fact that no one has done so is that the “Shakespeare authorship debate” is not a proper historical question with its roots in the early modern period, but an epiphenomenon, an aberrant offshoot of the nineteenth-century Romantic cult of Shakespeare. It stems from a desire to give Shakespeare a strong personality, and in so doing denies his greatest gift: the ability to suppress his own personality and absorb himself in his characters, to empathize not only with kings and lords, but also with daughters who disobey their fathers and outsiders who challenge the social order.

The First Folio Restored[4]

Shakespeare initially wrote his plays as scripts for performance, not finished literary works for publication. In order to understand the status of his texts and the editorial problems they present, we must begin by abandoning the modern model of literary authorship, with its movement from the solitary figure of the writer and a piece of paper (or a typewriter or computer screen) to the submission of a manuscript, typescript or computer file to a publisher, followed by the process of copyediting and proofreading. The traditional mark of a writer’s authorization of his or her final text is the return of corrected proofs to a publisher, who then submits them to a printer for mass reproduction, binding, and distribution via the book trade. It is probable that Shakespeare only ever personally corrected the proofs of two of his forty or so works: the narrative poems Venus and Adonis and Lucrece. In every other case, a process of conjecture is required in order to establish some kind of authoritative text.

A printing house: in the background, the compositors are picking the individual letters out from the case, while in the foreground the leaves are being inked before being put through the press.

Nearly all the necessary raw manuscript materials are lost. Aside from the scene for Sir Thomas More, we have no working manuscripts in Shakespeare’s hand, no scribal transcripts of the originals, no “playbooks” or “promptbooks” from his theater, no printer’s copy, no authorially marked-up proof sheets. This is not unusual for the period. The editors of Christopher Marlowe and John Webster face exactly the same problems. We do know that Shakespeare’s friend and rival Ben Jonson carefully oversaw the progress of his plays into print, so his texts present fewer problems, but again the manuscripts behind them are lost. Printers did not archive the copy from which they worked; theater companies did keep master copies of their scripts, but these would mutate over time as theatrical innovations led to a process of rewriting. One of Shakespeare’s late collaborative works, Cardenio, survives only in the indirect form of an eighteenth-century rewrite of a playbook that was reworked some time in the late seventeenth century.

Plays are not like novels, poems, or biographies. They are not “owned” by an individual author. The best modern analogy for the status of an Elizabethan theater script is the film screenplay. Screenwriters traditionally occupy a lowly position in the Hollywood food chain. More often than not, teams of writers are employed. Sometimes one team will be sacked and another brought in to fix up a script. Producers will then demand changes on the basis of their perception of what will be commercially successful. Directors will demand changes on the basis of their own artistic vision. Stars will demand changes that enhance their own parts. Writers end up well down the credit list. Only after the industry matured did the notion of a published screenplay take hold; publication remains the exception rather than the rule, reserved for “classics” and films that are either exceptionally successful or unusually “artistic.” And when a screenplay is published, it is far more likely to be the studio’s finished version or the “director’s cut” than the writer’s or writers’ original script.

In every one of these particulars, there is an analogy with the theater in Shakespeare’s time (which is why Hollywood loved, and heaped Oscars upon, the 1998 film Shakespeare in Love). The theater manager Philip Henslowe was like a Hollywood producer: he would employ teams of writers to create new works and fix up old ones; it was star actors such as Edward Alleyn, not writers such as Robert Greene, who dominated the scene at the Rose (which is why Greene, or his colleague Henry Chettle, seems to have become bitter when a minor actor called William Shakespeare began fixing up other people’s plays and even writing his own). Publication of plays was the exception rather than the rule. Most of the scripts that did find their way into print in the 1580s and 1590s lacked an author’s name on the title page. The name of the acting company who had played the work (“with great applause”) was what mattered. The identity of the playwright was not considered a selling point. It is a mark that Shakespeare was beginning to be considered someone special, perhaps an unusually literary dramatist, that after some half-dozen of his plays were published anonymously from 1594 onwards, in 1598 his name appeared on the title pages of texts of Love’s Labour’s Lost, Richard II, and Richard III.

During Shakespeare’s lifetime about half his surviving plays were published in the format known as Quarto (so called because the sheets of paper that came off the printing press were folded in four). In terms of size, relatively low price, and function (books to be read through rather than lovingly preserved in a library), the modern paperback provides a good analogy. The print run for play Quartos was unlikely to be more than a thousand copies at most. A few of Shakespeare’s Quartos were sufficiently good sellers to go through several editions. By the time of his death there were six Quarto printings of 1 Henry IV, Richard II, and Richard III, and three of Hamlet, Pericles, Romeo and Juliet, and Titus Andronicus. Since we know nothing about box-office returns from the Theatre and the Globe, demand for printed copies is the best measure we have of the relative success of the plays. These seven—three histories, three tragedies, and a collaboratively-written romance—qualify as the best answer to the question “Which were Shakespeare’s most successful plays in his own lifetime?” Frequency of allusion and imitation in the work of other dramatists provides confirmatory evidence. Ben Jonson was distinctly dismayed that Titus and Pericles, which he regarded as ramshackle affairs in contrast to his own more polished scripts, were such crowd-pleasers. But none of the plays was so successful in print as Venus and Adonis, which went through nine editions in Shakespeare’s lifetime and a further six in the next twenty years. By a considerable margin the most widely read long poem of the age, it ensured that Shakespeare’s name was synonymous with poetic eloquence and erotic delight.

In the year of Shakespeare’s death, Ben Jonson became the first dramatist for the public stage to gather his plays in the more durable form of a “collected works.” Three years later a publisher called Thomas Pavier put out editions of ten purported Shakespearean plays (among them the apocryphal Sir John Oldcastle Part 1 and A Yorkshire Tragedy). This looked like an unauthorized attempt at a “collected Shakespeare.” It certainly seemed so to the King’s Men. With the assistance of the Earl of Pembroke, who was Lord Chamberlain and a good friend to the actors, the three leading players, Burbage, Hemings, and Condell, obtained a blocking order against further productions of a similar kind. Burbage died soon after, leaving Hemings and Condell to begin the work of gathering materials for an authorized edition. The process involved collecting old Quartos and comparing them with the scripts held by the company. For previously unpublished plays, transcripts were made of the prompter’s “book,” some of them by a professional scribe called Ralph Crane. After long delays in the printing house, the great book was finally published in 1623 under the title Mr William Shakespeares Comedies, Histories, & Tragedies Published according to the True Originall Copies. Printed in large double-columned “Folio” format, it was adorned with Martin Droeshout’s engraving of Shakespeare and an array of preliminary matter, including Ben Jonson’s commendatory poems praising his fellow playwright as “Soul of the Age,” as a rival even to Sophocles, and as a dramatic artist whose works were “for all time,” surpassing “all that was ever writ.” Without the Folio, half of Shakespeare’s output would have been lost forever, and several other plays would have only survived in error-strewn texts. Among the eighteen Folio-only plays are The Tempest, As You Like It, Twelfth Night, Julius Caesar, Macbeth, and Antony and Cleopatra.

The Folio was reprinted three times before the end of the seventeenth century, but by early in the eighteenth it was beginning to have an antiquated feel. Shakespeare’s reputation was on the rise and a new middle-class reading public was emerging. The time was ripe for a “modernized” edition and the task was entrusted to the poet and dramatist Nicholas Rowe. In preparing his text, Rowe made a mistake that has never been fully rectified. He noticed that Hamlet’s last major soliloquy—“How all occasions do inform against me/And spur my dull revenge”—was missing from the Folio text of the play but present in the early Quarto. He accordingly stitched together the two texts, creating a composite version of Hamlet in the hope that it represented Shakespeare’s true original. But it did not. Modern bibliographic investigation has decisively shown that the early printed texts of Hamlet represent different moments in the play’s evolving stage history. A “conflated” Hamlet is not a Shakespearean original: it is a version of the play created by Rowe nearly a hundred years after Shakespeare’s death.

The eighteenth-century editors who followed Rowe, beginning with Alexander Pope, went even further with the “pick-and-mix” approach, mingling the variant Quarto and Folio texts of many more plays, most notably King Lear, Othello, Richard II, Richard III, and Troilus and Cressida. This approach continued in the mainstream editorial tradition through the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The Oxford edition of 1986 began the work of separating out the early texts, recognizing the discrete versions of Hamlet and King Lear. But it still moved inconsistently between versions, even printing the Henry VI plays in their Folio texts but with their Quarto titles. In short, then, all existing Shakespeare editions are deeply flawed: Rowe set editors off down the wrong path and they have not returned.

So it is that, astonishingly, the Shakespeare First Folio—unquestionably the most important single book in the history of world drama—has not been edited in its own right for about three hundred years. By “edited” we mean reproduced with the correction of presumed printer’s errors and the modernization of spelling and punctuation. There have been facsimile reproductions and diplomatic transcriptions of the Folio: these, however, are not corrected and modernized editions. Editing of a kind took place in the Second Folio of 1632, the Third Folio of 1663 (and its second issue of 1664), and the Fourth Folio of 1685. Some corrections were made and there was an element of modernization, but the interventions were fairly minimal: conventions of spelling, punctuation, and typography changed between 1623 and 1685, but far less than they have done in the three and a bit centuries since.

For the eighteen Folio-only plays, there is only one version to print, but where there are both Quartos and Folios, the story is complicated. The Quartos can be divided into two categories. Seven of them are short in length and contain frequent misprints and lines that don’t make sense: The First Part of the Contention and The True Tragedy of Richard Duke of York (which became the second and third parts of Henry VI in the Folio), the First Quarto of Romeo and Juliet, the First Quarto of Hamlet, Henry V, The Merry Wives of Windsor, and the one Quarto play of which there is no Folio text, Pericles.[5] Thirteen others are long and well printed: Titus Andronicus, Richard II, Love’s Labour’s Lost, 1 Henry IV, 2 Henry IV, Richard III, the Second Quarto of Romeo and Juliet, the Second Quarto of Hamlet, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, The Merchant of Venice, Much Ado About Nothing, Troilus and Cressida, Othello. Uniquely, the Quarto of King Lear is long, but with many misprints and lines that do not make sense. It is a special case, its errors stemming from the particular circumstances of its first publication: a printer unused to working with plays and a manuscript probably based on Shakespeare’s working draft, known in the period as “foul papers.”

In the twentieth century, the short Quartos were described as “bad” texts because of their high degree of error, because the Second Quartos of Romeo and Juliet and Hamlet advertised themselves as, respectively, “Newly corrected, augmented and amended” and “Newly imprinted and enlarged to almost as much again as it was, according to the true and perfect copy,” and because Hemings and Condell’s preface to the First Folio spoke of how their authoritative text was replacing “diverse stolen and surreptitious copies, maimed and deformed by the frauds and stealths of injurious imposters that exposed them.” In all probability, though, this remark refers to Pavier’s illicit Quartos of 1619, not those published in Shakespeare’s lifetime.

The short Quartos have variously been supposed to be first drafts, abridgements for performance or perhaps touring, stenographers’ reports or—the most popular theory in the twentieth century—actors’ memorial reconstructions. There is an inherent implausibility about the theory that some of the minor actors pieced together the texts from memory, employed a scribe to copy as they recited, then went slyly to a “pirate” publisher, so the latter hypothesis has been much criticized, though the First Quarto of Hamlet and the Quarto of The Merry Wives of Windsor do bear some marks of reconstruction from memory. Whatever the origins of the various short Quartos, they represent the plays in very different form from that authorized by Hemings and Condell. In preparing the text of such plays as Henry V and Merry Wives, the Folio editors consciously rejected the “short” Quarto and used different manuscript sources, probably the “book” held by the acting company (sometimes known as the “promptbook,” though that is not a term from the period).

With five of the long Quartos, there are very few differences from the Folio. These are Love’s Labour’s Lost, 1 Henry IV, Second Quarto Romeo and Juliet, The Merchant of Venice, Much Ado About Nothing. The norm here is that the Folio text was printed from a Quarto, with errors introduced and corrections made, but stage directions were added, presumably following consultation of the “book” held at the theater. Most editors work from the Quartos, but insert the Folio’s stage directions. We use the reverse procedure, respecting the integrity of the Folio but using the Quartos to correct its printing errors.

In four cases—Titus Andronicus, Richard II, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, 2 Henry IV—there are significant local differences, such as added scenes, the change of a character’s identity in a single scene, an element of rewriting or the marks of censorship. So, for instance, the darkly comic “fly-killing” scene is in Folio Titus but not Quarto. The same goes for the deposition scene at the center of Richard II. In Folio Dream, Egeus instead of Philostrate introduces the revels in the final scene. In these plays, the Folio was printed from a Quarto, but in the preparation of copy for the printers there was more thoroughgoing attention to a manuscript source. Most modern editors back-project the Folio additions such as the fly-killing scene into their Quarto-based texts, thus creating a hybrid. We prefer, again, to respect the integrity of the Folio, though make use of the Quartos in correcting printers’ errors.

The five remaining plays present the greatest textual challenge. They also happen to be five of Shakespeare’s longest plays: Hamlet, Richard III, Othello, King Lear, and Troilus and Cressida. In each case there are major differences between the Quarto and Folio texts—substantial additions or omissions, hundreds of variant lines and words. In each play, some of the differences can be attributed to printing errors in one text, but many cannot. Here Quartos and Folios were printed from different principal sources (for example, Quarto from the authorial manuscript or a transcript of it, and Folio from the theatrical promptbook or a transcript of it). To complicate matters, the Folio editor sometimes consulted a Quarto when his manuscript copy was unclear. The best explanation for the major differences is that the two versions represent two moments in the life of the play, with intervening revisions having been undertaken by Shakespeare or the acting company or another dramatist on behalf of the acting company or a scribe preparing a written text or some combination thereof. It is with these plays that the editorial tradition of conflation has been most damaging.

In Shakespeare’s time, when the creation of a book involved the extraordinarily laborious process of picking out each individual letter from a case of type, printers preferred if at all possible to work from a book that was already printed rather than a manuscript, since the latter was much more difficult to read. The most significant fact about the printing of the First Folio is that Hemings and Condell had the opportunity to provide the printing house with Quarto texts of a large number of plays that could simply have been reprinted in the new large-page double-column format of the Folio. Pavier had produced his 1619 collection at speed because he was working from existing Quartos, not manuscripts. But Hemings and Condell did not do this. Even where Folio did use Quartos as copy texts, there was consultation of playhouse manuscripts. And in the case of the four big plays where there was an adequately printed Quarto, they chose to work from a different, playhouse-derived source that would have been much slower to print. Their choice not to take the easy option is a major reason why we should respect the integrity of their enterprise, why we should not conflate and why we print the Folio texts of Hamlet, Richard III, Othello, King Lear, and Troilus and Cressida. In some cases, the Quartos are probably closer to Shakespeare’s original manuscript draft, but the Folio is undoubtedly closer to his playhouse. For an edition such as this one, which is commissioned by a Shakespearean acting company, the copy text has to be the one authorized by Shakespeare’s own acting company.

This is not to say that we have edited the Folio as if the Quartos did not exist. Quarto readings are invaluable in the process of identifying and correcting printing errors in the Folio. And, indeed, it is a matter of peculiar good fortune that they exist for several of the tragedies. The overall standard of printing in the First Folio is remarkably high, though there are degrees of variation according to the nature of the printer’s copy for each play and the habits of the various members of the team of compositors who worked on the project. However, after the comedies and histories were completed, a new and less competent printer joined the team. Probably an apprentice, he is known by scholars as “Compositor E.” He was responsible for typesetting large chunks of Troilus and Cressida, Titus Andronicus, Romeo and Juliet, King Lear, and Othello: consultation of the Quartos allows us to undo much of his bad work in these plays. He also set parts of Antony and Cleopatra and Cymbeline, together with a page of Timon of Athens: since there are no Quartos of these plays, correction of his errors in them requires a higher degree of editorial conjecture.

None of the Folio plays is without error. “Compositor E” is a special case, but even “A” and “B,” the principal setters, had their vagaries and their careless moments. It probably did not help that ale was abundantly available in the printing shop, in order that there would be a ready supply of “chamberly” (urine), which was customarily used to moisten the leather of the inking balls. A modern editor would be foolish to reproduce a manifest compositorial error out of an obsessive desire to stay true to Folio. On many occasions, the Quarto text is manifestly accurate and the Folio compositor has made a clear error: on these occasions the Quarto reading must be restored. Because of compositorial errors, the Folio as printed did not exactly correspond to the Folio as Hemings and Condell wanted it printed. Our text is the first to seek to recover (in modernized form) the closest thing we have to an “authorized” Shakespeare: the text that Hemings and Condell prepared for Isaac Jaggard’s printers in the early 1620s. Facsimiles reproduce what came out of Jaggard’s shop. Most editions go back two steps to an irrecoverable supposed “original”—Shakespeare’s working manuscript or the purported text of the first performance. No edition until ours has begun from an attempt to reconstruct and then modernize what Hemings and Condell authorized: the texts that went into Jaggard’s shop in the form of transcripts of promptbooks for some plays and Quartos marked up with reference to the theater for others.

Like all editors since those of the 1632 Second Folio, we have attempted to be more accurate than the First Folio compositors were. Our golden rule has been to follow the Folio whenever it makes sense, but correct it from the Quartos when a Quarto is manifestly correct and the Folio manifestly erroneous. So too with the larger question of emendation: we follow the Folio whenever it makes sense, but correct it from the editorial tradition when the editorial tradition makes sense of what is manifestly erroneous in the Folio. In cases where differences between Folio and Quarto are, in the editors’ judgment, due not to a compositor’s error but to a divergence in copy (because of authorial or playhouse revision, or intelligent alteration or annotation or sophistication on the part of the book-keeper or editor or scribe who prepared the Folio text), the Folio is followed, but if the revision is of substance and interest it is flagged in the textual notes. For the sake of completion, substantial Quarto-only passages—which are especially numerous in Hamlet and King Lear—are edited separately at the end of each play where they occur.

Our text, then, aims to be simultaneously authentic and modern. Spelling and punctuation must be modernized to ensure that Shakespeare remains a living dramatist. Speech headings need to be rendered consistent and other tidying up is necessary for the sake of the modern reader and actor. We aim to return to the origins of Shakespearean editing in homage to Hemings, Condell, and their team, but at the same time we have learned the lesson of late twentieth-century scholarship and editorial theory: that there is no single definitive authorial text, because many different agents at different moments influence the creation and dissemination of a play. To stress again: our claim to originality is that we have edited a real book (the First Folio), not an imaginary construct (“the plays as they came from Shakespeare’s hand,” as in the dominant editorial tradition, or “the plays as first performed” as in the revisionist school of editing). We grant that this results in the alteration of some things that Shakespeare originally wrote, as in the case of oaths, which were modified (“heaven” for “God,” removal of the blasphemous “zounds” and “ ’sblood”) following a parliamentary act of 1606. We accept that there are almost certainly passages in the Folio that are the result of playhouse additions after Shakespeare’s death or scribal regularization and emendation in the process of preparing copy. But such features are worth retaining for the sake of editorial consistency, of fidelity to the ambition of recovering the plays at one particular key moment in their evolutionary history, and of recognition that Shakespeare’s achievement was at the profoundest level collaborative.

We have also respected the Folio in editing its preliminary matter. And we have demarcated the non-Folio works (poems, sonnets, Quarto-only passages of Hamlet and Lear, together with the two collaborative plays, Pericles and The Two Noble Kinsmen) by setting them in double-column format—a deliberate inversion of the original distinction whereby Quartos were single column and Folio double. Unlike some modern editors, we are not fully persuaded that Shakespeare wrote the Countess of Salisbury scenes in the anonymous play Edward III—stylometric analysis increases our skepticism—so that play is not included.[6]

To illustrate the results of our method, here are two simple examples, one of Quarto/Folio variation and the other of our presumption against emendation unless it is absolutely necessary. Each involves a kiss. Othello tells the assembled senators of Desdemona’s reaction to his narrative of his exotic military adventures. Quarto has “She gaue me for my paines a world of sighes.” Folio has “She gaue me for my paines a world of kisses.” Nearly all editions follow Quarto, even when Folio is their base-text. The assumption seems to be that Desdemona would not be so forward as to kiss Othello when he is still a comparative stranger. But “kisses” for “sighes” is an unlikely scribal or printer’s error. It is more probable that each reading is true to the play at the particular moment in its life represented by the respective texts. We edit Folio, so we retain Folio’s “kisses.” We note in our commentary that, in the usage of the period, “kisses” could mean “gentle touches,” but it is also the case that Venetian customs of courtesy in the play are by any standard forward—Cassio greets Iago’s wife Emilia with a kiss on arrival in Cyprus and Iago’s manipulation of Othello plays intensely on the Moor’s lack of ease with Venetian body language. A Desdemona who kisses Othello in the imagined pre-action of the play is a stronger, more active and interesting character than one who merely sighs in admiration for his charisma.

At the climax of Much Ado About Nothing, all modern editions give Benedick the line “Peace, I will stop your mouth,” at which point in all modern productions he kisses Beatrice. But the Folio reads “Leon. Peace I will stop your mouth.” It is hard to imagine that the printer misread the speech heading “Bene” as “Leon” and, besides, by this point in the play Benedick is addressing Beatrice with the intimate “thou” and “thy,” not the more formal “you” and “your.” There is therefore every reason to suppose that Shakespeare intended the line to be spoken by Leonato—who perhaps forces Benedick and Beatrice into a kiss. By restoring the Folio line to its original speaker we create the possibility for a staging that is at once more challenging and, in all probability, more authentic.

Editing the Folio has involved us in hundreds of decisions of this sort.

We hope that our edition may come to be regarded as a modern equivalent to the eighteenth-century example of Dr. Samuel Johnson. As Johnson drew on the revolutionary textual innovations of his predecessors such as Lewis Theobald, but had a presumption in favor of the authority of the Folio and of explaining rather than emending Shakespeare’s text, so we draw on late twentieth-century scholarly innovations but inaugurate the twenty-first-century editorial tradition by falling back on Johnsonian common sense and gratitude to John Hemings and Henry Condell for their extraordinary work in making Shakespeare available “to the great variety of readers” in a text that keeps his plays anchored in the place from which they came and where they continue to be most alive: the theater. Here, then, is the actors’ Shakespeare: the text authorized by the King’s Men and edited for the Royal Shakespeare Company.

[1] For a conjectural chronology of all the works, see charts at the end of the book.

[2] For further discussion of the early texts of Shakespeare, see “The First Folio Restored,” pp. li–lviii.

[3] In particular, it has been persuasively shown that the “William Shakeshafte” named in the will of Alexander Hoghton of Lea Hall near Preston in Lancashire could not have been the young Shakespeare.

[4] A longer and more technical discussion of the textual question and our editorial procedures is available on the edition’s website www.therscshakespeare.com.

[5] The Two Noble Kinsmen by John Fletcher and William Shakespeare first appeared in Quarto in 1634, from the printer of the Second Folio.

[6] A link to an electronic text is provided on the edition’s website, www.therscshakespeare.com. We accept that Theobald’s Double Falsehood (1728) is indirectly derived from Shakespeare and Fletcher’s lost Cardenio, but the relationship is too distant to merit inclusion. We would also welcome further investigation of Shakespeare’s possible hand in the anonymous Arden of Faversham and the possibility that he intervened somewhere in the theatrical life of other Chamberlain’s/King’s Men plays such as Satiromastix (1601), Thomas Lord Cromwell (1602), The London Prodigal (1605), The Merry Devil of Edmonton (1608), A Yorkshire Tragedy (1608), and Mucedorus with “new additions” (1610).

USER’S GUIDE

Titles follow the First Folio, where there are sometimes minor variations of nomenclature between contents list, title at head of play and running header—our default preference is the title at the head of the play (thus, for example, Love’s Labour’s Lost and The Tragedy of Cymbeline as opposed to the contents list’s Love’s Labour Lost and Cymbeline King of Britain). Some of the plays were originally staged with different titles (e.g., The Second Part of Henry the Sixth began its life as The First Part of the Contention betwixt the two famous Houses of York and Lancaster, and Henry the Eighth seems to have been called All is True).

Lists of Parts are supplied in the First Folio for only six plays, so these are predominantly editorial, arranged by groups of character (thus for A Midsummer Night’s Dream, the court, the genteel lovers, the artisans, the fairies). Capitals indicate that part of the name which is used for speech headings in the script (thus “PROSPERO, the right Duke of Milan” and “Sir John FALSTAFF“).

Locations are provided by the Folio for only two plays (The Tempest is set on “an uninhabited island” and Measure for Measure in Vienna). Eighteenth-century editors, working in an age of elaborately realistic stage sets, were the first to provide detailed locations. Given that Shakespeare wrote for a bare stage and often an imprecise sense of place, we have relegated locations to the explanatory notes at the foot of the page, where they are given at the beginning of each scene where the imaginary location is different from the one before. We have emphasized broad geographical settings rather than specifics of the kind that suggest anachronistically realistic staging. Thus Sicilia and Bohemia or court and country in The Winter’s Tale, Venice and Cyprus in Othello, not usually such locations as “another room in the palace.” Indications of movement from outdoors to indoors are given where appropriate.

Act and Scene Divisions were provided in the Folio (they were absent from the Quartos published in Shakespeare’s lifetime). Sometimes, however, they were erroneous or omitted; corrections and additions supplied by editorial tradition are indicated by square brackets. Five-act division is based on a classical model, and act breaks provided the opportunity to replace the candles in the indoor Blackfriars playhouse, which the King’s Men used after 1608, but Shakespeare did not necessarily think in terms of a five-part structure of dramatic composition. The Folio convention is that a scene ends when the stage is empty. Nowadays, partly under the influence of film, we tend to consider a scene to be a dramatic unit that ends with either a change of imaginary location or a significant passage of time within the narrative. Shakespeare’s fluidity of composition accords well with this convention, so in addition to act and scene numbers we provide a running scene count in the right margin at the beginning of each new scene, in the typeface used for editorial directions. Where there is a scene break caused by a momentary bare stage, but the location does not change and extra time does not pass, we use the convention running scene continues. There is inevitably a degree of editorial judgment in making such calls, but the system is very valuable in suggesting the pace of the plays (it reveals, for instance, the great compression of Othello).

Speaker’s Names are often inconsistent in Folio. We have regularized speech headings, but retained an element of deliberate inconsistency in entry directions, in order to give the flavor of Folio.

Verse is indicated by lines that do not run to the right margin and by capitalization of the first letter of each line. The Folio printers sometimes set verse as prose, and vice versa (either out of misunderstanding or for reasons of space). We have silently corrected in such cases, although in some instances there is ambiguity, in which case we have leaned toward the preservation of Folio layout. Folio sometimes uses contraction (“turnd” rather than “turned”) to indicate whether or not the final “-ed” of a past participle is sounded, an area where there is variation for the sake of the five-beat iambic pentameter rhythm. We use the convention of a grave accent to indicate sounding (thus “turnèd” would be two syllables), but would urge actors not to overstress. In cases where one speaker ends with a verse half-line and the next begins with the other half of the pentameter, editors since the late eighteenth century have indented the second line. We have abandoned this convention, since the Folio does not use it, and nor did actors’ cues in the Shakespearean theater. An exception is made when the second speaker actively interrupts or completes the first speaker’s sentence.

Spelling is modernized, but older forms are occasionally maintained where necessary for rhythm or aural effect. For instance, “y’are” is generally modernized to “you’re,” but the old form is retained in Regan’s “I know you are of her bosom…Y’are. I know’t.”

Punctuation in Shakespeare’s time was as much rhetorical as grammatical. “Colon” was originally a term for a unit of thought in an argument. The semicolon was a new unit of punctuation (some of the Quartos lack them altogether). We have modernized punctuation throughout, but have given more weight to Folio punctuation than many editors, since, though not Shakespearean, it reflects the usage of his period. In particular, we have used the colon far more than many editors: it is exceptionally useful as a way of indicating the way in which many Shakespearean speeches unfold clause by clause in a developing argument that gives the illusion of enacting the process of thinking in the moment. We have also kept in mind the origin of punctuation in classical times as a means of assisting the actor and orator: the comma suggests the briefest of pauses for breath, the colon a middling one, and a full stop, or period, a longer pause. Semicolons, by contrast, belong to an era of punctuation that was only just coming in during Shakespeare’s time and that is coming to an end now: we have accordingly only used them where they occur in our copy texts (and not always then). Dashes are sometimes used for parenthetical interjections where the Folio has brackets. They are also used for interruptions and changes in train of thought. Where a change of addressee occurs within a speech, we have used a dash preceded by a full stop (or occasionally another form of punctuation). Often the identity of the respective addressees is obvious from the context. When it is not, this has been indicated in a marginal stage direction.

Entrances and Exits are fairly thorough in Folio, which has accordingly been followed as faithfully as possible. Where characters are omitted or corrections are necessary, this is indicated by square brackets (e.g., “[and Attendants]”). Exit is sometimes silently normalized to Exeunt and Manet anglicized to “remains.” We trust Folio positioning of entrances and exits to a greater degree than most editors: thus, for instance, we follow Folio in having the other characters enter in the middle of Petruchio’s speech to Kate at Taming of the Shrew, 2.1.268–81, making the latter part of the speech into a kind of game for the benefit of the onstage audience (an interpretation that strongly shaped Greg Doran’s RSC production).

Other Stage Directions such as stage business, asides, and indications of addressee are rare in Folio. Modern editions usually mingle editorial directions with original Folio and Quarto ones, sometimes marking interventions by means of square brackets. We have sought to distinguish what could be described as directorial interventions of this kind from Folio-style directions (either original or supplied) by placing the former in the right margin in a different typeface. There is a degree of subjectivity about which directions are of which kind, but the procedure is intended as a reminder to the reader and the actor that Shakespearean stage directions are often dependent upon editorial inference alone and are not set in stone. We also depart from editorial tradition in sometimes admitting uncertainty and thus printing permissive stage directions, such as an Aside? (often a line may be equally effective as an aside or a direct address—it is for each production or reading to make its own decision) or a may exit or a piece of business placed between arrows to indicate that it may occur at various different moments within a scene.

Line Numbers in the left margin are editorial, for reference and to key the explanatory and textual notes.

Explanatory Notes at the foot of each page explain allusions and gloss obsolete and difficult words, confusing phraseology, occasional major textual cruces, and so on. Particular attention is given to nonstandard usage, bawdy innuendo, and technical terms (e.g., legal and military language). Where more than one sense is given, commas indicate shades of related meaning, slashes alternative or double meanings.

Textual Notes at the end of each play indicate major departures from the Folio. They take the following form: the reading of our text is given in bold and its source given after an equals sign, with “Q” indicating that it derives from the principal Quarto and “Ed” that it derives from the editorial tradition. The rejected Folio (“F”) reading is then given. A selection of Quarto variants and plausible unadopted editorial readings are also included. Thus, for example, at Hamlet, 3.4.180, “bloat = Ed. F = blunt. Q = blowt,” indicates that we have adopted the editorial reading “bloat” where Folio has “blunt” and Quarto has “blowt.”

“Key Facts” boxes at the beginning of each work give information on plot, sources, proportion of verse and prose, textual issues, authorial attribution when doubtful or collaborative, date of composition, and first performance. They also include lists of substantial parts (characters who speak more than about forty lines) in descending order of size. Since the definition of a line spoken is variable (because of prose and half-lines), figures are given in terms of a percentage of the whole, the number of speeches delivered and the number of scenes the character is onstage. These lists make it possible to distinguish between works that are more ensemble-based (e.g., A Midsummer Night’s Dream and 2 Henry IV) and those that are dominated by a small number of characters (e.g., Othello and 1 Henry IV). Though there is a degree of imprecision about these lists as a result of editorial interventions, they offer much valuable information—for instance that Sir Toby Belch has the largest part in Twelfth Night and that only six lead characters so dominate their world that their part is over three times the length of anyone else’s in the play (Hamlet, Richard III, Timon, Macbeth, Prospero, Henry V).

PRELIMINARY PAGES OF THE FIRST FOLIO

To the Reader[1]

This figure that thou here see’st put,

It was for gentle Shakespeare cut;

Wherein the graver had a strife

With Nature to outdo the life:

O, could he but have drawn his wit

As well in brass as he hath hit

His face, the print would then surpass

All that was ever writ in brass.

But since he cannot, reader, look

Not on his picture, but his book.

Ben Jonson

TO THE MOST NOBLE AND INCOMPARABLE PAIR OF BRETHREN, WILLIAM Earl of Pembroke etc., Lord Chamberlain to the King’s most excellent majesty, AND PHILIP Earl of Montgomery etc., gentleman of his majesty’s bedchamber, both Knights of the most noble Order of the Garter and our singular good LORDS

Right Honourable,

Whilst we study to be thankful in our particular for the many favours we have received from your lordships, we are fallen upon the ill fortune to mingle two the most diverse things that can be: fear and rashness, rashness in the enterprise and fear of the success. For when we value the places your highnesses sustain, we cannot but know their dignity greater than to descend to the reading of these trifles, and, while we name them trifles, we have deprived ourselves of the defence of our dedication. But since your lordships have been pleased to think these trifles something heretofore, and have prosecuted[13] both them and their author, living, with so much favour, we hope that, they outliving him and he Ben Jonson not having the fate, common with some, to be executor to his own writings, you will use the like indulgence toward them you have done unto their parent. There is a great difference whether any book choose his patrons or find them: this hath done both. For so much were your lordships’ likings of the several parts when they were acted as, before they were published, the volume asked to be yours. We have but collected them and done an office to the dead to procure his orphans guardians, without ambition either of self-profit or fame, only to keep the memory of so worthy a friend and fellow alive as was our SHAKESPEARE, by humble offer of his plays to your most noble patronage. Wherein, as we have justly observed no man to come near your lordships but with a kind of religious address, it hath been the height of our care, who are the presenters, to make the present worthy of your highnesses by the perfection. But there we must also crave our abilities to be considered, my lords. We cannot go beyond our own powers. Country hands reach forth milk, cream, fruits, or what they have: and many nations, we have heard, that had not gums and incense, obtained their requests with a leavened cake. It was no fault to approach their gods by what means they could, and the most, though meanest, of things are made more precious when they are dedicated to temples. In that name therefore, we most humbly consecrate to your highnesses these remains of your servant Shakespeare, that what delight is in them may be ever your lordships’, the reputation his, and the faults ours, if any be committed by a pair so careful to show their gratitude both to the living and the dead as is

Your lordships’ most bounden,[47]

JOHN HEMINGE, HENRY CONDELL.[48]

To the great variety of readers

From the most able to him that can but[50] spell: there you are numbered. We had rather you were weighed, especially when the fate of all books depends upon your capacities, and not of your heads alone, but of your purses. Well, it is now public, and you will stand for your privileges, we know: to read and censure. Do so, but buy it first. That doth best commend a book, the stationer says. Then, how odd soever your brains be, or your wisdoms, make your licence the same, and spare not. Judge your six-penn’orth,[59] your shilling’s worth, your five shillings’ worth at a time, or higher, so you rise to the just rates, and welcome. But whatever you do, buy. Censure will not drive a trade or make the jack[62] go. And though you be a magistrate of wit, and sit on the stage at Blackfriars[64] or the Cockpit to arraign plays daily, know, these plays have had their trial already, and stood out all appeals, and do now come forth quitted[67] rather by a decree of court than any purchased letters of commendation.

It had been a thing, we confess, worthy to have been wished that the author himself had lived to have set forth and overseen his own writings. But since it hath been ordained otherwise, and he by death departed from that right, we pray you do not envy his friends the office of their care and pain to have collected and published them, and so to have published them as where, before, you were abused with divers[76] stolen and surreptitious copies, maimed and deformed by the frauds and stealths of injurious impostors that exposed them, even those are now offered to your view cured and perfect of their limbs, and all the rest absolute in their numbers, as he conceived them. Who, as he was a happy imitator of nature, was a most gentle expresser of it. His mind and hand went together, and what he thought he uttered with that easiness that we have scarce received from him a blot in his papers. But it is not our province, who only gather his works and give them you, to praise him. It is yours, that read him. And there we hope, to your diverse capacities, you will find enough both to draw and hold you, for his wit can no more lie hid than it could be lost. Read him, therefore, and again, and again, and if then you do not like him, surely you are in some manifest danger not to understand him. And so we leave you to other of his friends whom if you need can be your guides: if you need them not, you can lead yourselves and others. And such readers we wish him.

John Heminge, Henry Condell.

To the memory of my beloved, the AUTHOR Master William Shakespeare and what he hath left us

100

To draw no envy, Shakespeare, on thy name

Am I thus ample[101] to thy book and fame:

While I confess thy writings to be such

As neither man nor muse[103] can praise too much:

’Tis true, and all men’s suffrage.[104] But these ways

105

Were not the paths I meant unto thy praise,

For silliest[106] ignorance on these may light,

Which, when it sounds at best, but echoes right;

Or blind affection, which doth ne’er advance

The truth, but gropes, and urgeth all by chance;

110

Or crafty malice might pretend this praise,

And think to ruin where it seemed to raise.

These are as some infamous bawd[112] or whore

Should praise a matron: what could hurt her more?

But thou art proof against them, and indeed

115

Above th’ill fortune of them, or the need.

I therefore will begin. Soul of the age!

The applause, delight, the wonder of our stage!

My[118] Shakespeare, rise. I will not lodge thee by

Chaucer[119] or Spenser, or bid Beaumont lie

120

A little further to make thee a room.

Thou art a monument without a tomb,

And art alive still while thy book doth live

And we have wits to read and praise to give.

That I not mix thee so, my brain excuses:

125

I mean with great but disproportioned muses.[125]

For if I thought my judgement were of years

I should commit[127] thee surely with thy peers,

And tell how far thou didst our Lyly[128] outshine,

Or sporting Kyd,[129] or Marlowe’s mighty line.

130

And though thou hadst small[130] Latin and less Greek,

From thence to honour thee I would not seek

For names, but call forth thund’ring Aeschylus,[132]

Euripides, and Sophocles to us,

Pacuvius,[134] Accius, him of Cordova dead,

135

To life again, to hear thy buskin[135] tread

And shake a stage: or, when thy socks[136] were on,

Leave thee alone for the comparison

Of all that insolent Greece or haughty Rome

Sent forth, or since did from their ashes come.

140

Triumph, my Britain, thou hast one to show

To whom all scenes[141] of Europe homage owe.

He was not of an age, but for all time!

And all the muses still were in their prime

When like Apollo[144] he came forth to warm

145

Our ears, or like a Mercury[145] to charm!

Nature herself was proud of his designs,

And joyed to wear the dressing of his lines,

Which were so richly spun, and woven so fit,

As since she will vouchsafe[149] no other wit.

150

The merry Greek,[150] tart Aristophanes,

Neat Terence, witty Plautus,[151] now not please,

But antiquated and deserted lie

As[153] they were not of nature’s family.

Yet must I not give nature all: thy art,

155

My gentle Shakespeare, must enjoy a part.

For though the poet’s matter nature be,

His art doth give the fashion, and that he

Who casts to write a living line must sweat,

Such as thine are, and strike the second heat

160

Upon the muses’ anvil, turn the same,

And himself with it that he thinks to frame;

Or for the laurel[162] he may gain a scorn,

For a good poet’s made as well as born.

And such wert thou. Look how the father’s face

165

Lives in his issue, even so the race

Of Shakespeare’s mind and manners brightly shines

In his well-turned and true-filed lines,

In each of which he seems to shake a lance,[168]

As brandished at the eyes of ignorance.

170

Sweet swan of Avon![170] What a sight it were

To see thee in our waters yet appear,

And make those flights upon the banks of Thames

That so did take Eliza[173] and our James!

But stay, I see thee in the hemisphere

175

Advanced, and made a constellation there!

Shine forth, thou star of poets, and with rage

Or influence chide or cheer the drooping stage,

Which, since thy flight from hence, hath mourned like night

And despairs day, but for thy volume’s light.

180

BEN JONSON

Upon the lines and life of the famous scenic poet, Master William Shakespeare

Those hands which you so clapped go now and wring,

You Britons brave, for done are Shakespeare’s days.

185

His days are done that made the dainty plays

Which made the globe[186] of heav’n and earth to ring.

Dried is that vein, dried is the Thespian[187] spring,

Turned all to tears, and Phoebus[188] clouds his rays.

That corpse, that coffin now bestick[189] those bays

190

Which crowned him poet first, then poets’ king.

If tragedies might any prologue have,

All those he made would scarce make one to this,

Where fame, now that he gone is to the grave

Death’s public tiring-house[194] the nuntius is.

195

For though his line of life went soon about,

The life yet of his lines shall never out.

HUGH HOLLAND[197]

To the memory of the deceased author Master W. Shakespeare

Shakespeare, at length thy pious fellows give

200

The world thy works, thy works by which outlive

Thy tomb thy name must; when that stone is rent,

And time dissolves thy Stratford monument,

Here we alive shall view thee still. This book,

When brass and marble fade, shall make thee look

205

Fresh to all ages. When posterity

Shall loathe what’s new, think all is prodigy[206]

That is not Shakespeare’s; ev’ry line, each verse

Here shall revive, redeem thee from thy hearse.

Nor[209] fire nor cank’ring age, as Naso said

210

Of his, thy wit-fraught[210] book shall once invade.

Nor shall I e’er believe or think thee dead,

Though missed, until our bankrupt stage be sped,[212]

Impossible, with some new strain t’outdo

Passions of Juliet and her Romeo,

215

Or till I hear a scene more nobly take

Than when thy half-sword parleying[216] Romans spake.

Till these, till any of thy volume’s rest

Shall with more fire, more feeling be expressed,

Be sure, our Shakespeare, thou canst never die,

220

But crowned with laurel, live eternally.

LEONARD DIGGES[221]

To the memory of Master W. Shakespeare

We wondered, Shakespeare, that thou went’st so soon

From the world’s stage to the grave’s tiring-room.[224]

225

We thought thee dead, but this thy printed worth

Tells thy spectators that thou went’st but forth

To enter with applause. An actor’s art

Can die, and live to act a second part.

That’s but an exit of mortality;

230

This, a re-entrance to a plaudite.[230]

JAMES MABBE[231]

The Works of William Shakespeare, containing all his Comedies, Histories and Tragedies: truly set forth, according to their first ORIGINAL.

The names of the principal actors in all these plays:

William Shakespeare

Samuel Gilburne

Richard Burbage

Robert Armin

John Hemmings

William Ostler

Augustine Phillips

Nathan Field

William Kempe

John Underwood

Thomas Pope

Nicholas Tooley

George Bryan

William Ecclestone

Henry Condell

Joseph Taylor

William Sly

Robert Benfield

Richard Cowley

Robert Gough

John Lowin

Richard Robinson

Samuel Cross

John Shank

Alexander Cook

John Rice

Catalogue of plays in the First Folio (Troilus and Cressida is missing: copy was only obtained at the last minute, after the preliminary pages were printed).

A page from the First Folio.

PRELIMINARY PAGES OF THE FIRST FOLIO

To the Reader poem printed opposite the title page    graver engraver, who was Martin Droeshout (1601–1650?), a Flemish immigrant from a family of painters    Ben Jonson dramatist and friend of Shakespeare; original poem is signed “B. I.” (“I” and “J” were interchangeable in seventeenth-century typography)    Dedication WILLIAM…Pembroke William Herbert (1580–1630), a notable patron of books and the arts, who as Lord Chamberlain took special responsibility for the acting company to which Shakespeare had belonged, the King’s Men; it has been suggested that he might have been the dedicatee of Shakespeare’s sonnets    King’s…majesty James I of England (he was also King James VI of Scotland)    PHILIP…Montgomery Philip Herbert (1584–1650), William’s brother, a favorite at the court of King James I    gentleman…bedchamber an official court post    Order…Garter the highest order of English knighthood

13    prosecuted treated

47    bounden obliged

48    JOHN HEMINGE, HENRY CONDELL Shakespeare’s fellow actors in the King’s Men; Heminge (1566–1630, so spelled here, but “Hemings,” “Hemmings,” or “Heminges” elsewhere) appears to have acted as the company’s business manager. Both he and Condell (1576–1627) were among the original sharers in the Lord Chamberlain’s Men

50    but only just

59    six-penn’orth six old pence was the price of a small Quarto volume; the First Folio cost 16–20 shillings (20 shillings was one old pound), depending on the binding

62    jack mechanism

64    Blackfriars…Cockpit both indoor theaters; Shakespeare’s company used the Blackfriars from 1608 onward during the winter months; wealthy gallants could pay two shillings to sit on a stool at the side of the stage    arraign interrogate/find fault with

67    quitted absolved, acquitted (i.e., popular acclaim on the stage has already judged the plays’ success)

76    divers…conceived them perhaps an allusion to an unauthorized attempt to publish a collected Shakespeare in 1619, which seems to have inspired the King’s Men to begin preparing their own edition

101    ample liberal, unsparing

103    muse poet, i.e., one inspired by a Muse (a classical goddess presiding over the arts)

104    suffrage common consent

106    silliest simplest, most artless    light land or chance upon

112    bawd pander, go-between

118    My…room an allusion to William Basse or John Donne’s elegy “On Mr. Wm. Shakespeare,” which circulated widely in manuscript before it was first published in 1633: “Renowned Spenser, lie a thought more nigh / To learned Chaucer, and rare Beaumont lie / A little nearer Spenser, to make room / For Shakespeare in your threefold-fourfold tomb.”

119    Chaucer Geoffrey Chaucer (1340?–1400), regarded as the father of English poetry    Spenser Edmund Spenser (1552?–1599), author of the epic romance The Faerie Queene, regarded as the greatest Elizabethan poet    Beaumont Francis Beaumont (1584–1616), playwright known for his collaborations with John Fletcher

125    disproportioned muses i.e., lesser poets

127    commit connect/consign

128    Lyly John Lyly (1554–1606), regarded as the best pre-Shakespearean writer of comedy

129    Kyd Thomas Kyd (1558–1594), renowned for his influential play The Spanish Tragedy    Marlowe’s mighty line Christopher Marlowe (1564–1593), renowned for the brilliance and lofty rhetorical flourish of his pentameter lines in plays such as Tamburlaine the Great, The Jew of Malta, and Doctor Faustus

130    small…Greek Shakespeare’s grammar school education would have given him a good grounding in Latin, but little if any Greek; Jonson, by contrast, paraded his formidable learning (despite not having been to university)

132    Aeschylus…Sophocles the three great writers of ancient Greek tragedy

134    Pacuvius…dead Roman tragedians    him of Cordova i.e., Seneca

135    buskin high, thick-soled boot worn by the actors in ancient Athenian tragedy

136    socks the soccus or low shoe worn by comedians

141    scenes stages, theaters

144    Apollo Greek and Roman sun god, patron of music and poetry

145    Mercury messenger of the gods

149    vouchsafe grant

150    merry Greek rascal, jester; applied here to the Greek writer of old comedy,    Aristophanes (c.444–c.380 BC), considered tart since his satire was sharp and personal

151    Terence, witty Plautus (second century BC) stylish exponents of sophisticated and influential Roman new comedy

153    As as if

162    laurel its foliage signifies victory or distinction in poetry

168    shake a lance puns on Shakespeare’s name

170    swan of Avon the River Avon flows through Shakespeare’s birthplace, Stratford-upon-Avon; swans were sacred to Apollo and there are many on the Avon

173    Eliza…James Queen Elizabeth I and her successor King James I

186    globe plays on the name of the Globe Theatre

187    Thespian of Thespis, the traditional father of Greek tragedy (sixth century BC)

188    Phoebus Apollo as god of poetry, music, and the sun

189    bestick adorn, bedeck    bays laurel leaves, a sign of distinction in poetry

194    tiring-house room or place where actors dressed for the stage    nuntius theatrical messenger (Latin)

197    HUGH HOLLAND poet, fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge

206    prodigy abnormal, monstrous

209    Nor neither    Naso the Roman poet Ovid (Publius Ovidius Naso, 43 BC–AD 18)

210    wit-fraught stored or supplied with wit, intelligence

212    sped provided, furnished

216    half-sword parleying debating at close quarters

221    LEONARD DIGGES poet, member of University College, Oxford; his stepfather, Thomas Russell, was an overseer of Shakespeare’s will

224    tiring-room dressing room (stage metaphor)

230    plaudite round of applause

231    JAMES MABBE (“I. M.” in First Folio), fellow of Magdalen College, Oxford    Burbage (1568–1619) leading tragedian and close friend of Shakespeare; an original sharer in the Lord Chamberlain’s Men    Phillips (d.1605), original sharer and business manager, also jig writer    Kempe (d.1603) leading comedian and dancer of the 1590s; left Shakespeare’s company in 1599; spelled “Kempt” in Folio    Pope (d.1603), sharer, with company by 1597    Bryan (d.1612), sharer, with company by 1596–97    Sly (1573–1608), sharer, with company by 1597    Cowley (1568–1619), sharer, with company by 1598    Lowin (1576–1653), sharer, joined company in 1603, later took over some of Burbage’s leading roles and Hemings’ managerial responsibility    Cross (1568?–?)    Cook (1583–1614), apprenticed to Hemings by 1597, later a sharer, played major female roles    Gilburne (fl. 1605) apprenticed to Phillips by 1597, played major female roles    Armin (1568–1615) took over from Kempe; a more cerebral, less physical comedian, he sang and also wrote plays    Ostler (d.1614), originally with a boy-company, joined King’s Men by 1610, married Hemings’ daughter    Field (1587–c.1620), originally a boy actor; also wrote plays; only joined the King’s Men after Shakespeare’s death    Underwood (c.1588?–1624) originally with a boy-company, joined King’s Men by 1608, became sharer    Tooley (1583–1623) Burbage’s apprentice, played major female roles in 1590s, remained with King’s Men until his death    Ecclestone (1591–1623), with company by 1610, possibly having been an apprentice in 1590s    Taylor (1586–1652), sharer, took over some of Burbage’s leading roles and Hemings’ managerial responsibility    Benfield (1583–1649) only joined King’s Men in 1615    Gough (d.1624) apprentice to Phillips or Pope, later a sharer, played female roles in 1590s    Robinson (c.1595?–1648) Burbage’s apprentice, then adult with King’s Men (married his master’s widow)    Shank (d.1636) joined King’s Men after 1616    Rice (fl.1607–30) with King’s Men by 1607

FOREWORD

Michael Boyd

Artistic Director,

Royal Shakespeare Company

The endurance of Shakespeare depends not only on the felt experience of good, vivid theater, but also on dynamic scholarship that reveals his living text. So we have pursued a long-held ambition: the creation of the first RSC Complete Works edition. Editing Shakespeare, like staging his plays, is a constantly evolving process. We’re delighted to be working with Random House and Macmillan on this new edition with a team led by Jonathan Bate—one of the foremost Shakespeare scholars of his generation and a valued presence in the RSC rehearsal room. By way of a foreword I’d like simply to make a few recommendations on how to read this book:

First, remember that you are reading scripts, blueprints for performance to a live audience and parts for actors to learn and embody. There’s an extent to which you shouldn’t “read” this book at all, but rather speak the parts out loud. You need to imagine the use of space, time, pitch, and rhythm, as well as the (sometimes) unspoken voice of the audience, that are all essential to the realization of what the scripts imply. They were not written as literature and should not be “read” as such.

If you are relatively new to Shakespeare’s work, don’t be put off by any sense that his work might be difficult to appreciate. A surprisingly small part of that difficulty is due to the distance between Shakespeare’s English and today’s. The detailed glossary notes and your own best guesses can deal with that. Most of Shakespeare’s “difficulty” is the product of intelligence at play or the linguistic compression of passionate thought, be it erotic love or political rage. Sometimes difficulty is an important part of the narrative, with characters being deliberately misleading or obscure. They might be talking to each other or to the audience in code, but the clues are always there, and the puzzles are enjoyable and significant.

Trust the Folio-based text being as close as we can get to the favored draft of Shakespeare’s original acting company. And trust the author. The best way to celebrate Shakespeare’s extraordinary status as the world’s favorite artist four hundred years after his death is to trust him to take you to places you had previously not imagined or understood. Many of these texts would probably have been heavily cut for public performance, but to cut or ignore those scenes or speeches that don’t immediately make sense, without the author at your side, is perilous.

It’s particularly tempting with a Complete Works edition to look for Shakespeare’s “essential” voice, to seek for consistency of tone and concept. It’s also probably a big mistake. Indeed, one of the most essential secrets of Shakespeare’s survival and brilliance as an artist is his utterly successful sublimation of himself into the constantly conflicting voices of his characters. Thus he avoided the stringent political censorship better than any of his contemporary rivals and thus he avoided stifling his living dramas with the authorial voice of an essayist. Don’t try to decide what the plays are about. Let them be rowdy, lyrical, dirty, and inconsistent in your head. Read Jack Cade’s manifesto in 2 Henry VI and Gonzalo’s manifesto in The Tempest in another part of the book and enjoy the ride on Shakespeare’s dangerous contradictions.

Lastly and most importantly—be inspired and not intimidated by the achievement of this great human artist.

THE TEMPEST

The Tempest was almost certainly Shakespeare’s last solo-authored play. We do not know whether he anticipated that this would be the case. It was also the first play to be printed in the First Folio. Again, we do not know whether it was given pride of place because the editors of the Folio regarded it as a showpiece—the summation of the master’s art—or for the more mundane reason that they had a clean copy in the clear hand of the scribe Ralph Crane, which would have given the compositors a relatively easy start as they set to work on the mammoth task of typesetting nearly a million words of Shakespeare. Whether it found its position by chance or design, The Tempest’s place at the end of Shakespeare’s career and the beginning of his collected works has profoundly shaped responses to the play ever since the early nineteenth century. It has come to be regarded as the touchstone of Shakespearean interpretation.

The narrative is concentrated on questions of mastery and rule. During the tempest in the opening scene, the normal social order is out of joint: the boatswain commands the courtiers in the knowledge that the roaring waves care nothing for “the name of king.” Then the back story, unfolded at length in Act 1 scene 2, tells of conspirators who do not respect the title of duke: we learn of Prospero’s loss of power in Milan and the compensatory command he has gained over Ariel and Caliban on the island. The Ferdinand and Miranda love knot is directed toward the future government of Milan and Naples. There is further politic plotting: Sebastian and Antonio’s plan to murder King Alonso and good Gonzalo, the madcap scheme of the base born characters to overthrow Prospero and make drunken butler Stephano king of the island. The theatrical coups performed by Prospero, assisted by Ariel and the other spirits of the island—the freezing of the conspirators, the harpy and the vanishing banquet, the masque of goddesses and agricultural workers, the revelation of the lovers playing at chess—all serve the purpose of requiting the sins of the past, restoring order in the present, and preparing for a harmonious future. Once the work is done, Ariel is released (with a pang) and Prospero is ready to prepare his own spirit for death. Even Caliban will “seek for grace.”

But Shakespeare never keeps it simple. Prospero’s main aim in conjuring up the storm and bringing the court to the island is to force his usurping brother Antonio into repentance. Yet when the climactic confrontation comes, Antonio does not say a word in reply to Prospero’s combination of forgiveness and demand. He wholly fails to follow the good example set by Alonso a few lines before. As for Antonio’s sidekick Sebastian, he has the temerity to ascribe Prospero’s magical foresight to demonic influence. For all the powers at Prospero’s command, there is no way of predicting or controlling human nature. A conscience cannot be created where there is none.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge described Prospero as “the very Shakespeare, as it were, of the tempest.” In other words, the leading character’s conjuring up of the storm in the opening scene corresponds to the dramatist’s conjuring up of the whole world of the play. The art of Prospero harnesses the power of nature in order to bring the other Italian characters to join him in his exile; by the same account, the art of Shakespeare transforms the platform of the stage into a ship at sea and then “an uninhabited island.” “Art” is the play’s key word. Caliban is Prospero’s “other” because he represents the state of nature. In the Darwinian nineteenth century, he was recast as the “missing link” between humankind and our animal ancestors.

Prospero’s backstory tells of a progression from the “liberal arts” that offered a training for governors to the more dangerous “art” of magic. Magical thinking was universal in the age of Shakespeare. Everyone was brought up to believe that there was another realm beyond that of nature, a realm of the spirit and of spirits. “Natural” and “demonic” magic were the two branches of the study and manipulation of preternatural phenomena. Magic meant the knowledge of hidden things and the art of working wonders. For some, it was the highest form of natural philosophy: the word came from magia, the ancient Persian term for wisdom. The “occult philosophy,” as it was known, postulated a hierarchy of powers, with influence descending from disembodied (“intellectual”) angelic spirits to the stellar and planetary world of the heavens to earthly things and their physical changes. The magician ascends to knowledge of higher powers and draws them down artificially to produce wonderful effects. Cornelius Agrippa, author of the influential De occulta philosophia, argued that “ceremonial magic” was needed in order to reach the angelic intelligences above the stars. This was the highest and most dangerous level of activity, since it was all too easy—as Christopher Marlowe’s Dr. Faustus found—to conjure up a devil instead of an angel. The more common form of “natural magic” involved “marrying” heaven to earth, working with the occult correspondences between the stars and the elements of the material world. The enduring conception of astrological influences is a vestige of this mode of thought. For a Renaissance mage such as Girolamo Cardano, who practiced in Milan, medicine, natural philosophy, mathematics, astrology, and dream interpretation were all intimately connected.

But natural magic could never escape its demonic shadow. For every learned mage such as Agrippa or Cardano, there were a thousand village “wise women” practicing folk medicine and fortune-telling. All too often, the latter found themselves demonized as witches, blamed for crop failure, livestock disease, and the other ills of life in the premodern era. Prospero is keen to contrast his own white magic with the black arts of Sycorax, Caliban’s mother, but the play establishes strong parallels between them. He was exiled from Milan to the island because his devotion to his secret studies gave Antonio the opportunity to usurp the dukedom, whilst Sycorax was exiled from Algiers to the island because she was accused of witchcraft; he arrived with his young daughter, whilst she arrived pregnant with the child she had supposedly conceived by sleeping with the devil. Each of them can command the tides and manipulate the spirit world that is embodied by Ariel. When Prospero comes to renounce his magic, he describes his powers in words borrowed from the incantation of another witch, Medea in Ovid’s great storehouse of ancient mythological tales, the Metamorphoses. Prospero at some level registers his own kinship with Sycorax when he says of Caliban “this thing of darkness I / Acknowledge mine.” The splitting of subject and verb across the line ending here, ensuring a moment’s hesitation in the acknowledgment, is an extreme instance of the suppleness with which late Shakespeare handles his iambic pentameter verse.

Shakespeare loved to set up oppositions, then shade his black and white into gray areas of moral complexity. In Milan, Prospero’s inward-looking study of the liberal arts had led to the loss of power and the establishment of tyranny. On the island he seeks to make amends by applying what he has learned, by using active magic to bring repentance, restore his dukedom, and set up a dynastic marriage. Yet at the beginning of the fifth act he sees that to be truly human is a matter not of exercising wisdom for the purposes of rule, but of practicing a more strictly Christian version of virtue. For sixteenth-century humanists, education in princely virtue meant the cultivation for political ends of wisdom, magnanimity, temperance, and integrity. For Prospero what finally matters is kindness. And this is something that the master learns from his pupil: it is Ariel who teaches Prospero about “feeling,” not vice versa.

Ariel represents fire and air, concord and music, loyal service. Caliban is of the earth, associated with discord, drunkenness, and rebellion. Ariel’s medium of expression is delicate verse, whilst Caliban’s is for the most part a robust, often ribald, prose like that of the jester Trinculo and drunken butler Stephano. But, astonishingly, it is Caliban who speaks the play’s most beautiful verse when he hears the music of Ariel. Even in prose, Caliban has a wonderful attunement to the natural environment: he knows every corner, every species of the island. Prospero calls him “A devil, a born devil, on whose nature / Nurture can never stick,” yet in the very next speech Caliban enters with the line “Pray you tread softly, that the blind mole may not hear a footfall,” words of such strong imagination that Prospero’s claim is instantly belied.

Caliban’s purported sexual assault on Miranda shows that Prospero failed in his attempt to tame the animal instincts of the “man-monster” and educate him into humanity. But who bears responsibility for the failure? Could it be that the problem arises from what Prospero has imprinted on Caliban’s memory, not from the latter’s nature? Caliban initially welcomed Prospero to the island and offered to share its fruits, every bit in the manner of the “noble savages” in Michel de Montaigne’s essay “Of the Cannibals,” which was another source from which Shakespeare quoted in the play (Gonzalo’s Utopian “golden age” vision of how he would govern the isle is borrowed from the English translation of Montaigne). Caliban only acts basely after Prospero has printed that baseness on him; what makes Caliban “filth” may be the lessons in which Prospero has taught him that he is “filth.”

Caliban understands the power of the book: as fashioners of modern coups d’état begin by seizing the television station, so he stresses that the rebellion against Prospero must begin by taking possession of his books. But Stephano has another book. “Here is that which will give language to you,” he says to Caliban, replicating Prospero’s gaining of control through language—but in a different mode. Textual inculcation is replaced by intoxication: the book that is kissed is the bottle. The dialogic spirit that is fostered by Shakespeare’s technique of scenic counterpoint thus calls into question Prospero’s use of books. If Stephano and Trinculo achieve through their alcohol what Prospero achieves through his teaching (in each case Caliban is persuaded to serve and to share the fruits of the isle), is not that teaching exposed as potentially nothing more than a means of social control? Prospero often seems more interested in the power structure that is established by his schoolmastering than in the substance of what he teaches. It is hard to see how making Ferdinand carry logs is intended to inculcate virtue; its purpose is to elicit submission.

Arrival on an island uninhabited by Europeans, talk of “plantation,” an encounter with a “savage” in which alcohol is exchanged for survival skills, a process of language learning in which it is made clear who is master and who is slave, fear that the slave will impregnate the master’s daughter, the desire to make the savage seek for Christian “grace” (though also a proposal that he should be shipped to England and exhibited for profit), references to the dangerous weather of the Bermudas and to a “brave new world”: in all these respects, The Tempest conjures up the spirit of European colonialism. Shakespeare had contacts with members of the Virginia Company, which had been established by royal charter in 1606 and was instrumental in the foundation of the Jamestown colony in America the following year. Some time in the autumn of 1610, a letter reached England describing how a fleet sent to reinforce the colony had been broken up by a storm in the Caribbean; the ship carrying the new governor had been driven to Bermuda, where the crew and passengers had wintered. Though the letter was not published at the time, it circulated in manuscript and inspired at least two pamphlets about these events. Scholars debate the extent to which Shakespeare made direct use of these materials, but certain details of the storm and the island seem to be derived from them. There is no doubt that the seemingly miraculous survival of the governor’s party and the fertile environment they discovered in the Bahamas were topics of great public interest at the time of the play.

The British Empire, the slave trade, and the riches of the spice routes lay in the future. Shakespeare’s play is set in the Mediterranean, not the Caribbean. Caliban cannot strictly be described as a native of the island. And yet the play intuits the dynamic of colonial possession and dispossession with such uncanny power that in 1950 a book by Octave Mannoni called The Psychology of Colonisation could argue that the process functioned by means of a pair of reciprocal neuroses: the “Prospero complex” on the part of the colonizer and the “Caliban complex” on that of the colonized. It was in response to Mannoni that Frantz Fanon wrote Black Skin, White Masks, a book that did much to shape the intellectual terrain of the “postcolonial” era. For many Anglophone Caribbean writers of the late twentieth century, The Tempest, and the figure of Caliban in particular, became a focal point for discovery of their own literary voices. The play is less a reflection of imperial history—after all, Prospero is an exile, not a venturer—than an anticipation of it.

As regular players at royal command performances in the Whitehall Palace, the King’s Men knew that from the end of 1608 onward, the teenage Princess Elizabeth was resident at court. A cultured young woman who enjoyed music and dancing, she participated in court festivals and in 1610 danced in a masque called Tethys. Masques—performed by a mixed cast of royalty, courtiers, and professional actors, staged with spectacular scenery and elaborate music—were the height of fashion at court in these years. Shakespeare’s friend and rival Ben Jonson, working in conjunction with the designer Inigo Jones, was carving out a role for himself as the age’s leading masque-wright. In 1608 he introduced the “antimasque” (or “antemasque”), a convention whereby grotesque figures known as “antics” danced boisterously prior to the graceful and harmonious masque itself. Shakespeare nods to contemporary fashion by including a betrothal masque within the action of The Tempest, together with the antimasque farce of Caliban, Stephano, and Trinculo smelling of horse-piss, stealing clothes from a line, and being chased away by dogs. One almost wonders whether the figure of Prospero is a gentle parody of Ben Jonson: his theatrical imagination is bound by the classical unities of time and place (as Jonson’s was) and he stages a court masque (as Jonson did). Perhaps this is why a few years later, in his Bartholomew Fair, Jonson parodied The Tempest in return.

Prospero’s Christian language reaches its most sustained pitch in the epilogue, but his final request is for the indulgence not of God but of the audience. At the last moment, humanist learning is replaced not by Christian but by theatrical faith. Because of this it has been possible for the play to be read, as it so often has been since the Romantic period, as Shakespeare’s defense of his own dramatic art. Ironically, though, the play itself is profoundly skeptical of the power of the book and even of the theater. The book of art is drowned, whilst the masque and its players dissolve into vacancy like a “baseless fabric” or a dream.

KEY FACTS

PLOT: Twelve years ago Prospero, the Duke of Milan, was usurped by his brother, Antonio, with the help of Alonso, King of Naples, and the King’s brother Sebastian. Prospero and his baby daughter Miranda were put to sea and landed on a distant island where ever since, by the use of his magic art, he has ruled over the spirit Ariel and the savage Caliban. He uses his powers to raise a storm that shipwrecks his enemies on the island. Alonso searches for his son, Ferdinand, although fearing him to be drowned. Sebastian plots to kill Alonso and seize the crown. The drunken butler, Stephano, and the jester, Trinculo, encounter Caliban and are persuaded by him to kill Prospero so that they can rule the island. Ferdinand meets Miranda and they fall instantly in love. Prospero sets heavy tasks to test Ferdinand and, when satisfied, presents the young couple with a betrothal masque. As Prospero’s plan draws to its climax, he confronts his enemies and forgives them. Prospero grants Ariel his freedom and prepares to leave the island for Milan.

MAJOR PARTS: (with percentage of lines/number of speeches/scenes on stage) Prospero (30%/115/5), Ariel (9%/45/6), Caliban (8%/50/5), Stephano (7%/60/4), Gonzalo (7%/52/4), Sebastian (5%/67/4), Antonio (6%/57/4), Miranda (6%/49/4), Ferdinand (6%/31/4), Alonso (5%/40/4), Trinculo (4%/39/4).

LINGUISTIC MEDIUM: 80% verse, 20% prose.

DATE: 1611. Performed at court, November 1, 1611; uses source material not available before autumn 1610.

SOURCES: No known source for main plot, but some details of the tempest and the island seem to derive from William Strachey, A True Reportory of the Wreck and Redemption of Sir Thomas Gates, Knight (written 1610, published in Purchas his Pilgrims, 1625) and perhaps Sylvester Jourdain, A Discovery of the Bermudas (1610) and the Virginia Company’s pamphlet A True Declaration of the Estate of the Colony in Virginia (1610); several allusions to Virgil’s Aeneid and Ovid’s Metamorphoses (most notably the imitation in Act 5 scene 1 of Arthur Golding’s 1567 translation of Medea’s incantation in Ovid’s 7th book); Gonzalo’s “golden age” oration in Act 2 scene 1 based closely on Michel de Montaigne’s essay “Of the Cannibals,” translated by John Florio (1603).

TEXT: First Folio of 1623 is the only early printed text. Based on a transcript by Ralph Crane, professional scribe working for the King’s Men. Generally good quality of printing.

THE TEMPEST

PROSPERO, the right Duke of Milan

MIRANDA, his daughter

ALONSO, King of Naples

SEBASTIAN, his brother

ANTONIO, Prospero’s brother, the usurping Duke of Milan

FERDINAND, son to the King of Naples

GONZALO, an honest old councillor

ADRIAN and FRANCISCO, lords

TRINCULO, a jester

STEPHANO, a drunken butler

MASTER of a ship

BOATSWAIN

MARINERS

CALIBAN, a savage and deformed slave

ARIEL, an airy spirit

The Scene: an uninhabited island

Act 1 Scene 11.1

running scene 1

A tempestuous noise of thunder and lightning heard. Enter a Shipmaster and a Boatswain

MASTERBoatswain!

BOATSWAINHere, master. What cheer?[2]

MASTERGood:[3] speak to th’mariners. Fall to’t yarely, or we run ourselves aground! Bestir,[4] bestir!

Exit

Enter Mariners

BOATSWAINHeigh, my hearts![5] Cheerly, cheerly, my hearts! Yare, yare! Take in the topsail. Tend[6] to th’master’s whistle.— To the storm Blow, till thou burst thy wind, if room enough.

Enter Alonso, Sebastian, Antonio, Ferdinand, Gonzalo and others

ALONSOGood boatswain, have[8] care. Where’s the master? Play the men.

BOATSWAINI pray now, keep below.

ANTONIOWhere is the master, boatswain?

BOATSWAINDo you not hear him? You mar[11] our labour. Keep your cabins! You do assist the storm.

GONZALONay, good, be patient.

BOATSWAINWhen the sea is. Hence![14] What cares these roarers for the name of king? To cabin! Silence! Trouble us not.

GONZALOGood, yet remember whom thou hast aboard.

BOATSWAINNone that I more love than myself. You are a counsellor:[17] if you can command these elements to silence, and work[18] the peace of the present, we will not hand[19] a rope more: use your authority. If you cannot, give thanks you have lived so long, and make yourself ready in your cabin for the mischance of the hour, if it so hap.[21]— To the Mariners Cheerly, good hearts!—

To the Courtiers

Out of our way, I say.

Exeunt [Boatswain with Mariners, followed by Alonso, Sebastian, Antonio, and Ferdinand]

GONZALOI have great comfort from this fellow: methinks he[23] hath no drowning mark[24] upon him: his complexion is perfect gallows. Stand fast, good Fate, to his hanging: make the rope of his destiny[25] our cable, for our own doth little advantage. If he be not born to be hanged, our case is miserable.

Exit

Enter Boatswain

BOATSWAINDown[27] with the topmast! Yare! Lower, lower! Bring her to try with main course. (A cry within) A plague upon this howling! They are louder than the weather or our office.[29]

Enter Sebastian, Antonio and Gonzalo

Yet again? What do you here? Shall we give o’er[30] and drown? Have you a mind to sink?

SEBASTIANA pox[32] o’your throat, you bawling, blasphemous, incharitable dog!

BOATSWAINWork you then.

ANTONIOHang, cur![34] Hang, you whoreson, insolent noisemaker! We are less afraid to be drowned than thou art.

GONZALOI’ll warrant[36] him for drowning, though the ship were no stronger than a nutshell and as leaky as an unstanched[37] wench.

BOATSWAINLay her ahold,[38] ahold! Set her two courses off to sea again! Lay her off!

Enter Mariners, wet

MARINERSAll lost! To prayers, to prayers! All lost!

BOATSWAINWhat, must[40] our mouths be cold?

GONZALOThe king and prince at prayers: let’s assist them, for our case is as theirs.

SEBASTIANI’m out of patience.

ANTONIOWe are merely[43] cheated of our lives by drunkards. This wide-chopped rascal: would thou mightst lie drowning, the washing of ten tides![44]

45

GONZALOHe’ll be hanged yet,[45]

Though every drop of water swear against it

And gape at wid’st[47] to glut him.

[Exeunt Boatswain and Mariners]

A confused noise within

[VOICES OFF-STAGE]Mercy on us! — We split,[48] we split! — Farewell, my wife and children! — Farewell, brother! — We split, we split, we split!

ANTONIOLet’s all sink wi’th’king.

SEBASTIANLet’s take leave of him.

Exeunt [Antonio and Sebastian]

GONZALONow would I give a thousand furlongs[52] of sea for an acre of barren ground: long heath,[53] brown furze, anything. The wills above be done! But I would fain[54] die a dry death.

Exit

Act 1 Scene 21.2

running scene 2

Enter Prospero and Miranda

MIRANDAIf by your art,[1] my dearest father, you have

Put the wild waters in this roar, allay[2] them.

The sky, it seems, would pour down stinking pitch,[3]

But that the sea, mounting to th’welkin’s[4] cheek,

5

Dashes the fire[5] out. O, I have suffered

With those that I saw suffer: a brave[6] vessel —

Who had, no doubt, some noble creature in her —

Dashed all to pieces. O, the cry did knock

Against my very heart. Poor souls, they perished.

10

Had I been any god of power, I would

Have sunk the sea within the earth, or ere[11]

It should the good ship so have swallowed, and

The fraughting souls[13] within her.

PROSPEROBe collected:[14]

15

No more amazement.[15] Tell your piteous heart

There’s no harm done.

MIRANDAO, woe the day!

PROSPERONo harm:

I have done nothing but in care of thee —

20

Of thee, my dear one, thee, my daughter — who

Art ignorant of what thou art: nought knowing

Of whence I am,[22] nor that I am more better

Than Prospero, master of a full poor cell,[23]

And thy no greater father.[24]

25

MIRANDAMore to know[25]

Did never meddle with[26] my thoughts.

PROSPERO’Tis time

I should inform thee further. Lend thy hand

And pluck my magic garment from me. So: Lays down his magic cloak

30

Lie there, my art. Wipe thou thine eyes, have comfort.

The direful spectacle of the wreck, which touched

The very virtue of compassion in thee,

I have with such provision[33] in mine art

So safely ordered that there is no soul —

35

No, not so much perdition[35] as an hair

Betid[36] to any creature in the vessel

Which thou heard’st cry, which thou saw’st sink. Sit down, Miranda sits

For thou must now know further.

MIRANDAYou have often

40

Begun to tell me what I am, but stopped

And left me to a bootless inquisition,[41]

Concluding ‘Stay: not yet.’

PROSPEROThe hour’s now come,

The very minute bids thee ope[44] thine ear:

45

Obey, and be attentive. Canst thou remember

A time before we came unto this cell?

I do not think thou canst, for then thou wast not

Out[48] three years old.

MIRANDACertainly, sir, I can.

50

PROSPEROBy what? By any other house or person?

Of any thing the image, tell me, that

Hath[52] kept with thy remembrance.

MIRANDA’Tis far off,

And rather like a dream than an assurance[54]

55

That my remembrance warrants.[55] Had I not

Four or five women once that tended[56] me?

PROSPEROThou hadst; and more, Miranda. But how is it

That this lives in thy mind? What see’st thou else

In the dark backward[59] and abysm of time?

60

If thou rememb’rest aught[60] ere thou cam’st here,

How thou cam’st here thou mayst.

MIRANDABut that I do not.

PROSPEROTwelve year since, Miranda, twelve year since,

Thy father was the Duke of Milan and

65

A prince of power.

MIRANDASir, are not you my father?

PROSPEROThy mother was a piece[67] of virtue, and

She said thou wast my daughter; and thy father

Was Duke of Milan, and his only heir

70

And princess, no worse issued.[70]

MIRANDAO the heavens!

What foul play had we, that we came from thence?

Or blessèd[73] wast we did?

PROSPEROBoth, both, my girl.

75

By foul play — as thou say’st — were we heaved thence,

But blessedly holp[76] hither.

MIRANDAO, my heart bleeds

To think o’th’teen[78] that I have turned you to,

Which is from[79] my remembrance. Please you, further.

80

PROSPEROMy brother and thy uncle, called Antonio —

I pray thee, mark[81] me — that a brother should

Be so perfidious[82] — he whom next thyself

Of all the world I loved, and to him put

The manage[84] of my state, as at that time

85

Through all the signories[85] it was the first,

And Prospero the prime[86] duke, being so reputed

In dignity, and for the liberal arts[87]

Without a parallel; those being all my study,

The government I cast upon my brother

90

And to my state[90] grew stranger, being transported

And rapt in secret studies. Thy false uncle —

Dost thou attend me?

MIRANDASir, most heedfully.

PROSPEROBeing once perfected[94] how to grant suits,

95

How to deny them, who t’advance and who

To trash for over-topping,[96] new created

The creatures that were mine, I say, or changed ’em,[97]

Or else new formed[98] ’em; having both the key

Of officer and office, set all hearts i’th’state

100

To what tune pleased his ear, that[100] now he was

The ivy[101] which had hid my princely trunk

And sucked my verdure[102] out on’t.— Thou attend’st not.

MIRANDAO good sir, I do.

PROSPEROI pray thee, mark me:

105

I, thus neglecting worldly ends,[105] all dedicated

To closeness[106] and the bettering of my mind

With that, which but[107] by being so retired,

O’er-prized[108] all popular rate, in my false brother

Awaked an evil nature, and my trust,

110

Like a good parent,[110] did beget of him

A falsehood[111] in its contrary, as great

As my trust was, which had indeed no limit,

A confidence sans[113] bound. He being thus lorded,

Not only with what my revenue yielded,

115

But what my power might else exact:[115] like one

Who having into[116] truth, by telling of it,

Made such a sinner of his memory

To credit his own lie, he did believe

He was indeed the duke, out o’th’substitution[119]

120

And executing th’outward face[120] of royalty

With all prerogative: hence his ambition growing —

Dost thou hear?

MIRANDAYour tale, sir, would cure deafness.

PROSPEROTo have no screen[124] between this part he played,

125

And him[125] he played it for, he needs will be

Absolute Milan.[126] Me — poor man — my library

Was dukedom large enough: of temporal royalties[127]

He thinks me now incapable. Confederates[128] —

So dry[129] he was for sway — wi’th’King of Naples

130

To give him annual tribute,[130] do him homage,

Subject[131] his coronet to his crown, and bend

The dukedom yet[132] unbowed — alas, poor Milan —

To most ignoble stooping.

MIRANDAO the heavens!

135

PROSPEROMark his condition[135] and th’event, then tell me

If[136] this might be a brother.

MIRANDAI should sin

To think but[138] nobly of my grandmother:

Good wombs have borne bad sons.

140

PROSPERONow the condition.

This King of Naples, being an enemy

To me inveterate,[142] hearkens my brother’s suit,

Which was, that he,[143] in lieu o’th’premises

Of homage, and I know not how much tribute,[144]

145

Should presently extirpate[145] me and mine

Out of the dukedom, and confer fair Milan,

With all the honours, on my brother: whereon,

A treacherous army levied, one midnight

Fated to th’purpose, did Antonio open

150

The gates of Milan, and i’th’dead of darkness

The ministers[151] for th’purpose hurried thence

Me and thy crying self.

MIRANDAAlack, for pity!

I, not rememb’ring how I cried out then,

155

Will cry it o’er again: it is a hint[155]

That wrings mine eyes to’t.

PROSPEROHear a little further,

And then I’ll bring thee to the present business

Which now’s upon’s: without the which, this story

160

Were most impertinent.[160]

MIRANDAWherefore did they not

That hour destroy us?

PROSPEROWell demanded, wench:

My tale provokes that question. Dear, they durst[164] not,

165

So dear the love my people bore me: nor set

A mark so bloody on the business: but

With colours fairer, painted[167] their foul ends.

In few,[168] they hurried us aboard a barque,

Bore us some leagues to sea, where they prepared

170

A rotten carcass of a butt,[170] not rigged,

Nor tackle, sail, nor mast: the very rats

Instinctively have quit it. There they hoist[172] us,

To cry to th’sea that roared to us; to sigh

To th’winds, whose pity sighing back again,

175

Did us but loving wrong.[175]

MIRANDAAlack, what trouble

Was I then to you!

PROSPEROO, a cherubin[178]

Thou wast that did preserve me. Thou didst smile,

180

Infused with a fortitude from heaven,

When I have decked[181] the sea with drops full salt,

Under my burden groaned, which[182] raised in me

An undergoing stomach,[183] to bear up

Against what should ensue.

185

MIRANDAHow came we ashore? Prospero sits

PROSPEROBy providence divine.

Some food we had, and some fresh water, that

A noble Neapolitan, Gonzalo,

Out of his charity — who being then appointed

190

Master of this design[190] — did give us, with

Rich garments, linens, stuffs[191] and necessaries,

Which since have steaded much.[192] So, of his gentleness,

Knowing I loved my books, he furnished me

From mine own library with volumes that

195

I prize above my dukedom.

MIRANDAWould[196] I might

But ever see that man.

PROSPERONow I arise: Prospero stands

Sit still,[199] and hear the last of our sea-sorrow.

200

Here in this island we arrived, and here

Have I, thy schoolmaster, made thee more profit[201]

Than other princes can that have more time

For vainer[203] hours, and tutors not so careful.

MIRANDAHeavens thank you for’t. And now, I pray you, sir,

205

For still ’tis beating in my mind: your reason

For raising this sea-storm?

PROSPEROKnow thus far forth:

By accident most strange, bountiful Fortune —

Now my dear lady[209] — hath mine enemies

210

Brought to this shore: and by my prescience[210]

I find my zenith[211] doth depend upon

A most auspicious star, whose influence[212]

If now I court not, but omit,[213] my fortunes

Will ever after droop. Here cease more questions:

215

Thou art inclined to sleep. ’Tis a good dullness,[215]

And give it way:[216] I know thou canst not choose.— Miranda sleeps

Come away, servant, come. I am ready now.

Approach, my Ariel,[218] come.

Enter Ariel

ARIELAll hail, great master! Grave[219] sir, hail! I come

220

To answer thy best pleasure; be’t to fly,

To swim, to dive into the fire, to ride

On the curled clouds: to thy strong bidding task[222]

Ariel and all his quality.[223]

PROSPEROHast thou, spirit,

225

Performed to point[225] the tempest that I bade thee?

ARIELTo every article.

I boarded the king’s ship: now on the beak,[227]

Now in the waist,[228] the deck, in every cabin,

I flamed amazement:[229] sometime I’d divide

230

And burn in many places; on the topmast,

The yards[231] and bowsprit would I flame distinctly,

Then meet and join. Jove’s[232] lightning, the precursors

O’th’dreadful thunderclaps, more momentary

And sight-outrunning[234] were not; the fire and cracks

235

Of sulphurous roaring, the most mighty Neptune[235]

Seem to besiege and make his bold waves tremble,

Yea, his dread trident[237] shake.

PROSPEROMy brave spirit!

Who was so firm, so constant, that this coil[239]

240

Would not infect his reason?

ARIELNot a soul

But felt a fever of the mad[242] and played

Some tricks of desperation. All but mariners

Plunged in the foaming brine and quit the vessel,

245

Then all afire[245] with me: the king’s son, Ferdinand,

With hair up-staring[246] — then like reeds, not hair —

Was the first man that leaped; cried ‘Hell is empty

And all the devils are here.’

PROSPEROWhy, that’s my spirit!

250

But was not this nigh[250] shore?

ARIELClose by, my master.

PROSPEROBut are they, Ariel, safe?

ARIELNot a hair perished:

On their sustaining[254] garments not a blemish,

255

But fresher than before: and, as thou bad’st me,

In troops[256] I have dispersed them ’bout the isle.

The king’s son have I landed by himself,

Whom I left cooling of[258] the air with sighs

In an odd angle[259] of the isle, and sitting,

260

His arms in this sad knot.[260] Folds his arms

PROSPEROOf the king’s ship,

The mariners, say how thou hast disposed,

And all the rest o’th’fleet?

ARIELSafely in harbour

265

Is the king’s ship: in the deep nook where once

Thou call’dst me up at midnight to fetch dew[266]

From the still-vexed Bermudas,[267] there she’s hid;

The mariners all under hatches[268] stowed,

Who, with a charm[269] joined to their suffered labour,

270

I have left asleep: and for the rest o’th’fleet —

Which I dispersed — they all have met again,

And are upon the Mediterranean float[272]

Bound sadly home for Naples,

Supposing that they saw the king’s ship wrecked

275

And his great person perish.

PROSPEROAriel, thy charge

Exactly is performed; but there’s more work:

What is the time o’th’day?

ARIELPast the mid season.[279]

280

PROSPEROAt least two glasses.[280] The time ’twixt six and now

Must by us both be spent most preciously.[281]

ARIELIs there more toil? Since thou dost give me pains,[282]

Let me remember[283] thee what thou hast promised,

Which is not yet performed me.

285

PROSPEROHow now? Moody?[285]

What is’t thou canst demand?

ARIELMy liberty.

PROSPEROBefore the time be out?[288] No more!

ARIELI prithee,

290

Remember I have done thee worthy service,

Told thee no lies, made thee no mistakings, served

Without or[292] grudge or grumblings: thou did promise

To bate[293] me a full year.

PROSPERODost thou forget

295

From what a torment I did free thee?

ARIELNo.

PROSPEROThou dost: and think’st it much to tread[297] the ooze

Of the salt deep,

To run upon the sharp wind of the north,

300

To do me business in the veins o’th’earth

When it is baked with frost.

ARIELI do not, sir.

PROSPEROThou liest, malignant thing. Hast thou forgot

The foul witch Sycorax,[304] who with age and envy

305

Was grown into a hoop?[305] Hast thou forgot her?

ARIELNo, sir.

PROSPEROThou hast. Where was she born? Speak: tell me.

ARIELSir, in Algiers.[308]

PROSPEROO, was she so? I must

310

Once in a month recount what thou hast been,

Which thou forget’st. This damned witch Sycorax,

For mischiefs manifold, and sorceries terrible

To enter human hearing, from Algiers,

Thou know’st, was banished: for[314] one thing she did

315

They would not take her life. Is not this true?

ARIELAy, sir.

PROSPEROThis blue-eyed[317] hag was hither brought with child,

And here was left by th’sailors. Thou, my slave,

As thou report’st thyself, was then her servant:

320

And, for[320] thou wast a spirit too delicate

To act her earthy[321] and abhorred commands,

Refusing her grand hests,[322] she did confine thee

By help of her more potent ministers,[323]

And in her most unmitigable[324] rage,

325

Into a cloven[325] pine, within which rift

Imprisoned thou didst painfully remain

A dozen years: within which space she died,

And left thee there, where thou didst vent thy groans

As[329] fast as mill-wheels strike. Then was this island —

330

Save for the son that she did litter[330] here,

A freckled whelp,[331] hag-born — not honoured with

A human shape.

ARIELYes: Caliban[333] her son.

PROSPERODull thing,[334] I say so: he, that Caliban

335

Whom now I keep in service.[335] Thou best know’st

What torment I did find thee in: thy groans

Did make wolves[337] howl and penetrate the breasts

Of ever-angry bears; it was a torment

To lay upon the damned, which Sycorax

340

Could not again undo. It was mine art,

When I arrived and heard thee, that made gape[341]

The pine and let thee out.

ARIELI thank thee, master.

PROSPEROIf thou more murmur’st,[344] I will rend an oak

345

And peg[345] thee in his knotty entrails till

Thou hast howled away twelve winters.

ARIELPardon, master:

I will be correspondent[348] to command

And do my spriting[349] gently.

350

PROSPERODo so: and after two days

I will discharge[351] thee.

ARIELThat’s my noble master!

What shall I do? Say what? What shall I do?

PROSPEROGo make thyself like a nymph o’th’sea,

355

Be subject to no sight but thine and mine: invisible

To every eyeball else. Go take this shape

And hither come in’t: go! Hence with diligence!

Exit [Ariel]

Awake, dear heart, awake. Thou hast slept well. Awake. To Miranda

MIRANDAThe strangeness of your story put

360

Heaviness[360] in me.

PROSPEROShake it off. Come on:

We’ll visit Caliban, my slave, who never

Yields us kind answer.

MIRANDA’Tis a villain,[364] sir, I do not love to look on.

365

PROSPEROBut, as ’tis,

We cannot miss[366] him: he does make our fire,

Fetch in our wood and serves in offices[367]

That profit us. What, ho! Slave! Caliban!

Thou earth,[369] thou! Speak!

370

CALIBANThere’s wood enough within.

Within

PROSPEROCome forth, I say! There’s other business for thee:

Come, thou tortoise! When?

Enter Ariel like a water-nymph

Fine apparition: my quaint[373] Ariel,

Hark in thine ear.

375

ARIELMy lord, it shall be done.

Exit

PROSPEROThou poisonous slave, got[376] by the devil himself

Upon thy wicked dam:[377] come forth!

Enter Caliban

CALIBANAs wicked dew as e’er my mother brushed

With raven’s feather from unwholesome fen[379]

380

Drop on you both! A southwest[380] blow on ye

And blister you all o’er!

PROSPEROFor this, be sure, tonight thou shalt have cramps,

Side-stitches that shall pen thy breath up: urchins[383]

Shall, for that vast[384] of night that they may work,

385

All exercise[385] on thee: thou shalt be pinched

As[386] thick as honeycomb, each pinch more stinging

Than[387] bees that made ’em.

CALIBANI must eat my dinner.

This island’s mine by Sycorax my mother,

390

Which thou tak’st from me. When thou cam’st first,

Thou strok’st me and made much of me: wouldst give me

Water with berries[392] in’t, and teach me how

To name the bigger[393] light, and how the less,

That burn by day and night: and then I loved thee

395

And showed thee all the qualities o’th’isle,

The fresh springs, brine-pits,[396] barren place and fertile.

Cursed be I that did so! All the charms[397]

Of Sycorax — toads, beetles, bats — light[398] on you!

For I am all the subjects that you have,

400

Which first was mine own king: and here you sty[400] me

In this hard rock,[401] whiles you do keep from me

The rest o’th’island.

PROSPEROThou most lying slave,

Whom stripes[404] may move, not kindness! I have used thee —

405

Filth as thou art — with humane[405] care, and lodged thee

In mine own cell, till thou didst seek to violate[406]

The honour of my child.

CALIBANO ho, O ho! Would’t had been done!

Thou didst prevent me: I[409] had peopled else

410

This isle with Calibans.

MIRANDAAbhorred slave,

Which any print[412] of goodness wilt not take,

Being capable[413] of all ill. I pitied thee,

Took pains to make thee speak, taught thee each hour

415

One thing or other: when thou didst not, savage,

Know thine own meaning, but wouldst gabble like

A thing most brutish, I endowed thy purposes

With words that made them known. But thy vile race[418] —

Though thou didst learn — had that in’t which good natures

420

Could not abide to be with: therefore wast thou

Deservedly confined into this rock, who hadst

Deserved more[422] than a prison.

CALIBANYou taught me language, and my profit on’t

Is, I know how to curse. The red-plague[424] rid you

425

For learning[425] me your language.

PROSPEROHag-seed,[426] hence!

Fetch us in fuel, and be quick: thou’rt best[427]

To answer other business. Shrug’st thou, malice?

If thou neglect’st or dost unwillingly

430

What I command, I’ll rack[430] thee with old cramps,

Fill all thy bones with aches, make thee roar,

That beasts shall tremble at thy din.

CALIBANNo, pray thee.—

I must obey: his art is of such power, Aside

435

It would control my dam’s god, Setebos,[435]

And make a vassal[436] of him.

PROSPEROSo, slave, hence!

Exit Caliban

Enter Ferdinand, and Ariel, invisible, playing and singing

ARIELCome unto these yellow sands,

Song

And then take hands:

440

Curtsied when you have, and kissed

The wild waves whist:[441]

Foot it featly[442] here and there,

And, sweet sprites, bear

The burden.

445

[SPIRITS    Within, sing the] (burden,[445] dispersedly)

Hark, hark! Bow-wow!

The watch-dogs bark: bow-wow.

ARIELHark, hark! I hear

The strain[449] of strutting chanticleer

450

Cry, cock-a-diddle-dow.

FERDINANDWhere should this music be? I’th’air or th’earth?

It sounds no more: and sure it waits upon[452]

Some god o’th’island. Sitting on a bank,

Weeping again the[454] king my father’s wreck,

455

This music crept by me upon the waters,

Allaying both their fury and my passion[456]

With its sweet air: thence I have followed it —

Or it hath drawn me rather — but ’tis gone.

No, it begins again.

460

ARIELFull fathom five[460] thy father lies,

Song

Of his bones are coral made:

Those are pearls that were his eyes:

Nothing of him that doth fade,[463]

But doth suffer[464] a sea-change

465

Into something rich and strange.

Sea-nymphs hourly ring his knell:[466]

[SPIRITS    Within, sing the] (burden) Ding-dong.

ARIELHark! Now I hear them: ding-dong, bell.

FERDINANDThe ditty[469] does remember my drowned father.

470

This is no mortal[470] business, nor no sound

That the earth owes.[471] I hear it now above me.

PROSPEROThe fringèd curtains[472] of thine eye advance

And say what thou see’st yond.[473]

MIRANDAWhat is’t? A spirit?

475

Lord, how it looks about! Believe me, sir,

It carries a brave[476] form. But ’tis a spirit.

PROSPERONo, wench: it eats, and sleeps, and hath such senses

As we have, such. This gallant[478] which thou see’st

Was in the wreck: and, but[479] he’s something stained

480

With grief — that’s beauty’s canker[480] — thou mightst call him

A goodly[481] person: he hath lost his fellows

And strays about to find ’em.

MIRANDAI might call him

A thing divine, for nothing natural[484]

485

I ever saw so noble.

PROSPEROIt goes on, I see, Aside

As my soul prompts[487] it.— Spirit, fine spirit: I’ll free thee To Ariel

Within two days for this.

FERDINANDMost sure, the goddess

490

On whom these airs[490] attend! Vouchsafe my prayer

May know if you remain[491] upon this island,

And that you will some good instruction give

How I may bear me[493] here: my prime request,

Which I do last pronounce, is — O you wonder![494] —

495

If you be maid[495] or no?

MIRANDANo wonder, sir,

But certainly a maid.

FERDINANDMy language? Heavens!

I am the best[499] of them that speak this speech,

500

Were I but where[500] ’tis spoken.

PROSPEROHow? The best?

What wert thou if the King of Naples heard thee?

FERDINANDA single thing,[503] as I am now, that wonders

To hear thee speak of Naples. He[504] does hear me:

505

And that he does, I weep. Myself am Naples,

Who with mine eyes, never since at ebb,[506] beheld

The king my father wrecked.

MIRANDAAlack, for mercy!

FERDINANDYes, faith, and all his lords, the Duke of Milan

510

And his brave son[510] being twain.

PROSPEROThe Duke of Milan Aside

And his more braver daughter could control[512] thee

If now ’twere fit to do’t. At the first sight

They have changed eyes.[514]— Delicate Ariel, To Ariel

515

I’ll set thee free for this.— A word, good sir, To Ferdinand

I fear you have done[516] yourself some wrong: a word.

MIRANDAWhy speaks my father so ungently?[517] This

Is the third man that e’er I saw: the first

That e’er I sighed for. Pity move my father

520

To be inclined my way.

FERDINANDO, if a virgin,

And your[522] affection not gone forth, I’ll make you

The Queen of Naples.

PROSPEROSoft,[524] sir, one word more.—

525

They are both in either’s[525] powers: but this swift business Aside

I must uneasy[526] make, lest too light winning

Make the prize light.— One word more: I charge[527] thee To Ferdinand

That thou attend[528] me: thou dost here usurp

The name thou ow’st not,[529] and hast put thyself

530

Upon this island as a spy, to win it

From me, the lord on’t.[531]

FERDINANDNo, as I am a man.

MIRANDAThere’s nothing ill can dwell in such a temple:[533]

If the ill-spirit have so fair a house,

535

Good things will strive to dwell with’t.

PROSPEROFollow me.— To Ferdinand

Speak not you for him: he’s a traitor.— Come: To Miranda/To Ferdinand

I’ll manacle thy neck and feet together:

Seawater shalt thou drink: thy food shall be

540

The fresh-brook mussels,[540] withered roots and husks

Wherein the acorn cradled. Follow.

FERDINANDNo!

I will resist such entertainment[543] till

Mine enemy has more power.

He draws, and is charmed from moving

545

MIRANDAO dear father,

Make not too rash a trial of him, for

He’s gentle,[547] and not fearful.

PROSPEROWhat, I say,

My foot[549] my tutor?— Put thy sword up, traitor: To Ferdinand

550

Who mak’st a show but dar’st not strike, thy conscience

Is so possessed with guilt. Come from thy ward,[551]

For I can here disarm thee with this stick, Brandishes his staff

And make thy weapon drop.

MIRANDABeseech you, father. Kneels or attempts to stop him

555

PROSPEROHence! Hang not on my garments.

MIRANDASir, have pity:

I’ll be his surety.[557]

PROSPEROSilence! One word more

Shall make me chide[559] thee, if not hate thee. What,

560

An advocate for an impostor? Hush!

Thou think’st there is no more such shapes[561] as he,

Having seen but him and Caliban. Foolish wench,

To[563] th’most of men this is a Caliban,

And they to him are angels.

565

MIRANDAMy affections

Are then most humble: I have no ambition

To see a goodlier man.

PROSPEROCome on, obey: To Ferdinand

Thy nerves[569] are in their infancy again

570

And have no vigour[570] in them.

FERDINANDSo they are:

My spirits,[572] as in a dream, are all bound up.

My father’s loss, the weakness which I feel,

The wreck of all my friends, nor this man’s threats,

575

To whom I am subdued, are but light to me,

Might I but through[576] my prison once a day

Behold this maid: all corners else[577] o’th’earth

Let liberty make use of: space enough

Have I in such a prison.

580

PROSPEROIt works.— Come on.— Aside/To Ferdinand

Thou hast done well, fine Ariel!— Follow me.— To Ariel/To Ferdinand

Hark what thou else shalt do me.[582] To Ariel

MIRANDABe of comfort:

My father’s of a better nature, sir,

585

Than he appears by speech: this is unwonted[585]

Which now came from him.

PROSPEROThou shalt be as free To Ariel

As mountain winds; but then[588] exactly do

All points of my command.

590

ARIELTo th’syllable.

PROSPEROCome, follow.— Speak not for him. To Ferdinand/To Miranda

Exeunt

Act 2 Scene 1

running scene 3

Enter Alonso, Sebastian, Antonio, Gonzalo, Adrian, Francisco and others

GONZALOBeseech you, sir, be merry; you have cause — To Alonso

So have we all — of joy, for our escape

Is much beyond[3] our loss. Our hint of woe

Is common: every day some sailor’s wife,

5

The masters[5] of some merchant, and the merchant

Have just our theme of woe. But for the miracle —

I mean our preservation — few in millions

Can speak like us: then wisely, good sir, weigh[8]

Our sorrow with our comfort.

ALONSOPrithee, peace.[10]

SEBASTIANHe receives comfort like cold porridge. Antonio and Sebastian speak apart

ANTONIOThe visitor[12] will not give him o’er so.

SEBASTIANLook, he’s winding up the watch of his wit:[13] by and by it will strike.

GONZALOSir— To Alonso

SEBASTIANOne: tell.[15]

GONZALOWhen every grief is entertained[16] that’s offered, comes to th’entertainer—

SEBASTIANA dollar.[17] Aside to Antonio, but overheard by Gonzalo

GONZALODolour[18] comes to him, indeed: you have spoken truer than you purposed.

SEBASTIANYou have taken it wiselier[19] than I meant you should.

GONZALOTherefore, my lord— To Alonso

ANTONIOFie, what a spendthrift is he of his tongue!

ALONSOI prithee, spare.[22] To Gonzalo

GONZALOWell, I have done: but yet—

SEBASTIANHe will be talking.

ANTONIOWhich, of he or Adrian, for a good wager, first begins to crow?[25]

SEBASTIANThe old cock.

ANTONIOThe cockerel.[27]

SEBASTIANDone. The wager?[28]

ANTONIOA laughter.[29]

SEBASTIANA match!

ADRIANThough this island seem to be desert[31]—

SEBASTIANHa,[32] ha, ha!

ANTONIOSo: you’re paid.

ADRIANUninhabitable and almost inaccessible—

SEBASTIANYet—

ADRIANYet—

ANTONIOHe could not miss’t.

ADRIANIt must needs be of subtle,[38] tender and delicate temperance.

ANTONIOTemperance was a delicate[39] wench.

SEBASTIANAy, and a subtle,[40] as he most learnedly delivered.

ADRIANThe air breathes upon us here most sweetly.

SEBASTIANAs if it had lungs, and rotten ones.

ANTONIOOr as ’twere perfumed by a fen.[43]

GONZALOHere is everything advantageous to life.

ANTONIOTrue: save[45] means to live.

SEBASTIANOf that there’s none, or little.

GONZALOHow lush and lusty[47] the grass looks. How green!

ANTONIOThe ground indeed is tawny.[48]

SEBASTIANWith an eye[49] of green in’t.

ANTONIOHe misses not much.

SEBASTIANNo: he doth but mistake the truth totally.

GONZALOBut the rarity[52] of it is — which is indeed almost beyond credit—

SEBASTIANAs many vouched[53] rarities are.

GONZALO—That our garments, being, as they were, drenched in the sea, hold notwithstanding their freshness and glosses, being rather new-dyed[55] than stained with salt water.

ANTONIOIf but one of his pockets could speak, would it not say he lies?

SEBASTIANAy, or very falsely pocket up[58] his report.

GONZALOMethinks our garments are now as fresh as when we put them on first in Afric,[60] at the marriage of the king’s fair daughter Claribel to the King of Tunis.

SEBASTIAN’Twas a sweet marriage, and we prosper well in our return.

ADRIANTunis was never graced before with such a paragon to their queen.

GONZALONot since widow Dido’s[63] time.

ANTONIOWidow! A pox o’that! How[64] came that ‘widow’ in? Widow Dido!

SEBASTIANWhat if he had said ‘widower Aeneas’[65] too? Good lord, how you take it!

ADRIAN‘Widow Dido’, said you? You make me study of[66] that: she was of Carthage, not of Tunis.

GONZALOThis[68] Tunis, sir, was Carthage.

ADRIANCarthage?

GONZALOI assure you, Carthage.

ANTONIOHis word is more than the miraculous harp.[71]

SEBASTIANHe hath raised the wall and houses too.

ANTONIOWhat impossible matter will he make easy next?

SEBASTIANI think he will carry this island home in his pocket and give it his son for an apple.

ANTONIOAnd, sowing the kernels[76] of it in the sea, bring forth more islands.

GONZALOAy.

ANTONIOWhy, in good time.

GONZALOSir, To Alonso we were talking that our garments seem now as fresh as when we were at Tunis at the marriage of your daughter, who is now queen.

ANTONIOAnd the rarest[81] that e’er came there.

SEBASTIANBate,[82] I beseech you, widow Dido.

ANTONIOO, widow Dido? Ay, widow Dido.[83]

GONZALOIs not, sir, my doublet[84] as fresh as the first day I wore it? I mean, in a sort—

ANTONIOThat sort[85] was well fished for.

GONZALO—When I wore it at your daughter’s marriage.

ALONSOYou cram these words into mine ears against

The stomach[88] of my sense. Would I had never

Married my daughter there: for, coming thence,

90

My son is lost and — in my rate[90] — she too,

Who is so far from Italy removed

I ne’er again shall see her. O thou mine heir

Of Naples and of Milan, what strange fish

Hath made his meal on thee?

95

FRANCISCOSir, he may live:

I saw him beat the surges[96] under him,

And ride upon their backs; he trod the water,

Whose enmity he flung aside, and breasted

The surge most swoll’n that met him: his bold head

100

’Bove the contentious waves he kept, and oared[100]

Himself with his good arms in lusty[101] stroke

To th’shore, that o’er his wave-worn basis[102] bowed,

As[103] stooping to relieve him: I not doubt

He came alive to land.

105

ALONSONo, no, he’s gone.

SEBASTIANSir, you may thank yourself for this great loss, To Alonso

That would not bless our Europe with your daughter,

But rather loose[108] her to an African,

Where she, at least, is banished from your eye,

110

Who[110] hath cause to wet the grief on’t.

ALONSOPrithee, peace.

SEBASTIANYou were kneeled to and importuned[112] otherwise

By all of us: and the fair soul herself

Weighed between loathness[114] and obedience at

115

Which[115] end o’th’beam should bow. We have lost your son,

I fear, forever: Milan and Naples have

More widows in them of this business’ making

Than we bring men to comfort them.

The fault’s your own.

120

ALONSOSo is the dear’st[120] o’th’loss.

GONZALOMy lord Sebastian,

The truth you speak doth lack some gentleness,

And time[123] to speak it in: you rub the sore,

When you should bring the plaster.

125

SEBASTIANVery well.

ANTONIOAnd most chirurgeonly.[126]

GONZALOIt is foul weather in us all, good sir, To Alonso

When you are cloudy.

SEBASTIANFoul weather?

130

ANTONIOVery foul.

GONZALOHad I plantation[131] of this isle, my lord—

ANTONIOHe’d sow’t with nettle-seed.[132]

SEBASTIANOr docks, or mallows.

GONZALOAnd were the king on’t, what would I do?

135

SEBASTIANScape being drunk for want[135] of wine.

GONZALOI’th’commonwealth I would by[136] contraries

Execute all things: for no kind of traffic[137]

Would I admit: no name of magistrate:

Letters[139] should not be known: riches, poverty,

140

And use of service,[140] none: contract, succession,

Bourn,[141] bound of land, tilth, vineyard, none:

No use of metal, corn, or wine, or oil:

No occupation, all men idle, all:

And women too, but innocent and pure:

145

No sovereignty.

SEBASTIANYet he would be king on’t.

ANTONIOThe latter end of his commonwealth forgets the beginning.

GONZALOAll things in common[148] nature should produce

Without sweat or endeavour: treason, felony,

150

Sword, pike,[150] knife, gun, or need of any engine,

Would I not have: but nature should bring forth,

Of it own kind, all foison,[152] all abundance,

To feed my innocent people.

SEBASTIANNo marrying ’mong his subjects?

155

ANTONIONone, man, all idle: whores and knaves.

GONZALOI would with such perfection govern, sir,

T’excel the golden age.[157]

SEBASTIAN’Save his majesty!

ANTONIOLong live Gonzalo! Bowing or doffing hats

GONZALOAnd — do you mark[160] me, sir?

ALONSOPrithee, no more: thou dost talk nothing to me.

GONZALOI do well believe your highness: and did it to minister occasion[162] to these gentlemen, who are of such sensible[163] and nimble lungs that they always use to laugh at nothing.

ANTONIO’Twas you we laughed at.

GONZALOWho in this kind of merry fooling am nothing to you: so you may continue and laugh at nothing still.

ANTONIOWhat a blow was there given!

SEBASTIANAn[169] it had not fallen flat-long.

GONZALOYou are gentlemen of brave metal:[170] you would lift the moon out of her sphere,[171] if she would continue in it five weeks without changing.

Enter Ariel [invisible] playing solemn music

SEBASTIANWe would so, and then go a-batfowling.[172]

ANTONIONay, good my lord, be not angry.

GONZALONo, I warrant[174] you: I will not adventure my discretion so weakly. Will you laugh me asleep, for I am very heavy?[175]

ANTONIOGo sleep, and hear us. All sleep except Alonso, Sebastian, and Antonio

ALONSOWhat, all so soon asleep? I wish mine eyes

Would, with themselves, shut up my thoughts.

I find they are inclined to do so.

180

SEBASTIANPlease you, sir,

Do not omit[181] the heavy offer of it.

It seldom visits sorrow: when it doth, it is a comforter.

ANTONIOWe two, my lord, will guard your person

While you take your rest, and watch your safety.

185

ALONSOThank you. Wondrous heavy. He sleeps

SEBASTIANWhat a strange drowsiness possesses them!

[Exit Ariel]

ANTONIOIt is the quality o’th’climate.

SEBASTIANWhy

Doth it not then our eyelids sink? I find

190

Not myself disposed to sleep.

ANTONIONor I: my spirits are nimble.

They fell together all, as[192] by consent

They dropped, as by a thunder-stroke. What might,

Worthy Sebastian? O, what might? — No more.—

195

And yet, methinks I see it in thy face,

What thou shouldst be: th’occasion speaks[196] thee, and

My strong imagination sees a crown

Dropping upon thy head.

SEBASTIANWhat? Art thou waking?[199]

200

ANTONIODo you not hear me speak?

SEBASTIANI do, and surely

It is a sleepy language and thou speak’st

Out of thy sleep. What is it thou didst say?

This is a strange repose, to be asleep

205

With eyes wide open: standing, speaking, moving,

And yet so fast asleep.

ANTONIONoble Sebastian,

Thou let’st thy fortune sleep — die, rather: wink’st[208]

Whiles thou art waking.

210

SEBASTIANThou dost snore distinctly:[210]

There’s meaning in thy snores.

ANTONIOI am more serious than my custom:[212] you

Must be so too, if heed[213] me: which to do

Trebles thee o’er.[214]

215

SEBASTIANWell, I am standing water.[215]

ANTONIOI’ll teach you how to flow.

SEBASTIANDo so: to ebb

Hereditary sloth[218] instructs me.

ANTONIOO,

220

If[220] you but knew how you the purpose cherish

Whiles thus you mock it: how in stripping it

You more invest[222] it. Ebbing men, indeed,

Most often, do so near the bottom run

By their own fear, or sloth.

225

SEBASTIANPrithee, say on:[225]

The setting[226] of thine eye and cheek proclaim

A matter[227] from thee; and a birth, indeed,

Which throes[228] thee much to yield.

ANTONIOThus, sir:

230

Although this lord[230] of weak remembrance, this,

Who shall be of[231] as little memory

When he is earthed,[232] hath here almost persuaded —

For he’s a spirit of[233] persuasion, only

Professes to persuade — the king his son’s alive:

235

’Tis as impossible that he’s undrowned

As he that sleeps here swims.

SEBASTIANI have no hope

That he’s undrowned.

ANTONIOO, out of that ‘no hope’

240

What great hope have you! No hope that way is

Another way so high a hope,[241] that even

Ambition[242] cannot pierce a wink beyond,

But doubt discovery there. Will you grant with me

That Ferdinand is drowned?

245

SEBASTIANHe’s gone.

ANTONIOThen, tell me: who’s the next heir of Naples?

SEBASTIANClaribel.

ANTONIOShe that is Queen of Tunis: she that dwells

Ten leagues[249] beyond man’s life: she that from Naples

250

Can have no note,[250] unless the sun were post —

The man i’th’moon’s too slow — till new-born chins

Be rough and razorable: she that from whom[252]

We all were sea-swallowed, though some cast[253] again —

And by that destiny — to perform an act

255

Whereof[255] what’s past is prologue, what to come

In yours and my discharge.[256]

SEBASTIANWhat stuff[257] is this? How say you?

’Tis true, my brother’s daughter’s Queen of Tunis:

So is she heir of Naples, ’twixt which regions

260

There is some space.[260]

ANTONIOA space whose every cubit[261]

Seems to cry out, ‘How shall that Claribel

Measure us back[263] to Naples? Keep in Tunis,

And let Sebastian wake.[264]’ Say this were death

265

That now hath seized them: why, they were no worse

Than now they are. There be that can rule Naples

As well as he[267] that sleeps: lords that can prate

As amply and unnecessarily

As this Gonzalo: I myself could make[269]

270

A chough of as deep chat. O, that you bore[270]

The mind that I do! What a sleep were this

For your advancement! Do you understand me?

SEBASTIANMethinks I do.

ANTONIOAnd how does your content[274]

275

Tender[275] your own good fortune?

SEBASTIANI remember

You did supplant[277] your brother Prospero.

ANTONIOTrue:

And look how well my garments[279] sit upon me,

280

Much feater[280] than before. My brother’s servants

Were then my fellows:[281] now they are my men.

SEBASTIANBut for your conscience.

ANTONIOAy, sir: where lies that? If ’twere a kibe,[283]

’Twould put me to[284] my slipper: but I feel not

285

This deity[285] in my bosom: twenty consciences

That stand ’twixt me and Milan, candied[286] be they,

And melt ere they molest! Here lies your brother,

No better than the earth he lies upon,

If he were that which now he’s like — that’s dead —

290

Whom I with this obedient steel — three inches of it — Touching sword or dagger

Can lay to bed forever: whiles you, doing thus,

To the perpetual wink[292] for aye might put

This ancient morsel,[293] this Sir Prudence, who

Should not[294] upbraid our course. For all the rest,

295

They’ll take suggestion as a cat laps milk:

They’ll tell[296] the clock to any business that

We say befits the hour.

SEBASTIANThy case, dear friend,

Shall be my precedent. As thou got’st Milan,

300

I’ll come by Naples. Draw thy sword: one stroke

Shall free thee from the tribute[301] which thou payest,

And I the king shall love thee.

ANTONIODraw together:

And when I rear[304] my hand, do you the like,

305

To fall it on Gonzalo.

SEBASTIANO, but one word. They talk apart

Enter Ariel [invisible] with music and song

ARIELMy master through his art foresees the danger To Gonzalo, who still sleeps

That you, his friend, are in, and sends me forth —

For else his project[309] dies — to keep them living.

310

While you here do snoring lie,

Sings in Gonzalo’s ear

Open-eyed conspiracy

His time[312] doth take.

If of life you keep a care,

Shake off slumber, and beware:

315

Awake, awake!

ANTONIOThen let us both be sudden. Antonio and Sebastian draw their swords

GONZALONow, good angels preserve the king! Waking

ALONSOWhy, how now? Ho, awake! Why are you drawn? The others wake

Wherefore this ghastly[319] looking?

320

GONZALOWhat’s the matter?

SEBASTIANWhiles we stood here securing your repose,

Even now, we heard a hollow burst of bellowing

Like bulls, or rather lions: did’t not wake you?

It struck mine ear most terribly.

325

ALONSOI heard nothing.

ANTONIOO, ’twas a din to fright a monster’s ear,

To make an earthquake! Sure it was the roar

Of a whole herd of lions.

ALONSOHeard you this, Gonzalo?

330

GONZALOUpon mine honour, sir, I heard a humming,

And that a strange one too, which did awake me:

I shaked you, sir, and cried: as mine eyes opened,

I saw their weapons drawn: there was a noise,

That’s verily.[334] ’Tis best we stand upon our guard,

335

Or that we quit this place: let’s draw our weapons.

ALONSOLead off this ground, and let’s make further search

For my poor son.

GONZALOHeavens keep him from these beasts!

For he is sure i’th’island.

340

ALONSOLead away.

ARIELProspero, my lord, shall know what I have done.

So, king, go safely on to seek thy son.

Exeunt [separately]

Act 2 Scene 2

running scene 4

Enter Caliban with a burden of wood. A noise of thunder heard

CALIBANAll the infections that the sun sucks up

From bogs, fens, flats,[2] on Prosper fall, and make him

By inch-meal[3] a disease. His spirits hear me,

And yet I needs must curse. But they’ll nor[4] pinch,

5

Fright me with urchin-shows,[5] pitch me i’th’mire,

Nor lead me like a firebrand[6] in the dark

Out of my way, unless he bid ’em: but

For every trifle are they set upon me,

Sometime like apes, that mow[9] and chatter at me,

10

And after bite me: then like hedgehogs, which

Lie tumbling in my barefoot way and mount

Their pricks at my footfall: sometime am I

All wound[13] with adders, who with cloven tongues

Do hiss me into madness.

Enter Trinculo

Lo,[14] now, lo!

15

Here comes a spirit of his, and to torment me

For bringing wood in slowly. I’ll fall flat:

Perchance he will not mind[17] me. Lies down and covers himself with his cloak

TRINCULOHere’s neither bush nor shrub to bear off[18] any weather at all, and another storm brewing: I hear it sing i’th’wind: yond same black cloud, yond huge one, looks like a foul bombard[20] that would shed his liquor. If it should thunder as it did before, I know not where to hide my head: yond same cloud cannot choose but fall by pailfuls. Sees Caliban What have we here? A man or a fish? Dead or alive? A fish, he smells like a fish: a very ancient and fishlike smell: a kind of not-of-the-newest poor-John.[24] A strange fish! Were I in England now — as once I was — and had but this fish painted,[25] not a holiday fool there but would give a piece of silver: there would this monster make a man:[26] any strange beast there makes a man: when they will not give a doit[27] to relieve a lame beggar, they will lay out ten to see a dead Indian.[28] Legged like a man and his fins like arms! Warm, o’my troth! I do now let loose[29] my opinion, hold it no longer: this is no fish, but an islander that hath lately suffered by a thunderbolt. Thunder Alas, the storm is come again! My best way is to creep under his gaberdine:[31] there is no other shelter hereabout. Misery acquaints a man with strange bedfellows: I will here shroud[33] till the dregs of the storm be past. Trinculo gets under Caliban’s cloak

Enter Stephano, singing With a bottle in his hand

STEPHANOI shall no more to sea, to sea:

35

Here shall I die ashore—

This is a very scurvy[36] tune to sing at a man’s funeral: well, here’s my comfort.

Drinks

The master, the swabber,[38] the boatswain and I,

Sings

The gunner and his mate,

40

Loved Mall, Meg and Marian and Margery,

But none of us cared for Kate.

For she had a tongue with a tang,[42]

Would cry to a sailor, ‘Go hang!’

She loved not the savour[44] of tar nor of pitch,

45

Yet a tailor[45] might scratch her where’er she did itch:

Then to sea, boys, and let her go hang!

This is a scurvy tune too: but here’s my comfort.

Drinks

CALIBANDo not torment me: O!

STEPHANOWhat’s the matter?[49] Have we devils here? Do you put tricks upon’s with savages and men of Ind,[50] ha? I have not scaped drowning to be afeard now of your four legs: for it hath been said, ‘As proper[51] a man as ever went on four legs, cannot make him give ground[52]’: and it shall be said so again, while Stephano breathes at’nostrils.[53]

CALIBANThe spirit torments me: O!

STEPHANOThis is some monster of the isle with four legs, who hath got, as I take it, an ague.[56] Where the devil should he learn our language? I will give him some relief,[57] if it be but for that. If I can recover him, and keep him tame, and get to Naples with him, he’s a present for any emperor that ever trod on neat’s leather.[58]

CALIBANDo not torment me, prithee: I’ll bring my wood home faster.

STEPHANOHe’s in his fit now, and does not talk after[60] the wisest. He shall taste of my bottle: if he have never drunk wine afore, it will go near to remove his fit. If I can recover him and keep him tame, I[62] will not take too much for him: he shall pay for him that hath him, and that soundly.

CALIBANThou dost me yet but little hurt: thou wilt anon,[64] I know it by thy trembling. Now Prosper works upon thee.

STEPHANOCome[66] on your ways: open your mouth: here is that which will give language[67] to you, cat. Open your mouth: this will shake your shaking, Gives Caliban a drink I can tell you, and that soundly: you cannot tell who’s your friend: open your chaps[68] again. Caliban spits it out

TRINCULOI should know that voice: it should be— but he is drowned, and these are devils. O, defend me!

STEPHANOFour legs and two voices: a most delicate[72] monster! His forward voice now is to speak well of his friend: his backward voice is to utter foul speeches and to detract.[74] If all the wine in my bottle will recover him, I will help his ague. Come. Amen! I will pour some in thy other mouth.

TRINCULOStephano!

STEPHANODoth thy other mouth call me? Mercy, mercy! This is a devil, and no monster: I will leave him, I have no long[78] spoon.

TRINCULOStephano! If thou be’st Stephano, touch me and speak to me, for I am Trinculo — be not afeard — thy good friend Trinculo.

STEPHANOIf thou be’st Trinculo, come forth: I’ll pull thee by the lesser legs.[81] Pulls him out If any be Trinculo’s legs, these are they. Thou art very Trinculo indeed! How cam’st thou to be the siege[83] of this moon-calf? Can he vent Trinculos?

TRINCULOI took him to be killed with a thunder-stroke: but art thou not drowned, Stephano? I hope now thou art not drowned: is the storm overblown?[85] I hid me under the dead moon-calf’s gaberdine for fear of the storm: and art thou living, Stephano? O Stephano, two Neapolitans scaped! Trinculo and Stephano embrace or dance

STEPHANOPrithee, do not turn me about: my stomach is not constant.

CALIBANThese be fine things, an if[89] they be not sprites. Aside That’s a brave god and bears celestial liquor: I will kneel to him.

STEPHANOHow didst thou scape? How cam’st thou hither? Swear by this bottle how thou cam’st hither. I escaped upon a butt of sack[92] which the sailors heaved o’erboard, by this bottle which I made of the bark of a tree with mine own hands since I was cast ashore.

CALIBANI’ll swear upon that bottle to be thy true subject, for the liquor is not earthly.

STEPHANOHere: swear then how thou escap’dst.

TRINCULOSwum ashore, man, like a duck: I can swim like a duck, I’ll be sworn.

STEPHANOHere, kiss the book.[99] Gives Trinculo the bottle Though thou canst swim like a duck, thou art made like a goose.[100]

TRINCULOO Stephano, hast any more of this?

STEPHANOThe whole butt, man: my cellar is in a rock by th’sea-side, where my wine is hid.— How now, moon-calf? How does thine ague? To Caliban

CALIBANHast thou not dropped from heaven?

STEPHANOOut o’th’moon, I do assure thee: I was the man i’th’moon when time was.[105]

CALIBANI have seen thee in her, and I do adore[107] thee: my mistress showed me thee, and thy dog,[108] and thy bush.

STEPHANOCome, swear to that: kiss the book: Gives Caliban the bottle I will furnish it anon with new contents.[110] Swear. Caliban drinks

TRINCULOBy this good light,[111] this is a very shallow monster! I afeard of him? Aside? A very weak monster! The man i’th’moon? A most poor, credulous monster! Well drawn,[112] monster, in good sooth![113]

CALIBANI’ll show thee every fertile inch o’th’island: and I will kiss thy foot. I prithee, be my god.

TRINCULOBy this light, a most perfidious[116] and drunken monster! When’s god’s Aside? asleep, he’ll rob his bottle.

CALIBANI’ll kiss thy foot: I’ll swear myself thy subject.

STEPHANOCome on then: down, and swear. Caliban kneels

TRINCULOI shall laugh myself to death at this puppy-headed[120] monster. A most scurvy monster! I could find in my heart to beat him— Aside?

STEPHANOCome, kiss. To Caliban

TRINCULO—But that the poor monster’s in drink:[123] an abominable monster!

CALIBANI’ll show thee the best springs: I’ll pluck thee berries: I’ll fish for thee and get thee wood enough. A plague upon the tyrant that I serve! I’ll bear him no more sticks, but follow thee, thou wondrous man.

TRINCULOA most ridiculous monster, to make a wonder of a poor drunkard! Aside?

CALIBANI prithee, let me bring thee where crabs[128] grow: and I with my long nails will dig thee pignuts:[129] show thee a jay’s nest and instruct thee how to snare the nimble marmoset:[130] I’ll bring thee to clust’ring filberts, and sometimes I’ll get thee young scamels[131] from the rock. Wilt thou go with me?

STEPHANOI prithee, now lead the way without any more talking. Trinculo, the king and all our company else being drowned, we will inherit here.— To Caliban Here, bear my bottle. Fellow Trinculo, we’ll fill him by and by again.

135

CALIBANFarewell master: farewell, farewell!

Sings drunkenly

TRINCULOA howling monster: a drunken monster!

CALIBANNo more dams I’ll make for[137] fish, Sings

Nor fetch in firing[138] at requiring,

Nor scrape trencher,[139] nor wash dish,

140

’Ban, ’Ban, Cacaliban

Has a new master: get a new man.

Freedom, high-day![142] High-day, freedom! Freedom, high-day, freedom!

STEPHANOO brave monster, lead the way!

Exeunt

Act 3 Scene 1

running scene 5

Enter Ferdinand, bearing a log

FERDINANDThere be some sports[1] are painful, and their labour Sets down the log

Delight in them sets off: some kinds of baseness[2]

Are nobly undergone, and most poor matters

Point to rich ends. This my mean[4] task

5

Would be as heavy to me as odious, but

The mistress which I serve quickens[6] what’s dead

And makes my labours pleasures: O, she is

Ten times more gentle than her father’s crabbed;[8]

And he’s composed of harshness. I must remove

10

Some thousands of these logs and pile them up,

Upon a sore injunction.[11] My sweet mistress

Weeps when she sees me work and says such baseness[12]

Had never like executor. I forget:[13]

But these sweet thoughts do even refresh my labours, Picks up the log

15

Most busy least,[15] when I do it.

Enter Miranda and Prospero Prospero at a distance, unseen

MIRANDAAlas, now pray you, To Ferdinand

Work not so hard. I would the lightning had

Burnt up those logs that you are enjoined[18] to pile.

Pray, set it down and rest you: when this burns

20

’Twill weep[20] for having wearied you. My father

Is hard at study: pray now, rest yourself,

He’s safe for these three hours.

FERDINANDO most dear mistress,

The sun will set before I shall discharge[24]

25

What I must strive to do.

MIRANDAIf you’ll sit down,

I’ll bear your logs the while: pray give me that,

I’ll carry it to the pile.

FERDINANDNo, precious creature,

30

I had rather crack my sinews, break my back,

Than you should such dishonour undergo,

While I sit lazy by.

MIRANDAIt would become[33] me

As well as it does you; and I should do it

35

With much more ease, for my good will is to it,

And yours it is against.

PROSPEROPoor worm, thou art infected.[37] Aside

This visitation[38] shows it.

MIRANDAYou look wearily.

40

FERDINANDNo, noble mistress, ’tis fresh morning with me

When you are by[41] at night. I do beseech you,

Chiefly that I might set it in my prayers,

What is your name?

MIRANDAMiranda.— O my father,

45

I have broke your hest[45] to say so.

FERDINANDAdmired Miranda,

Indeed the top[47] of admiration, worth

What’s dearest to the world! Full many a lady

I have eyed with best regard, and many a time

50

Th’harmony of their tongues hath into bondage[50]

Brought my too diligent[51] ear. For several virtues

Have I liked several women, never any

With so full soul but some defect in her

Did quarrel with the noblest grace she owed,[54]

55

And put[55] it to the foil. But you, O you,

So perfect and so peerless, are created

Of every creature’s best.

MIRANDAI do not know

One of my sex; no woman’s face remember,

60

Save from my glass,[60] mine own: nor have I seen

More that I may call men than you, good friend,[61]

And my dear father: how[62] features are abroad,

I am skilless[63] of; but by my modesty —

The jewel in my dower[64] — I would not wish

65

Any companion in the world but you:

Nor can imagination form a shape

Besides yourself to like of. But I prattle

Something too wildly, and my father’s precepts[68]

I therein do forget.

70

FERDINANDI am in my condition[70]

A prince, Miranda: I do think, a king —

I would not so — and would no more endure

This wooden slavery than to suffer

The flesh-fly[74] blow my mouth. Hear my soul speak:

75

The very instant that I saw you, did

My heart fly to your service, there resides

To make me slave to it, and for your sake

Am I this patient log-man.

MIRANDADo you love me?

80

FERDINANDO heaven, O earth, bear witness to this sound,

And crown what I profess with kind event[81]

If I speak true: if hollowly,[82] invert

What best is boded[83] me to mischief: I,

Beyond all limit of what[84] else i’th’world,

85

Do love, prize, honour you.

MIRANDAI am a fool

To weep at what I am glad of.

PROSPEROFair[88] encounter Aside

Of two most rare[89] affections! Heavens rain grace

90

On that which breeds[90] between ’em.

FERDINANDWherefore weep you?

MIRANDAAt mine unworthiness, that dare not offer

What I desire to give; and much less take

What I shall die to want.[94] But this is trifling,

95

And all the more it seeks to hide itself

The bigger bulk it shows. Hence, bashful cunning,[96]

And prompt me, plain and holy innocence.

I am your wife, if you will marry me:

If not, I’ll die your maid:[99] to be your fellow

100

You may deny me, but I’ll be your servant

Whether you will or no.

FERDINANDMy mistress,[102] dearest, Kneels

And I thus humble ever.

MIRANDAMy husband, then?

105

FERDINANDAy, with a heart as willing

As[106] bondage e’er of freedom: here’s my hand.

MIRANDAAnd mine, with my heart in’t: and now farewell

Till half an hour hence.

FERDINANDA thousand[109] thousand!

Exeunt [Ferdinand and Miranda, separately]

110

PROSPEROSo glad of this as they I cannot be,

Who are surprised[111] withal: but my rejoicing

At nothing can be more. I’ll to my book,

For yet ere supper-time must I perform

Much business appertaining.[114]

Exit

Act 3 Scene 2

running scene 6

Enter Caliban, Stephano and Trinculo

STEPHANOTell not me:[1] when the butt is out we will drink water: not a drop before; therefore bear up,[2] and board ’em. Servant-monster, drink to me.

TRINCULOServant-monster? The folly of this island!— Aside They say there’s but five upon this isle: we are three of them: if th’other two be brained[4] like us, the state totters.

STEPHANODrink, servant-monster, when I bid thee: thy eyes are almost set[6] in thy head. Caliban drinks

TRINCULOWhere should they be set else? He were a brave monster indeed, if they were set in his tail.[9]

STEPHANOMy man-monster hath drowned his tongue in sack: for my part, the sea cannot drown me: I swam, ere I could recover[11] the shore, five and thirty leagues off and on. By this light, thou shalt be my lieutenant, monster, or my standard.

TRINCULOYour lieutenant, if you list:[13] he’s no standard.

STEPHANOWe’ll not run,[14] Monsieur Monster.

TRINCULONor go[15] neither: but you’ll lie like dogs and yet say nothing neither.

STEPHANOMoon-calf, speak once in thy life, if thou be’st a good moon-calf.

CALIBANHow does thy honour? Let me lick thy shoe. I’ll not serve him: he is not valiant.[18]

TRINCULOThou liest, most ignorant monster: I am in case[19] to justle a constable. Why, thou deboshed[20] fish thou, was there ever man a coward that hath drunk so much sack as I today? Wilt thou tell a monstrous[21] lie, being but half a fish and half a monster?

CALIBANLo, how he mocks me! Wilt thou let him, my lord?

TRINCULO‘Lord’, quoth he! That a monster should be such a natural![24]

CALIBANLo, lo, again! Bite him to death, I prithee.

STEPHANOTrinculo, keep a good tongue in your head: if[26] you prove a mutineer, the next tree. The poor monster’s my subject and he shall not suffer indignity.

CALIBANI thank my noble lord. Wilt thou be pleased to hearken once again to the suit I made to thee?

STEPHANOMarry,[30] will I: kneel and repeat it: I will stand, and so shall Trinculo.

Enter Ariel, invisible

CALIBANAs I told thee before, I am subject to a tyrant, a sorcerer, that by his cunning[32] hath cheated me of the island.

ARIELThou liest.

CALIBANThou liest, thou jesting monkey, thou: To Trinculo I would my valiant master would destroy thee. I do not lie.

STEPHANOTrinculo, if you trouble him any more in’s tale,[36] by this hand, I will supplant[37] some of your teeth.

TRINCULOWhy, I said nothing.

STEPHANOMum[39] then, and no more.— Proceed. To Trinculo/To Caliban

40

CALIBANI say by sorcery he got this isle:

From me he got it. If thy greatness will

Revenge it on him — for I know thou dar’st,

But this thing[43] dare not —

STEPHANOThat’s most certain.

45

CALIBANThou shalt be lord of it, and I’ll serve thee.

STEPHANOHow now shall this be compassed?[46]

Canst thou bring me to the party?[47]

CALIBANYea, yea, my lord: I’ll yield him thee[48] asleep,

Where thou mayst knock a nail into his head.

50

ARIELThou liest, thou canst not.

CALIBANWhat a pied[51] ninny’s this? Thou scurvy patch— To Trinculo

I do beseech thy greatness give him blows, To Stephano

And take his bottle from him: when that’s gone

He shall drink nought but brine, for I’ll not show him

55

Where the quick freshes[55] are.

STEPHANOTrinculo, run into no further danger: interrupt the monster one word further, and by this hand, I’ll turn[57] my mercy out o’doors and make a stockfish of thee.

TRINCULOWhy, what did I? I did nothing. I’ll go further off.

STEPHANODidst thou not say he lied?

ARIELThou liest.

STEPHANODo I so? Take thou that. Beats Trinculo As you like this, give[62] me the lie another time.

TRINCULOI did not give the lie. Out o’your wits and hearing too? A pox o’your bottle! This can sack and drinking do: a murrain[64] on your monster, and the devil take your fingers!

CALIBANHa, ha, ha!

STEPHANONow, forward[67] with your tale.— To Caliban/To Trinculo Prithee, stand further off.

CALIBANBeat him enough:[68] after a little time,

I’ll beat him too.

70

STEPHANOStand further.— Come, proceed. To Trinculo/To Caliban

CALIBANWhy, as I told thee, ’tis a custom with him

I’th’afternoon to sleep: there thou mayst brain[72] him,

Having first seized his books: or with a log

Batter his skull, or paunch[74] him with a stake,

75

Or cut his weasand[75] with thy knife. Remember

First to possess his books; for without them

He’s but a sot,[77] as I am, nor hath not

One spirit to command: they all do hate him

As rootedly[79] as I. Burn but his books.

80

He has brave utensils[80] — for so he calls them —

Which when he has a house, he’ll deck[81] withal.

And that most deeply to consider is

The beauty of his daughter: he himself

Calls her a nonpareil:[84] I never saw a woman,

85

But only Sycorax my dam, and she:

But she as far surpasseth Sycorax

As great’st does least.

STEPHANOIs it so brave a lass?

CALIBANAy, lord: she will become[89] thy bed, I warrant,

90

And bring thee forth brave brood.[90]

STEPHANOMonster, I will kill this man: his daughter and I will be king and queen — ’save our graces![92] — and Trinculo and thyself shall be viceroys. Dost thou like the plot, Trinculo?

TRINCULOExcellent.

STEPHANOGive me thy hand, I am sorry I beat thee: but, while thou livest, keep a good tongue in thy head.

CALIBANWithin this half hour will he be asleep:

Wilt thou destroy him then?

STEPHANOAy, on mine honour.

100

ARIELThis will I tell my master. Aside

CALIBANThou mak’st me merry: I am full of pleasure,

Let us be jocund.[102] Will you troll the catch

You taught me but while-ere?[103]

STEPHANOAt thy request, monster, I will do reason,[104] any reason: come on, Trinculo, let us sing.

Flout[106] ’em and scout ’em

Sings

And scout ’em and flout ’em,

Thought is free.

CALIBANThat’s not the tune.

Ariel plays the tune on a tabor and pipe

STEPHANOWhat is this same?

TRINCULOThis is the tune of our catch, played by the picture of Nobody.[111]

STEPHANOIf thou be’st a man, show thyself in thy likeness: if thou be’st a devil, take’t[113] as thou list.

TRINCULOO, forgive me my sins!

STEPHANOHe that dies pays all debts: I defy thee. Mercy upon us!

CALIBANArt thou afeard?

STEPHANONo, monster, not I.

CALIBANBe not afeard, the isle is full of noises,

Sounds and sweet airs, that give delight and hurt not:

120

Sometimes a thousand twangling[120] instruments

Will hum about mine ears; and sometime voices,

That if I then had waked after long sleep,

Will make me sleep again, and then in dreaming,

The clouds methought would open and show riches

125

Ready to drop upon me, that when I waked

I cried to dream again.

STEPHANOThis will prove a brave kingdom to me, where I shall have my music for nothing.

CALIBANWhen Prospero is destroyed.

STEPHANOThat shall be by and by:[130] I remember the story.

[Exit Ariel, playing music]

TRINCULOThe sound is going away: let’s follow it, and after do our work.

STEPHANOLead, monster: we’ll follow. I would I could see this taborer:[133] he lays it on.

TRINCULOWilt come? I’ll follow Stephano. To Caliban

Exeunt

Act 3 Scene 3

running scene 7

Enter Alonso, Sebastian, Antonio, Gonzalo, Adrian, Francisco and others

GONZALOBy’r lakin,[1] I can go no further, sir,

My old bones ache. Here’s a maze[2] trod indeed

Through forth-rights[3] and meanders. By your patience,

I needs must rest me.

5

ALONSOOld lord, I cannot blame thee,

Who am myself attached[6] with weariness

To th’dulling of my spirits: sit down and rest.

Even here I will put off[8] my hope, and keep it

No longer for my flatterer:[9] he is drowned

10

Whom thus we stray to find, and the sea mocks

Our frustrate[11] search on land. Well, let him go.

ANTONIOI am right glad that he’s so out of hope. Aside to Sebastian

Do not for[13] one repulse forgo the purpose

That you resolved t’effect.

15

SEBASTIANThe next advantage will we take thoroughly. Aside to Antonio

ANTONIOLet it be tonight: Aside to Sebastian

For now they are oppressed[17] with travail, they

Will not, nor cannot use such vigilance

As when they are fresh.

Solemn and strange music: and [enter] Prospero on the top, invisible. Enter several strange shapes, bringing in a banquet, and dance about it with gentle actions of salutations, and inviting the king and others to eat, they depart

20

SEBASTIANI say tonight: no more. Aside to Antonio

ALONSOWhat harmony is this? My good friends, hark!

GONZALOMarvellous sweet music.

ALONSOGive us kind keepers,[23] heavens. What were these?

SEBASTIANA living drollery.[24] Now I will believe

25

That there are unicorns: that in Arabia

There is one tree, the phoenix’[26] throne, one phoenix

At this hour reigning there.

ANTONIOI’ll believe both:

And what does else want credit,[29] come to me,

30

And I’ll be sworn ’tis true: travellers ne’er did lie,

Though fools at home condemn ’em.

GONZALOIf in Naples

I should report this now, would they believe me?

If I should say I saw such islanders —

35

For certes[35] these are people of the island —

Who though they are of monstrous[36] shape, yet note

Their manners are more gentle, kind, than of

Our human generation[38] you shall find

Many, nay almost any.

40

PROSPEROHonest lord, Aside

Thou hast said well: for some of you there present

Are worse than devils.

ALONSOI cannot too much muse[43]

Such shapes, such gesture, and such sound, expressing —

45

Although they want the use of tongue — a kind

Of excellent dumb discourse.

PROSPEROPraise in departing.[47] Aside

FRANCISCOThey vanished strangely.[48]

SEBASTIANNo matter, since

50

They have left their viands[50] behind: for we have stomachs.

Will’t please you taste of what is here?

ALONSONot I.

GONZALOFaith, sir, you need not fear. When we were boys,

Who would believe that there were mountaineers,[54]

55

Dewlapped[55] like bulls, whose throats had hanging at ’em

Wallets[56] of flesh? Or that there were such men

Whose heads stood in their breasts? Which now we find

Each putter-out[58] of five for one will bring us

Good warrant of.

60

ALONSOI will stand to,[60] and feed,

Although[61] my last: no matter, since I feel

The best is past. Brother, my lord the duke,

Stand to, and do as we.

Thunder and lightning. Enter Ariel, like a harpy: claps his wings upon the table, and, with a quaint device, the banquet vanishes

ARIELYou are three men of sin, whom Destiny,

65

That hath to instrument[65] this lower world

And what is in’t, the never-surfeited[66] sea

Hath caused to belch up you; and on this island,

Where man doth not inhabit — you ’mongst men

Being most unfit to live — I have made you mad;

70

And even with suchlike valour[70] men hang and drown

Their proper selves.[71] You fools: I and my fellows Alonso, Sebastian, and Antonio draw their swords

Are ministers of Fate: the elements[72]

Of whom your swords are tempered may as well

Wound the loud winds, or with bemocked-at[74] stabs

75

Kill the still-closing waters,[75] as diminish

One dowl[76] that’s in my plume. My fellow ministers

Are like[77] invulnerable. If you could hurt,

Your swords are now too massy[78] for your strengths,

And will not be uplifted. But remember —

80

For that’s my business[80] to you — that you three

From Milan did supplant good Prospero,

Exposed unto the sea — which hath requit[82] it —

Him and his innocent child: for which foul deed,

The powers, delaying — not forgetting — have

85

Incensed the seas and shores, yea, all the creatures

Against your peace. Thee of thy son, Alonso,

They have bereft: and do pronounce by me

Ling’ring perdition[88] — worse than any death

Can be at once — shall step by step attend

90

You and your ways: whose[90] wraths to guard you from,

Which here in this most desolate isle else falls

Upon your heads, is nothing but heart’s sorrow

And a clear life ensuing.

He vanishes in thunder: then, to soft music, enter the shapes again, and dance, with mocks and mows, and carrying out the table [depart]

PROSPEROBravely the figure of this harpy hast thou

95

Performed, my Ariel: a grace it had, devouring:[95]

Of my instruction hast thou nothing bated[96]

In what thou hadst to say. So,[97] with good life

And observation strange,[98] my meaner ministers

Their several kinds[99] have done. My high charms work,

100

And these, mine enemies, are all knit up[100]

In their distractions:[101] they now are in my power,

And in these fits[102] I leave them, while I visit

Young Ferdinand — whom they suppose is drowned —

And his and mine loved darling.

[Exit above]

105

GONZALOI’th’name of something holy, sir, why stand you

In this strange stare?

ALONSOO, it is monstrous, monstrous:

Methought the billows[108] spoke and told me of it,

The winds did sing it to me, and the thunder —

110

That deep and dreadful organ-pipe — pronounced

The name of Prosper: it did bass[111] my trespass.

Therefore my son i’th’ooze[112] is bedded: and

I’ll seek him deeper than e’er plummet[113] sounded

And with him there lie mudded.[114]

Exit

115

SEBASTIANBut[115] one fiend at a time,

I’ll fight their legions o’er.

ANTONIOI’ll be thy second.[117]

Exeunt [Sebastian and Antonio]

GONZALOAll three of them are desperate: their great guilt,

Like poison given to work a great time after,

120

Now ’gins to bite the spirits.[120] I do beseech you —

That are of suppler joints — follow them swiftly

And hinder them from what this ecstasy[122]

May now provoke them to.

ADRIANFollow, I pray you.

Exeunt omnes

Act 4 Scene 1

running scene 8

Enter Prospero, Ferdinand and Miranda

PROSPEROIf I have too austerely[1] punished you, To Ferdinand

Your compensation[2] makes amends, for I

Have given you here a third[3] of mine own life,

Or that for which I live: who once again

5

I tender[5] to thy hand. All thy vexations

Were but my trials of thy love, and thou

Hast strangely[7] stood the test: here, afore heaven,

I ratify[8] this my rich gift. O Ferdinand,

Do not smile at me that I boast her[9] of,

10

For thou shalt find she will outstrip all praise

And make it halt[11] behind her.

FERDINANDI do believe it gainst[12] an oracle.

PROSPEROThen, as my guest, and thine own acquisition

Worthily purchased,[14] take my daughter: but

15

If thou dost break her virgin-knot before

All sanctimonious[16] ceremonies may

With full and holy rite be ministered,

No sweet aspersion[18] shall the heavens let fall

To make this contract grow; but barren hate,

20

Sour-eyed disdain and discord shall bestrew[20]

The union of your bed, with weeds so loathly[21]

That you shall hate it both. Therefore take heed,

As Hymen’s[23] lamps shall light you.

FERDINANDAs I hope

25

For quiet days, fair issue[25] and long life,

With such love as ’tis now, the murkiest den,

The most opportune place, the strong’st[27] suggestion

Our worser genius can, shall never melt

Mine honour into lust, to take away

30

The edge of that day’s celebration

When I shall think or[31] Phoebus’ steeds are foundered,

Or night kept chained below.

PROSPEROFairly spoke.

Sit then and talk with her: she is thine own. Ferdinand and Miranda sit and talk

35

What, Ariel! My industrious servant, Ariel!

Enter Ariel

ARIELWhat would my potent master? Here I am.

PROSPEROThou and thy meaner fellows your last service

Did worthily perform, and I must use you

In such another trick. Go bring the rabble,[39]

40

O’er whom I give thee power, here to this place:

Incite them to quick motion, for I must

Bestow upon the eyes of this young couple

Some vanity[43] of mine art: it is my promise,

And they expect it from me.

45

ARIELPresently?[45]

PROSPEROAy, with a twink.[46]

ARIELBefore you can say ‘come’ and ‘go’,

And breathe twice and cry ‘so, so’,

Each one, tripping on his toe,

50

Will be here with mop and mow.[50]

Do you love me, master? No?

PROSPERODearly, my delicate Ariel: do not approach

Till thou dost hear me call.

ARIELWell: I conceive.[54]

Exit

55

PROSPEROLook thou be true:[55] do not give dalliance To Ferdinand

Too much the rein: the strongest oaths are straw

To th’fire i’th’blood:[57] be more abstemious,

Or else goodnight[58] your vow.

FERDINANDI warrant you, sir,

60

The white cold virgin snow upon my heart

Abates the ardour of my liver.[61]

PROSPEROWell.

Now come, my Ariel! Bring a corollary,[63]

Rather than want a spirit: appear, and pertly.[64]

65

No tongue! All eyes! Be silent.

Soft music. Enter Iris

IRISCeres,[66] most bounteous lady, thy rich leas

Of wheat, rye, barley, vetches,[67] oats and peas;

Thy turfy[68] mountains, where live nibbling sheep,

And flat meads[69] thatched with stover, them to keep:

70

Thy banks with pionèd[70] and twillèd brims,

Which spongy[71] April at thy hest betrims

To make cold[72] nymphs chaste crowns; and thy broom-groves,

Whose shadow the dismissèd[73] bachelor loves,

Being lass-lorn:[74] thy poll-clipped vineyard,

75

And thy sea-marge[75] sterile and rocky-hard,

Where thou thyself dost air:[76] the queen o’th’sky,

Whose wat’ry arch[77] and messenger am I,

Bids thee leave these,[78] and with her sovereign grace,

Juno descends In her chariot

Here on this grass-plot, in this very place,

80

To come and sport.[80] Her peacocks fly amain:

Approach, rich Ceres, her to entertain.

Enter Ceres

CERESHail, many-coloured messenger, that ne’er

Dost disobey the wife of Jupiter:[83]

Who, with thy saffron[84] wings, upon my flowers

85

Diffusest honey drops,[85] refreshing showers,

And with each end of thy blue bow[86] dost crown

My bosky[87] acres and my unshrubbed down,

Rich scarf to my proud[88] earth: why hath thy queen

Summoned me hither to this short-grassed green?

90

IRISA contract of true love to celebrate,

And some donation[91] freely to estate

On the blest lovers.

CERESTell me, heavenly bow,

If Venus[94] or her son, as thou dost know,

95

Do now attend the queen? Since they did plot

The means that[96] dusky Dis my daughter got,

Her and her blind boy’s[97] scandaled company

I have forsworn.[98]

IRISOf her society

100

Be not afraid: I met her deity

Cutting the clouds towards Paphos,[101] and her son

Dove-drawn[102] with her. Here thought they to have done

Some wanton[103] charm upon this man and maid,

Whose vows are that no bed-right[104] shall be paid

105

Till Hymen’s[105] torch be lighted — but in vain.

Mars’ hot minion[106] is returned again:

Her waspish-headed[107] son has broke his arrows,

Swears he will shoot no more, but play with sparrows,[108]

And be[109] a boy right out.

110

CERESHighest queen of state,

Great Juno, comes: I know her by her gait.[111] Juno alights

JUNOHow does my bounteous[112] sister? Go with me

To bless this twain,[113] that they may prosperous be,

And honoured in their issue.

115

JUNOHonour, riches, marriage-blessing,

They sing

Long continuance, and increasing,[116]

Hourly joys be still[117] upon you,

Juno sings her blessings on you.

CERESEarth’s increase, foison[119] plenty,

120

Barns and garners[120] never empty,

Vines with clust’ring bunches growing,

Plants with goodly burden bowing:

Spring[123] come to you at the farthest,

In the very end of harvest.

125

Scarcity and want shall shun you,

Ceres’ blessing so is on you.

FERDINANDThis is a most majestic vision, and

Harmonious charmingly.[128] May I be bold

To think these spirits?

130

PROSPEROSpirits, which by mine art

I have from their confines called to enact

My present fancies.[132]

FERDINANDLet me live here ever:

So rare a wondered[134] father, and a wise,

135

Makes this place paradise.

PROSPEROSweet, now, silence!

Juno and Ceres whisper seriously:[137]

There’s something else to do. Hush, and be mute,

Or else our spell is marred.

Juno and Ceres whisper, and send Iris on employment

140

IRISYou nymphs, called Naiads,[140] of the windring brooks,

With your sedged[141] crowns and ever-harmless looks,

Leave your crisp channels,[142] and on this green land

Answer your summons: Juno does command.

Come, temperate[144] nymphs, and help to celebrate

145

A contract of true love: be[145] not too late.

Enter certain nymphs

You sunburned sicklemen[146] of August weary,

Come hither from the furrow[147] and be merry:

Make holiday: your rye-straw hats put on,

And these fresh nymphs encounter every one

150

In country footing.[150]

Enter certain reapers, properly habited: they join with the nymphs in a graceful dance, towards the end whereof Prospero starts suddenly and speaks: after which, to a strange, hollow, and confused noise, they heavily vanish

PROSPEROI had forgot that foul conspiracy Aside

Of the beast Caliban and his confederates

Against my life: the minute of their plot

Is almost come.— Well done. Avoid:[154] no more! To the spirits

155

FERDINANDThis is strange: your father’s in some passion[155] To Miranda

That works him strongly.

MIRANDANever till this day

Saw I him touched with anger, so distempered.[158]

PROSPEROYou do look, my son, in a movèd sort,[159]

160

As if you were dismayed: be cheerful, sir.

Our revels[161] now are ended. These our actors,

As I foretold[162] you, were all spirits and

Are melted into air, into thin air,

And, like the baseless[164] fabric of this vision,

165

The cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces,

The solemn temples, the great globe[166] itself,

Yea, all[167] which it inherit, shall dissolve,

And, like this insubstantial pageant[168] faded,

Leave not a rack[169] behind. We are such stuff

170

As dreams are made on; and our little life

Is rounded[171] with a sleep. Sir, I am vexed,

Bear with my weakness, my old brain is troubled:

Be not disturbed with my infirmity.

If you be pleased, retire into my cell[174]

175

And there repose. A turn or two I’ll walk

To still my beating mind.

FERDINAND and MIRANDAWe wish your peace.

Exeunt [Ferdinand and Miranda]

PROSPEROCome with a thought:[178] I thank thee, Ariel: come!

Enter Ariel

ARIELThy thoughts I cleave to:[179] what’s thy pleasure?

180

PROSPEROSpirit, we must prepare to meet with Caliban.

ARIELAy, my commander: when I presented Ceres,

I thought to have told thee of it, but I feared

Lest I might anger thee.

PROSPEROSay again, where didst thou leave these varlets?[184]

185

ARIELI told you, sir, they were red-hot[185] with drinking,

So full of valour that they smote[186] the air

For breathing in their faces, beat the ground

For kissing of their feet: yet always bending[188]

Towards their project. Then I beat my tabor,

190

At which, like unbacked colts,[190] they pricked their ears,

Advanced[191] their eyelids, lifted up their noses

As[192] they smelt music: so I charmed their ears,

That calf-like they my lowing[193] followed through

Toothed[194] briars, sharp furzes, pricking gorse and thorns,

195

Which entered their frail shins: at last I left them

I’th’filthy-mantled[196] pool beyond your cell,

There dancing up to th’chins, that[197] the foul lake

O’erstunk their feet.

PROSPEROThis was well done, my bird.

200

Thy[200] shape invisible retain thou still:

The trumpery[201] in my house, go bring it hither,

For stale[202] to catch these thieves.

ARIELI go, I go.

Exit

PROSPEROA devil, a born devil, on whose nature

205

Nurture can never stick: on whom my pains,

Humanely[206] taken, all, all lost, quite lost.

And as with age his body uglier grows,

So his mind cankers.[208] I will plague them all,

Even to roaring.[209] Come, hang them on this line.

Enter Ariel, loaden with glistering apparel etc. Ariel hangs up the finery

Enter Caliban, Stephano and Trinculo, all wet Prospero and Ariel stand apart

CALIBANPray you, tread softly, that[210] the blind mole may not hear a footfall: we now are near his cell.

STEPHANOMonster, your fairy,[212] which you say is a harmless fairy, has done little better than played[213] the jack with us.

TRINCULOMonster, I do smell all horse-piss, at which my nose is in great indignation.

STEPHANOSo is mine. Do you hear, monster? If I should take a displeasure against you, look you—

TRINCULOThou wert but a lost[218] monster.

CALIBANGood my lord, give me thy favour still.

220

Be patient, for the prize I’ll bring thee to

Shall hoodwink this mischance:[221] therefore speak softly,

All’s hushed as midnight yet.

TRINCULOAy, but to lose our bottles in the pool!

STEPHANOThere is not only disgrace and dishonour in that, monster, but an infinite loss.

TRINCULOThat’s more to me than my wetting: yet this is your harmless fairy, monster.

STEPHANOI will fetch off[228] my bottle, though I be o’er ears for my labour.

CALIBANPrithee, my king, be quiet. See’st thou here,

230

This is the mouth o’th’cell: no noise, and enter.

Do that good mischief[231] which may make this island

Thine own forever, and I thy Caliban

For aye[233] thy foot-licker.

STEPHANOGive me thy hand. I do begin to have bloody thoughts.

TRINCULOO King[235] Stephano, O peer! Sees the apparel O worthy Stephano, look what a wardrobe here is for thee!

CALIBANLet it alone, thou fool: it is but trash.

TRINCULOO, ho, monster: we know what belongs to a frippery.[238] Puts on a gown O King Stephano!

STEPHANOPut off that gown, Trinculo: by this hand, I’ll have that gown.

TRINCULOThy grace shall have it.

CALIBANThe dropsy[241] drown this fool: what do you mean

To dote thus on such luggage?[242] Let’s alone

And do the murder first: if he awake,

From toe to crown he’ll fill our skins with pinches,

245

Make[245] us strange stuff.

STEPHANOBe you quiet, monster.— Takes it down Mistress line,[246] is not this my jerkin? Now is the jerkin under the line:[247] now, jerkin, you are like to lose your hair and prove a bald jerkin.

TRINCULODo, do: we steal by line and level,[249] an’t like your grace.

STEPHANOI thank thee for that jest: Gives Trinculo a garment here’s a garment for’t: wit shall not go unrewarded while I am king of this country. ‘Steal by line and level’ is an excellent pass of pate:[252] there’s another garment for’t. Gives another

TRINCULOMonster, come put some lime[253] upon your fingers, and away with the rest.

CALIBANI will have none on’t: we shall lose our time,

255

And all be turned to barnacles,[255] or to apes

With foreheads villainous[256] low.

STEPHANOMonster, lay to your[257] fingers: help to bear this away where my hogshead of wine is, or I’ll turn you out of my kingdom: go to, carry this.

TRINCULOAnd this. They load Caliban with garments

STEPHANOAy, and this.

A noise of hunters heard. Enter diverse spirits, in shape of dogs and hounds, hunting them about, Prospero and Ariel setting them on

PROSPEROHey, Mountain,[261] hey!

ARIELSilver! There it goes, Silver!

PROSPEROFury, Fury! There, Tyrant, there: hark! Hark! Caliban, Stephano, and Trinculo are driven out

Go, charge my goblins that they grind[264] their joints

265

With dry convulsions,[265] shorten up their sinews To Ariel

With agèd cramps,[266] and more pinch-spotted make them

Than pard[267] or cat o’mountain.

ARIELHark, they roar.

PROSPEROLet them be hunted soundly. At this hour

270

Lies at my mercy all mine enemies:

Shortly shall all my labours end, and thou

Shalt have the air at freedom:[272] for a little,

Follow, and do me service.

Exeunt

Act 5 Scene 1

running scene 9

Enter Prospero in his magic robes, and Ariel

PROSPERONow does my project[1] gather to a head.

My charms crack not,[2] my spirits obey, and Time

Goes upright with his carriage. How’s the day?[3]

ARIELOn the sixth hour, at which time, my lord,

5

You said our work should cease.

PROSPEROI did say so,

When first I raised the tempest. Say, my spirit,

How fares the king and’s followers?

ARIELConfined together

10

In the same fashion as you gave in charge,[10]

Just as you left them; all prisoners, sir,

In the line-grove[12] which weather-fends your cell:

They cannot budge till your release. The king,

His brother, and yours abide[14] all three distracted,

15

And the remainder mourning over them,

Brimful of sorrow and dismay: but chiefly

Him that you termed,[17] sir, the good old lord Gonzalo:

His tears run down his beard, like winter’s[18] drops

From eaves of reeds. Your charm so strongly works ’em

20

That if you now beheld them, your affections[20]

Would become tender.

PROSPERODost thou think so, spirit?

ARIELMine would, sir, were I human.

PROSPEROAnd mine shall.

25

Hast thou, which art but air, a touch, a feeling

Of their afflictions, and shall not myself,

One of their kind, that relish[27] all as sharply

Passion as they, be kindlier moved[28] than thou art?

Though with their high[29] wrongs I am struck to th’quick,

30

Yet with my nobler reason gainst my fury

Do I take part:[31] the rarer action is

In virtue than[32] in vengeance. They being penitent,

The sole drift[33] of my purpose doth extend

Not a frown further. Go, release them, Ariel:

35

My charms I’ll break, their senses I’ll restore,

And they shall be themselves.

ARIELI’ll fetch them, sir.

Exit

PROSPEROYe elves of hills, brooks, standing[38] lakes and groves,

And ye that on the sands with printless foot[39]

40

Do chase the ebbing Neptune, and do fly[40] him

When he comes back: you demi-puppets[41] that

By moonshine do the green sour ringlets[42] make,

Whereof the ewe not bites:[43] and you whose pastime

Is to make midnight mushrooms,[44] that rejoice

45

To hear the solemn curfew,[45] by whose aid —

Weak masters[46] though ye be — I have bedimmed

The noontide sun, called forth the mutinous winds,

And ’twixt the green sea and the azured vault[48]

Set roaring war:[49] to the dread rattling thunder

50

Have I given fire,[50] and rifted Jove’s stout oak

With his own bolt: the strong-based[51] promontory

Have I made shake and by the spurs[52] plucked up

The pine and cedar. Graves at my command

Have waked their sleepers, oped,[54] and let ’em forth

55

By my so potent art. But this rough[55] magic Prospero traces a circle with his staff

I here abjure:[56] and when I have required

Some heavenly music — which even now I do —

To work mine end[58] upon their senses that

This airy charm is for, I’ll break my staff,

60

Bury it certain[60] fathoms in the earth,

And deeper than did ever plummet[61] sound

I’ll drown my book.

Solemn music. Here enters Ariel before: then Alonso, with a frantic gesture, attended by Gonzalo: Sebastian and Antonio in like manner, attended by Adrian and Francisco. They all enter the circle which Prospero had made, and there stand charmed: which Prospero observing, speaks:

A solemn air,[63] and the best comforter To Alonso

To an unsettled fancy,[64] cure thy brains,

65

Now useless, boil[65] within thy skull!— There stand, To Sebastian and Antonio

For you are spell-stopped.[66]

Holy Gonzalo, honourable man, To Gonzalo

Mine eyes, ev’n sociable[68] to the show of thine,

Fall fellowly[69] drops.— The charm dissolves apace, Aside

70

And as the morning steals upon the night,

Melting the darkness, so their rising[71] senses

Begin to chase the ignorant[72] fumes that mantle

Their clearer reason.— O good Gonzalo,

My true[74] preserver, and a loyal sir

75

To him thou follow’st,[75] I will pay thy graces

Home both in word and deed.— Most cruelly

Didst thou, Alonso, use me and my daughter:

Thy brother was a furtherer[78] in the act.—

Thou art pinched for’t now, Sebastian.— Flesh and blood, To Antonio

80

You, brother mine, that entertain[80] ambition,

Expelled remorse and nature:[81] whom, with Sebastian —

Whose inward pinches[82] therefore are most strong —

Would here have killed your king: I do forgive thee,

Unnatural though thou art. Their understanding

85

Begins to swell, and the[85] approaching tide

Will shortly fill the reasonable shore

That now lies foul and muddy. Not one of them

That yet looks on me or would know me. Ariel,

Fetch me the hat[89] and rapier in my cell:

90

I will discase[90] me, and myself present

As[91] I was sometime Milan. Quickly, spirit:

Thou shalt ere long be free. Ariel gets hat and rapier, returns immediately

Ariel sings and helps to attire him:

ARIELWhere the bee sucks, there suck I:

In a cowslip’s bell[94] I lie:

95

There I couch[95] when owls do cry.

On the bat’s back I do fly

After summer merrily.

Merrily, merrily shall I live now

Under the blossom that hangs on the bough.

100

PROSPEROWhy, that’s my dainty Ariel. I shall miss

Thee: but yet thou shalt have freedom. So, so, so. Arranges his attire

To the king’s ship, invisible as thou art:

There shalt thou find the mariners asleep

Under the hatches: the master and the boatswain

105

Being awake, enforce[105] them to this place;

And presently,[106] I prithee.

ARIELI drink the air[107] before me, and return

Or ere[108] your pulse twice beat.

Exit

GONZALOAll torment, trouble, wonder, and amazement

110

Inhabits here: some heavenly power guide us

Out of this fearful[111] country!

PROSPEROBehold, sir king,

The wrongèd Duke of Milan, Prospero:

For more assurance that a living prince

115

Does now speak to thee, I embrace thy body,

And to thee and thy company, I bid Embraces him

A hearty welcome.

ALONSOWhether thou be’st he or no,

Or some enchanted trifle[119] to abuse me —

120

As late I have been — I not know: thy pulse

Beats as of flesh and blood: and since I saw thee

Th’affliction of my mind amends,[122] with which

I fear a madness held me: this must crave —

An if this be at all[124] — a most strange story.

125

Thy[125] dukedom I resign, and do entreat

Thou pardon me my wrongs. But how should Prospero

Be living and be here?

PROSPEROFirst, noble friend, To Gonzalo

Let me embrace thine age, whose honour cannot

130

Be measured or confined.

GONZALOWhether this be[131]

Or be not, I’ll not swear.

PROSPEROYou do yet taste

Some subtleties[134] o’th’isle, that will not let you

135

Believe things certain. Welcome, my friends all.—

But you, my brace[136] of lords, were I so minded, Aside to Sebastian and Antonio

I here could pluck his highness’ frown upon you,

And justify you[138] traitors: at this time,

I will tell no tales.

140

SEBASTIANThe devil speaks in him. Aside to Antonio, but overheard by Prospero

PROSPERONo.—

For you, most wicked sir, whom to call brother To Antonio

Would even infect my mouth, I do forgive

Thy rankest[144] fault — all of them — and require

145

My dukedom of thee, which perforce[145] I know

Thou must restore.

ALONSOIf thou be’st Prospero,

Give us particulars of thy preservation:

How thou hast met us here, whom three hours since

150

Were wrecked upon this shore? Where I have lost —

How sharp the point of this remembrance is —

My dear son Ferdinand.

PROSPEROI am woe[153] for’t, sir.

ALONSOIrreparable is the loss, and Patience

155

Says it is past her cure.

PROSPEROI rather think

You have not sought her help, of whose soft grace

For the like[158] loss, I have her sovereign aid,

And rest myself content.[159]

160

ALONSOYou the like loss?

PROSPEROAs great to me as late,[161] and supportable

To make the dear loss have I means much weaker

Than you may call to comfort you: for I

Have lost my daughter.

165

ALONSOA daughter?

O heavens, that they were living both in Naples,

The king and queen there! That[167] they were, I wish

Myself were mudded in that oozy bed

Where my son lies. When did you lose your daughter?

170

PROSPEROIn this last tempest. I perceive these lords

At this encounter do[171] so much admire

That they devour their reason[172] and scarce think

Their[173] eyes do offices of truth: their words

Are natural breath. But, howsoe’er you have

175

Been justled[175] from your senses, know for certain

That I am Prospero, and that very duke

Which was thrust forth of Milan, who most strangely

Upon this shore, where you were wrecked, was landed

To be the lord on’t.[179] No more yet of this,

180

For ’tis a chronicle[180] of day by day,

Not a relation[181] for a breakfast, nor

Befitting this first meeting. Welcome, sir:

This cell’s my court: here have I few attendants,

And subjects none abroad:[184] pray you look in.

185

My dukedom since you have given me again,

I will requite[186] you with as good a thing,

At least bring forth a wonder,[187] to content ye

As much as me my dukedom.

Here Prospero discovers Ferdinand and Miranda playing at chess

MIRANDASweet lord, you play me false.[189]

190

FERDINANDNo, my dearest love,

I would not for the world.

MIRANDAYes, for a score[192] of kingdoms you should wrangle,

And I would call it fair play.

ALONSOIf this prove

195

A vision of the island, one dear son

Shall I twice lose.

SEBASTIANA most high miracle.[197]

FERDINANDThough the seas threaten, they are merciful:

I have cursed them without cause. Kneels

200

ALONSONow all the blessings

Of a glad father compass[201] thee about.

Arise, and say how thou cam’st here.

MIRANDAO wonder!

How many goodly[204] creatures are there here!

205

How beauteous mankind is! O brave new world,

That has such people in’t.

PROSPERO’Tis new to thee.

ALONSOWhat is this maid with whom thou wast at play? To Ferdinand

Your eld’st[209] acquaintance cannot be three hours:

210

Is she the goddess that hath severed us,

And brought us thus together?

FERDINANDSir, she is mortal:

But by immortal providence, she’s mine:

I chose her when I could not ask my father

215

For his advice, nor thought I had one.[215] She

Is daughter to this famous Duke of Milan,

Of whom so often I have heard renown,[217]

But never saw before: of whom I have

Received a second life: and second father

220

This lady makes him to me.

ALONSOI am hers.[221]

But, O, how oddly will it sound that I

Must ask my child forgiveness.

PROSPEROThere sir, stop:

225

Let us not burden our remembrances with

A heaviness[226] that’s gone.

GONZALOI have inly[227] wept,

Or should have spoke ere this. Look down you gods,

And on this couple drop a blessèd crown.

230

For it is you that have chalked forth[230] the way

Which brought us hither.

ALONSOI say amen, Gonzalo.

GONZALOWas Milan[233] thrust from Milan that his issue

Should become kings of Naples? O, rejoice

235

Beyond a common joy, and set it down

With gold on lasting pillars: in one voyage

Did Claribel her husband find at Tunis,

And Ferdinand her brother found a wife

Where he himself was lost, Prospero his dukedom

240

In a poor isle, and all of us our selves

When no man was his own.

ALONSOGive me your hands: To Ferdinand and Miranda

Let grief and sorrow still[243] embrace his heart

That doth not wish you joy.

245

GONZALOBe it so. Amen!

Enter Ariel, with the Master and Boatswain amazedly following

O, look, sir, look, sir! Here is more of us!

I prophesied, if a gallows were on land,

This fellow could not drown.— Now, blasphemy,[248] To Boatswain

That swear’st grace o’erboard, not an oath on shore?

250

Hast thou no mouth by land? What is the news?

BOATSWAINThe best news is that we have safely found

Our king and company: the next, our ship,

Which but three glasses[253] since we gave out split,

Is tight and yare[254] and bravely rigged as when

255

We first put out to sea.

ARIELSir, all this service Aside to Prospero

Have I done since I went.

PROSPEROMy tricksy[258] spirit! Aside to Ariel

ALONSOThese are not natural events: they strengthen

260

From strange to stranger. Say, how came you hither?

BOATSWAINIf I did think, sir, I were well awake,

I’d strive to tell you. We were dead of sleep,

And — how we know not — all clapped under hatches,[263]

Where, but even now, with strange and several[264] noises

265

Of roaring, shrieking, howling, jingling chains,

And more diversity of sounds, all horrible,

We were awaked: straightway at liberty,[267]

Where we, in all our trim,[268] freshly beheld

Our royal, good and gallant ship, our master

270

Cap’ring[270] to eye her. On a trice, so please you,

Even in a dream, were we divided from them

And were brought moping[272] hither.

ARIELWas’t well done? Aside to Prospero

PROSPEROBravely, my diligence. Thou shalt be free. Aside to Ariel

275

ALONSOThis is as strange a maze as e’er men trod,

And there is in this business more than nature

Was ever conduct[277] of: some oracle

Must rectify our knowledge.

PROSPEROSir, my liege,

280

Do not infest your mind with beating[280] on

The strangeness of this business. At picked leisure[281] —

Which shall be shortly single[282] — I’ll resolve you,

Which[283] to you shall seem probable, of every

These happened accidents.[284] Till when, be cheerful

285

And think of each thing well.[285]— Come hither, spirit, Aside to Ariel

Set Caliban and his companions free:

Untie the spell.—

[Exit Ariel]

How fares my gracious sir? To Alonso

There are yet missing of your company

Some few odd lads that you remember not.

Enter Ariel, driving in Caliban, Stephano and Trinculo, in their stolen apparel

STEPHANOEvery man shift[290] for all the rest, and let no man take care for himself: for all is but fortune.[291] Coraggio, bully-monster, coraggio!

TRINCULOIf these be true spies[292] which I wear in my head, here’s a goodly sight.

CALIBANO Setebos, these be brave spirits indeed!

How fine my master is! I am afraid

295

He will chastise me.

SEBASTIANHa, ha!

What things are these, my lord Antonio?

Will money buy ’em?

ANTONIOVery like.[299] One of them

300

Is a plain fish, and no doubt marketable.

PROSPEROMark but the badges[301] of these men, my lords,

Then say if they be true.[302] This misshapen knave,

His mother was a witch, and one so strong

That could control the moon, make flows and ebbs,

305

And[305] deal in her command without her power:

These three have robbed me, and this demi-devil —

For he’s a bastard[307] one — had plotted with them

To take my life. Two of these fellows you

Must know and own: this thing of darkness I

310

Acknowledge mine.

CALIBANI shall be pinched to death.

ALONSOIs not this Stephano, my drunken butler?

SEBASTIANHe is drunk now: where had he wine?

ALONSOAnd Trinculo is reeling ripe:[314] where should they

315

Find this grand liquor that hath gilded[315] ’em?

How cam’st thou in this pickle?[316] To Trinculo

TRINCULOI have been in such a pickle since I saw you last that I fear me will[317] never out of my bones: I shall not fear fly-blowing.[318]

SEBASTIANWhy, how now, Stephano?

320

STEPHANOO, touch me not: I am not Stephano, but a cramp.[320]

PROSPEROYou’d be king o’the isle, sirrah?[321]

STEPHANOI should have been a sore[322] one then.

ALONSOThis is a strange thing as e’er I looked on. Points to Caliban

PROSPEROHe is as disproportioned in his manners[324]

325

As in his shape. Go, sirrah, to my cell:

Take with you your companions: as you look

To have my pardon, trim it handsomely.[327]

CALIBANAy, that I will: and I’ll be wise hereafter,

And seek for grace.[329] What a thrice-double ass

330

Was I to take this drunkard for a god

And worship this dull fool!

PROSPEROGo to, away!

ALONSOHence, and bestow your luggage where you found it.

SEBASTIANOr stole it, rather.

[Exeunt Caliban, Stephano and Trinculo]

335

PROSPEROSir, I invite your highness and your train

To my poor cell, where you shall take your rest

For this one night: which, part of it, I’ll waste[337]

With such discourse as I not doubt shall make it

Go quick away: the story of my life

340

And the particular accidents[340] gone by

Since I came to this isle: and in the morn

I’ll bring you to your ship, and so to Naples,

Where I have hope to see the nuptial

Of these our dear-beloved solemnized,[344]

345

And thence retire me to my Milan, where

Every third thought[346] shall be my grave.

ALONSOI long

To hear the story of your life, which must

Take[349] the ear strangely.

350

PROSPEROI’ll deliver all,

And promise you calm seas, auspicious gales

And sail so expeditious[352] that shall catch

Your royal fleet far off.— My Ariel, chick,

That is thy charge: then to the elements

355

Be free, and fare thou well.— Please you, draw near.[355]

Exeunt [all but Prospero]

EPILOGUE SPOKEN BY PROSPERO

Now my charms[356] are all o’erthrown,

And what strength I have’s mine own,

Which is most faint: now ’tis true,

I must be here confined by you,[359]

360

Or sent to Naples. Let me not,

Since I have my dukedom got

And pardoned the deceiver, dwell

In this bare island by your spell,

But release me from my bands[364]

365

With the help of your good hands:[365]

Gentle breath[366] of yours my sails

Must fill, or else my project fails,

Which was to please. Now I want[368]

Spirits to enforce, art to enchant,

370

And my ending is despair,

Unless I be relieved by prayer,[371]

Which pierces[372] so, that it assaults

Mercy itself, and frees all faults.

As you from crimes would pardoned be,

375

Let your indulgence[375] set me free. Awaits applause

Exit

Textual Notes

F = First Folio text of 1623, the only authority for the play

F2 = a correction introduced in the Second Folio text of 1632

Ed = a correction introduced by a later editor

SD = stage direction

SH = speech heading (i.e., speaker’s name)

List of parts based on “Names of the Actors” (reordered) at end of F text

1.1.7 SD Ferdinand = Ed. F = Ferdinando 50 wi’th’ = Ed. F = with’

1.2.129 wi’th’ = Ed. F = with 202 princes = Ed. F = Princesse (old spelling of ‘princes’) 330 she = Ed. F = he

2.2.139 trencher = Ed. F = trenchering

3.1.2 sets = Ed. F = set 15 least = F2. F = lest

3.2.106 scout = Ed. F = cout (107 F = skowt)

3.3.2 ache = F2. F = akes 34 islanders = F2. F = Islands

4.1.12 gainst = Ed. F = Against (beginning new half-line) 13 guest = F. Some eds emend to gift. 57 abstemious = F2. F = abstenious 67 vetches spelled Fetches in F 80 Her = Ed. F = here 119 SH CERES = Ed. (no change of singer in F) 134 wise = F. Some eds emend to wife 209 them on = Ed. F = on them

5.1.18 run = F2. F = runs 77 Didst = F (catchword on sig. B2v; text reads Did) 87 lies = Ed. F = ly 118 Whether = Ed. F = Where 291 Coraggio…coraggio = F2. F = Coragio…Corasio

Act 1 Scene 1

1.1    Location: a ship at sea    Boatswain ship’s chief officer

2    cheer news/encouragement

3    Good good fellow/good, you’re there    yarely swiftly

4    Bestir be active

5    hearts hearties    Cheerly heartily, willingly    yare quick    Take…topsail reducing the sail lessens the force of the wind pushing the ship toward land

6    Tend pay attention to    Blow…enough blow until you burst, as long as we have enough rock-free sea to maneuver in

8    have take    Play the act like

11    mar ruin

14    Hence be gone    roarers waves/riotous people

17    counsellor adviser/member of the king’s council

18    work…present calm the current events

19    hand handle

21    hap happen

23    he…gallows “he that is born to be hanged shall never be drowned” (proverbial)

24    mark ominous indicator

25    rope of his destiny i.e., the hangman’s noose    cable anchor rope

27    Down…topmast reduce the height of the ship’s main mast (to increase stability)    to…course i.e., as near as possible to a standstill

29    our office we are as we undertake our work

30    o’er up

32    pox plague

34    cur dog

36    warrant…drowning guarantee he will not drown

37    unstanched promiscuous/sexually unsatisfied/menstruating freely

38    Lay her ahold keep the ship steady by sailing close to the wind    Set…to raise both foresail and mainsail in order to drive the ship into open sea

40    must…cold i.e., must we die/must our prayers be ineffective

43    merely completely    wide-chopped loudmouthed/with mouth wide open

44    ten tides pirates were hanged on the shore where their bodies remained during three tides

45    hanged yet i.e., will survive to be hanged on land

47    at wid’st wide open    glut swallow

48    We split the ship is splitting apart/we are shipwrecked

52    furlong 220 yards    acre furlong

53    long heath heather    brown furze withered gorse

54    fain rather

Act 1 Scene 2

1.2    Location: the rest of the play is set in various parts of Prospero’s island    Prospero from Latin for “to cause to succeed”; in Italian and Spanish means “fortunate, prosperous”    Miranda from Latin for “to wonder, marvel”; means “she who is admired”

1    art skill, magic, learning

2    allay calm

3    pitch black substance obtained from boiling tar

4    welkin’s sky’s

5    fire lightning

6    brave splendid

11    or ere before

13    fraughting souls those constituting the freight (cargo)

14    collected calm, composed

15    amazement fear/wonder

22    whence I am where I am from    more better of a higher rank

23    full poor cell very humble dwelling, often that of a hermit or monk

24    no greater father no more important a father than this cell suggests

25    More to know desire to know more

26    meddle with mingle with/intrude upon

33    provision foresight

35    perdition loss, damage

36    Betid happened

41    bootless inquisition useless inquiry

44    ope open

48    Out fully

52    Hath…remembrance remains in your memory

54    assurance certainty

55    warrants guarantees

56    tended cared for/waited upon

59    backward past period abysm abyss, gulf

60    aught anything

67    piece exemplar, image

70    no worse issued (you are) of no less noble birth

73    blessèd fortunate

76    holp helped

78    o’th’teen of the    trouble turned you to caused you

79    from absent from

81    mark pay attention to

82    perfidious treacherous

84    manage management

85    signories domains/governing bodies of Italian states

86    prime foremost

87    liberal arts seven scholastic disciplines: grammar, logic, rhetoric, music, astronomy, geometry, arithmetic

90    state country/role as duke    stranger estranged    transported And rapt absorbed and enraptured

94    perfected skilled (in)    suits petitions, requests

96    trash for over-topping rein in for being overly ambitious    new…mine promoted or gave new positions to Prospero’s officials (creatures)

97    changed ’em substituted others for them/altered their duties

98    new formed ’em created new positions/changed their allegiances    key control (plays on senses of “musical key” and “tuning key”)

100    that so that

101    ivy…trunk the rapid growth of ivy on a tree’s trunk can choke or poison the tree

102    verdure sap/vitality/power

105    worldly ends i.e., state or governmental duties

106    closeness solitude

107    but only    retired secluded, secret

108    O’er-prized…rate outstripped the people’s understanding/was too precious for the people to value

110    good parent “good parents breed bad children” (proverbial)    beget of breed in

111    falsehood…contrary deception that, in its opposing nature, was

113    sans without    lorded made lord

115    else exact otherwise demand    one…lie i.e., one who has lied so frequently that he has made his memory false (a sinner) by coming to believe in his own lies

116    into unto it i.e., the lie

119    out o’th’substitution as a result of having usurped me

120    th’outward face the appearance

124    screen separation/obstacle

125    him i.e., himself; Antonio benefits from playing the role of duke

126    Absolute Milan wholly the Duke of Milan and wielding absolute power

127    temporal royalties practical concerns of state

128    Confederates (he) conspires

129    dry thirsty, desperate    sway power

130    tribute payment of an agreed sum

131    Subject…crown subject himself to Alonso, the king (a duke wore a coronet)

132    yet as yet

135    condition pact/disposition    event outcome

136    If…brother if this might be the action of a brother/if I might be the brother to such a man

138    but anything but

142    inveterate long-standing    hearkens listens to

143    he i.e., the King of Naples    in…homage in return for the conditions of allegiance/servility

144    tribute money

145    presently extirpate immediately uproot

151    ministers agents    thence away

155    hint experience/occasion

160    impertinent irrelevant

164    durst dared

167    painted dressed up, disguised

168    few brief    barque small ship

170    butt barrel

172    hoist launched

175    loving wrong i.e., although they blew us to sea, the winds pitied us

178    cherubin angel

181    decked covered/adorned    drops full salt i.e., tears

182    which i.e., Miranda’s smile

183    undergoing stomach courage to endure

190    design plan

191    stuffs equipment, provisions

192    steaded much been very useful    gentleness nobleness

196    Would I wish

199    Sit still remain seated

201    more profit benefit far more

203    vainer more idle careful caring/painstaking

209    my dear lady i.e., Fortune

210    prescience foresight/visionary power

211    zenith peak of fortune (literally, highest point of the heavens)

212    influence power/invisible substance supposed to stream from stars and affect one’s destiny

213    omit ignore

215    dullness sleepiness

216    it way in to it

218    Ariel as well as having connotations of “airiness,” the name is Hebrew for “lion of God”; also the name of a magical spirit in various occult texts; perhaps evocative of the archangel Uriel

219    Grave learned, respected, dignified

222    task instruct

223    quality skills/other spirits

225    to point in every respect

227    beak prow

228    waist middle

229    flamed amazement appeared as a terrifying fire

231    yards crossbars on masts    bowsprit long pole that holds a sail

232    Jove’s…thunderclaps thunder and lightning were the chief weapons of the king of the gods

234    sight-outrunning quicker than the eye can follow

235    Neptune Roman god of the sea

237    trident three-pronged spear, carried by Neptune

239    coil turmoil

242    of the mad such as mad people suffer    played…desperation displayed symptoms of despair, recklessness

245    all afire i.e., the ship caught fire

246    up-staring standing on end

250    nigh near

254    sustaining necessary/buoyant

256    troops groups

258    cooling of cooling

259    angle nook, corner

260    sad knot i.e., folded, a sign of melancholy

266    dew a common ingredient of magic potions

267    still-vexed Bermudas the Bermuda islands were famed for fearful storms

268    under hatches i.e., below deck

269    charm spell    suffered labour i.e., the tiring work performed during the storm

272    float sea

279    mid season noon

280    two glasses two hourglasses (so it is about 2 p.m.)

281    preciously valuably

282    pains work, effort

283    remember remind

285    Moody ill-humored/stubborn/willful

288    time be out fixed period of service is over

292    or either

293    bate me deduct from my term of service

297    tread…deep walk on the muddy sand of the ocean floor

304    Sycorax name of uncertain origin, possibly derived from Greek sus (“pig”) and korax (“raven”), animals associated with witchcraft

305    hoop i.e., bent posture

308    Algiers seaport capital of Algeria, in North Africa

314    for…life probably meaning that Sycorax was pregnant and therefore could not be executed

317    blue-eyed with dark circles under the eyes or with blue eyelids, thought to be a sign of pregnancy    hag witch    with child pregnant

320    for because    delicate fine in quality/ethereal

321    earthy coarse/of the earth

322    hests commands

323    ministers assistants

324    unmitigable impossible to assuage

325    cloven cleft, split

329    As…strike as often as each blade of a waterwheel hits the water

330    litter give birth to (term applied to animals)

331    whelp puppy, son of a bitch    hag-born born of a witch

333    Caliban anagram of “can[n]ibal”; perhaps derived from the Romany word caulibon (“dark thing”)

334    Dull thing may refer to Ariel or Caliban

335    in service as a servant

337    wolves…bears i.e., even moved fierce beasts

341    gape open

344    murmur’st complain    rend tear apart

345    peg fasten    entrails innards (literally, intestines)

348    correspondent responsive, obedient

349    spriting magical actions of a sprite (spirit)    gently quietly, tamely

351    discharge free

360    Heaviness sleepiness

364    villain base, lowborn/wicked person

366    miss do without

367    offices duties

369    earth earthy thing/low creature/piece of dirt

373    quaint ingenious/elegant

376    got conceived

377    dam mother

379    fen swampy ground

380    southwest winds from the southwest were thought to bring damp, disease-ridden air

383    urchins hedgehogs/spirits in hedgehog form

384    vast expanse/long period

385    exercise work

386    As…honeycomb i.e., as many times as there are cells in a honeycomb/so that you resemble a honeycomb

387    Than than the    ’em i.e., honeycombs

392    berries possibly grapes to make a mild wine, or juniper berries, which would create a kind of gin

393    bigger…less i.e., the sun and moon

396    brine-pits pools of salt water

397    charms spells

398    light alight

400    sty pen up, confine

401    hard rock cave

404    stripes lashes of a whip    kindness goodwill/natural feeling/kinship    used treated

405    humane human/benevolent

406    violate…child i.e., rape Miranda

409    I…else otherwise I would have populated

412    print imprint, image

413    capable…ill only susceptible to evil/able to perform any kind of evil

418    race innate disposition

422    more more punishment

424    red-plague red sores were caused by, amongst other diseases, the plague    rid destroy

425    learning teaching

426    Hag-seed offspring of a witch

427    thou’rt best you would be better off

430    rack torture    old cramps plentiful cramps/cramps of old age/cramps similar to those Caliban has experienced previously

435    Setebos a Patagonian god mentioned in sixteenth-century travel narratives

436    vassal servant, slave

441    whist (become) silent

442    Foot it featly dance skillfully

445    burden chorus, refrain

449    strain song    chanticleer rooster

452    waits upon attends/anticipates

454    the for the

456    passion acute grief

460    fathom five five fathoms (thirty feet) deep

463    fade decompose

464    suffer undergo

466    knell funeral bell

469    ditty song/lyrics    does remember recalls/commemorates

470    mortal human (plays on the sense of “deathly”)

471    owes owns

472    fringèd curtains i.e., eyelids advance open

473    yond yonder, over there

476    brave handsome, noble, splendid

478    gallant fashionable, handsome young man

479    but except that    something somewhat

480    canker infection, corruption

481    goodly handsome, fine

484    natural human

487    prompts directs, urges, wills

490    airs Ariel’s songs    Vouchsafe grant (that)

491    remain live

493    bear me behave

494    wonder plays on the Latin root of Miranda’s name (“mirandus”—i.e., “wonderful”)

495    maid human/a virgin, unmarried

499    best i.e., highest in rank (a king, assuming his father is drowned)

500    where i.e., Naples

503    single thing solitary/a bachelor/one and the same person (as the King of Naples)

504    He i.e., as I am now king and hear my own grief

506    ebb low tide (i.e., without tears)

510    son Antonio’s son is never mentioned again; perhaps Shakespeare forgot or cut the part, neglecting this reference    twain separated

512    control challenge/govern

514    changed eyes gazed at one another, exchanged loving looks    Delicate fine/ethereal

516    done…wrong i.e., spoken falsely in your claim to be king

517    ungently harshly/discourteously

522    your…forth you have not fallen in love with or betrothed yourself to someone else

524    Soft wait a moment

525    either’s each other’s

526    uneasy difficult    light easy, but in next line sense shifts to “less valuable/unchaste”

527    charge command

528    attend listen to, take heed of

529    ow’st not do not own

531    on’t of it (the island)

533    temple i.e., Ferdinand’s body

540    fresh-brook mussels inedible freshwater mussels

543    entertainment treatment/hospitality

547    gentle noble/courteous fearful frightening

549    foot i.e., inferior body part (proverbial: “do not make the foot the head”)

551    ward defensive posture

557    surety guarantor

559    chide scold/punish

561    shapes i.e., men

563    To compared to

569    nerves sinews, muscles

570    vigour strength

572    spirits vital powers/senses

576    through i.e., from

577    all corners else everywhere else

582    do me do for me

585    unwonted uncharacteristic

588    then i.e., if that is to be the case

Act 2 Scene 1

3    much beyond far outweighs    hint circumstance, occasion

5    masters…merchant officers of some merchant ship

8    weigh balance

10    peace possibly Sebastian puns on “peas” by introducing porridge, a vegetable stew

12    visitor charitable visitor offering comfort or advice

13    wit intelligence

15    tell count (the strokes)

16    entertained received

17    dollar a large silver coin (playing on the sense of entertainer as “performer”)

18    Dolour sorrow    purposed intended

19    wiselier more profoundly/wittily

22    spare desist

25    crow i.e., speak

27    cockerel young cock/young man

28    wager bet, stake

29    A laughter “he wins that laughs” (proverbial); may also play on the sense of “the whole number of eggs laid by a hen before she is ready to sit”

31    desert deserted

32    Ha…paid most editors assume that the speakers of these two lines should be reversed, so that Antonio wins the bet and laughs, then Sebastian replies that the laugh pays off the debt; but it could be that Sebastian laughs in response to Adrian’s words (seems deserted? – of course it’s deserted) and that by doing so he has paid off the bet

38    subtle refined temperance moderate climate (Antonio’s response treats Temperance as the name of a woman)

39    delicate pleasure-seeking, voluptuous

40    subtle crafty, sexually experienced learnedly delivered uttered authoritatively

43    fen bog, marshland

45    save except

47    lusty of vigorous growth

48    tawny yellowish brown

49    eye tinge

52    rarity exceptional nature    credit belief

53    vouched acknowledged

55    new-dyed brand new

58    pocket up conceal

60    Afric Africa    Tunis North African city, now the capital of Tunisia

63    Dido’s Dido, Queen of Carthage, was the widow of Sychaeus, but was famed for her love affair with Aeneas; she committed suicide when he left her; there may also be a lewd pun on the slang term “dido” (genitals/dildo)

64    How…in? Antonio contests the reference to an abandoned woman as a widow

65    “widower Aeneas” Aeneas had been married to Creusa, who died in the sack of Troy

66    study of examine, meditate on

68    This…Carthage Tunis was about ten miles from Carthage and became the most important city in the region after Carthage fell

71    miraculous harp in Greek mythology, Amphion’s music caused the walls of Thebes to rebuild themselves

76    kernels pips

81    rarest most splendid/beautiful

82    Bate disregard

83    Ay, widow Dido if there is a missing speech prefix, this could be a cynical interjection from Sebastian

84    doublet close-fitting jacket in a sort to some extent

85    sort perhaps a reference to the drawing of lots or to the “sorting” offish for market

88    stomach appetite/inclination    sense disposition

90    rate opinion

96    surges waves

100    oared rowed

101    lusty vigorous

102    wave-worn basis the eroded base of the cliff rising from the shore

103    As as if

108    loose release, turn loose (as one would an animal)

110    Who probably applies to Alonso’s eye, but possibly to Claribel    wet the grief weep

112    importuned pleaded with

114    loathness loathing, repulsion

115    which…bow which half of the scales should sink

120    dear’st most precious/significant part (i.e., Ferdinand)

123    time i.e., appropriate time

126    chirurgeonly surgeon-like

131    plantation opportunity for colonization (Antonio plays on the sense of “planting”)

132    nettle-seed…mallows common wild plants/weeds

135    want lack

136    by…things implement the opposite to what is usual

137    traffic trade, commerce

139    Letters scholarship, learning

140    use of service practice of having servants    succession inheritance

141    Bourn land boundary    tilth farmed land

148    in common communal

150    pike spear    engine device/machinery/weapon

152    foison plenty

157    golden age in classical mythology, the earliest of ages, when life was idyllic

160    mark hear, observe

162    minister occasion provide an opportunity (for laughter)

163    sensible responsive, sensitive    nimble agile, swift to respond    use are accustomed

169    An…flat-long if it had not been delivered with the flat side of the sword (rather than the sharp edge)

170    metal puns on “mettle” (constitution, courage)

171    sphere position in the heavens    five weeks i.e., rather than the usual four, which ought to be long enough

172    a-batfowling catching roosting birds/swindling

174    warrant assure    adventure…weakly risk my sound judgment for such a slight cause

175    heavy drowsy

181    omit reject, ignore    it i.e., sleep

192    as as if

196    occasion speaks opportunity speaks to

199    waking awake

208    wink’st shut your eyes (i.e., refuse to see what is in front of you)

210    distinctly meaningfully, clearly

212    custom usual self

213    heed you heed

214    Trebles thee o’er makes you three times greater

215    standing water not ebbing or flowing (i.e., open to ideas/idle)

218    Hereditary sloth natural laziness/my position as younger brother to a king

220    If…it if only you realized that your mockery reveals your intentions/if only you realized that despite your mockery you harbor genuine desires

222    invest clothe, adorn    Ebbing declining

225    say on speak more, go on

226    setting look/fixed appearance

227    matter of importance

228    throes…yield gives you much pain to bring forth

230    lord i.e., Gonzalo    remembrance memory

231    of…memory as little remembered

232    earthed dead and buried

233    spirit of expert at, epitome of    only Professes (as an adviser) makes it his sole vocation

241    high a hope i.e., of gaining the crown

242    Ambition…there ambition itself could not glimpse it and doubt that there is anything to achieve/ambition itself could not ordinarily proceed a fraction further without fear of discovery

249    leagues a league was about three miles    man’s life a lifetime’s journey

250    note communication/information    post messenger

252    from whom i.e., returning from whose wedding

253    cast vomited up

255    Whereof…prologue in relation to which all that has gone before is only a prelude to what is to come

256    discharge performance/management

257    stuff notion/rubbish

260    space distance

261    cubit about twenty inches (the length of the forearm)

263    Measure us back travel back over us (i.e., retrace her steps)    Keep remain

264    wake i.e., to his opportunity

267    he i.e., Alonso    prate prattle

269    make…chat train a jackdaw to be as profound

270    bore…do shared my intention/were of my way of thinking/were resolved like me

274    content liking

275    Tender value, regard

277    supplant overthrow

279    garments i.e., his duke’s robes

280    feater with a better fit

281    fellows companions, equals men servants

283    kibe chilblain, blister

284    put me to force me to wear

285    deity i.e., conscience

286    candied made of ice, crystallized

292    perpetual wink endless sleep aye ever

293    morsel piece of flesh/scrap

294    Should not must not be allowed to

296    tell…hour declare it is whatever time we require/agree to any business that we propose

301    tribute annual sum payable by Antonio to Naples in return for receiving Alonso’s help in deposing Prospero

304    rear raise

309    project plan

312    time opportunity

319    ghastly full of fear

334    verily certain

Act 2 Scene 2

2    flats plain, swampy ground

3    inch-meal inch by inch

4    nor neither pinch torment

5    urchin-shows goblin apparitions

6    firebrand will-o’-the-wisp, moving light

9    mow grimace, make faces

13    wound wound round    cloven split    Trinculo perhaps from the Italian trincare (“to drink eagerly”)

14    Lo look

17    mind notice

18    bear off ward off

20    bombard leather wine jug

24    poor-John dried hake, a fish mainly eaten by the poor

25    fish painted i.e., on a sign to attract passersby

26    make a man make a man rich/be taken for a man

27    doit trifling sum (a small Dutch coin)

28    dead Indian American Indians were sometimes displayed to the paying public    Legged with legs

29    let loose take back

31    gaberdine coarse-textured cloak

33    shroud shelter

36    scurvy wretched, disagreeable

38    swabber sailor who washes the deck

42    tang sting

44    savour smell

45    tailor…itch she would let a tailor (proverbially lecherous) have sex with her (itch may suggest venereal disease)

49    the matter happening

50    Ind India

51    proper normal/fine    four legs Stephano sees the legs of both Trinculo and Caliban and adapts a common proverb

52    give ground yield

53    at’nostrils through his nostrils

56    ague sickness, shaking, fever

57    relief refreshment, sustenance    recover revive

58    neat’s leather cowhide

60    after in the manner of

62    I…him i.e., no price can be too high for him

64    anon shortly

66    Come…ways come on/come here

67    language…cat “ale will make a cat speak” (proverbial)    shake cast off

68    chaps jaws

72    delicate extraordinary/ingeniously made/delightful

74    detract slander

78    long spoon “he should have a long spoon that sups with the devil” (proverbial)

81    lesser legs presumably Trinculo has shorter legs than Caliban

83    siege excrement (Stephano pulls Trinculo out from between Caliban’s legs)    moon-calf monstrosity, misshapen creature, idiot (born under the moon’s influence)    vent discharge/fart

85    overblown blown over

89    an if if

92    butt of sack barrel of Spanish white wine

99    kiss the book alludes to kissing the Bible to confirm an oath, and to the phrase “kiss the cup” (i.e., “have another drink”)

100    goose simpleton; also suggests drunken giddiness

105    when time was once

107    adore worship    mistress i.e., Miranda

108    dog…bush in folklore, the man in the moon had been banished there with his dog after he illegally gathered kindling (his    bush) on a Sunday

110    new contents i.e., more wine

111    good light i.e., the sun shallow gullible, naive

112    drawn drunk

113    sooth truth

116    perfidious treacherous

120    puppy-headed stupid

123    in drink drunk

128    crabs crab apples

129    pignuts edible roots, earth chestnuts

130    marmoset small monkey    filberts hazelnuts

131    scamels of uncertain meaning; perhaps error for “seamews” (seagulls) or “shamois” (goat); a fish or shellfish has also been suggested, but rock and young go better with the goatish sense

137    for i.e., to trap

138    firing firewood

139    trencher wooden plate

142    high-day holiday

Act 3 Scene 1

1    sports activities, pastimes    painful arduous    their…off the pleasure derived from the task is enhanced by the hard work/pleasure in undertaking the task removes the sense of effort

2    baseness contemptible work

4    mean lowly

6    quickens enlivens

8    crabbed irritable, churlish

11    sore injunction severe command

12    baseness…executor such a lowly task has never had such a performer

13    forget forget to work

15    Most busy least being busy seems like being at leisure, thanks to sweet thoughts of Miranda

18    enjoined bound

20    weep by releasing drops of moisture or resin

24    discharge carry out

33    become be fitting for

37    infected with love

38    visitation visit (plays on senses of “bout of plague” and “charitable visit to the poor”)

41    by nearby

45    hest command

47    top epitome, pinnacle

50    bondage slavery

51    diligent attentive

54    owed owned

55    put…foil thwarted it/disputed it (as in a swordfight)

60    glass mirror

61    friend lover

62    how…abroad what people look like in the world

63    skilless ignorant    modesty virtue, chastity

64    dower dowry

68    precepts instructions, orders

70    condition social rank

74    flesh-fly fly that lays its eggs in dead flesh    blow contaminate/deposit eggs in/swell

81    kind event favorable outcome

82    hollowly insincerely

83    boded intended    mischief misfortune, harm

84    what whatever

88    Fair excellent, pleasing

89    rare special, profound

90    that which breeds that which develops/their children

94    to want for lack of

96    Hence, bashful cunning away with timid devices/coy artfulness

99    maid virgin/servant fellow spouse

102    mistress sweetheart

106    As…freedom as slavery embraces freedom

109    thousand i.e., farewells

111    surprised delightfully bewildered/taken unawares    withal by    it my…more nothing could make me rejoice more

114    appertaining relevant to this

Act 3 Scene 2

1    Tell not me presumably to stop drinking    out finished

2    bear up stay standing/approach    board ’em get on board/attack (i.e., “drink up”)

4    brained furnished with a brain/drunk

6    set drunkenly fixed/glazed (Trinculo plays on the sense of “placed”)

9    tail may play on the sense of “penis” or “bottom”

11    recover reach    five…leagues about 100 miles    off and on more or less    standard ensign or flag-bearer (puns on the sense of “person capable of standing”)

13    list wish

14    run i.e., away from battle

15    go walk    lie lie down/deceive

18    valiant worthy/courageous

19    case fit state, state of readiness    justle jostle

20    deboshed debauched, corrupted

21    monstrous huge/unnatural/befitting a monster

24    natural simpleton, idiot (plays on the sense of “normal, naturally formed”)

26    if…tree i.e., you’ll be hanged like a    mutineer

30    marry by the Virgin Mary (a mild oath)    stand stand still/listen/remain upright

32    cunning art, skill, craft

36    tale may pun on “tail,” especially if Trinculo has just kicked Caliban in the backside

37    supplant uproot (plays on the sense of “usurp”)

39    Mum be quiet

43    this thing i.e., Trinculo

46    compassed accomplished

47    party person in question

48    yield him thee deliver him to you

51    pied multicolored (refers to a jester’s clothing)    patch fool/clown/rogue

55    freshes freshwater streams

57    turn…o’doors banish any feelings of mercy    stockfish dried cod; Stephano threatens to beat Trinculo as fish is beaten before cooking; he may also imply that he will take Trinculo’s drink away

62    give…lie accuse me of lying/insult me

64    murrain plague (literally, disease affecting cattle and sheep)

67    forward go on

68    enough thoroughly

72    brain murder, dash out his brains

74    paunch stab in the stomach

75    weasand windpipe

77    sot idiot/drunkard

79    rootedly deep-seatedly

80    utensils instruments of magic or alchemy/household goods

81    deck withal decorate/furnish with

84    nonpareil unsurpassed, one without equal

89    become befit/grace

90    brood offspring

92    ’save our graces God save us    viceroys deputy rulers

102    jocund joyful    troll sing merrily    catch musical round

103    while-ere a while ago

104    reason anything within reason

106    flout…’em insult them and mock them    tabor small drum

111    picture of Nobody i.e., someone invisible

113    take’t…list take it as you will/do as you wish

120    twangling resonant/twanging

130    by and by soon/immediately    story scheme

133    this taborer drummer (i.e., Ariel)    lays it on i.e., bangs the drum with energy

Act 3 Scene 3

1    By’r lakin by our Ladykin (i.e., the Virgin Mary)

2    maze network of tracks, labyrinth

3    forth-rights and meanders straight and winding paths

6    attached seized

8    put off cast off

9    for my flatterer to be my indulgent, flattering courtier

11    frustrate fruitless/frustrated

13    for because of    repulse setback    forgo give up

17    oppressed worn down    travail labor/traveling

23    keepers protecting spirits

24    drollery puppet show/comic entertainment/humorous picture

26    phoenix mythical Arabian bird that was consumed by fire every 500 years, then resurrected from the ashes

29    want credit lack credibility

35    certes certainly

36    monstrous unnatural/unusual

38    generation race

43    muse wonder at

47    Praise in departing keep your praise until the occasion is over (proverbial)

48    strangely surprisingly/unnaturally

50    viands food    stomachs appetites

54    mountaineers mountain dwellers

55    Dewlapped with folds of loose skin around the throat

56    Wallets sagging bags

58    putter-out…one brokers offered the traveler five times an initial sum deposited if he returned safely from his journey with proof that he had reached his destination    putter-out broker/traveler

60    stand to come forward/begin eating

61    Although even if (it is to be)    harpy mythical monster with a woman’s face and body and a bird’s wings and claws; sometimes agents of divine vengeance    quaint device ingenious mechanism/contrivance

65    to instrument at its disposal/as its agent    lower world i.e., the sublunar, mortal world

66    never-surfeited never satisfied, hungry

70    suchlike valour insane fearlessness

71    proper selves themselves

72    elements…tempered i.e., fire and earth from which your swords are forged (tempered); these two elements are powerless against the other two (winds and    waters)

74    bemocked-at scorned

75    still-closing waters ever-united/self-healing

76    dowl small feather    plume plumage

77    like equally

78    massy heavy

80    business purpose

82    requit repaid/avenged

88    perdition ruin (with connotations of “damnation”)

90    whose…ensuing i.e., to guard yourselves from the anger of the powers, which will otherwise befall you on this deserted island, you must live a faultless life of profound repentance    mocks and mows jeering expressions/grimaces and pouts

95    devouring all-consuming (or possibly Ariel has eaten part of the banquet)

96    bated omitted

97    So likewise    good life great realism/much liveliness

98    observation strange particular, careful attention    meaner lower ranking

99    several kinds various/individual roles    high elevated, sophisticated, powerful

100    knit up tied up, entangled

101    distractions agitation, temporary madness

102    fits attacks, turmoil

108    billows great waves

111    bass pronounce in a deep, resonant voice    trespass wrong, crime

112    ooze muddy sand on the seabed

113    plummet instrument used to measure the depth of water    sounded sank

114    mudded buried in mud

115    But…o’er as long as they come one at a time I’ll fight whole armies of devilish spirits

117    second supporter/backup fighter in a duel

120    spirits faculties, vital powers

122    ecstasy frenzy

Act 4 Scene 1

1    austerely severely

2    compensation i.e., Miranda

3    third i.e., a very important part (possibly Miranda is a third of Prospero’s age; or she shares his    life with his dukedom and his art)

5    tender offer/betroth    vexations afflictions

7    strangely admirably, exceptionally

8    ratify formally approve

9    her of of her

11    halt proceed lamely

12    gainst even in the face of

14    purchased obtained/won

16    sanctimonious holy

18    sweet aspersion fragrant shower

20    bestrew cover

21    loathly loathsome

23    Hymen in Greek and Roman mythology, the god of marriage (represented by a young man carrying a    lamp)

25    fair issue beautiful children

27    strong’st…can most powerful temptation/influence that our bad angel (worser genius) can exert on us

31    or either    Phoebus the sun god, whose horse-drawn chariot carried the sun across the heavens    foundered lame

39    rabble i.e., crowd of more lowly spirits

43    vanity trifling/dazzling display

45    presently immediately

46    with a twink in the wink of an eye

50    mop and mow grimace and pout

54    conceive understand

55    true faithful    dalliance frivolity, amorous conversation

57    th’fire i’th’blood passion, lust

58    goodnight farewell to

61    liver thought to be the seat of sexual desire

63    a corollary an extra (spirit)

64    pertly briskly    Iris rainbow goddess and messenger of the gods

66    Ceres goddess of the harvest and the earth    leas fields

67    vetches coarse crops, often dried for animal feed

68    turfy grassy

69    meads meadows    thatched with stover covered with hay, winter animal feed

70    pionèd…brims alluding to the agrarian practice of cutting and laying hedges to border or enclose pasture    pionèd dug, trenched    twillèd interwoven, plaited branches    brims hedges, borders

71    spongy rainy, damp    hest command    betrims trims with dew or rain/adorns with blossom

72    cold modest, chaste    crowns coronets of flowers    broom-groves groves of broom (a yellow-flowered shrub)

73    dismissèd rejected

74    lass-lorn forsaken, bereft of a sweetheart    poll-clipped pollarded, pruned

75    sea-marge coast

76    air take the air    queen o’th’sky i.e., Juno

77    wat’ry arch rainbow

78    these i.e., the landscape described above

80    sport make merry    peacocks the sacred birds of Juno who drew her carriage    amain swiftly

83    wife of Jupiter Juno, married to the king of the gods

84    saffron orange-red

85    Diffusest honey drops scatters sweet rain/dew

86    bow rainbow

87    bosky bushy, full of thickets    unshrubbed down bare, undulating hills

88    proud splendid

91    donation gift, favor    estate bestow

94    Venus…son Cupid was son to Venus, goddess of love

96    means that manner in which    dusky Dis dark Pluto, the rich god of the underworld; aided by Venus and Cupid, he kidnapped Ceres’s daughter Proserpine who was forced to spend half of every year with him

97    blind boy’s Cupid, god of love, was blind    scandaled disgraceful

98    forsworn rejected

101    Paphos city in Cyprus, home to the cult of Venus

102    Dove-drawn doves, the birds of love, pull Venus’s chariot

103    wanton mischievous/lascivious

104    bed-right i.e., sex

105    Hymen’s…lighted symbolizing the completion of the marriage ceremony

106    Mars’ hot minion i.e., lustful Venus, lover to the god of war

107    waspish-headed peevish, spiteful and, literally, one who stings (with arrows)

108    sparrows proverbially lecherous birds

109    be…out behave in all respects like a boy not a god

111    gait bearing, movement

112    bounteous generous

113    twain couple

116    increasing children/fruitfulness

117    still always

119    foison abundance

120    garners granaries

123    Spring…harvest may spring arrive as soon as the autumn harvest is over (so there is no winter)

128    charmingly enchantingly/melodiously/pleasingly    be bold take the liberty, venture

132    present fancies immediate imaginings/whims

134    wondered to be wondered at, extraordinary

137    seriously importantly/solemnly

140    Naiads water nymphs    windring winding and wandering

141    sedged made from sedge, a coarse grassy plant growing by rivers

142    crisp channels rippling streams

144    temperate gentle/abstemious

145    be…late come quickly/arrive before the couple make love

146    sicklemen harvesters (a sickle is a hooked knife used for reaping)

147    furrow i.e., fields (literally, groove made by a plough)

150    country footing rustic dance    properly habited appropriately clad (i.e., in their harvesting clothes)    heavily slowly, sadly/suddenly

154    Avoid be gone

155    passion agitation, turmoil

158    distempered disturbed, ill-humored

159    movèd sort distressed state

161    revels (courtly) entertainment/masque

162    foretold you told you earlier

164    baseless without a foundation/illusory    fabric building/structure

166    globe world (puns on the Globe theater)

167    all i.e., all those, all the people    it i.e., the    globe

168    pageant spectacle/scene

169    rack shred of cloud, fragment of mist (perhaps with play on “wrack”—i.e., wreck)

171    rounded completed/surrounded (perhaps with play on “crowned”)

174    cell humble dwelling

178    with a thought quickly, as swiftly as I think of you

179    cleave to adhere to, respond rapidly to

184    varlets rogues

185    red-hot fired up/red in the face

186    smote struck

188    bending turning, proceeding

190    unbacked colts untrained, unbroken young horses

191    Advanced opened

192    As as if

193    lowing mooing

194    Toothed prickly    briars…thorns all types of thorny, coarse shrubs

196    filthy-mantled covered with scum or rotting weeds

197    that so that    lake…feet i.e., being stirred up, the lake stank even more foully than their feet

200    Thy…still i.e., remain invisible

201    trumpery fancy garments, worthless finery

202    stale bait

206    Humanely as a human/benevolently    lost wasted on him/corrupted by him

208    cankers decays, becomes malignant

209    roaring moaning, wailing    line clothes-line/lind (i.e., lime tree)    glistering glittering

210    that so that even

212    fairy i.e., Ariel

213    played…with tricked/played the knave

218    lost ruined, destitute

221    hoodwink this mischance cover up this misfortune

228    fetch off retrieve    o’er ears up to my ears (in the stinking lake)

231    mischief evil, wrongdoing

233    aye ever

235    King…peer allusion to a popular ballad (“King Stephen was a worthy peer”) about kings and their clothing

238    frippery secondhand clothes shop

241    dropsy disease in which the body accumulates fluid

242    luggage trappings, encumbrances

245    Make…stuff transform we ourselves into extraordinary material

246    Mistress line i.e., the clothesline/tree    jerkin close-fitting jacket

247    under the line off the clothesline or tree/at the equator, or metaphorically, genitals, and thus    bald from either a sailor’s fever or syphilis    hair many jerkins were made from animal fur and cured (i.e., “hairless”) leather

249    line and level methodically    an’t like if it please

252    pass of pate witty thrust

253    lime birdlime, a sticky substance spread on branches to snare birds

255    barnacles sea creatures/type of goose (hence connotations of stupidity, as with apes)

256    villainous villainously/vilely (playing on “villain,” a servant or lowly person)

257    lay to your use    hogshead large cask    diverse various

261    Mountain…Tyrant the names of the spirits as hounds, all of which imply their powerful personalities

264    grind torment/crush

265    dry convulsions painful cramps    shorten up contract

266    agèd cramps pains of old age    pinch-spotted bruised from pinches

267    pard leopard/panther    cat o’mountain wild cat

272    air at freedom freedom of the air (i.e., be released)    a little short time

Act 5 Scene 1

1    project plan (with associations of “alchemical experiment”)    gather…head come to fruition/begin to boil (a vital stage in alchemy)

2    crack not do not fail/do not overboil    Time…carriage Time walks more easily with his burden

3    How’s the day? What time is it?

10    gave in charge instructed

12    line-grove grove of lime trees    weather-fends shelters

14    abide remain    distracted distressed/maddened

17    termed called

18    winter’s…reeds winter rain from thatched roofs

20    affections feelings

27    relish…Passion feel the force of emotion/suffering as acutely

28    kindlier moved affected with more compassion

29    high extreme    th’quick most tender part

31    take part join forces    rarer more unusual/profound

32    than rather than

33    drift aim

38    standing still/stagnant

39    with printless foot leaving no trace

40    fly flee

41    demi-puppets tiny creatures

42    sour ringlets fairy rings, darker circles of grass supposedly caused by fairies dancing

43    ewe not bites sheep will not eat the grass because it is sour

44    midnight mushrooms mushrooms that grow overnight; toadstools were particularly associated with fairies

45    solemn curfew nine o’clock bell; after the evening curfew, the spirits were free until dawn

46    masters ministers/magicians    bedimmed eclipsed/clouded over

48    azured vault blue sky

49    roaring war i.e., caused a storm

50    fire i.e., lightning    rifted split    oak a tree particularly associated with the king of the gods

51    strong-based promontory sturdy headland

52    spurs i.e., roots

54    oped opened

55    rough violent/imperfect

56    abjure solemnly reject    required summoned

58    end purpose

60    certain a certain number of    fathoms a fathom was about six feet

61    plummet instrument used to measure the depth of water    sound penetrate    frantic mad

63    air melody

64    fancy imagination

65    boil that boil

66    spell-stopped motionless, arrested by the spell

68    sociable sympathetic    show sight (Gonzalo is weeping)

69    Fall fellowly let fall compassionate    apace swiftly

71    rising awakening

72    ignorant dull/befuddled    mantle cloak

74    true honest

75    follow’st serve    pay…Home repay the debt in full

78    furtherer enabler

80    entertain court/welcome

81    remorse and nature pity and kinship

82    inward pinches inner turmoil/tortures of conscience

85    the…shore i.e., their awakening senses begin to move them toward understanding

89    hat and    rapier signs of a gentleman    rapier sword

90    discase undress/change costume

91    As…Milan as I looked when I was Duke of Milan

94    cowslip’s bell the bell-shaped petals that form the flower

95    couch rest/conceal myself

105    enforce urge/drive

106    presently immediately

107    drink the air i.e., devour the way, travel quickly

108    Or ere before

111    fearful terrifying/awe-inspiring

119    trifle illusion, trick    abuse deceive/harm

122    amends improves

124    be at all is even real

125    Thy…resign Alonso gives up his claims over Milan, a tributary state to Naples

131    be…not is or is not real

134    subtleties illusions, magical contrivances (plays on sense of “sugar confections”)

136    brace pair

138    you you as

144    rankest most grievous

145    perforce of necessity

153    woe sorry

158    the like asimilar    sovereign excellent/healing

159    content satisfied/resigned

161    as late recent    supportable…weaker I have far fewer means at my disposal with which to make my grief bearable

167    That i.e., were it necessary in order for that to be the case

171    do…admire are so astonished

172    devour their reason their reason is consumed    think…truth believe their eyes

173    their…breath they are speechless

175    justled jostled

179    on’t of it

180    chronicle…day a narrative to be told over many days/one day at a time

181    relation report

184    abroad elsewhere

186    requite repay/respond to

187    wonder puns on Miranda’s name

189    play me false are cheating

192    a score twenty    wrangle wage war

197    miracle continues wordplay on Miranda’s name

201    compass encircle

204    goodly splendid, worthy

209    eld’st oldest, longest

215    one i.e., a living father

217    renown report/honor

221    hers i.e., her father (in-law)

226    heaviness grief/weight

227    inly inwardly

230    chalked forth marked out

233    Milan…Milan i.e., the Duke of Milan (Prospero)…the dukedom

243    still always    his heart the heart of anyone who

248    blasphemy…shore i.e., the Boatswain, who curses freely on his ship, is uncharacteristically silent

253    glasses hourglasses (i.e., three hours)    gave out reported

254    tight and yare efficient and seaworthy

258    tricksy cleverly playful

263    clapped under hatches shut up below deck

264    several various

267    at liberty i.e., released from below deck

268    trim finery/clothes

270    Cap’ring leaping/dancing    On a trice instantly

272    moping dazed, bewildered

277    conduct guide/director

280    beating dwelling

281    picked leisure a chosen moment of free time

282    be shortly single soon be undivided (referring to leisure)

283    Which…probable in a manner that will convince you

284    happened accidents events that have taken place

285    well easily/cheerfully

290    shift look out for

291    fortune chance, fate    Coraggio “have courage” (Italian)    bully gallant/my old mate

292    spies i.e., eyes

299    like likely    One…fish presumably Caliban

301    badges livery

302    true legitimate/honest

305    And…power could adopt some of the moon’s power without its authority/could operate beyond the reach of the moon’s power

307    bastard illegitimate/hybrid

314    reeling ripe drunk and staggering

315    gilded flushed/enlivened

316    pickle trouble/inebriation/state of being preserved in liquor

317    will…bones (the alcohol) will never leave my body

318    fly-blowing decay (the blowfly lays eggs in dead flesh)

320    cramp i.e., doubled-up from either the pinches of Ariel’s torment or drunkenness

321    sirrah sir (contemptuous)

322    sore aching/dreadful

324    manners behavior/moral conduct

327    trim it handsomely adorn the cell beautifully

329    grace mercy, direction    thrice-double sixfold (three times two)

337    waste pass away

340    accidents events

344    solemnized marked with ceremony

346    Every third thought i.e., I will frequently meditate on death, as a good Christian should

349    Take…strangely be an extraordinary, captivating thing to hear

352    expeditious swift    catch catch up with

355    draw near probably an invitation to the others to approach his cell, but the phrase also means “attend,” thus preparing the audience for the epilogue

356    charms…o’erthrown my magic is relinquished (o’erthrown plays on the sense of “usurped”)

359    you the audience

364    bands bonds

365    hands i.e., in applause

366    Gentle breath kind words/cries of approval

368    want lack

371    prayer approbation and forgiveness

372    pierces…assaults penetrates so deeply that it moves

375    indulgence approval (playing on the Catholic sense of “official release from sin”)

THE TWO GENTLEMEN OF VERONA

The Two Gentlemen of Verona is one of Shakespeare’s early plays, perhaps even his first. We do not know exactly when it was written or first performed, but its stylistic and dramatic features distinguish it as early work: a small cast, a preponderance of end-stopped verse lines, a degree of simplicity in both language and characterization. Though the play has the relative superficiality of youth, it also has the virtues of that time of life: freshness, energy, pace, wholeheartedness, a desire to get to the point and to speak its mind. It is about the things that matter most urgently to young people: themselves, their friendships, and their love affairs. It makes its drama out of the conflicts between these things: how can you be simultaneously true to yourself, to your best friend, and to the object of your sexual desire? Especially if the person you’ve fallen in love with happens to be your best friend’s girlfriend.

In all sorts of ways, The Two Gentlemen is a prototype for later Shakespearean developments. The cross-dressed heroine recurs in the more renowned comedies of the late 1590s and early 1600s. The outlaw scenes introduce a movement out from “civil” society into a “wilderness” or green world, where surprising developments take place, anticipating the enchanted wood of A Midsummer Night’s Dream and the forest of Arden in As You Like It. The soliloquies of Proteus, meanwhile, offer an early example of a Shakespearean character undergoing a crisis of personal identity, of consciousness—already we are moving into the territory that will be taken in very different (and of course much more complex) directions in the self-communion of Richard III, Richard II, and eventually Hamlet.

The play begins by establishing the friendship between the two gentlemen. Valentine’s name suggests the patron saint of lovers in the Christian tradition, while that of Proteus evokes the shape-changing god of the classical tradition. The names are enough to suggest that Valentine will be the constant lover, Proteus the fickle one. Initially, though, Valentine is associated with the pursuit of “honor” rather than sexual desire. He intends to seek his fortune in the city of Milan instead of “living dully sluggardized at home.” His plan would immediately have pricked the interest of many members of the play’s original London audience, who would themselves have made the journey from the provinces to the capital—as indeed Shakespeare had done himself not long before writing the play.

Proteus, meanwhile, has undergone a psychological rather than a physical journey: he has left himself, his friends, and all, for love. His desire for Julia has “metamorphosed” him and made him neglect his studies, waste his time, and go to “war with good counsel.” The didactic literature of the age was full of admonitions against such self-abuse. Young gentlemen were supposed to study the arts of good behavior and good citizenship, not to be distracted by affairs of the heart and effeminizing influences. Stage plays came into the latter category, which partially accounts for the antitheatrical diatribes of Elizabethan “puritans.”

The opening also establishes oppositions between generations and genders. Shakespeare then sets up a dialogue across the barrier of class by means of witty banter between master and servant. Valentine’s servant Speed is there to anatomize the characteristics of the mooning courtly lover: he observes his master folding his arms like a melancholy malcontent, relishing love songs, walking alone, sighing like a schoolboy who knows he’s going to be in trouble for losing his spelling book, weeping, speaking in a whining voice, and rejecting food like someone on a diet. Much as the play celebrates the transforming energies of young love—and indeed engages with its destructive potential—it also mocks the courtly idiom of love-language, not least through the contrast between the artificial poeticisms of the genteel characters and the robust prose voice of their servants.

The name Speed suggests the quickness of wit that is confirmed by this servant’s linguistic facility and awareness of the gentlemen’s foibles. He always seems to be one step ahead of Valentine, anticipating what his master’s going to do next in an aside shared with the audience. Proteus’s servant Lance also has a name that suggests mental sharpness: Shakespeare himself was often praised by his contemporaries for having a wit that was as sharp as the spear in his name. Ironically, though, Lance’s way of proceeding is anything but pointed: his role is that of the clown for whom everything goes wrong and who confuses his words (“the prodigious son” for the prodigal son, “a notable lover” misheard as “a notable lubber”). When he tries to use his shoe, his staff, his hat, and his dog to act out the scene of his farewell from his family, he gets into a terrible tangle. The joke is that this should be asa result of the unpredictability of the live dog on stage, but actually it is due to Lance’s own incompetence. At the end of the fourth act, Lance has a second two-hander with his dog, a riff on the theme of a servant’s obedience to his master. As Lance makes a mess of the demands of Proteus, so Crab fails to do the will of Lance: “Did not I bid thee still mark me, and do as I do? When didst thou see me heave up my leg and make water against a gentlewoman’s farthingale?”

While Speed mocks Valentine’s transformation into a lover, Lance succumbs to desire in the manner of his master. He falls in love with a milkmaid, the unseen prototype of the hoyden character-type that will be incarnated in the fat kitchen maid of The Comedy of Errors and As You Like It’s goatherd Audrey. Lance’s catalog of the milkmaid’s down-to-earth virtues and vices parodies the courtly lover’s enumeration of the beauties of his mistress.

Silvia is the beautiful lady of courtly romance, the object of men’s devoted gaze and fantastic desire, a woman on a pedestal who reveals little of her inner life. Julia, by contrast, wears her heart upon her sleeve as she moves from domesticity to danger when she sets off in pursuit of Proteus. Her decision to do so reveals the sexual double standard that was pervasive in Shakespeare’s time: whereas a young man is condemned for sluggardizing at home, a young woman risks being made the object of scandal by setting out from home.

One of Shakespeare’s favorite techniques was the dramatically ironic counterpointing of scenes: we see Julia proving her love for Proteus by setting off on her dangerous journey immediately after we have seen Proteus renouncing his love for Julia because he has been smitten by the sight of Silvia. The scene when Valentine introduces his best friend to the girl he has fallen in love with is brief but very subtly written. It turns on the correspondence between the language of courtesy and that of courtship. Valentine asks Silvia to welcome Proteus “with some special favour” and to “entertain him” in her service. What he means is “please treat my friend with respect,” but since in the courtly idiom the language of service is synonymous with that of love, Proteus is given an opening to project himself into the role of a rival lover—when Silvia modestly refers to herself as a “worthless mistress” he responds by saying that he would fight to the death anyone else who described her thus. In a sense, the crux of the play lies in the double meaning of the word “mistress.”

Proteus explores his own transformation in two soliloquies that come in rapid succession. In the first, he introduces the image of his love for Julia as akin to a wax image melted to oblivion by the heat of his new desire for Silvia. At the same time, he recognizes that what he has fallen in love with is merely a “picture,” the outer image of her beauty. The play begins to probe more deeply into the nature of love when in later scenes a series of questions are asked about the relationship between the “shadow” of surface beauty and the “substance” or “essence” of personality within. In parallel with this motif, the action develops the concerns of Proteus’s second major soliloquy: making and breaking vows, finding and losing selves, and the conflict between “sweet-suggesting love” and “the law of friendship.” “In love,” Proteus asks at the play’s crisis point, “Who respects friend?”

Prior to the last few years of Shakespeare’s career, his plays were performed without an interval. Despite this, there is often a perceptible change in the action at the beginning of the fourth act. The plot has been wound to the full, so now the unwinding begins. Here the turning point is marked by the movement away from court and city to a wood peopled by some rather genteel outlaws. One of them swears “By the bare scalp of Robin Hood’s fat friar” and it is the jolly camaraderie of the Merry Men, stripped of the old story’s violence and political edge, that is evoked by these outlaws.

Desire feeds itself on rejection. The more Silvia spurns Proteus, the more he desires her. By the same account, the more he spurns Julia, the more she dotes on him. In the play’s richest sequence, music is introduced to establish a nocturnal setting in which Proteus displaces Turio and woos Silvia at her window, not knowing that he is overheard by Julia in her pageboy disguise: this is her dark night of the soul. But then in a bold and very Shakespearean twist, when Proteus confronts the disguised Julia face to face he takes rather a fancy to her boy-self: “Sebastian is thy name? I like thee well, / And will employ thee in some service presently.” The words “employ” and “service” maintain the punning on the shared language of domestic obligation and sexual engagement. Anticipating Viola in Twelfth Night, Julia finds herself in the painful position of being “servant” to the man whose “mistress” she really wants to be. Hitherto Proteus has regarded Julia as nothing more than a decorative blonde. Now that he thinks she is Sebastian, he unwittingly begins to intuit her inner qualities.

At this point, the play reaches its highest point of sophistication and self-conscious artfulness. The audience is offered two images: a portrait of Silvia and a description of Sebastian, dressed in Julia’s clothes, playing the part of a rejected lover, Ariadne deserted by Theseus in a famous story from classical mythology. The contrast between the two images effectively turns the scene into a Shakespearean claim for the superiority not only of the player’s art to the portrait painter’s but also of his own dramatization of love to the static vision of courtly romance. The painting, like the lady of romance, is but a “senseless form” to be “worshipped, kissed, loved, and adored.” The actor, by contrast, can evoke the real pain of passion so convincingly (“so lively acted”) that the audience may be moved to tears. No one is better than Proteus at expressing eternal adoration in the artful language—all sighs and poetic hyperbole—of the courtly lover, but his fickleness reveals the essential insincerity of the code. Paradoxically, it is the play-actor who is truly sincere: “Sebastian” is really Julia, passioning not for Theseus’s but for Proteus’s perjury and unjust flight.

Painters can achieve tricks of the eye—perspectival illusions of depth, anamorphic representations that vary in appearance according to where the viewer stands—but the theatrical imagination can do much more: the imagined performance of Sebastian as Ariadne is mapped on to the achieved performance of both Julia as Sebastian in the world of the play and the boy-actor as Julia on the stage where the drama was first brought to life. Throughout his career, Shakespeare will return to such complex layered effects of illusion and reality, in accordance with his core belief that we are all players in the great theater of the world.

Having gone emotionally deep in the fourth act, Shakespeare speeds toward a conventional comic conclusion in the fifth. The forest of the jolly outlaws is his device for doing so. It is not a psychologically complex environment like the wood in A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Rather, it is a place where the polished veneer of civil society is stripped away, allowing people to act impulsively on their desires. Psychological consistency is not the point here: one moment Proteus is threatening to rape Silvia, the next Valentine is seeking to demonstrate that he values gentlemanly friendship above erotic desire by offering Silvia to Proteus. We do get the ending we expect and desire, but the abruptness with which it comes about is a sign of impatience or immaturity on Shakespeare’s part—but then again, his mind was so restlessly inventive that he never really cared for endings.

KEY FACTS

PLOT: Valentine sets off from Verona for Milan to see the world. Proteus stays at home because of his love for Julia. She is in love with him, but neither knows of the other’s love until Lucetta shows Julia a love letter from Proteus. He is reading her reply when his father, Antonio, informs him of his decision to send him to the duke’s court to join Valentine. The lovers take their leave and swear eternal constancy. In Milan, Proteus finds that Valentine has fallen in love with Silvia, the duke’s daughter, and plans to elope with her to foil her father’s plan to marry her to Turio. Valentine confides his plan to his friend but Proteus, infatuated with Silvia at first sight, betrays the plan to the duke and Valentine is banished from Milan. In the wilderness he encounters a band of outlaws and is elected their leader. Meanwhile Julia, disguised as Sebastian, has come to Milan in search of Proteus. Overhearing him declare his passion for Silvia, she is devastated but, under cover of her disguise, enters his service as a page. When Proteus sends her with a message to Silvia, Julia is encouraged to find that his advances are again rejected and that Silvia remains faithful to Valentine. Silvia escapes into the forest to join Valentine. The duke and Turio set out in pursuit, followed by Proteus and Julia. Silvia is captured by the outlaws but then rescued by Proteus, who, seeing that she still spurns him, tries to force himself on her. Valentine intervenes and Proteus is forced to confront his act of betrayal. Julia reveals her identity and a reconciliation begins.

MAJOR PARTS: (with number of speeches/scenes on stage) Proteus (20%/147/11), Valentine (17%/149/6), Julia (14%/107/7), Speed (9%/117/6), Lance (9%/68/4), Duke (9%/48/5), Silvia (7%/58/6), Lucetta (3%/48/2), Turio (3%/36/5).

LINGUISTIC MEDIUM: 80% verse, 20% prose. High frequency of rhyme.

DATE: Early 1590s. Mentioned by Francis Meres in 1598. Presumed on stylistic grounds to be one of the earliest plays, but no firm evidence for any particular year.

SOURCES: Main plot based on a story in Jorge de Montemayor, Diana Enamorada (originally in Spanish—English translation by Bartholomew Yong published 1598, but circulated in manuscript several years earlier); plot may be mediated via a lost Queen’s Men play of the 1580s, Felix and Feliomena. Other literary influences seem to include Arthur Brooke, Romeus and Juliet (1562), and John Lyly, Euphues (1578), and perhaps Midas (ca. 1589).

TEXT: First Folio of 1623 is the only early printed text. Based on a transcript by Ralph Crane, professional scribe working for the King’s Men. Generally good quality of printing.

THE TWO GENTLEMEN OF VERONA

SPEED, a clownish servant to Valentine

LANCE, the like to Proteus

DUKE OF MILAN, father to Silvia

SILVIA, beloved of Valentine

EGLAMOUR, agent for Silvia in her escape

ANTONIO, father to Proteus

PANTINO, servant to Antonio

TURIO, a foolish rival to Valentine

JULIA, beloved of Proteus

LUCETTA, waiting-woman to Julia

HOST, where Julia lodges

OUTLAWS, with Valentine

Servants, Musicians, Lance’s dog Crab

Act 1 Scene 11.1

running scene 1

Enter Valentine [and] Proteus

VALENTINECease to persuade, my loving Proteus:

Home-keeping youth have ever homely[2] wits.

Were’t not affection[3] chains thy tender days

To the sweet glances of thy honoured love,

5

I rather would entreat thy company

To see the wonders of the world abroad,

Than — living dully sluggardized[7] at home —

Wear out thy youth with shapeless[8] idleness.

But since thou lov’st, love still,[9] and thrive therein,

10

Even as I would, when I to love begin.

PROTEUSWilt thou be gone? Sweet Valentine, adieu.

Think on thy Proteus, when thou haply[12] see’st

Some rare noteworthy object in thy travel.

Wish me partaker in thy happiness

15

When thou dost meet good hap:[15] and in thy danger —

If ever danger do environ[16] thee —

Commend thy grievance[17] to my holy prayers,

For I will be thy beadsman,[18] Valentine.

VALENTINEAnd on a love-book[19] pray for my success?

20

PROTEUSUpon some book I love, I’ll pray for thee.

VALENTINEThat’s on some shallow story of deep love:

How young Leander[22] crossed the Hellespont.

PROTEUSThat’s a deep story, of a deeper love,

For he was more than over-shoes in love.[24]

25

VALENTINE’Tis true: for you are over-boots in love,

And yet you never swam the Hellespont.

PROTEUSOver the boots? Nay, give[27] me not the boots.

VALENTINENo, I will not, for it boots[28] thee not.

PROTEUSWhat?

30

VALENTINETo be in love, where scorn is bought with groans:

Coy[31] looks with heart-sore sighs, one fading moment’s mirth,

With twenty watchful,[32] weary, tedious nights;

If haply won, perhaps a hapless[33] gain,

If[34] lost, why then a grievous labour won;

35

However,[35] but a folly bought with wit,

Or else a wit by folly vanquishèd.

PROTEUSSo, by your circumstance,[37] you call me fool.

VALENTINESo, by your circumstance,[38] I fear you’ll prove.

PROTEUS’Tis Love you cavil[39] at: I am not Love.

40

VALENTINELove is your master, for he masters you:

And he that is so yokèd[41] by a fool,

Methinks should not be chronicled for[42] wise.

PROTEUSYet writers say: as in the sweetest bud

The eating canker[44] dwells, so eating love

45

Inhabits in the finest wits of all.

VALENTINEAnd writers say: as the most forward[46] bud

Is eaten by the canker ere it blow,[47]

Even so by love, the young and tender wit

Is turned to folly, blasting[49] in the bud,

50

Losing his verdure,[50] even in the prime,

And all the fair effects[51] of future hopes.

But wherefore[52] waste I time to counsel thee

That art a votary[53] to fond desire?

Once more, adieu. My father at the road[54]

55

Expects my coming, there to see me shipped.[55]

PROTEUSAnd thither will I bring thee, Valentine.

VALENTINESweet Proteus, no: now let us take our leave.

To Milan[58] let me hear from thee by letters

Of thy success[59] in love, and what news else

60

Betideth[60] here in absence of thy friend:

And I likewise will visit thee with mine.[61]

PROTEUSAll happiness bechance[62] to thee in Milan.

VALENTINEAs much to you at home: and so, farewell.

Exit

PROTEUSHe after honour hunts, I after love;

65

He leaves his friends to dignify[65] them more;

I leave[66] myself, my friends and all, for love.

Thou, Julia,[67] thou hast metamorphosed me:

Made me neglect my studies, lose my time,

War[69] with good counsel, set the world at nought;

70

Made wit with musing[70] weak, heart sick with thought.

[Enter Speed]

SPEEDSir Proteus, ’save you.[71] Saw you my master?

PROTEUSBut[72] now he parted hence to embark for Milan.

SPEEDTwenty to one then, he is shipped already,

And I have played the sheep[74] in losing him.

75

PROTEUSIndeed, a sheep doth very often stray,

An if[76] the shepherd be awhile away.

SPEEDYou conclude that my master is a shepherd, then, and I a sheep?

PROTEUSI do.

SPEEDWhy then, my[79] horns are his horns, whether I wake or sleep.

PROTEUSA silly answer, and fitting well a sheep.

SPEEDThis proves me still a sheep.

PROTEUSTrue: and thy master a shepherd.

SPEEDNay, that I can deny by a circumstance.[83]

PROTEUSIt[84] shall go hard but I’ll prove it by another.

SPEEDThe shepherd seeks the sheep, and not the sheep the shepherd; but I seek my master, and my master seeks not me. Therefore I am no sheep.

PROTEUSThe sheep for fodder[87] follow the shepherd, the shepherd for food follows not the sheep: thou for wages followest thy master, thy master for wages follows not thee. Therefore thou art a sheep.

SPEEDSuch another proof will make me cry ‘baa[90]’.

PROTEUSBut dost thou hear? Gav’st thou my letter to Julia?

SPEEDAy, sir: I, a lost-mutton,[92] gave your letter to her, a laced-mutton, and she, a laced-mutton, gave me, a lost-mutton, nothing for my labour.

PROTEUSHere’s too small a pasture for such store[94] of muttons.

SPEEDIf the ground be overcharged,[95] you were best stick her.

PROTEUSNay, in that you are astray:[96] ’twere best pound you.

SPEEDNay, sir, less than a pound[97] shall serve me for carrying your letter.

PROTEUSYou mistake: I mean the pound — a pinfold.[98]

SPEEDFrom a pound to a pin?[99] Fold it over and over, ’tis threefold too little for carrying a letter to your lover.

PROTEUSBut what said she?

SPEEDAy. Nods his head

PROTEUSNod — ay — why, that’s ‘noddy’.[103]

SPEEDYou mistook, sir: I say she did nod, and you ask me if she did nod, and I say ‘ay’.

PROTEUSAnd that set together is noddy.

SPEEDNow you have taken the pains to set it together, take[107] it for your pains.

PROTEUSNo, no, you shall have it for bearing the letter.

SPEEDWell, I perceive I must be fain to bear[109] with you.

PROTEUSWhy sir, how do you bear with me?

SPEEDMarry,[111] sir, the letter, very orderly, having nothing but the word ‘noddy’ for my pains.

PROTEUSBeshrew[113] me, but you have a quick wit.

SPEEDAnd yet it cannot overtake your slow purse.

PROTEUSCome come, open the matter[115] in brief: what said she?

SPEEDOpen your purse, that the money and the matter may be both at once delivered.

PROTEUSWell, sir: here is for your pains. What said she? Gives a coin

SPEEDTruly, sir, I think you’ll hardly[119] win her. Examines coin, with contempt

PROTEUSWhy? Couldst thou perceive[120] so much from her?

SPEEDSir, I could perceive[121] nothing at all from her; no, not so much as a ducat for delivering your letter. And being so hard to me that brought your mind,[122] I fear she’ll prove as hard to you in[123] telling your mind. Give her no token but stones, for she’s as hard as steel.

PROTEUSWhat said she, nothing?

SPEEDNo, not so much as ‘Take this for thy pains.’ To testify your bounty,[126] I thank you, you have testerned me;[127] in requital whereof, henceforth carry your letters yourself. And so, sir, I’ll commend[128] you to my master.

PROTEUSGo, go, be gone, to save your ship from wreck,

[Exit Speed]

130

Which cannot perish having thee aboard,

Being destined to a drier death[131] on shore.

I must go send some better messenger:

I fear my Julia would not deign my lines,[133]

Receiving them from such a worthless post.[134]

Exit

Act 1 Scene 21.2

running scene 2

Enter Julia and Lucetta

JULIABut say, Lucetta — now we are alone —

Wouldst thou then counsel me to fall in love?

LUCETTAAy, madam, so[3] you stumble not unheedfully.

JULIAOf all the fair resort[4] of gentlemen

5

That every day with parle[5] encounter me,

In thy opinion, which is worthiest love?

LUCETTAPlease you repeat their names, I’ll show my mind,

According to my shallow simple skill.

JULIAWhat think’st thou of the fair Sir Eglamour?[9]

10

LUCETTAAs of a knight well-spoken, neat[10] and fine;

But, were I you, he never should be mine.

JULIAWhat think’st thou of the rich Mercatio?[12]

LUCETTAWell of his wealth; but of himself, so so.

JULIAWhat think’st thou of the gentle[14] Proteus?

15

LUCETTALord, Lord: to see what folly reigns in us!

JULIAHow now? What means this passion[16] at his name?

LUCETTAPardon, dear madam: ’tis a passing[17] shame

That I — unworthy body as I am —

Should censure[19] thus on lovely gentlemen.

20

JULIAWhy not on Proteus, as of all the rest?

LUCETTAThen thus: of many good, I think him best.

JULIAYour reason?

LUCETTAI have no other, but a woman’s reason:

I think him so because I think him so.

25

JULIAAnd wouldst thou have me cast[25] my love on him?

LUCETTAAy, if you thought your love not cast away.[26]

JULIAWhy he, of all the rest, hath never moved[27] me.

LUCETTAYet he, of all the rest, I think best loves ye.

JULIAHis little speaking[29] shows his love but small.

30

LUCETTAFire that’s closest kept burns most of all.

JULIAThey do not love that do not show their love.

LUCETTAO, they love least that let men know their love.

JULIAI would I knew his mind.

LUCETTAPeruse this paper, madam. Gives a letter

35

JULIA‘To Julia’. Say, from whom?

LUCETTAThat the contents will show.

JULIASay, say: who gave it thee?

LUCETTASir Valentine’s page: and sent, I think, from Proteus.

He would have given it you, but I, being[39] in the way,

40

Did in your name receive it: pardon the fault, I pray.

JULIANow, by my modesty, a goodly broker![41]

Dare you presume to harbour wanton[42] lines?

To whisper and conspire against my youth?

Now trust me, ’tis an office[44] of great worth,

45

And you an officer fit for the place.

There, take the paper: see it be returned,

Or else return no more into my sight.

LUCETTATo plead for love deserves more fee[48] than hate.

JULIAWill ye be gone?

50

LUCETTAThat[50] you may ruminate.

Exit

JULIAAnd yet I would I had o’erlooked[51] the letter;

It were a shame to call her back again

And pray her to[53] a fault for which I chid her.

What fool is she, that knows I am a maid,

55

And would not force the letter to my view!

Since maids, in modesty, say ‘no’ to that

Which they would have[57] the profferer construe ‘ay’.

Fie, fie: how wayward[58] is this foolish love

That — like a testy[59] babe — will scratch the nurse

60

And presently,[60] all humbled, kiss the rod!

How churlishly[61] I chid Lucetta hence,

When willingly I would have had her here!

How angerly[63] I taught my brow to frown,

When inward joy enforced my heart to smile!

65

My penance is to call Lucetta back

And ask remission[66] for my folly past.

What ho! Lucetta!

[Enter Lucetta]

LUCETTAWhat would your ladyship?

JULIAIs’t near dinner-time?

70

LUCETTAI would it were,

That you might kill your stomach[71] on your meat

And not upon your maid. Drops a letter, then picks it up

JULIAWhat is’t that you took up so gingerly?

LUCETTANothing.

75

JULIAWhy didst thou stoop then?

LUCETTATo take a paper up that I let fall.

JULIAAnd is that paper nothing?

LUCETTANothing concerning me.

JULIAThen let[79] it lie for those that it concerns.

80

LUCETTAMadam, it will not lie[80] where it concerns,

Unless it have a false interpreter.[81]

JULIASome love of yours hath writ to you in rhyme.

LUCETTAThat[83] I might sing it, madam, to a tune.

Give me a note: your ladyship can set[84]—

85

JULIAAs little by such toys[85] as may be possible.

Best sing it to the tune of ‘Light o’love’.[86]

LUCETTAIt is too heavy[87] for so light a tune.

JULIAHeavy? Belike it hath some burden[88] then?

LUCETTAAy, and melodious were it, would you sing it.

90

JULIAAnd why not you?

LUCETTAI cannot reach so high.[91]

JULIALet’s see your song. Takes the letter

How now, minion![92]

LUCETTAKeep tune[93] there still, so you will sing it out:

And yet methinks I do not like this tune.

95

JULIAYou do not?

LUCETTANo, madam, ’tis too sharp.[96]

JULIAYou, minion, are too saucy.

LUCETTANay, now you are too flat,[98]

And mar[99] the concord with too harsh a descant:

100

There wanteth but a mean[100] to fill your song.

JULIAThe mean is drowned with your unruly bass.[101]

LUCETTAIndeed, I bid the base[102] for Proteus.

JULIAThis babble shall not henceforth trouble me.

Here is a coil with protestation![104] Tears the letter

105

Go, get you gone, and let the papers lie:

You would be fing’ring[106] them to anger me.

LUCETTAShe makes it strange,[107] but she would be best pleased

To be so angered with another letter.

[Exit]

JULIANay, would[109] I were so angered with the same:

110

O hateful hands, to tear such loving words;

Injurious wasps,[111] to feed on such sweet honey

And kill the bees that yield it with your stings!

I’ll kiss each several paper[113] for amends.

Look, here is writ ‘kind Julia’. Unkind[114] Julia, ↓Examining the pieces↓

115

As[115] in revenge of thy ingratitude,

I throw thy name against the bruising stones,

Trampling contemptuously on thy disdain.

And here is writ ‘love-wounded Proteus’.

Poor wounded name: my[119] bosom as a bed

120

Shall lodge thee till thy wound be throughly[120] healed;

And thus I search[121] it with a sovereign kiss.

But twice or thrice was ‘Proteus’ written down.

Be calm, good wind, blow not a word away

Till I have found each letter, in the letter,

125

Except mine own name: that, some whirlwind bear

Unto a ragged,[126] fearful, hanging rock,

And throw it thence into the raging sea.

Lo, here in one line is his name twice writ:

‘Poor forlorn Proteus, passionate Proteus,

130

To the sweet Julia’: that[130] I’ll tear away:

And yet I will not, sith[131] so prettily

He[132] couples it to his complaining names.

Thus[133] will I fold them, one upon another;

Now kiss, embrace, contend,[134] do what you will.

[Enter Lucetta]

135

LUCETTAMadam, dinner is ready, and your father stays.[135]

JULIAWell, let us go.

LUCETTAWhat, shall these papers lie like tell-tales here?

JULIAIf you respect[138] them, best to take them up.

LUCETTANay, I was taken up[139] for laying them down.

140

Yet here they shall not lie, for[140] catching cold. Picks up the pieces

JULIAI see you have a month’s mind to[141] them.

LUCETTAAy, madam, you may say what sights you see;

I see things too, although you judge I wink.[143]

JULIACome, come: will’t please you go?

Exeunt

Act 1 Scene 31.3

running scene 3

Enter Antonio and Pantino

ANTONIOTell me, Pantino, what sad[1] talk was that

Wherewith my brother held you in the cloister?[2]

PANTINO’Twas of his nephew Proteus, your son.

ANTONIOWhy? What of him?

5

PANTINOHe wondered that your lordship

Would suffer[6] him to spend his youth at home,

While other men, of slender reputation,[7]

Put forth[8] their sons to seek preferment out:

Some to the wars to try their fortune there,

10

Some to discover islands far away,

Some to the studious universities;

For any or for all these exercises,

He said that Proteus your son was meet,[13]

And did request me to importune[14] you

15

To let him spend his time no more at home,

Which would be great impeachment[16] to his age,

In having known no travel in his youth.

ANTONIONor need’st thou much importune me to that

Whereon this month I have been hammering.[19]

20

I have considered well his loss of time,

And how he cannot be a perfect[21] man,

Not being tried[22] and tutored in the world:

Experience is by industry achieved

And perfected by the swift course of time.

25

Then tell me, whither were I best to send him?

PANTINOI think your lordship is not ignorant[26]

How his companion, youthful Valentine,

Attends the emperor[28] in his royal court.

ANTONIOI know it well.

30

PANTINO’Twere good, I think, your lordship sent him thither:

There shall he practise tilts[31] and tournaments,

Hear sweet discourse,[32] converse with noblemen,

And be in eye of[33] every exercise

Worthy his youth and nobleness of birth.

35

ANTONIOI like thy counsel: well hast thou advised.

And that thou mayst perceive how well I like it,

The execution[37] of it shall make known.

Even with the speediest expedition[38]

I will dispatch him to the emperor’s court.

40

PANTINOTomorrow, may it please you, Don Alfonso

With other gentlemen of good esteem

Are journeying to salute the emperor

And to commend[43] their service to his will.

ANTONIOGood company: with them shall Proteus go.

[Enter Proteus, reading]

45

And in good time![45] Now will we break with him.

PROTEUSSweet love, sweet lines, sweet life!

Here is her hand,[47] the agent of her heart;

Here is her oath for love, her honour’s pawn.[48]

O, that our fathers would applaud our loves

50

To seal[50] our happiness with their consents.

O heavenly Julia!

ANTONIOHow now? What letter are you reading there?

PROTEUSMay’t please your lordship, ’tis a word or two

Of commendations[54] sent from Valentine,

55

Delivered by a friend that came from him.

ANTONIOLend me the letter: let me see what news.

PROTEUSThere is no news, my lord, but that he writes

How happily he lives, how well beloved

And daily gracèd[59] by the emperor,

60

Wishing me with him, partner of his fortune.

ANTONIOAnd how stand you affected[61] to his wish?

PROTEUSAs one relying on your lordship’s will,

And not depending on his[63] friendly wish.

ANTONIOMy will is something sorted[64] with his wish.

65

Muse[65] not that I thus suddenly proceed:

For what I will, I will, and there an end.

I am resolved that thou shalt spend some time

With Valentinus in the emperor’s court:

What maintenance[69] he from his friends receives,

70

Like exhibition[70] thou shalt have from me.

Tomorrow be in readiness to go:

Excuse it not,[72] for I am peremptory.

PROTEUSMy lord, I cannot be so soon provided:[73]

Please you deliberate a day or two.

75

ANTONIOLook[75] what thou want’st shall be sent after thee.

No[76] more of stay: tomorrow thou must go.

Come on, Pantino, you shall be employed

To hasten on his expedition.

[Exeunt Antonio and Pantino]

PROTEUSThus have I shunned the fire for fear of burning,

80

And drenched me in the sea where I am drowned.

I feared to show my father Julia’s letter,

Lest he should take exceptions[82] to my love,

And with the vantage[83] of mine own excuse

Hath he excepted most against[84] my love.

85

O, how this spring of love resembleth

The uncertain glory of an April day,

Which now shows all the beauty of the sun,

And by and by a cloud takes all away.

[Enter Pantino]

PANTINOSir Proteus, your father calls for you:

90

He is in haste, therefore I pray you go.

PROTEUSWhy, this it is: my heart accords[91] thereto,

And yet a thousand times it answers ‘no’.

Exeunt

Act 2 Scene 12.1

running scene 4

Enter Valentine [and] Speed

SPEEDSir, your glove.

VALENTINENot mine: my gloves are on.[2]

SPEEDWhy then, this may be yours, for this is but one.

VALENTINEHa! Let me see: ay, give it me, it’s mine.

5

Sweet ornament[5] that decks a thing divine.

Ah, Silvia,[6] Silvia!

SPEEDMadam Silvia! Madam Silvia! Calls

VALENTINEHow now, sirrah?[8]

SPEEDShe is not within hearing, sir.

10

VALENTINEWhy, sir, who bade you call her?

SPEEDYour worship, sir, or else I mistook.

VALENTINEWell, you’ll still[12] be too forward.

SPEEDAnd yet I was last chidden for being too slow.

VALENTINEGo to,[14] sir: tell me, do you know Madam Silvia?

15

SPEEDShe that your worship loves?

VALENTINEWhy, how know you that I am in love?

SPEEDMarry, by these special marks:[17] first, you have learned — like Sir Proteus — to wreathe[18] your arms like a malcontent: to relish a love-song like a robin-redbreast: to walk alone like one that had the pestilence:[19] to sigh like a school-boy that had lost his A B C: to weep like a young wench that had buried her grandam:[20] to fast like one that takes diet: to watch[21] like one that fears robbing: to speak puling[22] like a beggar at Hallowmas. You were wont, when you laughed, to crow like a cock; when you walked, to walk like one of the lions: when you fasted, it was presently[24] after dinner: when you looked sadly, it was for want of money. And now you are metamorphosed with a mistress, that, when I look on you, I can hardly think you my master.

VALENTINEAre all these things perceived in me?

SPEEDThey are all perceived without ye.[28]

VALENTINEWithout me?[29] They cannot.

SPEEDWithout[30] you? Nay, that’s certain: for, without you were so simple, none else would. But you[31] are so without these follies, that these follies are within you, and shine through you like the water[32] in an urinal, that not an eye that sees you but is a physician to comment on your malady.[33]

VALENTINEBut tell me, dost thou know my lady Silvia?

SPEEDShe that you gaze on so, as she sits at supper?

VALENTINEHast thou observed that? Even she,[36] I mean.

SPEEDWhy sir, I know her not.

VALENTINEDost thou know her by my gazing on her, and yet know’st her not?

SPEEDIs she not hard-favoured,[39] sir?

VALENTINENot so fair, boy, as well-favoured.[40]

SPEEDSir, I know that well enough.

VALENTINEWhat dost thou know?

SPEEDThat she is not so fair as, of you, well-favoured.[43]

VALENTINEI mean that her beauty is exquisite, but her favour[44] infinite.

SPEEDThat’s because the one is painted[45] and the other out of all count.

VALENTINEHow painted? And how out of count?

SPEEDMarry, sir, so painted to make her fair, that no man counts of[47] her beauty.

VALENTINEHow[48] esteem’st thou me? I account of her beauty.

SPEEDYou never saw her since she was deformed.[49]

VALENTINEHow long hath she been deformed?

SPEEDEver since you loved her.

VALENTINEI have loved her ever since I saw her, and still I see her beautiful.

SPEEDIf you love her, you cannot see her.

VALENTINEWhy?

SPEEDBecause Love is blind.[55] O, that you had mine eyes, or your own eyes had the lights[56] they were wont to have when you chid at Sir Proteus for going ungartered![57]

VALENTINEWhat should I see then?

SPEEDYour own present folly and her passing deformity: for he, being in love, could not see to garter his hose;[60] and you, being in love, cannot see to put on your hose.

VALENTINEBelike, boy, then you are in love, for last morning you could not see to wipe my shoes.

SPEEDTrue, sir: I was in love with my bed. I thank you, you swinged[64] me for my love, which makes me the bolder to chide you for yours.

VALENTINEIn conclusion, I stand affected to[66] her.

SPEEDI would you were set,[67] so your affection would cease.

VALENTINELast night she enjoined me to write some lines to one she loves.

SPEEDAnd have you?

VALENTINEI have.

SPEEDAre they not lamely writ?

VALENTINENo, boy, but as well as I can do them. Peace! Here she comes.

SPEEDO, excellent motion![73] O, exceeding puppet! Now will he interpret to her. Aside

[Enter Silvia]

VALENTINEMadam and mistress, a thousand good-morrows.

SPEEDO, ’give[75] ye good ev’n: here’s a million of manners. Aside

SILVIASir Valentine and servant,[76] to you two thousand.

SPEEDHe[77] should give her interest, and she gives it him. Aside

VALENTINEAs you enjoined me, I have writ your letter

Unto the secret, nameless friend[79] of yours,

80

Which I was much unwilling to proceed in

But for my duty to your ladyship. Gives her a letter

SILVIAI thank you, gentle servant: ’tis very clerkly[82] done.

VALENTINENow trust me, madam, it came hardly off:[83]

For being ignorant to whom it goes

85

I writ at random, very doubtfully.[85]

SILVIAPerchance[86] you think too much of so much pains?

VALENTINENo, madam, so[87] it stead you, I will write —

Please you command — a thousand times as much.

And yet—

90

SILVIAA pretty period![90] Well, I guess the sequel,

And yet I will not name it: and yet I care not.

And yet take this[92] again. And yet I thank you, Offers him the letter

Meaning henceforth to trouble you no more.

SPEEDAnd yet you will, and yet another ‘yet’. Aside

95

VALENTINEWhat means your ladyship? Do you not like it?

SILVIAYes, yes: the lines are very quaintly[96] writ,

But, since unwillingly, take them again.[97] Offers the letter again

Nay, take them.

VALENTINEMadam, they are for you.

100

SILVIAAy, ay: you writ them, sir, at my request,

But I will none of[101] them. They are for you:

I would have had them writ more movingly.

VALENTINEPlease you, I’ll write your ladyship another.

SILVIAAnd when it’s writ, for my sake read it over,

105

And if it please you, so:[105] if not, why, so.

VALENTINEIf it please me, madam? What then?

SILVIAWhy, if it please you, take it for your labour;[107]

And so, good morrow, servant.

Exit

SPEEDO, jest unseen, inscrutable, invisible Aside

110

As a nose on a man’s face, or a weathercock on a steeple!

My master sues to[111] her, and she hath taught her suitor,

He being her pupil, to become her tutor.

O, excellent device![113] Was there ever heard a better?

That my master, being scribe,

115

To himself should write the letter?

VALENTINEHow now, sir? What, are you reasoning[116] with yourself?

SPEEDNay, I was rhyming: ’tis you that have the reason.

VALENTINETo do what?

SPEEDTo be a spokesman from Madam Silvia.

VALENTINETo whom?

SPEEDTo yourself: why, she woos you by a figure.[121]

VALENTINEWhat figure?

SPEEDBy a letter, I should say.

VALENTINEWhy, she hath not writ to me?

SPEEDWhat need she, when she hath made you write to yourself? Why, do you not perceive the jest?

VALENTINENo, believe me.

SPEEDNo believing you indeed, sir. But did you perceive her earnest?[128]

VALENTINEShe gave me none,[129] except an angry word.

SPEEDWhy, she hath given you a letter.

VALENTINEThat’s the letter I writ to her friend.

SPEEDAnd that letter hath she delivered, and there an end.[132]

VALENTINEI would it were no worse.

SPEEDI’ll warrant[134] you, ’tis as well:

135

For often have you writ to her, and she in modesty,

Or else for want[136] of idle time, could not again reply,

Or fearing else some messenger that might her mind discover,[137]

Herself hath taught her love himself to write unto her lover.

All this I speak in print,[139] for in print I found it.

140

Why muse you, sir? ’Tis dinner-time.

VALENTINEI have dined.[141]

SPEEDAy, but hearken, sir: though the chameleon[142] Love can feed on the air, I am one that am nourished by my victuals,[143] and would fain have meat. O, be not like your mistress: be moved,[144] be moved.

Exeunt

Act 2 Scene 22.2

running scene 5

Enter Proteus [and] Julia

PROTEUSHave patience, gentle Julia.

JULIAI must, where is[2] no remedy.

PROTEUSWhen possibly I can, I will return.

JULIAIf you turn[4] not, you will return the sooner.

5

Keep this remembrance[5] for thy Julia’s sake. Gives a ring

PROTEUSWhy then, we’ll make exchange; here, take you this. Gives a ring

JULIAAnd seal the bargain with a holy kiss. They kiss

PROTEUSHere is my hand for my true constancy:[8]

And when that hour o’erslips[9] me in the day,

10

Wherein I sigh not, Julia, for thy sake,

The next ensuing hour some foul mischance[11]

Torment me for my love’s forgetfulness.

My father stays[13] my coming: answer not,

The tide is now; nay, not thy tide of tears,

15

That tide will stay[15] me longer than I should.

Julia, farewell. What, gone without a word?

[Exit Julia]

Ay, so true love should do: it cannot speak,

For truth hath better deeds than words to grace[18] it.

[Enter Pantino]

PANTINOSir Proteus, you are stayed for.

20

PROTEUSGo: I come, I come.

Alas, this parting strikes poor lovers dumb.

Exeunt

Act 2 Scene 32.3

running scene 6

Enter Lance [leading his dog, Crab]

LANCENay, ’twill be this hour ere[1] I have done weeping: all the kind of the Lances have this very fault. I have received my proportion,[2] like the prodigious son, and am going with Sir Proteus to the Imperial’s[3] court. I think Crab, my dog, be the sourest-natured dog that lives: my mother weeping, my father wailing, my sister crying, our maid howling, our cat wringing her hands, and all our house in a great perplexity, yet did not this cruel-hearted cur[6] shed one tear: he is a stone, a very pebble stone, and has no more pity in him than a dog. A Jew[7] would have wept to have seen our parting. Why, my grandam, having no eyes, look you, wept herself blind at my parting. Nay, I’ll show you the manner of it.[9] This shoe is my father. No, this left[10] shoe is my father. No, no, this left shoe is my mother. Nay, that cannot be so neither. Yes, it is so, it is so: it hath the worser sole.[11] This shoe with the hole[12] in it is my mother, and this my father. A vengeance on’t, there ’tis. Now, sir, this staff[13] is my sister, for, look you, she is as white as a lily and as small as a wand.[14] This hat is Nan, our maid. I am the dog: no, the dog is himself, and I am the dog. O, the dog is me, and I am myself. Ay, so, so. Now come I to my father. Father, your[16] blessing: now should not the shoe speak a word for weeping. Now should I kiss my father: well, he weeps on. Now come I to my mother: O, that she could speak now like a wood[18] woman! Well, I kiss her. Why, there ’tis; here’s my mother’s breath[19] up and down. Now come I to my sister; mark the moan she makes. Now the dog all this while sheds not a tear nor speaks a word: but see how I lay the dust[21] with my tears.

[Enter Pantino]

PANTINOLance, away, away: aboard! Thy master is shipped, and thou art to post after with oars. What’s the matter? Why weep’st thou, man? Away, ass, you’ll lose the tide,[23] if you tarry any longer.

LANCEIt is no matter if the tied[25] were lost, for it is the unkindest tied that ever any man tied.

PANTINOWhat’s the unkindest tide?

LANCEWhy, he that’s tied here, Crab, my dog.

PANTINOTut, man, I mean thou’lt lose the flood,[29] and in losing the flood, lose thy voyage, and in losing thy voyage, lose thy master, and in losing thy master, lose thy service, and in losing thy service— Lance gestures for him to stop Why dost thou stop my mouth?

LANCEFor fear thou shouldst lose[32] thy tongue.

PANTINOWhere should I lose my tongue?

LANCEIn thy tale.[34]

PANTINOIn thy tail![35]

LANCELose the tide, and the voyage, and the master, and the service, and the tied! Why, man, if the river were dry, I am able to fill it with my tears: if the wind were down, I could drive the boat with my sighs.

PANTINOCome: come away, man. I was sent to call[39] thee.

LANCESir, call me what thou dar’st.

PANTINOWilt thou go?

LANCEWell, I will go.

Exeunt

Act 2 Scene 42.4

running scene 7

Enter Valentine, Silvia, Turio [and] Speed

SILVIAServant!

VALENTINEMistress?

SPEEDMaster, Sir Turio frowns on you.

VALENTINEAy, boy, it’s for love.

SPEEDNot of you.

VALENTINEOf my mistress, then.

SPEED’Twere[7] good you knocked him.

[Exit]

SILVIAServant, you are sad.

VALENTINEIndeed, madam, I seem so.

TURIOSeem you that[10] you are not?

VALENTINEHaply I do.

TURIOSo do counterfeits.[12]

VALENTINESo do you.

TURIOWhat seem I that I am not?

VALENTINEWise.

TURIOWhat instance[16] of the contrary?

VALENTINEYour folly.

TURIOAnd how quote[18] you my folly?

VALENTINEI quote it in your jerkin.[19]

TURIOMy jerkin is a doublet.[20]

VALENTINEWell, then, I’ll double your folly.

TURIOHow?[22]

SILVIAWhat, angry, Sir Turio? Do you change colour?

VALENTINEGive him leave, madam, he is a kind of chameleon.

TURIOThat hath more mind to feed on your blood than live[25] in your air.

VALENTINEYou have said, sir.

TURIOAy, sir, and done[27] too, for this time.

VALENTINEI know it well, sir: you always end[28] ere you begin.

SILVIAA fine volley[29] of words, gentlemen, and quickly shot off.

VALENTINE’Tis indeed, madam, we thank the giver.

SILVIAWho is that, servant?

VALENTINEYourself, sweet lady, for you gave the fire.[32] Sir Turio borrows his wit from your ladyship’s looks, and spends what he borrows kindly[33] in your company.

TURIOSir, if you spend[34] word for word with me, I shall make your wit bankrupt.

VALENTINEI know it well, sir: you have an exchequer[36] of words and, I think, no other treasure to give your followers, for it appears by their bare liveries[37] that they live by your bare words.

SILVIANo more, gentlemen, no more: here comes my father.

[Enter Duke]

40

DUKENow, daughter Silvia, you are hard beset.[40]

Sir Valentine, your father is in good health:

What say you to a letter from your friends

Of much good news?

VALENTINEMy lord, I will be thankful

45

To any happy messenger[45] from thence.

DUKEKnow ye Don Antonio, your countryman?[46]

VALENTINEAy, my good lord, I know the gentleman

To be of worth[48] and worthy estimation,

And not without desert[49] so well reputed.

50

DUKEHath he not a son?

VALENTINEAy, my good lord, a son that well deserves

The honour and regard of such a father.

DUKEYou know him well?

VALENTINEI knew him as myself, for from our infancy

55

We have conversed and spent our hours together,

And though myself have been an idle truant,

Omitting[57] the sweet benefit of time

To clothe mine age[58] with angel-like perfection,

Yet hath Sir Proteus — for that’s his name —

60

Made use and fair advantage of his days:

His years but young, but his experience old,

His head unmellowed[62] but his judgement ripe,

And in a word — for far behind his worth

Comes all the praises that I now bestow —

65

He is complete[65] in feature and in mind,

With all good grace to grace a gentleman.

DUKEBeshrew me, sir, but if he make this good,[67]

He is as worthy for an empress’ love,

As meet to be an emperor’s counsellor.

70

Well, sir, this gentleman is come to me,

With commendation from great potentates,[71]

And here he means to spend his time awhile:

I think ’tis no unwelcome news to you.

VALENTINEShould I have wished a thing, it had been he.

75

DUKEWelcome him then according to his worth.

Silvia, I speak to you, and you, Sir Turio,

For Valentine, I need not cite[77] him to it:

I will send him hither to you presently.

[Exit]

VALENTINEThis is the gentleman I told your ladyship

80

Had come[80] along with me, but that his mistress

Did hold his eyes locked in her crystal looks.[81]

SILVIABelike that[82] now she hath enfranchised them

Upon some other pawn for fealty.

VALENTINENay, sure, I think she holds them prisoners still.

85

SILVIANay, then he should be blind, and being blind,

How could he see his way to seek out you?

VALENTINEWhy, lady, Love hath twenty pair of eyes.

TURIOThey say that Love[88] hath not an eye at all.

VALENTINETo see such lovers, Turio, as yourself:

90

Upon a homely[90] object, Love can wink.

SILVIAHave done, have done: here comes the gentleman.

[Turio may exit]

[Enter Proteus]

VALENTINEWelcome, dear Proteus! Mistress, I beseech you,

Confirm his welcome with some special favour.

SILVIAHis worth is warrant[94] for his welcome hither,

95

If this be he you oft have wished to hear from.

VALENTINEMistress, it is: sweet lady, entertain[96] him

To be my fellow-servant to your ladyship.

SILVIAToo low[98] a mistress for so high a servant.

PROTEUSNot so, sweet lady: but too mean[99] a servant

100

To have a look of such a worthy mistress.

VALENTINELeave[101] off discourse of disability:

Sweet lady, entertain him for your servant.

PROTEUSMy duty[103] will I boast of, nothing else.

SILVIAAnd duty never yet did want his meed.[104]

105

Servant, you are welcome to a worthless mistress.

PROTEUSI’ll die[106] on him that says so but yourself.

SILVIAThat you are welcome?

PROTEUSThat you are worthless.

[Enter Turio, or a servant enters and whispers to Turio]

TURIOMadam, my lord your father would speak with you.

110

SILVIAI wait upon his pleasure. Come, Sir Turio,

Go with me. Once more, new servant, welcome.

I’ll leave you to confer of home affairs:

When you have done, we look to hear from you.

PROTEUSWe’ll both attend upon your ladyship.

[Exeunt Silvia and Turio]

115

VALENTINENow, tell me: how do all from whence you came?

PROTEUSYour friends are well and have them much commended.[116]

VALENTINEAnd how do yours?

PROTEUSI left them all in health.

VALENTINEHow does your lady? And how thrives your love?

120

PROTEUSMy tales of love were wont to[120] weary you:

I know you joy not in a love discourse.

VALENTINEAy, Proteus, but that life is altered now.

I have done penance for contemning[123] Love,

Whose high imperious[124] thoughts have punished me

125

With bitter fasts, with penitential[125] groans,

With nightly tears and daily heart-sore sighs:

For in revenge of my contempt of love,

Love hath chased sleep from my enthrallèd[128] eyes,

And made them watchers of[129] mine own heart’s sorrow.

130

O gentle Proteus, Love’s a mighty lord,

And hath so humbled me, as I confess,

There is no[132] woe to his correction,

Nor to[133] his service no such joy on earth.

Now no discourse, except it be of love:

135

Now can I break my fast, dine, sup and sleep

Upon the very naked[136] name of love.

PROTEUSEnough: I read your fortune in your eye.

Was this[138] the idol that you worship so?

VALENTINEEven she;[139] and is she not a heavenly saint?

140

PROTEUSNo, but she is an earthly paragon.[140]

VALENTINECall her divine.

PROTEUSI will not flatter her.

VALENTINEO, flatter me, for love delights in praises.

PROTEUSWhen I was sick,[144] you gave me bitter pills,

145

And I must minister the like[145] to you.

VALENTINEThen speak the truth by[146] her; if not divine,

Yet let her be a principality,[147]

Sovereign to all the creatures on the earth.

PROTEUSExcept my mistress.

150

VALENTINESweet,[150] except not any,

Except[151] thou wilt except against my love.

PROTEUSHave I not reason to prefer mine own?

VALENTINEAnd I will help thee to prefer[153] her too:

She shall be dignified with this high honour,

155

To bear my lady’s train, lest the base earth

Should from[156] her vesture chance to steal a kiss,

And of so great a favour growing proud,

Disdain[158] to root the summer-swelling flower

And make rough winter everlastingly.

160

PROTEUSWhy, Valentine, what braggardism[160] is this?

VALENTINEPardon me, Proteus: all I can[161] is nothing

To[162] her whose worth makes other worthies nothing.

She is alone.[163]

PROTEUSThen let her alone.

165

VALENTINENot for the world: why, man, she is mine own,

And I as rich in having such a jewel

As twenty seas, if all their sand were pearl,

The water nectar, and the rocks pure gold.

Forgive me that I do not dream on thee,[169]

170

Because thou see’st me dote upon[170] my love.

My foolish rival, that her father likes —

Only for[172] his possessions are so huge —

Is gone with her along, and I must after:

For love, thou know’st, is full of jealousy.

175

PROTEUSBut she loves you?

VALENTINEAy, and we are betrothed: nay, more, our marriage-hour,

With[177] all the cunning manner of our flight,

Determined of:[178] how I must climb her window,

The ladder made of cords, and all the means

180

Plotted and ’greed[180] on for my happiness.

Good Proteus, go with me to my chamber,

In these affairs to aid me with thy counsel.

PROTEUSGo on before: I shall inquire you forth.[183]

I must unto the road, to disembark[184]

185

Some necessaries[185] that I needs must use,

And then I’ll presently attend you.

VALENTINEWill you make haste?

PROTEUSI will.

Exit [Valentine]

Even as one heat another heat expels,[189]

190

Or as one nail by strength drives out another,

So the remembrance[191] of my former love

Is by a newer object[192] quite forgotten.

Is it mine eye or Valentine’s praise?

Her true perfection or my false transgression[194]

195

That makes me reasonless[195] to reason thus?

She is fair: and so is Julia that I love —

That I did love, for now my love is thawed,

Which, like a waxen image gainst a fire

Bears no impression of the thing it was.

200

Methinks my zeal[200] to Valentine is cold,

And that I love him not as I was wont.

O, but I love his lady too too much,

And that’s the reason I love him so little.

How shall I dote on her with more advice,[204]

205

That thus without advice[205] begin to love her?

’Tis but her picture[206] I have yet beheld,

And that hath dazzlèd my reason’s light:

But when I look[208] on her perfections,

There is no reason but[209] I shall be blind.

210

If I can check[210] my erring love, I will:

If not, to compass[211] her I’ll use my skill.

Exit

Act 2 Scene 5

running scene 8

Enter Speed and Lance [separately. Lance with his dog, Crab]

SPEEDLance, by mine honesty, welcome to Padua.[1]

LANCEForswear[2] not thyself, sweet youth, for I am not welcome. I reckon this always, that a man is never undone[3] till he be hanged, nor never welcome to a place till some certain shot[4] be paid and the hostess say ‘Welcome!’

SPEEDCome on, you madcap: I’ll to the ale-house with you presently, where, for one shot of five pence, thou shalt have five thousand welcomes. But, sirrah, how did thy master part with Madam Julia?

LANCEMarry, after they closed in earnest,[8] they parted very fairly in jest.

SPEEDBut shall she marry him?

LANCENo.

SPEEDHow then? Shall he marry her?

LANCENo, neither.

SPEEDWhat, are they broken?[13]

LANCENo, they are both as[14] whole as a fish.

SPEEDWhy then, how stands the matter[15] with them?

LANCEMarry, thus: when it stands well with him, it stands well with her.

SPEEDWhat an ass art thou! I understand thee not.

LANCEWhat a block[18] art thou, that thou canst not! My staff understands me.

SPEEDWhat thou say’st?

LANCEAy, and what I do too: look thee, I’ll but lean, and my staff understands me.

SPEEDIt stands under thee, indeed.

LANCEWhy, stand-under and under-stand is all one.

SPEEDBut tell me true, will’t be a match?

LANCEAsk my dog: if he say ‘ay’, it will. If he say ‘no’, it will. If he shake his tail and say nothing, it will.

SPEEDThe conclusion is, then, that it will.

LANCEThou shalt never get such a secret from me but by a parable.[28]

SPEED’Tis well that I get it so. But Lance, how say’st thou[29] that my master is become a notable[30] lover?

LANCEI never knew him otherwise.

SPEEDThan how?

LANCEA notable lubber,[33] as thou reportest him to be.

SPEEDWhy, thou whoreson[34] ass, thou mistak’st me.

LANCEWhy, fool, I meant not thee, I meant thy master.

SPEEDI tell thee, my master is become a hot lover.

LANCEWhy, I tell thee, I care not though he burn himself in love. If thou wilt, go with me to the alehouse: if not, thou art an Hebrew, a Jew, and not worth the name of a Christian.

SPEEDWhy?

LANCEBecause thou hast not so much charity in thee as to go to the ale[41] with a Christian. Wilt thou go?

SPEEDAt thy service.

Exeunt

Act 2 Scene 6

running scene 9

Enter Proteus alone

PROTEUSTo leave my Julia, shall I be forsworn?

To love fair Silvia, shall I be forsworn?

To wrong my friend, I shall be much forsworn.

And ev’n that power[4] which gave me first my oath

5

Provokes me to this threefold perjury.

Love bade me swear, and Love bids me forswear;

O sweet-suggesting[7] Love, if thou hast sinned,

Teach me, thy tempted subject, to excuse it.

At first I did adore a twinkling star,

10

But now I worship a celestial sun.

Unheedful[11] vows may heedfully be broken,

And he wants wit[12] that wants resolved will

To learn[13] his wit t’exchange the bad for better.

Fie, fie, unreverend[14] tongue, to call her bad,

15

Whose sovereignty so oft thou hast preferred[15]

With twenty thousand soul-confirming[16] oaths.

I cannot leave[17] to love, and yet I do:

But there I leave to love where I should love.

Julia I lose, and Valentine I lose:

20

If I keep them, I needs must lose myself.

If I lose them, thus find I[21] by their loss:

For[22] Valentine, myself, for Julia, Silvia.

I to myself am dearer than a friend,

For love is still most precious in itself,

25

And Silvia — witness heaven that made her fair[25] —

Shows Julia[26] but a swarthy Ethiope.

I will forget that Julia is alive,

Remembering that my love to her is dead.

And Valentine I’ll hold[29] an enemy,

30

Aiming at Silvia as a sweeter friend.

I cannot now prove constant[31] to myself,

Without some treachery used to Valentine.

This night he meaneth with a corded[33] ladder

To climb celestial Silvia’s chamber-window,

35

Myself in counsel[35] his competitor.

Now presently I’ll give her father notice

Of their disguising[37] and pretended flight,

Who, all enraged, will banish Valentine,

For Turio he intends shall wed his daughter.

40

But Valentine being gone, I’ll quickly cross,[40]

By some sly trick, blunt[41] Turio’s dull proceeding.

Love, lend[42] me wings to make my purpose swift,

As thou hast lent me wit to plot this drift.[43]

Exit

Act 2 Scene 72.7

running scene 10

Enter Julia and Lucetta

JULIACounsel, Lucetta: gentle girl, assist me,

And ev’n in kind love, I do conjure[2] thee,

Who art the table[3] wherein all my thoughts

Are visibly charactered[4] and engraved,

5

To lesson[5] me and tell me some good mean

How with my honour I may undertake

A journey to my loving Proteus.

LUCETTAAlas, the way is wearisome and long.

JULIAA true-devoted pilgrim is not weary

10

To measure[10] kingdoms with his feeble steps:

Much less shall she that hath Love’s wings to fly,

And when the flight is made to one so dear,

Of such divine perfection as Sir Proteus.

LUCETTABetter forbear[14] till Proteus make return.

15

JULIAO, know’st thou not his looks are my soul’s food?

Pity the dearth[16] that I have pined in,

By longing for that food so long a time.

Didst thou but know the inly[18] touch of love,

Thou wouldst as soon go kindle fire with snow

20

As seek to quench the fire of love with words.

LUCETTAI do not seek to quench your love’s hot fire,

But qualify[22] the fire’s extreme rage,

Lest it should burn above the bounds of reason.

JULIAThe more thou damm’st it up, the more it burns.

25

The current[25] that with gentle murmur glides,

Thou know’st, being stopped, impatiently doth rage:

But when his fair course is not hinderèd,

He makes[28] sweet music with th’enamelled stones,

Giving a gentle kiss to every sedge[29]

30

He overtaketh in his pilgrimage,

And so by many winding nooks he strays

With willing sport[32] to the wild ocean.

Then let me go, and hinder not my course:

I’ll be as patient as a gentle stream,

35

And make a pastime of each weary step,

Till the last step have brought me to my love,

And there I’ll rest, as after much turmoil

A blessèd soul doth in Elysium.[38]

LUCETTABut in what habit[39] will you go along?

40

JULIANot like a woman, for[40] I would prevent

The loose encounters of lascivious men:

Gentle Lucetta, fit me with such weeds[42]

As may beseem[43] some well-reputed page.

LUCETTAWhy then, your ladyship must cut your hair.

45

JULIANo, girl, I’ll knit[45] it up in silken strings

With twenty odd-conceited[46] true-love knots.

To be fantastic[47] may become a youth

Of greater time[48] than I shall show to be.

LUCETTAWhat fashion, madam, shall I make your breeches?

50

JULIAThat fits as well as ‘Tell me, good my lord,

What compass[51] will you wear your farthingale?’

Why, ev’n what fashion thou best likes, Lucetta.

LUCETTAYou must needs have them with a codpiece,[53] madam.

JULIAOut, out, Lucetta! That will be ill-favoured.[54]

55

LUCETTAA round hose,[55] madam, now’s not worth a pin

Unless you have a codpiece to stick pins on.[56]

JULIALucetta, as thou lov’st me, let me have

What thou think’st meet and is most mannerly.[58]

But tell me, wench, how will the world repute me

60

For undertaking so unstaid[60] a journey?

I fear me it will make me scandalized.[61]

LUCETTAIf you think so, then stay at home and go not.

JULIANay, that I will not.

LUCETTAThen never dream on infamy,[64] but go.

65

If Proteus like your journey when you come,

No matter who’s displeased when you are gone:

I fear me he will scarce be pleased withal.[67]

JULIAThat is the least, Lucetta, of my fear:

A thousand oaths, an ocean of his tears,

70

And instances[70] of infinite of love

Warrant[71] me welcome to my Proteus.

LUCETTAAll these are servants to deceitful men.

JULIABase men, that use them to so base effect.

But truer stars did govern Proteus’ birth:

75

His words are bonds,[75] his oaths are oracles,

His love sincere, his thoughts immaculate,[76]

His tears pure messengers sent from his heart,

His heart, as far from fraud as heaven from earth.

LUCETTAPray heav’n he prove so when you come to him.

80

JULIANow, as thou lov’st me, do him not that wrong

To bear a hard[81] opinion of his truth:

Only deserve my love by loving him,

And presently go with me to my chamber

To take a note of what I stand in need of,

85

To furnish[85] me upon my longing journey.

All that is mine I leave at thy dispose,[86]

My goods, my lands, my reputation:

Only, in lieu thereof,[88] dispatch me hence.

Come, answer not, but to it presently.

90

I am impatient of my tarriance.[90]

Exeunt

Act 3 Scene 13.1

running scene 11

Enter Duke, Turio [and] Proteus

DUKESir Turio, give us leave,[1] I pray, awhile:

We have some secrets to confer about.

[Exit Turio]

Now, tell me, Proteus, what’s your will with me?

PROTEUSMy gracious lord, that which I would discover

5

The law of friendship bids me to conceal,

But when I call to mind your gracious favours

Done to me — undeserving as I am —

My duty pricks[8] me on to utter that

Which else no worldly good should draw from me.

10

Know, worthy prince, Sir Valentine my friend

This night intends to steal away your daughter:

Myself am one made privy to[12] the plot.

I know you have determined to bestow her

On Turio, whom your gentle daughter hates,

15

And should she thus be stol’n away from you,

It would be much vexation[16] to your age.

Thus, for my duty’s sake, I rather chose

To cross my friend in his intended drift,

Than, by concealing it, heap on your head

20

A pack of sorrows which would press you down,

Being unprevented, to your timeless[21] grave.

DUKEProteus, I thank thee for thine honest care,

Which to requite,[23] command me while I live.

This love of theirs myself have often seen,

25

Haply when they have judged me fast asleep,

And oftentimes have purposed[26] to forbid

Sir Valentine her company and my court.

But fearing lest my jealous aim[28] might err

And so unworthily disgrace the man —

30

A rashness that I ever yet have shunned —

I gave him gentle[31] looks, thereby to find

That which thyself hast now disclosed to me.

And that thou mayst perceive my fear of this,

Knowing that tender youth is soon suggested,[34]

35

I nightly lodge her in an upper tower,

The key whereof myself have ever kept:

And thence she cannot be conveyed away.

PROTEUSKnow, noble lord, they have devised a mean

How he her chamber-window will ascend,

40

And with a corded ladder fetch her down:

For which, the youthful lover now is gone,

And this way comes he with it presently,

Where, if it please you, you may intercept him.

But, good my lord, do it so cunningly

45

That my discovery[45] be not aimed at:

For love of you, not hate unto my friend,

Hath made me publisher[47] of this pretence.

DUKEUpon mine honour, he shall never know

That I had any light[49] from thee of this.

50

PROTEUSAdieu, my lord: Sir Valentine is coming.

[Exit Proteus]

[Enter Valentine]

DUKESir Valentine, whither away[51] so fast?

VALENTINEPlease it your grace, there is a messenger

That stays to bear my letters to my friends,

And I am going to deliver them.

55

DUKEBe they of much import?

VALENTINEThe tenor[56] of them doth but signify

My health and happy being at your court.

DUKENay then, no matter. Stay with me awhile:

I am to break[59] with thee of some affairs

60

That touch me near,[60] wherein thou must be secret.

’Tis not unknown to thee that I have sought

To match my friend Sir Turio to my daughter.

VALENTINEI know it well, my lord, and sure the match

Were rich and honourable: besides, the gentleman

65

Is full of virtue, bounty,[65] worth and qualities

Beseeming[66] such a wife as your fair daughter.

Cannot your grace win her to fancy him?

DUKENo, trust me, she is peevish,[68] sullen, froward,

Proud, disobedient, stubborn, lacking duty,

70

Neither regarding[70] that she is my child

Nor fearing me as[71] if I were her father.

And, may I say to thee, this pride of hers,

Upon advice,[73] hath drawn my love from her,

And, where I thought the remnant[74] of mine age

75

Should have been cherished by her child-like duty,

I now am full resolved to take a wife

And turn her out to who[77] will take her in:

Then let her beauty be her wedding-dower,[78]

For me and my possessions she esteems[79] not.

80

VALENTINEWhat would your grace have me to do in this?

DUKEThere is a lady in Verona here

Whom I affect:[82] but she is nice and coy,

And nought[83] esteems my agèd eloquence.

Now therefore would I have thee to my tutor —

85

For long agone[85] I have forgot to court,

Besides, the fashion of the time is changed —

How and which way I may bestow myself[87]

To be regarded[88] in her sun-bright eye.

VALENTINEWin her with gifts, if she respect not words:

90

Dumb jewels often in their silent kind[90]

More than quick[91] words do move a woman’s mind.

DUKEBut she did scorn a present that I sent her.

VALENTINEA woman sometime scorns what best contents her.

Send her another: never give her o’er,[94]

95

For scorn at first makes after-love the more.[95]

If she do frown, ’tis not in hate of you,

But rather to beget[97] more love in you.

If she do chide, ’tis not to have you gone,

Forwhy,[99] the fools are mad, if left alone.

100

Take no repulse, whatever she doth say,

For[101] ‘get you gone’, she doth not mean ‘away!’

Flatter and praise, commend,[102] extol their graces:

Though[103] ne’er so black, say they have angels’ faces.

That man that hath a tongue, I say is no man

105

If with his tongue[105] he cannot win a woman.

DUKEBut she I mean is promised by her friends[106]

Unto a youthful gentleman of worth,

And kept severely from resort of men,

That[109] no man hath access by day to her.

110

VALENTINEWhy then I would resort to her by night.

DUKEAy, but the doors be locked and keys kept safe,

That no man hath recourse to her by night.

VALENTINEWhat lets[113] but one may enter at her window?

DUKEHer chamber is aloft, far from the ground,

115

And built so shelving[115] that one cannot climb it

Without apparent hazard of his life.

VALENTINEWhy then, a ladder quaintly[117] made of cords

To cast up, with a pair of anchoring hooks,[118]

Would serve to scale another Hero’s tower,[119]

120

So[120] bold Leander would adventure it.

DUKENow, as thou art a gentleman of blood,[121]

Advise me where I may have such a ladder.

VALENTINEWhen would you use it? Pray, sir, tell me that.

DUKEThis very night; for Love is like a child

125

That longs for everything that he can come by.

VALENTINEBy seven o’clock I’ll get you such a ladder.

DUKEBut, hark thee: I will go to her alone.

How shall I best convey the ladder thither?

VALENTINEIt will be light, my lord, that you may bear it

130

Under a cloak that is of any length.[130]

DUKEA cloak as long as thine will serve the turn?[131]

VALENTINEAy, my good lord.

DUKEThen let me see thy cloak:

I’ll get me one of such another[134] length.

135

VALENTINEWhy, any cloak will serve the turn, my lord.

DUKEHow shall I fashion me[136] to wear a cloak?

I pray thee, let me feel thy cloak upon me. Takes Valentine’s cloak and discovers a letter

What letter is this same?[138] What’s here? ‘To Silvia’! and a rope ladder concealed under it

And here an engine[139] fit for my proceeding.

140

I’ll be so bold to break the seal for once.

‘My thoughts do harbour[141] with my Silvia nightly, Reads

And slaves they are to me that send them flying.

O, could their master come and go as lightly,[143]

Himself[144] would lodge where, senseless, they are lying.

145

My herald[145] thoughts in thy pure bosom rest them,

While I, their king, that thither them importune,[146]

Do curse the grace[147] that with such grace hath blessed them,

Because myself do want[148] my servants’ fortune.

I curse myself, for they are sent by me,

150

That they should harbour where their lord should be.’

What’s here?

‘Silvia, this night I will enfranchise[152] thee.’

’Tis so: and here’s the ladder for the purpose.

Why, Phaeton[154] — for thou art Merops’ son —

155

Wilt thou aspire to guide the heavenly car,

And with thy daring folly burn the world?

Wilt thou reach stars because they shine on thee?

Go, base intruder, overweening slave,[158]

Bestow thy fawning smiles on equal mates,[159]

160

And[160] think my patience, more than thy desert,

Is privilege for thy departure hence.

Thank me for this more than for all the favours

Which, all too much, I have bestowed on thee.

But if thou linger in my territories

165

Longer than swiftest expedition[165]

Will give thee time to leave our royal court,

By heaven, my wrath shall far exceed the love

I ever bore my daughter or thyself.

Be gone! I will not hear thy vain excuse,

170

But as thou lov’st thy life, make speed from hence.

[Exit]

VALENTINEAnd why not death, rather than living torment?

To die is to be banished from myself,

And Silvia is myself: banished from her

Is self from self. A deadly banishment:

175

What light is light, if Silvia be not seen?

What joy is joy, if Silvia be not by?[176]

Unless it be to think that she is by

And feed upon the shadow[178] of perfection.

Except[179] I be by Silvia in the night,

180

There is no music in the nightingale.

Unless I look on Silvia in the day,

There is no day for me to look upon.

She is my essence, and I leave to be[183]

If I be not by her fair influence[184]

185

Fostered,[185] illumined, cherished, kept alive.

I[186] fly not death, to fly his deadly doom:

Tarry I here, I but attend on[187] death,

But fly I hence, I fly away from life.

[Enter Proteus and Lance]

PROTEUSRun, boy, run, run, and seek him out.

190

LANCESo-ho,[190] so-ho!

PROTEUSWhat see’st thou?

LANCEHim we go to find: there’s not a hair[192] on’s head but ’tis a Valentine.[193]

PROTEUSValentine?

195

VALENTINENo.

PROTEUSWho then? His spirit?[196]

VALENTINENeither.

PROTEUSWhat then?

VALENTINENothing.

200

LANCECan nothing speak? Master, shall I strike?

PROTEUSWho wouldst thou strike?

LANCENothing.

PROTEUSVillain,[203] forbear.

LANCEWhy, sir, I’ll strike nothing.[204] I pray you—

205

PROTEUSSirrah, I say forbear. Friend Valentine, a word.

VALENTINEMy ears are stopped[206] and cannot hear good news,

So much of bad already hath possessed them.

PROTEUSThen in dumb silence will I bury mine,[208]

For they are harsh, untuneable and bad.

210

VALENTINEIs Silvia dead?

PROTEUSNo, Valentine.

VALENTINENo Valentine[212] indeed, for sacred Silvia.

Hath she forsworn[213] me?

PROTEUSNo, Valentine.

215

VALENTINENo Valentine, if Silvia have forsworn me.

What is your news?

LANCESir, there is a proclamation that you are vanished.[217]

PROTEUSThat thou art banished — O, that’s the news —

From hence, from Silvia, and from me thy friend.

220

VALENTINEO, I have fed upon this woe already,

And now excess of it will make me surfeit.[221]

Doth Silvia know that I am banishèd?

PROTEUSAy, ay: and she hath offered to the doom[223] —

Which unreversed stands in effectual force —

225

A sea of melting pearl, which some call tears:

Those at her father’s churlish feet she tendered,[226]

With them, upon her knees, her humble self,

Wringing her hands, whose whiteness so became[228] them

As if but now they waxèd[229] pale for woe.

230

But neither bended knees, pure hands held up,

Sad sighs, deep groans, nor silver-shedding tears

Could penetrate her uncompassionate sire;[232]

But Valentine, if he be ta’en, must die.

Besides, her intercession[234] chafed him so,

235

When she for thy repeal[235] was suppliant,

That to close[236] prison he commanded her,

With many bitter threats of biding[237] there.

VALENTINENo more, unless the next word that thou speak’st

Have some malignant[239] power upon my life:

240

If so, I pray thee breathe it in mine ear,

As[241] ending anthem of my endless dolour.

PROTEUSCease to lament for that thou canst not help,

And study[243] help for that which thou Iament’st:

Time is the nurse and breeder of all good.

245

Here if thou stay, thou canst not see thy love:

Besides, thy staying will abridge[246] thy life.

Hope is a lover’s staff: walk hence with that

And manage[248] it against despairing thoughts.

Thy letters may be here, though thou art hence,

250

Which, being writ to me, shall be delivered

Even in the milk-white bosom of thy love.[251]

The time now serves not to expostulate:[252]

Come, I’ll convey thee through the city-gate,

And ere I part with thee, confer at large[254]

255

Of all that may concern thy love-affairs.

As thou lov’st Silvia, though[256] not for thyself,

Regard[257] thy danger, and along with me.

VALENTINEI pray thee, Lance, an if thou see’st my boy,[258]

Bid him make haste and meet me at the North-gate.

260

PROTEUSGo, sirrah, find him out. Come, Valentine.

VALENTINEO, my dear Silvia! Hapless Valentine!

[Exeunt Valentine and Proteus]

LANCEI am but a fool, look you, and yet I have the wit to think my master is a kind of a knave: but that’s all[263] one, if he be but one knave. He lives not now that knows me to be in love, yet I am in love, but a team of horse[264] shall not pluck that from me, nor who ’tis I love: and yet ’tis a woman, but what woman, I will not tell myself: and yet ’tis a milkmaid,[266] yet ’tis not a maid, for she hath had gossips: yet ’tis a maid,[267] for she is her master’s maid, and serves for wages. She hath more qualities[268] than a water-spaniel, which is much in a bare Christian. Pulls out a paper Here is the cate-log[269] of her condition. ‘Inprimis: She can fetch and carry.’ Why, a horse can do no more; nay, a horse cannot fetch,[270] but only carry, therefore is she better than a jade.[271] ‘Item: She can milk.’ Look you, a sweet virtue in a maid with clean hands.

[Enter Speed]

SPEEDHow now, Signior Lance? What news with your mastership?

LANCEWith my master’s ship? Why, it is at sea.

SPEEDWell, your old vice[275] still: mistake the word. What news, then, in your paper?

LANCEThe blackest news that ever thou heard’st.

SPEEDWhy, man? How black?

LANCEWhy, as black as ink.

SPEEDLet me read them.

LANCEFie on thee, jolt-head,[281] thou canst not read.

SPEEDThou liest: I can.

LANCEI will try[283] thee. Tell me this: who begot thee?

SPEEDMarry, the son of my grandfather.

LANCEO illiterate loiterer! It was the son of thy grandmother: this proves that

thou canst not read.

SPEEDCome, fool, come: try me in[287] thy paper.

LANCEThere: and Saint Nicholas[288] be thy speed. Gives him the paper

SPEED‘Inprimis: She can milk.’ Reads

LANCEAy, that she can.

SPEED‘Item: She brews good ale.’

LANCEAnd thereof comes the proverb ‘Blessing of your heart, you brew good ale.’

SPEED‘Item: She can sew.[294]’

LANCEThat’s as much as to say ‘Can she so?’

SPEED‘Item: She can knit.’

LANCEWhat need a man care for a stock[297] with a wench, when she can knit him a stock?

SPEED‘Item: She can wash and scour.’

LANCEA special virtue, for then she need not be washed and scoured.[300]

SPEED‘Item: She can spin.[301]’

LANCEThen may I set[302] the world on wheels, when she can spin for her living.

SPEED‘Item: She hath many nameless virtues.[303]’

LANCEThat’s as much as to say ‘bastard virtues’[304] that indeed know not their fathers, and therefore have no names.

SPEEDHere follow her vices.

LANCEClose at the heels of her virtues.

SPEED‘Item: She is not to be kissed fasting in respect of[308] her breath.’

LANCEWell, that fault may be mended with a breakfast. Read on.

SPEED‘Item: She hath a sweet mouth.[310]’

LANCEThat makes amends for her sour breath.

SPEED‘Item: She doth talk in her sleep.’

LANCEIt’s no matter for that, so she sleep[313] not in her talk.

SPEED‘Item: She is slow in words.’

LANCEO villain, that set this down among her vices! To be slow in words is a woman’s only virtue: I pray thee out with’t, and place it for her chief virtue.

SPEED‘Item: She is proud.[317]’

LANCEOut with that too: it was Eve’s legacy,[318] and cannot be ta’en from her.

SPEED‘Item: She hath no teeth.[319]’

LANCEI care not for that neither, because I love crusts.

SPEED‘Item: She is curst.[321]’

LANCEWell, the best is, she hath no teeth to bite.

SPEED‘Item: She will often praise[323] her liquor.’

LANCEIf her liquor be good, she shall: if she will not, I will, for good things should be praised.

SPEED‘Item: She is too liberal.[326]’

LANCEOf her tongue she cannot,[327] for that’s writ down she is slow of: of her purse she shall not, for that I’ll keep shut. Now, of another thing[328] she may, and that cannot I help. Well, proceed.

SPEED‘Item: She hath more hair than wit, and more faults than hairs, and more wealth than faults.’

LANCEStop there: I’ll have her. She was mine and not mine, twice or thrice in that last article. Rehearse[333] that once more.

SPEED‘Item: She hath more hair than wit’—

LANCEMore hair than wit? It may be I’ll prove[335] it. The cover of the salt hides the salt, and therefore it is more than the salt; the hair that covers the wit is more than the wit, for the greater hides the less. What’s next?

SPEED‘And more faults than hairs’—

LANCEThat’s monstrous:[339] O, that that were out!

SPEED‘And more wealth than faults.’

LANCEWhy, that word makes the faults gracious.[341] Well, I’ll have her: and if it be a match, as nothing is impossible—

SPEEDWhat then?

LANCEWhy, then will I tell thee — that thy master stays for thee at the North-gate.

SPEEDFor me?

LANCEFor thee? Ay, who art thou? He hath stayed for a better man than thee.

SPEEDAnd must I go to him?

LANCEThou must run to him, for thou hast stayed so long that going will scarce serve the turn.

SPEEDWhy didst not tell me sooner? ’Pox of[351] your love letters!

[Exit]

LANCENow will he be swinged[352] for reading my letter; an unmannerly slave, that will thrust himself into secrets. I’ll[353] after, to rejoice in the boy’s correction.

Exit

Act 3 Scene 2

running scene 12

Enter Duke [and] Turio

DUKESir Turio, fear not but that she will love you,

Now Valentine is banished from her sight.

TURIOSince his exile she hath despised me most,

Forsworn my company and railed[4] at me,

5

That[5] I am desperate of obtaining her.

DUKEThis weak impress[6] of love is as a figure

Trenchèd[7] in ice, which with an hour’s heat

Dissolves to water and doth lose his form.

A little time will melt her frozen thoughts

10

And worthless Valentine shall be forgot.

[Enter Proteus]

How now, Sir Proteus, is your countryman,

According to our proclamation, gone?

PROTEUSGone, my good lord.

DUKEMy daughter takes his going grievously?[14]

15

PROTEUSA little time, my lord, will kill that grief.

DUKESo I believe, but Turio thinks not so.

Proteus, the good conceit[17] I hold of thee —

For thou hast shown some sign of good desert[18] —

Makes me the better[19] to confer with thee.

20

PROTEUSLonger than I prove loyal to your grace

Let me not live to look upon your grace.

DUKEThou know’st how willingly I would effect[22]

The match between Sir Turio and my daughter?

PROTEUSI do, my lord.

25

DUKEAnd also, I think, thou art not ignorant

How she opposes her against my will?

PROTEUSShe did, my lord, when Valentine was here.

DUKEAy, and perversely she persevers so.

What might we do to make the girl forget

30

The love of Valentine, and love Sir Turio?

PROTEUSThe best way is to slander Valentine

With falsehood, cowardice and poor descent:[32]

Three things that women highly hold in hate.

DUKEAy, but she’ll think that it is spoke in hate.

35

PROTEUSAy, if his enemy deliver[35] it:

Therefore it must with circumstance[36] be spoken

By one whom she esteemeth as his friend.

DUKEThen you must undertake to slander him.

PROTEUSAnd that, my lord, I shall be loath[39] to do:

40

’Tis an ill office for a gentleman,

Especially against his very[41] friend.

DUKEWhere your good word cannot advantage him,

Your slander never can endamage him;

Therefore the office is indifferent,

45

Being entreated to it by your friend.[45]

PROTEUSYou have prevailed, my lord: if I can do it

By aught[47] that I can speak in his dispraise,

She shall not long continue love to him.

But say this weed[49] her love from Valentine,

50

It follows not that she will love Sir Turio.

TURIOTherefore, as you unwind her love from him,

Lest it should ravel[52] and be good to none,

You must provide[53] to bottom it on me,

Which must be done by praising me as much

55

As you in worth dispraise Sir Valentine.

DUKEAnd, Proteus, we dare trust you in this kind[56]

Because we know, on Valentine’s report,

You are already Love’s firm votary,

And cannot soon revolt and change your mind.

60

Upon this warrant[60] shall you have access

Where you with Silvia may confer at large —

For she is lumpish,[62] heavy, melancholy,

And, for your friend’s sake, will be glad of you —

Where you may temper[64] her by your persuasion

65

To hate young Valentine and love my friend.

PROTEUSAs much as I can do, I will effect.

But you, Sir Turio, are not sharp[67] enough:

You must lay lime[68] to tangle her desires

By wailful sonnets,[69] whose composèd rhymes

70

Should be full-fraught[70] with serviceable vows.

DUKEAy, much is the force of heaven-bred poesy.[71]

PROTEUSSay that upon the altar of her beauty

You sacrifice your tears, your sighs, your heart.

Write till your ink be dry, and with your tears

75

Moist it again, and frame[75] some feeling line

That may discover[76] such integrity:

For Orpheus’[77] lute was strung with poets’ sinews,

Whose golden touch could soften steel and stones,

Make tigers tame and huge leviathans[79]

80

Forsake unsounded deeps[80] to dance on sands.

After your dire-lamenting[81] elegies,

Visit by night your lady’s chamber-window

With some sweet consort;[83] to their instruments

Tune[84] a deploring dump. The night’s dead silence

85

Will well become such sweet-complaining grievance.

This, or else nothing, will inherit[86] her.

DUKEThis discipline[87] shows thou hast been in love.

TURIOAnd thy advice this night I’ll put in practice.

Therefore, sweet Proteus, my direction-giver,

90

Let us into the city presently

To sort[91] some gentlemen well skilled in music.

I have a sonnet that will serve the turn

To give[93] the onset to thy good advice.

DUKEAbout it,[94] gentlemen!

95

PROTEUSWe’ll wait upon your grace till after supper,

And afterward determine our proceedings.

DUKEEven now about it. I will pardon you.[97]

Exeunt

Act 4 Scene 14.1

running scene 13

Enter certain Outlaws

FIRST OUTLAWFellows, stand fast: I see a passenger.[1]

SECOND OUTLAWIf there be ten, shrink not, but down with ’em.

[Enter Valentine and Speed]

THIRD OUTLAWStand,[3] sir, and throw us that you have about ye.

If not, we’ll make you sit and rifle[4] you.

5

SPEEDSir, we are undone; these are the villains

That all the travellers do fear so much.

VALENTINEMy friends—

FIRST OUTLAWThat’s not so, sir: we are your enemies.

SECOND OUTLAWPeace: we’ll hear him.

10

THIRD OUTLAWAy, by my beard, will we: for he is a proper[10] man.

VALENTINEThen know that I have little wealth to lose;

A man I am, crossed with[12] adversity:

My riches are these poor habiliments,[13]

Of which, if you should here disfurnish[14] me,

15

You take the sum and substance[15] that I have.

SECOND OUTLAWWhither travel you?

VALENTINETo Verona.

FIRST OUTLAWWhence came you?

VALENTINEFrom Milan.

20

THIRD OUTLAWHave you long sojourned[20] there?

VALENTINESome sixteen months, and longer might have stayed,

If crookèd[22] fortune had not thwarted me.

FIRST OUTLAWWhat, were you banished thence?

VALENTINEI was.

25

SECOND OUTLAWFor what offence?

VALENTINEFor that which now torments me to rehearse:

I killed a man, whose death I much repent,

But yet I slew him manfully, in fight,

Without false vantage[29] or base treachery.

30

FIRST OUTLAWWhy, ne’er repent it, if it were done so;

But were you banished for so small a fault?

VALENTINEI was, and held[32] me glad of such a doom.

SECOND OUTLAWHave[33] you the tongues?

VALENTINEMy youthful travel therein made me happy,[34]

35

Or else I often had been miserable.

THIRD OUTLAWBy the bare scalp of Robin Hood’s fat friar,[36]

This fellow were[37] a king for our wild faction!

FIRST OUTLAWWe’ll have him. Sirs, a word. Outlaws confer privately

SPEEDMaster, be one of them: it’s an honourable kind of thievery.

40

VALENTINEPeace, villain.

SECOND OUTLAWTell us this: have you anything[41] to take to?

VALENTINENothing but my fortune.

THIRD OUTLAWKnow then that some of us are gentlemen,

Such as the fury of ungoverned[44] youth

45

Thrust from the company of awful[45] men.

Myself was from Verona banishèd

For practising[47] to steal away a lady,

An heir and niece,[48] allied unto the duke.

SECOND OUTLAWAnd I from Mantua,[49] for a gentleman,

50

Who, in my mood,[50] I stabbed unto the heart.

FIRST OUTLAWAnd I for such like petty crimes as these.

But to the purpose: for we cite[52] our faults,

That they may hold excused[53] our lawless lives;

And partly, seeing you are beautified

55

With goodly shape,[55] and by your own report

A linguist and a man of such perfection

As we do in our quality[57] much want—

SECOND OUTLAWIndeed, because you are a banished man,

Therefore, above the rest,[59] we parley to you:

60

Are you content to be our general?

To make a virtue of necessity

And live as we do in this wilderness?

THIRD OUTLAWWhat say’st thou? Wilt thou be of our consort?[63]

Say ‘ay’, and be the captain of us all:

65

We’ll do thee homage[65] and be ruled by thee,

Love thee as our commander and our king.

FIRST OUTLAWBut if thou scorn our courtesy, thou diest.

SECOND OUTLAWThou shalt not live to brag what we have offered.

VALENTINEI take your offer and will live with you,

70

Provided that you do no outrages[70]

On silly[71] women or poor passengers.

THIRD OUTLAWNo, we detest such vile base practices.

Come, go with us: we’ll bring thee to our crews,[73]

And show thee all the treasure we have got,

75

Which, with ourselves, all rest at thy dispose.[75]

Exeunt

Act 4 Scene 24.2

running scene 14

Enter Proteus

PROTEUSAlready have I been false to Valentine,

And now I must be as unjust to Turio:

Under the colour[3] of commending him,

I have access my own love to prefer.

5

But Silvia is too fair, too true, too holy,

To be corrupted with my worthless gifts;

When I protest[7] true loyalty to her,

She twits[8] me with my falsehood to my friend;

When to her beauty I commend[9] my vows,

10

She bids me think how I have been forsworn

In breaking faith with Julia, whom I loved;

And notwithstanding all her sudden quips,[12]

The least whereof would quell a lover’s hope,

Yet, spaniel-like, the more she spurns my love,

15

The more it grows and fawneth on her still.

[Enter Turio and Musicians]

But here comes Turio; now must we to her window,

And give some evening music to her ear.

TURIOHow now, Sir Proteus, are you crept[18] before us?

PROTEUSAy, gentle Turio, for you know that love

20

Will creep[20] in service where it cannot go.

TURIOAy, but I hope, sir, that you love not here.[21]

PROTEUSSir, but I do: or else I would be hence.

TURIOWho, Silvia?

PROTEUSAy, Silvia: for your sake.

TURIOI[25] thank you for your own. Now, gentlemen, Let’s tune, and to it lustily[26] awhile.

[Enter, at a distance, the Host, and Julia in boy’s clothes] They talk apart

HOSTNow, my young guest, methinks you’re allicholly;[27] I pray you, why is it?

JULIAMarry, mine host, because I cannot be merry.

HOSTCome, we’ll have you merry: I’ll bring you where you shall hear music and see the gentleman that you asked for.

JULIABut shall I hear him speak?

HOSTAy, that you shall.

JULIAThat will be music. Music plays

HOSTHark, hark!

JULIAIs he among these?

HOSTAy: but peace, let’s hear ’em.

[PROTEUS or A MUSICIAN sings the] song

Who is Silvia? What is she?

That all our swains[38] commend her?

Holy, fair and wise is she:

40

The heaven such grace[40] did lend her,

That she might admirèd[41] be.

Is she kind as she is fair?

For beauty lives with kindness:

Love doth to her eyes repair,[44]

45

To help him of[45] his blindness,

And, being helped, inhabits there.

Then to Silvia let us sing,

That Silvia is excelling;

She excels each mortal thing

50

Upon the dull earth dwelling.

To her let us garlands bring.

HOSTHow now? Are you sadder than you were before? How do[52] you, man? The music likes[53] you not.

JULIAYou mistake: the musician likes me not.[54]

HOSTWhy, my pretty youth?

JULIAHe plays false,[56] father.

HOSTHow, out of tune on the strings?

JULIANot so: but yet so false that he grieves my very heart-strings.

HOSTYou have a quick[59] ear.

JULIAAy, I would I were deaf: it makes me have a slow[60] heart.

HOSTI perceive you delight not in music.

JULIANot a whit, when it jars[62] so.

HOSTHark what fine change[63] is in the music.

JULIAAy, that change is the spite.[64]

HOSTYou would have them always play but one thing?[65]

JULIAI would always have one[66] play but one thing. But, host, doth this Sir Proteus that we talk on Often resort unto this gentlewoman?

HOSTI tell you what Lance his man told me: he loved her out[69] of all nick.

JULIAWhere is Lance?

HOSTGone to seek his dog, which tomorrow, by his master’s command, he must carry for a present to his lady.

JULIAPeace, stand aside: the company parts. Julia and the Host stand aside

PROTEUSSir Turio, fear not you: I will so plead That you shall say my cunning drift excels.

TURIOWhere meet we?

PROTEUSAt Saint Gregory’s well.[77]

TURIOFarewell.

[Exeunt Turio and Musicians]

[Enter Silvia above, at her window]

PROTEUSMadam, good even to your ladyship.

SILVIAI thank you for your music, gentlemen. Who is that that spake?

PROTEUSOne, lady, if you knew his pure heart’s truth, You would quickly learn to know him by his voice.

SILVIASir Proteus, as I take it.

PROTEUSSir Proteus, gentle lady, and your servant.

SILVIAWhat’s your will?[86]

PROTEUSThat I may compass yours.[87]

SILVIAYou have your wish: my will is even this,

That presently you hie[89] you home to bed.

90

Thou subtle,[90] perjured, false, disloyal man:

Think’st thou I am so shallow, so conceitless,[91]

To be seduced by thy flattery,

That hast deceived so many with thy vows?

Return, return, and make thy love[94] amends.

95

For me — by this pale[95] queen of night I swear —

I am so far from granting thy request

That I despise thee for thy wrongful suit,[97]

And by and by[98] intend to chide myself,

Even for this time I spend in talking to thee.

100

PROTEUSI grant, sweet love, that I did love a lady:

But she is dead.

JULIA’Twere false, if[102] I should speak it; Aside

For I am sure she is not burièd.

SILVIASay that she be: yet Valentine thy friend

105

Survives; to whom, thyself art witness,

I am betrothed. And art thou not ashamed

To wrong him with thy importunacy?[107]

PROTEUSI likewise hear that Valentine is dead.

SILVIAAnd[109] so suppose am I: for in his grave

110

Assure thyself, my love is burièd.

PROTEUSSweet lady, let me rake it from the earth.

SILVIAGo to thy lady’s grave and call hers[112] thence,

Or at the least, in hers sepulchre[113] thine.

JULIAHe heard not that. Aside

115

PROTEUSMadam, if your heart be so obdurate,[115]

Vouchsafe[116] me yet your picture for my love,

The picture that is hanging in your chamber.

To that I’ll speak, to that I’ll sigh and weep:

For since the substance of your perfect self

120

Is else[120] devoted, I am but a shadow,

And to your shadow[121] will I make true love.

JULIAIf[122] ’twere a substance, you would sure deceive it, Aside

And make it but a shadow, as I am.

SILVIAI am very loath to be your idol, sir;

125

But, since[125] your falsehood shall become you well

To worship shadows and adore false shapes,

Send to me in the morning, and I’ll send it.

And so, good rest.

PROTEUSAs wretches have o’ernight

130

That wait for execution in the morn.

[Exeunt Proteus and Silvia, separately]

JULIAHost, will you go?

HOSTBy my halidom,[132] I was fast asleep.

JULIAPray you, where lies[133] Sir Proteus?

HOSTMarry, at my house.[134] Trust me, I think ’tis almost day.

135

JULIANot so: but it hath been the longest night

That e’er I watched, and the most heaviest.[136]

[Exeunt]

Act 4 Scene 34.3

running scene 15

Enter Eglamour

EGLAMOURThis is the hour that Madam Silvia

Entreated me to call and know her mind:

There’s some great matter she’d employ me in.

Madam, madam.

[Enter Silvia above, at her window]

5

SILVIAWho calls?

EGLAMOURYour servant and your friend;

One that attends your ladyship’s command.

SILVIASir Eglamour, a thousand times good morrow.

EGLAMOURAs many, worthy lady, to yourself:

10

According to your ladyship’s impose,[10]

I am thus early come to know what service

It is your pleasure to command me in.

SILVIAO, Eglamour, thou art a gentleman —

Think not I flatter, for I swear I do not —

15

Valiant, wise, remorseful,[15] well accomplished.

Thou art not ignorant what dear good will

I bear unto the banished Valentine,

Nor how my father would enforce me marry

Vain[19] Turio, whom my very soul abhorred.

20

Thyself hast loved, and I have heard thee say

No grief did ever come so near thy heart

As when thy lady and thy true love died,

Upon whose grave thou vowed’st pure chastity.

Sir Eglamour, I would[24] to Valentine,

25

To Mantua, where I hear he makes abode;

And for[26] the ways are dangerous to pass,

I do desire thy worthy company,

Upon whose faith and honour I repose.[28]

Urge not my father’s anger, Eglamour,

30

But think upon my grief, a lady’s grief,

And on the justice of my flying hence,

To keep me from a most unholy match,

Which heaven and fortune still[33] rewards with plagues.

I do desire thee, even from a heart

35

As full of sorrows as the sea of sands,

To bear me company and go with me:

If not, to hide what I have said to thee,

That I may venture to depart alone.

EGLAMOURMadam, I pity much your grievances,[39]

40

Which, since I know they virtuously are placed,

I give consent to go along with you,

Recking[42] as little what betideth me

As much I wish all good befortune[43] you.

When will you go?

45

SILVIAThis evening coming.

EGLAMOURWhere shall I meet you?

SILVIAAt Friar Patrick’s cell,[47]

Where I intend holy confession.

EGLAMOURI will not fail your ladyship.

50

Good morrow, gentle lady.

SILVIAGood morrow, kind Sir Eglamour.

Exeunt [separately]

Act 4 Scene 4

running scene 16

Enter Lance [with his dog, Crab]

LANCEWhen a man’s servant shall play the cur[1] with him, look you, it goes hard: one that I brought up of[2] a puppy: one that I saved from drowning, when three or four of his blind brothers and sisters went to it. I have taught him, even as one would say precisely, ‘thus I would teach a dog’. I was sent to deliver him as a present to Mistress Silvia from my master, and I came no sooner into the dining-chamber but he steps me[6] to her trencher and steals her capon’s leg: O, ’tis a foul thing when a cur cannot keep[7] himself in all companies. I would have, as one should say, one that takes upon him[8] to be a dog indeed, to be, as it were, a dog at all things. If I had not had more wit than he, to take[9] a fault upon me that he did, I think verily[10] he had been hanged for’t: sure as I live, he had suffered for’t, you shall judge. He thrusts me[11] himself into the company of three or four gentlemanlike dogs under the duke’s table: he had not been there — bless the mark[12] — a pissing while,[13] but all the chamber smelt him. ‘Out with the dog!’ says one. ‘What cur is that?’ says another. ‘Whip him out’, says the third. ‘Hang him up’, says the duke. I, having been acquainted with the smell before, knew it was Crab, and goes me to the fellow that whips the dogs: ‘Friend,’ quoth I, ‘you mean to whip the dog?’ ‘Ay, marry, do I’, quoth he. ‘You do him the more wrong,’ quoth I, ‘’twas I did the thing you wot of.’[18] He makes me no more ado, but whips me out of the chamber. How many masters would do this for his servant? Nay, I’ll be sworn, I have sat in the stocks[20] for puddings he hath stolen, otherwise he had been executed: I have stood on the pillory[21] for geese he hath killed, otherwise he had suffered for’t.— To Crab Thou think’st not of this now. Nay, I remember the trick you served me when I took my leave of Madam Silvia: did not I bid thee still mark[23] me and do as I do? When didst thou see me heave up[24] my leg and make water against a gentlewoman’s farthingale? Didst thou ever see me do such a trick?

[Enter Proteus, and Julia disguised as Sebastian]

PROTEUSSebastian is thy name? To Julia I like thee well and will employ thee in some service presently.

JULIAIn what you please, I’ll do what I can.

PROTEUSI hope thou wilt.— To Lance How now, you whoreson peasant, where have you been these two days loitering?

LANCEMarry, sir, I carried Mistress Silvia the dog you bade me.

PROTEUSAnd what says she to my little jewel?[32]

LANCEMarry, she says your dog was a cur,[33] and tells you currish thanks is good enough for such a present.

PROTEUSBut she received my dog?

LANCENo indeed did she not: here have I brought him back again.

PROTEUSWhat, didst thou offer her this from me? Points to Crab

LANCEAy, sir: the other squirrel[38] was stolen from me by the hangman boys in the market-place, and then I offered her mine own, who is a dog as big as ten of yours, and therefore the gift the greater.

PROTEUSGo get thee hence, and find my dog again,

Or ne’er return again into my sight.

Away, I say: stay’st thou to vex me here?

[Exit Lance with Crab]

A slave, that still an end[44] turns me to shame.

45

Sebastian, I have entertained[45] thee,

Partly that I have need of such a youth

That can with some discretion do my business,

For ’tis no trusting to yond[48] foolish lout,

But chiefly for thy face and thy behaviour,[49]

50

Which, if my augury[50] deceive me not,

Witness[51] good bringing up, fortune and truth:

Therefore know thou, for this I entertain thee.

Go presently, and take this ring with thee, Gives a ring

Deliver it to Madam Silvia;

55

She loved me well delivered[55] it to me.

JULIAIt seems you loved not her, to leave[56] her token: She is dead, belike?

PROTEUSNot so: I think she lives.

JULIAAlas!

PROTEUSWhy dost thou cry ‘Alas’?

JULIAI cannot choose but pity her.

PROTEUSWherefore shouldst thou pity her?

JULIABecause methinks that she loved you as well

As you do love your lady Silvia:

65

She dreams on him that has forgot her love,

You dote on her that cares not for your love.

’Tis pity love should be so contrary:

And thinking on it makes me cry ‘Alas’.

PROTEUSWell, give her that ring and therewithal[69]

70

This letter. That’s her chamber. Tell my lady Gives a letter

I claim the promise for her heavenly picture.

Your message done, hie home unto my chamber,

Where thou shalt find me, sad and solitary.

[Exit]

JULIAHow many women would do such a message?

75

Alas, poor Proteus, thou hast entertained

A fox to be the shepherd of thy Iambs.

Alas, poor fool,[77] why do I pity him

That with his very heart despiseth me?

Because he loves her, he despiseth me:

80

Because I love him, I must pity him.

This ring I gave him when he parted from me,

To bind him to remember my good will.

And now am I, unhappy messenger,

To[84] plead for that which I would not obtain,

85

To carry that which I would have refused,

To praise his faith which I would have dispraised.

I am my master’s true-confirmèd[87] love,

But cannot be true servant to my master,

Unless I prove false traitor to myself.

90

Yet will I woo for him, but yet so coldly

As, heaven it knows, I would not have him speed.[91]

[Enter Silvia, attended by her servant Ursula]

Gentlewoman, good day: I pray you, be my mean[92]

To bring me where to speak with Madam Silvia.

SILVIAWhat would you with her, if[94] that I be she?

95

JULIAIf you be she, I do entreat your patience

To hear me speak the message I am sent on.

SILVIAFrom whom?

JULIAFrom my master, Sir Proteus, madam.

SILVIAO, he sends you for a picture?

100

JULIAAy, madam.

SILVIAUrsula, bring my picture there. Ursula brings the picture

Go give your master this: tell him from me,

One Julia, that his changing thoughts forget,

Would better fit his chamber[104] than this shadow.

105

JULIAMadam, please you peruse this letter. Gives her a letter

Pardon me, madam, I have unadvised[106]

Delivered you a paper that I should not:

This is the letter to your ladyship. Takes back the letter and gives another

SILVIAI pray thee, let me look on that again.

110

JULIAIt may not be: good madam, pardon me.

SILVIAThere, hold.[111]

I will not look upon your master’s lines:

I know they are stuffed with protestations[113]

And full of newfound[114] oaths, which he will break

115

As easily as I do tear his paper. Tears the letter

JULIAMadam, he sends your ladyship this ring. Offers the ring

SILVIAThe more shame for him that he sends it me,

For I have heard him say a thousand times

His Julia gave it him at his departure.

120

Though his false finger have profaned[120] the ring,

Mine shall not do his Julia so much wrong.

JULIAShe thanks you.

SILVIAWhat say’st thou?

JULIAI thank you, madam, that you tender[124] her.

125

Poor gentlewoman, my master wrongs her much.

SILVIADost thou know her?

JULIAAlmost as well as I do know myself.

To think upon her woes, I do protest

That I have wept a hundred several times.

130

SILVIABelike she thinks that Proteus hath forsook her?

JULIAI think she doth: and that’s her cause of sorrow.

SILVIAIs she not passing fair?

JULIAShe hath been fairer, madam, than she is:

When she did think my master loved her well,

135

She, in my judgement, was as fair as you.

But since she did neglect her looking-glass

And threw her sun-expelling mask[137] away,

The air hath starved the roses in her cheeks

And pinched the lily-tincture[139] of her face,

140

That now she is become as[140] black as I.

SILVIAHow tall was she?

JULIAAbout my stature:[142] for at Pentecost,

When all our pageants of delight[143] were played,

Our youth got me to play the woman’s part,

145

And I was trimmed[145] in Madam Julia’s gown,

Which served me as fit, by all men’s judgements,

As if the garment had been made for me:

Therefore I know she is about my height.

And at that time I made her weep a-good,[149]

150

For I did play a lamentable part.

Madam, ’twas Ariadne,[151] passioning

For Theseus’ perjury and unjust flight,

Which I so lively[153] acted with my tears

That my poor mistress, movèd therewithal,

155

Wept bitterly: and would I might be dead

If I in thought felt not her very sorrow.

SILVIAShe is beholding[157] to thee, gentle youth.

Alas, poor lady, desolate and left!

I weep myself to think upon thy words.

160

Here, youth, there is my purse: I give thee this Gives money

For thy sweet mistress’ sake, because thou lov’st her.

Farewell.

[Exeunt Silvia and Ursula]

JULIAAnd she shall thank you for’t, if e’er you know her.

A virtuous gentlewoman, mild[164] and beautiful.

165

I hope my master’s suit[165] will be but cold,

Since she respects my mistress’[166] love so much.

Alas, how love can trifle with itself!

Here is her picture: let me see, I think

If I had such a tire,[169] this face of mine

170

Were full as lovely as is this of hers.

And yet the painter flattered her a little,

Unless I flatter with myself too much.

Her hair is auburn, mine is perfect yellow;

If that be all the difference in his love,

175

I’ll get me such a coloured periwig.[175]

Her eyes are grey as glass, and so are mine:

Ay, but her forehead’s low, and mine’s as high.[177]

What should it be that he respects[178] in her

But I can make respective[179] in myself,

180

If this fond Love were not a blinded god?

Come, shadow,[181] come, and take this shadow up,

For ’tis thy rival.— O thou senseless form,[182] Looks at the picture

Thou shalt be worshipped, kissed, loved and adored;

And were there sense in his idolatry,

185

My substance should be statue[185] in thy stead.

I’ll use[186] thee kindly, for thy mistress’ sake

That used me so: or else, by Jove[187] I vow,

I should have scratched out your unseeing eyes

To make my master out of love with thee.

Exit

Act 5 Scene 15.1

running scene 17

Enter Eglamour

EGLAMOURThe sun begins to gild[1] the western sky,

And now it is about the very hour

That Silvia, at Friar Patrick’s cell, should meet me.

She will not fail; for lovers break not hours,[4]

5

Unless it be to come before their time,[5]

So much they spur their expedition.[6]

See where she comes.—

[Enter Silvia, with a mask]

Lady, a happy evening!

SILVIAAmen, amen.[8] Go on, good Eglamour,

Out at the postern[9] by the abbey-wall;

10

I fear I am attended[10] by some spies.

EGLAMOURFear not. The forest is not three leagues[11] off:

If we recover[12] that, we are sure enough.

Exeunt

Act 5 Scene 25.2

running scene 18

Enter Turio, Proteus, [and] Julia [disguised as Sebastian]

TURIOSir Proteus, what says Silvia to my suit?

PROTEUSO, sir, I find her milder[2] than she was,

And yet she takes exceptions at your person.[3]

TURIOWhat? That my leg is too long?

5

PROTEUSNo, that it is too little.[5]

TURIOI’ll wear a boot, to make it somewhat rounder.

JULIABut love will not be spurred[7] to what it loathes. Aside

TURIOWhat says she to my face?

PROTEUSShe says it is a fair[9] one.

10

TURIONay then, the wanton[10] lies: my face is black.

PROTEUSBut pearls are fair; and the old saying is,

Black men are pearls in beauteous ladies’ eyes.

JULIA’Tis true, such pearls[13] as put out ladies’ eyes, Aside

For I had rather wink than look on them.

15

TURIOHow likes she my discourse?

PROTEUSIll,[16] when you talk of war.

TURIOBut well, when I discourse of love and peace.

JULIABut better indeed, when you hold your peace.[18] Aside

TURIOWhat says she to my valour?

20

PROTEUSO, sir, she makes[20] no doubt of that.

JULIAShe needs not, when she knows it cowardice. Aside

TURIOWhat says she to my birth?[22]

PROTEUSThat you are well derived.[23]

JULIATrue: from a gentleman to a fool. Aside

25

TURIOConsiders she my possessions?

PROTEUSO ay, and pities[26] them.

TURIOWherefore?

JULIAThat such an ass should owe[28] them. Aside

PROTEUSThat they are out by lease.[29]

30

JULIAHere comes the duke.

[Enter the Duke]

DUKEHow now, Sir Proteus; how now, Turio.

Which of you saw Eglamour of late?

TURIONot I.

PROTEUSNor I.

35

DUKESaw you my daughter?

PROTEUSNeither.

DUKEWhy then,

She’s fled unto that peasant Valentine,

And Eglamour is in her company.

40

’Tis true, for Friar Laurence[40] met them both

As he, in penance, wandered through the forest.

Him[42] he knew well, and guessed that it was she,

But, being masked,[43] he was not sure of it.

Besides, she did intend confession

45

At Patrick’s cell this even,[45] and there she was not.

These likelihoods confirm her flight from hence.

Therefore I pray you stand[47] not to discourse,

But mount you[48] presently and meet with me

Upon the rising of the mountain-foot

50

That leads toward Mantua, whither they are fled:

Dispatch,[51] sweet gentlemen, and follow me.

[Exit]

TURIOWhy, this it is to be a peevish girl,

That flies her fortune[53] when it follows her.

I’ll after, more to be revenged on Eglamour

55

Than for the love of reckless[55] Silvia.

[Exit]

PROTEUSAnd I will follow, more for Silvia’s love

Than hate of Eglamour that goes with her.

[Exit]

JULIAAnd I will follow, more to cross that love

Than hate for Silvia, that is gone for love.

Exit

Act 5 Scene 35.3

running scene 19

[Enter] Silvia [with the] Outlaws

FIRST OUTLAWCome, come, be patient:

We must bring you to our captain.

SILVIAA thousand more mischances[3] than this one

Have learned me how to brook[4] this patiently.

5

SECOND OUTLAWCome, bring her away.

FIRST OUTLAWWhere is the gentleman that was with her?

THIRD OUTLAWBeing nimble-footed, he hath outrun us.

But Moyses and Valerius[8] follow him.

Go thou with her to the west end of the wood,

10

There is our captain: we’ll follow him that’s fled.

The thicket is beset,[11] he cannot scape.

[Exeunt Second and Third Outlaws]

FIRST OUTLAWCome, I must bring you to our captain’s cave.

Fear not: he bears an honourable mind,

And will not use a woman lawlessly.

15

SILVIAO Valentine, this I endure for thee!

Exeunt

Act 5 Scene 4

running scene 19 continues

Enter Valentine

VALENTINEHow use[1] doth breed a habit in a man!

This shadowy desert,[2] unfrequented woods,

I better brook than flourishing peopled towns:

Here can I sit alone, unseen of any,

5

And to the nightingale’s complaining[5] notes

Tune my distresses and record[6] my woes.

O thou that dost inhabit in my breast,

Leave not the mansion[8] so long tenantless,

Lest, growing ruinous, the building fall

10

And leave no memory of what it was.

Repair[11] me with thy presence, Silvia:

Thou gentle nymph,[12] cherish thy forlorn swain. Commotion within

What hallowing[13] and what stir is this today?

These are my mates, that make their wills their law,

15

Have[15] some unhappy passenger in chase.

They love me well: yet I have much to do

To keep them from[17] uncivil outrages.

Withdraw thee, Valentine: who’s this comes here? Stands aside

[Enter Proteus, Silvia, and Julia disguised as Sebastian]

PROTEUSMadam, this service I have done for you —

20

Though you respect[20] not aught your servant doth —

To hazard life and rescue you from him[21]

That would have forced[22] your honour and your love.

Vouchsafe[23] me for my meed but one fair look:

A smaller boon[24] than this I cannot beg,

25

And less than this I am sure you cannot give.

VALENTINEHow like a dream is this? I see and hear: Aside

Love, lend me patience to forbear awhile.

SILVIAO miserable, unhappy that I am!

PROTEUSUnhappy were you, madam, ere I came:

30

But by my coming I have made you happy.

SILVIABy thy approach[31] thou mak’st me most unhappy.

JULIAAnd me, when he approacheth to your presence. Aside

SILVIAHad I been seizèd by a hungry lion,

I would have been a breakfast to the beast

35

Rather than have false Proteus rescue me.

O, heaven, be judge how I love Valentine,

Whose life’s as tender[37] to me as my soul!

And full[38] as much, for more there cannot be,

I do detest false perjured Proteus.

40

Therefore be gone, solicit[40] me no more.

PROTEUSWhat dangerous action,[41] stood it next to death,

Would I not undergo for one calm look:

O, ’tis the curse in love, and still approved,[43]

When women cannot love where they’re beloved.

45

SILVIAWhen Proteus cannot love where he’s beloved.

Read over Julia’s heart, thy first best love,

For whose dear sake thou didst then rend[47] thy faith

Into a thousand oaths; and all those oaths

Descended into perjury, to love me.

50

Thou hast no faith left now, unless thou’dst two,[50]

And that’s far worse than none: better have none

Than plural faith, which is too much by one.

Thou counterfeit[53] to thy true friend!

PROTEUSIn love

55

Who respects[55] friend?

SILVIAAll men but Proteus.

PROTEUSNay, if the gentle spirit[57] of moving words

Can no way change you to a milder form,[58]

I’ll woo you like a soldier, at arms’ end,[59]

60

And love you ’gainst the nature of love: force ye. He grabs her

SILVIAO heaven!

PROTEUSI’ll force thee yield to my desire.

VALENTINERuffian, let go that rude uncivil[63] touch, Comes forward

Thou friend of an ill fashion![64]

65

PROTEUSValentine!

VALENTINEThou common[66] friend, that’s without faith or love,

For such is a friend now. Treacherous man,

Thou hast beguiled[68] my hopes; nought but mine eye

Could have persuaded me. Now I dare not say

70

I have one friend alive: thou wouldst disprove me.

Who should be trusted, when one’s right hand[71]

Is perjured to the bosom? Proteus,

I am sorry I must never trust thee more,

But count[74] the world a stranger for thy sake.

75

The private[75] wound is deepest. O time most accurst,

’Mongst all foes that a friend should be the worst!

PROTEUSMy shame and guilt confounds[77] me.

Forgive me, Valentine: if hearty sorrow

Be a sufficient ransom for offence,

80

I tender’t[80] here. I do as truly suffer

As e’er I did commit.[81]

VALENTINEThen I am paid:

And once again I do receive thee[83] honest.

Who[84] by repentance is not satisfied

85

Is nor[85] of heaven nor earth, for these are pleased:

By penitence[86] th’Eternal’s wrath’s appeased.

And that my love[87] may appear plain and free,

All that was mine in Silvia I give thee.

JULIAO, me unhappy! Swoons

PROTEUSLook to the boy.

VALENTINEWhy, boy! Why, wag![91] How now? What’s the matter? Look up: speak.

JULIAO, good sir, my master charged[92] me to deliver a ring to Madam Silvia, which, out of my neglect, was never done.

PROTEUSWhere is that ring, boy?

JULIAHere ’tis: this is it. Produces her own ring

PROTEUSHow? Let me see. Takes ring Why, this is the ring I gave to Julia.

JULIAO, cry you mercy,[97] sir, I have mistook: This is the ring you sent to Silvia. Offers another ring

PROTEUSBut how cam’st thou by this ring? At my depart[99] I gave this unto Julia.

JULIAAnd Julia herself did give it me, And Julia herself hath brought it hither. Reveals herself

PROTEUSHow? Julia?

JULIABehold her that gave aim[103] to all thy oaths,

And entertained[104] ’em deeply in her heart.

105

How oft hast thou with perjury cleft the root![105]

O Proteus, let this habit[106] make thee blush.

Be thou ashamed that I have took upon me

Such an immodest raiment,[108] if shame live

In a disguise of love!

110

It[110] is the lesser blot, modesty finds,

Women to change their shapes than men their minds.

PROTEUSThan men their minds? ’Tis true. O heaven, were man

But constant, he were perfect. That one error

Fills him with faults, makes him run through all th’sins:

115

Inconstancy[115] falls off ere it begins.

What is in Silvia’s face but I may spy

More fresh in Julia’s, with a constant eye?

VALENTINECome, come, a hand from either. Proteus and Julia join hands

Let me be blest to make this happy close:

120

’Twere pity two such friends should be long foes.

PROTEUSBear witness, heaven, I have my wish forever.

JULIAAnd I mine.

[Enter Outlaws, with Duke and Turio]

OUTLAWSA prize, a prize, a prize!

VALENTINEForbear, forbear, I say! It is my lord the Duke. Outlaws release Duke and Turio

125

Your grace is welcome to a man disgraced,[125]

Banished Valentine.

DUKESir Valentine?

TURIOYonder is Silvia, and Silvia’s mine. Steps forward

VALENTINETurio, give[129] back, or else embrace thy death: Draws his sword

130

Come not within the measure[130] of my wrath.

Do not name Silvia thine: if once again,

Verona shall not hold[132] thee. Here she stands,

Take but possession of her with a touch:

I dare thee but to breathe upon my love.

135

TURIOSir Valentine, I care not for her, I.

I hold him but a fool that will endanger

His body for a girl that loves him not:

I claim her not, and therefore she is thine.

DUKEThe more degenerate and base art thou

140

To make such means[140] for her as thou hast done,

And leave her on such slight conditions.[141]

Now, by the honour of my ancestry,

I do applaud thy spirit, Valentine,

And think thee worthy of an empress’ love:

145

Know then, I here forget all former griefs,

Cancel all grudge, repeal[146] thee home again,

Plead[147] a new state in thy unrivalled merit,

To which I thus subscribe:[148] Sir Valentine,

Thou art a gentleman and well derived,

150

Take thou thy Silvia, for thou hast deserved her.

VALENTINEI thank your grace: the gift hath made me happy.

I now beseech you, for your daughter’s sake,

To grant one boon that I shall ask of you.

DUKEI grant it, for thine own, whate’er it be.

155

VALENTINEThese banished men that I have kept withal[155]

Are men endued with worthy qualities:

Forgive them what they have committed here

And let them be recalled from their exile:

They are reformèd, civil, full of good,

160

And fit for great employment,[160] worthy lord.

DUKEThou hast prevailed: I pardon them and thee.

Dispose of[162] them as thou know’st their deserts.

Come, let us go: we will include all jars[163]

With triumphs,[164] mirth and rare solemnity.

165

VALENTINEAnd as we walk along, I dare be bold

With our discourse to make your grace to smile.

What think you of this page, my lord?

DUKEI think the boy hath grace[168] in him: he blushes.

VALENTINEI warrant you, my lord, more grace[169] than boy.

170

DUKEWhat mean you by that saying?

VALENTINEPlease you, I’ll tell you as we pass along,

That you will wonder what hath fortunèd.[172]

Come Proteus, ’tis your penance but to hear

The story of your loves discoverèd.

175

That done, our day of marriage shall be yours,

One feast, one house, one mutual happiness.

Exeunt

Textual Notes

F = First Folio text of 1623, the only authority for the play

F2 = a correction introduced in the Second Folio text of 1632

Ed = a correction introduced by a later editor

SD = stage direction

List of parts based on “Names of all the Actors” (reordered) at end of F text

F spells Protheus, Thurio, Panthino and Panthion

All entrances mid-scene = Ed. F groups names of all characters in each scene at beginning of scene

1.1.26 swam spelled swom in F 44 eating love = F. Some eds emend to doting love 66 leave = Ed. F = loue 67, 2.1.25 metamorphosed spelled metamorphis’d in F 77 a sheep = F2. F = sheepe 127 testerned = F2. F = cestern’d

1.2.101 your = F2. F = you

1.3.17 travel spelled trauaile in F which could mean either travel or travail 89 father = F2. F = Fathers

2.4.100 worthy = F2. F = worthy a 193 Is it = F2. F = It is mine eye = Ed. F = mine 211 SD Exit = F2. F = Exeunt

2.5.29 that = F2. F = that that

2.6.0 SD alone F = solus

3.1.56 tenor = Ed. F = tenure 274 master’s ship = Ed. F = Mastership 308 kissed fasting = Ed. F = fasting

3.2.14 grievously = F (corrected). F (uncorrected) = heauily

4.1.35 often had been = F2. F = often had beene often

4.2.109 his = F2. F = her

4.3.42 Recking = Ed. F = Wreaking

4.4.38 hangman = Ed. F = Hangmans 52 thou = F2. F = thee 56 to leave = F2. F = not leaue

5.2.18 your = Ed. F = you

Will Kempe, company clown to the Lord Chamberlain’s Men; he is shown with a man playing the tabor, a common instrument in the musical accompaniment to the plays.

Act 1 Scene 1

List of parts: clownish servant actually a quick-witted page boy    the like actually older than Speed and more foolish—the role for the company clown

1.1    Location: Verona    Valentine his name signifies a lover (from the patron saint of lovers)    Proteus from the Greek god known for his ability to change shape at will; a name often used to suggest deceit

2    homely simple/dull

3    affection love/sexual desire    tender youthful

7    sluggardized in a state of idleness

8    shapeless purposeless

9    still constantly

12    haply by chance

15    hap chance

16    environ surround

17    Commend thy grievance entrust your unhappiness

18    beadsman person paid to pray for others

19    love-book courtship manual or tale of love

22    Leander…Hellespont in classical mythology Leander regularly swam across the Hellespont to see his lover Hero, until one night he drowned

24    over-shoes in love shoe-deep/immersed in love

27    give…boots don’t make a fool of me

28    boots profits

31    Coy disdainful

32    watchful wakeful

33    hapless unlucky

34    If…won if the lover fails to win his lady then all that he will have gained is sorrow and effort

35    However whatever the outcome    but merely    a folly foolishness

37    circumstance elaborate speech

38    circumstance situation

39    cavil quibble/complain    Love refers here to Cupid

41    yokèd bound/controlled

42    chronicled for recorded as being

44    eating canker worm that feeds off and destroys plants

46    forward early

47    blow bloom

49    blasting withering

50    verdure green freshness    prime spring

51    effects outcome

52    wherefore why    counsel advise

53    votary devoted worshipper    fond foolish/doting

54    road harbor

55    shipped dispatched on board a ship

58    Milan northern Italian dukedom

59    success destiny

60    Betideth takes place

61    mine i.e., my letters full of news

62    bechance happen

65    dignify honor (by improving his own reputation in the world)

66    leave abandon/neglect

67    Julia possibly named after the Juliet in Arthur Brooke’s poem Romeus and Juliet; her name may also signify passion, being derived from the hot month of July

69    War disagree

70    musing pondering    Speed a name suggesting quick wit; possibly ironic in places as Speed is sometimes slow to go about his errands

71    ’save you God save you

72    But just

74    sheep puns on “ship”

76    An if if

79    my…horns as he owns me my horns belong to him (Speed implies that this makes Valentine a cuckold)

83    circumstance reasoned argument

84    It…another it’ll be unfortunate if I can’t prove the point with a different explanation

87    fodder food

90    baa puns on the contemptuous “bah”

92    mutton sheep    laced-mutton a prostitute wearing either lace or a tightly laced bodice

94    store great quantity

95    overcharged overcrowded    stick slaughter/have sex with

96    astray wandering into error (puns on the idea of “a stray sheep”)    pound confine in an animal pound/beat

97    pound reference to money, though still punning on a beating

98    pinfold animal pen

99    pin insignificant amount    Fold multiply (puns on pinfold) with additional suggestions of folding a letter

103    “noddy” fool

107    take…pains have it as a reward for the trouble you have taken

109    fain to bear obliged to put up (with suggestions of carrying on behalf of)

111    Marry by the Virgin Mary    orderly dutifully/properly

113    Beshrew the devil take

115    open the matter reveal the information

119    hardly with great difficulty

120    perceive understand/glean

121    perceive receive (may play on purse)    ducat gold coin

122    brought your mind conveyed your feelings to her

123    in…mind when you tell her of your emotions in person    token lover’s gift    stones jewels

126    bounty generosity

127    testerned me given me sixpence (a “testern”)    requital whereof return for which

128    commend present greetings from

131    drier death i.e., hanging

133    deign my lines accept my letter

134    post messenger/idiot

Act 1 Scene 2

1.2    Lucetta diminutive form of “Lucy”

3    so providing that    stumble trip/have sex    unheedfully carelessly/recklessly

4    resort company

5    parle talk

9    Sir Eglamour almost certainly a different Eglamour from the one who appears later in the play; amor is Latin for “love”

10    neat elegant

12    Mercatio his name suggests that he is a merchant

14    gentle well-born/honorable

16    passion outburst

17    passing surpassing, extreme (puns on passion)

19    censure pass judgment on

25    cast bestow

26    cast away wasted

27    moved wooed

29    little speaking very few words on the subject

39    being…it happening to meet him I took the letter on your behalf

41    goodly broker fine intermediary

42    wanton passionate/lewd

44    office position

48    fee recompense

50    That…ruminate (yes) in order to enable you to think

51    I had o’erlooked I wish I had read

53    pray her to beg her to commit    chid rebuked

57    have…‘ay’ rather the person making the offer interpreted as “yes”

58    wayward perverse, unreasonable

59    testy irritable

60    presently immediately    kiss the rod be obedient    rod cane

61    churlishly roughly, ungraciously

63    angerly angrily

66    remission forgiveness

71    kill your stomach satisfy your appetite/calm your bad temper (meat was pronounced “mate” and thus puns on    maid)

79    let…concerns leave it there for those it is intended for

80    lie…concerns fib about its contents

81    false interpreter untrustworthy/untrue reader

83    That in order that

84    set set to music (in the next line Julia intends the sense of “set store by”)

85    toys trifles

86    ‘Light o’ love’ a popular tune

87    heavy serious/burdensome    light frivolous/of little weight

88    burden bass accompaniment/chorus/   heavy load

91    reach so high sing at such a high pitch/win someone of Proteus’s status

92    minion minx, mischievous one

93    tune melody/temper    so…out in that way you will finish the song/rid yourself of your mood

96    sharp shrill/cross

98    flat tunelessly low in pitch/blunt

99    mar spoil    concord harmony    descant harmonious variation on the tune

100    mean middle point/method/tenor (a male voice—i.e., that of Proteus)

101    unruly bass uncontrolled bass voice/unworthy, low behavior

102    bid the base sing the male part/challenge to a chase

104    coil with protestation fuss about declarations of love

106    fing’ring fiddling with/stealing

107    makes it strange pretends she doesn’t care

109    would…same I wish that I had the letter back to be able to appear enraged by it/I wish that it really was anger that I was feeling about the letter

111    Injurious wasps unjust/harmful wasps (i.e., fingers)

113    several paper scrap of the torn-up letter

114    Unkind cruel/unnatural

115    As as if

119    my…thee I shall keep the scrap of paper with your name on it in my breast pocket/my heart will nurture your name

120    throughly thoroughly

121    search clean/probe (a wound)    sovereign healing

126    ragged rugged

130    that i.e., the part with her name on it

131    sith since

132    He…names he links my name to his lamenting one

133    Thus…another Julia folds the paper so that her name is lying upon that of Proteus (the sexual nature of this is continued in the following line in which the actions described become increasingly physical)

134    contend grapple, engage with sexually

135    stays waits

138    respect value

139    taken up rebuked

140    for lest they should

141    month’s mind to preference for

143    judge I wink think my eyes are shut

Act 1 Scene 3

1.3    Pantino possibly from “pantler,” a type of servant, and the Italian diminutive ino

1    sad serious

2    cloister covered arcade adjoining a building

6    suffer allow

7    slender reputation lesser/insignificant status/repute

8    Put forth send out into the world    preferment advancement, favor

13    meet suitable

14    importune urge

16    impeachment…age discredit to him when he is older

19    hammering thinking hard about

21    perfect complete/fully rounded and experienced

22    tried tested

26    ignorant unaware

28    emperor the Duke of Milan—he is referred to as both “emperor” and “duke” in the play

31    practise tilts take part in jousts

32    sweet discourse elegant conversation

33    in eye of witness to

37    execution carrying out

38    expedition haste

43    commend commit

45    in good time just at the right moment    break with reveal the plan to

47    hand handwriting

48    pawn pledge

50    seal ratify/complete

54    commendations greeting

59    gracèd favored

61    stand you affected are you inclined

63    his i.e., Valentine’s

64    something sorted somewhat in agreement

65    Muse wonder

69    maintenance allowance    friends supporters/relatives

70    Like exhibition the same amount

72    Excuse it not make no excuses    peremptory resolved

73    provided equipped

75    Look see that

76    No…stay no further talk of lingering

82    take exceptions make objections

83    vantage benefit

84    excepted most against caused the greatest obstacle to

91    accords agrees

Act 2 Scene 1

2.1    Location: Milan

2    on pronounced “one” (thus allowing for the pun in the following line)

5    ornament item of clothing    decks adorns

6    Silvia from the Latin “silva” meaning “woods”; also signifies a woodland deity or spirit

8    sirrah sir (authoritative)

12    still always    forward hasty/lively

14    Go to expression of dismissive impatience

17    special marks particular signs

18    wreathe fold (considered a sign of melancholy)    malcontent discontented person    relish sing/have a taste for/enjoy

19    pestilence plague (victims were shunned for fear of infection)    lost his ABC lost his schoolbook/forgotten the alphabet

20    grandam grandmother

21    watch remain awake

22    puling whiningly    beggar at Hallowmas beggars traditionally made special requests for aid on All Saints’ Day (November 1)    wont accustomed previously

24    presently immediately    want lack

28    without ye externally

29    Without me out of my presence

30    without unless

31    you…you you surround these follies so fully that they are visible within you/you are so simple that even without these external signs of folly your internal folly would shine through

32    water…urinal urine in a glass vessel used by doctors for diagnosis

33    malady illness

36    Even she herself

39    hard-favoured ugly

40    well-favoured attractive/gracious

43    of you, well-favoured preferred by you

44    favour goodwill/charm

45    painted artificial (painted on with cosmetics)    out…count beyond calculation

47    counts of esteems, values

48    How…me? i.e., Do you think nothing, then, of my judgment?

49    deformed disfigured/transformed by love in Valentine’s eyes

55    Love is blind Cupid was traditionally depicted as blind

56    lights clear-sightedness

57    ungartered with his garters undone (i.e., disheveled, traditionally a sign of one in love)

60    hose breeches (Valentine is in an even worse condition than Proteus, who at least managed to put on his hose)

64    swinged beat

66    stand affected to love (in his reply, Speed plays on the sense of stand as “have an erection”)

67    set calm/seated

73    motion puppet show    interpret to her provide the words for the puppet (Silvia)

75    ’give…ev’n God give you a plain “good evening” (instead of these elaborate greetings)    million of excessive quantity

76    servant a lover who served and was devoted to his lady

77    He…him as her lover, Valentine should express personal interest in Silvia, yet she gives him financial interest by doubling the number of greetings he has given her

79    friend lover

82    clerkly scholarly

83    came hardly off was accomplished with difficulty

85    doubtfully hesitantly

86    Perchance…pains perhaps you think it is not worth making so much effort

87    so…you as long as it is of help to you

90    pretty period fine/clever pause/conclusion    the sequel what was to come next

92    this i.e., the letter

96    quaintly skillfully

97    again back

101    none of have nothing to do with

105    so so be it

107    for your labour as payment for your efforts

111    sues to pleads with/courts

113    device scheme/invention

116    reasoning talking/debating

121    figure ingenious device/number

128    earnest to be serious (the following line plays on the sense of “financial deposit”)

129    none nothing

132    end end to the matter/purpose

134    warrant assure

136    want lack

137    discover reveal

139    in print very precisely, as if quoting from a book

141    I have dined implying that he has feasted upon Silvia’s looks

142    chameleon…air Love was supposed to be changeable, like the chameleon, a creature that can alter its color and that was reputed to survive on air

143    victuals food    fain willingly

144    moved sympathetic/persuaded to go to dinner

Act 2 Scene 2

2.2    Location: Verona

2    is there is

4    turn change, become unfaithful

5    remembrance love token, keepsake

8    constancy fidelity

9    o’erslips passes by unnoticed

11    mischance misfortune

13    stays awaits

15    stay detain

18    grace adorn/do honor to

Act 2 Scene 3

2.3    Lance short form of Lancelot; the name may also be derived from the Old French l’ancelot (“attendant”)

1    ere before    kind family

2    proportion malapropism for “portion” (i.e., “allowance”)    prodigious malapropism for “prodigal,” a reference to the well-known Bible story

3    Imperial’s emperor’s    Crab from “crab-apple,” a sour fruit

6    cur dog

7    Jew considered to be pitiless wept herself blind at my parting. Nay, I’ll show you the manner of it. This shoe is

9    manner of it way it happened    shoe Lance uses his shoes to represent his parents

10    left thought to be inferior to the right

11    sole puns on “soul” (women supposedly had souls inferior to those of men)

12    hole plays on the sense of “vagina”    A vengeance on’t a mild oath: Lance is struggling to remove his shoe

13    staff tall walking stick    small slim

14    wand slender stick

16    your i.e., I ask for your

18    wood mad (playing on the fact that Lance’s shoe is wooden)

19    mother’s breath Lance is smelling the shoe    up and down in every way/exactly    mark note

21    lay the dust dampen the dust underfoot

23    post hasten    lose miss

25    tied i.e., Crab (puns on tide)

29    flood sea’s tide

32    lose lose/loosen

34    tale talk, story

35    tail anus

39    call summon

Act 2 Scene 4

2.4    Location: Milan    Turio Latin for “sprig, young shoot,” perhaps suggesting the character’s immaturity

7    ’Twere…knocked it would be a good idea to hit

10    that what

12    counterfeits fakes, impostors

16    instance evidence

18    quote observe (pronounced like “coat,” this plays on    jerkin in the next line)

19    jerkin jacket worn over a    doublet

20    doublet close-fitting jacket

22    How? What?

25    live…air live near you/listen to you speak/live off the same air you breathe (like a chameleon)

27    done finished/acted (as opposed to having said)    this time the moment (Turio suggests that in the future he may “do” more, i.e., fight Valentine)

28    end…begin stop before you’ve started (i.e., before actually dueling)

29    volley discharge (of weapons)

32    the fire i.e., the spark to set off the    volley/ignite the guns

33    kindly naturally/lovingly

34    spend spend like money/waste

36    exchequer treasury

37    bare liveries shabby uniforms (worn by a gentleman’s servants or dependants)

40    hard beset energetically besieged (by suitors)

45    happy messenger messenger bringing good news

46    countryman man from the same country

48    worth wealth/rank/worthiness    worthy estimation deserving of respect

49    without desert undeservedly

57    Omitting disregarding

58    age present age/eventual old age

62    unmellowed young (with no gray hairs)    ripe mature

65    complete perfect    feature physical appearance

67    make this good lives up to this description

71    potentates powerful rulers

77    cite urge

80    Had come would have come

81    looks gaze

82    Belike that perhaps    enfranchised…fealty freed his eyes in return for an alternative pledge of loyalty/freed them in favor of another lover’s pledge of loyalty

88    Love…all Cupid was blind

90    homely plain/unattractive    wink shut its eyes

94    warrant guarantee

96    entertain receive

98    low humble    high dignified/superior

99    mean unworthy

101    Leave…disability stop this talk of inadequacy

103    duty i.e., a servant’s duty

104    want his meed lack its recompense

106    die i.e., in a fight    but except for

116    them much commended conveyed their hearty greetings

120    were wont to used to

123    contemning condemning, despising

124    imperious magisterial/commanding

125    penitential undergoing penance

128    enthrallèd enslaved

129    watchers of sleepless over/vigilant over

132    no…correction no misery as bad as that which results from Love’s punishment

133    to in comparison to

136    very naked mere

138    this i.e., Silvia

139    Even she she indeed/exactly so

140    paragon person of surpassing excellence

144    sick i.e., with love (for Julia)    bitter pills i.e., did not indulge me, but administered unpleasant-tasting medicine

145    minister the like give you the same treatment

146    by about

147    principality one of the nine orders of angels

150    Sweet a term of friendly affection

151    Except unless    except against object to

153    prefer promote, advance

156    from…kiss brush against her clothing

158    Disdain…flower refuse to allow the flowers to take root in it

160    braggardism bragging arrogance

161    can i.e., can say

162    To compared to    worthies things of value

163    alone unique

169    dream on thee pay you much attention

170    dote upon focus lovingly on/be infatuated with

172    for because

177    With…flight along with every detail of our ingenious escape plan

178    Determined of decided on

180    ’greed agreed

183    inquire you forth seek you out

184    disembark unload (from the boat)

185    necessaries personal luggage

189    expels drives out (applying heat was thought to ease a burn)

191    remembrance memory

192    object sight

194    false transgression faithless sin/wrongful violation of loyalty

195    reasonless without cause    to reason thus justify myself/explore matters in this way

200    zeal devotion/loyalty

204    advice reflection

205    without advice unadvisedly

206    picture appearance

208    look come to look (in the future)    perfections exquisite inner qualities

209    no reason but no doubt that

210    check restrain/reprimand    erring wandering/wrongful

211    compass win/embrace

Act 2 Scene 5

1    Padua most editors emend to “Milan,” assuming that Shakespeare forgot his location, but it is conceivable that Speed is winding up the travel-weary and slow-witted Lance by naming the wrong city

2    Forswear swear falsely/perjure (Lance claims that he is not welcome, but may also imply cheekily that Speed swears falsely because he does so on his honesty)    reckon think/add up

3    undone ruined (puns on the notion of untying a hanged body)

4    shot payment/tavern bill    hostess landlady of an inn

8    closed in earnest embraced/agreed in a serious manner (there may also be a glance at the sense of earnest as “financial pledge,” thus contributing to the banter about money)    fairly kindly/cordially

13    broken fallen out (in the following line Lance plays on “in pieces”)

14    as…fish proverbial (whole puns on “hole,” which, along with fish, was slang for “vagina”)

15    stands the matter goes the business (stands puns on “to become erect” and    matter on “sexual liaison”; Lance picks up on this in the following line)

18    block blockhead    understands stands beneath/supports (puns on Speed’s sense of “comprehend”; the staff may be used to suggest a penis)

28    parable comparison/enigmatic speech

29    how say’st thou what do you say to the suggestion

30    notable noticeable/notorious

33    lubber clumsy lout

34    whoreson bastard (whore’s son)    thou mistak’st me you misunderstand me (Lance interprets “you mistake me, Speed, for my master, Valentine”)

41    ale ale-house/country festival (possibly a church festival, which a Jew would not attend; alternatively Lance may be associating Jewishness with a lack of Christian charity)

Act 2 Scene 6

4    power…oath love, which made me swear fidelity to Julia

7    sweet-suggesting sweetly tempting/seductive    if…it if you have ever sinned/if you have sinned by making me false (to Julia), teach me how to justify it

11    Unheedful thoughtless    heedfully carefully/conscientiously

12    wants wit lacks intelligence

13    learn teach

14    unreverend irreverent, impudent    her i.e., Julia

15    preferred urged

16    soul-confirming soul-strengthening (Proteus has sworn by his soul)

17    leave cease

21    thus find I so I find myself

22    For in exchange for

25    fair beautiful/pale-complexioned

26    Shows Julia reveals, shows up Julia to be    swarthy Ethiope dark-complexioned Ethiopian (considered unattractive)

29    hold consider

31    constant faithful, true

33    corded rope

35    in counsel being in his confidence    competitor associate/rival

37    disguising…flight deceptive intended escape

40    cross thwart

41    blunt stupid

42    lend give

43    drift scheme

Act 2 Scene 7

2.7    Location: Verona

2    conjure entreat

3    table writing tablet, notebook

4    charactered written

5    lesson teach    mean method

10    measure travel over

14    forbear have patience/desist

16    dearth famine

18    inly inward

22    qualify moderate

25    current i.e., in water

28    makes…stones creates a pleasing sound as it babbles over the smooth stones

29    sedge rushlike plants

32    sport entertaining activity    wild open/untamed

38    Elysium heaven

39    habit clothing

40    for…men as I wish to avoid the improper advances made by lewd men

42    weeds garments

43    beseem be appropriate for

45    knit tie, knot

46    odd-conceited elaborately devised

47    fantastic imaginative, fanciful

48    time age

51    compass circumference    farthingale hooped petticoat

53    codpiece conspicuous attachment sewn onto the front of breeches (also implies the penis)

54    ill-favoured unsightly

55    round hose breeches with close-fitting legs that gave a padded appearance to the upper area; usually adorned with a prominent codpiece    not…pin not worth anything/not worthy of a penis

56    stick pins on some codpieces were decorated with pins

58    mannerly appropriate (puns on “man”)

60    unstaid immodest

61    scandalized disgraced

64    dream on infamy worry about getting a bad reputation

67    withal with it

70    instances evidence    infinite infinity

71    Warrant…Proteus guarantee that Proteus will welcome my arrival

75    bonds binding promises    oracles guaranteed truth tellers

76    immaculate pure

81    hard poor    truth sincerity/fidelity

85    furnish maintain/equip    longing journey journey undertaken as a result of longing

86    at thy dispose under your control

88    in lieu thereof in exchange for which

90    tarriance delay

Act 3 Scene 1

3.1    Location: Milan

1    give us leave leave us (polite)

8    pricks spurs

12    privy to aware of/entrusted with

16    vexation anger/distress

21    timeless premature

23    requite repay    command me ask any favor of me

26    purposed intended

28    jealous aim suspicious guess

31    gentle kind/friendly/courteous    thereby…me in order to try and discover the information you have just revealed to me

34    suggested tempted

45    discovery…at revelation that Proteus exposed Valentine’s secret is not suspected

47    publisher revealer    pretence intention

49    light enlightenment, indication

51    whither away where are you going

56    tenor content

59    am to break want to broach

60    touch me near affect me significantly, are close to my heart

65    bounty generosity

66    Beseeming befitting

68    peevish headstrong    froward obstinate

70    regarding considering/respecting

71    as…were as she should do toward

73    advice reflection

74    remnant…age remainder of my days

77    who whoever

78    wedding-dower dowry

79    esteems values

82    affect love/favor    nice reluctant/temperamental

83    nought…eloquence does not care for the love-talk of an old man

85    agone ago    forgot to court forgotten how to woo

87    bestow myself behave

88    regarded well-regarded

90    kind nature

91    quick lively

94    her o’er up on her

95    after-love the more later love greater

97    beget produce

99    Forwhy because

101    For by

102    commend praise    extol…graces elaborate on their virtues

103    Though…black however dark-complexioned/unattractive they be

105    with his tongue through talking/flattery (plays on the idea of oral sex)

106    friends family

109    That so that

113    lets prevents

115    shelving projecting

117    quaintly skillfully

118    anchoring hooks heavy hooks attached to the rope ladder as a means of securing it to the window

119    Hero’s tower in classical myth, Leander was guided to Hero by a light in her tower

120    So provided

121    blood rank/good family

130    of any length reasonably long

131    serve the turn fit the purpose

134    such another the same

136    fashion me adapt myself

138    this same this one here

139    engine…proceeding device (the ladder) suitable for the very scheme I have been planning

141    harbour lodge/take refuge

143    lightly freely, easily

144    Himself i.e., Valentine    senseless unconscious    lying reposing/dwelling

145    herald messenger    them themselves

146    thither them importune urge them to go there

147    grace…grace good fortune that with such honor

148    want lack    servants’ i.e., thoughts’

152    enfranchise liberate

154    Phaeton…son in Greek mythology Phaeton was the son of the sun god Helios and Clymene (wife of    Merops); he drove Helios’s sun-chariot (heavenly car), but could not control it, burned part of the earth, and was killed with a thunderbolt hurled by Zeus

158    overweening slave arrogant rogue

159    equal mates women of your own worth/social status

160    And…hence know that it is my patience, rather than any merit of your own, that is responsible for permitting you to leave

165    expedition departure

176    by nearby

178    shadow image

179    Except unless

183    leave to be cease to exist

184    influence power/substance thought to emanate from stars that influenced human fate

185    Fostered nurtured    illumined lit up

186    I…doom I am not really escaping death in fleeing the duke’s sentence (doom)

187    attend on wait for/serve

190    So-ho a hunting cry

192    hair puns on “hare”

193    a Valentine a true lover/token of love (Valentine is a lover right down to his very hairs)

196    spirit ghost

203    Villain rogue

204    I’ll strike nothing I won’t hit anything/if I hit a spirit I will be striking nothing as it has nobody

206    stopped blocked

208    mine i.e., my news

212    No Valentine no longer able to be a lover/no longer myself (as existence was dependent on Silvia’s presence)

213    forsworn rejected

217    vanished malapropism for “banished”

221    surfeit be ill from overeating

223    doom…force the sentence of banishment, which, as long as it is not reversed, stands in full force

226    tendered made an offering of

228    became suited

229    waxèd grew

232    sire father

234    intercession prayer on someone else’s behalf chafed enraged

235    thy repeal the reversal of your sentence/your return    suppliant petitioner

236    close secure/secluded

237    biding (her) remaining

239    malignant evil/harmful/infectious

241    As…dolour so that it might be a funeral hymn to my infinite sorrow

243    study think about

246    abridge shorten

248    manage handle, wield

251    thy love i.e., Silvia

252    expostulate discuss/expound

254    confer at large discuss in full

256    though…thyself even if not for your own sake

257    Regard pay heed to

258    my boy i.e., Speed

263    all…knave doesn’t matter as long as he is a knave in one thing only    He…that not a man alive

264    horse horses

266    maid virgin    gossips godparents (i.e., she has had a child)

267    maid servant    serves provides domestic service/has sex

268    qualities accomplishments    water-spaniel submissive dog    bare mere/naked (i.e., not hairy like a dog)

269    cate-log…condition catalog (list) of her attributes    Inprimis “in the first place” (Latin)

270    fetch respond to an instruction to fetch something

271    jade worthless old horse/loose woman    Item Latin term for “next” (in a list)    milk milk a cow/drain one of money/suckle a baby/cause ejaculation (clean hands may continue the idea of masturbation)

275    vice bad habit/comic character in morality plays known for his puns

281    jolt-head blockhead

283    try test    begot conceived

287    in on

288    Saint Nicholas patron saint of scholars    speed protector (puns on Speed’s name)

294    sew stitch (Lance interprets “sow seed” and is therefore surprised that a woman can do so)

297    stock dowry    knit…stock knit him a stocking/conceive stupid offspring for him

300    washed and scoured cleaned and scrubbed/beaten

301    spin spin wool/have sex

302    set…wheels have an easy life (wheels plays on “spinning wheels”)

303    nameless virtues inexpressible qualities

304    bastard virtues illegitimate children

308    in respect of because of

310    sweet mouth sweet tooth/lecherous mouth

313    sleep puns on “slip” (to commit an error/lapse sexually)

317    proud haughty/high-spirited/lecherous

318    Eve’s legacy the result of Eve’s greedy desire in the Garden of Eden

319    no teeth possibly a result of having a sweet mouth, though teeth could also fall out after treatment for syphilis

321    curst bad-tempered (plays on crust)

323    praise taste (in the following line Lance has understood “speak highly of’)

326    liberal unrestrained in her manner/free with her sexual favors

327    cannot cannot be

328    another thing i.e., her vagina (plays on purse, which had the same slang meaning)

333    Rehearse repeat

335    prove i.e., with a verbal demonstration of logic    more than greater than in that it entirely conceals the salt    cover…salt lid of a large salt cellar (salt may pun on both “wit” and “lechery”)

339    monstrous outrageous/unnatural    out wrong/not on the list

341    gracious acceptable

351    Pox of a plague on

352    swinged beaten    unmannerly ill-mannered

353    I’ll…correction I’ll follow so that I can enjoy seeing his punishment (for being late)

Act 3 Scene 2

4    railed ranted abusively

5    That so that

6    impress impression, imprint    figure shape

7    Trenchèd cut, engraved

14    grievously sorrowfully

17    conceit opinion

18    desert worth, deserving

19    the better more inclined

22    effect bring about

32    descent social status

35    deliver speak

36    circumstance detailed evidence

39    loath very reluctant

41    very true

45    friend i.e., the duke

47    aught…dispraise anything that I can say to damage his character

49    weed root out

52    ravel get tangled up

53    provide prepare    bottom wind into a ball (Silvia’s love is being imaged as thread being unwound from Valentine and wound around Turio)

56    kind business

60    warrant authorization

62    lumpish dull/despondent    heavy gloomy

64    temper mold

67    sharp ardent, keen

68    lime birdlime, a sticky substance spread on branches to catch birds    tangle entangle, trap

69    wailful sonnets lamenting, wistful love poems    composèd carefully constructed

70    full-fraught…vows entirely filled with vows of service

71    heaven-bred poesy poetry inspired by heaven

75    frame compose

76    discover reveal    integrity absolute devotion/total sincerity

77    Orpheus in Greek legend, a musician so skillful that his music could even charm animals, rocks, and trees    sinews tendons

79    leviathans sea monsters

80    Forsake unsounded deeps abandon the unfathomed parts of the sea

81    dire-lamenting deeply sorrowing    elegies mournful love poems

83    consort group of musicians

84    Tune sing    deploring doleful    dump sorrowful melody

86    inherit gain possession of

87    discipline learning/teachings

91    sort select

93    give…to bring about the initiation of

94    About it on with the business

97    pardon you i.e., from having to wait upon me

Act 4 Scene 1

4.1    Location: wilderness/forest

1    passenger traveler

3    Stand stop (sit in the following line plays on the sense of “remain standing”)

4    rifle rob

10    proper fine-looking

12    crossed with thwarted by

13    habiliments clothes

14    disfurnish deprive

15    sum and substance everything

20    sojourned stayed

22    crookèd malign, devious

29    false vantage unfair advantage

32    held…doom was pleased to get such a (reasonable) sentence

33    Have…tongues? Can you speak any foreign languages?

34    happy fortunate/accomplished

36    fat friar i.e., Friar Tuck, a member of Robin Hood’s band of outlaws

37    were would be (a good)    faction group

41    anything…to any resources

44    ungoverned uncontrolled, reckless, violent

45    awful worthy of respect (or possibly a printer’s error for “lawful”)

47    practising plotting

48    niece kinswoman (phrase sometimes emended to “An heir, and near allied”)

49    Mantua northern Italian dukedom

50    mood rage

52    cite acknowledge/mention

53    hold excused explain/justify

55    shape appearance/figure

57    quality profession

59    above the rest for this reason above all    parley talk/negotiate

63    consort company/group

65    do thee homage perform acts of allegiance/acknowledge your superiority

70    outrages acts of violence

71    silly defenseless

73    crews gang

75    dispose disposal

Act 4 Scene 2

4.2    Location: Milan

3    colour pretext    commending praising

7    protest swear

8    twits taunts/reproaches

9    commend offer/declare

12    quips sharp retorts

18    crept moved quietly, stealthily

20    creep crawl    go walk upright

21    love not here i.e., do not love Silvia

25    I…own i.e., it’s a good thing for your sake that you made your meaning clear

26    lustily heartily    Host innkeeper

27    allicholly the Host means “melancholy”

38    swains youths/lovers

40    grace virtue/favor/elegance

41    admirèd marveled at

44    repair hasten

45    of with

52    do are

53    likes pleases

54    likes me not does not please me/does not love me

56    plays false plays out of tune/is unfaithful    father respectful term for an old man

59    quick sharp (in the following line Julia plays on the sense of “lively, rapid” when she contrasts quick with slow)

60    slow heavy/not rapid

62    jars sounds discordant

63    change modulation (in the following line Julia plays on the sense of “fickle/unfaithful”)

64    spite vexation

65    but one thing only the same melody

66    one…thing a lover play only one role (play is sexually suggestive and thing puns on “vagina”)

69    out…nick beyond reckoning

77    Saint Gregory’s well has been identified as an actual well near Milan

86    will intent/desire

87    compass yours fulfill your wishes/win your approval/gain your sexual desire

89    hie hurry

90    subtle cunning, treacherous

91    conceitless witless

94    thy love i.e., Julia

95    pale…night i.e., the moon (associated with chastity)

97    wrongful suit dishonorable/insulting courtship

98    by and by immediately

102    if even if

107    importunacy persistent entreaties

109    And…I in that case, you may assume that I am too

112    hers i.e., her (Julia’s) love

113    sepulchre bury

115    obdurate unyielding

116    Vouchsafe permit

120    else elsewhere

121    shadow image/portrait (playing on the usual sense in the previous line)

122    If…am if the image in Silvia’s picture was real, you would be false to it and reduce it to mere shadowy unreality, just as you have done to me (Julia is changed from her real self through both heartbreak and disguise)

125    since…well as it will suit your fickle nature well

132    halidom all I consider holy

133    lies lodges

134    house i.e., inn

136    heaviest sorrowful/darkest

Act 4 Scene 3

4.3    Eglamour amour (French for “love”) suggests a lover; his own lady having died, Eglamour remains devoted to the cause of true love by functioning as a knightly escort to Silvia

10    impose command

15    remorseful compassionate

19    Vain foolish

24    would want to go

26    for because

28    repose rely

33    still always

39    grievances distress/sorrowful affections

42    Recking caring    betideth befalls

43    befortune happen to

47    cell simple dwelling

Act 4 Scene 4

1    play the cur play up/be knavish/behave like a dog    goes hard is tough

2    of from

6    steps me steps (me is emphatic)    trencher plate    capon’s chicken’s

7    keep control

8    takes upon him undertakes    a dog at adept at (puns on the literal meaning of dog)

9    take…did plead guilty to his wrong doing

10    verily truly    had would have

11    thrusts me thrusts

12    bless the mark i.e., pardon the phrase I am about to use

13    pissing while short time (literally, the time it takes to urinate)

18    wot of have learned about    makes…ado makes no more fuss

20    stocks contraption for public punishment in which a person had their wrists and ankles confined    puddings sausages

21    pillory instrument of punishment in which a person had their head and wrists confined

23    still mark always pay attention to

24    heave up raise    make water urinate

32    jewel i.e., the pretty dog Proteus thinks Lance delivered to Silvia

33    cur dog/ill-bred fellow    currish mean-spirited/snarling

38    squirrel i.e., small dog (contemptuous)    hangman boys rascally boys fit for the hangman

44    still an end continuously (possible printer’s error for “on end”)

45    entertained taken into service

48    yond yonder

49    behaviour bearing/manners

50    augury discernment/prediction

51    Witness are evidence of

55    delivered who gave

56    leave part with/forsake

69    therewithal with it

77    poor fool Julia refers to herself

84    To…obtain i.e., Silvia’s love (for Proteus)

87    true-confirmèd truly established/legitimate/declared

91    speed succeed

92    mean means/agent

94    if…she if I am indeed Silvia

104    fit his chamber suit his room

106    unadvised inadvertently

111    hold wait a moment

113    protestations declarations (of love)

114    newfound recently invented

120    profaned abused/treated irreverently

124    tender care for/esteem

137    sun-expelling mask mask worn by a lady to protect her complexion from the sun

139    pinched the lily-tincture eroded the lily-white color

140    as…I Julia may have besmirched her face as part of her disguise

142    stature height    Pentecost Whitsun, Christian festival held on the seventh Sunday after Easter

143    pageants of delight enjoyable plays/entertainments

145    trimmed dressed up

149    a-good in earnest

151    Ariadne…flight in Greek mythology Ariadne was abandoned by her love Theseus despite the fact that she had helped him to escape from the labyrinth that contained the beastly Minotaur    passioning passionately sorrowing

153    lively in a lifelike way/convincingly

157    beholding indebted

164    mild gracious, kind

165    suit…cold wooing (of Silvia) will be in vain/received coldly

166    my mistress i.e., Julia herself

169    tire headdress

175    periwig wig

177    as high the same height as (i.e., no lower than) hers

178    respects values/admires

179    respective worthy of    respect

181    shadow the disguised/heartbroken Julia    take…up pick up this picture/take on this rival

182    senseless form unconscious image

185    statue i.e., an idol    stead place

186    use treat

187    Jove king of the gods

Act 5 Scene 1

5.1    Location: outside the city

1    gild tinge with gold

4    break not hours do not fail to keep meetings

5    before their time early

6    expedition speedy action

8    Amen, amen i.e., amen to that/yes indeed

9    postern side or back gate

10    attended followed

11    three leagues about nine miles

12    recover reach    sure secure

Act 5 Scene 2

5.2    Location: Milan

2    milder more gracious, gentler

3    person physical appearance

5    little thin

7    spurred urged on (plays on the idea of the spurs of a riding-boot)

9    fair attractive/pale-complexioned/effeminate

10    wanton willful, capricious woman    black tanned

13    pearls cataracts/syphilitic sores    put out make useless    eyes eyes/vaginas (syphilis infected both the eyes and the genitals)

16    Ill…war i.e., she does not like it when you talk of violence/your talk of war only reminds her of your inadequacy for masculine pursuits

18    hold your peace remain silent

20    makes has

22    birth noble ancestry

23    derived descended

26    pities is concerned for/considers pitiful

28    owe own

29    out by lease rented out/not entirely in one’s possession

40    Friar Laurence possibly a slip for Friar Patrick, the friar at whose cell Silvia and Eglamour met, though conceivably another friar is being referred to

42    Him i.e., Eglamour

43    being masked she having on a mask

45    even evening

47    stand delay

48    mount you rise up/get on horseback

51    Dispatch hurry up

53    flies her fortune flees her good fortune (i.e., Turio’s courtship)

55    reckless uncaring

Act 5 Scene 3

5.3    Location: wilderness/forest

3    more mischances greater misfortunes

4    brook endure

8    Moyses and Valerius i.e., two of the outlaws (“Moyses” is a form of “Moses”)

11    beset surrounded/beseiged

Act 5 Scene 4

1    use custom

2    desert deserted place

5    complaining sorrowing

6    record sing

8    mansion i.e., his breast, love’s dwelling place

11    Repair revive (plays on the senses “reconstruct” and “return”)

12    nymph beautiful one/semidivine being

13    hallowing shouting

15    Have who have

17    from from committing

20    respect value    aught anything

21    him i.e., the First Outlaw

22    forced…love i.e., sexually assaulted/raped you

23    Vouchsafe grant    meed reward    fair favorable/beautiful

24    boon favor

31    approach loving advances

37    tender precious

38    full just

40    solicit urge/chase after favors

41    action course of action/fighting

43    still approved continually tested/proven

47    rend tear up    faith promises, fidelity

50    thou’dst two i.e., you are somehow able to be a faithful lover to two women at once

53    counterfeit…friend false imitation of a true friend like Valentine

55    respects takes into consideration

57    spirit nature/breath of air (this latter sense, picked up on in moving, implies proximity between Silvia and Proteus)    moving wooing/stirring

58    form manner of behaving/appearance

59    at arms’ end at sword’s point/with my penis

63    uncivil uncivilized, brutish

64    ill fashion wicked sort

66    common commonplace (i.e., showing no special qualities of friendship)

68    beguiled deceived

71    right hand i.e., his closest friend, Proteus

74    count consider

75    private personal/internal

77    confounds overcomes

80    tender’t offer it

81    commit do wrong

83    receive thee regard you as

84    Who he who

85    nor neither    these i.e., heaven and earth

86    penitence repentance    th’Eternal’s God’s

87    love i.e., friendship    free generous

91    wag lad

92    charged instructed

97    cry you mercy forgive me

99    depart departure (from Verona)

103    gave aim was the object of

104    entertained received

105    cleft the root split the bottom of my heart

106    habit outfit (Julia’s page disguise; also puns on the sense of “behavior”)

108    raiment clothing    if…love if it is in fact shameful to disguise oneself for love/if you can feel shame, being a false lover

110    It…minds propriety considers it less disgraceful for women to disguise themselves than for men to be unfaithful

115    Inconstancy…begins unfaithful passions drop away even before they begin

125    disgraced dishonored (plays on the sense of “out of favor”)

129    give move

130    measure range

132    hold protect (“Verona” may be a slip for “Milan”, which is Turio’s home)

140    means efforts

141    slight conditions insubstantial grounds

146    repeal recall

147    Plead…merit argue that there is a new state of affairs now that you have shown your superior deserving

148    subscribe bear witness/acknowledge

155    kept withal lived with

160    employment service

162    Dispose of make arrangements for    as…deserts in accordance with their deservings

163    include all jars bring to an end, shut up all discord

164    triumphs festivities    rare solemnity marvelous celebration

168    grace virtue/charm

169    grace ideal female beauty

172    fortunèd come to pass

THE MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR

In 1702 the poet and critic John Dennis rewrote The Merry Wives of Windsor with the title The Comical Gallant: or, the Amours of Sir John Falstaff. Dennis claimed that the original Shakespearean play was a particular favorite of Queen Elizabeth. Indeed, he reported, “This comedy was written at her command, and by her direction, and she was so eager to see it acted that she commanded it to be finished in fourteen days; and was afterwards, as tradition tells us, very well pleased at the representation.” A few years later, the story was elaborated in the biography appended to Nicholas Rowe’s edition of Shakespeare: the Queen was so well pleased “with that admirable character of Falstaff in the two parts of Henry the Fourth” that she commanded Shakespeare “to continue it for one play more, and to show him in love.”

We do not know whether the story is true, but there is great appeal in the idea of Falstaff reincarnated by royal command and transposed from tavern and battlefield to lady’s chamber and linen basket. There is no doubt that the play’s popularity on the eighteenth- and nineteenth-century stage owed much to its status as a vehicle for Falstaff. And at the end of the nineteenth century, the drama underwent another transposition as it was recreated in perhaps the greatest of all Shakespearean operas, Verdi and Boito’s Falstaff.

A seventeenth-century educational theorist called Philip King complained that it was ridiculous to suggest that “the condition of all our English women may be drawn out of Shakespeare’s The Merry Wives of Windsor.” And in the 1660s, the leading English female intellectual of the age, Margaret Cavendish, Duchess of Newcastle, singled out those wives as particularly strong examples of Shakespeare’s gift for representing women: “who could describe Cleopatra better than he hath done, and many other females to his own creating, as Nan Page, Mrs Page, Mrs Ford, the Doctor’s Maid, Beatrice, Mrs Quickly, Doll Tearsheet, and others, too many to relate?” Though King disapproved and the Duchess approved, they clearly agreed that The Merry Wives was one of Shakespeare’s best plays for women. Whereas Shakespeare’s other comedies are courtship dramas that end with weddings or the promise of them, The Merry Wives of Windsor is more interested in how witty wives sustain society. The play is Shakespeare’s nearest approach to sitcom, where the setting is domestic and people are forever rushing in and out of doors.

“The Merry Wives” indicates that this is a play in which the women will be on top. “Of Windsor” promises a comedy of English town life. This is in sharp contrast to Shakespeare’s other comedies of the late 1590s and early 1600s, with their courtly, continental, and often pastoral settings. Indeed, with the exception of the Eastcheap scenes in the Henry IV plays, Windsor is the closest Shakespeare comes to the one major dramatic genre of the age that he did not attempt: the comedy of London life. City comedy was the forte of the group of slightly younger dramatists who came onto the theater scene around the turn of the century—Ben Jonson, Thomas Dekker, and Thomas Middleton.

But Windsor is not London. Though the play includes several types familiar from city comedy—the jealous husband, the marriageable citizen’s daughter, the simpleton up from the country—the setting is more provincial town than buzzing metropolis. The dramatist’s own experience of life in Stratford-upon-Avon was probably a more formative influence on the creation of this play than any literary source of the kind that inspired most of his other comedies. The scene in which a cheeky boy called William is drilled in Latin grammar feels as close to autobiographical reminiscence as anything in Shakespeare.

Nor is Windsor a generic English town. The castle and the royal park made it synonymous with the monarchy. During the closing nocturnal scene in the park, Mistress Quickly in the role of Queen of the Fairies offers a good luck charm to Queen Elizabeth, whom the poet Edmund Spenser had immortalized a few years before under the guise of England’s Faerie Queene. Given its royal setting, its close relationship to the history plays, and the fact that it is the only Shakespearean comedy with an English setting, The Merry Wives is inevitably interested in questions of Englishness. The comic treatment of honor and cozening, true and false knighthood, and the nature of gentility rearticulates some of the matter of the Henry IV plays in a new key, but the most sustained exploration of national identity takes place at the level of language.

Shakespeare has always been so admired for his poetry that the language of The Merry Wives has often been underrated for the simple reason that of all his plays this is the one with the highest proportion of prose. Yet its command of the prose medium is unstoppable: from first to last there is a stream of wordplay, innuendo, and hilarious linguistic misapprehension. The comic suitors are the key here: the Welsh parson Sir Hugh Evans and the French Doctor Caius are characterized by their abuse of the English language. Extraordinary mileage is obtained from Caius’s verbal tics (“By gar,” “vat is?”) and such simple substitutions as Evans’s “f” for “v” (thus in the Latin language lesson, the grammatical term “vocative” becomes the obscene-sounding “focative”). Verbal sparring stands in for physical. Whereas in the history plays national pride comes from prowess at arms, here it is a matter of prowess at words. When the Welshman and the Frenchman prepare to fight a duel over their rivalry for Anne, Shallow and Page remove their swords and the Host says “Let them keep their limbs whole and hack our English.

Comedy at the expense of foreigners for their abuse of the English tongue might be described as crudely patriotic or mildly xenophobic. A deeper patriotism and a richer form of comedy come from the capacity of the English language to turn adversity to advantage. That is the art of Falstaff, as it is in a more general sense the art of Shakespeare and his actors. Falstaff is repeatedly humiliated, but his mastery of the English language always gives him the last word. On discovering that he has been pinched and beaten not by real goblins but by Sir Hugh and his class of children, Falstaff magnificently retorts “Have I lived to stand at the taunt of one that makes fritters of English?” and then “I am not able to answer the Welsh flannel.” He is physically humiliated (“dejected”), but his linguistic gift never fails. Like his creator, he can seemingly conjure anything into language. Again and again, a bodily battering is transformed into the opportunity for a verbal display in which a tone of feigned incredulity creates a unique combination of excess and humility, self-delusion and self-knowledge that is irresistible to a theater audience.

KEY FACTS

PLOT: Sir John Falstaff, staying in Windsor and down on his luck, decides to restore his fortunes by seducing the wives of two wealthy citizens. He sends Mistress Page and Mistress Ford identical love letters, but they discover his double-dealing and set about turning the tables, arranging an assignation at Mistress Ford’s house. The jealous Frank Ford has heard of Falstaff’s plan and decides to test his wife’s fidelity. Pretending to be Master Broom, he pays Falstaff to seduce his wife on his behalf, twice almost catching them together. The Pages’ daughter Anne is pursued by three suitors. The French physician Doctor Caius is her mother’s choice, whilst her father favors Slender, Justice Shallow’s kinsman. Anne herself is in love with Fenton. Mistress Quickly is being paid by all three suitors to advance their cause. A duel between Doctor Caius and Parson Evans is averted when the Host of the Garter Inn plays a trick on them, and they in turn pay him back. In Windsor Great Park at night, Falstaff is set up for his final punishment—and one of Anne Page’s suitors is successful.

MAJOR PARTS: (with percentage of lines/number of speeches/scenes on stage) Falstaff (17%/136/9), Mrs. Page (12%/101/9), Ford (12%/99/9), Mrs. Quickly (10%/74/9), Evans (8%/87/9), Mrs. Ford (6%/85/7), Page (6%/75/11), Slender (5%/56/7), Shallow (4%/59/7), Caius (4%/49/8), Host (4%/46/8), Fenton (4%/20/4), Pistol (2%/29/5), Simple (2%/25/5), Anne Page (1%/19/3).

LINGUISTIC MEDIUM: 10% verse, 90% prose. Highest proportion of prose in the Complete Works.

DATE: 1597–1601. Allusion to the Order of the Garter in the final scene has led to supposition that the play was performed at, or indeed commissioned for, the Garter Feast held at Whitehall in April 1597, when George Carey, Lord Chamberlain and patron of Shakespeare’s acting company, was elected to the order, as (in absentia) was Frederick Duke of Württemberg (which may account for the allusions to a German duke in the scene involving the Host’s horses). The 1597–98 winter season at court and the Garter festivities for 1599 have also been proposed as the occasion: the argument for the latter, when Henry Brooke, eighth Lord Cobham, was elected Knight of the Garter, is interwoven with the Brooke/Broom crux (see “Text”, below). The argument against 1597 is that it would place the play before 2 Henry IV, which seems counterintuitive: the relationship between Falstaff and Shallow, together with the retinue of “irregular humorists,” is more likely to have been created in the history play and reanimated in the comedy than vice versa (though it has been suggested that The Merry Wives was dashed off when Shakespeare was halfway through the writing of 2 Henry IV). The element of “humoral” comedy suggests a date after Ben Jonson introduced this vogue in Every Man in his Humour (1598). The argument against a special Garter commission is that a full-length comedy, as opposed to a shorter masque or entertainment of a more courtly kind, is unlikely to have been performed on such an occasion. It is possible that the Garter dimension is a vestige of an earlier commissioned work that was expanded into a comedy for the public stage. The play is not mentioned by Meres, suggesting late 1598 or 1599 as the earliest date for public performance. The 1602 Quarto title page clearly indicates performance both before the court and in the public theater. Quarto omits the speech alluding to the Order of the Garter and many other references to Windsor and the court. The major differences between Quarto and Folio texts (see below) suggest several stages of composition and probably performance in different versions.

SOURCES: No known source for the main plot, but the gallant who attempts to seduce another man’s wife, is interrupted, and is hidden in a bizarre place was a traditional comic motif, as was the clever wife who gets the upper hand (there is an example in one of the tales in Barnabe Riche’s Farewell to Military Profession, a book that provided Shakespeare with the main source for Twelfth Night); the Anne Page plot of rival suitors for an attractive daughter also has many analogues. The horse-stealing episode may allude to the Duke of Württemberg’s visit to England in 1592 and has parallels with a comic sequence in Marlowe’s Dr. Faustus. Falstaff with his horns in the park combines the folktale of Herne the Hunter with the classical myth (from Ovid’s Metamorphoses) of Actaeon. The pinching Fairies are themselves pinched from act four scene three of John Lyly’s play Endymion, the Man in the Moon (published 1591).

TEXT: Published in Quarto in 1602, in a version that has the hallmarks of a “reported text” of a stage production. About half the length of the Folio, and with many textual corruptions, the Quarto was reprinted in 1619. The First Folio text of 1623 was set from a transcript by Ralph Crane, professional scribe to the King’s Men, though it is not certain whether he worked from the playhouse “book” or an authorial manuscript.

The Quarto calls into question two other significant details in the Folio. First, the name by which Ford calls himself when disguised: this is “Brooke” in Quarto but “Broom” in Folio. “Brooke” was clearly Shakespeare’s original intention, being an aquatic variation on “Ford” and the occasion for at least one liquid pun (“Such Brooks are welcome to me, that o’erflows such liquor”—2.2.107). The change to “Broom” in Folio may well have been made in order to avoid offending the powerful family with whom Shakespeare had already been in trouble over a name in 1 Henry IV. Lord Cobham had objected to the name Sir John Oldcastle, with the result that Shakespeare changed it to Sir John Falstaff. The Cobham family name was Brooke, so perhaps they intervened again, or the name was changed for fear that they might. We follow Folio’s Broom, but in production it is probably best to revert to Brook, in order to make the watery jokes work. Falstaff does not, after all, hide in a broom cupboard: he is thrown into a brook.

The other issue is the color coding at the climactic moment of the play, when Anne’s three suitors come on and take the fairy each of them supposes is her, whilst the children are singing their song and pinching Falstaff. In Folio, Master Page tells Slender that his daughter will be in white, but when Slender comes on with the humiliating news that he has grabbed and married a boy, he says that he took a fairy in green. With Caius, it is the other way round: Mistress Page tells him that Anne will be in green, but he takes a boy in white. Editors since the eighteenth century have reversed the colors in the dialogue at the end, to make them consistent with those of the initial plan. Since the inconsistency is much more likely to be the author’s than the printer’s, we have not done this, but attention is drawn to this issue in the gloss and the textual notes.

THE MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR

MISTRESS MARGARET PAGE, of Windsor

MASTER GEORGE PAGE, her husband

ANNE PAGE, their daughter

WILLIAM PAGE, a boy, their son

MISTRESS ALICE FORD, of Windsor

MASTER FRANK FORD, her husband

MASTER FENTON, a young gentleman, in love with Anne Page

SIR JOHN FALSTAFF

ROBIN, Falstaff’s pageboy

PETER SIMPLE, servant to Slender

SIR HUGH EVANS, a Welsh parson

HOST of the Garter Inn

DOCTOR CAIUS, a French physician

JOHN RUGBY, his servant

MISTRESS QUICKLY, his housekeeper

Servants; Children of Windsor playing Fairies

Act 1 Scene 11.1

running scene 1

Enter Justice Shallow, Slender [and] Sir Hugh Evans

SHALLOWSir[1] Hugh, persuade me not. I will make a Star Chamber matter of it. If he were twenty Sir John Falstaffs, he shall not abuse Robert Shallow, esquire.

SLENDERIn the county of Gloucester, Justice of Peace and Coram.[3]

SHALLOWAy, cousin[4] Slender, and Custalorum.

SLENDERAy, and Rato-lorum[5] too; and a gentleman born, master parson, who writes himself Armigero[6] in any bill, warrant, quittance or obligation, Armigero.

SHALLOWAy, that I do, and have done any time these three hundred years.

SLENDERAll his successors — gone before him — hath done’t, and all his ancestors — that come after him — may. They may give[9] the dozen white luces in their coat.[10]

SHALLOWIt is an old coat.

EVANSThe dozen white louses do become[12] an old coat well. It agrees well passant. It is a familiar[13] beast to man, and signifies love.

SHALLOWThe luce is the fresh fish. The salt fish is an old coat.[14]

SLENDERI may quarter,[15] coz.

SHALLOWYou may, by marrying.

EVANSIt is marring indeed, if he quarter it.

SHALLOWNot a whit.

EVANSYes, py’r lady:[19] if he has a quarter of your coat, there is but three skirts for yourself, in my simple conjectures. But that is all one: if Sir John Falstaff have committed disparagements unto you, I am of the church, and will be glad to do my benevolence,[21] to make atonements[22] and compromises between you.

SHALLOWThe Council[23] shall hear it, it is a riot.

EVANSIt is not meet[24] the Council hear a riot: there is no fear of Got in a riot. The Council, look you, shall desire to hear the fear of Got, and not to hear a riot. Take[25] your vizaments[26] in that.

SHALLOWHa, o’my life, if I were young again, the sword should end it.

EVANSIt is petter that friends[28] is the sword, and end it. And there is also another device[29] in my prain, which peradventure prings goot discretions with it. There is Anne Page, which is daughter to Master Thomas[30] Page, which is pretty virginity.

SLENDERMistress Anne Page? She has brown hair, and speaks small[31] like a woman.

EVANSIt is that fery[32] person for all the ’orld, as just as you will desire, and seven hundred pounds of moneys, and gold and silver, is[33] her grandsire upon his death’s-bed — Got deliver to a joyful resurrections! — give,[34] when she is able to overtake seventeen years old. It were a goot motion,[35] if we leave our pribbles and prabbles, and desire a marriage between Master Abraham and Mistress Anne Page.

SLENDERDid her grandsire leave her seven hundred pound?

EVANSAy, and her father is[39] make her a petter penny.

SLENDER[40]I know the young gentlewoman: she has good gifts.

EVANSSeven hundred pounds, and possibilities,[41] is goot gifts.

SHALLOWWell, let us see honest[42] Master Page. Is Falstaff there?

EVANSShall I tell you a lie? I do despise a liar as I do despise one that is false, or as I despise one that is not true. The knight, Sir John, is there, and I beseech you, be ruled by your well-willers.[45] I will peat the door for Master Page. Knocks What, ho! Got pless your house here!

PAGEWho’s there? Speaks within and then enters

EVANSHere is Got’s plessing, and your friend, and Justice Shallow, and here young Master Slender, that peradventures shall tell[49] you another tale, if matters grow to your likings.

PAGEI am glad to see your worships well. I thank you for my venison, Master Shallow.

SHALLOWMaster Page, I am glad to see you: much good do it your good heart. I wished your venison better, it was ill[54] killed. How doth good Mistress Page? And I thank you always with my heart, la[55] — with my heart.

PAGESir, I thank you.

SHALLOWSir, I thank you: by[57] yea and no, I do.

PAGEI am glad to see you, good Master Slender.

SLENDERHow does your fallow[59] greyhound, sir? I heard say he was outrun on Cotsall.[60]

PAGEIt could not be judged,[61] sir.

SLENDERYou’ll not confess, you’ll not confess.

SHALLOWThat he will not.— ’Tis your fault,[64] ’tis your fault.— ’Tis a good dog. Aside to Slender/To Page

PAGEA cur,[65] sir.

SHALLOWSir, he’s a good dog, and a fair dog, can there be more said? He is good and fair. Is Sir John Falstaff here?

PAGESir, he is within: and I would[68] I could do a good office between you.

EVANSIt is spoke as a Christians ought to speak.

SHALLOWHe hath wronged me, Master Page.

PAGESir, he doth in some sort[71] confess it.

SHALLOWIf it be confessed, it is not redressed. Is not that so, Master Page? He hath wronged me, indeed he hath, at[73] a word, he hath. Believe me: Robert Shallow esquire saith he is wronged.

PAGEHere comes Sir John.

[Enter Falstaff, Bardolph, Nim and Pistol]

FALSTAFFNow, Master Shallow, you’ll complain of me to the king?

SHALLOWKnight, you have beaten my men, killed my deer, and broke open my lodge.[78]

FALSTAFFBut not kissed your keeper’s[79] daughter?

SHALLOWTut, a pin![80] This shall be answered.

FALSTAFFI will answer it straight:[81] I have done all this. That is now answered.

SHALLOWThe Council shall know this.

FALSTAFF’Twere better for you if it were known in counsel.[83] You’ll be laughed at.

EVANSPauca verba[84], Sir John, goot worts.

FALSTAFFGood worts?[85] Good cabbage. Slender, I broke your head. What matter have you against me?

SLENDERMarry, sir, I have matter in my head against you, and against your cony-catching[87] rascals, Bardolph, Nim and Pistol.

BARDOLPHYou Banbury cheese![89]

SLENDERAy, it is no matter.[90]

PISTOLHow now, Mephostophilus?[91]

SLENDERAy, it is no matter.

NIMSlice,[93] I say! Pauca, pauca. Slice, that’s my humour.

SLENDERWhere’s Simple, my man? Can you tell, cousin?

EVANSPeace, I pray you. Now let us understand. There is three umpires in this matter, as I understand; that is, Master Page — fidelicet[96] Master Page — and there is myself — fidelicet myself— and the three[97] party is — lastly and finally — mine host[98] of the Garter.

PAGEWe three to hear it and end it between them.

EVANSFery goot, I will make a prief[100] of it in my note-book, and we will afterwards ’ork[101] upon the cause with as great discreetly as we can.

FALSTAFFPistol!

PISTOLHe hears with ears.

EVANSThe tevil[104] and his tam! What phrase is this? He hears with ear? Why, it is affectations.

FALSTAFFPistol, did you pick Master Slender’s purse?

SLENDERAy, by these gloves, did he, or I would I might never come in mine own great chamber[108] again else, of seven groats in mill-sixpences, and two Edward shovel-boards, that cost me two shilling and two pence apiece of Yead[109] Miller, by these gloves.

FALSTAFFIs this true, Pistol?

EVANSNo, it is false,[112] if it is a pick-purse.

PISTOLHa, thou mountain-foreigner![113] Sir John and master mine, I combat challenge[114] of this latten bilbo. Word of denial in thy labras[115] here! Word of denial: froth and scum, thou liest!

SLENDERBy these gloves, then, ’twas he. Points to Nim

NIMBe avised,[118] sir, and pass good humours: I will say ‘marry trap’ with you, if you run[119] the nuthook’s humour on me. That is the very note of it.

SLENDERBy this hat, then, he[120] in the red face had it: for though I cannot remember what I did when you made me drunk, yet I am not altogether an ass.

FALSTAFFWhat say you, Scarlet and John?[122]

BARDOLPHWhy, sir, for my part, I say the gentleman had drunk himself out of his five sentences.

EVANSIt is his five senses. Fie, what the ignorance is!

BARDOLPHAnd being fap,[126] sir, was, as they say, cashiered: and so conclusions passed the careers.

SLENDERAy, you spake in Latin then too. But ’tis no matter. I’ll ne’er be drunk whilst I live again, but in honest, civil, godly company, for this trick. If I be drunk, I’ll be drunk with those that have the fear of God, and not with drunken knaves.

EVANSSo Got ’udge[131] me, that is a virtuous mind.

FALSTAFFYou hear all these matters denied, gentlemen, you hear it.

[Enter Anne, with wine]

PAGENay, daughter, carry the wine in: we’ll drink within.

[Exit Anne]

SLENDERO heaven, this is Mistress Anne Page! Aside?

[Enter Mistress Ford and Mistress Page]

PAGEHow now, Mistress Ford?

FALSTAFFMistress Ford, by my troth, you are very well met. By your leave,[136] good mistress. Kisses her

PAGEWife, bid these gentlemen welcome. Come, we have a hot venison pasty to[138] dinner. Come, gentlemen, I hope we shall drink down all unkindness.

[Exeunt all except Shallow, Slender and Evans]

SLENDERI had rather than forty shillings I had my book[140] of Songs and Sonnets here.

[Enter Simple]

How now, Simple, where have you been? I must wait on myself, must I? You have not the Book of Riddles[142] about you, have you?

SIMPLEBook of Riddles? Why, did you not lend it to Alice Shortcake upon Allhallowmas[144] last, a fortnight afore Michaelmas?

SHALLOWCome, coz. Come, coz, we stay[145] for you. A word with you, coz. Marry, this, coz: there is, as ’twere, a tender,[146] a kind of tender, made afar off by Sir Hugh here. Do you understand me?

SLENDERAy, sir, you shall find me reasonable. If it be so, I shall do[148] that that is reason.

SHALLOWNay, but understand me.

SLENDERSo I do, sir.

EVANSGive ear to his motions.[152] Master Slender, I will description the matter to you, if you be capacity of[153] it.

SLENDERNay, I will do as my cousin Shallow says. I pray you pardon me, he’s a Justice of Peace in his country,[155] simple though I stand here.

EVANSBut that is not the question. The question is concerning your marriage.

SHALLOWAy, there’s the point, sir.

EVANSMarry, is it: the very point of it, to Mistress Anne Page.

SLENDERWhy, if it be so, I will marry her upon any reasonable demands.[159]

EVANSBut can you affection the ’oman?[160] Let us command to know that of your mouth or of your lips, for divers[161] philosophers hold that the lips is parcel of the mouth. Therefore, precisely, can you carry[162] your good will to the maid?

SHALLOWCousin Abraham Slender, can you love her?

SLENDERI hope, sir, I will do as it shall become one that would do reason.

EVANSNay, Got’s lords and his ladies, you must speak possitable,[165] if you can carry her your desires towards her.

SHALLOWThat you must. Will you, upon[167] good dowry, marry her?

SLENDERI will do a greater thing than that upon your request, cousin, in any reason.

SHALLOWNay, conceive[170] me, conceive me, sweet coz. What I do is to pleasure you, coz. Can you love the maid?

SLENDERI will marry her, sir, at your request. But if there be no great love in the beginning, yet heaven may decrease[173] it upon better acquaintance, when we are married, and have more occasion to know one another. I hope upon familiarity will grow more contempt. But if you say ‘Marry her’, I will marry her — that I am freely dissolved,[176] and dissolutely.

EVANSIt is a fery discretion answer. Save the fall[177] is in the ’ord ‘dissolutely’ — the ’ort is, according to our meaning, ‘resolutely’ — his meaning is good.

SHALLOWAy, I think my cousin meant well.

SLENDERAy, or else I would I might be hanged, la!

SHALLOWHere comes fair Mistress Anne.

[Enter Anne]

Would I were young for your sake, Mistress Anne.

ANNEThe dinner is on the table, my father desires your worships’ company.

SHALLOWI will wait on him, fair Mistress Anne.

EVANS’Od’s plessèd will! I will not be absence at the grace.

[Exeunt Shallow and Evans]

ANNEWill’t please your worship to come in, sir?

SLENDERNo, I thank you, forsooth,[187] heartily. I am very well.

ANNEThe dinner attends[188] you, sir.

SLENDERI am not a-hungry, I thank you, forsooth.— To Simple Go, sirrah,[189] for all you are my man, go wait upon my cousin Shallow.

[Exit Simple]

A justice of peace sometime may be beholding[191] to his friend for a man. I keep but three men and a boy yet, till my mother be dead: but what though,[192] yet I live like a poor gentleman born.

ANNEI may not go in without your worship: they will not sit till you come.

SLENDERI’faith, I’ll eat nothing. I thank you as much as though I did.

ANNEI pray you, sir, walk in.

SLENDERI had rather walk here, I thank you. I bruised my shin th’other day with playing at sword and dagger with a master of fence[198] — three veneys for a dish of stewed prunes[199] — and, by my troth, I cannot abide the smell of hot meat since. Why do your dogs bark so? Be there bears i’th’town?

ANNEI think there are, sir. I heard them talked of.

SLENDERI love the sport[202] well, but I shall as soon quarrel at it, as any man in England. You are afraid if you see the bear loose, are you not?

ANNEAy, indeed, sir.

SLENDERThat’s meat and drink to me, now. I have seen Sackerson[205] loose twenty times, and have taken him by the chain: but, I warrant[206] you, the women have so cried and shrieked at it that it passed.[207] But women, indeed, cannot abide ’em: they are very ill-favoured[208] rough things.

[Enter Page]

PAGECome, gentle Master Slender, come: we stay for you.

SLENDERI’ll eat nothing, I thank you, sir.

PAGEBy cock and pie,[211] you shall not choose, sir. Come, come.

SLENDERNay, pray you lead the way.

PAGECome on, sir.

SLENDERMistress Anne, yourself shall go first.

ANNENot I, sir, pray you, keep on.[215]

SLENDERTruly, I will not go first. Truly, la! I will not do you that wrong.

ANNEI pray you, sir.

SLENDERI’ll rather be unmannerly than troublesome. Goes first You do yourself wrong, indeed, la!

Exeunt

Act 1 Scene 2

running scene 2

Enter Evans and Simple

EVANSGo your ways, and ask of[1] Doctor Caius’ house, which is the way; and there dwells one Mistress Quickly, which is in the manner of his nurse,[2] or his dry nurse, or his cook, or his laundry,[3] his washer and his wringer.

SIMPLEWell, sir.

EVANSNay, it is petter yet. Give her this letter. Gives letter For it is a ’oman that altogether’s acquaintance[5] with Mistress Anne Page. And the letter is to desire and require her to solicit[7] your master’s desires to Mistress Anne Page. I pray you, be gone: I will make an end of my dinner, there’s pippins[8] and cheese to come.

Exeunt

Act 1 Scene 3

running scene 3

Enter Falstaff, Host, Bardolph, Nim, Pistol [and] page [Robin]

FALSTAFFMine host of the Garter!

HOSTWhat says my bully rook?[2] Speak scholarly and wisely.

FALSTAFFTruly, mine host, I must turn away some of my followers.

HOSTDiscard, bully Hercules,[4] cashier. Let them wag. Trot, trot.

FALSTAFFI sit at[5] ten pounds a week.

HOSTThou’rt an emperor: Caesar, Kaiser[6] and Pheazar. I will entertain Bardolph: he shall draw,[7] he shall tap. Said I well, bully Hector?

FALSTAFFDo so, good mine host.

HOSTI have spoke. Let him follow.— To Bardolph Let me see thee froth[9] and lime. I am at a word: follow.

[Exit]

FALSTAFFBardolph, follow him. A tapster[11] is a good trade. An old cloak makes a new jerkin:[12] a withered servingman a fresh tapster. Go, adieu.

BARDOLPHIt is a life that I have desired. I will thrive.

[Exit Bardolph]

PISTOLO base Hungarian wight,[14] wilt thou the spigot wield?

NIMHe was gotten in drink.[15] Is not the humour conceited?

FALSTAFFI am glad I am so acquit[16] of this tinderbox. His thefts were too open: his filching was like an unskilful singer, he kept not time.

NIMThe good humour[18] is to steal at a minute’s rest.

PISTOL‘Convey’, the wise it call. ‘Steal?’ Foh! A fico[19] for the phrase.

FALSTAFFWell, sirs, I am almost out at heels.[20]

PISTOLWhy then, let kibes[21] ensue.

FALSTAFFThere is no remedy: I must cony-catch, I must shift.[22]

PISTOLYoung ravens must have food.

FALSTAFFWhich of you know Ford of this town?

PISTOLI ken the wight:[25] he is of substance good.

FALSTAFFMy honest lads, I will tell you what I am about.[26]

PISTOLTwo yards, and more.

FALSTAFFNo quips now, Pistol! Indeed, I am in the waist two yards about, but I am now about no waste: I am about thrift. Briefly, I do mean to make love to[29] Ford’s wife. I spy entertainment[30] in her: she discourses, she carves, she gives the leer of invitation. I can construe[31] the action of her familiar style, and the hardest voice of her behaviour — to be Englished[32] rightly — is, ‘I am Sir John Falstaff’s.’

PISTOLHe hath studied her will,[33] and translated her will, out of honesty, into English.

NIMThe[35] anchor is deep. Will that humour pass?

FALSTAFFNow, the report goes she has all the rule of her husband’s purse: he hath a legion of angels.[37]

PISTOLAs[38] many devils entertain. And ‘To her, boy!’ say I.

NIMThe humour rises:[39] it is good. Humour me the angels.

FALSTAFFI have writ me[40] here a letter to her. Shows letters And here another to Page’s wife, who even now gave me good eyes too, examined my parts with most judicious oeillades.[42] Sometimes the beam of her view gilded my foot, sometimes my portly belly.

PISTOLThen did the sun on dunghill shine.

NIMI thank thee for that humour.[45]

FALSTAFFO, she did so course[46] o’er my exteriors with such a greedy intention, that the appetite of her eye did seem to scorch me up like a burning-glass.[47] Here’s another letter to her. She bears the purse too: she is a region in Guiana,[48] all gold and bounty. I will be cheaters[49] to them both, and they shall be exchequers to me. They shall be my East and West Indies, and I will trade[50] to them both.— To Nim Go bear thou this letter to Mistress Page — and thou this to Mistress Ford. To Pistol We will thrive, lads, we will thrive.

PISTOLShall I Sir Pandarus of Troy[53] become, And[54] by my side wear steel? Then Lucifer take all! Gives back the letter

NIMI will run[55] no base humour. Here, take the humour-letter. Gives the letter back I will keep the ’haviour of reputation.[56]

FALSTAFFHold, sirrah, bear you these letters tightly,[57] To Robin

Sail like my pinnace[58] to these golden shores.

Rogues, hence, avaunt![59] Vanish like hailstones: go,

60

Trudge, plod away o’th’hoof,[60] seek shelter, pack!

Falstaff will learn the humour[61] of the age,

French thrift,[62] you rogues, myself and skirted page.

[Exeunt Falstaff and Robin]

PISTOLLet vultures gripe[63] thy guts! For gourd and fullam holds,

And high and low[64] beguiles the rich and poor:

65

Tester[65] I’ll have in pouch when thou shalt lack,

Base Phrygian Turk![66]

NIMI have operations[67] which be humours of revenge.

PISTOLWilt thou revenge?

NIMBy welkin[69] and her star!

PISTOLWith wit or steel?[70]

NIMWith both the humours,[71] I. I will discuss the humour of this love to Ford.

PISTOLAnd I to Page shall eke[72] unfold How Falstaff, varlet vile, His dove will prove,[74] his gold will hold, And his soft couch defile.

NIMMy humour shall not cool. I will incense Ford to deal with poison. I will possess him with yellowness,[77] for the revolt of mine is dangerous. That is my true humour.

PISTOLThou art the Mars of malcontents.[79] I second thee, troop on.

Exeunt

Act 1 Scene 4

running scene 4

Enter Mistress Quickly, Simple and John Rugby

MISTRESS QUICKLYWhat, John Rugby! I pray thee go to the casement and see if you can see my master, Master Doctor Caius, coming. If he do, i’faith, and find anybody in the house, here will be an old[3] abusing of God’s patience and the King’s English.

RUGBYI’ll go watch.

MISTRESS QUICKLYGo, and we’ll have a posset[6] for’t soon at night, in faith, at the latter end of a sea-coal[7] fire.— [Exit Rugby] An honest, willing, kind fellow, as ever servant shall come in house withal,[8] and, I warrant you, no tell-tale nor no breed-bate. His worst fault is that he is given to prayer, he is something peevish[9] that way, but nobody but has his fault. But let that pass. Peter Simple you say your name is?

SIMPLEAy, for fault[12] of a better.

MISTRESS QUICKLYAnd Master Slender’s your master?

SIMPLEAy, forsooth.

MISTRESS QUICKLYDoes he not wear a great round beard, like a glover’s[15] paring-knife?

SIMPLENo, forsooth, he hath but a little wee face, with a little yellow beard: a Cain-coloured[17] beard.

MISTRESS QUICKLYA softly-sprighted[18] man, is he not?

SIMPLEAy, forsooth, but he is as[19] tall a man of his hands as any is between this and his head. He hath fought with a warrener.[20]

MISTRESS QUICKLYHow say you? O, I should remember him: does he not hold up his head, as it were, and strut in his gait?

SIMPLEYes, indeed, does he.

MISTRESS QUICKLYWell, heaven send Anne Page no worse fortune. Tell Master Parson Evans I will do what I can for your master. Anne is a good girl, and I wish—

RUGBYOut, alas![26] Here comes my master. Within

MISTRESS QUICKLYWe shall all be shent.[27] Run in here, good young man, go into this To Simple closet.[28] Simple goes into the closet He will not stay long. What, John Rugby? John! What, John, I say?

[Enter Rugby]

Go, John, go inquire for my master. I doubt[29] he be not well, that he comes not home.

[Exit Rugby]

And[31] down, down, adown-a, etc. She sings

[Enter Caius]

CAIUSVat is you sing? I do not like des toys.[32] Pray you, go and vetch me in my closet une boîtie en vert:[33] a box, a green-a box. Do intend vat I speak? A green-a box.

MISTRESS QUICKLYAy, forsooth, I’ll fetch it you.— Aside I am glad he went not in himself. If he had found the young man, he would have been horn-mad.[36] She goes into the closet

CAIUSFe, fe, fe, fe, ma[37] foi, il fait fort chaud. Je m’en vais voir à le Court la grande affaire.

[Enter Mistress Quickly with a box]

MISTRESS QUICKLYIs it this, sir?

CAIUSOui, mette-le au mon pocket. Dépêche,[40] quickly. Vere is dat knave Rugby?

MISTRESS QUICKLYWhat, John Rugby? John?

[Enter Rugby]

RUGBYHere, sir!

CAIUSYou are John Rugby, and you are Jack Rugby. Come, take-a your rapier, and come after my heel to the court.

RUGBY’Tis ready, sir, here in the porch.

CAIUSBy my trot,[46] I tarry too long. Od’s me, que ai-je oublié. Dere is some simples in my closet dat I vill not for the varld I shall leave behind. He goes into the closet

MISTRESS QUICKLYAy me, he’ll find the young man there and be mad.

CAIUSO diable[49], diable! Vat is in my closet? Within Villain, larron! Rugby, my rapier! Pulls Simple out

MISTRESS QUICKLYGood master, be content.

CAIUSWherefore shall I be content-a?

MISTRESS QUICKLYThe young man is an honest man.

CAIUSWhat shall de honest man do in my closet? Dere is no honest man dat shall come in my closet.

MISTRESS QUICKLYI beseech you be not so phlegmatic.[56] Hear the truth of it: he came of[57] an errand to me, from Parson Hugh.

CAIUSVell.

SIMPLEAy, forsooth, to desire her to—

MISTRESS QUICKLYPeace, I pray you.

CAIUSPeace-a your tongue. Speak-a your tale. To Mistress Quickly/To Simple

SIMPLETo desire this honest gentlewoman, your maid, to speak a good word to Mistress Anne Page for my master in the way of marriage.

MISTRESS QUICKLYThis is all, indeed, la! But I’ll ne’er[64] put my finger in the fire, and need not.

CAIUSSir Hugh send-a you? Rugby, baillez[66] me some paper. Tarry you a little-a while. Rugby brings paper. Caius writes

MISTRESS QUICKLYI am glad he is so quiet. Aside to Simple If he had been throughly moved, you should have heard him so loud and so melancholy.[69] But notwithstanding, man, I’ll do you[70] your master what good I can: and the very yea and the no is, the French doctor, my master — I may call him my master, look you, for I keep his house, and I wash, wring, brew, bake, scour, dress meat[72] and drink, make the beds and do all myself—

SIMPLE’Tis a great charge[74] to come under one body’s hand. Aside to Mistress Quickly

MISTRESS QUICKLYAre you avised[75] o’that? Aside to Simple You shall find it a great charge, and to be up early and down late. But notwithstanding — to tell you in your ear, I[76] would have no words of it — my master himself is in love with Mistress Anne Page. But notwithstanding that, I know Anne’s mind — that’s neither here nor there.

CAIUSYou jack’nape,[79] give-a this letter to Sir Hugh. Gives a letter to Simple By gar, it is a shallenge. I will cut his troat in de park,[80] and I will teach a scurvy jack-a-nape priest to meddle or make.— To Simple You may be gone. It is not good you tarry here.— By gar, I will cut all his two stones.[82] By gar, he shall not have a stone to throw at his dog.

[Exit Simple]

MISTRESS QUICKLYAlas, he speaks but for his friend.

CAIUSIt is no matter-a ver[84] dat: do not you tell-a me dat I shall have Anne Page for myself? By gar, I vill kill de Jack[85] priest: and I have appointed mine host of de Jarteer[86] to measure our weapon. By gar, I will myself have Anne Page.

MISTRESS QUICKLYSir, the maid loves you, and all shall be well. We must give folks leave to prate.[88] What the good-year!

CAIUSRugby, come to the court with me.— To Mistress Quickly By gar, if I have not Anne Page, I shall turn your head out of my door. Follow my heels, Rugby.

MISTRESS QUICKLYYou shall have An—[91]

[Exeunt Caius and Rugby]

fool’s-head of your own. No, I know Anne’s mind for that: never a woman in Windsor knows more of Anne’s mind than I do, nor can do more than I do with her, I thank heaven.

FENTONWho’s within there, ho? Within

MISTRESS QUICKLYWho’s there, I trow?[96] Come near the house, I pray you.

[Enter Fenton]

FENTONHow now, good woman? How dost thou?

MISTRESS QUICKLYThe better that it pleases your good worship to ask.

FENTONWhat news? How does pretty Mistress Anne?

MISTRESS QUICKLYIn truth, sir, and she is pretty, and honest,[100] and gentle, and one that is your friend[101] — I can tell you that by the way — I praise heaven for it.

FENTONShall I do any good, thinkest thou? Shall I not lose my suit?

MISTRESS QUICKLYTroth, sir, all is in his hands above: but notwithstanding, Master Fenton, I’ll be sworn on a book[104] she loves you. Have not your worship a wart above your eye?

FENTONYes, marry, have I. What of that?

MISTRESS QUICKLYWell, thereby hangs a tale: good faith, it[107] is such another Nan — but, I detest,[108] an honest maid as ever broke bread. We had an hour’s talk of that wart. I shall never laugh but in that maid’s company. But, indeed, she is given too much to allicholy[110] and musing. But for you — well, go to—

FENTONWell, I shall see her today. Hold, there’s money for thee: let me have thy voice[112] in my behalf. If thou see’st her before me, commend me—

MISTRESS QUICKLYWill I? I’faith, that we will. And I will tell your worship more of the wart the next time we have confidence,[114] and of other wooers.

FENTONWell, farewell, I am in great haste now.

MISTRESS QUICKLYFarewell to your worship.

[Exit Fenton]

Truly, an honest gentleman. But Anne loves him not. For I know Anne’s mind as well as another does. Out upon’t,[118] what have I forgot?

Exit

Act 2 Scene 1

running scene 5

Enter Mistress Page With a letter

MISTRESS PAGEWhat, have I scaped[1] love-letters in the holiday-time of my beauty, and am I now a subject for them? Let me see: Reads ‘Ask me no reason why I love you, for though Love use Reason for his precisian,[3] he admits him not for his counsellor. You are not young, no more am I: go to then, there’s sympathy.[4] You are merry, so am I: ha, ha, then there’s more sympathy. You love sack,[5] and so do I: would you desire better sympathy? Let it suffice thee, Mistress Page, at the least if the love of soldier can suffice, that I love thee. I will not say, pity me — ’tis not a soldier-like phrase — but I say, love me. By me,

Thine own true knight,

10

By day or night,

Or any kind of light,

With all his might

For thee to fight,

John Falstaff.’

What a Herod of Jewry[15] is this? O wicked, wicked world! One that is well-nigh worn to pieces with age, to show himself a young gallant?[16] What an unweighed behaviour hath this Flemish[17] drunkard picked — with the devil’s name — out of my conversation, that he dares in this manner assay me? Why, he hath not been thrice in my company! What should I say[19] to him? I was then frugal of my mirth — heaven forgive me! Why, I’ll exhibit a bill in the parliament for the putting down[21] of men. How shall I be revenged on him? For revenged I will be, as sure as his guts are made of puddings.[22]

[Enter Mistress Ford]

MISTRESS FORDMistress Page, trust me,[23] I was going to your house.

MISTRESS PAGEAnd, trust me, I was coming to you. You look very ill.[24]

MISTRESS FORDNay, I’ll ne’er believe that; I have[25] to show to the contrary.

MISTRESS PAGEFaith, but you do, in my mind.

MISTRESS FORDWell, I do then: yet I say I could show you to the contrary. O Mistress Page, give me some counsel!

MISTRESS PAGEWhat’s the matter, woman?

MISTRESS FORDO woman, if it were not for one trifling respect,[30] I could come to such honour!

MISTRESS PAGEHang the trifle, woman, take the honour. What is it? Dispense with trifles: what is it?

MISTRESS FORDIf I would but go to hell[34] for an eternal moment or so, I could be knighted.

MISTRESS PAGEWhat? Thou liest! Sir Alice Ford? These knights will hack,[36] and so thou shouldst not alter the article[37] of thy gentry.

MISTRESS FORDWe burn daylight.[38] Here, read, read. Gives letter to Mistress Page Perceive how I might be knighted. I shall think the worse of fat men, as long as I have an eye to make[39] difference of men’s liking. And yet he would not swear, praised women’s modesty, and gave such orderly and well-behaved reproof to all uncomeliness,[41] that I would have sworn his disposition would have gone[42] to the truth of his words. But they do no more adhere and keep place together than the hundred Psalms to the tune of ‘Greensleeves’.[44] What tempest, I trow, threw this whale — with so many tuns of oil in his belly — ashore at Windsor? How shall I be revenged on him? I think the best way were to entertain[46] him with hope, till the wicked fire of lust have melted him in his own grease. Did you ever hear the like?

MISTRESS PAGELetter for letter, but that the name of Page and Ford differs. To thy great comfort in this mystery of ill opinions,[49] here’s the twin-brother of thy letter. Shows her own letter But let thine inherit[50] first, for I protest mine never shall. I warrant he hath a thousand of these letters, writ with blank space for different names — sure, more — and these are of the second edition. He will print them, out of doubt, for he cares not what he puts into the press,[53] when he would put us two. I had rather be a giantess, and lie under Mount Pelion.[54] Well, I will find you twenty lascivious turtles[55] ere one chaste man.

MISTRESS FORDWhy, this is the very same: the very hand,[56] the very words. Compares the two letters What doth he think of us?

MISTRESS PAGENay, I know not. It makes me almost ready to wrangle[58] with mine own honesty. I’ll entertain[59] myself like one that I am not acquainted withal: for, sure, unless he know some strain[60] in me that I know not myself, he would never have boarded[61] me in this fury.

MISTRESS FORD‘Boarding’, call you it? I’ll be sure to keep him above deck.[62]

MISTRESS PAGESo will I: if he come[63] under my hatches, I’ll never to sea again. Let’s be revenged on him. Let’s appoint him a meeting, give him a show of comfort[64] in his suit and lead him on with a fine-baited[65] delay, till he hath pawned his horses to mine host of the Garter.

MISTRESS FORDNay, I will consent to act any villainy against him that may not sully the chariness[68] of our honesty. O, that my husband saw this letter! It would give eternal food to his jealousy.

MISTRESS PAGEWhy, look where he comes, and my good man too: he’s as far from jealousy as I am from giving him cause, and that — I hope — is an unmeasurable distance.

MISTRESS FORDYou are the happier woman.

MISTRESS PAGELet’s consult together against this greasy knight. Come hither. They withdraw

[Enter Ford with Pistol, and Page with Nim]

FORDWell, I hope it be not so.

PISTOLHope is a curtal[76] dog in some affairs. Sir John affects[77] thy wife.

FORDWhy, sir, my wife is not young.

PISTOLHe woos both high and low, both rich and poor,

80

Both young and old, one with another, Ford.

He loves the gallimaufry,[81] Ford, perpend.

FORDLove my wife?

PISTOLWith liver[83] burning hot. Prevent,

Or go thou like Sir Actaeon,[84] he

85

With Ringwood[85] at thy heels.

O, odious is the name![86]

FORDWhat name, sir?

PISTOLThe horn, I say. Farewell.

Take heed, have open eye, for thieves do foot[89] by night.

90

Take heed, ere summer comes, or cuckoo-birds[90] do sing.

Away,[91] Sir Corporal Nim!

Believe it, Page, he speaks sense.

[Exit]

FORDI will be patient. I will find out this. Aside

NIMAnd this is true, I like not the humour of lying. To Page He hath wronged me in some humours: I should have borne[95] the humoured letter to her, but I have a sword, and it shall bite upon my necessity.[96] He loves your wife: there’s the short and the long. My name is Corporal Nim. I speak and I avouch ’tis true: my name is Nim, and Falstaff loves your wife. Adieu. I love not the humour of bread and cheese.[98] Adieu.

[Exit]

PAGE‘The humour of it’, quoth a![100] Here’s a fellow frights English out of his wits.

FORDI will seek out Falstaff.

PAGEI never heard such a drawling, affecting[102] rogue.

FORDIf I do find it[103] — well.

PAGEI will not believe such a Cataian,[104] though the priest o’th’town commended him for a true man.

FORD’Twas a good sensible fellow — well.

PAGEHow now, Meg? Mistress Page and Mistress

MISTRESS PAGEWhither go you, George? Hark you. Ford come forward

MISTRESS FORDHow now, sweet Frank, why art thou melancholy?

FORDI melancholy? I am not melancholy. Get you home, go.

MISTRESS FORDFaith, thou hast some crotchets[111] in thy head now.— Will you go, Mistress Page?

MISTRESS PAGEHave with you.[113]— You’ll come to dinner, George?— Look who comes yonder: she shall be our messenger to this paltry knight. Aside to Mistress Ford

[Enter Mistress Quickly]

MISTRESS FORDTrust me, I thought on her: she’ll fit it.[115] Aside to Mistress Page

MISTRESS PAGEYou are come to see my daughter Anne?

MISTRESS QUICKLYAy, forsooth, and I pray how does good Mistress Anne?

MISTRESS PAGEGo in with us and see. We have an hour’s talk with you.

[Exeunt Mistress Page, Mistress Ford and Mistress Quickly]

PAGEHow now, Master Ford?

FORDYou heard what this knave told me, did you not?

PAGEYes, and you heard what the other told me?

FORDDo you think there is truth in them?

PAGEHang ’em, slaves! I do not think the knight would offer[123] it. But these that accuse him in his intent towards our wives are a yoke[124] of his discarded men: very rogues, now they be out of service.

FORDWere they his men?

PAGEMarry, were they.

FORDI like it never the better for that. Does he lie[128] at the Garter?

PAGEAy, marry, does he. If he should intend this voyage[129] toward my wife, I would turn her loose to him, and what he gets more of her than sharp words, let it lie on my[131] head.

FORDI do not misdoubt[132] my wife, but I would be loath to turn them together. A man may be too confident. I would have nothing lie on my head. I cannot be thus satisfied.

PAGELook where my ranting[135] host of the Garter comes: there is either liquor in his pate[136] or money in his purse, when he looks so merrily.

[Enter Host]

How now, mine host?

HOSTHow now, bully-rook? Thou’rt a gentleman.

[Enter Shallow]

Cavaliero[139] Justice, I say!

SHALLOWI follow, mine host, I follow. Good[140] even and twenty, good Master Page. Master Page, will you go with us? We have sport in hand.

HOSTTell him, Cavaliero Justice: tell him, bully-rook.

SHALLOWSir, there is a fray to be fought between Sir Hugh the Welsh priest and Caius the French doctor.

FORDGood mine host o’th’Garter, a word with you. They speak apart

HOSTWhat sayst thou, my bully-rook?

SHALLOWWill you go with us to behold it? To Page My merry host hath had the measuring of their weapons, and, I think, hath appointed them contrary[148] places, for, believe me, I hear the parson is no jester.[149] They speak apart Hark, I will tell you what our sport shall be.

HOSTHast thou no suit against my[150] knight, my guest-cavalier?

FORDNone, I protest.[151] But I’ll give you a pottle of burned sack to give me recourse to him, and tell him my name is Broom, only for a jest.

HOSTMy hand, bully. Thou shalt have egress and regress[153] — said I well? — and thy name shall be Broom. It is a merry knight.— To Shallow and Page Will you go, An-heires?[154]

SHALLOWHave with you, mine host.

PAGEI have heard the Frenchman hath good skill in his rapier.

SHALLOWTut, sir, I could have told you more. In these times you stand on distance:[157] your passes, stoccadoes,[158] and I know not what. ’Tis the heart, Master Page, ’tis here, ’tis here. I have seen the time, with my long sword,[159] I would have made you four tall[160] fellows skip like rats.

HOSTHere, boys, here, here! Shall we wag?[161]

PAGEHave with you. I had rather hear them scold[162] than fight.

[Exeunt Host, Shallow and Page]

FORDThough Page be a secure[163] fool, and stands so firmly on his wife’s frailty, yet I cannot put off my opinion so easily. She was in his[164] company at Page’s house, and what they made[165] there I know not. Well, I will look further into’t, and I have a disguise to sound[166] Falstaff. If I find her honest, I lose not my labour: if she be otherwise, ’tis labour well bestowed.

Exit

Act 2 Scene 2

running scene 6

Enter Falstaff [and] Pistol

FALSTAFFI will not lend thee a penny.

PISTOLWhy, then the world’s mine oyster, which I with sword will open.

FALSTAFFNot a penny. I have been content, sir, you should lay my countenance to pawn.[3] I have grated upon[4] my good friends for three reprieves for you and your coach-fellow[5] Nim, or else you had looked through the grate, like a gemini of baboons. I am damned in hell for swearing to gentlemen my friends you were good soldiers and tall fellows. And when Mistress Bridget lost the handle[7] of her fan, I took’t upon[8] mine honour thou hadst it not.

PISTOLDidst not thou share?[9] Hadst thou not fifteen pence?

FALSTAFFReason,[10] you rogue, reason. Think’st thou I’ll endanger my soul gratis? At a word, hang[11] no more about me, I am no gibbet for you. Go — a short knife and a throng — to your manor of Picked-hatch,[12] go! You’ll not bear a letter for me, you rogue. You stand upon your honour. Why, thou unconfinable[13] baseness, it is as much as I can do to keep the terms of my honour precise.[14] Ay, ay, I myself sometimes, leaving the fear of heaven on[15] the left hand, and hiding mine honour in my necessity, am fain[16] to shuffle, to hedge and to lurch: and yet, you rogue, will ensconce[17] your rags, your cat-a-mountain looks, your red-lattice phrases, and your bold-beating[18] oaths, under the shelter of your honour? You will not do it? You?

PISTOLI do relent.[20] What would thou more of man?

[Enter Robin]

ROBINSir, here’s a woman would speak with you.

FALSTAFFLet her approach.

[Enter Mistress Quickly]

MISTRESS QUICKLYGive[23] your worship good morrow.

FALSTAFFGood morrow, good wife.

MISTRESS QUICKLYNot so,[25] an’t please your worship.

FALSTAFFGood maid, then.

MISTRESS QUICKLYThat I am, I’ll be sworn,

As my mother was the first hour I was born.[28]

FALSTAFFI do believe the swearer. What with me?

MISTRESS QUICKLYShall I vouchsafe your worship a word or two?

FALSTAFFTwo thousand, fair woman, and I’ll vouchsafe[31] thee the hearing.

MISTRESS QUICKLYThere is one Mistress Ford, sir — I pray come a little nearer this ways[33] — I myself dwell with master Doctor Caius—

FALSTAFFWell, on.[34] Mistress Ford, you say—

MISTRESS QUICKLYYour worship says very true. I pray your worship come a little nearer this ways.

FALSTAFFI warrant thee nobody hears. Gestures toward Pistol and Robin Mine own people, mine own people.

MISTRESS QUICKLYAre they so? Heaven bless them, and make them his servants.

FALSTAFFWell, Mistress Ford: what of her?

MISTRESS QUICKLYWhy, sir, she’s a good creature. Lord, lord, your worship’s a wanton![41] Well, heaven forgive you, and all of us, I pray—

FALSTAFFMistress Ford, come, Mistress Ford.

MISTRESS QUICKLYMarry, this is the short and the long of it: you have brought her into such a canaries[44] as ’tis wonderful. The best courtier of them all — when the court lay at Windsor — could never have brought her to such a canary. Yet there has been knights, and lords, and gentlemen, with their coaches, I warrant you — coach after coach, letter after letter, gift after gift, smelling so sweetly, all musk, and so rushling,[48] I warrant you, in silk and gold, and in such alligant terms, and in such wine and sugar of the best and the fairest that would have won any woman’s heart: and, I warrant you, they could never get an eye-wink of[50] her. I had myself twenty angels[51] given me this morning, but I defy all angels — in any such sort,[52] as they say — but in the way of honesty: and, I warrant you, they could never get her so much as sip on a cup with the proudest of them all. And yet there has been earls, nay, which is more, pensioners,[54] but, I warrant you, all is one with her.

FALSTAFFBut what says she to me? Be brief, my good she-Mercury.[56]

MISTRESS QUICKLYMarry, she hath received your letter, for the which she thanks you a thousand times; and she gives you to notify[58] that her husband will be absence from his house between ten and eleven.

FALSTAFFTen and eleven.

MISTRESS QUICKLYAy, forsooth, and then you may come and see the picture, she says, that you wot[62] of. Master Ford, her husband, will be from home. Alas, the sweet woman leads an ill life with him: he’s a very jealousy man. She leads a very frampold[64] life with him, good heart.

FALSTAFFTen and eleven. Woman, commend me to her. I will not fail her.

MISTRESS QUICKLYWhy, you say well. But I have another messenger[66] to your worship. Mistress Page hath her hearty commendations to you too: and let me tell you in your ear, she’s as fartuous[68] a civil modest wife, and one, I tell you, that will not miss you[69] morning nor evening prayer, as any is in Windsor, whoe’er be the other: and she bade me tell your worship that her husband is seldom from home, but she hopes there will come a time. I never knew a woman so dote upon a man. Surely I think you have charms,[72] la. Yes, in truth.

FALSTAFFNot I, I assure thee. Setting the attraction of my good parts[73] aside, I have no other charms.

MISTRESS QUICKLYBlessing on your heart for’t!

FALSTAFFBut I pray thee tell me this: has Ford’s wife and Page’s wife acquainted each other how they love me?

MISTRESS QUICKLYThat were a jest indeed! They have not so little grace,[78] I hope — that were a trick indeed! But Mistress Page would desire you to send her your little page, of all loves.[80] Her husband has a marvellous infection to the little page, and truly Master Page is an honest man. Never a wife in Windsor leads a better life than she does: do what she will, say what she will, take all, pay all, go to bed when she list,[83] rise when she list, all is as she will, and truly she deserves it, for if there be a kind[84] woman in Windsor, she is one. You must send her your page, no remedy.

FALSTAFFWhy, I will.

MISTRESS QUICKLYNay, but do so, then, and, look you, he may come and go between you both: and in any case have a nay-word,[88] that you may know one another’s mind, and the boy never need to understand anything, for ’tis not good that children should know any wickedness. Old folks, you know, have discretion, as they say, and know the world.

FALSTAFFFare thee well, commend me to them both. There’s my purse: I am yet thy debtor.— Boy, go along with this woman. [Exeunt Mistress Quickly and Robin] This news distracts[94] me.

95

PISTOLThis punk[95] is one of Cupid’s carriers.

Clap[96] on more sails, pursue, up with your fights,

Give fire. She is my prize,[97] or ocean whelm them all!

[Exit]

FALSTAFFSay’st[98] thou so, old Jack? Go thy ways: I’ll make more of thy old body than I have done. Will they yet look after[99] thee? Wilt thou, after the expense of so much money, be now a gainer? Good body, I thank thee. Let them say ’tis grossly[100] done, so[101] it be fairly done, no matter.

[Enter Bardolph, with a goblet]

BARDOLPHSir John, there’s one Master Broom below would fain[102] speak with you and be acquainted with you, and hath sent your worship a morning’s draught of sack.

FALSTAFFBroom is his name?

BARDOLPHAy, sir.

FALSTAFFCall him in.

[Exit Bardolph]

Such Brooms are welcome to me, that o’erflows such liquor. Aha, Mistress Ford and Mistress Page, have I encompassed[108] you? Go to, via!

[Enter Bardolph, with Ford disguised, carrying a bag of money]

FORDBless you, sir.

FALSTAFFAnd you, sir. Would you speak with me?

FORDI make bold[111] to press with so little preparation upon you.

FALSTAFFYou’re welcome. What’s your will? Give us leave,[112] drawer.

[Exit Bardolph]

FORDSir, I am a gentleman that have spent much: my name is Broom.

FALSTAFFGood Master Broom, I desire more acquaintance of you.

FORDGood Sir John, I sue[115] for yours: not to charge you, for I must let you understand I think myself in better plight[116] for a lender than you are, the which hath something emboldened me to this unseasoned[117] intrusion. For they say, if money go before, all ways do lie open.

FALSTAFFMoney is a good soldier, sir, and will on.[119]

FORDTroth, and I have a bag of money here troubles me. Sets it down If you will help to bear it, Sir John, take all, or half, for easing me of the carriage.[121]

FALSTAFFSir, I know not how I may deserve to be your porter.

FORDI will tell you, sir, if you will give me the hearing.

FALSTAFFSpeak, good Master Broom: I shall be glad to be your servant.

FORDSir, I hear you are a scholar — I will be brief with you — and you have been a man long known to me, though I had never so good means as desire to make myself acquainted with you. I shall discover[127] a thing to you, wherein I must very much lay open mine own imperfection. But, good Sir John, as you have one eye upon my follies, as you hear them unfolded, turn another into the register[129] of your own, that I may pass with a reproof the easier, sith[130] you yourself know how easy it is to be such an offender.

FALSTAFFVery well, sir, proceed.

FORDThere is a gentlewoman in this town, her husband’s name is Ford.

FALSTAFFWell, sir.

FORDI have long loved her, and, I protest to you, bestowed much on her: followed her with a doting observance,[136] engrossed opportunities to meet her, fee’d every slight occasion that could but niggardly give me sight of her: not only bought many presents to give her, but have given largely[138] to many to know what she would have given.[139] Briefly, I have pursued her as love hath pursued me, which hath been on the wing of all occasions. But whatsoever I have merited, either in my mind or in my means,[141] meed I am sure I have received none, unless experience be a jewel that I have purchased at an infinite rate, and that hath taught me to say this:

‘Love like a shadow flies[144] when substance love pursues,

145

Pursuing that that flies,[145] and flying what pursues.’

FALSTAFFHave you received no promise of satisfaction[146] at her hands?

FORDNever.

FALSTAFFHave you importuned[148] her to such a purpose?

FORDNever.

FALSTAFFOf what quality was your love, then?

FORDLike a fair house built on another man’s ground, so that I have lost my edifice by mistaking the place where I erected[152] it.

FALSTAFFTo what purpose have you unfolded this to me?

FORDWhen I have told you that, I have told you all. Some say that though she appear honest[155] to me, yet in other places she enlargeth her mirth so far that there is shrewd construction[156] made of her. Now, Sir John, here is the heart of my purpose: you are a gentleman of excellent breeding, admirable discourse, of great admittance,[157] authentic[158] in your place and person, generally allowed for your many war-like, court-like and learned preparations.[159]

FALSTAFFO, sir!

FORDBelieve it, for you know it. Points to the bag There is money: spend it, spend it, spend more, spend all I have, only give me so much of your time in exchange of it, as to lay an amiable[163] siege to the honesty of this Ford’s wife. Use your art of wooing, win her to consent to you. If any man may, you may as soon as any.

FALSTAFFWould it apply well to[165] the vehemency of your affection that I should win what you would enjoy? Methinks you prescribe to yourself very preposterously.[166]

FORDO, understand my drift:[167] she dwells so securely on the excellency of her honour that the folly[168] of my soul dares not present itself. She is too bright to be looked against.[169] Now, could I come to her with any detection in my hand, my desires had instance[170] and argument to commend themselves: I could drive her then from the ward[171] of her purity, her reputation, her marriage-vow, and a thousand other[172] her defences, which now are too too strongly embattled against me. What say you to’t, Sir John?

FALSTAFFMaster Broom, I will first make bold with your money. Takes the bag Next, give me your hand. And last, as I am a gentleman, you shall, if you will, enjoy Ford’s wife.

FORDO, good sir!

FALSTAFFI say you shall.

FORDWant[178] no money, Sir John: you shall want none.

FALSTAFFWant no Mistress Ford, Master Broom, you shall want none. I shall be with her, I may tell you, by her own appointment. Even as you came in to me, her assistant or go-between parted from me. I say I shall be with her between ten and eleven, for at that time the jealous rascally knave her husband will be forth.[182] Come you to me at night: you shall know how I speed.[183]

FORDI am blest in your acquaintance. Do you know Ford, sir?

FALSTAFFHang him, poor cuckoldly knave, I know him not. Yet I wrong him to call him poor: they say the jealous wittolly[186] knave hath masses of money, for the which his wife seems to me well-favoured.[187] I will use her as the key of the cuckoldly rogue’s coffer, and there’s my harvest-home.[188]

FORDI would you knew Ford, sir, that you might avoid him if you saw him.

FALSTAFFHang him, mechanical[190] salt-butter rogue! I will stare him out of his wits, I will awe him with my cudgel. It shall hang like a meteor[191] o’er the cuckold’s horns. Master Broom, thou shalt know I will predominate[192] over the peasant, and thou shalt lie with his wife. Come to me soon at night. Ford’s a knave, and I will aggravate his style.[194] Thou, Master Broom, shalt know him for knave and cuckold. Come to me soon at night.

[Exit]

FORDWhat a damned Epicurean[196] rascal is this? My heart is ready to crack with impatience. Who says this is improvident[197] jealousy? My wife hath sent to him, the hour is fixed, the match is made. Would any man have thought this? See the hell of having a false[199] woman: my bed shall be abused, my coffers ransacked, my reputation gnawn at, and I shall not only receive this villainous wrong, but stand[200] under the adoption of abominable terms, and by him that does me this wrong. Terms, names! Amaimon[202] sounds well: Lucifer, well: Barbason, well: yet they are devils’ additions,[203] the names of fiends. But Cuckold? Wittol? Cuckold? The devil himself hath not such a name. Page is an ass, a secure[204] ass. He will trust his wife, he will not be jealous. I will rather trust a Fleming[205] with my butter, Parson Hugh the Welshman with my cheese, an Irishman with my aqua-vitae[206] bottle, or a thief to walk[207] my ambling gelding, than my wife with herself. Then she plots, then she ruminates, then she devises: and what they think in their hearts they may effect — they will break their hearts but they will effect. Heaven be praised for my jealousy! Eleven o’clock the hour. I will prevent this, detect my wife, be revenged on Falstaff, and laugh at Page. I will about it. Better three hours too soon than a minute too late. Fie, fie, fie! Cuckold, cuckold, cuckold!

Exit

Act 2 Scene 3

running scene 7

Enter Caius and Rugby

CAIUSJack Rugby!

RUGBYSir?

CAIUSVat is the clock, Jack?

RUGBY’Tis past the hour, sir, that Sir Hugh promised to meet.

CAIUSBy gar, he has save his soul, dat he is no come. He has pray his Pible well, dat he is no come. By gar, Jack Rugby, he is dead already, if he be come.

RUGBYHe is wise, sir. He knew your worship would kill him, if he came.

CAIUSBy gar, de herring is no[8] dead, so as I vill kill him. Draws Take your rapier, Jack. I vill tell you how I vill kill him.

RUGBYAlas, sir, I cannot fence.

CAIUSVillainy,[11] take your rapier.

RUGBYForbear. Here’s company. Caius sheathes his sword

[Enter Host, Shallow, Slender and Page]

HOSTBless thee, bully doctor.

SHALLOW’Save[14] you, Master Doctor Caius.

PAGENow, good master doctor.

SLENDERGive you good morrow, sir.

CAIUSVat be all you, one, two, tree, four, come for?

HOSTTo see thee fight, to see thee foin,[18] to see thee traverse, to see thee here, to see thee there, to see thee pass thy punto, thy stock,[19] thy reverse, thy distance, thy montant.[20] Is he dead, my Ethiopian? Is he dead, my Francisco? Ha, bully! What says my Aesculapius,[21] my Galen, my heart of elder? Ha? Is he dead, bully stale? Is he dead?

CAIUSBy gar, he is de coward Jack-priest of de vorld. He is not show his face.

HOSTThou art a Castalion[24] king-urinal. Hector of Greece, my boy!

CAIUSI pray you bear witness that me have stay, six or seven, two, tree hours for him, and he is no come.

SHALLOWHe is the wiser man, Master Doctor: he is a curer of souls, and you a curer of bodies. If you should fight, you go against the hair[28] of your professions. Is it not true, Master Page?

PAGEMaster Shallow, you have yourself been a great fighter, though now a man of peace.

SHALLOWBodykins,[32] Master Page, though I now be old and of the peace, if I see a sword out, my finger itches to make one.[33] Though we are justices and doctors and churchmen, Master Page, we have some salt[34] of our youth in us. We are the sons of women, Master Page.

PAGE’Tis true, Master Shallow.

SHALLOWIt will be found so, Master Page.— Master Doctor Caius, I am come to fetch you home. I am sworn of the peace. You have showed yourself a wise physician, and Sir Hugh hath shown himself a wise and patient churchman. You must go with me, Master Doctor.

HOSTPardon, guest-justice.[41] A word, Monsieur Mockwater.

CAIUSMock-vater? Vat is dat?

HOSTMockwater, in our English tongue, is valour, bully.

CAIUSBy gar, then I have as much mock-vater as de Englishman. Scurvy Jack-dog[44] priest! By gar, me vill cut his ears.

HOSTHe will clapper-claw[46] thee tightly, bully.

CAIUSClapper-de-claw? Vat is dat?

HOSTThat is, he will make thee amends.

CAIUSBy gar, me do look he shall clapper-de-claw me, for, by gar, me vill have it.

HOSTAnd I will provoke him to’t, or let him wag.

CAIUSMe tank you for dat.

HOSTAnd, moreover, bully— Speaks aside with Shallow, Page and Slender but first, Master guest, and Master Page, and eke Cavaliero Slender, go you through the town to Frogmore.[54]

PAGESir Hugh is there, is he?

HOSTHe is there. See what humour he is in. And I will bring the doctor about by the fields. Will it do well?

SHALLOWWe will do it.

PAGE, SHALLOW and SLENDER Adieu, Good Master Doctor.

[Exeunt Page, Shallow and Slender]

CAIUSBy gar, me vill kill de priest, for he speak for a jack-an-ape[60] to Anne Page.

HOSTLet him die. Sheathe thy impatience, throw cold water on thy choler. Go about the fields with me through Frogmore. I will bring thee where Mistress Anne Page is, at a farmhouse a-feasting, and thou shalt woo her. Cried game,[63] said I well?

CAIUSBy gar, me dank you vor dat. By gar, I love you, and I shall procure-a you de good guest: de earl, de knight, de lords, de gentlemen, my patients.

HOSTFor the which I will be thy adversary[67] toward Anne Page. Said I well?

CAIUSBy gar, ’tis good, vell said.

HOSTLet us wag, then.

CAIUSCome at my heels, Jack Rugby.

Exeunt

Act 3 Scene 1

running scene 8

Enter Evans and Simple Evans with a sword in one hand and a book in the other

Simple carrying Evans’ gown

EVANSI pray you now, good master Slender’s serving-man, and friend Simple by your name, which way have you looked for Master Caius, that calls himself doctor of physic?[3]

SIMPLEMarry, sir, the Petty-ward,[4] the Park-ward, every way: Old Windsor way, and every way but the town way.

EVANSI most fehemently desire you, you will also look that way.

SIMPLEI will, sir. Steps aside and keeps watch

EVANSPless my soul, how full of chollors[8] I am, and trempling of mind! I shall be glad if he have deceived me. How melancholies I am! I will knog[9] his urinals about his knave’s costard[10] when I have good opportunities for the ’ork. Pless my soul!

To shallow rivers,[12] to whose falls Sings

Melodious birds sings madrigals.[13]

There will we make our peds of roses,

15

And a thousand fragrant posies.

To shallow—

Mercy on me! I have a great dispositions to cry.

Melodious birds sing madrigals. Sings

When[19] as I sat in Pabylon

20

— And a thousand vagram[20] posies.

To shallow, etc.

SIMPLEYonder he[22] is coming, this way, Sir Hugh.

EVANSHe’s welcome.

To shallow rivers, to whose falls— Sings

Heaven prosper the right! What weapons is he?

SIMPLENo weapons,[26] sir. There comes my master, Master Shallow, and another gentleman, from Frogmore, over the stile, this way.

Enter Page, Shallow and Slender

EVANSPray you give me my gown, or else keep it in your arms. Reads his Bible

SHALLOWHow now, Master Parson? Good morrow, good Sir Hugh. Keep a gamester from the dice, and a good student from his book, and it is wonderful.

SLENDERAh, sweet Anne Page! Aside?

PAGE’Save you, good Sir Hugh!

EVANS’Pless you from[33] his mercy sake, all of you!

SHALLOWWhat, the sword[34] and the word? Do you study them both, Master Parson?

PAGEAnd youthful still: in your doublet and hose,[35] this raw rheumatic day?

EVANSThere is reasons and causes for it.

PAGEWe are come to you to do a good office, Master Parson.

EVANSFery well: what is it?

PAGEYonder is a most reverend gentleman, who, belike,[39] having received wrong by some person, is at most odds[40] with his own gravity and patience that ever you saw.

SHALLOWI have lived fourscore[42] years and upward: I never heard a man of his place, gravity and learning so wide[43] of his own respect.

EVANSWhat is he?

PAGEI think you know him: Master Doctor Caius, the renowned French physician.

EVANSGot’s will, and his passion of my heart, I had as lief[47] you would tell me of a mess of porridge.[48]

PAGEWhy?

EVANSHe has no more knowledge in Hibocrates[50] and Galen, and he is a knave besides — a cowardly[51] knave as you would desires to be acquainted withal.

PAGEI warrant you, he’s[52] the man should fight with him. To Shallow

SLENDERO sweet Anne Page! Aside?

SHALLOWIt appears so by his weapons. Keep them asunder: here comes Doctor Caius.

[Enter Host, Caius and Rugby] Evans and Caius prepare to fight

PAGENay, good Master Parson, keep in your weapon.

SHALLOWSo do you, good Master Doctor.

HOSTDisarm them, and let them question.[58] Shallow and Page take their swords Let them keep their limbs whole and hack our English.[59]

CAIUSI pray you, let-a me speak a word with your ear. Vherefore vill you not meet-a me?

EVANSPray you, use your patience.— Aside to Caius/Aloud In good time.

CAIUSBy gar, you are de coward, de Jack dog, John ape.

EVANSPray you, let us not be laughing-stocks to other men’s humours. Aside to Caius I desire you in friendship, and I will one way or other make you amends.— I will knog your urinal about your knave’s coxcomb.[66] Aloud

CAIUSDiable! Jack Rugby, mine host de Jarteer, have I not stay[67] for him to kill him? Have I not, at de place I did appoint?

EVANSAs I am a Christians soul, now look you, this is the place appointed, I’ll be judgement by[70] mine host of the Garter.

HOSTPeace, I say, Gallia and Gaul,[71] French and Welsh, soul-curer and body-curer!

CAIUSAy, dat is very good, excellent.

HOSTPeace, I say. Hear mine host of the Garter. Am I politic?[74] Am I subtle? Am I a Machiavel?[75] Shall I lose my doctor? No, he gives me the potions and the motions.[76] Shall I lose my parson? My priest? My Sir Hugh? No, he gives me the proverbs and the no-verbs.[77] To Caius/To Evans Give me thy hand, terrestrial, so. Give me thy hand, celestial,[78] so. Boys of art, I have deceived you both: I have directed you to wrong places. Your hearts are mighty, your skins are whole, and let burned sack be the issue.[80]— To Page and Shallow Come, lay their swords to pawn.— Follow me, lads of peace, follow, follow, follow.

[Exit] To Caius and Evans

SHALLOWTrust me, a mad host. Follow, gentlemen, follow.

SLENDERO sweet Anne Page! Aside?

[Exeunt Shallow, Slender and Page]

CAIUSHa, do I perceive dat? Have you make-a de sot[84] of us, ha, ha?

EVANSThis is well, he has made us his vlouting-stog.[85] I desire you that we may be friends, and let us knog our prains together to be revenge on this same scall,[86] scurvy cogging companion,[87] the host of the Garter.

CAIUSBy gar, with all my heart. He promise to bring me where is Anne Page: by gar, he deceive me too.

EVANSWell, I will smite his noddles.[90] Pray you, follow.

[Exeunt]

Act 3 Scene 2

running scene 9

Enter Robin [followed by] Mistress Page

MISTRESS PAGENay, keep your way,[1] little gallant. You were wont to be a follower, but now you are a leader. Whether[2] had you rather lead mine eyes, or eye your master’s heels?

ROBINI had rather, forsooth, go before you like a man than follow him like a dwarf.

MISTRESS PAGEO, you are a flattering boy. Now I see you’ll be a courtier.

[Enter Ford]

FORDWell met, Mistress Page. Whither go you?

MISTRESS PAGETruly, sir, to see your wife. Is she at home?

FORDAy, and as[9] idle as she may hang together, for want of company. I think, if your husbands were dead, you two would marry.

MISTRESS PAGEBe sure of that — two other husbands.

FORDWhere had you this pretty weather-cock?

MISTRESS PAGEI cannot tell what the dickens his[13] name is my husband had him of. What do you call your knight’s name, sirrah?

ROBINSir John Falstaff.

FORDSir John Falstaff?

MISTRESS PAGEHe, he. I can never hit on’s name. There is such a league[17] between my good man and he. Is your wife at home indeed?

FORDIndeed she is.

MISTRESS PAGEBy your leave, sir, I am sick till I see her.

[Exeunt Mistress Page and Robin]

FORDHas Page any brains? Hath he any eyes? Hath he any thinking? Sure they sleep, he hath no use of them. Why, this boy will carry a letter twenty mile as easy as a cannon will shoot point-blank twelvescore.[23] He pieces out his wife’s inclination, he gives her folly[24] motion and advantage. And now she’s going to my wife, and Falstaff’s boy with her. A man may hear[25] this shower sing in the wind. And Falstaff’s boy with her. Good plots, they are laid, and our revolted[26] wives share damnation together. Well, I will take him,[27] then torture my wife, pluck the borrowed veil of modesty from the so-seeming Mistress Page, divulge[28] Page himself for a secure and wilful[29] Actaeon, and to these violent proceedings all my neighbours shall cry aim.[30] A clock strikes The clock gives me my cue, and my assurance bids me search: there I shall find Falstaff. I shall be rather praised for this than mocked, for it is as positive as the earth is firm that Falstaff is there. I will go.

[Enter Page, Shallow, Slender, Host, Evans, Caius and Rugby]

SHALLOW, PAGE and OTHERSWell met, Master Ford.

FORDTrust me, a good knot.[34] I have good cheer at home, and I pray you all go with me.

SHALLOWI must excuse myself, Master Ford.

SLENDERAnd so must I, sir. We have appointed to dine with Mistress Anne, and I would not break with[38] her for more money than I’ll speak of.

SHALLOWWe have lingered about a match between Anne Page and my cousin Slender, and this day we shall have our answer.

SLENDERI hope I have your good will, father Page.

PAGEYou have, Master Slender, I stand wholly for you. But my wife, Master Doctor, is for you altogether.

CAIUSAy, be-gar, and de maid is love-a me. My nursh-a Quickly tell me so mush.

HOSTWhat say you to young Master Fenton? To Page He capers,[46] he dances, he has eyes of youth, he writes verses, he speaks holiday,[47] he smells April and May. He will carry’t,[48] he will carry’t, ’tis in his buttons, he will carry’t.

PAGENot by my consent, I promise you. The gentleman is of no having:[49] he kept company with the wild[50] prince and Poins. He is of too high a region, he knows too much. No, he shall not knit a knot[51] in his fortunes with the finger of my substance. If he take her, let him take her simply:[52] the wealth I have waits on my consent, and my consent goes not that way.

FORDI beseech you heartily, some of you go home with me to dinner. Besides your cheer, you shall have sport: I will show you a monster.[55] Master Doctor, you shall go, so shall you, Master Page, and you, Sir Hugh.

SHALLOWWell, fare you well.— Aside to Slender We shall have the freer wooing at Master Page’s. [Exeunt Shallow and Slender]

CAIUSGo home, John Rugby, I come anon.[59] [Exit Rugby]

HOSTFarewell, my hearts.[60] I will to my honest knight Falstaff, and drink canary with him. [Exit]

FORDI think I shall drink in pipe wine[62] first with him. Aside I’ll make him dance.— Will you go, gentles?[63] Aloud

ALLHave with[64] you to see this monster.

Exeunt

Act 3 Scene 3

running scene 10

Enter Mistress Ford and Mistress Page

MISTRESS FORDWhat, John? What, Robert?

MISTRESS PAGEQuickly, quickly! Is the buck-basket[2]—

MISTRESS FORDI warrant. What, Robin, I say!

[Enter John and Robert with a laundry basket]

MISTRESS PAGECome, come, come.

MISTRESS FORDHere, set it down.

MISTRESS PAGEGive your men the charge,[6] we must be brief.

MISTRESS FORDMarry, as I told you before, John and Robert, be ready here hard[7] by in the brew-house,[8] and when I suddenly call you, come forth, and without any pause or staggering take this basket on your shoulders: that done, trudge with it in all haste, and carry it among the whitsters[10] in Datchet Mead, and there empty it in the muddy ditch close by the Thames side.

MISTRESS PAGEYou will do it? To John and Robert

MISTRESS FORDI ha’ told them over and over, they lack no direction. Be gone, and come when you are called.

[Exeunt John and Robert]

MISTRESS PAGEHere comes little Robin.

[Enter Robin]

MISTRESS FORDHow now, my eyas-musket?[16] What news with you?

ROBINMy master, Sir John, is come in at your back-door, Mistress Ford, and requests your company.

MISTRESS PAGEYou little Jack-a-Lent,[19] have you been true to us?

ROBINAy, I’ll be sworn. My master knows not of your being here and hath threatened to put me into everlasting liberty[21] if I tell you of it: for he swears he’ll turn me away.[22]

MISTRESS PAGEThou’rt a good boy. This secrecy of thine shall be a tailor to thee, and shall make thee a new doublet and hose. I’ll go hide me.

MISTRESS FORDDo so.— To Robin Go tell thy master I am alone.

[Exit Robin]

Mistress Page, remember you your cue.

MISTRESS PAGEI warrant thee: if I do not act it, hiss me.

[Exit]

MISTRESS FORDGo to, then. We’ll use this unwholesome humidity,[28] this gross watery pumpion.[29] We’ll teach him to know turtles from jays.

[Enter Falstaff]

FALSTAFFHave[30] I caught thee, my heavenly jewel? Why, now let me die, for I have lived long enough: this is the period[31] of my ambition. O this blessèd hour!

MISTRESS FORDO sweet Sir John!

FALSTAFFMistress Ford, I cannot cog,[33] I cannot prate, Mistress Ford. Now shall I sin in my wish: I would thy husband were dead. I’ll speak it before the best lord. I would make thee my lady.

MISTRESS FORDI your lady, Sir John? Alas, I should be a pitiful lady!

FALSTAFFLet the court of France show me such another. I see how thine eye would emulate the diamond: thou hast the right arched beauty of the brow that becomes the ship-tire,[39] the tire-valiant, or any tire of Venetian admittance.

MISTRESS FORDA plain kerchief,[40] Sir John: my brows become nothing else, nor that well neither.

FALSTAFFThou art a tyrant to say so: thou wouldst make an absolute[42] courtier, and the firm[43] fixture of thy foot would give an excellent motion to thy gait in a semi-circled farthingale. I see what thou wert if Fortune[44] thy foe were not, Nature thy friend. Come, thou canst not hide it.

MISTRESS FORDBelieve me, there’s no such thing in me.

FALSTAFFWhat made me love thee? Let that persuade thee there’s something extraordinary in thee. Come, I cannot cog and say thou art this and that, like a many of these lisping hawthorn-buds[49] that come like women in men’s apparel and smell like Bucklersbury[50] in simple time. I cannot. But I love thee, none but thee — and thou deservest it.

MISTRESS FORDDo not betray me, sir. I fear you love Mistress Page.

FALSTAFFThou mightst as well say I love to walk by the Counter-gate,[53] which is as hateful to me as the reek[54] of a lime-kiln.

MISTRESS FORDWell, heaven knows how I love you, and you shall one day find it.

FALSTAFFKeep in that mind, I’ll deserve it.

MISTRESS FORDNay, I must tell you, so you do, or else I could not be in that mind.

ROBINMistress Ford, Mistress Ford, Speaks within or enters here’s Mistress Page at the door, sweating and blowing[59] and looking wildly, and would needs speak with you presently.

FALSTAFFShe shall not see me: Falstaff hides himself I will ensconce me[60] behind the arras.

MISTRESS FORDPray you, do so: she’s a very tattling woman.

[Enter Mistress Page] Robin may enter here

What’s the matter? How now?

MISTRESS PAGEO Mistress Ford, what have you done? You’re shamed, you’re overthrown, you’re undone[64] forever!

MISTRESS FORDWhat’s the matter, good Mistress Page?

MISTRESS PAGEO, well-a-day,[66] Mistress Ford, having an honest man to your husband, to give him such cause of suspicion!

MISTRESS FORDWhat cause of suspicion?

MISTRESS PAGEWhat cause of suspicion? Out upon you![69] How am I mistook in you?

MISTRESS FORDWhy, alas, what’s the matter?

MISTRESS PAGEYour husband’s coming hither, woman, with all the officers in Windsor, to search for a gentleman that he says is here now in the house by your consent, to take an ill advantage of his absence. You are undone.

MISTRESS FORD’Tis not so, I hope.

MISTRESS PAGEPray heaven it be not so, that you have such a man here! But ’tis most certain your husband’s coming, with half Windsor at his heels, to search for such a one. I come before to tell you. If you know yourself clear,[77] why, I am glad of it: but if you have a friend[78] here, convey, convey him out. Be not amazed, call all your senses to you, defend your reputation, or bid farewell to your good life[79] forever.

MISTRESS FORDWhat shall I do? There is a gentleman my dear friend — and I fear not mine own shame so much as his peril. I had rather than a thousand pound he were out of the house.

MISTRESS PAGEFor shame, never stand[84] ‘you had rather’ and ‘you had rather’. Your husband’s here at hand! Bethink you of some conveyance[85] — in the house you cannot hide him. O, how have you deceived me? Look, here is a basket. If he be of any reasonable stature, he may creep in here, and throw foul linen upon him, as if it were going to bucking. Or — it is whiting-time[88] — send him by your two men to Datchet Mead.

MISTRESS FORDHe’s too big to go in there. What shall I do?

FALSTAFFLet me see’t, let me see’t, O, let me see’t! I’ll in, I’ll in. Comes out of hiding Follow your friend’s counsel. I’ll in.

MISTRESS PAGEWhat, Sir John Falstaff? Aside to Falstaff Are these your letters, knight?

FALSTAFFI love thee. Help me away. Gets into the basket. They cover him with foul linen/To Robin Let me creep in here. I’ll never—

MISTRESS PAGEHelp to cover your master, boy.— Call your men, Mistress Ford.— To Falstaff You dissembling[96] knight!

MISTRESS FORDWhat, John! Robert! John!

[Exit Robin]

[Enter John and Robert]

Go take up these clothes here quickly. They attempt to fit the cowl-staff[98] Where’s the cowl-staff? Look, how you drumble![99] Carry them to the laundress in Datchet Mead. Quickly, come.

[Enter Ford, Page, Caius and Evans]

FORDPray you, come near. To Page, Caius and Evans If I suspect without cause, why then make sport at me, then let me be your jest, I deserve it. How now? Whither bear you this?

JOHNTo the laundress, forsooth.

MISTRESS FORDWhy, what[103] have you to do whither they bear it? You were best meddle with buck-washing.

FORDBuck?[105] I would I could wash myself of the buck! Buck, buck, buck! Ay, buck! I warrant you, buck — and of the season[106] too, it shall appear.

[Exeunt John and Robert with the basket]

Gentlemen, I have dreamed tonight.[107] I’ll tell you my dream. Here, here, here be my keys: ascend my chambers,[108] search, seek, find out. I’ll warrant we’ll unkennel the fox. Locks the door Let me stop this way first. So, now uncape.[109]

PAGEGood Master Ford, be contented.[110] You wrong yourself too much.

FORDTrue, Master Page. Up, gentlemen. You shall see sport anon. Follow me, gentlemen.

[Exit]

EVANSThis is fery fantastical humours and jealousies.

CAIUSBy gar, ’tis no the fashion of France: it is not jealous in France.

PAGENay, follow him, gentlemen. See the issue of his search.

[Exeunt Page, Caius and Evans]

MISTRESS PAGEIs there not a double excellency in this?

MISTRESS FORDI know not which pleases me better, that my husband is deceived, or Sir John.

MISTRESS PAGEWhat a taking[119] was he in, when your husband asked who was in the basket!

MISTRESS FORDI am half afraid he will have need of washing,[121] so throwing him into the water will do him a benefit.

MISTRESS PAGEHang him, dishonest rascal! I would all of the same strain[123] were in the same distress.

MISTRESS FORDI think my husband hath some special suspicion of Falstaff’s being here, for I never saw him so gross in his jealousy till now.

MISTRESS PAGEI will lay a plot to try[127] that, and we will yet have more tricks with Falstaff: his dissolute disease will scarce obey this medicine.

MISTRESS FORDShall we send that foolish carrion,[129] Mistress Quickly, to him, and excuse his throwing into the water, and give him another hope, to betray him to another punishment?

MISTRESS PAGEWe will do it: let him be sent for tomorrow eight o’clock to have amends.

[Enter Ford, Page, Caius and Evans]

FORDI cannot find him. Maybe the knave bragged of that he could not compass.[135]

MISTRESS PAGEHeard you that? Aside to Mistress Ford

MISTRESS FORDYou use[137] me well, Master Ford, do you?

FORDAy, I do so.

MISTRESS FORDHeaven make you better than your thoughts!

FORDAmen!

MISTRESS PAGEYou do yourself mighty wrong, Master Ford.

FORDAy, ay, I must bear it.

EVANSIf there be any pody in the house, and in the chambers, and in the coffers, and in the presses,[144] heaven forgive my sins at the day of judgement.

CAIUSBy gar, nor I too. There is no bodies.

PAGEFie, fie, Master Ford, are you not ashamed? What spirit, what devil suggests this imagination? I would not ha’ your distemper[147] in this kind for the wealth of Windsor Castle.

FORD’Tis my fault, Master Page. I suffer for it.

EVANSYou suffer for a pad conscience: your wife is as[150] honest a ’omans as I will desires among five thousand, and five hundred too.

CAIUSBy gar, I see ’tis an honest woman.

FORDWell, I promised you a dinner. Come, come, walk in the park, I pray you pardon me. I will hereafter make known to you why I have done this. Come, wife, come, Mistress Page. I pray you pardon me. Pray heartily pardon me.

PAGELet’s go in, gentlemen, but trust me, we’ll mock him.— To Caius and Evans I do invite you tomorrow morning to my house to breakfast. To Ford, Caius and Evans After, we’ll a-birding[158] together, I have a fine hawk for the bush. Shall it be so?

FORDAnything.

EVANSIf there is one, I shall make two in the company.

CAIUSIf there be one or two, I shall make-a the turd.

FORDPray you, go, Master Page.

[Exeunt all but Evans and Caius?]

EVANSI pray you now remembrance[163] tomorrow on the lousy knave, mine host.

CAIUSDat is good, by gar, with all my heart.

EVANSA lousy knave, to have his gibes and his mockeries.

Exeunt

Act 3 Scene 4

running scene 11

Enter Fenton [and] Anne

FENTONI see I cannot get thy father’s love,

Therefore no more turn[2] me to him, sweet Nan.

ANNEAlas, how then?

FENTONWhy, thou must be thyself.[4]

5

He doth object I am too great of birth,

And that, my state[6] being galled with my expense,

I seek to heal it only by his wealth.

Besides these, other bars[8] he lays before me:

My riots[9] past, my wild societies,

10

And tells me ’tis a thing impossible

I should love thee but as a property.

ANNEMaybe he tells you true.

FENTONNo, heaven so speed[13] me in my time to come!

Albeit I will confess thy father’s wealth

15

Was the first motive that I wooed thee, Anne,

Yet, wooing thee, I found thee of more value

Than stamps[17] in gold or sums in sealèd bags.

And ’tis the very riches of thyself

That now I aim at.

20

ANNEGentle Master Fenton,

Yet seek my father’s love, still seek it, sir.

If opportunity and humblest suit

Cannot attain it, why, then — hark you hither! They speak apart

[Enter Shallow, Slender and Mistress Quickly]

SHALLOWBreak[24] their talk, Mistress Quickly. My kinsman shall speak for himself.

SLENDERI’ll[25] make a shaft or a bolt on’t. ’Slid, ’tis but venturing.

SHALLOWBe not dismayed.[26]

SLENDERNo, she shall not dismay me: I care not for that, but that I am afeard.

MISTRESS QUICKLYHark ye, Master Slender would speak a word with you.

ANNEI come to him.— This is my father’s choice. Aside to Fenton O, what a world of vile ill-favoured[30] faults Looks handsome in three hundred pounds a year!

MISTRESS QUICKLYAnd how does good Master Fenton? They speak apart Pray you, a word with you.

SHALLOWShe’s coming. To her, coz. O boy, thou[33] hadst a father!

SLENDERI had a father, Mistress Anne: my uncle can tell you good jests of him. Pray you, uncle, tell Mistress Anne the jest how my father stole two geese out of a pen, good uncle.

SHALLOWMistress Anne, my cousin loves you.

SLENDERAy, that I do, as well as I love any woman in Gloucestershire.

SHALLOWHe will maintain you like a gentlewoman.

SLENDERAy, that I will, come[40] cut and long-tail, under the degree of a squire.

SHALLOWHe will make you a hundred and fifty pounds jointure.[41]

ANNEGood Master Shallow, let him woo for himself.

SHALLOWMarry, I thank you for it: I thank you for that good comfort. She calls you, coz. I’ll leave you. Stands aside

ANNENow, Master Slender.

SLENDERNow, good Mistress Anne.

ANNEWhat is your will?[47]

SLENDERMy will? ’Od’s heartlings,[48] that’s a pretty jest indeed! I ne’er made my will yet, I thank heaven. I am not such a sickly creature, I give heaven praise.

ANNEI mean, Master Slender, what would you with me?

SLENDERTruly, for mine own part, I would little or nothing with you. Your father and my uncle hath made motions.[52] If it be my luck, so; if not, happy man be his dole. They can tell you how things go better than I can. You may ask your father, here he comes.

[Enter Page and Mistress Page]

55

PAGENow, Master Slender — love him, daughter Anne.—

Why, how now? What does Master Fenton here?

You wrong me, sir, thus still to haunt[57] my house:

I told you, sir, my daughter is disposed of.

FENTONNay, Master Page, be not impatient.

60

MISTRESS PAGEGood Master Fenton, come not to my child.

PAGEShe is no match for you.

FENTONSir, will you hear me?

PAGENo, good Master Fenton.—

Come, Master Shallow. Come, son Slender, in.—

65

Knowing my mind, you wrong me, Master Fenton.

[Exeunt Page, Shallow and Slender]

MISTRESS QUICKLYSpeak to Mistress Page.

FENTONGood Mistress Page, for that[67] I love your daughter

In such a righteous fashion as I do,

Perforce,[69] against all checks, rebukes and manners,

70

I must advance the colours[70] of my love

And not retire. Let me have your good will.

ANNEGood mother, do not marry me to yond[72] fool.

MISTRESS PAGEI mean it not, I seek you a better husband.

MISTRESS QUICKLYThat’s my master, Master Doctor.

75

ANNEAlas, I had rather be set quick[75] i’th’earth,

And bowled to death with turnips!

MISTRESS PAGECome, trouble not yourself. Good Master Fenton,

I will not be your friend nor enemy:

My daughter will I question how she loves you,

80

And as I find her, so am I affected.[80]

Till then, farewell, sir. She must needs go in,

Her father will be angry.

FENTONFarewell, gentle mistress.— Farewell, Nan.

[Exeunt Mistress Page and Anne]

MISTRESS QUICKLYThis is my doing, now. ‘Nay,’ said I, ‘will you cast away your child on a fool, and a physician? Look on Master Fenton.’ This is my doing.

FENTONI thank thee, and I pray thee once[86] tonight, Give my sweet Nan this ring. Gives her a ring and money There’s[87] for thy pains.

MISTRESS QUICKLYNow heaven send thee good fortune.

[Exit Fenton]

A kind heart he hath. A woman would run through fire and water for such a kind heart. But yet I would my master had Mistress Anne, or I would Master Slender had her: or, in sooth,[91] I would Master Fenton had her. I will do what I can for them all three, for so I have promised, and I’ll be as good as my word — but speciously[93] for Master Fenton. Well, I must of another errand to Sir John Falstaff from my two mistresses. What a beast am I to slack it!

Exit

Act 3 Scene 5

running scene 12

Enter Falstaff

FALSTAFFBardolph, I say!

[Enter Bardolph]

BARDOLPHHere, sir.

FALSTAFFGo fetch me a quart[3] of sack: put a toast in’t.

[Exit Bardolph]

Have I lived to be carried in a basket like a barrow[4] of butcher’s offal, and to be thrown in the Thames? Well, if I be served such another trick, I’ll have my brains ta’en out and buttered, and give them to a dog for a new-year’s gift. The rogues slighted me[7] into the river with as little remorse as they would have drowned a blind bitch’s puppies,[8] fifteen i’th’litter. And you may know by my size that I have a kind of alacrity in sinking: if the bottom were as deep as hell, I should down.[9] I had been drowned, but that the shore was shelvy[10] and shallow — a death that I abhor, for the water swells a man — and what a thing should I have been when I had been swelled? I should have been a mountain of mummy.[12]

[Enter Bardolph with sack]

BARDOLPHHere’s Mistress Quickly, sir, to speak with you.

FALSTAFFCome. let me pour in some sack to the Thames water, for my belly’s as cold as if I had swallowed snowballs for pills to cool the reins.[15] Call her in.

BARDOLPHCome in, woman.

[Enter Mistress Quickly]

MISTRESS QUICKLYBy your leave, I cry you mercy![17] Give your worship good morrow.

FALSTAFFTake away these chalices. To Bardolph Go, brew me a pottle[18] of sack finely.

BARDOLPHWith eggs, sir?

FALSTAFFSimple[20] of itself. I’ll no pullet-sperm in my brewage.— How now?

[Exit Bardolph]

MISTRESS QUICKLYMarry, sir, I come to your worship from Mistress Ford.

FALSTAFFMistress Ford? I have had ford enough. I was thrown into the ford, I have my belly full of ford.[24]

MISTRESS QUICKLYAlas the day, good heart, that was not her fault. She does so take on with[25] her men: they mistook their erection.[26]

FALSTAFFSo did I mine, to build upon a foolish woman’s promise.

MISTRESS QUICKLYWell, she laments, sir, for it, that it would yearn[28] your heart to see it. Her husband goes this morning a-birding. She desires you once more to come to her between eight and nine. I must carry her word quickly. She’ll make you amends, I warrant you.

FALSTAFFWell, I will visit her. Tell her so, and bid her think what a man is. Let her consider his frailty,[33] and then judge of my merit.

MISTRESS QUICKLYI will tell her.

FALSTAFFDo so. Between nine and ten, say’st thou?

MISTRESS QUICKLYEight and nine, sir.

FALSTAFFWell, be gone. I will not miss[37] her.

MISTRESS QUICKLYPeace be with you, sir.

[Exit]

FALSTAFFI marvel I hear not of Master Broom. He sent me word to stay within. I like his money well. O, here he comes.

[Enter Ford, disguised as Broom]

FORDBless you, sir!

FALSTAFFNow, Master Broom, you come to know what hath passed between me and Ford’s wife.

FORDThat indeed, Sir John, is my business.

FALSTAFFMaster Broom, I will not lie to you: I was at her house the hour she appointed me.

FORDAnd sped you,[47] sir?

FALSTAFFVery ill-favouredly,[48] Master Broom.

FORDHow so, sir? Did she change her determination?[49]

FALSTAFFNo, Master Broom, but the peaking cornuto[50] her husband, Master Broom, dwelling in a continual ’larum[51] of jealousy, comes me in the instant of our encounter, after we had embraced, kissed, protested,[52] and, as it were, spoke the prologue of our comedy: and at his heels a rabble of his companions, thither provoked and instigated by his distemper, and, forsooth, to search his house for his wife’s love.

FORDWhat, while you were there?

FALSTAFFWhile I was there.

FORDAnd did he search for you, and could not find you?

FALSTAFFYou shall hear. As good luck would have it, comes in one Mistress Page, gives intelligence of Ford’s approach: and, in her invention and Ford’s wife’s distraction, they conveyed me into a buck-basket.

FORDA buck-basket?

FALSTAFFYes, a buck-basket! Rammed[62] me in with foul shirts and smocks, socks, foul stockings, greasy napkins, that,[63] Master Broom, there was the rankest compound of villainous smell that ever offended nostril.

FORDAnd how long lay you there?

FALSTAFFNay, you shall hear, Master Broom, what I have suffered to bring this woman to evil for your good. Being thus crammed in the basket, a couple of Ford’s knaves, his hinds,[68] were called forth by their mistress to carry me in the name of foul clothes to Datchet Lane: they took me on their shoulders, met the jealous knave their master in the door, who asked them once or twice what they had in their basket. I quaked for fear, lest the lunatic knave would have searched it, but fate, ordaining he should be a cuckold, held[72] his hand. Well, on went he for a search, and away went I for foul clothes. But mark[73] the sequel, Master Broom. I suffered the pangs of three several[74] deaths: first, an intolerable fright, to be detected with[75] a jealous rotten bell-wether: next, to be compassed, like a good bilbo in the circumference of a peck,[76] hilt to point, heel to head, and then, to be stopped in like a strong distillation[77] with stinking clothes that fretted in their own grease. Think of that, a man of my kidney,[78] think of that — that am as subject to heat as butter — a man of continual dissolution[79] and thaw: it was a miracle to scape suffocation. And in the height of this bath, when I was more than half stewed in grease like a Dutch dish,[81] to be thrown into the Thames, and cooled, glowing hot, in that surge, like a horse-shoe. Think of that — hissing hot — think of that, Master Broom.

FORDIn good sadness,[84] sir, I am sorry that for my sake you have suffered all this. My suit then is desperate. You’ll undertake her no more?

FALSTAFFMaster Broom, I will be thrown into Etna,[86] as I have been into Thames, ere I will leave her thus. Her husband is this morning gone a-birding. I have received from her another embassy[88] of meeting: ’twixt eight and nine is the hour, Master Broom.

FORD’Tis past eight already, sir.

FALSTAFFIs it? I will then address me to my appointment. Come to me at your convenient leisure, and you shall know how I speed. And the conclusion shall be crowned with your enjoying her. Adieu. You shall have her, Master Broom. Master Broom, you shall cuckold Ford.

[Exit]

FORDHum! Ha! Is this a vision? Is this a dream? Do I sleep? Master Ford awake, awake, Master Ford! There’s a hole[96] made in your best coat, Master Ford. This ’tis to be married, this ’tis to have linen and buck-baskets. Well, I will proclaim myself what I am. I will now take the lecher. He is at my house. He cannot scape me, ’tis impossible he should. He cannot creep into a halfpenny purse,[99] nor into a pepper-box. But, lest the devil that guides him should aid him, I will search impossible places. Though what I am[101] I cannot avoid, yet to be what I would not shall not make me tame. If I have horns to make one mad, let the proverb go with me: I’ll be horn-mad.[102]

Exit

Act 4 Scene 1

running scene 13

Enter Mistress Page, Mistress Quickly [and] William

MISTRESS PAGEIs he at Master Ford’s already, think’st thou?

MISTRESS QUICKLYSure he is by this,[2] or will be presently. But truly he is very courageous[3] mad about his throwing into the water. Mistress Ford desires you to come suddenly.[4]

MISTRESS PAGEI’ll be with her by and by. I’ll but bring my young man here to school. Look where his master comes. ’Tis a playing-day,[6] I see.

[Enter Evans]

How now, Sir Hugh, no school today?

EVANSNo, Master Slender is[8] let the boys leave to play.

MISTRESS QUICKLYBlessing of his heart!

MISTRESS PAGESir Hugh, my husband says my son profits nothing in the world at his book. I pray you, ask him some questions in his accidence.[11]

EVANSCome hither, William. Hold up your head. Come.

MISTRESS PAGECome on, sirrah, hold up your head. Answer your master, be not afraid.

EVANSWilliam, how many numbers is in nouns?

WILLIAM PAGETwo.[15]

MISTRESS QUICKLYTruly, I thought there had been one number more, because they say, ‘Od’s nouns’.[17]

EVANSPeace your tattlings![18] What is ‘fair’, William?

WILLIAM PAGEPulcher.

MISTRESS QUICKLYPolecats?[20] There are fairer things than polecats, sure.

EVANSYou are a very simplicity ’oman. I pray you peace. What is lapis, William?

WILLIAM PAGEA stone.

EVANSAnd what is ‘a stone’, William?

WILLIAM PAGEA pebble.

EVANSNo, it is lapis. I pray you, remember in your prain.

WILLIAM PAGELapis.

EVANSThat is a good William. What is he, William, that does lend articles?[27]

WILLIAM PAGEArticles[28] are borrowed of the pronoun, and be thus declined: Singulariter[29], nominativo, hic, haec, hoc.

EVANSNominativo, hig, hag, hog, pray you mark: genitivo[30], huius. Well, what is your accusative case?

WILLIAM PAGEAccusativo, hinc[32]— Faltering

EVANSI pray you, have your remembrance, child, accusativo, hing, hang, hog.[33]

MISTRESS QUICKLY‘Hang-hog’[34] is Latin for bacon, I warrant you.

EVANSLeave your prabbles,[35] ’oman. What is the focative case, William?

WILLIAM PAGEO,[36] — vocativo, O.

EVANSRemember, William, focative is caret[37].

MISTRESS QUICKLYAnd that’s a good root.

EVANS’Oman, forbear.

MISTRESS PAGEPeace!

EVANSWhat is your genitive case plural, William?

WILLIAM PAGEGenitive case?

EVANSAy.

WILLIAM PAGEGenitive: horum[44], harum, horum.

MISTRESS QUICKLYVengeance of[45] Ginny’s case, fie on her! Never name her, child, if she be a whore.

EVANSFor shame, ’oman.

MISTRESS QUICKLYYou do ill to teach the child such words: he teaches him to hick[48] and to hack, which they’ll do fast enough of themselves, and to call ‘horum’ — fie upon you!

EVANS’Oman, art thou lunatics? Hast thou no understandings for thy cases and the numbers of the genders? Thou art as foolish Christian creatures as I would desires.

MISTRESS PAGEPrithee, hold thy peace. To Mistress Quickly

EVANSShow me now, William, some declensions[54] of your pronouns.

WILLIAM PAGEForsooth, I have forgot.

EVANSIt is qui, quae, quod. If you forget your quies, your quaes, and your quods, you must be preeches.[57] Go your ways, and play, go.

MISTRESS PAGEHe is a better scholar than I thought he was.

EVANSHe is a good sprag[59] memory. Farewell, Mistress Page.

MISTRESS PAGEAdieu, good Sir Hugh.

[Exit Evans]

Get you home, boy. Come, we stay too long.

Exeunt

Act 4 Scene 2

running scene 14

Enter Falstaff [and] Mistress Ford The basket is brought out

FALSTAFFMistress Ford, your sorrow hath eaten up my sufferance.[1] I see you are obsequious[2] in your love, and I profess requital to a hair’s breadth, not only, Mistress Ford, in the simple office[3] of love, but in all the accoutrement, complement[4] and ceremony of it. But are you sure of your husband now?

MISTRESS FORDHe’s a-birding, sweet Sir John.

MISTRESS PAGEWhat, ho, gossip[6] Ford! What, ho! Within

MISTRESS FORDStep into th’chamber, Sir John.

[Exit Falstaff]

[Enter Mistress Page]

MISTRESS PAGEHow now, sweetheart, who’s at home besides yourself?

MISTRESS FORDWhy, none but mine own people.[9]

MISTRESS PAGEIndeed?

MISTRESS FORDNo, certainly.— Speak louder. Whispers to her

MISTRESS PAGETruly, I am so glad you have nobody here.

MISTRESS FORDWhy?

MISTRESS PAGEWhy, woman, your husband is in his old lines[14] again: he so takes on yonder with my husband, so rails against all married mankind, so curses all Eve’s daughters of what complexion[16] soever, and so buffets himself on the forehead, crying, ‘Peer out,[17] peer out!’, that any madness I ever yet beheld seemed but tameness, civility and patience to[18] this his distemper he is in now. I am glad the fat knight is not here.

MISTRESS FORDWhy, does he talk of him?

MISTRESS PAGEOf none but him, and swears he was carried out, the last time he searched for him, in a basket: protests to my husband he is now here, and hath drawn him and the rest of their company from their sport to make another experiment[24] of his suspicion. But I am glad the knight is not here: now he shall see his own foolery.

MISTRESS FORDHow near is he, Mistress Page?

MISTRESS PAGEHard by, at street end. He will be here anon.

MISTRESS FORDI am undone. The knight is here.

MISTRESS PAGEWhy then you are utterly shamed, and he’s but a dead man. What a woman are you? Away with him, away with him! Better shame than murder.

MISTRESS FORDWhich way should he go? How should I bestow[31] him? Shall I put him into the basket again?

[Enter Falstaff]

FALSTAFFNo, I’ll come no more i’th’basket. May I not go out ere he come?

MISTRESS PAGEAlas, three of Master Ford’s brothers watch the door with pistols, that none shall issue out: otherwise you might slip away ere he came. But what make you[35] here?

FALSTAFFWhat shall I do? I’ll creep up into the chimney.

MISTRESS FORDThere they always use[38] to discharge their birding-pieces. Creep into the kiln-hole.[39]

FALSTAFFWhere is it?

MISTRESS FORDHe will seek there, on my word. Neither press, coffer, chest, trunk, well, vault, but he hath an abstract[42] for the remembrance of such places, and goes to them by his note: there is no hiding you in the house.

FALSTAFFI’ll go out then.

MISTRESS PAGEIf you go out in your own semblance,[45] you die, Sir John — unless you go out disguised.

MISTRESS FORDHow might we disguise him?

MISTRESS PAGEAlas the day, I know not. There is no woman’s gown big enough for him: otherwise he might put on a hat, a muffler[49] and a kerchief, and so escape.

FALSTAFFGood hearts, devise something: any extremity rather than a mischief.[50]

MISTRESS FORDMy maid’s aunt, the fat woman of Brentford,[51] has a gown above.

MISTRESS PAGEOn my word, it will serve him: she’s as big as he is — and there’s her thrummed[53] hat and her muffler too. Run up, Sir John.

MISTRESS FORDGo, go, sweet Sir John. Mistress Page and I will look[54] some linen for your head.

MISTRESS PAGEQuick, quick! We’ll come dress you straight:[56] put on the gown the while.

[Exit Falstaff]

MISTRESS FORDI would my husband would meet him in this shape.[58] He cannot abide the old woman of Brentford; he swears she’s a witch, forbade her my house and hath threatened to beat her.

MISTRESS PAGEHeaven guide him to thy husband’s cudgel, and the devil guide his cudgel afterwards!

MISTRESS FORDBut is my husband coming?

MISTRESS PAGEAy, in good sadness[64] is he, and talks of the basket too, howsoever he hath had intelligence.[65]

MISTRESS FORDWe’ll try[66] that, for I’ll appoint my men to carry the basket again, to meet him at the door with it, as they did last time.

MISTRESS PAGENay, but he’ll be here presently. Let’s go dress him like the witch of Brentford.

MISTRESS FORDI’ll first direct my men what they shall do with the basket. Go up, I’ll bring linen for him straight.

[Exit]

MISTRESS PAGEHang him, dishonest[72] varlet! We cannot misuse him enough.

We’ll leave a proof, by that which we will do,

Wives may be merry, and yet honest[74] too.

75

We do not act[75] that often jest and laugh,

’Tis old but true: still[76] swine eat all the draff.

[Exit]

[Enter Mistress Ford with John and Robert]

MISTRESS FORDGo, sirs, take the basket again on your shoulders. Your master is hard at[77] door. If he bid you set it down, obey him. Quickly, dispatch.[78]

[Exit]

JOHNCome, come, take it up.

ROBERTPray heaven it be not full of knight again.

JOHNI hope not, I had as lief[81] bear so much lead. John and Robert lift the basket

[Enter Ford, Page, Shallow, Caius and Evans]

FORDAy,[82] but if it prove true, Master Page, have you any way then to unfool me again?— Set down the basket, villain. John and Robert set down the basket Somebody call my wife. Youth in a basket! O, you panderly[84] rascals, there’s a knot, a gin,[85] a pack, a conspiracy against me. Now shall the devil be shamed. What, wife, I say! Come, come forth. Behold what honest clothes you send forth to bleaching.

PAGEWhy, this passes,[88] Master Ford. You are not to go loose any longer, you must be pinioned.[89]

EVANSWhy, this is lunatics, this is mad as a mad dog!

SHALLOWIndeed, Master Ford, this is not well indeed.

FORDSo say I too, sir.

[Enter Mistress Ford]

Come hither, Mistress Ford — Mistress Ford the honest woman, the modest wife, the virtuous creature, that hath the jealous fool to her husband. I suspect without cause, mistress, do I?

MISTRESS FORDHeaven be my witness you do, if you suspect me in any dishonesty.

FORDWell said, brazen-face, hold it out![97] Come forth, sirrah! Pulls clothes out of the basket

PAGEThis passes.

MISTRESS FORDAre you not ashamed? Let the clothes alone.

FORDI shall find you anon.

EVANS’Tis unreasonable. Will you take up your wife’s clothes? Come away.

FORDEmpty the basket, I say! To John and Robert

PAGEWhy, man, why?

FORDMaster Page, as I am a man, there was one conveyed out of my house yesterday in this basket. Why may not he be there again? In my house I am sure he is. To John and Robert My intelligence is true, my jealousy is reasonable. Pluck me out all the linen.

MISTRESS FORDIf you find a man there, he shall die a flea’s death.[107] John and Robert empty the basket

PAGEHere’s no man.

SHALLOWBy my fidelity,[109] this is not well, Master Ford. This wrongs you.

EVANSMaster Ford, you must pray, and not follow the imaginations of your own heart. This is jealousies.

FORDWell, he’s not here I seek for.

PAGENo, nor nowhere else but in your brain.

FORDHelp to search my house this one time. If I find not what I seek, show[114] no colour for my extremity, let me forever be your table-sport.[115] Let them say of me, ‘As jealous as Ford, that searched a hollow walnut for his wife’s leman.’[116] Satisfy me once more, once more search with me. John and Robert refill the basket and exeunt with it

MISTRESS FORDWhat, ho, Mistress Page, come you and the old woman down. My husband will come into the chamber.

FORDOld woman? What old woman’s that?

MISTRESS FORDWhy, it is my maid’s aunt of Brentford.

FORDA witch, a quean,[122] an old cozening quean! Have I not forbid her my house? She comes of[123] errands, does she? We are simple men, we do not know what’s brought to pass under the profession[124] of fortune-telling. She works by charms, by spells, by th’figure,[125] and such daubery as this is, beyond our element. We know nothing. Come down, you witch, you hag, you! Come down, I say! Takes a cudgel

MISTRESS FORDNay, good sweet husband.— Good gentlemen, let him not strike the old woman.

[Enter Mistress Page leading Falstaff in woman’s clothes]

MISTRESS PAGECome, Mother Prat,[129] come, give me your hand.

FORDI’ll prat[130] her. Beats Falstaff Out of my door, you witch, you rag, you baggage, you polecat, you runnion![131] Out, out! I’ll conjure you, I’ll fortune-tell you.

[Exit Falstaff]

MISTRESS PAGEAre you not ashamed? I think you have killed the poor woman.

MISTRESS FORDNay, he will do it. ’Tis[133] a goodly credit for you.

FORDHang her, witch!

EVANSBy[135] yea and no, I think the ’oman is a witch indeed. I like not when a ’oman has a great peard. I spy a great peard under his muffler.

FORDWill you follow, gentlemen? I beseech you, follow. See but the issue of my jealousy. If I cry[138] out thus upon no trail, never trust me when I open again.

PAGELet’s obey his humour[139] a little further. Come, gentlemen.

[Exeunt Ford, Page, Shallow, Caius and Evans]

MISTRESS PAGETrust me, he beat him most pitifully.

MISTRESS FORDNay, by th’mass, that he did not: he beat him most unpitifully, methought.

MISTRESS PAGEI’ll have the cudgel hallowed[143] and hung o’er the altar. It hath done meritorious[144] service.

MISTRESS FORDWhat think you? May we, with the warrant[145] of womanhood and the witness of a good conscience, pursue him with any further revenge?

MISTRESS PAGEThe spirit of wantonness[147] is, sure, scared out of him. If the devil have him not in fee-simple,[148] with fine and recovery, he will never, I think, in the way of waste,[149] attempt us again.

MISTRESS FORDShall we tell our husbands how we have served[150] him?

MISTRESS PAGEYes, by all means, if it be but to scrape the figures[151] out of your husband’s brains. If they can find in their hearts the poor unvirtuous fat knight shall be any further afflicted, we two will still be the ministers.[153]

MISTRESS FORDI’ll warrant they’ll have him publicly shamed, and methinks there would be no period[155] to the jest, should he not be publicly shamed.

MISTRESS PAGECome, to the forge with it, then shape it.[156] I would not have things cool.

Exeunt

Act 4 Scene 3

running scene 15

Enter Host and Bardolph

BARDOLPHSir, the German desires to have three of your horses. The duke himself will be tomorrow at court, and they are going to meet him.

HOSTWhat duke should that be comes so secretly? I hear not of him in the court. Let me speak with the gentlemen. They speak English?

BARDOLPHAy, sir. I’ll call them to you.

HOSTThey shall have my horses, but I’ll make them pay, I’ll sauce them.[6] They have had my house a week at command.[7] I have turned away my other guests. They must come off,[8] I’ll sauce them. Come.

Exeunt

Act 4 Scene 4

running scene 16

Enter Page, Ford, Mistress Page, Mistress Ford and Evans

EVANS’Tis[1] one of the best discretions of a ’oman as ever I did look upon.

PAGEAnd did he send you both these letters at an instant?[2]

MISTRESS PAGEWithin a quarter of an hour.

FORDPardon me, wife. Henceforth do what thou wilt.

5

I rather will suspect the sun with cold

Than thee with wantonness. Now doth thy honour stand,

In him that was of late an heretic,[7]

As firm as faith.

PAGE’Tis well, ’tis well, no more.

10

Be not as extreme in submission as in offence.

But let our plot go forward. Let our wives

Yet once again, to make us public sport,

Appoint a meeting with this old fat fellow,

Where we may take him and disgrace him for it.

FORDThere is no better way than that they spoke of.

PAGEHow? To send him word they’ll meet him in the park at midnight? Fie, fie, he’ll never come.

EVANSYou say he has been thrown in the rivers and has been grievously peaten as an old ’oman. Methinks there should be terrors in him, that he should not come. Methinks his flesh is punished, he shall have no desires.

PAGESo think I too.

MISTRESS FORDDevise but how you’ll use[22] him when he comes,

And let us two devise to bring him thither.

MISTRESS PAGEThere is an old tale goes that Herne the hunter,[24]

25

Sometime[25] a keeper here in Windsor Forest,

Doth all the winter-time, at still midnight,

Walk round about an oak, with great ragged[27] horns,

And there he blasts[28] the tree, and takes the cattle,

And makes milch-kine[29] yield blood, and shakes a chain

30

In a most hideous and dreadful manner.

You have heard of such a spirit, and well you know

The superstitious idle-headed eld[32]

Received and did deliver to our age

This tale of Herne the hunter for a truth.

35

PAGEWhy, yet there want[35] not many that do fear

In deep of night to walk by this Herne’s Oak.

But what of this?

MISTRESS FORDMarry, this is our device:

That Falstaff at that oak shall meet with us.

40

PAGEWell, let it not be doubted but he’ll come,

And in this shape.[41] When you have brought him thither,

What shall be done with him? What is your plot?

MISTRESS PAGEThat likewise have we thought upon, and thus:

Nan Page my daughter, and my little son,

45

And three or four more of their growth,[45] we’ll dress

Like urchins,[46] oafs and fairies, green and white,

With rounds of waxen tapers[47] on their heads,

And rattles in their hands. Upon a sudden,

As Falstaff, she and I are newly met,

50

Let them from forth a sawpit[50] rush at once

With some diffusèd[51] song. Upon their sight,

We two in great amazèdness will fly:

Then let them all encircle him about,

And fairy-like to pinch the unclean knight,

55

And ask him why, that hour of fairy revel,

In their so sacred paths he dares to tread

In shape profane.

MISTRESS FORDAnd till he tell the truth,

Let the supposèd fairies pinch him sound,[59]

60

And burn him with their tapers.

MISTRESS PAGEThe truth being known,

We’ll all present ourselves, dis-horn the spirit,

And mock him home to Windsor.

FORDThe children must

65

Be practised well to this, or they’ll ne’er do’t.

EVANSI will teach the children their behaviours, and I will be like a

jack-an-apes also, to burn the knight with my taber.

FORDThat will be excellent. I’ll go buy them vizards.[68]

MISTRESS PAGEMy Nan shall be the queen of all the fairies,

70

Finely attirèd in a robe of white.

PAGEThat silk will I go buy.— And in that time Aside

Shall Master Slender steal my Nan away,

And marry her at Eton.[73]— Go, send to Falstaff straight. To Mrs. Page and Mrs. Ford

FORDNay, I’ll to him again in name of Broom:

75

He’ll tell me all his purpose. Sure, he’ll come.

MISTRESS PAGEFear not you that.— Go get us properties[76] To Page, Ford, and Evans

And tricking[77] for our fairies.

EVANSLet us about it. It is admirable pleasures and fery honest knaveries.

[Exeunt Page, Ford and Evans]

MISTRESS PAGEGo, Mistress Ford,

80

Send quickly to Sir John, to know his mind.

[Exit Mistress Ford]

I’ll to the Doctor. He hath my good will,

And none but he, to marry with Nan Page.

That Slender, though well landed,[83] is an idiot,

And he[84] my husband best of all affects.

85

The Doctor is well moneyed, and his friends

Potent at court. He, none but he, shall have her,

Though twenty thousand worthier come to crave her.

[Exit]

Act 4 Scene 5

running scene 17

Enter Host [and] Simple

HOSTWhat wouldst thou have, boor?[1] What, thick-skin? Speak, breathe, discuss: brief, short, quick, snap.

SIMPLEMarry, sir, I come to speak with Sir John Falstaff from Master Slender.

HOSTThere’s his chamber, his house, his castle, his standing-bed and truckle-bed.[4] ’Tis painted about with the story of the Prodigal,[5] fresh and new. Go, knock and call. He’ll speak like an Anthropophaginian[6] unto thee. Knock, I say.

SIMPLEThere’s an old woman, a fat woman, gone up into his chamber. I’ll be so bold as stay, sir, till she come down. I come to speak with her indeed.

HOSTHa? A fat woman? The knight may be robbed. I’ll call.— Bully knight, bully Sir John! Speak from thy lungs military.[10] Art thou there? It is thine host, thine Ephesian,[11] calls.

FALSTAFFHow now, mine host? Above or within

HOSTHere’s a Bohemian-Tartar[13] tarries the coming down of thy fat woman. Let her descend, bully, let her descend. My chambers are honourable. Fie! Privacy?[14] Fie!

[Enter Falstaff]

FALSTAFFThere was, mine host, an old fat woman even now with me, but she’s gone.

SIMPLEPray you, sir, was’t not the wise woman[18] of Brentford?

FALSTAFFAy, marry, was it, mussel-shell.[19] What would you with her?

SIMPLEMy master, sir, my Master Slender, sent to her, seeing her go through the streets, to know, sir, whether one Nim, sir, that beguiled[21] him of a chain, had the chain or no.

FALSTAFFI spake with the old woman about it.

SIMPLEAnd what says she, I pray, sir?

FALSTAFFMarry, she says that the very same man that beguiled Master Slender of his chain, cozened him of it.

SIMPLEI would I could have spoken with the woman herself: I had other things to have spoken with her too, from him.

FALSTAFFWhat are they? Let us know.

HOSTAy, come. Quick.

SIMPLEI may not conceal[31] them, sir.

HOSTConceal them, or thou diest.

SIMPLEWhy, sir, they were nothing but about Mistress Anne Page, to know if it were my master’s fortune to have her or no.

FALSTAFF’Tis, ’tis his fortune.

SIMPLEWhat, sir?

FALSTAFFTo have her or no. Go, say the woman told me so.

SIMPLEMay I be bold to say so, sir?

FALSTAFFAy, sir, like[39] who more bold.

SIMPLEI thank your worship. I shall make my master glad with these tidings. [Exit]

HOSTThou art clerkly,[41] thou art clerkly, Sir John. Was there a wise woman with thee?

FALSTAFFAy, that there was, mine host, one that hath taught me more wit than ever I learned before in my life. And I paid nothing for it neither, but was paid for my learning.

[Enter Bardolph]

BARDOLPHOut, alas, sir. Cozenage, mere[46] cozenage!

HOSTWhere be my horses? Speak well of them, varletto.[47]

BARDOLPHRun away with the cozeners, for so soon as I came beyond Eton, they threw me off from behind one of them, in a slough of mire,[49] and set spurs and away, like three German devils, three Doctor Faustuses.[50]

HOSTThey are gone but to meet the duke, villain. Do not say they be fled. Germans are honest men.

[Enter Evans]

EVANSWhere is mine host?

HOSTWhat is the matter, sir?

EVANSHave a care of your entertainments.[55] There is a friend of mine come to town tells me there is three cozen-germans[56] that has cozened all the hosts of Readings,[57] of Maidenhead, of Colebrook, of horses and money. I tell you for good will, look you. You are wise and full of gibes and vlouting-stocks,[58] and ’tis not convenient[59] you should be cozened. Fare you well.

[Exit]

[Enter Caius]

CAIUSVere is mine host de Jarteer?

HOSTHere, Master Doctor, in perplexity and doubtful dilemma.

CAIUSI cannot tell vat is dat.[62] But it is tell-a me dat you make grand preparation for a duke de Jamany.[63] By my trot, dere is no duke that the court is know to come. I tell you for good will. Adieu.

[Exit]

HOSTHue[65] and cry, villain, go!— To Bardolph/To Falstaff Assist me, knight, I am undone!— Fly, run, hue and cry, villain! To Bardolph I am undone!

[Exeunt Host and Bardolph]

FALSTAFFI would all the world might be cozened, for I have been cozened and beaten too. If it should come to the ear of the court, how I have been transformed and how my transformation hath been washed and cudgelled, they would melt me out of my fat drop by drop, and liquor[70] fishermen’s boots with me. I warrant they would whip me with their fine wits till I were as crestfallen as a dried pear. I never prospered since I forswore[72] myself at primero. Well, if my wind were but long enough, I would repent.

[Enter Mistress Quickly] Now, whence come you?

MISTRESS QUICKLYFrom the two parties, forsooth.

FALSTAFFThe devil take one party and his dam[76] the other, and so they shall be both bestowed.[77] I have suffered more for their sakes, more than the villainous inconstancy of man’s disposition is able to bear.

MISTRESS QUICKLYAnd have not they suffered? Yes, I warrant, speciously[79] one of them. Mistress Ford, good heart, is beaten black and blue, that you cannot see a white spot about her.

FALSTAFFWhat tell’st thou me of black and blue? I was beaten myself into all the colours of the rainbow, and I was like[83] to be apprehended for the witch of Brentford. But[84] that my admirable dexterity of wit, my counterfeiting the action of an old woman, delivered me, the knave constable had set me i’th’stocks, i’th’common stocks, for a witch.

MISTRESS QUICKLYSir, let me speak with you in your chamber. You shall hear how things go, and, I warrant, to your content. Here is a letter will say somewhat — good hearts, what ado here is to bring you together! Sure, one of you does not serve heaven well, that you are so crossed.[90]

FALSTAFFCome up into my chamber.

Exeunt

Act 4 Scene 6

running scene 17 continues

Enter Fenton [and] Host

HOSTMaster Fenton, talk not to me. My mind is heavy. I will give over[1] all.

FENTONYet hear me speak. Assist me in my purpose, And, as I am a gentleman, I’ll give thee A hundred pound in gold more than your loss.

HOSTI will hear you, Master Fenton, and I will, at the least, keep your counsel.[5]

FENTONFrom time to time I have acquainted you

With the dear love I bear to fair Anne Page,

Who mutually hath answered my affection —

So far forth[9] as herself might be her chooser —

10

Even to[10] my wish. I have a letter from her

Of such contents as you will wonder at;

The mirth[12] whereof so larded with my matter,

That neither singly can be manifested

Without the show of both. Fat Falstaff

15

Hath a great scene.[15] The image of the jest

I’ll show you here at large.[16] Hark, good mine host:

Tonight at Herne’s Oak, just ’twixt twelve and one,

Must my sweet Nan present the Fairy Queen —

The purpose why is here — in which disguise,

20

While other jests are something rank on foot,[20]

Her father hath commanded her to slip

Away with Slender, and with him at Eton

Immediately to marry. She hath consented. Now, sir,

Her mother — ever strong against that match

25

And firm for Doctor Caius — hath appointed

That he shall likewise shuffle[26] her away,

While other sports are tasking of[27] their minds,

And at the dean’ry,[28] where a priest attends,

Straight marry her. To this her mother’s plot

30

She, seemingly obedient, likewise hath

Made promise to the doctor. Now, thus it rests:[31]

Her father means she shall be all in white,

And in that habit,[33] when Slender sees his time

To take her by the hand and bid her go,

35

She shall go with him. Her mother hath intended,

The better to denote[36] her to the doctor —

For they must all be masked and vizarded —

That quaint[38] in green she shall be loose enrobed,

With ribbons pendent[39] flaring ’bout her head;

40

And when the doctor spies his vantage[40] ripe,

To pinch her by the hand, and on that token,[41]

The maid hath given consent to go with him.

HOSTWhich means she to deceive, father or mother?

FENTONBoth, my good host, to go along with me.

45

And here it rests, that you’ll procure the vicar

To stay[46] for me at church, ’twixt twelve and one,

And, in the lawful name of marrying,

To give our hearts united ceremony.

HOSTWell, husband[49] your device. I’ll to the vicar.

50

Bring you the maid, you shall not lack a priest.

FENTONSo shall I evermore be bound to thee:

Besides, I’ll make a present[52] recompense.

Exeunt

Act 5 Scene 1

running scene 17 continues

Enter Falstaff [and] Mistress Quickly

FALSTAFFPrithee, no more prattling. Go, I’ll hold.[1] This is the third time. I hope good luck lies in odd numbers. Away, go. They say there is divinity[2] in odd numbers, either in nativity, chance, or death. Away.

MISTRESS QUICKLYI’ll provide you a chain, and I’ll do what I can to get you a pair of horns.

FALSTAFFAway, I say. Time wears.[6] Hold up your head, and mince.

[Exit Mistress Quickly]

[Enter Ford, disguised as Broom]

How now, Master Broom? Master Broom, the matter will be known tonight, or never. Be you in the park about midnight, at Herne’s Oak, and you shall see wonders.

FORDWent you not to her yesterday, sir, as you told me you had appointed?

FALSTAFFI went to her, Master Broom, as you see, like a poor old man, but I came from her, Master Broom, like a poor old woman. That same knave Ford, her husband, hath the finest mad devil of jealousy in him, Master Broom, that ever governed frenzy. I will tell you, he beat me grievously, in the shape of a woman, for in the shape of man, Master Broom, I fear not Goliath[15] with a weaver’s beam, because I know also life is a shuttle.[16] I am in haste. Go along with me, I’ll tell you all, Master Broom. Since I plucked geese, played truant and whipped top,[17] I knew not what ’twas to be beaten till lately. Follow me, I’ll tell you strange things of this knave Ford, on whom tonight I will be revenged, and I will deliver his wife into your hand. Follow. Strange things in hand,[20] Master Broom. Follow.

Exeunt

Act 5 Scene 2

running scene 18

Enter Page, Shallow [and] Slender

PAGECome, come. we’ll couch[1] i’th’castle-ditch till we see the light of our fairies. Remember, son Slender, my daughter—

SLENDERAy, forsooth, I have spoke with her and we have a nay-word[3] how to know one another: I come to her in white, and cry ‘mum’,[4] she cries ‘budget’, and by that we know one another.

SHALLOWThat’s good too. But what needs either your ‘mum’ or her ‘budget’? The white will decipher[7] her well enough. It hath struck ten o’clock.

PAGEThe night is dark: light and spirits will become[8] it well. Heaven prosper our sport! No man means evil but the devil, and we shall know him by his horns. Let’s away. Follow me.

Exeunt

Act 5 Scene 3

running scene 18 continues

Enter Mistress Page, Mistress Ford [and] Caius

MISTRESS PAGEMaster Doctor, my daughter is in green. When you see your time, take her by the hand, away with her to the deanery, and dispatch[2] it quickly. Go before into the park. We two must go together.

CAIUSI know vat I have to do. Adieu.

MISTRESS PAGEFare you well, sir.

[Exit Caius]

My husband will not rejoice so much at the abuse of Falstaff as he will chafe[6] at the Doctor’s marrying my daughter. But ’tis no matter. Better a little chiding than a great deal of heartbreak.

MISTRESS FORDWhere is Nan now, and her troop of fairies? And the Welsh devil Hugh?

MISTRESS PAGEThey are all couched in a pit hard by Herne’s Oak, with obscured[11] lights, which, at the very instant of Falstaff’s and our meeting, they will at once display to the night.

MISTRESS FORDThat cannot choose but amaze[14] him.

MISTRESS PAGEIf he be not amazed, he will be mocked. If he be amazed, he will every way be mocked.

MISTRESS FORD WE’LLbetray him finely.

MISTRESS PAGEAgainst such lewdsters and their lechery. Those that betray them do no treachery.

MISTRESS FORDThe hour draws on. To the Oak, to the Oak!

Exeunt

Act 5 Scene 4

running scene 18 continues

Enter Evans [disguised, with others as] Fairies

EVANSTrib,[1] trib, fairies. Come, and remember your parts. Be pold, I pray you. Follow me into the pit, and when I give the watch-’ords,[2] do as I pid you. Come, come, trib, trib.

Exeunt

Act 5 Scene 5

running scene 18 continues

Enter Falstaff [disguised as Herne]

FALSTAFFThe Windsor bell hath struck twelve, the minute draws on. Now, the hot-blooded gods assist me! Remember, Jove,[2] thou wast a bull for thy Europa. Love set on thy horns. O powerful Love, that in some respects makes a beast a man, in some other a man a beast. You were also, Jupiter, a swan for the love of Leda.[4] O omnipotent Love, how near the god drew to the complexion of a goose. A fault done first in the form of a beast. O Jove, a beastly fault![6] And then another fault in the semblance of a fowl. Think on’t, Jove, a foul fault! When gods have hot backs,[7] what shall poor men do? For me, I am here a Windsor stag, and the fattest, I think, i’th’forest. Send me a cool rut-time,[9] Jove, or who can blame me to piss my tallow?[10] Who comes here? My doe?

[Enter Mistress Ford and Mistress Page]

MISTRESS FORDSir John? Art thou there, my deer?[11] My male deer?

FALSTAFFMy doe with the black scut![12] Let the sky rain potatoes, let it thunder to the tune of Greensleeves, hail kissing-comfits[13] and snow eryngoes. Let there come a tempest of provocation,[14] I will shelter me here. Embraces her

MISTRESS FORDMistress Page is come with me, sweetheart.[15]

FALSTAFFDivide[16] me like a bribed buck, each a haunch: I will keep my sides to myself, my shoulders for the fellow[17] of this walk, and my horns I bequeath your husbands. Am I a woodman,[18] ha? Speak I like Herne the hunter? Why, now is Cupid[19] a child of conscience: he makes restitution. Horns within As I am a true spirit, welcome.

MISTRESS PAGEAlas, what noise?

MISTRESS FORDHeaven forgive our sins.

FALSTAFFWhat should this be?

MISTRESS FORD and MISTRESS PAGEAway, away! They run off

FALSTAFFI think the devil will not have me damned, lest the oil[24] that’s in me should set hell on fire. He would never else cross[25] me thus.

Enter [Evans, disguised as before; Pistol, as Hobgoblin; Mistress Quickly, Anne and others, as] Fairies [with tapers]

MISTRESS QUICKLYFairies black, grey, green and white,

You moonshine revellers and shades[27] of night,

You orphan[28] heirs of fixèd destiny,

Attend[29] your office and your quality.

30

Crier[30] Hobgoblin, make the fairy oyez.

PISTOLElves, list[31] your names. Silence, you airy toys.

Cricket, to Windsor chimneys shalt thou leap.

Where fires thou find’st unraked[33] and hearths unswept,

There pinch the maids as blue as bilberry,[34]

35

Our radiant queen hates sluts and sluttery.

FALSTAFFThey are fairies, he that speaks to them shall die. Aside

I’ll wink[37] and couch: no man their works must eye. Lies down upon his face

EVANSWhere’s Bede? Go you, and where you find a maid

That ere she sleep has thrice her prayers said,

40

Raise[40] up the organs of her fantasy:

Sleep she[41] as sound as careless infancy.

But those as[42] sleep and think not on their sins,

Pinch them, arms, legs, backs, shoulders, sides and shins.

MISTRESS QUICKLYAbout,[44] about.

45

Search Windsor Castle, elves, within and out.

Strew good luck, oafs,[46] on every sacred room,

That it may stand till the perpetual doom,[47]

In state as[48] wholesome as in state ’tis fit,

Worthy[49] the owner and the owner it.

50

The several[50] chairs of order look you scour

With juice of balm[51] and every precious flower.

Each fair instalment,[52] coat, and sev’ral crest,

With loyal blazon[53] evermore be blest.

And nightly meadow-fairies, look you sing,

55

Like to the Garter’s compass,[55] in a ring.

Th’expressure[56] that it bears, green let it be,

More fertile-fresh than all the field to see.

And Honi[58] soit qui mal y pense write

In em’rald tufts, flowers purple, blue and white,

60

Like sapphire, pearl and rich embroidery,

Buckled[61] below fair knighthood’s bending knee.

Fairies use flowers for their charactery.[62]

Away, disperse. But till ’tis one o’clock,

Our dance of custom[64] round about the oak

65

Of Herne the hunter, let us not forget.

EVANSPray you, lock hand in hand, yourselves in order set.

And twenty glow-worms shall our lanterns be,

To guide our measure[68] round about the tree.

But stay, I smell a man of middle-earth.[69]

FALSTAFFHeavens defend me from that Welsh fairy, Aside lest he transform me to a piece of cheese![71]

PISTOLVile worm, thou wast o’erlooked[72] even in thy birth. To Falstaff

MISTRESS QUICKLYWith trial-fire[73] touch me his finger-end.

If he be chaste, the flame will back descend

75

And turn[75] him to no pain. But if he start,

It is the flesh of a corrupted heart.

PISTOLA trial, come.

EVANSCome, will this wood[78] take fire? They burn him with their tapers

FALSTAFFO, O, O!

80

MISTRESS QUICKLYCorrupt, corrupt, and tainted in desire.

About[81] him, fairies, sing a scornful rhyme,

And, as you trip,[82] still pinch him to your time.

FAIRIES[sing] The Song

Fie on sinful fantasy,[84] Fie on lust and luxury! During this song they pinch Falstaff.

85

Lust is but a bloody fire,[85] Caius comes one way and steals away

Kindled with unchaste desire, a boy in green; Slender another way and

Fed in heart, whose flames aspire, takes off a boy in white; and Fenton

As thoughts do blow them, higher and higher. comes and steals away Anne.

Pinch him, fairies, mutually,[89] A noise of hunting is heard within.

90

Pinch him for his villainy. All the Fairies run away.

Pinch him and burn him and turn him about, Falstaff pulls off his buck’s

Till candles and starlight and moonshine be out. head and rises

[Enter Page, Ford, Mistress Page and Mistress Ford]

PAGENay, do not fly, I think we have watched[93] you now.

Will none but Herne the hunter serve your turn?[94]

95

MISTRESS PAGEI pray you, come, hold[95] up the jest no higher.

Now, good Sir John, how like you Windsor wives?

See you these, husband? Do not these fair yokes[97] Points to horns

Become the forest better than the town?

FORDNow, sir, who’s a cuckold now? Master Broom, Falstaff’s a knave, a cuckoldly knave: here are his horns, Master Broom. And, Master Broom, he hath enjoyed nothing of Ford’s but his buck-basket, his cudgel, and twenty pounds of money, which must be paid to Master Broom. His horses are arrested[102] for it, Master Broom.

MISTRESS FORDSir John, we have had ill luck, we could never meet.[104] I will never take you for my love again, but I will always count you my deer.[105]

FALSTAFFI do begin to perceive that I am made an ass.

FORDAy, and an ox too. Both the proofs[107] are extant.

FALSTAFFAnd these are not fairies. I was three or four times in the thought they were not fairies, and yet the guiltiness of my mind, the sudden surprise[109] of my powers, drove the grossness of the foppery[110] into a received belief, in despite of the teeth of all rhyme and reason, that they were fairies. See now how wit[111] may be made a Jack-a-Lent,[112] when ’tis upon ill employment!

EVANSSir John Falstaff, Unmasks serve Got, and leave your desires, and fairies will not pinse you.

FORDWell said, fairy Hugh.

EVANSAnd leave you your jealousies too, I pray you.

FORDI will never mistrust my wife again till thou art able to woo her in good English.

FALSTAFFHave I laid my brain in the sun and dried it, that it wants matter[119] to prevent so gross o’erreaching[120] as this? Am I ridden with a Welsh goat too? Shall I have a coxcomb[121] of frieze? ’Tis time I were choked with a piece of toasted cheese.

EVANSSeese is not good to give putter. Your belly is all putter.

FALSTAFF‘Seese’ and ‘putter’? Have I lived to stand at the taunt of one that makes fritters[124] of English? This is enough to be the decay of lust and late-walking through the realm.

MISTRESS PAGEWhy Sir John, do you think, though we would have thrust virtue out of our hearts by the head and shoulders, and have given ourselves without scruple to hell, that ever the devil could have made you our delight?

FORDWhat, a hodge-pudding?[129] A bag of flax?

MISTRESS PAGEA puffed[130] man?

PAGEOld, cold, withered and of intolerable[131] entrails?

FORDAnd one that is as slanderous as Satan?

PAGEAnd as poor as Job?[133]

FORDAnd as wicked as his wife?

EVANSAnd given to fornications, and to taverns, and sack, and wine, and metheglins,[136] and to drinkings, and swearings, and starings, pribbles and prabbles?

FALSTAFFWell, I am your theme.[138] You have the start of me. I am dejected. I am not able to answer the Welsh flannel.[139] Ignorance itself is a plummet o’er me. Use me as you will.

FORDMarry, sir, we’ll bring you to Windsor, to one Master Broom, that you have cozened of money, to whom you should[142] have been a pander. Over and above that you have suffered, I think to repay that money will be a biting affliction.

PAGEYet be cheerful, knight. Thou shalt eat a posset[145] tonight at my house, where I will desire thee to laugh at my wife, that now laughs at thee. Tell her Master Slender hath married her daughter.

MISTRESS PAGEDoctors doubt that. Aside If Anne Page be my daughter, she is, by this,[148] Doctor Caius’ wife.

[Enter Slender]

SLENDERWhoa ho, ho, father Page!

PAGESon, how now? How now, son, have you dispatched?[151]

SLENDERDispatched? I’ll make the best in Gloucestershire know on’t. Would I were hanged, la, else.

PAGEOf what,[154] son?

SLENDERI came yonder at Eton to marry Mistress Anne Page, and she’s a great lubberly[156] boy. If it had not been i’th’church, I would have swinged him, or he should have swinged[157] me. If I did not think it had been Anne Page, would I might never stir — and ’tis a postmaster’s[158] boy.

PAGEUpon my life, then, you took the wrong.[159]

SLENDERWhat need you tell me that? I think so, when I took a boy for a girl. If I had been married to him, for all he was in woman’s apparel, I would not have had him.[162]

PAGEWhy, this is your own folly. Did not I tell you how you should know my daughter by her garments?

SLENDERI went to her in green,[165] and cried ‘mum’, and she cried ‘budget’, as Anne and I had appointed, and yet it was not Anne, but a postmaster’s boy.

[Exit]

MISTRESS PAGEGood George, be not angry. I knew of your purpose, turned my daughter into white,[168] and indeed, she is now with the Doctor at the deanery, and there married.

[Enter Caius]

CAIUSVere is Mistress Page? By gar, I am cozened. I ha’ married un garçon, a boy, un paysan[171], by gar, a boy. It is not Anne Page. By gar, I am cozened.

MISTRESS PAGEWhy, did you take her in white?[172]

CAIUSAy, by gar, and ’tis a boy. By gar, I’ll raise[173] all Windsor.

[Exit]

FORDThis is strange. Who hath got the right Anne?

PAGEMy heart misgives me. Here comes Master Fenton.

[Enter Fenton and Anne]

How now, Master Fenton?

ANNEPardon, good father. Good my mother, pardon.

PAGENow, mistress, how chance you went not with Master Slender?

MISTRESS PAGEWhy went you not with Master Doctor, maid?

180

FENTONYou do amaze[180] her. Hear the truth of it:

You would have married her most shamefully,

Where there was no proportion[182] held in love.

The truth is, she and I, long since contracted,[183]

Are now so sure[184] that nothing can dissolve us.

185

Th’offence is holy that she hath committed,

And this deceit loses the name of craft,

Of disobedience, or unduteous title,[187]

Since therein she doth evitate[188] and shun

A thousand irreligious cursèd hours

190

Which forcèd marriage would have brought upon her.

FORDStand not amazed, here is no remedy. To Page and Mistress Page

In love the heavens themselves do guide the state.[192]

Money buys lands, and wives are sold by fate.

FALSTAFFI am glad, though you have ta’en a special stand[194] to To Page and Mistress Page

195

strike at me, that your arrow hath glanced.[195]

PAGEWell, what remedy? Fenton, heaven give thee joy!

What cannot be eschewed must be embraced.

FALSTAFFWhen night-dogs run, all sorts of deer are chased.

MISTRESS PAGEWell, I will muse[199] no further. Master Fenton,

200

Heaven give you many, many merry days.

Good husband, let us every one go home,

And laugh this sport o’er by a country fire,

Sir John and all.

FORDLet it be so. Sir John,

205

To Master Broom you yet shall hold your word,

For he tonight shall lie with Mistress Ford.

Exeunt

Textual Notes

Q = First Quarto text of 1602

F = First Folio text of 1623

Q3 = a correction introduced in the Third Quarto text of 1630

F2 = a correction introduced in the Second Folio text of 1632

Ed = a correction introduced by a later editor

SD = stage direction

SH = speech heading (i.e., speaker’s name)

List of parts = Ed

All entrances midscene = Ed. F groups names of all characters in each scene at beginning of scene

1.1.19 py’r lady spelled per-lady in F 113–16 set as verse = Q. F = set as prose 114 latten = Q (spelled laten). F = Latine 127 careers spelled Car-eires in F 175 contempt = Ed. F = content

1.3.0 SD and Robin = Ed. F = Page (pageboy) 9 lime = Q. F = liue 37 legion = Ed. Q = legions. F = legend 42 oeillades spelled illiads in F 60 o’th’hoof = F2. F = ith’hoofe 61 humour = Q. F = honor

1.4.33 une boîtie en vert = Ed. F = vnboyteene verd 37–8 chaud. Je m’en vais voir à le Court la grande affaire; Ed. F = chando, le man voi a le Court la grand affaires 65 baillez = Ed. F = ballow 87 good-year = Ed. F = good-ier

2.1.1 I = Q3. Not in F 40 praised = Ed. F = praise 150 cavalier spelled Caualeire in F 151 SH FORD = Q. F = Shal 152 Broom = F (spelled Broome). Ford’s disguised name is Brooke throughout Q

2.2.27 That I am = Q. Omitted in F 162 exchange = Q3. F = enchange

2.3.41 A word = Q. F = a

3.1.4 Petty = Ed. F = pittie 77 Give…terrestrial, so = Q. Not in F 81 lads = Q. F = Lad

3.3.26 cue spelled Qu in F 44–5 Fortune thy foe were not, Nature thy friend = F2 punctuation. Comma after foe in F 54 kiln = Ed. F = kill 102 SH JOHN = Ed. F = Ser 129 foolish = F2. F = foolishion

3.4.13 SH FENTON = Q3. Not in F 56 Fenton = Ed. F = Fenter

3.5.20 sperm spelled Spersme in F

4.1.51 lunatics = Ed. F= Lunaties

4.2.39 kiln = Ed. F = Kill 70 direct = Q3. F = direct direct 72 misuse him = F2. F = misuse 79, 81 SH JOHN = Ed. F = 1. Ser 80 SH ROBERT = Ed. F = 2. Ser 81 as lief = F2. F = liefe as 103 SH PAGE = Ed. F = M. Ford. 127 not strike = Q3. F = strike

4.3.7 house = Q. F = houses

4.4.5 cold = Ed. F = gold 29 makes = F2. F = make 58 SH MISTRESS FORD = Ed. F = Ford

4.5.31 SH SIMPLE = Ed. F = Fal. 41 art = Q. F = are

4.6.36 denote = Ed. F = deuote

5.2.2 daughter = F2. Omitted in F

5.3.10 Hugh = Ed. F = Herne

5.5.46 oafs spelled Ouphes in F 57 More = F2. F = Mote 82 SH FAIRIES = Ed. Not in F 84–92 Stage direction based on Q, but with colours of costumes altered to conform to F – see ‘Text’ in Key Facts 173 un paysan = Ed. F = oon pesant

Title page of the Quarto version of the play, with Falstaff credited above the Merry Wives.

Act 1 Scene 1

1.1    Location: the entire play is set in Windsor (twenty-five miles west of London), moving between the streets, the homes of Page and Ford, the Garter Inn, a field outside the town and, in the fifth act, the Great Park near Windsor Castle

1    Sir the usual title for a clergyman    persuade urge/argue with    Star Chamber court consisting of most of the King’s Privy Council, which met in a chamber with stars painted on its ceiling

3    Coram corruption of “quorum,” a group of judges whose presence was required at a trial

4    cousin kinsman    Custalorum corruption of “custos rotulorum,” the keeper of the shire records and a justice of the peace

5    Rato-lorum i.e., “rotulorum”

6    writes himself Armigero i.e., signs himself armiger, Latin for “esquire” (one entitled to bear arms/a gentleman)    bill legal document/document requiring the payment of debts    warrant document authorizing a judicial sentence/the payment of debts between two parties    quittance document certifying release from a debt or obligation    obligation contract binding a person to an action or payment

9    give display (in a coat of arms)    luces pikes (freshwater fish)

10    coat coat of arms (Evans’s louses—lice—plays on the sense of “garment”)

12    become suit    passant (heraldic term for) walking/surpassingly

13    familiar well-known/overly intimate

14    coat Shallow plays on Evans’s Welsh pronunciation of    coat as “cod”

15    quarter add the arms of another family to one’s coat of arms (Evans understands “cut into four”)    coz cousin (i.e., kinsman)

19    py’r lady by Our Lady (i.e., the Virgin Mary); Evans often substitutes “p” for “b”    skirts separate sections forming the lower part of a coat

21    do my benevolence lend my help

22    atonements agreement/reconciliation (Evans often makes singular words into plurals)    compromises joint agreement/settlement made by an arbitrator

23    Council King’s Privy Council, which often heard cases of    riot; Evans seems to think Shallow is referring to a church council

24    meet fitting    Got God (Evans often substitutes “t” for “d”)

25    Take…that take that into consideration

26    vizaments advisements

28    friends…sword i.e., friendship is substituted for violence

29    device plan    peradventure perhaps/most likely    discretions judgment

30    Thomas later named as George (presumably Shakespeare’s memory slip)

31    small in a high-pitched/light/quiet voice

32    fery very (Evans often substitutes “f’ for “v”)    ’orld world    just exact/exactly

33    is has

34    give given (her)

35    motion suggestion    pribbles and prabbles petty squabbles

39    is…penny will give her more besides

40    Slender most editors reassign to Shallow, since Slender has already said he knows Anne    gifts qualities (Evans takes the word literally)

41    possibilities financial prospects

42    honest respectable/upright/sincere

45    well-willers well-wishers

49    tell…tale have something else to say to you

54    ill clumsily/poorly/illegally (by Falstaff)

55    la an intensifier equivalent to “indeed”

57    by…no a very mild oath

59    fallow light brown

60    Cotsall the Cotswold hills, in central England

61    judged decided conclusively

64    ’tis your fault you (Slender) are to blame for teasing Page

65    cur dog (may or may not be contemptuous)

68    would wish    office service

71    in some sort partly/to some extent

73    at in    Pistol pronounced to sound like “pizzle” (“penis”)

78    lodge hunting lodge/gamekeeper’s cottage

79    keeper’s gamekeeper’s

80    pin i.e., a trifle    answered accounted for/responded to as a legal charge (Falstaff plays on the sense of “replied to”)

81    straight straight away

83    in counsel in secret (puns on    Council)

84    Pauca verba Latin for “few words”

85    worts plants of the cabbage family (a joke on Evans’s pronunciation of “words”)    broke wounded    matter cause of complaint (Slender shifts the sense to “matter of significance,” while playing on the sense of “pus from a wound”)

87    cony-catching cheating (literally “rabbit-catching”)

89    Banbury cheese the Oxfordshire town was known for its thin cheeses; Slender is being mocked for being pale and slight

90    matter importance (plays on sense of “substance”)

91    Mephostophilus a devil, well known from Christopher Marlowe’s play Doctor Faustus

93    Slice i.e., gash him with a sword/slice him up like a cheese    Pauca i.e., briefly (from pauca verba)    humour inclination/frame of mind

96    fidelicet Evans means videlicet (Latin for “namely”)

97    three third

98    host innkeeper    Garter perhaps a reference to the Garter Inn in Windsor

100    prief brief/summary

101    ’ork work    discreetly discretion

104    tevil…tam devil and his dam (i.e., mother)

108    great chamber main room/hall    groats fourpenny coins    mill-sixpences sixpences that had their designs impressed on them in a stamping mill    Edward shovel-boards shillings made in the reign of Edward VI (used in the game of shovel-board)

109    Yead i.e., Ed (Edward)

112    it is false he is dishonest (Evans responds to “true, Pistol” as if it were “true Pistol”—i.e., “honest Pistol”)

113    mountain-foreigner i.e., Welshman

114    combat challenge challenge combat (i.e., trial by combat)    latten brass/tin-plate/thinly hammered    bilbo sword (from Bilbao, Spanish town famed for sword manufacture)

115    labras lips (from either the Spanish labros or the Latin labra, both meaning “lips”)

118    Be avised think carefully/take my advice    pass good humours be agreeable    ‘marry trap’ contemptuous phrase of uncertain meaning, the general sense of which may be something like “be off with you/mind your own business/you’ve caught yourself out”    marry by the Virgin Mary

119    run…me behave like a constable    nuthook hooked stick used to pull nuts from trees; slang for “constable”    very note right tune (i.e., the truth); perhaps with a play on “nut”

120    he…face i.e., Bardolph

122    Scarlet and John Will Scarlet and Little John were two of Robin Hood’s companions;    Scarlet is applied to Bardolph because of his drunkard’s red nose

126    fap drunk    cashiered dismissed/got rid of/thrown out of the tavern    conclusions…careers his conclusions about what had happened galloped beyond all bounds career short gallop at full speed

131    ’udge judge    mind intention

136    leave permission

138    pasty to pie for

140    book…Sonnets probably Songs and Sonnets, a collection of poems, most of them about love, published by Richard Tottel in 1557 and known as Tottel’s Miscellany

142    Book of Riddles unidentified; several Elizabethan collections of riddles existed

144    Allhallowmas All Saints’ Day, November 1    Michaelmas the feast of Saint. Michael, September 29; Simple is wrong in saying it is two weeks after Allhallowmas

145    stay wait

146    tender offer (i.e., of marriage, made on behalf of Slender)    afar off indirectly/in a roundabout manner

148    do…reason i.e., behave in a reasonable manner/cooperate

152    motions suggestions

153    be capacity of have the capacity to understand

155    country district    simple…here as sure as I stand here/although I seem humble/despite my own undistinguished status

159    demands requests

160    ’oman woman

161    divers various    parcel part

162    carry…to feel inclination/affection for (with a quibble on the slang sense of    will—i.e., “sexual desire/penis”)

165    possitable malapropism for “positively”    carry her convey/direct

167    upon providing that she comes with/on the promise of

170    conceive understand

173    decrease malapropism for “increase”

176    dissolved resolved    dissolutely malapropism for “resolutely”

177    fall i.e., error ’ord word

187    forsooth in truth

188    attends waits for

189    sirrah sir (authoritative)    for all although

191    beholding indebted

192    what though what of it

198    fence fencing    veneys technical (French) term for each assault in a fencing match (from venu, “come”); pun (not intended by Slender) on “Venus”, slang for prostitute

199    stewed prunes known to be a popular dish in brothels (“the stews”)    smell…meat unintentionally suggesting whore’s flesh

202    the sport bearbaiting, a popular Elizabethan pastime

205    Sackerson a well-known bear kept at Paris Garden in Southwark

206    warrant assure

207    passed was past belief

208    ill-favoured ugly

211    cock and pie a mild oath; either a literal reference to fowl and cooked pie or a corruption of “God” and an allusion to the church rules concerning the celebration of Saints’ days    you…choose polite way of saying “I insist/you have no choice”

215    keep on go ahead/carry on

Act 1 Scene 2

1    of concerning

2    nurse housekeeper    dry nurse i.e., not a wet nurse, who would look after a baby

3    laundry laundress    wringer one who wrings out clothes after they have been washed

5    altogether’s acquaintance is well acquainted

7    solicit urge/court favor for

8    pippins apples

Act 1 Scene 3

2    bully rook jolly companion/old rogue

4    bully Hercules old mate Hercules (the Greek hero)    cashier dismiss    wag move on

5    sit at live here at the cost of

6    Kaiser emperor    Pheazar vizier (chief minister to a ruler), or possibly a nonsense word to rhyme with Caesar and Kaiser    entertain employ

7    draw…tap withdraw liquor from a cask in the manner of an innkeeper    Hector hero of the Trojan war

9    froth make the beer froth up on top as a means of serving less    lime flavor wine with lime in order to mask its sourness    I…word i.e., without further ado

11    tapster barman

12    jerkin close-fitting jacket

14    Hungarian wight thievish, beggarly person (with a play on “hungry”)    spigot peg used to stop the hole in a cask of liquor

15    gotten in drink conceived while his parents were drunk    Is…conceited isn’t that an ingenious/witty notion

16    acquit rid    tinderbox i.e., Bardolph, an inflammable and red-faced man    open obvious

18    good humour best method/way to do it    at…rest in the space of a minute (rest plays on the sense of “moment of silence within a piece of music”)

19    fico “fig” (Italian; a contemptuous word, sometimes accompanied by the obscene gesture of thrusting the thumb between two fingers)

20    out at heels out of money (literally, with shoes or stockings worn through)

21    kibes chilblains

22    shift provide for myself/live by deception/live on my wits

25    ken the wight know the person

26    am about up to (Pistol interprets “measure about the waist”)

29    make love to court/woo

30    entertainment welcome/a pleasant reception (with sexual connotations)    carves is a courteous and generous hostess/has sex    leer sideways glance/sexually inviting look

31    construe interpret/translate/analyze grammatically    action working/oratorical gesture (with sexual connotations)    familiar usual/plain/courteous/overly intimate    hardest voice most severe expression/most difficult grammatical form to translate

32    Englished translated into English

33    will inclination/sexual desire/legal document    honesty chastity

35    The…deep probably “this idea (of Falstaff’s) is firmly entrenched”    that humour pass Falstaff’s frame of mind change/Falstaff’s inclination get him anywhere/my neat expression gain approval

37    legion of angels great number of gold coins (plays on the sense of “host of heavenly beings”)

38    As…entertain employ just as many devils    To her a cry of encouragement such as might be used to a hound pursuing prey

39    The humour rises the wit improves/(Falstaff’s) inclination grows    Humour…angels let your inclination lead to the acquisition of the money (me is emphatic)

40    writ me written

42    oeillades amorous looks

45    humour turn of phrase

46    course run (her eyes)    intention intent observation/purpose

47    burning-glass magnifying glass

48    purse plays on sense of “vagina” Guiana country in South America fabled for its great wealth

49    cheaters escheator, a district official who supervised escheats, estates that returned to the monarch’s possession in the absence of a valid heir (plays on sense of “sexual cheat, deceiver”)    exchequers treasuries

50    trade plays on sense of “have sex with”

53    Pandarus of Troy in Greek legend, the go-between (or pander) in Troilus and Cressida’s love affair

54    And…steel i.e., and having stooped to such an unmanly profession, still call myself a soldier

55    run…humour undertake no such low task    humour-letter having repeated humour so often, Nim’s use of it has begun to become meaningless; possibly he means “letter written out of fancy” or simply adds humour for contemptuous emphasis

56    ’haviour of reputation an honorable bearing/a reputable manner

57    tightly properly/well

58    pinnace small sailing vessel

59    avaunt be gone

60    o’th’hoof on foot    pack be off

61    humour mood/fashion

62    French thrift economy, possibly a French tendency to have only one page rather than several attendants    skirted wearing a coat with a fully skirted lower section

63    gripe grip/afflict the bowels with pain    gourd and fullam false or loaded dice    holds hold good/continue to be effective

64    high and low i.e., dice loaded to produce either high or low numbers    beguiles deceives

65    Tester sixpence    pouch (my) purse

66    Phrygian Turk i.e., base, barbarous person    Phrygia region in Asia Minor conquered by the Turks in the fifteenth century; now part of modern Turkey

67    operations plans    humours of inclinations for

69    welkin sky

70    wit or steel intelligence/ingenuity or violence (the sword)

71    humours methods    discuss make known    humour nature

72    eke also

74    prove put to the test (sexually)

77    yellowness i.e., jealousy    revolt i.e., against Falstaff

79    Mars of malcontents most warlike of rebels    Mars god of war

Act 1 Scene 4

3    old great

6    posset hot drink made with milk, liquor, and spices    soon at night before the night is too far advanced

7    sea-coal superior type of coal transported by sea from the north of England

8    withal with    breed-bate troublemaker

9    peevish foolish/perverse

12    fault i.e., lack

15    glover glove maker    paring-knife knife used for trimming leather

17    Cain-coloured reddish-yellow    Cain in the Bible, the world’s first murderer

18    softly-sprighted gentle/mild in spirit

19    as…hands as brave (tall) a fighter    between…head in these parts

20    warrener gamekeeper/one in charge of an enclosure for breeding rabbits

26    Out, alas! exclamation of dismay

27    shent blamed/rebuked

28    closet private room

29    doubt fear

31    And…adown-a the refrain of a song

32    toys trifles (i.e., songs)

33    une botie en vert French for “a green box” (boîtie may also mean “surgeon’s instrument case”)    Do intend i.e., do you hear (from the French entendre)

36    horn-mad wildly enraged, like a horned beast/madly jealous like a cuckold (horned husband of an unfaithful wife)

37    ma…affaire by my faith, it’s very hot. I’m going to see the great business at the    Court

40    Oui…Dépêche “yes; put it in my pocket: hurry up”

46    trot troth (faith)    Od’s me God save me    que ai-je oublié “what have I forgotten”    simples medicinal herbs

49    diable devil    larron thief

56    phlegmatic dull/cold; presumably Quickly means “choleric”—i.e., “angry/hot”

57    of on

64    ne’er…not never burn my fingers (i.e., meddle) unnecessarily

66    baillez bring

69    melancholy introspective/sullen/broodingly angry; perhaps another error for “choleric”

70    you since you ask; or simply emphatic    yea…no truth

72    dress meat prepare food

74    charge responsibility/burden

75    avised aware/informed    You…it i.e., it certainly is/let me assure you it is

76    I…it I wouldn’t wish any word of it to get out

79    jack’nape ape (hence “fool/upstart”)    gar God

80    park enclosed hunting ground    meddle or make interfere

82    stones testicles

84    ver for

85    Jack knavish

86    Jarteer Garter    measure our weapon swords were measured before a duel to ensure that they were of equal length (weapon has phallic connotations)

88    prate chatter/gossip    What the good-year what the devil

91    An puns on “Anne” (whom Caius will be a    fool to woo)

96    trow wonder    near in

100    honest chaste

101    friend sympathizer/favorer (with a play on the sense of “lover”)

104    book i.e., Bible

107    it…Nan what an extraordinary girl she is    Nan diminutive of “Anne”

108    detest malapropism for “protest” (i.e., declare)

110    allicholy malapropism for “melancholy”    go to expression of impatient dismissal

112    voice support

114    confidence malapropism for “conference”; Quickly means “private conversation”

118    Out upon’t expression of irritation

Act 2 Scene 1

1    scaped escaped    holiday-time best time/heyday

3    precisian puritan/strict spiritual adviser (some editors emend to “physician”)    counsellor adviser/confidant

4    sympathy agreement/affinity (between us)

5    sack Spanish white wine

15    Herod of Jewry i.e., ranting villain; in the Bible, Herod of Judaea ordered the deaths of John the Baptist and the infant Jesus; he was presented in morality plays as both evil and absurdly boastful

16    gallant fashionable young gentleman/one who woos ladies    unweighed unconsidered

17    Flemish from the Netherlands; the Flemish were proverbially heavy drinkers

19    should I say could I have said

21    putting down suppression (perhaps with sexual connotations)

22    puddings sausages (also used to refer to the human guts)

23    trust me believe me/depend upon it

24    ill unwell/out of sorts (Mistress Ford responds to the sense of “ugly”)

25    have have something (i.e., the letter)

30    respect consideration

34    go to hell i.e., by committing adultery with Falstaff

36    hack strike repeatedly with a sword/have sex/make a whore of a woman

37    article…gentry nature of your social rank

38    burn daylight i.e., waste time

39    make…liking discriminate between men’s physiques

41    uncomeliness unseemly behavior

42    gone…of accorded with

44    ‘Greensleeves’ a popular love song, here incongruously juxtaposed with the sacred tunes of the    Psalms (some editors emend    hundred to “hundredth,” suggesting specific allusion to Psalm 100, “All people that on earth do dwell / Sing to the Lord with cheerful voice”)    tuns barrels/tons

46    entertain receive/welcome/occupy his attention

49    ill opinions Falstaff’s poor opinions of the women’s virtue

50    inherit take possession (of Falstaff’s offer)

53    into the press into the printing press/under pressure of his weight during sex

54    Mount Pelion in Greek mythology, warring giants piled Pelion on top of Mount Ossa in an attempt to reach Olympus, home of the gods

55    turtles turtledoves, proverbially faithful birds    ere before

56    hand handwriting

58    wrangle…honesty quarrel with my own virtue

59    entertain treat/consider

60    strain quality

61    boarded accosted/wooed (Mistress Ford picks up on the sense of “have sex with”)    fury fierce passion

62    above deck i.e., above the waist

63    come plays on the sense of “have an orgasm”    hatches with vaginal connotations

64    comfort…suit encouragement in his courtship

65    fine-baited tempting/alluring/skillfully baited

68    chariness careful preservation

76    curtal with a tail docked or cut off

77    affects aims at/loves

81    gallimaufry mixture (literally, stew made from a variety of odds and ends)    perpend consider

83    liver thought to be the seat of the passions    Prevent i.e., act now to stop Falstaff

84    Actaeon in Greek mythology, the goddess Diana turned Actaeon into a stag after he had seen her bathing; he was then killed by his own hounds

85    Ringwood one of Actaeon’s hounds    thy some editors emend to “his”

86    the name i.e., of cuckold (Actaeon’s horns made him a symbol of cuckoldry)

89    foot walk

90    cuckoo-birds known for laying their eggs in other birds’ nests; they were associated with cuckolds because of their name, and their call was considered a warning to married men

91    Away come away

95    should have borne was to have carried

96    upon my necessity when I need it

98    bread and cheese i.e., basic rations (perhaps those received in the service of Falstaff)

100    quoth a said he    his its

102    affecting affected

103    it i.e., it to be true

104    Cataian person from Cathay (China), used to mean “scoundrel”    though even if

111    crotchets whims/peculiar ideas

113    Have with you I’ll come with you/let’s go

115    fit it suit the part

123    offer attempt

124    yoke pair

128    lie lodge

129    voyage sexual advances

131    lie on my head be my responsibility/fault (in his response, Ford plays on the idea of wearing a cuckold’s horns on one’s head)

132    misdoubt mistrust/doubt    turn them release them (language used of cattle)

135    ranting jovial/boisterous/verbally extravagant

136    pate head

139    Cavaliero knight/courtly gentleman (from the Spanish caballero or the Italian cavaliere)

140    Good…twenty good day, many times over

148    contrary different/opposing

149    no jester i.e., Evans is skilled at swordsmanship/Evans is deadly serious

150    my…guest-cavalier i.e., Falstaff, who is a    guest at the Host’s inn

151    protest declare    pottle drinking vessel containing half a gallon (about four pints)    burned sack mulled wine/wine containing burnt sugar    recourse access

153    egress and regress right of exit and entry (legal terms)

154    An-heires of unclear meaning; possibly a partly anglicized version of the Dutch mynheers (“gentlemen”) or a corruption of ameers or “emirs” (Arab princes or military commanders)

157    stand on distance attach importance to the prescribed distance between the two duellists

158    passes, stoccadoes thrusts (technical terms used in fencing)    heart courage/spirit

159    long sword heavier weapon (the lighter rapier was now more fashionable)

160    tall brave/skillful with weapons

161    wag go

162    scold quarrel/wrangle

163    secure overconfident    stands…frailty relies so firmly on what is in fact his wife’s moral weakness

164    his i.e., Falstaff’s

165    made did

166    sound sound the depth of/examine/make trial of

Act 2 Scene 2

3    countenance to pawn borrow money on the strength of being in my service    countenance standing/reputation

4    grated upon harassed with demands

5    coach-fellow companion (literally, one of a pair of horses harnessed to a coach)    grate prison bars (plays on grated)    gemini pair

7    handle…fan these were often made of precious material such as ivory or silver

8    took’t upon swore by

9    share have a share in it

10    Reason with good reason    gratis for nothing

11    hang…me cease to be a burden to me (hang plays on the sense of “put to death”)    a…throng i.e., go and find a crowd where you may cut people’s purse-strings with a short knife

12    Picked-hatch a brothel or a disreputable part of London (literally, the half-door surmounted by spikes that may have characterized a brothel)

13    unconfinable limitless/infinite

14    precise pure/scrupulously observed

15    on…hand disregarded/to one side

16    fain…lurch obliged to deceive, dodge, and cheat

17    ensconce hide, as in a small fort (sconce)    cat-a-mountain wild cat    red-lattice alehouse (wooden lattices painted red characterized a tavern)

18    bold-beating excessively presumptuous/repeatedly coarse

20    relent yield

23    Give God give

25    Not so i.e., I am not a    wife

28    As…born Quickly means “just as much of an innocent maid as I was when I was born, like my mother was before me,” but actually says “just as much of a virgin as my mother was in childbirth”

31    vouchsafe permit (Quickly means something like “entreat”)

33    ways way

34    on go on

41    wanton seducer/lewd person/unruly one

44    canaries malapropism for “quandary”; a canary was either a dance or a wine    wonderful astonishing

48    rushling Quickly means “rustling”    alligant Quickly means “elegant”;    alligant was a form of “alicant,” a Spanish wine

50    eye-wink of glance from

51    angels i.e., as a bribe for her help from one of the suitors

52    sort manner/way

54    pensioners “poor Knights of Windsor,” who prayed for the King in return for an annuity

56    she-Mercury female Mercury, the messenger of the gods

58    notify understand/take note

62    wot know

64    frampold sour-tempered

66    messenger Quickly means “message”

68    fartuous Quickly means “virtuous”    civil modest decent and proper

69    miss you miss (you is emphatic)

72    charms magic spells

73    parts personal qualities/physical features

78    grace decency

80    of all loves for the sake of love    infection to Quickly means “affection for”

83    list pleases

84    kind plays on the sense of “sexually willing”

88    nay-word code word

94    distracts bewilders

95    punk prostitute    carriers messengers

96    Clap put (promptly)    fights screens used during a sea battle to protect the crew

97    prize treasure/captured vessel    whelm capsize/sink

98    Say’st…Jack? i.e., is that how things are (Falstaff is talking to himself)

99    look after look at (desirously)

100    grossly clumsily/coarsely (puns on the sense of “fat”)

101    so as long as    fairly fully/well (puns on the sense of “handsome”)

102    fain eagerly

108    encompassed got hold of/got round (plays on the sense of “embraced”)    via Italian exclamation of encouragement to action

111    make bold am presumptuous    preparation advance warning

112    Give us leave leave us please    drawer one who draws liquor/a tapster

115    sue beg    charge burden— i.e., with expense

116    plight condition/health

117    unseasoned unseasonable/ill-timed

119    on go forward

121    carriage carrying (of it)

127    discover reveal

129    register record

130    sith since

136    observance attentiveness/dutiful service    engrossed gathered    fee’d employed

138    largely generously

139    would have given would like to have given to her

141    means methods/resources/wealth    meed reward

144    flies flees    substance wealth/body (as opposed to shadow)

145    that flies which runs away from it (love)

146    satisfaction payment/sexual gratification

148    importuned urged

152    erected plays on the idea of penile erection

155    honest chaste    mirth enjoyment of pleasure/merriment

156    shrewd construction malicious judgment

157    great admittance i.e., widely received by society/admitted by the best persons

158    authentic respectable    generally allowed approved of by all

159    preparations accomplishments

163    amiable amorous

165    apply well to be appropriate to/fit in with

166    preposterously perversely/irrationally/foolishly

167    drift plan

168    folly lewdness/foolishness

169    against at directly (as if she were the sun)    detection accusation/exposure

170    instance evidence

171    ward protection/defensive posture (a fencing term)

172    her of her

178    Want lack

182    forth away from home

183    speed get on/succeed

186    wittolly contentedly cuckolded    the which which reason

187    well-favoured good-looking

188    harvest-home harvest gathered in/celebratory harvest festival

190    mechanical base, coarse (from the word for a manual worker)    salt-butter cheap

191    meteor considered to be a bad omen

192    predominate have ascendancy (an astrological term)

194    aggravate his style add to his title (by calling him cuckold and knave)

196    Epicurean pleasure-loving/sensual

197    improvident unwary/rash

199    false unfaithful/dishonest

200    stand…terms have to put up with being called offensive names

202    Amaimon…Barbason names of devils

203    additions names/titles

204    secure overconfident/unsuspecting

205    Fleming person from Flanders (a country in the Netherlands, whose inhabitants were supposedly very fond of    butter)

206    aqua-vitae strong spirits such as whiskey

207    walk exercise    ambling gelding easily ridden horse

Act 2 Scene 3

8    no…as not so dead as he will be when

11    Villainy i.e., villain

14    ’Save God save

18    foin thrust/lunge with a sword    traverse pierce with a sword/move from side to side in fencing

19    punto, thy stock thrust with the point of the sword    reverse backhanded thrust or “punto reverso”    distance (awareness of) the distance that must be kept from the opponent

20    montant upward thrust    Ethiopian i.e., person of dark hair and complexion    Francisco i.e., Frenchman

21    Aesculapius Greek god of medicine    Galen famous second-century Greek physician    heart of elder i.e., as opposed to the firm “heart of oak” that denoted courage; the elder tree is low and has soft wood    bully stale my old laughingstock/my old inspector of urine (i.e., doctor)

24    Castalion perhaps suggesting Spanish (from Castile)    king-urinal ruler over urine diagnosis    Hector of Greece the famed warrior was in fact from Troy

28    against the hair contrary to/against the grain

32    Bodykins by God’s dear body

33    make one join in

34    salt savor/liveliness

41    guest-justice like Falstaff, Shallow is also staying at the Garter Inn    Mockwater i.e., one who analyzes urine, perhaps with “mock” suggesting a degree of quackery (plays on “make water”—i.e., urinate from fear)

44    Jack-dog male dog/mongrel/knavish dog

46    clapper-claw beat/thrash

54    Frogmore small village near Windsor

60    for a jack-an-ape on behalf of an ape (i.e., Slender)

63    Cried game probably a sporting exclamation

67    adversary the Host knows that Caius will misunderstand and take the word to mean something like “advocate”

Act 3 Scene 1

3    physic medicine

4    Petty-ward i.e., toward Windsor Little (“petit”) Park    Park-ward toward Windsor Great Park    Old Windsor village near Windsor, south of    Frogmore

8    chollors choler (i.e., bile/anger)

9    knog knock (possibly “knot”)    urinals vessel containing urine for medical inspection (possibly Evans confusedly intends “testicles”)

10    costard head (literally, large apple)

12    To shallow rivers throughout the following two stanzas, Evans sings parts of Christopher Marlowe’s well-known poem “Come live with me and be my love”    falls cascades/waterfalls

13    madrigals songs for several voices (more generally, pastoral or love songs)

19    When…Pabylon Evans inserts a line from the metrical version of Psalm 137    Pabylon Babylon

20    vagram vagrant (malapropism for “fragrant”)

22    he i.e., Caius

26    No weapons presumably Simple means that, unlike Evans, Caius has not yet drawn his sword

33    from Evans means “for”

34    word i.e., scripture

35    doublet and hose close-fitting jacket and breeches (without his gown)

39    belike probably

40    at most odds at the greatest variance

42    fourscore eighty (literally, four times twenty)

43    wide…respect indifferent to his own reputation/far from proper consideration of himself/far from his own nature

47    as lief just as soon/rather

48    mess of porridge serving of meat and vegetable stew, eaten before the main course

50    Hibocrates Hippocrates, famous Greek physician of the fifth century BC

51    a cowardly i.e., as cowardly a

52    he’s i.e., Evans

58    question dispute/debate

59    hack our English mangle the English language instead

66    cockscomb head (literally, cap resembling the comb of a cock, worn by a professional fool)

67    stay waited

70    judgement by judged by/ruled by the judgment of

71    Gallia and Gaul Wales (from the French “Galles”) and France

74    politic cunning/wily    subtle crafty/sly

75    Machiavel intriguer/unscrupulous schemer (from Niccolò Machiavelli’s The Prince, a sixteenth-century treatise perceived as advocating political cunning)

76    motions bowel motions (i.e., laxatives or enemas)

77    no-verbs warnings as to what is forbidden/ (Welsh) nonsense words    terrestrial i.e., Caius, who ministers to the body

78    celestial i.e., Evans, who deals with spiritual matters    art skill/learning

80    issue outcome    to pawn i.e., as they are no longer needed

84    sot fool

85    vlouting-stog flouting-stock (i.e., laughingstock)

86    scall scald (i.e., scabby/scurvy/contemptible)

87    cogging companion cheating rascal

90    noddles head

Act 3 Scene 2

1    keep your way keep going    were wont used

2    Whether which

9    as…together as idle as she can be whilst remaining in one piece/those who are as idle as she is may as well keep each other company

13    his…of is the name of the person my husband got the boy from

17    league i.e., of friendship

23    twelve score (from a distance of) 240 paces or yards    pieces out increases

24    folly lewdness    motion and advantage prompting and opportunity

25    hear…wind foresee what is to come (as one may anticipate rain before it actually arrives)

26    revolted i.e., from virtue and fidelity

27    take him catch him out/encounter him

28    divulge reveal

29    wilful willing    Actaeon i.e., a cuckold (due to the horns he received when turned into a stag)

30    cry aim applaud/shout encouragement (a term from archery)

34    knot group/company    cheer entertainment/food and drink

38    break with break my word to

46    capers is merry and lively/dances/leaps

47    speaks holiday speaks in a lively, entertaining way/uses choice language

48    carry’t be successful/carry it off    ’tis…buttons he has the essential quality within him/he is sure to succeed

49    having wealth, means

50    wild…Poins i.e., Prince Henry and Poins, who appear in Shakespeare’s Henry IV plays    region social standing

51    knit a knot secure/repair    substance wealth

52    simply i.e., as she is, with no dowry

55    monster i.e., Falstaff, imaged here as a so-called monster exhibited at a fair

59    anon shortly

60    hearts fine friends    canary sweet wine from the Canary Islands (in Ford’s response, he plays on the sense of “lively dance”)

62    pipe wine wine from the wooden cask (pipe puns on the sense of “musical instrument”)    make him dance i.e., make him leap/beat him

63    gentles gentlemen

64    Have with we shall come

Act 3 Scene 3

2    buck-basket laundry basket (to buck is to wash)

6    charge instructions

7    hard close

8    brew-house outhouse for brewing beer

10    whitsters bleachers of clothing    Datchet Mead meadow between Windsor Little Park and the River Thames

16    eyas-musket young hawk that has not been fully trained

19    Jack-a-Lent figure or puppet of a man traditionally pelted during Lent

21    liberty i.e., unemployment

22    turn me away sack me

28    humidity dampness/collection of fluids (i.e., Falstaff)

29    pumpion pumpkin    turtles from jays turtledoves (proverbially faithful) from brightly colored birds (i.e., loose women)

30    Have…jewel? a slightly adapted line from Philip Sidney’s sonnet sequence Astrophil and Stella

31    period goal/climax

33    cog cheat/flatter    prate prattle/brag

39    ship-tire ornamental headdress shaped like or inspired by a ship    tire-valiant elaborate headdress    Venetian admittance accepted as fashionable in stylish Venice

40    kerchief simple head covering    become suit

42    absolute perfect

43    firm…foot confident tread    semi-circled farthingale semicircular boned petticoat worn underneath the back of the dress

44    Fortune…friend i.e., Nature has favored Mistress Ford with beauty but Fortune has prevented her from being a lady (Falstaff continues to imply that he could raise her estate)

49    hawthorn-buds i.e., budding courtiers/affected young gallants

50    Bucklersbury street in the City of London known for shops selling medicinal herbs    simple time midsummer, when herbs (simples) were most readily available

53    Counter-gate gate to the Counter, a debtor’s prison in Southwark

54    reek smoke/foul smell    lime-kiln kiln for making mortar

59    blowing puffing    presently immediately

60    ensconce me hide myself    arras large tapestry wall hanging

64    undone ruined

66    well-a-day expression of regret    to as

69    Out upon you! expression of frustration and condemnation

77    clear innocent/free from blame

78    friend lover    amazed stunned

79    good life i.e., existence as a respectable woman/reputation

84    stand waste time (saying)

85    conveyance contrivance to get Falstaff out of the house

88    whiting-time bleaching time

96    dissembling deceptive

98    cowl-staff pole used by two people to carry a    cowl (tub or basket)

99    drumble move sluggishly

103    what…do what business is it of yours    You…buck-washing a proper concern of yours is it to interfere with washing clothes

105    Buck laundry, but Ford puns on the senses of “stag,” whose horns represent cuckoldry, and “lecherous man”

106    of the season in the rutting season

107    tonight i.e., last night

108    chambers inner rooms/bedrooms    unkennel drive out

109    uncape uncover (or perhaps a printer’s error for “escape” or “uncase”)

110    contented calm/satisfied

119    taking agitated state

121    need of washing i.e., as he may have urinated or defecated in fright

123    strain nature

127    try test

129    carrion old bag/whore

135    compass achieve/embrace

137    use treat

144    presses large cupboards

147    distemper…kind bad temper/disordered mind of this sort

150    as…desires as I could possibly wish for (unintentionally punning on the sense of “as I could desire sexually”)

158    a-birding hunt small birds using a    hawk to drive them into leafless bushes

163    remembrance…host i.e., let us remember the revenge we have planned on the Host for the trick he played on us over the duel

Act 3 Scene 4

2    turn refer

4    be thyself i.e., take matters into your own hands

6    state…expense my estate being damaged by my spending    galled made sore through chafing

8    bars obstacles

9    riots wasteful/dissipated lifestyle    societies companionships

13    speed prosper

17    stamps coins (stamped with an image)

24    Break interrupt

25    I’ll…on’t i.e., I’ll do it one way or another (a shaft is a slender arrow used in a longbow, while a bolt is the shorter, thicker one used in a crossbow)    ’Slid by God’s eyelid (a common phrase)    but venturing only a matter of having a go

26    dismayed frightened; Slender’s reply suggests that he does not understand the word

30    ill-favoured ugly

33    thou…father i.e., remember that you had a valiant father/a father who once wooed a woman; Slender misunderstands this as a prompt for conversation with Anne

40    come…long-tail come what may (literally, refers to a horse/dog with either a docked or a long tail)

41    jointure marriage settlement provided for the wife by the husband in the event of his death

47    will wish (Slender understands the legal sense of the term; there may also be a play on the sense of “sexual desire”)

48    ’Od’s heartlings by God’s dear heart

52    motions urgings    happy…dole i.e., may the man who gets you be happy with his lot

57    haunt hang around

67    for that because

69    Perforce of necessity    checks rebukes/obstacles    manners means of behaving (to me)

70    advance the colours raise the flag (as if toward an opposing army)

72    yond yonder

75    set quick buried alive (up to the neck)

80    affected inclined

86    once at some point

87    There’s i.e., there’s money

91    sooth truth

93    speciously malapropism for “specially”    of be on

Act 3 Scene 5

3    quart i.e., two pints    toast piece of hot toast sometimes added to wine

4    barrow barrow-load

7    slighted me tipped me contemptuously

8    blind bitch’s puppies the newborn, blind puppies of a bitch

9    down sink

10    shore was shelvy banks were sloping

12    mummy dead flesh

15    reins kidneys

17    cry you mercy beg your pardon

18    pottle drinking vessel containing half a gallon (equivalent to four pints)

20    Simple plain/unmixed (with eggs)    I’ll I’ll have    pullet-sperm chicken seed (i.e., eggs)

24    ford river water

25    take on with rant at, berate

26    erection malapropism for “direction” (i.e., instruction; Falstaff’s response brings in the architectural and phallic senses)

28    yearn move to compassion

33    frailty moral frailty (contrasted here with Falstaff’s supposed resolution in keeping his appointment with Mistress Ford)

37    miss fail to meet

47    sped you were you successful

48    ill-favouredly poorly

49    determination intention/decision

50    peaking cornuto skulking/mean-spirited cuckold

51    ’larum alarm/agitation    comes me comes (me is an intensifier)

52    protested declared (love)

62    Rammed perhaps, coming after    buck, with a play on “ram” (male sheep, horned like the buck, and also associated with lust)

63    that so that

68    knaves, his hinds servants (both terms may also be derogatory)

72    held with held

73    mark note

74    several separate

75    detected with discovered by    rotten diseased    bell-wether ram (sometimes castrated) wearing a bell round his neck as a means of leading the flock    compassed surrounded/bent over like a strong sword    bilbo sword from Bilbao, town in Spain noted for excellent sword manufacture

76    peck two-gallon container used to store dry goods    stopped shut, stoppered

77    distillation concentrated substance    fretted became corroded/fermented

78    kidney constitution/nature

79    dissolution melting/dissolving (puns on the sense of “loose living”)

81    Dutch dish the Dutch were supposedly very fond of butter

84    good sadness all seriousness

86    Etna volcano in Sicily

88    embassy message

96    hole…coat i.e., even I have a fault (proverbial; possibly with sexual connotations)

99    halfpenny purse small purse for small coins

101    what I am i.e., a cuckold

102    horn-mad wildly enraged, like a horned beast/madly jealous like a cuckold

Act 4 Scene 1

2    by this by this time

3    courageous vigorously/extremely, or possibly a malapropism for “outrageous(ly)”

4    suddenly immediately

6    playing-day holiday

8    is…play i.e., has asked that the boys be given a holiday, the privilege of a visitor to the school

11    accidence principles of Latin grammar; the following examples are drawn from William Lilly and John Colet’s A Short Introduction of Grammer, the official prescribed text for schools

15    Two i.e., single and plural

17    ‘Od’s nouns’ Quickly is confusing the abbreviated phrase “by God’s (i.e., Christ’s) wounds” with the idea of odd numbers

18    Peace your tattlings! Leave off your prattling!

20    Polecats weasel-like animals/whores (pronounced in a more similar manner than today, Quickly is confusing the word with the Latin    pulcher)

27    articles i.e., the (definite article) or a/an (indefinite article)

28    Articles…hoc a direct quotation from Lilly’s Grammer    pronoun part of speech used to designate an object without naming it directly; e.g., “this/that”

29    Singulariter in the singular    nominativo in the nominative case    hic, haec, hoc common Latin pronouns

30    genitivo the genitive case (is)

32    hinc the correct form is in fact hunc, though Evans fails to spot this (unless his subsequent hing is a printer’s error for hung)

33    hing, hang, hog i.e., hunc, hanc, hoc

34    ‘Hang-hog’ hanging up a pig is necessary to produce bacon

35    prabbles silly chatter/irritating interruptions    focative i.e., vocative; Evans’s pronunciation inadvertently plays on “fuck”    case plays on the sense of “vagina”

36    O suggestive of the vagina

37    caret Latin for “is missing”; Quickly’s response shows that she hears the word as “carrot,” which, along with    root, is slang for “penis”

44    horum plays on “whore”    harum plays on “hare” (another slang term for a prostitute)

45    Vengeance of a plague upon    Ginny’s case Quickly misunderstands “genitive case” as “this woman Ginny’s case (vagina)”

48    hick…hack drink (hiccup) and to go whoring/to have sex (with whores)

54    declension the variation of a pronoun etc. through its different cases

57    preeches breeched (i.e., whipped on the buttocks)

59    sprag i.e., sprack (smart/alert)

Act 4 Scene 2

1    sufferance suffering

2    obsequious compliant/dutiful

3    office role/(sexual) performance    accoutrement adornments, apparel

4    complement accompanying etiquette    sure of secure from

6    gossip friend

9    people i.e., servants

14    lines tricks    takes on rants

16    complexion appearance/coloring

17    Peer out i.e., show yourselves (addressed to his cuckold’s horns)

18    to compared to

24    experiment trial

31    bestow dispose of/stow (him) away

35    what make you what are you doing

38    use…birding-pieces make it a custom to fire their guns

39    kiln-hole opening to the oven

42    abstract list

45    semblance appearance

49    muffler scarf covering part of the face and the neck

50    mischief injury, misfortune

51    Brentford originally “Brainford,” a village between Windsor and London, known for amorous assignations    above upstairs

53    thrummed fringed/with a shaggy surface

54    look look for

56    straight straight away    the while in the meantime

58    shape outward appearance/disguise

64    good sadness all seriousness

65    intelligence information

66    try test

72    dishonest deceitful, lecherous

74    honest chaste, virtuous

75    act actually commit misdeeds/have sex

76    still quiet    draff swill, leftovers given to pigs

77    hard at close by/right at the

78    dispatch hurry

81    as lief rather

82    Ay…again? Ford’s reply to whatever Page has just said—presumably something to the effect of “if it prove false that Falstaff is there, you will look like a fool”

84    panderly pimping/go-between

85    gin gang    Now…shamed i.e., now the truth will out (proverbial: “speak the truth and shame the devil”)

88    passes surpasses/is excessive

89    be pinioned have your wings clipped

97    hold it out keep up your deception

107    flea’s death i.e., a miserable death/he shall be crushed like a parasitic insect

109    fidelity faith

114    show…extremity offer no excuse for my extreme behavior

115    table-sport joke amongst company

116    leman lover

122    quean hussy/whore    cozening cheating

123    of on

124    under the profession in the name

125    by th’figure by drawing up horoscopes    daubery trickery    element understanding (literally, the element in which one rightfully belongs)

129    Mother Prat prat means “a trick” though it was also slang for the buttocks

130    prat practice tricks on/beat (or simply a nonce-word derived from the name)    rag worthless wretch

131    runnion abusive term for a woman, perhaps “mangy old bag”

133    ’Tis…you i.e., that will reflect well on you (said in irony)

135    By…no a very mild oath (moderated from the Quarto text’s stronger “By Jesu”)

138    cry…trail bark like a hunting dog when there is in fact no scent    open bark loudly at a scent

139    obey his humour humor him

143    hallowed blessed/dedicated to God

144    meritorious deserving of reward

145    warrant assurance/authorization (with play on the legal sense: “document authorizing a judicial sentence”)

147    wantonness lust

148    fee-simple absolute possession (legal term used of land or property)    fine and recovery legal procedures employed to transfer the ownership of land

149    waste legal term referring to the damage or alteration of land or property by a tenant (puns on “waist”)

150    served treated (with a play on the sense of “had sex with”)

151    figures fantasies

153    ministers agents

155    period conclusion

156    shape it i.e., as one would mold hot iron in the    forge

Act 4 Scene 3

6    sauce them make them pay overly high prices

7    at command at their disposal

8    come off pay up

Act 4 Scene 4

1    ’Tis…’oman she is one of the most prudent/sensible women

2    an instant the same time

7    heretic unbeliever/holder of unorthodox religious beliefs

22    use treat/behave toward

24    Herne the hunter huntsman of great skill who was wounded after saving the king from a vicious stag; his own life was saved when the dead beast’s antlers were tied to his head, but he was later framed for or caught poaching and hanged himself from an oak in Windsor Great Park, which he is said to haunt

25    Sometime at one point/formerly

27    ragged rough, jagged

28    blasts withers    takes bewitches

29    milch-kine dairy cows

32    eld people from the past

35    want lack

41    shape disguise/appearance

45    growth size

46    urchins goblins/elves    oafs goblin or elf children/changelings

47    tapers candles

50    sawpit pit over which wood was laid to be sawn

51    diffusèd confused, disordered

59    sound soundly

68    vizards masks

73    Eton village over the river from Windsor

76    properties theatrical props

77    tricking adornments

83    well landed in possession of a good amount of land

84    he…affects my husband favors him most

Act 4 Scene 5

1    boor peasant, ill-bred fellow    thick-skin idiot    discuss declare

4    standing-bed and truckle-bed the truckle-bed was a smaller bed on castors kept beneath the main (standing) bed

5    Prodigal the Prodigal (extravagant) Son, who appears in the biblical parable (Luke 15)

6    Anthropophaginian cannibal

10    lungs military military lungs

11    Ephesian boon companion/fellow degenerate

13    Bohemian-Tartar i.e., savage, dissolute person

14    Privacy seclusion, concealment (implying that Falstaff has been having sex with the “woman”)

18    wise woman woman skilled in magic

19    mussel-shell perhaps Simple is gaping open-mouthed or is being imaged as something worthless and insignificant

21    beguiled deceived

31    conceal malapropism for “reveal”

39    like…bold as bold as the boldest

41    clerkly learned

46    mere absolute

47    varletto i.e., varlet, loosely Italianized by the Host

49    slough of mire muddy bog

50    Doctor Faustuses In Christopher Marlowe’s play of the same name, Doctor Faustus, a German, sold his soul to the devil; this passage seems to allude to a scene in which three characters are thrown in a mire

55    entertainments the hospitality you provide for your guests

56    cozen-germans cheating Germans/men pretending to be Germans (plays on “cousin german”—i.e., first cousin)

57    Readings…Colebrook small towns not far from Windsor (Readings is Caius’s Welsh plural for Reading;    Colebrook is now Colnbrook)

58    vlouting-stocks flouts (i.e., mockery); literally flouting-stocks (i.e., laughingstocks)

59    convenient appropriate

62    dat…come i.e., who is known to have arrived or is due to arrive at court

63    Jamany i.e., Germany

65    Hue…villain a cry used to call for the pursuit of a criminal (addressed to Bardolph)

70    liquor smear with oil or grease (to render waterproof)

72    forswore…primero cheated in a card game but swore that I had not    wind breath

76    dam mother

77    bestowed got rid of

79    speciously malapropism for “specially”

83    like likely/about

84    But were it not for the fact that

90    crossed thwarted

Act 4 Scene 6

1    over up (my efforts in support of your pursuit of Anne Page)

5    counsel secret

9    So far forth insofar

10    to in accordance with

12    mirth i.e., the humorous account of the humiliation of Falstaff    larded…matter intermingled with my current concerns

15    scene i.e., role in the drama    image idea

16    at large in full (Fenton may be showing the Host Anne’s letter)

20    rank on foot abundantly afoot

26    shuffle smuggle

27    tasking of occupying

28    dean’ry house belonging to the dean of a church

31    it rests the matter stands

33    habit clothing

36    denote mark out

38    quaint prettily/fashionably    loose enrobed loosely dressed/gowned with an outer garment

39    pendent hanging    flaring spread out/waving in the wind

40    vantage opportunity

41    token sign

46    stay wait

49    husband manage (with an obvious pun)    device plan

52    present immediate

Act 5 Scene 1

1    hold keep the appointment

2    divinity divine power

6    wears wears away/is running out    mince i.e., get moving (literally, walk daintily/trippingly)

15    Goliath…beam according to the Bible, the giant Goliath had a spear like a weaver’s beam (i.e., wooden roller in a loom)

16    shuttle another quotation adapted from the Bible; a shuttle was an instrument used in weaving for passing thread to and fro

17    whipped top made a top (child’s toy) spin by lashing it

20    in hand are happening

Act 5 Scene 2

1    couch lie/hide

3    nay-word code word

4    ‘mum’…‘budget’ “mumbudget” was a phrase meaning “keep silent”

7    decipher reveal

8    become suit

Act 5 Scene 3

2    dispatch get on with it/conclude it

6    chafe be vexed/inflamed

11    obscured concealed

14    choose but amaze fail to terrify/astound

Act 5 Scene 4

1    Trib trip (i.e., come on/move nimbly)

2    watch-’ords watchwords (i.e., password/signal)

Act 5 Scene 5

2    Jove…Europa Europa, daughter of the King of Phoenicia, was carried away by Jove, king of the gods; disguised as a bull, he swam to Crete with her on his back

4    Leda in the guise of a swan,    Jupiter (or Jove) seduced Leda, wife of the King of Sparta

6    fault sin, with particular application to fornication and possible play on “vagina”

7    backs loins

9    rut-time mating season    piss my tallow piss away my fat; stags were thought to urinate more frequently during the mating season, by the end of which their energetic behavior had caused them to lose weight

10    piss my tallow piss away my fat; stags were thought to urinate more frequently during the mating season, by the end of which their energetic behavior had caused them to lose weight    doe female deer/mate/whore

11    deer puns on “dear”

12    scut tail/vulva    potatoes sweet or Spanish potatoes were considered aphrodisiacs

13    kissing-comfits confectionary for sweetening the breath    eryngoes candied roots of the sea holly; a type of sweetmeat viewed as an aphrodisiac

14    provocation sexual stimulation

15    sweetheart puns on “sweet hart” (i.e., male deer)

16    Divide…buck in order to conceal the theft, stolen (bribed) deer were cut up and divided rapidly amongst the poachers

17    fellow…walk gamekeeper of this part of the wood

18    woodman hunter/womanizer/lunatic

19    Cupid…restitution i.e., Cupid is conscientiously making amends to me

24    oil i.e., grease/fat

25    cross thwart    Hobgoblin another name for Puck or Robin Goodfellow

27    shades spirits

28    orphan parentless/neglected/friendless    heirs…destiny offspring who have set roles to carry out/inheritors of destiny (perhaps with the power to influence it)

29    Attend…quality attend to your duties and particular occupations

30    Crier town crier, maker of public announcements    oyez i.e., “hear ye”

31    list listen for    toys insubstantial creatures

33    unraked without coals and ashes heaped together to maintain burning through the night

34    bilberry small blue-black fruit

37    wink shut my eyes    eye observe

40    Raise…fantasy stimulate her imagination, give her delightful dreams

41    Sleep she may she sleep    careless free from anxiety

42    as who

44    About about it/to action

46    oafs elves

47    perpetual doom judgment day

48    as…fit as sound in condition as it is deserving of dignity

49    Worthy worthy of

50    several…order individual seats assigned to the Knights of the Garter (in the castle chapel)

51    balm fragrant herbs

52    instalment stall (i.e., place or seat assigned to a knight)    coat coat of arms    crest heraldic device originally worn on a helmet

53    blazon banner bearing the coat of arms

55    compass circle (i.e., the Garter ribbon, worn below the knee)

56    Th’expressure picture, expression (i.e., fairy-ring or circle of darker green grass)

58    Honi…pense “shamed be he who thinks evil (of it)” (the French motto that appeared on the Garter ribbons)

61    Buckled tied

62    charactery writing

64    dance of custom customary dance

68    measure stately dance

69    man of middle-earth i.e., a mortal, dwelling on the earth (midway between heaven and hell)

71    cheese supposedly the favorite food of the Welsh

72    o’erlooked looked on with the evil eye, bewitched

73    trial-fire testing fire    touch me touch (me is emphatic)

75    turn expose    start recoil, flinch

78    wood i.e., Falstaff’s finger

81    About surround

82    trip dance/skip    still continually

84    fantasy imaginings/amorous desire

luxury lechery    green…Anne the original Quarto stage direction has Caius taking a boy in red, Slender one in green, and Anne in white; see “Text” in Key Facts

85    bloody fire fire in the blood/lustful fire

89    mutually all together

93    watched spied and caught

94    serve your turn do for you

95    hold…higher maintain the joke no more

97    yokes Falstaff’s antlers are shaped like the oxen’s yoke

102    arrested seized by legal warrant (until the debt is paid)

104    meet encounter one another amorously

105    deer puns on “dear”

107    proofs i.e., his horns    extant apparent/protruding

109    surprise…powers ambush of my faculties/understanding

110    foppery trickery, foolery    in…of in spite of, the face of

111    wit intelligence

112    Jack-a-Lent figure of a man traditionally pelted during Lent, butt of jokes

119    wants matter lacks the means

120    o’erreaching deception    with by

121    coxcomb fool’s cap (with a crest like a cock’s comb)    frieze coarse woolen cloth

124    fritters fried scraps of battered meat    late-walking going out with whores late at night

129    hodge-pudding pudding made from a random assortment of ingredients    bag of flax sack of flax (plant fibers used for cloth)

130    puffed swollen

131    intolerable insufferable/excessively large/impossible to carry

133    Job in the Bible, Job suffered great poverty; his wife advised him to curse God for it

136    metheglins spiced liquor of Welsh origin    starings glares

138    theme subject (of your mockery)    start of advantage over    dejected cast down, humbled, humiliated

139    flannel coarse woolen cloth    Ignorance…me I am searched to the very depths by ignorance itself (i.e., Evans); may pun on “plumbet” (woolen fabric)    plummet device for measuring the depth of the sea

142    should…pander were to have been a pimp

145    posset hot drink made with milk, liquor, and spices

148    this this time, now

151    dispatched managed things

154    Of what i.e., know of what

156    lubberly loutish

157    swinged beaten

158    postmaster keeper of post horses (which were hired out for the swift conveyance of messages)

159    took the wrong went wrong (in following instructions); Slender responds to the sense of “made a mistake (in thinking the boy was Anne)”

162    had him accepted him as my wife/had sex with him

165    green most editors emend to “white” for consistency with the setup in Act 5 scene 2

168    white most editors emend to “green” for consistency with the setup in Act 4 scene 6

171    paysan peasant

172    white most editors emend to “green” for consistency with the setup in Act 5 scene 3

173    raise rouse

180    amaze bewilder

182    proportion…love balanced, mutual loving relationship

183    contracted engaged (secretly)

184    sure firmly bound

187    unduteous title undutifulness    title name

188    evitate avoid

192    guide the state rule matters

194    stand advantageous position from which a hunter may shoot

195    glanced struck superficially

199    muse wonder/grumble

MEASURE FOR MEASURE

The most widely read book in Shakespeare’s England was the “Geneva” translation of the Bible. Because of this, the title of Measure for Measure would have been readily recognized by the play’s original audience as an allusion to the opening verses of the seventh chapter of Saint Matthew’s gospel:

Judge not, that ye be not judged.

For with what judgement ye judge, ye shall be judged, and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again.

And why see’st thou the mote, that is in thy brother’s eye, and perceivest not the beam that is in thine own eye?

The running head summarizing the content of this page in the Geneva Bible reads “Christ’s doctrine— God’s providence.” Of all Shakespeare’s plays, Measure for Measure is the one in which the dramatization of Christian doctrine and the motions of divine providence are most prominent. Angelo sees the mote in Claudio’s eye (getting his girlfriend Juliet pregnant before marrying her, albeit after becoming engaged to her) and fails to perceive the beam in his own (dumping his girlfriend Mariana upon discovering that she hasn’t got any money). He judges Claudio, but the duke contrives to judge him by his own measure.

The Geneva Bible included interpretative glosses in its margins. Beside the “measure for measure” verses appeared the admonition “hypocrites hide their own faults, and seek not to amend them, but are curious to reprove other men’s.” That could as well be an instant character sketch of Angelo. He is more than once described as “precise,” a term applied to no other character in Shakespeare. It was a word that often went with “puritan,” as may be seen from the way in which Shakespeare’s acquaintance John Florio defined the phrase Gabba santi in his Anglo-Italian dictionary: “a precise dissembling puritan, an hypocrite.”

Despite the steer given by the title, the play is much more tangled than the old drama on which it was based, George Whetstone’s History of Promos and Cassandra, which showed “the unsufferable abuse of a lewd magistrate,” “the virtuous behaviour of a chaste lady,” and “the perfect magnanimity of a noble king in checking vice and favouring virtue,” all for the purpose of revealing “the ruin and overthrow of dishonest practices” and “the advancement of upright dealing.” Shakespeare took Whetstone’s basic plotline and principal characters—the indecent proposal, the hypocritical dealing of the lawgiver, the beautiful gentlewoman asked to give up her chastity in return for her brother’s life, the ruler who returns and sorts everything out—but greatly complicated the moral vision. Whetstone’s character of Promos has two anguished soliloquies in which he reflects on his desire for Cassandra. They offer a structural anticipation of Angelo’s self-questioning “What’s this? What’s this? Is this her fault or mine? / The tempter or the tempted, who sins most? Ha?” and “When I would pray and think, I think and pray / To several subjects.” Whetstone, however, lacks Shakespeare’s gift of writing soliloquy with meditative pauses, shifts between argument and emotion, and rhetorical twists that create the illusion that the character is having the thought as he speaks rather than speechifying on a predetermined theme. Promos’ dilemma is set up in terms of a simple opposition between reason and desire; with Angelo, on the other hand, it is the force of Isabella’s reason—her powers of linguistic persuasion—that inflames his desire. He wants her not because she’s beautiful or even because she is on the verge of taking a vow of perpetual chastity, but because he loves to see her mind and tongue at work. “She speaks, and ’tis such sense / That my sense breeds with it.” Here rational sense is the very thing that stirs sensuality. In a good production, sexual chemistry crackles between Angelo and Isabella even as she resists him. Being a man who is used to getting his way, he does not realize how much he loves it when he does not. Two strong wills strain against each other. As we watch, there is a little part of us that anticipates—or even hopes—that they will end up marrying each other in the manner of Shakespeare’s other sparring couples, Petruchio and Kate, Berowne and Rosaline, Beatrice and Benedick.

Intriguingly, the Mariana plotline is Shakespeare’s key innovation in the plot: Whetstone’s play and the various sixteenth-century Italian versions of the story do not have the “bed trick” and they end with the king or duke punishing the Angelo figure by having him marry the Isabella figure (in order to repair her honor) before being executed. The Isabella figure then intervenes, professes her love for the man who has abused her, he is pardoned, and they live happily ever after. Shakespeare transposes these turns onto Mariana and saves Angelo from execution. Mercy prevails over justice: it should be remembered that the “measure for measure” passage in Saint Matthew’s gospel is at the heart of the Sermon on the Mount, in which Jesus lays out his moral code, sharply distinguishing his new covenant of forgiveness from the harsher “eye for an eye” law of the Old Testament.

The introduction of Mariana into the story displaces the marriage plot from Isabella, seemingly leaving her free to return to the nunnery and take her final vows. But the play ends with the wholly unexpected twist of the duke’s proposal. In one way, it is a fitting union. Having made the wrong choice of deputy (Escalus would have done the job much better), the duke makes the right choice of wife: Isabella will bring to his household the moral fiber that has been lacking, without any of Angelo’s hypocrisy. Her “ghostly father” will become her husband and the mother superior of the nunnery will have to do without her: the monastic virtues will be brought from the contemplative to the active life, from the cloister to the secular state, in a manner characteristic of the sixteenth-century Protestant Reformation. In another way, though, it is an astonishing ending. This has not been a courtship comedy. And is there not a little touch of moral blackmail in the proposal? Angelo’s proposition was: sleep with me and I will save your brother’s life. The duke’s is: I have saved your brother’s life, so marry me.

It has sometimes been argued that Shakespeare was becoming bored with comedy’s conventional happy ending in multiple marriages. Perhaps this is a parody of a comic ending. He certainly turned away from comedy in the next few years of his writing career. Strikingly, Isabella does not respond to the proposal. Does she fall into the duke’s arms with silent and submissive joy? Or look puzzled? Or aghast? Some productions of the play leave the ending open, with a kind of freeze-frame effect. It is not unknown—though without textual warrant—for Isabella to look the duke up and down, then turn away and march back to the sisterhood.

The puzzle over the ending is bound up with broader interpretative anxieties about the duke. He may be regarded as a Godlike figure, benignly controlling the world of the play from behind the scenes. But is it healthy for a human to take on the role of divine providence? Angelo is a moral hypocrite, but it should not be forgotten that the origin of the word “hypocrite” is the Greek term for an actor. It is the duke who is the role-player, the actor. Does he have the right to impersonate a friar and hear the confessions of Claudio and Mariana? “Confess” is another of the play’s key words, used in both its spiritual and judicial senses.

The part of Lucio is considerably bigger than that of Angelo. Where Angelo is a false-seeming angel crested with the devil’s horn, Lucio plays a seductive Lucifer to the duke’s God. To adapt what William Blake said of John Milton’s Paradise Lost, Shakespeare was a true poet and of the devil’s party without (perhaps) knowing it. Lucio speaks deep truths in light language: the extinction of sexual desire would require the gelding and spaying of all the youth of the city; the duke is in certain senses a creature of “dark corners.” It is almost the first law of the Shakespearean universe that the voice of the devil’s advocate should not be silenced. “I am a kind of burr,” says Lucio, “I shall stick.”

The first recorded performance of Measure for Measure took place on December 26, 1604, as part of the royal Christmas festivities. It was, then, one of the first plays written by Shakespeare for his new monarch. Within weeks of Queen Elizabeth’s death in 1603, Shakespeare’s acting company had been renamed the King’s Men. Over the next ten years they played at court between a dozen and twenty times a year, far more often than any other company. Though the duke is by no means an allegorical representation of King James, the play reveals Shakespeare moving into territory that fascinated the king: a concern with slander and reputation, an anatomy of the secret springs of power as opposed to a public display of majesty in the style of Queen Elizabeth’s pageants and processions (“I love the people, / But do not like to stage me to their eyes”), a demonstration of the intricacies of theological and moral debate (one of James’ first acts on arriving in London was to convene a conference at Hampton Court in which he participated in the contentions of high and low churchmen over such matters as the estate of holy matrimony and the question of who could legitimately perform the sacraments). The king would therefore have been the ideal spectator for such set pieces as the duke’s rhetorical mortification of Claudio (“Be absolute for death”). An acute ironist himself, he would have enjoyed the irony whereby Claudio is instantly persuaded by the duke’s richly rendered argument, only to change his position a few minutes later when his sister tells him of Angelo’s offer—at which point he voices a speech about the horrors of bodily decay and spiritual damnation that is the very antithesis of the duke’s argument against life.

Though the play is set in Vienna, the brothels in the “suburbs” or “liberties” of the city evoke the London in which it was performed, where theater and the sex trade stood side by side on the south bank of the Thames. The malapropisms of Constable Elbow, meanwhile, are in the vein of very English humor associated with Dogberry in Much Ado about Nothing and Mistress Quickly in The Merry Wives of Windsor. At the same time, the play has the whiff of both sexual license and political intrigue that the Elizabethans and Jacobeans associated with Italy. The duke’s plan to get Angelo to do his dirty work for him could be read as a political strategy deriving from the pages of Machiavelli.

A drama is always a species of trial, in which actions, motives, and ideas are tested before the jury of an audience. The Duke of Vienna—like Duke Prospero of Milan in The Tempest—is a dramatist engaged upon a test. How is unbridled carnal license best restrained, in order to save society from the ravages of sexual disease and the burden of unwanted children? By extreme puritanism of the kind advocated by Angelo? This solution is tested and found severely wanting. What does the duke offer in its place? In theory the answer is a middle road between justice and mercy, licence and restraint. The technical term for this third way is “temperance,” a key virtue in classical ethics. The duke, says Escalus, is “A gentleman of all temperance.” Temperance, however, depends on everyone behaving reasonably and obeying the rule of moderation. What Shakespeare recognizes—as the duke does not—is that people simply cannot be relied upon to show perpetual temperance. So it is that at the very center of the action we find the extraordinary bit part of Barnardine, the man who announces that he will not be executed today, thank you very much, because he has a hangover. The whole of the duke’s plot nearly collapses because of him. It is salvaged only by the palpably improbable device of inventing the pirate Ragozine who just happens to look like Claudio and to die at the right moment. Barnardine, wrote the great nineteenth-century essayist William Hazlitt, “is a fine antithesis to the morality and the hypocrisy of the other characters of the play.”

KEY FACTS

PLOT: The Duke of Vienna decides to leave the city for a while, appointing his deputy, Angelo, to govern in his absence. Angelo resolves to revive vigorous laws against sexual license, which have fallen into disuse. Under these laws a young gentleman, Claudio, is sentenced to death for having made his fiancée Juliet pregnant before their wedding ceremony. Claudio’s sister Isabella, a novice nun, is persuaded by his friend Lucio to plead with Angelo for her brother’s life. Angelo promises to free Claudio if Isabella will sleep with him. She refuses and tells her brother that she must keep her honor and he, therefore, must die. The duke has stayed in Vienna disguised as a friar observing the new regime and he now persuades Isabella to pretend to accede to Angelo’s demands. Her place in Angelo’s bed is secretly taken by Mariana, Angelo’s former fiancée whom he deserted. After the event, Angelo betrays Isabella by trying to carry out Claudio’s execution but his plans are foiled by the duke’s intervention.

MAJOR PARTS: (with percentage of lines/number of speeches/scenes on stage) Duke (30%/194/9), Isabella (15%/129/8), Lucio (11%/111/5), Angelo (11%/83/5), Escalus (7%/78/5), Provost (6%/65/7), Pompey (6%/60/4), Claudio (4%/35/4), Elbow (2%/28/2), Mariana (2%/24/3), Overdone (1%/15/2).

LINGUISTIC MEDIUM: 65% verse, 35% prose.

DATE: Performed at court December 26, 1604; probably written earlier the same year.

SOURCES: Main plot from George Whetstone’s two-part play Promos and Cassandra (1578) and the novella in Giraldi Cinthio’s Hecatommithi (1565) that was Whetstone’s source; the bed trick was a common romance motif, though not in these sources; the “disguised duke” motif appears in a number of contemporaneous plays, such as John Marston’s The Malcontent and Thomas Middleton’s The Phoenix (both ca. 1603).

TEXT: The 1623 Folio is the only early text. It was typeset from a transcript by the scribe Ralph Crane, though the nature of Crane’s copy is not clear. The absence of swearwords from the play’s seamy underbelly suggests a theatrical script from after the 1606 Act against profanity. The song at the beginning of Act 4 also occurs (with a second stanza) in Rollo Duke of Normandy by John Fletcher and others (1616–19). It has been suggested that the song, perhaps together with the ensuing dialogue between the duke and Mariana, was introduced as part of a revision of the play in which a five-act structure was imposed. The soliloquy “O place and greatness” (4.1.59) has often been regarded as an interpolation. The duke is unnamed in the text, but called Vincentio in Crane’s list of parts. These, and other minor inconsistencies and loose ends, have led to the supposition that the Folio text is a theatrical adaptation—in which some have detected the hand of Thomas Middleton—as opposed to a pure Shakespearean original.

MEASURE FOR MEASURE1.1a

THE DUKE, unnamed in play, but “Vincentio” in Folio list of roles

ANGELO, the Deputy

ESCALUS an ancient lord

CLAUDIO, a young gentleman

LUCIO, a fantastic

Two other like GENTLEMEN

PROVOST

THOMAS and PETER, two friars (probably the same character, with misremembered name)

A JUSTICE

VARRIUS, a lord, friend to the duke

ELBOW, a simple constable

FROTH, a foolish gentleman

POMPEY, the clown, servant to Mistress Overdone

ABHORSON, an executioner

BARNARDINE, a dissolute prisoner

ISABELLA, sister to Claudio

MARIANA, betrothed to Angelo

JULIET, beloved of Claudio

FRANCISCA, a nun

MISTRESS OVERDONE, a bawd

BOY, singer attending Mariana

Lords, Officers, Citizens, Servants, Messenger, Attendants

The Scene: Vienna

Act 1 Scene 11.1

running scene 1

Enter Duke, Escalus, Lords [and Attendants]

DUKEEscalus.

ESCALUSMy lord.

DUKEOf government the properties[3] to unfold

Would seem[4] in me t’affect speech and discourse,

5

Since I am put to know[5] that your own science

Exceeds, in that,[6] the lists of all advice

My strength[7] can give you. Then no more remains

But[8] that to your sufficiency as your worth is able,

And let them work. The nature of our people,

10

Our city’s institutions,[10] and the terms

For common justice, you’re as pregnant[11] in

As art and practice[12] hath enrichèd any

That we remember. There is our commission, Hands him a paper

From which we would not have you warp.[14] Call hither,

15

I say, bid come before us Angelo.

[Exit an Attendant]

What[16] figure of us think you he will bear?

For you must know, we have with special soul[17]

Elected him our absence to supply;[18]

Lent him our terror,[19] dressed him with our love,

20

And given his deputation[20] all the organs

Of our own power. What think you of it?

ESCALUSIf any in Vienna be of worth

To undergo[23] such ample grace and honour,

It is Lord Angelo.

25

DUKELook where he comes.

Enter Angelo

ANGELOAlways obedient to your grace’s will,

I come to know your pleasure.[27]

DUKEAngelo,

There is a kind of character[29] in thy life

30

That to th’observer doth thy history[30]

Fully unfold.[31] Thyself and thy belongings

Are[32] not thine own so proper as to waste

Thyself upon thy virtues, they on thee.

Heaven doth with us as we with torches do,

35

Not light them for themselves: for if our virtues

Did not go forth of[36] us, ’twere all alike

As if we had them not. Spirits[37] are not finely touched

But[38] to fine issues, nor nature never lends

The smallest scruple[39] of her excellence

40

But, like a thrifty[40] goddess, she determines

Herself the glory of a creditor,

Both thanks and use. But I do bend[42] my speech

To one that can my[43] part in him advertise.

Hold[44] therefore, Angelo.

45

In our remove[45] be thou at full ourself:

Mortality[46] and mercy in Vienna

Live in thy tongue and heart. Old Escalus,

Though first in question,[48] is thy secondary.

Take thy commission. Offers a paper

50

ANGELONow, good my lord,

Let there be some more test made of my mettle,[51]

Before so noble and so great a figure[52]

Be stamped upon it.

DUKENo more evasion.

55

We have with a leavened[55] and preparèd choice

Proceeded to you: therefore take your honours. Angelo takes paper

Our haste from hence is of so quick condition[57]

That it prefers itself[58] and leaves unquestioned

Matters of needful value.[59] We shall write to you,

60

As time and our concernings[60] shall importune,

How it goes with us, and do look[61] to know

What doth befall you here. So, fare you well:

To th’hopeful[63] execution do I leave you

Of your commissions.

65

ANGELOYet give leave,[65] my lord,

That we may bring you something[66] on the way.

DUKEMy haste may not admit[67] it,

Nor need you, on mine honour, have[68] to do

With any scruple. Your scope is as mine own,

70

So to enforce or qualify[70] the laws

As to your soul seems good. Give me your hand,

I’ll privily[72] away. I love the people,

But do not like to stage me[73] to their eyes:

Though it do well,[74] I do not relish well

75

Their loud applause and aves[75] vehement,

Nor do I think the man of safe discretion[76]

That does affect[77] it. Once more, fare you well.

ANGELOThe heavens give safety to your purposes!

ESCALUSLead[79] forth and bring you back in happiness!

80

DUKEI thank you. Fare you well.

Exit

ESCALUSI shall desire you, sir, to give me leave

To have free speech with you; and it concerns[82] me

To look into the bottom of my place.

A power I have, but of what strength and nature

85

I am not yet instructed.

ANGELO’Tis so with me. Let us withdraw together,

And we may soon our satisfaction have

Touching[88] that point.

ESCALUSI’ll wait upon your honour.

Exeunt

Act 1 Scene 21.2

running scene 2

Enter Lucio and two other Gentlemen

LUCIOIf the duke with the other dukes come not to composition[1] with the King of Hungary, why then all the dukes fall upon[2] the king.

FIRST GENTLEMANHeaven grant us its peace,[3] but not the King of Hungary’s!

SECOND GENTLEMANAmen.

LUCIOThou concludest like the sanctimonious[5] pirate, that went to sea with the Ten Commandments, but scraped one out of the table.[6]

SECOND GENTLEMAN‘Thou shalt not steal’?

LUCIOAy, that he razed.[8]

FIRST GENTLEMANWhy, ’twas a commandment to command the captain and all the rest from their functions:[10] they put forth to steal. There’s not a soldier of us all that, in the thanksgiving before meat,[11] do relish the petition well that prays for peace.

SECOND GENTLEMANI never heard any soldier dislike it.

LUCIOI believe thee; for I think thou never wast where grace was said.

SECOND GENTLEMANNo? A dozen times at least.

FIRST GENTLEMANWhat, in metre?[15]

LUCIOIn any proportion[16] or in any language.

FIRST GENTLEMANI think, or in any religion.

LUCIOAy, why not? Grace is grace, despite of all controversy:[18] as for example, thou thyself art a wicked villain, despite of all grace.

FIRST GENTLEMANWell, there[20] went but a pair of shears between us.

LUCIOI grant, as there may between the lists[21] and the velvet. Thou art the list.

FIRST GENTLEMANAnd thou the velvet. Thou art good velvet; thou’rt a three-piled piece,[22] I warrant thee. I had as lief[23] be a list of an English kersey as be piled, as thou art piled, for a French velvet.[24] Do I speak feelingly now?

LUCIOI think thou dost, and indeed, with most painful feeling[25] of thy speech. I will, out of thine own confession,[26] learn to begin thy health, but, whilst I live, forget to drink after thee.

FIRST GENTLEMANI think I have done myself wrong,[28] have I not?

SECOND GENTLEMANYes, that thou hast, whether thou art tainted or free.[29]

Enter Bawd [Mistress Overdone]

LUCIOBehold, behold, where Madam Mitigation[30] comes! I have purchased as many diseases under her roof as come to—

SECOND GENTLEMANTo what, I pray?

LUCIOJudge.[33]

SECOND GENTLEMANTo three thousand dolours[34] a year.

FIRST GENTLEMANAy, and more.

LUCIOA French crown[36] more.

FIRST GENTLEMANThou art always figuring[37] diseases in me, but thou art full of error, I am sound.

LUCIONay, not as one would say, healthy: but so sound[39] as things that are hollow; thy bones are hollow,[40] impiety has made a feast of thee.

FIRST GENTLEMANHow now! To Mistress Overdone Which of your hips has the most profound[41] sciatica?

MISTRESS OVERDONEWell, well. There’s one yonder arrested and carried to prison was worth five thousand of you all.

SECOND GENTLEMANWho’s that, I pray thee?

MISTRESS OVERDONEMarry,[45] sir, that’s Claudio, Signior Claudio.

FIRST GENTLEMANClaudio to prison? ’Tis not so.

MISTRESS OVERDONENay, but I know ’tis so. I saw him arrested, saw him carried away, and, which is more, within these three days his head to be chopped off.

LUCIOBut, after[49] all this fooling, I would not have it so. Art thou sure of this?

MISTRESS OVERDONEI am too sure of it. And it is for getting Madam Julietta with child.

LUCIOBelieve me, this may be: he promised to meet me two hours since, and he was ever precise[53] in promise-keeping.

SECOND GENTLEMANBesides, you know, it draws[54] something near to the speech we had to such a purpose.

FIRST GENTLEMANBut most of all agreeing with the proclamation.[56]

LUCIOAway! Let’s go learn the truth of it.

Exeunt [Lucio and Gentlemen]

MISTRESS OVERDONEThus, what with the war, what with the sweat,[58] what with the gallows and what with poverty, I am custom-shrunk.[59]

Enter Clown [Pompey]

How now? What’s the news with you?

POMPEYYonder man[61] is carried to prison.

MISTRESS OVERDONE[62]Well, what has he done?

POMPEYA woman.

MISTRESS OVERDONEBut what’s his offence?

POMPEYGroping[65] for trouts in a peculiar river.

MISTRESS OVERDONEWhat, is there a maid[66] with child by him?

POMPEYNo, but there’s a woman with maid by him. You have not heard of the proclamation, have you?

MISTRESS OVERDONEWhat proclamation, man?

POMPEYAll houses[70] in the suburbs of Vienna must be plucked down.

MISTRESS OVERDONEAnd what shall become of those in the city?

POMPEYThey shall stand for seed:[72] they had gone down too, but that a wise burgher put in[73] for them.

MISTRESS OVERDONEBut shall all our houses of resort[74] in the suburbs be pulled down?

POMPEYTo the ground, mistress.

MISTRESS OVERDONEWhy, here’s a change indeed in the commonwealth! What shall become of me?

POMPEYCome, fear you not: good counsellors[78] lack no clients. Though you change your place, you need not change your trade: I’ll be your tapster[79] still. Courage! There will be pity taken on you; you that have worn[80] your eyes almost out in the service, you will be considered.

MISTRESS OVERDONEWhat’s to do here, Thomas[82] tapster? Let’s withdraw.

POMPEYHere comes Signior Claudio, led by the provost to prison, and there’s Madam Juliet.

Exeunt

Act 1 Scene 3

running scene 2 continues

Enter Provost, Claudio, Juliet, Officers; Lucio and the two Gentlemen [follow]

CLAUDIOFellow, why dost thou show me thus to th’world?

Bear me to prison, where I am committed.

PROVOSTI do it not in evil disposition,[3]

But from Lord Angelo by special charge.

5

CLAUDIOThus can the demigod Authority

Make us pay down[6] for our offence by weight

The[7] words of heaven; on whom it will, it will,

On whom it will not, so. Yet still ’tis just.

LUCIOWhy, how now, Claudio? Whence[9] comes this restraint?

10

CLAUDIOFrom too much liberty,[10] my Lucio, liberty:

As surfeit[11] is the father of much fast,

So every scope[12] by the immoderate use

Turns to restraint. Our natures do pursue,

Like rats that ravin[14] down their proper bane,

15

A thirsty[15] evil, and when we drink we die.

LUCIOIf I could speak so wisely under an arrest, I would send for certain of my creditors:[17] and yet, to say the truth, I had as lief have the foppery of freedom as the morality[18] of imprisonment. What’s thy offence, Claudio?

CLAUDIOWhat but to speak of would offend again.

LUCIOWhat, is’t murder?

CLAUDIO No.

LUCIOLechery?

CLAUDIO Call it so.

PROVOSTAway, sir. You must go.

CLAUDIOOne word, good friend. Lucio, a word with you.

LUCIOA hundred, if they’ll do you any good.

Is lechery so looked after?[27]

CLAUDIOThus stands it with me: upon a true contract[28]

I got possession of Julietta’s bed.

30

You know the lady, she is fast[30] my wife,

Save[31] that we do the denunciation lack

Of outward[32] order. This we came not to

Only for propagation of a dower[33]

Remaining in the coffer of her friends,[34]

35

From whom we thought it meet[35] to hide our love

Till time had made[36] them for us. But it chances

The stealth of our most mutual entertainment[37]

With character too gross[38] is writ on Juliet.

LUCIOWith child, perhaps?

40

CLAUDIOUnhappily, even so.

And the new deputy now for the duke —

Whether it be the fault and glimpse of newness,[42]

Or whether that the body public[43] be

A horse whereon the governor doth ride,

45

Who, newly in the seat, that[45] it may know

He can command, lets it straight[46] feel the spur:

Whether the tyranny be in his place,[47]

Or in his[48] eminence that fills it up,

I stagger in[49] — but this new governor

50

Awakes me[50] all the enrollèd penalties

Which have, like unscoured[51] armour, hung by th’wall

So long that nineteen zodiacs[52] have gone round

And none of them[53] been worn; and, for a name,

Now puts the drowsy and neglected act

55

Freshly on me. ’Tis surely for a name.

LUCIOI warrant it is: and thy head stands so tickle[56] on thy shoulders that a milkmaid, if she be in love, may sigh it off. Send after the duke and appeal to him.

CLAUDIOI have done so, but he’s not to be found.

I prithee, Lucio, do me this kind service:

60

This day my sister should the cloister[60] enter

And there receive her approbation.[61]

Acquaint her with the danger of my state,

Implore her, in my voice, that she make friends

To[64] the strict deputy: bid herself assay him.

65

I have great hope in that, for in her youth

There is a prone[66] and speechless dialect,

Such as move[67] men. Beside, she hath prosperous art

When she will play with reason and discourse,[68]

And well she can persuade.

LUCIOI pray she may; as well for the encouragement of the like,[70] which else would stand under grievous imposition,[71] as for the enjoying of thy life, who I would be sorry should be thus foolishly lost at a game of tick-tack.[72] I’ll to her.

CLAUDIOI thank you, good friend Lucio.

LUCIOWithin two hours.

CLAUDIOCome, officer, away!

Exeunt

Act 1 Scene 4

running scene 3

Enter Duke and Friar Thomas

DUKENo, holy father, throw away that thought:[1]

Believe not that the dribbling dart[2] of love

Can pierce a complete[3] bosom. Why I desire thee

To give me secret harbour[4] hath a purpose

5

More grave and wrinkled[5] than the aims and ends

Of burning youth.

FRIAR THOMASMay your grace speak of it?

DUKEMy holy sir, none better knows than you

How I have ever loved the life removed,[9]

10

And held in idle price[10] to haunt assemblies

Where youth and cost[11] and witless bravery keeps.

I have delivered to Lord Angelo —

A man of stricture[13] and firm abstinence —

My absolute power and place here in Vienna,

15

And he supposes me travelled to Poland,

For so I have strewed[16] it in the common ear,

And so it is received. Now, pious sir,

You will demand[18] of me why I do this.

FRIAR THOMASGladly, my lord.

20

DUKEWe have strict statutes and most biting laws,

The needful bits and curbs[21] to headstrong weeds,

Which for this fourteen years we have let slip,[22]

Even like an o’ergrown[23] lion in a cave

That goes not out to prey. Now, as fond[24] fathers,

25

Having bound up the threat’ning twigs of birch,[25]

Only to stick it in their children’s sight

For terror, not to use, in time the rod[27]

Becomes more mocked than feared: so our decrees,

Dead[29] to infliction, to themselves are dead,

30

And liberty[30] plucks justice by the nose,

The baby beats the nurse, and quite athwart[31]

Goes all decorum.[32]

FRIAR THOMASIt rested in your grace

To unloose this tied-up justice when you pleased:

35

And it in you more dreadful[35] would have seemed

Than in Lord Angelo.

DUKEI do fear, too dreadful.

Sith[38] ’twas my fault to give the people scope,

’Twould be my tyranny to strike and gall[39] them

40

For what I bid them do, for we bid this be done,

When evil deeds have their permissive pass[41]

And not the punishment. Therefore indeed, my father,

I have on Angelo imposed the office,[43]

Who may in th’ambush[44] of my name strike home,

45

And yet my[45] nature never in the fight

To do in slander. And to behold his sway,[46]

I will, as ’twere a brother[47] of your order,

Visit both prince[48] and people: therefore, I prithee,

Supply me with the habit[49] and instruct me

50

How I may formally[50] in person bear me

Like a true friar. More reasons for this action

At our more leisure shall I render you;

Only, this one: Lord Angelo is precise,[53]

Stands at[54] a guard with envy, scarce confesses

55

That his blood flows, or that his appetite

Is more to bread than stone. Hence shall we see,

If power change purpose,[57] what our seemers be.

Exeunt

Act 1 Scene 5

running scene 4

Enter Isabella and Francisca, a nun

ISABELLAAnd have you nuns no further privileges?

FRANCISCAAre not these large enough?

ISABELLAYes, truly. I speak not as desiring more,

But rather wishing a more strict restraint

5

Upon the sisterhood, the votarists[5] of Saint Clare.

LUCIOHo? Peace be in this place!

Within

ISABELLAWho’s that which calls?

FRANCISCAIt is a man’s voice. Gentle Isabella,

Turn you the key, and know his business of him;

10

You may, I may not: you are yet unsworn.[10]

When you have vowed, you must not speak with men

But in the presence of the prioress.[12]

Then, if you speak, you must not show your face,

Or, if you show your face, you must not speak.

15

He calls again. I pray you, answer him.

[Exit]

ISABELLAPeace and prosperity! Who is’t that calls?

[Enter Lucio]

LUCIOHail, virgin, if you be, as those cheek-roses[17]

Proclaim you are no less. Can you so stead[18] me

As bring me to the sight of Isabella,

20

A novice[20] of this place and the fair sister

To her unhappy[21] brother Claudio?

ISABELLAWhy her unhappy brother? Let me ask,

The rather for[23] I now must make you know

I am that Isabella and his sister.

25

LUCIOGentle and fair, your brother kindly[25] greets you.

Not to be weary[26] with you, he’s in prison.

ISABELLAWoe me! For what?

LUCIOFor that which, if myself might be his judge,

He should receive his punishment in thanks:[29]

30

He hath got his friend[30] with child.

ISABELLASir, make me not your story.[31]

LUCIO’Tis true.

I would not, though ’tis my familiar[33] sin

With maids to seem the lapwing[34] and to jest,

35

Tongue[35] far from heart, play with all virgins so.

I hold you as a thing enskied[36] and sainted

By your renouncement,[37] an immortal spirit,

And to be talked with in sincerity,

As with a saint.

40

ISABELLAYou[40] do blaspheme the good in mocking me.

LUCIODo not believe it. Fewness[41] and truth, ’tis thus:

Your brother and his lover have embraced.[42]

As those that feed grow full, as blossoming time

That from the seedness[44] the bare fallow brings

45

To teeming foison,[45] even so her plenteous womb

Expresseth[46] his full tilth and husbandry.

ISABELLASomeone with child by him? My cousin[47] Juliet?

LUCIOIs she your cousin?

ISABELLAAdoptedly, as school-maids change their names

50

By vain[50] though apt affection.

LUCIOShe it is.

ISABELLAO, let him marry her.

LUCIOThis is the point.

The duke is very strangely gone from hence,

55

Bore[55] many gentlemen, myself being one,

In hand and hope of action: but we do learn

By those that know the very nerves of state,

His giving-out[58] were of an infinite distance

From his true-meant design.[59] Upon his place,

60

And with full line[60] of his authority,

Governs Lord Angelo, a man whose blood

Is very snow-broth:[62] one who never feels

The wanton[63] stings and motions of the sense,

But doth rebate[64] and blunt his natural edge

65

With profits[65] of the mind, study and fast.

He — to give fear to use[66] and liberty,

Which have for long run by the hideous[67] law,

As mice by lions — hath picked out an act,

Under whose heavy sense[69] your brother’s life

70

Falls into forfeit.[70] He arrests him on it,

And follows close the rigour of the statute

To make him an example. All hope is gone,

Unless you have the grace[73] by your fair prayer

To soften Angelo: and that’s my pith[74] of business

75

’Twixt you and your poor brother.

ISABELLADoth he so seek his life?

LUCIOHas censured[77] him already,

And, as I hear, the provost hath a warrant

For’s execution.

80

ISABELLAAlas, what poor ability’s in me

To do him good?

LUCIOAssay[82] the power you have.

ISABELLAMy power? Alas, I doubt—

LUCIOOur doubts are traitors,

85

And make us lose the good we oft might win

By fearing to attempt. Go to Lord Angelo,

And let him learn to know, when maidens sue,[87]

Men give[88] like gods: but when they weep and kneel,

All their petitions[89] are as freely theirs

90

As they themselves would owe them.

ISABELLAI’ll see what I can do.

LUCIOBut speedily.

ISABELLAI will about it straight,

No longer staying but to give the mother[94]

95

Notice of my affair. I humbly thank you:

Commend me to my brother. Soon at night[96]

I’ll send him certain word of my success.[97]

LUCIOI take my leave of you.

ISABELLAGood sir, adieu.

Exeunt [separately]

Act 2 Scene 1

running scene 5

Enter Angelo, Escalus, Servants, [and a] Justice

ANGELOWe must not make a scarecrow of the law,

Setting it up to fear[2] the birds of prey,

And let it keep one shape, till custom[3] make it

Their perch and not their terror.

5

ESCALUSAy, but yet

Let us be keen,[6] and rather cut a little

Than fall[7] and bruise to death. Alas, this gentleman

Whom I would save had a most noble father.

Let but your honour know —

10

Whom I believe to be most strait[10] in virtue —

That, in the working of your own affections,[11]

Had time cohered with place or place with wishing,

Or that[13] the resolute acting of your blood

Could have attained th’effect of your own purpose,

15

Whether you had not sometime in your life

Erred[16] in this point which now you censure him,

And pulled the law upon you.

ANGELO’Tis one thing to be tempted, Escalus,

Another thing to fall. I not deny,

20

The jury passing[20] on the prisoner’s life,

May in the sworn twelve[21] have a thief or two

Guiltier than him they try. What’s open made[22] to justice,

That justice seizes. What[23] knows the laws

That thieves do pass on thieves? ’Tis very pregnant,[24]

25

The jewel that we find, we stoop and take’t

Because we see it, but what we do not see

We tread upon, and never think of it.

You may not so extenuate[28] his offence

For[29] I have had such faults, but rather tell me,

30

When I, that censure him, do so offend,

Let mine own judgement pattern out[31] my death,

And nothing[32] come in partial. Sir, he must die.

Enter Provost

ESCALUSBe it as your wisdom will.

ANGELOWhere is the provost?

35

PROVOSTHere, if it like[35] your honour.

ANGELOSee that Claudio

Be executed by nine tomorrow morning.

Bring him his confessor, let him be prepared,[38]

For that’s the utmost[39] of his pilgrimage.

[Exit Provost]

40

ESCALUSWell, heaven forgive him, and forgive us all. Aside

Some rise by sin, and some by virtue fall.

Some run[42] from breaks of ice, and answer none,

And some condemnèd for a fault alone.[43]

Enter Elbow [and] Officers [with] Froth [and] Clown [Pompey]

ELBOWCome, bring them away: if these be good people in a commonweal that do nothing but use[45] their abuses in common houses, I know no law. Bring them away.

ANGELOHow now, sir, what’s your name? And what’s the matter?

ELBOWIf it please your honour, I am the poor duke’s[48] constable, and my name is Elbow: I do lean[49] upon justice, sir, and do bring in here before your good honour two notorious benefactors.[50]

ANGELOBenefactors? Well, what benefactors are they? Are they not malefactors?

ELBOWIf it please your honour, I know not well what they are, but precise[52] villains they are, that I am sure of, and void[53] of all profanation in the world that good Christians ought to have.

ESCALUSThis comes off well:[55] here’s a wise officer. To Angelo

ANGELOGo to,[56] what quality are they of? Elbow is your name? Why dost thou not speak, Elbow?

POMPEYHe cannot, sir: he’s out at elbow.[58]

ANGELOWhat are you, sir?

ELBOWHe, sir? A tapster, sir, parcel-bawd,[60] one that serves a bad woman, whose house,[61] sir, was, as they say, plucked down in the suburbs: and now she professes a hot-house,[62] which, I think, is a very ill house too.

ESCALUSHow know you that?

ELBOWMy wife, sir, whom I detest[64] before heaven and your honour—

ESCALUSHow? Thy wife?

ELBOWAy, sir: whom, I thank heaven, is an honest woman—

ESCALUSDost thou detest her therefore?

ELBOWI say, sir, I will detest myself also, as well as she, that this house, if it be not a bawd’s house, it is pity[69] of her life, for it is a naughty house.

ESCALUSHow dost thou know that, constable?

ELBOWMarry, sir, by my wife, who, if she had been a woman cardinally[71] given, might have been accused in fornication, adultery and all uncleanliness[72] there.

ESCALUSBy the woman’s means?[73]

ELBOWAy, sir, by Mistress Overdone’s means: but as she spit in his[74] face, so she defied him.

POMPEYSir, if it please your honour, this is not so.

ELBOWProve it before these varlets[77] here, thou honourable man, prove it.

ESCALUSDo you hear how he misplaces?[78] Aside to Angelo

POMPEYSir, she came in great with child, and longing — saving[79] your honour’s reverence — for stewed prunes.[80] Sir, we had but two in the house, which at that very distant[81] time stood, as it were, in a fruit-dish, a dish of some three-pence — your honours have seen such dishes, they are not China dishes, but very good dishes—

ESCALUSGo to, go to: no matter for the dish, sir.

POMPEYNo, indeed, sir, not[85] of a pin: you are therein in the right. But to the point. As I say, this Mistress Elbow, being, as I say, with child, and being great-bellied, and longing, as I said, for prunes, and having but two in the dish, as I said, Master Froth here, this very man, having eaten the rest, as I said, and, as I say, paying for them very honestly, for, as you know, Master Froth, I could not give you three-pence again.[90]

FROTHNo, indeed.

POMPEYVery well: you being then, if you be remembered, cracking the stones[92] of the foresaid prunes—

FROTHAy, so I did indeed.

POMPEYWhy, very well: I telling you then, if you be remembered, that such a one and such a one were past cure of the thing[96] you wot of, unless they kept very good diet, as I told you—

FROTHAll this is true.

POMPEYWhy, very well, then—

ESCALUSCome, you are a tedious fool. To the purpose: what was done to Elbow’s wife, that he hath cause to complain of? Come me[101] to what was done to her.

POMPEYSir, your honour cannot come to that yet.

ESCALUSNo, sir, nor I mean it not.

POMPEYSir, but you shall come to it, by your honour’s leave. And, I beseech you, look into[105] Master Froth here, sir, a man of fourscore pound a year, whose father died at Hallowmas.[106] Was’t not at Hallowmas, Master Froth?

FROTHAll-hallond eve.[107]

POMPEYWhy, very well, I hope here be truths. He, sir, sitting, as I say, in a lower chair,[108] sir, ’twas in the Bunch of Grapes,[109] where indeed you have a delight to sit, have you not?

FROTHI have so, because it is an open[111] room and good for winter.

POMPEYWhy, very well, then. I hope here be truths.

ANGELOThis will last[113] out a night in Russia,

When nights are longest there. I’ll take my leave

115

And leave you to the hearing of the cause,[115]

Hoping you’ll find good cause[116] to whip them all.

Exit [Angelo]

ESCALUSI think no less. Good morrow to your lordship.— Now, sir, come on: what was done to Elbow’s wife, once more?

POMPEYOnce, sir? There was nothing done[119] to her once.

ELBOWI beseech you, sir, ask him what this man did to my wife.

POMPEYI beseech your honour, ask me.

ESCALUSWell, sir, what did this gentleman to her?

POMPEYI beseech you, sir, look in this gentleman’s face. Good Master Froth, look upon his honour, ’tis for a good purpose. Doth your honour mark[124] his face?

ESCALUSAy, sir, very well.

POMPEYNay, I beseech you, mark it well.

ESCALUSWell, I do so.

POMPEYDoth your honour see any harm in his face?

ESCALUSWhy, no.

POMPEYI’ll be supposed[130] upon a book, his face is the worst thing about him. Good, then, if[131] his face be the worst thing about him, how could Master Froth do the constable’s wife any harm? I would know that of your honour.

ESCALUSHe’s in the right. Constable, what say you to it?

ELBOWFirst, an it like[134] you, the house is a respected house; next, this is a respected fellow, and his mistress is a respected woman.

POMPEYBy this hand, sir, his wife is a more respected person than any of us all.

ELBOWVarlet, thou liest, thou liest, wicked varlet! The time is yet to come that she was ever respected[138] with man, woman or child.

POMPEYSir, she was respected with him before he married with her.

ESCALUSWhich is the wiser here? Justice or Iniquity?[140] Is this true?

ELBOWO thou caitiff![141] O thou varlet! O thou wicked Hannibal! I respected with her before I was married to her? If ever I was respected with her, or she with me, let not your worship think me the poor duke’s officer. Prove this, thou wicked Hannibal, or I’ll have mine action of battery[144] on thee.

ESCALUSIf he took[145] you a box o’th’ear, you might have your action of slander too.

ELBOWMarry, I thank your good worship for it. What is’t your worship’s pleasure I shall do with this wicked caitiff?

ESCALUSTruly, officer, because he hath some offences in him that thou wouldst discover[149] if thou couldst, let him continue in his courses till thou know’st what they are.

ELBOWMarry, I thank your worship for it.— To Pompey Thou see’st, thou wicked varlet, now, what’s come upon thee: thou art to continue[152] now, thou varlet, thou art to continue.

ESCALUSWhere were you born, friend?

FROTHHere in Vienna, sir.

ESCALUSAre you of fourscore pounds a year?

FROTHYes, an’t[157] please you, sir.

ESCALUSSo. What trade are you of, sir?

POMPEYA tapster, a poor widow’s tapster.

ESCALUSYour mistress’ name?

POMPEYMistress Overdone.

ESCALUSHath she had any more than one husband?

POMPEYNine, sir: Overdone[163] by the last.

ESCALUSNine? Come hither to me, Master Froth. Master Froth, I would not have you acquainted with tapsters: they will draw[165] you, Master Froth, and you will hang them.[166] Get you gone, and let me hear no more of you.

FROTHI thank your worship. For mine own part, I never come into any room in a tap-house,[168] but I am drawn in.

ESCALUSWell, no more of it, Master Froth, farewell.—

[Exit Froth]

Come you hither to me, Master Tapster. To Pompey What’s your name, Master Tapster?

POMPEYPompey.

ESCALUSWhat else?

POMPEYBum, sir.

ESCALUSTroth, and your bum is the greatest thing about you, so that in the beastliest sense you are Pompey the Great.[175] Pompey, you are partly a bawd, Pompey, howsoever you colour it in[176] being a tapster, are you not? Come, tell me true, it shall be the better for you.

POMPEYTruly, sir, I am a poor fellow that would live.[178]

ESCALUSHow would you live, Pompey? By being a bawd? What do you think of the trade, Pompey? Is it a lawful trade?

POMPEYIf the law would allow it, sir.

ESCALUSBut the law will not allow it, Pompey, nor it shall not be allowed in Vienna.

POMPEYDoes your worship mean to geld and splay[183] all the youth of the city?

ESCALUSNo, Pompey.

POMPEYTruly, sir, in my poor opinion, they will to’t[185] then. If your worship will take order for the drabs and the knaves, you need not to fear[186] the bawds.

ESCALUSThere is pretty orders[187] beginning, I can tell you: it is but heading and hanging.

POMPEYIf you head and hang all that offend that way but for ten year together, you’ll be glad[190] to give out a commission for more heads: if this law hold in Vienna ten year, I’ll rent the fairest house in it after[191] three-pence a bay. If you live to see this come to pass, say Pompey told you so.

ESCALUSThank you, good Pompey, and, in requital of[193] your prophecy, hark you: I advise you, let me not find you before me again upon any complaint whatsoever, no, not for dwelling where you do. If I do, Pompey, I shall beat[195] you to your tent, and prove a shrewd[196] Caesar to you: in plain dealing, Pompey, I shall have you whipped. So, for this time, Pompey, fare you well.

POMPEYI thank your worship for your good counsel— Aside but I shall follow it as the flesh[199] and fortune shall better determine. Whip me? No, no, let carman[200] whip his jade: The valiant heart’s not whipped out of his trade.

Exit

ESCALUSCome hither to me, Master Elbow, come hither, Master Constable. How long have you been in this place[203] of constable?

ELBOWSeven year and a half, sir.

ESCALUSI thought by the readiness[205] in the office you had continued in it some time. You say, seven years together?

ELBOWAnd a half, sir.

ESCALUSAlas, it hath been great pains[208] to you. They do you wrong to put you so oft upon’t. Are there not men in your ward[209] sufficient to serve it?

ELBOWFaith, sir, few of any wit[210] in such matters: as they are chosen, they are glad to choose me for them. I do it for some piece of money, and go[211] through with all.

ESCALUSLook you bring me in the names of some six or seven, the most sufficient of your parish.

ELBOWTo your worship’s house, sir?

215

ESCALUSTo my house. Fare you well.

[Exit Elbow]

What’s o’clock, think you? To Justice

JUSTICEEleven,[217] sir.

ESCALUSI pray you home to dinner with me.

JUSTICEI humbly thank you.

220

ESCALUSIt grieves me for the death of Claudio,

But there’s no remedy.

JUSTICELord Angelo is severe.

ESCALUSIt is but needful.[223]

Mercy[224] is not itself that oft looks so,

225

Pardon is still the nurse of second woe:

But yet, poor Claudio! There is no remedy.

Come, sir.

Exeunt

Act 2 Scene 2

running scene 5 continues

Enter Provost [and a] Servant

SERVANTHe’s[1] hearing of a cause: he will come straight,

I’ll tell him of you.

PROVOSTPray you, do.— I’ll know

[Exit Servant]

His pleasure,[4] maybe he will relent. Alas,

5

He[5] hath but as offended in a dream!

All sects,[6] all ages smack of this vice, and he

To die for’t?

Enter Angelo

ANGELONow, what’s the matter, provost?

PROVOSTIs it your will Claudio shall die tomorrow?

10

ANGELODid not I tell thee yea? Hadst thou not order?

Why dost thou ask again?

PROVOSTLest[12] I might be too rash.

Under[13] your good correction, I have seen

When, after execution, judgement hath

15

Repented[15] o’er his doom.

ANGELOGo to, let that be mine.[16]

Do you your office, or give up your place,

And you[18] shall well be spared.

PROVOSTI crave your honour’s pardon.

20

What shall be done, sir, with the groaning[20] Juliet?

She’s very near her hour.[21]

ANGELODispose of[22] her

To some more fitter place, and that with speed.

[Enter Servant]

SERVANTHere is the sister of the man condemned

25

Desires access to you.

ANGELOHath he a sister?

PROVOSTAy, my good lord, a very virtuous maid,

And to be shortly of a sisterhood,[28]

If not already.

30

ANGELOWell, let her be admitted.

[Exit Servant]

See you the fornicatress[31] be removed.

Let her have needful but not lavish means.

There shall be order[33] for’t.

Enter Lucio and Isabella

35

PROVOST’Save your honour!

ANGELOStay a little while.— To Provost

You’re welcome: what’s your will? To Isabella

ISABELLAI am a woeful suitor[37] to your honour,

Please but your honour hear me.

ANGELOWell, what’s your suit?

40

ISABELLAThere is a vice that most I do abhor,

And most desire should meet the blow of justice,

For which I would not plead, but that I must,

For which I must not plead, but that I am

At war ’twixt will[44] and will not.

45

ANGELOWell, the matter?[45]

ISABELLAI have a brother is condemned to die:

I do beseech you, let it be his[47] fault,

And not my brother.

PROVOSTHeaven give thee moving[49] graces! Aside

50

ANGELOCondemn the fault and not the actor of it?

Why, every[51] fault’s condemned ere it be done:

Mine were the[52] very cipher of a function,

To fine[53] the faults whose fine stands in record,

And let go by[54] the actor.

55

ISABELLAO, just but severe law!

I had a brother, then. Heaven keep your honour.

LUCIOGive’t[57] not o’er so. To him again, entreat him, Aside to Isabella

Kneel down before him, hang upon his gown.

You are too cold. If you should need a pin,[59]

60

You could not with more tame a tongue desire it.

To him, I say!

ISABELLAMust he needs die? To Angelo

ANGELOMaiden, no remedy.

ISABELLAYes, I do think that you might pardon him,

65

And neither heaven nor man grieve at the mercy.

ANGELOI will not do’t.

ISABELLABut can you, if you would?[67]

ANGELOLook what[68] I will not, that I cannot do.

ISABELLABut might you do’t, and do the world no wrong,

70

If so your heart were touched with that remorse

As mine is to him?

ANGELOHe’s sentenced, ’tis too late.

LUCIOYou are too cold. Aside to Isabella

ISABELLAToo late? Why, no, I that do speak a word

75

May call it back again. Well, believe this:

No ceremony that to great ones ’longs,

Not the king’s crown, nor the deputed sword,[77]

The marshal’s[78] truncheon, nor the judge’s robe,

Become[79] them with one half so good a grace

80

As mercy does.

If he had been as you[81] and you as he,

You would have slipped like him, but he, like you,

Would not have been so stern.

ANGELOPray you, be gone.

85

ISABELLAI would to heaven I had your potency,[85]

And you were Isabel. Should it then be thus?

No, I would tell[87] what ’twere to be a judge,

And what a prisoner.

LUCIOAy, touch him, there’s the vein.[89] Aside to Isabella

90

ANGELOYour brother is a forfeit of[90] the law,

And you but waste your words.

ISABELLAAlas, alas!

Why, all the souls that were[93] were forfeit once,

And he[94] that might the vantage best have took

95

Found out the remedy. How would you be,

If he, which is the top of judgement, should

But judge you as you are? O, think on that,

And mercy then will breathe within your lips

Like man new made.[99]

100

ANGELOBe you content, fair maid,

It is the law, not I, condemn your brother.

Were he my kinsman, brother, or my son,

It should be thus with him. He must die tomorrow.

ISABELLATomorrow? O, that’s sudden! Spare him, spare him!

105

He’s not prepared for death. Even for our kitchens

We kill[106] the fowl of season: shall we serve heaven

With less respect than we do minister[107]

To our gross[108] selves? Good, good my lord, bethink you;

Who is it that hath died for this offence?

110

There’s many have committed it.

LUCIOAy, well said. Aside to Isabella

ANGELOThe law hath not been dead, though it hath slept:

Those[113] many had not dared to do that evil,

If the first that did th’edict infringe

115

Had answered for his deed. Now ’tis awake,

Takes note of what is done, and, like a prophet,

Looks in a glass[117] that shows what future evils,

Either now,[118] or by remissness new-conceived,

And so in progress to be hatched and born,[119]

120

Are now to have no successive degrees,[120]

But ere[121] they live to end.

ISABELLAYet show some pity.

ANGELOI show it most of all when I show justice:

For then I pity those I do not know,

125

Which a dismissed[125] offence would after gall,

And do him right that, answering one foul wrong,

Lives not to act another. Be satisfied;

Your brother dies tomorrow; be content.

ISABELLASo you must be the first that gives this sentence,

130

And he, that suffers. O, it is excellent

To have a giant’s strength, but it is tyrannous

To use it like a giant.

LUCIOThat’s well said. Aside to Isabella

ISABELLACould great men thunder

135

As Jove[135] himself does, Jove would ne’er be quiet,

For every pelting,[136] petty officer

Would use his heaven for thunder,

Nothing but thunder! Merciful heaven,

Thou rather with thy sharp[139] and sulphurous bolt

140

Splits the unwedgeable[140] and gnarlèd oak

Than the soft myrtle:[141] but man, proud man,

Dressed in a little brief[142] authority,

Most ignorant of what he’s most assured[143] —

His glassy[144] essence — like an angry ape

145

Plays such fantastic[145] tricks before high heaven

As makes the angels weep, who, with our spleens,[146]

Would all themselves laugh mortal.[147]

LUCIOO, to him, to him, wench: he will relent. Aside to Isabella

He’s coming,[149] I perceive’t.

150

PROVOSTPray heaven she win him. Aside

ISABELLAWe cannot weigh[151] our brother with ourself.

Great men may jest with[152] saints, ’tis wit in them,

But in[153] the less foul profanation.

LUCIOThou’rt i’th’right, girl, more o’that. Aside to Isabella

155

ISABELLAThat in the captain’s but a choleric[155] word,

Which in the soldier is flat[156] blasphemy.

LUCIOArt avised[157] o’that? More on’t. Aside to Isabella

ANGELOWhy do you put[158] these sayings upon me?

ISABELLABecause authority, though it err like others,

160

Hath yet a kind of medicine in itself

That skins[161] the vice o’th’top. Go to your bosom,

Knock there, and ask your heart what it doth know

That’s like my brother’s fault. If it confess

A natural guiltiness[164] such as is his,

165

Let it not sound[165] a thought upon your tongue

Against my brother’s life.

ANGELOShe speaks, and ’tis such sense[167] Aside

That my sense[168] breeds with it.— Fare you well. Starts to go

ISABELLAGentle my lord, turn back.

170

ANGELOI will bethink me. Come again tomorrow.

ISABELLAHark how I’ll bribe you: good my lord, turn back.

ANGELOHow? Bribe me?

ISABELLAAy, with such gifts that heaven shall share with you.

LUCIOYou[174] had marred all else. Aside to Isabella

175

ISABELLANot with fond[175] sicles of the tested gold,

Or stones[176] whose rates are either rich or poor

As fancy[177] values them, but with true prayers

That shall be up at heaven and enter there

Ere sunrise, prayers from preservèd[179] souls,

180

From fasting maids[180] whose minds are dedicate

To nothing temporal.[181]

ANGELOWell, come to me tomorrow.

LUCIOGo to, ’tis well; away! Aside to Isabella

ISABELLAHeaven keep your honour safe.

185

ANGELOAmen. Aside

For I am that way going to temptation,

Where prayers cross.[187]

ISABELLAAt what hour tomorrow

Shall I attend your lordship?

190

ANGELOAt any time ’fore noon.

ISABELLA’Save[191] your honour!

[Exeunt Isabella, Lucio and Provost]

ANGELOFrom thee, even from thy virtue.

What’s this? What’s this? Is this her fault or mine?

The tempter or the tempted, who sins most? Ha?

195

Not she — nor doth she tempt — but it is I

That, lying by the violet[196] in the sun,

Do as the carrion[197] does, not as the flower,

Corrupt[198] with virtuous season. Can it be

That modesty[199] may more betray our sense

200

Than woman’s lightness?[200] Having waste ground enough,

Shall we desire to raze the sanctuary[201]

And pitch[202] our evils there? O, fie, fie, fie!

What dost thou? Or what art thou, Angelo?

Dost thou desire her foully[204] for those things

205

That make her good? O, let her brother live!

Thieves for their robbery have authority

When judges steal themselves. What, do I love her,

That I desire to hear her speak again,

And feast upon her eyes? What is’t I dream on?

210

O cunning enemy,[210] that to catch a saint

With saints dost bait thy hook! Most dangerous

Is that temptation that doth goad us on

To sin in loving virtue: never could the strumpet,

With all her double vigour,[214] art and nature,

215

Once stir my temper,[215] but this virtuous maid

Subdues me quite. Ever till now,

When men were fond,[217] I smiled and wondered how.

Exit

Act 2 Scene 3

running scene 6

Enter [separately] Duke [disguised as a friar] and Provost

DUKEHail to you, provost — so[1] I think you are.

PROVOSTI am the provost. What’s your will, good friar?

DUKEBound[3] by my charity and my blest order,

I come to visit the afflicted spirits

5

Here in the prison. Do me the common right[5]

To let me see them and to make me know

The nature of their crimes, that I may minister

To them accordingly.

PROVOSTI would do more than that, if more were needful.

Enter Juliet

10

Look, here comes one: a gentlewoman of mine,[10]

Who, falling in the flaws[11] of her own youth,

Hath blistered her report.[12] She is with child,

And he that got[13] it, sentenced: a young man

More fit to do another such offence

15

Than die for this.

DUKEWhen must he die?

PROVOSTAs I do think, tomorrow.

I have provided for you, stay awhile, To Juliet

And you shall be conducted.[19]

20

DUKERepent you, fair one, of the sin you carry?

JULIETI do, and bear[21] the shame most patiently.

DUKEI’ll teach you how you shall arraign[22] your conscience

And try[23] your penitence, if it be sound

Or hollowly[24] put on.

25

JULIETI’ll gladly learn.

DUKELove you the man that wronged you?

JULIETYes, as I love the woman that wronged him.

DUKESo then it seems your most offenceful act

Was mutually committed?

30

JULIETMutually.

DUKEThen was your sin of heavier[31] kind than his.

JULIETI do confess it, and repent it, father.

DUKE’Tis meet so,[33] daughter, but lest you do repent

As that[34] the sin hath brought you to this shame,

35

Which sorrow is always toward ourselves,[35] not heaven,

Showing we would not spare heaven as we love it,

But as we[37] stand in fear—

JULIETI do repent me, as[38] it is an evil,

And take the shame with joy.

40

DUKEThere rest.[40]

Your partner, as I hear, must die tomorrow,

And I am going with instruction[42] to him.

Grace go with you, Benedicite[43].

Exit

JULIETMust die tomorrow! O injurious[44] love,

45

That respites[45] me a life, whose very comfort

Is still[46] a dying horror!

PROVOST’Tis[47] pity of him.

Exeunt

Act 2 Scene 4

running scene 7

Enter Angelo

ANGELOWhen I would pray and think, I think and pray

To several[2] subjects. Heaven hath my empty words,

Whilst my invention,[3] hearing not my tongue,

Anchors[4] on Isabel: heaven in my mouth,

5

As if I did but only chew his name,

And in my heart the strong and swelling evil

Of my conception.[7] The state whereon I studied

Is like a good thing, being often read,

Grown seared[9] and tedious: yea, my gravity,

10

Wherein — let no man hear me — I take pride,

Could I with boot[11] change for an idle plume

Which the air beats for vain.[12] O place, O form,

How often dost thou with thy case, thy habit,[13]

Wrench awe from fools and tie[14] the wiser souls

15

To thy false seeming? Blood,[15] thou art blood.

Let’s[16] write good angel on the devil’s horn —

’Tis[17] not the devil’s crest.

Enter [a] Servant

How now? Who’s there?

SERVANTOne Isabel, a sister, desires access to you.

ANGELOTeach[19] her the way.

[Exit Servant]

O heavens,

20

Why does my blood thus muster to[20] my heart,

Making both it unable for itself,[21]

And dispossessing[22] all my other parts

Of necessary fitness?

So play the foolish throngs[24] with one that swoons,

25

Come all to help him, and so stop the air

By which he should revive: and even so

The general,[27] subject to a well-wished king,

Quit their own part[28] and in obsequious fondness

Crowd to his presence, where their untaught[29] love

30

Must needs appear offence.

Enter Isabella

How now, fair maid?

ISABELLAI am come to know your pleasure.

ANGELOThat[32] you might know it would much better please me Aside?

Than to demand what ’tis.— Your brother cannot live.

ISABELLAEven so.[34] Heaven keep your honour. She starts to go

35

ANGELOYet may he live awhile, and it may be

As long as you or I: yet he must die.

ISABELLAUnder your sentence?

ANGELOYea.

ISABELLAWhen, I beseech you? That in his reprieve,[39]

40

Longer or shorter, he may be so fitted[40]

That his soul sicken not.

ANGELOHa! Fie, these filthy vices! It were as good

To pardon him that hath from[43] nature stolen

A man already made, as to remit[44]

45

Their saucy sweetness[45] that do coin heaven’s image

In stamps[46] that are forbid: ’tis all as easy

Falsely[47] to take away a life true made

As to put mettle[48] in restrainèd means

To make a false one.

50

ISABELLA’Tis[50] set down so in heaven, but not in earth.

ANGELOSay you so? Then I shall pose you[51] quickly.

Which had you rather, that the most just law

Now took your brother’s life, or, to redeem him,

Give up your body to such sweet uncleanness

55

As she that he hath stained?

ISABELLASir, believe this,

I had rather give my body than my soul.

ANGELOI talk not of your[58] soul. Our compelled sins

Stand more for number than for account.

60

ISABELLAHow say you?

ANGELONay, I’ll not warrant[61] that, for I can speak

Against the thing I say. Answer to this:

I, now the voice of the recorded law,

Pronounce a sentence on your brother’s life.

65

Might there not be a charity in sin

To save this brother’s life?

ISABELLAPlease[67] you to do’t,

I’ll[68] take it as a peril to my soul,

It is no sin at all, but charity.

70

ANGELOPleased you to do’t at peril of your soul,

Were equal poise[71] of sin and charity.

ISABELLAThat I do beg his life, if it be sin,

Heaven let me bear it. You granting of my suit,

If that be sin, I’ll make it my morn[74] prayer

75

To have it added to the faults of mine,

And nothing of your answer.[76]

ANGELONay, but hear me.

Your sense[78] pursues not mine: either you are ignorant,

Or seem so crafty,[79] and that’s not good.

80

ISABELLALet me be ignorant, and in nothing good,

But graciously[81] to know I am no better.

ANGELOThus wisdom wishes to appear most bright

When it doth tax[83] itself, as these black masks

Proclaim an enshield[84] beauty ten times louder

85

Than beauty could, displayed. But mark[85] me,

To be receivèd[86] plain, I’ll speak more gross:

Your brother is to die.

ISABELLASo.

ANGELOAnd his offence is so, as it appears,[89]

90

Accountant[90] to the law upon that pain.

ISABELLATrue.

ANGELOAdmit[92] no other way to save his life —

As I subscribe not[93] that, nor any other,

But in[94] the loss of question — that you, his sister,

95

Finding yourself desired of such a person,

Whose credit[96] with the judge, or own great place,

Could fetch your brother from the manacles

Of the all-building[98] law, and that there were

No earthly mean to save him, but that either

100

You must lay down the treasures[100] of your body

To this supposed,[101] or else to let him suffer:

What would you do?

ISABELLAAs much for my poor brother as myself:

That is, were I under the terms[104] of death,

105

Th’impression[105] of keen whips I’d wear as rubies,

And strip[106] myself to death, as to a bed

That longing have been sick for, ere I’d yield

My body up to shame.

ANGELOThen must your brother die.

110

ISABELLAAnd ’twere the cheaper way.

Better it were a brother died at once,

Than that a sister by redeeming him

Should die for ever.[113]

ANGELOWere not you then as cruel as the sentence

115

That you have slandered so?

ISABELLAIgnomy[116] in ransom and free pardon

Are of two houses. Lawful mercy

Is nothing kin[118] to foul redemption.

ANGELOYou seemed of late to make the law a tyrant,

120

And rather proved the sliding[120] of your brother

A merriment[121] than a vice.

ISABELLAO pardon me, my lord, it oft falls out[122]

To have what we would[123] have, we speak not what we mean.

I something[124] do excuse the thing I hate,

125

For his advantage that I dearly love.

ANGELOWe are all frail.

ISABELLAElse[127] let my brother die,

If not a fedary,[128] but only he

Owe[129] and succeed thy weakness.

130

ANGELONay, women are frail too.

ISABELLAAy, as the glasses where they view themselves,

Which are as[132] easy broke as they make forms.

Women? Help heaven![133] Men their creation mar

In profiting by them. Nay, call us ten times frail,

135

For we are soft as our complexions are,

And credulous[136] to false prints.

ANGELOI think it well.[137]

And from this testimony of your own sex —

Since I suppose[139] we are made to be no stronger

140

Than[140] faults may shake our frames — let me be bold.

I do arrest your words. Be that[141] you are,

That is, a woman; if you be more, you’re none.[142]

If you be one, as you are well[143] expressed

By all external warrants, show it now,

145

By putting on the destined livery.[145]

ISABELLAI have no tongue but one.[146] Gentle my lord,

Let me entreat you speak[147] the former language.

ANGELOPlainly conceive[148] I love you.

ISABELLAMy brother did love Juliet,

150

And you tell me that he shall die for’t.

ANGELOHe shall not, Isabel, if you give me love.

ISABELLAI know your virtue hath a licence[152] in’t,

Which seems a little fouler than it is,

To pluck on[154] others.

155

ANGELOBelieve me, on mine honour,

My words express my purpose.

ISABELLAHa! Little honour to be much believed,

And most pernicious[158] purpose! Seeming, seeming!

I will proclaim[159] thee, Angelo, look for’t.

160

Sign me a present[160] pardon for my brother,

Or with an outstretched[161] throat I’ll tell the world aloud

What[162] man thou art.

ANGELOWho will believe thee, Isabel?

My unsoiled name, th’austereness[164] of my life,

165

My vouch[165] against you, and my place i’th’state,

Will so your accusation overweigh,

That you shall stifle[167] in your own report

And smell of calumny.[168] I have begun,

And now I give my sensual[169] race the rein:

170

Fit thy consent to my sharp appetite,

Lay by[171] all nicety and prolixious blushes

That banish[172] what they sue for. Redeem thy brother

By yielding up thy body to my will,

Or else he must not only die the death,

175

But thy unkindness[175] shall his death draw out

To ling’ring sufferance.[176] Answer me tomorrow,

Or, by the affection[177] that now guides me most,

I’ll prove a tyrant to him. As for you,

Say what you can; my false o’erweighs your true.

Exit

180

ISABELLATo whom should I complain? Did I[180] tell this,

Who would believe me? O perilous mouths,

That bear in them one and the self-same tongue,

Either of condemnation or approof,[183]

Bidding the law make curtsy[184] to their will,

185

Hooking both right and wrong to th’appetite,

To follow as it draws![186] I’ll to my brother.

Though he hath fallen by prompture[187] of the blood,

Yet hath he in him such a mind of honour

That, had he twenty heads to tender down[189]

190

On twenty bloody blocks,[190] he’d yield them up

Before his sister should her body stoop

To such abhorred pollution.

Then Isabel, live chaste, and brother, die;

More[194] than our brother is our chastity.

195

I’ll tell him yet of Angelo’s request,

And fit[196] his mind to death, for his soul’s rest.

Exit

Act 3 Scene 1

running scene 8

Enter Duke [disguised], Claudio and Provost

DUKESo then you hope of pardon from Lord Angelo?

CLAUDIOThe miserable have no other medicine

But only hope:

I’ve hope to live, and am prepared to die.

5

DUKEBe absolute[5] for death: either death or life

Shall thereby be the sweeter. Reason thus with life:

If I do lose thee, I do lose a thing

That none but fools would keep. A breath thou art,

Servile[9] to all the skyey influences

10

That dost this habitation[10] where thou keep’st

Hourly afflict. Merely,[11] thou art death’s fool,

For[12] him thou labour’st by thy flight to shun,

And yet runn’st toward him still. Thou art not noble,

For all th’accommodations[14] that thou bear’st

15

Are[15] nursed by baseness. Thou’rt by no means valiant,

For thou dost fear the soft and tender fork[16]

Of a poor worm.[17] Thy best of rest is sleep,

And that thou oft provok’st,[18] yet grossly fear’st

Thy death, which is no more.[19] Thou art not thyself,

20

For thou exists on many a thousand grains

That issue[21] out of dust. Happy thou art not,

For what thou hast not, still thou striv’st to get,

And what thou hast, forget’st. Thou art not certain,[23]

For thy complexion[24] shifts to strange effects

25

After[25] the moon. If thou art rich, thou’rt poor,

For like an ass, whose back with ingots[26] bows,

Thou bear’st thy heavy riches but a journey,

And death unloads thee. Friend hast thou none,

For thine own bowels[29] which do call thee sire,

30

The mere[30] effusion of thy proper loins,

Do curse the gout, serpigo[31] and the rheum

For ending thee no sooner. Thou hast nor[32] youth, nor age,

But as it were an after-dinner’s[33] sleep

Dreaming on both, for all thy blessèd youth

35

Becomes as agèd,[35] and doth beg the alms

Of palsied eld.[36] And when thou art old and rich,

Thou hast neither heat, affection, limb,[37] nor beauty

To make thy riches pleasant. What’s yet in this

That bears[39] the name of life? Yet in this life

40

Lie hid more thousand deaths; yet death we fear,

That makes[41] these odds all even.

CLAUDIOI humbly thank you.

To sue[43] to live, I find I seek to die,

And, seeking death, find life. Let it[44] come on.

45

ISABELLAWhat, ho! Peace here, grace and good company. Within

PROVOSTWho’s there? Come in. The wish[46] deserves a welcome.

DUKEDear sir, ere long I’ll visit you again. To Claudio

CLAUDIOMost holy sir, I thank you.

Enter Isabella

ISABELLAMy business is a word or two with Claudio.

50

PROVOSTAnd very welcome. Look, signior, here’s your sister.

DUKEProvost, a word with you. Duke and Provost talk apart

PROVOSTAs many as you please.

DUKEBring me to hear them speak, where I may be concealed.

Provost and Duke withdraw and hide themselves

50

CLAUDIONow, sister, what’s the comfort? Provost may exit

ISABELLAWhy,

As all comforts are: most good, most good indeed.

Lord Angelo, having affairs to[57] heaven,

Intends you for his swift ambassador,

Where you shall be an everlasting leiger;[59]

60

Therefore your best appointment[60] make with speed,

Tomorrow you set on.[61]

CLAUDIOIs there no remedy?

ISABELLANone, but such remedy as, to save a head,

To cleave[64] a heart in twain.

65

CLAUDIOBut is there any?

ISABELLAYes, brother, you may live;

There is a devilish mercy in the judge,

If you’ll implore it, that will free your life,

But fetter[69] you till death.

70

CLAUDIOPerpetual durance?[70]

ISABELLAAy, just,[71] perpetual durance, a restraint,

Though[72] all the world’s vastidity you had,

To a determined scope.[73]

CLAUDIOBut in what nature?[74]

75

ISABELLAIn such a one as, you consenting to’t,

Would bark[76] your honour from that trunk you bear,

And leave you naked.

CLAUDIOLet me know the point.

ISABELLAO, I do fear thee, Claudio, and I quake,

80

Lest thou a feverous[80] life shouldst entertain,

And six or seven winters more respect[81]

Than a perpetual honour. Dar’st thou die?

The sense[83] of death is most in apprehension,

And the poor beetle that we tread upon

85

In corporal sufferance[85] finds a pang as great

As when a giant dies.

CLAUDIOWhy[87] give you me this shame?

Think you I can a resolution[88] fetch

From flow’ry tenderness?[89] If I must die,

90

I will encounter[90] darkness as a bride,

And hug it in mine arms.

ISABELLAThere spake my brother: there my father’s grave

Did utter forth a voice. Yes, thou must die.

Thou art too noble to conserve a life

95

In base appliances.[95] This outward-sainted deputy,

Whose settled visage[96] and deliberate word

Nips youth i’th’head[97] and follies doth enew

As falcon doth the fowl, is yet a devil:

His filth within being cast,[99] he would appear

100

A pond as deep as hell.

CLAUDIOThe prenzie[101] Angelo?

ISABELLAO, ’tis the cunning livery of hell,

The damned’st body to invest[103] and cover

In prenzie guards![104] Dost thou think, Claudio,

105

If I would yield him my virginity

Thou mightst be freed?

CLAUDIOO heavens, it cannot be.

ISABELLAYes, he[108] would give’t thee, from this rank offence,

So to offend him still. This night’s the time

110

That I should do what I abhor to name,

Or else thou diest tomorrow.

CLAUDIOThou shalt not do’t.

ISABELLAO, were it but my life,

I’d throw it down for your deliverance[114]

115

As frankly[115] as a pin.

CLAUDIOThanks, dear Isabel.

ISABELLABe ready, Claudio, for your death tomorrow.

CLAUDIOYes. Has he affections[118] in him,

That thus can make him bite[119] the law by th’nose,

120

When he would force[120] it? Sure it is no sin,

Or of the deadly seven, it is the least.

ISABELLAWhich is the least?

CLAUDIOIf it were damnable, he being so wise,

Why would he for the momentary trick[124]

125

Be perdurably fined?[125] O Isabel!

ISABELLAWhat says my brother?

CLAUDIODeath is a fearful thing.

ISABELLAAnd shamèd life a hateful.

CLAUDIOAy, but to die, and go we know not where,

130

To lie in cold obstruction[130] and to rot,

This sensible warm motion[131] to become

A kneaded clod;[132] and the delighted spirit

To bathe in fiery floods, or to reside

In thrilling[134] region of thick-ribbèd ice,

135

To be imprisoned in the viewless[135] winds,

And blown with restless violence round about

The pendent[137] world: or to be worse than worst

Of those that lawless and incertain[138] thought

Imagine howling — ’tis too horrible!

140

The weariest and most loathèd worldly life

That age, ache, penury[141] and imprisonment

Can lay on nature[142] is a paradise

To[143] what we fear of death.

ISABELLAAlas, alas!

145

CLAUDIOSweet sister, let me live.

What sin you do to save a brother’s life,

Nature[147] dispenses with the deed so far

That it becomes a virtue.

ISABELLAO you beast![149]

150

O faithless coward! O dishonest[150] wretch!

Wilt thou be made a man[151] out of my vice?

Is’t not a kind of incest to take life

From thine own sister’s shame? What should I think?

Heaven shield[154] my mother played my father fair,

155

For such a warpèd[155] slip of wilderness

Ne’er issued from his blood. Take my defiance![156]

Die, perish! Might but[157] my bending down

Reprieve thee from thy fate, it should proceed.

I’ll pray a thousand prayers for thy death,

160

No word to save thee.

CLAUDIONay, hear me, Isabel.

ISABELLAO, fie, fie, fie!

Thy sin’s not accidental,[163] but a trade.

Mercy to thee would prove itself[164] a bawd,

165

’Tis best that thou diest quickly.

CLAUDIOO, hear me, Isabella! The Duke comes forward

DUKEVouchsafe[167] a word, young sister, but one word.

ISABELLAWhat is your will?

DUKEMight you dispense[169] with your leisure, I would by and by have some speech with you: the satisfaction[170] I would require is likewise your own benefit.

ISABELLAI have no superfluous leisure, my stay must be stolen out of other affairs, but I will attend[172] you awhile. She walks apart

DUKESon, I have overheard what hath passed between you and your sister. Angelo had never the purpose[174] to corrupt her; only he hath made an assay of her virtue to practise[175] his judgement with the disposition of natures. She, having the truth of honour in her, hath made him that gracious[176] denial which he is most glad to receive. I am confessor to Angelo, and I know this to be true. Therefore prepare yourself to[178] death: do not satisfy your resolution with hopes that are fallible. Tomorrow you must die, go to your knees and make ready.

CLAUDIOLet me ask my sister pardon. I am so out of love with life that I will sue to be rid of it.

DUKEHold you there.[182] Farewell.

[Exit Claudio]

Provost, a word with you. Provost enters or comes forward

PROVOSTWhat’s your will, father?

DUKEThat now you are come, you will be gone. Leave me awhile with the maid. My mind promises with my habit[186] no loss shall touch her by my company.

PROVOSTIn good time. Isabella comes forward

Exit

DUKEThe hand that hath made you fair hath made you good: the goodness[188] that is cheap in beauty makes beauty brief in goodness; but grace,[189] being the soul of your complexion,[190] shall keep the body of it ever fair. The assault that Angelo hath made to you, fortune hath conveyed to my understanding; and, but that frailty[191] hath examples for his falling, I should wonder at Angelo. How will you do to content this substitute,[193] and to save your brother?

ISABELLAI am now going to resolve[194] him. I had rather my brother die by the law than my son should be unlawfully born. But, O, how much is the good duke deceived in Angelo! If ever he return and I can speak to him, I will open my lips in vain, or discover his government.[197]

DUKEThat shall not be much amiss. Yet, as the matter now stands, he will avoid[198] your accusation: he made trial of you only. Therefore fasten your ear on my advisings:[200] to the love I have in doing good a remedy presents itself. I do make myself believe that you may most uprighteously[201] do a poor wronged lady a merited[202] benefit, redeem your brother from the angry law, do no stain to your own gracious person, and much please the absent duke, if peradventure[203] he shall ever return to have hearing of this business.

ISABELLALet me hear you speak further. I have spirit[205] to do anything that appears not foul in the truth of my spirit.[206]

DUKEVirtue is bold, and goodness never fearful. Have you not heard speak of Mariana, the sister of Frederick, the great soldier who miscarried[208] at sea?

ISABELLAI have heard of the lady, and good words went with her name.

DUKEShe should this Angelo have married, was affianced[210] to her by oath, and the nuptial appointed:[211] between which time of the contract and limit of the solemnity, her brother Frederick was wrecked at sea, having in that perished vessel the dowry of his sister. But mark how heavily[213] this befell to the poor gentlewoman: there she lost a noble and renowned brother, in his love toward her ever most kind and natural:[215] with him, the portion and sinew of her fortune, her marriage-dowry: with both, her combinate[216] husband, this well-seeming Angelo.

ISABELLACan this be so? Did Angelo so leave her?

DUKELeft her in her tears, and dried not one of them with his comfort, swallowed his vows whole, pretending in her discoveries of dishonour:[219] in few, bestowed her on her own lamentation, which she yet[220] wears for his sake: and he, a marble to her tears, is washed with them, but relents not.

ISABELLAWhat a merit were it in death to take this poor maid from the world? What corruption in this life that it will let this man live! But how out of this can she avail?[224]

DUKEIt is a rupture that you may easily heal, and the cure of it not only saves your brother, but keeps you from dishonour in doing it.

ISABELLAShow me how, good father.

DUKEThis forenamed maid hath yet in her the continuance[228] of her first affection: his unjust unkindness — that in all reason should have quenched her love — hath, like an impediment[230] in the current, made it more violent and unruly. Go you to Angelo, answer his requiring[231] with a plausible obedience, agree with his demands to the point.[232] Only refer yourself to this advantage: first, that your stay with him may not be long, that the time may have all shadow and silence in it, and the place answer to convenience.[234] This being granted in course, and now follows all: we shall advise this wronged maid to stead up[235] your appointment, go in your place. If the encounter[236] acknowledge itself hereafter, it may compel him to her recompense; and here, by this is your brother saved, your honour untainted, the poor Mariana advantaged, and the corrupt deputy scaled.[238] The maid will I frame[239] and make fit for his attempt. If you think well to carry this as you may, the doubleness[240] of the benefit defends the deceit from reproof. What think you of it?

ISABELLAThe image[241] of it gives me content already, and I trust it will grow to a most prosperous perfection.[242]

DUKEIt lies much in your holding up.[243] Haste you speedily to Angelo: if for this night he entreat you to his bed, give him promise of satisfaction. I will presently to Saint Luke’s, there at the moated grange[245] resides this dejected Mariana. At that place call upon me, and dispatch[246] with Angelo, that it may be quickly.

ISABELLAI thank you for this comfort. Fare you well, good father.

Exit

Enter Elbow [and] Officers [with Pompey, the] Clown

ELBOWNay, if there be no remedy for it, but that you will needs buy and sell men and women like beasts, we shall have all the world drink brown[249] and white bastard.

DUKEO heavens, what stuff[251] is here?

POMPEY’Twas[252] never merry world since of two usuries the merriest was put down, and the worser allowed by order of law a furred gown to keep him warm; and furred with fox[254] and lamb-skins too, to signify that craft, being richer than innocency, stands[255] for the facing.

ELBOWCome your way, sir. Bless you, good father friar.

DUKEAnd you, good brother father.[257] What offence hath this man made you, sir?

ELBOWMarry, sir, he hath offended the law; and, sir, we take him to be a thief too, sir, for we have found upon him, sir, a strange picklock,[259] which we have sent to the deputy.

DUKEFie, sirrah,[261] a bawd, a wicked bawd!

The evil that thou causest to be done,

That is thy means to live. Do thou but think

What ’tis to cram a maw[264] or clothe a back

265

From such a filthy vice. Say to thyself,

From their abominable and beastly touches

I drink, I eat, array[267] myself, and live.

Canst thou believe thy living is a life,

So stinkingly depending?[269] Go mend, go mend.

POMPEYIndeed, it does stink in some sort,[270] sir, but yet, sir, I would prove—

DUKENay, if the devil have given thee proofs[271] for sin, Thou wilt prove his. Take him to prison, officer: Correction[273] and instruction must both work Ere this rude[274] beast will profit.

ELBOWHe must before[275] the deputy, sir, he has given him warning. The deputy cannot abide a whoremaster. If he[276] be a whoremonger, and comes before him, he were as good go a mile on his errand.

DUKEThat[278] we were all, as some would seem to be, Free[279] from our faults, as faults from seeming free!

Enter Lucio

ELBOWHis neck will come to[280] your waist — a cord, sir.

POMPEYI spy comfort, I cry[281] bail. Here’s a gentleman and a friend of mine.

LUCIOHow now, noble Pompey? What, at the wheels of Caesar? Art thou led in triumph?[282] What, is there none of Pygmalion’s[283] images, newly made woman, to be had now, for putting[284] the hand in the pocket and extracting clutched? What reply, ha? What sayest thou to this tune, matter and method? Is’t not drowned i’th’last rain,[286] ha? What sayest thou, Trot? Is the world as it was, man? Which is the way? Is it sad,[287] and few words? Or how? The trick of it?

DUKEStill thus,[288] and thus, still worse!

LUCIOHow doth my dear morsel,[289] thy mistress? Procures she still, ha?

POMPEYTroth,[290] sir, she hath eaten up all her beef, and she is herself in the tub.

LUCIOWhy, ’tis good: it is the right of it,[291] it must be so. Ever your fresh whore and your powdered[292] bawd, an unshunned consequence, it must be so. Art going to prison, Pompey?

POMPEYYes, faith, sir.

LUCIOWhy, ’tis not amiss,[295] Pompey. Farewell: go, say I sent thee thither. For debt, Pompey? Or how?

ELBOWFor being a bawd, for being a bawd.

LUCIOWell, then, imprison him. If imprisonment be the due[298] of a bawd, why, ’tis his right. Bawd is he doubtless, and of antiquity[299] too, bawd-born. Farewell, good Pompey. Commend me to the prison, Pompey: you will turn good husband[300] now, Pompey, you will keep the house.

POMPEYI hope, sir, your good worship will be my bail.

LUCIONo, indeed, will I not, Pompey, it is not the wear.[303] I will pray, Pompey, to increase your bondage.[304] If you take it not patiently, why, your mettle is the more. Adieu, trusty Pompey.— Bless you, friar.

DUKEAnd you.

LUCIODoes Bridget paint[307] still, Pompey, ha?

ELBOWCome your ways, sir, come.

POMPEYYou will not bail me, then, sir? To Lucio

LUCIOThen, Pompey, nor now. What news abroad,[310] friar? What news?

ELBOWCome your ways, sir, come.

LUCIOGo to kennel,[312] Pompey, go.

[Exeunt Elbow, Pompey and Officers]

What news, friar, of the duke?

DUKEI know none. Can you tell me of any?

LUCIOSome say he is with the Emperor of Russia. Other some,[315] he is in Rome. But where is he, think you?

DUKEI know not where: but wheresoever, I wish him well.

LUCIOIt was a mad fantastical trick[318] of him to steal from the state, and usurp the beggary he was never born to. Lord Angelo dukes it well in his absence: he puts transgression to’t.[319]

DUKEHe does well in’t.

LUCIOA little more lenity[322] to lechery would do no harm in him: something too crabbed[323] that way, friar.

DUKEIt is too general[324] a vice, and severity must cure it.

LUCIOYes, in good sooth,[325] the vice is of a great kindred; it is well allied, but it is impossible to extirp[326] it quite, friar, till eating and drinking be put down. They say this Angelo was not made by man and woman after this downright[327] way of creation. Is it true, think you?

DUKEHow should he be made, then?

LUCIOSome report a sea-maid[330] spawned him. Some, that he was begot between two stock-fishes.[331] But it is certain that when he makes water his urine is congealed ice, that I know to be true: and he is a motion generative,[332] that’s infallible.

DUKEYou are pleasant,[333] sir, and speak apace.

LUCIOWhy, what a ruthless thing is this in him, for the rebellion of a codpiece[334] to take away the life of a man. Would the duke that is absent have done this? Ere he would have hanged a man for the getting[336] a hundred bastards, he would have paid for the nursing a[337] thousand. He had some feeling of the sport, he knew the service,[338] and that instructed him to mercy.

DUKEI never heard the absent duke much detected for women,[339] he was not inclined that way.

LUCIOO sir, you are deceived.

DUKE’Tis not possible.

LUCIOWho, not the duke? Yes, your beggar of fifty,[343] and his use was to put a ducat in her clack-dish;[344] the duke had crotchets in him. He would be drunk too, that let me inform you.

DUKEYou do him wrong, surely.

LUCIOSir, I was an inward[347] of his. A shy fellow was the duke, and I believe I know the cause of his withdrawing.[348]

DUKEWhat, I prithee, might be the cause?

LUCIONo, pardon. ’Tis a secret must be locked within the teeth and the lips: but this I can let you understand, the greater[351] file of the subject held the duke to be wise.

DUKEWise? Why, no question but he was.

LUCIOA very superficial, ignorant, unweighing[354] fellow.

DUKEEither this is the envy[355] in you, folly, or mistaking: the very stream of his life and the business he hath helmed[356] must upon a warranted need give him a better proclamation.[357] Let him be but testimonied in his own bringings-forth, and he shall appear to the envious a scholar, a statesman and a soldier: therefore you speak unskilfully,[359] or, if your knowledge be more, it is much darkened in your malice.

LUCIOSir, I know him, and I love him.

DUKELove[361] talks with better knowledge, and knowledge with dearer love.

LUCIOCome, sir, I know what I know.

DUKEI can hardly believe that, since you know not what you speak. But if ever the duke return — as our prayers are he may — let me desire you to make your answer[364] before him. If it be honest you have spoke, you have courage to maintain[365] it; I am bound to call upon you — and, I pray you, your name?

LUCIOSir, my name is Lucio, well known to the duke.

DUKEHe shall know you better, sir, if I may live to report you.

LUCIOI fear you not.

DUKEO, you hope the duke will return no more, or you imagine me too unhurtful an opposite.[370] But indeed I can do you little harm. You’ll forswear[371] this again?[372]

LUCIOI’ll be hanged first. Thou art deceived in me, friar. But no more of this. Canst thou tell if Claudio die tomorrow or no?

DUKEWhy should he die, sir?

LUCIOWhy? For filling[376] a bottle with a tundish. I would the duke we talk of were returned again. This ungenitured[377] agent will unpeople the province with continency.[378] Sparrows must not build in his house-eaves, because they are lecherous. The duke yet would have dark deeds[379] darkly answered, he would never bring them to light. Would he were returned! Marry, this Claudio is condemned for untrussing.[381] Farewell, good friar. I prithee, pray for me. The duke, I say to thee again, would eat mutton on Fridays.[382] He’s now past it, yet and I say to thee, he would mouth with[383] a beggar, though she smelt brown bread and garlic. Say that I said so. Farewell.

Exit

DUKENo might nor greatness in mortality Can censure ’scape.[386] Back-wounding calumny The whitest virtue strikes. What king so strong Can tie the gall[388] up in the sland’rous tongue? But who comes here?

Enter Escalus, Provost and [Officers with] Bawd [Mistress Overdone]

ESCALUSGo, away with her to prison.

MISTRESS OVERDONEGood my lord, be good to me: your honour is accounted a merciful man, good my lord.

ESCALUSDouble[393] and treble admonition, and still forfeit in the same kind? This would make mercy swear[394] and play the tyrant.

PROVOSTA bawd of eleven years’ continuance, may it please your honour.

MISTRESS OVERDONEMy lord, this is one Lucio’s information[396] against me. Mistress Kate Keepdown[397] was with child by him in the duke’s time, he promised her marriage. His child is a year and a quarter old come Philip and Jacob.[398] I have kept it myself; and see how he goes about to abuse me!

ESCALUSThat fellow is a fellow of much licence.[400] Let him be called before us. Away with her to prison. Go to, no more words. [Exeunt Officers with Mistress Overdone] Provost, my brother[402] Angelo will not be altered: Claudio must die tomorrow. Let him be furnished with divines,[403] and have all charitable preparation. If my brother wrought[404] by my pity, it should not be so with him.

PROVOSTSo please you, this friar hath been with him, and advised him for th’entertainment[406] of death.

ESCALUSGood even, good father.

DUKEBliss and goodness on you!

ESCALUSOf whence are you?[409]

DUKENot of this country, though my chance[410] is now To use it for my time.[411] I am a brother Of gracious order, late come from the See[412] In special business from his holiness.

ESCALUSWhat news abroad[414] i’th’world?

DUKENone, but that there is so[415] great a fever on goodness that the dissolution of it must cure it. Novelty is only in request,[416] and it is as dangerous to be aged in any kind of course[417] as it is virtuous to be constant in any undertaking. There is scarce truth enough alive to make societies[418] secure, but security enough to make fellowships[419] accurst. Much upon this riddle runs the wisdom of the world. This news is old enough, yet it is every day’s news. I pray you, sir, of what disposition was the duke?

ESCALUSOne that, above all other strifes,[422] contended especially to know himself.

DUKEWhat pleasure[423] was he given to?

ESCALUSRather rejoicing to see another merry than merry at anything which professed to make him rejoice. A gentleman of all temperance. But leave we him to his events,[426] with a prayer they may prove prosperous, and let me desire to know how you find Claudio prepared. I am made to understand that you have lent him visitation.[427]

DUKEHe professes to have received no sinister measure[429] from his judge, but most willingly humbles himself to the determination[430] of justice: yet had he framed to himself, by the instruction[431] of his frailty, many deceiving promises of life, which I by my good leisure[432] have discredited to him, and now is he resolved to die.

ESCALUSYou[433] have paid the heavens your function, and the prisoner the very debt of your calling. I have laboured for the poor gentleman to the extremest[434] shore of my modesty, but my brother justice have I found so severe that he hath forced me to tell him he is indeed Justice.[436]

DUKEIf his own life answer the straitness[437] of his proceeding, it shall become him well: wherein if he chance to fail, he hath sentenced himself.

ESCALUSI am going to visit the prisoner. Fare you well.

440

DUKEPeace be with you.

[Exeunt Escalus and Provost]

He who the sword of heaven[441] will bear

Should be as holy as severe:

Pattern[443] in himself to know,

Grace to stand,[444] and virtue go,

445

More[445] nor less to others paying

Than by self-offences weighing.

Shame to him whose cruel striking

Kills for faults of his own liking.

Twice treble shame on Angelo,

450

To weed[450] my vice and let his grow!

O, what may man within him hide,

Though angel on the outward side!

How may likeness[453] made in crimes,

Making practice[454] on the times,

455

To draw[455] with idle spiders’ strings

Most pond’rous and substantial things!

Craft[457] against vice I must apply.

With Angelo tonight shall lie

His old betrothèd[459] but despised,

460

So disguise[460] shall, by th’disguised,

Pay[461] with falsehood false exacting,

And perform an old contracting.[462]

Exit

Act 4 Scene 14.1

running scene 9

Enter Mariana and [a] Boy, singing

BOYTake, O, take those lips away,

That so sweetly were forsworn,[2]

And those eyes, the[3] break of day,

Lights that do mislead the morn;

5

But my kisses bring again, bring again,

Seals of love, but sealed in vain, sealed in vain.

Enter Duke [disguised as before]

MARIANABreak off thy song, and haste thee quick away:

Here comes a man of comfort, whose advice

Hath often stilled[9] my brawling discontent.

[Exit Boy]

10

I cry you mercy,[10] sir, and well could wish

You had not found me here so musical.

Let me excuse me, and believe me so,

My[13] mirth it much displeased, but pleased my woe.

DUKE’Tis good; though music oft hath such a charm[14]

15

To make bad good, and good provoke to harm.

I pray you tell me, hath anybody inquired for me here today? Much upon[16] this time have I promised here to meet.

MARIANAYou have not been inquired after: I have sat here all day.

Enter Isabella

DUKEI do constantly[19] believe you. The time is come even now. I shall crave your forbearance[20] a little, maybe I will call upon you anon for some advantage to yourself.

MARIANAI am always bound to you.

Exit

DUKEVery well met,[23] and well come.

What is the news from this good deputy?

25

ISABELLAHe hath a garden circummured[25] with brick,

Whose western side is with a vineyard backed,

And to that vineyard is a planchèd[27] gate

That makes his opening[28] with this bigger key. Shows keys

This other doth command[29] a little door,

30

Which from the vineyard to the garden leads.

There have I made my promise, upon the

Heavy[32] middle of the night to call upon him.

DUKEBut shall you on your knowledge[33] find this way?

ISABELLAI have ta’en a due[34] and wary note upon’t:

35

With whispering and most guilty diligence,

In action[36] all of precept, he did show me

The way twice o’er.

DUKEAre there no other tokens[38]

Between you ’greed[39] concerning her observance?

40

ISABELLANo, none, but only a repair[40] i’th’dark,

And that I have possessed[41] him my most stay

Can be but brief, for I have made him know

I have a servant comes with me along,

That stays upon[44] me, whose persuasion is

45

I come about my brother.

DUKE’Tis well borne up.[46]

I have not yet made known to Mariana

A word of this.— What ho, within! Come forth!

Enter Mariana

I pray you be acquainted with this maid,

50

She comes to do you good.

ISABELLAI do desire the like.[51]

DUKEDo you persuade yourself that I respect you?

MARIANAGood friar, I know you do, and have found it.[53]

DUKETake, then, this your companion by the hand,

55

Who hath a story ready for your ear.

I shall attend your leisure,[56] but make haste,

The vaporous night approaches.

MARIANAWill’t please you walk aside?

Exit [Mariana with Isabella]

DUKEO place[59] and greatness! Millions of false eyes

60

Are stuck[60] upon thee: volumes of report

Run with these false and most contrarious quests[61]

Upon thy doings, thousand escapes[62] of wit

Make thee the father[63] of their idle dream

And rack[64] thee in their fancies.

Enter Mariana and Isabella

65

Welcome, how agreed?

ISABELLAShe’ll take the enterprise upon her, father,

If you advise it.

DUKEIt[68] is not my consent,

But my entreaty too.

70

ISABELLALittle[70] have you to say

When you depart from him, but, soft and low,

‘Remember now my brother.’

MARIANAFear me not.

DUKENor, gentle daughter, fear you not at all.

75

He is your husband on a pre-contract:[75]

To bring you thus together ’tis no sin,

Sith[77] that the justice of your title to him

Doth flourish[78] the deceit. Come, let us go:

Our[79] corn’s to reap, for yet our tithe’s to sow.

Exeunt

Act 4 Scene 24.2

running scene 10

Enter Provost and Clown [Pompey]

PROVOSTCome hither, sirrah. Can you cut off a man’s head?

POMPEYIf the man be a bachelor, sir, I can. But if he be a married man, he’s his wife’s head,[3] and I can never cut off a woman’s head.

PROVOSTCome, sir, leave[4] me your snatches, and yield me a direct answer. Tomorrow morning are to die Claudio and Barnardine. Here is in our prison a common[6] executioner, who in his office lacks a helper: if you will take it on you to assist him, it shall redeem[7] you from your gyves: if not, you shall have your full time of imprisonment and your deliverance[8] with an unpitied whipping, for you have been a notorious bawd.

POMPEYSir, I have been an unlawful bawd time[10] out of mind, but yet I will be content to be a lawful hangman. I would be glad to receive some instruction from my fellow partner.

PROVOSTWhat, ho, Abhorson![13] Where’s Abhorson there?

Enter Abhorson

ABHORSONDo you call, sir?

PROVOSTSirrah, here’s a fellow will help you tomorrow in your execution. If you think it meet,[16] compound with him by the year, and let him abide here with you. If not, use him for the present and dismiss him. He cannot plead his estimation[17] with you: he hath been a bawd.

ABHORSONA bawd, sir? Fie upon him, he will discredit our mystery.[19]

PROVOSTGo to, sir, you weigh equally:[20] a feather will turn the scale. Exit

POMPEYPray, sir, by your good favour[21] — for surely, sir, a good favour you have, but that you have a hanging look[22] — do you call, sir, your occupation a mystery?

ABHORSONAy, sir, a mystery.

POMPEYPainting,[24] sir, I have heard say, is a mystery; and your whores, sir, being members of my occupation, using painting, do prove my occupation a mystery. But what mystery there should be in hanging, if I should be hanged, I cannot imagine.

ABHORSONSir, it is a mystery.

POMPEYProof?

ABHORSONEvery true[30] man’s apparel fits your thief—

POMPEYIf it be too little for your thief, your true man thinks it big[31] enough. If it be too big for your thief, your thief thinks it little[32] enough. So every true man’s apparel fits your thief.

Enter Provost

PROVOSTAre you agreed?

POMPEYSir, I will serve him, for I do find your hangman is a more penitent[35] trade than your bawd: he[36] doth oftener ask forgiveness.

PROVOSTYou, sirrah, provide your block and your axe tomorrow, four o’clock.

ABHORSONCome on, bawd, I will instruct thee in my trade. Follow.

POMPEYI do desire to learn, sir, and I hope, if you have occasion to use me for your own turn,[40] you shall find me yare. For truly, sir, for your kindness I owe you a good turn.[41]

[Exeunt Pompey and Abhorson]

PROVOSTCall hither Barnardine and Claudio.

The one has my pity; not a jot the other,

Being a murderer, though[44] he were my brother.

Enter Claudio

45

Look, here’s the warrant, Claudio, for thy death. Shows warrant

’Tis now dead midnight, and by eight tomorrow

Thou must be made immortal. Where’s Barnardine?

CLAUDIOAs fast locked up in sleep as guiltless labour[48]

When it lies starkly[49] in the traveller’s bones.

50

He will not wake.

PROVOSTWho can do good on[51] him?

Well, go, prepare yourself. But hark, what noise? Knocking within

Heaven give your spirits comfort.— By and by.

[Exit Claudio]

I hope it is some pardon or reprieve

55

For the most gentle Claudio.

Enter Duke [disguised as before]

Welcome father.

DUKEThe best and wholesom’st spirits of the night

Envelop you, good provost. Who called here of late?

PROVOSTNone, since the curfew[59] rung.

60

DUKENot Isabel?

PROVOSTNo.

DUKEThey will, then, ere’t be long.

PROVOSTWhat comfort is for Claudio?

DUKEThere’s some in hope.

65

PROVOSTIt is a bitter deputy.

DUKENot so, not so: his life is paralleled[66]

Even[67] with the stroke and line of his great justice.

He doth with holy abstinence subdue

That in himself which he spurs on his power

70

To qualify[70] in others. Were he mealed with that

Which he corrects,[71] then were he tyrannous,

But this[72] being so, he’s just. Now are they come.

[Exit Provost]

This is a gentle[73] provost: seldom when

The steelèd[74] jailer is the friend of men. Knocking within

75

How now? What noise? That spirit’s[75] possessed with haste

That wounds th’unsisting[76] postern with these strokes.

[Enter Provost]

PROVOSTThere he must stay until the officer

Arise to let him in. He[78] is called up.

DUKEHave you no countermand[79] for Claudio yet,

80

But he must die tomorrow?

PROVOSTNone, sir, none.

DUKEAs near the dawning, Provost, as it is,

You shall hear more ere morning.

PROVOSTHappily[84]

85

You something know, yet I believe there comes

No countermand, no such example[86] have we:

Besides, upon the very siege[87] of justice

Lord Angelo hath to the public ear

Professed the contrary.

Enter a Messenger

90

This is his lordship’s man.

DUKEAnd here comes Claudio’s pardon. Aside?

MESSENGERMy lord hath sent you this note, Gives a paper and by me this further charge, that you swerve not from the smallest article of it, neither in time, matter, or other circumstance. Good morrow, for, as I take it, it is almost day.

PROVOSTI shall obey him.

[Exit Messenger]

DUKEThis is his pardon, purchased[96] by such sin Aside

For which the pardoner himself is in.

Hence[98] hath offence his quick celerity,

When it is borne in high authority.

100

When vice makes mercy, mercy’s so extended,[100]

That for the fault’s love[101] is th’offender friended.—

Now, sir, what news?

PROVOSTI told you. Lord Angelo, belike[103] thinking me remiss in mine office, awakens me with this unwonted[104] putting-on, methinks strangely, for he hath not used it before.

DUKEPray you let’s hear.

PROVOSTReads the letter ‘Whatsoever you may hear to the contrary, let Claudio be executed by four of the clock, and in the afternoon Barnardine. For my better satisfaction,[108] let me have Claudio’s head sent me by five. Let this be duly[109] performed with a thought that more depends on it than we must yet deliver.[110] Thus fail not to do your office, as you will answer[111] it at your peril.’ What say you to this, sir?

DUKEWhat[112] is that Barnardine who is to be executed in th’afternoon?

PROVOSTA Bohemian born, but here nursed up and bred, one that is a prisoner nine years old.[113]

DUKEHow came it that the absent duke had not either delivered him to his liberty or executed him? I have heard it was ever his manner to do so.

PROVOSTHis friends still wrought[117] reprieves for him: and indeed, his fact, till now in the government of Lord Angelo, came not to an undoubtful[118] proof.

DUKEIt is now apparent?

PROVOSTMost manifest, and not denied by himself.

DUKEHath he borne himself penitently in prison? How seems he to be touched?[121]

PROVOSTA man that apprehends[122] death no more dreadfully but as a drunken sleep, careless, reckless, and fearless of what’s past, present, or to come: insensible[123] of mortality and desperately mortal.

DUKEHe wants[125] advice.

PROVOSTHe will hear none. He hath evermore[126] had the liberty of the prison. Give him leave to escape hence, he would not. Drunk many times a day, if not many days entirely drunk. We have very oft awaked him, as if to carry him to execution, and showed him a seeming[129] warrant for it, it hath not moved him at all.

DUKEMore of him anon. There is written in your brow, Provost, honesty and constancy. If I read it not truly, my ancient skill beguiles[131] me, but in the boldness of my cunning, I will lay[132] myself in hazard. Claudio, whom here you have warrant to execute, is no greater forfeit to the law than Angelo who hath sentenced him. To make you understand this in a manifested effect,[134] I crave but four days’ respite, for the which you are to do me both a present[135] and a dangerous courtesy.

PROVOSTPray, sir, in what?

DUKEIn the delaying death.

PROVOSTAlack, how may I do it, having the hour limited[138] and an express command, under penalty, to deliver his head in the view of Angelo? I may make[139] my case as Claudio’s, to cross[140] this in the smallest.

DUKEBy the vow of mine order, I warrant[141] you, if my instructions may be your guide, let this Barnardine be this morning executed, and his head borne to Angelo.

PROVOSTAngelo hath seen them both and will discover the favour.[144]

DUKEO, death’s a great disguiser, and you may add to it. Shave the head and tie[145] the beard and say it was the desire of the penitent to be so bared[146] before his death: you know the course[147] is common. If anything fall to you upon this, more than thanks and good fortune, by the saint whom I profess, I will plead against it with my life.

PROVOSTPardon me, good father, it is against my oath.

DUKEWere you sworn to the duke or to the deputy?

PROVOSTTo him and to his substitutes.

DUKEYou will think you have made no offence, if the duke avouch[153] the justice of your dealing?

PROVOSTBut what likelihood is in that?

DUKENot a resemblance,[156] but a certainty. Yet since I see you fearful that neither my coat,[157] integrity, nor persuasion can with ease attempt you, I will go further than I meant, to pluck all fears out of you. Shows a letter Look you, sir, here is the hand[158] and seal of the duke: you know the character,[159] I doubt not, and the signet is not strange[160] to you.

PROVOSTI know them both.

DUKEThe contents of this is the return of the duke; you shall anon over-read it at your pleasure, where you shall find within these two days he will be here. This is a thing that Angelo knows not, for he this very day receives letters of strange tenor,[165] perchance of the duke’s death, perchance entering into some monastery, but by chance nothing[166] of what is writ. Look, th’unfolding star calls up the shepherd. Put not yourself into amazement how these things should be; all difficulties are but easy when they are known. Call your executioner, and off with Barnardine’s head. I will give him a present shrift[169] and advise him for a better place. Yet[170] you are amazed, but this shall absolutely resolve you. Come away. It is almost clear dawn.

Exeunt

Act 4 Scene 3

running scene 10 continues

Enter Clown [Pompey]

POMPEYI am as well acquainted[1] here as I was in our house of profession: one would think it were Mistress Overdone’s own house, for here be many of her old customers. First, here’s young Master Rash.[3] He’s in for a commodity of brown paper and old[4] ginger, ninescore and seventeen pounds, of which he made five marks ready money. Marry, then ginger was not much in request, for the old women[5] were all dead. Then is there here one Master Caper,[6] at the suit of Master Three-pile[7] the mercer, for some four suits of peach-coloured satin, which now peaches[8] him a beggar. Then have we here young Dizzy and young Master Deep-vow and Master Copperspur[9] and Master Starve-lackey the rapier and dagger man, and young Drop-heir[10] that killed lusty Pudding, and Master Forthright the tilter, and brave[11] Master Shoe-tie the great traveller, and wild Half-can that stabbed Pots, and I think forty more, all great doers[12] in our trade, and are now ‘for the Lord’s sake’.

Enter Abhorson

ABHORSONSirrah, bring Barnardine hither.

POMPEYMaster Barnardine! You must rise[15] and be hanged. Master Barnardine!

ABHORSONWhat ho, Barnardine!

BARNARDINEA pox[17] o’your throats! Within Who makes that noise there? What are you?

POMPEYYour friends, sir, the hangman. You must be so good, sir, to[18] rise and be put to death.

BARNARDINEAway, you rogue, away! Within I am sleepy.

ABHORSONTell him he must awake, and that quickly too.

POMPEYPray, Master Barnardine, awake till you are executed, and sleep afterwards.

ABHORSONGo in to him and fetch him out.

POMPEYHe is coming, sir, he is coming: I hear his straw[25] rustle.

Enter Barnardine

ABHORSONIs the axe upon the block, sirrah?

POMPEYVery ready, sir.

BARNARDINEHow now, Abhorson? What’s the news with you?

ABHORSONTruly, sir, I would desire you to clap[29] into your prayers, for, look you, the warrant’s come.

BARNARDINEYou rogue, I have been drinking all night, I am not fitted[31] for’t.

POMPEYO, the better, sir, for he that drinks all night, and is hanged betimes[32] in the morning, may sleep the sounder all the next day.

Enter Duke [disguised as before]

ABHORSONLook you, sir, here comes your ghostly father.[34] Do we jest now, think you?

DUKESir, induced by my charity, and hearing how hastily you are to depart, I am come to advise you, comfort you and pray with you.

BARNARDINEFriar, not I. I have been drinking hard all night, and I will have more time to prepare me, or they shall beat out my brains with billets.[38] I will not consent to die this day, that’s certain.

DUKEO, sir, you must, and therefore I beseech you Look forward on the journey you shall go.

BARNARDINEI swear I will not die today for any man’s persuasion.

DUKEBut hear you[43]—

BARNARDINENot a word. If you have anything to say to me, come to my ward,[44] for thence[45] will not I today.

Exit

Enter Provost

DUKEUnfit to live or die. O, gravel[46] heart!

After him, fellows, bring him to the block.

[Exeunt Abhorson and Pompey]

PROVOSTNow, sir, how do you find the prisoner?

DUKEA creature unprepared, unmeet[49] for death,

50

And to transport him[50] in the mind he is

Were damnable.

PROVOSTHere in the prison, father,

There died this morning of a cruel fever

One Ragozine,[54] a most notorious pirate,

55

A man of Claudio’s years,[55] his beard and head

Just of his colour. What if we do omit[56]

This reprobate[57] till he were well inclined,

And satisfy the deputy with the visage[58]

Of Ragozine, more like to Claudio?

60

DUKEO, ’tis an accident[60] that heaven provides!

Dispatch it[61] presently, the hour draws on

Prefixed[62] by Angelo. See this be done,

And sent according to command, whiles I

Persuade this rude[64] wretch willingly to die.

65

PROVOSTThis shall be done, good father, presently.

But Barnardine must die this afternoon.

And how shall we continue[67] Claudio,

To save me from the danger that might come

If he were known alive?

70

DUKELet this be done:

Put them in secret holds,[71] both Barnardine and Claudio.

Ere twice the sun hath made his journal greeting[72]

To yonder generation,[73] you shall find

Your safety manifested.[74]

75

PROVOSTI am your free dependant.[75]

DUKEQuick, dispatch, and send the head to Angelo.

Exit [Provost]

Now will I write letters to Angelo —

The provost, he shall bear them — whose contents

Shall witness to him I am near at home,

80

And that by great injunctions[80] I am bound

To enter publicly. Him I’ll desire

To meet me at the consecrated fount,[82]

A league[83] below the city, and from thence,

By cold gradation[84] and well-balanced form,

85

We shall proceed with Angelo.

Enter Provost [with Ragozine’s head]

PROVOSTHere is the head. I’ll carry it myself.

DUKEConvenient is it. Make a swift return,

For I would commune[88] with you of such things

That want no ear but yours.

90

PROVOSTI’ll make all speed.

Exit

ISABELLAPeace, ho, be here!

Within

DUKEThe tongue of Isabel. She’s come to know

If yet her brother’s pardon be come hither.

But I will keep her ignorant of her good,

95

To make her heavenly comforts of[95] despair,

When it is least expected.

Enter Isabella

ISABELLAHo, by your leave!

DUKEGood morning to you, fair and gracious daughter.

ISABELLAThe better, given me by so holy a man.

100

Hath yet the deputy sent my brother’s pardon?

DUKEHe hath released him, Isabel — from the world.

His head is off and sent to Angelo.

ISABELLANay, but it is not so.

DUKEIt is no other.

105

Show your wisdom, daughter, in your close[105] patience.

ISABELLAO, I will to him and pluck out his eyes!

DUKEYou shall not be admitted to his sight.

ISABELLAUnhappy Claudio, wretched Isabel,

Injurious world, most damnèd Angelo!

110

DUKEThis nor hurts him nor profits you a jot.

Forbear it[111] therefore, give your cause to heaven.

Mark what I say, which you shall find

By every syllable a faithful verity.[113]

The duke comes home tomorrow — nay, dry your eyes —

115

One of our convent, and his confessor,[115]

Gives me this instance.[116] Already he hath carried

Notice to Escalus and Angelo,

Who do prepare to meet him at the gates,

There to give up their power. If you can, pace[119] your wisdom

120

In that good path[120] that I would wish it go,

And you shall have your bosom on[121] this wretch,

Grace[122] of the duke, revenges to your heart,

And general honour.

ISABELLAI am directed by you.

125

DUKEThis letter, then, to Friar Peter give, Gives a letter

’Tis that he sent me of the duke’s return.

Say, by this token I desire his company

At Mariana’s house tonight. Her cause and yours

I’ll perfect him withal,[129] and he shall bring you

130

Before the duke, and to[130] the head of Angelo

Accuse him home and home.[131] For my poor self,

I am combinèd[132] by a sacred vow,

And shall be absent. Wend you[133] with this letter:

Command these fretting waters[134] from your eyes

135

With a light heart; trust not my holy order

If I pervert[136] your course. Who’s here?

Enter Lucio

LUCIOGood even. Friar, where’s the provost?

DUKENot within, sir.

LUCIOO, pretty Isabella, I am pale at mine heart to see thine eyes so red: thou must be patient. I am fain[140] to dine and sup with water and bran: I dare not for my head fill my belly. One fruitful[141] meal would set me to’t. But they say the duke will be here tomorrow. By my troth, Isabel, I loved thy brother. If the old fantastical[142] duke of dark corners[143] had been at home, he had lived.

[Exit Isabella]

DUKESir, the duke is marvellous little beholding[144] to your reports, but the best is, he[145] lives not in them.

LUCIOFriar, thou knowest not the duke so well as I do. He’s a better woodman[146] than thou tak’st him for.

DUKEWell, you’ll answer this one day. Starts to go Fare ye well.

LUCIONay, tarry, I’ll go along with thee. I can tell thee pretty[149] tales of the duke.

DUKEYou have told me too many of him already, sir, if they be true. If not true, none were enough.

LUCIOI was once before him for getting a wench with child.

DUKEDid you such a thing?

LUCIOYes, marry, did I, but I was fain to forswear[154] it. They would else have married me to the rotten medlar.[155]

DUKESir, your company is fairer[156] than honest. Rest you well.

LUCIOBy my troth, I’ll go with thee to the lane’s end. If bawdy talk offend you, we’ll have very little of it. Nay, friar, I am a kind of burr,[158] I shall stick.

Exeunt

Act 4 Scene 4

running scene 11

Enter Angelo and Escalus

ESCALUSEvery letter he hath writ hath disvouched[1] other.

ANGELOIn most uneven[2] and distracted manner. His actions show much like to madness. Pray heaven his wisdom[3] be not tainted. And why meet him at the gates and redeliver[4] our authorities there?

ESCALUSI guess not.

ANGELOAnd why should we proclaim it in an hour before his entering, that if any crave redress of injustice, they should exhibit their petitions[7] in the street?

ESCALUSHe shows his reason for that: to have a dispatch[8] of complaints and to deliver us from devices[9] hereafter, which shall then have no power to stand against us.

ANGELOWell, I beseech you, let it be proclaimed betimes[11] i’th’morn. I’ll call you at your house. Give notice to such men of sort and suit[12] as are to meet him.

ESCALUSI shall, sir. Fare you well.

ANGELOGood night.

Exit [Escalus]

15

This deed unshapes[15] me quite, makes me unpregnant

And dull[16] to all proceedings. A deflowered maid,

And by an eminent body[17] that enforced

The law against it![18] But that her tender shame

Will not proclaim[19] against her maiden loss,

20

How might she tongue[20] me? Yet reason dares her no,

For my authority bears[21] of a credent bulk

That no particular scandal once can touch

But it confounds the breather.[23] He should have lived,

Save that his riotous[24] youth with dangerous sense

25

Might in the times to come have ta’en revenge

By[26] so receiving a dishonoured life

With ransom of such shame. Would yet he had lived!

Alack, when once our grace we have forgot,

Nothing goes right: we would, and we would not.

Exit

Act 4 Scene 54.5

running scene 12

Enter Duke [in his own habit] and Friar Peter

DUKEThese letters at fit time deliver me.[1] Gives letters

The provost knows our purpose and our plot.

The matter being afoot, keep your instruction[3]

And hold you ever[4] to our special drift,

5

Though sometimes you do blench[5] from this to that,

As cause doth minister.[6] Go call at Flavius’ house,

And tell him where I stay. Give the like notice

To Valentius, Rowland, and to Crassus,

And bid them bring the trumpets[9] to the gate.

10

But send me Flavius first.

FRIAR PETERIt shall be speeded[11] well.

[Exit]

Enter Varrius

DUKEI thank thee, Varrius, thou hast made good haste.

Come, we will walk. There’s other of our friends

Will greet us here anon, my gentle[14] Varrius.

Exeunt

Act 4 Scene 64.6

running scene 13

Enter Isabella and Mariana

ISABELLATo speak so indirectly[1] I am loath.

I would say the truth, but to accuse him[2] so,

That is your part. Yet I am advised to do it,

He[4] says, to veil full purpose.

5

MARIANABe ruled by him.

ISABELLABesides, he tells me that if peradventure[6]

He speak against me on the adverse side,

I should not think it strange, for ’tis a physic[8]

That’s bitter[9] to sweet end.

Enter [Friar] Peter

10

MARIANAI would[10] Friar Peter—

ISABELLAO, peace, the friar is come.

FRIAR PETERCome, I have found you out a stand[12] most fit,

Where you may have such vantage on[13] the duke

He shall not pass you. Twice have the trumpets sounded.

15

The generous and gravest citizens

Have hent[16] the gates, and very near upon

The duke is entering: therefore hence, away!

Exeunt

Act 5 Scene 1

running scene 14

Enter Duke [in his own habit], Varrius, Lords, Angelo, Escalus, Lucio, [and] Citizens, at several doors

DUKEMy very worthy cousin,[1] fairly met! — To Angelo

Our old and faithful friend, we are glad to see you. To Escalus

ANGELO and ESCALUSHappy return be to your royal grace!

DUKEMany and hearty thankings to you both.

5

We have made inquiry of you, and we hear

Such goodness of your justice that our soul

Cannot but yield[7] you forth to public thanks,

Forerunning more requital.[8]

ANGELOYou make my bonds[9] still greater.

10

DUKEO, your desert speaks loud, and I should wrong it

To lock it in the wards[11] of covert bosom,

When it deserves with characters[12] of brass

A forted[13] residence ’gainst the tooth of time

And razure[14] of oblivion. Give me your hand,

15

And let the subject[15] see, to make them know

That outward courtesies would fain[16] proclaim

Favours[17] that keep within. Come, Escalus,

You must walk by us on our other hand,

And good supporters are you.

Enter [Friar] Peter and Isabella

20

FRIAR PETERNow is your time. Speak loud and kneel before him.

ISABELLAJustice, O royal duke! Vail your regard[21] Kneels

Upon a wronged — I would fain[22] have said, a maid.

O worthy prince, dishonour not your eye

By throwing it on any other object

25

Till you have heard me in my true complaint

And given me justice, justice, justice, justice!

DUKERelate your wrongs: in what, by whom? Be brief.

Here is Lord Angelo shall give you justice,

Reveal[29] yourself to him.

30

ISABELLAO worthy duke,

You bid me seek redemption of the devil.

Hear me yourself, for that which I must speak

Must either punish me, not being believed,

Or wring[34] redress from you. Hear me, O, hear me here!

35

ANGELOMy lord, her wits, I fear me, are not firm.

She hath been a suitor[36] to me for her brother

Cut off[37] by course of justice—

ISABELLABy course of justice!

ANGELOAnd she will speak most bitterly and strange.[39]

40

ISABELLAMost strange, but yet most truly will I speak.

That Angelo’s forsworn,[41] is it not strange?

That Angelo’s a murderer, is’t not strange?

That Angelo is an adulterous thief,

An hypocrite, a virgin-violator,

45

Is it not strange and strange?

DUKENay, it is ten times strange.

ISABELLAIt is not truer[47] he is Angelo

Than this is all as true as it is strange;

Nay, it is ten times true, for truth is truth

50

To[50] th’end of reck’ning.

DUKEAway with her. Poor soul,

She speaks this in[52] th’infirmity of sense.

ISABELLAO prince, I conjure[53] thee, as thou believ’st

There is another comfort[54] than this world,

55

That thou neglect me not with that opinion[55]

That I am touched[56] with madness. Make not impossible

That which but seems unlike. ’Tis not impossible

But one, the wicked’st caitiff[58] on the ground,

May seem as shy,[59] as grave, as just, as absolute

60

As Angelo: even so may Angelo,

In all his dressings,[61] caracts, titles, forms,

Be an arch-villain. Believe it, royal prince:

If he be less, he’s nothing, but he’s more,

Had I more name[64] for badness.

65

DUKEBy mine honesty,

If she be mad — as I believe no other —

Her madness hath the oddest frame of sense,[67]

Such a dependency[68] of thing on thing,

As e’er I heard in madness.

70

ISABELLAO gracious duke,

Harp[71] not on that, nor do not banish reason

For inequality, but let your reason serve

To make the truth appear where it seems hid,

And hide[74] the false seems true.

75

DUKEMany that are not mad

Have, sure, more lack of reason. What would you say?

ISABELLAI am the sister of one Claudio,

Condemned upon the act[78] of fornication

To lose his head, condemned by Angelo.

80

I, in probation[80] of a sisterhood,

Was sent to by my brother, one Lucio

As then[82] the messenger—

LUCIOThat’s I, an’t like your grace.

I came to her from Claudio, and desired her

85

To try her gracious fortune with Lord Angelo

For her poor brother’s pardon.

ISABELLAThat’s he indeed.

DUKEYou were not bid to speak.

LUCIONo, my good lord,

90

Nor wished[90] to hold my peace.

DUKEI wish you now, then.

Pray you take note of it. And when you have

A business for yourself,[93] pray heaven you then

Be perfect.[94]

95

LUCIOI warrant[95] your honour.

DUKEThe warrant’s for yourself: take heed to’t.

ISABELLAThis gentleman told somewhat[97] of my tale—

LUCIORight.

DUKEIt may be right, but you are i’the wrong

100

To speak before your time.— Proceed.

ISABELLAI went

To this pernicious[102] caitiff deputy—

DUKEThat’s somewhat madly spoken.

ISABELLAPardon it,

105

The phrase is to the matter.[105]

DUKEMended[106] again. The matter: proceed.

ISABELLAIn brief, to[107] set the needless process by —

How I persuaded,[108] how I prayed and kneeled,

How he refelled[109] me, and how I replied,

110

For this was of much length — the vile conclusion

I now begin with grief and shame to utter.

He would not, but by gift of my chaste body

To his concupiscible[113] intemperate lust

Release my brother. And after much debatement[114]

115

My sisterly remorse[115] confutes mine honour,

And I did yield to him. But the[116] next morn betimes,

His purpose surfeiting,[117] he sends a warrant

For my poor brother’s head.

DUKEThis is most likely.[119]

120

ISABELLAO, that[120] it were as like as it is true!

DUKEBy heaven, fond[121] wretch, thou know’st not what thou speak’st,

Or else thou art suborned[122] against his honour

In hateful practice.[123] First, his integrity

Stands without blemish. Next, it imports no reason[124]

125

That with such vehemency he should pursue[125]

Faults proper to himself. If he had so offended,

He would have weighed[127] thy brother by himself,

And not have cut him off.[128] Someone hath set you on.

Confess the truth, and say by whose advice

130

Thou cam’st here to complain.

ISABELLAAnd is this all?

Then, O you blessèd ministers[132] above,

Keep me in patience, and with ripened time

Unfold[134] the evil which is here wrapt up

135

In countenance![135] Heaven shield your grace from woe,

As I, thus wronged, hence unbelievèd go! She starts to go

DUKEI know you’d fain be gone. An officer!

To prison with her. Shall we thus permit Isabella is arrested

A blasting[139] and a scandalous breath to fall

140

On him so near us? This needs must be a practice.[140]

Who knew of your intent and coming hither?

ISABELLAOne that I would were here, Friar Lodowick.[142]

DUKEA ghostly[143] father, belike. Who knows that Lodowick?

LUCIOMy lord, I know him, ’tis a meddling friar,

145

I do not like the man. Had he been lay,[145] my lord,

For certain words he spake against your grace

In your retirement,[147] I had swinged him soundly.

DUKEWords against me? This’[148] a good friar, belike.

And to set on this wretched woman here

150

Against our substitute! Let this friar be found.

LUCIOBut yesternight, my lord, she and that friar,

I saw them at the prison: a saucy[152] friar,

A very scurvy[153] fellow.

FRIAR PETERBlessèd be your royal grace.

155

I have stood by, my lord, and I have heard

Your royal ear abused.[156] First, hath this woman

Most wrongfully accused your substitute,

Who is as free from touch or soil[158] with her

As she from one ungot.[159]

160

DUKEWe did believe no less.

Know you that Friar Lodowick that she speaks of?

FRIAR PETERI know him for a man divine and holy,

Not scurvy, nor a temporary meddler,[163]

As he’s reported by this gentleman.

165

And on my trust a man that never yet

Did, as he vouches,[166] misreport your grace.

LUCIOMy lord, most villainously,[167] believe it.

FRIAR PETERWell, he in time may come to clear himself,

But at this instant he is sick, my lord,

170

Of a strange[170] fever. Upon his mere request,

Being come to knowledge that there was complaint

Intended ’gainst Lord Angelo, came I hither,

To speak, as from his mouth, what he doth know

Is true and false, and what he with his oath

175

And all probation[175] will make up full clear,

Whensoever he’s convented.[176] First, for this woman.

To justify[177] this worthy nobleman

So vulgarly[178] and personally accused,

Her shall you hear disprovèd to her eyes,[179]

180

Till she herself confess it.

DUKEGood friar, let’s hear it.

[Exit Isabella, guarded]

Do you not smile at this, Lord Angelo?

O heaven, the vanity[183] of wretched fools!

Give us some seats. Come, cousin Angelo,

185

In this I’ll be impartial: be you judge

Of your own cause.

Enter Mariana [veiled] Seats brought in for Duke and Angelo

Is this the witness, friar?

First, let her show her face, and after speak.

MARIANAPardon, my lord, I will not show my face Kneels?

Until my husband bid me.

DUKEWhat, are you married?

MARIANANo, my lord.

DUKEAre you a maid?

MARIANANo, my lord.

DUKEA widow, then?

MARIANANeither, my lord.

DUKEWhy, you are nothing then: neither maid, widow, nor wife?

LUCIOMy lord, she may be a punk,[197] for many of them are neither maid, widow, nor wife.

DUKESilence that fellow. I would he had some cause[199]

200

To prattle for himself.

LUCIOWell, my lord.

MARIANAMy lord, I do confess I ne’er was married,

And I confess besides I am no maid.

I have known[204] my husband, yet my husband

205

Knows not that ever he knew me.

LUCIOHe was drunk then, my lord, it can be no better.

DUKEFor[207] the benefit of silence, would thou wert so too.

LUCIOWell, my lord.

DUKEThis is no witness for Lord Angelo.

210

MARIANANow I come to’t, my lord.

She that accuses him of fornication,

In self-same manner doth accuse my husband,

And charges[213] him, my lord, with such a time

When I’ll depose[214] I had him in mine arms

215

With all th’effect[215] of love.

ANGELOCharges she more[216] than me?

MARIANANot that I know.

DUKENo? You say your husband.

MARIANAWhy, just,[219] my lord, and that is Angelo,

220

Who thinks he knows that he ne’er knew my body,

But knows he thinks that he knows Isabel’s.

ANGELOThis is a strange abuse.[222] Let’s see thy face.

MARIANAMy husband bids me, now I will unmask. Unveils

This is that face, thou cruel Angelo,

225

Which once thou swor’st was worth the looking on:

This is the hand which, with a vowed contract,

Was fast belocked[227] in thine: this is the body

That took away the match[228] from Isabel,

And did supply[229] thee at thy garden-house

230

In[230] her imagined person.

DUKEKnow you this woman?

LUCIOCarnally, she says.

DUKESirrah, no more!

LUCIOEnough, my lord.

235

ANGELOMy lord, I must confess I know this woman,

And five years since there was some speech of marriage

Betwixt myself and her, which was broke off,

Partly for that her promised proportions[238]

Came short of composition,[239] but in chief

240

For that[240] her reputation was disvalued

In levity. Since which time of five years

I never spake with her, saw her, nor heard from her,

Upon my faith and honour.

MARIANANoble prince, Kneels?

245

As there comes light from heaven and words from breath,

As there is sense in truth and truth in virtue,

I am affianced this man’s wife as strongly

As words could make up vows. And, my good lord,

But Tuesday night last gone in’s garden-house

250

He knew me as a wife. As this is true,

Let me in safety raise me from my knees,

Or else forever be confixèd[252] here,

A marble monument!

ANGELOI did but smile[254] till now.

255

Now, good my lord, give me the scope[255] of justice,

My patience here is touched.[256] I do perceive

These poor informal[257] women are no more

But instruments of some more mightier member[258]

That sets them on. Let me have way,[259] my lord,

260

To find this practice out.

DUKEAy, with my heart

And punish them to your height of pleasure.

Thou foolish friar, and thou pernicious woman,

Compact[264] with her that’s gone, think’st thou thy oaths,

265

Though they would swear down[265] each particular saint,

Were testimonies against his worth and credit

That’s sealed in approbation?[267] You, Lord Escalus,

Sit with my cousin, lend him your kind pains[268]

To find out this abuse, whence ’tis derived.

270

There is another friar that set them on,

Let him be sent for. Duke gets up and Escalus takes his seat

FRIAR PETERWould he were here, my lord, for he indeed

Hath set the women on to this complaint.

Your provost knows the place where he abides,

275

And he may fetch him.

DUKEGo do it instantly.

[Exit Provost]

And you, my noble and well-warranted[277] cousin,

Whom it concerns to hear this matter forth,[278]

Do with your injuries as seems you best

280

In any chastisement.[280] I for a while

Will leave you, but stir not you[281] till you have

Well determined[282] upon these slanderers.

ESCALUSMy lord, we’ll do it throughly.[283]

Exit [Duke] Signior Lucio, did not you say you knew that Friar Lodowick to be a dishonest person?

LUCIOCucullus[286] non facit monachum: honest in nothing but in his clothes, and one that hath spoke most villainous speeches of the duke.

ESCALUSWe shall entreat you to abide here till he come and enforce[288] them against him. We shall find this friar a notable[289] fellow.

LUCIOAs any in Vienna, on my word.

ESCALUSCall that same Isabel here once again, I would speak with her. Exit an Attendant Pray you, my lord,To Angelo give me leave to question, you shall see how I’ll handle[292] her.

LUCIONot better than he, by her own report.

ESCALUSSay you?[294]

LUCIOMarry, sir, I think, if you handled her privately,[295] she would sooner confess, perchance[296] publicly she’ll be ashamed.

Enter Duke [in his friar’s disguise], Provost, Isabella [and Officers]

ESCALUSI will go[297] darkly to work with her.

LUCIOThat’s the way, for women are light[298] at midnight.

ESCALUSCome on, mistress, here’s a gentlewoman denies all that you have said.

LUCIOMy lord, here comes the rascal I spoke of, here with the provost.

ESCALUSIn very good time. Speak not you to him till we call upon you.

LUCIOMum.[302]

ESCALUSCome, sir, did you set these women on to slander Lord Angelo? They have confessed you did.

DUKE’Tis false.

ESCALUSHow?[306] Know you where you are?

DUKERespect[307] to your great place, and let the devil

Be sometime honoured[308] for his burning throne.

Where is the duke? ’Tis he should hear me speak.

310

ESCALUSThe duke’s in us,[310] and we will hear you speak:

Look[311] you speak justly.

DUKEBoldly, at least. But, O, poor souls,

Come you to seek the lamb here of the fox?

Good[313] night to your redress! Is the duke gone?

315

Then is your cause gone too. The duke’s unjust,

Thus to retort[316] your manifest appeal,

And put your trial in the villain’s mouth

Which here you come to accuse.

LUCIOThis is the rascal, this is he I spoke of.

320

ESCALUSWhy, thou unreverend[320] and unhallowed friar,

Is’t not enough thou hast suborned these women

To accuse this worthy man, but, in foul mouth[322]

And in the witness of his proper ear,[323]

To call him villain, and then to glance[324] from him

325

To th’duke himself, to tax[325] him with injustice?

Take him hence, to th’rack[326] with him! We’ll touse you

Joint by joint, but we will know his purpose.

What? Unjust?

DUKEBe not so hot.[329] The duke dare

330

No more stretch[330] this finger of mine than he

Dare rack his own. His subject am I not,

Nor here provincial.[332] My business in this state

Made me a looker-on here in Vienna,

Where I have seen corruption boil and bubble

335

Till it o’errun the stew:[335] laws for all faults,

But faults so countenanced[336] that the strong statutes

Stand like the forfeits[337] in a barber’s shop,

As much in[338] mock as mark.

ESCALUSSlander to th’state! Away with him to prison!

340

ANGELOWhat can you vouch against him, Signior Lucio?

Is this the man that you did tell us of?

LUCIO’Tis he, my lord. Come hither, goodman[342] baldpate. Do you know me?

DUKEI remember you, sir, by the sound of your voice. I met you at the prison, in the absence of the duke.

LUCIOO, did you so? And do you remember what you said of the duke?

DUKEMost notedly,[346] sir.

LUCIODo you so, sir? And was the duke a fleshmonger,[347] a fool, and a coward, as you then reported him to be?

DUKEYou must, sir, change persons with me, ere you make[349] that my report: you indeed spoke so of him, and much more, much worse.

LUCIOO thou damnable fellow, did not I pluck thee by the nose for thy speeches?

DUKEI protest I love the duke as I love myself.

ANGELOHark, how the villain would close[353] now, after his treasonable abuses.

ESCALUSSuch a fellow is not to be talked withal. Away with him to prison. Where is the provost? Provost lays hands the Duke Away with him to prison. Lay bolts[355] enough upon him. Let him speak no more. Away with those giglots[356] too, and with the other confederate on companion!

DUKEStay, sir, stay awhile. To Provost

ANGELOWhat, resists he? Help him, Lucio.

LUCIOCome, sir, come, sir, come, sir. Foh, sir! Why, you bald-pated, lying rascal, you must be hooded, must you? Show your knave’s visage, with a pox to you: show your sheep-biting[362] face, and be hanged an hour! Lucio pulls off the friar’s hood and discovers the Duke; all rise Will’t not off?

DUKEThou art the first knave that e’er mad’st[363] a duke.—

First, provost, let me bail[364] these gentle three.—

365

Sneak not away, sir, for the friar and you To Lucio

Must have a word anon.— Lay hold on him. Lucio is arrested

LUCIOThis may prove worse than hanging. Aside?

DUKEWhat you have spoke I pardon. Sit you down, To Escalus

We’ll borrow place[369] of him.—

370

Sir, by your leave. To Angelo, whose seat he takes

Hast thou or[371] word or wit or impudence

That yet can do thee office?[372] If thou hast,

Rely upon it till my tale be heard,

And hold[374] no longer out.

375

ANGELOO, my dread[375] lord,

I should be guiltier than my guiltiness,

To think I can be undiscernible,[377]

When I perceive your grace, like power divine,

Hath looked upon my passes.[379] Then, good prince,

380

No longer session[380] hold upon my shame,

But let my trial be mine own confession:

Immediate sentence then and sequent[382] death

Is all the grace I beg.

DUKECome hither, Mariana.—

385

Say: wast thou e’er contracted to this woman? To Angelo

ANGELOI was, my lord.

DUKEGo take her hence, and marry her instantly.—

Do[387] you the office, friar, which consummate,

Return him here again.— Go with him, provost.

Exeunt [Angelo, Mariana, Friar Peter and Provost]

390

ESCALUSMy lord, I am more amazed at his dishonour

Than at[391] the strangeness of it.

DUKECome hither, Isabel.

Your friar is now your prince. As I was then

Advertising[394] and holy to your business,

395

Not changing[395] heart with habit, I am still

Attorneyed[396] at your service.

ISABELLAO give me pardon

That I, your vassal,[398] have employed and pained

Your unknown sovereignty.

400

DUKEYou are pardoned, Isabel:

And now, dear maid, be you as free[401] to us.

Your brother’s death, I know, sits at your heart,

And you may marvel why I obscured[403] myself,

Labouring to save his life, and would not rather

405

Make rash remonstrance[405] of my hidden power

Than let him so be lost.[406] O most kind maid,

It was the swift celerity[407] of his death,

Which I did think with slower foot came on,

That brained[409] my purpose. But, peace be with him.

410

That life is better life, past fearing death,

Than that which lives to fear. Make it your comfort,

So[412] happy is your brother.

ISABELLAI do, my lord.

Enter Angelo, Mariana, [Friar] Peter [and] Provost

DUKEFor this new-married man approaching here,

415

Whose salt[415] imagination yet hath wronged

Your well defended honour, you must pardon

For Mariana’s sake. But as he adjudged[417] your brother,

Being criminal, in double violation

Of sacred chastity and of promise-breach[419]

420

Thereon dependent for your brother’s life,

The very mercy of the law cries out

Most audible, even from his proper[422] tongue,

‘An Angelo for Claudio, death for death!’

Haste still[424] pays haste, and leisure answers leisure,

425

Like doth quit[425] like, and measure still for measure.

Then, Angelo, thy fault’s thus manifested,

Which, though[427] thou wouldst deny, denies thee vantage.

We do condemn thee to the very block[428]

Where Claudio stooped to death, and with like haste.

430

Away with him!

MARIANAO my most gracious lord,

I hope you will not mock[432] me with a husband.

DUKEIt is your husband mocked you with a husband.

Consenting to the safeguard of your honour,

435

I thought your marriage fit, else[435] imputation,

For that he knew you, might reproach your life

And choke your good to come. For[437] his possessions,

Although by confiscation they are ours,

We do instate[439] and widow you withal,

440

To buy you a better husband.

MARIANAO my dear lord,

I crave no other, nor no better man.

DUKENever crave him, we are definitive.[443]

MARIANAGentle my liege— Kneels

445

DUKEYou do but lose your labour.[445]

Away with him to death.— Now, sir, to you. To Lucio

MARIANAO my good lord! Sweet Isabel, take my part,

Lend me your knees, and all my life to come

I’ll lend you all my life to do you service.

450

DUKEAgainst all sense[450] you do importune her.

Should she kneel down in mercy of this fact,[451]

Her brother’s ghost his pavèd bed[452] would break,

And take her hence in horror.

MARIANAIsabel,

455

Sweet Isabel, do yet but kneel by me,

Hold up your hands, say nothing, I’ll speak all.

They say best men are moulded out of faults,

And for the most[458] become much more the better

For being a little bad: so may my husband.

460

O Isabel, will you not lend a knee?

DUKEHe dies for Claudio’s death.

ISABELLAMost bounteous sir,

Look, if it please you, on this man condemned, Kneels

As if my brother lived. I partly think

465

A due sincerity governed his deeds,

Till he did look on me: since it is so,

Let him not die. My brother had but[467] justice,

In that he did the thing for which he died.

For Angelo,

470

His[470] act did not o’ertake his bad intent,

And must be buried but as an intent

That perished by the way. Thoughts are no subjects,[472]

Intents but merely thoughts.

MARIANAMerely, my lord.

475

DUKEYour suit’s unprofitable.[475] Stand up, I say. They stand

I have bethought me of another fault.

Provost, how came it Claudio was beheaded

At an unusual hour?

PROVOSTIt was commanded so.

480

DUKEHad you a special warrant for the deed?

PROVOSTNo, my good lord, it was by private message.

DUKEFor which I do discharge you of your office.

Give up your keys.

PROVOSTPardon me, noble lord,

485

I thought it was a fault, but knew it not,[485]

Yet did repent me after more advice,[486]

For testimony whereof, one in the prison,

That should by private order else have died,

I have reserved[489] alive.

490

DUKEWhat’s he?

PROVOSTHis name is Barnardine.

DUKEI would thou hadst done so by Claudio.

Go fetch him hither, let me look upon him.

[Exit Provost]

ESCALUSI am sorry, one so learnèd and so wise

495

As you, Lord Angelo, have still[495] appeared,

Should slip so grossly, both in the heat of blood[496]

And lack of tempered[497] judgement afterward.

ANGELOI am sorry that such sorrow I procure,[498]

And so deep sticks it in my penitent heart

500

That I crave death more willingly than mercy,

’Tis my deserving, and I do entreat it.

Enter Provost, Barnardine, Claudio [muffled, and] Julietta

DUKEWhich is that Barnardine?

PROVOSTThis, my lord.

DUKEThere was a friar told me of this man.

505

Sirrah, thou art said to have a stubborn soul

That apprehends[506] no further than this world,

And squar’st[507] thy life according. Thou’rt condemned,

But, for those earthly faults, I quit[508] them all,

And pray thee take this mercy to provide

510

For better times to come. Friar, advise him,

I leave him to your hand. What muffled[511] fellow’s that?

PROVOSTThis is another prisoner that I saved,

Who should have died when Claudio lost his head,

As like almost to Claudio as himself. Unmuffles Claudio

515

DUKEIf he be like your brother, for his sake To Isabella

Is he pardoned. And, for your lovely sake,

Give me your hand and say you will be mine,

He is my brother too. But fitter time for that.

By this Lord Angelo perceives he’s safe,

520

Methinks I see a quickening[520] in his eye.

Well, Angelo, your evil quits[521] you well:

Look[522] that you love your wife, her worth worth yours.

I find an apt remission[523] in myself.

And yet here’s one in place[524] I cannot pardon.

525

You, sirrah, that knew me for a fool, a coward, To Lucio

One all of luxury,[526] an ass, a madman —

Wherein have I so deserved of you,

That you extol[528] me thus?

LUCIO’Faith, my lord. I spoke it but according to the trick.[529] If you will hang me for it, you may, but I had rather it would please you I might be whipped.

DUKEWhipped first, sir, and hanged after.

Proclaim it, provost, round about the city:

If any woman wronged by this lewd fellow —

As I have heard him swear himself there’s one

535

Whom he begot with child — let her appear,

And he shall marry her. The nuptial finished,

Let him be whipped and hanged.

LUCIOI beseech your highness, do not marry me to a whore. Your highness said even now, I made you a duke. Good my lord, do not recompense me in making me a cuckold.[540]

DUKEUpon mine honour, thou shalt marry her.

Thy slanders I forgive, and therewithal[542]

Remit[543] thy other forfeits. Take him to prison,

And see our pleasure herein executed.[544]

545

LUCIOMarrying a punk, my lord, is pressing to death,[545] whipping, and hanging.

DUKESlandering a prince deserves it.

[Exeunt Officers with Lucio]

She, Claudio, that you wronged, look you restore.[547]

Joy to you, Mariana. Love her, Angelo:

I have confessed her[549] and I know her virtue.

550

Thanks, good friend Escalus, for thy much goodness,

There’s more behind[551] that is more gratulate.

Thanks, provost, for thy care and secrecy,

We shall employ thee in a worthier place.

Forgive him, Angelo, that brought you home

555

The head of Ragozine for Claudio’s,

Th’offence pardons itself. Dear Isabel,

I have a motion[557] much imports your good,

Whereto if you’ll a willing ear incline,

What’s mine is yours and what is yours is mine.

560

So, bring[560] us to our palace, where we’ll show

What’s yet behind,[561] that’s meet you all should know.

[Exeunt]

Textual Notes

F = First Folio text of 1623, the only authority for the play

F2 = a correction introduced in the Second Folio text of 1632

Ed = a correction introduced by a later editor

SD = stage direction

SH = speech heading (i.e., speaker’s name)

List of parts based on “Names of All the Actors” (reordered) at end of F text

1.1.74 relish spelled rallish in F 80 SD Exit = F2. F places SD after line 79

1.2.42 SH MISTRESS OVERDONE = Ed. F = Bawd. (throughout) 61 SH POMPEY = Ed. F = Clo. or Clow. (throughout)

1.3.18 morality = Ed. F = mortality

1.4.11 and witless = F2. F = witlesse 22 fourteen = F Some eds emend to nineteen 28 Becomes more = Ed. F = More 46 in = F. Some eds emend to me or it 50 me = Ed. F omits

1.5.2 SH FRANCISCA = Ed. F = Nun 58 giving-out = F. Some eds emend to givings-out

2.1.13 your = Ed. F = our

2.2.75 back again = F2. F = againe 118 now = F. Some eds emend to new or raw 121 ere = Ed. F = here 135 ne’er = F2 F = neuer

2.4.9 seared = Ed. F = feard 53 or = Ed. F = and 80 me be = F2. F = be

3.1.29 sire = Ed. F = fire 53 me…them = Ed. F = them to hear me 72 Though = Ed. F = Through 97 enew = Ed. F = emmew 141 penury = F2. F = periury 210 by oath = F2. F = oath 267 eat, array = Ed. F = eate away 279 Free from = F2. F = From 361 dearer = Ed. F = deare 382 now…yet = F. Some eds. emend to not past it yet 412 See = Ed. F = Sea 417 it is = Ed. F = as it is

4.1.23 well come = F. Some eds emend to welcome 61 quests = F2. F = Quest

4.2.35–6 = F. Some eds assign the speech to Abhorson 84 Happily Spelled Happely in F 90 Assigned to the Provost = Ed. F assigns to the Duke lordship’s = Ed. F = Lords 91 Assigned to the Duke = Ed. F assigns to the Provost

4.3.10 Forthright = Ed. F = Forthlight 11 Shoe-tie Spelled Shootie in F 73 yonder = Ed. F = yond 115 convent Spelled Couent in F

4.4.4 redeliver = Ed. F = re-liuer

4.5.6 Flavius’ = Ed. F = Flavia’s 8 Valentius = Ed. F = Valencius

5.1.14 me = Ed. F = we 187 her = F2 F = your 438 confiscation = F2. F = confutation 561 that’s = F2. F = that

Act 1 Scene 1

1.1a   List of parts: fantastic extravagant, showy dresser/person with fanciful ideas    Provost officer in charge of the arrest, custody, and punishment of offenders    Isabella sometimes “Isabel” for sake of meter    Juliet sometimes “Julietta” for sake of meter    bawd pimp

1.1b  Location: with the exception of Act 4 scenes 1 and 5, the entire play is set in Vienna, moving between the duke’s palace, the street, the monastery, the nunnery, the prison, and, in the final scene, the city gates

3    properties particulars, qualitites    unfold explain

4    seem…t’affect make it appear that I loved/make it seem as if I wished to display

5    put to know obliged to acknowledge    science knowledge

6    that i.e., knowledge of the properties of government    lists limits

7    strength mental capacity

8    But…work unclear, possibly because certain words have been omitted accidentally; the general sense seems to be “other than to rely on the workings of your ability (sufficiency) and worth”

10    institutions customs/laws    terms conditions/sessions of the law court

11    pregnant knowledgeable

12    art and practice learning and experience

14    warp deviate

16    What…bear? How do you think he will represent me? How will he perform as my substitute?    figure duke’s stamp on a coin or seal

17    special soul inner conviction, particular consideration

18    supply occupy as a substitute

19    terror supreme authority, power to punish    dressed…love furnished him with our ability to grant favors/invested him with our favor

20    deputation position as deputy    organs instruments

23    undergo sustain    grace favor    Angelo from the word “angel,” a celestial being as well as a gold coin bearing the image of the Archangel Michael

27    pleasure wishes

29    character distinctive mark/personal trait/individual handwriting

30    history life story/record

31    unfold narrate/reveal    belongings attributes

32    Are…proper do not belong to you exclusively (i.e., you have a duty to the public good to share your talents)    waste…thee i.e., you cannot squander your virtues for purely personal ends or waste your personal efforts purely on cultivating your virtues

36    of from (i.e., in public service)

37    Spirits souls/temperaments    touched created/put to the test or stamped, like coins

38    But…issues except to do fine deeds/except, like coins, to be refined and put into circulation

39    scruple tiny amount

40    thrifty frugal, economical    determines…use appoints herself the privileges of a creditor, namely both gratitude for the loan and financial interest (use puns on the sense of “actively using nature’s gifts”)

42    bend direct

43    my…advertise instruct me

44    Hold wait a moment/be steadfast, or “take what I am about to offer you”

45    remove absence    at full in every respect

46    Mortality (power to impose) the death penalty

48    first in question first under consideration/senior    secondary deputy

51    mettle character/spirit; puns on “metal” (of a coin)

52    figure image

55    leavened carefully considered/matured (like dough left to rise)

57    quick condition urgent a nature

58    prefers itself takes precedence    unquestioned unexamined

59    needful value necessary importance

60    concernings affairs    importune urge

61    look expect

63    th’hopeful the promising

65    leave permission

66    bring you something accompany you a little

67    admit allow

68    have…scruple concern yourself with any doubt

70    qualify moderate

72    privily secretly

73    stage me publicly display myself

74    do well is fitting/politically appropriate/pleasing to the crowd

75    aves welcoming shouts

76    safe discretion sound judgment

77    affect cultivate, like

79    Lead may they lead you

82    concerns…place is important to me to establish the full extent of my position

88    Touching regarding

Act 1 Scene 2

1.2    Lucio from the Italian for “light” (bright/of loose morals)

1    composition settlement

2    fall upon attack

3    peace…Hungary’s plays on the notion of a “hungry peace,” during which jobless soldiers struggled to feed themselves

5    sanctimonious outwardly pious

6    table thin stone or wood slab inscribed with the Ten Commandments

8    razed erased

10    from their functions to desist from their occupations    put forth set out

11    meat a meal    petition entreaty

15    metre verse

16    proportion form

18    controversy refers to religious dispute over the nature of God’s    grace (mercy), in particular the puritan–Catholic controversy over whether one’s soul was saved by one’s actions in life or by grace alone

20    there…us i.e., we are both cut from the same cloth

21    lists plain fabric edging

22    three-piled piece trebly thick, of high quality material/sufferer from hemorrhoids

23    lief willingly    kersey plain, coarsely woven cloth    piled luxuriously thick/bald (a symptom of syphilis)

24    French velvet fancy garment (plays on the fact that syphilis was known as the “French disease,” and syphilitic scars were sometimes covered with velvet patches)    feelingly aptly/painfully

25    painful feeling conviction/pain caused by oral syphilitic ulcers

26    confession admission    begin…thee toast your health, but remember not to drink after you (since the cup will be contaminated)

28    done myself wrong misrepresented myself/laid myself open to mockery

29    tainted or free infected or healthy    Overdone her name implies that she is a worn-out prostitute (to “do” was slang for “to have sex”)

30    Mitigation i.e., one who relieves (mitigates) sexual desire

33    Judge guess

34    dolours lamentations/silver coins

36    French crown gold coin (plays on baldness caused by syphilis)

37    figuring calculating/imagining

39    sound healthy/echoingly resonant

40    bones are hollow brittle bones were a symptom of late syphilis    impiety lust, sin

41    profound acute    sciatica pain in the upper hip, thought to be a symptom of syphilis

45    Marry by the Virgin Mary

49    after despite

53    precise scrupulous

54    draws…purpose is relevant to the conversation we had on that topic

56    proclamation public declaration/legal prohibition

58    sweat sweating-sickness/induction of sweating as a treatment for syphilis

59    custom-shrunk lacking in customers    Pompey his name has (ironic) connotations of “pomp and splendor”; Pompey the Great was a famous Roman general of the first century BC

61    Yonder man i.e., Claudio

62    done Pompey’s response puns on the sense of “had sex with”

65    Groping…river i.e., sex (literally, a reference to catching fish by hand)    peculiar privately owned, with play on female private parts

66    maid young unmarried woman/virgin (plays on the sense of “type of fish”)

70    houses…suburbs brothels, almost always situated in city suburbs

72    stand for seed like plants, remain unharvested so that they may generate another crop (stand plays on the sense of “have an erection” and    seed on “semen”)    burgher citizen

73    put in bid/interceded

74    resort regular visiting

78    counsellors advisers/lawyers

79    tapster waiter, barman

80    worn…service worked so long and hard in the business/become almost blind from syphilis through sexually servicing so many men

82    Thomas generic name for a    tapster

Act 1 Scene 3

3    evil disposition malice

6    down immediately    weight in full (literally, weighing rather than counting coins, in order to ensure their true value)

7    The…heaven according to the Bible (specifically Romans 9:15, in which God says “I will have mercy on him to whom I will show mercy”)

9    Whence…restraint? Why have you been arrested?

10    liberty freedom/sexual license

11    surfeit excess, overindulgence    fast starvation/restraint

12    scope opportunity, freedom

14    ravin…bane eagerly devour their particular poison (ratsbane, usually arsenic oxide)

15    thirsty thirst-provoking (rat poison dehydrates rodents)

17    creditors i.e., those who would arrest him (for debt)    lief willingly    foppery folly

18    morality wisdom

27    looked after vigilantly pursued, watched out for

28    true contract i.e., both parties declared their intention to marry, in the presence of witnesses

30    fast firmly

31    Save except    denunciation official declaration

32    outward public/legal

33    propagation of a dower increase/production of a dowry

34    friends relatives/protectors

35    meet right

36    made…us made them into our allies

37    mutual entertainment love making

38    character too gross writing that is only too large, obvious

42    glimpse of newness brief dazzling of new power

43    body public state/populace

45    that so that

46    straight straight away

47    in his place inherent in his official position

48    his…up the pride of the man who occupies that position

49    stagger in am uncertain about

50    Awakes me revives (me is emphatic)    enrollèd legally recorded

51    unscoured unpolished, rusty

52    zodiacs years

53    them i.e., the armor/laws    for a name to gain a reputation

56    tickle precariously

60    cloister nunnery

61    approbation probationary period as a novice (one in the early stages of becoming a nun)

64    To with    assay assault/test/tempt

66    prone ready/gentle, tractable, submissive    speechless dialect silent communication (body language)

67    move affects/arouses    prosperous art successful rhetorical skill

68    discourse rationality, understanding

70    the like others guilty of the same offense

71    grievous imposition serious accusation/penalty

72    game of tick-tack form of backgammon involving the placing of pegs in holes, hence a euphemism for sex

Act 1 Scene 4

1    that thought apparently the friar thinks that the duke wishes to conceal himself in the monastery as part of some amorous plan

2    dribbling dart random arrow (of Cupid)

3    complete whole, accomplished, perfect

4    harbour refuge

5    wrinkled i.e., mature

9    removed secluded

10    in idle price at little worth    assemblies large social gatherings

11    cost extravagance    witless bravery keeps foolish bravado is to be found

13    stricture severity, self-restraint

16    strewed spread

18    demand ask

21    bits and curbs parts of harnesses used to control horses    weeds people who are of no use in society (some editors emend to “steeds” so as to maintain the equine imagery)

22    let slip unloosed/allowed to go unchecked

23    o’ergrown old/fat and inactive

24    fond foolish/doting

25    twigs of birch used for beating disobedient children

27    rod cane

29    Dead…dead not being enforced, have become redundant

30    liberty…nose freedom/license contemptuously mocks the law

31    athwart in the wrong direction

32    decorum propriety, social order

35    dreadful awe-inspiring/terrible

38    Sith since

39    gall vex, harass

41    permissive pass authorization

43    office role/responsibility

44    in th’ambush under the cover or authority of    home to the center of the target

45    my…slander not incite hatred toward me

46    sway power, influence

47    brother…order i.e., disguised as a Franciscan friar

48    prince i.e., Angelo, as the reigning authority

49    habit clothing/friar’s outfit

50    formally outwardly    bear me conduct myself

53    precise punctilious, morally strict

54    at…with on guard toward (fencing term)    envy malice    scarce…stone i.e., barely admits that he is human

57    purpose intention, attitude

Act 1 Scene 5

5    votarists those bound by religious vows    Saint Clare religious order set up by Saint Clare in 1212, sworn to observe poverty and silence

10    unsworn have not yet taken a nun’s vows

12    prioress head of the nunnery

17    cheek-roses rosy/blushing cheeks

18    stead assist

20    novice one in the early stages of becoming a nun, yet to take her vows

21    unhappy miserable/unlucky

23    rather for more so because

25    kindly with brotherly affection

26    weary tedious

29    thanks gratitude/approval

30    friend lover

31    your story the subject of your mockery

33    familiar usual (plays on the sense of “overly intimate”)

34    lapwing plover (bird associated with amorous intrigue and deceit)

35    Tongue…heart i.e., my words contradicting my intentions    play jest (with sexual connotations)

36    enskied in the skies, heavenly

37    By your renouncement because of your rejection of the material world (you are)

40    You…me in mocking/flattering me, you defame what is truly holy

41    Fewness in few words

42    embraced i.e., had sex

44    seedness act of sowing seeds    bare fallow uncultivated land

45    teeming foison plentiful harvest

46    Expresseth reveals    tilth and husbandry plowing and cultivation (with sexual connotations)

47    cousin relative/close friend

50    vain…affection silly though natural fondness

55    Bore…hand misleadingly kept many men, including me, waiting in

58    giving-out utterances

59    true-meant design real intentions    Upon in

60    line scope

62    snow-broth melted snow

63    wanton uncontrolled/lascivious    motions urges    sense senses

64    rebate blunt (as of a weapon)/suppress    edge blade/keen desire

65    profits improvements    fast fasting

66    use (disreputable) habit

67    hideous frightening

69    heavy sense severe meaning

70    Falls into forfeit has to be given up

73    grace good fortune/favor

74    pith essence

77    censured condemned

82    Assay try

87    sue plead

88    give yield/offer

89    petitions…them requests are granted as fully as the maidens themselves would wish

94    mother mother superior, head of the nunnery

96    Soon at night early in the evening

97    my success the outcome of my attempts

Act 2 Scene 1

2    fear frighten

3    custom familiarity

6    keen shrewd/sharp    cut a little i.e., proceed gradually (in the restriction of crime)

7    fall let fall (wide-ranging or heavy punishments)    bruise crush

10    strait rigorous

11    affections emotions/desires

13    that…purpose if the determined acting out of your passion could have obtained the desired outcome (i.e., sex)

16    Erred…which made the mistake for which

20    passing delivering a verdict

21    sworn twelve the twelve members of a jury sworn in under a legal oath

22    open made made visible

23    What who

24    pregnant obvious (that)

28    extenuate lessen

29    For because

31    judgement pattern out sentence (on Claudio) act as a precedent for

32    nothing…partial let nothing intervene in my favor

35    like please

38    prepared i.e., for death (by confessing his sins and receiving the last rites)

39    utmost…pilgrimage limit of his life’s journey

42    run…ice flee cracks in ice underfoot, or perhaps “get away with breaches of chastity,” but Folio spelling “brakes” has led to uncertainty and editorial speculation    answer none are not made responsible for their sins

43    a fault alone a single fault    Froth connotations of empty-headedness and insubstantiality, perhaps also “head of ale” and conceivably suggestive of semen

45    use…houses engage in their vices in brothels

48    poor duke’s duke’s poor

49    lean rely (perhaps with a play on his name)

50    benefactors malapropism for “malefactors”

52    precise malapropism for “precious” (i.e., “out-and-out”)

53    void devoid    profanation either Elbow really means “reverence” or this is a malapropism for “profession”

55    comes off well is well spoken

56    Go to expression of dismissive impatience    quality rank, position

58    out at elbow disconcerted/speechless/ragged

60    parcel-bawd part-time pimp    serves works for/serves drinks to/serves sexually

61    house i.e., brothel    professes makes a profession of/claims to run (perhaps playing on the sense of “makes vows to a religious order”)

62    hot-house bathhouse (effectively another brothel)

64    detest malapropism for “protest” (i.e., “declare”)

69    pity…life a great pity/bad thing for her/pity she should live    naughty wicked

71    cardinally malapropism for “carnally”

72    uncleanliness moral impurity

73    the woman’s means Mistress Overdone’s doing (Elbow responds to the sense of “by her agent, Pompey”)

74    his i.e., Pompey’s

77    varlets…honourable Elbow gets his terms the wrong way round    varlets knaves

78    misplaces misuses language, gets his word order mixed up

79    saving…reverence i.e., begging your pardon/if you will excuse my language

80    stewed prunes often available in brothels, they were used to treat syphilis, and here function as a euphemism for “scrotum”; stewed puns on “stews” (i.e., a brothel)

81    distant for “instant” or “present”    stood plays on the sense of “were erect”    fruit-dish euphemism for “vagina”

85    not…pin it is not worth a trifle (pin plays on the sense of “penis”)    point with phallic connotations

90    again back

92    stones puns on the sense of “testicles”

96    thing…of i.e., syphilis    wot know

101    Come me come (me is emphatic)    done Pompey’s response plays on the sense of “had sex”

105    look into consider    fourscore pound £80 (a good income)

106    Hallowmas November 1, All Saints’ Day

107    All-hallond eve October 31, All Hallows’ Eve (Halloween)

108    lower chair unclear; probably a low-slung seat, or easy chair

109    Bunch of Grapes the name of a tavern or room in a tavern

111    open public (with a fire)

113    last…Russia i.e., take a very long time

115    cause case

116    cause reason

119    done plays on the sexual sense

124    mark note

130    supposed malapropism for “deposed”(i.e., sworn)    book i.e., the Bible

131    if…harm i.e., if his face is the worst thing about him, and is in fact harmless, how could any other part of him (i.e., his penis) be effective

134    an it like if it please    respected malapropism for “suspected”

138    respected Elbow understands “suspected” (of having had sex)

140    Justice or Iniquity personified characters in morality plays

141    caitiff wretch, villain    Hannibal probably a mistake for “cannibal”; Hannibal was a Carthaginian general who fought the Romans in the third century BC

144    action of battery lawsuit for assault, but a mistake for    slander as Escalus notices

145    took gave

149    discover reveal    courses way of life

152    continue Elbow seems to think this means “be punished” or “be restrained”

157    an’t if it

163    Overdone…last she got the name Overdone from her last husband/she became sexually worn out after her ninth husband

165    draw corrupt/draw in/drag to execution/drain of money (plays on the sense of drawing ale from a barrel)

166    hang them caused them to be hanged/curse them

168    tap-house tavern    but unless

175    Pompey the Great famous Roman general    beastliest crudest/most brutish

176    colour it in conceal it

178    would live wants to earn a living

183    geld and splay castrate (the men) and spay (the women)

185    to’t continue    take…knaves find employment for whores and their clients

186    fear worry about

187    pretty orders considerable laws    but…hanging exclusively beheading and hanging

190    glad…heads have to give an order for more people (heads may also play on “maidenheads”—i.e., young women)    hold remains valid/is observed

191    after at the rate of    bay room/space under a gable (i.e., extremely cheaply)

193    requital of repayment for

195    beat…you Julius    Caesar defeated Pompey the Great at the battle of Pharsalia, in 48 BC

196    shrewd artful/severe    dealing terms

199    flesh…determine my body and opportunity dictate

200    carman the driver of a cart    jade worn-out horse

203    place position

205    readiness eagerness/speed

208    pains trouble    put…upon’t make you perform the task for so long/work you so hard

209    ward district of a city    sufficient competent (enough)

210    wit intelligence

211    go…all carry out all the duties of my position

217    Eleven…dinner lunch was usually eaten before midday

223    needful necessary

224    Mercy…woe i.e., being merciful may in fact encourage further wrongdoing

Act 2 Scene 2

1    He’s i.e., Angelo

4    pleasure intention

5    He i.e., Claudio    but as offended only done wrong as if

6    sects types of people    smack have a flavor of, partake in

12    Lest in case

13    Under…correction correct me if I am wrong

15    Repented…doom regretted the sentence he had imposed

16    mine my role/my problem

18    you…spared we will manage perfectly well without you/you will be spared the fear of error

20    groaning i.e., in labor

21    hour time to give birth

22    Dispose of make arrangements for

28    sisterhood order of nuns

31    fornicatress i.e., Juliet

33    order authorization

37    suitor petitioner, supplicant

44    will…not wanting and not wanting to

45    matter subject/point

47    his…brother let the evil deed be condemned rather than Claudio himself

49    moving persuasive

51    every…done i.e., all faults are wrong, by their very nature; therefore they must be condemned even before they can be committed

52    the…function a meaningless role

53    fine punish    fine…record punishments are set down by the law

54    by unpunished

57    Give’t…so do not give up so easily

59    pin i.e., worthless trifle

67    would wanted to

68    what whatever compassion belongs, is fitting

77    deputed sword sword of justice entrusted to rulers or their deputies as a symbol of office

78    marshal senior military officer    truncheon military staff symbolizing command

79    Become suits    grace virtue

81    as you in your position

85    potency power

87    tell assert

89    vein proper course to follow

90    a forfeit of subject to

93    were ever existed before Christ offered redemption

94    he i.e., God    vantage opportunity (to condemn mankind for original sin)

99    new made i.e., reborn through Christian salvation, or through Christ’s redemption of mankind

106    kill…season kill the birds when they are in the best condition to be eaten

107    minister attend to/supply

108    gross inferior/mortal    bethink you consider

113    Those…deed the many people who have engaged in extramarital sex would not have done so if the first person to break the law had been punished

117    glass mirror/crystal

118    now now in existence    remissness new-conceived moral laxity freshly contemplated (though not yet carried out)

119    hatched and born planned and executed

120    successive degrees further stages of development

121    ere before    end die

125    dismissed overlooked/unpunished    gall harm/vex

135    Jove in Roman mythology, king of the gods; his weapon was the thunderbolt    quiet at peace

136    pelting paltry

139    sharp…bolt i.e., lightning

140    unwedgeable incapable of being split    oak a tree that was sacred to Jove

141    myrtle evergreen shrub symbolic of love

142    brief temporal, earthly

143    assured confident about

144    glassy vain/fragile/translucent/reflected

145    fantastic illusory/grotesque/capricious/foolish

146    with our spleens if they had human spleens (thought to be the seat of laughter)

147    laugh mortal laugh themselves into being human/laugh themselves to death

149    coming coming round

151    weigh…ourself judge others by the same standards we employ for ourselves

152    jest with joke about/speak lightly of    wit mental sharpness

153    in…profanation in inferior men it is blasphemy

155    choleric hot-tempered

156    flat downright

157    avised aware

158    put force

161    skins covers up, like a film of skin over an ulcer

164    natural guiltiness inherent tendency to sin/guilt over normal affections

165    sound declare

167    sense reason

168    sense senses/sexual impulses    breeds grows (with connotations of pregnancy and, possibly, erection)

174    You…else i.e., a material bribe would have undone all your previous good work

175    fond foolish, trivial    sicles shekels, silver coins    tested genuine

176    stones jewels    rates value

177    fancy whim, arbitrariness    true faithful, constant

179    preservèd protected (in the nunnery)

180    fasting maids i.e., nuns    dedicate dedicated

181    temporal worldly

187    cross are in conflict, thwart one another

191    ’Save God save

196    violet flower associated with chastity

197    carrion dead, putrefying flesh

198    Corrupt…season rot under the wholesome sun (which causes violets to flourish)

199    modesty chastity

200    lightness promiscuity, lasciviousness    waste ground wasteland

201    raze the sanctuary obliterate the holy places

202    pitch build

204    foully i.e., immorally/sexually

210    enemy i.e., the devil

214    double vigour twofold power, enhanced energy    art and nature skills of seduction and inherent sexuality

215    stir my temper disturb my temperament/equilibrium, inflame my desire

217    fond infatuated/loving/foolish

Act 2 Scene 3

1    so…are the duke remembers that he is in disguise and, as a friar, would not know the provost

3    Bound obliged    blest order religious order

5    common right right of a priest to visit condemned people/right of any citizen

10    of mine in my charge

11    flaws gusts of passion/faults/cracks

12    blistered her report tarnished her reputation

13    got conceived

19    conducted escorted

21    bear endure (plays on the sense of “bear a child”)

22    arraign interrogate

23    try test    if to see whether    sound genuine

24    hollowly insincerely

31    heavier more severe/more sorrowful/heavier with the weight of a baby

33    meet so proper that you do so    lest in case

34    As that because

35    toward ourselves selfish

37    we…fear i.e., we tend to repent out of fear of God rather than love for him

38    as because

40    There rest maintain that attitude

42    instruction moral guidance

43    Benedicite bless you

44    injurious harmful

45    respites grants

46    still constantly

47    ’Tis…him he is to be pitied

Act 2 Scene 4

2    several various

3    invention thoughts/imagination

4    Anchors fixes    heaven probably substituted for “God” as a result of prohibition on naming the deity

7    conception thought/plan (perhaps with connotations of pregnancy)    state affairs of government

9    seared dried up    gravity authority/respectability

11    boot advantage    change exchange    idle plume frivolous feather (worn in hats)

12    for vain (in punishment) for vanity/to no purpose (plays on “weather vane”)    place rank    form ceremony, dignity

13    case, thy habit clothing/outward appearance

14    tie…seeming bind even the wiser people to a faith in the trappings of authority

15    Blood sexual desire/human frailty

16    Let’s even if we were to    angel plays on Angelo’s name

17    ’Tis…crest i.e., it would still not change the devil’s evil nature    crest identifying feature on a coat of arms

19    Teach show

20    muster to rush to, collect in

21    unable for itself incapable

22    dispossessing depriving

24    throngs crowds

27    general people    well-wished well-liked

28    part role    obsequious fondness fawning foolishness/dutiful affection

29    untaught indecorous, ignorant

32    That…’tis I would rather you gave me what I desire than ask what it is (plays on the sexual connotations of know and pleasure)

34    Even so so be it

39    reprieve time before his execution

40    fitted prepared spiritually

43    from…made i.e., murdered a man

44    remit pardon

45    saucy sweetness lecherous pleasures    coin…forbid i.e., forge illegitimate children in God’s image

46    stamps instruments for impressing images on coins

47    Falsely wrongly    true legitimately

48    mettle substance/metal/semen    restrainèd means forbidden moulds

50    ’Tis…earth the sins of murder and conceiving illegitimate children may be judged equally sinful in heaven, but they are not by humans

51    pose you present you with a problem/question you

58    Our…account sins we commit out of necessity are recorded, but we are not made to pay for them

61    warrant guarantee

67    Please if it please

68    I’ll…soul I’ll risk the punishment of my soul (by saying)

71    poise balance

74    morn morning

76    answer responsibility

78    sense understanding/intention (plays on sense of “sensual inclination”)    ignorant unaware

79    seem so crafty are cunningly pretending to be so (some editors emend to “craftily”)

81    But graciously except with grace and humility

83    tax rebuke    masks worn to shield the complexion from the sun (perhaps also with suggestion of nuns’ habits)

84    enshield concealed

85    mark pay attention to

86    receivèd understood    gross bluntly

89    appears is evident/is set down (in law)

90    Accountant accountable    pain penalty (of death)

92    Admit suppose

93    subscribe not agree to neither

94    in…question unclear; perhaps “for the sake of argument”

96    credit influence/reputation    great place powerful position

98    all-building on which everything is founded (some editors emend to “all-binding”)

100    treasures…body i.e., virginity

101    supposed hypothetical man

104    terms sentence

105    impression marks    keen biting/eager

106    strip whip/bare myself

113    die for ever i.e., suffer eternal damnation

116    Ignomy…houses shameful bargaining for pardon and unconditional release are entirely different matters

118    nothing kin unrelated

120    sliding sinfulness

121    merriment lighthearted matter

122    oft falls out often happens

123    would wish to

124    something somewhat

127    Else otherwise

128    not a fedary no accomplice

129    Owe…weakness owns and inherits the moral frailty that you speak of

132    as…forms can be destroyed as easily as they can reflect images

133    Help heaven! Heaven help them!    Men…them men debase their inherent superiority by abusing women/men ruin women, who created them, by abusing them

136    credulous…prints susceptible to forged imprints (i.e., ready believers of male falsehood)

137    think it well agree

139    suppose propose

140    Than…frames than the weaknesses that we are prey to

141    that what

142    none not a woman (as you define one)

143    well…warrants clearly reveal yourself to be by your outward appearance

145    livery uniform (of womanly frailty)

146    but one i.e., a truthful one (two tongues would be deceitful)

147    speak…language use the plainer language employed earlier/return to the matters discussed previously

148    conceive understand (perhaps with sexual connotations)

152    licence freedom of authority (perhaps with play on sense of “licentiousness”)

154    To pluck on as a means of testing

158    pernicious destructive    Seeming deceptive behavior

159    proclaim denounce

160    present immediate

161    outstretched wide open

162    What what kind of

164    austereness strictness

165    vouch testimony

167    stifle suffocate    report story/reputation

168    calumny slander

169    sensual…rein allow my desires to run freely

171    by aside    prolixious time-wasting

172    banish…for eliminate the very feelings they aim to arouse

175    unkindness cruelty/unnatural behavior/lack of sisterly feeling

176    sufferance torment

177    affection passion

180    Did I were I to

183    approof approval

184    make curtsy submit, bow

186    draws demands/leads

187    prompture urging    blood sexual desire

189    tender down lay down in payment

190    blocks execution blocks

194    More worth more

196    fit prepare

Act 3 Scene 1

5    absolute resolved

9    Servile subject/obedient    skyey influences planetary/meteorological influences

10    habitation world/dwelling/body    keep’st reside

11    Merely entirely    fool plaything/dupe

12    For…still you strive to flee death and yet are always running toward it

14    accommodations civilized comforts/clothing

15    Are…baseness spring from lowly origins

16    fork forked tongue

17    worm snake    of rest way to rest

18    provok’st summon    grossly excessively/foolishly

19    no more i.e., than sleep

21    issue…dust grow from the earth

23    certain consistent

24    complexion disposition    strange new/unusual

25    After in accordance with/in imitation of

26    ingots gold bars

29    bowels i.e., children    sire father

30    mere effusion very product    proper own

31    serpigo spreading skin disease    rheum catarrh/head cold

32    nor neither

33    after-dinner’s i.e., early afternoon

35    as agèd i.e., like an elderly beggar    alms Of money from

36    palsied eld old age, afflicted by palsy (disease characterized by trembling)

37    heat, affection, limb passion, love, agility

39    bears…of is worthy of being called

41    makes…even i.e., levels all differences

43    To sue in pleading

44    it i.e., death

46    wish i.e., of    peace, grace, and good company

57    affairs to business with

59    leiger resident ambassador

60    appointment preparation

61    set on begin (your journey)

64    cleave split    twain two

69    fetter enchain

70    Perpetual durance life imprisonment

71    just exactly

72    Though…had even if you had freedom to roam the entire world    vastidity vastness

73    determined scope limited range

74    in what nature of what sort

76    bark strip    trunk body/tree trunk

80    feverous feverish    entertain cherish, harbor

81    more respect value more

83    sense fearful awareness    apprehension anticipation

85    corporal sufferance physical pain

87    Why…shame? Why do you dishonor me in this way?

88    resolution strength of purpose    fetch derive

89    flow’ry tenderness elaborately worded offers of comfort

90    encounter meet/engage with sexually

95    In base appliances through dishonorable remedies    outward-sainted seemingly holy

96    settled visage fixed countenance    deliberate carefully considered/calculating

97    Nips youth i’th’head grasps youth by the neck, like a bird of prey    enew drive into the water, as a    falcon does its victim

99    cast vomited up/cleansed by draining

101    prenzie unclear meaning; possibly an obscure heraldic term (the register of livery, invest, guards); perhaps a misprint for “precise” (puritanical), “priestly,” or “princely” (meant ironically)

103    invest dress

104    guards trimmings on the front of a rich garment    Dost thou think would you believe

108    he…still in exchange for this foul sin he would give you the freedom to continue breaking the law

114    deliverance release

115    frankly freely

118    affections lust

119    bite…th’nose i.e., mock, insult the law

120    force enforce (plays on the sense of “violate”)

124    trick trifle/whim/sexual act

125    perdurably fined eternally punished

130    obstruction state of death

131    sensible warm motion feeling, living, body

132    kneaded clod compacted lump of earth    delighted capable of delight

134    thrilling bitterly cold    region separate part of the universe    thick-ribbèd formed into ridges

135    viewless invisible

137    pendent hanging in space

138    lawless and incertain frenzied and uncertain

141    penury poverty

142    nature human nature, powers of endurance

143    To compared to

147    Nature human nature/nature itself    dispenses pardons

149    beast i.e., creature lacking judgment or compassion

150    dishonest shameful

151    made a man given life or prosperity

154    shield ensure/forbid    played…fair was faithful

155    warpèd…wilderness twisted seedling/offspring of licentiousness

156    defiance rejection/contempt

157    but merely    bending down praying (on bended knees)

163    accidental a one-off event    trade habitual practice

164    prove itself turn out to be

167    Vouchsafe permit

169    dispense…leisure give up your time    by and by soon

170    satisfaction recompense    likewise…benefit as much to your advantage as mine

172    attend wait for

174    purpose intention    only…assay he has merely tested

175    practise…natures test his ability to judge personality

176    gracious virtuous

178    to for    satisfy your resolution maintain your determination

182    Hold you there preserve that state of mind

186    habit friar’s clothing (that)    touch affect, harm

188    goodness…goodness if those who are beautiful do not value virtue, their beauty will not last

189    grace divine virtue

190    complexion disposition

191    frailty…falling there are other comparable examples of such wrongdoing

193    substitute deputy

194    resolve answer

197    discover his government reveal his conduct

198    avoid refute

200    advisings advice    I…believe I am convinced

201    uprighteously uprightly, righteously

202    merited worthy/deserved

203    peradventure perhaps

205    spirit courage

206    spirit soul

208    miscarried hadan accident/died/went missing

210    affianced betrothed

211    nuptial appointed wedding arranged    contract engagement    limit…solemnity appointed time of the ceremony

213    heavily grievously    befell to fell out for/affected

215    natural brotherly    sinew mainstay

216    combinate betrothed

219    dishonour sexual misconduct    few short    bestowed…lamentation married her to her own grief

220    yet still

224    avail benefit

228    continuance…affection i.e., still loves Angelo

230    impediment…current obstacle in the flow of a river

231    requiring request    plausible believable/ingratiating

232    to the point to the letter    refer…advantage ask for these advantageous conditions

234    answer to convenience be opportune/suit your convenience    course due course

235    stead up carry out

236    encounter meeting/sexual interaction    acknowledge reveals    her recompense redress

238    scaled weighed up

239    frame prepare    fit ready    carry manage

240    doubleness twofold nature    reproof blame

241    image idea

242    perfection completion

243    holding up ability to maintain it

245    moated grange farmhouse surrounded by a moat

246    dispatch make arrangements

249    brown…bastard sweet Spanish wine (plays on the sense of “illegitimate mixed-race children”)

251    stuff nonsense

252    ’Twas…since the world is not as enjoyable since    two usuries i.e., money lending and prostitution    merriest most enjoyable (prostitution)

254    fox fox fur (with connotations of cunning)    craft deceit

255    stands…facing trims the outside of the garment/puts itself on show to the world

257    brother father “friar” means “brother,” so the duke is making fun of Elbow’s terms of address

259    picklock device for picking locks (here, those of chastity belts)

261    sirrah sir (contemptuous)

264    maw gullet/stomach

267    array dress

269    So stinkingly depending supported by such foulness    mend reform your ways

270    sort way

271    proofs evidence

273    Correction punishment

274    rude barbarous

275    before go before

276    he…errand i.e., he would be better doing anything else than that

278    That if only

279    Free…free free from sin (as Angelo appears to be) and sin free from hypocrisy

280    come to resemble    cord rope (Elbow imagines the noose being like the cord that friars wore around the    waist)

281    cry call out for

282    led in triumph paraded in disgrace (in ancient Rome, following a triumph in war, prisoners were led behind the chariots of the victors)

283    Pygmalion a sculptor and King of Cyprus, he fell in love with an ivory statue he had made of his ideal woman

284    putting…clutched i.e., to be had for money    clutched with a fist grasping money

286    Is’t…rain i.e., lost (referring either to the old way of life or to Pompey’s reply)    Trot old hag, bawd    way response/fashion

287    sad…words i.e., dejected    trick manner

288    thus, and thus more and more/the same (nonsense)

289    morsel mouthful, tidbit

290    Troth in truth    eaten…beef exhausted her supply of prostitutes/eaten all the supplies of salt beef    tub sweating-tub used to treat venereal disease/pickling tub for curing beef

291    right of it the logical thing

292    powdered salted/heavily made up    unshunned unavoidable

295    amiss wrong

298    due penalty

299    of antiquity of old    bawd-born son of a bawd/born to be a bawd

300    husband housekeeper

303    wear fashion

304    bondage imprisonment    mettle spirit (plays on the idea of the metal chains used to fetter prisoners)

307    paint wear makeup

310    abroad in the world

312    kennel doghouse/gutter

315    Other some others

318    fantastical trick fanciful whim    steal steal away    usurp the beggary take on a baseness

319    puts transgression to’t i.e., punishes wrongdoers

322    lenity lenience

323    crabbed severe/harsh

324    general widespread

325    sooth truth    great kindred large family    allied connected

326    extirp eliminate    put down stopped

327    downright straightforward

330    sea-maid mermaid

331    stock-fishes dried cod (plays on sense of “impotent penis”)    makes water urinates

332    motion generative sexless puppet    infallible certain

333    pleasant humorous/facetious    apace rapidly/idly

334    codpiece cloth appendage worn by men at the front of the breeches (euphemism for “penis”)

336    getting conception

337    a of a    feeling understanding    sport i.e., sex

338    service i.e., sexual business

339    detected for women accused of lechery

343    beggar of fifty fifty-year-old beggarwoman    use habit/sexual practice    ducat gold coin

344    clack-dish beggar’s pot/vagina    crotchets fanciful notions

347    inward intimate friend

348    withdrawing sudden departure

351    greater…subject majority of his subjects

354    unweighing undiscriminating

355    envy malice

356    helmed steered    warranted need justified necessity

357    proclamation reputation    testimonied judged    bringings-forth achievements

359    unskilfully without justification/ignorantly

361    Love…love if you loved him you would know him better, and if you knew him better you would love him more

364    make your answer justify your comments

365    maintain defend

370    unhurtful an opposite weak an adversary

371    forswear deny

372    again on another occasion

376    filling…tundish i.e., having sex    tundish funnel with a long stem (i.e., penis)

377    ungenitured sexless/impotent    agent deputy, substitute    unpeople depopulate

378    continency sexual abstinence    Sparrows…lecherous sparrows were sacred to Venus and proverbially lascivious

379    dark deeds secret sexual acts    darkly answered privately dealt with

381    untrussing undressing (specifically, untying hose from doublet)

382    mutton on Fridays i.e., break the ecclesiastical laws that forbade the eating of meat on Fridays (mutton puns on the sense of “prostitute”)

383    mouth with kiss brown    bread coarse rye bread

386    censure ’scape escape condemnation

388    gall bile

393    Double…kind? (You have been) warned two or three times and still continue to do wrong?

394    swear…tyrant become so exasperated that it would become pitiless

396    information official legal complaint

397    Keepdown the name may imply sexual appetite and “lying down”    duke’s time under the rule of the duke

398    Philip and Jacob May 1, the day of Saint Philip and Saint James

400    licence immorality/lechery

402    brother colleague

403    divines clergyman

404    wrought…pity acted with the same amount of pity I feel

406    entertainment reception

409    whence are you where are you from

410    chance situation

411    my time the time being

412    See Holy See, Rome

414    abroad out

415    so…it (goodness) is so sick with worldly ills that it can cure itself only by dying

416    in request (exists only when it is) in demand/fashionable    aged consistent

417    course course of action/mode of behavior

418    societies associations between people    security overconfidence (plays on sense of “financial pledge guaranteeing a loan”)

419    fellowships partnerships (plays on sense of “trading corporations”)

422    strifes objectives/endeavors

423    pleasure enjoyments

426    events activities

427    lent him visitation paid him a visit

429    sinister measure unfair treatment

430    determination resolution, decision    framed to devised for

431    instruction prompting

432    good leisure own time    discredited shown to be false

433    You…calling you have fulfilled your divine duties to both God and the prisoner

434    extremest…modesty limits of my abilities

436    indeed Justice Justice itself

437    straitness severity

441    sword of heaven emblem of religious/legal authority

443    Pattern…know be himself a model of virtue

444    Grace to stand support himself with grace    virtue go conduct himself with virtue

445    More…weighing administering no more or less justice to himself than he would to others

450    weed weed out

453    likeness…crimes seemingly virtuous behavior founded on sin

454    Making practice practice deception

455    draw…things pretend to catch big things, but with merely insubstantial means

457    Craft cunning, skill

459    old betrothèd ex-fiancée (Mariana)    despised scorned

460    disguise deception    th’disguised the disguised Mariana

461    Pay…exacting repay with deception the wrongful demands (made on Isabella)

462    contracting marriage contract

Act 4 Scene 1

4.1    Location: outside Vienna

2    forsworn perjured, false

3    the…day like the dawn

9    stilled quieted    brawling clamorous

10    cry you mercy beg your pardon

13    My…woe my music does not mean I am merry but it soothed my grief

14    charm magical ability

16    much upon at about this

19    constantly entirely

20    forbearance patience/absence    anon immediately afterward/in a while

23    well met perfect timing    well come welcome

25    circummured walled around

27    planchèd made of planks

28    makes his opening opens

29    command unlock

32    Heavy dark/sleepy

33    on your knowledge with the information you have

34    due careful/adequate    wary cautious

36    action…precept verbal directions

38    tokens signals

39    ’greed agreed    her observance particulars she must adhere to

40    repair visit

41    possessed informed    most longest

44    stays upon attends    persuasion belief

46    borne up sustained, managed

51    like same

53    have found it have experience of it

56    attend your leisure wait for you until you are ready

59    place status, position    false treacherous

60    stuck fixed    report rumor

61    quests…doings inquiries into your business

62    escapes outbursts

63    father…dream source of their delusion

64    rack torment/distort    fancies imaginations

68    It…too I not only agree to it, but beg you to do it

70    Little…say say little

75    pre-contract betrothal, a binding contract

77    Sith since    title claim

78    flourish adorn, render attractive

79    Our…sow we have yet to reap the harvest for we have not sown the seed    tithe a tenth of the crop, due to the Church (some editors emend to “tilth,” plowed field)

Act 4 Scene 2

4.2    Location: Vienna

3    head master (the sense then shifts to pun on “maidenhead”—i.e., virginity)

4    leave…snatches leave out your quibbles

6    common public

7    redeem release    gyves shackles, ankle fetters

8    deliverance release    unpitied relentless, merciless

10    time…mind for longer than I can remember

13    Abhorson a conflation of “abhor” and “whoreson” (son of a whore), with connotations of “abortion” (i.e., monstrosity)

16    meet fitting    compound…year agree on an annual sum    abide remain

17    plead his estimation argue he is superior to the job

19    mystery craft, profession

20    weigh equally are worth the same

21    favour permission (sense then shifts to “face”)

22    hanging look downcast expression/the look of a hangman or of someone destined for hanging    mystery Pompey responds to the sense of “art, skill”

24    Painting art/cosmetics

30    true honest

31    big large/valuable

32    little small/worthless

35    penitent repentant

36    he…forgiveness the executioner would ask the condemned person for forgiveness

40    turn purpose/hanging    yare quick, ready

41    good turn favor/skillful execution (perhaps, given Pompey is a bawd, with play on the sexual sense)

44    though even if

48    guiltless labour innocent toil

49    starkly stiffly    traveller’s laborer’s (“travailer’s”)

51    do good on improve

59    curfew in London, the curfew bell was rung at dusk in the winter and 9 p.m. in the summer to call all persons in until dawn the next day

66    paralleled reflected/modeled on

67    Even exactly    stroke and line linear course/written authority

70    qualify moderate/control    mealed stained

71    corrects punishes

72    this i.e., his virtuous nature

73    gentle honorable    seldom when it is seldom that

74    steelèd hardened

75    spirit’s i.e., the messenger

76    unsisting unyielding    postern back or side gate

78    He…up he (the officer) has arisen to attend the call

79    countermand reprieve

84    Happily perhaps

86    example precedent

87    siege seat

96    purchased…in bought by the same sin as Angelo has committed

98    Hence…authority sin grows rapidly when it is supported by (borne in) those in power

100    extended stretched/widened

101    fault’s love love of the sin    friended befriended, assisted

103    belike perhaps    remiss negligent, careless

104    unwonted unusual    putting-on prompting

108    satisfaction assurance

109    duly dutifully/fully    a thought the knowledge

110    deliver communicate

111    answer be accountable    your peril risk of punishment

112    What who

113    nine years old for the past nine years

117    wrought obtained    fact crime

118    undoubtful absolute

121    touched affected (by the thought of his impending execution)

122    apprehends conceives of/fears    dreadfully fearfully

123    insensible…mortal unmoved by death and yet irredeemably condemned to die

125    wants lacks/needs    advice guidance/spiritual counsel

126    evermore…prison always had the freedom to go anywhere within the prison

129    seeming supposed

131    beguiles deceives    boldness…cunning confidence of my skill

132    lay…hazard put myself at risk

134    manifested effect visible way

135    present immediate    courtesy service

138    limited specified

139    …Claudio’s i.e., be subject to the death penalty

140    cross thwart, obstruct

141    warrant guarantee (your safety)

144    discover the favour recognize the face

145    tie knot/tie together (to control any straggly hair)

146    bared shaved, trimmed

147    course practice    fall…this happens to you as a result of this

153    avouch confirms

156    resemblance possibility

157    coat friar’s habit    attempt persuade

158    hand signature/handwriting

159    character handwriting    signet seal of authority

160    strange unfamiliar

165    tenor substance

166    nothing…writ none of the above    unfolding star i.e., Morning Star, when the    shepherd releases his sheep from the fold

169    present shrift immediate confession    better place i.e., heaven

170    Yet still    this i.e., the letter    absolutely resolve you explain everything to you

Act 4 Scene 3

1    acquainted known    house of profession i.e., the brothel

3    Rash impetuous, capricious    commodity supply    brown paper coarse, poor-quality wrapping paper

4    old stale    ninescore…money which he believed to be worth £197; making only £3.33 in actual cash, he is now in prison for debt

5    old women proverbially fond of ginger

6    Caper leaping or skipping while dancing    suit lawsuit (sense then shifts to “clothing”)

7    Three-pile luxuriously thick material, usually velvet    mercer a dealer in fabrics

8    peaches impeaches, denounces    Dizzy silly, vacuous    Deep-vow perhaps a lover who falls passionately, but frequently, in love

9    Copperspur perhaps a man who has spurs made of copper in the hope they may pass for gold    Starve-lackey mean person who starves his servants    rapier fencing was done with a rapier (sword) and dagger

10    Drop-heir perhaps someone who kills heirs, or marries them only to drop them; or “dropsied” (i.e., pretentious); or one with “hair” that is dropping out, a symptom of syphilis    lusty Pudding perhaps a rich, fat heir (a    pudding was a sausage)    Forthright moving forward, charging    tilter jouster

11    brave splendidly dressed    Shoe-tie elaborate shoelace or bow    Half-can…Pots probably refers to a drunken brawl in which Half-can, someone “half-cut” (drunk), or someone who drank smaller measures of liquor, stabbed Pots (named after a drinking vessel)

12    doers…trade frequenters of brothels (to “do” meant to have sex with)    ‘for…sake’ “meat for the Lord’s sake” was the frequent cry of prisoners asking for food

15    rise awake/ascend the scaffold

17    pox plague

18    to as to

25    straw floors of prisons were strewn with straw

29    clap into get on with

31    fitted in a suitable condition

32    betimes early

34    ghostly father holy confessor

38    billets wooden sticks

43    hear you listen

44    ward cell

45    thence from there

46    gravel stony

49    unmeet unfit

50    transport him i.e., put him to death

54    Ragozine possibly a native of Ragusa, a successful Adriatic port, now Dubrovnik

55    years age    head hair

56    omit disregard

57    reprobate villain

58    visage head/face

60    accident event

61    Dispatch it carry it out

62    Prefixed determined

64    rude vulgar, uncivilized

67    continue keep alive

71    holds cells

72    journal greeting daily appearance

73    yonder generation those outside of the prison

74    manifested apparent

75    free dependant willing servant/entirely under your protection

80    injunctions commands    bound required

82    consecrated fount holy spring

83    league three miles    below outside

84    cold gradation calm advancement    well-balanced form careful observance of the proper procedures

88    commune discuss

95    of out of

105    close controlled, silent

111    Forbear it restrain yourself

113    verity truth

115    confessor either Friar Thomas (mentioned in Act 1) or Friar Peter

116    instance information

119    pace control, maneuver

120    good path right direction

121    bosom on dearest wish inflicted on

122    Grace by virtue    heart heart’s content

129    perfect him withal tell him about

130    to…of face to face with

131    home and home thoroughly

132    combinèd bound

133    Wend you direct yourself, go

134    waters i.e., tears

136    pervert turn aside

140    fain obliged    bran coarse brown bread    for my head for fear of losing my head

141    fruitful fulfilling (with sexual connotations)    set me to’t set me to work sexually/provide the strength for sex

142    fantastical whimsical, capricious

143    dark corners i.e., secretive/given to lurking in dark corners (plays on the sense of “vaginas”)

144    beholding beholden, indebted

145    he…them he is nothing like you say/his reputation does not depend on you

146    woodman hunter (of women)

149    pretty fine/clever

154    fain to forswear eager to deny

155    medlar type of fruit/whore (slang term for the vagina)

156    fairer more (falsely) attractive, entertaining

158    burr prickly seed-head that sticks easily to clothing

Act 4 Scene 4

1    disvouched contradicted

2    uneven erratic

3    wisdom…tainted wits are not infected

4    redeliver hand back, restore (legal term)

7    exhibit their petitions utter their complaints/requests

8    dispatch swift settlement

9    devices plots, contrivances

11    betimes early

12    sort and suit social rank and personal retinue

15    unshapes confounds, deforms    unpregnant unreceptive, unprepared

16    dull sluggish, unresponsive

17    eminent body respected public figure

18    it i.e., extramarital sex    But were it not    tender vulnerable, raw, pitiable

19    proclaim publicly complain of    maiden loss loss of virginity

20    tongue reproach, denounce    dares her no frightens her not to

21    bears…bulk carries such weighty credibility

23    confounds the breather discredits the person who utters the complaint

24    riotous unrestrained    sense passion/awareness (of Angelo’s actions)

26    By as a result of

Act 4 Scene 5

4.5    Location: outside Vienna

1    me for me

3    keep your instruction stick to your task

4    hold you ever stand firm    special drift particular aim

5    blench swerve

6    cause doth minister circumstances require

9    trumpets trumpeters

11    speeded done swiftly, accomplished

14    gentle honorable

Act 4 Scene 6

4.6    Location: Vienna

1    indirectly dishonestly

2    him Angelo so in that manner (truthfully)

4    He i.e., the duke/friar

6    peradventure by any chance

8    physic medicine

9    bitter…end unpleasant to taste but good for the health

10    would wish

12    stand place to stand

13    vantage on advantageous position (from which to intercept)

16    hent arrived, taken up positions at    near upon shortly

Act 5 Scene 1

1    cousin a friendly form of address

7    yield…thanks thank you publicly

8    Forerunning more requital preceding further gratitude/reward

9    bonds obligations

11    wards…bosom secret confines of my heart

12    characters letters

13    forted fortified    tooth i.e., ravages

14    razure obliteration

15    subject duke’s citizens

16    fain gladly

17    Favours high regard    keep within live inside (my heart)

21    Vail your regard cast your gaze downward

22    fain much more willingly

29    Reveal explain

34    wring bring about

36    suitor petitioner, supplicant

37    Cut off (whose life was) cut short

39    strange oddly (Isabella shifts the sense to “unprecedentedly”)

41    forsworn perjured, false

47    truer more certain

50    To…reck’ning to the end of time/no matter how far we examine the matter

52    in…sense from a diseased mind

53    conjure entreat

54    comfort godly realm/source of divine comfort

55    with that opinion in the belief that

56    touched tainted/affected    Make…unlike do not assume it is impossible because it seems unlikely

58    caitiff wretch    ground face of the earth

59    shy cautious, reserved    grave wise, dignified, revered    absolute perfect, complete

61    dressings finery, official robes    caracts badges (of office)    forms formal procedures

64    more name a greater vocabulary/more terms

67    frame of sense lucidity, rational structure

68    dependency…thing coherent relationship of ideas

71    Harp dwell    banish…inequality assume I am mad because I am socially inferior or because my words contradict Angelo’s reputation

74    hide…true (let the    truth) eclipse the falsehood that merely seems plausible/(let your    reason) ignore the falsehood that seems to be true

78    act legal act prohibiting premarital sex/deed

80    probation…sisterhood i.e., a novice

82    As then at that time

90    wished was I asked

93    business for yourself matter concerning yourself

94    perfect fully prepared/accurate

95    warrant assure (the duke shifts the sense to “document authorizing arrest”)

97    somewhat some part

102    pernicious destructive

105    to the matter relevant

106    Mended set right

107    to…by leaving out unnecessary details

108    persuaded entreated, urged

109    refelled refused

113    concupiscible hotly desirous

114    debatement argument, deliberation

115    remorse pity    confutes overcomes

116    the…betimes early the next morning

117    surfeiting being overindulged

119    likely probable (ironic)

120    …true i.e., as then the duke might believe her

121    fond foolish

122    suborned bribed to make false accusations

123    practice conspiracy

124    imports no reason makes no sense

125    pursue…himself seek to punish a crime he had also committed

127    weighed judged

128    cut him off had him executed    set you on put you up to this

132    ministers angels

134    Unfold reveal

135    countenance social standing/outward show

139    blasting destructive, withering

140    practice plot

142    Lodowick the duke’s assumed name as a friar

143    ghostly holy (plays on the sense of “insubstantial”)

145    lay not a clergyman

147    retirement absence    had swinged would have beaten

148    This’ this is

152    saucy insolent

153    scurvy contemptible

156    abused deceived

158    touch or soil moral blemish/sexual stain

159    ungot not yet conceived

163    temporary meddler one who interferes in secular matters

166    vouches testifies, asserts    misreport slander

167    most villainously he did, and most villainously too

170    strange unknown/severe    mere sole/personal

175    probation proof    make…clear make absolutely clear

176    convented summoned to appear

177    justify exonerate

178    vulgarly publicly

179    to her eyes to her face

183    vanity futile actions/foolishness

197    punk prostitute

199    cause…himself reason to speak/charge of his own to defend himself against

204    known had sex with

207    For…too if it kept you quiet I wish you were also drunk

213    charges accuses, indicts    with at

214    depose testify

215    th’effect the manifestations/fulfillment

216    Charges she more is she accusing other men

219    just exactly

222    abuse deception

227    fast belocked locked firmly

228    match assignation

229    supply satisfy    garden-house summer house

230    In…person disguised as Isabella

238    proportions dowry

239    composition the agreed amount    in chief principally

240    For that because    disvalued In levity discredited on grounds of (sexual) immorality

252    confixèd fixed firmly

254    smile i.e., regard such accusations as foolish/amusing

255    scope full extent

256    touched affected/hurt

257    informal demented

258    mightier member more powerful person

259    way opportunity, scope

264    Compact in collusion

265    swear down invoke    particular individual

267    sealed in approbation confirmed and approved

268    pains efforts

277    well-warranted eminently approved of

278    forth fully, to the end

280    chastisement form of punishment

281    stir not you do not move

282    determined made a judgment on

283    throughly thoroughly

286    Cucullus…monachum “a hood does not make a monk” (Latin)

288    enforce…him lay your charges against him

289    notable notorious

292    handle deal with (Lucio then plays on the sense of “fondle”)

294    Say you? What did you say?

295    privately alone/in her private parts

296    perchance…ashamed perhaps she will be too ashamed to admit her deceit/be made love to in public

297    go…her question her in a cryptic or cunning manner (perhaps with unwitting play on “have sex with her in the dark/sinfully”)

298    light bright/promiscuous

302    Mum (I shall be) silent

306    How? What?

307    Respect let respect be shown/I am respectful

308    honoured…throne respected, if not for anything else, for the fact that he is the king of hell

310    in us is represented by us

311    Look make sure

313    Good…redress! Farewell to any hope of justice!

316    retort reject    manifest evidently truthful

320    unreverend disrespectful/irreligious    unhallowed unholy

322    mouth language

323    proper ear own hearing

324    glance move rapidly/turn

325    tax charge, blame

326    th’rack torture instrument that stretched the limbs    touse pull violently

329    hot rash, hasty

330    stretch upon the rack

332    here provincial of this province (hence not subject to its laws)

335    stew cauldron/brothel

336    countenanced endorsed (by those in authority)

337    forfeits…shop Elizabethan barbers displayed lists of penalties for misbehavior in their shops

338    in…mark in jest as a serious warning

342    goodman form of address to one below the rank of gentleman    baldpate monks were required to shave parts of their heads

346    notedly particularly

347    fleshmonger fornicator/pimp

349    …report attribute those remarks to me

353    close compromise/conclude

355    bolts leg irons, fetters

356    giglots harlots    confederate companion accomplice (Friar Peter)

362    sheep-biting whoremongering/thieving (said of a dog that would attack sheep)    hanged the fate of dogs caught attacking sheep    an hour in an hour/for an hour or so

363    mad’st created

364    bail free    gentle three i.e., Isabella, Mariana, and Friar Peter

369    place i.e., the position where Angelo is presiding

371    or either

372    do thee office be of service to you

374    hold…out give in (to the truth)

375    dread revered

377    undiscernible undetected

379    passes actions/trespasses

380    session trial

382    sequent subsequent

387    Do…office undertake the task    consummate being completed

391    at…it at the fact that he behaved like this than at the extraordinary nature of the situation

394    Advertising attentive    holy devoted

395    changing…habit having changed my feelings with my appearance

396    Attorneyed serving as your agent

398    vassal servant, subject    pained put to effort

401    free generous

403    obscured disguised

405    rash remonstrance sudden revelation

406    so lost i.e., executed    kind fond, sisterly

407    celerity speed

409    brained destroyed, dashed the brains from

412    So thus

415    salt lecherous

417    adjudged condemned

419    promise-breach Thereon dependent i.e., the breaking of the promise to save Claudio, made in return for Isabella giving up her    chastity

422    proper own

424    still always

425    quit repay    measure retribution/judgment/due proportion

427    though…vantage even were you to deny it you would not benefit

428    very block same executioner’s block

432    mock deceive/tantalize/taunt

435    else…you otherwise accusations regarding your sexual relations with him

437    For as for

439    instate endow    widow you withal grant you a widow’s settlement with them

443    definitive determined

445    lose your labour waste your efforts

450    Against all sense totally unreasonably    importune entreat

451    of this fact for this crime

452    pavèd bed grave covered with a stone slab

458    most most part

467    but only

470    His…intent despite his bad intentions he did not fulfill them

472    subjects actual things/people subject to the ruling power

475    unprofitable pointless/unsuccessful

485    knew it not was not sure

486    advice consideration

489    reserved preserved

495    still always

496    blood sexual desire

497    tempered self-controlled

498    procure bring about

506    apprehends comprehends

507    squar’st measures/shapes

508    quit acquit, pardon

511    muffled concealed (with a hood or clothing)

520    quickening fresh animation

521    quits repays/leaves

522    Look make sure    her…yours her worth is equal to yours/let your worth be deserving of hers

523    apt remission ready forgiveness

524    in place present

526    luxury lust

528    extol praise

529    trick custom/whim/prank/foolishness

540    cuckold man with an unfaithful wife

542    therewithal in addition

543    Remit pardon    forfeits punishments

544    pleasure herein executed wishes fulfilled

545    pressing to death one who refused to plead guilty or innocent was pressed with heavy weights until he pleaded or died (plays on the sense of “death by sexual exention”)

547    restore makes amends to (by marriage)

549    confessed her been her confessor

551    behind to come    gratulate pleasing/expressive of thanks

557    motion…good proposal that greatly concerns your benefit

560    bring accompany

561    yet behind still to be revealed    meet fitting

THE COMEDY OF ERRORS

A merchant of Syracuse has identical twin sons. One is stolen at the age of seven. The other’s name is changed to that of the lost boy, in his memory. When grown up, he wanders the Mediterranean in search of his brother, finally chancing upon the seaport where the latter lives. The wanderer encounters the mistress, the wife, and other acquaintances of the brother and is inevitably mistaken for him. When he denies all knowledge of the people who greet him, they assume that he is mad and attempt to have him locked up—save that by a further confusion they apprehend the other twin, the one who does know them. The audience awaits the moment of resolution that will come when the twins appear on stage together.

Such is the plot of Plautus’ Menaechmi, a Roman comedy familiar to any Elizabethan with a classical education—which is to say any young man who had been to the university and many who had reached no further than the upper level of grammar school. When The Comedy of Errors was performed before an audience of London lawyers and their patrons in the Christmas festivities of 1594, it was instantly recognized as being “like to Plautus his Menaechmus.” Some years later, a lawyer named John Manningham made the same link, describing Twelfth Night, Shakespeare’s later comedy of twins and mistaken identity, as “much like The Comedy of Errors or Menaechmi in Plautus.” While we applaud difference, Shakespeare’s first audiences favored likeness: a work was good not because it was original, but because it resembled an admired classical exemplar, which in the case of comedy meant a play by Terence or Plautus.

Imitation was at the core of both education and artistic theory in Shakespeare’s world. But good imitation was never slavish: it necessitated a surpassing of the original, often achieved by the fusion of different sources or the complicating of an already complicated plot line. Thus Shakespeare proved his cleverness to his audience of clever young lawyers. It is as if he is saying: Plautus presented one pair of identical twins, so I will give you two. The possibilities for confusion are greatly multiplied by this device. As well as the stranger being mistaken for the local man, and the local mistaken for the stranger, we have the servants of each being mistaken by their own master and the other’s master and the locals. Not to mention the masters mistaken by their servants. The comedy whereby an unmarried man in an alien environment is told that his wife is expecting him at home for dinner is doubled by the comedy of his slave receiving the unlooked-for attentions of the spherical kitchen-maid with whom his twin has been sexually involved.

The Comedy of Errors turns on the essential device of farce: exits and entrances. The wrong person keeps coming out of the door. Classical comedy provided a model in which the action of a drama takes place in a single location during the course of a single day. Errors is one of the few Shakespearean plays to follow this convention. The entire action takes place in the marketplace of Ephesus, its temporal structure framed by the Egeon plot (condemned in the morning, released in the evening). Unusually for Shakespeare, the exit and entrance doors represent specific locations: the Phoenix (Antipholus’ and Adriana’s house), the Porcupine (the courtesan’s house), and the Priory. They may even have been labeled thus in performance. From the point of view of staging, this device was well fitted to indoor academic drama—as the play’s brevity was suited to its being but a small part of a longer evening’s entertainment at the Inns of Court. Errors is by some margin the shortest of Shakespeare’s plays. It has around 1800 lines; some of the tragedies and histories are more than twice as long. There is no surviving evidence of performance on the public stage, but this is no guarantee that the play was kept in reserve for private performance to elite audiences. The device of the doors could have been adapted for the public theaters, perhaps with the upstage-center “discovery space” serving for the Priory in which the lost mother is found.

Though the Ephesian market economy is brought to life by means of Angelo the goldsmith and various merchants, the largest parts in the play belong to the strangers and the wife. The central comic device of mistaken identity is a means to the discovery of identity. Meeting someone who thinks you are someone you are not is a disturbing but ultimately invaluable way of finding out who you really are. Antipholus of Syracuse has been traveling in search of his family. On arriving in Ephesus and being mistaken for his long-lost brother, he realizes that his own self is not secure. His lines comparing himself to a drop of water cut to the quick of that experience of wandering and wondering, which shapes so many of Shakespeare’s comedies. How can we reconcile the self’s conflicting need for autonomy (the single drop of water) and community (the ocean)? The sense of loss and confusion prepare us for the imagery of Ephesus as a mad world and the potential nightmare—the reductio ad absurdum of farce—whereby we are led to imagine what it would be like if everybody else were mad and we alone were sane and therefore taken to be mad.

Comedy’s fond conclusion is that by finding the right partner we find ourselves. Antipholus of Syracuse finds not only father, mother, and brother, but also future wife, in the form of Luciana, sister to his brother’s wife. As in other early comedies such as The Taming of the Shrew and The Two Gentlemen of Verona, there are two strong roles for the boy actors in Shakespeare’s company. Whereas the two pairs of brothers are identical twins, the sisters are of contrasting appearance and character. Their names are indicative: “Adriana” means of the earth and “Luciana” of the light; the former is brunette and the latter blonde; the wife is perceived as shrewish and the sister as divinely beautiful. But in the play’s most richly written speeches, Shakespeare goes beyond the clichés of femininity suggested by these dualities.

As Shakespeare’s comedies variously suggest, happy endings are all too often mere illusions or at best momentary suspensions of life’s messiness. If we may assume that the twins are reasonably alike in nature as well as identical in appearance, then there is a strong possibility that in the imaginary afterlife of the action Antipholus’ marriage to Luciana, despite its sparky beginning, will end up all too similar to his brother’s marriage to her sister. While unmarried, Luciana speaks in favor of wifely submission and accuses her sister of shrewishness. But her sister has had to put up with a husband who prefers to spend his time about town—not least in the company of a courtesan—rather than at home with his wife. Most of Shakespeare’s comedies are celebrations of courtship, but the married couples met along the way are shaky role models. Once Luciana discovers what husbands are really like, her theory will be sorely tested.

Adriana’s marriage is patched up at the end of the play, but there is no undoing the pain she has expressed in the lines that turn Antipholus of Syracuse’s self-centered image of the drop of water into an account of how every action has consequences for those who love us. As so often, Shakespeare has it both ways: Adriana delivers at one and the same time the moving testimony of a neglected wife responding to her husband’s sexual infidelity and the cue for the line that invariably wins the play’s biggest laugh: “Plead you to me, fair dame?” She is, of course, confronting the wrong brother.

KEY FACTS

PLOT: Ephesus and Syracuse are at odds. Any Syracusan found in Ephesus will be executed unless he can pay a ransom of a thousand marks. Egeon, an old Syracusan merchant, has been arrested. He explains how he has come to Ephesus: he and his wife Emilia had identical twin sons and identical twin slaves, purchased for the purpose of serving the sons. In a shipwreck many years ago, he was separated from his wife, one son, and one slave. The survivors are renamed in memory of the lost ones: Antipholus for the son and Dromio for the slave. Once grown to manhood, Antipholus of Syracuse, with his Dromio, had set off in search of his brother and mother. Egeon is now in search of them. The Duke gives him until evening to find the ransom money. By chance Antipholus and Dromio of Syracuse have also just arrived in Ephesus. The other Antipholus and Dromio have been living there since the wreck. And so the comedy of errors ensues. The locals constantly mistake the visiting twins for the natives—even Antipholus of Ephesus’ wife Adriana and her sister Luciana are fooled. The confusions result in Antipholus of Ephesus being arrested for debt and declared mad, while Antipholus of Syracuse takes refuge from his brother’s angry wife in a Priory—where the abbess turns out to be Egeon’s long-lost wife. All is resolved and Egeon is freed.

MAJOR ROLES: (with percentage of lines/number of speeches/scenes on stage) Antipholus of Syracuse (15%/103/6), Adriana (15%/79/6), Dromio of Syracuse (14%/99/9), Antipholus of Ephesus (12%/76/4), Dromio of Ephesus (9%/63/6), Egeon (8%/17/2), Luciana (5%/43/4), Duke Solinus (5%/22/2), Angelo (4%/31/4), Emilia (4%/16/1).

LINGUISTIC MEDIUM: 85% verse, 15% prose. Fairly high incidence of rhyme.

DATE: Performed at Gray’s Inn Christmas festivities for the legal profession, December 28, 1594. Possibly written for this occasion, though may have earlier date. Remained well known in legal circles and was performed at court December 28, 1604.

SOURCES: The main plot of Syracusan merchant, lost twins and mistaken identity is taken from Plautus’ Menaechmi (Roman, c.200 BC), known either in Latin original or a manuscript translation by William Warner (not published until 1595). The marital misunderstanding induced by the mistaken identity of a slave, resulting in the master being shut out from his own house, is taken from another Plautus play, Amphitruo. The combination of two sets of identical twins is uniquely Shakespearean. The shipwreck and lost/found parent motif may derive from the romance tradition that dates back to the story of Apollonius of Tyre, which was the main source for Shakespeare’s later (cowritten) play, Pericles.

TEXT: 1623 Folio is the only early text. It is generally thought to have been set from Shakespeare’s original manuscript, but there is no firm evidence for this—a transcript or (less likely) theatrical promptbook is also possible. Generally good quality of printing.

THE COMEDY OF ERRORS

Solinus, DUKE of Ephesus

EGEON, a merchant from Syracuse, father of the Antipholus twins

ADRIANA, wife of Antipholus of Ephesus

LUCIANA, her sister

LUCE, Adriana’s kitchen-maid

A COURTESAN

ANGELO, a goldsmith

BALTHASAR, a merchant

FIRST MERCHANT

SECOND MERCHANT, Angelo’s creditor

Doctor PINCH, a schoolmaster and exorcist

EMILIA, an abbess at Ephesus

Jailer, Officer, Messenger, Servants and other Attendants

Act 1 Scene 11.1

running scene 1

Enter Duke of Ephesus with [Egeon] the merchant of Syracuse, Jailer and other Attendants

EGEONProceed, Solinus, to procure my fall,

And by the doom[2] of death end woes and all.

DUKEMerchant of Syracusa, plead no more.

I am not partial[4] to infringe our laws;

5

The enmity and discord which of late

Sprung from the rancorous outrage[6] of your duke

To merchants, our well-dealing[7] countrymen,

Who, wanting[8] guilders to redeem their lives,

Have sealed[9] his rigorous statutes with their bloods,

10

Excludes all pity from our threat’ning looks,

For, since the mortal[11] and intestine jars

’Twixt thy seditious[12] countrymen and us,

It hath in solemn synods[13] been decreed,

Both by the Syracusans and ourselves,

15

To admit no traffic[15] to our adverse towns.

Nay, more: if any born at Ephesus

Be seen at any Syracusan marts[17] and fairs,

Again, if any Syracusan born

Come to the bay of Ephesus, he dies:

20

His goods confiscate to[20] the duke’s dispose,

Unless a thousand marks[21] be levièd

To quit[22] the penalty and to ransom him.

Thy substance,[23] valued at the highest rate,

Cannot amount unto a hundred marks,

25

Therefore by law thou art condemned to die.

EGEONYet this my comfort: when your words are done,

My woes end likewise with the evening sun.

DUKEWell, Syracusan, say in brief the cause

Why thou departed’st from thy native home,

30

And for what cause thou cam’st to Ephesus.

EGEONA heavier[31] task could not have been imposed

Than I[32] to speak my griefs unspeakable.

Yet, that[33] the world may witness that my end

Was wrought by nature,[34] not by vile offence,

35

I’ll utter what my sorrow gives me leave.[35]

In Syracusa was I born, and wed

Unto a woman, happy but[37] for me,

And by[38] me, had not our hap been bad.

With her I lived in joy, our wealth increased

40

By prosperous voyages I often made

To Epidamium,[41] till my factor’s death

And the great care of goods at random[42] left,

Drew me from kind embracements[43] of my spouse;

From whom my absence was not six months old

45

Before herself — almost at fainting under

The pleasing punishment[46] that women bear —

Had made provision for her following me,

And soon and safe arrivèd where I was.

There had she not been long, but she became

50

A joyful mother of two goodly sons,

And, which was strange, the one so like the other,

As could not be distinguished but by names.

That very hour, and in the self-same inn,

A poor mean[54] woman was deliverèd

55

Of such a burden, male twins, both alike.

Those, for[56] their parents were exceeding poor,

I bought, and brought up to attend[57] my sons.

My wife, not meanly[58] proud of two such boys,

Made daily motions[59] for our home return.

60

Unwilling I agreed. Alas, too soon we came aboard.

A league[61] from Epidamium had we sailed

Before the always wind-obeying deep[62]

Gave any tragic instance[63] of our harm.

But longer did we not retain much hope,

65

For what obscurèd light the heavens did grant

Did but convey unto our fearful minds

A doubtful warrant[67] of immediate death,

Which though myself would gladly have embraced,

Yet the incessant weepings of my wife,

70

Weeping before for[70] what she saw must come,

And piteous plainings[71] of the pretty babes,

That mourned for fashion,[72] ignorant what to fear,

Forced me to seek delays[73] for them and me.

And this it was[74] — for other means was none —

75

The sailors sought for safety by our boat,[75]

And left the ship, then sinking-ripe,[76] to us.

My wife, more careful[77] for the latter-born,

Had fastened him unto a small spare mast,

Such as seafaring men provide for storms:

80

To him one of the other twins was bound,

Whilst I had been like[81] heedful of the other.

The children thus disposed, my wife and I,

Fixing our eyes on whom[83] our care was fixed,

Fastened ourselves at either end the[84] mast,

85

And floating straight,[85] obedient to the stream,

Was carried towards Corinth,[86] as we thought.

At length the sun, gazing upon the earth,

Dispersed those vapours[88] that offended us,

And by the benefit[89] of his wishèd light,

90

The seas waxed calm, and we discoverèd

Two ships from far, making amain[91] to us,

Of Corinth that, of Epidaurus[92] this.

But ere[93] they came — O, let me say no more.

Gather the sequel by that[94] went before.

95

DUKENay, forward,[95] old man, do not break off so,

For we may pity, though not pardon thee.

EGEONO, had the gods done so, I had not now

Worthily[98] termed them merciless to us:

For ere the ships could meet by[99] twice five leagues,

100

We were encountered by a mighty rock,

Which being violently borne up upon,

Our helpful ship was splitted in the midst,

So that in this unjust divorce of us,

Fortune had left to both of us alike

105

What to delight in, what[105] to sorrow for.

Her part, poor soul, seeming as burdened

With lesser weight, but not with lesser woe,

Was carried with more speed before the wind,

And in our sight they three were taken up

110

By fishermen of Corinth, as we thought.

At length, another ship had seized on us,[111]

And knowing whom it was their hap[112] to save,

Gave healthful welcome to their shipwrecked guests,

And would have reft[114] the fishers of their prey,

115

Had not their bark[115] been very slow of sail,

And therefore homeward did they bend their course.

Thus have you heard me severed from my bliss,

That by misfortunes was my life prolonged,

To tell sad stories of my own mishaps.

120

DUKEAnd for the sake of them thou sorrowest for,

Do me the favour to dilate[121] at full

What have befall’n[122] of them and thee till now.

EGEONMy youngest boy, and yet my eldest[123] care,

At eighteen years became inquisitive

125

After[125] his brother, and importuned me

That his attendant[126] — for his case was like,

Reft[127] of his brother, but retained his name —

Might bear him company in the quest of[128] him:

Whom whilst I laboured[129] of a love to see,

130

I hazarded[130] the loss of whom I loved.

Five summers have I spent in farthest Greece,

Roaming clean[132] through the bounds of Asia,

And coasting[133] homeward, came to Ephesus,

Hopeless to find, yet loath to leave unsought

135

Or[135] that or any place that harbours men.

But here must end the story of my life,

And happy were I in my timely death,

Could all my travels[138] warrant me they live.

DUKEHapless[139] Egeon, whom the fates have marked

140

To bear the extremity of dire mishap.

Now trust me, were it not against our laws,

Against my crown, my oath, my dignity,

Which princes, would they,[143] may not disannul,

My soul should sue[144] as advocate for thee.

145

But, though thou art adjudgèd[145] to the death,

And passèd sentence may not be recalled

But to[147] our honour’s great disparagement,

Yet will I favour thee in what I can;

Therefore, merchant, I’ll limit[149] thee this day

150

To seek thy health[150] by beneficial help.

Try all the friends thou hast in Ephesus,

Beg thou or borrow to make up the sum,

And live. If no, then thou art doomed to die.

Jailer, take him to thy custody.

155

JAILERI will, my lord.

EGEONHopeless and helpless doth Egeon wend,[156]

But to procrastinate[157] his lifeless end.

Exeunt

[Act 1 Scene 2]1.2

running scene 1 continues

Enter Antipholus [of Syracuse], a Merchant [of Ephesus] and Dromio [of Syracuse]

MERCHANT OF EPHESUSTherefore give out[1] you are of Epidamium,

Lest that your goods too soon be confiscate.

This very day a Syracusan merchant

Is apprehended for arrival here,

5

And not being able to buy out[5] his life,

According to the statute of the town,

Dies ere the weary sun set in the west.

There is your money that I had to keep.[8] Gives money

ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSEGo bear it to the Centaur,[9] where we host, To Dromio

10

And stay there, Dromio, till I come to thee.

Within this hour it will be dinner-time.[11]

Till that, I’ll view the manners[12] of the town,

Peruse[13] the traders, gaze upon the buildings,

And then return and sleep within mine inn,

15

For with long travel I am stiff and weary.

Get thee away.

DROMIO OF SYRACUSEMany a man would take you at your word,

And go indeed, having so good a mean.[18]

Exit

ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSEA trusty villain,[19] sir, that very oft,

20

When I am dull with care[20] and melancholy,

Lightens my humour[21] with his merry jests.

What, will you walk with me about the town,

And then go to my inn and dine with me?

MERCHANT OF EPHESUSI am invited, sir, to certain merchants,

25

Of whom I hope to make much benefit.[25]

I crave your pardon. Soon at[26] five o’clock,

Please you, I’ll meet with you upon the mart,

And after ward consort[28] you till bed-time.

My present business calls me from you now.

30

ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSEFarewell till then. I will go lose myself

And wander up and down to view the city.

MERCHANT OF EPHESUSSir, I commend you to your own content.[32]

Exit

ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSEHe that commends me to mine own content

Commends me to the thing I cannot get.

35

I to the world am like a drop of water

That in the ocean seeks another drop,

Who, falling there to find[37] his fellow forth —

Unseen,[38] inquisitive — confounds himself.

So I, to find a mother and a brother,

40

In quest of them, unhappy,[40] lose myself.

Enter Dromio of Ephesus

Here comes the almanac[41] of my true date.—

What now? How chance thou art returned so soon?

DROMIO OF EPHESUSReturned so soon? Rather approached too late:

The capon[44] burns, the pig falls from the spit,

45

The clock hath strucken twelve upon the bell,

My mistress made it one[46] upon my cheek.

She is so hot[47] because the meat is cold,

The meat is cold because you come not home,

You come not home because you have no stomach,[49]

50

You have no stomach having broke your fast:[50]

But we that know what ’tis to fast and pray[51]

Are penitent[52] for your default today.

ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSEStop[53] in your wind, sir. Tell me this, I pray:

Where have you left the money that I gave you?

55

DROMIO OF EPHESUSO, sixpence that I had o’[55] Wednesday last

To pay the saddler for my mistress’ crupper?[56]

The saddler had it, sir, I kept it not.

ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSEI am not in a sportive[58] humour now:

Tell me, and dally not, where is the money?

60

We being strangers here, how dar’st thou trust

So great a charge[61] from thine own custody?

DROMIO OF EPHESUSI pray you jest, sir, as you sit at dinner.

I from my mistress come to you in post,[63]

If I return I shall be post[64] indeed,

65

For she will score[65] your fault upon my pate.

Methinks your maw,[66] like mine, should be your clock,

And strike you home without a messenger.

ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSECome, Dromio, come, these jests are out of season,[68]

Reserve them till a merrier hour than this.

70

Where is the gold I gave in charge to thee?

DROMIO OF EPHESUSTo me, sir? Why, you gave no gold to me.

ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSECome on, sir knave, have done[72] your foolishness,

And tell me how thou hast disposed thy charge.[73]

DROMIO OF EPHESUSMy charge was but to fetch you from the mart

75

Home to your house, the Phoenix,[75] sir, to dinner;

My mistress and her sister stays[76] for you.

ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSENow as I am a Christian, answer me,

In what safe place you have bestowed my money,

Or I shall break that merry sconce[79] of yours

80

That stands[80] on tricks when I am undisposed.

Where is the thousand marks thou hadst of me?

DROMIO OF EPHESUSI have some marks of yours upon my pate,

Some of my mistress’ marks upon my shoulders,

But not a thousand marks between you both.

85

If I should pay your worship those[85] again,

Perchance you will not bear them patiently.

ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSEThy mistress’ marks? What mistress, slave, hast thou?

DROMIO OF EPHESUSYour worship’s wife, my mistress at the Phoenix;

She that doth fast till you come home to dinner,

90

And prays that you will hie[90] you home to dinner.

ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSEWhat, wilt thou flout me thus unto my face

Being forbid? There, take you that, sir knave. Beats Dromio

DROMIO OF EPHESUSWhat mean you, sir? For God’s sake, hold your hands:

Nay, an[94] you will not, sir, I’ll take my heels.

Exit

95

ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSEUpon my life, by some device[95] or other

The villain is o’er-raught[96] of all my money.

They say this town is full of cozenage,[97]

As[98] nimble jugglers that deceive the eye,

Dark-working[99] sorcerers that change the mind,

100

Soul-killing witches that deform[100] the body,

Disguisèd cheaters, prating mountebanks,[101]

And many suchlike liberties of sin.[102]

If it prove so, I will be gone the sooner.

I’ll to the Centaur to go seek this slave.

105

I greatly fear my money is not safe.

Exit

Act 2 Scene 12.1

running scene 2

Enter Adriana, wife to Antipholus [of Ephesus], with Luciana, her sister

ADRIANANeither my husband nor the slave returned,

That in such haste I sent to seek his master?

Sure,[3] Luciana, it is two o’clock.

LUCIANAPerhaps some merchant hath invited him,

5

And from the mart he’s somewhere gone to dinner.

Good sister, let us dine and never fret;

A man is master of his liberty:

Time is their master, and when they see time,[8]

They’ll go or come; if so, be patient, sister.

10

ADRIANAWhy should their liberty than ours be more?

LUCIANABecause their business still[11] lies out o’door.

ADRIANALook, when[12] I serve him so, he takes it ill.

LUCIANAO, know he is the bridle of your will.

ADRIANAThere’s none but asses will be bridled so.

15

LUCIANAWhy, headstrong liberty is lashed[15] with woe.

There’s nothing situate[16] under heaven’s eye

But hath his bound,[17] in earth, in sea, in sky.

The beasts, the fishes and the wingèd fowls

Are their males’ subjects and at their controls.[19]

20

Man, more divine,[20] the master of all these,

Lord of the wide world and wild wat’ry seas,

Indued with intellectual sense and souls,

Of more pre-eminence than fish and fowls,

Are masters to their females, and their lords:

25

Then let your will attend[25] on their accords.

ADRIANAThis servitude makes you to keep unwed.

LUCIANANot this, but troubles of the marriage bed.

ADRIANABut, were you wedded, you would bear some sway.[28]

LUCIANAEre I learn love, I’ll practise to obey.

30

ADRIANAHow if your husband start[30] some other where?

LUCIANATill he come home again, I would forbear.[31]

ADRIANAPatience unmoved! No[32] marvel though she pause,

They can be meek that have no other cause.[33]

A wretched soul, bruised with adversity,

35

We bid be quiet when we hear it cry.

But were we burdened with like[36] weight of pain,

As much or more we should ourselves complain.

So thou, that hast no unkind mate to grieve thee,

With urging helpless[39] patience would relieve me,

40

But if thou live to see like right bereft,[40]

This fool-begged[41] patience in thee will be left.

LUCIANAWell, I will marry one day, but to try.[42]

Here comes your man, now is your husband nigh.

Enter Dromio of Ephesus

ADRIANASay, is your tardy master now at hand?

DROMIO OF EPHESUSNay, he’s at two[45] hands with me, and that my two ears can witness.

ADRIANASay, didst thou speak with him? Know’st thou his mind?

DROMIO OF EPHESUSAy, ay, he told[48] his mind upon mine ear. Beshrew his hand, I scarce could understand it.

LUCIANASpake he so doubtfully[50] thou couldst not feel his meaning?

DROMIO OF EPHESUSNay, he struck so plainly, I could too well feel his blows, and withal so doubtfully that I could scarce understand[52] them.

ADRIANABut say, I prithee, is he coming home? It seems he hath great care to please his wife.

DROMIO OF EPHESUSWhy, mistress, sure my master is horn-mad.[55]

ADRIANAHorn-mad, thou villain?

DROMIO OF EPHESUSI mean not cuckold-mad,[57] but sure he is stark mad:

When I desired him to come home to dinner,

He asked me for a thousand marks in gold.

60

“Tis dinner-time,’ quoth I, ‘My gold!’ quoth he.

‘Your meat doth burn,’ quoth I, ‘My gold!’ quoth he.

‘Will you come home?’ quoth I, ‘My gold!’ quoth he.

‘Where is the thousand marks I gave thee, villain?’

‘The pig,’ quoth I, ‘is burned.’ ‘My gold!’ quoth he.

65

‘My mistress, sir,’ quoth I. ‘Hang up[65] thy mistress!

I know not thy mistress, out on[66] thy mistress!’

LUCIANAQuoth who?

DROMIO OF EPHESUSQuoth my master:

‘I know,’ quoth he, ‘no house, no wife, no mistress.’

70

So that my[70] errand, due unto my tongue,

I thank him, I bare home upon my shoulders,

For, in conclusion, he did beat me there.

ADRIANAGo back again, thou slave, and fetch him home. Beats him

DROMIO OF EPHESUSGo back again, and be new[74] beaten home?

75

For God’s sake, send some other messenger.

ADRIANABack, slave, or I will break thy pate across.

DROMIO OF EPHESUSAnd he will bless[77] that cross with other beating:

Between you I shall have a holy[78] head.

ADRIANAHence, prating peasant,[79] fetch thy master home.

80

DROMIO OF EPHESUSAm I so round[80] with you as you with me,

That like a football you do spurn[81] me thus?

You spurn me hence, and he will spurn me hither:

If I last[83] in this service, you must case me in leather.

[Exit]

LUCIANAFie, how impatience loureth[84] in your face! To Adriana

85

ADRIANAHis[85] company must do his minions grace,

Whilst I at home starve for a merry look.

Hath homely[87] age th’alluring beauty took

From my poor cheek? Then he hath wasted[88] it.

Are my discourses[89] dull? Barren my wit?

90

If voluble[90] and sharp discourse be marred,

Unkindness blunts it more than marble hard.[91]

Do their[92] gay vestments his affections bait?

That’s not my fault, he’s master of my state.[93]

What ruins are in me that can be found,

95

By[95] him not ruined? Then is he the ground

Of my defeatures.[96] My decayèd fair,

A sunny look of his would soon repair.

But, too unruly deer,[98] he breaks the pale

And feeds from home;[99] poor I am but his stale.

100

LUCIANASelf-harming jealousy! Fie, beat it hence.

ADRIANAUnfeeling fools[101] can with such wrongs dispense.

I know his eye doth homage otherwhere,[102]

Or else what lets[103] it but he would be here?

Sister, you know he promised me a chain,

105

Would[105] that alone, a love he would detain,

So[106] he would keep fair quarter with his bed:

I see the jewel best enamellèd[107]

Will lose his beauty, yet the gold bides still[108]

That others touch,[109] and often touching will

110

Wear[110] gold, and no man that hath a name,

By falsehood and corruption doth it shame.

Since that my beauty cannot please his eye,

I’ll weep what’s left away, and weeping die.

LUCIANAHow many fond[114] fools serve mad jealousy?

Exeunt

[Act 2 Scene 2]

running scene 3

Enter Antipholus [of Syracuse]

ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSEThe gold I gave to Dromio is laid up

Safe at the Centaur, and the heedful[2] slave

Is wand’red forth, in care[3] to seek me out

By[4] computation and mine host’s report.

5

I could not[5] speak with Dromio since at first

I sent him from the mart. See, here he comes.

Enter Dromio of Syracuse

How now, sir, is your merry humour altered?

As you love strokes,[8] so jest with me again.

You know no Centaur? You received no gold?

10

Your mistress sent to have me home to dinner?

My house was at the Phoenix? Wast thou mad,

That thus so madly thou didst answer me?

DROMIO OF SYRACUSEWhat answer, sir? When spake I[13] such a word?

ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSEEven now, even here, not half an hour since.

15

DROMIO OF SYRACUSEI did not see you since you sent me hence

Home to the Centaur with the gold you gave me.

ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSEVillain, thou didst deny the gold’s receipt,[17]

And told’st me of a mistress and a dinner,

For which I hope thou felt’st[19] I was displeased.

20

DROMIO OF SYRACUSEI am glad to see you in this merry vein:[20]

What means this jest? I pray you, master, tell me.

ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSEYea, dost thou jeer and flout me in the teeth?[22]

Think’st thou I jest? Hold, take thou that, and that.

Beats Dromio

DROMIO OF SYRACUSEHold, sir, for God’s sake! Now your jest is earnest,[24]

25

Upon what bargain do you give it me?

ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSEBecause that I familiarly sometimes

Do use you for[27] my fool and chat with you,

Your sauciness[28] will jest upon my love,

And make[29] a common of my serious hours.

30

When the sun shines, let foolish gnats make sport,[30]

But creep in crannies when he hides his beams.

If you will jest with me, know my aspect,[32]

And fashion[33] your demeanour to my looks,

Or I will beat this method in your sconce.[34]

DROMIO OF SYRACUSESconce call you it? So[35] you would leave battering, I had rather have it a head. An[36] you use these blows long, I must get a sconce for my head and ensconce[37] it too, or else I shall seek my wit in my shoulders. But I pray, sir, why am I beaten?

ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSEDost thou not know?

DROMIO OF SYRACUSENothing, sir, but that I am beaten.

ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSEShall I tell you why?

DROMIO OF SYRACUSEAy, sir, and wherefore;[42] for they say every why hath a wherefore.

ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSEWhy, first, for flouting me, and then, wherefore, for urging[44] it the second time to me.

DROMIO OF SYRACUSEWas there ever any man thus beaten out of season,[46] When in the why and the wherefore is neither rhyme nor reason? Well, sir, I thank you.

ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSEThank me, sir, for what?

DROMIO OF SYRACUSEMarry,[50] sir, for this something that you gave me for nothing.

ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSEI’ll make you amends next, to give[51] you nothing for something. But say, sir, is it dinner-time?

DROMIO OF SYRACUSENo, sir, I think the meat wants that[53] I have.

ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSEIn good time,[54] sir. What’s that?

DROMIO OF SYRACUSEBasting.[55]

ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSEWell, sir, then ’twill be dry.

DROMIO OF SYRACUSEIf it be, sir, I pray you eat none of it.

ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSEYour reason?

DROMIO OF SYRACUSELest it make you choleric[59] and purchase me another dry basting.

ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSEWell, sir, learn to jest in good time.[60] There’s a time for all things.

DROMIO OF SYRACUSEI durst have denied[62] that before you were so choleric.

ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSEBy what rule,[63] sir?

DROMIO OF SYRACUSEMarry, sir, by a rule as plain as the plain bald pate of Father Time[64] himself.

ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSELet’s hear it.

DROMIO OF SYRACUSEThere’s no time for a man to recover his hair that grows bald by nature.

ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSEMay he not do it by fine and recovery?[69]

DROMIO OF SYRACUSEYes, to pay a fine[70] for a periwig and recover the lost hair of another man.

ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSEWhy is Time such a niggard[72] of hair, being, as it is, so plentiful an excrement?[73]

DROMIO OF SYRACUSEBecause it is a blessing that he bestows on beasts, and what he hath scanted[75] men in hair, he hath given them in wit.

ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSEWhy, but there’s many a man hath more hair than wit.

DROMIO OF SYRACUSENot a man of those but he hath[77] the wit to lose his hair.

ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSEWhy, thou didst conclude hairy men plain dealers[78] without wit.

DROMIO OF SYRACUSEThe plainer dealer,[80] the sooner lost; yet he loseth it in a kind of jollity.[81]

ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSEFor what reason?

DROMIO OF SYRACUSEFor two,[83] and sound ones too.

ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSENay, not sound, I pray you.

DROMIO OF SYRACUSESure[85] ones, then.

ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSE Nay, not sure in a thing falsing.[86]

DROMIO OF SYRACUSECertain[87] ones then.

ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSEName them.

DROMIO OF SYRACUSEThe one, to save the money that he spends in tiring:[89] the other, that at dinner they[90] should not drop in his porridge.

ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSEYou would all this time have proved there is no time for all things.

DROMIO OF SYRACUSEMarry, and did, sir: namely, in no time to recover hair lost by nature.

ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSEBut your reason was not substantial,[95] why there is no time to recover.

DROMIO OF SYRACUSEThus I mend[97] it: Time himself is bald, and therefore to the world’s end will have bald followers.

ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSEI knew ’twould be a bald[99] conclusion — but soft, who wafts us yonder?

Enter Adriana [beckoning] and Luciana

ADRIANAAy, ay, Antipholus, look strange[101] and frown,

Some other mistress hath thy sweet aspects.[102]

I am not Adriana nor thy wife.

The time was once when thou unurged[104] wouldst vow

105

That never words were music to thine ear,

That never object pleasing in thine eye,

That never touch well welcome to thy hand,

That never meat sweet-savoured in thy taste,

Unless I spake or looked or touched or carved[109] to thee.

110

How comes it now, my husband, O, how comes it,

That thou art then estrangèd from thyself?[111]

Thy self I call it, being strange to me,

That, undividable, incorporate,[113]

Am better than thy dear self’s better part.[114]

115

Ah, do not tear away thyself from me,

For know, my love, as easy mayst thou fall[116]

A drop of water in the breaking gulf,[117]

And take unmingled thence that drop again

Without addition or diminishing,

120

As[120] take from me thyself, and not me too.

How dearly[121] would it touch thee to the quick

Shouldst thou but hear I were licentious,

And that this body, consecrate[123] to thee,

By ruffian lust should be contaminate?

125

Wouldst thou not spit at me, and spurn[125] at me,

And hurl the name of ‘husband’ in my face,

And tear the stained[127] skin of my harlot brow,

And from my false[128] hand cut the wedding ring,

And break it with a deep-divorcing vow?

130

I know thou canst, and therefore see[130] thou do it.

I am possessed with[131] an adulterate blot,

My blood is mingled[132] with the crime of lust.

For if we two be one, and thou play false,

I do digest the poison of thy flesh,

135

Being strumpeted[135] by thy contagion.

Keep[136] then fair league and truce with thy true bed,

I live distained,[137] thou undishonourèd.

ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSEPlead you to me, fair dame? I know you not:

In Ephesus I am but two hours old,

140

As strange unto your town as to your talk,

Who,[141] every word by all my wit being scanned,

Wants[142] wit in all one word to understand.

LUCIANAFie, brother,[143] how the world is changed with you.

When were you wont[144] to use my sister thus?

145

She sent for you by Dromio home to dinner.

ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSEBy Dromio?

DROMIO OF SYRACUSEBy me?

ADRIANABy thee, and this thou didst return[148] from him,

That he did buffet[149] thee and in his blows

150

Denied my house for[150] his, me for his wife.

ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSEDid you converse, sir, with this gentlewoman?

What is the course and drift[152] of your compact?

DROMIO OF SYRACUSEI, sir? I never saw her till this time.

ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSEVillain, thou liest, for even her very words

155

Didst thou deliver to me on the mart.

DROMIO OF SYRACUSEI never spake with her in all my life.

ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSEHow can she thus then call us by our names?

Unless it be by inspiration.[158]

ADRIANAHow ill agrees it[159] with your gravity

160

To counterfeit[160] thus grossly with your slave,

Abetting[161] him to thwart me in my mood.

Be[162] it my wrong you are from me exempt,

But wrong[163] not that wrong with a more contempt.

Come, I will fasten on this sleeve of thine: Clings to his sleeve

165

Thou art an elm, my husband, I a vine,

Whose weakness, married to thy stronger state,[166]

Makes me with thy strength to communicate.[167]

If aught possess[168] thee from me, it is dross,

Usurping ivy, brier,[169] or idle moss,

170

Who all for want of pruning, with intrusion,[170]

Infect thy sap and live on thy confusion.[171]

ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSETo me she speaks, she moves[172] me for her theme; Aside

What, was I married to her in my dream?

Or sleep I now, and think I hear all this?

175

What error[175] drives our eyes and ears amiss?

Until I know this sure uncertainty,[176]

I’ll entertain[177] the offered fallacy.

LUCIANADromio, go bid the servants spread[178] for dinner.

DROMIO OF SYRACUSEO, for my beads,[179] I cross me for a sinner. Crosses himself

180

This is the fairy land. O spite of spites,

We talk with goblins, owls[181] and sprites;

If we obey them not, this will ensue:

They’ll suck our breath or pinch us black and blue.

LUCIANAWhy prat’st thou[184] to thyself and answer’st not?

185

Dromio, thou Dromio, thou snail, thou slug, thou sot.[185]

DROMIO OF SYRACUSEI am transformèd,[186] master, am I not?

ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSEI think thou art in mind, and so am I.

DROMIO OF SYRACUSENay, master, both in mind and in my shape.

ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSEThou hast thine own form.

190

DROMIO OF SYRACUSENo, I am an ape.[190]

LUCIANAIf thou art changed to aught,[191] ’tis to an ass.

DROMIO OF SYRACUSE’Tis true, she rides[192] me and I long for grass.

’Tis so, I am an ass, else it could never be

But I should know her as well as she knows me.

195

ADRIANACome, come, no longer will I be a fool,

To put[196] the finger in the eye and weep,

Whilst man and master laughs[197] my woes to scorn.

Come, sir, to dinner.— Dromio, keep[198] the gate.—

Husband, I’ll dine above[199] with you today,

200

And shrive[200] you of a thousand idle pranks.—

Sirrah, if any ask you for your master,

Say he dines forth,[202] and let no creature enter.—

Come, sister.— Dromio, play the porter well.

ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSEAm I in earth, in heaven, or in hell? Aside

205

Sleeping or waking, mad or well-advised?[205]

Known unto these and to myself disguised?

I’ll say as they say, and persever[207] so,

And in this mist at[208] all adventures go.

DROMIO OF SYRACUSEMaster, shall I be porter at the gate?

210

ADRIANAAy, and let none enter, lest I break your pate.

LUCIANACome, come, Antipholus, we dine too late.

Exeunt

Dromio of Syracuse remains as porter

Act 3 Scene 1

running scene 3 continues

Enter Antipholus of Ephesus, his man Dromio [of Ephesus], Angelo the goldsmith and Balthazar the merchant

ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUSGood Signior Angelo, you must excuse us all,

My wife is shrewish[2] when I keep not hours;

Say that I lingered with you at your shop

To see the making of her carcanet,[4]

5

And that tomorrow you will bring it home.

But here’s a villain that would face me down[6]

He met me on the mart, and that I beat him,

And charged[8] him with a thousand marks in gold,

And that I did deny my wife and house.

10

Thou drunkard, thou, what didst thou mean by this?

DROMIO OF EPHESUSSay what you will, sir, but I know what I know:

That you beat me at the mart, I have your hand[12] to show.

If the skin were parchment and the blows you gave were ink,

Your own handwriting would tell you what I think.

15

ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUSI think thou art an ass.

DROMIO OF EPHESUSMarry, so it doth appear

By the wrongs I suffer and the blows I bear.

I should kick, being kicked, and being at that pass,[18]

You would keep from my heels and beware of an ass.

20

ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUSYou’re sad,[20] Signior Balthazar. Pray God our cheer

May answer[21] my good will and your good welcome here.

BALTHAZARI[22] hold your dainties cheap, sir, and your welcome dear.

ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUSO, Signior Balthazar, either[23] at flesh or fish,

A table full of welcome makes scarce one dainty dish.

25

BALTHAZARGood meat, sir, is common, that every churl[25] affords.

ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUSAnd welcome more common, for that’s nothing but words.

BALTHAZARSmall cheer[28] and great welcome makes a merry feast.

ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUSAy, to a niggardly host, and more sparing[29] guest.

30

But though my cates[30] be mean, take them in good part,

Better cheer may you have, but not with better heart. Tries the door of his house

But soft,[32] my door is locked.— Go bid them let us in. To Dromio

DROMIO OF EPHESUSMaud, Bridget, Marian, Cicely, Gillian, Ginn![33] Calling

DROMIO OF SYRACUSEMome,[34] malt-horse, capon, coxcomb, idiot, patch, Speaks from the other side of the door

35

Either get thee from the door or sit down at the hatch:[35]

Dost thou conjure for wenches,[36] that thou call’st for such store,

When one[37] is one too many? Go, get thee from the door.

DROMIO OF EPHESUSWhat patch is made our porter? My master stays[38] in the street.

DROMIO OF SYRACUSELet him walk from[39] whence he came, lest he catch cold on’s feet.

40

ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUSWho talks within there? Ho,[40] open the door.

DROMIO OF SYRACUSERight, sir, I’ll tell you when, an[41] you’ll tell me wherefore.

ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUSWherefore? For my dinner: I have not dined today.

DROMIO OF SYRACUSENor today here you must not, come again when you may.

ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUSWhat art thou that keep’st me out from the house I owe?[44]

45

DROMIO OF SYRACUSEThe porter for this time, sir, and my name is Dromio.

DROMIO OF EPHESUSO, villain, thou hast stol’n both mine office[46] and my name:

The one ne’er got me credit, the other mickle[47] blame.

If[48] thou hadst been Dromio today in my place,

Thou wouldst have changed thy face for a name, or thy name for an ass.

Enter Luce [within or above, concealed from the others]

LUCEWhat a coil[50] is there, Dromio? Who are those at the gate?

DROMIO OF EPHESUSLet my master in, Luce.

LUCEFaith, no, he comes too late, and so tell your master.

DROMIO OF EPHESUSO lord, I must laugh. Have at[54] you with a proverb — Shall I set in my staff?

LUCEHave at you with another, that’s — When?[55] Can you tell?

DROMIO OF SYRACUSEIf thy name be called Luce — Luce, thou hast answered him well.

ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUSDo you hear, you minion,[58] you’ll let us in, I hope? To Luce

LUCEI thought to have asked you.

60

DROMIO OF SYRACUSEAnd you said no.

DROMIO OF EPHESUSSo come, help. They beat the door

Well struck, there was blow[62] for blow.

ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUSThou baggage,[63] let me in. To Luce

LUCECan you tell for whose sake?

65

DROMIO OF EPHESUSMaster, knock the door hard.

LUCELet him knock[66] till it ache.

ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUSYou’ll cry for this, minion, if I beat the door down.

LUCEWhat[68] needs all that, and a pair of stocks in the town?

Enter Adriana within or above, concealed, like Luce

ADRIANAWho is that at the door that keeps[69] all this noise?

70

DROMIO OF SYRACUSEBy my troth, your town is troubled with unruly boys.[70]

ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUSAre you there, wife? You might have come before.

ADRIANAYour wife, sir knave? Go, get you from the door.

[Exit with Luce]

DROMIO OF EPHESUSIf[73] you went in pain, master, this ‘knave’ would go sore.

ANGELOHere is neither cheer, sir, nor welcome. We would fain[74] have either.

75

BALTHAZARIn debating which was best, we shall part[75] with neither.

DROMIO OF EPHESUSThey stand at the door, master, bid them welcome hither.

ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUSThere is something in the wind,[77] that we cannot get in.

DROMIO OF EPHESUSYou would say so, master, if your garments were thin.[78]

Your cake[79] here is warm within: you stand here in the cold.

80

It would make a man mad as a buck[80] to be so bought and sold.

ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUSGo fetch me something, I’ll break ope[81] the gate.

DROMIO OF SYRACUSEBreak any breaking[82] here, and I’ll break your knave’s pate.

DROMIO OF EPHESUSA man may break a word[83] with you, sir, and words are but wind:

Ay, and break[84] it in your face, so he break it not behind.

85

DROMIO OF SYRACUSEIt seems thou want’st breaking.[85] Out upon thee, hind!

DROMIO OF EPHESUSHere’s too much ‘out upon thee!’ I pray thee let me in.

DROMIO OF SYRACUSEAy, when fowls[87] have no feathers and fish have no fin.

[Exit]

ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUSWell, I’ll break in. Go borrow me a crow.[88]

DROMIO OF EPHESUSA crow without feather? Master, mean you so?

90

For a fish without a fin, there’s a fowl without a feather,

If a crow help us in, sirrah,[91] we’ll pluck a crow together.

ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUSGo get thee gone, fetch me an iron crow.

BALTHAZARHave patience, sir, O, let it not be so!

Herein[94] you war against your reputation,

95

And draw within the compass of suspect[95]

Th’unviolated honour of your wife.

Once this,[97] your long experience of her wisdom,

Her sober virtue, years and modesty,

Plead[99] on her part some cause to you unknown.

100

And doubt not, sir, but she will well excuse[100]

Why at this time the doors are made[101] against you.

Be ruled by me, depart in patience,

And let us to the Tiger[103] all to dinner,

And about[104] evening, come yourself alone

105

To know the reason of this strange restraint.

If by strong hand[106] you offer to break in

Now in the stirring passage[107] of the day,

A vulgar comment[108] will be made of it,

And that supposed[109] by the common rout

110

Against your yet ungalled[110] estimation,

That may with foul intrusion enter in,

And dwell upon your grave when you are dead,

For slander lives upon succession,[113]

Forever housed[114] where it gets possession.

ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUSYou have prevailed. I will depart in quiet,

And in despite of mirth[116] mean to be merry.

I know a wench of excellent discourse,

Pretty and witty, wild,[118] and yet, too, gentle.

There will we dine. This woman that I mean,

120

My wife — but I protest,[120] without desert —

Hath oftentimes upbraided me withal.[121]

To her will we to dinner.— Get you home To Angelo

And fetch the chain, by this[123] I know ’tis made.

Bring it, I pray you, to the Porpentine,[124]

125

For there’s the house.[125] That chain will I bestow —

Be it for nothing but to spite my wife —

Upon mine hostess there. Good sir, make haste.

Since mine own doors[128] refuse to entertain me,

I’ll knock[129] elsewhere, to see if they’ll disdain me.

130

ANGELOI’ll meet you at that place some hour hence.

ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUSDo so, this jest shall cost me some expense.

Exeunt

[Act 3 Scene 2]

running scene 3 continues

Enter Luciana with Antipholus of Syracuse

LUCIANAAnd may it be that you have quite forgot

A husband’s office? Shall, Antipholus,

Even in the spring of love, thy love-springs[3] rot?

Shall love in building[4] grow so ruinous?

5

If you did wed my sister for her wealth,

Then for her wealth’s sake use her with more kindness.

Or if you like elsewhere,[7] do it by stealth:

Muffle[8] your false love with some show of blindness.

Let not my sister read it in your eye,

10

Be not thy tongue thy own shame’s orator.[10]

Look sweet, speak fair, become disloyalty,[11]

Apparel[12] vice like virtue’s harbinger,

Bear a fair[13] presence though your heart be tainted,

Teach sin the carriage[14] of a holy saint,

15

Be secret-false.[15] What need she be acquainted?

What[16] simple thief brags of his own attaint?

’Tis double wrong to truant with your bed

And let her read it in thy looks at board.[18]

Shame hath a bastard fame,[19] well managèd,

20

Ill deeds is doubled with an evil word.

Alas, poor women, make us but believe —

Being compact of credit[22] — that you love us.

Though others[23] have the arm, show us the sleeve.

We in your motion[24] turn, and you may move us.

25

Then, gentle brother, get you in again,

Comfort my sister, cheer her, call her wife:

’Tis holy sport to be a little vain,[27]

When the sweet breath of flattery conquers strife.

ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSESweet mistress, what[29] your name is else I know not,

30

Nor by what wonder[30] you do hit of mine,

Less[31] in your knowledge and your grace you show not

Than our earth’s wonder, more than earth[32] divine.

Teach me, dear creature, how to think and speak.

Lay open to my earthy-gross conceit,[34]

35

Smothered in errors, feeble, shallow, weak,

The folded[36] meaning of your words’ deceit.

Against my soul’s pure truth, why labour you

To make it wander in an unknown field?

Are you a god? Would you create me new?[39]

40

Transform me then, and to your power I’ll yield.

But if that I am I, then well I know,

Your weeping sister is no wife of mine,

Nor to her bed no homage[43] do I owe.

Far more, far more to you do I decline.[44]

45

O, train[45] me not, sweet mermaid, with thy note,

To drown me in thy sister’s flood of tears.

Sing, siren, for thyself, and I will dote.[47]

Spread o’er the silver waves thy golden hairs,

And as a bed I’ll take them, and there lie,

50

And in that glorious supposition[50] think

He gains by death that[51] hath such means to die.

Let[52] love, being light, be drownèd if she sink.

LUCIANAWhat, are you mad that you do reason so?

ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSENot mad, but mated,[54] how, I do not know.

55

LUCIANAIt is a fault that springeth from your eye.

ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSEFor gazing on your beams,[56] fair sun, being by.

LUCIANAGaze where you should, and that will clear your sight.

ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSEAs good to wink,[58] sweet love, as look on night.

LUCIANAWhy call you me love? Call my sister so.

60

ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSEThy sister’s sister.

LUCIANAThat’s my sister.

ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSENo:

It is thyself, mine own self’s better part,

Mine eye’s clear eye, my dear heart’s dearer heart,

65

My food, my fortune and my sweet hope’s aim,

My[66] sole earth’s heaven and my heaven’s claim.

LUCIANAAll this my sister is, or else should be.

ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSECall[68] thyself sister, sweet, for I am thee.

Thee will I love, and with thee lead my life;

70

Thou hast no husband yet, nor I no wife:

Give me thy hand.

LUCIANAO, soft, sir, hold you still:

I’ll fetch my sister, to get her good will.[73]

Exit

Enter Dromio of Syracuse Running

ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSEWhy, how now, Dromio, where runn’st thou so fast?

DROMIO OF SYRACUSEDo you know me, sir? Am I Dromio? Am I your man? Am I myself?

ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSEThou art Dromio, thou art my man, thou art thyself.

DROMIO OF SYRACUSEI am an ass, I am a woman’s man and besides myself.[78]

ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSEWhat woman’s man? And how besides thyself?

DROMIO OF SYRACUSEMarry, sir, besides myself, I am due to a woman: one that claims me, one that haunts me, one that will have[81] me.

ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSEWhat claim lays she to thee?

DROMIO OF SYRACUSEMarry sir, such claim as you would lay to your horse, and she would have me as a beast[84] — not that, I being a beast, she would have me, but that she, being a very beastly creature, lays claim to me.

ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSEWhat is she?

DROMIO OF SYRACUSEA very reverent[87] body: ay, such a one as a man may not speak of, without he say ‘sir-reverence’.[88] I have but lean luck in the match, and yet is she a wondrous fat marriage.

ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSEHow dost thou mean a fat marriage?

DROMIO OF SYRACUSEMarry, sir, she’s the kitchen wench[91] and all grease, and I know not what use to put her to but to make a lamp of her and run from her by her own light. I warrant her rags and the tallow[93] in them will burn a Poland winter. If she lives till doomsday, she’ll burn a week[94] longer than the whole world.

ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSEWhat complexion[95] is she of?

DROMIO OF SYRACUSESwart,[96] like my shoe, but her face nothing like so clean kept: for why? She sweats[97] a man may go over shoes in the grime of it.

ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSEThat’s a fault that water will mend.

DROMIO OF SYRACUSENo, sir, ’tis in grain.[99] Noah’s flood could not do it.

ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSEWhat’s her name?

DROMIO OF SYRACUSENell,[101] sir. But her name and three quarters — that’s an ell and three quarters — will not measure her from hip to hip.

ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSEThen she bears some breadth?

DROMIO OF SYRACUSENo longer from head to foot than from hip to hip: she is spherical, like a globe. I could find[105] out countries in her.

ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSEIn what part of her body stands Ireland?

DROMIO OF SYRACUSEMarry, sir, in her buttocks: I found it out by the bogs.[107]

ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSEWhere Scotland?

DROMIO OF SYRACUSEI found it by the barrenness,[109] hard in the palm of the hand.

ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSEWhere France?

DROMIO OF SYRACUSEIn her forehead, armed and reverted,[111] making war against her hair.

ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSEWhere England?

DROMIO OF SYRACUSEI looked for the chalky cliffs,[114] but I could find no whiteness in them. But I guess it stood in her chin, by the salt rheum[115] that ran between France and it.

ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSEWhere Spain?

DROMIO OF SYRACUSEFaith, I saw it not, but I felt it hot[118] in her breath.

ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSEWhere America, the Indies?

DROMIO OF SYRACUSEO sir, upon her nose, all o’er embellished with rubies,[120] carbuncles, sapphires, declining[121] their rich aspect to the hot breath of Spain, who sent whole armadoes[122] of carracks to be ballast at her nose.

ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSEWhere stood Belgia,[123] the Netherlands?

DROMIO OF SYRACUSEO sir, I did not look so low. To conclude, this drudge[124] or diviner laid claim to me, called me Dromio, swore I was assured[125] to her, told me what privy[126] marks I had about me, as the mark of my shoulder, the mole in my neck, the great wart on my left arm, that I, amazed, ran from her as a witch. And, I think, if my breast had not been made of faith, and my heart of steel, she had transformed me to a curtal dog[129] and made me turn i’th’wheel.

130

ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSEGo, hie[130] thee presently, post to the road,

An if[131] the wind blow any way from shore,

I will not harbour[132] in this town tonight.

If any bark put forth,[133] come to the mart,

Where I will walk till thou return to me.

135

If everyone knows us and we know none,

’Tis time, I think, to trudge,[136] pack and be gone.

DROMIO OF SYRACUSEAs from a bear a man would run for life,

So fly I from her that would be my wife.

Exit

ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSEThere’s none but witches[139] do inhabit here,

140

And therefore ’tis high time that I were hence.

She that doth call me husband, even my[141] soul

Doth for a wife abhor. But her fair sister,

Possessed with such a gentle sovereign[143] grace,

Of such enchanting presence and discourse,

145

Hath almost made me traitor to myself.

But, lest myself be guilty to[146] self-wrong,

I’ll stop mine ears against the mermaid’s song.

Enter Angelo with the chain

ANGELOMaster Antipholus.

ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSEAy, that’s my name.

150

ANGELOI know it well, sir, lo,[150] here is the chain.

I thought to have ta’en you[151] at the Porpentine,

The chain unfinished made me stay[152] thus long. Gives the chain

ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSEWhat is your will that I shall do with this?

ANGELOWhat please[154] yourself, sir: I have made it for you.

155

ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSEMade it for me, sir? I bespoke[155] it not.

ANGELONot once, nor twice, but twenty times you have.

Go home with it and please your wife withal,

And soon at supper-time I’ll visit you,

And then receive my money for the chain.

160

ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSEI pray you, sir, receive the money now,

For fear you ne’er see chain nor money more.

ANGELOYou are a merry man, sir, fare you well.

Exit

ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSEWhat I should think of this, I cannot tell,

But this I think: there’s no man is so vain[164]

165

That would refuse so fair an offered chain.

I see a man here needs not live by shifts,[166]

When in the streets he meets such golden gifts.

I’ll to the mart, and there for Dromio stay,[168]

If any ship put out, then straight away.

Exit

Act 4 Scene 1

running scene 4

Enter a [Second] Merchant, [Angelo the] goldsmith and an Officer

SECOND MERCHANTYou know since Pentecost[1] the sum is due, To Angelo

And since I have not much importuned you,

Nor now I had[3] not, but that I am bound

To Persia and want guilders for my voyage:

5

Therefore make present satisfaction,[5]

Or I’ll attach[6] you by this officer.

ANGELOEven just[7] the sum that I do owe to you

Is growing[8] to me by Antipholus,

And in the instant that I met with you

10

He had of me a chain. At five o’clock

I shall receive the money for the same.

Pleaseth[12] you walk with me down to his house,

I will discharge[13] my bond and thank you too.

Enter Antipholus [and] Dromio of Ephesus from the Courtesan’s

OFFICERThat labour may you save: see where he comes.

15

ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUSWhile I go to the goldsmith’s house, go thou

And buy a rope’s end.[16] That will I bestow

Among my wife and her confederates,

For locking me out of my doors by day.

But soft, I see the goldsmith; get thee gone,

20

Buy thou a rope and bring it home to me.

DROMIO OF EPHESUSI buy a thousand pound a year, I buy a rope.[21]

Exit

ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUSA man is well holp up[22] that trusts to you: To Angelo

I promised your presence and the chain,

But neither chain nor goldsmith came to me.

25

Belike[25] you thought our love would last too long

If it were chained together, and therefore came not.

ANGELOSaving[27] your merry humour, here’s the note Shows a paper

How much your chain weighs to the utmost[28] carat,

The fineness of the gold and chargeful fashion,[29]

30

Which doth amount to three odd ducats[30] more

Than I stand debted[31] to this gentleman.

I pray you see him presently discharged,

For he is bound to sea and stays but[33] for it.

ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUSI am not furnished with the present[34] money.

35

Besides, I have some business in the town.

Good signior, take the stranger to my house

And with you take the chain and bid my wife

Disburse[38] the sum on the receipt thereof.

Perchance[39] I will be there as soon as you.

40

ANGELOThen you will bring the chain to her yourself.

ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUSNo, bear it with you, lest I come not time enough.[41]

ANGELOWell, sir, I will. Have you the chain about you?

ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUSAn if I have not, sir, I hope you have,

Or else you may return without your money.

45

ANGELONay, come, I pray you, sir, give me the chain.

Both wind and tide stays for this gentleman,

And I, to blame, have held him here too long.

ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUSGood lord! You use this dalliance[48] to excuse

Your breach of promise to[49] the Porpentine.

50

I should have chid[50] you for not bringing it,

But like a shrew[51] you first begin to brawl.

SECOND MERCHANTThe hour steals on, I pray you, sir, dispatch.[52] To Angelo

ANGELOYou hear how he importunes me — the chain!

ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUSWhy, give it to my wife and fetch your money.

55

ANGELOCome, come, you know I gave it you even now.

Either send the chain or send me by some token.[56]

ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUSFie, now you run this humour[57] out of breath:

Come, where’s the chain? I pray you let me see it.

SECOND MERCHANTMy business cannot brook[59] this dalliance.

60

Good sir, say whe’er you’ll answer[60] me or no:

If not, I’ll leave him to the officer.

ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUSI answer you? What should I answer you?

ANGELOThe money that you owe me for the chain.

ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUSI owe you none till I receive the chain.

65

ANGELOYou know I gave it you half an hour since.

ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUSYou gave me none, you wrong me much to say so.

ANGELOYou wrong me more, sir, in denying it.

Consider how it stands upon[68] my credit.

SECOND MERCHANTWell, officer, arrest him at my suit.[69]

70

OFFICERI do, and charge you in the duke’s name to obey me. To Angelo

ANGELOThis touches[71] me in reputation. To Antipholus

Either consent to pay this sum for me,

Or I attach you by this officer.

ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUSConsent to pay thee that[74] I never had?

75

Arrest me, foolish fellow, if thou dar’st.

ANGELOHere is thy fee,[76] arrest him, officer. Gives money

I would not spare my brother in this case,

If he should scorn me so apparently.[78]

OFFICERI do arrest you, sir, you hear the suit. To Antipholus

80

ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUSI do obey thee, till I give thee bail.—

But, sirrah, you[81] shall buy this sport as dear

As all the metal in your shop will answer.[82]

ANGELOSir, sir, I shall have law[83] in Ephesus,

To your notorious shame,[84] I doubt it not.

Enter Dromio [of] Syracuse, from the bay

85

DROMIO OF SYRACUSEMaster, there’s a bark of Epidamium

That stays but till her owner comes aboard,

And then, sir, she bears away. Our fraughtage,[87] sir,

I have conveyed aboard, and I have bought

The oil, the balsamum[89] and aqua-vitae.

90

The ship is in her trim,[90] the merry wind

Blows fair from land. They stay for nought at all

But for their owner, master, and yourself.

ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUSHow now? A madman? Why, thou peevish[93] sheep,

What ship of Epidamium stays for me?

95

DROMIO OF SYRACUSEA ship you sent me to, to hire[95] waftage.

ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUSThou drunken slave, I sent thee for a rope,

And told thee to what purpose and what end.

DROMIO OF SYRACUSEYou sent me for a rope’s end[98] as soon,

You sent me to the bay, sir, for a bark.

100

ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUSI will debate this matter at more leisure

And teach your ears to list[101] me with more heed.

To Adriana, villain, hie thee straight.[102]

Give her this key, and tell her in the desk Gives a key

That’s covered o’er with Turkish tapestry,

105

There is a purse of ducats, let her send it.

Tell her I am arrested in the street,

And that shall bail me. Hie thee, slave, be gone.—

On, officer, to prison till it come.

Exeunt [all but Dromio of Syracuse]

DROMIO OF SYRACUSETo Adriana? That is where we dined,

110

Where Dowsabel[110] did claim me for her husband.

She is too big, I hope, for me to compass.[111]

Thither I must, although against my will,

For servants must their masters’ minds[113] fulfil.

Exit

[Act 4 Scene 2]

running scene 5

Enter Adriana and Luciana

ADRIANAAh, Luciana, did he tempt thee so?

Mightst thou perceive austerely[2] in his eye

That he did plead in earnest, yea or no?

Looked he or[4] red or pale, or sad or merrily?

5

What observation[5] mad’st thou in this case,

Of his heart’s meteors[6] tilting in his face?

LUCIANAFirst he denied you had in him no[7] right.

ADRIANAHe meant he did me none, the more my spite.[8]

LUCIANAThen swore he that he was a stranger here.

10

ADRIANAAnd true[10] he swore, though yet forsworn he were.

LUCIANAThen pleaded I for you.

ADRIANAAnd what said he?

LUCIANAThat love I begged for you, he begged of me.

ADRIANAWith what persuasion did he tempt thy love?

15

LUCIANAWith words that in an honest[15] suit might move.

First, he did praise my beauty, then my speech.

ADRIANADidst speak him fair?[17]

LUCIANAHave patience, I beseech.

ADRIANAI cannot, nor I will not, hold me still.[19]

20

My tongue, though not my heart, shall have his[20] will.

He is deformèd, crooked, old and sere,[21]

Ill-faced, worse bodied, shapeless[22] everywhere,

Vicious, ungentle, foolish, blunt, unkind,

Stigmatical in making,[24] worse in mind.

25

LUCIANAWho would be jealous then of such a one?

No evil lost is wailed[26] when it is gone.

ADRIANAAh, but I think him better than I say,

And yet would[28] herein others’ eyes were worse.

Far[29] from her nest the lapwing cries away,

30

My heart prays for him, though my tongue do curse.

Enter Dromio of Syracuse Running, with the key

DROMIO OF SYRACUSEHere, go — the desk, the purse! Sweet, now, make haste.

LUCIANAHow hast thou lost thy breath?

DROMIO OF SYRACUSEBy running fast.

ADRIANAWhere is thy master, Dromio? Is he well?

35

DROMIO OF SYRACUSENo, he’s in Tartar limbo,[35] worse than hell.

A devil in an everlasting[36] garment hath him,

One whose hard heart is buttoned[37] up with steel:

A fiend, a fairy,[38] pitiless and rough,

A wolf, nay, worse, a fellow[39] all in buff,

40

A back-friend,[40] a shoulder-clapper, one that countermands

The passages[41] of alleys, creeks and narrow lands,

A hound that runs counter,[42] and yet draws dryfoot well,

One that before the judgement[43] carries poor souls to hell.

ADRIANAWhy, man, what is the matter?

45

DROMIO OF SYRACUSEI do not know the matter,[45] he is ’rested on the case.

ADRIANAWhat, is he arrested? Tell me at whose suit?[46]

DROMIO OF SYRACUSEI know not at whose suit he is arrested well,

But is in a suit of buff which ’rested him, that can I tell.

Will you send him, mistress, redemption,[49] the money in his desk?

50

ADRIANAGo fetch it, sister. This I wonder at,

Exit Luciana

That he, unknown to me, should be in debt.

Tell me, was he arrested on a band?[52]

DROMIO OF SYRACUSENot on a band, but on a stronger thing:

A chain, a chain, do you not hear it ring?

55

ADRIANAWhat, the chain?

DROMIO OF SYRACUSENo, no, the bell, ’tis time that I were gone.

It was two ere I left him, and now the clock strikes one.[57]

ADRIANAThe hours come back! That did I never hear.

DROMIO OF SYRACUSEO, yes, if any hour[59] meet a sergeant, a turns back for very fear.

60

ADRIANAAs if time were in debt. How fondly[60] dost thou reason.

DROMIO OF SYRACUSETime is a very bankrupt, and owes[61] more than he’s worth to season.

Nay, he’s a thief too: have you not heard men say

That Time comes stealing[64] on by night and day?

65

If a be in debt and theft,[65] and a sergeant in the way,

Hath he not reason to turn[66] back an hour in a day?

Enter Luciana With a purse

ADRIANAGo, Dromio, there’s the money, bear it straight,

And bring thy master home immediately.

[Exit Dromio, with the purse]

Come, sister, I am pressed down[69] with conceit:

70

Conceit, my comfort[70] and my injury.

Exeunt

[Act 4 Scene 3]

running scene 6

Enter Antipholus of Syracuse

ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSEThere’s not a man I meet but doth salute[1] me

As if I were their well-acquainted friend,

And everyone doth call me by my name:

Some tender[4] money to me, some invite me,

5

Some other give me thanks for kindnesses,

Some offer me commodities to buy.

Even now a tailor called me in his shop,

And showed me silks that he had bought for me,

And therewithal took measure of my body.

10

Sure these are but imaginary wiles,[10]

And Lapland[11] sorcerers inhabit here.

Enter Dromio of Syracuse With the purse

DROMIO OF SYRACUSEMaster, here’s the gold you sent me for. What, have you got the picture of old Adam new-apparelled?[13]

ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSEWhat gold is this? What Adam dost thou mean?

DROMIO OF SYRACUSENot that Adam[15] that kept the Paradise, but that Adam that keeps the prison: he that goes in the calf’s[16] skin that was killed for the Prodigal, he that came behind you, sir, like an evil angel, and bid you forsake your liberty.

ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSEI understand thee not.

DROMIO OF SYRACUSENo? Why, ’tis a plain case:[19] he that went like a bass-viol in a case of leather; the man, sir, that when gentlemen are tired, gives them a sob[20] and ’rests them.[21] He, sir, that takes pity on decayed men and gives them suits of durance. He that sets[22] up his rest to do more exploits with his mace than a morris-pike.[23]

ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSEWhat, thou mean’st an officer?

DROMIO OF SYRACUSEAy, sir, the sergeant of the band:[25] he that brings any man to answer it[26] that breaks his band, one that thinks a man always going to bed, and says, ‘God give you good rest[27]’.

ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSEWell, sir, there rest[28] in your foolery. Is there any ship puts forth tonight? May we be gone?

DROMIO OF SYRACUSEWhy, sir, I brought you word an hour since, that the bark Expedition put forth tonight, and then were you hindered by the sergeant, to tarry[31] for the hoy Delay. Gives him the purse Here are the angels[32] that you sent for to deliver you.

ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSEThe fellow is distract,[33] and so am I,

And here we wander in illusions.

35

Some blessèd power deliver us from hence!

Enter a Courtesan

COURTESANWell met, well met, Master Antipholus.

I see, sir, you have found the goldsmith now.

Is that the chain you promised me today?

ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSESatan avoid,[39] I charge thee tempt me not.

40

DROMIO OF SYRACUSEMaster, is this Mistress Satan?

ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSEIt is the devil.

DROMIO OF SYRACUSENay, she is worse, she is the devil’s dam:[42] and here she comes in the habit[43] of a light wench, and thereof comes that the wenches say ‘God damn me’, that’s as much to say, ‘God make me a light wench’. It is written, they appear to men like angels of light, light is an effect of fire, and fire will burn. Ergo,[45] light wenches will burn.[46] Come not near her.

COURTESANYour man and you are marvellous merry, sir. Will you go with me? we’ll mend[48] our dinner here.

DROMIO OF SYRACUSEMaster, if you do, expect spoon-meat,[49] or bespeak a long spoon.

ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSEWhy, Dromio?

DROMIO OF SYRACUSEMarry, he[51] must have a long spoon that must eat with the devil.

ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSEAvoid then, fiend, what[52] tell’st thou me of supping? To the Courtesan Thou art, as you are all,[53] a sorceress. I conjure thee to leave me and be gone.

COURTESANGive me the ring of mine you had at dinner, Or, for[56] my diamond, the chain you promised, And I’ll be gone, sir, and not trouble you.

DROMIO OF SYRACUSESome devils ask[58] but the parings of one’s nail, a rush, a hair, a drop of blood, a pin, a nut, a cherry-stone. But she, more covetous, would have a chain. Master, be wise, an if[60] you give it her, the devil will shake her chain and fright us with it.

COURTESANI pray you, sir, my ring, or else the chain.

I hope you do not mean to cheat me so?

ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSEAvaunt,[64] thou witch. Come, Dromio, let us go.

65

DROMIO OF SYRACUSE‘Fly pride’, says the peacock.[65] Mistress, that you know.

Exeunt [Antipholus and Dromio of Syracuse]

COURTESANNow, out of doubt Antipholus is mad,

Else would he never so demean[67] himself.

A ring he hath of mine worth forty ducats,

And for the same he promised me a chain.

70

Both one and other he denies me now.

The reason that I gather he is mad,

Besides this present instance of his rage,[72]

Is a mad tale he told today at dinner,

Of his own doors being shut against his entrance.

75

Belike[75] his wife, acquainted with his fits,

On purpose shut the doors against his way.

My way is now to hie home[77] to his house,

And tell his wife that, being lunatic,

He rushed into my house and took perforce[79]

80

My ring away. This course I fittest choose,[80]

For forty ducats is too much to lose.

[Exit]

[Act 4 Scene 4]

running scene 6 continues

Enter Antipholus of Ephesus with a Jailer [or Officer]

ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUSFear me not, man, I will not break away:

I’ll give thee, ere I leave thee, so much money

To warrant[3] thee as I am ‘rested for.

My wife is in a wayward[4] mood today,

5

And will not lightly[5] trust the messenger

That I should be attached[6] in Ephesus,

I tell you ‘twill sound harshly in her ears.

Enter Dromio of Ephesus with a rope’s-end

Here comes my man, I think he brings the money.—

How now, sir? Have you that I sent you for?

DROMIO OF EPHESUSHere’s that, I warrant you, will pay[10] them all. Gives the rope

ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUSBut where’s the money?

DROMIO OF EPHESUSWhy, sir, I gave the money for the rope.

ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUSFive hundred ducats, villain, for a rope?

DROMIO OF EPHESUSI’ll serve[14] you, sir, five hundred at the rate.

ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUSTo what end[15] did I bid thee hie thee home?

DROMIO OF EPHESUSTo[16] a rope’s-end, sir, and to that end am I returned.

ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUSAnd to[17] that end, sir, I will welcome you. Beats him

OFFICERGood sir, be patient.

DROMIO OF EPHESUSNay, ’tis for me to be patient, I am in adversity.

OFFICERGood now, hold thy tongue.

DROMIO OF EPHESUSNay, rather persuade him to hold his hands.[21]

ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUSThou whoreson,[22] senseless villain.

DROMIO OF EPHESUSI would I were senseless, sir, that I might not feel your blows.

ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUSThou art sensible in[24] nothing but blows, and so is an ass.

DROMIO OF EPHESUSI am an ass, indeed, you may prove it by my long ears.[25] I have served him from the hour of my nativity to this instant, and have nothing at his hands for my service but blows. When I am cold, he heats me with beating: when I am warm, he cools me with beating: I am waked with it when I sleep, raised with it when I sit, driven out of doors with it when I go from home, welcomed home with it when I return, nay, I bear it on my shoulders, as a beggar wont[30] her brat, and I think when he hath lamed me, I shall beg with it from door to door.

Enter Adriana, Luciana, Courtesan, and a schoolmaster called Pinch

ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUSCome, go along, my wife is coming yonder.

DROMIO OF EPHESUSMistress, To Adriana respice finem,[33] respect your end, or rather, the prophecy like the parrot, ‘beware the rope’s-end’.

ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUSWilt thou still[35] talk?

Beats Dromio

COURTESANHow say you now? Is not your husband mad? To Adriana

ADRIANAHis incivility confirms no less.

Good Doctor[38] Pinch, you are a conjurer,

Establish him in his true sense[39] again,

40

And I will please[40] you what you will demand.

LUCIANAAlas, how fiery and how sharp[41] he looks.

COURTESANMark how he trembles in his ecstasy.[42]

PINCHGive me your hand and let me feel your pulse. To Antipholus

ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUSThere is my hand, and let it feel your ear. Strikes him

45

PINCHI charge thee, Satan, housed within this man,

To yield possession to my holy prayers

And to thy state of darkness hie thee straight:

I conjure thee by all the saints in heaven.

ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUSPeace, doting[49] wizard, peace, I am not mad.

50

ADRIANAO, that thou wert not, poor distressèd soul.

ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUSYou minion, you, are these your customers?[51]

Did this companion[52] with the saffron face

Revel and feast it at my house today,

Whilst upon me the guilty doors were shut,

55

And I denied to enter in my house?

ADRIANAO husband, God doth know you dined at home,

Where would you had remained until this time,

Free from these slanders and this open shame.

ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUSDined at home?— Thou villain, what sayest thou? To Dromio

60

DROMIO OF EPHESUSSir, sooth[60] to say, you did not dine at home.

ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUSWere not my doors locked up, and I shut out?

DROMIO OF EPHESUSPerdie,[62] your doors were locked, and you shut out.

ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUSAnd did not she herself revile me there?

DROMIO OF EPHESUSSans fable,[64] she herself reviled you there.

65

ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUSDid not her kitchen-maid rail, taunt and scorn me?

DROMIO OF EPHESUSCertes[66] she did, the kitchen-vestal scorned you.

ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUSAnd did not I in rage depart from thence?

DROMIO OF EPHESUSIn verity[68] you did, my bones bear witness,

That since have felt the vigour of his rage.

70

ADRIANAIs’t good to soothe[70] him in these contraries? To Pinch

PINCHIt is no shame. The fellow[71] finds his vein, Aside to Adriana

And yielding to[72] him, humours well his frenzy.

ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUSThou hast suborned[73] the goldsmith to arrest me.

ADRIANAAlas, I sent you money to redeem you,

75

By Dromio here, who came in haste for it.

DROMIO OF EPHESUSMoney by me? Heart[76] and good will you might,

But surely, master, not a rag[77] of money.

ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUSWent’st not thou to her for a purse of ducats?

ADRIANAHe came to me and I delivered it.

80

LUCIANAAnd I am witness with her that she did.

DROMIO OF EPHESUSGod and the rope-maker bear me witness

That I was sent for nothing but a rope.

PINCHMistress, both man and master is possessed,

I know it by their pale and deadly[84] looks.

85

They must be bound and laid in some dark room.

ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUSSay, wherefore didst thou lock me forth[86] today?— To Adriana

And why dost thou deny the bag of gold? To Dromio

ADRIANAI did not, gentle husband, lock thee forth.

DROMIO OF EPHESUSAnd, gentle master, I received no gold:

90

But I confess, sir, that we were locked out.

ADRIANADissembling[91] villain, thou speak’st false in both.

ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUSDissembling harlot, thou art false in all,

And art confederate[93] with a damnèd pack

To make a loathsome abject scorn[94] of me.

95

But with these nails I’ll pluck out these false eyes

That would behold in me this shameful sport. He threatens Adriana

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

ADRIANAO, bind him, bind him, let him not come near me.

PINCHMore company,[98] the fiend is strong within him.

LUCIANAAy me, poor man, how pale and wan he looks.

100

ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUSWhat, will you murder me?— Thou jailer, thou,

I am thy prisoner. Wilt thou suffer them

To make a rescue?[102]

OFFICERMasters, let him go.

He is my prisoner, and you shall not have him.

105

PINCHGo bind this man, for he is frantic[105] too. They bind Dromio of Ephesus

ADRIANAWhat wilt thou do, thou peevish[106] officer?

Hast thou delight to see a wretched man

Do outrage and displeasure[108] to himself?

OFFICERHe is my prisoner. If I let him go,

110

The debt he owes will be required of me.

ADRIANAI will discharge[111] thee ere I go from thee.

Bear me forthwith unto his creditor,

And knowing[113] how the debt grows, I will pay it.

Good master doctor, see him safe conveyed

115

Home to my house. O, most unhappy day!

ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUSO, most unhappy strumpet!

DROMIO OF EPHESUSMaster, I am here entered in bond[117] for you.

ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUSOut on thee, villain, wherefore dost thou mad[118] me?

DROMIO OF EPHESUSWill you be bound for nothing? Be mad, good master: cry[119] ‘The devil!’

LUCIANAGod help poor souls, how idly do they talk.

ADRIANAGo bear him hence.— Sister, go you with me.

Exeunt [Pinch and his assistants, bearing Antipholus and Dromio of Ephesus] Adriana, Luciana, Officer and Courtesan remain

Say now, whose suit is he arrested at?

OFFICEROne Angelo, a goldsmith. Do you know him?

ADRIANAI know the man. What is the sum he owes?

OFFICERTwo hundred ducats.

ADRIANASay, how grows it due?

OFFICERDue for a chain your husband had of him.

ADRIANAHe did bespeak[129] a chain for me, but had it not.

130

COURTESANWhen as your husband all in rage today

Came to my house and took away my ring,

The ring I saw upon his finger now,

Straight after did I meet him with a chain.

ADRIANAIt may be so, but I did never see it.—

135

Come, jailer, bring me where the goldsmith is.

I long to know the truth hereof[136] at large.

Enter Antipholus and Dromio [of] Syracuse with their rapiers drawn

LUCIANAGod for thy mercy, they are loose again.

ADRIANAAnd come with naked[138] swords.

Let’s call more help to have them bound again.

OFFICERAway, they’ll kill us.

Run all out. Exeunt all, as fast as may be, frighted.

[Antipholus and Dromio of Syracuse remain]

ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSEI see these witches are afraid of swords.

DROMIO OF SYRACUSEShe that would be[142] your wife now ran from you.

ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSECome to the Centaur, fetch our stuff[143] from thence. I long that we were safe and sound aboard.

DROMIO OF SYRACUSEFaith, stay here this night, they will surely do us no harm. You saw they speak us fair,[146] give us gold. Methinks they are such a gentle nation that, but for the mountain of mad flesh that claims[147] marriage of me, I could find in my heart to stay here still[148] and turn witch.

ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSEI will not stay tonight for all the town. Therefore away, to get our stuff aboard.

Exeunt

Act 5 Scene 1

running scene 7

Enter the [Second] Merchant and [Angelo] the goldsmith

ANGELOI am sorry, sir, that I have hindered you,

But I protest, he had the chain of[2] me,

Though most dishonestly he doth deny it.

SECOND MERCHANTHow is the man esteemed here in the city?

5

ANGELOOf very reverend[5] reputation, sir,

Of credit infinite, highly beloved,

Second to none that lives here in the city:

His[8] word might bear my wealth at any time.

SECOND MERCHANTSpeak softly, yonder, as I think, he walks.

Enter Antipholus and Dromio [of Syracuse] again Antipholus wearing the chain

10

ANGELO’Tis so, and that self[10] chain about his neck

Which he forswore[11] most monstrously to have.

Good sir, draw near to me, I’ll speak to him.—

Signior Antipholus, I wonder much

That you would put me to this shame and trouble,

15

And not without some scandal to yourself,

With circumstance[16] and oaths so to deny

This chain, which now you wear so openly.

Beside[18] the charge, the shame, imprisonment,

You have done wrong to this my honest friend,

20

Who, but for staying on[20] our controversy,

Had hoisted sail and put to sea today.

This chain you had of me, can you deny it?

ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSEI think I had, I never did deny it.

SECOND MERCHANTYes, that you did, sir, and forswore it too.

25

ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSEWho heard me to deny it or forswear it?

SECOND MERCHANTThese ears of mine, thou know’st did hear thee.

Fie[27] on thee, wretch, ’tis pity that thou liv’st

To walk where any honest men resort.[28]

ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSEThou art a villain to impeach[29] me thus:

30

I’ll prove mine honour and mine honesty

Against thee presently,[31] if thou dar’st stand.

SECOND MERCHANTI dare, and do defy thee for a villain.

They draw. Enter Adriana, Luciana, [the] Courtesan and others

ADRIANAHold, hurt him not, for God’s sake, he is mad.

Some get within him,[34] take his sword away.

35

Bind Dromio too, and bear them to my house.

DROMIO OF SYRACUSERun, master, run, for God’s sake, take[36] a house.

This is some priory. In, or we are spoiled.[37]

Exeunt [Antipholus and Dromio of Syracuse] to the priory

Enter [Emilia, the] Lady Abbess

EMILIABe quiet, people. Wherefore throng you hither?

ADRIANATo fetch my poor distracted husband hence.

40

Let us come in, that we may bind him fast

And bear him home for his recovery.

ANGELOI knew he was not in his perfect wits.

SECOND MERCHANTI am sorry now that I did draw[43] on him.

EMILIAHow long hath this possession held the man?

45

ADRIANAThis week he hath been heavy,[45] sour, sad,

And much different from the man he was.

But till this afternoon his passion

Ne’er brake into extremity of rage.

EMILIAHath he not lost much wealth by wreck of sea?

50

Buried some dear friend? Hath not else his eye

Strayed[51] his affection in unlawful love,

A sin prevailing much in youthful men,

Who give their eyes the liberty of gazing?

Which of these sorrows is he subject to?

55

ADRIANATo none of these, except it be the last,

Namely, some love that drew him oft from home.

EMILIAYou should for that have reprehended[57] him.

ADRIANAWhy, so I did.

EMILIAAy, but not rough enough.

60

ADRIANAAs roughly as my modesty would let me.

EMILIAHaply[61] in private.

ADRIANAAnd in assemblies[62] too.

EMILIAAy, but not enough.

ADRIANAIt was the copy[64] of our conference.

65

In bed he slept not for my urging it,

At board[66] he fed not for my urging it.

Alone,[67] it was the subject of my theme,

In company I often glancèd[68] it:

Still[69] did I tell him it was vile and bad.

70

EMILIAAnd thereof[70] came it that the man was mad.

The venom clamours[71] of a jealous woman

Poisons more deadly than a mad dog’s tooth.

It seems his sleeps were hindered by thy railing,[73]

And thereof comes it that his head is light.[74]

75

Thou say’st his meat was sauced with thy upbraidings:

Unquiet meals make ill digestions.

Thereof the raging fire of fever bred,

And what’s a fever but a fit of madness?

Thou say’st his sports[79] were hindered by thy brawls:

80

Sweet recreation barred, what doth ensue

But moody and dull melancholy,

Kinsman to grim and comfortless despair,

And at her[83] heels a huge infectious troop

Of pale distemperatures[84] and foes to life?

85

In food, in sport and life-preserving[85] rest

To be disturbed, would mad[86] or man or beast.

The consequence is then thy jealous fits

Have scared thy husband from the use of[88] wits.

LUCIANAShe never reprehended him but mildly,

90

When he demeaned[90] himself rough, rude and wildly.

Why bear you these rebukes and answer not? To Adriana

ADRIANAShe did betray[92] me to my own reproof.

Good people enter and lay hold on him.

EMILIANo, not a creature enters in my house.

95

ADRIANAThen let your servants bring my husband forth.

EMILIANeither. He took this place for sanctuary,[96]

And it shall privilege[97] him from your hands

Till I have brought him to his wits again,

Or lose my labour[99] in assaying it.

100

ADRIANAI will attend my husband, be his nurse,

Diet[101] his sickness, for it is my office,

And will have no attorney[102] but myself,

And therefore let me have him home with me.

EMILIABe patient, for I will not let him stir

105

Till I have used the approvèd[105] means I have,

With wholesome syrups, drugs and holy prayers,

To make of him a formal[107] man again.

It is a branch[108] and parcel of mine oath,

A charitable duty of my order.

110

Therefore depart, and leave him here with me.

ADRIANAI will not hence and leave my husband here:

And ill it doth beseem your holiness

To separate the husband and the wife.

EMILIABe quiet and depart, thou shalt not have him.

[Exit]

115

LUCIANAComplain unto the duke of this indignity. To Adriana

ADRIANACome, go, I will fall prostrate at his feet,

And never rise until my tears and prayers

Have won his grace to come in person hither,

And take perforce[119] my husband from the abbess.

120

SECOND MERCHANTBy this,[120] I think, the dial points at five:

Anon,[121] I’m sure the duke himself in person

Comes this way to the melancholy vale,

The place of death and sorry[123] execution,

Behind the ditches of the abbey here.

125

ANGELOUpon what cause?

SECOND MERCHANTTo see a reverend Syracusan merchant,

Who put[127] unluckily into this bay

Against the laws and statutes of this town,

Beheaded publicly for his offence.

130

ANGELOSee where they come: we will behold his death.

LUCIANAKneel to the duke before he pass the abbey.

Enter the Duke of Ephesus and [Egeon] the merchant of Syracuse, bareheaded [and bound], with the Headsman and other Officers

DUKEYet once again proclaim it publicly,

If any friend will pay the sum for him,

He shall not die, so much we tender[134] him.

135

ADRIANAJustice, most sacred duke, against the abbess.

DUKEShe is a virtuous and a reverend lady.

It cannot be that she hath done thee wrong.

ADRIANAMay it please your grace, Antipholus, my husband —

Whom I made lord of me and all I had,

140

At your important[140] letters — this ill day

A most outrageous[141] fit of madness took him,

That desp’rately[142] he hurried through the street,

With him his bondman,[143] all as mad as he,

Doing displeasure[144] to the citizens

145

By rushing in their houses, bearing[145] thence

Rings, jewels, anything his rage did like.

Once did I get him bound, and sent him home,

Whilst to take order[148] for the wrongs I went,

That here and there his fury had committed.

150

Anon, I wot[150] not by what strong escape,

He broke from those that had the guard of him,

And with his mad attendant and himself,

Each one with ireful passion, with drawn swords,

Met us again and madly bent[154] on us,

155

Chased us away: till raising of more aid,

We came again to bind them. Then they fled

Into this abbey, whither we pursued them,

And here the abbess shuts the gates on us,

And will not suffer[159] us to fetch him out,

160

Nor send him forth that we may bear him hence.

Therefore, most gracious duke, with thy command

Let him be brought forth, and borne[162] hence for help.

DUKELong since thy husband served me in my wars,

And I to thee engaged[164] a prince’s word,

165

When thou didst make him master of thy bed,

To do him all the grace[166] and good I could.

Go some of you, knock at the abbey-gate,

And bid the lady abbess come to me.

I will determine[169] this before I stir.

Enter a Messenger

170

MESSENGERO, mistress, mistress, shift[170] and save yourself, To Adriana

My master and his man are both broke loose,

Beaten the maids a-row,[172] and bound the doctor,

Whose beard they have singed off with brands[173] of fire,

And ever as it blazed, they threw on him

175

Great pails of puddled mire[175] to quench the hair.

My master preaches patience to him, and the while

His man with scissors nicks[177] him like a fool,

And sure,[178] unless you send some present help,

Between them they will kill the conjurer.

180

ADRIANAPeace, fool, thy master and his man are here,

And that is false thou dost report to us.

MESSENGERMistress, upon my life, I tell you true,

I have not breathed almost since I did see it.

He cries for you, and vows if he can take[184] you,

185

To scorch your face and to disfigure you.

Cry within

Hark, hark! I hear him, mistress: fly, be gone.

DUKECome, stand by me, fear nothing.— Guard with halberds.[187]

ADRIANAAy me, it is my husband: witness you,

That he is borne about[189] invisible.

190

Even now we housed him in the abbey here,

And now he’s there, past[191] thought of human reason.

Enter Antipholus and Dromio of Ephesus

ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUSJustice, most gracious duke, O, grant me justice,

Even for the service that long since I did thee,

When I bestrid thee[194] in the wars, and took

195

Deep scars to save thy life; even for the blood

That then I lost for thee, now grant me justice.

EGEONUnless the fear of death doth make me dote,[197]

I see my son Antipholus and Dromio.

ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUSJustice, sweet prince, against that woman there:

200

She whom thou gav’st to me to be my wife,

That hath abusèd and dishonoured me,

Even in the strength[202] and height of injury.

Beyond imagination is the wrong

That she this day hath shameless thrown on me.

205

DUKEDiscover[205] how, and thou shalt find me just.

ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUSThis day, great duke, she shut the doors upon me,

While she with harlots[207] feasted in my house.

DUKEA grievous fault: say, woman, didst thou so?

ADRIANANo, my good lord. Myself, he and my sister

210

Today did dine together. So[210] befall my soul,

As this is false he burdens me withal.

LUCIANANe’er may I look on[212] day, nor sleep on night,

But she tells to your highness simple truth.

ANGELOO perjured woman! They are both forsworn,[214]

215

In this the madman justly chargeth[215] them.

ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUSMy liege, I am advisèd[216] what I say,

Neither disturbed with the effect of wine,

Nor heady-rash,[218] provoked with raging ire,

Albeit[219] my wrongs might make one wiser mad.

220

This woman locked me out this day from dinner;

That goldsmith there, were he not packed[221] with her,

Could witness[222] it, for he was with me then,

Who parted with me to go fetch a chain,

Promising to bring it to the Porpentine,

225

Where Balthazar and I did dine together.

Our dinner done, and he not coming thither,

I went to seek him. In the street I met him,

And in his company that gentleman. Indicates Second Merchant

There did this perjured goldsmith swear[229] me down

230

That I this day of him received the chain,

Which, God he knows, I saw not. For the which

He did arrest me with an officer.

I did obey, and sent my peasant[233] home

For certain[234] ducats: he with none returned.

235

Then fairly I bespoke[235] the officer

To go in person with me to my house.

By[237] th’way we met my wife, her sister, and a rabble more

Of vile confederates. Along with them

They brought one Pinch, a hungry[239] lean-faced villain,

240

A mere anatomy,[240] a mountebank,

A threadbare[241] juggler and a fortune-teller,

A needy,[242] hollow-eyed, sharp-looking wretch,

A living dead man. This pernicious[243] slave,

Forsooth,[244] took on him as a conjurer,

245

And gazing in mine eyes, feeling my pulse,

And with[246] no face, as ’twere, outfacing me,

Cries out, I was possessed. Then all together

They fell upon me, bound me, bore me thence,

And in a dark and dankish[249] vault at home

250

There left me and my man, both bound together,

Till gnawing with my teeth my bonds in sunder,[251]

I gained my freedom, and immediately

Ran hither to your grace, whom I beseech

To give me ample satisfaction

255

For these deep shames and great indignities.

ANGELOMy lord, in truth, thus far I witness with him,

That he dined not at home, but was locked out.

DUKEBut had he such a chain of thee, or no?

ANGELOHe had, my lord: and when he ran in here,

260

These people saw the chain about his neck.

SECOND MERCHANTBesides, I will be sworn these ears of mine To Antipholus

Heard you confess you had the chain of him,

After you first forswore it on the mart,

And thereupon I drew my sword on you:

265

And then you fled into this abbey here,

From whence I think you are come by miracle.

ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUSI never came within these abbey walls,

Nor ever didst thou draw thy sword on me:

I never saw the chain, so help me heaven,

270

And this is false you burden me withal.

DUKEWhy, what an intricate impeach[271] is this?

I think you all have drunk of Circe’s cup.[272]

If here you housed him, here he would have been.

If he were mad, he would not plead so coldly.[274]

275

You say he dined at home, the goldsmith here To Adriana

Denies that saying.— Sirrah, what say you? To Dromio

DROMIO OF EPHESUSSir, he dined with her there, at the Porpentine.

COURTESANHe did, and from my finger snatched that ring.

ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS’Tis true, my liege, this ring I had of her.

280

DUKESaw’st thou him enter at the abbey here?

COURTESANAs sure, my liege, as I do see your grace.

DUKEWhy, this is strange. Go call the abbess hither.

I think you are all mated,[283] or stark mad.

Exit one to the Abbess

EGEONMost mighty duke, vouchsafe[284] me speak a word:

285

Haply[285] I see a friend will save my life,

And pay the sum that may deliver me.

DUKESpeak freely, Syracusan, what thou wilt.

EGEONIs not your name, sir, called Antipholus?

And is not that your bondman, Dromio?

290

DROMIO OF EPHESUSWithin this hour I was his bondman[290] sir,

But he, I thank him, gnawed in two my cords,

Now am I Dromio, and his man unbound.

EGEONI am sure you both of you remember me.

DROMIO OF EPHESUSOurselves[294] we do remember, sir, by you,

295

For lately we were bound as you are now.

You are not Pinch’s patient, are you, sir?

EGEONWhy look you strange[297] on me? You know me well.

ANTIPHOLUSI never saw you in my life till now.

EGEONO, grief hath changed me since you saw me last,

300

And careful[300] hours with time’s deformèd hand

Have written strange defeatures[301] in my face.

But tell me yet, dost thou not know my voice?

ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUSNeither.[303]

EGEONDromio, nor thou?

305

DROMIO OF EPHESUSNo, trust me, sir, nor I.

EGEONI am sure thou dost.

DROMIO OF EPHESUSAy, sir, but I am sure I do not, and whatsoever a man denies, you

are now bound[308] to believe him.

EGEONNot know my voice? O time’s extremity,

310

Hast thou so cracked[310] and splitted my poor tongue

In seven short years[311] that here my only son

Knows not my feeble[312] key of untuned cares?

Though now this grainèd[313] face of mine be hid

In sap-consuming[314] winter’s drizzled snow,

315

And all the conduits[315] of my blood froze up,

Yet hath my night[316] of life some memory,

My wasting lamps[317] some fading glimmer left,

My dull deaf ears a little use to hear:

All these old witnesses — I cannot err —

320

Tell me thou art my son Antipholus.

ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUSI never saw my father in my life.

EGEONBut[322] seven years since, in Syracusa, boy,

Thou know’st we parted, but perhaps, my son,

Thou sham’st to acknowledge me in misery.

325

ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUSThe duke, and all that know me in the city,

Can witness with me that it is not so.

I ne’er saw Syracusa in my life.

DUKEI tell thee, Syracusan, twenty years

Have I been patron to Antipholus,

330

During which time he ne’er saw Syracusa:

I see thy age and dangers make thee dote.

Enter the Abbess [Emilia], with Antipholus and Dromio of Syracuse

EMILIAMost mighty duke, behold a man much wronged.

All gather to see them

ADRIANAI see two husbands, or mine eyes deceive me.

DUKEOne of these men is genius[334] to the other:

335

And so of these, which is the natural man,

And which the spirit? Who deciphers[336] them?

DROMIO OF SYRACUSEI, sir, am Dromio, command him away.

DROMIO OF EPHESUSI, sir, am Dromio, pray let me stay.

ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSEEgeon art thou not? Or else his ghost.

340

DROMIO OF SYRACUSEO, my old master, who hath bound him here?

EMILIAWhoever bound him, I will loose his bonds,

And gain a husband by his liberty.

Speak, old Egeon, if thou be’st the man

That hadst a wife once called Emilia,

345

That bore thee at a burden[345] two fair sons?

O, if thou be’st the same Egeon, speak,

And speak unto the same Emilia.

DUKEWhy, here begins his morning story[348] right:

These two Antipholuses, these two so like,

350

And these two Dromios, one in semblance[350] —

Besides her urging of[351] her wreck at sea —

These are the parents to these children,

Which accidentally are met together.

EGEONIf I dream not, thou art Emilia.

355

If thou art she, tell me where is that son

That floated with thee on the fatal raft?

EMILIABy men of Epidamium, he and I

And the twin Dromio, all were taken up;

But by and by, rude[359] fishermen of Corinth

360

By force took Dromio and my son from them,

And me they left with those of Epidamium.

What then became of them, I cannot tell,

I to this fortune that you see me in.

DUKEAntipholus, thou cam’st from Corinth first.

365

ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSENo, sir, not I, I came from Syracuse.

DUKEStay,[366] stand apart, I know not which is which.

ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUSI came from Corinth, my most gracious lord.

DROMIO OF EPHESUSAnd I with him.

ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUSBrought to this town by that most famous warrior,

370

Duke Menaphon,[370] your most renownèd uncle.

ADRIANAWhich of you two did dine with me today?

ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSEI, gentle mistress.

ADRIANAAnd are not you my husband?

ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUSNo, I say nay to that.

375

ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSEAnd so do I, yet did she call me so.

And this fair gentlewoman, her sister here,

Did call me brother.— What I told you then, To Luciana

I hope I shall have leisure[378] to make good,

If this be not a dream I see and hear.

380

ANGELOThat is the chain, sir, which you had of me. Points to chain

ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSEI think it be, sir, I deny it not.

ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUSAnd you, sir, for this chain arrested me. To Angelo

ANGELOI think I did, sir, I deny it not.

ADRIANAI sent you money, sir, to be your bail To Antipholus of Ephesus

385

By Dromio, but I think he brought it not.

DROMIO OF EPHESUSNo, none by me.

ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSEThis purse of ducats I received from you, To Adriana

And Dromio, my man, did bring them me. Shows purse

I see we still[389] did meet each other’s man,

390

And I was ta’en for him, and he for me,

And thereupon these errors are arose.[391]

ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUSThese ducats pawn I for my father here. Offers money

DUKEIt shall not need, thy father hath his life.

COURTESANSir, I must have that diamond from you. To Antipholus of Ephesus

395

ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUSThere, take it, and much thanks for my good cheer.[395] Gives ring

EMILIARenowned duke, vouchsafe to take the pains

To go with us into the abbey here,

And hear at large discoursèd all our fortunes.

And all that are assembled in this place,

400

That by this sympathizèd[400] one day’s error

Have suffered wrong, go, keep us company,

And we shall make full satisfaction.[402]

Thirty-three years have I but[403] gone in travail

Of you, my sons, and till this present hour

405

My heavy burden ne’er deliverèd.

The duke, my husband, and my children both,

And you the calendars[407] of their nativity,

Go to a gossips’[408] feast, and joy with me,

After so long grief, such festivity.

410

DUKEWith all my heart, I’ll gossip at[410] this feast.

Exeunt all. The two Dromios and two brothers [Antipholus] remain

DROMIO OF SYRACUSEMaster, shall I fetch your stuff from shipboard? To Antipholus of Ephesus

ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUSDromio, what stuff of mine hast thou embarked?[412]

DROMIO OF SYRACUSEYour goods that lay at host,[413] sir, in the Centaur.

ANTIPHOLUS OF SYRACUSEHe speaks to me, I am your master, Dromio.

415

Come, go with us, we’ll look to that anon.

Embrace thy brother there, rejoice with him.

Exeunt [Antipholus of Syracuse and Antipholus of Ephesus]

DROMIO OF SYRACUSEThere is a fat friend[418] at your master’s house,

That kitchened me[419] for you today at dinner.

420

She now shall be my sister,[420] not my wife.

DROMIO OF EPHESUSMethinks you are my glass,[421] and not my brother:

I see by you, I am a sweet-faced youth.

Will you walk in to see their gossiping?

DROMIO OF SYRACUSENot I, sir, you are my elder.

425

DROMIO OF EPHESUSThat’s a question, how shall we try it?

DROMIO OF SYRACUSEWe’ll draw cuts[426] for the senior, till then, lead thou first.

DROMIO OF EPHESUSNay then, thus:

We came into the world like brother and brother,

And now let’s go hand in hand, not one before another.

Exeunt

Textual Notes

F = First Folio text of 1623, the only authority for the play

F2 = a correction introduced in the Second Folio text of 1632

Ed = a correction introduced by a later editor

SD = stage direction

SH = speech heading (i.e., speaker’s name)

List of parts = Ed

1.1.1 SH EGEON = Ed. F = Marchant, Mer. Or Father throughout speech headings 42 the = Ed. F = he 54 poor mean = F2. F = meane 101 up upon = F2. F = vp 115 bark = F2. F = backe 122 thee = F2. F = they 126 for = F2. F = so 150 health = Ed. F = helpe

1.2.4 arrival = F2. F = a riuall 15 travel spelled travaile in F (used for both travel and travail) 37 falling = F. Ed. = failing 66 clock = Ed. F = cooke 93 God’s = Ed. F = God 96 o’er-raught = Ed. F = ore-wrought

2.1.12 ill = F2. F = thus 59 thousand = F2. F = hundred 62 come home = Ed. F = come 110 Wear = Ed. F = Where

2.2.12 didst = F2. F = did didst 78 men = Ed. F = them 89 tiring = Ed. F = trying 166 stronger = Ed. F = stranger 177 offered = Ed. F = free’d

3.1.83 you = F2. F = your 97, 99 her = Ed. F = your

3.2.0 SD Luciana = Ed. F Iuliana 1 SH LUCIANA = Ed. F = Iulia 4 building = Ed. F = buildings ruinous = Ed. F = ruinate 16 attaint = Ed. F = attaine 21 but = Ed. F = not 26 wife = F2. F = wise 46 sister’s = F2. F = sister 49 bed = F2. F = bud 49 them = Ed. F = thee 57 where = Ed. F = when 101 and = Ed. F = is 112 hair = F2. F = heire

4.1.7 SH ANGELO = Ed. F = Gold. throughout 17 her = Ed. F = their 28 carat spelled charect in F

4.2.6 Of = F2. F = Oh 37 One spelled On in F 51 That = F2. F = Thus 66 a = Ed. F = I

4.3.28 ship = F2. F = ships 49 you do = F2. F = do

4.4.136 SD their rapiers = Ed.F = his Rapier

5.1.36 God’s = Ed. F = God 123 death = Ed. F = depth 405 ne’er = Ed. F = are 408 joy = Ed. F = go 409 festivity = Ed. F = Natiuity

Act 1 Scene 1

1.1    Location: Ephesus. This is the location for the whole play. Most of the action takes place outdoors in public, in or near the market (“mart”) Ephesus Ionian city, now part of Turkey    Syracuse city in Sicily

2    doom sentence

4    partial inclined

6    rancorous outrage bitter wrongdoing

7    well-dealing civil, honest

8    wanting lacking    guilders silver coins    redeem ransom

9    sealed certified (as if their bloods were sealing wax)    rigorous statutes severe laws (literally, legal documents)

11    mortal deadly    intestine internal    jars conflicts

12    seditious turbulent

13    synods assemblies

15    traffic to trade between    adverse hostile

17    marts markets

20    to at    dispose disposal

21    marks coins, each worth two-thirds of a pound    levièd raised

22    quit pay

23    substance possessions

31    heavier more sorrowful

32    I for me

33    that so that

34    wrought by nature brought about by natural affection

35    gives me leave permits me to

37    but only

38    by…bad would have been happy with me had we not suffered misfortune

41    Epidamium Epidamnus, port on the coast of Illyricum; now Durrës in Albania    factor’s agent’s

42    at random unattended

43    embracements embraces

46    pleasing punishment i.e., pregnancy

54    mean lowly, humble

56    for because

57    attend serve/accompany

58    meanly a little

59    motions urgings

61    league about three miles

62    deep sea

63    instance suggestion

67    doubtful warrant dreadful assurance

70    before for in the face of

71    plainings wailing

72    for fashion as is customary

73    delays i.e., from death

74    it was is what happened

75    boat the ship’s life-boat

76    sinking-ripe ready to sink

77    careful concerned    latter-born youngest

81    like equally

83    whom him/those on whom

84    the of the

85    straight immediately    stream current

86    Corinth Greek city

88    vapours clouds offended assailed

89    benefit help

91    amain swiftly

92    Epidaurus probably a port on the Adriatic coast, just south of Dubrovnik (then Illyria, now Croatia), though there was another Epidaurus (famous for its amphitheater) in Greece

93    ere before

94    that that which

95    forward proceed

98    Worthily deservedly

99    meet by come within    twice five leagues about thirty miles

105    What something

111    seized on us took hold of us/hauled us up

112    hap chance

114    reft…prey deprived the fishermen of their catch

115    bark small ship

121    dilate relate

122    befall’n of happened to

123    eldest longest

125    After about    importuned begged

126    attendant i.e., one of the twins of humbler birth    like the same

127    Reft…name deprived of his brother, but retaining his sibling’s name

128    of for

129    laboured…love longed

130    hazarded…loved i.e., risked losing my younger son

132    clean completely    bounds territories

133    coasting traveling along the coast

135    Or either

138    travels also “travails” (efforts, pains)    warrant guarantee

139    Hapless unlucky

143    would they even if they wanted to    disannul abolish

144    sue plead, petition

145    adjudgèd condemned

147    But to except at the cost of    disparagement disgrace

149    limit allow

150    health i.e., life, well-being

156    wend go, direct himself

157    procrastinate postpone

Act 1 Scene 2

1.2    Antipholus from the Greek anti + philia (“opposing love”); Folio entry direction calls him “Antipholis Erotes” (suggesting Latin erratus, “wanderer”/Erotes, “lovegods, cupids”) Dromio Greek for “runner”

1    give out say

5    buy out ransom

8    to keep in my keeping

9    the Centaur an inn    host lodge

11    dinner-time i.e., about noon

12    manners habits, nature

13    Peruse observe

18    mean opportunity/means (i.e., the money)

19    villain servant/rogue    oft often

20    care cares, troubles

21    humour mood (one of the four bodily “humors” that governed the disposition)

25    benefit profit

26    Soon at at about/promptly at

28    consort accompany

32    content pleasure, enjoyment

37    find…forth discover his companion (some editors emend falling to “failing”)

38    Unseen unknown/inexperienced    confounds becomes indistinguishable to/destroys/loses

40    unhappy ill-fated

41    almanac…date as they were born at the same time, Dromio is a living calendar for Antipholus to judge his age by

44    capon castrated cockerel (a common dish)

46    made it one i.e., struck him

47    hot angry

49    stomach appetite

50    broke your fast had breakfast

51    fast and pray acts of penitence

52    penitent repentant/fasting    default offence

53    Stop…wind hold your breath, shut up

55    o’ on

56    crupper leather strap on a horse’s saddle

58    sportive merry

61    charge responsibility    from…custody out of your own keeping

63    post haste

64    post beaten, like a tavern doorpost on which accounts were marked

65    score engrave/count    pate head

66    maw stomach

68    out of season irrelevant/inappropriate

72    have done end

73    charge responsibility, task

75    the Phoenix the name of Antipholus’ house or sign of his shop

76    stays wait

79    sconce head

80    stands insists    undisposed not in the mood

85    those i.e., the beatings

90    hie hasten

94    an if    take take to

95    device scheme

96    o’er-raught cheated

97    cozenage trickery

98    As such as    jugglers illusionists, tricksters

99    Dark-working secretive/with the power to create darkness

100    deform transform/harm

101    prating mountebanks swift-talking quacks

102    liberties of sin unrestrained, dissolute sinners (some editors emend to “libertines”)

Act 2 Scene 1

2.1    Adriana the name means “dark one,” suggesting she may be brunette    Antipholus [of Ephesus] Folio entry direction calls him [Antipholis Sereptus] (from Latin surreptus, “stolen away”)    Luciana the name means “light one,” suggesting she may be blonde

3    Sure surely

8    see time see fit

11    still always

12    when whenever    serve treat    ill badly

15    lashed whipped/harnessed

16    situate situated

17    bound limit

19    at their controls under their control

20    more divine closer to God in the order of being

25    attend…accords serve their wishes/wait on their consent

28    bear some sway wield some power

30    start…where wander elsewhere (i.e., have an affair)

31    forbear be patient

32    No…pause no wonder she hesitates to marry

33    other cause reason to behave otherwise

36    like the same

39    helpless useless

40    like right bereft yourself deprived of similar rights

41    fool-begged foolish    left abandoned

42    but to try just to see what it’s like

45    two…ears refers to his earlier beating

48    told communicated/tolled (i.e., struck)    Beshrew curse

50    doubtfully ambiguously (Dromio shifts the sense to “dreadfully”)

52    understand comprehend/endure (“stand under”)

55    horn-mad furious (like a horned beast)

57    cuckold-mad enraged like a husband with an unfaithful wife; such men were popularly imagined to grow horns

65    Hang up hang

66    out on expression of indignant contempt

70    my…shoulders the message I should have delivered verbally he made me return with on my shoulders (as a beating)

74    new freshly

77    bless puns on the sense of “wound” (from French: “blesser”)

78    holy blessed/full of holes

79    peasant servant (contemptuous)

80    round outspoken/spherical

81    spurn kick/treat contemptuously

83    last plays on sense of “wooden mold of a foot used for making shoes”    leather i.e., like a    football (or shoe)

84    loureth scowls

85    His i.e., Antipholus’    do…grace give pleasure to his sweethearts

87    homely plain

88    wasted withered/squandered

89    discourses conversations    wit intelligence

90    voluble articulate    marred ruined

91    than marble hard than even hard marble would

92    their i.e., the    minions’ gay vestments pretty, bright outfits    bait ensnare (plays on “bate”—i.e., “reduce” the force of his love for Adriana)

93    state estate, appearance

95    By…ruined that he is not responsible for    ground cause

96    defeatures waning attractions    fair beauty

98    deer puns on “dear”    pale boundaries

99    feeds from home satisfies his appetites elsewhere    stale laughing-stock/prostitute

101    Unfeeling fools only insensitive fools

102    doth homage otherwhere admires another woman

103    lets prevents

105    Would…detain a heavily disputed line, variously emended to “alone o’ love,” “alone, alone” or “alone, alas”; the gist seems to be “I had rather he would withhold the gift (chain) and remain faithful”

106    So as long as    keep…bed i.e., remain faithful

107    jewel best enamellèd even the most beautifully enameled ornament (or woman)

108    bides still lasts for ever (like a true wife)

109    touch the quality of gold was tested by rubbing it against a touchstone (plays on sense of “fondle sexually”)

110    Wear wear away (may also play on the idea of using up one’s money on mistresses or whores)    name reputation

114    fond doting/foolish

Act 2 Scene 2

2    heedful attentive/careful    slave servant/rascal

3    in care conscientiously

4    By…report by working out my whereabouts based on the inkeeper’s information

5    could not speak have not spoken

8    strokes blows

13    spake I did I speak

17    the gold’s receipt receiving the gold

19    felt’st understood/physically experienced

20    vein mood

22    in the teeth to my face

24    earnest genuine (plays on the financial sense of “deposit laid to secure a bargain”)

27    for as    fool companion/jester

28    sauciness insolence    jest upon trifle with

29    make…hours intrude upon my important matters as though they were free to anyone

30    sport play

32    aspect disposition (plays on the sense of “planetary position”)

33    fashion suit, adapt    demeanour attitude, behavior

34    sconce head (Dromio plays on the sense of “fortress”)

35    So if    battering beating/attacking with a battering ram

36    An if    blows long puns on “long bow”    sconce protection/helmet

37    ensconce shelter    seek…shoulders i.e., as my brains will have been beaten into my shoulders

42    wherefore for what reason

44    urging repeating

46    out of season unjustly

50    Marry by the Virgin Mary    something…nothing i.e., beating that I did nothing to deserve

51    to give by giving

53    wants that lacks that which

54    In good time indeed

55    Basting moistening/beating

59    choleric angry (choler was the hot humor worsened by a dry diet)    dry severe

60    in good time appropriately

62    durst have denied would have dared deny

63    By what rule on what grounds

64    Father Time traditionally depicted as an elderly man, bald but for a forelock of hair

69    fine and recovery legal terms for the process of transferring ownership or inheritance of property

70    fine fee    periwig wig    hair puns on “heir”

72    such a niggard so begrudging

73    excrement outgrowth

75    scanted limited

77    hath…hair is clever enough to lose his hair (ironic, since baldness was a symptom of syphilis; wit may play on sense of “penis”)

78    plain dealers straightforward, frank

80    plainer dealer greater womanizer (playing on “to deal”—i.e., “to have sex”)

81    jollity sexual pleasure

83    two plays on the notion of testicles    sound valid (Antipholus plays on the sense of “healthy”)

85    Sure certain (Antipholus plays on the sense of “trustworthy”)

86    thing falsing deceptive situation/unfaithful vagina

87    Certain reliable

89    tiring dressing his hair

90    they his hairs    porridge soup

95    substantial substantiated

97    mend amend

99    bald inane    wafts beckons

101    strange without recognition, distant

102    aspects looks

104    unurged unprompted

109    carved sliced the meat (plays on slang sense of “had sex with”)

111    estrangèd from thyself so unlike yourself/so distant toward me, your other half

113    incorporate united in one body

114    better part soul/higher qualities

116    fall let fall

117    breaking gulf sea

120    As…too as take yourself from me without taking myself away from me

121    dearly grievously    quick most tender spot

123    consecrate sanctified, dedicated

125    spurn strike

127    stained overly made-up, like a whore/figuratively tarnished by impure deeds/branded as a punishment for harlotry

128    false unfaithful

130    see…it make sure that you do

131    possessed with seized by    adulterate blot the stain of adultery

132    blood is mingled blood was thought to mingle during sex

135    strumpeted made a whore

136    Keep…league if you remain faithful

137    distained unstained

141    Who and I    scanned analyzed

142    Wants…understand am unable to comprehend a single word

143    brother brother-in-law

144    wont accustomed

148    return report

149    buffet beat

150    for tobe

152    course and drift purpose and meaning    compact agreement

158    inspiration divine or magical revelation

159    ill agrees it badly it suits gravity dignity

160    counterfeit dissemble    grossly blatantly

161    Abetting encouraging/enabling    thwart…mood cross me in my anger

162    Be…exempt even if it is my fault that you have distanced yourself from me

163    wrong…contempt do not increase that injury by treating me with further disdain

166    stronger state superior condition

167    communicate share

168    possess takes, draws    dross rubbish

169    brier a wild and thorny rose that grows rapidly    idle worthless

170    with intrusion invasively

171    confusion destruction

172    moves…theme appeals to me as her subject matter

175    error misapprehension

176    sure uncertainty undoubted mystery

177    entertain accept, play along with    offered fallacy delusion I am presented with

178    spread lay the table

179    beads rosary    cross me make the sign of the Christian cross    for as

181    owls sometimes associated with witchcraft and evil    sprites spirits

184    pratest thou do you babble

185    sot fool

186    transformèd metamorphosed (by magic)

190    ape fool/merely an imitator of humanity

191    aught anything

192    rides controls    grass open pasture (i.e., freedom)

196    put…weep i.e., cry like a child

197    laugh…scorn mock my grief

198    keep guard

199    above i.e., in private/literally, upon the upper level of the stage, hence potentially unable to see those below

200    shrive absolve

202    forth away from home

205    well-advised in my right mind

207    persever carry on

208    at…go take on all new experiences

Act 3 Scene 1

2    shrewish bad-tempered    keep not hours am late

4    carcanet jewelled necklace

6    face me down impudently contradict me that

8    charged entrusted/accused him of possessing

12    hand handiwork, mark of your hand (plays on sense of “handwriting”)

18    at that pass in that predicament

20    sad solemn    cheer fare, hospitality

21    answer live up to

22    I…dear I value your warm welcome more highly than the delicacies at your table

23    either…dish even the warmest welcome is not tantamount to one good dish    flesh meat

25    churl peasant

28    small cheer little/humble food

29    sparing moderate

30    cates delicacies/provisions    mean frugal/humble    part spirit

32    soft wait a moment

33    Ginn probably a form of Jenny

34    Mome idiot    malt-horse oaf (large horse used by breweries)    capon eunuch (literally, castrated cockerel)    coxcomb fool    patch clown, rogue

35    hatch lower part of a door (puns on “set a hatch before the door”—i.e., “keep quiet”)

36    conjure for wenches pimp for prostitutes/summon women by spells    store large quantity

37    one…many even one woman is more than enough

38    stays waits

39    from back to

40    Ho an expression to call attention

41    an if

44    owe own

46    office position

47    mickle great

48    If…ass i.e., “If you had gone through what I have today you would have wished you weren’t me”

50    coil disturbance

54    Have at let me attack    set…staff make myself at home (with phallic connotations)

55    When…tell? i.e., never

58    minion servant/hussy

62    blow verbal blow/knock at the door

63    baggage good-for-nothing woman, harlot

66    knock may play on sense of “have sex”

68    What…town? What do I care for your threats when you can be punished for them?    stocks public instrument of punishment in which the arms or legs were confined

69    keeps keeps up, continues

70    boys fellows

73    If…sore i.e., you and the    knave are the same person

74    fain gladly

75    part depart

77    in the wind afoot, strange going on

78    thin i.e., and you felt the cold wind

79    cake plays on sense of “woman”    stand plays on sense of “have an erection”

80    buck male deer/cuckold    bought and sold betrayed and exploited

81    ope open

82    Break any breaking if you break anything

83    break a word speak

84    break…behind does not fart

85    want’st breaking need a beating    hind peasant/female deer

87    fowls…fin i.e., never

88    crow crowbar

91    sirrah addressed to Dromio of Syracuse    pluck a crow “clear up the matter” (proverbial)

94    Herein in this matter

95    compass of suspect scope of suspicion

97    Once this in short

99    Plead…unknown suggest there is a valid reason for her odd behavior

100    excuse explain

101    made shut

103    the Tiger an inn

104    about roundabout

106    strong hand physical force    offer try

107    stirring passage busy activity

108    vulgar comment public conjecture    of on

109    supposed presumed to be true    rout rabble

110    ungalled unharmed    estimation reputation

113    upon succession for generations

114    housed dwelling    gets possession is believed/gets a foothold

116    despite of mirth in spite of the lack of joy    merry cheerful

118    wild wanton/frivolous/lively    gentle kind/yielding

120    protest declare    without desert undeservedly

121    withal with, about

123    this this time

124    Porpentine Porcupine, the name of a house

125    there’s the house that is her house/where she lives

128    doors plays on slang sense of “vagina”    entertain receive (sexually)

129    knock plays on sense of “have sex”

Act 3 Scene 2

3    love-springs shoots of love

4    building its construction

7    like elsewhere love someone else

8    Muffle conceal/blindfold    false unfaithful    blindness disguise, concealment

10    orator spokesman

11    become disloyalty give a pleasing appearance to your infidelity

12    Apparel…harbinger clothe vice as though it heralds virtue

13    fair honorable, attractive

14    carriage demeanor

15    secret-false secretly disloyal

16    What…attaint? What foolish thief would brag of his own corruption?

18    board table, mealtimes

19    bastard fame illegitimate honor (if it is)

22    compact of credit made of trust

23    others…sleeve lovers are embraced and given love, the wife is left merely with the threads, or edges of affection

24    motion orbit    move affect/influence

27    vain deceptive

29    what…else what other name you have

30    wonder marvel    of on

31    Less…wonder you seem no less wise and gracious than the wonder of the world (here, sometimes interpreted as Queen Elizabeth I)

32    earth human, mortal flesh

34    earthy-gross conceit flawed human understanding

36    folded hidden

39    new anew

43    homage duty

44    decline incline

45    train seduce, entice    sweet…note in Greek mythology, the beautiful song of mermaids lured sailors to their death

47    dote idolize, become infatuated with

50    supposition i.e., belief that her hair is a bed

51    that who    die plays on the sense of “orgasm”

52    Let…sink if love is frivolous or fickle and cannot sustain itself then let it die

54    mated bewildered by love (plays on sense of “matched”)

56    beams sunrays/invisible beams thought to be emitted by the eyes

58    wink close one’s eyes

66    My…claim my heaven on earth and my only hope of heaven

68    Call…thee i.e., call yourself sister for I am attached to you as you would have me be to her

73    good will approval

78    besides myself myself also/out of my senses

81    have possess sexually

84    a beast may pun on “abased” (i.e., in a sexually servile position)

87    reverent worthy, commanding

88    ‘sir-reverence’ “save your reverence,” an apology for having said or done something offensive; also a euphemism for “dung”    lean slender

91    wench servant    grease puns on “grace”

93    tallow animal fat used for candles and soap    Poland winter i.e., a long time

94    week may pun on “wick”

95    complexion physical appearance

96    Swart swarthy, dark-complexioned

97    sweats sweats so much that    go over polish/be up to his

99    in grain ingrained

101    ell forty-five inches

105    find out discover/locate

107    bogs marshes/anus

109    barrenness…hand i.e., her palms are dry, calloused, and hard

111    armed and reverted probably alludes to syphilitic sores and hair loss

114    chalky cliffs white cliffs of Dover/teeth

115    salt rheum English Channel/watery discharge from the eyes or nose

118    hot…breath as if she had been eating spicy, pungent food

120    rubies, carbuncles, sapphires precious stones/sores and pimples

121    declining…aspect looking down (possibly implying a large or hooked nose)

122    armadoes…ballast fleets of large ships to be loaded

123    Belgia Belgium    Netherlands also known as the Low Countries, so alludes here to nether regions, genitalia

124    drudge servant    diviner witch

125    assured betrothed

126    privy private    of on

129    curtal dog dog with a docked tail    turn i’the’wheel tread a wheel to turn a spit

130    hie hasten    presently immediately    post hasten    road harbor

131    An if if    from shore out to sea

132    harbour remain

133    bark put forth ship set sail

136    trudge leave

139    witches a term applied to both sexes

141    my my very

143    sovereign excellent

146    to of

150    lo look

151    ta’en you caught up with you

152    stay delay

154    What please whatever pleases

155    bespoke ordered

164    vain foolish

166    shifts stratagems

168    stay wait

Act 4 Scene 1

1    Pentecost Whitsuntide, seven days after Easter

3    had would

5    present satisfaction immediate payment

6    attach arrest

7    Even just exactly

8    growing owed

12    Pleaseth if it please

13    discharge settle

16    rope’s end i.e., for flogging

21    I…rope slightly ambiguous; perhaps “pound” plays on “beatings,” or Dromio simply drawls that he would as gladly buy a rope as he would receive a thousand pounds

22    holp up helped

25    Belike perhaps    love friendship    too long longer

27    Saving with respect to

28    utmost final

29    chargeful fashion excellent workmanship

30    ducats gold coins

31    debted indebted

33    stays but waits only

34    present ready

38    Disburse pay out

39    Perchance perhaps

41    I…enough I do not come in time

48    dalliance idle talk

49    to to go to

50    chid rebuked

51    shrew scolding woman/mischievous man

52    dispatch hurry up

56    by some token with some evidence (that I come on your authority)

57    humour…breath exhaust the joke

59    brook tolerate

60    answer pay

68    stands upon affects    credit reputation/financial standing

69    suit request

71    touches injures

74    that for that which

76    fee public officers were entitled to a private fee for their actions

78    apparently openly

81    you…dear this jest will cost you as much

82    answer amount to

83    law my legal rights

84    notorious shame public humiliation

87    fraughtage cargo

89    balsamum aromatic resin    aqua-vitae alcoholic spirit

90    in her trim in fine condition

93    peevish prattling, bleating    sheep fool (plays on ship in the following line)

95    hire waftage buy our passage

98    rope’s end flogging

101    list listen to    heed attention

102    straight immediately

110    Dowsabel generic term for a sweetheart, from French douce et belle (“gentle and beautiful”); here ironically applied to Nell

111    compass embrace/circumnavigate

113    minds wishes

Act 4 Scene 2

2    austerely seriously, sincerely

4    or either

5    observation plays on sense of “astronomical measurement”

6    meteors…face emotional conflict discernible in his appearance    tilting in contest

7    no any

8    spite sorrow/humiliation

10    true…were he spoke the truth (for he is behaving like a stranger) and yet he lied (as he is my husband)

15    honest genuine/noble

17    speak him fair encourage him

19    hold me still remain silent/patient

20    his its

21    sere withered

22    shapeless unshapely, ugly

24    Stigmatical in making physically deformed

26    wailed grieved for

28    would…worse wish others saw him as less desirable

29    Far…away to divert attention from the young in her nest, the    lapwing calls from elsewhere

35    Tartar limbo hellish prison/pagan hell

36    everlasting fabric from which police uniform was made/eternal

37    buttoned…steel probably alludes to steel buttons of a police uniform

38    fairy supernatural spirit    rough cruel

39    fellow…buff sergeant or other official in a uniform made of durable ox-hide leather

40    back-friend false friend shoulder-clapper arresting officer countermands prohibits

41    passages free movement along    creeks winding lanes, narrow passages    lands possibly a form of “launds” meaning “glades”

42    counter in the opposite direction to the prey (puns on sense of “prison”)    draws dryfoot follows the prey by the scent of its footprints

43    judgement verdict in a court of law; Christian Day of Judgement;    hell may allude to the colloquial name of a particular debtor’s prison under Westminster Hall

45    matter dispute, cause    ’rested…case in relation to this particular case (possible play on sense of “clothing”)

46    suit petition (Dromio shifts the sense to “clothing”)

49    redemption bail

52    band bond (document requiring payment of a debt); Dromio plays on the sense of “neck-band” (i.e., ruff)

57    one “on” and “one” were pronounced similarly

59    hour puns on either “whore” or “ower” (debtor)    a (s)he

60    fondly foolishly

61    owes…season is so excessively in debt that it is not worth redeeming him (season may pun on “seisin,” a legal term for “possession of freehold,” and on “seize”—i.e., arrest; Time may play on “thyme” with season punning on “flavor”)

64    stealing creeping/robbing

65    theft a thief    in stands in

66    turn…hour turn back time so that he can run away

69    pressed down burdened/depressed    conceit imaginings

70    comfort…injury i.e., because she can try and imagine all is well yet fears it is not

Act 4 Scene 3

1    salute greet

4    tender offer

10    wiles delusions

11    Lapland was notorious for witches

13    have…new-apparelled i.e., have you managed to rid yourself of the sergeant (the old, or biblical Adam dressed himself for the first time after the Fall)

15    Adam…Paradise conceivably a topical joke referring to an Adam who ran an inn called Paradise

16    calf’s…Prodigal in the Bible, the skin of the fatted calf that was killed for the return of the prodigal son; here, the leather of the sergeant’s uniform

19    plain case law case/clothing    bass-viol…case cello-like instrument in a leather holder

20    sob cry/rest (given to horses)

21    ’rests them arrests them/lets them rest    decayed ruined    suits of durance long confinement/durable clothing

22    sets…rest gambles all (puns on “arrest”)    mace staff, symbol of office

23    morris-pike spear-like weapon

25    band band of officers

26    it for it band legal bond

27    rest repose/arrest

28    rest in cease

31    tarry…hoy wait for a small coastal vessel (ironically named since a “hoy” was intended for fast sailing)

32    angels gold coins (puns on sense of “celestial beings”)

33    distract mad

39    avoid away

42    dam mother

43    habit clothing, appearance    light loose

45    Ergo “therefore” (Latin)

46    burn infect with venereal disease/burn in hell

48    mend complete    here perhaps at her lodgings

49    spoon-meat soft food served on a spoon, baby food bespeak request

51    he…devil proverbial

52    what why

53    you are all i.e., all Ephesians

56    for in exchange for

58    ask i.e., in return for leaving people alone    parings clippings    rush straw

60    an if if

64    Avaunt go

65    peacock traditionally an emblem of pride so hardly in a position to tell others to avoid it; Dromio makes a sarcastic reference to the courtesan’s request for Antipholus to be faithful

67    demean conduct

72    rage anger/insanity

75    Belike probably

77    home directly

79    perforce by force

80    fittest choose consider the most appropriate

Act 4 Scene 4

3    warrant…for i.e., as much as the sum for which I have been arrested

4    wayward perverse, wilful

5    lightly readily, easily

6    attached arrested

10    pay i.e., with a beating

14    serve…rate provide you with five hundred ropes for that price

15    end purpose

16    To for

17    to…you in that way shall I receive you (i.e., with a beating; end puns on sense of “backside”)

21    hold his hands restrain his fists

22    whoreson son of a whore

24    sensible in responsive to    ass may pun on “arse”

25    long ears plays on the similar pronunciation of “ears” and “years”

30    wont her brat habitually carries her child

33    respice finem “think on your end,” i.e., death (Latin)    prophecy…parrot parrots might be taught to say “respice funem”—i.e., “consider the hangman’s rope,” a sinister    prophecy

35    still incessantly

38    Doctor his academic title, not indicative of medical qualifications    conjurer i.e., versed in Latin and therefore capable of exorcising devils (traditionally addressed in Latin)

39    true sense right mind

40    please satisfy, reward

41    sharp angry

42    ecstasy frenzy

49    doting foolish

51    customers (whore’s) clients

52    companion rogue    saffron yellow

60    sooth truth

62    Perdie by God (from French, par dieu)

64    Sans fable without a lie

66    Certes certainly    kitchen-vestal kitchen maid (ironic; the vestal virgins were in charge of the sacred fire in the Roman temple of Vesta)

68    verity truth

70    soothe humor    contraries fabrications

71    fellow i.e., Dromio    finds his vein knows his master’s mood

72    yielding to pretending to agree with

73    suborned bribed

76    Heart…might you might have sent good wishes

77    rag farthing, scrap

84    deadly deathly

86    forth out

91    Dissembling deceitful

93    confederate conspiring pack group

94    abject scorn contemptible mockery    strives struggles

98    More company get more help

102    make a rescue i.e., take me forcibly out of legal custody

105    frantic deranged

106    peevish idiotic/spiteful

108    displeasure wrong

111    discharge settle with

113    knowing…grows when I know what the total of the debt amounts to

117    entered in bond tied up (plays on legal sense of “pledged as a guarantor”)

118    mad incite

119    cry…devil!’ cry out on/invoke the devil (that is supposed to have possessed you)

129    bespeak commission

136    hereof of this    at large in full

138    naked unsheathed

142    would be claimed/tried to be

143    stuff belongings

146    us fair to us courteously

147    claims demands

148    still always

Act 5 Scene 1

2    of from

5    reverend respected

8    His…time I would let him borrow against my name any time/I would lend him my wealth with only his word as guarantee

10    self same

11    forswore denied

16    circumstance detailed argument

18    Beside besides    charge cost/public accusation

20    staying on delaying because of our dispute

27    Fie shame

28    resort dwell/walk

29    impeach accuse

31    presently immediately    stand defend yourself

34    within him close to him, within his guard

36    take take refuge in

37    spoiled ruined/beaten

43    draw i.e., a sword

45    heavy gloomy    sour sullen    sad serious

51    Strayed led astray    unlawful illicit, unfaithful

57    reprehended rebuked

61    Haply perhaps

62    assemblies public

64    copy…conference theme of our conversation

66    board table

67    Alone…theme it was my only topic of conversation

68    glancèd touched on

69    Still continually

70    thereof…mad and as a result the man became mad

71    venom clamours venomous protests

73    railing complaining

74    light wild/lecherous

79    sports entertainments

83    her i.e., despair’s

84    distemperatures disorders

85    life-preserving rest sleep

86    mad or make mad either

88    of of his

90    demeaned behaved    rude harshly

92    betray…reproof expose me to my own disgrace

96    sanctuary criminals were immune from legal prosecution while they were in churches

97    privilege protect

99    lose my labour exhaust myself/waste my efforts    assaying attempting

101    Diet attend to, feed    office duty

102    attorney representative

105    approvèd proven, tested

107    formal complete

108    branch part

119    perforce forcibly

120    this this time    dial sundial, timepiece

121    Anon soon

123    sorry pitiable/vile

127    put arrived, docked    bareheaded i.e., ready for execution    Headsman executioner

134    tender value, pity

140    important urgent    letters formal requests, instructions (perhaps Adriana is a former ward of the duke’s)

141    outrageous fierce

142    desp’rately recklessly/madly

143    bondman servant

144    displeasure wrong

145    bearing thence taking away

148    take order make reparations, deal with

150    wot know

154    bent intent/turned

159    suffer permit

162    borne…help taken away for treatment

164    engaged pledged

166    grace favor

169    determine settle    stir move on

170    shift flee

172    a-row one after the other

173    brands torches

175    puddle mire murky water

177    nicks…fool cuts his hair so that he resembles a fool

178    sure certainly

184    take take hold of

187    halberds long-handled weapon with an axe-like head

189    is borne about moves around/is transported

191    past…reason inconceivably

194    bestrid thee stood over you (when you were threatened)

197    dote deranged

202    strength…injury most harmful and offensive way possible

205    Discover reveal

207    harlots the term could be applied to men and women

210    So…withal may my soul be punished if what he accuses me of is not false

212    on at

214    forsworn perjured, lying

215    chargeth accuses

216    advisèd rational in

218    heady-rash irrational, reckless

219    Albeit…mad although the wrongs inflicted on me are enough to make someone wiser mad

221    packed complicit

222    witness bear witness to

229    swear me down reduce me to silence by swearing/refute me in swearing

233    peasant servant

234    certain a certain amount of

235    bespoke asked

237    By on    rabble more further mob

239    hungry emaciated

240    anatomy skeleton    mountebank quack doctor

241    threadbare impoverished    juggler sorcerer, illusionist

242    needy poor/inadequate    sharp-looking hungry-looking

243    pernicious ruinous

244    Forsooth in truth    took…as assumed the role of    conjurer exorcist

246    with…me despite being so emaciated he appeared to have no face, he confronted me with his stare

249    dankish dank, damp    vault cellar, storeroom

251    sunder two

271    impeach charge

272    Circe’s cup in Homer’s Odyssey Circe is the sorceress who changed men into beasts with a charmed drink

274    coldly rationally

283    mated bewildered

284    vouchsafe permit

285    Haply through chance

290    bondman plays on the fact that the men were bound together

294    Ourselves…you we recognize ourselves in your situation

297    strange as a stranger

300    careful full of anxiety    deformèd disfiguring

301    defeatures deformities/changes

303    Neither nor that either

308    bound plays on the fact that Egeon is tied up

310    cracked…tongue aged and distorted my voice

311    seven short years a slip; in Act 1, Egeon stated that he had been traveling for five years

312    feeble…cares weak tone of my cracked voice

313    grainèd wrinkled

314    sap-consuming…snow i.e., the white hairs of his beard

315    conduits veins

316    night of life old age

317    wasting lamps i.e., eyes

322    But only

334    genius attendant spirit thought to accompany and influence a man throughout his life

336    deciphers distinguishes

345    at a burden in one birth

348    morning story i.e., the narrative related by Egeon in Act 1    right precisely

350    semblance appearance

351    urging of focusing on

359    rude violent

366    Stay wait

370    Duke Menaphon not mentioned elsewhere; the name appears in Marlowe’s Tamburlaine (1587) and Greene’s Menaphon (1589)

378    leisure opportunity

389    still repeatedly

391    are arose did arise

395    cheer entertainment

400    sympathizèd shared

402    satisfaction explanation/reparation

403    but…travail still been in labor

407    calendars…nativity i.e., the Dromios, who were born on the same day

408    gossips’ godparents’ (i.e., christening)    joy enjoy

410    gossip at participate in/converse at

412    embarked loaded on the ship

413    at host at the inn

418    friend lover

419    kitchened me entertained me in the kitchen

420    sister sister-in-law

421    glass mirror

426    cuts lots

MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING

Comedy is tragedy averted. A young woman prepares herself for marriage. Then we witness the ceremony itself. Whenever we go to a wedding we cannot help relishing the dramatic pause when the priest asks the couple, “If either of you know any inward impediment why you should not be conjoined, I charge you on your souls to utter it.” On this occasion the drama turns into a crisis: in front of the whole congregation Claudio the groom accuses Hero the bride of infidelity on the very eve of her wedding day. She faints, he storms out, her father says that he hopes she is dead since she has brought such shame on his household. The play has begun with the end of a war, a move from the language of martial bonding to that of courtship and coupling. Its atmosphere has been all holiday. No more.

The change of mood extends even to the other pair of lovers. The relationship between Benedick and Beatrice has hitherto been characterized by sharp but always lighthearted banter; now Beatrice raises the stakes dramatically, forcing Benedick to choose between love and friendship. Suddenly we have moved into the Othello-world of sexual accusation and death-threat. Don John, the chief plotter of all the mischief, is no lago—he is a cardboard cutout villain, an archetypal melancholy man (“I cannot hide what I am: I must be sad when I have cause, and smile at no man’s jests”)—so in our rational minds we do not believe he will triumph, but we end the fourth act feeling that a substantial act of atonement will be required of Claudio.

Comedy makes room for little acts of grace; it allows the second chance that tragedy denies. In Much Ado, the grace comes from two agencies: the Friar who arranges the mock-death and resurrection of Hero (“let wonder seem familiar”), and the Watchmen who stumble upon the truth of Don John’s plot. We expect God to work his benign way through friars: this one teaches the important lesson that “what we have we prize not to the worth / Whiles we enjoy it.” It is only when we have lost someone that we realize how much we value them. It may seem strange that providence also works by means of the bumbling, malaprop-prone Dogberry. It is, however, one of the laws of the comic universe that appearance (“semblance”) is deceptive. Those who think they are clever, like Don John, end up looking foolish; those whom we at first think are foolish, like Dogberry, turn out to be peculiarly wise. Their wisdom is that of the heart, not the intellect. Jesus said that to understand the kingdom of heaven one has to make oneself as a child: Dogberry, like Bottom in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, is one of Shakespeare’s natural children. He is “condemned into everlasting redemption” for his simplicity and goodness.

In the final act, Claudio goes through his penance at the tomb of Hero. Then in the final scene he does as he is told and is rewarded via a theatrical flourish that substitutes the former bride for a supposed replacement one, a device in the tradition of Euripides’ ancient and beautiful play Alcestis. But in agreeing to marry the mysterious cousin has not Claudio been a little eager to forget his first love? He is not exactly gracious when she comes back to him—the only words he manages are a startled “Another Hero!” There is no word of apology or plea for forgiveness, only a hurrying forward to the resolution of the Beatrice and Benedick plot. In Christopher Marlowe’s famous poem, which Shakespeare knew well, Leander swims the Hellespont and gladly risks drowning in order to reach his beloved Hero. Claudio does not seem to be the kind of lover who would make such a gesture: the truly romantic, potentially tragic, action is Beatrice’s demand of Benedick that he should prove his love for her by killing Claudio.

As spectators, we have been much more attracted to the witty lovers than the (supposedly) romantic ones. Since we cannot wait for the union of Benedick and Beatrice, we join Claudio in the rush toward it. Only on a second reading or viewing do we stop to worry about the kind of husband he will make for Hero. The question that matters to us is how on earth Beatrice and Benedick will stop insulting each other long enough to agree to a marriage contract. The answer comes from Leonato when he says “Peace! I will stop your mouth”—and forces the lovers to kiss. We know that the wit-combat will resume, but for a moment at the end of the play we imagine the suspension of all quarrels in a kiss and then a dance. Technically, the Beatrice and Benedick story is a subplot that Shakespeare introduced into a romance story he inherited from Renaissance Italy; theatrically, they steal the show and the benign plot whereby they are tricked into acknowledging their love for each other is the most memorable thing in the play. The simultaneously ardent and reluctant conjunction of “Signior Mountanto” and “Lady Disdain” helps us to forget about Claudio’s deficiencies. Small wonder that King Charles I wrote “Bennedike and Betrice” beneath the title of the play in his copy of Shakespeare’s Second Folio and that in the nineteenth century Hector Berlioz dispensed with the other pair altogether in composing his opera Béatrice et Bénédict.

The play’s title is multiply suggestive. There is much ado about the nothing that Hero has done wrong. Shakespeare often makes “nothing” a euphemism for a vagina, because women lack a male “thing” between their legs, so there is an obscene second sense. “Nothing” seems to have been pronounced “noting,” which provides a further rich sense: the play is full of “noting” in the sense of watching and overhearing, whether in the famous scenes in which Benedick and Beatrice are deliberately allowed to overhear conversations of great interest to them or the plan to let Claudio “witness” the infidelity of his betrothed.

Disguise is a closely related motif: Don Pedro woos Hero on behalf of, and in the guise of, Claudio. This plan is eavesdropped upon by scheming Borachio. In each narrative of noting, an imagined detail—interlaced branches in a garden walk, a musty room hung with tapestry—creates a sense of location even as Shakespeare writes for a bare stage. As befits a work in which prose outweighs verse by a ratio of more than two to one, the texture of the play offers far more realism than romance: instead of the (sometimes parodically overblown) love poetry we find in many of the other comedies, the focus here is on less hyperbolic but more heartfelt matters such as a bride’s delight in the precise fashion and cut of her wedding dress.

Though Don Pedro facilitates Claudio’s desire for Hero, it is Beatrice who intrigues him. When he offers to repeat his matchmaking and get her a husband, for a moment he is half-serious in offering her himself. The exchange is one of the loveliest moments anywhere in Shakespearean comedy. Beatrice bookends their encounter with references to the pair who have found love; her merriment in the interim masks a profound loneliness that Don Pedro himself retains at the end of the play. “Prince, thou art sad,” says Benedick, “get thee a wife, get thee a wife.” Everyone needs to join the dance of matrimony, he suggests—otherwise one will end up a despised exile like Don John. But the note of realism that comes from the grounded prose voice of the sparring partners is sounded one last time, in a lighthearted reference to cuckoldry that simultaneously reactivates and defuses the matter of infidelity that has created all the ado: “There is no staff more reverend than one tipped with horn.”

KEY FACTS

PLOT: The war is over. Pedro Prince of Aragon, with his followers Benedick and Claudio, visits Leonato, Duke of Messina, father of Hero and uncle of Beatrice. Claudio falls in love with Hero and their marriage is agreed upon. Beatrice and Benedick despise love and engage in comic banter. The others plot to make them fall in love with each other, by a trick in which Benedick will overhear his friends talking of Beatrice’s supposed secret love for him, and vice versa. Meanwhile Don John, the prince’s misanthropic illegitimate brother, contrives a more malicious plot with the assistance of his follower Borachio: Claudio is led to believe that he has witnessed Hero in a compromising situation on the night before her wedding day—in fact it is her maid Margaret with Borachio. Claudio denounces Hero during the marriage ceremony. She faints and on the advice of the Friar, who is convinced of her innocence, Leonato announces that she is dead. Beatrice demands that Benedick should kill Claudio. The foolish constable Dogberry and his watchmen overhear Borachio boasting of his exploit and the plot is exposed. Claudio promises to make amends to Leonato: he is required to marry a cousin of Hero’s in her place. When unmasked, she is revealed as Hero. Beatrice agrees to marry Benedick.

MAJOR PARTS: (with percentage of lines/number of speeches/scenes on stage) Benedick (17%/ 134/8), Leonato (13%/120/9), Don Pedro (12%/135/8), Claudio (11%/125/8), Beatrice (10%/106/8), Dogberry (7%/52/4), Hero (5%/44/6), Borachio (5%/23/6), Don John (4%/40/6), Friar Francis (3%/16/2), Margaret (2%/26/3), Antonio (2%/23/4), Ursula (2%/19/3), Conrad (1%/23/1), Verges (1%/18/3), Balthasar (1%/11/2).

LINGUISTIC MEDIUM: 30% verse, 70% prose.

DATE: Late 1598. Not mentioned by Francis Meres in list of Shakespeare’s plays in Palladis Tamis (registered for publication September 1598), but included part for Will Kemp, who left Shakespeare’s acting company in early 1599.

SOURCES: The Hero/Claudio plot of a deception leading to a false supposition of infidelity has many precedents in the sixteenth-century Italian romance tradition; Shakespeare’s primary sources seem to have been (1) the tale of Sir Timbreo and Fenicia in Matteo Bandello’s Novelle, which included characters of Piero King of Aragon and Lionato of Messina (in Italian, 1554, no English translation, but Shakespeare might have known the French translation of Pierre de Belleferest, Histoires Tragiques, 1569), and (2) the tale of Renaldo and Ginevra in Ariosto’s Orlando Furioso, book 5 (English translation by Sir John Harington, 1591). The Beatrice and Benedick plot is Shakespeare’s innovation, though witty couples and characters who scorn love only to fall in love themselves have comic precedents, notably in the plays of John Lyly.

TEXT: Quarto published 1600, probably printed from Shakespeare’s manuscript or a transcript of it. Generally good quality of printing. On some occasions, actors’ names instead of characters’ appear in the speech headings (Kemp for Dogberry and Cowley for Verges). Folio printed from Quarto, though with some reference to a playhouse manuscript; extra stage directions inserted, also act divisions; some corrections and some errors introduced. Our text restores Quarto readings in cases judged to be compositor error, but retains Folio where changes appear to be intentional.

MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING

DON PEDRO, Prince of Aragon

BALTHASAR, a singer, attendant upon Don Pedro

A BOY, servant to Benedict

DON JOHN, illegitimate brother of Don Pedro

LEONATO, governor of Messina Innogen, his silent wife

HERO, his daughter

BEATRICE, his niece, an orphan

ANTONIO, an old man, brother of Leonato

FRIAR FRANCIS

DOGBERRY, Constable in charge of the Watch

VERGES, Headborough accompanying Dogberry

A SEXTON

WATCHMEN

Attendants and Messengers

Act 1 Scene 11.1

running scene 1

Enter Leonato Governor of Messina, Innogen his wife, Hero his daughter and Beatrice his niece, with a Messenger

LEONATOI learn in this letter that Don Peter[1] of Aragon comes this night to Messina. Shows a letter

MESSENGERHe is very near by this: he was not three leagues[2] off when I left him.

LEONATOHow many gentlemen have you lost in this action?[3]

MESSENGERBut few of any sort,[4] and none of name.

LEONATOA victory is twice itself when the achiever brings home full numbers. I find here that Don Peter hath bestowed much honour on a young Florentine[6] called Claudio.

MESSENGERMuch deserved on his part and equally remembered[8] by Don Pedro. He hath borne himself beyond the promise of his age, doing in the figure[9] of a lamb the feats of a lion. He hath indeed better bettered expectation than you must expect of me to tell you how.

LEONATOHe hath an uncle here in Messina will be very much glad of it.

MESSENGERI have already delivered him letters, and there appears much joy in him, even so much that joy could not show itself modest enough without a badge of[14] bitterness.

LEONATODid he break out into tears?

MESSENGERIn great measure.

LEONATOA kind[18] overflow of kindness. There are no faces truer than those that are so washed. How much better is it to weep at joy than to joy at weeping!

BEATRICEI pray you, is Signior Mountanto[20] returned from the wars or no?

MESSENGERI know none of that name, lady: there was none such in the army of any sort.

LEONATOWhat is he that you ask for, niece?

HEROMy cousin means Signior Benedick[24] of Padua.

MESSENGERO, he’s returned, and as pleasant[25] as ever he was.

BEATRICEHe set up his bills[26] here in Messina and challenged Cupid at the flight: and my uncle’s fool,[27] reading the challenge, subscribed for Cupid and challenged him at the bird-bolt.[28] I pray you, how many hath he killed and eaten in these wars? But how many hath he killed? For indeed I promised to eat all of his killing.

LEONATOFaith,[30] niece, you tax Signior Benedick too much, but he’ll be meet with you, I doubt it not.

MESSENGERHe hath done good service, lady, in these wars.

BEATRICEYou had musty victual[33] and he hath holp to eat it: he’s a very valiant trencher[34] man, he hath an excellent stomach.

MESSENGERAnd a good soldier too, lady.

BEATRICEAnd a good soldier to[36] a lady. But what is he to a lord?

MESSENGERA lord to a lord, a man to a man, stuffed[37] with all honourable virtues.

BEATRICEIt is so indeed, he is no less than a stuffed man.[38] But for the stuffing — well, we are all mortal.

LEONATOYou must not, sir, mistake my niece. There is a kind of merry war betwixt[40] Signior Benedick and her: they never meet but there’s a skirmish of wit between them.

BEATRICEAlas, he gets nothing by that. In our last conflict four of his five wits[43] went halting[44] off, and now is the whole man governed with one: so that if he have wit enough to keep himself warm, let him bear it for a difference[45] between himself and his horse, for it is all the wealth that he hath left to be known[46] a reasonable creature. Who is his companion now? He hath every month a new sworn brother.[47]

MESSENGERIs’t possible?

BEATRICEVery easily possible: he wears his faith[50] but as the fashion of his hat — it ever changes with the next block.[51]

MESSENGERI see, lady, the gentleman is not in your books.[52]

BEATRICENo. An[53] he were, I would burn my study. But I pray you, who is his companion? Is there no young squarer[54] now that will make a voyage with him to the devil?

MESSENGERHe is most in the company of the right noble Claudio.

BEATRICEO lord, he will hang upon him like a disease: he is sooner caught than the pestilence,[58] and the taker runs presently mad. God help the noble Claudio. If he have caught the Benedick, it will cost him a thousand pound ere[59] he be cured.

MESSENGERI will hold[60] friends with you, lady.

BEATRICEDo, good friend.

LEONATOYou’ll ne’er run mad,[62] niece.

BEATRICENo, not till a hot January.

MESSENGERDon Pedro is approached.

Enter Don Pedro, Claudio, Benedick, Balthasar and John the bastard

DON PEDROGood Signior Leonato, are you come to meet your trouble?[65] The fashion of the world is to avoid cost, and you encounter it.

LEONATONever came trouble to my house in the likeness[67] of your grace, for trouble being gone, comfort should remain. But when you depart from me, sorrow abides and happiness takes his leave.

DON PEDROYou embrace your charge[70] too willingly. I think this is your daughter.

LEONATOHer mother hath many times told me so.

BENEDICKWere you in doubt, sir, that you asked her?

LEONATOSignior Benedick, no, for[73] then were you a child.

DON PEDROYou have it full,[74] Benedick. We may guess by this what you are, being a man. Truly the lady fathers herself.[75] Be happy lady, for you are like an honourable father.

BENEDICKIf Signior Leonato be her father, she would not have his head[77] on her shoulders for all Messina, as like him as she is. Don Pedro and Leonato talk aside

BEATRICEI wonder that you will still be talking, Signior Benedick: nobody marks[79] you.

BENEDICKWhat, my dear Lady Disdain! Are you yet living?

BEATRICEIs it possible disdain should die while she hath such meet[82] food to feed it as Signior Benedick? Courtesy itself must convert to disdain, if you come in her presence.

BENEDICKThen is courtesy a turncoat.[85] But it is certain I am loved of all ladies, only you excepted: and I would[86] I could find in my heart that I had not a hard heart, for truly I love none.

BEATRICEA dear happiness[88] to women: they would else have been troubled with a pernicious[89] suitor. I thank God and my cold blood, I am of your humour for that. I had rather hear my dog bark at a crow than a man swear he loves me.

BENEDICKGod keep your ladyship still in that mind, so some gentleman or other shall scape[92] a predestinate scratched face.

BEATRICEScratching could not make it worse an ’twere[93] such a face as yours were.

BENEDICKWell, you are a rare parrot-teacher.[94]

BEATRICEA bird of my tongue is better than a beast of yours.[95]

BENEDICKI would my horse had the speed of your tongue, and so[96] good a continuer. But keep your way, a God’s name, I have done.

BEATRICEYou always end with a jade’s[98] trick. I know you of old.

DON PEDROThat is the sum of all, Leonato.— To the others Signior Claudio and Signior Benedick, my dear friend Leonato hath invited you all. I tell him we shall stay here at the least a month, and he heartily prays some occasion may detain us longer. I dare swear he is no hypocrite, but prays from his heart.

LEONATOIf you swear, my lord, you shall not be forsworn.[103]— To Don John Let me bid you welcome, my lord. Being[104] reconciled to the prince your brother, I owe you all duty.

DON JOHNI thank you. I am not of many words, but I thank you.

LEONATOPlease it your grace lead on?

DON PEDROYour hand, Leonato. We will go together.

Exeunt all but Benedick and Claudio

CLAUDIOBenedick, didst thou note the daughter of Signior Leonato?

BENEDICKI noted her not,[109] but I looked on her.

CLAUDIOIs she not a modest young lady?

BENEDICKDo you question me as an honest man should do, for my simple true judgement? Or would you have me speak after my custom,[112] as being a professed tyrant to their sex?

CLAUDIONo, I pray thee speak in sober judgement.

BENEDICKWhy, i’faith, methinks she’s too low[115] for a high praise, too brown for a fair praise, and too little for a great praise. Only this commendation I can afford[116] her, that were she other than she is, she were unhandsome, and being no other but as she is, I do not like her.

CLAUDIOThou think’st I am in sport.[119] I pray thee tell me truly how thou lik’st her.

BENEDICKWould you buy her, that you inquire after her?

CLAUDIOCan the world buy such a jewel?

BENEDICKYea, and a case[122] to put it into. But speak you this with a sad brow? Or do you play the flouting[123] jack, to tell us Cupid is a good hare-finder and Vulcan a rare carpenter? Come, in what key shall a man take you to go[124] in the song?

CLAUDIOIn mine eye, she is the sweetest lady that ever I looked on.

BENEDICKI can see yet without spectacles and I see no such matter. There’s her cousin, an she were not possessed with a fury,[127] exceeds her as much in beauty as the first of May doth the last of December. But I hope you have no intent to turn husband, have you?

CLAUDIOI would scarce trust myself, though I had sworn the contrary, if Hero would be my wife.

BENEDICKIs’t come to this? In faith, hath not the world one man but he will wear[132] his cap with suspicion? Shall I never see a bachelor of threescore[133] again? Go to, i’faith, an thou wilt needs thrust thy neck into a yoke,[134] wear the print of it and sigh away Sundays. Look, Don Pedro is returned to seek you.

Enter Don Pedro [and] John the bastard

DON PEDROWhat secret hath held you here, that you followed not to Leonato’s?

BENEDICKI would your grace would constrain[137] me to tell.

DON PEDROI charge[138] thee on thy allegiance.

BENEDICKYou hear, Count Claudio. I can be secret as a dumb man, I would have you think so. But on my allegiance, mark you this, on my allegiance — he is in love. With who? Now that is your grace’s part.[141] Mark how short his answer is: with Hero, Leonato’s short daughter.

CLAUDIOIf[143] this were so, so were it uttered.

BENEDICKLike the old tale, my lord: ‘It[144] is not so, nor ’twas not so, but indeed, God forbid it should be so!’

CLAUDIOIf my passion change not shortly, God forbid it should be otherwise.

DON PEDROAmen, if you love her, for the lady is very well worthy.

CLAUDIOYou speak this to fetch me in,[148] my lord.

DON PEDROBy my troth,[149] I speak my thought.

CLAUDIOAnd in faith, my lord, I spoke mine.

BENEDICKAnd by my[151] two faiths and troths, my lord, I spoke mine.

CLAUDIOThat I love her, I feel.

DON PEDROThat she is worthy, I know.

BENEDICKThat I neither feel how she should be loved, nor know how she should be worthy, is the opinion that fire cannot melt out of me: I will die in it at the stake.[155]

DON PEDROThou wast ever an obstinate heretic[156] in the despite of beauty.

CLAUDIOAnd never could maintain[157] his part but in the force of his will.

BENEDICKThat a woman conceived me, I thank her. That she brought me up, I likewise give her most humble thanks. But that I will have a recheat[159] winded in my forehead, or hang my bugle[160] in an invisible baldrick, all women shall pardon me. Because I will not do them the wrong to mistrust any, I will do myself the right to trust none. And the fine[162] is — for the which I may go the finer — I will live a bachelor.

DON PEDROI shall see thee, ere I die, look pale with love.

BENEDICKWith anger, with sickness, or with hunger, my lord, not with love: prove[165] that ever I lose more[166] blood with love than I will get again with drinking, pick out mine eyes with a ballad-maker’s[167] pen, and hang me up at the door of a brothel-house for[168] the sign of blind Cupid.

DON PEDROWell, if ever thou dost fall from this faith, thou wilt prove a notable argument.[170]

BENEDICKIf I do, hang[171] me in a bottle like a cat and shoot at me, and he that hits me, let him be clapped on the shoulder and called Adam.[172]

DON PEDROWell, as try.[173] ‘In time the savage bull doth bear the yoke.’

BENEDICKThe savage bull may, but if ever the sensible Benedick bear it, pluck[174] off the bull’s horns and set them in[175] my forehead, and let me be vilely painted, and in such great letters as they write ‘Here is good horse to hire’, let them signify under my sign[177] ‘Here you may see Benedick the married man.’

CLAUDIOIf this should ever happen, thou wouldst be horn-mad.[178]

DON PEDRONay, if Cupid have not spent[179] all his quiver in Venice, thou wilt quake for this shortly.

BENEDICKI look[181] for an earthquake too, then.

DON PEDROWell, you will temporize[182] with the hours. In the meantime, good Signior Benedick, repair to Leonato’s, commend me to him, and tell him I will not fail him[183] at supper, for indeed he hath made great preparation.

BENEDICKI have almost matter[185] enough in me for such an embassage, and so I commit you—

CLAUDIOTo[187] the tuition of God. From my house, if I had it—

DON PEDROThe sixth of July. Your loving friend, Benedick.

BENEDICKNay, mock not, mock not; the body[189] of your discourse is sometime guarded with fragments, and the guards[190] are but slightly basted on neither. Ere you flout old ends any further, examine your conscience. And so I leave you.

Exit

CLAUDIOMy liege, your Highness now may do me good.[192]

DON PEDROMy love is thine to teach: teach it but how,

And thou shalt see how apt[194] it is to learn

195

Any hard lesson that may do thee good.

CLAUDIOHath Leonato any son, my lord?

DON PEDRONo child but Hero, she’s his only heir.

Dost thou affect[198] her, Claudio?

CLAUDIOO, my lord,

200

When you went onward on this ended action,[200]

I looked upon her with a soldier’s eye

That liked, but had a rougher task in hand

Than to drive liking to the name of love.

But now I am returned, and that[204] war-thoughts

205

Have left their places vacant, in their rooms

Come thronging soft and delicate desires,

All prompting[207] me how fair young Hero is,

Saying I liked her ere I went to wars.

DON PEDROThou wilt be like a lover presently

210

And tire the hearer with a book of words.[210]

If thou dost love fair Hero, cherish it,

And I will break[212] with her and with her father,

And thou shalt have her. Wast not to this end

That thou began’st to twist[214] so fine a story?

215

CLAUDIOHow sweetly you do minister to[215] love,

That know love’s grief by his complexion!

But lest my liking might too sudden seem,

I would have salved[218] it with a longer treatise.

DON PEDROWhat need the bridge much broader than the flood?[219]

220

The[220] fairest grant is the necessity.

Look, what[221] will serve is fit: ’tis once, thou lovest,

And I will fit[222] thee with the remedy.

I know we shall have revelling tonight.

I will assume thy part in some disguise

225

And tell fair Hero I am Claudio,

And in her bosom[226] I’ll unclasp my heart,

And take her hearing prisoner with the force

And strong encounter[228] of my amorous tale.

Then after, to her father will I break,

230

And the conclusion is, she shall be thine.

In practice let us put it presently.

Exeunt

[Act 1 Scene 2]

running scene 2

Enter Leonato and an old man [Antonio] brother to Leonato [meeting]

LEONATOHow now, brother, where is my cousin,[1] your son? Hath he provided this music?

ANTONIOHe is very busy about it. But brother, I can tell you strange news that you yet dreamt not of.

LEONATOAre they[5] good?

ANTONIOAs[6] the event stamps them, but they have a good cover: they show well outward. The prince and Count Claudio, walking in a thick-pleached alley[7] in my orchard, were thus overheard by a man of mine: the prince discovered[8] to Claudio that he loved my niece your daughter and meant to acknowledge it this night in a dance, and if he found her accordant,[10] he meant to take the present time by the top and instantly break with you of it.

LEONATOHath the fellow any wit[12] that told you this?

ANTONIOA good sharp fellow. I will send for him, and question him yourself.

LEONATONo, no; we will hold[14] it as a dream till it appear itself. But I will acquaint my daughter withal,[15] that she may be the better prepared for an answer, if peradventure[16] this be true. Go you and tell her of it.

[Enter Attendants]

Cousins, you know what you have to do.— O, I cry you mercy,[17] friend, go you with me and I will use your skill.— Good cousin, have a care this busy time.

Exeunt

[Act 1 Scene 3]

running scene 3

Enter Sir [Don] John the Bastard and Conrad his companion

CONRADWhat the goodyear,[1] my lord, why are you thus out of measure sad?

DON JOHNThere is no measure[2] in the occasion that breeds, therefore the sadness is without limit.

CONRADYou should hear reason.

DON JOHNAnd when I have heard it, what blessing bringeth it?

CONRADIf not a present[6] remedy, yet a patient sufferance.

DON JOHNI wonder that thou — being as thou sayest thou art, born under Saturn[7] — goest about to apply a moral medicine to a mortifying mischief.[8] I cannot hide what I am: I must be sad when I have cause, and smile at no man’s jests, eat when I have stomach, and wait for no man’s leisure, sleep when I am drowsy, and tend on[11] no man’s business, laugh when I am merry, and claw no man in his humour.

CONRADYea, but you must not make the full show of this till you may do it without controlment.[14] You have of late stood out against your brother, and he hath ta’en you newly into his grace,[15] where it is impossible you should take true root but by the fair weather that you make yourself. It is needful that you frame[16] the season for your own harvest.

DON JOHNI had rather be a canker[18] in a hedge than a rose in his grace, and it better fits my blood[19] to be disdained of all than to fashion a carriage to rob love from any. In this — though I cannot be said to be a flattering honest man — it must not be denied but I am a plain-dealing villain. I am trusted[21] with a muzzle and enfranchised[22] with a clog: therefore I have decreed not to sing in my cage. If I had my mouth, I would bite. If I had my liberty, I would do my liking. In the meantime, let me be that I am, and seek not to alter me.

CONRADCan you make no use of your discontent?

DON JOHNI will make all use of it, for I use it only.[26] Who comes here?

Enter Borachio

What news, Borachio?

BORACHIOI came yonder from a great supper. The prince your brother is royally entertained by Leonato, and I can give you intelligence of an intended marriage.

DON JOHNWill it serve for any model[30] to build mischief on? What is he for a fool that betroths himself to unquietness?[31]

BORACHIOMarry it is your brother’s right hand.

DON JOHNWho, the most exquisite[33] Claudio?

BORACHIOEven he.

DON JOHNA proper squire![35] And who, and who? Which way looks he?

BORACHIOMarry, on Hero, the daughter and heir of Leonato.

DON JOHNA very forward[37] March-chick. How came you to this?

BORACHIOBeing entertained[38] for a perfumer, as I was smoking a musty room, comes me the prince and Claudio, hand in hand in sad[39] conference. I whipped me behind the arras[40] and there heard it agreed upon that the prince should woo Hero for himself, and having obtained her, give her to Count Claudio.

DON JOHNCome, come, let us thither: this may prove food to my displeasure. That young start-up[43] hath all the glory of my overthrow. If I can cross him any way, I bless myself every way. You are both sure,[44] and will assist me?

CONRADTo the death, my lord.

DON JOHNLet us to the great supper. Their cheer[46] is the greater that I am subdued. Would the cook were of my mind. Shall we go prove[47] what’s to be done?

BORACHIOWe’ll wait upon your lordship.

Exeunt

Act 2 Scene 12.1

running scene 4

Enter Leonato, [Antonio] his brother, [Innogen] his wife, Hero his daughter [attended by Margaret and Ursula], and Beatrice his niece and a Kinsman

LEONATOWas not Count John here at supper?

ANTONIOI saw him not.

BEATRICEHow tartly[3] that gentleman looks. I never can see him but I am heart-burned an hour after.

HEROHe is of a very melancholy disposition.

BEATRICEHe were an excellent man that were made just in the midway between him and Benedick: the one is too like an image[7] and says nothing, and the other too like my[8] lady’s eldest son, evermore tattling.

LEONATOThen half Signior Benedick’s tongue in Count John’s mouth, and half Count John’s melancholy in Signior Benedick’s face —

BEATRICEWith a good[11] leg and a good foot, uncle, and money enough in his purse, such a man would win any woman in the world, if he could get her good will.

LEONATOBy my troth, niece, thou wilt never get thee a husband if thou be so shrewd[14] of thy tongue.

ANTONIOIn faith, she’s too curst.[15]

BEATRICEToo curst is more than curst. I shall lessen God’s sending that way, for it is said: ‘God sends a curst cow short horns’, but to a cow too curst he sends none.

LEONATOSo, by being too curst, God will send you no horns.[18]

BEATRICEJust,[19] if he send me no husband, for the which blessing I am at him upon my knees every morning and evening. Lord, I could not endure a husband with a beard on his face! I had rather lie in the woollen.[21]

LEONATOYou may light upon a husband that hath no beard.

BEATRICEWhat should I do with him? Dress him in my apparel[23] and make him my waiting-gentlewoman? He that hath a beard is more than a youth, and he that hath no beard is less than a man: and he that is more than a youth is not for me, and he that is less than a man, I am not for him. Therefore I will even take sixpence in earnest[27] of the bearward and lead his apes into hell.

LEONATOWell then, go you into hell.

BEATRICENo, but to the gate, and there will the devil meet me like an old cuckold with horns on his head, and say ‘Get you to heaven, Beatrice, get you to heaven, here’s no place for you maids.[31]’ So deliver I up my apes, and away to Saint Peter, for the heavens.[32] He shows me where the bachelors sit, and there live we as merry as the day is long.

ANTONIOWell, niece, I trust you will be ruled by your father. To Hero

BEATRICEYes, faith, it is my cousin’s duty to make curtsy and say ‘Father, as it please you’: but yet for all that, cousin, let him be a handsome fellow, or else make another curtsy and say ‘Father, as it please me.’

LEONATOWell, niece, I hope to see you one day fitted[38] with a husband.

BEATRICENot till God make men of some other metal[39] than earth. Would it not grieve a woman to be overmastered with a piece of valiant dust? To make account of her life to a clod of wayward marl?[41] No, uncle, I’ll none: Adam’s sons are my brethren, and truly I hold it a sin to match[42] in my kindred.

LEONATODaughter, remember what I told you: To Hero if the prince do solicit[43] you in that kind,[44] you know your answer.

BEATRICEThe fault will be in the music, cousin, if you be not wooed in good time.[45] If the prince be too important,[46] tell him there is measure in everything, and so dance out the answer. For hear me, Hero: wooing, wedding and repenting is as a Scotch jig,[47] a measure[48] and a cinque-pace: the first suit is hot and hasty like a Scotch jig, and full as fantastical,[49] the wedding mannerly-modest as a measure, full of state and ancientry, and then comes repentance and, with his bad legs,[50] falls into the cinque-pace faster and faster, till he sinks into his grave.

LEONATOCousin, you apprehend passing shrewdly.[52]

BEATRICEI have a good eye, uncle, I can see a church by daylight.

LEONATOThe revellers are entering, brother. Make good room. All put on their masks

Enter Prince [Don] Pedro, Claudio, and Benedick, and Balthasar, [Don] John, [Borachio, Margaret, Ursula and other] Masquers with a drum Couples pair-up and begin dancing

DON PEDROLady, will you walk a bout with your friend?[55]

HEROSo[56] you walk softly, and look sweetly, and say nothing, I am yours for the walk, and especially when I walk away.

DON PEDROWith me in your company?

HEROI may say so when I please.

DON PEDROAnd when please you to say so?

HEROWhen I like your favour,[61] for God defend the lute should be like the case.

DON PEDROMy visor[62] is Philemon’s roof, within the house is Jove.

HEROWhy then your visor should be thatched.[63]

DON PEDROSpeak low, if you speak love. They dance aside

BALTHASARWell, I would you did like me.

MARGARETSo would not I for your own sake, for I have many ill qualities.

BALTHASARWhich is one?

MARGARETI say my prayers aloud.

BALTHASARI love you the better. The hearers may cry ‘Amen’.

MARGARETGod match me with a good dancer.

BALTHASARAmen.

MARGARETAnd God keep him out of my sight when the dance is done. Answer, clerk.[73]

BALTHASARNo more words: the clerk is answered. They dance aside

URSULAI know you well enough, you are Signior Antonio.

ANTONIOAt a word,[76] I am not.

URSULAI know you by the waggling[77] of your head.

ANTONIOTo tell you true, I counterfeit[78] him.

URSULAYou could never do[79] him so ill-well, unless you were the very man. Here’s his dry hand[80] up and down: you are he, you are he.

ANTONIOAt a word, I am not.

URSULACome, come, do you think I do not know you by your excellent wit? Can virtue hide itself? They dance aside Go to, mum,[83] you are he. Graces will appear, and there’s an end.

BEATRICEWill you not tell me who told you so?

BENEDICKNo, you shall pardon me.

BEATRICENor will you not tell me who you are?

BENEDICKNot now.

BEATRICEThat I was disdainful, and that I had my good wit out of the ‘Hundred[88] Merry Tales’ — well, this was Signior Benedick that said so.

BENEDICKWhat’s he?

BEATRICEI am sure you know him well enough.

BENEDICKNot I, believe me.

BEATRICEDid he never make you laugh?

BENEDICKI pray you, what is he?

BEATRICEWhy, he is the prince’s jester, a very dull fool, only his[95] gift is in devising impossible[96] slanders. None but libertines delight in him, and the commendation is not in his wit, but in his villainy,[97] for he both pleaseth men and angers them, and then they laugh at him and beat him. Aside? I am sure he is in the fleet.[98] I would he had boarded[99] me.

BENEDICKWhen I know the gentleman, I’ll tell him what you say.

BEATRICEDo, do: he’ll but break[101] a comparison or two on me, which peradventure —not marked or not laughed at — strikes him into melancholy, and then there’s a partridge wing[103] saved, for the fool will eat no supper that night. Music We must follow the leaders.[104]

BENEDICKIn every good thing.

BEATRICENay, if they lead to any ill, I will leave them at the next turning.

Music for the Dance. [Then] exeunt [dancing, all except Don John, Borachio and Claudio]

DON JOHNSure my brother is amorous on[107] Hero Aside to Borachio and hath withdrawn her father to break with him about it. The ladies follow her and but one visor remains.

BORACHIOAnd that is Claudio: I know him by his bearing.

DON JOHNAre not you Signior Benedick? To Claudio

CLAUDIOYou know me well, I am he.

DON JOHNSignior, you are very near[112] my brother in his love. He is enamoured on Hero. I pray you dissuade him from her, she is no equal for his birth. You may do the part of an honest man in it.

CLAUDIOHow know you he loves her?

DON JOHNI heard him swear his affection.

BORACHIOSo did I too, and he swore he would marry her tonight.

DON JOHNCome, let us to the banquet.[118]

Exeunt [Don John and Borachio]

CLAUDIOThus answer I in the name of Benedick,

120

But hear these ill news with the ears of Claudio.

’Tis certain so, the prince woos for himself.

Friendship is constant[122] in all other things

Save in the office[123] and affairs of love.

Therefore all[124] hearts in love use their own tongues,

125

Let every eye negotiate for itself

And trust no agent, for beauty is a witch

Against whose charms faith[127] melteth into blood.

This is an accident[128] of hourly proof,

Which I mistrusted[129] not. Farewell, therefore, Hero!

Enter Benedick

BENEDICKCount Claudio?

CLAUDIOYea, the same.

BENEDICKCome, will you go with me?

CLAUDIOWhither?

BENEDICKEven to the next willow,[134] about your own business, count. What fashion will you wear the garland of? About your neck, like an usurer’s chain?[135] Or under your arm, like a lieutenant’s scarf?[136] You must wear it one way, for the prince hath got your Hero.

CLAUDIOI wish him joy of her.

BENEDICKWhy, that’s spoken like an honest drover,[139] so they sell bullocks. But did you think the prince would have served you thus?

CLAUDIOI pray you leave me.

BENEDICKHo, now[142] you strike like the blind man: ’twas the boy that stole your meat, and you’ll beat the post.[143]

CLAUDIOIf[144] it will not be, I’ll leave you.

Exit

BENEDICKAlas, poor hurt fowl,[145] now will he creep into sedges. But that my Lady Beatrice should know me and not know me![146] The prince’s fool! Ha? It may be I go under that title because I am merry. Yea, but so[147] I am apt to do myself wrong. I am not so reputed: it is the base, though bitter, disposition of Beatrice that puts[148] the world into her person and so gives me out. Well, I’ll be revenged as I may.

Enter the Prince [Don Pedro]

DON PEDRONow, signior, where’s the count? Did you see him?

BENEDICKTroth, my lord, I have played the part of Lady Fame.[151] I found him here as melancholy as a lodge[152] in a warren. I told him, and I think I told him true, that your grace had got the good will of this young lady, and I offered him my company to a willow-tree, either to make him a garland, as being forsaken,[154] or to bind[155] him a rod, as being worthy to be whipped.

DON PEDROTo be whipped? What’s his fault?

BENEDICKThe flat transgression[157] of a schoolboy, who, being overjoyed with finding a bird’s nest, shows it his companion, and he steals it.

DON PEDROWilt thou make a trust[159] a transgression? The transgression is in the stealer.

BENEDICKYet it had not been amiss the rod had been made, and the garland too: for the garland he might have worn himself and the rod he might have bestowed on you, who, as I take it, have stolen his bird’s nest.

DON PEDROI will but teach them[164] to sing, and restore them to the owner.

BENEDICKIf[165] their singing answer your saying, by my faith you say honestly.

DON PEDROThe Lady Beatrice hath a quarrel to[166] you: the gentleman that danced with her told her she is much wronged by you.

BENEDICKO, she misused[168] me past the endurance of a block! An oak but with one green leaf on it would have answered her. My very visor began to assume life and scold with her. She told me — not thinking I had been myself — that I was the prince’s jester, and that I was duller than a great[171] thaw, huddling jest upon jest with such impossible conveyance[172] upon me that I stood like a man at a mark, with a whole army shooting at me. She speaks poniards,[173] and every word stabs. If her breath were as terrible as her terminations,[174] there were no living near her, she would infect to the North Star. I would not marry her, though she were endowed with all[176] that Adam had left him before he transgressed. She would have made Hercules[177] have turned spit, yea, and have cleft his club to make the fire too. Come, talk not of her, you shall find her the infernal Ate[178] in good apparel. I would to God some scholar would conjure[179] her, for certainly, while she is here, a man may live as quiet in hell as in a sanctuary,[180] and people sin upon purpose, because they would go thither: so indeed all disquiet, horror and perturbation follows her.

Enter Claudio and Beatrice, Leonato [and] Hero

DON PEDROLook, here she comes.

BENEDICKWill your grace command me any service to the world’s end? I will go on the slightest errand now to the Antipodes[184] that you can devise to send me on: I will fetch you a tooth-picker[185] now from the furthest inch of Asia, bring you the length of Prester John’s[186] foot, fetch you a hair off the great Cham’s beard, do you any embassage to the Pygmies,[187] rather than hold three words’ conference with this harpy.[188] You have no employment for me?

DON PEDRONone, but to desire your good company.

BENEDICKO God, sir, here’s a dish I love not: I cannot endure this Lady Tongue.

Exit

DON PEDROCome, lady, come, you have lost the heart of Signior Benedick.

BEATRICEIndeed, my lord, he lent it me awhile, and I gave him use[192] for it, a double heart for his single one: marry, once before he won it of me with false dice,[193] therefore your Grace may well say I have lost it.

DON PEDROYou have put him down,[195] lady, you have put him down.

BEATRICESo I would not he should do[196] me, my lord, lest I should prove the mother of fools. I have brought Count Claudio, whom you sent me to seek.

DON PEDROWhy, how now, count? Wherefore[198] are you sad?

CLAUDIONot sad, my lord.

DON PEDROHow then? Sick?

CLAUDIONeither, my lord.

BEATRICEThe count is neither sad, nor sick, nor merry, nor well: but civil[202] count, civil as an orange, and something of a jealous complexion.[203]

DON PEDROI’faith, lady, I think your blazon[204] to be true, though I’ll be sworn, if he be so, his conceit[205] is false. Here, Claudio, I have wooed in thy name, and fair Hero is won: I have broke with her father, and his good will obtained. Name the day of marriage, and God give thee joy!

LEONATOCount, take of me my daughter, and with her my fortunes. His grace hath made the match, and all grace[209] say ‘Amen’ to it.

BEATRICESpeak, count, ’tis your cue.

CLAUDIOSilence is the perfectest herald[211] of joy. I were but little happy, if I could say how much. Lady, as you are mine, I am yours. I give away myself for you and dote upon[213] the exchange.

BEATRICESpeak, cousin, or, if you cannot, stop his mouth with a kiss, and let not him speak neither. Claudio and Hero kiss?

DON PEDROIn faith, lady, you have a merry heart.

BEATRICEYea, my lord, I thank it, poor fool, it keeps on the windy[217] side of care. My cousin tells him in his ear that he is in her heart.

CLAUDIOAnd so she doth, cousin.

BEATRICEGood[220] lord, for alliance! Thus goes everyone to the world but I, and I am sunburnt.[221] I may sit in a corner and cry ‘Hey-ho for a husband!’

DON PEDROLady Beatrice, I will get you one.

BEATRICEI would rather have one of your father’s getting.[223] Hath your grace ne’er a brother like you? Your father got excellent husbands, if a maid could come by them.

DON PEDROWill you have me, lady?

BEATRICENo, my lord, unless I might have another for working days: your grace is too costly to wear every day. But I beseech your grace pardon me. I was born to speak all mirth and no matter.[229]

DON PEDROYour[230] silence most offends me, and to be merry best becomes you, for out of question, you were born in a merry hour.

BEATRICENo, sure, my lord, my mother cried,[232] but then there was a star danced, and under that was I born. Cousins, God give you joy!

LEONATONiece, will you look to those things I told you of?

BEATRICEI cry you mercy,[235] uncle.— To Don Pedro By your grace’s pardon.

Exit

DON PEDROBy my troth, a pleasant-spirited lady.

LEONATOThere’s little of the melancholy element[237] in her, my lord: she is never sad but when she sleeps, and not ever[238] sad then, for I have heard my daughter say, she hath often dreamt of unhappiness and waked herself with laughing.

DON PEDROShe cannot endure to hear tell of a husband.

LEONATOO, by no means: she mocks all her wooers out of suit.[241]

DON PEDROShe were an excellent wife for Benedick.

LEONATOO lord, my lord, if they were but a week married, they would talk themselves mad.

DON PEDROCount Claudio, when mean you to go to church?

CLAUDIOTomorrow, my lord. Time goes on crutches till love have all his rites.

LEONATONot till Monday, my dear son, which is hence a just seven-night,[247] and a time too brief, too, to have all things answer my mind.

DON PEDROCome, you shake the head at so long a breathing.[249] But I warrant thee, Claudio, the time shall not go dully by us. I will in the interim undertake one of Hercules’ labours,[251] which is to bring Signior Benedick and the Lady Beatrice into a mountain of affection, th’one with th’other. I would fain[252] have it a match, and I doubt not but to fashion it, if you three will but minister[253] such assistance as I shall give you direction.

LEONATOMy lord, I am for you, though it cost me ten nights’ watchings.[255]

CLAUDIOAnd I, my lord.

DON PEDROAnd you too, gentle Hero?

HEROI will do any modest[258] office, my lord, to help my cousin to a good husband.

DON PEDROAnd Benedick is not the unhopefullest[259] husband that I know. Thus far can I praise him: he is of a noble strain,[260] of approved valour and confirmed honesty. I will teach you how to humour your cousin that she shall fall in love with Benedick, and I, with your two helps, To Leonato and Claudio will so practise on[262] Benedick that, in despite of his quick wit and his queasy stomach,[263] he shall fall in love with Beatrice. If we can do this, Cupid is no longer an archer: his glory shall be ours, for we are the only love-gods. Go in with me, and I will tell you my drift.[265]

Exeunt

[Act 2 Scene 2]

running scene 4 continues

Enter [Don] John and Borachio

DON JOHNIt is so: the Count Claudio shall marry the daughter of Leonato.

BORACHIOYea, my lord, but I can cross it.

DON JOHNAny bar, any cross, any impediment will be medicinable[3] to me: I am sick in displeasure to him, and whatsoever comes athwart[4] his affection ranges evenly with mine. How canst thou cross this marriage?

BORACHIONot honestly, my lord, but so covertly that no dishonesty shall appear in me.

DON JOHNShow me briefly how.

BORACHIOI think I told your lordship a year since, how much I am in the favour of Margaret, the waiting gentlewoman to Hero.

DON JOHNI remember.

BORACHIOI can at any unseasonable[12] instant of the night appoint her to look out at her lady’s chamber window.

DON JOHNWhat life is in that, to be the death of this marriage?

BORACHIOThe poison of that lies in you to temper.[15] Go you to the prince your brother, spare not to tell him that he hath wronged his honour in marrying the renowned[17] Claudio — whose estimation do you mightily hold up — to a contaminated stale,[18] such a one as Hero.

DON JOHNWhat proof shall I make of that?

BORACHIOProof enough to misuse the prince, to vex[20] Claudio, to undo Hero, and kill Leonato. Look you for any other issue?[21]

DON JOHNOnly to despite[22] them, I will endeavour anything.

BORACHIOGo, then, find me a meet[23] hour to draw Don Pedro and the Count Claudio alone. Tell them that you know that Hero loves me, intend[24] a kind of zeal both to the prince and Claudio — as in[25] a love of your brother’s honour, who hath made this match, and his friend’s reputation, who is thus like[26] to be cozened with the semblance[27] of a maid — that you have discovered thus. They will scarcely believe this without trial:[28] offer them instances, which shall bear no less likelihood than to see me at her chamber window, hear me call Margaret Hero, hear Margaret term me Claudio, and bring them to see this the very night before the intended wedding — for in the meantime I will so fashion the matter[31] that Hero shall be absent — and there shall appear such seeming truths of Hero’s disloyalty that jealousy[33] shall be called assurance and all the preparation overthrown.

DON JOHNGrow[34] this to what adverse issue it can, I will put it in practice. Be cunning in the working[35] this, and thy fee is a thousand ducats.

BORACHIOBe thou constant[36] in the accusation, and my cunning shall not shame me.

DON JOHNI will presently go learn their day of marriage.

Exeunt

[Act 2 Scene 3]

running scene 5

Enter Benedick, alone

BENEDICKBoy!

[Enter Boy]

BOYSignior?

BENEDICKIn my chamber-window lies a book: bring it hither to me in the orchard.

BOYI[4] am here already, sir.

BENEDICKI know that, but I would have thee hence and here again.

Exit [Boy]

I do much wonder that one man, seeing how much another man is a fool when he dedicates his behaviours to love, will, after he hath laughed at such shallow follies in others, become the argument[8] of his own scorn by falling in love: and such a man is Claudio. I have known when there was no music with him but the drum[9] and the fife,[10] and now had he rather hear the tabor and the pipe. I have known when he would have walked ten mile afoot[11] to see a good armour, and now will he lie ten nights awake carving[12] the fashion of a new doublet. He was wont to speak plain and to the purpose — like an honest man and a soldier — and now is he turned orthography,[14] his words are a very fantastical banquet, just so many strange dishes. May I be so converted and see with these eyes? I cannot tell: I think not. I will not be sworn, but love may transform[16] me to an oyster, but I’ll take my oath on it, till he have made an oyster of me, he shall never make me such a fool. One woman is fair, yet I am well: another is wise, yet I am well: another virtuous, yet I am well: but till all graces[19] be in one woman, one woman shall not come in my grace.[20] Rich she shall be, that’s certain: wise, or I’ll none: virtuous, or I’ll never cheapen[21] her: fair, or I’ll never look on her: mild, or come not near me: noble,[22] or not I for an angel: of good discourse, an excellent musician, and her hair shall be of what colour it please God. Ha! The prince and Monsieur Love! I will hide me in the arbour. He hides in the arbour

Enter [Don Pedro], Leonato, Claudio and [Balthasar]

25

DON PEDROCome, shall we hear this music?

CLAUDIOYea, my good lord. How still the evening is,

As[27] hushed on purpose to grace harmony.

DON PEDROSee you where Benedick hath hid himself?

CLAUDIOO, very well, my lord: the music ended,[29]

30

We’ll fit[30] the kid-fox with a pennyworth.

DON PEDROCome, Balthasar, we’ll hear that song again.

BALTHASARO, good my lord, tax[32] not so bad a voice

To slander music any more than once.

DON PEDROIt[34] is the witness still of excellency

35

To put a strange face on his own perfection.

I pray thee sing, and let me woo[36] no more.

BALTHASARBecause you talk of wooing, I will sing,

Since many a wooer doth commence his suit

To her[39] he thinks not worthy, yet he woos,

40

Yet will he swear he loves.

DON PEDRONay, pray thee come,

Or if thou wilt hold longer argument,

Do it in notes.

BALTHASARNote this before my notes:

45

There’s not a note of mine that’s worth the noting.

DON PEDROWhy, these are very crotchets[46] that he speaks:

Note[47] notes, forsooth, and nothing. Music

BENEDICKNow, divine air![48] Aside Now is his soul ravished. Is it not strange that sheep’s guts should hale[49] souls out of men’s bodies? Well, a horn for my money, when all’s done.

BALTHASAR[Sings] the song

50

Sigh no more, ladies, sigh no more,

Men were deceivers ever:

One foot in sea and one on shore,

To one thing constant never.

Then sigh not so, but let them go,

55

And be you blithe and bonny,[55]

Converting all your sounds of woe

Into hey nonny, nonny.

Sing no more ditties,[58] sing no moe,

Of dumps[59] so dull and heavy:

60

The fraud of men was ever so,

Since summer first was leafy.

Then sigh not so, etc.

DON PEDROBy my troth, a good song.

BALTHASARAnd an ill singer, my lord.

DON PEDROHa, no, no, faith: thou sing’st well enough for a shift.[65]

BENEDICKAn[66] he had been a dog that should have howled thus, Aside they would have hanged him, and I pray God his bad voice bode no mischief. I had as lief[67] have heard the night-raven,[68] come what plague could have come after it.

DON PEDROYea, marry, dost thou hear, Balthasar? I pray thee get us some excellent music, for tomorrow night we would have it at the Lady Hero’s chamber window.

BALTHASARThe best I can, my lord.

DON PEDRODo so: farewell.

Exit Balthasar

Come hither, Leonato. What was it you told me of today, that your niece Beatrice was in love with Signior Benedick?

CLAUDIOO, ay! Stalk on,[75] the fowl sits.— Aside to Don Pedro I did never think that lady would have loved any man. Aloud

LEONATONo, nor I neither, but most wonderful[77] that she should so dote on Signior Benedick, whom she hath in all outward behaviours seemed ever to abhor.

BENEDICKIs’t possible? Sits[79] the wind in that corner? Aside

LEONATOBy my troth my lord, I cannot tell what to think of it, but that she loves him with an enraged affection:[81] it is past the infinite of thought.

DON PEDROMaybe she doth but counterfeit.[82]

CLAUDIOFaith, like enough.

LEONATOO God! Counterfeit? There was never counterfeit of passion came so near the life of passion as she discovers[85] it.

DON PEDROWhy, what effects of passion shows she?

CLAUDIOBait the hook well, this fish will bite. Aside to them

LEONATOWhat effects, my lord? She will sit you[88]—you heard my daughter tell you how.

CLAUDIOShe did indeed.

DON PEDROHow, how, I pray you? You amaze me: I would have thought her spirit had been invincible against all assaults of affection.

LEONATOI would have sworn it had, my lord, especially against Benedick.

BENEDICKI should think this a gull,[93] but that the white-bearded fellow speaks it: Aside knavery cannot sure hide himself in such reverence.

CLAUDIOHe hath ta’en th’infection — Aside to them hold it up.[95]

DON PEDROHath she made her affection known to Benedick?

LEONATONo, and swears she never will. That’s her torment.

CLAUDIO’Tis true indeed, so your daughter says: ‘Shall I,’ says she, ‘that have so oft encountered him with scorn, write to him that I love him?’

LEONATOThis says she now when she is beginning to write to him, for she’ll be up twenty times a night, and there will she sit in her smock[101] till she have writ a sheet of paper: my daughter tells us all.

CLAUDIONow you talk of a sheet of paper, I remember a pretty jest your daughter told us of.

LEONATOO, when she had writ it, and was reading it over, she found ‘Benedick’ and ‘Beatrice’ between the sheet?

CLAUDIOThat.[107]

LEONATOO, she tore the letter into a thousand halfpence,[108] railed at herself, that she should be so immodest to write to one that she knew would flout her. ‘I measure him’, says she, ‘by my own spirit, for I should flout him if he writ to me, yea, though I love him, I should.’

CLAUDIOThen down upon her knees she falls, weeps, sobs, beats her heart, tears her hair, prays, curses: ‘O sweet Benedick! God give me patience!’

LEONATOShe doth indeed, my daughter says so, and the ecstasy[114] hath so much overborne[115] her that my daughter is sometime afeard she will do a desperate outrage[116] to herself: it is very true.

DON PEDROIt were good that Benedick knew of it by some other, if she will not discover it.

CLAUDIOTo what end? He would but make a sport of it and torment the poor lady worse.

DON PEDROAn he should, it were an alms[121] to hang him. She’s an excellent sweet lady and, out of all suspicion,[122] she is virtuous.

CLAUDIOAnd she is exceeding wise.

DON PEDROIn everything, but in loving Benedick.

LEONATOO, my lord, wisdom and blood[125] combating in so tender a body, we have ten proofs to one that blood hath the victory. I am sorry for her, as I have just cause, being her uncle and her guardian.

DON PEDROI would she had bestowed this dotage[128] on me: I would have daffed all other respects[129] and made her half myself. I pray you tell Benedick of it and hear what he will say.

LEONATOWere it good, think you?

CLAUDIOHero thinks surely she will die, for she says she will die if he love her not, and she will die ere she make her love known, and she will die if he woo her, rather than she will bate[134] one breath of her accustomed crossness.

DON PEDROShe doth well: if she should make tender of[135] her love, ’tis very possible he’ll scorn it, for the man, as you know all, hath a contemptible[136] spirit.

CLAUDIOHe is a very proper[137] man.

DON PEDROHe hath indeed a good outward happiness.[138]

CLAUDIO’Fore God,[139] and in my mind, very wise.

DON PEDROHe doth indeed show some sparks that are like wit.

LEONATOAnd I take him to be valiant.

DON PEDROAs Hector,[142] I assure you: and in the managing of quarrels you may see he is wise, for either he avoids them with great discretion,[143] or undertakes them with a Christian-like fear.

LEONATOIf he do fear God, a must necessarily keep peace. If he break the peace, he ought to enter into a quarrel with fear and trembling.

DON PEDROAnd so will he do, for the man doth fear God, howsoever it seems not in him by[148] some large jests he will make. Well, I am sorry for your niece. Shall we go seek Benedick, and tell him of her love?

CLAUDIONever tell him, my lord: let her wear it out[150] with good counsel.

LEONATONay, that’s impossible: she may wear her heart out first.

DON PEDROWell, we will hear further of it by your daughter. Let it cool the while.[152] I love Benedick well, and I could wish he would modestly[153] examine himself, to see how much he is unworthy to have so good a lady.

LEONATOMy lord, will you walk? Dinner is ready.

CLAUDIOIf he do not dote on her upon[156] this, I will never trust my expectation. Aside to them

DON PEDROLet there be the same net spread for her, Aside to them and that must your daughter and her gentlewoman carry.[158] The sport will be when they hold one an opinion of another’s dotage, and no such matter:[159] that’s the scene that I would see, which will be merely a dumb-show.[160] Let us send her to call him in to dinner.

Exeunt [Don Pedro, Claudio and Leonato]

BENEDICKThis can be no trick: He comes forward the conference was sadly borne,[161] they have the truth of this from Hero. They seem to pity the lady: it seems her affections have[162] the full bent. Love me? Why, it must be requited. I hear how I am censured:[163] they say I will bear myself proudly, if I perceive the love come from her. They say too that she will rather die than give any sign of affection. I did never think to marry. I must not seem proud. Happy are they that hear their detractions[166] and can put them to mending. They say the lady is fair — ’tis a truth, I can bear them witness, and virtuous — ’tis so, I cannot reprove[168] it, and wise, but for loving me — by my troth, it is no addition to her wit, nor no great argument[169] of her folly, for I will be horribly in love with her. I may chance have some odd quirks[170] and remnants of wit broken[171] on me because I have railed so long against marriage. But doth not the appetite alter? A man loves the meat in his youth that he cannot endure in his age. Shall quips and sentences[173] and these paper bullets of the brain awe a man from the career[174] of his humour? No, the world must be peopled. When I said I would die a bachelor, I did not think I should live till I were married. Here comes Beatrice. By this day, she’s a fair lady! I do spy some marks of love in her.

Enter Beatrice

BEATRICEAgainst my will I am sent to bid you come in to dinner.

BENEDICKFair Beatrice, I thank you for your pains.[178]

BEATRICEI took no more pains for those thanks than you take pains to thank me: if it had been painful, I would not have come.

BENEDICKYou take pleasure then in the message?

BEATRICEYea, just so much as you may take upon a knife’s point and choke[182] a daw withal.[183] You have no stomach, signior, fare you well.

Exit

BENEDICKHa! ‘Against my will I am sent to bid you come in to dinner’ — there’s a double meaning in that. ‘I took no more pains for those thanks than you took pains to thank me’ — that’s as much as to say, ‘Any pains that I take for you is as easy as thanks.’ If I do not take pity of her, I am a villain: if I do not love her, I am a Jew.[188] I will go get her picture.

Exit

Act 3 Scene 1

running scene 6

Enter Hero, and two gentlewomen, Margaret and Ursula

HEROGood Margaret, run thee to the parlour,

There shalt thou find my cousin Beatrice

Proposing[3] with the prince and Claudio.

Whisper her ear, and tell her I and Ursula

5

Walk in the orchard, and our whole discourse

Is all of her. Say that thou overheard’st us,

And bid her steal into the pleachèd bower

Where honeysuckles, ripened by the sun,

Forbid the sun to enter, like favourites,

10

Made proud by princes, that advance[10] their pride

Against that power that bred it: there will she hide her

To listen our purpose.[12] This is thy office:

Bear thee well in it, and leave us alone.

MARGARETI’ll make her come, I warrant you, presently.

[Exit]

15

HERONow, Ursula, when Beatrice doth come,

As we do trace[16] this alley up and down,

Our talk must only be of Benedick.

When I do name him, let it be thy part

To praise him more than ever man did merit:

20

My talk to thee must be how Benedick

Is sick in love with Beatrice. Of this matter

Is little Cupid’s crafty arrow made,

That only wounds by hearsay.[23]

Enter Beatrice [into the bower]

Now begin:

For look where Beatrice like a lapwing[24] runs

25

Close by the ground to hear our conference.

URSULAThe pleasant’st angling is to see the fish To Hero

Cut with her golden oars[27] the silver stream,

And greedily devour the treacherous bait:

So angle we for Beatrice, who even now

30

Is couchèd[30] in the woodbine coverture.

Fear you not my part of the dialogue.

HEROThen go we near her, that her ear lose nothing To Ursula

Of the false sweet bait that we lay for it. They approach the bower

No, truly, Ursula, she is too disdainful: Aloud

35

I know her spirits are as coy[35] and wild

As haggards[36] of the rock.

URSULABut are you sure

That Benedick loves Beatrice so entirely?[38]

HEROSo says the prince and my new-trothèd[39] lord.

40

URSULAAnd did they bid you tell her of it, madam?

HEROThey did entreat me to acquaint her of it,

But I persuaded them, if they loved Benedick,

To wish him wrestle with affection,

And never to let Beatrice know of it.

45

URSULAWhy did you so? Doth[45] not the gentleman

Deserve as full as fortunate a bed[46]

As ever Beatrice shall couch[47] upon?

HEROO god of love! I know he doth deserve

As much as may be yielded[49] to a man.

50

But nature never framed a woman’s heart

Of prouder stuff than that of Beatrice.

Disdain and scorn ride sparkling in her eyes,

Misprising[53] what they look on, and her wit

Values itself so highly that to her

55

All matter else seems weak:[55] she cannot love,

Nor take no shape nor project[56] of affection,

She is so self-endeared[57].

URSULASure, I think so:

And therefore certainly it were not good

60

She knew his love, lest she make sport at it.

HEROWhy, you speak truth. I never yet saw man,

How[62] wise, how noble, young, how rarely featured,

But she would spell him backward:[63] if fair-faced,

She would swear the gentleman should be her sister:

65

If black,[65] why, nature, drawing of an antic,

Made a foul blot: if tall, a lance ill-headed:[66]

If low, an agate[67] very vilely cut:

If speaking, why, a vane blown with all winds:

If silent, why, a block movèd with none.

70

So turns she every man the wrong side out,

And never gives to truth and virtue that

Which simpleness[72] and merit purchaseth.

URSULASure, sure, such carping[73] is not commendable.

HERONo, not to be so odd[74] and from all fashions

75

As Beatrice is cannot be commendable.

But who dare tell her so? If I should speak,

She would mock me into air: O, she would laugh me

Out of myself, press[78] me to death with wit.

Therefore let Benedick, like covered[79] fire,

80

Consume away in sighs, waste inwardly.

It were a better death than die with mocks,

Which is as bad as die with tickling.

URSULAYet tell her of it: hear what she will say.

HERONo, rather I will go to Benedick

85

And counsel[85] him to fight against his passion.

And truly I’ll devise some honest slanders[86]

To stain my cousin with. One doth not know

How much an ill word may empoison liking.

URSULAO, do not do your cousin such a wrong.

90

She cannot be so much without true judgement —

Having so swift and excellent a wit

As she is prized[92] to have — as to refuse

So rare a gentleman as Signior Benedick.

HEROHe is the only[94] man of Italy,

95

Always excepted my dear Claudio.

URSULAI pray you be not angry with me, madam,

Speaking my fancy:[97] Signior Benedick,

For shape, for bearing, argument[98] and valour,

Goes foremost in report through Italy.

100

HEROIndeed he hath an excellent good name.

URSULAHis excellence did earn it ere he had it.

When are you married, madam?

HEROWhy, every day, tomorrow.[103] Come, go in:

I’ll show thee some attires,[104] and have thy counsel

105

Which is the best to furnish me[105] tomorrow. They step back from the bower

URSULAShe’s ta’en, I warrant you: we have caught her, madam.

HEROIf it prove so, then loving goes by haps:[107]

Some Cupid kills with arrows, some with traps.

Exeunt [Hero and Ursula]

BEATRICEWhat fire is in mine ears? Can this be true? She comes forward

110

Stand I condemned for pride and scorn so much?

Contempt farewell, and maiden pride adieu!

No glory lives behind the back of such.

And, Benedick, love on, I will requite thee,

Taming[114] my wild heart to thy loving hand.

115

If thou dost love, my kindness shall incite thee

To bind our loves up in a holy band.[116]

For others say thou dost deserve, and I

Believe it better than reportingly.[118]

Exit

Act 3 Scene 2

running scene 7

Enter Prince [Don Pedro], Claudio, Benedick and Leonato

DON PEDROI do but stay till your marriage be consummate,[1] and then go I toward Aragon.

CLAUDIOI’ll bring you thither, my lord, if you’ll vouchsafe[3] me.

DON PEDRONay, that would be as great a soil in the new gloss of your marriage as to show a child his new coat and forbid him to wear it. I will only[5] be bold with Benedick for his company, for from the crown of his head to the sole of his foot he is all mirth. He hath twice or thrice cut Cupid’s bow-string and the little hangman[7] dare not shoot at him. He hath a heart as sound as a bell and his tongue is the clapper, for what his heart thinks his tongue speaks.

BENEDICKGallants, I am not as I have been.

LEONATOSo say I, methinks you are sadder.

CLAUDIOI hope he be in love.

DON PEDROHang him, truant![13] There’s no true drop of blood in him to be truly touched with love. If he be sad, he wants[14] money.

BENEDICKI have the toothache.

DON PEDRODraw[16] it.

BENEDICKHang it.[17]

CLAUDIOYou must hang it[18] first, and draw it afterwards.

DON PEDROWhat? Sigh for the toothache?

LEONATOWhere[20] is but a humour or a worm.

BENEDICKWell, everyone cannot master a grief but[21] he that has it.

CLAUDIOYet say I, he is in love.

DON PEDROThere is no appearance of fancy[23] in him, unless it be a fancy that he hath to strange disguises — as to be a Dutchman today, a Frenchman tomorrow.[24] Unless he have a fancy to this foolery, as it appears he hath, he is no fool for fancy, as you would have it to appear he is.

CLAUDIOIf he be not in love with some woman, there is no believing old signs: a brushes his hat o’mornings, what should that bode?

DON PEDROHath any man seen him at the barber’s?

CLAUDIONo, but the barber’s man hath been seen with him, and the old ornament[30] of his cheek hath already stuffed tennis-balls.

LEONATOIndeed, he looks younger than he did, by the loss of a beard.

DON PEDRONay, a rubs himself with civet.[33] Can you smell him out by that?

CLAUDIOThat’s as much as to say the sweet youth’s in love.

DON PEDROThe greatest note[35] of it is his melancholy.

CLAUDIOAnd when was he wont[36] to wash his face?

DON PEDROYea, or to paint[37] himself? For the which, I hear what they say of him.

CLAUDIONay, but his jesting spirit, which is now crept into a lute-string[38] and now governed[39] by stops.

DON PEDROIndeed, that tells a heavy[40] tale for him. Conclude: he is in love.

CLAUDIONay, but I know who loves him.

DON PEDROThat would I know too. I warrant, one that knows him not.

CLAUDIOYes, and his ill conditions,[43] and in despite of all, dies for him.

DON PEDROShe shall be buried with her face upwards.[44]

BENEDICKYet is this no charm for the toothache. Old signior,[45] walk aside with me: I have studied eight or nine wise words to speak to you, which these hobby-horses[46] must not hear.

[Exeunt Benedick and Leonato]

DON PEDROFor[48] my life, to break with him about Beatrice.

CLAUDIO’Tis even so. Hero and Margaret have by this[49] played their parts with Beatrice, and then the two bears will not bite one another when they meet.

Enter [Don] John the Bastard

DON JOHNMy lord and brother, God save you.[51]

DON PEDROGood den,[52] brother.

DON JOHNIf[53] your leisure served, I would speak with you.

DON PEDROIn private?

DON JOHNIf it please you. Yet Count Claudio may hear, for what I would speak of concerns him.

DON PEDROWhat’s the matter?

DON JOHNMeans your lordship to be married tomorrow? To Claudio

DON PEDROYou know he does.

DON JOHNI know not that, when he knows what I know.

CLAUDIOIf there be any impediment, I pray you discover it.

DON JOHNYou may think I love you not: let[62] that appear hereafter, and aim better at me by that I now will manifest. For my brother, I think he holds[63] you well, and in dearness of heart, hath holp to effect your ensuing marriage — surely suit ill spent and labour ill bestowed.

DON PEDROWhy, what’s the matter?

DON JOHNI came hither to tell you, and, circumstances shortened[67] — for she has been too long a talking[68] of — the lady is disloyal.

CLAUDIOWho, Hero?

DON PEDROEven she: Leonato’s Hero, your Hero, every man’s Hero.

CLAUDIODisloyal?

DON JOHNThe word is too good to paint out[72] her wickedness. I could say she were worse: think you of a worse title, and I will fit[73] her to it. Wonder not till further warrant.[74] Go but with me tonight, you shall see her chamber window entered, even the night before her wedding-day. If you love her then, tomorrow wed her. But it would better fit[76] your honour to change your mind.

CLAUDIOMay this be so?

DON PEDROI will not think it.

DON JOHNIf[79] you dare not trust that you see, confess not that you know. If you will follow me, I will show you enough, and when you have seen more and heard more, proceed accordingly.

CLAUDIOIf I see anything tonight why I should not marry her tomorrow in the congregation where I should wed, there will I shame her.

DON PEDROAnd, as I wooed for thee to obtain her, I will join with thee to disgrace her.

DON JOHNI will disparage her no farther till you are my witnesses. Bear it coldly[86] but till night, and let the issue show itself.

DON PEDROO day untowardly turned![88]

CLAUDIOO mischief[89] strangely thwarting!

DON JOHNO plague right well prevented! So will you say when you have seen the sequel.

Exeunt

[Act 3 Scene 3]3.3

running scene 8

Enter Dogberry and his compartner [Verges] with the Watch

DOGBERRYAre you good men and true?[1]

VERGESYea, or else it were pity but they should suffer salvation,[2] body and soul.

DOGBERRYNay, that were a punishment too good for them, if they should have any allegiance[4] in them, being chosen for the prince’s watch.

VERGESWell, give them their charge,[5] neighbour Dogberry.

DOGBERRYFirst, who think you the most desertless[6] man to be constable?

FIRST WATCHMANHugh Otecake,[7] sir, or George Seacole, for they can write and read.

DOGBERRYCome hither, neighbour Seacole. Second Watchman steps forward God hath blessèd you with a good name: to be a well-favoured[9] man is the gift of fortune, but to write and read comes by nature.

SECOND WATCHMANBoth which, master constable—

DOGBERRYYou have: I knew it would be your answer. Well, for your favour,[12] sir, why, give God thanks, and make no boast of it. And for your writing and reading, let that appear when there is no need of such vanity. You are thought here to be the most senseless[15] and fit man for the constable of the watch: therefore bear you the lantern. This is your charge: you shall comprehend[16] all vagrom men, you are to bid any man stand,[17] in the prince’s name.

SECOND WATCHMANHow if a will not stand?

DOGBERRYWhy, then, take[19] no note of him, but let him go, and presently call the rest of the watch together, and thank God you are rid of a knave.

VERGESIf he will not stand when he is bidden, he is none of the prince’s subjects.

DOGBERRYTrue, and they are to meddle[22] with none but the prince’s subjects. You shall also make no noise in the streets, for for the watch to babble and talk is most tolerable[24] and not to be endured.

WATCHMANWe will rather sleep than talk: we know what belongs[25] to a watch.

DOGBERRYWhy, you speak like an ancient[26] and most quiet watchman, for I cannot see how sleeping should offend: only have a care that your bills[27] be not stolen. Well, you are to call at all the ale-houses, and bid them that are drunk get them to bed.

WATCHMANHow if they will not?

DOGBERRYWhy then, let them alone till they are sober: if they make you not then the better answer, you may say they are not the men you took them for.

WATCHMANWell, sir.

DOGBERRYIf you meet a thief, you may suspect him, by virtue of your office, to be no true[35] man: and for such kind of men, the less you meddle or make with them, why the more is for your honesty.

WATCHMANIf we know him to be a thief, shall we not lay hands on him?

DOGBERRYTruly, by[38] your office, you may, but I think they that touch pitch will be defiled.[39] The most peaceable way for you, if you do take a thief, is to let him show himself what he is, and steal out of your company.

VERGESYou have been always called a merciful man, partner.

DOGBERRYTruly, I would not hang a dog by my will,[42] much more a man who hath any honesty in him.

VERGESIf you hear a child cry in the night, you must call to the nurse and bid her still[45] it.

WATCHMANHow if the nurse be asleep and will not hear us?

DOGBERRYWhy then, depart in peace, and let the child wake her with crying, for the ewe that will not hear her lamb when it baas will never answer a calf when he bleats.

VERGES’Tis very true.

DOGBERRYThis is the end of the charge: you, constable, are to present[51] the prince’s own person. If you meet the prince in the night, you may stay[52] him.

VERGESNay, by’r lady,[53] that I think a cannot.

DOGBERRYFive shillings to one on’t, with any man that knows the statues,[54] he may stay him: marry,[55] not without the prince be willing, for indeed the watch ought to offend no man, and it is an offence to stay a man against his will.

VERGESBy’r lady, I think it be so.

DOGBERRYHa, ah, ha! Well, masters, good night, an there be any matter of weight chances,[59] call up me. Keep your fellows’ counsels and your own, and good night. Come, neighbour. Starts to go

WATCHMANWell, masters, we hear our charge. Let us go sit here upon the church-bench till two, and then all to bed.

DOGBERRYOne word more, honest neighbours. I pray you watch about Signior Leonato’s door, for the wedding being there tomorrow, there is a great coil[64] tonight. Adieu. Be vigitant,[65] I beseech you.

Exeunt [Dogberry and Verges]

Enter Borachio and Conrad

BORACHIOWhat, Conrad?

WATCHMANPeace! Stir not. Aside

BORACHIOConrad, I say!

CONRADHere, man, I am at thy elbow.

BORACHIOMass,[70] and my elbow itched, I thought there would a scab follow.

CONRADI will owe thee an answer for that: and now forward with thy tale.

BORACHIOStand thee close[72] then under this penthouse, for it drizzles rain, and I will, like a true drunkard, utter all to thee.

WATCHMANSome treason, masters. Aside Yet stand close.

BORACHIOTherefore know, I have earned of Don John a thousand ducats.

CONRADIs it possible that any villainy should be so dear?[76]

BORACHIOThou shouldst rather ask if it were possible any villainy should be so rich, for when rich villains have need of poor ones, poor ones may make what price they will.

CONRADI wonder at it.

BORACHIOThat shows thou art unconfirmed.[81] Thou knowest that the fashion of a doublet, or a hat, or a cloak, is[82] nothing to a man.

CONRADYes, it is apparel.

BORACHIOI mean the fashion.[84]

CONRADYes, the fashion is the fashion.

BORACHIOTush, I may as well say the fool’s the fool. But seest thou not what a deformed[87] thief this fashion is?

WATCHMANI know that Deformed: Aside a has been a vile thief this seven years, a goes up and down[88] like a gentleman. I remember his name.

BORACHIODidst thou not hear somebody?

CONRADNo, ’twas the vane on the house.

BORACHIOSeest thou not, I say, what a deformed thief this fashion is, how giddily a turns about all the hot bloods[93] between fourteen and five-and-thirty, sometimes fashioning them like Pharaoh’s soldiers[94] in the reechy painting, sometime like god Bel’s priests in the old church-window, sometime like the shaven Hercules in the smirched[96] worm-eaten tapestry, where his codpiece seems as massy as his club?

CONRADAll this I see, and I see that the fashion wears out more apparel than the man. But art not thou thyself giddy with the fashion too, that thou hast shifted[98] out of thy tale into telling me of the fashion?

BORACHIONot so, neither. But know that I have tonight wooed Margaret, the Lady Hero’s gentlewoman,[101] by the name of Hero. She leans me out at her mistress’ chamber-window, bids me a thousand times good night — I tell this tale vilely — I should first tell thee how the prince, Claudio and my master, planted and placed and possessed[104] by my master Don John, saw afar off in the orchard this amiable encounter.

CONRADAnd thought they Margaret was Hero?

BORACHIOTwo of them did, the prince and Claudio, but the devil my master knew she was Margaret, and partly by his oaths,[108] which first possessed them, partly by the dark night, which did deceive them, but chiefly by my villainy, which did confirm any slander that Don John had made. Away went Claudio enraged, swore he would meet her as he was appointed next morning at the temple, and there, before the whole congregation, shame her with what he saw o’er-night, and send her home again without a husband.

FIRST WATCHMANWe charge you in the prince’s name, stand!

SECOND WATCHMANCall up the right master constable. We have here recovered[115] the most dangerous piece of lechery[116] that ever was known in the commonwealth.

FIRST WATCHMANAnd one Deformed is one of them. I know him, a wears a lock.[117]

CONRADMasters, masters—

SECOND WATCHMANYou’ll be made[119] bring Deformed forth, I warrant you.

CONRADMasters—

FIRST WATCHMANNever speak, we charge you. Let us obey[121] you to go with us.

BORACHIOWe are like to prove a goodly commodity,[122] being taken up of these men’s bills.[123]

CONRADA commodity in question,[124] I warrant you. Come, we’ll obey you.

Exeunt

[Act 3 Scene 4]

running scene 9

Enter Hero and Margaret and Ursula

HEROGood Ursula, wake my cousin Beatrice, and desire her to rise.

URSULAI will, lady.

HEROAnd bid her come hither.

URSULAWell.

[Exit]

MARGARETTroth, I think your other rabato[5] were better.

HERONo, pray thee good Meg, I’ll wear this.

MARGARETBy my troth ’s not so good, and I warrant your cousin will say so.

HEROMy cousin’s a fool, and thou art another. I’ll wear none but this.

MARGARETI like the new tire[9] within excellently, if the hair were a thought browner, and your gown’s a most rare[10] fashion, i’faith. I saw the Duchess of Milan’s gown that they praise so.

HEROO, that exceeds,[12] they say.

MARGARETBy my troth ’s but a night-gown in respect of[13] yours — cloth a gold, and cuts,[14] and laced with silver, set with pearls, down sleeves, side sleeves, and skirts, round underborne[15] with a bluish tinsel: but for a fine, quaint, graceful and excellent fashion, yours is worth ten on’t.[16]

HEROGod give me joy to wear it, for my heart is exceeding heavy.[17]

MARGARET’Twill be heavier soon by the weight of a man.

HEROFie upon thee,[19] art not ashamed?

MARGARETOf what, lady? Of speaking honourably? Is not marriage honourable in[20] a beggar? Is not your lord honourable without marriage? I[21] think you would have me say, saving your reverence, ‘a husband’. An[22] bad thinking do not wrest true speaking, I’ll offend nobody. Is there any harm in ‘the heavier for a husband’? None, I think, an[24] it be the right husband and the right wife, otherwise ’tis light and not heavy. Ask my Lady Beatrice else,[25] here she comes.

Enter Beatrice

HEROGood morrow, coz.[26]

BEATRICEGood morrow, sweet Hero.

HEROWhy, how now? Do you speak in the sick tune?

BEATRICEI am out of all other tune, methinks.

MARGARETClap’s into[30] ‘Light o’ love’ — that goes without a burden. Do you sing it, and I’ll dance[31] it.

BEATRICEYe[32] light o’ love with your heels! Then, if your husband have stables enough, you’ll look he shall lack no barns.[33]

MARGARETO illegitimate construction![34] I scorn that with my heels.

BEATRICE’Tis almost five o’clock, cousin, ’tis time you were ready. By my troth, I am exceeding ill. Hey-ho![36]

MARGARETFor a hawk, a horse, or a husband?

BEATRICEFor the letter that begins them all, H.[38]

MARGARETWell, an[39] you be not turned Turk, there’s no more sailing by the star.

BEATRICEWhat means the fool, trow?[40]

MARGARETNothing I, but God send every one their heart’s desire!

HEROThese gloves the Count sent me, they are an excellent perfume.

BEATRICEI am stuffed,[43] cousin, I cannot smell.

MARGARETA maid, and stuffed! There’s goodly catching of cold.

BEATRICEO, God help me, God help me! How long have you professed apprehension?[45]

MARGARETEven since you left it. Doth not my wit become me rarely?[46]

BEATRICEIt is not seen enough, you should wear it in your cap.[47] By my troth, I am sick.

MARGARETGet you some of this distilled carduus benedictus,[49] and lay it to your heart: it is the only thing for a qualm.[50]

HEROThere thou prick’st her with a thistle.

BEATRICEBenedictus? Why benedictus? You have some moral in this benedictus.

MARGARETMoral? No, by my troth I have no moral meaning, I meant plain holy-thistle. You may think perchance that I think you are in love, nay, by’r lady, I am not such a fool to think what I list,[55] nor I list not to think what I can, nor indeed I cannot think, if I would think my heart out of thinking, that you are in love or that you will be in love or that you can be in love. Yet Benedick was such another,[57] and now is he become a man: he swore he would never marry, and yet now in despite of his heart, he eats[59] his meat without grudging. And how you may be converted I know not, but methinks you look with your eyes as other women do.

BEATRICEWhat pace is this that thy tongue keeps?

MARGARETNot a false gallop.[63]

Enter Ursula

URSULAMadam, withdraw. The prince, the count, Signior Benedick, Don John, and all the gallants of the town are come to fetch you to church.

HEROHelp to dress me, good coz, good Meg, good Ursula.

[Exeunt]

[Act 3 Scene 5]

running scene 10

Enter Leonato, and the Constable [Dogberry] and the Headborough [Verges]

LEONATOWhat would you with me, honest neighbour?

DOGBERRYMarry, sir, I would have some confidence[2] with you that decerns you nearly.

LEONATOBrief, I pray you, for you see it is a busy time with me.

DOGBERRYMarry, this it is, sir.

VERGESYes, in truth it is, sir.

LEONATOWhat is it, my good friends?

DOGBERRYGoodman[8] Verges, sir, speaks a little off the matter — an old man, sir, and his wits are not so blunt[9] as, God help, I would desire they were, but, in faith, honest as the skin between his brows.

VERGESYes, I thank God, I am as honest as any man living that is an old man, and no honester than I.

DOGBERRYComparisons are odorous:[13] palabras, neighbour Verges.

LEONATONeighbours, you are tedious.

DOGBERRYIt pleases your worship to say so, but we are the poor duke’s officers.[15] But truly, for mine own part, if I were as tedious[16] as a king, I could find in my heart to bestow it all of your worship.

LEONATOAll thy tediousness on me, ah?

DOGBERRYYea, an ’twere a thousand times more than ’tis, for I hear as good exclamation[20] on your worship as of any man in the city, and though I be but a poor man, I am glad to hear it.

VERGESAnd so am I.

LEONATOI would fain know what you have to say.

VERGESMarry, sir, our watch tonight, excepting[24] your worship’s presence, have ta’en a couple of as arrant[25] knaves as any in Messina.

DOGBERRYA good old man, sir, he will be talking. As they say, ‘When the age is in, the wit is out’, God help us, it is a world[27] to see. Well said, i’faith, neighbour Verges. Well, God’s a good man,[28] an two men ride of a horse, one must ride behind. An honest soul, i’faith, sir, by my troth he is, as ever broke bread. But God is to be worshipped, all men are not alike, alas, good neighbour.

LEONATOIndeed, neighbour, he comes too short of you.

DOGBERRYGifts that God gives.

LEONATOI must leave you.

DOGBERRYOne word, sir: our watch, sir, have indeed comprehended[34] two auspicious persons, and we would have them this morning examined before your worship.

LEONATOTake their examination yourself and bring it me. I am now in great haste, as may appear unto you.

DOGBERRYIt shall be suffigance.[38]

LEONATODrink some wine ere you go. Fare you well.

[Enter a Messenger]

MESSENGERMy lord, they stay for you to give your daughter to her husband.

LEONATOI’ll wait upon them. I am ready.

Exeunt [Leonato and Messenger]

DOGBERRYGo, good partner, go, get you to Francis Seacole, bid him bring his pen and inkhorn[43] to the jail. We are now to examination those men.

VERGESAnd we must do it wisely.

DOGBERRYWe will spare for no wit, I warrant you. Here’s that shall drive some of them to a non-come.[46] Only get the learned writer to set down our excommunication[47] and meet me at the jail.

Exeunt

Act 4 Scene 1

running scene 11

Enter Prince [Don Pedro, Don John the] Bastard, Leonato, Friar [Francis], Claudio, Benedick, Hero and Beatrice [and Attendants]

LEONATOCome, Friar Francis, be brief: only to the plain form of marriage, and you shall recount their particular duties afterwards.

FRIAR FRANCISYou come hither, my lord, to marry this lady.

CLAUDIONo.

LEONATOTo be married to her. Friar, you come to marry her.

FRIAR FRANCISLady, you come hither to be married to this count.

HEROI do.

FRIAR FRANCISIf either of you know any inward[8] impediment why you should not be conjoined, I charge you on your souls to utter it.

CLAUDIOKnow you any, Hero?

HERONone, my lord.

FRIAR FRANCISKnow you any, Count?

LEONATOI dare make his answer, none.

CLAUDIOO, what men dare do! What men may do! What men daily do, not knowing what they do!

BENEDICKHow now? Interjections? Why then, some be of laughing, as ha, ha, he!

CLAUDIOStand thee by,[17] friar. Father, by your leave:

Will you with free and unconstrainèd soul

Give me this maid, your daughter?

20

LEONATOAs freely, son, as God did give her me.

CLAUDIOAnd what have I to give you back whose worth

May counterpoise[22] this rich and precious gift?

DON PEDRONothing, unless you render her again.[23]

CLAUDIOSweet prince, you learn[24] me noble thankfulness.

25

There, Leonato, take her back again. Hands Hero to Leonato

Give not this rotten orange to your friend.

She’s but the sign and semblance[27] of her honour.

Behold how like a maid she blushes here.

O, what authority and show of truth

30

Can cunning sin cover itself withal![30]

Comes not that blood[31] as modest evidence

To witness[32] simple virtue? Would you not swear,

All you that see her, that she were a maid,

By these exterior shows? But she is none.

35

She knows the heat of a luxurious[35] bed:

Her blush is guiltiness, not modesty.

LEONATOWhat do you mean, my lord?

CLAUDIONot to be married,

Not to knit my soul to an approvèd[39] wanton.

40

LEONATODear my lord, if you, in[40] your own proof,

Have vanquished the resistance of her youth,

And made defeat of her virginity—

CLAUDIOI know what you would say: if I have known[43] her,

You will say she did embrace me as a husband,

45

And so extenuate[45] the ’forehand sin.

No, Leonato,

I never tempted her with word too large,[47]

But, as a brother to his sister, showed

Bashful[49] sincerity and comely love.

50

HEROAnd seemed I ever otherwise to you?

CLAUDIOOut on thee, seeming! I will write against it.[51]

You seem to me as Dian[52] in her orb,

As chaste as is the bud ere it be blown.[53]

But you are more intemperate[54] in your blood

55

Than Venus[55] or those pampered animals

That rage in savage sensuality.

HEROIs my lord well that he doth speak so wide?[57]

LEONATOSweet prince, why speak not you?

DON PEDROWhat should I speak?

60

I stand dishonoured, that have gone about

To link my dear friend to a common stale.[61]

LEONATOAre these things spoken, or do I but dream?

DON JOHNSir, they are spoken, and these things are true.

BENEDICKThis looks not like a nuptial.

65

HERO‘True’? O God!

CLAUDIOLeonato, stand I here?

Is this the prince? Is this the prince’s brother?

Is this face Hero’s? Are our eyes our own?

LEONATOAll this is so, but what of this, my lord?

70

CLAUDIOLet me but move[70] one question to your daughter,

And by that fatherly and kindly[71] power

That you have in her, bid her answer truly.

LEONATOI charge thee do so, as thou art my child. To Hero

HEROO, God defend me, how am I beset![74]

75

What kind of catechizing[75] call you this?

CLAUDIOTo make you answer[76] truly to your name.

HEROIs it not Hero? Who can blot that name

With any just reproach?

CLAUDIOMarry, that can Hero:

80

Hero itself can blot out Hero’s virtue.

What man was he talked with you yesternight,

Out at your window betwixt twelve and one?

Now if you are a maid, answer to this.

HEROI talked with no man at that hour, my lord.

85

DON PEDROWhy, then you are no maiden. Leonato,

I am sorry you must hear. Upon mine honour,

Myself, my brother and this grievèd[87] count

Did see her, hear her, at that hour last night,

Talk with a ruffian at her chamber window,

90

Who hath indeed, most like a liberal[90] villain,

Confessed the vile encounters they have had

A thousand times in secret.

DON JOHNFie, fie, they are not to be named, my lord,

Not to be spoken of.

95

There is not chastity enough in language

Without offence to utter them. Thus, pretty lady,

I am sorry for thy much misgovernment.[97]

CLAUDIOO Hero! What a Hero hadst thou been,

If half thy outward graces[99] had been placed

100

About thy thoughts and counsels of thy heart!

But fare thee well, most foul, most fair! Farewell,

Thou pure impiety and impious purity!

For[103] thee I’ll lock up all the gates of love,

And on my eyelids shall conjecture[104] hang,

105

To turn all beauty into thoughts of harm,

And never shall it more be gracious.[106]

LEONATOHath no man’s dagger here a point for me? Hero swoons

BEATRICEWhy, how now, cousin! Wherefore sink you down?

DON JOHNCome, let us go. These things, come thus to light,

110

Smother her spirits[110] up.

[Exeunt Don Pedro, Don John and Claudio]

BENEDICKHow doth the lady?

BEATRICEDead, I think. Help, uncle!

Hero! Why, Hero! Uncle! Signior Benedick! Friar!

LEONATOO fate! Take not away thy heavy hand.

115

Death is the fairest cover for her shame

That may be wished for.

BEATRICEHow now, cousin Hero!

FRIAR FRANCISHave comfort, lady.

LEONATODost thou look up?[119]

120

FRIAR FRANCISYea, wherefore should she not?

LEONATOWherefore? Why, doth not every earthly thing

Cry shame upon her? Could she here deny

The story that is printed in her blood?

Do not live, Hero, do not ope thine eyes,

125

For did I think thou wouldst not quickly die,

Thought I thy spirits were stronger than thy shames,

Myself would on[127] the rearward of reproaches

Strike at thy life. Grieved[128] I, I had but one?

Chid[129] I for that at frugal nature’s frame?

130

O, one too much by thee! Why had I one?

Why ever wast thou lovely in my eyes?

Why had I not with charitable hand

Took up a beggar’s issue at my gates,

Who smearèd thus, and mired[134] with infamy,

135

I might have said ‘No part of it is mine:

This shame derives itself from unknown loins’?

But mine, and mine I loved, and mine I praised,

And mine[138] that I was proud on, mine so much

That I myself was to myself not mine,

140

Valuing of her — why, she, O, she is fallen

Into a pit of ink, that the wide sea

Hath drops too few to wash her clean again,

And salt too little which may season[143] give

To her foul-tainted flesh!

145

BENEDICKSir, sir, be patient.

For my part, I am so attired[146] in wonder,

I know not what to say.

BEATRICEO, on my soul my cousin is belied![148]

BENEDICKLady, were you her bedfellow last night?

150

BEATRICENo, truly not: although until last night,

I have this twelvemonth been her bedfellow.

LEONATOConfirmed, confirmed! O, that is stronger made

Which was before barred up with ribs of iron.

Would the two princes lie, and Claudio lie,

155

Who loved her so that, speaking of her foulness,

Washed it with tears? Hence from her, let her die.

FRIAR FRANCISHear me a little:

For I have only been silent so long,

And given[159] way unto this course of fortune,

160

By noting of the lady. I have marked

A thousand blushing apparitions[161]

To start into her face, a thousand innocent shames

In angel whiteness beat away those blushes,

And in her eye there hath appeared a fire

165

To burn the errors that these princes hold

Against her maiden truth. Call me a fool,

Trust not my reading nor my observations,

Which[168] with experimental seal doth warrant

The tenure of my book: trust not my age,

170

My reverence,[170] calling, nor divinity,

If this sweet lady lie not guiltless here

Under some biting[172] error.

LEONATOFriar, it cannot be.

Thou seest that all the grace that she hath left

175

Is that she will not add to her damnation

A sin of perjury:[176] she not denies it.

Why seek’st thou then to cover with excuse

That which appears in proper[178] nakedness?

FRIAR FRANCISLady, what man is he you are accused of?

180

HEROThey know that do accuse me: I know none.

If I know more of any man alive

Than that which maiden modesty doth warrant,[182]

Let all my sins lack mercy! O my father,

Prove you that any man with me conversed

185

At hours unmeet,[185] or that I yesternight

Maintained the change[186] of words with any creature,

Refuse[187] me, hate me, torture me to death!

FRIAR FRANCISThere is some strange misprision[188] in the princes.

BENEDICKTwo of them have the very bent of[189] honour,

190

And if their wisdoms be misled in this,

The practice[191] of it lives in John the bastard,

Whose spirits toil in frame[192] of villainies.

LEONATOI know not. If they speak but truth of her,

These hands shall tear her. If they wrong her honour,

195

The proudest[195] of them shall well hear of it.

Time hath not yet so dried this blood of mine,

Nor age so eat[197] up my invention,

Nor fortune made such havoc of my means,[198]

Nor my bad life reft[199] me so much of friends,

200

But they shall find, awaked in such a kind,[200]

Both strength of limb and policy[201] of mind,

Ability in means and choice of friends,

To quit[203] me of them throughly.

FRIAR FRANCISPause awhile,

205

And let my counsel sway you in this case.

Your daughter here the princes left for dead:

Let her awhile be secretly kept in,

And publish[208] it that she is dead indeed.

Maintain a mourning ostentation,[209]

210

And on your family’s old monument[210]

Hang mournful epitaphs, and do all rites

That appertain unto a burial.

LEONATOWhat shall become of this? What will this do?

FRIAR FRANCISMarry, this well carried[214] shall on her behalf

215

Change slander to remorse, that is some good.

But not for that[216] dream I on this strange course,

But on this travail[217] look for greater birth.

She dying, as it must so be maintained,

Upon the instant that she was accused,

220

Shall be lamented, pitied and excused

Of every hearer, for it so falls out

That what we have we prize[222] not to the worth

Whiles we enjoy it; but, being lacked and lost,

Why, then we rack[224] the value, then we find

225

The virtue that possession would not show us

Whiles it was ours. So will it fare with Claudio:

When he shall hear she died upon his words,

Th’idea of her life shall sweetly creep

Into his study of imagination,[229]

230

And every lovely organ[230] of her life

Shall come apparelled[231] in more precious habit,

More moving-delicate and full of life,

Into the eye and prospect[233] of his soul

Than when she lived indeed. Then shall he mourn —

235

If ever love had interest[235] in his liver —

And wish he had not so accusèd her,

No, though he thought his accusation true.

Let this be so, and doubt not but success[238]

Will fashion the event[239] in better shape

240

Than I can lay[240] it down in likelihood.

But if all aim[241] but this be levelled false,

The supposition of the lady’s death

Will quench the wonder of[243] her infamy.

And if it sort[244] not well, you may conceal her,

245

As best befits her wounded reputation,

In some reclusive and religious life,

Out of all eyes, tongues, minds and injuries.[247]

BENEDICKSignior Leonato, let the friar advise you.

And though you know my inwardness[249] and love

250

Is very much unto the prince and Claudio,

Yet, by mine honour, I will deal in this

As secretly and justly as your soul

Should with your body.

LEONATOBeing that[254] I flow in grief,

255

The smallest twine[255] may lead me.

FRIAR FRANCIS’Tis well consented. Presently away,

For[257] to strange sores strangely they strain the cure.

Come, lady, die to live. This wedding day

Perhaps is but prolonged. Have patience and endure.

Exeunt [all but Benedick and Beatrice]

BENEDICKLady Beatrice, have you wept all this while?

BEATRICEYea, and I will weep a while longer.

BENEDICKI will not desire that.

BEATRICEYou have no reason, I do it freely.

BENEDICKSurely I do believe your fair cousin is wronged.

BEATRICEAh, how much might the man deserve of me that would right her.

BENEDICKIs there any way to show such friendship?

BEATRICEA very even[267] way, but no such friend.

BENEDICKMay a man do it?

BEATRICEIt is a man’s office, but not yours.

BENEDICKI do love nothing in the world so well as you. Is not that strange?

BEATRICEAs strange as the thing I know not. It were as possible for me to say I loved nothing so well as you, but believe me not: and yet I lie not. I confess nothing, nor I deny nothing. I am sorry for my cousin.

BENEDICKBy my sword, Beatrice, thou lovest me.

BEATRICEDo not swear by it and eat it.[275]

BENEDICKI will swear by it that you love me, and I will make him eat it that says I love not you.

BEATRICEWill you not eat your word?

BENEDICKWith no sauce that can be devised to it. I protest[279] I love thee.

BEATRICEWhy then, God forgive me.

BENEDICKWhat offence, sweet Beatrice?

BEATRICEYou have stayed[282] me in a happy hour: I was about to protest I loved you.

BENEDICKAnd do it with all thy heart.

BEATRICEI love you with so much of my heart that none is left to protest.

BENEDICKCome, bid me do anything for thee.

BEATRICEKill Claudio.

BENEDICKHa, not for the wide world.

BEATRICEYou kill me to deny. Farewell.

BENEDICKTarry,[289] sweet Beatrice.

BEATRICEI am gone, though I am here. There is no love in you. Nay I pray you let me go.

BENEDICKBeatrice—

BEATRICEIn faith, I will go.

BENEDICKWe’ll be friends first.

BEATRICEYou dare easier be friends with me than fight with mine enemy.

BENEDICKIs Claudio thine enemy?

BEATRICEIs a not approved in the height a villain, that hath slandered, scorned, dishonoured my kinswoman? O that I were a man! What, bear[298] her in hand until they come to take hands,[299] and then, with public accusation, uncovered slander, unmitigated rancour — O God, that I were a man! I would eat his heart in the market-place.

BENEDICKHear me, Beatrice—

BEATRICETalk with a man out at a window! A proper saying![303]

BENEDICKNay, but Beatrice—

BEATRICESweet Hero! She is wronged, she is slandered, she is undone.[305]

BENEDICKBeat—

BEATRICEPrinces and counties![307] Surely, a princely testimony, a goodly Count Comfit, a sweet gallant, surely! O that I were a man for his sake! Or that I had any friend would be a man for my sake! But manhood is melted into curtsies, valour into compliment,[310] and men are only turned into tongue, and trim ones too. He is now as valiant as Hercules that only tells a lie and swears it.[311] I cannot be a man with wishing, therefore I will die a woman with grieving.

BENEDICKTarry, good Beatrice. By this hand I love thee.

BEATRICEUse it for my love some other way than swearing by it.

BENEDICKThink you in your soul the Count Claudio hath wronged Hero?

BEATRICEYea, as sure as I have a thought or a soul.

BENEDICKEnough: I am engaged,[317] I will challenge him. I will kiss your hand, and so leave you. By this hand, Claudio shall render me a dear[318] account. As you hear of me, so think of me. Go comfort your cousin, I must say she is dead: and so farewell.

[Exeunt separately]

[Act 4 Scene 2]4.2

running scene 12

Enter the Constables [Dogberry and Verges], Borachio and [Sexton as] the Town Clerk in gowns [with Conrad, and the Watch]

DOGBERRYIs our whole dissembly[1] appeared?

VERGESO, a stool and a cushion for the sexton.

SEXTONWhich be the malefactors?[3]

DOGBERRYMarry, that am I and my partner.

VERGESNay, that’s certain, we have the exhibition[5] to examine.

SEXTONBut which are the offenders that are to be examined? Let them come before master constable.

DOGBERRYYea, marry, let them come before me. Borachio and Conrad are brought forward What is your name, friend?

BORACHIOBorachio.

DOGBERRYPray, write down ‘Borachio’.— Yours, sirrah?[10]

CONRADI am a gentleman, sir, and my name is Conrad.

DOGBERRYWrite down ‘master gentleman Conrad’. Masters, do[12] you serve God? Masters, it is proved already that you are little better than false knaves, and it will go near to be thought so shortly. How answer you for yourselves?

CONRADMarry, sir, we say we are none.

DOGBERRYA marvellous witty[16] fellow, I assure you. But I will go about with him. Come you hither, sirrah, a word in your ear, sir: To Borachio I say to you, it is thought you are false knaves.

BORACHIOSir, I say to you we are none.

DOGBERRYWell, stand aside. ’Fore God, they are both in a tale.[20] Have you writ down that they are none?

SEXTONMaster constable, you go not the way to examine. You must call forth the watch that are their accusers.

DOGBERRYYea, marry, that’s the eftest[24] way. Let the watch come forth. Masters, I charge you, in the prince’s name, accuse these men.

FIRST WATCHMANThis man said, sir, that Don John, the prince’s brother, was a villain.

DOGBERRYWrite down ‘Prince John a villain’. Why, this is flat perjury, to call a prince’s brother villain.

BORACHIOMaster constable—

DOGBERRYPray thee fellow, peace: I do not like thy look, I promise thee.

SEXTONWhat heard you him say else?

SECOND WATCHMANMarry, that he had received a thousand ducats of Don John for accusing the Lady Hero wrongfully.

DOGBERRYFlat burglary as ever was committed.

VERGESYea, by th’mass, that it is.

SEXTONWhat else, fellow?

FIRST WATCHMANAnd that Count Claudio did mean, upon his words, to disgrace Hero before the whole assembly, and not marry her.

DOGBERRYO villain! Thou wilt be condemned into everlasting redemption[39] for this.

SEXTONWhat else?

WATCHMENThis is all.

SEXTONAnd this is more, masters, than you can deny. Prince John is this morning secretly stolen away. Hero was in this manner accused, in this very manner refused, and upon the grief of this suddenly died. Master Constable, let these men be bound, and brought to Leonato. I will go before and show him their examination.

[Exit]

DOGBERRYCome, let them be opinioned.[47]

VERGESLet[48] them be in the hands—

CONRADOff, coxcomb![49]

DOGBERRYGod’s my life, where’s the sexton? Let him write down ‘the prince’s officer coxcomb’. Come, bind them.— Thou naughty[51] varlet!

CONRADAway! You are an ass, you are an ass.

DOGBERRYDost thou not suspect[53] my place? Dost thou not suspect my years? O that he were here to write me down an ass! But masters, remember that I am an ass: though it be not written down, yet forget not that I am an ass. No, thou villain, thou art full of piety,[56] as shall be proved upon thee by good witness. I am a wise fellow, and which is more, an officer, and which is more, a householder, and which is more, as pretty a piece of flesh as any in Messina, and one that knows the law, go to, and a rich fellow enough, go to, and a fellow that hath had losses,[59] and one that hath two gowns[60] and everything handsome about him. Bring him away. O that I had been writ down an ass!

Exeunt

Act 5 [Scene 1]

running scene 13

Enter Leonato and his brother [Antonio]

ANTONIOIf you go on thus, you will kill yourself,

And ’tis not wisdom thus to second[2] grief

Against yourself.

LEONATOI pray thee, cease thy counsel,

5

Which falls into mine ears as profitless

As water in a sieve: give not me counsel,

Nor let no comforter delight mine ear

But such a one whose wrongs do suit with[8] mine.

Bring me a father that so loved his child,

10

Whose joy of her is overwhelmed like mine,

And bid him speak of patience,

Measure his woe the length and breadth of mine,

And let it answer[13] every strain for strain,

As thus for thus, and such a grief for such,

15

In every lineament,[15] branch, shape and form.

If such a one will smile and stroke his beard,

Bid sorrow wag,[17] cry ‘Hem!’ when he should groan,

Patch grief with proverbs, make misfortune drunk

With candle-wasters,[19] bring him yet to me,

20

And I of him will gather patience.

But there is no such man: for, brother, men

Can counsel and speak comfort to that grief

Which they themselves not feel, but tasting it,

Their counsel turns to passion,[24] which before

25

Would give preceptial[25] medicine to rage,

Fetter strong madness in a silken thread,

Charm ache with air and agony with words.

No, no, ’tis all men’s office to speak patience

To those that wring[29] under the load of sorrow,

30

But no man’s virtue nor sufficiency[30]

To be so moral[31] when he shall endure

The like himself: therefore give me no counsel.

My griefs cry louder than advertisement.[33]

ANTONIOTherein do men from children nothing differ.

35

LEONATOI pray thee peace.[35] I will be flesh and blood,

For there was never yet philosopher

That could endure the toothache patiently,

However[38] they have writ the style of gods

And made[39] a push at chance and sufferance.

40

ANTONIOYet bend not all the harm upon yourself,

Make those that do offend you suffer too.

LEONATOThere thou speak’st reason. Nay, I will do so.

My soul doth tell me Hero is belied,

And that shall Claudio know, so shall the prince

45

And all of them that thus dishonour her.

Enter Prince [Don Pedro] and Claudio

ANTONIOHere comes the prince and Claudio hastily.

DON PEDROGood den, good den.

CLAUDIOGood day to both of you.

LEONATOHear you, my lords—

50

DON PEDROWe have[50] some haste, Leonato.

LEONATOSome haste, my lord! Well, fare you well, my lord:

Are you so hasty now? Well, all is one.[52]

DON PEDRONay, do not quarrel with us, good old man.

ANTONIOIf he could right himself with quarrelling,

55

Some of us[55] would lie low.

CLAUDIOWho wrongs him?

LEONATOMarry, thou dost wrong me, thou dissembler,[57] thou:

Claudio prepares to draw his sword

Nay, never lay thy hand upon thy sword,

I fear thee not.

60

CLAUDIOMarry, beshrew[60] my hand

If it should give your age such cause of fear:

In faith, my hand meant[62] nothing to my sword.

LEONATOTush, tush, man, never fleer[63] and jest at me:

I speak not like a dotard[64] nor a fool,

65

As under privilege of age to brag

What I have done being young or what would do

Were I not old. Know, Claudio, to thy head,[67]

Thou hast so wronged my innocent child and me

That I am forced to lay my reverence[69] by,

70

And with grey hairs and bruise of many days,

Do challenge thee to trial[71] of a man.

I say thou hast belied mine innocent child:

Thy slander hath gone through and through her heart,

And she lies buried with her ancestors —

75

O, in a tomb where never scandal slept,

Save this of hers, framed by thy villainy!

CLAUDIOMy villainy?

LEONATOThine, Claudio, thine, I say.

DON PEDROYou say not right, old man.

80

LEONATOMy lord, my lord,

I’ll prove it on his body if he dare,

Despite his nice fence[82] and his active practice,

His May of youth and bloom of lustihood.[83]

CLAUDIOAway! I will not have to do with you.

85

LEONATOCanst thou so daff[85] me? Thou hast killed my child:

If thou kill’st me, boy, thou shalt kill a man.

ANTONIOHe shall kill two of us, and men indeed:

But that’s no matter, let him kill one first.

Win[89] me and wear me, let him answer me.

90

Come follow me, boy, come, sir boy, come follow me:

Sir boy, I’ll whip you from your foining fence,[91]

Nay, as I am a gentleman, I will.

LEONATOBrother—

ANTONIOContent yourself. God knows I loved my niece,

95

And she is dead, slandered to death by villains,

That dare as well answer a man indeed

As I dare take a serpent by the tongue.

Boys, apes, braggarts,[98] Jacks, milksops!

LEONATOBrother Antony—

100

ANTONIOHold you content. What, man! I know them, yea,

And what they weigh,[101] even to the utmost scruple,

Scrambling,[102] out-facing, fashion-monging boys,

That lie and cog[103] and flout, deprave and slander,

Go anticly,[104] and show outward hideousness,

105

And speak off[105] half a dozen dang’rous words,

How they might hurt their enemies, if they durst,[106]

And this is all.

LEONATOBut, brother Antony—

ANTONIOCome, ’tis no matter:

110

Do not you meddle, let me deal in this.

DON PEDROGentlemen both, we will not wake your patience.[111]

My heart is sorry for your daughter’s death.

But on my honour, she was charged with nothing

But what was true, and very full of proof.

LEONATOMy lord, my lord—

DON PEDROI will not hear you.

Enter Benedick

LEONATONo? Come, brother, away! I will be heard.

ANTONIOAnd shall, or some of us will smart for it.

Exeunt both [Leonato and Antonio]

DON PEDROSee, see, here comes the man we went to seek.

CLAUDIONow, signior, what news?

BENEDICKGood day, my lord.

DON PEDROWelcome, signior: you are almost come to part almost a fray.

CLAUDIOWe had[123] like to have had our two noses snapped off with two old men without teeth.

DON PEDROLeonato and his brother. What think’st thou? Had we fought, I doubt[125] we should have been too young for them.

BENEDICKIn a false quarrel there is no true valour. I came to seek you both.

CLAUDIOWe have been up and down to seek thee, for we are high-proof[128] melancholy and would fain have it beaten away. Wilt thou use thy wit?

BENEDICKIt is in my scabbard: shall I draw[130] it?

DON PEDRODost thou wear thy wit by thy side?

CLAUDIONever any did so, though very many have been beside their wit.[132] I will bid thee draw,[133] as we do the minstrels, draw to pleasure us.

DON PEDROAs I am an honest man, he looks pale. Art thou sick, or angry?

CLAUDIOWhat, courage, man! What though care[135] killed a cat, thou hast mettle enough in thee to kill care.

BENEDICKSir, I shall meet your wit in the career,[137] an you charge it against me. I pray you choose another subject.

CLAUDIONay then, give him another staff:[139] this last was broke cross.

DON PEDROBy this light, he changes more and more: I think he be angry indeed.

CLAUDIOIf he be, he knows how to turn his girdle.[141]

BENEDICKShall I speak a word in your ear?

CLAUDIOGod bless me from a challenge!

BENEDICKYou are a villain. Aside to Claudio I jest not: I will make it good how you dare, with what you dare, and when you dare. Do me right,[145] or I will protest your cowardice. You have killed a sweet lady, and her death shall fall heavy on you. Let me hear from you.

CLAUDIOWell, I will meet you, so[148] I may have good cheer.

DON PEDROWhat? A feast, a feast?

CLAUDIOI’faith, I thank him: he hath bid me to a calf’s[150] head and a capon, the which if I do not carve most curiously,[151] say my knife’s naught. Shall I not find a woodcock[152] too?

BENEDICKSir, your wit ambles[153] well, it goes easily.

DON PEDROI’ll tell thee how Beatrice praised thy wit the other day: I said, thou hadst a fine[155] wit. ‘True,’ says she, ‘a fine little one.’ ‘No,’ said I, ‘a great wit.’ ‘Right,’ says she, ‘a great gross one.’ ‘Nay,’ said I, ‘a good wit.’ ‘Just,’ said she, ‘it hurts nobody.’ ‘Nay,’ said I, ‘the gentleman is wise.’ ‘Certain,’ said she, ‘a wise gentleman.’[157] ‘Nay,’ said I, ‘he hath the tongues.’[158] ‘That I believe,’ said she, ‘for he swore a thing to me on Monday night, which he forswore[159] on Tuesday morning: there’s a double[160] tongue, there’s two tongues.’ Thus did she, an hour together, transshape[161] thy particular virtues: yet at last she concluded with a sigh, thou wast the properest[162] man in Italy.

CLAUDIOFor the which she wept heartily and said she cared not.

DON PEDROYea, that she did: but yet for all that, an if she did not hate him deadly, she would love him dearly. The old man’s daughter[165] told us all.

CLAUDIOAll, all, and moreover, God[166] saw him when he was hid in the garden.

DON PEDROBut[167] when shall we set the savage bull’s horns on the sensible Benedick’s head?

CLAUDIOYea, and text underneath, ‘Here dwells Benedick the married man’?

BENEDICKFare you well, boy, you know my mind. I will leave you now to your gossip-like humour. You break jests as braggarts[171] do their blades, which God be thanked, hurt not. My lord,[172] for your many courtesies I thank you. I must discontinue your company. Your brother the bastard is fled from Messina: you have among you killed a sweet and innocent lady. For my Lord Lackbeard there, he and I shall meet: and till then, peace be with him.

[Exit]

DON PEDROHe is in earnest.

CLAUDIOIn most profound earnest, and I’ll warrant you, for the love of Beatrice.

DON PEDROAnd hath challenged thee.

CLAUDIOMost sincerely.

DON PEDROWhat a pretty thing man is when he goes in his doublet and hose[180] and leaves off his wit!

Enter Constable [Dogberry, Verges and the Watch, with] Conrad and Borachio

CLAUDIOHe[182] is then a giant to an ape, but then is an ape a doctor to such a man.

But, soft you,[183] let me be: pluck up, my heart, and be sad. Did he not say my brother was fled?

DOGBERRYCome you, sir: if justice cannot tame you, she shall ne’er weigh more reasons[186] in her balance. Nay, an you be a cursing hypocrite once, you must be looked to.

DON PEDROHow now? Two of my brother’s men bound? Borachio one!

CLAUDIOHearken[189] after their offence, my lord.

DON PEDROOfficers, what offence have these men done?

DOGBERRYMarry, sir, they have committed false report,[191] moreover, they have spoken untruths, secondarily, they are slanders,[192] sixth and lastly, they have belied a lady, thirdly, they have verified unjust things, and to conclude, they are lying knaves.

DON PEDROFirst, I ask thee what they have done, thirdly, I ask thee what’s their offence, sixth and lastly, why they are committed, and to conclude, what you lay to their charge.

CLAUDIORightly reasoned, and in his own division.[197] And by my troth, there’s one meaning well suited.

DON PEDROWho have you offended, masters, that you are thus bound[199] to your answer?[200] This learned constable is too cunning to be understood. What’s your offence?

BORACHIOSweet prince, let me go no farther to mine answer. Do you hear me, and let this count kill me. I have deceived even your very eyes. What your wisdoms could not discover, these shallow fools have brought to light, who in the night overheard me confessing to this man, how Don John your brother incensed[205] me to slander the Lady Hero, how you were brought into the orchard and saw me court Margaret in Hero’s garments, how you disgraced her when you should marry her. My villainy they have upon record, which I had rather seal with my death than repeat over to my shame. The lady is dead upon mine and my master’s false accusation, and briefly, I desire nothing but the reward of a villain.

DON PEDRORuns not this speech like iron through your blood? To Claudio

CLAUDIOI have drunk poison whiles he uttered it.

DON PEDROBut did my brother set thee on to this? To Borachio

BORACHIOYea, and paid me richly for the practice of it.

215

DON PEDROHe is composed and framed of treachery,

And fled he is upon this villainy.

CLAUDIOSweet Hero! Now thy image doth appear

In the rare semblance[218] that I loved it first.

DOGBERRYCome, bring away the plaintiffs.[219] By this time our sexton hath reformed Signior Leonato of the matter. And masters, do not forget to specify, when time and place shall serve, that I am an ass.

VERGESHere, here comes master Signior Leonato, and the sexton too.

Enter Leonato [and Antonio, with the Sexton]

LEONATOWhich is the villain? Let me see his eyes,

That, when I note another man like him,

225

I may avoid him. Which of these is he?

BORACHIOIf you would know your wronger, look on me.

LEONATOArt thou the slave that with thy breath hast killed

Mine innocent child?

BORACHIOYea, even I alone.

230

LEONATONo, not so, villain, thou beliest thyself:

Here stand a pair of honourable men,[231]

A third is fled, that had a hand in it.

I thank you, princes, for my daughter’s death.

Record it with your high and worthy deeds,

235

’Twas bravely done, if you bethink you of it.

CLAUDIOI know not how to pray your patience,

Yet I must speak. Choose your revenge yourself,

Impose me to[238] what penance your invention

Can lay upon my sin. Yet sinned I not

240

But in mistaking.

DON PEDROBy my soul, nor I.

And yet, to satisfy this good old man,

I would bend under any heavy weight

That he’ll enjoin me to.

245

LEONATOI cannot bid you bid my daughter live —

That were impossible — but I pray you both,

Possess[247] the people in Messina here

How innocent she died, and if your love

Can labour aught[249] in sad invention,

250

Hang her an epitaph upon her tomb,

And sing it to her bones, sing it tonight:

Tomorrow morning come you to my house,

And since you could not be my son-in-law,

Be yet my nephew. My brother hath a daughter,

255

Almost the copy of my child that’s dead,

And she alone is heir to both of us:

Give her the right[257] you should have giv’n her cousin,

And so dies my revenge.

CLAUDIOO noble sir,

260

Your over-kindness doth wring tears from me!

I do embrace your offer and dispose[261]

For henceforth of poor Claudio.

LEONATOTomorrow then I will expect your coming,

Tonight I take my leave. This naughty man

265

Shall face to face be brought to Margaret,

Who I believe was packed[266] in all this wrong,

Hired to it by your brother.

BORACHIONo, by my soul, she was not,

Nor knew not what she did when she spoke to me,

270

But always hath been just and virtuous

In anything that I do know by her.

DOGBERRYMoreover, sir, which indeed is not under[272] white and black, this plaintiff here, the offender, did call me ass. I beseech you let it be remembered in his punishment. And also the watch heard them talk of one Deformed: they[274] say he wears a key in his ear and a lock hanging by it, and borrows money in God’s name,[275] the which he hath used so long and never paid that now men grow hard-hearted and will lend nothing for God’s sake. Pray you examine him upon that point.

LEONATOI thank thee for thy care and honest pains.

DOGBERRYYour worship speaks like a most thankful and reverend youth, and I praise God for you.

LEONATOThere’s for thy pains. Gives money

DOGBERRYGod[283] save the foundation!

LEONATOGo, I discharge thee of thy prisoner, and I thank thee.

DOGBERRYI leave an arrant knave with your worship, which I beseech your worship to correct yourself, for the example of others. God keep your worship! I wish your worship well. God restore you to health! I humbly give you[287] leave to depart, and if a merry meeting may be wished, God prohibit[288] it! Come, neighbour.

LEONATOUntil tomorrow morning, lords, farewell.

Exeunt [Dogberry and Verges]

ANTONIOFarewell, my lords: we look for[290] you tomorrow.

DON PEDROWe will not fail.

CLAUDIOTonight I’ll mourn with Hero.

LEONATOBring you these fellows on.— We’ll talk with Margaret, To the Watch How her acquaintance grew with this lewd[294] fellow.

Exeunt [separately]

[Act 5 Scene 2]

running scene 14

Enter Benedick and Margaret [meeting]

BENEDICKPray thee, sweet Mistress Margaret, deserve well at my hands by helping me to the speech of[2] Beatrice.

MARGARETWill you then write me a sonnet in praise of my beauty?

BENEDICKIn so high a style,[4] Margaret, that no man living shall come over it, for in most comely[5] truth thou deservest it.

MARGARETTo have no man come over me? Why, shall I always keep below stairs?[6]

BENEDICKThy wit is as quick as the greyhound’s mouth, it catches.[7]

MARGARETAnd yours as blunt as the fencer’s foils,[8] which hit but hurt not.

BENEDICKA most manly wit, Margaret, it will not hurt a woman: and so, I pray thee call Beatrice, I give[10] thee the bucklers.

MARGARETGive us the swords,[11] we have bucklers of our own.

BENEDICKIf you use them, Margaret, you must put in the pikes[12] with a vice, and they are dangerous weapons for maids.

MARGARETWell, I will call Beatrice to you, who I think hath legs.

Exit Margaret

15

BENEDICKAnd therefore will come.[15]

The[16] god of love, Sings

That sits above,

And knows me, and knows me,

How[19] pitiful I deserve—

I mean in singing: but in loving, Leander[20] the good swimmer, Troilus the first employer of panders, and a whole bookful of these quondam carpet-mongers,[21] whose names yet run smoothly in the even road of a blank verse, why, they were never so truly turned over and over as my poor self in love. Marry, I cannot show it in rhyme, I have tried: I can find out no rhyme to ‘lady’ but ‘baby’ — an innocent[25] rhyme: for ‘scorn,’ ‘horn’ — a hard rhyme: for ‘school,’ ‘fool’ — a babbling rhyme: very ominous endings. No, I was not born under a rhyming planet, for I cannot woo in festival[27] terms.

Enter Beatrice

Sweet Beatrice, wouldst thou come when I called thee?

BEATRICEYea, signior, and depart when you bid me.

BENEDICKO, stay but till then!

BEATRICE‘Then’ is spoken: fare you well now. And yet ere I go, let me go with that I came,[31] which is, with knowing what hath passed between you and Claudio.

BENEDICKOnly foul words: and thereupon I will kiss thee.

BEATRICEFoul words is but foul wind, and foul wind is but foul breath, and foul breath is noisome:[35] therefore I will depart unkissed.

BENEDICKThou hast frighted the word out of his right sense, so forcible is thy wit. But I must tell thee plainly, Claudio undergoes my challenge, and either I must shortly hear from him, or I will subscribe[38] him a coward. And I pray thee now tell me, for which of my bad parts didst thou first fall in love with me?

BEATRICEFor them all together, which maintained so politic[40] a state of evil that they will not admit any good part to intermingle with them. But for which of my good parts did you first suffer[42] love for me?

BENEDICK‘Suffer love’! A good epithet! I do suffer love indeed, for I love thee against my will.

BEATRICEIn spite of your heart, I think. Alas, poor heart! If you spite it for my sake, I will spite it for yours, for I will never love that which my friend[46] hates.

BENEDICKThou and I are too wise to woo peaceably.

BEATRICEIt appears not in this confession.[48] There’s not one wise man among twenty that will praise himself.

BENEDICKAn old, an old instance,[50] Beatrice, that lived in the time of good neighbours. If a man do not erect in this age his own tomb[51] ere he dies, he shall live no longer in monuments[52] than the bells ring, and the widow weeps.

BEATRICEAnd how long is that, think you?

BENEDICKQuestion:[54] why, an hour in clamour and a quarter in rheum. Therefore is it most expedient for the wise, if Don[55] Worm, his conscience, find no impediment to the contrary, to be the trumpet of his own virtues, as I am to myself. So much for praising myself, who I myself will bear witness is praiseworthy. And now tell me, how doth your cousin?

BEATRICEVery ill.

BENEDICKAnd how do you?

BEATRICEVery ill too.

Enter Ursula

BENEDICKServe God, love me and mend. There will I leave you too, for here comes one in haste.

URSULAMadam, you must come to your uncle — yonder’s old coil[64] at home: it is proved my Lady Hero hath been falsely accused, the prince and Claudio mightily abused, and Don John is the author of all, who is fled and gone. Will you come presently?

BEATRICEWill you go hear this news, signior?

BENEDICKI will live in thy heart, die[69] in thy lap, and be buried in thy eyes. And moreover, I will go with thee to thy uncle’s.

Exeunt

[Act 5 Scene 3]

running scene 15

Enter Claudio, Prince [Don Pedro] and three or four with tapers [followed by Balthasar and Musicians]

CLAUDIOIs this the monument of Leonato?

LORDIt is, my lord.

CLAUDIO[Reads the] epitaph

‘Done to death by slanderous tongues

Was the Hero that here lies:

5

Death, in guerdon[5] of her wrongs,

Gives her fame[6] which never dies.

So the life that died with shame

Lives in death with glorious fame.’

Hang thou there upon the tomb,

10

Praising her when I am dumb.

Now, music, sound, and sing your solemn hymn.

BALTHASAR[Sings the] song

Pardon, goddess[12] of the night,

Those that slew thy virgin knight,[13]

For the which, with songs of woe,

15

Round about her tomb they go.

Midnight, assist our moan,

Help us to sigh and groan,

Heavily, heavily:

Graves, yawn and yield your dead,

20

Till death be utterèd,

Heavily, heavily.

CLAUDIONow, unto thy bones good night!

Yearly will I do this rite.

DON PEDROGood morrow, masters, put your torches out.

25

The wolves have preyed, and look, the gentle day

Before the wheels of Phoebus[26] round about

Dapples the drowsy east with spots of grey.

Thanks to you all, and leave us. Fare you well.

CLAUDIOGood morrow, masters: each his several way.

30

DON PEDROCome, let us hence, and put on other weeds,[30]

And then to Leonato’s we will go.

CLAUDIOAnd Hymen[32] now with luckier issue speed’s

Than this for whom we rendered up this woe.

Exeunt

[Act 5 Scene 4]

running scene 16

Enter Leonato, Benedick, [Beatrice,] Margaret, Ursula, old man [Antonio], Friar [Francis and] Hero

FRIAR FRANCISDid I not tell you she was innocent?

LEONATOSo are the prince and Claudio, who accused her

Upon[3] the error that you heard debated.

But Margaret was in some fault for this,

5

Although against her will,[5] as it appears

In the true course of all the question.[6]

ANTONIOWell, I am glad that all things sort so well.

BENEDICKAnd so am I, being else[8] by faith enforced

To call young Claudio to a reckoning[9] for it.

10

LEONATOWell, daughter, and you gentlewomen all,

Withdraw into a chamber by yourselves,

And when I send for you, come hither masked.

The prince and Claudio promised by this hour

To visit me. You know your office, brother:

15

You must be father to your brother’s daughter,

And give her to young Claudio.

Exeunt Ladies

ANTONIOWhich I will do with confirmed countenance.[17]

BENEDICKFriar, I must entreat your pains, I think.

FRIAR FRANCISTo do what, signior?

20

BENEDICKTo bind me, or undo[20] me — one of them.

Signior Leonato, truth it is, good signior,

Your niece regards me with an eye of favour.

LEONATOThat eye my daughter lent her: ’tis most true.

BENEDICKAnd I do with an eye of love requite her.

25

LEONATOThe sight whereof I think you had from me,

From Claudio and the prince: but what’s your will?

BENEDICKYour answer, sir, is enigmatical.

But for[28] my will, my will is your good will

May stand with ours, this day to be conjoined

30

In the state of honourable marriage,

In which, good friar, I shall desire your help.

LEONATOMy heart is with your liking.

FRIAR FRANCISAnd my help.

Enter Prince [Don Pedro] and Claudio, with Attendants

DON PEDROGood morrow to this fair assembly.

35

LEONATOGood morrow, prince, good morrow, Claudio:

We here attend you. Are you yet determined

Today to marry with my brother’s daughter?

CLAUDIOI’ll hold my mind, were she an Ethiope.[38]

LEONATOCall her forth, brother: here’s the friar ready.

[Exit Antonio]

40

DON PEDROGood morrow, Benedick. Why, what’s the matter,

That you have such a February face,

So full of frost, of storm and cloudiness?

CLAUDIOI think he thinks upon the savage bull.

Tush, fear not, man: we’ll tip thy horns with gold,

45

And all Europa[45] shall rejoice at thee,

As once Europa[46] did at lusty Jove,

When he would play the noble beast in love.

BENEDICKBull Jove, sir, had an amiable low,

And some such strange bull leaped your father’s cow,

50

And got a calf in that same noble feat

Much like to you, for you have just his bleat.

Enter brother [Antonio], Hero, Beatrice, Margaret, [and] Ursula [the ladies all masked]

CLAUDIOFor this I owe you:[52] here comes other reck’nings.

Which is the lady I must seize upon?

ANTONIOThis same is she, and I do give you her.

55

CLAUDIOWhy, then she’s mine. Sweet, let me see your face.

LEONATONo, that you shall not, till you take her hand

Before this friar and swear to marry her.

CLAUDIOGive me your hand before this holy friar.

I am your husband, if you like of me.

60

HEROAnd when I lived, I was your other wife:

And when you loved, you were my other husband. Unmasks

CLAUDIOAnother Hero?

HERONothing certainer.

One Hero died defiled, but I do live,

65

And surely as I live, I am a maid.

DON PEDROThe former Hero! Hero that is dead!

LEONATOShe died, my lord, but whiles her slander lived.

FRIAR FRANCISAll this amazement can I qualify,[68]

When after that the holy rites are ended,

70

I’ll tell you largely[70] of fair Hero’s death.

Meantime let wonder seem familiar,

And to the chapel let us presently.

BENEDICKSoft and fair,[73] friar. Which is Beatrice?

BEATRICEI answer to that name. What is your will? Unmasks

75

BENEDICKDo not you love me?

BEATRICEWhy, no, no more than reason.

BENEDICKWhy then, your uncle, and the prince, and Claudio

Have been deceived: they swore you did.

BEATRICEDo not you love me?

80

BENEDICKTroth, no, no more than reason.

BEATRICEWhy then, my cousin,[81] Margaret and Ursula

Are much deceived, for they did swear you did.

BENEDICKThey swore you were almost sick for me.

BEATRICEThey swore you were well-nigh dead for me.

85

BENEDICK’Tis no matter. Then you do not love me?

BEATRICENo, truly, but in friendly recompense.

LEONATOCome, cousin,[87] I am sure you love the gentleman.

CLAUDIOAnd I’ll be sworn upon’t that he loves her,

For here’s a paper written in his hand, Shows a paper

90

A halting sonnet of his own pure brain,

Fashioned to Beatrice.

HEROAnd here’s another Shows another paper

Writ in my cousin’s hand, stolen from her pocket,

Containing her affection unto Benedick.

BENEDICKA miracle! Here’s our own hands against our hearts. Come, I will have thee, but by this light I take thee for pity.

BEATRICEI would not deny you, but by this good day I yield upon great persuasion, and partly to save your life, for I was told you were in a consumption.[98]

LEONATOPeace! I will stop your mouth. He kisses her

DON PEDROHow dost thou, ‘Benedick, the married man’?

BENEDICKI’ll tell thee what, prince: a college[101] of wit-crackers cannot flout me out of my humour. Dost thou think I care for a satire or an epigram? No. If a man will be beaten with brains, a shall[103] wear nothing handsome about him. In brief, since I do purpose to marry, I will think nothing to any purpose that the world can say against it, and therefore never flout at me for what I have said against it, for man is a giddy[106] thing, and this is my conclusion. For thy part, Claudio, I did think to have beaten thee, but in that thou art like[107] to be my kinsman, live unbruised and love my cousin.

CLAUDIOI had well hoped thou wouldst have denied Beatrice, that I might have cudgelled[110] thee out of thy single life to make thee a double-dealer, which out of question thou wilt be, if my cousin do not look exceeding narrowly to thee.

BENEDICKCome, come, we are friends. Let’s have a dance ere we are married, that we may lighten[113] our own\ hearts and our wives’ heels.

LEONATOWe’ll have dancing afterward.

BENEDICKFirst, of my word: therefore play, music. Prince, thou art sad:[115] get thee a wife, get thee a wife. There is no[116] staff more reverend than one tipped with horn.

Enter a Messenger

MESSENGERMy lord, your brother John is ta’en in flight,

And brought with armèd men back to Messina.

BENEDICKThink not on him till tomorrow.

120

I’ll devise thee brave[120] punishments for him.

Strike up, pipers!

Dance [and exeunt]

Textual Notes

Q = First Quarto text of 1600

F = First Folio text of 1623

F2 = a correction introduced in the Second Folio text of 1632

Ed = a correction introduced by a later editor

SD = stage direction

SH = speech heading (i.e., speaker’s name)

List of parts = Ed

1.1.28 bird-bolt spelled Burbolt in F 33 eat = Q. F = ease 65 are you come = Q. F = you are come 72 sir = Q. F omits 95 yours = Q. F = your 99 That = Q. F = This 151 spoke = Q. F = speake 212 and…her = Q. F omits 215 you do = Q. F = doe you

1.2.3 SH ANTONIO = Ed. F = Old. throughout scene 3 strange = Q. F omits 6 event = F2. F = events 7 my = F. Q = mine 8 thus = F. Q = thus much

1.3.5 bringeth = F. Q = brings 6 yet = F. Q = at least 15 true root = Q. F = root 26 will make = F. Q = make 39 me behind = Q. F = behind

2.1.22 upon = F. Q = on 27 bearward spelled Berrord in F 35 Father = Q. F omits 40 account = F. Q = an account 51 sinks = F. Q = sincke 54 SD [Don] John = Ed. F = or dumbe Iohn 55 a bout = Ed. F = about 62 Jove = Q. F = Loue 65, 67, 69 SH BALTHASAR = Ed. F = Bene. 97 pleaseth = F. Q = pleases 134 count = F. Q = county 135 of = Q. F = off 152 think I told = Q. F = thinke, told 153 good will = Q. F = will 155 a rod = F. Q = vp a rod 171 and = F. Not in Q 174 her terminations = Q. F = terminations 190 this = F. Q = my 193 his single = Q. F = a single 203 a jealous = F. Q = that iealous 218 her heart = Q. F = my heart 248 my mind = Q. F = mind

2.2.23 Don = Q. F = on 32 truths = F. Q = truth 36 thou = F. Q = you

2.3.22 I for = Q. F = for 24 SD Balthasar = Ed. F = Iacke Wilson (apparently the actor who played Balthasar) 33 To…excellency mistakenly printed twice in F 36 Woo = Q. F = woe 49 SH BALTHASAR = Ed. Not in F 60 was = Q. F = were 104 told us of = F. Q = told of vs 119 but make = F. Q = make but 141 SH LEONATO = F. Q = Claudio 142 see = F. Q = say 144 Christian-like = F. Q = most christianlike 149 seek = Q. F = see 154 to…good = F. Q = so good 159 gentlewoman = F. Q = gentlewomen 163 the full = F. Q = their full

3.1.0 gentlewomen = Q. F = Gentlemen 60 she make = F. Q = sheele make 81 than = Q. F = to 106 ta’en = F. Q = limed

3.2.24 Frenchman tomorrow = F. Q continues or in the shape of two countries at once, as a Germaine from the waste downward, all slops, and a Spaniard from the hip upward, no dublet: unlesse…you would have it appeare he is 40 Conclude = F. Q = conclude, conclude

3.3.23 talk = F. Q = to talke 25 SH WATCHMAN F’s Watch. does not distinguish between the first and second watchmen 28 bid them = F. Q = bid those 54 statues = F. Q = statutes 88 years = F. Q = yeere 97 and I see = Q. F = and see 106 they = Q. F = thy 121 SH FIRST WATCHMAN = Ed. F gives the speech to Conrad

3.4.33 look = F. Q = see

3.5.6 SH VERGES = Ed. F = Headb. throughout scene 8 off spelled of in F 19 times = F. Q = pound 37 as may = F. Q = as it may 43 examination = Q. F = examine those men = F. Q = these men

4.1.14–15 not…do = Q. F omits 73 doso = Q. F = do 85 you are = F. Q = are you 94 spoken = F. Q = spoke 127 rearward = Q. F = reward 134 smearèd = F. Q = smirched 154 two princes = Q. F = princes 163 beat = Q. F = beare 206 princes = Ed.F = Princesse 275 swear by it = F. Q = sweare 288 deny = F. Q = deny it 318 leave = F. Q = I leave

4.2.1 SH DOGBERRY = Ed. F = Keeper. 2 SH VERGES = Ed. F = Cowley (apparently the actor who played Verges) 4 SH DOGBERRY = Ed. F = Andrew. 8 SH DOGBERRY = Ed. F = Kemp. throughout rest of scene (Will Kemp was apparently the actor who played Dogberry) 12–13 serve…Masters = F. Q = serue God? Both Yea sir we hope. Kem [i.e., Kemp] Write downe, that they hope they serue God: and write God first, for God defend but God shoulde go before such villaines: maisters 45 Leonato = F. Q = Leonatoes 48 SH VERGES = Ed. F = Sex[ton]. Q = Couley (actor playing Verges) 49 SH CONRAD Off = Ed. Q/F continue previous speech of Coxcombe 53 O that = Q. F = Of that 58 any in = F. Q = anie is in

5.1.7 comforter = Q. F = comfort 8 do = Q. F = doth 17 Bid = Ed. Q/F = And 68 my = F. Q = mine 105 off = Ed. F = of 155 says = F. Q = said 227 thou = Q. F = thou thou

5.2.22 names = Q. F = name 24 in = Q. not in F 25 hard rhyme = Q. F = hard time 27 for = F. Q = nor 52 monuments = F. Q = monument

5.3.3 SH CLAUDIO = Ed. Not in F 10 dumb = F. Q = dead 11 SH BALTHASAR = Ed. Not in F 21 Heavily, heavily = Q. F = Heavenly, heavenly 22 SH CLAUDIO = Ed. F = Lo.

5.4.7 sort = F. Q = sorts 33 my help. = F. Q = my helpe. Heere comes the Prince and Claudio, 50 And got = Q. F = A got 54 SH ANTONIO = Ed. F = Leo. 64 died defiled = Q. F = died 83 swore you = F. Q = swore that you 84 swore you = F. Q = swore that you 85 no matter = F. Q = no such matter 99 SH LEONATO = F. Most eds assign to BENEDICK 105 what I have = Q. F = I have

Act 1 Scene 1

Title: NOTHING puns on “noting” (i.e., musical notation/observation) and on “no thing” (i.e., vagina)    List of parts:    Headborough parish officer

1.1   Location: Messina city in northeast Sicily    Innogen a character who never speaks: she may have been created in the writing and omitted in the performance    Hero named after the loyal lover of Leander who killed herself after he drowned swimming the Hellespont to see her    Beatrice from the Latin beatrix meaning “she who blesses”

1    Don Peter i.e., Don Pedro    Aragon kingdom in northern Spain

2    leagues a league is about three miles

3    action battle

4    sort high rank    name reputation/distinction/noble status

6    Florentine person from the city of Florence, in northwest Italy

8    remembered rewarded

9    figure form/image

14    badge of bitterness i.e., the uncle’s    tears that demonstrate that his joy is modest badge badge worn by a nobleman’s servant (a sign of inferiority and humility)

18    kind natural    truer more genuine/virtuous/honest

20    Mountanto from the fencing term “montanto,” an upward thrust, suggestive of the verbal dueling Benedick engages in with Beatrice (there may also be a sexual play on “mount on to”)

24    Benedick from the Latin benedictus meaning “blessed”    Padua northern Italian city known for its university

25    pleasant amusing/merry

26    bills notices advertising a public entertainment    Cupid god of love who shot love-inducing arrows into people’s hearts    flight archery with flight-arrows (light, well-feathered arrows)

27    fool probably a professional fool employed by Leonato for entertainment    subscribed for took up the challenge on behalf of

28    bird-bolt blunt arrow safe enough to be used by children or fools

30    Faith in faith (i.e., truly)    tax censure/disparage    meet even

33    musty victual mouldy, stale food    holp helped    valiant trencherman hearty eater (valiant plays on the sense of “courageous” as Beatrice implies that the only thing Benedick tackles with boldness is food)

34    trencher wooden plate    stomach appetite (puns on the sense of “courage”)

36    to compared to/faced with

37    stuffed full/replete

38    stuffed man figure stuffed to resemble a man/man sated with food

40    betwixt between

43    five wits five mental faculties (imagination, memory, fantasy, estimation, common sense)

44    halting limping

45    difference in heraldry the sign that distinguished the junior branch of a family (in this case Benedick)

46    known…creature identified as one in possession of the faculty of reason (i.e., human)

47    sworn brother brother-in-arms (one who swore brotherly loyalty and support in combat to a friend)

50    faith fidelity/oath of brotherhood

51    block mould for shaping new fashions of hats

52    books good books, favor

53    An if

54    squarer brawler/quarrelsome rogue

58    pestilence plague/disease    presently immediately

59    ere before

60    hold remain

62    run mad i.e., by catching (falling in love with)    the Benedick

65    trouble i.e., Don Pedro and his companions who will put Leonato, as host, to the    cost and effort of entertaining them    fashion usual practice

67    likeness appearance

70    charge responsibility/expense

73    for…child i.e., so I had nothing to fear from a seducer such as you

74    have it full have been amply answered

75    fathers herself i.e., shows who her father is through her resemblance to him

77    head i.e., with its white hair

79    marks pays attention to

82    meet suitable (puns on “meat,” which meant food generally)

85    turncoat one who changes their appearance or loyalties

86    would wish

88    dear happiness great good fortune

89    pernicious ruinous/wicked    humour for that disposition on that issue

92    scape escape    predestinate inevitable

93    an ’twere if it were

94    rare parrot-teacher marvellous chatterer (literally, one who repeats herself as if teaching a parrot)

95    beast of yours i.e., because beasts do not have the power of speech

96    so…continuer was able to go on for so long

98    jade overused or worthless horse/whore    trick knack (of stopping abruptly)/ sexual act

103    forsworn proved wrong

104    Being as you are

109    noted her not did not pay her any special attention

112    after my custom in my usual way/as is my habit

115    low short    high elevated/elaborate (puns on the sense of “tall”)    brown brown-haired    fair fine/flattering (puns on the sense of “light-complexioned/pale-haired”)

116    afford offer/allow

119    in sport joking, being playful

122    case plays on the sense of “vagina” (jewel could also mean “virginity”)    sad serious

123    flouting jack mocking rascal    hare-finder one with eyesight sharp enough to spot a quick hare (the mockery of a flouting Jack as Cupid was blind)    Vulcan Roman god of fire, traditionally depicted as a blacksmith

124    go be in tune/harmonize

127    fury fierce passion/rage/avenging spirit

132    wear…suspicion get married and invite suspicion when wearing his cap that it covers horns (signs of being a cuckold—i.e., having an unfaithful wife)

133    threescore sixty    Go to away with you (an expression of impatience)

134    yoke wooden apparatus worn on the neck of a captive and used to subdue and prevent escape; a similar device is used to couple oxen together for ploughing    print imprint    sigh away Sundays which must now be spent dutifully with one’s wife

137    constrain compel

138    charge order

141    part i.e., to ask with who?

143    If…uttered if this were indeed the case it would be uttered in this way

144    ‘It…so!’ the quotation is supposedly from an old story in which it is uttered by a woman who has discovered that her lover is a robber

148    fetch me in trick me (into confessing)

149    troth good faith

151    my…troths Benedick owes loyalty to both Claudio, his    sworn brother, and to Don Pedro, prince and military leader

155    stake a wooden post to which    heretics were tied for burning

156    heretic one who holds blasphemous opinions or whose ideas are in opposition to accepted views despite contempt

157    maintain justify    in…will by wilful obstinacy

159    recheat notes sounded on a horn for calling hounds together at a hunt (here symbolic of the cuckolded husband’s horns)    winded blown

160    bugle horn (here suggestive of both the cuckold’s horn and the penis)    baldric shoulder belt used to hold a    bugle (also suggestive of the vagina, particularly as it is invisible—i.e., hidden)

162    fine conclusion    finer more finely dressed (without a wife to support)

165    prove i.e., should you prove

166    more…drinking the heavy sighs brought on by love were thought to drain the heart of blood, while drinking wine was believed to fortify the blood flow

167    ballad-maker writer of ballads (songs of love)    hang…Cupid brothels had signs painted on their walls

168    for in the place of

170    argument topic for discussion

171    hang…me cats were sometimes suspended in baskets (bottles) and used for archery practice

172    Adam a reference to Adam Bell, a famous archer

173    try tell ‘in…yoke’ a proverb that may have been popularized by its use in Thomas Kyd’s play The Spanish Tragedy

174    pluck…forehead another reference to cuckoldry

175    in…write in lettering that is as big as that usually used to write

177    sign sign used to advertise a sideshow or public spectacle, which consisted of a picture of the attraction with a description written under it

178    horn-mad completely mad/enraged (like a charging bull or a furious cuckold)

179    spent…Venice shot all of his arrows in Venice, famous for its sexual freedom and prostitution (spent puns on its sense of “to ejaculate” and arrows are phallic)    quiver case for arrows (puns on quake)

181    look for await/expect

182    temporize…hours become more temperate (milder) with time/waste time or procrastinate (hours may pun on “whores”)

183    fail him i.e., fail to attend

185    matter wit/sense    embassage message/mission

187    To…Benedick Claudio and Don Pedro imitate the conventional ending of a letter    tuition care/guidance

189    body basic material guarded with fragments adorned with scraps

190    guards…neither ornamental scraps are only loosely stitched on anyway    flout old ends mock (me) with old tags of letters/   fragments of cloth

192    do me good help me

194    apt quick/ready

198    affect love/favor

200    ended action recently ended military action

204    that now that

207    prompting reminding/urging

210    book of words lovers traditionally wrote lots of poetry

212    break broach the matter

214    twist weave

215    minister to tend to/administer a cure to

218    salved accounted for/applied soothing ointment to    treatise narrative

219    flood river

220    The…necessity the best gift is the gift that is needed

221    what…fit whatever is useful and will suffice is suitable    ’tis once once and for all

222    fit supply

226    in her bosom privately    unclasp open (as if undoing the clasps of a book)

228    encounter conversational address/military assault

Act 1 Scene 2

1    cousin a general term for any relative or close friend

5    they i.e., the    news

6    As…them as the outcome (event) determines/proves    stamps prints (the book metaphor continues with cover)    show well outward look promising

7    thick-pleached alley walk overarched by densely intertwining branches

8    discovered revealed

10    accordant of the same opinion/agreeable    take…top seize the opportunity

12    wit good sense/acumen

14    hold regard    appear manifests

15    withal with it

16    peradventure perhaps

17    cry you mercy beg your pardon    friend i.e., one of the attendants, a musician

Act 1 Scene 3

1    What the goodyear what the devil    out of measure immoderately

2    measure proportion/moderation/limit    occasion that breeds circumstances that provoke (my sadness)

6    present immediate    sufferance endurance

7    Saturn those born under the influence of Saturn were thought to be naturally morose and melancholy

8    mortifying mischief fatal disease

11    tend on attend/see to    claw soothe/flatter

14    controlment restraint    stood…brother i.e., opposed Don Pedro in the recent war

15    grace favor

16    frame create

18    canker wild rose (puns on the sense of “cancer”)

19    blood disposition/illegitimate status of by    fashion a carriage invent a demeanor/behavior

21    trusted…muzzle like a fierce dog, only trusted when wearing a muzzle

22    enfranchised…clog only given liberty with a heavy block of wood tied to my leg

26    use it only am always discontented/discontent is my only resource    Borachio from the Spanish    borracho meaning “drunkard”

30    model architectural plan

31    unquietness i.e., a troubled life

33    exquisite accomplished/perfect

35    proper squire fine lover (the tone is contemptuous)

37    forward precocious/eager/ardent/presumptuous    March-chick very young thing (could apply to Hero or Claudio, though Claudio seems likely)

38    entertained…perfumer employed as burner of sweet-smelling herbs in the rooms of a house    smoking perfuming

39    sad serious

40    arras large tapestry hung on a wall for insulation (with sufficient space behind it for a man to conceal himself)

43    start-up upstart    overthrow i.e., defeat in the war    cross thwart

44    sure reliable, loyal

46    cheer merriment, joy    subdued low in spirits/conquered

47    prove put to the test/find out by experience

Act 2 Scene 1

2.1    Kinsman like Innogen, a “ghost” character who does not speak

3    tartly sourly, bitterly    am heart-burned suffer heartburn (indigestion)

7    image statue

8    my…son a widow’s eldest son (traditionally a favored and indulged child)

11    good i.e., shapely

14    shrewd mischievous/sharp

15    curst perverse/shrewish

18    horns in her response Beatrice plays on the senses of “cuckold’s horns” and “penis”

19    Just exactly right

21    the woollen rough wool blankets (rather than a husband with a scratchy beard)

23    apparel clothing

27    in earnest as an advance payment    the…hell proverbially, the fate of an old maid was to lead apes in hell    bearward keeper of bears (and possibly apes)

31    maids virgins    Saint Peter heaven’s gatekeeper

32    for the heavens a mild exclamation, but also with the sense of “in order to get to heaven” or “away to St Peter as one who is in charge of entry to heaven”    bachelors unmarried people of both sexes

38    fitted supplied (with suggestion of a vagina filled with a penis)

39    metal material (puns on “mettle” meaning “temperament”)    earth a reference to the Christian notion that God made man from dust (whereas women were formed from one of Adam’s ribs)

41    wayward marl unreasonable/changeable clay brethren brothers

42    match…kindred marry a relative

43    solicit entreat/woo

44    kind manner (i.e., with talk of marriage)

45    in good time soon/in time to the music

46    important pressing, urgent    measure moderation (puns on the dance known as a measure)

47    Scotch jig a lively dance

48    measure a slow, stately dance    cinque-pace a lively dance involving five (cinque) steps (pas) and pronounced “sink-a-pace” (thus leading to Beatrice’s pun on sink)    suit wooing    hot passionate/vigorous

49    fantastical imaginative/full of wild movements    mannerly-modest decorously moderate    state and ancientry ceremonious dignity and old-fashioned formality

50    bad legs tottering or perhaps gout-ridden legs resulting from old age

52    apprehend passing shrewdly interpret things very severely/discern things very sharply

55    friend friend/lover

56    So so long as

61    favour face    case a metaphorical reference to Don Pedro’s (apparently unattractive) mask

62    visor mask    Philemon’s…Jove the peasant Philemon entertained a disguised Jove (king of the gods) in his humble cottage

63    thatched i.e., like Philemon’s cottage—perhaps a suggestion that Don Pedro is bald or balding, or that his mask lacks hair

73    clerk i.e., a parish clerk who led the responses during a church service

76    At a word in brief

77    waggling shaking, either the tremblings of old age or a gesture that accompanied his denial in the previous line

78    counterfeit imitate

79    do…ill-well imitate his inadequacies so well

80    dry hand a result of age    up and down all over/in every respect

83    mum silence    graces attractive personal qualities/virtues

88    ‘Hundred Merry Tales’ a popular collection of crude comic anecdotes

95    only his his only

96    impossible unbelievable    libertine one who disregards moral laws and follows his own inclinations

97    villainy wicked humor/discourtesy/low-minded jesting    pleaseth…them i.e., amuses some with his rudeness but angers those he slanders

98    in the fleet amongst the dancers

99    boarded tackled/accosted (puns on the sense of “had sex with”)

101    break as a lance might in jousting    comparison a sneering or unflattering analogy

103    partridge wing the part of the bird with virtually no meat on it (Beatrice’s comment is sarcastic)

104    leaders i.e., of the dance

107    amorous on courting

112    near…love i.e., close to/highly regarded by my brother

118    banquet wine, fruit, and sweetmeats served after the dance

122    constant unwavering/faithful

123    office service/business

124    all let all

127    faith loyalty/integrity    blood desire

128    accident…proof event that is shown to be the case very regularly

129    mistrusted suspected

134    willow a willow    garland was an emblem of unrequited love

135    usurer’s chain heavy gold chain worn by wealthy moneylenders

136    lieutenant’s scarf sash worn diagonally across the chest as a symbol of rank

139    drover cattle-dealer so in this way

142    now…post i.e., strike out in anger (an allusion to a tale in which a boy is punished for stealing meat from his blind master, and gets his revenge by causing the old man to injure himself on a pillar)

143    post pillar/messenger (i.e., Benedick)

144    If…be i.e., if you will not leave me

145    hurt fowl injured bird    sedges coarse rush-like plants (where a wounded fowl might hide)

146    not know me not know my true nature

147    so in this way (i.e., by being merry)

148    puts…out assumes that the world shares her opinions and represents me in that way

151    Lady Fame i.e., a gossip    fame rumor

152    lodge…warren dwelling (probably of a gamekeeper) in an enclosed area used for breeding game (i.e., an isolated place)

154    forsaken rejected (by a lover)

155    bind…rod bind together a bundle of twigs as rod for punishment

157    flat transgression plain sin

159    a trust an act of trust

164    them i.e., the birds

165    If…honestly if what they sing agrees with what you say you have taught them (i.e., to marry Claudio) then you speak honorably

166    to with

168    misused abused block block of wood

171    great thaw the dull period during which roads became muddy and impassable and people were unable to go out    huddling heaping up

172    impossible conveyance incredible skill    mark archer’s target (at which a man would have stood to note where the arrows landed)

173    poniards daggers

174    terminations terms of expression

176    all…transgressed i.e., the delights and dominion of the Garden of Eden before the Fall

177    Hercules…too in Greek legend the Queen of Lydia, Omphale, made Hercules dress as a woman and spin wool while she took over his    club and lion’s skin; turning a roasting    spit was one of the lowliest domestic tasks    cleft split

178    Ate goddess of discord and vengeance

179    conjure exorcise (the sending of evil spirits back to hell had to be carried out in Latin so a scholar would be required)    here i.e., on earth

180    sanctuary holy place of safety

184    Antipodes the other side of the world

185    tooth-picker toothpick

186    Prester John Christian ruler of a wealthy Eastern kingdom    Cham Kubla Khan, emperor of the Mongols

187    Pygmies race of very small people thought to live in Asia

188    harpy fierce mythical creature with the face of a woman and body of a bird

192    use financial interest on a loan (plays on the sense of “usage”)    double twice as loving/duplicitous

193    false dice i.e., false promises, deception

195    put him down defeated him with wit (Beatrice’s response plays on the sense of “sexually subdued”)

196    do puns on the sense of “have sex with”

198    wherefore why

202    civil grave/sober (puns on “Seville,” the Spanish city well-known as a producer of bitter-tasting oranges)

203    jealous complexion i.e., yellow, a color associated with melancholy and jealousy

204    blazon description

205    conceit understanding of things, notion

209    grace i.e., God

211    herald messenger/proclaimer

213    dote upon love dearly

217    windy…care windward (i.e., advantageous/safe) side of trouble

220    Good…alliance! Thank God for family unions/marriage!    goes…world everyone gets married

221    sunburnt Elizabethans considered a tanned complexion unattractive    ‘Hey-ho…husband’ a playful expression of regret that was also the title of a ballad

223    getting conception (a punning response to Don Pedro’s sense of “obtain”)

229    matter substance/serious content

230    Your…me i.e., I would much rather you talked on than were silent    becomes suits

232    cried i.e., at the pain of labor

235    cry you mercy beg your pardon    By…pardon with your grace’s (Don Pedro’s) pardon (for my departure)

237    melancholy element the body was thought to consist of four elements, or humors, one of which was black bile, an excess of which caused melancholy

238    ever always

241    suit courtship

247    a just seven-night precisely a week

249    breathing interval warrant assure

251    Hercules’ labours in Greek legend, Hercules carried out twelve seemingly impossible tasks (labours) imposed on him by King Eurystheus

252    fain gladly

253    minister provide

255    watchings staying awake

258    modest proper, seemly

259    unhopefullest least promising

260    strain descent, lineage    approved tested/proven    honesty honor

262    practise on work upon craftily

263    queasy stomach feelings of sickness/delicate stomach/poor appetite (for love and marriage)

265    drift plan, intention

Act 2 Scene 2

3    medicinable healing

4    comes athwart impedes, is an obstacle to    ranges evenly goes smoothly, directly

12    unseasonable inappropriate/odd    appoint instruct

15    temper mix

17    renowned well-reputed/honorable    estimation worth

18    stale prostitute

20    vex torment, afflict    undo ruin

21    issue outcome

22    despite spite, wreak malice on

23    meet suitable    draw bring together

24    intend pretend    zeal ardent loyalty

25    as in as follows/such as

26    like likely    cozened cheated

27    semblance outward appearance

28    trial evidence    instances proofs

31    fashion the matter arrange matters/contrive affairs

33    jealousy suspicion    preparation i.e., for the wedding

34    Grow…can no matter how harmful the outcome

35    working carrying out of    ducats gold (sometimes silver) coins used in Europe

36    constant unchanging/resolved

Act 2 Scene 3

4    I…sir i.e., I will return so quickly that it will seem as if I had never left (in his reply Benedick jestingly takes the Boy literally)

8    argument subject

9    drum…fife i.e., war-like instruments

10    fife a flute-like instrument    tabor…pipe i.e., instruments associated with festivity    tabor a small drum

11    afoot on foot

12    carving designing    doublet close-fitting jacket with flared base    wont to accustomed

14    orthography stylistically polished and elaborate    fantastical fanciful, imaginative

16    transform…oyster turn me into a lowly creature/silence me as an oyster snaps shut

19    graces virtues

20    grace favor none have    none of her

21    cheapen bid for    or or she shall

22    noble puns on the name of a gold coin    angel puns on the name of a gold coin

27    As as if

29    the music ended i.e., once the music has ended

30    fit…pennyworth i.e., give him more than he bargained for    kid-fox cunning young fox

32    tax order

34    It…perfection it is always proof of excellence that it claims not to recognize its own skill

36    woo entreat, coax

39    her…worthy Balthasar also refers to himself as one who is an unworthy singer, but whose skills have yet been courted by Don Pedro

46    crotchets whimsical fancies/musical notes

47    Note…nothing pay attention to your musical notes, in truth, and nothing else (nothing puns on “noting,” which was pronounced in a similar manner)

48    air melody    sheep’s guts from which an instrument’s strings were made

49    hale haul    horn hunting horn, a more masculine instrument (possibly with an unconscious play on cuckold’s horns)

55    blithe and bonny joyful and healthily beautiful

58    ditties songs    moe more

59    dumps low spirits (puns on the sense of “sad songs”)

65    for a shift for the purpose/for lack of a better alternative

66    An if

67    as lief as soon/rather

68    night-raven the call of which was supposed to foretell disaster

75    Stalk on i.e., as a hunter would advance upon his prey (a sitting fowl)

77    wonderful extraordinary/astonishing

79    Sits…corner? Is that the way the wind is blowing? (i.e., Is that the way things are?)

81    enraged affection furiously passionate love

82    counterfeit pretend

85    discovers reveals

88    sit you sit

93    gull trick/deception

95    hold it up keep up the trick/keep going

101    smock slip

107    That (yes) that one

108    halfpence fragments (a halfpenny was a small coin)    railed ranted/chastised abusively

114    ecstasy frenzy

115    overborne overwhelmed

116    outrage violence

121    alms charitable deed

122    suspicion doubt

125    blood passion/desire    tender young/delicate

128    dotage great love/infatuation    daffed doffed (i.e., cast off)

129    respects considerations    made…myself i.e., married her

134    bate abate, modify

135    make tender of offer

136    contemptible contemptuous/scornful

137    proper handsome

138    good outward happiness pleasingly attractive appearance

139    ’Fore God an exclamation roughly equivalent to “indeed so, with God as my witness”

142    Hector the leader of the Trojans in the Trojan war, known for his bravery

143    discretion prudence, good judgement

148    by to judge by    large coarse/unrestrained

150    wear it out outlive it/use it up/grow tired of it    counsel reflection

152    the while in the meantime

153    modestly in a reasonable, moderate way

156    upon after

158    carry carry out    they…dotage each believes that the other is in love

159    no such matter in fact there is no truth in it

160    dumb-show play acted without words (as Benedick and Beatrice will be speechless)

161    sadly borne seriously carried out

162    have…bent are engaged to their fullest extent (like a bow pulled as far as possible)

163    censured judged/criticized

166    their detractions criticisms of themselves

168    reprove disprove/refute/reject

169    argument demonstration/evidence

170    quirks quips/witty conceits

171    broken cracked at my expense/snapped like a lance in jousting

173    sentences maxims, sayings    paper…brain i.e., words, which cannot hurt awe terrify/restrain

174    career…humour pursuit of his inclination    career gallop of a horse, as in a tournament

178    pains efforts (Beatrice plays on the sense of literal pain in painful)

182    choke kill/silence    daw jackdaw (proverbially a stupid bird, so also a rude reference to the talkative Benedick)

183    withal with    stomach appetite

188    Jew thought by many Elizabethans to be pitiless    picture a miniature, which a lover might wear or carry with him

Act 3 Scene 1

3    Proposing conversing

10    advance…it defy the very prince whose favor made them great

12    purpose matter of our conversation    office duty/task

16    trace range through, pass along

23    hearsay report/rumor/something overheard

24    lapwing bird of the plover family known for running through the grass in a crouching fashion

27    oars i.e., fins

30    couchèd…coverture lying hidden in the thick covering of honeysuckle

35    coy disdainful    wild unrestrained/wayward/rude/fierce

36    haggards untamed female hawks

38    entirely completely/sincerely

39    new-trothèd i.e., Claudio, newly betrothed

45    Doth…upon? i.e., Doesn’t Benedick deserve a wife as good as Beatrice?

46    bed marriage bed

47    couch lie

49    yielded given

53    Misprising undervaluing/scorning

55    weak of little worth/contemptible

56    project conception, notion

57    self-endeared in love with herself

62    How however    rarely excellently

63    spell him backward declare he is the opposite    fair-faced attractive/light-complexioned

65    black dark-complexioned    antic grotesque figure/grinning buffoon

66    ill-headed with a poorly made or misshapen head

67    agate an agate stone would often have a tiny figure carved into it before being set in a ring

72    simpleness plainness/integrity    purchaseth earns/deserves

73    carping fault-finding

74    odd at odds with    from contrary to

78    press…death pressing a person to death with heavy weights was the penalty for one who refused to plead guilty or innocent to a crime

79    covered covered with a tightly packed heap of fuel to ensure a long burning time

85    counsel advise

86    honest slanders i.e., slanders that will do no serious harm to her reputation

92    prized esteemed, valued

94    only i.e., best, unrivaled

97    fancy thought/preference/liking

98    argument skill in debate/powers of reasoning

103    tomorrow from tomorrow onward

104    attires ornamented headdresses with false hair attached to them

105    furnish me fit me out with, clothe me with

107    haps chance/accidents

114    Taming…hand i.e., as a hawk would learn to obey the falconer

116    band bond (plays on sense of “wedding ring”)

118    reportingly as it is reported/through hearsay

Act 3 Scene 2

1    consummate consummated/accomplished

3    vouchsafe permit

5    only…with be bold only with (i.e., prevail upon)

7    hangman i.e., executioner

13    truant knave

14    wants lacks

16    Draw extract (Claudio puns on the sense of “disembowel,” sometimes the fate of a hanged man)

17    Hang it an expression of angry impatience

18    hang it teeth were hung up outside barbers’ shops as advertisements for the dental work that barbers also carried out (though Claudio also refers to the hanging, and drawing, of a criminal)

20    Where where there    humour…worm toothache was thought to be caused either by the descent from the head into the tooth of one of the four humors (fluids), or by a worm in the tooth

21    but except

23    fancy love (Don Pedro goes on to pun on the sense of “whim”)

24    Frenchman tomorrow German and Spanish references follow hereafter in the Quarto (see Textual Notes); Folio’s omission of them may have been to avoid offence at court

30    ornament…tennis-balls filling tennis balls with beard-hair seems to have been an actual practice

33    civet a musky perfume obtained from the glands of the civet cat    smell him out detect the truth/discern his presence by his smell

35    note sign

36    wont accustomed    wash clean/perfume

37    paint apply cosmetics

38    lute-string the lute was considered the instrument of a lover

39    governed controlled/has the musical key determined stops frets/restraints/impediments

40    heavy sad

43    ill conditions bad characteristics    dies expires/orgasms

44    face upwards as a faithful Christian/in a sexual position, under Benedick

45    Old signior i.e., Leonato

46    hobby-horses jokers

48    For upon

49    by this by this time

51    God save you a common greeting

52    Good den good evening

53    If…served if you have time

62    let…hereafter whether or not I love you will be apparent after I have imparted what I have to say    aim…manifest judge me more effectively according to what I will now reveal to you

63    holds regards

67    circumstances shortened in brief/regardless of details

68    a talking of the subject of conversation (either Claudio and Don Pedro’s conversation or public gossip)

72    paint out convey in full

73    fit suit/adapt    Wonder marvel/be incredulous

74    warrant proof

76    fit befit

79    If…know if you do not dare to admit that what you see with your own eyes is the case, then you had better say nothing about it/then you know nothing at all

86    bear it coldly behave calmly

88    untowardly turned unfavorably changed

89    mischief misfortune/wickedness

Act 3 Scene 3

3.3    Dogberry named after the berry of the wild cornel or dogwood, a type of shrub    Verges named after verjuice, the bitter juice that comes from unripe fruit    Watch a group of citizens who assisted with local policing

1    true reliable, honest

2    salvation a malapropism—Verges means “damnation”

4    allegiance Dogberry means “treachery”

5    charge duties/responsibilities

6    desertless Dogberry’s error for “deserving”

7    Otecake from “oatcake,” a cake made of oatmeal    Seacole from “sea coal,” a more expensive type of fuel

9    well-favoured good-looking

12    favour face/appearance

15    senseless Dogberry means “sensible”    fit suitable

16    comprehend malapropism for “apprehend”    vagrom vagrant

17    stand stop

19    take…him pay no attention to him

22    meddle be concerned/involved with

24    tolerable Dogberry means “intolerable”

25    belongs to is the responsibility of

26    ancient experienced

27    bills long-handled weapons with axe-like heads

35    true honest

38    by according to    pitch black tar-like substance

39    defiled polluted, soiled

42    by my will out of choice    more Dogberry means “less”

45    still quiet/calm

51    present represent

52    stay detain

53    by’r lady by Our Lady (the Virgin Mary)

54    statues malapropism for “statutes”

55    marry by the Virgin Mary

59    chances i.e., chances to occur    counsels confidences

64    coil bustle

65    vigitant malapropism for “vigilant”

70    Mass by the Mass    scab scoundrel/skin disease characterized by a rash or scaliness and itching

72    close concealed    penthouse overhanging part of a building

76    dear costly

81    unconfirmed inexperienced

82    is…man does not represent a man’s true self (Conrad, however, understands “is of no importance to a man”)

84    fashion i.e., the style as opposed to garments (apparel) themselves

87    deformed i.e., as fashion is constantly changing

88    up and down all over the place

93    hot bloods spirited, eager young men

94    Pharaoh’s soldiers the soldiers of the Egyptian king who pursued the fleeing Israelites and were drowned in the Red Sea    reechy smoky/grimy    god Bel’s priests in the apocryphal Book of Daniel, the priests of Bel were slain by the King of Persia when Daniel showed that their god was false

96    smirched soiled/discolored    codpiece a conspicuous attachment, often ornamented, sewn onto the front of breeches over the crotch massy massive/heavy

98    shifted moved (puns on the senses of “shift” as “underclothing” and as “a change of clothes”)

101    gentlewoman attendant    leans me out leans out

104    possessed informed (with connotations of demonic possession, especially given that Don John is subsequently referred to as the devil) amiable loving

108    oaths avowals

115    recovered malapropism for “discovered”

116    lechery malapropism for “treachery”

117    lock lovelock, a fashionable lock of curled hair

119    made made to

121    obey the First Watchman means “command”

122    commodity product/goods bought on credit    taken up arrested/received on credit

123    bills long-handled weapons/promissory notes

124    in question subject to legal procedures/sought after/in doubt

Act 3 Scene 4

5    rabato stiff linen collar, sometimes used to support a ruff

9    tire attire (i.e., headdress)    within i.e., in an inner room    hair i.e., false hair on the headdress

10    rare splendid

12    exceeds excels/is beyond comparison

13    respect of comparison to

14    cuts slashes in the fabric of a garment that reveal differently colored material beneath    laced trimmed    down sleeves fitted sleeves that went down to the wrists    side sleeves secondary open sleeves hanging from the shoulders

15    round underborne trimmed all the way round (this could refer either to the skirt or to the visible hem of a petticoat)    tinsel silk shot with gold or silver thread    quaint attractive/elegant/skilfully made

16    on’t of it

17    heavy sorrowful (Ursula plays on the literal sense of “weighed down”)

19    Fie upon thee an expression of disgust or indignation

20    in even in

21    I…husband i.e., at this rate, I must even apologize for mentioning the word “husband”

22    An if    wrest distort/misinterpret

24    an if    light puns on “sexually loose”

25    else otherwise

26    coz cousin

30    Clap’s into let us start singing    ‘Light o’ love’ a popular tune    burden a man’s part, the bass accompaniment (Ursula continues to play on the idea of the weight of a man)

31    dance playing on the sexual connotations of dancing

32    Ye…heels! You’re a light-heeled (i.e., promiscuous) one!

33    barns puns on “bairns” (i.e., children)

34    illegitimate construction incorrect interpretation (puns on the notion of illegitimate children)    scorn…heels reject that by stamping on or kicking at it

36    Hey-ho!…husband? Ursula plays on the title of the well-known ballad

38    H puns on “ache,” which was pronounced in the same way as the letter

39    an if    be…Turk have not rejected your faith (by rejecting your loathing of love) star the North    Star, a reliable indicator for navigators

40    trow I wonder

43    stuffed with a cold (Ursula puns on the senses of “penetrated sexually” and “pregnant”)

45    professed apprehension claimed to be witty

46    rarely excellently (Beatrice plays on the sense of “infrequently”)

47    in your cap i.e., like a fool’s coxcomb (headgear resembling a cock’s comb)

49    carduus benedictus the “holy thistle,” a plant often used in medicine (with an obvious pun on “Benedick”)

50    qualm sudden sensation of faintness or nausea

55    list please

57    such another i.e., a similar enemy to love

59    eats…grudging i.e., accepts his lot without complaining

63    false gallop literally, a canter, but Ursula means “I speak the truth”

Act 3 Scene 5

2    confidence private conference    decerns a malapropism for “concerns”

8    Goodman title for a person beneath the rank of gentleman

9    blunt Dogberry means “sharp”

13    odorous malapropism for “odious”    palabras short for pocas palabras, Spanish for “few words”

15    poor Duke’s officers Dogberry means “Duke’s poor officers”

16    tedious Dogberry thinks that the word means something complimentary, such as “rich”

20    exclamation public complaint, but Dogberry means “acclamation”

24    excepting Dogberry means “respecting”

25    arrant notorious/absolute

27    a world i.e., wondrous

28    a good man i.e., good

34    comprehended malapropism for “apprehended”    auspicious malapropism for “suspicious”

38    suffigance malapropism for “sufficient”

43    inkhorn inkwell

46    non-come Dogberry probably means “nonplus” (i.e., state of perplexity), but the phrase also suggests “non compos mentis” (i.e., mad)

47    excommunication malapropism for “communication” (i.e., discussion) or possibly “examination”

Act 4 Scene 1

8    inward secret

17    Stand thee by stand aside    by your leave with your permission (i.e., to call you Father)

22    counterpoise balance, equal

23    render her again give her back

24    learn teach

27    sign and semblance outward appearance and mere image

30    withal with

31    blood i.e., blush

32    witness bear witness to

35    luxurious lecherous

39    approvèd proved

40    in…proof your own test of her

43    known had sex with

45    extenuate…sin lessen the sin of having sex before marriage

47    large unrestrained/licentious

49    Bashful modest/sensitive    comely becoming/proper

51    write against it i.e., denounce it publicly

52    Dian…orb Diana, goddess of chastity and the moon (her orb)

53    blown in bloom

54    intemperate immoderate, unbridled    blood sexual desire

55    Venus goddess of love

57    wide wide of the mark

61    stale prostitute

70    move put

71    kindly natural

74    beset assailed, besieged

75    catechizing questioning, a form of instruction used by the Church in which a person answers a set of questions about the Christian faith

76    answer…name the first question in the Anglican catechism asks the respondent his or her name

87    grievèd wronged/afflicted with sorrow

90    liberal licentious/unrestrained

97    much misgovernment great misconduct

99    graces virtues/attractions

103    For because of

104    conjecture suspicion

106    gracious attractive/joyful/virtuous

110    spirits vital energies

119    look up revive/look heavenward

127    on…reproaches following this disgrace

128    Grieved…one? Did I once grieve that I only had one child?

129    Chid contended with/chastised    frame plan/scheme of things

134    mired soiled    infamy bad reputation/disgrace

138    mine…her I was so devoted to and proud of her that I cared nothing for myself

143    season preservative

146    attired clothed

148    belied slandered

159    given way gone along with

161    apparitions appearances

168    Which…book which validates, through the confirmation of experience, all that I have read in books

170    reverence respected state    divinity status as a clergyman/knowledge of theology

172    biting severe/painful

176    perjury swearing something false to be true

178    proper true

182    warrant sanction

185    unmeet unsuitable

186    Maintained the change engaged in the exchange

187    Refuse reject/disown

188    misprision mistake, misunderstanding

189    very bent of a total inclination for

191    practice scheming/carrying out

192    frame plotting/creating

195    proudest finest/most arrogant/most eminent/most vigorous

197    eat eaten    invention inventiveness (to plan revenge)

198    means resources/wealth

199    reft deprived

200    kind manner

201    policy shrewdness

203    quit…throughly avenge myself on them thoroughly

208    publish proclaim/make public

209    mourning ostentation display of mourning

210    monument burial vault

214    carried carried out/managed

216    that i.e., the changing of slander to remorse

217    on this travail as a result of this effort (travail plays on the sense of “pains of childbirth”)

222    prize…worth value not at its full worth

224    rack stretch

229    study of imagination introspective musings

230    organ aspect, feature

231    apparelled dressed    habit clothing

233    prospect field of view

235    interest in a claim over    liver believed to be the seat of love and passion

238    success succeeding events

239    event outcome

240    lay…likelihood outline its probable outcome

241    aim…false intentions except this one are confounded

243    wonder of amazement at/curiosity about

244    sort turn out

247    injuries insults

249    inwardness intimacy

254    Being that since    flow in grief overflow with grief/am overcome with tears

255    twine thread

257    For…cure for extreme/unusual ills require extreme/unusual remedies

267    even direct    friend friend/lover

275    eat it eat your words

279    protest declare/avow/insist

282    stayed detained, halted

289    Tarry stay/linger

298    bear…hand delude her with false hopes

299    take hands i.e., in marriage    uncovered open, barefaced

303    A proper saying! A fine story!

305    undone ruined

307    counties counts    testimony evidence/condemnation of error    count plays on the sense of “charge in an indictment”    Comfit candy/sweet

310    compliment etiquette/display    turned into tongue are all talk    trim fine/elegant

311    swears it merely swears that the lie is true

317    engaged pledged/accepting of Beatrice’s wish

318    dear costly/significant

Act 4 Scene 2

4.2    Sexton a church officer

1    dissembly malapropism for “assembly”

3    malefactors wrongdoers

5    exhibition Dogberry means “commission” (i.e., authority to examine the offenders)

10    sirrah sir (contemptuous)

12    do…God the 1600 Quarto follows this with an exchange censored from the Folio: Conrad and Borachio reply “Yea, sir, we hope,” to which Dogberry says “Write down that they hope they serve God. And write ‘God’ first, for God defend but God should go before such villains.” He then continues “Masters…,” as in Folio

16    witty clever/wily    go about with get the better of/handle

20    in a tale in agreement

24    eftest a nonsense word, which Dogberry intends to mean “easiest/nearest”

39    redemption Dogberry means “damnation”

47    opinioned malapropism for “pinioned” (i.e., bound)

48    Let…hands let their hands be tied

49    coxcomb fool

51    naughty wicked

53    suspect malapropism for “respect”

56    piety Dogberry means “impiety”

59    had losses i.e., he was formerly even wealthier

60    two gowns cloaks were fairly costly, so Dogberry suggests he has reasonably good finances    handsome fitting/comfortable

Act 5 Scene 1

2    second support

8    suit with correspond to/fit

13    answer requite    strain emotional pang/melody

15    lineament physical feature/characteristic    branch division/part

17    wag be off    ‘Hem!’ i.e., clear one’s throat in preparation for speech

19    candle-wasters those who waste candles by staying up late for study or drinking

24    passion powerful emotion/rage

25    preceptial of precepts (i.e., instructions or rules)

29    wring writhe/are oppressed/weep

30    sufficiency ability

31    moral full of moralizing advice and opinions

33    advertisement advice/admonition/public proclamation

35    peace silence

38    However however much    writ…of written in the manner of/written as if with the authority of

39    made…at scorned/attacked    sufferance suffering/endurance (of misery)

50    have are in

52    all is one it’s all one/it does not matter

55    Some of us i.e., Don Pedro and Claudio

57    dissembler deceiver/hypocrite

60    beshrew curse

62    meant…sword had no intentions toward my sword

63    fleer mock, jeer

64    dotard old fool

67    head face

69    reverence respect due to an old man

71    trial…man i.e., a duel

82    nice fence refined and skilful swordsmanship/defensive action (contemptuous)

83    lustihood vigor

85    daff cast aside

89    Win…me overcome me and then brag about it, flaunt your prize

91    foining fence thrusting swordsmanship

98    braggarts boasters    Jacks rascals/louts milksops effeminate/cowardly men

101    weigh i.e., are worth    scruple very small measurement of weight

102    Scrambling contentious/uncouth    out-facing defiant/confrontational/bullying    fashion-monging preoccupied with fashion/dandies

103    cog cheat    flout insult/mock    deprave defame/deride

104    anticly grotesquely

105    speak off throw out

106    durst dared

111    wake your patience disturb your patience further

123    had…have nearly    with by

125    doubt fear (said with irony)

128    high-proof in the highest degree

130    draw as one draws a sword

132    beside their wit out of their minds (plays on by thy side)

133    draw…minstrels draw it as a musician (minstrel) would draw out his instrument from its case or draw a bow across strings

135    care…cat a common proverb    care anxiety/sorrow    mettle spirit, vigour

137    in the career at full gallop, as in a jousting tournament    an if    charge level/advance in attack

139    staff lance    cross crosswise, in the middle (an indication of clumsiness)

141    turn his girdle a common proverb referring to the turning of one’s belt (girdle) so that the buckle is at the back, and meaning “put up with it”

145    Do me right give me satisfaction    protest declare

148    so provided    cheer entertainment

150    calf’s…capon animals associated with foolishness (the calf) and cowardice (the capon, a castrated cockerel)

151    curiously skilfully

152    woodcock a bird associated with stupidity

153    ambles strolls (as opposed to moving rapidly)    easily in a state of ease/unhurriedly

155    fine excellent (Beatrice’s response plays on the senses of “marvelously” and “slender”)    wit plays on the sense of “penis”

157    wise gentleman either said with irony or meaning “old fool”

158    hath the tongues can speak foreign languages

159    forswore swore against/denied

160    double twofold/duplicitous

161    transshape transform

162    properest most handsome/finest

165    old man’s daughter i.e., Hero

166    God…garden an allusion both to Benedick hiding in the arbor and to Adam, after his transgression, hiding from God in the Garden of Eden

167    But…man Don Pedro and Claudio recall Benedick’s earlier statement that this is to be his fate if he marries

171    braggarts…blades i.e., as boasters damage or break their swords themselves to make it look as if they have been fighting

172    My lord i.e., Don Pedro

180    hose breeches

182    He…man he (i.e., one who has left off his wit) is then a hero (giant) in the eyes of a fool (ape), but in fact the fool is a learned person (doctor) in comparison to him

183    soft you wait a moment    pluck up rouse/collect yourself    sad serious

186    reasons plays on “raisins,” then pronounced in a similar manner    balance scales, which Justice is traditionally depicted as carrying    cursing swearing, or Dogberry may mean “accursed”

189    Hearken inquire

191    false report slander/untruths

192    slanders Dogberry means “slanderers”

197    division logical order

199    bound on the way/tied up

200    answer trial    cunning ingenious/knowledgeable

205    incensed incited

218    semblance image

219    plaintiffs Dogberry means “defendants” (a plaintiff is a complainant)    reformed malapropism for “informed”

231    honourable men i.e., Don Pedro and Claudio

238    Impose me to impose on me

247    Possess inform

249    aught at all, to any extent    invention inventiveness/imagination

257    right puns on “rite”

261    dispose you may dispose

266    packed implicated/acting as an accomplice

272    under…black in writing

274    they…it Dogberry’s misunderstanding of the First Watchman’s claim that Deformed wears a lock

275    in God’s name the usual plea of a beggar

283    God…foundation! the usual response of one receiving alms from a charitable foundation

287    give you Dogberry means “ask your”

288    prohibit Dogberry means “permit”

290    look for expect

294    lewd wicked/base

Act 5 Scene 2

2    the speech of speak with

4    style poetic style (puns on “stile”)    come over surpass/surmount (Margaret plays on the sense of “mount sexually”)

5    comely proper/pleasing

6    keep below stairs remain (unmarried) in the servants’ quarters

7    catches seizes (its prey)

8    foils swords with blunt edges

10    give…bucklers surrender

11    swords with phallic connotations    bucklers small shields with spikes in their centers/vaginas

12    pikes the shield’s spikes/penises    vice screw (with sexual connotations)

15    come a possible pun on “orgasm”

16    The…deserve the lyrics to a well-known Elizabethan song

19    How…singing how much pity I deserve for my poor singing

20    Leander…swimmer Leander regularly swam across the Hellespont to see his lover Hero, until one night he drowned    Troilus…panders Troilus was helped in his love affair with Cressida by the go-between (pander) Pandarus, though Cressida eventually rejected him

21    quondam carpet-mongers former ladies’ men

25    innocent simple/foolish    hard poor/erect (playing on the phallic connotations of horn)

27    festival merry/light-hearted/celebratory

31    that I came that which I came for

35    noisome noxious

38    subscribe state/declare in writing

40    politic prudent

42    suffer experience/permit (Benedick puns on the senses of “feel pain” and “endure”)

46    friend lover

48    confession statement/declaration/admission

50    instance saying/argument    time…neighbors good old days (when neighbors were friendly)

51    tomb i.e., memorial

52    monuments memory    bells…weeps i.e., the duration of the funeral and mourning period

54    Question you have asked a question, here follows the answer    clamour noise of the bells    rheum tears

55    Don…conscience conscience was often imaged as a gnawing worm

64    old coil great turmoil

69    die puns on the sense of “orgasm”    eyes puns on the sense of “vagina”

Act 5 Scene 3

5    guerdon recompense

6    fame renown/reputation

12    goddess…night Diana, goddess of the moon and of chastity

13    virgin knight i.e., her follower, Hero

26    wheels of Phoebus wheels of the chariot of Phoebus, the sun god

30    weeds clothes

32    Hymen god of marriage    speed’s speed us (i.e., make us prosper)

Act 5 Scene 4

3    Upon as a result of    debated discussed

5    against her will unintentionally

6    question questioning/investigation

8    else otherwise    faith i.e., his promise to Beatrice

9    reckoning settling of accounts (i.e., a duel)

17    confirmed countenance resolute appearance/demeanor

20    undo ruin/untie

28    for as for    is is that

38    Ethiope Ethiopian

45    Europa Europe

46    Europa…love in the form of a bull Jove carried off the princess Europa

52    owe you i.e., owe you a response

68    qualify moderate

70    largely in full

73    soft and fair hold on a moment

81    cousin i.e., Hero

87    cousin Beatrice is his niece but    cousin could refer to any relative

98    in a consumption wasting away

101    college assembly/fellowship    flout mock

103    shall…him i.e., for fear of attracting attention or having his dress sense mocked

106    giddy unstable/flighty

107    like likely

110    cudgelled beaten    double-dealer married man/unfaithful husband

113    lighten…heels make our wives’ heels nimble through dancing/make our wives sexually eager

115    sad grave/mournful

116    no…horn another reference to cuckoldry

120    brave fine

LOVE’S LABOUR’S LOST

Love’s Labour’s Lost is a play for Shakespeare connoisseurs. It is a great feast of linguistic sophistication on the theme of the inadequacy of linguistic sophistication. It is full of poetry—and mockery of poetry. Its preposterous academic posturing is either hilarious or incomprehensible, according to the disposition of the listener. Some of its jokes and puns are now so obscure that a modern audience frequently finds itself in the position of Dull, listening in bemusement as the others plan their play: “Via, Goodman Dull!” says Holofernes, “Thou hast spoken no word all this while.” To which the simple constable replies, “Nor understood none neither, sir.”

The play was a favorite for the sophisticated audience at court—Queen Elizabeth herself would have greatly enjoyed not only the authority, wit, and hunting skills of the princess, but also the “sweet smoke of rhetoric” in the elaborate speechifying of the male courtiers and the wordy academic humor of Holofernes and Don Armado. The reaction of the general theater-going public—“the base vulgar,” as the play itself calls them—might have been more like that of Dull. It comes as no surprise that in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries this was Shakespeare’s least-performed play. Its minimal plot, intellectual rigor, and architectural symmetry make it seem to belong to some genre far from the popular theater—Enlightenment opera buffa, perhaps. There are, indeed, remarkable thematic and structural resemblances to Mozart and Da Ponte’s Così, fan tutte. A Paris production of 1863 actually merged the two works, combining Mozart’s music with a text based on Shakespeare. In the following century, W. H. Auden and his lover collaborated with Vladimir Nabokov’s cousin on an operatic version of the play, perhaps inspired by the fictional composer Leverkühn in Thomas Mann’s novel Doctor Faustus, whose only opera is a setting of Love’s Labour’s “in a spirit of the most artificial mockery and parody of the artificial: something highly playful and highly precious.”

Dr. Samuel Johnson thought that Love’s Labour’s was one of the most Shakespearean of Shakespeare’s plays. Like the characters of Berowne and Boyet, who dislike each other because they are so like each other, Shakespeare was famous for his verbal facility, for being “honey-tongued.” In no other play does he so fully indulge his gift for “Taffeta phrases, silken terms precise, / Three-piled hyperboles, spruce affectation, / Figures pedantical.” At the same time, in no other play does he so mercilessly expose that gift as a fly-blown form of “maggot ostentation,” ripe for renunciation in favor of those “honest plain words” that “best pierce the ear of grief.” What is so Shakespearean is this way of having it both ways. “Taffeta phrases” are ostentatiously rejected and yet the simple rustic language that supposedly replaces them is equally thick with allusion (or, as Dull has it, “collusion” and “pollution”). Berowne’s “russet yeas and honest kersey noes” puns on “eyes” and “nose,” so reintroducing the figure of Ovid, surnamed Naso (Latin for “nose”), who is not only Holofernes’ but also Shakespeare’s master in the art of verbal pyrotechnics. For “the elegancy, facility, and golden cadence of poesy,” “Ovidius Naso was the man: and why indeed ‘Naso,’ but for smelling out the odoriferous flowers of fancy, the jerks of invention?”

Ovid taught Shakespeare how to write love poetry but also how to parody love poetry. If ladies are conventionally praised for being blonde and pale-skinned, Ovid and Shakespeare know how to offer paradoxical praise of black. Where lesser poets catalog the body parts of the beloved in smoothly predictable blazons (blue eyes, creamy breasts), Ovid and Shakespeare turn the convention on its head: “two pitch-balls stuck in her face for eyes” and a piercing glare not at the bosom but at the dark place between the legs. Though Dr. Johnson was too polite to say so, one of the reasons why Love’s Labour’s is Shakespeare at his most Shakespearean is that it is simultaneously one of his most elegant plays (rivaled only by As You Like It) and his most filthy (rivaled only by Troilus and Cressida). The exchange in the fourth act concerning prickets, shooting, sores, ells, and sorrels is on the surface about deer-hunting, but beneath the veneer it alludes unmistakably to inflamed genitalia and sexually transmitted disease.

At the climax of the play, the mood changes with the entrance of Marcadé, ambassador of death. Immediately before his entrance, the play-within-the-play has dissolved into a brawl between a clown and a braggart knight on the subject of a pregnant dairymaid who is named after the Elizabethan term for a toilet. The knight is accused of wearing a “dishclout” of the maid’s as a favor next to his heart. A stinking dish cloth is enough to prick the bubble of chivalric romance, but the word also seems to have been a slang term for a rag strapped over the cleft so as to soak up menstrual blood. To hold that image in conjunction with the memento mori figure of Marcadé is to understand something of Shakespeare’s taste for extremity and paradox.

In contrast to those Shakespearean comedies that turn on a movement between a court and a green world, the play confines itself within the single location of a court that has turned itself into a green world. The action all takes place, in a very short time frame and with only a few (not very short) scenes, within the King of Navarre’s park. The setup could hardly be simpler. The king and his courtiers have forsworn love in the name of academic study, but the arrival of the Princess of France and her charming attendant ladies presents an obstacle to this plan. Green is the color associated with retreat to a garden for the purposes of intellectual contemplation (in his lyric “the Garden,” the poet Andrew Marvell imagined “Annihilating all that’s made / To a green thought in a green shade”). But, as Don Armado comes to realize when prompted by Moth his clever page, green is also “the colour of lovers.” The play is a demonstration of the triumph of love over intellectual labor. True wisdom belongs not to the intellectuals but to the clown Costard, who is of the view that it “is the simplicity of man to hearken after the flesh.” Neither academic aspiration nor poetic elaboration will save man from this elementary truth.

Being sophisticated, Navarre and his three fellows only learn the truth by being embarrassed. In the play’s most theatrically effective scene, plotted like the best of farces, each of the four men is caught with his metaphoric trousers down—not just falling in love, but writing abysmal love poetry. George Bernard Shaw summarized the dramatic effect neatly: “No.1 being inaudible to 2, 3 and 4; No.2 audible to No.1, but not to 3 and 4; No.3 audible to 1 and 2, but not to No.4; and No.4 audible to all the rest, but himself temporarily stone deaf.” There is further delight when the men, now working in unison, disguise themselves as Russians in order to woo the ladies, but the ladies run rings around them because the disguise is so easily seen through. At this point we anticipate an unmasking, universal forgiveness, the forgetting of foolishness, multiple marriages, and everyone living happily ever after. First, however, the lower-ranked characters must perform a celebratory entertainment for the court.

Just as “The most lamentable comedy and most cruel death of Pyramus and Thisbe” echoes the main plot of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, so the pageant of “The Nine Worthies” offers a commentary on that of Love’s Labour’s Lost. Navarre begins the main action with the premise that he and his courtiers will achieve immortal fame by means of their academic prowess, but, in a striking analogy to the opening sequence of Shakespeare’s sonnets, the unfolding of the plot suggests that falling in love and reproducing oneself sexually is the only real means of guaranteeing survival after death. It is “women’s eyes,” not books and academes, that “contain and nourish all the world.” Shakespeare turns the raw material for his play-within-the-play so that it fits with this theme. The Nine Worthies were traditionally three figures from each of the three traditions that constituted Shakespeare’s cultural inheritance: the Bible (Joshua, David, Judas Maccabaeus), classical antiquity (Hector of Troy, Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar), and the romances of the Middle Ages (Arthur, Charlemagne, Godfrey of Bouillon). All nine had achieved immortality by means of heroic military action. This in itself is a rebuke to the court for its presumption that “fame that all hunt after in their lives” could come from something so passive as academic study. At the same time, Shakespeare changes the traditional cast: Julius Caesar is replaced by Costard as Pompey the Great and, more significantly, Moth as Hercules stands in for one of the biblical or medieval figures. This is partly a joke about size: Hercules is the archetypal big man, whereas Moth is compared to an insect or a dust particle. In addition, the introduction of Hercules highlights the motif of heroic endeavor brought low by desire. He was famous not only for his labours such as stealing golden apples from the garden of the Hesperides (alluded to in Berowne’s long speech on love near the end of the fourth act), but also for the losses caused by his loves. Hercules was humiliated and unmanned by his love for Omphale, then driven mad and murderous by his desire for Deianira. “What great men have been in love?” Armado asks Moth. “Hercules, master” comes the reply. The biblical Samson and his catastrophic love for Delilah is invoked at the same point. One suspects that if the pageant of Worthies had run to its conclusion, he too would have muscled his way into the cast.

As in “Pyramus and Thisbe,” the noble audience are unnecessarily rude to the ignoble players. They subvert the illusion on which theater depends: “I Pompey am —” “You lie, you are not he.” And they make rude jokes at the expense of the actors: “For the ass to the Jude? Give it him: Jud-as, away!” Holofernes engages our hearts when he offers the dignified response: “This is not generous, not gentle, not humble.” The lords must undergo a further humbling before they prove their gentility and gain their reward: after all the linguistic labor, their loves are not won. Berowne is set the task of moving wild laughter in the throat of death and, in contrast to the traditional comic ending where Jack shall have Jill and nought shall go ill, here “Jack hath not Jill.” There is a kind of suspended animation, intended to last for a year, heralded by the closing song of spring and winter.

With its rhymes and dances, its four pairs of lovers and curious-knotted garden, the play has a symmetrical structure that seems to demand harmonious resolution, and yet it ends with interruption—the unfinished pageant, the unfinished courtship, and finally another unfinished performance. Armado announces that Holofernes and Nathaniel will stage an epilogue in the form of an academic dialogue, but we never get to hear it. The haunting simplicity of the song intended to introduce their debate brings Armado, the embodiment of verbosity, to one final rejection of language-feasting: he calls a halt to the show and dismisses the audiences onstage and off with the conclusion that more words would be harsh after such music.

KEY FACTS

PLOT: The King of Navarre and three of his lords form a little “academe” in which they vow to study for three years, renouncing the company of women. But the Princess of France and three of her ladies arrive on a diplomatic mission, throwing the plan into chaos as soon as the vows are made. The men from Navarre trump one another in a scene in which they are over heard reading aloud their bad love poems. The ladies then comprehensively outwit the men in a scene involving Russian disguise. A comic subplot concerns an extravagantly spoken Spaniard, his clever page, a country clown, and a pregnant dairymaid, with contributions from a curate and a pedantic schoolmaster, culminating in a pageant of classical and biblical heroes, “The Nine Worthies.” Halfway through this show, Marcadé arrives with news of the death of the princess’ father. The mood turns somber and the ladies give the men the task of performing a year’s ascetic penance or community service before they will marry them.

MAJOR PARTS: (with percentage of lines/number of speeches/scenes on stage) Berowne (22%/159/5), King (11%/117/4), Princess (10%/102/3), Don Armado (10%/102/4), Boyet (8%/80/3), Costard (7%/83/7), Rosaline (7%/75/3), Holofernes (6%/54/3), Moth (5%/78/3), Dumaine (3%/54/4), Longaville (2%/40/4), Maria (2%/25/3), Katherine (2%/22/3), Nathaniel (2%/19/3), Dull (1%/15/4), Jaquenetta (1%/13/3).

LINGUISTIC MEDIUM: 65% verse, 35% prose. High proportion of rhyme and interwoven poetry, including sonnets.

DATE: Before 1598. Edition of that year refers to the play being “presented before her Highness [Queen Elizabeth] this last Christmas.” A poem by Robert Tofte, also published in 1598, apparently refers to a performance seen in the public theater. Stylistic similarity to A Midsummer Night’s Dream and other lyrical plays, together with possible references to an Inns of Court Christmas entertainment of 1594–95, lead most scholars to date composition to 1595–96.

SOURCES: One of Shakespeare’s few genuinely sourceless plays, though draws on many aspects of the literary culture of the early 1590s (e.g., the vogue for love sonnets and the elaborate “euphuistic” writing style pioneered by John Lyly); the idea of four courtiers retreating from political engagement in order to engage in academic reflection and philosophical discussion may have been inspired by Pierre de la Primaudaye’s The French Academy (English translation 1586, reprinted 1589 and 1594). Though not a contemporary political allegory, some of the names in the play apparently allude to historical figures in contemporary France and Navarre (of great interest at the time, since in March 1594 King Henri of Navarre—a discrete kingdom between France and Spain—converted to Catholicism and became King of France).

TEXT: Quarto edition of 1598, “newly corrected and augmented by W. Shakespere”—this may imply that there was an earlier Quarto, now lost. The Folio was printed from the Quarto, making some corrections and introducing some errors. There are some severe textual tangles, particularly over characters’ names, where Shakespeare sometimes seems to have become muddled. Some passages, including Berowne’s crucial long speech about love at the end of the fourth act, contain repetition that strongly suggests that the printed text retains elements of Shakespeare’s first draft as well as the final version: we indicate such “first thoughts” with marginal marks (//).

LOVE’S LABOUR’S LOST

Ferdinand KING of Navarre

Don Adriano de ARMADO, a Spanish braggart

MOTH, a boy, his page

COSTARD, a clown

JAQUENETTA, a dairymaid

Anthony DULL, a constable

Sir NATHANIEL, a curate

HOLOFERNES, a pedantic schoolmaster

The PRINCESS of France

BOYET, a lord attending on the princess

Monsieur MARCADÉ, a messenger from the King of France

A FORESTER

Lords, Ladies, Attendants

Act 1 [Scene 1]1.1

running scene 1

Enter Ferdinand King of Navarre, Berowne, Longaville and Dumaine

KINGLet fame,[1] that all hunt after in their lives,

Live registered[2] upon our brazen tombs,

And then grace[3] us in the disgrace of death

When, spite[4] of cormorant devouring time,

5

Th’endeavour of this present breath[5] may buy

That honour which shall bate[6] his scythe’s keen edge

And make us heirs of all eternity.

Therefore, brave conquerors — for so you are,

That war against your own affections[9]

10

And the huge army of the world’s desires —

Our late[11] edict shall strongly stand in force.

Navarre[12] shall be the wonder of the world,

Our court shall be a little academe,[13]

Still[14] and contemplative in living art.

15

You three, Berowne, Dumaine and Longaville,

Have sworn for three years’ term[16] to live with me,

My fellow-scholars, and to keep[17] those statutes

That are recorded in this schedule[18] here. Shows a paper

Your oaths are passed,[19] and now subscribe your names,

20

That his own hand[20] may strike his honour down

That violates the smallest branch[21] herein.

If you are armed[22] to do as sworn to do,

Subscribe to your deep[23] oaths, and keep it too.

LONGAVILLEI am resolved: ’tis but a three years’ fast.

25

The mind shall banquet though the body pine.[25] Signs

Fat paunches have lean pates,[26] and dainty bits

Make rich the ribs, but bankrupt quite the wits.

DUMAINEMy loving lord, Dumaine is mortified.[28]

The grosser[29] manner of these world’s delights

30

He throws upon the gross[30] world’s baser slaves. Signs

To love, to wealth, to pomp, I pine and die,

With all these living in[32] philosophy.

BEROWNEI can but say[33] their protestation over.

So much, dear liege, I have already sworn,

35

That is, to live and study here three years.

But there are other strict observances,[36]

As[37] not to see a woman in that term,

Which I hope well is not enrollèd[38] there.

And one day in a week to touch no food,

40

And but one meal on every day beside,

The which I hope is not enrollèd there.

And then to sleep but three hours in the night,

And not be seen to wink[43] of all the day —

When I was wont[44] to think no harm all night

45

And make a dark night too of half the day —

Which I hope well is not enrollèd there.

O, these are barren tasks, too hard to keep:

Not to see ladies, study, fast, not sleep.

KINGYour oath is passed to pass away from[49] these.

50

BEROWNELet me say no, my liege, an if[50] you please.

I only swore to study with your grace

And stay here in your court for three years’ space.[52]

LONGAVILLEYou swore to that, Berowne, and to the rest.

BEROWNEBy[54] yea and nay, sir, then I swore in jest.

55

What is the end[55] of study, let me know?

KINGWhy, that to know which else we should not know.

BEROWNEThings hid and barred, you mean, from common sense?[57]

KINGAy, that is study’s godlike recompense.[58]

BEROWNECome on[59] then, I will swear to study so,

60

To know the thing I am forbid to know:

As thus, to study where I well may dine,

When I to feast expressly am forbid.

Or study where to meet some mistress fine,

When mistresses from common sense are hid.

65

Or, having sworn too hard-a-keeping oath,[65]

Study to break it and not break my troth.[66]

If study’s gain be thus and this be so,

Study knows that which yet it doth not know.

Swear me to this, and I will ne’er say no.

70

KINGThese be the stops[70] that hinder study quite

And train[71] our intellects to vain delight.

BEROWNEWhy, all delights are vain, and that most vain,

Which with pain[73] purchased doth inherit pain:

As[74] painfully to pore upon a book

75

To seek the light of truth, while truth the while[75]

Doth falsely[76] blind the eyesight of his look.

Light[77] seeking light doth light of light beguile:

So, ere[78] you find where light in darkness lies,

Your light grows dark by losing of your eyes.

80

Study me[80] how to please the eye indeed

By fixing it upon a fairer[81] eye,

Who dazzling[82] so, that eye shall be his heed

And give him light that it was blinded by.

Study is like the heaven’s glorious sun

85

That will not be deep-searched with saucy[85] looks:

Small[86] have continual plodders ever won

Save[87] base authority from others’ books.

These earthly godfathers[88] of heaven’s lights,

That give a name to every fixèd star,

90

Have no more profit of[90] their shining nights

Than those that walk and wot[91] not what they are.

Too[92] much to know is to know nought but fame,

And every godfather[93] can give a name.

KINGHow well he’s read, to reason against reading.

95

DUMAINEProceeded[95] well, to stop all good proceeding.

LONGAVILLEHe weeds[96] the corn, and still lets grow the weeding.

BEROWNEThe spring is near when green geese[97] are a-breeding.

DUMAINEHow follows that?

BEROWNEFit in his[99] place and time.

100

DUMAINEIn reason nothing.[100]

BEROWNESomething then in rhyme.[101]

KINGBerowne is like an envious[102] sneaping frost

That bites the first-born infants[103] of the spring.

BEROWNEWell, say I am. Why should proud[104] summer boast

105

Before the birds have any cause to sing?

Why should I joy in any abortive[106] birth?

At Christmas I no more desire a rose

Than wish a snow in May’s new-fangled shows,[108]

But like of[109] each thing that in season grows.

110

So you, to study now it is too late,[110]

That were to climb[111] o’er the house to unlock the gate.

KINGWell, sit you out.[112] Go home, Berowne, adieu.

BEROWNENo, my good lord, I have sworn to stay with you.

And though I have for barbarism[114] spoke more

115

Than for that angel knowledge you can say,

Yet confident I’ll keep what I have sworn

And bide[117] the penance of each three years’ day.

Give me the paper, let me read the same,

And to the strict’st decrees I’ll write my name. Takes the paper

KINGHow well this yielding rescues thee from shame.

BEROWNEReads ‘Item, That no woman shall come within a mile of my court.’ Hath this been proclaimed?

LONGAVILLEFour days ago.

BEROWNELet’s see the penalty: ‘On pain of losing her tongue.’ Who devised this penalty?

LONGAVILLEMarry,[126] that did I.

BEROWNESweet lord, and why?

LONGAVILLETo fright them hence[128] with that dread penalty.

BEROWNEA dangerous law against gentility![129] Reads ‘Item, If any man be seen to talk with a woman within the term of three years, he shall endure such public shame as the rest of the court shall possibly devise.’

This article,[133] my liege, yourself must break,

For well you know here comes in embassy[134]

135

The French king’s daughter with yourself to speak —

A maid of grace and complete[136] majesty —

About surrender up of Aquitaine[137]

To her decrepit, sick and bedrid father:

Therefore this article is made in vain,

140

Or vainly[140] comes th’admirèd princess hither.

KINGWhat say you, lords? Why, this was quite forgot.

BEROWNESo study evermore is overshot.[142]

While it doth study to have what it would,[143]

It doth forget to do the thing it should:

145

And when it hath the thing it hunteth most,

’Tis won as towns[146] with fire, so won, so lost.

KINGWe must of force[147] dispense with this decree.

She must lie[148] here on mere necessity.

BEROWNENecessity will make us all forsworn[149]

150

Three thousand times within this three years’ space,

For every man with his affects[151] is born,

Not by might[152] mastered but by special grace.

If I break faith, this word[153] shall speak for me:

I am forsworn ‘on mere necessity’.

155

So to the laws at large[155] I write my name, Signs

And he that breaks them in the least degree

Stands in attainder[157] of eternal shame.

Suggestions[158] are to others as to me:

But I believe, although I seem so loath,

160

I am the[160] last that will last keep his oath.

But is there no quick[161] recreation granted?

KINGAy, that there is. Our court, you know, is haunted[162]

With a refinèd traveller of Spain,

A man in[164] all the world’s new fashion planted,

165

That hath a mint[165] of phrases in his brain,

One who the music of his own vain tongue

Doth ravish like enchanting harmony,

A man of compliments,[168] whom right and wrong

Have chose as umpire of their mutiny.[169]

170

This child of fancy,[170] that Armado hight,

For interim[171] to our studies shall relate

In high-born[172] words the worth of many a knight

From tawny[173] Spain lost in the world’s debate.

How you delight,[174] my lords, I know not, I,

175

But I protest I love to hear him lie,

And I will use him for my minstrelsy.[176]

BEROWNEArmado is a most illustrious wight,[177]

A man of fire-new words, fashion’s own knight.

LONGAVILLECostard[179] the swain and he shall be our sport,

180

And so to study three years is but short.

Enter a constable [Dull] with a letter, with Costard

DULLWhich is the duke’s[181] own person?

BEROWNEThis, fellow. What wouldst?

DULLI myself reprehend[183] his own person, for I am his grace’s tharborough. But I would see his own person in flesh and blood.

BEROWNEThis is he.

DULLSignior Arme…Arme…commends you.[186] There’s villainy abroad. This letter will tell you more. Shows a letter

COSTARDSir, the contempts[188] thereof are as touching me.

KINGA letter from the magnificent[189] Armado.

BEROWNEHow[190] low soever the matter, I hope in God for high words.

LONGAVILLEA high hope[191] for a low heaven. God grant us patience.

BEROWNETo hear, or forbear[192] hearing?

LONGAVILLETo hear meekly, sir, and to laugh moderately, or to forbear both.

BEROWNEWell, sir, be it[194] as the style shall give us cause to climb in the merriness.

COSTARDThe matter is to[195] me, sir, as concerning Jaquenetta. The manner of it is, I was taken[196] with the manner.

BEROWNEIn what manner?

COSTARDIn[198] manner and form following, sir, all those three. I was seen with her in the manor-house, sitting with her upon the form,[199] and taken following her into the park,[200] which, put together, is ‘in manner and form following’. Now, sir, for the manner:[201] it is the manner of a man to speak to a woman. For the form: in some form.

BEROWNEFor the ‘following’, sir?

COSTARDAs it shall follow in my correction,[204] and God defend the right!

KINGWill you hear this letter with attention?

BEROWNEAs we would hear an oracle.

COSTARDSuch is the simplicity[207] of man to hearken after the flesh.

KINGReads ‘Great deputy, the welkin’s[208] vicegerent and sole dominator of Navarre, my soul’s earth’s god, and body’s fostering[209] patron’—

COSTARDNot a word of Costard yet.

KINGReads ‘So it is’—

COSTARDIt may be so: but if he say it is so, he is, in telling true, but so.[212]

KINGPeace!

COSTARDBe[214] to me and every man that dares not fight.

KINGNo words!

COSTARDOf[216] other men’s secrets, I beseech you.

KINGReads ‘So it is, besieged with sable-coloured[217] melancholy, I did commend the black oppressing humour[218] to the most wholesome physic of thy health-giving air, and, as I am[219] a gentleman, betook myself to walk. The time, when? About the sixth hour, when beasts most graze, birds best peck, and men sit down to that nourishment which is called supper: so much for the time when. Now for the ground, which? Which, I mean, I walked upon. It is ycleped[222] thy park. Then for the place, where? Where, I mean, I did encounter that obscene[223] and most preposterous[224] event that draweth from my snow-white pen the ebon-coloured ink, which here thou viewest, beholdest, surveyest, or seest. But to the place, where? It standeth north-north-east and by east from the west corner of thy curious-knotted[226] garden; there did I see that low-spirited[227] swain, that base minnow of thy mirth’—

COSTARDMe?

KINGReads ‘That unlettered[230] small-knowing soul’—

COSTARDMe?

KINGReads ‘That shallow vassal[232]’—

COSTARDStill me?

KINGReads ‘Which, as I remember, hight Costard’—

COSTARDO, me!

KINGReads ‘Sorted[236] and consorted, contrary to thy established proclaimed edict and continent canon,[237] which with — O, with — but with this I passion to say wherewith[238]’—

COSTARDWith a wench.

KINGReads ‘With a child of our grandmother Eve, a female, or, for thy more sweet understanding, a woman. Him I (as my ever-esteemed duty pricks[241] me on) have sent to thee, to receive the meed[242] of punishment, by thy sweet grace’s officer, Anthony Dull, a man of good repute, carriage,[243] bearing, and estimation.’

DULLMe, an’t[244] shall please you. I am Anthony Dull.

KINGReads ‘For Jaquenetta — so is the weaker vessel[245] called which I apprehended with the aforesaid swain — I keep[246] her as a vessel of the law’s fury, and shall, at the least[247] of thy sweet notice, bring her to trial. Thine, in all compliments of devoted and heart-burning heat of duty. Don Adriano de Armado.’

BEROWNEThis is not so well as I looked for,[249] but the best that ever I heard.

KINGAy, the best for[250] the worst. But, sirrah, what say you to this?

COSTARDSir, I confess[251] the wench.

KINGDid you hear the proclamation?

COSTARDI do confess much of the hearing it but little of the marking of[253] it.

KINGIt was proclaimed a year’s imprisonment to be taken with a wench.

COSTARDI was taken with none, sir: I was taken with a damsel.

KINGWell, it was proclaimed damsel.

COSTARDThis was no damsel, neither, sir: she was a virgin.

KINGIt is so varied[258] too, for it was proclaimed virgin.

COSTARDIf it were, I deny her virginity: I was taken with a maid.

KINGThis maid[260] will not serve your turn, sir.

COSTARDThis maid will serve my turn, sir.

KINGSir, I will pronounce your sentence: you shall fast a week with bran and water.

COSTARDI had rather pray[264] a month with mutton and porridge.

265

KINGAnd Don Armado shall be your keeper.

My Lord Berowne, see him delivered o’er:[266]

And go we, lords, to put in practice that

Which each to other hath so strongly sworn.

[Exeunt King, Longaville and Dumaine]

BEROWNEI’ll lay[269] my head to any goodman’s hat,

270

These oaths and laws will prove an idle[270] scorn.

Sirrah, come on.

COSTARDI suffer for the truth, sir, for true it is, I was taken with Jaquenetta, and Jaquenetta is a true[273] girl. And therefore welcome the sour cup of prosperity! Affliction[274] may one day smile again, and until then, sit down, sorrow!

Exeunt

[Act 1 Scene 2]1.2

running scene 1 continues

Enter Armado and Moth, his page

ARMADOBoy, what sign is it[1] when a man of great spirit grows melancholy?

MOTHA great sign, sir, that he will look sad.

ARMADOWhy, sadness is one and the self-same thing, dear imp.[3]

MOTHNo, no, O lord, sir, no.

ARMADOHow canst thou part[5] sadness and melancholy, my tender juvenal?

MOTHBy a familiar[6] demonstration of the working, my tough señor.

ARMADOWhy tough señor? Why tough señor?

MOTHWhy tender juvenal? Why tender juvenal?

ARMADOI spoke it, tender juvenal, as a congruent epitheton[9] appertaining to thy young days, which we may nominate[10] tender.

MOTHAnd I, tough senior, as an appertinent[11] title to your old time, which we may name tough.

ARMADOPretty[13] and apt.

MOTHHow mean you, sir? I pretty, and my saying apt? Or I apt, and my saying pretty?

ARMADOThou pretty, because little.[16]

MOTHLittle pretty, because little. Wherefore apt?

ARMADOAnd therefore apt, because quick.[18]

MOTHSpeak you this in my praise, master?

ARMADOIn thy condign[20] praise.

MOTHI will praise an eel with the same praise.

ARMADOWhat, that an eel is ingenious?

MOTHThat an eel is quick.[23]

ARMADOI do say thou art quick in answers. Thou heat’st my blood.[24]

MOTHI am answered, sir.

ARMADOI love not to be crossed.[26]

MOTHHe speaks the mere[27] contrary: crosses love not him. Aside

ARMADOI have promised to study three years with the duke.[28]

MOTHYou may do it in an hour, sir.

ARMADOImpossible.

MOTHHow many is one thrice told?[31]

ARMADOI am ill[32] at reckoning. It fits the spirit of a tapster.

MOTHYou are a gentleman and a gamester,[33] sir.

ARMADOI confess both: they are both the varnish of a complete[34] man.

MOTHThen I am sure you know how much the gross sum of deuce-ace[35] amounts to.

ARMADOIt doth amount to one more than two.

MOTHWhich the base vulgar[38] call three.

ARMADOTrue.

MOTHWhy, sir, is this such a piece[40] of study? Now here’s three studied ere you’ll thrice wink. And how easy it is to put ‘years’ to the word ‘three’, and study three years in two words, the dancing horse[42] will tell you.

ARMADOA most fine figure![43]

MOTHTo prove you a cipher.[44] Aside

ARMADOI will hereupon confess I am in love. And as it is base[45] for a soldier to love, so am I in love with a base wench. If drawing my sword against the humour of affection[46] would deliver me from the reprobate[47] thought of it, I would take desire prisoner, and ransom him to any French courtier for a new-devised curtsy.[48] I think scorn to sigh: methinks I should outswear[49] Cupid. Comfort me, boy. What great men have been in love?

MOTHHercules,[51] master.

ARMADOMost sweet Hercules! More authority, dear boy, name more; and, sweet my child, let them be men of good repute and carriage.[53]

MOTHSamson,[54] master. He was a man of good carriage, great carriage, for he carried the town-gates on his back like a porter, and he was in love.

ARMADOO well-knit[56] Samson, strong-jointed Samson! I do excel thee in my rapier as much as thou didst me in carrying gates. I am in love too. Who was Samson’s love, my dear Moth?

MOTHA woman, master.

ARMADOOf what complexion?[60]

MOTHOf[61] all the four, or the three, or the two, or one of the four.

ARMADOTell me precisely of what complexion.

MOTHOf the sea-water green,[63] sir.

ARMADOIs that one of the four complexions?

MOTHAs I have read, sir, and the best of them too.

ARMADOGreen[66] indeed is the colour of lovers, but to have a love of that colour, methinks Samson had small reason for it. He surely affected[67] her for her wit.

MOTHIt was so, sir, for she had a green[68] wit.

ARMADOMy love is most immaculate white and red.

MOTHMost maculate[70] thoughts, master, are masked under such colours.

ARMADODefine,[71] define, well-educated infant.

MOTHMy father’s wit and my mother’s tongue assist me!

ARMADOSweet invocation of a child, most pretty and pathetical![73]

MOTHIf she[74] be made of white and red,

75

Her faults will ne’er be known,

For blushing cheeks by faults are bred

And fears by pale white shown.

Then if she fear, or be to blame,

By this[79] you shall not know,

80

For still[80] her cheeks possess the same

Which native[81] she doth owe.

A[82] dangerous rhyme, master, against the reason of white and red.

ARMADOIs there not a ballad,[83] boy, of the King and the Beggar?

MOTHThe world was very guilty of such a ballad some three ages since,[84] but I think now ’tis not to be found, or, if it were, it would neither serve[85] for the writing nor the tune.

ARMADOI will have that subject newly writ o’er, that I may example[87] my digression by some mighty precedent. Boy, I do love that country girl that I took in the park with the rational hind[89] Costard. She deserves well.

MOTHTo be whipped:[90] and yet a better love than my master. Aside

ARMADOSing, boy. My spirit grows heavy[91] in love.

MOTHAnd that’s great marvel, loving a light[92] wench. Aside

ARMADOI say sing.

MOTHForbear till this company be past.

Enter [Costard, the] Clown, [Dull, the] Constable and [Jaquenetta, a] wench

DULLSir, the duke’s pleasure is that you keep Costard safe: and you must let him take no delight nor no penance,[96] but he must fast three days a week. For this damsel, I must keep her at the park: she is allowed for the dey-woman.[97] Fare you well.

Exit

ARMADOI do betray myself with blushing.— Maid! Aside

JAQUENETTAMan?

ARMADOI will visit thee at the lodge.[101]

JAQUENETTAThat’s hereby.[102]

ARMADOI know where it is situate.

JAQUENETTALord, how wise you are!

ARMADOI will tell thee wonders.

JAQUENETTAWith that face?[106]

ARMADOI love thee.

JAQUENETTASo I heard you say.

ARMADOAnd so farewell.

JAQUENETTAFair weather after you.

COSTARDCome, Jaquenetta, away.

Exit [Jaquenetta]

ARMADOVillain,[112] thou shalt fast for thy offences ere thou be pardoned.

COSTARDWell, sir, I hope, when I do it, I shall do it on a full stomach.[113]

ARMADOThou shalt be heavily punished.

COSTARDI am more bound[115] to you than your fellows, for they are but lightly rewarded.

ARMADOTake away this villain. Shut him up. To Moth

MOTHCome, you transgressing slave, away!

COSTARDLet me not be pent up,[119] sir, I will fast being loose.

MOTHNo, sir, that were fast and[120] loose. Thou shalt to prison.

COSTARDWell, if ever I do see the merry days of desolation[121] that I have seen, some shall see—

MOTHWhat shall some see?

COSTARDNay, nothing, Master Moth, but what they look upon. It is not for prisoners to be too silent[125] in their words and therefore I will say nothing. I thank God I have as little[126] patience as another man and therefore I can be quiet.

[Exeunt Moth and Costard]

ARMADOI do affect[127] the very ground, which is base, where her shoe, which is baser, guided by her foot, which is basest, doth tread. I shall be forsworn,[128] which is a great argument[129] of falsehood, if I love. And how can that be true love which is falsely attempted? Love is a familiar,[130] love is a devil. There is no evil angel but love. Yet Samson was so tempted, and he had an excellent strength. Yet was Solomon[131] so seduced, and he had a very good wit. Cupid’s butt-shaft[132] is too hard for Hercules’ club, and therefore too much odds[133] for a Spaniard’s rapier. The first and second cause will not serve my turn.[134] The passado he respects not, the duello he regards not. His disgrace is to be called boy, but his glory is to subdue men. Adieu, valour: rust, rapier: be still, drum, for your manager[136] is in love; yea, he loveth. Assist me, some extemporal[137] god of rhyme, for I am sure I shall turn sonnet. Devise, wit: write, pen, for[138] I am for whole volumes in folio.

Exit

Act 2 [Scene 1]2.1

running scene 2

Enter the Princess of France with three attending Ladies [Rosaline, Maria and Katherine] and three Lords [Boyet and two others]

BOYETNow, madam, summon up your dearest[1] spirits.

Consider who the king your father sends,

To whom he sends, and what’s his embassy:[3]

Yourself, held precious in the world’s esteem,

5

To parley[5] with the sole inheritor

Of all perfections that a man may owe,[6]

Matchless[7] Navarre, the plea of no less weight

Than Aquitaine, a dowry for a queen.

Be now as prodigal of[9] all dear grace

10

As Nature was in making graces dear[10]

When she did starve[11] the general world beside

And prodigally gave them all to you.

PRINCESSGood Lord Boyet, my beauty, though but mean,[13]

Needs not the painted flourish of your praise.

15

Beauty is bought by judgement of the eye,

Not uttered[16] by base sale of chapmen’s tongues:

I am less proud to hear you tell[17] my worth

Than you much[18] willing to be counted wise

In spending[19] your wit in the praise of mine.

20

But now to task[20] the tasker. Good Boyet,

You are not ignorant[21] all-telling fame

Doth noise abroad[22] Navarre hath made a vow,

Till painful[23] study shall outwear three years,

No woman may approach his silent court:

25

Therefore to’s seemeth it[25] a needful course,

Before we enter his forbidden gates,

To know his pleasure,[27] and in that behalf,

Bold[28] of your worthiness, we single you

As our best-moving[29] fair solicitor.

30

Tell him the daughter of the King of France,

On serious business craving quick dispatch,

Importunes[32] personal conference with his grace.

Haste, signify so much, while we attend,[33]

Like humble-visaged suitors, his high will.

35

BOYETProud of[35] employment, willingly I go.

Exit

PRINCESSAll pride[36] is willing pride, and yours is so.

Who are the votaries,[37] my loving lords,

That are vow-fellows with this virtuous duke?

A LORDLongaville is one.

40

PRINCESSKnow you the man?

MARIAI know him, madam: at a marriage-feast

Between Lord Perigort[42] and the beauteous heir

Of Jaques Falconbridge, solemnized

In Normandy,[44] saw I this Longaville.

45

A man of sovereign parts[45] he is esteemed,

Well fitted[46] in arts, glorious in arms.

Nothing[47] becomes him ill that he would well.

The only soil[48] of his fair virtue’s gloss,

If virtue’s gloss will stain with any soil,

50

Is a sharp wit matched with too blunt a will,[50]

Whose edge hath power to cut, whose will still[51] wills

It should none spare that come within his[52] power.

PRINCESSSome merry mocking lord, belike:[53] is’t so?

MARIAThey say so most that most his humours[54] know.

55

PRINCESSSuch short-lived wits do wither as they grow.

Who are the rest?

KATHERINEThe young Dumaine, a well-accomplished youth,

Of[58] all that virtue love for virtue loved:

Most power to do most harm, least knowing ill,[59]

60

For he hath wit[60] to make an ill shape good,

And shape[61] to win grace though he had no wit.

I saw him at the Duke Alençon’s[62] once,

And much[63] too little of that good I saw

Is my report to his great worthiness.

65

ROSALINEAnother of these students at that time

Was there with him, if I have heard a truth.

Berowne they call him, but a merrier man,

Within the limit of becoming[68] mirth,

I never spent an hour’s talk withal.[69]

70

His eye begets[70] occasion for his wit,

For every object that the one doth catch,[71]

The other turns to a mirth-moving[72] jest,

Which his fair tongue, conceit’s expositor,[73]

Delivers in such apt and gracious words

75

That agèd ears play truant at[75] his tales

And younger hearings are quite ravishèd,

So sweet and voluble[77] is his discourse.

PRINCESSGod bless my ladies! Are they all in love,

That every one her own hath garnishèd

80

With such bedecking[80] ornaments of praise?

MARIAHere comes Boyet.

Enter Boyet

PRINCESSNow, what admittance,[82] lord?

BOYETNavarre had notice of your fair approach,

And he and his competitors[84] in oath

85

Were all addressed[85] to meet you, gentle lady,

Before I came. Marry, thus much I have learned:

He rather means to lodge[87] you in the field,

Like one that comes here to besiege his court,

Than seek a dispensation for his oath

90

To let you enter his unpeopled[90] house.

Here comes Navarre.

Enter [the King of] Navarre, Longaville, Dumaine, Berowne [and Attendants]

KINGFair princess, welcome to the court of Navarre.

PRINCESS‘Fair’ I give you back again, and ‘welcome’ I have not yet: the roof[93] of this court is too high to be yours, and welcome to the wide fields too base to be mine.

95

KINGYou shall be welcome, madam, to my court.

PRINCESSI will be welcome, then. Conduct me thither.

KINGHear me, dear lady: I have sworn an oath.

PRINCESSOur Lady help my lord! He’ll be forsworn.

KINGNot for the world, fair madam, by my will.[99]

100

PRINCESSWhy, will[100] shall break it: will, and nothing else.

KINGYour ladyship is ignorant what it is.

PRINCESSWere my lord so, his ignorance were wise,

Where[103] now his knowledge must prove ignorance.

I hear your grace hath sworn out house-keeping.[104]

105

’Tis deadly sin to keep that oath, my lord,

And sin to break it.

But pardon me. I am too sudden-bold:

To teach a teacher ill beseemeth[108] me.

Vouchsafe[109] to read the purpose of my coming, Gives a paper

110

And suddenly[110] resolve me in my suit.

KINGMadam, I will, if suddenly I may. Reads

PRINCESSYou will the sooner that[112] I were away,

For you’ll prove perjured if you make me stay.

BEROWNEDid not I dance with you in Brabant[114] once? To Rosaline

115

ROSALINEDid not I dance with you in Brabant once?

BEROWNEI know you did.

ROSALINEHow needless was it then to ask the question!

BEROWNEYou must not be so quick.[118]

ROSALINE’Tis long[119] of you that spur me with such questions.

120

BEROWNEYour wit’s too hot,[120] it speeds too fast, ’twill tire.

ROSALINENot till it leave the rider in the mire.[121]

BEROWNEWhat time o’day?[122]

ROSALINEThe hour that fools should ask.

BEROWNENow fair befall your mask.[124]

125

ROSALINEFair fall[125] the face it covers.

BEROWNEAnd send you many lovers.

ROSALINEAmen, so[127] you be none.

BEROWNENay, then will I be gone. Walks away

KINGMadam, your father here doth intimate[129] To the Princess

130

The payment of a hundred thousand crowns,

Being but th’one half of an entire sum

Disbursèd[132] by my father in his wars.

But say that he[133] or we, as neither have,

Received that sum, yet there remains unpaid

135

A hundred thousand more, in surety[135] of the which,

One part of Aquitaine is bound[136] to us,

Although not valued to[137] the money’s worth.

If then the king your father will restore[138]

But that one half which is unsatisfied,[139]

140

We will give up our right in Aquitaine

And hold fair friendship with his majesty.

But that, it seems, he little purposeth,[142]

For here he doth demand[143] to have repaid

An hundred thousand crowns, and not[144] demands,

145

On payment of a hundred thousand crowns,

To have[146] his title live in Aquitaine,

Which we much rather had depart withal,[147]

And have the money by our father lent,

Than Aquitaine, so gelded[149] as it is.

150

Dear princess, were not his requests so far

From reason’s yielding, your fair self should make

A[152] yielding gainst some reason in my breast

And go well satisfied to France again.

PRINCESSYou do the king my father too much wrong

155

And wrong the reputation of your name,

In so unseeming[156] to confess receipt

Of that which hath so faithfully been paid.

KINGI do protest I never heard of it.

And if you prove it, I’ll repay it back

160

Or yield up Aquitaine.

PRINCESSWe arrest[161] your word.

Boyet, you can produce acquittances[162]

For such a sum from special officers

Of Charles, his[164] father.

165

KINGSatisfy me so.[165]

BOYETSo please your grace, the packet is not come

Where that and other specialties[167] are bound.

Tomorrow you shall have a sight of them.

KINGIt shall suffice me; at which interview,

170

All liberal reason[170] would I yield unto.

Meantime receive such welcome at my hand

As honour without breach of honour[172] may

Make tender of[173] to thy true worthiness.

You may not come, fair princess, in my gates,

175

But here without[175] you shall be so received

As[176] you shall deem yourself lodged in my heart,

Though so denied fair harbour in my house.

Your[178] own good thoughts excuse me, and farewell:

Tomorrow we shall visit you again.

180

PRINCESSSweet health and fair desires consort[180] your grace.

KINGThy[181] own wish wish I thee in every place!

Exit [the King, with Longaville and Dumaine]

BEROWNELady, I will commend you to my own heart.

ROSALINEPray you, do my commendations,[183] I would be glad to see it.

BEROWNEI would you heard it groan.

ROSALINEIs the fool[185] sick?

BEROWNESick at the heart.

ROSALINEAlack, let it blood.[187]

BEROWNEWould that do it good?

ROSALINEMy physic[189] says ‘ay’.

BEROWNEWill you prick’t with your eye?[190]

ROSALINENon point,[191] with my knife.

BEROWNENow, God save thy life!

ROSALINEAnd yours from long living!

BEROWNEI cannot stay thanksgiving.[194]

Exit

Enter Dumaine

195

DUMAINESir, I pray you a word: what lady is that same? To Boyet

BOYETThe heir of Alençon, Katherine[196] her name.

DUMAINEA gallant[197] lady. Monsieur, fare you well.

[Exit]

[Enter Longaville]

LONGAVILLEI beseech you a word: what is she in the white? To Boyet

BOYETA woman sometimes, if you saw her in the light.

200

LONGAVILLEPerchance light[200] in the light. I desire her name.

BOYETShe hath but one for herself, to desire[201] that were a shame.

LONGAVILLEPray you, sir, whose daughter?

BOYETHer mother’s, I have heard.

LONGAVILLEGod’s blessing o’your beard!

205

BOYETGood sir, be not offended.

She is an heir of Falconbridge.

LONGAVILLENay, my choler[207] is ended.

She is a most sweet lady.

Exit Longaville

BOYETNot unlike,[209] sir, that may be.

Enter Berowne

210

BEROWNEWhat’s her name in the cap?

BOYETRosaline,[211] by good hap.

BEROWNEIs she wedded or no?

BOYETTo her will, sir, or so.[213]

BEROWNEYou are welcome, sir. Adieu.

215

BOYETFarewell to me, sir, and welcome to you.[215]

Exit [Berowne]

MARIAThat last is Berowne, the merry madcap lord.

Not a word with him but a jest.

BOYETAnd every jest but a word.

PRINCESSIt was well done of you to take[219] him at his word.

220

BOYETI was as willing to grapple[220] as he was to board.

MARIATwo hot[221] sheeps, marry.

BOYETAnd wherefore not ‘ships’?

No sheep, sweet lamb, unless we feed on your lips.

MARIAYou sheep, and I pasture.[224] Shall that finish the jest?

225

BOYETSo[225] you grant pasture for me. Tries to kiss her

MARIANot so, gentle beast.

My lips are no common,[227] though several they be.

BOYETBelonging to whom?

MARIATo my fortunes and me.

230

PRINCESSGood wits will be jangling;[230] but, gentles, agree.

This civil[231] war of wits were much better used

On Navarre and his bookmen,[232] for here ’tis abused.

BOYETIf my observation — which very seldom lies

By[234] the heart’s still rhetoric disclosèd with eyes —

235

Deceive me not now, Navarre is infected.

PRINCESSWith what?

BOYETWith that which we lovers entitle affected.[237]

PRINCESSYour reason?

BOYETWhy, all his behaviours did[239] make their retire

240

To the court[240] of his eye, peeping thorough desire.

His heart, like an agate,[241] with your print impressed,

Proud[242] with his form, in his eye pride expressed.

His tongue, all[243] impatient to speak and not see,

Did stumble with haste in his eyesight to be.

245

All senses to that sense[245] did make their repair,

To feel only looking on fairest of fair.

Methought all his senses were locked in his eye,

As jewels in crystal[248] for some prince to buy,

Who, tend’ring[249] their own worth from whence they were glassed,

250

Did point[250] out to buy them along as you passed.

His face’s own margin[251] did quote such amazes

That all eyes saw his eyes enchanted with gazes.

I’ll give you Aquitaine, and all that is his,

An[254] you give him for my sake but one loving kiss.

255

PRINCESSCome to our pavilion.[255] Boyet is disposed.

BOYETBut[256] to speak that in words which his eye hath disclosed.

I only have made a mouth of his eye,

By adding a tongue which I know will not lie.

ROSALINEThou art an old love-monger and speakest skilfully.

MARIAHe is Cupid’s grandfather and learns news of him.

KATHERINEThen was Venus[261] like her mother, for her father is but grim.

BOYETDo you hear, my mad[262] wenches?

MARIANo.

BOYETWhat then, do you see?

KATHERINEAy, our way to be gone.

BOYETYou are too hard[266] for me.

Exeunt

Act 3 [Scene 1]

running scene 3

Enter Braggart [Armado] and [his] Boy [Moth, singing a] song

ARMADOWarble, child, make passionate my sense of hearing.

MOTHConcolinel.[2] Sings

ARMADOSweet air![3] Go, tenderness of years, take this key, give enlargement to the swain, bring him festinately[4] hither. I must employ him in a letter to my love.

MOTHMaster, will you win your love with a French brawl?[5]

ARMADOHow meanest thou? Brawling[6] in French?

MOTHNo, my complete master: but to jig[7] off a tune at the tongue’s end, canary to it with your feet, humour[8] it with turning up your eyelids, sigh a note and sing a note, sometime through the throat, if you swallowed love with singing love, sometime through the nose as if you snuffed up love by smelling love, with your hat penthouse-like[11] o’er the shop of your eyes, with your arms crossed on your thin-belly[12] doublet like a rabbit on a spit, or your hands in your pocket like a man after[13] the old painting, and keep not too long in one tune, but a snip and away. These are compliments,[14] these are humours, these betray nice wenches that would be betrayed without these and make them men of note[15] — do you note, men?[16] — that most are affected to these.

ARMADOHow hast thou purchased[17] this experience?

MOTHBy my penny of observation.

ARMADOBut O, but O—

MOTH‘The[20] hobby-horse is forgot.’

ARMADOCallest thou my love ‘hobby-horse[21]’?

MOTHNo, master. The hobby-horse is but a colt,[22] and your love perhaps, a hackney.[23] But have you forgot your love?

ARMADOAlmost I had.

MOTHNegligent student! Learn her by heart.

ARMADOBy heart and in heart, boy.

MOTHAnd out of heart, master: all those three I will prove.[27]

ARMADOWhat wilt thou prove?

MOTHA man, if I live, and this, ‘by’, ‘in’, and ‘without’, upon the instant: ‘by’ heart you love her, because your heart cannot come by[30] her. ‘In’ heart you love her, because your heart is in love with her. And ‘out’ of heart you love her, being out of heart[32] that you cannot enjoy her.

ARMADOI am all these three.

MOTHAnd three times as much more, and yet nothing at all.

ARMADOFetch hither the swain. He must carry me[35] a letter.

MOTHA message well sympathized:[36] a horse to be ambassador for an ass.

ARMADOHa, ha, what sayest thou?

MOTHMarry, sir, you must send the ass upon the horse, for he is very slow-gaited.[38] But I go.

ARMADOThe way is but short. Away!

MOTHAs swift as lead, sir.

ARMADOThy meaning, pretty ingenious?[42] Is not lead a metal heavy, dull and slow?

MOTHMinime,[43] honest master, or rather, master, no.

ARMADOI say lead is slow.

MOTHYou are too swift, sir, to say so. Is that lead slow which is fired from a gun?

ARMADOSweet smoke of rhetoric! He reputes me a cannon; and the bullet, that’s he. I shoot thee at the swain.

MOTHThump[50] then, and I flee.

[Exit]

ARMADOA most acute[51] juvenal, voluble and free of grace! By thy favour, sweet welkin,[52] I must sigh in thy face. Most rude melancholy, valour gives thee place.[53] My herald is returned.

Enter Page [Moth] and Clown [Costard]

MOTHA wonder, master! Here’s a costard[55] broken in a shin.

ARMADOSome enigma, some riddle: come, thy l’envoy,[56] begin.

COSTARDNo egma,[57] no riddle, no l’envoy, no salve in the mail, sir. O, sir, plantain, a plain plantain! No l’envoy, no l’envoy, no salve, sir, but a plantain!

ARMADOBy virtue,[59] thou enforcest laughter: thy silly thought, my spleen. The heaving of my lungs provokes me to ridiculous[60] smiling. O, pardon me, my stars! Doth the inconsiderate[61] take salve for l’envoy, and the word ‘l’envoy’ for a salve?

MOTHDo the wise think them other? Is not l’envoy a salve?

ARMADONo, page: it is an epilogue or discourse, to make plain Some obscure precedence[64] that hath tofore been sain. Now will I begin your moral, and do you follow with my l’envoy:

The fox, the ape, and the humble-bee[66]

Were still[67] at odds, being but three.

Until the goose came out of door,

Staying the odds[69] by adding four.

MOTHA good l’envoy,[70] ending in the goose. Would you desire more?

COSTARDThe boy hath sold[71] him a bargain, a goose, that’s flat. Sir, your pennyworth is good,[72] an your goose be fat. To sell a bargain well is as cunning as fast and loose.[73] Let me see: a fat l’envoy — ay, that’s a fat goose.

ARMADOCome hither, come hither. How did this argument[75] begin?

MOTHBy saying that a costard was broken in a shin. Then called you for the l’envoy.

COSTARDTrue, and I for a plantain: thus came your argument in. Then the boy’s fat l’envoy, the goose that you bought, And he ended the market.[80]

ARMADOBut tell me, how was there a costard broken in a shin?

MOTHI will tell you sensibly.[82]

COSTARDThou hast no feeling[83] of it, Moth. I will speak that l’envoy: I Costard, running out, that was safely within, Fell over the threshold[85] and broke my shin.

ARMADOWe will talk no more of this matter.

COSTARDTill there be more matter[87] in the shin.

ARMADOSirrah Costard, I will enfranchise[88] thee.

COSTARDO, marry me to one Frances:[89] I smell some l’envoy, some goose in this.

ARMADOBy my sweet soul, I mean setting thee at liberty, enfreedoming thy person. Thou wert immured,[91] restrained, captivated, bound.

COSTARDTrue, true, and now you will be my purgation[92] and let me loose.

ARMADOI give thee thy liberty, set thee from durance,[93] and in lieu thereof impose on thee nothing but this: Gives a letter bear this significant[94] to the country maid Jaquenetta. Gives money There is remuneration,[95] for the best ward of mine honours is rewarding my dependants.[96] Moth, follow.

[Exit]

MOTHLike the sequel,[97] I. Signior Costard, adieu.

Exit

COSTARDMy sweet ounce of man’s flesh, my incony[98] Jew! Now will I look to his remuneration. ‘Remuneration’ — O, that’s the Latin word for three farthings.[99] Three farthings — remuneration. ‘What’s the price of this inkle?’[100] ‘One penny.’ ‘No, I’ll give you a remuneration.’ Why, it carries it.[101] ‘Remuneration.’ Why, it is a fairer name than French crown.[102] I will never buy and sell out of this word.

Enter Berowne

BEROWNEO, my good knave Costard, exceedingly well met.

COSTARDPray you, sir, how much carnation[104] ribbon may a man buy for a remuneration?

BEROWNEWhat is a remuneration?

COSTARDMarry, sir, halfpenny farthing.[107]

BEROWNEO, why then three farthings worth of silk.

COSTARDI thank your worship. God be wi’you! Starts to leave

110

BEROWNEO, stay, slave,[110] I must employ thee:

As thou wilt win my favour, good my knave,[111]

Do one thing for me that I shall entreat.

COSTARDWhen would you have it done, sir?

BEROWNEO, this afternoon.

115

COSTARDWell, I will do it, sir. Fare you well.

BEROWNEO, thou knowest not what it is.

COSTARDI shall know, sir, when I have done it.

BEROWNEWhy, villain,[118] thou must know first.

COSTARDI will come to your worship tomorrow morning.

120

BEROWNEIt must be done this afternoon.

Hark, slave, it is but this:

The princess comes to hunt here in the park,

And in her train[123] there is a gentle lady,

When tongues speak sweetly, then they name her name,

125

And Rosaline they call her. Ask for her

And to her white hand see thou do commend[126] Gives a letter and money

This sealed-up counsel.[127] There’s thy guerdon: go.

COSTARDGardon,[128] O sweet gardon! Better than remuneration, a’leven-pence-farthing better.[129] Most sweet gardon! I will do it, sir, in print. Gardon! Remuneration!

Exit

BEROWNEO and I, forsooth, in love! I, that have been love’s whip,

A very beadle[132] to a humorous sigh,

A critic, nay, a night-watch constable,

A domineering pedant[134] o’er the boy,

135

Than[135] whom no mortal so magnificent!

This wimpled,[136] whining, purblind, wayward boy,

This Signior Junior, giant-dwarf, Don Cupid,

Regent[138] of love-rhymes, lord of folded arms,

Th’anointed sovereign of sighs and groans,

140

Liege of all loiterers and malcontents,

Dread[141] prince of plackets, king of codpieces,

Sole imperator[142] and great general

Of trotting paritors[143] — O my little heart! —

And I to be a corporal[144] of his field

145

And wear his colours[145] like a tumbler’s hoop.

What? I love, I sue,[146] I seek a wife?

A woman that is like a German clock,[147]

Still a-repairing,[148] ever out of frame,

And never going aright,[149] being a watch,

150

But being[150] watched that it may still go right!

Nay, to be perjured, which is worst of all,

And, among three, to love the worst of all;

A whitely[153] wanton with a velvet brow,

With two pitch-balls[154] stuck in her face for eyes.

155

Ay, and by heaven, one that will do the deed[155]

Though[156] Argus were her eunuch and her guard.

And I to sigh for her, to watch[157] for her,

To pray for her! Go to,[158] it is a plague

That Cupid will impose for my neglect[159]

160

Of his almighty dreadful little might.

Well, I will love, write, sigh, pray, sue and groan.

Some men must love my[162] lady, and some Joan.

[Exit]

Act 4 [Scene 1]

running scene 4

Enter the Princess, a Forester [with a bow], her Ladies [Rosaline, Maria and Katherine] and her Lords [Boyet and others]

PRINCESSWas that the king that spurred his horse so hard

Against the steep uprising of the hill?

BOYETI know not, but I think it was not he.

PRINCESSWhoe’er a was, a[4] showed a mounting mind.

5

Well, lords, today we shall have our dispatch:[5]

On Saturday we will return to France.

Then, forester, my friend, where is the bush

That we must stand and play the murderer in?

FORESTERHereby, upon the edge of yonder coppice,[9]

10

A stand[10] where you may make the fairest shoot.

PRINCESSI thank my beauty, I am fair that shoot,

And thereupon thou speak’st the fairest[12] shoot.

FORESTERPardon me, madam, for I meant not so.

PRINCESSWhat, what? First praise me and again[14] say no?

15

O short-lived pride! Not fair? Alack for woe!

FORESTERYes, madam, fair.

PRINCESSNay, never paint[17] me now.

Where fair[18] is not, praise cannot mend the brow.

Here, good my glass,[19] take this for telling true: Gives money

20

Fair payment for foul words is more than due.

FORESTERNothing but fair is that which you inherit.[21]

PRINCESSSee see, my beauty will be saved by merit.[22]

O heresy in fair,[23] fit for these days!

A giving[24] hand, though foul, shall have fair praise.

25

But come, the bow. Now mercy[25] goes to kill, Takes a bow

And shooting well is then[26] accounted ill.

Thus will I save my credit[27] in the shoot:

Not[28] wounding, pity would not let me do’t.

If wounding, then it was to show my skill,

30

That more for praise than purpose meant to kill.

And out of[31] question so it is sometimes,

Glory[32] grows guilty of detested crimes,

When for fame’s sake, for praise, an outward part,[33]

We bend to that the working of the heart.

35

As[35] I for praise alone now seek to spill

The poor deer’s blood that my[36] heart means no ill.

BOYETDo not curst[37] wives hold that self-sovereignty

Only for praise’ sake, when they strive to be

Lords o’er their lords?

40

PRINCESSOnly for praise, and praise we may afford

To any lady that subdues a lord.

Enter Clown [Costard, with a letter]

BOYETHere comes a member[42] of the commonwealth.

COSTARDGod dig-you-den[43] all! Pray you which is the head lady?

PRINCESSThou shalt know her, fellow, by the rest that have no heads.[44]

45

COSTARDWhich is the greatest lady, the highest?

PRINCESSThe thickest[46] and the tallest.

COSTARDThe thickest and the tallest. It is so, truth is truth.

An your waist, mistress, were as slender as my wit,

One o’these maids’ girdles for your waist should be fit.

50

Are not you the chief woman? You are the thickest here.

PRINCESSWhat’s your will, sir? What’s your will?

COSTARDI have a letter from Monsieur Berowne to one Lady Rosaline.

PRINCESSO, thy letter, thy letter! He’s a good friend of mine.— To Rosaline

Stand aside, good bearer.— Boyet, you can carve:[54] Takes the letter and gives it to Boyet

55

Break up[55] this capon.

BOYETI am bound to serve.

This letter is mistook:[57] it importeth none here.

It is writ to Jaquenetta.

PRINCESSWe will read it, I swear.

60

Break the neck[60] of the wax, and everyone give ear.

BOYET(Reads) ‘By heaven, that thou art fair, is most infallible:[61] true that thou art beauteous, truth itself that thou art lovely. More fairer than fair, beautiful than beauteous, truer than truth itself, have commiseration[63] on thy heroical vassal. The magnanimous and most illustrate[64] King Cophetua set eye upon the pernicious and indubitate[65] beggar Zenelophon, and he it was that might rightly say, Veni, vidi, vici, which to annothanize[66] in the vulgar, — O base and obscure vulgar! — videlicet,[67] he came, see and overcame. He came, one; see, two; overcame, three. Who came? The king. Why did he come? To see. Why did he see? To overcome. To whom came he? To the beggar. What saw he? The beggar. Who overcame he? The beggar. The conclusion is victory. On whose side? The king. The captive is enriched. On whose side? The beggar’s. The catastrophe[71] is a nuptial. On whose side? The king’s. No, on both in one, or one in both. I am the king, for so stands the comparison: thou the beggar, for so witnesseth thy lowliness.[73] Shall I command thy love? I may. Shall I enforce thy love? I could. Shall I entreat thy love? I will. What shalt thou exchange for rags? Robes. For tittles?[75] Titles. For thyself? Me. Thus expecting[76] thy reply, I profane my lips on thy foot, my eyes on thy picture,[77] and my heart on thy every part. Thine, in the dearest design of industry, Don Adriano de Armado.

Thus dost thou hear the Nemean lion[79] roar

80

Gainst thee, thou lamb, that standest as his prey.

Submissive fall[81] his princely feet before,

And he from forage[82] will incline to play.

But if thou strive,[83] poor soul, what art thou then?

Food for his rage, repasture[84] for his den.’

85

PRINCESSWhat plume of feathers[85] is he that indited this letter?

What vane?[86] What weathercock? Did you ever hear better?

BOYETI am much deceived but I[87] remember the style.

PRINCESSElse[88] your memory is bad, going o’er it erewhile.

BOYETThis Armado is a Spaniard that keeps[89] here in court,

90

A phantasime,[90] a Monarcho, and one that makes sport

To[91] the prince and his book-mates.

PRINCESSThou fellow, a word. To Costard

Who gave thee this letter?

COSTARDI told you: my lord.

95

PRINCESSTo whom shouldst thou give it?

COSTARDFrom my lord to my lady.

PRINCESSFrom which lord to which lady?

COSTARDFrom my lord Berowne, a good master of mine,

To a lady of France that he called Rosaline.

100

PRINCESSThou hast mistaken[100] his letter.— Come, lords, away.—

Here, sweet, put up[101] this: ’twill be thine another day. To Rosaline

Exeunt [all but Boyet, Rosaline, Maria and Costard]

BOYETWho is the shooter?[102] Who is the shooter?

ROSALINEShall I teach you to know?

BOYETAy, my continent[104] of beauty.

105

ROSALINEWhy, she that bears the bow.

Finely put off![106]

BOYETMy lady goes to kill horns,[107] but if thou marry,

Hang me by the neck, if horns[108] that year miscarry.

Finely put on![109]

110

ROSALINEWell, then, I am the shooter.

BOYETAnd who is your deer?[111]

ROSALINEIf[112] we choose by the horns, yourself come not near.

Finely put on indeed!

MARIAYou still wrangle with her, Boyet, and she strikes[114] at the brow.

115

BOYETBut she herself is hit lower:[115] have I hit her now?

ROSALINEShall I come[116] upon thee with an old saying that was a man when King Pepin of France was a little boy, as touching the hit it?[117]

BOYETSo I may answer thee with one as old, that was a woman when Queen Guinevere[118] of Britain was a little wench, as touching the hit it.

120

ROSALINEThou canst not hit it, hit it, hit it,

Thou canst not hit it, my good man.

BOYETI cannot, cannot, cannot,

An[123] I cannot, another can.

Exeunt [Rosaline and Katherine]

COSTARDBy my troth, most pleasant: how both did fit it![124]

125

MARIAA mark[125] marvellous well shot, for they both did hit it.

BOYETA mark! O, mark but[126] that mark! A mark, says my lady.

Let the mark[127] have a prick in’t, to mete at, if it may be.

MARIAWide o’th’bow hand![128] I’faith your hand is out.

COSTARDIndeed, a must shoot[129] nearer, or he’ll ne’er hit the clout.

130

BOYETAn if my hand be out,[130] then belike your hand is in.

COSTARDThen will she get the upshoot[131] by cleaving the pin.

MARIACome, come, you talk greasily, your lips grow foul.

COSTARDShe’s too hard[133] for you at pricks, sir. Challenge her to bowl.

BOYETI fear too much rubbing.[134] Good night, my good owl.

[Exeunt Boyet and Maria]

135

COSTARDBy my soul, a swain, a most simple clown![135]

Lord, Lord, how the ladies and I have put him down!

O my troth, most sweet jests, most incony[137] vulgar wit,

When it comes so smoothly off, so obscenely,[138] as it were, so fit.

Armado o’th’t’other side — O, a most dainty[139] man!

140

To see him walk before a lady and to bear her fan!

To see him kiss his hand, and how most sweetly a will swear!

And his page o’t’other side, that handful of wit!

Ah, heavens, it is most pathetical nit![143] Shout within

Sola,[144] sola!

Exit [Costard, running]

[Act 4 Scene 2]4.2

running scene 4 continues

Enter Dull, Holofernes the pedant, and Nathaniel

NATHANIELVery reverend[1] sport, truly, and done in the testimony of a good conscience.

HOLOFERNESThe deer was, as you know, sanguis,[3] in blood, ripe as a pomewater, who now[4] hangeth like a jewel in the ear of caelo, the sky, the welkin, the heaven, and anon[5] falleth like a crab on the face of terra, the soil, the land, the earth.

NATHANIELTruly, Master Holofernes, the epithets are sweetly varied, like a scholar at the least:[6] but, sir, I assure ye, it was a buck[7] of the first head.

HOLOFERNESSir Nathaniel, haud credo.[8]

DULL’Twas not a ‘auld grey doe’, ’twas a pricket.[9]

HOLOFERNESMost barbarous intimation![10] Yet a kind of insinuation, as it were, in via, in way, of explication,[11] facere, as it were, replication, or rather, ostentare, to show, as it were, his inclination, after[12] his undressed, unpolished, uneducated, unpruned, untrained,[13] or rather, unlettered, or ratherest unconfirmed fashion, to insert again my haud credo for a deer.

DULLI said the deer was not a haud credo, ’twas a pricket.

HOLOFERNESTwice-sod[16] simplicity, bis coctus! O thou monster Ignorance, how deformed dost thou look!

NATHANIELSir, he hath never fed of[18] the dainties that are bred in a book. He hath not eat[19] paper, as it were. He hath not drunk ink. His intellect is not replenished, he is only an animal, only sensible[20] in the duller parts.

And such barren plants are set before us that we thankful should be,

Which[22] we of taste and feeling are, for those parts that do

fructify[23] in us more than he.

For as it would ill become me to be vain, indiscreet, or a fool,

25

So[25] were there a patch set on learning, to see him in a school.

But omne bene,[26] say I, being of an old father’s mind,

Many[27] can brook the weather that love not the wind.

DULLYou two are bookmen: can you tell by your wit

What was a month old at Cain’s birth[29] that’s not five weeks old as yet?

30

HOLOFERNESDictynna,[30] goodman Dull. Dictynna, goodman Dull.

DULLWhat is dictima?

NATHANIELA title to Phoebe, to Luna,[32] to the moon.

HOLOFERNESThe moon was a month old when Adam was no more,[33]

And raught[34] not to five weeks when he came to fivescore.

35

Th’allusion[35] holds in the exchange.

DULL’Tis true indeed: the collusion[36] holds in the exchange.

HOLOFERNESGod comfort[37] thy capacity! I say, th’allusion holds in the exchange.

DULLAnd I say, the pollution[38] holds in the exchange, for the moon is never but a month old: and I say beside that, ’twas a pricket that the princess killed.

HOLOFERNESSir Nathaniel, will you hear an extemporal[40] epitaph on the death of the deer? And, to humour the ignorant, called I the deer the princess killed a pricket.

NATHANIELPerge,[42] good Master Holofernes, perge, so it shall please you to abrogate scurrility.

HOLOFERNESI will something[44] affect the letter, for it argues facility.

45

The preyful[45] princess pierced and pricked a pretty pleasing pricket,

Some say[46] a sore, but not a sore, till now made sore with shooting.

The dogs did yell, put ‘L’[47] to sore, then sorrel jumps from thicket.

Or[48] pricket sore, or else sorrel, the people fall a-hooting.

If sore be sore,[49] then L to sore makes fifty sores o’sorrel.

50

Of[50] one sore I an hundred make by adding but one more ‘L’.

NATHANIELA rare talent.

DULLIf a talent[52] be a claw, look how he claws him with a talent. Aside

HOLOFERNES[53]This is a gift that I have, simple, simple: a foolish extravagant spirit, full of forms,[54] figures, shapes, objects, ideas, apprehensions, motions, revolutions. These are begot[55] in the ventricle of memory, nourished in the womb of pia mater, and delivered upon[56] the mellowing of occasion. But the gift is good in those in whom it is acute, and I am thankful for it.

NATHANIELSir, I praise the Lord for you; and so may my parishioners, for their sons are well tutored by you, and their daughters profit[59] very greatly under you. You are a good member of the commonwealth.

HOLOFERNESMehercle,[61] if their sons be ingenious, they shall want no instruction. If their daughters be capable,[62] I will put it to them. But vir sapit qui pauca loquitur. A soul feminine[63] saluteth us.

Enter Jaquenetta and the Clown [Costard]

JAQUENETTAGod give you good morrow, Master Person.[64]

NATHANIELMaster Person, quasi[65] pierce-one? And if one should be pierced, which is the one?

COSTARDMarry, Master Schoolmaster, he that is likest[67] to a hogshead.

HOLOFERNESOf[68] piercing a hogshead! A good lustre of conceit in a turf of earth, fire enough for a flint, pearl enough for a swine: ’tis pretty, it is well.

JAQUENETTAGood Master Parson, be so good as read me this letter. Gives letter to Holofernes It was given me by Costard, and sent me from Don Armado. I beseech you read it.

HOLOFERNESFauste,[72] precor gelida quando pecus omne sub umbra ruminat, — and so forth. Ah, good old Mantuan, I may speak of thee as the traveller doth of Venice: Venetia,[74] Venetia, Chi non ti vede non ti pretia. Old Mantuan, old Mantuan! Who understandeth thee not, loves thee not? Ut,[77] re, sol, la, mi, fa. Sings Under pardon, sir, what are the contents? Or rather, as Horace says in his— What, my soul, verses?

NATHANIELAy, sir, and very learned.

HOLOFERNESLet me hear a staff,[80] a stanza, a verse. Lege, domine.

NATHANIEL‘If love make me forsworn, how shall I swear to love? Reads

Ah, never faith could hold, if not to beauty vowed.

Though to myself forsworn, to thee I’ll faithful prove.

Those thoughts to me were oaks,[84] to thee like osiers bowed.

85

Study[85] his bias leaves and makes his book thine eyes,

Where all those pleasures live that art[86] would comprehend.

If knowledge be the mark,[87] to know thee shall suffice:

Well learnèd is that tongue that well can thee commend,

All ignorant that soul that sees thee without wonder,

90

Which is[90] to me some praise that I thy parts admire.

Thy eye Jove’s[91] lightning bears, thy voice his dreadful thunder,

Which not to anger bent,[92] is music and sweet fire.

Celestial as thou art, O, pardon, love, this wrong,

That sings heaven’s praise with such an earthly tongue.’

HOLOFERNESYou find not the apostrophus,[95] and so miss the accent. Takes the letter Let me supervise the canzonet.[96] Here are only numbers ratified, but for the elegancy, facility, and golden cadence of poesy, caret[97]. Ovidius Naso was the man: and why indeed ‘Naso’, but for smelling out the odoriferous[98] flowers of fancy, the jerks of invention? Imitari[99] is nothing: so doth the hound his master, the ape his keeper, the tired horse his rider. But, damosella[100] virgin, was this directed to you?

JAQUENETTAAy, sir, from one Monsieur Berowne, one of the strange[101] queen’s lords.

HOLOFERNESI will overglance[102] the superscript: ‘To the snow-white hand of the most beauteous Lady Rosaline.’ I will look again on the intellect[103] of the letter, for the nomination[104] of the party writing to the person written unto: ‘Your ladyship’s in all desired employment,[105] Berowne.’

NATHANIELSir Holofernes, this Berowne is one of the votaries with the king; and here he hath framed[107] a letter to a sequent of the stranger queen’s, which accidentally, or by the way[108] of progression, hath miscarried. Trip and go, my sweet, deliver this paper into the hand of the king: it may concern[109] much. Stay not thy compliment: I forgive[110] thy duty, adieu.

JAQUENETTAGood Costard, go with me. Sir, God save your life.

COSTARDHave[112] with thee, my girl.

Exit [Costard with Jaquenetta]

NATHANIELSir, you have done this in the fear of God, very religiously: and as a certain father[114] saith—

HOLOFERNESSir tell me not of the father, I do fear colourable[115] colours. But to return to the verses: did they please you, Sir Nathaniel?

NATHANIELMarvellous well for the pen.[117]

HOLOFERNESI do dine today at the father’s of a certain pupil of mine, where if, before repast, it shall please you to gratify the table with a grace, I will, on my privilege I have with the parents of the foresaid child or pupil, undertake[120] your ben venuto, where I will prove those verses to be very unlearnèd, neither savouring of poetry, wit, nor invention. I beseech your society.[122]

NATHANIELAnd thank you too, for society, saith the text,[123] is the happiness of life.

HOLOFERNESAnd, certes,[124] the text most infallibly concludes it.— To Dull Sir, I do invite you too: you shall not say me nay. Pauca verba.[125]— Away, the gentles are at their game, and we will to our recreation.

Exeunt

[Act 4 Scene 3]

running scene 4 continues

Enter Berowne, with a paper in his hand, alone

BEROWNEThe king, he is hunting the deer: I am coursing[1] myself. They have pitched a toil: I am toiling[2] in a pitch, pitch that defiles. Defile, a foul word. Well, set thee down, sorrow, for so they say the fool said, and so say I, and I[3] the fool. Well proved, wit! By the lord, this love is as mad[4] as Ajax: it kills sheep, it kills me — I a sheep. Well proved again o’my side. I will not love; if I do, hang me. I’faith, I will not. O, but her eye, — by this light, but for her eye, I would not love her — yes, for her two eyes. Well, I do nothing in the world but lie,[7] and lie in my throat. By heaven, I do love, and it hath taught me to rhyme and to be melancholy. And here is part of my rhyme, and here my melancholy. Well, she hath one o’my sonnets already. The clown bore it, the fool sent it, and the lady hath it. Sweet clown, sweeter fool, sweetest lady! By the world, I would not care a pin, if the other three were in.[12] Here comes one with a paper. God give him grace to groan!

He stands aside. The King entereth [with a paper]

KINGAy me!

BEROWNEShot, by heaven! Speaks aside through the rest of the scene Proceed, sweet Cupid, thou hast thumped him with thy bird-bolt[15] under the left pap. In faith, secrets!

KING‘So sweet a kiss the golden sun gives not Reads

To those fresh morning drops upon the rose,

As thy eye-beams,[18] when their fresh rays have smote

The night of dew[19] that on my cheeks down flows.

20

Nor shines the silver moon one half so bright

Through the transparent bosom of the deep,[21]

As doth thy face through tears of mine give light.

Thou shin’st in every tear that I do weep,

No drop but as a coach doth carry thee:

25

So ridest thou triumphing in my woe.

Do but behold the tears that swell in me,

And they thy glory through my grief will show.

But do not love thyself: then thou wilt keep

My tears for glasses,[29] and still make me weep.

30

O queen of queens, how far dost thou excel,

No thought can think, nor tongue of mortal tell.’

How shall she know my griefs? I’ll drop the paper.

Sweet leaves, shade folly. Who is he comes here?

Enter Longaville [with a paper] The King steps aside

What, Longaville, and reading? Listen, ear.

35

BEROWNENow, in thy[35] likeness, one more fool appear!

LONGAVILLEAy me, I am forsworn!

BEROWNEWhy, he comes in like a perjure,[37] wearing papers.

KINGIn love, I hope. Sweet fellowship in shame! Speaks aside through the rest of the scene

BEROWNEOne drunkard loves another[39] of the name.

40

LONGAVILLEAm I the first that have been perjured so?

BEROWNEI could put thee in comfort: not by two that I know.

Thou makest the triumviry,[42] the corner-cap of society,

The shape of Love’s Tyburn[43] that hangs up simplicity.

LONGAVILLEI fear these stubborn[44] lines lack power to move.

45

O sweet Maria, empress of my love, Reads

These numbers[46] will I tear and write in prose. Tears paper

BEROWNEO, rhymes are guards[47] on wanton Cupid’s hose:

Disfigure not his shop.[48]

LONGAVILLEThis same shall go.

50

‘Did not the heavenly rhetoric of thine eye,

He reads the sonnet

Gainst whom the world cannot hold argument,

Persuade my heart to this false perjury?

Vows for thee broke deserve not punishment.

A woman I forswore, but I will prove,

55

Thou being a goddess, I forswore not thee.

My vow was earthly, thou a heavenly love:

Thy grace[57] being gained cures all disgrace in me.

Vows are but breath, and breath a vapour is:

Then thou, fair sun, which on my earth dost shine,

60

Exhal’st[60] this vapour-vow, in thee it is.

If broken then, it is no fault of mine:

If by me broke, what fool is not so wise

To[63] lose an oath to win a paradise?’

BEROWNEThis is the liver[64] vein, which makes flesh a deity,

65

A green[65] goose a goddess. Pure, pure idolatry.

God amend us, God amend! We are much out[66] o’th’way.

LONGAVILLEBy whom shall I send this? Company? Stay.

Enter Dumaine [with a paper] Longaville steps aside

BEROWNEAll hid, all hid: an old infant[68] play.

Like a demigod here sit I in the sky,

70

And wretched fools’ secrets heedfully o’er-eye.[70]

More sacks[71] to the mill. O heavens, I have my wish!

Dumaine transformed! Four woodcocks[72] in a dish!

DUMAINEO most divine Kate!

BEROWNEO most profane coxcomb![74]

75

DUMAINEBy heaven, the wonder of a mortal eye!

BEROWNEBy earth, she is not, corporal:[76] there you lie.

DUMAINEHer amber hairs for[77] foul hath amber quoted.

BEROWNEAn[78] amber-coloured raven was well noted.

DUMAINEAs upright as the cedar.

80

BEROWNEStoop,[80] I say.

Her shoulder is with child.[81]

DUMAINEAs fair as day.

BEROWNEAy, as some days, but then no sun must shine.

DUMAINEO that I had my wish!

85

LONGAVILLEAnd I had mine! Aside

KINGAnd I mine too, good lord! Aside

BEROWNEAmen, so I had mine! Is not that a good word?[87]

DUMAINEI would forget her, but a[88] fever she

Reigns in my blood and will remembered be.

90

BEROWNEA fever in your blood? Why then incision[90]

Would let her out in saucers.[91] Sweet misprision!

DUMAINEOnce more I’ll read the ode that I have writ.

BEROWNEOnce more I’ll mark how love can vary wit.[93]

DUMAINE‘On a day — alack the day! —

Reads his sonnet

95

Love, whose month is ever May,

Spied a blossom passing[96] fair

Playing in the wanton[97] air:

Through the velvet leaves the wind,

All unseen, can passage find.

100

That[100] the lover, sick to death,

Wish himself the heaven’s breath.

“Air”, quoth he, “thy cheeks may blow,

Air, would I might triumph so!

But, alack, my hand is sworn

105

Ne’er to pluck thee from thy thorn.

Vow, alack, for youth unmeet,[106]

Youth so apt to pluck[107] a sweet.

Do not call it sin in me,

That I am forsworn for thee:

110

Thou for whom Jove would swear

Juno[111] but an Ethiope were,

And deny himself for[112] Jove,

Turning mortal for thy love.” ’

This will I send, and something else more plain,

115

That shall express my true love’s fasting pain.

O, would the king, Berowne, and Longaville

Were lovers too! Ill, to example[117] ill,

Would from my forehead wipe a perjured[118] note,

For none offend where all alike do dote.[119]

120

LONGAVILLEDumaine, thy love is far from charity,[120] Comes forward

That[121] in love’s grief desirest society.

You may look pale, but I should blush, I know,

To be o’erheard and taken napping[123] so.

KINGCome, sir, you blush: as his your case is such,[124] Comes forward

125

You chide at him, offending twice as much.

You do not love Maria? Longaville

Did never sonnet for her sake compile,

Nor never lay his wreathèd[128] arms athwart

His loving bosom to keep down his heart?

130

I have been closely[130] shrouded in this bush

And marked you both and for you both did blush.

I heard your guilty rhymes, observed your fashion,[132]

Saw sighs reek[133] from you, noted well your passion.

‘Ay me’, says one, ‘O Jove!’ the other cries,

135

One, her hairs were gold, crystal the other’s eyes:

You would for paradise break faith and troth,[136] To Longaville

And Jove, for your love, would infringe an oath. To Dumaine

What will Berowne say when that he shall hear

Faith infringèd which such zeal did swear?

140

How will he scorn? How will he spend[140] his wit?

How will he triumph, leap and laugh at it!

For all the wealth that ever I did see,

I would not have him know so much by[143] me.

BEROWNENow step I forth to whip hypocrisy. Comes forward

145

Ah, good my liege, I pray thee pardon me.

Good heart, what grace[146] hast thou, thus to reprove

These worms[147] for loving, that art most in love?

Your eyes do make no coaches.[148] In your tears

There is no certain princess that appears.

150

You’ll not be perjured, ’tis a hateful thing,

Tush, none but minstrels[151] like of sonneting.

But are you not ashamed? Nay, are you not,

All three of you, to be thus much o’ershot?[153]

You found his mote,[154] the king your mote did see, To Longaville

155

But I a beam[155] do find in each of three.

O, what a scene of fool’ry have I seen,

Of sighs, of groans, of sorrow and of teen![157]

O me, with what strict patience have I sat,

To see a king transformèd to a gnat![159]

160

To see great Hercules whipping a gig,[160]

And profound[161] Solomon tuning a jig,

And Nestor[162] play at push-pin with the boys,

And critic Timon[163] laugh at idle toys.

Where lies thy grief? O, tell me, good Dumaine;

165

And gentle Longaville, where lies thy pain?

And where my liege’s? All about the breast?

A caudle,[167] ho!

KINGToo bitter is thy jest.

Are we betrayed thus to thy over-view?[169]

170

BEROWNENot you to me, but I betrayed by you:

I, that am honest,[171] I, that hold it sin

To break the vow I am engagèd in,

I am betrayed by keeping company

With men like you, men of inconstancy.

175

When shall you see me write a thing in rhyme?

Or groan for Joan? Or spend a minute’s time

In pruning me?[177] When shall you hear that I

Will praise a hand, a foot, a face, an eye,

A gait, a state,[179] a brow, a breast, a waist,

180

A leg, a limb— Starts to leave

KINGSoft![181] Whither away so fast?

A true[182] man or a thief that gallops so?

BEROWNEI post[183] from love. Good lover, let me go.

Enter Jaquenetta [with a letter] and Clown [Costard]

JAQUENETTAGod bless the king!

185

KINGWhat present[185] hast thou there?

COSTARDSome certain treason.

KINGWhat makes treason[187] here?

COSTARDNay, it makes nothing, sir.

KINGIf it mar[189] nothing neither,

190

The treason and you go in peace away together.

JAQUENETTAI beseech your grace, let this letter be read. Gives letter to the King

Our person[192] misdoubts it: ’twas treason, he said.

KINGBerowne, read it over— Gives the letter to Berowne

Where hadst thou it? To Jaquenetta

195

JAQUENETTAOf Costard.

[Berowne] reads the letter

KINGWhere hadst thou it?

COSTARDOf Dun Adramadio, Dun Adramadio. Berowne tears the letter

KINGHow now? What is in you? Why dost thou tear it?

BEROWNEA toy,[199] my liege, a toy. Your grace needs not fear it.

200

LONGAVILLEIt did move him to passion,[200] and therefore let’s hear it.

DUMAINEIt is Berowne’s writing and here is his name. Gathers the pieces and reads them

BEROWNEAh, you whoreson[202] loggerhead! You were born to do me shame.—

Guilty, my lord, guilty. I confess, I confess. To Costard

KINGWhat?

205

BEROWNEThat you three fools lacked me fool to make up the mess:[205]

He, he, and you — and you, my liege — and I,

Are pick-purses[207] in love, and we deserve to die.

O, dismiss this audience and I shall tell you more.

DUMAINENow the number is even.

210

BEROWNETrue, true: we are four.

Will these turtles[211] be gone?

KINGHence, sirs,[212] away! To Costard and Jaquenetta

COSTARDWalk[213] aside the true folk and let the traitors stay.

[Exeunt Costard and Jaquenetta]

BEROWNESweet lords, sweet lovers, O, let us embrace!

215

As true we are as flesh and blood can be,

The sea will ebb and flow, heaven show his face:

Young blood doth not obey an old decree.

We cannot cross[218] the cause why we are born:

Therefore of all hands[219] must we be forsworn.

220

KINGWhat, did these rent[220] lines show some love of thine?

BEROWNE‘Did they’, quoth you? Who sees the heavenly Rosaline,

That, like a rude[222] and savage man of Ind,

At the first opening[223] of the gorgeous east,

Bows not his vassal[224] head, and strucken blind,

225

Kisses the base ground with obedient breast?

What peremptory[226] eagle-sighted eye

Dares look upon the heaven of her brow

That is not blinded by her majesty?

KINGWhat zeal, what fury[229] hath inspired thee now?

230

My love, her mistress, is a gracious moon,

She,[231] an attending star, scarce seen a light.

BEROWNEMy eyes are then no eyes, nor I Berowne.

O, but[233] for my love, day would turn to night!

Of all complexions the culled sovereignty[234]

235

Do meet as at a fair in her fair cheek,

Where several worthies[236] make one dignity,

Where nothing wants[237] that want itself doth seek.

Lend me the flourish of all gentle[238] tongues —

Fie,[239] painted rhetoric! O, she needs it not,

240

To things of[240] sale a seller’s praise belongs:

She passes[241] praise, then praise too short doth blot.

A withered hermit, fivescore winters worn,[242]

Might shake off fifty, looking in her eye.

Beauty doth varnish[244] age as if new-born,

245

And gives the crutch[245] the cradle’s infancy.

O, ’tis the sun that maketh all things shine.

KINGBy heaven, thy love is black as ebony.[247]

BEROWNEIs ebony like her? O word divine!

A wife of such wood were felicity.[249]

250

O, who can give an oath? Where is a book?[250]

That I may swear beauty doth beauty lack

If[252] that she learn not of her eye to look.

No face is fair[253] that is not full so black.

KINGO paradox! Black is the badge of hell,

255

The hue[255] of dungeons and the school of night,

And beauty’s crest[256] becomes the heavens well.

BEROWNEDevils soonest tempt, resembling[257] spirits of light.

O, if in black my lady’s brows be decked,

It[259] mourns that painting and usurping hair

260

Should ravish doters[260] with a false aspect,

And therefore is she born to make black fair.

Her favour[262] turns the fashion of the days,

For native blood[263] is counted painting now,

And therefore red[264] that would avoid dispraise

265

Paints itself black, to imitate her brow.

DUMAINETo look like her are chimney-sweepers black.

LONGAVILLEAnd since her time are colliers[267] counted bright.

KINGAnd Ethiops of their sweet complexion crack.[268]

DUMAINEDark needs no candles now, for dark is light.

270

BEROWNEYour mistresses dare never come in[270] rain,

For fear their colours[271] should be washed away.

KING’Twere good, yours did, for, sir, to tell you plain,

I’ll find a fairer face not washed today.

BEROWNEI’ll prove her fair, or talk till doomsday here.

275

KINGNo devil will fright thee then[275] so much as she.

DUMAINEI never knew man hold vile[276] stuff so dear.

LONGAVILLELook, here’s[277] thy love: my foot and her face see. Shows his shoe

BEROWNEO, if the streets were pavèd with thine eyes,

Her feet were much too dainty[279] for such tread.

280

DUMAINEO, vile! Then, as she goes,[280] what upward lies

The street should see as she walked overhead.

KINGBut what of this? Are we not all in love?

BEROWNEO, nothing so sure, and thereby all forsworn.

KINGThen leave this chat, and good Berowne, now prove[284]

285

Our loving lawful, and our faith not torn.

DUMAINEAy, marry, there,[286] some flattery for this evil.

LONGAVILLEO, some authority how to proceed.

Some tricks, some quillets,[288] how to cheat the devil.

DUMAINESome salve[289] for perjury.

290

BEROWNEO, ’tis more than need.[290]

Have at you[291] then, affection’s men at arms.

Consider what you first did swear unto:

To fast, to study, and to see no woman —

Flat treason against the kingly state[294] of youth.

295

Say, can you fast? Your stomachs are too young,

And abstinence engenders maladies.

// And where[297] that you have vowed to study, lords, //

// In that each of you have forsworn his book. //

// Can you still dream and pore and thereon look? //

300

// For when would you, my lord, or you, or you, //

// Have found the ground of study’s excellence //

// Without the beauty of a woman’s face? //

// From women’s eyes this doctrine I derive: //

// They are the ground, the books, the academes //

305

// From whence doth spring the true Promethean fire.[305] //

// Why, universal plodding poisons up //

// The nimble spirits in the arteries, //

// As motion and long-during action tires //

// The sinewy vigour of the traveller. //

310

// Now, for not looking on a woman’s face, //

// You have in that forsworn the use of eyes //

// And study too, the causer of your vow, //

// For where is any author in the world //

// Teaches such beauty as a woman’s eye? //

315

// Learning is but an adjunct to ourself //

// And where we are our learning likewise is. //

// Then when ourselves we see in ladies’ eyes, //

// With ourselves, //

// Do we not likewise see our learning there? //

320

O, we have made a vow to study, lords,

And in that vow we have forsworn our books,

For when would you, my liege, or you, or you,

In leaden contemplation have found out

Such fiery numbers[324] as the prompting eyes

325

Of beauty’s tutors have enriched you with?

Other slow arts[326] entirely keep the brain,

And therefore, finding barren[327] practisers,

Scarce show a harvest of their heavy toil.

But love, first learnèd in a lady’s eyes,

330

Lives not alone immurèd[330] in the brain

But with the motion of all elements

Courses[332] as swift as thought in every power

And gives to every power a double power,

Above[334] their functions and their offices.

335

It adds a precious seeing to the eye:

A lover’s eyes will gaze an eagle blind.

A lover’s ear will hear the lowest sound,

When the[338] suspicious head of theft is stopped.

Love’s feeling is more soft and sensible[339]

340

Than are the tender horns of cockled[340] snails.

Love’s tongue proves dainty Bacchus[341] gross in taste.

For[342] valour, is not Love a Hercules,

Still climbing[343] trees in the Hesperides?

Subtle[344] as Sphinx, as sweet and musical

345

As bright Apollo’s[345] lute, strung with his hair.

And when Love speaks, the voice of all the gods

Make heaven drowsy with the harmony.

Never durst[348] poet touch a pen to write

Until his ink were tempered[349] with love’s sighs.

350

O, then his lines would ravish savage ears

And plant in tyrants mild humility.

From women’s eyes this doctrine I derive:

They sparkle still[353] the right Promethean fire,

They are the books, the arts, the academes,[354]

355

That show, contain and nourish all the world,

Else[356] none at all in aught proves excellent.

Then fools you were these women to forswear,

Or, keeping what is sworn, you will prove fools.

For wisdom’s sake, a word that all men love,

360

Or, for love’s sake, a word that loves[360] all men,

Or, for men’s sake, the authors[361] of these women,

Or, women’s sake, by whom[362] we men are men,

Let’s once[363] lose our oaths to find ourselves,

Or else we lose ourselves to keep our oaths.

365

It is religion[365] to be thus forsworn,

For charity[366] itself fulfils the law,

And who can sever love from charity?

KINGSaint Cupid, then! And, soldiers, to the field!

BEROWNEAdvance your standards,[369] and upon them, lords.

370

Pell-mell,[370] down with them! But be first advised

In conflict that you get[371] the sun of them.

LONGAVILLENow to plain dealing:[372] lay these glozes by.

Shall we resolve to woo these girls of France?

KINGAnd win them too: therefore let us devise

375

Some entertainment for them in their tents.

BEROWNEFirst, from the park let us conduct them thither.

Then homeward every man attach[377] the hand

Of his fair mistress: in the afternoon

We will with some strange[379] pastime solace them,

380

Such as the shortness of the time can shape,

For revels, dances, masks and merry hours

Forerun[382] fair Love, strewing her way with flowers.

KINGAway, away! No time shall be omitted

That will betime,[384] and may by us be fitted.

385

BEROWNEAllons![385] Allons! Sowed cockle reaped no corn,

And justice always whirls[386] in equal measure:

Light[387] wenches may prove plagues to men forsworn,

If so, our copper[388] buys no better treasure.

Exeunt

Act 5 [Scene 1]

running scene 5

Enter [Holofernes] the Pedant, [Nathaniel the] Curate and Dull [the Constable]

HOLOFERNESSatis quod sufficit[1].

NATHANIELI praise God for you, sir. Your reasons[2] at dinner have been sharp and sententious,[3] pleasant without scurrility, witty without affection, audacious without impudency, learnèd without opinion,[4] and strange without heresy. I did converse this quondam[5] day with a companion of the king’s, who is intituled, nominated,[6] or called, Don Adriano de Armado.

HOLOFERNESNovi[7] hominem tanquam te: his humour is lofty, his discourse peremptory, his tongue filed,[8] his eye ambitious, his gait majestical, and his general behaviour vain, ridiculous, and thrasonical.[9] He is too picked, too spruce, too affected, too odd, as it were, too peregrinate,[10] as I may call it.

NATHANIELA most singular and choice epithet.

Draws out his table-book[11]

HOLOFERNESHe draweth out the thread of his verbosity finer than the staple[12] of his argument.[13] I abhor such fanatical phantasimes, such insociable and point-device companions, such rackers of orthography,[14] as to speak ‘dout’, fine, when he should say ‘doubt’, ‘det’, when he should pronounce ‘debt’: d, e, b, t, not d, e, t. He clepeth[16] a calf ‘cauf’, half ‘hauf’, neighbour vocatur ‘nebour’, neigh abbreviated ‘ne’. This is abhominable,[17] which he would call ‘abominable’. It insinuateth me of insanie.[18] Ne intelligis, domine? To make frantic, lunatic.

NATHANIELLaus[19] Deo, bone intelligo.

HOLOFERNESBone? ‘Bone’ for ‘bene’, Priscian[20] a little scratched, ’twill serve.

Enter [Armado the] Braggart, [Moth, his] Boy [and Costard]

NATHANIELVidesne quis venit?[21]

HOLOFERNESVideo et gaudeo[22].

ARMADOChirrah![23]

HOLOFERNESQuare[24] ‘chirrah’, not ‘sirrah’?

ARMADOMen of peace, well encountered.

HOLOFERNESMost military sir, salutation.

MOTHThey have been at a great feast of languages, and stolen the scraps. Aside to Costard

COSTARDO, they have lived long on the alms-basket[28] of words. To Moth I marvel thy master hath not eaten[29] thee for a word, for thou art not so long by the head as honorificabilitudinitatibus[30]. Thou art easier swallowed than a flap-dragon.

MOTHPeace! The peal[31] begins.

ARMADOMonsieur, are you not lettered?[32] To Holofernes

MOTHYes, yes: he teaches boys the hornbook.[33] What is a b spelled backward with the horn on his head?

HOLOFERNESBa, pueritia,[35] with a horn added.

MOTHBa,[36] most silly sheep with a horn. You hear his learning.

HOLOFERNESQuis,[37] quis, thou consonant?

MOTHThe last of the five vowels, if you repeat them, or the fifth, if I.

HOLOFERNESI[39] will repeat them: a, e, i—

MOTHThe sheep. The other two concludes[40] it: o, u.

ARMADONow, by the salt wave of the Mediterraneum,[41] a sweet touch, a quick venue of wit! Snip,[42] snap, quick and home! It rejoiceth my intellect: true wit!

MOTHOffered by a child to an old man — which is wit-old.[43]

HOLOFERNESWhat is the figure?[44] What is the figure?

MOTHHorns.[45]

HOLOFERNESThou disputes[46] like an infant. Go, whip thy gig.

MOTHLend me your horn to make one and I will whip about your infamy manu cita[47]. A gig of a cuckold’s horn.

COSTARDAn I had but one penny in the world, thou shouldst have it to buy gingerbread. Hold, there is the very remuneration I had of thy master, thou halfpenny[51] purse of wit, thou pigeon-egg of discretion. O, an the heavens were so pleased that thou wert[52] but my bastard, what a joyful father wouldst thou make me! Go to, thou hast it ad dunghill,[53] at the fingers’ ends, as they say.

HOLOFERNESO, I smell false Latin: ‘dunghill’ for unguem.

ARMADOArts-man,[55] preambulate. We will be singled from the barbarous. Do you not educate youth at the charge-house[56] on the top of the mountain?

HOLOFERNESOr mons,[57] the hill.

ARMADOAt your sweet pleasure, for the mountain.

HOLOFERNESI do, sans[59] question.

ARMADOSir, it is the king’s most sweet pleasure and affection[60] to congratulate the princess at her pavilion in the posteriors[61] of this day, which the rude multitude call the afternoon.

HOLOFERNESThe posterior of the day, most generous[63] sir, is liable, congruent and measurable[64] for the afternoon. The word is well culled, choice, sweet and apt, I do assure you, sir, I do assure.

ARMADOSir, the king is a noble gentleman, and my familiar,[66] I do assure ye, very good friend. For what is inward[67] between us, let it pass. I do beseech thee, remember thy courtesy:[68] I beseech thee, apparel thy head. And among other important and most serious designs,[69] and of great import indeed too — but let that pass, for I must tell thee it will please his grace, by the world,[70] sometime to lean upon my poor shoulder and with his royal finger thus dally with my excrement,[71] with my mustachio. But, sweet heart,[72] let that pass. By the world, I recount no fable: some certain special honours it pleaseth his greatness to impart to Armado, a soldier, a man of travel, that hath seen the world — but let that pass. The very all of all[75] is — but, sweet heart, I do implore secrecy — that the king would have me present the princess, sweet chuck,[76] with some delightful ostentation, or show, or pageant, or antic,[77] or firework. Now, understanding that the curate and your sweet self are good at such eruptions and sudden breaking out of mirth, as it were, I have acquainted you withal,[79] to the end to crave your assistance.

HOLOFERNESSir, you shall present before her the Nine Worthies.[80] Sir Nathaniel, as concerning some entertainment[81] of time, some show in the posterior of this day, to be rendered by our assistants, at the king’s command and this most gallant, illustrate[83] and learned gentleman, before the princess, I say none so fit as to present the Nine Worthies.

NATHANIELWhere will you find men worthy enough to present them?

HOLOFERNESJoshua, yourself. Indicates Don Armado Myself, Judas Maccabaeus, and this gallant gentleman, Hector. This swain,[87] because of his great limb or joint, shall pass Pompey the Great. The page, Hercules.

ARMADOPardon, sir, error: he is not quantity enough for that Worthy’s thumb. He is not so big as the end of his club.[90]

HOLOFERNESShall I have audience?[91] He shall present Hercules in minority: his enter and exit shall be strangling a snake,[92] and I will have an apology for that purpose.

MOTHAn excellent device![93] So, if any of the audience hiss, you may cry ‘Well done, Hercules! Now thou crushest the snake!’ That is the way to make an offence gracious, though few have the grace to do it.

ARMADOFor the rest of the Worthies?

HOLOFERNESI will play three myself.

MOTHThrice-worthy gentleman.

ARMADOShall I tell you a thing?

HOLOFERNESWe attend.[100]

ARMADOWe will have, if this fadge[101] not, an antic. I beseech you, follow.

HOLOFERNESVia,[102] goodman Dull! Thou hast spoken no word all this while.

DULLNor understood none neither, sir.

HOLOFERNESAllans! We will employ thee.

105

DULLI’ll make one[105] in a dance, or so, or I will play

On the tabor[106] to the Worthies, and let them dance the hay.

HOLOFERNESMost Dull, honest Dull! To our sport, away!

Exeunt

[Act 5 Scene 2]

running scene 6

Enter Ladies [the Princess, Katherine, Rosaline and Maria]

PRINCESSSweet hearts, we shall be rich ere we depart,

If fairings[2] come thus plentifully in.

A lady walled about with diamonds![3]

Look you what I have from the loving king. Shows a jewel

5

ROSALINEMadame, came nothing else along with that?

PRINCESSNothing but this? Yes, as much love in rhyme

As would be crammed up in a sheet of paper

Writ on both sides the leaf, margent[8] and all,

That he was fain[9] to seal on Cupid’s name.

10

ROSALINEThat was the way to make his godhead[10] wax,

For he hath been five[11] thousand years a boy.

KATHERINEAy, and a shrewd[12] unhappy gallows too.

ROSALINEYou’ll ne’er be friends with him: a[13] killed your sister.

KATHERINEHe made her melancholy, sad, and heavy,[14]

15

And so she died: had she been light,[15] like you,

Of such a merry, nimble, stirring spirit,

She might ha’ been a grandam[17] ere she died.

And so may you, for a light heart lives long.

ROSALINEWhat’s your dark[19] meaning, mouse, of this light word?

20

KATHERINEA light condition[20] in a beauty dark.

ROSALINEWe need more light to find your meaning out.

KATHERINEYou’ll mar the light by taking[22] it in snuff:

Therefore I’ll darkly[23] end the argument.

ROSALINELook[24] what you do, you do it still i’th’dark.

25

KATHERINESo do not you, for you are a light wench.[25]

ROSALINEIndeed I weigh not[26] you, and therefore light.

KATHERINEYou weigh[27] me not? O, that’s you care not for me.

ROSALINEGreat reason, for past[28] care is still past cure.

PRINCESSWell bandied[29] both. A set of wit well played.

30

But Rosaline, you have a favour[30] too.

Who sent it? And what is it?

ROSALINEI would[32] you knew.

An if my face were but as fair as yours,

My favour were as great. Be witness this: Shows a love token and a letter

35

Nay, I have verses too, I thank Berowne.

The numbers true,[36] and, were the numbering too,

I were the fairest goddess on the ground.

I am compared to twenty thousand fairs.[38]

O, he hath drawn my picture in his letter!

40

PRINCESSAnything like?

ROSALINEMuch in the letters,[41] nothing in the praise.

PRINCESSBeauteous as ink: a good conclusion.

KATHERINEFair as a text B[43] in a copy-book.

ROSALINE’Ware[44] pencils, how? Let me not die your debtor,

45

My red dominical,[45] my golden letter.

O, that your face were not so full of O’s![46]

PRINCESSA pox[47] of that jest and I beshrew all shrews.

But, Katherine, what was sent to you from fair Dumaine?

KATHERINEMadam, this glove. Shows a glove

50

PRINCESSDid he not send you twain?[50]

KATHERINEYes, madam, and moreover

Some thousand verses of a faithful lover,

A huge translation[53] of hypocrisy,

Vilely compiled, profound simplicity.[54]

55

MARIAThis and these pearls to me sent Longaville. Shows a letter and a pearl necklace

The letter is too long by half a mile.

PRINCESSI think no less. Dost thou not wish in heart

The chain were longer and the letter short?

MARIAAy, or I would[59] these hands might never part.

60

PRINCESSWe are wise girls to mock our lovers so.

ROSALINEThey are worse fools to purchase[61] mocking so.

That same Berowne I’ll torture ere I go.

O that I knew he were but in by th’week![63]

How I would make him fawn and beg and seek

65

And wait the season[65] and observe the times

And spend his prodigal[66] wits in bootless rhymes

And shape his service wholly to my device

And make[68] him proud to make me proud that jests!

So pert aunt like[69] would I o’ersway his state

70

That he should be my fool and I his fate.[70]

PRINCESSNone are so surely[71] caught, when they are catched,

As wit turned fool. Folly, in wisdom hatched,

Hath wisdom’s warrant[73] and the help of school

And wit’s own grace to grace a learnèd fool.

75

ROSALINEThe blood of youth burns not with such excess

As gravity’s[76] revolt to wantonness.

MARIAFolly in fools bears not so strong a note[77]

As foolery in the wise, when wit doth dote,[78]

Since all[79] the power thereof it doth apply

80

To prove, by wit, worth in simplicity.

Enter Boyet

PRINCESSHere comes Boyet, and mirth is in his face.

BOYETO, I am stabbed with laughter! Where’s her grace?

PRINCESSThy news, Boyet?

BOYETPrepare, madam, prepare!

85

Arm,[85] wenches, arm! Encounters mounted are

Against your peace. Love doth approach disguised,

Armed in arguments: you’ll be surprised.[87]

Muster[88] your wits, stand in your own defence,

Or hide your heads like cowards and fly hence.

90

PRINCESSSaint Denis[90] to Saint Cupid! What are they

That charge[91] their breath against us? Say, scout, say.

BOYETUnder the cool shade of a sycamore[92]

I thought to close mine eyes some half an hour,

When, lo, to interrupt my purposed[94] rest,

95

Toward that shade I might behold addressed[95]

The king and his companions. Warily

I stole into a neighbour thicket by,[97]

And overheard what you shall overhear:[98]

That, by and by,[99] disguised they will be here.

100

Their herald is a pretty knavish page,

That well by heart hath conned[101] his embassage.

Action[102] and accent did they teach him there:

‘Thus must thou speak’, and ‘thus thy body bear’.

And ever and anon[104] they made a doubt

105

Presence majestical[105] would put him out,

‘For’, quoth the king, ‘an angel shalt thou see,

Yet fear not thou, but speak audaciously.’

The boy replied, ‘An angel is not evil:

I should have feared her had she been a devil.’

110

With that, all laughed and clapped him on the shoulder,

Making the bold wag[111] by their praises bolder.

One rubbed his elbow[112] thus, and fleered and swore

A better speech was never spoke before.

Another, with[114] his finger and his thumb

115

Cried, ‘Via![115] We will do’t, come what will come.’

The third he capered,[116] and cried, ‘All goes well.’

The fourth turned[117] on the toe, and down he fell.

With that they all did tumble on the ground,

With such a zealous laughter, so profound,

120

That in this spleen ridiculous[120] appears,

To check[121] their folly, passion’s solemn tears.

PRINCESSBut what, but what, come they to visit us?

BOYETThey do, they do, and are apparelled thus:

Like[124] Muscovites or Russians, as I guess.

125

Their purpose is to parley,[125] to court and dance,

And every one his love-feat[126] will advance

Unto his several[127] mistress, which they’ll know

By favours several which they did bestow.

PRINCESSAnd will they so? The gallants[129] shall be tasked,

130

For, ladies, we will every one be masked,

And not a man of them shall have the grace,[131]

Despite of suit,[132] to see a lady’s face.

Hold,[133] Rosaline, this favour thou shalt wear,

And then the king will court thee for his dear.

135

Hold, take thou this, my sweet, and give me thine,

So shall Berowne take me for Rosaline. The Princess and Rosaline exchange favors

And change[137] your favours too, so shall your loves

Woo contrary, deceived by these removes.[138] Katherine and Maria exchange favors

ROSALINECome on, then, wear the favours most in sight.[139]

140

KATHERINEBut in this changing what is your intent?

PRINCESSThe effect of my intent is to cross[141] theirs:

They do it but in mocking merriment,

And mock for mock is only my intent.

Their several counsels[144] they unbosom shall

145

To loves mistook,[145] and so be mocked withal

Upon the next occasion that we meet,

With visages displayed[147] to talk and greet.

ROSALINEBut shall we dance, if they desire us to’t?

PRINCESSNo, to the death,[149] we will not move a foot,

150

Nor to their penned[150] speech render we no grace,

But while ’tis spoke each turn away her face.

BOYETWhy, that contempt will kill[152] the speaker’s heart

And quite divorce his memory from his part.[153]

PRINCESSTherefore I do it, and I make no doubt

155

The rest will e’er come in, if he be out.[155]

There’s no such sport as sport by sport o’erthrown,

To make theirs ours[157] and ours none but our own.

So shall we stay, mocking intended[158] game,

And they, well mocked, depart away with shame.

[Trumpets] sound

160

BOYETThe trumpet sounds: be masked. The maskers come. The Ladies mask

Enter Blackamoors[160] with music, the boy [Moth] with a speech, and the rest of the Lords

[King, Berowne, Longaville and Dumaine] disguised [in Russian costumes and masks]

MOTHAll hail, the richest beauties on the earth!

BEROWNEBeauties no richer than rich taffeta.[162] Aside?

MOTHA holy parcel[163] of the fairest dames.

That ever turned their —

The Ladies turn their backs to him

backs — to mortal views.

165

BEROWNETheir eyes, villain, their eyes! Aside to Moth

MOTHThat ever turned their eyes to mortal views!Out[166]…

BOYETTrue. Out indeed.

MOTHOut of your favours, heavenly spirits, vouchsafe[168]

Not to behold—

170

BEROWNEOnce to behold, rogue. Aside to Moth

MOTHOnce to behold with your sun-beamèd eyes…

With your sun-beamèd eyes…

BOYETThey will not answer to that epithet.[173]

You were best call it ‘daughter-beamèd[174] eyes’.

175

MOTHThey do not mark me and that brings me out.[175]

BEROWNEIs this your perfectness?[176] Be gone, you rogue!

[Exit Moth]

ROSALINEWhat[177] would these strangers? Know their minds, Boyet. Pretends to be the Princess

If they do speak our language, ’tis our will

That some plain[179] man recount their purposes

180

Know what they would.

BOYETWhat would you with the princess?

BEROWNENothing but peace and gentle visitation.[182]

ROSALINEWhat would they, say they?

BOYETNothing but peace and gentle visitation.

185

ROSALINEWhy, that they have, and bid them so be gone.

BOYETShe says, you have it, and you may be gone.

KINGSay to her, we ‘have measured[187] many miles

To tread a measure[188] with you on the grass’.

BOYETThey say that they have measured many a mile

190

To tread a measure with you on this grass.

ROSALINEIt is not so. Ask them how many inches

Is in one mil. If they have measured many,

The measure[193] then of one is easily told.

BOYETIf to come hither you have measured miles,

195

And many miles, the princess bids you tell

How many inches doth fill up one mile.

BEROWNETell her we measure them by weary steps.

BOYETShe hears herself.

ROSALINEHow many weary steps,

200

Of many weary miles you have o’ergone,

Are numbered in the travel[201] of one mile?

BEROWNEWe number[202] nothing that we spend for you.

Our duty is so rich, so infinite,

That we may do it still[204] without account.

205

Vouchsafe to show the sunshine of your face,

That we, like savages, may worship it.

ROSALINEMy[207] face is but a moon, and clouded too.

KINGBlessèd are clouds, to do[208] as such clouds do!

Vouchsafe, bright moon, and these thy stars,[209] to shine,

210

Those clouds removed, upon our wat’ry eyne.[210]

ROSALINEO vain petitioner! Beg a greater matter:

Thou now requests but moonshine[212] in the water.

KINGThen, in our measure vouchsafe but one change.[213]

Thou bid’st me beg: this begging is not strange.[214]

215

ROSALINEPlay, music, then! Nay, you must do it soon. Music plays

Not yet? No dance! Thus change I like the moon.

KINGWill you not dance? How come you thus estranged?[217]

ROSALINEYou took the moon at full, but now she’s changed.

KINGYet still she[219] is the moon, and I the man.

220

ROSALINEThe[220] music plays, vouchsafe some motion to it.

Our ears vouchsafe it.

KINGBut your legs should do it.

ROSALINESince you are strangers and come here by chance,

We’ll not be nice:[224] take hands. We will not dance. Offers her hand

225

KINGWhy take you hands, then?

ROSALINEOnly to part friends.

Curtsy, sweet hearts, and so the measure ends. Music stops

KINGMore[228] measure of this measure. Be not nice.

ROSALINEWe can afford no more at such a price.

230

KINGPrice[230] yourselves: what buys your company?

ROSALINEYour absence only.

KINGThat can never be.

ROSALINEThen cannot we be bought. And so, adieu.

Twice[234] to your visor and half once to you.

235

KINGIf you deny[235] to dance, let’s hold more chat.

ROSALINEIn private then.

KINGI am best pleased with that. They talk apart

BEROWNEWhite-handed mistress, one sweet word with thee. To the Princess

PRINCESSHoney and milk and sugar: there is three.[239] Pretends to be Rosaline

240

BEROWNENay then, two treys,[240] and if you grow so nice,

Metheglin,[241] wort and malmsey. Well run, dice!

There’s half-a-dozen sweets.[242]

PRINCESSSeventh sweet, adieu.

Since you can cog,[244] I’ll play no more with you.

245

BEROWNEOne word in secret.

PRINCESSLet it not be sweet.

BEROWNEThou griev’st[247] my gall.

PRINCESSGall! Bitter.

BEROWNETherefore meet.[249] They talk apart

250

DUMAINEWill you vouchsafe with me to change[250] a word? To Maria

MARIAName it. Pretends to be Katherine

DUMAINEFair lady—

MARIASay you so? Fair lord.

Take you that for your ‘fair lady’.

255

DUMAINEPlease it you,[255]

As much in private, and I’ll bid adieu. They talk apart

KATHERINEWhat, was your vizard[257] made without a tongue? Pretends to be Maria

LONGAVILLEI know the reason, lady, why you ask.

KATHERINEO for your reason! Quickly, sir, I long.

260

LONGAVILLEYou have a double tongue[260] within your mask

And would afford[261] my speechless vizard half.

KATHERINE‘Veal’,[262] quoth the Dutchman. Is not ‘veal’ a calf?

LONGAVILLEA calf, fair lady?

KATHERINENo, a fair lord calf.

265

LONGAVILLELet’s part[265] the word.

KATHERINENo, I’ll not be your half.[266]

Take all, and wean[267] it, it may prove an ox.

LONGAVILLELook, how you butt[268] yourself in these sharp mocks.

Will you give horns,[269] chaste lady? Do not so.

270

KATHERINEThen die a calf before your horns do grow.

LONGAVILLEOne word in private with you ere I die.

KATHERINEBleat softly then, the butcher hears you cry. They talk apart

BOYETThe tongues of mocking wenches are as keen[273]

As is the razor’s edge invisible,

275

Cutting a smaller hair than may be seen,

Above the sense of sense,[276] so sensible

Seemeth their conference.[277] Their conceits have wings

Fleeter[278] than arrows, bullets, wind, thought, swifter things.

ROSALINENot one word more, my maids: break off, break off.

280

BEROWNEBy heaven, all dry-beaten[280] with pure scoff!

KINGFarewell, mad wenches; you have simple wits.

Exeunt [King, Berowne, Longaville, Dumaine and Blackamoors]

PRINCESSTwenty adieus, my frozen Muscovites. The ladies unmask

Are these the breed of wits so wondered at?

BOYETTapers[284] they are, with your sweet breaths puffed out.

285

ROSALINEWell-liking[285] wits they have: gross, gross, fat, fat.

PRINCESSO, poverty in wit, kingly-poor flout![286]

Will they not, think you, hang themselves tonight?

Or ever, but in vizards, show their faces?

This pert[289] Berowne was out of countenance quite.

290

ROSALINEThey were all in lamentable cases.[290]

The king was weeping-ripe[291] for a good word.

PRINCESSBerowne did swear himself out[292] of all suit.

MARIADumaine was at my service, and his sword.

‘No point’, quoth I: my servant[294] straight was mute.

295

KATHERINELord Longaville said I came o’er[295] his heart:

And trow you[296] what he called me?

PRINCESSQualm,[297] perhaps.

KATHERINEYes, in good faith.

PRINCESSGo, sickness as thou art!

300

ROSALINEWell, better wits have worn plain statute-caps.[300]

But will you hear? The king is my love sworn.

PRINCESSAnd quick[302] Berowne hath plighted faith to me.

KATHERINEAnd Longaville was for my service born.

MARIADumaine is mine as sure as bark on tree.

305

BOYETMadam, and pretty mistresses, give ear:[305]

Immediately they will again be here

In[307] their own shapes, for it can never be

They will digest[308] this harsh indignity.

PRINCESSWill they return?

310

BOYETThey will, they will, God knows,

And leap for joy, though they are lame with blows:

Therefore change favours, and, when they repair,[312]

Blow[313] like sweet roses in this summer air.

PRINCESSHow blow? How blow? Speak to be understood.

315

BOYETFair ladies masked are roses in their bud:

Dismasked, their damask[316] sweet commixture shown,

Are angels vailing[317] clouds, or roses blown.

PRINCESSAvaunt,[318] perplexity! What shall we do

If they return in their own shapes to woo?

320

ROSALINEGood madam, if by me you’ll be advised

Let’s mock them still, as[321] well known as disguised.

Let us complain to them what fools were here,

Disguised like Muscovites, in shapeless gear:[323]

And wonder what they were and to what end[324]

325

Their shallow shows and prologue vilely penned,

And their rough carriage[326] so ridiculous,

Should be presented at our tent to us.

BOYETLadies, withdraw. The gallants are at hand.

PRINCESSWhip to our tents, as roes[329] runs o’er land.

Exeunt [the Princess, Rosaline, Katherine and Maria]

Enter the King and the rest [Berowne, Longaville and Dumaine, as themselves]

330

KINGFair sir, God save you! Where’s the princess?

BOYETGone to her tent. Please it your majesty

Command me any service to her?

KINGThat she vouchsafe me audience for one word.

BOYETI will, and so will she, I know, my lord.

Exit

335

BEROWNEThis fellow pecks up wit as pigeons peas

And utters[336] it again when Jove doth please.

He is wit’s pedlar and retails his wares

At wakes[338] and wassails, meetings, markets, fairs.

And we that sell by gross,[339] the Lord doth know,

340

Have not the grace to grace it with such show.

This gallant[341] pins the wenches on his sleeve.

Had[342] he been Adam, he had tempted Eve.

He can carve[343] too, and lisp. Why, this is he

That kissed[344] away his hand in courtesy.

345

This is the ape of form,[345] Monsieur the Nice,

That when he plays at tables[346] chides the dice

In honourable[347] terms. Nay, he can sing

A mean[348] most meanly, and in ushering

Mend[349] him who can. The ladies call him sweet.

350

The stairs, as he treads on them, kiss his feet.

This is the flower that smiles on everyone,

To show his teeth as white as whale’s bone

And consciences that will not die in debt

Pay him the due of honey-tongued Boyet.

355

KINGA blister on his sweet tongue, with my heart,

That put[356] Armado’s page out of his part!

Enter the Ladies [the Princess, Rosaline, Maria and Katherine, with Boyet]

BEROWNESee where it[357] comes! Behaviour, what wert thou

Till this madman[358] showed thee? And what art thou now?

KINGAll hail, sweet madam, and fair time of day!

360

PRINCESS‘Fair’[360] in ‘all hail’ is foul, as I conceive.

KINGConstrue[361] my speeches better, if you may.

PRINCESSThen wish me[362] better, I will give you leave.

KINGWe came to visit you and purpose now

To lead you to our court. Vouchsafe it then.

365

PRINCESSThis[365] field shall hold me, and so hold your vow.

Nor[366] God nor I delights in perjured men.

KINGRebuke me not for that which you provoke.

The virtue of your eye must break my oath.

PRINCESSYou nickname[369] virtue: ‘vice’ you should have spoke,

370

For virtue’s office[370] never breaks men’s troth.

Now, by my maiden honour, yet[371] as pure

As the unsullied lily, I protest,[372]

A world of torments though I should endure,

I would not yield to be your house’s guest,

375

So much I hate a[375] breaking cause to be

Of heavenly oaths, vowed with integrity.

KINGO, you have lived in desolation[377] here,

Unseen, unvisited, much to our shame.

PRINCESSNot so, my lord. It is not so, I swear.

380

We have had pastimes here and pleasant game:

A mess of Russians left us but of late.[381]

KINGHow, madam? Russians?

PRINCESSAy, in truth, my lord.

Trim[384] gallants, full of courtship and of state.

385

ROSALINEMadam, speak true. It is not so, my lord.

My lady, to[386] the manner of the days,

In courtesy gives undeserving[387] praise.

We four indeed confronted were with four

In Russian habit. Here they stayed an hour,

390

And talked apace;[390] and in that hour, my lord,

They did not bless us with one happy[391] word.

I dare not call them fools; but this I think,

When[393] they are thirsty, fools would fain have drink.

BEROWNEThis jest is dry[394] to me. Fair gentle sweet,

395

Your wits makes wise things foolish. When[395] we greet,

With eyes best seeing, heaven’s fiery eye,

By light we lose light. Your capacity[397]

Is of that nature that to[398] your huge store

Wise things seem foolish and rich things but poor.

400

ROSALINEThis proves you wise and rich, for in my eye[400]—

BEROWNEI am a fool, and full of poverty.

ROSALINEBut that you take what doth to you belong,

It were a fault to snatch words from my tongue.

BEROWNEO, I am yours, and all that I possess!

405

ROSALINEAll the fool mine?

BEROWNEI cannot give you less.

ROSALINEWhich of the vizards was it that you wore?

BEROWNEWhere? When? What vizard? Why demand you this?

ROSALINEThere, then, that vizard; that superfluous case[409]

410

That hid the worse and showed the better face.

KINGWe are descried;[411] they’ll mock us now downright. Aside

DUMAINELet us confess and turn it to a jest. Aside

PRINCESSAmazed,[413] my lord? Why looks your highness sad?

ROSALINEHelp, hold his brows![414] He’ll swoon! Why look you pale?

415

Sea-sick, I think, coming from Muscovy.[415]

BEROWNEThus pour the stars down plagues for perjury.

Can any face of brass[417] hold longer out?

Here stand I lady, dart thy skill[418] at me;

Bruise me with scorn, confound[419] me with a flout,

420

Thrust thy sharp wit quite through my ignorance,

Cut me to pieces with thy keen conceit,[421]

And I will wish[422] thee never more to dance,

Nor never more in Russian habit[423] wait.

O, never will I trust to speeches penned,

425

Nor to the motion[425] of a schoolboy’s tongue,

Nor never come in vizard to my friend,[426]

Nor woo in rhyme, like a blind harper’s[427] song!

Taffeta[428] phrases, silken terms precise,

Three-piled[429] hyperboles, spruce affectation,

430

Figures[430] pedantical; these summer-flies

Have blown[431] me full of maggot ostentation.

I do forswear them; and I here protest,

By this white glove — how white the hand, God knows! —

Henceforth my wooing mind shall be expressed

435

In russet[435] yeas and honest kersey noes.

And, to begin, wench — so God help me, law![436] —

My love to thee is sound, sans[437] crack or flaw.

ROSALINESans[438] ‘sans’, I pray you.

BEROWNEYet I have a trick[439]

440

Of the old rage.[440] Bear with me, I am sick.

I’ll leave it by degrees.[441] Soft, let us see:

Write, ‘Lord[442] have mercy on us’ on those three.

They are infected, in their hearts it lies:

They have the plague, and caught it of[444] your eyes.

445

These lords are visited,[445] you are not free,

For the Lord’s tokens[446] on you do I see.

PRINCESSNo, they are free[447] that gave these tokens to us.

BEROWNEOur states[448] are forfeit. Seek not to undo us.

ROSALINEIt is not so, for how can this be true,

450

That you stand forfeit, being those that sue?[450]

BEROWNEPeace! For I will not have to do[451] with you.

ROSALINENor shall not, if I do as I intend.

BEROWNESpeak for yourselves. My wit is at an end. To the Lords

KINGTeach us, sweet madam, for our rude transgression

455

Some fair excuse.

PRINCESSThe fairest is confession.

Were you not here but even[457] now disguised?

KINGMadam, I was.

PRINCESSAnd were you well advised?[459]

460

KINGI was, fair madam.

PRINCESSWhen you then were here,

What did you whisper in your lady’s ear?

KINGThat more than all the world I did respect[463] her.

PRINCESSWhen she shall challenge[464] this, you will reject her.

465

KINGUpon mine honour, no.

PRINCESSPeace, peace, forbear.[466]

Your oath once broke, you force[467] not to forswear.

KINGDespise me when I break this oath of mine.

PRINCESSI will: and therefore keep it.— Rosaline,

470

What did the Russian whisper in your ear?

ROSALINEMadam, he swore that he did hold me dear

As precious eyesight, and did value me

Above this world: adding thereto moreover

That he would wed me or else die my lover.

475

PRINCESSGod give thee joy of him. The noble lord

Most honourably doth uphold his word.

KINGWhat mean you, madam? By my life, my troth,

I never swore this lady such an oath.

ROSALINEBy heaven, you did; and to confirm it plain,

480

You gave me this. But take it, sir, again. Shows the Princess’ favor

KINGMy faith and this the princess I did give.

I knew her by this jewel on her sleeve.

PRINCESSPardon me, sir, this jewel did she wear,

And Lord Berowne, I thank him, is my dear.—

485

What, will you have me or your pearl again? To Berowne as she shows Rosaline’s favor

BEROWNENeither of either,[486] I remit both twain.

I see the trick on’t.[487] Here was a consent,

Knowing aforehand of our merriment,

To dash[489] it like a Christmas comedy.

490

Some carry-tale,[490] some please-man, some slight zany,

Some mumble-news,[491] some trencher-knight, some Dick

That smiles[492] his cheek in years and knows the trick

To make my lady laugh when she’s disposed,[493]

Told our intents before, which once disclosed,

495

The ladies did change favours and then we,

Following the signs, wooed but the sign of she.[496]

Now, to our perjury to add more terror,

We are again forsworn in will and error.

Much[499] upon this ’tis.— And might not you To Boyet

500

Forestall our sport, to make us thus untrue?

Do not you know my lady’s foot by th’squier,[501]

And laugh[502] upon the apple of her eye?

And stand[503] between her back, sir, and the fire,

Holding a trencher,[504] jesting merrily?

505

You put our page out: go, you are allowed.

Die[506] when you will, a smock shall be your shroud.

You leer[507] upon me, do you? There’s an eye

Wounds[508] like a leaden sword.

BOYETFull merrily hath this brave manage,[509] this career, been run.

510

BEROWNELo, he is tilting straight![510] Peace! I have done.

Enter Clown [Costard]

Welcome, pure wit! Thou partest[511] a fair fray.

COSTARDO lord, sir, they would[512] know

Whether the three Worthies shall come in or no.

BEROWNEWhat, are there but three?

515

COSTARDNo, sir, but it is vara[515] fine,

For every one pursents[516] three.

BEROWNEAnd three times thrice is nine.

COSTARDNot so, sir — under correction, sir — I hope it is not so.

You cannot beg us,[519] sir, I can assure you, sir, we know what we know.

520

I hope, sir, three times thrice, sir—

BEROWNEIs not nine?

COSTARDUnder correction, sir, we know whereuntil[522] it doth amount.

BEROWNEBy Jove, I always took three threes for nine.

COSTARDO lord, sir, it were[524] pity you should get your living by reckoning, sir.

BEROWNEHow much is it?

COSTARDO lord, sir, the parties themselves, the actors, sir, will show whereuntil it doth amount. For mine own part, I am, as they say, but to perfect[527] one man in one poor man: Pompion[528] the Great, sir.

BEROWNEArt thou one of the Worthies?

COSTARDIt pleased them to think me worthy of Pompey the Great. For mine own part, I know not the degree[531] of the Worthy, but I am to stand for him.

BEROWNEGo, bid them prepare.

COSTARDWe will turn[533] it finely off, sir, we will take some care.

Exit

KINGBerowne, they will shame us: let them not approach.

535

BEROWNEWe are shame-proof, my lord, and ’tis some policy[535]

To have one show worse than the king’s and his company.

KINGI say they shall not come.

PRINCESSNay, my good lord, let me o’errule you now.

That sport best pleases that doth least know how:

540

Where zeal[540] strives to content and the contents

Dies in the zeal of that[541] which it presents,

There[542] form confounded makes most form in mirth

When great things labouring perish in their birth.

BEROWNEA right description of our sport, my lord. To the King

Enter Braggart [Armado]

ARMADOAnointed,[545] I implore so much expense of thy royal sweet breath as will utter a brace[546] of words. Armado and the King talk apart

PRINCESSDoth this man serve God?

BEROWNEWhy ask you?

PRINCESSHe speaks not like a man of God’s making.

ARMADOThat’s all one,[550] my fair, sweet, honey monarch, for, I protest, the schoolmaster is exceeding fantastical, too too vain, too too vain. But we will put it, as they say, to fortuna[552] de la guerra. Gives him a paper, which the King looks over I wish you the peace of mind, most royal couplement![553]

[Exit]

KINGHere is like[554] to be a good presence of Worthies. He presents Hector of Troy, the swain Pompey the Great, the parish curate Alexander, Armado’s page Hercules, the pedant[556] Judas Maccabaeus.

‘And if these four Worthies in their first show thrive, Reads

These four will change habits[558] and present the other five.’

BEROWNEThere is five in the first show.

560

KINGYou are deceived, ’tis not so.

BEROWNEThe pedant, the braggart, the hedge-priest,[561] the fool and the boy.

Abate[562] throw at novum, and the whole world again

Cannot prick out five such, take each one in’s vein.[563]

KINGThe ship is under sail and here she comes amain.[564]

Enter [Costard as] Pompey

565

COSTARDI Pompey am—

BEROWNEYou lie, you are not he.

COSTARDI Pompey am—

BOYETWith leopard’s head[568] on knee.

BEROWNEWell said, old mocker, I must needs[569] be friends with thee.

570

COSTARDI Pompey am, Pompey surnamed the Big—

DUMAINEThe ‘Great’.

COSTARDIt is ‘Great’, sir—

Pompey surnamed the Great,

That oft in field,

575

With targe[575] and shield,

Did make my foe to sweat.

And travelling along this coast,[577] I here am come by chance,

And lay my arms[578] before the legs of this sweet lass of France.—

If your ladyship would say, ‘Thanks Pompey’, I had done. To the Princess

580

PRINCESSGreat thanks, great Pompey.

COSTARD’Tis not so much worth, but I hope I was perfect.[581] I made a little fault in ‘ Great’.

BEROWNEMy[583] hat to a halfpenny, Pompey proves the best Worthy.

Enter Curate [Nathaniel] for Alexander

NATHANIELWhen in the world I lived, I was the world’s commander: By east, west, north and south, I spread my conquering might. My scutcheon[586] plain declares that I am Alisander—

BOYETYour nose says no, you are not, for it stands too right.[587]

BEROWNEYour[588] nose smells ‘no’ in this, most tender-smelling knight.

PRINCESSThe conqueror is dismayed.— Proceed, good Alexander.

NATHANIELWhen in the world I lived, I was the world’s commander—

BOYETMost true, ’tis right: you were so, Alisander.

BEROWNEPompey the Great—

COSTARDYour servant, and Costard.

BEROWNETake away the conqueror, take away Alisander.

COSTARDO, sir, you have overthrown Alisander the conqueror. To Nathaniel You will be scraped out of the painted cloth[596] for this. Your lion that holds his pole-axe sitting on a close-stool[597] will be given to Ajax. He will be the ninth Worthy. A conqueror and afraid to speak? Nathaniel steps back Run away for shame, Alisander. There, an’t shall please you, a foolish mild man, an honest man, look you, and soon dashed.[599] He is a marvellous good neighbour, in sooth, and a very good bowler. But for Alisander, alas, you see how ’tis — a little o’erparted.[601] But there are Worthies a-coming will speak their mind in some other sort.[602]

PRINCESSStand aside, good Pompey.

Exit [Costard]

Enter Pedant [Holofernes] for Judas and the boy [Moth] for Hercules

HOLOFERNESGreat Hercules is presented by this imp,[604]

605

Whose club killed Cerberus,[605] that three-headed canus,

And when he was a babe, a child, a shrimp,

Thus did he strangle serpents in his manus[607].

Quoniam[608] he seemeth in minority,

Ergo[609] I come with this apology.—

610

Keep some state[610] in thy exit, and vanish. To Moth

Exit boy [Moth]

Judas I am—

DUMAINEA Judas![612]

HOLOFERNESNot Iscariot,[613] sir.

Judas I am, ycliped[614] Maccabaeus.

615

DUMAINEJudas Maccabaeus clipped[615] is plain Judas.

BEROWNEA kissing traitor.[616] How art thou proved Judas?

HOLOFERNESJudas I am—

DUMAINEThe more shame for you, Judas.

HOLOFERNESWhat mean you,[619] sir?

620

BOYETTo make Judas hang himself.

HOLOFERNESBegin,[621] sir: you are my elder.

BEROWNEWell followed: Judas was hanged on an elder.

HOLOFERNESI will not be put[623] out of countenance.

BEROWNEBecause thou hast no face.

625

HOLOFERNESWhat is this? Pointing to his face

BOYETA cittern-head.[626]

DUMAINEThe head of a bodkin.[627]

BEROWNEA death’s[628] face in a ring.

LONGAVILLEThe face of an old Roman coin, scarce seen.[629]

630

BOYETThe pommel[630] of Caesar’s falchion.

DUMAINEThe carved-bone face on a flask.[631]

BEROWNESaint George’s half-cheek[632] in a brooch.

DUMAINEAy, and in a brooch[633] of lead.

BEROWNEAy, and worn in the cap of a tooth-drawer.

635

And now forward, for we have put[635] thee in countenance.

HOLOFERNESYou have put me out of countenance.

BEROWNEFalse, we have given thee faces.

HOLOFERNESBut you have out-faced them all.[638]

BEROWNEAn thou wert a lion,[639] we would do so.

640

BOYETTherefore, as he is an ass, let him go.

And so adieu, sweet Jude. Nay, why dost thou stay?

DUMAINEFor the latter end[642] of his name.

BEROWNEFor the ass to the Jude? Give it him: Jud-as, away!

HOLOFERNESThis is not generous,[644] not gentle, not humble.

645

BOYETA light[645] for Monsieur Judas! It grows dark, he may stumble. Holofernes steps back

PRINCESSAlas, poor Maccabaeus, how hath he been baited!

Enter Braggart [Armado as Hector]

BEROWNEHide thy head, Achilles.[647] Here comes Hector in arms.

DUMAINEThough my mocks come home by me,[648] I will now be merry.

KINGHector was but a Troyan[649] in respect of this.

650

BOYETBut is this Hector?

KINGI think Hector was not so clean-timbered.[651]

LONGAVILLEHis leg is too big for Hector.

DUMAINEMore calf,[653] certain.

BOYETNo, he is best endued[654] in the small.

655

BEROWNEThis cannot be Hector.

DUMAINEHe’s a god or a painter, for he makes[656] faces.

ARMADOThe armipotent[657] Mars, of lances the almighty,

Gave Hector a gift—

DUMAINEA gilt[659] nutmeg.

660

BEROWNEA lemon.

LONGAVILLEStuck with cloves.

DUMAINENo, cloven.[662]

ARMADOThe armipotent Mars, of lances the almighty

Gave Hector a gift, the heir of Ilion;[664]

665

A man so breathed[665] that certain he would fight, yea

From morn till night, out of his pavilion.[666]

I am that flower—

DUMAINEThat mint.

LONGAVILLEThat columbine.

670

ARMADOSweet Lord Longaville, rein[670] thy tongue.

LONGAVILLEI must rather give it the rein, for it runs against Hector.

DUMAINEAy, and Hector’s a greyhound.[672]

ARMADOThe sweet war-man[673] is dead and rotten. Sweet chucks, beat not the bones of the buried. When we breathed he was a man. But I will forward[674] with my device.[675] To the Princess Sweet royalty, bestow on me the sense of hearing.

[Costard] steps forth

PRINCESSSpeak, brave Hector: we are much delighted.

ARMADOI do adore thy sweet grace’s slipper.

BOYETLoves her by the foot.[678] Aside to Dumaine

DUMAINEHe may not by the yard.[679] Aside to Boyet

ARMADOThis Hector far surmounted Hannibal. The party is gone[681]—

COSTARDFellow Hector, she is gone.[682] She is two months on her way.

ARMADOWhat meanest thou?

COSTARDFaith, unless you play the honest Troyan, the poor wench is cast away:[684] she’s quick,[685] the child brags in her belly already. ’Tis yours.

ARMADODost thou infamonize[686] me among potentates? Thou shalt die.

COSTARDThen shall Hector be whipped for Jaquenetta that is quick[687] by him and hanged for Pompey[688] that is dead by him.

DUMAINEMost rare Pompey!

BOYETRenowned Pompey!

BEROWNEGreater than great, great, great, great Pompey! Pompey the Huge!

DUMAINEHector trembles.

BEROWNEPompey is moved. More Ates,[693] more Ates! Stir them, or stir them on!

DUMAINEHector will challenge him.[694]

BEROWNEAy, if a have[695] no more man’s blood in’s belly than will sup a flea.

ARMADOBy the north pole, I do challenge thee.

COSTARDI will not fight with a pole,[697] like a northern man; I’ll slash, I’ll do it by the sword. I pray you let me borrow[698] my arms again.

DUMAINERoom[699] for the incensed Worthies.

COSTARDI’ll do it in my shirt.

DUMAINEMost resolute Pompey!

MOTHMaster, let me take[702] you a buttonhole lower. To Armado Do you not see, Pompey is uncasing[703] for the combat. What mean you? You will lose your reputation.

ARMADOGentlemen and soldiers, pardon me. I will not combat in my shirt.

DUMAINEYou may not deny it. Pompey hath made the challenge.

ARMADOSweet bloods,[706] I both may and will.

BEROWNEWhat reason have you for’t?

ARMADOThe naked truth of it is, I have no shirt: I go woolward[708] for penance.

BOYETTrue, and it was enjoined[709] him in Rome for want of linen. Since when, I’ll be sworn he wore none but a dishclout[710] of Jaquenetta’s, and that he wears next his heart for a favour.[711]

Enter a Messenger, Monsieur Marcadé

MARCADÉGod save you, madam!

PRINCESSWelcome, Marcadé,

But that thou interrupt’st our merriment.

MARCADÉI am sorry, madam, for the news I bring is heavy in my tongue. The king your father—

PRINCESSDead, for my life!

MARCADÉEven so: my tale[718] is told.

BEROWNEWorthies, away! The scene begins to cloud.

ARMADOFor mine own part, I breathe free breath.[720] I have seen the day of wrong through the little hole of discretion, and I will right[721] myself like a soldier.

Exeunt Worthies

KINGHow fares your majesty?

PRINCESSBoyet, prepare. I will away tonight.

KINGMadam, not so. I do beseech you, stay.

725

PRINCESSPrepare, I say. I thank you, gracious lords,

For all your fair endeavours, and entreat

Out of a new-sad soul that you vouchsafe

In your rich wisdom to excuse or hide[728]

The liberal[729] opposition of our spirits.

730

If over-boldly we have borne ourselves

In the[731] converse of breath, your gentleness

Was guilty of[732] it. Farewell worthy lord!

A heavy heart bears not a nimble tongue.

Excuse me so,[734] coming too short of thanks

735

For my great suit so easily obtained.

KINGThe[736] extreme parts of time extremely forms

All causes to the purpose of his speed,

And often at his very loose[738] decides

That which long process[739] could not arbitrate.

740

And though the mourning[740] brow of progeny

Forbid[741] the smiling courtesy of love

The holy suit[742] which fain it would convince,

Yet, since love’s argument was first on foot,[743]

Let not the cloud of sorrow justle[744] it

745

From what it purposed: since to wail[745] friends lost

Is not by much so wholesome-profitable[746]

As to rejoice at friends but newly found.

PRINCESSI understand you not: my griefs are double.[748]

BEROWNEHonest plain words best pierce the ear of grief,

750

And by these badges[750] understand the king.

For your fair sakes have we neglected time,

Played foul play[752] with our oaths: your beauty, ladies,

Hath much deformed[753] us, fashioning our humours

Even to the opposed end[754] of our intents.

755

And what in us hath seemed ridiculous —

As love is full of unbefitting[756] strains,

All wanton[757] as a child, skipping and vain,

Formed by the eye and therefore, like the eye,

Full of straying[759] shapes, of habits and of forms,

760

Varying in subjects as the eye doth roll

To every varied object in his[761] glance:

Which parti-coated[762] presence of loose love

Put on[763] by us, if in your heavenly eyes

Have misbecomed[764] our oaths and gravities,

765

Those heavenly eyes, that look into these faults,

Suggested[766] us to make. Therefore, ladies,

Our love being yours, the error that love makes

Is likewise yours. We to ourselves prove false[768]

By being once false forever to be true[769]

770

To those that make us both[770] — fair ladies, you.

And even that falsehood, in itself a sin,

Thus purifies itself and turns to grace.

PRINCESSWe have received your letters full of love,

Your favours, the ambassadors of love,

775

And in our maiden council rated[775] them

At[776] courtship, pleasant jest and courtesy,

As bombast[777] and as lining to the time.

But more devout[778] than this in our respects

Have we not been, and therefore met[779] your loves

780

In their own fashion, like a merriment.

DUMAINEOur letters, madam, showed much more than jest.

LONGAVILLESo did our looks.

ROSALINEWe did not quote[783] them so.

KINGNow, at the latest minute of the hour,

785

Grant us your loves.

PRINCESSA time, methinks, too short

To make a world-without-end[787] bargain in.

No, no, my lord, your grace is perjured much,

Full of dear[789] guiltiness, and therefore this:

790

If for my love, as[790] there is no such cause,

You will do aught,[791] this shall you do for me:

Your oath I will not trust, but go with speed

To some forlorn[793] and naked hermitage,

Remote from all the pleasures of the world,

795

There stay until[795] the twelve celestial signs

Have brought about their annual reckoning.

If this austere insociable[797] life

Change not your offer made in heat of blood,

If frosts and fasts, hard lodging[799] and thin weeds

800

Nip[800] not the gaudy blossoms of your love,

But that it bear this trial and last[801] love,

Then at the expiration[802] of the year

Come challenge[803] me, challenge me by these deserts,

And, by this virgin palm now kissing thine, Gives him her hand

805

I will be thine. And till that instant shut

My woeful self up in a mourning house,

Raining the tears of lamentation

For the remembrance of my father’s death.

If this thou do deny, let our hands part,

810

Neither entitled[810] in the other’s heart.

KINGIf this, or more than this, I would deny,

To flatter up[812] these powers of mine with rest,

The[813] sudden hand of death close up mine eye!

Hence, hermit, then — my heart is in thy breast.

815

BEROWNE// And[815] what to me, my love? And what to me? //

ROSALINE// You must be purgèd too, your sins are rack’d: //

// You are attaint with faults and perjury. //

// Therefore, if you my favour mean to get, //

// A twelvemonth shall you spend and never rest, //

820

// But seek the weary beds of people sick. //

DUMAINEBut what to me, my love? But what to me?

KATHERINEA wife? A beard, fair health and honesty:

With three-fold love I wish you all these three.

DUMAINEO, shall I say ‘I thank you, gentle wife’?

825

KATHERINENot so, my lord. A twelvemonth and a day

I’ll mark no[826] words that smooth-faced wooers say.

Come when the king doth to my lady come,

Then if I have much love, I’ll give you some.

DUMAINEI’ll serve thee true and faithfully till then.

830

KATHERINEYet swear not, lest ye be forsworn again.

LONGAVILLEWhat says Maria?

MARIAAt the twelvemonth’s end

I’ll change my black gown for a faithful friend.[833]

LONGAVILLEI’ll stay[834] with patience, but the time is long.

835

MARIAThe liker[835] you, few taller are so young.

BEROWNEStudies[836] my lady? Mistress, look on me.

Behold the window of my heart, mine eye:

What humble suit attends[838] thy answer there

Impose some service on me for thy love

840

ROSALINEOft have I heard of you, my Lord Berowne,

Before I saw you, and the world’s[841] large tongue

Proclaims you for a man replete with[842] mocks,

Full of comparisons[843] and wounding flouts,

Which you on all estates[844] will execute

845

That lie within the mercy of your wit.

To weed[846] this wormwood from your fruitful brain,

And therewithal[847] to win me, if you please,

Without the which I am not to be won,

You shall this twelvemonth term[849] from day to day

850

Visit the speechless sick and still converse[850]

With groaning wretches, and your task shall be

With all the fierce[852] endeavour of your wit

To enforce[853] the painèd impotent to smile.

BEROWNETo move[854] wild laughter in the throat of death?

855

It cannot be, it is impossible:

Mirth cannot move a soul in agony.

ROSALINEWhy, that’s the way to choke a gibing[857] spirit,

Whose influence is begot of that loose grace[858]

Which shallow laughing hearers give to fools.

860

A jest’s prosperity[860] lies in the ear

Of him that hears it, never in the tongue

Of him that makes it. Then, if sickly ears,

Deafed[863] with the clamours of their own dear groans,

Will hear your idle scorns, continue then,

865

And I will have you and that fault withal.[865]

But if they will not, throw away that spirit,

And I shall find you empty of that fault,

Right joyful of your reformation.

BEROWNEA twelvemonth? Well, befall[869] what will befall,

870

I’ll jest a twelvemonth in an hospital.

PRINCESSAy, sweet my lord, and so I take my leave. To the King

KINGNo, madam, we will bring[872] you on your way.

BEROWNEOur wooing doth not end like an old play:

Jack hath not Jill. These ladies’ courtesy[874]

875

Might well have made our sport a comedy.

KINGCome, sir, it wants a twelvemonth and a day,

And then ’twill end.

BEROWNEThat’s too long for a play.

Enter Braggart [Armado]

ARMADOSweet majesty, vouchsafe me— To the King

PRINCESSWas not that Hector?

DUMAINEThe worthy knight of Troy.

ARMADOI will kiss thy royal finger and take leave. To the Princess I am a votary: I have vowed to Jaquenetta to hold the plough[883] for her sweet love three years.— To the King But, most esteemed greatness, will you hear the dialogue[884] that the two learnèd men have compiled in praise of the owl and the cuckoo? It should have followed in the end of our show.

KINGCall them forth quickly: we will do so.

ARMADOHolla! Approach.

Enter all [Holofernes, Nathaniel, Moth, Costard, Jaquenetta and others. They stand in two groups]

This side is Hiems, Winter. This Ver, the Spring. The one maintained[889] by the owl, th’other by the cuckoo. Ver, begin.

[THE SPRING GROUP sings] the song

When daisies pied[891] and violets blue

And cuckoo-buds of yellow hue

And lady-smocks[893] all silver-white

Do paint[894] the meadows with delight,

895

The cuckoo then on every tree

Mocks married men;[896] for thus sings he:

‘Cuckoo,

Cuckoo, cuckoo.’ O word of fear,

Unpleasing to a married ear.

900

When shepherds pipe on oaten straws[900]

And merry larks[901] are ploughmen’s clocks,

When turtles[902] tread, and rooks and daws,

And maidens bleach their summer smocks,

The cuckoo then, on every tree,

905

Mocks married men, for thus sings he:

‘Cuckoo,

Cuckoo, cuckoo.’ O word of fear,

Unpleasing to a married ear.

[THE WINTER GROUP sings]

When icicles hang by the wall

910

And Dick the shepherd blows his nail[910]

And Tom bears logs into the hall

And milk comes frozen home in pail,

When blood is nipped[913] and ways be foul,

Then nightly sings the staring owl:

915

‘Tu-whit, tu-whoo.’

A merry note,

While greasy[917] Joan doth keel the pot.

When all aloud the wind doth blow

And coughing drowns the parson’s saw[919]

920

And birds sit brooding[920] in the snow

And Marian’s nose looks red and raw,

When roasted crabs[922] hiss in the bowl,

Then nightly sings the staring owl:

‘Tu-whit, tu-whoo.’

925

A merry note,

While greasy Joan doth keel the pot.

ARMADOThe words of Mercury[927] are harsh after the songs of Apollo. You that way; we[928] this way.

Exeunt [separately]

Textual Notes

Q = First Quarto text of 1598

F = First Folio text of 1623

F2 = a correction introduced in the Second Folio text of 1632

Ed = a correction introduced by a later editor

SD = stage direction

SH = speech heading (i.e., speaker’s name)

// // probable authorial first thoughts that should have been cut from the early printed editions

List of parts = Ed

1.1.27 quite = Q. Not in F 62 feast = Ed. F = fast 72 and = F. Q = but 111 That were to = F. Not in Q gate = F. Q = little gate 112 sit = Q. F = fit 129 SH BEROWNE = Ed. F and Q continue speech to Longaville 131 court shall = F. Q = Court can 153 speak = Q. F = break 183 tharborough = F. Q = Farborough 237 continent = Q. F = Continent 246 keep = Q. F = keeper 258 SH KING = F (Fer.). Q = Ber. 274 until then, sit down = F. Q = till then sit thee downe sorrow

1.2.2 SH MOTH = Ed. F = Boy. (throughout) 3 SH ARMADO = Ed. F = Brag. or Bra. (throughout) 6 senor = Ed. F = signeur 9 epitheton = F2. F = apathaton 22 ingenious = Q. F = ingenuous 32 fits = F. Q = fitteth 38 call = F. Q = do call 70 maculate = Q. F = immaculate 76 blushing = F2. F = blush-in 95 let him take = F. Q = suffer him to take 100 SH JAQUENETTA = Ed. F = Maid. (throughout) 106 that = Q. F = what 111 SH COSTARD = F. Some eds reassign to DULL, ignoring his exit at line 98 113 SH COSTARD = Ed. F = Clo. (throughout) 117 SH ARMADO = Q. F = Clo. 125 to be too = Q. F = to be 131 Samson was = F. Q = was Sampson

2.1.13 SH PRINCESS = F2. F = Queen (F has a redundant “Prin.” at line 21) 45 parts = F. Q = peerelsse 54 SH MARIA = Ed. F = Lad.1 57 SH KATHERINE = Ed. F = 2. Lad. 61 he = Q. F = she 66 if = Q. F = as 81 SH MARIA = F. Q = Lord 90 unpeopled = F. Q = unpeeled 115 SH ROSALINE = F. This and next six speeches assigned to Kath. in Q 143 repaid = Q. F = repaie 145 On = Ed. F = One 170 would I = F. Q = I will 174 in = F. Q = within 177 fair = Q. F = farther 179 we shall = F. Q = shall we 182 SH BEROWNE = Q. This and next five speeches assigned to Boy[et] in F 185 fool = Q. F = soule 191 Non point = Ed. F = No poynt 196 Katherine = Ed. Q/F = Rosalin 211 Rosaline = Ed. Q/F = Katherine 214 You = F. Q = O you 221 SH MARIA = F. Q = Lady Ka. 222 SH BOYET = Q. Placed at next line in F 239 did = Q. F = doe 249 whence = F. Q = where 256 SH BOYET = Q. F = Bro.

3.1.1 SH ARMADO = Ed. F = Brag. or Bra. 7 master = Q. Not in F 8 your feet = F. F = the feete eyelids = Q. F = eie 10 through the nose = F2. F = through: nose 42 Thy = F. Q = The 57 O = Q. F = Or 64 sain = Q. F = faine 95 honours = F. Q = honor 100 One penny = Ed. F = i.d. 102 French = Q. F = a French 137 Signior Junior = Ed. F = signior Iunios 161 sue and = F2. F = shue

4.1.1 SH PRINCESS = F2. F = Qu. (throughout) 14 again = Q. F = then again 68 overcame = Ed. F = covercame 78 Armado = F2. F = Armatho 124 hit it = Ed. F = hit 131 pin = F2. F = is in 139 Armado o’th’t’other = Ed. F = Armathor ath to the side 143 SD Shout = F2. F = Shoote

4.2.3 SH HOLOFERNES = Ed. F = Ped. 9 auld grey doe = Ed. F = haud credo 22 of = Ed. Not in F 28 by = F. Q = me by 30 Dictynna = Ed. F = Dictisima 41 called I = Ed. F = call’d 53 SH HOLOFERNES = Ed. Q/F reverse speech headings of Holofernes and Nathaniel in this and their next seven speeches 55 pia mater = Ed. F = primater 61 ingenious = Ed. F = ingenuous 62 sapit = Ed (Q2). F = sapis 65 pierce-one = Ed. F = Person 72 Fauste = F2. F = Facile 76 loves thee not = Q. Not in F 81 SH NATHANIEL = Ed. Not in F 96 Here = Ed. (continuation of Holofernes’ speech). Q/F assign to Nath. 102 SH HOLOFERNES = Ed. Q/F = Nath. 104 writing = Ed. F = written 109 hand = F. Q = royal hand 113 SH NATHANIEL = Ed. F = Hol. 118 before = Q. F = being

4.3.75 of = F. Q = in 86 I = Ed. Not in F 95 ever = Q. F = every 135 One = Q. F = On 148 coaches = Ed. F = couches 161 tuning = F. Q = to tune 167 caudle = Q. F = candle 170 to…by = Ed. F = by…to 174 men like you, men = Ed. F = men, like men 216 show = Q. F = will shew 218 are = F. Q = were 249 wood = Ed. F = word 259 and = Ed. Not in F 361 authors = Ed. F = author 385 Allons! Allons! = Ed. F = Alone, alone

5.1.1 quod = Ed. F = quid 15 d, e, t = Ed. F = det 18 insanie = Ed. F = infamie 19 bone = Ed. F = bene 20 Bone? … ‘bene’ = Ed. F = Bome boon for boon 41 venue = Ed. F = vene we 47 manu = Ed. F = unum 64 choice = F2. F = chose 69 important = Ed. F = importunate 80 Nathaniel = Ed. F = Holofernes (Shakespeare confuses the names again) 86 Judas…Hector = Ed. F transposes order of phrases and omits Hector 104 Allons = Ed. F = Alone

5.2.46 not so = Q. Not in F 57 not wish = Q. F = wish 76 wantonness = F2. F = wantons be 81 is in = Q. F = in 142 mocking = F. Q = mockerie 151 her = Ed. F = his 152 speaker’s = Q. F = Keepers 181 princess spelled Princes in F 188 you on the = F. Q = her on this 213 vouchsafe but = F. Q = do but vouchsafe 254 Take you that = F. Q = Take that 257 SH KATHERINE = Ed. F = Mari. or Mar. (throughout this exchange) 335 pecks = Q. F = picks 336 Jove = F. Q = God 344 kissed…hand = F. Q = kist his hand, a way 354 due = Q. F = dutie 370 men’s = Q. F = men 372 unsullied = F2. F = unsallied 389 Russian = Q. F = Russia 394 Fair gentle = F2. F = Gentle 407 was = Q. F = what 411 are = F. Q = were 429 affectation = Ed. F = affection 457 you not = F. Q = not you 509 manage = Ed. F = manager 539 least = F. Q = best 542 There = Ed. F = Their 563 prick = F. Q = picke 580 SH PRINCESS = F2. F = La. 652 Hector = F. Q = Hectors 674 When…man = Q. Not in F 675 SD Costard = Ed. F = Berowne (probably error for Clowne, who is about to confront Armado over Jaquenetta’s pregnancy) 680–1 set as SD in F 698 pray = F. Q = bepray 713 SH PRINCESS = F2. F = Qu. (throughout rest of scene) 726 entreat = Q. F = entreats 733 nimble = Ed. F = humble 734 too = Q. F = so 749 ear = Q. F = ears 778 this in our = Ed. F = these are our. Q = this our 814 hermit = Ed. F = euer. Q = herrite 839 thy = Q. F = my 883 years = F. Q = yeere 927 SH ARMADO = F. Not in Q, where the Mercury/Apollo speech is set in large type with no speaker You that way = F. Not in Q

Design for a knot-garden: there is an elegant analogy between the symmetrical formality of Elizabethan garden design and the patterns of repetition and variation in rhetorically ornamented speech, so it is fitting that a “curious-knotted garden” (see Armado’s letter, as quoted by the King at 1.1.226) is a key location in this most verbally elaborate of Shakespeare’s comedies.

Act 1 Scene 1

List of parts: BEROWNE in Act 4 scene 3 rhymes with “moon”    MOTH probably pronounced “mott”; some editors modernize to “Mote”    JAQUENETTA perhaps pronounced “Jake-netta,” suggestive of “jakes” (privy, toilet)

1.1    Location: Navarre, in the king’s park. This is the location for the entire play Ferdinand in fact, the King of Navarre at the time of the play’s composition was Henri    Berowne, Longaville the Duc de Berowne and the Duc de Longueville both fought for King Henri    Dumaine perhaps based on Charles de Lorraine, Duc de Mayenne, and initially King Henri’s opponent

1    fame renown

2    registered recorded    brazen brass-plated, enduring (plays on sense of “shameless”)

3    grace honor    disgrace disfigurement/shame

4    spite in spite    cormorant i.e., ravenous (literally, a greedy seabird)

5    breath i.e., life/speech

6    bate abate, blunt    his i.e., time’s    keen sharp/eager

9    affections passions

11    late recent    in force i.e., be binding

12    Navarre the place/the king

13    academe institution of learning (originally Plato’s academy near Athens)

14    Still…in calmly, constantly studying    contemplative in meditating on    living art the art of living/vitality within scholarship

16    term period of time

17    keep observe

18    schedule document/list

19    passed pledged    subscribe sign

20    hand sword/handwriting

21    branch clause

22    armed prepared (plays on sense of “carrying weapons”)

23    deep solemn    it subscription (to the oath)

25    pine starve, languish

26    pates heads (i.e., wits)    dainty bits choice morsels of food

28    mortified dead to worldly pleasures

29    grosser coarser, earthier

30    gross whole/coarse    baser slaves those subject to inferior pleasures

32    in according to the tenets of/by the study of

33    say…over repeat their vows

36    observances requirements

37    As such as

38    enrollèd written

43    wink close one’s eyes/sleep

44    wont accustomed    think no harm i.e., sleep

49    pass away from renounce

50    an if if

52    space duration

54    By…nay a common oath

55    end aim

57    common sense ordinary understanding

58    recompense reward

59    Come on quibbles on    common

65    too hard-a-keeping oath an oath too hard to keep

66    troth faith

70    stops impediments    quite completely

71    train entice    vain foolish, trifling, self-gratifying

73    pain effort, suffering, labor    purchased acquired    inherit bring about more

74    As for example

75    the while in the meantime

76    falsely treacherously    his look its sight

77    Light i.e., eyes, thought to produce the beams of light by which they saw    light intellectual enlightenment    light…beguile the eyes are cheated out of enlightenment (by excessive study)

78    ere before    darkness intellectual obscurity

80    Study me let me learn

81    fairer more beautiful (plays on sense of “lighter”)

82    dazzling blinding (my eyes)    that eye i.e., of the    fairer woman    heed focus of attention/guardian

85    saucy insolent

86    Small little

87    Save except    base lowly, second-hand

88    godfathers…lights astronomers who name the stars, as godparents name children at baptism

90    profit of benefit from    shining i.e., starlit

91    wot know    they the stars/the walkers

92    Too…fame an excess of knowledge brings only a vainglorious reputation

93    every godfather i.e., any ordinary person

95    Proceeded argued (plays on sense of “taking a university degree”)    proceeding intellectual advancement

96    weeds pulls up    lets…weeding allows the weeds to flourish

97    green geese innocent simpletons/geese fed on grass

99    Fit in his in a manner appropriate to its

100    In reason nothing i.e., it doesn’t follow logically

101    rhyme i.e., the opposite of    reason

102    envious malicious    sneaping biting/nipping (rhyme puns on “rime”—i.e., frost)

103    first-born infants youngest plants

104    proud glorious/arrogant

106    abortive premature, unnatural

108    new-fangled shows newly created, elaborate displays (of flowers)

109    like of I delight in    in season i.e., at its proper time

110    too late i.e., in life

111    climb…gate i.e., pointless

112    sit you out don’t take part

114    barbarism uncivilized ignorance

117    bide endure    three years’ day day of three years

126    Marry by the Virgin Mary

128    hence away from here    dread dreadful/frightening

129    gentility civilized behavior

133    article clause

134    in embassy as an ambassador

136    complete perfect

137    Aquitaine area of southwest France

140    vainly pointlessly

142    overshot wide of the mark (i.e., mistaken)

143    would wants

146    towns…lost i.e., a town that is burnt down as part of a military campaign is no gain at all

147    force necessity

148    lie lodge on    mere out of absolute

149    forsworn perjured, oath-breakers

151    affects passions, desires

152    might personal strength    grace divine favor

153    word phrase

155    at large as a whole

157    in attainder accused/convicted

158    Suggestions…me I am as susceptible to temptation as any man

160    the…oath the last one to swear, but the one who will keep his word the longest/the least likely to keep my oath the longest

161    quick lively

162    haunted With frequented by

164    in…planted involved in whatever is fashionable

165    mint creative source/wealth (literally, place where money is coined)

168    compliments accomplishments, courtesy

169    mutiny discord

170    child of fancy flamboyant, fanciful creature    hight is called

171    For interim as an interval

172    high-born noble/lofty

173    tawny browned (by sun)    debate strife

174    delight take pleasure

176    for my minstrelsy as my minstrel (i.e., musician, entertainer)

177    wight person

179    Costard literally “large apple”; slang for “head”    swain low-ranking man/rustic    he i.e., Armado    sport entertainment

181    duke’s i.e., king’s

183    reprehend malapropism for “represent”    tharborough thirdborough (i.e., parish constable)

186    commends you commends himself to you (i.e., greets you respectfully)    abroad at large

188    contempts malapropism for “contents”    touching concerning

189    magnificent ostentatious/splendid (joking allusion to the 1588 Spanish Armada, often referred to as “magnificent”)

190    How…matter however debased the content    high lofty

191    high hope great expectation    low heaven i.e., small blessing

192    forbear refrain from

194    be it let it be    style puns on “stile” to    climb

195    to about    manner nature, way it is expressed

196    taken…manner caught in the act/with the stolen goods

198    In…following a commonly used legal phrase    those three i.e., words (manner, form, following; punned on in the ensuing explanation)

199    form bench

200    park enclosed land used for hunting

201    manner custom, nature

204    correction punishment    God…right a formal prayer said before trial by combat

207    simplicity stupidity/simple nature

208    welkin’s heavens’    vicegerent deputy    dominator ruler

209    fostering supporting

212    but so merely so-so, not saying much

214    Be i.e.,    peace be extended to

216    Of…secrets Costard again extends the meaning of the king’s words

217    sable-coloured black commend commit

218    black oppressing humour i.e., melancholy    humour mood (one of the four bodily “humours” that governed the disposition)    physic medicine

219    as I am on my word as

222    ycleped called

223    obscene repulsive

224    preposterous improper, perverse    snow-white pen i.e., goose quill    ebon-coloured black

226    curious-knotted with intricately designed flower beds

227    low-spirited base    minnow…mirth laughable, insignificant object

230    unlettered illiterate

232    vassal wretch

236    Sorted associated    consorted accompanied

237    continent canon law enforcing (especially sexual) restraint    passion grieve    wherewith with what

238    wherewith with what

241    pricks spurs (may pun on sense of “penis”)

242    meed reward

243    carriage behavior    estimation reputation

244    an’t if it

245    weaker vessel i.e., woman

246    keep retain (may play on sense of “keep as a mistress”)

247    least…notice slightest notification    trial probably plays on sense of “sexual test”

249    looked for expected

250    for i.e., example of    sirrah sir (used to an inferior)

251    confess admit to having been involved with

253    marking of paying attention to

258    so varied expressed equivocally

260    maid i.e., use of the word    maid serve your turn get you out of trouble (Costard plays on the sense of “gratify me sexually”)

264    pray plays on sense of “have sex”    mutton and porridge mutton soup (mutton plays on the sense of “prostitute” and porridge on the sense of “sex/genitalia”)

266    delivered o’er handed over

269    lay wager    goodman title for someone below the rank of gentleman

270    idle worthless (matter for)

273    true honest, chaste, good    prosperity malapropism for “adversity”

274    Affliction Costard means “prosperity”    sit down i.e., be patient

Act 1 Scene 2

1.2    Moth winged insect (puns on the similarly pronounced “mote”—i.e., dust speck; possible pun on mot, the French for “word”)

1    sign is it is it a sign of

3    imp sapling/child

5    part distinguish between    tender youthful, inexperienced    juvenal youth (plays on the name of the Roman satirist Juvenal)

6    familiar easily comprehended    working operation (of the emotions)

9    congruent epitheton fitting epithet    appertaining relating

10    nominate name

11    appertinent appropriate

13    Pretty neat, ingenious, fine-looking

16    pretty, because little proverbial

18    quick quick-witted

20    condign well-deserved

23    quick speedy

24    heat’st my blood make me angry

26    crossed contradicted

27    mere absolute    crosses coins (sometimes stamped with a cross)

28    duke i.e., the king

31    told counted

32    ill not good    reckoning calculation    tapster barman, tavern-keeper

33    gamester gambler/merry person/lewd person

34    complete accomplished

35    deuce-ace a (poor) throw of two and one in dice

38    vulgar common people

40    piece masterpiece/example

42    dancing horse probably refers to Morocco, a trained horse performing in 1590s London that could beat out numbers with its hoof

43    figure figure of speech/numeral

44    cipher zero

45    base unbefitting (sense then shifts to “low-born”)

46    humour of affection disposition to love

47    reprobate corrupt

48    new-devised curtsy newly invented (fashionable) bow    think scorn disdain

49    outswear overcome by swearing/swear to do without    Cupid Roman god of love

51    Hercules mythological Greek hero

53    carriage demeanor/bearing

54    Samson famously strong biblical character    carriage plays on the sense of “carrying ability”    he…porter Samson carried off the gates of Gaza (Judges 16:3)

56    well-knit well-constructed    rapier long, thin sword

60    complexion disposition/skin color

61    Of…four refers to the four humors (blood, phlegm, choler, and melancholy) thought to determine temperament

63    sea-water green refers to greensickness, an anemic condition affecting young women

66    Green i.e., because associated with spring and youthfulness

67    affected loved    wit intelligence

68    green immature

70    maculate spotted, polluted    colours plays on sense of “pretexts”

71    Define explain

73    pathetical moving

74    she…of her complexion is (made puns on “maid” as well as possibly suggesting cosmetic artifice)

79    this i.e., her complexion

80    still always

81    native naturally    owe own

82    A…red i.e., a warning against real or cosmetic red and white complexions; plays on the familiar opposition between rhyme and reason

83    ballad…Beggar probably that relating the tale of King Cophetua, who fell in love with a beggar maid

84    ages since generations ago

85    serve be acceptable

87    example justify/provide an example of    digression transgression

89    rational hind rustic capable of reason

90    whipped a punishment for prostitutes    yet yet she deserves

91    heavy sad

92    light not heavy/promiscuous    Clown rustic

96    penance malapropism for “pleasure”    For as for

97    for the dey-woman to serve the dairy woman

101    lodge hunting lodge/gamekeeper’s cottage

102    hereby nearby

106    With that face? i.e., Really?/You don’t say? (tell may pun on the sense of “count,” so that the face would be that of a clock)

112    Villain rascal/peasant/servant

113    full stomach full of food/courageously

115    bound obliged    fellows servants    but lightly little (plays on opposite of heavily)

119    pent up imprisoned/constipated    loose free/loose in the bowels

120    fast and loose cheating    shalt to shall go to

121    desolation malapropism, perhaps for “consolation”

125    silent perhaps an error for “free”

126    little error for “much” (or patience is an error for its opposite)

127    affect love

128    be forsworn break my oath

129    argument proof

130    familiar attendant evil spirit

131    Solomon biblical king known for his wisdom and love of women

132    butt-shaft unbarbed arrow used for target practice

133    too much odds at too great an advantage    first…cause refers to the codes of dueling practice

134    turn purpose    passado forward thrust with one foot advanced    duello established dueling code

136    manager master/user

137    extemporal…rhyme god of improvised poetry    turn sonnet become a sonneteer

138    for for producing folio large-format book

Act 2 Scene 1

2.1    Princess of France possible parallel in Marguerite de Valois, who married Henri of Navarre

1    dearest most valuable/strongest    spirits energies/thoughts

3    embassy message

5    parley speak/negotiate    inheritor owner

6    owe own

7    Matchless unrivaled (may pun on the king’s unmarried status)    plea claim

9    prodigal of lavish with    dear precious, beloved

10    dear costly

11    starve i.e., deprive of    graces beside i.e., apart from yourself

13    mean meager/moderate

16    uttered offered for sale/spoken    chapmen’s merchants’/pedlars’

17    tell speak of/reckon up

18    much greatly    counted accounted

19    spending wasting/paying out

20    task set a task for/take to task    tasker he who sets a task

21    ignorant unaware that    fame rumor

22    noise abroad broadcast

23    painful laborious/diligent

25    to’s seemeth it it seems to us needful necessary

27    pleasure wishes that behalf regard to that

28    Bold confident    single select

29    best-moving most persuasive    fair just/plausible/flattering    solicitor advocate

32    Importunes begs for conference conversation

33    attend wait

35    Proud of honored by    willingly puns on will in the previous line

36    pride the princess shifts the sense to “arrogance, vanity”

37    votaries those bound by a vow

42    Perigort Perigord is a district in southwest France    heir heiress

44    Normandy region of northern France

45    sovereign parts excellent qualities

46    fitted equipped    arts scholarship    arms warfare

47    Nothing…well whatever he wants to do well he does well, and it suits him

48    soil blemish    gloss luster

50    blunt a will i.e., unfeeling readiness to use his wit

51    still continually

52    his its

53    belike most likely

54    humours moods

58    Of by    for virtue for his virtue

59    least knowing ill though he is ignorant of evil

60    wit…good such intelligence that he could make something bad seem good

61    shape the appearance    though even if

62    Duke Alençon King Henri III of France’s younger brother, who unsuccessfully courted Queen Elizabeth around 1580

63    much…worthiness my report of him is inadequate compared to the worth I saw in him

68    becoming appropriate

69    withal with

70    begets creates    occasion opportunities

71    catch i.e., see

72    mirth-moving laughter-provoking

73    conceit’s expositor the expounder of witty ideas

75    play truant at abandon their duties in order to listen to

77    voluble fluent

80    bedecking adorning

82    admittance reception

84    competitors partners/rivals

85    addressed prepared

87    lodge entertain/encamp    field open land/battleground

90    unpeopled inadequately staffed

93    roof…court i.e., the sky

99    by my will willingly

100    will desire

103    Where whereas

104    sworn out house-keeping renounced hospitality

108    beseemeth suits

109    Vouchsafe agree

110    suddenly immediately    resolve…suit answer my request

112    that…away in order to make me leave

114    Brabant in the Low Countries

118    quick impatient, sharp

119    long on account

120    hot eager, hasty

121    mire bog

122    day time is it

124    mask worn by ladies to protect the complexion from the sun

125    fall befall

127    so provided that

129    intimate refer to/imply

132    Disbursèd paid out    his i.e., the King of France’s

133    he Navarre’s father    as neither have which neither of us has

135    in surety as guarantee

136    bound contracted

137    valued to of the same value as

138    restore repay

139    unsatisfied unpaid

142    little purposeth scarcely intends

143    demand…repaid legally claims back/insists he has already paid

144    not…crowns does not even request, on payment of the rest of the money

146    have…in regain his entitlement to

147    depart withal part with

149    gelded weakened (literally, castrated)

152    A…reason me compromise even against reason

156    unseeming not seeming

161    arrest take you at    word utterance/promise

162    acquittances documents confirming payment of a debt

164    his i.e., the King of Navarre’s

165    Satisfy me so provide me with this

167    specialties sealed contracts

170    liberal reason reasonable terms

172    breach of honour i.e., breaking the oath

173    Make tender of offer

175    without outside

176    As that

178    Your may your

180    consort attend

181    Thy…place! I wish you the same wherever you may be!

183    do my commendations give it my greetings

185    fool poor thing

187    let it blood bleed it

189    physic medical knowledge

190    eye gaze (puns on ay)

191    Non point “not at all” (French), perhaps also suggesting “no penis” (picking up on prick)

194    stay thanksgiving remain to express thanks

196    Katherine Shakespeare confused the names and wrote “Rosaline” here: editors and directors must emend for clarity of coupling

197    gallant fine-looking

200    light…light wanton when her behavior is known

201    desire want to have

207    choler anger

209    unlike unlikely

211    Rosaline Shakespeare confused the names and wrote “Katherine” here: editors and directors must emend for clarity of coupling    hap chance, fortune

213    so something like that

215    welcome to you you are welcome to go

219    take…word accept what he says/take him on at his own word games

220    grapple contend with, seize (literally, attach one’s ship to another vessel)    board accost (literally, climb aboard another ship)

221    hot fiery, ardent    sheeps puns on ships

224    pasture puns on “pastor” (i.e., shepherd)

225    So as long as

227    common common ground (available to all sheep/men)    several private land/more than one/parted

230    jangling squabbling    gentles gentlefolk

231    civil domestic/polite

232    bookmen scholars    abused misapplied

234    By about    still silent

237    affected being in love

239    did…retire retreated

240    court royal dwelling (puns on sense of “courtship”)    thorough through

241    agate precious stone often carved with tiny figures    print image    impressed stamped/affected

242    Proud made proud/swollen    his form i.e., the princess’ image

243    all…see frustrated at only being able to speak rather than gaze

245    that sense i.e., eyesight    make their repair go

248    crystal under crystal glass

249    Who, tend’ring which, offering    glassed encased in glass

250    point direct, invite

251    margin i.e., like that of a page, which often carried additional notes    quote display

254    An if

255    pavilion ceremonial tent    disposed inclined (to be merry)

256    But only

261    Venus goddess of love, mother of Cupid    father i.e., Boyet, as    Cupid’s grandfather grim ugly

262    mad excitable

266    hard tough (to outwit)

Act 3 Scene 1

2    Concolinel presumably the title of Moth’s song, perhaps of Irish or French origin

3    air tune    enlargement freedom

4    festinately speedily

5    brawl French dance

6    Brawling quarreling

7    jig…tune sing the tune of a jig    canary i.e., dance (name of a lively dance)

8    humour adapt (yourself) to/indulge

11    penthouse-like like a roof projecting over a shop

12    thin-belly doublet unpadded lower part of a close-fitting jacket

13    after in the style of    snip and away snatch before moving on to the next

14    compliments gentlemanly accomplishments    humours whims    betray seduce/mislead    nice coy/capricious/lecherous

15    note reputation (plays on the sense of “musical note”)    note pay attention

16    men possibly addressed to the men in the audience    affected inclined

17    purchased acquired

20    ‘The…forgot’ probably lines from a popular song, now lost

21    hobby-horse false or toy horse/prostitute

22    colt young horse/lascivious person

23    hackney horse for hire/whore

27    prove demonstrate (sense then shifts to “turn out to be”)

30    come by possess

32    out of heart discouraged

35    me for me

36    sympathized suited

38    slow-gaited slow-moving

42    ingenious clever one

43    Minime by no means (Latin)

50    Thump i.e., noise of a    cannon going off

51    acute clever    free of grace liberal with charm

52    welkin sky, heaven

53    gives thee place yields its place to you

55    costard apple/head

56    l’envoy postscript (i.e., explanation)

57    egma Costard’s mistake for “enigma” (which he seems to think, along with riddle and l’envoy, means some type of remedy)    salve healing ointment    mail (medicine) bag    plantain medicinal herb

59    By virtue mild oath    silly foolish    spleen laughter

60    ridiculous derisive

61    inconsiderate thoughtless, idiotic    salve Latin for “hail, greetings” (the opposite of l’envoy)

64    precedence something said before    tofore earlier    sain said

66    humble-bee bumblebee

67    still always    at odds quarreling/of an uneven number

69    Staying the odds ending the quarrel/making the number even    adding four making up the fourth

70    l’envoy…goose oie is French for “goose” and the final sound of envoy

71    sold…bargain i.e., made a fool of him (proverbial)    flat obvious

72    good i.e., well-spent    an if

73    fast and loose cheating

75    argument discussion

80    ended the market refers to “Three women and a goose make a market” (proverbial)

82    sensibly with common sense/feelingly

83    feeling sense of the pain

85    threshold doorway

87    matter pus

88    enfranchise liberate (Costard hears as “en-Frances”—i.e., “give you a Frances”)

89    Frances typical name for a prostitute    goose prostitute (slang)

91    immured confined

92    purgation purger of guilt/laxative    let me loose free me/loosen my bowels

93    from durance free from imprisonment    lieu exchange

94    significant sign

95    remuneration payment    ward protection

96    dependants servants

97    sequel that which follows (recalls the l’envoy joke)

98    incony fine    Jew affectionate term; possible pun on    juvenal or diminutive of “jewel”

99    farthings coins worth quarter of a penny

100    inkle kind of linen tape

101    carries it wins the day

102    French crown coin/bald head caused by syphilis, the “French disease”    out of without using

104    carnation flesh-colored

107    halfpenny farthing i.e., three farthings, three quarters of a penny

110    slave rascal/fellow

111    good my knave my good fellow

118    villain rascal/fellow

123    train entourage

126    commend entrust

127    counsel private communication    guerdon reward

128    Gardon anglicized version of guerdon

129    better i.e., the shilling (twelvepence) is eleven and a quarter pence better than his previous reward    in print to the letter

132    beadle parish officer responsible for whipping minor offenders    humorous moody

134    pedant schoolmaster

135    Than compared with    magnificent proud

136    wimpled blindfolded    purblind completely blind

138    Regent ruler

141    Dread revered

142    imperator emperor

143    paritors those who summoned offenders to ecclesiastical courts

144    corporal…field Cupid’s field officer

145    colours insignia    tumbler’s hoop acrobat’s ribboned hoop

146    sue pay court

147    German clock i.e., elaborate, likely to go wrong

148    Still a-repairing always in need of repair    frame order

149    going aright keeping time/behaving well

150    But being unless it is

153    whitely pale    wanton willful one    brow forehead

154    pitch-balls balls as black as pitch (tar-like substance)

155    deed i.e., sex

156    Though even if    Argus monster with a hundred eyes    eunuch castrated male (i.e., guard)

157    watch be unable to sleep

158    Go to expression of impatient dismissal

159    neglect disregard

162    my…Joan i.e., a worthy versus a lowly woman

Act 4 Scene 1

4    a was, a he was, he    mounting climbing/aspiring

5    dispatch dismissal

9    coppice thicket

10    stand hunter’s position

12    fairest most favorable/beautiful

14    again in response

17    paint flatter

18    fair beauty    brow appearance

19    good my glass my good mirror

21    inherit possess

22    merit its intrinsic worth/reward/good deeds

23    in fair regarding beauty

24    giving…praise proverbial: “the giving hand is fair”

25    mercy i.e., the princess

26    then i. e., when the princess hunts, because she is merciful

27    credit reputation

28    Not…do’t i.e., if she fails to hit a deer, she can claim it was out of pity

31    out of without

32    Glory the desire to for glory/boastful spirit

33    outward part superficial attribute

35    As just as

36    my…ill means me no harm/toward whom I do not essentially mean harm

37    curst shrewish    self-sovereignty self-discipline

42    member…commonwealth ordinary person

43    God dig-you-den God give you good evening (i.e., any time after noon)

44    heads may pun on “maidenheads”

46    thickest fattest

54    carve cut up/make courteous gestures

55    Break up cut up    capon chicken (i.e., love letter)

57    is mistook has been delivered to the wrong person    importeth concerns

60    neck…wax i.e., wax seal (recalls wringing the neck of a capon)    give ear listen

61    infallible certain

63    commiseration pity    vassal servant/slave

64    illustrate illustrious, renowned    pernicious wicked (possibly Armado’s error for “penurious”)

65    indubitate undoubted    Veni, vidi, vici “I came, I saw, I conquered” (Latin), Julius Caesar’s famous phrase

66    annothanize explain; perhaps a fusion of “anatomize” and “annotate”    vulgar vernacular

67    videlicet “namely” (Latin)    see saw    overcame conquered; possibly goes on to assume sexual connotations

71    catastrophe conclusion

73    lowliness poverty, low status

75    tittles insignificant particles

76    expecting awaiting    profane desecrate

77    thy picture (mental) image    dearest…industry most heartfelt intention of industrious gallantry

79    Nemean lion slain by Hercules as the first of his twelve labors

81    Submissive fall if you fall submissively

82    forage hunting

83    strive resist

84    repasture food

85    plume of feathers showy idiot    indited composed

86    vane weathervane (i.e., changeable)

87    but I if I do not

88    Else otherwise    going o’er reading/climbing over (generating a pun on style/stile)    erewhile a short time ago

89    keeps lodges

90    phantasime one full of fantasies    Monarcho nickname of a pretentious Italian who frequented the Elizabethan court

91    To for    book-mates fellow students

100    mistaken wrongly delivered

101    up away    thine i.e., your turn

102    shooter archer, i.e., who is to shoot next (puns on “suitor”)

104    continent container

106    put off evaded

107    horns i.e., deer

108    horns i.e., cuckold’s horns (which supposedly grew on the head of a man with an unfaithful wife)    miscarry are scarce

109    put on hit

111    deer puns on “dear”

112    If…near i.e., not you; Rosaline dismisses Boyet either because he has a cuckold’s horns or lacks the (suggestively phallic) horns of a mature deer

114    strikes…brow takes aim at the deer’s head/accuses you of cuckoldry

115    lower i.e., in the heart/genitals hit    her scored wittily/sexually

116    come upon answer (perhaps with sexual connotations)    a man i.e., old    King Pepin eighth-century king

117    hit it name of a popular song and dance (plays on sense of “sex”)

118    Queen Guinevere wife of King Arthur, who was unfaithful to her husband

123    An if

124    fit it unite lyrics and meter (plays on sense of “have sex”)

125    mark target

126    mark but only take note of

127    mark target/female genitals    prick bull’s-eye/penis    mete aim (puns on “mate”)

128    Wide o’th’bow hand wide of the mark on the left side (bow plays on sense of “vagina”)    out inaccurate/out of practice

129    shoot plays on sense of “ejaculate”    clout cloth patch at the center of the target (plays on sense of “vulva”)

130    out i.e., of practice    in archery/sexually in i.e., in practice

131    upshoot best shot/ejaculation    cleaving the pin splitting the peg at the center of the target/stimulating his penis

133    hard good/sexually impenetrable    pricks archery targets/penises    bowl play at bowls (possible play on “masturbate you”)

134    rubbing of the bowling ball against impediments/masturbatory friction owl “to take owl” was to take offense; pronounced to rhyme with bowl it puns on “hole” (vagina)

135    clown rustic

137    incony fine, pronounced “incunny,” perhaps punning on “coney”/French con (“cunt”)    vulgar common, probably Costard’s mistake for the opposite

138    obscenely malapropism, perhaps for “seemly,” appropriate for the preceding dialogue; there may also be innuendo in comes so smoothly off and so fit

139    dainty fastidious/elegant

143    pathetical nit touching little fellow

144    Sola a hunting cry

Act 4 Scene 2

4.2    pedant schoolteacher

1    reverend worth respect    in the testimony with the warrant

3    sanguis, in blood in finest condition    pomewater large juicy apple

4    now at one moment

5    anon at the next moment    crab crab apple

6    at the least to say the least

7    buck…head five-year-old male deer (i.e., having just grown antlers)

8    haud credo “I do not believe it” (Latin; Dull understands something like “old gray doe”)

9    pricket two-year-old male deer

10    intimation intrusion    insinuation introduction

11    explication detailed description    facere to make (Holofernes sprinkles his speech with Latin terms)    replication reply

12    after in keeping with    undressed unkempt

13    untrained uninstructed/poorly managed horticulturally    unlettered illiterate ratherest most of all    unconfirmed inexperienced/ignorant    insert introduce/substitute intrusively

16    Twice-sod doubly boiled    bis coctus “twice cooked”

18    of on

19    eat eaten

20    sensible capable of perception

22    Which as    feeling sensitivity

23    fructify bear fruit

25    So…learning it would be like trying to educate a fool/clumsily patching learning’s fabric

26    omne bene “all is well”    of…mind in agreement with one of the Church Fathers (early Christian authorities)

27    Many…wind i.e., one has to put up with what one can’t change    brook endure

29    Cain’s birth i.e., at the beginning of creation (Cain was Adam and Eve’s son)

30    Dictynna one of the names of the Roman moon goddess    goodman title for someone below the rank of gentleman

32    Phoebe, to Luna other names for the moon goddess

33    no more no older

34    raught reached    fivescore one hundred (five times twenty)

35    Th’allusion…exchange the riddle remains valid even if one substitutes Cain’s name for Adam’s

36    collusion verbal trick (unwittingly correct as this is a malapropism for allusion)

37    comfort help    capacity mental ability

38    pollution corruption (of what he has said); another malapropism for allusion

40    extemporal improvised

42    Perge “proceed”    abrogate scurrility do away with coarse language

44    something…letter make some use of alliteration    argues facility demonstrates linguistic fluency

45    preyful killing much prey/intent on hunting/sexually hungry    pricket two-year-old male deer, with play on “penis”

46    say say it was    sore four-year-old male deer, with play on “vulva”    sore wounded, with play on “sexually infected”    shooting being shot at/ejaculating

47    ‘L’ sound of the dogs’ yelling/letter “L”    sorrel three-year-old male deer/L added to sore/sore penis (an “ell” was a measure of length and euphemism for “penis”)    thicket plays on sense of vagina/pubic hair

48    Or…sorrel i.e., whatever kind of deer it was    fall a-hooting begin calling out

49    sore be sore the deer is wounded    fifty sores L is the Roman numeral for fifty; the sores in this sequence also carry connotations of sexual disease    o’ out of

50    Of…‘L’ adding another “L” (fifty) makes one hundred deer    more ‘L’ possible pun on “moral” (hidden meaning)

52    talent alternative spelling for “talon”    claws scratches/flatters

53    HOLOFERNES in the following sequence Shakespeare seems to have muddled the names of the schoolmaster and the curate, leading the early editions to assign the speeches incorrectly; all editions, including this one, correct for clarity    foolish simple/trifling

54    forms images    figures rhetorical devices    apprehensions conceptions    motions inward promptings    revolutions reflections

55    begot conceived    ventricle brain cavity    pia mater membrane covering the brain/brain

56    upon…occasion when the time is right

59    profit benefit/increase (due to pregnancy)    under you under your teaching/underneath you (sexually)

61    Mehercle “by Hercules”    ingenious clever/intelligent    want lack

62    capable able to learn/have sex    put…them with sexual connotations    vir…loquitur “he’s a wise man who says little” (proverbial)

63    soul feminine i.e., woman

64    Person parson (rustic pronounciation)

65    quasi “as if”

67    likest most like    hogshead large cask for drink

68    Of…hogshead broaching a cask/getting drunk    lustre of conceit spark of wit    turf of earth i.e., person close to the soil

72    Fauste…ruminat “Faustus, while all the cattle are chewing the cud in the cool shade, I pray    you…” (opening of the poet Mantuan’s first eclogue, a well-known work at the time)

74    Venetia…pretia “Venice, he that does not see thee does not esteem thee” (Italian proverb)

77    Ut…fa either notes of a scale or snatch of tune    Under pardon begging your pardon    Horace Latin poet of the first century BC

80    staff stanza    Lege, domine “read, master”

84    oaks i.e., firm    osiers pliant willows

85    Study…book i.e., the student abandons his inclination and makes your eyes his subject for study

86    art scholarship

87    mark target/vagina

90    Which is for which is owed    parts physical or mental attributes

91    Jove Roman king of the gods

92    bent inclined

95    apostrophus apostrophe    accent correct emphasis    supervise look over

96    canzonet short song/poem    numbers ratified metrically correct lines

97    caret (it is) “lacking”    Ovidius Naso Roman poet Ovid (Naso means “large-nosed”)

98    odoriferous sweet-smelling    fancy imagination    jerks sharp speeches

99    Imitari “to imitate”

100    damosella damsel

101    strange foreign

102    overglance look over    superscript address

103    intellect meaning, contents

104    nomination name

105    all desired employment any service you wish to put me to

107    framed composed sequent attendant

108    way of progression process of delivery Trip and go move nimbly (phrase from a popular song)

109    concern much be of great importance    Stay…compliment don’t wait upon etiquette

110    forgive thy duty excuse the necessary courtesies

112    Have with thee I’ll go with you

114    father Church Father

115    colourable colours plausible explanations (offered by the Church Fathers)

117    pen calligraphy/style

120    undertake…venuto ensure your welcome

122    society company

123    text i.e., the Bible (possibly Ecclesiastes 4:8–12)

124    certes certainly concludes resolves

125    Pauca verba “few words” gentles gentlefolk game sport/hunting/love play

Act 4 Scene 3

1    coursing hunting (may pun on “cursing”) pitched a toil set up a net

2    toiling…pitch struggling among the sticky thoughts of love    defiles pollutes, fouls    set thee down settle in

3    I I am

4    mad…sheep when not given the armor of the dead Achilles, Ajax attacked a flock of sheep thinking they were the enemy

7    lie…throat tell enormous lies

12    in in love groan i.e., for love

15    bird-bolt blunt arrow for shooting birds    under…pap i.e., where the heart is pap breast

18    eye-beams the eyes were thought to emit beams of light

19    night of dew nightly tears

21    deep sea

29    glasses mirrors still continually

35    thy i.e., the king’s

37    perjure perjurer, oath-breaker wearing papers perjurers were punished by having to wear papers stating their offense

39    another…name i.e., another drunkard

42    triumviry triumvirate (i.e., trio) corner-cap three- or four-cornered cap worn by clergymen and academics society fellowship

43    Tyburn place of execution where triangular gallows stood simplicity folly

44    stubborn stiff, rough move i.e., persuade Maria to love him

46    numbers verses/lines of poetry

47    guards decorations/defenses hose breeches

48    shop codpiece

57    grace favor

60    exhal’st draws up (the sun was thought to draw vapors from the earth)

63    To as to

64    liver vein style of the lover (the liver was thought to be the seat of passion)

65    green goose silly young girl/new prostitute

66    out o’th’way gone astray

68    infant play child’s game

70    heedfully o’er-eye observe attentively

71    sacks…mill cause for laughter (proverbial)

72    woodcocks proverbially stupid birds

74    coxcomb fool (literally, fool’s cap)

76    corporal officer (in Cupid’s army) (plays on “corporeal”)

77    for…quoted makes real amber seem ugly in comparison    quoted cited

78    An…noted punning on foul as “fowl,” Berowne sarcastically applauds Dumaine’s identification of Katherine’s dark (raven) hair as amber-colored

80    Stoop curved/come down to earth

81    with child i.e., round

87    good word i.e.,    Amen/kind of me

88    a asa

90    incision cutting for letting blood

91    in saucers into receptacles/by the saucerful    misprision error

93    vary wit inspire new forms of expression/decrease intelligence

96    passing surpassingly

97    wanton playful

100    That so that    sick to death made ill from longing (death possibly plays on sense of “orgasm”)

106    unmeet unfitting

107    pluck a sweet plays on sense of “take virginity, have sex”

111    Juno Roman queen of the gods, wife of Jove    Ethiope Ethiopian (i.e., dark-complexioned, thought to be unattractive)

112    for to be

117    example provide precedent for

118    perjured note paper pinned to perjurer describing his offense

119    dote love dearly

120    charity Christian love (as opposed to amorous love)

121    That you who    society company

123    taken napping caught unawares

124    such i.e., the same

128    wreathèd folded (sign of melancholy)    athwart across

130    closely secretly

132    fashion behavior

133    reek emanate

136    troth good faith, a pledge

140    spend expend/exhaust

143    by about

146    grace privilege

147    worms wretches

148    coaches alludes to the coach image in the king’s poem

151    minstrels musicians, entertainers sonneting sonnet-composition

153    o’ershot in error/off course (literally, to have overshot the target)

154    mote speck of dust/fault

155    beam large object/major fault

157    teen grief

159    gnat i.e., insignificant thing

160    gig spinning-top

161    profound wise    tuning a jig singing a lively song/dancing

162    Nestor Trojan leader, famed for his wisdom    push-pin children’s game

163    Timon Athenian notorious for his misanthropy    idle toys trivial games/concerns

167    caudle medicinal gruel

169    over-view inspection

171    honest honorable

177    pruning me preening myself

179    state posture/bearing

181    Soft! Wait a moment!

182    true honest

183    post ride quickly (away)

185    present gift/written document

187    makes treason is treason doing

189    mar spoil (proverbial: “to make or mar”)

192    person parson (i.e., Nathaniel)    misdoubts distrusts

199    toy trifle

200    passion powerful emotion

202    whoreson bastard (son of a whore)    loggerhead blockhead

205    mess four dining companions

207    pick-purses pickpockets

211    turtles turtledoves—i.e., lovers

212    sirs address acceptable for both men and women

213    Walk…folk i.e., the honest people will leave

218    cross thwart    cause…born i.e., fate

219    of all hands in any case

220    rent torn

222    rude ignorant, rough    savage uncivilized    Ind India

223    opening dawning

224    vassal submissive

226    peremptory determined    eagle-sighted eagles were supposed to be able to look directly into the sun

229    fury frenzy

231    She i.e., Rosaline attending attendant    scarce…light barely visible

233    but were it not    my love i.e., the woman I love

234    the culled sovereignty those chosen as the best

236    worthies beings of excellence    dignity (supreme) excellence

237    wants is lacking    want desire

238    gentle wellborn

239    Fie expression of disgust    painted artificial

240    of for

241    passes surpasses    then…blot thus any praise is inadequate and defames her

242    fivescore winters worn a hundred years old

244    varnish improve, give luster to

245    the crutch i.e., old age    cradle’s infancy i.e., youth

247    black as ebony dark/unattractive

249    were felicity would be bliss

250    book i.e., Bible

252    If…look unless beauty learns how to look from Rosaline’s eye

253    fair beautiful/pale    full so black so completely dark-complexioned

255    hue complexion/color    school academy (though some editors emend to “scowl” or “stole”)

256    beauty’s crest i.e., the sun    becomes graces, befits

257    resembling…light when they pose as angels

259    It i.e., she/her beauty    that the fact that    painting…hair cosmetics and wigs

260    doters infatuated fools    false aspect deceptive appearance

262    favour…days face inverts what is conventionally thought beautiful

263    native blood natural redness, a rosy complexion    counted painting considered artificial (i.e., to be rouge)

264    red natural rosiness    dispraise disparagement

267    colliers coal vendors

268    crack boast

270    come in expose themselves to

271    colours cosmetics/sparse natural color

275    then i.e., on doomsday

276    vile worthless/unattractive

277    here’s i.e., Longaville’s shoe

279    dainty light, delicate/refined

280    goes walks    what upward lies i.e., what is up her skirt

284    prove demonstrate using logic

286    there that’s the point    flattery…evil pleasing self-deception to justify our oath-breaking

288    quillets subtle distinctions/quibbles

289    salve healing ointment

290    need necessary

291    Have at you let me at it/here goes    affection’s…arms love’s soldiers

294    state majesty/status

297    And where…the following twenty-three lines are enclosed within solidi because, although they appear in the early printed texts, they seem to be Shakespeare’s first draft of the lines that follow; they should be cut in performance

305    Promethean fire i.e., illumination (Prometheus stole fire from the gods to give to mankind)

324    fiery numbers passionate poems

326    slow arts dull or more serious learning    keep occupy

327    barren unresponsive, unfruitful

330    immurèd walled up

332    Courses runs/chases    power faculty/function

334    Above…offices beyond their ordinary abilities

338    the…stopped even the alert thief hears nothing

339    sensible sensitive

340    cockled having a shell

341    Bacchus Roman god of wine    gross inferior, coarse

342    For as for

343    climbing…Hesperides Hercules’ eleventh labor was to pick the golden apples from the garden of the Hesperides

344    Subtle wily    Sphinx mythological creature who killed anyone who couldn’t answer her riddle

345    Apollo Greek sun god, also god of music

348    durst dares

349    tempered blended

353    still…fire continually with the heavenly fire stolen by Prometheus

354    academes academies

356    Else otherwise aught anything

360    loves is loved by/inspires love in/is a friend to

361    authors creators

362    whom may pun on “womb”

363    once for once/only once

365    religion within the boundaries of our beliefs

366    charity…law biblical allusion: “he that loveth another hath fulfilled the law” (Romans 13:8)

369    Advance your standards raise up your flags (with phallic connotations)    upon them to them (with sexual connotations)

370    Pell-mell with no regard for order/at close quarters (sexual connotations)    be first advised first take care

371    get…them make sure the sun is in their eyes (thus giving you the advantage; puns on “[be]get the son”)

372    dealing puns on sense of “having sex”    glozes elaborate speeches

377    attach seize (legal term)

379    strange novel, unusual, exceptional    solace entertain

382    Forerun run before

384    betime happen    fitted used appropriately

385    Allons! “Let’s go!” (French)    Sowed…corn wheat won’t be harvested if weeds are planted

386    whirls…measure is distributed evenly

387    Light merry/frivolous/promiscuous

388    copper small coins    treasure vaginal connotations (plagues in previous line suggests sexual disease)

Act 5 Scene 1

1    Satis quod sufficit “what is provided is sufficient” (i.e., “enough is as good as a feast”)

2    reasons observations    dinner main meal eaten in the middle of the day

3    sententious full of wise remarks    affection affectation    audacious bold

4    opinion arrogance    strange new

5    quondam (the) “other” intituled entitled

6    nominated named

7    Novi…te “I know the man as well as I know you” peremptory determined

8    filed smooth

9    thrasonical boastful    picked fastidious

10    peregrinate affectedly foreign (i.e., with the manner of one who has traveled)

11    table-book notebook

12    staple fiber/material

13    argument subject matter    fanatical extravagant/flamboyant    phantasimes fantastical people    insociable unsociable    point-device overprecise

14    rackers of orthography torturers of correct spelling    fine thinly/affectedly; alternatively, a misprint for “sine b” (“without the letter b“)

16    clepeth calls    vocatur “is called”

17    abhominable plays on the popular misconception that the word was derived from Latin ab homine – i.e., “away from man/unnatural” insinuateth suggests, i.e., drives me to

18    insanie insanity    Ne intelligis, domine? “Do you understand, sir?”

19    Laus…intelligo “Praise God, I understand well”

20    Priscian…scratched i.e., your Latin is slightly wrong (Priscian was an ancient grammarian whose works were still used in the sixteenth century)

21    Videsne quis venit? “Do you see who is coming?”

22    Video et gaudeo “I see and I rejoice”

23    Chirrah! either mispronunciation of “sirrah” or the Greek chaere (“hail”)

24    Quare “why”

28    alms-basket charity basket of food for the poor

29    eaten…word puns on pronunciation of Moth’s name as mot (“word” in French)    long…head tall

30    honorificabilitudinitatibus state of being honored, supposedly the longest word in Latin    flap-dragon edible object, such as a raisin (plucked from burning brandy and swallowed as part of the game of flap-dragon)

31    peal loud uproar/bell ringing

32    lettered educated (Moth understands “literate”)

33    hornbook paper displaying the alphabet, numbers, prayers, etc., protected by a thin layer of horn

35    pueritia “childishness,” i.e., child

36    Ba sound made by a sheep silly foolish

37    Quis “who”    consonant nonentity, since it cannot be sounded without vowels

39    i interrupted by Moth, Holofernes inadvertently identifies himself (I) as the sheep

40    concludes it finishes the list/proves my point o, u i.e., “oh you/ewe”

41    Mediterraneum Mediterranean touch hit (scored against an opponent) venue thrust (in fencing)

42    Snip, snap remarking on Moth’s quick wit; “snip snap” is also “smart repartee”    home on the target

43    wit-old pun on “wittold” or “wittol”—i.e., a contented cuckold

44    figure figure of speech

45    Horns i.e., of cuckoldry

46    disputes reason    gig spinning-top

47    manu cita “with a ready hand”

51    halfpenny i.e., little    pigeon-egg i.e., small egg    discretion good judgment

52    wert were

53    ad dunghill corruption of ad unguem, i.e., “to the fingernail,” exact in detail

55    Arts-man scholar    preambulate (let us) walk    barbarous uncivilized

56    charge-house school

57    mons plays on mons veneris, pubic mound

59    sans “without” (French)

60    affection desire    congratulate pay respects to

61    posteriors buttocks, i.e., later parts    rude ignorant

63    generous noble    liable apt    congruent suitable

64    measurable fitting    culled chosen

66    familiar close friend

67    inward private

68    courtesy manners (in wearing your hat)    apparel cover

69    designs plans

70    by the world mild oath

71    excrement that which grows out of the body, such as hair and nails; also, feces

72    sweet heart i.e., dear friend    recount no fable am not telling untruths

75    all of all essence

76    chuck chick (term of endearment)    ostentation public display

77    antic extravagant spectacle    firework i.e., firework display

79    withal with this    end purpose

80    Nine Worthies popular subject for entertainments, featuring three Jews (Joshua, David, and Judas Maccabaeus), three pagans (Hector of Troy, Alexander the Great, and Julius Caesar), and three Christians (Arthur, Charlemagne, and Godfrey of Bouillon)

81    entertainment spending of

83    illustrate illustrious

87    swain i.e., Costard    great…joint i.e., he has a big build (possible phallic joke)    pass pass for/represent    Pompey the Great famous Roman general of the first century BC

90    club play on penis size

91    have audience be heard    in minority as a child    enter entrance

92    strangling a snake as a baby, Hercules strangled two snakes sent by Juno to kill him    apology formal explanation

93    device scheme

100    attend listen

101    fadge works out, succeeds

102    Via “come along”

105    make one take part

106    tabor small drum    hay winding country dance

Act 5 Scene 2

2    fairings gifts

3    A…diamonds! presumably an ornamental lady’s portrait surrounded by diamonds

8    margent margin

9    fain…name obliged to place his seal over Cupid’s name (as he had written everywhere)

10    godhead i.e., Cupid’s    wax grow (puns on the wax of the seal; plays on idea of an enlarging penis)

11    five…boy a child since the world was created

12    shrewd cunning/mischievous    unhappy trouble-causing    gallows someone who deserves to be hanged

13    a…sister i.e., she died for love

14    heavy sorrowful

15    light merry/lighthearted/promiscuous

17    grandam grandmother

19    dark hidden mouse term of affection    light word frivolous talk/word “light”

20    condition disposition

22    taking…snuff trimming the wick/taking offense (proverbial)

23    darkly obscurely/enigmatically

24    Look what whatever do it plays on sense of “have sex”

25    light wench i.e., unchaste

26    not i.e., not the same as

27    weigh esteem    that’s that means

28    past…cure there’s no point worrying about what can’t be helped (proverbial); some editors transpose “care” and “cure”

29    bandied exchanged, tossed to and fro    set game (of tennis/wit)

30    favour love token

32    would wish

36    numbers true poetic meter correct    numbering enumeration/calculation

38    fairs beautiful women

41    letters lettering    praise content

43    text B elaborately written capital B, possibly for “black” or “Berowne”    copy-book writing practice book

44    ’Ware beware pencils fine paintbrushes    Let…debtor i.e., I’ll not owe you an insult, I’ll get my own back (proverbial)

45    red dominical red lettering used to mark Sundays of the church year in calendars    golden also used to mark Sundays or Easter, or a reference to Katherine’s hair

46    O’s possibly small scars caused by smallpox

47    pox curse (may pick up on the idea of smallpox scars)    beshrew curse    shrews vexatious, scolding women

50    twain two

53    translation expression

54    simplicity foolishness/lack of skill

59    would wish    these…part perhaps Maria has bound the chain around her hands

61    purchase deserve, earn

63    in by th’week fully ensnared

65    the season for the right time    observe the times keep to the rules

66    prodigal lavish, excessive    bootless useless

68    make…jests make him feel grateful even for Rosaline’s proud mockery of him

69    pert aunt like Folio’s “pertaunt” (Quarto “perttaunt”) is unexplained: perhaps “like a lively older woman” (or with French tante for “aunt”?), though many emendations have been proposed, including “planet-like,” “fortune-like” and “pair-taunt-like” (supposedly a strong hand at cards)    o’ersway overrule

70    his fate controller of his destiny

71    surely securely

73    warrant authorization

76    gravity seriousness/respectability    wantonness foolish, uncontrolled, desirous behavior

77    note stigma/reproach

78    dote behave foolishly

79    all…simplicity the wise man will use his intelligence to demonstrate the wisdom of folly

85    Arm prepare (for combat)    Encounters mounted are skirmishes are prepared

87    surprised ambushed

88    Muster assemble (like troops)

90    Saint Denis patron saint of France    to against

91    charge load/fire    breath i.e., words    scout spy

92    sycamore tree associated with melancholy

94    purposed intended

95    might behold addressed saw approaching

97    by nearby

98    overhear hear told again

99    by and by shortly

101    conned learned    embassage message

102    Action appropriate gestures    accent verbal delivery

104    ever and anon every now and then    made a doubt voiced their fear (that)

105    majestical regal    put him out disconcert him/make him forget his lines

111    wag mischievous young man

112    rubbed his elbow gesture of satisfaction    fleered grinned

114    with…thumb i.e., snapping his fingers

115    Via! “Come along!”

116    capered leaped/danced joyfully

117    turned…toe pirouetted

120    spleen ridiculous ludicrous fit of merriment

121    check restrain/reprimand

124    Like…guess no rhyme for this line, so a line may be missing

125    parley enter into conversation

126    love-feat perhaps a misprint for “love-suit”

127    several individual

129    gallants fine gentlemen/suitors tasked tested

131    grace privilege

132    Despite of suit in spite of entreaty

133    Hold…dear these two lines might be a first draft of the two that follow

137    change exchange

138    removes exchanges

139    most in sight conspicuously

141    cross thwart

144    counsels private intentions    unbosom disclose

145    loves mistook i.e., the wrong women    withal with this

147    visages displayed faces visible, i.e., unmasked

149    to the death i.e., we’d rather fight to the death than

150    penned composed    render yield    grace favor

152    kill…heart discourage his affection

153    part remembered lines/intentions

155    be out has forgotten his lines

157    theirs ours i.e., their fun our amusement

158    intended their intended

160    Blackamoors attendants costumed and/or made-up to look like black men

162    taffeta silk material, often used for making masks

163    parcel small group

166    Out…i.e., Moth has forgotten his lines; ellipsis used when speaker dries, dash when interrupted

168    vouchsafe permit, deign

173    epithet description

174    daughter-beamèd punning on sun-/son-beamèd

175    brings me out makes me forget my lines

176    perfectness being word perfect

177    What…strangers? What do these foreigners want?    minds intentions

179    plain plainspoken/honest

182    gentle visitation a courteous, friendly visit

187    measured traversed

188    tread a measure dance a stately dance

193    measure quantity/measurement told counted/said

201    travel journeying/labor (travail)

202    number account/count up

204    still always    account estimate, counting/debt

207    My…moon i.e., her face shines with light reflected from the princess/is changeable    clouded i.e., masked

208    do…do i.e., be as close to the ladies’ faces as the masks are

209    stars i.e., the other ladies

210    eyne eyes

212    moonshine…water i.e., something insubstantial

213    change round of dancing

214    strange unusual (plays on sense of “foreign”)

217    estranged apart/aloof; puns on strange

219    she…man i.e., they belong together, being moon and man in the moon (no rhyme word for “moon”: a line may be missing)

220    The…it some editors assign this line to the king    motion movement

224    nice shy/fussy/whimsical

228    More measure a greater quantity

230    Price “price” and “prize” sounded the same

234    Twice…you possibly refers to Rosaline’s curtsies—two to the king’s visor, but only half of one to his face

235    deny refuse

239    three i.e., sweet words for Berowne

240    treys threes (in gambling)    nice coy

241    Metheglin strong spiced Welsh mead    wort sweet unfermented beer    malmsey strong sweet red wine    run played/fallen

242    sweets i.e., sweet words

244    cog cheat (like a gambler)

247    griev’st vex    gall sore spot/bile

249    meet fitting

250    change exchange

255    Please it you if it pleases you

257    vizard visor    tongue leather strap held in the mouth to keep the visor secure/reference to Longaville’s silence

260    double tongue i.e., your tongue and the mask’s tongue/duplicitous tongue

261    afford…half i.e., end my silence/reveal your identity

262    ‘Veal’ Dutch pronunciation of “well” (i.e., assessment of Longaville’s reason); added to Katherine’s last spoken word, “long,” it provides the name of her wooer    calf stupid person, implying Longaville is one

265    part divide

266    half co-sharer/partner (in marriage)

267    wean raise prove an ox become a fool

268    butt strike

269    give horns attack/cuckold your husband

273    keen sharp/eager

276    sense of sense perception of the senses    sensible striking

277    conference conversation    conceits witty thoughts, quips

278    Fleeter swifter, nimbler

280    dry-beaten beaten, bruised    scoff mockery

284    Tapers candles    with by

285    Well-liking thriving, plump    gross dull/plump

286    kingly-poor flout feeble insult from a king/majestically poor mockery

289    pert lively    out…quite completely disconcerted

290    cases states/masks

291    weeping-ripe ready to weep

292    out…suit out of keeping with his love suit (suit puns on sense of “clothing”)

294    servant servant in love/wooer    straight at once

295    came o’er overcame

296    trow you would you believe

297    Qualm sudden feeling of nausea/heartburn

300    plain statute-caps woollen knitted caps worn by those of lower social status

302    quick hasty

305    give ear listen

307    In…shapes i.e., without disguises

308    digest swallow/put up with

312    repair return

313    Blow blossom (the princess plays on the sense of “give blows”)

316    damask red and white (variety of rose)    commixture complexion/mingling

317    vailing lowering/yielding

318    Avaunt begone    perplexity riddler

321    as…disguised as much as we did when they were in disguise

323    shapeless gear unshapely clothes

324    end purpose

326    rough carriage graceless behavior

329    roes female deer (puns on “rose”)

336    utters speaks/offers for sale

338    wakes church festivals    wassails revels

339    by gross wholesale

341    gallant i.e., ladies’ man    pins…sleeve makes the women dependent on him/collects them like favors

342    Had…Eve i.e., rather than Eve tempting Adam as in the Bible

343    carve behave charmingly but affectedly    lisp talk in a pretentious manner

344    kissed…courtesy wore his hand out with too many courteous kisses

345    ape of form imitator of etiquette    Nice fastidious

346    tables backgammon

347    honourable polite

348    mean middle part (tenor or alto)    meanly well enough    ushering taking the part of the gentleman usher, organizing ceremonies

349    Mend beat, improve on

356    put…part i.e., made Moth forget his lines

357    it i.e., Boyet    Behaviour fine manners

358    madman i.e., Boyet

360    ‘Fair’…foul it is false to call a hailstorm fair

361    Construe understand/interpret

362    wish me greet me with leave permission

365    This…me i.e., I will stay here    hold keep

366    Nor neither

369    nickname misname

370    office function

371    yet still

372    protest declare

375    a…Of to be the reason for you breaking your

377    desolation solitariness

381    but of late only recently

384    Trim smart    courtship courtliness/wooing    state stately appearance

386    to…days as is the current fashion

387    undeserving undeserved

390    apace quickly

391    happy well-chosen/apt/agreeable

393    When…drink i.e., they are fools

394    dry yields no result (plays on sense of thirsty)

395    When…light i.e., when we look directly at the sun, we are blinded by its light

397    capacity intelligence

398    to compared to

400    eye organ of sight/opinion

409    case covering, i.e., mask

411    descried discovered

413    Amazed perplexed/dumbstruck

414    brows temples

415    Muscovy i.e., Russia

417    face of brass brazen manner/firm expression

418    dart thy skill hurl your judgment/wit

419    confound destroy/overthrow flout taunt

421    keen conceit sharp wit

422    wish ask

423    habit outfit    wait do service

425    motion movement

426    friend sweetheart

427    harper’s harpist’s

428    Taffeta i.e., elaborate    precise fastidious

429    Three-piled luxuriously thick (like velvet)

430    Figures i.e., figures of speech    pedantical pedantic/excessively learned

431    blown swollen/deposited eggs/polluted

435    russet rustic/homely (homespun reddish cloth)    kersey plain (coarse cloth)

436    law la (i.e., “indeed”)

437    sans “without” (French)

438    Sans ‘sans’ i.e., don’t use affected French words

439    trick characteristic

440    rage madness/rash fever

441    by degrees little by little

442    ‘Lord…us’ written on the doors of plague victims as a warning

444    of from

445    visited afflicted    free uninfected

446    Lord’s tokens signs of plague/love tokens given by the lords

447    free generous/uninfected

448    states honorable status/status as bachelors/estates

450    sue entreat/woo

451    to do sex/anything to do

457    but even just

459    well advised i.e., thinking wisely

463    respect value

464    challenge claim

466    forbear stop

467    force…forswear will not hesitate to break it again

486    either the two    remit give up

487    on’t of it    consent agreement

489    dash spoil    Christmas comedy seasonal entertainment

490    carry-tale tell-tale    please-man yes-man    slight lowly    zany clown’s assistant

491    mumble-news gossip    trencher-knight dinner-table hero/great eater    Dick low fellow

492    smiles…years wrinkles his face with smiles    trick knack (with sexual innuendo)

493    disposed inclined to be merry

496    sign of she outward symbol thought to represent our particular mistress

499    Much…’tis it must have happened pretty much this way

501    by th’squier accurately

502    laugh…eye i.e., exchange laughter and knowing looks with her    apple pupil

503    stand…fire i.e., act as her fireguard (stand may play on sense of “get an erection” and fire on sense of “sexual passion,” perhaps also with vaginal connotations)

504    Holding a trencher i.e., ready to be of service trencher plate

506    Die plays on sense of “have an orgasm”    smock…shroud you’ll be buried like a woman smock woman’s undergarment

507    leer look sideways

508    Wounds…sword i.e., poses no threat of injury (sword may have phallic connotations)

509    brave manage fine gallop at full speed    career charge/gallop

510    tilting straight going straight back to his verbal jousting (plays on notion of a thrusting penis)

511    Thou partest you are breaking up    fray fight

512    would want to

515    vara very

516    pursents represents, acts

519    beg us i.e., take us for fools

522    whereuntil to what

524    were…get would be a shame if you had to make    reckoning calculation

527    perfect i.e., perform, present

528    Pompion pumpkin; malapropism for “Pompey”

531    degree rank    stand for represent

533    turn…off pull off the performance well

535    policy clever device

540    zeal fervent enthusiasm content please    contents subject matter

541    that…presents the presentation

542    There…mirth the ruining of the presentation creates its own mirth

545    Anointed i.e., the king, anointed as monarch    expense expenditure

546    brace pair

550    one the same (to me)

552    fortuna…guerra “the chance of war” (Spanish)

553    couplement couple

554    like likely    presence company

556    pedant schoolmaster

558    habits costumes

561    hedge-priest uneducated rural priest

562    Abate set aside    throw at novum lucky throws in a dice game, in which throwing a five and nine won; the actors will perform the Nine Worthies with only five actors

563    vein mood/character

564    amain at full speed

568    leopard’s head part of Pompey’s costume, possibly painted on a shield

569    must needs must

575    targe light shield

577    coast area

578    arms weapons (plays on sense of “limbs”)

581    perfect i.e., word perfect

583    My…halfpenny I’ll bet (anything)    for as

586    scutcheon shield painted with a coat of arms

587    right straight; Alexander’s head was supposed to lean to one side

588    Your…this Alexander was supposed to smell sweet; Berowne suggests Boyet’s nose can tell this isn’t really Alexander by Nathaniel’s odor tender-smelling having a sensitive sense of smell

596    painted cloth the Nine Worthies were often depicted on painted hangings    lion…close-stool Alexander’s coat of arms as depicted in the Renaissance pole-axe battle-axe

597    close-stool chamber pot within a seat (instead of throne)    Ajax pun on “a jakes” (i.e., toilet)

599    dashed disheartened

601    o’erparted having too difficult a part to play

602    sort manner

604    imp child

605    Cerberus three-headed dog guarding the entrance to Hades, captured by Hercules as his final labor    canus “dog” (Latin, actually canis)

607    manus “hands”

608    Quoniam “since” in minority a child

609    Ergo “therefore”

610    state dignity

612    A Judas! i.e., a traitor

613    Iscariot Judas Iscariot betrayed Christ; Judas Maccabaeus was a military leader

614    ycliped called

615    clipped cut short/embraced

616    A kissing traitor Judas betrayed Jesus with a kiss

619    mean you is your meaning/is your intention

621    Begin you go first (in hanging yourself)    elder senior/superior (Berowne picks up on “type of tree on which Judas hanged himself”)

623    put…countenance made to lose composure (Berowne plays on sense of face)

626    cittern-head type of guitar with grotesquely carved head

627    bodkin hairpin with ornamental head

628    death’s…ring ring carved with death’s head (a skull)

629    scarce seen almost worn away

630    pommel ornamental knob on a sword or dagger    falchion sword

631    flask powder flask for gunpowder

632    half-cheek profile

633    brooch…tooth-drawer tradesmen wore lead brooches to signify their trades

635    put…countenance stopped you being disconcerted/given you a face

638    out-faced them all put them all to shame

639    lion…ass in one of Aesop’s fables the ass disguises himself as a lion by wearing its skin until he is betrayed by his braying

642    latter end second part (i.e., ass)

644    generous mannerly/noble    gentle courteous    humble polite

645    light…Judas possible reference to the Judas candlestick, used at Easter in parish churches

647    Achilles…Hector enemies in the Trojan war    in arms armed

648    home by me back to mock me

649    Troyan man of Troy/merry fellow

651    clean-timbered well-built

653    calf lower leg/fool

654    endued endowed    small i.e., thinnest part of the calf

656    makes creates/pulls

657    armipotent powerful in arms

659    gilt glazed

662    cloven split in two (sexually; punning on lemon as “leman” or “lover”)

664    Ilion Troy

665    breathed exercised/fit

666    pavilion ceremonial tent used during tournaments

670    rein curb

672    greyhound i.e., fast runner

673    war-man warrior    beat…buried i.e., don’t speak ill of the dead

674    forward advance

675    device performance

678    foot body part/measurement

679    yard three feet/penis

681    gone dead

682    gone pregnant (refers to Jaquenetta)

684    cast away ruined

685    quick pregnant    brags boasts (suggesting that Armado is the father)

686    infamonize slander    potentates monarchs

687    quick pregnant/living

688    Pompey i.e., the part of Pompey, played by Costard

693    Ates discordant comments; Ate was the Roman goddess of vengeance

694    challenge him i.e., to a fight

695    a have he has    sup feed

697    pole…man raiders of the northern borders were known to fight with poles

698    borrow…again use the weapons I had as Pompey

699    Room make room

702    take…lower help unbutton your doublet/humiliate you

703    uncasing undressing

706    bloods spirited men

708    woolward wearing wool next to the skin without a linen shirt

709    enjoined imposed on want lack (i.e., Armado’s shirtlessness is the result of poverty not religious penance)

710    dishclout dishcloth, with play on menstrual rag

711    favour love token    Marcadé his name can be associated with Mercury, messenger of the Roman gods and god of rhetoric; also with the French danse macabre or “dance of death”

718    tale news

720    breathe free breath am relieved    I…discretion I have enough (if little) discretion to know I have behaved badly

721    right avenge/behave (correctly)

728    hide overlook

729    liberal unrestrained opposition antagonism

731    the…breath i.e., conversation    gentleness nobility/courtesy

732    guilty of responsible for

734    so therefore

736    The…speed i.e., when there is little time available decisions have to be made quickly

738    his very loose the very last moment (archery metaphor)

739    process proceedings    arbitrate conclude

740    mourning…progeny child’s grief for a parent

741    Forbid denies

742    holy suit i.e., marriage    fain gladly    convince demonstrate

743    on foot on its feet, i.e., begun

744    justle push

745    wail lament lost dead

746    wholesome-profitable beneficial to well-being

748    double because her father is dead and she cannot understand him

750    badges outward signs/words

752    foul play unfairly

753    deformed disfigured

754    opposed end i.e., exact opposite

756    unbefitting inappropriate    strains features/impulses

757    wanton carefree/playful    vain foolish/silly

759    straying some editors emend to “strange”    shapes appearances    habits ways of behaving/clothes

761    his its

762    parti-coated motley, patchwork (worn by fools)    presence appearance    loose unrestrained

763    Put on presented/worn

764    misbecomed been unbecoming to

766    Suggested…make tempted us to commit them

768    prove false i.e., by breaking their vows to pursue only learning

769    true i.e., faithful to the ladies

770    both i.e., oath breakers and true to our word

775    rated assessed

776    At as no more than

777    bombast…time i.e., ways of filling time bombast wool padding/speechifying

778    devout committed/earnest respects deliberation/attention

779    met responded to

783    quote regard

787    world-without-end everlasting

789    dear dire/costly, valuable

790    as although    such cause reason (for you to)

791    aught anything

793    forlorn desolate naked austere

795    until…reckoning i.e., a year    signs i.e., of the zodiac

797    insociable unsociable

799    hard lodging uncomfortable living conditions    weeds clothes

800    Nip not inhibit not the growth of gaudy flourishing, colorful

801    last remain

802    expiration end

803    challenge claim    deserts deserving actions

810    entitled in having legal claim to

812    flatter up pamper

813    The may the

815    And…sick these six lines are enclosed within solidi because they seem to be the first draft of the subsequent longer exchange between Berowne and Rosaline; they should be cut in performance

826    mark no pay no attention to    smooth-faced plausible/youthful

833    friend i.e., lover/husband

834    stay wait

835    The liker that’s more like; plays on long in “Longaville”    taller braver; puns on sense of long

836    Studies reflects, muses

838    attends awaits

841    world’s large tongue i.e., widely distributed report

842    replete with full of

843    comparisons scoffing analogies    flouts insults

844    estates classes of people    execute inflict

846    weed root out    wormwood bitterness (medicinal herb)

847    therewithal along with that

849    term period of time

850    still converse continually associate

852    fierce vigorous/keen

853    enforce compel    painèd impotent helpless distressed

854    move arouse    the…death i.e., the dying

857    gibing scoffing

858    loose grace easy charm (with possible oxymoronic joke since loose can mean “sinful” while grace often signifies “virtue”)

860    prosperity success

863    Deafed deafened    dear dire/terrible

865    withal as well

869    befall…befall what will be will be

872    bring escort

874    courtesy courteous behavior

883    hold the plough become a farmer (with sexual connotations)

884    dialogue scholarly debate    two learnèd men i.e., Sir Nathaniel and Holofernes

889    maintained defended/represented

891    pied multicolored

893    lady-smocks cuckooflowers

894    paint adorn

896    Mocks married men i.e., because his call sounds like “cuckold” and because the cuckoo usurps the nests of other birds

900    oaten straws straws from oat plants

901    larks…clocks because ploughmen rise early and larks are dawn birds

902    turtles turtledoves tread mate    daws jackdaws

910    blows his nail i.e., warms his hands by blowing on them/has nothing much to do

913    nipped chilled    ways be foul paths are muddy

917    greasy covered with grease/fat/sweaty    keel stir/cool

919    parson’s saw clergyman’s maxims

920    brooding incubating eggs

922    crabs crab apples    bowl i.e., bowl of ale

927    Mercury messenger of the gods    harsh disagreeable, discordant    Apollo Greek god of music    You may refer either to the audience, ladies or actors

928    we may refer either to the actors, lords, or Armado and Jaquenetta

A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM

Shakespeare is the poet of double vision. The father of twins, he was a mingler of comedy and tragedy, low life and high, prose and verse. He was a countryman who worked in the city, a teller of English folktales who was equally versed in the mythology of ancient Greece and Rome. His mind and world were poised between Catholicism and Protestantism, old feudal ways and new bourgeois ambitions, rational thinking and visceral instinct. A Midsummer Night’s Dream is one of his truly essential works because nowhere else is his double vision more apparent than in this play’s movement between the city and the wood, day and night, reason and imagination, waking life and dream.

Wood, night, imagination, dream. These are the coordinates of the second form of sight, which is best described as magical thinking. It is the mode of being that belongs to visionaries, astrologers, “wise women” and poets. It conjures up a world animated with energies and spirit forces; it finds correspondences between earthly things and divine. The eye that sees in this way rolls in a fine frenzy, glancing from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven. It bodies forth the forms of things unknown, turns them to shapes and gives to airy nothings a local habitation and a name.

Magical thinking answers a deep human need. It is a way of making sense of things that would otherwise seem painfully arbitrary—things like love and beauty. An ugly birthmark on a baby would be explained away by the suggestion that the infant might be a “changeling child,” swapped in the cradle by some night-tripping fairy. The sheer chance involved in the process of what we now call sexual chemistry may be rationalized in the story of the magic properties of the juice of the flower called love-in-idleness. And in a world dependent on an agricultural economy, bad harvests were somehow more palatable if explained by the intervention of malicious sprites upon the operation of the weather.

In the age of candle and rushlight, nights were seriously dark. The night was accordingly imagined to be seriously different from the day. The very fact of long hours of light itself conferred a kind of magic upon midsummer night. This is the night of the year when magical thinking is given full rein.

Theseus and Hippolyta never meet Oberon and Titania. In the original performance, the respective roles were likely to have been doubled. The contentious king and queen of fairies thus become the dark psychological doubles of the betrothed courtly couple. The correspondence inevitably calls into question the joy of the match between Athenian and Amazon. Oberon actually accuses Titania of having led Theseus “through the glimmering night” when he deserted “Perigenia whom he ravishèd,” of having made the day duke break faith with a succession of paramours. Shakespeare loves to set up an antithesis, then knock it down. Here he implies that there is ultimately no sharp distinction between day and night: the sexual ethics of Theseus are perhaps as dubious as those of the adulterous child-possessor Titania.

Authority figures, representatives of the day world of political power, win little sympathy in A Midsummer Night’s Dream. For the lovers, the forest may be a place of confused identity, but at least it is an escape from the patriarchal matchmaking of Egeus. In the audience, the characters with whom we engage most warmly are neither monarchs nor lords, but the mischief-making Robin Goodfellow and the ineffable weaver, Bottom. Each in his way is an embodiment of the theatrical spirit that animates everything that is most gloriously Shakespearean. Always a man of the theater, Shakespeare lives in a world of illusion and make-believe that hits at deepest truths; he knows that his world is fundamentally sympathetic to those other counterworlds that we call dream and magic.

Robin the Puck compares the mortals to fools in a fond pageant: he has a right to think of himself as author of the play, since it is his dispensing of the love juice that fuels the plot. As for Bottom, at one level he is a bad actor. In both rehearsal and performance of “Pyramus and Thisbe,” it becomes clear that he does not really understand the rules of the theatrical game. But at a deeper level, he is a true dramatic genius: he is gifted with the child’s grace to suspend his disbelief. As Pyramus, he puts up a pretty poor performance; as Ass, it is another matter. The comical deficiency of “Pyramus and Thisbe” is that the actors keep telling us that they haven’t become their characters. The Assification of Bottom is, by contrast, akin to those brilliant assumptions of disguise—Rosalind becoming Ganymede in As You Like It, Viola Cesario in Twelfth Night—through which Shakespeare simultaneously reminds us that we are in the theater (an actor is always in disguise) and helps us to forget where we are (we willingly suspend our disbelief). In that forgetting, we participate in the mystery of magical thinking. With Bottom himself, we in the audience may say, “I have had a most rare vision.”

Many members of Shakespeare’s original audience, steeped as they were in the New Testament, would have recognized Bottom’s account of his dream as an allusion—with the attributes of the different senses comically garbled—to a famous passage in the first Epistle to the Corinthians, in which St. Paul says that the eye of man has not seen and the ear of man has not heard the glories that will await us when we enter the Kingdom of Heaven. In the Geneva translation of the Bible, which Shakespeare knew well, the passage speaks of how the human spirit searches “the bottom of God’s secrets.” Jesus said that in order to enter his kingdom, one had to make oneself as a child. The same may be said of the kingdom of theater. It is because Bottom has the uncynical, believing spirit of a child that he is vouchsafed his vision. At the same time, Shakespeare himself offers a dangerously grown up image of what heaven might be like: the weaver may be innocent but the fairy queen is an embodiment of sexual experience. The “virgin queen” Elizabeth was also known as England’s “fairy queen” and the wood in which the action takes place, with its “nine men’s morris” and English wild flowers, is more domestic than Athenian, so there must have been an inherent political risk in the representation of a sexually voracious Titania. Shakespeare perhaps introduced Oberon’s apparent allusion to a chaste Elizabeth—the “fair vestal thronèd by the west”—in order to dismiss any identification of Titania with the real-life fairy queen whom he knew would at some point be a spectator of the play.

The comedy and the charm of the Dream depend on a certain fragility. Good comedy is tragedy narrowly averted, while fairy charm is only safe from sentimentality if attached to some potential for the grotesque. Fairies only deserve to be believed in when they have the capacity to be seriously unpleasant. Of course we laugh when Bottom wears the head of an ass and makes love to a queen, but the image deliberately courts the suggestion of bestiality. In Ovid’s Metamorphoses, Shakespeare’s favorite book and the source for the tale of “Pyramus and Thisbe,” people are driven by bestial desires and are rewarded by being transformed into animals. In Shakespeare, the ass’s head is worn in play, but it remains the closest thing in the drama of his age to an actual animal metamorphosis onstage.

Ovid was rational Rome’s great countervisionary, its magical thinker. His theme is transformation, the inevitability of change. Book fifteen of the Metamorphoses offers a philosophical discourse on the subject, mediated via the philosophy of Pythagoras. From here Shakespeare got many of those images of transience that roll through his Sonnets, but in the Dream he celebrates the transfiguring and enduring power of night vision, of second sight.

Night is the time for fantasy and for love, the time in which your wildest hopes may be indulged but your worst nightmares may have to be confronted. The action in the forest fills the space between the betrothal and the wedding celebration of Theseus and Hippolyta. For the young lovers it is also a time-between, the time, that is to say, of maturation, of discovering who they really are and whom they really love. When Hermia and Lysander, Helena and Demetrius emerge after a midsummer night’s madness in the wood, they don’t quite know what’s happened: “Methinks I see these things with parted eye, / When everything seems double.” And they’re not all quite sure if they’ve finally gained the person they want: “And I have found Demetrius like a jewel, / Mine own and not mine own.” But on reflection in the cold light of morning, the strangeness of the night has effected a material transformation, leading the lovers to a truer place than the one where they were at court the day before. Perhaps because she is herself a “stranger,” an outsider in the “civilized” world of Athens, it is the Amazon queen Hippolyta who understands this best:

But all the story of the night told over,

And all their minds transfigured so together,

More witnesseth than fancy’s images,

And grows to something of great constancy;

But howsoever, strange and admirable.

KEY FACTS

PLOT: Egeus orders his daughter Hermia to marry Demetrius; she refuses because she and Lysander are in love. Her friend Helena is in love with Demetrius, who once loved her but now does not. Under the law of Athens, Duke Theseus gives Hermia four days to obey her father on pain of death or confinement to a nunnery. Hermia and Lysander escape this harsh law by running away to the woods. Demetrius pursues them there, with Helena pursing him. In the woods, Oberon and Titania, King and Queen of fairies, have quarreled because Titania refuses to hand over an Indian changeling boy to be Oberon’s page. Oberon instructs the mischievous Puck, Robin Goodfellow, to press the juice of a magic flower on Titania’s eyes as she sleeps; it will make her fall in love with the first being she sees on waking. In an attempt to reconcile Demetrius and Helena, Oberon orders that juice should be put on his eyes whilst he is sleeping and she is near, but Robin mistakenly puts it on Lysander, who thus falls in love with Helena. She thinks she is being mocked. Love juice is then placed on Demetrius’ eyes in order to rectify the mistake, but the result is that he too falls for Helena. The boys fight over her and the girls quarrel. While Titania has been sleeping, a company of Athenian artisans under the leadership of Peter Quince has come to the wood to rehearse a play for the ensuing wedding festivities of Duke Theseus and Hippolyta, Queen of the Amazons. Robin puts an ass’s head on Bottom the weaver and because of the love juice Titania falls in love with him. Eventually all is restored to right and the artisans perform their comically tragic play of “Pyramus and Thisbe.”

MAJOR PARTS: (with percentage of lines/number of speeches/scenes on stage) Bottom (12%/59/5), Theseus (11%/48/3), Helena (11%/36/5), Robin Goodfellow (10%/33/6), Oberon (10%/29/5), Lysander (8%/50/5), Hermia (8%/48/5), Titania (7%/23/5), Demetrius (6%/48/5), Quince (5%/40/4), Flute (3%/18/4), Egeus (3%/13/3), Hippolyta (2%/14/3).

LINGUISTIC MEDIUM: 80% verse, 20% prose. Fairly high incidence of rhyme, including deliberately bad rhyme in “Pyramus and Thisbe.”

DATE: Mentioned in Francis Meres’ 1598 list of Shakespeare’s plays. Reference in Act 1 scene 2 to courtiers being afraid of a stage lion may allude to an incident in Scotland in August 1594. Strong stylistic resemblances to other “lyrical” plays of Shakespeare’s high Elizabethan period, such as Richard II and especially Romeo and Juliet: this group of plays is traditionally dated to 1595–96. It has often been speculated that the first performance was a private one at an aristocratic wedding celebration, but there is absolutely no evidence for this: in the Elizabethan period, masquelike entertainments rather than full-length plays were commissioned for festive occasions such as weddings.

SOURCES: The main plot is apparently without a direct source, which is unusual for Shakespeare. The tale of Pyramus and Thisbe is derived principally from Ovid’s Metamorphoses, book four. It also has strong structural resemblances to the Romeo and Juliet story, which Shakespeare dramatized around the same time. The play as a whole absorbs much of Shakespeare’s eclectic reading: numerous borrowings of Ovidian mythology, some use of Sir Thomas North’s translation of Plutarch, influence from John Lyly’s comedies (especially Endimion for dreaming and Gallathea for the interplay of aristocrats and artisans), an element of Chaucer (The Knight’s Tale for lovers at the court of Theseus, perhaps The Tale of Sir Thopas for the dream of sleeping with an “elf-queen”), perhaps The Golden Ass of Apuleius (trans. William Adlington, 1566) for Bottom’s transformation.

TEXT: Quarto 1600, “as it hath been sundry times publicly acted by the Right Honourable the Lord Chamberlain his Servants,” apparently typeset from Shakespeare’s manuscript or a close transcription of it. Reprinted 1619 (Second Quarto). Folio text was set from a copy of the Second Quarto (thus repeating many of its corrections and errors), but with some consultation of an independent theater-derived manuscript, which provided additional stage directions, some corrections, and signs of a few revisions, most notably an economizing on roles whereby the Philostrate of Quarto becomes a silent character who only appears in the first scene and the role of Master of the Revels introducing the entertainment in the final scene is taken over by Egeus (which makes for nice tension between him and Lysander, the new son-in-law he did not want). Our edition retains this innovation as well as many local Folio corrections and modernizations, but restores Quarto in many cases where words are misset, omitted or transposed as a result of what was almost certainly compositor’s error as opposed to editorial alterations on the basis of the theater manuscript.

A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM

THESEUS, Duke of Athens

HIPPOLYTA, Queen of the Amazons, betrothed to Theseus

EGEUS, an Athenian courtier, father to Hermia

LYSANDER, in love with Hermia

HERMIA, in love with Lysander, but ordered by her father to marry Demetrius

DEMETRIUS, in love with Hermia, though once a suitor to Helena

HELENA, in love with Demetrius

Peter QUINCE, a carpenter and leader of an amateur dramatic group, who speaks the PROLOGUE to their play

Nick BOTTOM, a weaver, who plays PYRAMUS in the amateur play

Francis FLUTE, a bellows-mender, who plays THISBE in the amateur play

SNUG, a joiner, who plays a LION in the amateur play

Tom SNOUT, a tinker, who plays a WALL in the amateur play

Robin STARVELING, a tailor, who plays MOONSHINE in the amateur play

OBERON, King of Fairies

TITANIA, Queen of Fairies

ROBIN Goodfellow, also known as Puck, a sprite in the service of Oberon

PHILOSTRATE, an official in Theseus’ court

Other Attendants at the court of Theseus; other

Fairies attendant upon Oberon

Act 1 [Scene 1]1.1

running scene 1

Enter Theseus, Hippolyta, with others [Philostrate and attendants]

THESEUSNow, fair Hippolyta, our nuptial hour

Draws on apace.[2] Four happy days bring in

Another moon: but O, methinks, how slow

This old moon wanes; she lingers[4] my desires,

5

Like[5] to a stepdame or a dowager

Long withering out[6] a young man’s revenue.

HIPPOLYTAFour days will quickly steep[7] themselves in nights,

Four nights will quickly dream away the time.

And then the moon,[9] like to a silver bow

10

New-bent[10] in heaven, shall behold the night

Of our solemnities.[11]

THESEUSGo, Philostrate,

Stir up the Athenian youth to merriments,

Awake the pert[14] and nimble spirit of mirth,

15

Turn melancholy forth to funerals:

The pale[16] companion is not for our pomp.

[Exit Philostrate]

Hippolyta, I wooed thee with my sword,[17]

And won thy love doing thee injuries.[18]

But I will wed thee in another key,

20

With pomp, with triumph[20] and with revelling.

Enter Egeus and his daughter Hermia, Lysander and Demetrius

EGEUSHappy be Theseus, our renownèd duke.

THESEUSThanks, good Egeus: what’s the news with thee?

EGEUSFull of vexation come I, with complaint

Against my child, my daughter Hermia.

25

Stand forth, Demetrius. My noble lord,

This man hath my consent to marry her.

Stand forth, Lysander. And my gracious duke,

This man hath bewitched the bosom of my child.—

Thou, thou, Lysander, thou hast given her rhymes,

30

And interchanged love-tokens with my child.

Thou hast by moonlight at her window sung,

With feigning voice verses of feigning love,

And stol’n[33] the impression of her fantasy

With bracelets of thy hair, rings, gauds,[34] conceits,

35

Knacks,[35] trifles, nosegays, sweetmeats — messengers

Of strong prevailment[36] in unhardened youth —

With cunning hast thou filched[37] my daughter’s heart,

Turned her obedience, which is due to me,

To stubborn harshness.— And, my gracious duke,

40

Be[40] it so she will not here before your grace

Consent to marry with Demetrius,

I beg the ancient privilege of Athens:

As she is mine, I may dispose of her;

Which shall be either to this gentleman

45

Or to her death, according to our law

Immediately[46] provided in that case.

THESEUSWhat say you, Hermia? Be advised, fair maid,

To you your father should be as a god,

One that composed your beauties, yea, and one

50

To whom you are but as a form in wax

By him imprinted and within his power

To leave the figure or disfigure[52] it.

Demetrius is a worthy gentleman.

HERMIASo is Lysander.

55

THESEUSIn himself he is.

But in this kind,[56] wanting your father’s voice,

The other must be held the worthier.

HERMIAI would[58] my father looked but with my eyes.

THESEUSRather your eyes must with his judgement look.

60

HERMIAI do entreat your grace to pardon me.

I know not by what power I am made bold,

Nor how it may concern[62] my modesty

In such a presence[63] here to plead my thoughts:

But I beseech your grace that I may know

65

The worst that may befall me in this case,

If I refuse to wed Demetrius.

THESEUSEither to die the death[67] or to abjure

Forever the society[68] of men.

Therefore, fair Hermia, question your desires,

70

Know[70] of your youth, examine well your blood,

Whether, if you yield not to your father’s choice,

You can endure the livery[72] of a nun,

For aye[73] to be in shady cloister mewed,

To live a barren sister all your life,

75

Chanting faint hymns to the cold fruitless moon.

Thrice blessèd they that master so their blood,

To undergo such maiden pilgrimage.

But earthlier happy[78] is the rose distilled

Than that which withering on the virgin thorn

80

Grows, lives and dies in single blessedness.[80]

HERMIASo will I grow, so live, so die, my lord,

Ere[82] I will yield my virgin patent up

Unto his lordship,[83] whose unwishèd yoke

My soul consents not to give sovereignty.

85

THESEUSTake time to pause, and by the next new moon —

The sealing day[86] betwixt my love and me,

For everlasting bond of fellowship —

Upon that day either prepare to die

For disobedience to your father’s will,

90

Or else to wed Demetrius, as he would,[90]

Or on Diana’s[91] altar to protest

For aye[92] austerity and single life.

DEMETRIUSRelent, sweet Hermia.— And, Lysander, yield

Thy crazèd[94] title to my certain right.

95

LYSANDERYou have her father’s love, Demetrius:

Let me have Hermia’s. Do[96] you marry him.

EGEUSScornful Lysander! True, he hath my love;

And what is mine my love shall render[98] him.

And she is mine, and all my right of her

100

I do estate[100] unto Demetrius.

LYSANDERI am, my lord, as well derived[101] as he,

As well possessed:[102] my love is more than his,

My fortunes every way as fairly[103] ranked,

If not with[104] vantage, as Demetrius’,

105

And, which is more than all these boasts can be,

I am beloved of beauteous Hermia.

Why should not I then prosecute[107] my right?

Demetrius, I’ll avouch[108] it to his head,

Made[109] love to Nedar’s daughter, Helena,

110

And won her soul: and she, sweet lady, dotes,[110]

Devoutly dotes, dotes in idolatry,

Upon this spotted[112] and inconstant man.

THESEUSI must confess that I have heard so much,

And with Demetrius thought to have spoke thereof,

115

But, being over-full of self-affairs,[115]

My mind did lose[116] it. But, Demetrius, come,

And come, Egeus, you shall go with me.

I have some private schooling[118] for you both.

For you, fair Hermia, look[119] you arm yourself

120

To fit your fancies[120] to your father’s will,

Or else the law of Athens yields you up —

Which by no means we may extenuate[122] —

To death or to a vow of single life.—

Come, my Hippolyta. What cheer, my love?—

125

Demetrius and Egeus, go[125] along:

I must employ you in some business

Against[127] our nuptial and confer with you

Of something nearly that[128] concerns yourselves.

EGEUSWith duty and desire we follow you.

Exeunt all but Lysander and Hermia

130

LYSANDERHow now, my love! Why is your cheek so pale?

How chance the roses there do fade so fast?

HERMIABelike[132] for want of rain, which I could well

Beteem[133] them from the tempest of mine eyes.

LYSANDERAy me, for aught[134] that I could ever read,

135

Could ever hear by tale or history,

The course of true love never did run smooth.

But either it was different in blood[137]—

HERMIAO cross![138] Too high to be enthralled to low.

LYSANDEROr else misgraffèd[139] in respect of years—

140

HERMIAO spite! Too old to be engaged to young.

LYSANDEROr else it stood[141] upon the choice of merit—

HERMIAO hell! To choose love by another’s eyes.

LYSANDEROr if there were a sympathy[143] in choice,

War, death or sickness did lay siege to it,

145

Making it momentary[145] as a sound,

Swift as a shadow, short as any dream:

Brief as the lightning in the collied[147] night,

That in a spleen[148] unfolds both heaven and earth,

And ere[149] a man hath power to say ‘Behold!’

150

The jaws of darkness do devour it up:

So quick[151] bright things come to confusion.

HERMIAIf then true lovers have been ever crossed,[152]

It stands as an edict in destiny.

Then let us teach our trial[154] patience,

155

Because it is a customary cross,

As due to love as thoughts and dreams and sighs,

Wishes and tears, poor fancy’s[157] followers.

LYSANDERA good persuasion.[158] Therefore hear me, Hermia.

I have a widow aunt, a dowager

160

Of great revenue, and she hath no child.

From Athens is her house removed seven leagues,[161]

And she respects[162] me as her only son.

There, gentle Hermia, may I marry thee,

And to that place the sharp Athenian law

165

Cannot pursue us. If thou lov’st me, then

Steal forth thy father’s house tomorrow night,

And in the wood, a league without[167] the town,

Where I did meet thee once with Helena,

To do[169] observance to a morn of May,

170

There will I stay[170] for thee.

HERMIAMy good Lysander!

I swear to thee, by Cupid’s[172] strongest bow,

By his best[173] arrow with the golden head,

By the simplicity[174] of Venus’ doves,

175

By that which knitteth[175] souls and prospers love,

And by that fire which burned the Carthage[176] queen,

When the false Troyan[177] under sail was seen,

By all the vows that ever men have broke,

In number more than ever women spoke,

180

In that same place thou hast appointed me,

Tomorrow truly will I meet with thee.

LYSANDERKeep promise, love. Look, here comes Helena.

Enter Helena

HERMIAGod speed fair[183] Helena, whither away?

HELENACall you me fair? That fair again unsay.

185

Demetrius loves your fair: O happy[185] fair!

Your eyes are lodestars,[186] and your tongue’s sweet air

More tuneable[187] than lark to shepherd’s ear

When wheat is green,[188] when hawthorn buds appear.

Sickness is catching: O, were favour[189] so,

190

Your words I catch,[190] fair Hermia, ere I go,

My ear should catch your voice, my eye your eye,

My tongue should catch your tongue’s sweet melody.

Were the world mine, Demetrius being bated,[193]

The rest I’ll give to be to you translated.[194]

195

O, teach me how you look, and with what art

You sway the motion of Demetrius’ heart.

HERMIAI frown upon him, yet he loves me still.

HELENAO, that your frowns would teach my smiles such skill!

HERMIAI give him curses, yet he gives me love.

200

HELENAO, that my prayers could such affection move![200]

HERMIAThe more I hate, the more he follows me.

HELENAThe more I love, the more he hateth me.

HERMIAHis folly, Helena, is none[203] of mine.

HELENANone, but your beauty: would that fault were mine!

205

HERMIATake comfort: he no more shall see my face.

Lysander and myself will fly[206] this place.

Before the time I did Lysander see,

Seemed Athens like a paradise to me.

O, then, what graces in my love do dwell,

210

That he hath turned a heaven into hell!

LYSANDERHelen, to you our minds we will unfold:

Tomorrow night, when Phoebe[212] doth behold

Her silver visage in the wat’ry glass,[213]

Decking with liquid pearl the bladed grass,

215

A time that lovers’ flights doth still[215] conceal,

Through Athens’ gates have we devised to steal.

HERMIAAnd in the wood, where often you and I

Upon faint[218] primrose beds were wont to lie,

Emptying our bosoms of their counsel[219] sweet,

220

There my Lysander and myself shall meet,

And thence from Athens turn away our eyes,

To seek new friends and strange[222] companions.

Farewell, sweet playfellow: pray thou for us,

And good luck grant thee thy Demetrius! —

225

Keep word, Lysander: we must starve our sight

From lovers’ food till morrow deep midnight.

Exit

LYSANDERI will, my Hermia.— Helena, adieu.

As you on him, Demetrius dote on you!

Exit

HELENAHow happy some o’er other some[229] can be!

230

Through Athens I am thought as fair as she.

But what of that? Demetrius thinks not so:

He will not know what all[232] but he doth know.

And as he errs, doting on Hermia’s eyes,

So I, admiring of his qualities.

235

Things base and vile, holding no quantity,[235]

Love can transpose to form[236] and dignity.

Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind,

And therefore is winged Cupid painted blind.[238]

Nor hath love’s mind of[239] any judgement taste,

240

Wings and no eyes figure[240] unheedy haste.

And therefore is love said to be a child,

Because in choice he is often beguiled.[242]

As waggish[243] boys in game themselves forswear,

So the boy love is perjured everywhere.

245

For ere Demetrius looked on Hermia’s eyne,[245]

He hailed down oaths that he was only mine.

And when this hail some heat from Hermia felt,

So he dissolved, and showers of oaths did melt.

I will go tell him of fair Hermia’s flight:

250

Then to the wood will he tomorrow night

Pursue her; and for this intelligence,[251]

If I have thanks, it is a dear[252] expense.

But herein mean I to enrich my pain,

To have his sight thither and back again.

Exit

[Act 1 Scene 2]1.2

running scene 2

Enter Quince the carpenter, Snug the joiner, Bottom the weaver, Flute the bellows-mender, Snout the tinker and Starveling the tailor

QUINCEIs all our company here?

BOTTOMYou were best to call them generally,[2] man by man, according to the scrip.

QUINCEHere is the scroll of every man’s name, which is thought fit through all Athens to play in our interlude[4] before the duke and the duchess on his wedding day at night.

BOTTOMFirst, good Peter Quince, say what the play treats[6] on, then read the names of the actors, and so grow[7] on to a point.

QUINCEMarry,[8] our play is ‘The most lamentable comedy and most cruel death of Pyramus and Thisbe.’

BOTTOMA very good piece of work, I assure you, and a merry. Now, good Peter Quince, call forth your actors by the scroll. Masters, spread yourselves.[11]

QUINCEAnswer as I call you. Nick Bottom, the weaver.

BOTTOMReady. Name what part I am for, and proceed.

QUINCEYou, Nick Bottom, are set down for Pyramus.

BOTTOMWhat is Pyramus, a lover or a tyrant?

QUINCEA lover that kills himself most gallantly for love.

BOTTOMThat will ask[17] some tears in the true performing of it. If I do it, let the audience look to their eyes: I will move storms; I will condole[18] in some measure. To the rest — yet my chief humour[19] is for a tyrant: I could play Ercles rarely, or a part to tear[20] a cat in, to make all split.

The raging rocks

And shivering[22] shocks

Shall break the locks

Of prison gates.

25

And Phibbus’ car[25]

Shall shine from far

And make and mar[27]

The foolish Fates.[28]

This was lofty.[29] Now name the rest of the players. This is Ercles’ vein, a tyrant’s vein: a lover is more condoling.

QUINCEFrancis Flute, the bellows-mender.

FLUTEHere, Peter Quince.

QUINCEYou must take Thisbe on you.

FLUTEWhat is Thisbe? A wand’ring[34] knight?

QUINCEIt is the lady that Pyramus must love.

FLUTENay, faith, let not me play a woman: I have a beard coming.

QUINCEThat’s all one.[37] You shall play it in a mask, and you may speak as small as you will.[38]

BOTTOMAn[39] I may hide my face, let me play Thisbe too. I’ll speak in a monstrous little voice. ‘Thisne, Thisne!’ ‘Ah, Pyramus, my lover dear! Thy Thisbe dear and lady dear!’

QUINCENo, no, you must play Pyramus.— And, Flute, you Thisbe.

BOTTOMWell, proceed.

QUINCERobin Starveling, the tailor.

STARVELINGHere, Peter Quince.

QUINCERobin Starveling, you must play Thisbe’s[46] mother. Tom Snout, the tinker.

SNOUTHere, Peter Quince.

QUINCEYou, Pyramus’ father; myself, Thisbe’s father; Snug the joiner, you, the lion’s part: and I hope there is a play fitted.[49]

SNUGHave you the lion’s part written? Pray you, if it be, give it me, for I am slow of study.

QUINCEYou may do it extempore,[52] for it is nothing but roaring.

BOTTOMLet me play the lion too: I will roar that I will do any man’s heart good to hear me. I will roar that I will make the duke say ‘Let him roar again, let him roar again.’

QUINCEIf you should do it too terribly, you would fright the duchess and the ladies that they would shriek, and that were enough to hang us all.

ALLThat would hang us, every mother’s son.

BOTTOMI grant you, friends, if that you should fright the ladies out of their wits, they would have no more discretion[60] but to hang us: but I will aggravate my voice so that I will roar[61] you as gently as any sucking dove. I will roar an ’twere any nightingale.

QUINCEYou can play no part but Pyramus, for Pyramus is a sweet-faced man, a proper[64] man, as one shall see in a summer’s day; a most lovely gentlemanlike man: therefore you must needs play Pyramus.

BOTTOMWell, I will undertake it. What beard were I best to play it in?

QUINCEWhy, what you will.

BOTTOMI will discharge[68] it in either your straw-colour beard, your orange-tawny beard, your purple-in-grain[69] beard, or your French-crown-coloured beard, your perfect yellow.

QUINCESome of your French crowns[71] have no hair at all, and then you will play bare-faced. Passes out the parts But, masters, here are your parts: and I am to entreat you, request you and desire you, to con[73] them by tomorrow night, and meet me in the palace wood a mile without the town by moonlight. There will we rehearse, for if we meet in the city we shall be dogged with company, and our devices[75] known. In the meantime I will draw[76] a bill of properties, such as our play wants. I pray you fail me not.

BOTTOMWe will meet, and there we may rehearse more obscenely[78] and courageously.

Take pains, be perfect.[79] Adieu.

QUINCEAt the duke’s oak we meet.

BOTTOMEnough. Hold[81] or cut bow-strings.

Exeunt

Act 2 [Scene 1]2.1

running scene 3

Enter a Fairy at one door and Robin Goodfellow [Puck] at another

ROBINHow now, spirit, whither wander you?

FAIRYOver hill, over dale,

Through bush, through brier,

Over park,[4] over pale,

5

Thorough[5] flood, thorough fire,

I do wander everywhere,

Swifter than the moon’s sphere;[7]

And I serve the fairy queen,

To dew her orbs[9] upon the green.

10

The cowslips tall her pensioners[10] be,

In their gold coats spots you see,

Those be rubies, fairy favours,[12]

In those freckles live their savours.[13]

I must go seek some dewdrops here,

15

And hang a pearl in every cowslip’s ear.

Farewell, thou lob[16] of spirits, I’ll be gone:

Our queen and all her elves come here anon.[17]

ROBINThe king doth keep his revels here tonight:

Take heed the queen come not within his sight,

20

For Oberon is passing fell[20] and wrath,

Because that she as her attendant hath

A lovely boy, stol’n from an Indian king.

She never had so sweet a changeling,[23]

And jealous Oberon would have the child

25

Knight of his train, to trace[25] the forests wild.

But she perforce[26] withholds the lovèd boy,

Crowns him with flowers and makes him all her joy.

And now they never meet in grove or green,

By fountain[29] clear or spangled starlight sheen,

30

But they do square,[30] that all their elves for fear

Creep into acorn cups and hide them there.

FAIRYEither I mistake your shape and making[32] quite,

Or else you are that shrewd[33] and knavish sprite

Called Robin Goodfellow. Are not you he

35

That frights the maidens of the villagery,[35]

Skim[36] milk, and sometimes labour in the quern,

And bootless[37] make the breathless housewife churn,

And sometime make the drink to bear no barm,[38]

Mislead[39] night-wanderers, laughing at their harm?

40

Those that Hobgoblin call you and sweet Puck,

You do their work and they shall have good luck.

Are not you he?

ROBINThou speak’st aright;

I am that merry wanderer of the night.

45

I jest to Oberon and make him smile

When I a fat and bean-fed[46] horse beguile,

Neighing in likeness of a filly[47] foal,

And sometime lurk I in a gossip’s[48] bowl,

In very likeness of a roasted crab,[49]

50

And when she drinks, against her lips I bob

And on her withered dewlap[51] pour the ale.

The wisest aunt,[52] telling the saddest tale,

Sometime for three-foot stool mistaketh me,

Then slip I from her bum, down topples she,

55

And ‘tailor’ cries, and falls into a cough.

And then the whole quire[56] hold their hips and laugh,

And waxen[57] in their mirth and neeze and swear

A merrier hour was never wasted[58] there.

But, room,[59] fairy! Here comes Oberon.

60

FAIRYAnd here my mistress. Would that he were gone!

Enter the King of Fairies [Oberon] at one door with his train, and the Queen [Titania] at another with hers

OBERONIll met by moonlight, proud Titania.

TITANIAWhat, jealous Oberon? Fairies, skip hence.

I have forsworn his bed and company.

OBERONTarry,[64] rash wanton, am not I thy lord?

65

TITANIAThen I must be thy lady:[65] but I know

When thou hast stol’n away from fairy land,

And in the shape of Corin[67] sat all day,

Playing on pipes of corn[68] and versing love

To amorous Phillida.[69] Why art thou here,

70

Come from the farthest step[70] of India?

But that, forsooth,[71] the bouncing Amazon,

Your buskined[72] mistress and your warrior love,

To Theseus must be wedded; and you come

To give their bed joy and prosperity?

75

OBERONHow canst thou thus for shame, Titania,

Glance at[76] my credit with Hippolyta,

Knowing I know thy love to Theseus?

Didst not thou lead him through the glimmering[78] night

From Perigenia[79] whom he ravishèd?

80

And make him with fair Aegles[80] break his faith,

With Ariadne[81] and Antiopa?

TITANIAThese are the forgeries of jealousy,

And never since the middle summer’s spring[83]

Met we on hill, in dale, forest or mead,[84]

85

By pavèd[85] fountain or by rushy brook,

Or in[86] the beachèd margent of the sea,

To dance our ringlets[87] to the whistling wind,

But with thy brawls[88] thou hast disturbed our sport.

Therefore the winds, piping[89] to us in vain,

90

As in revenge, have sucked up from the sea

Contagious[91] fogs, which falling in the land

Hath every petty[92] river made so proud

That they have overborne[93] their continents.

The ox hath therefore stretched[94] his yoke in vain,

95

The ploughman lost[95] his sweat, and the green corn

Hath rotted ere[96] his youth attained a beard.

The fold[97] stands empty in the drownèd field,

And crows are fatted with the murrion[98] flock,

The nine men’s morris[99] is filled up with mud,

100

And the quaint[100] mazes in the wanton green

For lack of tread are undistinguishable.

The human mortals want[102] their winter here:

No night is now with hymn or carol blessed.

Therefore[104] the moon, the governess of floods,

105

Pale in her anger, washes[105] all the air,

That rheumatic[106] diseases do abound.

And through this distemperature[107] we see

The seasons alter; hoary-headed[108] frosts

Fall in the fresh lap of the crimson rose,

110

And on old Hiems’[110] thin and icy crown

An odorous chaplet[111] of sweet summer buds

Is, as in mockery, set. The spring, the summer,

The childing[113] autumn, angry winter, change

Their wonted[114] liveries, and the mazèd world

115

By their increase[115] now knows not which is which;

And this same progeny of evils comes

From our debate,[117] from our dissension:

We are their parents and original.[118]

OBERONDo you amend it then, it lies in you.

120

Why should Titania cross her Oberon?

I do but beg a little changeling boy

To be my henchman.[122]

TITANIASet your heart at rest:

The fairy land buys not the child of me.

125

His mother was a votress[125] of my order,

And in the spicèd Indian air by night

Full[127] often hath she gossiped by my side,

And sat with me on Neptune’s[128] yellow sands,

Marking[129] th’embarkèd traders on the flood,

130

When we have laughed to see the sails conceive

And grow big-bellied with the wanton[131] wind,

Which she, with pretty and with swimming gait[132]

Following — her womb then rich with my young squire —

Would imitate, and sail upon the land,

135

To fetch me trifles, and return again

As from a voyage, rich with merchandise.

But she, being mortal, of that boy[137] did die:

And for her sake do I rear up her boy,

And for her sake I will not part with him.

140

OBERONHow long within this wood intend you stay?

TITANIAPerchance[141] till after Theseus’ wedding day.

If you will patiently[142] dance in our round

And see our moonlight revels, go with us;

If not, shun me, and I will spare[144] your haunts.

145

OBERONGive me that boy, and I will go with thee.

TITANIANot for thy fairy kingdom. Fairies, away.

We shall chide[147] downright, if I longer stay.

Exeunt [Titania and her train]

OBERONWell, go thy way: thou shalt not from[148] this grove

Till I torment thee for this injury.

150

My gentle Puck, come hither. Thou rememb’rest

Since[151] once I sat upon a promontory,

And heard a mermaid on a dolphin’s back

Uttering such dulcet[153] and harmonious breath

That the rude[154] sea grew civil at her song,

155

And certain[155] stars shot madly from their spheres

To hear the sea-maid’s music.

ROBINI remember.

OBERONThat very time I saw, but thou couldst not,

Flying between the cold moon and the earth,

160

Cupid all[160] armed; a certain aim he took

At a fair vestal[161] thronèd by the west,

And loosed his love-shaft smartly from his bow,

As[163] it should pierce a hundred thousand hearts.

But I might[164] see young Cupid’s fiery shaft

165

Quenched in the chaste beams of the wat’ry moon;

And the imperial votress passèd on,

In maiden meditation, fancy-free.[167]

Yet marked I where the bolt[168] of Cupid fell.

It fell upon a little western flower,

170

Before milk-white, now purple[170] with love’s wound,

And maidens call it love-in-idleness.[171]

Fetch me that flower; the herb I showed thee once:

The juice of it on sleeping eyelids laid

Will make or[174] man or woman madly dote

175

Upon the next live creature that it sees.

Fetch me this herb, and be thou here again

Ere the leviathan[177] can swim a league.

ROBINI’ll put a girdle[178] round about the earth

In forty minutes.

[Exit]

180

OBERONHaving once this juice,

I’ll watch Titania when she is asleep,

And drop the liquor of it in her eyes.

The next thing when she waking looks upon,

Be it on lion, bear, or wolf or bull,

185

On meddling monkey or on busy ape,

She shall pursue it with the soul of love.

And ere I take this charm off from her sight,

As I can take it with another herb,

I’ll make her render up her page to me.

190

But who comes here? I am invisible,

And I will overhear their conference. He stands aside

Enter Demetrius, Helena following him

DEMETRIUSI love thee not, therefore pursue me not.

Where is Lysander and fair Hermia?

The[194] one I’ll stay, the other stayeth me.

195

Thou told’st me they were stolen into this wood;

And here am I, and wood[196] within this wood,

Because I cannot meet my Hermia.

Hence, get thee gone, and follow me no more.

HELENAYou draw[199] me, you hard-hearted adamant;

200

But yet you draw not iron, for my heart

Is true as steel. Leave you[201] your power to draw,

And I shall have no power to follow you.

DEMETRIUSDo I entice you?[203] Do I speak you fair?

Or rather do I not in plainest truth

205

Tell you I do not nor I cannot love you?

HELENAAnd even for that do I love thee the more.

I am your spaniel, and, Demetrius,

The more you beat me, I will fawn on you.

Use me but[209] as your spaniel: spurn me, strike me,

210

Neglect me, lose me; only give me leave,[210]

Unworthy as I am, to follow you.

What worser place can I beg in your love —

And yet a place of high respect with me —

Than to be used as you do use your dog?

215

DEMETRIUSTempt not too much the hatred of my spirit,

For I am sick when I do look on thee.

HELENAAnd I am sick when I look not on you.

DEMETRIUSYou do impeach[218] your modesty too much,

To leave the city and commit yourself

220

Into the hands of one that loves you not,

To trust the opportunity of night

And the ill counsel of a desert[222] place

With the rich worth of your virginity.

HELENAYour virtue is my privilege:[224] for that

225

It is not night when I do see your face,

Therefore I think I am not in the night.

Nor doth this wood lack worlds of company,

For you in my respect are all the world.

Then how can it be said I am alone,

230

When all the world is here to look on me?

DEMETRIUSI’ll run from thee and hide me in the brakes,[231]

And leave thee to the mercy of wild beasts.

HELENAThe wildest hath not such a heart as you.

Run when you will, the story shall be changed:

235

Apollo[235] flies, and Daphne holds the chase;

The dove pursues the griffin,[236] the mild hind

Makes speed to catch the tiger. Bootless[237] speed,

When cowardice pursues and valour flies.

DEMETRIUSI will not stay[239] thy questions, let me go;

240

Or if thou follow me, do not believe

But I shall do thee mischief in the wood.

[↓Exit Demetrius↓]

HELENAAy, in the temple, in the town, the field,

You do me mischief. Fie, Demetrius!

Your wrongs do set[244] a scandal on my sex:

245

We cannot fight for love, as men may do;

We should be wooed and were not made to woo.

I’ll follow thee and make a heaven of hell,

To die upon[248] the hand I love so well.

Exit

OBERONFare thee well, nymph: ere he do leave this grove,

250

Thou shalt fly him and he shall seek thy love.

Enter [Robin] Puck

Hast thou the flower there? Welcome, wanderer.

ROBINAy, there it is. Shows the flower

OBERONI pray thee give it me.

I know a bank where the wild thyme blows,[254]

255

Where oxlips[255] and the nodding violet grows,

Quite[256] over-canopied with luscious woodbine,

With sweet musk-roses[257] and with eglantine:

There sleeps Titania sometime[258] of the night,

Lulled in these flowers with dances and delight:

260

And there the snake throws[260] her enamelled skin,

Weed[261] wide enough to wrap a fairy in.

And with the juice of this I’ll streak her eyes,

And make her full of hateful fantasies.

Take thou some of it, and seek through this grove; Gives him some juice

265

A sweet Athenian lady is in love

With a disdainful youth: anoint his eyes,

But do it when the next thing he espies

May be the lady. Thou shalt know the man

By the Athenian garments he hath on.

270

Effect it with some care, that he may prove

More fond on[271] her than she upon her love;

And look thou meet me ere the first cock crow.

ROBINFear not, my lord, your servant shall do so.

Exeunt

[Act 2 Scene 2]

running scene 4

Enter Queen of Fairies [Titania] with her train

TITANIACome, now a roundel[1] and a fairy song;

Then, for the third part of a minute, hence:

Some to kill cankers[3] in the musk-rose buds,

Some war with reremice[4] for their leathern wings,

5

To make my small elves coats, and some keep back

The clamorous owl that nightly hoots and wonders

At our quaint[7] spirits. Sing me now asleep,

Then to your offices[8] and let me rest. She lies down on a bank

Fairies sing

FIRST FAIRYYou spotted snakes with double[9] tongue,

10

Thorny hedgehogs, be not seen.

Newts and blind-worms,[11] do no wrong,

Come not near our fairy queen.

CHORUSPhilomel,[13] with melody

Sing in our sweet lullaby,

15

Lulla, lulla, lullaby, lulla, lulla, lullaby.

Never harm,

Nor spell nor charm,

Come our lovely lady nigh;[18]

So, good night, with lullaby.

20

SECOND FAIRYWeaving spiders, come not here.

Hence, you long-legged spinners, hence!

Beetles black, approach not near;

Worm nor snail, do no offence.

CHORUSPhilomel, with melody, etc.[24]

25

FIRST FAIRYHence, away! Now all is well;

One aloof[26] stand sentinel.

She [Titania] sleeps. [Exeunt Fairies]

Enter Oberon

OBERONWhat thou see’st when thou dost wake, Squeezes juice on Titania’s eyes

Do it for thy true-love take,

Love and languish for his sake.

30

Be it ounce[30] or cat or bear,

Pard,[31] or boar with bristled hair,

In thy eye that shall appear

When thou wak’st, it is thy dear.

Wake when some vile thing is near.

[Exit]

Enter Lysander and Hermia

35

LYSANDERFair love, you faint with wand’ring in the wood,

And to speak troth,[36] I have forgot our way:

We’ll rest us, Hermia, if you think it good,

And tarry[38] for the comfort of the day.

HERMIABe it so, Lysander; find you out a bed,

40

For I upon this bank will rest my head.

LYSANDEROne turf shall serve as pillow for us both:

One heart, one bed, two bosoms and one troth.[42]

HERMIANay, good Lysander, for my sake, my dear,

Lie further off yet, do not lie so near.

45

LYSANDERO, take the sense,[45] sweet, of my innocence!

Love[46] takes the meaning in love’s conference.

I mean that my heart unto yours is knit

So that but one heart we can make of it.

Two bosoms interchainèd with an oath,

50

So then two bosoms and a single troth.

Then by your side no bed-room me deny,

For lying so, Hermia, I do not lie.[52]

HERMIALysander riddles very prettily.[53]

Now much beshrew[54] my manners and my pride,

55

If Hermia meant to say Lysander lied.

But, gentle friend,[56] for love and courtesy

Lie further off, in human[57] modesty:

Such separation as may well be said

Becomes[59] a virtuous bachelor and a maid,

60

So far be distant, and good night, sweet friend;

Thy love ne’er alter till thy sweet life end!

LYSANDERAmen, amen, to that fair prayer, say I,

And then end life when I end loyalty!

Here is my bed: sleep give thee all his rest!

65

HERMIAWith half that wish the wisher’s eyes[65] be pressed!

They sleep

Enter [Robin] Puck

ROBINThrough the forest have I gone,

But Athenian found I none

On whose eyes I might approve[68]

This flower’s force in stirring love.

70

Night and silence — who is here? Sees Lysander

Weeds of Athens he doth wear:

This is he, my master said,

Despisèd the Athenian maid:

And here the maiden, sleeping sound,

75

On the dank and dirty ground.

Pretty soul, she durst not lie

Near this lack-love, this kill-courtesy.

Churl,[78] upon thy eyes I throw Puts juice on Lysander’s eyes

All the power this charm doth owe.[79]

80

When thou wak’st, let love forbid[80]

Sleep his seat on thy eyelid.

So awake when I am gone,

For I must now to Oberon.

Exit

Enter Demetrius and Helena, running

HELENAStay, though thou kill me, sweet Demetrius.

85

DEMETRIUSI charge[85] thee, hence, and do not haunt me thus.

HELENAO, wilt thou darkling[86] leave me? Do not so.

DEMETRIUSStay, on thy peril: I alone will go.

Exit

HELENAO, I am out of breath in this fond[88] chase!

The more my prayer, the lesser is my grace.[89]

90

Happy is Hermia, wheresoe’er she lies;[90]

For she hath blessèd and attractive eyes.

How came her eyes so bright? Not with salt tears:

If so, my eyes are oftener washed than hers.

No, no, I am as ugly as a bear;

95

For beasts that meet me run away for fear:

Therefore no marvel[96] though Demetrius

Do, as[97] a monster, fly my presence thus.

What wicked and dissembling glass[98] of mine

Made me compare with Hermia’s sphery eyne?[99]

100

But who is here? Lysander, on the ground; Sees Lysander

Dead, or asleep? I see no blood, no wound.

Lysander if you live, good sir, awake.

LYSANDERAnd run through fire I will for thy sweet sake. Wakes

Transparent[104] Helena, nature shows her art

105

That through thy bosom makes me see thy heart.

Where is Demetrius? O, how fit a word

Is that vile name to perish on my sword!

HELENADo not say so, Lysander, say not so.

What though[109] he love your Hermia? Lord, what though?

110

Yet Hermia still loves you; then be content.

LYSANDERContent with Hermia? No, I do repent

The tedious minutes I with her have spent.

Not Hermia but Helena now I love;

Who will not change a raven for a dove?

115

The will[115] of man is by his reason swayed,

And reason says you are the worthier maid.

Things growing are not ripe until their season;

So I, being young, till now ripe not[118] to reason.

And touching now the point[119] of human skill,

120

Reason becomes the marshal[120] to my will

And leads me to your eyes, where I o’erlook[121]

Love’s stories[122] written in love’s richest book.

HELENAWherefore[123] was I to this keen mockery born?

When at your hands did I deserve this scorn?

125

Is’t not enough, is’t not enough, young man,

That I did never, no, nor never can,

Deserve a sweet look from Demetrius’ eye,

But you must flout my insufficiency?

Good troth[129] you do me wrong, good sooth, you do,

130

In such disdainful manner me to woo.

But fare you well; perforce I must confess

I thought you lord[132] of more true gentleness.

O, that a lady of one man refused

Should of[134] another therefore be abused!

Exit

135

LYSANDERShe sees not Hermia. Hermia, sleep thou there,

And never mayst thou come Lysander near;

For as a surfeit[137] of the sweetest things

The deepest loathing to the stomach brings,

Or as the heresies that men do leave[139]

140

Are hated most of those[140] they did deceive,

So thou, my surfeit and my heresy,

Of[142] all be hated, but the most of me.

And all my powers address[143] your love and might

To honour Helen and to be her knight!

Exit

145

HERMIAHelp me, Lysander, help me; do thy best Wakes

To pluck this crawling serpent from my breast!

Ay me, for pity; what a dream was here?

Lysander, look how I do quake with fear:

Methought a serpent ate my heart away,

150

And you sat smiling at his cruel prey.[150]

Lysander! What, removed?[151] Lysander! Lord!

What, out of hearing? Gone? No sound, no word?

Alack, where are you? Speak, an if[153] you hear:

Speak, of all loves![154] I swoon almost with fear.

155

No? Then I well perceive you are not nigh.

Either death or you I’ll find immediately. Titania remains asleep

Exit

Act 3 [Scene 1]3.1

running scene 4 continues

Enter the Clowns [Bottom, Quince, Snug, Flute, Snout and Starveling]

BOTTOMAre we all met?

QUINCEPat,[2] pat, and here’s a marvellous convenient place for our rehearsal. This green plot shall be our stage, this hawthorn brake[3] our tiring-house, and we will do it in action as we will do it before the duke.

BOTTOMPeter Quince?

QUINCEWhat sayest thou, bully[6] Bottom?

BOTTOMThere are things in this comedy of Pyramus and Thisbe that will never please. First, Pyramus must draw a sword to kill himself; which the ladies cannot abide. How answer you that?

SNOUTBy’r lakin,[10] a parlous fear.

STARVELINGI believe we must leave the killing out, when all is done.[11]

BOTTOMNot a whit: I have a device to make all well. Write me[12] a prologue, and let the prologue seem to say we will do no harm with our swords, and that Pyramus is not killed indeed. And for the more better assurance, tell them that I, Pyramus, am not Pyramus, but Bottom the weaver; this will put them out of fear.

QUINCEWell, we will have such a prologue, and it shall be written in eight and six.[16]

BOTTOMNo, make it two more: let it be written in eight and eight.

SNOUTWill not the ladies be afeard[18] of the lion?

STARVELINGI fear it,[19] I promise you.

BOTTOMMasters, you ought to consider with yourselves, to bring in — God shield us! — a lion among ladies is a most dreadful thing. For there is not a more fearful[21] wild-fowl[22] than your lion living. And we ought to look to it.

SNOUTTherefore another prologue must tell he is not a lion.

BOTTOMNay, you must name his name, and half his face must be seen through the lion’s neck, and he himself must speak through, saying thus, or to the same defect:[25] ‘Ladies’ or ‘Fair-ladies, I would wish you’ or ‘I would request you’ or ‘I would entreat you, not to fear, not to tremble. My[27] life for yours. If you think I come hither as a lion, it were pity[28] of my life. No, I am no such thing, I am a man as other men are.’ And there indeed let him name his name, and tell them plainly[29] he is Snug the joiner.

QUINCEWell, it shall be so. But there is two hard things: that is, to bring the moonlight into a chamber, for you know Pyramus and Thisbe meet by moonlight.

SNOUTDoth the moon shine that night we play our play?

BOTTOMA calendar, a calendar! Look in the almanac.[33] Find out moonshine, find out moonshine. They consult an almanac

[Robin may] enter

QUINCEYes, it doth shine that night.

BOTTOMWhy, then may you leave a casement[36] of the great chamber window, where we play, open, and the moon may shine in at the casement.

QUINCEAy, or else one must come in with a bush[38] of thorns and a lantern, and say he comes to disfigure,[39] or to present, the person of Moonshine. Then there is another thing: we must have a wall in the great chamber; for Pyramus and Thisbe, says the story, did talk through the chink of a wall.

SNOUTYou can never bring in a wall. What say you, Bottom?

BOTTOMSome man or other must present Wall: and let him have some plaster, or some loam, or some rough-cast[44] about him, to signify wall; or let him hold his fingers thus; and through that cranny shall Pyramus and Thisbe whisper. Hand gesture suggesting a hole in a wall

QUINCEIf that may be, then all is well. Come, sit down, every mother’s son, and rehearse[47] your parts. Pyramus, you begin: when you have spoken your speech, enter into that brake, and so every one according to his cue.

Robin [may] enter

ROBINWhat hempen home-spuns[49] have we swagg’ring here, Aside

50

So near the cradle[50] of the fairy queen?

What, a play toward?[51] I’ll be an auditor,

An actor too perhaps, if I see cause.

QUINCESpeak, Pyramus.— Thisbe, stand forth.

PYRAMUS [BOTTOM]Thisbe, the flowers of odious savours sweet—

55

QUINCEOdours, odours.

PYRAMUS [BOTTOM]—odours savours sweet,

So hath thy breath, my dearest Thisbe dear.

But hark, a voice! Stay thou but here awhile,

And by and by[59] I will to thee appear.

Exit

60

ROBINA stranger Pyramus than e’er played here.

[Exit]

THISBE [FLUTE]Must I speak now?

QUINCEAy, marry, must you, for you must understand he goes but to see a noise that he heard, and is to come again.

THISBE [FLUTE]Most radiant Pyramus, most lily-white of hue,

65

Of colour like the red rose on triumphant brier,

Most brisky juvenal[66] and eke most lovely Jew,

As true as truest horse that yet would never tire,

I’ll meet thee, Pyramus, at Ninny’s tomb.

QUINCE‘Ninus’[69] tomb’, man! Why, you must not speak that yet; that you answer to Pyramus. You speak all your part[70] at once, cues and all. Pyramus, enter: your cue is past; it is, ‘never tire’.

THISBE [FLUTE]O — As true as truest horse that yet would never tire.

Enter [Robin and] Pyramus [Bottom] with the ass head

PYRAMUS [BOTTOM]If I were fair,[73] Thisbe, I were only thine.

QUINCEO monstrous! O strange! We are haunted. Pray, masters! Fly, masters! Help!

The Clowns all exit

75

ROBINI’ll follow you, I’ll lead you about a round,[75]

Through bog, through bush, through brake, through brier.

Sometime a horse I’ll be, sometime a hound,

A hog, a headless bear, sometime a fire,[78]

And neigh and bark and grunt and roar and burn,

80

Like horse, hound, hog, bear, fire, at every turn. If Bottom exited with the other clowns, he reenters here

Exit

BOTTOMWhy do they run away? This is a knavery[81] of them to make me afeard.

Enter Snout

SNOUTO Bottom, thou art changed! What do I see on thee?

85

BOTTOMWhat do you see? You see an asshead of your own, do you?

[Exit Snout]

Enter Quince

QUINCEBless thee, Bottom! Bless thee! Thou art translated.[84]

Exit

BOTTOMI see their knavery: this is to make an ass of me, to fright me, if they could; but I will not stir from this place, do what they can. I will walk up and down here, and I will sing, that they shall hear I am not afraid.

The ousel cock[88] so black of hue, Sings

With orange-tawny bill,

90

The throstle[90] with his note so true,

The wren with little quill[91]—

TITANIAWhat angel wakes me from my flow’ry bed? Wakes

BOTTOMThe finch, the sparrow and the lark, Sings

The plain-song[94] cuckoo grey,

95

Whose note full many a man doth mark,

And dares[96] not answer nay —

For, indeed, who[97] would set his wit to so foolish a bird? Who would give a bird the lie, though he cry ‘cuckoo’[98] never so?

TITANIAI pray thee, gentle mortal, sing again:

100

Mine ear is much enamoured of thy note;

So is mine eye enthrallèd[101] to thy shape:

And thy fair virtue’s[102] force perforce doth move me

On the first view to say, to swear, I love thee.

BOTTOMMethinks, mistress, you should have little reason for that: and yet, to say the truth, reason and love keep little company together nowadays; the more the pity that some honest neighbours will not make them friends. Nay, I can gleek[106] upon occasion.

TITANIAThou art as wise as thou art beautiful.

BOTTOMNot so, neither: but if I had wit enough to get out of this wood, I have enough to serve mine own turn.[110]

TITANIAOut of this wood do not desire to go:

Thou shalt remain here, whether thou wilt[112] or no.

I am a spirit of no common rate.[113]

The summer still[114] doth tend upon my state,

115

And I do love thee: therefore, go with me.

I’ll give thee fairies to attend on thee,

And they shall fetch thee jewels from the deep,[117]

And sing while thou on pressèd flowers dost sleep.

And I will purge thy mortal grossness[119] so

120

That thou shalt like an airy spirit go.

Peaseblossom,[121] Cobweb, Moth, Mustardseed!

Enter four Fairies

PEASEBLOSSOMReady.

COBWEBAnd I.

MOTHAnd I.

125

MUSTARDSEEDAnd I.

ALLWhere shall we go?

TITANIABe kind and courteous to this gentleman.

Hop in his walks and gambol in his eyes,[128]

Feed him with apricocks[129] and dewberries,

130

With purple grapes, green figs, and mulberries.

The honey-bags steal from the humbleb-ees,[131]

And for night-tapers[132] crop their waxen thighs

And light them at the fiery glow-worm’s eyes,

To have my love to bed and to arise.[134]

135

And pluck the wings from painted butterflies

To fan the moonbeams from his sleeping eyes.

Nod to him, elves, and do him courtesies.

PEASEBLOSSOMHail, mortal!

COBWEBHail!

MOTHHail!

MUSTARDSEEDHail!

BOTTOMI cry[142] your worship’s mercy, heartily; I beseech your worship’s name. To Cobweb

COBWEBCobweb.

BOTTOMI shall desire[144] you of more acquaintance, good Master Cobweb: if I cut my finger, I shall make bold with you.— Your name, honest gentleman?

PEASEBLOSSOMPeaseblossom.

BOTTOMI pray you commend me to Mistress Squash,[147] your mother, and to Master Peascod,[148] your father. Good Master Peaseblossom, I shall desire you of more acquaintance too.— Your name, I beseech you, sir?

MUSTARDSEEDMustardseed.

BOTTOMGood Master Mustardseed, I know your patience[151] well: that same cowardly, giant-like ox-beef hath devoured many a gentleman of your house. I promise you, your kindred hath made[153] my eyes water ere now. I desire you of more acquaintance, good Master Mustardseed.

155

TITANIACome, wait upon him, lead him to my bower.

The moon methinks looks with a wat’ry eye,

And when she weeps,[157] weeps every little flower,

Lamenting some enforcèd[158] chastity.

Tie[159] up my lover’s tongue, bring him silently.

Exeunt

[Act 3 Scene 2]

running scene 5

Enter King of Fairies [Oberon] alone

OBERONI wonder if Titania be awaked;

Then what it was that next came in her eye,

Which she must dote on in[3] extremity.

Enter [Robin] Puck

Here comes my messenger.— How now, mad spirit?

5

What night-rule[5] now about this haunted grove?

ROBINMy mistress with a monster is in love.

Near to her close[7] and consecrated bower,

While she was in her dull[8] and sleeping hour,

A crew of patches,[9] rude mechanicals,

10

That work for bread upon Athenian stalls,

Were met together to rehearse a play

Intended for great Theseus’ nuptial-day.

The shallowest thick-skin of that barren sort,[13]

Who Pyramus presented in their sport,

15

Forsook[15] his scene and entered in a brake,

When I did him at this advantage take:

An ass’s noll[17] I fixèd on his head.

Anon his Thisbe must be answerèd,

And forth my mimic[19] comes. When they him spy,

20

As wild geese that the creeping fowler[20] eye,

Or russet-pated choughs,[21] many in sort,

Rising and cawing at the gun’s report,[22]

Sever[23] themselves and madly sweep the sky,

So, at his sight, away his fellows fly.

25

And at our stamp here o’er and o’er one falls;

He ‘murder’ cries and help from Athens calls.

Their sense thus weak, lost with their fears thus strong,

Made senseless things begin to do them wrong.

For briars and thorns at their apparel snatch,

30

Some sleeves, some hats, from yielders[30] all things catch.

I led them on in this distracted fear,

And left sweet Pyramus translated there:

When in that moment, so it came to pass,

Titania waked and straightway loved an ass.

35

OBERONThis falls out better than I could devise.

But hast thou yet latched[36] the Athenian’s eyes

With the love juice, as I did bid thee do?

ROBINI took him sleeping — that is finished too —

And the Athenian woman by his side,

40

That, when he waked, of force[40] she must be eyed.

Enter Demetrius and Hermia

OBERONStand close.[41] This is the same Athenian. They stand aside

ROBINThis is the woman, but not this the man.

DEMETRIUSO, why rebuke you him that loves you so?

Lay breath so bitter on your bitter foe.

45

HERMIANow I but chide,[45] but I should use thee worse,

For thou, I fear, hast given me cause to curse,

If thou hast slain Lysander in his sleep,

Being o’er shoes[48] in blood, plunge in the deep,

And kill me too.

50

The sun was not so true[50] unto the day

As he to me. Would he have stol’n away

From sleeping Hermia? I’ll believe as soon

This whole[53] earth may be bored and that the moon

May through the centre[54] creep, and so displease

55

Her brother’s[55] noontide with th’Antipodes.

It cannot be but thou hast murdered him,

So should a murderer look, so dead,[57] so grim.

DEMETRIUSSo should the murdered look, and so should I,

Pierced through the heart with your stern cruelty:

60

Yet you, the murderer, looks as bright, as clear,

As yonder Venus[61] in her glimm’ring sphere.

HERMIAWhat’s this to[62] my Lysander? Where is he?

Ah, good Demetrius, wilt thou give him me?

DEMETRIUSI’d rather give his carcass to my hounds.

65

HERMIAOut, dog! Out, cur![65] Thou driv’st me past the bounds

Of maiden’s patience. Hast thou slain him, then?

Henceforth be never numbered[67] among men.

O, once[68] tell true, tell true even for my sake!

Durst[69] thou a looked upon him being awake?

70

And hast thou killed him sleeping? O brave touch![70]

Could not a worm,[71] an adder, do so much?

An adder did it, for with doubler[72] tongue

Than thine, thou serpent, never adder stung.

DEMETRIUSYou spend[74] your passion on a misprised mood.

75

I am not guilty of Lysander’s blood,

Nor is he dead, for aught that I can tell.

HERMIAI pray thee tell me then that he is well.

DEMETRIUSAn if I could, what should I get therefor?[78]

HERMIAA privilege never to see me more;

80

And from thy hated presence part I so:

See me no more, whether he be dead or no.

Exit

DEMETRIUSThere is no following her in this fierce vein:[82]

Here therefore for a while I will remain.

So[84] sorrow’s heaviness doth heavier grow

85

For[85] debt that bankrupt sleep doth sorrow owe,

Which now in some slight measure it will pay,

If for his tender[87] here I make some stay.

[Demetrius] lies down [and sleeps]

OBERONWhat hast thou done? Thou hast mistaken quite[88]

And laid the love juice on some true love’s sight:

90

Of thy misprision[90] must perforce ensue

Some true love turned, and not a false turned true.

ROBINThen fate o’errules, that, one[92] man holding troth,

A million fail, confounding[93] oath on oath.

OBERONAbout the wood go swifter than the wind,

95

And Helena of Athens look[95] thou find.

All fancy-sick[96] she is and pale of cheer,

With sighs[97] of love, that costs the fresh blood dear.

By some illusion[98] see thou bring her here.

I’ll charm his eyes against[99] she doth appear.

100

ROBINI go, I go, look how I go,

Swifter than arrow from the Tartar’s bow.[101]

Exit

OBERONFlower of this purple dye, Squeezes juice on Demetrius’ eyes

Hit with Cupid’s archery,

Sink in apple[104] of his eye.

105

When his love he doth espy,

Let her shine as glor’ously

As the Venus of the sky.

When thou wak’st, if she be by,

Beg of her for remedy.[109]

Enter [Robin] Puck

110

ROBINCaptain of our fairy band,

Helena is here at hand,

And the youth, mistook by me,

Pleading for a lover’s fee.[113]

Shall we their fond pageant[114] see?

115

Lord, what fools these mortals be!

OBERONStand aside: the noise they make

Will cause Demetrius to awake. They stand aside

ROBINThen will two at once woo one,

That must needs be sport alone.[119]

120

And those things do best please me

That befall preposterously.[121]

Enter Lysander [following] Helena

LYSANDERWhy should you think that I should woo in scorn?

Scorn and derision never come in tears:

Look when[124] I vow, I weep; and vows so born,

125

In their nativity[125] all truth appears.

How can these things in me seem scorn to you,

Bearing the badge[127] of faith to prove them true?

HELENAYou do advance[128] your cunning more and more.

When truth kills truth,[129] O devilish-holy fray!

130

These vows are Hermia’s. Will you give her o’er?[130]

Weigh oath with oath, and you will nothing weigh.

Your vows to her and me, put in two scales,

Will even weigh, and both as light as tales.[133]

LYSANDERI had no judgement when to her I swore.

135

HELENANor none, in my mind, now you give her o’er.

LYSANDERDemetrius[136] loves her, and he you.

DEMETRIUSO Helen, goddess, nymph, perfect, divine!

Awakes

To what, my love, shall I compare thine eyne?

Crystal is muddy. O, how ripe[139] in show

140

Thy lips, those kissing cherries, tempting grow!

That pure congealèd white,[141] high Taurus’ snow,

Fanned with the eastern wind, turns[142] to a crow

When thou hold’st up thy hand. O, let me kiss

This princess of pure white, this seal[144] of bliss!

145

HELENAO spite! O hell! I see you all are bent[145]

To set against[146] me for your merriment:

If you were civil and knew courtesy,

You would not do[148] me thus much injury.

Can you not hate me, as I know you do,

150

But you must join[150] in souls to mock me too?

If you were men, as men you are in show,

You would not use a gentle[152] lady so;

To vow, and swear, and superpraise[153] my parts,

When I am sure you hate me with your hearts.

155

You both are rivals and love Hermia;

And now both rivals to mock Helena.

A trim[157] exploit, a manly enterprise,

To conjure tears up in a poor maid’s eyes

With your derision; none of noble sort

160

Would so offend a virgin and extort[160]

A poor soul’s patience, all to make you sport.

LYSANDERYou are unkind, Demetrius; be not so,

For you love Hermia; this you know I know;

And here, with all good will, with all my heart,

165

In Hermia’s love I yield you up my part;

And yours of Helena to me bequeath,

Whom I do love and will do till my death.

HELENANever did mockers waste more idle breath.

DEMETRIUSLysander, keep thy Hermia, I will none:[169]

170

If e’er I loved her, all that love is gone.

My heart to her but[171] as guestwise sojourned,

And now to Helen is it home returned,

There to remain.

LYSANDERHelen, it is not so.

175

DEMETRIUSDisparage not the faith thou dost not know,

Lest to thy peril thou abide[176] it dear.

Look where thy love comes, yonder is thy dear.

Enter Hermia

HERMIADark night, that from the eye his[178] function takes,

The ear more quick of apprehension[179] makes,

180

Wherein it doth impair the seeing sense,

It pays the hearing double recompense.

Thou art not by mine eye, Lysander, found,

Mine ear, I thank it, brought me to thy sound.

But why unkindly didst thou leave me so?

185

LYSANDERWhy should he stay whom love doth press to go?

HERMIAWhat love could press[186] Lysander from my side?

LYSANDERLysander’s love, that would not let him bide[187] —

Fair Helena, who more engilds[188] the night

Than all yon[189] fiery oes and eyes of light.—

190

Why seek’st thou me? Could not this make thee know, To Hermia

The hate I bear thee made me leave thee so?

HERMIAYou speak not as you think; it cannot be.

HELENALo, she is one of this confed’racy![193]

Now I perceive they have conjoined all three

195

To fashion[195] this false sport in spite of me.

Injurious[196] Hermia, most ungrateful maid,

Have you conspired, have you with these contrived

To bait[198] me with this foul derision?

Is all the counsel[199] that we two have shared,

200

The sisters’ vows, the hours that we have spent,

When we have chid[201] the hasty-footed time

For parting us — O, is all forgot?

All schooldays’ friendship, childhood innocence?

We, Hermia, like two artificial[204] gods,

205

Have with our needles created both one flower,

Both on one sampler, sitting on one cushion,

Both warbling of one song, both in one key,[207]

As if our hands, our sides, voices and minds,

Had been incorporate.[209] So we grew together

210

Like[210] to a double cherry, seeming parted,

But yet a union in partition,

Two lovely berries moulded on one stem,

So with two seeming bodies but one heart,[213]

Two of the first,[214] like coats in heraldry,

215

Due[215] but to one and crownèd with one crest.

And will you rent[216] our ancient love asunder,

To join with men in scorning your poor friend?

It is not friendly, ’tis not maidenly.

Our sex, as well as I, may chide you for it,

220

Though I alone do feel the injury.

HERMIAI am amazèd at your passionate words.

I scorn you not; it seems that you scorn me.

HELENAHave you not set Lysander, as in scorn,

To follow me and praise my eyes and face?

225

And made your other love, Demetrius,

Who even but now did spurn me with his foot,

To call me goddess, nymph, divine and rare,[227]

Precious, celestial? Wherefore speaks he this

To her he hates? And wherefore doth Lysander

230

Deny your love, so rich within his soul,

And tender[231] me, forsooth, affection,

But by your setting on, by your consent?

What though I be not so in grace[233] as you,

So hung upon with love, so fortunate,

235

But miserable most, to love unloved?

This you should pity rather than despise.

HERMIAI understand not what you mean by this.

HELENAAy, do. Persever,[238] counterfeit sad looks,

Make mouths[239] upon me when I turn my back,

240

Wink each at other, hold[240] the sweet jest up:

This sport well carried[241] shall be chronicled.

If you have any pity, grace, or manners,

You would not make me such an argument.[243]

But fare ye well. ’Tis partly my own fault,

245

Which death or absence soon shall remedy.

LYSANDERStay, gentle Helena, hear my excuse:

My love, my life, my soul, fair Helena!

HELENAO excellent!

HERMIA Sweet, do not scorn her so. To Lysander

250

DEMETRIUSIf she cannot entreat, I can compel. To Lysander

LYSANDERThou canst compel no more than she entreat.

Thy threats have no more strength than her weak prayers.

Helen, I love thee, by my life, I do;

I swear by that which I will lose for thee,

255

To prove him false that says I love thee not.

DEMETRIUSI say I love thee more than he can do. To Helena

LYSANDERIf thou say so, withdraw,[257] and prove it too.

DEMETRIUSQuick, come!

HERMIALysander, whereto[259] tends all this? She hangs on Lysander

260

LYSANDERAway, you Ethiope![260]

DEMETRIUSNo, no, sir,

Seem to break loose; take on as[262] you would follow,

But yet come not: you are a tame man, go!

LYSANDERHang off,[264] thou cat, thou burr! Vile thing, let loose,

265

Or I will shake thee from me like a serpent!

HERMIAWhy are you grown so rude?[266]

What change is this, sweet love?

LYSANDERThy love? Out,[268] tawny Tartar, out!

Out, loathèd medicine![269] O hated potion, hence!

270

HERMIADo you not jest?

HELENAYes, sooth,[271] and so do you.

LYSANDERDemetrius, I will keep my word with thee.

DEMETRIUSI would I had your bond, for I perceive

A weak bond[274] holds you; I’ll not trust your word.

275

LYSANDERWhat, should I hurt her, strike her, kill her dead?

Although I hate her, I’ll not harm her so.

HERMIAWhat, can you do me greater harm than hate?

Hate me? Wherefore? O me! What news, my love?

Am not I Hermia? Are not you Lysander?

280

I am as fair now as I was erewhile.[280]

Since night you loved me; yet since night you left me.

Why, then you left me — O, the gods forbid! —

In earnest, shall I say?

LYSANDERAy, by my life;

285

And never did desire to see thee more.

Therefore be out of[286] hope, of question, of doubt;

Be certain, nothing truer: ’tis no jest

That I do hate thee and love Helena.

HERMIAO me! You juggler,[289] you canker-blossom, To Helena

290

You thief of love! What, have you come by night

And stolen my love’s heart from him?

HELENAFine, i’faith!

Have you no modesty, no maiden shame,

No touch of bashfulness? What, will you tear

295

Impatient[295] answers from my gentle tongue?

Fie, fie! You counterfeit, you puppet,[296] you!

HERMIAPuppet? Why so? Ay, that way goes the game.

Now I perceive that she hath made compare

Between our statures, she hath urged[299] her height,

300

And with her personage,[300] her tall personage,

Her height, forsooth, she hath prevailed with him.

And are you grown so high in his esteem

Because I am so dwarfish and so low?

How low am I, thou painted[304] maypole? Speak!

305

How low am I? I am not yet so low

But that my nails can reach unto thine eyes. Attacks her

HELENAI pray you, though you mock me, gentlemen,

Let her not hurt me; I was never curst,[308]

I have no gift at all in shrewishness;[309]

310

I am a right[310] maid for my cowardice;

Let her not strike me. You perhaps may think,

Because she is something lower[312] than myself,

That I can match her.

HERMIALower? Hark, again.

315

HELENAGood Hermia, do not be so bitter with me.

I evermore[316] did love you, Hermia,

Did ever keep your counsels, never wronged you,

Save that, in love unto Demetrius,

I told him of your stealth[319] unto this wood.

320

He followed you. For love I followed him.

But he hath chid me hence[321] and threatened me

To strike me, spurn me, nay, to kill me too;

And now, so[323] you will let me quiet go,

To Athens will I bear my folly back

325

And follow you no further. Let me go.

You see how simple and how fond[326] I am.

HERMIAWhy, get you gone: who is’t that hinders you?

HELENAA foolish heart, that I leave here behind.

HERMIAWhat, with Lysander?

330

HELENAWith Demetrius.

LYSANDERBe not afraid: she shall not harm thee, Helena.

DEMETRIUSNo, sir, she shall not, though you take her part.[332]

HELENAO, when she’s angry, she is keen[333] and shrewd.

She was a vixen when she went to school,

335

And though she be but little, she is fierce.

HERMIA‘Little’ again! Nothing but ‘low’ and ‘little’?

Why will you suffer[337] her to flout me thus?

Let me come to her.

LYSANDERGet you gone, you dwarf,

340

You minimus,[340] of hind’ring knot-grass made!

You bead, you acorn.

DEMETRIUSYou are too officious

In her behalf that scorns your services.

Let her alone. Speak not of Helena,

345

Take not her part. For if thou dost intend

Never so little show of love to her,

Thou shalt abide[347] it.

LYSANDERNow she holds me not.

Now follow, if thou dar’st, to try whose right,

350

Of thine or mine, is most in Helena.

DEMETRIUSFollow? Nay, I’ll go with thee, cheek by jowl.[351]

Exeunt Lysander and Demetrius

HERMIAYou, mistress, all this coil[352] is ’long of you.

Nay, go not back.

HELENAI will not trust you, I,

355

Nor longer stay in your curst company.

Your hands than mine are quicker for a fray,

My legs are longer though, to run away.

[Exit Helena, running, followed by Hermia]

Enter Oberon and [Robin] Puck [coming forward]

OBERONThis is thy negligence. Still thou mistak’st,

Or else committ’st thy knaveries wilfully.

360

ROBINBelieve me, king of shadows, I mistook.

Did not you tell me I should know the man

By the Athenian garments he hath on?

And so far blameless proves my enterprise,

That I have ’nointed an Athenian’s eyes,

365

And so far am I glad it so did sort,[365]

As[366] this their jangling I esteem a sport.

OBERONThou see’st these lovers seek a place to fight:

Hie[368] therefore, Robin, overcast the night,

The starry welkin[369] cover thou anon

370

With drooping[370] fog as black as Acheron,

And lead these testy[371] rivals so astray

As[372] one come not within another’s way.

Like[373] to Lysander sometime frame thy tongue,

Then stir Demetrius up with bitter wrong;[374]

375

And sometime rail[375] thou like Demetrius;

And from each other look thou lead them thus,

Till o’er their brows death-counterfeiting sleep

With leaden legs and batty[378] wings doth creep;

Then crush this herb[379] into Lysander’s eye, Gives herb

380

Whose liquor[380] hath this virtuous property,

To take from thence all error with his[381] might,

And make his eyeballs roll with wonted[382] sight.

When they next wake, all this derision[383]

Shall seem a dream and fruitless vision,

385

And back to Athens shall the lovers wend[385]

With league[386] whose date till death shall never end.

Whiles I in this affair do thee employ,

I’ll to my queen and beg her Indian boy;

And then I will her charmèd eye release

390

From monster’s view, and all things shall be peace.

ROBINMy fairy lord, this must be done with haste,

For night-swift dragons[392] cut the clouds full fast,

And yonder shines Aurora’s harbinger,[393]

At whose approach, ghosts, wand’ring here and there,

395

Troop home to churchyards; damnèd spirits all,

That in crossways[396] and floods have burial,

Already to their wormy beds are gone;

For fear lest day should look their shames upon,

They wilfully themselves exile from light

400

And must for aye[400] consort with black-browed night.

OBERONBut we are spirits of another sort:

I with the morning’s love[402] have oft made sport,

And, like a forester,[403] the groves may tread,

Even till the eastern gate, all fiery red,

405

Opening on Neptune[405] with fair blessèd beams,

Turns into yellow gold his salt green streams.

But notwithstanding, haste, make no delay:

We may effect this business yet ere day.

Exit

ROBINUp and down, up and down,

410

I will lead them up and down.

I am feared in field and town.

Goblin,[412] lead them up and down.

Here comes one.

Enter Lysander

LYSANDERWhere art thou, proud Demetrius? Speak thou now.

415

ROBINHere, villain, drawn[415] and ready. Where art thou? Imitating Demetrius

LYSANDERI will be with thee straight.[416]

ROBINFollow me, then, to plainer[417] ground. Exit Lysander, following the voice

Enter Demetrius

DEMETRIUSLysander, speak again;

Thou runaway, thou coward, art thou fled?

420

Speak! In some bush? Where dost thou hide thy head?

ROBINThou coward, art thou bragging to the stars, Imitating Lysander

Telling the bushes that thou look’st for wars,

And wilt not come? Come, recreant,[423] come, thou child.

I’ll whip thee with a rod. He is defiled

425

That draws a sword on thee.

DEMETRIUSYea, art thou there?

ROBINFollow my voice. We’ll try[427] no manhood here.

Exeunt

Enter Lysander

LYSANDERHe goes before me and still dares me on.

When I come where he calls, then he’s gone.

430

The villain is much lighter-heeled than I:

I followed fast, but faster he did fly;

That fallen am I in dark uneven way,

And here will rest me. Come, thou gentle day!

Lie down

For if but once thou show me thy grey light,

435

I’ll find Demetrius and revenge this spite.[435] He sleeps

Enter Robin and Demetrius, shifting places

ROBINHo, ho, ho! Coward, why com’st thou not?

DEMETRIUSAbide[437] me, if thou dar’st, for well I wot

Thou runn’st before me, shifting every place,

And dar’st not stand, nor look me in the face.

440

Where art thou now?

ROBINCome hither. I am here.

DEMETRIUSNay then, thou mock’st me. Thou shalt buy[442] this dear

If ever I thy face by daylight see.

Now, go thy way: faintness constraineth[444] me

445

To measure out my length on this cold bed.

By day’s approach look to be visited. Lies down and sleeps

Enter Helena

HELENAO weary night, O long and tedious night,

Abate[448] thy hours! Shine comforts from the east,

That I may back to Athens by daylight,

450

From these that my poor company detest;

And sleep, that sometime shuts up sorrow’s eye,

Steal me awhile from mine own company.

Sleep

ROBINYet but three? Come one more,

Two of both kinds make up four.

455

Here she comes, curst and sad.

Cupid is a knavish lad,

Enter Hermia

Thus to make poor females mad.

HERMIANever so weary, never so in woe,

Bedabbled with the dew and torn with briers,

460

I can no further crawl, no further go;

My legs can keep no pace with my desires.

Here will I rest me till the break of day.

Heavens shield Lysander, if they mean a fray! Lies down and sleeps

ROBINOn the ground

465

Sleep sound.

I’ll apply

To your eye,

Gentle lover, remedy. Squeezes the juice on Lysander’s eyes

When thou wak’st,

470

Thou tak’st

True delight

In the sight

Of thy former lady’s eye,

And the country proverb known,

475

That every man should take his own,

In your waking shall be shown.

Jack[477] shall have Jill,

Nought[478] shall go ill,

The man[479] shall have his mare again, and all shall be well.

Exit

They [Lysander, Demetrius, Helena and Hermia] sleep all the act

Act 4 [Scene 1]

running scene 5 continues

Enter Queen of Fairies [Titania] and Clown [Bottom, with ass head, wearing a coronet of flowers] and Fairies [Peaseblossom, Cobweb, Moth, Mustardseed] and the King [Oberon] behind them

TITANIACome, sit thee down upon this flow’ry bed,

While I thy amiable[2] cheeks do coy,

And stick musk-roses in thy sleek smooth head,

And kiss thy fair large ears, my gentle joy. She fondles him

BOTTOMWhere’s Peaseblossom?

PEASEBLOSSOMReady.

BOTTOMScratch my head, Peaseblossom. Where’s Monsieur Cobweb?

COBWEBReady.

BOTTOMMonsieur Cobweb, good monsieur, get you your weapons in your hand, and kill me a red-hipped humble-bee on the top of a thistle; and, good monsieur, bring me the honey-bag. Do not fret yourself too much in the action, monsieur; and, good monsieur, have a care the honey-bag break not. I would be loath to have you overflown[13] with a honey-bag, signior. Cobweb may exit Where’s Monsieur Mustardseed?

MUSTARDSEEDReady.

BOTTOMGive me your neaf,[15] Monsieur Mustardseed. Pray you leave your courtesy, good monsieur.

MUSTARDSEEDWhat’s your will?

BOTTOMNothing, good monsieur, but to help Cavalery[18] Cobweb to scratch. I must to the barber’s, monsieur, for methinks I am marvellous[19] hairy about the face. And I am such a tender ass, if my hair do but tickle me, I must scratch.

TITANIAWhat, wilt thou hear some music, my sweet love?

BOTTOMI have a reasonable good ear in music. Let us have the tongs[22] and the bones.

Music: tongs, rural music[23]

TITANIAOr say, sweet love, what thou desirest to eat.

BOTTOMTruly, a peck[24] of provender; I could munch your good dry oats. Methinks I have a great desire to a bottle[25] of hay: good hay, sweet hay, hath no fellow.

TITANIAI have a vent’rous[26] fairy that shall seek The squirrel’s hoard, and fetch thee new nuts.

BOTTOMI had rather have a handful or two of dried peas. But, I pray you let none of your people stir[29] me. I have an exposition of sleep come upon me.

30

TITANIASleep thou, and I will wind thee in my arms.

Fairies, begone, and be all ways away.[31]

[Exeunt fairies]

So doth the woodbine[32] the sweet honeysuckle

Gently entwist; the female ivy so

Enrings[34] the barky fingers of the elm.

35

O, how I love thee! How I dote on thee! They sleep

Enter Robin Goodfellow and Oberon [who comes forward]

OBERONWelcome, good Robin.

See’st thou this sweet sight?

Her dotage[38] now I do begin to pity.

For, meeting her of late behind the wood,

40

Seeking sweet favours[40] for this hateful fool,

I did upbraid her and fall out with her.

For she his hairy temples then had rounded

With coronet of fresh and fragrant flowers.

And that same dew, which sometime[44] on the buds

45

Was wont to swell like round and orient[45] pearls,

Stood now within the pretty flowerets’[46] eyes

Like tears that did their own disgrace bewail.

When I had at my pleasure taunted her,

And she in mild terms begged my patience,

50

I then did ask of her her changeling child,

Which straight she gave me, and her fairy sent

To bear him to my bower in fairy land.

And now I have the boy, I will undo

This hateful imperfection of her eyes.

55

And, gentle Puck, take this transformèd scalp

From off the head of this Athenian swain;[56]

That, he awaking when the other[57] do,

May all to Athens back again repair,[58]

And think no more of this night’s accidents[59]

60

But as the fierce vexation of a dream.

But first I will release the fairy queen.

Be thou as thou wast wont to be; Squeezes the herb on her eyes

See as thou wast wont to see.

Dian’s bud[64] o’er Cupid’s flower

65

Hath such force and blessèd power.

Now, my Titania, wake you, my sweet queen.

TITANIAMy Oberon! What visions have I seen!

Methought I was enamoured of an ass.

OBERONThere lies your love.

70

TITANIAHow came these things to pass?

O, how mine eyes do loathe his visage now!

OBERONSilence awhile.— Robin, take off this head.—

Titania, music call, and strike more dead

Than common sleep of all these five[74] the sense.

75

TITANIAMusic, ho! Music, such as charmeth[75] sleep!

Music, still

ROBINNow, when thou wak’st, with thine own fool’s eyes peep.

OBERONSound, music! Come, my queen, take hands with me,

And rock the ground whereon these sleepers be.

Now thou and I are new in amity,

80

And will tomorrow midnight solemnly[80]

Dance in Duke Theseus’ house triumphantly,[81]

And bless it to all fair prosperity.

There shall the pairs of faithful lovers be

Wedded, with Theseus, all in jollity.

85

ROBINFairy king, attend,[85] and mark:

I do hear the morning lark.

OBERONThen, my queen, in silence sad,[87]

Trip[88] we after the night’s shade;

We the globe can compass soon,

90

Swifter than the wand’ring moon.

TITANIACome, my lord, and in our flight

Tell me how it came this night

That I sleeping here was found

With these mortals on the ground.

Exeunt. Sleepers lie still

Wind horns. Enter Theseus, Egeus, Hippolyta, and all his train

95

THESEUSGo, one of you, find out the forester,

For now our observation[96] is performed;

And since we have the vaward[97] of the day,

My love shall hear the music of my hounds.

Uncouple[99] in the western valley, let them go;

100

Dispatch, I say, and find the forester.

[Exit an Attendant]

We will, fair queen, up to the mountain’s top

And mark the musical confusion

Of hounds and echo in conjunction.

HIPPOLYTAI was with Hercules and Cadmus[104] once,

105

When in a wood of Crete they bayed[105] the bear

With hounds of Sparta;[106] never did I hear

Such gallant chiding,[107] for besides the groves,

The skies, the fountains, every region near

Seemed all one mutual cry. I never heard

110

So musical a discord, such sweet thunder.

THESEUSMy hounds are bred out of the Spartan kind,[111]

So flewed,[112] so sanded, and their heads are hung

With ears that sweep away the morning dew,

Crook-kneed and dewlapped[114] like Thessalian bulls,

115

Slow in pursuit, but matched in mouth[115] like bells,

Each under each. A cry more tuneable[116]

Was never hallowed[117] to, nor cheered with horn,

In Crete, in Sparta, nor in Thessaly;

Judge when you hear. But, soft![119] What nymphs are these?

120

EGEUSMy lord, this is my daughter here asleep,

And this, Lysander, this Demetrius is,

This Helena, old Nedar’s Helena.

I wonder of[123] their being here together.

THESEUSNo doubt they rose up early to observe

125

The rite of May, and hearing our intent,

Came here in grace[126] of our solemnity.

But speak, Egeus; is not this the day

That Hermia should give answer of her choice?

EGEUSIt is, my lord.

130

THESEUSGo, bid the huntsmen wake them with their horns.

Horns and they wake. Shout within, they all start up.

Good morrow, friends. Saint Valentine[131] is past.

Begin these woodbirds but to couple[132] now?

LYSANDERPardon, my lord. They kneel

THESEUSI pray you all stand up. They stand

135

I know you two are rival enemies.

How comes this gentle concord in the world,

That hatred is so far from jealousy,[137]

To sleep by hate and fear no enmity?

LYSANDERMy lord, I shall reply amazedly,

140

Half sleep, half waking. But as yet, I swear,

I cannot truly say how I came here.

But, as I think — for truly would I speak,

And now I do bethink me, so it is —

I came with Hermia hither. Our intent

145

Was to be gone from Athens, where we might be

Without the peril of the Athenian law.

EGEUSEnough, enough, my lord. You have enough;

I beg the law, the law, upon his head.—

They would have stolen away, they would, Demetrius,

150

Thereby to have defeated[150] you and me:

You of your wife and me of my consent,

Of my consent that she should be your wife.

DEMETRIUSMy lord, fair Helen told me of their stealth,

Of this their purpose hither to this wood,

155

And I in fury hither followed them;

Fair Helena in fancy[156] followed me.

But, my good lord, I wot not by what power —

But by some power it is — my love to Hermia,

Melted as the snow, seems to me now

160

As the remembrance of an idle gaud[160]

Which in my childhood I did dote upon.

And all the faith, the virtue of my heart,

The object and the pleasure of mine eye,

Is only Helena. To her, my lord,

165

Was I betrothed ere I saw Hermia:

But like a sickness did I loathe this food.

But, as in health, come to my natural taste,

Now I do wish it, love it, long for it,

And will for evermore be true to it.

170

THESEUSFair lovers, you are fortunately met:

Of this discourse we shall hear more anon.

Egeus, I will overbear[172] your will;

For in the temple, by and by[173] with us,

These couples shall eternally be knit.

175

And, for[175] the morning now is something worn,

Our purposed[176] hunting shall be set aside.

Away with us to Athens; three and three,

We’ll hold a feast in[178] great solemnity.—

Come, Hippolyta.

Exeunt Duke and lords [and Hippolyta]

180

DEMETRIUSThese things seem small and undistinguishable,[180]

Like far-off mountains turnèd into clouds.

HERMIAMethinks I see these things with parted[182] eye,

When everything seems double.

HELENASo methinks:

185

And I have found Demetrius like a jewel,

Mine[186] own and not mine own.

DEMETRIUSIt seems to me

That yet we sleep, we dream. Do not you think

The duke was here, and bid us follow him?

190

HERMIAYea, and my father.

HELENAAnd Hippolyta.

LYSANDERAnd he bid us follow to the temple.

DEMETRIUSWhy, then, we are awake; let’s follow him

And by[194] the way let us recount our dreams.

Exeunt lovers

Bottom wakes

BOTTOMWhen my cue comes, call me, and I will answer. My next is, ‘Most fair Pyramus.’ Hey-ho! Peter Quince? Flute, the bellows-mender? Snout, the tinker? Starveling? God’s[197] my life, stolen hence and left me asleep! I have had a most rare vision. I had a dream, past the wit[198] of man to say what dream it was. Man is but an ass, if he go about[199] to expound this dream. Methought I was — there is no man can tell what. Methought I was — and methought I had — but man is but a patched[201] fool if he will offer to say what methought I had. The eye of man hath not heard, the ear of man hath not seen, man’s hand is not able to taste, his tongue to conceive, nor his heart to report, what my dream was. I will get Peter Quince to write a ballad of this dream: it shall be called ‘Bottom’s Dream’, because it hath no bottom;[205] and I will sing it in the latter end of a play, before the duke. Peradventure, to make it the more gracious, I shall sing it at her[206] death.

Exit

[Act 4 Scene 2]4.2

running scene 6

Enter Quince, Flute, Snout and Starveling

QUINCEHave you sent to Bottom’s house? Is he come home yet?

STARVELINGHe cannot be heard of. Out of doubt he is transported.[2]

FLUTEIf he come not, then the play is marred. It goes not forward,[3] doth it?

QUINCEIt is not possible: you have not a man in all Athens able to discharge[4] Pyramus but he.

FLUTENo, he hath simply the best wit[6] of any handicraft man in Athens.

QUINCEYea, and the best person[7] too, and he is a very paramour for a sweet voice.

FLUTEYou must say ‘paragon’. A paramour is, God bless us, a thing of naught.[8]

Enter Snug the joiner

SNUGMasters, the duke is coming from the temple, and there is two or three lords and ladies more married. If our sport had gone forward, we[10] had all been made men.

FLUTEO sweet bully Bottom! Thus hath he lost sixpence a day[12] during his life; he could not have scaped[13] sixpence a day. An the duke had not given him sixpence a day for playing Pyramus, I’ll be hanged. He would have deserved it. Sixpence a day in Pyramus, or nothing.

Enter Bottom

BOTTOMWhere are these lads? Where are these hearts?[16]

QUINCEBottom! O most courageous day! O most happy hour!

BOTTOMMasters, I am to discourse wonders: but ask me not what, for if I tell you, I am no true Athenian. I will tell you everything as it fell out.[19]

QUINCELet us hear, sweet Bottom.

BOTTOMNot a word of[21] me. All that I will tell you is that the duke hath dined. Get your apparel together, good strings[22] to your beards, new ribbons to your pumps. Meet presently[23] at the palace, every man look o’er his part, for the short and the long is, our play is preferred.[24] In any case, let Thisbe have clean linen, and let not him that plays the lion pare[25] his nails, for they shall hang out for the lion’s claws. And, most dear actors, eat no onions nor garlic, for we are to utter sweet breath, and I do not doubt but to hear them say, it is a sweet comedy. No more words: away! Go, away!

Exeunt

Act 5 Scene 15.1

running scene 7

Enter Theseus, Hippolyta, Egeus, and his lords

HIPPOLYTA’Tis strange, my Theseus, that[1] these lovers speak of.

THESEUSMore strange than true. I never may believe

These antic[3] fables, nor these fairy toys.

Lovers and madmen have such seething brains,

5

Such shaping[5] fantasies that apprehend

More than cool reason ever comprehends.

The lunatic, the lover and the poet

Are of imagination all compact.[8]

One sees more devils than vast hell can hold;

10

That is the madman. The lover, all as frantic,[10]

Sees Helen’s[11] beauty in a brow of Egypt.

The poet’s eye, in a fine frenzy rolling,

Doth glance from heaven to earth, from earth to heaven,

And as imagination bodies[14] forth

15

The forms of things unknown, the poet’s pen

Turns them to shapes and gives to airy nothing

A local habitation and a name.

Such tricks hath strong imagination,

That if it would but apprehend[19] some joy,

20

It comprehends[20] some bringer of that joy.

Or in the night, imagining some fear,

How easy is a bush supposed a bear!

HIPPOLYTABut all the story of the night told over,

And all their minds transfigured[24] so together,

25

More[25] witnesseth than fancy’s images

And grows to something of great constancy;[26]

But howsoever, strange and admirable.[27]

Enter lovers: Lysander, Demetrius, Hermia, Helena

THESEUSHere come the lovers, full of joy and mirth.

Joy, gentle friends! Joy and fresh days of love

30

Accompany your hearts!

LYSANDERMore than to us

Wait in your royal walks, your board,[32] your bed!

THESEUSCome now, what masques,[33] what dances shall we have,

To wear away this long age of three hours

35

Between our after-supper[35] and bedtime?

Where is our usual manager of mirth?

What revels are in hand? Is there no play

To ease the anguish of a torturing hour?

Call Egeus.

40

EGEUSHere, mighty Theseus.

THESEUSSay, what abridgement[41] have you for this evening?

What masque? What music? How shall we beguile

The lazy time, if not with some delight?

EGEUSThere is a brief[44] how many sports are ripe:

45

Make choice of which your highness will see first. Egeus gives a paper to Lysander

LYSANDER‘The battle[46] with the Centaurs, to be sung Reads

By an Athenian eunuch to the harp.’

THESEUSWe’ll none of that. That have I told my love,

In glory of my kinsman Hercules.

50

LYSANDER‘The riot[50] of the tipsy Bacchanals, Reads

Tearing the Thracian singer in their rage.’

THESEUSThat is an old device,[52] and it was played

When I from Thebes came last a conqueror.

LYSANDER‘The thrice[54] three Muses mourning for the death Reads

55

Of learning, late deceased in beggary.’

THESEUSThat is some satire, keen and critical,[56]

Not sorting[57] with a nuptial ceremony.

LYSANDER‘A tedious brief scene of young Pyramus Reads

And his love Thisbe; very tragical mirth.’

60

THESEUSMerry and tragical? Tedious and brief?

That is, hot ice and wondrous strange[61] snow.

How shall we find the concord[62] of this discord?

EGEUSA play there is, my lord, some ten words long,

Which is as brief as I have known a play;

65

But by ten words, my lord, it is too long,

Which makes it tedious. For in all the play

There is not one word apt, one player fitted.[67]

And tragical, my noble lord, it is,

For Pyramus therein doth kill himself.

70

Which, when I saw rehearsed, I must confess,

Made mine eyes water, but more merry tears

The passion of loud laughter never shed.

THESEUSWhat are they that do play it?

EGEUSHard-handed men that work in Athens here,

75

Which never laboured in their minds till now;

And now have toiled[76] their unbreathed memories

With this same play, against[77] your nuptial.

THESEUSAnd we will hear it.

EGEUSNo, my noble lord,

80

It is not for you. I have heard it over,

And it is nothing, nothing in the world;

Unless you can find sport in their intents,

Extremely stretched and conned[83] with cruel pain,

To do you service.

85

THESEUSI will hear that play.

For never anything can be amiss,

When simpleness[87] and duty tender it.

Go, bring them in.— And take your places, ladies.

[Exit Egeus]

HIPPOLYTAI love not to see wretchedness o’er-charged[89]

90

And duty in his service[90] perishing.

THESEUSWhy, gentle sweet, you shall see no such thing.

HIPPOLYTAHe says they can do nothing in this kind.[92]

THESEUSThe kinder we, to give them thanks for nothing.

Our sport shall be to take[94] what they mistake;

95

And what poor duty cannot do, noble respect[95]

Takes it in[96] might, not merit.

Where I have come, great clerks[97] have purposèd

To greet me with premeditated welcomes;

Where I have seen them shiver and look pale,

100

Make periods[100] in the midst of sentences,

Throttle their practised accent[101] in their fears,

And in conclusion dumbly have broke off,

Not paying me a welcome. Trust me, sweet,

Out of this silence yet I picked[104] a welcome.

105

And in the modesty[105] of fearful duty

I read as much as from the rattling tongue

Of saucy and audacious eloquence.

Love, therefore, and tongue-tied simplicity

In least speak most, to my capacity.[109]

[Enter Egeus]

110

EGEUSSo please your grace, the Prologue is addressed.[110]

THESEUSLet him approach.

Flourish [of] trumpets

Enter the Prologue: Quince

PROLOGUE [QUINCE]If we offend, it is with our good will.[112]

That you should think, we come not to offend,

But with good will.[114] To show our simple skill,

115

That is the true beginning of our end.[115]

Consider then, we come but in despite.[116]

We[117] do not come as minding to content you,

Our true intent is.[118] All for your delight

We are not here.[119] That you should here repent you,

120

The actors are at hand; and by their show,[120]

You shall know all that you are like[121] to know.

THESEUSThis fellow doth not stand upon points.[122]

LYSANDERHe hath rid[123] his prologue like a rough colt: he knows not the stop. A good moral, my lord. It is not enough to speak, but to speak true.

HIPPOLYTAIndeed he hath played on his prologue like a child on a recorder: a sound, but not in government.[126]

THESEUSHis speech was like a tangled chain: nothing[127] impaired, but all disordered. Who is next?

Enter, with a trumpet[er] before them, Pyramus [Bottom] and Thisbe [Flute], Wall [Snout], Moonshine [Starveling] and Lion [Snug]

PROLOGUE [QUINCE]Gentles, perchance you wonder at this show,

130

But wonder on, till truth make all things plain.

This man is Pyramus, if you would know;

This beauteous lady Thisbe is certain.

This man with lime and rough-cast doth present

Wall, that vile Wall which did these lovers sunder.[134]

135

And through Wall’s chink, poor souls, they are content

To whisper. At the which let no man wonder.

This man, with lantern, dog, and bush of thorn,

Presenteth Moonshine. For, if you will know,

By moonshine did these lovers think no scorn[139]

140

To meet at Ninus’ tomb, there, there to woo.

This grisly beast, which Lion hight[141] by name,

The trusty Thisbe, coming first by night,

Did scare away, or rather did affright.

And as she fled, her mantle[144] she did fall,

145

Which Lion vile with bloody mouth did stain.

Anon comes Pyramus, sweet youth and tall,[146]

And finds his trusty Thisbe’s mantle slain;

Whereat, with blade, with bloody blameful blade,

He bravely broached[149] his boiling bloody breast.

150

And Thisbe, tarrying in mulberry shade,

His dagger drew, and died. For all the rest,

Let Lion, Moonshine, Wall, and lovers twain[152]

At large discourse, while here they do remain.

Exeunt all but Wall

THESEUSI wonder if the lion be to speak.

DEMETRIUSNo wonder, my lord: one lion may, when many asses do.

WALL [SNOUT]In this same interlude[156] it doth befall

That I, one Snout by name, present a wall.

And such a wall, as I would have you think,

That had in it a crannied hole or chink,

160

Through which the lovers, Pyramus and Thisbe,

Did whisper often, very secretly.

This loam, this rough-cast and this stone doth show

That I am that same wall; the truth is so.

And this the cranny is, right and sinister,[164] Gestures to gap between his legs

165

Through which the fearful[165] lovers are to whisper.

THESEUSWould you desire lime and hair to speak better?

DEMETRIUSIt is the wittiest partition[167] that ever I heard discourse, my lord.

THESEUSPyramus draws near the wall. Silence!

Enter Pyramus

PYRAMUS [BOTTOM]O grim-looked[169] night! O night with hue so black!

170

O night, which ever art when day is not!

O night, O night! Alack, alack, alack,

I fear my Thisbe’s promise is forgot.

And thou, O wall, thou sweet and lovely wall

That stands between her father’s ground and mine!

175

Thou wall, O wall, O sweet and lovely wall,

Show me thy chink,[176] to blink through with mine eyne! Wall opens his legs

Thanks, courteous wall. Jove[177] shield thee well for this. Pyramus peers between Wall’s legs

But what see I? No Thisbe do I see.

O wicked wall, through whom I see no bliss!

180

Cursed be thy stones[180] for thus deceiving me!

THESEUSThe wall, methinks, being sensible,[181] should curse again.

PYRAMUS [BOTTOM]No, in truth, sir, he should not. ‘Deceiving me’ is Thisbe’s cue; she is to enter and I am to spy her through the wall. You shall see, it will fall pat[183] as I told you. Yonder she comes.

Enter Thisbe

185

THISBE [FLUTE]O wall, full often hast thou heard my moans,

For parting my fair Pyramus and me.

My cherry lips have often kissed thy stones,

Thy stones with lime[188] and hair knit up in thee.

PYRAMUS [BOTTOM]I see a voice; now will I to the chink,

190

To spy an I[190] can hear my Thisbe’s face. Thisbe?

THISBE [FLUTE]My love thou[191] art, my love I think.

PYRAMUS [BOTTOM]Think what thou wilt, I am thy lover’s grace[192]

And like Limander[193] am I trusty still.

THISBE [FLUTE]And I like Helen,[194] till the Fates me kill.

195

PYRAMUS [BOTTOM]Not Shafalus to Procrus[195] was so true.

THISBE [FLUTE]As Shafalus to Procrus, I to you.

PYRAMUS [BOTTOM]O, kiss me through the hole of this vile wall!

THISBE [FLUTE]I kiss the wall’s hole,[198] not your lips at all.

PYRAMUS [BOTTOM]Wilt thou at Ninny’s tomb meet me straightway?

200

THISBE [FLUTE]’Tide[200] life, ’tide death, I come without delay.

[Exeunt Pyramus and Thisbe]

WALL [SNOUT]Thus have I, Wall, my part dischargèd so;

And, being done, thus Wall away doth go.

Exit

THESEUSNow is the mural[203] down between the two neighbours.

DEMETRIUSNo remedy, my lord, when walls[204] are so wilful to hear without warning.

HIPPOLYTAThis is the silliest stuff that e’er I heard.

THESEUSThe best in this kind[206] are but shadows, and the worst are no worse, if imagination amend them.

HIPPOLYTAIt must be your imagination then, and not theirs.

THESEUSIf we imagine no worse of them than they of themselves, they may pass for excellent men. Here come two noble beasts in, a man and a lion.

Enter Lion and Moonshine [with a lantern, thorn-bush and dog]

LION [SNUG]You, ladies, you, whose gentle hearts do fear

The smallest monstrous[212] mouse that creeps on floor,

May now perchance both quake and tremble here,

When lion rough[214] in wildest rage doth roar.

215

Then know that I, one Snug the joiner, am

A lion fell,[216] nor else no lion’s dam,

For if I should as lion come in strife

Into this place, ’twere pity on my life.

THESEUSA very gentle beast, and of a good conscience.

DEMETRIUSThe very best at[220] a beast, my lord, that e’er I saw.

LYSANDERThis lion is a very fox[221] for his valour.

THESEUSTrue, and a goose[222] for his discretion.

DEMETRIUSNot so, my lord, for his valour cannot carry his discretion, and the fox carries[224] the goose.

THESEUSHis discretion, I am sure, cannot carry his valour, for the goose carries not the fox. It is well. Leave it to his discretion, and let us hearken to the moon.

MOONSHINE [STARVELING]This lantern doth the hornèd[227] moon present—

DEMETRIUSHe should have worn the horns[228] on his head.

THESEUSHe is no crescent,[229] and his horns are invisible within the circumference.

230

MOONSHINE [STARVELING]This lantern doth the hornèd moon present:

Myself the man i’th’moon doth seem to be.

THESEUSThis is the greatest error of all the rest; the man should be put into the lantern. How is it else the man i’th’moon?

DEMETRIUSHe dares not come there for the candle. For you see it is already in snuff.[234]

HIPPOLYTAI am aweary of this moon; would he would change!

THESEUSIt appears, by his small light of discretion, that he is in the wane.[236] But yet, in courtesy, in all reason,[237] we must stay the time.

LYSANDERProceed, Moon.

MOONSHINE [STARVELING]All that I have to say is to tell you that the lantern is the moon; I, the man in the moon; this thorn-bush, my thorn-bush; and this dog, my dog.

DEMETRIUSWhy, all these should be in the lantern, for they are in the moon. But silence — here comes Thisbe.

Enter Thisbe

THISBE [FLUTE]This is old Ninny’s tomb. Where is my love?

LION [SNUG]O!

The lion roars. Thisbe runs off [dropping her mantle]

DEMETRIUSWell roared, Lion.

THESEUSWell run, Thisbe.

HIPPOLYTAWell shone, Moon. Truly, the moon shines with a good grace.

[Lion shakes Thisbe’s mantle, and exits]

THESEUSWell moused,[249] Lion.

DEMETRIUSAnd then came Pyramus.

LYSANDERAnd so the lion vanished.

Enter Pyramus

PYRAMUS [BOTTOM]Sweet Moon, I thank thee for thy sunny beams,

I thank thee, Moon, for shining now so bright,

For by thy gracious, golden, glittering gleams,

255

I trust to taste of truest Thisbe sight.

But stay, O spite!

But mark, poor knight,

What dreadful dole[258] is here?

Eyes, do you see?

260

How can it be?

O dainty duck! O dear!

Thy mantle good,

What, stained with blood!

Approach, you Furies[264] fell!

265

O Fates,[265] come, come,

Cut thread and thrum,[266]

Quail,[267] crush, conclude, and quell!

THESEUSThis passion,[268] and the death of a dear friend, would go near to make a man look sad.

HIPPOLYTABeshrew[270] my heart, but I pity the man.

PYRAMUS [BOTTOM]O wherefore, Nature, didst thou lions frame?[271]

Since lion vile hath here deflowered[272] my dear:

Which is — no, no — which was the fairest dame

That lived, that loved, that liked, that looked with cheer.[274]

275

Come, tears, confound:

Out, sword, and wound

The pap[277] of Pyramus,

Ay, that left pap,

Where heart doth hop:

280

Thus die I, thus, thus, thus. Stabs himself

Now am I dead,

Now am I fled,

My soul is in the sky.

Tongue,[284] lose thy light,

285

Moon take thy flight,

[Exit Moonshine]

Now die, die, die, die, die. Dies

DEMETRIUSNo die,[287] but an ace for him; for he is but one.

LYSANDERLess than an ace, man: for he is dead, he is nothing.

THESEUSWith the help of a surgeon he might yet recover, and prove an ass.[289]

HIPPOLYTAHow chance Moonshine is gone before Thisbe comes back and finds her lover?

Enter Thisbe

THESEUSShe will find him by starlight. Here she comes, and her passion[292] ends the play.

HIPPOLYTAMethinks she should not use a long one[294] for such a Pyramus: I hope she will be brief.

DEMETRIUSA mote[296] will turn the balance, which Pyramus, which Thisbe, is the better.

LYSANDERShe hath spied him already with those sweet eyes.

DEMETRIUSAnd thus she means,[298] videlicet—

THISBE [FLUTE]Asleep, my love?

300

What, dead, my dove?

O Pyramus, arise!

Speak, speak. Quite dumb?

Dead, dead? A tomb

Must cover thy sweet eyes.

305

These lily lips,

This cherry nose,

These yellow cowslip cheeks,

Are gone, are gone!

Lovers, make moan:

310

His eyes were green as leeks.

O Sisters Three,[311]

Come, come to me,

With hands as pale as milk.

Lay them in gore,

315

Since you have shore[315]

With shears his thread of silk.[316]

Tongue, not a word.

Come, trusty sword,

Come, blade, my breast imbrue.[319] Stabs herself

320

And farewell friends,

Thus Thisbe ends:

Adieu, adieu, adieu. Dies

THESEUSMoonshine and Lion are left to bury the dead.

DEMETRIUSAy, and Wall too.

BOTTOMNo, I assure you, the wall is down that parted their fathers. Will it please Gets up you to see the epilogue, or to hear a Bergomask dance[326] between two of our company?

THESEUSNo epilogue, I pray you, for your play needs no excuse. Never excuse; for when the players are all dead, there need none to be blamed. Marry, if he that writ it had played Pyramus and hung himself in Thisbe’s garter, it would have been a fine tragedy: and so it is, truly, and very notably discharged. But come,

your Bergomask; let your epilogue alone. A dance

The iron tongue[333] of midnight hath told twelve.

Lovers, to bed, ’tis almost fairy time.

335

I fear we shall out-sleep the coming morn

As much as we this night have overwatched.[336]

This palpable-gross[337] play hath well beguiled

The heavy gait[338] of night. Sweet friends, to bed.

A fortnight hold we this solemnity,[339]

340

In nightly revels and new jollity.

Exeunt

Enter [Robin] Puck With a broom

ROBINNow the hungry lion roars,

And the wolf beholds the moon.

Whilst the heavy[343] ploughman snores,

All with weary task fordone.[344]

345

Now the wasted brands[345] do glow,

Whilst the screech-owl,[346] screeching loud,

Puts the wretch that lies in woe

In remembrance of a shroud.

Now it is the time of night

350

That the graves all gaping wide,

Every one lets forth his sprite,[351]

In the church-way paths to glide.

And we fairies that do run

By the triple Hecate’s[354] team,

355

From the presence of the sun,

Following darkness like a dream,

Now are frolic;[357] not a mouse

Shall disturb this hallowed[358] house.

I am sent with broom before,

360

To sweep the dust behind[360] the door.

Enter King and Queen of Fairies [Oberon and Titania] with their train

OBERONThrough the house give glimmering light,[361]

By the dead and drowsy fire,

Every elf and fairy sprite

Hop as light as bird from briar,

365

And this ditty, after me,

Sing, and dance it trippingly.[366]

TITANIAFirst, rehearse[367] this song by rote,

To each word a warbling note.

Hand in hand, with fairy grace,

370

Will we sing and bless this place.

[FAIRIES sing]

The Song Fairies dance

Now until the break of day

Through this house each fairy stray.

To the best bride-bed[374] will we,

Which by us shall blessèd be.

375

And the issue[375] there create

Ever shall be fortunate.

So shall all the couples three

Ever true in loving be.

And the blots of Nature’s hand

380

Shall not in their issue stand.

Never mole, hare-lip, nor scar,

Nor mark prodigious,[382] such as are

Despisèd in nativity,

Shall upon their children be.

385

With this field-dew consecrate,[385]

Every fairy take his gait,[386]

And each several[387] chamber bless,

Through this palace, with sweet peace.

Ever shall in safety rest,

390

And the owner of it blest.

Trip away, make no stay;[391]

Meet me all by break of day.

[Exeunt all but Robin]

ROBINIf we shadows have offended,

Think but this, and all is mended,

395

That you have but slumbered here

While these visions did appear.

And this weak[397] and idle theme,

No more yielding but[398] a dream,

Gentles,[399] do not reprehend.

400

If you pardon, we will mend.[400]

And, as I am an honest Puck,

If we have unearnèd luck

Now to scape the serpent’s tongue,[403]

We will make amends ere long:

405

Else the Puck a liar call.

So, goodnight unto you all.

Give[407] me your hands, if we be friends,

And Robin shall restore amends.[408]

Textual Notes

Q = First Quarto text of 1600

F = First Folio text of 1623

F2 = a correction introduced in the Second Folio text of 1632

F4 = a correction introduced in the Fourth Folio text of 1685

Ed = a correction introduced by a later editor

SD = stage direction

SH = speech heading (i.e., speaker’s name)

List of parts = Ed

1.1.7 nights = F. Q = night 10 New-bent = Ed. F = Now bent 25 Stand forth, Demetrius = Ed. Set in italic as a stage direction in F 27 Stand forth, Lysander = Ed. Set in italic as a stage direction in F 134 Ay me, for = Q. F = For I could ever = Q. F = ever I could 138 low = Ed. F = loue 142 eyes = Q. F = eie 145 momentary = F’s modernization of Q’s momentany 161 removed = F. Q = remote 169 to = Q. F = for 175 love = F. Q = loves 185 your = Q. F = you 203 none = F. Q = no fault 208 like = F. Q = as 210 into = F. Q = unto a 219 sweet = Ed. F = sweld 228 dote = Q. F = dotes 242 often = F. Q = so oft 251 this = Q. F = his

1.2.7 grow on to = F. Q = grow to 33 You must = F. Q = Flute, you must 50 if it be = Q. F = if be 61 roar = F. Q = roare you 74 will we = Q. F = we will

2.1.1 SH ROBIN = Ed. F = Rob. Sometimes Pucke 5 thorough flood, thorough = Q. F = through flood, through 33 sprite = Q. F = spirit 34 not you he = Q. F = you not hee 47 filly = Q. F = silly 62 SH TITANIA = Ed. F = Qu. Fairies = Ed. F = Fairy 66 hast = Q. F = wast 70 step = Q. F = steepe 78 not thou = Q. F = thou not 80 Aegles = Ed. F = Eagles 81 Antiopa = Q. F = Atiopa 92 petty = F. Q = pelting 108 hoary-headed = Q1. F = hoared headed 110 thin = Ed. F = chin 138 do I = Q. F = I doe 158 saw = Q. F = say 178 round about = Q. F = about 214 do use = Q. F = doe 242 the field = Q. F = and Field 247 I’ll = Q. F = I

2.2.9 SH FIRST FAIRY = Ed. Not in F 13, 26 SH CHORUS = Ed. Not in F 14 our = Q. F = your 35 wood = Q. F = woods 48 we can = Q. F = can you 49 interchainèd = Q. F = interchanged 67 found = Q. F = finde 68 On = Q. F = One 104 shows her art = Ed. F = her shewes art. Q = shewes art. 113 Helena now I = F. Q = Helena I 140 they = Q. F = that 149 ate = Ed. Spelled eate in F 150 you = Q. F = yet

3.1.20 yourselves = F. Q = your selfe 29 them = Q. F = him 32 SH SNOUT = Ed. Q/F = Sn., which could be SNOUT or SNUG. F2 = SNUG 34 SD [Robin may] enter = Ed.F = Enter Pucke. Not in Q 48 SD Robin [may] enter = Ed. Q/F = Enter Robin 54 SH PYRAMUS [BOTTOM] = Ed.F = Pir. 61 SH THISBE [FLUTE] = Ed.F = This. 72 SD Enter … head placed ten lines later in F at a possible re-entry point for Bottom 91 with = Q. F = and 103 On…thee = Q. F prints before the two preceding lines 121 Peaseblossom…Mustardseed! set as SD in F 122 SH PEASEBLOSSOM = Ed.F = Fai. 123 SH COBWEB = Ed. Not in F 124 SH MOTH = Ed. Not in F 125 SH MUSTARDSEED = Ed. Not in F 126 SH ALL = Ed. Not in F 138 SH PEASEBLOSSOM = Ed. F = 1.Fai. 139 SH COBWEB = Ed. Not in F. 140 SH MOTH = Ed. F = 2.Fai. 141 SH MUSTARDSEED = Ed. F = 3.Fai. 148 you of = Q. F = of you 150 Mustardseed. F here accidentally repeats ‘Peas. Pease-blossome.’ 153 you of = Ed. F = you 157 weeps, weeps = Q. F = weepes, weepe

3.2.5 haunted = Q. F = gaunted 58 murdered = Q. F = murderer 68 tell true = Q. F omits repetition 80 I so = Ed.F = I 85 sleep = Ed.F = slip 121 SD [following] = Ed.F = and 123 come = Q. F = comes 145 all are = Q. F = are all 151 were men = Q. F = are men 167 till = Q. F = to 172 is it = Q. F = it is 174 Helen, it = Q. F = It 176 abide = F’s modernization of Q’s aby 183 thy sound = Q. F = that sound 214 like = Ed, F = life 221 passionate = F. Not in Q 244 my = Q. F = mine 251 prayers = Ed.F = praise 261 sir = F. Q = heele. Some eds emend to yield 269 potion = Q. F = poison 286 of doubt = F. Some eds omit of 347 abide = F’s modernization of Q’s aby 359 wilfully = Q. F = willingly 362 hath = F. Q = had 387 employ = Q. F = imply 392 night-swift = F. Q = nights swift 399 exile = Q. F = dxile 411 feared = Ed.F = sear’d 435 SD shifting places placed five lines earlier in F 440 now = Q. Not in F 451 sometime = F. Q = sometimes 467 To your = Ed. F = your

4.1.5 SH BOTTOM = Ed. F = Clow. 9 You your = Q. F = your 40 favours = Q. F = savors 64 o’er = Ed. F = or 71 do loathe his = Q. F = doth loath this 72 this head = Q. F = his head 74 five = Ed. F = fine 76 Now, when = Q. F = When 82 prosperity = Q. F = posterity 85 Fairy = Q. F = Faire 109 Seemed = F2. F = Seeme 123 their = Q. F = this 137 is = Q. F = is is 145 might be = F. Q = might 156 followed = F. Q = following 165 saw = Ed. F = see 168 I do = Q. F = doe I 171 shall hear more = F. Q = more will here 183 everything = Q. F = euery things 187 It seems = F. Q precedes with Are you sure / That we are awake? 192 bid = F. Q = did bid 204 ballad = Ed (F4). F = ballet

4.2.0 SD Flute = Ed. F = Flute, Thisbie 3 SH FLUTE = Ed. F = This. 8 naught = F2. F = nought 19 no true = F. Q = not true everything as = F. Q = every thing right as

5.1.16 airy = Ed. F = aire 39 Egeus = F. Q = Philostrate 40 SH EGEUS = F, replacing Q’s PHILOSTRATE throughout this scene 44 ripe = Q. F = rife 46 SH LYSANDER = F. Q assigns these comments to THESEUS 79 SH EGEUS = Ed. F = Phi., a vestige from the Q version of the scene, in which Philostrate serves as the ‘manager of mirth’ 111 SH THESEUS = Q. F = Duke or Du. throughout scene 125 his = F. Q = this 128 SD with … them = Ed. F = Tawyer with a Trumpet before them (William Tawyer was an actor in Shakespeare’s company) 147 trusty Thisbe’s = Q. F = Thisbies 153 SD Exeunt … Wall F provides a redundant SD three lines later: ‘Exit Lyon, Thisbie, and Moonshine’ 183 enter = F. Q = enter now 188 up in thee = F. Q = now againe 194 And I = Q. F = And 203 mural = Ed. F = morall. Q = Moon used 205 SH HIPPOLYTA = Q. F = Dut. (for Dutchess) throughout 218 on = Q. F = of 226 hearken = F. Q = listen 242 they are = F. Q = all these are 254 gleams = Ed.F = beames 255 taste = F. Q = take 289 prove = F. Q = yet proove 296 is the better. = F. Q continues better: hee for a man, God warnd us; she for a woman, God blesse us. 325 SHBOTTOM = F. Q = LYON 341 lion = Ed.F = Lyons 367 this = F. Q = your 370 SD The Song = F. Assigned to Oberon in Q.

Act 1 Scene 1

List of parts: PHILOSTRATE…court in the Quarto text, he is the Master of the Revels who introduces the entertainment in the final act; in Folio, this role is taken by Egeus, leaving Philostrate a nonspeaking role in the first scene.

1.1    Location: Athens    Theseus mythical Duke of Athens who conquered the Amazons    Hippolyta mythical Queen of the Amazons, captured by Theseus

2    apace quickly    Four happy days the action actually extends over two days and the intervening night

4    lingers draws out/keeps waiting

5    Like to like stepdame    stepmother dowager widow

6    withering out i.e., using up    young man’s revenue i.e., her son’s inheritance

7    steep soak, be suffused in

9    moon…bow Diana was goddess of hunting and the moon

10    New-bent ready to be strung or to let an arrow loose

11    solemnities ceremonies, celebrations

14    pert lively

16    pale companion melancholy fellow    pomp splendid display, ceremony

17    with my sword Hippolyta was captured during Theseus’ campaign against the Amazons

18    injuries wrongs

20    triumph public celebration    Hermia name of Aristotle’s disreputable mistress; may be derived from “Hermione” (daughter of Helen of Troy)    Lysander derived from “Alexander” (another name for Paris, who carried off Helen of Troy)    Demetrius a villainous Demetrius appears in North’s Plutarch and in Shakespeare’s    Titus Andronicus 32 feigning singing softly/deceitful/joyful/desirous/longing

33    stol’n…fantasy cunningly imprinted yourself in her imagination

34    gauds showy playthings conceits trinkets

35    knacks knickknacks    trifles insignificant tokens    nosegays small bouquets of flowers    sweetmeats confectionery

36    prevailment persuasion, influence unhardened inexperienced, yielding

37    filched stolen

40    Be it so if

46    Immediately directly

52    disfigure alter/erase

56    kind respect wanting lacking voice approval

58    would wish

62    concern befit

63    presence the duke/assembled people/ceremonial place

67    die the death be executed

68    society company

70    Know of learn from    blood passions

72    livery clothing (and lifestyle)

73    aye always mewed confined

78    earthlier happy i.e., more happy on earth    distilled whose essence is extracted for perfume

80    single blessedness i.e., celibacy

82    Ere before    virgin patent privilege of virginity

83    his lordship i.e., Demetrius

86    sealing day i.e., wedding day

90    would wishes

91    Diana Roman goddess of chastity and the moon    protest vow

92    aye ever

94    crazèd flawed/unsound/mad    title claim

96    Do i.e., why don’t

98    render give to

100    estate unto bestow upon

101    derived descended

102    possessed propertied, i.e., affluent

103    fairly nobly/equally

104    with…Demetrius’ superior to those of Demetrius

107    prosecute pursue

108    avouch declare head i.e., face

109    Made love to wooed Helena perhaps named after Helen of Troy

110    dotes is infatuated

112    spotted (morally) stained

115    self-affairs personal matters

116    lose forget

118    schooling admonition/advice

119    look be sure    arm prepare

120    fancies desires

122    extenuate moderate

125    go come

127    Against in preparation for

128    nearly that that closely

132    Belike probably

133    Beteem grant

134    aught anything, whatever

137    blood rank

138    cross hindrance/vexation

139    misgraffèd mismatched

141    stood depended    merit Folio’s emendation of Quarto’s “friends” (meaning “relatives”); some editors assume that both texts are wrong and that the line should read, “Or merit stood upon the choice of friends”

143    sympathy agreement

145    momentary fleeting

147    collied blackened

148    spleen fit of temper    unfolds reveals

149    ere before

151    quick living/brief    confusion ruin

152    ever crossed always thwarted

154    trial experience of this trial

157    fancy’s love’s

158    persuasion opinion

161    seven leagues about twenty-one miles

162    respects considers

167    without outside

169    do…May i.e., celebrate May Day

170    stay wait

172    Cupid Roman god of love

173    best…head i.e., one causing love (Cupid’s lead arrows were supposed to induce loathing)

174    simplicity innocence doves symbols of fidelity, these birds drew the goddess of love’s chariot

175    knitteth binds together

176    Carthage queen Dido, who committed suicide on a pyre when Aeneas deserted her

177    false Troyan the Trojan Aeneas

183    fair beautiful/fair-complexioned

185    happy favored, lucky

186    lodestars guiding stars air melody

187    tuneable harmonious

188    green fresh, new

189    favour good looks/a favorable attitude

190    catch seize

193    bated omitted (with play on “baited, hooked”)

194    translated transformed

200    move arouse

203    none i.e., no fault

206    fly flee

212    Phoebe another name for the Roman moon goddess

213    glass mirror (i.e., water)

215    still always

218    faint pale wont accustomed

219    counsel inmost thoughts/advice

222    strange foreign, new

229    o’er other some more than others

232    all everyone else

235    quantity value/substance/proportion (to what love makes them into)

236    form ordered, attractive appearance/substance

238    blind Cupid was traditionally depicted as a sightless    child

239    of…taste the least bit of reason

240    figure symbolize

242    beguiled deceived, misguided

243    waggish playful, mischievous    game jest/play    themselves forswear break their word

245    eyne eyes

251    intelligence information

252    dear expense effort worth making/high price to pay (as Demetrius will pursue Hermia)/begrudging gratitude (from Demetrius)

Act 1 Scene 2

1.2    Quince probably from “quines” or “quoins,” a carpenter’s wooden wedges    Snug close-fitting; a good name for a joiner (craftsman who makes furniture)    Bottom the core onto which the weaver’s yarn was wound, or a ball of thread; did not have modern sense of “arse”    Flute suggests the fluted pipes of a church organ operated by bellows; perhaps Flute also has a reedy, high voice    Snout possibly Snout has a large nose (some editors suppose a reference to the spout of a kettle, which a tinker would have to mend, but sixteenth-century kettles did not have spouts)    Starveling tailors were proverbially thin

2    generally malapropism for “severally” (i.e., individually) scrip scrap of paper/script (i.e., what is written down; the word did not have its modern theatrical sense)

4    interlude short play

6    treats on deals with, is about

7    grow…point approach a conclusion

8    Marry by the Virgin Mary

11    spread yourselves spread out

17    ask require

18    condole express great sorrow

19    humour inclination    Ercles i.e., the Greek hero Hercules    rarely magnificently, exceptionally

20    tear…in rant and bluster    split go to pieces

22    shivering shattering

25    Phibbus’ car the chariot of Phoebus, the sun god

27    mar ruin

28    Fates three goddesses in control of human destiny

29    lofty grandiose, exalted, impressive vein temperament

34    wand’ring i.e., on a mission

37    That’s all one it doesn’t matter    small high-pitched

38    will can

39    An if

46    Thisbe’s…father these characters never actually appear

49    fitted equipped, provided for (perhaps maintaining the language of joinery)

52    do it extempore improvise

60    discretion sound judgment    aggravate malapropism for “moderate”

61    roar roar for    sucking dove conflation of “sitting dove” and “sucking lamb,” both proverbially quiet and gentle    an ’twere as if it were

64    proper handsome

68    discharge perform    your i.e., you know the sort    orange-tawny yellowish-brown

69    purple-in-grain dyed red    French-crown-coloured i.e., the gold color of the French coin

71    crowns heads; baldness was an effect of syphilis (“the French disease”)

73    con learn

75    devices plans

76    draw draw up    bill list

78    obscenely malapropism, perhaps for “seemly” or “obscurely”    courageously spiritedly

79    perfect word perfect

81    hold…bow-strings archers’ saying, possibly meaning “stand firm and fight, or cut your bowstrings in preparation for capture”

Act 2 Scene 1

2.1    Location: a wood near Athens    Robin Goodfellow name traditionally given to a mischievous hobgoblin    Puck a kind of mischievous goblin

4    park enclosed hunting ground pale fenced-in area

5    Thorough through

7    sphere stars and planets were thought to be contained within revolving hollow spheres

9    orbs i.e., fairy rings (dark circles in the grass)

10    pensioners bodyguards

12    favours tokens of favor

13    savours (sweet) scent

16    lob country bumpkin

17    anon soon

20    passing fell excessively fierce    wrath angry

23    changeling child taken by the fairies (usually exchanged for a fairy child)

25    trace traverse

26    perforce forcibly

29    fountain spring    sheen brightness

30    square quarrel

32    making physical appearance quite entirely

33    shrewd cunning

35    villagery villages

36    Skim take the cream off    quern churn; also a mill for grinding corn

37    bootless in vain

38    barm yeasty froth on top of fermenting ale

39    mislead i.e., with false fire that moves from place to place

46    bean-fed well-fed

47    filly female

48    gossip’s old friend’s bowl i.e., drinking cup

49    crab crab apple

51    dewlap loose fold of skin hanging at the neck

52    aunt old woman 55 ‘tailor’ cry of surprise; possibly because she ends up sitting on the floor (customary posture for tailors), or because she sits on her “tail” (i.e., bum)

56    quire company

57    waxen increase neeze sneeze

58    wasted spent

59    room make way Oberon name often given to the King of Fairies    Titania used by Ovid to refer to Diana (moon goddess) and Circe (enchantress)

64    Tarry stay    wanton willful one, perhaps also with sense of “promiscuous”    lord husband

65    lady wife

67    Corin conventional pastoral name

68    corn straw versing composing/uttering verses of

69    Phillida conventional pastoral name

70    step limit

71    forsooth in truth    bouncing big, strapping (perhaps with sexual connotations)

72    buskined wearing high hunting boots (“buskins”)

76    Glance at refer to/cast aspersions on credit favor

78    glimmering twinkling, shimmering

79    Perigenia (sometimes spelt “Perigouna”) Theseus slept with her after he killed her robber father    ravishèd carried off/seized/raped

80    Aegles nymph loved by Theseus

81    Ariadne she helped Theseus find his way out of the labyrinth; he then abandoned her    Antiopa Amazon seduced or abducted by Theseus before being abandoned by him

83    middle summer’s spring i.e., beginning of midsummer

84    mead meadow

85    pavèd with a pebbly base    rushy edged with rushes

86    in on    beachèd covered with shingle    margent margin, edge

87    ringlets circular fairy dance

88    brawls quarrels/noise; also lively French dance (contrasts with calmer ringlets)    sport recreation

89    piping whistling

91    Contagious pestilential/harmful

92    petty small    proud swollen

93    overborne their    continents exceeded their boundaries (i.e., flooded)

94    stretched strained at/pulled

95    lost wasted

96    ere…beard before developing the awn (bristly growth)

97    fold animal pen

98    murrion infected

99    nine men’s morris ground marked out for a game involving nine pegs (“men”)

100    quaint elaborate    mazes pattern of paths cut in the turf    wanton green lush grass

102    want…blessed i.e., though the weather is wintery, there are no winter festivities (some editors emend “here” to “cheer”)

104    Therefore i.e., because of our dispute    floods tides

105    washes saturates, renders moist

106    rheumatic diseases illnesses involving watery discharge, such as colds

107    distemperature poor weather/disorder

108    hoary-headed white-haired

110    Hiems personification of winter

111    chaplet garland

113    childing fertile

114    wonted customary    mazèd confused/dumbstruck/terrified

115    increase produce

117    debate discord    dissension discord

118    original point of origin

122    henchman squire, page

125    votress female follower, bound by a vow

127    Full very

128    Neptune Roman god of the sea

129    Marking observing, noting    th’embarkèd traders sailing merchants or their ships    flood sea

131    wanton playful/lustful

132    swimming gait smooth, graceful motion

137    of that boy i.e., in childbirth

141    Perchance perhaps

142    patiently calmly    round circular dance

144    spare avoid

147    chide quarrel    downright utterly

148    from go from

151    Since when    promontory headland

153    dulcet sweet    breath i.e., song

154    rude rough

155    certain surely/particular

160    all fully certain accurate/specific

161    vestal woman vowed to chastity, here assumed by most commentators to be an allusion to Queen Elizabeth I (the imperial votress)

163    As as if

164    might could

167    fancy-free unaffected by love

168    bolt arrow

170    purple blood-colored

171    love-in-idleness pansy or heartsease

174    or either

177    leviathan sea monster

178    girdle belt

194    The…stayeth i.e., I will confront Lysander; it is Hermia who is preoccupying me (some editors emend to “slay…slayeth”)

196    wood angry/mad (puns on “wooed”)

199    draw attract (magnetically)    adamant hard magnetic substance

201    Leave you give up

203    you fair favorably, kindly to you

209    but only

210    leave permission

218    impeach discredit

222    desert desolate, isolated

224    privilege safeguard    for that because

231    brakes bushes

235    Apollo…chase a reversal of the myth in which Daphne, being chased by Apollo, was spared rape by being turned into a laurel tree

236    griffin mythical beast, part lion part eagle    hind female deer

237    bootless pointless

239    stay wait for

244    set…sex make me behave in a way that disgraces womankind

248    upon by/at

254    blows blossoms

255    oxlips flowers resembling both cowslip and primrose

256    Quite completely    woodbine honeysuckle

257    musk-roses wild climbing roses eglantine sweetbriar, a sweetly scented rose

258    sometime at some time or other

260    throws sheds

261    Weed garment

271    fond on infatuated with

Act 2 Scene 2

1    roundel circular dance

3    cankers worms that destroy plants

4    reremice bats    leathern leathery

7    quaint strange/dainty

8    offices duties

9    double i.e., forked

11    blind-worms adders

13    Philomel nightingale; Philomela was transformed into a nightingale after being raped by her brother-in-law

18    nigh near

24    etc. indicates chorus is to be repeated

26    aloof at a distance    sentinel guard

30    ounce lynx

31    Pard leopard/panther

36    troth truth

38    tarry…day wait till the cooler part of the day

42    troth pledge (of love)/faith

45    take the sense i.e., interpret correctly

46    Love…conference i.e., love allows lovers to understand one another

52    lie mislead (you) (puns on “lie down”)

53    prettily charmingly/cleverly

54    beshrew curse

56    friend lover

57    human polite/courteous

59    Becomes befits

65    wisher’s eyes i.e., Lysander’s    pressed i.e., closed in sleep

68    approve test

78    Churl villain/scoundrel

79    owe own

80    forbid…eyelid prevent you from sleeping

85    charge command    haunt pursue/hang around

86    darkling in the dark

88    fond foolish/doting

89    grace favor

90    lies is/resides

96    marvel wonder

97    as as if (from)

98    glass mirror

99    sphery eyne heavenly eyes

104    Transparent radiant/see-through    art skill (allowing him to see through Helena’s body)

109    What though what of it (if)

115    will inclination (plays on sense of “sexual desire”/”penis”)

118    ripe not i.e., was not mature enough

119    point peak    skill discernment

120    marshal guide

121    o’erlook read

122    stories narrative/true history

123    Wherefore why

129    Good troth truly    good sooth indeed

132    lord possessor    gentleness nobility/courtesy/kindness

134    of by    abused mistreated

137    surfeit excess

139    leave renounce

140    those…deceive i.e., the former heretics themselves

142    Of by

143    address direct

150    prey act of preying

151    removed departed

153    an if if

154    of all loves for love’s sake

Act 3 Scene 1

3.1    Clowns lower-class comic characters

2    Pat punctually

3    brake thicket    tiring-house dressing room

6    bully old mate, good fellow

10    By’r lakin by our ladykin (i.e., the Virgin Mary)    parlous perilous

11    done i.e., said and done

12    Write me write/write for me

16    eight and six alternating lines of eight and six syllables (common meter for ballads)

18    afeard afraid

19    it either the lion, or that the ladies will be afraid

21    fearful frightening

22    wild-fowl i.e., wild beast (literally, bird)

25    defect malapropism for “effect”

27    My…yours by my life (literally, I would lay down my life for you)

28    pity…life a bad thing, by my life/my life would be at risk

29    plainly may pun on “plane” (carpenter’s tool)

33    almanac calendar

36    casement section of a window

38    bush…lantern the traditional props of the man in the moon

39    disfigure malapropism for “figure” (i.e., represent)    present represent

44    rough-cast lime and gravel mixture used for plastering walls

47    rehearse recite

49    hempen home-spuns those wearing homemade/rustic clothes    swagg’ring blustering

50    cradle place of rest

51    toward in preparation

59    by and by shortly

66    brisky juvenal lively young man    eke also    Jew desperate rhyme, or perhaps short for “juvenal” or “jewel” as a term of affection

69    Ninus founder of Nineveh

70    part an actor’s written part consisted solely of his lines and cues

73    fair handsome    were would be

75    round circular dance/circuitous route

78    fire will-o’-the-wisp, a flame over marshy ground (caused by gas but popularly supposed to be a hobgoblin’s trick)

81    knavery trick

84    translated transformed

88    ousel cock male blackbird

90    throstle song thrush

91    quill reed/pipe (i.e., voice)

94    plain-song melodically simple

96    dares…nay is unable to deny the truth of the cuckoo’s cry of “cuckold” (man with an unfaithful wife)

97    who…bird adaptation of “do not set your wit against a fool’s” (proverbial)    give…lie accuse the bird of lying

98    cuckoo i.e., “cuckold”    never so ever so much

101    enthrallèd enslaved

102    virtue’s qualities’    perforce of necessity

106    gleek make a jest

110    turn purposes

112    wilt wish to

113    rate worth, rank

114    still always    tend upon serve, wait upon    state status as queen

117    deep bottom of the sea

119    grossness bodily form

121    Peaseblossom flower of plants of the pea family; Pease also meant “something of very small value or importance”    Moth pronounced “mote” (i.e., speck) so this sense may also be implied

128    eyes i.e., sight

129    apricocks apricots    dewberries type of blackberry

131    humblebees bumblebees

132    night-tapers candles

134    arise possible erectile connotations

142    cry…mercy beg your pardon

144    desire…acquaintance want to be better acquainted with you    if…you cobwebs were used to stop bleeding

147    Squash unripe pea pod

148    Peascod pea pod (a traditional remedy for lovesickness, with play on “codpiece”)

151    patience endurance (as mustard is eaten with beef)

153    made…water since mustard is hot in the mouth

157    weeps i.e., causes dew

158    enforcèd violated

159    Tie…tongue perhaps because Bottom is braying

Act 3 Scene 2

3    in extremity to excess

5    night-rule mischievous, disordered nighttime activity    haunted much frequented

7    close private/secluded

8    dull inactive

9    patches clowns/fools    rude mechanicals uneducated manual workers

13    barren sort stupid group

15    Forsook left    scene performance space

17    noll head

19    mimic burlesque actor/performer

20    fowler hunter

21    russet-pated choughs reddish-brown jackdaws (with play on “chuff,” rustic boor) many in sort i.e., in a large flock

22    report sound of firing

23    Sever scatter    sweep move swiftly across

30    yielders those who yield to fear

36    latched ensnared/wetted

40    of force by necessity

41    close concealed

45    chide rebuke (you)    use treat

48    Being o’er shoes having waded

50    true loyal

53    whole solid, intact    bored pierced through

54    centre i.e., of the earth

55    Her brother’s i.e., the sun’s    th’Antipodes the people/places on the opposite side of the globe

57    dead deadly/murderous

61    Venus bright planet; also Roman goddess of love sphere orbit/hollow surrounding sphere

62    to got to do with

65    cur dog

67    numbered counted

68    once once and for all

69    Durst would you/did you dare    a have

70    brave touch fine/impudent deed

71    worm snake

72    doubler more divided/deceitful

74    spend expend/waste    passion powerful feelings    misprised mood mistaken anger

78    therefor for it

82    vein mood

84    So…owe i.e., lack of sleep and sorrow combined are making me very tired    heavier harder to bear/sleepier

85    For because of the

87    his tender sleep’s offer    make some stay stay here awhile

88    quite utterly

90    misprision error

92    one…troth for each man who keeps his word/faith in love

93    confounding breaking    on after

95    look be sure

96    fancy-sick lovesick cheer face

97    sighs…dear each sigh was thought to drain a drop of blood from the heart

98    illusion deception

99    against in preparation for when

101    Tartar’s bow powerful bow from central Asia

104    apple pupil/center

109    remedy relief, resolution

113    fee payment

114    fond pageant foolish spectacle

119    alone unique/on its own

121    preposterously perversely, out of the normal course of events

124    Look when whenever

125    nativity i.e., through weeping

127    badge outward sign (as worn on servants’ livery), i.e., tears

128    advance show

129    truth kills truth i.e., his vows to Hermia and to Helena invalidate one another    devilish-holy fray quarrel involving false and true vows

130    o’er up

133    light as tales false as rumors/lies

136    Demetrius…you there maybe a missing rhyme line for Helena hereafter

139    ripe i.e., full and red    show appearance

141    pure congealèd white i.e., pale skin (considered to be especially beautiful)    Taurus mountain range in Turkey

142    turns…crow seems black in comparison (with Helena’s white skin)

144    seal promise

145    bent disposed

146    set against be hostile to

148    do…injury insult me so much

150    join in    souls unite

152    gentle noble/mild

153    superpraise praise excessively    parts qualities

157    trim fine

160    extort torture/wring

169    will none i.e., want nothing to do with her

171    but…sojourned stayed with her merely as a visitor

176    abide suffer for/pay for    dear at great cost

178    his its

179    apprehension perception

186    press urge

187    bide remain

188    engilds brightens with gold

189    yon i.e., those over there    oes spangles (i.e., stars)

193    confed’racy alliance

195    fashion contrive    in spite to vex

196    Injurious harmful, unjust

198    bait persecute/torment

199    counsel inmost thoughts/advice

201    chid scolded

204    artificial skilled in the arts of creation

207    one key total harmony

209    incorporate indivisible, one body

210    Like similar

213    heart may pun on “hart,” a common heraldic device

214    first i.e., bodies (plays on sense of “dominant color on a shield”)    coats coats of arms (which can appear twice on a shield though under one crest)

215    Due…one a coat of arms is allocated to a specific individual

216    rent rend, tear    ancient long-standing    asunder apart

227    rare splendid/exceptional

231    tender offer

233    grace favor

238    Persever persevere    sad solemn

239    mouths faces

240    hold…up maintain the joke

241    carried conducted

243    argument subject (for a joke)

257    withdraw i.e., remove yourself from present company (for a duel)

259    whereto to what end

260    Ethiope Ethiopian, i.e., dark-complexioned (in comparison with fair Helena)

262    take on as behave as if

264    Hang off leave hold    burr prickly seed head that sticks easily to clothing    let loose get off

266    rude harsh, unkind, offensive

268    Out exclamation of impatience (“get away!”)    tawny dark-skinned    Tartar person from central Asia

269    medicine i.e., poison

271    sooth truly

274    weak bond i.e., Hermia (plays on earlier sense of “oath”)

280    erewhile before

286    out of free from

289    juggler trickster    canker-blossom flower-destroying worm

295    Impatient angry

296    puppet false thing/small person

299    urged insisted on/brought forward

300    personage appearance

304    painted made-up (with cosmetics)    maypole i.e., tall, skinny person

308    curst ill-tempered

309    shrewishness scolding/bad temper

310    right true/typical

312    something lower somewhat shorter

316    evermore always

319    stealth stealing away

321    chid me hence tried to drive me away with scolding

323    so if

326    fond foolish

332    part side

333    keen sharp    shrewd vicious

337    suffer allow

340    minimus tiny, insignificant being    knot-grass type of creeping weed

347    abide pay for

351    cheek by jowl i.e., side by side

352    coil turmoil ’long on account    Exit…Hermia the Quarto text gives Hermia the exit line “I am amazed and know not what to say”; Folio’s omission of this was probably a printer’s error, but it might conceivably have been the purposeful cut of a weak line that converts a rhyming couplet to a triplet

365    sort fall out

366    As in that    jangling squabbling

368    Hie hasten

369    welkin sky

370    drooping falling    Acheron one of the four rivers of Hades (the classical underworld)

371    testy irritable

372    As so that

373    Like…tongue sometimes imitate Lysander’s voice

374    wrong insults

375    rail rant

378    batty batlike

379    herb i.e., the antidote

380    liquor liquid, juice    virtuous powerful

381    his its

382    wonted accustomed, former

383    derision ridiculousness

385    wend make their way

386    league alliance, friendship    date duration

392    dragons supposedly pulling the chariot of night or the moon    cut cut through

393    Aurora’s harbinger the morning star, which can be seen before dawn

396    crossways crossroads, the unconsecrated burial place for suicides    floods “burial” place of those who had drowned (and whose bodies were unrecoverable)

400    aye eternity    consort keep company

402    morning’s love either Aurora’s lover, or Aurora, Roman goddess of the dawn (i.e., Oberon does not have to disappear before dawn like the other spirits)    made sport amused myself/made love to

403    forester guardian of the forest

405    Neptune Roman god of the sea

412    Goblin Puck refers to himself

415    drawn with sword drawn

416    straight at once

417    plainer flatter/more open

423    recreant coward

427    try test

435    spite vexation, grievance

437    Abide confront/endure    wot know

442    buy pay for

444    constraineth compels

448    Abate shorten

477    Jack…Jill “all shall be well and Jack shall have Jill” (proverbial)

478    Nought nothing

479    man…mare proverbial

Act 4 Scene 1

2    amiable lovable    coy caress

13    overflown flowed over, drenched

15    neaf fist    leave your courtesy stop bowing/put your hat back on

18    Cavalery cavalier (i.e., courtly gentleman)    Cobweb apparently an error for Peaseblossom

19    marvellous extremely

22    tongs simple metal musical instrument, struck to produce sound    bones pieces of bone clapped together between the fingers

23    rural music simple rustic music

24    peck quantity (quarter of a bushel) provender fodder (for animals)

25    bottle bundle    fellow equal

26    vent’rous adventurous, daring

29    stir wake    exposition of malapropism for “disposition to”

31    all ways away gone in all directions

32    woodbine bindweed, which entwines itself with    honeysuckle

34    Enrings encircles

38    dotage infatuation

40    favours love tokens (perhaps flowers)

44    sometime formerly

45    orient from the east/lustrous

46    flowerets small flowers

56    swain rustic

57    other others

58    repair make their way

59    accidents events

64    Dian’s bud i.e., Oberon’s corrective herb, linked to Diana, Roman goddess of chastity

74    these five i.e., Bottom and the lovers

75    charmeth brings about by magic    Music, still the “rural music” may still have been playing or perhaps this is a cue for “still” (i.e., gentle) music; Oberon’s Silence awhile may cue the suspension of the former before Sound, music! cues the latter

80    solemnly ceremoniously

81    triumphantly with great celebration

85    attend listen

87    sad solemn

88    Trip move swiftly    his i.e., Theseus’

96    observation observance (of May morning rites)

97    vaward vanguard (i.e., foremost part)

99    Uncouple release (pairs of dogs for the hunt)

104    Cadmus founder of Thebes

105    bayed pursued with dogs

106    hounds of Sparta dogs famed for their skill

107    chiding i.e., barking

111    kind breed

112    so flewed with the same large cheek folds    sanded sandy-colored

114    dewlapped with loose folds of skin hanging at the neck    Thessalian from Thessaly, an ancient region of northeastern Greece

115    matched in mouth united in barking (i.e., harmonious)

116    tuneable melodious

117    hallowed to had “halloo” (a cry of encouragement) shouted to it    cheered urged on

119    soft wait a moment

123    of at

126    in grace of to honor    solemnity ceremony

131    Saint Valentine February 14, the day on which birds were thought to choose their mates

132    couple pair off

137    jealousy suspicion

150    defeated frustrated/deprived

156    fancy love/infatuation

160    idle gaud worthless trinket

172    overbear overrule

173    by and by soon

175    for since    something worn somewhat spent

176    purposed intended

178    in with    solemnity ceremony

180    undistinguishable unrecognizable

182    parted divided/unfocused

186    Mine…own i.e., because found, of uncertain ownership

194    by on

197    God’s God save    hence away from here    rare unique/marvelous

198    wit understanding

199    go about endeavor

201    patched i.e., wearing a fool’s multicolored costume    The…was garbled version of a famous passage about what the Geneva Bible calls “the bottom of God’s secrets” (1 Corinthians 2:9–10)

205    bottom foundation/(is) unfathomable    Peradventure perhaps

206    her presumably Thisbe’s

Act 4 Scene 2

4.2    Location: Athens

2    transported carried off/transformed

3    forward ahead

4    discharge perform

6    wit intellect

7    person appearance, bearing    paramour malapropism for “paragon”

8    naught i.e., wickedness, shame (with possible vaginal connotations)

10    we…men i.e., our fortunes would have been made

12    sixpence a day i.e., as a reward from the duke (a considerable sum, half a day’s wage)

13    scaped escaped, avoided An if

16    hearts fine friends

19    fell out happened

21    of from

22    strings i.e., with which to attach the beards    pumps light shoes

23    presently at once

24    preferred recommended

25    pare trim

Act 5 Scene 1

5.1    his i.e. Theseus’

1    that that which

3    antic bizarre/grotesque, with pun on “antique,” antiquated, which is the Quarto spelling    fairy toys foolish stories about fairies

5    shaping creative    apprehend grasp (intellectually)

8    compact composed

10    frantic mad, frenzied

11    Helen’s Helen of Troy’s    brow of Egypt dark-skinned complexion (thought unattractive)

14    bodies forth gives shape to

19    apprehend conceive

20    comprehends incorporates

24    transfigured changed, affected

25    More witnesseth is more certain testimony

26    constancy consistency, truth

27    admirable wondrous, extraordinary

32    board table

33    masques courtly entertainments involving music, dancing, and elaborate costumes

35    after-supper time after the evening meal

41    abridgement pastime (to shorten the evening)

44    brief summary    ripe fully prepared

46    battle…Centaurs probably derived from Ovid’s Metamorphoses, which tells of the battle of the Centaurs and the Lapithae; some versions say that Hercules was present

50    riot…rage another tale from Ovid’s Metamorphoses in which Orpheus was torn apart by female followers of Bacchus (Roman god of wine)

52    device show

54    thrice…beggary possible reference to Spenser’s poem “The Tears of the Muses”

56    critical judgmental

57    sorting with appropriate for

61    strange snow a word may be missing here, e.g., “strange black snow”

62    concord harmony

67    fitted suitable, apt

76    toiled exhausted, taxed    unbreathed unpracticed, inexperienced

77    against in preparation for

83    conned learned

87    simpleness unassuming simplicity

89    wretchedness o’er-charged humble people overburdened

90    his service its attempt to serve

92    kind respect

94    take accept, comprehend, value

95    noble respect dignity and consideration that comes with nobility

96    in…merit in terms of effort rather than actual value

97    clerks scholars

100    Make periods full stops/rhetorical pauses

101    accent speech, intonation

104    picked extracted, detected

105    modesty propriety/shyness    fearful frightened

109    capacity understanding

110    addressed ready

112    will. Quince inadvertently inserts a period here and changes the meaning of the line

114    will. another misplaced period

115    end aim

116    despite malice

117    we…you correctly punctuated, this would read “we come—but in despite we do not come—as minding to content you”

118    is. erroneous period    All exclusively    delight missing punctuation (e.g., period, semicolon)

119    here. erroneous period

120    show appearance/performance

121    like likely

122    stand upon points dwell on trivialities/insist on (correct) punctuation

123    rid dispensed with/ridden    rough untrained    stop pulling up (of a horse)/period

126    government control

127    nothing not

134    sunder separate

139    scorn shame, disdain

141    hight is called

144    mantle loose cloak    fall let fall

146    tall fine/brave

149    broached pierced

152    twain two/separated

156    interlude short play

164    sinister left

165    fearful frightened

167    partition wall/section of a scholarly book

169    grim-looked grim-looking, forbidding

176    chink plays on sense of “vagina/anus”

177    Jove Roman supreme god

180    stones plays on sense of “testicles”

181    sensible capable of feeling    again in response

183    pat exactly

188    lime probably pronounced “limb,” thus playing on sense of “penis”    hair plays on “pubic hair”

190    an if

191    thou…love Thisbe misplaces the pause that should be after “love”

192    lover’s grace i.e., gracious lover

193    Limander malapropism for “Leander,” lover of Hero

194    Helen mistake for “Hero”

195    Shafalus to Procrus mistakes for “Cephalus,” who was married to “Procris”

198    hole plays on “asshole”

200    ’Tide betide, i.e., come

203    mural wall

204    walls…hear derived from the proverb “walls have ears”    wilful willing

206    in this kind of this sort    shadows images/reflections/actors

212    monstrous frightening/enormous

214    rough wild/cruel

216    fell fierce    dam mother

220    at i.e., at playing    beast puns on    best

221    a very fox i.e., cunning    for i.e., for all

222    goose…discretion i.e., foolish    discretion judgment/prudence

224    carries i.e., literally, as prey

227    hornèd i.e. crescent-shaped

228    horns…head i.e., as a cuckold (men with unfaithful wives were said to grow horns)

229    no crescent no growing moon (presumably because he is so thin)

234    in snuff in need of blowing out/angry

236    in the wane decreasing/lacking

237    reason i.e., reasonable behavior    stay the time wait for the moment, sit it out

249    moused seized/shaken (refers to Thisbe’s mantle)

258    dole sorrow, grievous occurrence

264    Furies three classical goddesses of vengeance    fell fierce

265    Fates three classical goddesses in control of human destiny (a thread that would be cut when death was due)

266    thrum end of warp thread on a weaving loom, i.e., everything

267    Quail end, destroy    quell overcome, ruin

268    passion fit of grief    friend lover    go near to almost

270    Beshrew curse

271    frame create

272    deflowered presumably a mistake for “devoured”

274    cheer face/joy

277    pap breast (usually a woman’s)

284    Tongue error for “eye”

287    die one of a pair of dice    ace one (single spot on a die)

289    ass puns on    ace

292    passion sorrow/suffering (resulting in death)

294    long one i.e., fit of grief

296    mote tiny particle

298    means laments/intends    videlicet “that is to say” (Latin)

311    Sisters Three i.e., the Fates

315    shore shorn, cut

316    thread of silk i.e., life

319    imbrue pierce

326    Bergomask dance rustic dance, named after the people of Bergamo, Italy    between i.e., performed by

333    iron tongue clapper of a bell    told counted, i.e., rung (puns on “tolled”)

336    overwatched stayed up late

337    palpable-gross obviously clumsy    beguiled whiled away

338    heavy gait slow/sleepy passage

339    solemnity celebration

343    heavy exhausted

344    fordone worn out

345    wasted brands burnt logs

346    screech-owl the barn owl’s cry was thought to be a bad omen

351    sprite spirit

354    triple Hecate classical goddess of witchcraft and night, associated with the moon; often represented in triple form, she was known as Luna/Cynthia in heaven, Diana on earth, and Proserpina in the underworld    team i.e., the creatures, probably dragons, pulling her chariot

357    frolic frolicsome, merry

358    hallowed blessèd

360    behind out from behind/behind

361    give glimmering light probably a command to the fairies, who may have candles with them (perhaps carried on their heads to leave their hands free for dancing)

366    trippingly skillfully, lightly

367    rehearse recite    rote heart

374    best bride-bed i.e., that of Theseus and Hippolyta

375    issue children    create created

382    prodigious ominous

385    consecrate holy, blessed

386    gait (own) course

387    several individual

391    stay delay

397    weak deficient    idle foolish/trifling

398    yielding but meaningful than

399    Gentles ladies and gentlemen    reprehend reprove

400    mend improve, put it right

403    serpent’s tongue i.e., audience hisses

407    Give…hands i.e., applaud

408    restore amends make amends in return

THE MERCHANT OF VENICE

In the summer of 1598, the Lord Chamberlain’s Men registered their right to print “a book of the Merchant of Venice or otherwise called the Jew of Venice.” Two years later the play was published with a title page intended to whet the prospective reader’s appetite: The most excellent History of the Merchant of Venice. With the extreme cruelty of Shylock the Jew towards the said Merchant, in cutting a just pound of his flesh, and the obtaining of Portia by the choice of three chests. The character of Shylock and the courtship of Portia by Bassanio were clearly considered the play’s principal selling points. If The Jew of Venice was actually an alternative title for the stage, then there was a clear echo of one of the biggest box-office successes of the age, Christopher Marlowe’s The Jew of Malta. What, then, of Antonio the merchant?

In no other Shakespearean play does the titular character have such a small role: Portia’s is much the largest part, followed by Shylock and then Bassanio. Antonio is no more prominent in the dialogue than his friends Gratiano and Lorenzo. The part almost seems to be deliberately underwritten. “In sooth I know not why I am so sad,” he begins the play. His friends suggest some possible reasons: he is worried about his merchandise or perhaps he is in love. Antonio denies both, proposing instead that to play the melancholy man is simply his given role in the theater of the world. Intriguingly, Shakespeare gives the name Antonio to discontented characters in two other plays: one is Sebastian’s nautical companion in Twelfth Night, who risks his life for his close friend only to be ignored when Sebastian finds the love of a good woman, and the other is Prospero’s usurping brother in The Tempest, who has no wife or child of his own and who is again marginalized at the end of the play. Some productions have explored the sense of exclusion associated with the Antonio figures in Merchant and Twelfth Night by suggesting that they are made melancholy by unrequited homoerotic desire for, respectively, Bassanio and Sebastian.

Shakespeare often returned to a triangular structure of relationships in which close male friendship is placed at odds with desire for a woman. The pattern recurs not only in several of the plays but also as the implied narrative of the Sonnets. The Merchant of Venice begins with Bassanio seeking to borrow from his friend in order to finance the pursuit of a wealthy lover. He sets himself up as a figure from classical mythology: Jason in pursuit of the Golden Fleece. The analogy establishes Gratiano and Lorenzo as fellow Argonauts. Jason was renowned for being clever and brave, but also selfish and materialistic. His pattern of behavior was to gain the assistance of a woman—Ariadne, Medea—in realizing his ambitions, to become her lover and then to desert her and move on to a new adventure. With Jason as his role model, Bassanio has the potential to join the company of those other lovers in Shakespearean comedy—Claudio in Much Ado About Nothing, Bertram in All’s Well that Ends Well—who are not worthy of the women they obtain.

To make such comparisons is to see that The Merchant of Venice is one of Shakespeare’s darker comedies. The blurring of perspectives between the romantic and the sinister is especially apparent in the beautiful but ironic love duet of Lorenzo and Jessica at the beginning of the final act. They compare themselves to some oft-sung partners from the world of classical mythology. But what kind of exemplary figures are these? Cressida, who was unfaithful to Troilus; Medea the poisoner; Thisbe, whose tragical fate, though comically represented in the mechanicals’ play in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, was identical to Juliet’s; and Dido, whom Aeneas deserted in his quest for imperial glory. They are all figures in the pantheon of tragedy, not comedy.

The cleverness that Bassanio shares with the mythological figure of Jason is apparent from his choice of casket. Portia’s late father has devised a simple test to find her the right husband: those suitors who choose the golden or silver caskets are clearly motivated by desire for wealth and must therefore want to marry her for her money. The man who chooses lead obviously does not care about cash, so he is likely to love Portia for herself alone. Bassanio, however, recognizes that appearances are not to be trusted. Venice, sixteenth-century Europe’s preeminent city of commercial exchange and conspicuous consumption, has taught him that credit allows a man to display himself above his means. He does not want to look like a fortune hunter when wooing Portia, so he borrows from Antonio in order to dress like a wealthy man: “By something showing a more swelling port / Than my faint means would grant continuance.” He chooses the lead casket because he knows from his own example that “outward shows” may be least themselves and that the world is easily deceived “with ornament.” Gold, he reasons, is for greedy Midas, so he spurns it—this is what he imagines Portia wants to hear. He is of course assisted by the hint she drops for his benefit: whereas Morocco and Aragon had to make their choice in silence, Bassanio’s is heralded by a song that warns against trusting what appears to “the eyes.”

Portia has been attracted to Bassanio for some time (he has previously visited Belmont in the guise of “a scholar and a soldier” in the retinue of another suitor), but it is when he reasons against gold that love takes her over, banishing all other emotions. She responds with a beautifully articulated self-revelation. Ignore my riches, virtues, beauty, status, she says: “the full sum of me / Is sum of nothing, which to term in gross / Is an unlessoned girl, unschooled, unpractisèd.” On the surface, the rural estate of Belmont (literally “beautiful mountain”) is the play’s version of pastoral: an Arcadian realm of ease, integrity, and self-discovery that stands in contrast to the hard-nosed commerce of the duplicitous city. But the lesson of Belmont is actually a cynical one: choose wealth and you won’t get it, appear to reject it and it will be yours. The Prince of Morocco, who takes things at face value, is roundly rejected. It will not be the last time that Shakespeare pits an honest Moor against a world of Italian intrigue.

For all their fine words, both Bassanio and Portia are engaged in “practice,” a word that the Elizabethans associated with the figure of Machiavelli, archetypal Italianate schemer for self-advancement. Bassanio is the gold digger he pretends not to be, while Portia has no intention of letting any man become “her lord, her governor, her king” in the way that she says she will. At the end of her submission speech, she gives Bassanio the ring (symbol of both wealth and marital union) that will later be the device whereby she tricks him and thus establishes her position as the dominant partner in the relationship. She may speak about giving him all her property—which is what marriage meant according to the law of the time—but when she returns from Venice to Belmont at the end of the play she continues to speak of “my house” and the light “burning in my hall.”

As for Portia’s claim that she is “unlessoned” and “unschooled,” this is wholly belied by her bravura performance in the cross-dressed role of Balthasar, interpreting the laws of Venice with forensic skill that reduces the duke and his magnificoes to amazement. On leaving Belmont, she says that she and Nerissa will remain in a nunnery, the ultimate place of female confinement, until Bassanio’s financial difficulties are resolved. She actually goes to the public arena of the Venetian court, moving from passive (the woman wooed) to active (the problem solver). In the robes of a lawyer instead of those of a nun, she excels in the art of debate, deploying a rhetorical art calculated to delight Queen Elizabeth, who loved nothing more than to outmaneuver courtiers, diplomats, and suitors in the finer points of jurisprudence and theology.

“The quality of mercy is not strained”: the quality of Portia’s argument (and Shakespeare’s writing) unfolds from the several meanings of “strained.” Mercy is not constrained or forced, it must be freely given; nor is it partial or selective—it is a pure distillation like “the gentle rain from heaven,” not the kind of liquid from which impure particles can be strained out. As in Measure for Measure, Shakespeare explores the tension between justice and mercy, here interpreted in terms of the opposition between the Old Testament Jewish law of “an eye for an eye” and Christ’s New Testament covenant of forgiveness. When Shylock refuses to show mercy and stands by the old covenant, Portia’s art is to throw his legal literalism back in his face: the corollary of his demand for an exact pound of flesh is that he should not spill a drop of Venetian blood. But if the quality of mercy is not strained, then neither should be that of conversion: a bitter taste is left when Shylock is constrained to become a Christian.

Commerce, with which Venice was synonymous, depends on borrowing to raise capital. Christianity, however, disapproved of usury, the lending of money with interest. The Jewish moneylender was early modern Europe’s way out of this impasse. Venice was famous for its ghetto in which the Jews were constrained to live, even as they oiled the wheels of the city’s economy. Shakespeare does not mention the ghetto, but he reveals a clear understanding of how the system worked when Shylock refuses Antonio’s invitation to dinner: “I will buy with you, sell with you, talk with you, walk with you, and so following, but I will not eat with you, drink with you, nor pray with you.” There is sociability and commerce between different ethnic and religious groups, but spiritual practices and customs are kept distinct. Shylock will not go to dinner because his religion prevents him from eating pork, but ultimately he regards questions of business as more important than those of faith: he hates Antonio “for he is a Christian, / But more, for that in low simplicity / He lends out money gratis and brings down / The rate of usance here with us in Venice.”

It is the Christians who act according to raw prejudice. Shylock is spat upon simply because he is a Jew. Barabas, the Jew of Malta in the play written by Marlowe a few years before, answers to the stereotype of the Jew in love with his moneybags (though he does also love his daughter), whereas Shylock famously appeals to a common humanity that extends across the ethnic divide:

He hath disgraced me, and hindered me half a million, laughed at my losses, mocked at my gains, scorned my nation, thwarted my bargains, cooled my friends, heated mine enemies, and what’s the reason? I am a Jew. Hath not a Jew eyes? Hath not a Jew hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions? Fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same diseases, healed by the same means, warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer, as a Christian is? If you prick us, do we not bleed? If you tickle us, do we not laugh? If you poison us, do we not die?

In Elizabethan England the test for a witch was the pricking of her thumb: if it did not bleed, the woman was in league with the devil. Shylock’s “If you prick us, do we not bleed?” is a way of saying “do not demonize the Jews—we are not like witches.” “The villainy you teach me I will execute,” he continues: “if you do demonize me, then I will behave diabolically.” The alien, the oppressed minority, sees no alternative but to fight back: “And if you wrong us, shall we not revenge?” This is the point of parting between the Jewish law of “an eye for an eye” and the Christian notion of turning the other cheek and showing the quality of mercy.

The representation of Shylock as monstrous villain has played a part in the appalling history of European anti-Semitism. But such a representation necessarily occludes the subtler moments of Shakespeare’s characterization. A ring is not only the device whereby Portia and Nerissa assert their moral and verbal superiority over their husbands, but also the means by which Shylock is humanized through the memory of his dead wife:

TUBAL One of them showed me a ring that he had of your daughter for a monkey.

SHYLOCK Out upon her! Thou torturest me, Tubal. It was my turquoise, I had it of Leah when I was a bachelor. I would not have given it for a wilderness of monkeys.

KEY FACTS

PLOT: Antonio, the merchant of Venice, lends three thousand ducats to his friend Bassanio in order to assist him in his wooing of the wealthy and beautiful Portia of Belmont, an estate some distance from Venice. But Antonio’s own money is tied up in business ventures that depend on the safe return of his ships from sea, so he borrows the money from Shylock, a Jewish moneylender whom he has previously insulted for his high rates of interest. Shylock lends the money against a bond whereby failure to repay the loan on the agreed date will entitle Shylock to a pound of Antonio’s flesh. Portia’s father has decreed that she will marry whichever suitor makes the correct choice when presented with three caskets, made of gold, silver, and lead. Where wealthy suitors from Morocco and Aragon fail, Bassanio succeeds by choosing lead. His friend Gratiano marries Portia’s lady-in-waiting Nerissa at the same time. News arrives that Antonio’s ships have been lost; he is unable to pay his debt. Shylock’s claim to his pound of flesh is heard in the law court before the duke. Unknown to their husbands, Portia disguises herself as a young male lawyer acting on behalf of Antonio, Nerissa as a clerk. Portia’s ingenious defense is that Shylock is entitled to his pound of flesh but not to spill any of Antonio’s blood; she argues that the Jew should forfeit his life for having conspired against the life of a Venetian. The duke pardons Shylock on condition that he gives half his wealth to Antonio and half to the state. Antonio surrenders his claim on condition that Shylock converts to Christianity and leaves his property to his daughter Jessica, whom he has disinherited for running away with her Christian lover Lorenzo. Portia and Nerissa then assert their power over Bassanio and Gratiano by means of a trick involving rings that the men have promised never to part with. Finally there is good news about Antonio’s ships.

MAJOR PARTS: (with percentage of lines/number of speeches/scenes on stage) Portia (22%/117/9), Shylock (13%/79/5), Bassanio (13%/73/6), Gratiano (7%/58/7), Lorenzo (7%/47/7), Antonio (7%/47/6), Lancelet Gobbo (6%/44/6), Salerio (5%/31/7), Morocco (4%/7/2), Nerissa (3%/36/7), Jessica (3%/26/7), Solanio (2%/20/5), Duke (2%/18/1), Aragon (2%/4/1), Old Gobbo (1%/19/1).

LINGUISTIC MEDIUM: 80% verse, 20% prose.

DATE: Registered for publication July 1598 and mentioned in Francis Meres’ 1598 list of Shakespeare’s comedies; reference to a ship called the Andrew suggests late 1596 or early 1597, when the Spanish vessel St. Andrew, which had been captured at Cadiz after running aground, was much in the news.

SOURCES: There are many ancient and medieval folk variations on the motif of a body part demanded as surety for a bond. The setting of the story in Venice, the pursuit of “the lady of Belmonte” as the reason the hero needs the money, the bond being made by a friend rather than the hero himself, the identification of the moneylender as a Jew, and the lady disguising herself as a male lawyer, coming to Venice, and arguing that the bond does not allow for the shedding of blood all come from a tale in Ser Giovanni Fiorentino’s collection Il Pecorone (“The Dunce,” in Italian, published 1558—no English translation). A lost English play of the 1570s called The Jew may have been an intervening source. The character of Shylock and the elopement of his daughter with a Christian are strongly shaped by Christopher Marlowe’s highly successful play The Jew of Malta (c.1590). The choice between three caskets as a device to identify a worthy marriage partner is another ancient motif; the closest surviving precedent is a story in the medieval Gesta Romanorum (translated by Richard Robinson, 1577, revised 1595 with use of the rare word “insculpt,” which is echoed in Morocco’s speech).

TEXT: Quarto 1600: a good quality text, apparently set from a fair copy of the dramatist’s manuscript; reprinted 1619, with some errors and some corrections. Folio text was set from a copy of the first Quarto, making some corrections, introducing some errors, and apparently drawing on a theatrical manuscript for stage directions, including music cues. We follow Folio where it corrects or modernizes Quarto, but restore Quarto where Folio changes appear to be printers’ errors. The only serious textual problem concerns the Venetian gentlemen known in the theatrical profession as the “Salads.” They are initially identified in entry directions and speech headings as “Salarino” and “Solanio” (variously abbreviated, most commonly to “Sal.” and “Sol.”), but never named in the dialogue, so are unidentified from the point of view of a theater audience. Folio reverses their speech headings at the beginning of the opening scene, probably erroneously. In Act 3 scene 2 “Salerio” arrives in Belmont as “a messenger from Venice”; he is named in the dialogue, so identifiable to the audience. Is this a third character, a composite of the first two, or—more probably—has Shakespeare forgotten that he began with “Salarino”? In the following scene, Quarto has “Salerio” back in Venice with Antonio and Shylock, which must be an error—he has only just exited from Belmont with Bassanio. Folio intelligently corrects the Act 3 scene 3 entry direction to “Solanio.” In Act 4 scene 1, “Salerio” has returned with Bassanio. Some editions and productions have retained Salarino, Solanio, and Salerio, but it seems more likely that Salarino and Salerio are intended to be the same character: we have followed this assumption.

THE MERCHANT OF VENICE

ANTONIO, a merchant of Venice

BASSANIO, his friend, suitor to Portia

LORENZO, friend of Antonio and Bassanio, in love with Jessica

GRATIANO, friend of Antonio and Bassanio

LEONARDO, servant to Bassanio

PORTIA, an heiress

NERISSA, her gentlewoman-in-waiting

BALTHASAR, servant to Portia

STEPHANO, servant to Portia

Prince of ARAGON, suitor to Portia

Prince of MOROCCO, suitor to Portia

SHYLOCK, a Jew of Venice

JESSICA, his daughter

TUBAL, a Jew, Shylock’s friend

LANCELET GOBBO, the clown, servant to Shylock and later Bassanio

OLD GOBBO, Lancelet’s father

DUKE of Venice

Magnificoes of Venice

A Jailer, Attendants and Servants

Act 1 [Scene 1]1.1

running scene 1

Enter Antonio, Salerio and Solanio

ANTONIOIn sooth[1] I know not why I am so sad.

It wearies me, you say it wearies you;

But how I caught it, found it, or came by it,

What stuff[4] ’tis made of, whereof it is born,

5

I am to learn:[5]

And such a want-wit[6] sadness makes of me

That I have much ado[7] to know myself.

SALERIOYour mind is tossing on[8] the ocean,

There where your argosies[9] with portly sail

10

Like signiors[10] and rich burghers on the flood,

Or as it were the pageants[11] of the sea,

Do overpeer[12] the petty traffickers

That curtsy[13] to them, do them reverence,

As they fly[14] by them with their woven wings.

15

SOLANIOBelieve me, sir, had I such venture[15] forth,

The better part[16] of my affections would

Be with my hopes[17] abroad. I should be still

Plucking the grass to know where sits[18] the wind,

Peering in maps for ports and piers and roads,[19]

20

And every object that might make me fear

Misfortune to my ventures out of doubt

Would make me sad.

SALERIOMy wind cooling my broth

Would blow me to an ague,[24] when I thought

25

What harm a wind too great might do at sea.

I should[26] not see the sandy hour-glass run,

But I should think of shallows and of flats,[27]

And see my wealthy Andrew[28] docked in sand,

Vailing[29] her high top lower than her ribs

30

To kiss her burial;[30] should I go to church

And see the holy edifice of stone,

And not bethink me straight[32] of dang’rous rocks,

Which touching but[33] my gentle vessel’s side,

Would scatter all her spices on the stream,[34]

35

Enrobe the roaring waters[35] with my silks,

And in a word, but even[36] now worth this,

And now worth nothing? Shall I have the thought

To think on this, and shall I lack the thought

That such a thing bechanced[39] would make me sad?

40

But tell not me, I know, Antonio

Is sad to think upon his merchandise.

ANTONIOBelieve me, no. I thank my fortune for it,

My ventures are not in one bottom[43] trusted,

Nor to one place; nor is my whole estate[44]

45

Upon[45] the fortune of this present year:

Therefore my merchandise makes me not sad.

SALERIOWhy, then you are in love.

ANTONIOFie,[48] fie!

SOLANIONot in love neither: then let us say you are sad

50

Because you are not merry; and ’twere as easy

For you to laugh and leap, and say you are merry

Because you are not sad. Now, by two-headed Janus,[52]

Nature hath framed[53] strange fellows in her time:

Some that will evermore peep[54] through their eyes

55

And laugh like parrots at a bagpiper,[55]

And other[56] of such vinegar aspect

That they’ll not show their teeth in way of smile,

Though[58] Nestor swear the jest be laughable.

Enter Bassanio, Lorenzo and Grattano

SOLANIOHere comes Bassanio, your most noble kinsman,

60

Gratiano and Lorenzo. Fare ye well,

We leave you now with better company.

SALERIOI would have stayed till I had made you merry,

If worthier friends had not prevented[63] me.

ANTONIOYour worth is very dear[64] in my regard.

65

I take it your own business calls on you,

And you embrace[66] th’occasion to depart.

SALERIOGood morrow, my good lords.

BASSANIOGood signiors both, when shall we laugh?[68] Say, when?

You grow exceeding strange.[69] Must it be so?

70

SALERIOWe’ll make our leisures[70] to attend on yours.

Exeunt Salerio and Solanio

LORENZOMy lord Bassanio, since you have found Antonio,

We two will leave you, but at dinnertime

I pray you have[73] in mind where we must meet.

BASSANIOI will not fail you.

75

GRATIANOYou look not well, Signior Antonio.

You have too much respect[76] upon the world:

They lose it[77] that do buy it with much care.

Believe me, you are marvellously[78] changed.

ANTONIOI hold[79] the world but as the world, Gratiano,

80

A stage where every man must play a part,

And mine a sad one.

GRATIANOLet me play the fool:

With mirth and laughter let old[83] wrinkles come,

And let my liver[84] rather heat with wine

85

Than my heart[85] cool with mortifying groans.

Why should a man whose blood is warm within,

Sit like his grandsire[87] cut in alabaster?

Sleep when he wakes and creep[88] into the jaundices

By being peevish?[89] I tell thee what, Antonio —

90

I love thee, and it is my love that speaks —

There are a sort of men whose visages[91]

Do cream[92] and mantle like a standing pond,

And do a wilful[93] stillness entertain,

With purpose to be dressed[94] in an opinion

95

Of wisdom, gravity, profound conceit,[95]

As[96] who should say, ‘I am, sir, an oracle,

And when I ope[97] my lips, let no dog bark!’

O my Antonio, I do know of these

That therefore only are reputed wise

100

For saying nothing; when I am very sure

If they should speak, would almost damn[101] those ears

Which, hearing them, would call their brothers fools.

I’ll tell thee more of this another time.

But fish not with this melancholy bait[104]

105

For this fool[105] gudgeon, this opinion.

Come, good Lorenzo. Fare ye well awhile,

I’ll end my exhortation[107] after dinner.

LORENZOWell, we will leave you then till dinnertime. To Antonio and Bassanio

I must be one of these same dumb[109] wise men,

110

For Gratiano never lets me speak.

GRATIANOWell, keep me company but two years more,

Thou shalt not know the sound of thine own tongue.

ANTONIOFare you well, I’ll grow[113] a talker for this gear.

GRATIANOThanks, i’faith, for silence is only commendable

115

In a neat’s tongue dried[115] and a maid not vendible.

Exit [Gratiano with Lorenzo]

ANTONIOIs[116] that anything now?

BASSANIOGratiano speaks an infinite deal of nothing, more than any man in all Venice. His reasons[118] are two grains of wheat hid in two bushels of chaff: you shall seek all day ere[119] you find them, and when you have them, they are not worth the search.

ANTONIOWell, tell me now, what lady is the same[121]

To whom you swore a secret pilgrimage

That you today promised to tell me of?

BASSANIO’Tis not unknown to you, Antonio,

125

How much I have disabled[125] mine estate

By something[126] showing a more swelling port

Than my faint[127] means would grant continuance.

Nor do I now make moan[128] to be abridged

From such a noble rate,[129] but my chief care

130

Is to come[130] fairly off from the great debts

Wherein my time[131] something too prodigal

Hath left me gaged.[132] To you, Antonio,

I owe the most in money and in love,

And from your love I have a warranty[134]

135

To unburden[135] all my plots and purposes

How to get clear of all the debts I owe.

ANTONIOI pray you good Bassanio, let me know it,

And if it stand as you yourself still do,

Within[139] the eye of honour, be assured

140

My purse, my person, my extremest means,

Lie all unlocked to your occasions.[141]

BASSANIOIn my schooldays, when I had lost one shaft,[142]

I shot his[143] fellow of the selfsame flight

The selfsame way with more advisèd[144] watch

145

To find the other forth,[145] and by adventuring both

I oft found both. I urge[146] this childhood proof

Because what follows is pure innocence.[147]

I owe you much and, like a wilful youth,

That which I owe is lost. But if you please

150

To shoot another arrow that self[150] way

Which you did shoot the first, I do not doubt,

As I will watch the aim, or[152] to find both,

Or bring your latter hazard[153] back again,

And thankfully rest[154] debtor for the first.

155

ANTONIOYou know me well, and herein spend but[155] time

To wind[156] about my love with circumstance,

And out of[157] doubt you do me now more wrong

In making[158] question of my uttermost

Than if you had made waste[159] of all I have.

160

Then do but[160] say to me what I should do

That in your knowledge may by me be done,

And I am pressed[162] unto it: therefore speak.

BASSANIOIn Belmont is a lady richly[163] left,

And she is fair and, fairer than that word,

165

Of wondrous virtues. Sometimes[165] from her eyes

I did receive fair speechless messages.

Her name is Portia, nothing[167] undervalued

To Cato’s[168] daughter, Brutus’ Portia.

Nor is the wide world ignorant of her worth,

170

For the four winds blow in from every coast

Renownèd suitors, and her sunny locks

Hang on her temples like a golden fleece,[172]

Which makes her seat[173] of Belmont Colchos’ strand,

And many Jasons come in quest of her.

175

O my Antonio, had I but the means

To hold a rival place with one of them,

I have a mind presages[177] me such thrift,

That I should questionless[178] be fortunate.

ANTONIOThou know’st that all my fortunes are at sea,

180

Neither have I money, nor commodity[180]

To raise a present[181] sum: therefore go forth.

Try[182] what my credit can in Venice do,

That shall be racked,[183] even to the uttermost,

To furnish thee[184] to Belmont, to fair Portia.

185

Go presently[185] inquire, and so will I,

Where money is, and I no question make

To have it of my trust[187] or for my sake.

Exeunt

[Act 1 Scene 2]1.2

running scene 2

Enter Portia with her waiting woman, Nerissa

PORTIABy my troth,[1] Nerissa, my little body is aweary of this great world.

NERISSAYou would be,[2] sweet madam, if your miseries were in the same abundance as your good fortunes are, and yet, for aught[3] I see, they are as sick that surfeit with too much, as they that starve with nothing; it is no small happiness, therefore, to be seated in the mean.[5] Superfluity comes sooner by white hairs, but competency[6] lives longer.

PORTIAGood sentences[7] and well pronounced.

NERISSAThey would be better if well followed.

PORTIAIf to do were as easy as to know what were good to do, chapels had been churches and poor men’s cottages princes’ palaces. It is a good divine[10] that follows his own instructions; I can easier teach twenty what were good to be done than be one of the twenty to follow mine own teaching. The brain may devise laws for the blood,[13] but a hot temper leaps o’er a cold decree — such a hare is madness the youth, to skip o’er the meshes[14] of good counsel the cripple; but this reason is not in fashion to choose me a husband. O me, the word ‘choose!’ I may neither choose whom I would,[16] nor refuse whom I dislike, so is the will of a living daughter curbed by the will[17] of a dead father. Is it not hard, Nerissa, that I cannot choose one nor refuse none?

NERISSAYour father was ever virtuous, and holy men at their death have good inspirations: therefore the lottery[20] that he hath devised in these three chests of gold, silver and lead, whereof who[21] chooses his meaning chooses you, will no doubt never be chosen by any rightly[22] but one who you shall rightly love. But what warmth is there in your affection towards any of these princely suitors that are already come?

PORTIAI pray thee overname[25] them, and as thou namest them, I will describe them, and according to my description level at[26] my affection.

NERISSAFirst, there is the Neapolitan[27] prince.

PORTIAAy, that’s a colt[28] indeed, for he doth nothing but talk of his horse, and he makes it a great appropriation[29] to his own good parts that he can shoe him himself. I am much afraid my lady his mother played false[30] with a smith.

NERISSAThen is there the County[31] Palatine.

PORTIAHe doth nothing but frown, as who[32] should say, ‘An you will not have me, choose.’[33] He hears merry tales and smiles not. I fear he will prove the weeping philosopher when he grows old, being so full of unmannerly[34] sadness in his youth. I had rather to be married to a death’s-head[35] with a bone in his mouth than to either of these. God defend me from these two!

NERISSAHow[37] say you by the French lord, Monsieur Le Bon?

PORTIAGod made him, and therefore let him pass for a man. In truth, I know it is a sin to be a mocker, but he! Why, he hath a horse better than the Neapolitan’s, a better bad[40] habit of frowning than the Count Palatine. He is every man in no man. If a throstle[41] sing, he falls straight a capering, he will fence with his own shadow. If I should marry him, I should marry twenty husbands. If he would despise me, I would forgive him, for if[43] he love me to madness, I should never requite him.

NERISSAWhat say you then to Falconbridge, the young baron of England?

PORTIAYou know I say[45] nothing to him, for he understands not me, nor I him: he hath neither Latin, French, nor Italian, and you will come[46] into the court and swear that I have a poor[47] pennyworth in the English. He is a proper man’s picture, but alas, who can converse with a dumb show?[48] How oddly he is suited. I think he bought his doublet[49] in Italy, his round hose in France, his bonnet in Germany, and his behaviour everywhere.

NERISSAWhat think you of the other lord, his neighbour?

PORTIAThat he hath a neighbourly charity in him, for he borrowed[52] a box of the ear of the Englishman and swore he would pay him again when he was able. I think the Frenchman became his surety[54] and sealed under for another.

NERISSAHow like you the young German, the Duke of Saxony’s[55]nephew?

PORTIAVery vilely in the morning when he is sober, and most vilely in the afternoon when he is drunk: when he is best, he is a little worse than a man, and when he is worst, he is little better than a beast.[58] An the worst fall that ever fell, I hope I shall make shift[59] to go without him.

NERISSAIf he should offer to choose, and choose the right casket, you should[60] refuse to perform your father’s will, if you should refuse to accept him.

PORTIATherefore, for fear of the worst, I pray thee set a deep glass of Rhenish wine[62] on the contrary[63] casket, for if the devil be within, and that temptation without, Iknow he will choose it. I will do anything, Nerissa, ere I will be married to a sponge.[65]

NERISSAYou need not fear, lady, the having any of these lords. They have acquainted me with their determinations,[67] which is indeed to return to their home, and to trouble you with no more suit,[68] unless you may be won by some other sort[69] than your father’s imposition, depending on the caskets.

PORTIAIf I live to be as old as Sibylla,[70] I will die as chaste as Diana, unless I be obtained by the manner of my father’s will. I am glad this parcel[71] of wooers are so reasonable, for there is not one among them but I dote on his very absence, and I wish them a fair departure.

NERISSADo you not remember, lady, in your father’s time, a Venetian, a scholar and a soldier, that came hither in company of the Marquis of Montferrat?[75]

PORTIAYes, yes, it was Bassanio, as I think, so was he called.

NERISSATrue, madam. He, of all the men that ever my foolish[77] eyes looked upon, was the best deserving a fair lady.

PORTIAI remember him well, and I remember him worthy of thy praise.

Enter a Servingman

SERVANTThe four strangers[80] seek you, madam, to take their leave. And there is a forerunner[81] come from a fifth, the Prince of Morocco, who brings word the prince his master will be here tonight.

PORTIAIf I could bid the fifth welcome with so good heart as I can bid the other four farewell, I should be glad of his approach. If he have the condition[84] of a saint and the complexion[85] of a devil, I had rather he should shrive me than wive me. Come, Nerissa.— To the Servingman Sirrah,[86] go before; whiles we shut the gate upon one wooer, another knocks at the door.

Exeunt

[Act 1 Scene 3]1.3

running scene 3

Enter Bassanio with Shylock the Jew

SHYLOCKThree thousand ducats,[1] well.

BASSANIOAy, sir, for three months.

SHYLOCKFor three months, well.

BASSANIOFor the which, as I told you, Antonio shall be bound.[4]

SHYLOCKAntonio shall become bound, well.

BASSANIOMay you stead[6] me? Will you pleasure me? Shall I know your answer?

SHYLOCKThree thousand ducats for three months and Antonio bound.

BASSANIOYour answer to that.

SHYLOCKAntonio is a good man.

BASSANIOHave you heard any imputation[10] to the contrary?

SHYLOCKHo, no, no, no, no! My meaning in saying he is a good man is to have you understand me that he is sufficient.[12] Yet his means are in supposition: he hath an argosy bound to Tripolis,[13] another to the Indies, I understand moreover, upon the Rialto,[14] he hath a third at Mexico, a fourth for England, and other ventures he hath squandered[15] abroad. But ships are but boards, sailors but men. There be land-rats and water-rats, water-thieves and land-thieves — I mean pirates[16] — and then there is the peril of waters, winds and rocks. The man is, notwithstanding,[17] sufficient. Three thousand ducats. I think I may take his bond.

BASSANIOBe assured you may.

SHYLOCKI will be assured[20] I may. And that I may be assured, I will bethink me. May I speak with Antonio?

BASSANIOIf it please you to dine with us.

SHYLOCKYes, to smell pork, to eat of the habitation[23] which your prophet the Nazarite[24] conjured the devil into. I will buy with you, sell with you, talk with you, walk with you, and so following,[25] but I will not eat with you, drink with you, nor pray with you. What news on the Rialto? Who is he comes here?

Enter Antonio

BASSANIOThis is Signior Antonio.

SHYLOCKHow like a fawning publican[28] he looks! Aside

I hate him for he is a Christian,

30

But more, for that in low simplicity[30]

He lends out money gratis[31] and brings down

The rate of usance[32] here with us in Venice.

If I can catch him once upon the hip,[33]

I will feed fat[34] the ancient grudge I bear him.

35

He hates our sacred nation,[35] and he rails —

Even there[36] where merchants most do congregate —

On me, my bargains and my well-won thrift,[37]

Which he calls interest. Cursèd be my tribe,[38]

If I forgive him!

40

BASSANIOShylock, do you hear?

SHYLOCKI am debating[41] of my present store,

And by the near guess of my memory,

I cannot instantly raise up the gross[43]

Of full three thousand ducats. What of that?

45

Tubal,[45] a wealthy Hebrew of my tribe,

Will furnish[46] me; but soft! How many months

Do you desire?— Rest you fair,[47] good signior. To Antonio

Your[48] worship was the last man in our mouths.

ANTONIOShylock, albeit I neither lend nor borrow

50

By taking nor by giving of excess,[50]

Yet to supply the ripe wants[51] of my friend,

I’ll break a custom.— Is he yet possessed[52] To Bassanio

How much ye would?[53]

SHYLOCKAy, ay, three thousand ducats.

55

ANTONIOAnd for three months.

SHYLOCKI had forgot — three months — you told me so.

Well then, your bond.[57] And let me see, but hear you,

Methoughts you said you neither lend nor borrow

Upon advantage.[59]

60

ANTONIOI do never use[60] it.

SHYLOCKWhen Jacob[61] grazed his uncle Laban’s sheep —

This Jacob from[62] our holy Abram was,

As his wise mother wrought[63] in his behalf,

The third possessor;[64] ay, he was the third—

65

ANTONIOAnd what of him? Did he take interest?

SHYLOCKNo, not take interest, not, as you would say,

Directly interest. Mark[67] what Jacob did:

When Laban and himself were compromised[68]

That all the eanlings[69] which were streaked and pied

70

Should fall as[70] Jacob’s hire, the ewes, being rank,

In end of autumn turnèd to the rams,

And, when the work of generation[72] was

Between these woolly breeders in the act,

The skilful shepherd peeled[74] me certain wands,

75

And in[75] the doing of the deed of kind,

He stuck[76] them up before the fulsome ewes,

Who then conceiving, did in eaning[77] time

Fall[78] parti-coloured lambs, and those were Jacob’s.

This was a way to thrive,[79] and he was blest:

80

And thrift is blessing, if men steal it not.

ANTONIOThis was a venture,[81] sir, that Jacob served for,

A thing not in his power to bring to pass,

But swayed and fashioned[83] by the hand of heaven.

Was this inserted[84] to make interest good?

85

Or is your gold and silver ewes and rams?

SHYLOCKI cannot tell, I make it breed as fast.

But note me, signior—

ANTONIOMark you this, Bassanio,

The devil can cite Scripture for his purpose.

90

An evil soul producing holy witness

Is like a villain with a smiling cheek,

A goodly[92] apple rotten at the heart.

O, what a goodly outside falsehood hath!

SHYLOCKThree thousand ducats, ’tis a good round sum.

95

Three months from twelve, then let me see, the rate—

ANTONIOWell, Shylock, shall we be beholding[96] to you?

SHYLOCKSignior Antonio, many a time and oft

In the Rialto you have rated[98] me

About my moneys and my usances.

100

Still have I borne it with a patient shrug,

For sufferance[101] is the badge of all our tribe.

You call me misbeliever, cut-throat dog,

And spit upon my Jewish gaberdine,[103]

And all for use[104] of that which is mine own.

105

Well then, it now appears you need my help.

Go to,[106] then. You come to me and you say ‘

Shylock, we would have moneys’ — you say so,

You that did void[108] your rheum upon my beard,

And foot[109] me as you spurn a stranger cur

110

Over your threshold. Moneys is your suit.[110]

What should I say to you? Should I not say,

‘Hath a dog money? Is it possible

A cur should lend three thousand ducats?’ Or

Shall I bend low and in a bondman’s key,[114]

115

With bated[115] breath and whisp’ring humbleness,

Say this: ‘Fair sir, you spat on me on Wednesday last;

You spurned me such a day; another time

You called me dog, and for these courtesies I’ll

lend you thus much moneys’?

120

ANTONIOI am as like[120] to call thee so again,

To spit on thee again, to spurn thee too.

If thou wilt lend this money, lend it not

As to thy friends, for when did friendship take

A[124] breed of barren metal of his friend?

125

But lend it rather to thine enemy,

Who, if he break,[126] thou mayst with better face

Exact the penalties.

SHYLOCKWhy, look you how you storm!

I would be friends with you and have your love,

130

Forget the shames that you have stained me with,

Supply your present wants and take no doit[131]

Of usance for my moneys, and you’ll not hear me:

This is kind[133] I offer.

BASSANIOThis were[134] kindness.

135

SHYLOCKThis kindness will I show:

Go with me to a notary,[136] seal me there

Your single[137] bond, and in a merry sport

If you repay me not on such a day,

In such a place, such sum or sums as are

140

Expressed in the condition,[140] let the forfeit

Be nominated for[141] an equal pound

Of your fair flesh, to be cut off and taken

In what part of your body it pleaseth me.

ANTONIOContent, in faith, I’ll seal to such a bond

145

And say there is much kindness in the Jew.

BASSANIOYou shall not seal to such a bond for me.

I’ll rather dwell[147] in my necessity.

ANTONIOWhy, fear not, man, I will not forfeit it.

Within these two months — that’s a month before

150

This bond expires — I do expect return

Of thrice three times the value of this bond.

SHYLOCKO father Abram, what these Christians are,

Whose own hard dealings teaches them suspect[153]

The thoughts of others! Pray you tell me this:

155

If he should break his day,[155] what should I gain

By the exaction[156] of the forfeiture?

A pound of man’s flesh taken from a man

Is not so estimable,[158] profitable neither,

As flesh of muttons, beefs or goats. I say

160

To buy his favour, I extend this friendship:

If he will take it, so,[161] if not, adieu.

And for my love, I pray you wrong me not.

ANTONIOYes Shylock, I will seal unto this bond.

SHYLOCKThen meet me forthwith[164] at the notary’s,

165

Give him direction[165] for this merry bond,

And I will go and purse[166] the ducats straight,

See[167] to my house, left in the fearful guard

Of an unthrifty[168] knave, and presently

I’ll be with you.

Exit

170

ANTONIOHie[170] thee, gentle Jew.

Exit

This Hebrew will turn Christian, he grows kind.[171]

BASSANIOI like not fair terms and a villain’s mind.

ANTONIOCome on, in this there can be no dismay.

My ships come home a month before the day.

Exeunt

Act 2 [Scene 1]2.1

running scene 4

Enter Morocco, a tawny Moor, all in white, and three or four followers accordingly, with

Portia, Nerissa and their train. Flourish cornets

MOROCCOMislike me not for my complexion,

The shadowed livery[2] of the burnished sun,

To whom I am a neighbour and near bred.[3]

Bring me the fairest creature northward born,

5

Where Phoebus’[5] fire scarce thaws the icicles,

And let us make incision[6] for your love,

To prove whose blood is reddest,[7] his or mine.

I tell thee, lady, this aspect[8] of mine

Hath feared[9] the valiant. By my love I swear,

10

The best-regarded virgins of our clime[10]

Have loved it too: I would not change this hue,[11]

Except to steal your thoughts, my gentle queen.

PORTIAIn terms of choice I am not solely led

By nice[14] direction of a maiden’s eyes.

15

Besides, the lott’ry of my destiny

Bars me the right of voluntary choosing.

But if my father had not scanted[17] me,

And hedged[18] me by his wit to yield myself

His[19] wife who wins me by that means I told you,

20

Yourself, renownèd prince, then[20] stood as fair

As any comer I have looked on yet

For[22] my affection.

MOROCCOEven for that I thank you:

Therefore, I pray you lead me to the caskets

25

To try my fortune. By this scimitar[25]

That slew the Sophy[26] and a Persian prince

That won three fields[27] of Sultan Solyman,

I would o’erstare[28] the sternest eyes that look,

Outbrave the heart most daring on the earth,

30

Pluck the young sucking cubs from the she-bear,

Yea, mock the lion when he roars for prey

To win thee, lady. But alas the while!

If Hercules[33] and Lichas play at dice

Which is the better man, the greater throw

35

May turn by fortune from the weaker hand:

So is Alcides[36] beaten by his page,

And so may I, blind fortune leading me,

Miss that which one unworthier may attain,

And die with grieving.

40

PORTIAYou must take your chance,

And either not attempt to choose at all

Or swear before you choose, if you choose wrong

Never to speak to lady afterward

In way of marriage: therefore be advised.[44]

45

MOROCCONor will not.[45] Come, bring me unto my chance.

PORTIAFirst, forward to the temple. After dinner

Your hazard[47] shall be made.

MOROCCOGood fortune then!

To make me blest or cursed’st among men.

Cornets [and] exeunt

[Act 2 Scene 2]2.2

running scene 5

Enter the Clown [Lancelet] alone

LANCELETCertainly my conscience will serve[1] me to run from this Jew my master. The fiend is at mine elbow and tempts me, saying to me, ‘Gobbo,[2] Lancelet Gobbo, good Lancelet’, or ‘Good Gobbo’, or ‘Good Lancelet Gobbo, use your legs, take the start,[4] run away.’ My conscience says, ‘No; take heed, honest Lancelet, take heed, honest Gobbo’, or, as aforesaid, ‘Honest Lancelet Gobbo, do not run, scorn running with thy heels.’[6] Well, the most courageous fiend bids me pack: ‘Fia!’ says the fiend, ‘Away!’ says the fiend, ‘For the heavens,[7] rouse up a brave mind’, says the fiend, ‘and run.’ Well, my conscience, hanging about the neck of my heart, says very wisely to me, ‘My honest[9] friend Lancelet, being an honest man’s son’, or rather an honest woman’s son — for indeed my father did something[10] smack, something grow to,[11] he had a kind of taste — well, my conscience says ‘Lancelet, budge not.’ ‘Budge’, says the fiend. ‘Budge not’, says my conscience. ‘Conscience,’ say I, ‘you counsel well.’ ‘Fiend,’ say I, ‘you counsel well.’ To be ruled by my conscience, I should stay with the Jew my master, who, God[14] bless the mark, is a kind of devil; and to run away from the Jew, I should be ruled by the fiend, who, saving your reverence,[16] is the devil himself. Certainly the Jew is the very devil incarnation,[17] and in my conscience, my conscience is a kind of hard conscience to offer to counsel me to stay with the Jew; the fiend gives the more friendly counsel. I will run, fiend. My heels are at your commandment. I will run.

Enter Old Gobbo, with a basket

GOBBOMaster young man, you, I pray you which is the way to Master Jew’s?

LANCELETAside O heavens, this is my true-begotten[21] father, who, being more than sand-blind, high-gravel-blind,[22] knows me not. I will try confusions with him.

GOBBOMaster young gentleman, I pray you which is the way to Master Jew’s?

LANCELETTurn upon your right hand at the next turning, but at the next turning of all, on your left; marry, at the very next turning, turn of no hand,[25] but turn down indirectly[26] to the Jew’s house.

GOBBOBy God’s sonties,[27] ’twill be a hard way to hit. Can you tell me whether one Lancelet, that dwells with him, dwell with him or no?

LANCELETTalk you of young Master Lancelet?— Aside Mark me now, now will I raise[29] the waters.— Talk you of young Master Lancelet?

GOBBONo master,[31] sir, but a poor man’s son. His father, though I say’t, is an honest exceeding poor man and, God be thanked, well to live.[32]

LANCELETWell, let his father be what a[33] will, we talk of young Master Lancelet.

GOBBO Your worship’s friend and Lancelet.[34]

LANCELETBut I pray you ergo,[35] old man, ergo, I beseech you talk you of young Master Lancelet?

GOBBOOf Lancelet, an’t[37] please your mastership.

LANCELETErgo, Master Lancelet. Talk not of Master Lancelet, father,[38] for the young gentleman — according to fates and destinies and such odd sayings, the Sisters[39] Three and such branches of learning — is indeed deceased, or as you would say in plain terms, gone to heaven.

GOBBOMarry, God forbid! The boy was the very staff of my age, my very prop.

LANCELETDo I look like a cudgel or a hovel-post,[43] a staff or a prop? Do you know me, father?

GOBBOAlack the day, I know you not, young gentleman, but I pray you tell me, is my boy, God rest his soul, alive or dead?

LANCELETDo you not know me, father?

GOBBOAlack, sir, I am sand-blind. I know you not.

LANCELETNay, indeed if you had your eyes you might fail of the knowing[49] me: it is a wise father that knows his own child. Well, old man, I will tell you news of your son. Give me your blessing. Truth will come to light, murder cannot be hid long, a man’s son may, but in the end truth will out.

GOBBOPray you, sir, stand up. He kneels I am sure you are not Lancelet, my boy.

LANCELETPray you let’s have no more fooling about it, but give me your blessing. I am Lancelet, your[55] boy that was, your son that is, your child that shall be.

GOBBOI cannot think you are my son.

LANCELETI know not what I shall think of that. But I am Lancelet, the Jew’s man, and I am sure Margery your wife is my mother.

GOBBOHer name is Margery,[59] indeed. I’ll be sworn, if thou be Lancelet, thou art mine own flesh and blood. Lord worshipped might he be! What a beard hast thou got! Thou hast got more hair on thy chin than Dobbin my fill-horse[61] has on his tail.

LANCELETIt should seem, then, that Dobbin’s tail grows backward.[63] He rises I am sure he had more hair of[64] his tail than I have of my face when I last saw him.

GOBBOLord, how art thou changed! How dost thou and thy master agree?[65] I have brought him a present. How ’gree you now?

LANCELETWell, well. But for mine own part, as I have set[67] up my rest to run away, so I will not rest[68] till I have run some ground; my master’s a very Jew. Give him a present? Give him a halter![69] I am famished in his service. You may tell every finger I have with my ribs. Father, I am glad you are come. Give me[70] your present to one Master Bassanio, who, indeed, gives rare[71] new liveries. If I serve not him, I will run as far as God has any ground. O rare fortune! Here comes the man. To him, father, for I am a Jew[73] if I serve the Jew any longer.

Enter Bassanio, with a follower or two [including Leonardo]

BASSANIO To a Servant You may do so, but let it be so hasted[74] that supper be ready at the farthest by five of the clock. See these letters delivered, put the liveries to making, and desire Gratiano to come anon[76] to my lodging.

[Exit a Servant]

LANCELETTo him, father.

GOBBOGod bless your worship! Comes forward

BASSANIOGramercy![79] Wouldst thou aught with me?

GOBBOHere’s my son, sir, a poor boy—

LANCELETNot a poor[81] boy, sir, but the rich Jew’s man, that would, sir, as my father shall specify—

GOBBOHe hath a great infection,[83] sir, as one would say, to serve—

LANCELETIndeed, the short and the long is, I serve the Jew and have a desire, as my father shall specify—

GOBBOHis master and he, saving your worship’s reverence, are scarce[86] cater-cousins—

LANCELETTo be brief, the very truth is that the Jew, having done me wrong, doth cause me, as my father, being, I hope, an old man, shall frutify[89] unto you—

GOBBOI have here a dish of doves that I would bestow upon your worship, and my suit is—

LANCELETIn very brief, the suit is impertinent[92] to myself, as your worship shall know by this honest old man, and though I say it, though old man, yet poor man, my father.

BASSANIOOne speak for both. What would you?

LANCELETServe you, sir.

GOBBOThat is the very defect[97] of the matter, sir.

BASSANIOI know thee well, thou hast obtained thy suit.

Shylock thy master spoke with me this day,

100

And hath preferred[100] thee, if it be preferment

To leave a rich Jew’s service, to become

The follower of so poor a gentleman.

LANCELETThe old proverb[103] is very well parted between my master Shylock and you, sir: you have the grace of God, sir, and he hath enough.

105

BASSANIOThou speak’st it well. Go, father, with thy son.

Take leave of thy old master and inquire[106]

My lodging out.— Give him a livery To a Servant

More guarded[108] than his fellows’. See it done.

LANCELETFather, in. I cannot get a service, no. Points to his palm I have ne’er a tongue in my head. Well, if any man in Italy have a fairer table[110] which doth offer to swear upon a book,[111] I shall have good fortune. Go to, here’s a simple line of life, here’s a small trifle[112] of wives. Alas, fifteen wives is nothing! Eleven widows and nine maids is a simple[113] coming-in for one man, and then to scape drowning thrice, and to be in peril of my life with the edge[114] of a feather-bed. Here are simple scapes. Well, if Fortune be a woman, she’s a good wench for this gear.[115] Father, come; I’ll take my leave of the[116] Jew in the twinkling.

Exit Clown [Lancelet with Old Gobbo]

BASSANIOI pray thee good Leonardo, think on this. Gives a list

These things being bought and orderly bestowed,[118]

Return in haste, for I do feast[119] tonight

120

My best-esteemed acquaintance. Hie thee, go.

LEONARDOMy best endeavours shall be done herein.[121]

Enter Grattano

GRATIANOWhere’s your master?

LEONARDOYonder, sir, he walks.

Exit

GRATIANOSignior Bassanio!

BASSANIOGratiano!

GRATIANOI have a suit to you.

BASSANIOYou have obtained it.[127]

GRATIANOYou must not deny me. I must go with you to Belmont.

BASSANIOWhy then you must. But hear thee, Gratiano,

130

Thou art too wild, too rude[130] and bold of voice,

Parts[131] that become thee happily enough

And in such eyes as ours appear not faults;

But where they are not known, why, there they show[133]

Something too liberal.[134] Pray thee take pain

135

To allay[135] with some cold drops of modesty

Thy skipping[136] spirit, lest through thy wild behaviour

I be misconstered[137] in the place I go to,

And lose my hopes.

GRATIANOSignior Bassanio, hear me:

140

If I do not put on a sober habit,[140]

Talk with respect and swear but[141] now and then,

Wear prayer-books in my pocket, look demurely,

Nay more, while grace is saying,[143] hood mine eyes

Thus with my hat, and sigh and say ‘Amen’, Covers his face

145

Use all the observance of civility,

Like one well studied[146] in a sad ostent

To please his grandam,[147] never trust me more.

BASSANIOWell, we shall see your bearing.

GRATIANONay, but I bar[149] tonight. You shall not gauge me

150

By what we do tonight.

BASSANIONo, that were pity.

I would entreat you rather to put on

Your boldest suit of mirth, for we have friends

That purpose[154] merriment. But fare you well.

155

I have some business.

GRATIANOAnd I must to Lorenzo and the rest,

But we will visit you at suppertime.

Exeunt

[Act 2 Scene 3]2.3

running scene 6

Enter Jessica and the Clown [Lancelet]

JESSICAI am sorry thou wilt leave my father so.

Our house is hell, and thou, a merry devil,

Didst rob it of some taste of tediousness;

But fare thee well. There is a ducat for thee. Gives money

5

And, Lancelet, soon at supper shalt thou see

Lorenzo, who is thy new master’s guest:

Give him this letter. Do it secretly. Gives a letter

And so farewell. I would not have my father

See me talk with thee.

LANCELETAdieu! Tears exhibit[10] my tongue, most beautiful pagan, most sweet Jew! If a Christian did not play the knave and get[11] thee, I am much deceived; but adieu. These foolish drops do somewhat drown my manly spirit. Adieu.

Exit

JESSICAFarewell, good Lancelet.

Alack, what heinous sin is it in me

15

To be ashamed to be my father’s child!

But though I am a daughter to his blood,

I am not to his manners.[17] O Lorenzo,

If thou keep promise, I shall end this strife,[18]

Become a Christian and thy loving wife.

Exit

[Act 2 Scene 4]

running scene 7

Enter Gratiano, Lorenzo, Salerio and Solanio

LORENZONay, we will slink away in[1] suppertime,

Disguise us at my lodging and return

All in an hour.

GRATIANOWe have not made good preparation.

5

SALERIOWe have not spoke[5] us yet of torchbearers.

SOLANIO’Tis vile,[6] unless it may be quaintly ordered,

And better in my mind not undertook.

LORENZO’Tis now but four of clock. We have two hours

To furnish us.[9]— Friend Lancelet, what’s the news?

Enter Lancelet, with a letter

LANCELETAn[10] it shall please you to break up this, shall it seem to signify. Gives him the letter

LORENZOI know the hand.[11] In faith, ’tis a fair hand,

And whiter than the paper it writ on

Is the fair hand that writ.

GRATIANOLove-news, in faith.

15

LANCELETBy your leave,[15] sir. Starts to leave

LORENZOWhither goest thou?

LANCELETMarry, sir, to bid my old master the Jew to sup[17] tonight with my new master the Christian.

LORENZOHold here, take this. Tell gentle Jessica Gives money

20

I will not fail her. Speak it privately.

Go,[21] gentlemen,

Will you prepare you for this masque[22] tonight?

I am provided of[23] a torchbearer.

Exit Clown [Lancelet]

SALERIOAy, marry, I’ll be gone about it straight.

25

SOLANIOAnd so will I.

LORENZOMeet me and Gratiano

At Gratiano’s lodging some[27] hour hence.

SALERIO’Tis good we do so.

Exit [Salerio with Solanio]

GRATIANOWas not that letter from fair Jessica?

30

LORENZOI must needs[30] tell thee all. She hath directed

How I shall take her from her father’s house,

What gold and jewels she is furnished with,

What page’s suit she hath in readiness.

If e’er the Jew her father come to heaven,

35

It will be for his gentle[35] daughter’s sake;

And never dare misfortune cross her foot,[36]

Unless she[37] do it under this excuse,

That she[38] is issue to a faithless Jew.

Come, go with me, peruse this as thou goest. Gives the letter

40

Fair Jessica shall be my torchbearer.

Exeunt

[Act 2 Scene 5]

running scene 8

Enter [Shylock the] Jew and [Lancelet,] his man that was, the Clown

SHYLOCKWell, thou shall see, thy eyes shall be thy judge,

The difference of[2] old Shylock and Bassanio.—

What, Jessica! — Thou shalt not gormandize[3]

As thou hast done with me— What, Jessica!—

5

And sleep and snore, and rend apparel out[5]—

Why, Jessica, I say!

LANCELETWhy, Jessica!

SHYLOCKWho bids thee call? I do not bid thee call.

LANCELETYour worship was wont[9] to tell me

10

I could do nothing without bidding.

Enter Jessica

JESSICACall you? What is your will?

SHYLOCKI am bid forth[12] to supper, Jessica.

There are my keys. But wherefore[13] should I go?

I am not bid for love, they flatter me.

15

But yet I’ll go in hate, to feed upon[15]

The prodigal[16] Christian. Jessica, my girl,

Look to[17] my house. I am right loath to go.

There is some ill[18] a-brewing towards my rest,

For I did dream of money-bags tonight.[19]

LANCELETI beseech you, sir, go. My young master doth expect[20] your reproach.

SHYLOCKSo do I his.

LANCELETAn they have conspired together. I will not say you shall see a masque, but if you do, then it was not for nothing that my nose fell a-bleeding[23] on Black[24] Monday last at six o’clock i’th’morning, falling out that year on Ash Wednesday was four year, in th’afternoon.

SHYLOCKWhat, are there masques? Hear you me, Jessica:

Lock up my doors, and when you hear the drum

And the vile squealing of the wry-necked[28] fife,

Clamber not you up to the casements[29] then,

30

Nor thrust your head into the public street

To gaze on Christian fools with varnished faces,[31]

But stop[32] my house’s ears, I mean my casements.

Let not the sound of shallow fopp’ry[33] enter

My sober house. By Jacob’s staff,[34] I swear,

35

I have no mind of[35] feasting forth tonight,

But I will go. Go you before me, sirrah,

Say I will come.

LANCELETI will go before, sir.— Mistress, look out at window, for[38] all this, Aside to Jessica

There will come a Christian by,

40

Will be worth a Jewès[40] eye.

[Exit Lancelet]

SHYLOCKWhat says that fool of Hagar’s offspring,[41] ha?

JESSICAHis words were ‘Farewell mistress’, nothing else.

SHYLOCKThe patch[43] is kind enough, but a huge feeder,

Snail-slow in profit,[44] but he sleeps by day

45

More than the wild-cat. Drones[45] hive not with me:

Therefore I part with him, and part with him

To one that I would have him help to waste

His borrowed purse. Well, Jessica, go in.

Perhaps I will return immediately.

50

Do as I bid you, shut doors after you.

Fast[51] bind, fast find —

A proverb never stale in thrifty mind.

Exit

JESSICAFarewell, and if my fortune be not crossed,[53]

I have a father, you a daughter lost.

Exit

[Act 2 Scene 6]

running scene 9

Enter the masquers, Gratiano and Salerio

GRATIANOThis is the penthouse[1] under which Lorenzo

Desired us to make a stand.[2]

SALERIOHis[3] hour is almost past.

GRATIANOAnd it is marvel[4] he out-dwells his hour,

5

For lovers ever[5] run before the clock.

SALERIOO, ten times faster Venus’ pigeons[6] fly

To seal love’s bonds new-made, than they are wont

To keep obligèd[8] faith unforfeited!

GRATIANOThat ever[9] holds: who riseth from a feast

10

With that[10] keen appetite that he sits down?

Where is the horse that doth untread[11] again

His tedious measures[12] with the unbated fire

That he did pace them first? All things that are,

Are with more spirit chasèd than enjoyed.

15

How like a younger[15] or a prodigal

The scarfèd[16] bark puts from her native bay,

Hugged and embracèd by the strumpet[17] wind!

How like a prodigal doth she return,

With over-withered ribs[19] and ragged sails,

20

Lean, rent[20] and beggared by the strumpet wind!

Enter Lorenzo

SALERIOHere comes Lorenzo. More of this hereafter.

LORENZOSweet friends, your[22] patience for my long abode:

Not I but my affairs have made you wait.

When you shall please to play the thieves for wives,

25

I’ll watch[25] as long for you then. Approach.

Here dwells my father[26] Jew. Ho! Who’s within?

[Enter] Jessica above [in boy’s clothes]

JESSICAWho are you? Tell me, for more certainty,

Albeit I’ll swear that I do know your tongue.[28]

LORENZOLorenzo, and thy love.

30

JESSICALorenzo, certain, and my love indeed,

For who love I so much? And now who knows

But you, Lorenzo, whether I am yours?

LORENZOHeaven and thy thoughts are witness that thou art.

JESSICAHere, catch this casket, it is worth the pains.

35

I am glad ’tis night, you do not look on me,

For I am much ashamed of my exchange.[36]

But love is blind and lovers cannot see

The pretty[38] follies that themselves commit,

For if they could, Cupid[39] himself would blush

40

To see me thus transformèd to a boy.

LORENZODescend, for you must be my torchbearer.

JESSICAWhat, must I hold[42] a candle to my shames?

They in themselves, good sooth,[43] are too too light.

Why, ’tis an office of discovery,[44] love,

45

And I should be obscured.

LORENZOSo you are, sweet,

Even in the lovely garnish[47] of a boy.

But come at once,

For the close[49] night doth play the runaway,

50

And we are stayed for[50] at Bassanio’s feast.

JESSICAI will make fast[51] the doors and gild myself

With some more ducats, and be with you straight.

[Exit above]

GRATIANONow, by my hood, a gentle[53] and no Jew.

LORENZOBeshrew[54] me but I love her heartily.

55

For she is wise, if I can judge of her,

And fair she is, if that mine eyes be true,[56]

And true[57] she is, as she hath proved herself,

And therefore, like herself, wise, fair and true,

Shall she be placèd in my constant soul.

Enter Jessica [below]

60

What, art thou come? On, gentlemen, away!

Our masquing mates by this time for us stay.[61]

Exit [with Jessica and Salerio]

Enter Antonio

ANTONIOWho’s there?

GRATIANOSignior Antonio?

ANTONIOFie, fie, Gratiano! Where are all the rest?

65

’Tis nine o’clock: our friends all stay for you.

No masque tonight, the wind is come about.[66]

Bassanio presently will go aboard.

I have sent twenty out to seek for you.

GRATIANOI am glad on’t. I desire no more delight

70

Than to be under sail and gone tonight.

Exeunt

[Act 2 Scene 7]2.7

running scene 10

[Flourish of cornets.] Enter Portia with [the Prince of] Morocco and both their trains

PORTIAGo, draw aside the curtains and discover[1]

The several[2] caskets to this noble prince.

Now make your choice. The curtains are opened

MOROCCOThe first, of gold, who[4] this inscription bears:

5

‘Who[5] chooseth me shall gain what many men desire.’

The second, silver, which this promise carries,

‘Who chooseth me shall get as much as he deserves.’

This third, dull[8] lead, with warning all as blunt,

‘Who chooseth me must give and hazard all he hath.’

10

How shall I know if I do choose the right?

PORTIAThe one of them contains my picture, prince.

If you choose that, then I am yours withal.[12]

MOROCCOSome god direct my judgement! Let me see.

I will survey the inscriptions back[14] again.

15

What says this leaden casket?

‘Who chooseth me must give and hazard all he hath.’

Must give: for what? For lead? Hazard for lead?

This casket threatens. Men that hazard all

Do it in hope of fair advantages:

20

A golden mind stoops not to shows of dross,[20]

I’ll then nor[21] give nor hazard aught for lead.

What says the silver with her virgin hue?[22]

‘Who chooseth me shall get as much as he deserves.’

As much as he deserves; pause there, Morocco,

25

And weigh[25] thy value with an even hand:

If thou be’st rated[26] by thy estimation,

Thou dost deserve enough, and yet enough

May not extend so far as to the lady.

And yet to be afeard of my deserving

30

Were but a weak disabling[30] of myself.

As much as I deserve? Why, that’s the lady.

I do in birth deserve her, and in fortunes,

In graces and in qualities of breeding,

But more than these, in love I do deserve.

35

What if I strayed no further, but chose here?

Let’s see once more this saying graved[36] in gold:

‘Who chooseth me shall gain what many men desire.’

Why, that’s the lady, all the world desires her.

From the four corners of the earth they come,

40

To kiss this shrine, this mortal breathing[40] saint.

The Hyrcanian deserts[41] and the vasty wilds

Of wide Arabia are as throughfares now

For princes to come view fair Portia.

The watery kingdom,[44] whose ambitious head

45

Spits in the face of heaven, is no bar

To stop the foreign spirits,[46] but they come,

As o’er a brook, to see fair Portia.

One of these three contains her heavenly picture.

Is’t like[49] that lead contains her? ’Twere damnation

50

To think so base[50] a thought, it were too gross

To rib[51] her cerecloth in the obscure grave.

Or shall I think in silver she’s immured,[52]

Being ten times undervalued to[53] trièd gold?

O sinful thought! Never so rich a gem

55

Was set[55] in worse than gold! They have in England

A coin that bears the figure of an angel[56]

Stamped in gold, but that’s insculped[57] upon,

But here an angel in a golden bed

Lies all within. Deliver me the key:

60

Here do I choose, and thrive I as I may!

PORTIAThere, take it, prince, and if my form[61] lie there,

Then I am yours. He unlocks the gold casket

MOROCCOO hell! What have we here?

A carrion[64] Death, within whose empty eye

65

There is a written scroll; I’ll read the writing.

‘All that glisters is not gold, Reads

Often have you heard that told;

Many a man his life hath sold

But[69] my outside to behold.

70

Gilded tombs do worms enfold.

Had you been as wise as bold,

Young in limbs, in judgement old,[72]

Your answer had not been inscrolled:[73]

Fare you well, your suit is cold.’

75

Cold, indeed, and labour lost.

Then farewell, heat, and welcome, frost!

Portia, adieu. I have too grieved a heart

To take a tedious[78] leave. Thus losers part.

Exit [with his train. Flourish of cornets]

PORTIAA gentle riddance. Draw the curtains, go.

80

Let all of his complexion[80] choose me so.

[They close the curtains and] exeunt

[Act 2 Scene 8]2.8

running scene 11

Enter Salerio and Solanio

SALERIOWhy, man, I saw Bassanio under sail.

With him is Gratiano gone along;

And in their ship I am sure Lorenzo is not.

SOLANIOThe villain Jew with outcries raised[4] the duke,

5

Who went with him to search Bassanio’s ship.

SALERIOHe comes too late, the ship was under sail;

But there the duke was given to understand

That in a gondola were seen together

Lorenzo and his amorous Jessica.

10

Besides, Antonio certified the duke

They were not with Bassanio in his ship.

SOLANIOI never heard a passion[12] so confused,

So strange, outrageous,[13] and so variable,

As the dog Jew did utter in the streets:

15

‘My daughter! O my ducats! O my daughter!

Fled with a Christian! O my Christian ducats!

Justice, the law, my ducats, and my daughter!

A sealèd bag, two sealèd bags of ducats,

Of double ducats,[19] stol’n from me by my daughter!

20

And jewels, two stones,[20] two rich and precious stones,

Stol’n by my daughter! Justice! Find the girl,

She hath the stones upon her, and the ducats.’

SALERIOWhy, all the boys in Venice follow him,

Crying, his stones,[24] his daughter, and his ducats.

25

SOLANIOLet good Antonio look[25] he keep his day,

Or he shall pay for this.

SALERIOMarry, well remembered.

I reasoned[28] with a Frenchman yesterday,

Who told me, in the narrow[29] seas that part

30

The French and English there miscarried[30]

A vessel of our country richly fraught.[31]

I thought upon[32] Antonio when he told me,

And wished in silence that it were not his.

SOLANIOYou were best to tell Antonio what you hear;

35

Yet do not suddenly, for it may grieve him.

SALERIOA kinder gentleman treads not the earth.

I saw Bassanio and Antonio part:

Bassanio told him he would make some speed

Of his return. He answered, ‘Do not so,

40

Slubber[40] not business for my sake, Bassanio,

But stay[41] the very riping of the time.

And for[42] the Jew’s bond which he hath of me,

Let it not enter in your mind of[43] love.

Be merry, and employ your chiefest thoughts

45

To courtship and such fair ostents[45] of love

As shall conveniently become you[46] there.’

And even there,[47] his eye being big with tears,

Turning his face, he put his hand behind him,

And with affection wondrous sensible[49]

50

He wrung Bassanio’s hand, and so they parted.

SOLANIOI think he[51] only loves the world for him.

I pray thee let us go and find him out,

And quicken[53] his embracèd heaviness

With some delight or other.

55

SALERIODo we so.

Exeunt

[Act 2 Scene 9]2.9

running scene 12

Enter Nerissa and a Servitor

NERISSAQuick, quick, I pray thee draw the curtain straight.[1] The Servitor opens the curtains

The Prince of Aragon[2] hath ta’en his oath,

And comes to his election[3] presently.

Enter [the Prince of] Aragon, his train and Portia. Flourish of cornets

PORTIABehold, there stand the caskets, noble prince.

5

If you choose that wherein I am contained,

Straight shall our nuptial rites be solemnized.

But if thou fail, without more speech, my lord,

You must be gone from hence immediately.

ARAGONI am enjoined[9] by oath to observe three things:

10

First, never to unfold[10] to anyone

Which casket ’twas I chose; next, if I fail

Of[12] the right casket, never in my life

To woo a maid in way of marriage. Lastly,

If I do fail in fortune of my choice,

15

Immediately to leave you and be gone.

PORTIATo these injunctions everyone doth swear

That comes to hazard for my worthless self.

ARAGONAnd so have I addressed me.[18] Fortune now

To my heart’s hope! Gold, silver, and base lead.

20

‘Who chooseth me must give and hazard all he hath.’

You shall look fairer, ere I give or hazard.

What says the golden chest? Ha? Let me see:

‘Who chooseth me shall gain what many men desire.’

What many men desire — that ‘many’ may be meant

25

By[25] the fool multitude that choose by show,

Not learning more than the fond[26] eye doth teach,

Which pries[27] not to th’interior, but like the martlet

Builds in[28] the weather on the outward wall,

Even in the force[29] and road of casualty.

30

I will not choose what many men desire,

Because I will not jump[31] with common spirits

And rank me with the barb’rous multitudes.

Why, then to thee, thou silver treasure-house.

Tell me once more what title thou dost bear:

35

‘Who chooseth me shall get as much as he deserves.’

And well said too, for who shall go about

To cozen[37] fortune and be honourable

Without the stamp of merit? Let none presume

To wear an undeservèd dignity.

40

O, that estates, degrees[40] and offices

Were not derived corruptly, and that clear[41] honour

Were purchased[42] by the merit of the wearer!

How many then should cover[43] that stand bare!

How many be commanded that command!

45

How much low peasantry would then be gleaned[45]

From the true seed[46] of honour! And how much honour

Picked from the chaff and ruin of the times

To be new-varnished![48] Well, but to my choice:

‘Who chooseth me shall get as much as he deserves.’

50

I will assume[50] desert; give me a key for this,

And instantly unlock my fortunes here. He opens the silver casket

PORTIAToo long a pause for that which you find there. Aside?

ARAGONWhat’s here? The portrait of a blinking idiot

Presenting me a schedule![54] I will read it.

55

How much unlike art thou to Portia.

How much unlike my hopes and my deservings.

‘Who chooseth me shall have as much as he deserves.’

Did I deserve no more than a fool’s head?

Is that my prize? Are my deserts no better?

60

PORTIATo[60] offend and judge are distinct offices

And of opposèd natures.

ARAGONWhat is here?

‘The fire seven times tried this:[63] Reads

Seven times tried that judgement[64] is

65

That did never choose amiss.[65]

Some there be that shadows[66] kiss,

Such have but a shadow’s bliss.

There be fools alive, iwis,[68]

Silvered[69] o’er, and so was this.

70

Take what wife you will to bed,

I[71] will ever be your head.

So begone: you are sped.[72]’

Still more fool I shall appear

By the time[74] I linger here.

75

With one fool’s head I came to woo,

But I go away with two.

Sweet, adieu. I’ll keep my oath,

Patiently to bear my wroth.[78]

[Exeunt Aragon and train]

PORTIAThus hath the candle singed the moth.

80

O, these deliberate[80] fools! When they do choose,

They have the wisdom by their wit to lose.

NERISSAThe ancient saying is no heresy:

Hanging and wiving[83] goes by destiny.

PORTIACome, draw the curtain, Nerissa. Nerissa closes the curtains

Enter Messenger

85

MESSENGERWhere is my lady?

PORTIAHere, what would my lord?[86]

MESSENGERMadam, there is alighted at your gate

A young Venetian, one that comes before

To signify th’approaching of his lord,

90

From whom he bringeth sensible regreets:

To wit,[91] besides commends and courteous breath,

Gifts of rich value; yet[92] I have not seen

So likely an ambassador of love.

A day in April never came so sweet

95

To show how costly[95] summer was at hand,

As this fore-spurrer[96] comes before his lord.

PORTIANo more, I pray thee. I am half afeard

Thou wilt say anon he is some kin to thee,

Thou spend’st such high-day[99] wit in praising him.

100

Come, come, Nerissa, for I long to see

Quick Cupid’s post[101] that comes so mannerly.

NERISSABassanio, Lord Love, if thy will it be!

Exeunt

Act 3 [Scene 1]3.1

running scene 13

Enter Solanio and Salerio

SOLANIONow, what news on the Rialto?

SALERIOWhy, yet it[2] lives there unchecked that Antonio hath a ship of rich lading wrecked on the narrow seas;[3] the Goodwins, I think they call the place, a very dangerous flat[4] and fatal, where the carcasses of many a tall ship lie buried, as they say, if my gossip’s[5] report be an honest woman of her word.

SOLANIOI would she were as lying a gossip in that as ever knapped[6] ginger or made her neighbours believe she wept for the death of a third husband. But it is true, without any slips of prolixity[8] or crossing the plain highway of talk, that the good Antonio, the honest Antonio — O that I had a title good enough to keep his name company!—

SALERIOCome,[11] the full stop.

SOLANIOHa, what sayest thou? Why, the end is, he hath lost a ship.

SALERIOI would it might prove[13] the end of his losses.

SOLANIOLet me say ‘amen’ betimes,[14] lest the devil cross my prayer, for here he comes in the likeness of a Jew. How now, Shylock! What news among the merchants?

Enter Shylock

SHYLOCKYou knew, none so well, none so well as you, of my daughter’s flight.

SALERIOThat’s certain. I, for my part, knew the tailor that made the wings[18] she flew withal.

SOLANIOAnd Shylock, for his own part, knew the bird was fledged.[20] and then it is the complexion[21] of them all to leave the dam.

SHYLOCKShe is damned for it.

SOLANIOThat’s certain, if the devil[23] may be her judge.

SHYLOCKMy own flesh and blood[24] to rebel!

SOLANIOOut upon it,[25] old carrion! Rebels it at these years?

SHYLOCKI say, my daughter is my flesh and blood.

SALERIOThere is more difference between thy flesh and hers than between jet and ivory,[27] more between your bloods than there is between red wine and Rhenish. But tell us, do you hear whether Antonio have had any loss at sea or no?

SHYLOCKThere I have another bad match:[30] a bankrupt, a prodigal, who dare scarce show his head on the Rialto, a beggar that was used to come so smug upon the mart.[32] Let him look to his bond. He was wont to call me usurer. Let him look to his bond. He was wont to lend money for[33] a Christian courtesy. Let him look to his bond.

SALERIOWhy, I am sure if he forfeit, thou wilt not take his flesh. What’s that good for?

SHYLOCKTo bait fish withal. If it will feed nothing else, it will feed my revenge. He hath disgraced me, and hindered me[38] half a million, laughed at my losses, mocked at my gains, scorned my nation, thwarted my bargains, cooled[39] my friends, heated mine enemies, and what’s the reason? I am a Jew. Hath not a Jew eyes? Hath not a Jew hands, organs, dimensions,[41] senses, affections, passions? Fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same diseases, healed by the same means, warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer, as a Christian is? If you prick us, do we not bleed? If you tickle us, do we not laugh? If you poison us, do we not die? And if you wrong us, shall we not revenge? If we are like you in the rest, we will resemble you in that. If a Jew wrong a Christian, what[46] is his humility? Revenge. If a Christian wrong a Jew, what should his sufferance[47] be by Christian example? Why, revenge. The villainy you teach me I will execute, and it shall go hard but[49] I will better the instruction.

Enter a man from Antonio

SERVANTGentlemen, my master Antonio is at his house and desires to speak with you both.

SALERIOWe have been up and down[52] to seek him.

Enter Tubal

SOLANIOHere comes another of the tribe.[53] A third cannot be matched, unless the devil himself turn Jew.

Exeunt Gentlemen [Solanio, Salerio and Servant]

SHYLOCKHow now, Tubal, what news from Genoa?[55] Hast thou found my daughter?

TUBALI often came where I did hear of her, but cannot find her.

SHYLOCKWhy, there, there, there, there! A diamond gone, cost me two thousand ducats in Frankfurt![58] The curse never fell upon our nation till now, I never felt it till now. Two thousand ducats in that, and other precious, precious jewels. I would my daughter were dead at my foot, and the jewels in her ear! Would she were hearsed[61] at my foot, and the ducats in her coffin! No news of them? Why, so —and I know not how much is spent in the search. Why, thou loss upon loss! The thief gone with so much, and so much to find the thief, and no satisfaction,[63] no revenge, nor no ill luck stirring but what lights[64] o’my shoulders, no sighs but o’my breathing, no tears but o’my shedding.

TUBALYes, other men have ill luck too. Antonio, as I heard in Genoa—

SHYLOCKWhat, what, what? Ill luck, ill luck?

TUBAL—hath an argosy cast away,[68] coming from Tripolis.

SHYLOCKI thank God, I thank God. Is it true, is it true?

TUBALI spoke with some of the sailors that escaped the wreck.

SHYLOCKI thank thee, good Tubal, good news, good news! Ha, ha, heard in Genoa?

TUBALYour daughter spent in Genoa, as I heard, one night fourscore[72] ducats.

SHYLOCKThou stick’st a dagger in me. I shall never see my gold again. Fourscore ducats at a sitting,[74] fourscore ducats!

TUBALThere came divers[75] of Antonio’s creditors in my company to Venice, that swear he cannot choose but break.[76]

SHYLOCKI am very glad of it. I’ll plague him, I’ll torture him. I am glad of it.

TUBALOne of[78] them showed me a ring that he had of your daughter for a monkey.

SHYLOCKOut upon her![79] Thou torturest me, Tubal. It was my turquoise, I had it of Leah[80] when I was a bachelor. I would not have given it for a wilderness of monkeys.

TUBALBut Antonio is certainly undone.[82]

SHYLOCKNay, that’s true, that’s very true. Go, Tubal, fee[83] me an officer, bespeak him a fortnight before.[84] I will have the heart of him, if he forfeit, for were he out of Venice I can make what[85] merchandise I will. Go, Tubal, and meet me at our synagogue. Go, good Tubal, at our synagogue, Tubal.

Exeunt [separately]

[Act 3 Scene 2]3.2

running scene 14

Enter Bassanio, Portia, Gratiano, [Nerissa] and all their trains

PORTIAI pray you tarry.[1] Pause a day or two

Before you hazard, for in choosing[2] wrong

I lose your company: therefore forbear[3] awhile.

There’s something tells me, but it is not love,

5

I would not lose you, and you know yourself,

Hate counsels not in such a quality;[6]

But lest you should not understand me well —

And[8] yet a maiden hath no tongue but thought —

I would detain you here some month or two

10

Before you venture[10] for me. I could teach you

How to choose right, but then I am forsworn.[11]

So[12] will I never be. So may you miss me.

But if you do, you’ll make me wish a sin,

That I had been forsworn. Beshrew your eyes,

15

They have o’erlooked[15] me and divided me.

One half of me is yours, the other half yours,

Mine own, I would[17] say. But if mine, then yours,

And so all yours. O, these naughty[18] times

Puts bars[19] between the owners and their rights!

20

And so, though[20] yours, not yours. Prove it so,

Let fortune go to hell for it, not I.

I speak too long, but ’tis to peise[22] the time,

To eke[23] it and to draw it out in length,

To stay[24] you from election.

25

BASSANIOLet me choose,

For as I am, I live upon the rack.[26]

PORTIAUpon the rack, Bassanio? Then confess

What treason there is mingled with your love.

BASSANIONone but that ugly treason of mistrust,[29]

30

Which makes me fear[30] the enjoying of my love.

There may as well be amity and life

’Tween snow and fire, as[32] treason and my love.

PORTIAAy, but I fear you speak upon the rack,

Where men enforcèd[34] do speak anything.

35

BASSANIOPromise me life, and I’ll confess the truth.

PORTIAWell then, confess and live.[36]

BASSANIO‘Confess and love’

Had been the very sum of my confession.

O happy torment, when my torturer

40

Doth teach me answers for deliverance![40]

But let me to[41] my fortune and the caskets.

PORTIAAway, then! I am locked in one of them.

If you do love me, you will find me out.

Nerissa and the rest, stand all aloof.[44]

45

Let music sound while he doth make his choice,

Then if he lose, he makes a swan-like end,[46]

Fading in music. That the comparison

May stand more proper, my eye shall be the stream

And wat’ry death-bed for him. He may win,

50

And what is music then? Then music is

Even as the flourish[51] when true subjects bow

To a new-crownèd monarch. Such it is,

As are those dulcet[53] sounds in break of day,

That creep into the dreaming bridegroom’s ear,

55

And summon him to marriage. Now he goes,

With no less presence,[56] but with much more love,

Than young Alcides,[57] when he did redeem

The virgin tribute paid by howling[58] Troy

To the sea-monster. I stand for[59] sacrifice,

60

The rest aloof are the Dardanian[60] wives,

With blearèd visages,[61] come forth to view

The issue[62] of th’exploit. Go, Hercules!

Live thou,[63] I live. With much, much more dismay

I view the fight than thou that mak’st the fray.[64]

Here music

A song the whilst Bassanio comments on the caskets to himself

65

[SINGER]Tell me where is fancy[65] bred,

Or[66] in the heart, or in the head?

How begot,[67] how nourishèd?

Reply, reply.

It is engendered in the eyes,

70

With gazing fed, and fancy dies

In the cradle[71] where it lies.

Let us all ring fancy’s knell.[72]

I’ll begin it — Ding, dong, bell.

ALLDing, dong, bell.

75

BASSANIOSo may the outward shows be least themselves,[75]

The world is still[76] deceived with ornament.

In law, what plea so tainted and corrupt,

But, being seasoned with a gracious[78] voice,

Obscures the show of evil? In religion,

80

What damnèd error, but some sober brow[80]

Will bless it and approve[81] it with a text,

Hiding the grossness[82] with fair ornament?

There is no vice so simple[83] but assumes

Some mark of virtue on his[84] outward parts;

85

How many cowards, whose hearts are all as false

As stairs of sand, wear yet upon their chins

The beards of Hercules and frowning Mars,[87]

Who, inward searched,[88] have livers white as milk.

And these assume but valour’s excrement[89]

90

To render them redoubted.[90] Look on beauty,

And you shall see ’tis purchased by the weight,

Which therein works a miracle in nature,

Making them lightest[93] that wear most of it:

So are those crispèd[94] snaky golden locks

95

Which makes such wanton[95] gambols with the wind

Upon supposèd fairness,[96] often known

To be the dowry[97] of a second head,

The skull that bred them in the sepulchre.

Thus ornament is but the guilèd[99] shore

100

To a most dangerous sea, the beauteous scarf

Veiling an Indian[101] beauty; in a word,

The seeming truth which cunning times put on

To entrap the wisest. Therefore, then, thou gaudy[103] gold,

Hard food for Midas,[104] I will none of thee;

105

Nor none of thee,[105] thou pale and common drudge

’Tween man and man. But thou, thou meagre lead,

Which rather threaten’st than dost promise aught,

Thy paleness moves me more than eloquence,

And here choose I. Joy be the consequence!

110

PORTIAHow all the other passions fleet[110] to air, Aside

As[111] doubtful thoughts and rash-embraced despair

And shudd’ring fear and green-eyed jealousy!

O love, be moderate, allay thy ecstasy,

In measure[114] rain thy joy, scant this excess.

115

I feel too much thy blessing. Make it less,

For fear I surfeit.[116]

BASSANIOWhat find I here? He opens the lead casket

Fair Portia’s counterfeit![118] What demigod

Hath come so near creation? Move these eyes?[119]

120

Or whether,[120] riding on the balls of mine,

Seem they in motion? Here are severed[121] lips,

Parted with sugar breath, so sweet a bar[122]

Should sunder[123] such sweet friends. Here in her hairs

The painter plays the spider, and hath woven

125

A golden mesh t’entrap the hearts of men

Faster[126] than gnats in cobwebs. But her eyes —

How could he see to do them? Having made one,

Methinks it[128] should have power to steal both his

And leave itself unfurnished.[129] Yet look how far

130

The substance[130] of my praise doth wrong this shadow

In underprizing it, so far this shadow

Doth limp behind the substance. Here’s the scroll,

The continent[133] and summary of my fortune.

‘You that choose not by the view Reads

135

Chance as fair[135] and choose as true.

Since this fortune falls to you,

Be content and seek no new.

If you be well pleased with this

And hold your fortune for your bliss,

140

Turn you where your lady is

And claim her with a loving kiss.’

A gentle scroll. Fair lady, by your leave,

I come by note[143] to give and to receive.

Like one of two contending in a prize[144]

145

That thinks he hath done well in people’s eyes,

Hearing applause and universal shout,

Giddy in spirit, still gazing in a doubt

Whether those peals of praise be his[148] or no,

So, thrice-fair lady, stand I, even so,

150

As doubtful whether what I see be true,

Until confirmed, signed, ratified[151] by you.

PORTIAYou see me, Lord Bassanio, where I stand,

Such as I am; though for myself alone

I would not be ambitious in my wish,

155

To wish myself much better, yet for you

I would be trebled twenty times myself,

A thousand times more fair, ten thousand times more rich,

That only to stand high in your account,[158]

I might in virtues, beauties, livings,[159] friends,

160

Exceed account.[160] But the full sum of me

Is sum of nothing, which to term in gross[161]

Is an unlessoned girl, unschooled, unpractisèd,[162]

Happy in this, she is not yet so old

But she may learn. Happier than this,

165

She is not bred so dull but she can learn;

Happiest of all is that her gentle spirit

Commits itself to yours to be directed,

As from her lord, her governor, her king.

Myself, and what is mine, to you and yours

170

Is now converted.[170] But now I was the lord

Of this fair mansion, master of my servants,

Queen o’er myself, and even now, but now,

This house, these servants and this same myself

Are yours, my lord. I give them with this ring,

175

Which when you part from, lose or give away,

Let it presage[176] the ruin of your love

And be my vantage[177] to exclaim on you. Puts a ring on his finger

BASSANIOMadam, you have bereft me of all words,

Only my blood[179] speaks to you in my veins,

180

And there is such confusion[180] in my powers,

As after some oration fairly spoke

By a belovèd prince, there doth appear

Among the buzzing pleasèd multitude,

Where every something[184] being blent together,

185

Turns to a wild[185] of nothing, save of joy

Expressed[186] and not expressed. But when this ring

Parts from this finger, then parts life from hence.

O, then be bold[188] to say Bassanio’s dead!

NERISSAMy lord and lady, it is now our time,

190

That[190] have stood by and seen our wishes prosper,

To cry, good joy: good joy, my lord and lady!

GRATIANOMy lord Bassanio and my gentle lady,

I wish you all the joy that you can wish,

For I am sure you can wish none[194] from me.

195

And when your honours mean to solemnize

The bargain of your faith,[196] I do beseech you,

Even[197] at that time I may be married too.

BASSANIOWith all my heart, so[198] thou canst get a wife.

GRATIANOI thank your lordship, you have got me one.

200

My eyes, my lord, can look as swift as yours:

You saw the mistress, I beheld the maid.[201]

You loved, I loved, for intermission[202]

No more pertains to me, my lord, than you;

Your fortune stood[204] upon the caskets there,

205

And so did mine too, as the matter falls,[205]

For wooing here until I sweat again,

And swearing till my very roof[207] was dry

With oaths of love, at last,[208] if promise last,

I got a promise of this fair one here

210

To have her love, provided that your fortune

Achieved her mistress.

PORTIAIs this true, Nerissa?

NERISSAMadam, it is so,[213] so you stand pleased withal.

BASSANIOAnd do you, Gratiano, mean good faith?

GRATIANOYes, faith,[215] my lord.

BASSANIOOur feast shall be much honoured in your marriage.

GRATIANOWe’ll play[217] with them the first boy for a thousand ducats.

NERISSAWhat, and stake down?[218]

GRATIANONo, we shall ne’er win at that sport,[219] and stake down.

220

But who comes here? Lorenzo and his infidel?[220]

What, and my old Venetian friend Salerio?

Enter Lorenzo, Jessica and Salerio

BASSANIOLorenzo and Salerio, welcome hither,

If that the youth[223] of my new interest here

Have power to bid you welcome. By your leave,

225

I bid my very[225] friends and countrymen,

Sweet Portia, welcome.

PORTIASo do I, my lord. They are entirely welcome.

LORENZOI thank your honour. For my part, my lord,

My purpose was not to have seen you here,

230

But meeting with Salerio by the way,

He did entreat me, past all saying nay,

To come with him along.

SALERIOI did, my lord,

And I have reason for it. Signior Antonio

235

Commends him[235] to you. Gives Bassanio a letter

BASSANIOEre I ope[236] his letter,

I pray you tell me how my good friend doth.

SALERIONot sick, my lord, unless it be in mind,

Nor well, unless in mind: his letter there

240

Will show you his estate.[240]

[Bassanio] opens the letter

GRATIANONerissa, cheer[241] yond stranger, bid her welcome.

Your hand, Salerio. What’s the news from Venice?

How doth that royal[243] merchant, good Antonio?

I know he will be glad of our success,

245

We are the Jasons, we have won the fleece.

SALERIOI would you had won the fleece that he hath lost.

PORTIAThere are some shrewd[247] contents in yond same paper,

That steals the colour from Bassanio’s cheek.

Some dear friend dead, else nothing in the world

250

Could turn so much the constitution[250]

Of any constant[251] man. What, worse and worse?

With leave,[252] Bassanio: I am half yourself,

And I must freely have the half of anything

That this same paper brings you.

255

BASSANIOO sweet Portia,

Here are a few of the unpleasant’st words

That ever blotted paper! Gentle lady,

When I did first impart my love to you,

I freely told you all the wealth I had

260

Ran in my veins. I was a gentleman,

And then I told you true. And yet, dear lady,

Rating[262] myself at nothing, you shall see

How much I was a braggart. When I told you

My state[264] was nothing, I should then have told you

265

That I was worse than nothing, for indeed,

I have engaged[266] myself to a dear friend,

Engaged my friend to his mere[267] enemy,

To feed my means. Here is a letter, lady,

The paper as[269] the body of my friend,

270

And every word in it a gaping wound,

Issuing life-blood. But is it true, Salerio?

Hath all his ventures failed? What, not one hit?[272]

From Tripolis, from Mexico and England,

From Lisbon, Barbary[274] and India?

275

And not one vessel scape the dreadful[275] touch

Of merchant-marring[276] rocks?

SALERIONot one, my lord.

Besides, it should appear,[278] that if he had

The present[279] money to discharge the Jew,

280

He[280] would not take it. Never did I know

A creature that did bear the shape of man

So keen and greedy to confound[282] a man.

He plies the duke at morning and at night,

And doth impeach[284] the freedom of the state,

285

If they deny him justice. Twenty merchants,

The duke himself and the magnificoes[286]

Of greatest port[287] have all persuaded with him,

But none can drive him from the envious[288] plea

Of forfeiture,[289] of justice and his bond.

290

JESSICAWhen I was with him I have heard him swear

To Tubal and to Chus,[291] his countrymen,

That he would rather have Antonio’s flesh

Than twenty times the value of the sum

That he did owe him: and I know, my lord,

295

If law, authority and power deny not,

It will go hard with[296] poor Antonio.

PORTIAIs it your dear friend that is thus in trouble?

BASSANIOThe dearest friend to me, the kindest man,

The best-conditioned[299] and unwearied spirit

300

In doing courtesies,[300] and one in whom

The ancient Roman honour more appears

Than any that draws breath in Italy.

PORTIAWhat sum owes he the Jew?

BASSANIOFor me three thousand ducats.

305

PORTIAWhat, no more?

Pay him six thousand and deface[306] the bond.

Double six thousand and then treble that,

Before a friend of this description

Shall lose a hair through Bassanio’s fault.

310

First go with me to church and call me wife,

And then away to Venice to your friend,

For never shall you lie by Portia’s side

With an unquiet soul. You shall have gold

To pay the petty debt twenty times over.

315

When it is paid, bring your true friend along.

My maid Nerissa and myself meantime

Will live as maids and widows. Come, away!

For you shall hence[318] upon your wedding day.

Bid your friends welcome, show a merry cheer,[319]

320

Since you are dear[320] bought, I will love you dear.

But let me hear the letter of your friend.

BASSANIOReads ‘Sweet Bassanio, my ships have all miscarried, my creditors grow cruel, my estate[323] is very low, my bond to the Jew is forfeit, and since in paying it, it is impossible I should live, all debts are cleared between you and I, if I might see you at my death. Notwithstanding,[325] use your pleasure, if your love do not persuade you to come, let not my letter.’

PORTIAO love! Dispatch[327] all business, and be gone!

BASSANIOSince I have your good leave to go away,

I will make haste; but till I come again,

330

No bed shall e’er be guilty of my stay,

No rest be interposer ’twixt us twain.[331]

Exeunt

[Act 3 Scene 3]3.3

running scene 15

Enter [Shylock] the Jew and Solanio and Antonio and the Jailer

SHYLOCKJailer, look[1] to him, tell not me of mercy.

This is the fool that lends out money gratis.[2]

Jailer, look to him.

ANTONIOHear me yet, good Shylock.

5

SHYLOCKI’ll have my bond. Speak not against my bond,

I have sworn an oath that I will have my bond.

Thou calledst me dog before thou hadst a cause,

But since I am a dog, beware my fangs.

The duke shall grant me justice. I do wonder,

10

Thou naughty[10] jailer, that thou art so fond

To come abroad[11] with him at his request.

ANTONIOI pray thee hear me speak.

SHYLOCKI’ll have my bond. I will not hear thee speak.

I’ll have my bond and therefore speak no more.

15

I’ll not be made a soft and dull-eyed[15] fool,

To shake the head, relent, and sigh, and yield

To Christian intercessors. Follow not,

I’ll have no speaking. I will have my bond.

Exit Jew

SOLANIOIt is the most impenetrable cur

20

That ever kept[20] with men.

ANTONIOLet him alone.

I’ll follow him no more with bootless[22] prayers.

He seeks my life, his reason well I know;

I oft delivered from his forfeitures

25

Many that have at times made moan[25] to me:

Therefore he hates me.

SOLANIOI am sure the duke

Will never grant[28] this forfeiture to hold.

ANTONIOThe duke cannot deny the course of law,

30

For the commodity[30] that strangers have

With us in Venice, if it be denied,

Will much impeach the justice of the state,

Since that[33] the trade and profit of the city

Consisteth of all nations. Therefore go.

35

These griefs and losses have so bated me,[35]

That I shall hardly spare a pound of flesh

Tomorrow to my bloody creditor.

Well, jailer, on. Pray God, Bassanio come

To see me pay his debt, and then I care not.

Exeunt

[Act 3 Scene 4]3.4

running scene 16

Enter Portia, Nerissa, Lorenzo, Jessica and [Balthasar,] a man of Portia’s

LORENZOMadam, although I speak it in your presence,

You have a noble and a true conceit[2]

Of godlike amity,[3] which appears most strongly

In bearing thus the absence of your lord.

5

But if you knew to whom[5] you show this honour,

How true a gentleman you send relief,[6]

How dear a lover[7] of my lord your husband,

I know you would be prouder of the work

Than customary[9] bounty can enforce you.

10

PORTIAI never did repent for doing good,

Nor shall not now, for in companions

That do converse and waste[12] the time together,

Whose souls do bear an equal yoke of love,

There must be needs[14] a like proportion

15

Of lineaments,[15] of manners and of spirit;

Which makes me think that this Antonio,

Being the bosom lover[17] of my lord,

Must needs be like my lord. If it be so,

How little is the cost I have bestowed

20

In purchasing the semblance[20] of my soul

From out the state of hellish cruelty!

This comes too near the praising of myself:

Therefore no more of it. Hear other things.

Lorenzo, I commit into your hands

25

The husbandry[25] and manage of my house

Until my lord’s return; for mine own part,

I have toward heaven breathed a secret vow

To live in prayer and contemplation,

Only attended by Nerissa here,

30

Until her husband and my lord’s return.

There is a monastery two miles off,

And there we will abide. I do desire you

Not to deny[33] this imposition,

The which my love and some necessity

35

Now lays upon you.

LORENZOMadam, with all my heart,

I shall obey you in all fair commands.

PORTIAMy people[38] do already know my mind,

And will acknowledge you and Jessica

40

In place of Lord Bassanio and myself.

So fare you well till we shall meet again.

LORENZOFair thoughts and happy hours attend on you.

JESSICAI wish your ladyship all heart’s content.

PORTIAI thank you for your wish, and am well pleased

45

To wish it back on you: fare you well Jessica.

Exeunt [Jessica and Lorenzo]

Now, Balthasar,

As I have ever found thee honest-true,[47]

So let me find thee still. Take this same letter, Gives a letter

And use thou all the endeavour of a man

50

In speed to Padua. See thou render[50] this

Into my cousin’s hand, Doctor Bellario,

And look what[52] notes and garments he doth give thee,

Bring them, I pray thee with imagined[53] speed

Unto the traject,[54] to the common ferry

55

Which trades[55] to Venice; waste no time in words,

But get thee gone. I shall be there before thee.

BALTHASARMadam, I go with all convenient speed.

[Exit]

PORTIACome on, Nerissa, I have work in hand

That you yet know not of; we’ll see our husbands

60

Before they think of us.

NERISSAShall they see us?

PORTIAThey shall, Nerissa, but in such a habit,[62]

That they shall think we are accomplishèd[63]

With that we lack.[64] I’ll hold thee any wager,

65

When we are both accoutred[65] like young men,

I’ll prove the prettier fellow of the two,

And wear my dagger with the braver[67] grace,

And speak between[68] the change of man and boy

With a reed voice, and turn two mincing[69] steps

70

Into a manly stride, and speak of frays[70]

Like a fine bragging youth, and tell quaint[71] lies,

How honourable ladies sought my love,

Which I denying, they fell sick and died.

I could not do withal.[74] Then I’ll repent,

75

And wish for all that, that I had not killed them;

And twenty of these puny[76] lies I’ll tell,

That men shall swear I have discontinued school

Above[78] a twelvemonth. I have within my mind

A thousand raw[79] tricks of these bragging Jacks,

80

Which I will practise.

NERISSAWhy, shall we turn to[81] men?

PORTIAFie, what a question’s that,

If thou wert near a lewd interpreter!

But come, I’ll tell thee all my whole device[84]

85

When I am in my coach, which stays for us

At the park gate; and therefore haste away,

For we must measure[87] twenty miles today.

Exeunt

[Act 3 Scene 5]

running scene 17

Enter [Lancelet the] Clown and Jessica

LANCELETYes, truly, for look you, the sins of the father are to be laid upon the children: therefore, I promise[2] you, I fear you. I was always plain with you, and so now I speak my agitation[3] of the matter: therefore be of good cheer, for truly I think you are damned. There is but one hope in it that can do you any good, and that is but a kind of bastard[5] hope neither.

JESSICAAnd what hope is that, I pray thee?

LANCELETMarry, you may partly hope that your father got[7] you not, that you are not the Jew’s daughter.

JESSICAThat were a kind of bastard hope indeed. So the sins of my mother should be visited upon me.

LANCELETTruly then I fear you are damned both by father and mother: thus when I shun Scylla,[12] your father, I fall into Charybdis, your mother; well, you are gone both ways.

JESSICAI[14] shall be saved by my husband. He hath made me a Christian.

LANCELETTruly, the more to blame he. We[15] were Christians enow before, e’en as many as could well live one by[16] another. This making of Christians will raise the price of hogs. If we grow all to be pork-eaters, we shall not shortly have a rasher on the coals for money.[18]

Enter Lorenzo

JESSICAI’ll tell my husband, Lancelet, what you say. Here he comes.

LORENZOI shall grow jealous of you shortly, Lancelet, if you thus get[20] my wife into corners.

JESSICANay, you need not fear us, Lorenzo. Lancelet and I are[22] out. He tells me flatly there is no mercy for me in heaven because I am a Jew’s daughter. And he says, you are no good member of the commonwealth, for in converting Jews to Christians, you raise the price of pork.

LORENZOI shall answer that better to the commonwealth than you can the getting[26] up of the negro’s belly. The Moor[27] is with child by you, Lancelet.

LANCELETIt is much[28] that the Moor should be more than reason, but if she be less than an honest[29] woman, she is indeed more than I took her for.

LORENZOHow every fool can play upon the word! I think the best grace[30] of wit will shortly turn into silence, and discourse grow commendable in none only but parrots. Go in, sirrah, bid them[32] prepare for dinner.

LANCELETThat is done, sir, they have all stomachs.[33]

LORENZOGoodly lord, what a wit-snapper[34] are you? Then bid them prepare dinner.

LANCELETThat is done too, sir, only ‘cover’[35] is the word.

LORENZOWill you cover then, sir?

LANCELETNot so, sir, neither. I know my duty.[37]

LORENZOYet more quarrelling with occasion![38] Wilt thou show the whole wealth of thy wit in an instant? I pray thee, understand a plain man in his plain meaning: go to thy fellows;[40] bid them cover the table, serve in the meat, and we will come in to dinner.

LANCELETFor[42] the table, sir, it shall be served in: for the meat, sir, it shall be covered: for your coming in to dinner, sir, why, let it be as humours and conceits[43] shall govern.

Exit Clown [Lancelet]

LORENZOO dear discretion,[45] how his words are suited!

The fool hath planted in his memory

An army of good words, and I do know

A many[48] fools that stand in better place,

Garnished[49] like him, that for a tricksy word

50

Defy the matter.[50] How cheerest thou, Jessica?

And now, good sweet, say thy opinion,

How dost thou like the lord Bassanio’s wife?

JESSICAPast all expressing.[53] It is very meet

The lord Bassanio live an upright life,

55

For, having such a blessing in his lady,

He finds the joys of heaven here on earth.

And if on earth he do not merit it,

In reason[58] he should never come to heaven.

Why, if two gods should play some heav’nly match

60

And on the wager lay[60] two earthly women,

And Portia one, there must be something else

Pawned[62] with the other, for the poor rude world

Hath not her fellow.[63]

LORENZOEven[64] such a husband

65

Hast thou of[65] me as she is for a wife.

JESSICANay, but ask my opinion too of that.

LORENZOI will anon. First, let us go to dinner.

JESSICANay, let me praise you while I have a stomach.[68]

LORENZONo, pray thee let it serve for table-talk,

70

Then, howsome’er thou speak’st, ’mong other things

I shall digest[71] it.

JESSICAWell, I’ll set you forth.[72]

Exeunt

Act 4 [Scene 1]4.1

running scene 18

Enter the Duke, the Magnificoes, Antonio, Bassanio and Grattano [with Salerio and others]

DUKEWhat, is Antonio here?

ANTONIOReady, so please your grace.

DUKEI am sorry for thee. Thou art come to answer[3]

A stony adversary, an inhuman wretch

5

Uncapable of pity, void and empty

From[6] any dram of mercy.

ANTONIOI have heard

Your grace hath ta’en great pains to qualify[8]

His rigorous course, but since he stands obdurate[9]

10

And that no lawful means can carry me

Out of his envy’s[11] reach, I do oppose

My patience to his fury, and am armed

To suffer with a quietness of spirit

The very tyranny[14] and rage of his.

15

DUKEGo one, and call the Jew into the court.

SALERIOHe is ready at the door. He comes, my lord.

Enter Shylock

DUKEMake room, and let him stand before our[17] face.

Shylock, the world thinks, and I think so too,

That thou but[19] lead’st this fashion of thy malice

20

To the last[20] hour of act, and then ’tis thought

Thou’lt show thy mercy and remorse[21] more strange

Than is thy strange[22] apparent cruelty;

And where thou now exact’st the penalty,

Which is a pound of this poor merchant’s flesh,

25

Thou wilt not only loose[25] the forfeiture,

But, touched with humane gentleness and love,

Forgive a moiety[27] of the principal,

Glancing an eye of pity on his losses,

That have of late so huddled on his back,

30

Enow to press a royal merchant[30] down

And pluck commiseration of his state

From brassy bosoms[32] and rough hearts of flints,

From stubborn Turks and Tartars,[33] never trained

To offices of tender courtesy.

35

We all expect a gentle[35] answer, Jew.

SHYLOCKI have possessed[36] your grace of what I purpose,

And by our holy Sabbath have I sworn

To have the due[38] and forfeit of my bond.

If you deny it, let the danger[39] light

40

Upon your charter[40] and your city’s freedom.

You’ll ask me why I rather choose to have

A weight of carrion[42] flesh than to receive

Three thousand ducats: I’ll not answer that,

But say it is my humour;[44] is it answered?

45

What if my house be troubled with a rat

And I be pleased to give ten thousand ducats

To have it baned?[47] What, are you answered yet?

Some men there are love[48] not a gaping pig,

Some that are mad if they behold a cat,

50

And others when the bagpipe sings i’th’nose[50]

Cannot contain their urine, for affection,[51]

Mistress of passion, sways it to the mood

Of what it likes or loathes. Now, for your answer:

As there is no firm reason to be rendered,

55

Why he[55] cannot abide a gaping pig,

Why he,[56] a harmless necessary cat,

Why he, a woollen bagpipe, but of force

Must yield to such inevitable shame

As to offend, himself being offended.

60

So can I give no reason, nor I will not,

More than a lodged[61] hate and a certain loathing

I bear Antonio, that I follow[62] thus

A losing[63] suit against him. Are you answered?

BASSANIOThis is no answer, thou unfeeling man,

65

To excuse the current[65] of thy cruelty.

SHYLOCKI am not bound to please thee with my answer.

BASSANIODo all men kill the things they do not love?

SHYLOCKHates any man the thing he would not kill?

BASSANIOEvery offence is not a hate at first.

70

SHYLOCKWhat, wouldst thou have a serpent sting thee twice?

ANTONIOI pray you think[71] you question with the Jew:

You may as well go stand upon the beach

And bid the main flood[73] bate his usual height,

Or even as well use question[74] with the wolf

75

Why he hath made the ewe bleat for the lamb.

You may as well forbid the mountain pines

To wag[77] their high tops and to make no noise

When they are fretted[78] with the gusts of heaven.

You may as well do anything most hard[79]

80

As seek to soften that — than[80] which what harder? —

His Jewish heart: therefore, I do beseech you

Make no more offers, use no further means,

But with all brief and plain conveniency[83]

Let me have judgement and the Jew his will.

85

BASSANIOFor thy three thousand ducats here is six.

SHYLOCKIf every ducat in six thousand ducats

Were in six parts and every part a ducat,

I would not draw[88] them. I would have my bond!

DUKEHow shalt thou hope for mercy, rend’ring[89] none?

90

SHYLOCKWhat judgement shall I dread, doing no wrong?[90]

You have among you many a purchased slave,

Which, like your asses and your dogs and mules,

You use in abject and in slavish parts,[93]

Because you bought them. Shall I say to you,

95

Let them be free, marry them to your heirs?

Why sweat they under burdens? Let their beds

Be made as soft as yours and let their palates

Be seasoned with such viands?[98] You will answer ‘

The slaves are ours.’ So do I answer you:

100

The pound of flesh which I demand of him

Is dearly bought, ’tis mine and I will have it.

If you deny me, fie upon your law!

There is no force in the decrees of Venice.

I stand for[104] judgement. Answer: shall I have it?

105

DUKEUpon my power I may dismiss this court,

Unless Bellario, a learnèd doctor,

Whom I have sent for to determine this,

Come here today.

SALERIOMy lord, here stays without[109]

110

A messenger with letters from the doctor,

New come from Padua.

DUKEBring us the letters. Call the messenger.

BASSANIOGood cheer, Antonio! What, man, courage yet!

The Jew shall have my flesh, blood, bones and all,

115

Ere thou shalt lose for me one drop of blood.

ANTONIOI am a tainted[116] wether of the flock,

Meetest[117] for death. The weakest kind of fruit

Drops earliest to the ground, and so let me;

You cannot better be employed, Bassanio,

120

Than to live still and write mine epitaph.

Enter Nerissa [dressed like a law clerk]

DUKECame you from Padua, from Bellario?

NERISSAFrom both. My lord Bellario greets your grace. She gives the Duke a letter while Shylock whets his knife on his shoe

BASSANIOWhy dost thou whet thy knife so earnestly?

SHYLOCKTo cut the forfeiture from that bankrupt there.

125

GRATIANONot on thy sole, but on thy soul, harsh Jew,

Thou mak’st thy knife keen.[126] But no metal can,

No, not the hangman’s[127] axe, bear half the keenness

Of thy sharp envy. Can no prayers pierce thee?

SHYLOCKNo, none that thou hast wit enough to make.

130

GRATIANOO, be thou damned, inexecrable[130] dog!

And for thy life[131] let justice be accused.

Thou almost mak’st me waver in my faith

To hold opinion with Pythagoras,[133]

That souls of animals infuse themselves

135

Into the trunks of men. Thy currish[135] spirit

Governed a wolf who, hanged for human slaughter,

Even from the gallows did his fell[137] soul fleet,

And, whilst thou lay’st in thy unhallowed[138] dam,

Infused itself in thee, for thy desires

140

Are wolvish, bloody, starved and ravenous.

SHYLOCKTill thou canst rail[141] the seal from off my bond,

Thou but offend’st[142] thy lungs to speak so loud:

Repair[143] thy wit, good youth, or it will fall

To endless ruin. I stand here for law.

145

DUKEThis letter from Bellario doth commend

A young and learnèd doctor in our court;

Where is he?

NERISSAHe attendeth here hard[148] by,

To know your answer, whether you’ll admit him.

150

DUKEWith all my heart. Some three or four of you

Go give him courteous conduct to this place.

[Exeunt some]

Meantime the court shall hear Bellario’s letter.

Reads ‘Your grace shall understand that at the receipt of your letter I am very sick, but in the instant that your messenger came, in loving visitation[154] was with me a young doctor of Rome. His name is Balthasar. I acquainted him with the cause in controversy between the Jew and Antonio the merchant. We turned o’er many books together. He is furnished[157] with my opinion, which — bettered with his own learning, the greatness whereof I cannot enough commend — comes with him, at my importunity,[159] to fill up your grace’s request in my stead. I beseech you, let his lack of years be no impediment to let him lack a reverend[160] estimation, for I never knew so young a body with so old a head. I leave him to your gracious acceptance, whose trial[162] shall better publish his commendation.’

Enter Portia for Balthasar Dressed like a lawyer

You hear the learnèd Bellario, what he writes,

And here, I take it, is the doctor come.

165

Give me your hand. Came you from old Bellario?

PORTIAI did, my lord.

DUKEYou are welcome. Take your place.

Are you acquainted with the difference[168]

That holds this present question[169] in the court?

170

PORTIAI am informèd throughly[170] of the cause.

Which is the merchant here, and which the Jew?

DUKEAntonio and old Shylock, both stand forth.

PORTIAIs your name Shylock?

SHYLOCKShylock is my name.

175

PORTIAOf a strange nature is the suit you follow,

Yet in such rule[176] that the Venetian law

Cannot impugn[177] you as you do proceed.—

You stand within his danger,[178] do you not?

ANTONIOAy, so he says.

180

PORTIADo you confess[180] the bond?

ANTONIOI do.

PORTIAThen must the Jew be merciful.

SHYLOCK:On what compulsion must I? Tell me that.

PORTIAThe quality of mercy is not strained,[184]

185

It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven

Upon the place beneath. It is twice blest:[186]

It blesseth him that gives and him that takes.

’Tis mightiest in the mightiest, it becomes

The thronèd monarch better than his crown.

190

His sceptre shows[190] the force of temporal power,

The attribute to awe and majesty,

Wherein doth sit the dread[192] and fear of kings.

But mercy is above this sceptred sway,[193]

It is enthronèd in the hearts of kings,

195

It is an attribute to God himself;

And earthly power doth then show likest[196] God’s

When mercy seasons[197] justice: therefore, Jew,

Though justice be thy plea, consider this,

That in the course of justice,[199] none of us

200

Should see salvation. We do pray for mercy,

And that same prayer doth teach us all to render[201]

The deeds of mercy. I have spoke thus much

To mitigate the justice of thy plea,

Which if thou follow, this strict court of Venice

205

Must needs give sentence ’gainst the merchant there.

SHYLOCKMy[206] deeds upon my head! I crave the law,

The penalty and forfeit of my bond.

PORTIAIs he not able to discharge[208] the money?

BASSANIOYes, here I tender[209] it for him in the court,

210

Yea, twice the sum. If that will not suffice,

I will be bound to pay it ten times o’er

On forfeit of my hands, my head, my heart.

If this will not suffice, it must appear[213]

That malice bears down truth.[214] And I beseech you

215

Wrest once[215] the law to your authority.

To do a great right, do a little wrong,

And curb this cruel devil of his will.

PORTIAIt must not be; there is no power in Venice

Can alter a decree establishèd.

220

’Twill be recorded for[220] a precedent,

And many an error by the same example

Will rush into the state. It cannot be.

SHYLOCKA Daniel[223] come to judgement! Yea, a Daniel!

O wise young judge, how do I honour thee!

225

PORTIAI pray you let me look upon the bond.

SHYLOCKHere ’tis, most reverend doctor, here it is. Gives Portia the bond

PORTIAShylock, there’s thrice thy money offered thee.

SHYLOCKAn oath, an oath, I have an oath in heaven.

Shall I lay perjury upon my soul?

230

No, not for Venice.

PORTIAWhy, this bond is forfeit,

And lawfully by this the Jew may claim

A pound of flesh, to be by him cut off

Nearest the merchant’s heart. Be merciful.

235

Take thrice thy money, bid me tear the bond.

SHYLOCKWhen it is paid according to the tenure.[236]

It doth appear you are a worthy judge,

You know the law, your exposition

Hath been most sound. I charge you by the law,

240

Whereof you are a well-deserving pillar,

Proceed to judgement. By my soul I swear,

There is no power in the tongue of man

To alter me. I stay here on my bond.

ANTONIOMost heartily I do beseech the court

245

To give the judgement.

PORTIAWhy then, thus it is:

You must prepare your bosom for his knife.

SHYLOCKO noble judge! O excellent young man!

PORTIAFor the intent and purpose of the law

250

Hath[250] full relation to the penalty,

Which here appeareth due upon the bond.

SHYLOCK’Tis very true. O wise and upright judge!

How much more elder art thou than thy looks!

PORTIATherefore lay bare your bosom.

255

SHYLOCKAy, his breast,

So says the bond, doth it not, noble judge?

‘Nearest his heart’, those are the very words.

PORTIAIt is so. Are there balance[258] here to weigh

The flesh?

260

SHYLOCKI have them ready.

PORTIAHave by[261] some surgeon, Shylock, on your charge,

To stop[262] his wounds, lest he should bleed to death.

SHYLOCKIs it so nominated in the bond?

PORTIAIt is not so expressed, but what of that?

265

’Twere good you do so much for charity.

SHYLOCKI cannot find it, ’tis not in the bond. Looking at the bond

PORTIACome, merchant, have you anything to say?

ANTONIOBut little. I am armed[268] and well prepared.

Give me your hand, Bassanio. Fare you well.

270

Grieve not that I am fall’n to this for you,

For herein Fortune shows herself more kind

Than is her custom. It is still[272] her use

To let the wretched man outlive his wealth,

To view with hollow eye and wrinkled brow

275

An age of poverty, from which ling’ring penance

Of such misery doth she cut me off.

Commend me to your honourable wife.

Tell her the process[278] of Antonio’s end.

Say how I loved you; speak me[279] fair in death.

280

And when the tale is told, bid her be judge

Whether Bassanio had not once a love.[281]

Repent not you that you shall lose your friend,

And he repents not that he pays your debt.

For if the Jew do cut but deep enough,

285

I’ll pay it instantly with[285] all my heart.

BASSANIOAntonio, I am married to a wife

Which[287] is as dear to me as life itself,

But life itself, my wife, and all the world,

Are not with me esteemed above thy life.

290

I would lose all, ay, sacrifice them all

Here to this devil, to deliver[291] you.

PORTIAYour wife would give you little thanks for that,

If she were by to hear you make the offer.

GRATIANOI have a wife, whom, I protest, I love.

295

I would she were in heaven, so she could

Entreat some power to change this currish Jew.

NERISSA’Tis well you offer it behind her back,

The wish would make else[298] an unquiet house.

SHYLOCKThese be the Christian husbands. I have a daughter.

300

Would[300] any of the stock of Barabbas Aside?

Had been her husband rather than a Christian!

We trifle[302] time. I pray thee pursue sentence.

PORTIAA pound of that same merchant’s flesh is thine.

The court awards it, and the law doth give it.

305

SHYLOCKMost rightful judge!

PORTIAAnd you must cut this flesh from off his breast.

The law allows it, and the court awards it.

SHYLOCKMost learnèd judge! A sentence! Come, prepare!

PORTIATarry a little, there is something else.

310

This bond doth give thee here no jot of blood,

The words expressly are ‘a pound of flesh’.

Then take thy bond, take thou thy pound of flesh,

But in the cutting it, if thou dost shed

One drop of Christian blood, thy lands and goods

315

Are by the laws of Venice confiscate[315]

Unto the state of Venice.

GRATIANOO upright judge! Mark,[317] Jew. O learnèd judge!

SHYLOCKIs that the law?

PORTIAThyself shalt see the act,

320

For as thou urgest justice, be assured

Thou shalt have justice, more than thou desirest.

GRATIANOO learned judge! Mark, Jew: a learned judge!

SHYLOCKI take this offer, then. Pay the bond thrice

And let the Christian go.

325

BASSANIOHere is the money.

PORTIASoft![326]

The Jew shall[327] have all justice. Soft, no haste.

He shall have nothing but the penalty.

GRATIANOO Jew! An upright judge, a learnèd judge!

330

PORTIATherefore prepare thee to cut off the flesh.

Shed thou no blood, nor cut thou less nor more

But just a pound of flesh. If thou tak’st more

Or less than a just[333] pound, be it so much

As makes it light or heavy in the substance,[334]

335

Or the division of the twentieth part

Of one poor scruple,[336] nay, if the scale do turn

But in the estimation[337] of a hair,

Thou diest and all thy goods are confiscate.

GRATIANOA second Daniel, a Daniel, Jew!

340

Now, infidel, I have thee on the hip.[340]

PORTIAWhy doth the Jew pause? Take thy forfeiture.

SHYLOCKGive me my principal,[342] and let me go.

BASSANIOI have it ready for thee, here it is.

PORTIAHe hath refused it in the open court.

345

He shall have merely[345] justice and his bond.

GRATIANOA Daniel, still say I, a second Daniel!

I thank thee, Jew, for teaching me that word.

SHYLOCKShall I not have barely[348] my principal?

PORTIAThou shalt have nothing but the forfeiture,

350

To be taken so at thy peril, Jew.

SHYLOCKWhy, then the devil give him good[351] of it!

I’ll stay[352] no longer question. Starts to go

PORTIATarry, Jew.

The law hath yet another hold on you.

355

It is enacted in the laws of Venice,

If it be proved against an alien[356]

That by direct or indirect attempts

He seek the life of any citizen,

The party gainst the which he doth contrive[359]

360

Shall seize[360] one half his goods, the other half

Comes to the privy coffer[361] of the state,

And the offender’s life lies in[362] the mercy

Of the duke only, gainst[363] all other voice.

In which predicament, I say, thou stand’st,

365

For it appears, by manifest proceeding,[365]

That indirectly, and directly too,

Thou hast contrived against the very life

Of the defendant, and thou hast incurred

The danger[369] formerly by me rehearsed.

370

Down[370] therefore, and beg mercy of the duke.

GRATIANOBeg that thou mayst have leave to hang thyself,

And yet, thy wealth being forfeit to the state,

Thou hast not left the value of a cord:[373]

Therefore thou must be hanged at the state’s charge.[374]

375

DUKEThat thou shalt see the difference of our spirit,

I pardon thee thy life before thou ask it.

For[377] half thy wealth, it is Antonio’s,

The other half comes to the general state,

Which humbleness[379] may drive unto a fine.

380

PORTIAAy, for[380] the state, not for Antonio.

SHYLOCKNay, take my life and all. Pardon not that.

You take my house when you do take the prop

That doth sustain my house. You take my life

When you do take the means whereby I live.

385

PORTIAWhat mercy can you render him, Antonio?

GRATIANOA halter[386] gratis. Nothing else, for God’s sake.

ANTONIOSo[387] please my lord the duke and all the court

To quit[388] the fine for one half of his goods,

I am content, so[389] he will let me have

390

The other half in use,[390] to render it,

Upon his death, unto the gentleman

That lately stole his daughter.

Two things provided more: that for this favour

He presently[394] become a Christian.

395

The other, that he do record a gift

Here in the court of all he dies possessed[396]

Unto his son[397] Lorenzo and his daughter.

DUKEHe shall do this, or else I do recant

The pardon that I late[399] pronouncèd here.

400

PORTIAArt thou contented, Jew? What dost thou say?

SHYLOCKI am content.

PORTIAClerk, draw a deed of gift.

SHYLOCKI pray you give me leave to go from hence,

I am not well. Send the deed after me,

405

And I will sign it.

DUKEGet thee gone, but do it.

GRATIANOIn christening thou shalt have two godfathers.

Had I been judge, thou shouldst have had ten more,[408]

To bring thee to the gallows, not to the font.[409]

Exit [Shylock]

410

DUKESir, I entreat you home with me to dinner. To Portia

PORTIAI humbly do desire your grace of[411] pardon.

I must away this night toward Padua,

And it is meet[413] I presently set forth.

DUKEI am sorry that your[414] leisure serves you not.

415

Antonio, gratify[415] this gentleman,

For in my mind you are much bound to him.

Exit Duke and his train

BASSANIOMost worthy gentleman, I and my friend

Have by your wisdom been this day acquitted

Of grievous penalties, in lieu whereof,[419]

420

Three thousand ducats due unto the Jew

We freely cope[421] your courteous pains withal. Offers money

ANTONIOAnd stand indebted, over and above,

In love and service to you evermore.

PORTIAHe is well paid that is well satisfied,

425

And I, delivering you, am satisfied

And therein do account[426] myself well paid.

My mind was never yet more mercenary.

I pray you know[428] me when we meet again.

I wish you well, and so I take my leave. Starts to leave

430

BASSANIODear sir, of force I must attempt[430] you further.

Take some remembrance of us as a tribute,

Not as fee. Grant me two things, I pray you:

Not to deny me, and to pardon me.[433]

PORTIAYou press[434] me far, and therefore I will yield.

435

Give me your gloves, I’ll wear them for your sake. To Antonio

And, for your love,[436] I’ll take this ring from you. To Bassanio

Do not draw back your hand, I’ll take no more,

And you in[438] love shall not deny me this.

BASSANIOThis ring, good sir, alas, it is a trifle!

440

I will not shame myself to give you this.

PORTIAI will have nothing else but only this,

And now methinks I have a mind to[442] it.

BASSANIOThere’s more depends on this than on the value.

The dearest[444] ring in Venice will I give you,

445

And find it out by proclamation.

Only for this, I pray you pardon me.

PORTIAI see, sir, you are liberal[447] in offers.

You taught me first to beg, and now methinks

You teach me how a beggar should be answered.

450

BASSANIOGood sir, this ring was given me by my wife,

And when she put it on, she made me vow

That I should neither sell nor give nor lose it.

PORTIAThat ’scuse serves many men to save their gifts.

An if your wife be not a madwoman,

455

And know how well I have deserved this ring,

She would not hold out enemy forever

For giving it to me. Well, peace be with you!

Exeunt [Portia and Nerissa]

ANTONIOMy lord Bassanio, let him have the ring.

Let his deservings and my love withal

460

Be valued against your wife’s commandment.

BASSANIOGo, Gratiano, run and overtake him.

Give him the ring, and bring him, if thou canst,

Unto Antonio’s house. Away, make haste!

Exit Gratiano

Come, you and I will thither presently,

465

And in the morning early will we both

Fly[466] toward Belmont. Come, Antonio.

Exeunt

[Act 4 Scene 2]

running scene 19

Enter Portia and Nerissa Still disguised

PORTIAInquire[1] the Jew’s house out, give him this deed,

And let him sign it. We’ll away tonight Gives her a deed

And be[3] a day before our husbands home.

This deed will be well welcome to Lorenzo.

Enter Gratiano

5

GRATIANOFair sir, you[5] are well o’erta’en.

My lord Bassanio upon more advice[6]

Hath sent you here this ring, and doth entreat

Your company at dinner. Gives her the ring

PORTIAThat cannot be;

10

His ring I do accept most thankfully,

And so, I pray you tell him. Furthermore,

I pray you show my youth old Shylock’s house.

GRATIANOThat will I do.

NERISSASir, I would speak with you.

15

I’ll see if I can get my husband’s ring, Aside to Portia

Which I did make him swear to keep for ever.

PORTIAThou mayst, I warrant. Aside to Nerissa

We shall have old[18] swearing

That they did give the rings away to men;

20

But we’ll outface[20] them, and outswear them too.—

Away, make haste! Thou know’st where I will tarry. Aloud

NERISSACome, good sir, will you show me to this house?

Exeunt

Act 5 [Scene 1]5.1

running scene 20

Enter Lorenzo and Jessica

LORENZOThe moon shines bright. In such a night as this,

When the sweet wind did gently kiss the trees

And they did make no noise, in such a night

Troilus[4] methinks mounted the Trojan walls

5

And sighed his soul toward the Grecian tents

Where Cressid lay that night.

JESSICAIn such a night

Did Thisbe[8] fearfully o’ertrip the dew,

And saw the lion’s shadow ere himself,[9]

10

And ran dismayed away.

LORENZOIn such a night

Stood Dido[12] with a willow in her hand

Upon the wild[13] sea banks and waft her love

To come again to Carthage.

15

JESSICAIn such a night

Medea[16] gathered the enchanted herbs

That did renew[17] old Aeson.

LORENZOIn such a night

Did Jessica steal[19] from the wealthy Jew

20

And with an unthrift[20] love did run from Venice

As far as Belmont.

JESSICAIn such a night

Did young Lorenzo swear he loved her well,

Stealing her soul with many vows of faith,

25

And ne’er a true one.

LORENZOIn such a night

Did pretty Jessica, like a little shrew,[27]

Slander her love,[28] and he forgave it her.

JESSICAI would out-night you,[29] did nobody come.

30

But hark, I hear the footing[30] of a man.

Enter [Stephano, a] Messenger

LORENZOWho comes so fast in silence of the night?

STEPHANOA friend.

LORENZOA friend? What friend? Your name, I pray you, friend?

STEPHANOStephano is my name, and I bring word

35

My mistress will before the break of day

Be here at Belmont. She doth stray about[36]

By holy crosses,[37] where she kneels and prays

For happy wedlock hours.

LORENZOWho comes with her?

40

STEPHANONone but a holy hermit and her maid.

I pray you is my master yet returned?

LORENZOHe is not, nor we have not heard from him.

But go we in, I pray thee, Jessica,

And ceremoniously let us prepare

45

Some welcome for the mistress of the house.

Enter Clown [Lancelet]

LANCELETSola,[46] sola! Wo ha, ho! Sola, sola!

LORENZOWho calls?

LANCELETSola! Did you see Master Lorenzo?

And Master Lorenzo, sola, sola!

50

LORENZOLeave hollowing,[50] man! Here.

LANCELETSola! Where, where?

LORENZOHere.

LANCELETTell him there’s a post[53] come from my master, with his horn full of good news: my master will be here ere morning.

[Exit]

55

LORENZOSweet soul, let’s in,[55] and there expect their coming.

And yet no matter. Why should we go in?

My friend Stephano, signify,[57] pray you,

Within the house, your mistress is at hand,

And bring your music[59] forth into the air.

[Exit Stephano]

60

How sweet the moonlight sleeps upon this bank!

Here will we sit and let the sounds of music

Creep in our ears. Soft stillness and the night

Become[63] the touches of sweet harmony.

Sit, Jessica. Look how the floor of heaven[64] They sit

65

Is thick inlaid with patens[65] of bright gold.

There’s not the smallest orb[66] which thou behold’st

But in his motion[67] like an angel sings,

Still choiring[68] to the young-eyed cherubins;

Such harmony is in immortal souls,

70

But whilst this muddy[70] vesture of decay

Doth grossly[71] close it in, we cannot hear it.

[Enter Musicians]

Come, ho, and wake Diana[72] with a hymn!

With sweetest touches pierce your mistress’ ear,

And draw her home with music.

75

JESSICAI am never merry when I hear sweet music.

Play music

LORENZOThe reason is, your spirits[76] are attentive.

For do but note a wild and wanton[77] herd

Or race[78] of youthful and unhandled colts,

Fetching[79] mad bounds, bellowing and neighing loud,

80

Which is the hot condition[80] of their blood.

If they but[81] hear perchance a trumpet sound,

Or any air[82] of music touch their ears,

You shall perceive them make a mutual stand,[83]

Their savage eyes turned to a modest gaze

85

By the sweet power of music: therefore the poet[85]

Did feign[86] that Orpheus drew trees, stones and floods,

Since nought so stockish,[87] hard and full of rage,

But music for time doth change his nature.

The man that hath no music in himself,

90

Nor is not moved with concord of sweet sounds,

Is fit for treasons, stratagems[91] and spoils.

The motions[92] of his spirit are dull as night

And his affections[93] dark as Erebus.

Let no such man be trusted. Mark the music.

Enter Portia and Nerissa

95

PORTIAThat light we see is burning in my hall.

How far that little candle throws his beams!

So shines a good deed in a naughty[97] world.

NERISSAWhen the moon shone, we did not see the candle.

PORTIASo doth the greater glory dim the less.

100

A substitute shines brightly as a king

Until a king be by,[101] and then his state

Empties itself, as doth an inland brook

Into the main of waters.[103] Music! Hark!

Music

NERISSAIt is your music, madam, of the house.

105

PORTIANothing is good, I see, without respect.[105]

Methinks it sounds much sweeter than by day.

NERISSASilence bestows that virtue on it, madam.

PORTIAThe crow doth sing as sweetly as the lark

When neither is attended,[109] and I think

110

The nightingale, if she should sing by day,

When every goose is cackling, would be thought

No better a musician than the wren.

How many things by season[113] seasoned are

To their right praise and true perfection!

115

Peace, ho! The moon sleeps with Endymion[115]

And would not be awaked.

Music ceases

LORENZOThat is the voice,

Or I am much deceived, of Portia.

PORTIAHe knows me as the blind man knows the cuckoo,

120

By the bad voice.

LORENZODear lady, welcome home.

PORTIAWe have been praying for our husbands’ welfare,

Which speed,[123] we hope, the better for our words.

Are they returned?

125

LORENZOMadam, they are not yet,

But there is come a messenger before,[126]

To signify their coming.

PORTIAGo in, Nerissa.

Give order to my servants that they take

130

No note at all of our being absent hence,

Nor you, Lorenzo, Jessica, nor you.

A tucket[131] sounds

LORENZOYour husband is at hand. I hear his trumpet.

We are no telltales, madam; fear you not.

PORTIAThis night methinks is but the daylight sick.

135

It looks a little paler. ’Tis a day,

Such as the day is when the sun is hid.

Enter Bassanio, Antonio, Grattano and their followers

BASSANIOWe should[137] hold day with the Antipodes,

If you would walk in[138] absence of the sun.

PORTIALet me give light,[139] but let me not be light,

140

For a light wife doth make a heavy[140] husband,

And never be Bassanio so for me,

But God sort[142] all! You are welcome home, my lord.

BASSANIOI thank you, madam. Give welcome to my friend.

This is the man, this is Antonio,

145

To whom I am so infinitely bound.

PORTIAYou should in all sense be much bound to him,

For, as I hear, he was much bound[147] for you.

ANTONIONo more than I am well acquitted of.[148]

PORTIASir, you are very welcome to our house.

150

It must appear in other ways than words:

Therefore I scant[151] this breathing courtesy.

GRATIANOBy yonder moon I swear you do me wrong. To Nerissa

In faith, I gave it to the judge’s clerk.

Would he were gelt[154] that had it, for my part,

155

Since you do take it, love, so much at[155] heart.

PORTIAA quarrel, ho, already? What’s the matter?

GRATIANOAbout a hoop of gold, a paltry ring

That she did give me, whose posy[158] was

For all the world like cutler’s poetry

160

Upon a knife, ‘Love me, and leave me not.’

NERISSAWhat talk you of the posy or the value?

You swore to me when I did give it you,

That you would wear it till the hour of death

And that it should lie with you in your grave.

165

Though[165] not for me, yet for your vehement oaths,

You should have been respective[166] and have kept it.

Gave it a judge’s clerk! But well I know

The clerk will ne’er wear hair on’s face that had it.

GRATIANOHe will, an if he live to be a man.

170

NERISSAAy, if a woman live to be a man.

GRATIANONow, by this hand, I gave it to a youth,

A kind of boy, a little scrubbèd[172] boy,

No higher than thyself, the judge’s clerk,

A prating[174] boy, that begged it as a fee.

175

I could not for my heart deny it him.

PORTIAYou were to blame — I must be plain with you —

To part so slightly[177] with your wife’s first gift.

A thing stuck on with oaths upon your finger

And so riveted[179] with faith unto your flesh.

180

I gave my love a ring and made him swear

Never to part with it, and here he stands.

I dare be sworn for him he would not leave it,

Nor pluck it from his finger, for the wealth

That the world masters.[184] Now, in faith, Gratiano,

185

You give your wife too unkind a cause of grief.

An ’twere to me, I should be mad[186] at it.

BASSANIOWhy, I were best to cut my left hand off Aside

And swear I lost the ring defending it.

GRATIANOMy lord Bassanio gave his ring away

190

Unto the judge that begged it and indeed

Deserved it too. And then the boy, his clerk,

That took some pains in writing, he begged mine,

And neither man nor master would take aught

But the two rings.

195

PORTIAWhat ring gave you my lord?

Not that, I hope, which you received of me.

BASSANIOIf I could add a lie unto a fault,

I would deny it. But you see my finger

Hath not the ring upon it. It is gone.

200

PORTIAEven so void is your false heart of truth.

By heaven, I will ne’er come in your bed

Until I see the ring.

NERISSANor I in yours till I again see mine.

BASSANIOSweet Portia,

205

If you did know to whom I gave the ring,

If you did know for whom I gave the ring,

And would conceive[207] for what I gave the ring,

And how unwillingly I left the ring,

When nought would be accepted but the ring,

210

You would abate the strength of your displeasure.

PORTIAIf you had known the virtue[211] of the ring,

Or half her worthiness that gave the ring,

Or your own honour to contain[213] the ring,

You would not then have parted with the ring.

215

What man is there so much unreasonable,

If[216] you had pleased to have defended it

With any terms of zeal, wanted[217] the modesty

To urge[218] the thing held as a ceremony?

Nerissa teaches me what to believe:

220

I’ll die for’t but some woman had the ring.

BASSANIONo, by mine honour, madam, by my soul,

No woman had it, but a civil doctor,[222]

Which did refuse three thousand ducats of me

And begged the ring; the which I did deny him

225

And suffered[225] him to go displeased away —

Even he that had held up[226] the very life

Of my dear friend. What should I say, sweet lady?

I was enforced to send it after him.

I was beset with shame and courtesy.

230

My honour would not let ingratitude

So much besmear it.[231] Pardon me, good lady!

And by these blessèd candles[232] of the night,

Had you been there, I think you would have begged

The ring of me to give the worthy doctor.

235

PORTIALet not that doctor e’er come near my house.

Since he hath got the jewel that I loved,

And that which you did swear to keep for me,

I will become as liberal[238] as you.

I’ll not deny him anything I have,

240

No, not my body nor my husband’s bed.

Know[241] him I shall, I am well sure of it.

Lie not a night from home. Watch me like Argus.[242]

If you do not, if I be left alone,

Now, by mine honour,[244] which is yet mine own,

245

I’ll have the doctor for my bedfellow.

NERISSAAnd I his clerk: therefore be well advised[246]

How you do leave me to mine own protection.

GRATIANOWell, do you so. Let not me take[248] him, then.

For if I do, I’ll mar[249] the young clerk’s pen.

250

ANTONIOI am th’unhappy[250] subject of these quarrels.

PORTIASir, grieve not you. You are welcome notwithstanding.

BASSANIOPortia, forgive me this enforcèd wrong,

And in the hearing of these many friends,

I swear to thee, even by thine own fair eyes,

255

Wherein I see myself—

PORTIAMark you but that!

In both my eyes he doubly sees himself.[257]

In each eye, one. Swear by your double[258] self,

And there’s an oath of credit.[259]

260

BASSANIONay, but hear me.

Pardon this fault, and by my soul I swear

I never more will break an oath with thee.

ANTONIOI once did lend my body for thy wealth,— To Bassanio

Which, but for him that had your husband’s ring, To Portia

265

Had quite miscarried.[265] I dare be bound again,

My soul upon the forfeit, that your lord

Will never more break faith advisedly.[267]

PORTIAThen you shall be his surety.[268] Give him this

And bid him keep it better than the other. She gives Antonio the ring

270

ANTONIOHere, Lord Bassanio. Swear to keep this ring.

BASSANIOBy heaven, it is the same I gave the doctor!

PORTIAI had it of him. Pardon, Bassanio,

For, by this ring, the doctor lay with[273] me.

NERISSAAnd pardon me, my gentle Gratiano,

275

For that same scrubbèd boy, the doctor’s clerk, Shows her ring

In lieu of[276] this last night did lie with me.

GRATIANOWhy, this is like the mending of highways

In summer, where the ways are fair[278] enough.

What, are we cuckolds[279] ere we have deserved it?

280

PORTIASpeak not so grossly.[280] You are all amazed.

Here is a letter, read it at your leisure. She gives a letter

It comes from Padua, from Bellario.

There you shall find that Portia was the doctor,

Nerissa there her clerk. Lorenzo here

285

Shall witness I set forth as soon as you,

And but e’en[286] now returned. I have not yet

Entered my house. Antonio, you are welcome,

And I have better news in store for you

Than you expect. Unseal this letter soon. Gives him a letter

290

There you shall find three of your argosies

Are richly[291] come to harbour suddenly:

You shall not know by what strange accident

I chancèd on this letter.

ANTONIOI am dumb.[294]

295

BASSANIOWere you the doctor and I knew you not?

GRATIANOWere you the clerk that is to make me cuckold?

NERISSAAy, but the clerk that never means to do it,

Unless he live until he be a man.

BASSANIOSweet doctor, you shall be my bedfellow.

300

When I am absent, then lie with my wife.

ANTONIOSweet lady, you have given me life and living;[301]

For here I read for certain that my ships

Are safely come to road.[303]

PORTIAHow now, Lorenzo?

305

My clerk hath some good comforts too for you.

NERISSAAy, and I’ll give them him without a fee.

There do I give to you and Jessica,

From the rich Jew, a special deed of gift,

After his death, of all he dies possessed of.

310

LORENZOFair ladies, you drop manna[310] in the way

Of starvèd people.

PORTIAIt is almost morning,

And yet I am sure you[313] are not satisfied

Of these events at full. Let us go in,

315

And charge[315] us there upon inter’gatories,

And we will answer all things faithfully.

GRATIANOLet it be so. The first inter’gatory[317]

That my Nerissa shall be sworn on[318] is,

Whether till the next night she had rather stay,[319]

320

Or go to bed now, being two hours to day.

But were the day come, I should wish it dark,

Till I were couching[322] with the doctor’s clerk.

Well, while I live I’ll fear no other thing

So sore[324] as keeping safe Nerissa’s ring.

Exeunt

Textual Notes

Q = First Quarto text of 1600

Q2 = Second Quarto text of 1619

F = First Folio text of 1623

F2 = a correction introduced in the Second Folio text of 1632

Ed = a correction introduced by a later editor

SD = stage direction

SH = speech heading (i.e., speaker’s name)

List of parts = Ed

1.1.0 SD Salerio and Solanio = Ed. F = Salarino, and Salanio

1.1.8 SH SALERIO = Ed. F = Sal. Q = Salarino. SHs for first three speeches of Antonio’s friends’ reversed in F, due to confusing SHs in Q: Salarino, Salanio, Salar. 15 SH SOLANIO = Q (Salanio). F = Salar. 28 docked = Ed. F = docks 62 SH SALERIO = Ed. F = Sala. (his next two speeches: Sal.) 70 SD Salerio = Ed. F = Salarino 116 Is = Ed. F = It is 118 are two = F. Q = are as two 157 do me now = Q. F = doe

1.2.4 small = F. Q = meane 12 be one = F. Q = to be one 14 reason is not in = F. Q = reasoning is not in the 17 Is it = Q. F = It is 31 Palatine = Q2. F = Palentine 35 rather to be = F. Q = rather be 37 Bon = Ed. F = Boune 41 throstle = Ed. F = Trassell 43 should = F. Q = shall 51 other = F. Q = Scottish. Altered in F so as not to offend Scottish King James 73 wish = F. Q = pray God grant 80 seek you = F. Q = seeke for you

1.3.26 Rialto = Ed. F = Ryalta 37 well-won = Q. F = well-worne 53 ye = Q. F = he 74 peeled spelled pil’d in F 103 spit spelled spet in F 113 should = F. Q = can 116 spat spelled spet in F 124 of barren = F. Q = for barren 127 penalties = F. Q = penaltie 143 it pleaseth = F. Q = pleaseth 172 terms = Q. F = teames

2.1.0 SD Morocco spelled Morochus in F 32 thee, lady = Q. F = the Ladie 36 page = Ed. F = rage

2.2.1 SH LANCELET = Ed. F = Clo. 2 Gobbo = Q2. F = Iobbe (throughout scene) 17 a kind = F. Q = but a kinde 34 Lancelet = F. Q = Lancelet sir 64 last = Q2. F = lost 123 SD Exit placed two lines earlier in F 133 where they = F. Q = where thou

2.3.9 talk = F. Q = in talk 11 did = Ed. F = doe 12 somewhat = F. Q = something

2.4.0 SD Salerio = Ed. F = Slarino (Sal. for his SHs throughout this scene) 10 shall it = F. Q = it shall 13 Is = Q. F = I

2.5.1 SH SHYLOCK = Q2. F = Iew 26 there = Q. F = their 40 Jewès = Ed. F = Iewes 44 but = F. Q = and

2.6.0 SD Salerio = Ed. F = Salino 2 a stand = F. Q = stand 7 seal = Q. F = steale 18 a prodigal = F. Q = the prodigal 46 you are = F. Q = are you 60 gentlemen = F. Q = gentleman

2.7.5 many men = Q. F = men 10 Line accidentally printed twice in F 70 tombs = Ed. F = timber

2.8.0 SD Salerio = Ed. F = Salarino 6 comes = F. Q = came 8 gondola spelled Gondilo in F 34 You = Q. F = Yo

2.9.7 thou = F. Q = you 45 peasantry = Q. F = pleasantry 102 Bassanio, Lord Love, = Ed. F = Bassanio Lord, loue

3.1.0 SD Salerio = Ed. F = Salarino 5 gossip’s = F. Q = gossip 26 blood = F. Q = my blood 40 what’s the = F. Q = what’s his 50 SH SERVANT = Ed. Not in F 56 of her = Q. F = of ster 62 how much = F. Q = whats 71 heard = Ed. F = here 79 turquoise = Ed. F = Turkies

3.2.0 SD trains = Q. F = traine 17 if = Q. F = of 34 do = Q. F = doth 44 aloof = Q. F = aloose 63 much, much = Q. F = much 69 eyes = F. Q = eye 83 vice = Ed. F = voice 152 me = Q. F = my 161 nothing = F. Q = something 174 lord = F. Q = Lords 199 have = Q. F = gaue 207 roof = Q2. F = rough 213 is so = F. Q = is 322 SH BASSANIO = Ed. Not in F 324 might see = F. Q = might but see 331 No = Q. F = Nor

3.3.2 lends = F. Q = lent

3.4.13 equal spelled egal in F 50 Padua = Ed. F = Mantua 51 hand = F. Q = hands 54 traject = Ed. F = Tranect

3.5.57–8 merit it, In = Ed. F = meane it, it Is. Q = meane it, it In 65 a wife = F. Q = wife

4.1.52 Mistress = Ed. F = Masters 66 answer = F. Q = answers 75 Why…made = Q. Not in F 78 fretted = F. Q = fretten 80 what = F. Q = what’s 112 messenger = Q. F = Messengers 144 endless = F. Q = cureless 165 Came = F. Q = Come 204 court = Q. F = course 224 do I = F. Q = I do 230 No, not = F. Q = Not not 262 should = F. Q = doe 263 Is it so = Q. F = It is not 267 Come = F. Q = You 282 not = F. Q = but 312 Then take = F. Q = Take then 333 it so = F. Q = it but so 340 thee = F. Q = you 350 taken so = F. Q = so taken 407 thou shalt = F. Q = shalt thou 410 home with me = Q. F = with me home

5.1.3 noise = Q. F = nnyse 32 SH STEPHANO = Ed. F = Mes. 41 is = Q. F = it 41 returned = Q. F = rnturn’d 44 us = Q. F = vs vs 55 Sweet soul = Ed. F prints as last words of Lancelet’s speech 57 Stephano = Q2. F = Stephen 57 pray = F. Q = I pray 71 it in = Q. F = in it 88 time = F. Q = the time 163 the hour = F. Q = your hour 167 But…know = F. Q = no God’s my Iudge 232 And by = F. Q = For by 263 thy = F. Q = his 272 Pardon = F. Q = Pardon me 286 but e’en now = F. Q = even but now

Act 1 Scene 1

1.1    Location: Venice

1    sooth truth

4    stuff substance    whereof…born i.e., what is its cause

5    to learn yet to discover

6    want-wit senseless idiot

7    ado trouble

8    tossing on troubled/preoccupied with

9    argosies large merchant ships    portly stately, majestic    sail sails/(act of) sailing

10    signiors sirs/gentlemen    burghers citizens    flood sea

11    pageants spectacles, shows

12    overpeer look down upon    petty traffickers inferior merchant ships

13    curtsy bow or curtsy, perhaps suggested by the bobbing of the smaller ships in the argosies’ wake    do them reverence pay them respect

14    fly speed    woven wings material sails (also suggestive of the wings of a fly)

15    venture risky business enterprise    forth away from home, i.e., on the seas

16    better part greater half    affections emotions/thoughts

17    hopes expectations, prospects    still constantly

18    where sits i.e., which way blows

19    roads harbors

24    ague fever, shaking

26    should i.e., could

27    flats sandbanks

28    Andrew name of a ship

29    Vailing lowering (in submission)    high top top section of the mast    ribs i.e., body of the ship

30    burial burial place    should I was I able to

32    bethink me straight think immediately

33    but merely    gentle noble/harmless

34    stream current

35    waters…silks may play on idea of “watered silk,” a relatively new fabric

36    even just    this this much (i.e., the value of the cargo)

39    bechanced having happened

43    bottom ship’s bottom, hold

44    estate fortunes/circumstances

45    Upon dependent on/risked upon    fortune chance, fate

48    Fie expression of impatience or disgust

52    Janus Roman god with two faces

53    framed formed

54    peep peer through eyes half-closed in laughter

55    bagpiper bagpipes were thought to sound melancholic

56    other others    vinegar aspect sour expression

58    Though even if    Nestor Trojan leader, noted for his wisdom and gravity    Gratiano according to a contemporary Italian dictionary, a name given to a foolish or clownish character in a play

63    prevented forestalled

64    dear valuable    regard consideration

66    embrace welcome    th’occasion the opportunity

68    laugh i.e., meet for some fun

69    strange distant/unfamiliar

70    leisures…yours spare time accommodate yours, i.e., ensure we are available when you are

73    have in mind i.e., think about

76    respect…world concern for worldly affairs/business

77    it enjoyment (especially of material wealth)    buy…care i.e., worry so much about it

78    marvellously extremely

79    hold consider, view

83    old your former/plentiful/familiar, “good old” (puns on the sense of “elderly”)

84    liver thought to be the seat of the passions

85    heart…groans groans were believed to drain blood from the heart    mortifying penitential/deadly

87    grandsire grandfather    cut in alabaster i.e., a statue on a tomb

88    creep…jaundices become yellow from an excess of yellow bile or choler

89    peevish irritable, morose

91    visages faces

92    cream and mantle become covered in a layer of scum (i.e., are calm/expressionless)    standing still/stagnant

93    wilful deliberate    stillness restraint/quietness    entertain maintain

94    dressed…opinion invested with a reputation

95    conceit understanding

96    As…say as if to say

97    ope open

101    damn…fools condemn the hearers for obliging them to call the speakers fools (according to the Bible a damnable offense)

104    melancholy bait i.e., silence used to fool people into assuming you are wise

105    fool foolish    gudgeon proverbially gullible fish

107    exhortation earnest speech/entreaty

109    dumb silent

113    grow become    for this gear as a result of this talk/on account of this matter

115    neat’s tongue dried cured ox tongue    vendible saleable/sought after (for marriage)

116    Is…now? Did that (talk) mean anything?

118    reasons reasonings, opinions

119    ere before

121    same i.e., one

125    disabled devalued

126    something somewhat    swelling port extravagant lifestyle

127    faint inadequate    grant continuance allow maintenance (of)

128    make moan complain    abridged deprived

129    noble rate high style of living    care concern

130    come…from i.e., repay

131    time (young) age/time spent    prodigal excessive, lavish

132    gaged pledged/entangled

134    warranty authorization

135    unburden reveal

139    Within…honour i.e., honorable

141    occasions needs

142    shaft arrow

143    his…flight the same type of arrow

144    advisèd careful

145    forth out adventuring risking

146    urge bring forward    proof test/example

147    innocence sincerity

150    self same

152    or either

153    hazard i.e., that which was risked subsequently

154    rest remain

155    spend but only waste

156    wind…circumstance ingratiate yourself by speaking in an elaborate, roundabout way

157    out of without

158    making…uttermost questioning my offer of all the help I can give

159    made waste spent/wasted

160    but only

162    pressed enlisted

163    richly left with a large inheritance (left by her father)

165    sometimes formerly, at one time

167    nothing undervalued To worth no less than

168    Cato Roman politician of the second century BC    Brutus Roman politician of the first century BC, married to Portia

172    golden fleece in Greek mythology the valued prize sought by    Jason

173    seat rural estate    strand the shore of    Colchos (Colchis), where the fleece was found

177    presages that predicts    thrift profit/advantage

178    questionless without question

180    commodity goods

181    present immediate, ready

182    Try find out

183    racked stretched

184    furnish thee equip you to go

185    presently at once (to)

187    of my trust on my credit as a merchant    sake i.e., friendship’s sake

Act 1 Scene 2

1.2    Location: Belmont    waiting woman companion and confidante; she is a genteel character, not a servant

1    troth faith

2    would be would have real reason to be (weary)

3    aught anything    surfeit feed to excess

5    mean middle    Superfluity overindulgence    comes sooner by sooner gains

6    competency sufficiency/modest means

7    sentences maxims    pronounced delivered

10    divine clergyman

13    blood passions (i.e., not reason)    hot temper passionate, impulsive temperament    cold decree i.e., sensible advice

14    meshes nets, traps    in fashion the (right) way

16    would want    will desire

17    will testament/inclination

20    lottery game of chance

21    who whoever    his meaning i.e., the chest he intended

22    rightly correctly (sense then shifts to “truly”)

25    overname list

26    level at point to/guess at

27    Neapolitan inhabitants of Naples were famed for their horsemanship

28    colt foolish/lustful youth (puns on the sense of “young horse”)

29    appropriation addition/special feature    parts abilities

30    played false was unfaithful    smith blacksmith

31    County Count    Palatine possessing royal privileges over his region

32    who if one    An if

33    choose i.e., do as you like    prove prove to be    weeping philosopher Heraclitus of Ephesus, a reclusive and melancholy philosopher of 500 BC

34    unmannerly impolite/immoderate    sadness gravity/melancholy

35    death’s-head skull

37    How what    by about    Le Bon the good (French)

40    better bad i.e., worse    He…man he copies characteristics of everyone else but lacks his own identity

41    throstle thrush    straight straightaway    a capering to dancing

43    if even if

45    say i.e., speak (puns on Nerissa’s meaning, “think about”)

46    come…swear i.e., testify

47    poor…the i.e., very little    proper man’s picture the image of an attractive man

48    dumb show mime    suited dressed

49    doublet close-fitting jacket    round hose short breeches puffed out at the hips    bonnet hat

52    borrowed received

54    surety guarantor    sealed under pledged (literally, set his seal)    another i.e., a further    box of the ear

55    Saxony former principality of Germany

58    beast may pun on    best An if    fall befall, happen

59    makeshift arrange, manage

60    you should you would

62    Rhenish wine German white wine

63    contrary incorrect    if even if    without on the outside

65    sponge i.e., excessive drinker

67    determinations resolutions

68    suit courtship

69    sort way    imposition command

70    Sibylla Cumaean prophetess whom Apollo granted as many years of life as there were grains in her handful of sand    Diana Roman goddess of chastity

71    parcel company

75    Monferrat Italian dukedom

77    foolish inexperienced

80    four strangers foreign suitors (in fact, six have been mentioned)

81    forerunner messenger

84    condition disposition

85    complexion…devil traditionally black    shrive me hear my confession, absolve me    wive marry

86    Sirrah sir (used to an inferior)

Act 1 Scene 3

1.3    Location: Venice    Shylock perhaps from the Hebrew Shallach (“cormorant”), or from “Shiloh” (Genesis 49:10, although the word means “messiah”); possible connotations of wary secrecy and hoarding (shy lock)

1    ducats gold coins

4    bound bound in obligation to repay

6    stead assist    pleasure oblige

10    imputation accusation

12    sufficient of adequate means    supposition uncertainty

13    Tripolis Tripoli, North African port (now in Libya)    Indies East Indies

14    Rialto merchants’ exchange in Venice; also bridge over the Grand Canal

15    squandered scattered/sent recklessly

16    pirates puns on rats

17    notwithstanding nevertheless

20    assured shifts sense to “guaranteed against risks”    bethink me consider it

23    habitation i.e., the body of a pig

24    Nazarite someone from Nazareth, i.e., Jesus

25    following forth

28    publican tax collector

30    low simplicity humble naïveté/foolishness

31    gratis for nothing (i.e., without charging interest)

32    usance lending money at interest

33    upon the hip at a disadvantage (wrestling term)

34    fat until fat

35    our sacred nation i.e., the Jewish people    rails rants/is abusive (about)

36    there…congregate i.e., on the Rialto

37    thrift profit

38    tribe i.e., one of the twelve tribes of Israel, from which all Jews were descended

41    debating…store considering my supply of ready money

43    gross total

45    Tubal name found in Genesis 10:2

46    furnish supply    soft wait a moment

47    Rest you fair form of greeting (“may you remain well”)

48    Your…mouths i.e., we were just talking about you

50    excess i.e., interest

51    ripe wants pressing needs

52    possessed notified of

53    would want

57    bond contract/pledge

59    advantage interest

60    use employ (puns on the sense of “interest”)

61    Jacob…sheep with his mother’s help, Jacob tricked his father into making him heir; fleeing his brother Esau’s wrath, he went to work for his uncle Laban (Genesis 27 and 30)

62    from descended from    Abram Abraham

63    wrought brought about, arranged

64    third possessor i.e., of the birthright (after Abraham and Isaac)

67    Mark pay attention to

68    were compromised had reached agreement

69    eanlings newborn lambs    pied spotted with another color

70    fall as become    hire wages    rank lustful/in heat

72    generation procreation

74    peeled…wands stripped the bark off particular sticks

75    in…kind while the sheep were engaged in their natural act (i.e., breeding)

76    stuck…ewes refers to the idea that what the mother sees during conception influences the appearance of the offspring    fulsome lustful

77    eaning lambing

78    Fall drop, give birth to

79    thrive profit

81    venture enterprise    served served God

83    fashioned arranged, created

84    inserted introduced, brought up    good i.e., justifiable

92    goodly wholesome-looking

96    beholding indebted

98    rated berated, reproached (puns on rate)

101    sufferance endurance

103    gaberdine loose cloak or coat

104    use employment (puns on sense of “financial interest”)

106    Go to expression of impatient dismissal

108    void discharge, empty    rheum spittle

109    foot kick    spurn despise/reject/strike    stranger cur unknown dog

110    suit request

114    bondman’s key serf’s tone

115    bated subdued

120    like likely

124    A…metal an unnatural increase of money – i.e., interest    barren unable to reproduce naturally    of from

126    break i.e., fail to repay the sum    better more willing

131    doit small coin (i.e., tiny amount)

133    kind kindness/natural behavior

134    were would be (indeed)

136    notary person authorized to draw up contracts

137    single particular/   bond that specifies that a sum of money must be paid on an appointed day

140    condition contract

141    nominated for named as    equal exact

147    dwell remain/exist    necessity need

153    suspect i.e., to doubt

155    break his day miss the appointed date (for repayment)

156    exaction enforcement

158    estimable valuable

161    so so be it

164    forthwith at once

165    direction instruction

166    purse bag up

167    See attend    fearful fear-inducing

168    unthrifty profligate/careless    knave scoundrel/servant    presently soon

170    Hie hurry    gentle courteous (may pun on “gentile”)

171    kind agreeable/generous/natural

Act 2 Scene 1

2.1    Location: Belmont    tawny dark-skinned/of yellowish-brown skin    Moor person of either African or Middle Eastern origin    Flourish fanfare

2    livery uniform/badge    burnished shining like polished metal

3    near bred closely related

5    Phoebus Roman sun god

6    make incision i.e., to let blood

7    reddest suggestive of courage and vigor

8    aspect face

9    feared frightened

10    clime land

11    hue color/appearance

14    nice scrupulous/whimsical    direction guidance

17    scanted limited

18    hedged protected/confined    wit wisdom

19    His as his

20    then would then have    fair i.e., fair a chance (puns on the sense of “fair-skinned/attractive”)

22    For of gaining/hoping for

25    scimitar short, curved sword

26    Sophy ruler (shah) of Persia

27    fields battles    of from/against    Solyman Suleiman, sultan who fought against Persia

28    o’erstare outstare

33    Hercules Greek hero    Lichas Hercules’ companion

36    Alcides another name for Hercules

44    advised warned

45    Nor will not break my word, i.e., speak to a woman

47    hazard risk/choice/fortune

Act 2 Scene 2

2.2    Location: Venice    Clown a rustic and/or comic character    Lancelet i.e., “little lance” (type of spear/penis); Sir Lancelot was famous for adultery with King Arthur’s wife; a “lance” was also a surgeon’s instrument for piercing an abscess

1    serve allow

2    Gobbo hunchback (Italian)

4    start advantage

6    with thy heels firmly (plays on literal sense)    courageous purposeful/forceful/lusty    pack depart    Fia! Via! i.e., away (Italian)

7    for the heavens i.e., in heaven’s name

9    honest honorable (sense then shifts to “chaste”)

10    something somewhat/some thing (i.e., vagina)    smack have a taste for/taste literally/have sex with

11    grow to become one with/tend toward/become erect    taste preference/literal taste

14    God…mark i.e., excuse my language

16    saving your reverence i.e., begging your pardon

17    incarnation slip for “incarnate” (ironic, given that the Incarnation refers to the making of Christ into flesh)

21    true-begotten honestly conceived (Lancelet means “real, true”)    sand-blind half-blind (from “sam-blind,” but Lancelet thinks “as if with sand in the eyes”)

22    high-gravel-blind completely blind    confusions (appropriate) malapropism for “conclusions” – i.e., “experiment”

25    of no hand i.e., neither left or right

26    indirectly along a winding route (perhaps plays on the sense of “moral crookedness”)

27    sonties saints    hit get right, find

29    raise the waters provoke tears

31    master gentleman or professional tradesperson

32    well to live well-to-do/managing satisfactorily/healthy

33    a he

34    friend and Lancelet Old Gobbo’s polite way of rejecting the title “master” for Lancelet

35    ergo “therefore” (Latin)

37    an’t if it

38    father respectful form of address for an old man

39    Sisters Three three Fates, goddesses who spin, measure, and cut the thread of a person’s life

43    hovel-post doorpost of a hovel

49    of the knowing to recognize    it…child reversal of the proverb “it is a wise child that knows its own father”

55    your…be comic paraphrase of the Gloria from the Book of Common Prayer: “As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be”

59    Margery sometimes used as slang term for a whore, or vagina

61    fill-horse carthorse (“fills” were the shafts of a cart)

63    backward inward (i.e., is shorter)

64    of on

65    agree get on

67    set…rest staked all

68    rest pause, stop    very thorough

69    halter hangman’s noose    tell count    finger…ribs Lancelet reverses    ribs and    finger

70    Give me give for me/give (me is emphatic)

71    rare splendid    liveries uniforms (for servants)

73    Jew i.e., villain

74    hasted hastened    farthest latest

76    anon shortly

79    Gramercy many thanks    aught anything

81    poor shifts sense from “unfortunate/humble” to “penniless”

83    infection malapropism for “affection” (i.e., desire)

86    scarce scarcely    cater-cousins good friends, close

89    frutify malapropism for “certify”

92    impertinent malapropism for “pertinent”

97    defect malapropism for “effect” (i.e., meaning, purport)

100    preferred recommended/promoted

103    old proverb “the grace of God is gear enough” (i.e., sufficient)    parted divided

106    inquire…out find out where my house is

108    guarded ornamented by braid trimmings

110    table part of the palm

111    book i.e., Bible (on which oaths are sworn)    simple ordinary/unremarkable    line of life the lifeline on the palm supposedly records the length and nature of a person’s life

112    trifle insignificant amount

113    simple humble    coming-in income (puns on the sense of “having sex”)    scape escape

114    edge…feather-bed perhaps refers to the dangers of marriage (i.e., a wife’s infidelity)    scapes escapes/adventures/wrongdoings

115    gear matter

116    the i.e., a

118    bestowed stowed away (on the ship bound for Belmont)

119    feast lay on a feast for

121    herein in this matter

127    obtained it i.e., been granted your request

130    rude raucous/coarse

131    Parts qualities    become suit

133    show appear

134    liberal licentious    take pain make an effort

135    allay diminish    modesty restraint/propriety

136    skipping frivolous

137    misconstered misconstrued, misunderstood

140    habit demeanor/behavior/clothing

141    but only

143    saying being said

146    studied…ostent practiced in a solemn appearance

147    grandam grandmother

149    bar exclude    gauge assess

154    purpose intend

Act 2 Scene 3

2.3    Jessica probably a form of “Iscah,” daughter of Abraham’s brother, Haran (Genesis 11:29)

10    exhibit express (malapropism for “inhibit,” i.e., restrain)

11    get beget, conceive

17    manners behavior/character

18    strife i.e., internal conflict, turmoil

Act 2 Scene 4

1    in during

5    spoke …of discussed/hired

6    vile degrading/worthless    quaintly skillfully    ordered arranged

9    furnish us prepare

10    An if    this i.e., the letter’s seal    seem to signify i.e., tell you something

11    hand handwriting    fair hand attractive handwriting (sense then shifts to “beautiful pale hand”)

15    By your leave with your permission (to go)

17    sup have supper

21    Go i.e., come

22    masque theatrical entertainment, usually involving music and dancing

23    of with

27    some about an

30    must needs must    directed instructed/described

35    gentle puns on “gentile”

36    foot step/path

37    she i.e., misfortune

38    she i.e., Jessica    issue child    faithless pagan/dishonest

Act 2 Scene 5

2    of between

3    gormandize eat excessively

5    rend apparel out wear out your clothes

9    wont accustomed

12    bid forth invited out

13    wherefore why

15    upon i.e., at the expense of

16    prodigal wastefully extravagant

17    to after    right loath very reluctant

18    ill harm/trouble

19    tonight last night

20    expect await    reproach malapropism for “approach”; Shylock responds to what Lancelet has actually said

23    nose fell a-bleeding considered to be a bad omen

24    Black …th’afternoon a deliberately nonsensical series of details; Lancelet pokes fun at superstitious attitudes such as Shylock’s    Black Monday Easter Monday

28    wry-necked played with the musician’s head twisted away from the instrument

29    casements windows

31    varnished faces i.e., wearing masks

32    stop shut

33    fopp’ry foolishness

34    Jacob’s staff in the Bible, the only possession Jacob started out with

35    mind of inclination for    forth away from home

38    for despite

40    a Jewès eye proverbial phrase for something very valuable; also plays on Jessica (a “Jewess”) eyeing Lorenzo

41    Hagar’s offspring Abraham’s Egyptian concubine Hagar gave birth to Ishmael; both mother and son were outcast at Abraham’s wife Sarah’s request

43    patch fool, clown

44    profit progress

45    Drones nonworkers (literally, bees whose only role is to impregnate the queen)    hive live (in a hive)

51    Fast …find keep possessions securely and they’ll always be found quickly (proverbial)

53    crossed thwarted

Act 2 Scene 6

1    penthouse projecting roof of a building

2    make a stand i.e., wait

3    His …past i.e., he is almost late

4    marvel surprising    out-dwells his hour i.e., is late

5    ever always    run…clock i.e., are early

6    Venus’ pigeons doves that draw Venus’ chariot

8    obligèd contracted, pledged    unforfeited unbroken

9    ever always    holds holds true

10    that with which

11    untread retrace

12    measures paces    unbated fire undiminished keenness

15    younger younger son, as the    prodigal was (sometimes emended to “younker,” fashionable youth)

16    scarfèd bark ship decorated with flags    puts from leaves

17    strumpet lascivious/wild/changeable

19    over-withered ribs over-weathered ship’s timbers (i.e., damaged by waves)

20    rent torn    beggared made destitute

22    your I beg your    abode delay

25    watch wait/keep watch

26    father father-in-law

28    tongue i.e., voice

36    exchange change (into boy’s clothes)

38    pretty clever, artful

39    Cupid Roman god of love

42    hold…to stand and observe/illuminate

43    sooth truth    light immoral/evident/luminous

44    office of discovery i.e., torchbearing, because it involves revealing things

47    garnish outfit/trimming (some editors emend “lovely” to “lowly”)

49    close secretive/concealing    play the runaway i.e., pass quickly

50    stayed for awaited

51    make fast i.e., shut securely, lock    gild equip, adorn (literally, cover with gold)

53    gentle dear one/gentile

54    Beshrew curse

56    true reliable

57    true constant

61    stay wait

66    is come about i.e., has changed (favorably for sailing)

Act 2 Scene 7

2.7    Location: Belmont    trains retinues

1    discover reveal

2    several various, individual

4    who which

5    Who whoever

8    dull not bright/blunt    blunt forthright/unrefined

12    withal with it

14    back over

20    dross rubbish/residue from melted metal

21    nor neither

22    virgin hue possibly because    silver is the color of the moon, ruled over by Diana, goddess of chastity

25    weigh weigh up, assess    even fair/impartial

26    rated valued/estimated    estimation reputation/value

30    disabling belittling

36    graved engraved

40    mortal breathing i.e., living

41    Hyrcanian deserts Persian region south of the Caspian sea known for its wildness    desert deserted/isolated place    vasty vast

44    watery kingdom i.e., the sea    ambitious head i.e., waves

46    spirits courageous men

49    like likely

50    base unworthy (puns on lead as a base metal)    gross inferior/coarse/earthly

51    rib enclose (as ribs do the internal organs)    cerecloth winding-sheet, shroud    obscure concealed/dark

52    immured enclosed

53    undervalued to less in value compared with    trièd tested

55    set fixed, like a jewel

56    angel Archangel Michael, who appeared on a coin known as an “angel”

57    insculped engraved

61    form image

64    carrion loathsome/skeletal/putrefying    Death death’s head, skull

69    But only

72    in judgement old i.e., wise

73    inscrolled inscribed on a scroll

78    tedious lengthy    part depart

80    complexion temperament/skin color

Act 2 Scene 8

2.8    Location: Venice

4    raised roused, woke up

12    passion passionate outcry

13    outrageous excessively fierce

19    double ducats twice the value of single ducats

20    stones jewels

24    stones plays on the sense of “testicles”

25    look be sure    day i.e., date on which the loan is to be repaid

28    reasoned talked

29    narrow…English i.e., the English Channel

30    miscarried came to harm/was destroyed

31    fraught laden

32    upon of

40    Slubber spoil/rush

41    stay wait (for)    riping ripening

42    for as for

43    of i.e., concerned with

45    ostents displays

46    become you be appropriate to you/dignify you

47    there i.e., then

49    affection wondrous sensible emotion extraordinarily evident

51    he…him i.e., Bassanio is all he lives for

53    quicken revive/lighten    embracèd heaviness adopted sadness

Act 2 Scene 9

2.9   Location: Belmont Servitor servant

1    straight straightaway

2    Aragon region of northeastern Spain

3    election choice    presently at once

9    enjoined bound

10    unfold reveal

12    Of i.e., to choose

18    addressed me prepared myself    Fortune good luck

25    By to signify    fool foolish    show appearance

26    fond foolish

27    pries peers closely    martlet swift/house martin

28    in i.e., in a place exposed to

29    force turbulence/violence    road pathway    casualty mischance

31    jump agree

37    cozen cheat

40    estates, degrees status, rank    offices official roles

41    clear innocent, pure

42    purchased obtained

43    cover…bare i.e., keep their hats on (social inferiors removed their hats in the presence of their superiors)

45    gleaned stripped, culled

46    seed plant germ/descendants

48    new-varnished newly adorned, polished

50    assume desert claim worth

54    schedule scroll

60    To…natures i.e., Aragon must not assess his own case now it has been judged; or, Portia says that she cannot comment, because she is the indirect cause of the offense

63    this i.e., the silver casket

64    judgement i.e., God’s judgment

65    amiss incorrectly

66    shadows images/illusions/reflections

68    iwis indeed

69    Silvered o’er white-haired/decorated with ornamentation indicating military or court status

71    I i.e., the fool’s head

72    sped (have) achieved your purpose/sent away with speed

74    By the time i.e., the longer

78    wroth grief/anger

80    deliberate calculating

83    wiving marrying    goes is determined

86    my lord playful response to    my lady 90 sensible regreets tangible greetings (i.e., gifts)

91    To wit that is to say    commends commendations    breath speech

92    yet until now

95    costly bountiful

96    fore-spurrer one who has ridden ahead (i.e., messenger)

99    high-day holiday (i.e., elaborate)

101    post messenger

Act 3 Scene 1

3.1    Location: Venice

2    it…unchecked an undisputed rumor is circulating    lading cargo

3    narrow seas presumably the English Channel    Goodwins Goodwin Sands, off the Kent coast

4    flat sandbank    tall lofty/gallant

5    gossip old friend/chatty woman

6    knapped nibbled at    ginger old women were proverbially fond of ginger

8    slips of prolixity evasions into tedious explanation    crossing forestalling    plain…talk i.e., good, honest communication

11    Come…stop i.e., get to the point and finish what you’re saying

13    prove prove to be

14    betimes at once    cross thwart

18    wings (page’s) costume/flying apparatus

20    fledged ready to fly/sexually ripe

21    complexion temperament    dam mother

23    devil probably alludes to Shylock

24    flesh and blood i.e., daughter (Solanio plays on the sense of “sexual desires”)

25    Out upon it expression of irritation    carrion putrefying flesh    these years i.e., your advanced age

27    jet and ivory i.e., black and white

30    match contract

32    mart market, i.e., the    Rialto look to heed, remember

33    for…courtesy out of Christian charity/for a good deed in return

38    hindered me prevented me from earning

39    cooled alienated    heated angered

41    dimensions parts of the body    affections inclinations/emotions/love    passions powerful emotions

46    what…humility i.e., in what benevolent manner does he respond

47    his sufferance the Jew’s endurance

49    go hard but be highly unfortunate if I do not    better the instruction improve on the (Christian) example

52    up and down everywhere

53    of the tribe i.e., Jew    matched i.e., found to match them

55    Genoa northwestern coastal Italian city

58    Frankfurt site of a famous jewellery fair    curse God’s curse on the Jews

61    hearsed in a coffin

63    satisfaction compensation

64    lights settles

68    cast away lost, shipwrecked

72    fourscore eighty

74    at a sitting in one go

75    divers several

76    break fail to keep the bond/go bankrupt

78    of from

79    Out upon her! expression of frustration and condemnation

80    Leah Shylock’s wife    wilderness i.e., large number

82    undone ruined

83    fee purchase, hire, secure    officer constable/bailiff    bespeak engage

84    before i.e., before the date of Antonio’s bond

85    what whatever    merchandise business dealings    will want

Act 3 Scene 2

3.2    Location: Belmont

1    tarry wait, delay

2    in choosing if you choose

3    forbear desist, have patience

6    quality way

8    And…thought i.e., a modest young woman can think but not speak what she feels

10    venture take a chance (i.e., with the caskets)

11    forsworn will have broken my promise

12    So that (i.e., forsworn)    So as a result    miss me i.e., choose incorrectly

15    o’erlooked bewitched

17    would i.e., should

18    naughty wicked

19    bars obstacles

20    though…yours i.e., although I am truly yours (by desire), I am not so legitimately    Prove it if it turn out to be

22    peise delay (literally by weighing down)

23    eke eke out, extend

24    stay prevent/dissuade election choice

26    rack torture instrument that stretched the limbs, used to elicit confessions from those suspected of    treason

29    mistrust worry, doubt

30    fear fearful, doubtful about    enjoying with sexual connotations

32    as as between

34    enforcèd compelled

36    confess and live plays on “confess and be hanged” (proverbial)

40    deliverance i.e., from death

41    let me to allow me (to deal with)

44    aloof to one side

46    swan-like end swans were thought to sing as they died

51    flourish trumpet fanfare

53    dulcet sweet

56    presence dignity/noble demeanor

57    Alcides i.e., Hercules, who rescued Hesione from a    sea-monster and was rewarded by her father, the King of Troy, with a pair of magnificent horses, rather than the maiden’s love

58    howling grieving

59    stand for represent

60    Dardanian Trojan

61    blearèd visages tear-stained faces

62    issue outcome

63    Live thou if you live

64    fray assault/din

65    fancy love

66    Or either

67    begot conceived

71    the cradle its infancy/the    eyes

72    knell funeral bell

75    themselves i.e., like what they seem

76    still always

78    gracious charming

80    sober brow i.e., solemn clergyman

81    approve support    text passage from the Bible

82    grossness flagrant/coarse nature

83    simple small/basic    assumes acquires

84    his its

87    Mars god of war

88    searched probed surgically    livers…milk the liver was thought to be the seat of courage; a coward’s would be pale from lack of blood

89    excrement facial hair

90    redoubted dreaded/revered    beauty…weight cosmetics and hair were bought by the ounce

93    lightest most frivolous/least heavy

94    crispèd tightly curled

95    wanton playful/wild/lascivious

96    fairness beauty/brightness

97    dowry…sepulchre i.e., a wig made of a dead woman’s hair

99    guilèd deceptive

101    Indian i.e., dark-skinned (the Elizabethans preferred fair complexions)

103    gaudy excessively showy/bright

104    Midas Phrygian king whose wish for everything he touched to turn to gold was granted only too literally

105    thee i.e., the silver casket    drudge lackey, because used in business transactions

110    fleet change/pass swiftly

111    As such as    rash-embraced recklessly adopted

114    measure moderation    rain pour (but could be “rein”)    scant limit

116    surfeit overindulge and become ill

118    counterfeit image    demigod i.e., the painter, or creator of this perfect image

119    eyes i.e., the eyes of the portrait

120    Or whether or    balls of mine i.e., my eyeballs

121    severed parted

122    bar barrier (i.e., breath)

123    sunder separate

126    Faster more tightly

128    it i.e., the first painted eye

129    unfurnished unfinished, unpartnered

130    substance subject (i.e., Portia)    shadow image, reflection

133    continent summation/container

135    Chance as fair guess as fortunately

143    by note i.e., as directed by the scroll    note invoice/account

144    prize contest

148    his for him

151    confirmed, signed, ratified language of commerce

158    account estimate/financial reckoning

159    livings possessions, livelihood

160    account calculation    sum essence/financial amount

161    term in gross express overall, wholesale

162    unpractisèd inexperienced/innocent

170    converted changed (also a legal term for wrongfully appropriating someone else’s property for one’s own use)    But just

176    presage indicate

177    vantage opportunity/superior position    exclaim on accuse/denounce

179    blood blood/passion

180    confusion agitation    powers faculties

184    something i.e., small utterance    blent blended

185    wild wilderness (i.e., confused sound, hubbub)    save except

186    expressed articulated, comprehensible

188    be bold presume, feel certainty

190    That who

194    wish none require no more/want to detract from any of my joy

196    faith (love) promise

197    Even exactly

198    so provided

201    maid waiting woman

202    intermission delay/respite (in loving)

204    stood depended

205    falls turns out

207    roof i.e., of the mouth

208    last endure (puns on at last)

213    so provided

215    faith in truth/fidelity

217    play …boy bet who has the first son

218    stake down put the money down in advance

219    sport game/sex    stake down i.e., with a nonerect penis

220    infidel i.e., Jessica

223    youth newness    new interest recently acquired authority

225    very true

235    Commends him sends his regards

236    ope open

240    estate circumstances

241    cheer welcome    yond yonder, that

243    royal kingly, magnificent

247    shrewd ominous/grievous

250    constitution mood

251    constant consistent, stable

252    leave your permission    half yourself i.e., as his wife; the witnessed betrothal was nearly as binding as marriage

262    Rating reckoning, estimating

264    state estate, wealth

266    engaged pledged

267    mere total

269    as like

272    hit success

274    Barbary Barbary Coast, North Africa

275    dreadful fear-inspiring

276    merchant-marring capable of damaging a merchant ship

278    should appear i.e., appears

279    present ready    discharge pay

280    He i.e., Shylock

282    confound destroy

284    impeach call into question    freedom civil liberty

286    magnificoes foremost noblemen in Venice

287    port dignity/social standing    persuaded entreated

288    envious malicious    plea legal claim

289    forfeiture penalty

291    Chus a name found in Genesis 10:6, spelled “Cush”

296    hard with badly for

299    best-conditioned best-natured

300    courtesies good services

306    deface obliterate

318    hence (go) from here

319    cheer appearance/welcome

320    dear expensively (sense then shifts to “deeply”)

323    estate condition/status

325    Notwithstanding nevertheless    use your pleasure enjoy yourself/do what you wish

327    Dispatch settle

331    ’twixt us twain between us two

Act 3 Scene 3

3.3    Location: Venice

1    look see

2    gratis for no interest

10    naughty wicked    fond foolish

11    abroad out of the jail/outside

15    dull-eyed easily deceived/stupid

20    kept dwelt

22    bootless pointless

25    made moan complained, lamented (about debts to Shylock)

28    grant allow    hold stand firm

30    commodity (commercial) privileges    strangers outsiders (including Jews)

33    Since that since

35    bated me diminished me/made me lose weight

Act 3 Scene 4

3.4    Location: Belmont

2    conceit understanding

3    godlike amity divine friendship

5    to whom i.e., Antonio

6    relief financial aid

7    lover friend

9    customary …you ordinary generosity would make you

12    waste spend/while away

14    needs of necessity    like similar, comparable

15    lineaments characteristics/physical features

17    bosom lover intimate friend

20    semblance image    my soul i.e., Bassanio

25    husbandry domestic administration    manage management

33    deny refuse    imposition command

38    people i.e., household servants

47    honest-true truthful and reliable

50    render give

52    look what whatever

53    imagined all imaginable

54    traject crossing place/ferry    common public

55    trades i.e., crosses

62    habit clothing

63    accomplishèd equipped

64    that we lack i.e., penises (they will be disguised as men)    hold offer and maintain

65    accoutred dressed

67    braver bolder/more splendid    grace elegance/attitude

68    between …voice i.e., with an adolescent boy’s reedy breaking voice

69    mincing dainty

70    frays fights

71    quaint ingenious

74    do withal help it

76    puny petty/inexperienced

78    Above more than

79    raw unrefined    Jacks fellows

81    turn to become (Portia puns on the sense of “become sexually available to”)

84    device plan

87    measure cover/count out

Act 3 Scene 5

2    promise assure    fear you fear for you    plain honest

3    agitation agitated thoughts (possible malapropism for “cogitation”)

5    bastard mixed/illegitimate    neither nevertheless

7    got begot, conceived

12    Scylla …Charybdis Odysseus had to navigate between these two dangerous points (the monster    Scylla and whirlpool Charybdis)    fall into with sexual connotations    gone ruined

14    I…husband “the unbelieving wife is made acceptable to God by being united to her Christian husband” (1 Corinthians 7:14)

15    We …enow there were enough of us Christians

16    by alongside/off    raise…hogs because Christians eat pork (unlike Jews)

18    money any price

20    get …corners i.e., for sex

22    are have fallen

26    getting …belly making the    negro pregnant

27    Moor African (woman)

28    much of concern    more than reason greater than is reasonable (i.e., pregnant);    more puns on    Moor less…for i.e., Lancelet does not think much of the woman’s morals (possibly he gets confused in his attempt to play on Moor/more/less)

29    honest chaste

30    grace virtue, quality

32    them i.e., the servants (but Lancelet takes the sense of “diners”)

33    stomachs appetites

34    wit-snapper wisecracker

35    ‘cover’ lay the table (Lancelet goes on to play on the sense of “cover one’s head with a hat”)

37    my duty i.e., as a servant, who would remove his hat in the presence of superiors

38    quarrelling with occasion i.e., taking the opportunity for quibbling

40    fellows fellow servants

42    For as for    table i.e., food    covered i.e., on a covered serving dish

43    humours and conceits whims and fancies

45    discretion judgment    suited adapted as appropriate

48    A many many    stand…place have higher positions of employment

49    Garnished provided with a good supply of words/dressed

50    Defy the matter confuse the meaning    cheerest thou are you feeling

53    Past all expressing beyond words    meet suitable

58    In reason it stands to reason

60    lay bet, stake

62    Pawned pledged    rude unrefined

63    fellow equal

64    Even just

65    of in

68    stomach appetite/inclination

71    digest consider/endure/swallow

72    set you forth praise you/serve you up

Act 4 Scene 1

4.1    Location: Venice

3    answer face/defend yourself against

6    From of    dram tiny amount

8    qualify diminish, moderate

9    stands obdurate remains inflexible

11    envy’s malice’s

14    tyranny cruelty

17    our the royal plural

19    but…fashion only persist in this form/contrivance

20    last…act i.e., eleventh hour, final moment

21    remorse pity    strange surprisingly

22    strange unnatural/foreign

25    loose revoke, abandon

27    moiety portion/half

30    royal merchant merchant prince

32    brassy bosoms hard hearts

33    Turks and Tartars both considered pitiless infidels

35    gentle puns on “gentile”

36    possessed notified

38    due debt

39    danger damage

40    charter deed of privilege

42    carrion loathsome/putrefying

44    humour mood, inclination    answered explained satisfactorily

47    baned poisoned

48    love who love

50    i’th’nose with a nasal twang

51    affection inclination

55    he one person    gaping i.e., roasted with its mouth open

56    Why he another person    necessary useful (for catching rats and mice)

61    lodged deep-rooted    certain definite, fixed

62    follow pursue

63    losing i.e., involving loss (for Antonio)

65    current course, flow

71    think realize

73    main flood sea at high tide    bate lessen

74    use question dispute

77    wag sway

78    fretted chafed

79    hard difficult (puns on the sense of “tough, firm”)

80    than more than

83    conveniency convenience

88    draw collect/receive

89    rend’ring yielding/giving back

90    no wrong i.e., nothing illegal

93    parts actions/duties

98    viands food (as you eat)

104    stand for represent/uphold

109    stays without waits outside

116    tainted diseased    wether sheep (specifically, castrated ram)

117    Meetest most fitting

126    keen sharp/eager

127    hangman’s i.e., executioner’s    keenness sharpness/eagerness/severity

130    inexecrable unmovable/accursed

131    thy life the fact that you are alive    accused chastised

133    Pythagoras ancient Greek philosopher whose doctrine supported the transmigration of souls

135    currish mean-spirited/snarling (like a dog)

137    fell savage    fleet leave, fly off

138    unhallowed unholy    dam mother

141    rail rant

142    but offend’st merely harm

143    Repair restore

148    hard close

154    in loving visitation on a friendly visit

157    furnished equipped

159    importunity urging

160    reverend respected, worthy

162    whose trial the testing of whom    publish make known    commendation recommendation/praise

168    difference dispute

169    present question current argument

170    throughly thoroughly

176    rule proper discipline

177    impugn call into question

178    danger (power to) harm

180    confess acknowledge

184    strained forced, artificial; also perhaps filtered/distilled (setting up rain imagery)

186    is twice blest bestows a double blessing

190    shows represents

192    dread reverence/awe

193    sceptred sway royal government

196    likest most like

197    seasons modifies

199    justice i.e., God’s justice (if He did not show mercy to humankind)

201    render perform in return

206    My…head! possible echo of the crowd’s acceptance of responsibility for Jesus’ death (Matthew 27:25)

208    discharge pay

209    tender offer

213    must appear will be evident

214    bears down truth overwhelms integrity

215    Wrest once for once, forcibly subject

220    for as    precedent i.e., on which future lawsuits can be based

223    Daniel in the Apocryphal story, Daniel judges Susannah correctly, despite his youth and the false witness of the Elders    judgement i.e., make judgment

236    tenure legal conditions, terms of the bond

250    Hath …to fully supports

258    balance scales

261    by nearby    on your charge at your responsibility/expense

262    stop staunch

268    armed i.e., prepared/fortified

272    still always (usually)    use practice

278    process course, manner

279    me…death favorably of me when I am dead

281    love i.e., loving friend

285    with…heart most willingly/literally, with my heart

287    Which who

291    deliver free

298    else otherwise

300    Would I wish    Barabbas a thief released by Pontius Pilate instead of Jesus at the people’s request

302    trifle waste    pursue proceed with

315    confiscate confiscated

317    Mark take note

326    Soft! Wait a moment!

327    all only/complete

333    just exact (plays on the sense of “fair, lawful”)

334    substance amount/weight

336    scruple tiny amount

337    estimation…hair by a hair’s breadth/weight

340    on the hip at a disadvantage (wrestling term)

342    principal original capital sum, i.e., three thousand ducats

345    merely only/absolute

348    barely i.e., at the very least

351    good good fortune

352    stay remain    question to argue the case

356    alien foreigner

359    contrive scheme

360    seize take legal possession of

361    privy coffer private treasury

362    in at

363    gainst…voice despite any other appeals

365    proceeding course of action

369    danger damage/penalty    rehearsed related

370    Down i.e., on your knees

373    cord rope

374    charge cost

377    For as for

379    humbleness remorse (on Shylock’s part)    drive convert

380    for…Antonio i.e., the state’s portion of the goods may be reduced to a fine, but not Antonio’s half

386    halter hangman’s noose

387    So if it please

388    quit cancel, release (Shylock) from

389    so provided that

390    use (legal) trust

394    presently immediately

396    possessed possessed of

397    son i.e., son-in-law

399    late lately

408    ten more i.e., twelve, the number in a jury

409    font place of Christian baptism

411    of for

413    meet fitting, necessary

414    your…not you don’t have time to stay

415    gratify show gratitude to/reward

419    in lieu whereof in exchange for which

421    cope give in recompense (for)

426    account consider (plays on the sense of “financial reckoning”)

428    know remember (a private joke on the sense of “have sex with”)

430    attempt tempt/persuade

433    pardon me i.e., excuse my insistence

434    press urge (plays on the sense of “enjoy sexually”)    yield plays on the sense of “submit sexually”

436    love friendship (plays on the sense of “marital love”)

438    in out of

442    mind to desire for

444    dearest most expensive

447    liberal free/overgenerous

466    Fly hasten

Act 4 Scene 2

1    Inquire …out find out where the Jew’s house is    deed i.e., the document stating Shylock will leave his possessions to Jessica and Lorenzo

3    be i.e., arrive

5    you…o’erta’en i.e., I’m glad I caught you

6    advice reflection

18    old plenty of

20    outface defy/contradict/shame    outswear outdo in swearing

Act 5 Scene 1

5.1    Location: Belmont

4    Troilus separated from his lover, Cressida (Cressid), by the Trojan war, he was subsequently abandoned by her

8    Thisbe at their meeting place Pyramus discovered his lover Thisbe’s cloak, dropped in fright at the sight of a lion; his mistaken belief that she had been killed led to both their suicides    o’ertrip skip over

9    ere himself before the lion itself

12    Dido Queen of Carthage who fell in love with, and was abandoned by, Aeneas    willow willow leaves; symbol of grief for lost love

13    wild unruly/cruel    waft wafted (i.e., beckoned)

16    Medea lover of Jason; she helped him gain the golden fleece and restored the health of his father,    Aeson

17    renew rejuvenate/revive

19    steal run stealthily from/rob

20    unthrift extravagant

27    shrew troublemaker, ill-tempered woman

28    love lover

29    out-night you i.e., outdo you in our game of references to the night    did if

30    footing footfall

36    doth stray about is distracted by

37    holy crosses shrines by the road

46    Sola imitation of the sound of a messenger’s horn/a hunting cry    Wo ha, ho! falconer’s call to the hawk

50    hollowing shouting/urging on of dogs in the hunt

53    post messenger    horn messenger’s instrument/cornucopia, i.e., plentiful supply

55    in go in    expect await

57    signify make known

59    music i.e., musicians    air plays on sense of “melody”

63    Become suit    touches skillful playing (by plucking or fingering instruments)

64    floor of heaven i.e., sky

65    patens shallow, circular dishes (on which communion bread is placed)

66    orb heavenly body (planet, star)

67    motion movement (heavenly bodies were thought to be surrounded by hollow spheres; as they rotated they produced beautiful music)

68    Still choiring continually singing in chorus    young-eyed with eternally clear sight    cherubins cherubim, angels

70    muddy…decay i.e., claylike mortal clothing (flesh)

71    grossly physically, coarsely    close it in i.e., enclose the soul

72    Diana Roman goddess of the moon

76    spirits mental faculties/feelings    attentive i.e., preoccupied

77    wanton unrestrained, wild, boisterous

78    race company/herd    unhandled untamed

79    Fetching performing    bounds leaps

80    hot condition passionate nature    blood spirit

81    but only    perchance by chance/perhaps

82    air melody

83    mutual stand general pause

85    the poet i.e., Ovid

86    feign depict/invent    Orpheus legendary Greek poet and musician who could charm all of nature with his music    drew drew in, attracted    floods rivers

87    stockish unfeeling/stupid

91    stratagems schemes/bloody acts    spoils destruction, pillaging

92    motions inner promptings    dull dark/lifeless

93    affections feelings/disposition    Erebus place of darkness between earth and the classical underworld

97    naughty wicked

101    by nearby    his i.e., the substitute’s    state dignity/sovereignty

103    main of waters sea

105    respect consideration of circumstance

109    attended paid attention to/heard

113    season occasion    seasoned improved/flavored

115    Endymion shepherd with whom the moon goddess fell in love; she granted him eternal sleep so she could visit him

123    speed succeed/hasten    words i.e., prayers

126    before ahead of them

131    tucket trumpet call

137    should…Antipodes would experience day at the same time as the other side of the world

138    in…sun i.e., at night (since Portia is like a second sun)

139    light promiscuous

140    heavy sad (plays on the sense of “weighty”)

142    sort arrange

147    bound imprisoned/indebted/legally bound

148    acquitted of repaid for/freed from

151    scant cut short    breathing i.e., verbal

154    gelt gelded, castrated    for my part as far as I’m concerned

155    at to

158    posy verse or motto inscribed on a ring

165    Though i.e., if

166    respective careful, considerate

172    scrubbèd undersized

174    prating chattering

177    slightly easily

179    riveted bolted

184    masters possesses

186    mad enraged

207    conceive understand

211    virtue power

213    contain retain

216    If that if    pleased wanted, attempted

217    wanted (so) lacking    modesty restraint

218    urge request persistently    ceremony sacred token

222    civil doctor doctor of civil law

225    suffered let

226    held up i.e., saved

231    it i.e., honor

232    candles…night i.e., stars

238    liberal generous

241    Know recognize/have sex with

242    Argus monster with a hundred eyes

244    honour good name/chaste reputation    yet still

246    be well advised take care

248    take catch

249    mar ruin    pen i.e., penis

250    th’unhappy the unlucky/miserable/trouble-causing

257    doubly sees himself sees himself reflected twice

258    double dual/deceitful

259    of credit worth believing

265    quite miscarried entirely come to harm

267    advisedly deliberately

268    surety guarantor

273    lay with slept with

276    lieu of exchange for

278    fair good, unmuddied (i.e., without needing repair)

279    cuckolds men with unfaithful wives

280    grossly coarsely/foolishly

286    e’en just

291    richly i.e., laden with expensive goods

294    dumb speechless

301    living livelihood

303    road harbor

310    manna during the Exodus, the food God provided for the Israelites in the desert

313    you…full your curiosity will not be content until further details are revealed

315    charge…inter’gatories examine us under formal questioning

317    inter’gatory question

318    sworn on under oath to answer truthfully

319    stay wait

322    couching in bed

324    sore greatly    ring gold band (plays on the sense of “vagina”)

AS YOU LIKE IT

As You Like It is Shakespeare’s most elegant play. At its climax Rosalind calls the cast into a circle, the figure of perfection, and resolves the plot with the assistance of Hymen, god of marriage. Whereas most of the other comedies are shadowed by death, this one offers four weddings and no funeral. The part of Rosalind is the longest and most joyous female role in the complete works. It would have been extraordinarily demanding for the boy-actor who first performed it, though made a little easier by the fact that Rosalind spends so much of the time dressed as a boy.

By rights, the play should have been named after its heroine. It is the Elizabethan equivalent of an “adapted” as opposed to an “original” screenplay: a dramatization of a popular novel of the day, Thomas Lodge’s Rosalynde. Shakespeare selects and compresses his material, but retains its essential spirit as a series of debates on the nature of love played out against a romantic woodland backdrop. The flavor of Lodge’s story, its language studded with allusions to classical mythology, may be tasted from the climactic moment when Rosalynde reverts to her female identity: “In went Ganimede and dressed herself in woman’s attire, having on a gown of green, with kirtle of rich sandal, so quaint that she seemed Diana triumphing in the forest; upon her head she wore a chaplet of roses, which gave her such a grace that she looked like Flora perked in the pride of all her flowers.”

Shakespeare moves quickly from the multiple marriages to the closing dance. He introduces the magical “conversion” of bad Frederick in place of the battle between the forces of good and evil that occurs at the end of Lodge’s story, and he focuses on the realization of erotic desire rather than the questions of social advancement that preoccupied Lodge. The play omits the apportioning of rewards with which Rosalynde ended. In the novel, the figure who corresponds to Sylvanus becomes “lord over all the forest of Arden,” Corin is made master of the Celia-figure’s flock, and loyal retainer Adam improbably becomes captain of the king’s guard.

Lodge’s setting was France, but he anglicized the name of the Ardennes forest to Arden. Perhaps this is what made the story so attractive to Shakespeare, who was born and raised close to the Forest of Arden in Warwickshire, from which his mother, Mary Arden, took her family name. The play accordingly removes the action further from France: though a few French names such as “Le Beau” are retained, the location of the court is not specified. The deceased gentleman with three sons—the oldest who treats the youngest like a mere servant, the middle away at university and invisible until the closing twist—is Sir John of Bordeaux in Lodge, but the more symbolically named Sir Rowland de Bois in Shakespeare. De Bois means “of the woods” and Sir Rowland is a name suggestive of a lost world of chivalry and romance, as in The Song of Roland. “Orlando,” the Italianized form of Rowland, is chosen by Shakespeare for his hero as a way of indicating that the youngest son has a special bond with his dead father, a duty to preserve his good name. To more educated members of the Elizabethan theater audience, it would also have conjured up the eponymous hero of Orlando Furioso, an epic poem by Ariosto that was the sixteenth century’s great exemplar of chivalric romance. It is typical of Shakespeare’s skeptical, ironic temperament that the Orlando who wanders round the forest defacing trees with second-rate love poems, and who needs to take lessons in courtship from a supposed teenage boy, does not quite live up to his heroic name—not, at least, until the play moves into the true mode of romance when he rescues his brother from a lion and a snake.

The first we hear of the exiled duke is that, “like the old Robin Hood of England,” he is in the forest with a group of “merry men.” Ostensibly the qualifier “of England” is an indication that the action is supposed to take place in France, but the deeper effect is to identify Arden with Sherwood. About a year before the play was written, rival acting company the Admiral’s Men had played a two-part drama on the subject of Robin Hood called Robert Earl of Huntingdon—the first work in the long history of the legend to turn Robin into a disguised aristocrat as opposed to a genuinely subversive outlaw. The Arden scenes of As You Like It begin with the exiled duke contrasting the natural order of the forest to the flattery and envy of the court. As in the Robin Hood story, the wished-for conclusion is the restoration of the right ruler.

Yet the play ironizes as well as idealizes. The most prominent figure in the duke’s forest circle is not a merry man but a melancholy man, the satirical Jaques. Often wrongly described as one of the duke’s courtiers, he is a gentleman who has sold his lands in order to become a “traveller,” a wry detached observer of manners and morals. The forest order is dependent on hunting, leading Jaques to sympathize with the wounded stag and suggest that the good duke usurps the place of the deer every bit as much as the bad duke has usurped power back at court. Jaques and Touchstone—the two key characters invented by Shakespeare without precedent in Lodge—spar with each other because the satire of the former and the witty foolery of the latter are rival modes of mocking courtly pretensions such as Orlando’s highly romanticized language of love-service.

Arden is also compared to the mythological “golden age” and the play duly has its complement of classically named shepherds, signalling the influence of the ancient tradition of pastoral verse. The golden age was the imagined infancy of humankind, another Eden, a playground in which Nature offered up her fruits and the winter wind never blew. But Shakespeare complicates the picture. The duke’s very first speech sees Arden as a place less to “fleet the time carelessly as they did in the golden world” than to draw moral lessons from the natural world. This is no Arcadia of perpetual summer: the seasons do change, it is just that “the penalty of Adam”—being forced to labor for subsistence—seems less harsh than the vicissitudes of the court. The myth of the golden age made Utopia into the state that society had fallen from rather than that which it aspired to: a place where everybody was happy and there was no such thing as property. The old shepherd Corin is a voice of happiness, but he has no illusions about the need for labor and his dependence on property that he does not own. He is shepherd to another man’s flock and only keeps his job because Celia buys the farm.

Many of Shakespeare’s plays keep up a constant shuttle between symbolically opposed locations—Venice and Belmont, Rome and Egypt, Sicilian court and Bohemian country—but As You Like It moves all the major players to Arden as swiftly as possible. Once there, the scenes run together fluently. There is no clock ticking in the forest, no sense of time being marked by the scene breaks. Initially, however, there are two discernible imaginary locations: the farm and the cave, Corin’s world of agricultural labor and the deep forest where the duke and his men play at being Robin Hood. Orlando and Jaques drift between the two, whereas Rosalind/Ganymede and Celia/Aliena are not allowed to penetrate too far into the deep forest. Their reunion with the duke must be withheld for the climax.

There is a curious stage direction when the women first arrive in Arden: “Enter Rosalind for Ganymede, Celia for Aliena, and Clown alias Touchstone.” Does alias mean that Touchstone has also taken on a disguised identity? It has been suggested that he would have begun the play in the long plain coat of the “natural” (simpleton), then exchanged this for the “motley” of the professional fool when he escapes from the court with the women. But there is no sense of his verbal style changing or of disguise being a means of self-discovery, as it is so profoundly for Rosalind when she plays the role of Ganymede; Touchstone appears always to have been a touchstone, a master of retort who reveals other people’s foolishness. The question of Touchstone being recognized as the court fool, and thus blowing the disguise of Rosalind and Celia, is avoided by the device of keeping all three of them apart from the duke and his courtiers until the final scene. That is why Jaques cannot be a courtier: he must encounter Touchstone as a stranger and delight in him as a fellow outsider, albeit with a different linguistic style and a different end to his irony. Jaques offers “invective” and formal discourses (most famously his anatomy of the “seven ages” of human life) to Touchstone’s one-line quips and riffs of extended word-mongering (most dazzlingly his explication of the seven stages of a quarrel).

Wherever the word “natural” is found in the play, whether associated with Touchstone, Corin, or the forest itself, it is possible to see happiness and a kind of innocence; the voice of Jaques is that of “experience” bringing world-weary melancholy. Rosalind has no doubt which she prefers, observing to Jaques that “your experience makes you sad: I had rather have a fool to make me merry than experience to make me sad.”

As in Lodge’s Rosalynde, the plot of the play sometimes seems little more than a pretext for the setting up of debates and meditations. The heart of the play is to be found in the set-piece dialogues. Before their departure from court, Rosalind and Celia debate the relative importance of “Nature” and “Fortune”; in Arden, there are dialogues between the melancholy man and the fool, the cynic and the lover, the court fool and the “natural” shepherd (who wins the debate by virtue of his recognition that social customs vary from place to place). With brilliant counterpoint, a prose wooing scene is played against a verse one. Reversing dramatic convention, it is the courtly characters who speak prose and the shepherds who court in verse.

Above all, there is the encounter between Orlando and Rosalind-as-Ganymede-as-Rosalind. With the added layer of the boy-actor for whom Shakespeare was writing—of which we are reminded by means of a joke in the epilogue—here a boy plays a girl playing a boy playing a girl. Whereas in the shepherd plot it is Phoebe who has romantic notions about love that make her natural partner Silvius a disappointment to her, in the main plot disguise enables the woman to offer the man down-to-earth “counsel” as preparation for marriage. Through the illusions of cross-dressing and role-play, Rosalind exposes the illusions of romantic desire: “the patterns of love” (Troilus, Leander) are not to be imitated, since the old stories about them are “all lies.” “Men have died from time to time and worms have eaten them, but not for love.” So much for men.

As for women, the key to keeping them is not to restrain them. Rosalind/Ganymede’s lesson is the opposite to that of The Taming of the Shrew: a desirable woman is not a tame one but a “wayward” one, whose energies (verbal, emotional, and sexual) are incorrigible. “Make the doors upon a woman’s wit and it will out at the casement. Shut that and ’twill out at the key-hole. Stop that, ’twill fly with the smoke out at the chimney.” In her poise and her playfulness, her knowledge of what makes people tick, and her capacity for strong feeling, whether joyful, fearful, or simply amazed (“O coz, coz, coz, my pretty little coz, that thou didst know how many fathom deep I am in love! But it cannot be sounded”), Rosalind is Shakespeare’s most complete woman.

KEY FACTS

PLOT: Orlando is the youngest of three brothers, badly treated by the oldest, Oliver; Duke Senior, meanwhile, has been banished and the court usurped by his younger brother, Frederick. Orlando fights with Charles, the court wrestler, and he and Rosalind, daughter of the exiled duke, fall in love. Rosalind and her cousin Celia, daughter of usurping Duke Frederick, leave the court for the Forest of Arden, taking the fool Touchstone with them; Rosalind disguises herself as a boy (“Ganymede”), while Celia calls herself “Aliena.” On being told by the old family servant Adam that Oliver is plotting to kill him, Orlando also flees to the forest. In Arden, Rosalind and Celia buy a farm in order to help the old shepherd Corin; Orlando meets up with the banished duke and his courtiers. “Ganymede” offers to assist Orlando in his wooing by pretending to be Rosalind, so that he can rehearse his love-lines. The shepherd Silvius is in love with shepherdess Phoebe, but she falls for “Ganymede.” Touchstone, after initially scorning rural life, decides to marry Audrey the goatherd, displacing country bumpkin William. Oliver comes to the forest and his life is saved by Orlando; he repents of his wicked ways and falls in love with Celia. Wicked Duke Frederick becomes a hermit and Rosalind, restored to her female self, arranges multiple marriages, presided over by the god Hymen. All ends happily, save that the melancholy traveler Jaques wants no part in the festivities.

MAJOR PARTS: (with percentage of lines/number of speeches/scenes on stage) Rosalind (25%/ 201/10), Orlando (11%/120/9), Celia (10%/108/7), Touchstone (10%/74/7), Jaques (8%/57/7), Oliver (6%/37/4), Duke Senior (4%/32/3), Silvius (3%/24/5), Phoebe (3%/23/3), Corin (3%/24/4), Frederick (3%/20/4), Le Beau (2%/14/1), Adam (2%10/4), Charles (2%/8/2), Amiens (1%/9/2), Hymen (1%/2/1), Audrey (1%/12/3).

LINGUISTIC MEDIUM: 55% prose, 45% verse. Several songs and interwoven (parodically bad) love-lyrics.

DATE: Not mentioned in Francis Meres’ 1598 list of Shakespeare’s plays, unless originally called Love’s Labour’s Won (mentioned by Meres, but now lost). Registered for publication in early summer 1600, but not printed at that time. Song “It was a lover and his lass” printed in Thomas Morley’s First Book of Airs (1600). Several literary allusions suggest composition in 1599 or early 1600.

SOURCES: Based closely on Thomas Lodge’s prose romance Rosalynde (1590). Some names altered (e.g., Oliver and Orlando for Lodge’s Saladyne and Rosader), others retained (e.g., Phoebe, “Aliena,” “Ganymede”). Only major additions are characters of Jaques and Touchstone.

TEXT: First printed in the 1623 Folio. Very high quality printing, perhaps from the theatrical “book.”

AS YOU LIKE IT

DUKE SENIOR, in exile

ROSALIND, his daughter

Duke FREDERICK, his usurping brother

CELIA, Frederick’s daughter

TOUCHSTONE, the court jester

AMIENS, a lord attending on Duke Senior

LE BEAU, a courtier attending on Frederick

CHARLES, wrestler to Frederick

ADAM, an old servant of Sir Rowland, now in service to Oliver

DENNIS, servant to Oliver

JAQUES, a melancholy traveler

CORIN, an old shepherd

SILVIUS, a young shepherd, in love with Phoebe

PHOEBE, a shepherdess

WILLIAM, a countryman, in love with Audrey

AUDREY, a goatherd

SIR OLIVER MARTEXT, a country clergyman

HYMEN, god of marriage, perhaps played by Amiens or another courtier

Lords, Pages, Attendants

Act 1 Scene 11.1

running scene 1

Enter Orlando and Adam

ORLANDOAs I remember, Adam,[1] it was upon this fashion bequeathed me by will but poor[2] a thousand crowns, and, as thou sayest, charged my brother on his blessing to breed[3] me well: and there begins my sadness. My brother Jaques he keeps at school, and report speaks goldenly of his profit. For my part, he keeps me rustically at home, or, to speak more properly, stays[5] me here at home unkept, for call you that keeping for a gentleman of my birth, that differs not from the stalling[6] of an ox? His horses are bred better, for, besides that they are fair[7] with their feeding, they are taught their manage,[8] and to that end riders dearly hired: but I, his brother, gain nothing under him but growth, for the which his animals on his dunghills are as much bound[10] to him as I. Besides this nothing that he so plentifully gives me, the something that nature gave me his countenance[11] seems to take from me: he lets me feed with his hinds,[12] bars me the place of a brother, and, as[13] much as in him lies, mines my gentility with my education. This is it, Adam, that grieves[14] me. And the spirit of my father, which I think is within me, begins to mutiny against this servitude. I will no longer endure it, though yet I know no wise remedy how to avoid[16] it.

Enter Oliver

ADAMYonder comes my master, your brother.

ORLANDOGo apart,[18] Adam, and thou shalt hear how he will shake me up. Adam stands aside

OLIVERNow, sir, what make[19] you here?

ORLANDONothing: I am not taught to make anything.

OLIVERWhat mar[21] you then, sir?

ORLANDOMarry,[22] sir, I am helping you to mar that which God made, a poor unworthy brother of yours, with idleness.

OLIVERMarry, sir, be better employed, and be naught awhile.[24]

ORLANDOShall I keep your hogs and eat husks with them? What prodigal portion[25] have I spent that I should come to such penury?

OLIVERKnow you where you are, sir?

ORLANDOO, sir, very well: here in your orchard.[28]

OLIVERKnow you before whom, sir?

ORLANDOAy, better than him I am before knows[30] me. I know you are my eldest brother, and, in[31] the gentle condition of blood, you should so know me. The courtesy of nations[32] allows you my better, in that you are the first-born, but the same tradition[33] takes not away my blood, were there twenty brothers betwixt us: I have as much of my father in me as you, albeit I confess your coming before me is[34] nearer to his reverence.

OLIVERWhat, boy! Raises his hand or hits him

ORLANDOCome, come, elder brother, you are too young[37] in this. Grabs him

OLIVERWilt thou lay hands on me, villain?[38]

ORLANDOI am no villain: I am the youngest son of Sir Rowland de Bois,[39] he was my father, and he is thrice a villain that says such a father begot[40] villains. Wert thou not my brother, I would not take this hand from thy throat till this other had pulled out thy tongue for saying so. Thou hast railed on[42] thyself.

ADAMSweet masters, be patient: for your father’s remembrance,[43] be at accord.

OLIVERLet me go, I say.

ORLANDOI will not, till I please: you shall hear me. My father charged you in his will to give me good education: you have trained me like a peasant, obscuring and hiding from me all gentleman-like qualities.[47] The spirit of my father grows strong in me, and I will no longer endure it: therefore allow me such exercises[48] as may become[49] a gentleman, or give me the poor allottery my father left me by testament,[50] with that I will go buy my fortunes. Lets him go

OLIVERAnd what wilt thou do? Beg when that is spent? Well, sir, get you in. I will not long be troubled with you. You shall have some part of your will.[52] I pray you leave me.

ORLANDOI will no further offend[54] you than becomes me for my good.

OLIVERGet you with him, you old dog. To Adam

ADAMIs ‘old dog’ my reward? Most true, I have lost my teeth in your service. God be with my old master, he would not have spoke such a word.

Exeunt Orlando [and] Adam

OLIVERIs it even so? Begin you to grow upon[58] me? I will physic your rankness, and yet give no thousand crowns neither.[59] Holla, Dennis!

Enter Dennis

DENNISCalls your worship?

OLIVERWas not Charles, the duke’s wrestler, here to speak with me?

DENNISSo[62] please you, he is here at the door and importunes access to you.

OLIVERCall him in.

[Exit Dennis]

’Twill be a good way, and tomorrow the wrestling is.

Enter Charles

CHARLESGood morrow[65] to your worship.

OLIVERGood Monsieur Charles, what’s the new news at the new court?

CHARLESThere’s no news at the court, sir, but the old news: that is, the old duke is banished by his younger brother the new duke, and three or four loving[68] lords have put themselves into voluntary exile with him, whose lands and revenues enrich the new duke, therefore he gives them good leave[70] to wander.

OLIVERCan you tell if Rosalind, the duke’s daughter, be banished with her father?

CHARLESO, no; for the duke’s daughter, her cousin, so loves her, being ever[72] from their cradles bred together, that she would have followed her exile, or have died to stay[73] behind her; she is at the court, and no less beloved of her uncle than his own daughter, and never two ladies loved[75] as they do.

OLIVERWhere will the old duke live?

CHARLESThey say he is already in the Forest of Arden,[77] and a many merry men with him; and there they live like the old Robin Hood[78] of England: they say many young gentlemen flock to him every day, and fleet[79] the time carelessly as they did in the golden world.[80]

OLIVERWhat, you wrestle tomorrow before the new duke?

CHARLESMarry do I, sir, and I came to acquaint you with a matter. I am given, sir, secretly to understand that your younger brother Orlando hath a disposition to come in disguised against me to try a fall.[84] Tomorrow, sir, I wrestle for my credit, and he that escapes me without some broken limb shall acquit him well. Your brother is but young and tender,[86] and for your love I would be loath to foil him, as I must for my own honour if he come in: therefore, out of my love to you, I came hither to acquaint you withal,[88] that either you might stay him from his intendment, or brook[89] such disgrace well as he shall run into, in that it is a thing of his own search[90] and altogether against my will.

OLIVERCharles, I thank thee for thy love to me, which thou shalt find I will most kindly requite.[92] I had myself notice of my brother’s purpose herein and have by underhand[93] means laboured to dissuade him from it; but he is resolute. I’ll tell thee, Charles, it is the stubbornest young fellow of France, full of ambition, an envious emulator[95] of every man’s good parts, a secret and villainous contriver against me his natural brother: therefore use thy discretion. I had as lief[96] thou didst break his neck as his finger. And thou wert best look to’t;[97] for if thou dost him any slight disgrace, or if he do not mightily grace[98] himself on thee, he will practice against thee by poison, entrap thee by some treacherous device[99] and never leave thee till he hath ta’en thy life by some indirect means or other, for I assure thee, and almost with tears I speak it, there is not one so young and so villainous this day living. I speak but brotherly of him, but should I anatomize[102] him to thee as he is, I must blush and weep and thou must look pale and wonder.

CHARLESI am heartily glad I came hither to you. If he come tomorrow, I’ll give him his payment.[105] If ever he go alone again, I’ll never wrestle for prize more. And so God keep your worship!

Exit

OLIVERFarewell, good Charles. Now will I stir this gamester:[107] I hope I shall see an end of him; for my soul, yet I know not why, hates nothing more than he. Yet he’s gentle,[109] never schooled and yet learnèd, full of noble device, of all sorts enchantingly beloved, and indeed so much in the heart of the world, and especially of my own people, who best know him, that I am altogether misprised.[111] But it shall not be so long: this wrestler shall clear[112] all. Nothing remains but that I kindle[113] the boy thither, which now I’ll go about.

Exit

Act 1 Scene 21.2

running scene 2

Enter Rosalind and Celia

CELIAI pray thee Rosalind, sweet my coz,[1] be merry.

ROSALINDDear Celia, I show more mirth than I am mistress of, and would[2] you yet I were merrier? Unless you could teach me to forget a banished father, you must not learn[4] me how to remember any extraordinary pleasure.

CELIAHerein I see thou lovest me not with the full weight that I love thee. If my uncle, thy banished father, had banished thy uncle, the duke my father, so[6] thou hadst been still with me, I could have taught my love to take thy father for mine; so wouldst thou, if the truth of thy love to me were so righteously tempered[8] as mine is to thee.

ROSALINDWell, I will forget the condition of my estate,[10] to rejoice in yours.

CELIAYou know my father hath no child but I, nor none is like[11] to have; and truly, when he dies, thou shalt be his heir; for what he hath taken away from thy father perforce,[13] I will render thee again in affection. By mine honour, I will, and when I break that oath, let me turn monster: therefore, my sweet Rose, my dear Rose, be merry.

ROSALINDFrom henceforth I will, coz, and devise sports.[16] Let me see, what think you of falling in love?

CELIAMarry, I prithee do, to make sport[18] withal: but love no man in good earnest, nor no further in sport neither[19] than with safety of a pure blush thou mayst in honour come off again.

ROSALINDWhat shall be our sport, then?

CELIALet us sit and mock the good housewife[22] Fortune from her wheel, that her gifts may henceforth be bestowed equally.

ROSALINDI would we could do so, for her benefits are mightily misplaced, and the bountiful blind woman[25] doth most mistake in her gifts to women.

CELIA’Tis true, for those that she makes fair[26] she scarce makes honest, and those that she makes honest she makes very ill-favouredly.[27]

ROSALINDNay, now thou goest from Fortune’s office[28] to Nature’s: Fortune reigns in gifts of the world, not in the lineaments[29] of Nature.

Enter Clown [Touchstone]

CELIANo? When Nature hath made a fair creature, may she not by Fortune fall[30] into the fire? Though Nature hath given us wit[31] to flout at Fortune, hath not Fortune sent in this fool[32] to cut off the argument?

ROSALINDIndeed, there is Fortune too hard for Nature, when Fortune makes Nature’s natural[34] the cutter-off of Nature’s wit.

CELIAPeradventure[35] this is not Fortune’s work neither, but Nature’s, who perceiveth our natural wits too dull to reason of such goddesses, hath sent this natural for our whetstone,[37] for always the dullness of the fool is the whetstone of the wits.— How now, wit?[38] Whither wander you?

TOUCHSTONEMistress, you must come away to your father.

CELIAWere you made the messenger?[40]

TOUCHSTONENo, by mine honour, but I was bid to come for you.

ROSALINDWhere learned you that oath, fool?

TOUCHSTONEOf a certain knight that swore by his honour they were good pancakes,[43] and swore by his honour the mustard was naught:[44] now I’ll stand to it, the pancakes were naught, and the mustard was good, and yet was not the knight forsworn.[46]

CELIAHow prove you that in the great heap of your knowledge?

ROSALINDAy, marry, now unmuzzle your wisdom.

TOUCHSTONEStand you both forth now: stroke your chins, and swear by your beards that I am a knave.

CELIABy our beards, if we had them, thou art.

TOUCHSTONEBy my knavery, if I had it, then I were, but if you swear by that that is not, you are not forsworn. No more was this knight swearing by his honour, for he never had any; or if he had, he had sworn it away before ever he saw those pancakes or that mustard.

CELIAPrithee, who is’t that thou meanest?

TOUCHSTONEOne that old Frederick, your father, loves.

CELIAMy father’s love is enough to honour him enough; speak no more of him, you’ll be whipped for taxation[59] one of these days.

TOUCHSTONEThe more pity that fools may not speak wisely what wise men do foolishly.

CELIABy my troth,[62] thou sayest true, for since the little wit that fools have was silenced, the little foolery that wise men have makes a great show. Here comes Monsieur the Beau.

Enter Le Beau

ROSALINDWith his mouth full of news.

CELIAWhich he will put[66] on us, as pigeons feed their young.

ROSALINDThen shall we be news-crammed.

CELIAAll the better: we shall be the more marketable.[68]—

Bonjour, Monsieur Le Beau, what’s the news?

LE BEAUFair princess, you have lost[69] much good sport.

CELIASport? Of what colour?[70]

LE BEAUWhat colour, madam? How shall I answer you?

ROSALINDAs wit and fortune will.

TOUCHSTONEOr as the destinies decrees. Imitates Le Beau

CELIAWell said, that was laid[74] on with a trowel.

TOUCHSTONENay, if I keep not my rank[75]—

ROSALINDThou losest[76] thy old smell.

LE BEAUYou amaze[77] me, ladies. I would have told you of good wrestling, which you have lost the sight of.

ROSALINDYet tell us the manner of the wrestling.

LE BEAUI will tell you the beginning, and if it please your ladyships, you may see the end, for the best is yet to do:[81] and here, where you are, they are coming to perform it.

CELIAWell, the beginning that is dead and buried.

LE BEAUThere comes an old man and his three sons—

CELIAI could match this beginning with an old tale.[85]

LE BEAUThree proper[86] young men, of excellent growth and presence.

ROSALINDWith bills[87] on their necks, ‘Be it known unto all men by these presents.’

LE BEAUThe eldest of the three wrestled with Charles, the duke’s wrestler, which Charles in a moment threw him and broke three of his ribs, that[89] there is little hope of life in him. So[90] he served the second, and so the third. Yonder they lie, the poor old man, their father, making such pitiful dole[91] over them that all the beholders take his part with weeping.

ROSALINDAlas!

TOUCHSTONEBut what is the sport, monsieur, that the ladies have lost?

LE BEAUWhy, this that I speak of.

TOUCHSTONEThus men may grow wiser every day. It is the first time that ever I heard breaking of ribs was sport for ladies.

CELIAOr I, I promise thee.

ROSALINDBut is there any[99] else longs to see this broken music in his sides? Is there yet another dotes upon rib-breaking? Shall we see this wrestling, cousin?

LE BEAUYou must if you stay here, for here is the place appointed for the wrestling, and they are ready to perform it.

CELIAYonder, sure they are coming. Let us now stay and see it.

Flourish. Enter Duke [Frederick], Lords, Orlando, Charles and Attendants

DUKE FREDERICKCome on. Since the youth will not be entreated, his[104] own peril on his forwardness.

ROSALINDIs yonder the man? To Le Beau

LE BEAUEven he, madam.

CELIAAlas, he is too young, yet he looks successfully.[108]

DUKE FREDERICKHow now, daughter and cousin![109] Are you crept hither to see the wrestling?

ROSALINDAy, my liege, so please you give us leave.[111]

DUKE FREDERICKYou will take little delight in it, I can tell you, there is such odds[112] in the man.[113] In pity of the challenger’s youth, I would fain dissuade him, but he will not be entreated. Speak to him, ladies, see if you can move him.

CELIACall him hither, good Monsieur Le Beau.

DUKE FREDERICKDo so. I’ll not be by. He stands aside

LE BEAUMonsieur the challenger, the princess calls for you. To Orlando

ORLANDOI attend them with all respect and duty.

ROSALINDYoung man, have you challenged Charles the wrestler?

ORLANDONo, fair princess, he is the general challenger: I come but in,[120] as others do, to try[121] with him the strength of my youth.

CELIAYoung gentleman, your spirits are too bold for your years. You have seen cruel proof of this man’s strength: if you saw yourself with your eyes or knew yourself with your judgement, the fear of your adventure[124] would counsel you to a more equal[125] enterprise. We pray you for your own sake to embrace your own safety and give over this attempt.

ROSALINDDo, young sir: your reputation shall not therefore be misprized.[127] We will make it our suit[128] to the duke that the wrestling might not go forward.

ORLANDOI beseech you, punish me not with your hard thoughts, wherein I confess me much guilty, to deny so fair and excellent ladies anything. But let your fair eyes and gentle wishes go with me to my trial; wherein if I be foiled,[131] there is but one shamed that was never gracious,[132] if killed, but one dead that is willing to be so. I shall do my friends[133] no wrong, for I have none to lament me, the world no injury, for in it I have nothing. Only in the world I fill up a place, which may be better supplied when I have made it empty.

ROSALINDThe little strength that I have, I would it were with you.

CELIAAnd mine, to eke out[137] hers.

ROSALINDFare you well: pray heaven I be deceived[138] in you!

CELIAYour heart’s desires be with you!

CHARLESCome, where is this young gallant that is so desirous to lie[140] with his mother earth?

ORLANDOReady, sir, but his will[142] hath in it a more modest working.

DUKE FREDERICKYou shall try but one fall.[143]

CHARLESNo, I warrant[144] your grace you shall not entreat him to a second, that have so mightily persuaded him from a first.

ORLANDOYou mean to mock me after, you should not have mocked me before. But come your ways.[146]

ROSALINDNow Hercules[148] be thy speed, young man!

CELIAI would I were invisible, to catch the strong fellow by the leg.

Wrestle

ROSALINDO excellent young man!

CELIAIf I had a thunderbolt in mine eye, I can tell who should down.[151]Charles is thrown

Shout

DUKE FREDERICKNo more, no more.

ORLANDOYes, I beseech your grace:

I am not yet well breathed.[154]

DUKE FREDERICKHow dost thou, Charles?

LE BEAUHe cannot speak, my lord.

DUKE FREDERICKBear him away.— Charles is carried out/To Orlando What is thy name, young man?

ORLANDOOrlando, my liege, the youngest son of Sir Rowland de Bois.

DUKE FREDERICKI would thou hadst been son to some man else:

160

The world esteemed thy father honourable,

But I did find him still[161] mine enemy.

Thou shouldst have better pleased me with this deed

Hadst thou descended from another house.

But fare thee well, thou art a gallant youth.

165

I would thou hadst told me of another father.

Exit Duke [with others; Celia, Orlando and Rosalind remain]

CELIAWere I my father, coz, would I do this? To Rosalind

ORLANDOI am more proud to be Sir Rowland’s son, Aside?

His youngest son, and would not change that calling[168]

To be adopted heir to Frederick.

170

ROSALINDMy father loved Sir Rowland as his soul, To Celia

And all the world was of my father’s mind:

Had I before known this young man his son,

I should have given him tears unto[173] entreaties,

Ere[174] he should thus have ventured.

175

CELIAGentle cousin,

Let us go thank him and encourage him. To Rosalind

My father’s rough and envious[177] disposition

Sticks[178] me at heart.— Sir, you have well deserved, To Orlando

If you do keep your promises in love

180

But justly,[180] as you have exceeded all promise,

Your mistress[181] shall be happy.

ROSALINDGentleman, Gives him a chain from her neck

Wear this for me, one out of suits[183] with fortune,

That could give more, but that her hand lacks means.

185

Shall we go, coz? To Celia

CELIAAy.— Fare you well, fair gentleman.

ORLANDOCan I not say, I thank you? My better parts[187]

Are all thrown down, and that which here stands up

Is but a quintain,[189] a mere lifeless block.

190

ROSALINDHe calls us back. My pride fell with my fortunes.

I’ll ask him what he would.[191]— Did you call, sir? To Orlando

Sir, you have wrestled well and overthrown

More than your enemies.

CELIAWill you go, coz?

195

ROSALINDHave with you.[195] Fare you well.

Exeunt [Rosalind and Celia]

ORLANDOWhat passion hangs these weights upon my tongue? I cannot speak to her,

yet she urged conference.[197]

Enter Le Beau

O poor Orlando, thou art overthrown!

Or[199] Charles or something weaker masters thee.

200

LE BEAUGood sir, I do in friendship counsel you

To leave this place. Albeit you have deserved

High commendation, true applause and love,

Yet such is now the duke’s condition[203]

That he misconstrues all that you have done.

205

The duke is humorous:[205] what he is indeed

More suits you to conceive[206] than I to speak of.

ORLANDOI thank you, sir; and pray you tell me this:

Which of the two was daughter of the duke

That here was at the wrestling?

210

LE BEAUNeither his daughter, if we judge by manners,

But yet indeed the taller[211] is his daughter,

The other is daughter to the banished duke,

And here detained by her usurping uncle

To keep his daughter company, whose loves

215

Are dearer than the natural bond of sisters.

But I can tell you that of late this duke

Hath ta’en displeasure ’gainst his gentle[217] niece,

Grounded upon no other argument[218]

But that the people praise her for her virtues

220

And pity her for her good father’s sake;

And, on my life, his malice ’gainst the lady

Will suddenly[222] break forth. Sir, fare you well.

Hereafter, in a better world than this,

I shall desire more love and knowledge[224] of you.

225

ORLANDOI rest[225] much bounden to you. Fare you well.

[Exit Le Beau]

Thus must I from[226] the smoke into the smother,

From tyrant duke unto a tyrant brother.

But heavenly Rosalind!

Exit

Act 1 Scene 3

running scene 2 continues

Enter Celia and Rosalind

CELIAWhy, cousin? Why, Rosalind? Cupid[1] have mercy, not a word?

ROSALINDNot one to throw at a dog.

CELIANo, thy words are too precious to be cast away upon curs,[3] throw some of them at me; come, lame me with reasons.[4]

ROSALINDThen there were[5] two cousins laid up, when the one should be lamed with reasons and the other mad without any.

CELIABut is all this for your father?

ROSALINDNo, some of it is for my child’s father.[8] O, how full of briars is this working-day[9] world!

CELIAThey are but burs,[10] cousin, thrown upon thee in holiday foolery: if we walk not in the trodden paths our very petticoats[11] will catch them.

ROSALINDI could shake them off my coat:[12] these burs are in my heart.

CELIAHem[13] them away.

ROSALINDI would try, if I could cry ‘hem’[14] and have him.

CELIACome, come, wrestle[15] with thy affections.

ROSALINDO, they take[16] the part of a better wrestler than myself!

CELIAO, a[17] good wish upon you! You will try in time, in despite of a fall. But turning[18] these jests out of service, let us talk in good earnest: is it possible, on such a sudden, you should fall into so strong a liking with old Sir Rowland’s youngest son?

ROSALINDThe duke my father loved his father dearly.

CELIADoth it therefore ensue that you should love his son dearly?[22] By this kind of chase,[23] I should hate him, for my father hated his father dearly; yet I hate not Orlando.

ROSALINDNo, faith, hate him not, for my sake.

CELIAWhy[26] should I not? Doth he not deserve well?

Enter Duke with Lords

ROSALINDLet me love him for that, and do you love him because I do. Look, here comes the duke.

CELIAWith his eyes full of anger.

30

DUKE FREDERICKMistress, dispatch you with your safest haste[30] To Rosalind

And get you from our court.

ROSALINDMe, uncle?

DUKE FREDERICKYou, cousin

Within these ten days if that thou be’st found

35

So near our public court as twenty miles,

Thou diest for it.

ROSALINDI do beseech your grace,

Let me the knowledge of my fault bear with me:

If with myself I hold intelligence[39]

40

Or have acquaintance with mine own desires,

If that I do not dream or be not frantic[41] —

As I do trust I am not — then, dear[42] uncle,

Never so much as in a thought unborn

Did I offend your highness.

45

DUKE FREDERICKThus do all traitors.

If their purgation[46] did consist in words,

They are as innocent as grace[47] itself;

Let it suffice thee that I trust thee not.

ROSALINDYet your mistrust cannot make me a traitor;

50

Tell me whereon[50] the likelihood depends.

DUKE FREDERICKThou art thy father’s daughter, there’s enough.

ROSALINDSo was I when your highness took his dukedom,

So was I when your highness banished him;

Treason is not inherited, my lord,

55

Or if we did derive it from our friends,[55]

What’s that to me? My father was no traitor.

Then, good my liege, mistake me not so much

To think my poverty is treacherous.

CELIADear sovereign, hear me speak.

60

DUKE FREDERICKAy, Celia, we stayed[60] her for your sake,

Else[61] had she with her father ranged along.

CELIAI did not then entreat to have her stay,

It was your pleasure[63] and your own remorse.

I was too young[64] that time to value her,

65

But now I know her: if she be a traitor,

Why so am I. We still[66] have slept together,

Rose at an instant,[67] learned, played, eat together,

And wheresoe’er we went, like Juno’s swans,[68]

Still we went coupled and inseparable.

70

DUKE FREDERICKShe is too subtle[70] for thee, and her smoothness,

Her very silence and her patience

Speak to the people, and they pity her.

Thou art a fool: she robs thee of thy name,[73]

And thou wilt show more bright and seem more virtuous

75

When she is gone. Then open not thy lips.

Firm and irrevocable is my doom[76]

Which I have passed upon her: she is banished.

CELIAPronounce that sentence then on me, my liege:

I cannot live out of her company.

80

DUKE FREDERICKYou are a fool. You, niece, provide[80] yourself:

If you outstay the time, upon mine honour,

And in the greatness[82] of my word, you die.

Exeunt Duke and others

CELIAO my poor Rosalind, whither wilt thou go?

Wilt thou change[84] fathers? I will give thee mine.

85

I charge thee be not thou more grieved than I am.

ROSALINDI have more cause.

CELIAThou hast not, cousin.

Prithee be cheerful; know’st thou not the duke

Hath banished me, his daughter?

90

ROSALINDThat he hath not.

CELIANo, hath not? Rosalind lacks then the love

Which teacheth thee that thou and I am one.

Shall we be sundered?[93] Shall we part, sweet girl?

No, let my father seek another heir:

95

Therefore devise with me how we may fly,

Whither to go and what to bear with us.

And do not seek to take your change[97] upon you,

To bear your griefs yourself and leave me out,

For, by this heaven, now at[99] our sorrows pale,

100

Say what thou canst, I’ll go along with thee.

ROSALINDWhy, whither shall we go?

CELIATo seek my uncle in the Forest of Arden.

ROSALINDAlas, what danger will it be to us,

Maids as we are, to travel forth so far!

105

Beauty provoketh thieves sooner than gold.

CELIAI’ll put myself in poor and mean[106] attire

And with a kind of umber[107] smirch my face.

The like do you. So shall we pass along

And never stir assailants.

110

ROSALINDWere it not better,

Because that I am more than common tall,

That I did suit[112] me all points like a man?

A gallant curtle-axe[113] upon my thigh,

A boar-spear[114] in my hand, and — in my heart

115

Lie there what hidden woman’s fear there will —

We’ll have a swashing[116] and a martial outside,

As many other mannish cowards have

That do outface[118] it with their semblances.

CELIAWhat shall I call thee when thou art a man?

120

ROSALINDI’ll have no worse a name than Jove’s[120] own page,

And therefore look you call me Ganymede.[121]

But what will you be called?

CELIASomething that hath a reference to my state:[123]

No longer Celia, but Aliena.[124]

125

ROSALINDBut, cousin, what if we assayed[125] to steal

The clownish fool out of your father’s court?

Would he not be a comfort to our travel?[127]

CELIAHe’ll go along o’er the wide world with me.

Leave me alone[129] to woo him. Let’s away,

130

And get our jewels and our wealth together,

Devise the fittest time and safest way

To hide us from pursuit that will be made

After my flight. Now go in we content[133]

To liberty and not to banishment.

Exeunt

Act 2 Scene 12.1

running scene 3

Enter Duke Senior, Amiens and two or three Lords, like foresters

DUKE SENIORNow, my co-mates and brothers in exile,

Hath not old custom[2] made this life more sweet

Than that of painted pomp?[3] Are not these woods

More free from peril than the envious[4] court?

5

Here feel we not the penalty of Adam,[5]

The seasons’ difference,[6] as the icy fang

And churlish chiding[7] of the winter’s wind,

Which, when it bites and blows upon my body,

Even till I shrink with cold, I smile and say

10

‘This is no flattery: these are counsellors

That feelingly[11] persuade me what I am.’

Sweet are the uses[12] of adversity,

Which, like the toad,[13] ugly and venomous,

Wears yet a precious jewel in his head.

15

And this our life exempt[15] from public haunt

Finds tongues[16] in trees, books in the running brooks,

Sermons in stones and good in everything.

AMIENSI would not change[18] it. Happy is your grace

That can translate[19] the stubbornness of fortune

20

Into so quiet and so sweet a style.[20]

DUKE SENIORCome, shall we go and kill us venison?

And yet it irks me the poor dappled fools,[22]

Being native burghers[23] of this desert city,

Should in their own confines[24] with forkèd heads

25

Have their round haunches gored.

FIRST LORDIndeed, my lord,

The melancholy Jaques grieves at that,

And in that kind[28] swears you do more usurp

Than doth your brother that hath banished you.

30

Today my Lord of Amiens and myself

Did steal behind him as he lay along[31]

Under an oak whose antique[32] root peeps out

Upon the brook that brawls[33] along this wood,

To the which place a poor sequestered[34] stag

35

That from the hunter’s aim had ta’en a hurt,

Did come to languish; and indeed, my lord,

The wretched animal heaved forth such groans

That their discharge did stretch his leathern coat

Almost to bursting, and the big round tears

40

Coursed[40] one another down his innocent nose

In piteous chase: and thus the hairy fool

Much markèd of[42] the melancholy Jaques,

Stood on th’extremest verge[43] of the swift brook,

Augmenting it with tears.

45

DUKE SENIORBut what said Jaques?

Did he not moralize[46] this spectacle?

FIRST LORDO, yes, into a thousand similes.

First, for his weeping into the needless[48] stream;

‘Poor deer,’ quoth he, ‘thou mak’st a testament[49]

50

As worldlings[50] do, giving thy sum of more

To that which had too much.’ Then, being there alone,

Left and abandoned of his velvet friend,[52]

“Tis right,’ quoth he, ‘thus misery doth part[53]

The flux[54] of company.’ Anon a careless herd,

55

Full of the pasture, jumps along by him

And never stays[56] to greet him. ‘Ay,’ quoth Jaques,

‘Sweep on, you fat and greasy[57] citizens,

’Tis just the fashion; wherefore[58] do you look

Upon that poor and broken bankrupt there?’

60

Thus most invectively[60] he pierceth through

The body of country, city, court,

Yea, and of this our life, swearing that we

Are mere[63] usurpers, tyrants, and what’s worse,

To fright the animals and to kill them up[64]

65

In their assigned and native dwelling-place.

DUKE SENIORAnd did you leave him in this contemplation?

SECOND LORDWe did, my lord, weeping and commenting[67]

Upon the sobbing deer.

DUKE SENIORShow me the place.

70

I love to cope[70] him in these sullen fits,

For then he’s full of matter.[71]

FIRST LORDI’ll bring you to him straight.[72]

Exeunt

Act 2 Scene 22.2

running scene 4

Enter Duke [Frederick], with Lords

DUKE FREDERICKCan it be possible that no man saw them?

It cannot be: some villains[2] of my court

Are of consent and sufferance[3] in this.

FIRST LORDI cannot hear of any that did see her.

5

The ladies, her attendants of her chamber,

Saw her abed, and in the morning early

They found the bed untreasured[7] of their mistress.

SECOND LORDMy lord, the roynish[8] clown, at whom so oft

Your grace was wont[9] to laugh, is also missing.

10

Hisperia, the princess’ gentlewoman,

Confesses that she secretly o’erheard

Your daughter and her cousin much commend

The parts[13] and graces of the wrestler

That did but lately foil the sinewy Charles,

15

And she believes, wherever they are gone,

That youth is surely in their company.

DUKE FREDERICKSend to his brother, fetch that gallant[17] hither.

If he be absent, bring his brother to me.

I’ll make him find him. Do this suddenly,[19]

20

And let not search and inquisition quail[20]

To bring again[21] these foolish runaways.

Exeunt

Act 2 Scene 32.3

running scene 5

Enter Orlando and Adam, [meeting]

ORLANDOWho’s there?

ADAMWhat, my young master? O, my gentle master!

O my sweet master! O you memory[3]

Of old Sir Rowland! Why, what make you[4] here?

5

Why are you virtuous? Why do people love you?

And wherefore are you gentle, strong and valiant?

Why would you be so fond[7] to overcome

The bonny priser[8] of the humorous duke?

Your praise is come too swiftly home before you.

10

Know you not, master, to some kind of men

Their graces serve them but as enemies?

No more[12] do yours: your virtues, gentle master,

Are sanctified[13] and holy traitors to you.

O, what a world is this, when what is comely[14]

15

Envenoms[15] him that bears it!

ORLANDOWhy, what’s the matter?

ADAMO, unhappy youth,

Come not within these doors! Within this roof

The enemy of all your graces lives:

20

Your brother — no, no brother, yet the son —

Yet not the son, I will not call him son —

Of him I was about to call his father —

Hath heard your praises,[23] and this night he means

To burn the lodging where you use[24] to lie

25

And you within it. If he fail of[25] that,

He will have other means to cut you off;[26]

I overheard him and his practices.[27]

This is no place,[28] this house is but a butchery;

Abhor it, fear it, do not enter it.

30

ORLANDOWhy, whither, Adam, wouldst thou have me go?

ADAMNo matter whither, so[31] you come not here.

ORLANDOWhat, wouldst thou have me go and beg my food?

Or with a base and boist’rous[33] sword enforce

A thievish living on the common[34] road?

35

This I must do, or know not what to do:

Yet this I will not do, do how I can.

I rather will subject me to the malice

Of a diverted blood[38] and bloody brother.

ADAMBut do not so. I have five hundred crowns,

40

The thrifty hire[40] I saved under your father,

Which I did store to be my foster-nurse[41]

When service[42] should in my old limbs lie lame

And unregarded[43] age in corners thrown.

Take that, and he that doth the ravens feed,

45

Yea, providently caters for the sparrow,

Be comfort to my age. Here is the gold, Gives gold

All this I give you. Let me be your servant.

Though I look old, yet I am strong and lusty;[48]

For in my youth I never did apply

50

Hot and rebellious liquors in my blood,

Nor did not with unbashful forehead[51] woo

The means of weakness and debility:

Therefore my age is as a lusty winter,

Frosty,[54] but kindly. Let me go with you.

55

I’ll do the service of a younger man

In all your business and necessities.

ORLANDOO good old man, how well in thee appears

The constant[58] service of the antique world,

When service sweat[59] for duty, not for meed!

60

Thou art not for the fashion of these times,

Where none will sweat but for promotion,

And having that, do choke[62] their service up

Even with the having: it is not so with thee.

But, poor old man, thou prun’st a rotten tree,

65

That cannot so much as a blossom yield

In lieu of[66] all thy pains and husbandry.

But come thy ways,[67] we’ll go along together,

And ere we have thy youthful wages spent,

We’ll light upon some settled low content.[69]

70

ADAMMaster, go on, and I will follow thee

To the last gasp with truth and loyalty.

From seventeen years till now almost fourscore[72]

Here livèd I, but now live here no more.

At seventeen years many their fortunes seek,

75

But at fourscore it is too[75] late a week.

Yet fortune cannot recompense me better

Than to die well and not my master’s debtor.

Exeunt

Act 2 Scene 42.4

running scene 6

Enter Rosalind for Ganymede, Celia for Aliena, and Clown alias Touchstone

ROSALINDO Jupiter,[1] how merry are my spirits!

TOUCHSTONEI care not for my spirits, if my legs were not weary.

ROSALINDAside? I could find in my heart to disgrace my man’s apparel and to cry like a woman, but I must comfort the weaker vessel,[4] as doublet and hose ought to show itself courageous to petticoat: therefore courage, good Aliena!

CELIAI pray you bear with me. I cannot go no further.

TOUCHSTONEFor my part, I had rather bear with you than bear you: yet I should bear no cross[8] if I did bear you, for I think you have no money in your purse.

ROSALINDWell, this is the Forest of Arden.

TOUCHSTONEAy, now am I in Arden, the more fool I. When I was at home, I was in a better place, but travellers must be content.

Enter Corin and Silvius

ROSALINDAy, be so, good Touchstone. Look you, who comes here: a young man and an old in solemn[13] talk. They stand aside

CORINThat is the way to make her scorn you still.

15

SILVIUSO Corin, that thou knew’st how I do love her!

CORINI partly guess, for I have loved ere now.

SILVIUSNo, Corin, being old, thou canst not guess,

Though in thy youth thou wast as true a lover

As ever sighed upon a midnight pillow:

20

But if thy love were ever like to mine —

As sure I think did never man love so —

How many actions most ridiculous

Hast thou been drawn to by thy fantasy?[23]

CORINInto a thousand that I have forgotten.

25

SILVIUSO, thou didst then never love so heartily![25]

If thou rememb’rest not the slightest folly[26]

That ever love did make thee run into,

Thou hast not loved.

Or if thou hast not sat as I do now,

30

Wearing[30] thy hearer in thy mistress’ praise,

Thou hast not loved.

Or if thou hast not broke from[32] company

Abruptly, as my passion now makes me,

Thou hast not loved.

35

O Phoebe,[35] Phoebe, Phoebe!

Exit

ROSALINDAlas, poor shepherd! Searching of[36] thy wound,

I have by hard adventure[37] found mine own.

TOUCHSTONEAnd I mine. I remember when I was in love, I broke my sword[38] upon a stone and bid him[39] take that for coming a-night to Jane Smile. And I remember the kissing of her batler[40] and the cow’s dugs that her pretty chopt hands had milked; and I remember the wooing of a peascod[41] instead of her, from whom I took two cods[42] and, giving her them again, said with weeping tears, ‘Wear these for my sake.’ We that are true lovers run into strange capers;[43] but as all is mortal in nature, so is all nature in love mortal in folly.

ROSALINDThou speakest wiser than thou art ware[45] of.

TOUCHSTONENay, I shall ne’er be ware of mine own wit[46] till I break my shins against it.

ROSALINDJove, Jove! This shepherd’s passion

Is much upon my fashion.[49]

50

TOUCHSTONEAnd mine, but it grows something[50] stale with me.

CELIAI pray you one of you question yond[51] man

If he for gold will give us any food.

I faint almost to death.

TOUCHSTONEHolla, you clown![54] To Corin

55

ROSALINDPeace, fool, he’s not thy kinsman.

CORINWho calls?

TOUCHSTONEYour betters, sir.

CORINElse are they very wretched.

ROSALINDPeace, I say. Good even[59] to you, friend.

60

CORINAnd to you, gentle sir, and to you all.

ROSALINDI prithee, shepherd, if that love or gold

Can in this desert[62] place buy entertainment,

Bring us where we may rest ourselves and feed:

Here’s a young maid with travel much oppressed

65

And faints for succour.[65]

CORINFair sir, I pity her

And wish, for her sake more than for mine own,

My fortunes were more able to relieve her.

But I am shepherd to another man

70

And do not shear[70] the fleeces that I graze:

My master is of churlish disposition

And little recks[72] to find the way to heaven

By doing deeds of hospitality.

Besides, his cote,[74] his flocks and bounds of feed

75

Are now on sale, and at our sheepcote[75] now,

By reason of his absence, there is nothing

That you will feed on. But what is, come see,

And in my voice[78] most welcome shall you be.

ROSALINDWhat is he that shall buy his flock and pasture?

80

CORINThat young swain[80] that you saw here but erewhile,

That little cares for buying anything.

ROSALINDI pray thee if it stand[82] with honesty,

Buy thou the cottage, pasture and the flock,

And thou shalt have to pay[84] for it of us.

85

CELIAAnd we will mend[85] thy wages. I like this place

And willingly could waste[86] my time in it.

CORINAssuredly the thing is to be sold.

Go with me: if you like upon report

The soil, the profit and this kind of life,

90

I will your very faithful feeder[90] be

And buy it with your gold right suddenly.[91]

Exeunt

Act 2 Scene 5

running scene 7

Enter Amiens, Jaques and others

AMIENSSong

Under the greenwood[1] tree

Who[2] loves to lie with me,

And turn[3] his merry note

Unto the sweet bird’s throat,[4]

5

Come hither, come hither, come hither:

Here shall he see no enemy

But winter and rough weather.

JAQUESMore, more, I prithee more.

AMIENSIt will make you melancholy, Monsieur Jaques.

10

JAQUESI thank it. More, I prithee more.

I can suck melancholy out of a song,

As a weasel sucks eggs. More, I prithee more.

AMIENSMy voice is ragged.[13] I know I cannot please you.

JAQUESI do not desire you to please me,

15

I do desire you to sing.

Come, more: another stanzo[16] — call you ’em stanzos?

AMIENSWhat you will, Monsieur Jaques.

JAQUESNay, I[18] care not for their names. They owe me nothing. Will you sing?

AMIENSMore at your request than to please myself.

JAQUESWell then, if ever I thank any man, I’ll thank you. But that[20] they call compliment[21] is like th’encounter of two dog-apes, and when a man thanks me heartily, methinks I have given him a penny and he renders me the beggarly[22] thanks. Come, sing; and you that will not, hold your tongues.

AMIENSWell, I’ll end[24] the song. Sirs, cover the while. The duke will drink under this tree. He hath been all this day to look[25] you. A table with food and drink is set out

JAQUESAnd I have been all this day to avoid him.

He is too disputable[27] for my company:

I think of as many matters[28] as he, but I give

Heaven thanks and make no boast of them.

30

Come, warble, come.

Song. All together here

Who doth ambition shun

And loves to live i’th’sun,[32]

Seeking the food he eats

And pleased with what he gets,

35

Come hither, come hither, come hither:

Here shall he see etc.[36]

JAQUESI’ll give you a verse to this note

That I made yesterday in[38] despite of my invention. Hands Amiens a paper

AMIENSAnd I’ll sing it. Thus it goes:

40

If it do come to pass Sings

That any man turn ass,

Leaving his wealth and ease,

A stubborn will to please,

Ducdame,[44] ducdame, ducdame:

45

HEREshall he see gross[45] fools as he, Other lords gather around him

An[46] if he will come to me. in a circle, examining the paper

What’s that ‘ducdame’?

JAQUES’Tis a Greek[48] invocation, to call fools into a circle. I’ll go sleep, if I can. If I cannot, I’ll rail[49] against all the first-born of Egypt.

AMIENSAnd I’ll go seek the duke. His banquet[50] is prepared.

Exeunt [separately]

Act 2 Scene 6

running scene 7 continues

Enter Orlando and Adam

ADAMDear master, I can go no further.

O, I die for food! Here lie I down, Lies down

And measure out my grave. Farewell, kind master.

ORLANDOWhy, how now, Adam? No greater heart in thee? Live a little, comfort[4] a little, cheer thyself a little. If this uncouth[5] forest yield anything savage, I will either be food for it or bring it for food to thee. Thy conceit[6] is nearer death than thy powers. For my sake be comfortable,[7] hold death awhile at the arm’s end. I will here be with thee presently,[8] and if I bring thee not something to eat, I will give thee leave to die. But if thou diest before I come, thou art a mocker of my labour. Well said![10] Thou look’st cheerly, and I’ll be with thee quickly. Yet thou liest in the bleak air. Come, I will bear thee to some shelter, and thou shalt not die for lack of a dinner, if there live anything in this desert. Picks up Adam Cheerly, good Adam!

Exeunt

Act 2 Scene 7

running scene 7 continues

Enter Duke Senior and Lord[s], like outlaws

DUKE SENIORI think he be transformed into a beast,

For I can nowhere find him like a man.

FIRST LORDMy lord, he is but even now gone hence:

Here was he merry, hearing of a song.

5

DUKE SENIORIf he, compact of jars,[5] grow musical,

We shall have shortly discord in the spheres.[6]

Go, seek him: tell him I would speak with him.

Enter Jaques

FIRST LORDHe saves my labour by his own approach.

DUKE SENIORWhy, how now, monsieur! What a life is this,

10

That your poor friends must woo your company?

What, you look merrily.

JAQUESA fool, a fool! I met a fool i’th’forest,

A motley[13] fool — a miserable world.

As I do live by food, I met a fool

15

Who laid him down and basked him in the sun,

And railed on Lady Fortune in good terms,

In good set terms,[17] and yet a motley fool.

‘Good morrow, fool’, quoth I. ‘No, sir,’ quoth he,

‘Call[19] me not fool till heaven hath sent me fortune.’

20

And then he drew a dial[20] from his poke,

And looking on it with lack-lustre eye,

Says very wisely, ‘It is ten o’clock,

Thus we may see’, quoth he, ‘how the world wags.[23]

’Tis but an hour[24] ago since it was nine,

25

And after one hour more ’twill be eleven,

And so, from hour to hour, we ripe[26] and ripe,

And then, from hour to hour, we rot[27] and rot,

And thereby hangs a tale.[28]’ When I did hear

The motley fool thus moral[29] on the time,

30

My lungs began to crow like chanticleer,[30]

That fools should be so deep contemplative,[31]

And I did laugh sans[32] intermission

An hour by his dial. O noble fool!

A worthy fool! Motley’s the only wear.[34]

35

DUKE SENIORWhat fool is this?

JAQUESO worthy fool! One that hath been a courtier,

And says, if ladies be but young and fair,

They have the gift to know it. And in his brain,

Which is as dry[39] as the remainder biscuit

40

After a voyage, he hath strange places[40] crammed

With observation, the which he vents[41]

In mangled forms. O, that I were a fool!

I am ambitious for a motley coat.

DUKE SENIORThou shalt have one.

45

JAQUESIt is my only suit,[45]

Provided that you weed[46] your better judgements

Of all opinion that grows rank[47] in them

That I am wise. I must have liberty

Withal,[49] as large a charter as the wind,

50

To blow on whom I please, for so fools have.

And they that are most gallèd[51] with my folly,

They most must laugh. And why, sir, must they so?

The ‘why’ is plain as way[53] to parish church:

He that[54] a fool doth very wisely hit

55

Doth very foolishly, although he smart,[55]

Seem senseless[56] of the bob. If not,

The wise man’s folly is anatomized[57]

Even by the squandering glances[58] of the fool.

Invest[59] me in my motley, give me leave

60

To speak my mind, and I will through and through

Cleanse[61] the foul body of th’infected world,

If they will patiently receive my medicine.

DUKE SENIORFie on thee! I can tell what thou wouldst do.

JAQUESWhat, for a counter,[64] would I do but good?

65

DUKE SENIORMost mischievous foul sin, in chiding sin.

For thou thyself hast been a libertine,[66]

As sensual as the brutish sting[67] itself;

And all th’embossèd[68] sores and headed evils

That thou with licence of free foot hast caught

70

Wouldst thou disgorge[70] into the general world.

JAQUESWhy, who cries out on pride,[71]

That can therein tax[72] any private party?

Doth it not flow as hugely as the sea,

Till that the weary[74] very means do ebb?

75

What woman in the city do I name,

When that I say the city woman bears

The cost of princes[77] on unworthy shoulders?

Who can come in[78] and say that I mean her,

When such a one as she, such is her neighbour?

80

Or what is he of basest function[80]

That says his bravery[81] is not on my cost,

Thinking that I mean him, but therein suits[82]

His folly to the mettle[83] of my speech?

There then, how then, what then? Let me see wherein

85

My tongue hath wronged him: if it do him right,[85]

Then he hath wronged himself. If he be free,[86]

Why then my taxing like a wild-goose flies,

Unclaimed of any man. But who comes here?

Enter Orlando

ORLANDOForbear,[89] and eat no more. Draws his sword

90

JAQUESWhy, I have eat none yet.

ORLANDONor shalt not, till necessity be served.

JAQUESOf[92] what kind should this cock come of?

DUKE SENIORArt thou thus boldened, man, by thy distress,

Or else a rude[94] despiser of good manners,

95

That in civility thou seem’st so empty?

ORLANDOYou touched[96] my vein at first. The thorny point

Of bare distress hath ta’en from me the show

Of smooth civility: yet am I inland bred[98]

And know some nurture.[99] But forbear, I say:

100

He dies that touches any of this fruit

Till I and my affairs are answerèd.[101]

JAQUESAn you will not be answered with reason,[102] I must die.

DUKE SENIORWhat would you have? Your gentleness[103] shall force

More than your force move us to gentleness.

105

ORLANDOI almost die for food, and let me have it.

DUKE SENIORSit down and feed, and welcome to our table.

ORLANDOSpeak you so gently? Pardon me, I pray you.

I thought that all things had been savage here,

And therefore put I on the countenance[109]

110

Of stern commandment. But whate’er you are

That in this desert inaccessible,

Under the shade of melancholy[112] boughs,

Lose and neglect the creeping hours of time,

If ever you have looked on better days,

115

If ever been where bells have knolled[115] to church,

If ever sat at any good man’s feast,

If ever from your eyelids wiped a tear

And know what ’tis to pity and be pitied,

Let gentleness my strong enforcement[119] be:

120

In the which hope I blush, and hide my sword. Sheathes his sword

DUKE SENIORTrue is it that we have seen better days,

And have with holy bell been knolled to church,

And sat at good men’s feasts, and wiped our eyes

Of drops that sacred pity hath engendered:

125

And therefore sit you down in gentleness,

And take upon command[126] what help we have

That to your wanting[127] may be ministered.

ORLANDOThen but forbear your food a little while,

Whiles, like a doe, I go to find my fawn

130

And give it food. There is an old poor man,

Who after me hath many a weary step

Limped in pure love: till he be first sufficed,

Oppressed with two weak[133] evils, age and hunger,

I will not touch a bit.

135

DUKE SENIORGo find him out.

And we will nothing waste[136] till you return.

ORLANDOI thank ye, and be blest for your good comfort!

[Exit]

DUKE SENIORThou see’st we are not all alone unhappy:[138]

This wide and universal theatre

140

Presents more woeful pageants than the scene

Wherein we play in.

JAQUESAll the world’s a stage,

And all the men and women merely players;

They have their exits and their entrances,

145

And one man in his time plays many parts,

His acts[146] being seven ages. At first the infant,

Mewling[147] and puking in the nurse’s arms.

Then the whining schoolboy, with his satchel

And shining morning face, creeping like snail

150

Unwillingly to school. And then the lover,

Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad

Made to his mistress’ eyebrow. Then a soldier,

Full of strange[153] oaths and bearded like the pard,

Jealous in[154] honour, sudden and quick in quarrel,

155

Seeking the bubble reputation

Even in the cannon’s mouth. And then the justice,

In fair round belly with good capon[157] lined,

With eyes severe and beard of formal cut,

Full of wise saws[159] and modern instances.

160

And so he plays his part. The sixth age shifts

Into the lean and slippered pantaloon,[161]

With spectacles on nose and pouch on side,

His youthful hose,[163] well saved, a world too wide

For his shrunk shank,[164] and his big manly voice,

165

Turning again toward childish treble, pipes

And whistles in his[166] sound. Last scene of all,

That ends this strange eventful history,[167]

Is second childishness and mere[168] oblivion,

Sans[169] teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything.

Enter Orlando, with Adam

170

DUKE SENIORWelcome. Set down your venerable burden,

And let him feed.

ORLANDOI thank you most for him. Sets down Adam

ADAMSo had you need.

I scarce can speak to thank you for myself.

175

DUKE SENIORWelcome, fall to.[175] I will not trouble you

As yet, to question you about your fortunes.—

Give us some music, and, good cousin, sing.

Song

Blow, blow, thou winter wind,

Thou art not so unkind[179]

180

As man’s ingratitude.

Thy tooth is not so keen,[181]

Because thou art not seen,

Although thy breath be rude.[183]

Heigh-ho, sing heigh-ho, unto the green holly.

185

Most friendship is feigning, most loving mere folly:

The hey-ho, the holly.

This life is most jolly.

Freeze, freeze, thou bitter sky

That dost not bite so nigh[189]

190

As benefits forgot:

Though thou the waters warp,[191]

Thy sting is not so sharp

As friend remembered not.

Hey-ho, sing, etc.

195

DUKE SENIORIf that you were the good Sir Rowland’s son, To Orlando

As you have whispered faithfully[196] you were,

And as mine eye doth his effigies[197] witness

Most truly limned[198] and living in your face,

Be truly welcome hither: I am the duke

200

That loved your father. The residue of your fortune,

Go to my cave and tell me. Good old man,

Thou art right welcome as thy master is.

Support him by the arm. Give me your hand,

And let me all your fortunes[204] understand.

Exeunt

Act 3 Scene 13.1

running scene 8

Enter Duke [Frederick], Lords and Oliver

DUKE FREDERICKNot see him[1] since? Sir, sir, that cannot be:

But were I not the better[2] part made mercy,

I should not seek an absent argument[3]

Of my revenge, thou present.[4] But look to it:

5

Find out thy brother, wheresoe’er he is.

Seek him with candle. Bring him dead or living

Within this twelvemonth, or turn[7] thou no more

To seek a living in our territory.

Thy lands and all things that thou dost call thine

10

Worth seizure[10] do we seize into our hands,

Till thou canst quit[11] thee by thy brother’s mouth

Of what we think against thee.

OLIVERO, that your highness knew my heart in this!

I never loved my brother in my life.

15

DUKE FREDERICKMore villain thou. Well, push him out of doors,

And let my officers of[16] such a nature

Make[17] an extent upon his house and lands.

Do this expediently[18] and turn him going.

Exeunt

Act 3 Scene 23.2

running scene 9

Enter Orlando With a paper

ORLANDOHang there, my verse, in witness of my love:

And thou, thrice-crownèd[2] queen of night, survey

With thy chaste eye, from thy pale sphere above,

Thy huntress’[4] name that my full life doth sway.

5

O Rosalind! These trees shall be my books,

And in their barks my thoughts I’ll character,[6]

That every eye which in this forest looks

Shall see thy virtue witnessed everywhere.

Run, run, Orlando, carve on every tree

10

The fair, the chaste and unexpressive[10] she.

Exit

Enter Corin and Clown [Touchstone]

CORINAnd how like you this shepherd’s life, Master Touchstone?

TOUCHSTONETruly, shepherd, in respect of itself, it is a good life; but in respect that it is a shepherd’s life, it is naught. In respect that it is solitary, I like it very well; but in respect that it is private,[14] it is a very vile life. Now in respect it is in the fields, it pleaseth me well; but in respect it is not in the court, it is tedious. As it is a spare[15] life, look you, it fits my humour[16] well; but as there is no more plenty in it, it goes much against my stomach.[17] Hast any philosophy in thee, shepherd?

CORINNo more but that I know the more one sickens the worse at ease he is: and that he that wants[19] money, means and content is without three good friends: that the property of rain is to wet and fire to burn: that good pasture makes fat sheep: and that a great cause of the night is lack of the sun: that he that hath learned no wit by nature nor art[22] may complain of good breeding or comes of a very dull kindred.

TOUCHSTONESuch a one is a natural[24] philosopher. Wast ever in court, shepherd?

CORINNo, truly.

TOUCHSTONEThen thou art damned.

CORINNay, I hope.[27]

TOUCHSTONETruly thou art damned, like an ill-roasted[28] egg: all on one side.

CORINFor not being at court? Your reason.

TOUCHSTONEWhy, if thou never wast at court, thou never saw’st good manners.[30] If thou never saw’st good manners, then thy manners must be wicked, and wickedness is sin, and sin is damnation. Thou art in a parlous[32] state, shepherd.

CORINNot a whit, Touchstone. Those that are good manners at the court are as ridiculous in the country as the behaviour of the country is most mockable at the court. You told me you salute not at the court, but you kiss[35] your hands; that courtesy would be uncleanly, if courtiers were shepherds.

TOUCHSTONEInstance,[37] briefly. Come, instance.

CORINWhy, we are still[38] handling our ewes, and their fells, you know are greasy.

TOUCHSTONEWhy, do not your courtier’s hands sweat? And is not the grease[39] of a mutton as wholesome as the sweat of a man? Shallow, shallow. A better instance, I say, come.

CORINBesides, our hands are hard.

TOUCHSTONEYour lips will feel them the sooner. Shallow again. A more sounder instance, come.

CORINAnd they are often tarred[45] over with the surgery of our sheep, and would you have us kiss tar? The courtier’s hands are perfumed with civet.[46]

TOUCHSTONEMost shallow man! Thou worms-meat[47] in respect of a good piece of flesh indeed. Learn of the wise, and perpend:[48] civet is of a baser birth than tar, the very uncleanly flux[49] of a cat. Mend the instance, shepherd.

CORINYou have too courtly a wit for me. I’ll rest.[50]

TOUCHSTONEWilt thou rest damned? God help thee, shallow man. God make incision[51] in thee. Thou art raw.[52]

CORINSir, I am a true labourer: I earn that[53] I eat, get that I wear, owe no man hate, envy no man’s happiness, glad of other men’s good, content[54] with my harm, and the greatest of my pride is to see my ewes graze and my lambs suck.

TOUCHSTONEThat is another simple[56] sin in you: to bring the ewes and the rams together and to offer[57] to get your living by the copulation of cattle, to be bawd to a bell-wether,[58] and to betray a she-lamb of a twelvemonth to a crooked-pated, old, cuckoldly[59] ram, out of all reasonable match. If thou be’st not damned for this, the devil himself will have no shepherds. I cannot see else how thou shouldst scape.

CORINHere comes young Master Ganymede, my new mistress’ brother.

Enter Rosalind With a paper

ROSALIND‘From the east to western Ind,[62] Reads

No jewel is like Rosalind.

Her worth, being mounted on the wind,

65

Through all the world bears Rosalind.

All the pictures fairest lined[66]

Are but black to[67] Rosalind.

Let no face be kept in mind

But the fair[69] of Rosalind.’

TOUCHSTONEI’ll rhyme you so eight years together,[70] dinners and suppers and sleeping-hours excepted. It[71] is the right butter-women’s rank to market.

ROSALINDOut, fool!

TOUCHSTONEFor a taste:

If a hart[74] do lack a hind,

75

Let him seek out Rosalind.

If the cat will after kind,[76]

So be sure will Rosalind.

Wintered[78] garments must be lined,

So must slender Rosalind.

80

They that reap[80] must sheaf and bind,

Then to cart[81] with Rosalind.

Sweetest nut[82] hath sourest rind,

Such a nut is Rosalind.

He that sweetest rose[84] will find

85

Must find love’s prick[85] and Rosalind.

This is the very false gallop[86] of verses. Why do you infect yourself with them?

ROSALINDPeace, you dull fool! I found them on a tree.

TOUCHSTONETruly the tree yields bad fruit.[88]

ROSALINDI’ll graff[89] it with you, and then I shall graff it with a medlar. Then it will be the earliest fruit i’th’country, for you’ll be rotten[90] ere you be half ripe, and that’s the right virtue[91] of the medlar.

TOUCHSTONEYou have said, but whether wisely or no, let the forest judge.

Enter Celia, with a writing

ROSALINDPeace! Here comes my sister, reading. Stand aside. They stand aside

CELIA‘Why should this a desert be? Reads

95

For[95] it is unpeopled? No.

Tongues I’ll hang on every tree

That shall civil sayings[97] show.

Some, how brief the life of man

Runs his erring[99] pilgrimage,

100

That the stretching of a span[100]

Buckles in[101] his sum of age.

Some, of violated vows

’Twixt the souls of friend and friend:

But upon the fairest boughs,

105

Or at every sentence end,

Will I Rosalinda write,

Teaching all that read to know

The quintessence[108] of every sprite

Heaven would in little[109] show.

110

Therefore heaven Nature charged[110]

That one body should be filled

With all graces wide-enlarged.[112]

Nature presently[113] distilled

Helen’s[114] cheek, but not her heart,

115

Cleopatra’s[115] majesty,

Atalanta’s better part,[116]

Sad Lucretia’s modesty.[117]

Thus Rosalind of many parts

By heavenly synod[119] was devised,

120

Of many faces, eyes and hearts,

To have the touches[121] dearest prized.

Heaven would[122] that she these gifts should have,

And I to[123] live and die her slave.’

ROSALINDO most gentle Jupiter![124] Steps forward What tedious homily of love have you wearied your parishioners withal, and never cried ‘Have patience, good people!’

CELIAHow now? Back,[126] friends. Shepherd, go off a little.—To Touchstone Go with him, sirrah.

TOUCHSTONECome, shepherd, let us make an honourable retreat, though not with bag and baggage,[128] yet with scrip and scrippage. Exeunt [Corin and Touchstone]

CELIADidst thou hear these verses?

ROSALINDO, yes, I heard them all, and more too, for some of them had in them more feet[131] than the verses would bear.

CELIAThat’s no matter: the feet might bear the verses.

ROSALINDAy, but the feet were lame and could not bear themselves without the verse, and therefore stood lamely in the verse.

CELIABut didst thou hear without wondering how thy name should be hanged and carved upon these trees?

ROSALINDI was seven[137] of the nine days out of the wonder before you came, for look here what I found on a palm-tree. I was never so berhymed since Pythagoras’[138] time that[139] I was an Irish rat, which I can hardly remember.

CELIATrow[140] you who hath done this?

ROSALINDIs it a man?

CELIAAnd a chain,[142] that you once wore, about his neck. Change you colour?

ROSALINDI prithee who?

CELIAO lord, lord! It is a hard matter for friends[144] to meet; but mountains may be removed with earthquakes and so encounter.

ROSALINDNay, but who is it?

CELIAIs it possible?[147]

ROSALINDNay, I[148] prithee now with most petitionary vehemence, tell me who it is.

CELIAO wonderful,[149] wonderful, and most wonderful wonderful! And yet again wonderful, and after that, out[150] of all whooping!

ROSALINDGood my complexion![151] Dost thou think, though I am caparisoned like a man, I have a doublet and hose in my disposition? One inch of delay more is a South[153] Sea of discovery. I prithee tell me who is it quickly, and speak apace. I would thou couldst stammer, that thou mightst pour this concealed man out of thy mouth, as wine comes out of a narrow-mouthed bottle, either too much at once, or none at all. I prithee take the cork out of thy mouth that I may drink thy tidings.

CELIASo you may put a man in your belly.[158]

ROSALINDIs he of God’s making?[159] What manner of man? Is his head worth a hat? Or his chin worth a beard?

CELIANay, he hath but a little beard.

ROSALINDWhy, God will send more, if the man will be thankful: let me stay[162] the growth of his beard, if thou delay me not the knowledge of his chin.

CELIAIt is young Orlando that tripped up the wrestler’s heels and your heart both in an instant.

ROSALINDNay, but the devil take mocking: speak, sad[166] brow and true maid.

CELIAI’faith, coz, ’tis he.

ROSALINDOrlando?

CELIAOrlando.

ROSALINDAlas the day! What shall I do with my doublet and hose? What did he when thou saw’st him? What said he? How looked he? Wherein went he?[171] What makes he[172] here? Did he ask for me? Where remains he? How parted he with thee? And when shalt thou see him again? Answer me in one word.

CELIAYou must borrow me Gargantua’s[174] mouth first: ’tis a word too great for any mouth of this age’s size. To say ay and no to these particulars[175] is more than to answer in a catechism.[176]

ROSALINDBut doth he know that I am in this forest and in man’s apparel? Looks he as freshly as he did the day he wrestled?

CELIAIt is as easy to count atomies[179] as to resolve the propositions of a lover, but take a taste of my finding him, and relish[180] it with good observance. I found him under a tree, like a dropped acorn.

ROSALINDIt may well be called Jove’s tree,[182] when it drops forth such fruit. Aside?

CELIAGive me audience,[183] good madam.

ROSALINDProceed.

CELIAThere lay he, stretched along,[185] like a wounded knight.

ROSALINDThough it be pity to see such a sight, it well becomes the ground.

CELIACry ‘holla’[187] to the tongue, I prithee. It curvets unseasonably. He was furnished[188] like a hunter.

ROSALINDO, ominous! He comes to kill my heart.[189]

CELIAI would sing my song without a burden.[190] Thou bringest me out of tune.

ROSALINDDo you not know I am a woman? When I think, I must speak. Sweet, say on.

Enter Orlando and Jaques

CELIAYou bring me out.[193] Soft! Comes he not here?

ROSALIND’Tis he. Slink by, and note him. They stand aside

JAQUESTo Orlando I thank you for your company, but, good faith, I had as lief[195] have been myself alone.

ORLANDOAnd so had I, but yet, for fashion sake, I thank you too for your society.[198]

JAQUESGod buy you. Let’s meet as little as we can.

ORLANDOI do desire we may be better strangers.

JAQUESI pray you mar no more trees with writing love-songs in their barks.

ORLANDOI pray you mar no more of my verses with reading them ill-favouredly.[202]

JAQUESRosalind is your love’s name?

ORLANDOYes, just.[204]

JAQUESI do not like her name.

ORLANDOThere was no thought of pleasing you when she was christened.

JAQUESWhat stature is she of?

ORLANDOJust as high as my heart.

JAQUESYou are full of pretty[209] answers. Have you not been acquainted with goldsmiths’ wives, and conned[210] them out of rings?

ORLANDONot so, but I answer you right painted cloth,[211] from whence you have studied your questions.[212]

JAQUESYou have a nimble wit; I think ’twas made of Atalanta’s[213] heels. Will you sit down with me? And we two will rail against our mistress the world and all our misery.

ORLANDOI will chide no breather[216] in the world but myself, against whom I know most faults.

JAQUESThe worst fault you have is to be in love.

ORLANDO’Tis a fault I will not change[219] for your best virtue. I am weary of you.

JAQUESBy my troth,[220] I was seeking for a fool when I found you.

ORLANDOHe is drowned in the brook. Look but in, and you shall see him.

JAQUESThere I shall see mine own figure.[222]

ORLANDOWhich I take to be either a fool or a cipher.[223]

JAQUESI’ll tarry no longer with you. Farewell, good Signior Love.

ORLANDOI am glad of your departure. Adieu, good Monsieur Melancholy.

[Exit Jaques]

ROSALINDAside to Celia I will speak to him like a saucy lackey,[226] and under that habit play the knave with him.— Do you hear, forester?

ORLANDOVery well. What would you?

ROSALINDI pray you, what is’t o’clock?

ORLANDOYou should ask me what time o’day: there’s no clock in the forest.

ROSALINDThen there is no true lover in the forest, else sighing every minute and groaning every hour would detect[232] the lazy foot of time as well as a clock.

ORLANDOAnd why not the swift foot of time? Had not that been as proper?

ROSALINDBy no means, sir; time travels in divers[234] paces with divers persons. I’ll tell you who time ambles withal, who time trots withal, who time gallops withal and who he stands still withal.

ORLANDOI prithee, who doth he trot withal?

ROSALINDMarry, he trots hard[238] with a young maid between the contract of her marriage and the day it is solemnized. If the interim be but a se’nnight,[239] time’s pace is so hard that it seems the length of seven year.

ORLANDOWho ambles time withal?

ROSALINDWith a priest that lacks Latin and a rich man that hath not the gout, for the one sleeps easily because he cannot study, and the other lives merrily because he feels no pain: the one lacking the burden of lean[244] and wasteful learning, the other knowing no burden of heavy tedious[245] penury. These time ambles withal.

ORLANDOWho doth he gallop withal?

ROSALINDWith a thief to the gallows, for though he go as softly[247] as foot can fall, he thinks himself too soon there.

ORLANDOWho stays it still withal?

ROSALINDWith lawyers in the vacation,[250] for they sleep between term and term, and then they perceive not how time moves.

ORLANDOWhere dwell you, pretty youth?

ROSALINDWith this shepherdess, my sister, here in the skirts[253] of the forest, like fringe upon a petticoat.

ORLANDOAre you native of this place?

ROSALINDAs the cony[256] that you see dwell where she is kindled.

ORLANDOYour accent is something finer than you could purchase[257] in so removed a dwelling.

ROSALINDI have been told so of many: but indeed an old religious[259] uncle of mine taught me to speak, who was in his youth an inland[260] man, one that knew courtship[261] too well, for there he fell in love. I have heard him read many lectures against it, and I thank God I am not a woman, to be touched[262] with so many giddy offences as he hath generally[263] taxed their whole sex withal.

ORLANDOCan you remember any of the principal evils that he laid to the charge of women?

ROSALINDThere were none principal. They were all like one another as half-pence are, every one fault seeming monstrous till his[267] fellow fault came to match it.

ORLANDOI prithee recount some of them.

ROSALINDNo, I will not cast away my physic[269] but on those that are sick. There is a man haunts[270] the forest that abuses our young plants with carving ‘Rosalind’ on their barks; hangs odes upon hawthorns and elegies on brambles; all, forsooth, deifying the name of Rosalind. If I could meet that fancy-monger,[272] I would give him some good counsel, for he seems to have the quotidian[273] of love upon him.

ORLANDOI am he that is so love-shaked. I pray you tell me your remedy.

ROSALINDThere is none of my uncle’s marks[275] upon you: he taught me how to know a man in love, in which cage of rushes[276] I am sure you are not prisoner.

ORLANDOWhat were his marks?

ROSALINDA lean cheek, which you have not: a blue[278] eye and sunken, which you have not: an unquestionable[279] spirit, which you have not: a beard neglected, which you have not — but I pardon you for that, for simply your[280] having in beard is a younger brother’s revenue. Then your hose should be ungartered,[281] your bonnet unbanded,[282] your sleeve unbuttoned, your shoe untied and everything about you demonstrating a careless desolation: but you are no such man: you are rather point-device[284] in your accoutrements, as loving yourself than seeming the lover of any other.

ORLANDOFair youth, I would I could make thee believe I love.

ROSALINDMe believe it? You may as soon make her that you love believe it, which I warrant she is apter[288] to do than to confess she does: that is one of the points in the which women still[289] give the lie to their consciences. But, in good sooth, are you he that hangs the verses on the trees, wherein Rosalind is so admired?

ORLANDOI swear to thee, youth, by the white hand of Rosalind, I am that he, that unfortunate he.

ROSALINDBut are you so much in love as your rhymes speak?

ORLANDONeither rhyme nor reason can express how much.

ROSALINDLove is merely[295] a madness, and, I tell you, deserves as well a dark house and a whip as madmen do: and the reason why they are not so punished and cured is that the lunacy is so ordinary that the whippers are in love too. Yet I profess[298] curing it by counsel.

ORLANDODid you ever cure any so?

ROSALINDYes, one, and in this manner. He was to imagine me his love, his mistress, and I set him every day to woo me. At which time would I, being but a moonish[301] youth, grieve, be effeminate, changeable, longing and liking, proud, fantastical,[302] apish,[303] shallow, inconstant, full of tears, full of smiles, for every passion something and for no passion truly anything, as boys and women are for the most part cattle[304] of this colour: would now like him, now loathe him: then entertain[305] him, then forswear[306] him: now weep for him, then spit at him; that I drave my suitor from his mad humour of love to a living[307] humour of madness, which was, to forswear the full stream of the world, and to live in a nook merely[308] monastic. And thus I cured him, and this way will I take upon me to wash your liver[309] as clean as a sound sheep’s heart, that there shall not be one spot of love in’t.

ORLANDOI would not be cured, youth.

ROSALINDI would cure you, if you would but call me Rosalind and come every day to my cote[313] and woo me.

ORLANDONow, by the faith of my love, I will. Tell me where it is.

ROSALINDGo with me to it and I’ll show it you, and by[315] the way you shall tell me where in the forest you live. Will you go?

ORLANDOWith all my heart, good youth.

ROSALINDNay, you must call me Rosalind.— Come, sister, will you go?

Exeunt

Act 3 Scene 3

running scene 9 continues

Enter Clown [Touchstone], Audrey and Jaques [behind]

TOUCHSTONECome apace,[1] good Audrey. I will fetch up your goats, Audrey. And how,[2] Audrey, am I the man yet? Doth my simple feature content you?

AUDREYYour features? Lord warrant[3] us! What features?

TOUCHSTONEI am here with thee and thy goats, as the most capricious[4] poet, honest Ovid,[5] was among the Goths.

JAQUESO, knowledge ill-inhabited,[6] worse than Jove in a thatched house. Aside

TOUCHSTONEWhen a man’s verses cannot be understood, nor a man’s good wit seconded[8] with the forward child, understanding, it strikes a man more dead than a great[9] reckoning in a little room. Truly, I would the gods had made thee poetical.

AUDREYI do not know what ‘poetical’ is. Is it honest[10] in deed and word? Is it a true thing?

TOUCHSTONENo, truly, for the truest prose is the most feigning,[12] and lovers are given to prose, and what they swear in prose may be said as lovers, they do feign.

AUDREYDo you wish then that the gods had made me poetical?

TOUCHSTONEI do truly, for thou swear’st to me thou art honest.[15] Now if thou wert a poet, I might have some hope thou didst feign.

AUDREYWould you not have me honest?

TOUCHSTONENo, truly, unless thou wert hard-favoured,[18] for honesty coupled to beauty is to have honey a sauce to sugar.

JAQUESA material[20] fool! Aside

AUDREYWell, I am not fair, and therefore I pray the gods make me honest.

TOUCHSTONETruly, and to cast away honesty upon a foul[22] slut were to put good meat into an unclean dish.[23]

AUDREYI am not a slut, though I thank the gods I am foul.

TOUCHSTONEWell, praised be the gods for thy foulness; sluttishness may come hereafter. But be it as it may be, I will marry thee, and to that end I have been with Sir Oliver Martext,[27] the vicar of the next village, who hath promised to meet me in this place of the forest and to couple[28] us.

JAQUESI would fain[29] see this meeting. Aside

AUDREYWell, the gods give us joy!

TOUCHSTONEAmen. A man may, if he were of a fearful heart, stagger[31] in this attempt, for here we have no temple but the wood, no assembly[32] but horn-beasts. But what though? Courage! As horns are odious, they are necessary.[33] It is said, ‘many a man knows[34] no end of his goods’. Right. Many a man has good horns, and knows no end of them. Well, that is the dowry of his wife: ’tis none of his own getting. Horns? Even so. Poor men alone? No, no: the noblest deer[36] hath them as huge as the rascal.[37] Is the single man therefore blessed? No: as a walled town is more worthier than a village, so is the forehead of a married man more honourable than the bare brow of a bachelor. And by how much defence[39] is better than no skill, by so much is a horn more precious than to want.[40]

Enter Sir Oliver Martext

Here comes Sir Oliver.— Sir Oliver Martext, you are well met. Will you dispatch[41] us here under this tree, or shall we go with you to your chapel?

SIR OLIVERIs there none here to give the woman?

TOUCHSTONEI will not take her on[44] gift of any man.

SIR OLIVERTruly, she must be given, or the marriage is not lawful.

JAQUESProceed, proceed I’ll give her. Steps forward

TOUCHSTONEGood even, good Master What-ye-call’t.[47] How do you, sir? You are very well met. God ’ild[48] you for your last company, I am very glad to see you. Even a toy in hand here, sir. Nay, pray be covered.[49]

JAQUESWill you be married, motley?

TOUCHSTONEAs the ox hath his bow,[51] sir, the horse his curb and the falcon her bells, so man hath his desires, and as pigeons bill,[52] so wedlock would be nibbling.

JAQUESAnd will you, being a man of your breeding, be married under a bush like a beggar? Get you to church, and have a good priest that can tell you what marriage is: this fellow will but join you together as they join wainscot,[55] then one of you will prove a shrunk panel and, like green[56] timber, warp, warp.

TOUCHSTONEAside I[57] am not in the mind but I were better to be married of him than of another, for he is not like[58] to marry me well, and not being well married, it will be a good excuse for me hereafter to leave my wife.

JAQUESGo thou with me, and let me counsel thee.

TOUCHSTONECome, sweet Audrey:

We must be married, or we must live in bawdry.[62]

Farewell, good Master Oliver. Not —

‘O[64] sweet Oliver, O brave Oliver,

65

Leave me not behind thee’

but —

‘Wind[67] away,

Begone, I say,

I will not to wedding with thee.’

SIR OLIVER’Tis no matter; ne’er a fantastical[70] knave of them all shall flout me out of my calling.

Exeunt [separately]

Act 3 Scene 4

running scene 9 continues

Enter Rosalind and Celia

ROSALINDNever talk to me. I will weep.

CELIADo, I prithee, but yet have the grace to consider that tears do not become a man.

ROSALINDBut have I not cause to weep?

CELIAAs good cause as one would desire: therefore weep.

ROSALINDHis very hair is of the dissembling[6] colour.

CELIASomething browner than Judas’. Marry, his[7] kisses are Judas’ own children.

ROSALINDI’faith, his hair is of a good colour.

CELIAAn excellent colour, your[9] chestnut was ever the only colour.

ROSALINDAnd his kissing is as full of sanctity as the touch of holy bread.[10]

CELIAHe hath bought a pair of cast[11] lips of Diana. A nun of winter’s sisterhood kisses not more religiously, the very ice of chastity is in them.

ROSALINDBut why did he swear he would come this morning, and comes not?

CELIANay, certainly, there is no truth in him.

ROSALINDDo you think so?

CELIAYes, I think he is not a pick-purse nor a horse-stealer, but for his verity[16] in love, I do think him as concave[17] as a covered goblet or a worm-eaten nut.

ROSALINDNot true in love?

CELIAYes, when he is in, but I think he is not in.

ROSALINDYou have heard him swear downright he was.

CELIA‘Was’ is not ‘is’. Besides, the oath of a lover is no stronger than the word of a tapster:[22] they are both the confirmer of false reckonings. He attends here in the forest on the duke your father.

ROSALINDI met the duke yesterday and had much question[24] with him: he asked me of what parentage I was; I told him, of as good as he, so he laughed and let me go. But what talk we of fathers, when there is such a man as Orlando?

CELIAO, that’s a brave man! He writes brave verses, speaks brave words, swears brave oaths and breaks them bravely, quite traverse,[28] athwart the heart of his lover, as a puny tilter,[29] that spurs his horse but on one side, breaks his staff like a noble goose;[30] but all’s brave that youth mounts and folly guides. Who comes here?

Enter Corin

CORINMistress and master, you have oft inquired

After the shepherd that complained of[32] love,

Who you saw sitting by me on the turf,

Praising the proud disdainful shepherdess

35

That was his mistress.

CELIAWell, and what of him?

CORINIf you will see a pageant[37] truly played,

Between the pale complexion of true love

And the red glow of scorn and proud disdain,

40

Go hence a little and I shall conduct you,

If you will mark[41] it.

ROSALINDO, come, let us remove:[42]

The sight of lovers feedeth those in love.

Bring us to this sight, and you shall say

45

I’ll prove a busy actor in their play.

Exeunt

Act 3 Scene 5

running scene 9 continues

Enter Silvius and Phoebe

SILVIUSSweet Phoebe, do not scorn me, do not, Phoebe.

Say that you love me not, but say not so

In bitterness. The common executioner,

Whose heart th’accustomed sight of death makes hard,

5

Falls[5] not the axe upon the humbled neck

But[6] first begs pardon: will you sterner be

Than he[7] that dies and lives by bloody drops?

Enter Rosalind, Celia and Corin They stand aside

PHOEBEI would not be thy executioner.

I fly thee, for I would not injure thee.

10

Thou tell’st me there is murder in mine eye:

’Tis pretty,[11] sure, and very probable,

That eyes, that are the frail’st and softest things,

Who shut their coward gates[13] on atomies,

Should be called tyrants, butchers, murderers.

15

Now I do frown on thee with all my heart,

And if mine eyes can wound, now let them kill thee.

Now counterfeit[17] to swoon, why now fall down,

Or if thou canst not, O, for shame, for shame,

Lie not, to say mine eyes are murderers.

20

Now show the wound mine eye hath made in thee:

Scratch thee but with a pin, and there remains

Some scar of it. Lean but upon a rush,[22]

The cicatrice[23] and capable impressure

Thy palm some moment keeps. But now mine eyes,

25

Which I have darted at thee, hurt thee not,

Nor, I am sure, there is no force in eyes

That can do hurt.

SILVIUSO dear Phoebe, If ever — as that ever may be near —

You meet in some fresh cheek the power of fancy,[29]

30

Then shall you know the wounds invisible

That love’s keen[31] arrows make.

PHOEBEBut till that time

Come not thou near me: and when that time comes,

Afflict me with thy mocks, pity me not,

35

As till that time I shall not pity thee.

ROSALINDAnd why, I pray you? Who might be your mother, Steps forward

That you insult, exult, and all at once,

Over the wretched? What though[38] you have no beauty —

As, by my faith, I see no more in you

40

Than[40] without candle may go dark to bed —

Must you be therefore proud and pitiless?

Why, what means this? Why do you look on me?

I see no more in you than in the ordinary[43]

Of nature’s sale-work.[44] ’Od’s my little life,

45

I think she means to tangle[45] my eyes too!

No, faith, proud mistress, hope not after it:

’Tis not your inky brows, your black silk hair,

Your bugle[48] eyeballs, nor your cheek of cream

That can entame my spirits to your worship.

50

You foolish shepherd, wherefore do you follow her, To Silvius

Like foggy south,[51] puffing with wind and rain?

You are a thousand times a properer[52] man

Than she a woman. ’Tis such fools as you

That makes the world full of ill-favoured children.

55

’Tis not her glass[55] but you that flatters her,

And out of you she sees herself more proper

Than any of her lineaments[57] can show her.

But mistress, know yourself: down on your knees,

And thank heaven, fasting, for a good man’s love;

60

For I must tell you friendly in your ear,

Sell when you can, you are not for all markets.

Cry[62] the man mercy, love him, take his offer:

Foul[63] is most foul, being foul to be a scoffer.

So take her to thee, shepherd. Fare you well.

65

PHOEBESweet youth, I pray you chide a year together:[65]

I had rather hear you chide than this man woo.

ROSALINDHe’s fallen in love with your foulness—Aside or to Phoebe/To Silvius and she’ll fall in love with my anger. If it be so, as fast as she answers thee with frowning looks, I’ll sauce[68] her with bitter words.— Why look you so upon me? To Phoebe

PHOEBEFor no ill will I bear you.

ROSALINDI pray you do not fall in love with me,

For I am falser than vows made in wine.[72]

Besides, I like you not. If you will know my house,

’Tis at the tuft of olives,[74] here hard by.

75

Will you go, sister? Shepherd, ply[75] her hard.

Come, sister. Shepherdess, look on him better,

And be not proud: though all the world could see,

None could be so abused in sight[78] as he.

Come, to our flock.

Exeunt [Rosalind, Celia and Corin]

80

PHOEBEDead Shepherd,[80] now I find thy saw of might,

‘Who ever loved that loved not at first sight?’

SILVIUSSweet Phoebe—

PHOEBEHa, what say’st thou, Silvius?

SILVIUSSweet Phoebe, pity me.

85

PHOEBEWhy, I am sorry for thee, gentle Silvius.

SILVIUSWherever sorrow is, relief would be.

If you do sorrow at my grief in love,

By giving love your sorrow and my grief

Were both extermined.[89]

90

PHOEBEThou hast my love.[90] Is not that neighbourly?

SILVIUSI would have you.

PHOEBEWhy, that were covetousness.[92]

Silvius, the time was that I hated thee;

And yet it is not that I bear thee love,

95

But since that thou canst talk of love so well,

Thy company, which erst[96] was irksome to me,

I will endure; and I’ll employ thee too.

But do not look for further recompense

Than thine own gladness that thou art employed.

100

SILVIUSSo holy and so perfect is my love,

And I in such a poverty[101] of grace,

That I shall think it a most plenteous crop

To glean the broken ears[103] after the man

That the main harvest reaps. Loose now and then

105

A scattered smile, and that I’ll live upon.

PHOEBEKnow’st thou the youth that spoke to me erewhile?[106]

SILVIUSNot very well, but I have met him oft,

And he hath bought the cottage and the bounds[108]

That the old carlot[109] once was master of.

110

PHOEBEThink not I love him, though I ask for him:

’Tis but a peevish[111] boy, yet he talks well.

But what care I for words? Yet words do well

When he that speaks them pleases those that hear.

It is a pretty youth, not very pretty.

115

But sure he’s proud, and yet his pride becomes him;

He’ll make a proper man. The best thing in him

Is his complexion.[117] And faster than his tongue

Did make offence his eye did heal it up.

He is not very tall, yet for his years he’s tall.

120

His leg is but so-so, and yet ’tis well.

There was a pretty redness in his lip,

A little riper and more lusty[122] red

Than that mixed in his cheek. ’Twas just the difference

Betwixt the constant[124] red and mingled damask.

125

There be some women, Silvius, had they marked him

In parcels[126] as I did, would have gone near

To fall in love with him. But, for my part,

I love him not nor hate him not. And yet

Have more cause to hate him than to love him:

130

For what had he to do to chide at me?

He said mine eyes were black and my hair black,

And, now I am remembered,[132] scorned at me.

I marvel why I answered not again.[133]

But that’s all one: omittance[134] is no quittance.

135

I’ll write to him a very taunting letter,

And thou shalt bear it. Wilt thou, Silvius?

SILVIUSPhoebe, with all my heart.

PHOEBEI’ll write it straight:[138]

The matter’s in my head and in my heart.

140

I will be bitter with him and passing[140] short.

Go with me, Silvius.

Exeunt

Act 4 Scene 1

running scene 9 continues

Enter Rosalind, and Celia and Jaques

JAQUESI prithee, pretty youth, let me be better acquainted with thee.

ROSALINDThey say you are a melancholy fellow.

JAQUESI am so. I do love it better than laughing.

ROSALINDThose that are in extremity of either are abominable fellows, and betray[4] themselves to every modern censure[5] worse than drunkards.

JAQUESWhy, ’tis good to be sad[6] and say nothing.

ROSALINDWhy then, ’tis good to be a post.[7]

JAQUESI have neither the scholar’s melancholy, which is emulation,[8] nor the musician’s, which is fantastical,[9] nor the courtier’s, which is proud, nor the soldier’s, which is ambitious, nor the lawyer’s, which is politic,[10] nor the lady’s, which is nice,[11] nor the lover’s, which is all these: but it is a melancholy of mine own, compounded of many simples,[12] extracted from many objects, and indeed the sundry[13] contemplation of my travels, in which my often rumination wraps me in a most humorous[14] sadness.

ROSALINDA traveller! By my faith, you have great reason to be sad: I fear you have sold your own lands to see other men’s; then to have seen much and to have nothing is to have rich eyes and poor hands.

JAQUESYes, I have gained my experience.

Enter Orlando

ROSALINDAnd your experience makes you sad: I had rather have a fool to make me merry than experience to make me sad, and to travel[20] for it too.

ORLANDOGood day and happiness, dear Rosalind!

JAQUESNay, then, God buy you, an[22] you talk in blank verse.

[Exit]

ROSALINDFarewell, Monsieur Traveller: look you lisp[23] and wear strange suits, disable all the benefits of your own country, be out of love with your nativity,[24] and almost chide God for making you that countenance you are; or I will scarce think you have swam[26] in a gondola. Why, how now, Orlando, where have you been all this while? You a lover? An you serve me such another trick, never come in my sight more.

ORLANDOMy fair Rosalind, I come within an hour of my promise.

ROSALINDBreak an hour’s promise in love? He that will divide a minute into a thousand parts and break but a part of the thousand part of a minute in the affairs of love, it may be said of him that Cupid hath clapped him o’th’shoulder,[32] but I’ll warrant him heart-whole.[33]

ORLANDOPardon me, dear Rosalind.

ROSALINDNay, an you be so tardy, come no more in my sight. I had as lief be wooed of a snail.

ORLANDOOf a snail?

ROSALINDAy, of a snail, for though he comes slowly, he carries his house on his head; a better jointure,[39] I think, than you make a woman. Besides, he brings his destiny with him.

ORLANDOWhat’s that?

ROSALINDWhy, horns,[42] which such as you are fain to be beholding to your wives for: but he comes armed[43] in his fortune and prevents the slander of his wife.

ORLANDOVirtue is no horn-maker, and my Rosalind is virtuous.

ROSALINDAnd I am your Rosalind.

CELIAIt pleases him to call you so, but he hath a Rosalind of a better leer[46] than you.

ROSALINDCome, woo me, woo me, for now I am in a holiday humour[47] and like enough to consent. What would you say to me now, an I were your very[48] very Rosalind?

ORLANDOI would kiss before I spoke.

ROSALINDNay, you were better speak first, and when you were gravelled[51] for lack of matter, you might take occasion to kiss. Very good orators, when they are out,[52] they will spit. And for lovers lacking — God warn[53] us! — matter, the cleanliest shift is to kiss.

ORLANDOHow if the kiss be denied?

ROSALINDThen she puts you to entreaty, and there begins new matter.

ORLANDOWho[57] could be out, being before his beloved mistress?

ROSALINDMarry, that should you, if I were your mistress, or I should think my honesty[59] ranker than my wit.

ORLANDOWhat, of my suit?[60]

ROSALINDNot out of your apparel, and yet out of your suit. Am not I your Rosalind?

ORLANDOI take some joy to say you are, because I would be talking of her.

ROSALINDWell, in her person, I say I will not have you.

ORLANDOThen, in mine own person, I die.

ROSALINDNo, faith, die by attorney.[65] The poor world is almost six thousand years old, and in all this time there was not any man died in his own person, videlicet,[66] in a love-cause. Troilus[67] had his brains dashed out with a Grecian club, yet he did what he could to die[68] before, and he is one of the patterns of love. Leander, he would have lived many a fair year though[69] Hero had turned nun, if it had not been for a hot midsummer night, for, good youth, he went but forth to wash him in the Hellespont and being taken with the cramp was drowned. And the foolish chroniclers of that age found it[72] was ‘Hero of Sestos’. But these are all lies: men have died from time to time and worms have eaten them, but not for love.

ORLANDOI would not have my right[74] Rosalind of this mind, for I protest her frown might kill me.

ROSALINDBy this hand, it will not kill a fly. But come, now I will be your Rosalind in a more coming-on[77] disposition. And ask me what you will, I will grant it.

ORLANDOThen love me, Rosalind.

ROSALINDYes, faith, will I, Fridays and Saturdays[79] and all.

ORLANDOAnd wilt thou have me?

ROSALINDAy, and twenty[81] such.

ORLANDOWhat sayest thou?

ROSALINDAre you not good?

ORLANDOI hope so.

ROSALINDWhy then, can one desire too much of a good thing? Come, sister, you shall be the priest and marry us. Give me your hand, Orlando. What do you say, sister?

ORLANDOPray thee marry us.

CELIAI cannot say the words.

ROSALINDYou must begin, ‘Will you, Orlando —’

CELIAGo to.[91] Will you, Orlando, have to wife this Rosalind?

ORLANDOI will.

ROSALINDAy, but when?

ORLANDOWhy now, as fast[94] as she can marry us.

ROSALINDThen you must say ‘I take thee, Rosalind, for wife.’

ORLANDOI take thee, Rosalind, for wife.

ROSALINDI might ask you for your commission,[97] but I do take thee, Orlando, for my husband. There’s a girl goes[98] before the priest, and certainly a woman’s thought runs before her actions.

ORLANDOSo do all thoughts: they are winged.

ROSALINDNow tell me how long you would have her after you have possessed[101] her.

ORLANDOForever and a day.

ROSALINDSay ‘a day’, without the ‘ever’. No, no, Orlando. Men are April when they woo, December when they wed. Maids are May when they are maids, but the sky changes when they are wives. I will be more jealous of thee than a Barbary cock-pigeon[105] over his hen, more clamorous than a parrot against[106] rain, more new-fangled[107] than an ape, more giddy in my desires than a monkey. I will weep for nothing, like Diana[108] in the fountain, and I will do that when you are disposed to be merry. I will laugh like a hyena, and that when thou art inclined to sleep.

ORLANDOBut will my Rosalind do so?

ROSALINDBy my life, she will do as I do.

ORLANDOO, but she is wise.

ROSALINDOr else she could not have the wit to do this: the wiser, the waywarder.[114] Make[115] the doors upon a woman’s wit and it will out at the casement. Shut that and ’twill out at the key-hole. Stop that, ’twill fly with the smoke out at the chimney.

ORLANDOA man that had a wife with such a wit, he might say ‘Wit, whither wilt?’[118]

ROSALINDNay, you might keep that check[119] for it till you met your wife’s wit going to your neighbour’s bed.

ORLANDOAnd what wit could wit have to excuse that?

ROSALINDMarry, to say she came to seek you there. You shall never take[122] her without her answer, unless you take her without her tongue. O, that woman that cannot make her fault[124] her husband’s occasion, let her never nurse her child herself, for she will breed it like a fool.

ORLANDOFor these two hours, Rosalind, I will leave thee.

ROSALINDAlas, dear love, I cannot lack thee two hours.

ORLANDOI must attend the duke at dinner. By two o’clock I will be with thee again.

ROSALINDAy, go your ways, go your ways. I knew what you would prove: my friends told me as much, and I thought no less. That flattering tongue of yours won me. ’Tis but[131] one cast away, and so, come, death! Two o’clock is your hour?

ORLANDOAy, sweet Rosalind.

ROSALINDBy my troth, and in good earnest, and so God mend me, and by all pretty oaths that are not dangerous, if you break one jot of your promise or come one minute behind your hour,[135] I will think you the most pathetical break-promise and the most hollow lover and the most unworthy of her you call Rosalind that may be chosen out of the gross[137] band of the unfaithful: therefore beware my censure and keep your promise.

ORLANDOWith no less religion[139] than if thou wert indeed my Rosalind: so adieu.

ROSALINDWell, time is the old justice that examines all such offenders, and let time try.[141] Adieu.

Exit [Orlando]

CELIAYou have simply misused[142] our sex in your love-prate: we must have your doublet and hose plucked over your head, and show the world what[143] the bird hath done to her own nest.

ROSALINDO coz, coz, coz, my pretty little coz, that thou didst know how many fathom[146] deep I am in love! But it cannot be sounded: my affection hath an unknown bottom, like the Bay of Portugal.

CELIAOr rather, bottomless, that as fast as you pour affection in, it runs out.

ROSALINDNo, that same wicked bastard of Venus[149] that was begot of thought, conceived of spleen[150] and born of madness, that blind rascally boy that abuses everyone’s eyes because his own are out, let him be judge how deep I am in love. I’ll tell thee, Aliena, I cannot be out of the sight of Orlando: I’ll go find a shadow[152] and sigh till he come.

CELIAAnd I’ll sleep.

Exeunt

Act 4 Scene 2

running scene 10

Enter Jaques and Lords [as] foresters

JAQUESWhich is he that killed the deer?

FIRST LORDSir, it was I.

JAQUESLet’s present him to the duke like a Roman conqueror. And it would do well to set the deer’s horns upon his head for a branch[4] of victory. Have you no song, forester, for this purpose?

SECOND LORDYes, sir.

JAQUESSing it: ’tis no matter how it be in tune, so it make noise enough.

Music, song

LORDSWhat shall he have that killed the deer?

His leather skin and horns to wear.

10

Then sing him home,

The rest shall bear this burden:[11]

Take thou no scorn to wear the horn,

It was a crest ere thou wast born,

Thy father’s father wore it,

15

And thy father bore it.

The horn, the horn, the lusty[16] horn,

Is not a thing to laugh to scorn.

Exeunt

Act 4 Scene 3

running scene 11

Enter Rosalind and Celia

ROSALINDHow say you now? Is it not past two o’clock? And here much Orlando![1]

CELIAI warrant you, with pure love and troubled brain, he hath ta’en his bow and arrows and is gone forth to sleep.

Enter Silvius With a letter

Look, who comes here.

5

SILVIUSMy errand is to you, fair youth. To Rosalind

My gentle Phoebe bid me give you this:

I know not the contents, but — as I guess

By the stern brow and waspish[8] action

Which she did use[9] as she was writing of it —

10

It bears an angry tenor; pardon me,

I am but as a guiltless messenger.

ROSALINDPatience herself would startle at this letter Reads letter

And play the swaggerer.[13] Bear this, bear all:

She says I am not fair, that I lack manners.

15

She calls me proud, and that she could not love me,

Were man as rare as phoenix.[16] ’Od’s my will!

Her love is not the hare that I do hunt.

Why writes she so to me? Well, shepherd, well,

This is a letter of your own device.[19]

20

SILVIUSNo, I protest,[20] I know not the contents.

Phoebe did write it.

ROSALINDCome, come, you are a fool

And turned into the extremity of love.

I saw her hand. She has a leathern[24] hand,

25

A freestone-coloured[25] hand. I verily did think

That her old gloves were on, but ’twas her hands.

She has a huswife’s[27] hand, but that’s no matter:

I say she never did invent this letter,

This is a man’s invention[29] and his hand.

30

SILVIUSSure, it is hers.

ROSALINDWhy, ’tis a boisterous[31] and a cruel style.

A style for challengers. Why, she defies me,

Like Turk to Christian. Women’s gentle brain

Could not drop forth such giant-rude[34] invention,

35

Such Ethiope[35] words, blacker in their effect

Than in their countenance. Will you hear the letter?

SILVIUSSo please you, for I never heard it yet,

Yet heard too much of Phoebe’s cruelty.

ROSALINDShe Phoebes[39] me. Mark how the tyrant writes:

40

‘Art thou god to shepherd turned,

Read

That a maiden’s heart hath burned?’

Can a woman rail thus?

SILVIUSCall you this railing?

ROSALIND‘Why, thy godhead laid apart,[44]

Reads

45

Warr’st thou with a woman’s heart?’

Did you ever hear such railing?

‘Whiles the eye of man did woo me,

That could do no vengeance[48] to me.’

Meaning me a beast.

50

‘If the scorn of your bright eyne[50]

Have power to raise such love in mine,

Alack, in me what strange effect

Would they work in mild aspect![53]

Whiles you chid me, I did love.

55

How then might your prayers[55] move!

He that brings this love to thee

Little knows this love in me;

And by[58] him seal up thy mind,

Whether that thy youth and kind[59]

60

Will the faithful offer take

Of me and all that I can make,[61]

Or else by him my love deny,

And then I’ll study how to die.’

SILVIUSCall you this chiding?

65

CELIAAlas, poor shepherd!

ROSALINDDo you pity him? No, he deserves no pity. Wilt thou love such a woman? What, to make thee an instrument[67] and play false strains upon thee? Not to be endured! Well, go your way to her, for I see love hath made thee a tame snake,[68] and say this to her: that if she love me, I charge her to love thee. If she will not, I will never have her unless thou entreat for her. If you be a true lover, hence, and not a word, for here comes more company.

Exit Silvius

Enter Oliver

OLIVERGood morrow, fair ones: pray you, if you know,

Where in the purlieus[73] of this forest stands

A sheep-cote fenced about with olive trees?

75

CELIAWest of this place, down in the neighbour bottom.[75]

The rank of osiers[76] by the murmuring stream

Left[77] on your right hand brings you to the place.

But at this hour the house doth keep itself,

There’s none within.

80

OLIVERIf that an eye may profit by a tongue,

Then should I know you by description,

Such garments and such years: ‘The boy is fair,

Of female favour,[83] and bestows himself

Like a ripe[84] sister. The woman low

85

And browner than her brother.’ Are not you

The owner of the house I did inquire for?

CELIAIt is no boast, being asked, to say we are.

OLIVEROrlando doth commend him[88] to you both,

And to that youth he calls his Rosalind

90

He sends this bloody napkin.[90] Are you he? Shows bloody handkerchief

ROSALINDI am. What must we understand by this?

OLIVERSome of my shame, if you will know of me

What man I am, and how, and why, and where

This handkercher[94] was stained.

95

CELIAI pray you tell it.

OLIVERWhen last the young Orlando parted from you,

He left a promise to return again

Within an hour, and pacing through the forest,

Chewing the food of sweet and bitter fancy,[99]

100

Lo, what befell! He threw his eye aside,

And mark what object did present itself:

Und’r an old oak, whose boughs were mossed with age

And high top bald[103] with dry antiquity,

A wretched ragged man, o’ergrown with hair,

105

Lay sleeping on his back; about his neck

A green and gilded[106] snake had wreathed itself,

Who with her head nimble in threats approached

The opening of his mouth. But suddenly,

Seeing Orlando, it unlinked[109] itself,

110

And with indented[110] glides did slip away

Into a bush, under which bush’s shade

A lioness, with udders all drawn dry,

Lay couching,[113] head on ground, with catlike watch

When that[114] the sleeping man should stir; for ’tis

115

The royal disposition of that beast

To prey on nothing that doth seem as dead.

This seen, Orlando did approach the man

And found it was his brother, his elder brother.

CELIAO, I have heard him speak of that same brother,

120

And he did render him[120] the most unnatural

That lived amongst men.

OLIVERAnd well he might so do,

For well I know he was unnatural.

ROSALINDBut to[124] Orlando: did he leave him there,

125

Food to the sucked and hungry lioness?

OLIVERTwice did he turn his back and purposed so,

But kindness,[127] nobler ever than revenge,

And nature, stronger than his just occasion,[128]

Made him give battle to the lioness,

130

Who quickly fell before him, in which hurtling[130]

From miserable slumber I awaked.

CELIAAre you his brother?

ROSALINDWas’t you he rescued?

CELIAWas’t you that did so oft contrive to kill him?

135

OLIVER’Twas I, but ’tis not I. I do not shame

To tell you what I was, since my conversion

So sweetly tastes, being the thing I am.

ROSALINDBut, for[138] the bloody napkin?

OLIVERBy and by.

140

When from the first to last betwixt us two,

Tears our recountments[141] had most kindly bathed,

As how I came into that desert place:

In brief, he led me to the gentle duke,

Who gave me fresh array[144] and entertainment,

145

Committing me unto my brother’s love,

Who led me instantly unto his cave,

There stripped himself, and here upon his arm

The lioness had torn some flesh away,

Which all this while had bled; and now he fainted

150

And cried, in fainting, upon Rosalind.

Brief,[151] I recovered him, bound up his wound,

And after some small space,[152] being strong at heart,

He sent me hither, stranger as I am,

To tell this story, that you might excuse

155

His broken promise, and to give this napkin,

Dyed in this blood, unto the shepherd youth

That he in sport doth call his Rosalind. Rosalind faints

CELIAWhy, how now, Ganymede? Sweet Ganymede!

OLIVERMany will swoon when they do look on blood.

160

CELIAThere is more in it. Cousin Ganymede!

OLIVERLook, he recovers.

ROSALINDI would I were at home.

CELIAWe’ll lead you thither.— I pray you, will you take him by the arm? They get Rosalind to her feet

OLIVERBe of good cheer, youth. You a man! You lack a man’s heart.

ROSALINDI do so, I confess it. Ah, sirrah, a body[165] would think this was well counterfeited! I pray you tell your brother how well I counterfeited. Heigh-ho!

OLIVERThis was not counterfeit: there is too great testimony in your complexion that it was a passion of earnest.[168]

ROSALINDCounterfeit, I assure you.

OLIVERWell then, take a good heart and counterfeit to be a man.

ROSALINDSo I do. But, i’faith, I should have been a woman by right.

CELIACome, you look paler and paler. Pray you draw homewards. Good sir, go with us.

OLIVERThat will I, for I must bear answer back How you excuse my brother, Rosalind.

ROSALINDI shall devise something: but I pray you commend my counterfeiting to him. Will you go?

Exeunt

Act 5 Scene 1

running scene 11 continues

Enter Clown [Touchstone] and Audrey

TOUCHSTONEWe shall find a time, Audrey. Patience, gentle Audrey.

AUDREYFaith, the priest was good enough, for all the old gentleman’s[2] saying.

TOUCHSTONEA most wicked Sir Oliver, Audrey, a most vile Martext. But, Audrey, there is a youth here in the forest lays claim to you.

AUDREYAy, I know who ’tis: he hath no interest in[5] me in the world. Here comes the man you mean.

Enter William

TOUCHSTONEIt is meat and drink to me to see a clown.[7] By my troth, we that have good wits have much to answer for. We shall be flouting:[8] we cannot hold.

WILLIAMGood ev’n, Audrey.

AUDREYGod ye[10] good ev’n, William.

WILLIAMAnd good ev’n to you, sir.

TOUCHSTONEGood ev’n, gentle friend. Cover thy head,[12] cover thy head. Nay, prithee be covered. How old are you, friend?

WILLIAMFive and twenty, sir.

TOUCHSTONEA ripe age. Is thy name William?

WILLIAMWilliam, sir.

TOUCHSTONEA fair name. Wast born i’th’forest here?

WILLIAMAy, sir, I thank God.

TOUCHSTONE‘Thank God’. A good[19] answer. Art rich?

WILLIAMFaith, sir, so-so.

TOUCHSTONE‘So-so’ is good, very good, very excellent good. And yet it is not, it is but so-so. Art thou wise?

WILLIAMAy, sir, I have a pretty wit.

TOUCHSTONEWhy, thou sayest well. I do now remember a saying: ‘The fool doth think he is wise, but the wise man knows himself to be a fool.’ The heathen philosopher, when he had a desire to eat a grape, would open his lips when he put it into his mouth, meaning thereby that grapes were made to eat and lips to open. You do love this maid?

WILLIAMI do, sir.

TOUCHSTONEGive me your hand. Art thou learnèd?[30]

WILLIAMNo, sir.

TOUCHSTONEThen learn this of me: to have is to have, for it is a figure[32] in rhetoric that drink, being poured out of a cup into a glass, by filling the one doth empty the other. For all your writers do consent that ipse[34] is he. Now, you are not ipse, for I am he.

WILLIAMWhich he, sir?

TOUCHSTONEHe, sir, that must marry this woman: therefore, you clown, abandon —which is in the vulgar[38] ‘leave’ — the society — which in the boorish is ‘company’ — of this female — which in the common[39] is ‘woman’, which together is: abandon the society of this female, or, clown, thou perishest. Or, to thy better understanding, diest; or, to wit,[41] I kill thee, make thee away, translate thy life into death, thy liberty into bondage. I will deal in poison with thee, or in bastinado,[42] or in steel; I will bandy[43] with thee in faction; I will o’errun thee with policy. I will kill thee a hundred and fifty ways: therefore tremble and depart.

AUDREYDo, good William.

WILLIAMGod rest[46] you merry, sir.

Exit

Enter Corin

CORINOur master and mistress seeks you. Come, away, away!

TOUCHSTONETrip,[48] Audrey, trip, Audrey.— I attend, I attend.

Exeunt

Act 5 Scene 2

running scene 11 continues

Enter Orlando and Oliver Orlando with his arm in a sling

ORLANDOIs’t possible that on so little acquaintance you should like her? That but seeing, you should love her? And loving, woo? And wooing, she should grant? And will you persever[3] to enjoy her?

OLIVERNeither call the giddiness of it in question, the poverty of her, the small acquaintance, my sudden wooing, nor her sudden consenting. But say with me, I love Aliena. Say with her that she loves me; consent with both that we may enjoy each other. It shall be to your good, for my father’s house and all the revenue that was old Sir Rowland’s will I estate[8] upon you, and here live and die a shepherd.

Enter Rosalind

ORLANDOYou have my consent. Let your wedding be tomorrow: thither will I invite the duke and all’s[10] contented followers. Go you and prepare Aliena; for look you, here comes my Rosalind.

ROSALINDGod save you, brother.[12]

OLIVERAnd you, fair ‘sister’.[13]

ROSALINDO my dear Orlando, how it grieves me to see thee wear thy heart in a scarf![14]

ORLANDOIt is my arm.

ROSALINDI thought thy heart had been wounded with the claws of a lion.

ORLANDOWounded it is, but with the eyes of a lady.

ROSALINDDid your brother tell you how I counterfeited to swoon when he showed me your handkerchief?

ORLANDOAy, and greater wonders than that.

ROSALINDO, I know where you are:[21] nay, ’tis true. There was never anything so sudden but the fight of two rams and Caesar’s thrasonical[22] brag of ‘I came, saw, and overcame.’ For your brother and my sister no sooner met but they looked, no sooner looked but they loved, no sooner loved but they sighed, no sooner sighed but they asked one another the reason, no sooner knew the reason but they sought the remedy: and in these degrees[26] have they made a pair of stairs to marriage, which they will climb incontinent,[27] or else be incontinent before marriage; they are in the very wrath[28] of love and they will together: clubs cannot part them.

ORLANDOThey shall be married tomorrow, and I will bid[30] the duke to the nuptial. But O, how bitter a thing it is to look into happiness through another man’s eyes! By so much the more shall I tomorrow be at the height of heart-heaviness, by how much I shall think my brother happy in having what he wishes for.

ROSALINDWhy then, tomorrow I cannot serve your turn[34] for Rosalind?

ORLANDOI can live no longer by thinking.

ROSALINDI will weary you then no longer with idle talking. Know of me then, for now I speak to some purpose, that I know you are a gentleman of good conceit:[37] I speak not this that you should bear a good opinion of my knowledge, insomuch[38] I say I know you are. Neither[39] do I labour for a greater esteem than may in some little measure draw a belief from you, to do yourself good and not to grace me. Believe then, if you please, that I can do strange things: I have, since I was three year old, conversed with a magician, most profound in his art and yet not damnable.[42] If you do love Rosalind so near the heart as your gesture[43] cries it out, when your brother marries Aliena, shall you marry her. I know into what straits[44] of fortune she is driven, and it is not impossible to me, if it appear not inconvenient[46] to you, to set her before your eyes tomorrow, human as she is, and without any danger.

ORLANDOSpeak’st thou in sober[48] meanings?

ROSALINDBy my life, I do, which I tender[49] dearly, though I say I am a magician: therefore, put you in your best array,[50] bid your friends, for if you will be married tomorrow, you shall, and to Rosalind, if you will.

Enter Silvius and Phoebe

Look, here comes a lover of mine and a lover of hers.

PHOEBEYouth, you have done me much ungentleness,[53]

To show the letter that I writ to you.

55

ROSALINDI care not if I have. It is my study[55]

To seem despiteful[56] and ungentle to you.

You are there followed by a faithful shepherd.

Look upon him, love him: he worships you.

PHOEBEGood shepherd, tell this youth what ’tis to love.

60

SILVIUSIt is to be all made of sighs and tears,

And so am I for Phoebe.

PHOEBEAnd I for Ganymede.

ORLANDOAnd I for Rosalind.

ROSALINDAnd I for no woman.

65

SILVIUSIt is to be all made of faith and service,[65]

And so am I for Phoebe.

PHOEBEAnd I for Ganymede.

ORLANDOAnd I for Rosalind.

ROSALINDAnd I for no woman.

70

SILVIUSIt is to be all made of fantasy,

All made of passion and all made of wishes,

All adoration, duty, and observance,[72]

All humbleness, all patience and impatience,

All purity, all trial, all observance,

75

And so am I for Phoebe.

PHOEBEAnd so am I for Ganymede.

ORLANDOAnd so am I for Rosalind.

ROSALINDAnd so am I for no woman.

PHOEBEIf this be so, why blame you me to love you? To Rosalind

80

SILVIUSIf this be so, why blame you me to love you? To Phoebe

ORLANDOIf this be so, why blame you me to love you?

ROSALINDWho do you speak to? ‘Why blame you me to love you?’

ORLANDOTo her that is not here, nor doth not hear.

ROSALINDPray you no more of this. ’Tis like the howling of Irish wolves against the moon.—

85

I will help you if I can.— To Silvius

I would love you, if I could.— To Phoebe

Tomorrow meet me all together.— To all

I will marry you, if ever I marry woman, and I’ll be married tomorrow.— To Phoebe

90

I will satisfy[90] you, if ever I satisfied man, and you shall be married tomorrow.— To Orlando

I will content you, if what pleases you contents you, and you shall be married To Silvius tomorrow.—

As you love Rosalind, meet.— To Orlando

As you love Phoebe, meet.— And as I love no woman, I’ll meet. So fare you well: To Silvius

95

I have left you commands.

SILVIUSI’ll not fail,[96] if I live.

PHOEBENor I.

ORLANDONor I.

Exeunt

Act 5 Scene 3

running scene 11 continues

Enter Clown [Touchstone] and Audrey

TOUCHSTONETomorrow is the joyful day, Audrey: tomorrow will we be married.

AUDREYI do desire it with all my heart, and I hope it is no dishonest[2] desire to desire to be a woman[3] of the world. Here come two of the banished duke’s pages.

Enter two Pages

FIRST PAGEWell met, honest[4] gentleman.

TOUCHSTONEBy my troth, well met. Come, sit, sit, and a song.

SECOND PAGEWe are for you. Sit i’th’middle. They sit

FIRST PAGEShall we clap into’t roundly,[7] without hawking or spitting or saying we are hoarse, which are the only[8] prologues to a bad voice?

SECOND PAGEI’faith, i’faith, and both in a tune,[9] like two gypsies on a horse.

Song

10

It was a lover and his lass,

With a hey, and a ho, and a hey nonino,

That o’er the green cornfield did pass

In the spring-time,[13] the only pretty ring-time,

When birds do sing, hey ding a ding, ding.

15

Sweet lovers love the spring.

And therefore take[16] the present time,

With a hey, and a ho, and a hey nonino,

For love is crownèd with the prime[18]

In spring-time, etc.[19]

20

Between the acres of the rye,

With a hey, and a ho, and a hey nonino,

These pretty country folks would lie

In spring-time, etc.

This carol[24] they began that hour,

25

With a hey, and a ho, and a hey nonino,

How that a life was but a flower

In spring-time, etc.

TOUCHSTONETruly, young gentlemen, though there was no great matter in the ditty,[28] yet the note[29] was very untunable.

FIRST PAGEYou are deceived, sir: we kept time, we lost not our time.

TOUCHSTONEBy my troth, yes: I count it but time lost to hear such a foolish song. God buy you, and God mend your voices! Come, Audrey.

Exeunt

Act 5 Scene 4

running scene 12

Enter Duke Senior, Amiens, Jaques, Orlando, Oliver, Celia

DUKE SENIORDost thou believe, Orlando, that the boy

Can do all this that he hath promisèd?

ORLANDOI sometimes do believe and sometimes do not,

As those that fear they hope and know they fear.

Enter Rosalind, Silvius and Phoebe

5

ROSALINDPatience once more, whiles our compact[5] is urged:

You say, if I bring in your Rosalind, you will bestow her on Orlando here? To Duke Senior

DUKE SENIORThat would I, had I kingdoms to give with her.

ROSALINDAnd you say, you will have her, when I bring her? To Orlando

ORLANDOThat would I, were I of all kingdoms king.

10

ROSALINDYou say, you’ll marry me, if I be willing? To Phoebe

PHOEBEThat will I, should I die the hour after.

ROSALINDBut if you do refuse to marry me,

You’ll give yourself to this most faithful shepherd?

PHOEBESo is the bargain.

15

ROSALINDYou say, that you’ll have Phoebe, if she will? To Silvius

SILVIUSThough to have her and death were both one thing.

ROSALINDI have promised to make[17] all this matter even.

Keep you your word, O duke, to give your daughter,

You yours, Orlando, to receive his daughter.

20

Keep you your word, Phoebe, that you’ll marry me,

Or else refusing me, to wed this shepherd.

Keep your word, Silvius, that you’ll marry her

If she refuse me. And from hence I go,

To make these doubts all even.

Exeunt Rosalind and Celia

25

DUKE SENIORI do remember in this shepherd boy

Some lively[26] touches of my daughter’s favour.

ORLANDOMy lord, the first time that I ever saw him

Methought he was a brother to your daughter:

But, my good lord, this boy is forest-born,

30

And hath been tutored in the rudiments[30]

Of many desperate[31] studies by his uncle,

Whom he reports to be a great magician,

Enter Clown [Touchstone] and Audrey

Obscurèd[33] in the circle of this forest.

JAQUESThere is, sure, another flood toward,[34] and these couples are coming to the ark. Here comes a pair of very strange beasts, which in all tongues[35] are called fools.

TOUCHSTONESalutation and greeting to you all!

JAQUESGood my lord, bid him welcome: this is the motley-minded[37] gentleman that I have so often met in the forest. He hath been a courtier, he swears.

TOUCHSTONEIf any man doubt that, let him put me to my purgation.[39] I have trod a measure,[40] I have flattered a lady, I have been politic with my friend, smooth with mine enemy, I have undone[41] three tailors, I have had four quarrels, and like to have fought one.

JAQUESAnd how was that ta’en up?[43]

TOUCHSTONEFaith, we met, and found the quarrel was upon the seventh cause.

JAQUESHow seventh cause? Good my lord, like this fellow.

DUKE SENIORI like him very well.

TOUCHSTONEGod ’ild[47] you, sir, I desire you of the like. I press in here, sir, amongst the rest of the country copulatives,[48] to swear and to forswear, according as marriage binds and blood breaks.[49] A poor virgin, sir, an ill-favoured thing, sir, but mine own, a poor humour[50] of mine, sir, to take that that no man else will. Rich honesty dwells like a miser, sir, in a poor house, as your pearl in your foul[51] oyster.

DUKE SENIORBy my faith, he is very swift[52] and sententious.

TOUCHSTONEAccording to the fool’s bolt,[53] sir, and such dulcet diseases.

JAQUESBut, for the seventh cause. How did you find the quarrel on the seventh cause?

TOUCHSTONEUpon a lie seven times removed — bear your body more seeming,[56] Audrey — as[57] thus, sir: I did dislike the cut of a certain courtier’s beard. He sent me word, if I said his beard was not cut well, he was in the mind[58] it was: this is called the Retort Courteous. If I sent him word again it was not well cut, he would send me word, he cut it to please himself: this is called the Quip Modest. If again it was not well cut, he disabled[61] my judgement: this is called the Reply Churlish. If again it was not well cut, he would answer, I spake not true: this is called the Reproof Valiant. If again it was not well cut, he would say I lied: this is called the Countercheck[64] Quarrelsome: and so to the Lie Circumstantial and the Lie Direct.

JAQUESAnd how oft did you say his beard was not well cut?

TOUCHSTONEI durst go no further than the Lie Circumstantial, nor he durst not give me the Lie Direct, and so we measured swords[67] and parted.

JAQUESCan you nominate[68] in order now the degrees of the lie?

TOUCHSTONEO sir, we quarrel in print,[69] by the book, as you have books for good manners. I will name you the degrees: The first, the Retort Courteous: the second, the Quip Modest: the third, the Reply Churlish: the fourth, the Reproof Valiant: the fifth, the Countercheck Quarrelsome: the sixth, the Lie with Circumstance: the seventh, the Lie Direct. All these you may avoid but the Lie Direct, and you may avoid that too, with an ‘if’. I knew when seven justices could not take up[75] a quarrel, but when the parties were met themselves, one of them thought but of an ‘if’, as, ‘If you said so, then I said so’, and they shook hands and swore brothers.[77] Your ‘if’ is the only peacemaker. Much virtue in ‘if’.

JAQUESIs not this a rare[78] fellow, my lord? He’s as good at anything and yet a fool.

DUKE SENIORHe uses his folly like a stalking-horse[79] and under the presentation of that he shoots his wit.

Enter Hymen, Rosalind and Celia. Still music

HYMENThen is there mirth[81] in heaven,

When earthly things made even[82]

Atone[83] together.

Good duke, receive thy daughter,

85

Hymen from heaven brought her,

Yea, brought her hither,

That thou mightst join her hand with his

Whose heart within his bosom is.

ROSALINDTo you I give myself, for I am yours.— To Duke Senior

90

To you I give myself, for I am yours. To Orlando

DUKE SENIORIf there be truth in sight, you are my daughter.

ORLANDOIf there be truth in sight, you are my Rosalind.

PHOEBEIf sight and shape[93] be true,

Why then, my love adieu!

95

ROSALINDI’ll have no father, if you be not he.— To Duke Senior

I’ll have no husband, if you be not he.— To Orlando

Nor ne’er wed woman, if you be not she. To Phoebe

HYMENPeace, ho! I bar[98] confusion:

’Tis I must make conclusion

100

Of these most strange events.

Here’s eight that must take hands

To join in Hymen’s bands,[102]

If truth holds true contents.—

You and you no cross[104] shall part;— To Orlando and Rosalind

105

You and you are heart in heart.— To Oliver and Celia

You to his love must accord,[106] To Phoebe

Or have a woman to your lord.[107]—

You and you are sure[108] together, To Touchstone and Audrey

As the winter to foul weather.—

110

Whiles a wedlock-hymn we sing,

Feed yourselves with questioning,[111]

That reason wonder may diminish

How thus we met, and these things finish.

Song

Wedding is great Juno’s[114] crown,

115

O, blessèd bond of board and bed![115]

’Tis Hymen peoples[116] every town,

High wedlock then be honourèd:

Honour, high honour and renown,

To Hymen, god of every town!

120

DUKE SENIORO my dear niece, welcome thou art to me! To Celia

Even daughter, welcome, in no less degree.

PHOEBEI will not eat my word, now thou[122] art mine, To Silvius

Thy faith my fancy[123] to thee doth combine.

Enter Second Brother [Jaques de Bois]

JAQUES DE BOISLet me have audience for a word or two:

125

I am the second son of old Sir Rowland,

That bring these tidings to this fair assembly.

Duke Frederick, hearing how that every day

Men of great worth resorted to this forest,

Addressed[129] a mighty power, which were on foot,

130

In[130] his own conduct, purposely to take

His brother here and put him to the sword:

And to the skirts of this wild wood he came;

Where, meeting with an old religious man,

After some question with him, was converted

135

Both from his enterprise and from the world,[135]

His crown bequeathing to his banished brother,

And all their lands restored to them again

That were with him exiled. This to be true,

I do engage[139] my life.

140

DUKE SENIORWelcome, young man.

Thou offer’st fairly[141] to thy brothers’ wedding:

To one his lands withheld, and to the other

A land itself at large,[143] a potent dukedom.

First, in this forest, let us do those ends[144]

145

That here were well begun and well begot:

And after, every[146] of this happy number

That have endured shrewd[147] days and nights with us

Shall share the good of our returnèd fortune,

According to the measure of their states.[149]

150

Meantime, forget this new-fall’n[150] dignity

And fall into our rustic revelry.

Play, music! And you, brides and bridegrooms all,

With[153] measure heaped in joy, to th’measures fall.

JAQUESSir, by your patience.[154] If I heard you rightly,

155

The duke hath put on a religious life

And thrown into neglect the pompous[156] court?

JAQUES DE BOISHe hath.

JAQUESTo him will I: out of these convertites[158]

There is much matter to be heard and learned.—

160

You to your former honour I bequeath, To Duke Senior

Your patience and your virtue well deserves it.—

You to a love that your true faith doth merit.— To Orlando

You to your land and love and great allies.[163]— To Oliver

You to a long and well-deservèd bed.— To Silvius

165

And you to wrangling, for thy loving voyage To Touchstone

Is but[166] for two months victualled. So, to your pleasures.

I am for other than for dancing measures.

DUKE SENIORStay, Jaques, stay.

JAQUESTo see no pastime, I. What you would have

170

I’ll stay to know at your abandoned cave.

Exit

DUKE SENIORProceed, proceed.— We’ll begin these rites,

As we do trust they’ll end, in true delights. They dance

[Exeunt all but Rosalind]

ROSALINDIt is not the fashion to see the lady the epilogue, but it is no more unhandsome[174] than to see the lord the prologue. If it be true that good wine needs no bush,[175] ’tis true that a good play needs no epilogue. Yet to good wine they do use good bushes, and good plays prove the better by the help of good epilogues. What a case[177] am I in then, that am neither a good epilogue nor cannot insinuate with you in the behalf of a good play! I am not furnished[178] like a beggar, therefore to beg will not become me. My way is to conjure[179] you, and I’ll begin with the women. I charge you, O women, for the love you bear to men, to like as much of this play as please you. And I charge you, O men, for the love you bear to women — as I perceive by your simpering, none of you hates them — that between you and the women the play[183] may please. If I were a woman, I would kiss as many of you as had beards that pleased me, complexions that liked[184] me and breaths that I defied not. And I am sure, as many as have good beards or good faces or sweet breaths will, for my kind offer, when I make curtsy, bid me farewell.[186]

Exit

Textual Notes

F = First Folio text of 1623, the only authority for the play

F2 = a correction introduced in the Second Folio text of 1632

F3 = a correction introduced in the Third Folio text of 1664

Ed = a correction introduced by a later editor

SH = speech heading (i.e., speaker’s name)

List of parts = Ed

1.1.73 she = F3. F = hee 107 SH OLIVER = F2. Not in F

1.2.2–3 yet I were = Ed. F = yet were 39 SH TOUCHSTONE = Ed. F = Clow. (then Clo. throughout) 58 SH CELIA = Ed. F = Ros.

1.3.71 her = F2. F = per

2.1.51 much = F2. F = must 122 be = F2. F = by

2.3.10 some = F2. F = seeme 16 SH ORLANDO = F2. Not in F 30 SH ORLANDO = F2. F = Ad. 72 seventeen = Ed. F = seauentie

2.4.36 thy = Ed. F = they wound = F2. F = would 59 you, friend = F2. F = your friend 64 travel = F3. F = trauaile

2.5.1 SH AMIENS = Ed. Not in F

2.7.38 brain = Ed. F = braive 88 comes = F2. F = come 186 The = F. Ed = Then 202 master = F2. F = masters

3.2.20 good = Ed. F = pood 94 this a = Ed. F = this 114 her = Ed. F = his 182 forth such = F2. F = forth 202 more = modernization of F’s moe 272 deifying = F2. F = defying 276 are = F2. F = art 284 accoutrements spelled accoustrements in F

3.3.61 SH TOUCHSTONE = F2. F = Ol.

3.4.21 of a = F2. F = of

3.5.22 Lean but = F2. F = Leane 106 erewhile = Ed. F = yere-while

4.1.1 me be = F2. F = me 13 my = F2. F = by 20 travel = F3. F = trauaile 72 Sestos = F2. F = Cestos 109 hyena = Ed. F = Hyen 118 wilt = F3. F = wil’t 148 in, it = F2. F = in, in

4.2.2 SH FIRST LORD = Ed. F = Lord 6 SH SECOND LORD = Ed. F = Lord. 8 SH LORDS = Ed. Not in F 4.3.6 bid = F2. F = did bid 143 In = F2. F = I

5.1.29 sir = F2. F = sit 43 policy = F2. F = police

5.2.5 nor her = Ed. F = nor 18 swoon = Ed. F = sound 23 overcame = F2. F = overcome 82 Who = Ed. F = Why

5.3.13 ring = Ed. F = rang

5.4.63 lied = Ed. F = lie 64 to the = F2. F = ro 87 her = F3. F = his 124 SH JAQUES DE BOIS = Ed. F = 2. Bro. 137 them = Ed. F = him 145 were = F2. F = vvete

Act 1 Scene 1

1.1    Location: the whereabouts of Oliver’s household is unspecified

1    Adam name evocative of the biblical first man

2    poor only    crowns gold coins    charged order was given to

3    breed bring up    keeps at school maintains at university

5    stays detains    unkept poorly maintained

6    stalling stall accommodation

7    fair in fine condition

8    manage trained movements    riders horse trainers    dearly at great cost

10    bound indebted

11    countenance behavior/attitude to me/support

12    hinds servants/farm-workers

13    as…lies to the best of his ability    mines my gentility undermines my status as a gentleman

14    grieves vexes

16    avoid put an end to

18    Go apart stand aside    shake me up abuse/scold me

19    make do (Orlando picks up on the sense of “create”)

21    mar ruin

22    Marry by the Virgin Mary (perhaps plays on mar)

24    be naught awhile i.e., be gone

25    prodigal portion biblical allusion to the prodigal (wastefully lavish) son, who, having spent all his money, had to look after pigs and eat their scraps

28    orchard garden

30    knows is aware of/acknowledges the claims of

31    in…blood because of our noble breeding

32    courtesy of nations established custom of civilized society (i.e., rights of inheritance)

33    tradition custom/surrender (of privilege)    blood nobility/kinship/anger

34    is…reverence accords you more of the respect that was due to him

37    young immature/inexperienced

38    villain scoundrel (Orlando plays up the sense of “low-born person”)

39    de Bois “of the woods” (French, though probably anglicized to pronunciation “boys”)

40    begot conceived

42    railed on insulted

43    father’s remembrance the sake of your father’s memory

47    qualities accomplishments

48    exercises activities/skills

49    become suit    allottery share, allocation

50    testament will

52    will (father’s) bequest/(your) wish

54    offend vex/assail

58    grow upon trouble/take liberties with    physic cure    rankness insolence/overgrowth/disease

59    neither either    Holla a shout to catch attention

62    So if it    importunes asks insistently for

65    morrow morning

68    loving i.e., loyal

70    good leave full permission

72    ever constantly

73    to stay by staying

75    loved i.e., one other

77    Forest of Arden the Forêt des Ardennes in France; Shakespeare would have also known the Forest of Arden near Stratford-upon-Avon

78    Robin Hood popular English outlaw who lived in a forest and robbed the rich to feed the poor

79    fleet pass    carelessly in a carefree way

80    golden world in classical mythology, the earliest of ages, when life was idyllic

84    fall (wrestling) bout    credit reputation

86    tender inexperienced    foil defeat

88    withal with this    stay…intendment keep him from carrying out his intention

89    brook endure

90    search seeking

92    kindly requite fittingly/graciously reward

93    underhand secret

95    envious emulator malicious disparager    parts qualities

96    lief willingly

97    look to’t beware

98    grace…thee gain honor at your expense    practise scheme

99    device stratagem

102    anatomize dissect, reveal

105    payment punishment    go alone walk unaided

107    gamester sportsman

109    gentle well-born/honorable/kind    device ingenuity/intention/witty expression/conversation    sorts social classes/types of people

111    misprised despised/undervalued

112    clear settle

113    kindle…thither encourage Orlando to go to the wrestling match

Act 1 Scene 2

1.2    Location: the whereabouts of the court is unspecified

1    coz short for “cousin”

2    would wish

4    learn teach

6    so provided that

8    righteously tempered correctly constituted/properly tuned

10    estate fortune

11    like likely

13    perforce of necessity

16    sports pastimes

18    make sport have fun (plays on the sense of “have sex”)    withal with (perhaps with play on “with all”)

19    neither…again without being able to escape virtuously with no more than an innocent blush (come off plays on the sense of “have an orgasm”)

22    housewife mistress of the household/hussy

25    bountiful blind woman i.e., Fortune, traditionally depicted as a    blind woman turning a wheel

26    fair beautiful    honest chaste/virtuous

27    ill-favouredly ugly

28    office role

29    lineaments features    Touchstone stone used to test the quality or genuineness of gold and silver alloys

30    fall…fire i.e., come to disaster (by being burned and disfigured, by losing her virginity, or by contracting venereal disease)

31    wit intelligence    flout at mock

32    fool i.e., Touchstone

34    natural idiot

35    Peradventure perhaps

37    whetstone stone used for sharpening tools

38    wit…you “Wit, whither wilt thou?” (i.e., proverbial; refers to one with “wandering” wits)

40    messenger bearer of news/official employed to apprehend state prisoners

43    pancakes these could also have savory fillings

44    naught worthless    stand to maintain, insist upon

46    forsworn perjured

59    taxation slander

62    troth faith    Le Beau “the handsome” (French)

66    put force

68    marketable i.e., like pigeons fattened for sale

69    lost missed

70    colour kind

74    laid…trowel expressed excessively/bluntly

75    rank standing as a wit (Rosalind plays on the sense of “foul-smelling” for a joke about farting)

76    losest lose/let loose, release    old ripe/stale/customary

77    amaze bewilder

81    do come

85    tale puns on “tail” (as opposed to beginning)

86    proper handsome/fine

87    bills advertisements/legal documents    presents legal documents; plays on    presence

89    that so that

90    So in the same way

91    dole lamentation

99    any anyone    broken discordant/with parts arranged for different instruments (plays on the idea of broken ribs)    Flourish trumpet fanfare, usually accompanying a person in authority

104    his…forwardness whatever danger results is due to his reckless confidence

108    looks successfully seems likely to succeed

109    cousin term used for any relative beyond the immediate family

111    leave permission

112    odds advantage

113    man i.e., Charles    fain gladly

120    come but in merely enter the field

121    try test

124    adventure venture

125    equal evenly matched

127    misprized undervalued/scorned

128    suit request, petition

131    foiled thrown/defeated

132    gracious favored

133    friends relatives/supporters

137    eke out supplement

138    deceived mistaken

140    lie…earth be thrown on the ground/have sex with    his mother earth/die and be buried (may anticipate the implied reference to Antaeus, son of Earth who renewed his strength by lying on the ground and whom    Hercules defeated in wrestling)

142    will wish/lust/penis    working aim/sexual activity

143    fall conclusive throw

144    warrant assure

146    come your ways come on

148    Hercules demigod who wrestled with and defeated the mighty giant Antaeus    speed protector

151    down fall

154    breathed exercised/out of breath

161    still always

168    calling name/position in life

173    unto in addition to

174    Ere before

177    envious malicious

178    Sticks pierces

180    justly exactly    promise expectation

181    mistress sweetheart

183    suits favor

187    parts qualities/spirits

189    quintain post used as a target when practicing jousting or darts

191    would wants

195    Have with you I’m coming

197    conference conversation

199    Or either

203    condition disposition

205    humorous temperamental    indeed in reality

206    conceive understand/imagine

211    taller more elegant/more attractive (some editors assume a reference to height and emend to “smaller” or “shorter,” since Celia is less tall than Rosalind)

217    gentle well-born/kind

218    argument reason

222    suddenly at any time

224    knowledge acquaintance

225    rest remain    bounden indebted

226    from…smother i.e., from bad to worse    smother dense, suffocating smoke/smoldering fire

Act 1 Scene 3

1    Cupid god of love

3    curs dogs/worthless fellows

4    reasons remarks/explanations

5    Then there were if I did, then there would be

8    child’s father i.e., one who might become the father of my children (Orlando)    briars i.e., obstacles

9    working-day ordinary, everyday

10    burs prickly seed-heads that stick easily to clothing

11    petticoats skirts

12    coat petticoat/skirt

13    Hem cough (as if to dislodge something stuck in the throat or to clear the chest; pun on “sew a hem”)

14    ‘hem’ puns on “him”    have win, possess (plays on the sense of “have sex with”)

15    wrestle plays on the sense of “grapple sexually”

16    take…of support (part plays on the sense of “penis”)

17    a…you bless you/good luck to you (upon may play on the sense of “mount sexually”)    try fight/have sex    fall throw in wrestling/bout of sex/moral lapse

18    turning…service to finish with this joking (turning, jests, and service all play on the sense of “copulation”)

22    dearly deeply (possible pun on “deer” is generated by chase)

23    chase pursuit/hunt

26    Why …not? i.e., Why should I hate him?

30    your safest haste sufficient haste to ensure your safety

39    intelligence communication

41    frantic mad

42    dear noble

46    purgation acquittal

47    grace salvation, divine grace

50    whereon on what

55    friends relatives

60    stayed kept

61    Else otherwise    ranged wandered

63    pleasure will    remorse compassion

64    young immature

66    still always

67    an instant the same time    eat eaten

68    like Juno’s swans i.e., yoked together to pull the chariot of the Roman queen of the gods

70    subtle crafty    smoothness plausibility/friendliness

73    name reputation

76    doom judgment

80    provide prepare

82    greatness authority

84    change exchange

93    sundered separated

97    change i.e., of circumstances

99    at…pale depending on whether    pale is an adjective or a noun, either “the sky is pale in shock and grief,” or “our sorrows have reached their utmost limit”

106    mean lowly

107    umber brown pigment (to conceal aristocratically pale complexions)

112    suit …points dress myself in every respect

113    gallant curtle-axe fine cutlass

114    boar-spear weapon used for boar hunting

116    swashing swaggering/dashing

118    outface …semblances brazen it out with appearances

120    Jove in Roman mythology, king of the gods

121    Ganymede a beautiful youth, carried off by    Jove to be his cupbearer; the name was also used by Elizabethans to refer to a youth who was the subject of an older man’s homosexual desire

123    state status

124    Aliena from the Latin for “stranger”

125    assayed attempted

127    travel journey/hardship

129    Leave me alone leave it to me woo persuade

133    content contentment

Act 2 Scene 1

2.1    Location: the Forest of Arden    Amiens name of a northern French town; may suggest “friendliness” (from the Latin) foresters forest dwellers

2    old custom established practice/experience

3    painted pomp artificial show

4    envious malicious

5    penalty of Adam i.e., the harsher seasons and greater toil that followed loss of Eden

6    difference change    as such as

7    churlish chiding harsh brawling/rebuking

11    feelingly tangibly/intensely

12    uses benefits

13    toad …head supposedly, venomous toads had precious stones in their heads that were antidotes to poisons

15    exempt…haunt not visited by people

16    tongues speech

18    change alter/exchange

19    translate transform/re-express (one thing in terms of another)

20    style mode of expression/way of life

22    fools poor creatures

23    burghers citizens    desert lonely, uninhabited

24    confines territories    forkèd heads i.e., barbed arrow-heads

28    kind manner

31    along stretched out

32    antique ancient/antic (i.e., grotesquely gnarled)

33    brawls rushes noisily

34    sequestered separated (from his herd)

40    Coursed flowed/chased (plays on the sense of “hunted”)

42    markèd of noticed by

43    extremest verge very edge

46    moralize draw a moral from, interpret

48    needless having no need (for more water)

49    testament will

50    worldlings materially minded mortals    sum of more store/additional amount

52    velvet friend deer with smooth coat/richly clothed person/syphilitic lover

53    part depart from/separate

54    flux continuous stream    Anon instantly/soon    careless carefree

56    stays stops

57    greasy plump and fit for killing/wealthy

58    wherefore why

60    invectively in violent terms

63    mere absolute

64    up off

67    commenting pondering

70    cope encounter

71    matter ideas/material for discussion

72    straight straight away

Act 2 Scene 2

2.2    Location: the court

2    villains servants/wrongdoers

3    sufferance acquiescence

7    untreasured robbed/emptied of a treasure

8    roynish coarse

9    wont accustomed

13    parts qualities

17    gallant fine fellow/daring young man/ladies’ man (i.e., Orlando)

19    suddenly immediately

20    quail fail

21    again back

Act 2 Scene 3

2.3    Location: Oliver’s household

3    memory reminder

4    make you are you doing

7    fond foolish

8    bonny priser robust prize-fighter    humorous temperamental

12    more better

13    sanctified sanctimonious, hypocritical

14    comely fair

15    Envenoms poisons

23    your praises people’s praises of you

24    use are accustomed

25    of to do

26    cut you off kill you

27    practices schemes

28    place i.e., safe place    butchery slaughterhouse

31    so so long as

33    boist’rous massive/savage    enforce gain by force

34    common public

38    diverted blood kinship drawn away from its natural course

40    thrifty hire wages thriftily saved

41    foster-nurse nurse who brings up another’s child as her own

42    service…lame i.e., when I am too weak to work

43    unregarded uncared for, ignored

48    lusty vigorous

51    unbashful forehead shameless audacity

54    Frosty i.e., white-haired    kindly pleasant/thriving

58    constant faithful

59    sweat i.e., worked    meed reward

62    choke…having i.e., stop working once they have gained their reward/promotion

66    In lieu of in return for    husbandry cultivation/domestic management

67    come thy ways come on

69    low content humble contentment

72    fourscore eighty (four times twenty)

75    too …week i.e., far too late

Act 2 Scene 4

2.4    Location: the Forest of Arden; except for one brief scene (Act 3 scene 1) the remainder of the action takes place in various parts of the forest for i.e., disguised as alias may indicate a change of costume (see Introduction)

1    Jupiter Roman king of the gods (Jove)

4    weaker vessel i.e., woman    doublet and hose man’s close-fitting jacket and breeches

8    cross burden/coin (with cross stamped on it) Silvius from Latin for “woods”

13    solemn serious

23    fantasy amorous imaginings/desire

25    heartily sincerely, from the heart

26    folly foolishness/lewdness

30    Wearing wearing out, wearying

32    broke from escaped

35    Phoebe a name for Diana/Artemis, goddess of the moon, chastity, and hunting

36    Searching of probing    wound Touchstone will shift the sense to “vagina”

37    adventure fortune

38    sword weapon/penis

39    him the stone/his sword    coming visiting/ejaculating    a-night at night

40    batler wooden club (for beating wet laundry)    dugs teats    chopt chapped    milked plays on the sense of “caused to ejaculate”

41    peascod pea-pod (with genital connotations; a reversal of “codpiece”)

42    cods pods/testicles    Wear plays on the sense of “have sex with, exhaust”

43    capers frolicsome leaps/fornications    mortal subject to decay (sense then shifts to “only human”)

45    ware aware (puns on wear; Touchstone shifts the sense to “wary”)

46    wit possible play on “penis”

49    upon my fashion like mine

50    something somewhat    stale may play on the sense of “prostitute”

51    yond yonder, that

54    clown rustic (Rosalind picks up on the sense of “jester”)

59    even evening (i.e., afternoon)

62    desert deserted    entertainment hospitality, provisions

65    succour help

70    shear…graze i.e., make any profit from the sheep I tend

72    recks cares

74    cote cottage    bounds of feed range of pasture land

75    sheepcote building sheltering sheep (perhaps here a shepherd’s cottage)

78    in my voice as far as I am concerned

80    swain low-ranking man/rustic    but erewhile only a while ago

82    stand is consistent

84    to pay i.e., money

85    mend improve

86    waste spend

90    feeder servant

91    suddenly at once

Act 2 Scene 5

1    greenwood leafy

2    Who anyone who

3    turn adapt, tune note melody

4    throat voice

13    ragged hoarse/harsh

16    stanzo stanza, verse

18    I …nothing Jaques refers to the    names on a loan document of those who    owe money

20    that that which

21    compliment etiquette    th’encounter the meeting/sexual encounter    dog-apes dog-faced baboons

22    beggarly i.e., effusive

24    end complete    cover the while in the meantime lay the cloth for a meal

25    look look for

27    disputable argumentative

28    matters topics

32    i’th’sun i.e., free from care

36    etc. indicates repeat of “no enemy / But winter and rough weather”

38    in…invention in spite of my poor imagination

44    Ducdame meaning unclear; probably a nonsense word

45    gross great/dull/coarse

46    An if if

48    Greek i.e., gibberish circle magic circle/circle of gaping idiots (i.e., the others, gathered round Amiens)

49    rail rant all…Egypt in punishment for Pharaoh’s ill-treatment of the Jews, God slaughtered all first-born children and animals in Egypt, which resulted in a great lament being raised in the night

50    banquet light meal/course of fruit, sweetmeats and wine

Act 2 Scene 6

4    comfort take comfort

5    uncouth unknown

6    conceit imagination

7    comfortable cheerful

8    presently immediately/soon

10    said done cheerly cheerful

Act 2 Scene 7

5    compact of jars made up of discords

6    spheres stars and planets were thought to be contained by crystalline spheres, which produced beautiful music as they rotated

13    motley in a professional fool’s multicolored clothing

17    set terms roundly/in an articulate manner

19    Call …fortune “Fortune favors fools” (proverbial)

20    dial watch poke pocket

23    wags goes (may pun on the sense of “moves sexually”)

24    hour may pun on “whore” nine…eleven possibly suggestive of growing erection

26    ripe mature/grow erect/search

27    rot decay/detumesce/become infected with venereal disease (possibly puns on “rut”)

28    tale puns on “tail” (i.e., “penis”)

29    moral moralize

30    chanticleer a cockerel

31    deep contemplative thoughtful/familiar with sexual matters

32    sans without

34    wear thing worth wearing

39    dry according to Elizabethan physiology, one with a dry brain was slow to grasp matters but sure to remember them    remainder remaining

40    places nooks and corners/topics

41    vents expresses

45    suit request/outfit

46    weed puns on the sense of “clothing”

47    rank luxuriantly, wild

49    Withal as well    charter privilege

51    gallèd vexed, irritated

53    way puns on    why church attendance was required by law

54    that …hit who is the target of a fool’s taunts

55    smart feels pain

56    senseless …bob insensible to the jest; the line is a foot short, suggesting that words may have been omitted, so some editors emend (e.g., “Not to seem senseless” or “If he seem senseless”)

57    anatomized dissected

58    squandering glances random jibes

59    Invest clothe

61    Cleanse purge medically

64    counter worthless token used to represent a coin

66    libertine wild, lecherous, dissolute person

67    brutish sting animal urging of lust

68    th’embossèd …evils swellings and sores caused by venereal disease

70    disgorge vomit

71    pride sexual desire/arrogance

72    tax …party censure any particular individual

74    weary …ebb the very stuff it feeds on is exhausted and used up

77    cost of princes i.e., excessively costly garments

78    come in come forward in the law court/intervene

80    function occupation

81    bravery fine clothes not…cost none of my business as I did not pay for it

82    suits fits/dresses

83    mettle spirit/substance

85    do him right speak truly of him

86    free innocent

89    Forbear stop

92    Of…of? Where has this young cockerel sprung from?

94    rude uncivilized

96    touched …first hit it with your first suggestion

98    inland bred civilized

99    nurture education, good upbringing

101    answerèd satisfied

102    reason may pun on “raisin” (grape), possibly part of the fruit at the meal

103    gentleness nobility/civilized conduct

109    countenance appearance/expression

112    melancholy dark, gloomy

115    knolled rung (to summon people)

119    enforcement constraint

126    upon command at will

127    wanting needs

133    weak causing weakness

136    waste consume

138    unhappy ill-fated

146    acts actions/divisions of a play

147    Mewling whimpering, mewing

153    strange foreign    bearded…pard with a bristling beard like a leopard’s whiskers

154    Jealous in quick to defend his

157    capon chicken (technically a castrated cockerel)

159    saws sayings    modern instances everyday examples

161    pantaloon in Italian comedy, the foolish elderly man who wore spectacles, pantaloons (type of trousers), and slippers

163    hose breeches

164    shank leg

166    his its

167    history history play/narrative

168    mere complete

169    Sans without    eyes eyesight

175    fall to eat    Song often sung by Amiens, assuming he is among the lords on stage for this scene

179    unkind cruel/unnatural

181    keen sharp

183    rude rough

189    nigh close

191    warp wrinkle/become corrugated by turning to ice

196    faithfully convincingly/truly

197    effigies likeness

198    limned portrayed

204    fortunes adventures

Act 3 Scene 1

3.1    Location: the court

1    him i.e., Orlando

2    better greater made made of

3    argument subject

4    present being present (i.e., I would vent my wrath on you instead)

7    turn return

10    seizure taking legal possession of

11    quit …mouth acquit yourself by means of your brother’s own testimony

16    of …nature whose responsibility it is

17    Make …upon seize

18    expediently promptly    turn him going send him packing

Act 3 Scene 2

3.2    Location: the forest (where all remaining scenes are set)

2    thrice-crownèd …night the goddess of the moon, hunting, and chastity, known as Luna/Cynthia/Phoebe in the heavens, Diana/Artemis on earth, and Proserpina/Hecate/Lucina in the underworld

4    thy huntress i.e., Rosalind    sway rule

6    character write

10    unexpressive inexpressible

14    private lonely

15    spare frugal

16    humour temperament    plenty abundance/comforts of life/food

17    stomach inclination/appetite

19    wants lacks

22    art education    complain of lament the lack of/complain about

24    natural instinctive/foolish/rustic

27    hope i.e., hope not

28    ill-roasted …side eggs were roasted in the hot ashes of the fire and required turning for even cooking

30    manners proper behavior/morals

32    parlous perilous

35    but you kiss without kissing

37    Instance evidence/give an example

38    still always    fells fleeces

39    grease sweat

45    tarred …sheep tar, having antiseptic properties, was applied to injured sheep

46    civet musky substance used in perfume and obtained from the anal glands of the civet cat

47    worms-meat i.e., rotten flesh    respect of comparison with

48    perpend consider

49    flux flow    Mend improve

50    rest cease (Touchstone shifts sense to “remain”)

51    make incision cut, as raw meat is scored and salted for cooking/cut, for the medical purpose of letting blood (and curing folly)/graft on (wisdom), as a plant is cultivated

52    raw inexperienced/ignorant/uncooked

53    that what    get earn

54    content …harm patient in my own afflictions

56    simple foolish

57    offer presume/venture    cattle animals/whores    bawd pimp

58    bell-wether leading male sheep of a flock (with a bell around its neck)    crooked-pated with crooked/curled horns

59    cuckoldly a cuckold (man with an unfaithful wife) was traditionally said to grow horns    out of beyond the limits of

62    Ind Indies

66    lined drawn

67    black to dark-complexioned, foul compared to

69    fair beauty/light complexion

70    together continuously

71    It …market i.e., the predictable verse resembles either the jogging to market of country women in a cart or the eager lust of a whore to put herself to sale    butter-women butter-sellers/lecherous women/whores    rank movement in line/lustful

74    hart male deer    hind female deer

76    after kind act according to its nature (proverbial; plays on the sense of “have sex”)

78    Wintered worn in winter/old    lined plays on notion of sex between dogs, giving bawdy connotations to the next line (i.e., Rosalind will lose her slenderness to pregnancy)

80    reap perhaps with slang sense of “have sex”    sheaf and bind tie the crop into bundles (perhaps with suggestion of pregnancy)

81    cart transport the crop in a cart/punish a prostitute by publicly carrying her in or whipping her behind a cart

82    nut plays on the sense of “vagina”

84    rose plays on the sense of “vagina”

85    prick thorn/penis

86    false gallop canter

88    fruit plays on sense of “genitals”

89    graff graft—i.e., make one plant grow onto another (plays on the sense of “have sex”)    medlar tree bearing apple-like fruits/medlar fruit (resembles the vagina)/pun on “meddler” (prostitute)

90    rotten infected with venereal disease

91    right virtue true character

95    For because

97    civil sayings civilized reflections

99    his erring its wandering

100    span distance from thumb to little finger

101    Buckles in encompasses

108    quintessence purest essence/extract    sprite spirit

109    in little in miniature (i.e., in the form of Rosaline)

110    Nature charged ordered Nature

112    wide-enlarged (that had been) widely dispersed

113    presently immediately

114    Helen’s …heart i.e., Helen of Troy’s beauty but not her deceitful heart; when Paris carried Helen off to Troy war broke out between the Grecians and the Trojans

115    Cleopatra famous Egyptian queen

116    Atalanta’s better part presumably her beauty or perhaps athletic skill; Atalanta declared that she would only marry the man who could defeat her in a race, while losing suitors would be killed

117    Lucretia’s modesty raped by Tarquin, Lucretia was so ashamed she committed suicide

119    synod assembly/conjunction of planets

121    touches features

122    would willed

123    I to that I should

124    Jupiter king of the gods who carried off the beautiful youth Ganymede

126    Back (to Corin and Touchstone) move back    sirrah sir (used to an inferior)

128    bag and baggage collective property of an army    scrip and scrippage nonce phrase referring to a shepherd’s pouch (scrip) and its contents

131    feet i.e., metrical feet

137    seven…wonder from the phrase “a nine days’ wonder” (so Rosalind has been wondering about the verses for quite a while)

138    Pythagoras Greek philosopher who believed in the transmigration of souls from humans to animals

139    that when    Irish rat supposedly the Irish could kill rats with rhyming incantations

140    Trow know

142    And a chain i.e., yes, it is, and one with a chain    Change you colour? Are you blushing?

144    friends …encounter inversion of the proverb “friends may meet, but mountains never greet”; friends plays on the sense of “lovers”    encounter plays on the sense of “sexual union”

147    possible i.e., that you do not know

148    I …vehemence I earnestly beg you

149    wonderful incredible

150    out …whooping beyond what all shouts of astonishment can express

151    Good my complexion! Oh (have mercy on) my temperament/curiosity!    caparisoned dressed

153    South …discovery i.e., as lengthy as an exploratory voyage over the South Seas    apace swiftly

158    belly stomach/womb (playing on drink in its slang sense of “have sex”)

159    of God’s making i.e., a real man

162    stay wait for

166    sad…maid i.e., seriously and truly

171    Wherein went he? What was he wearing?

172    makes he is he doing

174    Gargantua the giant in François Rabelais’ book Gargantua (1534)

175    particulars details

176    catechism series of set questions and answers used as a form of instruction by the Church

179    atomies motes, atoms    resolve the propositions answer the questions

180    relish flavor    good observance close attention

182    Jove’s tree oak trees were associated with Jove

183    Give me audience listen to me

185    along out

187    ‘holla’ stop (used to a horse)    curvets leaps about

188    furnished dressed

189    heart puns on “hart” (male deer)

190    burden chorus

193    bring me out make me forget what I was saying    Soft! Wait a moment!

195    lief willingly

198    society company

202    ill-favouredly poorly

204    just exactly

209    pretty clever    acquainted plays on the sense of “sexually familiar”

210    conned learned by heart    rings which had verses engraved on them (also slang for “vaginas”)

211    right painted cloth in the manner of a cheap hanging depicting commonplace mythological scenes

212    questions topics

213    Atalanta famed for her swiftness

216    breather i.e., living being

219    change exchange

220    troth faith

222    figure image (Orlando plays on the sense of “number”)

223    cipher zero

226    saucy lackey insolent minion    habit appearance    play the knave play a boy/trick him

232    detect reveal

234    divers various

238    hard with an uneasy pace, with difficulty contract…marriage formal betrothal

239    se’nnight week (seven nights)

244    lean unrewarding/thin    wasteful time-wasting/causing one to waste away

245    tedious troublesome/painful

247    softly slowly

250    vacation period during which the law courts are suspended    term period appointed for the sitting of courts of law

253    skirts outskirts

256    cony rabbit    kindled born

257    purchase acquire    removed remote

259    religious pious/monastic/scrupulous

260    inland of civilized society

261    courtship court life/wooing

262    touched tainted

263    generally without exception

267    his its

269    physic medicine

270    haunts who hangs around

272    fancy-monger dealer in love

273    quotidian daily recurring fever

275    marks signs, symptoms

276    cage of rushes i.e., flimsy prison

278    blue i.e., with dark circles

279    unquestionable unwilling to be questioned

280    your…revenue your beard is like a younger brother’s income (i.e., small)

281    ungartered not tied up

282    unbanded without a colored hat-band

284    point-device immaculate    accoutrements clothes    as as if

288    apter more likely

289    still always    sooth truth

295    merely entirely dark…do imprisonment in the dark and whipping were “treatments” for the insane

298    profess practice, have knowledge in

301    moonish changeable

302    fantastical fanciful, impulsive

303    apish foolish

304    cattle…colour beasts of this kind

305    entertain welcome, treat well

306    forswear deny, reject    that so that    drave drove

307    living genuine

308    merely utterly

309    liver thought to be the seat of the passions    sound healthy

313    cote cottage

315    by on

Act 3 Scene 3

1    apace quickly

2    how what    simple feature plain appearance (Audrey may understand “specific part/penis”)

3    warrant protect

4    capricious lascivious, fickle (from the Latin caper meaning “goat”; the word play is reinforced by    goats/Goths having similar pronunciations)

5    Ovid …Goths Roman poet    Ovid, author of The Art of Love, was banished to live among the    Goths; he complained that they did not understand his    verses

6    ill-inhabited poorly lodged    Jove…house having been turned away by others, the disguised Jove and his son Mercury were welcomed into the humble dwelling of Philemon and Baucis

8    seconded backed, supported    forward precocious

9    great …room large bill for insubstantial accommodation; some critics see a reference to the 1593 tavern murder of playwright Christopher Marlowe, supposedly the result of a dispute about the bill

10    honest respectable/genuine

12    feigning imaginative/deceitful

15    honest truthful/chaste

18    hard-favoured ugly

20    material meaningful, full of matter/concerned with earthly things

22    foul loathsome/filthy/ugly    slut woman of slovenly habits/kitchen maid/whore    meat food (plays on the sense of “penis”)

23    dish plays on the sense of “vagina”

27    Sir Oliver Martext “Sir” was sometimes used for priests who were not university graduates;    Martext (mar-text) suggests an uneducated priest who could not expound upon the Scriptures    next nearest

28    couple marry (plays on the sense of “get us to have sex”)

29    fain willingly    meeting encounter/sexual union

31    stagger falter

32    assembly congregation    horn-beasts suggestive of cuckolds    what though what of it

33    necessary inevitable

34    knows …goods i.e., is very well off

36    deer plays on the sense of “dear”

37    rascal young or inferior deer in a herd/ordinary husband    walled i.e., fortified

39    defence possibly plays on type of fortification known as “hornwork”

40    to want be lacking

41    dispatch us settle (i.e., marry)

44    on as the

47    What-ye-call’t probably a joking reluctance to say “Jaques” (i.e., “jakes” meaning “lavatory”)

48    ’ild yield (i.e., reward)    last most recent (i.e., present)    toy in hand trifle to attend to

49    covered i.e., put on your (respectfully removed) hat

51    bow yoke    curb restraining strap attached to the bit    bells attached to the falcon’s leg

52    bill stroke beak with beak    nibbling having sex/seizing

55    wainscot wooden paneling

56    green not dried thoroughly/unseasoned    warp shrink/go wrong

57    I…but I am inclined to think that    of by

58    like likely    well properly

62    bawdry lewdness

64    ‘O…thee’ lines from a lost Elizabethan ballad, originally paired with a reply; Touchstone rejects the lines of the abandoned woman, in favor of the dismissive answer    brave fine worthy

67    Wind wend, go

70    fantastical capricious, mad    flout mock/jeer

Act 3 Scene 4

6    dissembling…Judas i.e., reddish, traditionally the hair color of Judas, the disciple who betrayed Christ with a kiss    dissembling deceitful

7    his…children refers to the kiss with which Judas betrayed Christ

9    your this    only i.e., most desirable

10    holy bread bread blessed and distributed to those who had not taken Communion; after the Reformation, bread provided for the Eucharist

11    cast sculpted/cast-off/chaste    Diana goddess of chastity    of winter’s sisterhood i.e., sworn to coldness

16    verity sincerity

17    concave hollow    covered goblet empty drinking vessel (covered when not in use)

22    tapster barman, tavern keeper    reckonings personal esteem/bills

24    question conversation

28    traverse crosswise/poorly aimed and broken across (jousting term)

29    puny tilter insignificant, petty jouster

30    goose fool

32    complained of lamented over

37    pageant spectacle, scene

41    mark observe

42    remove move

Act 3 Scene 5

5    Falls lets fall

6    But…pardon without begging pardon first (a traditional practice)

7    he…lives the executioner who earns his living until he dies

11    pretty ingenious

13    coward gates i.e., eyelids    atomies atoms, specks

17    counterfeit pretend

22    rush waterside plant

23    cicatrice scar    capable impressure palpable impression

29    fancy love

31    keen sharp

38    What though what does it matter

40    Than…bed i.e., than ought to go to bed in darkness so that your lover will not see you

43    ordinary common condition

44    sale-work ready-made goods of inferior quality    ’Od’s (may) God save

45    tangle ensnare

48    bugle glass beads, usually black

51    south south wind    wind and rain i.e., sighs and tears

52    properer more handsome, finer

55    glass mirror

57    lineaments facial features

62    Cry beg

63    Foul…scoffer ugliness is most hideous when it is rough and abusive

65    together uninterruptedly

68    sauce rebuke

72    in wine when drunk

74    tuft of olives clump of olive trees    hard close

75    ply urge

78    abused in sight deceived in his perception

80    Dead Shepherd i.e., Christopher Marlowe (murdered in 1593), from whose poem Hero and Leander the ensuing quotation is taken    saw maxim, saying    of might powerful, convincing

89    extermined exterminated

90    love…neighbourly refers to the biblical instruction to “love thy neighbor as thyself”

92    covetousness refers to the Tenth Commandment which prohibits coveting one’s neighbor’s goods

96    erst formerly

101    poverty deficiency

103    ears i.e., of corn

106    erewhile a short time ago

108    bounds land

109    carlot churl, peasant

111    peevish silly, foolish/spiteful

117    complexion face/appearance

122    lusty lively

124    constant unchanging damask pink or light red

126    parcels bits, parts

132    am remembered remember

133    again back

134    omittance…quittance not having done so does not mean I never shall

138    straight straight away

140    passing excessively

Act 4 Scene 1

4    betray expose

5    modern censure commonplace judgment

6    sad Rosalind quibbles on the sense of “massive, solid”

7    post stout pole

8    emulation envy of those who are superior

9    fantastical fanciful, extravagant

10    politic crafty

11    nice fastidious

12    simples ingredients (literally, medicinal herbs)

13    sundry varied    often frequent

14    humorous moody

20    travel voyage/take pains

22    an if

23    lisp put on a foreign accent    strange suits foreign clothes    disable disparage

24    nativity birth (i.e., nationality)

26    swam floated, traveled

32    clapped him o’th’shoulder merely tapped him/arrested him

33    heart-whole essentially unaffected, with the heart unengaged

39    jointure marriage settlement that provided for the wife in the event of her husband’s death

42    horns of a snail/of a cuckold    fain obliged    beholding indebted

43    armed…fortune i.e., as a snail, naturally possessed of horns    prevents the slander forestalls the disrepute

46    leer complexion, appearance

47    holiday humour festive mood

48    very true

51    gravelled stumped

52    out at a loss for words

53    warn protect, warrant    cleanliest shift most skillful measure

57    Who…out Rosalind goes on to play with the sense of “denied vaginal entry”

59    honesty chastity    ranker more corrupt

60    of my suit out of my courtship/clothing

65    by attorney by proxy (as opposed to “in person”)

66    videlicet “namely” (Latin)

67    Troilus lover of Cressida, who proved faithless to him; he was killed by Achilles during the Trojan war

68    die may play on the sense of “experience orgasm” patterns models    Leander in classical mythology, Leander regularly swam across the river Hellespont to see his lover Hero of Sestos, until one night he drowned

69    though even if

72    found it concluded the cause

74    right real

77    coming-on agreeable, encouraging

79    Fridays and Saturdays days on which Christians abstained from eating meat

81    twenty twenty more

91    Go to expression of impatient dismissal

94    fast firmly/quickly

97    commission authority

98    goes…priest proceeds with the service more quickly than the priest

101    possessed married/had sex with

105    Barbary cock-pigeon male pigeon thought to be from Barbary (north Africa)

106    against before, in anticipation of

107    new-fangled fond of novelty, easily distracted by new things

108    Diana…fountain the goddess was a fairly popular figure to adorn fountains

114    waywarder more obstinate, wilful

115    Make shut    wit possible play on the sense of “genitals”    casement window

118    ‘Wit, whither wilt?’ Wit, where are you going? (proverbial; refers to one with “wandering” wits)

119    check rebuke

122    take catch/possess sexually

124    fault error (plays on the sense of “vagina”)    husband’s occasion excuse to attack her husband (plays on the sense of “sexual business, opportunity for use”)    nurse breast-feed

131    but…away only one abandoned woman

135    behind your hour late    pathetical miserable, deplorable

137    gross whole/inferior    censure condemnation/judgment

139    religion faithfulness

141    try test/judge

142    simply misused absolutely abused    love-prate love-talk

143    what…nest proverbially, the bird fouls its own nest (nest also plays on the sense of “vagina”)

146    fathom six feet    sounded measured, penetrated

149    bastard of Venus Cupid, son of Venus by Mars (or, variously, Mercury or Jupiter), not by her husband Vulcan    begot conceived    thought fancy

150    spleen impulse    blind Cupid was traditionally depicted as sightless    abuses deceives

152    shadow shade

Act 4 Scene 2

4    branch wreath (plays on the sense of “subdivision of a deer’s horn”)

11    bear this burden sing this refrain/bear the cuckold’s horns

16    lusty lively/lustful

Act 4 Scene 3

1    here much Orlando “much Orlando there is to be seen here” (said in irony)

8    waspish spiteful

9    use employ, adopt

13    swaggerer quarreler, blusterer

16    phoenix mythical Arabian bird that was consumed by fire every 500 years, then resurrected from the ashes; only one existed at a time    ’Od’s God is

19    device devising

20    protest declare, vow

24    leathern leathery, rough

25    freestone-coloured brownish-yellow    freestone sandstone or limestone    verily truly

27    huswife’s housewife’s (i.e., hard and coarse)

29    invention style    hand handwriting

31    boisterous violent, rough

34    giant-rude extremely rough

35    Ethiope Ethiopian (i.e., black)

39    Phoebes i.e., is cruel to

44    apart aside

48    vengeance harm

50    eyne eyes

53    aspect gaze (with astrological connotations)

55    prayers entreaties

58    by…mind i.e., employ Silvius to bring me your decision in a sealed letter

59    kind nature

61    make offer

67    instrument tool/musical instrument strains melodies

68    snake i.e., drudge

73    purlieus borders

75    neighbour bottom nearby valley

76    rank of osiers row of willows

77    Left passed by

83    favour appearance/face    bestows acquits

84    ripe mature/elder    low short

88    commend him i.e., offers his respectful greetings

90    napkin handkerchief

94    handkercher handkerchief

99    fancy love

103    bald i.e., leafless

106    gilded gold

109    unlinked uncoiled

110    indented undulating

113    couching stretched out/hidden

114    When that for the time when

120    render him describe him as

124    to with regard to

127    kindness feelings of kinship

128    just occasion justifiable reason

130    hurtling tumult

138    for what about

141    recountments accounts of events    kindly naturally/affectionately

144    array clothing    entertainment welcome, provision

151    Brief in short    recovered revived

152    space time

165    a body anyone

168    passion of earnest genuine emotion

Act 5 Scene 1

2    old gentleman’s i.e., Jaques’

5    interest in right to/share in

7    clown rustic

8    flouting mocking    hold resist, stop

10    God ye God give you

12    Cover thy head i.e., put on your hat (which William has respectfully removed)

19    God’. A good Touchstone may mock William’s rustic accent

30    learnèd educated

32    figure figure of speech, device

34    ipse “he himself” (Latin)

38    vulgar vernacular    boorish coarse speech

39    common vulgar tongue

41    to wit that is to say

42    bastinado beating with a stick

43    bandy fight    in faction in insults    o’errun…policy overwhelm you with cunning

46    rest keep

48    Trip skip (plays on the sense of “succumb sexually”)    attend follow/accompany

Act 5 Scene 2

3    persever persevere

8    estate settle

10    all’s all his    contented willing

12    brother i.e., brother-in-law

13    ‘sister’ i.e., responding to Orlando calling Ganymede “Rosalind” (unless Oliver sees through the disguise and realizes that it really is Rosalind)

14    scarf i.e., sling

21    where you are what you mean

22    thrasonical boastful, vainglorious

26    degrees puns on the sense of “steps”; also refers to the rhetorical device of climax Rosalind uses as her verbs link together and move the sentence forward    pair flight

27    incontinent at once (sense then shifts to “unchaste”)

28    wrath full passion

30    bid invite

34    serve your turn act as a substitute (puns on the sense of “satisfy you sexually”)

37    conceit understanding, intelligence

38    insomuch inasmuch as

39    Neither…me nor am I trying to gain greater approval from you other than that which is necessary to enable you to trust me enough to help you; I am not seeking my own promotion

42    not damnable i.e., not practicing black magic

43    gesture…out manner proclaims

44    straits confined places

46    inconvenient unsuitable human…is i.e., the real Rosalind, not a spirit conjured up by black magic

48    sober serious

49    tender value

50    array clothing

53    ungentleness discourtesy

55    study purpose

56    despiteful cruel, scornful

65    service devotion

72    observance due respect/service

90    satisfy content (plays on the sense of “sexually satisfy”)

96    fail be absent

Act 5 Scene 3

2    dishonest unchaste

3    woman…world i.e., married (plays on the sense of “sexually experienced”)

4    honest honorable

7    clap into’t roundly begin immediately    hawking throat clearing

8    only usual

9    in a tune keeping time/in unison

13    ring-time time for giving or exchanging rings (i.e., wedding season)

16    take seize/enjoy

18    prime spring/height of perfection

19    etc. i.e., repeat chorus

24    carol song

28    ditty lyrics

29    note music, tune    untunable unmelodious

Act 5 Scene 4

5    compact agreement    urged presented formally

17    make…even smooth out all these matters

26    lively lifelike/striking    touches qualities/features    favour appearance/face

30    rudiments basics

31    desperate dangerous

33    Obscurèd concealed    circle surroundings/magic circle

34    toward approaching

35    tongues languages

37    motley-minded foolish-minded

39    purgation test

40    measure stately dance    politic crafty    smooth seemingly amiable

41    undone ruined, bankrupted    like to have almost

43    ta’en up settled

47    ’ild yield (i.e., reward) desire…like wish you the same

48    copulatives people being joined in marriage (with play on “those engaged in copulation”)

49    blood breaks passion declines

50    humour inclination, whim    honesty chastity/virtue

51    foul dirty

52    swift quick-witted    sententious given to utter pointed sayings

53    fool’s bolt “a fool’s    bolt is soon shot” (proverbial; phallic and ejaculatory connotations) bolt short, thick arrow    dulcet diseases sweet afflictions

56    seeming seemingly

57    as for instance

58    in the mind of the opinion

61    disabled disparaged

64    Countercheck rebuke    Circumstantial told indirectly through circumstances or details

67    measured swords checked that the length of the swords was the same (a necessary preparation for dueling)

68    nominate name

69    in print in a precise manner

75    take up settle

77    swore brothers vowed devoted friendship

78    rare extraordinary/splendid

79    stalking-horse horse behind which a hunter concealed himself in order to get within easy range of the game    presentation show Hymen god of marriage (commonly depicted as a young man carrying a torch); sometimes played as a god, sometimes as a part enacted by Amiens or another courtier Still subdued/soft

81    mirth joy

82    made even are reconciled

83    Atone unite

93    shape appearance, physical form

98    bar prohibit

102    bands bonds, i.e., marriage

104    cross adversity

106    accord agree

107    lord husband

108    sure securely bound

111    questioning conversation/inquiry

114    Juno queen of the gods and goddess of marriage

115    board and bed food and lodging

116    peoples populates

122    thou i.e., Silvius

123    fancy love    combine unite

129    Addressed prepared    power army

130    In…conduct under his own leadership

135    world secular life/material interests

139    engage pledge

141    offer’st fairly contribute finely

143    at large of full size

144    do those ends accomplish those aims

146    every every one

147    shrewd hard

149    states ranks, status

150    new-fall’n newly received

153    With…joy in abundant joy    th’measures stately dances

154    patience permission

156    pompous vainglorious/ceremonious

158    convertites converts

163    allies relatives

166    but…victualled only has sufficient supplies for two months

174    unhandsome faulty in appearance/inappropriate good…bush proverbial; something of good quality needs no advertising as its merits speak for themselves

175    bush tavern sign (originally a small bush)

177    case state/predicament    insinuate with work on/stealthily win the favor of

178    furnished dressed

179    conjure entreat/put a spell on

183    the play As You Like It/sexual dalliance If…woman in Shakespeare’s England all parts were played by male actors

184    liked pleased    defied despised

186    bid me farewell i.e., applaud/shout approvingly

THE TAMING OF THE SHREW

The novelist Vladimir Nabokov once wrote that “reality” is a word that only has meaning when it is placed in quotation marks. The physicist’s “reality” is not the same as the biochemist’s, the secular humanist’s as the religious fundamentalist’s. Dare one say the woman’s is not the same as the man’s? In a culture where the conception of inherent sexual difference is regarded as a mere prejudice, as a forbidden thought (regardless of the “reality” revealed by molecular biology and neuroanatomy), The Taming of the Shrew is not likely to be one of Shakespeare’s most admired plays. Its presentation of female subordination presents the same kind of awkwardness for liberal sensibilities that the representation of Shylock does in the post-Holocaust world. At face value, the play proposes that desirable women are quiet and submissive, whereas women with spirit must be “tamed” through a combination of physical and mental abuse. Necessary tools may include starvation, sense deprivation, and the kind of distortion of “reality” that is practiced in totalitarian regimes.

Thus O’Brien to Winston Smith in George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four: “How many fingers am I holding up?” In this “reality” the correct answer is not the actual number but the number that the torturer says he is holding up. There is a precise analogy on the road back to Padua, after Kate has undergone her taming in the secluded country house where no neighbor will hear her cries:

PETRUCHIOI say it is the moon.

KATEI know it is the moon.

PETRUCHIONay, then you lie. It is the blessèd sun.

KATEThen, God be blessed, it is the blessèd sun.

But sun it is not, when you say it is not,

And the moon changes even as your mind.

What you will have it named, even that it is,

And so it shall be so for Katherine.

HORTENSIOPetruchio, go thy ways, the field is won.

She has been bent to her husband’s will. She is now ready to demonstrate that she is prepared to love, serve, and obey him. She knows her place: “Such duty as the subject owes the prince / Even such a woman oweth to her husband.” She offers to place her hand beneath her husband’s foot. The shrew is tamed.

The younger dramatist John Fletcher, who was Shakespeare’s collaborator in his final years, clearly thought that this harsh ending needed a riposte. He wrote a sequel, The Woman’s Prize; or, The Tamer Tamed, in which Kate has died and Petruchio remarried, only to find his new wife giving him a taste of his own medicine by means of the time-honored device of refusing to sleep with him until he submits to her will. Kate’s sister Bianca plays the role of colonel in a war between the sexes, which the women win, thus proving that it was an act of folly for Petruchio to tyrannize over his first wife in Shakespeare’s play.

In Shakespeare’s time, it was absolutely orthodox to believe that a man was head of the household, as the monarch was head of state and God was head of the cosmos. “My foot my tutor?” says Prospero in The Tempest when his daughter Miranda presumes to speak out of turn: if the man was the head, the girl-child was the foot, just as in Coriolanus a plebeian is nothing more than the “big toe” of the commonwealth. Kate’s readying of her hand to be trodden upon turns the analogy between social and bodily hierarchy into a stage image. But she is going much further than she should: the wife was not supposed to be beneath the foot, she was supposed to be the heart of the household. Instead of crowing in his triumph, Petruchio says “kiss me, Kate” for the third time, giving Cole Porter a title for his reimagining of the story in the cheerful mode of a musical.

Nabokov placed the word “reality” in quotation marks not because he was a cultural relativist, but because he was an aesthete. That is to say, he did not believe that art was merely a reflection, a mirror, of a pre-existent “reality.” Art shapes the way in which we perceive ourselves and the world. “Falling in love” is not only the work of molecular change in the brain, but also a set of behaviors learned from the romantic fictions of page, stage—now screen—and cultural memory. One of the tricks of great art is to draw attention to its own artificiality and in so doing paradoxically assert that its “reality” is as real as anything in the quotidian world of its audience. Shakespeare’s taste for plays-within-the-play and allusions to the theatricality of the world, Mozart’s witty quotations of the clichés of operatic convention, and Nabokov’s magical wordplay all fulfill this function.

Sometimes, though, the opposite device is used: an artist puts quotation marks around a work in order to say “Don’t take this too seriously, don’t mistake its feigning for ‘reality.’ ” The Taming of the Shrew is such a work: the opening scenes with Christopher Sly place the entire play within quotation marks. The “induction” presents a series of wish-fulfillment fantasies to a drunken tinker: the fantasy that he is a lord, that he has a beautiful young wife, that scenes of erotic delight can be presented for his delectation, and that a company of professional players will stage “a kind of history” for his sole benefit, in order to frame his mind to “mirth and merriment” while teaching him how to tame a shrewish wife. But Sly is not a lord and the “wife” who watches with him is not a woman but a cross-dressed boy (which reminds us that in Shakespeare’s working world the Kate who is humiliated by Petruchio was also not a woman but a cross-dressed boy-actor). The effect of the frame is to “distance” the action and so suggest that it does not present the “reality” of proper marital relations. If Sly is not a lord and the pageboy not a wife, then this is not how to tame a shrew.

In the surviving script of the play, Sly and the pageboy disappear after the first act, presumably because Shakespeare’s acting company was not large enough to waste several members of the cast sitting in the gallery as spectators all the way through. But in an anonymously published play of 1594 called The Taming of a Shrew, which seems to be some sort of adaptation, reconstruction, or variant version, the Christopher Sly “frame” is maintained throughout the action by means of a series of brief interludes and an epilogue. This version ends with the tinker going home claiming that the play has taught him how to tame a shrew and thus to handle his own wife. But the tapster knows better: “your wife will course [thrash] you for dreaming here tonight.” The hungover Sly is in no position to tame anybody; he will return home and be soundly beaten by his wife. Kate’s speech propounds the patriarchal ideal of marriage, but in A Shrew the Slys’ is a union that reveals this ideology’s distance from “reality”; its implied resolution, with the woman on top, intimates that “real” housewives are not silent and obedient, and plays cannot teach husbands to tame them into submission.

We do not need the epilogue of the anonymously published play to see that Shakespeare’s ending is more complicated and ironic than first appears. Having been outwitted in his courtship of Bianca, Hortensio marries the widow for her money. The latter shows signs of frowardness and has to be lectured by Kate. The first half of Kate’s famous submission speech is spoken in the singular, addressed specifically to the widow and not to womankind in general: “Thy husband is thy lord, thy life, thy keeper, / Thy head, thy sovereign: one that cares for thee.” The contextual irony of this is not always appreciated: in contradistinction to Kate’s prescriptions, in this marriage it will be the wife, the wealthy widow, who provides the “maintenance”; Hortensio will be spared the labors of a breadwinner. According to Kate, all a husband asks from a wife is love, good looks, and obedience; these are said to be “Too little payment for so great a debt.” But the audience knows that in this case the debt is all Hortensio’s. Besides, he has said earlier that he is no longer interested in woman’s traditional attribute of “beauteous looks”—all he wants is the money. Kate’s vision of obedience is made to look oddly irrelevant to the very marriage upon which she is offering advice.

Then there is Kate’s sister. Petruchio’s “taming school” is played off against the attempts by Lucentio and Hortensio to gain access to Bianca by disguising themselves as schoolmasters. In the scene in which Lucentio courts her in the guise of a Latin tutor, the woman gives as good as she gets. She is happy to flirt with her supposed teacher over Ovid’s erotic manual The Art of Love. This relationship offers a model of courtship and marriage built on mutual desire and consent; Bianca escapes her class of sixteenth-century woman’s usual fate of being married to a partner of the father’s choice, such as rich old Gremio. If anything, Bianca is the dominant partner at the end. She is not read a lecture by Kate, as the widow is, and she gets the better of her husband in their final on-stage exchange. Like Beatrice in Much Ado About Nothing, she more than matches her man in the art of wordplay. One almost wonders if she would not be better matched with the pretended rather than the “real” Lucentio, that is to say the clever servant Tranio who oils the wheels of the plot and sometimes threatens to steal the show.

The double plot is a guarantee that, despite the subduing of Kate, the play is no uncomplicated apology for shrew-taming. But is Kate really subdued? Or is her submission all part of the game that she and Petruchio have been playing out? It is their marriage, not the other ones, that compels the theater audience. A woman with Kate’s energies would be bored by a conventional lover such as Lucentio. She and Petruchio are well matched because they are both of “choleric” temperament; their fierce tempers are what make them attractive to each other and charismatic to us. They seem to know they are born for each other from the moment in their first private encounter when they share a joke about oral sex (“with my tongue in your tail”). “Where two raging fires meet together” there may not be an easy marriage, but there will certainly not be a dull match and a passive wife. In the twentieth century the roles seemed ready made for Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor.

KEY FACTS

PLOT: Christopher Sly, a beggarly tinker, falls asleep drunk, having been thrown out of an ale-house. A lord takes him into his house and plays a trick involving the pretence that Sly is a lord himself, for whose benefit a company of players will act The Taming of the Shrew. The main action then commences. Fortune-hunting Hortensio, rich old Gremio, and newly-arrived-in-town Lucentio all wish to court beautiful Bianca, but she cannot marry before her older sister, shrewish Kate. Petruchio vows to woo Kate both for her dowry and for the challenge of overcoming her fearsome reputation. Hortensio and Lucentio gain access to Bianca by disguising themselves as tutors, while Lucentio’s servant Tranio plays the role of his master. Petruchio marries Kate—turning up late wearing the most unsuitable clothes imaginable—and takes her off to his country house, where he “tames” her through various forms of deprivation. Tranio persuades a traveling schoolteacher to pretend to be Lucentio’s father Vincentio in order to give assurance of Lucentio’s financial means; there is confusion when the real Vincentio turns up, but the love-match between Lucentio and Bianca is happily settled. Hortensio marries a wealthy widow and Petruchio and Kate return to reveal that she is a changed woman.

MAJOR PARTS: (with percentages of lines/number of speeches/scenes on stage) Petruchio (22%/158/8), Tranio (11%/90/8), Kate (8%/82/8), Hortensio (8%/70/8), Baptista (7%/68/6), Lucentio (7%/61/8), Grumio (6%/63/4), Gremio (6%/58/6), Lord (5%/17/2), Biondello (4%/39/7), Bianca (3%/29/7), Sly (2%/24/3), Vincentio (2%/23/3), Pedant (2%/20/3).

LINGUISTIC MEDIUM: 80% verse, 20% prose.

DATE: Usually considered to be one of Shakespeare’s earliest works. Assuming that Quarto The Taming of a Shrew, registered for publication May 1594, is a version of the text rather than a source for it (see below), the play is likely to pre-date the long periods of plague closure that inhibited theatrical activity from summer 1592 onward, but there is no firm evidence for a more precise date.

SOURCES: The Induction’s scenario of a beggar transported into luxury is a traditional motif in ballads and the folk tradition; the shrewish wife is also common in fabliaux and other forms of popular tale, as well as classical comedy; Socrates, wisest of the ancients, was supposed to be married to the shrewish Xanthippe; the courtship of Bianca is developed from George Gascoigne’s Supposes (1566), itself a prose translation of Ludovico Ariosto’s I Suppositi (1509), an archetypal Italian Renaissance comedy suffused with conventions derived from the ancient Roman comedies of Plautus and Terence. Some scholars suppose that The Taming of a Shrew (1594) is a badly printed text of an older play that was Shakespeare’s primary source, but others regard it as an adaptation of Shakespeare’s work; it includes the Christopher Sly frame, the taming of Kate (with a differently named tamer), and a highly variant version of the Bianca sub-plot.

TEXT: The 1623 Folio is the only authoritative text; it seems to have been set from manuscript copy, possibly a scribal transcript that retains some of the marks of Shakespeare’s working manuscript. The 1594 Quarto Taming of a Shrew must be regarded as an autonomous work, but it provides a source for emendations on a few occasions where it corresponds closely to The Shrew.

THE TAMING OF THE SHREW

BAPTISTA Minola, a gentleman of Padua

KATE (Katherina), his elder daughter, the “shrew”

BIANCA, his younger daughter

PETRUCHIO, a gentleman from Verona, suitor to Kate

LUCENTIO, in love with Bianca (disguises himself as “Cambio,” a Latin tutor)

VINCENTIO, Lucentio’s father, a merchant from Pisa

GREMIO, an aged suitor to Bianca

HORTENSIO, friend of Petruchio and suitor to Bianca (disguises himself as “Litio,” a music tutor)

TRANIO, Lucentio’s servant

BIONDELLO, a boy in the service of Lucentio

A PEDANT

A WIDOW

A TAILOR

A HABERDASHER

Servants and Messengers (Petruchio has servants named NATHANIEL, JOSEPH, NICHOLAS, PHILIP and PETER)

[Induction] Scene 1*

running scene 1

Enter Beggar and Hostess, [the beggar is called] Christopher Sly

SLYI’ll pheeze[1] you, in faith.

HOSTESSA[2] pair of stocks, you rogue!

SLYYou’re a baggage,[3] the Slys are no rogues. Look in the chronicles, we came in with Richard Conqueror:[4] therefore paucas pallabris, let the world slide. Sessa!

HOSTESSYou will not pay for the glasses you have burst?[5]

SLYNo, not a denier.[6] Go by, Saint Jeronimy, go to thy cold bed and warm thee.

HOSTESSI know my remedy: I must go fetch the thirdborough.[7]

[Exit]

SLYThird, or fourth, or fifth borough, I’ll answer him by law.[8] I’ll not budge an inch, boy. Let him come, and kindly.[9]

[He] falls asleep

Wind horns. Enter a Lord from hunting, with his train

10

LORDHuntsman, I charge[10] thee tender well my hounds.

Brach[11] Merriman, the poor cur is embossed,

And couple[12] Clowder with the deep-mouthed brach.

Saw’st thou not, boy, how Silver made it good[13]

At the hedge-corner, in the coldest fault?[14]

15

I would not lose the dog for twenty pound.

FIRST HUNTSMANWhy, Belman is as good as he, my lord.

He cried[17] upon it at the merest loss,

And twice today picked out the dullest scent.

Trust me, I take him for the better dog.

20

LORDThou art a fool. If Echo were as fleet,[20]

I would esteem him worth a dozen such.

But sup[22] them well and look unto them all:

Tomorrow I intend to hunt again.

FIRST HUNTSMANI will, my lord.

25

LORDWhat’s here? One dead, or drunk? See, doth he breathe? Sees Sly

SECOND HUNTSMANHe breathes, my lord. Were he not warmed with ale,

This were a bed but cold[27] to sleep so soundly.

LORDO monstrous beast, how like a swine he lies!

Grim[29] death, how foul and loathsome is thine image.

30

Sirs, I will practise on[30] this drunken man.

What think you, if he were conveyed to bed,

Wrapped in sweet[32] clothes, rings put upon his fingers,

A most delicious banquet[33] by his bed,

And brave[34] attendants near him when he wakes,

35

Would not the beggar then forget himself?[35]

FIRST HUNTSMANBelieve me, lord, I think he cannot choose.[36]

SECOND HUNTSMANIt would seem strange[37] unto him when he waked.

LORDEven as a flatt’ring dream or worthless fancy.[38]

Then take him up and manage well the jest:

40

Carry him gently to my fairest chamber

And hang it round[41] with all my wanton pictures:

Balm[42] his foul head in warm distillèd waters

And burn sweet[43] wood to make the lodging sweet:

Procure me music ready when he wakes,

45

To make a dulcet[45] and a heavenly sound.

And if he chance to speak, be ready straight[46]

And with a low[47] submissive reverence

Say ‘What is it your honour will command?’

Let one attend him with a silver basin

50

Full of rose-water and bestrewed with flowers,

Another bear the ewer,[51] the third a diaper,

And say ‘Will’t please your lordship cool your hands?’

Someone be ready with a costly suit

And ask him what apparel he will wear.

55

Another tell him of his hounds and horse,

And that his lady mourns at his disease.[56]

Persuade him that he hath been lunatic,

And when he says he is,[58] say that he dreams,

For he is nothing but a mighty lord.

60

This do, and do it kindly,[60] gentle sirs.

It will be pastime passing[61] excellent,

If it be husbanded[62] with modesty.

FIRST HUNTSMANMy lord, I warrant[63] you we will play our part,

As[64] he shall think by our true diligence

65

He is no less than what we say he is.

LORDTake him up gently and to bed with him, Some carry out Sly

And each one to his office[67] when he wakes

Sound trumpets

Sirrah,[68] go see what trumpet ’tis that sounds.

[Exit a Servingman]

Belike,[69] some noble gentleman that means,

70

Travelling some journey, to repose him here.

Enter Servingman

How now? Who is it?

SERVINGMANAn’t[72] please your honour, players

That offer service to your lordship.

Enter Players

LORDBid them come near.— Now, fellows, you are welcome.

75

PLAYERSWe thank your honour.

LORDDo you intend to stay with me tonight?

SECOND PLAYERSo please[77] your lordship to accept our duty.

LORDWith all my heart. This fellow I remember,

Since once he played a farmer’s eldest son.

80

’Twas where you wooed the gentlewoman so well:

I have forgot your name, but, sure, that part

Was aptly fitted[82] and naturally performed.

FIRST PLAYERI think ’twas Soto that your honour means.

LORD’Tis very true, thou didst it excellent.

85

Well, you are come to me in happy[85] time,

The rather for[86] I have some sport in hand

Wherein your cunning[87] can assist me much.

There is a lord will hear you play tonight;

But I am doubtful[89] of your modesties,

90

Lest over-eyeing of[90] his odd behaviour —

For yet his honour never heard a play —

You break into some merry passion[92]

And so offend him, for I tell you, sirs,

If you should smile he grows impatient.[94]

95

FIRST PLAYERFear not, my lord, we can contain ourselves

Were he the veriest antic[96] in the world.

LORDGo, sirrah, take them to the buttery,[97] To a Servingman

And give them friendly welcome every one.

Let them want[99] nothing that my house affords.

Exit one with the Players

100

Sirrah, go you to Barthol’mew my page,

And see him dressed in all suits[101] like a lady.

That done, conduct him to the drunkard’s chamber,

And call him ‘madam’, do him obeisance.[103]

Tell him from me, as he will[104] win my love,

105

He bear[105] himself with honourable action,

Such as he hath observed in noble ladies

Unto their lords, by them accomplishèd:[107]

Such duty[108] to the drunkard let him do

With soft low tongue[109] and lowly courtesy,

110

And say, ‘What is’t your honour will command,

Wherein your lady and your humble wife

May show her duty and make known her love?’

And then with kind embracements, tempting kisses,

And with[114] declining head into his bosom,

115

Bid him shed tears, as being overjoyed

To see her noble lord restored to health,

Who for this seven years hath esteemèd him[117]

No better than a poor and loathsome beggar:

And if the boy have not a woman’s gift

120

To rain a shower of commanded tears,[120]

An onion will do well for such a shift,[121]

Which in a napkin[122] being close conveyed

Shall in despite[123] enforce a watery eye.

See this dispatched[124] with all the haste thou canst.

125

Anon[125] I’ll give thee more instructions.

Exit a Servingman

I know the boy will well usurp the grace,[126]

Voice, gait and action of a gentlewoman:

I long to hear him call the drunkard husband,

And how[129] my men will stay themselves from laughter

130

When they do homage to this simple peasant.

I’ll in[131] to counsel them. Haply my presence

May well abate the over-merry spleen[132]

Which otherwise would grow into extremes.

[Exeunt]

[Induction Scene 2]*

running scene 1 continues

Enter aloft the drunkard [Sly] with Attendants, some with apparel, basin and ewer, and other appurtenances, and Lord

SLYFor God’s sake, a pot of small[1] ale.

FIRST SERVINGMANWill’t please your lordship drink a cup of sack?

SECOND SERVINGMANWill’t please your honour taste of these conserves?[3]

THIRD SERVINGMANWhat raiment[4] will your honour wear today?

SLYI am Christophero Sly, call not me ‘honour’ nor ‘lordship’. I ne’er drank sack in my life: and if you give me any conserves, give me conserves of beef:[6] ne’er ask me what raiment I’ll wear, for I have no more doublets[7] than backs, no more stockings than legs, nor no more shoes than feet — nay, sometime more feet than shoes, or such shoes as my toes look[9] through the over-leather.

10

LORDHeaven cease this idle humour[10] in your honour!

O, that a mighty man of such descent,

Of such possessions and so high esteem,

Should be infusèd with so foul a spirit![13]

SLYWhat, would you make me mad? Am not I Christopher Sly, old Sly’s son of Burtonheath,[15] by birth a pedlar, by education a cardmaker, by transmutation a bear-herd,[16] and now by present profession a tinker? Ask Marian Hacket, the fat ale-wife[17] of Wincot, if she know me not: if she say I am not fourteen pence on the score[18] for sheer ale, score me up for the lying’st knave in Christendom. What, I am not bestraught![19] Here’s—

20

THIRD SERVINGMANO, this it is that makes your lady mourn!

SECOND SERVINGMANO, this is it that makes your servants droop![21]

LORDHence comes it that your kindred shuns your house,

As[23] beaten hence by your strange lunacy.

O noble lord, bethink thee of thy birth,

25

Call home thy ancient[25] thoughts from banishment

And banish hence these abject lowly dreams.[26]

Look how thy servants do attend on thee,

Each in his office ready at thy beck.

Wilt thou have music? Hark! Apollo[29] plays,

Music

30

And twenty cagèd nightingales do sing.

Or wilt thou sleep? We’ll have thee to a couch

Softer and sweeter than the lustful[32] bed

On purpose trimmed up[33] for Semiramis.

Say thou wilt walk, we will bestrow[34] the ground.

35

Or wilt thou ride? Thy horses shall be trapped,[35]

Their harness studded all with gold and pearl.

Dost thou love hawking?[37] Thou hast hawks will soar

Above the morning lark. Or wilt thou hunt?

Thy hounds shall make the welkin[39] answer them

40

And fetch shrill echoes from the hollow earth.

FIRST SERVINGMANSay thou wilt course,[41] thy greyhounds are as swift

As breathèd[42] stags, ay, fleeter than the roe.

SECOND SERVINGMANDost thou love pictures? We will fetch thee straight

Adonis[44] painted by a running brook,

45

And Cytherea[45] all in sedges hid,

Which seem to move and wanton[46] with her breath,

Even as the waving sedges play with wind.

LORDwe’ll show thee Io[48] as she was a maid,

And how she was beguilèd[49] and surprised,

50

As lively[50] painted as the deed was done.

THIRD SERVINGMANOr Daphne[51] roaming through a thorny wood,

Scratching her legs that one shall swear she bleeds,

And at that sight shall sad Apollo weep,

So workmanly[54] the blood and tears are drawn.

55

LORDThou art a lord, and nothing but a lord.

Thou hast a lady far more beautiful

Than any woman in this waning[57] age.

FIRST SERVINGMANAnd till the tears that she hath shed for thee

Like envious[59] floods o’errun her lovely face,

60

She was the fairest creature in the world,

And yet[61] she is inferior to none.

SLYAm I a lord? And have I such a lady?

Or do I dream? Or have I dreamed till now?

I do not sleep: I see, I hear, I speak,

65

I smell sweet savours and I feel soft things.

Upon my life, I am a lord indeed

And not a tinker nor Christopher SIy.

Well, bring our lady hither to our sight,

And once again, a pot o’th’smallest ale.

70

SECOND SERVINGMANWill’t please your mightiness to wash your hands?

O, how we joy to see your wit[71] restored!

O, that once more you knew but[72] what you are!

These fifteen years you have been in a dream,

Or when you waked, so waked as if you slept.

75

SLYThese fifteen years! By my fay,[75] a goodly nap.

But did I never speak of[76] all that time?

FIRST SERVINGMANO, yes, my lord, but very idle words,

For though you lay here in this goodly chamber,

Yet would you say ye were beaten out of door,

80

And rail upon[80] the hostess of the house,

And say you would present[81] her at the leet,

Because she brought stone[82] jugs and no sealed quarts:

Sometimes you would call out for Cicely Hacket.

SLYAy, the woman’s[84] maid of the house.

85

THIRD SERVINGMANWhy, sir, you know no house nor no such maid,

Nor no such men as you have reckoned up,[86]

As Stephen Sly and old John Naps of Greece[87]

And Peter Turph and Henry Pimpernell

And twenty more such names and men as these

90

Which never were nor no man ever saw.

SLYNow lord be thankèd for my good amends![91]

ALLAmen.

Enter [the Page dressed as a] lady, with Attendants

SLYI thank thee. Thou shalt not lose by it.

PAGEHow fares my noble lord?

95

SLYMarry,[95] I fare well, for here is cheer enough. Where is my wife?

PAGEHere, noble lord. What is thy will with her?

SLYAre you my wife and will not call me husband?

My men should call me ‘lord’. I am your Goodman.[98]

PAGEMy husband and my lord, my lord and husband,

100

I am your wife in all obedience.

SLYI know it well.— What must I call her?

LORDMadam.

SLYAl’ce[103] madam, or Joan madam?

LORD‘Madam’, and nothing else. So lords call ladies.

105

SLYMadam wife, they say that I have dreamed

And slept above some fifteen year or more.

PAGEAy, and the time seems thirty unto me,

Being all this time abandoned[108] from your bed.

SLY’Tis much. Servants, leave me and her alone.

[Exeunt Attendants]

110

Madam, undress you and come now to bed.

PAGEThrice-noble lord, let me entreat of you

To pardon me yet for a night or two,

Or, if not so, until the sun be set.

For your physicians have expressly charged,

115

In[115] peril to incur your former malady,

That I should yet absent me from your bed:

I hope this reason stands for[117] my excuse.

SLYAy, it stands[118] so that I may hardly tarry so long. But I would be loath to fall into my dreams again. I will therefore tarry in despite[119] of the flesh and the blood.

Enter a Messenger

120

MESSENGERYour honour’s players, hearing your amendment,

Are come to play a pleasant[121] comedy,

For so your doctors hold it very meet,[122]

Seeing too much sadness hath congealed your blood,

And melancholy is the nurse of frenzy:

125

Therefore they thought it good you hear a play

And frame[126] your mind to mirth and merriment,

Which bars[127] a thousand harms and lengthens life.

SLYMarry, I will, let them play it. Is not a comonty[128] a Christmas gambold or a tumbling trick?

PAGENo, my good lord, it is more pleasing stuff.[130]

SLYWhat, household stuff?

PAGEIt is a kind of history.[132]

SLYWell, we’ll see’t. Come, madam wife, sit by my side and let the world slip,[133] They sit we shall ne’er be younger.

Flourish

[Act 1 Scene 1]1.1

running scene 2

Enter Lucentio and his man Tranio

LUCENTIOTranio, since for the great desire I had

To see fair Padua,[2] nursery of arts,

I am arrived for[3] fruitful Lombardy,

The pleasant garden of great Italy,

5

And by my father’s love and leave[5] am armed

With his good will and thy good company,

My trusty servant, well approved[7] in all,

Here let us breathe[8] and haply institute

A course of learning and ingenious[9] studies.

10

Pisa, renownèd for grave[10] citizens,

Gave[11] me my being and my father first,

A merchant of great traffic[12] through the world,

Vincentio come of[13] the Bentivolii.

Vincentio’s[14] son, brought up in Florence,

15

It shall become to serve all hopes conceived,

To deck his fortune with his virtuous deeds:

And therefore, Tranio, for the time I study,

Virtue and that part of philosophy

Will I apply that treats of[19] happiness

20

By virtue specially to be achieved.

Tell me thy mind, for I have Pisa left

And am to Padua come, as he that leaves

A shallow plash[23] to plunge him in the deep

And with satiety[24] seeks to quench his thirst.

25

TRANIOMi perdonato,[25] gentle master mine.

I am in all affected[26] as yourself,

Glad that you thus continue your resolve

To suck the sweets of sweet philosophy.

Only, good master, while we do admire

30

This virtue and this moral discipline,

Let’s be no stoics[31] nor no stocks, I pray,

Or so devote to Aristotle’s[32] checks

As[33] Ovid be an outcast quite abjured.

Balk[34] logic with acquaintance that you have

35

And practise rhetoric in your common[35] talk,

Music and poesy use to quicken[36] you;

The mathematics and the metaphysics,

Fall to[38] them as you find your stomach serves you.

No[39] profit grows where is no pleasure ta’en:

40

In brief, sir, study what you most affect.[40]

LUCENTIOGramercies,[41] Tranio, well dost thou advise.

If, Biondello, thou wert[42] come ashore,

We could at once put us in readiness,

And take a lodging fit to entertain

45

Such friends as time in Padua shall beget.[45]

But stay a while, what company is this?

TRANIOMaster, some show to welcome us to town.

Enter Baptista with his two daughters, Katherina and Bianca, Gremio a pantaloon, Hortensio suitor to Bianca. Lucentio [and] Tranio stand by

BAPTISTAGentlemen, importune[48] me no farther,

For how I firmly am resolved you know:

50

That is, not to bestow[50] my youngest daughter

Before I have a husband for the elder.

If either of you both love Katherina,

Because I know you well and love you well,

Leave shall you have to court her at your pleasure.

55

GREMIOTo cart her[55] rather. She’s too rough for me. Aside?

There, there, Hortensio, will you[56] any wife?

KATEI pray you, sir, is it your will To Baptista

To make a stale[58] of me amongst these mates?

HORTENSIOMates’, maid? How mean you that? No mates for you,

60

Unless you were of gentler, milder mould.

KATEI’faith, sir, you shall never need to fear:

Iwis[62] it is not halfway to her heart.

But if it were, doubt not her care[63] should be

To comb your noddle[64] with a three-legged stool

65

And paint[65] your face and use you like a fool.

HORTENSIOFrom all such devils, good lord deliver us!

GREMIOAnd me too, good lord!

TRANIOHusht, master! Here’s some good pastime toward;[68] Aside to Lucentio

That wench is stark mad or wonderful froward.[69]

70

LUCENTIOBut in the other’s silence do I see Aside to Tranio

Maid’s mild behaviour and sobriety.

Peace, Tranio!

TRANIOWell said, master. Mum,[73] and gaze your fill. Aside to Lucentio

BAPTISTAGentlemen, that I may soon make good

75

What I have said, Bianca, get you in,

And let it not displease thee, good Bianca,

For I will love thee ne’er the less, my girl.

KATEA pretty peat![78] It is best

Put[79] finger in the eye, an she knew why.

80

BIANCASister, content you[80] in my discontent.

Sir, to your pleasure[81] humbly I subscribe:

My books and instruments shall be my company,

On them to look and practise by myself.

LUCENTIOHark, Tranio, thou may’st hear Minerva[84] speak.

85

HORTENSIOSignior Baptista, will you be so strange?[85]

Sorry am I that our good will effects[86]

Bianca’s grief.

GREMIOWhy will you mew her up,[88]

Signior Baptista, for[89] this fiend of hell,

90

And make her[90] bear the penance of her tongue?

BAPTISTAGentlemen, content ye, I am resolved.—

Go in, Bianca.—

[Exit Bianca]

And for[93] I know she taketh most delight

In music, instruments and poetry,

95

Schoolmasters will I keep within my house

Fit to instruct her youth. If you, Hortensio,

Or Signior Gremio, you, know any such,

Prefer[98] them hither, for to cunning men

I will be very kind, and liberal

100

To mine own children in good bringing up.

And so farewell.— Katherina, you may stay,

For I have more to commune[102] with Bianca.

Exit

KATEWhy, and I trust I may go too, may I not? What, shall I be appointed hours,[103] as though, belike,[104] I knew not what to take and what to leave? Ha?

Exit

GREMIOYou may go to the devil’s dam.[105] Your gifts are so good, here’s none will hold you.— Their love[106] is not so great, Hortensio, but we may blow our nails together, and fast[107] it fairly out. Our cake’s dough on both sides. Farewell. Yet for the love I bear my sweet Bianca, if I can by any means light on[108] a fit man to teach her that wherein she delights, I will wish[109] him to her father.

HORTENSIOSo will I, Signior Gremio. But a word, I pray. Though the nature of our quarrel yet never brooked parle,[111] know now, upon advice, it toucheth us both — that we may yet again have access to our fair mistress and be happy rivals in Bianca’s love — to labour and effect[113] one thing specially.

GREMIOWhat’s that, I pray?

HORTENSIOMarry, sir, to get a husband for her sister.

GREMIOA husband? A devil.

HORTENSIOI say a husband.

GREMIOI say a devil. Think’st thou, Hortensio, though her father be very rich, any man is so very a fool to be married to hell?

HORTENSIOTush, Gremio, though it pass[120] your patience and mine to endure her loud alarums,[121] why, man, there be good fellows in the world, an a man could light on them, would take her with all faults, and money enough.

GREMIOI cannot tell, but I had as lief[123] take her dowry with this condition: to be whipped at the high cross[124] every morning.

HORTENSIOFaith, as you say, there’s small choice in rotten apples. But come, since this bar in law[126] makes us friends, it shall be so far forth friendly maintained till by helping Baptista’s eldest daughter to a husband we set his youngest free for a husband, and then have[128] to’t afresh. Sweet Bianca! Happy man be his dole! He that runs fastest gets the ring.[129] How say you, Signior Gremio?

GREMIOI am agreed, and would I had given him the best horse in Padua to begin his wooing that would thoroughly woo her, wed her and bed her and rid the house of her! Come on. Exeunt both [Gremio and Hortensio]. Tranio and Lucentio remain

TRANIOI pray, sir, tell me, is it possible

That love should of a sudden take such hold?

135

LUCENTIOO Tranio, till I found it to be true,

I never thought it possible or likely.

But see, while idly I stood looking on,

I found the effect of love in idleness,[138]

And now in plainness do confess to thee,

140

That art to me as secret[140] and as dear

As Anna[141] to the Queen of Carthage was,

Tranio, I burn, I pine, I perish, Tranio,

If I achieve not this young modest girl.

Counsel me, Tranio, for I know thou canst.

145

Assist me, Tranio, for I know thou wilt.

TRANIOMaster, it is no time to chide you now.

Affection is not rated[147] from the heart:

If love have touched you, naught remains but so,

Redime[149] te captum quam queas minimo.

150

LUCENTIOGramercies, lad. Go forward.[150] This contents:

The rest will comfort, for thy counsel’s sound.

TRANIOMaster, you looked so longly[152] on the maid,

Perhaps you marked not[153] what’s the pith of all.

LUCENTIOO, yes, I saw sweet beauty in her face,

155

Such as the daughter of Agenor[155] had,

That made great Jove to humble him[156] to her hand.

When with his knees he kissed[157] the Cretan strand.

TRANIOSaw you no more? Marked you not how her sister

Began to scold and raise up such a storm

160

That mortal ears might hardly endure the din?

LUCENTIOTranio, I saw her coral lips to move

And with her breath she did perfume the air.

Sacred and sweet was all I saw in her.

TRANIONay, then, ’tis time to stir him from his trance.— Aside

165

I pray, awake, sir. If you love the maid,

Bend[166] thoughts and wits to achieve her. Thus it stands:

Her elder sister is so curst[167] and shrewd

That till the father rid his hands of her,

Master, your love must live a maid[169] at home,

170

And therefore has he closely[170] mewed her up,

Because she will not be annoyed[171] with suitors.

LUCENTIOAh, Tranio, what a cruel father’s he!

But art thou not advised[173] he took some care

To get her cunning schoolmasters to instruct her?

175

TRANIOAy, marry, am I, sir, and now ’tis plotted.

LUCENTIOI have it, Tranio.

TRANIOMaster, for my hand,[177]

Both our inventions meet[178] and jump in one.

LUCENTIOTell me thine first.

180

TRANIOYou will be schoolmaster

And undertake the teaching of the maid:

That’s your device.[182]

LUCENTIOIt is: may it be done?

TRANIONot possible, for who shall bear[184] your part,

185

And be in Padua here Vincentio’s son,

Keep house[186] and ply his book, welcome his friends,

Visit his countrymen and banquet them?

LUCENTIOBasta,[188] content thee, for I have it full.

We have not yet been seen in any house,

190

Nor can we be distinguished by our faces

For man or master. Then it follows thus:

Thou shalt be master, Tranio, in my stead,

Keep house and port[193] and servants as I should.

I will some other be, some Florentine,

195

Some Neapolitan, or meaner[195] man of Pisa.

’Tis hatched and shall be so. Tranio, at once

Uncase[197] thee: take my coloured hat and cloak. They exchange clothes

When Biondello comes, he waits on thee,

But I will charm[199] him first to keep his tongue.

200

TRANIOSo had you need.

In brief, sir, sith[201] it your pleasure is,

And I am tied[202] to be obedient —

For so your father charged[203] me at our parting,

‘Be serviceable to my son’, quoth he,

205

Although I think ’twas in another sense —

I am content to be Lucentio,

Because so well I love Lucentio.

LUCENTIOTranio, be so, because Lucentio loves.

And let me be a slave, t’achieve that maid

210

Whose sudden sight[210] hath thralled my wounded eye.

Enter Biondello

Here comes the rogue. Sirrah, where have you been?

BIONDELLOWhere have I been? Nay, how now? Where are you? Master, has my fellow Tranio stolen your clothes? Or you stolen his? Or both? Pray, what’s the news?

215

LUCENTIOSirrah, come hither. ’Tis no time to jest,

And therefore frame[216] your manners to the time.

Your fellow Tranio here, to save my life,

Puts my apparel and my count’nance[218] on,

And I for my escape have put on his,

220

For in a quarrel since I came ashore

I killed a man, and fear I was descried.[221]

Wait you on him, I charge you, as becomes,[222]

While I make way from hence to save my life.

You understand me?

225

BIONDELLOI, sir? Ne’er a whit.

LUCENTIOAnd not a jot of Tranio in your mouth.

Tranio is changed into Lucentio.

BIONDELLOThe better for him. Would I were so too!

TRANIOSo could I, faith, boy, to have the next wish after,

230

That Lucentio indeed had Baptista’s youngest daughter.

But, sirrah, not for my sake, but your master’s, I advise

You use your manners discreetly[232] in all kind of companies:

When I am alone, why, then I am Tranio,

But in all places else your master Lucentio.

LUCENTIOTranio, let’s go. One thing more rests[235] that thyself execute: to make one among these wooers. If thou ask me why, sufficeth[236] my reasons are both good and weighty.

Exeunt

The Presenters above speaks

FIRST SERVINGMANMy lord, you nod. You do not mind[238] the play.

SLYYes, by Saint Anne, do I. A good matter,[239] surely.

240

Comes there any more of it?

PAGEMy lord, ’tis but begun.

SLY’Tis a very excellent piece of work, madam lady.

Would[243] ’twere done!

They sit and mark

[Act 1 Scene 2]1.2

running scene 2 continues

Enter Petruchio and his man Grumio

PETRUCHIOVerona,[1] for a while I take my leave,

To see my friends in Padua; but of all[2]

My best belovèd and approvèd friend,

Hortensio, and I trow[4] this is his house.

5

Here, sirrah Grumio, knock, I say.

GRUMIOKnock,[6] sir? Whom should I knock? Is there any man has rebused your worship?

PETRUCHIOVillain, I say, knock me here soundly.

GRUMIOKnock you here, sir? Why, sir, what am I, sir, that I should knock you here, sir?

PETRUCHIOVillain,[11] I say, knock me at this gate

And rap me well, or I’ll knock your knave’s pate.[12]

GRUMIOMy master is grown quarrelsome. I[13] should knock you first,

And then I know after who comes by the worst.

15

PETRUCHIOWill it not be?

Faith, sirrah, an you’ll not knock, I’ll ring[16] it.

I’ll[17] try how you can sol-fa and sing it.

He wrings him by the ears

GRUMIOHelp, mistress,[18] help! My master is mad.

PETRUCHIONow, knock when I bid you, sirrah villain.

Enter Hortensio

HORTENSIOHow now? What’s the matter? My old friend Grumio and my good friend Petruchio? How[21] do you all at Verona?

PETRUCHIOSignior Hortensio, come you to part the fray?

Con[23] tutto il cuore, ben trovato, may I say.

HORTENSIOAlla[24] nostra casa ben venuto, molto honorata signor mio Petruchio. Rise, Grumio, rise. We will compound[25] this quarrel.

GRUMIONay, ’tis no matter, sir, what he ’leges[26] in Latin. If this be not a lawful cause for me to leave his service, look you, sir: he bid me knock him and rap him soundly, sir. Well, was it fit for a servant to use[28] his master so, being perhaps, for aught[29] I see, two and thirty, a pip out?

30

Whom would to God I had well knocked at first,

Then had not Grumio come by the worst.

PETRUCHIOA senseless villain! Good Hortensio,

I bade the rascal knock upon your gate

And could not get him for my heart[34] to do it.

GRUMIOKnock at the gate? O heavens! Spake you not these words plain, ‘Sirrah, knock me here, rap me here, knock me well, and knock me soundly’? And come you now with, ‘knocking at the gate’?

PETRUCHIOSirrah, be gone, or talk not, I advise you.

HORTENSIOPetruchio, patience. I am Grumio’s pledge.[39]

40

Why, this’[40] a heavy chance ’twixt him and you,

Your ancient,[41] trusty, pleasant servant Grumio.

And tell me now, sweet friend, what happy[42] gale

Blows you to Padua here from old Verona?

PETRUCHIOSuch wind as scatters young men through the world,

45

To seek their fortunes further than at home

Where small experience grows. But in a few,[46]

Signior Hortensio, thus it stands with me:

Antonio, my father, is deceased,

And I have thrust myself into this maze,

50

Happily to wive[50] and thrive as best I may.

Crowns[51] in my purse I have and goods at home,

And so am come abroad to see the world.

HORTENSIOPetruchio, shall I then come roundly[53] to thee

And wish[54] thee to a shrewd ill-favoured wife?

55

Thou’ldst[55] thank me but a little for my counsel.

And yet I’ll promise thee she shall be rich,

And very rich. But thou’rt too much my friend,

And I’ll not wish thee to her.

PETRUCHIOSignior Hortensio, ’twixt such friends as we

60

Few words suffice: and therefore, if thou know

One rich enough to be Petruchio’s wife —

As wealth is burden[62] of my wooing dance —

Be she as foul as was Florentius’ love,[63]

As old as Sibyl[64] and as curst and shrewd

65

As Socrates’ Xanthippe,[65] or a worse,

She moves me not,[66] or not removes, at least,

Affection’s edge in me, were she as rough

As are the swelling Adriatic seas.

I come to wive it wealthily in Padua,

70

If wealthily, then happily in Padua.

GRUMIONay, look you, sir, he tells you flatly what his mind[71] is. Why, give him gold enough and marry him to a puppet or an aglet-baby;[72] or an old trot with ne’er a tooth in her head, though she have as many diseases as two and fifty horses. Why, nothing comes amiss, so[74] money comes withal.

75

HORTENSIOPetruchio, since we are[75] stepped thus far in,

I will continue that I broached[76] in jest.

I can, Petruchio, help thee to a wife

With wealth enough and young and beauteous,

Brought up as best becomes a gentlewoman.

80

Her only fault, and that is faults enough,

Is that she is intolerable[81] curst

And shrewd and froward, so beyond all measure

That, were my state[83] far worser than it is,

I would not wed her for a mine of gold.

85

PETRUCHIOHortensio, peace! Thou know’st not gold’s effect.

Tell me her father’s name and ’tis enough,

For I will board[87] her, though she chide as loud

As thunder when the clouds in autumn crack.[88]

HORTENSIOHer father is Baptista Minola,

90

An affable and courteous gentleman.

Her name is Katherina Minola,

Renowned in Padua for her scolding tongue.

PETRUCHIOI know her father, though I know not her,

And he knew my deceasèd father well.

95

I will not sleep, Hortensio, till I see her,

And therefore let me be thus bold with you

To give you over[97] at this first encounter,

Unless you will accompany me thither.

GRUMIOI pray you, sir, let him go while the humour[99] lasts. O’ my word, an she knew him as well as I do, she would think scolding would do little good upon him. She may perhaps call him half a score[101] knaves or so. Why, that’s nothing; an he begin once, he’ll rail[102] in his rope-tricks. I’ll tell you what, sir, an she stand him but a little, he will throw a figure[103] in her face and so disfigure her with it that she shall have no more eyes to see withal[104] than a cat. You know him not, sir.

105

HORTENSIOTarry, Petruchio, I must go with thee,

For in Baptista’s keep[106] my treasure is:

He hath the jewel of my life in hold,[107]

His youngest daughter, beautiful Bianca,

And her withholds from me and other more,[109]

110

Suitors to her and rivals in my love,

Supposing it a thing impossible,

For those defects[112] I have before rehearsed,

That ever Katherina will be wooed:

Therefore this order[114] hath Baptista ta’en,

115

That none shall have access unto Bianca

Till Katherine the curst have got a husband.

GRUMIOKatherine the curst!

A title for a maid of all titles the worst.

HORTENSIONow shall my friend Petruchio do me grace,[119]

120

And offer me disguised in sober robes

To old Baptista as a schoolmaster

Well seen[122] in music, to instruct Bianca,

That so I may by this device at least

Have leave and leisure to make love to[124] her

125

And unsuspected court her by herself.

Enter Gremio and Lucentio disguised

GRUMIOHere’s no knavery![126] See, to beguile the old folks, how the young folks lay their heads together! Master, master, look about you. Who goes there, ha?

HORTENSIOPeace, Grumio, it is the rival of my love.

Petruchio, stand by a while. They stand aside

130

GRUMIOA proper stripling[130] and an amorous! Aside

GREMIOO, very well, I have perused the note.[131] To Lucentio

Hark you, sir, I’ll have them very fairly[132] bound —

All books of love, see that at any hand[133] —

And see you read[134] no other lectures to her.

135

You understand me. Over and beside

Signior Baptista’s liberality,[136]

I’ll mend[137] it with a largesse. Take your paper too, Gives Lucentio the note

And let me have them[138] very well perfumed,

For she is sweeter than perfume itself

140

To whom they go to. What will you read to her?

LUCENTIOWhate’er I read to her, I’ll plead for you

As for my patron, stand you so assured,

As firmly as yourself[143] were still in place —

Yea, and perhaps with more successful words

145

Than you, unless you were a scholar, sir.

GREMIOO, this learning, what a thing it is!

GRUMIOO, this woodcock,[147] what an ass it is! Aside

PETRUCHIOPeace, sirrah!

HORTENSIOGrumio, mum.— God save you, Signior Gremio.

150

GREMIOAnd you[150] are well met, Signior Hortensio.

Trow you[151] whither I am going? To Baptista Minola.

I promised to inquire carefully

About a schoolmaster for the fair Bianca,

And by good fortune I have lighted well

155

On this young man, for learning and behaviour

Fit[156] for her turn, well read in poetry

And other books, good ones, I warrant ye.

HORTENSIO’Tis well. And I have met a gentleman

Hath promised me to help me to[159] another,

160

A fine musician to instruct our mistress.

So shall I no whit be behind in duty

To fair Bianca, so beloved of me.

GREMIOBeloved of me, and that my deeds shall prove.

GRUMIOAnd that his bags[164] shall prove. Aside

165

HORTENSIOGremio, ’tis now no time to vent[165] our love.

Listen to me, and if you speak me fair,[166]

I’ll tell you news indifferent[167] good for either.

Here is a gentleman whom by chance I met,

Upon agreement[169] from us to his liking,

170

Will undertake to woo curst Katherine,

Yea, and to marry her, if her dowry please.

GREMIOSo[172] said, so done, is well.

Hortensio, have you told him all her faults?

PETRUCHIOI know she is an irksome brawling scold:

175

If that be all, masters, I hear no harm.

GREMIONo, say’st me so, friend? What countryman?[176]

PETRUCHIOBorn in Verona, old Antonio’s son.

My father dead, my fortune lives for me,

And I do hope good days and long to see.

180

GREMIOO sir, such a life with such a wife were strange.

But if you have a stomach,[181] to’t a’ God’s name.

You shall have me assisting you in all.

But will you woo this wild-cat?

PETRUCHIOWill I live?[184]

185

GRUMIOWill he woo her? Ay, or I’ll hang her. Aside?

PETRUCHIOWhy came I hither but to that intent?

Think you a little din can daunt mine ears?

Have I not in my time heard lions roar?

Have I not heard the sea, puffed up with winds,

190

Rage like an angry boar chafèd[190] with sweat?

Have I not heard great ordnance[191] in the field,

And heaven’s artillery thunder in the skies?

Have I not in a pitchèd[193] battle heard

Loud ’larums,[194] neighing steeds, and trumpets’ clang?

195

And do you tell me of a woman’s tongue,

That gives not half so great a blow to hear

As will a chestnut[197] in a farmer’s fire?

Tush, tush! Fear[198] boys with bugs.

GRUMIOFor he fears none.

200

GREMIOHortensio, hark:

This gentleman is happily arrived,

My mind presumes, for his own good and yours.

HORTENSIOI promised we would be contributors

And bear his charge[204] of wooing whatsoe’er.

205

GREMIOAnd so we will, provided that he win her.

GRUMIOI would I were as sure of a good dinner.

Enter Tranio brave [disguised as Lucentio] and Biondello

TRANIOGentlemen, God save you. If I may be bold,

Tell me, I beseech you, which is the readiest[208] way

To the house of Signior Baptista Minola?

210

BIONDELLOHe that has the two fair daughters, is’t he you mean?

TRANIOEven he, Biondello.

GREMIOHark you, sir, you mean not her to[212]—

TRANIOPerhaps, him and her, sir. What[213] have you to do?

PETRUCHIONot her that chides, sir, at any hand, I pray.

215

TRANIOI love no chiders,[215] sir. Biondello, let’s away.

LUCENTIOWell begun,[216] Tranio. Aside

HORTENSIOSir, a word ere[217] you go:

Are you a suitor to the maid you talk of, yea or no?

TRANIOAnd if I be, sir, is it any offence?

220

GREMIONo, if without more words you will get you hence.

TRANIOWhy, sir, I pray, are not the streets as free

For me as for you?

GREMIOBut so is not she.

TRANIOFor what reason, I beseech you?

225

GREMIOFor this reason, if you’ll know,

That she’s the choice[226] love of Signior Gremio.

HORTENSIOThat she’s the chosen of Signior Hortensio.

TRANIOSoftly, my masters. If you be gentlemen,

Do me this right: hear me with patience.

230

Baptista is a noble gentleman,

To whom my father is not all[231] unknown,

And were his daughter fairer than she is,

She may more suitors have, and me for one.

Fair Leda’s daughter[234] had a thousand wooers,

235

Then well one more may fair Bianca have,

And so she shall. Lucentio shall make one,

Though[237] Paris came in hope to speed alone.

GREMIOWhat, this gentleman will out-talk us all.

LUCENTIOSir, give him head.[239] I know he’ll prove a jade.

240

PETRUCHIOHortensio, to what end are all these words?

HORTENSIOSir, let me be so bold as ask you,

Did you yet ever see Baptista’s daughter?

TRANIONo, sir, but hear I do that he hath two:

The one as famous for a scolding tongue

245

As is the other for beauteous modesty.

PETRUCHIOSir, sir, the first’s for me, let[246] her go by.

GREMIOYea, leave that labour to great Hercules,[247]

And let it be[248] more than Alcides’ twelve.

PETRUCHIOSir, understand you this of me, in sooth:[249]

250

The youngest daughter whom you hearken for,[250]

Her father keeps from all access of suitors,

And will not promise her to any man

Until the elder sister first be wed.

The younger then is free, and not before.

255

TRANIOIf it be so, sir, that you are the man

Must stead[256] us all and me amongst the rest,

And if you break the ice and do this feat,

Achieve the elder, set the younger free

For our access, whose hap[259] shall be to have her

260

Will[260] not so graceless be to be ingrate.

HORTENSIOSir, you say well, and well you do conceive.[261]

And since you do profess to be a suitor,

You must, as we do, gratify[263] this gentleman,

To whom we all rest[264] generally beholding.

265

TRANIOSir, I shall not be slack, in sign whereof,

Please ye we may contrive[266] this afternoon

And quaff carouses[267] to our mistress’ health,

And do as adversaries[268] do in law,

Strive[269] mightily, but eat and drink as friends.

270

GRUMIO and BIONDELLOO excellent motion![270] Fellows, let’s be gone.

HORTENSIOThe motion’s good indeed and be it so,

Petruchio, I shall be your ben venuto.[272]

Exeunt

[Act 2 Scene 1]

running scene 3

Enter Katherina and Bianca Bianca’s hands tied

BIANCAGood sister, wrong me not, nor wrong yourself,

To make a bondmaid[2] and a slave of me.

That I disdain. But for these other goods,[3]

Unbind[4] my hands, I’ll pull them off myself,

5

Yea, all my raiment,[5] to my petticoat,

Or what you will command me will I do,

So well I know my duty to my elders.

KATEOf all thy suitors here I charge thee tell

Whom thou lov’st best: see thou dissemble[9] not.

10

BIANCABelieve me, sister, of all the men alive

I never yet beheld that special[11] face

Which I could fancy more than any other.

KATEMinion,[13] thou liest. Is’t not Hortensio?

BIANCAIf you affect[14] him, sister, here I swear

15

I’ll plead for you myself, but you shall have him.

KATEO, then belike you fancy riches more:

You will have Gremio to keep you fair.[17]

BIANCAIs it for him you do envy[18] me so?

Nay then you jest, and now I well perceive

20

You have but jested with me all this while.

I prithee sister Kate, untie my hands.

KATEIf that be jest, then all the rest was so.

Strikes her

Enter Baptista

BAPTISTAWhy, how now, dame?[23] Whence grows this insolence?—

Bianca, stand aside. Poor girl, she weeps.

25

Go ply thy needle,[25] meddle not with her.—

For shame, thou hilding[26] of a devilish spirit,

Why dost thou wrong her that did ne’er wrong thee?

When did she cross[28] thee with a bitter word?

KATEHer silence flouts[29] me, and I’ll be revenged.

Flies after Bianca

30

BAPTISTAWhat, in my sight? Bianca, get thee in.

Exit [Bianca]

KATEWhat, will you not suffer[31] me? Nay, now I see

She is your treasure, she must have a husband,

I must dance[33] barefoot on her wedding day,

And for your love to her lead[34] apes in hell.

35

Talk not to me. I will go sit and weep

Till I can find occasion of[36] revenge.

[Exit]

BAPTISTAWas ever gentleman thus grieved as I?

But who comes here?

Enter Gremio, Lucentio in the habit of a mean man, Petruchio with [Hortensio as a musician, and] Tranio, with his boy [Biondello] bearing a lute and books

GREMIOGood morrow, neighbour Baptista.

40

BAPTISTAGood morrow, neighbour Gremio.

God save you, gentlemen!

PETRUCHIOAnd you, good sir. Pray, have you not a daughter

Called Katherina, fair and virtuous?

BAPTISTAI have a daughter, sir, called Katherina.

45

GREMIOYou are too blunt. Go[45] to it orderly.

PETRUCHIOYou wrong me, Signior Gremio, give me leave.[46]—

I am a gentleman of Verona, sir, To Baptista

That, hearing of her beauty and her wit,[48]

Her affability and bashful modesty,

50

Her wondrous qualities and mild behaviour,

Am bold to show myself a forward[51] guest

Within your house, to make mine eye the witness

Of that report which I so oft have heard.

And for[54] an entrance to my entertainment,

55

I do present you with a man of mine, Presents Hortensio

Cunning in music and the mathematics,

To instruct her fully in those sciences,[57]

Whereof I know she is not ignorant.

Accept of[59] him, or else you do me wrong.

60

His name is Litio,[60] born in Mantua.

BAPTISTAYou’re welcome, sir, and he, for your good sake.

But for my daughter Katherine, this I know,

She is not for your turn,[63] the more my grief.

PETRUCHIOI see you do not mean to part with her,

65

Or else you like not of my company.

BAPTISTAMistake me not, I speak but as I find.

Whence are you, sir? What may I call your name?

PETRUCHIOPetruchio is my name, Antonio’s son,

A man well known throughout all Italy.

70

BAPTISTAI know him well. You are welcome for his sake.

GREMIOSaving[71] your tale, Petruchio, I pray,

Let us that are poor petitioners[72] speak too:

Baccare![73] You are marvellous forward.

PETRUCHIOO, pardon me, Signior Gremio, I[74] would fain be doing.

GREMIOI doubt it not, sir. But you will curse your wooing.—To Baptists Neighbour, this is a gift very grateful,[76] I am sure of it. To express the like kindness, myself, that have been more kindly[77] beholding to you than any, Presents Lucentio freely give unto you this young scholar, that hath been long studying at Rheims,[78] as cunning in Greek, Latin, and other languages, as the other in music and mathematics. His name is Cambio.[79] Pray, accept his service.

BAPTISTAA thousand thanks, Signior Gremio.

Welcome, good Cambio.—

But, gentle sir, methinks you walk[83] like a stranger. To Tranio

May I be so bold to know the cause of your coming?

85

TRANIOPardon me, sir, the boldness is mine own,

That, being a stranger in this city here,

Do make myself a suitor to your daughter,

Unto Bianca, fair and virtuous.

Nor is your firm resolve unknown to me,

90

In the preferment[90] of the eldest sister.

This liberty is all that I request,

That, upon knowledge[92] of my parentage,

I may have welcome ’mongst the rest that woo,

And free access and favour as the rest.

95

And toward the education of your daughters

I here bestow a simple instrument, Presents lute and books

And this small packet of Greek and Latin books:

If you accept them, then their worth is great.

BAPTISTALucentio[99] is your name? Of whence, I pray?

100

TRANIOOf Pisa, sir, son to Vincentio.

BAPTISTAA mighty[101] man of Pisa. By report

I know him well. You are very welcome, sir.— To Hortensio and Lucentio

Take you the lute, and you the set of books,

You shall go see your pupils presently.[104]—

105

Holla,[105] within!

Enter a Servant

Sirrah, lead these gentlemen

To my daughters, and tell them both

These are their tutors: bid them use them well.

[Exit Servant, with Lucentio and Hortensio, Biondello following]

We will go walk a little in the orchard,[109]

110

And then to dinner.[110] You are passing welcome,

And so I pray you all to think yourselves.

PETRUCHIOSignior Baptista, my business asketh haste,[112]

And every day I cannot come to woo.

You knew my father well, and in him me,

115

Left solely heir to all his lands and goods,

Which I have bettered rather than decreased.

Then tell me, if I get your daughter’s love,

What dowry shall I have with her to wife?

BAPTISTAAfter my death the one half of my lands,

120

And in possession[120] twenty thousand crowns.

PETRUCHIOAnd for that dowry I’ll assure[121] her of

Her widowhood, be it that she survive me,

In all my lands and leases[123] whatsoever.

Let specialties[124] be therefore drawn between us,

125

That covenants[125] may be kept on either hand.

BAPTISTAAy, when the special[126] thing is well obtained,

That is, her love, for that is all in all.

PETRUCHIOWhy, that is nothing, for I tell you, father,[128]

I am as peremptory as she proud-minded.

130

And where two raging fires meet together

They do consume the thing that feeds their fury.

Though little fire grows great with little wind,

Yet extreme gusts will blow out fire and all:

So I[134] to her and so she yields to me,

135

For I am rough and woo not like a babe.

BAPTISTAWell mayst thou woo, and happy[136] be thy speed!

But be thou armed for some unhappy words.

PETRUCHIOAy, to the proof,[138] as mountains are for winds,

That shakes not, though they blow perpetually.

Enter Hortensio [disguised as Litio], with his head broke

140

BAPTISTAHow now, my friend? Why dost thou look so pale?

HORTENSIOFor fear, I promise you, if I look pale.

BAPTISTAWhat, will my daughter prove a good musician?

HORTENSIOI think she’ll sooner prove[143] a soldier.

Iron may hold with[144] her, but never lutes.

145

BAPTISTAWhy, then thou canst not break her to[145] the lute?

HORTENSIOWhy, no, for she hath broke[146] the lute to me.

I did but tell her she mistook her frets,[147]

And bowed her hand to teach her fingering,

When, with a most impatient devilish spirit,

150

‘Frets, call you these?’ quoth she, ‘I’ll fume[150] with them.’

And with that word, she struck me on the head,

And through the instrument my pate[152] made way,

And there I stood amazèd[153] for a while,

As[154] on a pillory, looking through the lute,

155

While she did call me rascal fiddler[155]

And twangling Jack,[156] with twenty such vile terms,

As had she studied[157] to misuse me so.

PETRUCHIONow, by the world, it is a lusty[158] wench.

I love her ten times more than e’er I did.

160

O, how I long to have some chat with her!

BAPTISTAWell, go with me and be not so discomfited.[161] To Hortensio

Proceed in practice[162] with my younger daughter,

She’s apt to learn and thankful for good turns.

Signior Petruchio, will you go with us,

165

Or shall I send my daughter Kate to you?

PETRUCHIOI pray you do.

Exeunt all but Petruchio

I’ll attend[166] her here,

And woo her with some spirit when she comes.

Say that she rail, why then I’ll tell her plain

She sings as sweetly as a nightingale:

170

Say that she frown, I’ll say she looks as clear[170]

As morning roses newly washed with dew:

Say she be mute and will not speak a word,

Then I’ll commend her volubility,

And say she uttereth piercing[174] eloquence:

175

If she do bid me pack,[175] I’ll give her thanks,

As though she bid me stay by her a week:

If she deny to wed, I’ll crave[177] the day

When I shall ask the banns[178] and when be married.

But here she comes, and now, Petruchio, speak.

Enter Katherina

180

Good morrow, Kate, for that’s your name, I hear.

KATEWell have you heard, but something hard[181] of hearing:

They call me Katherine that do talk of me.

PETRUCHIOYou lie, in faith, for you are called plain Kate,

And bonny Kate and sometimes Kate the curst,

185

But Kate, the prettiest Kate in Christendom,

Kate of Kate Hall, my super-dainty Kate,

For dainties[187] are all Kates, and therefore, Kate,

Take this of[188] me, Kate of my consolation,

Hearing thy mildness praised in every town,

190

Thy virtues spoke of, and thy beauty sounded,[190]

Yet not so deeply[191] as to thee belongs,

Myself am moved[192] to woo thee for my wife.

KATEMoved? In good time![193] Let him that moved you hither

Remove you[194] hence. I knew you at the first

195

You were a movable.[195]

PETRUCHIOWhy, what’s a movable?

KATEA joint stool.[197]

PETRUCHIOThou hast hit it: come, sit on me.[198]

KATEAsses[199] are made to bear, and so are you.

200

PETRUCHIOWomen are made to bear, and so are you.

KATENo such jade as you, if me you mean.

PETRUCHIOAlas, good Kate, I will not burden[202] thee,

For knowing thee to be but young and light[203]—

KATEToo light[204] for such a swain as you to catch,

205

And yet as[205] heavy as my weight should be.

PETRUCHIOShould be?[206] Should — buzz!

KATEWell ta’en,[207] and like a buzzard.

PETRUCHIOO slow-winged turtle,[208] shall a buzzard take thee?

KATEAy, for a turtle,[209] as he takes a buzzard.

210

PETRUCHIOCome, come, you wasp, i’faith, you are too angry.

KATEIf I be waspish,[211] best beware my sting.

PETRUCHIOMy remedy is then to pluck it out.

KATEAy, if the fool could find it where it lies.

PETRUCHIOWho knows not where a wasp does wear his sting?[214] In his tail.

215

KATEIn his tongue.

PETRUCHIOWhose tongue?

KATEYours, if you talk of tails,[217] and so farewell.

PETRUCHIOWhat, with[218] my tongue in your tail? Nay, come again.

Good Kate, I am a gentleman.

220

KATEThat I’ll try.[220]

She strikes him

PETRUCHIOI swear I’ll cuff[221] you, if you strike again.

KATESo may you lose your arms:[222]

If you strike[223] me, you are no gentleman,

And if no gentleman, why then no arms.

225

PETRUCHIOA herald, Kate? O, put me in thy books![225]

KATEWhat is your crest,[226] a coxcomb?

PETRUCHIOA combless[227] cock, so Kate will be my hen.

KATENo cock of mine, you crow too like a craven.[228]

PETRUCHIONay, come, Kate, come, you must not look so sour.

230

KATEIt is my fashion,[230] when I see a crab.

PETRUCHIOWhy, here’s no crab, and therefore look not sour.

KATEThere is, there is.

PETRUCHIOThen show it me.

KATEHad I a glass,[234] I would.

235

PETRUCHIOWhat, you mean my face?

KATEWell[236] aimed of such a young one.

PETRUCHIONow, by Saint George, I am too young[237] for you.

KATEYet you are withered.

PETRUCHIO’Tis with cares.[239]

240

KATEI care not.

PETRUCHIONay, hear you, Kate. In sooth you scape[241] not so.

KATEI chafe[242] you, if I tarry. Let me go.

PETRUCHIONo, not a whit. I find you passing gentle.

’Twas told me you were rough[244] and coy and sullen,

245

And now I find report a very liar,

For thou are pleasant,[246] gamesome, passing courteous,

But slow[247] in speech, yet sweet as spring-time flowers.

Thou canst not frown, thou canst not look askance,[248]

Nor bite the lip, as angry wenches will,

250

Nor hast thou pleasure to be cross[250] in talk.

But thou with mildness entertain’st[251] thy wooers,

With gentle conference,[252] soft and affable.

Why does the world report that Kate doth limp? Kicks her?

O sland’rous world! Kate like the hazel twig

255

Is straight and slender and as brown in hue

As hazelnuts and sweeter than the kernels.

O, let me see thee walk: thou dost not halt.[257]

KATEGo, fool, and whom[258] thou keep’st command.

PETRUCHIODid ever Dian[259] so become a grove

260

As Kate this chamber with her princely gait?[260]

O, be thou Dian, and let her be Kate,

And then let Kate be chaste and Dian sportful![262]

KATEWhere did you study[263] all this goodly speech?

PETRUCHIOIt is extempore,[264] from my mother-wit.

265

KATEA[265] witty mother, witless else her son.

PETRUCHIOAm I not wise?[266]

KATEYes, keep you warm.

PETRUCHIOMarry, so I mean,[268] sweet Katherine, in thy bed.

And therefore, setting all this chat aside,

270

Thus in plain terms: your father hath consented

That you shall be my wife; your dowry ’greed on,

And, will[272] you, nill you, I will marry you.

Now, Kate, I am a husband for your turn,[273]

For by this light, whereby I see thy beauty,

275

Thy beauty that doth make me like thee well,

Thou must be married to no man but me,

Enter Baptista, Gremio, Tranio [disguised as Lucentio]

For I am he am born to tame you, Kate,

And bring you from a wild Kate[278] to a Kate

Conformable[279] as other household Kates.

280

Here comes your father. Never make denial,[280]

I must and will have Katherine to my wife.

BAPTISTANow, Signior Petruchio, how speed you[282] with my daughter?

PETRUCHIOHow but well, sir? How but well?

It were impossible I should speed amiss.[284]

285

BAPTISTAWhy, how now, daughter Katherine? In your dumps?[285]

KATECall you me ‘daughter’? Now, I promise you

You have showed a tender fatherly regard,

To wish me wed to one half-lunatic,

A mad-cap ruffian and a swearing Jack

290

That thinks with oaths to face[290] the matter out.

PETRUCHIOFather, ’tis thus: yourself and all the world

That talked of her, have talked amiss of her:

If she be curst, it is for policy,[293]

For she’s not froward, but modest as the dove,

295

She is not hot, but temperate[295] as the morn,

For patience she will prove a second Grissel,[296]

And Roman Lucrece[297] for her chastity.

And to conclude, we have ’greed[298] so well together

That upon Sunday is the wedding day.

300

KATEI’ll see thee hanged on Sunday first.

GREMIOHark, Petruchio, she says she’ll see thee hanged first.

TRANIOIs this your speeding?[302] Nay then, goodnight our part!

PETRUCHIOBe patient, gentlemen, I choose her for myself.

If she and I be pleased, what’s that to you?

305

’Tis bargained ’twixt us twain,[305] being alone,

That she shall still be curst in company.

I tell you, ’tis incredible to believe

How much she loves me: O, the kindest Kate!

She hung about my neck, and kiss on kiss

310

She vied[310] so fast, protesting oath on oath,

That in a twink[311] she won me to her love.

O, you are novices! ’Tis a[312] world to see

How tame, when men and women are alone,

A meacock[314] wretch can make the curstest shrew.

315

Give me thy hand, Kate. I will unto Venice

To buy apparel ’gainst[316] the wedding day;

Provide the feast, father, and bid[317] the guests.

I will be sure my Katherine shall be fine.[318]

BAPTISTAI know not what to say, but give me your hands.[319]

320

God send you joy, Petruchio! ’Tis a match.

GREMIO AND TRANIOAmen, say we. We will be witnesses.

PETRUCHIOFather, and wife, and gentlemen, adieu.

I will to Venice. Sunday comes apace.[323]

We will have rings and things and fine array,

325

And kiss me, Kate, we will be married o’Sunday.

Exeunt Petruchio and Katherine [separately]

GREMIOWas ever match clapped up[326] so suddenly?

BAPTISTAFaith, gentlemen, now I play a merchant’s part,

And venture madly on a desperate mart.[328]

TRANIO’Twas[329] a commodity lay fretting by you:

330

’Twill bring you gain, or perish on the seas.

BAPTISTAThe gain I seek is quiet[331] in the match.

GREMIONo doubt but he hath got a quiet catch.[332]

But now, Baptista, to your younger daughter.

Now is the day we long have looked for.

335

I am your neighbour, and was suitor first.

TRANIOAnd I am one that love Bianca more

Than words can witness, or your thoughts can guess.

GREMIOYoungling, thou canst not love so dear as I.

TRANIOGreybeard, thy love doth freeze.[339]

340

GREMIOBut thine doth fry.[340]

Skipper,[341] stand back, ’tis age that nourisheth.

TRANIOBut youth in ladies’ eyes that flourisheth.

BAPTISTAContent you, gentlemen, I will compound[343] this strife.

’Tis deeds[344] must win the prize, and he of both

345

That can assure my daughter greatest dower[345]

Shall have my Bianca’s love.

Say, Signior Gremio, what can you assure her?

GREMIOFirst, as you know, my house within the city

Is richly furnished with plate[349] and gold,

350

Basins and ewers to lave[350] her dainty hands:

My hangings[351] all of Tyrian tapestry:

In ivory coffers[352] I have stuffed my crowns:

In cypress[353] chests my arras counterpoints,

Costly apparel, tents,[354] and canopies,

355

Fine linen, Turkey[355] cushions bossed with pearl,

Valance[356] of Venice gold in needlework:

Pewter and brass and all things that belongs

To house or housekeeping. Then, at my farm

I have a hundred milch-kine[359] to the pail,

360

Sixscore fat oxen standing in my stalls,

And all things answerable[361] to this portion.

Myself am struck[362] in years, I must confess,

And if I die tomorrow, this is hers,

If whilst I live she will be only mine.

365

TRANIOThat ‘only’ came well in.[365] Sir, list to me:

I am my father’s heir and only son.

If I may have your daughter to my wife,

I’ll leave her houses three or four as good,

Within rich Pisa walls,[369] as any one

370

Old Signior Gremio has in Padua,

Besides two[371] thousand ducats by the year

Of fruitful land, all which shall be her jointure.[372]

What, have I pinched[373] you, Signior Gremio?

GREMIOTwo thousand ducats by the year of land?

375

My land amounts not to so much in all.— Aside

That she shall have, besides an argosy[376]

That now is lying in Marseillis’ road.[377]

What, have I choked you with an argosy? To Tranio

TRANIOGremio, ’tis known my father hath no less

380

Than three great argosies, besides two galliases,[380]

And twelve tight[381] galleys. These I will assure her,

And twice as much, whate’er thou offer’st next.

GREMIONay, I have offered all, I have no more,

And she can have no more than all I have.

385

If you like me, she shall have me and mine. To Baptista

TRANIOWhy then the maid is mine from all the world,

By your firm promise. Gremio is out-vied.[387]

BAPTISTAI must confess your offer is the best,

And let[389] your father make her the assurance,

390

She is your own, else,[390] you must pardon me.

If you should die before him, where’s her dower?

TRANIOThat’s but a cavil.[392] He is old, I young.

GREMIOAnd may not young men die, as well as old?

BAPTISTAWell, gentlemen,

395

I am thus resolved: on Sunday next, you know

My daughter Katherine is to be married.

Now on the Sunday following, shall Bianca

Be bride to you, if you make this assurance.

If not, to Signior Gremio.

400

And so, I take my leave, and thank you both.

Exit

GREMIOAdieu, good neighbour.— Now I fear thee not.

Sirrah young gamester,[402] your father were a fool

To give thee all, and in his waning age

Set[404] foot under thy table. Tut, a toy!

405

An old Italian fox is not so kind, my boy.

Exit

TRANIOA vengeance on your crafty withered hide!

Yet I have faced[407] it with a card of ten.

’Tis[408] in my head to do my master good:

I see no reason but supposed Lucentio

410

Must get[410] a father, called ‘supposed Vincentio’,

And that’s a wonder. Fathers commonly

Do get their children, but in this case of wooing,

A child shall get a sire,[413] if I fail not of my cunning.

Exit

Act 3 [Scene 1]

running scene 3 continues

Enter Lucentio [disguised as Cambio], Hortensio [disguised as Litio] and Bianca

LUCENTIOFiddler,[1] forbear. You grow too forward, sir.

Have you so soon forgot the entertainment[2]

Her sister Katherine welcomed you withal?[3]

HORTENSIOBut, wrangling pedant, this is

5

The patroness of heavenly harmony:

Then give me leave to have prerogative,[6]

And when in music we have spent an hour,

Your lecture[8] shall have leisure for as much.

LUCENTIOPreposterous[9] ass, that never read so far

10

To know the cause why music was ordained![10]

Was it not to refresh the mind of man

After his studies or his usual pain?[12]

Then give me leave to read philosophy,

And while I pause, serve in[14] your harmony.

15

HORTENSIOSirrah, I will not bear these braves[15] of thine.

BIANCAWhy, gentlemen, you do me double wrong

To strive for that which resteth[17] in my choice.

I am no breeching[18] scholar in the schools,

I’ll not be tied to hours nor ’pointed[19] times,

20

But learn my lessons as I please myself.

And, to cut off all strife, here sit we down.

Take you your instrument, play you the whiles.[22] To Hortensio

His lecture will be done ere you have tuned.

HORTENSIOYou’ll leave his lecture when I am in tune?

25

LUCENTIOThat will be never. Tune your instrument.

BIANCAWhere left we last?

LUCENTIOHere, madam:

‘Hic[28] ibat Simois. Hic est Sigeia tellus. Reads

Hic steterat Priami regia celsa senis.’

30

BIANCAConster[30] them.

LUCENTIO‘Hic ibat’, as I told you before, ‘Simois’, I am Lucentio, ‘hic est’, son unto Vincentio of Pisa, ‘Sigeia tellus’, disguised thus to get your love, ‘Hic steterat’, and that Lucentio that comes a-wooing, ‘Priami’, is my man Tranio, ‘regia’, bearing my port,[34] ‘celsa senis’, that we might beguile the old pantaloon.

35

HORTENSIOMadam, my instrument’s in tune.

BIANCALet’s hear. O fie![36] The treble jars. He plays

LUCENTIOSpit[37] in the hole, man, and tune again.

BIANCANow let me see if I can conster it: ‘Hic ibat Simois’, I know you not, ‘hic est Sigeia tellus’, I trust you not, ‘Hic steterat Priami’, take heed he hear us not, ‘regia’, presume not, ‘celsa senis’, despair not.

HORTENSIOMadam, ’tis now in tune. He plays again

LUCENTIOAll but the bass.

HORTENSIOThe bass is right: ’tis the base knave that jars.[43]

How fiery and forward our pedant[44] is. Aside

45

Now, for my life, the knave doth court my love.

Pedascule,[46] I’ll watch you better yet.

BIANCAIn time I may believe, yet I mistrust. To Lucentio

LUCENTIOMistrust it not, for, sure, Aeacides[48]

Was Ajax, called so from his grandfather.

50

BIANCAI must believe my master,[50] else, I promise you,

I should be arguing still upon that doubt.[51]

But let it rest.— Now, Litio, to you:

Good master, take it not unkindly, pray,

That I have been thus pleasant[54] with you both.

55

HORTENSIOYou may go walk, and give me leave[55] a while. To Lucentio

My lessons make no music in three parts.[56]

LUCENTIOAre you so formal,[57] sir? Well, I must wait —

And watch withal,[58] for, but I be deceived, Aside

Our fine musician groweth amorous. He stands aside

60

HORTENSIOMadam, before you touch the instrument,

To learn the order[61] of my fingering,

I must begin with rudiments of art,

To teach you gamut[63] in a briefer sort,

More pleasant, pithy and effectual,

65

Than hath been taught by any of my trade.

And there it is in writing, fairly drawn.[66] Gives Bianca a paper

BIANCAWhy, I am past my gamut long ago.

HORTENSIOYet read the gamut of Hortensio.

BIANCA‘Gamut I am, the ground[69] of all accord, Reads

70

A re, to plead Hortensio’s passion.

B mi, Bianca, take him for thy lord,

C fa ut, that loves with all affection.

D sol re, one[73] clef, two notes have I,

E la mi, show pity, or I die.’

75

Call you this gamut? Tut, I like it not.

Old[76] fashions please me best. I am not so nice

To change true[77] rules for old inventions.

Enter a Messenger

MESSENGERMistress, your father prays you leave your books

And help to dress your sister’s chamber up.

80

You know tomorrow is the wedding day.

BIANCAFarewell, sweet masters both, I must be gone. [Exeunt Bianca and Messenger]

LUCENTIOFaith, mistress, then I have no cause to stay.

[Exit]

HORTENSIOBut I have cause to pry into[83] this pedant.

Methinks he looks as though he were in love.

85

Yet if thy thoughts, Bianca, be so humble

To cast thy wand’ring eyes on every stale,[86]

Seize[87] thee that list. If once I find thee ranging,

Hortensio will be quit with[88] thee by changing.

Exit

[Act 3 Scene 2]

running scene 4

Enter Baptista, Gremio, Tranio, Katherina, Bianca, [Lucentio] and others, Attendants

BAPTISTASignior Lucentio, this is the ’pointed day. To Tranio

That Katherine and Petruchio should be married,

And yet we hear not of our son-in-law.

What will be said? What mockery will it be,

5

To want[5] the bridegroom when the priest attends

To speak the ceremonial rites of marriage?

What says Lucentio to this shame of ours?

KATENo shame but mine: I must forsooth[8] be forced

To give my hand opposed against my heart

10

Unto a mad-brain rudesby[10] full of spleen,

Who wooed[11] in haste and means to wed at leisure.

I told you, I, he was a frantic[12] fool,

Hiding his bitter jests in blunt behaviour.

And to be noted for[14] a merry man,

15

He’ll woo a thousand, ’point the day of marriage,

Make feasts, invite friends, and proclaim the banns,

Yet never means to wed where he hath wooed.

Now must the world point at poor Katherine,

And say, ‘Lo,[19] there is mad Petruchio’s wife,

20

If it would please him come and marry her.’

TRANIOPatience, good Katherine, and Baptista too.

Upon my life, Petruchio means but well,

Whatever fortune[23] stays him from his word.

Though he be blunt, I know him passing wise,

25

Though he be merry, yet withal he’s honest.

KATEWould Katherine had never seen him though!

Exit weeping [followed by Bianca and others]

BAPTISTAGo, girl. I cannot blame thee now to weep,

For such an injury would vex a very saint,

Much more a shrew of thy impatient humour.[29]

Enter Biondello

BIONDELLOMaster, master, news! Old[30] news, and such news as you never heard of!

BAPTISTAIs it new and old too? How may that be?

BIONDELLOWhy, is it not news to hear of Petruchio’s coming?

BAPTISTAIs he come?

BIONDELLOWhy, no, sir.

BAPTISTAWhat then?

BIONDELLOHe is coming.

BAPTISTAWhen will he be here?

BIONDELLOWhen he stands where I am and sees you there.

TRANIOBut say, what to[39] thine old news?

BIONDELLOWhy, Petruchio is coming in a new hat and an old jerkin:[40] a pair of old breeches thrice turned:[41] a pair of boots that have been candle-cases, one buckled, another laced, an old rusty sword ta’en out of the town armoury, with a broken hilt, and chapeless:[43] with two broken points: his horse hipped, with an old mothy saddle and stirrups of no kindred:[44] besides, possessed with the glanders and like to mose in the chine, troubled with the lampass,[45] infected with the fashions, full of windgalls,[46] sped with spavins, rayed with yellows, past cure of the fives, stark spoiled with the staggers,[47] begnawn with the bots, swayed in the back and shoulder-shotten,[48] near-legged before and with a half-checked bit and a head-stall of sheep’s leather[49] which, being restrained to keep him from stumbling, hath been often burst and now repaired with knots, one girth[50] six times pieced, and a woman’s crupper[51] of velure, which hath two letters for her name fairly set down in studs, and here and there pieced with packthread.[52]

BAPTISTAWho comes with him?

BIONDELLOO, sir, his lackey,[54] for all the world caparisoned like the horse: with a linen stock[55] on one leg and a kersey boot-hose on the other, gartered with a red and blue list;[56] an old hat and the humour of forty fancies pricked in’t for a feather — a monster, a very monster in apparel, and not like a Christian footboy[57] or a gentleman’s lackey.

TRANIO’Tis some odd humour pricks[59] him to this fashion.

60

Yet oftentimes he goes but mean-apparelled.[60]

BAPTISTAI am glad he’s come, howsoe’er he comes.

BIONDELLOWhy, sir, he comes not.

BAPTISTADidst thou not say he comes?

BIONDELLOWho? That Petruchio came?

65

BAPTISTAAy, that Petruchio came.

BIONDELLONo, sir, I say his horse comes, with him on his back.

BAPTISTAWhy, that’s all one.

BIONDELLONay, by Saint Jamy,[68]

I hold[69] you a penny,

70

A horse and a man

Is more than one,

And yet not many.

Enter Petruchio and Grumio

PETRUCHIOCome, where be these gallants?[73] Who’s at home?

BAPTISTAYou are welcome, sir.

75

PETRUCHIOAnd yet I come not well.[75]

BAPTISTAAnd yet you halt[76] not.

TRANIONot so well apparelled as I wish you were.

PETRUCHIOWere it better, I should rush in thus.

But where is Kate? Where is my lovely bride?

80

How does my father? Gentles,[80] methinks you frown.

And wherefore[81] gaze this goodly company,

As if they saw some wondrous monument,[82]

Some comet[83] or unusual prodigy?

BAPTISTAWhy, sir, you know this is your wedding day.

85

First were we sad, fearing you would not come,

Now sadder that you come so unprovided.[86]

Fie, doff[87] this habit, shame to your estate,

An eyesore to our solemn[88] festival!

TRANIOAnd tell us what occasion of import[89]

90

Hath all so long detained you from your wife,

And sent you hither so unlike yourself?

PETRUCHIOTedious it were to tell, and harsh to hear:

Sufficeth I am come to keep my word,

Though in some part enforcèd to digress,

95

Which at more leisure I will so excuse

As you shall well be satisfied withal.

But where is Kate? I stay too long from her.

The morning wears,[98] ’tis time we were at church.

TRANIOSee not your bride in these unreverent[99] robes.

100

Go to my chamber, put on clothes of mine.

PETRUCHIONot I, believe me. Thus I’ll visit her.

BAPTISTABut thus, I trust, you will not marry her.

PETRUCHIOGood sooth,[103] even thus: therefore ha’ done with words.

To me she’s married, not unto my clothes.

105

Could I repair what she will wear[105] in me,

As I can change these poor accoutrements,[106]

’Twere well for Kate and better for myself.

But what a fool am I to chat with you,

When I should bid good morrow to my bride,

110

And seal the title with a lovely[110] kiss!

Exeunt [Petruchio and Grumio]

TRANIOHe hath some meaning in his mad attire.

We will persuade him, be it possible,

To put on better ere he go to church.

BAPTISTAI’ll after him, and see the event[114] of this.

Exeunt [Baptista, Gremio and Attendants]

115

TRANIOBut, sir, love concerneth us to add To Lucentio

Her father’s liking,[116] which to bring to pass,

As before I imparted to your worship,

I am to get a man — whate’er he be,

It skills[119] not much, we’ll fit him to our turn —

120

And he shall be Vincentio of Pisa,

And make assurance here in Padua

Of greater sums than I have promised.

So shall you quietly enjoy your hope,

And marry sweet Bianca with consent.

125

LUCENTIOWere it not that my fellow schoolmaster

Doth watch Bianca’s steps[126] so narrowly,

’Twere good, methinks, to steal our marriage,[127]

Which once performed, let all the world say no,

I’ll keep mine own, despite of all the world.

130

TRANIOThat by degrees we mean to look into,

And watch our vantage[131] in this business.

We’ll overreach[132] the greybeard, Gremio,

The narrow-prying[133] father, Minola,

The quaint[134] musician, amorous Litio,

135

All for my master’s sake, Lucentio.

Enter Gremio

Signior Gremio, came you from the church?

GREMIOAs willingly as e’er I came from school.

TRANIOAnd is the bride and bridegroom coming home?

GREMIOA bridegroom,[139] say you? ’Tis a groom indeed,

140

A grumbling groom, and that the girl shall find.

TRANIOCurster[141] than she? Why, ’tis impossible.

GREMIOWhy he’s a devil, a devil, a very fiend.

TRANIOWhy, she’s a devil, a devil, the devil’s dam.

GREMIOTut, she’s a lamb, a dove, a fool to[144] him.

145

I’ll tell you, Sir[145] Lucentio, when the priest

Should ask if Katherine should be his wife,

‘Ay, by gogs-wouns[147]’, quoth he, and swore so loud

That all amazed the priest let fall the book,[148]

And as he stooped again to take it up,

150

This mad-brained bridegroom took[150] him such a cuff

That down fell priest and book and book and priest.

‘Now take them[152] up,’ quoth he, ‘if any list.’

TRANIOWhat said the wench when he rose again?

GREMIOTrembled and shook, for why,[154] he stamped and swore,

155

As if the vicar meant to cozen[155] him.

But after many[156] ceremonies done,

He calls for wine: ‘A health!’ quoth he, as if

He had been aboard, carousing to his mates

After a storm, quaffed off[159] the muscadel

160

And threw the sops[160] all in the sexton’s face,

Having no other reason

But that his beard grew thin and hungerly[162]

And seemed to ask him[163] sops as he was drinking.

This done, he took the bride about the neck

165

And kissed her lips with such a clamorous smack

That at the parting all the church did echo.

And I seeing this came thence for very shame,

And after me, I know, the rout[168] is coming.

Such a mad marriage never was before.

170

Hark, hark! I hear the minstrels[170] play.

Music plays

Enter Petruchio, Kate, Bianca, Hortensio [disguised as Litio], Baptista, [Grumio and others]

PETRUCHIOGentlemen and friends, I thank you for your pains.

I know you think[172] to dine with me today,

And have prepared great store of wedding cheer,[173]

But so it is, my haste doth call me hence,

175

And therefore here I mean to take my leave.

BAPTISTAIs’t possible you will away tonight?

PETRUCHIOI must away today, before night come.

Make[178] it no wonder. If you knew my business,

You would entreat me rather go than stay.

180

And honest[180] company, I thank you all,

That have beheld me give away myself

To this most patient, sweet and virtuous wife.

Dine with my father, drink a health to me,

For I must hence, and farewell to you all.

185

TRANIOLet us entreat you stay till after dinner.

PETRUCHIOIt may not be.

GREMIOLet me entreat you.

PETRUCHIOIt cannot be.

KATELet me entreat you.

190

PETRUCHIOI am content.

KATEAre you content to stay?

PETRUCHIOI am content you shall entreat me stay,

But yet not stay,[193] entreat me how you can.

KATENow, if you love me, stay.

195

PETRUCHIOGrumio, my horse.

GRUMIOAy, sir, they be ready, the oats[196] have eaten the horses.

KATENay, then,

Do what thou canst, I will not go today,

No, nor tomorrow, not till I please myself.

200

The door is open, sir, there lies your way,

You may be[201] jogging whiles your boots are green.

For me, I’ll not be gone till I please myself.

’Tis like you’ll prove a jolly[203] surly groom,

That take[204] it on you at the first so roundly.

205

PETRUCHIOO Kate, content thee. Prithee be not angry.

KATEI will be angry. What hast[206] thou to do?—

Father, be quiet. He shall stay my leisure.[207]

GREMIOAy, marry, sir, now it[208] begins to work.

KATEGentlemen, forward to the bridal dinner.

210

I see a woman may be made a fool,

If she had not a spirit to resist.

PETRUCHIOThey shall go forward, Kate, at thy command.—

Obey the bride, you that attend on her.

Go to the feast, revel and domineer,[214]

215

Carouse full measure[215] to her maidenhead,

Be mad[216] and merry, or go hang yourselves.

But for my bonny Kate, she must with me.—

Nay, look not big,[218] nor stamp, nor stare, nor fret.

I will be master of what is mine own:

220

She is my[220] goods, my chattels, she is my house,

My household stuff,[221] my field, my barn,

My horse, my ox, my ass, my anything,

And here she stands, touch her whoever dare.

I’ll bring mine action[224] on the proudest he

225

That stops my way in Padua.— Grumio,

Draw forth thy weapon, we are beset with thieves.

Rescue thy mistress, if thou be a man.

Fear not, sweet wench, they shall not touch thee, Kate.

I’ll buckler[229] thee against a million.

Exeunt Petruchio, Katherina [and Grumio]

230

BAPTISTANay, let them go, a couple of quiet ones.

GREMIOWent they not[231] quickly, I should die with laughing.

TRANIOOf all mad matches never was the like.

LUCENTIOMistress, what’s your opinion of your sister?

BIANCAThat, being mad herself, she’s madly mated.

235

GREMIOI warrant him, Petruchio is Kated.[235]

BAPTISTANeighbours and friends, though bride and bridegroom wants[236]

For to supply the places at the table,

You know there wants no junkets[238] at the feast.

Lucentio, you shall supply the bridegroom’s place,

240

And let Bianca take her sister’s room.[240]

TRANIOShall sweet Bianca practise how to bride it?[241]

BAPTISTAShe shall, Lucentio. Come, gentlemen, let’s go.

Exeunt

[Act 3 Scene 3]3.3

running scene 5

Enter Grumio

GRUMIOFie, fie on all tired jades, on all mad masters, and all foul ways![1] Was ever man so beaten? Was ever man so rayed?[2] Was ever man so weary? I am sent before to make a fire, and they are coming after to warm them. Now, were not I a little[4] pot and soon hot, my very lips might freeze to my teeth, my tongue to the roof of my mouth, my heart in my belly, ere I should come by a fire to thaw me. But I with blowing the fire shall warm myself, for, considering the weather, a taller[7] man than I will take cold. Holla, ho, Curtis!

Enter Curtis

CURTISWho is that calls so coldly?[8]

GRUMIOA piece of ice: if thou doubt it, thou mayst slide from my shoulder to my heel with no greater a run[10] but my head and my neck. A fire good Curtis.

CURTISIs my master and his wife coming, Grumio?

GRUMIOO, ay, Curtis, ay, and therefore fire,[12] fire, cast on no water.

CURTISIs she so hot[13] a shrew as she’s reported?

GRUMIOShe was, good Curtis, before this frost. But, thou know’st, winter[14] tames man, woman and beast, for it hath tamed my old master and my new mistress and myself, fellow Curtis.

CURTISAway, you three-inch fool! I am no beast.[17]

GRUMIOAm I but three inches? Why, thy horn[18] is a foot, and so long am I at the least. But wilt thou make a fire, or shall I complain on thee to our mistress, whose hand, she being now at hand, thou shalt soon feel, to thy cold comfort, for being slow in thy hot office?[21]

CURTíSI prithee, good Grumio, tell me how goes the world?

GRUMIOA cold world, Curtis, in every office but thine, and therefore fire: do[23] thy duty, and have thy duty, for my master and mistress are almost frozen to death.

CURTISThere’s fire ready, and therefore, good Grumio, the news.

GRUMIOWhy, ‘Jack,[26] boy! Ho, boy!’ and as much news as wilt thou.

CURTISCome, you are so full of cony-catching![27]

GRUMIOWhy, therefore fire, for I have caught extreme cold. Where’s the cook? Is supper ready, the house trimmed,[29] rushes strewed, cobwebs swept, the servingmen in their new fustian,[30] the white stockings, and every officer his wedding-garment on? Be the jacks[31] fair within, the jills fair without, the carpets laid, and everything in order?

CURTISAll ready, and therefore, I pray thee, news.

GRUMIOFirst know my horse is tired, my master and mistress fallen out.

CURTISHow?

GRUMIOOut of their saddles into the dirt, and thereby hangs a tale.

CURTISLet’s ha’t,[37] good Grumio.

GRUMIOLend thine ear.

CURTISHere.

GRUMIOThere. Strikes him

CURTISThis ’tis to feel a tale, not to hear a tale.

GRUMIOAnd therefore ’tis called a sensible[42] tale, and this cuff was but to knock at your ear, and beseech listening. Now I begin: Imprimis,[43] we came down a foul hill, my master riding behind my mistress—

CURTISBoth of[45] one horse?

GRUMIOWhat’s that to thee?

CURTISWhy, a horse.

GRUMIOTell thou the tale. But hadst thou not crossed[48] me, thou shouldst have heard how her horse fell and she under her horse: thou shouldst have heard in how miry[50] a place, how she was bemoiled, how he left her with the horse upon her, how he beat me because her horse stumbled, how she waded through the dirt to pluck him off me, how he swore, how she prayed that never prayed before, how I cried, how the horses ran away, how her bridle was burst,[53] how I lost my crupper, with many things of worthy memory,[54] which now shall die in oblivion and thou return unexperienced[55] to thy grave.

CURTISBy this reckoning he is more shrew than she.

GRUMIOAy, and that thou and the proudest[57] of you all shall find when he comes home. But what[58] talk I of this? Call forth Nathaniel, Joseph, Nicholas, Philip, Walter, Sugarsop and the rest. Let their heads be slickly combed, their blue[59] coats brushed and their garters of an indifferent knit.[60] Let them curtsy with their left legs and not presume to touch a hair of my master’s horsetail till they kiss their hands.[61] Are they all ready?

CURTISThey are.

GRUMIOCall them forth.

CURTISDo you hear, ho? You must meet my master to countenance[65] my mistress.

GRUMIOWhy, she hath a face of her own.

CURTISWho knows not that?

GRUMIOThou, it seems, that calls for company to countenance her.

CURTISI call them forth to credit[69] her.

Enter four or five Servingmen

GRUMIOWhy, she comes to borrow nothing of them.

NATHANIELWelcome home, Grumio!

PHILIPHow now, Grumio!

JOSEPHWhat, Grumio!

NICHOLASFellow Grumio!

NATHANIELHow now, old lad?

GRUMIOWelcome, you.—Greets each Servingman How now, you?— What, you?— Fellow, you.— And thus much for greeting. Now, my spruce[77] companions, is all ready, and all things neat?

NATHANIELAll things is ready. How near is our master?

GRUMIOE’en at hand, alighted by this,[79] and therefore be not— Cock’s passion, silence!

I hear my master.

Enter Petruchio and Kate

PETRUCHIOWhere be these knaves? What, no man at door

To hold my stirrup nor to take my horse?

Where is Nathaniel, Gregory, Philip?

ALL SERVINGMENHere, here, sir, here, sir.

85

PETRUCHIOHere, sir, here, sir, here, sir, here, sir!

You logger-headed[86] and unpolished grooms!

What, no attendance? No regard? No duty?

Where is the foolish knave I sent before?

GRUMIOHere, sir, as foolish as I was before.

90

PETRUCHIOYou peasant swain.[90] You whoreson malt-horse drudge.

Did I not bid thee meet me in the park,[91]

And bring along these rascal knaves with thee?

GRUMIONathaniel’s coat, sir, was not fully made,[93]

And Gabriel’s pumps were all unpinked[94] i’th’heel.

95

There was no link[95] to colour Peter’s hat,

And Walter’s dagger was not come from sheathing.[96]

There were none fine[97] but Adam, Rafe and Gregory,

The rest were ragged, old, and beggarly.

Yet, as they are, here are they come to meet you.

100

PETRUCHIOGo, rascals, go, and fetch my supper in.

Exeunt Servingmen

‘Where[101] is the life that late I led? Sings

Where are those—’

Sit down, Kate, and welcome.— Soud,[103] soud, soud, soud! They sit

Enter Servants with supper

Why, when, I say? Nay, good sweet Kate, be merry.—

105

Off with my boots, you rogues! You villains, when?[105] A Servant takes off his boot

‘It[106] was the friar of orders grey, Sings

As he forth walkèd on his way—’

Out,[108] you rogue! You pluck my foot awry.

Take that, and mend[109] the plucking of the other. Kicks him

110

Be merry, Kate.— Some water,[110] here. What, ho!

Enter one with water

Where’s my spaniel Troilus?[111] Sirrah, get you hence,

And bid my cousin Ferdinand[112] come hither.—

One, Kate, that you must kiss, and be acquainted with.—

Where are my slippers? Shall I have some water?

115

Come, Kate, and wash, and welcome heartily.— Servant spills water

You whoreson villain, will you let it fall? Strikes the Servant

KATEPatience, I pray you. ’Twas a fault unwilling.

PETRUCHIOA whoreson beetle-headed,[118] flap-eared knave!—

Come, Kate, sit down, I know you have a stomach.[119]

120

Will you give thanks,[120] sweet Kate, or else shall I?

What’s this? Mutton?

FIRST SERVANTAy.

PETRUCHIOWho brought it?

PETERI.

125

PETRUCHIO’Tis burnt, and so is all the meat.

What dogs are these? Where is the rascal cook?

How durst you, villains, bring it from the dresser[127]

And serve it thus to me that love it not?

There, take it to you, trenchers,[129] cups, and all. Throws the meat and dishes at them

130

You heedless joltheads[130] and unmannered slaves!

What, do you grumble? I’ll be[131] with you straight.

KATEI pray you, husband, be not so disquiet.

The meat was well,[133] if you were so contented.

PETRUCHIOI tell thee, Kate, ’twas burnt and dried away,

135

And I expressly am forbid to touch it,

For it engenders choler,[136] planteth anger,

And better ’twere that both of us did fast,

Since, of ourselves,[138] ourselves are choleric,

Than feed it with such over-roasted flesh.

140

Be patient, tomorrow’t shall be mended,

And for this night we’ll fast for company.[141]

Come, I will bring thee to thy bridal chamber.

Exeunt

Enter Servants severally

NATHANIELPeter, didst ever see the like?

PETERHe kills[144] her in her own humour.

145

GRUMIOWhere is he?

Enter Curtis, a servant

CURTISIn her chamber, making a sermon of continency[146] to her,

And rails and swears and rates[147] that she, poor soul,

Knows not which way to stand, to look, to speak,

And sits as one new-risen[149] from a dream.

150

Away, away, for he is coming hither.

[Exeunt]

Enter Petruchio

PETRUCHIOThus have I politicly[151] begun my reign,

And ’tis my hope to end successfully.

My falcon[153] now is sharp and passing empty,

And till she stoop[154] she must not be full-gorged,

155

For then she never looks upon[155] her lure.

Another way I have to man[156] my haggard,

To make her come and know her keeper’s call,

That is, to watch her,[158] as we watch these kites

That bate and beat[159] and will not be obedient.

160

She eat[160] no meat today, nor none shall eat.

Last night she slept not, nor tonight she shall not.

As with the meat, some undeservèd fault

I’ll find about the making of the bed,

And here I’ll fling the pillow, there the bolster,

165

This way the coverlet, another way the sheets.

Ay, and amid this hurly[166] I intend

That all is done in reverend care of her.

And in conclusion she shall watch[168] all night,

And if she chance to nod I’ll rail and brawl

170

And with the clamour keep her still awake.

This is a way to kill a wife with kindness,

And thus I’ll curb her mad and headstrong humour.

He that knows better how to tame a shrew,

Now let him speak. ’Tis charity to show.[174]

Exit

[Act 3 Scene 4]3.4

running scene 6

Enter Tranio and Hortensio

TRANIOIs’t possible, friend Litio, that Mistress Bianca

Doth fancy any other but Lucentio?

I tell you, sir, she bears[3] me fair in hand.

HORTENSIOSir, to satisfy[4] you in what I have said,

5

Stand by and mark the manner of his teaching.

Enter Bianca [and Lucentio]

LUCENTIONow, mistress, profit you in what you read?

BIANCAWhat, master, read you? First resolve[7] me that.

LUCENTIOI read that I profess,[8] the Art to Love.

BIANCAAnd may you prove, sir, master of your art.

10

LUCENTIOWhile you, sweet dear, prove mistress of my heart. Lucentio and Bianca talk aside

HORTENSIOQuick proceeders,[11] marry! Now tell me, I pray,

You that durst swear that your mistress Bianca

Loved none in the world so well as Lucentio.

TRANIOO despiteful love, unconstant womankind!

15

I tell thee, Litio, this is wonderful.[15]

HORTENSIOMistake no more, I am not Litio,

Nor a musician, as I seem to be,

But one that scorn to live in this disguise,

For such a one[19] as leaves a gentleman,

20

And makes a god of such a cullion;[20]

Know, sir, that I am called Hortensio.

TRANIOSignior Hortensio, I have often heard

Of your entire[23] affection to Bianca,

And since mine eyes are witness of her lightness,[24]

25

I will with you, if you be so contented,

Forswear[26] Bianca and her love forever.

HORTENSIOSee how they kiss and court! Signior Lucentio,

Here is my hand, and here I firmly vow

Never to woo her more, but do forswear her,

30

As one unworthy all the former favours

That I have fondly[31] flattered her withal.

TRANIOAnd here I take the like unfeignèd[32] oath,

Never to marry with her though she would entreat.

Fie on her! See how beastly[34] she doth court him!

35

HORTENSIOWould[35] all the world but he had quite forsworn!

For me, that[36] I may surely keep mine oath,

I will be married to a wealthy widow,

Ere three days pass, which hath as long loved me

As I have loved this proud disdainful haggard.

40

And so farewell, Signior Lucentio.

Kindness in women, not their beauteous looks,

Shall win my love. And so I take my leave,

In resolution[43] as I swore before.

[Exit]

TRANIOMistress Bianca, bless you with such grace

45

As ’longeth[45] to a lover’s blessèd case!

Nay, I have ta’en you napping,[46] gentle love,

And have forsworn you with Hortensio.

BIANCATranio, you jest. But have you both forsworn me?

TRANIOMistress, we have.

50

LUCENTIOThen we are rid of Litio.

TRANIOI’faith, he’ll have a lusty[51] widow now,

That shall be wooed and wedded in a day.

BIANCAGod give him joy!

TRANIOAy, and he’ll tame her.

55

BIANCAHe says so, Tranio.

TRANIOFaith, he is gone unto the taming school.

BIANCAThe taming school? What, is there such a place?

TRANIOAy, mistress, and Petruchio is the master,

That teacheth tricks eleven[59] and twenty long,

60

To tame a shrew and charm[60] her chatt’ring tongue.

Enter Biondello

BIONDELLOO master, master, I have watched so long

That I am dog-weary,[62] but at last I spied

An ancient angel[63] coming down the hill

Will serve the turn.

65

TRANIOWhat is he, Biondello?

BIONDELLOMaster, a mercatante,[66] or a pedant,

I know not what, but formal in apparel,

In gait and countenance surely like a father.

LUCENTIOAnd what of him, Tranio?

70

TRANIOIf he be credulous and trust my tale,

I’ll make him glad to seem[71] Vincentio,

And give assurance to Baptista Minola

As if he were the right Vincentio.

Take in your love, and then let me alone.[74]

[Exeunt Lucentio and Bianca]

Enter a Pedant

75

PEDANTGod save you, sir!

TRANIOAnd you, sir! You are welcome.

Travel you far on, or are you at the furthest?

PEDANTSir, at the furthest for a week or two,

But then up further, and as far as Rome,

80

And so to Tripoli, if God lend me life.

TRANIOWhat countryman,[81] I pray?

PEDANTOf Mantua.

TRANIOOf Mantua, sir? Marry, God forbid!

And come to Padua, careless of your life?

85

PEDANTMy life, sir? How, I pray? For that goes hard.[85]

TRANIO’Tis death for anyone in Mantua

To come to Padua. Know you not the cause?

Your ships are stayed[88] at Venice, and the duke,

For[89] private quarrel ’twixt your duke and him,

90

Hath published[90] and proclaimed it openly.

’Tis marvel,[91] but that you are but newly come,

You might have heard it else proclaimed about.

PEDANTAlas, sir, it is worse for me than so,[93]

For I have bills[94] for money by exchange

95

From Florence and must here deliver them.

TRANIOWell, sir, to do you courtesy,

This will I do, and this I will advise you:

First tell me, have you ever been at Pisa?

PEDANTAy, sir, in Pisa have I often been,

100

Pisa renownèd for grave citizens.

TRANIOAmong them know you one Vincentio?

PEDANTI know him not, but I have heard of him,

A merchant of incomparable wealth.

TRANIOHe is my father, sir, and sooth to say,

105

In count’nance somewhat doth resemble you.

BIONDELLOAs much as an apple doth an oyster, and all one.[106] Aside

TRANIOTo save your life in this extremity,

This favour will I do you for his sake,

And think it not the worst of all your fortunes

110

That you are like to Sir Vincentio.

His name and credit[111] shall you undertake,

And in my house you shall be friendly lodged.

Look[113] that you take upon you as you should.

You understand me, sir. So shall you stay

115

Till you have done your business in the city.

If this be court’sy, sir, accept of it.

PEDANTO, sir, I do, and will repute[117] you ever

The patron of my life and liberty.

TRANIOThen go with me to make[119] the matter good.

120

This, by the way, I let you understand.

My father is here looked for[121] every day,

To pass assurance of a dower in marriage

’Twixt me and one Baptista’s daughter here.

In all these circumstances I’ll instruct you.

125

Go with me to clothe you as becomes[125] you.

Exeunt

Act 4 Scene 14.1

running scene 7

Enter Katherina and Grumio

GRUMIONo, no, forsooth, I dare not for my life.

KATEThe more my wrong,[2] the more his spite appears.

What, did he marry me to famish me?

Beggars that come unto my father’s door

5

Upon entreaty have a present[5] alms,

If not, elsewhere they meet with charity.

But I, who never knew how to entreat,

Nor never needed that I should entreat,

Am starved for meat,[9] giddy for lack of sleep,

10

With oaths kept waking and with brawling fed.

And that which spites[11] me more than all these wants,

He does it under name of perfect love,

As who[13] should say, if I should sleep or eat,

’Twere deadly sickness or else present death.

15

I prithee go and get me some repast,

I care not what, so[16] it be wholesome food.

GRUMIOWhat say you to a neat’s[17] foot?

KATE’Tis passing good, I prithee let me have it.

GRUMIOI fear it is too choleric[19] a meat.

20

How say you to a fat tripe finely broiled?[20]

KATEI like it well, good Grumio, fetch it me.

GRUMIOI cannot tell,[22] I fear ’tis choleric.

What say you to a piece of beef and mustard?

KATEA dish that I do love to feed upon.

25

GRUMIOAy, but the mustard is too hot a little.

KATEWhy then, the beef, and let the mustard rest.

GRUMIONay then, I will not. You shall have the mustard,

Or else you get no beef of Grumio.

KATEThen both, or one, or anything thou wilt.

30

GRUMIOWhy then, the mustard without the beef.

KATEGo, get thee gone, thou false deluding slave

Beats him

That feed’st me with the very[32] name of meat.

Sorrow on thee and all the pack of you

That triumph thus upon my misery.

35

Go, get thee gone, I say.

Enter Petruchio and Hortensio with meat

PETRUCHIOHow fares my Kate? What, sweeting,[36] all amort?

HORTENSIOMistress, what cheer?[37]

KATEFaith, as cold[38] as can be.

PETRUCHIOPluck up thy spirits, look cheerfully upon me.

40

Here love, thou see’st how diligent I am

To dress thy meat myself and bring it thee.

I am sure, sweet Kate, this kindness merits thanks.

What, not a word? Nay then thou lov’st it not,

And all my pains[44] is sorted to no proof.

45

Here, take away this dish.

KATEI pray you let it stand.[46]

PETRUCHIOThe poorest service is repaid with thanks,

And so shall mine, before you touch the meat.

KATEI thank you, sir.

50

HORTENSIOSignior Petruchio, fie, you are to blame.[50]

Come, mistress Kate, I’ll bear you company.

PETRUCHIOEat it up all, Hortensio, if thou lovest me. Aside

Much good do it unto thy gentle heart!— Hortensio takes plate and does not let Kate eat

Kate, eat apace.[54] And now, my honey love,

55

Will we return unto thy father’s house

And revel it as bravely[56] as the best,

With silken coats and caps and golden rings,

With ruffs[58] and cuffs and farthingales and things,

With scarfs and fans and double change of bravery,

60

With amber bracelets, beads and all this knavery.[60]

What, hast thou dined? The tailor stays thy leisure,

To deck thy body with his ruffling treasure.[62]

Enter Tailor [with a gown]

Come, tailor, let us see these ornaments.

Enter Haberdasher [with a hat]

Lay forth the gown.— What news with you, sir?

65

HABERDASHERHere is the cap your worship did bespeak.[65]

PETRUCHIOWhy, this was moulded on a porringer,[66]

A velvet dish. Fie, fie, ’tis lewd[67] and filthy.

Why, ’tis a cockle[68] or a walnut-shell,

A[69] knack, a toy, a trick, a baby’s cap.

70

Away with it! Come, let me have a bigger.

KATEI’ll have no bigger. This doth fit the time,[71]

And gentlewomen wear such caps as these.

PETRUCHIOWhen you are gentle,[73] you shall have one too,

And not till then.

75

HORTENSIOThat will not be in haste. Aside

KATEWhy, sir, I trust I may have leave to speak,

And speak I will. I am no child, no babe.

Your betters have endured me[78] say my mind,

And if you cannot, best you stop your ears.

80

My tongue will tell the anger of my heart,

Or else my heart concealing it will break,

And rather than it shall, I will be free

Even to the uttermost, as I please, in words.

PETRUCHIOWhy, thou say’st true. It is a paltry cap,

85

A custard-coffin,[85] a bauble, a silken pie.

I love thee well in that thou lik’st it not.

KATELove me or love me not, I like the cap,

And it I will have, or I will have none.

[Exit Haberdasher]

PETRUCHIOThy gown? Why, ay. Come, tailor, let us see’t.

90

O mercy, God! What masquing stuff[90] is here?

What’s this? A sleeve? ’Tis like a demi-cannon.[91]

What, up and down,[92] carved like an apple tart?

Here’s snip and nip and cut and slish and slash,

Like to a censer[94] in a barber’s shop.

95

Why, what o’devil’s name, tailor, call’st thou this?

HORTENSIOI see she’s like to have neither cap nor gown. Aside

TAILORYou bid me make it orderly and well,

According to the fashion and the time.

PETRUCHIOMarry, and did.[99] But if you be remembered,

100

I did not bid you mar[100] it to the time.

Go, hop[101] me over every kennel home,

For you shall hop without my custom, sir:

I’ll none of it. Hence, make[103] your best of it.

KATEI never saw a better-fashioned gown,

105

More quaint,[105] more pleasing, nor more commendable.

Belike[106] you mean to make a puppet of me.

PETRUCHIOWhy, true, he means to make a puppet of thee.

TAILORShe says your worship means to make a puppet of her.

PETRUCHIOO monstrous arrogance! Thou liest, thou thread, thou thimble,

110

Thou yard,[110] three-quarters, half-yard, quarter, nail!

Thou flea, thou nit, thou winter-cricket thou!

Braved[112] in mine own house with a skein of thread?

Away, thou rag, thou quantity,[113] thou remnant,

Or I shall so be-mete[114] thee with thy yard

115

As thou shalt think on prating[115] whilst thou liv’st!

I tell thee, I, that thou hast marred her gown.

TAILORYour worship is deceived. The gown is made

Just as my master had direction.

Grumio gave order how it should be done.

120

GRUMIOI gave him no order, I gave him the stuff.[120]

TAILORBut how did you desire it should be made?

GRUMIOMarry, sir, with needle and thread.

TAILORBut did you not request to have it cut?

GRUMIOThou hast faced[124] many things.

125

TAILORI have.

GRUMIOFace not me. Thou hast braved[126] many men, brave not me; I will neither be faced nor braved. I say unto thee, I bid thy master cut out the gown, but I did not bid him cut it to pieces. Ergo,[128] thou liest.

TAILORWhy, here is the note of the fashion to testify. Shows bill

PETRUCHIORead it.

GRUMIOThe[131] note lies in’s throat, if he say I said so.

TAILOR‘Imprimis, a loose-bodied gown.[132]’ Reads

GRUMIOMaster, if ever I said loose-bodied gown, sew me in the skirts of it, and beat me to death with a bottom[134] of brown thread: I said a gown.

PETRUCHIOProceed.

TAILOR‘With a small compassed[136] cape.’ Reads

GRUMIOI confess the cape.

TAILOR‘With a trunk[138] sleeve.’ Reads

GRUMIOI confess two sleeves.

TAILOR‘The sleeves curiously[140] cut.’ Reads

PETRUCHIOAy, there’s the villainy.

GRUMIOError i’th’bill,[142] sir, error i’th’bill. I commanded the sleeves should be cut out and sewed up again, and that I’ll prove upon thee,[143] though thy little finger be armed in a thimble.

TAILORThis is true that I say, an[145] I had thee in place where, thou shouldst know it.

GRUMIOI am for thee straight.[146] Take thou the bill, give me thy mete-yard, and spare not me.

HORTENSIOGod-a-mercy, Grumio, then he shall have no odds.[148]

PETRUCHIOWell, sir, in brief, the gown is not for me.

GRUMIOYou are i’th’right, sir, ’tis for my mistress.

PETRUCHIOGo, take[151] it up unto thy master’s use.

GRUMIOVillain, not for thy life. Take up my mistress’ gown for thy master’s use!

PETRUCHIOWhy, sir, what’s your conceit[153] in that?

GRUMIOO, sir, the conceit is deeper than you think for:[154]

155

Take up my mistress’ gown to his master’s use!

O, fie, fie, fie!

PETRUCHIOHortensio, say thou wilt see the tailor paid.— Aside to Hortensio

Go take it hence. Be gone, and say no more. To the Tailor

HORTENSIOTailor, I’ll pay thee for thy gown tomorrow. Aside to the Tailor

160

Take no unkindness of[160] his hasty words.

Away, I say, commend me to thy master.

Exit Tailor

PETRUCHIOWell, come, my Kate. We will unto your father’s

Even in these honest mean habiliments:[163]

Our purses shall be proud,[164] our garments poor,

165

For ’tis the mind that makes the body rich,

And as the sun breaks through the darkest clouds,

So honour peereth[167] in the meanest habit.

What, is the jay more precious than the lark,

Because his feathers are more beautiful?

170

Or is the adder better than the eel

Because his painted[171] skin contents the eye?

O no, good Kate, neither art thou the worse

For this poor furniture[173] and mean array.

If thou account’st it shame, lay[174] it on me.

175

And therefore frolic.[175] We will hence forthwith,

To feast and sport us[176] at thy father’s house.—

Go, call my men, and let us straight to him, To Grumio

And bring our horses unto Long-lane end.—

There will we mount, and thither walk on foot.

180

Let’s see, I think ’tis now some seven o’clock,

And well we may come there by dinnertime.[181]

KATEI dare assure you, sir, ’tis almost two,

And ’twill be suppertime[183] ere you come there.

PETRUCHIOIt shall be seven ere I go to horse.

185

Look, what[185] I speak, or do, or think to do,

You are still crossing[186] it. Sirs, let’t alone.

I will not go today, and ere I do,

It shall be what o’clock I say it is.

HORTENSIOWhy, so this gallant will command the sun.

[Exeunt] Aside

[Act 4 Scene 2]4.2

running scene 8

Enter Tranio [disguised as Lucentio], and the Pedant dressed like Vincentio Pedant booted and bareheaded

TRANIOSir, this is the house. Please it you that I call?

PEDANTAy, what else? And but[2] I be deceived,

Signior Baptista may remember me,

Near twenty years ago, in Genoa,

5

Where we were lodgers at the Pegasus.[5]

TRANIO’Tis well, and hold your own,[6] in any case,

With such austerity as ’longeth[7] to a father.

Enter Biondello

PEDANTI warrant you. But, sir, here comes your boy.

’Twere good he were schooled.[9]

10

TRANIOFear you not him.— Sirrah Biondello,

Now do your duty throughly,[11] I advise you:

Imagine ’twere the right[12] Vincentio.

BIONDELLOTut, fear not me.

TRANIOBut hast thou done thy errand to Baptista?

15

BIONDELLOI told him that your father was at Venice,

And that you looked for[16] him this day in Padua.

TRANIOThou’rt a tall[17] fellow. Hold thee that to drink. Gives money

Here comes Baptista: set your countenance,[18] sir.

Enter Baptista and Lucentio

Signior Baptista, you are happily met.

20

Sir, this is the gentleman I told you of. To the Pedant

I pray you stand[21] good father to me now,

Give me Bianca for my patrimony.[22]

PEDANTSoft[23] son!

Sir, by your leave, having come to Padua

25

To gather in some debts, my son Lucentio

Made me acquainted with a weighty cause

Of love between your daughter and himself:

And, for[28] the good report I hear of you,

And for the love he beareth to your daughter,

30

And she to him, to stay[30] him not too long,

I am content, in a good father’s care,

To have him matched. And if you please[32] to like

No worse than I, upon some agreement

Me shall you find ready and willing

35

With one consent[35] to have her so bestowed,

For curious[36] I cannot be with you,

Signior Baptista, of whom I hear so well.

BAPTISTASir, pardon me in what I have to say.

Your plainness and your shortness please me well.

40

Right true it is, your son Lucentio here

Doth love my daughter and she loveth him,

Or both dissemble deeply their affections.

And therefore if you say no more than this,

That like a father you will deal with him

45

And pass[45] my daughter a sufficient dower,

The match is made and all is done.

Your son shall have my daughter with consent.

TRANIOI thank you, sir. Where then do you know[48] best

We be affied[49] and such assurance ta’en

50

As shall with either part’s agreement stand?

BAPTISTANot in my house, Lucentio, for you know

Pitchers have ears,[52] and I have many servants.

Besides, old Gremio is heark’ning still,[53]

And haply[54] we might be interrupted.

55

TRANIOThen at my lodging, an it like you.

There doth my father lie,[56] and there, this night,

We’ll pass[57] the business privately and well.

Send for your daughter by your servant here. Indicates Lucentio, and winks at him

My boy shall fetch the scriv’ner[59] presently.

60

The worst is this, that at so slender warning

You are like to have a thin and slender pittance.[61]

BAPTISTAIt likes me well. Cambio, hie[62] you home,

And bid Bianca make her ready straight.

And, if you will, tell what hath happened:

65

Lucentio’s father is arrived in Padua,

And how she’s like[66] to be Lucentio’s wife.

[Exit Lucentio]

BIONDELLOI pray the gods she may with all my heart!

Exit

TRANIODally not with the gods, but get thee gone.

Enter Peter

Signior Baptista, shall I lead the way?

70

Welcome! One mess[70] is like to be your cheer.

Come, sir, we will better it in Pisa.

BAPTISTAI follow you.

Exeunt [Tranio, Pedant and Baptista]

Enter Lucentio [disguised as Cambio] and Biondello

BIONDELLOCambio!

LUCENTIOWhat say’st thou, Biondello?

BIONDELLOYou saw my master wink and laugh upon you?

LUCENTIOBiondello, what of that?

BIONDELLOFaith, nothing. But has[77] left me here behind to expound the meaning or moral of his signs and tokens.[78]

LUCENTIOI pray thee moralize[79] them.

BIONDELLOThen thus: Baptista is safe, talking with the deceiving father of a deceitful son.

LUCENTIOAnd what of him?

BIONDELLOHis daughter is to be brought by you to the supper.

LUCENTIOAnd then?

BIONDELLOThe old priest at Saint Luke’s church is at your command[85] at all hours.

LUCENTIOAnd what of all this?

BIONDELLOI cannot tell, except they are busied about a counterfeit assurance.[87] Take you assurance[88] of her, cum privilegio ad imprimendum solum. To th’church, take the priest, clerk and some sufficient[89] honest witnesses. If this be not that you look for, I have no more to say, but bid Bianca farewell forever and a day.

LUCENTIOHear’st thou, Biondello?

BIONDELLOI cannot tarry: I knew a wench married in an afternoon as she went to the garden for parsley to stuff a rabbit, and so may you, sir. And so, adieu, sir. My master hath appointed me to go to Saint Luke’s to bid the priest be ready to come against you come[95] with your appendix.

Exit

LUCENTIOI may, and will, if she be so contented.

She will be pleased, then wherefore should I doubt?

Hap[98] what hap may, I’ll roundly go about her.

It shall go hard[99] if Cambio go without her.

Exit

[Act 4 Scene 3]4.3

running scene 9

Enter Petruchio, Kate, Hortensio [and Servants]

PETRUCHIOCome on, a God’s name, once more toward our father’s.

Good Lord, how bright and goodly[2] shines the moon!

KATEThe moon? The sun: it is not moonlight now.

PETRUCHIOI say it is the moon that shines so bright.

5

KATEI know it is the sun that shines so bright.

PETRUCHIONow, by my mother’s son, and that’s myself,

It shall be moon, or star, or what I list,[7]

Or ere[8] I journey to your father’s house.—

Go on, and fetch our horses back again.— To the Servants

10

Evermore crossed and crossed, nothing but crossed!

HORTENSIOSay as he says, or we shall never go. To Kate

KATEForward, I pray, since we have come so far,

And be it moon, or sun, or what you please.

An if you please to call it a rush-candle,[14]

15

Henceforth I vow it shall be so for me.

PETRUCHIOI say it is the moon.

KATEI know it is the moon.

PETRUCHIONay, then you lie. It is the blessèd sun.

KATEThen, God be blessed, it is the blessèd sun.

20

But sun it is not, when you say it is not,

And the moon changes even as your mind.

What you will have it named, even that it is,

And so it shall be so for Katherine.

HORTENSIOPetruchio, go thy ways,[24] the field is won. Aside

25

PETRUCHIOWell, forward, forward! Thus the bowl should run,[25]

And not unluckily against the[26] bias.

But, soft, company is coming here.

Enter Vincentio

Good morrow, gentle mistress. Where away?[28] To Vincentio

Tell me, sweet Kate, and tell me truly too, To Kate

30

Hast thou beheld a fresher[30] gentlewoman?

Such war of white and red within her cheeks!

What stars do spangle[32] heaven with such beauty,

As those two eyes become that heav’nly face?—

Fair lovely maid, once more good day to thee.— To Vincentio

35

Sweet Kate, embrace her for her beauty’s sake. To Kate

HORTENSIOA[36] will make the man mad, to make the woman of him. Aside

KATEYoung budding virgin, fair and fresh and sweet,

Whither away, or where is thy abode?

Happy the parents of so fair a child;

40

Happier the man, whom[40] favourable stars

Allots thee for his lovely bedfellow!

PETRUCHIOWhy, how now, Kate? I hope thou art not mad.

This is a man, old, wrinkled, faded, withered,

And not a maiden, as thou say’st he is.

45

KATEPardon, old father, my mistaking eyes,

That have been so bedazzled with the sun

That everything I look on seemeth green.[47]

Now I perceive thou art a reverend father.

Pardon, I pray thee, for my mad mistaking.

50

PETRUCHIODo, good old grandsire, and withal make known

Which way thou travellest: if along with us,

We shall be joyful of thy company.

VINCENTIOFair sir, and you my merry mistress,

That with your strange encounter[54] much amazed me,

55

My name is called Vincentio, my dwelling Pisa,

And bound I am to Padua, there to visit

A son of mine, which long I have not seen.

PETRUCHIOWhat is his name?

VINCENTIOLucentio, gentle sir.

60

PETRUCHIOHappily met, the happier for thy son.

And now by law, as well as reverend age,

I may entitle thee my loving father.[62]

The sister to my wife, this gentlewoman,

Thy son by this[64] hath married. Wonder not,

65

Nor be not grieved: she is of good esteem,[65]

Her dowry wealthy, and of worthy birth;

Beside, so qualified as may beseem[67]

The spouse of any noble gentleman.

Let me embrace with old Vincentio,

70

And wander we to see thy honest[70] son,

Who will of thy arrival be full joyous.

VINCENTIOBut is this true? Or is it else your pleasure,

Like pleasant[73] travellers, to break a jest

Upon the company you overtake?

75

HORTENSIOI do assure thee, father, so it is.

PETRUCHIOCome, go along, and see the truth hereof,

For our first merriment hath made thee jealous.[77]

Exeunt [all but Hortensio]

HORTENSIOWell, Petruchio, this has put[78] me in heart.

Have to[79] my widow! And if she be froward,

80

Then hast thou taught Hortensio to be untoward.[80]

Exit

[Act 4 Scene 4]4.4

running scene 10

Enter Biondello, Lucentio and Bianca. Gremio is out before

BIONDELLOSoftly and swiftly, sir, for the priest is ready.

LUCENTIOI fly, Biondello; but they may chance to need thee at home, therefore leave us.

Exit [Lucentio with Bianca]

BIONDELLONay, faith, I’ll see the church o’your back,[4] and then come back to my master’s as soon as I can.

[Exit]

GREMIOI marvel Cambio comes not all this while.

Enter Petruchio, Kate, Vincentio, Grumio, with Attendants

PETRUCHIOSir, here’s the door, this is Lucentio’s house.

My father’s[8] bears more toward the marketplace.

Thither must I, and here I leave you, sir.

10

VINCENTIOYou[10] shall not choose but drink before you go.

I think I shall command[11] your welcome here;

And by all likelihood, some cheer is toward.[12]

Knock

GREMIOThey’re busy within: you were best knock louder.

Pedant looks out of the window

PEDANTWhat’s he that knocks as he would beat down the gate?

VINCENTIOIs Signior Lucentio within, sir?

PEDANTHe’s within, sir, but not to be spoken withal.

VINCENTIOWhat if a man bring him a hundred pound or two to make merry withal?

PEDANTKeep your hundred pounds to yourself. He shall need none, so long as I live.

PETRUCHIONay, I told you your son was well beloved in Padua. Do you hear, sir? To leave frivolous circumstances,[20] I pray you tell Signior Lucentio that his father is come from Pisa, and is here at the door to speak with him.

PEDANTThou liest. His father is come from Padua[22] and here looking out at the window.

VINCENTIOArt thou his father?

PEDANTAy, sir, so his mother says, if I may believe her.

PETRUCHIOWhy, how now, gentleman! To Vincentio Why, this is flat knavery to take upon you another man’s name.

PEDANTLay hands on the villain. I believe a means to cozen[28] somebody in this city under my countenance.[29]

Enter Biondello

BIONDELLOI have seen them in the church together. Aside God send ’em good shipping![30] But who is here? Mine old master Vincentio! Now we are undone[31] and brought to nothing.

VINCENTIOCome hither, crack-hemp.[33] Seeing Biondello

BIONDELLOI hope I may choose,[34] sir.

VINCENTIOCome hither, you rogue. What, have you forgot me?

BIONDELLOForgot you? No, sir: I could not forget you, for I never saw you before in all my life.

VINCENTIOWhat, you notorious villain, didst thou never see thy master’s father, Vincentio?

BIONDELLOWhat, my old worshipful old master? Yes, marry, sir, see where he looks out of the window.

VINCENTIOIs’t so, indeed?

He beats Biondella

BIONDELLOHelp, help, help! Here’s a madman will murder me.

[Exit]

PEDANTHelp, son! Help, Signior Baptista!

[Exit from above]

PETRUCHIOPrithee, Kate, let’s stand aside and see the end of this controversy. They stand aside

Enter Pedant [below] with servants, Baptista, Tranio

TRANIOSir, what are you that offer[46] to beat my servant?

VINCENTIOWhat am I, sir? Nay, what are you, sir? O immortal gods! O fine[47] villain! A silken doublet, a velvet hose, a scarlet cloak and a copatain[48] hat! O, I am undone, I am undone! While I play the good husband at home, my son and my servant spend all at the university.

TRANIOHow now? What’s the matter?

BAPTISTAWhat, is the man lunatic?

TRANIOSir, you seem a sober ancient gentleman by your habit, but your words show you a madman. Why, sir, what ’cerns it you[54] if I wear pearl and gold? I thank my good father, I am able to maintain[55] it.

VINCENTIOThy father! O villain! He is a sailmaker in Bergamo.[56]

BAPTISTAYou mistake, sir, you mistake, sir. Pray, what do you think is his name?

VINCENTIOHis name? As if I knew not his name: I have brought him up ever since he was three years old, and his name is Tranio.

PEDANTAway, away, mad ass! His name is Lucentio and he is mine only son, and heir to the lands of me, Signior Vincentio.

VINCENTIOLucentio! O, he hath murdered his master! Lay hold on him, I charge you in the duke’s name. O, my son, my son! Tell me, thou villain, where is my son Lucentio?

65

TRANIOCall forth an officer.

[Enter an Officer]

Carry this mad knave to the jail. Father Baptista,

I charge you see that he be forthcoming.[67]

VINCENTIOCarry me to the jail?

GREMIOStay, officer, he shall not go to prison.

BAPTISTATalk not, Signior Gremio, I say he shall go to prison.

GREMIOTake heed, Signior Baptista, lest you be cony-catched[71] in this business. I dare swear this is the right Vincentio.

PEDANTSwear, if thou dar’st.

GREMIONay, I dare not swear it.

TRANIOThen thou wert best say that I am not Lucentio.

GREMIOYes, I know thee to be Signior Lucentio.

BAPTISTAAway with the dotard![77] To the jail with him!

Enter Biondello, Lucentio and Bianca

VINCENTIOThus strangers may be hailed[78] and abused. O monstrous villain!

BIONDELLOO, we are spoiled[79] and— yonder he is. Deny him, forswear him, or else we are all undone.

Exeunt Biondello, Tranio and Pedant, as fast as may be

LUCENTIOPardon, sweet father.

Kneels

VINCENTIOLives my sweet son?

BIANCAPardon, dear father.

BAPTISTAHow hast thou offended? Where is Lucentio?

85

LUCENTIOHere’s Lucentio,

Right son to the right Vincentio,

That have by marriage made thy daughter mine,

While counterfeit supposes[88] bleared thine eyne.

GREMIOHere’s packing,[89] with a witness to deceive us all!

90

VINCENTIOWhere is that damnèd villain Tranio,

That faced and braved me in this matter so?

BAPTISTAWhy, tell me, is not this my Cambio?

BIANCACambio is changed[93] into Lucentio.

LUCENTIOLove wrought these miracles. Bianca’s love

95

Made me exchange my state[95] with Tranio,

While he did bear my countenance in the town,

And happily I have arrived at the last

Unto the wishèd haven of my bliss.

What Tranio did, myself enforced him to;

100

Then pardon him, sweet father, for my sake.

VINCENTIOI’ll slit the villain’s nose, that would have sent me to the jail.

BAPTISTABut do you hear, sir? Have you married my daughter without asking my good will?

VINCENTIOFear not, Baptista, we will content you, go to.[104] But I will in, to be revenged for this villainy. Exit

BAPTISTAAnd I, to sound[106] the depth of this knavery.

Exit

LUCENTIOLook not pale, Bianca, thy father will not frown.

Exeunt [Lucentio and Bianca]

GREMIOMy cake is dough,[108] but I’ll in among the rest,

Out[109] of hope of all but my share of the feast.

[Exit]

110

KATEHusband, let’s follow, to see the end of this ado.

PETRUCHIOFirst kiss me, Kate, and we will.

KATEWhat, in the midst of the street?

PETRUCHIOWhat, art thou ashamed of me?

KATENo, sir, God forbid, but ashamed to kiss.

115

PETRUCHIOWhy, then let’s home again.— Come, sirrah, let’s away.

KATENay, I will give thee a kiss. Now pray thee, love, stay. They kiss

PETRUCHIOIs not this well? Come, my sweet Kate.

Better once[118] than never, for never too late.

Exeunt

Act 5 [Scene 1]5.1

running scene 11

Enter Baptista, Vincentio, Gremio, the Pedant, Lucentio and Bianca, [Petruchio, Katherina, Hortensio,] Tranio, Biondello, Grumio and Widow. The Servingmen with Tranio bringing in a banquet

LUCENTIOAt last, though long,[1] our jarring notes agree,

And time it is, when raging war is done,

To smile at scapes[3] and perils overblown.

My fair Bianca, bid my father welcome,

5

While I with selfsame kindness[5] welcome thine.

Brother Petruchio, sister Katherina,

And thou, Hortensio, with thy loving widow,

Feast with[8] the best, and welcome to my house.

My banquet is to close[9] our stomachs up

10

After our great good cheer.[10] Pray you sit down,

For now we sit to chat as well as eat.

PETRUCHIONothing but sit and sit, and eat and eat!

BAPTISTAPadua affords this kindness, son Petruchio.

PETRUCHIOPadua affords nothing but what is kind.

15

HORTENSIOFor both our sakes, I would that word were true.

PETRUCHIONow, for my life, Hortensio fears[16] his widow.

WIDOWThen[17] never trust me if I be afeard.

PETRUCHIOYou are very sensible,[18] and yet you miss my sense:

I mean, Hortensio is afeard of you.

20

WIDOWHe[20] that is giddy thinks the world turns round.

PETRUCHIORoundly[21] replied.

KATEMistress, how mean you that?

WIDOWThus[23] I conceive by him.

PETRUCHIOConceives by me! How likes Hortensio that?

25

HORTENSIOMy widow says, thus she conceives her tale.[25]

PETRUCHIOVery well mended.[26] Kiss him for that, good widow.

KATE‘He that is giddy thinks the world turns round.’

I pray you tell me what you meant by that.

WIDOWYour husband, being troubled with a shrew,

30

Measures my husband’s sorrow by his woe:

And now you know my meaning.

KATEA very mean[32] meaning.

WIDOWRight, I mean you.

KATEAnd I am mean[34] indeed, respecting you.

35

PETRUCHIOTo her,[35] Kate!

HORTENSIOTo her, widow!

PETRUCHIOA hundred marks,[37] my Kate does put her down.

HORTENSIOThat’s my office.[38]

PETRUCHIOSpoke like an officer. Ha’ to thee, lad!

Drinks to Hortensio

40

BAPTISTAHow likes Gremio these quick-witted folks?

GREMIOBelieve me, sir, they butt[41] together well.

BIANCAHead, and butt![42] An hasty-witted body

Would say your head and butt were head and horn.[43]

VINCENTIOAy, mistress bride, hath that awakened you?

45

BIANCAAy, but not frighted me: therefore I’ll sleep again.

PETRUCHIONay, that you shall not. Since you have begun,

Have at you[47] for a bitter jest or two.

BIANCAAm I your bird?[48] I mean to shift my bush,

And then pursue me as you draw your bow.[49]

50

You are welcome all.

Exeunt Bianca, [Katherina and Widow]

PETRUCHIOShe hath prevented[51] me. Here, Signior Tranio,

This bird you aimed at, though you hit[52] her not:

Therefore a health[53] to all that shot and missed. Makes a toast

TRANIOO, sir, Lucentio slipped[54] me like his greyhound,

55

Which runs himself and catches for his master.

PETRUCHIOA good swift simile, but something currish.[56]

TRANIO’Tis well, sir, that you hunted for yourself:

’Tis thought your deer[58] does hold you at a bay.

BAPTISTAO, O, Petruchio! Tranio hits you now.

60

LUCENTIOI thank thee for that gird,[60] good Tranio.

HORTENSIOConfess, confess, hath he not hit you here?

PETRUCHIOA has a little galled[62] me, I confess.

And as the jest did glance away from[63] me,

’Tis ten to one it maimed you two outright.

65

BAPTISTANow, in good sadness,[65] son Petruchio,

I think thou hast the veriest[66] shrew of all.

PETRUCHIOWell, I say no: and therefore for assurance[67]

Let’s each one send unto his wife,

And he whose wife is most obedient

70

To come at first when he doth send for her,

Shall win the wager which we will propose.

HORTENSIOContent. What’s the wager?

LUCENTIOTwenty crowns.

PETRUCHIOTwenty crowns?

75

I’ll venture so much of[75] my hawk or hound,

But twenty times so much upon my wife.

LUCENTIOA hundred then.

HORTENSIOContent.

PETRUCHIOA match! ’Tis done.

80

HORTENSIOWho shall begin?

LUCENTIOThat will I.

Go, Biondello, bid your mistress come to me.

BIONDELLOI go.

Exit

BAPTISTASon, I’ll be your half,[84] Bianca comes.

85

LUCENTIOI’ll have no halves. I’ll bear it all myself.

Enter Biondello

How now? What news?

BIONDELLOSir, my mistress sends you word

That she is busy and she cannot come.

PETRUCHIOHow?[89] She’s busy and she cannot come?

90

Is that an answer?

GREMIOAy, and a kind one too.

Pray God, sir, your wife send you not a worse.

PETRUCHIOI hope better.

HORTENSIOSirrah Biondello, go and entreat my wife

95

To come to me forthwith.

Exit Biondello

PETRUCHIOO, ho, entreat her?

Nay, then she must needs[97] come.

HORTENSIOI am afraid, sir,

Do what you can,

Enter Biondello yours will not be entreated.

100

Now, where’s my wife?

BIONDELLOShe says you have some goodly jest in hand.

She will not come. She bids you come to her.

PETRUCHIOWorse and worse, she will not come! O, vile,

Intolerable, not to be endured!

105

Sirrah Grumio, go to your mistress,

Say, I command her come to me.

Exit [Grumio]

HORTENSIOI know her answer.

PETRUCHIOWhat?

HORTENSIOShe will not.

110

PETRUCHIOThe[110] fouler fortune mine, and there an end.

Enter Katherina

BAPTISTANow, by my holidame,[111] here comes Katherina!

KATEWhat is your will, sir, that you send for me?

PETRUCHIOWhere is your sister, and Hortensio’s wife?

KATEThey sit conferring[114] by the parlour fire.

115

PETRUCHIOGo fetch them hither. If they deny to come,

Swinge[116] me them soundly forth unto their husbands.

Away, I say, and bring them hither straight.

[Exit Katherina]

LUCENTIOHere is a wonder, if you talk of a wonder.

HORTENSIOAnd so it is: I wonder what it bodes.

120

PETRUCHIOMarry, peace it bodes, and love and quiet life,

And awful[121] rule and right supremacy,

And, to be short, what not[122] that’s sweet and happy.

BAPTISTANow, fair befall thee,[123] good Petruchio;

The wager thou hast won, and I will add

125

Unto their losses twenty thousand crowns,

Another dowry to another daughter,

For she is changed, as[127] she had never been.

PETRUCHIONay, I will win my wager better yet

And show more sign of her obedience,

130

Her new-built virtue and obedience.

Enter Kate, Bianca and Widow

See where she comes and brings your froward wives

As prisoners to her womanly persuasion.—

Katherine, that cap of yours becomes you not.

Off with that bauble, throw it underfoot. Kate throws the cap on the ground

135

WIDOWLord, let me never have a cause to sigh,

Till I be brought to such a silly pass![136]

BIANCAFie! What a foolish[137] duty call you this?

LUCENTIOI would your duty were as foolish too:

The wisdom of your duty, fair Bianca,

140

Hath cost me five hundred crowns since suppertime.

BIANCAThe more fool you for laying[141] on my duty.

PETRUCHIOKatherine, I charge thee tell these headstrong women

What duty they do owe their lords and husbands.

WIDOWCome, come, you’re mocking. We will have no telling.

145

PETRUCHIOCome on, I say, and first begin with her.

WIDOWShe shall not.

PETRUCHIOI say she shall, and first begin with her.

KATEFie, fie! Unknit[148] that threat’ning unkind brow, To the Widow

And dart not scornful glances from those eyes,

150

To wound thy lord, thy king, thy governor.

It blots thy beauty as frosts do bite the meads,[151]

Confounds thy fame[152] as whirlwinds shake fair buds,

And in no sense is meet[153] or amiable.

A woman moved[154] is like a fountain troubled,

155

Muddy, ill-seeming,[155] thick, bereft of beauty,

And while it is so, none so dry or thirsty

Will deign to sip or touch one drop of it.

Thy husband is thy lord, thy life, thy keeper,

Thy head, thy sovereign: one that cares for thee,

160

And for thy maintenance commits his body

To painful[161] labour both by sea and land,

To watch[162] the night in storms, the day in cold,

Whilst thou liest warm at home, secure and safe,

And craves no other tribute at thy hands

165

But love, fair looks and true obedience;

Too little payment for so great a debt.—

Such duty as the subject owes the prince To all?

Even such a woman oweth to her husband.

And when she is froward, peevish,[169] sullen, sour,

170

And not obedient to his honest[170] will,

What is she but a foul contending rebel

And graceless[172] traitor to her loving lord?

I am ashamed that women are so simple[173]

To offer war where they should kneel for peace,

175

Or seek for rule, supremacy and sway,[175]

When they are bound[176] to serve, love and obey.

Why are our bodies soft and weak and smooth,

Unapt[178] to toil and trouble in the world,

But that our soft[179] conditions and our hearts

180

Should well agree with our external parts?—

Come, come, you froward and unable[181] worms, To all the Women

My mind hath been as big[182] as one of yours,

My heart as great, my reason haply[183] more,

To bandy[184] word for word and frown for frown;

185

But now I see our lances are but straws,

Our strength as weak, our weakness past compare,

That[187] seeming to be most which we indeed least are.

Then vail your stomachs,[188] for it is no boot,

And place your hands below your husband’s foot:

190

In token of which duty, if he please,

My hand is ready, may it do him ease.[191]

PETRUCHIOWhy, there’s a wench! Come on, and kiss me, Kate. They kiss

LUCENTIOWell, go thy ways,[193] old lad, for thou shalt ha’t.

VINCENTIO’Tis[194] a good hearing when children are toward.

195

LUCENTIOBut a harsh hearing when women are froward.

PETRUCHIOCome, Kate, we’ll to bed.

We three[197] are married, but you two are sped.

’Twas I won the wager, though you hit the white.[198] To Lucentio

And being a winner, God give you goodnight!

Exeunt Petruchio [and Katherina]

200

HORTENSIONow, go thy ways. Thou hast tamed a curst shrew.[200]

LUCENTIO’Tis a wonder, by your leave, she will be tamed so.

Textual Notes

Q = First Quarto text of The Taming of a Shrew (1594)

F = First Folio text of 1623

F2 = a correction introduced in the Second Folio text of 1632

F3 = a correction introduced in the Third Folio text of 1664

Ed = a correction introduced by a later editor

SD = stage direction

SH = speech heading (i.e., speaker’s name)

List of parts = Ed

Ind.1.0 SD Christopher = Ed. F = Christophero 1 SH SLY = Ed. F = Begger 7 thirdborough = Ed. F = Headborough 16 SH FIRST HUNTSMAN = Ed. F = Hunts. 83 SH FIRST PLAYER = Ed. F = Sincklo 95 SH FIRST PLAYER = Ed. F = Plai.

Ind.2.2 lordship = Q. F = Lord 17 fourteen pence = Ed. F = xiiii d. 94 SH PAGE = Ed. F = Lady. or La. (throughout) 128 play it. Is = Ed. F = play, it is 132 a = F2. F = a a

1.1.0 SD Tranio = F2. F = Triano 13 Vincentio = Ed. F = Vincentio’s 14 brought = Q. F = brough 25 Mi = Ed. F = Me 47 SD Katherina = F2. F = Katerina SD suitor = F2 (spelled shuiter). F = sister 149 captum = F2. F = captam 197 coloured = F2. F = Conlord 234 your = F2. F = you

1.2.23 Con tutto il cuore, ben trovato = Ed. F = contutti le core bene trobatto 24 molto honorato = Ed. F = multo honorato 29 pip = Ed. F = peepe 67 she as = F2. F = she is as 109 me and other = Ed. F = me. Other 159 me to = Ed. F = one to 177 Antonio’s = Ed. F = Butonios 257 feat = Ed. F = seeke

2.1.8 thee tell = F2. F = tel 75 Neighbour = Ed. F = neighbors 77 unto you = Ed. F = vnto 197 joint = Ed. F = ioyn’d 248 askance = Ed. F = a sconce 331 in = Ed. F = me 377 Marseillis = Ed. F = Marcellus

3.1.28 Sigeia = F2. F = sigeria 44–7 assigned to Lucentio in F 47 SH BIANCA = Ed. Not in F 48 SH LUCENTIO = Ed. F = Bian. 50 SH BIANCA = Ed. F = Hort. 63 gamut = Ed. F = gamoth or gamouth (throughout scene) 77 change = F2. F = charge 78 SH MESSENGER = Ed. F = Nicke.

3.2.16 Make feasts, invite friends = Ed. F = Make friends, inuite 29 of thy = F2. F = of 30 Old news = Ed. F = newes 32 hear = Q. F = heard 47 swayed = Ed.F = Waid 117 before l = F2. F = before 140 grumbling = F2. F = grumlling 187 SH GREMIO = F2 (Gre.). F = Gra.

3.3.17 SH CURTIS = Q. F = Gru.

3.4.4 SH HORTENSIO = F2. F = Luc. 6 SH LUCENTIO = F2. F = Hor. 7 you? First = Ed. F = you first, 8 SH LUCENTIO = F2. F = Hor. 13 none = Ed. F = me 31 her = F3. F = them 74 Take = F2. F = Par. Take in = Ed. Not in F

4.1.65 SH HABERDASHER = Ed. F = Fel. 84 is a = Q. F = is 91 like a = Q. F = like 174 account’st = Ed. F = accountedst

4.2.1 Sir = Ed. F = Sirs 5 Where = Ed. F = Tra. Where 18 SD Enter…Lucentio F mistakenly repeats an entrance direction for the Pedant 54 haply = Ed. F = happilie 87 except = F2. F = expect

4.3.19 is = Q. F = in 38 where = F2. F = whether 79 she be = F2. F = she

4.4.5 master’s = Ed. F = mistris 38 master’s = F2. F = Mistris 59 Tranio = F2. F = Tronio 114 No = Q. F = Mo

5.1.2 done = Ed. F = come 39 thee = Q. F = the 64 two = Ed. F = too 67 for = F2. F = sir

Induction Scene 1

Induction Scene 1    Location: rural England

1    pheeze fix, get even with

2    A…stocks i.e., I’ll put you in the stocks (instrument of punishment in which the arms or legs were confined)

3    baggage good-for-nothing woman, harlot    chronicles historical account

4    Richard Conqueror Sly may confuse Richard Coeur-de-lion (Lionheart) with William the Conquerer    paucas pallabris “few words” (corruption of the Spanish)    Sessa! Be off! (cry used in hunting)/be quiet

5    burst broken

6    denier tenth of a penny    Go…Jeronimy Sly confuses Saint Jerome with Hieronimo, a character in Thomas Kyd’s The Spanish Tragedy who cautioned himself with “Hieronimo, beware! Go by, go by!”    cold bed perhaps a beggar’s bed, the damp ground

7    thirdborough parish constable

8    by law in court

9    kindly by all means

10    charge order    tender well take good care of

11    Brach bitch-hound (given that Merriman would seem a more suitable name for a male dog, some editors emend to “breathe”—i.e., “give breathing space to”—thus also improving the grammar)    cur dog    embossed exhausted, foaming at the mouth

12    couple leash together    deep-mouthed brach bitch with a loud bark

13    made it good i.e., picked up the scent

14    coldest fault when the scent was lost

17    cried…loss howled upon discovering the scent when it had been completely lost    merest total

20    fleet swift

22    sup feed    unto after

27    bed but cold cold bed in which

29    Grim…image in his drunken stupor Sly resembles a corpse

30    practise on trick

32    sweet delightful/perfumed

33    banquet light meal

34    brave fine

35    forget himself behave inappropriately/forget who he was

36    cannot choose is bound to

37    strange odd/wonderful

38    fancy fanciful thought/imagining

41    hang it round adorn it    wanton lively

42    Balm anoint, bathe    foul dirty/unattractive    distillèd fragrant

43    sweet scented

45    dulcet sweet

46    straight straight away

47    low humble    reverence bow/servitude

51    ewer jug containing water for handwashing    diaper cloth

56    disease illness/derangement

58    is must be (mad)

60    kindly naturally

61    passing exceedingly

62    husbanded managed    modesty care/moderation

63    warrant assure

64    As so that

67    office duty, role

68    Sirrah sir (used to an inferior)

69    Belike perhaps

72    An’t if it

77    So please if it please    duty services

82    fitted suited (to you)

85    happy fortunate

86    rather for more so because

87    cunning professional skill

89    doubtful apprehensive about    modesties propriety, self-control

90    over-eyeing of observing/staring at

92    merry passion fit of laughter

94    impatient angry

96    veriest antic most complete buffoon

97    buttery storeroom for provisions

99    want lack    affords has to offer

101    all suits every aspect (puns on sense of “outfits”)

103    do him obeisance bow/be submissive

104    as he will if he wishes to

105    bear must conduct    honourable action dignified behavior

107    by them accomplishèd performed by them (the ladies)

108    duty reverence

109    tongue voice    lowly humble

114    with…bosom bowing his head to his chest

117    esteemèd him believed himself to be

120    commanded tears tears on command

121    shift purpose/trick

122    napkin handkerchief    close conveyed secretly carried

123    in despite notwithstanding anything

124    dispatched carried out

125    Anon shortly

126    usurp the grace take on the elegance

129    how to see how    stay prevent

131    in go in    Haply perhaps/hopefully

132    spleen i.e., mood, impulse (the spleen was thought to be the seat of laughter)

Induction Scene 2

Induction Scene 2    most editions assume a shift of location from “outside an ale-house” to “a bedroom in the lord’s house,” but the text suggests that the location of the whole induction is the lord’s house, the only move being from outside (the main stage) to the bedroom (above space)

1    small weak (hence cheap)    sack Spanish white wine

3    conserves confections, sweetmeats

4    raiment clothing

6    conserves of beef salted beef

7    doublets close-fitting jackets

9    look …over-leather i.e., peep through holes

10    idle humour mad whim

13    spirit temperament/mood/fiend

15    Burtonheath possibly Barton-on-the-heath, a village near Stratford-upon-Avon    cardmaker maker of cards, instruments for combing wool    transmutation change of condition

16    bear-herd keeper of a performing bear    tinker pot-mender

17    ale-wife woman who keeps an ale-house    Wincot village four miles south of Stratford-upon-Avon    on the score in debt

18    score tally kept by marking notches on a piece of wood    sheer weak/drunk without food    score…for reckon me to be

19    bestraught out of my mind

21    droop become despondent

23    As as if

25    ancient former

26    dreams delusions

29    Apollo Greek god of music

32    lustful arousing desire

33    trimmed up decked out    Semiramis legendary queen of Assyria, famous for her voluptuousness

34    bestrow scatter (probably with rushes)

35    trapped adorned/fitted out

37    hawking hunting with hawks

39    welkin sky

41    course hunt the hare

42    breathèd exercised, strong-winded    roe small deer

44    Adonis in classical mythology, a beautiful huntsman, pursued by    Cytherea (Venus); when he was killed by a boar while hunting, she changed him into an anemone

45    Cytherea more commonly known as Venus, the goddess of love    sedges coarse grass growing by rivers

46    wanton grow playful/flourishing/lustful

48    Io in classical myth, a girl raped by Jove/Jupiter, then turned into a heifer    maid virgin

49    beguilèd bewitched/deceived    surprised attacked

50    lively lifelike

51    Daphne in classical mythology, a girl pursued by the god Apollo; she prayed for help and was turned into a laurel tree

54    workmanly skillfully

57    waning degenerate/declining from the perfection of Eden

59    envious cruel

61    yet even now

71    wit senses

72    knew but only knew

75    fay faith

76    of in

80    rail upon rant, complain about    hostess…house landlady of the inn

81    present…leet bring accusations against her at the manorial court (leet)

82    stone…quarts unlike sealed quarts, stone jugs had no official mark upon them guaranteeing they contained the specified amount of ale

84    woman’s…house landlady’s maid

86    reckoned up listed

87    Greece possibly a corruption of “Greet,” a small village not far from Stratford

91    amends recovery

95    Marry by the Virgin Mary    fare am getting along (plays on the sense of “food and drink”)    cheer hospitality (plays on the sense of “food and drink”)

98    goodman husband

103    Al’ce Alice

108    abandoned banished

115    In…malady due to the risk of bringing on your old illness

117    stands for is valid as

118    it stands my penis is erect    hardly plays on the idea of erectile hardness

119    despite spite

121    pleasant merry

122    meet fitting

126    frame adjust

127    bars prevents

128    comonty…gambold Sly’s mispronunciation of “comedy” and “gambol” (entertainment)    tumbling trick acrobatic trick

130    stuff matter (Sly responds to the literal sense of “furnishings”)

132    history story

133    slip slide by

Act 1 Scene 1

1.1    Location: Padua    Lucentio name suggests “light,” making him a fitting partner for “Bianca” (the white/fair)

2    Padua city in northern Italy    nursery training ground (the university of Padua was one of the oldest in Europe)

3    for in    Lombardy Padua is not in Lombardy, which is probably, however, intended here to denote all of northern Italy

5    leave permission

7    approved tested, proved

8    breathe rest    haply perhaps/fortunately    institute begin

9    ingenious intellectual

10    grave learned

11    Gave…first i.e., both I and my father were born there

12    great traffic extensive trade

13    come of descended from    Bentivolii a powerful Italian family who were, in fact, from Bologna rather than Pisa

14    Vincentio’s…deeds it is appropriate that Vincentio’s son, who was brought up in Florence, should fulfil the expectations of him by adding to his fortune with acts of virtue

19    treats of concerns

23    plash pool

24    satiety excess

25    Mi perdonato “pardon me”(Italian)

26    affected disposed

31    stoics rigorous individuals practicing abstinence and endurance    stocks stupid, senseless people

32    Aristotle Greek philosopher    checks recommendations of moral restraint

33    As that    Ovid Roman poet, author of The Art of Love    abjured rejected

34    Balk argue, quibble over

35    common everyday

36    quicken enliven

38    Fall to apply yourself/begin eating    stomach serves you inclination/appetite requires

39    No…ta’en a version of Horace’s famous statement that “he who has mixed usefulness with pleasure has gained every point”

40    affect like

41    Gramercies many thanks

42    wert were to

45    beget create    Bianca Italian for “white”    pantaloon in Italian comedy, the foolish old man

48    importune urge

50    bestow give in marriage

55    cart her drive her around in a cart (usual punishment for a prostitute)    rough violent/uncontrollable

56    will you do you want

58    stale bait/laughing-stock/prostitute (puns on the chess term “stalemate”)    mates fellows (plays on the sense of “husbands”)

62    Iwis indeed    not…heart i.e., marriage is not something I even consider

63    her care my chief desire

64    noddle head

65    paint i.e., redden with scratching    use treat

68    toward about to begin

69    wonderful froward remarkably obstinate

73    Mum hush

78    peat pet

79    Put…why make herself cry if she could think of an excuse

80    content you be satisfied

81    pleasure will    subscribe submit

84    Minerva goddess of wisdom

85    strange distant, unfriendly

86    effects causes

88    mew her up confine her

89    for on account of

90    her i.e., Bianca    her i.e., Kate’s (sharp)

93    for because

98    Prefer recommend    cunning skillful

102    commune discuss

103    appointed hours given a timetable

104    belike perhaps

105    dam mother    gifts qualities (ironic) here’s…you no one here will detain you

106    Their love i.e., women’s love    blow our nails wait patiently/waste time

107    fast…out manage to survive/endure it as cordially as we can Our…sides i.e., we have both failed

108    light on come across

109    wish recommend

111    brooked parle tolerated conversation/negotiation    advice consideration    toucheth concerns

113    labour and effect work for and bring about

120    pass surpass

121    alarums noise (literally, a military call to arms)    an if

123    had as lief would as willingly

124    high cross cross set on a pedestal in the town center

126    bar in law legal impediment (i.e., Baptista’s refusal to let Bianca marry until Kate is married)    it…maintained it shall progress in a friendly manner

128    have…afresh renew our combat once again    Happy…dole! Happiness to the winner! (proverbial)

129    ring alludes to the jousting game in which competitors tried to lift a ring with their lances (puns on senses of “wedding ring” and “vagina”)

138    love in idleness puns on “love-in-idleness,” a pansy thought to have power to stimulate love

140    secret trusted

141    Anna…Carthage Dido, Queen of Carthage, confided in her sister Anna that she was in love with Aeneas

147    rated driven out through rebuke

149    Redime…minimo “free yourself from bondage for as little ransom as you can” (Latin, inaccurately quoted, as in the standard Elizabethan grammar textbook, from Terence’s play Eunuchus)

150    Go forward carry on    This i.e., what you have said so far

152    so longly for such a long time/so longingly

153    marked not did not notice    pith essence

155    daughter of Agenor Europa, daughter of the King of Tyre; she was loved by    Jove, who turned himself into a bull in order to abduct her

156    him himself

157    kissed i.e., knelt on    Cretan strand shore of Crete (in fact, Europa was taken to, rather than from, Crete)

166    Bend apply, direct

167    curst bad-tempered    shrewd shrewish, disagreeable

169    maid unmarried virgin

170    closely securely

171    annoyed vexed/distracted

173    advised aware

177    for my hand by my hand/for my part

178    inventions meet plans agree    jump coincide

182    device plot

184    bear play

186    Keep house entertain    ply his book study

188    Basta “enough”(Italian)    full in full

193    port position, dignity

195    meaner lower-ranking

197    Uncase undress    coloured as opposed to the plainer, often blue, livery worn by Elizabethan servants

199    charm persuade

201    sith since

202    tied obliged

203    charged instructed

210    Whose sudden sight the sudden sight of whom    thralled enslaved    wounded i.e., pierced by Cupid’s arrow

216    frame fit

218    count’nance manner/appearance

221    descried witnessed/denounced

222    becomes is suitable

232    discreetly prudently

235    rests remains    that thyself execute which is for you to carry out    make become

236    sufficeth let it suffice    Presenters above i.e., the remaining characters from the Induction

238    mind attend to

239    matter subject

243    Would I wish    mark attend, observe

Act 1 Scene 2

1.2    Grumio connotations of “groom”—i.e., servingman

1    Verona city in northern Italy

2    of all especially

4    trow know/believe

6    knock Grumio plays on the sense of “strike (a person)”    rebused malapropism for “abused”

11    Villain wicked one/servant    me for me    gate door

12    pate head

13    I…worst if I hit you first I know that I shall come off the worst for it

16    ring i.e., with a circular knocker or bell; puns on “wring”

17    I’ll…it i.e., I’ll see how you can shriek    sol-fa sing a scale

18    mistress some editors emend to “masters”

21    How…all what are you both doing

23    Con…trovato “with all my heart well met” (Italian)

24    Alla…Petruchio “Welcome to our house, most worshipful Petruchio” (Italian)

25    compound settle

26    ’leges alleges    in Latin despite his Italian name, Grumio does not know the difference between Latin and Italian

28    use treat

29    aught anything    two…out i.e., overshooting the mark/not in his right mind/drunk (thirty-one was a card game, the object of which was to collect cards with a total value of thirty-one; it was also a term for being drunk)    pip one of the spots on a card

34    heart i.e., life

39    pledge guarantor

40    this’ this is    heavy chance sad situation

41    ancient long-standing

42    happy fortunate

46    in a few briefly

50    wive marry

51    Crowns gold coins

53    come roundly speak plainly

54    wish commend    ill-favoured foul-tempered

55    Thou’ldst you would

62    burden refrain/bass accompaniment (in a song)

63    Florentius’ love in Gower’s Confessio Amantis Florentius is a knight who agrees to marry an ugly hag if she helps him solve the riddle on which his life depends

64    Sibyl ancient prophetess; in classical mythology, Apollo gave the Sibyl of Cumae as many years of life as she held grains of sand in her hand, but he did not grant her accompanying youth

65    Xanthippe wife of Socrates, notorious for her bad temper

66    moves me not does not affect me    not…me cannot blunt the edge of my desire

71    mind opinion/intention

72    aglet-baby small figure ornamenting the tag of a lace or cord    trot hag

74    so…withal so long as money comes with it

75    are…in have gone this far

76    that I broached what I began

81    intolerable intolerably

83    state financial situation

87    board accost (naval metaphor referring to attacking a ship; plays on the sense of “have sex with”)

88    crack roar, explode

97    give you over leave you

99    humour whim    O’ on    an if

101    half a score ten

102    rail rant    rope-tricks possibly Grumio’s version of “rhetoric” or “rope rhetoric,” or implying tricks deserving of punishment by hanging    stand resist, withstand

103    figure figure of speech/rhetorical trick

104    withal with

106    keep safe-keeping (literally, fortified tower)    treasure plays on the sense of “(Bianca’s) vagina”

107    hold custody

109    other more others besides

112    defects faults    rehearsed related

114    order measure

119    grace favor

122    seen skilled

124    make love to woo/seduce

126    Here’s no knavery! i.e., this does not look like a trick (sarcastic)    beguile deceive

130    proper stripling fine, handsome youth

131    note presumably, a list of required books

132    fairly handsomely

133    at any hand in any case

134    read…lectures give no other lessons

136    liberality generosity

137    mend…largesse add to it with a donation

138    them i.e., the books

143    yourself…place if you yourself were present

147    woodcock proverbially stupid bird

150    you…met I am glad to meet you

151    Trow you do you know

156    Fit…turn suited to her needs (plays on the sense of “suitable for sex”)

159    help me to assist me in obtaining

164    bags money-bags

165    vent proclaim

166    me fair courteously to me

167    indifferent…either that is equally good for both of us

169    agreement…liking our agreeing to his conditions (Hortensio later explains that he and Gremio are to pay for the cost of wooing Kate)

172    So…well if what you say were to be achieved, it would be all very well

176    What countryman? Where are you from?

181    stomach appetite    to’t begin eating, go ahead

184    Will I live? i.e., of course

190    chafèd irritated

191    ordnance artillery

193    pitchèd planned

194    ’larums calls to arms

197    chestnut…fire chestnuts crackle when they burn

198    Fear frighten    bugs imaginary terrors

204    charge expense    brave finely dressed

208    readiest quickest

212    to— the implied missing word is “woo,” though some editors emend to “too?”

213    What…do? What is it to do with you?

215    chiders quarrellers, rebukers

216    begun said

217    ere before

226    choice chosen/special

231    all altogether

234    Leda’s daughter Helen of Troy, supposedly the most beautiful woman in the world

237    Though even if    Paris the Trojan prince who snatched Helen from her husband    speed alone be the only one to succeed

239    head free reign    jade worn-out horse

246    let…by leave her alone

247    Hercules…twelve in Greek mythology, Hercules (also called Alcides) carried out twelve seemingly impossible tasks

248    let it be grant that it is

249    sooth truth

250    hearken for seek to win/inquire after

256    stead help

259    whose hap he whose good fortune it

260    Will…ingrate will not be so ill-mannered as to be ungrateful

261    conceive understand

263    gratify show gratitude to/reward

264    rest remain    beholding indebted

266    contrive spend, use

267    quaff carouses drink toasts

268    adversaries opposing lawyers

269    Strive compete

270    motion proposal

272    ben venuto “welcome” (Italian); sense here is “host”

Act 2 Scene 1

2    bondmaid slave-girl

3    goods ornaments, jewels, love tokens

4    Unbind if you will unbind

5    raiment clothing

9    dissemble lie

11    special particular

13    Minion hussy

14    affect love

17    fair well dressed

18    envy despise

23    dame madam (accusatory)

25    ply thy needle sew/embroider    meddle not have nothing to do

26    hilding good-for-nothing

28    cross provoke, thwart

29    flouts mocks

31    suffer listen to/permit/endure

33    dance…day traditionally the fate of an unmarried elder sister

34    lead…hell proverbially old maids did so because they had no children to lead in heaven

36    occasion of opportunity for    habit clothing    mean humble

45    Go…orderly apply yourself to the business with decorum

46    give me leave excuse me/let me explain myself

48    wit intelligence

51    forward eager/presumptuous

54    for…entertainment as an entrance-fee for my reception

57    sciences fields of learning

59    Accept of accept

60    Litio Second Folio and many later editions emend to “Licio” throughout    Mantua city in northern Italy

63    turn purpose/needs

71    Saving with respect for

72    poor petitioners humble suitors

73    Baccare! “Stand back!” (mock-Latin)

74    I…doing I am eager for action (perhaps plays on the sense of “having sex”)

76    grateful agreeable    like same

77    kindly fittingly/affectionately

78    Rheims northern French town with a well-known university

79    Cambio Italian for “exchange”

83    walk…stranger seem like a newcomer/seem as if you are not one of the group/stand aside

90    preferment precedence (i.e., offering Kate before Bianca)

92    upon knowledge when you know

99    Lucentio…name? perhaps Baptista learns this by opening one of the books in which Lucentio’s name is written

101    mighty renowned, noble

104    presently at once

105    Holla a shout to attract attention

109    orchard garden

110    dinner the main meal of the day, served between eleven and noon    passing extremely

112    asketh haste is urgent

120    in possession i.e., on marriage

121    assure…widowhood provide for her after my death/guarantee her rights as a widow

123    leases property that is let

124    specialities a special contract

125    covenants formal agreements

126    special unique/particular

128    father i.e., father-in-law

134    So I so I shall behave (like an extreme gust)

136    happy…speed may the outcome be happy/fortunate

138    to the proof so as to be invulnerable    broke grazed, bleeding

143    prove become/test the skill of

144    hold with resist, withstand

145    break her to teach her to play

146    broke…me i.e., broken the    lute over my head

147    frets ridges for guiding the fingers (Kate shifts the sense to “vexations”)

150    fume show anger

152    pate head

153    amazèd perplexed, dumbstruck

154    As…pillory as if in the stocks (in which the head was confined by wooden boards)

155    fiddler lute-player/meddler

156    Jack base fellow

157    studied practiced, planned

158    lusty lively

161    discomfited disheartened

162    in practice with your lessons

166    attend wait for

170    clear serene, faultless

174    piercing moving

175    pack leave

177    crave demand

178    banns public proclamations of intended marriages

181    hard puns on heard (which was pronounced similarly)

187    dainties…Kates puns on “cates” (i.e., dainties, delicacies)

188    of from

190    sounded proclaimed/fathomed

191    deeply…belongs loudly/in such depth as you deserve

192    moved compelled (Kate shifts to the literal sense)

193    In good time! Indeed!

194    you…first from the start

195    movable piece of furniture/changeable person

197    joint stool low stool made by a joiner (“I took you for a joint stool” was a way of mockingly apologizing for ignoring someone)

198    sit on me i.e., as I am a stool (with sexual innuendo)

199    Asses puns on “arses”    bear carry loads (Petruchio plays on the sense of “bear the weight of a man’s body/of a baby”)

202    burden lie on top of/accuse

203    light not heavy/promiscuous

204    light quick    swain rustic (contemptuous)

205    as…be the right weight/of sound social standing

206    be puns on “bee”    buzz rumor—i.e., you should hear what actually is said about you; also a noise of impatience;    wasp then shifts sense to insect noise

207    ta’en seized upon, used    buzzard fool (literally useless bird of prey)/rumor-monger

208    turtle turtle-dove (symbol of faithful love)

209    turtle…buzzard i.e., only a fool will take me for a faithful wife, just as the turtle-dove mistakenly swallows an insect

211    waspish spiteful/wasp-like

214    sting plays on the sense of genitals/sexual urge

217    tails puns on “tales”

218    with…tail i.e., leaving me with the last word (tail puns on the sense of “vagina”)    come plays on the sense of “have an orgasm”    again back/once more

220    try test

221    cuff hit

222    lose your arms waste your strength/loosen your grip/forfeit your coat of arms (the sign of being a gentleman)

223    strike plays on the sense of “have sex with”

225    books book of heraldry, where gentlemen’s coats of arms were recorded (plays on the notion of “good books” and on “vagina”)

226    crest identifying feature on a coat of arms/tuft on the head of an animal (with phallic connotations)    coxcomb fool’s cap (similar in appearance to a cock’s crest; plays on “cock”—i.e., penis)

227    combless i.e., unthreatening    cock cockerel/penis    so provided that    hen i.e., wife/harlot

228    craven cock with no fighting spirit

230    fashion manner    crab sour crab-apple

234    glass mirror

236    Well…one well guessed for one so inexperienced

237    young youthful/strong

239    cares troubles

241    scape escape

242    chafe annoy, inflame

244    rough harsh/unmanageable    coy disdainful, unresponsive

246    pleasant merry    gamesome sportive, playful

247    slow easygoing, without a quick tongue

248    askance scornfully

250    cross combative/ill-tempered

251    entertain’st receive

252    conference conversation

257    halt limp

258    whom…command order you servants about (rather than me)

259    Dian Diana, goddess of chastity, the moon, and hunting    become suit, enhance

260    gait manner, bearing, way of walking

262    sportful lively/playful/amorous

263    study learn/practice    goodly splendid (sarcastic)

264    extempore spontaneous, improvised    mother-wit natural intelligence

265    A…son your mother must have had some wit, as left to yourself you would have none at all

266    wise…warm “he is wise enough that can keep himself warm” (proverbial)

268    mean intend to

272    will…you whether you will or not

273    for your turn right for you (plays on the sense of “for sex with you”)

278    wild Kate puns on “wild-cat”

279    Conformable pliant, obedient

280    Never make denial do not refuse me

282    speed you do you succeed, fare

284    amiss adversely, without progress

285    In your dumps? Down-hearted?

290    face …out brazenly get his own way

293    policy strategic purposes

295    temperate moderate, gentle

296    Grissel Patient Griselda was, in Boccaccio and Chaucer, a model of wifely obedience

297    Lucrece raped by the Roman king Tarquin, Lucrece was so ashamed she committed suicide

298    ’greed got along

302    speeding progress/success    goodnight our part our part in this business is over

305    ’twixt us twain between we two

310    vied redoubled (gambling term for raising the stakes)    protesting declaring

311    twink twinkling

312    a …see wonderful to see

314    meacock feeble

316    gainst in preparation for

317    bid invite

318    fine finely dressed

319    hands …witnesses joining of hands in front of witnesses (the “pre-contract”) prevented either party from becoming engaged to another

323    apace swiftly

326    clapped up settled

328    desperate mart risky business endeavor

329    ’Twas…you it (Kate) was a piece of merchandise that was losing its value (fretting plays on the sense of “aggravating”)

331    quiet peace of mind

332    quiet catch (ironic)

339    freeze possibly implies impotence

340    fry burn lecherously

341    Skipper frivolous wastrel    nourisheth sustains life

343    compound settle

344    deeds actions/legal deeds    he of both whichever of the two of you

345    dower settlement made to the wife on the death of the husband

349    plate gold or silver tableware

350    lave wash

351    hangings wallcoverings    Tyrian from Tyre, an ancient trading city on the Mediterranean

352    coffers chests

353    cypress made from cypress wood    arras counterpoints tapestried bed coverings from Arras

354    tents hangings for a bed

355    Turkey Turkish    bossed embossed, adorned

356    Valance…needlework valences (borders on the sides or canopy of a bed) embroidered with Venetian gold thread

359    milch-kine dairy cows    to the pail (specifically) for milking

361    answerable…portion appropriate to an estate of this size

362    struck old

365    came well in is to the point    list listen

369    walls i.e., the walls forming the city limits

371    two…land i.e., the land brings in an annual income of two thousand ducats (gold coins)

372    jointure widow’s settlement

373    pinched distressed/belittled

376    argosy large merchant ship

377    Marseillis’ road the harbor at Marseilles

380    galliases heavy low-built vessels

381    tight efficient, seaworthy

387    out-vied outbid (card-playing term)

389    let providing    assurance (financial) guarantee

390    else otherwise

392    cavil quibble

402    gamester gambler, foolish adventurer    were would be

404    Set…table i.e., become dependent upon you    toy piece of nonsense

407    faced …ten bluffed, brazened it out with a card only worth ten

408    ’Tis…head I have a plan

410    get beget, conceive

413    sire father

Act 3 Scene 1

1    Fiddler …sir implies that Hortensio is holding Bianca’s fingers as he teaches her the lute

2    entertainment reception

3    withal with

6    prerogative priority

8    lecture lesson

9    Preposterous unreasonable/placing last what should be first

10    ordained created

12    usual pain habitual labor

14    serve in serve up (contemptuous)

15    braves blustering threats

17    resteth …choice is up to me

18    breeching …schools schoolboy liable to be whipped (breeched)

19    ’pointed appointed

22    the whiles in the meantime

28    ‘Hic…senis’ “here ran the [river] Simois; here is the Sigeian land [Troy]; here stood the lofty palace of old Priam [King of Troy]” (from Ovid’s Heroides)

30    Conster translate/analyze grammatically/expound

34    port station, dignity    pantaloon foolish old man (i.e., Gremio)

36    fie expression of impatience or disgust    jars sounds discordant

37    Spit…again possibly a perversion of the proverb “spit in your hands and take a better hold” (sequence instrument’s…spit in the hole … tune…fingering may have sexual connotations)

43    jars quarrels

44    pedant schoolmaster/quibbler

46    Pedascule little pedant

48    Aeacides …grandfather the Greek hero Ajax was also known as Aeacides, after his grandfather Aeacus (Lucentio has moved to the next line of Ovid’s Heroides)

50    master tutor

51    doubt point

54    pleasant merry, playful

55    give me leave leave me

56    three parts i.e., the company of three people

57    formal punctilious

58    withal at the same time    but unless

61    order method

63    gamut the musical scale    briefer sort quicker way

66    fairly drawn neatly set out

69    ground …accord basis of all harmony

73    one …I perhaps Hortensio’s love (one clef) and his real and assumed personalities (two notes); may also have sexual connotations (“one vagina,” “two testicles”—notes playing on “nuts”) leading to play on die in next line

76    Old established    nice capricious

77    true legitimate, constant

83    pry into spy on, investigate

86    stale decoy (specifically, one that distracts a poorly trained hawk)

87    Seize …list let those who want you have you    ranging straying (like a hawk)/unfaithful

88    quit with rid of/even with

Act 3 Scene 2

5    want lack

8    forsooth in truth

10    rudesby insolent ruffian    spleen temper, passion

11    wooed …leisure varies the proverbial “he who marries in haste repents at leisure”

12    frantic insane, frenzied

14    noted for known as

19    Lo look

23    fortune …word event prevents him from keeping his word

29    humour temperament

30    Old plentiful (Baptista plays on the more familiar sense)

39    to of

40    jerkin close-fitting jacket

41    turned i.e., inside out (to make them last longer)    candle-cases containers for candle ends (i.e., too worn out to wear)

43    chapeless without a sheath    points laces for fastening the doublet to the hose    hipped lame, with an injured hip

44    of no kindred that do not match    glanders horse disease affecting the nostrils and jaws    like…chine of unclear meaning; perhaps a corruption of “like to mourn in the    chine“—i.e., likely to be in the final stages of the    glanders—or possibly “likely to have a weak spine (chine)”

45    lampass horse disease affecting the mouth    fashions farcins (horse disease causing tumors)

46    windgalls tumors on a horse’s leg    sped with spavins rendered useless by swelling of the leg joints    rayed disfigured    yellows jaundice    fives horse disease affecting the parotid glands    stark utterly

47    staggers horse disease marked by a staggering movement    begnawn gnawed at    bots intestinal worms    swayed…back with a bowed spine

48    shoulder-shotten with a dislocated shoulder    near-legged before knock-kneed in the front legs    half-checked bit restraining bit with a broken side-ring (so, ineffective)    head-stall part of the horse’s bridle that goes over the head

49    sheep’s leather i.e., weak leather    restrained pulled tight

50    girth leather band that goes under the horse’s stomach to hold the saddle in place    pieced mended

51    crupper leather strap that prevents the saddle from slipping    velure velvet    hath…studs is adorned with her initials in (brass or silver) studs

52    packthread string

54    lackey servant    caparisoned dressed

55    stock stocking    kersey coarse cloth    boot-hose over-stocking covering the whole of the lower leg

56    list strip of cloth    humour…fancies unclear; possibly refers to an old ballad, or to a fanciful ornament—the general sense is that the hat is adorned in an elaborate and whimsical manner    pricked…feather pinned in it in place of

57    footboy page, servant on foot

59    pricks spurs

60    mean-apparelled dressed humbly/moderately

68    Saint Jamy probably Saint James of Compostella, whose shrine was a popular object of pilgrimage

69    hold bet

73    gallants fashionable, fine young gentlemen

75    come not well am not welcome (Baptista responds to the sense of “walk with difficulty”)

76    halt limp

80    Gentles gentlemen

81    wherefore why    goodly fine

82    monument portent

83    comet thought be a bad omen    prodigy omen

86    unprovided ill-dressed, unprepared

87    doff take off    habit clothing    estate rank

88    solemn ceremonious

89    occasion of import important event

98    wears is passing, being wasted

99    unreverent disrespectful

103    Good sooth truly    ha’ have

105    wear wear out (with sexual connotations)

106    accoutrements clothes

110    lovely loving

114    event outcome

116    liking approval    to pass about

119    skills matters    fit adapt

126    steps movements    narrowly closely

127    steal our marriage marry secretly

131    watch our vantage look for a favorable opportunity

132    overreach outwit

133    narrow-prying inquisitive

134    quaint crafty

139    groom lowly character/servingman

141    Curster more quarrelsome

144    a fool to innocent compared to

145    Sir respectful term of address

147    gogs-wouns God’s wounds (a common oath)

148    book i.e., Bible

150    took gave

152    them probably refers to the priest and, his book; possibly refers to the hem of Kate’s skirt with Petruchio claiming to suspect the priest of peeping at her undergarments    any list anyone is listening/wants to

154    for why because

155    cozen cheat

156    many various

159    quaffed off drank up, drained    muscadel a sweet wine

160    sops pieces of bread or cake placed in wine

162    hungerly sparsely

163    him him for

168    rout company

170    minstrels musicians

172    think expect

173    cheer food and drink

178    Make …wonder don’t be surprised

180    honest worthy, kind

193    not stay not content to stay

196    oats…horses i.e., the horses are more than ready to gallop (as they have been so well fed)

201    be…green go while your boots are still fresh

203    jolly self-confident, arrogant

204    take…roundly behaves so presumptuously from the start

206    hast …do is it to do with you

207    stay my leisure wait until I’m ready

208    it …work things are beginning to happen

214    domineer feast riotously

215    Carouse full measure drink heartily    maidenhead virginity

216    mad high-spirited

218    big threatening, irate

220    my …anything an echo of the Tenth Commandment, which lists the possessions one should not covet    chattels movable possessions

221    stuff furnishings

224    bring mine action take legal action against/respond with physical force    proudest he bravest/most self-assured man

229    buckler defend (a buckler was a small round shield)

231    Went they not if they had not gone

235    Kated mated with Kate/infected with “the Kate”

236    wants For to are lacking to

238    junkets sweetmeats

240    room place

241    bride it play the bride

Act 3 Scene 3

3.3    Location: a country estate

1    foul ways muddy roads

2    rayed dirtied

4    little …hot small pot that boils rapidly—i.e., small man who is quick to become angry (proverbial)

7    taller braver/nobler/less short

8    coldly unenthusiastically/like one who is physically chilly

10    run running start

12    fire…water refers to the musical round “Scotland’s burning, Scotland’s burning / See yonder! See yonder! / Fire, fire! Fire, fire! / Cast on water! Cast on water!”

13    hot fiery tempered

14    winter…beast “winter and wedlock tame both man and beast” (proverbial)

17    beast Curtis objects to the implication that he is Grumio’s fellow after Grumio compares himself to a beast

18    horn cuckold’s horn (the sign of a man with an unfaithful wife)    so…least i.e., I/my penis must be at least as long to have made you a cuckold (picking up on the three-inch insult)

21    hot office fire-making duty

23    do…duty do your duty and take your dues (wages)

26    Jack…news alludes to the musical round “Jack boy, ho boy, News: / The cat is in the well”

27    cony-catching trickery (puns on “catch”—i.e., a musical round, such as that quoted by Grumio)

29    trimmed decked out, prepared    strewed i.e., on the floor, the usual Elizabethan practice

30    fustian type of coarse cloth

31    jacks male servants/leather drinking vessels    jills female servants/metal drinking vessels (which would need polishing without)    laid usually on tables or hung on walls

37    ha’t have it, hear it

42    sensible felt by the senses/easily understood

43    Imprimis first (Latin)

45    of on

48    crossed interrupted/irritated

50    miry boggy    bemoiled covered with mud

53    burst broken

54    worthy memory worth remembering

55    unexperienced in ignorance

57    proudest bravest

58    what why

59    blue traditional color of a servant’s livery

60    indifferent knit modest/matching pattern    curtsy bow    left legs as a show of subservience (to put your right foot forward was considered arrogant)

61    kiss their hands to kiss your own hand was a mark of respect to a superior

65    countenance honor (in the next line Grumio puns on the sense of “face”)

69    credit respect (in the next line Grumio puns on the sense of “provide financial credit for”)

77    spruce lively/smart    neat spotless/elegant

79    this this time    Cock’s passion by God’s passion

86    logger-headed stupid

90    swain yokel    whoreson rogue, son-of-a-whore    malt-horse drudge plodding idiot (literally, heavy brewer’s horse used to grind malt by working a treadmill)

91    park enclosed hunting ground

93    made finished

94    unpinked lacking ornamentation

95    link blacking (from a burnt torch)

96    come from sheathing returned from being fitted with a scabbard

97    fine properly dressed

101    ‘Where…those—’ lines from an old (lost) ballad

103    Soud unclear; possibly an exclamation of impatience or despair (many editors emend to “Food”)

105    when exclamation of impatience

106    It …way fragment of a ballad (possibly bawdy, now lost)    friar…grey Gray friar or Franciscan

108    Out exclamation of anger    pluck…awry pull my foot the wrong way (as you remove my boot)

109    mend make a better job of

110    water for handwashing

111    Troilus a name associated with fidelity

112    Ferdinand no such character ever appears

118    beetle-headed thick-headed (a “beetle” is a heavy wooden mallet)    flap-eared with long hanging ears

119    stomach appetite

120    give thanks say grace

127    dresser kitchen table on which food was prepared/sideboard from which food was served

129    trenchers plates

130    joltheads blockheads    unmannered insolent

131    be …straight deal with you immediately

133    well satisfactory

136    choler anger (associated with heat and dryness)

138    of ourselves by our natures

141    for company together

144    kills …humour defeats her with her own temperament

146    continency moderation, self-restraint

147    rates scolds

149    new-risen newly woken

151    politicly shrewdly, strategically

153    falcon i.e., Kate; methods used in training a wild hawk involved continual observation, sleep deprivation, and hunger    sharp keenly hungry

154    stoop swoops directly to the prey/submits    full-gorged fully fed

155    looks upon takes notice of    lure bait used in training a hawk

156    man control    haggard female hawk/wild woman

158    watch her keep her awake    kites birds of prey

159    bate and beat flutter and flap

160    eat ate

166    hurly commotion    intend pretend

168    watch remain awake

174    charity to show public duty to reveal it

Act 3 Scene 4

3.4    Location: Padua

3    bears …hand encourages me

4    satisfy convince

7    resolve answer

8    I profess which I practice/claim knowledge of    Art to Love Ovid’s erotic poem Ars Amatoria

11    Quick proceeders apt/rapid students (plays on the scholarly sense of to “proceed” from a bachelor’s to a master’s degree)

15    wonderful extraordinary

19    such a one i.e., Bianca

20    cullion wretch

23    entire wholehearted

24    lightness inconstancy/promiscuity

26    Forswear reject

31    fondly foolishly/dotingly

32    unfeignèd genuine

34    beastly abominably/lecherously

35    Would …foresworn! If only the whole world, other than he, would forsake her!

36    that so that

43    In resolution determinedly

45    ’longeth belongs

46    ta’en you napping caught you off guard

51    lusty lively/eager/merry/lustful

59    eleven…long i.e., exactly right (alludes to the card game “thirty-one”)

60    charm silence with a spell

62    dog-weary exhausted

63    ancient angel old guardian angel

66    mercatante merchant (Italian)    pedant schoolmaster

71    seem pretend to be

74    let me alone i.e., rely on me

81    What countryman where are you from

85    goes hard is significant

88    stayed detained

89    For on account of a

90    published publicly announced

91    marvel remarkable    newly come have only just arrived

93    than so even than this

94    bills …exchange money orders, promissory notes

106    and all one but never mind

111    credit reputation    undertake assume

113    Look …should make sure that you play your part properly

117    repute consider, esteem

119    make …good put the plan into action

121    looked for expected

125    becomes befits

Act 4 Scene 1

4.1    Location: a country estate

2    my wrong injustice I undergo

5    present immediate

9    meat food

11    spites mortifies, vexes

13    who one who

16    so so long as

17    neat’s ox’s

19    choleric likely to induce choler (anger)

20    broiled grilled

22    cannot tell am not sure

32    very mere

36    sweeting sweetheart    amort dispirited

37    what cheer how are you (in the next line Kate plays on the sense of “food/hospitality” and Petruchio continues the wordplay with cheerfully)

38    cold poor, inadequate

44    pains …proof efforts are wasted

46    stand remain

50    to blame at fault

54    apace quickly

56    bravely splendidly

58    ruffs elaborate starched neck-wear    cuffs decorative bands sewn onto the sleeves    farthingales boned petticoats worn underneath the back of the dress

60    knavery showy adornment

62    ruffling treasure frilled, lacy clothing

65    bespeak order

66    porringer porridge bowl

67    lewd vile, cheap    filthy contemptible

68    cockle cockleshell

69    A…trick i.e., trinkets, trifles

71    fit the time is fashionable

73    gentle mild

78    endured me permitted me to

85    custard-coffin pastry crust for custard

90    masquing stuff clothes fit for a masque (i.e., elaborate, theatrical)

91    demi-cannon large cannon

92    up and down in every respect    carved…tart i.e., slashed to reveal a different fabric beneath (like the slits on tart crusts)

94    censer perfuming vessel with a perforated lid

99    did I did

100    mar ruin

101    hop…home hop home over every street gutter (kennel)

103    make …it do what you can with it

105    quaint elegant, skillfully made

106    Belike perhaps    puppet i.e., fool

110    yard yardstick, measuring rod    nail measure of length for cloth (two and a quarter inches)

112    Braved defied

113    quantity scrap

114    be-mete measure (quibbles on “mete out punishment”)

115    on prating of prattling like this again

120    stuff material

124    faced adorned (Grumio’s next usage puns on the sense of “confront”)

126    braved provided clothes for/defied

128    Ergo “therefore” (Latin)

131    The…throat the note lies outrageously (punning on the sense of a musical note that emanates from the throat)

132    loose-bodied gown loose-fitting/designed for sexually “loose” women

134    bottom ball

136    compassed cut with a curved edge

138    trunk full, puffed

140    curiously elaborately/skilfully

142    bill the note detailing the nature of the dress

143    prove upon thee i.e., by fighting you

145    an if    place where suitable place

146    for thee straight ready for you now    mete-yard yardstick

148    odds advantage

151    take…use take it away and let your master use it how he will (in his response, Grumio interprets take up as “pull up” and use as “sexual usage”)

153    conceit idea (puns on “con”—i.e., “vagina”)

154    think for think

160    of from

163    mean habiliments poor, humble clothes

164    proud bulging

167    peereth appears/peeps through

171    painted colored, patterned

173    furniture clothing

174    lay blame

175    frolic be joyous

176    sport us make merry

181    dinnertime noon

183    suppertime i.e., about six

185    what whatever

186    crossing contradicting    let’t alone leave it

Act 4 Scene 2

4.2    Location: Padua

2    but unless

5    Pegasus i.e., at an inn with the sign of Pegasus, the winged horse of classical mythology

6    hold your own play your part

7    ’longeth belongs

9    schooled instructed/practiced (in his part)

11    throughly thoroughly

12    right real

16    looked for expected

17    tall fine    hold…drink take this to buy a drink

18    set your countenance assume the appearance (of a father)

21    stand show yourself a

22    patrimony inheritance

23    Soft wait a moment

28    for because of

30    stay delay

32    please…I are as satisfied as I am

35    one consent absolute agreement    bestowed given in marriage

36    curious particular, awkward

45    pass confirm

48    know deem, think

49    affied betrothed formally    assurance…stand pledges made as will be agreeable to both parties

52    Pitchers have ears i.e., there may be eavesdroppers (proverbial)    Pitchers jugs with large handles (“ears”) on either side

53    heark’ning still continues to wait for his opportunity

54    haply perhaps

56    lie lodge

57    pass settle

59    scriv’ner scribe authorized to draw up legal contracts

61    pittance sustenance, food

62    hie hurry

66    like soon, likely

70    mess dish, basic meal

77    has he has

78    tokens signals

79    moralize explain

85    command service

87    counterfeit assurance invalid legal settlement

88    assurance pledge    cum…solum “with the sole right to print” (Latin), a copyright phrase found in the title pages of books but here applied to the idea of marriage and reproduction

89    sufficient right amount/competent    that…for what you want

95    against you come in anticipation of your arrival    appendix appendage (i.e., Bianca; also continues the printing metaphor)

98    Hap happen    roundly…her approach her plainly, without further ado (may also have sexual connotations)

99    go hard be unfortunate (plays on the sense of “get erect”)

Act 4 Scene 3

4.3    Location: on the road

2    goodly splendidly

7    list please

8    Or ere before

14    rush-candle candle dipped in tallow wax, which gave a dim light

24    go thy ways well done/carry on    field battle

25    bowl should run refers to the game of bowls in which balls are rolled toward a central ball

26    against the bias against its natural course (the bias is the weight in the ball that enables it to be bowled in a curve)

28    Where away? Where are you going?

30    fresher more blooming

32    spangle shine, adorn

36    A he

40    whom to whom

47    green young, fresh (also alludes to the optical effect of looking at and then away from the sun)

54    encounter greeting

62    father father-in-law

64    this this time

65    esteem reputation

67    beseem befit

70    honest virtuous, noble (ironically plays on the sense of “truthful”)

73    pleasant jovial    break a jest play a joke

77    jealous suspicious

78    put…heart encouraged me

79    Have to now for/here’s to

80    untoward stubborn, perverse

Act 4 Scene 4

4.4    Location: Padua

4    o’your back behind you (i.e., I’ll see you safely into the church)

8    father’s i.e., Baptista’s house    bears lies

10    You …but i.e., I insist that

11    command authorize, ascertain

12    cheer is toward entertainment is in place

20    frivolous circumstances trivial matters

22    from Padua i.e., where we are right now (some editors emend to “from Mantua,” or “to Padua”)

28    cozen cheat

29    under my countenance by pretending to be me

30    good shipping happy fortune, a good journey (perhaps also “good sex”)

31    undone ruined

33    crack-hemp rogue who deserves to be hanged (literally, who causes the hempen rope to strain)

34    choose do as I choose/have a choice when it comes to being hanged

46    offer attempt

47    fine richly dressed

48    copatain high-crowned

54    ’cerns it you does it concern you

55    maintain afford

56    Bergamo town near Milan

67    forthcoming available to stand trial

71    cony-catched tricked

77    dotard old fool

78    hailed dragged about/greeted

79    spoiled ruined

88    counterfeit supposes false appearances    eyne eyes

89    packing plotting, conspiracy    with a witness that’s for certain

93    changed plays on the meaning of cambio (“change”)

95    state situation/status

104    go to exclamation of mild impatience and dismissal

106    sound probe

108    cake is dough i.e., I’ve failed

109    Out …all with no hope of anything

118    once at some time

Act 5 Scene 1

5.1    banquet fruit, sweetmeats, and wine, served after the main meal

1    long after a long time

3    scapes escapes    overblown now past

5    kindness kinship/good will

8    with on

9    close fill

10    great good cheer presumably the main wedding feast at Baptista’s

16    fears is frightened of/frightens

17    Then …afeard i.e., I can assure you I am not frightened

18    sensible perceptive

20    He …round i.e., you attribute your own feelings to others—you, Petruchio, are afraid of your wife

21    Roundly boldly, soundly

23    Thus…him that’s how I understand him (Petruchio picks up on roundly and conceive to make a joke about pregnancy)

25    conceives her tale interprets her remark/is impregnated (tale puns on “tail”—i.e., vagina)

26    mended retorted/rectified

32    mean average/poor

34    mean …you moderate compared to you

35    To her attack her (a cry used to urge on animals in hunting or fighting)

37    marks coins, each worth two thirds of a pound    put her down outdo her (Gremio plays on the sense of “have sex with her”)

38    office role/sexual duty

41    butt lock horns/thrust sexually

42    butt bottom    hasty-witted body quick-witted person

43    head and horn a horned head (i.e., that of a cuckold; horn plays on the sense of “penis/hunting horn”)

47    Have at you be prepared for    bitter shrewd, keen

48    bird prey    shift my bush fly to another bush to hide in (plays on the idea of pubic hair)

49    bow refers to fowling— hunting sitting birds with bow and arrow (with phallic connotations)

51    prevented thwarted

52    hit shot with an arrow/penetrated sexually

53    health toast

54    slipped unleashed

56    currish ignoble/dog-like

58    deer puns on “dear”    does…bay turns on you and holds you off with its horns/denies you sex

60    gird taunt

62    galled scratched, irritated

63    glance away from bounce off

65    good sadness all seriousness

66    veriest truest

67    assurance proof

75    of on

84    be your half put up half your bet

89    How? What?

97    needs necessarily

110    The …mine then I have the worst luck

111    by my holidame by Our Lady/by all that I hold holy

114    conferring chatting

116    Swinge thrash

121    awful worthy of respect    right rightful

122    what not everything

123    fair befall thee good luck to you

127    as …been as if the former Kate had never existed

136    pass state of affairs

137    foolish stupid (Lucentio shifts the sense to “fond, doting”)

141    laying betting

148    Unknit relax    unkind harsh/unnatural

151    meads meadows

152    Confounds thy fame destroys your reputation

153    meet appropriate

154    moved angered

155    ill-seeming ugly

161    painful grueling

162    watch be awake during

169    peevish stubborn, perverse

170    honest virtuous, upright

172    graceless sinful

173    simple foolish

175    sway authority, influence

176    bound i.e., by duty/in marriage

178    Unapt not designed

179    soft gentle, fragile    conditions constitutions/qualities

181    unable incapable

182    big strong/contentious/determined/proud

183    haply perhaps

184    bandy exchange

187    That …be seeming to be that

188    vail your stomachs lower your pride/surrender your inclinations    boot use

191    do him ease give him pleasure/ease his burden

193    go thy ways well done    ha’t have it (win the wager)

194    ’Tis…toward it is a good thing to hear when children are compliant

197    three three men    you…sped you two (Lucentio and Hortensio) are done for

198    white center of the target (puns on Bianca’s name, “white” in Italian)

200    shrew pronounced “shrow,” the word provides the rhyme for this final couplet

ALL’S WELL THAT ENDS WELL

All’s Well That Ends Well is one of Shakespeare’s least performed and least loved comedies. It is also one of his most fascinating and intriguingly modern works. The play presents a battlefield of opposing value systems: abstract codes jostle against material commodities, words are undermined by actions, generation argues with generation, and a sex war rages.

The language of sexual relations is persistently intermingled with that of warfare. The key word, deployed with equal force in conversations about the bedroom, the court, and the battlefield, is “honour.” The atmosphere feels very different from that of Shakespeare’s comic green world. All’s Well shares the darker view of human nature and the more troubling preoccupations of three other plays written at the end of Queen Elizabeth I’s reign and the beginning of James I’s: Troilus and Cressida, Othello, and Measure for Measure.

In the very first scene, virginity is described by Parolles as woman’s weapon of resistance. But man will besiege it, “undermine” it, and “blow up” his foe—make her pregnant. Like honor, virginity may variously be seen as a mystical treasure, a mark of integrity, a marketable commodity, and a kind of nothing. Traditional wisdom suggests that it is something a girl must preserve with care. But the play is full of proverbs and moral maxims that are found wanting, “undermined” by the demands of the body. Lavatch, Shakespeare’s most cynical and lascivious fool, is on hand to remind us of this. “I am driven on by the flesh,” he remarks, suggesting that the story of the sexes boils down to “Tib’s rush for Tom’s forefinger.” “Tib” was a generic name for a whore; the “rush” is a rudimentary wedding ring fashioned from reeds, but a woman’s “ring” is also the place where she is penetrated by a man’s nether finger.

“War” says Bertram, “is no strife / To the dark house and the detested wife.” For a young man in search of action, a wife is but a “clog,” a block of wood tied to an animal to prevent it from escaping. Parolles voices the same sentiment in the tumble of language that is his hallmark:

To th’wars, my boy, to th’wars!

He wears his honour in a box unseen

That hugs his kicky-wicky here at home,

Spending his manly marrow in her arms,

Which should sustain the bound and high curvet

Of Mars’ fiery steed. To other regions,

France is a stable, we that dwell in’t jades:

Therefore, to th’war!

“Kicky-wicky” is an abusive term for a wife, the “box unseen” is the vagina and “marrow” is the essence of manliness (according to ancient physiology, semen was distilled from the marrow in the backbone). A proper man, Parolles suggests, should be off riding a “fiery steed” into battle, in the spirit of Mars, god of war; those who stay at home are no better than female horses good only for breeding and sexual indulgence (“jade” was another slang term for “whore”).

All’s Well is in the mainstream of comedy insofar as it is about young people and the process of growing up. Bertram is like most young men of every era: he wants to be one of the boys, to prove his manhood. Enlistment in the army provides the ideal opportunity. He wants to sow some wild oats along the way, but is not ready for marriage. Critics hate him for not loving the lovely humble Helen from the start. “I cannot reconcile my heart to Bertram,” wrote Dr. Johnson with characteristic candor and forthrightness, “a man noble without generosity, and young without truth; who marries Helen as a coward, and leaves her as a profligate: when she is dead by his unkindness, sneaks home to a second marriage, is accused by a woman whom he has wronged, defends himself by falsehood, and is dismissed to happiness.” Of course, there is something obnoxious in the snobbery with which Bertram first dismisses Helen on the grounds of her low status, but when he goes on to say that he is simply not in love with her, he reveals a kind of integrity. He bows to the king’s will and marries her, but since his heart does not belong to her he refuses to give her his body. If a woman were forced to marry in this way, we would rather admire her for withholding sexual favors from her husband.

Bertram represents modernity in that he acts according to an existential principle: he follows his own self, not some preexistent code of duty, service to his monarch, or obligation to the older generation. One word for this code is indeed integrity. Another is selfishness. It is the prerogative of the old, especially mothers, to know, to suffer, and still to forgive the selfishness of their young. Bertram’s mother, the widowed Countess of Rossillion, who treats the orphaned Helen like a daughter and is only too happy to accept her as a daughter-in-law, regardless of her lowly background, was described by George Bernard Shaw as “the most beautiful old woman’s part ever written” (though she could perfectly well be in her forties). Since female parts were written for young male actors, strong maternal roles such as this are exceptional in Shakespeare. The only analogous parts are the more overbearing figures of Queen Margaret in the Henry VI plays, Tamora in Titus Andronicus, and Volumnia in Coriolanus. The serenity of the countess has meant that the principal reason for modern revivals of All’s Well has been the opportunity to showcase actresses such as Edith Evans, Peggy Ashcroft, and Judi Dench in their later years.

One of the key debates in the play is that between nature and nurture. The Countess of Rossillion believes that her son is a fundamentally good boy who has fallen into bad company, as embodied by the worthless Parolles. Helen, meanwhile, has strong natural qualities (the “dispositions she inherits”) reinforced by a loving and responsible upbringing (the “education” she has received first from her doctor father, then in the household of the countess).

Parallel to the question of nature and nurture is that of divine providence and individual responsibility. Helen believes that “Our remedies oft in ourselves do lie, / Which we ascribe to heaven”: like Bertram, she is a voice of modernity in her belief that individuals can carve their own destiny. She does so by means of disguise and bold solo travel: from Roussillon in south-west France to Paris, where she gains access to the king, then to Florence in the dress of a pilgrim en route to Compostella. Like Julia in The Two Gentlemen of Verona, Rosalind in As You Like It, and Viola in Twelfth Night, she uses her disguised self as an opportunity to talk about her true feelings. The part is the longest in the play and it gives an actor great opportunities for the portrayal of an isolated young woman’s self-exploration through both soliloquy and dialogue in lucid and serpentine verse, not to mention passages of prose banter and some piercing asides.

As Dr. Johnson dryly noted, the geography seems somewhay awry when Helen undertakes her pilgrimage: in going from France to Spain via Italy, she is “somewhat out of the road.” Such details did not matter to Shakespeare. For him, the pilgrim motif—taken over from the story in Boccaccio that was his source for the main plot of the play—had symbolic importance in that it associated Helen with an older value structure of reverence and self-sacrifice even as she asserts her own will. Pilgrims are people who believe in miracles, so Helen’s adoption of the role allies her with the worldview voiced by the old courtier Lafew after she has cured the king: “They say miracles are past, and we have our philosophical persons to make modern and familiar, things supernatural and causeless. Hence is it that we make trifles of terrors, ensconcing ourselves into seeming knowledge when we should submit ourselves to an unknown fear.”

Yet Helen is only a pretended pilgrim and the king has been cured not by a miracle but by the medical knowledge she has inherited from her father. Again and again the play takes a fairy-tale motif and turns it into something tougher, more earthly, and open to philosophical debate. Lafew’s generalization sets up the key scene in which Bertram rejects Helen. The idea of unquestioning obedience to the king’s will is itself a thing “supernatural and causeless.” It depends upon an “unknown fear,” the mystique of monarchy, the idea that the king is God’s representative on earth, and that to challenge him will cause the entire fabric of the natural order to collapse. In a crucial rhyming couplet near the end of the play—often editorially reassigned to the Countess of Rossillion for no good textual reason—the king says that, since he has failed in his management of Bertram’s first marriage, the second had better be a success otherwise “nature” may as well “cesse” (cease).

Shakespeare’s instinctive conservatism tips the balance in favor of the old order. The king, the countess, and the old courtier are generous and ethically admirable, much more obviously sympathetic than Bertram, Parolles, and Lavatch. Bertram has to be tricked out of his sexual selfishness and Parolles out of his vainglory, but still Shakespeare the role-player and wordsmith invests huge dramatic energy in the darker characters. He uses them to open cracks in the established order. The king tells Bertram that Helen should be viewed for what she is within, not by way of the superficial trappings of wealth and rank: “The property by what it is should go, / Not by the title.” Yet his own authority depends on his title, and the “go by what it is” argument might be turned to say that if Bertram does not love Helen he should not marry her. The king moves swiftly from reasoning to the assertion of raw authority: “My honour’s at the stake, which to defeat, / I must produce my power.” Shakespeare’s intensely compacted writing style makes the point. By “which to defeat,” the king means “in order to defeat the threat to my honor,” but ironically the very need to produce his “power” itself defeats the code of honor. As so often in Shakespeare’s darker plays, the figure of Niccolò Machiavelli lurks in the shadows, whispering that fine old codes such as honor and duty can only be underwritten by raw power.

He who asserts the new code of the self must live by that code. Both Bertram and Parolles are found out. The two lords Dumaine are not only mechanics in the double plot of ambush and bed trick, but also commentators upon how their victims are brought to self-knowledge: “As we are ourselves, what things we are! / Merely our own traitors.” The Dumaines too are young and modern in their recognition that we cannot simply sort our kind into sheep and goats in the manner of authoritarian religious dispensations. They propose instead that human life is shaded gray: “The web of our life is of a mingled yarn, good and ill together: our virtues would be proud if our faults whipped them not; and our crimes would despair if they were not cherished by our virtues.” This could be the epigraph for Shakespeare’s dramatically mingled yarn of tragi-comedy.

Parolles comes to acknowledge his boastful tongue. “Simply the thing I am / Shall make me live,” he vows. What, though, can this mean, given that—as his name indicates—he is made of nothing but words? Bertram, meanwhile, only comes to realize how much Helen is to be valued when she has been lost. The fiction of comedy gives him a second chance to love her. But in the modern world where there are no miracles, “all’s well that ends well” is a fiction. Along the way, we have been promised on more than one occasion that all will end well, but when it comes to the climax the king says that “all yet seems well” and that “if it end so meet” then all bitterness will be past. Those little conditional qualifiers leave open the door to the tragic world.

KEY FACTS

PLOT: Helen, orphaned daughter of a doctor, is under the protection of the widowed Countess of Rossillion. In love with Bertram, the countess’ son, Helen follows him to court, where she cures the sick French king of an apparently fatal illness. The king rewards her by offering her the husband of her choice. She names Bertram; he resists. When forced by the king to marry her, he refuses to sleep with her and, accompanied by the braggart Parolles, leaves for the Italian wars. He says that he will only accept Helen if she obtains a ring from his finger and becomes pregnant with his child. She goes to Italy disguised as a pilgrim and suggests a “bed trick” whereby she will take the place of Diana, a widow’s daughter whom Bertram is trying to seduce. A “kidnapping trick” humiliates the boastful Parolles, while the bed trick enables Helen to fulfill Bertram’s conditions, leaving him no option but to be a husband to her, to his mother’s delight.

MAJOR PARTS: (with percentages of lines/number of speeches/scenes on stage) Helen (16%/109/ 12), Parolles (13%/141/11), King of France (13%/87/4), Countess (10%/86/7), Bertram (9%102/10), Lafew (9%/97/7), Lavatch (7%/58/6), First Lord Dumaine (5%/70/7), Second Lord Dumaine (4%/47/6), Diana (4%/44/4), First Soldier/Interpreter (3%/37/2), Widow (2%/21/5).

LINGUISTIC MEDIUM: 55% verse, 45% prose.

DATE: No external evidence to indicate when written or first performed; usually dated to early Jacobean years (1603–06) on stylistic grounds and because of similarity to Measure for Measure. Moments of antipuritan satire do not help in determining a specific date.

SOURCES: Main plot derived from Giovanni Boccaccio’s Decameron (Italian, fourteenth century) by way of William Painter’s English translation, The Palace of Pleasure (1566); Countess and Lafew are Shakespeare’s invention, as is Parolles, who is in the tradition of the braggart soldier of classical comedy—a character type of which the greatest Elizabethan examples were Falstaff in Henry IV and Captain Bobadil in Ben Jonson’s Every Man in his Humour.

TEXT: First Folio of 1623 is only early printed text. Many features such as misassigned speeches, repeated speech headings, inconsistent naming, and probably misplaced lines suggest that the manuscript was not neatly prepared and that it caused confusion to the printers. Apparent authorial first thoughts suggest influence of Shakespeare’s working manuscript, while music cues suggest that of the theatrical promptbook. Of the many textual problems, the most frustrating concerns the two lords/brothers Dumaine: they have several different designations, variants on “1 Lord G.” and “2 Lord E.,” “French E.” and “French G.,” “Captain G.” and “Captain E.” The initials are sometimes supposed to refer to actors’ names. Shakespeare sometimes seems to forget whether “G.” is “1” and “E.” is “2” or vice versa. This means, for instance, that there is confusion over which brother leads the ambush of Parolles and which accompanies Bertram as he sets off to seduce Diana. We have adopted a solution that is dramatically consistent while requiring only minimal alteration of Folio’s speech ascriptions.

ALL’S WELL THAT ENDS WELL

BERTRAM, Count of Rossillion

COUNTESS of Rossillion, his mother

HELEN* (occasionally known as Helena), an orphan in the protection of the countess

REYNALDO, steward to the countess

LAVATCH, clown in the countess’ household

PAROLLES, a boastful follower of Bertram

KING of France

LAFEW, an old French lord

GENTLEMEN of the French court, including an Astringer

FIRST SOLDIER, who plays role of interpreter

DUKE of Florence

WIDOW, Capilet of Florence

DIANA, her daughter

MARIANA, her friend

LORDS, Attendants including a Page, Soldiers, people of Florence

Act 1 Scene 11.1

running scene 1

Enter young Bertram, [the] Count of Rossillion, his mother [the Countess], and Helena, Lord Lafew, all in black

COUNTESSIn delivering[1] my son from me, I bury a second husband.

BERTRAMAnd I in going, madam, weep o’er my father’s death anew; but I must attend[3] his majesty’s command, to whom I am now in ward, evermore in subjection.[4]

LAFEWYou shall find of[5] the king a husband, madam, you, sir, a father. He that so generally[6] is at all times good must of necessity hold his virtue to you, whose worthiness would stir[7] it up where it wanted rather than lack it where there is such abundance.

COUNTESSWhat hope is there of his majesty’s amendment?[9]

LAFEWHe hath abandoned his physicians, madam, under whose practices[10] he hath persecuted time[11] with hope, and finds no other advantage in the process but only the losing of hope by time.

COUNTESSThis young gentlewoman had a father — O, that ‘had’! How sad a passage[14] ’tis! — whose skill was almost as great as his honesty, had it stretched so far, would have made nature immortal, and death should have play for lack of work. Would[16] for the king’s sake he were living! I think it would be the death of the king’s disease.

LAFEWHow called you the man you speak of, madam?

COUNTESSHe was famous, sir, in his profession, and it was his great right to be so: Gerard de Narbon.[20]

LAFEWHe was excellent indeed, madam. The king very lately spoke of him admiringly and mourningly: he was skilful enough to have lived still,[22] if knowledge could be set up against mortality.

BERTRAMWhat is it, my good lord, the king languishes of?

LAFEWA fistula,[25] my lord.

BERTRAMI heard not of it before.

LAFEWI would it were not notorious.[27] Was this gentlewoman the daughter of Gerard de Narbon?

COUNTESSHis sole child, my lord, and bequeathed to my overlooking.[29] I have those hopes[30] of her good that her education promises her dispositions she inherits, which makes fair gifts fairer. For where an unclean[31] mind carries virtuous qualities, there commendations go with pity,[32] they are virtues and traitors too. In her they are the better for their simpleness;[33] she derives her honesty and achieves her goodness.

LAFEWYour commendations, madam, get from her tears.

COUNTESS’Tis the best brine a maiden can season[35] her praise in. The remembrance of her father never approaches her heart but the tyranny of her sorrows takes all livelihood[37] from her cheek. No more of this, Helena. Go to, no more, lest it be rather thought you affect[38] a sorrow than to have.

HELENI do affect a sorrow indeed, but I have it too.

LAFEWModerate lamentation is the right of[40] the dead, excessive grief the enemy to the living.

COUNTESSIf[42] the living be enemy to the grief, the excess makes it soon mortal.

BERTRAMMadam, I desire your holy[43] wishes.

LAFEWHow[44] understand we that?

45

COUNTESSBe thou blest, Bertram, and succeed thy father

In manners[46] as in shape. Thy blood and virtue

Contend for empire[47] in thee, and thy goodness

Share with thy birthright.[48] Love all, trust a few,

Do wrong to none. Be able[49] for thine enemy

50

Rather in power[50] than use, and keep thy friend

Under thy own life’s key. Be checked[51] for silence,

But never taxed[52] for speech. What heaven more will,

That thee may furnish and my prayers pluck[53] down,

Fall on thy head! Farewell.— My lord, To Lafew

55

’Tis an unseasoned[55] courtier. Good my lord,

Advise him.

LAFEWHe cannot want[57] the best

That shall attend his love.[58]

COUNTESSHeaven bless him.— Farewell, Bertram.

[Exit]

BERTRAMThe best wishes that can be forged[60] in your thoughts be servants to you! To Helen Be comfortable[61] to my mother, your mistress, and make much of her.

LAFEWFarewell, pretty lady. You must hold[62] the credit of your father.

[Exeunt Bertram and Lafew]

HELENO, were that all! I think not on my father,

And these[64] great tears grace his remembrance more

65

Than those I shed for him. What was he like?

I have forgot him. My imagination

Carries no favour[67] in’t but Bertram’s.

I am undone.[68] There is no living, none,

If Bertram be away. ’Twere[69] all one

70

That I should love a bright particular star

And think to wed it, he is so above me.

In his bright radiance and collateral[72] light

Must I be comforted, not in his sphere;[73]

Th’ambition in my love thus plagues itself:

75

The hind[75] that would be mated by the lion

Must die for love. ’Twas pretty,[76] though a plague,

To see him every hour, to sit and draw

His archèd brows, his hawking[78] eye, his curls

In our heart’s table[79] — heart too capable

80

Of every line and trick[80] of his sweet favour:

But now he’s gone, and my idolatrous fancy[81]

Must sanctify his relics.[82] Who comes here?

Enter Parolles

One that goes with him: I love him for his[83] sake, Aside

And yet I know him a notorious liar,

85

Think him a great way[85] fool, solely a coward.

Yet these fixed[86] evils sit so fit in him

That they take place[87] when virtue’s steely bones

Looks[88] bleak i’th’cold wind. Withal, full oft we see

Cold wisdom waiting on[89] superfluous folly.

PAROLLESSave[90] you, fair queen!

HELENAnd you, monarch!

PAROLLESNo.

HELENAnd no.

PAROLLESAre you meditating on virginity?

HELENAy. You have some stain[95] of soldier in you. Let me ask you a question. Man is enemy to virginity: how may we barricado[96] it against him?

PAROLLESKeep[97] him out.

HELENBut he assails, and our virginity, though valiant, in the defence yet is weak. Unfold[99] to us some warlike resistance.

PAROLLESThere is none. Man setting[100] down before you will undermine you and blow you up.

HELENBless[102] our poor virginity from underminers and blowers up! Is there no military policy[103] how virgins might blow up men?

PAROLLESVirginity being blown down, man will quicklier be blown up.[104] Marry, in blowing him down[105] again, with the breach yourselves made, you lose your city. It is not politic[106] in the commonwealth of nature to preserve virginity. Loss of virginity is rational increase,[107] and there was never virgin got till virginity was first lost. That[108] you were made of is mettle to make virgins. Virginity by being once lost may be ten times found.[109] By being ever kept, it is ever lost. ’Tis too cold a companion. Away with’t!

HELENI will stand for’t[111] a little, though therefore I die a virgin.

PAROLLESThere’s little can be said in’t,[112] ’tis against the rule of nature. To speak on the part[113] of virginity is to accuse your mothers, which is most infallible disobedience. He[114] that hangs himself is a virgin: virginity murders itself and should be buried in highways[115] out of all sanctified limit, as a desperate offendress against nature. Virginity breeds mites, much like a cheese, consumes itself to the very paring,[117] and so dies with feeding his own stomach. Besides, virginity is peevish, proud, idle, made of self-love, which is the most inhibited[118] sin in the canon. Keep it not, you cannot choose but lose[119] by’t. Out with’t! Within ten year it will make itself two, which is a goodly increase, and the principal[120] itself not much the worse. Away with’t!

HELENHow[122] might one do, sir, to lose it to her own liking?

PAROLLESLet me see. Marry, ill, to like him that ne’er it[123] likes. ’Tis a commodity will lose the gloss[124] with lying: the longer kept, the less worth. Off with’t while ’tis vendible.[125] Answer the time of request. Virginity, like an old courtier, wears her cap out of fashion: richly suited[126] but unsuitable, just like the brooch and the toothpick, which wear not[127] now. Your date is better in your pie and your porridge than in your cheek. And your virginity, your old virginity, is like one of our French withered pears:[129] it looks ill, it eats dryly. Marry, ’tis a withered pear: it was formerly better: marry, yet ’tis a withered pear. Will you anything with it?

HELENNot my virginity yet —

There[132] shall your master have a thousand loves,

A mother[133] and a mistress and a friend,

A phoenix,[134] captain and an enemy,

135

A guide, a goddess, and a sovereign,

A counsellor, a traitress, and a dear.

His humble ambition, proud humility,

His jarring concord,[138] and his discord dulcet,

His faith, his sweet disaster.[139] With a world

140

Of pretty, fond,[140] adoptious christendoms

That blinking[141] Cupid gossips. Now shall he —

I know not what he shall. God send him well![142]

The court’s a learning place, and he is one—

PAROLLESWhat one, i’faith?

145

HELENThat I wish well. ’Tis pity—

PAROLLESWhat’s pity?

HELENThat wishing well had not a body[147] in’t,

Which might be felt, that we, the poorer born,

Whose baser stars[149] do shut us up in wishes,

150

Might with effects of them[150] follow our friends,

And show what we alone must think,[151] which never

Returns us thanks.[152]

Enter Page

PAGEMonsieur Parolles, my lord calls for you.

[Exit]

PAROLLESLittle Helen, farewell. If I can remember thee, I will think of thee at court.

HELENMonsieur Parolles, you were born under a charitable star.

PAROLLESUnder Mars,[156] ay.

HELENI especially think, under Mars.

PAROLLESWhy under Mars?

HELENThe wars hath so kept you under[159] that you must needs be born under Mars.

PAROLLESWhen he was predominant.[160]

HELENWhen he was retrograde,[161] I think rather.

PAROLLESWhy think you so?

HELENYou go so much backward[163] when you fight.

PAROLLESThat’s for advantage.[164]

HELENSo is running away, when fear proposes the safety. But the composition[165] that your valour and fear makes in you is a virtue of a good wing,[166] and I like the wear[167] well.

PAROLLESI am so full of businesses, I cannot answer thee acutely. I will return perfect[169] courtier in the which, my instruction shall serve to naturalize thee, so thou wilt be capable of[170] a courtier’s counsel and understand what advice shall thrust[171] upon thee. Else thou diest in thine unthankfulness, and thine ignorance makes thee away.[172] Farewell. When thou hast leisure, say thy prayers. When thou hast none, remember thy friends. Get thee a good husband, and use[173] him as he uses thee. So, farewell.

[Exit]

175

HELENOur remedies oft in ourselves do lie,

Which we ascribe to heaven. The fated[176] sky

Gives us free scope, only doth backward pull

Our slow designs[178] when we ourselves are dull.

What power is it which mounts my love so high,

180

That makes me see, and cannot feed[180] mine eye?

The[181] mightiest space in fortune nature brings

To join like likes[182] and kiss like native things.

Impossible be strange attempts[183] to those

That weigh[184] their pains in sense and do suppose

185

What hath been cannot be. Who ever strove

To show her merit that did miss[186] her love?

The king’s disease — my project may deceive me,

But my intents are fixed and will not leave me.

Exit

[Act 1 Scene 2]1.2

running scene 2

Flourish cornets. Enter the King of France, with letters, and divers Attendants

KINGThe Florentines[1] and Senoys are by th’ears,

Have fought with equal fortune and continue

A braving[3] war.

FIRST LORDSo ’tis reported, sir.

5

KINGNay, ’tis most credible. We here receive it

A certainty, vouched from our cousin[6] Austria,

With caution that the Florentine will move[7] us

For speedy aid, wherein our dearest friend[8]

Prejudicates[9] the business and would seem

10

To have us make denial.[10]

FIRST LORDHis love and wisdom,

Approved[12] so to your majesty, may plead

For amplest credence.[13]

KINGHe hath armed[14] our answer,

15

And Florence[15] is denied before he comes:

Yet, for[16] our gentlemen that mean to see

The Tuscan service,[17] freely have they leave

To stand[18] on either part.

SECOND LORDIt well may serve

20

A nursery[20] to our gentry, who are sick

For breathing and exploit.[21]

KINGWhat’s he comes here?

Enter Bertram, Lafew and Parolles

FIRST LORDIt is the Count Rossillion, my good lord,

Young Bertram.

25

KINGYouth, thou bear’st thy father’s face. To Bertram

Frank[26] nature, rather curious than in haste,

Hath well composed thee. Thy father’s moral parts[27]

Mayst thou inherit too! Welcome to Paris.

BERTRAMMy thanks and duty are your majesty’s.

30

KINGI would I had that corporal soundness[30] now,

As when thy father and myself in friendship

First tried[32] our soldiership. He did look far

Into the service of the time and was[33]

Discipled of the bravest.[34] He lasted long,

35

But on us both did haggish[35] age steal on

And wore us out of act.[36] It much repairs me

To talk of your good father; in his youth

He had the wit which I can well observe

Today in our young lords. But they may jest

40

Till their own scorn[40] return to them unnoted

Ere[41] they can hide their levity in honour.

So like a courtier, contempt[42] nor bitterness

Were in his pride or sharpness; if they were,

His equal[44] had awaked them, and his honour,

45

Clock to itself,[45] knew the true minute when

Exception[46] bid him speak, and at this time

His tongue obeyed his hand.[47] Who were below him

He used[48] as creatures of another place

And bowed his eminent top[49] to their low ranks,

50

Making them proud of his humility,

In their poor praise he humbled.[51] Such a man

Might be a copy[52] to these younger times;

Which, followed well, would demonstrate them[53] now

But goers backward.

55

BERTRAMHis good remembrance, sir,

Lies richer in your thoughts than on his tomb,

So[57] in approof lives not his epitaph

As in your royal speech.

KINGWould I were with him! He would always say —

60

Methinks I hear him now. His plausive[60] words

He scattered not[61] in ears, but grafted them,

To grow there and to bear[62] — ‘Let me not live’ —

This his good melancholy oft began

On[64] the catastrophe and heel of pastime,

65

When it was out[65] — ‘Let me not live,’ quoth he,

‘After my flame lacks oil, to be the snuff[66]

Of younger spirits, whose apprehensive[67] senses

All but new things disdain; whose judgements are

Mere[69] fathers of their garments, whose constancies

70

Expire before their fashions.’ This he wished.

I,[71] after him, do after him wish too,

Since I nor[72] wax nor honey can bring home,

I quickly were[73] dissolvèd from my hive

To give some labourers[74] room.

75

SECOND LORDYou’re loved, sir.

They that least lend[76] it you shall lack you first.

KINGI fill a place, I know’t. How long is’t, count,

Since the physician at your father’s died?

He was much famed.

80

BERTRAMSome six months since, my lord.

KINGIf he were living, I would try him yet.

Lend me an arm: the rest[82] have worn me out

With several[83] applications. Nature and sickness

Debate[84] it at their leisure. Welcome, count.

85

My son’s no dearer.

BERTRAMThank your majesty.

Exeunt. Flourish

[Act 1 Scene 3]1.3

running scene 3

Enter Countess, Steward [Reynaldo] and Clown [Lavatch]

COUNTESSI will now hear; what say you of this gentlewoman?[1]

REYNALDOMadam, the care I have had to even your content,[2] I wish might be found in the calendar[3] of my past endeavours, for then we wound our modesty, and make foul the clearness[4] of our deservings, when of ourselves we publish them.

COUNTESSWhat does this knave here? Get you gone, sirrah.[5] The complaints I have heard of you I do not all believe. ’Tis my slowness that I do not, for I know you lack not folly to commit them, and have ability enough to make such knaveries yours.

LAVATCH’Tis not unknown to you, madam, I am a poor[9] fellow.

COUNTESSWell,[10] sir.

LAVATCHNo, madam, ’tis not so well that I am poor, though many of the rich are damned. But if I may have your ladyship’s good will to go[12] to the world, Isbel the woman[13] and I will do as we may.

COUNTESSWilt thou needs[14] be a beggar?

LAVATCHI do beg your good will in this case.

COUNTESSIn what case?

LAVATCHIn Isbel’s case[17] and mine own. Service is no heritage: and I think I shall never have the blessing of God till I have issue[18] o’ my body, for they say bairns are blessings.

COUNTESSTell me thy reason why thou wilt marry.

LAVATCHMy poor body, madam, requires it. I am driven on by the flesh, and he must needs go[22] that the devil drives.

COUNTESSIs this all your worship’s[23] reason?

LAVATCHFaith, madam, I have other holy[24] reasons, such as they are.

COUNTESSMay the world[25] know them?

LAVATCHI have been, madam, a wicked creature, as you and all flesh and blood are, and indeed I do marry that I may repent.[27]

COUNTESSThy marriage, sooner than thy wickedness.

LAVATCHI am out o’ friends, madam, and I hope to have friends for[29] my wife’s sake.

COUNTESSSuch friends are thine enemies, knave.

LAVATCHYou’re shallow,[31] madam, in great friends, for the knaves come to do that for me which I am aweary of. He that ears[32] my land spares my team and gives me leave to in[33] the crop. If I be his cuckold, he’s my drudge; he that comforts my wife is the cherisher[34] of my flesh and blood; he that cherishes my flesh and blood loves my flesh and blood; he that loves my flesh and blood is my friend: ergo,[35] he that kisses my wife is my friend. If men could be contented to be what they are,[36] there were no fear in marriage, for young Charbon the Puritan[37] and old Poysam the Papist, howsome’er[38] their hearts are severed in religion, their heads are both one. They may jowl[39] horns together, like any deer i’th’herd.

COUNTESSWilt thou ever[40] be a foul-mouthed and calumnious knave?

LAVATCHA prophet I, madam, and I speak the truth the next[41] way.

For I the ballad will repeat, Sings

Which men full true shall find:

Your marriage comes by destiny,

45

Your cuckoo sings by kind.[45]

COUNTESSGet you gone, sir. I’ll talk with you more anon.[46]

REYNALDOMay it please you, madam, that he bid Helen come to you: of her I am to speak.

COUNTESSSirrah, tell my gentlewoman I would speak with her — To Lavatch Helen, I mean.

50

LAVATCHWas this fair face[50] the cause,’ quoth she, Sings

‘Why the Grecians sackèd[51] Troy?

Fond[52] done, done fond,

Was this King Priam’s[53] joy?’

With that she sighèd as she stood,

55

With that she sighèd as she stood,

And gave this sentence[56] then:

‘Among[57] nine bad if one be good,

Among nine bad if one be good,

There’s yet one good in ten.’

COUNTESSWhat, one good in ten? You corrupt the song,[60] sirrah.

LAVATCHOne good woman in ten, madam; which is a purifying[61] o’th’song. Would God would serve the world[62] so all the year! We’d find no fault with the tithe-woman,[63] if I were the parson. One in ten, quoth a? An we might have a good woman born but[64] ere every blazing star, or at an earthquake, ’twould mend the lottery well. A man may draw[65] his heart out ere a pluck one.

COUNTESSYou’ll be gone, sir knave, and do as I command you?

LAVATCHThat[67] man should be at woman’s command, and yet no hurt done! Though honesty[68] be no puritan, yet it will do no hurt. It will wear the surplice of humility over the black gown of a big heart. I am going, forsooth.[69] The business is for Helen to come hither.

Exit

COUNTESSWell, now.

REYNALDOI know, madam, you love your gentlewoman entirely.

COUNTESSFaith, I do. Her father bequeathed[73] her to me, and she herself, without other advantage,[74] may lawfully make title to as much love as she finds. There is more owing her than is paid and more shall be paid her than she’ll demand.

REYNALDOMadam, I was very late[76] more near her than I think she wished me. Alone she was, and did communicate to herself her own words to her own ears. She thought, I dare vow for her, they touched not any stranger sense.[78] Her matter was, she loved your son. Fortune, she said, was no goddess, that had put such difference betwixt their two estates.[80] Love no god, that would not extend his might only where qualities[81] were level. Dian no queen of virgins, that would suffer her poor knight surprised[82] without rescue in the first assault or ransom afterward. This she delivered in the most bitter touch[83] of sorrow that e’er I heard virgin exclaim in, which I held my duty speedily to acquaint you withal,[84] sithence, in the loss[85] that may happen, it concerns you something to know it.

COUNTESSYou have discharged[86] this honestly. Keep it to yourself. Many likelihoods informed me of this before, which hung so tott’ring in the balance that I could neither believe nor misdoubt.[88] Pray you leave me. Stall this in your bosom, and I thank you for your honest care. I will speak with you further anon.

Exit Steward [Reynaldo]

Enter Helen

Even so it was with me when I was young. Aside

If ever we are nature’s, these[92] are ours. This thorn

Doth to our rose of youth rightly belong.

Our blood[94] to us, this to our blood is born:

95

It is the show[95] and seal of nature’s truth,

Where love’s strong passion is impressed[96] in youth.

By our remembrances of days foregone,

Such were our faults, or[98] then we thought them none.

Her eye is sick on’t. I observe[99] her now.

100

HELENWhat is your pleasure, madam?

COUNTESSYou know, Helen, I am a mother to you.

HELENMine honourable mistress.

COUNTESSNay, a mother. Why not a mother? When I said ‘a mother,’

Methought[104] you saw a serpent. What’s in ‘mother’

105

That you start[105] at it? I say I am your mother,

And put you in the catalogue of those

That were enwombèd mine.[107] ’Tis often seen

Adoption[108] strives with nature, and choice breeds

A native slip to us from foreign seeds.

110

You ne’er oppressed me with a mother’s groan,[110]

Yet I express to you a mother’s care.

God’s mercy, maiden! Does it curd[112] thy blood

To say I am thy mother? What’s the matter,

That this distempered[114] messenger of wet,

115

The many-coloured Iris,[115] rounds thine eye?

— Why? That you are my daughter?

HELENThat I am not.[117]

COUNTESSI say I am your mother.

HELENPardon, madam.

120

The Count Rossillion cannot be my brother:

I am from humble, he from honoured name,

No note[122] upon my parents, his all noble.

My master, my dear lord he is, and I

His servant live, and will his vassal[124] die.

125

He must not be my brother.

COUNTESSNor I your mother.

HELENYou are my mother, madam, would you were —

So[128] that my lord your son were not my brother —

Indeed my mother! Or were you both our mothers,[129]

130

I care no[130] more for than I do for heaven,

So I were not his sister. Can’t no other[131]

But, I your daughter, he must be my brother?

COUNTESSYes, Helen, you might be my daughter-in-law.

God shield[134] you mean it not! Daughter and mother

135

So strive upon your pulse. What, pale again?

My fear hath catched[136] your fondness. Now I see

The mystery of your loveliness,[137] and find

Your salt tears’ head.[138] Now to all sense ’tis gross:

You love my son. Invention[139] is ashamed

140

Against[140] the proclamation of thy passion

To say thou dost not: therefore tell me true.

But tell me then ’tis so, for look, thy cheeks

Confess it, t’one to th’other, and thine eyes

See it so grossly shown in thy behaviours

145

That in their kind[145] they speak it. Only sin

And hellish obstinacy tie thy tongue,

That[147] truth should be suspected. Speak, is’t so?

If it be so, you have wound a goodly clew.[148]

If it be not, forswear’t:[149] howe’er, I charge thee,

150

As heaven shall work in me for thine avail,[150]

To tell me truly.

HELENGood madam, pardon me.

COUNTESSDo you love my son?

HELENYour pardon, noble mistress.

155

COUNTESSLove you my son?

HELENDo not you love him, madam?

COUNTESSGo not about;[157] my love hath in’t a bond

Whereof the world takes note.[158] Come, come, disclose

The state of your affection, for your passions

160

Have to the full appeached.[160]

HELENThen I confess, Kneels

Here on my knee, before high heaven and you,

That before[163] you, and next unto high heaven,

I love your son.

165

My friends[165] were poor but honest, so’s my love.

Be not offended, for it hurts not him

That he is loved of me; I follow him not

By any token[168] of presumptuous suit,

Nor would I have him till I do deserve him,

170

Yet never know how that desert should be.

I know I love in vain, strive against hope.

Yet in this captious[172] and intenible sieve

I still[173] pour in the waters of my love

And lack[174] not to lose still; thus, Indian-like,

175

Religious[175] in mine error, I adore

The sun that looks upon his worshipper

But knows of him no more.[177] My dearest madam,

Let not your hate encounter with[178] my love,

For loving where you do; but if yourself,

180

Whose agèd honour cites[180] a virtuous youth,

Did ever in so true a flame of liking

Wish chastely and love dearly, that your Dian

Was both herself[183] and love — O, then, give pity

To her whose state is such that cannot choose

185

But lend[185] and give where she is sure to lose;

That[186] seeks not to find that her search implies,

But riddle-like lives[187] sweetly where she dies.

COUNTESSHad you not lately an intent — speak truly —

To go to Paris?

190

HELENMadam, I had.

COUNTESSWherefore?[191] Tell true.

HELENI will tell truth, by grace[192] itself I swear.

You know my father left me some prescriptions[193]

Of rare and proved effects, such as his reading

195

And manifest[195] experience had collected

For general sovereignty,[196] and that he willed me

In[197] heedfull’st reservation to bestow them,

As notes[198] whose faculties inclusive were

More than they were in note.[199] Amongst the rest,

200

There is a remedy, approved,[200] set down,

To cure the desp’rate[201] languishings whereof

The king is rendered lost.[202]

COUNTESSThis was your motive for Paris, was it? Speak.

HELENMy lord your son made me to think of this;

205

Else Paris and the medicine and the king

Had from the conversation[206] of my thoughts

Haply[207] been absent then.

COUNTESSBut think you, Helen,

If you should tender[209] your supposèd aid,

210

He would receive it? He and his physicians

Are of a mind.[211] He, that they cannot help him,

They, that they cannot help. How shall they credit[212]

A poor unlearnèd virgin, when the schools,[213]

Embowelled[214] of their doctrine, have left off

215

The danger to itself?

HELENThere’s something in’t

More than my father’s skill, which was the great’st

Of his profession, that his good receipt[218]

Shall for my legacy be sanctified[219]

220

By th’luckiest stars in heaven, and would your honour

But give me leave to try success,[221] I’d venture

The well-lost[222] life of mine on his grace’s cure

By such a[223] day and hour.

COUNTESSDost thou believe’t?

225

HELENAy, madam, knowingly.[225]

COUNTESSWhy, Helen, thou shalt have my leave[226] and love,

Means and attendants and my loving greetings

To those of mine in court. I’ll stay at home

And pray God’s blessing into[229] thy attempt.

230

Be gone tomorrow. And be sure of this:

What I can help thee to thou shalt not miss.[231]

Exeunt

Act 2 [Scene 1]2.1

running scene 4

Enter the King [carried in a chair] with divers young Lords taking leave for the Florentine war, Count Rossillion [Bertram] and Parolles. Flourish cornets

KINGFarewell, young lords. These warlike principles[1]

Do not throw from you.[2] And you, my lords, farewell.

Share the advice betwixt you. If both gain, all

The gift[4] doth stretch itself as ’tis received,

5

And is enough for both.

FIRST LORD’Tis our hope, sir,

After well-entered[7] soldiers, to return

And find your grace in health.

KINGNo, no, it cannot be; and yet my heart

10

Will not confess he owes[10] the malady

That doth my life besiege. Farewell, young lords.

Whether I live or die, be you the sons

Of worthy Frenchmen. Let higher Italy[13] —

Those[14] bated that inherit but the fall

15

Of the last monarchy — see that you come

Not to woo[16] honour, but to wed it, when

The bravest questant[17] shrinks. Find what you seek,

That fame may cry[18] you loud. I say, farewell.

SECOND LORDHealth at your bidding serve your majesty!

20

KINGThose girls of Italy, take heed of them:

They say our French lack[21] language to deny

If they demand. Beware of being captives[22]

Before you serve.[23]

BOTHOur hearts receive your warnings.

25

KINGFarewell.— Come hither to me. King steps aside with some lords

FIRST LORDO, my sweet lord, that you will stay behind us! To Bertram

PAROLLES’Tis not his fault, the spark.[27]

SECOND LORDO, ’tis brave[28] wars!

PAROLLESMost admirable. I have seen those wars.

30

BERTRAMI am commanded here,[30] and kept a coil with

‘Too young’ and ‘the next year’ and “tis too early’.

PAROLLESAn thy mind stand to’t, boy, steal away bravely.[32]

BERTRAMI shall stay here the forehorse[33] to a smock,

Creaking my shoes on the plain masonry,[34]

35

Till honour be bought up[35] and no sword worn

But one[36] to dance with. By heaven, I’ll steal away.

FIRST LORDThere’s honour in the theft.

PAROLLESCommit it, count.

SECOND LORDI am your accessary, and so farewell.

40

BERTRAMI grow to[40] you, and our parting is a tortured body.

FIRST LORDFarewell, captain.

SECOND LORDSweet Monsieur Parolles!

PAROLLESNoble heroes, my sword and yours are kin. Good sparks and lustrous, a word,[43] good metals.[44] You shall find in the regiment of the Spinii one Captain Spurio,[45] with his cicatrice, an emblem of war, here on his sinister cheek; it was this very sword entrenched[46] it. Say to him I live, and observe his reports for me.

FIRST LORDWe shall, noble captain.

PAROLLESMars[48] dote on you for his novices!—

[Exeunt Lords]

What will ye do? To Bertram

BERTRAMStay[50] the king. Bertram and Parolles stand aside

PAROLLESUse a more spacious ceremony[51] to the noble lords. To Bertram You have restrained yourself within the list[52] of too cold an adieu. Be more expressive to them, for they wear[53] themselves in the cap of the time, there do muster true gait, eat, speak, and move under the influence of the most received[54] star. And though the devil lead the measure,[55] such are to be followed. After them, and take a more dilated farewell.

BERTRAMAnd I will do so.

PAROLLESWorthy fellows, and like[57] to prove most sinewy sword-men. The King comes forward

Exeunt [Bertram and Parolles]

Enter Lafew

LAFEWPardon, my lord, for me and for my tidings.[58] Kneels

KINGI’ll fee[59] thee to stand up.

60

LAFEWThen here’s a man stands that has brought his pardon.[60] Rises

I would you had kneeled, my lord, to ask me mercy,

And that at my bidding you could so stand up.

KINGI would I had, so I had broke thy pate,[63]

And asked thee mercy for’t.

65

LAFEWGood faith, across.[65] But, my good lord, ’tis thus:

Will you be cured of your infirmity?

KINGNo.

LAFEWO, will[68] you eat no grapes, my royal fox?

Yes, but you will[69] my noble grapes, an if

70

My royal fox could reach them. I have seen a medicine[70]

That’s able to breathe life into a stone,

Quicken[72] a rock, and make you dance canary

With sprightly fire and motion, whose simple[73] touch,

Is powerful to araise[74] King Pippin, nay,

75

To give great Charlemain a pen[75] in’s hand

And write to her a love-line.

KINGWhat ‘her’ is this?

LAFEWWhy, Doctor She: my lord, there’s one arrived,

If you will see her. Now, by my faith and honour,

80

If seriously I may convey my thoughts

In this my light[81] deliverance, I have spoke

With one that, in her sex, her years, profession,[82]

Wisdom and constancy, hath amazed me more

Than I dare blame[84] my weakness. Will you see her,

85

For that is her demand, and know her business?

That done, laugh well at me.

KINGNow, good Lafew,

Bring in the admiration[88] that we with thee

May spend[89] our wonder too, or take off thine

90

By wondering how thou took’st[90] it.

LAFEWNay, I’ll fit[91] you,

And not be all day neither.

KINGThus he his special nothing[93] ever prologues. Lafew goes to the door or exits and re-enters

Enter Helen

LAFEWNay, come your ways.[94] To Helen

95

KINGThis haste hath wings indeed.

LAFEWNay, come your ways.

This is his majesty, say your mind to him.

A traitor you do look like, but such traitors

His majesty seldom fears. I am Cressid’s uncle,[99]

100

That dare leave two together. Fare you well.

Exit

KINGNow, fair one, does your business follow[101] us?

HELENAy, my good lord.

Gerard de Narbon was my father,

In what he did profess,[104] well found.

105

KINGI knew him.

HELENThe rather will I spare my praises towards him.

Knowing him is enough. On’s bed of death

Many receipts[108] he gave me, chiefly one

Which, as the dearest issue[109] of his practice,

110

And of his old experience th’only[110] darling,

He bade me store up, as a triple[111] eye,

Safer[112] than mine own two. More dear I have so,

And hearing your high majesty is touched

With that malignant cause[114] wherein the honour

115

Of my dear father’s gift stands chief in power,

I come to tender[116] it and my appliance

With all bound[117] humbleness.

KINGWe thank you, maiden,

But may not be so credulous[119] of cure,

120

When our most learnèd doctors leave us, and

The congregated college[121] have concluded

That labouring art[122] can never ransom nature

From her inaidible[123] estate. I say we must not

So stain our judgement, or corrupt our hope,

125

To prostitute[125] our past-cure malady

To empirics,[126] or to dissever so

Our great self[127] and our credit, to esteem

A senseless[128] help when help past sense we deem.

HELENMy duty[129] then shall pay me for my pains:

130

I will no more enforce mine office[130] on you,

Humbly entreating from your royal thoughts

A modest one[132] to bear me back again.

KINGI cannot give thee less, to[133] be called grateful.

Thou thought’st to help me, and such thanks I give

135

As one near death to those that wish him live.

But what at full[136] I know, thou know’st no part,

I knowing all my peril, thou no art.[137]

HELENWhat I can do can do no hurt to try,

Since you set[139] up your rest gainst remedy.

140

He[140] that of greatest works is finisher

Oft does them by the weakest minister:

So holy writ[142] in babes hath judgement shown,

When judges have been babes; great[143] floods have flown

From simple[144] sources, and great seas have dried

145

When miracles have by the great’st[145] been denied.

Oft expectation fails, and most oft there

Where most it promises, and oft it hits[147]

Where hope is coldest and despair most shifts.[148]

KINGI must not hear thee. Fare thee well, kind maid.

150

Thy pains not used must by[150] thyself be paid:

Proffers[151] not took reap thanks for their reward.

HELENInspirèd[152] merit so by breath is barred.

It is not so with him that all things knows

As ’tis with us that square[154] our guess by shows.

155

But most it is presumption in us when

The help of heaven we count[156] the act of men.

Dear sir, to my endeavours give consent.

Of heaven, not me, make an experiment.[158]

I am not an impostor[159] that proclaim

160

Myself against the level of mine aim,

But know I think, and think I know most sure,

My art is not past power, nor you past cure.

KINGArt thou so confident? Within what space[163]

Hop’st thou my cure?

165

HELENThe greatest[165] grace lending grace

Ere twice the horses of the sun shall bring

Their fiery torcher[167] his diurnal ring,

Ere twice in murk and occidental[168] damp

Moist Hesperus[169] hath quenched her sleepy lamp,

170

Or four and twenty times the pilot’s glass[170]

Hath told the thievish minutes how they pass,

What is infirm from your sound parts shall fly,

Health shall live free and sickness freely die.

KINGUpon thy certainty and confidence

175

What dar’st thou venture?[175]

HELENTax[176] of impudence,

A strumpet’s[177] boldness, a divulgèd shame

Traduced[178] by odious ballads: my maiden’s name

Seared[179] otherwise, nay, worse of worst, extended

180

With vilest torture, let my life be ended.

KINGMethinks in thee some blessèd spirit doth speak

His powerful sound within an organ weak:

And what impossibility would slay[183]

In common sense,[184] sense saves another way.

185

Thy life is dear, for all that life can rate[185]

Worth name of life in thee hath estimate:[186]

Youth, beauty, wisdom, courage, all

That happiness and prime[188] can happy call.

Thou[189] this to hazard needs must intimate

190

Skill infinite or monstrous desperate.[190]

Sweet practicer,[191] thy physic I will try,

That ministers[192] thine own death if I die.

HELENIf I break time,[193] or flinch in property

Of what I spoke, unpitied let me die,

195

And well deserved. Not[195] helping, death’s my fee.

But if I help, what do you promise me?

KINGMake thy demand.

HELENBut will you make it even?[198]

KINGAy, by my sceptre and my hopes of heaven.

200

HELENThen shalt thou give me with thy kingly hand

What[201] husband in thy power I will command:

Exempted[202] be from me the arrogance

To choose from forth the royal blood of France,

My low and humble name to propagate

205

With any branch or image of thy state.

But such a one, thy vassal, whom I know

Is free for me to ask, thee to bestow.

KINGHere is my hand. The premises observed,[208]

Thy will by my performance[209] shall be served.

210

So make the choice of[210] thy own time, for I,

Thy resolved[211] patient, on thee still rely.

More should I question thee, and more I must —

Though more to know could not be more to trust —

From whence thou cam’st, how tended on.[214] But rest

215

Unquestioned[215] welcome and undoubted blest.—

Give me some help here, ho!— If thou proceed

As high as word,[217] my deed shall match thy deed.

Flourish. Exeunt [the King is carried out]

[Act 2 Scene 2]2.2

running scene 5

Enter Countess and Clown [Lavatch]

COUNTESSCome on, sir, I shall now put[1] you to the height of your breeding.

LAVATCHI will show myself highly fed[2] and lowly taught. I know my business is but to the court.

COUNTESSTo the court! Why, what place make you[4] special, when you put off that with such contempt? But to the court!

LAVATCHTruly, madam, if God have lent a man any manners, he may easily put[6] it off at court: he that cannot make a leg,[7] put off’s cap, kiss his hand and say nothing, has neither leg, hands, lip, nor cap; and indeed such a fellow, to say precisely, were not for the court. But for me, I have an answer[9] will serve all men.

COUNTESSMarry, that’s a bountiful answer that fits all questions.

LAVATCHIt is like a barber’s chair that fits all buttocks: the pin-buttock,[11] the quatch-buttock, the brawn-buttock,[12] or any buttock.

COUNTESSWill your answer serve fit[13] to all questions?

LAVATCHAs fit as ten groats[14] is for the hand of an attorney, as your French crown for your taffety punk,[15] as Tib’s rush for Tom’s forefinger, as a pancake for Shrove Tuesday, a morris[16] for May Day, as the nail to his hole, the cuckold to his horn, as a scolding quean[17] to a wrangling knave, as the nun’s lip to the friar’s mouth, nay, as the pudding[18] to his skin.

COUNTESSHave you, I say, an answer of such fitness for all questions?

LAVATCHFrom below your duke to beneath your constable, it will fit any question.

COUNTESSIt must be an answer of most monstrous size that must fit all demands.

LAVATCHBut a trifle neither,[22] in good faith, if the learned should speak truth of it. Here it is, and all that belongs to’t. Ask me if I am a courtier, it shall do you no harm to learn.

COUNTESSTo be young again, if we could. I will be a fool in question,[25] hoping to be the wiser by your answer. I pray you, sir, are you a courtier?

LAVATCHO lord, sir! There’s a simple putting off.[27] More, more, a hundred of them.

COUNTESSSir, I am a poor friend of yours that loves you.

LAVATCHO lord, sir![29] Thick, thick, spare not me.

COUNTESSI think, sir, you can eat none of this homely meat.[30]

LAVATCHO lord, sir! Nay, put me to’t, I warrant you.

COUNTESSYou were lately whipped, sir, as I think.

LAVATCHO lord, sir! Spare not me.

COUNTESSDo you cry, ‘O lord, sir!’ at your whipping, and ‘Spare not me’? Indeed your ‘O lord, sir!’ is very sequent[35] to your whipping: you would answer very well to a whipping, if you were but bound to’t.[36]

LAVATCHI ne’er had worse luck in my life in my ‘O lord, sir!’ I see things may serve long, but not serve ever.

COUNTESSI play the noble[39] housewife with the time

To entertain it so merrily with a fool.

LAVATCHO lord, sir! Why, there’t serves well again.

COUNTESSAn end, sir. To your business. Give Helen this, Gives a letter

And urge her to a present[43] answer back. Commend me to my kinsmen and my son. This is not much.

LAVATCHNot much commendation to them.

COUNTESSNot much employment for you. You understand me?

LAVATCHMost fruitfully.[47] I am there before my legs.

COUNTESSHaste you again.[48]

Exeunt [separately]

[Act 2 Scene 3]2.3

running scene 6

Enter Count [Bertram], Lafew and Parolles

LAFEWThey say miracles are past, and we have our philosophical persons[1] to make modern[2] and familiar, things supernatural and causeless. Hence is it that we make trifles of terrors, ensconcing ourselves into[3] seeming knowledge when we should submit ourselves to an unknown fear.[4]

PAROLLESWhy, ’tis the rarest[5] argument of wonder that hath shot out in our latter times.

BERTRAMAnd so ’tis.

LAFEWTo be relinquished of[8] the artists—

PAROLLESSo I say, both of Galen[9] and Paracelsus.

LAFEWOf all the learnèd and authentic fellows[10]—

PAROLLESRight, so I say.

LAFEWThat gave him out[12] incurable—

PAROLLESWhy, there ’tis. So say I too.

LAFEWNot to be helped —

PAROLLESRight. As ’twere a man assured of a—

LAFEWUncertain life and sure death.

PAROLLESJust,[17] you say well. So would I have said.

LAFEWI may truly say, it is a novelty to the world.

PAROLLESIt is, indeed: if you will have it in showing,[19] you shall read it in— what-do-ye-call there? Points to the ballad Lafew holds

LAFEW‘A showing of a heavenly effect in an earthly actor.’ Reads

PAROLLESThat’s it. I would have said the very same.

LAFEWWhy, your dolphin[23] is not lustier. ’Fore me, I speak in respect—

PAROLLESNay, ’tis strange, ’tis very strange. That is the brief[24] and the tedious of it, and he’s of a most facinerious[25] spirit that will not acknowledge it to be the—

LAFEWVery hand of heaven.

PAROLLESAy, so I say.

LAFEWIn a most weak—

PAROLLESAnd debile minister,[29] great power, great transcendence, which should indeed give us a further use to be made than alone the recovery of the king, as to be—

LAFEWGenerally[32] thankful.

Enter King, Helen and Attendants

PAROLLESI would have said it; you say well. Here comes the king. Lafew and Parolles stand aside

LAFEWLustigue,[34] as the Dutchman says. I’ll like a maid the better whilst I have a tooth[35] in my head. Why, he’s able to lead her a coranto.

PAROLLESMor du vinager![36] Is not this Helen?

LAFEW’Fore God, I think so.

KINGGo, call before me all the lords in court.

[Exit Attendant]

Sit, my preserver, by thy patient’s side, Helen sits

40

And with this healthful hand, whose banished sense[40]

Thou hast repealed,[41] a second time receive

The confirmation of my promised gift,

Which but attends[43] thy naming.

Enter three or four Lords

Fair maid, send forth thine eye: this youthful parcel[44]

45

Of noble bachelors stand at my bestowing,[45]

O’er whom both sovereign power and father’s voice

I have to use. Thy frank election[47] make.

Thou hast power to choose, and they none to forsake.[48]

HELENTo each of you one fair and virtuous mistress

50

Fall, when love please! Marry, to each, but one!

LAFEWI’d give bay[51] curtal and his furniture

My[52] mouth no more were broken than these boys’,

And writ[53] as little beard.

KINGPeruse them well:

55

Not one of those but had a noble father.

HELENGentlemen, heaven hath through me restored the king to health.

She addresses her to a Lord

ALLWe understand it, and thank heaven for you.

HELENI am a simple maid, and therein wealthiest

That I protest[59] I simply am a maid.

60

Please it your majesty, I have done already.

The blushes in my cheeks thus whisper[61] me,

‘We blush that thou shouldst choose. But be refused,

Let the white death[63] sit on thy cheek for ever,

We’ll ne’er come there again.’

65

KINGMake choice and see,

Who[66] shuns thy love shuns all his love in me.

HELENNow, Dian,[67] from thy altar do I fly,

And to imperial Love,[68] that god most high,

Do my sighs stream.— Sir, will you hear my suit? To First Lord

70

FIRST LORDAnd grant it.

HELENThanks, sir. All[71] the rest is mute.

LAFEWI had rather be in this choice than throw ames-ace[72] for my life. Aside

HELENThe honour,[73] sir, that flames in your fair eyes To Second Lord

Before I speak, too threat’ningly replies.

75

Love[75] make your fortunes twenty times above

Her[76] that so wishes, and her humble love.

SECOND LORDNo better,[77] if you please.

HELENMy wish receive,

Which great love grant! And so I take my leave.

LAFEWDo all they deny her? Aside An they were sons of mine, I’d have them whipped, or I would send them to th’Turk[81] to make eunuchs of.

HELENBe not afraid that I your hand should take. To Third Lord

I’ll never do you wrong for your own sake.

Blessing upon your vows, and in your bed

85

Find fairer fortune, if you ever wed!

LAFEWThese boys are boys of ice, they’ll none have her. Aside Sure[86] they are bastards to the English, the French ne’er got[87] ’em.

HELENYou are too young, too happy,[88] and too good, To Fourth Lord

To make yourself a son out of my blood.

90

FOURTH LORDFair one, I think not so.

LAFEWThere’s one grape[91] yet. Aside I am sure thy father drunk wine. But if thou be’st not an ass, I am a youth of fourteen. I have known[92] thee already.

HELENI dare not say I take you, but I give To Bertram

Me and my service, ever whilst I live,

95

Into your guiding power. This is the man.

KINGWhy, then, young Bertram, take her: she’s thy wife.

BERTRAMMy wife, my liege? I shall beseech your highness,

In such a business give me leave to use

The help of mine own eyes.

100

KINGKnow’st thou not, Bertram, what she has done for me?

BERTRAMYes, my good lord,

But never hope to know why I should marry her.

KINGThou know’st she has raised me from my sickly bed.

BERTRAMBut follows it, my lord, to bring me down[104]

105

Must answer for your raising? I know her well:

She had her breeding[106] at my father’s charge.

A poor physician’s daughter my wife? Disdain

Rather corrupt[108] me ever!

KING’Tis only title[109] thou disdain’st in her, the which

110

I can build up. Strange is it that our bloods,

Of colour, weight and heat, poured all together,

Would quite confound distinction,[112] yet stands off

In differences so mighty. If she be

All that is virtuous, save what thou dislik’st,

115

A poor physician’s daughter, thou dislik’st

Of virtue for the name. But do not so.

From lowest place whence virtuous things proceed,[117]

The place is dignified by th’doer’s deed.

Where great[119] additions swell’s, and virtue none,

120

It is a dropsied[120] honour. Good alone

Is good without a name. Vileness is so:

The property[122] by what it is should go,

Not by the title. She is young, wise, fair.

In these to nature she’s immediate heir,[124]

125

And these breed honour. That[125] is honour’s scorn,

Which challenges itself as honour’s born

And is not like the sire. Honours thrive,

When rather from our acts we them derive

Than our foregoers.[129] The mere word’s a slave,

130

Deboshed[130] on every tomb, on every grave

A lying trophy,[131] and as oft is dumb,

Where dust and damned oblivion is the tomb

Of honoured bones indeed.[133] What should be said?

If thou canst like this creature as a maid,

135

I can create the rest: virtue and she

Is her own dower,[136] honour and wealth from me.

BERTRAMI cannot love her, nor will strive[137] to do’t

KINGThou wrong’st thyself if thou shouldst strive to choose.[138]

HELENThat you are well restored,[139] my lord, I’m glad.

140

Let the rest go.

KINGMy honour’s at the stake,[141] which to defeat,

I must produce my power. Here, take her hand,

Proud scornful boy, unworthy this[143] good gift,

That dost in vile misprision[144] shackle up

145

My love and her desert.[145] That canst not dream,

We,[146] poising us in her defective scale,

Shall weigh[147] thee to the beam. That wilt not know,

It is in us[148] to plant thine honour where

We please to have it grow. Check[149] thy contempt:

150

Obey our will, which travails in[150] thy good.

Believe not[151] thy disdain, but presently

Do thine own fortunes that obedient right

Which both thy duty owes and our power claims,

Or I will throw thee from my care forever

155

Into the staggers[155] and the careless lapse

Of youth and ignorance, both my revenge and hate

Loosing[157] upon thee, in the name of justice,

Without all terms[158] of pity. Speak. Thine answer.

BERTRAMPardon, my gracious lord, for I submit

160

My fancy[160] to your eyes. When I consider

What great creation[161] and what dole of honour

Flies where you bid it, I find that she, which late[162]

Was in my nobler thoughts most base, is now

The praisèd of the king, who,[164] so ennobled,

165

Is as ’twere born so.

KINGTake her by the hand,

And tell her she is thine, to whom I promise

A counterpoise,[168] if not to thy estate,

A balance more replete.[169]

170

BERTRAMI take her hand.

KINGGood fortune and the favour of the king

Smile upon this contract, whose[172] ceremony

Shall seem expedient on the now-born brief,

And be performed tonight. The solemn feast

175

Shall more[175] attend upon the coming space,

Expecting[176] absent friends. As thou lov’st her,

Thy love’s to me religious,[177] else, does err.

Exeunt. Parolles and Lafew stay behind commenting of this wedding

LAFEWDo you hear, monsieur? A word with you.

PAROLLESYour pleasure, sir.

LAFEWYour lord and master did well to make his recantation.

PAROLLESRecantation? My lord? My master?

LAFEWAy. Is it not a language I speak?

PAROLLESA most harsh one, and not to be understood without bloody succeeding.[183] My master?

LAFEWAre you companion[185] to the Count Rossillion?

PAROLLESTo any count, to all counts, to what is man.[186]

LAFEWTo what is count’s man. Count’s master is of another style.

PAROLLESYou are too old,[188] sir. Let it satisfy you, you are too old.

LAFEWI must tell thee, sirrah, I write[189] man, to which title age cannot bring thee.

PAROLLESWhat I dare[190] too well do, I dare not do.

LAFEWI did think thee, for two ordinaries,[191] to be a pretty wise fellow. Thou didst make tolerable vent[192] of thy travel, it might pass. Yet the scarfs and the bannerets about thee did manifoldly dissuade me from believing thee a vessel[193] of too great a burden.[194] I have now found thee. When I lose thee again, I care not. Yet art thou good for nothing but taking up,[195] and that thou’rt scarce worth.

PAROLLESHadst thou not the privilege of antiquity[196] upon thee—

LAFEWDo not plunge thyself too far in anger, lest thou hasten thy trial,[197] which if—lord have mercy on thee for a hen![198] So, my good window of lattice, fare thee well. Thy casement[199] I need not open, for I look through thee. Give me thy hand.

PAROLLESMy lord, you give me most egregious[200] indignity.

LAFEWAy, with all my heart, and thou art worthy of it.

PAROLLESI have not, my lord, deserved it.

LAFEWYes, good faith, every dram[203] of it, and I will not bate thee a scruple.

PAROLLESWell, I shall be wiser.[204]

LAFEWEven as soon as thou canst, for thou hast to pull[205] at a smack o’th’contrary. If ever thou be’st bound in thy scarf and beaten, thou shall find what it is to be proud of thy bondage.[207] I have a desire to hold my acquaintance with thee, or rather my knowledge, that I may say in the default,[208] he is a man I know.

PAROLLESMy lord, you do me most insupportable vexation.

LAFEWI would it were hell-pains for thy sake, and my poor doing[210] eternal. For doing I am past, as I will[211] by thee, in what motion age will give me leave.

Exit

PAROLLESWell, thou hast a son shall[212] take this disgrace off me; scurvy, old, filthy, scurvy lord! Well, I must be patient. There is no fettering[213] of authority. I’ll beat him, by my life, if I can meet him with any convenience,[214] an he were double and double a lord. I’ll have no more pity of his age than I would have of— I’ll beat him, an if I could but meet him again.

Enter Lafew

LAFEWSirrah, your lord and master’s married. There’s news for you: you have a new mistress.

PAROLLESI most unfeignedly beseech your lordship to make some reservation[219] of your wrongs.[220] He is my good lord. Whom I serve above is my master.

LAFEWWho? God?

PAROLLESAy, sir.

LAFEWThe devil it is that’s thy master. Why dost thou garter[223] up thy arms o’ this fashion? Dost make hose[224] of thy sleeves? Do other servants so? Thou wert best set thy lower part where thy nose stands. By mine honour, if I were but two hours younger, I’d beat thee. Methink’st thou art a general offence, and every man should beat thee. I think thou wast created for men to breathe[227] themselves upon thee.

PAROLLESThis is hard and undeserved measure,[229] my lord.

LAFEWGo to,[230] sir. You were beaten in Italy for picking a kernel out of a pomegranate. You are a vagabond[231] and no true traveller. You are more saucy with lords and honourable personages than the commission[232] of your birth and virtue gives you heraldry.[233] You are not worth another word, else I’d call you knave. I leave you.

Exit

PAROLLESGood, very good, it is so then. Good, very good, let it be concealed awhile.

Enter Count Rossillion [Bertram]

235

BERTRAMUndone,[235] and forfeited to cares forever!

PAROLLESWhat’s the matter, sweet heart?

BERTRAMAlthough before the solemn priest I have sworn,

I will not bed her.

PAROLLESWhat, what, sweetheart?

240

BERTRAMO my Parolles, they have married me!

I’ll to the Tuscan wars and never bed her.

PAROLLESFrance is a dog-hole, and it no more merits

The tread of a man’s foot: to th’wars!

BERTRAMThere’s letters from my mother. What th’import[244] is,

245

I know not yet.

PAROLLESAy, that would be known. To th’wars, my boy, to th’wars!

He wears his honour in a box[247] unseen

That hugs his kicky-wicky[248] here at home,

Spending[249] his manly marrow in her arms,

250

Which should sustain the bound and high curvet[250]

Of Mars’ fiery steed. To other regions,

France is a stable, we that dwell in’t jades:[252]

Therefore, to th’war!

BERTRAMIt shall be so. I’ll send her to my house,

255

Acquaint my mother with my hate to her,

And wherefore I am fled, write to the king

That which I durst not speak. His present gift

Shall furnish me to[258] those Italian fields

Where noble fellows strike. War is no strife

260

To[260] the dark house and the detested wife.

PAROLLESWill this capriccio[261] hold in thee? Art sure?

BERTRAMGo with me to my chamber, and advise me.

I’ll send her straight[263] away. Tomorrow

I’ll to the wars, she to her single sorrow.

265

PAROLLESWhy, these balls bound,[265] there’s noise in it. ’Tis hard.

A young man married is a man that’s marred:[266]

Therefore away, and leave her bravely, go.

The king has done you wrong, but hush, ’tis so.

Exeunt

[Act 2 Scene 4]

running scene 6 continues

Enter Helena and Clown [Lavatch] Helen reading a letter

HELENMy mother greets me kindly.[1] Is she well?

LAVATCHShe is not well,[2] but yet she has her health: she’s very merry, but yet she is not well: but thanks be given, she’s very well and wants[3] nothing i’th’world; but yet she is not well.

HELENIf she be very well, what does she ail, that she’s not very well?

LAVATCHTruly, she’s very well indeed, but for two things.

HELENWhat two things?

LAVATCHOne, that she’s not in heaven, whither God send her quickly. The other, that she’s in earth, from whence God send her quickly.

Enter Parolles

PAROLLESBless you, my fortunate lady.

HELENI hope, sir, I have your good will to have mine own good fortune.

PAROLLESYou had my prayers to lead them[12] on, and to keep them on, have them still. O, my knave, how does my old lady?

LAVATCHSo[14] that you had her wrinkles and I her money, I would she did as you say.

PAROLLESWhy, I say nothing.

LAVATCHMarry, you are the wiser man, for many a man’s[16] tongue shakes out his master’s undoing: to say nothing, to do nothing, to know nothing, and to have nothing, is to be a great part of your title,[18] which is within a very little of nothing.

PAROLLESAway! Thou’rt a knave.

LAVATCHYou should have said, sir, ‘Before[20] a knave thou’rt a knave.’ That’s, ‘Before me thou’rt a knave.’ This had been truth, sir.

PAROLLESGo to,[22] thou art a witty fool. I have found thee.

LAVATCHDid you find me[23] in yourself, sir? Or were you taught to find me? The search, sir, was profitable. And much fool may you find in you, even to[24] the world’s pleasure and the increase of laughter.

PAROLLESA good knave, i’faith, and well fed.[26]

Madam, my lord will go away tonight.

A very serious business calls on him.

The great prerogative and rite of love,[29]

30

Which, as your due, time claims, he does acknowledge,

But puts it off to[31] a compelled restraint,

Whose[32] want, and whose delay, is strewed with sweets,

Which they[33] distil now in the curbèd time,

To make the coming hour o’erflow with joy

35

And pleasure drown[35] the brim.

HELENWhat’s his will else?[36]

PAROLLESThat you will take your instant leave o’th’king

And make[38] this haste as your own good proceeding,

Strength’ned with what apology[39] you think

40

May make it probable need.[40]

HELENWhat more commands he?

PAROLLESThat, having this obtained, you presently

Attend[43] his further pleasure.

HELENIn everything I wait upon his will.

45

PAROLLESI shall report it so.

Exit

HELENI pray you.— Come, sirrah. To Parolles/To Lavatch

Exeunt

[Act 2 Scene 5]

running scene 6 continues

Enter Lafew and Bertram

LAFEWBut I hope your lordship thinks not him a soldier.

BERTRAMYes, my lord, and of very valiant approof.[2]

LAFEWYou have it from his own deliverance.[3]

BERTRAMAnd by other warranted testimony.

LAFEWThen my dial[5] goes not true. I took this lark for a bunting.

BERTRAMI do assure you, my lord, he is very great in knowledge and accordingly[6] valiant.

LAFEWI have then sinned against his experience and transgressed against his valour, and my state[9] that way is dangerous, since I cannot yet find in my heart to repent. Here he comes. I pray you make us friends. I will pursue the amity.

Enter Parolles

PAROLLESThese things shall be done, sir. To Bertram

LAFEWPray you, sir, who’s his tailor?[12] To Bertram

PAROLLESSir?

LAFEWO, I know him well. Ay, ‘sir’, he. ‘Sir’ ’s a good workman, a very good tailor.

BERTRAMIs she gone to the king? Aside to Parolles

PAROLLESShe is.

BERTRAMWill she away tonight?

PAROLLESAs you’ll have[18] her.

BERTRAMI have writ my letters, casketed my treasure,

20

Given order for our horses, and tonight,

When I should take possession of the bride,

End ere I do begin.

LAFEWAside A good traveller is something[23] at the latter end of a dinner, but one that lies three thirds[24] and uses a known truth to pass a thousand nothings with, should be once heard and thrice beaten.— God save you, captain.

BERTRAMIs there any unkindness[26] between my lord and you, monsieur? To Parolles

PAROLLESI know not how I have deserved to run into my lord’s displeasure.

LAFEWYou have made shift[28] to run into’t, boots and spurs and all, like him that leapt into the custard. And out of it you’ll run again, rather than suffer question[29] for your residence.[30]

BERTRAMIt may be you have mistaken[31] him, my lord.

LAFEWAnd shall do so ever, though I took him at’s prayers. Fare you well, my lord, and believe this of me: there can be no kernel in this light nut. The soul of this man is his clothes. Trust him not in matter of heavy[34] consequence. I have kept of them tame,[35] and know their natures. Farewell, monsieur. I have spoken better of you than you have or will to deserve[36] at my hand, but we must do good against evil.

[Exit]

PAROLLESAn idle[38] lord, I swear.

BERTRAMI think so.

40

PAROLLESWhy, do you not know[40] him?

BERTRAMYes, I do know him well, and common speech

Gives him a worthy pass.[42] Here comes my clog.

Enter Helena [with an attendant]

HELENI have, sir, as I was commanded from you,

Spoke with the king and have procured his leave

45

For present parting,[45] only he desires

Some private speech with you.

BERTRAMI shall obey his will.

You must not marvel, Helen, at my course,

Which holds not colour[49] with the time, nor does

50

The ministration[50] and requirèd office

On my particular. Prepared I was not

For such a business: therefore am I found

So much unsettled. This drives me to entreat you

That presently you take your way for home,

55

And rather muse[55] than ask why I entreat you,

For my respects[56] are better than they seem

And my appointments[57] have in them a need

Greater than shows itself at the first view

To you that know them not. This to my mother. Gives a letter

60

’Twill be two days ere I shall see you, so

I leave you to your wisdom.

HELENSir, I can nothing say,

But that I am your most obedient servant.

BERTRAMCome, come, no more of that.

65

HELENAnd ever shall

With true observance[66] seek to eke out that

Wherein toward me my homely stars[67] have failed

To equal my great fortune.[68]

BERTRAMLet that go. My haste is very great. Farewell. Hie[69] home.

70

HELENPray, sir, your pardon.

BERTRAMWell, what would you say?

HELENI am not worthy of the wealth I owe,[72]

Nor dare I say ’tis mine, and yet it is.

But, like a timorous thief, most fain[74] would steal

75

What law does vouch[75] mine own.

BERTRAMWhat would you have?

HELENSomething, and scarce so much: nothing, indeed.

I would[78] not tell you what I would, my lord.

Faith yes:

80

Strangers and foes do sunder,[80] and not kiss.

BERTRAMI pray you stay[81] not, but in haste to horse.

HELENI shall not break your bidding, good my lord.—

Where are my other men?— Monsieur, farewell. To Attendant

Exit

BERTRAMGo thou toward home, where I will never come

85

Whilst I can shake my sword or hear the drum.

Away, and for our flight.

PAROLLESBravely, corragio![87]

[Exeunt]

Act 3 [Scene 1]3.1

running scene 7

Flourish. Enter the Duke of Florence, the two Frenchmen [First and Second Lords Dumaine] with a troop of Soldiers

DUKESo that from[1] point to point now have you heard

The fundamental reasons of this war,

Whose great decision[3] hath much blood let forth

And more thirsts after.

5

FIRST LORDHoly seems the quarrel

Upon your grace’s part, black[6] and fearful

On the opposer.[7]

DUKETherefore we marvel much our cousin[8] France

Would in so just a business shut his bosom[9]

10

Against our borrowing prayers.[10]

SECOND LORDGood my lord,

The reasons of our state I cannot yield,[12]

But[13] like a common and an outward man

That the great figure[14] of a council frames

15

By self-unable motion:[15] therefore dare not

Say what I think of it, since I have found

Myself in my incertain grounds to fail

As often as I guessed.

DUKEBe it his pleasure.[19]

20

FIRST LORDBut I am sure the younger[20] of our nature,

That surfeit[21] on their ease, will day by day

Come here for physic.[22]

DUKEWelcome shall they be,

And all the honours that can fly from[24] us

25

Shall on them settle. You know your places well.

When better fall,[26] for your avails they fell.

Tomorrow to th’field.

Flourish [Exeunt]

[Act 3 Scene 2]3.2

running scene 8

Enter Countess and Clown [Lavatch]

COUNTESSIt hath happened all as I would have had it, save that he comes not along with her.

LAVATCHBy my troth,[3] I take my young lord to be a very melancholy man.

COUNTESSBy what observance,[4] I pray you?

LAVATCHWhy, he will look upon his boot and sing: mend[5] the ruff and sing: ask questions and sing: pick his teeth and sing. I know a man that had this trick of melancholy sold[7] a goodly manor for a song.

COUNTESSLet me see what he writes, and when he means to come. Opens a letter

LAVATCHI have no mind to[9] Isbel since I was at court. Our old lings and our Isbels o’th’country are nothing like your old ling and your Isbels o’th’court. The brains[10] of my Cupid’s knocked out, and I begin to love, as an old man loves money, with no stomach.[12]

COUNTESSWhat have we here?

LAVATCHE’en[14] that you have there.

Exit

COUNTESS‘I have sent you a daughter-in-law. She hath recovered[15] the king, and undone me. I have wedded her, not[16] bedded her, and sworn to make the “not” eternal. You shall hear I am run away: know it before the report come. If there be breadth enough in the world, I will hold[18] a long distance. My duty to you. Your unfortunate son, Bertram.’

[Reads] a letter

20

This is not well, rash and unbridled boy.

To fly[21] the favours of so good a king,

To pluck his indignation on thy head

By the misprizing[23] of a maid too virtuous

For the contempt of empire.[24]

Enter Clown [Lavatch]

LAVATCHO, madam, yonder is heavy[25] news within, between two soldiers and my young lady!

COUNTESSWhat is the matter?

LAVATCHNay, there is some comfort in the news, some comfort. Your son will not be killed so soon as I thought he would.

COUNTESSWhy should he be killed?

LAVATCHSo say I, madam, if he run away, as I hear he does. The danger is in standing to’t.[32] That’s the loss of men, though it be the getting of children. Here they come will tell you more. For my part, I only hear your son was run away.

[He may exit]

Enter Helen and two Gentlemen [First and Second Lords Dumaine]

SECOND LORDSave[34] you, good madam.

35

HELENMadam, my lord is gone, forever gone.

FIRST LORDDo not say so.

COUNTESSThink upon patience. Pray you, gentlemen,

I have felt so many quirks[38] of joy and grief

That the first face[39] of neither, on the start

40

Can woman[40] me unto’t. Where is my son, I pray you?

FIRST LORDMadam, he’s gone to serve the Duke of Florence:

We met him thitherward,[42] for thence we came,

And after some dispatch in hand[43] at court,

Thither we bend[44] again.

45

HELENLook on his letter, madam, here’s my passport.[45] Shows a letter

Reads ‘When thou canst get the ring upon my finger, which never shall come off, and show me a child begotten of thy body that I am father to, then call me husband. But in such a “then” I write a “never”.’ This is a dreadful sentence.[48]

COUNTESSBrought you this letter, gentlemen?

50

FIRST LORDAy, madam, and for the contents’ sake are sorry for our pains.

COUNTESSI prithee, lady, have[51] a better cheer.

If thou engrossest[52] all the griefs are thine,

Thou robb’st me of a moiety:[53] he was my son,

But I do wash his name out of my blood,

55

And thou art all my[55] child. Towards Florence is he?

FIRST LORDAy, madam.

COUNTESSAnd to be a soldier?

FIRST LORDSuch is his noble purpose, and believe’t,

The duke will lay upon him all the honour

60

That good convenience[60] claims.

COUNTESSReturn you thither?

SECOND LORDAy, madam, with the swiftest wing of speed.

HELEN‘Till I have no wife I have nothing in France.’ Reads

’Tis bitter.

65

COUNTESSFind you that there?

HELENAy, madam.

SECOND LORD’Tis but the boldness of his hand, haply,[67] which his heart was not

consenting to.

COUNTESSNothing in France, until he have no wife!

70

There’s nothing here that is too good for him

But only she, and she deserves a lord

That twenty such rude[72] boys might tend upon

And call her hourly mistress. Who was with him?

SECOND LORDA servant only, and a gentleman

75

Which I have sometime known.

COUNTESSParolles, was it not?

SECOND LORDAy, my good lady, he.

COUNTESSA very tainted fellow, and full of wickedness.

My son corrupts a well-derivèd[79] nature

80

With his inducement.[80]

SECOND LORDIndeed, good lady,

The fellow has a deal[82] of that too much,

Which holds[83] him much to have.

COUNTESSYou’re welcome, gentlemen.

85

I will entreat you, when you see my son,

To tell him that his sword can never win

The honour that he loses: more I’ll entreat you

Written[88] to bear along.

FIRST LORDWe serve you, madam,

90

In that and all your worthiest affairs.

COUNTESSNot so, but[91] as we change our courtesies.

Will you draw near?[92]

Exeunt [all but Helen]

HELEN‘Till I have no wife, I have nothing in France.’

Nothing in France, until he has no wife!

95

Thou shalt have none, Rossillion,[95] none in France.

Then hast thou all again. Poor lord, is’t I

That chase thee from thy country and expose

Those tender limbs of thine to the event[98]

Of the none-sparing war? And is it I

100

That drive thee from the sportive[100] court, where thou

Wast shot at with fair eyes, to be the mark[101]

Of smoky muskets? O you leaden messengers[102]

That ride upon the violent speed of fire,

Fly with false aim, move[104] the still-peering air

105

That sings[105] with piercing. Do not touch my lord.

Whoever shoots at him, I set him there.[106]

Whoever charges on his forward[107] breast,

I am the caitiff[108] that do hold him to’t,

And though I kill him not, I am the cause

110

His death was so effected. Better ’twere

I met the ravin[111] lion when he roared

With sharp constraint[112] of hunger: better ‘twere

That all the miseries which nature owes[113]

Were mine at once. No, come thou home, Rossillion,

115

Whence[115] honour but of danger wins a scar,

As oft[116] it loses all. I will be gone:

My being here it is that holds thee hence.

Shall I stay here to do’t?[118] No, no, although

The air of paradise did fan the house

120

And angels officed all.[120] I will be gone,

That pitiful[121] rumour may report my flight,

To consolate[122] thine ear. Come night, end day!

For with the dark, poor thief, I’ll steal[123] away.

Exit

[Act 3 Scene 3]3.3

running scene 9

Flourish. Enter the Duke of Florence, Rossillion [Bertram], Drum and Trumpets, soldiers, Parolles

DUKEThe general of our horse thou art, and we,

Great[2] in our hope, lay our best love and credence

Upon thy promising fortune.

BERTRAMSir, it is

5

A charge too heavy for my strength, but yet

We’ll strive to bear it for your worthy sake

To th’extreme edge[7] of hazard.

DUKEThen go thou forth,

And fortune play upon thy prosperous helm[9]

10

As thy auspicious mistress!

BERTRAMThis very day,

Great Mars, I put myself into thy file.[12]

Make me but like my thoughts,[13] and I shall prove

A lover of thy drum, hater of love.

Exeunt

[Act 3 Scene 4]3.4

running scene 10

Enter Countess and Steward [Reynaldo]

COUNTESSAlas! And would you take the letter of[1] her?

Might you not know she would do as she has done,

By sending me a letter? Read it again.

REYNALDO‘I[4] am Saint Jaques’ pilgrim, thither gone.

[Reads the] letter

5

Ambitious love hath so in me offended,

That barefoot plod I the cold ground upon,

With sainted[7] vow my faults to have amended.

Write, write, that from the bloody course of war

My dearest master, your dear son, may hie.[9]

10

Bless him at home in peace, whilst I from far

His name with zealous fervour sanctify.

His taken[12] labours bid him me forgive.

I, his despiteful[13] Juno, sent him forth

From courtly friends, with camping[14] foes to live

15

Where death and danger dogs the heels of worth.

He is too good and fair for death and me,

Whom[17] I myself embrace, to set him free.’

COUNTESSAh, what sharp stings are in her mildest words!

Reynaldo, you did never lack advice[19] so much,

20

As letting her pass so: had I spoke with her,

I could have well diverted her intents,

Which thus she hath prevented.[22]

REYNALDOPardon me, madam.

If I had given you this at overnight,[24]

25

She might have been o’erta’en, and yet she writes

Pursuit would be but vain.

COUNTESSWhat angel shall

Bless this unworthy husband? He cannot thrive,

Unless her prayers, whom[29] heaven delights to hear

30

And loves to grant, reprieve him from the wrath

Of greatest justice. Write, write, Reynaldo,

To this unworthy husband[32] of his wife.

Let every word weigh heavy of[33] her worth

That he does weigh too light. My greatest grief,

35

Though little he do feel it, set down sharply.

Dispatch the most convenient messenger.

When haply[37] he shall hear that she is gone,

He will return, and hope I may that she,

Hearing so much, will speed her foot again,

40

Led hither by pure love. Which of them both

Is dearest to me, I have no skill in sense[41]

To make distinction. Provide[42] this messenger.

My heart is heavy and mine age is weak.

Grief would have tears, and sorrow bids me speak.

Exeunt

[Act 3 Scene 5]3.5

running scene 11

A tucket afar off. Enter old Widow of Florence, her daughter [Diana], and Mariana with other Citizens

WIDOWNay, come, for if they do approach the city, we shall lose all[1] the sight.

DIANAThey say the French count has done most honourable service.

WIDOWIt is reported that he has taken their[3] greatest commander, and that with his own hand he slew the duke’s brother.

We have lost our labour. Tucket They are gone a contrary way. Hark! You may know by their trumpets.

MARIANACome, let’s return again, and suffice[7] ourselves with the report of it. Well, Diana, take heed of this French earl.[8] The honour of a maid is her name, and no legacy is so rich as honesty.[9]

WIDOWI have told my neighbour how you have been solicited[10] by a gentleman his companion.

MARIANAI know that knave, hang him! One Parolles: a filthy officer[12] he is in those suggestions[13] for the young earl. Beware of them, Diana; their promises, enticements, oaths, tokens and all these engines[14] of lust, are not the things they go under. Many a maid hath been seduced by them, and the misery is example that so terrible shows in the wreck of maidenhood,[16] cannot for all that dissuade succession,[17] but that they are limed with the twigs that threatens them. I hope I need not to advise you further, but I hope your own grace[18] will keep you where you are, though[19] there were no further danger known but the modesty which is so lost.

DIANAYou shall not need to fear[20] me.

Enter Helen [disguised as a pilgrim]

WIDOWI hope so. Look, here comes a pilgrim. I know she will lie[21] at my house: thither they send one another. I’ll question her.— God save you, pilgrim! Whither are you bound?

HELENTo Saint Jaques le Grand.

25

Where do the palmers[25] lodge, I do beseech you?

WIDOWAt the Saint Francis[26] here beside the port.

HELENIs this the way? A march afar

WIDOWAy, marry, is’t.

Hark you! They come this way.

30

If you will tarry,[30] holy pilgrim,

But till the troops come by,

I will conduct you where you shall be lodged,

The rather for[33] I think I know your hostess

As ample[34] as myself.

35

HELENIs it yourself?

WIDOWIf you shall please so, pilgrim.

HELENI thank you, and will stay upon[37] your leisure.

WIDOWYou came, I think, from France?

HELENI did so.

40

WIDOWHere you shall see a countryman of yours

That has done worthy service.

HELENHis name, I pray you.

DIANAThe Count Rossillion. Know you such a one?

HELENBut by the ear, that hears most nobly of him:

45

His face I know not.

DIANAWhatsome’er[46] he is,

He’s bravely taken[47] here. He stole from France,

As ’tis reported, for[48] the king had married him

Against his liking. Think you it is so?

50

HELENAy, surely, mere[50] the truth. I know his lady.

DIANAThere is a gentleman that serves the count

Reports but coarsely of her.

HELENWhat’s his name?

DIANAMonsieur Parolles.

55

HELENO, I believe[55] with him,

In argument[56] of praise, or to the worth

Of the great count himself, she is too mean[57]

To have her name repeated. All her deserving[58]

Is a reservèd honesty,[59] and that

60

I have not heard examined.[60]

DIANAAlas, poor lady!

’Tis a hard bondage to become the wife

Of a detesting lord.

WIDOWI write[64] good creature: wheresoe’er she is,

65

Her heart weighs sadly. This young maid might do her

A shrewd[66] turn if she pleased.

HELENHow do you mean?

Maybe the amorous count solicits her

In the unlawful purpose?

70

WIDOWHe does indeed,

And brokes[71] with all that can in such a suit

Corrupt the tender honour of a maid.

But she is armed for him and keeps her guard

In honestest[74] defence.

Drum and colours. Enter Count Rossillion [Bertram], Parolles and the whole army

75

MARIANAThe gods forbid else![75]

WIDOWSo, now they come:

That is Antonio, the duke’s eldest son.

That, Escalus.

HELENWhich is the Frenchman?

80

DIANAHe,

That with the plume. ’Tis a most gallant fellow.

I would he loved his wife: if he were honester[82]

He were much goodlier. Is’t not a handsome gentleman?

HELENI like him well.

85

DIANA’Tis pity he is not honest. Yond’s that same knave

That leads him to these places. Were I his lady,

I would poison that vile rascal.

HELENWhich is he?

DIANAThat jackanapes[89] with scarves. Why is he melancholy?

90

HELENPerchance he’s hurt i’th’battle.

PAROLLESLose our drum! Well.

MARIANAHe’s shrewdly[92] vexed at something. Look, he has spied us.

WIDOWMarry, hang you!

MARIANAAnd your courtesy,[94] for a ring-carrier!

Exeunt [Bertram, Parolles and army]

95

WIDOWThe troop is past. Come, pilgrim, I will bring you

Where you shall host.[96] Of enjoined penitents

There’s four or five, to great Saint Jaques bound,

Already at my house.

HELENI humbly thank you:

100

Please it[100] this matron and this gentle maid

To eat with us tonight, the charge[101] and thanking

Shall be for me.[102] And, to requite you further,

I will bestow some precepts of[103] this virgin Worthy the note.

105

BOTHwe’ll take your offer kindly.[105]

Exeunt

[Act 3 Scene 6]3.6

running scene 12

Enter Count Rossillion [Bertram] and the [two] Frenchmen, as at first

SECOND LORDNay, good my lord, put him to’t,[1] let him have his way.

FIRST LORDIf your lordship find him not a hilding,[2] hold me no more in your respect.

SECOND LORDOn my life, my lord, a bubble.[3]

BERTRAMDo you think I am so far deceived in him?

SECOND LORDBelieve it, my lord, in mine own direct knowledge, without any malice, but to speak of him as[6] my kinsman, he’s a most notable coward, an infinite and endless liar, an hourly promise-breaker, the owner of no one good quality worthy your lordship’s entertainment.[8]

FIRST LORDIt were fit you knew him, lest reposing[9] too far in his virtue, which he hath not, he might at some great and trusty[10] business in a main danger fail you.

BERTRAMI would I knew in what particular action to try[11] him.

FIRST LORDNone better than to let him fetch off[12] his drum, which you hear him so confidently undertake to do.

SECOND LORDI, with a troop of Florentines, will suddenly surprise[14] him; such I will have whom I am sure he knows not[15] from the enemy: we will bind and hoodwink him so, that he shall suppose no other but that he is carried into the leaguer[16] of the adversaries, when we bring him to our own tents. Be but your lordship present at his examination. If he do not, for the promise of his life and in the highest compulsion of base fear, offer to betray you and deliver all the intelligence[19] in his power against you, and that with the divine forfeit of his soul upon oath,[20] never trust my judgement in anything.

FIRST LORDO, for the love of laughter, let him fetch his drum. He says he has a stratagem for’t. When your lordship sees the bottom[23] of his success in’t, and to what metal this counterfeit lump of ore[24] will be melted, if you give him not John Drum’s entertainment, your inclining[25] cannot be removed. Here he comes.

Enter Parolles

SECOND LORDO, for the love of laughter, hinder not the honour of his design. Aside to Bertram Let him fetch off his drum in any hand.[27]

BERTRAMHow now, monsieur? This drum sticks[28] sorely in your disposition.

FIRST LORDA pox[29] on’t! Let it go, ’tis but a drum.

PAROLLES‘But a drum’? Is’t ‘but a drum’? A drum so lost? There was excellent command: to charge in with our horse upon our own wings,[31] and to rend our own soldiers!

FIRST LORDThat was not to be blamed in[33] the command of the service: it was a disaster of war that Caesar himself could not have prevented if he had been there to command.

BERTRAMWell, we cannot greatly condemn our success. Some dishonour we had in the loss of that drum, but it is not to be recovered.

PAROLLESIt might have been recovered.

BERTRAMIt might, but it is not now.

PAROLLESIt is to be recovered. But[40] that the merit of service is seldom attributed to the true and exact performer, I would have that drum or another, or hic jacet.[41]

BERTRAMWhy, if you have a stomach,[42] to’t, monsieur: if you think your mystery in stratagem can bring this[43] instrument of honour again into his native quarter, be magnanimous in the enterprise and go on. I will grace[44] the attempt for a worthy exploit. If you speed[45] well in it, the duke shall both speak of it and extend to you what further becomes[46] his greatness, even to the utmost syllable of your worthiness.

PAROLLESBy the hand of a soldier, I will undertake it.

BERTRAMBut you must not now slumber in it.[49]

PAROLLESI’ll about it this evening, and I will presently[50] pen down my dilemmas, encourage myself in my certainty, put myself into my mortal preparation,[51] and by midnight look to hear further from me.

BERTRAMMay I be bold to acquaint his grace you are gone about it?

PAROLLESI know not what the success will be, my lord, but the attempt I vow.

BERTRAMI know thou’rt valiant, and to the possibility[55] of thy soldiership will subscribe[56] for thee. Farewell.

PAROLLESI love not many words.

Exit

SECOND LORDNo more than a fish loves water. Is not this a strange fellow, my lord, that so confidently seems to undertake this business, which he knows is not to be done, damns himself[60] to do and dares better be damned than to do’t?

FIRST LORDYou do not know him, my lord, as we do. Certain it is that he will steal himself into a man’s favour and for a week escape a great deal of discoveries, but when you find him out, you have[63] him ever after.

BERTRAMWhy, do you think he will make no deed[64] at all of this that so seriously he does address himself unto?

SECOND LORDNone in the world. But return with an invention and clap upon you two or three probable[67] lies. But we have almost embossed him. You shall see his fall tonight; for[68] indeed he is not for your lordship’s respect.

FIRST LORDWe’ll make you some sport with the fox ere we case[69] him. He was first smoked[70] by the old lord Lafew. When his disguise and he is parted, tell me what a sprat[71] you shall find him, which you shall see this very night.

SECOND LORDI must go look my twigs.[72] He shall be caught.

BERTRAMYour[73] brother he shall go along with me. To First Lord

FIRST LORDAs’t please your lordship. I’ll leave you.

[Exit]

75

BERTRAMNow will I lead you to the house, and show you

The lass I spoke of.

SECOND LORDBut you say she’s honest.

BERTRAMThat’s all the fault. I spoke with her but once

And found her wondrous cold, but I sent to her

80

By this same coxcomb[80] that we have i’th’wind

Tokens and letters which she did re-send.

And this is all I have done. She’s a fair creature.

Will you go see her?

SECOND LORDWith all my heart, my lord.

Exeunt

[Act 3 Scene 7]3.7

running scene 13

Enter Helen and Widow

HELENIf you misdoubt[1] me that I am not she,

I know not how I shall assure you further,

But[3] I shall lose the grounds I work upon.

WIDOWThough my estate[4] be fall’n, I was well born,

5

Nothing acquainted with these businesses,

And would not put my reputation now

In any staining act.

HELENNor would I wish you.

First, give me trust, the count he is my husband,

10

And what to your sworn counsel[10] I have spoken

Is so[11] from word to word. And then you cannot,

By[12] the good aid that I of you shall borrow,

Err in bestowing it.

WIDOWI should believe you,

15

For you have showed me that which well approves[15]

You’re great in fortune.

HELENTake this purse of gold, Gives a purse

And let me buy your friendly help thus far,

Which I will over-pay and pay again

20

When I have found it.[20] The count he woos your daughter,

Lays down his wanton[21] siege before her beauty,

Resolves to carry[22] her: let her in fine consent,

As we’ll direct her how ’tis best to bear[23] it.

Now his important blood[24] will naught deny

25

That she’ll demand: a ring the county[25] wears,

That downward hath succeeded in his house

From son to son, some four or five descents

Since the first father wore it. This ring he holds

In most rich choice,[29] yet in his idle fire,

30

To buy his will,[30] it would not seem too dear,

Howe’er repented after.

WIDOWNow I see

The bottom[33] of your purpose.

HELENYou see it lawful,[34] then: it is no more,

35

But that your daughter, ere she seems as won,

Desires this ring; appoints[36] him an encounter;

In fine, delivers me to fill the time,

Herself most chastely absent. After,

To marry her,[39] I’ll add three thousand crowns

40

To what is passed[40] already.

WIDOWI have yielded:

Instruct my daughter how she shall persever,[42]

That time and place with this deceit so lawful

May prove coherent.[44] Every night he comes

45

With musics[45] of all sorts and songs composed

To her unworthiness.[46] It nothing steads us

To chide[47] him from our eaves, for he persists

As if his life lay[48] on’t.

HELENWhy then tonight

50

Let us assay[50] our plot, which, if it speed,

Is wicked meaning[51] in a lawful deed,

And lawful meaning in a lawful act,

Where both not sin, and yet a sinful fact.[53]

But let’s about it.

[Exeunt]

Act 4 [Scene 1]4.1

running scene 14

Enter one of the Frenchmen [the First Lord Dumaine], with five or six other Soldiers in ambush

FIRST LORDHe can come no other way but by this hedge-corner. When you sally[1] upon him, speak what terrible[2] language you will: though you understand it not yourselves, no matter, for we must not seem to understand him, unless[3] some one among us, whom we must produce for an interpreter.

FIRST SOLDIERGood captain, let me be th’interpreter.

FIRST LORDArt not acquainted with him? Knows he not thy voice?

FIRST SOLDIERNo, sir, I warrant you.

FIRST LORDBut what linsey-woolsey[8] hast thou to speak to us again?

FIRST SOLDIERE’en such as you speak to me.

FIRST LORDHe must think us some band of strangers[10] i’th’adversary’s entertainment. Now he hath a smack[11] of all neighbouring languages: therefore we must every one be a man of his own fancy,[12] not to know what we speak one to another, so we seem to know, is to know straight[13] our purpose: choughs’ language, gabble enough and good enough. As for you, interpreter, you must seem very politic.[14] But couch,[15] ho! Here he comes, to beguile two hours in a sleep, and then to return and swear the lies he forges. They hide

Enter Parolles

PAROLLESTen o’clock. Within these three hours ’twill be time enough to go home. What shall I say I have done? It must be a very plausive[18] invention that carries it. They begin to smoke[19] me, and disgraces have of late knocked too often at my door. I find my tongue is too foolhardy, but my heart hath the fear of Mars before it and of his creatures,[21] not daring the reports of my tongue.

FIRST LORDThis is the first truth that e’er thine own tongue was guilty of. Speaks aside to the others throughout

PAROLLESWhat the devil should move me to undertake the recovery of this drum, being not ignorant of the impossibility, and knowing I had no such purpose? I must give myself some hurts,[25] and say I got them in exploit: yet slight ones will not carry it. They will say, ‘Came you off with so little?’ And great ones I dare not give. Wherefore, what’s the instance?[27] Tongue, I must put you into a butter-woman’s mouth and buy myself another of[28] Bajazet’s mule, if you prattle me into these perils.

FIRST LORDIs it possible he should know what he is, and be that he is?

PAROLLESI would the cutting of my garments would serve the turn,[31] or the breaking of my Spanish sword.

FIRST LORDWe cannot afford[33] you so.

PAROLLESOr the baring[34] of my beard, and to say it was in stratagem.

FIRST LORD’Twould not do.

PAROLLESOr to drown my clothes, and say I was stripped.

FIRST LORDHardly serve.

PAROLLESThough I swore I leaped from the window of the citadel.[38]

FIRST LORDHow deep?

PAROLLESThirty fathom.[40]

FIRST LORDThree great oaths would scarce make that be believed.

PAROLLESI would I had any drum of the enemy’s. I would swear I recovered it.

FIRST LORDYou shall hear one anon.

PAROLLESA drum now of the enemy’s—

Alarum within The Lord and Soldiers come out of hiding

FIRST LORDThroca movousus, cargo, cargo, cargo. First Soldier will act as Interpreter

ALLCargo, cargo, cargo, villianda par corbo, cargo. They seize and blindfold Parolles

PAROLLESO, ransom, ransom! Do not hide mine eyes.

INTERPRETERBoskos thromuldo boskos.

PAROLLESI know you are the Muskos’[49] regiment,

50

And I shall lose my life for want of language.

If there be here German, or Dane, low Dutch,[51]

Italian, or French, let him speak to me,

I’ll discover[53] that which shall undo the Florentine.

INTERPRETERBoskos vauvado. I understand thee, and can speak thy tongue. Kerelybonto. Sir, betake thee[55] to thy faith, for seventeen poniards are at thy bosom.

PAROLLESO!

INTERPRETERO, pray, pray, pray! Manka revania dulche.

FIRST LORDOscorbidulchos volivorco.

INTERPRETERThe general is content to spare thee yet,

60

And, hoodwinked[60] as thou art, will lead thee on

To gather[61] from thee. Haply thou mayst inform

Something to save thy life.

PAROLLESO, let me live,

And all the secrets of our camp I’ll show,

65

Their force, their purposes. Nay, I’ll speak that

Which you will wonder at.

INTERPRETERBut wilt thou faithfully?

PAROLLESIf I do not, damn me.

INTERPRETERAcordo linta.

70

Come on, thou art granted space.[70]

Exeunt [with Parolles guarded]

A short alarum within

FIRST LORDGo tell the Count Rossillion and my brother

We have caught the woodcock,[72] and will keep him muffled

Till we do hear from them.

SECOND SOLDIERCaptain, I will.

75

FIRST LORDA[75] will betray us all unto ourselves:

Inform on[76] that.

SECOND SOLDIERSo I will, sir.

FIRST LORDTill then I’ll keep him dark and safely locked.

Exeunt

[Act 4 Scene 2]4.2

running scene 15

Enter Bertram and the maid called Diana

BERTRAMThey told me that your name was Fontybell.[1]

DIANANo, my good lord, Diana.

BERTRAMTitled goddess,[3]

And worth[4] it, with addition! But, fair soul,

5

In your fine frame[5] hath love no quality?

If the quick[6] fire of youth light not your mind,

You are no maiden, but a monument.[7]

When you are dead, you should be such a one

As you are now, for you are cold and stern,

10

And now you should be as your mother was

When your sweet self was got.[11]

DIANAShe then was honest.[12]

BERTRAMSo should you be.

DIANANo:

15

My mother did but duty, such, my lord,

As you owe to your wife.

BERTRAMNo more o’that.

I prithee do not strive against my vows:[18]

I was compelled to her, but I love thee

20

By love’s own sweet constraint,[20] and will forever

Do thee all rights[21] of service.

DIANAAy, so you serve us

Till we serve[23] you, but when you have our roses,

You barely[24] leave our thorns to prick ourselves

25

And mock us with our bareness.[25]

BERTRAMHow have I sworn!

DIANA’Tis not the many oaths that makes the truth,

But the plain single vow that is vowed true.

What is not holy, that we swear not by,

30

But take the high’st[30] to witness. Then, pray you tell me:

If I should swear by Jove’s[31] great attributes,

I loved you dearly, would you believe my oaths

When I did love you ill?[33] This has no holding,

To swear by him whom I protest[34] to love

35

That I will work against him: therefore your oaths

Are words[36] and poor conditions but unsealed,

At least in my opinion.

BERTRAMChange it,[38] change it.

Be not so holy-cruel:[39] love is holy,

40

And my integrity ne’er knew the crafts[40]

That you do charge men with. Stand no more off,

But give thyself unto my sick[42] desires,

Who[43] then recovers. Say thou art mine, and ever

My love as it begins shall so persèver.

45

DIANAI see that men make ropes in such a scarre[45]

That we’ll forsake ourselves. Give me that ring.

BERTRAM I’ll lend it thee, my dear, but have no power

To give it from me.

DIANAWill you not, my lord?

50

BERTRAMIt is an honour[50] ’longing to our house,

Bequeathèd down from many ancestors,

Which were the greatest obloquy[52] i’th’world

In me to lose.

DIANAMine honour’s[54] such a ring:

55

My chastity’s the jewel of our house,

Bequeathèd down from many ancestors,

Which were the greatest obloquy i’th’world

In me to lose. Thus your own proper[58] wisdom

Brings in the champion honour on my part

60

Against your vain assault.

BERTRAMHere, take my ring. Gives her a ring

My house, mine honour, yea, my life, be thine,

And I’ll be bid[63] by thee.

DIANAWhen midnight comes, knock at my chamber-window:

65

I’ll order take[65] my mother shall not hear.

Now will I charge you in the band[66] of truth,

When you have conquered my yet maiden[67] bed,

Remain there but an hour, nor speak to me.

My reasons are most strong and you shall know them

70

When back again this ring shall be delivered:

And on your finger in the night I’ll put

Another ring, that what in time proceeds[72]

May token[73] to the future our past deeds.

Adieu, till then. Then, fail not. You have won

75

A wife[75] of me, though there my hope be done.

BERTRAMA heaven on earth I have won by wooing thee.

[Exit]

DIANAFor which live long to thank both heaven and me.

You may so in the end.

My mother told me just how he would woo,

80

As if she sat in’s heart. She says all men

Have the like[81] oaths. He had sworn to marry me

When his wife’s dead: therefore I’ll lie with him

When I am buried. Since Frenchmen are so braid,[83]

Marry[84] that will, I live and die a maid.

85

Only in this disguise[85] I think’t no sin

To cozen[86] him that would unjustly win.

Exit

[Act 4 Scene 3]4.3

running scene 16

Enter the two French Captains [the Lords Dumaine] and some two or three Soldiers

FIRST LORDYou have not given him his mother’s letter?

SECOND LORDI have delivered it an hour since:[2] there is something in’t that stings his nature, for on the reading it he changed almost into another man.

FIRST LORDHe has much worthy[4] blame laid upon him for shaking off so good a wife and so sweet a lady.

SECOND LORDEspecially he hath incurred the everlasting displeasure of the king, who had even tuned his bounty[7] to sing happiness to him. I will tell you a thing, but you shall let it dwell darkly[8] with you.

FIRST LORDWhen you have spoken it, ’tis dead, and I am the grave of it.

SECOND LORDHe hath perverted[10] a young gentlewoman here in Florence, of a most chaste renown, and this night he fleshes[11] his will in the spoil of her honour. He hath given her his monumental[12] ring, and thinks himself made in the unchaste composition.[13]

FIRST LORDNow, God delay[14] our rebellion! As we are ourselves, what things are we!

SECOND LORDMerely[15] our own traitors. And as in the common course of all treasons, we still[16] see them reveal themselves, till they attain to their abhorred ends, so he that in this action contrives[17] against his own nobility, in his proper stream o’erflows himself.

FIRST LORDIs[19] it not meant damnable in us, to be trumpeters of our unlawful intents? We shall not then have his company tonight?

SECOND LORDNot till after midnight, for he is dieted[21] to his hour.

FIRST LORDThat approaches apace.[22] I would gladly have him see his company anatomized,[23] that he might take a measure of his own judgements, wherein so curiously[24] he had set this counterfeit.

SECOND LORDWe will not meddle with him[25] till he come, for his presence must be the whip of the other.[26]

FIRST LORDIn the meantime, what hear you of these wars?

SECOND LORDI hear there is an overture[28] of peace.

FIRST LORDNay, I assure you, a peace concluded.

SECOND LORDWhat will Count Rossillion do then? Will he travel higher,[30] or return again into France?

FIRST LORDI perceive by this demand,[32] you are not altogether of his council.

SECOND LORDLet it be forbid, sir! So should I be a great deal[33] of his act.

FIRST LORDSir, his wife some two months since fled from his house. Her pretence[34] is a pilgrimage to Saint Jaques le Grand; which holy undertaking with most austere sanctimony[36] she accomplished. And there residing, the tenderness of her nature became as a prey to her grief; in fine, made a groan of her last breath, and now she sings in heaven.

SECOND LORDHow is this justified?[39]

FIRST LORDThe stronger part of it by her own letters, which makes her story true, even to the point of her death. Her death itself, which could not be her office[41] to say is come, was faithfully confirmed by the rector[42] of the place.

SECOND LORDHath the count all this intelligence?

FIRST LORDAy, and the particular confirmations, point from point, to the full arming[44] of the verity.[45]

SECOND LORDI am heartily sorry that he’ll be glad of this.

FIRST LORDHow mightily sometimes we make[47] us comforts of our losses!

SECOND LORDAnd how mightily some other times we drown our gain in tears! The great dignity that his valour hath here acquired for him shall at home be encountered[50] with a shame as ample.

FIRST LORDThe web of our life is of a mingled yarn, good and ill together: our virtues would be proud if our faults whipped them not; and our crimes would despair if they were not cherished[53] by our virtues.

Enter a [Servant as a] Messenger

How now! Where’s your master?

SERVANTHe met the duke in the street, sir, of whom he hath taken a solemn[55] leave: his lordship will next morning for[56] France. The duke hath offered him letters of commendations to the king.

SECOND LORDThey shall be no more than needful[58] there, if they were more than they can commend.

Enter Count Rossillion [Bertram]

FIRST LORDThey cannot be too sweet for the king’s tartness. Here’s his lordship now.— How now, my lord! Is’t not after midnight?

BERTRAMI have tonight dispatched[62] sixteen businesses, a month’s length apiece, by an abstract of success: I have congied with[63] the duke, done my adieu with his nearest,[64] buried a wife, mourned for her, writ to my lady mother I am returning, entertained my convoy[65] and between these main parcels of dispatch effected many nicer[66] needs. The last was the greatest, but that I have not ended yet.

SECOND LORDIf the business be of any difficulty, and this morning your departure hence, it requires haste of your lordship.

BERTRAMI mean, the business is not ended, as fearing to hear of it[69] hereafter. But shall we have this dialogue between the fool and the soldier? Come, bring forth this counterfeit module,[71] h’as deceived me like a double-meaning prophesier.

SECOND LORDBring him forth. To Soldiers

H’as sat i’th’stocks[73] all night, poor gallant knave.

[Exit some Soldiers]

BERTRAMNo matter. His heels have deserved it in usurping[74] his spurs so long. How does he carry[75] himself?

SECOND LORDI have told your lordship already, the stocks carry him. But to answer you as you would be understood: he weeps like a wench that had shed[77] her milk, he hath confessed himself to Morgan, whom he supposes to be a friar, from the time[79] of his remembrance to this very instant disaster of his setting i’th’stocks. And what think you he hath confessed?

BERTRAMNothing of me, has a?[81]

SECOND LORDHis confession is taken, and it shall be read to his face: if your lordship be in’t, as I believe you are, you must have the patience to hear it.

Enter Parolles [blindfolded] with his Interpreter

BERTRAMA plague upon him! Muffled? He can say nothing of me. Hush, hush.

FIRST LORDHoodman[85] comes! Portotartarossa.

INTERPRETERHe calls for the tortures. What will you say without ’em?

PAROLLESI will confess what I know without constraint.[87] If ye pinch me like a pasty, I can say no more.

INTERPRETERBosko chimurcho.

FIRST LORDBoblibindo chicurmurco.

INTERPRETERYou are a merciful general. Our general bids you answer to what I shall ask you out of a note.[92]

PAROLLESAnd truly, as I hope to live.

INTERPRETER‘First demand of him how many horse[94] the duke is strong.’ Pretends to read What say you to that?

PAROLLESFive or six thousand, but very weak and unserviceable. The troops are all scattered, and the commanders very poor rogues, upon my reputation and credit and as I hope to live.

INTERPRETERShall I set down your answer so?

PAROLLESDo. I’ll take the sacrament[100] on’t, how and which way you will. Bertram and the Lords speak aside throughout

BERTRAMAll’s one[101] to him. What a past-saving slave is this?

FIRST LORDYou’re deceived, my lord: this is Monsieur Parolles, the gallant militarist — that was his own phrase — that had the whole theoric[103] of war in the knot of his scarf, and the practice in the chape[104] of his dagger.

SECOND LORDI will never trust a man again for keeping his sword clean,[105] nor believe he can have everything in him by wearing his apparel neatly.

INTERPRETERWell, that’s set down. To Parolles

PAROLLES‘Five or six thousand horse,’ I said — I will say true — ‘or thereabouts’, set down, for I’ll speak truth.

FIRST LORDHe’s very near the truth in this.

BERTRAMBut I con[111] him no thanks for’t, in the nature he delivers it.

PAROLLES‘Poor rogues’, I pray you say.

INTERPRETERWell, that’s set down.

PAROLLESI humbly thank you, sir. A truth’s a truth, the rogues are marvellous[114] poor.

INTERPRETER‘Demand of him, of what strength they are a-foot.[115]’ Pretends to read What say you to that?

PAROLLESBy my troth, sir, if I were to live[117] this present hour, I will tell true. Let me see: Spurio, a hundred and fifty: Sebastian, so[118] many: Corambus, so many: Jaques, so many: Guiltian, Cosmo, Lodowick and Gratii, two hundred fifty each: mine own company, Chitopher, Vaumond, Bentii, two hundred fifty each. So that the muster-file,[121] rotten and sound, upon my life, amounts not to fifteen thousand poll, half of the which dare not shake the snow from off their cassocks,[122] lest they shake themselves to pieces.

BERTRAMWhat shall be done to him?

FIRST LORDNothing, but let him have thanks. Demand of him my condition,[125] and what credit I have with the duke.

INTERPRETERWell, that’s set down. Pretends to read ‘You shall demand of him, whether one Captain Dumaine be i’th’camp, a Frenchman, what his reputation is with the duke, what his valour, honesty, and expertness in wars, or whether he thinks it were not possible, with well-weighing[130] sums of gold, to corrupt him to a revolt.’ What say you to this? What do you know of it?

PAROLLESI beseech you let me answer to the particular[132] of the inter’gatories: demand them singly.

INTERPRETERDo you know this Captain Dumaine?

PAROLLESI know him: a was a botcher’s[135] ’prentice in Paris, from whence he was whipped for getting the shrieve’s fool[136] with child — a dumb innocent that could not say him nay.[137] First Lord attempts to hit Parolles

BERTRAMNay, by your leave, hold your hands, though I know his[138] brains are forfeit to the next tile that falls.

INTERPRETERWell, is this captain in the Duke of Florence’s camp?

PAROLLESUpon my knowledge he is, and lousy.[141]

FIRST LORDNay look not so upon me. We shall hear of your lord anon.

INTERPRETERWhat is his reputation with the duke?

PAROLLESThe duke knows him for no other but a poor officer of mine, and writ to me this other day to turn him out o’th’band.[145] I think I have his letter in my pocket.

INTERPRETERMarry, we’ll search. They search his pockets

PAROLLESIn good sadness,[147] I do not know. Either it is there, or it is upon a file with the duke’s other letters in my tent.

INTERPRETERHere ’tis. Here’s a paper. Shall I read it to you?

PAROLLESI do not know if it be it or no.

BERTRAMOur interpreter does it well.

FIRST LORDExcellently.

INTERPRETER‘Dian, the count’s a fool, and full of gold’— Reads

PAROLLESThat is not the duke’s letter, sir. That is an advertisement[154] to a proper maid in Florence, one Diana, to take heed of the allurement of one Count Rossillion, a foolish idle boy, but for all that very ruttish.[156] I pray you, sir, put it up again.

INTERPRETERNay, I’ll read it first, by your favour.[157]

PAROLLESMy meaning in’t, I protest, was very honest in the behalf of the maid, for I knew the young count to be a dangerous and lascivious boy, who is a whale to virginity and devours up all the fry[160] it finds.

BERTRAMDamnable both-sides[161] rogue!

INTERPRETER‘When he swears oaths, bid him drop[162] gold, and take it.

[Reads the] letter

After he scores,[163] he never pays the score.

Half[164] won is match well made, match and well make it;

165

He ne’er pays after-debts,[165] take it before.

And say a soldier, Dian, told thee this:

Men are to mell[167] with, boys are not to kiss.

For count[168] of this, the count’s a fool, I know it,

Who pays before,[169] but not when he does owe it.

170

Thine, as he vowed to thee in thine ear, Parolles.’

BERTRAMHe shall be whipped through the army with this rhyme in’s[171] forehead.

SECOND LORDThis is your devoted friend, sir, the manifold linguist[172] and the armipotent[173] soldier.

BERTRAMI could endure anything before but a cat, and now he’s a cat to me.

INTERPRETERI perceive, sir, by the general’s looks, we shall be fain[175] to hang you.

PAROLLESMy life, sir, in any case. Not that I am afraid to die, but that, my offences being many, I would repent out the remainder of nature.[177] Let me live, sir, in a dungeon, i’th’stocks, or anywhere, so I may live.

INTERPRETERWe’ll see what may be done, so you confess freely: therefore, once more to this Captain Dumaine. You have answered to his reputation with the duke and to his valour. What is his honesty?

PAROLLESHe will steal, sir, an egg[182] out of a cloister, for rapes and ravishments he parallels Nessus.[183] He professes not keeping of oaths, in breaking ’em he is stronger than Hercules.[184] He will lie, sir, with such volubility that you would think truth were a fool. Drunkenness is his best virtue, for he will be swine-drunk,[185] and in his sleep he does little harm, save to his bed-clothes about him. But they[186] know his conditions[187] and lay him in straw. I have but little more to say, sir, of his honesty: he has everything that an honest man should not have; what an honest man should have, he has nothing.

FIRST LORDI begin to love him for this.

BERTRAMFor this description of thine honesty? A pox upon him for me. He’s more and more a cat.

INTERPRETERWhat say you to his expertness in war?

PAROLLESFaith, sir, h’as led[194] the drum before the English tragedians — to belie him, I will not — and more of his soldiership I know not, except, in that country he had the honour to be the officer at a place there called Mile-end,[196] to instruct for the doubling of files.[197] I would do the man what honour I can, but of this I am not certain.

FIRST LORDHe hath out-villained villainy so far that the rarity redeems him.

BERTRAMA pox on him, he’s a cat still.

INTERPRETERHis qualities being at this poor price, I need not to ask you if gold will corrupt him to revolt.

PAROLLESSir, for a cardecue[203] he will sell the fee-simple of his salvation, the inheritance of it, and cut[204] th’entail from all remainders, and a perpetual succession for it perpetually.

INTERPRETERWhat’s his brother, the other Captain Dumaine?

SECOND LORDWhy does he ask him of me?

INTERPRETERWhat’s he?

PAROLLESE’en a crow o’th’same nest: not altogether so great as the first in goodness, but greater a great deal in evil. He excels his brother for[210] a coward, yet his brother is reputed one of the best that is. In a retreat he outruns any lackey;[211] marry, in coming on[212] he has the cramp.

INTERPRETERIf your life be saved, will you undertake to betray the Florentine?

PAROLLESAy, and the captain[214] of his horse, Count Rossillion.

INTERPRETERI’ll whisper with the general, and know his pleasure.

PAROLLESI’ll no more[216] drumming. Aside A plague of all drums! Only to seem to deserve well, and to beguile the supposition[217] of that lascivious young boy, the count, have I run into this danger. Yet who would have suspected an ambush where I was taken?

INTERPRETERThere is no remedy, sir, but you must die. The general says, you that have so traitorously discovered[221] the secrets of your army and made such pestiferous[222] reports of men very nobly held, can serve the world for no honest use: therefore you must die. Come, headsman, off with his head.

PAROLLESO lord, sir, let me live, or let me see my death!

FIRST LORDThat shall you, and take your leave of all your friends. Unblindfolds him So, look about you: know you any here?

BERTRAMGood morrow, noble captain.

SECOND LORDGod bless you, Captain Parolles.

FIRST LORDGod save you, noble captain.

SECOND LORDCaptain, what greeting will you[230] to my Lord Lafew? I am for France.

FIRST LORDGood captain,[231] will you give me a copy of the sonnet you writ to Diana in behalf of the Count Rossillion? An I were not a very[232] coward, I’d compel it of you. But fare you well.

Exeunt [Bertram and Lords]

INTERPRETERYou are undone,[234] captain — all but your scarf that has a knot on’t yet.

PAROLLESWho cannot be crushed with a plot?

INTERPRETERIf you could find out a country where but[236] women were that had received so much shame, you might begin an impudent[237] nation. Fare ye well, sir. I am for France too. We shall speak of you there.

Exeunt [Interpreter and Soldiers]

PAROLLESYet am I thankful. If my heart were great[239]

240

’Twould burst at this. Captain I’ll be no more,

But I will eat and drink, and sleep as soft

As captain shall. Simply the thing I am

Shall make me live. Who[243] knows himself a braggart,

Let him fear this; for it will come to pass

245

That every braggart shall be found an ass.

Rust, sword. Cool, blushes. And, Parolles, live

Safest in shame. Being fooled,[247] by fool’ry thrive;

There’s place and means for every man alive.

I’ll after them.

Exit

[Act 4 Scene 4]4.4

running scene 17

Enter Helen, Widow and Diana

HELENThat you may well perceive I have not wronged you,

One[2] of the greatest in the Christian world

Shall be my surety,[3] ’fore whose throne ’tis needful,

Ere I can perfect mine intents, to kneel.

5

Time was, I did him a desirèd office,

Dear almost as his life, which gratitude[6]

Through[7] flinty Tartar’s bosom would peep forth,

And answer thanks. I duly am informed

His grace is at Marseilles, to which place

10

We have convenient convoy.[10] You must know

I am supposèd dead. The army breaking,[11]

My husband hies him[12] home, where, heaven aiding,

And by the leave of my good lord the king,

We’ll be before our welcome.[14]

15

WIDOWGentle madam,

You never had a servant to whose trust

Your business was more welcome.

HELENNor you, mistress,

Ever a friend whose thoughts more truly labour

20

To recompense your love. Doubt not but heaven

Hath brought me up to be[21] your daughter’s dower,

As it hath fated her to be my motive[22]

And helper to a husband. But, O strange men,

That can such sweet use make of what they hate,

25

When saucy trusting[25] of the cozened thoughts

Defiles[26] the pitchy night, so lust doth play

With what it loathes[27] for that which is away.

But more of this hereafter. You, Diana,

Under my poor instructions yet[29] must suffer

30

Something in my behalf.

DIANALet death and honesty[31]

Go with[32] your impositions, I am yours,

Upon[33] your will to suffer.

HELENYet,[34] I pray you:

35

But with the word[35] the time will bring on summer,

When briars shall have leaves as well as thorns,

And be as sweet as sharp. We must away.

Our wagon is prepared, and time revives[38] us:

All’s well that ends well, still the fine’s[39] the crown;

40

Whate’er the course, the end is the renown.[40]

Exeunt

[Act 4 Scene 5]4.5

running scene 18

Enter Clown [Lavatch], Old Lady [Countess] and Lafew

LAFEWNo, no, no, your son was misled with[1] a snipt-taffeta fellow there, whose villainous saffron[2] would have made all the unbaked and doughy youth of a nation in his colour. Your[3] daughter-in-law had been alive at this hour, and your son here at home, more advanced by the king than by that red-tailed humble-bee[4] I speak of.

COUNTESSI would I had not known him. It was the death of the most virtuous gentlewoman that ever nature had praise for creating. If she had partaken of my flesh, and cost me the dearest[8] groans of a mother, I could not have owed her a more rooted[9] love.

LAFEW’Twas a good lady, ’twas a good lady. We may pick a thousand salads ere we light on[11] such another herb.

LAVATCHIndeed, sir, she was the sweet marjoram[12] of the salad, or rather, the herb of grace.

LAFEWThey are not herbs,[14] you knave, they are nose-herbs.

LAVATCHI am no great Nebuchadnezzar,[15] sir. I have not much skill in grace.

LAFEWWhether[16] dost thou profess thyself, a knave or a fool?

LAVATCHA fool,[17] sir, at a woman’s service, and a knave at a man’s.

LAFEWYour distinction?

LAVATCHI would cozen[19] the man of his wife and do his service.

LAFEWSo you were a knave at his service, indeed.

LAVATCHAnd I would give his wife my bauble,[21] sir, to do her service.

LAFEWI will subscribe[22] for thee, thou art both knave and fool.

LAVATCHAt your service.

LAFEWNo, no, no.

LAVATCHWhy, sir, if I cannot serve you, I can serve as great a prince as you are.

LAFEWWho’s that? A Frenchman?

LAVATCHFaith, sir, a has an English maine,[27] but his fisnomy is more hotter in France than there.

LAFEWWhat prince is that?

LAVATCHThe black prince,[30] sir, alias the prince of darkness, alias the devil.

LAFEWHold thee,[31] there’s my purse: Gives a purse I give thee not this to suggest thee from thy master thou talkest of. Serve him still.

LAVATCHI am a woodland[33] fellow, sir, that always loved a great fire, and the master I speak of ever keeps a good fire. But sure he is the prince[34] of the world. Let his nobility remain in’s court. I am for the house with the narrow gate,[35] which I take to be too little for pomp[36] to enter. Some that humble themselves may, but the many[37] will be too chill and tender, and they’ll be for the flowery way that leads to the broad gate and the great fire.

LAFEWGo thy ways,[39] I begin to be aweary of thee, and I tell thee so before, because I would not fall out with thee. Go thy ways. Let my horses be well looked to, without any tricks.[41]

LAVATCHIf I put any tricks upon ’em, sir, they shall be jades’ tricks,[42] which are their own right by the law of nature.

Exit

LAFEWA shrewd[44] knave and an unhappy.

COUNTESSSo a is. My lord that’s gone[45] made himself much sport out of him. By his authority he remains here, which he thinks is a patent for his sauciness, and indeed he has no pace,[47] but runs where he will.

LAFEWI like him well, ’tis not amiss. And I was about to tell you, since I heard of the good lady’s[49] death and that my lord your son was upon his return home, I moved the king my master to speak in the behalf of my daughter, which, in the minority[50] of them both, his majesty, out of a self-gracious remembrance[51] did first propose. His highness hath promised me to do it, and to stop up the displeasure he hath conceived against your son, there is no fitter matter. How does your ladyship like it?

COUNTESSWith very much content, my lord, and I wish it happily effected.

LAFEWHis highness comes post[56] from Marseilles, of as able body as when he numbered[57] thirty. A will be here tomorrow, or I am deceived by him that in such intelligence[58] hath seldom failed.

COUNTESSIt rejoices me that I hope I shall see him ere I die. I have letters that my son will be here tonight. I shall beseech your lordship to remain with me till they meet together.

LAFEWMadam, I was thinking with[62] what manners I might safely be admitted.

COUNTESSYou need but[63] plead your honourable privilege.

LAFEWLady, of that I have made a bold charter,[64] but I thank my God it holds yet.

Enter Clown [Lavatch]

LAVATCHO madam, yonder’s my lord your son with a patch of velvet[65] on’s face. Whether there be a scar under’t or no, the velvet knows,[66] but ’tis a goodly patch of velvet: his left cheek is a cheek of two[67] pile and a half, but his right cheek is worn bare.[68]

LAFEWA scar nobly got, or a noble scar, is a good liv’ry[69] of honour, so belike is that.

LAVATCHBut it is your carbonadoed[70] face.

LAFEWLet us go see your son, I pray you. I long to talk with the young noble soldier.

LAVATCHFaith, there’s a dozen of ’em, with delicate fine hats and most courteous feathers, which bow the head and nod at every man.

Exeunt

Act 5 [Scene 1]5.1

running scene 19

Enter Helen, Widow and Diana, with two Attendants

HELENBut this exceeding posting[1] day and night

Must wear[2] your spirits low. We cannot help it:

But since you have made the days and nights as one,

To wear your gentle limbs in my affairs,

5

Be bold[5] you do so grow in my requital

As nothing can unroot you. In happy time.[6]

Enter a Gentle Astringer Perhaps with a hawk

This man may help me to his majesty’s ear,

If he would spend[8] his power. God save you, sir.

GENTLEMANAnd you.

10

HELENSir, I have seen you in the court of France.

GENTLEMANI have been sometimes there.

HELENI do presume, sir, that you are not fall’n[12]

From the report that goes upon your goodness,

And therefore, goaded with most sharp[14] occasions

15

Which lay nice[15] manners by, I put you to

The use of your own virtues, for the which

I shall continue thankful.

GENTLEMANWhat’s your will?

HELENThat it will please you

20

To give this poor petition[20] to the king, Shows a petition

And aid me with that store of power you have

To come into his presence.

GENTLEMANThe king’s not here.

HELENNot here, sir?

25

GENTLEMANNot, indeed.

He hence removed[26] last night, and with more haste

Than is his use.[27]

WIDOWLord, how we lose our pains![28]

HELENAll’s well that ends well yet,

30

Though time seem so adverse and means unfit.

I do beseech you, whither is he gone?

GENTLEMANMarry, as I take it, to Rossillion,

Whither I am going.

HELENI do beseech you, sir,

35

Since you are like[35] to see the king before me,

Commend[36] the paper to his gracious hand, Gives petition

Which I presume[37] shall render you no blame,

But rather make you thank your pains for it.

I will come after you with what good speed

40

Our means[40] will make us means.

GENTLEMANThis I’ll do for you.

HELENAnd you shall find yourself to be well thanked,

Whate’er falls more.[43] We must to horse again.

Go, go, provide.[44]

[Exeunt, separately]

[Act 5 Scene 2]5.2

running scene 20

Enter Clown [Lavatch] and Parolles

PAROLLES Good Monsieur Lavache,[1] give my lord Lafew this letter. Gives Lavatch a letter I have ere now, sir, been better known to you, when I have held familiarity with fresher clothes. But I am now, sir, muddied in Fortune’s mood,[3] and smell somewhat strong of her strong displeasure.

LAVATCHTruly, Fortune’s displeasure is but sluttish[5] if it smell so strongly as thou speakest of. I will henceforth eat no fish of Fortune’s butt’ring.[6] Prithee allow the wind.

PAROLLESNay, you need not to stop[8] your nose, sir. I spake but by a metaphor.

LAVATCHIndeed, sir, if your metaphor stink, I will stop my nose, or against any man’s metaphor. Prithee get thee further.

PAROLLESPray you, sir, deliver me[11] this paper.

LAVATCHFoh! Prithee stand away. A paper[12] from Fortune’s close-stool to give to a nobleman! Look, here he comes himself.

Enter Lafew

Here is a purr[14] of Fortune’s, sir, or of Fortune’s cat — but not a musk-cat — that has fallen into the unclean fishpond of her displeasure, and as he says, is muddied withal.[16] Pray you, sir, use the carp as you may, for he looks like a poor, decayed, ingenious,[17] foolish, rascally knave. I do pity his distress in my smiles of comfort and leave him to your lordship.

Exit

PAROLLESMy lord, I am a man whom Fortune hath cruelly scratched.

LAFEWAnd what would you have me to do? ’Tis too late to pare[20] her nails now. Wherein have you played the knave with Fortune that she should scratch you, who of herself is a good lady and would not have knaves thrive long under her? There’s a cardecue[23] for you. Gives coin Let the justices make you and Fortune friends; I am for other business. Starts to leave

PAROLLESI beseech your honour to hear me one single word.

LAFEWYou beg a single penny more. Gives another coin Come, you shall ha’t, save your word.

PAROLLESMy name, my good lord, is Parolles.

LAFEWYou beg more than ‘word’[28] then. Cox my passion! Give me your hand. How does your drum?

PAROLLESO my good lord, you were the first that found me.[30]

LAFEWWas I, in sooth?[31] And I was the first that lost thee.

PAROLLESIt lies in[32] you, my lord, to bring me in some grace, for you did bring me out.

LAFEWOut upon thee,[33] knave! Dost thou put upon me at once both the office of God and the devil? One brings thee in grace and the other brings thee out. Trumpets sound The king’s coming. I know by his trumpets. Sirrah, inquire[35] further after me. I had talk of you last night. Though you are a fool and a knave, you shall eat. Go to, follow.

PAROLLESI praise God for you.

[Exeunt]

[Act 5 Scene 3]

running scene 20 continues

Flourish. Enter King, Old Lady [Countess], Lafew, the two French Lords, with Attendants

KINGWe lost a jewel of[1] her, and our esteem

Was made much poorer by it: but your son,

As mad in folly, lacked the sense to know

Her estimation home.[4]

5

COUNTESS’Tis past, my liege,

And I beseech your majesty to make[6] it

Natural[7] rebellion, done i’th’blade of youth,

When oil and fire, too strong for reason’s force,

O’erbears it and burns on.

10

KINGMy honoured lady,

I have forgiven and forgotten all,

Though my revenges were high bent[12] upon him,

And watched[13] the time to shoot.

LAFEWThis I must say,

15

But first I beg my pardon,[15] the young lord

Did to his majesty, his mother and his lady

Offence of mighty note; but to himself

The greatest wrong of all. He lost a wife

Whose beauty did astonish[19] the survey

20

Of richest[20] eyes, whose words all ears took captive,

Whose dear perfection hearts that scorned to serve

Humbly called mistress.

KINGPraising what is lost

Makes the remembrance dear. Well, call him hither.

25

We are reconciled, and the first view[25] shall kill

All repetition. Let him not ask our pardon.

The nature of his great offence is dead,[27]

And deeper than oblivion we do bury

Th’incensing relics[29] of it. Let him approach

30

A stranger,[30] no offender; and inform him

So ’tis our will he should.

GENTLEMAN[32]I shall, my liege.

[Exit]

KINGWhat says he to your daughter? Have you spoke? To Lafew

LAFEWAll that he is hath reference to[34] your highness.

35

KINGThen shall we have a match. I have letters sent me

That sets him high in fame.

Enter Count Bertram With a patch of velvet on his left cheek

LAFEWHe looks well on’t.

KINGI am not a day of season,[38]

For thou mayst see a sunshine and a hail

40

In me at once. But to the brightest beams

Distracted[41] clouds give way, so stand thou forth.

The time is fair again.

BERTRAMMy high-repented blames,[43]

Dear sovereign, pardon to[44] me.

45

KINGAll is whole.[45]

Not one word more of the consumèd[46] time.

Let’s take[47] the instant by the forward top,

For we are old, and on our quick’st[48] decrees

Th’inaudible and noiseless foot of time

50

Steals ere we can effect them. You remember

The daughter of this lord?

BERTRAMAdmiringly, my liege. At first

I stuck[53] my choice upon her, ere my heart

Durst[54] make too bold a herald of my tongue,

55

Where[55] the impression of mine eye infixing,

Contempt his scornful perspective[56] did lend me,

Which warped the line of every other favour,[57]

Scorned a fair colour,[58] or expressed it stol’n,

Extended or contracted[59] all proportions

60

To a most hideous object.[60] Thence it came

That she[61] whom all men praised and whom myself,

Since I have lost, have loved, was in mine eye

The dust that did offend it.

KINGWell excused.

65

That thou didst love her, strikes some scores[65] away

From the great count.[66] But love that comes too late,

Like a remorseful[67] pardon slowly carried,

To the great sender turns[68] a sour offence,

Crying, ‘That’s good that’s gone.’ Our rash faults

70

Make trivial price[70] of serious things we have,

Not knowing[71] them until we know their grave.

Oft our displeasures,[72] to ourselves unjust,

Destroy our friends and after weep[73] their dust.

Our own love waking cries to see what’s done,

75

While shameful hate sleeps out[75] the afternoon.

Be this sweet Helen’s knell,[76] and now forget her.

Send forth your amorous token for fair Maudlin.[77]

The main consents[78] are had, and here we’ll stay

To see our widower’s second marriage day,

80

Which better than the first, O dear heaven, bless!

Or, ere they meet,[81] in me, O nature, cesse!

LAFEWCome on, my son, in whom my house’s name

Must be digested,[83] give a favour from you

To sparkle in the spirits of my daughter,

85

That she may quickly come.[85] Bertram gives Lafew a ring

By my old beard,

And every hair that’s on’t, Helen, that’s dead,

Was a sweet creature: such a ring as this,

The last[89] that e’er I took her leave at court,

90

I saw upon her finger.

BERTRAMHers it was not.

KINGNow, pray you let me see it. For mine eye, Lafew gives it to him

While I was speaking, oft was fastened to’t.

This ring was mine, and when I gave it Helen,

95

I bade[95] her, if her fortunes ever stood

Necessitied to[96] help, that by this token

I would relieve her. Had you that craft, to reave[97] her

Of what should stead[98] her most?

BERTRAMMy gracious sovereign,

100

Howe’er it pleases you to take it so,

The ring was never hers.

COUNTESSSon, on my life,

I have seen her wear it, and she reckoned[103] it

At[104] her life’s rate.

105

LAFEWI am sure I saw her wear it.

BERTRAMYou are deceived, my lord. She never saw it.

In Florence was it from a casement[107] thrown me,

Wrapped in a paper, which contained the name

Of her that threw it. Noble she was, and thought

110

I stood engaged,[110] but when I had subscribed

To mine own fortune and informed her fully

I could not answer[112] in that course of honour

As she had made the overture, she ceased

In heavy satisfaction[114] and would never

115

Receive the ring again.

KINGPlutus[116] himself,

That knows the tinct[117] and multiplying med’cine,

Hath not in nature’s mystery more science[118]

Than I have in this ring. ’Twas mine, ’twas Helen’s,

120

Whoever gave it you. Then, if you know

That you are well acquainted with yourself,

Confess ’twas hers, and by what rough enforcement

You got it from her. She called the saints to surety[123]

That she would never put it from her finger,

125

Unless she gave it to yourself in bed,

Where you have never come, or sent it us

Upon[127] her great disaster.

BERTRAMShe never saw it.

KINGThou speak’st it falsely, as I love mine honour,

130

And mak’st conjectural[130] fears to come into me

Which I would fain[131] shut out. If it should prove

That thou art so inhuman — ’twill not prove so —

And yet I know not. Thou didst hate her deadly,

And she is dead, which nothing but to close

135

Her eyes myself could win me to believe,

More than to see this ring. Take him away. ↓↑Puts ring on his own finger↓↑

My fore-past[137] proofs, howe’er the matter fall,

Shall[138] tax my fears of little vanity,

Having vainly[139] feared too little. Away with him.

140

We’ll sift[140] this matter further.

BERTRAMIf you shall prove

This ring was ever hers, you shall as easy

Prove that I husbanded her bed in Florence,

Where yet she never was.

[Exit, guarded]

Enter a Gentleman [the Astringer]

145

KINGI am wrapped in dismal thinkings.

GENTLEMANGracious sovereign,

Whether I have been to blame or no, I know not:

Here’s a petition from a Florentine,

Who hath for[149] four or five removes come short

150

To tender[150] it herself. I undertook it,

Vanquished[151] thereto by the fair grace and speech

Of the poor suppliant, who by this[152] I know

Is here attending. Her business looks[153] in her

With an importing visage,[154] and she told me,

155

In a sweet verbal brief,[155] it did concern

Your highness with herself.

KING

[Reads a] letter

‘Upon his many protestations to marry me when his wife was dead, I blush to say it, he won me. Now is the Count Rossillion a widower. His vows are forfeited to me, and my honour’s paid[159] to him. He stole from Florence, taking no leave, and I follow him to his country for justice. Grant it me, O king! In you it best lies, otherwise a seducer flourishes and a poor maid is undone. Diana Capilet.’

LAFEWI will buy me a son-in-law in[163] a fair, and toll for this. I’ll none of him.

KINGThe heavens have thought well on thee, Lafew,

165

To bring forth this discov’ry. Seek these suitors.[165]

Go speedily and bring again the count.

Enter Bertram [guarded]

I am afeard[167] the life of Helen, lady,

Was foully snatched.[168]

COUNTESSNow, justice on the doers!

170

KINGI wonder, sir, sith[170] wives are monsters to you,

And that[171] you fly them as you swear them lordship,

Yet you desire to marry.— What woman’s that?

Enter Widow [and] Diana

DIANAI am, my lord, a wretched Florentine,

Derivèd[174] from the ancient Capilet.

175

My suit, as I do understand, you know,

And therefore know how far I may be pitied.

WIDOWI am her mother, sir, whose age and honour

Both suffer under this complaint we bring,

And both shall cease,[179] without your remedy.

180

KINGCome hither, count. Do you know these women?

BERTRAMMy lord, I neither can nor will deny

But that I know them. Do they charge me further?

DIANAWhy do you look so strange[183] upon your wife?

BERTRAMShe’s none of mine, my lord.

185

DIANAIf you shall marry,

You give away this hand,[186] and that is mine,

You give away heaven’s vows, and those are mine,

You give away myself, which is known mine,

For I by vow am so embodied yours,[189]

190

That she which marries you must marry me,

Either both or none.

LAFEWYour reputation comes too short for my daughter. To Bertram You are no husband for her.

BERTRAMMy lord, this is a fond[194] and desp’rate creature,

195

Whom sometime I have laughed with. Let your highness

Lay a more noble thought upon mine honour

Than for to think that I would sink it here.

KINGSir, for my thoughts, you[198] have them ill to friend

Till your deeds gain them:[199] fairer prove your honour

200

Than in my thought it lies.

DIANAGood my lord,

Ask him upon his oath, if he does think

He had not my virginity.

KINGWhat say’st thou to her?

205

BERTRAMShe’s impudent,[205] my lord,

And was a common gamester[206] to the camp.

DIANAHe does me wrong, my lord. If I were so,

He might have bought me at a common price.

Do not believe him. O, behold this ring, Shows a ring

210

Whose high respect and rich validity[210]

Did lack a parallel.[211] Yet for all that

He gave it to a commoner[212] o’th’camp,

If I be one.

COUNTESSHe blushes, and ’tis hit.[214]

215

Of[215] six preceding ancestors, that gem,

Conferred by testament[216] to th’sequent issue,

Hath it been owed[217] and worn. This is his wife,

That ring’s a thousand proofs.

KINGMethought you said

220

You saw one here in court could witness it.

DIANAI did, my lord, but loath am to produce

So bad an instrument:[222] his name’s Parolles.

LAFEWI saw the man today, if man he be.

KINGFind him, and bring him hither.

[Exit an Attendant]

225

BERTRAMWhat of him?

He’s quoted for[226] a most perfidious slave

With[227] all the spots o’th’world taxed and deboshed,

Whose nature sickens but[228] to speak a truth.

Am I or[229] that or this for what he’ll utter,

230

That will speak anything?

KINGShe hath that ring of yours.

BERTRAMI think she has; certain it is I liked her,

And boarded[233] her i’th’wanton way of youth.

She knew her distance[234] and did angle for me,

235

Madding[235] my eagerness with her restraint,

As all impediments in fancy’s[236] course

Are motives of more fancy. And in fine,

Her insuite[238] cunning, with her modern grace,

Subdued me[239] to her rate: she got the ring,

240

And I had that which any inferior might

At market-price have bought.

DIANAI must be patient.

You, that have turned[243] off a first so noble wife,

May justly diet[244] me. I pray you yet —

245

Since you lack virtue, I will lose a husband —

Send for your ring, I will return it home,

And give me mine again.

BERTRAMI have it not.

KINGWhat ring was yours, I pray you?

250

DIANASir, much like the same upon your finger.

KINGKnow you this ring? This ring was his of late.

DIANAAnd this was it I gave him, being abed.

KINGThe story then goes[253] false, you threw it him

Out of a casement.

255

DIANAI have spoke the truth.

Enter Parolles

BERTRAMMy lord, I do confess the ring was hers.

KINGYou boggle[257] shrewdly, every feather starts you.

Is this the man you speak of?

DIANAAy, my lord.

260

KINGTell me, sirrah — but tell me true, I charge you, To Parolles

Not fearing the displeasure of your master,

Which on your just proceeding[262] I’ll keep off —

By[263] him and by this woman here what know you?

PAROLLESSo please your majesty, my master hath been an honourable gentleman. Tricks[265] he hath had in him, which gentlemen have.

KINGCome, come, to th’purpose: did he love this woman?

PAROLLESFaith, sir, he did love her, but how?

KINGHow, I pray you?

PAROLLESHe did love her, sir, as a gentleman loves a woman.

KINGHow is that?

PAROLLESHe[271] loved her, sir, and loved her not.

KINGAs thou art a knave, and no knave. What an equivocal companion[272] is this!

PAROLLESI am a poor man, and at your majesty’s command.

LAFEWHe’s a good drum,[274] my lord, but a naughty orator.

DIANADo you know he promised me marriage?

PAROLLESFaith, I know more than I’ll speak.

KINGBut wilt thou not speak all thou knowest?

PAROLLESYes, so please your majesty. I did go between them, as I said. But more than that, he loved her, for indeed he was mad for her and talked of Satan and of Limbo[280] and of Furies and I know not what. Yet I was in that credit with them at that time that I knew of their going to bed, and of other motions,[281] as promising her marriage, and things which would derive[282] me ill will to speak of: therefore I will not speak what I know.

KINGThou hast spoken all already, unless thou canst say they are married. But thou art too fine[285] in thy evidence: therefore stand aside. This ring, you say, was yours?

DIANAAy, my good lord.

KINGWhere did you buy it? Or who gave it you?

DIANAIt was not given me, nor I did not buy it.

KINGWho lent it you?

DIANAIt was not lent me neither.

KINGWhere did you find it, then?

DIANAI found it not.

KINGIf it were yours by none of all these ways,

How could you give it him?

DIANAI never gave it him.

LAFEWThis woman’s an easy[297] glove, my lord: she goes off and on at pleasure.

KINGThis ring was mine, I gave it his first wife.

DIANAIt might be yours or hers, for aught[299] I know.

300

KINGTake her away. I do not like her now.

To prison with her, and away with him.

Unless thou tell’st me where thou hadst this ring,

Thou diest within this hour.

DIANAI’ll never tell you.

305

KINGTake her away.

DIANAI’ll put in[306] bail, my liege.

KINGI think thee now some common customer.[307]

DIANABy Jove, if[308] ever I knew man, ’twas you.

KINGWherefore hast thou accused him all this while?

310

DIANABecause he’s guilty, and he is not guilty.

He knows I am no maid, and he’ll swear to’t.

I’ll swear I am a maid, and he knows not.

Great king, I am no strumpet, by my life.

I am either maid, or else this old man’s wife. Points to Lafew

315

KINGShe does abuse our ears. To prison with her.

DIANAGood mother, fetch my bail.— Stay, royal sir.

[Exit Widow]

The jeweller that owes[317] the ring is sent for,

And he shall surety[318] me. But for this lord

Who hath abused me, as he knows himself,

320

Though yet he never harmed me, here I quit[320] him.

He knows himself my bed he hath defiled,

And at that time he got his wife with child.

Dead though she be, she feels her young one kick.

So there’s my riddle: one that’s dead is quick,[324]

325

And now behold the meaning.

Enter Helen and Widow

KINGIs there no exorcist

Beguiles[327] the truer office of mine eyes?

Is’t real that I see?

HELENNo, my good lord,

330

’Tis but the shadow[330] of a wife you see,

The name and not the thing.

BERTRAMBoth, both. O, pardon!

HELENO my good lord, when I was like[333] this maid,

I found you wondrous kind. There is your ring,

335

And, look you, here’s your letter. This it says: Shows letter

‘When from my finger you can get this ring

And are by me with child’, etc. This is done:

Will you be mine, now you are doubly won?

BERTRAMIf she, my liege, can make me know[339] this clearly,

340

I’ll love her dearly, ever, ever dearly.

HELENIf it appear not plain and prove untrue,

Deadly divorce[342] step between me and you!

O my dear mother, do I see you living?

LAFEWMine eyes smell onions. I shall weep anon:

345

Good Tom Drum, lend me a handkercher.[345] To Parolles

So. I thank thee. Wait on[346] me home, I’ll make sport with thee.

Let thy court’sies[347] alone, they are scurvy ones.

KINGLet us from point to point this story know,

To make the even[349] truth in pleasure flow.—

350

If thou be’st yet a fresh uncroppèd flower, To Diana

Choose thou thy husband, and I’ll pay thy dower,

For I can guess that by thy honest aid

Thou kept’st a wife herself, thyself a maid.—

Of that and all the progress[354] more and less

355

Resolvedly[355] more leisure shall express.

All yet seems well, and if it end so meet,[356]

The bitter past,[357] more welcome is the sweet.

Flourish

[Epilogue]

The king’s a beggar now the play is done.

All is well ended if this suit be won,

360

That you express content,[360] which we will pay

With strife[361] to please you, day exceeding day.

Ours[362] be your patience then, and yours our parts,

Your[363] gentle hands lend us, and take our hearts.

Exeunt

Textual Notes

F = First Folio text of 1623, the only authority for the play

F2 = a correction introduced in the Second Folio text of 1632

F3 = a correction introduced in the Third Folio text of 1663–4

F4 = a correction introduced in the Fourth Folio text of 1685

Ed = a correction introduced by a later editor

SD = stage direction

SH = speech heading (i.e., speaker’s name)

List of parts = Ed

1.1.1 SHCOUNTESS = Ed. F = Mother 2 SH BERTRAM = Ed. F = Ros. 107 got = F2. F = goe 127 wear = Ed. F = were 136 traitress = F2. F = Traitoresse

1.2.4 SH FIRST LORD = Ed. F = 1.Lo.G. 19 SH SECOND LORD = Ed. F = 2.Lo.E 23 Rossillion = F2. F = Rosignoll

1.3.2 SH REYNALDO = Ed. F = Ste. 9 SH LAVATCH = Ed. F = Clo. 13 I = F2. F = w 18 bairns spelled barnes in F 55 F omits this line, but prints “bis” (Latin for “twice”) at the end of the preceding line 64 ere = Ed. F = ore 81 Dian no queen = Ed. F = Queene 93 rightly = Ed. F = righlie 143 t’one = F2. F = ’ton tooth 172 intenible = F2. F = intemible 207 Haply spelled Happily in F 223 and = F2. F = an

2.1.6 SH FIRST LORD = Ed. F = Lord. G. 19 SH SECOND LORD = Ed. F = L.G. 28 SH SECOND LORD = Ed. F = 2.Lo.E. 45 with his cicatrice = Ed. F = his sicatrice, with 59 fee = Ed. F = see 93 SD Enter Helen = Ed. One line later in F 159 impostor = F3. F = Impostrue 179 nay = Ed. F = ne 199 heaven = Ed. F = helpe

2.2.1 SH COUNTESS = Ed. F = Lady. (F also uses Count., Lad., Old La. and La.) 42 An = Ed. F = And 47 legs = F2. F = legegs

2.3.1 SH LAFEW = Ed. F = Ol. Laf. 86 her = F2. F = heere 122 it is = F2. F = is is 195 thou’rt = F3.F = th’ourt 234 SD Enter Count Rossillion = Ed. One line earlier in F 260 detested = Ed. F = detected

2.5.14 Ay, “sir,” he “Sir” ‘s = Ed. F = I sir, hee sirs 22 End = Ed. F = And 23 one = Ed. F = on 25 heard = F2. F = hard

3.1.11 SH SECOND LORD = Ed. F = French E. 20 SH FIRST LORD = Ed. F = Fren.G. 27 th’field = F2. F = th the field

3.2.7 sold = F3.F = hold 14 E’en = Ed. F = In

3.4.1 SH COUNTESS = Ed. Not in F 4 SH REYNALDO = Ed. Not in F 7 have = F2. F = hane 18 SH COUNTESS = Ed. Not in F 23 SH REYNALDO = Ed. F = Ste.

3.5.0 SD Diana = Ed. F = Violenta 22–3 are you = F2. F = are 24 le = Ed. F = la

3.6.1 SH SECOND LORD = Ed. F = Cap. E. 2 SH FIRST LORD = Ed. F = Cap. G. 23 his = Ed. F = this 24 ore = Ed. F = ours

3.7.22 Resolves = F2. F = Resolve 38 After = F. F2 = After this 46 steads = F4. F = steeds

4.1.1 SH FIRST LORD = F (1 Lord E.). Lo.E for remainder of scene, perhaps because Shakespeare has forgotten that elsewhere first lord is G and second is E 5 captain = F3. F = Captaiue 70 art = F3. F = are

4.3.101 All’s…him assigned to Parolles in F 175 the = F2. F = your 203 cardecue = F2. F = Cardceue

4.4.18 you = F4. F = your

5.2.1 Monsieur = Ed. F = Mr 22 under her = F2. F = vnder

5.3.66 count spelled compt in F 116 Plutus = Ed. F = Platus 138 tax = F2. F = taze 157 SH KING = Ed. Not in F 170 sith = Ed. F = sir 172 SD Diana = Ed. F = Diana, and Parrolles 238 cunning = Ed. F = comming 337 are = Ed. F = is 361 strife = F2. F = strift

Act 1 Scene 1

List of parts:    HELEN perhaps named after Helen of Troy, reputedly the most beautiful woman in the world and the cause of a great war    LAFEW some editions modernize to “lafeu” (feu, French for “fire”)

1.1    Location: Rossillion (now Roussillon), old province in southern France, near the Pyrenees mountains

1    delivering sending forth (plays on the sense of “giving birth”)

3    attend obey, heed    in ward under guardianship (as a minor who has inherited property)

4    subjection obedience, servitude as a subject/legal obligation

5    of in    husband i.e., protector

6    generally universally/to everyone    hold maintain    virtue benevolence    whose i.e., the Countess and Bertram

7    stir…wanted provoke it even in those who lacked generosity    where…abundance i.e., in the king

9    amendment recovery

10    practices medical treatments

11    persecuted time tormented his days/drawn out his suffering

14    passage turn of phrase/transition/event/death    honesty honor, integrity

16    Would I wish

20    Narbon Narbonne, southern French city near province of Roussillon

22    still yet/for ever

25    fistula ulcer

27    notorious widely known/evident

29    overlooking guardianship

30    hopes …good i.e., high hopes for her    education upbringing    dispositions natural talents

31    unclean naturally corrupted    virtuous qualities fine learned accomplishments

32    go with pity are mingled with regret

33    simpleness unaffected simplicity (i.e., not mixed with vice)    derives inherits

35    season preserve/flavor

37    livelihood animation    Go to expression of dismissal (i.e., “come, come”)

38    affect assume/pretend to have    than to have rather than genuinely feel one

40    of due to

42    If …mortal i.e., if resisted, overabundant grief quickly dies

43    holy sacred/respected

44    How …that? What does that mean? (some editors suppose the line is displaced and that it may be a response to Helen or the Countess, not Bertram)

46    manners good conduct    shape physical appearance    Thy may thy    blood nobility/parentage

47    empire rule

48    birthright inherited qualities

49    able ready/powerful enough

50    power ability, potential    keep…key value your friend’s life as dearly as your own

51    checked rebuked

52    taxed censured    What whatever    more will wishes to give you in addition

53    pluck draw

55    unseasoned inexperienced

57    want lack    best i.e., best advice

58    his love my love for him

60    forged created, imagined

61    comfortable comforting, supportive    make much of be attentive to

62    hold maintain    credit reputation/honor

64    these …him i.e., the floods of tears she is shedding because of her unrequited love for Bertram do more honor to her father’s memory than did the (fewer) tears wept at his death

67    favour image, face (puns on the sense of “love token”)

68    undone ruined

69    ’Twere…That it is the same as if

72    collateral parallel but distant

73    sphere orbit (heavenly bodies were thought to be surrounded by hollow spheres that produced beautiful music as they rotated)

75    hind female deer (puns on sense of “servant”)

76    pretty pleasing

78    hawking sharp, keen

79    table notebook, drawing tablet    capable appreciative, sensitive

80    trick distinguishing feature    favour face

81    fancy love/infatuation

82    relics i.e., memory    Parolles i.e., “words,” from French paroles

83    his i.e., Bertram’s

85    great way complete    solely wholly

86    fixed certain, established    fit suitably

87    take place take precedence/are accepted    steely i.e., hard, uncompromising

88    Looks …wind are left out in the cold/look pale, unappealing    Withal therefore    full oft very often

89    waiting on attending, deferring to    superfluous extravagant, overabundant

90    Save God save    queen may play on “quean” (i.e., prostitute)

95    stain hint/taint

96    barricado barricade

97    Keep ensure he stays (plays on the sense of “build a fortified tower”)

99    Unfold reveal

100    setting…you besieging you (with sexual connotations)    undermine overthrow/dig underneath to lay mines/burrow into sexually    blow you up cause an explosion/make you pregnant

102    Bless (may God) protect

103    policy stratagem

104    be blown up gain an erection/have an orgasm    Marry by the Virgin Mary

105    blowing him down inducing his orgasm, and subsequent loss of erection    breach vagina/hole in defences    city i.e., virginity

106    politic prudent/strategic

107    rational increase logical profit-making/an increase in rational beings through reproduction    got begotten, conceived

108    That that which    mettle substance/coinage (indistinguishable from “metal” in Shakespearean usage)

109    found i.e., duplicated in reproduction (by producing ten virgins)    cold chaste

111    stand for’t defend it

112    in’t in its defense

113    part behalf (puns on the sense of “genitals”)    infallible certain

114    He…virgin i.e., like a virgin who refuses to reproduce, a crime likened to suicide

115    highways …limit traditionally suicides were buried in at crossroads, in unconsecrated ground    desperate reckless/dangerous    offendress female offender

117    paring rind    his its    stomach appetite/pride    peevish stubborn, perverse

118    inhibited prohibited    canon list of sins in the Bible

119    lose fail to profit (puns on the idea of “losing” one’s virginity)    Out with’t! Away with it!/put it out to interest    make itself two double in value (by increasing at a rate of ten percent per year)

120    principal initial investment

122    How what

123    it i.e., virginity

124    gloss freshness/shine    lying remaining unused (may play on the sense of “lying down”)

125    vendible saleable, marketable    Answer…request respond to current consumer demand

126    suited dressed    unsuitable unfashionable    toothpick ornate toothpicks were fashionable for a period

127    wear not are not in fashion    date fruit/age/penis    pie with vaginal connotations    porridge stew (with vaginal connotations)    in your cheek i.e., as sign of increasing age

129    pears with vaginal connotations    eats dryly tastes dry

132    There i.e., at court

133    mother here begins a list of names and relationships found in love poetry

134    phoenix i.e., paragon, wonder (literally, mythical Arabian bird that was consumed by fire every five hundred years, then resurrected from the ashes; only one existed at a time)

138    concord harmony    dulcet sweet

139    disaster unlucky star

140    fond affectionate/foolish    adoptious adopted    christendoms baptismal (Christian) names

141    blinking blind    gossips is godparent to

142    well fortune

147    body i.e., something tangible

149    baser stars lesser fortunes    shut…in confine us to

150    effects of them i.e., fulfilled wishes

151    alone must think must only think (not do)

152    Returns us thanks give us gratitude, reward

156    Mars Roman god of war    ay “I” in Folio, but likely to be heard by the audience as an ironic “yes” (Mars not being known for charity)

159    under down/in a lowly position

160    predominant in the ascendant, dominant

161    retrograde moving in a contrary direction, backward

163    backward i.e., in retreat, fleeing the enemy

164    advantage tactical gain (Helen shifts the sense to “personal interest”)

165    composition mixture/constitution (plays on the sense of “trace”)

166    wing ability to fly swiftly/jacket’s shoulder flap (may pun on the sense of “flank of troops”)

167    wear fashion

169    perfect (the) complete    in the which i.e., in which manner    naturalize accustom

170    capable of receptive to/have (sexual) capacity for

171    thrust with sexual connotations

172    makes thee away sees you off    leisure opportunity

173    use treat/employ sexually

176    fated fateful/with power over destiny

178    designs undertakings/plans    dull sluggish

180    feed satisfy (my longing)

181    The across the    space in fortune gap in social status/difference in fortunes

182    like likes kindred affections    native closely related/of similar rank/natural

183    strange attempts extraordinary endeavors (to be united)

184    weigh…sense evaluate their efforts according to common-sense

186    miss fail to achieve

Act 1 Scene 2

1.2    Location: Paris    Flourish fanfare, usually accompanying a person in authority    divers various

1    Florentines people from Florence (northern Italian city, capital of Tuscany)    Senoys people from Siena    by th’ears at odds, fighting

3    braving defiant

6    cousin fellow monarch of

7    move urge, appeal to

8    dearest friend i.e., Austria

9    Prejudicates prejudges

10    make denial i.e., deny aid to the Florentines

12    Approved established, proved

13    credence trust

14    armed fortified (against entreaties)

15    Florence ruler of Florence

16    for as for    see i.e., take    part in

17    service military service

18    stand serve, fight    part side

20    nursery training-ground    sick longing

21    breathing and exploit active military employment

26    Frank generous    rather…haste more fastidious than hasty

27    parts qualities

30    corporal soundess good physical health

32    tried tested    did…service had deep knowledge of military matters

33    was Discipled of taught/was taught by

34    bravest boldest/finest/noblest

35    haggish hag-like, repulsive/frosty

36    out of act down beyond action    repairs restores, revives

40    scorn mockery    return…unnoted goes unheeded/is visited back upon them

41    Ere before    levity in honour light-heartedness in honorable action

42    contempt neither contempt

44    equal i.e., social equal    awaked provoked

45    Clock to itself true to itself, reliable, self-governing    true exact

46    Exception grievance/disapproval

47    hand hand of action/hand of his honor’s clock, showing the appropriate time    Who those who

48    used treated    another place different (higher) rank

49    top head

51    humbled humbled himself

52    copy example/model

53    them …backward men of today to be merely inferior

57    So …epitaph his epitaph is nowhere so profoundly confirmed    approof proof, experience/approbation

60    plausive praising

61    scattered not did not disperse randomly    grafted cultivated deliberately

62    bear i.e., bear fruit

64    On …heel at the conclusion and end    pastime entertainment, leisure activity

65    out over

66    snuff burnt-out wick/hindrance

67    apprehensive perceptive/quick-witted

69    Mere …garments only capable of inventing new fashions    constancies loyalties

71    I…too I, surviving him, also wish (plays on idea of following into death)

72    nor neither

73    were would be    dissolvèd released

74    labourers productive bees

76    lend show, give    it i.e., love    lack miss

82    the rest i.e., other physicians

83    several various    applications treatments

84    Debate contend over    it i.e., his health

Act 1 Scene 3

1.3    Location: Rossillion    Lavatch probably from the French la vache (“the cow”)

1    gentlewoman i.e., Helen

2    even your content please you

3    calendar record

4    clearness purity    deservings merits, deserts    of…them we speak openly of our own merits

5    sirrah sir (used to a social inferior)

9    poor wretched, humble (sense then shifts to “impoverished”)

10    Well i.e., go on (Lavatch shifts the sense to “satisfactory”)

12    go …world i.e., get married    Isbel typical name for a whore

13    woman female servant/whore    do act/have sex

14    needs of necessity

17    case puns on the sense of “vagina”    Service employment as a servant (plays on the sense of “sex”)    heritage inheritance (for children)

18    issue …body i.e., children    bairns children

22    go puns on the sense of “have sex”

23    your worship title of mock respect

24    holy i.e., sanctioned by marriage (puns on “holey,” i.e., vaginal)

25    world mankind, i.e., secular people

27    repent regret marrying/atone for sex out of wedlock

29    for …sake to keep my wife company (with suggestion of sexual activity)

31    shallow lacking in judgment    in of    do with sexual connotations

32    ears ploughs/has sex with/impregnates    land i.e., wife    spares my team takes the load off my sexual organs    gives me leave allows/enables

33    in harvest/bring in    crop i.e., of children    cuckold man with an unfaithful wife    drudge slave/menial worker    comforts pleasures (sexually)

34    cherisher nourisher/sustainer (in procreative sense)

35    ergo “therefore” (Latin)

36    what they are i.e., cuckolds

37    Charbon the Puritan meat-eating puritan (from French chair bonne: “good flesh,” eaten on fast-days)    Poysam the Papist fish-eating Catholic (from French poisson: “fish,” eaten on fast-days)

38    howsome’er howsoever/although    both one alike (in being cuckolds)

39    jowl dash, knock

40    ever always    calumnious slanderous

41    next nearest/most direct

45    kind nature, i.e., to be a cuckold (which sounds like “cuckoo”) is natural

46    anon at another time

50    fair face i.e., of Helen of Troy, the most beautiful woman in the world, whose abduction by Paris caused the Trojan war    she perhaps Hecuba, wife of    Priam

51    sackèd plundered    Troy ancient city of West Turkey, besieged for ten years during the Trojan war

52    Fond foolishly

53    King Priam King of Troy, killed during the conflict

56    sentence maxim, wise saying

57    Among along with

60    corrupt the song presumably Lavatch has inverted the words of a well-known song; it may have originally read “Among nine good if one be bad, / There’s yet nine good in ten”

61    purifying cleansing, improving

62    serve the world i.e., by consistently providing one good woman in ten

63    tithe-woman tenth woman (i.e., one in ten); the tithe was the tenth of one’s farm produce able to be claimed by the parson    An if

64    but …earthquake i.e., rarely    blazing star comet    mend…well improve the odds

65    draw pull    one i.e., a good woman

67    That to think that

68    honesty truth/virtue    wear…heart i.e., conform by hiding pride beneath an outward appearance of obedience, just as Puritans wore the prescribed Anglican surplice over the more extreme Calvinist black gown

69    forsooth in truth

73    bequeathed left (by will)/entrusted

74    advantage financial interest/additional personal benefits    make title lay claim

76    late recently

78    stranger sense other person’s or stranger’s hearing    matter subject, theme

80    estates stations in life    no i.e., unworthy of being a

81    only where qualities except where ranks    Dian Diana, Roman goddess of chastity, the moon, and hunting    suffer allow

82    surprised to be captured/attacked

83    touch feeling/expression/note

84    withal with    sithence since

85    loss harm    something somewhat

86    discharged performed    likelihoods indications

88    misdoubt disbelieve    Stall confine, lodge, hide

92    these difficulties/pangs of love

94    blood passion

95    show appearance/display    seal sign/confirmation

96    impressed imprinted, stamped

98    or or rather/but

99    observe see through/note

104    Methought it seemed to me

105    start flinch

107    enwombèd mine carried in my womb

108    Adoption i.e., (love for) adopted children    strives competes    nature i.e., (love for) one’s own children    choice…seeds we choose to graft a cutting from another plant onto our stock, and thus make it into our own

110    mother’s groan i.e., in labor

112    curd curdle

114    distempered distressed/unseasonal, inclement

115    Iris Greek goddess of the rainbow    rounds encircles

117    not i.e., not your daughter-in-law

122    note mark of distinction    parents ancestors

124    vassal subject/servant

128    So provided that

129    both our mothers mother of us both

130    no …than as much as

131    Can’t no other can it be no other way

134    shield ensure/forbid

136    catched caught    fondness foolishness/affection

137    loveliness many editors emend to “loneliness” (solitary melancholy)

138    head source    sense perception    gross obvious

139    Invention (your) devising of excuse

140    Against in the face of

145    kind natural way (i.e., by weeping)

147    That …suspected for fear that truth will be regarded with suspicion/to ensure that truth will not be guessed at

148    clew ball (of thread)

149    forswear’t deny it (under oath)    howe’er in any case    charge command

150    avail benefit

157    Go not about don’t be roundabout (in answering)    bond i.e., maternal bond

158    takes note recognizes

160    appeached informed against (you)

163    before more than

165    friends relatives

168    token sign, evidence, indication (plays on the sense of “love token”)    presumptuous suit unwarranted aim/expectant courtship

172    captious capacious/eager to take in/deceptive    intenible incapable of holding

173    still continually

174    lack …still yet do not run out of more to pour in and waste/do not run out of more to keep continuously pouring in and losing

175    Religious ardent/worshipful

177    no more nothing other (than to look on him)

178    encounter with contest, fight

180    cites confirms, acknowledges

183    herself i.e., chastity

185    lend …lose i.e., bestow affection where it is sure of no success

186    that what    implies involves, seeks

187    lives …dies i.e., in loving Bertram, Helen is doomed to eternal disappointment

191    Wherefore? Why?

192    grace God’s grace

193    prescriptions ancient customs/instructions/doctor’s prescriptions

195    manifest evident

196    sovereignty efficacy/healing

197    In…them to reserve them for use with the greatest care

198    notes instructions/doctor’s prescriptions    faculties inclusive comprehensive capabilities

199    in note recognized to be

200    approved tested, proven

201    desp’rate despairing, hopeless

202    rendered lost deemed incurable

206    conversation processes, reflections

207    Haply perhaps

209    tender offer

211    a mind the same opinion

212    credit believe/trust

213    schools universities, medical faculties

214    Embowelled disemboweled, emptied    doctrine learning, science    left off abandoned

218    receipt prescription/remedy

219    sanctified blessed

221    try success find out what happens    venture risk

222    well-lost i.e., lost for a good cause

223    such a a specific

225    knowingly i.e., securely, with confidence

226    leave permission

229    into unto/upon

231    miss lack

Act 2 Scene 1

2.1    Location: Paris

1    principles i.e., advice

2    throw from you forget

4    gift i.e., of advice

7    well-entered (becoming) experienced

10    owes owns

13    higher Italy high-ranking Italians/northern Italy (Tuscany)

14    Those …monarchy except those who merely inherit their places from what is left of the Holy Roman Empire/they that are cast down by having merely the remains of the Holy Roman Empire

16    woo court, flirt with    wed i.e., own, be bound to

17    questant seeker, one on a quest    shrinks recoils (plays on the sense of “loses his erection”)

18    cry proclaim

21    lack …deny i.e., cannot say no

22    captives i.e., to the girls’ charms

23    serve fight (plays on the sense of “have sex”)

27    spark young man about town

28    brave splendid

30    here to stay here    kept a coil fussed over

32    bravely boldly/worthily

33    forehorse …smock lead horse in a team led by a woman

34    masonry stonework floor (i.e., not a battlefield)

35    bought up won by others

36    one …with i.e., an ornamental weapon    steal sneak (the First Lord plays on the sense of “rob”)

40    grow to become attached to    a tortured body like a body being torn apart

43    a word in a word

44    metals blades/spirits (“mettles”)

45    Spurio “counterfeit” (Italian)    cicatrice scar    sinister left

46    entrenched gashed, grooved    reports response

48    Mars may Mars    novices recruits

50    Stay wait on/obey (Second Folio repunctuates “Stay:” which changes the sense to “Wait: the king is coming”)

51    spacious ceremony ample courtesy

52    list boundary

53    wear …time i.e., are fashionable/notable    muster true gait display correct bearing/behavior

54    received fashionable

55    measure stately dance    dilated extended

57    like likely    sinewy muscular, energetic

58    tidings news

59    fee pay

60    brought his pardon i.e., something to earn it

63    broke thy pate given you a blow to the skull

65    across i.e., a clumsy hit (in jousting, to break a lance across rather than striking directly with the point showed poor skill)

68    will …fox in Aesop’s fable the fox declared the grapes were sour because he couldn’t reach them; the king dismisses the idea of recovery because he thinks it impossible

69    will will eat/want    an if if

70    medicine doctor

72    Quicken give life to    canary a lively Spanish dance

73    simple minimal/herbal/medicinal

74    araise raise from the dead/sexually arouse    King Pippin eighth-century French king, father of Charlemain (Charlemagne)

75    pen plays on the sense of “penis”

81    light light-hearted/sexually suggestive    deliverance delivery, reporting

82    profession claims of skill

84    blame attribute to    weakness partiality, susceptibility

88    admiration object of wonder

89    spend expend    take off reduce, remove

90    took’st conceived of, caught

91    fit satisfy

93    special nothing particular trifles    ever prologues always introduces    Enter Helen some editors suppose that she is disguised, since in Act 2 Scene 3 Lafew appears surprised at her identity, despite having met her in Act 1 Scene 1; this is possible, but it seems more likely that he is complicit with her plan (hence Cressid’s uncle) and that the later surprise is feigned

94    come your ways come along

99    Cressid’s uncle Pandarus, go-between for the lovers Troilus and Cressida

101    follow relate to

104    profess practice, make a profession of    well found of established skill

108    receipts recipes for medical cures

109    issue product

110    th’only the foremost/peerless

111    triple third

112    Safer more safely

114    cause …power disease (cause) for which the worth of my father’s gift is most effective

116    tender offer    appliance remedy/treatment

117    bound prepared/dutiful

119    credulous readily believing

121    congregated college i.e., of doctors

122    art skill/scholarship/science

123    inaidible unable to be assisted

125    prostitute submit (basely)

126    empirics quack doctors    dissever divide

127    great self kingly person    credit reputation    esteem give merit to, believe in

128    senseless foolish    sense rational hope    deem judge (it to be)

129    duty i.e., as a subject (having tried to help you)    pains efforts

130    office services, duty

132    modest one slight thought/thought that confirms my modest, seemly behavior    to…again for me to return with/to conduct me home

133    to than to

136    at full in detail    no part not at all

137    art (sufficient) medical skill

139    set …rest stake everything (derived from the card game primero)

140    He i.e., God

142    holy writ the Bible, which contains several examples of the young being wiser than their elders    babes foolish/inexperienced

143    great …sources Moses struck rock from which water flowed for the thirsty Israelites (Exodus 17)

144    simple small    great…dried Moses led the Israelites through the Red Sea, which parted, allowing them to pass on dry ground (Exodus 14)

145    great’st great persons, such as Pharaoh, who complained about God’s power

147    hits succeeds

148    shifts operates

150    by …paid be their own reward

151    Proffers offers    for as

152    Inspirèd divinely inspired (plays on the sense of “inhaled”)    breath words

154    square shape    shows appearances

156    count consider

158    experiment trial

159    impostor swindler    proclaim…aim declare my success before attempting to hit the target/claim skill that is greater than my ability

163    space period of time

165    greatest i.e., God’s

167    torcher torchbearer, the sun god, who was carried across the sky in a horse-drawn chariot    diurnal ring daily circuit

168    occidental western (i.e., sunset)

169    Hesperus the evening star (Venus)

170    pilot’s glass nautical hourglass

175    venture risk/wager

176    Tax accusation

177    strumpet’s harlot’s/whore’s

178    Traduced slandered

179    Seared branded    extended stretched on a rack

183    slay deny, extinguish

184    sense higher wisdom/natural feeling, instinct

185    rate value

186    estimate value

188    prime youth

189    Thou …hazard your willingness to risk this    needs necessarily

190    monstrous desperate unnaturally reckless

191    practicer practitioner    physic medical advice/medicine

192    ministers delivers (plays on the sense of “dispenses healing”)

193    break time miss my deadline    property any particular respect

195    Not in not

198    make it even fulfill it

201    What whatever

202    Exempted far removed

208    premises observed conditions noted/fulfilled

209    performance carrying out (of the request)

210    of in

211    resolved determined    still always

214    tended on attended

215    Unquestioned unquestionably

217    high as word amply as promised

Act 2 Scene 2

2.2    Location: Rossillion

1    put…height thoroughly test    breeding education/upbringing

2    highly fed overfed    lowly inadequately

4    make you do you think    put off dismiss

6    put pass

7    make a leg bow

9    answer throughout the exchange this word seems to have phallic connotations (question thus suggests “vagina”)

11    pin narrow/sharp    quatch probably squat/fat

12    brawn meaty/well-rounded

13    fit suitably

14    groats fourpenny coins    French crown gold coin/bald head (symptom of syphilis)

15    taffety punk finely dressed whore    Tib typical name for lower-class girl/whore (diminutive of “Isabel”)    rush ring made of reeds/vagina    Tom typical name for a rogue    forefinger with phallic connotations    pancake traditionally eaten on Shrove Tuesday, the feasting day before Lent

16    morris morris dance    nail with phallic connotations    his its    hole with vaginal connotations    cuckold man with an unfaithful wife    horn traditionally cuckolds were supposed to sprout horns

17    quean prostitute (puns on “queen”)    wrangling knave quarrelsome servant/rogue

18    pudding sausage (perhaps with phallic connotations)    his its

22    neither on the contrary

25    fool in question ignorant/inexperienced in questioning (you)

27    putting off evasion

29    O lord, sir! a fashionable phrase among affected courtiers    Thick quickly

30    homely meat plain food

35    is very sequent follows logically    answer reply cleverly/respond well

36    bound to’t obliged to reply/tied up for it

39    noble used ironically, as she is wasting time

43    present immediate    Commend me convey my regards

47    fruitfully abundantly    before my legs i.e., very quickly

48    again back again

Act 2 Scene 3

2.3    Location: Paris

1    philosophical persons scholars of “natural philosophy”

2    modern everyday    things things that seem    causeless inexplicable by natural causes

3    ensconcing ourselves into fortifying ourselves with

4    unknown fear fear of the unknown

5    rarest most extraordinary    argument topic, issue    shot out suddenly appeared    latter most recent

8    relinquished of abandoned by    artists scholars, medical practitioners

9    Galen famous second-century Greek physician    Paracelsus famous sixteenth-century Swiss physician

10    authentic fellows accredited members of the medical profession

12    gave him out proclaimed him to be

17    Just exactly

19    showing visible/printed form

23    dolphin puns on “dauphin” (i.e., heir to the French throne)    ’Fore me before me; mild oath, like “upon my soul”

24    brief …tedious short and the long

25    facinerious extremely wicked

29    debile minister feeble agent

32    Generally universally

34    Lustigue lusty, vigorous (from the German lustig)    Dutchman German

35    tooth sweet tooth, i.e., appetite for pleasure    coranto lively dance

36    Mor du vinager! pseudo-French oath, literally, “death of/by vinegar”

40    banished sense loss of feeling

41    repealed recalled, given a second chance

43    attends awaits

44    parcel group

45    my bestowing my power to give in marriage

47    frank election free choice

48    forsake refuse

51    bay …furniture my bay horse with a docked tail (curtal), and all his trappings

52    My …boys’ to have as many teeth/to be as little broken to the bit (i.e., youthful) as these boys

53    writ to be able to claim/exhibit    She…Lord some editors suppose that this direction is misplaced and belongs with the later line spoken to First Lord

59    protest declare

61    whisper whisper to

63    white death pallor of death

66    Who he who    his…me my love for him

67    Dian Diana, Roman goddess of chastity

68    Love i.e., Cupid, god of love

71    All …mute there is no more to be said

72    ames-ace double ace, lowest throw in dice    for my life were my life at stake

73    honour high status/willingness to marry/admiration

75    Love may Love

76    Her …wishes i.e., myself, Helen

77    No better i.e., I wish for nothing better than your humble love

81    th’Turk i.e., non-Christian barbarian

86    Sure surely

87    got conceived

88    happy fortunate

91    grape i.e., fruit of good lineage    drunk wine i.e., to give you good blood

92    known seen through

104    bring me down i.e., by making me marry a social inferior (with associations of bringing into the marriage bed, and, possibly, of losing one’s erection)

106    breeding upbringing    charge order/expense

108    corrupt debase/contaminate    ever forever

109    title lack of title

112    confound distinction be indistinguishable    stands off separate

117    proceed come forth

119    great …none titles puff us up rather than virtue (swell’s: “swell is,” elided for meter)

120    dropsied swollen/proud/diseased

122    property inherent quality    go i.e., be known

124    heir because the qualities are inherited from nature

125    That…sire true honor is scornful of inherited title when accompanying behavior not worthy of it

129    foregoers ancestors

130    Deboshed debauched, corrupted

131    trophy memorial

133    honoured bones indeed i.e., the remains of those who were truly honorable

136    dower dowry

137    strive attempt

138    choose assert your own choice

139    restored cured

141    at the stake tied up like a bear to be baited, under attack    which which threat

143    this of this

144    misprision scorn

145    desert right/recompense    That you who

146    We the royal plural    poising weighing    defective i.e., lighter (as she is humble)

147    weigh…beam outweigh you and tip your scale up to the crossbar

148    in us within my royal power

149    Check restrain

150    travails in labors for

151    Believe not deny    presently immediately

155    the staggers giddiness, unsteadiness (also, a horse disease affecting balance)    careless untended/reckless/irresponsible    lapse decline

157    Loosing being loosed, inflicted

158    all terms any form

160    fancy desire

161    great creation creation of greatness    dole portion

162    which late who recently

164    who i.e., Helen

168    counterpoise equal weight (i.e., in dowry)    not not equal

169    replete complete/perfect/abundant

172    whose…brief the formal accomplishment of which (i.e., marriage) shall quite properly follow the present agreement

175    more…space have to wait for a time

176    Expecting waiting for (the arrival of)    As as long as

177    religious sacred/true/dutiful    err go astray

183    succeeding consequences (i.e., a fight)

185    companion comrade/rascal

186    man manly/mankind (Lafew shifts the sense to “servant”)

188    too old i.e., for a duel    satisfy appease (in place of a duel)

189    write claim to be

190    dare…do have the courage to accomplish only too well, I dare not because of your old age

191    ordinaries standard meals

192    vent utterance    scarfs military sashes    bannerets small banners

193    vessel ship, adorned with flags

194    burden cargo    found seen through    thee i.e., your company

195    taking up arresting/calling to account

196    antiquity old age

197    trial testing of supposed courage

198    hen i.e., not a bold cock; perhaps also refers to Parolles’ “plumage”    window of lattice ale-house (whose red lattice windows signified its function)

199    casement window

200    egregious outrageous

203    dram small amount    bate lessen    scruple tiny amount

204    wiser i.e., in future

205    pull…contrary swallow a good quantity of your foolishness

207    bondage what binds you (i.e., the scarves of which he is proud)    hold maintain

208    in the default when you fail    know understand/see through

210    poor doing inadequate ability to inflict    vexation doing action (plays on the sense of “having sex”)

211    will will pass (puns on past as “passed”)    in…leave with what movement age will allow me

212    shall…me upon whom I will vent my anger for these insults    scurvy contemptible

213    fettering imprisoning

214    with any convenience on a suitable occasion    an even if

219    reservation concealment

220    wrongs insults    good lord i.e., patron (rather than employer)    Whom he whom

223    garter tie (withs carves)

224    hose stockings, usually tied up with garters    set…stands put your penis where your nose should be/smell your bottom

227    breathe exercise (through fighting)

229    measure treatment/judgment

230    Go to expression of dismissive impatience    picking…pomegranate i.e., a small offense, as an excuse

231    vagabond itinerant vagrant, traveling without license    true honest/licensed    saucy insolent

232    commission warrant, allowance

233    heraldry i.e., authority, entitlement

235    Undone ruined    cares troubles, sorrows

244    import content, sense

247    box container/vagina

248    kicky-wicky woman

249    Spending expending/wasting/ejaculating    marrow vitality/sexual energy/semen

250    curvet horse’s leap

252    jades worn-out horses

258    furnish me to equip me for    fields battlefields

260    To compared to    dark house gloomy house/lunatic asylum

261    capriccio “whim” (Italian)    Art are you

263    straight immediately

265    balls bound tennis balls bounce (i.e., are spirited, to be reckoned with; plays on the sense of “testicles”)

266    marred ruined (plays on married)

Act 2 Scene 4

1    kindly affectionately/as a mother

2    well i.e., at rest, dead

3    wants lacks

12    them i.e., your good fortune them i.e., my prayers

14    So provided that    did may pun on “died”

16    man’s servant’s    shakes out brings about

18    title status as man or servant/name (“Parolles,” or “words”; also puns on “tittle”—i.e., “tiny amount”)

20    Before in the presence of    Before me i.e., upon my soul

22    Go to i.e., enough of that    found thee found you out, found you to be a fool

23    me i.e., folly

24    even to i.e., enough for

26    well fed probably refers to “better fed than taught” (proverbial); possibly “energetic, spirited”

29    rite of love i.e., sexual consummation of marriage

31    to owing to

32    Whose…delay the delay and absence of which    sweets sweet-scented flowers

33    they i.e., want and delay curbèd restrained

35    drown overflow

36    else besides

38    make represent    as as if it were    proceeding course of action/idea

39    apology excuse

40    probable need plausible necessity

43    Attend await    pleasure command, will

Act 2 Scene 5

2    approof proven quality/testimony

3    deliverance utterance

5    dial timepiece/compass    I…bunting i.e., I underestimated him; reversal of “to take a bunting for a lark” (proverbial; the lark was the superior bird)

6    accordingly suitably

9    state i.e., condition of my soul    find find it

12    tailor refers to Parolles’ garments; “the tailor makes the man” is proverbial

18    you’ll have you wanted

23    something i.e., an asset, with plenty of stories to tell the guests

24    three thirds i.e., all the time

26    unkindness ill-will

28    made shift contrived    him…custard the jester who traditionally jumped into custard at the Lord Mayor’s annual feast in London

29    suffer question endure questioning

30    residence i.e., why you are there

31    mistaken misjudged/misidentified (Lafew shifts the sense to “been offended by him”)

34    heavy serious/not light

35    them tame such creatures as pets

36    to deserve deserve

38    idle foolish

40    know i.e., rather than merely    think

42    pass reputation    clog hindrance (block of wood tied to man or animal to prevent escape)

45    present parting immediate departure

49    colour appropriate character    time i.e., the immediate aftermath of marriage

50    ministration…particular duty and obligation of me as husband

55    muse wonder

56    respects reasons

57    appointments purposes, affairs

66    observance dutiful service    eke out supplement, increase

67    homely stars humble origins

68    great fortune i.e., as your wife

69    Hie hurry

72    owe own

74    fain willingly

75    vouch affirm to be

78    would want

80    sunder part

81    stay delay

87    corragio “courage” (Italian)

Act 3 Scene 1

3.1    Location: Florence

1    from…point in every detail

3    Whose great decision the deciding of which

6    black wicked

7    opposer enemy’s part

8    cousin i.e., fellow sovereign

9    bosom heart

10    borrowing prayers entreaties for assistance

12    yield give up, share

13    But except as    common…man ordinary external observer

14    figure scheme, devisings    frames constructs, guesses at

15    self-unable motion inadequate conjectures

19    his pleasure as he (the King of France) wishes

20    younger …nature young men of our temperament, outlook (some editors emend “nature” to “nation”)

21    surfeit…ease grow sick of overindulgence in leisure

22    physic cure, perhaps by letting blood through war

24    fly from be bestowed by

26    better fall better places fall vacant    avails advantages (as you may fill them)

Act 3 Scene 2

3.2    Location: Rossillion

3    troth faith

4    observance observation, signs

5    mend adjust

7    sold who sold

9    mind to inclination for    lings salt cod, slang for “vaginas/whores” (similar play possible in country)

10    brains plays on the sense of “semen” (thus making Cupid a personified penis and giving knocked out sexual connotations)

12    stomach appetite

14    E’en just, the same as

15    recovered cured

16    not with a pun on the marital knot

18    hold remain at

21    fly flee

23    misprizing despising/undervaluing

24    of empire even of an emperor

25    heavy sad/serious    within inside

32    standing to’t standing one’s ground/having an erection (both courses of action may lead to death—literally and in the sense of “orgasm”)    getting begetting, conception

34    Save God save

38    quirks turns

39    face appearance    on the start at its sudden arrival

40    woman make behave like a woman, i.e., weep

42    thitherward on his way there    thence from there

43    dispatch in hand settlement of business

44    bend direct our steps

45    passport license to travel

48    sentence statement/judgment

51    have…cheer bear a happier countenance/be encouraged

52    engrossest monopolize    are that are

53    moiety share/half

55    all my my only

60    convenience propriety

67    haply perhaps

72    rude ignorant/unkind/rough

79    a well-derivèd his own well-descended

80    his inducement Parolles’ bad influence

82    deal quantity    that influence

83    holds…have maintains and benefits him considerably

88    Written in writing

91    but…courtesies only insofar as I am able to repay your courtesy    change exchange

92    draw near come along (with me)

95    Rossillion i.e., Bertram

98    event outcome

100    sportive playful/lighthearted/amorous

101    mark target

102    leaden messengers i.e., bullets

104    move part/stir (to pity) (sometimes emended to “cleave” or “wound”)    still-peering ever watchful (some editors emend to “still-piecing”)

105    sings i.e., whistles as a bullet pierces it/cries in pain/sings in indifference

106    set him there put him in the position

107    forward in the front line/facing the enemy

108    caitiff wretch

111    ravin ravenous

112    constraint compulsion

113    owes owns

115    Whence…scar from where honor merely earns a scar by undergoing danger

116    oft often as    all i.e., life

118    do’t i.e., keep you away    although even if

120    officed all carried out all household duties

121    pitiful compassionate

122    consolate console

123    steal creep (plays on the sense of “rob”)

Act 3 Scene 3

3.3    Location: Florence    Drum and Trumpets i.e., a drummer and a trumpeter

2    Great pregnant/swelling    lay wager    credence trust, faith

7    th’extreme edge the utmost limit

9    helm helmet

12    file rank of soldiers

13    like my thoughts i.e., valiant

Act 3 Scene 4

3.4    Location: Rossillion

1    of from

4    ‘I…free’ this letter is cast in the form of a sonnet    Saint Jaques Saint James, whose shrine was at Compostella, in northwest Spain

7    sainted holy/dedicated to a saint

9    hie hasten

12    taken undertaken

13    despiteful cruel, malicious    Juno supreme goddess, who imposed twelve labors on Hercules

14    camping tent-dwelling (i.e., army)

17    Whom i.e., death

19    advice judgment

22    prevented forestalled

24    at overnight last night

29    whom i.e., both Helen and her prayers

32    unworthy husband husband unworthy

33    weigh heavy of emphasize

37    When haply perhaps when

41    sense perception

42    Provide equip

Act 3 Scene 5

3.5    Location: Florence    tucket trumpet fanfare    Diana significantly, given her role, the name of the goddess of chastity and hunting; the Folio entry direction calls her “Violenta,” which was perhaps Shakespeare’s first thought for the name

1    lose all entirely miss

3    their i.e., Siena’s

7    suffice satisfy

8    earl i.e., Bertram    name reputation

9    honesty chastity

10    solicited entreated, courted

12    officer agent

13    suggestions promptings toward evil/entreaties    for on behalf of

14    engines devices/plots    go under appear to be

16    wreck of maidenhood loss of virginity

17    succession (others from) doing the same    that for all that    limed trapped (like birds caught in lime, a sticky substance smeared on twigs)

18    grace virtue

19    though even if    further…lost worse risk than the loss of virginity (i.e., pregnancy)

20    fear fear for

21    lie lodge

25    palmers pilgrims

26    Saint Francis inn with the sign of Saint Francis    port city gate

30    tarry wait

33    for because

34    ample well, fully

37    stay upon await    leisure convenience

46    Whatsome’er whoever

47    bravely taken highly regarded

48    for because

50    mere absolutely

55    believe agree

56    argument any issue    to in comparison with

57    mean lowly/unworthy

58    All her deserving her only merit

59    reservèd honesty well-guarded chastity

60    examined called into question

64    write style her (some editors emend to “warrant”)

66    shrewd malicious

71    brokes bargains, negotiates    suit endeavor, request

74    honestest most chaste    colours battle-flags

75    else (that it should be) otherwise

82    honester more honorable

89    jackanapes monkey

92    shrewdly sorely

94    courtesy curtsy (i.e., bow)    ring-carrier pimp

96    host lodge    enjoined penitents those bound by oath to undertake pilgrimage as penance for sin

100    Please it if it please

101    charge expense

102    for me mine

103    precepts of advice on

105    kindly gratefully

Act 3 Scene 6

3.6    Location: battlefield

1    to’t to the test

2    hilding good-for-nothing

3    bubble i.e., nothing/showy/easily destroyed

6    as as if he were

8    entertainment patronage

9    reposing trusting, relying

10    trusty requiring trustworthiness

11    try test

12    fetch off rescue/retrieve

14    surprise ambush, attack

15    knows not cannot distinguish    hoodwink blindfold/deceive

16    leaguer military camp

19    intelligence secret information

20    oath i.e., the vow he took never to divulge the intelligence

23    bottom extent

24    ore precious metal    give…entertainment i.e., beat him/cast him out (proverbial)

25    inclining partiality, liking (for Parolles)

27    in any hand in any case

28    sticks…disposition is really upsetting you    sticks stabs

29    pox plague

31    wings flanks, on either side of the main body of troops    rend tear apart, devastate

33    in upon    command…service military orders

40    But were it not

41    hic jacet i.e., I shall die—literally “here lies” (Latin), phrase found on tombstones

42    stomach appetite/courage    mystery skill

43    his its

44    grace honor

45    speed fare/succeed

46    becomes befits

49    slumber in it i.e., delay

50    presently immediately    pen write    dilemmas choices of action

51    mortal preparation spiritual readiness either for my death or those of the men I kill

55    possibility competence, capacity

56    subscribe vouch

60    damns himself i.e., by swearing falsely

63    have have a true understanding of

64    make no deed perform no part/make no attempt

67    probable plausible    embossed hunted down/driven to exhaustion

68    for worthy of

69    case skin, unmask

70    smoked smoked out, exposed

71    sprat small fish (i.e., contemptible person)

72    look my twigs see to my bird-trap

73    Your…me i.e., Bertram pulls rank and orders the Second Lord to accompany him in his pursuit of Diana, leaving the First Lord to undertake the ambush on Parolles

80    coxcomb fool (literally, fool’s cap)    have i’th’wind have scented, are tracking

Act 3 Scene 7

3.7    Location: Florence

1    misdoubt disbelieve, suspect

3    But…upon without losing the foundations my plans rely on

4    estate worldly fortune

10    sworn counsel private hearing that you have vowed to keep secret

11    so…word true in every word

12    By with respect to

15    approves proves, demonstrates

20    found it received your    help

21    wanton lascivious

22    carry win    in fine in the end/to sum up

23    bear manage

24    important blood urgent sexual passion

25    county count

29    rich choice high esteem    idle fire foolish ardor

30    will sexual desire

33    bottom essence

34    lawful to be lawful

36    appoints…encounter arranges a meeting with him

39    marry her enable her to marry

40    is passed has been given

42    persever proceed

44    coherent fitting

45    musics musicians/instruments/music

46    unworthiness humble status/because convincing her to do an unworthy deed    steads profits

47    chide scold, drive away

48    lay depended

50    assay try    speed succeed

51    meaning intention (on Bertram’s part)    lawful deed i.e., marital sex

53    fact i.e., Bertram’s belief that he is having sex with another woman

Act 4 Scene 1

4.1    Location: battlefield

1    sally burst out

2    terrible terrifying

3    unless except for

8    linsey-woolsey cloth made of flax and wool (i.e., verbal mixture, nonsense)    again in response

10    strangers foreigners    entertainment employment

11    smack taste, smattering

12    fancy creativity    to know knowing    so so long as

13    know straight directly achieve    choughs jackdaws, plays on “chuff,” meaning “rustic, clown”

14    politic cunning

15    couch lie down, hide    beguile while away

18    plausive plausible    it it off

19    smoke smoke out, suspect

21    creatures i.e., soldiers    not…tongue and I am afraid to carry out my boasts

25    hurts wounds

27    instance motive (for doing this)/proof (of my supposed exploits)    Tongue…mouth with sexual connotations butter-woman dairywoman/whore (i.e., chatty/lecherous)

28    of from    Bajazet’s mule mules were proverbially silent and sometimes associated with Turks, but emperors such as Bajazet had “mute” slaves, so some editors emend accordingly; or there may be a garbled allusion to Balaam’s ass in the Bible, which only spoke at God’s command

31    serve the turn suffice

33    afford allow/let (you) off

34    baring shaving    in stratagem an act of cunning, for disguise

38    citadel presumably the enemy fortress

40    Thirty fathom 180 feet    Alarum call to arms

49    Muskos probably Muscovites

51    low Dutch “low Dutch” and “high Dutch” were distinct languages

53    discover reveal

55    betake thee entrust thyself    poniards daggers

60    hoodwinked blindfolded    lead thee on take you elsewhere/direct the conversation

61    gather gain information

70    space time/a temporary reprieve

72    woodcock proverbially stupid bird    muffled blindfolded

75    A he

76    Inform on report

Act 4 Scene 2

4.2    Location: Florence

1    Fontybell i.e., “beautiful fountain”

3    goddess Diana was the goddess of chastity and hunting

4    worth worthy of    addition additional distinction

5    frame being, shape    quality part

6    quick lively

7    monument statue

11    got conceived

12    honest chaste (i.e., married; Bertram shifts the sense to “frank, open”)

18    vows i.e., of love for Diana/to have nothing to do with Helen

20    constraint compulsion

21    rights duties

23    serve gratify sexually    roses virginities/vaginas

24    barely in a naked state/only just    thorns…ourselves i.e., with shame (quibbles on the idea that this is in place of a man’s prick)

25    bareness loss of the rose of virginity/defenselessness

30    high’st i.e., God    to as our

31    Jove supreme Roman god

33    ill imperfectly/immorally    holding consistency (i.e., is untenable)

34    protest profess

36    words mere words    conditions contracts    unsealed i.e., not valid legally

38    it i.e., your opinion

39    holy-cruel cruel by being holy

40    crafts skills/deceits

42    sick i.e., needing cure

43    Who which will    recovers recover

45    scarre sense unclear; some editors emend to “snare”

50    honour object of distinction

52    obloquy disgrace

54    honour’s virginity’s    ring with vaginal connotations

58    proper personal

63    bid commanded

65    order take make arrangements

66    band bond

67    yet maiden still virgin

72    proceeds comes to pass

73    token betoken, signify

75    wife i.e., by having sex    hope i.e., of marrying Bertram    be done ends

81    like same

83    braid i.e., twisted, deceitful

84    Marry let those marry

85    disguise deceptive role

86    cozen trick

Act 4 Scene 3

4.3    Location: battlefield

2    since ago

4    worthy deserved

7    his bounty (the instrument of) his generosity

8    darkly secretly

10    perverted seduced/corrupted

11    fleshes rewards with meat (as hounds were given a piece of the kill; sexual connotations)    will sexual desire/penis    spoil plundered loot/despoiling/meat given to hounds

12    monumental i.e., serving as a reminder of his ancestry    made successful

13    composition bargain (plays on the sense of “something made”)

14    delay subdue    rebellion rebellious, lustful appetites    ourselves i.e., human

15    Merely entirely

16    still always    themselves i.e., their true, traitorous natures    attain to reach    ends objectives/deaths    he i.e., Bertram

17    contrives conspires    proper stream own current of desire

19    Is…meant does it not show (as)

21    dieted…hour restricted to his appointed time

22    apace quickly    company companion

23    anatomized dissected, revealed

24    curiously…counterfeit elaborately he has displayed this false jewel (Parolles)

25    him i.e., Parolles    he…his i.e., Bertram

26    the other i.e., Parolles

28    overture opening, move toward

30    higher further

32    demand question    of his council in his confidence

33    deal…act partaker in his affairs

34    pretence purpose

36    sanctimony holiness

39    justified proved

41    office role

42    rector priest/ruler

44    arming establishment, strengthening

45    verity truth

47    make…of take comfort in

50    encountered met

53    cherished comforted, pitied

55    solemn formal

56    for leave for    offered given

58    needful necessary    if even if    more…commend stronger commendations than Bertram deserves

62    dispatched settled    by…success quickly and successfully/here follows a summary of my success

63    congied with taken ceremonious leave of

64    nearest closest company

65    entertained my convoy hired my means of transport    parcels of dispatch major items of business

66    nicer more delicate/lascivious

69    hear of it i.e., because Diana may be pregnant and/or may claim him as her husband

71    module model (of a soldier)    double-meaning prophesier ambiguous, equivocal oracle

73    stocks instrument of public punishment in which the arms, head, or legs were confined    gallant showy, ostentatious

74    usurping laying false claim to    spurs symbols of knightly valor

75    carry bear, conduct (the Second Lord puns on the sense of “transport”)

77    shed spilled

79    time…remembrance beginning of his memory    instant disaster current misfortune

81    a he

85    Hoodman term for the blindfolded player in the game Blind Man’s Bluff

87    constraint force    pasty meat pie with pinched crusts

92    note memorandum/list

94    horse cavalry    is strong i.e., has

100    take the sacrament i.e., swear most religiously    how and which however and whichever

101    All’s one it’s all the same    past-saving beyond redemption

103    theoric theory

104    chape metal plate covering the point of the sheath

105    clean free from blood/polished

111    con i.e., give    in the nature considering the way in which

114    marvellous extremely

115    a-foot in terms of foot soldiers

117    live i.e., live only for

118    so as

121    muster-file official list of soldiers    rotten and sound (of those both) sick and healthy    poll heads, i.e., soldiers

122    cassocks soldier’s cloaks/coats

125    condition (military) character

130    well-weighing heavy/persuasive

132    particular individual points    inter’gatories questions

135    botcher mender (of clothes and shoes)    ’prentice apprentice

136    shrieve’s fool idiot girl in the sheriff’s care    innocent fool

137    him nay no to him

138    his…falls i.e., he is in danger of a sudden death

141    lousy lice-infested/contemptible

145    o’th’band of the military company

147    good sadness all seriousness

154    advertisement advice, warning    proper respectable

156    ruttish lustful    up back

157    favour permission

160    fry young fish

161    both-sides two-faced

162    drop offer, pay with

163    scores incurs a bill

164    Half…it one is halfway there if the bargain is well-made, so set out your terms clearly (or “be even”) and succeed

165    after-debts outstanding bills    it i.e., payment

167    mell mingle/have sex

168    For count on account/so be sure

169    before in advance

171    in’s on his

172    manifold linguist speaker of many languages

173    armipotent powerful in arms

175    fain obliged

177    nature my natural life

182    egg…cloister i.e., trifling thing, even from a holy place

183    Nessus centaur who tried to rape Hercules’ wife    professes not does not make a practice of

184    Hercules Greek hero famed for feats of strength

185    swine-drunk drunk as a pig (i.e., excessively drunk— and thus likely to wet his bed-clothes)

186    they i.e., the servants who put him to bed

187    conditions habits

194    led…tragedians drums announced a performance by actors    belie tell lies about

196    Mile-end field outside the city of London where citizen militia were trained

197    doubling of files simple military maneuver

203    cardecue quart d’écu, small French silver coin    fee-simple absolute possession (legal term used of land or property)

204    cut…perpetually prevent inheritance to all subsequent heirs forever

210    for as

211    lackey errand-running servant

212    coming on advancing

214    captain…horse cavalry commander

216    no more have nothing more to do with

217    beguile the supposition deceive the opinion

221    discovered revealed

222    pestiferous malicious, pestilent    held regarded

230    you you send    for bound for

231    in on

232    a very an absolute

234    undone ruined/undressed

236    but only

237    impudent shameless, immodest

239    great big/noble

243    Who he who

247    fooled made a fool of/tricked

Act 4 Scene 4

4.4    Location: Florence

2    One…world i.e., the French king

3    surety guarantor

6    which gratitude gratitude for which

7    Through even through    Tartar inhabitant of Central Asia, considered pitiless and savage

10    convenient convoy suitable means of transport

11    breaking disbanding

12    hies him hastens

14    our welcome i.e., we are expected

21    be i.e., provide    dower dowry

22    motive agent/means

25    saucy trusting lecherous acceptance    cozened deluded

26    Defiles blackens/pollutes    pitchy dark (pitch is a tar-like substance)

27    loathes i.e., Helen    for…away i.e., in place of Diana

29    yet further

31    death and honesty i.e., a chaste death

32    Go with i.e., result from    impositions commands

33    Upon at

34    Yet for a while

35    the word sense unclear; perhaps refers to the fulfilment of the plan

38    revives will reinvigorate

39    fine’s end’s

40    renown i.e., important thing

Act 4 Scene 5

4.5    Location: Rossillion

1    with by    snipt-taffeta in slashed silk, indicative of showiness

2    saffron orange-red dye used to color ruffs and food    unbaked uncooked/immature/impressionable    doughy dough-like/malleable

3    Your i.e., had it not been for Parolles, your

4    humble-bee bumble-bee

8    dearest direst/most precious    groans…mother i.e., in labor

9    rooted established/planted (Lafew develops this sense)

11    light on come across

12    sweet marjoram type of herb    herb of grace rue, herb associated with repentance (suggests Helen’s spiritual grace)

14    herbs edible salad plants    nose-herbs scented plants for smelling

15    Nebuchadnezzar Babylonian king, forced from his kingdom and made to eat grass    grace puns on “grass”

16    Whether which of the two

17    fool supposedly fools had big penises    service employment/sexual service

19    cozen cheat    service duty, i.e., sex

21    bauble fool’s baton with a carved head on one end/penis    do with sexual connotations

22    subscribe vouch/answer

27    maine mane, like that of a royal English lion/meinie, family, retinue    fisnomy physiognomy, facial features    hotter in France choleric, angry, warlike (to the French)/susceptible to the “French disease” (syphilis)

30    black prince Edward the Black Prince of England, son of Edward III

31    Hold thee be quiet    suggest tempt

33    woodland rustic, i.e., simple    fire also “hellfire”

34    prince…world another title for the devil

35    narrow gate according to the Bible, the route to salvation (Matthew 7:13)

36    pomp proud, showy people

37    many majority    chill faint-hearted/sensitive to cold (thus preferring the warmth of hellfire)    tender fond of comfort

39    Go thy ways be off    before now, before I grow truly fed up with you

41    tricks i.e., tampering with the horse’s feed to save hay

42    jades’ tricks mischief caused by badly behaved horses

44    shrewd cunning, mischievous    unhappy unlucky/discontented/mischievous

45    gone dead (i.e., her husband the count)

47    pace restraint, obedient movement (horse-training term)

49    lady’s i.e., Helen’s    moved urged, persuaded

50    minority youth, when they were minors

51    self-gracious remembrance his own thoughtfulness, without prompting    propose i.e., for marriage to Bertram

56    post rapidly

57    numbered was aged    him i.e., a messenger

58    intelligence information

62    with…admitted how I might with propriety be allowed to be present (at the meeting of Bertram and the king)

63    but only    your honourable privilege the privilege due your honored self

64    charter claim

65    patch of velvet used to cover either battle scars or those resulting from syphilis treatment

66    knows plays on    no

67    two…half i.e., covered with thick velvet

68    worn bare without a velvet patch/hairless (from syphilis)

69    liv’ry badge    belike probably

70    carbonadoed slashed (like meat for cooking)/cut in the manner of incisions made for syphilis treatment

Act 5 Scene 1

4.4    Location: Marseilles

1    exceeding posting exceptional haste

2    wear wear out

5    bold confident    my requital the reward I shall give you

6    In happy time fortunately met    Gentle Astringer gentleman keeper of hawks

8    spend exert

12    fall’n less than/altered

14    sharp urgent    occasions needs

15    nice overscrupulous    put urge/compel

20    petition request

26    hence removed departed from here

27    use custom

28    pains efforts

35    like likely

36    Commend commit

37    presume assure (you)

40    means…means resources will enable us

43    falls more else happens

44    provide prepare

Act 5 Scene 2

5.2    Location: Rossillion

1    Lavache Parolles clarifies the name’s probable derivation (vache is French for “cow”)

3    mood anger/temper (puns on “mud”)

5    sluttish a whore/dirty

6    butt’ring preparation/cooking    allow the wind i.e., stand downwind of me, so I don’t have to smell you

8    stop block

11    me for me

12    paper i.e., soiled with excrement    close-stool toilet/chamber-pot enclosed in a stool

14    purr knave, jack in a card game/cat noise/animal dung    musk-cat i.e., perfume, the musky substance obtained from the anal glands of the civet cat

16    withal with it    carp fish bred in ponds/chatterer

17    ingenious wily/ungenious, i.e., stupid    smiles of comfort gloating (ironic usage)

20    pare trim

23    cardecue small silver coin    justices magistrates, responsible for dealing with beggars under Elizabethan law

28    ‘word’ a single word, as Parolles’ name means “words”    Cox my passion! By God’s passion! (i.e., Christ’s suffering)    Cox cock’s (i.e., God’s)

30    me me out

31    sooth truth    lost parted with/abandoned

32    in into    grace favor    out of favor

33    Out upon thee expression of frustration and condemnation

35    inquire…me ask for me later

Act 5 Scene 3

1    of in    our esteem my worth

4    home fully, truly

6    make consider

7    Natural i.e., of the passions    i’th’blade in the greenness, immaturity (sometimes emended to “blaze” for consistency with subsequent fire imagery)

12    high bent pulled fully taut for action (like a bow)

13    watched awaited

15    my pardon i.e., you to pardon me

19    astonish stun/dazzle    survey sight, gaze

20    richest most noble/most experienced

25    view sight (of him)    kill All repetition put an end to going over past wrongs

27    dead forgotten (also a reminder that Helen is supposedly dead)

29    incensing relics anger-rousing memories

30    stranger i.e., person whose story is unknown

32    GENTLEMAN i.e., an attendant

34    hath reference to is at the disposal of

38    day of season i.e., inclined to one unchanging disposition    season time of year/weather

41    Distracted breaking/agitated

43    high-repented blames bitterly regretted faults

44    to in

45    whole mended/well

46    consumèd used up/passed

47    take…top tug occasion by the forelock (hair at the front of the head)

48    quick’st most lively/urgent

53    stuck fixed

54    Durst dared    herald messenger

55    Where i.e., in    my heart impression image (of Lafew’s daughter)    infixing was implanted/fastened onto

56    perspective optical glass that produced a distorted image

57    favour (woman’s) face

58    fair colour beautiful appearance/pale complexion (considered attractive)    expressed deemed (it to be)    stolen i.e., falsely created with cosmetics

59    Extended or contracted (the perspective) distorted by elongating or shortening

60    object spectacle/sight

61    she i.e., Helen

65    scores debts

66    great count large account/judgment day

67    remorseful compassionate    pardon reprieve from death    slowly carried i.e., delivered too late

68    turns becomes

70    Make trivial price undervalue

71    knowing acknowledging    know their grave i.e., lose them

72    displeasures wrongs

73    weep weep over, mourn    dust remains

75    out through

76    knell funeral bell

77    Maudlin Magdalen, Lafew’s daughter; means “sorrowful” (may recall Mary Magdalene)

78    main consents i.e., agreements of the most important parties

81    they meet Bertram and Maudlin marry/the first and second marriages become similar    cesse variant form of “cease” (some editors assign the closing couplet to the countess, though with no warrant from the Folio)

83    digested incorporated    favour love token

85    come yield/come forth

89    last last time    took her leave said farewell to her

95    bade told

96    Necessitied to in dire need of

97    reave deprive/rob

98    stead help, support

103    reckoned valued

104    At as highly as    rate worth

107    casement window

110    engaged pledged (to her)    subscribed To acknowledged

112    answer…overture respond honorably to her advances

114    heavy satisfaction sad resignation

116    Plutus Greek god of wealth

117    tinct tincture, elixir    multiplying med’cine alchemical formula for turning base metals into gold

118    science knowledge

123    to surety as witness

127    Upon…disaster in the event of some terrible misfortune befalling her

130    conjectural speculative

131    fain willingly

137    fore-past former    fall turn out

138    Shall…vanity will not reprove my fears for being foolish; rather my fears have foolishly not been apprehensive enough

139    vainly stupidly/wrongly

140    sift examine carefully    Gentleman [the Astringer] though no mention is made here of his status as a hawk-keeper

149    for on account of    removes stages in a royal progress (Helen kept missing the king)    short i.e., too late

150    tender offer

151    Vanquished won

152    this this time

153    looks manifests itself

154    importing visage countenance full of urgency

155    brief summary

159    honour’s paid i.e., virginity’s surrendered    taking no leave without saying good-bye

163    in at    fair i.e., where stolen or poor-quality goods were for sale; Lafew reasons that even there he would receive a better deal than in accepting Bertram for his daughter    toll for this sell Bertram at a market (where vendors paid a fee and entered their goods in the toll-book)

165    suitors petitioners

167    afeard afraid

168    foully snatched i.e., that she was murdered (on Bertram’s orders)

170    sith since

171    that since    fly…lordship flee them as soon as you promise to marry them

174    Derivèd descended

179    both shall cease i.e., she will die in dishonor

183    strange like a stranger

186    this hand i.e., Bertram’s

189    embodied yours made part of your body/united as one

194    fond foolish

198    you…friend they are not friendly toward you

199    gain them win them over again

205    impudent shamless, immodest

206    gamester sexual player, prostitute

210    validity value

211    parallel equal

212    commoner prostitute

214    ’tis hit the mark is hit, this is true

215    Of by

216    testament will    th’sequent issue the successive heir

217    owed owned

222    instrument agent, means

226    quoted for regarded as    perfidious treacherous

227    With by    spots stains, vices    taxed censured    deboshed debauched, corrupted

228    but merely

229    or…for (to be judged) one or the other according to

233    boarded accosted sexually    wanton playful/lascivious

234    knew her distance knew her inferiority of rank/knew how to tease from a distance

235    Madding maddening, provoking

236    fancy’s love’s/desire’s

238    insuite possibly “unusual” (some editors emend to “infinite”)    modern commonplace

239    Subdued me made me submit    rate price

243    turned cast

244    diet restrain (from what I deserve)

253    goes is

257    boggle shy away (like a horse)    shrewdly sharply, greatly    starts startles

262    just proceeding honest speaking

263    By about

265    Tricks lustful tendencies

271    He…not i.e., wanted to have sex with her, but didn’t want to marry her

272    companion fellow/rascal

274    drum drummer    naughty wicked/unskilled

280    Limbo region on the border of hell for unbaptized infants and those born before the time of Christ    Furies three classical goddesses of vengeance    in…them so trusted by

281    motions proposals/sexual movements

282    derive bring

285    fine subtle

297    easy loose-fitting/sexually compliant    glove plays on the sense of “vagina”    goes…on plays on the sense of “orgasms and has sex”    at pleasure at will/for sexual pleasure

299    aught anything

306    put in provide

307    customer prostitute

308    if…you i.e., my virginity is intact    knew had sex with

317    owes owns

318    surety act as guarantor    for for as for

320    quit acquit/repay

324    quick alive

327    Beguiles tricks    truer office accurate function

330    shadow ghost/image/poor reflection/illusion

333    like disguised as

339    know understand

342    Deadly divorce divorcing death

345    handkercher handkerchief

346    Wait on accompany    make sport joke

347    court’sies polite gestures/bows

349    even plain, exact

354    progress…less greater and lesser details of events

355    Resolvedly in a way that resolves all questions

356    meet fittingly

357    past being past

360    express content i.e., with applause and calls of approval

361    strife striving, endeavor    exceeding after

362    Ours…parts i.e., let us reverse roles: the actors will listen patiently while the audience applauds actively

363    Your…us i.e., applaud    hearts gratitude

TWELFTH NIGHT, OR WHAT YOU WILL

“What is love?” asks Feste the clown in one of his songs. It is a very old question. One of the most influential answers to it comes from ancient Greece in the imaginary voice of the comic dramatist Aristophanes in Plato’s dialogue the Symposium. Love, says Aristophanes, is a quest, a journey in search of our lost other half.

The idea is explained by way of a story about human origins. Originally there were not two sexes but three—male, female, and a mixture of the two called androgynous. Furthermore, the original humans were round, with four hands, four feet, and two faces. Humankind then began to have presumptuous ambitions. We rose up against the Olympian gods. Zeus therefore decided to weaken us by cutting us in two, “like an apple halved for pickling.” So now we have two legs, two arms, one face, and the sensation that we are only half ourselves. We yearn and wander, hoping that one day we will find the other half that is literally our soul mate. If the original whole of which you are a half was male, your desire will be for another male (as seems to be the case with Antonio in this play—and Orsino when he falls for “Cesario”?); if female, another female (Olivia desiring the disguised Viola?). These two orientations are what we now call homosexual.

Only if your original was androgynous will you be drawn to the opposite sex, as Viola is to Orsino—and Sir Toby, who has the play’s largest role, to Maria. When one of us meets his or her other half, “the actual half of himself,” then, the Symposium explains, “the pair are lost in an amazement of love and friendship and intimacy, and one will not wish to be out of the other’s sight even for a moment: these are the people who pass their whole lives together, and yet they could not explain what they desire of one another.”

A myth of this kind is a piece of storytelling that answers to a profound and enduring human belief: that we are somehow incomplete without love, without a partner. And that in an ideal world we would all have exactly the right partner. We know viscerally that desire and reproduction are forever bound to conjunction and splitting: two people join as one in the act of love; we are made out of a mixture of X and Y chromosomes, of male seed and female egg, of two distinct genetic lines.

If love is a quest for an idealized version of our own selves, it is easy to understand our fascination with twins. They seem to be the living embodiment of the single self split in two; the extreme case of conjoined twins vividly conjures up the Symposium’s tale of the original human as an unhalved apple. At the same time, a certain anxiety has always been attached to the phenomenon of twins. In ancient Greece it was assumed that a woman who bore twins must have been impregnated by two different men. Some mythical twins represent idealized unity—as with Castor and Pollux, the “gemini” or heavenly twins who symbolize perfect friendship—but others represent opposition or splitting. A nymph in Ovid’s Metamorphoses has twins fathered by Apollo, god of music and light, and Mercury, god of theft and shady dealings; a pair of girl twins in Spenser’s Faerie Queene respectively embody chastity and eroticism; in another of Ovid’s poems, the Fasti, a girl called Lara is raped by Mercury and bears the Lares Compitales, who become guardians of the crossroads. These twins become symbolic of how the story of our lives is made of a perpetual sequence of choices, as alternative ways open before us.

Perhaps the most potent of all narratives about twins are those in which a brother and sister are separated soon after birth, meet when they are grown up, and fall passionately and unashamedly in love with each other: Siegmund and Sieglinde, as portrayed in Richard Wagner’s Die Walküre, might be considered western culture’s highest exemplar of the motif. Brother–sister incest was sometimes explored in the Renaissance theater—most notably in John Ford’s darkly brilliant ’Tis Pity She’s a Whore—but Shakespeare steered away from this dangerous matter. His way of recreating the Symposium’s originary androgyne was by cross-dressing Viola as “Cesario,” the lovely boy-actor with whom both man and woman, both Orsino and Olivia, fall in love. Puns on “woman’s part” and “small pipe” (meaning both voice and male sexual organ) leave no doubt that alluring androgyny is implied here:

For they shall yet belie thy happy years,

That say thou art a man: Diana’s lip

Is not more smooth and rubious, thy small pipe

Is as the maiden’s organ, shrill and sound,

And all is semblative a woman’s part.

William and Anne Shakespeare’s twins, Judith and Hamnet (alternatively spelled Hamlet), were born in February 1585. Their father’s fascination with the dramatic possibilities of double selves is apparent from his early Comedy of Errors, where he adapted a classical story about separated male twins and mistaken identity, but complicated it by giving the brothers servants who are also identical twins. Then in the summer of 1596, the eleven-year-old Hamnet died. Shakespeare had lost his only son and Judith would be forever bereft of her second self. Though we should always be wary of inferring authorial autobiography from the words of fictional characters in a play, there is an inescapable poignancy to the images of loss in Twelfth Night: when Feste sings of sad cypress (“Come away, death”) or Viola alludes to a funeral monument, it is tempting to think of Shakespeare’s own lost boy. Olivia mourns a brother, whilst Viola assumes that hers has been drowned. When she takes a male disguise and “becomes” Cesario, it is as if she impersonates her own opposite-sex twin: “I am all the daughters of my father’s house / And all the brothers too.” She herself explains that the lost Sebastian is the model for her performance of male behavior (“For him I imitate”).

The principal source of Twelfth Night’s tale of siblings lost and found, and of a cross-dressed servant sent to woo on behalf of a master whom she loves herself, was a novella by Barnaby Riche called “Apolonius and Silla.” There the brother and sister who are the originals for Viola and Sebastian are not twins but “the one of them was so like the other in countenance and favour that there was no man able to discern the one from the other by their faces, saving by their apparel, the one being a man, the other a woman.” Critics sometimes express puzzlement that Shakespeare makes so much of the resemblance between Viola and Sebastian, given his presumed personal knowledge that boy–girl twins are not identical. In modern terminology, it is generally accepted that monozygotic fertilization is always same sex (in fact, recent research has shown that in certain rare cases of genetic abnormality it is possible to have boy–girl monozygotic twins). But Riche’s original premise reveals the absurdity of this criticism of the plot: siblings don’t even have to be twins to look remarkably alike.

One of the greatest challenges for a writer is to imagine what it would be like to be a member of the opposite sex. The particular demand faced by Shakespeare and the boy-actors who played his women’s parts was to get beyond the age’s conventions of proper female behavior, which commended silence and submissiveness. “Cesario” is partly a device to give Viola an active voice, to enable her to break the shackles of passivity. But the lovely combination of quick-witted facility, wonder, and vulnerability with which she slots into her impersonation is something more than a reaction to social convention or codes of propriety. In terms of the play’s imaginary world, Viola plays Cesario so effectively because of her prior knowledge and love of Sebastian—this is what allows the otherwise implausible conceit of Olivia’s marrying Sebastian in the belief that he is Cesario. In terms of the play’s creative origin, it is tempting to speculate that the germ was sown by Shakespeare’s observation of the intuitive understanding between his twins as they learned to speak and to play together.

Shakespearean comedy often imagines a journey from the secure womb of the family to a world of shipwreck and isolation, and thence to the bond of marriage. The characters lose themselves to find themselves. Broken families are restored in the same instant that new families are anticipated through the pronouncement of love vows. The climax of Twelfth Night is one of the great reunion scenes, as the parted twins are joined:

ORSINOOne face, one voice, one habit, and two persons,

A natural perspective, that is and is not!

…

ANTONIOHow have you made division of yourself?

An apple cleft in two is not more twin

Than these two creatures.

The language is richly suggestive of one made two and two made one, of the cleft apple from the Symposium’s myth of origins, and of the workings of nature combined with the trick of art (a “perspective” was a distorting glass that created the optical illusion of one picture appearing as two). In a single action, brother and sister find both each other and their object of desire.

And yet. The peculiar poignancy of Twelfth Night comes from the sense that there are many losses even in this moment of wonder. Antonio, who has been like a brother and even a lover to Sebastian, is left alone. Malvolio has been humiliated just a little too far. The union of Sir Toby and Maria leaves Sir Andrew isolated—he was adored once, too, but we cannot imagine that he will be again. And Feste is there to sing another sad song of time and change. Above all, Cesario is no more: Orsino closes the dialogue by addressing Viola by her boy-name one final time before she assumes her female garb and becomes his “fancy’s queen.” But “fancy’s queen” is the very language of that shallow courtly love with which Orsino had tried to woo Olivia: the language that Cesario cast off when (s)he began speaking in his/her own voice. In the closing moments of the play, Viola does seem to revert to the silence and passivity of orthodox female behavior.

What is going through her imaginary heart at this moment? Even as Sebastian and Orsino are found, Cesario is lost. Could Viola be saying good-bye to the feigned twin into which she has made herself?

The name Cesario suggests untimely birth—as in “Caesarean section,” a baby “from his mother’s womb untimely ripped”—but the character undergoes an untimely death. A few months before starting the comedy of Twelfth Night, Shakespeare completed his deeply meditated tragedy of Hamlet. There are unfathomable crosscurrents at work here: in creating and destroying Cesario, perhaps Shakespeare too is saying a good-bye. To his own Hamnet. Viola is diminished when bereaved of her invented second self. Was this Shakespeare’s delayed response to poor Judith’s desolation on the loss of her twin?

A more immediate occasion for the play’s meditations on love and identity seems to have been Shakespeare’s friendly rivalry with Ben Jonson. Shakespeare had been writing courtship comedies for many years when Jonson came onto the theatrical scene at the end of the 1590s with a more hard-edged satirical vein of drama that tapped into the psychology of “humors”—the idea that aberrant behavior (which is readily comic and worthy of satire) could be attributed to an excess of a particular passion or obsession or to temperamental imbalance (too much choler or melancholy). Jonson seems to have fallen out with Shakespeare’s acting company early in the new century. At this time he wrote a play called The Fountain of Self-Love, or Cynthia’s Revels for the Children of Her Majesty’s Chapel, the “boy-actors” company that, to judge from a famous piece of dialogue in Hamlet, was perceived by Shakespeare and his fellows as something of a threat to their own prestige. Jonson’s double title was innovative and not a little pretentious: Shakespeare may well have been mocking it with Twelfth Night, or What You Will (his only double title). In pricking the bubble of inflated language, as he habitually does, Feste may be glancing at Jonson’s verbosity. “I might say ‘element,’ but the word is over-worn”: “element” is a key word in Jonson’s humoral lexicon. And again, in response to Antonio’s “I prithee vent thy folly somewhere else,” Feste says “Vent my folly! He has heard that word of some great man and now applies it to a fool. Vent my folly!” Since The Fountain of Self-Love contains such phrases as “vent thy passion” and “vent the Etna of his fires,” “some great man” might almost be Jonson.

The fountain in Jonson’s play is that of Narcissus, who drowned while trying to kiss his own reflection. Shakespeare’s Illyria is also a place of self-love. Malvolio in particular is a Narcissus figure, but there is also a certain vanity about Orsino as he plays the role of the courtly lover. Viola, by contrast, is the opposite of a self-lover. She comes back from drowning and speaks in the voice of the desiring woman whom Narcissus neglected:

Make me a willow cabin at your gate,

And call upon my soul within the house,

Write loyal cantons of contemnèd love

And sing them loud even in the dead of night,

Hallow your name to the reverberate hills

And make the babbling gossip of the air

Cry out “Olivia!” O, you should not rest

Between the elements of air and earth,

But you should pity me!

As intimated by the “reverberate hills” and the echo effect “ ‘Olivia!’—O,” the “babbling gossip of the air” alludes to the mythological figure of Echo, who pined away as a result of her unrequited love for Narcissus.

Jonsonian comedy is peopled by narcissists. Twelfth Night responds with an astonishing exploration of the relationship between knowledge of self and sympathy for others—which we might call “echoing”—in the composition of human identity. “I am not what I am”; “Be that thou know’st thou art”; “I swear I am not that I play”; “Ourselves we do not owe”; “nothing that is so is so”; “You shall from this time be / Your master’s mistress.” These paradoxes and promises are the word music of Illyria that “Gives a very echo to the seat / Where love is throned.”

KEY FACTS

PLOT: Viola and her twin brother, Sebastian, have been shipwrecked off the coast of Illyria. Each believes that the other has been drowned. Viola disguises herself as a boy and, under the name of Cesario, enters the service of the duke Orsino. The duke sends Cesario to woo the lady Olivia on his behalf, but Olivia falls in love with the lovely “boy.” Viola/Cesario, meanwhile, has fallen in love with Orsino. Sebastian is saved by the sea captain Antonio and he too arrives in Illyria. Malvolio, Olivia’s steward, disapproves of the other members of her household—her kinsman Sir Toby Belch, his friend Sir Andrew Aguecheek and the jester Feste. Led by the ingenuity of Maria, Olivia’s waiting woman, these three plot Malvolio’s downfall. Olivia meets Sebastian and, mistaking him for Cesario, arranges for them to be secretly married. Further confusion follows upon mistakes as to the identity of the twins. Orsino is furious at the apparent falseness of his page, but, with the eventual meeting of the twins, true identities are revealed and Orsino recognizes his love for Viola.

MAJOR PARTS: (with percentages of lines/number of speeches/scenes on stage) Sir Toby Belch (13%/152/10), Viola (13%/121/8), Olivia (12%/118/6), Feste (12%/104/7), Malvolio (11%/ 87/7), Orsino (9%/59/4), Sir Andrew (6%/88/8), Maria (6%/59/6), Sebastian (5%/31/5), Fabian (4%/51/4), Antonio (4%/26/4).

LINGUISTIC MEDIUM: 40% verse, 60% prose.

DATE: 1601: Performed at Middle Temple February 1602; not mentioned by Meres 1598; alludes to Anthony Sherley’s visit to the Persian Sophy (1598–1601) and to a map first published in 1599; parodies the motif of self-love, double title, and use of word “element” in Ben Jonson’s The Fountain of Self-Love, or Cynthia’s Revels (late 1600/early 1601), while a character in Jonson’s Poetaster (performed later in 1601) seems to say that he has been to a performance of Twelfth Night.

SOURCES: Main plot adapted from the story of “Apolonius and Silla” in Barnaby Riche’s Riche His Farewell to Military Profession (1581), though the motif of the cross-dressed disguised “page” wooing a lady on behalf of a master whom she loves herself is derived from a series of Italian comedies going back to Gl’Ingannati (“The Deceived”), an extremely bawdy play performed by “The Academy of the Thunderstruck” in Siena (1537). The mistaking of twins is bred from Plautus’ Menaechmi by way of Shakespeare’s own Comedy of Errors. There is no clear source for the Sir Toby/Malvolio plot.

TEXT: First Folio of 1623 is only early printed text. Probably set from scribal copy, it is exceptionally free from errors and textual problems.

TWELFTH NIGHT, OR WHAT YOU WILL

ORSINO, Duke of Illyria

VIOLA, later disguised as Cesario

A Sea-CAPTAIN

SEBASTIAN, Viola’s twin brother

ANTONIO, another sea-captain

OLIVIA, a Countess in Illyria

MARIA, her waiting-woman

SIR TOBY BELCH, Olivia’s kinsman

SIR ANDREW AGUECHEEK, companion of Sir Toby

MALVOLIO, Olivia’s steward

FABIAN, a member of Olivia’s household

FESTE the clown, Olivia’s jester

Musicians, Sailors, Lords, Officers, Servants, Attendants and a Priest

Act 1 Scene 11.1

running scene 1

Enter Orsino Duke of Illyria, Curio and other Lords Music plays

ORSINOIf music be the food of love, play on,

Give me excess of it, that surfeiting,[2]

The appetite[3] may sicken and so die.

That strain again, it had a dying fall:[4]

5

O, it came o’er my ear like the sweet sound[5]

That breathes upon a bank of violets,

Stealing and giving odour. Enough, no more,

’Tis not so sweet now as it was before. Music stops

O spirit of love, how quick and fresh[9] art thou

10

That, notwithstanding thy capacity,[10]

Receiveth as the sea.[11] Nought enters there,

Of what validity and pitch[12] soe’er,

But falls into abatement[13] and low price

Even in a minute. So full of shapes[14] is fancy

15

That it alone[15] is high fantastical.

CURIOWill you go hunt, my lord?

ORSINOWhat, Curio?

CURIOThe hart.[18]

ORSINOWhy so I do, the noblest that I have.

20

O, when mine eyes did see Olivia first,

Methought she purged the air of pestilence.[21]

That instant was I turned into a hart,

And my desires, like fell[23] and cruel hounds,

E’er since pursue me.

Enter Valentine

How now, what news from her?

25

VALENTINESo please my lord, I might not be admitted,

But from her handmaid do return this answer:

The element[27] itself, till seven years’ heat,

Shall not behold her face at ample[28] view,

But like a cloistress[29] she will veilèd walk,

30

And water once a day her chamber round

With eye-offending brine[31] — all this to season

A brother’s dead love, which she would keep fresh

And lasting in her sad remembrance.

ORSINOO, she that hath a heart of that fine frame

35

To pay this debt of love but to a brother,

How will she love when the rich golden shaft[36]

Hath killed the flock of all affections else[37]

That live in her — when liver,[38] brain and heart,

These sovereign thrones, are all supplied,[39] and filled

40

Her sweet perfections with one self[40] king!

Away before me, to sweet beds of flowers.

Love thoughts lie rich when canopied with bowers.

Exeunt

Act 1 Scene 21.2

running scene 2

Enter Viola, a Captain and Sailors

VIOLAWhat country, friends, is this?

CAPTAINThis is Illyria, lady.

VIOLAAnd what should I do in Illyria?

My brother he is in Elysium.[4]

5

Perchance[5] he is not drowned: what think you, sailors?

CAPTAINIt is perchance that you yourself were saved.

VIOLAO, my poor brother! And so perchance may he be.

CAPTAINTrue, madam, and to comfort you with chance,[8]

Assure yourself, after our ship did split,

10

When you and those poor number saved with you

Hung on our driving[11] boat, I saw your brother,

Most provident[12] in peril, bind himself —

Courage and hope both teaching him the practice[13] —

To a strong mast that lived[14] upon the sea,

15

Where, like Arion[15] on the dolphin’s back,

I saw him hold acquaintance with[16] the waves

So long as I could see.

VIOLAFor saying so, there’s gold. Gives money

Mine own escape unfoldeth[19] to my hope,

20

Whereto thy speech serves for authority,

The like of him.[21] Know’st thou this country?

CAPTAINAy, madam, well, for I was bred and born

Not three hours’ travel from this very place.

VIOLAWho governs here?

25

CAPTAINA noble duke, in nature as in name.

VIOLAWhat is his name?

CAPTAINOrsino.

VIOLAOrsino. I have heard my father name him.

He was a bachelor then.

30

CAPTAINAnd so is now, or was so very late,[30]

For but a month ago I went from hence,

And then ’twas fresh in murmur[32] — as you know,

What[33] great ones do, the less will prattle of —

That he did seek the love of fair Olivia.

35

VIOLAWhat’s she?

CAPTAINA virtuous maid, the daughter of a count

That died some twelvemonth since, then leaving her

In the protection of his son, her brother,

Who shortly also died, for whose dear love,

40

They say, she hath abjured the sight

And company of men.

VIOLAO that I served that lady,

And might not be[43] delivered to the world

Till I had made mine own occasion mellow,

45

What my estate is.

CAPTAINThat were hard to compass,[46]

Because she will admit no kind of suit,[47]

No, not[48] the duke’s.

VIOLAThere is a fair behaviour[49] in thee, captain,

50

And though that[50] nature with a beauteous wall

Doth oft close in[51] pollution, yet of thee

I will believe thou hast a mind that suits[52]

With this thy fair and outward character.[53]

I prithee — and I’ll pay thee bounteously —

55

Conceal me what I am, and be my aid

For such disguise as haply[56] shall become

The form of my intent. I’ll serve this duke.

Thou shalt present me as an eunuch[58] to him.

It may be worth thy pains, for I can sing

60

And speak to him in many sorts of music

That will allow[61] me very worth his service.

What else may hap,[62] to time I will commit,

Only shape thou thy silence to my wit.[63]

CAPTAINBe you his eunuch, and your mute I’ll be:

65

When my tongue blabs, then let mine eyes not see.

VIOLAI thank thee. Lead me on.

Exeunt

Act 1 Scene 3

running scene 3

Enter Sir Toby [Belch] and Maria

SIR TOBYWhat a plague[1] means my niece to take the death of her brother thus? I am sure care’s[2] an enemy to life.

MARIABy my troth,[3] Sir Toby, you must come in earlier a-nights: your cousin, my lady, takes great exceptions to your ill[4] hours.

SIR TOBYWhy, let her except, before excepted.[5]

MARIAAy, but you must confine yourself within the modest[6] limits of order.

SIR TOBYConfine? I’ll confine[7] myself no finer than I am: these clothes are good enough to drink in, and so be these boots too. An[8] they be not, let them hang themselves in their own straps.

MARIAThat quaffing[10] and drinking will undo you. I heard my lady talk of it yesterday, and of a foolish knight that you brought in one night here to be her wooer.

SIR TOBYWho, Sir Andrew Aguecheek?[13]

MARIAAy, he.

SIR TOBYHe’s as tall[15] a man as any’s in Illyria.

MARIAWhat’s that to th’purpose?

SIR TOBYWhy, he has three thousand ducats[17] a year.

MARIAAy, but he’ll[18] have but a year in all these ducats: he’s a very fool and a prodigal.[19]

SIR TOBYFie, that you’ll say so! He plays o’th’viol-de-gamboys,[20] and speaks three or four languages word for word without book,[21] and hath all the good gifts of nature.

MARIAHe hath indeed, almost natural,[22] for, besides that he’s a fool, he’s a great quarreller: and but that he hath the gift of a coward to allay[23] the gust he hath in quarrelling, ’tis thought among the prudent he would quickly have the gift of a grave.

SIR TOBYBy this hand, they are scoundrels and subtractors[26] that say so of him. Who are they?

MARIAThey that add, moreover, he’s drunk nightly in your company.

SIR TOBYWith drinking healths to my niece. I’ll drink to her as long as there is a passage in my throat and drink in Illyria. He’s a coward and a coystrill[30] that will not drink to my niece till his brains turn o’th’toe[31] like a parish top. What, wench? Castiliano vulgo![32] For here comes Sir Andrew Agueface.

Enter Sir Andrew [Aguecheek]

SIR ANDREWSir Toby Belch. How now, Sir Toby Belch?

SIR TOBYSweet Sir Andrew.

SIR ANDREWBless you, fair shrew.[35] To Maria

MARIAAnd you too, sir.

SIR TOBYAccost,[37] Sir Andrew, accost.

SIR ANDREWWhat’s that?

SIR TOBYMy niece’s chambermaid.[39]

SIR ANDREWGood Mistress Accost, I desire better acquaintance.

MARIAMy name is Mary, sir.

SIR ANDREWGood Mistress Mary Accost—

SIR TOBYYou mistake, knight. ‘Accost’ is front[43] her, board her, woo her, assail her.

SIR ANDREWBy my troth, I would not undertake[44] her in this company. Is that the meaning of ‘accost’?

MARIAFare you well, gentlemen. Starts to leave

SIR TOBYAn[47] thou let part so, Sir Andrew, would thou mightst never draw sword again.

SIR ANDREWAn you part so, mistress, I would I might never draw sword again. Fair lady, do you think you have fools in hand?[50]

MARIASir, I have not you by th’hand.

SIR ANDREWMarry,[52] but you shall have, and here’s my hand. Gives her his hand

MARIANow, sir, thought is free.[53] I pray you bring your hand to th’buttery-bar and let it drink.

SIR ANDREWWherefore,[55] sweetheart? What’s your metaphor?

MARIAIt’s dry,[56] sir.

SIR ANDREWWhy, I[57] think so: I am not such an ass but I can keep my hand dry. But what’s your jest?

MARIAA dry jest,[59] sir.

SIR ANDREWAre you full of them?

MARIAAy, sir, I have them at[61] my fingers’ ends. Lets go of his hand

Marry, now I let go your hand, I am barren.[62]

Exit Maria

SIR TOBYO knight, thou lack’st a cup of canary.[63] When did I see thee so put down?

SIRANDREWNever in your life, I think, unless you see canary put me down. Methinks sometimes I have no more wit than a Christian[65] or an ordinary man has. But I am a great eater[66] of beef and I believe that does harm to my wit.

SIR TOBYNo question.

SIR ANDREWAn I thought that, I’d forswear it.[68] I’ll ride home tomorrow, Sir Toby.

SIR TOBYPourquoi,[69] my dear knight?

SIR ANDREWWhat is ‘Pourquoi’? Do or not do? I would I had bestowed that time in the tongues[71] that I have in fencing, dancing and bear-baiting. O, had I but followed the arts![72]

SIR TOBYThen hadst thou had an excellent head of hair.[73]

SIR ANDREWWhy, would that have mended[74] my hair?

SIR TOBYPast question, for thou see’st it will not curl by nature.

SIR ANDREWBut it becomes[76] me well enough, does’t not?

SIR TOBYExcellent. It hangs like flax[77] on a distaff, and I hope to see a housewife take thee between her legs and spin it off.

SIRANDREWFaith, I’ll home tomorrow, Sir Toby. Your niece will not be seen, or if she be, it’s four to one she’ll none of me.[80] The count himself here hard by woos her.

SIR TOBYShe’ll none o’th’count. She’ll not match above her degree,[81] neither in estate, years, nor wit;[82] I have heard her swear’t. Tut, there’s life in’t, man.

SIR ANDREWI’ll stay a month longer. I am a fellow o’th’strangest[83] mind i’th’world: I delight in masques and revels[84] sometimes altogether.

SIR TOBYArt thou good at these kickshawses,[85] knight?

SIRANDREWAs any man in Illyria, whatsoever he be, under[86] the degree of my betters, and yet I will not compare with an old man.[87]

SIR TOBYWhat is thy excellence in a galliard,[88] knight?

SIR ANDREWFaith, I can cut a caper.[89]

SIR TOBYAnd I can cut[90] the mutton to’t.

SIRANDREWAnd I think I have the back-trick[91] simply as strong as any man in Illyria.

SIR TOBYWherefore are these things hid? Wherefore have these gifts a curtain before ’em? Are they like to take[93] dust, like Mistress Mall’s picture? Why dost thou not go to church in[94] a galliard and come home in a coranto? My very walk should be a jig,[95] I would not so much as make water but in a sink-a-pace. What dost thou mean? Is it a world to hide virtues[96] in? I did think, by the excellent constitution of thy leg, it was formed under the star[97] of a galliard.

SIR ANDREWAy, ’tis strong, and it does indifferent[98] well in a damned coloured stock. Shall we set about some revels?

SIR TOBYWhat shall we do else? Were we not born under Taurus?

SIR ANDREWTaurus?[101] That’s sides and heart.

SIR TOBYNo, sir, it is legs and thighs.[102] Sir Andrew dances Let me see thee caper. Ha? Higher, ha, ha! Excellent!

Exeunt

Act 1 Scene 4

running scene 4

Enter Valentine and Viola [as Cesario] in man’s attire

VALENTINEIf the duke continue these favours towards you, Cesario,[1] you are like to be much advanced.[2] He hath known you but three days, and already you are no stranger.

VIOLAYou either fear his humour[4] or my negligence, that you call in question the continuance of his love. Is he inconstant, sir, in his favours?

VALENTINENo, believe me.

Enter Duke [Orsino], Curio and Attendants

VIOLAI thank you. Here comes the count.

ORSINOWho saw Cesario, ho?

VIOLAOn your attendance,[9] my lord, here.

10

ORSINOStand you awhile aloof.[10]— Cesario, To Attendants, who stand aside

Thou know’st no[11] less but all. I have unclasped

To thee the book even of my secret soul:

Therefore, good youth, address thy gait[13] unto her,

Be not denied access, stand at her doors,

15

And tell them[15] there thy fixèd foot shall grow

Till thou have audience.[16]

VIOLASure, my noble lord,

If she be so abandoned to her sorrow

As it is spoke,[19] she never will admit me.

20

ORSINOBe clamorous and leap all civil bounds[20]

Rather than make unprofited return.

VIOLASay I do speak with her, my lord, what then?

ORSINOO, then unfold the passion of my love,

Surprise[24] her with discourse of my dear faith;

25

It shall become[25] thee well to act my woes.

She will attend[26] it better in thy youth

Than in a nuncio’s[27] of more grave aspect.

VIOLAI think not so, my lord.

ORSINODear lad,[29] believe it;

30

For they shall yet belie[30] thy happy years,

That say thou art a man: Diana’s lip[31]

Is not more smooth and rubious,[32] thy small pipe

Is as the maiden’s organ, shrill and sound,[33]

And all is semblative[34] a woman’s part.

35

I know thy constellation[35] is right apt

For this affair.— Some four or five attend him. To Attendants

All, if you will, for I myself am best

When least in company. Prosper well in this,

And thou shalt live as freely[39] as thy lord,

40

To call his fortunes thine.

VIOLAI’ll do my best

To woo your lady.— Yet, a barful strife![42] Aside

Whoe’er I woo, myself would be his wife.

Exeunt

Act 1 Scene 51.5

running scene 5

Enter Maria and Clown [Feste]

MARIANay, either tell me where thou hast been, or I will not open my lips so wide as a bristle may enter in[2] way of thy excuse. My lady will hang thee for thy absence.

FESTELet her hang me: he that is well hanged[4] in this world needs to fear no colours.

MARIAMake that good.[6]

FESTEHe[7] shall see none to fear.

MARIAA good lenten[8] answer. I can tell thee where that saying was born, of ‘I fear no colours.’

FESTEWhere, good Mistress Mary?

MARIAIn the wars, and that may you be bold[11] to say in your foolery.

FESTEWell, God give them wisdom that have it, and those that are fools, let them use their talents.

MARIAYet you will be hanged for being so long absent, or, to be turned away,[14] is not that as good as a hanging to you?

FESTEMany[16] a good hanging prevents a bad marriage, and, for turning away, let summer bear it out.

MARIAYou are resolute, then?

FESTENot so, neither. But I am resolved on two points.[19]

MARIAThat if one break, the other will hold, or if both break, your gaskins[20] fall.

FESTEApt,[21] in good faith, very apt. Well, go thy way. If Sir Toby would leave drinking, thou wert as witty a piece of Eve’s flesh[22] as any in Illyria.

MARIAPeace, you rogue, no more o’that. Here comes my lady: make your excuse wisely, you were best.[24]

[Exit]

Enter Lady Olivia with Malvolio [and Attendants]

FESTEWit, an’t[25] be thy will, put me into good fooling! Aside Those wits, that think they have thee, do very oft prove fools, and I that am sure I lack thee, may pass for a wise man. For what says Quinapalus?[27] ‘Better a witty fool than a foolish wit.’—

God bless thee, lady. To Olivia

OLIVIATake the fool away. To Attendants

FESTEDo you not hear, fellows? Take away the lady.

OLIVIAGo to,[31] you’re a dry fool. I’ll no more of you. Besides, you grow dishonest.

FESTETwo faults, Madonna,[32] that drink and good counsel will amend. For give the dry[33] fool drink, then is the fool not dry: bid the dishonest man mend himself. If he mend, he is no longer dishonest; if he cannot, let the botcher[34] mend him. Anything that’s mended is but patched:[35] virtue that transgresses is but patched with sin, and sin that amends is but patched with virtue. If that this simple[36] syllogism[37] will serve, so. If it will not, what remedy? As there is no true cuckold but calamity, so beauty’s a flower.[38] The lady bade take away the fool: therefore, I say again, take her away.

OLIVIASir, I bade them take away you.

FESTEMisprision[41] in the highest degree! Lady, cucullus non facit monachum: that’s as much to say as I wear not motley[42] in my brain. Good madonna, give me leave to prove you a fool.

OLIVIACan you do it?

FESTEDexteriously,[45] good madonna.

OLIVIAMake your proof.

FESTEI must catechize[47] you for it, madonna. Good my mouse of virtue, answer me.

OLIVIAWell, sir, for want of other idleness,[48] I’ll bide your proof.

FESTEGood madonna, why mourn’st thou?

OLIVIAGood fool, for my brother’s death.

FESTEI think his soul is in hell, madonna.

OLIVIAI know his soul is in heaven, fool.

FESTEThe more fool, madonna, to mourn for your brother’s soul being in heaven. Take away the fool, gentlemen.

OLIVIAWhat think you of this fool, Malvolio? Doth he not mend?[55]

MALVOLIOYes, and shall do till the pangs of death shake him. Infirmity, that decays the wise, doth ever make the better fool.

FESTEGod send you, sir, a speedy infirmity, for the better increasing your folly! Sir Toby will be sworn that I am no fox,[59] but he will not pass his word for twopence that you are no fool.

OLIVIAHow say you to that, Malvolio?

MALVOLIOI marvel your ladyship takes delight in such a barren[62] rascal. I saw him put down the other day with[63] an ordinary fool that has no more brain than a stone. Look you now, he’s out[64] of his guard already. Unless you laugh and minister occasion to him, he is gagged. I protest,[65] I take these wise men, that crow so at these set[66] kind of fools, no better than the fools’ zanies.

OLIVIAO, you are sick of[67] self-love, Malvolio, and taste with a distempered appetite. To be generous, guiltless and of free[68] disposition is to take those things for bird-bolts that you deem cannon-bullets. There is no slander in an allowed[69] fool, though he do nothing but rail;[70] nor no railing in a known discreet man, though he do nothing but reprove.[71]

FESTENow Mercury[72] endue thee with leasing, for thou speak’st well of fools.

Enter Maria

MARIAMadam, there is at the gate a young gentleman much desires to speak with you.

OLIVIAFrom the Count Orsino, is it?

MARIAI know not, madam. ’Tis a fair young man, and well attended.

OLIVIAWho of my people hold him in delay?

MARIASir Toby, madam, your kinsman.

OLIVIAFetch him off, I pray you. He speaks nothing but madman.[79] Fie on him!—

[Exit Maria]

Go you, Malvolio; if it be a suit from the count, I am sick, or not at home. What[80] you will, to dismiss it.—

Exit Malvolio

Now you see, sir, how your fooling grows old,[82] and people dislike it.

FESTEThou hast spoke for us, madonna, as if thy eldest son should be[83] a fool, whose skull Jove[84] cram with brains, for — here he comes —

Enter Sir Toby

one of thy kin has a most weak pia mater.[85]

OLIVIABy mine honour, half drunk.— To Sir Toby What is he at the gate, cousin?

SIR TOBYA gentleman.

OLIVIAA gentleman? What gentleman?

SIR TOBY’Tis a gentleman here— Beiches/To Feste a plague o’these pickle herring!— How now, sot?[89]

FESTEGood Sir Toby!

OLIVIACousin, cousin, how have you come so early by this lethargy?[91]

SIR TOBYLechery? I defy lechery. There’s one[92] at the gate.

OLIVIAAy, marry, what is he?

SIR TOBYLet him be the devil, an he will, I care not. Give me faith,[94] say I. Well, it’s all one.

Exit

OLIVIAWhat’s a drunken man like, fool?

FESTELike a drowned man, a fool and a madman: one[97] draught above heat makes him a fool, the second mads him, and a third drowns[98] him.

OLIVIAGo thou and seek the crowner,[99] and let him sit o’my coz, for he’s in the third degree of drink: he’s drowned. Go look after him.

FESTEHe is but mad yet, madonna, and the fool shall look to the madman.

[Exit]

Enter Malvolio

MALVOLIOMadam, yond[102] young fellow swears he will speak with you. I told him you were sick, he takes[103] on him to understand so much, and therefore comes to speak with you. I told him you were asleep — he seems to have a foreknowledge of that too — and therefore comes to speak with you. What is to be said to him, lady? He’s fortified against any denial.

OLIVIATell him he shall not speak with me.

MALVOLIOHe’s been told so, and he says he’ll stand at your door like a sheriff’s post,[108] and be the supporter[109] to a bench, but he’ll speak with you.

OLIVIAWhat kind o’man is he?

MALVOLIOWhy, of mankind.[111]

OLIVIAWhat manner of man?

MALVOLIOOf very ill manner.[113] He’ll speak with you, will you or no.

OLIVIAOf what personage[114] and years is he?

MALVOLIONot yet old enough for a man, nor young enough for a boy. As a squash[115] is before ’tis a peascod, or a codling[116] when ’tis almost an apple: ’tis with him in standing water,[117] between boy and man. He is very well-favoured and he speaks very shrewishly.[118] One would think his mother’s milk were scarce out of him.

OLIVIALet him approach. Call in my gentlewoman.

MALVOLIOGentlewoman, my lady calls.

Exit

Enter Maria

OLIVIAGive me my veil. Come, throw it o’er my face. We’ll once more hear Orsino’s embassy.[122] She is veiled

Enter Viola [and Attendants]

VIOLAThe honourable lady of the house, which is she?

OLIVIASpeak to me, I shall answer for her. Your will?

VIOLAMost radiant, exquisite and unmatchable beauty — I pray you tell me if this be the lady of the house, for I never saw her. I would be loath to cast away[126] my speech, for besides that it is excellently well penned,[127] I have taken great pains to con[128] it. Good beauties, let me sustain no scorn; I am very comptible, even to the least sinister[129] usage.

OLIVIAWhence came you, sir?

VIOLAI can say little more than I have studied,[131] and that question’s out of my part. Good gentle one, give me modest[132] assurance, if you be the lady of the house, that I may proceed in my speech.

OLIVIAAre you a comedian?[134]

VIOLANo, my profound heart.[135] And yet, by the very fangs of malice, I swear I am not that I play.[136] Are you the lady of the house?

OLIVIAIf I do not usurp[137] myself, I am.

VIOLAMost certain, if you are she, you do usurp yourself, for what[138] is yours to bestow is not yours to reserve. But this is from[139] my commission. I will on with my speech in your praise, and then show you the heart of my message.

OLIVIACome to what is important in’t. I forgive[141] you the praise.

VIOLAAlas, I took great pains to study it, and ’tis poetical.

OLIVIAIt is the more like to be feigned.[143] I pray you keep it in. I heard you were saucy at my gates, and allowed your approach rather to wonder[144] at you than to hear you. If[145] you be not mad, be gone. If you have reason, be brief. ’Tis not that time of moon with me to make one[146] in so skipping a dialogue.

MARIAWill you hoist sail,[147] sir? Here lies your way.

VIOLANo, good swabber,[148] I am to hull here a little longer. Some mollification for your giant,[149] sweet lady; tell me your mind, I am a messenger.

OLIVIASure, you have some hideous matter to deliver, when the courtesy[150] of it is so fearful.[151] Speak your office.

VIOLAIt alone concerns your ear. I bring no overture[152] of war, no taxation of homage; I hold the olive[153] in my hand. My words are as full of peace as matter.

OLIVIAYet you began rudely.[154] What are you? What would you?

VIOLAThe rudeness that hath appeared in me have I learned from my entertainment.[156] What I am, and what I would, are as secret as maidenhead: to your ears, divinity:[157] to any other’s, profanation.

OLIVIAGive us the place alone. We will hear this divinity.

[Exeunt Maria and Attendants]

Now, sir, what is your text?[159]

VIOLAMost sweet lady—

OLIVIAA comfortable[161] doctrine, and much may be said of it. Where lies your text?

VIOLAIn Orsino’s bosom.[162]

OLIVIAIn his bosom? In what chapter[163] of his bosom?

VIOLATo answer[164] by the method, in the first of his heart.

OLIVIAO, I have read it: it is heresy. Have you no more to say?

VIOLAGood madam, let me see your face.

OLIVIAHave you any commission from your lord to negotiate with my face? You are now out of[168] your text. Unveils But we will draw the curtain and show you the picture. Look you, sir, such[169] a one I was this present. Is’t not well done?

VIOLAExcellently done, if[170] God did all.

OLIVIA’Tis in grain,[171] sir, ’twill endure wind and weather.

VIOLA’Tis beauty truly blent,[172] whose red and white

Nature’s own sweet and cunning[173] hand laid on.

Lady, you are the cruell’st she[174] alive,

If you will lead these graces[175] to the grave

And leave the world no copy.[176]

OLIVIAO, sir, I will not be so hard-hearted. I will give out divers schedules[177] of my beauty. It shall be inventoried,[178] and every particle and utensil labelled to my will: as, item, two lips, indifferent[179] red: item, two grey eyes, with lids to them: item, one neck, one chin and so forth. Were you sent hither to praise[180] me?

VIOLAI see you what you are, you are too proud.

But if[182] you were the devil, you are fair.

My lord and master loves you. O, such love

Could be but recompensed, though[184] you were crowned

The nonpareil[185] of beauty!

OLIVIAHow does he love me?

VIOLAWith adorations, fertile[187] tears,

With groans that thunder love, with sighs of fire.

OLIVIAYour lord does know my mind: I cannot love him.

190

Yet I suppose[190] him virtuous, know him noble,

Of great estate, of fresh and stainless youth;

In[192] voices well divulged, free, learned and valiant,

And in dimension[193] and the shape of nature

A gracious[194] person; but yet I cannot love him.

195

He might have took his answer long ago.

VIOLAIf I did love you in my master’s flame,[196]

With such a suff’ring, such a deadly[197] life,

In your denial I would find no sense,

I would not understand it.

200

OLIVIAWhy, what would you?

VIOLAMake me a willow cabin[201] at your gate,

And call upon my soul[202] within the house,

Write loyal cantons[203] of contemnèd love

And sing them loud even in the dead of night,

205

Hallow[205] your name to the reverberate hills

And make the babbling[206] gossip of the air

Cry out ‘Olivia!’ O, you should not rest

Between the elements of air and earth,

But you should pity me!

210

OLIVIAYou might do much. What is your parentage?

VIOLAAbove my fortunes,[211] yet my state is well:

I am a gentleman.

OLIVIAGet you to your lord.

I cannot love him. Let him send no more,

215

Unless, perchance, you come to me again,

To tell me how he takes it. Fare you well:

I thank you for your pains. Spend this for me. Offers a purse

VIOLAI am no fee’d post,[218] lady; keep your purse.

My master, not myself, lacks recompense.

220

Love[220] make his heart of flint that you shall love,

And let your fervour, like my master’s, be

Placed in contempt! Farewell, fair cruelty.

Exit

OLIVIA‘What is your parentage?’

‘Above my fortunes, yet my state is well;

225

I am a gentleman.’ I’ll be sworn thou art.

Thy tongue, thy face, thy limbs, actions and spirit,

Do give thee five-fold blazon.[227] Not too fast. Soft, soft!

Unless the[228] master were the man. How now?

Even so quickly may one catch the plague?[229]

230

Methinks I feel this youth’s perfections

With an invisible and subtle stealth

To creep in at mine eyes. Well, let it be.

What ho, Malvolio!

Enter Malvolio

MALVOLIOHere, madam, at your service.

235

OLIVIARun after that same peevish[235] messenger,

The county’s[236] man. He left this ring behind him, Gives a ring

Would I[237] or not. Tell him I’ll none of it.

Desire[238] him not to flatter with his lord,

Nor hold[239] him up with hopes. I am not for him.

240

If that the youth will come this way tomorrow,

I’ll give him reasons for’t. Hie[241] thee, Malvolio.

MALVOLIOMadam, I will.

Exit

OLIVIAI do I know not what, and fear to find

Mine[244] eye too great a flatterer for my mind.

245

Fate, show thy force. Ourselves we do not owe.[245]

What is decreed must be, and be this so.

[Exit]

Act 2 Scene 1

running scene 6

Enter Antonio and Sebastian

ANTONIOWill you stay no longer? Nor[1] will you not that I go with you?

SEBASTIANBy your patience,[2] no. My stars shine darkly over me; the malignancy of my fate might perhaps distemper[3] yours; therefore I shall crave of you your leave that I may bear my evils[4] alone. It were a bad recompense for your love to lay any of them on you.

ANTONIOLet me yet know of you whither you are bound.

SEBASTIANNo, sooth,[7] sir: my determinate voyage is mere extravagancy. But I perceive in you so excellent a touch of modesty[8] that you will not extort from me what I am[9] willing to keep in. Therefore it charges me in manners the rather to express[10] myself. You must know of me then, Antonio, my name is Sebastian, which I called[11] Roderigo. My father was that Sebastian of Messaline whom I know you have heard of. He left behind him myself and a sister, both born in an hour.[12] If the heavens had been pleased, would we had so ended. But you, sir, altered that, for some[14] hour before you took me from the breach of the sea was my sister drowned.

ANTONIOAlas the day!

SEBASTIANA lady, sir, though it was said she much resembled me, was yet of many accounted beautiful. But though I could not with such estimable wonder[18] overfar believe that, yet thus far I will boldly publish[19] her: she bore a mind that envy could not but call fair. She is drowned already, sir, with salt water, though I seem to drown her remembrance again with more.[21]

ANTONIOPardon me, sir, your bad entertainment.[22]

SEBASTIANO, good Antonio, forgive me your trouble.[23]

ANTONIOIf you will not murder[24] me for my love, let me be your servant.

SEBASTIANIf you will not undo what you have done, that is, kill him whom you have recovered,[26] desire it not. Fare ye well at once. My bosom is full of kindness, and I am yet[27] so near the manners of my mother that upon the least occasion more mine eyes will tell[28] tales of me. I am bound to the Count Orsino’s court. Farewell.

Exit

40

ANTONIOThe gentleness[30] of all the gods go with thee!

I have many enemies in Orsino’s court,

Else[32] would I very shortly see thee there.

But come what may, I do adore thee so,

That danger shall seem sport,[34] and I will go.

Exit

Act 2 Scene 2

running scene 7

Enter Viola and Malvolio at several doors

MALVOLIOWere not you ev’n[1] now with the Countess Olivia?

VIOLAEven now, sir, on[2] a moderate pace I have since arrived but hither.

MALVOLIOShe returns this ring to you, sir. Shows a ring You might have saved me my pains, to have taken it away yourself. She adds, moreover, that you should put your lord into a desperate assurance[5] she will none of him. And one thing more, that you be never so hardy[6] to come again in his affairs, unless it be to report your lord’s taking of this.[7] Receive it so.

VIOLAShe took the ring of me. I’ll none of it.

MALVOLIOCome, sir, you peevishly[9] threw it to her, and her will is, it should be so returned. If it be worth stooping for, there it lies in your eye.[10] Throws it on the ground If not, be it his that finds it.

Exit

VIOLAI left no ring with her. What means this lady?

Fortune forbid my outside[13] have not charmed her!

She made[14] good view of me, indeed so much

15

That methought her eyes had lost[15] her tongue,

For she did speak in starts[16] distractedly.

She loves me, sure. The cunning of her passion

Invites me in[18] this churlish messenger.

None of my lord’s ring? Why, he sent her none;

20

I am the man. If it be so, as ’tis,

Poor lady, she were better[21] love a dream.

Disguise, I see, thou art a wickedness,

Wherein the pregnant[23] enemy does much.

How easy is it for the proper-false[24]

25

In women’s waxen hearts to set their forms![25]

Alas, our[26] frailty is the cause, not we,

For such as we are made of, such we be.

How will this fadge?[28] My master loves her dearly,

And I, poor monster,[29] fond as much on him,

30

And she, mistaken, seems to dote on me.

What will become of this? As I am man,

My state[32] is desperate for my master’s love.

As I am woman — now alas the day! —

What thriftless[34] sighs shall poor Olivia breathe?

35

O time, thou must untangle this, not I.

It is too hard a knot for me t’untie.

[Exit]

Act 2 Scene 3

running scene 8

Enter Sir Toby and Sir Andrew

SIR TOBYApproach,[1] Sir Andrew. Not to be abed after midnight is to be up betimes, and diluculo surgere,[2] thou know’st—

SIR ANDREWNay, by my troth I know not, but I know to be up late is to be up late.

SIR TOBYA false conclusion. I hate it as an unfilled can.[4] To be up after midnight and to go to bed then is early: so that to go to bed after midnight is to go to bed betimes. Does not our lives[6] consist of the four elements?

SIR ANDREWFaith, so they say, but I think it rather consists of eating and drinking.

SIR TOBYThou’rt a scholar; let us therefore eat and drink. Marian,[8] I say, a stoup of wine!

Enter Clown [Feste]

SIR ANDREWHere comes the fool, i’faith.

FESTEHow now, my hearts![11] Did you never see the picture of ‘we three’?

SIR TOBYWelcome, ass. Now let’s have a catch.[12]

SIR ANDREWBy my troth the fool has an excellent breast.[13] I had rather than forty shillings I had such a leg,[14] and so sweet a breath to sing, as the fool has. In sooth thou wast[15] in very gracious fooling last night, when thou spokest of Pigrogromitus,[16] of the Vapians passing the equinoctial of Queubus. ’Twas very good, i’faith. I sent thee sixpence for thy leman.[17] Hadst it?

FESTEI did impeticos[18] thy gratillity, for Malvolio’s nose is no whipstock. My lady has a white hand, and the Myrmidons[19] are no bottle-ale houses.

SIR ANDREWExcellent. Why, this is the best fooling, when all is done. Now, a song.

SIR TOBYCome on, there is sixpence for you. Gives a coin to Feste Let’s have a song.

SIR ANDREWThere’s a testril of[22] me too. If one knight give a— Gives another coin

FESTEWould you have a love song,[23] or a song of good life?

SIR TOBYA love song, a love song.

25

SIR ANDREWAy, ay. I care not for good life.

FESTEO mistress mine, where are you roaming?

Sings

O stay and hear, your true love’s coming,

That can sing both high and low.[28]

Trip[29] no further, pretty sweeting,

30

Journeys end in lovers meeting,

Every wise man’s son doth know.

SIR ANDREWExcellent good, i’faith.

SIR TOBYGood, good.

FESTEWhat is love? ’Tis not hereafter,[34] Sings

35

Present mirth hath present laughter.

What’s to come is still[36] unsure.

In delay there lies no plenty,[37]

Then come kiss me, sweet and twenty,[38]

Youth’s a stuff[39] will not endure.

40

SIR ANDREWA mellifluous voice, as I am true[40] knight.

SIR TOBYA contagious breath.[41]

SIR ANDREWVery sweet and contagious, i’faith.

SIR TOBYTo hear[43] by the nose, it is dulcet in contagion. But shall we make the welkin dance indeed? Shall we rouse[44] the night owl in a catch that will draw three souls out of one weaver?[45] Shall we do that?

SIR ANDREWAn you love me, let’s do’t. I am dog[46] at a catch.

FESTEBy’r lady,[47] sir, and some dogs will catch well.

SIR ANDREWMost certain. Let our catch be, ‘Thou knave’.[48]

FESTE‘Hold thy peace,[49] thou knave’, knight? I shall be constrained in’t to call thee knave, knight.

SIR ANDREW’Tis not the first time I have constrained one to call me knave. Begin, fool: it begins ‘Hold thy peace’.

FESTEI shall never begin if I hold my peace.

SIR ANDREWGood, i’faith. Come, begin.

Catch sung

Enter Maria

MARIAWhat a caterwauling do you keep[55] here? If my lady have not called up her steward[56] Malvolio and bid him turn you out of doors, never trust me.

SIR TOBYMy lady’s a Catayan,[57] we are politicians, Malvolio’s a Peg-a-Ramsey, and ‘Three[58] merry men be we’. Am not I consanguineous? Am I not of her blood? Tillyvally.[59] Lady! Sings

60

‘There[60] dwelt a man in Babylon, lady, lady!’

FESTEBeshrew[61] me, the knight’s in admirable fooling.

SIRANDREWAy, he does well enough if he be disposed, and so do I too: he does it with a better grace,[63] but I do it more natural.

SIR TOBY‘O,[64] the twelfth day of December’— Sings

65

MARIAFor the love o’God, peace!

Enter Malvolio

MALVOLIOMy masters, are you mad? Or what are you? Have you no wit,[66] manners, nor honesty,[67] but to gabble like tinkers at this time of night? Do ye make an alehouse of my lady’s house, that ye squeak out[68] your coziers’ catches without any mitigation or remorse[69] of voice? Is there no respect of place, persons, nor time in you?

SIR TOBYWe did keep time, sir, in our catches. Sneck up![71]

MALVOLIOSir Toby, I must be round[72] with you. My lady bade me tell you that though she harbours[73] you as her kinsman, she’s nothing allied to your disorders. If you can separate yourself and your misdemeanours, you are welcome to the house. If not, an it would please you to take leave of her, she is very willing to bid you farewell.

SIR TOBY‘Farewell,[77] dear heart, since I must needs be gone.’ Sings

MARIANay, good Sir Toby. Sings

FESTE‘His eyes do show his days are almost done.’ Sings

80

MALVOLIOIs’t even so?[80]

SIR TOBY‘But I will never die.’ Sings

FESTESir Toby, there you lie.

MALVOLIOThis is much credit to you.

SIR TOBY‘Shall I bid him go?’ Sings

85

FESTE‘What an if[85] you do?’ Sings

SIR TOBY‘Shall I bid him go, and spare not?[86]’ Sings

FESTE‘O no, no, no, no, you dare not.’ Sings

SIR TOBYOut o’tune,[88] sir, ye lie. Art any more than a steward? Dost thou think, because thou art virtuous, there shall be no more cakes and ale?[89]

FESTEYes, by Saint Anne,[90] and ginger shall be hot i’th’mouth too.

SIR TOBYThou’rt i’th’right. Go, sir, rub[91] your chain with crumbs. A stoup of wine, Maria!

MALVOLIOMistress Mary, if you prized[93] my lady’s favour at anything more than contempt,[94] you would not give means for this uncivil rule; she shall know of it, by this hand.

Exit

MARIAGo[96] shake your ears.

SIR ANDREW’Twere as good a deed as to drink when a man’s a-hungry,[97] to challenge him the field,[98] and then to break promise with him and make a fool of him.

SIR TOBYDo’t, knight. I’ll write thee a challenge, or I’ll deliver thy indignation to him by word of mouth.

MARIASweet Sir Toby, be patient for tonight. Since the youth of the count’s was today with my lady, she is much out of quiet.[102] For Monsieur Malvolio, let me alone with him: if I do not gull[103] him into a nayword and make him a common recreation,[104] do not think I have wit enough to lie straight in my bed. I know I can do it.

SIR TOBYPossess[106] us, possess us, tell us something of him.

MARIAMarry, sir, sometimes he is a kind of puritan.[107]

SIR ANDREWO, if I thought that, I’d beat him like a dog!

SIR TOBYWhat, for being a puritan? Thy exquisite[109] reason, dear knight?

SIR ANDREWI have no exquisite reason for’t, but I have reason good enough.

MARIAThe devil a puritan that he is, or anything constantly,[111] but a time-pleaser, an affectioned[112] ass, that cons state without book and utters it by great swarths. The best persuaded of himself, so crammed, as he thinks, with excellencies,[113] that it is his grounds of faith[114] that all that look on him love him. And on that vice in him will my revenge find notable cause to work.

SIR TOBYWhat wilt thou do?

MARIAI will drop in his way some obscure epistles[117] of love, wherein, by the colour of his beard, the shape of his leg, the manner of his gait, the expressure[118] of his eye, forehead, and complexion,[119] he shall find himself most feelingly personated. I can write very like my lady your niece: on[120] a forgotten matter we can hardly make distinction of our hands.[121]

SIR TOBYExcellent! I smell a device.[122]

SIR ANDREWI have’t in my nose too.

SIR TOBYHe shall think, by the letters that thou wilt drop, that they come from my niece and that she’s in love with him.

MARIAMy purpose is, indeed, a horse of that colour.

SIR ANDREWAnd your horse now would make him an ass.

MARIAAss,[128] I doubt not.

SIR ANDREWO, ’twill be admirable!

MARIASport royal, I warrant you. I know my physic[130] will work with him. I will plant you two, and let the fool make a third, where he shall find the letter. Observe his construction[132] of it. For this night, to bed, and dream on the event. Farewell.

Exit

SIR TOBYGood night, Penthesilea.[133]

SIR ANDREWBefore me,[134] she’s a good wench.

SIR TOBYShe’s a beagle,[135] true-bred, and one that adores me. What o’that?

SIR ANDREWI was adored once too.

SIR TOBYLet’s to bed, knight. Thou hadst need send for more money.

SIR ANDREWIf I cannot recover[138] your niece, I am a foul way out.

SIR TOBYSend for money, knight. If thou hast her not i’th’end, call me cut.[139]

SIR ANDREWIf I do not, never trust me, take it how you will.

SIR TOBYCome, come, I’ll go burn[141] some sack. ’Tis too late to go to bed now. Come, knight, come, knight.

Exeunt

Act 2 Scene 4

running scene 9

Enter Duke [Orsino], Viola, Curio and others

ORSINOGive me some music.— Now, good morrow, friends.

Now, good Cesario, but[2] that piece of song,

That old and antique[3] song we heard last night;

Methought it did relieve my passion[4] much,

5

More than light airs[5] and recollected terms

Of these most brisk and giddy-pacèd times.

Come, but one verse.

CURIOHe is not here, so please your lordship, that should sing it.

ORSINOWho was it?

CURIOFeste, the jester, my lord; a fool that the lady Olivia’s father took much delight in. He is about the house.

ORSINOSeek him out, and play the tune the while.[12]

[Exit Curio]

Come hither, boy. If ever thou shalt love,

Music plays

In the sweet pangs of it remember me,

15

For such as I am, all true lovers are:

Unstaid and skittish[16] in all motions else,

Save in the constant[17] image of the creature

That is beloved. How dost thou like this tune?

VIOLAIt gives[19] a very echo to the seat

20

Where love is throned.

ORSINOThou dost speak masterly.[21]

My life upon’t, young though thou art, thine eye

Hath stayed[23] upon some favour that it loves:

Hath it not, boy?

25

VIOLAA little, by your favour.[25]

ORSINOWhat kind of woman is’t?

VIOLAOf your complexion.

ORSINOShe is not worth thee, then. What years, i’faith?

VIOLAAbout your years, my lord.

30

ORSINOToo old by heaven. Let still[30] the woman take

An elder than herself, so wears she[31] to him,

So sways she level[32] in her husband’s heart.

For, boy, however we do praise ourselves,

Our fancies[34] are more giddy and unfirm,

35

More longing, wavering, sooner lost and worn,[35]

Than women’s are.

VIOLAI[37] think it well, my lord.

ORSINOThen let thy love be younger than thyself,

Or thy affection cannot hold the bent,[39]

40

For women are as roses, whose fair flower

Being once displayed,[41] doth fall that very hour.

VIOLAAnd so they are. Alas, that they are so.

To die, even when they to perfection grow!

Enter Curio and Clown [Feste]

ORSINOO, fellow, come, the song we had last night.— To Feste

45

Mark[45] it, Cesario, it is old and plain;

The spinsters[46] and the knitters in the sun

And the free[47] maids that weave their thread with bones

Do use[48] to chant it. It is silly sooth,

And dallies[49] with the innocence of love,

50

Like the old age.[50]

FESTEAre you ready, sir?

ORSINOI prithee sing.

FESTECome away,[53] come away, death,

The song

Music Sings

And in sad cypress[54] let me be laid.

55

Fly away, fly away, breath,

I am slain by a fair cruel maid.

My shroud of white, stuck[57] all with yew,

O, prepare it!

My[59] part of death, no one so true

60

Did share it.

Not a flower, not a flower, sweet

On my black coffin let there be strewn.[62]

Not a friend, not a friend greet

My poor corpse, where my bones shall be thrown.

65

A thousand thousand sighs to save,

Lay me, O, where

Sad true lover never find my grave,

To weep there!

ORSINOThere’s for thy pains.

70

FESTENo pains, sir. I take pleasure in singing, sir.

ORSINOI’ll pay thy pleasure then.

FESTETruly, sir, and pleasure[72] will be paid, one time or another.

ORSINOGive me now leave to leave[73] thee.

FESTENow, the melancholy god[74] protect thee, and the tailor make thy doublet of changeable taffeta,[75] for thy mind is a very opal. I would have men of such constancy put to sea, that their[76] business might be everything and their intent everywhere, for that’s[77] it that always makes a good voyage of nothing. Farewell.

Exit

ORSINOLet all the rest give place.[78] Curio and Attendants stand aside

Once more, Cesario,

80

Get thee to yond same sovereign cruelty:

Tell her my love, more noble than the world,

Prizes not quantity of dirty[82] lands.

The parts[83] that fortune hath bestowed upon her

Tell her, I hold as giddily[84] as fortune.

85

But ’tis that miracle[85] and queen of gems

That nature pranks[86] her in attracts my soul.

VIOLABut if she cannot love you, sir?

ORSINOI cannot be so answered.

VIOLASooth, but you must.

90

Say that some lady, as perhaps there is,

Hath for your love as great a pang of heart

As you have for Olivia: you cannot love her.

You tell her so. Must she not then be answered?[93]

ORSINOThere is no woman’s sides

95

Can bide[95] the beating of so strong a passion

As love doth give my heart, no woman’s heart

So big, to hold so much. They lack retention.[97]

Alas, their love may be called appetite,[98]

No motion[99] of the liver, but the palate,

100

That suffer[100] surfeit, cloyment and revolt.

But mine[101] is all as hungry as the sea,

And can digest as much. Make no compare[102]

Between that love a woman can bear me

And that I owe[104] Olivia.

105

VIOLAAy, but I know—

ORSINOWhat dost thou know?

VIOLAToo well what love women to men may owe:

In faith, they are as true of heart as we.

My father had a daughter loved a man,

110

As it might be, perhaps, were I a woman,

I should your lordship.

ORSINOAnd what’s her history?[112]

VIOLAA blank, my lord. She never told her love,

But let concealment, like a worm i’th’bud,

115

Feed on her damask[115] cheek: she pined in thought,

And with a green and yellow[116] melancholy

She sat like patience[117] on a monument,

Smiling at grief. Was not this love indeed?

We men may say more, swear more, but indeed

120

Our shows[120] are more than will, for still we prove

Much in our vows, but little in our love.

ORSINOBut died thy sister of her love, my boy?

VIOLAI am all the daughters of my father’s house,

And all the brothers too, and yet I know not.

125

Sir, shall I to[125] this lady?

ORSINOAy, that’s the theme.

To her in haste: give her this jewel: say Gives a jewel

My love can give no place,[128] bide no denay.

Exeunt

Act 2 Scene 5

running scene 10

Enter Sir Toby, Sir Andrew and Fabian

SIR TOBYCome thy ways,[1] Signior Fabian.

FABIANNay, I’ll come. If I lose a scruple[2] of this sport, let me be boiled to death with melancholy.

SIR TOBYWouldst thou not be glad to have the niggardly[4] rascally sheep-biter come by some notable shame?

FABIANI would exult, man. You know he brought me out o’favour with my lady about a bear-baiting[7] here.

SIR TOBYTo anger him we’ll have the bear again, and we will fool[8] him black and blue. Shall we not, Sir Andrew?

SIR ANDREWAn we do not, it is pity[10] of our lives.

Enter Maria

SIR TOBYHere comes the little villain.— To Maria How now, my metal of India?[11]

MARIAGet ye all three into the box-tree:[12] Malvolio’s coming down this walk. He has been yonder i’the sun practising behaviour[13] to his own shadow this half hour. Observe him, for the love of mockery, for I know this letter will make a contemplative[15] idiot of him. Close, in the name of jesting! They hide Lie thou there, for here comes the trout that must be caught with tickling.[16] Puts a letter on the ground

Exit

Enter Malvolio Sir Toby and the others are not heard by Malvolio

MALVOLIO’Tis but fortune, all is fortune. Maria once told me she[17] did affect me, and I have heard herself come thus near,[18] that should she fancy, it should be one of my complexion. Besides, she uses[19] me with a more exalted respect than anyone else that follows[20] her. What should I think on’t?

SIR TOBYHere’s an overweening[21] rogue!

FABIANO, peace! Contemplation makes a rare[22] turkey-cock of him. How he jets under his advanced plumes![23]

SIR ANDREW’Slight,[24] I could so beat the rogue!

SIR TOBYPeace, I say.

MALVOLIOTo be Count Malvolio!

SIR TOBYAh, rogue!

SIR ANDREWPistol[28] him, pistol him.

SIR TOBYPeace, peace!

MALVOLIOThere is example[30] for’t: the lady of the Strachy married the yeoman of the wardrobe.

SIR ANDREWFie on him, Jezebel![32]

FABIANO, peace! Now he’s deeply in:[33] look how imagination blows him.

MALVOLIOHaving been three months married to her, sitting in my state[34]—

SIR TOBYO, for a stone-bow[35] to hit him in the eye!

MALVOLIOCalling my officers[36] about me, in my branched velvet gown, having come from a day-bed,[37] where I have left Olivia sleeping—

SIR TOBYFire and brimstone!

FABIANO, peace, peace!

MALVOLIOAnd then to have the humour of state,[40] and after a demure travel of regard, telling them I know my place as I would[41] they should do theirs, to ask for my kinsman Toby[42]—

SIR TOBYBolts and shackles![43]

FABIANO peace, peace, peace! Now, now.

MALVOLIOSeven of my people,[45] with an obedient start, make out for him. I frown the while, and perchance[46] wind up my watch, or play with my— some rich jewel. Toby approaches; curtsies[47] there to me—

SIR TOBYShall this fellow live?

FABIANThough our silence be drawn from us with cars,[49] yet peace.

MALVOLIOI extend my hand to him thus, quenching my familiar[50] smile with an austere regard of control[51]—

SIR TOBYAnd does not Toby take[52] you a blow o’the lips then?

MALVOLIOSaying, ‘Cousin[53] Toby, my fortunes having cast me on your niece give me this prerogative[54] of speech’—

SIR TOBYWhat, what?

MALVOLIO‘You must amend your drunkenness.’

SIR TOBYOut, scab![57]

FABIANNay, patience, or we break the sinews[58] of our plot.

MALVOLIO‘Besides, you waste the treasure of your time with a foolish knight’—

SIR ANDREWThat’s me, I warrant you.

MALVOLIO‘One Sir Andrew’—

SIR ANDREWI knew ’twas I, for many do call me fool.

MALVOLIOWhat employment[63] have we here? Picks up the letter

FABIANNow is the woodcock[64] near the gin.

SIR TOBYO, peace! And the spirit of humours[65] intimate reading aloud to him.

MALVOLIOBy my life, this is my lady’s hand[66] these be her very C’s, her U’s and her T’s, and thus makes she her great P’s.[67] It is in contempt of question her hand.

SIR ANDREWHer C’s, her U’s and her T’s. Why that?

MALVOLIOReads ‘To the unknown beloved, this, and my good wishes.’ Her very phrases!

By your leave, wax. Soft! And the impressure[70] her Lucrece, with which she uses to seal.[71] ’Tis my lady. To whom should this be?

FABIANThis wins him, liver[72] and all.

MALVOLIO‘Jove knows I love, Reads

But who?

75

Lips, do not move.

No man must know.’

‘No man must know.’ What follows? The numbers altered![77] ‘No man must know.’ If this should be thee, Malvolio?

SIR TOBYMarry, hang thee, brock![79]

80

MALVOLIO‘I may command where I adore, Reads

But silence, like a Lucrece knife,[81]

With bloodless stroke my heart doth gore:

M.O.A.I. doth sway[83] my life.’

FABIANA fustian[84] riddle!

SIR TOBYExcellent wench, say I.

MALVOLIO‘M.O.A.I. doth sway my life.’ Nay, but first let me see, let me see, let me see.

FABIANWhat[87] dish o’poison has she dressed him.

SIR TOBYAnd with what wing[88] the staniel checks at it!

MALVOLIO‘I may command where I adore.’ Why, she may command me! I serve her,

she is my lady. Why, this is evident to any formal capacity.[90] There is no obstruction[91] in this. And the end — what should that alphabetical position portend?[92] If I could make that resemble something in me. Softly: M.O.A.I.—

SIR TOBYO, ay,[93] make up that. He is now at a cold scent.

FABIANSowter[94] will cry upon’t for all this, though it be as rank as a fox.

MALVOLIOM. — Malvolio. M. — Why, that begins my name!

FABIANDid not I say he would work it out? The cur[96] is excellent at faults.

MALVOLIOM. — But then there is no consonancy[97] in the sequel that suffers under probation:[98] ‘A’ should follow but ‘O’ does.

FABIANAnd O shall end,[99] I hope.

SIR TOBYAy, or I’ll cudgel him, and make him cry O!

MALVOLIOAnd then I comes behind.

FABIANAy, an you had any eye[102] behind you, you might see more detraction at your heels than fortunes before you.

MALVOLIOM.O.A.I. This simulation[104] is not as the former. And yet, to crush this a little, it would bow[105] to me, for every one of these letters are in my name. Soft, here follows prose: Reads ‘If this fall into thy hand, revolve.[106] In my stars I am above thee, but be not afraid of greatness: some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon ’em. Thy Fates open their hands.[108] Let thy blood and spirit embrace[109] them. And to inure thyself to what thou art like to be, cast thy humble slough[110] and appear fresh. Be opposite with a kinsman, surly with servants. Let thy tongue tang[111] arguments of state; put thyself into the trick of singularity. She thus advises thee that sighs for thee. Remember who commended thy yellow stockings, and wished to see thee ever[113] cross-gartered. I say, remember. Go to, thou art made, if thou desirest to be so. If not, let me see thee a steward still, the fellow of servants, and not worthy to touch Fortune’s fingers. Farewell. She that would alter services[116] with thee,

The Fortunate-Unhappy.[117]’

Daylight and champaign[118] discovers not more. This is open. I will be proud, I will read politic[119] authors, I will baffle Sir Toby, I will wash off gross acquaintance, I will be point-device[120] the very man. I do not now fool myself, to let imagination jade me; for every reason excites[121] to this, that my lady loves me. She did commend my yellow stockings of late, she did praise my leg being cross-gartered. And in this she manifests herself to[123] my love, and with a kind of injunction drives me to these habits[124] of her liking. I thank my stars, I am happy. I will be strange, stout, in yellow stockings, and cross-gartered, even with the swiftness of putting on. Jove and my stars be praised! Here is yet a postscript: Reads ‘Thou canst not choose but know who I am. If thou entertainest[127] my love, let it appear in thy smiling. Thy smiles become thee well: therefore in my presence still[128] smile, dear my sweet, I prithee.’ Jove, I thank thee. I will smile. I will do everything that thou wilt have me.

Exit Sir Toby, Sir Andrew and Fabian come out of hiding

FABIANI will not give my part of this sport for a pension of thousands to be paid from the Sophy.[132]

SIR TOBYI could marry this wench for this device.[133]

SIR ANDREWSo could I too.

SIR TOBYAnd ask no other dowry with her but such another jest.

Enter Maria

SIR ANDREWNor I neither.

FABIANHere comes my noble gull-catcher.[137]

SIR TOBYWilt[138] thou set thy foot o’my neck?

SIR ANDREWOr o’mine either?

SIR TOBYShall I play[140] my freedom at tray-trip, and become thy bondslave?

SIR ANDREWI’faith, or I either?

SIR TOBYWhy, thou hast put him in such a dream that when the image of it leaves him, he must run mad.

MARIANay, but say true, does it work upon him?

SIR TOBYLike aqua-vitae[145] with a midwife.

MARIAIf you will then see the fruits[146] of the sport, mark his first approach before my lady: he will come to her in yellow stockings, and ’tis a colour she abhors, and cross-gartered, a fashion she detests. And he will smile upon her, which will now be so unsuitable to her disposition, being addicted to a melancholy as she is, that it cannot but turn him into a notable contempt.[150] If you will see it, follow me.

SIR TOBYTo the gates of Tartar,[151] thou most excellent devil of wit!

SIR ANDREWI’ll make one[152] too.

Exeunt

Act 3 Scene 13.1

running scene 10 continues

Enter Viola and Clown [Feste, with a tabor]

VIOLASave[1] thee, friend, and thy music. Dost thou live by thy tabor?

FESTENo, sir, I live by the church.

VIOLAArt thou a churchman?

FESTENo such matter, sir. I do live by the church, for I do live at my house, and my house doth stand by the church.

VIOLASo thou mayst say, the king lies by[6] a beggar, if a beggar dwell near him, or the church stands[7] by thy tabor, if thy tabor stand by the church.

FESTEYou have said,[8] sir. To see this age! A sentence is but a cheveril glove to a good wit. How quickly the wrong side may be turned outward!

VIOLANay, that’s certain. They that dally nicely[10] with words may quickly make them wanton.[11]

FESTEI would, therefore, my sister had had no name, sir.

VIOLAWhy, man?

FESTEWhy, sir, her name’s a word, and to dally with that word might make my sister wanton. But indeed, words are very rascals since bonds[15] disgraced them.

VIOLAThy reason, man?

FESTETroth, sir, I can yield[17] you none without words, and words are grown so false, I am loath to prove reason with them.

VIOLAI warrant thou art a merry fellow and car’st for nothing.

FESTENot so, sir, I do care for something. But in my conscience, sir, I do not care for you: if that be to care for nothing, sir, I would it would make you invisible.

VIOLAArt not thou the lady Olivia’s fool?

FESTENo, indeed, sir, the lady Olivia has no folly. She will keep no fool, sir, till she be married, and fools are as like husbands as pilchards[24] are to herrings: the husband’s the bigger. I am indeed not her fool, but her corrupter of words.

VIOLAI saw thee late[26] at the count Orsino’s.

FESTEFoolery, sir, does walk about the orb[27] like the sun, it shines everywhere. I would be sorry, sir, but[28] the fool should be as oft with your master as with my mistress. I think I saw your wisdom[29] there.

VIOLANay, an thou pass upon[30] me, I’ll no more with thee. Hold, there’s expenses for thee. Gives money

FESTENow Jove, in his next commodity[32] of hair, send thee a beard!

VIOLABy my troth I’ll tell thee, I am almost sick for one[33]— Aside though I would not have it grow on my chin.— Is thy lady within?

FESTEWould not a pair of these[35] have bred, sir?

VIOLAYes, being kept together and put to use.[36]

FESTEI would play Lord Pandarus[37] of Phrygia, sir, to bring a Cressida to this Troilus.

VIOLAI understand you, sir. ’Tis well begged. Gives more money

FESTEThe matter, I hope, is not great, sir; begging but a beggar. Cressida[39] was a beggar. My lady is within, sir. I will conster[40] to them whence you come. Who you are and what you would are out[41] of my welkin. I might say ‘element’, but the word is over-worn.

Exit

VIOLAThis fellow is wise enough to play the fool,

And to do that well craves[44] a kind of wit:

45

He must observe their mood on whom he jests,

The quality[46] of persons, and the time,

And, like the haggard,[47] check at every feather

That comes before his eye. This is a practice[48]

As full of labour as a wise man’s art,

50

For folly that he wisely shows is fit;[50]

But wise men, folly-fall’n,[51] quite taint their wit.

Enter Sir Toby and Andrew

SIR TOBYSave you, gentleman.

VIOLAAnd you, sir.

SIR ANDREWDieu[54] vous garde, monsieur.

VIOLAEt[55] vous aussi. Votre serviteur.

SIR ANDREWI hope, sir, you are, and I am yours.

SIR TOBYWill you encounter[57] the house? My niece is desirous you should enter, if your trade[58] be to her.

VIOLAI am bound to[59] your niece, sir. I mean she is the list of my voyage.

SIR TOBYTaste[60] your legs, sir, put them to motion.

VIOLAMy legs do better understand[61] me, sir, than I understand what you mean by bidding me taste my legs.

SIR TOBYI mean, to go, sir, to enter.

VIOLAI will answer you with gait and entrance.[64] But we are prevented.

Enter Olivia and Gentlewoman [Maria]

Most excellent accomplished lady, the[65] heavens rain odours on you!

SIR ANDREWThat youth’s a rare courtier. To Toby ‘Rain odours’, well.

VIOLAMy matter hath no voice,[67] lady, but to your own most pregnant and vouchsafed[68] ear.

SIR ANDREW‘Odours,’ ‘pregnant’ and ‘vouchsafed’. To Toby I’ll get ’em all three all ready.[69]

OLIVIALet the garden door be shut, and leave me to my hearing.[70]—

[Exeunt Sir Toby, Sir Andrew and Maria]

Give me your hand, sir.

VIOLAMy duty, madam, and most humble service.

OLIVIAWhat is your name?

VIOLACesario is your servant’s name, fair princess.

75

OLIVIAMy servant, sir? ’Twas[75] never merry world

Since lowly feigning[76] was called compliment.

You’re servant to the count Orsino, youth.

VIOLAAnd he is yours,[78] and his must needs be yours:

Your servant’s servant is your servant, madam.

80

OLIVIAFor[80] him, I think not on him: for his thoughts,

Would they were blanks,[81] rather than filled with me!

VIOLAMadam, I come to whet your gentle thoughts

On his behalf.

OLIVIAO, by your leave, I pray you.

85

I bade you never speak again of him;

But, would you undertake another suit,[86]

I had rather hear you to solicit[87] that

Than music[88] from the spheres.

VIOLADear lady—

90

OLIVIAGive me leave,[90] beseech you. I did send,

After the last enchantment you did here,

A ring in chase of you: so did I abuse[92]

Myself, my servant and, I fear me, you.

Under your hard construction[94] must I sit,

95

To force[95] that on you, in a shameful cunning,

Which you knew none of yours. What might you think?

Have you not set mine honour at the stake[97]

And baited it with all th’unmuzzled thoughts

That tyrannous heart can think? To one of your receiving[99]

100

Enough is shown: a cypress,[100] not a bosom,

Hides my heart. So, let me hear you speak.

VIOLAI pity you.

OLIVIAThat’s a degree[103] to love.

VIOLANo, not a grize,[104] for ’tis a vulgar proof,

105

That very oft we pity enemies.

OLIVIAWhy, then, methinks ’tis time to smile again.[106]

O, world, how apt the poor are to be proud!

If one should be a prey, how much the better

To fall before the lion[109] than the wolf!

Clock strikes

110

The clock upbraids me with the waste of time.

Be not afraid, good youth, I will not have you:

And yet, when wit and youth is come to harvest,

Your wife is like to reap a proper[113] man.

There lies your way, due west.

115

VIOLAThen westward-ho! Grace and good disposition[115]

Attend your ladyship!

You’ll[117] nothing, madam, to my lord by me?

OLIVIAStay.

I prithee tell me what thou think’st of me.

120

VIOLAThat you do think you are not what you are.[120]

OLIVIAIf I think so, I think the same of you.

VIOLAThen think you right: I am not what I am.

OLIVIAI would you were as I would have you be.

VIOLAWould it be better, madam, than I am?

125

I[125] wish it might, for now I am your fool.

OLIVIAO, what a deal[126] of scorn looks beautiful

In the contempt and anger of his lip!

A murd’rous guilt shows not itself more soon

Than love that would seem hid: love’s[129] night is noon.

130

Cesario, by the roses of the spring,

By maidhood,[131] honour, truth and everything,

I love thee so that, maugre[132] all thy pride,

Nor[133] wit nor reason can my passion hide.

Do not extort[134] thy reasons from this clause,

135

For that[135] I woo, thou therefore hast no cause,

But rather reason[136] thus with reason fetter:

Love sought is good, but given unsought is better.

VIOLABy innocence I swear, and by my youth,

I have one heart, one bosom and one truth,

140

And that no woman has, nor never none

Shall mistress be of it, save I alone.

And so adieu, good madam. Never more

Will I my master’s tears to you deplore.[143]

OLIVIAYet come again, for thou perhaps mayst move

145

That heart which now abhors, to like his love.

Exeunt

Act 3 Scene 2

running scene 11

Enter Sir Toby, Sir Andrew and Fabian

SIR ANDREWNo, faith, I’ll not stay a jot longer.

SIR TOBYThy reason, dear venom,[2] give thy reason.

FABIANYou must needs yield your reason, Sir Andrew.

SIR ANDREWMarry, I saw your niece do more favours to the count’s servingman than ever she bestowed upon me. I saw’t i’th’orchard.[5]

SIR TOBYDid she see thee the while,[6] old boy? Tell me that.

SIR ANDREWAs plain as I see you now.

FABIANThis was a great argument[8] of love in her toward you.

SIR ANDREW’Slight, will you make an ass o’me?

FABIANI will prove it[10] legitimate, sir, upon the oaths of judgement and reason.

SIR TOBYAnd they have been grand-jurymen since before Noah[11] was a sailor.

FABIANShe did show favour to the youth in your sight only to exasperate you, to awake your dormouse[13] valour, to put fire in your heart and brimstone in your liver. You should then have accosted her, and with some excellent jests, fire-new[14] from the mint, you should have banged[15] the youth into dumbness. This was looked for at your hand, and this was balked.[16] The double gilt of this opportunity you let time wash off, and you are now sailed into the north[17] of my lady’s opinion, where you will hang like an icicle on a Dutchman’s beard, unless you do redeem it by some laudable attempt either of valour or policy.[19]

SIR ANDREWAn’t be any way, it must be with valour, for policy I hate: I had as lief[20] be a Brownist[21] as a politician.

SIR TOBYWhy, then, build me[22] thy fortunes upon the basis of valour. Challenge me the count’s youth to fight with him. Hurt him in eleven places: my niece shall take note of it. And assure thyself, there is no love-broker[24] in the world can more prevail in man’s commendation with woman than report of valour.

FABIANThere is no way but this, Sir Andrew.

SIR ANDREWWill either of you bear me a challenge to him?

SIR TOBYGo, write it in a martial hand.[28] Be curst and brief: it is no matter how witty, so[29] it be eloquent and full of invention. Taunt him with the licence of ink. If thou thou’st[30] him some thrice, it shall not be amiss. And as many lies as will lie in thy sheet of paper, although the sheet were big enough for the bed of Ware[31] in England, set ’em down. Go, about it. Let there be gall[32] enough in thy ink, though thou write with a goose-pen,[33] no matter. About it.

SIR ANDREWWhere shall I find you?

SIR TOBYWe’ll call thee at the cubiculo.[35] Go.

Exit Sir Andrew

FABIANThis is a dear manikin[36] to you, Sir Toby.

SIR TOBYI have been dear[37] to him, lad, some two thousand strong, or so.

FABIANWe shall have a rare[38] letter from him; but you’ll not deliver’t?

SIR TOBYNever trust me, then. And by all means stir on the youth to an answer.

I think oxen and wainropes[40] cannot hale them together. For Andrew, if he were opened and you find so much blood in his liver as will clog the foot of a flea, I’ll eat the rest of th’anatomy.[42]

FABIANAnd his opposite,[43] the youth, bears in his visage no great presage of cruelty.

Enter Maria

SIR TOBYLook where the youngest wren[44] of mine comes.

MARIAIf you desire the spleen,[45] and will laugh yourselves into stitches, follow me. Yond gull[46] Malvolio is turned heathen, a very renegado; for there is no Christian that means to be saved by believing rightly can ever believe such impossible passages of grossness.[48] He’s in yellow stockings.

SIR TOBYAnd cross-gartered?

MARIAMost villainously:[50] like a pedant that keeps a school i’th’church. I have dogged[51] him like his murderer. He does obey every point of the letter that I dropped to betray him: he does smile his face into more lines than is in the new[52] map with the augmentation of the Indies. You have not seen such a thing as ’tis. I can hardly forbear[54] hurling things at him. I know my lady will strike him. If she do, he’ll smile and take’t for a great favour.

SIR TOBYCome, bring us, bring us where he is.

Exeunt

Act 3 Scene 3

running scene 12

Enter Sebastian and Antonio

SEBASTIANI would not by my will have troubled you,

But since you make your pleasure of your pains,

I will no further chide[3] you.

ANTONIOI could not stay behind you: my desire,

5

More sharp than filèd[5] steel, did spur me forth,

And not all[6] love to see you, though so much

As might have drawn one to a longer voyage,

But jealousy[8] what might befall your travel,

Being skill-less in[9] these parts, which to a stranger,

10

Unguided and unfriended, often prove

Rough and unhospitable. My willing love,

The rather[12] by these arguments of fear,

Set forth in your pursuit.

SEBASTIANMy kind Antonio,

15

I can no other answer make but thanks,

And thanks, and ever oft[16] good turns

Are shuffled off[17] with such uncurrent pay.

But were my worth,[18] as is my conscience, firm,

You should find better dealing.[19] What’s to do?

20

Shall we go see the relics[20] of this town?

ANTONIOTomorrow, sir. Best first go see your lodging.

SEBASTIANI am not weary, and ’tis long to night.

I pray you let us satisfy our eyes

With the memorials and the things of fame

25

That do renown[25] this city.

ANTONIOWould you’d pardon me.

I do not without danger walk these streets.

Once in a sea-fight gainst the count his[28] galleys

I did some service, of such note indeed,

30

That were I ta’en here it[30] would scarce be answered.

SEBASTIANBelike[31] you slew great number of his people.

ANTONIOTh’offence is not of such a bloody nature,

Albeit[33] the quality of the time and quarrel

Might well have given us bloody argument.[34]

35

It might have since been answered[35] in repaying

What we took from them, which for traffic’s[36] sake,

Most of our city did. Only myself stood out,

For which, if I be lapsèd[38] in this place,

I shall pay dear.

40

SEBASTIANDo not then walk too open.[40]

ANTONIOIt doth not fit[41] me. Hold, sir, here’s my purse. Gives his purse

In the south suburbs, at the Elephant,[42]

Is best to lodge. I will bespeak our diet,[43]

Whiles you beguile[44] the time and feed your knowledge

45

With viewing of the town. There shall you have[45] me.

SEBASTIANWhy I your purse?

ANTONIOHaply[47] your eye shall light upon some toy

You have desire to purchase, and your store,[48]

I think, is not for idle markets,[49] sir.

50

SEBASTIANI’ll be your purse-bearer and leave you

For an hour.

ANTONIOTo th’Elephant.

SEBASTIANI do remember.

Exeunt

Act 3 Scene 4

running scene 13

Enter Olivia and Maria

OLIVIAI have sent after him:[1] he says he’ll come. Aside

How shall I feast him? What bestow of[2] him?

For youth is bought more oft than begged or borrowed.

I speak too loud.—

5

Where’s Malvolio? He is sad[5] and civil,

And suits well for a servant with my fortunes.

Where is Malvolio?

MARIAHe’s coming, madam, but in very strange manner. He is sure possessed,[8] madam.

OLIVIAWhy, what’s the matter? Does he rave?

MARIANo, madam, he does nothing but smile: your ladyship were best to have some guard about you, if he come, for sure the man is tainted in’s wits.

OLIVIAGo call him hither.— I am as mad as he, Maria goes to call Malvolio If sad and merry madness equal be.

Enter Malvolio [cross-gartered and in yellow stockings]

How now, Malvolio?

MALVOLIOSweet lady, ho, ho.

OLIVIASmilest thou? I sent for thee upon a sad occasion.

MALVOLIOSad,[18] lady? I could be sad: this does make some obstruction in the blood, this cross-gartering, but what of that? If it please the eye of one, it is with me as the very true sonnet[20] is, ‘Please one, and please all’.

OLIVIAWhy, how dost thou, man? What is the matter with thee?

MALVOLIONot black[22] in my mind, though yellow in my legs. It did come to his hands, and commands shall be executed. I think we do know the sweet Roman hand.[23]

OLIVIAWilt thou go to bed,[24] Malvolio?

MALVOLIOTo bed? Ay, sweetheart, and I’ll come to thee.

OLIVIAGod comfort thee! Why dost thou smile so and kiss thy hand[26] so oft?

MARIAHow do you, Malvolio?

MALVOLIOAt your request! Yes, nightingales answer daws.[28]

MARIAWhy appear you with this ridiculous boldness before my lady?

MALVOLIO‘Be not afraid of greatness.’ ’Twas well writ.

OLIVIAWhat meanest thou by that, Malvolio?

MALVOLIO‘Some are born great’—

OLIVIAHa?

MALVOLIO‘Some achieve greatness’—

OLIVIAWhat say’st thou?

MALVOLIO‘And some have greatness thrust upon them.’

OLIVIAHeaven restore thee!

MALVOLIO‘Remember who commended thy yellow stockings’—

OLIVIAThy yellow stockings?

MALVOLIO‘And wished to see thee cross-gartered.’

OLIVIACross-gartered?

MALVOLIO‘Go to, thou art made, if thou desirest to be so’—

OLIVIAAm I made?

MALVOLIO‘If not, let me see thee a servant still.’

OLIVIAWhy, this is very midsummer[45] madness.

Enter Servant

SERVANTMadam, the young gentleman of the count Orsino’s is returned. I could hardly[47] entreat him back. He attends your ladyship’s pleasure.

OLIVIAI’ll come to him.

[Exit Servant]

Good Maria, let this fellow be looked to. Where’s my cousin Toby? Let some of my people have a special care of him. I would not have him miscarry[50] for the half of my dowry.

Exeunt [Olivia and Maria]

MALVOLIOO, ho! Do you come near[52] me now? No worse man than Sir Toby to look to me! This concurs directly with the letter: she sends him on purpose that I may appear stubborn to him, for she incites me to that in the letter. ‘Cast thy humble slough,’ says she, ‘be opposite with a kinsman, surly with servants, let thy tongue tang with arguments of state, put thyself into the trick of singularity.’ And consequently[57] sets down the manner how: as, a sad face, a reverend carriage, a slow tongue, in the habit[58] of some sir of note, and so forth. I have limed her, but it is Jove’s doing, and Jove make me thankful. And when she went away now, ‘Let this fellow[60] be looked to.’ Fellow? Not Malvolio, nor after my degree, but fellow. Why, everything adheres together, that no dram[61] of a scruple, no scruple of a scruple, no obstacle, no incredulous[62] or unsafe circumstance — What can be said? Nothing that can be can come between me and the full prospect of my hopes. Well, Jove, not I, is the doer of this, and he is to be thanked.

Enter Toby, Fabian and Maria

SIR TOBYWhich way is he, in the name of sanctity? If all the devils of hell be drawn[65] in little, and Legion[66] himself possessed him, yet I’ll speak to him.

FABIANHere he is, here he is. How is’t with you, sir? How is’t with you, man?

MALVOLIOGo off. I discard you. Let me enjoy my private.[68] Go off.

MARIALo,[69] how hollow the fiend speaks within him! Did not I tell you? Sir Toby, my

lady prays you to have a[70] care of him.

MALVOLIOAh, ha, does she so?

SIR TOBYGo to, go to. Peace, peace. We must deal gently with him. Let me alone.[72]—How do you, Malvolio? How is’t with you? What, man, defy the devil! Consider, he’s an enemy to mankind.

MALVOLIODo you know what you say?

MARIALa[76] you, an you speak ill of the devil, how he takes it at heart! Pray God, he be not bewitched!

FABIANCarry his water[78] to th’wise woman.

MARIAMarry, and it shall be done tomorrow morning, if I live. My lady would not

lose him for more than I’ll say.

MALVOLIOHow now, mistress?

MARIAO Lord!

SIR TOBYPrithee hold thy peace, this is not the way. Do you not see you move[83] him? Let me alone with him.

FABIANNo way but gentleness, gently, gently. The fiend is rough, and will not be roughly used.

SIR TOBYWhy, how now, my bawcock?[87] How dost thou, chuck?

MALVOLIOSir!

SIR TOBYAy, Biddy,[89] come with me. What, man, ’tis not for gravity to play at cherry-pit[90] with Satan. Hang him, foul collier!

MARIAGet him to say his prayers, good Sir Toby, get him to pray.

MALVOLIOMy prayers, minx?

MARIANo, I warrant you he will not hear of godliness.

MALVOLIOGo, hang yourselves all! You are idle[94] shallow things. I am not of your element.[95] You shall know more hereafter.

Exit

SIR TOBYIs’t possible?

FABIANIf this were played upon a stage now, I could condemn it as an improbable fiction.

SIR TOBYHis very genius[99] hath taken the infection of the device, man.

MARIANay, pursue him now, lest the device take[100] air and taint.

FABIANWhy, we shall make him mad indeed.

MARIAThe house will be the quieter.

SIR TOBYCome, we’ll have him in[103] a dark room and bound. My niece is already in the belief that he’s mad. We may carry[104] it thus, for our pleasure and his penance, till our very pastime, tired out of breath, prompt us to have mercy on him, at which time we will bring the device to the bar[106] and crown thee for a finder of madmen. But see, but see.

Enter Sir Andrew

FABIANMore matter[108] for a May morning.

SIR ANDREWHere’s the challenge, read it. Shows a paper I warrant[109] there’s vinegar and pepper in’t.

FABIANIs’t so saucy?[110]

SIR ANDREWAy, is’t, I warrant[111] him. Do but read.

SIR TOBYGive me. Reads ‘Youth, whatsoever thou art, thou art but a scurvy[112] fellow.’

FABIANGood, and valiant.

SIR TOBY Reads ‘Wonder not, nor admire[114] not in thy mind, why I do call thee so, for I will show thee no reason for’t.’

FABIANA good note,[116] that keeps you from the blow of the law.

SIR TOBY Reads ‘Thou comest to the lady Olivia, and in my sight she uses thee kindly. But thou liest[118] in thy throat, that is not the matter I challenge thee for.’

FABIANVery brief, and to exceeding good sense— Aside less.

SIR TOBY‘I will waylay thee going home, where if it be thy chance to kill me’—Reads

FABIANGood.

SIR TOBY Reads ‘Thou killest me like a rogue and a villain.’

FABIANStill you keep o’th’windy[123] side of the law. Good.

SIR TOBY Reads ‘Fare thee well, and God have mercy upon one of our souls! He may have mercy upon mine, but my hope[125] is better, and so look to thyself. Thy friend, as thou usest him, and thy sworn enemy,

Andrew Aguecheek.’

If this letter move[128] him not, his legs cannot. I’ll give’t him.

MARIAYou may have very fit occasion for’t: he is now in some commerce[129] with my lady, and will by and by depart.

SIR TOBYGo, Sir Andrew. Scout me[131] for him at the corner of the orchard like a bumbaily:[132] so soon as ever thou see’st him, draw, and as thou draw’st swear horrible,[133] for it comes to pass oft that a terrible oath, with a swaggering accent sharply twanged off,[134] gives manhood more approbation than ever proof itself would have earned him. Away!

SIR ANDREWNay, let me alone[136] for swearing.

Exit

SIR TOBYNow will not I deliver his letter, for the behaviour of the young gentleman gives him out to be of good capacity[138] and breeding. His employment between his lord and my niece confirms no less: therefore this letter, being so excellently ignorant, will breed no terror in the youth. He will find it comes from a clodpole.[140] But, sir, I will deliver his challenge by word of mouth; set upon Aguecheek a notable report of valour, and drive the gentleman, as I know his youth[142] will aptly receive it, into a most hideous[143] opinion of his rage, skill, fury and impetuosity. This will so fright them both that they will kill one another by the look, like cockatrices.[145]

Enter Olivia and Viola

FABIANHere he comes with your niece. Give them way[146] till he take leave, and presently after him.

SIR TOBYI will meditate the while upon some horrid[148] message for a challenge.

[Exeunt Sir Toby, Fabian and Maria]

OLIVIAI have said too much unto a heart of stone

150

And laid[150] mine honour too unchary on’t.

There’s something in me that reproves my fault,

But such a headstrong potent fault it is,

That it but mocks reproof.

VIOLAWith the same ’haviour[154] that your passion bears

155

Goes on my master’s griefs.

OLIVIAHere, wear this jewel[156] for me, ’tis my picture.

Refuse it not. It hath no tongue to vex you.

And I beseech you come again tomorrow.

What shall you ask of me that I’ll deny,

160

That honour saved[160] may upon asking give?

VIOLANothing but this: your true love for my master.

OLIVIAHow with mine honour may I give him that

Which I have given to you?

VIOLAI will acquit[164] you.

165

OLIVIAWell, come again tomorrow. Fare thee well.

A fiend like thee might bear my soul to hell.

[Exit]

Enter Toby and Fabian

SIR TOBYGentleman, God save thee.

VIOLAAnd you, sir.

SIR TOBYThat[169] defence thou hast, betake thee to’t. Of what nature the wrongs are

thou hast done him, I know not, but thy intercepter,[170] full of despite, bloody as the hunter, attends thee at the orchard-end. Dismount[171] thy tuck, be yare in thy preparation, for thy assailant is quick, skilful and deadly.

VIOLAYou mistake, sir, I am sure. No man hath any quarrel to[173] me: my remembrance is very free and clear from any image of offence done to any man.

SIR TOBYYou’ll find it otherwise, I assure you: therefore, if you hold your life at any price,[176] betake you to your guard, for your opposite hath in him what youth, strength, skill and wrath can furnish man withal.[177]

VIOLAI pray you, sir, what is he?

SIR TOBYHe is knight, dubbed[179] with unhatched rapier and on carpet consideration, but he is a devil in private brawl. Souls and bodies hath he divorced three, and his incensement[181] at this moment is so implacable that satisfaction can be none but by pangs of death and sepulchre.[182] Hob, nob, is his word: give’t or take’t.

VIOLAI will return again into the house and desire some conduct[183] of the lady. I am no fighter. I have heard of some kind of men that put quarrels purposely on others, to taste[185] their valour. Belike this is a man of that quirk.

SIR TOBYSir, no. His indignation derives itself out of a very competent[186] injury: therefore, get you on and give him his desire. Back you shall not to the house, unless you undertake that[188] with me which with as much safety you might answer him: therefore, on, or strip your sword stark naked, for meddle[189] you must, that’s certain, or forswear[190] to wear iron about you.

VIOLAThis is as uncivil as strange. I beseech you do me this courteous office,[191] as to know of the knight what my offence to him is. It is something of my negligence, nothing of my purpose.

SIR TOBYI will do so. Signior Fabian, stay you by this gentleman till my return.

Exit Toby

VIOLAPray you, sir, do you know of this matter?

FABIANI know the knight is incensed against you, even to a mortal arbitrement,[196] but nothing of the circumstance more.

VIOLAI beseech you what manner of man is he?

FABIANNothing[199] of that wonderful promise, to read him by his form, as you are like to find him in the proof of his valour. He is, indeed, sir, the most skilful, bloody and fatal opposite that you could possibly have found in any part of Illyria. Will you walk towards him? I will make your peace with him if I can.

VIOLAI shall be much bound to you for’t: I am one that had rather go with sir priest than sir knight. I care not who knows so much of my mettle.[204]

Exeunt

Enter Toby and Andrew

SIR TOBYWhy, man, he’s a very devil. I have not seen such a firago.[205] I had a pass with him, rapier, scabbard and all, and he gives me the stuck in[206] with such a mortal[207] motion that it is inevitable. And on the answer, he pays you as surely as your feet hits the ground they step on. They say he has been fencer to[208] the Sophy.

SIR ANDREWPox[209] on’t, I’ll not meddle with him.

SIR TOBYAy, but he will not now be pacified. Fabian can scarce hold[210] him yonder.

SIR ANDREWPlague on’t, an I thought he had been valiant and so cunning[211] in fence, I’d have seen him damned ere[212] I’d have challenged him. Let him let the matter slip, and I’ll give him my horse, grey Capilet.

SIR TOBYI’ll make the motion.[214] Aside Stand here, make a good show on’t.— This shall end without the perdition of souls.[215] Marry, I’ll ride your horse as well as I ride you.

Enter Fabian and Viola

I have his horse to take up[216] the quarrel. Aside to Fabian I have persuaded him the youth’s a devil.

FABIANHe is as horribly conceited[217] of him, and pants and looks pale, as if a bear were at his heels.

SIR TOBYThere’s no remedy, sir, he will fight with you for’s oath[219] sake. To Viola Marry, he hath better bethought him of his quarrel,[220] and he finds that now scarce to be worth talking of: therefore draw for the supportance[221] of his vow. He protests he will not hurt you.

VIOLAPray God defend me! Aside A[223] little thing would make me tell them how much I lack of a man.

FABIANGive ground if you see him furious. To Viola

SIR TOBYCome, Sir Andrew, there’s no remedy. The gentleman will, for his honour’s sake, have one bout with you. He cannot by the duello[227] avoid it. But he has promised me, as he is a gentleman and a soldier, he will not hurt you. Come on, to’t.

SIR ANDREWPray God he keep his oath!

Enter Antonio

VIOLAI do assure you, ’tis against my will. To Fabian/They draw their swords

ANTONIOPut up[232] your sword. If this young gentleman

Have done offence, I take the fault on me.

If you offend him, I for him defy you.

235

SIR TOBYYou, sir? Why, what are you?

ANTONIOOne, sir, that for his love dares yet do more

Than you have heard him brag to you he will.

SIR TOBYNay, if you be an undertaker,[238] I am for you. They draw

Enter Officers

FABIANO, good Sir Toby, hold! Here come the officers.

SIR TOBYI’ll be with you anon.[240] To Antonio

VIOLAPray, sir, put your sword up, if you please. To Sir Andrew

SIRANDREWMarry, will I, sir. And for that[242] I promised you, I’ll be as good as my word. He[243] will bear you easily and reins well.

FIRST OFFICERThis is the man; do thy office. Indicates Antonio

SECOND OFFICERAntonio, I arrest thee at the suit[245] of Count Orsino.

ANTONIOYou do mistake me, sir.

FIRST OFFICERNo, sir, no jot. I know your favour[247] well,

Though now you have no sea-cap on your head.

Take him away: he knows I know him well.

250

ANTONIOI must obey.— This comes with seeking you. To Viola

But there’s no remedy, I shall answer[251] it.

What will you do, now my necessity

Makes me to ask you for my purse? It grieves me

Much more for what I cannot do for you

255

Than what befalls myself. You stand amazed;[255]

But be of comfort.

SECOND OFFICERCome, sir, away.

ANTONIOI must entreat of you some of that money. To Viola

VIOLAWhat money, sir?

260

For the fair kindness you have showed me here,

And part[261] being prompted by your present trouble,

Out of my lean and low ability

I’ll lend you something. My having[263] is not much.

I’ll make division of my present[264] with you.

265

Hold, there’s half my coffer.[265] Offers money

ANTONIOWill you deny[266] me now?

Is’t possible that my deserts[267] to you

Can lack persuasion?[268] Do not tempt my misery,

Lest that it make me so unsound[269] a man

270

As to upbraid you with those kindnesses

That I have done for you.

VIOLAI know of none,

Nor know I you by voice or any feature.

I hate ingratitude more in a man

275

Than lying, vainness,[275] babbling, drunkenness,

Or any taint of vice whose strong corruption

Inhabits our frail blood.

ANTONIOO heavens themselves!

SECOND OFFICERCome, sir, I pray you go.

280

ANTONIOLet me speak a little. This youth that you see here

I snatched one half out of the jaws of death,

Relieved him with such sanctity[282] of love,

And to his image,[283] which methought did promise

Most venerable worth,[284] did I devotion.

285

FIRST OFFICERWhat’s that to us? The time goes by. Away!

ANTONIOBut O, how vile an idol proves this god.

Thou hast, Sebastian, done good feature[287] shame.

In nature there’s no blemish but the mind.

None can be called deformed but the unkind.[289]

290

Virtue is beauty, but the beauteous evil

Are empty trunks[291] o’erflourished by the devil.

FIRST OFFICERThe man grows mad. Away with him! Come, come, sir.

ANTONIOLead me on.

Exit [with Officers]

VIOLAMethinks his words do from such passion fly, Aside

295

That he believes himself, so do not I.

Prove true, imagination, O, prove true,

That I, dear brother, be now ta’en for you!

SIR TOBYCome hither, knight. Come hither, Fabian. We’ll whisper o’er a couplet or

two of most sage[299] saws. They stand aside

300

VIOLAHe named Sebastian. I my brother know

Yet living in my glass,[301] even such and so

In favour[302] was my brother, and he went

Still[303] in this fashion, colour, ornament,

For him I imitate. O, if it prove,[304]

305

Tempests are kind and salt waves fresh in love.

[Exit]

SIR TOBYA very dishonest[306] paltry boy, and more a coward than a hare. His dishonesty appears in leaving his friend here in necessity and denying him. And for his cowardship, ask Fabian.

FABIANA coward, a most devout coward, religious[309] in it.

SIR ANDREW’Slid,[310] I’ll after him again and beat him.

SIR TOBYDo, cuff him soundly, but never draw thy sword.

SIR ANDREWAn I do not—

FABIANCome, let’s see the event.[313]

SIR TOBYI dare lay any money ’twill be nothing yet.[314]

Exeunt

Act 4 Scene 1

running scene 14

Enter Sebastian and Clown [Feste]

FESTEWill you make me believe that I am not sent for you?

SEBASTIANGo to, go to, thou art a foolish fellow.

Let me be clear of thee.

FESTEWell held out,[4] i’faith! No, I do not know you, nor I am not sent to you by my lady, to bid you come speak with her, nor your name is not Master Cesario, nor this is not my nose neither. Nothing that is so is so.

SEBASTIANI prithee vent[7] thy folly somewhere else. Thou know’st not me.

FESTEVent my folly! He has heard that word of[8] some great man and now applies it to a fool. Vent my folly! I am afraid this great lubber[9] the world will prove a cockney.[10] I prithee now ungird thy strangeness and tell me what I shall vent to my lady. Shall I vent to her that thou art coming?

SEBASTIANI prithee, foolish Greek,[12] depart from me. Gives money There’s money for thee. If you tarry[13] longer, I shall give worse payment.

FESTEBy my troth, thou hast an open[14] hand. These wise men that give fools money get themselves a good report[15] — after fourteen years’ purchase.

Enter Andrew, Toby and Fabian

SIR ANDREWNow, sir, have I met you again? Strikes Sebastian There’s for you.

SEBASTIANWhy, there’s for thee, and there, and there. Beats Sir Andrew Are all the people mad?

SIR TOBYHold, sir, or I’ll throw your dagger o’er the house.

FESTEThis will I tell my lady straight.[19] I would not be in some of your coats for twopence.

[Exit]

SIR TOBYCome on, sir, hold.[21]

SIR ANDREWNay, let him alone. I’ll go another way to work with him. I’ll have an action of battery[22] against him, if there be any law in Illyria. Though I struck him first, yet it’s no matter for that.

SEBASTIANLet go thy hand.

SIR TOBYCome, sir, I will not let you go. Come, my young soldier, put up your iron.[26] You are well fleshed.[27] Come on.

SEBASTIANI will be free from thee. What wouldst thou now? If thou darest tempt me further, draw thy sword.

SIR TOBYWhat, what? Nay, then I must have an ounce or two of this malapert[30] blood from you.

Enter Olivia

OLIVIAHold, Toby. On thy life I charge thee, hold!

SIR TOBYMadam!

OLIVIAWill it be ever thus? Ungracious wretch,

35

Fit for the mountains and the barbarous caves,

Where manners ne’er were preached! Out of my sight!—

Be not offended, dear Cesario.—

Rudesby,[38] be gone!

[Exeunt Sir Toby, Sir Andrew and Fabian]

I prithee, gentle friend,

Let thy fair wisdom, not thy passion, sway

40

In this uncivil[40] and unjust extent

Against thy peace. Go with me to my house,

And hear thou there how many fruitless pranks

This ruffian hath botched up,[43] that thou thereby

Mayst smile at this. Thou shalt not choose but go.

45

Do not deny. Beshrew[45] his soul for me,

He started[46] one poor heart of mine in thee.

SEBASTIANWhat relish[47] is in this? How runs the stream? Aside

Or[48] I am mad, or else this is a dream.

Let fancy[49] still my sense in Lethe steep.

50

If it be thus to dream, still[50] let me sleep!

OLIVIANay, come, I prithee. Would thou’dst[51] be ruled by me!

SEBASTIANMadam, I will.

OLIVIAO, say so, and so be!

Exeunt

Act 4 Scene 2

running scene 15

Enter Maria and Clown [Feste]

MARIANay, I prithee put on this gown and this beard. Hands him a gown and beard Make him believe thou art Sir[1] Topas the curate.[2] Do it quickly. I’ll call Sir Toby the whilst.

[Exit]

FESTEWell, I’ll put it on, and I will dissemble[3] myself in’t, and I would I were the first that ever dissembled[4] in such a gown. Puts on gown and beard I am not tall enough to become the function[5] well, nor lean enough to be thought a good student. But to be said an honest man and a good housekeeper[6] goes as fairly as to say a careful man and a great scholar. The competitors[7] enter.

Enter Toby [and Maria]

SIR TOBYJove bless thee, Master Parson.

FESTEBonos dies,[9] Sir Toby. For, as the old hermit of Prague that never saw pen and ink very wittily said to a niece of King Gorboduc,[10] ‘That that is, is.’ So I, being Master Parson, am Master Parson; for what is ‘that’ but ‘that’, and ‘is’ but ‘is’?

SIR TOBYTo him, Sir Topas.

FESTEWhat, ho, I say? Peace in this prison.

SIR TOBYThe knave counterfeits well, a good knave.

MALVOLIOWho calls there?

Within

FESTESir Topas the curate, who comes to visit Malvolio the lunatic.

MALVOLIOSir Topas, Sir Topas, good Sir Topas, go to my lady.

FESTEOut, hyperbolical[18] fiend! How vexest thou this man! Talkest thou nothing but of ladies?

SIR TOBYWell said, Master Parson.

MALVOLIOSir Topas, never was man thus wronged. Good Sir Topas, do not think I am mad. They have laid me here in hideous darkness.

FESTEFie, thou dishonest Satan! I call thee by the most modest terms,[23] for I am one of those gentle ones that will use the devil himself with courtesy. Sayest thou that house[25] is dark?

MALVOLIOAs hell, Sir Topas.

FESTEWhy it hath bay windows transparent as barricadoes,[27] and the clerestories toward the south north are as lustrous as ebony, and yet complainest thou of obstruction?

MALVOLIOI am not mad, Sir Topas. I say to you, this house is dark.

FESTEMadman, thou errest. I say there is no darkness but ignorance, in which thou art more puzzled[32] than the Egyptians in their fog.

MALVOLIOI say, this house is as dark as ignorance, though ignorance were as dark as hell; and I say there was never man thus abused.[34] I am no more mad than you are. Make the trial of it in any constant[35] question.

FESTEWhat is the opinion of Pythagoras[36] concerning wild fowl?

MALVOLIOThat the soul of our grandam[37] might happily inhabit a bird.

FESTEWhat think’st thou of his opinion?

MALVOLIOI think nobly of the soul, and no way approve his opinion.

FESTEFare thee well. Remain thou still in darkness. Thou shalt hold th’opinion of Pythagoras ere I will allow[41] of thy wits, and fear to kill a woodcock, lest thou dispossess the soul of thy grandam. Fare thee well.

MALVOLIOSir Topas, Sir Topas!

SIR TOBYMy most exquisite[44] Sir Topas!

FESTENay, I am[45] for all waters.

MARIAThou mightst have done this without thy beard and gown. He sees thee not.

SIR TOBYTo[47] him in thine own voice, and bring me word how thou findest him. I would we were well rid of this knavery. If he may be conveniently delivered,[48] I would he were, for I am now so far in offence with my niece that I cannot pursue with any safety this sport to the upshot.[50] Come by and by to my chamber.

Exeunt [Sir Toby and Maria] Sings

FESTE‘Hey, Robin, jolly Robin,

Tell me how thy lady does.’

MALVOLIOFool!

FESTE‘My lady is unkind, perdy.[54]’ Sings

55

MALVOLIOFool!

FESTE‘Alas, why is she so?’ Sings

MALVOLIOFool, I say!

FESTE‘She loves another’— Who calls, ha? Sings

MALVOLIOGood fool, as ever thou wilt deserve well at my hand, help me to a candle, and pen, ink and paper. As I am a gentleman, I will live to be thankful to thee for’t.

FESTEMaster Malvolio?

MALVOLIOAy, good fool.

FESTEAlas, sir, how fell you besides[64] your five wits?

MALVOLIOFool, there was never man so notoriously[65] abused. I am as well in my wits, fool, as thou art.

FESTEBut[67] as well? Then you are mad indeed, if you be no better in your wits than a fool.

MALVOLIOThey have here propertied[69] me, keep me in darkness, send ministers to me, asses, and do all they can to face[70] me out of my wits.

FESTEAdvise you[71] what you say. The minister is here.—

Malvolio, Malvolio, thy wits the heavens restore! As Sir Topas

Endeavour thyself to sleep, and leave thy vain bibble babble.[73]

MALVOLIOSir Topas!

75

FESTEMaintain no words with him, good fellow.— As Sir Topas

Who, I, sir? Not I, sir. God buy you,[76] good Sir Topas.—As himself

Marry, amen.—As Sir Topas

I will, sir, I will. As himself

MALVOLIOFool, fool, fool, I say!

FESTEAlas, sir, be patient. What say you, sir? I am shent[80] for speaking to you.

MALVOLIOGood fool, help me to some light and some paper. I tell thee I am as well in my wits as any man in Illyria.

FESTEWell-a-day[83] that you were, sir.

MALVOLIOBy this hand, I am. Good fool, some ink, paper and light, and convey what I will set down to my lady. It shall advantage thee more than ever the bearing of letter did.

FESTEI will help you to’t. But tell me true, are you not mad indeed? Or do you but counterfeit?

MALVOLIOBelieve me, I am not. I tell thee true.

FESTENay, I’ll ne’er believe a madman till I see his brains. I will fetch you light and paper and ink.

MALVOLIOFool, I’ll requite[92] it in the highest degree. I prithee be gone.

FESTEI am gone, sir,

And anon, sir, Sings

95

I’ll be with you again,

In a trice,[96]

Like to the old Vice,[97]

Your need to sustain,

Who, with dagger of lath,[99]

100

In his rage and his wrath,

Cries ‘Aha!’ to the devil,

Like a mad lad,

Pare thy nails,[103] dad.

Adieu, goodman[104] devil.

Exit

Act 4 Scene 3

running scene 16

Enter Sebastian

SEBASTIANThis is the air, that is the glorious sun,

This pearl she gave me, I do feel’t and see’t. Holds up a pearl

And though ’tis wonder that enwraps me thus,

Yet ’tis not madness. Where’s Antonio, then?

5

I could not find him at the Elephant.

Yet there he was,[6] and there I found this credit,

That he did range[7] the town to seek me out.

His counsel now might do me golden service,

For though my soul disputes well[9] with my sense

10

That this may be some error but no madness,

Yet doth this accident[11] and flood of fortune

So far exceed all instance,[12] all discourse,

That I am ready to distrust mine eyes

And wrangle[14] with my reason that persuades me

15

To any other trust[15] but that I am mad,

Or else the lady’s mad; yet, if ’twere so,

She could not sway her house,[17] command her followers,

Take[18] and give back affairs and their dispatch

With such a smooth, discreet and stable bearing

20

As I perceive she does. There’s something in’t

That is deceivable.[21] But here the lady comes.

Enter Olivia and Priest

OLIVIABlame not this haste of mine. If you mean well,

Now go with me and with this holy man

Into the chantry[24] by: there, before him,

25

And underneath that consecrated roof,

Plight[26] me the full assurance of your faith,

That my most jealous[27] and too doubtful soul

May live at peace. He shall conceal it

Whiles[29] you are willing it shall come to note,

30

What[30] time we will our celebration keep

According to my birth.[31] What do you say?

SEBASTIANI’ll follow this good man, and go with you,

And having sworn truth, ever will be true.

OLIVIAThen lead the way, good father, and heavens so shine,

35

That they may fairly note[35] this act of mine!

Exeunt

Act 5 Scene 1

running scene 17

Enter Clown [Feste] and Fabian

FABIANNow, as thou lovest me, let me see his letter.

FESTEGood Master Fabian, grant me another request.

FABIANAnything.

FESTEDo not desire to see this letter.

FABIANThis[5] is to give a dog and in recompense desire my dog again.

Enter Duke [Orsino], Viola, Curio and Lords

ORSINOBelong you to the lady Olivia, friends?

FESTEAy, sir, we are some of her trappings.[7]

ORSINOI know thee well. How dost thou, my good fellow?

FESTETruly, sir, the better for[9] my foes and the worse for my friends.

ORSINOJust the contrary, the better for thy friends.

FESTENo, sir, the worse.

ORSINOHow can that be?

FESTEMarry, sir, they praise me and make an ass of me. Now my foes tell me plainly I am an ass: so that by my foes, sir, I profit in the knowledge of myself, and by my friends I am abused:[15] so that, conclusions to be as kisses, if your four negatives make your two affirmatives, why then, the worse for my friends and the better for my foes.

ORSINOWhy, this is excellent.

FESTEBy my troth, sir, no, though[19] it please you to be one of my friends.

ORSINOThou shalt not be the worse for me. Gives a coin There’s gold.

FESTEBut[21] that it would be double-dealing, sir, I would you could make it another.

ORSINOO, you give me ill counsel.

FESTEPut your grace[23] in your pocket, sir, for this once, and let your flesh and blood obey it.[24]

ORSINOWell, I will be so much a sinner to[25] be a double-dealer. Gives another coin There’s another.

FESTEPrimo, secundo, tertio,[26] is a good play, and the old saying is, the third pays for all. The triplex,[27] sir, is a good tripping measure, or the bells of Saint Bennet, sir, may put you in mind: one, two, three.

ORSINOYou can fool no more money out of me at this throw.[29] If you will let your lady know I am here to speak with her, and bring her along with you, it may awake my bounty further.

FESTEMarry, sir, lullaby[32] to your bounty till I come again. I go, sir. But I would not have you to think that my desire of having is the sin of covetousness. But as you say, sir, let your bounty take a nap, I will awake it anon.

Exit

Enter Antonio and Officers

35

VIOLAHere comes the man, sir, that did rescue me.

ORSINOThat face of his I do remember well,

Yet, when I saw it last, it was besmeared

As black as Vulcan[38] in the smoke of war.

A bawbling[39] vessel was he captain of,

40

For[40] shallow draught and bulk unprizeable,

With which such scathful[41] grapple did he make

With the most noble bottom[42] of our fleet,

That very[43] envy and the tongue of loss

Cried fame and honour on him. What’s the matter?

45

FIRST OFFICEROrsino, this is that Antonio

That took the Phoenix[46] and her fraught from Candy,

And this is he that did the Tiger[47] board

When your young nephew Titus lost his leg;

Here in the streets, desperate[49] of shame and state,

50

In private brabble[50] did we apprehend him.

VIOLAHe did me kindness, sir, drew on my side,[51]

But in conclusion put[52] strange speech upon me.

I know not what ’twas but distraction.[53]

ORSINONotable[54] pirate! Thou salt-water thief!

55

What foolish boldness brought thee to their mercies,

Whom thou, in terms so bloody[56] and so dear,

Hast made thine enemies?

ANTONIOOrsino, noble sir,

Be[59] pleased that I shake off these names you give me.

60

Antonio never yet was thief or pirate,

Though I confess, on base[61] and ground enough,

Orsino’s enemy. A witchcraft drew me hither.

That most ingrateful boy there by your side

From the rude[64] sea’s enraged and foamy mouth

65

Did I redeem. A wreck past hope he was.

His life I gave him and did thereto add

My love, without retention[67] or restraint,

All[68] his in dedication. For his sake

Did I expose myself — pure[69] for his love —

70

Into the danger of this adverse[70] town,

Drew to defend him when he was beset,

Where being apprehended, his false cunning —

Not meaning to partake with me in danger —

Taught him to face[74] me out of his acquaintance,

75

And grew[75] a twenty years removèd thing

While one would wink, denied me mine own purse,

Which I had recommended[77] to his use

Not half an hour before.

VIOLAHow can this be?

80

ORSINOWhen came he to this town?

ANTONIOToday, my lord. And for three months before,

No interim, not a minute’s vacancy,

Both day and night did we keep company.

Enter Olivia and Attendants

ORSINOHere comes the countess. Now heaven walks on earth.

85

But for[85] thee, fellow — fellow, thy words are madness.

Three months this youth hath tended upon me.

But more of that anon. Take him aside.

OLIVIAWhat would my lord, but[88] that he may not have,

Wherein Olivia may seem serviceable?

90

Cesario, you do not keep promise with me.

VIOLAMadam?

ORSINOGracious Olivia—

OLIVIAWhat do you say, Cesario? Good my lord[93]—

VIOLAMy lord would speak, my duty hushes me.

95

OLIVIAIf it be aught[95] to the old tune, my lord,

It is as fat[96] and fulsome to mine ear

As howling after music.

ORSINOStill so cruel?

OLIVIAStill so constant, lord.

100

ORSINOWhat, to perverseness? You uncivil[100] lady,

To whose ingrate[101] and unauspicious altars

My soul the faithfull’st offerings hath breathed out

That e’er devotion tendered![103] What shall I do?

OLIVIAEven what[104] it please my lord that shall become him.

105

ORSINOWhy should I not, had I the heart to do it,

Like to th’Egyptian thief[106] at point of death,

Kill what I love? — a savage jealousy

That sometimes savours nobly.[108] But hear me this:

Since you to non-regardance[109] cast my faith,

110

And that[110] I partly know the instrument

That screws[111] me from my true place in your favour,

Live you the marble-breasted tyrant still.

But this your minion,[113] whom I know you love,

And whom, by heaven I swear, I tender[114] dearly,

115

Him will I tear out of that cruel eye,

Where he sits crownèd in[116] his master’s spite.

Come, boy, with me. My thoughts are ripe in mischief:[117]

I’ll sacrifice the lamb that I do love,

To spite a raven’s heart within a dove. Starts to leave

120

VIOLAAnd I, most jocund,[120] apt and willingly,

To[121] do you rest, a thousand deaths would die. Starts to leave

OLIVIAWhere goes Cesario?

VIOLAAfter him I love

More than I love these eyes, more than my life,

125

More, by all mores,[125] than e’er I shall love wife.

If I do feign, you witnesses above

Punish my life for tainting of[127] my love!

OLIVIAAy me, detested! How am I beguiled![128]

VIOLAWho does beguile you? Who does do you wrong?

130

OLIVIAHast thou forgot thyself? Is it so long?

Call forth the holy father.

[Exit an Attendant]

ORSINOCome, away! To Viola

OLIVIAWhither, my lord? Cesario, husband, stay.

ORSINOHusband?

135

OLIVIAAy, husband. Can he that deny?

ORSINOHer husband, sirrah?[136]

VIOLANo, my lord, not I.

OLIVIAAlas, it is the baseness[138] of thy fear

That makes thee strangle[139] thy propriety

140

Fear not, Cesario, take thy fortunes up.

Be that[141] thou know’st thou art, and then thou art

As great as that thou fear’st.[142]

Enter Priest

O, welcome, father!

Father, I charge thee by thy reverence

145

Here to unfold,[145] though lately we intended

To keep in darkness what occasion now

Reveals before ’tis ripe, what thou dost know

Hath newly passed between this youth and me.

PRIESTA contract of eternal bond of love,

150

Confirmed by mutual joinder[150] of your hands,

Attested by the holy close[151] of lips,

Strengthened by interchangement of your rings,

And all the ceremony of this compact[153]

Sealed[154] in my function, by my testimony.

155

Since when, my watch[155] hath told me, toward my grave

I have travelled but two hours.

ORSINOO thou dissembling cub! What wilt thou be To Viola

When time hath sowed a grizzle[158] on thy case?

Or will not else thy craft[159] so quickly grow

160

That thine own trip[160] shall be thine overthrow?

Farewell, and take her; but direct thy feet

Where thou and I henceforth may never meet.

VIOLAMy lord, I do protest[163]—

OLIVIAO, do not swear!

165

Hold little faith,[165] though thou hast too much fear.

Enter Sir Andrew His head bleeding

SIR ANDREWFor the love of God, a surgeon! Send one presently[166] to Sir Toby.

OLIVIAWhat’s the matter?

SIR ANDREWH’as broke[168] my head across and has given Sir Toby a bloody coxcomb too. For the love of God, your help! I had rather than forty pound I were at home.

OLIVIAWho has done this, Sir Andrew?

SIR ANDREWThe count’s gentleman, one Cesario. We took him for a coward, but he’s the very devil incardinate.[172]

ORSINOMy gentleman, Cesario?

SIR ANDREW’Od’s lifelings,[174] here he is! You broke my head for nothing, and that that

I did, I was set on to do’t by Sir Toby.

VIOLAWhy do you speak to me? I never hurt you.

You drew your sword upon me without cause,

But I bespake you fair, and hurt you not.

Enter Toby and Clown [Feste] Sir Toby wounded

SIRANDREWIf a bloody coxcomb be a hurt, you have hurt me. I think you set nothing[179] by a bloody coxcomb. Here comes Sir Toby halting.[180] You shall hear more. But if he had not been in drink,[181] he would have tickled you othergates than he did.

ORSINOHow now, gentleman? How is’t with you?

SIR TOBYThat’s all one:[183] h’as hurt me, and there’s th’end on’t. Sot, didst see Dick surgeon, sot?

FESTEO, he’s drunk, Sir Toby, an hour agone.[185] His eyes were set at eight i’th’morning.

SIR TOBYThen he’s a rogue, and a passy measures pavin.[187] I hate a drunken rogue.

OLIVIAAway with him! Who hath made this havoc with them?

SIR ANDREWI’ll help you, Sir Toby, because we’ll be dressed[189] together.

SIR TOBYWill you help? An ass-head and a coxcomb[190] and a knave, a thin-faced knave, a gull![191]

OLIVIAGet him to bed, and let his hurt be looked to.

[Exeunt Feste, Fabian, Sir Toby and Sir Andrew]

Enter Sebastian

SEBASTIANI am sorry, madam, I have hurt your kinsman.

But, had it been the brother[194] of my blood,

195

I must have done no less with[195] wit and safety.

You throw a strange regard[196] upon me, and by that

I do perceive it hath offended you.

Pardon me, sweet one, even for the vows

We made each other but so late ago.

200

ORSINOOne face, one voice, one habit,[200] and two persons,

A natural perspective,[201] that is and is not!

SEBASTIANAntonio, O my dear Antonio!

How have the hours racked[203] and tortured me,

Since I have lost thee!

205

ANTONIOSebastian are you?

SEBASTIANFear’st[206] thou that, Antonio?

ANTONIOHow have you made division of yourself?

An apple cleft in two is not more twin

Than these two creatures. Which is Sebastian?

210

OLIVIAMost wonderful!

SEBASTIANDo I stand there? I never had a brother, Sees Viola

Nor can there be that deity[212] in my nature

Of here and everywhere.[213] I had a sister,

Whom the blind[214] waves and surges have devoured.

215

Of charity,[215] what kin are you to me?

What countryman? What name? What parentage?

VIOLAOf Messaline. Sebastian was my father,

Such a Sebastian was my brother too,

So went he suited[219] to his watery tomb.

220

If spirits can assume both form and suit[220]

You come to fright us.

SEBASTIANA spirit I am indeed,

But am[223] in that dimension grossly clad

Which from the womb I did participate.[224]

225

Were you a woman, as the[225] rest goes even,

I should my tears let fall upon your cheek,

And say ‘Thrice-welcome, drownèd Viola!’

VIOLAMy father had a mole upon his brow.

SEBASTIANAnd so had mine.

230

VIOLAAnd died that day when Viola from her birth

Had numbered thirteen years.

SEBASTIANO, that record[232] is lively in my soul!

He finished indeed his mortal act

That day that made my sister thirteen years.

235

VIOLAIf nothing lets[235] to make us happy both

But this my masculine usurped attire,

Do not embrace me till each circumstance

Of place, time, fortune, do cohere and jump[238]

That I am Viola — which to confirm,

240

I’ll bring you to a captain in this town,

Where lie my maiden weeds,[241] by whose gentle help

I was preserved to serve this noble count.

All the occurrence of my fortune since

Hath been between this lady and this lord.

245

SEBASTIANSo comes it, lady, you have been mistook.[245] To Olivia

But nature to[246] her bias drew in that.

You would have been contracted[247] to a maid,

Nor are you therein, by my life, deceived,

You are betrothed both to a maid and man.

250

ORSINOBe not amazed; right noble is his blood.—To Olivia

If this be so, as yet the glass[251] seems true, Aside?

I shall have share in this most happy[252] wreck.—

Boy, thou hast said to me a thousand times To Viola

Thou never shouldst love woman like to[254] me.

255

VIOLAAnd all those sayings will I overswear;[255]

And all those swearings keep as true in soul

As doth that orbèd continent[257] the fire

That severs day from night.

ORSINOGive me thy hand,

260

And let me see thee in thy woman’s weeds.

VIOLAThe captain that did bring me first on shore

Hath my maid’s garments. He upon some action[262]

Is now in durance,[263] at Malvolio’s suit,

A gentleman, and follower of my lady’s.

265

OLIVIAHe shall enlarge[265] him. Fetch Malvolio hither.

And yet, alas, now I remember me,[266]

They say, poor gentleman, he’s much distract.[267]

Enter Clown [Feste] with a letter,

and Fabian

A most extracting[268] frenzy of mine own

From[269] my remembrance clearly banished his.

270

How does he, sirrah?

FESTETruly, madam, he holds Beelzebub[271] at the stave’s end as well as a man in his case may do. H’as here writ a letter to you; I should have given’t you today[272] morning, but as a madman’s epistles[273] are no gospels, so it skills not much when they are delivered.[274]

OLIVIAOpen’t, and read it.

FESTELook then to be well edified when the fool delivers[276] the madman. Reads ‘By the lord, madam’—

OLIVIAHow now, art thou mad?

FESTENo, madam, I do but read madness. An your ladyship will have it as it ought to be, you must allow vox.[280]

OLIVIAPrithee read i’thy right wits.

FESTESo I do, madonna. But to read[282] his right wits is to read thus: therefore perpend, my princess, and give ear.

OLIVIARead it you, sirrah. To Fabian, who takes the letter

FABIANReads

‘By the lord, madam, you wrong me, and the world shall know it. Though you have put me into darkness and given your drunken cousin rule over me, yet have I the benefit of my senses as well as your ladyship. I have your own letter that induced me to the semblance[288] I put on; with the which I doubt not but to do myself much right, or you much shame. Think of me as you please. I leave my duty[290] a little unthought of and speak out of my injury.

The madly-used Malvolio.’

OLIVIADid he write this?

FESTEAy, madam.

ORSINOThis savours not much of distraction.

295

OLIVIASee him delivered,[295] Fabian, bring him hither.

[Exit Fabian]

My lord, so[296] please you, these things further thought on,

To think me as[297] well a sister as a wife,

One day shall crown th’alliance[298] on’t, so please you,

Here at my house and at my proper[299] cost.

300

ORSINOMadam, I am most apt[300] t’embrace your offer.—

Your master quits[301] you. And for your service done him, To Viola

So much against the mettle[302] of your sex,

So far beneath your soft and tender breeding,

And since you called me master for so long,

305

Here is my hand. You shall from this time be

Your master’s mistress.

OLIVIAA sister! You are she.

Enter Malvolio [and Fabian]

ORSINOIs this the madman?

OLIVIAAy, my lord, this same.—

310

How now, Malvolio?

MALVOLIOMadam, you have done me wrong,

Notorious wrong.

OLIVIAHave I, Malvolio? No.

MALVOLIOLady, you have. Pray you peruse that letter. Hands her the letter

315

You must not now deny it is your hand.[315]

Write from it,[316] if you can, in hand or phrase,

Or say ’tis not your seal, not your invention.[317]

You can say none of this. Well, grant it then,

And tell me, in the modesty of honour,[319]

320

Why you have given me such clear lights[320] of favour,

Bade me come smiling and cross-gartered to you,

To put on yellow stockings and to frown

Upon Sir Toby and the lighter[323] people?

And, acting[324] this in an obedient hope,

325

Why have you suffered[325] me to be imprisoned,

Kept in a dark house, visited by the priest,

And made the most notorious geck[327] and gull

That e’er invention played on?[328] Tell me why.

OLIVIAAlas, Malvolio, this is not my writing,

330

Though, I confess, much like the character,[330]

But out of[331] question ’tis Maria’s hand.

And now I do bethink me, it was she

First told me thou wast mad; then cam’st[333] in smiling,

And in such forms which here were presupposed[334]

335

Upon thee in the letter. Prithee be content.

This practice[336] hath most shrewdly passed upon thee,

But when we know the grounds and authors of it,

Thou shalt be both the plaintiff and the judge

Of thine own cause.

340

FABIANGood madam, hear me speak,

And let no quarrel nor no brawl to come

Taint the condition[342] of this present hour,

Which I have wondered[343] at. In hope it shall not,

Most freely I confess, myself and Toby

345

Set this device against Malvolio here,

Upon[346] some stubborn and uncourteous parts

We had conceived against[347] him. Maria writ

The letter at Sir Toby’s great importance,[348]

In recompense whereof he hath married her.

350

How with a sportful[350] malice it was followed,

May rather pluck on[351] laughter than revenge,

If that[352] the injuries be justly weighed

That have on both sides passed.

OLIVIAAlas, poor fool, how have they baffled[354] thee!

FESTEWhy, ‘Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrown upon them.’ I was one, sir, in this interlude;[356] one Sir Topas, sir, but that’s all one. ‘By the Lord, fool, I am not mad.’ But do you remember? Madam, why laugh you at such a barren rascal? An you smile not, he’s gagged.’ And thus the whirligig[359] of time brings in his revenges.

360

MALVOLIOI’ll be revenged on the whole pack of you.

[Exit]

OLIVIAHe hath been most notoriously abused.

ORSINOPursue him and entreat him to a peace.

He hath not told us of the captain yet.

When that is known and golden[364] time convents,

365

A solemn combination[365] shall be made

Of our dear souls.— Meantime, sweet sister,

We will not part from hence.[367]— Cesario, come —

For so you shall be, while you are a man.

But when in other habits[369] you are seen,

370

Orsino’s mistress and his fancy’s[370] queen.

Exeunt [all, except Feste]

FESTEWhen that I was and a[371] little tiny boy,

Sings

With hey, ho, the wind and the rain,

A foolish[373] thing was but a toy,

For the rain it raineth every day.

375

But when I came to man’s estate,[375]

With hey, ho, etc.[376]

Gainst knaves and thieves men shut their gate,

For the rain, etc.

But when I came, alas! to wive,[379]

380

With hey, ho, etc.

By swaggering[381] could I never thrive,

For the rain, etc.

But when I came unto my beds,[383]

With hey, ho, etc.

385

With toss-pots[385] still had drunken heads,

For the rain, etc.

A great while ago the world begun,

With hey, ho, etc.

But that’s all one, our play is done,

390

And we’ll strive to please you every day.

[Exit]

Textual Notes

F = First Folio text of 1623, the only authority for the play

F2 = a correction introduced in the Second Folio text of 1632

F3 = a correction introduced in the Third Folio text of 1663

Ed = a correction introduced by a later editor

SD = stage direction

SH = speech heading (i.e., speaker’s name)

List of parts = Ed

1.1.1 SH ORSINO = Ed. F = Duke

1.2.15 Arion = Ed. F = Orion

1.3.75 curl by = Ed. F = coole my 76 me = F2. F = we 4 does’t = Ed. F = dost 99 set = Ed. F = sit 101 That’s = F3. F = That

1.5.4 SH FESTE = Ed. F = Clo. 122 SD Viola = F2. F = Violenta

2.2.26 our = F2. F = O 27 made of = Ed. F = made, if

2.3.2 diluculo spelled Deliculo in F 17 leman = Ed. F = Lemon 103 a nayword = Ed. F = an ayword

2.4.55 Fly away, fly = Ed. F = Fye away, fie 88 I = Ed. F = It staniel = Ed. F = stallion

2.5.107 born = Ed. F = become achieve = F2. F = atcheeues 128 dear = F2. F = deero

3.1.6 king = F2. F = Kings 51 wise men = Ed. F = wisemens

3.2.6 thee the = F3. F = the

3.4.21 SH OLIVIA = F2. F = Mal 56 tang = F2. F = langer

4.2.50 sport to = Ed. F = sport

5.1.187 pavin = F2. F = panyn 388 With hey = F2. F = hey

Act 1 Scene 1

1.1    Location: Illyria (country on the east of the Adriatic Sea; now Croatia). The entire action takes place here, moving between the households of Duke Orsino and Olivia, with occasional scenes in undetermined public places    Orsino Italian for “bear-cub”; perhaps suggestive of immaturity    Curio either “curious” or “courtly” (from the Italian for “court”); may suggest fastidious affectation in dress and manners

2    surfeiting overindulging (in food or sex)

3    appetite hunger/sexual craving

4    dying fall dropping cadence (plays on the sense of “orgasm and detumescence”)

5    sound i.e., of a breeze

9    quick and fresh sharp and eager, hungry

10    capacity (small) size/ability to contain

11    as the sea i.e., without limit

12    validity and pitch worth and utmost elevation

13    abatement diminution

14    shapes imaginary forms    fancy love/desire (plays on the sense of “imagination”)

15    alone…fantastical is uniquely imaginative/delusory

18    hart male deer (Orsino puns on “heart”)

21    pestilence plague (often attributed to bad air)

23    fell fierce    hounds…me as in the classical myth of Actaeon, hunted down by his own hounds as punishment for gazing on the naked goddess Diana    Valentine the name of the patron saint of lovers

27    element sky    years’ heat i.e., summers

28    ample full, i.e., unveiled

29    cloistress nun

31    eye-offending brine stinging, salty tears    season preserve (with salt)

36    golden shaft i.e., arrow of Cupid (god of love)

37    affections else other feelings

38    liver…heart seats (thrones) of sexual passion, intellect, and emotion

39    supplied filled/satisfied    filled…perfections her perfect qualities are filled

40    one self one and the same

Act 1 Scene 2

1.2    Viola Italian for “violet,” a flower that symbolized faithfulness and was thought to purge melancholy; also suggestive of musical instrument

4    Elysium the heaven of classical mythology

5    Perchance perhaps (the Captain shifts the sense to “by chance”)

8    chance the possibility of good fortune

11    driving storm-driven

12    provident foresighted/resourceful/fortunate

13    practice method

14    lived floated

15    Arion Greek musician who jumped overboard to escape being murdered and was carried to safety by a dolphin charmed by his music

16    hold acquaintance with remain afloat upon

19    unfoldeth…hope encourages me to hope

21    like of him i.e., that he has also survived

30    late recently

32    murmur rumor

33    What…of whatever the aristocracy do, the lower classes gossip about it

43    be…is have my identity/rank revealed until I decide the time is ripe

46    compass bring about

47    suit petition/courtship

48    not not even

49    fair behaviour good conduct/promising appearance

50    though that though

51    close in enclose

52    suits With matches

53    character appearance

56    haply…intent may suit the shape of the purpose

58    eunuch male castrated to maintain a high singing voice

61    allow prove    worth worthy of

62    hap happen, chance to occur

63    wit cunning plan

Act 1 Scene 3

1    What a plague an oath, like “what the hell”    niece Toby may be Olivia’s uncle, but “niece” could be used more generally for any female relative

2    care worry/grief

3    troth faith    a-nights at night    cousin relative

4    ill antisocial

5    except, before excepted plays on the legal phrase exceptis excipiendis (“with the aforementioned exceptions”); essentially Sir Toby says he does not care, Olivia may object all she likes

6    modest moderate

7    confine…finer I won’t restrain myself further/I won’t dress more finely

8    An if

10    quaffing copious drinking

13    Aguecheek suggesting thin face of one suffering from a fever (ague)

15    tall brave/noble/of great height (Maria understands the latter meaning)    any’s any (man) is

17    ducats gold coins (three thousand was a considerable annual income)

18    he’ll…ducats he’ll have spent all his money in a year    very complete/veritable

19    prodigal excessively extravagant person

20    o’th’viol-de-gamboys the viol da gamba, a bass viol played held between the legs (often has sexual connotations)

21    without book i.e., spontaneously, from memory

22    natural like an idiot

23    allay…in reduce his taste for

26    subtractors detractors, slanderers

30    coystrill knave

31    o’th’toe head-over-heels    parish top large spinning top (kept rotating by being whipped), provided for parishioners’ entertainment

32    Castiliano vulgo! unclear Latin-Italian phrase; possibly “Speak of the devil!”    Agueface playful variation of Aguecheek

35    shrew small mouse/troublesome one

37    Accost approach/woo/grapple with

39    chambermaid female attendant

43    front confront    board accost (sexual-naval metaphor referring to sex as attacking a ship)    assail attack, seduce

44    undertake approach/have sex with (literally, “have her underneath me”)    in this company in front of spectators

47    An…so if you let her leave in this way    sword symbol of gentlemanly status (with phallic connotations)

50    in hand to deal with (Maria takes the phrase literally; also plays on the idea of masturbation)

52    Marry by the virgin Mary

53    thought is free think what you like (proverbial)    th’buttery-bar the ledge created by opening the half-door of the buttery, with play on genitals

55    Wherefore why

56    dry thirsty/shriveled/impotent (supposedly signified by a dry palm)

57    I…dry alludes to the proverb “fools have wit enough to come in out of the rain”

59    dry jest stupid/ironic

61    at…ends always ready/literally by the hand

62    barren empty of jests and of Sir Andrew’s hand

63    canary sweet wine from the Canary Islands; also continues play on impotence    put down snubbed (Sir Andrew plays on the senses of “drunk/impotent”)

65    Christian i.e., average man

66    Eater …wit beef was thought to dull the intellect;    wit may also signify “penis” and    beef “whore,” implying impotence as a result of venereal disease

68    forswear it give it up

69    Pourquoi “why” (French)

71    tongues foreign languages    bear-baiting spectator sport in which a bear chained to a stake was attacked by dogs

72    the arts liberal arts/academic learning

73    head of hair puns on    tongues pronounced “tongs,” thus suggesting a barber’s curling tongs

74    mended improved

76    becomes suits

77    flax yellow fiber    distaff staff used to spin flax    housewife woman who keeps house/prostitute    take…off treat Sir Andrew as a distaff and his hair as flax to be spun/have sex with Sir Andrew, resulting in syphilitic hair loss

80    none of me have nothing to do with me    count i.e., Duke Orsino    hard near

81    degree (social) position    estate status/fortune

82    wit intelligence    life in’t still hope (proverbial)

83    strangest oddest/most extraordinary

84    masques and revels courtly entertainments involving dancing

85    kickshawses trivial distractions/sexual sweetmeats

86    under…betters except for my social superiors

87    old man expert

88    galliard lively dance

89    cut a caper perform a leap/have sex

90    cut…to’t plays on the sense of caper as a berry used in sauce for    mutton; also a prostitute

91    back-trick backward dance step/sex

93    like to take likely to gather    Mistress Mall’s picture i.e., a portrait protected from dust and light by a    curtain (Mall is a diminutive of “Mary”)

94    in doing    coranto running dance

95    jig rapid, springing dance    make water urinate    sink-a-pace cinquepace, a lively dance with five steps; may play on the sense of    sink as “sewer”

96    virtues talents

97    star…galliard astrological influence favorable to dancing

98    indifferent moderately    damned damnably (the Folio reading “dam’d” is defensible as an intensifier, but it could be emended to, e.g., “damson-coloured” or “flame-coloured”)    stock stocking

101    Taurus …heart zodiacal signs were thought to govern parts of the body

102    legs and thighs more usually Taurus was said to govern the neck and throat

Act 1 Scene 4

1    Cesario suggests “little Caesar” and perhaps the idea of splitting/separating (as in “Caesarean” and “caesura”)

2    advanced promoted

4    humour disposition/capriciousness

9    On your attendance ready to serve you

10    aloof to one side

11    no…all i.e., everything

13    address thy gait direct your steps

15    them i.e., Olivia’s servants    grow i.e., take root

16    audience reception by Olivia

19    spoke said, rumored

20    civil bounds bounds of civilized behavior

24    Surprise ambush, take unawares    faith faithful love

25    become suit

26    attend listen, pay attention to

27    nuncio’s messenger’s    aspect appearance

29    lad servant/young man

30    belie deceive

31    Diana’s lip Diana was the Roman goddess of the moon, hunting, and chastity; in view of “pipe” and “organ,”    lip may play on “nether lip” (labia)

32    rubious ruby-red    pipe voice/penis

33    shrill and sound high-pitched and unbroken

34    is semblative resembles    part attributes/role/sexual organ

35    constellation disposition determined by the stars

39    freely independently

42    barful strife effort full of hindrances

Act 1 Scene 5

1.5    Feste From Latin or Italian, festa (“feast” or “festival”), an appropriate name for a fool/clown

2    in by

4    well hanged plays on the sense of “with a large penis”    no colours i.e., nothing (literally, military flags); puns on “collars” (nooses)

6    Make that good justify yourself

7    He…fear i.e., a dead man cannot see (enemy colours)

8    lenten meager (Lent, the time of fasting, was especially associated with puritanism)

11    bold confident/certain

14    turned away dismissed from service

16    Many…marriage proverbial;    good hanging may continue play on the sense of “large penis”    for as for    let…out i.e., good weather will make dismissal more bearable

19    points matters (Maria plays on the sense of “laces used to hold up breeches”)

20    gaskins breeches

21    Apt quick, witty    If…drinking either never, or suggesting that Maria and Sir Toby would be a good match

22    Eve’s flesh woman

24    were best are best advised    Malvolio “ill-will” (Latin)

25    an’t if it

27    Quinapalus an invented authority, perhaps playing on French qui n’a pas lu (“unread”) or mock Italian “him on the stick” (the face on the fool’s bauble)

31    Go to expression of impatient dismissal    dry dull    dishonest undutiful

32    Madonna “my lady” (Italian)

33    dry dull/thirsty    mend improve; later plays on the sense of “repair”

34    botcher mender of clothes and shoes

35    patched simply mended, covered up; also alludes to the fool’s multicolored costume

36    simple uncomplicated/foolish

37    syllogism reasoning based on two premises (here those concerning virtue and sin)    so well and good    no…calamity i.e., one married to calamity will always be faithless    cuckold man with an unfaithful wife

38    beauty’s a flower i.e., it will fade; Feste advises Olivia to make the most of her youth and beauty, rather than shutting herself away and refusing to marry

41    Misprision error/wrongful arrest    cucullus…monachum “a hood does not make a monk” (Latin)

42    motley multicolored clothing worn by professional fools    leave permission

45    Dexteriously skillfully

47    catechize cross-examine (literally, form of Church instruction in which a person answers a set of questions about the Christian faith)    good…virtue my good virtuous mouse; playful term of endearment

48    idleness pastime    bide await/endure

55    mend improve (Malvolio shifts the sense to “grow (more foolish)”

59    no fox not cunning    pass give

62    barren dull-witted    put down defeated

63    with by    ordinary fool unexceptional fool/fool performing at an inn (ordinary)/natural idiot    stone may also refer to Stone, an Elizabethan tavern fool

64    out …guard defenseless (fencing term), i.e., lacking a witty reply    minister occasion provide opportunity (for fooling)

65    protest declare    crow laugh raucously

66    set unspontaneous    zanies assistants

67    of with    distempered unbalanced

68    free generous    bird-bolts blunt arrows for shooting birds

69    allowed licensed

70    rail rant    discreet prudent

71    reprove express disapproval

72    Mercury…leasing may    Mercury, god of deception, make you good at lying

79    madman i.e., rubbish, gibberish    Fie expression of impatience or disgust

80    What you will whatever you want to say

82    old stale

83    should be were

84    Jove Roman king of the gods

85    pia mater brain (literally, soft membrane enclosing it)

89    sot fool/drunkard

91    lethargy (drunken) state

92    one someone

94    faith i.e., to defy the devil    it’s all one it doesn’t matter

97    one…heat one drink beyond that which would warm him

98    drowns makes him excessively drunk/unintelligible/unconscious

99    crowner coroner    sit o’my coz hold an inquest on my kinsman

102    yond yonder, that

103    takes…understand understands

108    sheriff’s post decorated post denoting authority, fixed in front of the sheriff’s door

109    supporter…bench furniture support (bench plays on the sense of “court of justice”)

111    of mankind i.e., ordinary

113    ill manner i.e., impolite    will…no whether you want to or not

114    personage appearance

115    squash unripe pea pod (peascod, allusive of genitals—a humorous reversal of “codpiece,” a bag worn over the opening at the front of a man’s breeches)

116    codling unripe apple, plays on “cod” meaning “scrotum”

117    standing water at the turn of the tide    well-favoured good-looking

118    shrewishly sharply/shrilly

122    embassy message/ambassador

126    cast away waste

127    penned written

128    con learn by heart    sustain endure    comptible sensitive

129    sinister impolite

131    studied learned, memorized    out…part not within my brief

132    modest reasonable

134    comedian actor

135    my profound heart upon my soul/(to Olivia) my wise lady

136    that I play the character I perform

137    usurp counterfeit (Viola shifts the sense to “assume unjust authority over”)

138    what…reserve i.e., Olivia should not withhold herself from love and marriage

139    from outside, not part of    on go on

141    forgive excuse from repeating

143    feigned fictional/insincere    it in it to yourself    saucy impudent

144    wonder marvel

145    If…brief i.e., if Viola has any sense at all she should go; any sensible message must be conveyed quickly    ’Tis…me I am not a lunatic, i.e., not affected by the moon’s changes

146    make one take part    skipping frivolous, mad

147    hoist sail i.e., prepare to leave

148    swabber sailor who washes the deck    hull float, with sails furled    Some mollification please pacify/I have pacified

149    giant i.e., Maria; a joke about Maria’s small size and/or Maria resembles a giant in a romance tale who guarded a lady

150    courtesy introduction, preamble/etiquette

151    fearful frightening, alarming    Speak your office perform your task, deliver your speech

152    overture disclosure    taxation of homage demand for money on behalf of a superior lord

153    olive olive branch, symbol of peace    matter real substance

154    rudely i.e., by being saucy at the gates

156    entertainment reception    maidenhead virginity

157    divinity sacred    profanation blasphemy

159    text theme/topic drawn from the Bible for discussion in a sermon

161    comfortable comforting

162    bosom heart

163    chapter as of the Bible

164    answer…method continue the metaphor

168    out of straying from    curtain i.e., veil covering Olivia’s face (picture)

169    such…present i.e., here I am (Olivia speaks of her face as if it were a recent portrait)

170    if…all i.e., if all Olivia’s beauty is natural, rather than cosmetic or touched up by the metaphorical painter

171    in grain indelible, i.e., all natural

172    truly blent genuinely blended/realistically painted    red and white i.e., lips (or rosy cheeks) and skin

173    cunning skillful

174    she lady

175    graces beauties

176    copy replica in the form of a child (Olivia plays on the sense of “list”)

177    divers schedules several inventories

178    inventoried itemized    utensil article, feature

179    indifferent adequately

180    praise puns on “appraise,” i.e., evaluate

182    if even if

184    but recompensed, though no more than repaid, even if

185    nonpareil paragon

187    fertile abundant

190    suppose consider

192    In…divulged well-regarded in popular opinion    free honorable/generous

193    dimension…nature physical form

194    gracious graceful, attractive

196    flame passion

197    deadly deathlike

201    willow cabin shelter made from willow branches, a symbol of unrequited love

202    my soul i.e., Olivia

203    cantons songs    contemnèd despised, rejected

205    Hallow shout/bless    reverberate echoing

206    babbling…air like that of Echo, whose unrequited love for Narcissus meant she wasted away to a mere voice    gossip chatter

211    fortunes position as a servant    state social status    well satisfactory

218    fee’d post hired messenger

220    Love…love may Love harden the heart of whomever you fall in love with

227    blazon heraldic coat of arms, which could only be displayed by a gentleman    Soft wait a moment

228    the…man i.e., Orsino and Cesario could change places    man servant

229    catch the plague i.e., fall in love

235    peevish headstrong

236    county’s count’s, i.e., Duke Orsino’s

237    Would I whether I wanted it

238    Desire ask    flatter with i.e., encourage

239    hold…hopes sustain him with false expectations

241    Hie hasten

244    Mine…mind my eyes (through which love enters) may have betrayed my reason

245    owe own

Act 2 Scene 1

1    Nor …not do you not wish

2    patience permission    darkly ominously    malignancy evil influence

3    distemper spoil, unbalance    crave entreat    leave permission

4    evils misfortunes

7    sooth (in) truth    determinate intended    extravagancy wandering

8    modesty propriety

9    am…in wish to keep secret    it…manners politeness compels me

10    express reveal

11    called said was    Messaline unclear, possibly Marseilles or Messina, or invented by Shakespeare

12    an hour the same hour (they are twins)

14    some about an    breach breaking waves

18    estimable wonder admiring judgment    overfar too greatly

19    publish speak openly of/celebrate    envy malice

21    more i.e., tears

22    entertainment reception (for one so worthy)

23    your trouble the trouble I put you to

24    murder…love i.e., by making me leave you

26    recovered rescued, brought back to life    kindness tenderness/natural affection (for my sister)

27    yet still    manners…mother i.e., a womanish inclination to weep

28    tell…me i.e., betray my feelings by crying

30    gentleness good favor

32    Else otherwise

34    sport recreation

Act 2 Scene 2

1    ev’n just

2    on at    but hither only this far

5    desperate assurance hopeless certainty

6    hardy bold    in his affairs on his business

7    taking of this understanding of this message/reception of the ring    it the ring

9    peevishly willfully, foolishly    so in the same manner, i.e., thrown

10    eye plain sight

13    outside appearance

14    made…of had a good look at

15    lost made her lose

16    starts bursts    distractedly with agitation/madly

18    in by way of    churlish blunt, ungracious

21    were better would be better off

23    pregnant resourceful    enemy probably Satan

24    proper-false attractive but deceitful (men)

25    set their forms make their impressions (like seals in wax)

26    our…be i.e., because women are made of frail material, we are weak

28    fadge turn out

29    monster unnatural creature (being both man and woman)    fond dote

32    state…for situation is hopeless with regard to

34    thriftless unprofitable

Act 2 Scene 3

1    Approach come    betimes early

2    diluculo surgere (… saluberrimum est) “to get up early is most healthy” (Latin proverb)

4    can drinking vessel

6    lives i.e., living beings (Sir Andrew interprets as “way of life”)    four elements earth, air, fire, and water, from which everything was thought to be made

8    Marian variant of Mary/Maria    stoup drinking vessel/measure of alcohol

11    hearts fine friends    picture…three captioned picture showing two fools or asses, so that the spectator is the third

12    catch musical round

13    breast set of lungs, singing voice

14    leg for dancing, or bowing before singing

15    thou wast you were

16    Pigrogromitus…Queubus words invented by Feste as examples of his feigned wisdom    equinoctial equator

17    leman sweetheart    Hadst it? Did you receive it?

18    impeticos i.e., pocket up    gratillity gratuity (another invented word)    whipstock whip handle

19    Myrmidons Achilles’ followers; possible play on “Mermaid Inn,” a tavern in Shakespeare’s London    bottle-ale houses low-class taverns

22    testril of sixpenny coin from

23    song…life drinking song (Sir Andrew interprets good as “virtuous, moral”)

28    high and low i.e., in terms of pitch or volume

29    Trip go, skip    sweeting darling

34    hereafter in the future

36    still always

37    plenty profit

38    and twenty an intensifier (the singer’s lover is “twenty times sweet”)

39    stuff quality/material

40    true honest/legitimate

41    contagious breath infectious breath/catchy song

43    hear…nose i.e., if we inhaled sound    dulcet in contagion sweetly contagious    welkin sky

44    rouse startle/wake    three souls three singers would have thrice the effect; powerful music was supposed to draw forth the soul

45    weaver often associated with psalm singing, so to excite one with a drinking song would be a real achievement

46    dog i.e., good (Feste plays on the literal sense)

47    By’r lady by Our Lady, the Virgin Mary

48    ‘Thou knave’ the words of the round

49    Hold thy peace be quiet (subsequent dialogue plays on “piece,” penis)    constrained compelled

55    keep make

56    steward manager of household affairs

57    Catayan Catharan (puritan)    politicians schemers    Peg-a-Ramsey spying wife in a popular ballad

58    ‘Three…we’ popular refrain from a song    consanguineous blood-related

59    Tillyvally nonsense

60    ‘There…lady!’ the opening and refrain of a song about the biblical tale of Susanna and the Elders

61    Beshrew curse

63    grace charm    natural convincingly/idiotically

64    ‘O…December’ from an unidentified song, possibly an erroneous reference to the twelfth day of Christmas (i.e., Twelfth Night)

66    wit good sense

67    honesty decorum    tinkers popularly viewed as drunkards

68    squeak out i.e., sing shrilly    coziers’ cobblers’

69    mitigation or remorse considerate lowering

71    Sneck up! Shut up!/ Buzz off!

72    round blunt

73    harbours lodges    nothing allied not related to

77    ‘Farewell…gone’ over the next few lines Sir Toby and Feste adapt lines from a contemporary ballad

80    Is’t even so? Is that the way things are?

85    an if if

86    spare not spare him not/be merciless

88    Out o’ tune false    Art are (you)

89    cakes and ale i.e., festivity, particularly abhorrent to one with puritan tendencies

90    Saint Anne mother of the Virgin Mary; another antipuritan dig    ginger spice in ale/aphrodisiac

91    rub…crumbs polish your chain of office (reminding Malvolio of his servant status)

93    prized valued

94    contempt disrespect/disobedience    give means i.e., provide drink    rule behavior

96    Go …ears i.e., like an ass; a dismissive insult

97    a-hungry (very) hungry

98    the field to a duel

102    out of quiet agitated    For as for    let…him leave him to me

103    gull trick    nayword byword (for stupidity)

104    recreation source of amusement

106    Possess inform

107    puritan overly strict moralist; not necessarily a member of the extreme Protestant religious movement

109    exquisite ingenious/excellent

111    constantly consistently    time-pleaser timeserver, flatterer

112    affectioned pretentious    cons…book learns high-flown expressions by heart    by great swarths in broad sweeps (like quantities of scythed hay)    The best persuaded having the highest opinion

113    excellencies excellent features/accomplishments

114    grounds of faith foundations of belief

117    obscure epistles ambiguous letters

118    expressure expression

119    complexion appearance/coloring/temperament    feelingly personated accurately represented

120    on…matter when we have forgotten the circumstances in which something was written or what it was about    make distinction of distinguish between

121    hands handwriting

122    device plot

128    Ass puns on “as”

130    physic medicine/treatment

132    construction interpretation    event outcome

133    Penthesilea Queen of the Amazons; probably refers to Maria’s shortness

134    Before me mild oath like “upon my soul”

135    beagle skillful hunting dog

138    recover obtain/win    foul way out miserably far from success/badly out of pocket

139    cut cart horse (castrated or with docked tail)/vagina

141    burn warm/sweeten with burnt sugar    sack Spanish white wine

Act 2 Scene 4

2    but (I want to hear) only

3    antique quaint/old

4    passion suffering

5    airs melodies    recollected terms studied, artificial expressions

12    the while in the meantime

16    Unstaid and skittish unsettled and fickle    motions else other emotions

17    constant faithful (contemplation of the)

19    gives…throned reflects the heart exactly

21    masterly from experience/knowingly

23    stayed lingered    favour face

25    by your favour if you please (plays on the sense of “on your face”)

30    still always

31    wears she she adapts herself

32    sways she level swings in perfect balance/exerts constant influence

34    fancies infatuations

35    worn exhausted

37    I…well I believe it

39    hold the bent hold steady (from archery: holding the bow taught)

41    displayed unfurled, in full bloom

45    Mark take note of

46    spinsters spinners

47    free carefree/innocent    weave…bones make lace with bone bobbins

48    Do use are accustomed    silly sooth simple truth

49    dallies deals lightly/toys

50    old age bygone times, good old days

53    away here

54    cypress cypress-wood coffin/among sprigs of cypress (associated with mourning)

57    stuck adorned, strewn    yew yew twigs, also emblematic of mourning

59    My…it I am the truest lover who ever died for love

62    strewn pronounced “strown”

72    pleasure…paid with pain (proverbial)

73    leave to leave permission to dismiss

74    melancholy god Saturn, thought to govern melancholy dispositions    doublet close-fitting jacket

75    changeable taffeta shot silk, the color of which changes depending on the light    opal iridescent gem of changeable color    men…constancy i.e., inconstant men

76    their…everywhere “he that is everywhere is nowhere” (proverbial)

77    that’s…nothing that’s the attitude that considers a useless voyage to be profitable

78    give place leave

82    dirty dishonorably acquired/despicable/muddy

83    parts attributes, i.e., wealth

84    giddily lightly    fortune traditionally held to be fickle

85    miracle…gems i.e., Olivia’s beauty

86    pranks adorns

93    be answered satisfied

95    bide withstand

97    retention the power to retain (emotion)

98    appetite desire/fancy

99    motion impulse/emotion    liver thought to be the seat of strong passion    palate organ of taste, i.e., easily satisfied

100    suffer undergo    surfeit sickening over indulgence    cloyment excessive gratification    revolt revulsion (of appetite)

101    mine i.e., my love

102    compare comparison

104    owe have for

112    history story

115    damask pink, like the damask rose

116    green and yellow sickly, pale, and sallow

117    patience…monument carved figure on a memorial

120    shows outwards displays    are more have more substance    will our desires    still always

125    to go to

128    give no place not give way    denay denial

Act 2 Scene 5

1    Come thy ways come along

2    scruple tiny amount    boiled puns on (black) “bile,” the cause of melancholy; also a joke, since    melancholy was a cold, dry humor

4    niggardly mean-minded    sheep-biter nasty, shifty fellow (literally, a dog that attacks sheep)

7    bear-baiting a pastime that was particularly disapproved of by puritans

8    fool…blue bruise him (metaphorically) with fooling

10    pity…lives a pity we should live

11    metal of India i.e., pure gold, treasure

12    box-tree thick evergreen shrub used in ornamental gardens    walk path

13    behaviour courtly gestures

15    contemplative preoccupied/mindlessly gazing    Close stay hidden

16    tickling i.e., flattery; one method of catching trout is to stroke them under their gills

17    she Olivia    affect love/feel fondness for

18    thus near i.e., close to saying    fancy love

19    uses treats

20    follows serves

21    overweening arrogant/overambitious

22    rare splendid    turkey-cock a proverbially proud, vain bird    jets struts

23    advances plumes raised feathers

24    ’Slight (by) God’s light

28    Pistol shoot

30    example precedent    lady…wardrobe unknown allusion to the marriage of a woman to her social inferior    yeoman…wardrobe servant in charge of household clothes and linen

32    Jezebel in the Bible, proud wife of Ahab, King of Israel; term for a wicked, deceptive, or lascivious woman

33    in absorbed in his own fantasies    blows him puffs him up

34    state canopied chair of state

35    stone-bow crossbow that shoots stones

36    officers household servants    branched embroidered with a branched pattern or with images of foliage

37    daybed sofa/bed for daytime reclining (with sexual associations)

40    humour of state temperament/power of one in authority    demure…regard solemn survey of the room and company

41    would wish

42    Toby Malvolio omits “Sir”

43    Bolts and shackles! restraints for a prisoner

45    people servants    start sudden movement    make out go

46    perchance perhaps    my— perhaps chain of office, which Malvolio momentarily forgets he would not be wearing, but he could be referring to anything; a genital quibble is probably present

47    curtsies bows

49    cars chariots/carts, i.e., by torture

50    familiar friendly

51    regard of control authoritative look

52    take strike, give

53    Cousin kinsman

54    prerogative due privilege, right

57    scab scoundrel

58    sinews muscles, strength

63    employment business

64    woodcock proverbially stupid bird    gin trap

65    humours whims, moods    intimate suggest

66    hand handwriting    C’s…T’s “cut” was slang for “vagina,” but the joke may well be on “cunt” (with and as “n”)

67    great P’s uppercase P’s/noble vagina (“piece”)/copious urination    in contempt of beyond

70    impressure imprint, seal    Lucrece Olivia’s seal ring bears the image of Lucrece, Roman heroine who committed suicide after being raped

71    uses to seal customarily seals

72    liver seat of passion

77    numbers altered meter changed

79    brock badger, used contemptuously

81    Lucrece knife knife Lucrece used to kill herself

83    sway rule

84    fustian nonsensical/pompous (literally, inferior cloth)

87    What what a    dressed prepared for

88    wing flight/speed    staniel kestrel, or small falcon    checks swoops

90    formal capacity normal intelligence

91    obstruction obstacle    position arrangement

92    portend mean

93    O, ay puns on the O…I of M.O.A.I.    makeup workout    at…scent has lost the trail

94    Sowter name of a hound (a “souter” was a cobbler)    cry bark    rank foul-smelling

96    cur dog    faults finding the scent again after the trail has gone cold

97    consonancy…sequel consistency of pattern    suffers holds up

98    probation investigation

99    O shall end O ends Malvolio’s name/a cry of misery will end this business/the hangman’s noose ends life

102    eye puns on Ay and I detraction defamation, slander

104    simulation disguised meaning    former earlier, clearer parts of the letter    crush force a meaning from

105    bow yield

106    revolve consider (with play on “turn round,” which may cue Malvolio to do so)    stars fortunes

108    open their hands offer bounty    blood and spirit i.e., all of you, body, and soul

109    embrace willingly accept    inure accustom    like likely    cast cast off

110    slough outer skin    opposite antagonistic/contradictory

111    tang…state ring out on political topics    trick of singularity peculiar, distinctive behavior

113    ever at all times    cross-gartered wearing garters crossed near the knee    Go to i.e., come on

116    alter services exchange places of mistress and servant; with sexual innuendo

117    Fortunate-Unhappy i.e., wealthy, but lacking requited love

118    champaign open countryside    discovers reveals    open clear

119    politic political/prudent    baffle publicly disgrace    gross dull/base

120    point-device to the last detail    jade deceive

121    excites urges

123    manifests herself to reveals herself as    injunction order

124    habits ways of dressing/behavior    happy fortunate    strange aloof    stout proud, haughty

127    entertainest welcome, accept

128    still always

132    Sophy Shah of Persia

133    device plot

137    gull-catcher fool trapper/trickster

138    Wilt …neck? i.e., I submit totally to you

140    play gamble    tray-trip type of dicing game    bondslave slave

145    aqua-vitae strong spirits, such as brandy

146    fruits outcome

150    contempt object of contempt

151    Tartar Tartarus, hell of classical mythology

152    make one join in, tag along

Act 3 Scene 1

3.1    tabor small drum

1    Save God save    live by earn your living with (Feste plays on the sense of by as “next to”)

6    lies by dwells near/sleeps with

7    stands is maintained    stand is placed

8    You have said you have had your say/fair enough    sentence saying    cheveril kidskin (pliable leather)

10    dally nicely play subtly/triflingly

11    wanton uncontrolled, ambiguous/lecherous

15    bonds legal contracts    disgraced them i.e., by suggesting that a man’s word alone was not enough

17    yield give

24    pilchards small fish that resemble herring

26    late recently

27    orb planet, world

28    but were it not for the fact that

29    your wisdom i.e., you, a hired servant/fool

30    pass upon jest at/judge

32    commodity supply

33    for one wanting a beard/from love for a bearded man

35    these i.e., coins    bred multiplied; Feste asks for more money

36    put to use invested for profit (plays on the sense of “having had sex”)

37    Pandarus uncle to    Cressida and go-between for his niece and her lover    Troilus Phrygia country in Asia Minor where Troy was situated

39    Cressida…beggar in some versions of the story, Cressida became a beggar with leprosy

40    conster explain

41    out…welkin beyond me welkin sky, heavens    element sphere of knowledge/sky

44    craves requires

46    quality character/rank

47    haggard untrained hawk    check swoop

48    practice occupation

50    is fit suits the purpose

51    folly-fall’n stooping to foolishness

54    Dieu…monsieur “God save you, sir” (French)

55    Et…serviteur “And you, too. [I am] your servant” (French)

57    encounter approach/enter

58    trade business, with sexual innuendo    to with, concerning

59    bound to heading for    list limit, objective

60    Taste tryout

61    understand support/comprehend

64    gait and entrance corresponding nouns to Sir Toby’s verbs;    gait puns on “gate”    prevented anticipated/forestalled

65    the may the    odours sweet smells

67    hath no voice cannot be uttered    pregnant receptive

68    vouchsafed (kindly) bestowed, i.e., attentive

69    all ready committed to memory, ready for use

70    hearing audience (with Cesario)

75    ’Twas …world proverbial: things haven’t been the same

76    lowly feigning pretended modesty    compliment courtesy

78    yours your servant    his i.e., his servants

80    For as for

81    blanks blank paper/unstamped coins

86    suit petition, courtship

87    solicit urge

88    music…spheres planets and stars were thought to be surrounded by hollow spheres that produced beautiful music as they rotated

90    leave permission (to speak)

92    abuse wrong/disgrace

94    construction judgment/interpretation (of my conduct)

95    To force for forcing

97    stake post to which a bear is chained for baiting by dogs

99    receiving understanding

100    cypress light transparent material

103    degree step

104    grize step    vulgar proof common experience

106    smile again i.e., throw off melancholy

109    lion a more noble adversary

113    proper handsome/worthy

115    disposition state of mind

117    You’ll you’ll send

120    what you are i.e., in love with me (a woman/a servant)

125    I…fool you make me look foolish

126    deal quantity

129    love’s…noon i.e., despite trying to conceal itself, love is obvious

131    maidhood virginity

132    maugre in spite of

133    Nor neither

134    extort…clause extract reason from this premise

135    For that because    no cause need to woo in return

136    Reason …fetter restrain your reason with the following reasoning

143    deplore lament, recount sorrowfully

Act 3 Scene 2

2    venom venomous person

5    i’th’orchard in the garden

6    the while at the time

8    argument proof

10    it my case    oaths sworn testament

11    Noah biblical character who survived a mighty flood sent by God

13    dormouse sleepy

14    fire-new …mint i.e., like a freshly minted coin

15    banged struck

16    balked avoided/neglected    double gilt i.e., golden (opportunity)

17    north cold region

19    policy strategy

20    lief willingly

21    Brownist follower of Robert Browne, founder of an extreme puritan sect    politician schemer

22    build me build    Challenge me challenge

24    love-broker go-between

28    martial hand military style/handwriting    curst quarrelsome

29    so provided that    invention innovation    licence of ink freedom encouraged by writing rather than speaking

30    thou’st call him “thou,” an insult to a stranger (“you” is the polite form)    lies accusations of lying

31    bed of Ware famous bed, able to hold twelve people

32    gall bile, anger/an ingredient in ink (oak gall)

33    goose-pen quill pen made from a goose’s feather (may play on sense of goose as “fool”)

35    cubiculo “bedroom” (Latin)

36    manikin little man, puppet

37    dear costly    two thousand probably ducats (gold coins)

38    rare marvelous, i.e., entertaining

40    wainropes wagon ropes, pulled by oxen hale haul, drag

42    th’anatomy i.e., his skeleton/body

43    opposite adversary    visage appearance/face    presage indication

44    youngest wren the wren is a small bird (a play on Maria’s size); some editors emend “mine” to “nine”

45    spleen fit of laughter (the spleen was thought to be the seat of laughter)

46    gull fool, dupe    renegado deserter of his religion

48    passages of grossness i.e., the ludicrous statements in Maria’s letter

50    villainously offensively, horribly    pedant schoolmaster

51    dogged followed closely

52    new…Indies probably refers to a map published in 1599 that showed the East Indies in much greater detail than previously

54    forbear desist from

Act 3 Scene 3

3    chide scold

5    filèd sharpened

6    all only (out of)    so much enough (love)

8    jealousy concern, apprehension (about)

9    skill-less in unacquainted with    stranger foreigner

12    rather more readily

16    ever oft very often

17    shuffled off shrugged aside    uncurrent worthless

18    worth financial means    conscience feeling of obligation    firm substantial/reliable

19    dealing treatment/reward

20    relics antiquities, old sights

25    renown make famous

28    count his count’s, i.e., duke’s    galleys ships usually propelled by oars as well as sails

30    it…answered it would be virtually impossible to account for it/make reparation (i.e., Antonio’s life would be in danger)

31    Belike presumably

33    Albeit even though

34    bloody argument cause for shedding blood

35    answered requited

36    traffic’s trade’s

38    lapsèd apprehended/caught out

40    open publicly

41    doth not fit does not suit/is not appropriate for

42    Elephant name of an inn

43    bespeak our diet order our food

44    beguile while away

45    have meet

47    Haply perhaps    toy trifle

48    store available money

49    idle markets trivial purchases

Act 3 Scene 4

1    him i.e., Cesario

2    of on

5    sad serious    civil decorous

8    possessed by evil spirits, i.e., mad

18    sad serious/melancholy

20    sonnet song/poem    ‘Please…all’ a ballad about women having their own way sexually

22    black melancholic (from an excess of black bile)    It i.e., the letter    his i.e., Malvolio’s

23    Roman hand fashionable Italian style of handwriting

24    go to bed i.e., to rest (but Malvolio takes this as sexually suggestive)

26    kiss thy hand a fashionable greeting amongst courtiers

28    daws jackdaws, birds of the crow family/fools

45    midsummer proverbially the season for madness

47    hardly with difficulty    attends awaits

50    miscarry come to harm

52    come near begin to understand/appreciate

57    consequently subsequently    reverend carriage dignified bearing

58    habit manner/clothing    sir of note distinguished man    limed caught; birdlime was a sticky substance smeared on branches to trap birds

60    Fellow equal    after my degree according to my position

61    dram tiny amount    scruple small quantity/doubt

62    incredulous incredible    unsafe unreliable

65    drawn in little gathered in a small space/painted in miniature

66    Legion biblical reference to a multitude of devils; Sir Toby may mistakenly think it is the name of a specific devil

68    private privacy, with possible play on “private parts”

69    Lo look    hollow echoingly

70    have a take

72    Let me alone leave him to me

76    La look

78    water urine, examined for diagnosis    wise woman local healer, thought able to cure those bewitched

83    move excite/provoke

87    bawcock good fellow (from the French beau coq, i.e., “fine bird”)    chuck chick

89    Biddy hen    gravity respectability

90    cherry-pit children’s game in which cherrystones are thrown into a hole    foul collier dirty coalman, i.e., the devil

94    idle worthless/trivial

95    element sphere/type

99    genius soul/guardian spirit

100    take…taint be spoiled (by exposure to air)

103    in…bound conventional treatment for the insane

104    carry manage/maintain

106    bar open court, i.e., judgment    finder of madmen juror who formally declared whether a man was mad

108    matter substance/sport    May morning i.e., festive time

109    warrant assure you/confirm

110    saucy spicy/insolent

111    warrant assure

112    scurvy worthless/contemptible

114    admire marvel

116    note remark    keeps protects    blow…law legal punishment (for breaching the peace)

118    liest…throat lie outrageously

123    o’th’windy on the windward, i.e., safe

125    hope i.e., of success    as…him insofar as you treat him as such

128    move provoke/set in motion

129    commerce transaction/conversational exchange

131    Scout me keep watch (for me)

132    bumbaily bailiff who crept up on the debtor from behind

133    horrible terribly/exceedingly

134    twanged off uttered ringingly/said with a snide nasal intonation    approbation credit    proof testing out

136    let me alone i.e., you can rely on me

138    capacity intelligence

140    clodpole idiot

142    youth inexperience    aptly receive readily believe

143    hideous terrifying

145    cockatrices basilisks, mythical reptiles whose gaze had the power to kill

146    Give them way keep out of their way    presently immediately

148    horrid terrifying

150    laid laid down/exposed    unchary carelessly

154    ’haviour…bears behavior that characterizes your passion

156    jewel piece of jewellery, here a miniature portrait of Olivia

160    honour saved i.e., apart from my virginity

164    acquit excuse, release (from obligation to love)

169    That whatever    betake resort

170    intercepter one lying in wait    despite contempt    bloody bloodthirsty

171    Dismount draw    tuck sword    yare quick

173    to with    remembrance memory

176    price value    opposite opponent

177    withal with

179    dubbed invested with knightly status    unhatched unhacked, unmarked (in battle)    on carpet consideration for courtly, rather than military, reasons

181    incensement fury    satisfaction recompense for offense to one’s honor

182    sepulchre tomb    Hob, nob have or have not, i.e., come what may    word motto

183    conduct protection

185    taste test    quirk peculiarity

186    competent sufficient

188    that i.e., the duel

189    meddle get involved

190    forswear…you cease to wear a sword

191    office task    know of inquire from

196    mortal arbitrement fight to the death

199    Nothing…promise not at all as extraordinary    read judge    form appearance    like likely

204    mettle spirit/courage

205    firago virago, female fighter    pass bout (of fencing)

206    stuck in fencing thrust

207    mortal fatal    motion fencing maneuver    inevitable unavoidable    answer return hit    pays you strikes you in return

208    to in the service of    Sophy Shah of Persia

209    Pox plague

210    hold restrain

211    cunning skillful    fence fencing

212    ere before

214    motion offer

215    perdition of souls i.e., loss of life perdition destruction, damnation    ride i.e., make a fool of

216    take up settle

217    horribly conceited has just as terrifying an idea

219    for’s oath for his oath’s

220    quarrel cause of complaint

221    supportance upholding    protests declares/vows

223    A…would it wouldn’t take much to (thing plays on the sense of “penis”)

227    duello established duelling code

232    up away

238    undertaker one who takes on a task/challenger    for ready for

240    anon shortly

242    for that as for what

243    He i.e., Capilet, the horse    reins is obedient, responds to the reins

245    suit order/request

247    favour face

251    answer be accountable for

255    amazed shocked/bewildered

261    part in part

263    having fortune

264    present available resources

265    coffer money

266    deny reject/disown

267    deserts worthy deeds

268    lack persuasion fail to persuade you to help me    tempt try

269    unsound morally weak/inadequate

275    vainness ostentation

282    sanctity holiness

283    image appearance (plays on the sense of “religious icon”)

284    venerable worth worthy to be venerated

287    feature physical appearance

289    unkind cruel/unnatural

291    trunks chests/bodies    o’erflourished richly decorated/made outwardly beautiful

299    sage solemn/dignified    saws sayings

301    glass mirrored reflection/image

302    favour appearance    went went about

303    Still always    ornament clothing, adornments

304    prove i.e., to be true

306    dishonest dishonorable    a coward cowardly

309    religious devout

310    ’Slid by God’s eyelid (common oath)

313    event outcome

314    yet after all

Act 4 Scene 1

4    held out kept up

7    vent utter, let out

8    of from

9    lubber clumsy idiot

10    cockney pampered child/affected, effeminate fellow    ungird takeoff    strangeness aloofness

12    Greek buffoon/speaker of gibberish

13    tarry linger    worse payment i.e., blows

14    open generous (with money or blows)

15    report reputation    fourteen years’ purchase i.e., a large investment of time and money

19    straight at once    in…coats in your position

21    hold restrain yourself

22    action of battery lawsuit for assault

26    iron dagger/sword

27    fleshed initiated into fighting

30    malapert impudent

38    Rudesby ruffian    friend friend/lover

40    uncivil barbarous    extent assault

43    botched up patched together

45    Beshrew curse

46    started startled/drove from cover    heart puns on “hart”

47    relish meaning (literally, “taste”)

48    Or either

49    fancy imagination    Lethe river of forgetfulness in the classical underworld

50    still always

51    Would thou’dst if only you would

Act 4 Scene 2

1    Sir respectful title for priest    Topas topaz, a precious stone, was supposed to cure madness; also proverbial for a puritan priest

2    curate parish priest    the whilst in the meantime

3    dissemble disguise

4    dissembled feigned, deceived become suit

5    function task/role (of priest)    said reputed

6    housekeeper host    goes as fairly sounds as good    careful painstaking/conscientious

7    competitors conspirators, partners in crime

9    Bonos dies “good day” (mock Latin/Spanish)    old…Prague an invented authority    never…ink was illiterate

10    King Gorboduc legendary British king

18    hyperbolical immoderate/vehement/raging    fiend evil spirit (supposedly possessing Malvolio)    vexest torment

23    modest terms mild expressions

25    house i.e., room

27    barricadoes barricades    clerestories upper windows

32    puzzled bewildered    Egyptians…fog in the Bible, God punished the Egyptians with three days of darkness

34    abused wronged/maltreated

35    constant decided/consistent/logical    question discussion, debate

36    Pythagoras ancient Greek philosopher who believed in the transmigration of souls from humans to animals

37    grandam grandmother    happily perhaps (though may play on adverbial sense)

41    allow…wits acknowledge you are sane    woodcock proverbially stupid and easily caught bird

44    exquisite ingenious/exact (in imitation)

45    am…waters can turn my hand to anything

47    To goto

48    delivered liberated

50    upshot final stroke, conclusion    by and by straightaway

54    perdy by God (from French par dieu)

64    besides out of    five wits mental faculties: common sense, fantasy, judgment, memory, and imagination

65    notoriously evidently/outrageously

67    But only

69    propertied packed away like a piece of furniture/a stage prop

70    face bully

71    Advise you be careful/consider

73    bibble babble idle chatter

76    God buy you good-bye, literally “God be with you”

80    shent rebuked

83    Well-a-day alas/would

92    requite repay

96    a trice an instant

97    Vice buffoon/comic character in old morality plays

99    dagger of lath the weapon of the Vice character    lath thin wood

103    Pare thy nails probably a comic routine in morality plays    Pare trim    dad the Vice was sometimes portrayed as the devil’s son

104    goodman title for someone below the rank of gentleman

Act 4 Scene 3

6    was had been    credit report

7    range roam

9    disputes well i.e., agrees

11    accident unforeseen event

12    instance precedent    discourse rationality

14    wrangle argue

15    trust belief

17    sway her house govern her household

18    Take…dispatch deal with matters of household business

21    deceivable deceptive

24    chantry private chapel    by nearby

26    Plight…faith pledge your love (in a binding betrothal)

27    jealous anxious, uncertain, wary

29    Whiles until    note public knowledge

30    What at which    celebration i.e., marriage

31    birth social status

35    fairly note observe with favor

Act 5 Scene 1

5    This…again seemingly refers to the anecdote about Elizabeth I and her kinsman Dr. Boleyn; she asked for his dog and promised him anything in return, upon which he asked for the animal back

7    trappings ornaments/bits and pieces

9    for because of

15    abused deceived    so…affirmatives if the outcome is like the response to a request for a kiss, where “no, no, no, no” means “yes, yes”

19    though even though    friends i.e., one who gives him praise

21    But except for the fact    double-dealing duplicity/giving twice

23    your grace favor/virtue (plays on the customary way of addressing a duke)    in your pocket i.e., to hide it/to give money    flesh and blood human instincts/frailty

24    it i.e., the ill counsel

25    to as to

26    Primo, secundo, tertio “first, second, third” (Latin)    play game    third…all i.e., third time lucky (proverbial)

27    triplex triple time in music    tripping nimble, skipping    measure stately dance/music    Saint Bennet church of Saint Benedict

29    throw roll of the dice/occasion

32    lullaby i.e., farewell

38    Vulcan Roman god of fire, and the gods’ blacksmith

39    bawbling trifling

40    For (trifling) because of    draught depth of water required to float the ship    unprizeable of little value

41    scathful damaging    grapple close fighting, attempts to board another ship

42    bottom ship (literally, ship’s hull)

43    very even    envy malice, i.e., his enemies    loss defeat

46    Phoenix name of Illyrian ship    fraught cargo    Candy Candia, modern Heraklion, a port in Crete

47    Tiger name of Illyrian ship

49    desperate disregarding

50    brabble brawl

51    on my side (his sword) in my defense

52    put…me spoke to me strangely

53    but distraction if not madness

54    Notable notorious

56    bloody bloodthirsty    dear grievous, severe

59    Be…I allow me to

61    base basis

64    rude rough

67    retention reservation

68    All…dedication dedicated wholly to him

69    pure purely

70    adverse hostile

74    face…acquaintance deny he knew me

75    grew…wink in the space of a moment he behaved as if we had not seen each other for twenty years

77    recommended committed

85    But for as for

88    but…have except that which I refuse him, i.e., love

93    lord if addressed to Viola, “husband” (Viola uses the sense of “master”)

95    aught anything

96    fat gross    fulsome distasteful, nauseating

100    uncivil uncivilized

101    ingrate ungrateful    unauspicious ill-omened, unpromising

103    tendered offered (may play on “tender,” i.e., loving, gentle)

104    Even what whatever/exactly what    become suit

106    Egyptian thief character from a Greek romance who tried to kill a captive he loved when his own life was threatened

108    savours nobly has a taste of nobility

109    non-regardance disrespect/lack of attention

110    that since

111    screws forces

113    minion favorite/darling

114    tender care for/value

116    in …spite to the vexation of his master

117    ripe in mischief ready to do harm

120    jocund cheerful    apt readily

121    To…rest in order to give you ease

125    mores such comparisons

127    tainting of discrediting

128    beguiled deceived

136    sirrah sir (contemptuous; used to an inferior)

138    baseness cowardice/lowly nature

139    strangle stifle    propriety real identity

141    that that which

142    that thou fear’st him you fear, i.e., Orsino

145    unfold reveal

150    joinder joining

151    close meeting

153    compact agreement

154    Sealed…function certified by my priestly authority

155    watch clock

158    grizzle sprinkling of gray hair    case (animal) skin

159    craft cunning

160    trip wrestling move to throw opponent

163    protest declare/swear

165    Hold little faith keep some part of your promise

166    presently immediately

168    H’as broke he has cut    coxcomb head (with suggestion of fool’s cap resembling a cock’s crest)

172    incardinate incarnate

174    ’Od’s lifelings by God’s little lives (mild oath)

179    set nothing by think nothing of

180    halting limping

181    in drink drunk    tickled i.e., beaten    othergates in another way, i.e., differently

183    all one doesn’t matter    there’s th’end on’t that’s all there is to it    sot idiot/drunkard

185    agone ago, past    set glazed/fixed/closed (eight i’th’morning may suggest the manner in which the surgeon’s eyes were fixed, rolling back, like the sun high in the morning sky)

187    passy measures pavin stately dance, i.e., slow

189    be dressed bandaged

190    coxcomb fool

191    gull dupe/fool

194    brother…blood my own brother

195    with…safety in reasonable self-protection

196    strange regard odd/distant look

200    habit clothing

201    natural perspective optical illusion produced by nature

203    racked tormented

206    Fear’st doubt

212    deity godlike quality

213    here and everywhere omnipresence

214    blind heedless

215    Of charity (tell me) out of kindness

219    suited dressed

220    form and suit physical appearance and dress

223    am…clad my body is clothed with the flesh

224    participate have in common with all humanity

225    the…even everything else is in agreement

232    record memory    lively vivid, alive

235    lets hinders

238    jump coincide

241    weeds clothes

245    mistook mistaken

246    to…drew inclined in the right direction (bowling metaphor)

247    contracted betrothed

251    glass mirror/lens of optical instrument (perspective)

252    happy fortunate

254    like to as much as

255    overswear swear again and again

257    orbèd continent spherical container, i.e., as the sun keeps

262    action legal charge

263    in durance imprisoned

265    enlarge release

266    remember me remember

267    distract mad

268    extracting distracting    frenzy agitation/madness

269    From…his drove him from my memory

271    Beelzebub the devil    the stave’s end at a distance

272    today i.e., this

273    epistles letters/New Testament letters from the apostles    gospels truths/New Testament records of Christ’s life and teaching    skills matters

274    delivered handed over

276    delivers speaks the words of

280    vox “voice” (Latin), i.e., the correct manner of delivery (Feste has obviously read the words in a “mad” style)

282    read discern    right wits true state of mind    perpend consider

288    semblance outward show    the which i.e., the letter

290    duty i.e., respectful behavior of a steward    out…injury as a wronged party

295    delivered released

296    so may it    thought on considered

297    as…wife as good a sister-in-law as you’d hoped to regard me as a wife

298    th’alliance the union (in a double wedding)

299    proper personal

300    apt ready

301    quits releases (from service)

302    mettle natural disposition

315    hand handwriting

316    from it differently

317    invention composition

319    modesty of honour name of all that is decent and honorable/restraint befitting your status

320    lights signals

323    lighter more frivolous/lesser

324    acting undertaking

325    suffered allowed

327    geck dupe/fool

328    invention played on trickery sported with

330    character style of writing

331    out of beyond

333    cam’st you came

334    presupposed Upon previously suggested to

336    practice plot/trick    shrewdly mischievously passed been perpetrated

342    condition (happy) circumstances

343    wondered marvelled

346    Upon because of    uncourteous unfriendly/uncivil    parts qualities/actions

347    conceived against imagined/discerned in

348    importance urging

350    sportful playful    followed followed up/carried out

351    pluck on induce

352    If that If

354    baffled tricked/disgraced

356    interlude short play

359    whirligig spinning top/roundabout

364    golden auspicious    convents comes together/calls us

365    combination union

367    hence here, i.e., Olivia’s house

369    habits clothing

370    fancy’s love’s

371    and a a very

373    foolish trivial/silly (may play on the sense of “lewd”)    thing may play on the sense of “penis”    toy trifle/useless/fun (may play on a sense of “penis”)

375    man’s estate manhood

376    etc. indicates repeat of chorus

379    wive marry

381    swaggering bullying/quarreling

383    beds drunk to bed/old age

385    With toss-pots like other drunkards

THE WINTER’S TALE

In about 1590 the dramatist George Peele wrote a play called The Old Wives’ Tale in which an old woman is asked to tell “a merry winter’s tale” in order to “drive away the time trimly.” “Once upon a time,” she begins, as all traditional storytellers do, “there was a king or a lord or a duke that had a fair daughter, the fairest that ever was, as white as snow and as red as blood: and once upon a time his daughter was stolen away.” An old wives’ or a winter’s tale is like a fairy story: it is not supposed to be realistic and it is bound to have a happy ending. Along the way, there will be magic, dreams, coincidences, children lost and found. This is the style of play to which Shakespeare turned some twenty years after Peele, in the final phase of his career.

Shakespeare’s late plays have come to be known as “romances.” Although neither the dramatist himself nor the compilers of the First Folio used this generic classification, the term is helpful because it gestures toward the origin of such stories in ancient Greek prose romance, which was peopled by wanderers, separated lovers, oracles, shepherds, and heroes who undergo narrow escapes from disaster. The story of Apollonius of Tyre, the ultimate source for Shakespeare’s cowritten play Pericles, is a classic example of the genre. Robert Greene, another dramatist who was prominent in the early 1590s, wrote several prose romances in this tradition, among them Pandosto: The Triumph of Time, the story that is dramatized in The Winter’s Tale. We do not know exactly what led Shakespeare, some time after writing the tragedies of Lear and Macbeth, to turn back to the style of Peele and Greene. Always attuned to changes in the wind, perhaps he sensed that a gentler mode of tragicomedy and pastoral romance, with a distinctly royalist agenda, suited the times: the King’s Men seem to have had notable successes in these years with several dramas of this kind, including a revival of the old anonymous play of Mucedorus, which even featured an encounter with a bear.

The Winter’s Tale does not, however, begin in the world of romance. The Sicilian opening of the story is full of court intrigue in the manner of King Lear and sexual jealousy reminiscent of Othello. There are accusations of conspiracy, a queen is tried for treason, and a king behaves like a tyrant. Only in the second half is there a redemptive movement from court to country: the structure is similar to that of Cymbeline, another Shakespearean tragicomedy written around the same time. In contrast to Sicilia, Bohemia is a place of benign chance, where the flight of a falcon leads a prince to his future bride and a thieving trickster inadvertently helps the plot toward its happy resolution. The arts of the court give way to the harmonies of nature. Though this is to oversimplify: Polixenes relies on “intelligence” and disguise, then threatens physical violence against Perdita. She is a princess assumed to be a shepherdess, who dresses up as a queen and speaks of the need to intermingle art and nature in the grafting of flowers: complex layers of illusion are at work.

Critics have been much exercised by Leontes’ explosion of anger when Hermione succeeds in persuading Polixenes to prolong his visit to Sicilia after Leontes has failed to do so. Why does her courtesy lead instantly to a false accusation of adultery? Has Leontes’ jealousy been festering for a long time? Is he angry because a woman has come between two close male friends (a Shakespearean obsession that runs from the early Two Gentlemen of Verona through the sonnets to his last play, The Two Noble Kinsmen)? Such questions are the prerogative of the reader more than the spectator in the playhouse. An audience watching a play can only work out a limited amount about the events that are imagined to have occurred before the action begins, and in the theatrical experience such events do not exist.

Theatrical attention is concentrated more on Leontes as he is than on how he got there. In a puzzling, tortuous self-analysis concerning the “infection” of his brains, he says that as mental states may be affected by things unreal, such as dreams, so they may also be affected by things that are real:

…Can thy dam, may’t be

Affection?— Thy intention stabs the centre.

Thou dost make possible things not so held,

Communicat’st with dreams — how can this be? —

With what’s unreal thou coactive art,

And fellow’st nothing. Then ’tis very credent

Thou mayst co-join with something, and thou dost,

And that beyond commission, and I find it,

And that to the infection of my brains

And hard’ning of my brows.

Both syntax and semantics are crabbed. Leontes’ fragmented sentences are symptoms of his mental disintegration. The referent of the key word “affection” is unstable: does it refer to the relationship between Hermione and Polixenes or to Leontes’ own mental state? “Affection” could denote their sexual desire or his strong feeling in response to it, but the word could also signify delusion, sickness. The ambiguity is revelatory precisely because Leontes can no longer distinguish between what is going on in his own mind and the reality observed by everyone else on stage. Hermione speaks truer than she knows when in the trial scene she says, “My life stands in the level of your dreams.”

The logical conclusion of Leontes’ analysis ought to be that the thing that is exercising him, namely the supposed affair between his wife and his best friend, is nothing but a bad dream. But he obstinately draws the opposite conclusion. The irrationality of this move is itself a sign of the “infection” that is afflicting him. Honest Camillo sees this, but, for the very reason that he is “infected,” Leontes himself cannot. His “distraction” makes him misinterpret every action, even as his very language becomes infected with dark sexual double entendre: “stabs,” “nothing” and “co-join” anticipate the subsequent grossness of “no barricado for a belly” and “she has been sluiced in’s absence / And his pond fished by his next neighbour.”

Whatever the origin of Leontes’ suspicion, the dramatic interest is in the effect, the tendency of human beings who have fallen into holes to dig themselves ever deeper. No argument, not even the supposedly divine “truth” of the oracle, will convince Leontes of his error. Accordingly, what does persuade him to change his mind is an effect of emotion rather than reason: the shock, the raw grief, of his son’s and wife’s sudden deaths. The boy Mamillius is the one who has said that “A sad tale’s best for winter” when his mother offers to tell him a story, and he it is who becomes victim of the winter-bound first half of the play. Leontes metaphorically freezes his wife out of his affections, with the unintended result that his son catches a literal chill and dies. Only after this can the action move to the regenerative world of romance. “Thou met’st with things dying, I with things newborn,” remarks the Old Shepherd at the play’s pivotal point when he scoops up the baby Perdita as Antigonus is torn to pieces by the bear.

One of the best ways of discovering Shakespeare’s core concerns in a play is to consider his major additions to his sources: it is a fair assumption that he is most himself when he departs from his originals. As one would expect from Pandosto, Leontes is easily the largest role in the play, twice as long as any other. But the next two most sizeable parts—added together, they equal that of Leontes in length—are Camillo and Paulina. The figure of Leontes’ honest counselor greatly expands the role of the king’s cupbearer in Pandosto, whilst Paulina, Hermione’s preserver and Leontes’ conscience, has no equivalent in the source. The prominence of these roles suggests that in this play Shakespeare is especially interested in the relationship between absolute power, with its potential to turn to tyranny, and the role of the wise counselor. How far can an adviser, or for that matter a playwright whose works are performed at court, go in speaking truths that their rulers might not want to hear? This was a perennial concern in the Elizabethan and Jacobean era.

The court of King James was different from that of Queen Elizabeth not least because there was a royal family. Negotiations to find the right husband for the king’s daughter were ongoing at the time of the play’s composition and first court performance. This should not, however, lead us to read the drama as an allegory of contemporary diplomacy. Leontes is in no sense a representation of King James; besides, one of the things that makes the play a romance is its delightful representation of paternal informality and intimacy in the exchanges with Mamillius in the opening court scene. Real kings did not publicly mix the roles of patriarch and playmate in this way.

In Greene’s Pandosto, when the Perdita figure arrives incognito at court near the climax of the story, the desiring eye of her father falls upon her, raising the spectre of royal incest. One of Paulina’s roles in The Winter’s Tale is to divert Leontes from any thought of this kind: “Your eye hath too much youth in’t,” she remarks, reminding him that even in middle age his dead queen was more beautiful “Than what you look on now.” Earlier in the same scene, Paulina has counseled the king against remarriage, eliciting the response

Thou speak’st truth.

No more such wives: therefore, no wife. One worse,

And better used, would make her sainted spirit

Again possess her corpse, and on this stage —

Where we offenders now — appear soul-vexed,

And begin, ‘Why to me?’

These lines brilliantly anticipate the moment when, thanks to the dramaturgical art of Paulina, the “sainted spirit” of Hermione really does appear to have a soul breathed back into it as she walks again on that same “stage.”

In Pandosto the wronged queen does not return to life. The reanimation of what Leontes takes to be Hermione’s statue is Shakespeare’s invention. The wonder-filled final scene puts a seemingly life-giving art into the hands of Paulina. That art dramatizes the magical power of theater itself so that we in the audience, like the characters on stage, awaken our faith. The many-layered quality of the illusion—a boy-actor pretending to be a female character, Hermione, who is herself pretending to be a statue—takes Shakespeare’s art to an extreme level of self-consciousness. Fittingly, the scene is also an allusion to Ovid, the most self-conscious artist among Shakespeare’s literary models.

In book ten of the Metamorphoses, the artist Pygmalion carves an ivory statue so realistic that it seems to be a real girl, so beautiful that he falls in love with it. He desperately wants to believe it is real and there are moments when the perfection of the art is such that the statue does seem to be struggling into life. With a little assistance from the goddess Venus, a kiss then animates the statue in a striking reversal of the usual Ovidian metamorphic pattern in which people are turned into things or animals. At a profound level, Pygmalion is a figure of Ovid himself: the artist who transforms mere words into living forms.

Shakespeare learned from Ovid’s Pygmalion both an idea and a style. If you want something badly enough and you believe in it hard enough, you will eventually get it: though tragedy denies this possibility, comedy affirms it. This is the illusion that theater can foster. Ovid showed Shakespeare that the way to evoke this leap of faith is through pinpricks of sensation. The progression in the animation of Pygmalion’s statue is both precise and sensuous: blood pulses through the veins, the lips respond, the ivory face flushes. Correspondingly, Leontes contrasts the warm life his queen once had with the coldness of the statue, but then he seems to see blood in the veins and warmth upon the lips. And when she descends and embraces him, she is warm.

At the beginning of the play Leontes complains that Hermione’s body-contact with Polixenes is “Too hot, too hot”—he wants her to be frigidly chaste, even though she is pregnant. His jealous look is like that of the basilisk or the gorgon Medusa: he turns his wife to stone. In the final act, this metaphor becomes a metamorphosis as Paulina conjures up the illusion of Hermione’s depetrification. The transformation is triumphantly realized on stage both linguistically and visually. “Does not the stone rebuke me / For being more stone than it?” asks Leontes, when confronted with the statue. The hardened image of his wife forces him to turn his gaze inward upon his own hard heart. The play ends with the melting of that heart and the rekindling of love, with its concordant release of Hermione back into softness, warmth, and life.

We know in our heads that we are not really watching a statue coming to life. Yet in a good production, at the moment of awakening we feel in our hearts that we are. The magic of the drama occurs in a strange but deeply satisfying space between the two poles of reality and illusion. Metamorphosis is a kind of translation that occurs in the passage from one state to another. Ovid’s world, which is also evoked by Perdita’s comparison of herself to Proserpina, goddess of spring, shuttles between human passions and natural phenomena. Shakespeare carried the magic of that world across into the medium of theater, where everything is illusion, but somehow—as he put it in the alternative title of another of his last plays, Henry VIII—”All is True.”

When Perdita, whose name means “lost one,” is restored to her father, the oracle is fulfilled and there is some atonement for the death of Mamillius. Not, however, full restoration, for Mamillius himself will not return. The boy-actor who played the part would almost certainly have doubled as Perdita in the second half of the play, visually transforming the dead son into a living daughter. Polixenes’ son Florizel also stands in for Mamillius: he grows into what Leontes’ son might have become. When he and Perdita are joined in marriage, the two kings and their kingdoms are united. Leontes has to accept that he will only live on through the female line. This is an appropriate punishment, given his earlier rejection of the female for having come between him and his “brother.”

It will perhaps seem harsh to speak of punishment after the delights of the pastoral scene, the benign mischief of Autolycus, and the wonder of the moment when the supposed statue of Hermione is brought back to life. To do so is to resemble the Paulina who browbeats Leontes into maintaining his penance for sixteen years. When she finally softens and lets him into her art gallery, surely we too need to let go of our reason and our moral judgement. “It is required,” as Paulina puts it, that we awake our faith. But can so much suffering evaporate in an instant of theatrical magic? Hermione’s face is scarred with the marks of time, the wrinkles accumulated in her sixteen years’ seclusion. And not even the joys of the impending union of the two houses can bring back the child whose “smutched” nose his father has so tenderly wiped in the first act.

KEY FACTS

PLOT: Polixenes, King of Bohemia, has been on a nine-month visit to the court of his childhood friend Leontes, King of Sicilia, and his wife, Queen Hermione. Groundlessly, Leontes becomes convinced that his heavily pregnant wife has been having an affair with Polixenes. He tries to persuade his most trusted courtier, Camillo, to poison Polixenes. Convinced of the queen’s innocence, Camillo warns Polixenes and they depart for Bohemia together. Another courtier, Antigonus, is ordered to leave Hermione’s newly born daughter on a desert shore. Leontes tries Hermione for treason; when he denies the truth of the god Apollo’s oracular declaration of her innocence, his son Mamillius dies. He is then told that the queen has also died. Antigonus leaves the baby girl on the coast of Bohemia, where he is torn to pieces by a bear. An old shepherd and his clownish son find the baby, bring her up as a member of their family, and name her Perdita. Sixteen years later, she is being courted by Polixenes’ son, Prince Florizel, who has disguised himself as a shepherd, Doricles. The roguish pedlar Autolycus tricks the shepherds out of money. Polixenes and Camillo come in disguise to the countryside; when the king denounces his son for courting a low-born shepherdess, Florizel and Perdita flee to Sicilia, with the assistance of Camillo. The shepherd and clown follow, bringing tokens that reveal Perdita’s true identity. That which was lost having been found, Paulina, the lady most loyal to Hermione, reveals a statue of the dead queen and tells the assembled company to prepare themselves for a great wonder.

MAJOR PARTS: (with percentages of lines/number of speeches/scenes on stage) Leontes (20%/ 125/6), Paulina (10%/59/5), Camillo (9%/72/5), Autolycus (9%/67/3), Polixenes (8%/57/4), Florizel (6%/45/2), Hermione (6%/35/4), Clown (5%/64/4), Shepherd (4%/42/3), Perdita (4%/25/3), Antigonus (3%/19/3). An unusually large number of named parts have 20–30 lines, less than 1% of the text: Archidamus, Cleomenes, Dion, the boy Mamillius, Emilia, Dorcas, and Mopsa.

LINGUISTIC MEDIUM: 75% verse, 25% prose.

DATE: 1611. Performed at the Globe May 1611; dance of satyrs apparently borrows from a court entertainment of January 1611; performed at court November 1611 and again for royal wedding celebrations in early 1613. Some scholars argue for 1609–10 on assumption that satyrs’ dance is a later interpolation, but theaters were closed because of plague for many months of these earlier years.

SOURCES: A dramatization of Robert Greene’s prose romance Pandosto: The Triumph of Time (1588, also known as The History of Dorastus and Fawnia). The survival and revival of the queen is a Shakespearean innovation, influenced by the story in Ovid’s Metamorphoses (book ten) in which Pygmalion’s statue comes to life.

TEXT: First Folio of 1623 is only early printed text. Typeset from a transcription by Ralph Crane, professional scribe to the King’s Men, it is very well printed, with remarkably few textual problems.

THE WINTER’S TALE

LEONTES, King of Sicilia

HERMIONE, his queen

MAMILLIUS, their son, a child

PERDITA, their daughter

PAULINA, a lady, wife to Antigonus

EMILIA, a lady attending upon Hermione

POLIXENES, King of Bohemia

FLORIZEL, his son

ARCHIDAMUS, a lord of Bohemia

OLD SHEPHERD, reputed father of Perdita

CLOWN, his son

AUTOLYCUS, a rogue, formerly in the service of Prince Florizel

Shepherds and Shepherdesses, including MOPSA and DORCAS

Twelve countrymen disguised as satyrs

A MARINER, a jailer, other Lords, Gentlemen, Servants

TIME, as Chorus

Act 1 Scene 11.1

running scene 1

Enter Camillo and Archidamus

ARCHIDAMUSIf you shall chance, Camillo, to visit Bohemia,[1] on the like occasion whereon my services are now on foot,[2] you shall see, as I have said, great difference betwixt our Bohemia and your Sicilia.

CAMILLOI think this coming summer the King of Sicilia means to pay Bohemia[4] the visitation which he justly owes him.

ARCHIDAMUSWherein[6] our entertainment shall shame us, we will be justified in our loves, for indeed—

CAMILLOBeseech you—

ARCHIDAMUSVerily,[9] I speak it in the freedom of my knowledge: we cannot with such magnificence — in so rare[10] — I know not what to say. We will give you sleepy drinks, that your senses, unintelligent of our insufficience,[11] may, though they cannot praise us, as little accuse us.

CAMILLOYou pay a great deal too dear for what’s given freely.

ARCHIDAMUSBelieve me, I speak as my understanding instructs me and as mine honesty puts it to utterance.

CAMILLOSicilia[16] cannot show himself over-kind to Bohemia. They were trained together in their childhoods and there rooted betwixt them then such an affection which cannot choose but branch[18] now. Since their more mature dignities and royal necessities[19] made separation of their society, their encounters, though not personal, have been royally attorneyed[20] with interchange of gifts, letters, loving embassies,[21] that they have seemed to be together, though absent, shook hands, as over a vast,[22] and embraced, as it were, from the ends of opposed winds. The heavens continue their loves.

ARCHIDAMUSI think there is not in the world either malice or matter to alter it. You have an unspeakable[25] comfort of your young prince Mamillius: it is a gentleman of the greatest promise that ever came into my note.[26]

CAMILLOI very well agree with you in the hopes of him: it is a gallant child; one that indeed physics the subject,[28] makes old hearts fresh. They that went on crutches ere[29] he was born desire yet their life to see him a man.

ARCHIDAMUSWould they else[30] be content to die?

CAMILLOYes; if there were no other excuse why they should desire to live.

ARCHIDAMUSIf the king had no son, they would desire to live on crutches till he had one.

Exeunt

Act 1 Scene 2

running scene 1 continues

Enter Leontes, Hermione, Mamillius, Polixenes, Camillo [and Attendants]

POLIXENESNine changes of the wat’ry star[1] hath been

The shepherd’s note[2] since we have left our throne

Without a burden.[3] Time as long again

Would be filled up, my brother, with our thanks.

5

And yet we should, for perpetuity,[5]

Go hence in debt: and therefore, like a cipher,[6]

Yet standing in rich place, I multiply

With one ‘We thank you’ many thousands moe

That go before it.

10

LEONTESStay[10] your thanks a while,

And pay them when you part.

POLIXENESSir, that’s tomorrow.

I am questioned[13] by my fears of what may chance

Or breed upon our absence, that may blow

15

No sneaping winds at home, to make us say

‘This is put forth too truly’. Besides, I have stayed

To tire your royalty.

LEONTESWe are tougher, brother,

Than you can put us to’t.[19]

20

POLIXENESNo longer stay.

LEONTESOne sev’nnight[21] longer.

POLIXENESVery sooth,[22] tomorrow.

LEONTESWe’ll part the time between’s[23] then, and in that

I’ll no gainsaying.[24]

25

POLIXENESPress me not, beseech you, so.

There is no tongue that moves, none, none i’th’world

So soon as yours could win me. So it should now,

Were there necessity in your request, although

’Twere needful[29] I denied it. My affairs

30

Do even drag me homeward, which to hinder

Were[31] in your love a whip to me, my stay

To you a charge[32] and trouble. To save both,

Farewell, our brother.

LEONTESTongue-tied, our queen? Speak you.

35

HERMIONEI had thought, sir, to have held my peace until

You had drawn oaths from him not to stay. You, sir,

Charge[37] him too coldly. Tell him you are sure

All in Bohemia’s well: this[38] satisfaction

The bygone day proclaimed. Say[39] this to him,

40

He’s beat from his best ward.[40]

LEONTESWell said, Hermione.

HERMIONETo tell,[42] he longs to see his son, were strong.

But[43] let him say so then, and let him go.

But let him swear so, and he shall not stay,

45

We’ll thwack him hence with distaffs.[45]—

Yet of your royal presence I’ll adventure[46] To Polixenes

The borrow of a week. When at Bohemia

You take[48] my lord, I’ll give him my commission

To let him there a month behind[49] the gest

50

Prefixed for’s parting.— Yet, good deed,[50] Leontes,

I love thee not a jar[51] o’th’clock behind

What lady she her lord.— You’ll stay?

POLIXENESNo, madam.

HERMIONENay, but you will?

55

POLIXENESI may not, verily.

HERMIONEVerily?

You put me off with limber vows.[57] But I,

Though you would seek t’unsphere the stars[58] with oaths,

Should yet say ‘Sir, no going.’ Verily,

60

You shall not go; a lady’s ‘Verily’ is

As potent as a lord’s. Will you go yet?

Force me to keep you as a prisoner,

Not like a guest: so you shall pay[63] your fees

When you depart, and save your thanks. How say you?

65

My prisoner? Or my guest? By your dread[65] ‘Verily’,

One of them you shall be.

POLIXENESYour guest, then, madam.

To be your prisoner should import offending,[68]

Which is for me less easy to commit

70

Than you to punish.

HERMIONENot your jailer, then,

But your kind hostess. Come, I’ll question you

Of[73] my lord’s tricks and yours when you were boys.

You were pretty lordings[74] then?

75

POLIXENESWe were, fair queen,

Two lads that thought there was no more behind[76]

But such a day tomorrow as today,

And to be boy eternal.

HERMIONEWas not my lord

80

The verier wag[80] o’th’two?

POLIXENESWe were as twinned Iambs that did frisk i’th’sun,

And bleat the one at th’other. What we changed[82]

Was innocence for innocence. We knew not

The doctrine of ill-doing, nor dreamed

85

That any did. Had we pursued that life,

And our weak[86] spirits ne’er been higher reared

With stronger blood, we should have answered heaven

Boldly ‘Not guilty’, the[88] imposition cleared

Hereditary ours.

90

HERMIONEBy this we gather

You have tripped[91] since.

POLIXENESO, my most sacred lady,

Temptations have since then been born to’s.[93] For

In those unfledged[94] days was my wife a girl;

95

Your precious self had then not crossed the eyes

Of my young play-fellow.[96]

HERMIONEGrace to boot![97]

Of[98] this make no conclusion, lest you say

Your queen and I are devils. Yet go on.

100

Th’offences we have made you do we’ll answer,[100]

If you first sinned[101] with us, and that with us

You did continue fault, and that you slipped not

With any but with us.

LEONTESIs he won yet?

105

HERMIONEHe’ll stay, my lord.

LEONTESAt my request he would not.— Aside?

Hermione, my dearest, thou never spok’st

To better purpose.

HERMIONENever?

110

LEONTESNever, but once.

HERMIONEWhat? Have I twice said well? When was’t before?

I prithee tell me. Cram’s[112] with praise, and make’s

As fat as tame things.[113] One good deed dying tongueless

Slaughters[114] a thousand waiting upon that.

115

Our praises are our wages. You may ride’s[115]

With one soft kiss a thousand furlongs[116] ere

With spur we heat an acre. But to th’goal:

My last good deed was to entreat his stay:

What was my first? It has an elder sister,[119]

120

Or I mistake you — O, would[120] her name were Grace! —

But once before I spoke to th’purpose: when?

Nay, let me have’t: I long.

LEONTESWhy, that was when

Three crabbèd[124] months had soured themselves to death,

125

Ere I could make thee open thy white hand

And clap[126] thyself my love; then didst thou utter ‘

I am yours for ever.’

HERMIONE’Tis grace indeed.—

Why, lo[129] you now, I have spoke to th’purpose twice: To Polixenes?

130

The one forever earned a royal husband;

Th’other for some while a friend.[131] Takes Polixenes’ hand

LEONTESToo hot, too hot! Aside

To mingle friendship far is mingling bloods.[133]

I have tremor cordis[134] on me: my heart dances,

135

But not for joy, not joy. This entertainment[135]

May a free[136] face put on, derive a liberty

From heartiness,[137] from bounty, fertile bosom,

And well[138] become the agent. ’T may, I grant.

But to be paddling[139] palms and pinching fingers,

140

As now they are, and making practised[140] smiles,

As in a looking-glass, and then to sigh, as ’twere

The mort[142] o’th’deer — O, that is entertainment

My bosom likes not, nor my brows.[143]— Mamillius,

Art thou my boy?

145

MAMILLIUSAy, my good lord.

LEONTESI’ fecks![146]

Why, that’s my bawcock.[147] What? Hast smutched thy nose?—

They say it is a copy out of mine.— Come, captain, Aside?

We must be neat;[149] not neat, but cleanly, captain.

150

And yet the steer,[150] the heifer and the calf

Are all called neat.— Still virginalling[151] Aside

Upon his palm?— How now, you wanton[152] calf!

Art thou my calf?

MAMILLIUSYes, if you will, my lord.

155

LEONTESThou want’st[155] a rough pash and the shoots that I have

To be full[156] like me.— Yet they say we are Aside?

Almost as like as eggs; women say so,

That will say anything. But were they false

As o’er-dyed blacks,[159] as wind, as waters, false

160

As dice are to be wished by one that fixes

No bourn[161] ’twixt his and mine, yet were it true

To say this boy were like me.— Come, sir page, To Mamillius

Look on me with your welkin[163] eye. Sweet villain!

Most dear’st, my collop![164] Can thy dam, may’t be

165

Affection?[165]— Thy intention stabs the centre. Aside?

Thou dost make possible things not so held,[166]

Communicat’st with dreams — how can this be? —

With what’s unreal thou coactive art,[168]

And fellow’st[169] nothing. Then ’tis very credent

170

Thou mayst co-join[170] with something, and thou dost,

And that beyond commission,[171] and I find it,

And that to the infection of my brains

And hard’ning[173] of my brows.

POLIXENESWhat means Sicilia?[174]

175

HERMIONEHe something seems[175] unsettled.

POLIXENESHow, my lord?

LEONTESWhat cheer? How is’t with you, best brother?

HERMIONEYou look as if you held a brow of much distraction.

Are you moved,[179] my lord?

180

LEONTESNo, in good earnest.—

How sometimes nature will betray its folly, Aside?

Its tenderness, and make[182] itself a pastime

To harder bosoms!— Looking on the lines

Of my boy’s face, methoughts I did recoil

185

Twenty-three years, and saw myself unbreeched,[185]

In my green velvet coat; my dagger muzzled,[186]

Lest it should bite its master, and so prove,

As ornaments oft do, too dangerous.

How like, methought, I then was to this kernel,

190

This squash,[190] this gentleman.— Mine honest friend, To Mamillius

Will you take[191] eggs for money?

MAMILLIUSNo, my lord, I’ll fight.

LEONTESYou will? Why, happy[193] man be’s dole! My brother,

Are you so fond of your young prince as we

195

Do seem to be of ours?

POLIXENESIf at home, sir,

He’s all my exercise,[197] my mirth, my matter;

Now my sworn friend and then mine enemy;

My parasite,[199] my soldier, statesman, all.

200

He makes a July’s day short as December,

And with his varying childness[201] cures in me

Thoughts[202] that would thick my blood.

LEONTESSo stands this squire

Officed[204] with me. We two will walk, my lord,

205

And leave you to your graver[205] steps.— Hermione,

How thou lovest us, show in our brother’s welcome.

Let what is dear[207] in Sicily be cheap.

Next to thyself and my young rover,[208] he’s

Apparent[209] to my heart.

210

HERMIONEIf you would seek us,

We are yours i’th’garden: shall’s attend[211] you there?

LEONTESTo your own bents[212] dispose you: you’ll be found,

Be you beneath the sky.— I am angling now, Aside

Though you perceive me not how I give line.

215

Go to,[215] go to!

How she holds up the neb, the bill[216] to him!

And arms[217] her with the boldness of a wife

To her allowing husband!

[Exeunt Polixenes, Hermione and Attendants]

Gone already?

Inch-thick, knee-deep, o’er head and ears a forked[219] one!—

220

Go, play, boy, play. Thy mother plays,[220] and I

Play too, but so[221] disgraced a part, whose issue

Will hiss[222] me to my grave. Contempt and clamour

Will be my knell.[223] Go play, boy, play.— There have been,

Or I am much deceived, cuckolds[224] ere now.

225

And many a man there is, even at this present,

Now while I speak this, holds his wife by th’arm,

That little thinks she has been sluiced[227] in’s absence

And his pond[228] fished by his next neighbour, by

Sir Smile, his neighbour. Nay, there’s comfort in’t

230

Whiles other men have gates[230] and those gates opened,

As mine, against their will. Should all despair

That have revolted[232] wives, the tenth of mankind

Would hang themselves. Physic[233] for’t there’s none:

It is a bawdy[234] planet, that will strike

235

Where ’tis predominant;[235] and ’tis powerful, think it,

From east, west, north and south. Be it concluded,

No barricado[237] for a belly. Know’t,

It will let in and out the enemy

With bag and baggage.[239] Many thousand on’s

240

Have the disease, and feel’t not.— How now, boy?

MAMILLIUSI am like you, they say.

LEONTESWhy that’s some comfort. What, Camillo there?

CAMILLOAy, my good lord. Comes forward

LEONTESGo play, Mamillius, thou’rt an honest man.—

[Exit Mamillius]

245

Camillo, this great sir will yet stay longer.

CAMILLOYou had much ado[246] to make his anchor hold:

When you cast out, it still came home.[247]

LEONTESDidst note it?

CAMILLOHe would not stay at your petitions,[249] made

250

His business more material.[250]

LEONTESDidst perceive it?—

They’re[252] here with me already, whisp’ring, rounding Aside

‘Sicilia is a so-forth.[253]’ ’Tis far gone

When I shall gust it last.— How came’t, Camillo, To Camillo

255

That he did stay?

CAMILLOAt the good queen’s entreaty.

LEONTESAt the queen’s be’t. ‘Good’ should be pertinent,[257]

But so it is,[258] it is not. Was this taken

By any understanding pate[259] but thine?

260

For thy conceit is soaking,[260] will draw in

More than the common blocks.[261] Not noted, is’t,

But of[262] the finer natures? By some severals

Of head-piece[263] extraordinary? Lower messes

Perchance are to this business[264] purblind? Say.

265

CAMILLOBusiness, my lord? I think most understand

Bohemia stays here longer.

LEONTESHa?

CAMILLOStays here longer.

LEONTESAy, but why?

270

CAMILLOTo satisfy your highness and the entreaties

Of our most gracious mistress.

LEONTESSatisfy?[272]

Th’entreaties of your mistress? Satisfy?

Let that suffice. I have trusted thee, Camillo,

275

With all the nearest things to my heart, as well[275]

My chamber-councils,[276] wherein, priest-like, thou

Hast cleansed my bosom,[277] I from thee departed

Thy penitent reformed. But we[278] have been

Deceived in thy integrity, deceived

280

In that which seems so.

CAMILLOBe it forbid, my lord!

LEONTESTo bide[282] upon’t, thou art not honest: or,

If thou inclin’st that way, thou art a coward,

Which hoxes[284] honesty behind, restraining

285

From course required: or else thou must be counted[285]

A servant grafted[286] in my serious trust

And therein negligent: or else a fool

That see’st a game[288] played home, the rich stake drawn,

And tak’st it all for jest.

290

CAMILLOMy gracious lord,

I may be negligent, foolish and fearful.

In every one of these no man is free,

But that his negligence, his folly, fear,

Among the infinite doings of the world,

295

Sometime puts forth. In your affairs, my lord,

If ever I were wilful-negligent,[296]

It was my folly: if industriously

I played the fool, it was my negligence,

Not weighing[299] well the end: if ever fearful

300

To do a thing, where I the issue[300] doubted,

Whereof[301] the execution did cry out

Against the non-performance, ’twas a fear

Which oft infects the wisest. These, my lord,

Are such allowed infirmities that honesty

305

Is never free of. But, beseech your grace,

Be plainer with me. Let me know my trespass[306]

By its own visage;[307] if I then deny it,

’Tis none of mine.

LEONTESHa’ not you seen, Camillo —

310

But that’s past doubt, you have, or your eye-glass[310]

Is thicker than a cuckold’s horn — or heard —

For to a vision so apparent[312] rumour

Cannot be mute — or thought — for cogitation[313]

Resides not in that man that does not think —

315

My wife is slippery?[315] If thou wilt confess,

Or else be[316] impudently negative,

To have nor eyes nor ears nor thought, then say

My wife’s a hobby-horse,[318] deserves a name

As rank[319] as any flax-wench that puts to

320

Before her troth-plight: say’t and justify’t.

CAMILLOI would not be a stander-by to hear

My sovereign mistress clouded[322] so, without

My present[323] vengeance taken. ’Shrew my heart,

You never spoke what did become[324] you less

325

Than this; which to reiterate were[325] sin

As deep as that, though true.

LEONTESIs whispering nothing?

Is leaning cheek to cheek? Is meeting noses?

Kissing with inside lip? Stopping the career[329]

330

Of laughter with a sigh — a note infallible[330]

Of breaking honesty?[331] Horsing foot on foot?

Skulking in corners? Wishing clocks more swift?

Hours,[333] minutes? Noon, midnight? And all eyes

Blind with the pin and web[334] but theirs, theirs only,

335

That would unseen be wicked? Is this nothing?

Why then the world and all that’s in’t is nothing:

The covering sky is nothing, Bohemia nothing,

My wife is nothing,[338] nor nothing have these nothings,

If this be nothing.

340

CAMILLOGood my lord, be cured

Of this diseased opinion, and betimes.[341]

For ’tis most dangerous.

LEONTESSay it be, ’tis true.

CAMILLONo, no, my lord.

345

LEONTESIt is. You lie, you lie.

I say thou liest, Camillo, and I hate thee,

Pronounce thee a gross lout, a mindless slave,

Or else a hovering temporizer,[348] that

Canst with thine eyes at once see good and evil,

350

Inclining to them both. Were my wife’s liver[350]

Infected as her life, she would not live

The running of one glass.[352]

CAMILLOWho does infect her?

LEONTESWhy, he that wears her like her medal,[354] hanging

355

About his neck, Bohemia: who, if I

Had servants true about me that bare[356] eyes

To see alike mine honour as their profits,

Their own particular thrifts,[358] they would do that

Which should undo[359] more doing. Ay, and thou,

360

His cupbearer[360] — whom I from meaner form

Have benched[361] and reared to worship, who mayst see

Plainly as heaven sees earth and earth sees heaven,

How I am galled[363] — mightst bespice a cup

To give mine enemy a lasting wink,[364]

365

Which draught to me were cordial.[365]

CAMILLOSir, my lord,

I could do this, and that with no rash[367] potion,

But with a ling’ring dram[368] that should not work

Maliciously[369] like poison. But I cannot

370

Believe this crack[370] to be in my dread mistress,

So sovereignly being honourable.

I have loved thee—

LEONTESMake[373] that thy question, and go rot!

Dost think I am so muddy,[374] so unsettled,

375

To appoint[375] myself in this vexation, sully

The purity and whiteness of my sheets —

Which to preserve is sleep,[377] which being spotted

Is goads, thorns, nettles, tails of wasps —

Give[379] scandal to the blood o’th’prince my son —

380

Who I do think is mine and love as mine —

Without ripe moving to’t?[381] Would I do this?

Could man so blench?[382]

CAMILLOI must believe you, sir.

I do, and will fetch off[384] Bohemia for’t,

385

Provided that when he’s removed, your highness

Will take again your queen as yours at first,

Even for[387] your son’s sake, and thereby for sealing

The injury of tongues in courts and kingdoms

Known and allied to yours.

390

LEONTESThou[390] dost advise me

Even so as I mine own course have set down.

I’ll give no blemish to her honour, none.

CAMILLOMy lord,

Go then; and with a countenance[394] as clear

395

As friendship wears at feasts, keep[395] with Bohemia

And with your queen. I am his cupbearer:

If from me he have wholesome beverage,

Account me not your servant.

LEONTESThis is all.

400

Do’t and thou hast the one half of my heart;

Do’t not, thou splitt’st thine own.

CAMILLOI’ll do’t, my lord.

LEONTESI will seem friendly, as thou hast advised me.

Exit

CAMILLOO miserable[404] lady! But, for me,

405

What case[405] stand I in? I must be the poisoner

Of good Polixenes, and my ground[406] to do’t

Is the obedience to a master; one

Who, in[408] rebellion with himself, will have

All[409] that are his so too. To do this deed,

410

Promotion follows. If[410] I could find example

Of thousands that had struck anointed kings

And flourished after, I’d not do’t. But since

Nor brass[413] nor stone nor parchment bears not one,

Let villainy itself forswear’t. I must

415

Forsake the court. To do’t, or no, is certain

To me a break-neck.[416] Happy star, reign now!

Here comes Bohemia.

Enter Polixenes

POLIXENESThis is strange. Methinks Aside

My favour here begins to warp.[419] Not speak?—

420

Good day, Camillo.

CAMILLOHail, most royal sir!

POLIXENESWhat is the news i’th’court?

CAMILLONone rare,[423] my lord.

POLIXENESThe king hath on him such a countenance

425

As[425] he had lost some province and a region

Loved as he loves himself. Even now I met him

With customary compliment,[427] when he,

Wafting[428] his eyes to th’contrary and falling

A lip of much contempt, speeds from me and

430

So leaves me to consider what is breeding

That changes thus his manners.

CAMILLOI dare not know, my lord.

POLIXENESHow, dare not? Do not? Do you know, and dare not?

Be intelligent[434] to me. ’Tis thereabouts.

435

For, to[435] yourself, what you do know, you must,

And cannot say you dare not. Good Camillo,

Your changed complexions[437] are to me a mirror

Which shows me mine changed too, for I must be

A party in this alteration, finding

440

Myself thus altered with’t.

CAMILLOThere is a sickness

Which puts some of us in distemper,[442] but

I cannot name the disease, and it is caught

Of[444] you that yet are well.

445

POLIXENESHow, caught of me?

Make me not sighted like the basilisk.[446]

I have looked on thousands who have sped[447] the better

By my regard,[448] but killed none so. Camillo —

As you are certainly a gentleman, thereto

450

Clerk-like[450] experienced, which no less adorns

Our gentry[451] than our parents’ noble names,

In whose success[452] we are gentle — I beseech you,

If you know aught[453] which does behove my knowledge

Thereof to be informed, imprison’t not

455

In ignorant concealment.

CAMILLOI may not answer.

POLIXENESA sickness caught of me, and yet I well?

I must be answered. Dost thou hear, Camillo,

I conjure[459] thee, by all the parts of man

460

Which honour does acknowledge, whereof[460] the least

Is not this suit of mine, that thou declare

What incidency[462] thou dost guess of harm

Is creeping toward me; how far off, how near,

Which way to be prevented, if to be.

465

If not, how best to bear it.

CAMILLOSir, I will tell you,

Since I am charged[467] in honour and by him

That I think honourable: therefore mark[468] my counsel,

Which must be ev’n[469] as swiftly followed as

470

I mean to utter it; or both yourself and me

Cry lost, and so goodnight![471]

POLIXENESOn, good Camillo.

CAMILLOI am appointed him[473] to murder you.

POLIXENESBy whom, Camillo?

475

CAMILLOBy the king.

POLIXENESFor what?

CAMILLOHe thinks, nay, with all confidence he swears,

As he had seen’t or been an instrument

To vice[479] you to’t, that you have touched his queen

480

Forbiddenly.

POLIXENESO, then my best blood turn

To an infected jelly and my name

Be yoked with his[483] that did betray the best!

Turn then my freshest reputation to

485

A savour[485] that may strike the dullest nostril

Where I arrive, and my approach be shunned,

Nay, hated too, worse than the great’st infection

That e’er was heard or read!

CAMILLOSwear[489] his thought over

490

By each particular star in heaven and

By all their influences;[491] you may as well

Forbid the sea for to[492] obey the moon

As or[493] by oath remove or counsel shake

The fabric[494] of his folly, whose foundation

495

Is piled upon his faith and will continue

The[496] standing of his body.

POLIXENESHow should this grow?[497]

CAMILLOI know not. But I am sure ’tis safer to

Avoid what’s grown than question how ’tis born.

500

If therefore you dare trust my honesty,

That lies enclosèd in this trunk[501] which you

Shall bear along impawned,[502] away tonight!

Your followers I will whisper to[503] the business,

And will by twos and threes at several posterns[504]

505

Clear them[505] o’th’city. For myself, I’ll put

My fortunes to your service, which[506] are here

By this discovery lost. Be not uncertain,

For by the honour of my parents, I

Have uttered truth, which if you seek to prove,[509]

510

I dare not stand by;[510] nor shall you be safer

Than one condemnèd by the king’s own mouth,

Thereon his execution sworn.

POLIXENESI do believe thee:

I saw his heart in’s face. Give me thy hand.

515

Be pilot[515] to me and thy places shall

Still neighbour mine. My ships are ready and

My people did expect my hence departure[517]

Two days ago. This jealousy

Is for a precious creature: as she’s rare,

520

Must it be great, and as his person’s mighty,

Must it be violent, and as he does conceive

He is dishonoured by a man which ever

Professed[523] to him, why, his revenges must

In that be made more bitter. Fear o’ershades me.

525

Good expedition[525] be my friend, and comfort

The gracious queen, part of his theme,[526] but nothing

Of his ill-ta’en[527] suspicion. Come, Camillo.

I will respect thee as a father if

Thou bear’st my life off hence. Let us avoid.[529]

530

CAMILLOIt is in mine authority to command

The keys of all the posterns. Please your highness

To take the urgent hour. Come, sir, away.

Exeunt

Act 2 Scene 1

running scene 2

Enter Hermione, Mamillius, Ladies

HERMIONETake the boy to you. He so troubles me,

’Tis past enduring.

FIRST LADYCome, my gracious lord, Takes Mamillius

Shall I be your playfellow?

5

MAMILLIUSNo, I’ll none of[5] you.

FIRST LADYWhy, my sweet lord?

MAMILLIUSYou’ll kiss me hard and speak to me as if

I were a baby still.— I love you better. To Second Lady

SECOND LADYAnd why so, my lord?

10

MAMILLIUSNot for because[10]

Your brows are blacker — yet black brows, they say,

Become so[12]me women best, so that there be not

Too much hair there, but in a semicircle

Or a half-moon made with a pen.

15

SECOND LADYWho taught ’this?[15]

MAMILLIUSI learned it out of women’s faces. Pray now

What colour are your eyebrows?

FIRST LADYBlue, my lord.

MAMILLIUSNay, that’s a mock. I have seen a lady’s nose

20

That has been blue, but not her eyebrows.

FIRST LADYHark ye.

The queen your mother rounds apace.[22] We shall

Present our services to a fine new prince

One of these days, and then you’d wanton with us,[24]

25

If we would have you.

SECOND LADYShe is spread of late

Into a goodly bulk. Good[27] time encounter her!

HERMIONEWhat wisdom stirs amongst you? Come, sir, now

I am for[29] you again. Pray you sit by us,

30

And tell’s a tale.

MAMILLIUSMerry or sad[31] shall’t be?

HERMIONEAs merry as you will.

MAMILLIUSA sad tale’s best for winter. I have one

Of sprites[34] and goblins.

35

HERMIONELet’s have that, good sir.

Come on, sit down. Come on, and do your best

To fright me with your sprites. You’re powerful at it.

MAMILLIUSThere was a man—

HERMIONENay, come, sit down, then on.

40

MAMILLIUSDwelt by a churchyard — I will tell it softly. Sits

Yond crickets[41] shall not hear it.

HERMIONECome on, then, and give’t me in mine ear. They talk apart

[Enter Leontes, Antigonus, Lords and others]

LEONTESWas he met there? His train? Camillo with him?

A LORDBehind the tuft[44] of pines I met them. Never

45

Saw I men scour[45] so on their way: I eyed them

Even[46] to their ships.

LEONTESHow blest am I

In my just censure,[48] in my true opinion!

Alack, for lesser knowledge! How accursed

50

In being so blest! There may be in[50] the cup

A spider steeped, and one may drink, depart,

And yet partake no venom, for his knowledge

Is not infected: but if one present

Th’abhorred ingredient to his eye, make known

55

How he hath drunk, he cracks his gorge,[55] his sides,

With violent hefts.[56] I have drunk, and seen the spider.

Camillo was his help in this, his pander.[57]

There is a plot against my life, my crown.

All’s true that is mistrusted.[59] That false villain

60

Whom I employed was pre-employed by him.

He has discovered my design, and I

Remain a pinched[62] thing; yea, a very trick

For them to play at will. How came the posterns

So easily open?

65

A LORDBy his great authority,

Which often hath no less prevailed than so

On your command.

LEONTESI know’t too well.—

Give me the boy. I am glad you did not nurse[69] him. To Hermione

70

Though he does bear some signs of me, yet you

Have too much blood in him.

HERMIONEWhat is this? Sport?[72]

LEONTESBear the boy hence. He shall not come about her. To a Lord or Lady

Away with him, and let her sport[74] herself

75

With that she’s big with,— for ’tis Polixenes To Hermione

Has made thee swell thus.

[The Lord or Lady exits with Mamillius]

HERMIONEBut I’d say he had not;

And I’ll be sworn you would believe my saying,

Howe’er[79] you lean to th’nayward.

80

LEONTESYou, my lords,

Look on her, mark her well. Be but about

To say ‘She is a goodly lady’, and

The justice[83] of your hearts will thereto add

‘ ’Tis pity she’s not honest,[84] honourable.’

85

Praise her but for this her without-door[85] form,

Which on my faith deserves high speech, and straight[86]

The shrug, the hum or ha, these petty brands[87]

That calumny[88] doth use — O, I am out —

That[89] mercy does, for calumny will sear

90

Virtue itself: these shrugs, these hums and ha’s,

When you have said ‘She’s goodly’, come between[91]

Ere you can say ‘She’s honest.’ But be’t known,

From him that has most cause to grieve it should be,

She’s an adultress.

HERMIONEShould a villain say so —

The most replenished[96] villain in the world —

He[97] were as much more villain. You, my lord,

Do but mistake.

LEONTESYou have mistook,[99] my lady,

100

Polixenes for Leontes. O thou thing,

Which I’ll[101] not call a creature of thy place,

Lest barbarism, making me the precedent,

Should a like[103] language use to all degrees

And mannerly distinguishment[104] leave out

105

Betwixt the prince and beggar. I have said

She’s an adult’ress. I have said with whom.

More, she’s a traitor and Camillo is

A federary[108] with her, and one that knows

What she should shame to know[109] herself

110

But with her most vile principal, that she’s

A bed-swerver,[111] even as bad as those

That vulgars[112] give bold’st titles; ay, and privy

To this their late escape.

HERMIONENo, by my life,

115

Privy to none of this. How will this grieve you,

When you shall come to clearer knowledge, that

You thus have published[117] me. Gentle my lord,

You scarce can right me throughly[118] then to say

You did mistake.

120

LEONTESNo. If I mistake

In those foundations which I build upon,

The centre[122] is not big enough to bear

A school-boy’s top.[123] Away with her, to prison!

He who shall speak for her is afar off[124] guilty

125

But[125] that he speaks.

HERMIONEThere’s some ill[126] planet reigns:

I must be patient till the heavens look

With an aspect[128] more favourable. Good my lords,

I am not prone to weeping — as our sex

130

Commonly are — the want[130] of which vain dew

Perchance[131] shall dry your pities: but I have

That honourable grief lodged here[132] which burns

Worse than tears drown. Beseech you all, my lords,

With thoughts so qualified[134] as your charities

135

Shall best instruct you, measure[135] me; and so

The king’s will be performed.

LEONTESShall I be heard?[137]

HERMIONEWho is’t that goes with me? Beseech your highness

My women may be with me, for you see

140

My plight[140] requires it. Do not weep, good fools.

There is no cause. When you shall know your mistress

Has deserved prison, then abound in tears

As I come out; this action I now go on

Is for my better grace.[144]— Adieu, my lord. To Leontes

145

I never wished to see you sorry, now

I trust I shall.— My women, come, you have leave.[146]

LEONTESGo, do our bidding. Hence!

[Exit Hermione, guarded, with Ladies]

A LORDBeseech your highness, call the queen again.

ANTIGONUSBe certain what you do, sir, lest your justice

150

Prove violence, in the which three great ones suffer:

Yourself, your queen, your son.

A LORDFor her, my lord,

I dare my life lay down and will do’t, sir,

Please you t’accept it, that the queen is spotless

155

I’th’eyes of heaven and to you — I mean,

In this which you accuse her.

ANTIGONUSIf it prove

She’s otherwise, I’ll keep[158] my stables where

I lodge my wife, I’ll go in couples[159] with her,

160

Than[160] when I feel and see her no further trust her,

For every inch of woman in the world,

Ay, every dram[162] of woman’s flesh is false,

If she be.

LEONTESHold your peaces.

165

A LORDGood my lord—

ANTIGONUSIt is for you we speak, not for ourselves.

You are abused and by some putter-on[167]

That will be damned for’t. Would I knew the villain,

I would land-damn[169] him. Be she honour-flawed,

170

I have three daughters — the eldest is eleven

The second and the third, nine, and some[171] five —

If this prove true, they’ll pay for’t. By mine honour,

I’ll geld[173] ’em all: fourteen they shall not see,

To bring false generations.[174] They are co-heirs,

175

And I had rather glib[175] myself than they

Should not produce fair issue.[176]

LEONTESCease. No more.

You smell this business with a sense as cold

As is a dead man’s nose. But I do see’t and feel’t

180

As you feel doing thus,[180] and see withal

The instruments that feel.[181]

ANTIGONUSIf it be so,

We need no grave to bury honesty:[183]

The[184]re’s not a grain of it the face to sweeten

185

Of the whole dungy earth.

LEONTESWhat? Lack I credit?[186]

FIRST LORDI had rather you did lack than I, my lord,

Upon this ground.[188] And more it would content me

To have her honour true than your suspicion,[189]

190

Be blamed for’t how you might.

LEONTESWhy, what need we

Commune with you of this, but rather follow

Our forceful instigation?[193] Our prerogative

Calls not your counsels, but our natural goodness

195

Imparts this, which if you, or stupefied[195]

Or seeming so in skill,[196] cannot or will not

Relish[197] a truth like us, inform yourselves

We need no more of your advice. The matter,

The loss, the gain, the ord’ring on’t,[199] is all

200

Properly[200] ours.

ANTIGONUSAnd I wish, my liege,[201]

You had only in your silent judgement tried it,

Without more overture.[203]

LEONTESHow could that be?

205

Either thou art most ignorant by age,[205]

Or thou wert born a fool. Camillo’s flight,

Added to their familiarity —

Which was as gross[208] as ever touched conjecture,

That lacked sight only, nought for approbation[209]

210

But only seeing, all other circumstances

Made[211] up to th’deed — doth push on this proceeding.

Yet, for a greater confirmation —

For in an act of this importance ’twere

Most piteous to be wild[214] — I have dispatched in post

215

To sacred Delphos,[215] to Apollo’s temple,

Cleomenes and Dion, whom you know

Of stuffed sufficiency.[217] Now from the oracle

They will bring all, whose spiritual counsel had,[218]

Shall stop or spur me. Have I done well?

220

A LORDWell done, my lord.

LEONTESThough I am satisfied and need no more

Than what I know, yet shall the oracle

Give rest to th’minds of others, such as he[223]

Whose ignorant credulity will not

225

Come up to[225] th’truth. So have we thought it good

From[226] our free person she should be confined,

Lest that the treachery[227] of the two fled hence

Be left her to perform. Come, follow us.

We are to speak in public, for this business

230

Will raise[230] us all.

ANTIGONUSTo laughter, as I take it, Aside

If the good truth were known.

Exeunt

Act 2 Scene 2

running scene 3

Enter Paulina, a Gentleman [and Attendants]

PAULINAThe keeper of the prison, call to him.

Let him have knowledge who I am. Gentleman goes to the door

Good lady,

No court in Europe is too good for thee.

What dost thou then in prison?

[Enter the Jailer]

Now, good sir,

5

You know me, do you not?

JAILERFor a worthy lady,

And one who much I honour.

PAULINAPray you then,

Conduct me to the queen.

10

JAILERI may not, madam.

To the contrary I have express commandment.

PAULINAHere’s ado,[12] to lock up honesty and honour from

Th’access of gentle[13] visitors! Is’t lawful, pray you,

To see her women? Any of them? Emilia?

15

JAILERSo please you, madam,

To put apart[16] these your attendants, I

Shall bring Emilia forth.

PAULINAI pray now call her.—

Withdraw yourselves.

[Exeunt Gentleman and Attendants]

20

JAILERAnd, madam,

I must be present at your conference.

PAULINAWell, be’t so, prithee.

[Exit Jailer]

Here’s such ado to make no stain a stain

As passes colouring.[24]

Enter Jailer with Emilia]

25

Dear gentlewoman,

How fares our gracious lady?

EMILIAAs well as one so great and so forlorn[27]

May hold together. On[28] her frights and griefs —

Which never tender lady hath borne greater —

30

She is[30] something before her time delivered.

PAULINAA boy?

EMILIAA daughter, and a goodly babe,

Lusty[33] and like to live. The queen receives

Much comfort in’t, says ‘My poor prisoner,

35

I am innocent as you.’

PAULINAI dare be sworn.

These dangerous unsafe lunes[37] i’th’king, beshrew them!

He must be told on’t,[38] and he shall. The office

Becomes[39] a woman best. I’ll take’t upon me.

40

If I prove honey-mouthed,[40] let my tongue blister

And never[41] to my red-looked anger be

The trumpet any more. Pray you, Emilia,

Commend[43] my best obedience to the queen.

If she dares trust me with her little babe,

45

I’ll show’t the king and undertake to be

Her[46] advocate to th’loud’st. We do not know

How he may soften at the sight o’th’child:

The silence often of pure innocence

Persuades when speaking fails.

50

EMILIAMost worthy madam,

Your honour and your goodness is so evident

That your free[52] undertaking cannot miss

A thriving issue. There is no lady living

So meet[54] for this great errand. Please your ladyship

55

To visit the next room, I’ll presently[55]

Acquaint the queen of your most noble offer,

Who but today hammered[57] of this design,

But durst[58] not tempt a minister of honour,

Lest she should be denied.

60

PAULINATell her, Emilia.

I’ll use that tongue I have: if wit[61] flow from’t

As boldness from my bosom, let’t not be doubted

I shall do good.

EMILIANow be you blest for it!

65

I’ll to the queen.— Please you come something nearer. To Jailer

JAILERMadam, if’t please the queen to send the babe,

I[67] know not what I shall incur to pass it,

Having no warrant.

PAULINAYou need not fear it, sir:

70

This child was prisoner to the womb and is

By law and process of great nature thence

Freed and enfranchised, not a party to

The anger of the king nor guilty of,

If any be, the trespass of the queen.

75

JAILERI do believe it.

PAULINADo not you fear. Upon mine honour, I

Will stand betwixt you and danger.

Exeunt

Act 2 Scene 3

running scene 4

Enter Leontes

LEONTESNor[1] night nor day no rest. It is but weakness

To bear the matter thus, mere weakness. If

The cause were not in being[3] — part o’th’cause,

She, th’adulteress, for the harlot[4] king

5

Is quite beyond mine arm, out of the blank[5]

And level[6] of my brain, plot-proof. But she

I can hook[7] to me — say that she were gone,

Given[8] to the fire, a moiety of my rest

Might come to me again. Who’s there?

[Enter a Servant]

10

SERVANTMy lord?

LEONTESHow does the boy?

SERVANTHe took good rest tonight.

’Tis hoped his sickness is discharged.

LEONTESTo see his nobleness!

15

Conceiving[15] the dishonour of his mother,

He straight declined, drooped, took it deeply,

Fastened and fixed the shame on’t in himself,

Threw off his spirit, his appetite, his sleep,

And downright languished. Leave me solely.[19] Go,

20

See how he fares.—

[Exit Servant]

Fie, fie! No thought of him.[20]

The very thought of my revenges that way

Recoil upon me — in himself too mighty,

And in his parties, his alliance.[23] Let him be

Until a time may serve. For present vengeance,

25

Take it on her. Camillo and Polixenes

Laugh at me, make their pastime at my sorrow.

They should not laugh if I could reach them, nor

Shall she[28] within my power.

Enter Paulina, carrying the baby; Antigonus and Lords enter and try to hold her back]

A LORDYou must not enter.

30

PAULINANay, rather, good my lords, be second to[30] me.

Fear you his tyrannous passion more, alas,

Than the queen’s life? A gracious innocent soul,

More free[33] than he is jealous.

ANTIGONUSThat’s enough.

35

SERVANTMadam, he hath not slept tonight, commanded

None should come at him.

PAULINANot so hot,[37] good sir,

I come to bring him sleep.[38] ’Tis such as you,

That creep like shadows by him and do sigh

40

At each his needless heavings,[40] such as you

Nourish the cause of his awaking.[41] I

Do come with words as medicinal as true,

Honest as either,[43] to purge him of that humour

That presses him from sleep.

45

LEONTESWhat noise there, ho?

PAULINANo noise, my lord, but needful conference[46]

About some gossips[47] for your highness.

LEONTESHow?[48]

Away with that audacious lady! Antigonus,

50

I charged thee that she should not come about me.

I knew she would.

ANTIGONUSI told her so, my lord,

On[53] your displeasure’s peril and on mine,

She should not visit you.

55

LEONTESWhat? Canst not rule[55] her?

PAULINAFrom[56] all dishonesty he can. In this,

Unless he take the course that you have done —

Commit[58] me for committing honour — trust it,

He shall not rule me.

60

ANTIGONUSLa you now,[60] you hear.

When she will take the rein, I let her run.

But she’ll not stumble.

PAULINAGood my liege, I come.

And, I beseech you hear me, who professes

65

Myself your loyal servant, your physician,

Your most obedient counsellor, yet that dares

Less appear so in[67] comforting your evils,

Than such as most seem yours. I say, I come

From your good queen.

70

LEONTESGood queen?[70]

PAULINAGood queen, my lord, good queen. I say good queen,

And would by[72] combat make her good, so were I

A man, the worst[73] about you.

LEONTESForce her hence. To Lords

75

PAULINALet him that makes but trifles[75] of his eyes

First hand[76] me. On mine own accord I’ll off.

But first I’ll do my errand. The good queen,

For she is good, hath brought you forth a daughter —

Here ’tis — commends it to your blessing. Lays down the baby

80

LEONTESOut![80]

A mankind[81] witch! Hence with her, out o’door.

A most intelligencing bawd![82]

PAULINANot so.

I am as ignorant[84] in that as you

85

In so entitling[85] me, and no less honest

Than you are mad, which is enough, I’ll warrant,[86]

As this world goes, to pass for honest.

LEONTESTraitors! To Lords

Will you not push her out?— Give her the bastard. To Antigonus

90

Thou dotard,[90] thou art woman-tired, unroosted

By thy dame Partlet[91] here. Take up the bastard,

Take’t up, I say: give’t to thy crone.[92]

PAULINAForever To Antigonus

Unvenerable[94] be thy hands, if thou

95

Tak’st up the princess by[95] that forcèd baseness

Which he has put upon’t!

LEONTESHe dreads[97] his wife.

PAULINASo I would you did. Then ’twere past all doubt

You’d call your children yours.

100

LEONTESA nest of traitors!

ANTIGONUSI am none, by this good light.

PAULINANor I, nor any

But one that’s here, and that’s himself, for he

The sacred honour of himself, his queen’s,

105

His hopeful son’s, his babe’s, betrays to slander,

Whose sting is sharper than the sword’s; and will not —

For, as[107] the case now stands, it is a curse

He cannot be compelled to’t — once remove

The root of his opinion, which is rotten

110

As ever oak or stone was sound.

LEONTESA callat[111]

Of boundless tongue, who late hath beat her husband

And now baits[113] me! This brat is none of mine.

It is the issue of Polixenes.

115

Hence with it, and together with the dam[115]

Commit them to the fire!

PAULINAIt is yours.

And, might we lay[118] th’old proverb to your charge,

So like you, ’tis the worse.[119] Behold, my lords,

120

Although the print[120] be little, the whole matter

And copy of the father: eye, nose, lip,

The trick[122] of’s frown, his forehead, nay, the valley,

The pretty dimples of his chin and cheek, his smiles,

The very mould and frame of hand, nail, finger.

125

And thou, good goddess Nature, which hast made it

So like to him that got[126] it, if thou hast

The ordering[127] of the mind too, ’mongst all colours

No yellow[128] in’t, lest she suspect, as he does,

Her children not her husband’s!

130

LEONTESA gross hag.[130]

And, lozel,[131] thou art worthy to be hanged, To Antigonus

That wilt not stay her tongue.[132]

ANTIGONUSHang all the husbands

That cannot do that feat, you’ll leave yourself

135

Hardly one subject.

LEONTESOnce more, take her hence.

PAULINAA most unworthy and unnatural lord

Can do no more.

LEONTESI’ll ha’ thee burnt.

140

PAULINAI care not:

It[141] is an heretic that makes the fire,

Not she which burns in’t. I’ll not call you tyrant.

But this most cruel usage of your queen —

Not able to produce more accusation

145

Than your own weak-hinged fancy[145] — something savours

Of tyranny and will ignoble make you,

Yea, scandalous to the world.

LEONTESOn your allegiance, To Antigonus

Out of the chamber with her! Were I a tyrant,

150

Where[150] were her life? She durst not call me so,

If she did know me one. Away with her!

PAULINAI pray you do not push me. I’ll be gone.

Look to your babe, my lord, ’tis yours. Jove[153] send her

A better guiding spirit! What[154] needs these hands?

155

You[155] that are thus so tender o’er his follies

Will never do him good, not one of you.

So, so. Farewell, we are gone.

Exit

LEONTESThou, traitor, hast set on[158] thy wife to this. To Antigonus

My child? Away with’t! Even thou, that hast

160

A heart so tender o’er it, take it hence

And see it instantly consumed with fire.

Even thou and none but thou. Take it up straight.[162]

Within this hour bring me word ’tis done,

And by good testimony,[164] or I’ll seize thy life,

165

With what thou else call’st thine. If thou refuse

And wilt encounter with my wrath, say so;

The bastard brains with these my proper[167] hands

Shall I dash out. Go, take it to the fire,

For thou set’st on thy wife.

170

ANTIGONUSI did not, sir.

These lords, my noble fellows, if they please,

Can clear me in’t.

LORDSWe can. My royal liege,

He is not guilty of her coming hither.

175

LEONTESYou’re liars all.

A LORDBeseech your highness, give us better credit.[176]

We have always truly served you, and beseech’[177]

So to esteem of us, and on our knees we beg,

As recompense of our dear[179] services

180

Past and to come, that you do change this purpose,

Which being so horrible, so bloody, must

Lead on to some foul issue.[182] We all kneel.

LEONTESI[183] am a feather for each wind that blows.

Shall I live on to see this bastard kneel

185

And call me father? Better burn it now

Than curse it then. But be it. Let it live.

It shall not neither.— You, sir, come you hither. To Antigonus

You that have been so tenderly officious

With Lady Margery,[189] your midwife there,

190

To save this bastard’s life — for ’tis a bastard,

So sure as this beard’s grey[191] — what will you adventure

To save this brat’s life?

ANTIGONUSAnything, my lord,

That my ability may undergo

195

And nobleness impose. At least thus much:

I’ll pawn the little blood which I have left

To save the innocent. Anything possible.

LEONTESIt shall be possible. Swear by this sword Holds out sword

Thou wilt perform my bidding.

200

ANTIGONUSI will, my lord.

LEONTESMark and perform it, see’st thou! For the fail

Of any point in’t shall not only be

Death to thyself but to thy lewd-tongued[203] wife,

Whom for this time we pardon. We enjoin[204] thee,

205

As thou art liege-man[205] to us, that thou carry

This female bastard hence and that thou bear it

To some remote and desert[207] place quite out

Of our dominions; and that there thou leave it,

Without more mercy, to it[209] own protection

210

And favour of the climate. As by strange fortune[210]

It came to us, I do in justice charge thee,

On thy soul’s peril and thy body’s torture,

That thou commend[213] it strangely to some place

Where chance may nurse[214] or end it. Take it up.

215

ANTIGONUSI swear to do this, though a present[215] death

Had been more merciful. Come on, poor babe. Takes up baby

Some powerful spirit instruct the kites[217] and ravens

To be thy nurses! Wolves and bears, they say,

Casting their savageness aside, have done

220

Like[220] offices of pity. Sir, be prosperous

In more[221] than this deed does require; — and blessing

Against this cruelty fight on thy[222] side,

Poor thing, condemned to loss!

Exit [with the baby]

LEONTESNo, I’ll not rear

225

Another’s issue.

Enter a Servant

SERVANTPlease your highness, posts[226]

From those you sent to th’oracle are come

An hour since: Cleomenes and Dion,

Being well arrived from Delphos, are both landed,

230

Hasting to th’court.

FIRST LORDSo please you, sir, their speed

Hath been beyond account.[232]

LEONTESTwenty-three days

They have been absent: ’tis good speed, foretells

235

The great Apollo suddenly[235] will have

The truth of this appear. Prepare you, lords.

Summon a session,[237] that we may arraign

Our most disloyal lady, for, as she hath

Been publicly accused, so shall she have

240

A just and open trial. While she lives

My heart will be a burden to me. Leave me,

And think upon my bidding.

Exeunt

Act 3 Scene 13.1

running scene 5

Enter Cleomenes and Dion

CLEOMENESThe climate’s delicate,[1] the air most sweet,

Fertile the isle, the temple much surpassing

The common praise it bears.

DIONI shall report,

5

For most it caught[5] me, the celestial habits,

Methinks I so should term them, and the reverence

Of the grave[7] wearers. O, the sacrifice!

How ceremonious, solemn and unearthly

It was i’th’off’ring!

10

CLEOMENESBut of all, the burst

And the ear-deaf’ning voice o’th’oracle,

Kin[12] to Jove’s thunder, so surprised my sense

That I was nothing.

DIONIf th’event[14] o’th’journey

15

Prove as successful to the queen — O, be’t so! —

As it hath been to us rare,[16] pleasant, speedy,

The time is worth[17] the use on’t.

CLEOMENESGreat Apollo

Turn all to th’best! These proclamations,

20

So forcing faults upon Hermione,

I little like.

DIONThe violent[22] carriage of it

Will clear or end the business: when the oracle,

Thus by Apollo’s great divine[24] sealed up,

25

Shall the contents discover,[25] something rare

Even then will rush to knowledge. Go, fresh horses!

And gracious be the issue!

Exeunt

Act 3 Scene 23.2

running scene 6

Enter Leontes, Lords, Officers

LEONTESThis sessions, to our great grief we pronounce,

Even pushes gainst our heart: the party tried

The daughter of a king, our wife, and one

Of[4] us too much beloved. Let us be cleared

5

Of being tyrannous, since we so openly

Proceed in justice, which shall have due course,

Even[7] to the guilt or the purgation.

Produce the prisoner.

OFFICERIt is his highness’ pleasure that the queen

10

Appear in person here in court. Silence!

Enter Hermione as to her trial, Paulina and Ladies attending]

LEONTESRead the indictment.

OFFICER Reads Hermione, queen to the worthy Leontes, King of Sicilia, thou art here accused and arraigned of high treason, in committing adultery with Polixenes, King of Bohemia, and conspiring with Camillo to take away the life of our sovereign lord the king, thy royal husband: the pretence[15] whereof being by circumstances partly laid open, thou, Hermione, contrary to the faith and allegiance of a true subject, didst counsel[17] and aid them, for their better safety, to fly away by night.

HERMIONESince what I am to say must be but that

20

Which contradicts my accusation and

The testimony on my part no other

But what comes from myself, it shall scarce boot[22] me

To say ‘Not guilty’: mine[23] integrity

Being counted falsehood, shall, as I express it,

25

Be so received. But thus: if powers divine

Behold our human actions, as they do,

I doubt not then but innocence shall make

False accusation blush and tyranny

Tremble at patience.[29] You, my lord, best know,

30

Whom least will seem to do so, my past life

Hath been as continent,[31] as chaste, as true,

As I am now unhappy, which is more

Than history[33] can pattern, though devised

And played to take spectators.[34] For behold me

35

A fellow of the royal bed, which owe[35]

A moiety[36] of the throne, a great king’s daughter,

The mother to a hopeful prince, here standing

To prate[38] and talk for life and honour ’fore

Who please to come and hear. For[39] life, I prize it

40

As I weigh grief, which I would spare: for[40] honour,

’Tis a derivative from me to mine,

And only that I stand for. I appeal

To your own conscience,[43] sir, before Polixenes

Came to your court, how I was in your grace,[44]

45

How merited[45] to be so. Since he came,

With[46] what encounter so uncurrent I

Have strained t’appear thus: if one jot beyond

The bound of honour, or in act or will

That way inclining, hardened be the hearts

50

Of all that hear me, and my near’st of kin

Cry fie[51] upon my grave!

LEONTESI[52] ne’er heard yet

That any of these bolder vices wanted

Less impudence to gainsay what they did

55

Than to perform it first.

HERMIONEThat’s true enough.

Though ’tis a saying, sir, not due to me.

LEONTESYou will not own it.

HERMIONEMore[59] than mistress of

60

Which comes to me in name of fault, I must not

At all acknowledge. For Polixenes,

With whom I am accused, I do confess

I loved him, as in honour he required,

With such a kind of love as might become

65

A lady like me, with a love even such,

So and no other, as yourself commanded:

Which, not to have done, I think had been in me

Both disobedience and ingratitude

To you and toward your friend,[69] whose love had spoke,

70

Even since it could speak, from an infant, freely

That it was yours. Now, for[71] conspiracy,

I know not how it tastes, though it be dished[72]

For me to try how: all I know of it

Is that Camillo was an honest man.

75

And why he left your court, the gods themselves —

Wotting[76] no more than I — are ignorant.

LEONTESYou knew of his departure, as you know

What you have underta’en to do in’s absence.

HERMIONESir,

80

You speak a language that I understand not:

My life stands in the level[81] of your dreams,

Which[82] I’ll lay down.

LEONTESYour actions are my dreams.

You had a bastard by Polixenes,

85

And I but dreamed it. As you were past all shame —

Those of your fact[86] are so — so past all truth,

Which to deny concerns[87] more than avails, for as

Thy brat hath been cast out, like to itself,[88]

No father owning it — which is indeed

90

More criminal in thee than it — so thou

Shalt feel our justice, in[91] whose easiest passage

Look for no less than death.

HERMIONESir, spare your threats.

The bug[94] which you would fright me with, I seek.

95

To me can life be no commodity;[95]

The crown and comfort of my life, your favour,

I do give[97] lost, for I do feel it gone,

But know not how it went. My second joy,

And first-fruits of my body, from his presence

100

I am barred, like one infectious. My third comfort

Starred most unluckily,[101] is from my breast —

The innocent milk in it[102] most innocent mouth —

Haled[103] out to murder. Myself on every post

Proclaimed a strumpet,[104] with immodest hatred

105

The child-bed privilege[105] denied, which ’longs

To women of all fashion.[106] Lastly, hurried

Here to this place, i’th’open air, before

I have got strength of limit.[108] Now, my liege,

Tell me what blessings I have here alive,

110

That I should fear to die? Therefore proceed:

But yet hear this — mistake me not. No life,

I prize it not a straw, but for mine honour,

Which I would free[113] — if I shall be condemned

Upon surmises, all proofs sleeping else[114]

115

But what your jealousies awake,[115] I tell you

’Tis rigour[116] and not law. Your honours all,

I do refer me to the oracle:

Apollo be my judge!

A LORDThis your request

120

Is altogether just: therefore bring forth,

And in Apollo’s name, his oracle.

[Exeunt some Officers]

HERMIONEThe Emperor of Russia was my father.

O that he were alive, and here beholding

His daughter’s trial! That he did but see

125

The flatness[125] of my misery; yet with eyes

Of pity, not revenge!

Enter Officers, with Cleomenes and Dion]

OFFICERYou here shall swear upon this sword of justice, Holds sword

That you, Cleomenes and Dion, have

Been both at Delphos, and from thence have brought

130

This sealed-up oracle, by the hand delivered

Of great Apollo’s priest; and that since then,

You have not dared to break the holy seal

Nor read the secrets in’t.

CLEOMENES and DIONAll this we swear.

135

LEONTESBreak up the seals and read.

OFFICER Reads Hermione is chaste, Polixenes blameless, Camillo a true subject, Leontes a jealous tyrant, his innocent babe truly begotten,[137] and the king shall live without an heir, if that which is lost be not found.

LORDSNow blessèd be the great Apollo!

140

HERMIONEPraised!

LEONTESHast thou read truth?

OFFICERAy, my lord, even so as it is here set down.

LEONTESThere is no truth at all i’th’oracle:

The sessions[144] shall proceed: this is mere falsehood.

Enter a Servant]

145

SERVANTMy lord the king, the king!

LEONTESWhat is the business?

SERVANTO sir, I shall be hated to report it!

The prince your son, with mere conceit[148] and fear

Of the queen’s speed,[149] is gone.

150

LEONTESHow? Gone?

SERVANTIs dead.

LEONTESApollo’s angry, and the heavens themselves

Do strike at my injustice. Hermione faints

How now there!

PAULINAThis news is mortal[154] to the queen. Look down

155

And see what death is doing.

LEONTESTake her hence.

Her heart is but o’ercharged. She will recover.

I have too much believed mine own suspicion:

Beseech you, tenderly apply to her

160

Some remedies for life.

[Exeunt Ladies, carrying Hermione]

Apollo, pardon

My great profaneness gainst thine oracle!

I’ll reconcile me to Polixenes,

New woo my queen, recall the good Camillo,

Whom I proclaim a man of truth, of mercy.

165

For, being transported[165] by my jealousies

To bloody thoughts and to revenge, I chose

Camillo for the minister to poison

My friend Polixenes, which had been done,

But that the good mind of Camillo tardied[169]

170

My swift command, though I with death and with

Reward did threaten and encourage him,

Not[172] doing it and being done. He, most humane

And filled with honour, to my kingly guest

Unclasped my practice,[174] quit his fortunes here —

175

Which you knew great — and to the hazard

Of all incertainties himself commended,[176]

No richer than[177] his honour. How he glisters

Through my rust! And how his piety

Does my deeds make the blacker!

180

PAULINAWoe the while!

O, cut my lace,[181] lest my heart, cracking it,

Break too.

A LORDWhat fit is this, good lady?

PAULINAWhat studied[184] torments, tyrant, hast for me?

185

What wheels?[185] Racks? Fires? What flaying? Boiling?

In leads or oils? What old or newer torture

Must I receive, whose every word deserves

To taste of thy most worst? Thy tyranny,

Together working with thy jealousies —

190

Fancies[190] too weak for boys, too green and idle

For girls of nine — O, think what they have done

And then run mad indeed, stark mad! For all

Thy bygone fooleries[193] were but spices of it.

That thou betrayed’st Polixenes, ’twas nothing:

195

That did but show thee, of[195] a fool, inconstant

And damnable ingrateful. Nor was’t much,

Thou wouldst have poisoned good Camillo’s honour,

To have him kill a king. Poor trespasses.[198]

More monstrous standing by: whereof I reckon

200

The casting forth to crows thy baby-daughter

To be or[201] none or little; though a devil

Would have shed[202] water out of fire ere done’t.

Nor is’t directly laid to thee, the death

Of the young prince, whose honourable thoughts —

205

Thoughts high for one so tender[205] — cleft the heart

That could conceive[206] a gross and foolish sire

Blemished his gracious dam: this is not, no,

Laid[208] to thy answer. But the last — O, lords,

When I have said,[209] cry woe! The queen, the queen,

210

The sweet’st, dear’st creature’s dead, and vengeance for’t

Not dropped down[211] yet.

A LORDThe higher powers forbid!

PAULINAI say she’s dead. I’ll swear’t. If word nor oath

Prevail not, go and see. If you can bring

215

Tincture or lustre[215] in her lip, her eye,

Heat outwardly or breath within, I’ll serve you

As I would do the gods. But, O thou tyrant,

Do not repent these things, for they are heavier[218]

Than all thy woes can stir: therefore betake thee[219]

220

To nothing but despair. A thousand knees

Ten thousand years together, naked, fasting,

Upon a barren mountain and still[222] winter

In storm perpetual, could not move the gods

To look[224] that way thou wert.

225

LEONTESGo on, go on.

Thou canst not speak too much. I have deserved

All tongues to talk their bitt’rest.

A LORDSay no more.

Howe’er[229] the business goes, you have made fault To Paulina

230

I’th’boldness of your speech.

PAULINAI am sorry for’t;

All faults I make, when I shall come to know them,

I do repent. Alas, I have showed too much

The rashness of a woman. He is touched

235

To th’noble heart. What’s gone and what’s past help

Should be past grief. Do not receive affliction

At my petition;[237] I beseech you, rather

Let me be punished, that have minded[238] you

Of what you should forget. Now, good my liege,

240

Sir, royal sir, forgive a foolish woman.

The love I bore your queen — lo, fool again! —

I’ll speak of her no more, nor of your children.

I’ll not remember[243] you of my own lord,

Who is lost too. Take your patience[244] to you,

245

And I’ll say nothing.

LEONTESThou[246] didst speak but well

When most the truth, which I receive much better

Than to be pitied of[248] thee. Prithee bring me

To the dead bodies of my queen and son.

250

One grave shall be for both: upon them[250] shall

The causes of their death appear, unto

Our shame perpetual. Once a day I’ll visit

The chapel where they lie, and tears shed there

Shall be my recreation. So long as nature[254]

255

Will bear up with this exercise, so long

I daily vow to use[256] it. Come and lead me

To these sorrows.

Exeunt

Act 3 Scene 33.3

running scene 7

Enter Antigonus [carrying the] babe, [and] a Mariner

ANTIGONUSThou[1] art perfect then, our ship hath touched upon

The deserts[2] of Bohemia?

MARINERAy, my lord, and fear

We have landed in ill time. The skies look grimly

5

And threaten present blusters.[5] In my conscience,

The heavens with that[6] we have in hand are angry

And frown upon’s.

ANTIGONUSTheir sacred wills be done! Go, get aboard.

Look to thy bark.[9] I’ll not be long before

10

I call upon thee.

MARINERMake your best haste, and go not

Too far i’th’land: ’tis like to be loud[12] weather.

Besides, this place is famous for the creatures

Of prey that keep upon’t.

15

ANTIGONUSGo thou away. I’ll follow instantly.

MARINERI am glad at heart

To be so rid o’th’business.

Exit

ANTIGONUSCome, poor babe.

I have heard, but not believed, the spirits o’th’dead

20

May walk again. If such thing be, thy mother

Appeared to me last night, for ne’er was dream

So like a waking. To me comes a creature,[22]

Sometimes her head on one side, some another.[23]

I never saw a vessel[24] of like sorrow,

25

So filled[25] and so becoming. In pure white robes,

Like very sanctity,[26] she did approach

My cabin where I lay, thrice bowed before me,

And, gasping to begin some speech, her eyes

Became two spouts; the fury[29] spent, anon

30

Did this break from her: ‘Good Antigonus,

Since fate, against thy better disposition,

Hath made thy person for the thrower-out

Of my poor babe, according to thine oath,

Places remote enough are in Bohemia.

35

There weep and leave it crying. And, for[35] the babe

Is counted lost forever, Perdita,[36]

I prithee call’t. For this ungentle[37] business

Put on thee by my lord, thou ne’er shalt see

Thy wife Paulina more.’ And so, with shrieks[39]

40

She melted into air. Affrighted much,

I did in time collect myself and thought

This was so and no slumber. Dreams are toys,[42]

Yet for this once, yea superstitiously,

I will be squared[44] by this. I do believe

45

Hermione hath suffered death, and that

Apollo would, this being indeed the issue

Of King Polixenes, it should here be laid,

Either for life or death, upon the earth

Of its right father. Blossom, speed[49] thee well. Lays down the baby with a box and bundle

50

There lie, and there thy character:[50] there these,

Which may, if fortune please, both breed[51] thee, pretty,

And still rest thine. The storm begins. Poor wretch, Thunder

That for thy mother’s fault[53] art thus exposed

To loss and what may follow! Weep I cannot,

55

But my heart bleeds. And most accursed am I

To be by oath enjoined[56] to this. Farewell!

The day frowns more and more: thou’rt like to have

A lullaby too rough. I never saw

The heavens so dim by day. A savage clamour![59]

60

Well may I get aboard. This is the chase![60]

I am gone forever.

Exit, pursued by a bear

Enter a Shepherd]

SHEPHERDI would there were no age between ten and three-and-twenty, or that youth would sleep out the rest, for there is nothing in the between but getting wenches with child, wronging the ancientry,[64] stealing, fighting — Hark you now! Would any but these boiled-brains[65] of nineteen and two-and-twenty hunt this weather? They have scared away two of my best sheep, which I fear the wolf will sooner find than the master. If anywhere I have them, ’tis by the seaside, browsing of[68] ivy. Good luck, an’t be thy will. Sees the baby What have we here? Mercy on’s, a bairn?[69] A very pretty bairn! A boy or a child, I wonder? A pretty one, a very pretty one. Sure, some scape.[70] Though I am not bookish, yet I can read waiting-gentlewoman in the scape. This has been some stair-work,[71] some trunk-work, some behind-door-work: they were warmer[72] that got this than the poor thing is here. I’ll take it up for pity — yet I’ll tarry[73] till my son come. He hallooed but even now. Whoa, ho, hoa!

Enter Clown

CLOWNHilloa, loa!

SHEPHERDWhat? Art so near? If thou’lt see a thing to talk on[76] when thou art dead and rotten, come hither. What ailest[77] thou, man?

CLOWNI have seen two such sights, by sea and by land! But I am not to say it is a sea, for it is now the sky: betwixt the firmament[79] and it you cannot thrust a bodkin’s[80] point.

SHEPHERDWhy, boy, how is it?

CLOWNI would you did but see how it chafes,[82] how it rages, how it takes up the shore! But that’s not to the point. O, the most piteous cry of the poor souls! Sometimes to see ’em, and not to see ’em. Now the ship boring[84] the moon with her main-mast, and anon[85] swallowed with yeast and froth, as you’d thrust a cork into a hogshead.[86] And then for the land-service, to see how the bear tore out his shoulder-bone. How he cried to me for help and said his name was Antigonus, a nobleman. But to make[88] an end of the ship, to see how the sea flap-dragoned it. But first, how the poor souls roared, and the sea mocked them. And how the poor gentleman roared and the bear mocked him, both roaring louder than the sea or weather.

SHEPHERDName of mercy, when was this, boy?

CLOWNNow, now. I have not winked[93] since I saw these sights. The men are not yet cold under water, nor the bear half dined on the gentleman. He’s at it now.

SHEPHERDWould I had been by,[95] to have helped the old man!

CLOWNI would you had been by the ship side, to have helped her; there your[96] charity would have lacked footing.

SHEPHERDHeavy[98] matters, heavy matters! But look thee here, boy. Now bless thyself. Thou met’st[99] with things dying, I with things newborn. Here’s a sight for thee: look thee, a bearing-cloth[100] for a squire’s child. Look thee here. Take up, take up, boy. Open’t. So, let’s see — it was told me I should be rich by the fairies — this is some changeling.[102] Open’t. What’s within, boy?

CLOWNYou’re[103] a made old man. Opens the box If the sins of your youth are forgiven you, you’re well to live. Gold, all gold!

SHEPHERDThis is fairy gold,[105] boy, and ’twill prove so. Up with’t, keep it close. Home, home, the next[106] way. We are lucky, boy, and to be so still requires nothing but secrecy. Let my sheep go. Come, good boy, the next way home.

CLOWNGo you the next way with your findings. I’ll go see if the bear be gone from the gentleman and how much he hath eaten. They are never curst[109] but when they are hungry. If there be any of him left, I’ll bury it.

SHEPHERDThat’s a good deed. If thou mayst discern by that which is left of him what[111] he is, fetch me to th’sight of him.

CLOWNMarry,[113] will I. And you shall help to put him i’th’ground.

SHEPHERD’Tis a lucky day, boy, and we’ll do good deeds on’t.

Exeunt

Act 4 Scene 14.1

running scene 8

Enter Time, the Chorus

TIMEI, that please some, try[1] all, both joy and terror

Of good and bad, that makes and unfolds[2] error,

Now take upon me, in the name of Time,

To use my wings.[4] Impute it not a crime

5

To me or my swift passage, that I slide

O’er sixteen years and leave the growth untried[6]

Of that wide gap, since it is in my power

To o’erthrow law and in one self-born[8] hour

To plant and o’erwhelm[9] custom. Let me pass

10

The same I am, ere[10] ancient’st order was

Or what is now received. I witness[11] to

The times that brought them[12] in, so shall I do

To th’freshest things now reigning and make stale[13]

The glistering of this present, as my tale

15

Now seems to it.[15] Your patience this allowing,

I turn my glass[16] and give my scene such growing

As[17] you had slept between. Leontes leaving —

Th’effects of his fond jealousies so grieving

That he shuts up himself — imagine me,

20

Gentle[20] spectators, that I now may be

In fair Bohemia, and remember well,

I mentioned a son o’th’king’s,[22] which Florizel

I now name to you, and with speed so pace[23]

To speak of Perdita, now grown in grace

25

Equal with wond’ring.[25] What of her ensues

I list not prophesy,[26] but let Time’s news

Be known when ’tis brought forth. A shepherd’s daughter

And what to her adheres,[28] which follows after,

Is th’argument[29] of Time. Of this allow,

30

If ever you have spent time worse ere now.

If never, yet[31] that Time himself doth say

He wishes earnestly you never may.

Exit

Act 4 Scene 24.2

running scene 9

Enter Polixenes and Camillo

POLIXENESI pray thee, good Camillo, be no more importunate:[1] ’tis a sickness denying thee anything, a death to grant this.

CAMILLOIt is fifteen[3] years since I saw my country. Though I have for the most part been aired[4] abroad, I desire to lay my bones there. Besides, the penitent king, my master, hath sent for me, to whose feeling[5] sorrows I might be some allay, or I o’erween[6] to think so, which is another spur to my departure.

POLIXENESAs thou lovest me, Camillo, wipe not out the rest of thy services by leaving me now: the need I have of thee thine own goodness hath made: better not to have had thee than thus to want[9] thee. Thou, having made me businesses which none without thee can sufficiently manage, must either stay to execute them thyself or take away with thee the very services thou hast done, which if I have not enough considered,[12] as too much I cannot, to be more thankful to thee shall be my study, and my profit therein the heaping friendships.[13] Of that fatal country, Sicilia, prithee speak no more, whose very naming punishes me with the remembrance of that penitent, as thou call’st him, and reconciled[15] king, my brother, whose loss of his most precious queen and children are even now to be afresh lamented. Say to me, when sawest thou the Prince Florizel, my son? Kings are no less unhappy,[18] their issue not being gracious, than they are in losing them when they have approved[19] their virtues.

CAMILLOSir, it is three days since I saw the prince. What his happier affairs may be, are to me unknown. But I have missingly noted,[21] he is of late much retired from court and is less frequent to his princely exercises[22] than formerly he hath appeared.

POLIXENESI have considered so much, Camillo, and with some care — so far that I have eyes[25] under my service which look upon his removedness, from whom I have this intelligence, that he is seldom from the house of a most homely shepherd: a man, they say, that from very nothing, and beyond the imagination of his neighbours, is grown into an unspeakable estate.[28]

CAMILLOI have heard, sir, of such a man, who hath a daughter of most rare note.[29] The report of her is extended more than can be thought to begin[30] from such a cottage.

POLIXENESThat’s likewise part of my intelligence: but, I fear, the angle[31] that plucks our son thither. Thou shalt accompany us to the place where we will, not appearing what we are, have some question[33] with the shepherd, from whose simplicity I think it not uneasy[34] to get the cause of my son’s resort thither. Prithee be my present[35] partner in this business, and lay aside the thoughts of Sicilia.

CAMILLOI willingly obey your command.

POLIXENESMy best Camillo, we must disguise ourselves.

Exeunt

Act 4 Scene 34.3

running scene 10

Enter Autolycus singing

AUTOLYCUSWhen daffodils begin to peer,[1]

With hey, the doxy[2] over the dale,

Why then comes in the sweet o’[3] the year,

For the red blood reigns in the winter’s pale.[4]

5

The white sheet[5] bleaching on the hedge,

With hey, the sweet birds, O, how they sing!

Doth set[7] my pugging tooth an edge.

For a quart of ale is a dish for a king.

The lark, that tirra-lirra chants,

10

With hey, the thrush and the jay,

Are summer songs for me and my aunts,[11]

While we lie tumbling[12] in the hay.

I have served Prince Florizel and in my time wore three-pile,[13] but now I am out of service.

15

But shall I go mourn for that, my dear?

The pale moon shines by night,

And when I wander here and there,

I then do most go right.

If tinkers[19] may have leave to live,

20

And bear the sow-skin budget,[20]

Then my account I well may give,

And in[22] the stocks avouch it.

My traffic[23] is sheets. When the kite builds, look to lesser linen. My father named me Autolycus, who being, as I am, littered under[24] Mercury, was likewise a snapper-up of unconsidered[25] trifles. With die and drab I purchased this caparison, and my revenue is the silly cheat.[26] Gallows and knock are too powerful on the highway. Beating and hanging are terrors to me. For[27] the life to come, I sleep out the thought of it. He sees the Clown approaching A prize, a prize!

Enter Clown

CLOWNLet me see, every ’leven wether tods,[29] every tod yields pound and odd shilling. Fifteen hundred shorn, what comes the wool to?

AUTOLYCUSIf the springe[31] hold, the cock’s mine. Aside

CLOWNI cannot do’t without counters.[32] Let me see, what am I to buy for our sheep-shearing feast? Three pound of sugar, five pound of currants, rice — what will this sister of mine do with rice? But my father hath made her mistress of the feast, and she lays it on.[35] She hath made me four-and-twenty nosegays for the shearers — three-man-song-men[36] all, and very good ones — but they are most of them means[37] and basses; but one puritan amongst them, and he sings psalms to hornpipes.[38] I must have saffron to colour the warden pies. Mace, dates? — none, that’s out of my note.[39] Nutmegs, seven; a race or two of ginger, but that I may beg. Four pound of prunes, and as many of raisins o’th’sun.[40]

AUTOLYCUSO, that ever I was born! Grovels on the ground

CLOWNI’th’name of me.[42]

AUTOLYCUSO, help me, help me! Pluck but off these rags, and then, death, death!

CLOWNAlack, poor soul, thou hast need of more rags to lay on thee, rather than have these off.

AUTOLYCUSO, sir, the loathsomeness of them offends me more than the stripes[46] I have received, which are mighty ones and millions.

CLOWNAlas, poor man, a million of beating may come to a great matter.[48]

AUTOLYCUSI am robbed, sir, and beaten. My money and apparel ta’en from me, and these detestable things put upon me.

CLOWNWhat, by a horseman,[51] or a footman?

AUTOLYCUSA footman, sweet sir, a footman.

CLOWNIndeed, he should be a footman by the garments he has left with thee. If this be a horseman’s coat, it hath seen very hot service.[54] Lend me thy hand, I’ll help thee. Come, lend me thy hand. Helps him to his feet

AUTOLYCUSO, good sir, tenderly, O!

CLOWNAlas, poor soul!

AUTOLYCUSO, good sir, softly, good sir! I fear, sir, my shoulder-blade is out.[58]

CLOWNHow now? Canst stand?

AUTOLYCUSSoftly, dear sir. Good sir, softly. You ha’ done me a charitable office. Picks his pocket

CLOWNDost lack any money? I have a little money for thee.

AUTOLYCUSNo, good sweet sir. No, I beseech you, sir. I have a kinsman not past three quarters of a mile hence, unto whom I was going. I shall there have money, or anything I want. Offer me no money, I pray you. That kills my heart.

CLOWNWhat manner of fellow was he that robbed you?

AUTOLYCUSA fellow, sir, that I have known to go about with troll-my-dames.[66] I knew him once a servant of the prince. I cannot tell, good sir, for which of his virtues it was, but he was certainly whipped out of the court.

CLOWNHis vices, you would say. There’s no virtue whipped out of the court. They cherish it to make it stay there; and yet it will no more but abide.[70]

AUTOLYCUSVices, I would say, sir. I know this man well. He hath been since an ape-bearer,[71] then a process-server,[72] a bailiff, then he compassed a motion of the prodigal son, and married a tinker’s wife within a mile where my land and living[73] lies, and, having flown over[74] many knavish professions, he settled only in rogue. Some call him Autolycus.

CLOWNOut upon him! Prig,[76] for my life, prig. He haunts wakes, fairs and bearbaitings.

AUTOLYCUSVery true, sir. He, sir, he. That’s the rogue that put me into this apparel.

CLOWNNot a more cowardly rogue in all Bohemia; if you had but looked big and spit at him, he’d have run.

AUTOLYCUSI must confess to you, sir, I am no fighter. I am false of heart[81] that way, and that he knew, I warrant him.

CLOWNHow do you now?

AUTOLYCUSSweet sir, much better than I was. I can stand and walk. I will even take my leave of you, and pace softly[85] towards my kinsman’s.

CLOWNShall I bring thee on the way?

AUTOLYCUSNo, good-faced[87] sir. No, sweet sir.

CLOWNThen fare thee well. I must go buy spices for our sheep-shearing. Exit

AUTOLYCUSProsper you, sweet sir! Your purse is not hot[89] enough to purchase your spice. I’ll be with you at your sheep-shearing too. If I make not this cheat[90] bring out another and the shearers prove sheep,[91] let me be unrolled and my name put in the book of virtue!

[Sings] song Jog on, jog on, the footpath way,

And merrily hent[94] the stile-a:

95

A merry heart goes all the day,

Your sad tires in a mile-a.

Exit

Act 4 Scene 4

running scene 11

Enter Florizel [wearing shepherd’s clothing, and] Perdita

FLORIZELThese your unusual weeds[1] to each part of you

Does give a life: no shepherdess, but Flora[2]

Peering[3] in April’s front. This your sheep-shearing

Is as a meeting of the petty[4] gods,

5

And you the queen on’t.

PERDITASir, my gracious lord,

To chide[7] at your extremes it not becomes me —

O, pardon, that I name them! Your high self,

The gracious mark o’th’land,[9] you have obscured

10

With a swain’s wearing,[10] and me, poor lowly maid,

Most goddess-like pranked up.[11] But that our feasts

In every mess[12] have folly and the feeders

Digest[13] it with a custom, I should blush

To see you so attired, swoon, I think,

15

To show[15] myself a glass.

FLORIZELI bless the time

When my good falcon made her flight across

Thy father’s ground.

PERDITANow Jove afford you cause!

20

To me the difference[20] forges dread. Your greatness

Hath not been used to fear. Even now I tremble

To think your father, by some accident,[22]

Should pass this way as you did. O, the Fates!

How would he look, to see his work so noble

25

Vilely bound up?[25] What would he say? Or how

Should I, in these my borrowed flaunts,[26] behold

The sternness[27] of his presence?

FLORIZELApprehend[28]

Nothing but jollity. The gods themselves,

30

Humbling their deities to love, have taken

The shapes of beasts upon them: Jupiter[31]

Became a bull, and bellowed: the green Neptune[32]

A ram, and bleated: and the fire-robed god,

Golden Apollo,[34] a poor humble swain,

35

As I seem now. Their transformations

Were never for a piece of beauty rarer,

Nor in a way[37] so chaste, since my desires

Run not before[38] mine honour, nor my lusts

Burn hotter than my faith.

40

PERDITAO, but, sir,

Your resolution cannot hold, when ’tis

Opposed, as it must be, by th’power of the king.

One of these two must be necessities,

Which then will speak, that you must change this purpose,

45

Or I my life.[45]

FLORIZELThou dearest Perdita,

With these forced[47] thoughts, I prithee darken not

The mirth o’th’feast. Or[48] I’ll be thine, my fair,

Or not my father’s. For I cannot be

50

Mine own, nor anything to any, if

I be not thine. To this I am most constant,

Though[52] destiny say no. Be merry, gentle.

Strangle such thoughts as these with[53] anything

That you behold the while. Your guests are coming:

55

Lift up your countenance, as[55] it were the day

Of celebration of that nuptial which

We two have sworn shall come.

PERDITAO lady Fortune,

Stand you[59] auspicious!

60

FLORIZELSee, your guests approach.

Address[61] yourself to entertain them sprightly,

And let’s be red with mirth.

[Enter Shepherd, Clown, Mopsa, Dorcas and others, with Polixenes and Camillo disguised]

SHEPHERDFie, daughter! When my old wife lived, upon

This day she was both pantler,[64] butler, cook,

65

Both dame[65] and servant, welcomed all, served all,

Would sing her song and dance her turn: now here,

At upper end o’th’table, now i’th’middle,

On his[68] shoulder, and his, her face o’fire

With labour and the thing she took to quench it,

70

She would to[70] each one sip. You are retired,

As if you were a feasted one and not

The hostess of the meeting. Pray you bid

These unknown friends to’s welcome, for it is

A way to make us better friends, more known.

75

Come, quench your blushes and present yourself

That which you are, mistress o’th’feast. Come on,

And bid us welcome to your sheep-shearing,

As your good flock shall prosper.

PERDITASir, welcome. To Polixenes

80

It is my father’s will I should take on me

The hostess-ship o’th’day.— You’re welcome, sir.— To Camillo

Give me those flowers there, Dorcas.— Reverend sirs,

For you there’s rosemary[83] and rue. These keep Gives flowers

Seeming and savour[84] all the winter long.

85

Grace and remembrance be to you both,

And welcome to our shearing!

POLIXENESShepherdess,

A fair one are you — well you fit[88] our ages

With flowers of winter.

90

PERDITASir, the year[90] growing ancient,

Not yet on summer’s death, nor on the birth

Of trembling winter, the fairest flowers o’th’season

Are our carnations and streaked gillyvors,[93]

Which some call nature’s bastards.[94] Of that kind

95

Our rustic garden’s barren, and I care not

To get slips[96] of them.

POLIXENESWherefore,[97] gentle maiden,

Do you neglect[98] them?

PERDITAFor[99] I have heard it said

100

There is an[100] art which in their piedness shares

With great creating nature.

POLIXENESSay there be.

Yet nature is made better by no mean[103]

But nature makes that mean, so over[104] that art,

105

Which you say adds to nature, is an art

That nature makes. You see, sweet maid, we marry

A gentler scion[107] to the wildest stock,

And make conceive a bark of baser kind

By bud of nobler race.[109] This is an art

110

Which does mend[110] nature, change it rather, but

The art itself is nature.

PERDITASo it is.

POLIXENESThen make your garden rich in gillyvors,

And do not call them bastards.

115

PERDITAI’ll not put

The dibble[116] in earth to set one slip of them.

No more than were I painted[117] I would wish

This youth should say ’twere well and only therefore

Desire to breed by me. Here’s flowers for you: Gives flowers

120

Hot[120] lavender, mints, savory, marjoram,

The marigold, that goes[121] to bed wi’th’sun

And with him rises weeping. These are flowers

Of middle summer, and I think they are given

To men of middle age. You’re very welcome.

125

CAMILLOI should leave grazing, were I of your flock,

And only live by gazing.

PERDITAOut, alas![127]

You’d be so lean that blasts of January

Would blow you through and through.—

130

Now, my fair’st friend, To Fiorizel

I would I had some flowers o’th’spring that might

Become your time of day,— and yours, and yours, To Shepherdesses

That wear upon your virgin branches yet

Your maidenheads[134] growing.— O Proserpina,

135

For the flowers now that, frighted, thou let’st fall

From Dis’s wagon! Daffodils,

That come before the swallow dares,[137] and take

The winds of March with beauty: violets, dim,[138]

But sweeter than the lids of Juno’s[139] eyes

140

Or Cytherea’s[140] breath: pale primroses

That die unmarried, ere they can behold

Bright Phoebus[142] in his strength — a malady

Most incident to maids: bold oxlips and

The crown imperial:[144] lilies of all kinds,

145

The flower-de-luce[145] being one. O, these I lack,

To make you garlands of, and my sweet friend,

To strew him o’er and o’er!

FLORIZELWhat, like a corpse?

PERDITANo, like a bank for love to lie and play on.

150

Not like a corpse. Or if,[150] not to be buried,

But quick[151] and in mine arms. Come, take your flowers.

Methinks I play as I have seen them do

In Whitsun pastorals.[153] Sure this robe of mine

Does change my disposition.

155

FLORIZELWhat you do

Still[156] betters what is done. When you speak, sweet,

I’d have you do it ever: when you sing,

I’d have you buy and sell so, so give alms,[158]

Pray so, and, for the ord’ring[159] your affairs,

160

To sing them too. When you do dance, I wish you

A wave o’th’sea, that you might ever do

Nothing but that. Move still,[162] still so,

And own[163] no other function. Each your doing,

So singular[164] in each particular,

165

Crowns what[165] you are doing in the present deeds,

That all your acts are queens.

PERDITAO Doricles,[167]

Your praises are too large. But that your youth,

And the true[169] blood which peeps fairly through’t,

170

Do plainly give you out[170] an unstained shepherd,

With wisdom I might fear, my Doricles,

You wooed me the false way.[172]

FLORIZELI think you have

As little skill[174] to fear as I have purpose

175

To put you to’t. But come, our dance, I pray.

Your hand, my Perdita. So turtles[176] pair,

That never mean to part.

PERDITAI’ll swear for ’em. They stand aside

POLIXENESThis is the prettiest low-born lass that ever To Camillo

180

Ran on the greensward.[180] Nothing she does or seems

But smacks of something greater than herself,

Too noble for this place.

CAMILLOHe tells her something

That makes her blood look out.[184] Good sooth, she is

185

The queen of curds and cream.[185]

CLOWNCome on, strike up!

DORCASMopsa must be your mistress.[187] Marry, garlic,

To mend[188] her kissing with!

MOPSANow, in good time![189]

190

CLOWNNot a word, a word. We stand upon[190] our manners.

Come, strike up! Music

Here a dance of Shepherds and Shepherdesses

POLIXENESPray, good shepherd, what fair swain is this

Which dances with your daughter?

SHEPHERDThey call him Doricles, and boasts[194] himself

195

To have a worthy feeding;[195] but I have it

Upon his own report and I believe it.

He looks like sooth.[197] He says he loves my daughter.

I think so too, for never gazed the moon

Upon the water as he’ll stand and read,

200

As ’twere, my daughter’s eyes. And to be plain,

I think there is not half a kiss to choose

Who loves another best.

POLIXENESShe dances featly.[203]

SHEPHERDSo she does anything, though I report it,

205

That should be silent. If young Doricles

Do light upon[206] her, she shall bring him that

Which he not dreams of.

Enter Servant

SERVANTO, master, if you did but hear the pedlar at the door, you would never dance again after a tabor[209] and pipe. No, the bagpipe could not move you. He sings several tunes faster than you’ll tell[210] money. He utters them as he had eaten ballads and all men’s ears grew[211] to his tunes.

CLOWNHe could never come better.[212] He shall come in. I love a ballad but even too well, if it be doleful matter merrily set down, or a very pleasant thing indeed and sung lamentably.

SERVANTHe hath songs for man or woman, of all sizes. No milliner[215] can so fit his customers with gloves. He has the prettiest love-songs for maids, so without bawdry,[217] which is strange, with such delicate burdens of dildos and fadings, ‘jump her and thump her’. And where some stretch-mouthed[218] rascal would, as it were, mean mischief and break[219] a foul gap into the matter, he makes the maid to answer ‘Whoop,[220] do me no harm, good man’, puts him off, slights him, with ‘Whoop, do me no harm, good man’.

POLIXENESThis is a brave[222] fellow.

CLOWNBelieve me, thou talkest of an admirable conceited[223] fellow. Has he any unbraided[224] wares?

SERVANTHe hath ribbons of all the colours i’th’rainbow; points[225] more than all the lawyers in Bohemia can learnedly handle, though they come to him by th’gross:[226] inkles,[227] caddisses, cambrics, lawns. Why, he sings ’em over as they were gods or goddesses. You would think a smock[228] were a she-angel, he so chants to the sleeve-hand[229] and the work about the square on’t.

CLOWNPrithee bring him in, and let him approach singing.

PERDITAForewarn him that he use no scurrilous words in’s tunes. Servant goes to door

CLOWNYou have[232] of these pedlars, that have more in them than you’d think, sister.

PERDITAAy, good brother, or go about[233] to think.

Enter Autolycus, singing He wears a false beard and carries a pack

AUTOLYCUSLawn as white as driven snow,

Song

Cypress[235] black as e’er was crow,

Gloves as sweet[236] as damask roses,

Masks[237] for faces and for noses,

Bugle[238] bracelet, necklace amber,

Perfume for a lady’s chamber,

240

Golden quoifs[240] and stomachers,

For my lads to give their dears,

Pins and poking-sticks[242] of steel,

What maids lack from head to heel.

Come buy of me, come. Come buy, come buy.

245

Buy lads, or else your lasses cry. Come buy!

CLOWNIf I were not in love with Mopsa, thou shouldst take no money of me, but being enthralled[247] as I am, it will also be the bondage of certain ribbons and gloves.

MOPSAI was promised them against[248] the feast, but they come not too late now.

DORCASHe hath promised you more than that,[249] or there be liars.

MOPSAHe hath paid you[250] all he promised you. Maybe he has paid you more, which will shame you to give him again.

CLOWNIs there no manners left among maids? Will they wear their plackets[252] where they should bear their faces? Is there not milking-time, when you are going to bed, or kiln-hole,[254] to whistle of these secrets, but you must be tittle-tattling before all our guests? ’Tis well they are whisp’ring. Clamour[255] your tongues, and not a word more.

MOPSAI have done. Come, you promised me a tawdry-lace[257] and a pair of sweet gloves.

CLOWNHave I not told thee how I was cozened[259] by the way and lost all my money?

AUTOLYCUSAnd indeed, sir, there are cozeners abroad:[260] therefore it behoves men to be wary.

CLOWNFear not thou, man, thou shalt lose nothing here.

AUTOLYCUSI hope so, sir, for I have about me many parcels of charge.[263]

CLOWNWhat hast here? Ballads?

MOPSAPray now, buy some. I love a ballad in print alife,[265] for then we are sure they are true.

AUTOLYCUSHere’s one to a very doleful tune, how a usurer’s[267] wife was brought to bed of twenty money-bags at a burden[268] and how she longed to eat adders’ heads and toads carbonadoed.[269]

MOPSAIs it true, think you?

AUTOLYCUSVery true, and but a month old.

DORCASBless me from marrying a usurer!

AUTOLYCUSHere’s the midwife’s name to’t, one Mistress Tale-porter,[273] and five or six honest wives that were present. Why should I carry lies abroad?

MOPSAPray you now, buy it.

CLOWNCome on, lay it by,[276] and let’s first see more ballads. We’ll buy the other things anon.

AUTOLYCUSHere’s another ballad of a fish that appeared upon the coast on Wednesday the fourscore[279] of April, forty thousand fathom above water, and sung this ballad against the hard hearts of maids. It was thought she was a woman and was turned into a cold fish for she would not exchange flesh[281] with one that loved her. The ballad is very pitiful and as true.

DORCASIs it true too, think you?

AUTOLYCUSFive justices’[284] hands at it, and witnesses more than my pack will hold.

CLOWNLay it by too; another.

AUTOLYCUSThis is a merry ballad, but a very pretty one.

MOPSALet’s have some merry ones.

AUTOLYCUSWhy, this is a passing[288] merry one and goes to the tune of ‘Two maids wooing a man’. There’s scarce a maid westward but she sings it. ’Tis in request,[289] I can tell you.

MOPSAWe can both sing it. If thou’lt bear a part,[291] thou shalt hear. ’Tis in three parts.

DORCASWe had the tune on’t[293] a month ago.

AUTOLYCUSI can bear my part. You must know ’tis my occupation. Have[294] at it with you.

[They sing the] song

AUTOLYCUSGet you hence, for I must go

Where it fits not you to know.

DORCASWhither?

MOPSAO, whither?

DORCASWhither?

MOPSAIt becomes thy oath full well,

Thou to me thy secrets tell.

DORCASMe too, let me go thither.

MOPSAOr[304] thou goest to th’grange or mill.

DORCASIf to either, thou dost ill.[305]

AUTOLYCUSNeither.

DORCASWhat, neither?

AUTOLYCUSNeither.

DORCASThou hast sworn my love to be.

MOPSAThou hast sworn it more to me.

Then whither goest? Say, whither?

CLOWNWe’ll have[312] this song out anon by ourselves. My father and the gentlemen are in sad[313] talk, and we’ll not trouble them. Come, bring away thy pack after me. Wenches, I’ll buy for you both. Pedlar, let’s have the first choice. Follow me, girls.

[Exit with Dorcas and Mopsa]

AUTOLYCUSAnd you shall pay well for ’em.

Song

Will you buy any tape, Follows them, singing

Or lace for your cape,

My dainty duck, my dear-a?

320

Any silk, any thread,

Any toys[321] for your head,

Of the new’st and finest, finest wear-a?

Come to the pedlar.

Money’s a meddler.

325

That doth utter[325] all men’s ware-a.

Exit

[Enter Servant]

SERVANTMaster, there is three carters,[326] three shepherds, three neat-herds, three swine-herds, that have made[327] themselves all men of hair. They call themselves Saltiers,[328] and they have a dance which the wenches say is a gallimaufry of gambols, because they are not in’t. But they themselves are o’th’mind, if it be not too rough for some that know little but bowling,[330] it will please plentifully.

SHEPHERDAway! We’ll none on’t; here has been too much homely[331] foolery already. I know, sir, we weary you.

POLIXENESYou weary those that refresh us. Pray let’s see these four threes[333] of herdsmen.

SERVANTOne three of them, by their own report, sir, hath danced before the king, and not the worst of the three but jumps twelve foot and a half by th’square.[336]

SHEPHERDLeave your prating.[337] Since these good men are pleased, let them come in. But quickly now.

SERVANTWhy, they stay[339] at door, sir. Goes to the door

Here a dance of twelve Satyrs

340

POLIXENESO, father,[340] you’ll know more of that hereafter.— To Shepherd

Is it not too far gone? ’Tis time to part them. To Camillo

He’s simple[342] and tells much.—

How now, fair shepherd! To Fiorizel

Your heart is full of something that does take

Your mind from feasting. Sooth, when I was young

345

And handed[345] love as you do, I was wont

To load my she with knacks.[346] I would have ransacked

The pedlar’s silken treasury and have poured it

To her acceptance. You have let him go

And nothing marted[349] with him. If your lass

350

Interpretation should abuse[350] and call this

Your lack of love or bounty,[351] you were straited

For a reply, at least if you make[352] a care

Of happy holding her.

FLORIZELOld sir, I know

355

She prizes not such trifles as these are.

The gifts she looks[356] from me are packed and locked

Up in my heart, which I have given already,

But not delivered.[358] O, hear me breathe my life

Before this ancient sir, whom, it should seem,

360

Hath sometime[360] loved.— I take thy hand, this hand, To Perdita

As soft as dove’s down and as white as it,

Or Ethiopian’s tooth, or the fanned snow that’s bolted[362]

By th’northern blasts[363] twice o’er. Takes her hand

POLIXENESWhat follows this?

365

How prettily th’young swain seems to wash[365]

The hand was[366] fair before! I have put you out.

But to[367] your protestation: let me hear

What you profess.

FLORIZELDo, and be witness to’t.

370

POLIXENESAnd this my neighbour too?

FLORIZELAnd he, and more

Than he, and men, the earth, the heavens, and all;

That were I crowned the most imperial monarch,

Thereof[374] most worthy, were I the fairest youth

375

That ever made eye swerve, had force and knowledge

More than was ever man’s, I would not prize them

Without her love; for her employ them all,

Commend[378] them and condemn them to her service

Or to their own perdition.

380

POLIXENESFairly offered.

CAMILLOThis shows a sound affection.

SHEPHERDBut, my daughter,

Say you the like to him?

PERDITAI cannot speak

385

So well, nothing so well. No, nor mean better.

By[386] th’pattern of mine own thoughts I cut out

The purity of his.

SHEPHERDTake hands, a bargain!

And, friends unknown, you shall bear witness to’t.

390

I give my daughter to him, and will make

Her portion[391] equal his.

FLORIZELO, that must be

I’th’virtue of your daughter: one being dead,[393]

I shall have more than you can dream of yet,

395

Enough then for your wonder. But come on,

Contract[396] us ’fore these witnesses.

SHEPHERDCome, your hand.

And, daughter, yours.

POLIXENESSoft,[399] swain, awhile, beseech you.

400

Have you a father?

FLORIZELI have, but what of him?

POLIXENESKnows he of this?

FLORIZELHe neither does nor shall.

POLIXENESMethinks a father

405

Is at the nuptial of his son a guest

That best becomes[406] the table. Pray you once more,

Is not your father grown incapable[407]

Of reasonable affairs? Is he not stupid

With age and alt’ring rheums?[409] Can he speak? Hear?

410

Know man from man? Dispute[410] his own estate?

Lies he not bed-rid? And again does[411] nothing

But what he did being childish?

FLORIZELNo, good sir.

He has his health and ampler strength indeed

415

Than most have of his age.

POLIXENESBy my white beard,

You offer him, if this be so, a wrong

Something unfilial.[418] Reason my son

Should choose himself a wife, but as good reason

420

The father, all whose joy is nothing else

But fair posterity,[421] should hold some counsel

In such a business.

FLORIZELI yield[423] all this.

But for some other reasons, my grave sir,

425

Which ’tis not fit you know, I not acquaint

My father of this business.

POLIXENESLet him know’t.

FLORIZELHe shall not.

POLIXENESPrithee let him.

430

FLORIZELNo, he must not.

SHEPHERDLet him, my son. He shall not need to grieve

At knowing of thy choice.

FLORIZELCome, come, he must not.

Mark[434] our contract.

435

POLIXENESMark your divorce, young sir, Takes off disguise

Whom son I dare not call. Thou art too base

To be acknowledged. Thou a sceptre’s heir,

That thus affects[438] a sheep-hook!— Thou, old traitor, To Shepherd

I am sorry that by hanging thee I can

440

But shorten thy life one week.— And thou, fresh piece To Perdita

Of excellent[441] witchcraft, who of force must know

The royal fool thou cop’st with[442]—

SHEPHERDO, my heart!

POLIXENESI’ll have thy beauty scratched with briers and made

445

More homely[445] than thy state.— For thee, fond boy, To Fiorizel

If I may ever know thou dost but sigh

That thou no more shalt see this knack,[447] as never

I mean thou shalt, we’ll bar thee from succession,[448]

Not[449] hold thee of our blood, no, not our kin,

450

Far[450] than Deucalion off. Mark thou my words.

Follow us to the court.— Thou churl,[451] for this time, To Shepherd

Though full of our displeasure, yet we free thee

From the dead[453] blow of it.— And you, enchantment,— To Perdita

Worthy enough a herdsman — yea, him[454] too,

455

That[455] makes himself, but for our honour therein,

Unworthy thee — if ever henceforth thou

These rural latches[457] to his entrance open,

Or hoop his body more with thy embraces,

I will devise a death as cruel for thee

460

As thou art tender[460] to’t.

Exit

PERDITAEven here undone![461]

I was not much afeard, for once or twice

I was about to speak and tell him plainly,

The selfsame sun that shines upon his court

465

Hides not his visage[465] from our cottage but

Looks on alike.[466]— Will’t please you, sir, be gone? To Fiorizel

I told you what would come of this. Beseech you

Of your own state take care. This dream of mine —

Being now awake, I’ll queen it no inch further,

470

But milk my ewes and weep.

CAMILLOWhy, how now, father!

Speak ere thou diest.

SHEPHERDI cannot speak, nor think

Nor dare to know that which I know.— O, sir, To Fiorizel

475

You have undone a man of fourscore three,[475]

That thought to fill[476] his grave in quiet, yea,

To die upon the bed my father died,

To lie close by his honest bones; but now

Some hangman must put on my shroud and lay me

480

Where no[480] priest shovels in dust.— O cursèd wretch, To Perdita

That knew’st this was the prince, and wouldst adventure[481]

To mingle faith[482] with him! Undone, undone!

If I might die within this hour, I have lived

To die when I desire.

Exit

485

FLORIZELWhy look you so upon me?

I am but sorry, not afeard. Delayed,

But nothing altered. What I was, I am.

More straining[488] on for plucking back, not following

My leash unwillingly.

490

CAMILLOGracious my lord,

You know your father’s temper. At this time

He will allow no speech — which I do guess

You do not purpose[493] to him — and as hardly

Will he endure your sight as yet, I fear.

495

Then, till the fury of his highness settle,

Come not before him.

FLORIZELI not purpose it.

I think, Camillo?[498]

CAMILLOEven he, my lord. May remove his disguise

500

PERDITAHow often have I told you ’twould be thus!

How often said, my dignity[501] would last

But[502] till ’twere known!

FLORIZELIt cannot fail but by

The violation[504] of my faith, and then

505

Let nature crush the sides o’th’earth together

And mar the seeds[506] within! Lift up thy looks.

From my succession wipe[507] me, father. I

Am heir to my affection.

CAMILLOBe advised.[509]

510

FLORIZELI am, and by my fancy.[510] If my reason

Will thereto be obedient, I have reason.

If not, my senses, better pleased with madness,

Do bid it welcome.

CAMILLOThis is desperate,[514] sir.

515

FLORIZELSo call it, but it does fulfil my vow.

I needs must think it honesty.[516] Camillo,

Not for Bohemia, nor the pomp[517] that may

Be thereat gleaned, for all the sun sees or

The close[519] earth wombs or the profound seas hides

520

In unknown fathoms, will I break my oath

To this my fair beloved: therefore, I pray you

As you have ever been my father’s honoured friend,

When he shall miss me — as, in faith, I mean not

To see him any more — cast your good counsels

525

Upon his passion.[525] Let myself and fortune

Tug[526] for the time to come. This you may know,

And so deliver,[527] I am put to sea

With her whom here I cannot hold on shore.

And most opportune to her need, I have

530

A vessel rides fast by,[530] but not prepared

For this design. What[531] course I mean to hold

Shall[532] nothing benefit your knowledge, nor

Concern me the reporting.

CAMILLOO, my lord,

535

I would your spirit were easier for advice,[535]

Or stronger for your need.

FLORIZELHark, Perdita.— Takes her aside

I’ll hear you by and by. To Camillo

CAMILLOHe’s irremovable,[539] Aside

540

Resolved for flight. Now were I happy, if

His going I could frame[541] to serve my turn,

Save him from danger, do him love and honour,

Purchase[543] the sight again of dear Sicilia

And that unhappy king, my master, whom

545

I so much thirst to see.

FLORIZELNow, good Camillo,

I am so fraught[547] with curious business that

I leave out ceremony.[548]

CAMILLOSir, I think

550

You have heard of my poor[550] services, i’th’love

That I have borne your father?

FLORIZELVery nobly

Have you deserved. It is my father’s music

To speak your deeds, not[554] little of his care

555

To have them recompensed as thought on.

CAMILLOWell, my lord,

If you may please to think I love the king

And through him what’s nearest to him, which is

Your gracious self, embrace[559] but my direction,

560

If your more ponderous[560] and settled project

May suffer alteration.[561] On mine honour,

I’ll point you where you shall have such receiving[562]

As shall become your highness, where you may

Enjoy[564] your mistress, from the whom I see,

565

There’s no disjunction[565] to be made, but by —

As heavens forfend![566] — your ruin. Marry her,

And, with my best endeavours in your absence,

Your discontenting[568] father strive to qualify

And bring him up to liking.[569]

570

FLORIZELHow, Camillo,

May this, almost a miracle, be done?

That I may call thee something more than man

And after[573] that trust to thee.

CAMILLOHave you thought on[574]

575

A place whereto you’ll go?

FLORIZELNot any yet,

But as th’unthought-on[577] accident is guilty

To what we wildly do, so we profess

Ourselves to be the slaves of chance and flies[579]

580

Of every wind that blows.

CAMILLOThen list[581] to me.

This follows, if you will not change your purpose

But undergo this flight: make for Sicilia,

And there present yourself and your fair princess,

585

For so I see she must be, ’fore Leontes;

She shall be habited[586] as it becomes

The partner of your bed. Methinks I see

Leontes opening his free arms and weeping

His welcomes forth, asks thee there ‘Son, forgiveness’,

590

As[590] ’twere i’th’father’s person, kisses the hands

Of your fresh princess; o’er and o’er divides[591] him

’Twixt his unkindness and his kindness. Th’one

He chides to hell and bids the other grow

Faster than thought or time.

595

FLORIZELWorthy Camillo,

What colour[596] for my visitation shall I

Hold up before him?

CAMILLOSent by the king your father

To greet him and to give him comforts. Sir,

600

The manner of your bearing[600] towards him, with

What you as[601] from your father shall deliver —

Things known betwixt us three — I’ll write you down,

The which shall point[603] you forth at every sitting

What you must say, that he shall not perceive

605

But that you have your father’s bosom[605] there

And speak his very heart.

FLORIZELI am bound to you.

There is some sap[608] in this.

CAMILLOA course more promising

610

Than a wild dedication of yourselves

To unpathed[611] waters, undreamed shores, most certain

To miseries enough, no hope to help you,

But as you shake off one[613] to take another.

Nothing[614] so certain as your anchors, who

615

Do their best office if they can but stay[615] you

Where you’ll be loath to be. Besides, you know

Prosperity’s[617] the very bond of love,

Whose fresh complexion and whose heart together

Affliction alters.[619]

620

PERDITAOne of these is true:

I think affliction may subdue the cheek,[621]

But not take in[622] the mind.

CAMILLOYea? Say you so?

There shall not at your father’s house these seven years[624]

625

Be born another such.[625]

FLORIZELMy good Camillo,

She’s as[627] forward of her breeding as

She is i’th’rear our birth.

CAMILLOI cannot say ’tis pity

630

She lacks instructions,[630] for she seems a mistress

To most that teach.

PERDITAYour pardon, sir. For this

I’ll blush you thanks.

FLORIZELMy prettiest Perdita!

635

But, O, the thorns we stand upon!— Camillo,

Preserver of my father, now of me,

The medicine of our house, how shall we do?

We are not furnished[638] like Bohemia’s son,

Nor shall appear[639] in Sicilia.

640

CAMILLOMy lord,

Fear none of this. I think you know my fortunes[641]

Do all lie there. It shall be so my care

To have you royally appointed[643] as if

The scene you play were mine.[644] For instance, sir,

645

That you may know you shall not want,[645] one word. They talk apart

Enter Autolycus

AUTOLYCUSHa, ha! What a fool honesty is! And trust, his sworn brother, a very simple gentleman. I have sold all my trumpery:[647] not a counterfeit stone, not a ribbon, glass,[648] pomander, brooch, table-book, ballad, knife, tape, glove, shoe-tie, bracelet, horn-ring,[649] to keep my pack from fasting. They throng who should buy first, as if my trinkets had been hallowed[650] and brought a benediction to the buyer, by which means I saw whose purse was best in picture,[651] and what I saw, to my good use[652] I remembered. My clown, who wants but something to be a reasonable man, grew[653] so in love with the wenches’ song, that he would not stir his pettitoes till he had both tune and words, which so drew the rest of the herd to me that all their other senses stuck in ears.[655] You might have pinched a placket, it was senseless; ’twas nothing to geld[656] a codpiece of a purse. I would have filed keys off that hung in chains. No hearing, no feeling, but my sir’s[657] song, and admiring the nothing[658] of it. So that in this time of lethargy I picked and cut most of their festival purses, and had not the old man come in with a whoo-bub[659] against his daughter and the king’s son and scared my choughs[660] from the chaff, I had not left a purse alive in the whole army. Camillo, Florizel and Perdita come forward

CAMILLONay, but my letters, by this means being there

So soon as you arrive, shall clear that doubt.

FLORIZELAnd those that you’ll procure from King Leontes—

665

CAMILLOShall satisfy[665] your father.

PERDITAHappy be you!

All that you speak shows fair.

CAMILLOWho have we here? Sees Autolycus

We’ll make an instrument of this, omit

670

Nothing[670] may give us aid.

AUTOLYCUSIf they have overheard me now, why, hanging. Aside

CAMILLOHow now, good fellow? Why shakest thou so? Fear not, man. Here’s no harm intended to thee.

AUTOLYCUSI am a poor fellow, sir.

CAMILLOWhy, be so still. Here’s nobody will steal that from thee. Yet for the outside[675] of thy poverty we must make an exchange: therefore discase[676] thee instantly — thou must think[677] there’s a necessity in’t — and change garments with this gentleman. Though the pennyworth[678] on his side be the worst, yet hold thee, there’s some boot.[679] Gives money

AUTOLYCUSI am a poor fellow, sir.— I know ye well enough. Aside

CAMILLONay, prithee, dispatch:[681] the gentleman is half flayed already.

AUTOLYCUSAre you in earnest,[682] sir? I smell the trick on’t. Aside

FLORIZELDispatch, I prithee.

AUTOLYCUSIndeed, I have had earnest, but I cannot with conscience take it.

685

CAMILLOUnbuckle, unbuckle. Florizel and Autolycus exchange clothes

Fortunate mistress — let my prophecy

Come[687] home to ye! — you must retire yourself

Into some covert;[688] take your sweetheart’s hat

And pluck[689] it o’er your brows, muffle your face,

690

Dismantle you,[690] and, as you can, disliken

The truth of your own seeming,[691] that you may —

For I do fear eyes over[692] — to shipboard

Get undescried.[693]

PERDITAI see the play so lies[694]

695

That I must bear a part.

CAMILLONo remedy.[696]

Have you done there?

FLORIZELShould I now meet my father,

He would not call me son.

700

CAMILLONay, you shall have no hat. Gives hat to Perdita

Come, lady, come. Farewell, my friend.

AUTOLYCUSAdieu, sir.

FLORIZELO Perdita, what have we twain[703] forgot!

Pray you a word.

705

CAMILLOWhat I do next, shall be to tell the king Aside

Of this escape and whither they are bound.

Wherein my hope is I shall so prevail

To force him after,[708] in whose company

I shall review[709] Sicilia, for whose sight

710

I have a woman’s[710] longing.

FLORIZELFortune speed[711] us!

Thus we set on, Camillo, to th’seaside.

CAMILLOThe swifter speed the better.

Exeunt [Florizel, Perdita and Camillo]

AUTOLYCUSI understand the business, I hear it. To have an open ear, a quick eye, and a nimble hand, is necessary for a cutpurse;[715] a good nose is requisite also, to smell out work for th’other senses. I see this is the time that the unjust man doth thrive. What an exchange[717] had this been without boot? What a boot is here with this exchange? Sure, the gods do this year connive at[718] us, and we may do anything extempore.[719] The prince himself is about a piece of iniquity, stealing away from his father with his clog[720] at his heels. If I thought it were a piece of honesty to acquaint the king withal,[721] I would not do’t. I hold it the more knavery to conceal it; and therein am I constant[722] to my profession.

Enter Clown and Shepherd Carrying fardel and box

Aside, aside. He stands aside Here is more matter for a hot[723] brain. Every lane’s end, every shop, church, session,[724] hanging, yields a careful man work.

CLOWNSee, see. What a man you are now! There is no other way but to tell the king she’s a changeling[726] and none of your flesh and blood.

SHEPHERDNay, but hear me.

CLOWNNay, but hear me.

SHEPHERDGo to,[729] then.

CLOWNShe being none of your flesh and blood, your flesh and blood has not offended the king, and so your flesh and blood is not to be punished by him. Show those things you found about her, those secret things, all but what she has with her. This being done, let the law go whistle, I warrant you.

SHEPHERDI will tell the king all, every word, yea, and his son’s pranks too; who, I

may say, is no honest man, neither to his father nor to me, to go about to make me the king’s brother-in-law.

CLOWNIndeed, brother-in-law was the farthest off you could have been to him and then your blood had been the dearer by I[738] know how much an ounce.

AUTOLYCUS Aside Very wisely, puppies![739]

SHEPHERDWell, let us to the king. There is that in this fardel will make him scratch his beard.

AUTOLYCUS Aside I know not what impediment this complaint[742] may be to the flight of my master.[743]

CLOWNPray heartily he be at palace.

AUTOLYCUSThough I am not naturally honest, I am so sometimes by chance: Aside let me pocket up[746] my pedlar’s excrement.— Takes off his false beard How now, rustics! Whither are you bound?

SHEPHERDTo th’palace, an it like[747] your worship.

AUTOLYCUSYour affairs there? What? With whom? The condition[748] of that fardel, the place of your dwelling, your names, your ages, of what having,[749] breeding, and any

thing that is fitting to be known, discover.[750]

CLOWNWe are but plain[751] fellows, sir.

AUTOLYCUSA lie; you are rough and hairy. Let me have no lying; it becomes none but tradesmen, and they often give[753] us soldiers the lie, but we pay them for it with stamped coin, not stabbing steel: therefore they do not give us the lie.

CLOWNYour worship had like to have given us one,[755] if you had not taken yourself with the manner.

SHEPHERDAre you a courtier, an’t like you, sir?

AUTOLYCUSWhether it like me or no, I am a courtier. See’st thou not the air of the court in these enfoldings?[759] Hath not my gait in it the measure of the court?

Receives not thy nose court-odour from me? Reflect I not on thy baseness[760] court-contempt? Think’st thou, for that[761] I insinuate or toaze from thee thy business, I am therefore no courtier? I am courtier cap-a-pe;[762] and one that will either push on or pluck back thy business there: whereupon I command thee to open thy affair.[763]

SHEPHERDMy business, sir, is to the king.

AUTOLYCUSWhat advocate[765] hast thou to him?

SHEPHERDI know not, an’t like you.

CLOWNAdvocate’s the court-word for a pheasant.[767] Aside to the Shepherd Say you have none.

SHEPHERDNone, sir. I have no pheasant, cock nor hen.

AUTOLYCUSHow blessed are we that are not simple men! Aside Yet nature might have

made me as these are, therefore I will not disdain.

CLOWNThis cannot be but[771] a great courtier. To Shepherd

SHEPHERDHis garments are rich, but he wears them not handsomely.

CLOWNHe seems to be the more noble in being fantastical.[773] A great man, I’ll warrant; I know by the picking on’s teeth.[774]

AUTOLYCUSThe fardel there? What’s i’th’fardel? Wherefore that box?

SHEPHERDSir, there lies such secrets in this fardel and box, which none must know but the king, and which he shall know within this hour, if I may come to th’speech of him.

AUTOLYCUSAge,[779] thou hast lost thy labour.

SHEPHERDWhy, sir?

AUTOLYCUSThe king is not at the palace. He is gone aboard a new ship to purge melancholy and air himself, for, if thou be’st[782] capable of things serious, thou must know the king is full of grief.

SHEPHERDSo ’tis said, sir, about his son, that should have married a shepherd’s daughter.

AUTOLYCUSIf that shepherd be not in hand-fast,[786] let him fly; the curses he shall have, the tortures he shall feel, will break the back of man, the heart of monster.

CLOWNThink you so, sir?

AUTOLYCUSNot he alone shall suffer what wit[789] can make heavy and vengeance bitter, but those that are germane[790] to him, though removed fifty times, shall all come under the hangman, which though it be great pity, yet it is necessary. An old sheep-whistling rogue[792] a ram-tender, to offer to have his daughter come into grace![793] Some say he shall be stoned, but that death is too soft for him, say I. Draw our throne into a sheep-cote?[794] All deaths are too few, the sharpest too easy.

CLOWNHas the old man e’er a son, sir, do you hear, an’t like you, sir?

AUTOLYCUSHe has a son, who shall be flayed alive, then ’nointed[796] over with honey, set on the head of a wasp’s nest, then stand till he be three quarters and a dram[797] dead, then recovered again with aqua-vitae[798] or some other hot infusion, then, raw as he is, and in the hottest day prognostication proclaims,[799] shall he be set against a brick wall, the sun looking with a southward eye upon him, where he is to behold him with flies blown[801] to death. But what talk we of these traitorly rascals, whose miseries are to be smiled at, their offences being so capital?[802] Tell me, for you seem to[803] be honest plain men, what you have to the king. Being something gently considered, I’ll bring you where he is aboard, tender[804] your persons to his presence, whisper him[805] in your behalfs; and if it be in man besides the king to effect your suits, here is man shall do it.

CLOWNHe seems to be of great authority.To Shepherd Close[807] with him, give him gold; and though authority be a stubborn bear, yet he is oft led by the nose with gold. Show the inside of your purse to the outside of his hand, and no more ado. Remember ‘stoned’ and ‘flayed alive’.

SHEPHERDAn’t please you, sir, to undertake the business for us, here is that[811] gold I have. Offers gold I’ll make it as much more and leave this young man in pawn[812] till I bring it you.

AUTOLYCUSAfter I have done what I promised?

SHEPHERDAy, sir.

AUTOLYCUSWell, give me the moiety.[816]—Takes gold/To Clown Are you a party in this business?

CLOWNIn some sort, sir. But though my case[817] be a pitiful one, I hope I shall not be flayed out of it.

AUTOLYCUSO, that’s the case of the shepherd’s son. Hang him, he’ll be made an example.

CLOWNComfort, good comfort!To Shepherd We must to the king and show our strange sights. He must know ’tis none of your daughter nor my sister. We are gone else.[822] Sir, I will give you as much as this old man does when the business is performed, and remain, as he says, your pawn till it be brought you.

AUTOLYCUSI will trust you. Walk before[825] toward the seaside. Go on the right hand, I will but look[826] upon the hedge and follow you.

CLOWNWe are blest in this man, as I may say, even blest.

SHEPHERDLet’s before as he bids us. He was provided to do us good.

[Exeunt Shepherd and Clown]

AUTOLYCUSIf I had a mind to be honest, I see fortune would not suffer[829] me. She drops booties[830] in my mouth. I am courted now with a double occasion: gold and a means to do the prince my master good; which who knows how that may turn back to my advancement? I will bring these two moles, these blind ones, aboard him.[832] If he think it fit to shore them[833] again and that the complaint they have to the king concerns him nothing, let him call me rogue for being so far officious,[834] for I am proof against[835] that title and what shame else belongs to’t. To him will I present them. There may be matter[836] in it.

Exit

Act 5 Scene 15.1

running scene 12

Enter Leontes, Cleomenes, Dion, Paulina [and] Servants

CLEOMENESSir, you have done enough, and have performed

A saint-like sorrow.[2] No fault could you make,

Which you have not redeemed; indeed, paid[3] down

More penitence than done trespass. At the last,

5

Do as the heavens have done, forget your evil.

With them forgive yourself.

LEONTESWhilst I remember

Her and her virtues, I cannot forget

My blemishes in them,[9] and so still think of

10

The wrong I did myself, which was so much

That heirless it hath made my kingdom and

Destroyed the sweet’st companion that e’er man

Bred his hopes out of. True?

PAULINAToo true, my lord.

15

If, one by one, you wedded all the world,

Or from the[16] all that are took something good

To make a perfect woman, she you killed

Would be unparalleled.

LEONTESI think so. Killed?

20

She I killed? I did so: but thou strik’st me

Sorely, to say I did. It is as bitter

Upon thy tongue as in my thought. Now, good now,[22]

Say so but seldom.

CLEOMENESNot at all, good lady.

25

You might have spoken a thousand things that would

Have done[26] the time more benefit and graced

Your kindness better.

PAULINAYou are one of those

Would have him wed again.

30

DIONIf you would not so,

You pity not the state, nor the remembrance

Of his most sovereign name,[32] consider little

What dangers by his highness’ fail of issue[33]

May drop upon his kingdom and devour

35

Incertain lookers on.[35] What were more holy

Than to rejoice the former queen is well?[36]

What holier than, for royalty’s repair,

For present comfort and for future good,

To bless the bed of majesty again

40

With a sweet fellow to’t?

PAULINAThere is none worthy,

Respecting[42] her that’s gone. Besides, the gods

Will have fulfilled their secret purposes.

For has not the divine Apollo said?

45

Is’t not the tenor[45] of his oracle,

That King Leontes shall not have an heir

Till his lost child be found? Which that it shall

Is all as monstrous[48] to our human reason

As my Antigonus to break his grave

50

And come again to me, who, on my life,[50]

Did perish with the infant. ’Tis your counsel[51]

My lord should to the heavens be contrary,

Oppose against their wills.— Care not for issue. To Leontes

The crown will find an heir. Great[54] Alexander

55

Left his to th’worthiest, so his successor

Was like to be the best.

LEONTESGood Paulina,

Who hast the memory of Hermione,

I know, in honour — O, that ever I

60

Had squared me[60] to thy counsel! Then, even now,

I might have looked upon my queen’s full[61] eyes,

Have taken treasure from her lips—

PAULINAAnd left them

More rich for what they yielded.

65

LEONTESThou speak’st truth.

No more such wives: therefore, no wife. One[66] worse,

And better used, would make her[67] sainted spirit

Again possess her corpse, and[68] on this stage —

Where we offenders now[69] — appear soul-vexed,

70

And begin, ‘Why[70] to me?’

PAULINAHad she such power,

She had[72] just such cause.

LEONTESShe had, and would incense me

To murder her I married.

75

PAULINAI should so.[75]

Were I the ghost that walked, I’d bid you mark[76]

Her eye, and tell me for what dull part in’t

You chose her. Then I’d shriek, that even your ears

Should rift[79] to hear me and the words that followed

80

Should be ‘Remember mine.[80]’

LEONTESStars, stars,

And all eyes else[82] dead coals! Fear thou no wife;

I’ll have no wife, Paulina.

PAULINAWill you swear

85

Never to marry but by my free leave?[85]

LEONTESNever, Paulina, so be blest my spirit!

PAULINAThen, good my lords, bear witness to his oath.

CLEOMENESYou tempt[88] him over-much.

PAULINAUnless another,

90

As like Hermione as is her picture,

Affront[91] his eye.

CLEOMENESGood madam—

PAULINAI have done.

Yet, if my lord will marry — if you will, sir,

95

No remedy, but you will — give me the office[95]

To choose you a queen. She shall not be so young

As was your former, but she shall be such

As, walked[98] your first queen’s ghost, it should take joy

To see her in your arms.

100

LEONTESMy true Paulina,

We shall not marry till thou bid’st us.

PAULINAThat

Shall be when your first queen’s again in breath.

Never till then.

Enter a Servant

105

SERVANTOne that gives out himself[105] Prince Florizel,

Son of Polixenes, with his princess, she

The fairest I have yet beheld, desires access

To your high presence.

LEONTESWhat[109] with him? He comes not

110

Like to his father’s greatness. His approach,

So out of circumstance[111] and sudden, tells us

’Tis not a visitation framed,[112] but forced

By need and accident.[113] What train?

SERVANTBut few,

115

And those but mean.[115]

LEONTESHis princess, say you, with him?

SERVANTAy, the most peerless[117] piece of earth, I think,

That e’er the sun shone bright on.

PAULINAO, Hermione,

120

As[120] every present time doth boast itself

Above a better gone, so must thy grave

Give way to what’s seen now! Sir, you yourself To Servant

Have said and writ so, but your writing now

Is colder than that theme:[124] ‘She had not been,

125

Nor was not to be equalled.’ Thus your verse

Flowed with her beauty once; ’tis shrewdly ebbed,[126]

To say you have seen a better.

SERVANTPardon, madam.

The one[129] I have almost forgot — your pardon —

130

The other, when she has obtained your eye,

Will have your tongue[131] too. This is a creature,

Would she begin a sect, might quench the zeal

Of all professors else,[133] make proselytes

Of who[134] she but bid follow.

135

PAULINAHow? Not women?

SERVANTWomen will love her that she is a woman

More worth than any man: men that she is

The rarest of all women.

LEONTESGo, Cleomenes.

140

Yourself, assisted with your honoured friends,

Bring them to our embracement.— Still, ’tis strange To Paulina

He thus should steal upon us.

[Exeunt Cleomenes and others]

PAULINAHad our prince,[143]

Jewel of children, seen this hour, he had paired

145

Well with this lord, there was not full a[145] month

Between their births.

LEONTESPrithee no more; cease. Thou know’st

He dies to me again when talked of. Sure,

When I shall see this gentleman, thy speeches

150

Will bring me to consider that which may

Unfurnish[151] me of reason. They are come.

Enter Cleomenes and others, [with] Florizel and Perdita

Your mother was most true to wedlock, prince, To Florizel

For she did print[153] your royal father off,

Conceiving you. Were I but twenty-one,

155

Your father’s image is so hit[155] in you,

His very air, that I should call you brother,

As I did him, and speak of something wildly

By us performed before. Most dearly welcome!

And your fair princess — goddess! — O, alas!

160

I lost a couple, that ’twixt heaven and earth

Might thus have stood begetting[161] wonder as

You, gracious couple, do. And then I lost —

All mine own folly — the society,[163]

Amity[164] too, of your brave father, whom,

165

Though[165] bearing misery, I desire my life

Once more to look on him.

FLORIZELBy his command

Have I here touched[168] Sicilia and from him

Give you all greetings that a king, at friend,[169]

170

Can send his brother, and but[170] infirmity,

Which waits[171] upon worn times hath something seized

His wished ability, he had himself

The lands and waters ’twixt your throne and his

Measured[174] to look upon you, whom he loves —

175

He bade me say so — more than all the sceptres[175]

And those that bear them living.

LEONTESO, my brother —

Good gentleman! — the wrongs I have done thee stir

Afresh within me, and these thy offices,[179]

180

So rarely[180] kind, are as interpreters

Of my behind-hand slackness. Welcome hither,

As is the spring to th’earth. And hath he too

Exposed this paragon[183] to th’fearful usage,

At least ungentle,[184] of the dreadful Neptune,

185

To greet a man not worth her pains,[185] much less

Th’adventure[186] of her person?

FLORIZELGood my lord,

She came from Libya.

LEONTESWhere the warlike Smalus,[189]

190

That noble honoured lord, is feared and loved?

FLORIZELMost royal sir, from thence, from him whose daughter

His tears proclaimed[192] his, parting with her: thence,

A prosperous south-wind friendly, we have crossed,

To execute[194] the charge my father gave me

195

For visiting your highness. My best train

I have from your Sicilian shores dismissed,

Who for Bohemia bend,[197] to signify

Not only my success in Libya, sir,

But my arrival and my wife’s in safety

200

Here where we are.

LEONTESThe blessèd gods

Purge all infection from our air whilst you

Do climate[203] here! You have a holy father,

A graceful[204] gentleman, against whose person,

205

So sacred as it is, I have done sin,

For which the heavens, taking angry note,

Have left me issueless.[207] And your father’s blest,

As he from heaven merits it, with you,

Worthy his[209] goodness. What might I have been,

210

Might I a son and daughter now have looked on,

Such goodly things as you.

Enter a Lord

LORDMost noble sir,

That which I shall report will bear no credit,[213]

Were not the proof so nigh.[214] Please you, great sir,

215

Bohemia greets you from himself by me.

Desires you to attach[216] his son, who has —

His dignity and duty[217] both cast off —

Fled from his father, from his hopes, and with

A shepherd’s daughter.

220

LEONTESWhere’s Bohemia? Speak.

LORDHere in your city. I now came from him.

I speak amazedly,[222] and it becomes

My marvel and my message. To your court

Whiles he was hast’ning, in the chase, it seems,

225

Of this fair couple, meets he on the way

The father of this seeming[226] lady and

Her brother, having both their country quitted

With this young prince.

FLORIZELCamillo has betrayed me,

230

Whose honour and whose honesty till now

Endured all weathers.

LORDLay’t[232] so to his charge:

He’s with the king your father.

LEONTESWho? Camillo?

235

LORDCamillo, sir. I spake with him, who now

Has[236] these poor men in question. Never saw I

Wretches so quake. They kneel, they kiss the earth,

Forswear themselves[238] as often as they speak.

Bohemia stops[239] his ears, and threatens them

240

With divers[240] deaths in death.

PERDITAO, my poor father!

The heaven sets spies upon us, will not have

Our contract[243] celebrated.

LEONTESYou are married?

245

FLORIZELWe are not, sir, nor are we like to be.

The stars, I see, will kiss[246] the valleys first:

The[247] odds for high and low’s alike.

LEONTESMy lord,

Is this the daughter of a king?

250

FLORIZELShe is,

When once she is my wife.

LEONTESThat ‘once’ I see by your good father’s speed

Will come on very slowly. I am sorry,

Most sorry, you have broken from his liking

255

Where you were tied in duty, and as sorry

Your choice is not so rich in worth[256] as beauty,

That you might well enjoy her.

FLORIZELDear, look up.[258] To Perdita

Though Fortune, visible an enemy,

260

Should chase us with my father, power no jot

Hath she to change our loves. Beseech you, sir,

Remember since[262] you owed no more to time

Than I do now. With thought of such affections,

Step[264] forth mine advocate. At your request

265

My father will grant precious things as trifles.

LEONTESWould he do so, I’d beg your precious mistress,

Which he counts but a trifle.[267]

PAULINASir, my liege,

Your eye hath too much youth in’t. Not a month

270

’Fore your queen died, she was more worth such gazes

Than what you look on now.

LEONTESI thought of her,

Even in these looks I made.— But your petition[273] To Fiorizel

Is yet unanswered. I will to your father.

275

Your[275] honour not o’erthrown by your desires,

I am friend to them and you, upon which errand

I now go toward him: therefore follow me

And mark what[278] way I make. Come, good my lord.

Exeunt

Act 5 Scene 2

running scene 13

Enter Autolycus and a Gentleman

AUTOLYCUSBeseech you, sir, were you present at this relation?[1]

FIRST GENTLEMANI was by[2] at the opening of the fardel, heard the old shepherd deliver the manner how he found it: whereupon, after a little amazedness, we were all commanded out of the chamber.[4] Only this, methought I heard the shepherd say, he found the child.

AUTOLYCUSI would most gladly know the issue[6] of it.

FIRST GENTLEMANI make a broken delivery[7] of the business; but the changes I perceived in the king and Camillo were very notes of admiration.[8] They seemed almost, with staring on one another, to tear the cases[9] of their eyes. There was speech in their dumbness, language in their very gesture. They looked as[10] they had heard of a world ransomed, or one destroyed. A notable passion of wonder appeared in them, but the wisest beholder that knew no more but seeing, could not say if th’importance[13] were joy or sorrow, but in the extremity of the one, it must needs be.

Enter another Gentleman

Here comes a gentleman that happily[15] knows more. The news, Rogero?

SECOND GENTLEMANNothing but bonfires.[16] The oracle is fulfilled. The king’s daughter is found. Such a deal of wonder is broken out within this hour that ballad-makers[17] cannot be able to express it.

Enter another Gentleman

Here comes the lady Paulina’s steward. He can deliver you more. How goes it now, sir? This news, which is called true, is so like an old tale that the verity[20] of it is in strong suspicion. Has the king found his heir?

THIRD GENTLEMANMost true, if ever truth were pregnant by circumstance.[22] That which you hear you’ll swear you see, there is such unity in the proofs. The mantle[24] of Queen Hermione’s, her jewel about the neck of it, the letters of Antigonus found with it which they know to be his character,[25] the majesty of the creature in resemblance of the mother, the affection of[26] nobleness which nature shows above her breeding, and many other evidences proclaim her with all certainty to be the king’s daughter. Did you see the meeting of the two kings?

SECOND GENTLEMANNo.

THIRD GENTLEMANThen have you lost a sight which was to be seen, cannot be spoken of. There might you have beheld one joy crown another, so and in such manner that it seemed sorrow wept to take leave of them, for their joy waded in tears. There was casting up of eyes, holding up of hands, with countenance[33] of such distraction[34] that they were to be known by garment, not by favour. Our king, being ready to leap out of himself for joy of his found daughter, as if that joy were now become a loss, cries ‘O, thy mother, thy mother!’ Then asks Bohemia forgiveness, then embraces his son-in-law, then again worries he[37] his daughter with clipping[38] her. Now he thanks the old shepherd, which stands by like a weather-bitten conduit of many kings’ reigns. I never heard of such another encounter, which lames[40] report to follow it and undoes description to do it.

SECOND GENTLEMANWhat, pray you, became of Antigonus, that carried hence the child?

THIRD GENTLEMANLike an old tale still, which will have matter to rehearse,[43] though credit[44] be asleep and not an ear open: he was torn to pieces with a bear. This avouches[45] the shepherd’s son, who has not only his innocence, which seems much, to justify him, but a handkerchief and rings of his that Paulina knows.

FIRST GENTLEMANWhat became of his bark[47] and his followers?

THIRD GENTLEMANWrecked the same instant of their master’s death and in the view of the shepherd, so that all the instruments which aided to expose the child were even then lost when it was found. But, O, the noble combat that ’twixt joy and sorrow was fought in Paulina! She had one[51] eye declined for the loss of her husband, another elevated that the oracle was fulfilled. She lifted the princess from the earth, and so locks her in embracing, as if she would pin her to her heart that she might no more be in danger of losing.[54]

FIRST GENTLEMANThe dignity of this act was worth the audience of kings and princes, for by such was it acted.

THIRD GENTLEMANOne of the prettiest touches[57] of all and that which angled for mine eyes, caught the water[58] though not the fish, was when, at the relation of the queen’s death, with the manner how she came to’t bravely confessed and lamented by the king, how attentiveness[60] wounded his daughter, till, from one sign of dolour[61] to another, she did, with an ‘Alas’, I would fain say, bleed tears, for I am sure my heart wept blood. Who was most marble[62] there changed colour, some swooned, all sorrowed. If all the world could have seen’t, the woe had been universal.

FIRST GENTLEMANAre they returned to the court?

THIRD GENTLEMANNo. The princess hearing of her mother’s statue, which is in the keeping of Paulina — a piece many years in doing and now newly performed[67] by that rare Italian master, Julio Romano,[68] who, had he himself eternity and could put breath into his work, would beguile[69] nature of her custom, so perfectly he is her ape.[70] He so near to Hermione hath done Hermione that they say one would speak to her and stand in hope of answer. Thither with all greediness of affection are they gone, and there they intend to sup.

SECOND GENTLEMANI thought she had some great matter there in hand, for she hath privately twice or thrice a day, ever since the death of Hermione visited that removèd[75] house. Shall we thither and with our company piece the rejoicing?

FIRST GENTLEMANWho would be thence[76] that has the benefit of access? Every wink of an eye some new grace[77] will be born. Our absence makes us unthrifty to our knowledge. Let’s along.

Exeunt [Gentlemen]

AUTOLYCUSNow, had I not the dash[79] of my former life in me, would preferment drop on my head. I brought the[80] old man and his son aboard the prince; told him I heard them talk of a fardel and I know not what. But he at that time, overfond of the shepherd’s daughter, so he then took her to be, who began to be much sea-sick, and himself little better, extremity of weather continuing, this mystery remained undiscovered. But ’tis all one to me, for had I been the finder out of this secret, it would not have relished[85] among my other discredits.

Enter Shepherd and Clown

Here come those I have done good to against my will, and already appearing in the blossoms[87] of their fortune.

SHEPHERDCome, boy. I am past more children, but thy sons and daughters will be all gentlemen born.

CLOWNYou are well met, sir. You denied to fight with me this[90] other day, because I was no gentleman born. See you these clothes? Say you see them not and think me still no gentleman born. You were best say these robes are not gentlemen born. Give[93] me the lie, do, and try whether I am not now a gentleman born.

AUTOLYCUSI know you are now, sir, a gentleman born.

CLOWNAy, and have been so any time these four hours.

SHEPHERDAnd so have I, boy.

CLOWNSo you have, but I was a gentleman born before my father, for the king’s son took me by the hand, and called me brother, and then the two kings called my father brother, and then the prince my brother and the princess my sister called my father father; and so we wept, and there was the first gentleman-like tears that ever we shed.

SHEPHERDWe may live, son, to shed many more.

CLOWNAy, or else ’twere hard luck, being in so preposterous[103] estate as we are.

AUTOLYCUSI humbly beseech you, sir, to pardon me all the faults I have committed to your worship and to give[105] me your good report to the prince my master.

SHEPHERDPrithee, son, do, for we must be gentle,[106] now we are gentlemen.

CLOWNThou wilt amend thy life?

AUTOLYCUSAy, an it like your good worship.

CLOWNGive me thy hand. I will swear to the prince thou art as honest a true fellow as any is in Bohemia.

SHEPHERDYou may say it, but not swear it.

CLOWNNot swear it, now I am a gentleman? Let boors[112] and franklins say it, I’ll swear it.

SHEPHERDHow if it be false, son?

CLOWNIf it be ne’er so false,[115] a true gentleman may swear it in the behalf of his friend, and I’ll swear to the prince thou art a tall[116] fellow of thy hands and that thou wilt not be drunk. But I know thou art no tall fellow of thy hands and that thou wilt be drunk. But I’ll swear it, and I would[118] thou wouldst be a tall fellow of thy hands.

AUTOLYCUSI will prove so, sir, to my power.[120]

CLOWNAy, by any means prove a tall fellow. If I do not wonder how thou dar’st venture to be drunk, not being a tall fellow, trust me not. Hark, the kings and the princes, our kindred, are going to see the queen’s picture.[123] Come, follow us. We’ll be thy good masters.

Exeunt

Act 5 Scene 3

running scene 14

Enter Leontes, Polixenes. Florizel, Perdita, Camillo, Paulina, Lords and Attendants

LEONTESO grave[1] and good Paulina, the great comfort

That I have had of thee!

PAULINAWhat,[3] sovereign sir,

I did not well I meant well. All my services

5

You have paid home.[5] But that you have vouchsafed,

With your crowned brother and these your contracted[6]

Heirs of your kingdoms, my poor house to visit,

It is a surplus of your grace, which[8] never

My life may last to answer.

10

LEONTESO Paulina,

We honour you with trouble.[11] But we came

To see the statue of our queen. Your gallery[12]

Have we passed through, not without much content[13]

In many singularities,[14] but we saw not

15

That which my daughter came to look upon,

The statue of her mother.

PAULINAAs she lived peerless,

So her dead likeness, I do well believe,

Excels whatever yet you looked upon

20

Or hand of man hath done: therefore I keep it

Lonely,[21] apart. But here it is. Prepare

To see the life as lively mocked[22] as ever

Still[23] sleep mocked death. Behold, and say ’tis well. Paulina draws a curtain and reveals Hermione standing like a statue

I like your silence, it the more shows off

25

Your wonder. But yet speak. First, you, my liege,

Comes it not something near?[26]

LEONTESHer natural posture!

Chide me, dear stone, that I may say indeed

Thou art Hermione; or rather, thou art she

30

In thy not chiding, for she was as tender

As infancy and grace. But yet, Paulina,

Hermione was not so much wrinkled, nothing

So agèd as this seems.

POLIXENESO, not by much.

35

PAULINASo much the more our carver’s excellence.

Which lets go by some sixteen years and makes her

As[37] she lived now.

LEONTESAs now she might have done,

So much to my good comfort, as it is

40

Now piercing to my soul. O, thus she stood,

Even with such life of majesty, warm life,

As now it coldly stands, when first I wooed her!

I am ashamed. Does not the stone rebuke me

For being more stone[44] than it? O royal piece,

45

There’s magic in thy majesty, which has

My evils conjured to remembrance and

From thy admiring[47] daughter took the spirits,

Standing like stone with thee.

PERDITAAnd give me leave,

50

And do not say ’tis superstition,[50] that

I kneel and then implore her blessing.— Lady, Kneels before the statue

Dear queen, that ended when I but began,

Give me that hand of yours to kiss.

PAULINAO, patience! Prevents Perdita from touching

55

The statue is but newly fixed;[55] the colour’s not dry. Perdita stands?

CAMILLOMy lord, your sorrow was too sore[56] laid on,

Which sixteen winters cannot blow away,

So[58] many summers dry. Scarce any joy

Did ever so long live; no sorrow

60

But killed itself much sooner.

POLIXENESDear my brother,

Let him that was the cause[62] of this have power

To take off so much grief from you as he

Will piece up in[64] himself.

65

PAULINAIndeed, my lord,

If I had thought the sight of my poor image

Would thus have wrought[67] you — for the stone is mine —

I’d not have showed it.

LEONTESDo not draw the curtain.

70

PAULINANo longer shall you gaze on’t, lest your fancy[70]

May think anon it moves.

LEONTESLet be, let be.

Would I were dead, but that methinks already —

What was he that did make it?— See, my lord,

75

Would you not deem it breathed? And that those veins

Did verily[76] bear blood?

POLIXENESMasterly done.

The very life seems warm upon her lip.

LEONTESThe fixture[79] of her eye has motion in’t,

80

As we are mocked with art.

PAULINAI’ll draw the curtain.

My lord’s almost so far transported[82] that

He’ll think anon it lives.

LEONTESO, sweet Paulina,

85

Make me to think so twenty years together!

No settled senses[86] of the world can match

The pleasure of that madness. Let’t[87] alone.

PAULINAI am sorry, sir, I have thus far stirred you, but

I could afflict you farther.

90

LEONTESDo, Paulina,

For this affliction has a taste as sweet

As any cordial[92] comfort. Still, methinks

There is an air[93] comes from her. What fine chisel

Could ever yet cut breath? Let no man mock me,

95

For I will kiss her.

PAULINAGood my lord, forbear:

The ruddiness[97] upon her lip is wet.

You’ll mar[98] it if you kiss it, stain your own

With oily painting. Shall I draw the curtain?

100

LEONTESNo, not these twenty years

PERDITASo long could I

Stand by, a looker-on.

PAULINAEither forbear,[103]

Quit presently[104] the chapel, or resolve you

105

For more amazement. If you can behold it,

I’ll make the statue move indeed, descend

And take you by the hand. But then you’ll think —

Which I protest against — I am assisted

By wicked powers.[109]

110

LEONTESWhat you can make her do,

I am content to look on. What to speak,

I am content to hear, for ’tis as easy

To make her speak as move.

PAULINAIt is required

115

You do awake your faith. Then all stand still.

On:[116] those that think it is unlawful business

I am about, let them depart.

LEONTESProceed:

No foot shall stir.

120

PAULINAMusic; awake her: strike![120] Music

’Tis time: descend: be stone no more: approach: To Hermione

Strike all that look upon with marvel. Come,

I’ll fill[123] your grave up. Stir. Nay, come away.

Bequeath to death your numbness, for from him[124]

125

Dear life redeems you.— You perceive she stirs.

Start not. Her actions shall be holy as Hermione comes down

You hear my spell is lawful. Do not shun her

Until you see her die again, for[128] then

You kill her double. Nay, present your hand:

130

When she was young you wooed her, now in age

Is[131] she become the suitor?

LEONTESO, she’s warm! Touches her

If this be magic, let it be an art

Lawful as eating.

135

POLIXENESShe embraces him.

CAMILLOShe hangs about his neck.

If she pertain to life[137] let her speak too.

POLIXENESAy, and make it manifest[138] where she has lived,

Or how stol’n from the dead.

140

PAULINAThat she is living,

Were it but told you, should be hooted[141] at

Like an old tale. But it appears she lives,

Though yet she speak not. Mark a little while.—

Please you to interpose, fair madam. Kneel To Perdita

145

And pray your mother’s blessing.— Turn, good lady, To Hermione

Our Perdita is found.

HERMIONEYou gods, look down

And from your sacred vials pour your graces

Upon my daughter’s head!— Tell me, mine own.

150

Where hast thou been preserved?[150] Where lived? How found

Thy father’s court? For thou shalt hear that I,

Knowing by Paulina that the oracle

Gave hope thou wast in being,[153] have preserved

Myself to see the issue.[154]

155

PAULINAThere’s time enough for that,

Lest they[156] desire upon this push to trouble

Your joys with like relation. Go together,

You precious winners all. Your exultation

Partake[159] to every one. I, an old turtle,

160

Will wing me to some withered bough and there

My mate,[161] that’s never to be found again,

Lament till I am lost.[162]

LEONTESO, peace, Paulina!

Thou shouldst a husband take by my consent,

165

As I by thine a wife. This is a match,[165]

And made between’s[166] by vows. Thou hast found mine —

But how, is to be questioned, for I saw her,

As I thought, dead, and have in vain said many

A prayer upon her grave. I’ll not seek far —

170

For[170] him, I partly know his mind — to find thee

An honourable husband.— Come, Camillo,

And take her by the hand, whose worth and honesty

Is richly noted and here justified[173]

By us, a pair of kings.— Let’s from this place.—

175

What? Look upon my brother.— Both your pardons, To Hermione, then also Polixenes

That e’er I put between your holy looks

My ill suspicion. This your son-in-law,

And son unto the king, whom, heavens directing,

Is troth-plight[179] to your daughter.— Good Paulina,

180

Lead us from hence, where we may leisurely

Each one demand,[181] and answer to his part

Performed in this wide gap of time since first

We were dissevered.[183] Hastily, lead away.

Exeunt

Textual Notes

F = First Folio text of 1623, the only authority for the play

F2 = a correction introduced in the Second Folio text of 1632

Ed = a correction introduced by a later editor

SH = speech heading (i.e., speaker’s name)

F includes list of parts (“The Names of the Actors”) at end of text

1.2.3 burden spelled Burthen in F 126 And = F2. F = A 188 do = Ed. F = do’s 241 they say = F2. F = say 318 hobby-horse = Ed. F = Holy-Horse

2.1.6 SH FIRST LADY = Ed. F = Lady

2.3.45 What = F2. F = Who

3.2.10 Silence = Ed. F prints as a stage direction

3.3.69 bairn spelled barne in F 103 made = Ed. F = mad

4.3.1 SH AUTOLYCUS = Ed. Not in F 32 counters spelled Compters in F 46 offends = F2. F = offend

4.4.13 Digest it = F2. F = Digest 14 swoon = Ed. F = sworne 113 your = F2. F = you 184 out = Ed. F = on’t

4.4.234 SH AUTOLYCUS = Ed. Not in F 254 kiln spelled kill in F 336 square spelled squire in F 437 acknowledged = F2. F = acknowledge 441 who = F2. F = whom 447 shalt see = Ed. F = shalt neuer see 458 hoop = Ed. F = hope 528 whom = F2. F = who 681 flayed spelled fled in F 761 or = F2. F = at

5.1.93 SH PAULINA = Ed. Assigned to Cleomenes in F

5.3.21 lonely = Ed. F = Louely

This engraving, the frontispiece to Francis Kirkman’s The Wits (1672–73), depicts a number of famous dramatic characters, with Sir John Falstaff and the Hostess in the foreground, but it is most interesting for showing what a curtained “discovery space” at the back of the stage may have looked like: Hermione posed as the statue would have been revealed when Paulina drew the curtain. The space would also have been used when Prospero “discovers” Miranda and Ferdinand playing chess at the climax of The Tempest.

Act 1 Scene 1

1.1    Location: Sicilia (now Sicily)

1    Bohemia Bohemia, a central European kingdom, formerly part of the Austrian Empire; its capital was Prague    on…occasion in the same circumstances

2    on foot in employment

4    Bohemia the King of Bohemia

6    Wherein…loves in whatever manner our hospitality may shame us, we shall make up for it in our love for you

9    Verily truly    in…knowledge as my knowledge enables me to do

10    rare exceptional/excellent    sleepy sleep-inducing

11    insufficience inadequacy

16    Sicilia the King of Sicily    trained educated (plays on the sense of “directed or joined horticulturally”)

18    branch flourish

19    necessities responsibilities

20    attorneyed represented

21    embassies messages

22    vast boundless space    ends…winds opposite corners of the globe    The may the

25    unspeakable indescribable    of in the form of

26    note attention

28    physics the subject gives health to the people

29    ere before    desire…life are determined to survive

30    else otherwise

Act 1 Scene 2

1    wat’ry star the moon, which changes each month

2    note observation

3    burden i.e., occupant

5    perpetuity ever

6    cipher zero that, worthless in itself, may increase the value of a number it is added to

10    Stay restrain

13    questioned…truly’ plagued by anxieties as to what might happen in my absence and concerned that no biting (sneaping) winds of hostility should make me conclude I was right to be afraid

19    put us to’t prove by testing me

21    sev’nnight week

22    very sooth truly

23    between’s between us

24    no gainsaying not be refused

29    needful necessary

31    Were…me would be a punishment to me (although well-intentioned)

32    charge burdensome responsibility

37    Charge entreat

38    this…day such reassuring news was announced yesterday

39    Say if you say

40    ward defensive position (fencing term)

42    tell say (to us)    strong i.e., as an argument

43    But only

45    distaffs cleft staffs around which wool or flax was wound for use in spinning

46    adventure risk

48    take receive

49    behind…parting after the time (gest) appointed for his departure

50    good deed indeed

51    jar tick    behind…she less than any noble woman (loves)

57    limber vows limp protestations

58    t’unsphere the stars to unhinge the cosmos (each star was thought to be contained within its own hollow sphere)

63    pay…depart Elizabethan prisoners were required to pay a fee on being released

65    dread greatly to be feared

68    import offending imply that I had offended

73    Of about

74    pretty lordings fine young gentlemen

76    behind to come

80    verier wag more mischievous fellow

82    changed exchanged

86    weak…blood childish dispositions/innocence never developed into adult passions

88    the…ours excepting the inherited (original) sin of all mankind/and have been spared inherited (original) sin

91    tripped sinned

93    to’s to us

94    unfledged undeveloped, youthful

96    play-fellow i.e., Leontes

97    Grace to boot! Charming too!

98    Of …conclusion do not follow that statement (about temptation) to its logical conclusion

100    answer explain/respond to/repay

101    sinned …us had sexual relations with us and continued to do so only with us and no others

112    Cram’s cram us (i.e., me)

113    tame things domestic pets (fat plays on her pregnancy)    tongueless unremarked upon

114    Slaughters…that means that all corresponding deeds go unrecognized as well

115    ride’s ride us (with sexual connotations)

116    furlong a furlong is 220 yards (200 metres)    ere…acre before we will cover an acre as a result of (instead) being kicked with a spur

119    sister i.e., the first good deed Leontes mentioned

120    would I wish/if only    Grace i.e., virtue/honor/divine favor

124    crabbèd bitter, frustrating (crab apples were a notoriously sour fruit)

126    clap seal a bargain by striking hands reciprocally

129    lo look    to th’purpose effectively

131    friend companion (Leontes may pick up on the sense of “lover”)

133    mingling bloods process believed to occur during sex, since semen was assumed to be chiefly composed of blood

134    tremor cordis heart palpitations

135    entertainment hospitality (can have sexual connotations)

136    free innocent/open/generous

137    heartiness welcoming warmth    bounty generosity    fertile bosom profuse affection

138    well…agent still reflect well on the person behaving in such a way (Hermione)    ’T it

139    paddling…fingers i.e., flirtatious gestures    paddling fingering

140    practised studied/flirtatious

142    mort horn sounded at the kill of a deer/death    deer puns on “dear”

143    brows forehead, from which cuckolds (men with unfaithful wives) were supposed to grow horns

146    I’ fecks! In faith!

147    bawcock fine fellow (from French beau coq, meaning “fine cock, rooster”)    smutched dirtied, smudged

149    neat clean, smart (puns on the sense of “horned cattle”)

150    steer young male ox

151    virginalling…palm moving the fingers up and down, as if playing the virginals (a keyed instrument); with sexual innuendo

152    wanton wild/untrained/playful/lustful

155    Thou want’st you lack    rough pash shaggy head    shoots horns (signifying cuckoldry)

156    full complete, fully grown

159    o’er-dyed blacks fabric weakened by excessive dyeing/fabric that has had black dye applied over a preexisting color    wind, as waters i.e., changeable, capricious

161    bourn…mine boundary between his and my possessions (of which he intends to cheat me at dice)

163    welkin sky-blue

164    collop piece of flesh, offspring    Can thy dam is your mother capable (of infidelity)

165    Affection strong feeling/passion/animosity/delusion (sense apparently shifts between Hermione’s supposed erotic desire for Polixenes and Leontes’ intense reaction)    intention intensity, forceful purpose (which strikes to his heart, the    center of his being)

166    not so held deemed impossible

168    thou coactive art you collaborate

169    fellow’st are companion to    credent likely, believable

170    co-join conjoin (sexual suggestion)

171    commission what is permitted    find discover, discern

173    hard’ning…brows i.e., as a cuckold, beginning to grow horns

174    Sicilia i.e., Leontes

175    something seems appears somewhat

179    moved distressed

182    make…bosoms provide entertainment to those with harder hearts

185    unbreeched i.e., a child, not yet in breeches (short trousers)

186    muzzled sheathed or with its tip protected

190    squash unripe pea pod (familiar/contemptuous)

191    take…money i.e., be deceived into accepting something of inferior value (proverbial)

193    happy…dole may his destiny be good fortune/happiness

197    exercise usual occupation

199    parasite sponger, flattering courtier

201    childness childlike ways

202    Thoughts…blood i.e., melancholy, thought to thicken the blood

204    Officed in such a role

205    graver slower, more sedate

207    dear expensive/beloved    cheap inexpensive/common

208    rover wanderer

209    Apparent in line to

211    shall’s attend shall we wait for

212    bents inclinations    found discovered literally/exposed morally

215    Go to expression of impatient dismissal

216    neb, the bill nose and the mouth, i.e., she inclines her face as if to be kissed

217    arms…husband behaves as though she were with her own husband

219    forked horned

220    plays ambiguous: amuses herself/is busily engaged/practices deceit/has sexual intercourse; sense then shifts to “perform a role”

221    so…part i.e., the cuckold, butt of jokes    issue outcome/end/action/offspring (plays on the sense of “children”)

222    hiss derisive response to Leontes’ performance in role of cuckold

223    knell funeral bells    There have perhaps elided “There’ve” for sake of meter

224    cuckolds men with unfaithful wives

227    sluiced flushed out with water, i.e., semen

228    pond plays on sense of “vagina”    fished plays on sense of “copulated with”

230    gates i.e., vaginas

232    revolted unfaithful

233    Physic remedy

234    bawdy lewd    strike blast with a malevolent influence

235    predominant in the ascendant

237    barricado…belly i.e., defence against sexual entry

239    bag and baggage plays on the sense of “penis and testicles”    on’s of us

246    ado trouble, fuss    his anchor hold him (Polixenes) stay

247    still came home always returned, i.e., failed to take hold

249    petitions requests, entreaties

250    material urgent

252    They’re…already i.e., people are already talking about me    rounding talking secretly

253    so-forth so-and-so, i.e., cuckold    ’Tis…last it must be far advanced, if I am the last to realize it    gust taste

257    pertinent appropriate (as a description of her)

258    so it is as matters stand    taken understood, perceived

259    pate head

260    conceit is soaking understanding is receptive

261    blocks idiots

262    But of except by    severals individuals

263    head-piece intellect    Lower messes inferior classes

264    business plays on “sexual business”    purblind blind

272    Satisfy Leontes picks up on the sense of “gratify sexually”

275    well well as with

276    chamber-councils personal business

277    cleansed my bosom heard my confession and given me absolution

278    we Leontes falls back on royal “we” to assert authority

282    bide dwell

284    hoxes cripples

285    counted accounted, deemed

286    grafted planted

288    game play son the sense of “sexual play/contest”    home to its conclusion    stake drawn prize collected (plays on the sense of “penis ready for action”)

296    wilful-negligent deliberately neglectful

299    weighing considering, anticipating

300    issue outcome

301    whereof …non-performance where, the deed being accomplished, it became clear that it should indeed have been undertaken

306    trespass crime

307    visage face, appearance

310    eye-glass lens of the eye

312    vision so apparent something so obvious

313    cogitation thought

315    slippery licentious/deceitful/unchaste

316    be…To shamelessly deny that you

318    hobby-horse whore

319    rank lustful    flax-wench lowly woman (flax was spun on a—phallic—distaff, so this also signifies “whore/lecherous woman”)    puts…troth-plight has sex before her betrothal

322    clouded i.e., defamed

323    present immediate    ’Shrew curse (beshrew)

324    become befit, suit

325    were…true would be as sinful as the (adulterous) wrongs you describe, even if they were true

329    career full gallop

330    note infallible certain sign

331    honesty virtue, decency/chastity    Horsing…foot foot-treading, a favorite erotic signal of the period; plays on sexual sense of “mount,” adopting sexual position

333    Hours wishing hours were

334    pin and web cataract

338    nothing of no significance; plays on “no thing” (i.e., vagina/no penis)

341    betimes quickly

348    temporizer procrastinator

350    liver thought to be the seat of sexual passion

352    glass hourglass

354    medal miniature portrait of the beloved

356    bare bore, had

358    particular thrifts personal profit

359    undo prevent, ruin    doing action/sex

360    cupbearer servant who carried his master’s cup and was responsible for serving wine    meaner form lower rank

361    benched given a position of authority    worship honor, respectability

363    galled distressed, vexed    bespice season (with poison)

364    lasting wink eternal sleep (death)

365    cordial health giving, heart restoring

367    rash immediately effective

368    dram draught, tiny amount

369    Maliciously violently

370    crack moral breach (with vaginal connotations)    dread noble, respected

373    Make…rot! If you are going to dispute my accusations, then go and rot!

374    muddy dull-witted

375    appoint…vexation put myself in this distress

377    sleep peace of mind    spotted stained

379    Give…blood raise questions about the legitimacy

381    ripe moving to’t full, compelling reason for it

382    blench turn aside

384    fetch off kill (plays on the sense of “rescue”)

387    for…tongues preventing damaging talk

390    Thou…down i.e., what you suggest is exactly what I had intended to do

394    countenance expression/appearance

395    keep keep company with

404    miserable doomed, unfortunate

405    case situation

406    ground reason, imperative

408    in…himself behaving uncharacteristically, defying his true nature

409    All…too all of his servants behave in such a way as well

410    If even if

413    brass…parchment monuments or materials on which history is recorded

416    break-neck i.e., death Happy favorable

419    warp contract/go astray

423    none rare nothing exceptional

425    As as if

427    customary compliment usual courtesy

428    Wafting…th’contrary looking away    falling letting fall, pouting

434    intelligent informative, communicative    ’Tis thereabouts it must be something of this sort, i.e., something you    dare not say

435    to…must within your heart, if you know something, you cannot deny that you do

437    complexions appearance, expressions

442    distemper disordered constitution

444    Of from

446    basilisk mythical reptile that could kill with its sight and breath

447    sped fared/succeeded

448    regard look/favor, esteem

450    Clerk-like educated (and)

451    gentry gentlemanly role

452    whose success being descended from whom    gentle honorable

453    aught anything    behove benefit

459    conjure charge, solemnly appeal    parts qualities

460    whereof…suit not the least of which is (to answer) my request

462    incidency event

467    charged commanded

468    mark pay attention to

469    ev’n even, just

471    goodnight i.e., the end

473    him by him/to be the one

479    vice force

483    his…best i.e., Judas, betrayer of Christ

485    savour smell    strike blast, have an evil influence over    dullest least receptive

489    Swear…over even if you swear what he says is untrue

491    influences an invisible substance was supposed to stream from stars and influence destiny

492    for to to

493    or either

494    fabric building, structure

496    The…body for the rest of his life

497    grow have developed

501    trunk body

502    impawned as a pledge

503    whisper to inform secretly of

504    posterns back gates of the city

505    Clear them make their way out

506    which …lost i.e., in revealing this information I have ruined my fortunes

509    prove test

510    stand by reaffirm publicly

515    pilot guide    thy…mine your position/privileges shall always be related to mine    places dignities, rank, honors

517    hence departure departure from here

523    Professed professed friendship

525    Good expedition prompt departure

526    theme concern, motive

527    ill-ta’en misinformed, unjustified

529    avoid leave

Act 2 Scene 1

5    none of have nothing to do with

10    for because because

12    so provided

15    ’this you this

22    rounds apace grows larger rapidly (in pregnancy)

24    wanton with us (want to) play with us

27    Good …her! May she have a happy labor!

29    for ready for

31    sad serious/mournful

34    sprites spirits

41    Yond crickets i.e., the other women over there

44    tuft thicket

45    scour move swiftly

46    Even all the way

48    just censure accurate/justifiable judgment

50    in…infected i.e., a spider (thought to be venomous) would not poison the drink they were in unless the drinker knew of its presence    steeped soaked

55    gorge stomach/throat

56    hefts heaves    I have drunk perhaps elided “I’ve drunk” for sake of meter

57    pander pimp, go-between

59    mistrusted suspected    false deceitful

62    pinched tormented    trick trifle, toy

69    nurse breastfeed (babies of noble households were breastfed by wet nurses)

72    Sport? A joke?

74    sport entertain (plays on the sense of “have sex”)

79    Howe’er…th’nayward whatever you think to the contrary

83    justice rightful judgment

84    honest truthful/chaste

85    without-door public, outward

86    straight immediately

87    brands stigmas/slanders

88    calumny slander    out wrong/angry/speechless

89    That…itself i.e.,    mercy, not slander, uses shrugs to suggest that Hermione is unchaste; slander attacks actual    virtue (which she does not possess)

91    come between interrupt

96    replenished complete

97    He…villain saying so would make him an even greater villain

99    mistook plays on the sense of “wrongfully had sex with”

101    I’ll …place i.e., I will not desecrate your high rank by calling you what you really are (in fact Leontes does so:    creature plays on the sense of “whore”)

103    a like the same    degrees social classes

104    mannerly distinguishment the proper distinction

108    federary confederate, accomplice

109    know plays on the sense of “have sex”

111    bed-swerver unfaithful to the marital bed (“swerver” means offender, trespasser; possible play on “swiver”)

112    vulgars common people    bold’st titles coarsest names    Privy to secretly aware of

117    published publicly denounced    Gentle my my noble

118    throughly thoroughly    to say by saying

122    centre mainstay, support (i.e., if my supposition is incorrect, then the whole structure of my mind/the world will collapse)

123    top spinning-top, toy

124    afar off indirectly/by implication

125    But…speaks merely by speaking up

126    ill malevolent

128    aspect astrological influence

130    want lack

131    Perchance…pities may perhaps prevent you from feeling pity for me

132    here i.e., in my heart

134    qualified tempered, moderated    charities senses of charity

135    measure judge

137    heard i.e., obeyed

140    plight situation, i.e., her pregnancy

144    better grace higher virtue (in the eyes of God)

146    leave permission (to go)

158    keep…wife i.e., treat my wife as I would an animal/segregate my wife from all men (as mares were from stallions in stables)

159    in couples leashed together (as hounds were for the hunt)

160    Than…her not trust her except when I can see or feel her

162    dram tiny portion

167    putter-on plotter, instigator

169    land-damn of unclear meaning; probably “thrash pitilessly”

171    some about

173    geld spay, make infertile

174    bring false generations have illegitimate children

175    glib castrate

176    fair issue legitimate offspring

180    doing thus perhaps Leontes touches Antigonus or places Antigonus’ hand on something    withal in addition

181    instruments that feel i.e., fingers

183    honesty chastity/fidelity/truth

184    the…sweeten to perfume the face

186    credit credibility, (others’) belief

188    Upon this ground in this matter (plays on sense of “earth”)

189    suspicion doubt

193    instigation incentive, direction    Our…this my royal privilege does not require your advice; I am informing you of this out of    natural goodness

195    or stupefied either insensible

196    in skill falsely

197    Relish appreciate, understand

199    ord’ring on’t management of it

200    Properly personally

201    liege lord, superior entitled to feudal allegiance and service

203    overture public disclosure

205    ignorant by age grown stupid with age

208    gross…only obvious as any suspicion that lacked only visible proof (gross plays on the senses of “coarse/vile”)

209    nought for approbation nothing remained for proof

211    Made added    deed event/sexual act    proceeding course of action

214    wild rash    post haste

215    Delphos Delos, the island where Apollo the sun god was born and home to an oracle; possibly conflated with Delphi, the Greek town more famous for its oracle

217    stuffed sufficiency complete competency

218    had having been heard

223    he any man/Antigonus

225    Come up to face

226    From away from    free accessible/innocent/not imprisoned

227    treachery i.e., suspected plot to kill Leontes

230    raise rouse, incite

Act 2 Scene 2

12    ado a fuss

13    gentle noble/kind

16    put apart dismiss, leave

24    passes colouring surpasses dyeing/is beyond all attempts at justification

27    forlorn outcast

28    On on account of

30    is…delivered has given birth prematurely

33    Lusty robust

37    lunes fits of madness, attributed to changes of the moon    beshrew curse

38    on’t of it    office task

39    Becomes is suited to

40    honey-mouthed deceitful

41    never…more may my tongue never be allowed to declare my anger again    red-looked dressed in red, like the military herald who preceded the trumpeter

43    Commend…obedience send my devoted support

46    Her…th’loud’st her most vociferous representative

52    free generous    miss…issue fail to achieve a positive outcome (thriving issue plays on the sense of “healthy offspring”)

54    meet suitable

55    presently immediately

57    hammered…design thought of this enterprise

58    durst…honour dared not ask a noble person

61    wit good sense, wisdom

67    I…it punishment I risk to let it out of the prison

Act 2 Scene 3

1    Nor neither

3    in being alive

4    harlot lascivious (Polixenes)

5    blank target

6    level aim, range

7    hook attach

8    Given…fire burned at the stake (punishment for treason)    moiety part

15    Conceiving learning of

19    solely alone

20    him i.e., Polixenes

23    parties, his alliance supporters, his allies

28    she she who is

30    be second to support

33    free innocent

37    hot rash, hasty

38    sleep i.e., peace

40    needless heavings pointless sighs or groans

41    awaklng sleeplessness

43    either both    humour mood/sickness

46    needful conference necessary conversation

47    gossips godparents

48    How? What?

53    On…peril at the risk of your fury

55    rule control

56    From away from

58    Commit imprison

60    La you now there you are, then

67    in…yours when it comes to condoning your wrongs than those who seem superficially to be most loyal

70    queen may pun on “quean” (whore)

72    by…good prove her innocence by a duel

73    the worst even the most lowly

75    makes but trifles thinks little of, i.e., she’ll scratch them

76    hand touch    On…off I’ll go when I decide

80    Out! Away!

81    mankind masculine/furious

82    intelligencing bawd spying pimp

84    ignorant inexperienced, unknowing

85    entitling calling

86    warrant assure (you)

90    dotard old fool    woman-tired henpecked    unroosted dislodged, usurped in domestic authority

91    Partlet traditional name for a hen

92    crone old woman/old ewe

94    Unvenerable unworthy of respect

95    by…upon’t under that base name (of bastard) he has forced on it

97    dreads fears (Paulina’s response seems to shift sense to “respects, reveres”)

107    as…opinion i.e., as he is king, it is a shame he cannot be forced to uproot the basis of his belief

111    callat nag/whore

113    baits provokes (plays on beats)

115    dam mother (contemptuous, usually applied to animals)

118    lay…charge apply the old proverb to you

119    ’tis the worse the child is the worse off for it

120    print copy    matter substance/image

122    trick manner, habit    nay even    valley perhaps the groove between the nose and the lip or a cleft in the chin

126    got begot, conceived

127    ordering…mind temperament

128    No yellow let there be no yellow (traditionally the color of jealousy)

130    hag witch

131    lozel scoundrel

132    stay her tongue shut her up

141    It…in’t i.e., it is you, the one who orders the fire, who is a heretic as you are burning me unjustly

145    weak-hinged fancy fragile, unsupported imaginings    savours smells

150    Where …life? i.e., I would have had her killed by now

153    Jove Roman king of the gods

154    What…hands? i.e., There is no need to manhandle me

155    You i.e., Leontes’ attendants

158    set on put up

162    straight immediately

164    testimony authority/evidence

167    proper own

176    credit credibility/honor

177    beseech’ beseech you

179    dear heartfelt/valuable

182    foul issue terrible outcome

183    I…blows I am exposed to every opinion

189    Lady Margery derogatory name for a woman; “Margery-prater” is a slang term for “hen”

191    this beard’s grey probably refers to Antigonus’ beard    adventure risk

203    lewd-tongued outspoken/lascivious

204    enjoin command

205    liege-man loyal servant

207    desert deserted

209    it its

210    strange fortune unnatural circumstances/foreign events, i.e., Polixenes

213    commend…place commit it to some foreign land

214    nurse…it nurture or kill it

215    present instant, immediate

217    kites birds of prey    ravens thought tobe a bird of ill omen

220    Like similar

221    more more ways    require deserves

222    thy addressed to the baby

226    posts messengers

232    beyond account without precedent/beyond description

235    suddenly immediately

237    session legal hearing    arraign put on trial

Act 3 Scene 1

3.1    Location: on the road

1    delicate exquisite/fragrant

5    caught struck/charmed    habits clothing

7    grave reverend, wise

12    Kin similar    surprised assailed, overwhelmed

14    th’event the outcome

16    rare wonderful, exceptional

17    worth…on’t well spent

22    violent…it rash way it has been executed

24    great divine chief priest

25    discover reveal

Act 3 Scene 2

3.2    Location: Sicilia

4    Of by

7    Even…purgation until we have established guilt or acquittal

15    pretence purpose

17    counsel advise/communicate with

22    boot profit

23    mine…received as I am thought to be a liar my claims shall be received accordingly

29    patience endurance, suffering

31    continent restrained/faithful

33    history any historical narrative or fictional tale    pattern show, provide a model for

34    take spectators enthrall an audience

35    which owe who owns

36    moiety portion

38    prate prattle

39    For…spare I value life as I do grief, both of which I could do without

40    for…for honor is handed down from me to my children and it is only for that reason that I make a stand

43    conscience also “inward consciousness”

44    grace favor

45    merited deserved

46    With…thus by what unacceptable behavior have I transgressed that I appear on trial like this    encounter behavior (plays on the sense of “sexual act”)

51    fie shame

52    I…first I’ve never heard that adulterers lacked the same audacity to deny (gainsay) their actions that was required to perform them

59    More…acknowledge I must not answer for more than those faults that I actually possess

69    friend…yours relative (Polixenes), who has professed his love freely for you since childhood

71    for as for

72    dished served up

76    Wotting knowing

81    level…dreams target, aim of your delusions

82    Which i.e., my life

86    of your fact who have committed your crime

87    concerns…avails is of more importance than practical advantage to you

88    like to itself which, as a bastard, it should be

91    in…death i.e., the very mildest form of your punishment will be death, perhaps preceded by torture

94    bug imagined terror, fearful threat

95    commodity thing of value

97    give acknowledge, give up for

101    Starred most unluckily born under an unlucky star

102    it its

103    Haled dragged    post proclamations were nailed up publicly

104    strumpet harlot/whore    immodest outrageous

105    child-bed privilege rights extended to women after they had given birth, including bed rest    ’longs belongs

106    fashion ranks

108    strength of limit strength gained during the postnatal period of recuperation

113    free clear

114    sleeping else otherwise unforthcoming

115    awake create/muster

116    rigour…law severity rather than justice (plays on the phrase “the rigor of the law”)

125    flatness absoluteness

137    truly begotten conceived legitimately

144    sessions trial

148    conceit imagining

149    speed fate

154    mortal fatal

165    transported carried away, overcome

169    tardied held back from

172    Not…done depending on whether he did or did not do the deed

174    Unclasped my practice revealed my plot

176    commended entrusted

177    No richer than with nothing but    glisters shines

181    lace laces that fasten the corset,    cut to relieve faintness

184    studied planned

185    wheels to which victims were tied and beaten    Rack torture instrument that stretched the limbs

190    Fancies imaginings    green immature    idle foolish

193    bygone fooleries previous mistakes    spices slight tastes

195    of as    inconstant disloyal

198    Poor trespasses small crimes

201    or either

202    shed…done’t wept from his fiery eyes, or while burning in hellfire before he would commit such a sin

205    tender young    cleft broke

206    conceive understand    sire father

208    Laid…answer something you are required to answer to

209    said finished speaking

211    dropped down emerged

215    Tincture or lustre color or brightness

218    heavier…stir more sorrowful/weightier than all your remorse/misery can shift

219    betake thee To prepare for/go to

222    still permanent

224    look…wert look in your direction, take pity on you

229    Howe’er…speech whatever the nature of events you have erred in being so outspoken

237    petition urging, request

238    minded reminded

243    remember remind

244    patience endurance, suffering

246    Thou…truth you spoke best when most truthfully

248    of by

250    them i.e., the gravestones/burial monuments

254    nature…exercise I am physically able

256    use undertake

Act 3 Scene 3

3.3    Location: Bohemia (coast)

1    Thou…o’th’business dialogue between Antigonus and Mariner is set as verse, but may have been intended as prose    perfect certain

2    deserts deserted coastal areas

5    present blusters impending storms    conscience opinion

6    that…hand what we are undertaking

9    bark small ship

12    loud stormy

22    creature being, figure

23    some another sometimes on the other side

24    vessel container, figure

25    filled…becoming full of sorrow and so beautiful

26    sanctity holiness

29    fury strong passion    anon presently

35    for because

36    Perdita literally “the lost one”

37    ungentle ignoble/cruel

39    shrieks ghosts were traditionally supposed to shriek in high-pitched voices

42    toys trifles

44    squared ruled

49    speed fare, survive

50    character written account of her history and parentage    these gold and jewels later found with the baby

51    breed…thine pay for your upbringing with sufficient left over

53    fault crime

56    enjoined committed, obliged

59    clamour the noise of hunters and dogs or the roar of the bear

60    chase hunt (of Antigonus)/hunted bear    bear a real polar bear cub was available at the time of the play’s first performance, but some scholars assume an actor in bear costume

64    ancientry elderly/ancestors

65    boiled-brains idiots    this in this

68    browsing of feeding on    an’t be thy if it be God’s

69    bairn child    child baby girl

70    scape sexual transgression    bookish well-read

71    stair-work …behind-door-work i.e., secret sexual liaisons (work plays on the sense of “sexual activity” and    trunk plays on the sense of “body”)

72    warmer i.e., from sexual activity    got begot, conceived

73    tarry wait    hallooed called out    Clown a rustic, comic character; the Shepherd’s son

76    on about

77    ailest troubles/prevents

79    firmament sky

80    bodkin pin/needle

82    chafes seethes    takes up consumes/rebukes

84    boring piercing

85    anon then/shortly    yeast foam

86    hogshead cask of alcohol    land-service combat on land/food served on land (i.e., events on land)

88    make…ship finish the story of the ship/tell you how the ship met its end    flap-dragoned consumed (as in a game of flapdragon, where raisins are plucked from burning brandy and swallowed)

93    winked shut my eyes

95    by nearby

96    your…footing you would have been unable to stand (footing puns on the sense of “establishment of a    charity“)

98    Heavy grave, sorrowful

99    met’st met

100    bearing-cloth christening robe    squire i.e., one of a relatively high social position

102    changeling child taken by the fairies, or the one substituted for it

103    you’re…live you will live prosperously

105    fairy gold if not kept secret, riches brought by fairies were thought to bring bad luck    close secret

106    next nearest    still yet/always

109    curst vicious

111    what who

113    Marry by the Virgin Mary

Act 4 Scene 1

4.1    Location: the theater

1    try test (proverbial: “time tries all things”)    both…Of bringer of both joy and terror to the

2    unfolds reveals

4    wings Time was traditionally depicted as winged

6    growth untried development unexamined

8    self-born selfsame/self-created (by Time)

9    plant and o’erwhelm create and overrule

10    ere…received since the beginning of time, before the oldest laws and customs were set down and before those of the present day

11    witness bear willing testimony

12    them i.e., law and custom    do be

13    stale…present redundant and past what is now fresh and gleaming

15    seems to it seems old in comparison to the present

16    glass hourglass

17    As as if    Leontes…himself leaving Leontes to the consequences of his foolish jealousies, so distraught he shuts himself away

20    Gentle noble, wellborn/excellent/polite, courteous

22    king’s i.e., Polixenes’

23    pace proceed

25    Equal with wond’ring as great as the admiration her    grace inspires

26    list not prophesy wish not to foretell

28    adheres pertains

29    argument subject matter

31    yet yet allow

Act 4 Scene 2

4.2    Location: Bohemia (court)

1    importunate persistent, urging    ’tis…denying it makes me ill to deny

3    fifteen the discrepancy between Camillo’s fifteen and Time’s sixteen years may be a scribal error or a slip on Shakespeare’s part

4    been aired lived

5    feeling heartfelt    allay comfort

6    o’erween presume

9    want be without    made me businesses handled affairs for me

12    considered rewarded

13    heaping friendships growth of Camillo’s kindnesses/increase of mutual friendship    fatal deadly

15    reconciled remorseful, confessed

18    unhappy miserable/unfortunate    gracious virtuous

19    approved proved

21    missingly noted noticed in his absence    retired absent

22    exercises activities, pastimes

25    eyes…service employees to watch him    removedness absence/where he goes

28    unspeakable estate indescribable wealth

29    rare note exceptional report

30    begin originate

31    angle fishhook

33    question conversation

34    uneasy difficult

35    present immediate

Act 4 Scene 3

4.3    Location: Bohemia (rural)    Autolycus literally, “the wolf himself” or “the lone wolf”; in classical mythology, he was a crafty thief

1    peer peep out/appear

2    doxy whore/low woman

3    sweet o’ sweetest part of

4    pale paleness/domain

5    sheet…hedge spring-cleaning involved washing linen, which was hung out to dry on hedges

7    set…edge unclear; the general sense seems to be “whet my appetite for thieving” (“to pug” means “to tug or pull” hence possibly “to steal”); alternative possibility is sexual (“pug” meant mistress/whore and “tooth” was associated with desire, as in “toothsome”)

11    aunts whores, wenches

12    tumbling having sex

13    three-pile costly thick velvet    out of service unemployed

19    tinkers menders of metal pots and kettles (also applied to beggars and thieves)    leave to live permission to live freely

20    sow-skin budget pigskin toolbag

22    in …avouch it affirm that I am a tinker (rather than a vagabond) and thus escape punishment    stocks instrument of punishment in which the arms or legs were confined

23    traffic trade, goods    kite…linen the kite (a bird of prey) supposedly stole pieces of cloth to build its nest; Autolycus steals    sheets that have been left out to dry

24    littered under fathered by/born under the influence of (the connotations of animal birth recall Autolycus’ wolfishness)    Mercury Roman god of thieves/the planet

25    unconsidered disregarded, unattended    die i.e., gambling    drab whoring/pimping    caparison clothing, outfit

26    silly cheat petty deception/foolish victim of my trickery    Gallows and knock hanging and beating (punishments of a highwayman)

27    For…come as for the future/the afterlife

29    ’leven wether tods eleven sheep will produce 12 kg (a tod) of wool    odd one

31    springe trap    cock woodcock, a proverbially stupid bird

32    counters round metal discs used for calculating    sheep-shearing feast festival held between May and July; the shearing of the sheep was accompanied by general celebrations

35    lays it on sets about it thoroughly    made me made    nosegays posies of flowers

36    three-man-song-men men who sing three-part songs

37    means boy altos or adult countertenors puritan pious Protestant, opposed to excessive festivity

38    hornpipes wind instruments/lively vigorous dance/piece of music for such a dance; the puritan is so religious he will only sing psalms to them    warden pies made from a variety of pear    Mace spice made from nutmeg

39    out of my note not on my list    race root

40    o’th’sun sun-dried

42    I’th’name of me a mild, and unusual, oath

46    stripes lashes of a whip

48    great matter serious consequences/infected wounds

51    horseman…footman highwayman or robber on foot (who would wear inferior garments)

54    hot service active use, i.e., excessive wear

58    out dislocated

66    troll-my-dames loose women/whores

70    abide stay briefly

71    ape-bearer showman with a performing monkey

72    process-server officer who serves a summons    compassed a motion traveled around with a puppet show    prodigal son in the New Testament parable, the younger son who squanders his inheritance but is forgiven by his father (Luke 15)

73    living property

74    flown over dabbled with

76    Prig thief/tinker    wakes country festivals

81    false of heart fearful

85    softly gently

87    good-faced honest, kind

89    hot full (plays on the sense of “spicy”)

90    cheat deception    bring out lead to

91    sheep i.e., to be stupid    unrolled removed from the list of thieves and vagabonds

94    hent grasp

Act 4 Scene 4

1    unusual weeds special (festival) clothes

2    Flora Roman goddess of flowers

3    Peering…front appearing at the beginning of April

4    petty minor

7    chide…extremes rebuke your exaggerations

9    mark o’th’land object of public attention    obscured concealed, disguised

10    swain’s wearing rustic clothing

11    pranked up dressed up, adorned

12    mess group of diners/collection of dishes    folly lewd or foolish behavior

13    Digest…custom tolerate it because it is a tradition

15    show…glass look at myself in a mirror

20    difference i.e., in rank

22    accident chance event

25    Vilely bound up humbly/degradingly dressed (literally, bound like a book)

26    flaunts fancy clothes

27    sternness majesty

28    Apprehend be apprehensive about, imagine

31    Jupiter…bull in classical mythology the Roman supreme god Jupiter transformed himself into a bull and abducted Europa

32    Neptune…ram the Roman sea god Neptune took on the shape of a ram to carry off Theopane

34    Apollo…swain the classical sun god Apollo disguised himself as a shepherd to seduce Alcestis

37    in a way for an undertaking/in a manner

38    Run not before do not overtake

45    I my life possibly Perdita anticipates being threatened with death

47    forced unnatural/uneasy

48    Or either

52    Though even if

53    with…while i.e., by occupying yourself with anything else in the meantime

55    as as if

59    Stand you be/remain (Fortune was traditionally fickle)

61    Address prepare    sprightly in a lively, cheerful manner

64    pantler pantry maid

65    dame hostess

68    On his at one person’s

70    to…sip toast each person    retired withdrawn

83    rosemary herb symbolizing    remembrance rue herb symbolizing repentance and grace

84    Seeming and savour appearance and smell

88    fit suit, match

90    the year …winter i.e., in autumn

93    gillyvors gillyflowers, a type of dual-colored carnation

94    nature’s bastards gillyflowers are a result of cross-pollination

96    slips cuttings (plays on sense of “sexual lapse”)

97    Wherefore why

98    neglect reject

99    For because

100    an…nature i.e., artificial cross-breeding, in its effect of creating streaked color, only imitates nature’s skill    piedness being multicolored

103    mean method

104    over…makes i.e., man and his materials are created by nature, therefore anything he does is essentially natural too

107    gentler scion nobler shoot    stock stem/ancestry

109    race root/ancestry, i.e., through cross-breeding, a superior plant is generated from a baser one

110    mend improve

116    dibble tool for making holes in which to plant seedlings    set plant

117    painted wearing makeup

120    Hot herbs were divided into “hot” or “cold” varieties based on their supposed qualities    savory a type of herb

121    goes…weeping the marigold closes at sunset and opens, filled with dew, at sunrise

127    Out, alas! exclamation of dismay

134    maidenheads virginities    Proserpina in Ovid’s Metamorphoses, Proserpina, the daughter of Ceres, is abducted by    Dis (Pluto) as she gathers flowers, and is taken in his chariot (wagon) to the underworld where he rules

137    dares i.e., return from its migration    take bewitch

138    dim modest/drooping

139    Juno queen of the Roman gods

140    Cytherea Venus

142    Phoebus the sun god    malady…maids i.e., greensickness, a type of anaemia that caused pallor and weakness; it affected adolescent girls

144    crown imperial a lily first imported into England from Constantinople in the late sixteenth century

145    flower-de-luce fleur-de-lis, heraldic lily (actually a type of iris)

150    if if so

151    quick alive

153    Whitsun pastorals morris dances and plays celebrating Whitsun, seven Sundays after Easter

156    Still always

158    alms charity to the poor or sick

159    ord’ring arranging of

162    still plays on the sense of “motionless”

163    own…function perform no other activity    your doing thing you do

164    singular exceptional (plays on the sense of “individual, particular“)    particular individual aspect

165    what…deeds your present actions

167    Doricles the name Florizel has assumed

169    true honorable/faithful

170    give you out proclaim you to be

172    the false way with dishonorable intentions

174    skill cause

176    turtles turtledoves, thought to mate for life

180    greensward grass

184    blood look out blush    sooth truth

185    curds and cream derived from milk and thus associated with shepherds

187    mistress dance partner

188    mend…with i.e., improve her breath (so bad that even garlic would help)

189    in good time expression of indignation

190    stand upon insist on

194    boasts say he boasts

195    worthy feeding rich pasture, grazing land

197    like sooth truthful

203    featly skillfully

206    light upon choose her (for marriage)    Servant i.e., the Old Shepherd’s servant (whose presence indicates that though humble, the household is not impoverished)

209    tabor small drum used for morris dancing

210    tell count out    ballads narrative songs sung and sold by itinerant pedlars

211    grew listened attentively/were drawn to

212    better at a better time

215    milliner vendor of fashionable hats and gloves

217    bawdry lewdness    burdens refrains    dildos and fadings nonsense words used in refrains (plays on the senses of “false penis” and “moment after orgasm”)    ‘jump…her’ also with sexual connotations

218    stretched-mouthed wide-mouthed/obscene

219    break…matter interrupt the song with an obscenity (gap plays on the sense of “vagina”)

220    Whoop exclamation of outcry or excitement

222    brave excellent/impudent

223    admirable conceited extraordinarily witty, ingenious

224    unbraided untarnished, not shop-soiled (“braid” plays on the sense of “ribbon”)

225    points laces used to attach doublet and hose (plays on the sense of “arguments”)

226    by th’gross wholesale

227    inkles linen tape    caddisses yarn tape used for garters    cambrics fine linen from Cambray in Flanders    lawns fine linen    ’em over about them

228    smock woman’s undergarment

229    sleeve-hand cuff    work about embroidery on    square square piece of material on the chest area

232    You have there are some

233    go about wish

235    Cypress lightweight crepe fabric

236    sweet scented

237    Masks worn by women to protect the complexion from the sun

238    Bugle glittering

240    quoifs close-fitting caps    stomachers decorated fronts for women’s dresses

242    poking-sticks rod for stiffening the folds of a ruff (with possible phallic play)

247    enthralled enslaved (by love)    bondage (buying and) binding up

248    against in preparation for

249    more than that presumably marriage

250    paid you had sex with you/given you    paid…again refers to pregnancy and the shame of an illegitimate child

252    plackets…faces i.e., reveal their most private affairs in public    placket slit in a skirt or petticoat (hence “vagina”)

254    kiln-hole fire hole at an oven (somewhere to gossip)

255    Clamour silence

257    tawdry-lace Saint Audrey’s lace, a decorative neckerchief

259    cozened tricked

260    abroad roaming about    behoves befits

263    charge value

265    alife on my life

267    usurer moneylender    brought…of delivered

268    at a burden in one birth

269    carbonadoed scored and grilled

273    Tale-porter i.e., “tale-bearer” or bringer of “tail” (vagina), hence pimp

276    lay it by set it aside

279    fourscore eightieth (four times twenty)    forty thousand fathom 240,000 feet (about 74,000 meters)

281    exchange flesh have sex

284    justices’ magistrates’    hands signatures    pack bag, pack of goods

288    passing extremely

289    request demand

291    bear a part sing a part/play a role/handle genitals

293    on’t of it

294    Have…you let’s begin

304    Or either    grange farmhouse

305    ill wrong

312    have…anon finish this song later

313    sad serious

321    toys ornaments, trinkets

325    utter offer for sale    ware-a wares, goods

326    carters cart drivers    neat-herds cowherds

327    made…hair dressed in hairy disguises, presumably animal skins, to resemble satyrs

328    Saltiers malapropism for “satyrs” (mythical creatures, part man, part goat)    gallimaufry of gambols chaotic mixture of leaps

330    bowling i.e., a gentle, sedate activity

331    homely simple

333    threes trios

336    by th’square with great precision

337    prating chattering

339    stay are waiting

340    father respectful term of address for an old man    you’ll…hereafter presumably refers to a conversation the men were having during the dance

342    He’s simple the Shepherd is ignorant/humble

345    handed handled    wont accustomed

346    she with knacks lady with trifles, presents

349    marted bargained/bought

350    Interpretation should abuse should misinterpret

351    bounty generosity    straited at a loss

352    make…her care about keeping her happy

356    looks looks for

358    delivered i.e., legally, through formal betrothal    breathe my life i.e., pledge my love

360    sometime formerly, at some time

362    bolted sifted, refined

363    blasts winds

365    wash clean/whitewash

366    was that was    put you out disconcerted you (by interrupting); also used for actor forgetting his lines

367    to return to    protestation declaration

374    Thereof of all monarchs

378    Commend…perdition either commit them to her service, or consign them to ruin

386    By…his through understanding the purity of my own thoughts I recognize that of his (a dress-making metaphor)

391    portion dowry

393    one being dead i.e., when Polixenes dies and Florizel inherits the throne

396    Contract…witnesses the formal betrothal; a pledge of marriage uttered before witnesses was legally binding

399    Soft wait a moment    swain country gallant or lover/young man/rustic

406    becomes befits

407    incapable Of unable to understand (through senility)

409    alt’ring rheums weakening catarrh or similar ailments of old age

410    Dispute deal with

411    does…childish i.e., suffers dementia and returns to a state of childish dependency

418    unfilial not like a son, unnatural    Reason it is reasonable that

421    posterity family, descendants    hold some counsel be involved, consulted

423    yield grant

434    Mark witness

438    affects aspires to/seeks to obtain/loves/assumes the character of/puts on a pretence of    sheep-hook shepherd’s crook, and by implication a shepherd girl (derogatory)

441    excellent skilled    of force by necessity

442    cop’st with deal with/embrace

445    homely ugly/humble    fond foolish/doting

447    knack toy/piece of trickery

448    succession i.e., to the throne

449    Not…blood disown you

450    Far…off less linked in kinship than to    Deucalion, in classical mythology the common ancestor of humankind and thus the most distant relation possible

451    churl rustic/villain, i.e., the Shepherd

453    dead…it i.e., execution    enchantment enchantress, witch, i.e., Perdita

454    him i.e., Florizel

455    That…thee i.e., were it not for his royal blood, his behavior has made him even unworthy of a lowly person like you

457    rural latches metaphorical gates that lead from Perdita’s rustic world into Florizel’s

460    tender acutely receptive

461    undone ruined

465    visage face

466    alike both alike

475    fourscore three eighty-three

476    fill…quiet die peacefully

480    no…dust criminals were denied a Christian burial

481    adventure dare

482    mingle faith exchange vows (perhaps with play on the belief in the mingling of blood during sex)

488    straining…back determined for being deterred    following…unwillingly being dragged against my will

493    purpose intend    hardly with great dificulty/unwillingly

498    I think, Camillo? Camillo either takes off his disguise or is recognized by Florizel, even with it on

501    dignity worth

502    But only

504    violation…faith breaking of my oaths

506    seeds i.e., of life    Lift…looks look at me/be cheerful

507    wipe erase

509    Be advised be cautious, think carefully

510    fancy feelings, love

514    desperate extreme/rash/dangerous

516    honesty right, honorable

517    pomp splendor, ostentation

519    close secret/enclosed    wombs holds within    profound deep

525    passion rage

526    Tug contend with one another

527    deliver report

530    rides fast by anchored nearby

531    What…hold where I intend to go

532    Shall…reporting will not benefit you to hear or me to tell you

535    for advice to advise

539    irremovable determined

541    frame…turn use for my purposes

543    Purchase obtain

547    fraught burdened    curious difficult

548    ceremony courtesy (toward you)

550    poor meager

554    not…on and important to him to reward your service as fully as he values it

559    embrace…direction accept my advice, adopt my plan

560    ponderous weighty    settled fixed, determined

561    suffer alteration permit some adjustments

562    receiving a reception

564    Enjoy make love to/love freely

565    disjunction separation

566    forfend forbid

568    discontenting discontented    qualify pacify

569    liking giving his approval

573    after…to ever after trust

574    on of

577    th’unthought…do this unexpected event is responsible for our rash behavior now

579    flies…blows blown about like flies in the wind

581    list listen

586    habited dressed

590    As…person as though he were your father

591    divides…kindness veers between chastising himself for his past unkindness/unnatural behavior and endeavoring to be kind/fatherly now

596    colour pretext

600    bearing behavior

601    as as if

603    point…sitting direct you at every discussion (with regard to)

605    bosom most personal thoughts

608    sap life

611    unpathed uncharted

613    one one misery

614    nothing…as your only certainty

615    stay hold, keep

617    Prosperity’s…love good fortune secures love

619    Affliction alters (love) is changed by adversity

621    subdue the cheek make the complexion pale

622    take in affect/conquer

624    seven years i.e., for a long time

625    such such as Perdita

627    as…birth as superior to her lowly upbringing as she is inferior to us in rank

630    instructions education

638    furnished dressed/equipped

639    appear appear so

641    fortunes wealth

643    appointed provided for

644    mine written/performed by me    instance proof

645    want go without

647    trumpery worthless finery    stone gem

648    glass mirror    pomander ball of sweet-smelling substances carried about for ornament or to prevent infection    table-book notebook

649    horn-ring ring made from horn, thought to possess magical qualities    fasting i.e., being empty

650    hallowed sacred    benediction blessing

651    best in picture looked best (to steal)

652    use purpose/opportunity/profit    wants lacks    something some thing

653    grew plays on the phallic sense of “became erect”    pettitoes feet (literally, pig’s trotters)

655    stuck in ears were devoted to hearing    placket literally, slit in a petticoat, hence “vagina”

656    geld…purse cut a purse free from the codpiece it is attached to/castrate (geld) a scrotum

657    my sir’s i.e., the Clown’s

658    nothing meaninglessness/silliness (puns on musical “noting,” which was pronounced similarly)

659    whoo-bub hullabaloo

660    choughs small chattering birds of crow family, especially jackdaws (plays on “chuffs” meaning “rustics”)    chaff wares, pickings/husks of grain after threshing/refuse

665    satisfy appease

670    Nothing nothing that

675    outside…poverty i.e., poor clothing

676    discase undress

677    think believe, understand

678    pennyworth bargain

679    some boot something more

681    dispatch hurry    flayed stripped

682    in earnest sincere (sense then shifts to “advance payment”)    trick knack/habit/trickery    on’t of it, i.e., duping people

687    Come…ye be fulfilled

688    covert hiding place

689    pluck pull

690    Dismantle you take off your outer clothes    disliken disguise

691    seeming appearance

692    eyes over spies

693    undescried undetected

694    lies plays on the sense of “dissimulates”

696    remedy alternative

703    twain two

708    after in pursuit

709    review see again

710    woman’s i.e., overwhelming

711    speed favor/hasten

715    cutpurse one who steals by cutting purses which were worn hanging from the waist

717    exchange conversation/exchange of garments/financial transaction    without boot even without payment    boot benefit/profit/shoe

718    connive at conspire with

719    extempore on a whim, spontaneously    piece of iniquity wrongful act

720    clog burden (block of wood tied to man or animal to prevent escape)/mistress

721    withal with this

722    constant faithful    fardel bundle

723    hot enthusiastic, active

724    session court session    careful attentive, cunning

726    changeling fairy child (usually substituted for a stolen mortal baby)

729    Go to go ahead

738    I…ounce i.e., nothing at all

739    puppies i.e., silly ones

742    complaint lament, grounds for grievance

743    master i.e., Florizel

746    pocket up put away    excrement i.e., moustache/beard

747    an it like if it please

748    condition nature

749    having means, wealth

750    discover reveal

751    plain simple (Autolycus plays on sense of “smooth”)

753    give…lie deceive us/accuse us of lying (a valid cause for a duel)    pay…lie i.e., even if cheated or insulted, since soldiers pay with legitimate currency rather than by stabbing, tradesmen cannot claim to have given anything (free goods/the lie), and a duel is thus avoided

755    one the lie/a duel    taken…manner behaved properly/caught yourself in time

759    enfoldings clothing    gait posture, bearing    measure graceful movement

760    baseness lowly status, which the court would find contemptuous

761    for that because    insinuate draw out subtly    toaze tease out

762    cap-a-pe from head to toe

763    open thy affair disclose your business

765    advocate representative

767    pheasant the only courts known to the Clown are those of local justices; he assumes Autolycus refers to bribing the judge with a gift

771    but anyone but

773    fantastical imaginative/eccentric

774    picking on’s teeth the way he picks his teeth (ornate toothpicks were a mark of fashion)

779    Age old man

782    be’st…serious are able to understand important things

786    hand-fast arrested    fly flee, escape

789    wit…heavy ingenuity can make brutal

790    germane related

792    sheep-whistling rogue rascal who whistles to his sheep    ram-tender one who looks after rams    offer attempt

793    grace favor at court

794    sheep-cote building sheltering sheep

796    ’nointed anointed, covered

797    dram tiny bit

798    aqua-vitae liquor

799    prognostication proclaims the calendar forecasts

801    blown swollen with flies’ eggs (laid in wounds)

802    capital worthy of the death penalty

803    to to say to    Being…considered as I am deemed noble/esteemed at court

804    tender offer, present

805    him in to him on    man any man

807    Close make a deal

811    that what

812    in pawn as security

816    moiety half

817    case circumstances/skin

822    gone else dead otherwise

825    before ahead of me

826    look…hedge i.e., urinate

829    suffer allow

830    booties booty, benefits    courted wooed    occasion opportunity

832    him i.e., Florizel’s ship

833    shore them put them ashore

834    officious interfering

835    proof against impervious to

836    matter serious business/reward

Act 5 Scene 1

5.1    Location: Sicilia

2    sorrow i.e., penitence

3    paid…trespass endured and repented more than the sin warranted

9    in them with regard to them

16    the…are all existing women

22    good now expression of entreaty

26    done…benefit been more helpful

32    sovereign name royal lineage, i.e., through an heir

33    fail of issue childlessness

35    Incertain lookers on subjects or spectators who are unsure and anxious about the future

36    well i.e., in heaven

42    Respecting compared to

45    tenor substance

48    monstrous incredible, unnatural

50    on my life I am certain

51    counsel advice

54    Great…th’worthiest Alexander the Great reportedly urged his followers simply to choose the worthiest man as his successor

60    squared me conformed

61    full perfect

66    One…used i.e., if I married an inferior woman and treated her better (than Hermione)

67    her i.e., Hermione’s

68    and i.e., and do so/and appear

69    now i.e., now stand (or perhaps a printer’s error for “mourn”)    soul-vexed tormented (dying with a troubled soul was thought to make the dead rise as ghosts)

70    Why i.e., why offer this insult

72    had would have

75    should so would also incite you to do so

76    mark note, observe

79    rift split

80    mine i.e., my eyes

82    eyes else other eyes

85    leave permission

88    tempt test

91    Affront come before

95    office task, responsibility

98    walked…ghost were the ghost of Hermione to walk Servant so called in Folio, but clearly a gentleman courtier (he has once written poetry in praise of Hermione)

105    gives out himself claims to be

109    What i.e., what attendants, company

111    out of circumstance without ceremony

112    framed planned

113    accident chance event    train retinue (has he with him)

115    mean humble

117    peerless…earth perfect mortal

120    As…now as every present moment claims to be superior to what’s past, so must you (Hermione) yield for the living

124    theme subject of your verses, i.e., the dead Hermione

126    shrewdly ebbed severely lapsed/wisely receded

129    one i.e., Hermione

131    tongue praise

133    professors else those dedicated to other religions    proselytes converts

134    who whoever

143    prince i.e., the dead Mamillius

145    full a a full

151    Unfurnish deprive

153    print…off made an exact copy of Polixenes

155    hit exact

161    begetting producing

163    society company

164    Amity friendship

165    Though…him I desire to go on living, however miserably, in order to see him once more

168    touched arrived in Sicilia/moved Leontes

169    at friend in friendship

170    but were it not that

171    waits…times accompanies old age    something…ability affected the strength he wishes he had

174    Measured traveled

175    sceptres…living i.e., living kings

179    offices kindnesses

180    rarely exceptionally    as…slackness reveal to me how remiss I have been

183    paragon i.e., Perdita    fearful usage frightening treatment

184    ungentle rough    Neptune Roman god of the sea

185    pains trouble

186    Th’adventure …person risking of her personal safety

189    Smalus no definitive source has been found for Smalus

192    tears proclaimed grief at her departure demonstrated her to be

194    execute carryout    charge duty/command

197    bend direct their course

203    climate spend time

204    graceful full of divine grace

207    issueless childless

209    his of his

213    bear no credit seem unbelievable

214    nigh nearby

216    attach arrest

217    dignity and duty royal status and his duty to his father

222    amazedly in a state of amazement/confusedly, distractedly    becomes My marvel befits my astonishment

226    seeming apparent

232    Lay’t…charge accuse him directly

236    Has …question is questioning these miserable/humble men (the Shepherd and the Clown)

238    Forswear themselves renounce what they have said

239    stops blocks

240    divers several

243    contract betrothal

246    kiss…first i.e., fall to earth

247    The…alike random events of fortune affect those of high and low birth regardless/it is as likely that the high and the low should be united in marriage as it is that the stars will descend to earth

256    worth rank

258    look up i.e., keep your spirits up

262    since…now when you were no older than I am now

264    Step…advocate come forward as my supporter

267    trifle toy/sexual whim of yours

273    petition request

275    Your…desires provided you have not let lust corrupt your honor (i.e., had sex)/provided your wishes are not incompatible with your status

278    what…make how far I succeed

Act 5 Scene 2

1    relation account, narrative

2    by nearby

4    chamber room/royal presence

6    issue outcome (plays on the sense of “child”)

7    broken delivery incomplete/confused report

8    notes of admiration marks of wonder

9    cases…eyes their eyelids (i.e., by staring in amazement)

10    as as if

13    importance meaning, import    one one or the other

15    happily perhaps

16    bonfires i.e., celebrations

17    ballad-makers ballads often provided accounts of contemporary scandals and events

20    verity truth

22    pregnant by circumstance proven by evidence

24    mantle loose sleeveless cloak

25    character handwriting

26    affection of instinct toward, disposition of

33    countenance facial expressions/behavior

34    distraction frenzy    favour face/appearance

37    worries he he harasses

38    clipping embracing    like…reigns (weeping) like a fountain that has endured the reigns of many kings

40    lames…it makes any account of it seem deficient    undoes defies    do express

43    rehearse recount

44    credit belief    with by

45    avouches vows    innocence simple-mindedness, freedom from cunning

47    bark small ship

51    one …elevated i.e., experienced a mixture of happiness and grief

54    losing being lost

57    prettiest touches most ingenious/charming aspects

58    caught the water i.e., provoked tears

60    attentiveness intent listening

61    dolour grief    fain be compelled to

62    marble hard-hearted

67    newly performed recently completed

68    Julio Romano Italian painter who died in 1546, infamous for erotic works

69    beguile cheat    custom business

70    ape mimic    done created

75    removèd isolated, remote    piece add to

76    thence away from there

77    grace wonder    unthrifty unprofitable, i.e., we waste an opportunity to add

79    dash trace    preferment promotion

80    the i.e., the ship of the

85    relished tasted well    discredits misdeeds

87    blossoms full-flowering

90    this the

93    Give…lie insult me so that I may challenge you to a duel    try find out

103    preposterous utterly absurd; the Clown means to say “prosperous”

105    give…report speak well of me

106    gentle noble/kind

112    boors peasants    franklins landowners ranking below the gentry

115    ne’er so false completely false    in on

116    tall…hands brave/fine man

118    would wish

120    to my power as far as I can (perhaps implying his skill at using his hands for picking pockets)

123    picture likeness, statue

Act 5 Scene 3

1    grave wise

3    What whatever

5    paid home rewarded fully    vouchsafed agreed, granted kindly

6    contracted betrothed

8    which…answer which for all my life I shall not be able to repay

11    trouble i.e., demands on your hospitality

12    gallery long, large room

13    content pleasure

14    singularities objects of note

21    Lonely separate (Folio’s “Louely” is conceivably correct, but a printer’s error much more likely)

22    lively mocked realistically imitated

23    Still motionless    well well-done

26    something near somewhat close to resembling her

37    As as if

44    stone hard-hearted/dead (from grief)

47    admiring full of wonder    spirits vital energies

50    superstition idolatry

55    fixed painted

56    sore painfully/severely

58    So…dry and an equal number of summers cannot dry up

62    cause i.e., himself

64    piece up in add to

67    wrought moved, affected

70    fancy imagination

76    verily truly

79    fixture fixed setting    motion movement, life

82    transported entranced

86    settled senses calm state of mind in

87    Let’t leave it

92    cordial restorative, beneficial to the heart

93    air…her she seems to breathe

97    ruddiness rosy color

98    mar spoil

103    forbear restrain yourself, withdraw

104    presently immediately    chapel room set aside for worship    resolve you prepare yourself

109    wicked powers witchcraft

116    On onward

120    strike strike up (sense then shifts to “affect”)

123    fill…up i.e., bring you back to life

124    him i.e., death

128    for…double by shunning her in this new life, you would kill her again

131    Is…suitor? i.e., Must she take your hand?

137    pertain to life is truly alive

138    make it manifest explain

141    hooted jeered

150    preserved kept alive, protected

153    in being alive

154    issue outcome/child

156    they …relation at this crucial moment others trouble your happiness by relating their own stories

159    Partake extend    turtle turtledove, thought to mate for life

161    mate i.e., Antigonus

162    lost dead

165    match contract

166    between’s between us

170    For as for

173    justified confirmed, acknowledged

179    troth-plight betrothed

181    demand question

183    dissevered divided

THE LIFE AND DEATH OF KING JOHN

During April 1811, Jane Austen was staying in London with her brother Henry. In a letter home to her sister Cassandra, she complained of “a very unlucky change of the Play for this very night—Hamlet instead of King John—and we are to go on Monday to Macbeth instead, but it is a disappointment to us both.” Two centuries on, we are likely to be astonished that so discerning a woman as Jane Austen would rather have seen King John than Hamlet or Macbeth. There is, however, a simple explanation: Austen was a seasoned admirer of Sarah Siddons, the greatest actress of the age, one of whose most celebrated roles was that of the impassioned Queen Constance, as rewarding a female role as any in the whole corpus of Shakespeare’s English history plays.

It was not for the wronged mother Constance alone that King John was held in high regard in the nineteenth century. The Victorians, with their penchant for sentiment, delighted in the pathos of the boy Arthur persuading Hubert not to burn out his eyes with hot irons. But the largest role, bigger than that of the vacillating king who gives the play its title, is that of the Bastard, Philip Falconbridge. The German Romantic critic A. W. von Schlegel was compelled by this figure: “He ridicules the secret springs of politics, without disapproving of them, for he owns that he is endeavoring to make his fortune by similar means, and wishes rather to belong to the deceivers than the deceived, for in his view of the world there is no other choice.” The Bastard—a dramatic invention, not a real historical figure—is a key character in Shakespeare’s development of the self-serving type that reaches its apogee with lago in Othello and Edmund in King Lear. Yet he is the most sympathetic male adult in the drama. He has wit and wisdom as well as the desire for advancement. The rest are mere politicians. In its anatomy of the mechanisms of their intrigue, King John is one of Shakespeare’s most modern plays. Set in a feudal world where monarchs were supposed to be God’s representatives on earth, it exposes power as a “commodity” for which men are in hungry competition.

The Bastard is the only character in whom the audience have confidence because he has confidence in us. Soliloquies offer access to his thought processes, and self-conscious theatricality allows the spectators to share his space. “Your royal presences be ruled by me,” he says to two kings at once, and we enjoy his presumption because he makes us part of the story: his lines about the citizens of Angiers, watching from the “battlements” of the stage gallery, are equally applicable to the paying crowd “in a theater, whence they gape and point / At your industrious scenes and acts of death.”

“Speak, citizens, for England,” says the King of France to the people of Angiers as it is besieged by rival armies from opposite sides of the English Channel. Of all Shakespeare’s history plays, King John is the one that most explicitly asks what it might mean to speak for England. It explores questions about legitimacy and inheritance that were not only of concern to all propertied families in Tudor England, but also of monumental significance to the monarchy—especially at a time when an aged childless queen was sitting on the throne. In the much better known play of King Lear, the legitimate son Edgar is the virtuous one and the illegitimate Edmund is the villain. King John imagines a more challenging possibility: suppose that a great king dies and that his bravest, most honest, and most intelligent son is an illegitimate one. In such a circumstance, inheritance on the basis of merit is not possible: if a bastard were to ascend the throne, the legitimacy of the entire monarchical system would be called into question. The seamless interdependence of patrilineal state, law, Church, and family would begin to unravel.

Richard I, the Lionheart, the exemplary king, has died without a legitimate son; the next brother in line (Geoffrey) is also dead. Who should succeed: the next brother down (John) or the son of the first brother (Arthur)? As if this were not difficult enough, the question of who speaks for England is intertwined with other debates about legitimacy. What is the geographic limit of England’s domain—does England retain the right to rule parts of France? And who should speak for England’s religion? This thorny issue is focused on the appointment of a new archbishop of Canterbury to head the English Church. Does the pope have the right to impose his candidate or should the English retain a voice in their own ecclesiastical affairs? Is there a point at which the monarchy may legitimately reject the will of the papacy? For a Tudor audience, a confrontation of this sort was bound to reverberate with Henry VIII’s disputed divorce and the break from Rome in the 1530s.

In Protestant ideology, King John was a hero because he stood up against papal tyranny. He was seen as a kind of Henry VIII before his time. In the mid-sixteenth century, the Protestant zealot John Bale wrote a court drama on these lines, while the text of Shakespeare’s probable primary source, the anonymous two-part play The Troublesome Reign of King John (published in 1591), is awash with raw anti-Catholic propaganda. Shakespeare’s own play has often been read as testimony to his Protestant allegiance: in the 1730s, at a time of anxieties about a potential Jacobite uprising, an adaptation of it was performed in London with the unambiguous title Papal Tyranny in the Reign of King John. Yet the authentic Shakespeare is profoundly ambiguous. There is a clear vein of anti-Catholicism in John’s “no Italian priest / Shall tithe or toll in our dominions,” together with the way in which the papal legate Cardinal Pandulph is a scheming politician who speaks by indirections and equivocation (“But thou dost swear only to be forsworn, / And most forsworn, to keep what thou dost swear”). At the same time, John is accusingly addressed as “The borrowed majesty of England” and his equivocation hardly makes him a model ruler.

Back in the first scene, before there is any resolution to all the difficult questions of succession and faith, power, and proprietorship, a sheriff enters. His presence signals the jurisdiction of the shires, the “country” as opposed to the “court” interest. The question of which of two brothers will inherit a parcel of land in the shires parallels that of which of Richard Coeur-de-lion’s brothers, John or Geoffrey (through Arthur), will inherit the nation as a whole. Again, for the original audience in the 1590s, an encounter set in the distant thirteenth century would have echoed with debates in their own time, where it was not unknown for a member of Parliament to give voice in the House of Commons to words that one might have expected to belong to the queen alone: “I speak for all England.” In many quarters, there was a strongly held view that “England” was not synonymous with the English queen and her court based in and around London. Though the Tudor monarchs had tried to unify the nation by establishing a network of legal representatives across the shires, the “country” gentry as well as the great barons of the north and west guarded their autonomy fiercely.

The Bastard announces himself as a gentleman born in Northamptonshire; he is “a good blunt fellow,” which is to say a plain-speaking English countryman; later, he appeals to Saint George, the patron saint of England. His, then, is the voice of Shakespeare’s own place of origin, the Midlands, deep England. He is given a choice: to inherit the Falconbridge estates or take his “chance” and assume the name, though not the patrimony, of the royal father who sired him out of wedlock.

The norm in the English gentry was for the older son to inherit the land and the younger to become mobile, to go to London and find a career in the law, the clergy, the army, the diplomatic corps, or possibly even the entertainment business. Settled legitimacy was pitched against the life of the adventurer. By accepting his illegitimacy and renouncing the land he is actually entitled to (because it was the mother’s adultery, not the father’s, he is not forcibly disinherited in the manner of Edmund in King Lear), the Bastard takes the route that was usually that of the younger brother. Shakespeare did the same when he left Stratford-upon-Avon.

The Bastard’s origin in Middle England is further stressed by the arrival of Lady Falconbridge and James Gurney, wearing riding robes that signify the journey from country to court. The Bastard then describes his half-brother as “Colbrand the Giant, that same mighty man.” Colbrand was a Danish invader who was defeated in single combat by Guy of Warwick—a legendary figure who was immensely popular in chapbook, ballad, and drama. If Robert Falconbridge is symbolically Colbrand, then Philip the Bastard is symbolically Guy, a Warwickshire folk hero. Perhaps he is even a version of Robin Hood, with the Sheriff of Northampton standing in for his colleague from Nottingham. Robin Hood himself, the most famous folk hero from the reign of John, cannot be mentioned because his name would immediately turn the king into a villain, which Shakespeare did not want to do at the beginning of the play, both because he wanted to keep open the question of the relative legitimacy of the claims of John and Arthur and because he was working in that tradition of chronicle and drama in which King John was a proto-Protestant hero because of his refusal to allow the pope’s nominee, Stephen Langton, to become Archbishop of Canterbury.

When the pope excommunicates the English king and gives permission—indeed promise of canonization—to anyone who conspires to kill him, the parallels with contemporary England, where the pope had delivered the same sentence upon Queen Elizabeth, are impossible to ignore. So too with the way in which the fickle French swing one way and then the other (“O, foul revolt of French inconstancy!” exclaims Queen Elinor): in the sixteenth century, France was wracked by religiously motivated civil wars and it was well-nigh impossible to guess whether the state would end up with a Catholic or a Protestant on the throne. “The grappling vigour and rough frown of war” dominates the action of this play, just as wars of religion and dominion in the Netherlands, Ireland, and elsewhere impinged upon the lives of Shakespeare’s audience. Like Thersites in Troilus and Cressida, though without the vicious streak, the Bastard anatomizes the resulting chaos of alliances and divisions: “Mad world, mad kings, mad composition!”

The Bastard stands in for Guy of Warwick, who stands in for Robin Hood of Old England. It was Robin who maintained the values of good King Richard at home, whilst the latter was fighting his “holy war” in the Middle East (“Richard that robbed the lion of his heart / And fought the holy wars in Palestine”). As the play progresses, the Bastard’s role shifts to that of stand-in for the dead Coeur-de-lion himself. He ends up fighting the war on John’s behalf and at one point comes within a whisker of ascending the throne. When he speaks for England in the closing lines, his world-weary voice is also that of his creator, who in his Henry VI plays has shown the bloody consequences of England turning against itself.

KEY FACTS

PLOT: King Richard I, the revered “Lionheart,” is dead. His brother John has become king of England, but the French argue that the throne should belong to the boy Arthur, son of John’s deceased older brother Geoffrey. Matching the dispute over the throne is a dispute over inheritance in the noble Falconbridge family. It is discovered that Philip Falconbridge (the “Bastard”) is the illegitimate son of Richard I; he is accordingly knighted “Sir Richard and Plantagenet.” French and English forces fight for the town of Angiers in France; a citizen proposes that the opponents should be united by a marriage between Lewis the Dauphin, heir to France, and John’s niece, Lady Blanche. Arthur’s mother, Constance, is furious that the French have given up on her son’s claim. John is excommunicated for failing to agree to the pope’s choice for the post of archbishop of Canterbury. The papal legate Cardinal Pandulph stirs the French to resume war against the English. Arthur is captured and John commissions his servant Hubert to execute the boy; young Arthur dies from a fall while trying to escape. John changes his mind and agrees to the pope’s wishes. A French invasion force is shipwrecked. John falls sick and dies. His son Henry becomes king, though the Bastard remains the most forceful character.

MAJOR PARTS: (with percentage of lines/number of speeches/scenes on stage) Bastard (20%/89/11), King John (17%/95/9), Constance (10%/36/3), King Philip of France (7%/44/3), Hubert (6%/52/6), Salisbury (6%/36/6), Lewis the Dauphin (6%/28/5), Cardinal Pandulph (6%/23/4), Arthur (5%/23/5), Pembroke (3%/20/4), Queen Elinor (2%/22/4), Blanche (2%/9/2), Chatillon (2%/5/2).

LINGUISTIC MEDIUM: 100% verse.

DATE: 1595–97? Mentioned by Meres 1598; close relationship to anonymous two-part play The Troublesome Reign of King John (published 1591), but stylistically much closer to later histories.

SOURCES: Scholars dispute the play’s relationship to The Troublesome Reign: is it the principal source or a badly printed text of an early version of Shakespeare’s play? On balance, the evidence supports the view that it was an old play that Shakespeare reworked in his own vein (rather as he reworked other anonymously authored chronicle plays such as The Famous Victories of Henry V and King Leir). The third volume of the 1587 edition of Holinshed’s Chronicles is the primary historical source behind both the anonymous play and Shakespeare’s.

TEXT: The two parts of The Troublesome Reign were reprinted together in 1611 with the title-page claim “Written by W. Sh.” (reprinted 1622 as “Written by W. Shakespeare”), but this was a sales ploy and not a reliable attribution. The only authoritative text is that in the First Folio. Scholars dispute the nature of the copy from which it was typeset; there is some evidence that it may have been the work of two scribes. There are a number of textual problems, most notably in the name of Hubert: this first appears halfway through Act 2 scene 1 as speaker’s name for the citizen of Angiers (who is initially an anonymous “Cit.”), but it is not used in the dialogue at this point, so the citizen is not identifiable by name to the audience. In the theater, “Hubert” is named for the first time when he swears loyalty to King John and is commissioned to imprison Arthur. Is the same person intended? Editors differ in their attempts to untangle this problem: we leave the question open by means of a marginal direction.

THE LIFE AND DEATH OF KING JOHN

KING JOHN of England

QUEEN ELINOR, his mother, Henry II’s widow

PRINCE HENRY, John’s son, a child, later Henry III

BLANCHE of Castile, John’s niece

LADY FALCONBRIDGE, Sir Robert’s widow

ROBERT Falconbridge, her legitimate son

Philip Falconbridge, the BASTARD, her illegitimate son with King Richard I

James GURNEY, her servant

HUBERT, trusted servant to King John

PETER of Pomfret, a prophet

KING PHILIP II of France

*LEWIS the Dauphin, his eldest son

Duke of AUSTRIA, allied to the French

MELUN, a French nobleman

CHATILLON, French nobleman and ambassador to England

CITIZEN of Angiers

CONSTANCE, wife of Geoffrey, John’s deceased older brother

ARTHUR, a child, her son and John’s nephew, Duke of Bretagne

CARDINAL PANDULPH, Pope Innocent III’s representative

A Sheriff and various Lords, Executioners, Heralds, Messengers, Soldiers, Citizens and Attendants

Act 1 Scene 11.1

running scene 1

Enter King John, Queen Elinor, Pembroke, Essex and Salisbury, with the Chatillon of France

KING JOHNNow, say, Chatillon, what would France[1] with us?

CHATILLONThus, after greeting, speaks the King of France,

In my behaviour,[3] to the majesty,

The borrowed[4] majesty, of England here.

5

QUEEN ELINORA strange beginning: ‘borrowed majesty’!

KING JOHNSilence, good mother: hear the embassy.[6]

CHATILLONPhilip of France,[7] in right and true behalf

Of thy deceasèd brother Geoffrey’s[8] son,

Arthur Plantagenet,[9] lays most lawful claim

10

To this fair island and the territories[10] —

To Ireland, Poitiers,[11] Anjou, Touraine, Maine —

Desiring thee to lay aside the sword[12]

Which sways[13] usurpingly these several titles,

And put the same into young Arthur’s hand,

15

Thy nephew, and right[15] royal sovereign.

KING JOHNWhat follows if we disallow of[16] this?

CHATILLONThe proud control[17] of fierce and bloody war,

To enforce these rights so forcibly withheld—

KING JOHNHere have we war for war and blood for blood,

20

Controlment for controlment: so answer France.

CHATILLONThen take my king’s defiance from my mouth,

The furthest limit of my embassy.[22]

KING JOHNBear mine to him, and so depart in peace:

Be thou as lightning in the eyes of France;

25

For ere[25] thou canst report, I will be there:

The thunder of my cannon shall be heard.

So hence:[27] be thou the trumpet of our wrath

And sullen presage[28] of your own decay.—

An honourable conduct[29] let him have: To Pembroke

30

Pembroke, look to’t.— Farewell, Chatillon.

Exeunt Chatillon and Pembroke

QUEEN ELINORWhat now, my son? Have I not ever said

How that ambitious Constance[32] would not cease

Till she had kindled[33] France and all the world,

Upon[34] the right and party of her son?

35

This might have been prevented and made whole[35]

With very easy arguments[36] of love,

Which now the manage[37] of two kingdoms must

With fearful bloody issue[38] arbitrate.

KING JOHNOur strong possession and our right for us.

40

QUEEN ELINORYour strong possession much more than your right, Aside to John

Or else it must go wrong with you and me:

So much my conscience whispers in your ear,

Which none but heaven, and you, and I, shall hear. She whispers to Essex

Enter a Sheriff

ESSEXMy liege,[44] here is the strangest controversy,

45

Come from the country to be judged by you,

That e’er I heard: shall I produce[46] the men?

KING JOHNLet them approach.—

[Exit Sheriff]

Our abbeys and our priories shall pay

This expeditious charge.[49]

Enter Robert Falconbridge and Philip [the Bastard]

50

What men are you?

BASTARDYour faithful subject I, a gentleman,

Born in Northamptonshire and eldest son,

As I suppose, to Robert Falconbridge,

A soldier, by the honour-giving hand

55

Of Coeur-de-lion,[55] knighted in the field.

KING JOHNWhat art thou?

ROBERTThe son and heir to that same Falconbridge.

KING JOHNIs that the elder, and art thou the heir?

You came not of one mother then, it seems.

60

BASTARDMost certain of one mother, mighty king,

That is well known, and, as I think, one father:

But for the certain knowledge of that truth

I put you o’er[63] to heaven, and to my mother;

Of that I doubt, as all men’s children may.

65

QUEEN ELINOROut on thee,[65] rude man! Thou dost shame thy mother

And wound her honour with this diffidence.[66]

BASTARDI, madam? No, I have no reason for it.

That is my brother’s plea and none of mine,

The which if he can prove, a[69] pops me out

70

At least from fair[70] five hundred pound a year:

Heaven guard my mother’s honour and my land.

KING JOHNA good blunt fellow.— Why, being younger born, Aside / To Bastard

Doth he lay claim to thine inheritance?

BASTARDI know not why, except to get the land:

75

But once[75] he slandered me with bastardy:

But whe’er[76] I be as true begot or no,

That still I lay[77] upon my mother’s head:

But that I am as well begot, my liege —

Fair fall[79] the bones that took the pains for me —

80

Compare our faces, and be judge yourself

If old Sir Robert did beget us both,

And were our father and this son like him:

O old Sir Robert, father, on my knee

I give heaven thanks I was not like[84] to thee!

85

KING JOHNWhy, what a madcap[85] hath heaven lent us here!

QUEEN ELINORHe hath a trick[86] of Coeur-de-lion’s face:

The accent of his tongue affecteth[87] him.

Do you not read some tokens[88] of my son

In the large composition[89] of this man?

90

KING JOHNMine eye hath well examined his parts,[90]

And finds them perfect Richard.— Sirrah,[91] speak, To Robert

What doth move[92] you to claim your brother’s land?

BASTARDBecause he hath a half-face[93] like my father.

With half that face[94] would he have all my land —

95

A half-faced groat[95] — five hundred pound a year!

ROBERTMy gracious liege, when that[96] my father lived,

Your brother[97] did employ my father much—

BASTARDWell, sir, by this you cannot get my land:

Your tale must be how he employed my mother.

100

ROBERTAnd once dispatched him in an embassy

To Germany, there with the emperor

To treat of[102] high affairs touching that time.

Th’advantage of his absence took the king,

And in the meantime sojourned[104] at my father’s;

105

Where how he did prevail,[105] I shame to speak.

But truth is truth: large lengths of seas and shores

Between my father and my mother lay,

As I have heard my father speak himself,

When this same lusty[109] gentleman was got.

110

Upon his death-bed he by will bequeathed

His lands to me, and took[111] it on his death

That this my mother’s son was none of his;

And if he were, he came into the world

Full fourteen weeks before[114] the course of time.

115

Then, good my liege, let me have what is mine,

My father’s land, as was my father’s will.

KING JOHNSirrah, your brother is legitimate:

Your father’s wife did after wedlock bear him:

And if she did play false,[119] the fault was hers,

120

Which fault lies[120] on the hazards of all husbands

That marry wives. Tell me, how[121] if my brother,

Who, as you say, took pains to get this son,

Had of your father claimed this son for his?

In sooth,[124] good friend, your father might have kept

125

This calf, bred from his cow, from all the world:

In sooth he might. Then if he were my brother’s,

My brother might not claim him, nor your father,

Being none of his, refuse him:[128] this concludes,

My mother’s son did get your father’s heir,

130

Your father’s heir must have your father’s land.

ROBERTShall then my father’s will[131] be of no force

To dispossess that child which is not his?

BASTARDOf no more force to dispossess me, sir,

Than was his will[134] to get me, as I think.

135

QUEEN ELINORWhether[135] hadst thou rather be: a Falconbridge,

And like thy brother to enjoy thy land,

Or the reputed[137] son of Coeur-de-lion,

Lord of thy presence,[138] and no land beside?

BASTARDMadam, an[139] if my brother had my shape

140

And I had his, Sir[140] Robert’s his like him,

And if my legs were two such riding-rods,[141]

My arms, such eel-skins stuffed, my face so thin,

That in[143] mine ear I durst not stick a rose,

Lest men should say, ‘Look, where three-farthings[144] goes’,

145

And to his shape[145] were heir to all this land,

Would I might[146] never stir from off this place,

I would give it every foot[147] to have this face:

It would not be Sir Nob[148] in any case.

QUEEN ELINORI like thee well: wilt thou forsake thy fortune,

150

Bequeath thy land to him and follow me?

I am a soldier and now bound to France.

BASTARDBrother, take you my land, I’ll take my chance.

Your face hath got five hundred pound a year,

Yet sell your face for five pence and ’tis dear.[154]—

155

Madam, I’ll follow you unto the death.

QUEEN ELINORNay, I would have you go before me thither.[156]

BASTARDOur country manners give[157] our betters way.

KING JOHNWhat is thy name?

BASTARDPhilip, my liege, so is my name begun,

160

Philip, good old sir Robert’s wife’s eldest son.

KING JOHNFrom henceforth bear his name whose form[161] thou bear’st:

Kneel thou down Philip, but rise[162] more great, He knights the Bastard

Arise sir Richard, and Plantagenet.

BASTARDBrother by th’mother’s side, give me your hand:

165

My father gave me honour, yours gave land:

Now blessèd be the hour[166] by night or day,

When I was got, Sir Robert was away.

QUEEN ELINORThe very spirit of Plantagenet:

I am thy grandam,[169] Richard: call me so.

170

BASTARDMadam, by chance, but not by truth:[170] what though?

Something about[171] a little from the right,

In at the window,[172] or else o’er the hatch:

Who dares not stir[173] by day must walk by night,

And have[174] is have, however men do catch:

175

Near[175] or far off, well won is still well shot,

And I am I, howe’er I was begot.

KING JOHNGo, Falconbridge, now hast thou thy desire:

A landless knight makes thee a landed squire.—

Come, madam, and come, Richard, we must speed[179]

180

For France, for France, for it is more than need.[180]

BASTARDBrother, adieu:[181] good fortune come to thee,

For thou wast got i’th’way of honesty.

Exeunt all but Bastard

A foot[183] of honour better than I was,

But many a many[184] foot of land the worse.

185

Well, now can I make any Joan[185] a lady.

‘Good den,[186] Sir Richard’ — ‘God-a-mercy, fellow’ —

And if his name be George, I’ll call him Peter;

For new-made honour doth forget men’s names:

’Tis[189] too respective and too sociable

190

For your conversion.[190] Now your traveller,

He and his toothpick[191] at my worship’s mess,

And when my knightly stomach[192] is sufficed,

Why then I suck my teeth and catechize[193]

My pickèd[194] man of countries: ‘My dear sir,’

195

Thus leaning on mine elbow I begin,

‘I shall beseech you’; that is Question now,

And then comes Answer like an Absey book:[197]

‘O sir,’ says Answer, ‘at your best command,

At your employment, at your service, sir.’

200

‘No, sir,’ says Question, ‘I, sweet sir, at yours.’

And so, ere Answer knows what Question would,[201]

Saving[202] in dialogue of compliment,

And talking of the Alps and Apennines,

The Pyrenean and the river Po,

205

It draws toward supper[205] in conclusion so.

But this is worshipful society,

And fits the mounting[207] spirit like myself;

For he is but a bastard[208] to the time

That doth not smack[209] of observation,

210

And so am I[210] whether I smack or no:

And not alone in habit[211] and device,

Exterior form, outward accoutrement,[212]

But from the inward motion[213] to deliver

Sweet, sweet, sweet poison[214] for the age’s tooth,

215

Which though I will not practise[215] to deceive,

Yet to[216] avoid deceit I mean to learn;

For it shall strew[217] the footsteps of my rising.

Enter Lady Falconbridge and James Gurney

But who comes in such haste in riding-robes?[218]

What woman-post[219] is this? Hath she no husband

220

That will take pains to blow a horn[220] before her?

O me, ’tis my mother.— How now, good lady?

What brings you here to court so hastily?

LADY FALCONBRIDGEWhere is that slave[223] thy brother? Where is he

That holds in chase[224] mine honour up and down?

225

BASTARDMy brother Robert, old Sir Robert’s son,

Colbrand the Giant,[226] that same mighty man,

Is it Sir Robert’s son that you seek so?

LADY FALCONBRIDGESir Robert’s son, ay, thou unreverend[228] boy,

Sir Robert’s son. Why scorn’st thou at Sir Robert?

230

He is Sir Robert’s son, and so art thou.

BASTARDJames Gurney, wilt thou give us leave[231] a while?

GURNEYGood leave, good Philip.

BASTARDPhilip Sparrow,[233] James,

There’s toys[234] abroad: anon I’ll tell thee more.

Exit James [Gurney]

235

Madam, I was not old Sir Robert’s son:

Sir Robert might have eat[236] his part in me

Upon Good Friday, and ne’er broke his fast:

Sir Robert could do[238] well, marry, to confess:

Could get[239] me, Sir Robert could not do it;

240

We know his handiwork:[240] therefore, good mother,

To whom am I beholding[241] for these limbs?

Sir Robert never holp[242] to make this leg.

LADY FALCONBRIDGEHast thou conspirèd with thy brother too,

That[244] for thine own gain shouldst defend mine honour?

245

What means this scorn, thou most untoward[245] knave?

BASTARDKnight, knight, good mother, Basilisco-like![246]

What! I am dubbed,[247] I have it on my shoulder:

But, mother, I am not Sir Robert’s son:

I have disclaimed Sir Robert and my land,

250

Legitimation,[250] name, and all is gone;

Then, good my mother, let me know my father:

Some proper[252] man, I hope: who was it, mother?

LADY FALCONBRIDGEHast thou denied thyself a Falconbridge?

BASTARDAs faithfully as I deny[254] the devil.

255

LADY FALCONBRIDGEKing Richard Coeur-de-lion was thy father:

By long and vehement suit[256] I was seduced

To make room for him in my husband’s bed:

Heaven[258] lay not my transgression to my charge,

That art the issue[259] of my dear offence

260

Which was so strongly urged past my defence.[260]

BASTARDNow by this light, were I to get[261] again,

Madam, I would not wish a better father:

Some sins do bear their privilege[263] on earth,

And so doth yours: your fault was not your folly:[264]

265

Needs must you lay your heart at his dispose,[265]

Subjected[266] tribute to commanding love,

Against whose fury and unmatchèd force

The aweless[268] lion could not wage the fight,

Nor keep his princely heart from Richard’s hand:

270

He that perforce[270] robs lions of their hearts

May easily win a woman’s: ay, my mother,

With all my heart I thank thee for my father:

Who[273] lives and dares but say thou didst not well

When I was got, I’ll send his soul to hell.

275

Come, lady, I will show thee to my kin,[275]

And they shall say, when Richard me begot,

If thou hadst said him nay,[277] it had been sin;

Who says it was,[278] he lies: I say ’twas not.

Exeunt

Act 2 Scene 12.1

running scene 2

Enter before Angiers, [on one side] Philip King of France, Lewis [the] Dauphin, Constance, [and] Arthur, [on the other side] Austria With their forces

KING PHILIPBefore Angiers well met, brave Austria.—

Arthur, that[2] great forerunner of thy blood,

Richard that robbed the lion of his heart

And fought the holy[4] wars in Palestine,

5

By[5] this brave duke came early to his grave:

And for amends to his posterity,[6]

At our importance[7] hither is he come,

To spread[8] his colours, boy, in thy behalf,

And to rebuke[9] the usurpation

10

Of thy unnatural[10] uncle, English John:

Embrace him, love him, give him welcome hither.

ARTHURGod shall forgive you Coeur-de-lion’s death To Austria

The rather that you give his offspring[13] life,

Shadowing[14] their right under your wings of war:

15

I give you welcome with a powerless[15] hand,

But with a heart full of unstainèd[16] love:

Welcome before the gates of Angiers, Duke.

LEWISA noble boy: who would not do thee right?

AUSTRIAUpon thy cheek lay I this zealous[19] kiss,

20

As seal[20] to this indenture of my love:

That to my home I will no more return

Till Angiers and the right thou hast in France,

Together with that pale,[23] that white-faced shore,

Whose foot spurns[24] back the ocean’s roaring tides

25

And coops[25] from other lands her islanders,

Even till that England, hedged in with the main,[26]

That water-wallèd bulwark,[27] still secure

And confident[28] from foreign purposes,

Even till that utmost corner of the west

30

Salute thee for her king: till then, fair boy,

Will I not think of home, but follow arms.[31]

CONSTANCEO, take his mother’s thanks, a widow’s thanks,

Till your strong hand shall help to give him strength

To make a more requital to[34] your love.

35

AUSTRIAThe peace of heaven is theirs that lift their swords

In such a just and charitable war.

KING PHILIPWell then, to work: our cannon shall be bent[37]

Against the brows[38] of this resisting town.

Call for our chiefest men of discipline,[39]

40

To cull[40] the plots of best advantages:

We’ll lay before this town our royal bones,

Wade to the market-place in Frenchmen’s blood,

But we will[43] make it subject to this boy.

CONSTANCEStay[44] for an answer to your embassy,

45

Lest unadvised[45] you stain your swords with blood:

My lord Chatillon may from England bring

That right in peace which here we urge in war,

And then we shall repent each drop of blood

That hot rash haste so indirectly[49] shed.

Enter Chatillon

50

KING PHILIPA wonder, lady: lo,[50] upon thy wish,

Our messenger Chatillon is arrived.—

What England[52] says, say briefly, gentle lord:

We coldly[53] pause for thee: Chatillon, speak.

CHATILLONThen turn your forces from this paltry siege,

55

And stir them up against[55] a mightier task:

England, impatient[56] of your just demands,

Hath put himself in arms: the adverse winds,

Whose leisure[58] I have stayed, have given him time

To land his legions[59] all as soon as I:

60

His marches are expedient[60] to this town,

His forces strong, his soldiers confident:

With him along is come the Mother-Queen,[62]

An Ate[63] stirring him to blood and strife:

With her her niece,[64] the lady Blanche of Spain:

65

With them a bastard of the king’s deceased,[65]

And all th’unsettled humours[66] of the land,

Rash, inconsiderate,[67] fiery voluntaries,

With ladies’ faces[68] and fierce dragons’ spleens,

Have sold[69] their fortunes at their native homes,

70

Bearing their birthrights proudly on their backs,

To make[71] a hazard of new fortunes here:

In brief, a braver[72] choice of dauntless spirits

Than now the English bottoms[73] have waft o’er

Did never float upon the swelling tide,

75

To do offence and scathe[75] in Christendom.

Drum beats

The interruption of their churlish[76] drums

Cuts off more circumstance:[77] they are at hand:

To parley[78] or to fight therefore prepare.

KING PHILIPHow much unlooked-for is this expedition![79]

80

AUSTRIABy how much unexpected, by so much

We must awake endeavour for defence,

For courage mounteth with occasion:[82]

Let them be welcome then: we are prepared.

Enter King [John] of England, [the] Bastard, Queen [Elinor], Blanche, Pembroke and others

KING JOHNPeace be to France, if France in peace permit

85

Our just and lineal[85] entrance to our own;

If not, bleed France, and peace ascend to heaven,

Whiles we, God’s wrathful agent, do correct

Their proud contempt that beats[88] his peace to heaven.

KING PHILIPPeace be to England, if that[89] war return

90

From France to England, there to live in peace:

England we love, and for that England’s[91] sake

With burden of our armour here we sweat:

This toil[93] of ours should be a work of thine;

But thou from loving England art so far,

95

That thou hast underwrought[95] his lawful king,

Cut off the sequence of posterity,[96]

Outfacèd[97] infant state, and done a rape

Upon the maiden virtue of the crown:

Look here upon thy brother Geoffrey’s[99] face: Indicates Arthur

100

These eyes, these brows, were moulded out of his;

This little abstract[101] doth contain that large

Which died in Geoffrey, and the hand of time

Shall draw this brief[103] into as huge a volume:

That Geoffrey was thy elder brother born,

105

And this his son: England was Geoffrey’s right,

And this is Geoffrey’s in the name of God:

How comes it then that thou art called a king,

When living blood doth in these temples beat

Which owe[109] the crown that thou o’ermasterest?

110

KING JOHNFrom whom hast thou this great commission,[110] France,

To draw my answer from thy articles?[111]

KING PHILIPFrom that supernal judge[112] that stirs good thoughts

In any breast of strong authority,

To look into the blots and stains of right:

115

That judge hath made me guardian to this boy,

Under whose warrant I impeach[116] thy wrong,

And by whose help I mean to chastise it.

KING JOHNAlack,[118] thou dost usurp authority.

KING PHILIPExcuse[119] it is to beat usurping down.

120

QUEEN ELINORWho is it thou dost call usurper, France?

CONSTANCELet me make answer: thy usurping son.

QUEEN ELINOROut,[122] insolent! Thy bastard shall be king,

That thou mayst be a queen, and check[123] the world.

CONSTANCEMy bed was ever to thy son as true

125

As thine was to thy husband, and this boy

Liker in feature[126] to his father Geoffrey

Than thou and John, in manners[127] being as like

As rain to water, or devil to his dam.[128]

My boy a bastard? By my soul I think

130

His[130] father never was so true begot:

It cannot be, an if[131] thou wert his mother.

QUEEN ELINORThere’s a good mother, boy, that blots[132] thy father.

CONSTANCEThere’s a good grandam,[133] boy, that would blot thee.

AUSTRIAPeace!

135

BASTARDHear the crier.[135]

AUSTRIAWhat the devil art thou?

BASTARDOne that will play the devil,[137] sir, with you,

An a[138] may catch your hide and you alone:

You are the hare[139] of whom the proverb goes,

140

Whose valour plucks dead lions by the beard.

I’ll smoke[141] your skin-coat an I catch you right:

Sirrah, look to’t:[142] i’faith I will, i’faith.

BLANCHEO, well did he become[143] that lion’s robe

That did disrobe the lion of that robe.

145

BASTARDIt lies as sightly[145] on the back of him

As great Alcides’[146] shoes upon an ass:

But, ass, I’ll take that burden from your back,

Or lay on that[148] shall make your shoulders crack.

AUSTRIAWhat cracker[149] is this same that deafs our ears

150

With this abundance of superfluous breath?

KING PHILIPLewis, determine what we shall do straight.[151]

LEWISWomen and fools, break off your conference.

King John, this is the very sum[153] of all:

England and Ireland, Anjou, Touraine, Maine,

155

In right of Arthur do I claim of thee:

Wilt thou resign them and lay down thy arms?

KING JOHNMy life as soon: I do defy thee, France.

Arthur of Bretagne,[158] yield thee to my hand,

And out of my dear love I’ll give thee more

160

Than e’er the coward hand of France can win.

Submit thee, boy.

QUEEN ELINORCome to thy grandam, child.

CONSTANCEDo, child, go to it[163] grandam, child:

Give grandam kingdom, and it grandam will

165

Give it a plum, a cherry, and a fig:[165]

There’s a good grandam.

ARTHURGood my mother, peace.

I would that I were low laid in my grave:

I am not worth this coil[169] that’s made for me.

170

QUEEN ELINORHis mother shames[170] him so, poor boy, he weeps.

CONSTANCENow shame upon you, whe’er she does or no:

His grandam’s wrongs, and not his mother’s shames,

Draws those heaven-moving pearls[173] from his poor eyes,

Which heaven shall take in[174] nature of a fee:

175

Ay, with these crystal beads[175] heaven shall be bribed

To do him justice and revenge on you.

QUEEN ELINORThou monstrous[177] slanderer of heaven and earth!

CONSTANCEThou monstrous injurer of heaven and earth,

Call not me slanderer: thou and thine usurp

180

The dominations,[180] royalties, and rights

Of this oppressed boy: this is thy eldest son’s son,[181]

Infortunate[182] in nothing but in thee:

Thy sins are visited[183] in this poor child:

The canon[184] of the law is laid on him,

185

Being but[185] the second generation

Removèd[186] from thy sin-conceiving womb.

KING JOHNBedlam,[187] have done.

CONSTANCEI have but this to say:

That he is not only plaguèd for her sin,

190

But God hath made her sin[190] and her the plague

On this removèd issue,[191] plagued for her,

And with her plague her sin: his injury[192]

Her injury the beadle[193] to her sin,

All punished in the person of this child,

195

And all for[195] her: a plague upon her!

QUEEN ELINORThou unadvisèd[196] scold, I can produce

A will that bars the title[197] of thy son.

CONSTANCEAy, who doubts that? A will: a wicked will,

A woman’s will,[199] a cankered grandam’s will!

200

KING PHILIPPeace, lady: pause, or be more temperate:[200]

It ill beseems[201] this presence to cry aim

To these ill-tunèd[202] repetitions.

Some trumpet[203] summon hither to the walls

These men of Angiers: let us hear them speak

205

Whose title they admit,[205] Arthur’s or John’s.

Trumpet sounds. Enter a Citizen upon the walls [with others]

CITIZENWho is it that hath warned[206] us to the walls?

KING PHILIP’Tis France, for England.[207]

KING JOHNEngland for itself:

You men of Angiers, and my loving subjects—

210

KING PHILIPYou loving men of Angiers, Arthur’s subjects,

Our trumpet called you to this gentle[211] parle—

KING JOHNFor our advantage; therefore hear us first:

These flags of France that are advancèd[213] here

Before the eye and prospect[214] of your town,

215

Have hither marched to your endamagement.[215]

The cannons have their bowels[216] full of wrath,

And ready mounted are they to spit forth

Their iron indignation gainst your walls:

All preparation for a bloody siege

220

And merciless proceeding by these French

Confronts your city’s eyes, your winking gates:

And but for our approach, those sleeping stones,[222]

That as a waist[223] doth girdle you about,

By the compulsion of their ordinance[224]

225

By this time from their fixèd beds of lime[225]

Had been dishabited,[226] and wide havoc made

For bloody power[227] to rush upon your peace.

But on the sight of us your lawful king,

Who painfully with much expedient[229] march

230

Have brought a countercheck[230] before your gates,

To save unscratched your city’s threatened cheeks,

Behold, the French, amazed,[232] vouchsafe a parle:

And now instead of bullets[233] wrapped in fire

To make a shaking fever in your walls,

235

They shoot but calm words, folded[235] up in smoke,

To make a faithless error[236] in your ears,

Which trust accordingly,[237] kind citizens,

And let us in. Your king, whose laboured[238] spirits,

Forwearied[239] in this action of swift speed,

240

Craves harbourage[240] within your city walls.

KING PHILIPWhen I have said,[241] make answer to us both.

Lo,[242] in this right hand, whose protection He takes Arthur’s hand

Is most divinely vowed upon the right[243]

Of him it holds, stands young Plantagenet,

245

Son to the elder brother of this man,

And king o’er him and all that he enjoys:[246]

For[247] this downtrodden equity, we tread

In warlike march these greens[248] before your town,

Being no further enemy to you

250

Than the constraint[250] of hospitable zeal

In the relief of this oppressèd child

Religiously provokes. Be pleasèd then

To pay that duty which you truly owe

To him that owes[254] it, namely this young prince:

255

And then our arms, like to a muzzled bear,

Save[256] in aspect, hath all offence sealed up:

Our cannons’ malice vainly shall be spent[257]

Against th’invulnerable clouds of heaven,

And with a blessèd and unvexed[259] retire,

260

With unhacked[260] swords and helmets all unbruised,

We will bear home that lusty[261] blood again

Which here we came to spout against your town,

And leave your children, wives, and you in peace.

But if you fondly[264] pass our proffered offer,

265

’Tis not the roundure[265] of your old-faced walls

Can hide you from our messengers of war,[266]

Though[267] all these English and their discipline

Were harboured in their rude[268] circumference:

Then tell us, shall your city call us lord,

270

In[270] that behalf which we have challenged it?

Or shall we give the signal to our rage,

And stalk in blood to our possession?

CITIZENIn brief, we are the King of England’s subjects:

For him, and in his right, we hold this town.

275

KING JOHNAcknowledge then the king, and let me in.

CITIZENThat can we not: but he that proves[276] the king,

To him will we prove loyal: till that time

Have we rammed up our gates against the world.

KING JOHNDoth not the crown of England prove the king?

280

And if not that, I bring you witnesses:

Twice fifteen thousand hearts of England’s breed—

BASTARDBastards, and else.[282] Aside

KING JOHNTo verify our title with their lives.

KING PHILIPAs many and as well-born bloods[284] as those—

285

BASTARDSome bastards too. Aside

KING PHILIPStand in his face[286] to contradict his claim.

CITIZENTill you compound[287] whose right is worthiest,

We for[288] the worthiest hold the right from both.

KING JOHNThen God forgive the sin of all those souls

290

That to their everlasting residence,[290]

Before the dew of evening fall, shall fleet[291]

In dreadful[292] trial of our kingdom’s king.

KING PHILIPAmen, amen. Mount, chevaliers:[293] to arms!

BASTARDSaint George,[294] that swinged the dragon, and e’er since

295

Sits[295] on’s horseback at mine hostess’ door,

Teach us some fence![296]— Sirrah, were I at home To Austria

At your den, sirrah, with your lioness,[297]

I would set[298] an ox-head to your lion’s hide,

And make a monster[299] of you.

300

AUSTRIAPeace, no more.

BASTARDO tremble, for you hear the lion roar.

KING JOHNUp higher to the plain, where we’ll set forth

In best appointment[303] all our regiments.

BASTARDSpeed then, to take advantage[304] of the field.

305

KING PHILIPIt shall be so, and at the other hill

Command the rest to stand. Citizens remain on the walls God[306] and our right! Exeunt [French and English forces]

Here after excursions, enter [at one door] the Herald of France with Trumpets to the gates

FRENCH HERALDYou men of Angiers, open wide your gates,

And let young Arthur Duke of Bretagne in,

Who by[309] the hand of France this day hath made

310

Much work for tears in many an English mother,

Whose sons lie scattered on the bleeding ground:

Many a widow’s husband grovelling[312] lies,

Coldly embracing the discoloured earth:

And victory with little loss doth play

315

Upon the dancing banners of the French,

Who are at hand, triumphantly displayed,[316]

To enter conquerors, and to proclaim

Arthur of Bretagne England’s king and yours.

Enter [at another door the] English Herald, with Trumpets

ENGLISH HERALDRejoice, you men of Angiers, ring your bells:

320

King John, your king and England’s, doth approach,

Commander[321] of this hot malicious day:

Their armours that marched hence[322] so silver-bright

Hither return all gilt[323] with Frenchmen’s blood:

There stuck no plume in any English crest[324]

325

That is removèd by a staff[325] of France:

Our colours[326] do return in those same hands

That did display them when we first marched forth:

And like[328] a jolly troop of huntsmen come

Our lusty English, all with purpled hands,

330

Dyed in the dying slaughter of their foes:

Open your gates and give the victors way.

CITIZENHeralds, from off our towers we might behold This Citizen may be Hubert

From first to last, the onset and retire[333]

Of both your armies, whose equality

335

By our best eyes cannot be censurèd:[335]

Blood hath bought blood, and blows have answered blows:

Strength matched with strength, and power confronted power:

Both are alike,[338] and both alike we like.

One must prove greatest. While they weigh so even,

340

We hold our town for neither, yet for both.

Enter the two Kings with their powers, at several doors [King John accompanied by the Bastard, Queen Elinor, Blanche; King Philip by Lewis the Dauphin and Austria]

KING JOHNFrance, hast thou yet more blood to cast away?

Say, shall the current of our right run on,

Whose passage,[343] vexed with thy impediment,

Shall leave his native[344] channel and o’erswell

345

With course disturbed even thy confining shores,

Unless thou let his silver water keep

A peaceful progress[347] to the ocean.

KING PHILIPEngland, thou hast not saved one drop of blood

In this hot trial more than we of France;

350

Rather, lost more. And by this hand I swear,

That sways[351] the earth this climate overlooks,

Before we will lay down our just-borne[352] arms,

We’ll put thee down,[353] gainst whom these arms we bear,

Or add a royal number[354] to the dead,

355

Gracing the scroll that tells of[355] this war’s loss

With slaughter coupled to the name of kings.

BASTARDHa, majesty! How high thy glory towers,[357]

When the rich blood of kings is set on fire:

O, now doth Death line his dead chaps[359] with steel:

360

The swords of soldiers are his teeth, his fangs:

And now he feasts, mousing[361] the flesh of men

In undetermined differences[362] of kings.

Why stand these royal fronts[363] amazèd thus?

Cry havoc,[364] kings: back to the stainèd field

365

You equal potents,[365] fiery kindled spirits!

Then let confusion[366] of one part confirm

The other’s peace:[367] till then, blows, blood and death.

KING JOHNWhose party do the townsmen yet admit?[368]

KING PHILIPSpeak, citizens, for England. Who’s your king?

370

CITIZENThe King of England, when we know the king.

KING PHILIPKnow him in us, that here hold up[371] his right.

KING JOHNIn us, that[372] are our own great deputy

And bear possession of our person here,

Lord of our presence,[374] Angiers, and of you.

375

CITIZENA greater power than we denies all this,

And till it be undoubted, we do lock

Our former scruple in our strong-barred gates:

Kings of[378] our fear, until our fears resolved

Be by some certain[379] king, purged and deposed.

380

BASTARDBy heaven, these scroyles[380] of Angiers flout you, kings,

And stand securely on their battlements,

As in a theatre, whence they gape and point

At your industrious[383] scenes and acts of death.

Your royal presences be ruled by me:

385

Do like the mutines of Jerusalem,[385]

Be friends awhile, and both conjointly bend[386]

Your sharpest deeds of malice on this town.

By east and west let France and England mount[388]

Their battering cannon chargèd[389] to the mouths,

390

Till their soul-fearing[390] clamours have brawled down

The flinty ribs of this contemptuous city:

I’d play[392] incessantly upon these jades,

Even till unfencèd[393] desolation

Leave them as naked as the vulgar[394] air:

395

That done, dissever your united strengths,

And part your mingled colours once again:

Turn face to face, and bloody point[397] to point:

Then in a moment Fortune shall cull forth[398]

Out of one side her happy minion,[399]

400

To whom in favour she shall give the day,[400]

And kiss him with a glorious victory:

How like you this wild[402] counsel, mighty states?

Smacks[403] it not something of the policy?

KING JOHNNow, by the sky that hangs above our heads,

405

I like it well.— France, shall we knit[405] our powers,

And lay[406] this Angiers even with the ground,

Then after fight who[407] shall be king of it?

BASTARDAn if[408] thou hast the mettle of a king,

Being wronged as we are by this peevish[409] town,

410

Turn thou the mouth of thy artillery,

As we will ours, against these saucy[411] walls,

And when that[412] we have dashed them to the ground,

Why then defy each other, and pell-mell,[413]

Make work upon ourselves,[414] for heaven or hell.

415

KING PHILIPLet it be so: say, where will you assault?

KING JOHNWe from the west will send destruction

Into this city’s bosom.

AUSTRIAI from the north.

KING PHILIPOur thunder[419] from the south

420

Shall rain their drift[420] of bullets on this town.

BASTARDO prudent discipline![421] From north to south:

Austria and France shoot in each other’s mouth:

I’ll stir them to it.— Come, away, away!

CITIZENHear us, great kings: vouchsafe[424] awhile to stay,

425

And I shall show you peace and fair-faced league:[425]

Win you this city without stroke or wound:

Rescue those breathing lives[427] to die in beds,

That here come sacrifices for the field.

Persever[429] not, but hear me, mighty kings.

430

KING JOHNSpeak on with favour:[430] we are bent to hear.

CITIZENThat daughter there of Spain, the lady Blanche,

Is niece to England: look upon the years[432]

Of Lewis the dauphin and that lovely maid.

If lusty[434] love should go in quest of beauty,

435

Where should he find it fairer than in Blanche?

If zealous love should go in search of virtue,

Where should he find it purer than in Blanche?

If love ambitious sought a match of birth,[438]

Whose veins bound[439] richer blood than Lady Blanche?

440

Such as she is, in beauty, virtue, birth,

Is the young dauphin every way complete:[441]

If[442] not complete of, say he is not she:

And she again wants[443] nothing, to name want,

If[444] want it be not that she is not he:

445

He is the half part of a blessèd man,

Left to be finishèd[446] by such as she:

And she a fair divided[447] excellence,

Whose fullness of perfection lies in him.

O, two such silver currents when they join

450

Do glorify the banks that bound them in:

And two such shores to two such streams made one,

Two such controlling bounds[452] shall you be, kings,

To these two princes,[453] if you marry them:

This union shall do more than battery[454] can

455

To our fast-closèd[455] gates: for at this match,

With swifter spleen[456] than powder can enforce,

The mouth of passage[457] shall we fling wide ope,

And give you entrance: but without this match,

The sea enragèd is not half so deaf,

460

Lions more confident, mountains and rocks

More free from motion, no, not Death himself

In mortal[462] fury half so peremptory,

As we to keep this city.

BASTARDHere’s a stay[464]

465

That shakes the rotten carcass of old Death

Out of his rags. Here’s a large mouth, indeed,

That spits forth death and mountains, rocks and seas,

Talks as familiarly of roaring lions

As maids of thirteen do of puppy-dogs.

470

What cannoneer begot this lusty blood?[470]

He speaks plain cannon:[471] fire, and smoke, and bounce:

He gives the bastinado[472] with his tongue:

Our ears are cudgelled: not a word of his

But buffets[474] better than a fist of France:

475

Zounds![475] I was never so bethumped with words

Since[476] I first called my brother’s father dad.

QUEEN ELINORSon, list[477] to this conjunction, make this match,

Give with our niece a dowry large enough:

For, by this knot, thou shalt so surely tie

480

Thy now unsured[480] assurance to the crown

That yon[481] green boy shall have no sun to ripe

The bloom that promiseth a mighty fruit.

I see a yielding in the looks of France:

Mark[484] how they whisper: urge them while their souls

485

Are capable of[485] this ambition,

Lest zeal,[486] now melted by the windy breath

Of soft petitions,[487] pity and remorse,

Cool and congeal again to what it was.

CITIZENWhy answer not the double majesties

490

This friendly treaty[490] of our threatened town?

KING PHILIPSpeak England first, that hath been forward[491] first

To speak unto this city: what say you?

KING JOHNIf that the dauphin there, thy princely son,

Can in[494] this book of beauty read ‘I love’,

495

Her dowry shall weigh equal with a queen:

For Anjou[496] and fair Touraine, Maine, Poitiers,

And all that we upon this side the[497] sea —

Except this city now by us besieged —

Find liable[499] to our crown and dignity,

500

Shall gild her bridal bed and make her rich

In titles, honours, and promotions,[501]

As she in beauty, education, blood,

Holds hand with[503] any princess of the world.

KING PHILIPWhat say’st thou, boy? Look in the lady’s face.

505

LEWISI do, my lord, and in her eye I find

A wonder, or a wondrous miracle,

The shadow[507] of myself formed in her eye:

Which, being but the shadow of your son,[508]

Becomes a sun and makes[509] your son a shadow:

510

I do protest I never loved myself

Till now infixèd[511] I beheld myself

Drawn in the flattering table[512] of her eye.

Whispers with Blanche

BASTARDDrawn[513] in the flattering table of her eye,

Hanged in the frowning wrinkle of her brow,

515

And quartered[515] in her heart, he doth espy

Himself love’s traitor: this is pity now,

That hanged and drawn and quartered there should be

In such a love[518] so vile a lout as he.

BLANCHEMy uncle’s will[519] in this respect is mine:

520

If he see aught[520] in you that makes him like,

That anything[521] he sees which moves his liking,

I can with ease translate[522] it to my will:

Or if you will, to speak more properly,[523]

I will enforce[524] it eas’ly to my love.

525

Further I will not flatter you, my lord,

That[526] all I see in you is worthy love,

Than this: that nothing do I see in you,

Though churlish[528] thoughts themselves should be your judge,

That I can find should merit[529] any hate.

530

KING JOHNWhat say these young ones? What say you, my niece?

BLANCHEThat she is bound in honour still[531] to do

What you in wisdom still vouchsafe[532] to say.

KING JOHNSpeak then, Prince Dauphin, can you love this lady?

LEWISNay, ask me if I can refrain from love,

535

For I do love her most unfeignedly.[535]

KING JOHNThen do I give Volquessen, Touraine, Maine,

Poitiers and Anjou, these five provinces,

With her to thee, and this addition more:

Full[539] thirty thousand marks of English coin.

540

Philip of France, if thou be pleased withal,[540]

Command thy son and daughter to join hands.

KING PHILIPIt likes[542] us well, young princes: close your hands.

AUSTRIAAnd your lips too, for I am well assured[543]

That I did so when I was first assured.[544] Lewis and Blanche join hands and kiss

545

KING PHILIPNow, citizens of Angiers, ope your gates,

Let in that amity which you have made,

For at Saint Mary’s chapel presently[547]

The rites of marriage shall be solemnized.

Is not the lady Constance in this troop?

550

I know she is not, for this match made up[550]

Her presence would have interrupted much.

Where is she and her son? Tell me, who[552] knows.

LEWISShe is sad and passionate[553] at your highness’ tent.

KING PHILIPAnd by my faith this league that we have made

555

Will give her sadness very little cure.—

Brother of England, how may we content

This widow lady? In her right we came,

Which we, God knows, have turned another way,

To our own vantage.

560

KING JOHNWe will heal up all,

For we’ll create young Arthur Duke of Bretagne

And Earl of Richmond, and this rich fair town

We make him lord of. Call the lady Constance:

Some speedy messenger bid her repair[564]

565

To our solemnity:[565] I trust we shall,

[Exit Salisbury?]

If not fill up the measure[566] of her will,

Yet in some measure[567] satisfy her so

That we shall stop her exclamation.[568]

Go we as well as haste will suffer[569] us

570

To this unlooked-for, unpreparèd pomp.[570]

Exeunt [all but the Bastard]

BASTARDMad world, mad kings, mad composition![571]

John, to stop Arthur’s title[572] in the whole,

Hath willingly departed[573] with a part,

And France, whose armour conscience buckled on,

575

Whom zeal and charity brought to the field

As God’s own soldier, rounded[576] in the ear

With[577] that same purpose-changer, that sly devil,

That broker[578] that still breaks the pate of faith,

That daily break-vow, he that wins[579] of all,

580

Of kings, of beggars, old men, young men, maids,

Who[581] having no external thing to lose

But the word ‘maid’,[582] cheats the poor maid of that:

That smooth-faced[583] gentleman, tickling commodity,

Commodity, the bias[584] of the world,

585

The world who of itself is peisèd[585] well,

Made to run even[586] upon even ground,

Till this advantage, this vile-drawing[587] bias,

This sway[588] of motion, this commodity,

Makes it take head from[589] all indifferency,

590

From all direction, purpose, course, intent:

And this same bias, this commodity,

This bawd,[592] this broker, this all-changing word,

Clapped on[593] the outward eye of fickle France,

Hath drawn him from his own determined[594] aid,

595

From a resolved[595] and honourable war,

To a most base[596] and vile-concluded peace.

And why rail I on[597] this commodity?

But for[598] because he hath not wooed me yet:

Not that I have the power to clutch[599] my hand,

600

When his fair angels[600] would salute my palm;

But for[601] my hand, as unattempted yet,

Like a poor beggar, raileth on the rich.

Well, whiles I am a beggar, I will rail,

And say there is no sin but to be rich:

605

And being rich, my virtue then shall be

To say there is no vice but beggary:

Since kings break faith upon[607] commodity,

Gain be my lord, for I will worship thee.

Exit

Act 2 [Scene 2]

running scene 3

Enter Constance, Arthur and Salisbury

CONSTANCEGone to be married? Gone to swear a peace? To Salisbury

False blood to false blood joined! Gone to be friends?

Shall Lewis have Blanche, and Blanche those provinces?

It is not so, thou hast misspoke,[4] misheard:

5

Be well advised,[5] tell o’er thy tale again.

It cannot be, thou dost but[6] say ’tis so.

I trust[7] I may not trust thee, for thy word

Is but the vain breath of a common man:[8]

Believe me, I do not believe thee, man:

10

I have a king’s oath to the contrary.

Thou shalt be punished for thus frighting[11] me,

For I am sick and capable of[12] fears:

Oppressed with wrongs, and therefore full of fears:

A widow, husbandless, subject to fears,

15

A woman naturally born to fears;

And though[16] thou now confess thou didst but jest

With my vexed spirits, I cannot take a truce,[17]

But they will quake and tremble all this day.

What dost thou mean by shaking of thy head?

20

Why dost thou look so sadly[20] on my son?

What means that hand upon that breast of thine?

Why holds thine eye that lamentable[22] rheum,

Like a proud[23] river peering o’er his bounds?

Be these sad[24] signs confirmers of thy words?

25

Then speak again, not all thy former tale,

But this one word: whether thy tale be true.

SALISBURYAs true as I believe you think them[27] false

That give you cause to prove[28] my saying true.

CONSTANCEO, if thou teach me to believe this sorrow,

30

Teach thou this sorrow how to make me die,

And let belief and life encounter[31] so

As doth the fury of two desperate men,

Which in the very meeting fall and die.

Lewis marry Blanche!— O boy, then where art thou? To Arthur

35

France friend with England, what becomes of me?—

Fellow, be gone: I cannot brook[36] thy sight: To Salisbury

This news hath made thee a most ugly man.

SALISBURYWhat other harm have I, good lady, done,

But spoke the harm that is by others done?

40

CONSTANCEWhich harm within itself so heinous is

As it makes harmful all that speak of it.

ARTHURI do beseech you, madam, be content.[42]

CONSTANCEIf thou that bidd’st me be content wert[43] grim,

Ugly and sland’rous[44] to thy mother’s womb,

45

Full of unpleasing blots and sightless[45] stains,

Lame, foolish, crooked,[46] swart, prodigious,

Patched[47] with foul moles and eye-offending marks,

I would not care, I then would be content,

For then I should not love thee, no, nor thou

50

Become[50] thy great birth, nor deserve a crown.

But thou art fair,[51] and at thy birth, dear boy,

Nature and Fortune joined to make thee great.

Of Nature’s gifts thou mayst with lilies boast,

And with the half-blown[54] rose. But Fortune, O,

55

She is corrupted, changed, and won from thee:

Sh’adulterates[56] hourly with thine uncle John,

And with her golden[57] hand hath plucked on France

To tread down fair respect of sovereignty,[58]

And made his majesty[59] the bawd to theirs.

60

France is a bawd to Fortune and King John,

That strumpet[61] Fortune, that usurping John:—

Tell me, thou fellow,[62] is not France forsworn? To Salisbury

Envenom[63] him with words, or get thee gone

And leave those woes alone, which I alone

65

Am bound to underbear.[65]

SALISBURYPardon me, madam,

I may not go without you to the kings.

CONSTANCEThou mayst, thou shalt: I will not go with thee:

I will instruct my sorrows to be proud,[69]

70

For grief is proud and makes his owner stoop.

To me and to the state[71] of my great grief

Let kings assemble: for my grief’s so great

That no supporter but the huge firm earth

Can hold it up: here I and sorrows sit: She sits upon the ground

75

Here is my throne: bid kings come bow to it.

[Exit Salisbury with Arthur] Constance remains seated

Act 3 Scene 1

running scene 3 continues

Enter King John, King Philip, Lewis, Blanche, Queen Elinor, the Bastard [and] Austria

KING PHILIP’Tis true,[1] fair daughter, and this blessèd day

Ever in France shall be kept festival:

To solemnize this day the glorious sun

Stays[4] in his course and plays the alchemist,

5

Turning with splendour of his precious eye

The meagre cloddy earth to glittering gold:

The yearly course that brings this day about

Shall never see it but a holy day.[8]

CONSTANCEA wicked day, and not a holy day! Rising

10

What hath this day deserved? What hath it done,

That it in golden letters[11] should be set

Among the high tides[12] in the calendar?

Nay, rather turn this day out of the week,

This day of shame, oppression, perjury.

15

Or if it must stand still,[15] let wives with child

Pray that their burdens may not fall[16] this day,

Lest that their hopes prodigiously[17] be crossed:

But[18] on this day let seamen fear no wreck:

No[19] bargains break that are not this day made;

20

This day all things begun come to ill end,

Yea, faith itself to hollow falsehood change.

KING PHILIPBy heaven, lady, you shall have no cause

To curse the fair proceedings of this day:

Have I not pawned[24] to you my majesty?

25

CONSTANCEYou have beguiled[25] me with a counterfeit

Resembling majesty, which, being touched and tried,[26]

Proves valueless: you are forsworn,[27] forsworn:

You came in arms[28] to spill mine enemies’ blood,

But now in arms[29] you strengthen it with yours.

30

The grappling vigour and rough frown of war

Is cold in amity and painted[31] peace,

And our[32] oppression hath made up this league:

Arm, arm, you heavens, against these perjured kings!

A widow cries: be husband to me, heavens!

35

Let not the hours of this ungodly day

Wear out[36] the days in peace; but, ere sun set,

Set armèd discord ’twixt these perjured kings:

Hear me, O, hear me!

AUSTRIALady Constance, peace!

40

CONSTANCEWar, war, no peace! Peace is to me a war:

O Limoges,[41] O Austria, thou dost shame

That bloody spoil:[42] thou slave, thou wretch, thou coward:

Thou little valiant, great in villainy,

Thou ever strong upon the stronger side;

45

Thou Fortune’s champion,[45] that dost never fight

But when her humorous[46] ladyship is by

To teach thee safety:[47] thou art perjured too,

And sooth’st up greatness.[48] What a fool art thou,

A ramping[49] fool, to brag, and stamp, and swear

50

Upon my party: thou cold-blooded slave,

Hast thou not spoke like thunder on my side?

Been sworn my soldier, bidding me depend

Upon thy stars, thy fortune, and thy strength,

And dost thou now fall over[54] to my foes?

55

Thou wear a lion’s hide! Doff[55] it for shame,

And hang a calf’s-skin[56] on those recreant limbs.

AUSTRIAO, that a man should speak those words to me!

BASTARDAnd hang a calf’s-skin on those recreant limbs.

AUSTRIAThou dar’st not say so, villain, for thy life.

60

BASTARDAnd hang a calf’s-skin on those recreant limbs.

KING JOHNWe like not this: thou dost forget thyself.

Enter Pandulph*

KING PHILIPHere comes the holy legate[62] of the Pope.

CARDINAL PANDULPHHail, you anointed deputies of heaven.—

To thee, King John, my holy errand is:

65

I Pandulph, of fair Milan cardinal,

And from Pope Innocent[66] the legate here,

Do in his name religiously[67] demand

Why thou against the Church, our holy mother,

So wilfully dost spurn;[69] and force perforce

70

Keep Stephen Langton,[70] chosen archbishop

Of Canterbury, from that holy see:[71]

This, in our foresaid[72] holy father’s name,

Pope Innocent, I do demand of thee.

KING JOHNWhat earthy[74] name to interrogatories

75

Can test[75] the free breath of a sacred king?

Thou canst not, cardinal, devise a name

So slight, unworthy, and ridiculous

To charge[78] me to an answer, as the Pope.

Tell him this tale, and from the mouth of England

80

Add thus much more, that no Italian priest

Shall tithe[81] or toll in our dominions:

But as we, under heaven, are supreme head,

So, under him, that great supremacy,[83]

Where[84] we do reign, we will alone uphold

85

Without th’assistance of a mortal hand:

So tell the Pope, all reverence set apart[86]

To him and his usurped authority.

KING PHILIPBrother of England, you blaspheme[88] in this.

KING JOHNThough you and all the kings of Christendom

90

Are led so grossly[90] by this meddling priest,

Dreading the curse[91] that money may buy out,

And by the merit of vile[92] gold, dross, dust,

Purchase corrupted pardon of[93] a man,

Who in that sale sells[94] pardon from himself:

95

Though you and all the rest so grossly led

This juggling[96] witchcraft with revenue cherish,

Yet I alone, alone do me oppose[97]

Against the Pope, and count his friends my foes.

CARDINAL PANDULPHThen by the lawful power that I have,

100

Thou shalt stand cursed and excommunicate:[100]

And blessèd shall he be that doth revolt

From his allegiance to an heretic:[102]

And meritorious shall that hand be called,

Canonizèd and worshipped as a saint,

105

That takes away by any secret course

Thy hateful life.

CONSTANCEO, lawful let it be

That I have room[108] with Rome to curse awhile:

Good Father Cardinal, cry thou ‘Amen’

110

To my keen[110] curses; for without my wrong

There is no tongue hath power to curse him right.[111]

CARDINAL PANDULPHThere’s law and warrant,[112] lady, for my curse.

CONSTANCEAnd for mine too: when law can do no right,

Let it be lawful that law bar no wrong:[114]

115

Law cannot give my child his kingdom here;

For he that holds[116] his kingdom holds the law:

Therefore, since law itself is perfect[117] wrong,

How can the law forbid my tongue to curse?

CARDINAL PANDULPHPhilip of France, on peril of a curse,

120

Let go the hand of that arch-heretic,[120]

And raise the power of France[121] upon his head,

Unless he do submit himself to Rome.

QUEEN ELINORLook’st thou pale, France? Do not let go thy hand.

CONSTANCELook to that,[124] devil, lest that France repent,

125

And by disjoining hands, hell lose a soul.

AUSTRIAKing Philip, listen to the cardinal.

BASTARDAnd hang a calf’s-skin on his recreant limbs.

AUSTRIAWell, ruffian, I must pocket up[128] these wrongs,

Because—

130

BASTARDYour breeches best may carry them.

KING JOHNPhilip, what say’st thou to the cardinal?

CONSTANCEWhat should he say, but as the cardinal?[132]

LEWISBethink you,[133] father, for the difference

Is purchase[134] of a heavy curse from Rome,

135

Or the light[135] loss of England for a friend:

Forgo the easier.

BLANCHEThat’s the curse of Rome.

CONSTANCEO Lewis, stand fast: the devil tempts thee here

In likeness of a new untrimmèd[139] bride.

140

BLANCHEThe lady Constance speaks not from her faith,

But from her need.

CONSTANCEO, if thou grant my need,[142]

Which only lives but by[143] the death of faith,

That need must needs[144] infer this principle,

145

That faith would live again by death of need:

O then tread down my need, and faith mounts up:

Keep my need up, and faith is trodden down.

KING JOHNThe king is moved,[148] and answers not to this.

CONSTANCEO, be removed[149] from him, and answer well! To King Philip

150

AUSTRIADo so, King Philip, hang no more in doubt.

BASTARDHang[151] nothing but a calf’s-skin, most sweet lout.

KING PHILIPI am perplexed, and know not what to say.

CARDINAL PANDULPHWhat canst thou say but will perplex thee more,

If thou stand excommunicate and cursed?

155

KING PHILIPGood reverend father, make[155] my person yours,

And tell me how you would bestow yourself.[156]

This royal hand and mine are newly knit,

And the conjunction of our inward souls

Married in league, coupled and linked together

160

With all religious strength of sacred vows:

The latest[161] breath that gave the sound of words

Was deep-sworn faith, peace, amity, true love

Between our kingdoms and our royal selves,

And even[164] before this truce, but new before,

165

No longer than we well could wash our hands

To clap[166] this royal bargain up of peace,

Heaven knows, they were besmeared and overstained[167]

With slaughter’s pencil,[168] where revenge did paint

The fearful[169] difference of incensèd kings:

170

And shall these hands, so lately purged of blood,

So newly joined in love, so strong in both,

Unyoke this seizure[172] and this kind regreet?

Play fast and loose[173] with faith, so jest with heaven,

Make such unconstant[174] children of ourselves,

175

As now again to snatch our palm from palm?

Unswear faith sworn, and on the marriage-bed

Of smiling peace to march a bloody[177] host,

And make a riot on the gentle brow[178]

Of true sincerity? O holy sir,

180

My reverend father, let it not be so:

Out of your grace, devise, ordain,[181] impose

Some gentle order, and then we shall be blest

To do your pleasure and continue friends.

CARDINAL PANDULPHAll form is formless, order orderless,

185

Save what is opposite to England’s love.

Therefore to arms, be champion of our Church,

Or let the Church, our mother, breathe her curse,

A mother’s curse, on her revolting[188] son:

France, thou mayst hold[189] a serpent by the tongue,

190

A casèd[190] lion by the mortal paw,

A fasting tiger safer by the tooth,

Than keep in peace that hand which thou dost hold.

KING PHILIPI may disjoin my hand, but not my faith.[193]

CARDINAL PANDULPHSo mak’st thou faith[194] an enemy to faith,

195

And like a civil war set’st oath to[195] oath,

Thy tongue against thy tongue. O, let thy vow

First made to heaven, first be to heaven performed,

That is, to be the champion of our Church:

What since[199] thou swor’st is sworn against thyself,

200

And may not be performèd by thyself,

For that which thou hast sworn to do amiss

Is not amiss when it is truly done:[202]

And being not done, where doing tends to[203] ill,

The truth is then most done not doing it:

205

The better act[205] of purposes mistook

Is to mistake again:[206] though indirect,

Yet indirection thereby grows direct,

And falsehood falsehood cures, as fire[208] cools fire

Within the scorchèd veins of one new burned:

210

It is religion[210] that doth make vows kept,

But thou hast sworn against religion:

By[212] what thou swear’st against the thing thou swear’st,

And[213] mak’st an oath the surety for thy truth

Against an oath the truth: thou art unsure[214]

215

To swear, swears[215] only not to be forsworn,

Else what a mockery should it be to swear?

But thou dost swear only to be forsworn,

And most forsworn, to keep what thou dost swear:

Therefore thy later vows against thy first

220

Is in thyself rebellion to thyself:

And better conquest never canst thou make

Than arm thy constant and thy nobler parts

Against these giddy loose suggestions:

Upon which better part[224] our prayers come in,

225

If thou vouchsafe them. But if not, then know

The peril of our curses light[226] on thee

So heavy as[227] thou shalt not shake them off,

But in despair die under their black[228] weight.

AUSTRIARebellion,[229] flat rebellion!

230

BASTARDWill’t not be?[230]

Will not a calf’s-skin stop[231] that mouth of thine?

LEWISFather, to arms!

BLANCHEUpon thy wedding day?

Against the blood[234] that thou hast marrièd?

235

What, shall our feast be kept[235] with slaughtered men?

Shall braying trumpets and loud churlish drums,

Clamours of hell, be measures[237] to our pomp?

O husband, hear me: ay, alack, how new

Is ‘husband’ in my mouth! Even for that name,

240

Which till this time my tongue did ne’er pronounce,

Upon my knee I beg, go not to arms

Against mine uncle. She may kneel here

CONSTANCEO, upon my knee made hard with kneeling, She may kneel

I do pray to thee, thou virtuous dauphin,

245

Alter not the doom[245] forethought by heaven.

BLANCHENow shall I see thy love: what motive may

Be stronger with thee than the name of wife?

CONSTANCEThat which upholdeth him that thee upholds:[248]

His honour:— O, thine honour, Lewis, thine honour! To Lewis

250

LEWISI muse[250] your majesty doth seem so cold, To King Philip

When such profound respects[251] do pull you on.

CARDINAL PANDULPHI will denounce[252] a curse upon his head.

KING PHILIPThou shalt not need. England, I will fall from[253] thee.

CONSTANCEO, fair return of banished majesty! She may rise

255

QUEEN ELINORO, foul revolt of French inconstancy!

KING JOHNFrance, thou shalt rue[256] this hour within this hour.

BASTARDOld Time the clock-setter, that bald[257] sexton Time,

Is it as he will? Well then, France shall rue.

BLANCHEThe sun’s o’ercast with blood: fair day, adieu![259]

260

Which is the side that I must go withal?

I am with both, each army hath a hand,

And in their rage, I having hold of both,

They whirl asunder and dismember[263] me.

Husband, I cannot pray that thou mayst win:—

265

Uncle, I needs must pray that thou mayst lose:—

Father,[266] I may not wish the fortune thine:—

Grandam, I will not wish thy wishes thrive:

Whoever wins, on that side shall I lose:

Assurèd loss before the match be played.

270

LEWISLady, with me, with me thy fortune lies. He may help her rise

BLANCHEThere where my fortune lives, there my life dies.

KING JOHNCousin,[272] go draw our puissance together.

[Exit the Bastard]

France, I am burned up with inflaming wrath,

A rage whose heat hath this condition:[274]

275

That nothing can allay, nothing but blood,

The blood, and dearest-valued[276] blood, of France.

KING PHILIPThy rage shall burn thee up, and thou shalt turn

To ashes, ere our blood shall quench that fire:

Look to thyself, thou art in jeopardy.

280

KING JOHNNo more than he that threats.[280] To arms let’s hie!

Exeunt

Act 3 Scene 23.2

running scene 4

Alarums, excursions. Enter [the] Bastard, with Austria’s head

BASTARDNow, by my life, this day grows wondrous hot:

Some airy devil[2] hovers in the sky

And pours down mischief. Austria’s head lie there, He puts down Austria’s head

While Philip[4] breathes.

Enter [King] John, Arthur [and] Hubert

5

KING JOHNHubert, keep[5] this boy.— Philip, make up:

My mother is assailèd[6] in our tent,

And ta’en,[7] I fear.

BASTARDMy lord, I rescued her:

Her highness is in safety, fear you not:

10

But on, my liege,[10] for very little pains

Will bring this labour to an happy end.[11]

Exeunt

Alarums, excursions, retreat. Enter King John, Queen Elinor, Arthur, [the] Bastard, Hubert, [and] Lords

KING JOHNSo shall it be: your grace shall stay behind[12] To Queen Elinor

So strongly guarded:— Cousin, look not sad: To Arthur

Thy grandam loves thee; and thy uncle will

15

As dear be to thee as thy father was.

ARTHURO, this will make my mother die with grief.

KING JOHNCousin, away for England! Haste before,[17] To Bastard

And ere our coming see thou shake the bags

Of hoarding abbots: imprisoned angels[19]

20

Set at liberty: the fat ribs of peace

Must by the hungry now be fed upon:

Use our commission[22] in his utmost force.

BASTARDBell,[23] book and candle shall not drive me back,

When gold and silver becks[24] me to come on.

25

I leave your highness:— grandam, I will pray,

If ever I remember to be holy,

For your fair safety: so I kiss your hand.

ELINORFarewell, gentle[28] cousin.

KING JOHNCoz,[29] farewell.

[Exit the Bastard]

30

QUEEN ELINORCome hither, little kinsman: hark, a word. To Arthur

KING JOHNCome hither, Hubert. He takes Hubert aside

O my gentle Hubert,

We owe thee much: within this wall of flesh

There is a soul counts thee her creditor

And with advantage[34] means to pay thy love:

35

And, my good friend, thy voluntary[35] oath

Lives in this bosom,[36] dearly cherishèd.

Give me thy hand: I had a thing to say,

But I will fit it with some better tune.[38]

By heaven, Hubert, I am almost ashamed

40

To say what good respect[40] I have of thee.

HUBERTI am much bounden[41] to your majesty.

KING JOHNGood friend, thou hast no cause to say so yet,

But thou shalt have: and creep time ne’er so slow,

Yet it shall come for me to do thee good.

45

I had a thing to say, but let it go:

The sun is in the heaven, and the proud day,

Attended with the pleasures of the world,

Is all too wanton[48] and too full of gauds

To give me audience:[49] if the midnight bell

50

Did with his iron tongue and brazen[50] mouth

Sound on[51] into the drowsy race of night:

If this same were a churchyard where we stand,

And thou possessèd with a thousand wrongs:

Or if that surly spirit, melancholy,

55

Had baked thy blood and made it heavy, thick,

Which else[56] runs tickling up and down the veins,

Making that idiot,[57] laughter, keep men’s eyes

And strain their cheeks to idle merriment,

A passion[59] hateful to my purposes:

60

Or if that thou couldst see me without eyes,

Hear me without thine ears, and make reply

Without a tongue, using conceit[62] alone,

Without eyes, ears and harmful sound of words:

Then, in despite[64] of broad-eyed watchful day,

65

I would into thy bosom pour my thoughts.

But, ah, I will not: yet I love thee well,

And by my troth,[67] I think thou lov’st me well.

HUBERTSo well, that what[68] you bid me undertake,

Though that my death were adjunct to[69] my act,

70

By heaven, I would do it.

KING JOHNDo not I know thou wouldst?

Good Hubert, Hubert, Hubert, throw thine eye

On yon[73] young boy: I’ll tell thee what, my friend,

He is a very serpent in my way,

75

And whereso’er this foot of mine doth tread,

He lies before me: dost thou understand me?

Thou art his keeper.

HUBERTAnd I’ll keep him so,[78]

That he shall not offend your majesty.

80

KING JOHNDeath.

HUBERTMy lord?

KING JOHNA grave.

HUBERTHe shall not live.

KING JOHNEnough.

85

I could be merry now: Hubert, I love thee.

Well, I’ll not say what I intend for thee:

Remember.— Madam, fare you well:

I’ll send those powers[88] o’er to your majesty.

ELINORMy blessing go with thee.

90

KING JOHNFor England, cousin,[90] go.

Hubert shall be your man,[91] attend on you

With all true duty.— On toward Calais, ho!

Exeunt [Queen Elinor at one door, the rest at another]

Act 3 Scene 3

running scene 5

Enter King Philip, Lewis, Cardinal Pandulph [and] Attendants

KING PHILIPSo by a roaring tempest on the flood,[1]

A whole armado[2] of convicted sail

Is scattered and disjoined from fellowship.[3]

CARDINAL PANDULPHCourage and comfort: all shall yet go well.

5

KING PHILIPWhat can go well when we have run[5] so ill?

Are we not beaten? Is not Angiers lost?

Arthur ta’en prisoner? Divers[7] dear friends slain?

And bloody[8] England into England gone,

O’erbearing[9] interruption, spite of France?

10

LEWISWhat he hath won, that hath he fortified:

So hot[11] a speed with such advice disposed,

Such temperate[12] order in so fierce a cause,

Doth want example:[13] who hath read or heard

Of any kindred[14] action like to this?

15

KING PHILIPwell could I bear that England had this praise,

So[16] we could find some pattern of our shame.

Enter Constance Distracted, with her hair down

Look, who comes here! A grave[17] unto a soul:

Holding th’eternal spirit against her will,

In the vile prison of afflicted breath:

20

I prithee, lady, go away with me.

CONSTANCELo, now: now see the issue[21] of your peace.

KING PHILIPPatience, good lady: comfort, gentle Constance.

CONSTANCENo, I defy[23] all counsel, all redress,

But[24] that which ends all counsel, true redress:

25

Death, death, O amiable,[25] lovely death:

Thou odoriferous[26] stench: sound rottenness:

Arise forth from the couch of lasting[27] night,

Thou hate and terror to prosperity,

And I will kiss thy detestable bones,

30

And put my eyeballs in thy vaulty[30] brows,

And ring these fingers with thy household worms,

And stop this gap of breath[32] with fulsome dust,

And be a carrion[33] monster like thyself:

Come, grin on me, and I will think thou smil’st

35

And buss[35] thee as thy wife: misery’s love,

O, come to me!

KING PHILIPO fair affliction,[37] peace!

CONSTANCENo, no, I will not, having breath to cry:

O, that my tongue were in the thunder’s mouth!

40

Then with a passion would I shake the world,

And rouse from sleep that fell[41] anatomy

Which cannot hear a lady’s feeble voice,

Which scorns a modern[43] invocation.

CARDINAL PANDULPHLady, you utter madness, and not sorrow.

45

CONSTANCEThou art not holy to belie[45] me so:

I am not mad: this hair I tear is mine:

My name is Constance: I was Geoffrey’s wife:

Young Arthur is my son, and he is lost:

I am not mad: I would to heaven I were,

50

For then, ’tis like[50] I should forget myself:

O, if I could, what grief should I forget!

Preach some philosophy to make me mad,

And thou shalt be canonized, cardinal:

For, being not mad, but sensible of[54] grief,

55

My reasonable part[55] produces reason

How I may be delivered of[56] these woes,

And teaches me to kill or hang myself:

If I were mad, I should forget my son,

Or madly think a babe of clouts[59] were he:

60

I am not mad: too well, too well I feel

The different[61] plague of each calamity.

KING PHILIPBind[62] up those tresses: O, what love I note

In the fair multitude of those her hairs!

Where but by chance a silver drop[64] hath fallen,

65

Even to that drop ten thousand wiry friends[65]

Do glue themselves in sociable[66] grief,

Like true, inseparable, faithful loves,

Sticking together in calamity.

CONSTANCETo[69] England, if you will.

70

KING PHILIPBind up your hairs.

CONSTANCEYes, that I will: and wherefore[71] will I do it?

I tore them from their bonds and cried aloud ‘

O, that these hands could so redeem[73] my son,

As they have given these hairs their liberty!’

75

But now I envy at[75] their liberty,

And will again commit them to their bonds,

Because my poor child is a prisoner. She binds up her hair

And, Father Cardinal, I have heard you say

That we shall see and know[79] our friends in heaven:

80

If that be true, I shall see my boy again;

For since the birth of Cain,[81] the first male child,

To him that did but yesterday suspire,[82]

There was not such a gracious[83] creature born:

But now will canker-sorrow[84] eat my bud

85

And chase the native[85] beauty from his cheek,

And he will look as hollow as a ghost,

As dim[87] and meagre as an ague’s fit,

And so[88] he’ll die: and rising so again,

When I shall meet him in the court of heaven

90

I shall not know[90] him: therefore never, never

Must I behold my pretty Arthur more.

CARDINAL PANDULPHYou hold too heinous[92] a respect of grief.

CONSTANCEHe talks to me that never had a son.

KING PHILIPYou are as fond of[94] grief as of your child.

95

CONSTANCEGrief fills the room[95] up of my absent child:

Lies in his bed, walks up and down with me,

Puts on his pretty looks, repeats his words,

Remembers[98] me of all his gracious parts,

Stuffs out his vacant garments with his form;

100

Then have I reason to be fond of grief?

Fare you well: had you such a loss as I,

I could give better comfort than you do. She unbinds her hair

I will not keep this form[103] upon my head,

When there is such disorder in my wit:

105

O lord, my boy, my Arthur, my fair son,

My life, my joy, my food, my all the world:

My widow-comfort, and my sorrows’ cure!

Exit

KING PHILIPI fear some outrage,[108] and I’ll follow her.

Exit

LEWISThere’s nothing in this world can make me joy:[109]

110

Life is as tedious as a twice-told tale,

Vexing the dull[111] ear of a drowsy man;

And bitter shame hath spoiled the sweet word’s[112] taste

That[113] it yields nought but shame and bitterness.

CARDINAL PANDULPHBefore the curing of a strong disease,

115

Even in the instant[115] of repair and health,

The fit[116] is strongest: evils that take leave,

On their departure most of all show evil:

What have you lost by losing of this day?[118]

LEWISAll days of glory, joy and happiness.

120

CARDINAL PANDULPHIf you had[120] won it, certainly you had.

No, no: when Fortune means[121] to men most good,

She looks upon them with a threat’ning eye:

’Tis strange to think how much King John hath lost

In this which he accounts[124] so clearly won:

125

Are not you grieved that Arthur is his prisoner?

LEWISAs heartily as he is glad he hath him.

CARDINAL PANDULPHYour mind is all as youthful as your blood.

Now hear me speak with a prophetic spirit:

For even the breath of what I mean to speak

130

Shall blow each dust, each straw, each little rub,[130]

Out of the path which shall directly lead

Thy foot to England’s throne. And therefore mark:[132]

John hath seized Arthur, and it cannot be

That whiles warm life plays in that infant’s[134] veins,

135

The misplaced[135] John should entertain an hour,

One minute, nay, one quiet breath of rest.

A sceptre snatched with an unruly hand

Must be as boisterously[138] maintained as gained:

And he that stands upon a slipp’ry place

140

Makes[140] nice of no vile hold to stay him up:

That[141] John may stand, then Arthur needs must fall:

So be it, for it cannot be but so.

LEWISBut what shall I gain by young Arthur’s fall?

CARDINAL PANDULPHYou, in the right of Lady Blanche your wife,

145

May then make all the claim that Arthur did.

LEWISAnd lose it, life and all, as Arthur did.

CARDINAL PANDULPHHow green[147] you are, and fresh in this old world!

John lays you plots:[148] the times conspire with you:

For he that steeps[149] his safety in true blood

150

Shall find but bloody safety and untrue.[150]

This act, so evilly born, shall cool the hearts

Of all his people and freeze up their zeal,[152]

That none[153] so small advantage shall step forth

To check[154] his reign, but they will cherish it:

155

No natural exhalation[155] in the sky,

No scope[156] of nature, no distempered day,

No common wind, no customèd[157] event,

But they will pluck away[158] his natural cause

And call them meteors, prodigies,[159] and signs,

160

Abortives,[160] presages, and tongues of heaven,

Plainly denouncing[161] vengeance upon John.

LEWISMaybe he will not touch young Arthur’s life,

But hold[163] himself safe in his prisonment.

CARDINAL PANDULPHO sir, when he shall hear of your approach,[164]

165

If that young Arthur be not gone already,

Even at that news he dies: and then the hearts

Of all his people shall revolt from him,

And kiss[168] the lips of unacquainted change,

And pick[169] strong matter of revolt and wrath

170

Out[170] of the bloody fingers’ ends of John.

Methinks I see this hurly[171] all on foot:

And O, what better matter breeds[172] for you

Than I have named! The Bastard Falconbridge

Is now in England, ransacking the Church,

175

Offending charity: if but a dozen French

Were there in arms, they would be as a call[176]

To train[177] ten thousand English to their side,

Or, as a little snow, tumbled about,

Anon[179] becomes a mountain. O noble dauphin,

180

Go with me to the king: ’tis wonderful

What may be wrought[181] out of their discontent,

Now that their souls are top-full[182] of offence.

For England go: I will whet on[183] the king.

LEWISStrong reasons make strange actions:[184] let us go:

185

If you say[185] ay, the king will not say no.

Exeunt

Act 4 Scene 14.1

running scene 6

Enter Hubert and Executioners With a rope and irons

HUBERTHeat me[1] these irons hot, and look thou stand

Within[2] the arras: when I strike my foot

Upon the bosom of the ground, rush forth

And bind the boy which you shall find with me

5

Fast to the chair: be heedful:[5] hence, and watch.

FIRST EXECUTIONERI hope your warrant will bear out[6] the deed.

HUBERTUncleanly scruples:[7] Fear not you: look to’t. The Executioners withdraw behind the arras

Young lad, come forth; I have to say with[8] you.

Enter Arthur

ARTHURGood morrow, Hubert.

10

HUBERTGood morrow, little[10] prince.

ARTHURAs[11] little prince, having so great a title

To be more prince, as may be. You are sad.[12]

HUBERTIndeed, I have been merrier.

ARTHUR’Mercy[14] on me!

15

Methinks nobody should be sad but I:

Yet, I remember, when I was in France,

Young gentlemen would be as sad[17] as night

Only[18] for wantonness: by my christendom,

So[19] I were out of prison and kept sheep,

20

I should be as merry as the day is long:

And so I would be here, but that I doubt[21]

My uncle practises[22] more harm to me:

He is afraid of me, and I of him:

Is it my fault that I was Geoffrey’s son?

25

No, indeed, is’t not: and I would[25] to heaven

I were your son, so[26] you would love me, Hubert.

HUBERTIf I talk to him, with his innocent prate[27] Aside

He will awake my mercy which lies dead:

Therefore I will be sudden and dispatch.[29]

30

ARTHURAre you sick, Hubert? You look pale today:

In sooth,[31] I would you were a little sick,

That I might sit all night and watch[32] with you.

I warrant[33] I love you more than you do me.

HUBERTHis words do take possession of my bosom.— Aside

35

Read here, young Arthur.— How now, foolish rheum![35] Showing a paper/Aside

Turning[36] dispiteous torture out of door?

I must be brief,[37] lest resolution drop

Out at mine eyes in tender womanish tears.

Can you not read it? Is it not fair writ?[39]

40

ARTHURToo fairly, Hubert, for so foul effect:[40]

Must you with hot irons burn out both mine eyes?

HUBERTYoung boy, I must.

ARTHURAnd will you?

HUBERTAnd I will.

45

ARTHURHave you the heart? When your head did but ache,

I knit[46] my handkercher about your brows,

The best I had, a princess wrought it[47] me,

And I did never ask it you[48] again:

And with my hand at midnight held your head,

50

And like the watchful[50] minutes to the hour,

Still and anon[51] cheered up the heavy time,

Saying ‘What lack you?[52]’ and ‘Where lies your grief?’

Or ‘What good love[53] may I perform for you?’

Many a poor man’s son would have lien[54] still

55

And ne’er have spoke a loving word to you:

But you at[56] your sick service had a prince:

Nay, you may think my love was crafty[57] love,

And call it cunning. Do, an if[58] you will.

If heaven be pleased that you must use me ill,[59]

60

Why then you must. Will you put out mine eyes?

These eyes that never did, nor never shall,

So much as frown on you.

HUBERTI have sworn to do it:

And with hot irons must I burn them out.

65

ARTHURAh, none but in this iron age[65] would do it:

The iron of itself, though heat[66] red-hot,

Approaching near these eyes, would drink my tears

And quench this[68] fiery indignation,

Even[69] in the matter of mine innocence:

70

Nay, after that, consume away in rust

But for containing[71] fire to harm mine eye:

Are you more stubborn-hard than hammered iron?

And if an angel should have[73] come to me

And told me Hubert should put out mine eyes,

75

I would not have believed him: no tongue but Hubert’s.

HUBERTCome forth. Stamps; Executioners come forward

Do as I bid you do.

ARTHURO, save me, Hubert, save me! My eyes are out[78]

Even with the fierce looks of these bloody men.

80

HUBERTGive me the iron, I say, and bind him here.

ARTHURAlas, what need you be so boist’rous-rough?

I will not struggle: I will stand stone-still:

For heaven sake, Hubert, let me not be bound:

Nay, hear me, Hubert, drive these men away,

85

And I will sit as quiet as a lamb:

I will not stir, nor winch,[86] nor speak a word,

Nor look upon the iron angerly:[87]

Thrust but these men away, and I’ll forgive you,

Whatever torment you do put me to.

90

HUBERTGo, stand within: let me alone with him.

FIRST EXECUTIONERI am best pleased to be from[91] such a deed.

[Exeunt Executioners]

ARTHURAlas, I then have chid[92] away my friend!

He hath a stern look, but a gentle heart:

Let him come back, that his compassion may

95

Give life to yours.

HUBERTCome, boy, prepare yourself.

ARTHURIs there no remedy?[97]

HUBERTNone, but to lose your eyes.

ARTHURO heaven, that there were but a mote[99] in yours,

100

A grain, a dust, a gnat, a wandering hair,

Any annoyance[101] in that precious sense:

Then feeling what small things are boisterous[102] there,

Your vile intent must needs seem horrible.

HUBERTIs this your promise? Go to,[104] hold your tongue.

105

ARTHURHubert, the utterance of a brace[105] of tongues

Must[106] needs want pleading for a pair of eyes:

Let me not[107] hold my tongue: let me not, Hubert:

Or, Hubert, if you will, cut out my tongue,

So I may keep mine eyes. O, spare mine eyes,

110

Though to no use but still[110] to look on you.

Lo, by my troth,[111] the instrument is cold

And would not harm me.

HUBERTI can heat it, boy.

ARTHURNo, in good sooth:[114] the fire is dead with grief,

115

Being create[115] for comfort, to be used

In undeserved extremes:[116] see else yourself:

There is no malice in this burning coal:

The breath of heaven hath blown his spirit out,

And strewed repentant ashes on his head.

120

HUBERTBut with my breath I can revive it, boy.

ARTHURAn if you do, you will but[121] make it blush

And glow with shame of your proceedings, Hubert:

Nay, it perchance[123] will sparkle in your eyes,

And, like a dog that is compelled to fight,

125

Snatch[125] at his master that doth tarre him on.

All things that you should use to do me wrong

Deny their office:[127] only you do lack

That mercy, which fierce fire and iron extends,[128]

Creatures[129] of note for mercy, lacking uses.

130

HUBERTWell, see to live: I will not touch thine eye

For all the treasure that thine uncle owes:[131]

Yet am I sworn and I did purpose,[132] boy,

With this same very iron to burn them out.

ARTHURO, now you look like Hubert. All this while

135

You were disguisèd.

HUBERTPeace; no more. Adieu.

Your uncle must not know but[137] you are dead.

I’ll fill these doggèd[138] spies with false reports:

And, pretty child, sleep doubtless,[139] and secure,

140

That Hubert for the wealth of all the world,

Will not offend[141] thee.

ARTHURO heaven! I thank you, Hubert.

HUBERTSilence, no more: go closely[143] in with me.

Much danger do I undergo for thee.

Exeunt

Act 4 Scene 24.2

running scene 7

Enter King John, Pembroke, Salisbury and other Lords King John ascends the throne

KING JOHNHere once again we sit: once again crowned,

And looked upon, I hope, with cheerful eyes.

PEMBROKEThis ‘once again’, but that your highness pleased,

Was once[4] superfluous: you were crowned before,

5

And that high royalty was ne’er plucked off:

The faiths of men ne’er stainèd with revolt:

Fresh[7] expectation troubled not the land

With any longed-for change or better state.[8]

SALISBURYTherefore, to be possessed[9] with double pomp,

10

To guard[10] a title that was rich before,

To gild[11] refinèd gold, to paint the lily,

To throw a perfume on the violet,

To smooth the ice, or add another hue

Unto the rainbow, or with taper-light[14]

15

To seek the beauteous eye of heaven[15] to garnish,

Is wasteful and ridiculous excess.

PEMBROKEBut[17] that your royal pleasure must be done,

This act is as an ancient tale new told,

And, in the last repeating, troublesome,

20

Being urgèd at a time unseasonable.[20]

SALISBURYIn this the antique[21] and well-noted face

Of plain old form[22] is much disfigurèd,

And, like a shifted[23] wind unto a sail,

It[24] makes the course of thoughts to fetch about,

25

Startles and frights consideration,[25]

Makes sound[26] opinion sick and truth suspected,

For putting on so new a fashioned[27] robe.

PEMBROKEWhen workmen strive to do better than well,

They do confound[29] their skill in covetousness,

30

And oftentimes excusing[30] of a fault

Doth make the fault the worse by th’excuse:

As patches set upon a little breach[32]

Discredit[33] more in hiding of the fault

Than did the fault before it was so patched.

35

SALISBURYTo this effect, before you were new crowned,[35]

We breathed[36] our counsel: but it pleased your highness

To overbear[37] it, and we are all well pleased,

Since all and every part of what we would

Doth make[39] a stand at what your highness will.

40

KING JOHNSome reasons of this double coronation

I have possessed you with,[41] and think them strong.

And more,[42] more strong, than lesser is my fear,

I shall indue[43] you with: meantime but ask

What you would have reformed that is not well,

45

And well shall you perceive how willingly

I will both hear and grant you your requests.

PEMBROKEThen I, as one that am the tongue[47] of these,

To sound[48] the purposes of all their hearts,

Both for myself and them, but chief of all

50

Your safety, for the which myself and them[50]

Bend[51] their best studies, heartily request

Th’enfranchisement[52] of Arthur, whose restraint

Doth move the murmuring lips of discontent

To break into this dangerous argument:

55

If what in rest[55] you have, in right you hold,

Why then your fears, which, as they say, attend[56]

The steps of wrong, should move you to mew up[57]

Your tender[58] kinsman, and to choke his days

With barbarous ignorance and deny his youth

60

The rich advantage of good exercise.[60]

That[61] the time’s enemies may not have this

To grace occasions,[62] let it be our suit

That you have bid us ask his liberty,

Which for our goods[64] we do no further ask

65

Than, whereupon our weal[65] on you depending

Counts[66] it your weal, he have his liberty.

Enter Hubert

KING JOHNLet it be so: I do commit[67] his youth

To your direction.[68]—

Hubert, what news with you? Taking him to one side

70

PEMBROKEThis is the man should do[70] the bloody deed:

He showed his warrant to a friend of mine:

The image of a wicked heinous[72] fault

Lives[73] in his eye: that close aspect of his

Do[74] show the mood of a much troubled breast,

75

And I do fearfully believe ’tis done,

What we so feared he had a charge[76] to do.

SALISBURYThe colour[77] of the king doth come and go

Between his purpose and his conscience,

Like heralds ’twixt[79] two dreadful battles set:

80

His passion is so ripe,[80] it needs must break.

PEMBROKEAnd when it breaks, I fear will issue thence

The foul corruption of a sweet child’s death.

KING JOHNWe cannot hold[83] mortality’s strong hand.—

Good lords, although my will to give[84] is living, To Lords

85

The suit which you demand is gone and dead.

He tells us Arthur is deceased tonight.[86]

SALISBURYIndeed we feared his sickness was past cure.

PEMBROKEIndeed we heard how near his death he was

Before the child himself felt he was sick:

90

This must be answered[90] either here or hence.

KING JOHNWhy do you bend such solemn brows[91] on me?

Think you I bear the shears of destiny?[92]

Have I commandment on[93] the pulse of life?

SALISBURYIt is apparent[94] foul play, and ’tis shame

95

That greatness[95] should so grossly offer it:

So[96] thrive it in your game, and so farewell.

PEMBROKEStay yet, Lord Salisbury: I’ll go with thee,

And find th’inheritance of this poor child,

His little kingdom of a forcèd[99] grave.

100

That blood which owed[100] the breadth of all this isle,

Three foot of it doth hold: bad world the while:[101]

This must not be thus borne: this will break out

To all our sorrows, and ere long I doubt.[103]

Exeunt [Lords]

KING JOHNThey burn in indignation: I repent:

105

There is no sure[105] foundation set on blood:

No certain life achieved by others’ death.

Enter [a] Messenger

A fearful[107] eye thou hast. Where is that blood

That I have seen inhabit in those cheeks?

So foul a sky clears not without a storm:

110

Pour down thy weather:[110] how goes all in France?

MESSENGERFrom[111] France to England: never such a power

For any foreign preparation[112]

Was levied[113] in the body of a land.

The copy[114] of your speed is learned by them:

115

For when you should be told they do prepare,

The tidings comes that they are all arrived.

KING JOHNO, where hath our intelligence[117] been drunk?

Where hath it slept? Where is my mother’s care,[118]

That such an army could be drawn[119] in France,

120

And she not hear of it?

MESSENGERMy liege, her ear

Is stopped with dust: the first of April died

Your noble mother; and as I hear, my lord,

The lady Constance in a frenzy[124] died

125

Three days before: but this from Rumour’s tongue

I idly[126] heard: if true or false I know not.

KING JOHNWithhold thy speed, dreadful Occasion:[127]

O, make a league[128] with me, till I have pleased

My discontented peers. What? Mother dead?

130

How wildly[130] then walks my estate in France!—

Under whose conduct[131] came those powers of France

That thou for[132] truth giv’st out are landed here?

MESSENGERUnder the dauphin.

KING JOHNThou hast made me giddy

135

With these ill tidings.

Enter [the] Bastard and Peter of Pomfret

Now, what says the world

To your proceedings?[136] Do not seek to stuff

My head with more ill news, for it is full.

BASTARDBut if you be afeard[138] to hear the worst,

Then let the worst unheard[139] fall on your head.

140

KING JOHNBear with me cousin, for I was amazed[140]

Under the tide:[141] but now I breathe again

Aloft[142] the flood, and can give audience

To any tongue, speak it of what it will.

BASTARDHow I have sped[144] among the clergymen,

145

The sums I have collected shall express:[145]

But as I travelled hither through the land,

I find the people strangely fantasied:[147]

Possessed with rumours, full of idle[148] dreams,

Not knowing what they fear, but full of fear.

150

And here’s a prophet that I brought with me

From forth the streets of Pomfret, whom I found

With many hundreds treading[152] on his heels:

To whom he sung in rude[153] harsh-sounding rhymes,

That ere the next Ascension Day[154] at noon,

155

Your highness should deliver up[155] your crown.

KING JOHNThou idle dreamer, wherefore didst thou so?

PETERForeknowing that the truth will fall out so.

KING JOHNHubert, away with him: imprison him,

And on that day at noon, whereon he says

160

I shall yield up my crown, let him be hanged.

Deliver him to safety,[161] and return,

For I must use thee.—

[Exeunt Hubert and Peter]

O my gentle[162] cousin,

Hear’st thou the news abroad,[163] who are arrived?

BASTARDThe French, my lord: men’s mouths are full of it.

165

Besides, I met Lord Bigot and Lord Salisbury,

With eyes as red as new-enkindled fire,

And others more, going to seek the grave

Of Arthur, who they say is[168] killed tonight

On your suggestion.[169]

170

KING JOHNGentle kinsman, go,

And thrust thyself into their companies.

I have a way to win their loves again:

Bring them before me.

BASTARDI will seek them out.

175

KING JOHNNay, but make haste: the[175] better foot before.

O, let me have no subject enemies,[176]

When adverse[177] foreigners affright my towns

With dreadful pomp of stout[178] invasion.

Be Mercury,[179] set feathers to thy heels,

180

And fly like thought from them to me again.

BASTARDThe spirit[181] of the time shall teach me speed.

Exit

KING JOHNSpoke like a sprightful[182] noble gentleman.

Go after him: for he perhaps shall need

Some messenger betwixt[184] me and the peers,

185

And be thou he.

MESSENGERWith all my heart, my liege.

[Exit]

KING JOHNMy mother dead!

Enter Hubert

HUBERTMy lord, they say five moons were seen tonight:[188]

Four fixèd, and the fifth did whirl about

190

The other four in wondrous[190] motion.

KING JOHNFive moons?

HUBERTOld men and beldams[192] in the streets

Do prophesy upon it[193] dangerously:

Young Arthur’s death is common in their mouths,

195

And when they talk of him, they shake their heads

And whisper one[196] another in the ear.

And he that speaks doth grip the hearer’s wrist,

Whilst he that hears makes fearful action,[198]

With wrinkled brows, with nods, with rolling eyes.

200

I saw a smith stand with his hammer, thus,

The whilst his iron did on the anvil cool,

With open mouth swallowing a tailor’s news,

Who, with his shears and measure in his hand,

Standing on slippers, which his nimble haste

205

Had[205] falsely thrust upon contrary feet,

Told of a many thousand[206] warlike French

That were embattailèd[207] and ranked in Kent.

Another lean, unwashed artificer[208]

Cuts off his tale, and talks of Arthur’s death.

210

KING JOHNWhy seek’st thou to possess[210] me with these fears?

Why urgest thou[211] so oft young Arthur’s death?

Thy hand hath murdered him: I had a mighty cause[212]

To wish him dead, but thou hadst none to kill him.

HUBERTNo had,[214] my lord! Why, did you not provoke me?

215

KING JOHNIt is the curse of kings to be attended

By slaves that take their humours[216] for a warrant

To break within the bloody[217] house of life,

And on the winking[218] of authority

To understand a law,[219] to know the meaning

220

Of dangerous[220] majesty, when perchance it frowns

More upon humour[221] than advised respect.

HUBERTHere is your hand[222] and seal for what I did. He shows a paper

KING JOHNO, when the last account[223] ’twixt heaven and earth

Is to be made, then shall this hand and seal

225

Witness against us to damnation.

How oft the sight of means to do[226] ill deeds

Make deeds ill done! Hadst not thou been by,[227]

A fellow by the hand of nature marked,[228]

Quoted[229] and signed to do a deed of shame,

230

This murder had not come into my mind.

But taking note of thy abhorred aspect,[231]

Finding thee fit for bloody villainy,

Apt, liable[233] to be employed in danger,

I faintly[234] broke with thee of Arthur’s death:

235

And thou, to be endearèd to a king,

Made it no conscience[236] to destroy a prince.

HUBERTMy lord—

KING JOHNHadst thou but shook thy head or made a pause

When I spake darkly[239] what I purposèd,

240

Or turned an eye of doubt upon my face,

As[241] bid me tell my tale in express words,

Deep shame had[242] struck me dumb, made me break off,

And those thy fears might have wrought[243] fears in me.

But thou didst understand me by my signs

245

And didst in signs again parley[245] with sin:

Yea, without stop, didst let thy heart consent,

And consequently thy rude[247] hand to act

The deed, which both our tongues held vile to name.

Out of my sight, and never see me more!

250

My nobles leave me, and my state[250] is braved,

Even at my gates, with ranks of foreign powers;

Nay, in the body[252] of this fleshly land,

This kingdom, this confine[253] of blood and breath,

Hostility and civil tumult[254] reigns

255

Between my conscience and my cousin’s death.

HUBERTArm you against your other enemies:

I’ll make a peace between your soul and you.

Young Arthur is alive: this hand of mine

Is yet a maiden[259] and an innocent hand,

260

Not painted with the crimson spots of blood.

Within this bosom never entered yet

The dreadful motion[262] of a murderous thought;

And you have slandered nature in my form,[263]

Which, howsoever rude exteriorly,[264]

265

Is yet the cover of a fairer mind

Than to be butcher of an innocent child.

KING JOHNDoth Arthur live? O, haste thee to the peers:

Throw[268] this report on their incensèd rage,

And make them tame[269] to their obedience.

270

Forgive the comment that my passion made

Upon thy feature, for my rage was blind,

And foul imaginary[272] eyes of blood

Presented thee more hideous than thou art.

O, answer not, but to my closet[274] bring

275

The angry lords with all expedient haste.

I conjure[276] thee but slowly: run more fast.

Exeunt

Act 4 Scene 34.3

running scene 8

Enter Arthur, on the walls Disguised as a ship boy

ARTHURThe wall is high, and yet will I leap down.

Good ground, be pitiful and hurt me not:

There’s few or none do know me: if they did,

This ship-boy’s semblance[4] hath disguised me quite.

5

I am afraid, and yet I’ll venture[5] it.

If I get down, and do not break my limbs,

I’ll find a thousand shifts[7] to get away:

As good to die[8] and go, as die and stay. He leaps down

O me! My uncle’s spirit is in these stones:

10

Heaven take my soul, and England keep my bones!

Dies

Enter Pembroke, Salisbury and Bigot

SALISBURYLords, I will meet him[11] at Saint Edmundsbury:

It is our safety,[12] and we must embrace

This gentle[13] offer of the perilous time.

PEMBROKEWho brought that letter from the cardinal?

15

SALISBURYThe count Melun, a noble lord of France,

Whose private[16] with me of the dauphin’s love

Is much more general[17] than these lines import.

BIGOTTomorrow morning let us meet him then.

SALISBURYOr rather then set forward; for ’twill be

20

Two long days’ journey, lords, or ere[20] we meet.

Enter [the] Bastard

BASTARDOnce more today well met, distempered[21] lords:

The king by me requests your presence straight.[22]

SALISBURYThe king hath dispossessed himself[23] of us:

We will not line[24] his thin bestainèd cloak

25

With our pure honours, nor attend the foot[25]

That leaves the print of blood where’er it walks.

Return and tell him so: we know the worst.

BASTARDWhate’er you think, good words, I think, were best.

SALISBURYOur griefs,[29] and not our manners, reason now.

30

BASTARDBut there is little reason in your grief.

Therefore ’twere reason you had manners now.

PEMBROKESir, sir, impatience[32] hath his privilege.

BASTARD’Tis[33] true, to hurt his master, no man’s else.

SALISBURYThis is the prison. What is he lies here? He sees Arthur’s body

35

PEMBROKEO, death, made proud with pure and princely beauty:

The earth had not a hole to hide this deed.

SALISBURYMurder, as[37] hating what himself hath done,

Doth lay it open[38] to urge on revenge.

BIGOTOr when he[39] doomed this beauty to a grave,

40

Found it too precious-princely for a grave.

SALISBURYSir Richard,[41] what think you? You have beheld,

Or have you read, or heard: or could you think,

Or do you almost think,[43] although you see,

That[44] you do see? Could thought, without this object,

45

Form such another? This is the very top,

The height, the crest,[46] or crest unto the crest,

Of murder’s arms:[47] this is the bloodiest shame,

The wildest savagery, the vilest stroke,

That ever wall-eyed[49] wrath or staring rage

50

Presented to the tears of soft remorse.[50]

PEMBROKEAll murders past do stand excused[51] in this:

And this, so sole[52] and so unmatchable,

Shall give a holiness, a purity,

To the yet unbegotten sin of times,[54]

55

And prove a deadly bloodshed but a jest,

Exampled[56] by this heinous spectacle.

BASTARDIt is a damned and a bloody work:

The graceless[58] action of a heavy hand,

If that it be the work of any hand.

60

SALISBURYIf that it be the work of any hand?

We had a kind of light[61] what would ensue:

It is the shameful work of Hubert’s hand,

The practice[63] and the purpose of the king:

From whose obedience I forbid my soul,

65

Kneeling before this ruin of sweet life,

And breathing to his breathless[66] excellence

The incense[67] of a vow, a holy vow:

Never to taste the pleasures of the world,

Never to be infected[69] with delight,

70

Nor conversant with ease and idleness,

Till I have set[71] a glory to this hand,

By giving it the worship[72] of revenge.

PEMBROKE and BIGOTOur souls religiously[73] confirm thy words.

Enter Hubert

HUBERTLords, I am hot with haste in seeking you:

75

Arthur doth live: the king hath sent for you.

SALISBURYO, he is bold, and blushes not at death.—

Avaunt,[77] thou hateful villain, get thee gone!

HUBERTI am no villain.

SALISBURYMust I rob the law?[79] Draws his sword

80

BASTARDYour sword is bright,[80] sir: put it up again.

SALISBURYNot till I sheathe it in a murderer’s skin.[81]

HUBERTStand back, Lord Salisbury, stand back, I say:

By heaven, I think my sword’s as sharp as yours. Draws his sword

I would not have you, lord, forget yourself,

85

Nor tempt[85] the danger of my true defence;

Lest I, by marking[86] of your rage, forget

Your worth, your greatness and nobility.

BIGOTOut, dunghill! Dar’st thou brave[88] a nobleman?

HUBERTNot for my life: but yet I dare defend

90

My innocent life against an emperor.

SALISBURYThou art a murderer.

HUBERTDo not prove me so:[92]

Yet[93] I am none. Whose tongue soe’er speaks false,

Not truly speaks: who speaks not truly, lies.

95

PEMBROKECut him to pieces.

BASTARDKeep the peace, I say.

SALISBURYStand by,[97] or I shall gall you, Falconbridge.

BASTARDThou wert better gall the devil, Salisbury:

If thou but frown on me, or stir thy foot,

100

Or teach thy hasty spleen[100] to do me shame,

I’ll strike thee dead. Put up thy sword betime,[101]

Or I’ll so maul you and your toasting-iron,[102]

That you shall think the devil is come from hell.

BIGOTWhat wilt thou do, renownèd Falconbridge?

105

Second[105] a villain and a murderer?

HUBERTLord Bigot, I am none.

BIGOTWho killed this prince?

HUBERT’Tis not an hour since I left him well:

I honoured him, I loved him, and will weep

110

My date[110] of life out for his sweet life’s loss.

SALISBURYTrust not those cunning waters of his eyes,

For villainy is not without such rheum,[112]

And he, long traded[113] in it, makes it seem

Like rivers of remorse and innocency.

115

Away with me, all you whose souls abhor

Th’uncleanly savours[116] of a slaughter-house,

For I am stifled with this smell of sin.

BIGOTAway toward Bury, to the Dauphin there.

PEMBROKEThere tell the king he may inquire[119] us out.

Exeunt Lords

120

BASTARDHere’s a good world! Knew you of this fair work?

Beyond the infinite and boundless reach

Of mercy, if thou didst this deed of death,

Art thou damned, Hubert.

HUBERTDo but hear me, sir.

125

BASTARDHa! I’ll tell thee what:

Thou’rt damned as black[126] — nay, nothing is so black —

Thou art more deep damned than Prince Lucifer:[127]

There is not yet so ugly a fiend of hell

As thou shalt be, if thou didst kill this child.

130

HUBERTUpon my soul—

If thou didst but consent

BASTARDTo this most cruel act, do but[131] despair:

And if thou want’st[132] a cord, the smallest thread

That ever spider twisted from her womb

Will serve to strangle thee: a rush[134] will be a beam

135

To hang thee on: or wouldst[135] thou drown thyself,

Put but a little water in a spoon,

And it shall be as all the ocean,

Enough to stifle[138] such a villain up.

I do suspect thee very grievously.[139]

140

HUBERTIf I in act, consent, or sin of thought,

Be guilty of the stealing that sweet breath

Which was embounded[142] in this beauteous clay,

Let hell want[143] pains enough to torture me:

I left him well.

145

BASTARDGo, bear him in thine arms:

I am amazed,[146] methinks, and lose my way

Among the thorns and dangers of this world.

How easy dost thou take[148] all England up!

From forth this morsel of dead royalty,

150

The life, the right, and truth of all this realm

Is fled to heaven: and England now is left

To tug and scamble[152] and to part by th’teeth

The unowed[153] interest of proud-swelling state:

Now for[154] the bare-picked bone of majesty

155

Doth doggèd[155] war bristle his angry crest

And snarleth in the gentle eyes of peace:

Now powers[157] from home and discontents at home

Meet in one line:[158] and vast confusion waits,

As doth a raven on a sick-fall’n beast,

160

The imminent decay of wrested pomp.[160]

Now happy he[161] whose cloak and cincture can

Hold out[162] this tempest. Bear away that child

And follow me with speed: I’ll to the king:

A thousand businesses are brief in hand,[164]

165

And heaven itself doth frown upon the land. Hubert carrying the body of Arthur

Exeunt

Act 5 Scene 15.1

running scene 9

Enter King John and Pandulph, [with] Attendants

KING JOHNThus have I yielded up into your hand Giving Cardinal Pandulph the crown

The circle[2] of my glory.

CARDINAL PANDULPHTake again Returning the crown to King John

From this my hand, as holding of[4] the Pope

5

Your sovereign greatness and authority.

KING JOHNNow keep your holy word: go meet the French,

And from his holiness use all your power

To stop their marches ’fore we are inflamed:[8]

Our discontented counties[9] do revolt:

10

Our people quarrel with obedience,

Swearing allegiance and the love of soul[11]

To stranger[12] blood, to foreign royalty;

This inundation[13] of mistempered humour

Rests[14] by you only to be qualified.

15

Then pause not: for the present time’s so sick,

That present[16] med’cine must be ministered,

Or overthrow[17] incurable ensues.

CARDINAL PANDULPHIt was my breath that blew this tempest up,

Upon your stubborn usage[19] of the Pope:

20

But since you are a gentle convertite,[20]

My tongue shall hush again this storm of war

And make fair weather in your blust’ring[22] land:

On this Ascension Day, remember well,

Upon your oath of service to the Pope,

25

Go I to make the French lay down their arms.

Exeunt [all but King John]

KING JOHNIs this Ascension Day? Did not the prophet

Say that before Ascension Day at noon

My crown I should give off?[28] Even so I have:

I did suppose it should be on constraint,[29]

30

But, heav’n be thanked, it is but voluntary.

Enter [the] Bastard

BASTARDAll Kent hath yielded: nothing there holds out

But Dover Castle: London hath received,

Like a kind host, the dauphin and his powers.

Your nobles will not hear[34] you, but are gone

35

To offer service to your enemy:

And wild amazement hurries up and down

The little number of your doubtful[37] friends.

KING JOHNWould not my lords return to me again

After they heard young Arthur was alive?

40

BASTARDThey found him dead and cast into the streets,

An empty casket, where the jewel of life

By some damned hand was robbed and ta’en away.

KING JOHNThat villain Hubert told me he did live.

BASTARDSo on my soul he did, for aught he knew:

45

But wherefore do you droop?[45] Why look you sad?

Be great in act as you have been in thought:

Let not the world see fear and sad distrust

Govern the motion[48] of a kingly eye:

Be stirring[49] as the time, be fire with fire,

50

Threaten the threat’ner and outface[50] the brow

Of bragging[51] horror: so shall inferior eyes,

That borrow[52] their behaviours from the great,

Grow great by your example, and put on

The dauntless spirit of resolution.

55

Away, and glisten like the god of war[55]

When he intendeth to become[56] the field:

Show boldness and aspiring confidence:

What, shall they seek the lion in his den,

And fright him there? And make him tremble there?

60

O, let it not be said: forage,[60] and run

To meet displeasure farther from the doors,

And grapple with him ere he come so nigh.[62]

KING JOHNThe legate of the Pope hath been with me,

And I have made a happy[64] peace with him,

65

And he hath promised to dismiss the powers

Led by the dauphin.

BASTARDO inglorious[67] league!

Shall we, upon[68] the footing of our land,

Send fair-play[69] orders, and make compromise,

70

Insinuation,[70] parley and base truce

To arms invasive? Shall a beardless boy,

A cockered[72] silken wanton, brave our fields,

And flesh[73] his spirit in a warlike soil,

Mocking the air with colours[74] idly spread,

75

And find no check?[75] Let us, my liege, to arms:

Perchance the cardinal cannot make your peace;

Or if he do, let it at least be said

They saw we had a purpose[78] of defence.

KING JOHNHave thou the ordering[79] of this present time.

80

BASTARDAway, then, with good courage!— Yet, I know, Aside

Our party may well meet a prouder[81] foe.

Exeunt

Act 5 Scene 25.2

running scene 10

Enter, in arms, Lewis, Salisbury, Melun, Pembroke, Bigot [and] Soldiers

LEWISMy lord Melun, let this be copied out,

And keep it safe for our remembrance:

Return the precedent[3] to these lords again,

That having our fair[4] order written down,

5

Both they and we, perusing o’er these notes,

May know wherefore we took the sacrament[6]

And keep our faiths[7] firm and inviolable.

SALISBURYUpon our sides it never shall be broken.

And, noble dauphin, albeit[9] we swear

10

A voluntary zeal and an unurged faith

To your proceedings: yet believe me, prince,

I am not glad that such a sore of time[12]

Should seek a plaster by contemned[13] revolt,

And heal the inveterate canker[14] of one wound

15

By making many: O, it grieves my soul

That I must draw this metal[16] from my side

To be a widow-maker: O, and there

Where honourable rescue and defence[18]

Cries out upon[19] the name of Salisbury!

20

But such is the infection of the time,

That for the health and physic[21] of our right,

We cannot deal but[22] with the very hand

Of stern injustice and confusèd[23] wrong:

And is’t not pity, O my grievèd friends,

25

That we, the sons and children of this isle,

Was born to see so sad an hour as this,

Wherein we step after[27] a stranger, march

Upon her gentle bosom, and fill up

Her enemies’ ranks? I must withdraw and weep

30

Upon the spot[30] of this enforced cause —

To grace[31] the gentry of a land remote,

And follow unacquainted[32] colours here.

What, here? O nation, that thou couldst remove,[33]

That Neptune’s[34] arms who clippeth thee about,

35

Would bear[35] thee from the knowledge of thyself,

And grapple[36] thee unto a pagan shore,

Where these two Christian armies might combine

The blood of malice in a vein of league,

And not to spend[39] it so unneighbourly.

40

LEWISA noble temper[40] dost thou show in this,

And great affections[41] wrestling in thy bosom

Doth make an earthquake[42] of nobility.

O, what a noble combat hast thou fought

Between compulsion[44] and a brave respect:

45

Let me wipe off this honourable dew,[45]

That silverly doth progress on thy cheeks:

My heart hath melted at a lady’s tears,

Being an ordinary[48] inundation:

But this effusion of such manly drops,

50

This shower, blown up by tempest of the soul,

Startles mine eyes, and makes me more amazed

Than had I seen the vaulty[52] top of heaven

Figured[53] quite o’er with burning meteors.

Lift up thy brow, renownèd Salisbury,

55

And with a great heart heave[55] away this storm:

Commend[56] these waters to those baby eyes

That never saw the giant world enraged,

Nor met with fortune other than at feasts,

Full warm of blood,[59] of mirth, of gossiping:

60

Come, come; for thou shalt thrust thy hand as deep

Into the purse of rich prosperity

As Lewis himself: so, nobles,[62] shall you all,

That knit[63] your sinews to the strength of mine.

And even[64] there methinks an angel spake.

Enter Cardinal Pandulph

65

Look where the holy legate comes apace,[65]

To give us warrant from the hand of heaven

And on our actions set the name of right

With holy breath.

CARDINAL PANDULPHHail, noble Prince of France!

70

The next is this: King John hath reconciled

Himself to Rome: his spirit is come[71] in

That so stood out against the Holy Church,

The great metropolis and see[73] of Rome.

Therefore thy threat’ning colours now wind up,[74]

75

And tame the savage spirit of wild war,

That like a lion fostered[76] up at hand,

It may lie gently at the foot of peace,

And be no further harmful than in show.[78]

LEWISYour grace shall pardon me, I will not back:[79]

80

I am too high-born to be propertied,[80]

To be a secondary at control,[81]

Or useful serving-man and instrument

To any sovereign state throughout the world.

Your breath first kindled the dead coal of wars

85

Between this chastised kingdom and myself,

And brought in matter that should feed this fire;

And now ’tis far too huge to be blown out

With that same weak wind which enkindled it:

You taught me how to know the face of right,[89]

90

Acquainted me with[90] interest to this land,

Yea, thrust this enterprise into my heart;

And come ye now to tell me John hath made

His peace with Rome? What is that peace to me?

I, by the honour of my marriage-bed,

95

After young Arthur, claim this land for mine:

And, now it is half-conquered, must I back

Because that John hath made his peace with Rome?

Am I Rome’s slave? What penny[98] hath Rome borne,

What men provided, what munition sent,

100

To underprop[100] this action? Is’t not I

That undergo this charge?[101] Who else but I,

And such as to my claim are liable,[102]

Sweat in this business and maintain this war?

Have I not heard these islanders shout out

105

‘Vive le roi’[105] as I have banked their towns?

Have I not here the best cards for the game

To win this easy match[107] played for a crown?

And shall I now give o’er the yielded set?[108]

No, no, on my soul, it never shall be said.

110

CARDINAL PANDULPHYou look but on the outside of this work.

LEWISOutside or inside, I will not return

Till my attempt so much be glorified

As to my ample[113] hope was promisèd

Before I drew[114] this gallant head of war,

115

And culled[115] these fiery spirits from the world

To outlook[116] conquest and to win renown

Even in the jaws of danger and of death. Trumpet sounds

What lusty[118] trumpet thus doth summon us?

Enter [the] Bastard

BASTARDAccording to[119] the fair play of the world,

120

Let me have audience:[120] I am sent to speak.

My holy lord of Milan, from the king

I come to learn how you have dealt for him:[122]

And, as you answer, I do know the scope[123]

And warrant[124] limited unto my tongue.

125

CARDINAL PANDULPHThe dauphin is too wilful-opposite,[125]

And will not temporize[126] with my entreaties:

He flatly says he’ll not lay down his arms.

BASTARDBy all the blood that ever fury breathed,

The youth says well. Now hear our English king,

130

For thus his royalty doth speak in me:

He is prepared, and reason[131] too he should:

This apish[132] and unmannerly approach,

This harnessed[133] masque and unadvisèd revel,

This unheard[134] sauciness and boyish troops,

135

The king doth smile at, and is well prepared

To whip[136] this dwarfish war, these pigmy arms,

From out the circle of his territories.

That hand which had the strength, even at your door,

To cudgel you and make you take the hatch,[139]

140

To dive like buckets in concealèd wells,

To crouch in litter[141] of your stable planks,

To lie like pawns[142] locked up in chests and trunks,

To hug[143] with swine, to seek sweet safety out

In vaults[144] and prisons, and to thrill and shake

145

Even at the crying of your nation’s crow,[145]

Thinking this voice an armèd Englishman:

Shall that victorious hand be feebled here,

That in your chambers gave you chastisement?

No: know the gallant monarch is in arms

150

And like an eagle o’er his eyrie[150] towers,

To souse[151] annoyance that comes near his nest:

And you degenerate, you ingrate revolts,[152]

You bloody Neroes,[153] ripping up the womb

Of your dear mother England, blush for shame:

155

For your own ladies and pale-visaged maids

Like Amazons[156] come tripping after drums:

Their thimbles into armèd gauntlets[157] change,

Their needles to lances, and their gentle hearts

To fierce and bloody inclination.

160

LEWISThere end thy brave,[160] and turn thy face in peace:

We grant thou canst outscold[161] us: fare thee well:

We hold our time too precious to be spent

With such a brabbler.[163]

CARDINAL PANDULPHGive me leave to speak.

165

BASTARDNo, I will speak.

LEWISWe will attend[166] to neither.

Strike up the drums, and let the tongue of war

Plead for our interest and our being here.

BASTARDIndeed your drums, being beaten, will cry out;

170

And so shall you, being beaten: do but start

An echo with the clamour of thy drum,

And even at hand a drum is ready braced[172]

That shall reverberate all as loud as thine.

Sound but another, and another shall

175

As loud as thine rattle the welkin’s[175] ear

And mock the deep-mouthed thunder: for at hand —

Not trusting to this halting[177] legate here,

Whom he hath used rather for sport[178] than need —

Is warlike John: and in his forehead[179] sits

180

A bare-ribbed[180] Death, whose office is this day

To feast upon whole thousands of the French.

LEWISStrike up our drums, to find this danger out.

BASTARDAnd thou shalt find[183] it, dauphin, do not doubt.

Exeunt [at different doors]

Act 5 Scene 35.3

running scene 11

Alarums. Enter King John and Hubert [at different doors]

KING JOHNHow goes the day with us? O, tell me, Hubert.

HUBERTBadly, I fear. How fares your majesty?

KING JOHNThis fever that hath troubled me so long

Lies heavy on me: O, my heart is sick!

Enter a Messenger

5

MESSENGERMy lord, your valiant kinsman Falconbridge

Desires your majesty to leave the field

And send him word by me which way you go.

KING JOHNTell him toward Swinstead,[8] to the abbey there.

MESSENGERBe of good comfort, for the great supply[9]

10

That was expected by the dauphin here

Are wrecked three nights ago on Goodwin Sands.[11]

This news was brought to Richard[12] but even now:

The French fight coldly[13] and retire themselves.

KING JOHNAy me, this tyrant fever burns me up,

15

And will not let me welcome this good news.

Set on toward Swinstead: to my litter[16] straight;

Weakness possesseth me, and I am faint.

Exeunt

Act 5 Scene 4

running scene 11 continues

Enter Salisbury, Pembroke and Bigot

SALISBURYI did not think the king so stored[1] with friends.

PEMBROKEUp once again:[2] put spirit in the French:

If they miscarry,[3] we miscarry too.

SALISBURYThat misbegotten[4] devil Falconbridge

5

In[5] spite of spite, alone upholds the day.

PEMBROKEThey say King John, sore[6] sick, hath left the field.

Enter Melun, wounded

MELUNLead me to the revolts[7] of England here.

SALISBURYWhen we were happy we had other names.

PEMBROKEIt is the count Melun.

10

SALISBURYWounded to death.

MELUNFly,[11] noble English, you are bought and sold:

Unthread[12] the rude eye of rebellion

And welcome home again discarded faith:

Seek out King John and fall before his feet:

15

For if the French be lords of this loud day,

He[16] means to recompense the pains you take

By cutting off your heads: thus hath he sworn

And I with him, and many more with me,

Upon the altar at Saint Edmundsbury;

20

Even on that altar where we swore to you

Dear amity and everlasting love.

SALISBURYMay this be possible? May this be true?

MELUNHave I not hideous death within my view,

Retaining but a quantity[24] of life,

25

Which bleeds away, even as a form of wax

Resolveth[26] from his figure gainst the fire?

What in the world should make me now deceive,

Since I must lose the use[28] of all deceit?

Why should I then be false, since it is true

30

That I must die here and live hence[30] by truth?

I say again, if Lewis do win the day,

He is forsworn[32] if e’er those eyes of yours

Behold another daybreak in the east:

But even this night, whose black contagious breath

35

Already smokes[35] about the burning crest

Of the old, feeble and day-wearied sun,

Even this ill night, your breathing shall expire,

Paying the fine[38] of rated treachery

Even with a treacherous fine[39] of all your lives,

40

If Lewis by your assistance win the day.

Commend me to one Hubert with your king:

The love of him, and this respect[42] besides,

For that my grandsire was an Englishman,

Awakes my conscience to confess all this.

45

In lieu[45] whereof, I pray you, bear me hence

From forth the noise and rumour[46] of the field,

Where I may think the remnant[47] of my thoughts

In peace, and part this body and my soul

With contemplation and devout desires.

50

SALISBURYWe do believe thee, and beshrew[50] my soul,

But I do love the favour[51] and the form

Of this most fair occasion, by the which

We will untread[53] the steps of damnèd flight,

And like a bated[54] and retirèd flood,

55

Leaving our rankness[55] and irregular course,

Stoop low within those bounds[56] we have o’erlooked

And calmly run on in obedience

Even to our ocean, to our great King John.

My arm shall give thee help to bear thee hence,

60

For I do see the cruel pangs of death

Right[61] in thine eye. Away, my friends! New flight,

And happy[62] newness, that intends old right.

Exeunt

Act 5 Scene 55.5

running scene 12

Enter Lewis and his train

LEWISThe sun of heaven, methought, was loath[1] to set,

But stayed and made the western welkin[2] blush,

When English measure[3] backward their own ground

In faint retire:[4] O, bravely came we off,

5

When with a volley of our needless[5] shot,

After such bloody toil, we bid goodnight,

And wound our tott’ring[7] colours clearly up,

Last in the field, and almost lords of it.

Enter a Messenger

MESSENGERWhere is my prince, the dauphin?

10

LEWISHere: what news?

MESSENGERThe count Melun is slain: the English lords

By his persuasion are[12] again fall’n off,

And your supply, which you have wished so long,

Are cast away and sunk on Goodwin Sands.

15

LEWISAh, foul shrewd[15] news! Beshrew thy very heart!

I did not think to be so sad tonight

As this hath made me. Who was he that said

King John did fly an hour or two before

The stumbling[19] night did part our weary powers?

20

MESSENGERWhoever spoke it, it is true, my lord.

LEWISWell: keep good quarter[21] and good care tonight:

The day shall not be up so soon as I,

To try the fair adventure[23] of tomorrow.

Exeunt

Act 5 Scene 65.6

running scene 13

Enter [the] Bastard and Hubert, severally

HUBERTWho’s there? Speak, ho! Speak quickly, or I shoot.

BASTARDA friend. What art thou?

HUBERTOf the part[3] of England.

BASTARDWhither dost thou go?

5

HUBERTWhat’s that to thee? Why may not I demand

Of thine affairs, as well as thou of mine?

BASTARDHubert, I think?

HUBERTThou hast a perfect[8] thought:

I will upon all hazards[9] well believe

10

Thou art my friend, that know’st my tongue so well.

Who art thou?

BASTARDWho thou wilt: and if thou please,

Thou mayst befriend me so much as to think

I come[14] one way of the Plantagenets.

15

HUBERTUnkind remembrance![15] Thou and endless night

Have done me shame: brave soldier, pardon me,

That any accent[17] breaking from thy tongue

Should scape[18] the true acquaintance of mine ear.

BASTARDCome, come: sans compliment[19]: what news abroad?

20

HUBERTWhy, here walk I in the black brow of night,

To find you out.[21]

BASTARDBrief,[22] then: and what’s the news?

HUBERTO my sweet sir, news fitting to the night,

Black, fearful, comfortless and horrible.

25

BASTARDShow me the very wound[25] of this ill news:

I am no woman, I’ll not swoon at it.

HUBERTThe king, I fear, is poisoned by a monk:

I left him almost speechless, and broke out[28]

To acquaint you with this evil, that you might

30

The better arm you to[30] the sudden time,

Than if you had at leisure[31] known of this.

BASTARDHow did he take it? Who did taste[32] to him?

HUBERTA monk, I tell you, a resolvèd villain,

Whose bowels[34] suddenly burst out: the king

35

Yet[35] speaks and peradventure may recover.

BASTARDWho didst thou leave to tend his majesty?

HUBERTWhy, know you not? The lords are all come back,

And brought Prince Henry[38] in their company,

At whose request the king hath pardoned them,

40

And they are all about his majesty.

BASTARDWithhold thine indignation, mighty heaven,

And tempt us not to bear[42] above our power.

I’ll tell thee, Hubert, half my power[43] this night,

Passing[44] these flats, are taken by the tide:

45

These Lincoln Washes[45] have devourèd them:

Myself, well mounted, hardly[46] have escaped.

Away before:[47] conduct me to the king:

I doubt[48] he will be dead or ere I come.

Exeunt

Act 5 Scene 75.7

running scene 14

Enter Prince Henry, Salisbury and Bigot

PRINCE HENRYIt is too late: the life of all his blood

Is touched[2] corruptibly, and his pure brain,

Which some suppose the soul’s frail dwelling-house,

Doth by the idle[4] comments that it makes

5

Foretell the ending of mortality.

Enter Pembroke

PEMBROKEHis highness yet doth speak, and holds belief

That, being brought into the open air,

It would allay the burning quality

Of that fell[9] poison which assaileth him.

10

PRINCE HENRYLet him be brought into the orchard[10] here.

[Exit Bigot]

Doth he still rage?[11]

PEMBROKEHe is more patient

Than when you left him; even now he sung.

PRINCE HENRYO vanity[14] of sickness! Fierce extremes

15

In their continuance will not feel themselves.[15]

Death, having preyed upon the outward parts,

Leaves them invisible,[17] and his siege is now

Against the mind, the which he pricks and wounds

With many legions[19] of strange fantasies,

20

Which, in their throng and press to that last hold,[20]

Confound[21] themselves. ’Tis strange that death should sing.

I am the cygnet[22] to this pale faint swan,

Who chants a doleful hymn to his own death,

And from the organ-pipe of frailty sings

25

His soul and body to their lasting rest.

SALISBURYBe of good comfort, Prince, for you are born

To set a form upon that indigest[27]

Which he hath left so shapeless and so rude.[28]

King John [is] brought in

KING JOHNAy, marry, now my soul hath elbow-room:[29]

30

It would not out at windows nor at doors:

There is so hot a summer in my bosom

That all my bowels crumble up to dust:

I am a scribbled form,[33] drawn with a pen

Upon a parchment, and against this fire

35

Do I shrink up.

PRINCE HENRYHow fares your majesty?

KING JOHNPoisoned, ill fare:[37] dead, forsook, cast off:

And none of you will bid the winter come

To thrust his icy fingers in my maw,[39]

40

Nor let my kingdom’s rivers take their course

Through my burned bosom, nor entreat the north[41]

To make his bleak winds kiss my parchèd lips

And comfort me with cold. I do not ask you much,

I beg cold comfort:[44] and you are so strait

45

And so ingrateful,[45] you deny me that.

PRINCE HENRYO that there were some virtue[46] in my tears,

That might relieve you!

KING JOHNThe salt in them is hot.

Within me is a hell, and there the poison

50

Is, as a fiend, confined to tyrannize

On unreprievable condemnèd blood.

Enter [the] Bastard

BASTARDO, I am scalded with my violent motion[52]

And spleen[53] of speed to see your majesty!

KING JOHNO cousin, thou art come to set[54] mine eye:

55

The tackle[55] of my heart is cracked and burnt,

And all the shrouds[56] wherewith my life should sail

Are turnèd to one thread, one little hair:

My heart hath one poor string[58] to stay it by,

Which holds but till thy news be utterèd:

60

And then all this thou see’st is but a clod[60]

And module[61] of confounded royalty.

BASTARDThe dauphin is preparing hitherward,[62]

Where heaven he[63] knows how we shall answer him:

For in a night the best part of my power,

65

As I upon[65] advantage did remove,

Were in the Washes all unwarily

Devourèd by the unexpected flood.[67] King John dies

SALISBURYYou breathe these dead[68] news in as dead an ear.—

My liege, my lord!— But[69] now a king, now thus. To King John

70

PRINCE HENRYEven so[70] must I run on, and even so stop.

What surety of the world, what hope, what stay,[71]

When this was now a king, and now is clay?

BASTARDArt thou gone so? I do but stay behind To King John

To do the office for thee of revenge,

75

And then my soul shall wait on[75] thee to heaven,

As it on earth hath been thy servant still.[76]—

Now, now, you stars that move in your right spheres,[77] To the Lords

Where be your powers? Show now your mended faiths,

And instantly return with me again,

80

To push destruction and perpetual shame

Out of the weak door of our fainting land:

Straight[82] let us seek, or straight we shall be sought:

The dauphin rages at our very heels.

SALISBURYIt seems you know not, then, so much as we:

85

The Cardinal Pandulph is within at rest,

Who half an hour since came from the dauphin,

And brings from him such offers of our peace

As we with honour and respect[88] may take,

With purpose presently[89] to leave this war.

90

BASTARDHe will the rather[90] do it when he sees

Ourselves well sinewèd[91] to our defence.

SALISBURYNay, ’tis in a manner done already,

For many carriages[93] he hath dispatched

To the seaside, and put his cause and quarrel

95

To the disposing[95] of the cardinal,

With whom yourself, myself and other lords,

If you think meet,[97] this afternoon will post

To consummate[98] this business happily.

BASTARDLet it be so.— And you, my noble prince,

100

With other princes[100] that may best be spared,

Shall wait upon[101] your father’s funeral.

PRINCE HENRYAt Worcester must his body be interred;

For so he willed it.

BASTARDThither shall it then,

105

And happily[105] may your sweet self put on

The lineal state[106] and glory of the land,

To whom with all submission, on my knee

I do bequeath[108] my faithful services

And true subjection everlastingly. He kneels

110

SALISBURYAnd the like tender[110] of our love we make,

To rest[111] without a spot for ever more. The Lords kneel

PRINCE HENRYI have a kind soul that would give thanks

And knows not how to do it but with tears. He weeps

BASTARDO, let us pay the time but[114] needful woe, Rising

115

Since it hath been beforehand[115] with our griefs.

This England never did, nor never shall,

Lie at the proud foot of a conqueror,

But[118] when it first did help to wound itself.

Now these her princes are come home again,

120

Come the three corners[120] of the world in arms,

And we shall shock[121] them. Nought shall make us rue,

If England to itself do rest[122] but true.

Exeunt

Textual Notes

F = First Folio text of 1623, the only authority for the play

F2 = a correction introduced in the Second Folio text of 1632

Ed = a correction introduced by a later editor

SD = stage direction

SH = speech heading (i.e., speaker’s name)

List of parts = Ed

1.1.0 SD the = F. Ed = them, but F can be supported if “Chatillon” is regarded as a title rather than a name 49 expeditious = F. F2 = expeditions 148 It = F. F2 = I. F is taken to refer to the Bastard’s face from the previous line 189 too = F2. F = two 209 smack = Ed. F = smoake 217 SD Enter…Gurney = Ed. SD five lines down in F 239 Could = F. Ed = Could he/a. Although inserting “he” clarifies the sense, the suggestion is not supported metrically 259 That = F. Ed = Thou

Act 2 Scene 1 = Ed. F = Scœna Secunda 1 SH KING PHILIP = Ed. F = Lewis 18 SH LEWIS = F. Some eds reassign to King Philip 63 Ate = Ed. F = Ace 113 breast = F2. F = beast 146 shoes = F. Ed = shows 151 SH KING PHILIP = Ed. F continues Austria’s speech, with line beginning “King Lewis” 221 Confronts your = Ed. F = Comfort yours 265 roundure = Ed. F = rounder 332 SH CITIZEN = Ed. F = Hubert. This SH recurs for rest of the scene; editors dispute whether or not the Hubert who is a character from Act 3 scene 2 onward is intended 342 run = F2 (runne). F = rome 359 dead = F. Ed = dread 375 SH CITIZEN = Ed. F = Fra 378 Kings = F. Ed = Kinged 432 niece = Ed. F = neere 442 of = F. Ed = O 496 Anjou = Ed. F = Angiers

Act 2 [Scene 2] = Ed. F = Actus Secundus

3.1.75 test = Ed. F = tast. Ed = task 124 that = F. Ed = it 190 casèd = F. Ed = crazèd, chafed 213 truth = F. Ed = troth

3.2.4 SD Enter…Hubert = Ed. Placed one line earlier in F 64 broad-eyed = Ed. F = brooded

3.3.45 not holy = Ed. F = holy 65 friends = Ed. F = fiends 112 word’s = F. Ed = world’s 151 evilly = F. Ed = vilely

4.1.68 this = F. Ed = his

4.2.1 again = F3. F = against 42 than = Ed. F = then. Ed = when 223 account spelled accompt in F

4.3.161 cincture = Ed. F = center

Act 5 = Ed. F = Actus Quartus

5.1.55 glisten = Ed. F = glister

5.2.36 grapple = Ed. F = cripple. Ed = gripple 134 unheard = F. Ed = unhaired 136 these = Ed. F = this

5.4.18 more = Ed. F = moe

5.5.7 tott’ring = F. Ed = tatt’ring, secondary sense, i.e., torn

5.6.15 endless = F. Ed = eyeless

5.7.18 mind = Ed. F = winde 22 cygnet = Ed. F = Symet 44 strait spelled straight in F

Act 1 Scene 1

*   List of parts: LEWIS anglicized form of French “Louis”

1.1    Location: England King John youngest son of Henry II and Elinor; born 1166, reigned 1199–1216 Queen Elinor daughter of William V, Duke of Aquitaine; she married and divorced Louis VII of France before marrying Henry II of England

1    would France does the King of France want

3    behaviour person, i.e., through me    majesty sovereignty, splendor

4    borrowed assumed/feigned

6    embassy message (from the ambassador)

7    Philip of France King Philip II, son of Louis VII; lived 1165–1223, reigned from 1180

8    Geoffrey fourth son of Henry II

9    Arthur Plantagenet son of    Geoffrey and Constance

10    territories dominions/dependencies

11    Poitiers i.e., the province of Poitou

12    sword i.e., state control

13    sways rules/controls    several various/individual

15    right by right, i.e., true

16    disallow of refuse

17    control constraint/mastery

22    embassy message/ambassadorial role

25    ere before    report deliver your message/make the noise of a    cannon or of    thunder

27    hence go from here    trumpet herald/musical wind instrument used to announce important arrivals

28    sullen presage gloomy portent    decay downfall/death

29    conduct escort

32    Constance heiress of Conan IV, Duke of Brittany; married Geoffrey in 1181 with whom she had Arthur

33    kindled stirred up, inflamed    France king and nation

34    Upon on behalf of    party part, side

35    made whole i.e., resolved

36    arguments proofs    love friendship

37    manage management, government

38    issue outcome

44    liege lord    controversy dispute

46    produce bring out

49    expeditious charge sudden cost

55    Coeur-de-lion Richard I, nicknamed “the Lionheart”    field battlefield

63    put you o’er direct you    heaven here and on several subsequent occasions “heaven” may be an alteration from “God,” following 1606 Parliamentary “Act to restrain the Abuses of Players”

65    Out on thee expression of indignation    rude uncivilized

66    diffidence mistrust

69    a he    pops me out disinherits me

70    fair fully

75    once in a word/at some time

76    whe’er whether    true begot honorably conceived, legitimate

77    lay…head i.e., leave my mother to answer

79    Fair fall may good fortune befall

84    like similar

85    madcap lunatic/wild fellow    lent brought

86    trick distinctive look, habit

87    affecteth imitates, assumes the character of

88    tokens signs, evidence

89    large composition general/robust constitution

90    parts qualities

91    Sirrah sir (used to an inferior)

92    move prompt

93    half-face profile/thin face

94    face plays on the sense of “brazen defiance”

95    half-faced groat coin worth four old pence with the monarch’s face in profile; also, “imperfect/insignificant”

96    when that when

97    Your brother i.e., Richard I,    Coeur-de-lion 99 tale story (perhaps plays on sense of “genitals”)    employed made use of/occupied sexually

102    treat of discuss    high important    touching relating to/affecting

104    sojourned stayed

105    prevail gain the mastery/succeed in attaining/persuade

109    lusty vigorous, lively (plays on the sense of “product of lust”)    got begot, conceived

111    took…death i.e., swore most solemnly

114    before…time i.e., before the full nine months were up

119    did play false was unfaithful    fault sin, moral defect (may play on the sense of “vagina”)

120    lies…hazards i.e., is one of the risks

121    how what    brother i.e., Richard I

124    sooth truth    kept…world the owner of a    cow has the right to keep any    calf born of that cow

128    refuse him spurn Philip (the Bastard)    concludes settles it

131    will legal testament/wishes

134    will wish/carnal desire/penis

135    Whether which of the two

137    reputed recognized/supposed

138    presence self/personal dignity

139    an if if    shape appearance

140    Sir…him i.e., that resembles Sir Robert’s

141    riding-rods horsewhips, i.e., skinny

143    in behind

144    three-farthings the thin three-farthing coin bore the queen’s image in front of a rose

145    to his shape in addition to having his inherited physical appearance

146    Would I might may I

147    it every foot every foot of it    this i.e., my own

148    Nob nickname for Robert (puns on senses of “head/head of the family”)    case puns on the sense of “face/appearance”

154    dear expensive, because more than a    groat (fourpence)

156    thither i.e., to    death

157    give…way allow our superiors to go first, as is polite

161    form likeness, image

162    rise some editors emend to “arise” for the sake of meter

166    hour possible pun on “whore”

169    grandam grandmother

170    truth chaste loyalty    what though what of that

171    Something about in a somewhat indirect way    from the right distant from the correct way, i.e., legitimacy

172    window with vaginal connotations    hatch lower part of a door (with vaginal connotations)

173    stir plays on the senses of “get an erection/engage in sex”    walk plays on the sexual sense of “be erect”

174    have (sexual) possession    catch seize, get hold of

175    Near…off i.e., to the target (in archery/sexually)    shot plays on the sense of “ejaculated”

179    speed travel hastily

180    need necessary

181    adieu good-bye

183    foot degree (may pun on French foutre, i.e., “fuck”)

184    many a many i.e., many (emphatic)

185    Joan typical name for a country or lower-class woman

186    den evening (from “God give you good even”)    God-a-mercy God have mercy on you

189    ’Tis i.e., remembering men’s names    respective attentive/respectful

190    conversion i.e., newly titled man

191    toothpick ornate toothpicks were fashionable and seen as a foreign sophistication    worship’s mess company of people eating together (now honored by his title)

192    stomach appetite    sufficed satisfied

193    catechize question

194    pickèd foppish/having used the toothpick/specially chosen    of countries i.e., well-traveled

197    Absey book book of ABC

201    would wants, asks

202    Saving except    dialogue of compliment polite/affected conversation

205    supper i.e., suppertime    so thus

207    mounting (socially) ascending/aspiring

208    bastard…time not a true son of the current age

209    smack show the characteristics (literally, taste); Folio spelling “smoake” was alternative form of same word, which could also mean “observe, suspect”    observation observance of polite, fashionable practices

210    so am I i.e., a literal bastard

211    habit dress    device outward show/ingenuity/heraldic design

212    accoutrement formal trappings

213    motion desire, impulse

214    sweet poison i.e., flattery    tooth appetite, sweet tooth

215    practise plot

216    to…learn i.e., learn how to spot other people’s deception by studying it myself

217    strew be scattered    rising i.e., ascent to greatness

218    riding-robes horse-riding clothes

219    woman-post female messenger

220    blow a horn i.e., to announce her arrival (plays on the fact that her husband has recently been shown to be a cuckold; men with unfaithful wives were popularly imagined to wear horns on their forehead)

223    slave wretch, villain

224    holds in chase hunts    up and down in every respect/everywhere

226    Colbrand the Giant part of an invading Danish army defeated by Guy of Warwick, the eponymous hero of a medieval romance story

228    unreverend irreverent, disrespectful

231    give us leave leave us

233    Philip Sparrow the Bastard rejects his former name (since he has been renamed “Sir Richard Plantagenet”) as a common name for sparrows (as it resembles their call)

234    toys trifling matters    abroad about, going on    anon soon

236    eat…fast “He may his part on Good Friday    eat and fast never the worse for ought he shall get” was proverbial eat i.e., eaten (pronounced “et”)    in of

238    do perform, achieve/make, produce/copulate    marry by the Virgin Mary    confess admit/agree

239    Could get i.e., were it possible he could conceive

240    handiwork i.e., his half-brother, Robert Falconbridge

241    beholding beholden, indebted

242    holp helped

244    That you who

245    untoward unmannerly, improper    knave scoundrel; the Bastard puns on the meaning “servant”

246    Basilisco a character in a contemporary play who insisted on his knighthood being acknowledged

247    dubbed knighted, by having a sword placed on the    shoulder

250    Legitimation legitimacy

252    proper fine/respectable

254    deny renounce

256    suit urging, courtship

258    Heaven may heaven    charge account/responsibility

259    issue offspring    dear cherished/grievous/costly

260    defence resistance

261    get be conceived

263    privilege immunity

264    folly foolishness/lust

265    dispose disposal, command

266    Subjected obedient/as his royal subject

268    aweless fearless    lion…hand as punishment for killing the Duke of Austria’s son, Richard I was imprisoned with a lion, whose heart he tore out by putting his hand down its throat

270    perforce forcibly

273    Who whoever

275    kin (new) relations

277    said him nay refused him

278    was i.e., a sin

Act 2 Scene 1

2.1 Location: France before Angiers in front of the gates of Angiers, on the Loire river Dauphin title for heir to the French throne Austria historically Leopold V; apparently wearing a lion’s skin, supposedly taken from Richard I

2    that…blood i.e., your predecessor

4    holy…Palestine the Crusades

5    By i.e., at the hand of

6    posterity descendants

7    importance request

8    spread display colours battle flags

9    rebuke repress

10    unnatural i.e., behaving in a manner that contradicts natural kinship

13    offspring descendants

14    Shadowing sheltering

15    powerless i.e., without a military force behind it

16    unstainèd pure, unblemished

19    zealous earnest

20    seal…indenture wax seal on a legal contract

23    pale…shore i.e., the chalk cliffs of England’s southeastern coast (hence England)    pale either adjectival (colorless) or a noun (boundary, enclosure)

24    spurns kicks, rejects

25    coops encloses, protects

26    main sea

27    bulwark fortification    still always

28    confident from self-assured against    purposes plans, i.e., threats of invasion

31    follow arms i.e., take part in military action

34    more requital to greater recompense for

37    bent directed

38    brows i.e., walls/battlements

39    discipline military strategy

40    cull select    plots positions, sites    advantages i.e., military advantage in attack

43    But we will if necessary to    subject to ruled by/answerable to

44    Stay wait    embassy message

45    unadvised rashly, without full thought or information

49    indirectly wrongfully

50    lo look

52    England the King of England    gentle noble

53    coldly calmly

55    against in preparation for

56    impatient of angered by

58    leisure convenience    stayed waited for

59    legions forces

60    expedient rapid

62    Mother-Queen Queen-Mother, i.e., Elinor

63    Ate Greek goddess of discord and revenge

64    niece female relative; actually Elinor’s granddaughter and John’s niece    Blanche of Spain daughter of John’s sister Eleanor and Alfonso VIII, King of Castile

65    king’s deceased dead king (Richard I)

66    unsettled humours i.e., unruly persons, malcontents;    humours four chief bodily fluids (blood, phlegm, choler, black choler) governing mental qualities and disposition

67    inconsiderate reckless    voluntaries volunteers

68    ladies’ faces i.e., beardless and young    spleens tempers, impulses

69    sold…backs i.e., they have spent everything on armor and military equipment

71    make…of risk, venture

72    braver more splendid, finer    choice selection

73    bottoms keels, i.e., ships    waft wafted, i.e., conveyed (suggesting a quick easy journey)

75    scathe damage

76    churlish rough, harsh

77    circumstance details

78    parley negotiate

79    expedition warlike enterprise/haste

82    occasion (needful) circumstances    others i.e., troops

85    lineal hereditary    own i.e., territories/role of ruler

88    beats drives, forces

89    if that if

91    England’s i.e., Arthur’s

93    toil i.e., supporting Arthur’s cause    work duty, undertaking

95    underwrought undermined, sought to overthrow    his its

96    sequence of posterity lawful succession

97    Outfacèd defied/intimidated    infant state young majesty, i.e., Arthur

99    Geoffrey’s i.e., Arthur’s father’s

101    abstract essence, summary

103    brief summary

109    owe own

110    commission warrant

111    articles points/charges

112    supernal judge i.e., God    supernal celestial

116    impeach challenge, accuse

118    Alack exclamation of dissatisfaction, regret

119    Excuse…down preventing (your) usurpation of authority is a good enough excuse

122    Out expression of irritation and scorn

123    check control, discipline

126    Liker in feature more similar in physical appearance

127    in manners (who are) in behavior/character

128    dam mother (devil and parent were proverbially similar)

130    His…mother Constance insults Elinor by suggesting that it is likelier that Geoffrey was a bastard than that Arthur might be one

131    an if if

132    blots slanders

133    grandam grandmother    blot defile/erase

135    crier announcing officer in a law court/town crier (a mocking reference to Austria)

137    play the devil i.e., make trouble

138    An a if he    catch seize, get hold of    hide i.e., lion’s skin

139    hare…beard “even hares may pull dead lions by the beard” (proverbial)

141    smoke subject to smoke/disinfect/beat    an if

142    look to’t beware

143    become earn/befit

145    sightly appropriately

146    Alcides Hercules (Greek hero, one of whose twelve labors involved killing a lion, whose skin he then wore); some editors emend “shoes” to “shows,” i.e., distinctive clothing

148    lay on that i.e., inflict blows

149    cracker boaster (playing on the sense of “supposed breaker of    shoulders“)    deafs deafens

151    straight straight away

153    very sum final summary, absolute essence

158    Bretagne Brittany

163    it its

165    fig fruit/something valueless/rude gesture

169    coil turmoil, fuss

170    shames dishonors, embarrasses

173    pearls i.e., tears

174    in…fee as a bribe for divine support

175    beads teardrops (plays on the sense of “prayer beads on a rosary”)

177    monstrous unnatural

180    dominations dominions    royalties royal rights

181    eldest son’s son eldest grandson

182    Infortunate unfortunate

183    visited punished

184    canon…law scriptural rule (that the sins of the parents will be visited upon their children)

185    but only

186    Removèd distant

187    Bedlam i.e., madwoman

190    her sin implies John, whom Constance suggests was conceived adulterously (in sin)

191    removèd issue relative at one remove, i.e., Arthur    for because of

192    his injury harm done to Arthur

193    beadle parish officer entitled to punish minor offenses, i.e., punisher

195    for because of/instead of

196    unadvisèd rash, thoughtless

197    title legal claim

199    will willfulness, wish    cankered corrupt

200    temperate calm

201    beseems befits    presence royal company    cry aim shout encouragement (archery term)

202    ill-tunèd harsh-sounding    repetitions repeated accusations

203    trumpet trumpeter

205    admit grant, recognize

206    warned summoned

207    France, for England i.e., the French king on behalf of Arthur (who should be King of England)

211    gentle peaceful/noble    parle negotiation

213    advancèd raised, displayed

214    prospect view

215    endamagement damage, detriment

216    bowels entrails

222    stones i.e., city walls

223    waist belt

224    ordinance artillery

225    lime mortar

226    dishabited dislodged

227    bloody power violent, fierce troops

229    much expedient very hasty

230    countercheck rebuke/check to oppose (the course of something)

232    amazed stunned/overwhelmed    vouchsafe permit

233    bullets cannonballs

235    folded…smoke i.e., concealed in deceitful rhetoric

236    faithless error untrustworthy lie

237    accordingly in the same manner/as it deserves

238    laboured exhausted with hard work

239    Forwearied worn out

240    harbourage shelter

241    said finished speaking

242    Lo see

243    right i.e., just claim

246    enjoys possesses

247    For on behalf of    downtrodden equity oppressed right    tread picks up on    downtrodden

248    greens grassy areas

250    constraint compulsion

254    owes owns

256    Save except    aspect appearance    offence hostility, harm    sealed up i.e., prevented

257    spent expended, fired

259    unvexed untroubled/unimpeded    retire retreat

260    unhacked unused/undamaged (from battle)

261    lusty vigorous

264    fondly foolishly    pass pass up, disregard

265    roundure roundness, circumference

266    messengers of war i.e., cannonballs

267    Though even if    discipline skill in warfare

268    rude rough

270    In…which on behalf of him (Arthur) for whom

276    proves proves to be

282    else others, suchlike

284    bloods hot-blooded fellows/noble men

286    in his face against him

287    compound agree

288    for on behalf of    hold withhold

290    everlasting residence i.e., the grave, death

291    fleet pass, fly off

292    dreadful terrifying, daunting    trial contest, putting to the proof

293    chevaliers knights

294    Saint George patron saint of England who famously slew a dragon    swinged beat, thrashed

295    Sits…door i.e., as a tavern sign    hostess tavern landlady

296    fence fencing skill

297    lioness i.e., Austria’s wife; also means “whore”

298    set…hide i.e., give Austria the cuckold’s horns by sleeping with his wife

299    monster because a combination of lion and ox

303    appointment order, arrangement

304    advantage superior military position/opportunity

306    God    …right! a battle cry    excursions fighting (across the stage)    Trumpets trumpeters

309    by…France with the help of the French king

312    grovelling prostrate, face down

316    displayed drawn up (if referring to the troops)/unfurled (if referring to the banners)

321    Commander victor    malicious violent, hostile

322    hence from here

323    gilt coated/glittering

324    crest i.e., helmet

325    staff spear/lance

326    colours battle flags

328    like…huntsmen traditionally huntsmen smeared their hands with blood of the kill

333    onset and retire attack and retreat

335    censured judged

338    alike equally    like approve

343    passage progress, course

344    native natural, habitual    o’erswell flood (John threatens French territory)

347    progress journey (may play on the sense of “official royal tour”)

351    sways rules    climate part of the sky

352    just-borne justly carried

353    put thee down defeat you

354    royal number i.e., a king’s name

355    tells of records/counts

357    towers soars, mounts (falconry term)

359    chaps jaws

361    mousing tearing at (like a cat or an owl with its prey)

362    undetermined differences unresolved disagreements

363    fronts faces

364    havoc a call for general slaughter

365    potents potentates, rulers

366    confusion overthrow, destruction    part side

367    peace i.e., victory

368    yet admit now recognize

371    hold up support

372    that…here i.e., John has no need for a spokesperson, representing himself as rightful king

374    presence own existence/majesty

378    Kings of i.e., ruled by

379    some certain i.e., one or the other/the particular rightful    purged and deposed refers to the    fears

380    scroyles scoundrels    flout mock, insult

383    industrious ingenious/painstaking/hardworking    acts deeds/theatrical actions/parts of a play

385    mutines of Jerusalem rival Jewish factions who united to fight the Romans besieging Jerusalem in AD 70 mutines mutineers, rebels

386    conjointly bend jointly aim

388    mount raise/prepare for firing

389    chargèd loaded

390    soul-fearing terrifying    brawled down destroyed noisily

392    play torment by firing at    jades wretches (literally, worthless horses)

393    unfencèd without walls, i.e., unprotected    desolation barren ruin/despondency

394    vulgar common

397    point i.e., sword point

398    cull forth select

399    happy minion fortunate favorite

400    day i.e., victory

402    wild irregular/audacious    states sovereigns

403    Smacks…something has it not a flavor    the policy stratagem

405    knit unite

406    lay level, flatten

407    who i.e., to determine who

408    An if if    mettle spirit, disposition

409    peevish obstinate/foolish

411    saucy insolent

412    when that when

413    pell-mell headlong/in hand-to-hand combat

414    ourselves i.e., each other    heaven or hell i.e., eternal life or damnation

419    thunder i.e., cannon

420    drift shower, deluge

421    discipline military strategy

424    vouchsafe agree, grant

425    league alliance, friendship

427    breathing lives i.e., living people

429    Persever persevere, proceed

430    favour permission, approval    bent resolved/inclined

432    years age

434    lusty lively, merry/fertile/lustful

438    birth noble ancestry

439    bound contain

441    complete fully equipped, perfect in

442    If…she i.e., the only fault in his perfection is that he is not her    complete of full of (those virtues)

443    wants lacks

444    If…he unless it could be a fault that she is not him

446    finishèd completed

447    divided incomplete

452    bounds boundaries

453    princes royal persons (of either sex)

454    battery assault

455    fast-closèd firmly, tightly shut    match marriage (puns on the sense of “match that lights gunpowder”)

456    spleen eagerness, angry energy    powder gunpowder

457    mouth of passage i.e., entrance    ope open

462    mortal fatal peremptory determined

464    stay obstacle

470    lusty blood spirited fellow

471    plain cannon i.e., just like a cannon    bounce explosion

472    bastinado beating with a stick

474    buffets beats, strikes

475    Zounds by God’s wounds    bethumped pounded, thumped soundly

476    Since…dad i.e., since I learned to speak (conceivably suggesting punishment for the illegitimate boy calling Sir Robert “Dad”)

477    list listen    conjunction union

480    unsured insecure

481    yon yonder, that (one over there)    green youthful/inexperienced    boy i.e., Arthur    sun i.e., royal patronage

484    Mark note, observe

485    capable of receptive to

486    zeal enthusiasm

487    soft petitions gentle pleas    remorse sorrow/compassion

490    treaty proposition

491    forward ready

494    in…love i.e., love Blanche

496    Anjou Folio prints “Anglers,” presumably mistaking the province of Anjou for the city of Angiers, where the scene takes place

497    the of the

499    liable subject

501    promotions social advancement

503    Holds hand with i.e., is equal to

507    shadow reflection, image (sense then shifts to “mere imitation/shadow cast by the sun”)

508    son plays on “sun” (popular image of royal glory)

509    makes…shadow i.e., outshines my actual or former self (plays on sense of “dims even your royal glory”)

511    infixèd fastened firmly

512    table tablet, painting surface

513    Drawn plays on the sense of “disembowelled” (being    hanged, drawn and    quartered was a traitor’s punishment)

515    quartered cut into pieces/lodged    espy discern

518    love expression of love/lover

519    will desire, determination

520    aught anything

521    That anything whatever it is

522    translate convert, transform

523    properly correctly, decorously

524    enforce urge/compel, impose

526    That i.e., by saying that    worthy worthy of

528    churlish harsh/grudging

529    merit deserve

531    still always

532    vouchsafe deign, graciously condescend

535    unfeignedly genuinely

539    Full i.e., all of    mark monetary unit (not a coin) worth two thirds of an English pound

540    withal with this

542    likes pleases    close join

543    well assured very certain

544    assured betrothed

547    presently immediately

550    made up accomplished

552    who whoever

553    passionate impassioned/emotional/sorrowful

564    repair come

565    solemnity i.e., the wedding ceremony

566    measure magnitude, capacity

567    measure limited extent, proportion

568    exclamation outcry, objection

569    suffer permit

570    pomp celebration

571    composition settlement/compromise

572    title…whole claim to the whole kingdom

573    departed parted

576    rounded whispered

577    With by

578    broker go-between, agent (plays on the notion of breakage)    breaks beats, cracks    pate head, skull    faith loyalty/truth

579    wins gets the better

581    Who i.e., the maid’s    thing plays on the sense of “penis”

582    ‘maid’ virgin

583    smooth-faced plausible/deceitful    tickling amusing, playing with (plays on the sense of “fondling sexually”)    commodity convenience, expediency/advantage, profit, self-interest/woman in her sexual capacity (plays on the sense of “virginity/female sexual goods”)

584    bias natural inclination (literally the weight in the bowling ball that enables it to be rolled in a curve)

585    peisèd poised, weighted

586    even level, evenly

587    vile-drawing i.e., that attracts evil

588    sway guiding power/swerve/change

589    take head from rebel against/roll away from    indifferency moderation/equal impartiality

592    bawd pimp, go-between    all-changing i.e., causing everything to change

593    Clapped on fixed on, presented to    outward eye eyeball, external eye/hole in the bowling ball through which the bias was inserted

594    determined resolved/planned    aid i.e., support for Arthur’s cause

595    resolved determined/settled

596    base dishonorable/worthless

597    rail I on do I rant about

598    But for only

599    clutch clench (in refusal of an offer)

600    angels gold coins    salute greet/touch (plays on the sense of “gold coin” and on the notion of “angelic salutation”—i.e., the angels’ greeting to the Virgin Mary)

601    for because    unattempted untempted/unapproached

607    upon because of

Act 2 Scene 2

4    misspoke spoken inaccurately/expressed badly

5    Be well advised consider carefully/be well-informed

6    but only

7    trust believe

8    common man i.e., not a king

11    frighting frightening

12    capable of susceptible to

16    though even if

17    take a truce make peace

20    sadly gravely

22    lamentable sorrowful    rheum watery discharge, i.e., tears

23    proud swollen/arrogant    peering o’er his overflowing its

24    sad solemn/sorrowful

27    them either King John and King Philip or simply the French

28    prove discover by experience

31    encounter meet in combat

36    brook tolerate

42    content patient, calm

43    wert were    grim ugly/destructive

44    sland’rous shameful

45    sightless unsightly, offensive (possibly “unseen, internal”)

46    crooked deformed    swart swarthy, of dark complexion (considered unattractive)    prodigious monstrous, unnatural/ill-omened

47    Patched blotched, marked

50    Become befit

51    fair handsome/pale-complexioned

54    half-blown half-blossomed, i.e., still young and beautiful

56    Sh’adulterates she commits adultery (rather than being faithful to Arthur)    hourly constantly (puns on “whore-ly,” i.e., like a whore)

57    golden implies offers of money    plucked on drawn on, enticed/dragged in

58    sovereignty i.e., Arthur’s claim to the throne

59    his majesty i.e., King Philip and his power    theirs i.e., King John and Fortune’s

61    strumpet harlot, prostitute

62    fellow with connotations of “servant/worthless man”    France i.e., the French king    forsworn guilty of perjury, breaking his promise

63    Envenom poison    words i.e., curses

65    underbear endure

69    proud swollen/arrogant

71    state condition/throne

Act 3 Scene 1

1    ’Tis true Philip and Blanche enter mid-conversation    daughter i.e., daughter-in-law

4    Stays…course stands still    plays the alchemist i.e., turns base metals into gold

8    holy day holiday/blessed occasion

11    golden letters used to mark feast days in the Church calendar

12    high tides important festival dates

15    stand still remain    with child pregnant

16    fall i.e., be born

17    prodigiously with ill omen, i.e., with the birth of a deformed child    crossed thwarted

18    But except    wreck shipwreck

19    No…made break only agreements made on this day

24    pawned pledged    majesty royal dignity, i.e., his word

25    beguiled deceived

26    touched and tried put to the test

27    forsworn perjured, guilty of breaking your word

28    in arms with weapons/in friendship

29    arms coat of arms (Blanche and Lewis’s heraldic emblems will now be united)    yours i.e., your arms/blood

31    painted superficial/feigned

32    our i.e., Constance and Arthur’s    made up composed, accomplished    league alliance

36    Wear out survive/waste    days some editors emend to “day”

41    Limoges i.e., Austria (Shakespeare combined two historical figures in one character, Duke Leopold of Austria and Viscount Vidomar of Limoges)

42    bloody spoil i.e., the lion’s skin    spoil plunder, booty

45    champion one who fights on behalf of another

46    humorous temperamental    by nearby

47    safety i.e., the best course of action, how to avoid getting injured

48    sooth’st up greatness flatter powerful people

49    ramping rampant/roaring/excessive    swear…party declare your support for my cause

54    fall over defect

55    Doff remove

56    calf’s-skin associated with fools and cowards    recreant cowardly

Pandulph a fusion of two historical figures, one a cardinal, the other a    legate

62    legate papal representative

66    Pope Innocent Innocent III

67    religiously solemnly/in the name of religion

69    spurn rebel, kick    force perforce with violent compulsion

70    Stephen Langton elected archbishop of Canterbury by Pope Innocent, but rejected by John

71    see bishopric/the seat of a bishop in his church

72    foresaid aforementioned

74    earthy earthly    interrogatories questions put to an accused person

75    test put to the proof

78    charge order

81    tithe levy a tax (specifically the tenth of one’s goods owed to the Church)    toll exact a payment

83    great supremacy highest authority or power

84    Where in which    uphold maintain/rule

86    set apart discarded, ignored

88    blaspheme speak irreverently

90    grossly foolishly    meddling priest i.e., the pope

91    the curse i.e., excommunication    buy out cancel

92    vile base    dross impure substance

93    of from

94    sells…himself incurs his own damnation/sells pardons that do not come from God

96    juggling cheating, deceiving    cherish nourish, maintain

97    me oppose place myself in opposition

100    excommunicate excommunicated

102    heretic one who maintains unorthodox religious views

108    room space (puns on    Rome)

110    keen eager/sharp    my wrong the wrong done to me (my motivation)

111    right properly, correctly, rightfully (plays on the sense of “good”)

112    warrant authority

114    bar no wrong does not prevent retaliation, i.e., cursing

116    holds maintains, controls

117    perfect completely

120    arch-heretic chief rebel to the Christian Church

121    power of France i.e., army    his head him/his army

124    Look to that beware of/consider that possibility

128    pocket up endure/swallow (the Bastard plays on the literal sense of pockets in    breeches)

132    as the cardinal i.e., as the cardinal says

133    Bethink you consider carefully    difference disagreement/choice

134    purchase acquisition

135    light minor

139    untrimmèd unadorned/unbedded, i.e., virgin

142    need appeal for help

143    but by because of    faith i.e., King Philip’s promise

144    needs necessarily

148    moved affected with sympathy/angered

149    be removed stand apart/separate yourself from his plans/be estranged (plays on    moved)

151    Hang i.e., wear

155    make…yours i.e., put your self in my position

156    bestow yourself behave

161    latest last

164    even right    but new just immediately

166    clap strike hands reciprocally in token of a    bargain bargain transaction

167    overstained covered with stains/dyed

168    pencil paintbrush

169    fearful awesome, fear-inducing    difference dispute, discord

172    Unyoke this seizure unclasp this grasp (of hands)    regreet return of salutation

173    fast and loose i.e., gamble (literally, game of betting whether the end of a rope was fastened or not)    so in the same manner

174    unconstant changeable, fickle

177    bloody bloodstained/violent    host army

178    brow forehead

181    ordain establish

188    revolting rebelling

189    hold…tongue “take a serpent by the tongue” (proverbial; a snake’s venom was thought to be located in the tongue)

190    casèd wearing a skin, i.e., living    mortal fatal, lethal

193    faith promise (to King John)

194    faith religious faith, i.e., the Church

195    to against

199    since subsequently, i.e., since swearing allegiance to the Church    swor’st i.e., allegiance with John

202    truly done i.e.,    not done at all

203    to toward

205    act action    purposes mistook misguided aims, erroneous outcomes

206    mistake again i.e., break your oath to John    indirect roundabout, devious

208    fire…burned “one heat drives out another” (proverbial; heat was used to treat burns)

210    religion religious belief, obligation or fear

212    By…swear’st i.e., you swear against the very faith by which you swear (in the making of your second oath to John)

213    And…truth i.e., in making an oath that apparently guarantees your loyalty and integrity, you in fact violate your faith

214    unsure uncertain, hesitant

215    swears…forsworn you swear never to break your word

224    part side

226    light descend (   heavy creates a play on the sense of “of little weight”)

227    as that

228    black deadly

229    Rebellion i.e., Philip’s rebellion against the Church or against himself    flat outright

230    be i.e., be still and silent

231    stop fill/silence

234    blood…marrièd i.e., as Blanche is John’s niece

235    kept celebrated

237    measures melodious accompaniment

245    doom judgment/destiny    forethought anticipated, planned

248    that thee upholds who supports you

250    muse wonder

251    profound respects important considerations

252    denounce proclaim

253    fall from desert/renounce

256    rue grieve for/regret

257    bald proverbially, Time was hairless

259    adieu good-bye

263    dismember mutilate, tear limb from limb

266    Father i.e., father-in-law

272    Cousin i.e., kinsman    puissance power/army

274    condition nature/stipulation

276    dearest-valued i.e., royal/life-sustaining

280    threats threatens    hie hasten

Act 3 Scene 2

3.2 Alarums calls to battle    excursions fighting (across the stage)

2    airy devil aerial demons were associated with storms and, here, battle

4    Philip i.e., the Bastard    breathes catches his breath    Hubert probably based on Hubert de Burgh, chief judicial officer under King John

5    keep look after/guard    make up move forward, press on

6    assailèd attacked

7    ta’en taken, captured

10    liege lord, superior entitled to feudal allegiance and service    pains…labour a birth metaphor

11    happy end fortunate outcome/pleasing conclusion    retreat call for withdrawal of army

12    stay behind i.e., remain behind in charge of John’s territories

17    Haste before hurry ahead (of us)

19    angels gold coins (playing on the sense of “heavenly angels”)

22    commission warrant/authority    his its

23    Bell…candle items involved in the ceremony of excommunication

24    becks beckons

28    gentle kind/noble

29    Coz cousin

34    advantage profit/interest    pay repay

35    voluntary freely offered, willing

36    bosom i.e., heart

38    tune i.e., words, speech

40    respect regard

41    bounden indebted, obliged

48    wanton lively, playful    gauds showy playthings, attractive trifles

49    give me audience listen to me    midnight bell i.e., bell tolling midnight

50    brazen made of brass/shameless

51    Sound on continue striking    race course

56    else otherwise

57    idiot clown/fool    keep occupy, hold captive

59    passion emotion

62    conceit thought

64    despite spite    watchful wakeful/vigilant

67    troth faith

68    what whatever

69    adjunct to attendant upon, linked to

73    yon yonder, that

78    so in such a way

88    powers forces

90    cousin i.e., Arthur

91    man servant

Act 3 Scene 3

1    flood sea

2    armado armada, fleet    convicted defeated

3    fellowship puns on “fellow ships”

5    run fared/followed a course

7    Divers various/several

8    bloody bloodstained/violent    England the King of England

9    O’erbearing overcoming    interruption resistance, obstacles    spite in defiance

11    hot active, vigorous, quick    advice prudence    disposed handled

12    temperate calm, composed

13    want example lack precedent

14    kindred related, allied in qualities    like similar

16    So provided that    pattern previous example

17    grave i.e., shell of the body, mere container

21    issue outcome    peace i.e., agreement, treaty

23    defy reject    counsel advice    redress assistance, comfort

24    But except

25    amiable lovable

26    odoriferous sweet-smelling    sound wholesome, healthy

27    lasting everlasting

30    vaulty empty/sepulchral

32    gap of breath i.e., mouth    fulsome repulsive

33    carrion skeletal/rotting

35    buss kiss

37    affliction i.e., afflicted one

41    fell terrible/cruel    anatomy skeleton

43    modern commonplace, everyday    invocation entreaty

45    belie slander

50    like likely

54    sensible of sensitive to, capable of feeling

55    reasonable part rational faculty

56    delivered of released from (perhaps with connotations of childbirth)

59    babe of clouts ragdoll    clouts cloths/rags

61    different distinct, individual    plague affliction

62    Bind…tresses in her distress, Constance’s hair is loose and dishevelled

64    silver drop i.e., tear

65    wiry friends i.e., hairs (   wiry does not necessarily suggest “coarse, tough”)

66    sociable sympathetic

69    To…will Constance’s response to Philip’s invitation earlier in the scene

71    wherefore why

73    redeem liberate

75    envy at resent

79    know recognize/be acquainted with

81    Cain in the Bible, Adam and Eve’s eldest son (who killed his brother Abel)

82    suspire (first) breathe

83    gracious filled with divine grace/virtuous/delightful

84    canker-sorrow the gnawing worm of grief    bud i.e., young son

85    native natural

87    dim dull/pale    meagre gaunt    an ague’s fit (the victim of) a bout of shaking caused by fever

88    so in that way/in that condition    rising i.e., from death/into heaven

90    know recognize

92    heinous grave, severe    respect view

94    fond of doting on

95    room place

98    Remembers reminds

103    form orderly arrangement

108    outrage passionate act of violence (i.e., suicide)

109    joy feel happy, take pleasure

111    dull bored/inattentive/sleepy

112    word’s i.e.,    Life

113    That so that

115    in the instant at the precise moment    repair recovery

116    fit bout of illness

118    day i.e., battle (Lewis employs the more literal sense)

120    had would have (lost all those things)

121    means intends

124    accounts reckons

130    rub obstacle (a term from the game of bowls)

132    mark pay attention

134    infant young child/minor, too young to claim sovereignty (legal term)

135    misplaced i.e., usurping    entertain receive, experience

138    boisterously violently

140    Makes…no is not fussy about using any    stay prop, keep

141    That in order that

147    green young, inexperienced

148    lays you plots makes schemes for you

149    steeps soaks    true legitimate/royal

150    untrue deceptive/uncertain

152    zeal fervent loyalty

153    none…advantage not even the smallest opportunity

154    check inhibit, curb, control    reign rule (puns on “rein”)

155    exhalation vapor/meteor (considered a bad omen)

156    scope circumstance    distempered disordered/stormy

157    customèd customary, ordinary

158    pluck away disregard    his its    cause explanation

159    prodigies omens

160    Abortives abnormalities    presages signs, portents

161    denouncing declaring

163    hold consider    himself i.e., John    in his prisonment i.e., while Arthur is John’s prisoner

164    approach arrival

168    kiss…of i.e., welcome    unacquainted unfamiliar

169    pick extract/find    strong matter of compelling reason for

170    Out…John i.e., in John’s crimes, symbolized by his bloodstained hands

171    hurly uproar, turmoil    on foot underway

172    breeds develops

176    call decoy, bait/call to arms

177    train lure

179    Anon instantly

181    wrought fashioned

182    top-full brimful    offence hostility, sense of wrong (in reaction to John’s deeds)

183    whet on encourage (as if sharpening a sword)

184    strange actions unusual/unexpected military deeds

185    ay yes

Act 4 Scene 1

4.1 Location: England, a prison

1    me for me    irons branding tools    look be sure

2    Within behind    arras large tapestry, wall hanging

5    heedful watchful/careful

6    bear out support, authorize

7    Uncleanly scruples improper concerns/concerns about being morally tainted

8    to say with something to say to

10    little young, small (Arthur then shifts the sense)

11    As…be I am as little a prince as possible, despite having claims to being much greater

12    sad serious, solemn

14    ’Mercy i.e., God’s mercy

17    sad serious/mournful/dark-colored

18    Only merely    wantonness foolish behavior/whim    by my christendom i.e., as I am a Christian

19    So provided that

21    doubt suspect, fear

22    practises plots

25    would wish

26    so if

27    prate chatter

29    dispatch put (him) to death/hurry up

31    sooth truth

32    watch stay awake

33    warrant assure (you)

35    rheum i.e., tears

36    Turning    …door banishing pitiless torture

37    brief quick    resolution determination

39    fair writ written clearly, well

40    effect purpose

46    knit tied    handkercher handkerchief

47    wrought it embroidered it for

48    it you for it back from you

50    watchful timekeeping/wakeful/vigilant

51    Still and anon continually    heavy slow-moving/sad

52    lack you i.e., do you need    grief physical pain/sorrow

53    love act of kindness

54    lien lain

56    at…service i.e., to look after you through your illness

57    crafty devious

58    an if if

59    ill badly, wrongfully

65    iron age the present/the last and worst of the four classical ages: Gold, Silver, Bronze, Iron/a period of wickedness and cruelty (puns on    irons)

66    heat heated

68    this its

69    Even…matter in the very substance, i.e., tears

71    But for containing merely because it contained

73    should have had

78    out put out/blinded

86    winch wince

87    angerly angrily

91    from away from

92    chid scolded/driven

97    remedy alternative/relief

99    mote particle of dust; making literal the biblical reference to “a mote in the eye,” i.e., a minor fault observed in another person by someone who ignores a greater fault of his or her own (Matthew 7:3)

101    annoyance irritation    sense organ of sense, i.e., eye

102    boisterous painful

104    Go to expression of irritated impatience

105    a brace (even) a pair

106    Must…pleading would not be sufficient to plead

107    Let me not do not make me

110    still always

111    troth faith

114    in good sooth truly

115    create created

116    undeserved extremes unjust cruelties    else otherwise, i.e., if it isn’t true

121    but only

123    perchance perhaps    sparkle in send sparks into

125    Snatch snap, bite    tarre provoke, urge

127    office proper function

128    extends offers

129    Creatures…uses instruments noted for compassion when they are not put to evil uses

131    owes owns

132    purpose intend

137    but anything other than that

138    doggèd doglike/cruel

139    doubtless without fear

141    offend harm

143    closely secretly

Act 4 Scene 2

4.2 Location: England, the court of King John

4    once in a word/one occasion (that was)

7    Fresh new

8    state state of affairs/monarch

9    possessed invested, given possession (of the royal title)    double pomp second ceremony

10    guard adorn/protect

11    gild cover with a thin layer of gold

14    taper-light candlelight

15    eye of heaven i.e., the sun

17    But i.e., were it not    pleasure will/desire

20    unseasonable unsuitable (probably four syllables;    Being at beginning of line may be monosyllabic for sake of meter)

21    antique old    well-noted well-known

22    form custom    disfigurèd altered

23    shifted changed (in direction)

24    It i.e., having a second coronation    fetch about change tack

25    consideration deep reflection

26    sound healthy

27    new a fashioned newly made/of new design

29    confound ruin

30    excusing…th’excuse i.e., excuses draw attention to faults rather than explaining them away

32    breach tear, hole

33    Discredit bring into disrepute

35    new crowned i.e., crowned again

36    breathed spoke

37    overbear overrule

39    make…at stop and give way for/resist

41    possessed you with informed you of

42    more…fear I shall give you further reasons that are as great as my fear is small

43    indue supply

47    tongue spokesperson

48    sound proclaim/discover the depth of

50    them they

51    Bend direct, focus    studies efforts

52    enfranchisement release

55    rest peace/freedom from exertion    in right rightfully

56    attend…wrong i.e., are bent toward wrongdoing    attend accompany

57    mew up confine

58    tender young

60    exercise occupations/gentlemanly physical training in the martial arts

61    That so that    this i.e., such an argument

62    grace occasions suit their purposes    suit request (that John earlier invited them to make)

64    goods personal benefits

65    weal welfare

66    Counts considers

67    commit entrust

68    direction responsibility (for Arthur’s upbringing)

70    should do who was to have done

72    heinous hateful, odious

73    Lives i.e., is apparent    close secretive    aspect appearance

74    Do most editions since the Fourth Folio emend to “Does,” but “Does show” sounds infelicitous: an elision Do’ show is possible (“Doth show” is also possible)

76    charge order

77    colour i.e., of his complexion (which alternates between pale and red)

79    ’twixt between    dreadful battles terrifying fighting forces

80    ripe swollen (like an abscess)    break burst

83    hold hold back

84    give i.e., grant your request

86    tonight last night

90    answered accounted for/recompensed    hence elsewhere/in the future/in the next world

91    brows faces, expressions

92    shears of destiny i.e., like Atropos, one of the three Fates, responsible for cutting the thread of life

93    commandment on control over

94    apparent evidently

95    greatness i.e., a king    grossly blatantly    offer undertake, venture to do

96    So thus, i.e.,    grossly game intrigue, undertaking

99    forcèd compelled, brought about by violence

100    owed owned

101    the while in the meantime/while such things happen

103    doubt fear

105    sure secure    set i.e., built

107    fearful frightened

110    weather i.e., stormy news

111    From    …England the messenger interprets John’s    how goes (“how is it going”) in terms of literal movement (France invading England)    power army

112    preparation military expedition

113    levied mustered, raised    body length and breadth

114    copy example

117    intelligence military information, spies

118    care diligence

119    drawn gathered

124    frenzy madness/fit of agitation

126    idly casually

127    Occasion course of events

128    league alliance/truce

130    wildly disorderedly, without rule    walks goes, progresses    estate affairs/holdings

131    conduct leadership

132    for…out claim in the name of truth    Pomfret Pontefract in Yorkshire

136    proceedings course of action, i.e., to collect money from the monasteries

138    afeard afraid

139    unheard…head befall you without warning, i.e., it is better to be prepared for the    worst

140    amazed stunned/bewildered

141    tide i.e., torrent of bad news

142    Aloft above, afloat in

144    sped succeeded/fared

145    express communicate/reveal

147    strangely fantasied full of strange imaginings

148    idle foolish/crazy

152    treading…heels i.e., following him closely

153    rude unlearned/lacking in polish

154    Ascension Day celebration of the feast of ascension of Christ into heaven, the Thursday forty days after Easter

155    deliver up surrender

161    safety safe-keeping, i.e., custody

162    gentle noble

163    abroad out there, in public

168    is was    tonight last night

169    suggestion instigation

175    the…before i.e., quickly

176    subject enemies i.e., subjects who are enemies

177    adverse hostile

178    stout bold/determined

179    Mercury messenger of the Roman gods, often depicted with feathered sandals or feet

181    spirit…time i.e., circumstances (conceivably    spirit plays on the alchemical sense of “mercury”)

182    sprightful spirited

184    betwixt between

188    tonight last night

190    wondrous bizarre, unbelievable

192    beldams old women

193    prophesy upon it make predictions based on it

196    one to one

198    fearful action frightened gestures

205    Had…feet he had mistakenly put on the wrong feet

206    a many thousand i.e., many thousands of

207    embattailèd drawn up in battle array    ranked arranged in ranks

208    artificer artisan

210    possess acquaint/occupy

211    urgest thou do you present, bring forward    oft often

212    cause reason

214    No had had none    provoke incite

216    humours whims, moods

217    bloody…life i.e., the body

218    winking i.e., subtle signal

219    understand a law interpret it as a mandate

220    dangerous threatening    perchance perhaps

221    upon humour because of a whim    advised respect careful deliberation

222    hand signature

223    account judgment

226    means to do ways of doing, instruments for

227    by at hand

228    marked physically blemished/taken note of

229    Quoted noted, specified    signed marked distinctively

231    aspect face/appearance

233    liable suitable

234    faintly half-heartedly/tentatively    broke spoke

236    conscience i.e., matter of moral dilemma

239    darkly obscurely

241    As as though to    express specific

242    had would have

243    wrought created

245    parley negotiate

247    rude violent/unkind

250    state authority, sovereignty    braved challenged, defied

252    body…land refers to England as a body, as well as to the king’s own body (the popular metaphor of monarch as microcosm of state)

253    confine territory/limit/prison

254    tumult disturbance, insurrection/confused and violent emotion

259    maiden unblemished/virginal (a similarity continued in the idea of hymenal/murderous    blood)

262    motion suggestion/impulse

263    form appearance

264    rude exteriorly outwardly harsh-looking

268    Throw cast (as if water on the fire of their    rage)

269    tame submissive

272    imaginary imaginative/nonexistent    eyes of blood passionate, angry eyes/bloodshot eyes

274    closet private room

276    conjure entreat, ask earnestly

Act 4 Scene 3

4.3 Location: England, a prison

4    semblance appearance    quite totally

5    venture risk

7    shifts stratagems (possibly puns on the sense of “changes of clothing”)

8    die…stay i.e., risk death by escaping than stay and face certain death

11    him i.e., Lewis the dauphin    Saint Edmundsbury Bury St. Edmunds, Suffolk

12    safety best safeguard

13    gentle courteous/noble

16    private confidential talk

17    general universal, all-embracing

20    or ere before    we i.e., the English lords and Lew is

21    distempered vexed, discontented

22    straight straightaway

23    dispossessed himself caused himself to lose possession, i.e., lost our support

24    line supply a lining for, i.e., fortify    bestainèd marked with stains    cloak cover for his deeds

25    attend the foot i.e., serve one

29    griefs grievances, complaints    reason speak, debate (the Bastard shifts the sense to “good sense, rationality”)

32    impatience anger    privilege freedom/advantage

33    ’Tis…else refers to the proverbial saying “anger punishes itself”

37    as as if

38    lay it open reveal the deed openly

39    he i.e., murder

41    Sir Richard i.e., the Bastard    beheld…think i.e., ever encountered or imagined (anything like this)

43    think wonder

44    That    …see what you see in front of you/that your eyes are functioning correctly object sight (of Arthur’s body)

46    crest heraldic device in the upper portion of a coat of arms (sense has shifted from “pinnacle”)

47    arms coat of arms

49    wall-eyed pale-eyed/squinting

50    remorse pity

51    excused pardoned    in i.e., in comparison to

52    sole unique, unrivaled

54    times the future

56    Exampled compared with the precedent of    heinous infamous, wicked

58    graceless ungodly/coarse    heavy oppressive/clumsy

61    light foresight, indication

63    practice plot

66    breathless dead/inexpressible

67    incense perfumed smoke/breath

69    infected affected, stirred

71    set added

72    worship honor

73    religiously solemnly/devoutly    confirm strengthen, support

77    Avaunt be gone

79    rob the law i.e., by taking the law into my own hands and killing you myself

80    bright i.e., unused    up away

81    murderer’s skin animal leather was the usual material used for sword scabbards

85    tempt test    danger damage/peril    defence legal defense/self-defense in a fight

86    marking paying sole attention to

88    brave challenge, defy

92    prove me so i.e., by making me kill you

93    Yet so far    Whose tongue soe’er whoever’s tongue

97    by aside    gall injure

100    spleen temper/spirit

101    betime at once

102    toasting-iron i.e., sword (contemptuous)

105    Second support/act as deputy to

110    date duration

112    rheum watery matter/tears

113    traded practiced

116    savours smells

119    inquire us out seek us

126    black traditionally the color of the devil

127    Prince Lucifer the rebel archangel who fell from heaven to hell, i.e., Satan, the devil

131    but nothing but

132    want’st lack    cord rope (to hang yourself)

134    rush reed

135    wouldst should you/if you wish to

138    stifle suffocate, drown

139    grievously strongly

142    embounded enclosed    clay i.e., Arthur’s flesh

143    want lack

146    amazed confused

148    take…up i.e., lift up Arthur’s body (playing on the sense of “cause the English nation to take up arms”)

152    scamble scramble, struggle, make shift    part tear apart

153    unowed interest portion not owned by a universally recognized king (plays on the financial senses of the words: the nobles do not owe the king allegiance, imagined as monetary interest to be fought over)

154    for on behalf of bare-picked…majesty sovereign authority that has been almost stripped bare of dignity and grandeur by being fought over like dogs with a bone

155    doggèd fierce/cruel/doglike    crest hackles/heraldic device on a coat of arms

157    powers armies    from away from    discontents discontented persons

158    line i.e., united purpose    confusion disaster/chaos/destruction

160    wrested pomp majesty seized by force

161    he is he    cincture belt

162    Hold out weather, endure

164    brief in hand will soon be underway/must be dealt with urgently

Act 5 Scene 1

5.1 Location: England, the court of King John

2    circle…glory i.e., my stately crown

4    as holding of in tenure, leasehold from (i.e., John must recognize papal authority once more)

8    inflamed consumed by fire

9    counties shires/counts, i.e., noblemen

11    love of soul deepest love

12    stranger foreign

13    inundation flood    mistempered humour anger, ill-temper/bodily imbalance

14    Rests remains    only alone    qualified calmed

16    present instant, taking immediate effect    ministered administered, given

17    overthrow bodily collapse (with political connotations)

19    usage treatment

20    convertite convert/penitent

22    blust’ring turbulent, stormy

28    give off give up, hand over

29    constraint compulsion

34    hear listen to, take notice of

37    doubtful fearful/untrustworthy

45    droop look downcast

48    motion movement

49    stirring as active    the time i.e., current events

50    outface defy    brow countenance

51    bragging boastful/bullying    inferior eyes i.e., the king’s subjects

52    borrow…from model their actions on

55    god of war i.e., the Roman god Mars

56    become grace/come to    field battlefield

60    forage overrun (an area)/ pillage

62    nigh near

64    happy fortunate, opportune

67    inglorious shameful

68    upon…land standing on our own soil/because land is being paced by foreign soldiers

69    fair-play honorable, lacking cunning

70    Insinuation suggestions, attempts to gain favor    base dishonorable, cowardly

72    cockered pampered    silken effeminate/luxurious/clothed in silk    wanton spoiled child    brave challenge

73    flesh initiate (in warfare)/plunge in (as one would a weapon into flesh)

74    colours battle flags    idly foolishly/frivolously

75    check resistance

78    purpose intention, plan

79    ordering management

81    prouder superior/more arrogant

Act 5 Scene 2

5.2 Location: England, the French camp

3    precedent original (copy)

4    fair just/neatly written    order agreement

6    took the sacrament received communion (a way of confirming the sacredness of vows)

7    faiths pledges

9    albeit although

12    sore of time wound of the present

13    contemned despised, contemptible

14    canker ulcer/corruption

16    metal i.e., sword

18    rescue and defence rescue of England from John/defense of England against the French

19    Cries out upon appeals to/rejects

21    physic cure

22    deal but proceed in any way other than

23    confusèd disastrous, disorderly

27    step after march behind, support    stranger foreigner

30    spot place/blemish, moral stain

31    grace honor, support

32    unacquainted unfamiliar

33    remove move, depart

34    Neptune Roman god of the sea    clippeth embrace

35    bear carry

36    grapple bind, attach    pagan…league i.e., the English and French might unite against a common non-Christian enemy

39    spend…unneighbourly waste it in such an unneighborly manner

40    temper disposition

41    affections emotions, loyalties

42    earthquake i.e., tumult

44    compulsion necessity (of opposing John)    brave respect noble regard (for your country)

45    dew i.e., tears

48    ordinary commonplace, everyday

52    vaulty arched roof

53    Figured adorned

55    heave bear

56    Commend commit, entrust    those baby eyes i.e., babies

59    blood liveliness

62    nobles may play on the sense of “gold coins”

63    knit join    sinews muscles, i.e., strength

64    even…spake i.e., in this heaven supports us/I see already that the promise of financial reward will secure your support (alternatively, some editors speculate that the reference is to a trumpet signaling Pandulph’s arrival)    angel gold coin/heavenly being

65    apace quickly

71    come in become reconciled, returned

73    see bishopric/seat of a bishop in his church

74    wind up furl

76    fostered…hand brought up by hand

78    show appearance

79    back go back

80    propertied treated as an object

81    secondary at control second in command, deputy

89    right justice/a rightful claim

90    Acquainted me with introduced me to, made me aware of    interest valid claim

98    penny…borne expense has Rome sustained

100    underprop support

101    charge expense

102    liable subject

105    ‘Vive le roi’ “Long live the king” (French; also a phrase in playing    cards)    banked besieged (within banks of fortifications)/captured, confined/skirted around (“bank” may also be a cardplaying term, perhaps meaning “to secure as a winning” or “a card-player’s stake”)

107    match game, contest (may play on the sense of “marriage” given Lewis’s union with Blanche) crown royal crown/coin, i.e., bet at cards

108    set series of games (won at cards)

113    ample complete, great

114    drew gathered    head army

115    culled selected

116    outlook overcome/outstare

118    lusty vigorous

119    According to in accordance with

120    have audience be heard

122    dealt for him proceeded on his behalf

123    scope extent

124    warrant authority    limited designated, permitted

125    wilful-opposite stubbornly hostile

126    temporize negotiate

131    reason with good reason

132    apish apelike, foolish    unmannerly inappropriate, impolite (puns on “unmanly”—i.e., cowardly/not like a human)

133    harnessed armored    masque courtly entertainment involving dancing and elaborate costumes    unadvisèd ill-considered

134    unheard unheard of, extraordinary (plays on the literal sense as King John is not present, though he responds through the Bastard; some editors emend to “unhaired”—i.e., boyishly beardless)

136    whip i.e., drive    pigmy very small

139    take the hatch leap over the lower half of the door, i.e., retreat hastily

141    litter animal straw    planks floors

142    pawns goods pledged in exchange for a loan of money

143    hug i.e., curl up

144    vaults cellars/tombs    thrill tremble

145    crow cockerel, the French national symbol

150    eyrie nest/brood

151    souse swoop down on

152    revolts rebels

153    Neroes the Roman emperor Nero was supposed to have torn open his mother’s womb after killing her

156    Amazons race of warrior women    tripping moving quickly and lightly

157    gauntlets armored gloves

160    brave challenge    turn thy face i.e., retreat

161    outscold outdo us in scolding/have more quarrelsome women than we

163    brabbler brawler/quarrelsome faultfinder

166    attend listen

172    ready braced prepared, with the skin tightened

175    welkin sky

177    halting hesitating

178    sport amusement

179    forehead countenance

180    bare-ribbed skeletal    office duty, task

183    find discover/suffer, experience

Act 5 Scene 3

5.3 Location: England, the battlefield    Alarums battle calls

8    Swinstead actually Swineshead, Lincolnshire

9    supply reinforcements

11    Goodwin Sands dangerous sandbanks off the coast of Kent

12    Richard i.e., the Bastard

13    coldly unenthusiastically    retire themselves retreat

16    litter bed for the transport of the sick or wounded

Act 5 Scene 4

1    stored well supplied

2    Up once again i.e., onward, back to battle

3    miscarry fail

4    misbegotten wrongfully conceived

5    In…spite despite everything

6    sore grievously

7    revolts rebels

11    Fly flee    bought and sold betrayed

12    Unthread withdraw (like thread from a needle)    eye needle’s eye

16    He i.e., Lewis, the French dauphin

24    quantity small amount

26    Resolveth dissolves, melts    his figure its    shape

28    use practice/benefit

30    hence from now on/in the next world

32    forsworn perjured

35    smokes grows misty/moves like smoke

38    fine penalty    rated assessed/rebuked

39    fine ending/penalty

42    respect factor

45    lieu exchange, payment    whereof of which

46    rumour tumult, noise

47    remnant remainder

50    beshrew curse

51    favour appearance/face/benevolence    form appearance/outcome

53    untread retrace

54    bated diminished

55    rankness swelling, excess (plays on the sense of “vileness”)

56    bounds limits, boundaries

61    Right clearly    New flight i.e., toward King John

62    happy fortunate    old right i.e., loyalty to King John

Act 5 Scene 5

5.5 Location: England, the French camp    train retinue

1    loath reluctant

2    welkin sky

3    measure travel (over)

4    faint retire weak retreat    bravely splendidly    came we off we left the field of combat

5    needless superfluous, unnecessary

7    tott’ring waving/tattered (from the battle)

12    are…off have once again withdrawn their allegiance

15    shrewd harsh

19    stumbling i.e., causing the men to stumble

21    quarter watch

23    adventure fortune/hazard

Act 5 Scene 6

5.6 Location: England, not far from Swinstead Abbey    severally separately

3    Of the part on the side

8    perfect accurate

9    upon all hazards whatever the risks

14    come…of am descended from (via one of my parents)

15    Unkind remembrance! Unnatural memory! (Hubert addresses his own memory;    unkind may play on the sense of “lacking proper kinship”)

17    accent utterance/way of speaking    breaking coming

18    scape escape, elude

19    sans    compliment without ceremony    abroad at large, out there

21    find you out find you

22    Brief be brief

25    very wound most painful part, worst

28    broke out rushed out, left

30    to for    sudden time unexpected events, emergency

31    at leisure later, without urgency

32    taste act as taster (i.e., person who ate some of the king’s food to see whether it was poisoned)

34    bowels intestines

35    Yet still    peradventure perhaps, by chance

38    Prince Henry John’s son, the future Henry III, who ruled 1216–72

42    bear…power endure more than we are able to

43    power army

44    Passing passing over    flats sandbanks

45    Lincoln Washes sandbanks in Lincolnshire

46    hardly barely/with difficulty

47    Away before lead on, go ahead

48    doubt fear    or ere before

Act 5 Scene 7

5.7 Location: England, the garden of Swinstead Abbey

2    touched tainted/endangered    corruptibly in a manner causing decay    pure clear, lucid

4    idle nonsensical

9    fell cruel/fierce

10    orchard garden

11    rage rave

14    vanity absurdity

15    not feel themselves be unaware/become unaware of physical pain

17    invisible invisibly

19    legions multitudes/armies

20    hold stronghold (i.e., the mind)

21    Confound destroy, defeat/confuse

22    cygnet young swan, i.e., Prince Henry, the dying John’s youthful son    swan the swan was thought to sing only once, just before it died

27    indigest shapeless mass/confused situation

28    rude undefined, rough, disordered

29    elbow-room i.e., enough space

33    scribbled form indistinctly drawn shape/hasty sketch

37    fare food (plays on the sense of the verb—i.e., “to do”)    forsook rejected, abandoned

39    maw throat/stomach

41    north north wind

44    cold comfort comforting coolness/no comfort    strait severe/stingy (“straight” in Folio)

45    ingrateful ungrateful

46    virtue power/remedy

52    motion urge

53    spleen eagerness

54    set close (after death)

55    tackle rigging and sails

56    shrouds ship’s ropes (plays on the sense of “burial sheet”)

58    string heartstring/rope    stay support/anchor

60    clod lump of earth

61    module model, image    confounded destroyed

62    preparing hitherward on his way here/preparing to come here

63    heaven he probably originally “God he,” altered because of 1606 Parliamentary “Act to restrain the Abuses of Players,” which sought to put an end to blasphemous language on the stage

65    upon i.e., to gain (tactical)    remove move, change the position of

67    flood rushing water/tide

68    dead deadly/grave

69    But just    thus i.e., dead

70    Even so in the same way

71    stay support

75    wait on escort

76    still always

77    right spheres proper orbits

82    Straight at once

88    respect self-respect

89    presently immediately

90    rather sooner

91    sinewèd strengthened

93    carriages gun carriages (i.e., supports for artillery)

95    disposing management

97    meet fitting    post hasten

98    consummate conclude

100    princes nobles

101    wait upon attend, serve in

105    happily with good fortune

106    lineal state i.e., rightfully inherited kingship

108    bequeath give

110    like tender same offer

111    rest remain    spot blot

114    but ambiguous here since it can mean both “only” and “not merely”    needful woe necessary mourning

115    beforehand in credit, had more than enough (financial term)

118    But except

120    three corners i.e., all other parts

121    shock repel with force rue grieve

122    rest remain

THE LIFE AND DEATH OF KING RICHARD THE SECOND

How do we measure the worth of our rulers? By the justice of their claim to power or the quality of their actions at the helm of state? King Richard II has wasted public funds and is under the influence of self-serving flatterers. He has arranged the murder of his uncle, Thomas of Woodstock, a plain-speaking elder statesman who has resisted Richard’s misrule. Yet he is the rightful king, anointed by God. In the central scene of Shakespeare’s play, the king is forced to participate in a ceremony in which he formally removes himself from the throne. Deposition was a matter so sensitive that this scene was censored out of the early printed editions of the play, so resonant that the Earl of Essex and his fellow conspirators commissioned Shakespeare’s acting company to put on a special performance of Richard II on the eve of their rebellion against Queen Elizabeth. Their intention must have been to use the theater as a way of preparing the people of London for their challenge to the monarch.

After the failure of their march on the palace, one of Essex’s men, Sir Gilly Meyrick, was sentenced to death for, among other things, commissioning this performance. Shakespeare’s company managed to persuade the Star Chamber that they had only undertaken the performance for the sake of an extra fee and that they had no involvement in the real-life plot. They escaped with a reprimand. Though Shakespeare’s sometime patron the Earl of Southampton marched with Essex, it would be foolhardy to infer the dramatist’s own loyalties from this incident. To judge from the choices he made in dramatizing his historical source materials, he seems to have been more interested in the human story of Richard’s fall than the politics of rebellion.

It is likely that the Essex faction commissioned the special performance not so much for its actual content—we cannot be sure that the deposition was actually staged at this time in the play’s life—as for the broad association between the rise of Henry Bullingbrook and the career of the charismatic earl. Essex’s men were probably remembering a book originally dedicated to their master, Sir John Hayward’s The First Part of the Life and Reign of King Henry IV. Published in 1599, it had caused much controversy as a result of its detailed treatment of Richard’s removal from the throne. The play must, nevertheless, have been very attractive to Essex and his followers, not only because it seemed to give good reasons for taking action against an ineffective, vacillating monarch, but also because it appeared to lament the decline of chivalric England. One of Essex’s chief strategies during his rise to prominence at court in the 1590s was to portray himself as a hero from a nobler age that had gone. He invoked the code of “honor” and made himself synonymous with such displays as the Accession Day tilts, in which courtiers would joust like knights of old.

The beginning of the play, so redolent of the medieval “rites of knighthood,” would have been very much to Essex’s taste. Mowbray and Bullingbrook throw down their gages and prepare for single combat with sword and lance. They are concerned above all with “spotless reputation”: “Mine honour is my life; both grow in one,” says Mowbray, “Take honour from me, and my life is done.” Honor is seen as the hallmark of the “trueborn Englishman.” The feuding dukes regard themselves as true patriots, appealing to “English earth” and lamenting that in exile they must forgo their “native English” language. Richard’s native language, by contrast, was French (which was also the nationality of his wife) and his court is implicitly seen as a place of French affectation. King Richard stands accused of wasting the patrimony of the English nation. He has been fleeced by his flatterers and costly Irish wars have required him to “lease out” the land. Given that Queen Elizabeth’s exchequer was also heavily overdrawn as a result of the Irish problem, Shakespeare was probably being diplomatic as well as practical in not attempting to stage Richard’s military campaign in Ireland, which is described at great length in his source, Holinshed’s Chronicles. The focus remains firmly on the English land, imagined metaphorically as a sea-walled garden “full of weeds, her fairest flowers choked up.” Within two years of the play appearing in print, John of Gaunt’s “this sceptred isle” speech was ripped from its context and included in an anthology called England’s Parnassus as an exemplar of patriotic writing. It appears there as an unfinished sentence, lacking the sting in the tail: “this England…Is now leased out…That England, that was wont to conquer others, / Hath made a shameful conquest of itself.” True patriotism, the original context reveals, involves fierce criticism of bad government as well as rhetorical praise of the land.

But if the bad governor is sacredly endowed as God’s anointed deputy on earth, then is it permissible to remove him, even in the name of England and “true chivalry”? If the king is synonymous with the law, then to turn the law against him may seem a contradiction in terms, as the Bishop of Carlisle recognizes: “What subject can give sentence on his king?” The monarch was traditionally imagined to have two bodies: as body politic, the king was incarnation of the nation; as body natural, he was a mortal like anyone else. This was what made possible the paradoxical words “The king is dead, long live the king.” When Richard stages his own unthroning, he inverts the words of the coronation service, shatters a mirror, and gives up one of his two bodies.

What is left for the private self when the public persona is stripped away? Without “honor,” according to the contentious dukes, “Men are but gilded loam or painted clay.” But what would a king be without his crown, without a name, and a title? Once Richard has broken the mirror, he turns from his image to his inner self. Whereas monarchy depends on exterior show, inwardness is explored through the medium of words. Richard is by far the most inward-looking of Shakespeare’s kings. By focusing on the individual consciousness, considering Richard’s fate in psychological terms, Shakespeare neatly sidesteps the alarmingly destabilizing political consequences of the moment when a subject gives sentence on a king. “I had forgot myself. Am I not king?” In the very act of asking this question, Richard reveals that the answer is “no”: since a king has two bodies, he has the right to speak in the royal “we,” but here Richard is no more than an “I.” In speaking of himself he veers between “I,” “we,” and “he” (“What must the king do now? Must he submit?”). Inconsistent pronouns are the surest sign of the instability of his self.

Soliloquy and rhetorical elaboration are forms of self-dramatization. Richard sustains himself through a bravura linguistic performance: “Let’s talk of graves…” He makes himself the object of his subjective musings: “Must he lose the name of king?” He watches himself losing his grip on his role: “Ay, no; no, ay, for I must nothing be.” And he becomes more and more aware that to be is also to act, that we are all role-players: “Thus play I in one prison many people, / And none contented” (“one prison” is the Folio text’s interesting variant on the original Quarto’s “one person”—“prison” nicely suggests both Richard’s confined location and the traditional idea of the body as prison of the soul, which is then released to eternity in death). He leaves the stage in the manner of “a well-graced actor.”

Though the Folio text is titled The Life and Death of King Richard the Second, the earlier Quarto edition was called The Tragedy of King Richard the Second. The structure of the drama answers to a very traditional idea of tragedy as a story in which a powerful figure falls from earthly prosperity and in so doing rises to greatness of soul. Pity for Richard is the prevailing tragic emotion in the closing scenes. “It seems to be the design of the poet to raise Richard to esteem in his fall, and consequently to interest the reader in his favour,” wrote Dr. Johnson. Note “the reader” there, not the spectator—this is a play that has been more admired on page than stage. Johnson continues: “He gives him only passive fortitude, the virtue of a confessor, rather than of a king. In his prosperity we saw him imperious and oppressive; but in his distress he is wise, patient, and pious.”

By concentrating on the inner life of Richard, Shakespeare diminishes some of the major elements of the play that was his structural model, Christopher Marlowe’s Edward II. The flatterers Bushy, Bagot, and Green are given very small roles and the exclusion of the queen from the king’s affections is not fully developed. In Marlowe’s dramatization of the fall of a weak king and the rise of his rival, the minions—first Gaveston and then Spencer—are central not only to the politics but also to the sexuality of the play. They are explicitly the king’s lovers. The abused queen becomes a lead player in the rebellion against the king. Shakespeare’s Richard by contrast seems too self-absorbed to be powerfully driven by sexual desire. Samuel Taylor Coleridge spoke intriguingly of the character’s feminine friendism, but that is not quite a euphemism for homoerotic feeling.

As the man who rises when Richard falls, Bullingbrook’s story remains unfinished. But Shakespeare anticipates the civil war that will wrack his reign. The role of Northumberland, who cooperates with Bullingbrook but will eventually turn against him, is greatly expanded from its seed in Holinshed’s Chronicles. Richard delivers a prophecy that “The time shall not be many hours of age / More than it is ere foul sin, gathering head, / Shall break into corruption” and predicts rightly that Northumberland will seek to pluck King Henry IV from his usurped throne. As he wrote these words, Shakespeare must have been thinking of how he was going to continue the story in another play.

KEY FACTS

PLOT: In the presence of King Richard, Henry Bullingbrook accuses Thomas Mowbray of embezzling crown funds and of plotting the death of his uncle, the Duke of Gloucester. They will not be reconciled and are about to fight, but Richard stops the combat before it can begin. Bullingbrook is exiled for ten years (later reduced to six); Mowbray is exiled for life. John of Gaunt (Duke of Lancaster, uncle to the king and father to Bullingbrook) dies after accusing Richard of improper government. Richard orders the seizure of Gaunt’s property, thus denying Bullingbrook his inheritance. He then departs for Ireland, appointing his other uncle York to govern in his absence. Northumberland reveals that Bullingbrook has returned to England with an army. Bullingbrook persuades his uncle York that he has returned for his rightful inheritance, not to start a rebellion against the crown. Richard returns from Ireland to discover that his Welsh troops have deserted him, that York has allied himself with Bullingbrook, and that the common people are rising against him. Bullingbrook and his supporters meet with Richard. Bullingbrook promises to surrender his arms if his banishment is repealed and his inheritance restored. Richard agrees to his demands. Richard’s cousin Aumerle is accused of murdering the Duke of Gloucester. Bullingbrook arrests everyone involved in the allegations. Richard agrees to abdicate. Bullingbrook announces his coronation. A plot is hatched to restore Richard to the throne. York discovers that his son Aumerle is involved in a plot to kill Bullingbrook. Aumerle confesses to Bullingbrook, and is pardoned. Richard is killed while imprisoned in Pomfret Castle. Bullingbrook receives news of his supporters’ efforts to defeat his detractors. Exton presents Richard’s body to Bullingbrook, only to be rewarded with banishment. Bullingbrook promises to undertake a pilgrimage to expiate his sins.

MAJOR PARTS: (with percentage of lines/number of speeches/scenes on stage) King Richard II (27%/98/9), Henry Bullingbrook (15%/90/8), Duke of York (10%/54/8), John of Gaunt (7%/28/4), Northumberland (5%/38/6), Mowbray (5%/13/2), Queen (4%/25/4), Aumerle (3%/38/7), Duchess of York (3%/28/2), Bishop of Carlisle (2%/6/2), Duchess of Gloucester (2%/4/1), Gardener (2%/6/1).

LINGUISTIC MEDIUM: 100% verse, with high proportion of rhyme.

DATE: 1595–96. Registered for publication August 1597. Written after Samuel Daniel’s First Four Books of the Civil Wars (registered October 1594, apparently published 1595); perhaps postdates renowned Accession Day tilts of November 1595. Described in February 1601 as “old and long out of use.”

SOURCES: primary source is the account of the last two years of Richard’s reign in Raphael Holinshed’s Chronicles (1587 edition), supplemented—especially for various details in the final act—by Samuel Daniel’s First Four Books of the Civil Wars between the two Houses of Lancaster and York (1594–95). Christopher Marlowe’s Edward II (1592?) was a major dramatic influence, both structurally (the fall of a weak king and the rise of his rival) and thematically (flatterers, Irish wars, a marginalized queen). Some scholars also detect the influence of the anonymous chronicle play of Woodstock: as well as verbal parallels, there are resemblances between Shakespeare’s John of Gaunt and this play’s Thomas of Woodstock, Duke of Gloucester, but recent scholarship suggests that Shakespeare’s play precedes Woodstock, not vice versa. The garden scene is apparently without source, though the comparison between a disordered state and an overgrown garden was traditional.

TEXT: First printed in Quarto in 1597, with text deriving from Shakespeare’s working manuscript or a transcription of it; the deposition scene was, however, omitted for reasons of censorship. The First Quarto was reprinted several times (Second and Third Quartos, 1598; Fourth Quarto, 1608; Fifth Quarto, 1615). These later Quartos correct a few obvious errors in the First Quarto, but introduce many misprints. The Second Quarto was one of the first printed play texts to include Shakespeare’s name on the title page. The Fourth Quarto printed the deposition sequence for the first time, but in a defective text. The Folio text seems to have been printed from the Third Quarto (though a few editors argue that it was based on either the Fifth Quarto or a defective copy of the Third Quarto with the missing final leaves made up from the Fifth Quarto), but the Folio editor also consulted a manuscript closely related to theatrical production, perhaps the company “playbook.” The Folio restored many First Quarto readings that had been corrupted in later Quartos, printed a good text of the deposition scene for the first time, added and systematized stage directions, made some alterations to staging for the sake of clarification, introduced act divisions, replaced “God” with “heaven” in accordance with the 1606 Act to restrain Abuses, made a few verbal alterations, and omitted about fifty lines (these mostly seem to be deliberate theatrical cuts, though a clutch of individual lines might have been dropped inadvertently). Most modern editions are based on the First Quarto, with the deposition scene, stage directions, and many individual readings taken from the Folio. Our text resists this sort of conflation and is based on Folio, with the correction of manifest printers’ errors. The Quarto-only passages are given at the end of the play.

GENEALOGY: See this page.

THE LIFE AND DEATH OF KING RICHARD THE SECOND

KING RICHARD II of England

QUEEN, Richard’s wife

JOHN OF GAUNT, Duke of Lancaster, Richard’s uncle

HENRY BULLINGBROOK, Duke of Hereford, John of Gaunt’s son, later King Henry IV

DUKE OF YORK, Edmund of Langley, Richard’s uncle

DUCHESS OF YORK, his wife

DUKE OF AUMERLE, their son and Earl of Rutland

DUCHESS OF GLOUCESTER, widow of Thomas of Woodstock, Duke of Gloucester (Richard’s uncle)

THOMAS MOWBRAY, Duke of Norfolk

EARL OF SALISBURY

DUKE OF SURREY

LORD BERKELEY

BISHOP OF CARLISLE

ABBOT OF WESTMINSTER

SIR STEPHEN SCROOP

BUSHY

BAGOT

GREEN

EARL OF NORTHUMBERLAND

HARRY PERCY, Northumberland’s son

LORD ROSS

LORD WILLOUGHBY

LORD FITZWATERS

SIR PIERS OF EXTON

LORD

LORD MARSHAL

TWO HERALDS

CAPTAIN of the Welsh army

TWO LADIES attending the Queen

GARDENER

SERVANT to the Gardener

SERVANT to York

KEEPER of the prison at Pomfret Castle

TWO SERVANTS to Exton

GROOM of Richard’s stable

Various Soldiers, Attendants, Lords

Act 1 Scene 11.1

running scene 1

Enter King Richard, John of Gaunt, with other Nobles and Attendants

KING RICHARDOld John of Gaunt, time-honoured Lancaster,

Hast thou[2] according to thy oath and band

Brought hither Henry Hereford[3] thy bold son,

Here to make good the boist’rous[4] late appeal,

5

Which then our[5] leisure would not let us hear,

Against the Duke of Norfolk, Thomas Mowbray?

GAUNTI have, my liege.[7]

KING RICHARDTell me, moreover, hast thou sounded[8] him,

If he appeal the duke on ancient[9] malice,

10

Or worthily, as a good subject should,

On some known ground[11] of treachery in him?

GAUNTAs near as I could sift[12] him on that argument,

On some apparent[13] danger seen in him

Aimed at your highness, no inveterate[14] malice.

15

KING RICHARDThen call them to our presence.

[Exit an Attendant]

Face to face,

And frowning brow to brow, ourselves will hear

Th’accuser and the accusèd freely speak;

High-stomached[18] are they both, and full of ire,

In rage deaf as the sea, hasty as fire.

Enter Bullingbrook and Mowbray

20

BULLINGBROOKMany years of happy days befall

My gracious[21] sovereign, my most loving liege!

MOWBRAYEach day still[22] better other’s happiness

Until the heavens, envying earth’s good hap,[23]

Add an immortal title[24] to your crown!

25

KING RICHARDWe thank you both. Yet one but[25] flatters us,

As well appeareth[26] by the cause you come,

Namely, to appeal[27] each other of high treason.

Cousin of Hereford, what dost thou object[28]

Against the Duke of Norfolk, Thomas Mowbray?

30

BULLINGBROOKFirst, heaven be the record[30] to my speech!

In the devotion of a subject’s love,

Tend’ring[32] the precious safety of my prince,

And free from other misbegotten[33] hate,

Come I appellant[34] to this princely presence.

35

Now, Thomas Mowbray, do I turn to thee,

And mark[36] my greeting well, for what I speak

My body shall make good upon this earth,

Or my divine soul answer[38] it in heaven.

Thou art a traitor and a miscreant;[39]

40

Too good[40] to be so and too bad to live,

Since the more fair and crystal[41] is the sky,

The uglier seem the clouds that in it fly.

Once more, the more to aggravate[43] the note,

With a foul traitor’s name stuff I thy throat;

45

And wish — so please my sovereign — ere[45] I move,

What my tongue speaks my right[46] drawn sword may prove.

MOWBRAYLet not my cold[47] words here accuse my zeal:

’Tis not the trial[48] of a woman’s war,

The bitter clamour of two eager[49] tongues,

50

Can arbitrate[50] this cause betwixt us twain.

The blood[51] is hot that must be cooled for this.

Yet can I not of such tame patience boast

As to be hushed and nought at all to say.

First, the fair reverence of[54] your highness curbs me

55

From giving reins and spurs to my free speech,

Which else[56] would post until it had returned

These terms of treason doubly down his throat.

Setting[58] aside his high blood’s royalty,

And let[59] him be no kinsman to my liege,

60

I do defy[60] him, and I spit at him,

Call him a slanderous coward and a villain,

Which to maintain I would allow him odds,[62]

And meet[63] him, were I tied to run afoot

Even to the frozen ridges of the Alps,

65

Or any other ground inhabitable[65]

Wherever Englishman durst[66] set his foot.

Meantime, let this[67] defend my loyalty:

By all my hopes most falsely doth he lie.

BULLINGBROOK Pale trembling coward, there I throw my gage,[69] Throws down his gage

70

Disclaiming here the kindred of a king,

And lay aside my high blood’s royalty,

Which fear, not reverence, makes thee to except.[72]

If guilty dread hath left thee so much strength

As to take up mine honour’s pawn,[74] then stoop.

75

By that and all the rites of knighthood else,

Will I make good[76] against thee, arm to arm,

What I have spoken, or thou canst devise.[77]

MOWBRAYI take it up, and by that sword I swear Takes up gage

Which gently[79] laid my knighthood on my shoulder,

80

I’ll answer thee in[80] any fair degree,

Or chivalrous design of knightly trial:

And when I mount, alive may I not light,[82]

If I be traitor or unjustly[83] fight!

KING RICHARDWhat doth our cousin lay[84] to Mowbray’s charge?

85

It must be great that can inherit us[85]

So much as of a thought of ill in him.

BULLINGBROOK Look[87] what I said: my life shall prove it true,

That Mowbray hath received eight thousand nobles[88]

In name of lendings[89] for your highness’ soldiers,

90

The which he hath detained for lewd[90] employments,

Like a false traitor and injurious[91] villain.

Besides I say, and will in battle prove,

Or[93] here or elsewhere to the furthest verge

That ever was surveyed by English eye,

95

That all the treasons for these eighteen years

Complotted[96] and contrivèd in this land

Fetched[97] from false Mowbray their first head and spring.

Further I say, and further will maintain

Upon his bad life to make all this good,

100

That he did plot the Duke of Gloucester’s[100] death,

Suggest[101] his soon-believing adversaries,

And consequently, like a traitor coward,

Sluiced out[103] his innocent soul through streams of blood:

Which blood, like sacrificing[104] Abel’s, cries

105

Even from the tongueless caverns of the earth

To me for justice and rough chastisement.[106]

And by the glorious worth of my descent,

This arm shall do it, or this life be spent.

KING RICHARDHow high a pitch[109] his resolution soars!

110

Thomas of Norfolk, what sayest thou to this?

MOWBRAYO, let my sovereign turn away his face

And bid his ears a little while be deaf,

Till I have told this slander of[113] his blood,

How God and good men hate so foul a liar.

115

KING RICHARDMowbray, impartial are our eyes and ears.

Were he my brother, nay, our kingdom’s heir,

As he is but my father’s brother’s son,

Now, by my sceptre’s awe,[118] I make a vow,

Such neighbour[119] nearness to our sacred blood

120

Should nothing privilege him, nor partialize[120]

The unstooping firmness of my upright soul.

He is our subject, Mowbray, so art thou.

Free speech and fearless I to thee allow.

MOWBRAYThen, Bullingbrook, as low as to thy heart,

125

Through the false passage of thy throat, thou liest.

Three parts of that receipt[126] I had for Calais

Disbursed I duly to his highness’ soldiers;

The other part reserved I by consent,

For that my sovereign liege was in my debt

130

Upon[130] remainder of a dear account,

Since last I went to France to fetch[131] his queen.

Now swallow down that lie. For Gloucester’s death,

I slew him not; but to mine own disgrace

Neglected my sworn duty in that case.

135

For you, my noble lord of Lancaster,[135]

The honourable father to my foe,

Once I did lay an ambush for your life —

A trespass[138] that doth vex my grievèd soul.

But ere I last received the sacrament

140

I did confess it, and exactly[140] begged

Your grace’s pardon, and I hope I had it.

This is my fault. As for the rest appealed,[142]

It issues from the rancour of a villain,

A recreant[144] and most degenerate traitor

145

Which[145] in myself I boldly will defend,

And interchangeably[146] hurl down my gage Throws down his gage

Upon this overweening[147] traitor’s foot,

To prove myself a loyal gentleman

Even in[149] the best blood chambered in his bosom.

150

In haste whereof,[150] most heartily I pray

Your highness to assign our trial day.

KING RICHARDWrath-kindled gentlemen, be ruled by me:

Let’s purge[153] this choler without letting blood.

This we prescribe, though no physician:

155

Deep malice makes too deep incision.

Forget, forgive, conclude[156] and be agreed:

Our doctors[157] say this is no time to bleed.

Good uncle, let this end where it begun:

We’ll calm the Duke of Norfolk, you your son.

160

GAUNTTo be a make-peace shall become[160] my age:

Throw down, my son, the Duke of Norfolk’s gage.

KING RICHARDAnd, Norfolk, throw down his.

GAUNTWhen, Harry, when?

Obedience bids I should not bid again.

KING RICHARDNorfolk, throw down, we bid; there is no boot.[164]

165

MOWBRAYMyself I throw, dread[165] sovereign, at thy foot. Kneels

My life thou shalt command, but not my shame:

The one my duty owes, but my fair name,[167]

Despite of death that lives upon my grave,

To dark dishonour’s use thou shalt not have.

170

I am disgraced, impeached[170] and baffled here,

Pierced to the soul with slander’s venomed spear,

The which no balm[172] can cure but his heart-blood

Which breathed this poison.

KING RICHARDRage must be withstood.

175

Give me his gage. Lions make leopards[175] tame.

MOWBRAYYea, but not change his spots.[176] Take but my shame,

And I resign my gage. My dear dear lord,

The purest treasure mortal times afford

Is spotless reputation: that away,[179]

180

Men are but gilded[180] loam or painted clay.

A jewel in a ten-times-barred-up[181] chest

Is a bold spirit in a loyal breast.

Mine honour is my life; both grow in one:[183]

Take honour from me, and my life is done.

185

Then, dear my liege, mine honour let me try.[185]

In that I live and for that will I die.

KING RICHARDCousin, throw down your gage. Do you begin.

BULLINGBROOKO, heaven defend my soul from such foul sin!

Shall I seem crest-fall’n[189] in my father’s sight?

190

Or with pale beggar-fear impeach my height[190]

Before this out-dared[191] dastard? Ere my tongue

Shall wound mine honour with such feeble wrong,

Or sound so base a parle,[193] my teeth shall tear

The slavish motive[194] of recanting fear,

195

And spit it bleeding in his[195] high disgrace,

Where shame doth harbour,[196] even in Mowbray’s face.

Exit Gaunt

KING RICHARDWe were not born to sue,[197] but to command,

Which since we cannot do to make you friends,

Be ready, as your lives shall answer it,

200

At Coventry upon Saint Lambert’s day:[200]

There shall your swords and lances arbitrate

The swelling[202] difference of your settled hate.

Since we cannot atone[203] you, we shall see

Justice design[204] the victor’s chivalry.

205

Lord Marshal, command our officers at arms

Be ready to direct these home alarms.[206]

Exeunt

Act 1 Scene 21.2

running scene 2

Enter Gaunt and Duchess of Gloucester

GAUNTAlas, the part[1] I had in Gloucester’s blood

Doth more solicit[2] me than your exclaims,

To stir[3] against the butchers of his life.

But since correction lieth in those hands[4]

5

Which made the fault that we cannot correct,

Put we our quarrel to the will of heaven,

Who, when they see the hours ripe on earth,

Will rain hot vengeance on offenders’ heads.

DUCHESSFinds brotherhood in thee no sharper spur?

10

Hath love in thy old blood no living fire?

Edward’s[11] seven sons, whereof thyself art one,

Were as seven vials of his sacred blood,

Or seven fair branches springing from one root:

Some of those seven are dried by nature’s course,

15

Some of those branches by the Destinies[15] cut.

But Thomas, my dear lord, my life, my Gloucester,

One vial full of Edward’s sacred blood,

One flourishing branch of his most royal root,

Is cracked, and all the precious liquor[19] spilt,

20

Is hacked down, and his summer leaves all faded,

By envy’s[21] hand and murder’s bloody axe.

Ah, Gaunt, his blood was thine! That bed, that womb,

That metal,[23] that self-mould that fashioned thee

Made him a man. And though thou liv’st and breath’st,

25

Yet art thou slain in him. Thou dost consent[25]

In some large measure to thy father’s death,

In that thou see’st thy wretched brother die,

Who was the model[28] of thy father’s life.

Call it not patience, Gaunt, it is despair.

30

In suff’ring[30] thus thy brother to be slaughtered,

Thou show’st the naked[31] pathway to thy life,

Teaching stern murder how to butcher thee.

That which in mean[33] men we entitle patience

Is pale cold cowardice in noble breasts.

35

What shall I say? To safeguard thine own life,

The best way is to venge[36] my Gloucester’s death.

GAUNTHeaven’s[37] is the quarrel, for heaven’s substitute,

His deputy anointed[38] in his sight,

Hath caused his death, the which if wrongfully,

40

Let heaven revenge, for I may never lift

An angry arm against his minister.

DUCHESSWhere then, alas, may I complaint myself?[42]

GAUNTTo heaven, the widow’s champion[43] to defence.

DUCHESSWhy, then, I will. Farewell, old Gaunt.

45

Thou go’st to Coventry, there to behold

Our cousin[46] Hereford and fell Mowbray fight.

O, sit my husband’s wrongs on Hereford’s spear,

That it may enter butcher Mowbray’s breast!

Or if misfortune miss the first career,[49]

50

Be Mowbray’s sins so heavy in his bosom,

That they may break his foaming courser’s[51] back,

And throw the rider headlong in the lists,[52]

A caitiff[53] recreant to my cousin Hereford!

Farewell, old Gaunt: thy sometimes[54] brother’s wife

55

With her companion grief must end her life.

GAUNTSister, farewell. I must to Coventry.

As much good stay with thee as go with me!

DUCHESSYet one word more: grief boundeth[58] where it falls,

Not with the empty hollowness, but weight.

60

I take my leave before I have begun,

For sorrow ends not when it seemeth done.

Commend me to my brother,[62] Edmund York.

Lo,[63] this is all. Nay, yet depart not so:

Though this be all, do not so quickly go.

65

I shall remember more. Bid him — O, what? —

With all good speed at Plashy[66] visit me.

Alack, and what shall good old York there see

But empty lodgings and unfurnished walls,

Unpeopled offices,[69] untrodden stones?

70

And what hear there for welcome but my groans?

Therefore commend me, let him not come there

To seek out sorrow that dwells everywhere.

Desolate, desolate, will I hence and die:

The last leave of thee takes my weeping eye.

Exeunt

Act 1 Scene 31.3

running scene 3

Enter [the Lord] Marshal and Aumerle

LORD MARSHALMy Lord Aumerle, is Harry Hereford armed?

AUMERLEYea, at all points,[2] and longs to enter in.

LORD MARSHALThe Duke of Norfolk, sprightfully[3] and bold,

Stays[4] but the summons of the appellant’s trumpet.

5

AUMERLEWhy, then, the champions[5] are prepared, and stay

For nothing but his majesty’s approach.

Flourish. Enter King, Gaunt, Bushy, Bagot, Green and others. [When they are set,] then

Mowbray in armour and [a] Herald

KING RICHARDMarshal, demand[7] of yonder champion

The cause of his arrival here in arms.

Ask him his name and orderly[9] proceed

10

To swear him in the justice of his cause.

LORD MARSHALIn God’s name and the king’s, say who thou art

And why thou com’st thus knightly clad in arms,

Against what man thou com’st, and what’s thy quarrel.[13]

Speak truly, on thy knighthood and thine oath,

15

As so defend thee heaven and thy valour!

MOWBRAYMy name is Thomas Mowbray, Duke of Norfolk,

Who hither comes engagèd by my oath —

Which heaven defend[18] a knight should violate! —

Both to defend my loyalty and truth

20

To God, my king and his succeeding[20] issue,

Against the Duke of Hereford that appeals me,

And, by the grace of God and this mine arm,

To prove him, in defending of myself,

A traitor to my God, my king, and me.

25

And as I truly fight, defend me heaven!

Tucket. Enter Hereford [Bullingbrook] and Herald

KING RICHARDMarshal, ask yonder knight in arms,

Both who he is and why he cometh hither

Thus plated[28] in habiliments of war,

And formally, according to our law,

30

Depose him[30] in the justice of his cause.

LORD MARSHALWhat is thy name? And wherefore[31] com’st thou hither, To Bullingbrook

Before King Richard in his royal lists?

Against whom com’st thou? And what’s thy quarrel?

Speak like a true knight, so defend thee heaven!

35

BULLINGBROOKHarry of Hereford, Lancaster and Derby

Am I, who ready here do stand in arms

To prove, by heaven’s grace and my body’s valour,

In lists, on Thomas Mowbray, Duke of Norfolk,

That he’s a traitor, foul and dangerous,

40

To God of heaven, King Richard and to me.

And as I truly fight, defend me heaven!

LORD MARSHALOn pain of death, no person be so bold

Or daring-hardy[43] as to touch the lists,

Except the marshal and such officers

45

Appointed to direct these fair[45] designs.

BULLINGBROOKLord Marshal, let me kiss my sovereign’s hand,

And bow my knee before his majesty.

For Mowbray and myself are like two men

That vow a long and weary pilgrimage,

50

Then let us take a ceremonious leave

And loving farewell of our several[51] friends.

LORD MARSHALThe appellant in all duty greets your highness,

And craves to kiss your hand and take his leave.

KING RICHARD We will descend and fold him in our arms.

Comes down and embraces Bullingbrook

55

Cousin of Hereford, as[55] thy cause is just,

So be thy fortune in this royal fight![56]

Farewell, my blood,[57] which if today thou shed,

Lament we may, but not revenge thee dead.

BULLINGBROOKO, let no noble eye profane[59] a tear

60

For me, if I be gored with Mowbray’s spear.

As confident as is the falcon’s flight

Against a bird, do I with Mowbray fight.—

My loving lord, I take my leave of you.— To Richard

Of you, my noble cousin, Lord Aumerle,

65

Not sick, although I have to do with death,

But lusty,[66] young, and cheerly drawing breath.

Lo, as at English feasts, so I regreet[67]

The daintiest[68] last, to make the end most sweet.—

O thou, the earthy author of my blood, To Gaunt

70

Whose youthful spirit, in me regenerate,[70]

Doth with a twofold[71] rigour lift me up

To reach at victory above my head,

Add proof[73] unto mine armour with thy prayers,

And with thy blessings steel my lance’s point,

75

That it may enter Mowbray’s waxen[75] coat,

And furbish[76] new the name of John a Gaunt,

Even in the lusty ’haviour[77] of his son.

GAUNTHeaven in thy good cause make thee prosp’rous!

Be swift like lightning in the execution,

80

And let thy blows, doubly redoublèd,

Fall like amazing[81] thunder on the casque

Of thy amazed pernicious[82] enemy,

Rouse up thy youthful blood, be valiant and live.

BULLINGBROOKMine innocence and Saint George[84] to thrive!

85

MOWBRAYHowever heaven or fortune cast my lot,

There lives or dies, true to King Richard’s throne,

A loyal, just and upright gentleman.

Never did captive with a freer heart

Cast off his chains of bondage and embrace

90

His golden uncontrolled enfranchisement[90]

More than my dancing soul doth celebrate

This feast of battle with mine adversary.

Most mighty liege, and my companion peers,

Take from my mouth the wish of happy years.

95

As gentle[95] and as jocund as to jest

Go I to fight. Truth hath a quiet breast.

KING RICHARDFarewell, my lord. Securely[97] I espy

Virtue with valour couchèd[98] in thine eye.

Order[99] the trial, marshal, and begin.

100

LORD MARSHALHarry of Hereford, Lancaster and Derby,

Receive thy lance. And heaven defend thy right! Attendant gives a lance to Bullingbrook

BULLINGBROOKStrong as a tower, in hope I cry ‘Amen’.

LORD MARSHALGo bear this lance to Thomas, Duke of Norfolk. Attendant gives a lance to Mowbray

FIRST HERALDHarry of Hereford, Lancaster and Derby,

105

Stands here for God, his sovereign and himself,

On pain to be found false and recreant,[106]

To prove the Duke of Norfolk, Thomas Mowbray,

A traitor to his God, his king and him,[108]

And dares him to set forwards to the fight.

110

SECOND HERALDHere standeth Thomas Mowbray, Duke of Norfolk,

On pain to be found false and recreant,

Both to defend himself and to approve[112]

Henry of Hereford, Lancaster and Derby,

To God, his sovereign and to him[114] disloyal,

115

Courageously and with a free desire

Attending[116] but the signal to begin.

A charge sounded

LORD MARSHALSound trumpets, and set forward, combatants.

Stay,[118] the king hath thrown his warder down.

KING RICHARDLet them lay by[119] their helmets and their spears,

120

And both return back to their chairs again.

Withdraw with us, and let the trumpets sound

While we return[122] these dukes what we decree.

A long flourish

Draw near, and list[123] what with our council we have done.

For that[124] our kingdom’s earth should not be soiled

125

With that dear[125] blood which it hath fosterèd,

And for[126] our eyes do hate the dire aspect

Of civil wounds ploughed up with neighbours’ swords,

Which so roused up with boist’rous[128] untuned drums,

With harsh resounding trumpets’ dreadful bray,

130

And grating shock[130] of wrathful iron arms,

Might from our quiet confines fright fair peace

And make us wade even in our kindred’s blood:

Therefore, we banish you our territories.

You, cousin Hereford, upon pain of death,

135

Till twice five summers have enriched our fields

Shall not regreet[136] our fair dominions,

But tread the stranger[137] paths of banishment.

BULLINGBROOKYour will be done. This must my comfort be:

That sun that warms you here shall shine on me,

140

And those his golden beams to you here lent

Shall point on me and gild my banishment.

KING RICHARDNorfolk, for thee remains a heavier doom,

Which I with some unwillingness pronounce:

The sly[144] slow hours shall not determinate

145

The dateless limit[145] of thy dear exile.

The hopeless word of ‘never to return’

Breathe I against thee, upon pain of life.[147]

MOWBRAYA heavy sentence, my most sovereign liege,

And all unlooked for[149] from your highness’ mouth.

150

A dearer merit,[150] not so deep a maim

As to be cast forth in the common[151] air,

Have I deservèd at your highness’ hands.

The language I have learned these forty years,

My native English, now I must forgo,

155

And now my tongue’s use is to me no more

Than an unstringèd viol or a harp,

Or like a cunning[157] instrument cased up,

Or, being open,[158] put into his hands

That knows no touch[159] to tune the harmony.

160

Within my mouth you have enjailed my tongue,

Doubly portcullised[161] with my teeth and lips,

And dull unfeeling barren ignorance

Is made my jailer to attend on me.

I am too old to fawn upon a nurse,

165

Too far in years to be a pupil now.

What is thy sentence then but speechless death,

Which robs my tongue from breathing native breath?

KING RICHARDIt boots[168] thee not to be compassionate.

After our sentence, plaining[169] comes too late.

170

MOWBRAYThen thus I turn me from my country’s light

To dwell in solemn[171] shades of endless night. Starts to go

KING RICHARDReturn again, and take an oath with thee.

Lay on our royal sword your banished hands;

Swear by the duty that you owe to heaven —

175

Our part therein[175] we banish with yourselves —

To keep the oath that we administer:

You never shall, so help you truth and heaven,

Embrace each other’s love in banishment,

Nor ever look upon each other’s face,

180

Nor ever write, regreet,[180] or reconcile

This louring[181] tempest of your home-bred hate,

Nor ever by advisèd[182] purpose meet

To plot, contrive, or complot[183] any ill

Gainst us, our state, our subjects, or our land.

185

BULLINGBROOK I swear.

MOWBRAYAnd I, to keep all this.

BULLINGBROOK Norfolk, so far as[187] to mine enemy:

By this time, had the king permitted us,

One of our souls had wandered in the air,

190

Banished this frail sepulchre[190] of our flesh,

As now our flesh is banished from this land.

Confess thy treasons ere thou fly[192] this realm:

Since thou hast far to go, bear not along

The clogging[194] burden of a guilty soul.

195

MOWBRAYNo, Bullingbrook. If ever I were traitor,

My name be blotted from the book of life,

And I from heaven banished as from hence!

But what thou art, heaven, thou, and I do know,

And all too soon, I fear, the king shall rue.[199]

200

Farewell, my liege, now no way can I stray:[200]

Save[201] back to England, all the world’s my way.

Exit

KING RICHARDUncle, even in the glasses[202] of thine eyes To Gaunt

I see thy grievèd heart. Thy sad aspect[203]

Hath from the number of his banished years

205

Plucked four away.— Six frozen winters spent, To Bullingbrook

Return with welcome home from banishment.

BULLINGBROOKHow long a time lies in one little word!

Four lagging winters and four wanton[208] springs

End in a word: such is the breath of kings.

210

GAUNTI thank my liege, that in regard of me

He shortens four years of my son’s exile.

But little vantage[212] shall I reap thereby,

For ere the six years that he hath to spend

Can change their moons and bring their times[214] about

215

My oil-dried[215] lamp and time-bewasted light

Shall be extinct[216] with age and endless night.

My inch of taper[217] will be burnt and done,

And blindfold[218] death not let me see my son.

KING RICHARDWhy uncle, thou hast many years to live.

220

GAUNTBut not a minute, king, that thou canst give.

Shorten my days thou canst with sudden sorrow,

And pluck nights from me, but not lend a morrow.

Thou canst help time to furrow me with age,

But stop no wrinkle in his pilgrimage.[224]

225

Thy word is current[225] with him for my death,

But dead,[226] thy kingdom cannot buy my breath.

KING RICHARDThy son is banished upon good advice,[227]

Whereto thy tongue a party-verdict[228] gave.

Why at our justice seem’st thou then to lour?[229]

230

GAUNTThings sweet to taste prove in digestion sour.

You urged me as a judge, but I had rather

You would have bid me argue like a father.

Alas, I looked when[233] some of you should say

I was too strict to make[234] mine own away.

235

But you gave leave[235] to my unwilling tongue,

Against my will to do myself this wrong.

KING RICHARDCousin, farewell, and, uncle, bid him so.

Six years we banish him, and he shall go. Flourish.

Exeunt [Richard and Attendants]

AUMERLECousin, farewell. What presence[239] must not know, To Bullingbrook

240

From where you do remain let paper[240] show.

LORD MARSHAL My lord, no leave take I, for I will ride To Bullingbrook

As far as land will let me, by your side.

GAUNT O, to what purpose dost thou hoard thy words To Bullingbrook

That thou return’st no greeting to thy friends?

245

BULLINGBROOKI have too few[245] to take my leave of you,

When the tongue’s office[246] should be prodigal

To breathe[247] th’abundant dolour of the heart.

GAUNTThy grief[248] is but thy absence for a time.

BULLINGBROOK Joy absent, grief is present for that time.

250

GAUNTWhat is six winters? They are quickly gone.

BULLINGBROOK To men in joy. But grief makes one hour ten.

GAUNTCall it a travel[252] that thou tak’st for pleasure.

BULLINGBROOK My heart will sigh when I miscall[253] it so,

Which finds it an enforcèd pilgrimage.

255

GAUNTThe sullen[255] passage of thy weary steps

Esteem as foil[256] wherein thou art to set

The precious jewel of thy home return.

BULLINGBROOK O, who can hold a fire in his hand

By thinking on the frosty Caucasus?[259]

260

Or cloy[260] the hungry edge of appetite

By bare imagination of a feast?

Or wallow naked in December snow

By thinking on fantastic[263] summer’s heat?

O, no, the apprehension[264] of the good

265

Gives but the greater feeling to the worse.

Fell[266] sorrow’s tooth doth never rankle more

Than when it bites, but lanceth[267] not the sore.

GAUNTCome, come, my son, I’ll bring[268] thee on thy way.

Had I thy youth and cause, I would not stay.

270

BULLINGBROOKThen England’s ground, farewell. Sweet soil, adieu.[270]

My mother, and my nurse, which bears me yet!

Where’er I wander, boast of this I can,

Though banished, yet a trueborn Englishman.

[Exeunt]

Act 1 Scene 41.4

running scene 4

Enter King, Aumerle, Green and Bagot

KING RICHARDWe did observe.[1]— Cousin Aumerle,

How far brought you high[2] Hereford on his way?

AUMERLEI brought high Hereford, if you call him so,

But to the next[4] highway, and there I left him.

5

KING RICHARDAnd say, what store[5] of parting tears were shed?

AUMERLEFaith, none for me,[6] except the north-east wind,

Which then blew bitterly against our face,

Awaked the sleepy rheum,[8] and so by chance

Did grace our hollow[9] parting with a tear.

10

KING RICHARDWhat said our cousin when you parted with him?

AUMERLE‘Farewell’. And, for[11] my heart disdainèd that my tongue

Should so profane the word, that taught me craft[12]

To counterfeit[13] oppression of such grief

That word seemed buried in my sorrow’s grave.

15

Marry,[15] would the word ‘farewell’ have lengthened hours

And added years to his short banishment,

He should have had a volume of farewells,

But since it would not, he had none of me.

KING RICHARDHe is our cousin,[19] cousin, but ’tis doubt,

20

When time shall call him home from banishment,

Whether our kinsman come to see his friends.[21]

Ourself and Bushy, Bagot here, and Green

Observed his courtship to the common people.

How he did seem to dive into their hearts

25

With humble and familiar courtesy,

What reverence[26] he did throw away on slaves,

Wooing poor craftsmen with the craft of smiles

And patient underbearing[28] of his fortune,

As ’twere to banish[29] their affects with him.

30

Off goes his bonnet[30] to an oyster-wench.

A brace of draymen[31] bid God speed him well

And had the tribute of his supple[32] knee,

With ‘Thanks, my countrymen, my loving friends’,

As were our England in reversion[34] his,

35

And he our[35] subjects’ next degree in hope.

GREENWell, he is gone, and with him go these thoughts.

Now for the rebels which stand out[37] in Ireland.

Expedient manage[38] must be made, my liege,

Ere further leisure[39] yield them further means

40

For their advantage and your highness’ loss.

KING RICHARDWe will ourself in person to this war,

And, for our coffers with too great a court

And liberal largesse[43] are grown somewhat light,

We are enforced to farm[44] our royal realm,

45

The revenue whereof shall furnish us

For our affairs in hand. If that come short,[46]

Our substitutes[47] at home shall have blank charters,

Whereto, when they shall know what men are rich,

They shall subscribe them[49] for large sums of gold

50

And send them[50] after to supply our wants,

For we will make for Ireland presently.[51]

Enter Bushy

Bushy, what news?

BUSHYOld John of Gaunt is very sick, my lord,

Suddenly taken, and hath sent post haste

55

To entreat your majesty to visit him.

KING RICHARDWhere lies he?

BUSHYAt Ely House.[57]

KING RICHARDNow put it, heaven, in his physician’s mind

To help him to his grave immediately!

60

The lining[60] of his coffers shall make coats

To deck our soldiers for these Irish wars.

Come, gentlemen, let’s all go visit him.

Pray heaven we may make haste, and come too late!

[Exeunt]

Act 2 Scene 12.1

running scene 5

Enter Gaunt, sick, with York [and Attendants]

GAUNTWill the king come, that I may breathe my last

In wholesome counsel to his unstaid[2] youth?

YORK Vex not yourself, nor strive not with your breath,

For all in vain comes counsel to his ear.

5

GAUNTO, but they say the tongues of dying men

Enforce attention like deep harmony.

Where words are scarce, they are seldom spent in vain,

For they breathe truth that breathe their words in pain.

He that no more must say is listened[9] more

10

Than they whom youth and ease have taught to gloze.[10]

More are men’s ends marked[11] than their lives before.

The setting sun and music is the close,[12]

As the last[13] taste of sweets is sweetest last,

Writ in remembrance more than things long past.

15

Though Richard my life’s counsel would not hear,

My death’s sad[16] tale may yet undeaf his ear.

YORK No, it is stopped with other flatt’ring sounds,

As praises, of his state:[18] then there are found

Lascivious metres,[19] to whose venom sound

20

The open ear of youth doth always listen,

Report of fashions in proud[21] Italy,

Whose manners still our tardy apish[22] nation

Limps after in base imitation.

Where doth the world thrust forth a vanity[24] —

25

So[25] it be new, there’s no respect how vile —

That is not quickly buzzed[26] into his ears?

That[27] all too late comes counsel to be heard,

Where will[28] doth mutiny with wit’s regard.

Direct not him whose way himself will choose.

30

’Tis breath thou lack’st, and that breath wilt thou lose.

GAUNTMethinks I am a prophet new inspired[31]

And thus expiring[32] do foretell of him.

His rash fierce blaze of riot[33] cannot last,

For violent fires soon burn out themselves.

35

Small[35] showers last long, but sudden storms are short.

He tires betimes[36] that spurs too fast betimes.

With eager feeding food doth choke the feeder.

Light vanity,[38] insatiate cormorant,

Consuming means[39] soon preys upon itself.

40

This royal throne of kings, this sceptred[40] isle,

This earth of majesty,[41] this seat of Mars,

This other Eden, demi-paradise,

This fortress built by nature for herself

Against infection and the hand of war,

45

This happy breed[45] of men, this little world,

This precious stone set in the silver sea,

Which serves it in the office[47] of a wall,

Or as a moat defensive to a house,

Against the envy of less happier lands,

50

This blessèd plot,[50] this earth, this realm, this England,

This nurse, this teeming[51] womb of royal kings,

Feared by their breed[52] and famous for their birth,

Renownèd for their deeds as far from home,

For Christian service and true chivalry,

55

As is the sepulchre[55] in stubborn Jewry

Of the world’s[56] ransom, blessèd Mary’s son:

This land of such dear souls, this dear dear land,

Dear for her reputation through the world,

Is now leased out — I die pronouncing it —

60

Like to a tenement[60] or pelting farm.

England, bound in[61] with the triumphant sea,

Whose rocky shore beats back the envious[62] siege

Of watery Neptune,[63] is now bound in with shame,

With inky[64] blots and rotten parchment bonds.

65

That England, that was wont[65] to conquer others,

Hath made a shameful conquest of itself.

Ah, would the scandal vanish with my life,

How happy then were my ensuing death!

Enter King, Queen, Aumerle, Bushy, Green, Bagot, Ross and Willoughby

YORKThe king is come. Deal mildly with his youth,

70

For young hot colts being raged do rage the more.

QUEENHow fares our noble uncle Lancaster?

KING RICHARDWhat comfort, man? How is’t with agèd Gaunt?

GAUNTO, how that name befits my composition![73]

Old Gaunt indeed, and gaunt in being old.

75

Within me grief hath kept a tedious fast,

And who abstains from meat[76] that is not gaunt?

For sleeping England long time have I watched.[77]

Watching breeds leanness, leanness is all gaunt.

The pleasure that some fathers feed upon,

80

Is my strict fast — I mean, my children’s looks,

And therein fasting, hast thou made me gaunt.

Gaunt am I for the grave, gaunt as a grave,

Whose hollow womb inherits[83] nought but bones.

KING RICHARDCan sick men play so nicely[84] with their names?

85

GAUNTNo, misery makes sport to mock[85] itself.

Since thou dost seek to kill[86] my name in me,

I mock my name, great king, to flatter thee.

KING RICHARDShould dying men flatter those that live?

GAUNTNo, no, men living flatter those that die.

90

KING RICHARDThou, now a-dying, say’st thou flatter’st me.

GAUNTO no, thou diest, though I the sicker be.

KING RICHARDI am in health, I breathe, I see thee ill.

GAUNTNow he that made me knows I see thee ill:[93]

Ill in myself to see, and in thee seeing ill.

95

Thy death-bed is no lesser than the land

Wherein thou liest in reputation sick.

And thou, too careless patient as thou art,

Commit’st thy anointed body to the cure

Of those physicians that first wounded thee.

100

A thousand flatterers sit within thy crown,

Whose compass[101] is no bigger than thy head.

And yet, encagèd in so small a verge,[102]

The waste[103] is no whit lesser than thy land.

O, had thy grandsire[104] with a prophet’s eye

105

Seen how his son’s son should destroy his sons,[105]

From forth[106] thy reach he would have laid thy shame,

Deposing[107] thee before thou wert possessed,

Which art possessed now to depose thyself.

Why, cousin,[109] were thou regent of the world,

110

It were a shame to let his land by lease.

But for[111] thy world enjoying but this land,

Is it not more than shame to shame it so?

Landlord of England art thou and not king.

Thy state[114] of law is bondslave to the law, and—

115

KING RICHARDAnd thou, a lunatic lean-witted fool,

Presuming on[116] an ague’s privilege,

Dar’st with thy frozen[117] admonition

Make pale our cheek, chasing the royal blood

With fury from his native residence?

120

Now, by my seat’s[120] right royal majesty,

Wert thou not brother to great Edward’s son,

This tongue that runs so roundly[122] in thy head

Should run thy head from thy unreverent[123] shoulders.

GAUNTO, spare me not, my brother’s — Edward’s — son,

125

For that[125] I was his father Edward’s son.

That blood already, like the pelican,[126]

Thou hast tapped out[127] and drunkenly caroused.

My brother Gloucester, plain well-meaning soul —

Whom fair[129] befall in heaven ’mongst happy souls! —

130

May be a precedent and witness good

That thou respect’st not spilling Edward’s blood.

Join with the present sickness that I have,

And thy unkindness[133] be like crookèd age,

To crop at once a too long withered flower.

135

Live in thy shame, but die not shame with thee:

These words hereafter thy tormentors be!

Convey me to my bed, then to my grave:

Love they to live that love and honour have. Carried off by Attendants

Exit

KING RICHARDAnd let them die that age and sullens[139] have,

140

For both hast thou, and both become[140] the grave.

YORKI do beseech your majesty, impute his words

To wayward sickliness and age in him.

He loves you, on my life, and holds you dear

As Harry[143] Duke of Hereford, were he here.

145

KING RICHARDRight, you say true. As Hereford’s love, so his;

As theirs, so mine, and all be as it is.

Enter Northumberland

NORTHUMBERLANDMy liege, old Gaunt commends him to your majesty.

KING RICHARDWhat says he?

NORTHUMBERLANDNay, nothing. All is said.

150

His tongue is now a stringless instrument.

Words, life and all, old Lancaster hath spent.[151]

YORKBe York the next that must be bankrupt so!

Though death be poor, it ends a mortal woe.

KING RICHARDThe ripest fruit first falls, and so doth he.

155

His time is spent, our pilgrimage[155] must be.

So much for that. Now for our Irish wars:

We must supplant[157] those rough rug-headed kerns,

Which live like venom where no venom else

But only they have privilege to live.

160

And for these great affairs do ask some charge,[160]

Towards our assistance we do seize[161] to us

The plate,[162] coin, revenues and movables,

Whereof our uncle Gaunt did stand possessed.

YORKHow long shall I be patient? O, how long

165

Shall tender duty make me suffer wrong?

Not Gloucester’s death, nor Hereford’s banishment,

Nor Gaunt’s rebukes,[167] nor England’s private wrongs,

Nor the prevention of poor Bullingbrook[168]

About his marriage, nor my own disgrace

170

Have ever made me sour my patient cheek,

Or bend one wrinkle[171] on my sovereign’s face.

I am the last of noble Edward’s sons,

Of whom thy father, Prince of Wales, was first.

In war was never lion raged more fierce,

175

In peace was never gentle Iamb more mild,

Than was that young and princely gentleman.

His face thou hast, for even so looked he,

Accomplished[178] with the number of thy hours.

But when he frowned, it was against the French

180

And not against his friends. His noble hand

Did win what he did spend and spent not that

Which his triumphant father’s hand had won.

His hands were guilty of no kindred’s blood,

But bloody with the enemies of his kin.

185

O Richard, York is too far gone with grief,

Or else he never would compare between.

KING RICHARDWhy, uncle, what’s the matter?

YORKO my liege,

Pardon me, if you please; if not, I, pleased

190

Not to be pardoned, am content withal.[190]

Seek you to seize[191] and grip into your hands

The royalties[192] and rights of banished Hereford?

Is not Gaunt dead? And doth not Hereford live?

Was not Gaunt just? And is not Harry true?[194]

195

Did not the one deserve to have an heir?

Is not his heir a well-deserving son?

Take Hereford’s rights away, and take from time

His[198] charters and his customary rights:

Let not tomorrow then ensue[199] today.

200

Be not thyself. For how art thou a king

But by fair sequence and succession?

Now, afore God — God forbid I say true! —

If you do wrongfully seize Hereford’s right,

Call[204] in his letters patents that he hath

205

By[205] his attorneys-general to sue

His livery, and deny his offered homage,[206]

You pluck[207] a thousand dangers on your head,

You lose a thousand well-disposèd hearts

And prick[209] my tender patience to those thoughts

210

Which honour and allegiance cannot think.

KING RICHARDThink what you will, we seize into our hands

His plate, his goods, his money and his lands.

YORKI’ll not be by[213] the while. My liege, farewell:

What will ensue hereof, there’s none can tell.

215

But by bad courses[215] may be understood

That their events[216] can never fall out good.

Exit

KING RICHARDGo, Bushy, to the Earl of Wiltshire straight.

Bid him repair[218] to us to Ely House

To see[219] this business.— Tomorrow next

220

We will for Ireland, and ’tis time, I trow.[220]

And we create, in absence of ourself,

Our uncle York Lord Governor of England,

For he is just and always loved us well.—

Come on, our queen. Tomorrow must we part.

225

Be merry, for our time of stay is short.

Flourish. [Exeunt all] except Northumberland, Willoughby and Ross

NORTHUMBERLANDWell, lords, the Duke of Lancaster is dead.

ROSSAnd living too, for now his son is duke.

WILLOUGHBYBarely in title, not in revenue.

NORTHUMBERLANDRichly in both, if justice had her right.

230

ROSSMy heart is great,[230] but it must break with silence,

Ere’t be disburdened with a liberal[231] tongue.

NORTHUMBERLANDNay, speak thy mind, and let him ne’er speak more

That speaks thy words again to do thee harm!

WILLOUGHBYTends[234] that thou wouldst speak to th’Duke of Hereford?

235

If it be so, out with it boldly, man.

Quick is mine ear to hear of good towards him.

ROSSNo good at all that I can do for him,

Unless you call it good to pity him,

Bereft[239] and gelded of his patrimony.

240

NORTHUMBERLANDNow, afore heaven, ’tis shame such wrongs are borne

In him, a royal prince, and many more

Of noble blood in this declining land.

The king is not himself, but basely led

By flatterers. And what they will inform,

245

Merely in hate, gainst any of us all,

That will the king severely prosecute[246]

Gainst us, our lives, our children, and our heirs.

ROSSThe commons hath he piled[248] with grievous taxes,

And quite lost their hearts. The nobles hath he fined

250

For ancient[250] quarrels, and quite lost their hearts.

WILLOUGHBYAnd daily new exactions[251] are devised,

As blanks,[252] benevolences, and I wot not what.

But what, o’God’s name, doth become of this?[253]

NORTHUMBERLANDWars hath not wasted it, for warred he hath not,

255

But basely[255] yielded upon compromise

That which his ancestors achieved with blows.

More hath he spent in peace than they in wars.

ROSSThe Earl of Wiltshire hath the realm in farm.[258]

WILLOUGHBYThe king’s grown bankrupt, like a broken[259] man.

260

NORTHUMBERLANDReproach and dissolution hangeth over him.

ROSSHe hath not money for these Irish wars,

His burdenous taxations notwithstanding,

But by the robbing of the banished duke.

NORTHUMBERLANDHis noble kinsman. Most degenerate king!

265

But, lords, we hear this fearful tempest sing,

Yet seek no shelter to avoid the storm.

We see the wind sit sore[267] upon our sails,

And yet we strike[268] not, but securely perish.

ROSSWe see the very wreck that we must suffer,

270

And unavoided is the danger now,

For suffering[271] so the causes of our wreck.

NORTHUMBERLANDNot so: even through the hollow eyes of death

I spy life peering, but I dare not say

How near the tidings[274] of our comfort is.

275

WILLOUGHBYNay, let us share thy thoughts, as thou dost ours.

ROSSBe confident to speak, Northumberland.

We three are but thyself, and speaking so,

Thy words are but as thoughts: therefore be bold.

NORTHUMBERLANDThen thus: I have from Port le Blanc, a bay

280

In Brittany, received intelligence

That Harry Duke of Hereford, Rainold[281] Lord Cobham,

That late broke[282] from the Duke of Exeter,

His[283] brother, Archbishop late of Canterbury,

Sir Thomas Erpingham, Sir John Rainston,

285

Sir John Norbery, Sir Robert Waterton and Francis Quoint,

All these well furnished[286] by the Duke of Brittany

With eight tall[287] ships, three thousand men of war,

Are making hither with all due expedience[288]

And shortly mean to touch our northern shore.

290

Perhaps they had ere this,[290] but that they stay

The first departing of the king for Ireland.

If then we shall shake off our slavish yoke,

Imp out[293] our drooping country’s broken wing,

Redeem from broking pawn[294] the blemished crown,

295

Wipe off the dust that hides our sceptre’s gilt[295]

And make high majesty look like itself,

Away with me in post[297] to Ravenspurgh.

But if you faint,[298] as fearing to do so,

Stay and be secret, and myself will go.

300

ROSSTo horse, to horse! Urge doubts to them that fear.

WILLOUGHBYHold[301] out my horse, and I will first be there.

Exeunt

Act 2 Scene 22.2

running scene 6

Enter Queen, Bushy and Bagot

BUSHYMadam, your majesty is too much sad.

You promised, when you parted with the king,

To lay aside life-harming heaviness[3]

And entertain[4] a cheerful disposition.

5

QUEENTo please the king I did. To please myself

I cannot do it. Yet I know no cause

Why I should welcome such a guest as grief,

Save bidding farewell to so sweet a guest

As my sweet Richard. Yet again, methinks,

10

Some unborn sorrow, ripe in fortune’s womb,

Is coming towards me, and my inward soul

With nothing trembles. At something it grieves,

More than with parting from my lord the king.

BUSHYEach substance of a grief hath twenty shadows,[14]

15

Which shows like grief itself, but is not so.

For sorrow’s eye, glazèd[16] with blinding tears,

Divides one thing entire to[17] many objects,

Like perspectives,[18] which rightly gazed upon

Show nothing but confusion: eyed awry[19]

20

Distinguish form.[20] So your sweet majesty,

Looking awry upon your lord’s departure,

Find shapes of grief, more than himself[22] to wail,

Which, looked on as it is, is naught but shadows

Of what it is not. Then, thrice-gracious queen,

25

More[25] than your lord’s departure weep not. More’s not seen;

Or if it be, ’tis with false sorrow’s eye,

Which for[27] things true weeps things imaginary.

QUEENIt may be so, but yet my inward soul

Persuades me it is otherwise. Howe’er it be,

30

I cannot but be sad, so heavy[30] sad

As though on[31] thinking on no thought I think,

Makes me with heavy nothing faint and shrink.

BUSHY’Tis nothing but conceit,[33] my gracious lady.

QUEEN’Tis nothing less.[34] Conceit is still derived

35

From some forefather grief. Mine is not so,

For nothing hath begot[36] my something grief,

Or something hath the nothing that I grieve.[37]

’Tis in reversion[38] that I do possess —

But what it is, that is not yet known — what

40

I cannot name. ’Tis nameless woe, I wot.[40]

Enter Green

GREENHeaven save your majesty! And well met, gentlemen.

I hope the king is not yet shipped for Ireland.

QUEENWhy hop’st thou so? ’Tis better hope he is,

For his designs crave haste, his haste good hope.

45

Then wherefore[45] dost thou hope he is not shipped?

GREENThat he, our hope, might have retired[46] his power,

And driven into despair an enemy’s hope,

Who strongly[48] hath set footing in this land.

The banished Bullingbrook repeals himself,[49]

50

And with uplifted arms[50] is safe arrived

At Ravenspurgh.

QUEENNow God in heaven forbid!

GREENO, madam, ’tis too true. And that is worse,

The Lord Northumberland, his son young Henry Percy,

55

The Lords of Ross, Beaumond and Willoughby,

With all their powerful friends, are fled to him.

BUSHYWhy have you not proclaimed Northumberland

And the rest of the revolted faction, traitors?

GREENWe have: whereupon the Earl of Worcester

60

Hath broke his staff,[60] resigned his stewardship,

And all the household[61] servants fled with him

To Bullingbrook.

QUEENSo, Green, thou art the midwife of my woe,

And Bullingbrook my sorrow’s dismal heir.[64]

65

Now hath my soul brought forth her prodigy,[65]

And I, a gasping new-delivered mother,

Have woe to woe, sorrow to sorrow joined.

BUSHYDespair not, madam.

QUEENWho shall hinder me?

70

I will despair, and be at enmity

With cozening[71] hope; he is a flatterer,

A parasite, a keeper-back of death,

Who gently would dissolve the bands[73] of life,

Which false hope lingers[74] in extremity.

Enter York

75

GREENHere comes the Duke of York.

QUEENWith signs of war about his agèd neck.

O, full of careful[77] business are his looks!

Uncle, for heaven’s sake, speak comfortable[78] words.

YORK Comfort’s in heaven, and we are on the earth,

80

Where nothing lives but crosses,[80] care and grief.

Your husband, he is gone to save[81] far off,

Whilst others come to make him lose at home.

Here am I left to underprop[83] his land,

Who, weak with age, cannot support myself.

85

Now comes the sick hour that his surfeit[85] made,

Now shall he try[86] his friends that flattered him.

Enter a Servant

SERVANTMy lord, your son[87] was gone before I came.

YORK He was? Why, so! Go all which way it will!

The nobles they are fled, the commons they are cold,[89]

90

And will, I fear, revolt on Hereford’s side.

Sirrah,[91] get thee to Plashy, to my sister Gloucester:

Bid her send me presently[92] a thousand pound.

Hold, take my ring.[93]

SERVANTMy lord, I had forgot to tell your lordship:

95

Today as I came by, I callèd there —

But I shall grieve you to report the rest.

YORK What is’t, knave?

SERVANTAn hour before I came, the duchess died.

YORK Heav’n[99] for his mercy! What a tide of woes

100

Come rushing on this woeful land at once!

I know not what to do. I would[101] to heaven —

So[102] my untruth had not provoked him to it —

The king had cut off my head with my brother’s.[103]

What, are there posts[104] dispatched for Ireland?

105

How shall we do[105] for money for these wars?

Come, sister — cousin, I would say — pray, pardon me.— To Queen

Go, fellow, get thee home, provide some carts To Servant

And bring away the armour that is there.—

[Exit Servant]

Gentlemen, will you muster[109] men?

110

If I know how or which way to order these affairs

Thus disorderly thrust into my hands,

Never believe me. Both are my kinsmen.

Th’one is my sovereign, whom both my oath[113]

And duty bids defend: th’other again

115

Is my kinsman, whom the king hath wronged,

Whom conscience and my kindred[116] bids to right.

Well, somewhat[117] we must do.— Come, cousin, I’ll

Dispose of[118] you.—

Gentlemen, go muster up your men,

120

And meet me presently at Berkeley[120] Castle.

I should to Plashy too,

But time will not permit. All is uneven,

And everything is left at[123] six and seven.

Exeunt [York and Queen]

BUSHYThe wind sits[124] fair for news to go to Ireland,

125

But none returns. For us to levy power[125]

Proportionable to th’enemy

Is all impossible.

GREENBesides, our nearness to the king in love

Is near the hate of those[129] love not the king.

130

BAGOT And that’s the wavering commons, for their love

Lies in their purses, and whoso empties them,

By so much fills their hearts with deadly hate.

BUSHYWherein the king stands generally[133] condemned.

BAGOT If judgement[134] lie in them, then so do we,

135

Because we have been ever near the king.

GREENWell, I will for refuge straight[136] to Bristol Castle.

The Earl of Wiltshire is already there.

BUSHYThither will I with you, for little office[138]

Will the hateful[139] commons perform for us,

140

Except like curs[140] to tear us all in pieces.

Will you go along with us? To Bagot

BAGOT No, I will to Ireland to his majesty.

Farewell. If heart’s presages[143] be not vain,

We three here part that ne’er shall meet again.

01

BUSHYThat’s as[145] York thrives to beat back Bullingbrook.

GREENAlas, poor duke! The task he undertakes

Is numb’ring sands and drinking oceans dry.

Where one on his side fights, thousands will fly.

BUSHYFarewell at once, for once, for all, and ever.

150

Well, we may meet again.

BAGOTI fear me, never.

Exeunt

Act 2 Scene 32.3

running scene 7

Enter the Duke of Hereford [Bullingbrook] and Northumberland

BULLINGBROOKHow far is it, my lord, to Berkeley now?

NORTHUMBERLANDBelieve me, noble lord,

I am a stranger here in Gloucestershire.

These high wild hills and rough uneven ways

5

Draws out our miles, and makes them wearisome.

And yet our fair discourse hath been as sugar,

Making the hard way sweet and delectable.

But I bethink me what a weary way

From Ravenspurgh to Cottshold[9] will be found

10

In[10] Ross and Willoughby, wanting your company,

Which, I protest, hath very much beguiled[11]

The tediousness and process[12] of my travel.

But theirs is sweetened with the hope to have

The present benefit that I possess;

15

And hope to joy is little less in joy

Than hope enjoyed. By this[16] the weary lords

Shall make their way seem short, as mine hath done

By sight of what I have, your noble company.

BULLINGBROOK Of much less value is my company

20

Than your good words. But who comes here?

Enter Harry Percy

NORTHUMBERLANDIt is my son, young Harry Percy,

Sent from my brother Worcester, whencesoever.[22]—

Harry, how fares your uncle?

PERCYI had thought, my lord, to have learned his health of you.

25

NORTHUMBERLANDWhy, is he not with the queen?

PERCYNo, my good lord. He hath forsook[26] the court,

Broken his staff of office and dispersed

The household of the king.

NORTHUMBERLANDWhat was his reason?

30

He was not so resolved when we last spake together.

PERCYBecause your lordship was proclaimèd traitor.

But he, my lord, is gone to Ravenspurgh

To offer service to the Duke of Hereford,

And sent me over by Berkeley to discover

35

What power the Duke of York had levied[35] there,

Then with direction to repair[36] to Ravenspurgh.

NORTHUMBERLANDHave you forgot the Duke of Hereford, boy?

PERCYNo, my good lord, for that is not forgot

Which ne’er I did remember: to my knowledge,

40

I never in my life did look on him.

NORTHUMBERLANDThen learn to know him now: this is the duke.

PERCYMy gracious lord, I tender[42] you my service,

Such as it is, being tender, raw and young,

Which elder days shall ripen and confirm

45

To more approvèd[45] service and desert.

BULLINGBROOK I thank thee, gentle[46] Percy, and be sure

I count myself in nothing else so happy

As in a soul rememb’ring my good friends.

And as my fortune[49] ripens with thy love,

50

It shall be still[50] thy true love’s recompense.

My heart this covenant makes, my hand thus seals it. Gives Percy his hand

NORTHUMBERLANDHow far is it to Berkeley? And what stir[52]

Keeps good old York there with his men of war?

PERCYThere stands the castle, by yond[54] tuft of trees,

55

Manned with three hundred men, as I have heard.

And in it are the Lords of York, Berkeley and Seymour,

None else of name and noble estimate.[57]

Enter Ross and Willoughby

NORTHUMBERLANDHere come the Lords of Ross and Willoughby,

Bloody with spurring,[59] fiery-red with haste.

60

BULLINGBROOKWelcome, my lords. I wot[60] your love pursues

A banished traitor. All my treasury

Is yet but unfelt[62] thanks, which more enriched

Shall be your love and labour’s recompense.

ROSSYour presence makes us rich, most noble lord.

65

WILLOUGHBYAnd far surmounts our labour to attain it.

BULLINGBROOK Evermore thanks[66] — th’exchequer of the poor,

Which, till my infant fortune comes to years,[67]

Stands for my bounty. But who comes here?

Enter Berkeley

NORTHUMBERLANDIt is my Lord of Berkeley, as I guess.

70

BERKELEYMy Lord of Hereford, my message is to you.

BULLINGBROOK My[71] lord, my answer is — to Lancaster,

And I am come to seek that name in England.

And I must find that title in your tongue,

Before I make reply to aught[74] you say.

75

LORD BERKELEYMistake me not, my lord, ’tis not my meaning

To raze[76] one title of your honour out.

To you, my lord, I come — what[77] lord you will—

From the most glorious[78] of this land,

The Duke of York, to know what pricks[79] you on

80

To take advantage of the absent time[80]

And fright our native[81] peace with self-born arms.

Enter York [with Attendants]

BULLINGBROOK I shall not need transport my words by you.

Here comes his grace in person.— My noble uncle! Kneels

YORK Show me thy humble heart, and not thy knee,

85

Whose duty is deceivable[85] and false.

BULLINGBROOK My gracious uncle—

YORK Tut, tut! Grace[87] me no grace, nor uncle me no uncle.

I am no traitor’s uncle; and that word ‘grace’

In an ungracious[89] mouth is but profane.

90

Why have these banished and forbidden legs

Dared once to touch a dust[91] of England’s ground?

But then more ‘why’: why have they dared to march

So many miles upon her peaceful bosom,

Frighting her pale-faced villages with war

95

And ostentation of despisèd[95] arms?

Com’st thou because th’anointed king is hence?

Why, foolish boy, the king is left behind,

And in my loyal bosom lies his power.

Were I but now the lord of such hot youth

100

As when brave Gaunt, thy father, and myself

Rescued the Black Prince,[101] that young Mars of men,

From forth the ranks of many thousand French,

O, then how quickly should this arm of mine,

Now prisoner to the palsy,[104] chastise thee

105

And minister correction to thy fault!

BULLINGBROOK My gracious uncle, let me know my fault.

On[107] what condition stands it and wherein?

YORKEven in condition of the worst degree,

In gross rebellion and detested treason.

110

Thou art a banished man, and here art come

Before th’expiration of thy time,

In braving[112] arms against thy sovereign.

BULLINGBROOK As I was banished, I was banished Hereford, Stands

But as I come, I come for[114] Lancaster.

115

And noble uncle, I beseech your grace

Look on my wrongs with an indifferent[116] eye.

You are my father, for methinks in you

I see old Gaunt alive. O then, my father,

Will you permit that I shall stand condemned

120

A wand’ring vagabond; my rights and royalties

Plucked from my arms perforce[121] and given away

To upstart unthrifts?[122] Wherefore was I born?

If that my cousin king be King of England,

It must be granted I am Duke of Lancaster.

125

You have a son, Aumerle, my noble kinsman:

Had you first died, and he been thus trod down,

He should have found his uncle Gaunt a father

To rouse[128] his wrongs and chase them to the bay.

I am denied[129] to sue my liv’ry here,

130

And yet my letters patents[130] give me leave.

My father’s goods are all distrained[131] and sold,

And these and all are all amiss[132] employed.

What would you have me do? I am a subject,

And challenge law.[134] Attorneys are denied me;

135

And therefore personally I lay my claim

To my inheritance of free descent.[136]

NORTHUMBERLANDThe noble duke hath been too much abused.

ROSSIt stands[138] your grace upon to do him right.

WILLOUGHBYBase men by his endowments[139] are made great.

140

YORKMy lords of England, let me tell you this:

I have had feeling of my cousin’s wrongs

And laboured all I could to do him right.

But in this kind[143] to come, in braving arms,

Be[144] his own carver and cut out his way,

145

To find out right with wrongs, it may not be,

And you that do abet him in this kind

Cherish rebellion and are rebels all.

NORTHUMBERLANDThe noble duke hath sworn his coming is

But for his own; and for the right of that

150

We all have strongly sworn to give him aid.

And let him ne’er see joy that breaks that oath!

YORKWell, well, I see the issue[152] of these arms.

I cannot mend it, I must needs confess,

Because my power[154] is weak and all ill left.

155

But if I could, by him that gave me life,

I would attach[156] you all and make you stoop

Unto the sovereign mercy of the king.

But since I cannot, be it known to you

I do remain as neuter.[159] So, fare you well,

160

Unless you please to enter in the castle

And there repose you for this night.

BULLINGBROOK An offer, uncle, that we will accept.

But we must win[163] your grace to go with us

To Bristol Castle, which they say is held

165

By Bushy, Bagot and their complices,

The caterpillars[166] of the commonwealth,

Which I have sworn to weed and pluck away.

YORKIt may be I will go with you: but yet I’ll pause,

For I am loath to break our country’s laws.

170

Nor friends nor foes, to me welcome you are:

Things past redress are now with me past care.

Exeunt

Act 2 Scene 42.4

running scene 8

Enter Salisbury and a [Welsh] Captain

CAPTAINMy lord of Salisbury, we have stayed[1] ten days,

And hardly[2] kept our countrymen together,

And yet we hear no tidings from the king;

Therefore we will disperse ourselves: farewell.

5

SALISBURYStay yet another day, thou trusty Welshman:

The king reposeth all his confidence in thee.

CAPTAIN’Tis thought the king is dead: we will not stay.

The bay-trees[8] in our country all are withered

And meteors[9] fright the fixèd stars of heaven;

10

The pale-faced moon looks bloody on the earth

And lean-looked[11] prophets whisper fearful change;

Rich men look sad and ruffians dance and leap,

The one[13] in fear to lose what they enjoy,

The other to enjoy by rage and war.

15

These signs forerun the death of kings.

Farewell. Our countrymen are gone and fled,

As well assured Richard their king is dead.

Exit

SALISBURYAh, Richard, with eyes of heavy mind

I see thy glory like a shooting star

20

Fall to the base earth from the firmament.[20]

Thy sun sets weeping in the lowly west,

Witnessing[22] storms to come, woe and unrest.

Thy friends are fled to wait upon[23] thy foes,

And crossly[24] to thy good all fortune goes.

Exit

Act 3 Scene 13.1

running scene 9

Enter Bullingbrook, York, Northumberland, Ross, Percy, Willoughby, with Bushy and

Green, prisoners

BULLINGBROOKBring forth these men.

Bushy and Green, I will not vex your souls —

Since presently[3] your souls must part your bodies —

With too much urging[4] your pernicious lives,

5

For ’twere no charity. Yet to wash your blood

From off my hands, here in the view of men

I will unfold some causes of[7] your deaths.

You have misled a prince, a royal king,

A happy[9] gentleman in blood and lineaments,

10

By you unhappied[10] and disfigured clean.

You have in manner[11] with your sinful hours

Made a divorce[12] betwixt his queen and him,

Broke[13] the possession of a royal bed

And stained the beauty of a fair queen’s cheeks

15

With tears drawn from her eyes with your foul wrongs.

Myself, a prince by fortune of my birth,

Near to the king in blood, and near in love

Till you did make him misinterpret me,

Have stooped my neck under your injuries,

20

And sighed my English breath in foreign clouds,[20]

Eating the bitter bread of banishment;

While you have fed upon my signories,[22]

Disparked my parks[23] and felled my forest woods,

From mine own windows torn my household coat,[24]

25

Razed out my imprese,[25] leaving me no sign,

Save men’s opinions and my living blood,

To show the world I am a gentleman.

This and much more, much more than twice all this,

Condemns you to the death.[29]— See them delivered over

30

To execution and the hand of death.

BUSHYMore welcome is the stroke of death to me

Than Bullingbrook to England.

GREENMy comfort is that heaven will take our souls

And plague injustice with the pains of hell.

35

BULLINGBROOKMy Lord Northumberland, see them dispatched.[35]—

[Exeunt Northumberland and others, with the prisoners]

Uncle, you say the queen is at your house:

For heaven’s sake, fairly let her be entreated.[37]

Tell her I send to her my kind commends;[38]

Take special care my greetings be delivered.

40

YORK A gentleman of mine I have dispatched

With letters of your love to her at large.[41]

BULLINGBROOKThanks, gentle uncle.— Come, lords, away.

To fight with Glendower and his complices;

A while to work, and after holiday.

Exeunt

Act 3 Scene 23.2

running scene 10

Drums. Flourish and colours. Enter Richard, Aumerle, Carlisle and Soldiers

KING RICHARDBarkloughly Castle[1] call you this at hand?

AUMERLEYea, my lord. How brooks[2] your grace the air,

After your late tossing on the breaking seas?

KING RICHARDNeeds must I like it well: I weep for joy

5

To stand upon my kingdom once again.

Dear earth, I do salute thee with my hand,

Though rebels wound thee with their horses’ hoofs.

As a long-parted mother with her child

Plays fondly[9] with her tears and smiles in meeting,

10

So, weeping, smiling, greet I thee, my earth,

And do thee favour with my royal hands.

Feed not thy sovereign’s foe, my gentle earth,

Nor with thy sweets comfort his ravenous sense,[13]

But let thy spiders,[14] that suck up thy venom,

15

And heavy-gaited toads lie in their way,

Doing annoyance[16] to the treacherous feet

Which with usurping steps do trample thee.

Yield stinging nettles to mine enemies;

And when they from thy bosom pluck a flower,

20

Guard[20] it, I prithee, with a lurking adder

Whose double[21] tongue may with a mortal touch

Throw death upon thy sovereign’s enemies.

Mock not my senseless conjuration,[23] lords:

This earth shall have a feeling and these stones

25

Prove armèd soldiers, ere her native[25] king

Shall falter under foul rebellion’s arms.

CARLISLEFear not, my lord. That power that made you king

Hath power to keep you king in spite of all.

AUMERLE He means, my lord, that we are too remiss,

30

Whilst Bullingbrook, through our security,[30]

Grows strong and great in substance and in friends.

KING RICHARDDiscomfortable[32] cousin! Know’st thou not

That when the searching eye[33] of heaven is hid,

Behind the globe that lights the lower world,

35

Then thieves and robbers range abroad unseen

In murders and in outrage bloody here:

But when from under this terrestrial ball

He fires the proud tops of the eastern pines

And darts his lightning through ev’ry guilty hole,

40

Then murders, treasons and detested sins —

The cloak of night being plucked from off their backs —

Stand bare and naked, trembling at themselves?

So when this thief, this traitor, Bullingbrook,

Who all this while hath revelled in the night,

45

Shall see us rising in our throne, the east,

His treasons will sit blushing in his face,

Not able to endure the sight of day,

But, self-affrighted, tremble at his sin.

Not all the water in the rough rude[49] sea

50

Can wash the balm[50] from an anointed king;

The breath of worldly men cannot depose

The deputy elected by the Lord.

For every man that Bullingbrook hath pressed[53]

To lift shrewd[54] steel against our golden crown,

55

Heaven for his Richard hath in heavenly pay

A glorious angel.[56] Then, if angels fight,

Weak men must fall, for heaven still guards the right.

Enter Salisbury

Welcome, my lord. How far off lies your power?

SALISBURYNor near[59] nor farther off, my gracious lord,

60

Than this weak arm. Discomfort[60] guides my tongue

And bids me speak of nothing but despair.

One day too late, I fear, my noble lord,

Hath clouded all thy happy[63] days on earth.

O, call back yesterday, bid time return,

65

And thou shalt have twelve thousand fighting men!

Today, today, unhappy day too late,

O’erthrows thy joys, friends, fortune and thy state;[67]

For all the Welshmen, hearing thou wert dead,

Are gone to Bullingbrook, dispersed and fled.

70

AUMERLEComfort, my liege. Why looks your grace so pale?

KING RICHARDBut now[71] the blood of twenty thousand men

Did triumph[72] in my face, and they are fled.

And till so much blood thither come again,

Have I not reason to look pale and dead?

75

All souls that will be safe fly from my side,

For time hath set a blot upon my pride.

AUMERLEComfort, my liege. Remember who you are.

KING RICHARDI had forgot myself. Am I not king?

Awake, thou sluggard majesty, thou sleepest.

80

Is not the king’s name forty thousand names?

Arm, arm, my name! A puny subject strikes

At thy great glory. Look not to the ground,

Ye favourites of a king. Are we not high?[83]

High be our thoughts. I know my uncle York

85

Hath power[85] enough to serve our turn. But who comes here?

Enter Scroop

SCROOPMore health and happiness betide[86] my liege

Than can my care-tuned[87] tongue deliver him!

KING RICHARDMine ear is open and my heart prepared.

The worst is worldly loss thou canst unfold.

90

Say, is my kingdom lost? Why, ’twas my care,[90]

And what loss is it to be rid of care?

Strives Bullingbrook to be as great as we?

Greater he shall not be. If he serve God,

We’ll serve him too and be his fellow[94] so.

95

Revolt our subjects? That we cannot mend.[95]

They break their faith to God as well as us.

Cry woe, destruction, ruin, loss, decay.

The worst is death, and death will have his day.

SCROOPGlad am I that your highness is so armed

100

To bear the tidings of calamity.

Like an unseasonable stormy day,

Which makes the silver rivers drown their shores,

As if the world were all dissolved to tears,

So high above his[104] limits swells the rage

105

Of Bullingbrook,[105] covering your fearful land

With hard bright steel and hearts harder than steel.

Whitebeards[107] have armed their thin and hairless scalps

Against thy majesty, and boys with women’s voices

Strive to speak big[109] and clap their female joints

110

In stiff unwieldy arms[110] against thy crown.

Thy very beadsmen[111] learn to bend their bows

Of double-fatal[112] yew against thy state.

Yea, distaff-women[113] manage rusty bills

Against thy seat.[114] Both young and old rebel,

115

And all goes worse than I have power to tell.

KING RICHARDToo well, too well thou tell’st a tale so ill.

Where is the Earl of Wiltshire? Where is Bagot?

What is become of Bushy, where is Green,

That they have let the dangerous enemy

120

Measure our confines[120] with such peaceful steps?

If we prevail, their heads shall pay for it.

I warrant[122] they have made peace with Bullingbrook.

SCROOPPeace have they made with him indeed, my lord.

KING RICHARDO, villains, vipers, damned without redemption!

125

Dogs, easily won to fawn on any man!

Snakes, in my heart-blood warmed, that sting my heart!

Three Judases,[127] each one thrice worse than Judas!

Would they make peace? Terrible hell make war

Upon their spotted[129] souls for this offence!

130

SCROOPSweet love, I see, changing his property,[130]

Turns to the sourest and most deadly hate.

Again uncurse their souls; their peace is made

With heads, and not with hands:[133] those whom you curse

Have felt the worst of death’s destroying hand

135

And lie full low, graved[135] in the hollow ground.

AUMERLE Is Bushy, Green and the Earl of Wiltshire dead?

SCROOPYea, all of them at Bristol lost their heads.

AUMERLE Where is the duke my father with his power?

KING RICHARDNo matter where; of comfort no man speak.

140

Let’s talk of graves, of worms, and epitaphs,

Make dust our paper and with rainy eyes

Write sorrow on the bosom of the earth.

Let’s choose executors and talk of wills.

And yet not so; for what can we bequeath

145

Save our deposed bodiès to the ground?

Our lands, our lives and all are Bullingbrook’s,

And nothing can we call our own but death

And that small model[148] of the barren earth

Which serves as paste and cover[149] to our bones.

150

For heaven’s sake let us sit upon the ground

And tell sad[151] stories of the death of kings:

How some have been deposed, some slain in war,

Some haunted by the ghosts they have deposed,

Some poisoned by their wives, some sleeping killed,

155

All murdered. For within the hollow crown

That rounds[156] the mortal temples of a king

Keeps Death his court and there the antic[157] sits,

Scoffing his state[158] and grinning at his pomp,

Allowing him a breath, a little scene,

160

To monarchize,[160] be feared and kill with looks,

Infusing him with self[161] and vain conceit,

As if this flesh which walls about our life,

Were brass impregnable. And humoured thus,[163]

Comes at the last and with a little pin

165

Bores through his castle walls, and farewell king!

Cover your heads and mock not flesh and blood

With solemn reverence. Throw away respect,

Tradition, form and ceremonious duty,

For you have but mistook me all this while:

170

I live with bread like you, feel want,

Taste grief, need friends. Subjected[171] thus,

How can you say to me, I am a king?

CARLISLEMy lord, wise men ne’er wail their present woes,

But presently[174] prevent the ways to wail.

175

To fear the foe, since fear oppresseth strength,

Gives in your weakness strength unto your foe,

And[177] so your follies fight against yourself.

Fear and be slain. No[178] worse can come to fight.

And fight and die is death destroying death,[179]

180

Where fearing dying pays death servile breath.

AUMERLE My father hath a power. Enquire of him

And learn to make a[182] body of a limb.

KING RICHARDThou chid’st[183] me well. Proud Bullingbrook, I come

To change[184] blows with thee for our day of doom:

185

This ague[185] fit of fear is over-blown,

An easy task it is to win our own.

Say, Scroop, where lies our uncle with his power?

Speak sweetly, man, although thy looks be sour.

SCROOPMen judge by the complexion of the sky

190

The state and inclination of the day;

So may you by my dull and heavy[191] eye,

My tongue hath but a heavier tale to say.

I play the torturer, by[193] small and small

To lengthen out the worst that must be spoken.

195

Your uncle York is joined with Bullingbrook,

And all your northern castles yielded up,

And all your southern gentlemen in arms

Upon his faction.

KING RICHARDThou hast said enough.

200

Beshrew[200] thee, cousin, which didst lead me forth To Aumerie

Of that sweet way I was in to despair!

What say you now? What comfort have we now?

By heaven, I’ll hate him everlastingly

That bids me be of comfort any more.

205

Go to Flint Castle:[205] there I’ll pine away.

A king, woe’s slave, shall kingly woe obey.

That power[207] I have, discharge, and let ’em go

To ear[208] the land that hath some hope to grow,

For I have none. Let no man speak again

210

To alter this, for counsel is but vain.

AUMERLE My liege, one word.

KING RICHARDHe does me double wrong

That wounds me with the flatteries of his tongue.

Discharge my followers. Let them hence away,

215

From Richard’s night to Bullingbrook’s fair day.

Exeunt

Act 3 Scene 33.3

running scene 11

Enter, with Drum and Colours, Bullingbrook, York, Northumberland [and] Attendants

BULLINGBROOK So that[1] by this intelligence we learn

The Welshmen are dispersed, and Salisbury

Is gone to meet the king, who lately landed

With some few private friends upon this coast.

5

NORTHUMBERLANDThe news is very fair and good, my lord.

Richard not far from hence hath hid his head.

YORKIt would beseem[7] the Lord Northumberland

To say ‘King Richard’. Alack the heavy day

When such a sacred king should hide his head.

10

NORTHUMBERLANDYour grace mistakes. Only to be brief

Left I his title out.

YORKThe time hath been,

Would you have been so brief with him, he would

Have been so brief with you to[14] shorten you,

15

For taking[15] so the head, your whole head’s length.

BULLINGBROOKMistake[16] not, uncle, further than you should.

YORKTake[17] not, good cousin, further than you should,

Lest you mistake[18] the heavens are o’er your head.

BULLINGBROOKI know it, uncle, and oppose not myself

20

Against their will. But who comes here?

Enter Percy

Welcome, Harry. What, will not this castle yield?

PERCYThe castle royally is manned, my lord,

Against thy entrance.

BULLINGBROOKRoyally? Why, it contains no king?

25

PERCYYes, my good lord,

It doth contain a king: King Richard lies[26]

Within the limits of yond lime and stone,

And with him the Lord Aumerle, Lord Salisbury,

Sir Stephen Scroop, besides a clergyman

30

Of holy reverence, who,[30] I cannot learn.

NORTHUMBERLANDO, belike[31] it is the Bishop of Carlisle.

BULLINGBROOKNoble lord,

Go to the rude[33] ribs of that ancient castle.

Through brazen[34] trumpet send the breath of parle

35

Into his[35] ruined ears, and thus deliver:

Henry Bullingbrook

Upon his knees doth kiss King Richard’s hand

And sends allegiance and true faith of heart

To his most royal person, hither come

40

Even at his feet to lay my arms and power

Provided that my[41] banishment repealed

And lands restored again be freely granted.

If not, I’ll use th’advantage[43] of my power

And lay[44] the summer’s dust with showers of blood

45

Rained from the wounds of slaughtered Englishmen;

The which, how far off from the mind of Bullingbrook

It is, such[47] crimson tempest should bedrench

The fresh green lap of fair King Richard’s land,

My stooping duty tenderly[49] shall show.

50

Go signify as much, while here we march

Upon the grassy carpet of this plain.

Let’s march without the noise of threat’ning drum,

That from this castle’s tattered[53] battlements

Our fair appointments[54] may be well perused.

55

Methinks King Richard and myself should meet

With no less terror than the elements

Of fire and water,[57] when their thund’ring smoke

At meeting tears the cloudy cheeks of heaven.

Be he the fire, I’ll be the yielding water;

60

The rage be his, while on the earth I rain[60]

My waters on the earth, and not on him.

March on, and mark[62] King Richard how he looks.

Parley without, and answer within. Then a flourish. Enter on the walls, Richard, Carlisle, Aumerle, Scroop [and] Salisbury

See, see, King Richard doth himself appear,

As doth the blushing[64] discontented sun

65

From out the fiery portal of the east,

When he perceives the envious[66] clouds are bent

To dim his glory and to stain[67] the tract

Of his bright passage to the occident.[68]

YORKYet looks he like a king. Behold, his eye,

70

As bright as is the eagle’s, lightens forth[70]

Controlling majesty. Alack, alack, for woe,

That any harm should stain so fair a show!

KING RICHARDWe are amazed;[73] and thus long have we stood To Northumberland

To watch[74] the fearful bending of thy knee

75

Because we thought ourself thy lawful king.

And if we be, how dare thy joints forget

To pay their awful[77] duty to our presence?

If we be not, show us the hand[78] of God

That hath dismissed us from our stewardship,

80

For well we know, no hand of blood and bone

Can grip the sacred handle of our sceptre,

Unless he do profane,[82] steal, or usurp.

And though you think that all, as you have done,

Have torn[84] their souls by turning them from us,

85

And we are barren and bereft of friends,

Yet know, my master, God omnipotent,

Is must’ring in his clouds on our behalf

Armies of pestilence, and they shall strike[88]

Your children yet unborn and unbegot,[89]

90

That[90] lift your vassal hands against my head

And threat the glory of my precious crown.

Tell Bullingbrook — for yond methinks he is —

That every stride he makes upon my land

Is dangerous treason. He is come to ope[94]

95

The purple testament[95] of bleeding war;

But ere the crown he looks for live in peace,

Ten thousand bloody crowns[97] of mothers’ sons

Shall ill become the flower of England’s face,

Change the complexion of her maid-pale[99] peace

100

To scarlet indignation and bedew

Her pastor’s[101] grass with faithful English blood.

NORTHUMBERLANDThe king of heaven forbid our lord the king

Should so with civil[103] and uncivil arms

Be rushed upon! Thy thrice-noble cousin,

105

Harry Bullingbrook, doth humbly kiss thy hand.

And by the honourable tomb he swears,

That stands upon your royal grandsire’s bones,

And by the royalties of both your bloods —

Currents that spring from one most gracious head[109] —

110

And by the buried hand of warlike Gaunt,

And by the worth and honour of himself,

Comprising all that may be sworn or said,

His coming hither hath no further scope[113]

Than for his lineal royalties[114] and to beg

115

Enfranchisement[115] immediate on his knees,

Which on thy royal party[116] granted once,

His glittering arms he will commend[117] to rust,

His barbèd[118] steeds to stables, and his heart

To faithful service of your majesty.

120

This[120] swears he, as he is a prince, is just:

And, as I am a gentleman, I credit[121] him.

KING RICHARDNorthumberland, say thus the king returns.[122]

His noble cousin is right welcome hither,

And all the number of his fair demands

125

Shall be accomplished[125] without contradiction.

With all the gracious[126] utterance thou hast,

Speak to his gentle hearing kind commends.[127]—

We do debase ourself, cousin, do we not, To Aumerie

To look so poorly[129] and to speak so fair?

130

Shall we call back Northumberland, and send

Defiance to the traitor, and so die?

AUMERLENo, good my lord, let’s fight with gentle words

Till time lend friends and friends their helpful swords.

KING RICHARDO God, O God, that e’er[134] this tongue of mine,

135

That laid the sentence of dread banishment

On yond[136] proud man, should take it off again

With words of sooth![137] O, that I were as great

As is my grief, or lesser than my name!

Or that I could forget what I have been,

140

Or not remember what I must be now!

Swell’st thou, proud heart? I’ll give thee scope[141] to beat,

Since foes have scope to beat[142] both thee and me.

AUMERLENorthumberland comes back from Bullingbrook.

KING RICHARDWhat must the king do now? Must he submit?

145

The king shall do it. Must he be deposed?

The king shall be contented.[146] Must he lose

The name of king? O’God’s name, let it go.

I’ll give my jewels for a set of beads,[148]

My gorgeous palace for a hermitage,

150

My gay apparel for an almsman’s[150] gown,

My figured[151] goblets for a dish of wood,

My sceptre for a palmer’s[152] walking staff,

My subjects for a pair of carvèd saints,

And my large kingdom for a little grave,

155

A little little grave, an obscure grave.

Or I’ll be buried in the king’s highway,

Some way of common trade,[157] where subjects’ feet

May hourly trample on their sovereign’s head,

For on my heart they tread now whilst I live,

160

And buried once,[160] why not upon my head?—

Aumerle, thou weep’st, my tender-hearted cousin!

We’ll make foul weather with despisèd[162] tears,

Our sighs and they shall lodge[163] the summer corn,

And make a dearth[164] in this revolting land.

165

Or shall we play the wantons[165] with our woes,

And make[166] some pretty match with shedding tears?

As thus, to drop them still[167] upon one place,

Till they have fretted us[168] a pair of graves

Within the earth, and, therein laid — there lies

170

Two kinsmen digged their graves with weeping eyes.

Would not this ill[171] do well?— Well, well, I see

I talk but idly, and you mock at me.—

Most mighty prince, my lord Northumberland,

What says King Bullingbrook? Will his majesty

175

Give Richard leave to live till Richard die?

You make a leg,[176] and Bullingbrook says ‘Ay’.

NORTHUMBERLANDMy lord, in the base court[177] he doth attend

To speak with you. May it please you to come down?

KING RICHARDDown, down I come, like glist’ring[179] Phaethon,

180

Wanting the manage[180] of unruly jades.

In the base court? Base court where kings grow base,

To come at traitors’ calls and do them grace.[182]

In the base court, come down: down court, down king,

For night-owls shriek[184] where mounting larks should sing.

[Exeunt from above]

185

BULLINGBROOKWhat says his majesty?

NORTHUMBERLANDSorrow and grief of heart

Makes him speak fondly,[187] like a frantic man

Yet he is come.

[Enter King Richard and his Attendants below]

BULLINGBROOKStand all apart,[189]

190

And show fair duty to his majesty.

My gracious lord— Kneels

KING RICHARDFair cousin, you debase[192] your princely knee

To make the base earth proud with kissing it.

Me rather had[194] my heart might feel your love

195

Than my unpleased eye see your courtesy.[195]

Up,[196] cousin, up! Your heart is up, I know,

Thus high at least, although your knee be low.

BULLINGBROOK My gracious lord, I come but for mine own.

KING RICHARDYour own is yours, and I am yours, and all.

200

BULLINGBROOK So far be mine, my most redoubted[200] lord,

As my true service shall deserve your love.

KING RICHARDWell you deserved. They well deserve to have,

That know the strong’st and surest way to get.— Bullingbrook rises

Uncle, give me your hand: nay, dry your eyes. To York

205

Tears show their love, but want their remedies.[205]—

Cousin, I am too young to be your father, To Bullingbrook

Though you are old enough to be my heir.

What you will have, I’ll give, and willing[208] too,

For do we must what force will have us do.

210

Set on towards London, cousin, is it so?

BULLINGBROOK Yea, my good lord.

KING RICHARDThen I must not say no.

Flourish. Exeunt

Act 3 Scene 43.4

running scene 12

Enter the Queen and two Ladies

QUEENWhat sport shall we devise here in this garden,

To drive away the heavy[2] thought of care?

LADYMadam, we’ll play at bowls.

QUEEN’Twill make me think the world is full of rubs,[4]

5

And that my fortune runs against the bias.[5]

LADYMadam, we’ll dance.

QUEENMy legs can keep no measure[7] in delight

When my poor heart no measure[8] keeps in grief:

Therefore, no dancing, girl, some other sport.

10

LADYMadam, we’ll tell tales.

QUEENOf sorrow or of joy?

LADYOf either, madam.

QUEENOf neither, girl.

For if of joy, being altogether wanting,[14]

15

It doth remember[15] me the more of sorrow.

Or if of grief, being altogether had,[16]

It adds more sorrow to my want[17] of joy.

For what I have I need not to repeat,

And what I want it boots not[19] to complain.

20

LADYMadam, I’ll sing.

QUEEN’Tis[21] well that thou hast cause,

But thou shouldst please me better, wouldst thou weep.

LADYI could weep, madam, would it do you good.

QUEENAnd I could sing, would weeping do me good,

25

And never borrow any tear of thee.

Enter a Gardener and two Servants

But stay, here come the gardeners.

Let’s step into the shadow of these trees.

My[28] wretchedness unto a row of pins,

They’ll talk of state,[29] for everyone doth so

30

Against[30] a change; woe is forerun with woe. Queen and Ladies stand aside

GARDENERGo bind thou up yond dangling apricocks,[31]

Which, like unruly children, make their sire[32]

Stoop with oppression[33] of their prodigal weight.

Give some supportance[34] to the bending twigs.

35

Go thou, and like an executioner,

Cut off the heads of too fast-growing sprays,[36]

That look too lofty[37] in our commonwealth:

All must be even[38] in our government.

You thus employed, I will go root away

40

The noisome[40] weeds, that without profit suck

The soil’s fertility from wholesome[41] flowers.

SERVANTWhy should we in the compass[42] of a pale

Keep law and form and due proportion,

Showing, as in a model,[44] our firm estate,

45

When our sea-wallèd garden, the whole land,

Is full of weeds, her fairest flowers choked up,

Her fruit-trees all unpruned, her hedges ruined,

Her knots[48] disordered and her wholesome herbs

Swarming with caterpillars?

50

GARDENERHold thy peace.

He that hath suffered[51] this disordered spring

Hath now himself met with the fall of leaf.[52]

The weeds that his broad-spreading leaves did shelter,

That seemed in eating him to hold him up,

55

Are pulled up root and all by Bullingbrook —

I mean the Earl of Wiltshire, Bushy, Green.

SERVANTWhat, are they dead?

GARDENERThey are. And Bullingbrook

Hath seized[59] the wasteful king. O, what pity is it

60

That he had not so trimmed[60] and dressed his land

As we this garden: we at time of year[61]

Do wound the bark, the skin of our fruit-trees,

Lest, being over-proud[63] with sap and blood,

With too much riches it confound[64] itself.

65

Had he done so to great and growing men,

They might have lived to bear and he to taste

Their fruits of duty. Superfluous branches

We lop away, that bearing[68] boughs may live.

Had he done so, himself had borne the crown,[69]

70

Which waste and idle hours hath quite thrown down.

SERVANTWhat, think you the king shall be deposed?

GARDENERDepressed[72] he is already, and deposed

’Tis doubted[73] he will be. Letters came last night

To a dear friend of the Duke of York’s,

75

That tell black tidings.

QUEENO, I am pressed to death[76] through want of speaking! Comes forward

Thou, old Adam’s[77] likeness, set to dress this garden,

How dares thy harsh rude tongue sound this unpleasing news?

What Eve, what serpent, hath suggested[79] thee

80

To make a second fall of cursèd man?

Why dost thou say King Richard is deposed?

Dar’st thou, thou little better thing than earth,

Divine[83] his downfall? Say, where, when, and how,

Cam’st thou by this ill tidings? Speak, thou wretch.

85

GARDENERPardon me, madam. Little joy have I

To breathe these news; yet what I say is true.

King Richard, he is in the mighty hold[87]

Of Bullingbrook. Their fortunes both are weighed:

In your lord’s scale is nothing but himself,

90

And some few vanities[90] that make him light.

But in the balance of great Bullingbrook,

Besides himself, are all the English peers,

And with that odds[93] he weighs King Richard down.

Post[94] you to London, and you’ll find it so,

95

I speak no more than everyone doth know.

QUEENNimble mischance, that art so light of foot,

Doth not thy embassage[97] belong to me,

And am I last that knows it? O, thou think’st

To serve me last, that I may longest keep

100

Thy sorrow in my breast. Come, ladies, go

To meet at London London’s king in woe.

What, was I born to this, that my sad look

Should grace the triumph[103] of great Bullingbrook?

Gard’ner, for telling me this news of woe,

105

I would the plants thou graft’st may never grow.

Exeunt [Queen and Ladies]

GARDENERPoor queen, so[106] that thy state might be no worse,

I would my skill were subject to thy curse.

Here did she drop a tear. Here in this place

I’ll set a bank of rue,[109] sour herb of grace.

110

Rue, e’en for ruth,[110] here shortly shall be seen,

In the remembrance of a weeping queen.

Exeunt

Act 4 Scene 14.1

running scene 13

Enter, as to the Parliament, Bullingbrook, Aumerle, Northumberland, Percy, Fitzwaters, Surrey, Carlisle, Abbot of Westminister, Herald, Officers and Bagot

BULLINGBROOK Call forth Bagot.— Bagot is brought forward

Now, Bagot, freely speak thy mind,

What thou dost know of noble Gloucester’s death,

Who wrought[4] it with the king, and who performed

5

The bloody office[5] of his timeless end.

BAGOTThen set before my face the lord Aumerle.

BULLINGBROOKCousin, stand forth, and look upon that man. To Aumerle

BAGOTMy lord Aumerle, I know your daring tongue

Scorns to unsay[9] what it hath once delivered.

10

In that dead[10] time when Gloucester’s death was plotted,

I heard you say, ‘Is not my arm of length,[11]

That reacheth from the restful English court

As far as Calais, to my uncle’s head?’

Amongst much other talk, that very time,

15

I heard you say that you had rather refuse

The offer of an hundred thousand crowns[16]

Than[17] Bullingbrook’s return to England;

Adding withal[18] how blest this land would be

In this your cousin’s death.

20

AUMERLE Princes and noble lords,

What answer shall I make to this base[21] man?

Shall I so much dishonour my fair stars,[22]

On[23] equal terms to give him chastisement?

Either I must, or have mine honour soiled

25

With th’attainder[25] of his sland’rous lips.— Throws down his gage

There is my gage, the manual[26] seal of death

That marks thee out for hell. I say thou liest,

And will maintain what thou hast said is false

In thy heart-blood, though being all too base

30

To stain the temper[30] of my knightly sword.

BULLINGBROOK Bagot, forbear.[31] Thou shalt not take it up.

AUMERLE Excepting one,[32] I would he were the best

In all this presence that hath moved[33] me so.

FITZWATERS If that thy valour stand[34] on sympathy, To Aumerie

35

There is my gage, Aumerle, in gage[35] to thine. Throws down his gage

By that fair sun that shows me where thou stand’st,

I heard thee say, and vauntingly[37] thou spak’st it,

That thou wert cause of noble Gloucester’s death.

If thou deniest[39] it twenty times, thou liest,

40

And I will turn[40] thy falsehood to thy heart,

Where it was forgèd, with my rapier’s point.

AUMERLE Thou dar’st not, coward, live to see the day.

FITZWATERS Now by my soul, I would it were this hour.

AUMERLE Fitzwaters, thou art damned to hell for this.

45

PERCYAumerie, thou liest: his honour is as true

In this appeal[46] as thou art all unjust.

And that thou art so, there I throw my gage,

To prove it on thee to th’extremest[48] point Throws down his gage

Of mortal breathing. Seize it, if thou dar’st.

50

AUMERLE An if[50] I do not, may my hands rot off Picks up the gage

And never brandish more[51] revengeful steel

Over the glittering helmet of my foe!

SURREYMy lord Fitzwaters, I do remember well

The very time Aumerle and you did talk.

55

FITZWATERSMy lord, ’tis very true. You were in presence[55] then

And you can witness with me this is true.

SURREYAs false, by heaven, as heaven itself is true.

FITZWATERSSurrey, thou liest.

SURREYDishonourable boy!

60

That lie shall lie so heavy on my sword

That it shall render[61] vengeance and revenge

Till thou the lie-giver and that lie do lie

In earth as quiet as thy father’s skull,

In proof whereof, there is mine honour’s pawn. Throws down his gage

65

Engage[65] it to the trial, if thou dar’st.

FITZWATERS How fondly[66] dost thou spur a forward horse!

If I dare eat, or drink, or breathe, or live,

I dare meet Surrey in a wilderness,[68]

And spit upon him, whilst I say he lies,

70

And lies, and lies. There is my bond of faith, Throws down his gage

To tie[71] thee to my strong correction.

As I intend to thrive in this new world,

Aumerle is guilty of my true appeal.

Besides, I heard the banished Norfolk say

75

That thou, Aumerle, didst send two of thy men

To execute the noble duke at Calais.

AUMERLE Some honest Christian trust me with a gage. Borrows a gage, then throws it down

That[78] Norfolk lies, here do I throw down this,

If he may be repealed,[79] to try his honour.

80

BULLINGBROOK These differences[80] shall all rest under gage

Till Norfolk be repealed. Repealed he shall be,

And, though mine enemy, restored again

To all his lands and signories.[83] When he’s returned,

Against Aumerle we will enforce his trial.[84]

85

CARLISLEThat honourable day shall ne’er be seen.

Many a time hath banished Norfolk fought

For Jesu Christ in glorious Christian field,[87]

Streaming the ensign[88] of the Christian cross

Against black pagans, Turks and Saracens,

90

And toiled[90] with works of war, retired himself

To Italy, and there at Venice gave

His body to that pleasant country’s earth,

And his pure soul unto his captain Christ,

Under whose colours[94] he had fought so long.

95

BULLINGBROOK Why, bishop, is Norfolk dead?

CARLISLEAs sure as I live, my lord.

BULLINGBROOK Sweet peace conduct his sweet soul to the bosom[97]

Of good old Abraham! Lords appellants,[98]

Your differences shall all rest under gage

100

Till we assign you to your days of trial.

Enter York

YORKGreat Duke of Lancaster, I come to thee

From plume-plucked[102] Richard, who with willing soul

Adopts thee heir, and his high sceptre yields

To the possession of thy royal hand.

105

Ascend his throne, descending[105] now from him,

And long live Henry, of that name the fourth!

BULLINGBROOK In God’s name, I’ll ascend the regal throne.

CARLISLEMarry,[108] heaven forbid!

Worst[109] in this royal presence may I speak,

110

Yet best beseeming[110] me to speak the truth.

Would God that any in this noble presence

Were enough noble to be upright judge

Of noble Richard! Then true noblesse[113] would

Learn[114] him forbearance from so foul a wrong.

115

What subject can give sentence on his king?

And who sits here that is not Richard’s subject?

Thieves are not judged but they are by[117] to hear,

Although apparent[118] guilt be seen in them.

And shall the figure[119] of God’s majesty,

120

His captain, steward, deputy-elect,

Anointed, crownèd, planted many years,

Be judged by subject[122] and inferior breath,

And he himself not present? O, forbid it, God,

That in a Christian climate souls refined

125

Should show so heinous,[125] black, obscene a deed.

I speak to subjects, and a subject speaks,

Stirred up by heaven, thus boldly for his king.

My lord of Hereford here, whom you call king,

Is a foul traitor to proud Hereford’s king.

130

And if you crown him, let me prophesy

The blood of English shall manure[131] the ground,

And future ages groan for his foul act.

Peace shall go sleep with Turks and infidels,

And in this seat of peace tumultuous wars

135

Shall kin with kin and kind[135] with kind confound.

Disorder, horror, fear and mutiny

Shall here inhabit, and this land be called

The field[138] of Golgotha and dead men’s skulls.

O, if you rear this house[139] against this house,

140

It will the woefullest division prove

That ever fell upon this cursed earth.

Prevent it, resist it, and let it not be so,

Lest child, child’s children, cry against you ‘Woe!’

NORTHUMBERLANDWell have you argued, sir. And for your pains,

145

Of capital treason we arrest you here.

My lord of Westminster, be it your charge

To keep him safely till his day of trial.

May it please you, lords, to grant the commons’ suit?[148]

BULLINGBROOKFetch hither Richard, that in common view

150

He may surrender,[150] so we shall proceed

Without suspicion.

YORKI will be his conduct.[152]

Exit

BULLINGBROOKLords, you that here are under our arrest,

Procure your sureties[154] for your days of answer.

155

Little are we beholding[155] to your love,

And little looked for[156] at your helping hands.

Enter Richard and York [with Officers bearing the regalia]

KING RICHARDAlack, why am I sent for to a king,

Before I have shook off the regal thoughts

Wherewith I reigned? I hardly yet have learned

160

To insinuate,[160] flatter, bow, and bend my knee.

Give sorrow leave awhile to tutor me

To this submission. Yet I well remember

The favours[163] of these men: were they not mine?

Did they not sometime[164] cry, ‘All hail!’ to me?

165

So Judas did to Christ, but he in twelve[165]

Found truth in all but one; I, in twelve thousand, none.

God save the king! Will no man say ‘Amen’?

Am I both priest and clerk?[168] Well then, amen.

God save the king, although I be not he.

170

And yet, amen, if heaven do think him me.

To do what service[171] am I sent for hither?

YORKTo do that office of thine own good will

Which tired majesty[173] did make thee offer:

The resignation of thy state and crown

175

To Henry Bullingbrook.

KING RICHARDGive me the crown.— Takes the crown and offers it to Bullingbrook Here, cousin, seize[176] the crown:

Here cousin, on this side my hand, on that side thine.

Now is this golden crown like a deep well

That owes[179] two buckets, filling one another,

180

The emptier ever dancing in the air,

The other down, unseen and full of water:

That bucket down and full of tears am I,

Drinking my griefs, whilst you mount up on high.

BULLINGBROOKI thought you had been willing to resign.

185

KING RICHARDMy crown I am, but still my griefs are mine.

You may my glories and my state depose,

But not my griefs; still am I king of those.

BULLINGBROOKPart of your cares you give me with your crown.

KING RICHARDYour[189] cares set up do not pluck my cares down.

190

My care is loss of care, by[190] old care done:

Your care is gain of care, by new care won.

The cares I give I have, though given away,

They tend[193] the crown, yet still with me they stay.

BULLINGBROOKAre you contented to resign the crown?

195

KING RICHARDAy,[195] no; no, ay, for I must nothing be:

Therefore no ‘no’, for I resign to thee.

Now mark me[197] how I will undo myself:

I give this heavy weight from off my head, Bullingbrook accepts crown

And this unwieldy sceptre from my hand, Bullingbrook accepts scepter

200

The pride of kingly sway[200] from out my heart.

With mine own tears I wash away my balm,

With mine own hands I give away my crown,

With mine own tongue deny my sacred state,

With mine own breath release[204] all duteous oaths.

205

All pomp and majesty I do forswear:[205]

My manors, rents, revenues I forgo:

My acts, decrees, and statutes I deny.

God pardon all oaths that are broke to me,

God keep all vows unbroke are made to thee.

210

Make me, that nothing have, with nothing grieved,[210]

And thou with all pleased, that hast all achieved.

Long mayst thou live in Richard’s seat to sit,

And soon lie Richard in an earthy pit!

‘God save King Henry’, unkinged Richard says,

215

‘And send him many years of sunshine days!’ —

What more remains?

NORTHUMBERLAND No more, but that you read Gives a paper

These accusations and these grievous crimes

Committed by your person and your followers

220

Against the state and profit of this land,

That, by confessing them, the souls of men

May deem that you are worthily deposed.

KING RICHARDMust I do so? And must I ravel out[223]

My weaved-up follies? Gentle[224] Northumberland,

225

If thy offences were upon record,

Would it not shame thee in so fair a troop[226]

To read a lecture[227] of them? If thou wouldst,

There shouldst thou find one heinous article,[228]

Containing the deposing of a king

230

And cracking the strong warrant[230] of an oath,

Marked with a blot, damned in the book of heaven.

Nay, all of you that stand and look upon me,

Whilst that my wretchedness doth bait[233] myself,

Though some of you with Pilate[234] wash your hands

235

Showing an outward pity, yet you Pilates

Have here delivered me to my sour[236] cross,

And water cannot wash away your sin.

NORTHUMBERLANDMy lord, dispatch.[238] Read o’er these articles.

KING RICHARDMine eyes are full of tears, I cannot see.

240

And yet salt water blinds them not so much

But they can see a sort[241] of traitors here.

Nay, if I turn mine eyes upon myself,

I find myself a traitor with the rest,

For I have given here my soul’s consent

245

T’undeck[245] the pompous body of a king;

Made glory base and sovereignty a slave,

Proud majesty a subject, state a peasant.

NORTHUMBERLAND My lord

KING RICHARDNo lord of thine, thou haught[249] insulting man,

250

No, nor no man’s lord.— I have no name, no title;

No, not that name was given me at the font,[251]

But ’tis usurped. Alack the heavy day,

That I have worn so many winters out,

And know not now what name to call myself.

255

O, that I were a mockery[255] king of snow,

Standing before the sun of Bullingbrook,

To melt myself away in water-drops!

Good king, great king — and yet not greatly good —

An if[259] my word be sterling yet in England,

260

Let it command a mirror hither straight,

That it may show me what[261] a face I have,

Since it is bankrupt of his[262] majesty.

BULLINGBROOKGo some[263] of you and fetch a looking-glass.

[Exit an Attendant]

NORTHUMBERLANDRead o’er this paper while the glass doth come.

265

KING RICHARDFiend, thou torments me ere I come to hell!

BULLINGBROOKUrge it no more, my lord Northumberland.

NORTHUMBERLANDThe commons will not then be satisfied.

KING RICHARDThey shall be satisfied. I’ll read enough,

When I do see the very book indeed

270

Where all my sins are writ, and that’s myself.

Enter one, with a glass

Give me that glass, and therein will I read. Takes the mirror

No deeper wrinkles yet? Hath sorrow struck

So many blows upon this face of mine,

And made no deeper wounds? O flatt’ring glass,

275

Like to my followers in prosperity,

Thou dost beguile[276] me! Was this face the face

That every day under his household roof

Did keep[278] ten thousand men? Was this the face

That like the sun did make beholders wink?[279]

280

Is this the face which faced[280] so many follies,

That was at last out-faced[281] by Bullingbrook?

A brittle glory shineth in this face,

As brittle as the glory is the face. Throws the mirror down against the ground

For there it is, cracked in an hundred shivers.[284]

285

Mark, silent king, the moral[285] of this sport,

How soon my sorrow hath destroyed my face.

BULLINGBROOKThe shadow[287] of your sorrow hath destroyed

The shadow of your face.

KING RICHARDSay that again.

290

The shadow of my sorrow? Ha? Let’s see,

’Tis very true, my grief lies all within,

And these external manner[292] of laments

Are merely shadows to the unseen grief

That swells with silence in the tortured soul.

295

There lies the substance: and I thank thee, king,

For thy great bounty, that not only giv’st

Me cause to wail, but teachest me the way

How to lament the cause. I’ll beg one boon,[298]

And then be gone and trouble you no more.

300

Shall I obtain it?

BULLINGBROOKName it, fair cousin.

KING RICHARD‘Fair cousin’? I am greater than a king,

For when I was a king, my flatterers

Were then but subjects; being now a subject,

305

I have a king here to[305] my flatterer.

Being so great, I have no need to beg.

BULLINGBROOKYet ask.

KING RICHARDAnd shall I have?

BULLINGBROOKYou shall.

310

KING RICHARDThen give me leave to go.

BULLINGBROOKWhither?

KING RICHARDWhither you will, so I were from your sights.

BULLINGBROOKGo, some of you convey[313] him to the Tower.

KING RICHARDO, good! ‘Convey’? Conveyers are you all,

315

That rise thus nimbly by a true king’s fall.

[Exeunt Richard, some Lords and a Guard]

BULLINGBROOKOn Wednesday next we solemnly set down[316]

Our coronation. Lords, prepare yourselves.

Exeunt [all except Carlisle, the Abbot and Aumerle]

ABBOTA woeful pageant have we here beheld.

CARLISLEThe woe’s to come. The children yet unborn

320

Shall feel this day as sharp to them as thorn.

AUMERLEYou holy clergymen, is there no plot

To rid the realm of this pernicious[322] blot?

ABBOTBefore I freely speak my mind herein,

You shall not only take the sacrament[324]

325

To bury[325] mine intents, but also to effect

Whatever I shall happen to devise.

I see your brows are full of discontent,

Your heart of sorrow and your eyes of tears.

Come home with me to supper. I’ll lay

330

A plot shall show us all a merry day.

Exeunt

Act 5 Scene 15.1

running scene 14

Enter Queen and Ladies

QUEENThis way the king will come. This is the way

To Julius Caesar’s[2] ill-erected tower,

To whose flint[3] bosom my condemnèd lord

Is doomed[4] a prisoner by proud Bullingbrook.

5

Here let us rest, if this rebellious earth

Have any resting for her true king’s queen.

Enter Richard and Guard

But soft, but see, or rather do not see,

My fair rose wither. Yet look up, behold,

That you in pity may dissolve to dew,

10

And wash him fresh again with true-love tears.

Ah, thou, the model[11] where old Troy did stand,

Thou map[12] of honour, thou King Richard’s tomb,

And not King Richard. Thou most beauteous inn,[13]

Why should hard-favoured[14] grief be lodged in thee,

15

When triumph is become an ale-house[15] guest?

KING RICHARDJoin not with grief, fair woman, do not so,

To make my end too sudden. Learn, good soul,

To think our former state[18] a happy dream;

From which awaked, the truth of what we are

20

Shows us but this. I am sworn brother,[20] sweet,

To grim Necessity, and he and I

Will keep a league[22] till death. Hie thee to France

And cloister[23] thee in some religious house.

Our holy lives must win a new world’s[24] crown,

25

Which our profane hours here have stricken down.

QUEENWhat, is my Richard both in shape[26] and mind

Transformed and weakened? Hath Bullingbrook deposed

Thine intellect? Hath he been in thy heart?

The lion dying thrusteth forth his paw,

30

And wounds the earth, if nothing else, with rage

To be[31] o’erpowered. And wilt thou, pupil-like,

Take thy correction mildly, kiss the rod,[32]

And fawn on rage with base humility,

Which art a lion and a king of beasts?

35

KING RICHARDA king of beasts,[35] indeed. If aught but beasts,

I had been still[36] a happy king of men.

Good sometime[37] queen, prepare thee hence for France:

Think I am dead and that even here thou tak’st,

As from my death-bed, thy last living leave.

40

In winter’s tedious nights sit by the fire

With good old folks and let them tell thee tales

Of woeful ages long ago betid.[42]

And ere thou bid good night, to quit[43] their grief,

Tell thou the lamentable fall of me

45

And send the hearers weeping to their beds.

For why[46] the senseless brands will sympathize

The heavy accent[47] of thy moving tongue

And in compassion weep[48] the fire out,

And some[49] will mourn in ashes, some coal-black,

50

For the deposing of a rightful king.

Enter Northumberland [and others]

NORTHUMBERLANDMy lord, the mind of Bullingbrook is changed.

You must to Pomfret,[52] not unto the Tower.—

And, madam, there is order ta’en[53] for you: To the Queen

With all swift speed you must away to France.

55

KING RICHARDNorthumberland, thou ladder wherewithal[55]

The mounting Bullingbrook ascends my throne,

The time shall not be many[57] hours of age

More than it is ere foul sin, gathering head,[58]

Shall break into corruption.[59] Thou shalt think,

60

Though he[60] divide the realm and give thee half,

It is too little, helping[61] him to all.

He shall think that thou, which[62] know’st the way

To plant unrightful[63] kings, wilt know again,

Being ne’er so little urged, another way

65

To pluck him headlong from th’usurpèd throne.

The love of wicked friends converts to fear;

That fear to hate, and hate turns one or both[67]

To worthy[68] danger and deservèd death.

NORTHUMBERLANDMy guilt be on my head, and there an end.

70

Take leave and part,[70] for you must part forthwith.

KING RICHARDDoubly divorced? Bad men, ye violate

A twofold marriage, ’twixt[72] my crown and me

And then betwixt me and my married wife.—

Let me unkiss[74] the oath ’twixt thee and me; To Queen

75

And yet not so, for with a kiss ’twas made.—

Part us, Northumberland. I towards the north,

Where shivering cold and sickness pines[77] the clime.

My queen to France, from whence,[78] set forth in pomp,

She came adornèd hither like sweet May,

80

Sent back like Hallowmas[80] or short’st of day.

QUEENAnd must we be divided? Must we part?

KING RICHARDAy, hand from hand, my love, and heart from heart.

QUEENBanish us both and send the king with me.

NORTHUMBERLANDThat were[84] some love but little policy.

85

QUEENThen whither he goes, thither let me go.

KING RICHARDSo two, together weeping, make one woe.

Weep thou for me in France, I for thee here.

Better far off than, near, be[88] ne’er the near.

Go, count thy way with sighs; I mine with groans.

90

QUEENSo longest way shall have the longest moans.

KING RICHARDTwice for one step I’ll groan, the way being short,

And piece[92] the way out with a heavy heart.

Come, come, in wooing sorrow let’s be brief,

Since, wedding it, there is such length in grief.

95

One kiss shall stop[95] our mouths, and dumbly part; They kiss

Thus give I mine, and thus take I thy heart.

QUEENGive me mine own again. ’Twere[97] no good part

To take on me to keep and kill[98] thy heart. They kiss

So, now I have mine own again, be gone,

100

That I may strive to kill it with a groan.

KING RICHARDWe make woe wanton[101] with this fond delay.

Once more, adieu;[102] the rest let sorrow say

Exeunt

Act 5 Scene 25.2

running scene 15

Enter York and his Duchess

DUCHESS OF YORKMy lord, you told me you would tell the rest,

When weeping made you break the story off,

Of our two cousins[3] coming into London.

YORKWhere did I leave?[4]

5

DUCHESS OF YORKAt that sad stop, my lord,

Where rude[6] misgoverned hands from windows’ tops

Threw dust and rubbish on King Richard’s head.

YORKThen, as I said, the duke, great Bullingbrook,

Mounted upon a hot and fiery steed

10

Which[10] his aspiring rider seemed to know,

With slow but stately pace kept on his course,

While all tongues cried ‘God save thee, Bullingbrook!’

You would have thought the very windows spake,

So many greedy looks of young and old

15

Through casements[15] darted their desiring eyes

Upon his visage, and that all the walls

With painted imagery[17] had said at once ‘

‘Jesu preserve thee! Welcome, Bullingbrook!’

Whilst he, from one side to the other turning,

20

Bareheaded,[20] lower than his proud steed’s neck,

Bespake[21] them thus: ‘I thank you, countrymen’,

And thus still[22] doing, thus he passed along.

DUCHESS OF YORKAlas, poor Richard! Where rides he the whilst?[23]

YORKAs in a theatre, the eyes of men,

25

After a well-graced[25] actor leaves the stage,

Are idly[26] bent on him that enters next,

Thinking his prattle to be tedious,

Even so, or with much more contempt, men’s eyes

Did scowl on Richard. No man cried ‘God save him’,

30

No joyful tongue gave him his welcome home,

But dust was thrown upon his sacred head,

Which with such gentle sorrow he shook off,

His face still combating with[33] tears and smiles,

The badges[34] of his grief and patience,

35

That had not God, for some strong purpose, steeled

The hearts of men, they must perforce[36] have melted

And barbarism itself have pitied him.

But heaven hath a hand in these events,

To whose high will we bound[39] our calm contents.

40

To Bullingbrook are we sworn subjects now,

Whose state[41] and honour I for aye allow.

Enter Aumerle

DUCHESS OF YORKHere comes my son Aumerle.

YORKAumerle that was,

But that is lost for being Richard’s friend.

45

And, madam, you must call him Rutland[45] now.

I am in parliament pledge[46] for his truth

And lasting fealty[47] to the new-made king.

DUCHESS OF YORKWelcome, my son. Who are the violets[48] now

That strew the green lap of the new come spring?[49]

50

AUMERLEMadam, I know not, nor I greatly care not.

God knows I had as lief[51] be none as one.

YORKWell, bear you[52] well in this new spring of time,

Lest you be cropped[53] before you come to prime.

What news from Oxford? Hold[54] those jousts and triumphs?

55

AUMERLEFor aught I know, my lord, they do.

YORKYou will be there, I know.

AUMERLEIf God prevent not, I purpose so.

YORKWhat seal[58] is that, that hangs without thy bosom?

Yea, look’st thou pale? Let me see the writing.

60

AUMERLEMy lord, ’tis nothing.

YORKNo matter, then, who sees it.

I will be satisfied. Let me see the writing.

AUMERLEI do beseech your grace to pardon me.

It is a matter of small consequence,

65

Which for some reasons I would not have seen.

YORKWhich for some reasons, sir, I mean to see.

I fear, I fear—

DUCHESS OF YORKWhat should you fear?

’Tis nothing but some bond[69] that he is entered into

70

For gay apparel against[70] the triumph.

YORKBound to himself? What doth he with a bond

That he is bound to? Wife, thou art a fool.

Boy, let me see the writing.

AUMERLE I do beseech you pardon me. I may not show it.

75

YORKI will be satisfied. Let me see it, I say.

Snatches it

Treason, foul treason! Villain, traitor, slave!

DUCHESS OF YORKWhat’s the matter, my lord?

YORKHo! Who’s within there?

[Enter a Servant]

Saddle my horse.

80

Heaven for his mercy, what treachery is here!

DUCHESS OF YORKWhy, what is’t, my lord?

YORKGive me my boots, I say. Saddle my horse.—

[Exit Servant]

Now, by my honour, my life, my troth,

I will appeach[84] the villain.

85

DUCHESS OF YORKWhat is the matter?

YORKPeace, foolish woman.

DUCHESS OF YORKI will not peace. What is the matter, son?

AUMERLEGood mother, be content. It is no more

Than my poor life must answer.[89]

90

DUCHESS OF YORKThy life answer?

Enter Servant with boots

YORKBring me my boots. I will unto the king.

DUCHESS OF YORKStrike him, Aumerle. Poor boy, thou art amazed.[92]—

Hence, villain![93] Never more come in my sight. To Servant

YORKGive me my boots, I say.

95

DUCHESS OF YORKWhy, York, what wilt thou do?

Wilt thou not hide the trespass of thine own?[96]

Have we more sons? Or are we like to have?

Is not my teeming date[98] drunk up with time?

And wilt thou pluck my fair son from mine age,

100

And rob me of a happy mother’s name?

Is he not like thee? Is he not thine own?

YORKThou fond[102] mad woman,

Wilt thou conceal this dark conspiracy?

A dozen of them here have ta’en the sacrament,

105

And interchangeably[105] set down their hands,

To kill the king at Oxford.

DUCHESS OF YORKHe shall be none.[107]

We’ll keep him here. Then what is that[108] to him?

YORKAway, fond woman! Were he twenty times my son,

110

I would appeach him.

DUCHESS OF YORKHadst thou groaned[111] for him

As I have done, thou wouldst be more pitiful.

But now I know thy mind; thou dost suspect

That I have been disloyal to thy bed,

115

And that he is a bastard, not thy son.

Sweet York, sweet husband, be not of that mind:

He is as like thee as a man may be,

Not like to me, nor any of my kin,

And yet I love him.

120

YORKMake way, unruly woman!

Exit

DUCHESS OF YORKAfter, Aumerle! Mount thee upon his horse.[121]

Spur post,[122] and get before him to the king,

And beg thy pardon ere he do accuse thee.

I’ll not be long behind. Though I be old,

125

I doubt not but to ride as fast as York:

And never will I rise up from the ground[126]

Till Bullingbrook have pardoned thee. Away, begone!

Exeunt

Act 5 Scene 35.3

running scene 16

Enter Bullingbrook, Percy and other Lords

BULLINGBROOKCan no man tell of my unthrifty[1] son?

’Tis full three months since I did see him last.

If any plague hang over us, ’tis he.

I would to heaven, my lords, he might be found.

5

Enquire at London, ’mongst the taverns there,

For there, they say, he daily doth frequent,

With unrestrainèd loose[7] companions,

Even such, they say, as stand in narrow lanes,

And rob our watch,[9] and beat our passengers,

10

Which he, young wanton and effeminate[10] boy,

Takes on the[11] point of honour to support

So dissolute a crew.

PERCYMy lord, some two days since I saw the prince,

And told him of these triumphs held at Oxford.

15

BULLINGBROOKAnd what said the gallant?[15]

PERCYHis answer was, he would unto the stews,[16]

And from the common’st[17] creature pluck a glove,

And wear it as a favour,[18] and with that

He would unhorse[19] the lustiest challenger.

20

BULLINGBROOKAs dissolute as desp’rate.[20] Yet through both

I see some sparks of better hope, which elder days

May happily[22] bring forth. But who comes here?

Enter Aumerle

AUMERLEWhere is the king?

BULLINGBROOKWhat means our cousin, that he stares[24] and looks

25

so wildly?

AUMERLEGod save your grace! I do beseech your majesty,

To have some conference with your grace alone.

BULLINGBROOKWithdraw yourselves, and leave us here alone.

[Exeunt Henry Percy and Lords]

What is the matter with our cousin now?

30

AUMERLEForever may my knees grow[30] to the earth,

My tongue cleave to my roof within my mouth

Unless a pardon[32] ere I rise or speak.

BULLINGBROOKIntended or committed was this fault?

If on the first, how heinous e’er it be,

35

To win thy after-love[35] I pardon thee.

AUMERLEThen give me leave that I may turn the key,

That no man enter till my tale be done.

BULLINGBROOK Have thy desire. Aumerle locks door

YORK(Within) My liege, beware! Look to thyself:

40

Thou hast a traitor in thy presence there.

BULLINGBROOK Villain, I’ll make thee safe.[41] Draws his sword

AUMERLE Stay[42] thy revengeful hand, thou hast no cause to fear.

YORK(Within) Open the door, secure,[43] foolhardy king:

Shall I for love speak treason[44] to thy face?

45

Open the door, or I will break it open. Bullingbrook unlocks door

Enter York

BULLINGBROOK What is the matter, uncle? Speak,

Recover breath, tell us how near is danger,

That we may arm us to encounter it.

YORKPeruse this writing here, and thou shalt know

50

The reason that my haste[50] forbids me show. Presents paper

AUMERLE Remember, as thou read’st, thy promise passed.[51]

I do repent me: read not my name there

My heart is not confederate with my hand.[53]

YORKIt was, villain, ere thy hand did set it down.

55

I tore it from the traitor’s bosom, king.

Fear, and not love, begets his penitence;

Forget to pity him, lest thy pity prove

A serpent that will sting thee to the heart.

BULLINGBROOK O, heinous, strong[59] and bold conspiracy!

60

O loyal father of a treacherous son!

Thou sheer,[61] immaculate and silver fountain,

From whence this stream through muddy passages

Hath held his current[63] and defiled himself!

Thy overflow of good converts to bad,

65

And thy abundant goodness shall excuse

This deadly blot[66] in thy digressing son.

YORKSo shall my virtue be his vice’s bawd,[67]

And he shall spend[68] mine honour with his shame,

As thriftless sons their scraping[69] fathers’ gold.

70

Mine honour lives when his dishonour dies,

Or my shamed life in his dishonour lies.

Thou kill’st me in his life: giving him breath,

The traitor lives, the true[73] man’s put to death.

DUCHESS OF YORK(Within) What ho, my liege! For heaven’s sake,

75

let me in.

BULLINGBROOK What shrill-voiced suppliant makes this eager cry?

DUCHESS OF YORK(Within) A woman, and thine aunt, great king. ’Tis I.

Speak with me, pity me, open the door:

A beggar begs that never begged before.

80

BULLINGBROOK Our scene is altered from a serious thing,

And now changed to ‘The Beggar and the King’.—

My dangerous cousin, let your mother in.

I know she’s come to pray for your foul sin.

YORKIf thou do pardon, whosoever pray,

85

More sins for[85] this forgiveness prosper may.

This festered[86] joint cut off, the rest rests sound:

This let alone[87] will all the rest confound.

Enter Duchess

DUCHESS OF YORKO king, believe not this hard-hearted man!

Love loving not itself[89] none other can.

90

YORKThou frantic[90] woman, what dost thou make here?

Shall thy old dugs[91] once more a traitor rear?

DUCHESS OF YORKSweet York, be patient. Hear me, gentle liege. Kneels

BULLINGBROOK Rise up, good aunt.

DUCHESS OF YORKNot yet, I thee beseech.

95

Forever will I kneel upon my knees,

And never see day that the happy[96] sees,

Till thou give joy, until thou bid me joy,

By pardoning Rutland, my transgressing boy.

AUMERLE Unto my mother’s prayers I bend my knee. Kneels

100

YORKAgainst them both my true[100] joints bended be. Kneels

DUCHESS OF YORKPleads he in earnest? Look upon his face:

His eyes do drop no tears, his prayers are in jest:[102]

His words come from his mouth, ours from our breast.

He prays but faintly and would[104] be denied:

105

We pray with heart and soul and all beside.

His weary joints would gladly rise, I know:

Our knees shall kneel till to the ground they grow.

His prayers are full of false hypocrisy,

Ours of true zeal and deep integrity.

110

Our prayers do out-pray his: then let them have

That mercy which true prayers ought to have.

BULLINGBROOK Good aunt, stand up.

DUCHESS OF YORKNay, do not say, ‘stand up’.

But, ‘pardon’ first, and afterwards ‘stand up’.

115

And if I were thy nurse, thy tongue to teach,

‘Pardon’ should be the first word of thy speech.

I never longed to hear a word till now:

Say ‘pardon’, king, let pity teach thee how.

The word is short, but not so short as sweet:

120

No word like ‘pardon’ for kings’ mouths so meet.[120]

YORKSpeak it in French, king: say, ‘pardonnez-moi’.[121]

DUCHESS OF YORKDost thou teach pardon pardon to destroy?

Ah, my sour husband, my hard-hearted lord,

That sets the word itself against the word!—

125

Speak ‘pardon’ as ’tis current in our land: To Bullingbrook

The chopping[126] French we do not understand.

Thine eye begins to speak, set thy tongue there,

Or in thy piteous heart plant thou thine ear,

That hearing how our plaints[129] and prayers do pierce,

130

Pity may move thee ‘pardon’ to rehearse.[130]

BULLINGBROOK Good aunt, stand up.

DUCHESS OF YORKI do not sue[132] to stand:

Pardon is all the suit[133] I have in hand.

BULLINGBROOK I pardon him, as heaven shall pardon me.

135

DUCHESS OF YORKO, happy[135] vantage of a kneeling knee!

Yet am I sick for fear: speak it again,

Twice saying ‘pardon’ doth not pardon twain,[137]

But makes one pardon strong.

BULLINGBROOK I pardon him with all my heart.

140

DUCHESS OF YORK A god on earth thou art. York, Duchess, and Aumerle rise

BULLINGBROOKBut for[141] our trusty brother-in-law, the abbot,

With all the rest of that consorted[142] crew,

Destruction straight shall dog them at the heels.

Good uncle, help to order several[144] powers

145

To Oxford, or where’er these traitors are:

They shall not live within this world, I swear,

But I will have them, if I once know where.

Uncle, farewell, and, cousin, adieu:

Your mother well hath prayed, and prove[149] you true.

150

DUCHESS OF YORKCome, my old son. I pray heaven make thee new.

Exeunt

[Act 5 Scene 4]

running scene 16 continues

Enter Exton and Servants

EXTONDidst thou not mark the king, what words he spake —

‘Have I no friend will rid me of this living fear?’

Was it not so?

SERVANTThose were his very words.

5

EXTON‘Have I no friend?’ quoth he: he spake it twice,

And urged it twice together, did he not?

SERVANTHe did.

EXTONAnd speaking it, he wistly[8] looked on me,

As[9] who should say, ‘I would thou wert the man

10

That would divorce this terror from my heart’,

Meaning the king at Pomfret. Come, let’s go:

I am the king’s friend, and will rid his foe.

Exeunt

Act 5 Scene [5]5.5

running scene 17

Enter Richard

KING RICHARDI have been studying[1] how to compare

This prison where I live unto the world.

And for because[3] the world is populous

And here is not a creature but myself,

5

I cannot do it. Yet I’ll hammer’t out.

My brain I’ll prove the female to my soul,

My soul the father, and these two beget[7]

A generation of still-breeding[8] thoughts;

And these same thoughts people this little world,

10

In humours[10] like the people of this world,

For no thought is contented. The better sort,

As[12] thoughts of things divine, are intermixed

With scruples[13] and do set the faith itself

Against the faith: as thus, ‘Come, little ones’,[14]

15

And then again:

‘It[16] is as hard to come as for a camel

To thread the postern[17] of a needle’s eye.’

Thoughts tending to ambition, they do plot

Unlikely wonders; how these vain weak nails

20

May tear a passage through the flinty ribs

Of this hard world, my ragged[21] prison walls,

And, for[22] they cannot, die in their own pride.

Thoughts tending to content[23] flatter themselves

That they are not the first of fortune’s slaves,

25

Nor shall not be the last, like silly[25] beggars

Who sitting in the stocks[26] refuge their shame,

That[27] many have and others must sit there;

And in this thought they find a kind of ease,

Bearing their own misfortune on the back

30

Of such as have before endured the like.

Thus play I in one prison[31] many people,

And none contented. Sometimes am I king;

Then treason[33] makes me wish myself a beggar,

And so I am. Then crushing penury[34]

35

Persuades me I was better when a king.

Then am I kinged again, and by and by[36]

Think that I am unkinged by Bullingbrook,

And straight[38] am nothing. But whate’er I am,

Music

Nor I nor any man that but man is[39]

40

With nothing[40] shall be pleased, till he be eased

With being nothing.[41] Music do I hear?

Ha, ha! Keep time. How sour sweet music is

When time is broke and no proportion[43] kept!

So is it in the music of men’s lives.

45

And here have I the daintiness[45] of ear

To hear time broke in a disordered string,[46]

But for the concord[47] of my state and time

Had not an ear to hear my true time broke.

I wasted time, and now doth time waste[49] me,

50

For now hath time made me his numb’ring clock.[50]

My thoughts are minutes; and with sighs they jar[51]

Their watches[52] on unto mine eyes, the outward watch,

Whereto my finger, like a dial’s point,[53]

Is pointing still,[54] in cleansing them from tears.

55

Now sir, the sound that tells[55] what hour it is

Are clamorous groans, that strike[56] upon my heart,

Which is the bell. So sighs and tears and groans

Show minutes, hours and times.[58] But my time

Runs posting[59] on in Bullingbrook’s proud joy,

60

While I stand fooling here, his Jack o’th’clock.[60]

This music mads[61] me. Let it sound no more, Music stops

For though it have holp[62] madmen to their wits,

In me it seems it will make wise men mad.

Yet blessing on his heart that gives it me,

65

For ’tis a sign of love, and love to[65] Richard

Is a strange brooch[66] in this all-hating world.

Enter Groom

GROOMHail, royal prince!

KING RICHARDThanks, noble peer.[68]

The[69] cheapest of us is ten groats too dear.

70

What art thou? And how com’st thou hither

Where no man ever comes but that sad[71] dog

That brings me food to make misfortune[72] live?

GROOMI was a poor groom of thy stable, king,

When thou wert king, who, travelling towards York,

75

With much ado,[75] at length have gotten leave

To look upon my sometimes[76] royal master’s face.

O, how it yearned[77] my heart when I beheld

In London streets, that coronation-day,

When Bullingbrook rode on roan[79] Barbary,

80

That horse that thou so often hast bestrid,[80]

That horse that I so carefully have dressed!

KING RICHARDRode he on Barbary? Tell me, gentle[82] friend,

How went he under him?

GROOMSo proudly as if he had disdained the ground.

85

KING RICHARDSo proud that Bullingbrook was on his back?

That jade[86] hath eat bread from my royal hand,

This hand hath made him proud with clapping[87] him.

Would he not stumble? Would he not fall down,

Since pride must have a fall, and break the neck

90

Of that proud man that did usurp his back?

Forgiveness, horse. Why do I rail on[91] thee,

Since thou, created to be awed[92] by man,

Wast born to bear? I was not made a horse,

And yet I bear a burden like an ass,

95

Spurred, galled[95] and tired by jauncing Bullingbrook.

Enter Keeper, with a dish

KEEPERFellow,[96] give place. Here is no longer stay.

KING RICHARDIf thou love me, ’tis time thou wert away. To Groom

GROOMWhat my tongue dares not, that my heart shall say.

Exit

KEEPERMy lord, will’t please you to fall to?[99]

100

KING RICHARDTaste of it first, as thou wert wont[100] to do.

KEEPERMy lord, I dare not. Sir Pierce of Exton, who

Lately came from th’king, commands the contrary.

KING RICHARDThe devil take Henry of Lancaster and thee!

Patience is stale, and I am weary of it. Beats him

105

KEEPERHelp, help, help!

Enter Exton and Servants [armed]

KING RICHARDHow now? What means death in this rude[106] assault?

Villain, thine own hand yields thy death’s instrument.—

Takes a weapon from one man and kills him with it

Go thou, and fill another room[108] in hell.— Kills another man

Exton strikes him down

That hand shall burn in never-quenching fire

110

That staggers[110] thus my person. Exton, thy fierce hand

Hath with the king’s blood stained the king’s own land.

Mount, mount, my soul! Thy seat[112] is up on high,

Whilst my gross[113] flesh sinks downward, here to die. Dies

EXTONAs full of valour as of royal blood.

Both have I spilled. O, would the deed were good!

115

For now the devil that told me I did well

Says that this deed is chronicled in hell.

This dead king to the living king I’ll bear.—

Take hence the rest, and give them burial here.

Exeunt

Act 5 Scene [6]5.6

running scene 18

Flourish. Enter Bullingbrook, York, with other Lords and Attendants

BULLINGBROOK Kind uncle York, the latest news we hear

Is that the rebels have consumed with fire

Our town of Cicester[3] in Gloucestershire,

But whether they be ta’en[4] or slain we hear not.

Enter Northumberland

5

Welcome, my lord. What is the news?

NORTHUMBERLANDFirst, to thy sacred state wish I all happiness.

The next[7] news is, I have to London sent

The heads of Salisbury, Spencer, Blunt and Kent.

The manner of their taking[9] may appear

10

At large discoursèd[10] in this paper here. Gives a paper

BULLINGBROOKWe thank thee, gentle Percy, for thy pains,

And to thy worth will add right worthy[12] gains.

Enter Fitzwaters

FITZWATERS My lord, I have from Oxford sent to London

The heads of Brocas and Sir Bennet Seely,

15

Two of the dangerous consorted traitors

That sought at Oxford thy dire[16] overthrow.

BULLINGBROOKThy pains, Fitzwaters, shall not be forgot.

Right noble is thy merit, well I wot.[18]

Enter Percy and Carlisle

PERCYThe grand[19] conspirator, Abbot of Westminster,

20

With clog[20] of conscience and sour melancholy

Hath yielded up his body to the grave,

But here is Carlisle living, to abide[22]

Thy kingly doom[23] and sentence of his pride.

BULLINGBROOKCarlisle, this is your doom:

25

Choose out some secret place, some reverend room,[25]

More[26] than thou hast, and with it joy thy life.

So as thou liv’st in peace, die free from strife:

For though mine enemy thou hast ever been,

High[29] sparks of honour in thee have I seen.

Enter Exton, with [Attendants carrying] a coffin

30

EXTONGreat king, within this coffin I present

Thy buried fear. Herein all breathless lies

The mightiest of thy greatest enemies,

Richard of Bordeaux,[33] by me hither brought.

BULLINGBROOKExton, I thank thee not, for thou hast wrought[34]

35

A deed of slaughter with thy fatal hand

Upon my head and all this famous land.

EXTONFrom your own mouth, my lord, did I this deed.

BULLINGBROOKThey love not poison that do poison need,

Nor do I thee. Though I did wish him dead,

40

I hate the murd’rer, love[40] him murderèd.

The guilt of conscience take thou for thy labour,

But neither my good word nor princely favour.

With Cain[43] go wander through the shade of night,

And never show thy head by day nor light.

45

Lords, I protest, my soul is full of woe

That blood should sprinkle me to make me grow.

Come, mourn with me for that I do lament,

And put on sullen[48] black incontinent.

I’ll make a voyage to the Holy Land,[49]

50

To wash this blood off from my guilty hand.

March sadly[51] after: grace my mourning here,

In weeping after[52] this untimely bier.

Exeunt

Quarto passages that do not appear in the Folio

Following 1.3.127:

And for we think the eagle-wingèd pride

Of sky-aspiring and ambitious thoughts,

With rival-hating envy, set on you

To wake our peace, which in our country’s cradle

Draws the sweet infant breath of gentle sleep;

Following 1.3.232:

O, had it been a stranger, not my child,

To smooth his fault I should have been more mild:

A partial slander sought I to avoid,

And in the sentence my own life destroyed.

Following 1.3.257:

BULLINGBROOKNay, rather, every tedious stride I make

Will but remember me what a deal of world

I wander from the jewels that I love.

Must I not serve a long apprenticehood

To foreign passages, and in the end,

Having my freedom, boast of nothing else

But that I was a journeyman to grief?

GAUNTAll places that the eye of heaven visits

Are to a wise man ports and happy havens.

Teach thy necessity to reason thus;

There is no virtue like necessity.

Think not the king did banish thee,

But thou the king. Woe doth the heavier sit,

Where it perceives it is but faintly borne.

Go, say I sent thee forth to purchase honour

And not the king exiled thee; or suppose

Devouring pestilence hangs in our air

And thou art flying to a fresher clime:

Look what thy soul holds dear, imagine it

To lie that way thou go’st, not whence thou comest:

Suppose the singing birds musicians,

The grass whereon thou tread’st the presence strewed,

The flowers fair ladies, and thy steps no more

Than a delightful measure or a dance;

For gnarling sorrow hath less power to bite

The man that mocks at it and sets it light.

Following 3.2.28:

The means that heaven yields must be embraced,

And not neglected; else, if heaven would,

And we will not, heaven’s offer we refuse,

The proffered means of succour and redress.

Following 4.1.52:

LORDI task the earth to the like, forsworn Aumerle;

And spur thee on with full as many lies

As may be holloaed in thy treacherous ear

From sun to sun: there is my honour’s pawn;

Engage it to the trial, if thou darest.

AUMERLEWho sets me else? By heaven, I’ll throw at all:

I have a thousand spirits in one breast,

To answer twenty thousand such as you.

Textual Notes

Q = First Quarto text of 1597

F = First Folio text of 1623

F2 = a correction introduced in the Second Folio text of 1632

Ed = a correction introduced by a later editor

List of parts = Ed

1.1.127 duly = Q. Not in F 163 Obedience bids = Ed. F erroneously prints the words twice 203 we shall = Q. F = you shall

1.2.20 faded spelled vaded in F 43 to = F. Q = and 62 my = F. Q = thy

1.3.28 plated = Q. F = placed 29 formally = Q. F = formerly 76 furbish = Q. F = furnish 86 King = Q. F = Kings 256 as foil = Q. F = a soyle 266 never = Q. F = euer

1.4.7 blew = Q. F = grew 22 Bagot here = Q. F = heere Bagot 27 smiles = Q. F = soules

2.1.18 found = Q. F = sound 118 chasing = Q. F = chafing 191 grip spelled gripe in F 234 thou wouldst = Q. F = thou’dst 286 Brittany = Ed. F = Britaine

2.2.3 life-harming = Q. F = selfe-harming 27 weeps = Q. F = weepe 54 son young = Q. F = yong sonne 74 hope lingers = Q. F = hopes linger 95 as…callèd = Q. F = I came by, and call’d

2.3.87 nor uncle me no uncle = Ed. F = nor Unckle me 92 then more = Q. F = more then

3.2.26 rebellion’s = Q. F = Rebellious 102 makes = Q. F = make 107 Whitebeards = Q. F = White Beares 177 And…yourself = Q. Not in F

3.3.39 most royal = Q. F = Royall (F‘s lineation is also aberrant in these lines)

3.4.11 joy = Ed. F = Griefe 26 come = Q. F = comes 61 we at = Ed. F = at 62 Do = Q. F = And 70 and = F. Q = of

4.1.27 I say thou = Q. F = Thou 34 sympathy = Q. F = sympathize 113 noblesse = Q. F = noblenesse 132 his = F. Q = this 139 rear = F. Q = raise

5.1.39 thy = Q. F = my

5.3.37 be = Q. F = me 50 reason = F. Q = treason 63 held = Q. F = had 95 kneel = F. Q = walke

5.5 [Scene 5] = Ed. F = Scoena Quarta (i.e., numbered 5.4, since previous scene break is not noted) 31 prison = F. Q = person 95 Spurred, galled = Q. F = Spur-gall’d

5.6 [Scene 6] = Ed. F = Scoena Quinta

Act 1 Scene 1

*   List of parts: QUEEN unnamed on stage; the historical Richard’s wife at the end of his reign was Isabel of Valois, a child; in portraying an adult queen and a close marriage, the play seems to conflate Isabel with Richard’s deceased first wife, Anne of Bohemia

1.1    Location: the court of King Richard II John of Gaunt was named after his place of birth, Ghent

2    Hast thou have you—the familiar form used to intimates and inferiors    band bond

3    Henry Hereford i.e., Bullingbrook; he had been created Duke of Hereford (pronounced as two syllables) by Richard in 1397

4    boist’rous violent    late recent    appeal binding accusation

5    our Richard uses the plural royal pronoun    leisure i.e., lack of leisure

7    liege lord, superior entitled to feudal allegiance and service

8    sounded enquired of

9    on ancient out of long-standing

11    ground motive, cause

12    sift find by questioning    argument topic

13    apparent manifest, obvious

14    inveterate long-standing

18    High-stomached proud/high-spirited/courageous/angry    ire anger

21    gracious full of divine grace, holy/benevolent

22    still always

23    hap fortune

24    immortal title i.e., immortality (in heaven)

25    but only

26    well appeareth is plainly apparent    you come i.e., about which you come

27    appeal accuse of a crime that the accuser undertakes to prove (especially of treason)

28    object charge

30    record witness

32    Tend’ring cherishing

33    misbegotten wrongfully conceived

34    appellant (as an) accuser

36    mark note, pay attention to

38    answer answer for

39    miscreant wretch, villain

40    good high-ranking

41    crystal clear, bright (heavenly bodies were thought to be contained within rotating crystal spheres)

43    aggravate emphasize, magnify    note reproach, mark of disgrace

45    ere before

46    right justly, rightfully

47    cold deliberate, unimpassioned    accuse i.e., diminish, cast doubt on    zeal powerful feelings/loyalty

48    trial judgment, test

49    eager sharp, biting

50    Can arbitrate that can reach a judicial decision on    cause matter of dispute    betwixt between    twain two

51    blood anger, passion/bodily blood    cooled calmed/let flow (either through medical bloodletting or in death)

54    fair reverence of proper respect for

56    else otherwise    post hasten

58    Setting…royalty regardless of his royal blood (Bullingbrook is Richard’s cousin, and grandson to Edward III;    high blood plays on the sense of “extreme anger”)

59    let supposing

60    defy challenge to combat

62    odds the advantage

63    meet encounter in combat    tied obliged

65    inhabitable not habitable

66    durst dares to

67    this i.e., the following accusation, or possibly Mowbray indicates his sword

69    gage pledge signifying a commitment to combat (usually a glove or gauntlet, thrown down to challenge the opponent)

72    except set aside

74    pawn gage

76    make good prove

77    thou canst devise you can invent

79    gently nobly/kindly/softly

80    in    …degree to any just, honorable extent

82    light alight, dismount (from my horse)

83    unjustly dishonorably/in an unjust cause

84    lay    …charge accuse Mowbray of

85    inherit us put us in possession

87    Look attend to, note

88    nobles gold coins

89    lendings advances on payment

90    lewd improper/vile

91    injurious harmful

93    Or either

96    Complotted plotted in conspiracy with others

97    Fetched drew/derived    head source

100    Duke of Gloucester son of Edward III, hence Richard’s uncle and John of Gaunt’s brother; he was murdered in 1397 at Calais, while in the custody of Mowbray and, many believe, at Richard’s prompting

101    Suggest tempt, incite

103    Sluiced out let flow, flooded out

104    sacrificing sacrificial    Abel in the Bible, killed by his brother Cain, the world’s first murderer

106    chastisement correction, punishment

109    pitch height (literally, the highest point in a falcon’s flight)

113    slander of disgrace to

118    my sceptre’s awe the reverence due to my scepter

119    neighbour neighboring, close

120    partialize make partial, bias

126    receipt amount received

130    Upon…account for the balance of a large debt

131    fetch historically Mowbray was involved in marriage negotiations on Richard’s behalf, though Richard escorted the French princess Isabel to England

135    lord of Lancaster i.e., John of Gaunt

138    trespass sin

140    exactly in full detail/specifically

142    appealed with which I am charged

144    recreant cowardly (if an adjective)/coward (if a noun)

145    Which which accusation

146    interchangeably in exchange, reciprocally

147    overweening arrogant

149    Even in i.e., by shedding    chambered enclosed

150    In haste whereof to hasten which

153    purge cure medically (by bloodletting)    choler anger (literally yellow bile, the hot and dry “humor,” one of four fluids in ancient and medieval physiology, believed to govern physical and mental qualities)    letting shedding; refers specifically to the medical practice of phlebotomy (opening a vein so as to let blood flow)

156    conclude come to terms

157    doctors learned men, astrologers

160    become suit, befit

164    boot point, advantage (in refusing)

165    dread revered

167    fair name honorable reputation

170    impeached accused legally    baffled disgraced publicly

172    balm ointment    his…breathed the heart-blood of he who uttered

175    Lions make leopards the lion symbolized the king and featured on the royal coat of arms; Mowbray’s coat of arms bore a lion leopard, i.e., walking and showing the full face

176    spots leopard spots/stains of dishonor    Take take responsibility for/take over

179    away gone

180    but gilded merely covered with gold, superficially fair    loam earth, clay

181    ten-times-barred-up i.e., extremely secure    chest plays on the sense of “torso”

183    in one together, inseparably

185    try put to the test

189    crest-fall’n humbled/abashed

190    impeach my height discredit my high rank, stoop

191    out-dared cowed/terrified    dastard coward

193    parle truce (literally trumpet call instigating negotiation)

194    motive instrument, i.e., tongue    recanting renouncing a belief/making a public confession of error

195    his its (the tongue’s)

196    harbour dwell/shelter

197    sue beg

200    Saint Lambert’s day September 17

202    swelling growing/inflated with pride    settled fixed, unchanging

203    atone set at one, reconcile

204    design designate, identify    chivalry valor or prowess in war

206    home alarms domestic calls to arms

Act 1 Scene 2

1.2    Location: unspecified, probably assumed to be Ely House, London

1    part…blood i.e., my kinship to Gloucester (who was John of Gaunt’s brother)

2    solicit urge    exclaims outcries, exclamations

3    stir take action

4    those hands i.e., Richard’s (whom Gaunt holds responsible for Gloucester’s death)

11    Edward’s Edward III

15    Destinies the Fates in classical mythology who cut the thread of life with their shears

19    liquor liquid

21    envy’s malice’s

23    metal substance (puns on “mettle,” i.e., disposition)    self-mould selfsame mold/mold from which the self is made

25    consent assent, acquiesce

28    model copy, image

30    suff’ring allowing

31    naked i.e., defenseless

33    mean lowly, humble

36    venge avenge

37    Heaven’s    …deputy i.e., Richard who, as king, was held to be God’s earthly representative

38    anointed…sight i.e., marked with holy oil at Westminster Abbey, the part of the coronation ceremony that signified the sacred nature of the king

42    complaint myself lodge a formal complaint

43    champion defender

46    cousin kinsman    fell cruel, fierce

49    career charge of the horse in combat

51    courser swift powerful horse ridden in battle

52    lists area of combat (literally, the barriers enclosing it)

53    caitiff cowardly, villainous    recreant faith-breaker

54    thy sometimes formerly your

58    boundeth rebounds

62    brother i.e., brother-in-law

63    Lo look

66    Plashy the Duke of Gloucester’s country estate in Essex

69    offices servants’ quarters

Act 1 Scene 3

1.3    Location: the area of combat at Coventry

2    at all points completely, in every respect

3    sprightfully full of high spirits

4    Stays awaits    appellant accuser, challenger

5    champions contenders    Flourish trumpet fanfare accompanying a person in authority    When    …    set a Quarto direction, omitted from Folio, indicating that the king, as umpire, should be set upon a raised throne

7    demand ask

9    orderly duly, properly

13    quarrel complaint

18    defend forbid

20    succeeding subsequent/who will inherit the throne issue children    Tucket personal trumpet call

28    plated armored    habiliments clothing, attire

30    Depose him take his sworn deposition

31    wherefore why

43    daring-hardy recklessly bold    touch i.e., interfere in

45    fair lawful, proper

51    several respective/various

55    as insofar as, to the extent to which

56    royal fight because held in the king’s presence

57    my blood Richard’s reference is ambiguous; Bullingbrook was his cousin but all subjects were the king’s and part of the body politic

59    profane wrongfully let fall

66    lusty vigorous, robust    cheerly cheerfully

67    regreet salute, welcome

68    daintiest most delicious

70    regenerate reborn, renewed

71    twofold i.e., father’s and son’s

73    proof impenetrability

75    waxen i.e., soft, vulnerable

76    furbish polish

77    ’haviour behavior, actions

81    amazing stupefying/terrifying    casque helmet

82    pernicious ruinous

84    Saint George patron saint of England

90    enfranchisement freedom

95    gentle pleasant, friendly, courteous    jocund joyful, cheerful    jest amuse oneself/act in a masque

97    Securely confidently

98    couchèd lodged/at rest

99    Order set in order/initiate

106    recreant cowardly/unfaithful to duty

108    him i.e., Bullingbrook

112    approve prove

114    him i.e., Mowbray

116    Attending awaiting    charge trumpet call signaling the beginning of combat

118    Stay halt, stop    warder staff or baton held by the king to symbolize his authority over the combat

119    lay by put    aside

122    return inform

123    list listen to

124    For that because

125    dear beloved/costly

126    for because    aspect sight

128    boist’rous noisy, raucous/violent

130    shock clash in combat

136    regreet see again

137    stranger foreign

144    sly stealthy    determinate put to an end

145    dateless limit unlimited term    dear heartfelt/grievous

147    life i.e., loss of life

149    unlooked for unexpected

150    merit reward    maim wound

151    common ordinary/open

157    cunning skillfully made/requiring skill to play

158    open not in its case

159    touch fingering/skill

161    portcullised shut in, as if with a portcullis (defensive iron grille, usually of a castle)

168    boots profits    compassionate lamenting piteously

169    plaining complaining

171    solemn burdensome/dark/mournful

175    Our part therein i.e., the duty you owe to me as king

180    regreet greet (one another) again

181    louring darkly threatening

182    advisèd considered, deliberate

183    complot conspire in

187    so far as let me say this much

190    sepulchre tomb

192    fly flee

194    clogging encumbering (like a clog, a block of wood attached to the neck or leg to prevent escape)

199    rue regret, lament

200    stray take the wrong road/go wrong

201    Save except

202    glasses windows

203    aspect look

208    wanton abundant, flourishing

212    vantage advantage

214    times seasonal cycles

215    oil-dried empty of oil    time-bewasted used up by time

216    extinct extinguished

217    taper candle

218    blindfold death refers to the eyeless skull that symbolized death and/or to the idea of death depriving Gaunt of the power to see

224    pilgrimage i.e., journey through life

225    current valid, genuine (as a legitimate coin)

226    dead i.e., once I am dead

227    advice counsel, consideration, judgment

228    party-verdict share in the collective decision (of the king’s advisers)

229    lour frown, look gloomy

233    looked when expected that, waited for

234    make…away banish my own child

235    leave permission

239    presence…know I cannot learn of you in person/what the royal court shall not know

240    paper i.e., letters

245    few i.e., few words

246    office function    prodigal extravagant

247    breathe utter    dolour sorrow

248    grief cause for grief (Bullingbrook shifts the sense to “sorrow”)    time short while

252    travel journey/labor

253    miscall wrongly call

255    sullen somber, melancholy

256    Esteem as foil regard as a setting for a jewel

259    Caucasus region bordering Asia Minor including the Caucasus Mountains, depicted by Ovid as cold and stony

260    cloy satiate, gorge

263    fantastic imaginary

264    apprehension conception, awareness

266    Fell fierce, cruel    rankle cause festering

267    lanceth pierces (to relieve infection)

268    bring escort

270    adieu good-bye

Act 1 Scene 4

1.4    Location: the royal court

1    We did observe Richard enters mid-conversation

2    high proud/of high rank

4    next nearest

5    store quantity, abundance

6    for me on my part

8    rheum watery discharge, i.e., tears

9    hollow insincere

11    for because

12    craft skill, cunning

13    counterfeit pretend, fake

15    Marry by the Virgin Mary

19    cousin Aumerle’s father is the Duke of York, Richard’s uncle    doubt doubtful

21    friends relatives

26    reverence respect

28    underbearing endurance

29    banish…him take their affection into exile with him

30    bonnet soft brimless hat    oyster-wench girl who sells oysters

31    brace of draymen pair of cart drivers

32    supple easily bent

34    in reversion i.e., after my death (when leased land would revert to its true owner)

35    our…hope in terms of public expectation and favor, the nearest heir

37    stand out make a stand, hold out

38    Expedient manage swift management

39    leisure delay

43    largesse generosity

44    farm lease parts of the land to tenants who might then collect taxes on their own behalf

46    come short is insufficient

47    substitutes those appointed to govern during the king’s absence    blank charters documents authorizing deputies to collect revenues, or forced loans; blank spaces were left for the names of those required to pay

49    subscribe them enter their names

50    them i.e., the    sums collected

51    presently immediately

57    Ely House the Bishop of Ely’s palace in Holborn, London

60    lining contents (puns on the sense of “lining of a coat”)

Act 2 Scene 1

2.1    Location: London, Ely House sick Gaunt is probably carried on stage in a chair

2    unstaid uncontrolled

9    listened listened to

10    gloze flatter, talk smoothly

11    marked paid attention to

12    close closing cadence of a piece of music

13    last at its end/for longest

16    sad serious, solemn

18    state kingly splendor

19    metres verses    venom poisonous

21    proud arrogant/showy/splendid

22    tardy apish belatedly imitating

24    vanity trifle

25    So provided    there’s no respect it does not matter

26    buzzed whispered busily

27    That so that

28    will…regard desire rebels against reasoned consideration

31    new inspired newly filled with divine influence (plays on the sense of “full of newly drawn breath”)

32    expiring dying/breathing out

33    riot wasteful, dissolute lifestyle

35    Small composed of fine drops

36    betimes early

38    Light vanity frivolous foolishness    cormorant glutton (literally, greedy seabird)

39    means resources, means of sustenance

40    sceptred invested with regal authority

41    earth of majesty land fit for kings    Mars Roman god of war

45    happy breed fortunate race

47    office function

50    plot land for cultivation

51    teeming fertile

52    by their breed on account of their mighty ancestry

55    sepulchre cave outside Jerusalem in which Christ was buried    stubborn Jewry the residents of Jerusalem who resisted Christianity

56    world’s    …son i.e., Christ

60    tenement land or property held by a tenant    pelting paltry

61    bound in bordered, surrounded

62    envious malicious, hostile

63    Neptune Roman god of the sea    bound legally bound

64    inky…bonds i.e., the corrupt blank charters

65    wont accustomed

73    composition state of health

76    meat food

77    watched remained awake/kept guard

83    inherits receives

84    nicely ingeniously, precisely

85    to mock in mocking

86    kill…me i.e., by banishing Gaunt’s son and heir

93    see thee ill see you imperfectly (as my sight is failing)/see the ill that is in you

101    compass circumference

102    verge limit, rim/the twelve-mile radius around the king’s court/measure of land

103    waste wasteland/wastefulness/damage done to property by a tenant/waist

104    grandsire i.e., Edward III

105    his sons Edward’s sons, Richard’s uncles/Richard’s own (as yet unborn) children

106    forth beyond

107    Deposing disinheriting, depriving    possessed in possession of the crown (sense then shifts to “inhabited by the devil”)

109    cousin kinsman    regent ruler

111    for…land insofar as your world consists of this land

114    state…law absolute legal status (as king) is now subject to legal processes (as a result of leasing out land)

116    Presuming on taking advantage of    ague fever and shaking

117    frozen cold, hostile/chilled by illness

120    seat throne/status

122    roundly bluntly/fluently

123    unreverent disrespectful

125    For that because

126    pelican the bird’s offspring were thought to feed on her blood

127    tapped out drawn as from a barrel    caroused drunk heartily/drunk toasts with

129    fair good, happiness

133    unkindness unnatural behavior

139    sullens sulks, gloomy moods

140    become befit, suit

143    dear As Harry as dearly as Gaunt holds Harry (but Richard interprets “as dearly as Harry holds Richard”)

151    spent used up, exhausted

155    pilgrimage i.e., journey through life

157    supplant get rid of    rug-headed shaggy-haired    kerns lightly armed foot soldiers

160    ask some charge require some expenditure

161    seize take possession (legal term)

162    plate gold or silver tableware    movables portable property

167    Gaunt’s rebukes the rebukes given by Richard to Gaunt    private wrongs wrongs done to individuals

168    Bullingbrook…marriage Richard prevented the exiled Bullingbrook from marrying a cousin of the French king

171    bend one wrinkle direct one frown

178    Accomplished…hours i.e., when he was your age    Accomplished equipped

190    withal with that

191    seize take legal possession of

192    royalties rights granted by the king/rights due to one of royal blood

194    true loyal/legitimate (as heir)

198    His i.e., time’s    customary rights i.e., of inheritance and succession

199    ensue follow

204    Call…patents revoke the documents signed by the king granting land or titles

205    By…livery allowing him to sue, through his lawyers, for the right to his inheritance

206    homage avowal of allegiance, part of the formal process of receiving one’s inheritance

207    pluck pull

209    prick spur

213    by nearby, present

215    courses i.e., of action

216    events consequences

218    repair come

219    see attend to    Tomorrow next tomorrow/tomorrow morning

220    trow believe

230    great swollen with emotion    with silence by keeping silent

231    liberal freely speaking

234    Tends…to does what you want to say relate to

239    Bereft forcibly deprived, robbed    gelded deprived of wealth/castrated

246    prosecute perform/pursue

248    piled most editors emend to “pilled” (stripped bare, plundered)

250    ancient long-standing

251    exactions means of enforcing payment

252    blanks blank charters    benevolences forced loans    wot know

253    this i.e., all the money that has been collected

255    basely…compromise made concessions in a cowardly way

258    in farm for rent, on lease

259    broken financially ruined

267    sore sorely, threateningly

268    strike draw in the sails/strike blows in opposition    securely overconfidently, heedlessly

271    suffering enduring, permitting

274    tidings news

281    Rainold…Exeter in fact, it was the young Earl of Arundel who escaped from Exeter’s custody; it seems likely that a line is missing here and many editors insert a line based on Shakespeare’s source, Holinshed’s Chronicles: “Thomas, son and heir to th’Earl of Arundel”

282    broke escaped

283    His i.e., the Earl of Arundel’s

286    furnished equipped

287    tall large, grand

288    expedience haste

290    had ere this would have done already    stay await

293    Imp out repair by inserting new feathers (falconry term)

294    broking pawn being pledged to a pawnbroker

295    gilt gold (puns on “guilt”)

297    post haste    Ravenspurgh a former Yorkshire port on the River Humber

298    faint lose heart, are nervous

301    Hold…horse as long as my horse holds out

Act 2 Scene 2

2.2    Location: the royal court

3    heaviness sorrow

4    entertain maintain/receive

14    shadows mirrored reflections, insubstantial things

16    glazèd glassed over/covered with a film

17    thing entire to complete thing into

18    perspectives optical devices incorporating mirrors that produce distorted images/seemingly distorted paintings that only become clear when viewed from a particular angle    rightly directly, from the front

19    awry obliquely, from the side

20    Distinguish form make their shape clear, reveal order

22    himself the original grief/Richard’s departure    wail bewail, lament

25    More for more

27    for in place of/because of

30    heavy weightily/sorrowfully

31    on…think dwelling anxiously on nothing, on the absence of thought

33    conceit imagination (the queen shifts the sense to “thought, understanding”)

34    nothing less i.e., far from it    still always

36    begot conceived, created    something substantial, actual

37    grieve grieve for, feel sorrow over

38    in reversion i.e., asa legacy, not yet inherited

40    wot know, believe

45    wherefore why

46    retired pulled back (from Ireland)

48    strongly with a powerful military force

49    repeals himself recalls himself from exile/revokes his sentence of banishment

50    uplifted arms arms raised in prayer/brandished weapons

60    staff i.e., the symbol of his role as Steward of the king’s household

61    household i.e., royal establishment

64    heir child, offspring

65    prodigy portent/monster

71    cozening deceitful (may play on “cousin”)

73    bands bonds

74    lingers draws out, causes to linger    in extremity to the very end/the final moments of life

77    careful anxious, care-filled

78    comfortable comforting

80    crosses obstacles

81    save protect (his rule in Ireland)

83    underprop support, prop up

85    surfeit excess, over-indulgence

86    try put to the test

87    son i.e., the Duke of Aumerle

89    cold unenthusiastic/unmoved

91    Sirrah sir (used to an inferior)    sister sister-in-law

92    presently immediately

93    take my ring i.e., as a sign that the message is genuinely from York

99    Heav’n i.e., I pray heaven (God)

101    would wish

102    So provided that    untruth disloyalty

103    brother’s i.e., the murdered Gloucester’s

104    posts messengers

105    do manage, provide

109    muster assemble in readiness for action

113    oath i.e., of allegiance

116    kindred kinship, family bond

117    somewhat something

118    Dispose of make arrangements for

120    Berkeley Castle a castle in Gloucestershire, near Bristol

123    at…seven in chaos

124    sits i.e., blows

125    power troops

129    those those who

133    generally universally/by the people

134    judgement…we they are to be judges, then our fate lies in their hands

136    straight (go) straight away

138    office service

139    hateful hate-filled

140    curs dogs

143    presages forebodings    vain wrong, in vain

145    as depends on how

Act 2 Scene 3

2.3    Location: Gloucestershire

9    Cottshold the Cotswolds, rural area covering part of Oxfordshire and Gloucestershire

10    In by    wanting lacking

11    beguiled whiled away

12    tediousness and process tedious course

16    By this in this way/with this hope

22    whencesoever wherever he may be

26    forsook abandoned, rejected

35    levied raised

36    repair go

42    tender offer (sense then shifts to “youthful, inexperienced”)

45    approvèd proven

46    gentle noble/courteous/kind

49    fortune success, luck/wealth

50    still always

52    stir events, activity

54    yond yonder, that    tuft clump

57    estimate repute

59    spurring i.e., the blood of the horses they have spurred on so hard

60    wot know

62    unfelt i.e., not yet expressed through material reward    which i.e., which    treasury

66    thanks…poor i.e., gratitude is the only wealth the poor have

67    comes to years reaches the age of maturity

71    my…Lancaster Bullingbrook will respond only to his proper    title (Duke of Lancaster), inherited from his father, John of Gaunt

74    aught anything

76    raze erase/scrape title puns on “tittle,” i.e., tiniest part

77    what…will whatever the title you wish me to use

78    glorious illustrious, important

79    pricks spurs

80    absent time i.e., time during which the king is absent

81    native natural, inherent (with connotations of birth)    self-born originating with you, brandished for your own cause (also “self-borne”—carried by yourself)

85    deceivable deceptive

87    Grace…grace don’t speak to me of “grace” (since your behavior is so    ungracious)

89    ungracious unmannerly/wicked/lacking in spiritual grace

91    dust particle of dust

95    ostentation of despisèd display of despicable (because traitorous)

101    Black Prince Edward, Richard’s father and son of Edward III

104    palsy weakness of the body, accompanied at times with tremor

107    On…wherein? What point of law have I contravened and how?/What personal flaw am I deemed to have and how has it manifested itself? condition legal stipulation/personal quality; York shifts the sense to “circumstances”

112    braving defiant, boastfully flaunted

114    for as/to claim the title of

116    indifferent impartial

121    perforce forcibly

122    unthrifts spendthrifts, wasteful people (with moral connotations)

128    rouse expose, chase from hiding (hunting term)    bay last stand (where the cornered animal turns on its hunters)

129    denied…liv’ry refused the right to legally claim my inheritance

130    letters patent documents signed by the king granting land or titles (Bullingbrook’s have been revoked by Richard)

131    distrained confiscated by law

132    amiss wrongly

134    challenge law claim my legal rights

136    of free descent through legal succession

138    stands…upon is the responsibility of your grace

139    endowments i.e., wealth and property (that has now been given to others)

143    kind manner

144    Be…way i.e., act on his own authority, help himself (literally, carve his own piece of meat)

152    issue outcome

154    power army    ill left left in disordered, poor condition

156    attach arrest    stoop i.e., kneel for    mercy

159    as neuter neutral

163    win persuade

166    caterpillars i.e., parasites

Act 2 Scene 4

2.4    Location: Wales

1    stayed waited

2    hardly with difficulty

8    bay-trees bay leaves were associated with victory and immortality

9    meteors regarded as bad omens

11    lean-looked gaunt, lean-looking

13    The one i.e.,    rich men

20    firmament sky

22    Witnessing betokening, indicating

23    wait upon offer allegiance to

24    crossly adversely

Act 3 Scene 1

3.1    Location: Bristol

3    presently immediately    part depart from

4    urging insisting on, emphasizing    pernicious wicked, destructive

7    causes of legal reasons for

9    happy fortunate

10    unhappied made unfortunate, ruined    clean completely

11    in manner as it were, in a way

12    divorce breach, separation

13    Broke…bed i.e., interfered with marital union and happiness

20    clouds mists of breath/climates, skies

22    signories estates

23    Disparked my parks opened my enclosed hunting grounds for other uses

24    coat coat of arms (often emblazoned on stained or painted windows)

25    imprese heraldic family emblem

29    death death penalty (legal term)

35    dispatched dealt with/killed

37    entreated treated

38    commends regards

41    at large (expressed) in full

Act 3 Scene 2

3.2    Location: Barkloughly (Harlech) Castle, northern Wales colours military flags (and those carrying them)

1    Barkloughly castle actually Harlech Castle

2    brooks likes (technically “tolerates”)

9    fondly affectionately/foolishly

13    sense appetite

14    spiders like    toads, they were thought to be poisonous

16    annoyance harm

20    Guard protect/trim with an ornamental border    prithee pray thee

21    double forked    mortal deadly

23    senseless conjuration appeal to the unfeeling earth/foolish entreaty

25    native rightful, legitimately crowned

30    security overconfidence

32    Discomfortable discouraging

33    eye…world when, to us, the sun is hidden beneath the earth, lighting the underside of the world

49    rude turbulent

50    balm consecrating oil, used to anoint a king at his coronation

53    pressed conscripted

54    shrewd sharp, biting    steel sword

56    angel puns on the sense of “gold coin”

59    Nor near no nearer

60    Discomfort sorrow/discouragement

63    happy fortunate

67    state kingship, power

71    But now only a moment ago

72    triumph rejoice, exult

83    high noble in rank (sense then shifts to “proud, ambitious”)

85    power…turn sufficient troops for our needs

86    betide befall, come to

87    care-tuned tuned by sorrow/tuned to a sorrowful key    deliver report to

90    care burden, source of anxiety

94    fellow equal/servant

95    mend remedy

104    his applies to both    rage and to    Bullingbrook

105    Bullingbrook probably puns on “brook”    fearful frightened

107    Whitebeards i.e., old men

109    big with deep voices (like men)    clap place, thrust    female feminine, i.e., youthful

110    arms armor

111    beadsmen almsmen who were paid to pray on behalf of another

112    double-fatal doubly deadly (the wood of the    yew was used to make bows; its leaves and berries were poisonous)

113    distaff-women women occupied in spinning (a distaff was a staff used to hold wool)    bills long-handled weapons with blades at the ends

114    seat throne

120    Measure our confines travel over our territories    peaceful i.e., unopposed

122    I warrant I’m sure, I’ll guarantee

127    Judas the disciple who betrayed Jesus Christ

129    spotted stained (with sin)

130    property essence, own nature

133    hands used to sign a document or swear an oath

135    graved buried

148    model microcosm, replica/mould

149    paste and cover pastry covering/piecrust

151    sad solemn/sorrowful    stories historical narratives

156    rounds encircles    mortal human/destined for death

157    antic grotesque buffoon

158    his state at the king’s regality

160    monarchize act the monarch

161    self self-made/self-centered    conceit imaginings, concept (of himself)

163    humoured thus Death, having amused himself in this way/Death, being so inclined/Death, having allowed the king to indulge himself in this way

171    Subjected under the dominion of grief/turned into a mere subject (rather than being a king)

174    presently immediately    prevent…wail seek to forestall the routes to (or sources of) grief

177    And…yourself this line is omitted in Folio, seemingly as a printer’s error rather than a deliberate cut

178    No…fight nothing worse (than being    slain) can come from fighting

179    death destroying death i.e., defying death by dying nobly (and, perhaps, being remembered in such a way)/by conquering death’s power to make one afraid

182    a…limb i.e., a great fighting force out of a small number of soldiers

183    chid’st reprove, upbraid

184    change exchange    doom destiny

185    ague acute or violent fever/fit of shaking or shivering    over-blown blown over

191    heavy gloomy, sorrowful

193    by…small by increments, little by little

200    Beshrew curse    forth Of out of

205    Flint Castle situated in northeast Wales

207    power forces, troops    discharge dismiss

208    ear plough, cultivate

Act 3 Scene 3

3.3    Location: outside Flint Castle

1    So that Bullingbrook enters in mid-conversation

7    beseem befit

14    to as to

15    taking…head treating the head of state in such a manner/being headstrong/omitting the king’s title    your by your

16    Mistake misunderstand (puns on “mis-take”)

17    Take seize, presume

18    mistake fail to understand that

26    lies dwells, is

30    who i.e., who he is

31    belike probably

33    rude rough, rugged    ribs i.e., walls

34    brazen brass (plays on the sense of “audacious, shameless”)    parle parley, negotiation between enemy forces (or the trumpet call signifying this)

35    his its (the castle’s, but possibly also referring to Richard)    ruined battered

41    my…again the revoking of my banishment and restoration of my lands

43    th’advantage…power the superiority of my military force

44    lay flatten, subdue

47    such that such a    bedrench drench thoroughly, soak

49    tenderly gently, peacefully/lovingly

53    tattered battered, old/jagged

54    fair appointments fine military provision

57    fire and water i.e., lightning and rain

60    rain puns on “reign”

62    mark note, observe    Parley trumpet summons to negotiation

64    blushing i.e., in anger

66    envious hostile

67    stain obscure, dim    tract course

68    occident west (where the sun sets)

70    lightens forth flashes out, like lightning

73    amazed astounded, bewildered

74    watch expect, wait for    fearful full of reverence

77    awful full of awe

78    hand sign/signature

82    profane sin, commit sacrilege

84    torn i.e., ruined, damned    turning…us i.e., betraying me

88    strike blight, afflict with plague (   pestilence)

89    unbegot not yet conceived

90    That of you who    vassal servile, slavish

94    ope open

95    purple testament bloody legacy

97    crowns heads (plays on    crown in the previous line)

99    maid-pale virgin white, pale as a young girl

101    pastor’s shepherd’s, i.e., Richard, England’s shepherd or spiritual protector

103    civil domestic, used in civil war    uncivil violent, barbarous

109    head source

113    scope aim

114    lineal royalties hereditary rights as one with royal blood

115    Enfranchisement freedom (from banishment), restoration of rights

116    party part

117    commend commit

118    barbèd armored with barbs (metal protectors)

120    is and is

121    credit believe

122    returns replies

125    accomplished carried out

126    gracious courteous, elegant

127    commends greetings, regards

129    poorly abject, lowly

134    e’er ever

136    yond yonder, i.e., at some distance but within sight

137    sooth smooth words, appeasing terms

141    scope room, freedom/a purpose

142    beat conquer, strike (plays on the sense of a heart beating)

146    be contented i.e., submit, agree

148    set of beads rosary

150    almsman recipient of charity

151    figured embossed, ornamented

152    palmer’s pilgrim’s

157    trade commerce/tread

160    buried once once I am buried

162    despisèd despicable/to be scorned/unimportant

163    lodge flatten

164    dearth famine    revolting rebellious

165    play the wantons trifle, frolic

166    make devise    pretty match ingenious game

167    still always

168    fretted us eroded for us (   fretted puns on the sense of “been distressed, complained”)

171    ill affliction

176    make a leg bow

177    base court lower or servants’ court    attend wait

179    glist’ring glistening, glittering    Phaethon in Greek mythology, the son of Apollo, the sun god; he was unable to control his father’s horse-drawn sun chariot, burned part of the earth, and was felled with a thunderbolt hurled by Zeus

180    manage control    jades worthless horses

182    do them grace bow to them courteously/grant them favor

184    night-owls shriek considered a bad omen

187    fondly foolishly    frantic mad, frenzied

189    apart aside

192    debase continues the earlier wordplay on base

194    Me rather had I had rather

195    courtesy curtsy, i.e., bow

196    up i.e., proud, ambitious/rebellious

200    redoubted dreaded, revered

205    want their remedies lack remedies for what caused them

208    willing willingly

Act 3 Scene 4

3.4    Location: the Duke of York’s garden

2    heavy burdensome/sad

4    rubs hindrances (technically, impediment that interrupts the course of a bowling ball)

5    against the bias contrary to the desired course (a    bias is the weight in the ball that enables it to be bowled in a curve)

7    measure due proportion/stately dance step

8    measure limit

14    wanting lacking

15    remember remind

16    being altogether had as I am entirely possessed by it

17    want lack

19    boots not is useless    complain lament

21    ’Tis…cause i.e., it is a good thing that you are happy enough to do so

28    My I’ll wager my    row of pins i.e., insignificant items

29    state affairs of state, politics

30    Against in anticipation of    forerun with heralded by

31    apricocks apricots

32    sire father, i.e., tree that bears them

33    oppression burden    prodigal excessive

34    supportance support

36    sprays shoots

37    lofty tall/proud, ambitious

38    even equal

40    noisome noxious, harmful

41    wholesome healthy

42    compass limits    pale fenced area, enclosure

44    model copy in miniature    firm estate settled situation/secure kingdom

48    knots intricately designed flower beds

51    suffered permitted/undergone

52    fall of leaf i.e., autumn

59    seized taken into custody

60    trimmed adorned

61    at time of year in season

63    over-proud too swollen

64    confound ruin

68    bearing fertile, fruit-bearing

69    crown king’s crown/leafy head of a tree

72    Depressed humbled, lowered in fortune

73    doubted feared

76    pressed to death a punishment that involved pressing the suspect with heavy weights until they pleaded innocent or guilty, or died

77    Adam in the Bible, the first man; he was in charge of cultivating the Garden of Eden until he was tempted into sin by    Eve who had been tricked by the devil in the guise of a    serpent

79    suggested tempted

83    Divine prophesy

87    hold grasp/custody

90    vanities follies    light of little weight/frivolous

93    odds advantage

94    Post hasten

97    embassage message/errand    belong to i.e., concern

103    triumph public festivity, triumphal procession

106    so provided    state situation/royal status

109    rue herb symbolizing repentance and grace    sour bitter, sad

110    e’en for ruth for sheer pity

Act 4 Scene 1

4.1    Location: Westminster Hall, London

4    wrought worked/arranged

5    office task/duty    timeless untimely/everlasting

9    unsay deny, retract

10    dead fatal, deadly/secret, dark/past

11    of length long

16    crowns gold coins

17    Than than have

18    withal besides

21    base contemptible/low-born

22    stars birth, rank/destiny

23    On…chastisement? To correct/punish him as if we were equals?

25    th’attainder the dishonorable slur, accusation

26    manual    …death gauntlet (glove thrown down as a    gage)/death warrant sealed by my hand

30    temper steely firmness/condition

31    forbear stop

32    one i.e., Bullingbrook

33    moved roused, angered

34    stand insist    sympathy equal rank (in an opponent)

35    in gage engaged

37    vauntingly boastfully

39    deniest two syllables (“deny’st”)

40    turn return

46    appeal accusation

48    th’extremest…breathing i.e., the death

50    An if if

51    more again

55    in presence present

61    render return

65    Engage…trial accept it and thus pledge yourself to combat (   trial)

66    fondly foolishly    forward eager

68    wilderness i.e., even somewhere remote or where no help is available

71    tie bind    correction punishment, rebuke

78    That to assert that

79    repealed called back from exile    try test in combat

80    differences disputes    rest under gage remain challenges

83    signories estates

84    enforce his trial make sure that the combat takes place

87    field i.e., battle

88    Streaming the ensign flying the banner

90    toiled exhausted

94    colours battle flags

97    bosom…Abraham i.e., heaven

98    appellants who have made formal accusations

102    plume-plucked humbled, stripped of his glory

105    descending i.e., being passed to an heir

108    Marry by the Virgin Mary

109    Worst of lowest rank

110    beseeming befitting (as he is a clergyman)

113    noblesse nobility

114    Learn teach

117    by present

118    apparent obvious

119    figure image

122    subject i.e., of a subject

125    heinous grave/wicked    obscene repulsive, foul

131    manure fertilize (after being spilt)

135    kind countrymen    confound bring to ruin

138    field battlefield    Golgotha Calvary (called “the place of skulls”), the hill outside Jerusalem where Christ was crucified

139    house royal family/Parliament

148    suit request (that the terms of Richard’s abdication be declared publicly to Parliament)

150    surrender abdicate

152    conduct escort

154    sureties guarantors (who will vouch for your appearance)    answer trial

155    beholding indebted

156    little looked for little expected your    love    regalia crown and scepter

160    insinuate ingratiate myself

163    favours faces/support, kindness/gifts

164    sometime formerly

165    twelve i.e., the twelve disciples

168    priest and clerk in church services the priest said prayers to which the clerk responded “Amen”

171    service puns on the sense of “church service”

173    tired majesty exhausted, weary dignity/sovereign power

176    seize grasp/take legal possession of/arrest

179    owes owns, possesses    filling one another the rising of the full bucket causes the other to be lowered and filled

189    Your…down your assumption of the anxieties and obligations of kingship does not detract from my grief; in the following lines Richard plays on several senses of    care: kingly responsibility/personal grief/concern

190    by…done caused by my former inadequate responsibility

193    tend attend, follow

195    Ay puns on “I”    no puns on “know”

197    mark me note    undo bring to naught, destroy, unmake

200    sway rule

204    release…oaths release my subjects from their oaths of allegiance to me

205    forswear reject

210    with nothing grieved not grieved at all/grieved with the fact that I have nothing

223    ravel out unravel

224    Gentle noble/kind

226    troop company

227    read a lecture read out an account (as though preaching a lesson)

228    article item forming part of an accusation

230    warrant guarantee

233    bait harass, torment (like a bear being baited for sport)

234    Pilate Pontius Pilate, Roman governor of Judaea involved in the crucifixion of Christ, but who washed his hands before the discontented crowd as a means of exonerating himself from blame

236    sour bitter, harsh

238    dispatch make haste, get on with it

241    sort pack, gang

245    T’undeck to undress, to strip of ornament    pompous splendid, ceremonially dressed

249    haught haughty, arrogant

251    at the font i.e., at my christening

255    mockery imitation/subject of ridicule

259    An if if    sterling valid currency

261    what what kind of

262    his its

263    some i.e., one    glass mirror

276    beguile deceive

278    keep maintain

279    wink blink, shut their eyes

280    faced covered over/countenanced, sanctioned

281    out-faced defied, challenged/replaced by

284    shivers shards, fragments

285    moral significance, true meaning

287    shadow reflection/dark, gloomy shade (Richard develops the sense to include delusive semblance, “thing without substance”)

292    manner forms

298    boon favor

305    to as

313    convey escort (Richard goes on to play on the sense of “steal”)

316    set down appoint the time for

322    pernicious destructive

324    take the sacrament receive Holy Communion (as a means of confirming your word)

325    bury conceal

Act 5 Scene 1

5.1    Location: London, near the Tower

2    Julius Caesar it was a popular notion that the Roman emperor built the Tower of London; in fact, it was erected by William the Conqueror    ill-erected built for wicked ends and with evil consequences

3    flint i.e., hard

4    doomed judged/consigned to some adverse fate

11    model ground plan, outline    Troy supposedly founded by the Trojan Brutus, London was often referred to as the New Troy

12    map outline, image

13    inn house/place of temporary lodging

14    hard-favoured ugly

15    ale-house cheap, lowly place of lodging

18    state situation/kingship

20    sworn brother the devoted, loyal friend

22    league bond of friendship, allegiance    Hie hurry

23    cloister seclude, conceal religious house convent

24    new world’s i.e., heaven’s

26    shape physical appearance

31    To be at being

32    rod punishment cane

35    beasts beastly men    aught but anything other than

36    still yet/always    happy fortunate

37    sometime former

42    long ago betid that happened long ago

43    quit requite, repay    grief i.e., mournful    tales

46    why this cause    brands burning logs    sympathize feel for, respond to

47    heavy accent sorrowful tone    moving talking/affecting, stirring to sorrow

48    weep literally, exude resin as they burn

49    some i.e., of the firewood (brands)

52    Pomfret Pontefract Castle, in Yorkshire

53    order ta’en instructions issued, arrangements made

55    wherewithal by means of which

57    many…age i.e., older

58    head to a head (of a boil, with play on the sense of “insurrection”)

59    corruption pus (plays on the sense of “sin, destruction”)

60    Though he even if he were to

61    helping you having helped

62    which who

63    unrightful illegitimate

67    one or both i.e., either usurping king or his collaborator

68    worthy well-deserved

70    part separate (from the queen; sense then shifts to “depart”)

72    ’twixt betwixt, between

74    unkiss annul with a kiss

77    pines afflicts, wastes away

78    from whence from where; Isabel was daughter to the French king

80    Hallowmas November 1, All Saints’ Day    short’st of day the winter solstice, shortest day of the year

84    were would show

88    be…near not being together near nearer

92    piece…out lengthen the journey

95    stop stop up, silence

97    ’Twere…me it would do no good to take it upon myself (part plays on the sense of “parting” and “body part, organ”)

98    kill i.e., with sorrow

101    wanton playful, unrestrained, self-indulgent    fond foolish/doting

102    adieu good-bye

Act 5 Scene 2

5.2    Location: the Duke of York’s house

3    cousins kinsmen, i.e., Richard and Bullingbrook; York was their uncle

4    leave break off

6    rude unkind, uncivilized, rough    misgoverned unruly, unrestrained    windows’ tops upper windows

10    Which i.e., which horse    aspiring ambitious

15    casements windows

17    painted imagery the people, or speaking figures in painted wall coverings

20    Bareheaded removing one’s hat was a sign of respect or deference

21    Bespake addressed

22    still continually

23    the whilst during this

25    well-graced attractive/skilled/well-regarded, favored

26    idly unenthusiastically/inattentively

33    combating with fighting between

34    badges signs/livery

36    perforce of necessity

39    bound bind/limit, confine    contents contentment

41    state regality, kingship    aye ever, i.e., fully

45    Rutland for his support of Richard, Aumerle lost his status as duke, though he retained the title Earl of Rutland

46    pledge…truth guarantor of his loyalty

47    fealty allegiance

48    violets i.e., court favorites

49    spring i.e., Bullingbrook’s kingship

51    as lief as soon, rather

52    bear you conduct yourself

53    cropped cut down/beheaded

54    Hold go ahead    triumphs public festivities

58    seal i.e., seal attached to the bottom of a document (which Aumerle apparently carries in his doublet or jacket)

69    bond financial agreement (retained by the creditor)

70    against in preparation for

84    appeach denounce, inform against

89    answer answer for

92    amazed stunned, confused

93    villain rogue/servant

96    own i.e., own child

98    teeming date time for childbearing

102    fond foolish/doting

105    interchangeably reciprocally (so each of the conspirators has a copy of the agreement)

107    be none not be one of them

108    that i.e., the plot/the actions of the conspirators

111    groaned i.e., in labor

121    his horse i.e., grab his saddled horse and ride out first

122    post speedily

126    the ground i.e., kneeling

Act 5 Scene 3

5.3    Location: the royal court

1    unthrifty extravagant, dissolute    son Prince Hal, later Henry V

7    loose immoral, wasteful

9    watch night watchmen    passengers travelers

10    effeminate frivolous, self-indulgent, immature

11    Takes on the undertakes as a

15    gallant fashionable young man/fine fellow

16    stews brothels/part of a city occupied by houses of ill-fame

17    common’st most whorish, promiscuous    creature prostitute    glove with vaginal connotations

18    favour love token (worn by knights in jousts)    with that wearing the token

19    unhorse plays on the sense of “deprive of a whore”    lustiest most vigorous (plays on the sense of “most licentious”)

20    desp’rate reckless    both i.e., both flaws

22    happily with favorable destiny/with a happy result

24    stares gapes, looks horror-struck

30    grow i.e., be fixed

32    a pardon i.e., I am granted a pardon

35    after-love future loyalty

41    safe harmless i.e., dead

42    Stay withhold

43    secure overconfident

44    speak treason i.e., by having to use such disrespectful terms

50    haste i.e., breathlessness

51    passed just made

53    hand signature

59    strong flagrant/significant, dangerous

61    sheer pure, clear    fountain spring

63    held his current taken its course

66    deadly blot fatal sin/ink signature    digressing deviating from its course/transgressing morally

67    bawd pimp, procurer

68    spend waste/may play on the sense of “ejaculate”

69    scraping money-saving

73    true loyal 81 ‘The…King’ probably refers to a ballad telling the popular tale of King Cophetua and the beggar maid he fell in love with

85    for as a result of

86    festered corrupt/diseased

87    let alone left untreated    confound destroy

89    itself i.e., its own flesh and blood, one’s son

90    frantic mad

91    dugs breasts

96    happy happy/fortunate person

100    true loyal

102    in jest pretend

104    would wishes to

120    meet fitting

121    ‘pardonnez-moi’ French for “pardon me,” i.e., excuse me for refusing your request

126    chopping meaning-shifting, logic-chopping/affected

129    plaints laments

130    rehearse pronounce/repeat

132    sue beg

133    suit request (puns on the sense of “suit of cards,” an image maintained in hand)

135    happy joyous/fortunate    vantage profit, gain/advantageous position

137    twain divide in two

141    for as for brother-in-law i.e., the Duke of Exeter the i.e., and the

142    consorted conspiring

144    several separate, various

149    prove i.e., make sure you prove

Act 5 Scene 4

8    wistly intently, meaningfully

9    As as one

Act 5 Scene 5

5.5    Location: Pomfret (Pontefract) Castle

1    studying thinking about, dwelling on

3    for because because

7    beget conceive

8    still-breeding constantly reproducing

10    humours dispositions, moods

12    As such as

13    scruples doubts    faith i.e., religious belief, as manifested through Scripture

14    ‘Come, little ones’ from the Bible (Luke 18:16; also Matthew 19:14)

16    ‘It…eye’ biblical (Luke 18:25; also Matthew 19:24 and Mark 10:25)

17    postern back or side gate

21    ragged rough, rugged

22    for because    pride prime/arrogance

23    content acceptance

25    silly simple/lowly/helpless

26    stocks contraption for public punishment in which the arms or legs were confined    refuge take refuge from, reduce

27    That with the thought that

31    prison most editions follow Quarto’s “person,” but Folio’s “Prison” seems to be a purposeful alteration, not a printer’s error

33    treason thoughts of treason

34    penury poverty

36    by and by soon

38    straight straight away

39    but man is is merely mortal

40    nothing anything

41    nothing i.e., dead

43    proportion musical time, rhythm

45    daintiness sensitivity

46    string individual string/musical instrument

47    concord harmony

49    waste decay

50    numb’ring clock clock with hours marked on it (i.e., not an hourglass)

51    jar…on tick on, jump forward (jar plays on the sense of “make discordant”)

52    watches intervals between minutes/wakeful periods    watch clock face (plays on the sense of “sentry/wakeful person”)

53    dial’s point clock’s hand

54    still continuously (plays on the sense of “motionless”)

55    tells counts out/reveals

56    strike beat, pound/toll

58    times marks on the dial, i.e., quarter- or half-hours    time lifetime, time on earth

59    posting hurrying

60    Jack o’th’clock figure of a man that strikes a bell on the outside of some types of clocks

61    mads maddens

62    holp…wits music was thought to assist the recovery of the insane    holp helped

65    to for

66    strange brooch rare jewel

68    peer equal/nobleman

69    The…us i.e., the imprisoned Richard    ten groats Richard plays on the financial senses of royal and noble (types of gold coin): a royal was worth ten groats more than a noble, so the Groom has overvalued the royal prince by that amount (Richard identifies himself and the Groom as nobles)    groat coin worth four old pence

71    sad dismal, unsmiling

72    misfortune i.e., Richard

75    ado trouble, fuss

76    sometimes formerly

77    yearned grieved, moved

79    roan horse with a coat in which the prevailing color is interspersed with some other    Barbary the horse’s name, suggesting that it was imported from the Barbary coast of northern Africa whose horses were noted for great speed and endurance

80    bestrid straddled, ridden

82    gentle noble

86    jade worthless old horse

87    clapping patting

91    rail on abuse

92    awed controlled, subdued

95    galled made sore    jauncing hard-riding

96    Fellow servant    give place move, withdraw/defer to me

99    fall to begin eating

100    wont accustomed

106    rude rough, violent

108    room empty space

110    staggers makes stagger    my person my royal person

112    seat royal throne/place in heaven

113    gross earthly, fleshy, lowly

Act 5 Scene 6

5.6    Location: the royal court

3    Cicester Cirencester

4    ta’en taken, captured

7    next most pressing

9    taking capture

10    At large discoursèd related in full

12    worthy well-deserved/valuable

16    dire dangerous, dreadful

18    wot know

19    grand chief

20    clog burden

22    abide await

23    doom judgment, punishment

25    reverend room holy place (i.e., monastery)

26    More i.e., more worthy of reverence/larger than your prison cell    joy enjoy

29    High noble

33    Bordeaux Richard’s birthplace

34    wrought created, fashioned

40    love…murderèd love him who has been murdered/love the fact that he has been murdered

43    Cain in the Bible, the world’s first murderer

48    sullen mournful, somber    incontinent immediately

49    Holy Land i.e., Jerusalem

51    sadly solemnly/sorrowfully    Grace dignify

52    after as you follow    bier stretcher-like structure on which a corpse is carried to the grave

THE TWO PARTS OF HENRY THE FOURTH

Shakespeare’s art of mingling comedy, history, and tragedy reached its peak in the two parts of King Henry the Fourth. As history, the plays paint a panorama of England, embracing a wider social range than any previous historical drama as the action moves from court to tavern, council chamber to battlefield, city to country, Archbishop and Lord Chief Justice to whore and thief. As comedy, they tell the story of a prodigal son’s journey from youth to maturity and an old rogue’s art of surviving by means of jokes, tall tales, and the art of being not only witty in himself but “the cause that wit is in other men.” As tragedy, they reveal the slow decline of a king who cannot escape his past, the precipitate demise of an impetuous young warrior who embodies both the glory and the futility of military heroism, and the heart-breaking dismissal of a substitute father who has loved a prince with a warmth of which his true father is incapable.

Richard II had followed the tragic pattern of a mismatch between the character of a man of high estate and the demands of his position as a ruler. It juxtaposed the fall of King Richard to the rise of Henry Bullingbrook:, comparing them to a pair of buckets on a pulley, one descending into a well as the other ascends. Once Bullingbrook has become King Henry IV, the pattern is reasserted and reversed in the next generation. Henry sees his son seeming to become another Richard, a time waster surrounding himself with unsuitable companions and allowing the country to run to seed. He sees himself—a soldier, a man of decision and action—not in his son, but in Hotspur, child of the Percy family who had helped him to displace Richard from the throne.

Historically, Henry Percy, known as Hotspur, was over twenty years older than Prince Henry (usually called Harry and, by Falstaff alone, Hal), the future King Henry V, victor of Agincourt. With his habitual dramatic license, Shakespeare altered history and made them rival youths of the same generation. Henry IV’s nightmare of history repeating itself is that Hotspur will play his own role to his son’s Richard. He wishes that “some night-tripping fairy” had exchanged the two Harries in their cradles “And called mine Percy, his [i.e., Northumberland’s] Plantagenet.” But this time it is the rebel who falls and the true heir who succeeds. Henry the Fourth, a double-header of a play, is full of doubles. There are paired fathers and sons: the king and the prince, Northumberland and Hotspur. There are surrogate fathers to the young hero: Sir John Falstaff and the Lord Chief Justice. There are brothers in blood (Prince Harry and Prince John, Northumberland and Worcester, Hotspur and his brother-in-law Mortimer, the aged kinsmen Shallow and Silence) and brothers in jest (Hal’s “sworn brethren” among the tavern crowd, Ned Poins chief among them).

One of the questions that fascinates Shakespeare in these plays concerns the appropriate education for a future king. The Tudor view was that the ideal king should combine the qualities of soldier, scholar, and courtier. Fencing, jousting, and hunting offered training in the chivalric arts of the medieval aristocracy, but a learned humanist tutor was also required to drill the prince in languages, literature, history, ethics, law, and theology. And at the same time it was necessary to master the elaborate codes of behavior, the conventions of propriety and deference, upon which courtship depended.

Hotspur is the embodiment of an old-style chivalric warrior. He would rather be astride his horse than engaging in courtly parley with his wife. He lives by the code of honor and is deliciously scornful of the courtly manners embodied by the trimly dressed, clean-shaven lord who comes with “pouncet-box” in hand to demand Hotspur’s prisoners: the clash of styles between battlefield and court is enough to turn him into a rebel. Hotspur has boundless courage and energy, but his desire “To pluck bright honour from the pale-faced moon” is susceptible to parody: his own wife teases him and Prince Hal mocks him as “the Hotspur of the north, he that kills me some six or seven dozen of Scots at a breakfast, washes his hands, and says to his wife ‘Fie upon this quiet life! I want work.’ “His impulsiveness means that he cannot calculate, he is never the politician. “A plague upon it, / I have forgot the map!” he says during a council of war. A more politic tactician would be most unlikely to have forgotten it—and would never admit as much if he had.

As Hotspur embodies the old chivalric code, his fellow-warrior the Welshman Glendower stands for an equally antiquated mode of being: magical thinking. He boasts of portents at his birth—fiery shapes in the air and goats running from the mountain—but this kind of talk is ridiculed. When he claims that he “can call spirits from the vasty deep,” Hotspur wryly asks “But will they come when you do call for them?” Talk of dragons and finless fish is “skimble-skamble stuff” that does nothing to advance the cause of the rebellion. In the end, the consequence of Glendower’s desire to listen to prophecies is that he fails to turn up for the battle.

The First Part shows Prince Harry playing “truant” from “chivalry,” but returning to it when the time is ripe. Even as he proves himself on the battlefield, the critique of honor continues with Falstaff’s mock “catechism”: “Can honour set to a leg? No…Who hath it? He that died o’Wednesday.” Falstaff’s philosophy is a simple “give me life”: never mind about ethical and political codes of behavior. “I am not a double man,” he says to Hal, putting down the dead Hotspur, whom he has been carrying on his back. Yet he is double the size of anyone else in the play and he has a double life, rising from feigned death on the battlefield of Shrewsbury so that he can return in The Second Part. It will be altogether harder to get rid of cowardly Falstaff than to defeat brave Hotspur. “Thou art not what thou seem’st,” remarks Hal: in seeming to have killed Hotspur, Falstaff is not the coward he has appeared to be. But he has not slain Hotspur, merely stabbed him when he is already dead—a supremely dishonorable deed. And yet what is honor? A mere word, an empty code. It is the trickster, the chancer, who survives, not the honorable man.

Falstaff is at once the great deceiver and the great truth teller, who reduces war to its bottom line: common foot soldiers are but “food for powder.” One of the reasons why Shakespeare made him fat was to remind the audience of the solidity of the human body: Falstaff’s girth is a way of saying that history is made not only of big speeches and dramatic events, but also of the daily lives of people who eat, drink, sleep, and die: “Rare words! Brave world! Hostess, my breakfast, come! / O, I could wish this tavern were my drum!”

A key word in The First Part is “instinct.” Hotspur has instinctive courage and Falstaff an instinctive sense of self-preservation. The king thinks that his son is instinctively idle and irresponsible. The aim of a sixteenth-century royal humanist education was to overcome such innate propensities by developing the ethical, linguistic, and political faculties of the pupil prince. For Hal, the King’s Tavern in Eastcheap serves as a parody of the schoolroom at court. Falstaff is explicitly identified as his “tutor” and a central part of his education is to learn a new language—not, however, Latin, Greek, or the rhetorical elaboration of courtly speech, but the language of the people. This is a Harry who develops the art of speaking with every “Tom, Dick and Francis.” He learns their jargon—“They call drinking deep, dyeing scarlet”—and becomes “so good a proficient in one quarter of an hour” that he will be able to “drink with any tinker in his own language” for the rest of his life. Henry IV believes that one of the failings of his predecessor Richard II was to seek to make himself popular, thus eroding the necessary distance that creates awe and gives mystique to the monarchy. But his own distance from public life—he is nearly always surrounded by an inner circle of courtiers or closeted alone in his chamber—causes power to ebb from him. His son, by contrast, comes to know the common people, developing a rapport that will enable him to inspire and lead his army in Henry V. The point is made through the very linguistic medium of the drama: all of Shakespeare’s other English kings speak entirely in verse, whereas Prince Hal has command of a flexible prose voice, with which he reduces himself to the level of his people, an Eastcheap trick that he repeats when he goes in disguise among his men on the night before the battle of Agincourt.

The prince succeeds according to the principle articulated by the cunning politician Ulysses in Troilus and Cressida: a man “Cannot make boast to have that which he hath, / Nor feels not what he owes, but by reflection, / As when his virtues shining upon others / Heat them and they retort that heat again / To the first giver.” That is to say, we can only make value judgments through a process of comparison. “Percy is but my factor, good my lord, / To engross up glorious deeds on my behalf”: by temporarily ceding glory to Henry Hotspur, Henry Monmouth will seem all the more glorious when he eventually triumphs over him. His whole strategy is revealed in the imagery of his first soliloquy: the sun seems brighter after cloud and a jewel on a dull background will “show more goodly and attract more eyes / Than that which hath no foil to set it off.” The offsetting of the prince against his various foils is the structural key to the drama.

Prince Harry is a man of the future; his father is haunted by the past. Both parts of Henry the Fourth are suffused with the memory of the “by-paths and indirect crooked ways” by which Bullingbrook “met” (or rather took) the crown. The king is revealed at his most vulnerable halfway through The Second Part, in a scene that may have troubled the censor: sick and sleepless, he meditates on the cares of state, the fragility of office, and the weight of his past sin. A usurper himself, Henry IV has no ground on which to base his authority over the rebels who were once his allies. The only basis of his power is victory on the battlefield. In each part, this is achieved by means of a trick. At Shrewsbury in The First Part, the device consists of dressing several different men as the king in order to confuse the enemy. Having slain one of the impersonators, Douglas assumes that he is addressing another of them: “What art thou, / That counterfeit’st the person of a king?” This time, however, it is the king, not a counterfeit—which beautifully dramatizes the point that the king is a counterfeit because of his usurpation. In The Second Part, the king is too sick to fight his own battle, so at Gaultree Forest the Machiavellian strategy of reneging upon the terms of a negotiated truce is carried out by his second son, Prince John of Lancaster. Does that make Prince Harry into the true follower of Machiavelli, who advised that the effective prince is one who gets someone else to do his dirty work for him?

At the beginning of The First Part, the king says that he must postpone his crusade to the Holy Land because of the new civil broils at home, the fresh wound upon the earth of England. His dream of expiating his sins by liberating Jerusalem from the heathen is never translated into action. The prophecy that he would end his life there is only realized ironically: he dies in the “Jerusalem chamber” of his own palace. Henry IV’s fear, apparently borne out by the bad company that Prince Harry keeps, is that the sin of the father will be visited upon the reign of his son:

For the fifth Harry from curbèd licence plucks

The muzzle of restraint, and the wild dog

Shall flesh his tooth in every innocent.

O my poor kingdom, sick with civil blows!

When that my care could not withhold thy riots,

What wilt thou do when riot is thy care?

O, thou wilt be a wilderness again,

Peopled with wolves, thy old inhabitants!

He imagines that the “riot” of the wayward prince will be translated into civil disorder when he becomes king. That is also Falstaff’s hope on hearing that his beloved Hal is now Henry V: “the laws of England are at my commandment…and woe unto my Lord Chief Justice!” But he is in for a shock: Hal immediately adopts Falstaff’s adversary, the Lord Chief Justice, as his new surrogate father. As in The First Part he had startled the rebels by transforming himself from tavern idler to armed warrior on horseback, so now in The Second Part he proves that he has learned the civic virtues as well as the military ones.

The prince’s self-revelatory soliloquy early in The First Part began with the words “I know you all.” The newly crowned king’s rejection of Falstaff late in The Second Part begins with the words “I know thee not, old man.” The verbal echo is unmistakable: he has ceased to be Hal, he is now delivering on his promise that the time would come when he would throw off the companions and misleaders of his youth. As predicted in the soliloquy, Harry has succeeded in falsifying men’s hopes. His reformation glitters over his fault. Falstaff and company suddenly seem to be no more than instruments in a princely conjuring trick, a theatrical act of self-transformation designed to impress a public audience.

Radically opposing interpretations thus become possible. By one account, the politic march of history stands in violent contrast to the humane virtues of friendship, loyalty, good humor, sociability, verbal inventiveness, self-mockery, loyalty, and love. Humanity gives way to what the Bastard in King John called “commodity.” The alternative view is that Falstaff embodies the temptations of the flesh. He scores highly for at least three of the seven deadly sins—gluttony, lust, and sloth. He is the “Vice” figure of the old tradition of morality plays and his rejection is accordingly Hal’s final step on the path toward political and moral redemption. So it is that Hal can be played equally persuasively as a young man going on a journey toward maturity but still enjoy his departures from the straight and narrow path or as one of Shakespeare’s Machiavellian manipulators—energetic and intellectually astute, a brilliant actor, but intensely self-conscious, emotionally reined in.

It is not known whether Shakespeare always intended Henry the Fourth to be a two-part play or whether he discovered at some point in the writing or production of The First Part that it would be dramatically unsatisfying to contain a double climax in a single play, to have Prince Harry prove himself a chivalric hero by defeating Hotspur on the battlefield and then immediately dissociate himself from Falstaff and the other thieves. Instead, the rejection of Falstaff is withheld until The Second Part, but anticipated in the play-within-the-play in The First Part, in which the prince’s return to his father is pre-enacted in the tavern.

The scene is a glorious piece of improvised theater, with the actors changing roles and parodying different linguistic registers. Thus, for instance, when Falstaff plays King Henry he apes the affected courtly prose style of John Lyly: “for though the camomile, the more it is trodden the faster it grows, yet youth, the more it is wasted the sooner it wears.” It is a mark of Shakespeare’s attention to detail that when Falstaff is playing the king he calls the prince “Harry” instead of his pet name “Hal.” Though the language of the mock-play is intricate and varied, the staging is simple: “This chair shall be my state, this dagger my sceptre and this cushion my crown.” The metatheatrical effect reminds the audience that they are in a theater and at the same time suggests that power is itself a form of theater. There is no intrinsic reason why a golden crown is sacred and a stuffed cushion anarchic; whether in a theater or a palace, a throne may represent a “chair of state” but it is still a mere chair.

A chair is a chair and, as Gadshill puts it, “Homo is a common name to all men.” Falstaff may be “that reverend Vice, that grey Iniquity, that father Ruffian, that Vanity in years,” but he is also the embodiment of the shared frailty of all humanity: “If sack and sugar be a fault, heaven help the wicked: if to be old and merry be a sin, then many an old host that I know is damned.” To banish plump Jack is to banish “all the world.” “I do,” says Hal, playing the role of his father the king; “I will,” he adds, anticipating what he will do when he becomes king himself. As so often when Shakespeare’s art is working in its most concentrated form, judgment is left suspended. Is Hal “essentially made,” with or without knowing it? And is it possible to be a true friend and a true prince? At the end of the “play extempore,” he is friend more than prince, lying to an authority figure, the sheriff, in order to protect Falstaff. So is he—as some editors emend—“essentially mad,” fundamentally as opposed to temporarily a “madcap”? “The true prince may, for recreation sake, prove a false thief,” says Falstaff: is the playtime of “recreation” a space for a brief interlude of misrule or a crucible in which the self is recreated?

There is little historical warrant for the story of Henry V’s riotous youth. A “prodigal son” narrative was attached to him in the chronicles and the anonymous play The Famous Victories of Henry the Fifth in order to highlight the change he undergoes when he becomes king, submits to the rule of law and so unifies and brings to order the nation that his father divided. The rejection of Falstaff and company is part and parcel of Harry’s symbolically becoming a new person at the moment of his coronation. The notion of “reformation” and the washing away of past iniquities clearly have strong religious connotations. Each time the prince returns to the court, he speaks a language of “fall” and “pardon.” When he fights well, his father tells him that “Thou hast redeemed thy lost opinion.”

The rhythm of Prince Hal’s life is that of providential history, leading to his “reformation” and his assumption of the roles, which attracted Queen Elizabeth to him: unifier of the body-politic, victor over a rival kingdom, heroic leader of a great and independent nation. The rhythm of Falstaff’s life is that of the body and the seasons. In The Second Part he journeys into the deep England of Justice Shallow’s Gloucestershire orchard. The immemorial quality of the rural world animated by Shallow’s ramblings—his talk that is strangely profound in its very triviality—summons up an England that is older and more stable than anything possible in the court-world of intrigue, innovation, and reversal. To a far greater degree than any previous play, Henry the Fourth brings the lives of ordinary people into history. The scene with the carriers in The First Part is a miniature of ordinary working-day life and common speech (“This house is turned upside down since Robin the ostler died”), while the Gloucestershire sequence in The Second Part is miraculously detailed. Shallow’s kinsman Silence has come over from Lincolnshire to stay and so provides an opportunity for the exchange of gossip (“How a good yoke of bullocks at Stamford Fair?…Is old Double of your town living yet?”) and the sharing of reminiscence, which Falstaff then participates in (“We have heard the chimes at midnight, Master Shallow”). The pace of the action slows in a gesture of respect to the old, even as we laugh at them.

We learn from Shallow that Falstaff began his career as a page to Thomas Mowbray, Duke of Norfolk. This appears to be a Shakespearean fancy without source: it is true of neither the historical Sir John Falstaff, who flees the battlefield in 1 Henry VI, nor the historical Sir John Oldcastle, of whom the character of Falstaff was originally an irreverent portrait. Why did Shakespeare give his fictional Falstaff a past that began in the service of Mowbray? At one level, it links him with opposition to the Lancastrian ascendancy represented by King Henry IV and his son. Mowbray was Henry IV’s opponent when the latter was still Bullingbrook, back at the beginning of Richard II. Like father, like son: as Bullingbrook’s accusation of treachery was instrumental in the banishment of Mowbray from the land, so Hal will banish Falstaff from his presence. Mowbray departs with a moving farewell to his native land and language; the effect of his words is to suggest that love of the English earth and the English word goes deeper than dynastic difference. We do not hear similar patriotic sentiments in the mouth of the self-interested Bullingbrook; he does nothing to bring back the old England idealized in the deathbed speech of his father, John of Gaunt (whose name and whose England are also remembered by Shallow).

In Shakespeare’s own time, those who suffered banishment because of ideological difference, but who claimed that they were nevertheless loyal to England, were predominantly Catholics. And this suggests another level to the allusion that binds Falstaff to the Duke of Norfolk. To an Elizabethan audience, the name of Norfolk—the only surviving dukedom in the land—was synonymous with overt or suspected Catholic sympathy. The old Catholic ways persisted in the country long after the official change of religion inaugurated by Henry VIII’s break from Rome. The Catholic liturgy’s integral relationship with the agricultural calendar and the cycles of human biology could not be shattered overnight. There may, then, be a sense in which Falstaff’s journey into deep England is also a journey into the old religion of Shakespeare’s father and maternal grandfather. One wonders if it is a coincidence that, in fleshing out the skeletal character of the prince’s riotous companion that he inherited from the old play of The Famous Victories of Henry the Fifth, Shakespeare retained and made much of his own father’s name of John. It is ironic that Falstaff’s original surname, Oldcastle, had to be changed because the character was regarded as an insult to the memory of the proto-Protestant Lollard of that name: “for Oldcastle died martyr,” says the epilogue to The Second Part, “and this is not the man.”

Indeed it is not the man, for Falstaff is if anything an embodiment of those ancient Catholic rhythms, which were suppressed in the name of Reformation. Vestiges of Oldcastle litter the text: “Falstaff sweats to death” suggests a martyr burning on a bonfire and “if I become not a cart as well as another man” could suggest a religious dissident on the way to the stake as well as a criminal being taken to the gallows. Protestants, especially in the extreme form of puritans, were traditionally lean; fat monks were symbolic of the corruptions of Catholicism. By making Sir John fat and not calling him Oldcastle, Shakespeare raises the specter of Catholic as opposed to Protestant martyrdoms. Falstaff is Malvolio’s opposite: he stands for cakes and ale, festival and holiday, all that was anathema to puritanism. At the beginning of Henry V, the Archbishop of Canterbury confirms that Prince Harry’s transformation was completed with the rejection of Falstaff: “Never came reformation in a flood, / With such a heady currance, scouring faults.” If there is a proto-Protestant or embryonic puritan in the plays, it is King Harry the Fifth, newly washed of his past, casting off his old companions, turning away England’s former self.

Even as he uses Hal for his own advancement, Falstaff is always a truer father than the cold and politic King Henry IV can ever be. The point is made with beautiful clarity by the contrast between Falstaff’s heated engagement in the scene in which he and Hal act out the prodigal prince’s forthcoming interview with his father and the king’s chilly detachment in the interview itself. The complexity and the pain of the end of The Second Part stem from the way in which, by casting himself as the prodigal son and coming home to his politic heritage, Hal tears into the heart of old England. According to Holinshed’s Chronicles, King Henry V left no friendship unrewarded. This cannot be said of Shakespeare’s version of history. “Master Shallow, I owe you a thousand pound,” says Falstaff immediately after he has been publicly denounced by his “sweet boy,” changing the subject in the way that people often do when they feel betrayed or bewildered. At this moment, the spectator who has attended carefully to both parts may remember an earlier exchange when Hal asks “Sirrah, do I owe you a thousand pound?” and Falstaff replies “A thousand pound, Hal? A million. Thy love is worth a million: thou ow’st me thy love.”

In the epilogue to The Second Part, Shakespeare promises that “our humble author will continue the story with Sir John in it, and make you merry with fair Katherine of France.” Audience members attending Henry V on the basis of this promise might be justified in asking for their money back: we do not see Sir John Falstaff in the Agincourt play. His presence would raise too many awkward questions of the “reformed” king. We only hear—most comically and at the same time most movingly—of his death. The king has broken his heart.

KEY FACTS: THE FIRST PART OF HENRY THE FOURTH

PLOT: After deposing King Richard II, Henry Bullingbrook has ascended the throne as Henry IV. Guilt about the disposition troubles his conscience, and the stability of his reign is threatened by growing opposition from some of the nobles who helped him to the throne. His son, Prince Henry (also known as Harry and, by Falstaff, as Hal), is living a dissolute life, frequenting the taverns of Eastcheap in the company of Sir John Falstaff and other disreputable characters, with whom he participates in a highway robbery. Opposition to the king becomes open rebellion, led by the Earl of Northumberland’s son Henry Percy, known for his courage and impetuous nature as Hotspur. The Percy family supports the claim to the throne of Hotspur’s brother-in-law, Edmund Mortimer. The rebellion brings Hal back to his father’s side, while Falstaff musters a ragged troop of soldiers. The king’s army defeat the rebels at the battle of Shrewsbury, where Hal kills Hotspur. Falstaff lives to die another day.

MAJOR PARTS: (with percentage of lines/number of speeches/scenes on stage) Falstaff (20%/151/ 8), Prince Henry (18%/170/10), Hotspur (18%/102/8), King Henry (11%/30/6), Worcester (6%/35/7), Poins (3%/36/3), Glendower (3%/23/1). Several characters speak between 15 and 30 of the play’s 3,000 lines: Douglas, Hostess Quickly, Gadshill, Vernon, Mortimer, Lady Percy, Bardolph, Blunt, Northumberland, Westmorland, Francis.

LINGUISTIC MEDIUM: 55% verse, 45% prose.

DATE: Probably written and first performed 1596–97; registered for publication February 1598. Falstaff’s name was originally Oldcastle; it was probably changed to Falstaff either during the months when William Brooke, Lord Cobham (an indirect descendant of the historical Sir John Oldcastle), was Lord Chamberlain (August 1596 to March 1597) or following the suppression of playing (July–October 1597) caused by a politically inflammatory play called The Isle of Dogs.

SOURCES: Based on the account of the reign of Henry IV in the 1587 edition of Holinshed’s Chronicles, with some use of Samuel Daniel’s epic poem The First Four Books of the Civil Wars (1595). Thus, for instance, the historical Hotspur was twenty years older than Hal, but Daniel made them contemporaries for dramatic effect. The intermingling of historical materials and comedy, in the context of the prince’s riotous youth, is developed from the anonymous Queen’s Men play, The Famous Victories of Henry the Fifth (performed late 1580s), which includes characters who may be regarded as crude prototypes of Falstaff and Poins.

TEXT: Quarto 1598 (text probably based on a scribal transcript of Shakespeare’s manuscript; two printings, one of them lost save for a few sheets), reprinted 1599, 1604, 1608, 1613, 1622 (indicating that this was one of Shakespeare’s most popular plays). The Folio text was set from the Fifth Quarto, correcting some but nowhere near all of its mistakes. Oaths were systematically removed in accordance with the 1606 Parliamentary “Act to restrain the Abuses of Players”: since the Act applied to stage performances, not printed books, this suggests that a theatrical manuscript also lay behind the Folio text. There is therefore good reason to regard Folio as an autonomous text, with its own authority. Our text is based on Folio, but where there are manifest errors, either derived from the Quarto tradition or introduced by the Folio compositors, we restore readings from the First Quarto.

GENEALOGY: See this page.

KEY FACTS: THE SECOND PART OF HENRY THE FOURTH

PLOT: In despair at the death of his son Hotspur, the Earl of Northumberland lends his support to a second rebellion, led by the Archbishop of York. As the threat of civil war looms over the country, King Henry IV grows sick, while also fearing that his son Prince Henry (also known as Harry and, by Falstaff, as Hal) has returned to his old life with Falstaff and the other disreputable denizens of the Eastcheap tavern. Falstaff is sent on a recruiting expedition and renews old acquaintances in Gloucestershire. The rebel army is met by the king’s forces, led this time by Hal’s younger brother, Prince John of Lancaster. On his deathbed, King Henry is reconciled with his son, who has begun to distance himself from his former companions. A new, mature Hal accepts the crown as Henry V.

MAJOR PARTS: (with percentage of lines/number of speeches/scenes on stage) Falstaff (20%/184/8), Prince Henry (9%/60/5), King Henry IV (9%/34/4), Shallow (6%/77/4), Lord Chief Justice (5%/56/4), Hostess Quickly (5%/49/3), Archbishop Scroop (5%/25/3), Prince John of Lancaster (3%26/5), Westmorland (3%/21/4), Lord Bardolph (3%/18/2), Northumberland (3%/17/2), Pistol (2%/31/3), Doll Tearsheet (2%/31/2), Bardolph (2%/30/6), Poins (2%/28/2), Warwick (2%/26/4), Mowbray (2%/18/3), Hastings (2%/17/3), Morton (2%/6/1).

LINGUISTIC MEDIUM: 50% verse, 50% prose.

DATE: Around 1597–98. Must have been written after The First Part (1596–97) and before Henry V (early 1599); registered for publication August 1600. Vestiges of the name “Oldcastle” for “Falstaff” suggest that drafting may have begun before Lord Cobham’s objections led to the name change in The First Part, but the play was probably not acted before this. The double epilogue (see “Text,” below) suggests different stages of production.

SOURCES: Based on the account of the reign of Henry IV in the 1587 edition of Holinshed’s Chronicles, with some use of Samuel Daniel’s epic poem The First Four Books of the Civil Wars (1595). The intermingling of historical materials and comedy, in the context of the Prince’s riotous youth, is developed from the anonymous Queen’s Men play, The Famous Victories of Henry the Fifth (performed late 1580s), which included characters who may be regarded as crude prototypes of Falstaff and company, a scene in which a laboring man is press-ganged into the army, and a well-known encounter where the prince boxes the Lord Chief Justice on the ears.

TEXT: Quarto 1600, in two different issues, one of which omits Act 3 Scene 1 (showing the sick and sleepless king): scholars debate whether the scene was a late Shakespearean addition to his original draft or an omission because of its politically sensitive references back to the deposition of Richard II. The Quartos are usually thought to have been printed from Shakespeare’s working manuscript. The 1623 Folio contains eight significant passages that are not in the Quarto, some relating to either the Archbishop’s insurrection or the deposition of Richard II. These are more likely to be Quarto cuts (some for reasons of censorship, others for dramatic compression) than Folio additions. The Folio text shows some signs of consultation of a theatrical manuscript, probably some time after the 1606 “Act to restrain the Abuses of Players” (profanity has been toned down). The most plausible explanation of the complex textual history is that Folio was typeset from a carefully prepared manuscript based on a post-1606 promptbook, perhaps collated with the first issue of the Quarto. A further complication is that the Epilogue is printed in different ways in Quarto and Folio, and seems to combine two different speeches, probably one written for public performance and the other for a staging at court in the presence of Queen Elizabeth. Most editions are based on Quarto, with the Folio-only passages inserted, whereas we respect Folio as an autonomous text, though use Quarto for the correction of manifest printer’s errors.

GENEALOGY: See this page.

THE FIRST PART OF HENRY THE FOURTH, with the Life and Death of Henry surnamed Hotspur

KING HENRY IV, formerly Henry Bullingbrook, Duke of Lancaster

PRINCE HENRY, Prince of Wales, Hal or Harry Monmouth

PRINCE JOHN, his younger brother, Lord of Lancaster

Earl of WESTMORLAND

Sir Walter BLUNT

Sir John FALSTAFF

Edward or Ned POINS

PETO

BARDOLPH

Earl of NORTHUMBERLAND, Henry Percy

Earl of WORCESTER, Thomas Percy, his younger brother

HOTSPUR, Sir Henry (or Harry) Percy, Northumberland’s son

Lord Edmund MORTIMER, Earl of March, Hotspur’s brother-in-law,

Owen GLENDOWER, Welsh lord, Mortimer’s father-in-law

Earl of DOUGLAS, a Scots Lord

Sir Richard VERNON

ARCHBISHOP of York, Richard Scroop

SIR MICHAEL, member of Archbishop’s household

LADY PERCY (Kate), Hotspur’s wife, Mortimer’s sister

LADY MORTIMER, Mortimer’s wife, Glendower’s daughter

FIRST CARRIER (Mugs)

OSTLER

SECOND CARRIER (Tom)

GADSHILL

CHAMBERLAIN

FIRST TRAVELLER

SECOND TRAVELLER

FRANCIS, an apprentice drawer or tapster

VINTNER

HOSTESS QUICKLY, landlady of a tavern

SHERIFF

SERVANT

MESSENGER

Lords, Soldiers, other Travellers, and Attendants

Act 1 Scene 11.1

running scene 1

Enter the King, Lord John of Lancaster, [the] Earl of Westmorland, with others

KING HENRY IVSo shaken as we[1] are, so wan with care,

Find we[2] a time for frighted peace to pant,

And breathe short-winded accents[3] of new broils

To be commenced in strands afar remote.[4]

5

No more the thirsty entrance[5] of this soil

Shall daub[6] her lips with her own children’s blood.

No more shall trenching[7] war channel her fields,

Nor bruise her flow’rets[8] with the armèd hoofs

Of hostile paces.[9] Those opposèd eyes,

10

Which, like the meteors[10] of a troubled heaven,

All of one nature, of one substance bred,

Did lately meet in the intestine shock[12]

And furious close[13] of civil butchery

Shall now, in mutual well-beseeming[14] ranks,

15

March all one way and be no more opposed

Against acquaintance, kindred and allies.

The edge of war, like an ill-sheathèd knife,

No more shall cut his master. Therefore, friends,

As far as to the sepulchre of Christ[19] —

20

Whose soldier now, under whose blessèd cross

We are impressèd[21] and engaged to fight —

Forthwith a power[22] of English shall we levy,

Whose arms[23] were moulded in their mother’s womb

To chase these pagans in those holy fields[24]

25

Over whose acres walked those blessèd feet[25]

Which fourteen hundred years ago were nailed

For our advantage on the bitter[27] cross.

But this our purpose is a twelvemonth old,

And bootless[29] ’tis to tell you we will go:

30

Therefore we meet not now.— Then let me hear

Of you, my gentle[31] cousin Westmorland,

What yesternight[32] our council did decree

In forwarding this dear[33] expedience.

WESTMORLANDMy liege,[34] this haste was hot in question,

35

And many limits[35] of the charge set down

But[36] yesternight, when all athwart there came

A post[37] from Wales loaden with heavy news;

Whose worst was that the noble Mortimer,

Leading the men of Herefordshire to fight

40

Against the irregular[40] and wild Glendower,

Was by the rude[41] hands of that Welshman taken,

And a thousand of his people butcherèd,

Upon whose dead corpse[43] there was such misuse,

Such beastly shameless transformation,[44]

45

By those Welshwomen done as may not be

Without much shame retold or spoken of.

KING HENRY IVIt seems then that the tidings[47] of this broil

Brake[48] off our business for the Holy Land.

WESTMORLANDThis matched with[49] other like, my gracious lord.

50

Far more uneven[50] and unwelcome news

Came from the north and thus it did report:

On Holy Rood day,[52] the gallant Hotspur there,

Young Harry Percy, and brave Archibald,

That ever-valiant and approvèd[54] Scot,

55

At Holmedon[55] met, where they did spend

A sad[56] and bloody hour,

As by discharge of their artillery,

And shape of likelihood,[58] the news was told,

For he that brought them, in the very heat[59]

60

And pride of their contention did take horse,

Uncertain of the issue[61] any way.

KING HENRY IVHere[62] is a dear and true industrious friend,

Sir Walter Blunt, new lighted[63] from his horse,

Stained with the variation of each[64] soil

65

Betwixt[65] that Holmedon and this seat of ours,

And he hath brought us smooth[66] and welcome news.

The Earl of Douglas is discomfited,[67]

Ten thousand bold Scots, two and twenty knights,

Balked[69] in their own blood did Sir Walter see

70

On Holmedon’s plains. Of prisoners, Hotspur took

Mordake,[71] Earl of Fife, and eldest son

To beaten Douglas, and the Earl of Athol,

Of Murray, Angus, and Menteith.[73]

And is not this an honourable spoil?[74]

75

A gallant[75] prize? Ha, cousin, is it not?

WESTMORLANDIn faith, it is a conquest for a prince to boast of.

KING HENRY IVYea, there thou mak’st me sad and mak’st me sin

In envy that my Lord Northumberland

Should be the father of so blest a son:

80

A son who is the theme[80] of honour’s tongue;

Amongst a grove, the very straightest plant,[81]

Who is sweet Fortune’s minion[82] and her pride,

Whilst I, by looking on the praise of him,

See riot[84] and dishonour stain the brow

85

Of my young Harry. O, that it could be proved

That some night-tripping[86] fairy had exchanged

In cradle-clothes our children where they lay,

And called mine Percy, his Plantagenet:[88]

Then would I have his Harry, and he mine.

90

But let him from[90] my thoughts. What think you, coz,

Of this young Percy’s pride? The prisoners,

Which he in this adventure[92] hath surprised,

To his own use he keeps, and sends me word

I shall have none but Mordake Earl of Fife.

95

WESTMORLANDThis is his uncle’s teaching. This is Worcester,

Malevolent to you in all aspects,

Which makes him prune[97] himself, and bristle up

The crest of youth against your dignity.[98]

KING HENRY IVBut I have sent for him to answer this.

100

And for this cause[100] awhile we must neglect

Our holy purpose to Jerusalem.

Cousin, on Wednesday next our council we

Will hold at Windsor, and so inform the lords.

But come yourself with speed to us again,

105

For more is to be said and to be done

Than out[106] of anger can be utterèd.

WESTMORLANDI will, my liege.

Exeunt

Act 1 Scene 21.2

running scene 2

Enter Henry, Prince of Wales [and] Sir John Falstaff

FALSTAFFNow, Hal, what time of day is it, lad?

PRINCE HENRYThou art so fat-witted[2] with drinking of old sack and unbuttoning thee after supper and sleeping upon benches in the afternoon, that thou hast forgotten[3] to demand that truly[4] which thou wouldst truly know. What a devil hast thou to do with the time of the day? Unless hours were cups of sack and minutes capons[5] and clocks the tongues of bawds[6] and dials the signs of leaping-houses and the blessed sun himself a fair hot[7] wench in flame-coloured taffeta, I see no reason why thou shouldst be so superfluous[8] to demand the time of the day.

FALSTAFFIndeed, you come near me[9] now, Hal, for we that take purses go by the moon and seven stars,[10] and not by Phoebus, he, ‘that wand’ring knight so fair’. And, I prithee, sweet wag,[11] when thou art king, as God save thy grace — majesty I should say, for grace thou wilt have none—

PRINCE HENRYWhat, none?

FALSTAFFNo, not so much as will serve to be prologue to an egg and butter.[14]

PRINCE HENRYWell, how then? Come, roundly,[15] roundly.

FALSTAFFMarry,[16] then, sweet wag, when thou art king, let not us that are squires of the night’s body be called thieves[17] of the day’s beauty. Let us be Diana’s foresters, gentlemen of the shade, minions[18] of the moon; and let men say we be men of good government, being governed, as the sea is, by our noble and chaste mistress the moon, under whose countenance[20] we steal.

PRINCE HENRYThou say’st well, and it holds[21] well too, for the fortune of us that are the moon’s men doth ebb and flow like the sea, being governed, as the sea is, by the moon. As, for proof, now: a purse of gold most resolutely snatched on Monday night and most dissolutely spent on Tuesday morning; got with swearing ‘Lay by’[24] and spent with crying ‘Bring in’,[25] now in as low an ebb as the foot of the ladder and by and by in as high a flow as the ridge of the gallows.

FALSTAFFThou say’st true, lad. And is not my hostess[27] of the tavern a most sweet wench?

PRINCE HENRYAs is the honey of Hybla,[29] my old lad of the castle. And is not a buff jerkin a most sweet robe of durance?[30]

FALSTAFFHow now, how now, mad wag? What, in thy quips and thy quiddities?[31] What a plague[32] have I to do with a buff jerkin?

PRINCE HENRYWhy, what a pox[33] have I to do with my hostess of the tavern?

FALSTAFFWell, thou hast called[34] her to a reck’ning many a time and oft.

PRINCE HENRYDid I ever call for thee to pay thy part?[35]

FALSTAFFNo, I’ll give thee thy due, thou hast paid all there.

PRINCE HENRYYea, and elsewhere, so far as my coin would stretch,[37] and where it would not, I have used my credit.

FALSTAFFYea, and so used it that were it here apparent that thou art heir[39] apparent — but, I prithee, sweet wag, shall there be gallows standing in England when thou art king? And resolution[41] thus fobbed as it is with the rusty curb of old father antic the law? Do not thou, when thou art a king, hang a thief.

PRINCE HENRYNo, thou shalt.

FALSTAFFShall I? O rare![44] I’ll be a brave judge.

PRINCE HENRYThou judgest false already: I mean, thou shalt have the hanging of the thieves and so become a rare hangman.

FALSTAFFWell, Hal, well, and in some sort it jumps[47] with my humour as well as waiting[48] in the court, I can tell you.

PRINCE HENRYFor obtaining of suits?[49]

FALSTAFFYea, for obtaining of suits, whereof the hangman hath no lean wardrobe.[50] I am as melancholy as a gib cat[51] or a lugged bear.

PRINCE HENRYOr an old lion, or a lover’s lute.[52]

FALSTAFFYea, or the drone of a Lincolnshire bagpipe.[53]

PRINCE HENRYWhat say’st thou to a hare,[54] or the melancholy of Moorditch?

FALSTAFFThou hast the most unsavoury similes and art indeed the most comparative,[56] rascalli’st, sweet young prince. But, Hal, I prithee trouble me no more with vanity.[57] I would thou and I knew where a commodity of good names were to be bought. An old lord of the council rated[58] me the other day in the street about you, sir, but I marked him not.[59] And yet he talked very wisely, but I regarded him not; and yet he talked wisely, and in the street too.

PRINCE HENRYThou didst well, for no[61] man regards it.

FALSTAFFO, thou hast damnable iteration[62] and art indeed able to corrupt a saint. Thou hast done much harm unto me, Hal, God forgive thee for it! Before I knew thee, Hal, I knew nothing. And now I am, if a man should speak truly, little better than[65] one of the wicked. I must give over this life, and I will give it over. An I do not, I am a villain. I’ll be damned for never a[66] king’s son in Christendom.

PRINCE HENRYWhere shall we take a purse tomorrow, Jack?[67]

FALSTAFFWhere thou wilt, lad, I’ll make one.[68] An I do not, call me villain and baffle[69] me.

PRINCE HENRYI see a good amendment[70] of life in thee, from praying to purse-taking.

FALSTAFFWhy, Hal, ’tis my vocation,[71] Hal: ’tis no sin for a man to labour in his vocation. Poins! Now shall we know if Gadshill[72] have set a watch. O, if men were to be saved by merit,[73] what hole in hell were hot enough for him? This is the most omnipotent[74] villain that ever cried ‘Stand’ to a true man.

[Enter Poins]

PRINCE HENRYGood morrow, Ned.

POINSGood morrow, sweet Hal. What says Monsieur Remorse?[76] What says Sir John Sack and Sugar, Jack? How agrees the devil and thee about thy soul, that thou soldest him on Good Friday[78] last for a cup of Madeira and a cold capon’s leg?

PRINCE HENRYSir John stands to his word, the devil shall have his bargain, for he was never yet a breaker of proverbs: he will give[80] the devil his due.

POINS Then art thou damned for keeping thy word with the devil.

PRINCE HENRYElse he had[82] been damned for cozening the devil.

POINS But, my lads, my lads, tomorrow morning, by four o’clock, early at Gad’s[83] Hill, there are pilgrims going to Canterbury with rich offerings, and traders riding to London with fat purses. I have vizards[85] for you all; you have horses for yourselves. Gadshill lies[86] tonight in Rochester. I have bespoke supper tomorrow in Eastcheap;[87] we may do it as secure as sleep. If you will go, I will stuff your purses full of crowns:[88] if you will not, tarry at home and be hanged.

FALSTAFFHear ye, Yedward,[89] if I tarry at home and go not, I’ll hang you for going.

POINS You will, chops?[90]

FALSTAFFHal, wilt thou make one?

PRINCE HENRYWho, I rob? I a thief? Not I.

FALSTAFFThere’s neither honesty, manhood, nor good fellowship in thee, nor thou cam’st not of the blood royal,[94] if thou dar’st not stand for ten shillings.

PRINCE HENRYWell then, once in my days I’ll be a madcap.

FALSTAFFWhy, that’s well said.

PRINCE HENRYWell, come what will, I’ll tarry at home.

FALSTAFFI’ll be a traitor then, when thou art king.

PRINCE HENRYI care not.

POINS Sir John, I prithee leave the prince and me alone: I will lay him down such reasons for this adventure that he shall go.

FALSTAFFWell,[102] mayst thou have the spirit of persuasion and he the ears of profiting, that what thou speakest may move and what he hears may be believed, that the true prince may, for recreation sake, prove a false thief; for the poor abuses[104] of the time want countenance.[105] Farewell. You shall find me in Eastcheap.

PRINCE HENRYFarewell, the latter[106] spring! Farewell, All-hallown summer!

[Exit Falstaff]

POINS Now, my good sweet honey lord, ride with us tomorrow. I have a jest to execute that I cannot manage alone. Falstaff, Peto, Bardolph and Gadshill shall rob those men that we have already waylaid:[109] yourself and I will not be there. And when they have the booty, if you and I do not rob them, cut this head from my shoulders.

PRINCE HENRYBut how shall we part with them in setting forth?

POINS Why, we will set forth before or after them, and appoint them a place of meeting, wherein it is at our pleasure[114] to fail; and then will they adventure upon the exploit themselves, which they shall have no sooner achieved, but we’ll set upon them.

PRINCE HENRYAy, but ’tis like[117] that they will know us by our horses, by our habits and by every other appointment,[118] to be ourselves.

POINS Tut! Our horses they shall not see: I’ll tie them in the wood. Our vizards we will change after we leave them. And, sirrah,[120] I have cases of buckram for the nonce,[121] to immask our noted outward garments.

PRINCE HENRYBut I doubt[122] they will be too hard for us.

POINS Well, for two of them, I know them to be as true-bred cowards as ever turned back.[124] And for the third, if he fight longer than he sees reason, I’ll forswear arms. The virtue of this jest will be the incomprehensible[125] lies that this fat rogue will tell us when we meet at supper: how thirty at least he fought with, what wards,[127] what blows, what extremities he endured; and in the reproof of this lies the jest.

PRINCE HENRYWell, I’ll go with thee. Provide us all things necessary and meet me tomorrow night in Eastcheap. There I’ll sup.[130] Farewell.

POINSFarewell, my lord.

Exit Poins

PRINCE HENRYI know you all, and will awhile uphold[132]

The unyoked humour[133] of your idleness.

Yet herein will I imitate the sun,[134]

135

Who doth permit the base contagious[135] clouds

To smother up his beauty from the world,

That when he please again to be himself,

Being wanted,[138] he may be more wondered at,

By breaking through the foul and ugly mists

140

Of vapours that did seem to strangle him.

If all the year were playing holidays,

To sport[142] would be as tedious as to work;

But when they seldom come, they wished-for come,

And nothing pleaseth but rare accidents.[144]

145

So, when this loose behaviour I throw off

And pay the debt I never promisèd,

By how much better than my word I am,

By so much shall I falsify men’s hopes,[148]

And like bright metal on a sullen ground,[149]

150

My reformation, glittering o’er my fault,

Shall show more goodly and attract more eyes

Than that which hath no foil[152] to set it off.

I’ll so offend[153] to make offence a skill,

Redeeming time[154] when men think least I will.

[Exit]

Act 1 Scene 31.3

running scene 3

Enter the King, Northumberland, Worcester, Hotspur, Sir Walter Blunt and others

KING HENRY IVMy blood hath been too cold and temperate,[1]

Unapt[2] to stir at these indignities,

And you have found me;[3] for accordingly

You tread upon[4] my patience. But be sure

5

I will from henceforth rather be myself,[5]

Mighty and to be feared, than my condition,[6]

Which hath been smooth as oil, soft as young down,

And therefore lost that title of[8] respect

Which the proud[9] soul ne’er pays but to the proud.

10

WORCESTEROur house,[10] my sovereign liege, little deserves

The scourge[11] of greatness to be used on it.

And that same greatness too which our own hands

Have holp[13] to make so portly.

NORTHUMBERLAND Mylord— To the King

15

KING HENRYIV Worcester, get thee gone, for I do see

Danger and disobedience in thine eye.

O, sir, your presence is too bold and peremptory,[17]

And majesty might never yet endure

The moody frontier[19] of a servant brow.

20

You have good leave[20] to leave us. When we need

Your use[21] and counsel, we shall send for you.—

[Exit Worcester]

You were about to speak. To Northumberland

NORTHUMBERLANDYea, my good lord.

Those prisoners in your highness’ name demanded,

25

Which Harry Percy here at Holmedon took,

Were, as he says, not with[26] such strength denied

As was delivered[27] to your majesty,

Who either through envy or misprision[28]

Was guilty of this fault and not my son.

30

HOTSPURMy liege, I did deny no prisoners. To the King

But I remember, when the fight was done,

When I was dry with rage[32] and extreme toil,

Breathless and faint, leaning upon my sword,

Came there a certain lord, neat[34] and trimly dressed,

35

Fresh as a bridegroom, and his chin new reaped[35]

Showed like a stubble-land at harvest-home.[36]

He was perfumèd like a milliner,[37]

And ’twixt his finger and his thumb he held

A pouncet-box,[39] which ever and anon

40

He gave[40] his nose and took’t away again,

Who therewith angry,[41] when it next came there,

Took[42] it in snuff. And still he smiled and talked,

And as the soldiers bore dead bodies by,

He called them untaught[44] knaves, unmannerly,

45

To bring a slovenly[45] unhandsome corpse

Betwixt the wind and his nobility.[46]

With many holiday[47] and lady terms

He questioned[48] me, among the rest demanded

My prisoners in your majesty’s behalf.

50

I then, all smarting with my wounds being cold,[50]

To be so pestered with a popinjay,[51]

Out of my grief[52] and my impatience,

Answered neglectingly[53] I know not what,

He should or should not. For he made me mad

55

To see him shine so brisk[55] and smell so sweet

And talk so like a waiting-gentlewoman[56]

Of guns and drums and wounds — God[57] save the mark! —

And telling me the sovereign’st[58] thing on earth

Was parmaceti[59] for an inward bruise,

60

And that it was great pity, so it was,

That villainous saltpetre[61] should be digged

Out of the bowels of the harmless earth,

Which many a good tall[63] fellow had destroyed

So cowardly, and but for these vile guns,

65

He would himself have been a soldier.

This bald unjointed chat[66] of his, my lord,

Made me to answer indirectly,[67] as I said,

And I beseech[68] you let not this report

Come current[69] for an accusation

70

Betwixt my love and your high majesty.

BLUNTThe circumstance considered, good my lord, To the king

Whatever Harry Percy then had said

To such a person and in such a place,

At such a time, with all the rest retold,[74]

75

May reasonably die[75] and never rise

To do him wrong or any way impeach[76]

What then he said, so[77] he unsay it now.

KING HENRY IVWhy, yet he[78] doth deny his prisoners,

But with proviso and exception,[79]

80

That we at our own charge[80] shall ransom straight

His brother-in-law, the foolish Mortimer,

Who, in my soul, hath wilfully betrayed

The lives of those that he did lead to fight

Against the great magician, damned Glendower,

85

Whose daughter, as we hear, the Earl of March[85]

Hath lately married. Shall our coffers,[86] then,

Be emptied to redeem a traitor home?

Shall we buy treason, and indent[88] with fears

When they have lost and forfeited themselves?

90

No, on the barren mountain let him starve,

For I shall never hold that man my friend

Whose tongue shall ask me for one penny cost

To ransom home revolted[93] Mortimer.

HOTSPURRevolted Mortimer?

95

He never did fall off,[95] my sovereign liege,

But by the chance of war. To prove that true

Needs no more but one tongue for all those wounds,

Those mouthèd[98] wounds, which valiantly he took

When on the gentle Severn’s sedgy bank,[99]

100

In single opposition, hand to hand,

He did confound[101] the best part of an hour

In changing hardiment[102] with great Glendower.

Three times they breathed[103] and three times did they drink,

Upon agreement,[104] of swift Severn’s flood;

105

Who then, affrighted[105] with their bloody looks,

Ran fearfully among the trembling reeds,

And hid his crisp[107] head in the hollow bank,

Bloodstainèd with these valiant combatants.

Never did base[109] and rotten policy

110

Colour[110] her working with such deadly wounds;

Nor never could the noble Mortimer

Receive so many, and all willingly.

Then let him not be slandered[113] with revolt.

KING HENRY IVThou dost belie[114] him, Percy, thou dost belie him;

115

He never did encounter[115] with Glendower.

I tell thee, he durst[116] as well have met the devil alone

As Owen Glendower for an enemy.

Art thou not ashamed? But, sirrah, henceforth

Let me not hear you speak of Mortimer.

120

Send me your prisoners with the speediest means,

Or you shall hear in such a kind[121] from me

As will displease ye.— My lord Northumberland,

We license[123] your departure with your son.—

Send us your prisoners, or you’ll hear of it. To Hotspur

Exeunt King [Henry, Blunt and train]

125

HOTSPURAn if[125] the devil come and roar for them

I will not send them. I will after[126] straight

And tell him so, for I will ease my heart,

Although it be with hazard of[128] my head.

NORTHUMBERLANDWhat? Drunk with choler?[129] Stay and pause awhile.

130

Here comes your uncle.

Enter Worcester

HOTSPURSpeak of Mortimer?

Yes, I will speak of him, and let my soul

Want mercy,[133] if I do not join with him.

In his behalf I’ll empty all these veins,

135

And shed my dear blood drop by drop i’th’dust,

But I will lift the downfall[136] Mortimer

As high i’th’air as this unthankful king,

As this ingrate[138] and cankered Bullingbrook.

NORTHUMBERLANDBrother, the king hath made your nephew mad.

140

WORCESTERWho struck this heat[140] up after I was gone?

HOTSPURHe will, forsooth,[141] have all my prisoners.

And when I urged[142] the ransom once again

Of my wife’s brother, then his cheek looked pale,

And on my face he turned an eye of death,[144]

145

Trembling even at the name of Mortimer.

WORCESTERI cannot blame him: was he[146] not proclaimed

By Richard,[147] that dead is, the next of blood?

NORTHUMBERLANDHe was. I heard the proclamation.

And then it was when the unhappy[149] king —

150

Whose wrongs in us[150] God pardon! — did set forth

Upon his Irish expedition,

From whence he intercepted[152] did return

To be deposed and shortly murderèd.

WORCESTERAnd for whose death we in the world’s wide mouth

155

Live scandalized and foully spoken of.

HOTSPURBut soft,[156] I pray you; did King Richard then

Proclaim my brother[157] Mortimer

Heir to the crown?

NORTHUMBERLANDHe did. Myself did hear it.

160

HOTSPURNay, then I cannot blame his cousin[160] king,

That wished him on the barren mountains starved.

But shall it be that you that set the crown

Upon the head of this forgetful man

And for his sake wore the detested blot[164]

165

Of murderous subornation,[165] shall it be,

That you a world of curses undergo,

Being the agents, or base second means,[167]

The cords, the ladder, or the hangman rather?

O, pardon if that I descend so low,

170

To show the line[170] and the predicament

Wherein you range[171] under this subtle king.

Shall it for shame be spoken in these days,

Or fill up chronicles in time to come,

That men of your nobility and power

175

Did gage[175] them both in an unjust behalf,

As both of you — God pardon it! — have done,

To put down Richard, that sweet lovely rose,

And plant this thorn, this canker,[178] Bullingbrook?

And shall it in more shame be further spoken,

180

That you are fooled,[180] discarded and shook off

By him for whom these shames ye underwent?

No. Yet time serves wherein you may redeem

Your banished honours and restore yourselves

Into the good thoughts of the world again,

185

Revenge the jeering and disdained contempt

Of this proud king, who studies[186] day and night

To answer[187] all the debt he owes unto you

Even with the bloody payment of your deaths:

Therefore, I say—

190

WORCESTERPeace, cousin, say no more.

And now I will unclasp[191] a secret book,

And to your quick-conceiving[192] discontents

I’ll read you matter deep[193] and dangerous,

As full of peril and adventurous spirit

195

As to o’er-walk[195] a current roaring loud

On the unsteadfast[196] footing of a spear.

HOTSPURIf he fall in, goodnight,[197] or sink or swim.

Send danger from the east unto the west,

So[199] honour cross it from the north to south,

200

And let them grapple. The blood more stirs

To rouse a lion than to start a hare!

NORTHUMBERLANDImagination of some great exploit To Worcester

Drives him beyond the bounds of patience.

HOTSPURBy heaven, methinks it were an easy leap,

205

To pluck bright honour from the pale-faced moon,

Or dive into the bottom of the deep,

Where fathom-line[207] could never touch the ground,

And pluck up drownèd honour by the locks,

So he that doth redeem[209] her thence might wear

210

Without corrival,[210] all her dignities:

But out upon[211] this half-faced fellowship!

WORCESTER He apprehends[212] a world of figures here, To Northumberland

But not the form[213] of what he should attend.—

Good cousin, give me audience for a while and list[214] to me.

215

HOTSPURI cry you mercy.[215]

WORCESTERThose same noble Scots

That are your prisoners —

HOTSPURI’ll keep them all.

By heaven, he shall not have a Scot[219] of them.

220

No, if a Scot would save his soul, he shall not.

I’ll keep them, by this hand.

WORCESTERYou start away

And lend no ear unto my purposes.

Those prisoners you shall keep.

225

HOTSPURNay, I will; that’s flat.

He said he would not ransom Mortimer,

Forbade my tongue to speak of Mortimer,

But I will find him when he lies asleep,

And in his ear I’ll holla[229] ‘Mortimer!’

230

Nay, I’ll have a starling shall be taught to speak

Nothing but ‘Mortimer’, and give it him

To keep his anger still[232] in motion.

WORCESTERHear you, cousin, a word.

HOTSPURAll studies here I solemnly defy,[234]

235

Save how to gall and pinch[235] this Bullingbrook.

And that same sword-and-buckler[236] Prince of Wales,

But that[237] I think his father loves him not

And would be glad he met with some mischance,[238]

I would have poisoned him with a pot of ale.

240

WORCESTERFarewell, kinsman. I’ll talk to you

When you are better[241] tempered to attend.

NORTHUMBERLANDWhy, what a wasp-tongued and impatient fool To Hotspur

Art thou to break into this woman’s mood,

Tying[244] thine ear to no tongue but thine own!

245

HOTSPURWhy, look you, I am whipped and scourged with rods,

Nettled and stung with pismires,[246] when I hear

Of this vile politician,[247] Bullingbrook.

In Richard’s time — what d’ye call the place? —

A plague upon’t, it is in Gloucestershire,

250

’Twas where the madcap duke his uncle[250] kept,

His uncle York, where I first bowed my knee

Unto this king of smiles, this Bullingbrook,

When you and he came back from Ravenspurgh.[253]

NORTHUMBERLANDAt Berkeley Castle.[254]

255

HOTSPURYou say true.

Why, what a candy deal[256] of courtesy

This fawning greyhound then did proffer me.

‘Look when[258] his infant fortune came to age’,

And ‘gentle Harry Percy’ and ‘kind cousin’.—

260

O, the devil take such cozeners![260] — God forgive me, To Worcester

Good uncle, tell your tale, for I have done.

WORCESTERNay, if you have not, to’t again,

We’ll stay[263] your leisure.

HOTSPURI have done, in sooth.[264]

01

WORCESTERThen once more to your Scottish prisoners.

Deliver them up without their ransom straight,

And make the Douglas’ son[267] your only mean

For powers in Scotland, which, for divers[268] reasons

Which I shall send you written, be assured

270

Will easily be granted.— You, my lord, To Northumberland

Your son in Scotland being thus employed,

Shall secretly into the bosom[272] creep

Of that same noble prelate[273] well beloved,

The archbishop.

275

HOTSPUROf York, is’t not?

WORCESTERTrue, who bears hard[276]

His brother’s death at Bristol, the lord Scroop.[277]

I speak not this in estimation,[278]

As what I think might be, but what I know

280

Is ruminated, plotted and set down,

And only stays[281] but to behold the face

Of that occasion that shall bring it on.

HOTSPURI smell it:[283]

Upon my life, it will do wondrous well.

285

NORTHUMBERLANDBefore[285] the game’s afoot, thou still let’st slip.

HOTSPURWhy, it cannot choose but be a noble plot.

And then the power[287] of Scotland and of York,

To join with Mortimer, ha?

WORCESTERAnd so they shall.

290

HOTSPURIn faith, it is exceedingly well aimed.[290]

WORCESTERAnd ’tis no little reason bids us speed,

To save our heads by raising of a head.[292]

For, bear ourselves as even[293] as we can,

The king will always think him in our debt,

295

And think we think ourselves unsatisfied,

Till he hath found a time to pay us home.[296]

And see already how he doth begin

To make us strangers to his looks of love.

HOTSPURHe does, he does. We’ll be revenged on him.

300

WORCESTERCousin, farewell. No further go in this

Than I by letters shall direct your course.

When time is ripe, which will be suddenly,[302]

I’ll steal[303] to Glendower and Lord Mortimer,

Where you and Douglas and our powers at once,[304]

305

As I will fashion it, shall happily[305] meet,

To bear our fortunes in our own strong arms,

Which now we hold at much uncertainty.

NORTHUMBERLANDFarewell, good brother. We shall thrive, I trust.

HOTSPURUncle, adieu. O, let the hours be short

310

Till fields[310] and blows and groans applaud our sport!

Exeunt

Act 2 Scene 12.1

running scene 4

Enter a Carrier with a lantern in his hand

FIRST CARRIERHeigh-ho! An’t be not four by the day,[1] I’ll be hanged. Charles’ wain is over the new chimney, and yet our horse not packed.[2] What, ostler!

OSTLERAnon,[3] anon. Within

FIRST CARRIERI prithee, Tom,[4] beat Cut’s saddle, put a few flocks in the point. The poor jade[5] is wrung in the withers out of all cess.

Enter another Carrier

SECOND CARRIERPeas and beans[6] are as dank here as a dog, and this is the next way to give poor jades the bots.[7] This house is turned upside down since Robin the ostler died.

FIRST CARRIERPoor fellow, never joyed[9] since the price of oats rose. It was the death of him.

SECOND CARRIERI think this is the most villainous house in all London Road for fleas: I am stung like a tench.[12]

FIRST CARRIERLike a tench? There is ne’er a king in Christendom could be better bit than I have been since the first cock.[14]

SECOND CARRIERWhy, you will allow us ne’er a jordan,[15] and then we leak in your chimney,[16] and your chamber-lye breeds fleas like a loach.

FIRST CARRIERWhat, ostler! Come away[17] and be hanged! Come away!

SECOND CARRIERI have a gammon of bacon[18] and two razes of ginger, to be delivered as far as Charing Cross.[19]

FIRST CARRIERThe turkeys in my pannier[20] are quite starved. What, ostler! A plague on thee! Hast thou never an[21] eye in thy head? Canst not hear? An ’twere not as good a deed as drink to break the pate of thee, I am a very villain. Come, and be hanged! Hast[23] no faith in thee?

Enter Gadshill

GADSHILL Good morrow, carriers. What’s o’clock?

FIRST CARRIERI think it be two o’clock.[25]

GADSHILLI prithee lend me thy lantern to see my gelding[26] in the stable.

FIRST CARRIERNay, soft, I[27] pray ye; I know a trick worth two of that.

GADSHILL I prithee lend me thine. To the Second Carrier

SECOND CARRIERAy,[29] when? Can’st tell? Lend me thy lantern, quoth a? Marry, I’ll see thee hanged first.

GADSHILLSirrah carrier, what time do you mean to come to London?

SECOND CARRIERTime[32] enough to go to bed with a candle, I warrant thee.— Come, neighbour Mugs,[33] we’ll call up the gentlemen. They will along with company, for they have great charge.

Exeunt [Carriers]

Enter Chamberlain

GADSHILLWhat, ho, Chamberlain?

CHAMBERLAINAt[36] hand, quoth pick-purse.

GADSHILL That’s[37] even as fair as — at hand, quoth the chamberlain, for thou variest no more from picking of purses than giving[38] direction doth from labouring. Thou lay’st[39] the plot how.

CHAMBERLAINGood morrow, Master Gadshill. It holds current that[40] I told you yesternight: there’s a franklin[41] in the wild of Kent hath brought three hundred marks with him in gold. I heard him tell it to one of his company last night at supper, a kind of auditor,[43] one that hath abundance of charge too, God knows what. They are up already, and call for eggs and butter.[44] They will away presently.

GADSHILLSirrah, if they meet not with Saint Nicholas’ clerks,[45] I’ll give thee this neck.

CHAMBERLAINNo, I’ll none of it: I prithee keep that for the hangman, for I know thou worship’st Saint Nicholas as truly as a man of falsehood may.

GADSHILLWhat talkest thou to me of the hangman? If I hang, I’ll make a fat pair of gallows, for if I hang, old Sir John hangs with me, and thou know’st he’s no starveling.[50] Tut, there are other Trojans that thou dream’st not of, the which for sport sake are content to do the profession[51] some grace; that would, if matters should be looked into, for their own credit sake, make all whole.[52] I am joined with no foot-land rakers,[53] no long-staff sixpenny strikers, none of these mad mustachio purple-hued malt-worms, but with nobility and tranquillity,[54] burgomasters and great oneyers,[55] such as can hold in, such as will strike sooner than speak, and speak sooner than drink, and drink sooner than pray. And yet, I lie, for they pray continually unto their saint, the commonwealth;[57] or rather not to pray to her, but prey on her, for they ride[58] up and down on her and make her their boots.

CHAMBERLAINWhat, the commonwealth their boots? Will she hold[59] out water in foul way?

GADSHILLShe will, she will; justice hath liquored[61] her. We steal as in a castle, cocksure.[62] We have the receipt of fern-seed, we walk invisible.

CHAMBERLAINNay, I think rather you are more beholding to the night than to fern-seed for your walking invisible.

GADSHILLGive me thy hand. Thou shalt have a share in our purpose, as I am a true[65] man.

CHAMBERLAIN Nay, rather let me have it, as you are a false thief.

GADSHILLGo to. Homo[68] is a common name to all men. Bid the ostler bring the gelding out of the stable. Farewell, ye muddy[69] knave.

Exeunt

Act 2 Scene 22.2

running scene 5

Enter Prince, Poins and Peto [and Bardolph]

POINS Come, shelter, shelter. I have removed Falstaff’s horse, and he frets[1] like a gummed velvet.

PRINCE HENRY Stand close.[3] Poins, Peto, and Bardolph stand aside

Enter Falstaff

FALSTAFFPoins! Poins, and be hanged! Poins!

PRINCE HENRYPeace, ye fat-kidneyed[5] rascal. What a brawling dost thou keep!

FALSTAFFWhat, Poins? Hal?

PRINCE HENRY He is walked up to the top of the hill. I’ll go seek him. Stands aside with the others

FALSTAFFI am accursed to rob in that thief’s company. That rascal hath removed my horse, and tied him I know not where. If I travel but four foot by the square[9] further afoot, I shall break my wind.[10] Well, I doubt not but to die a fair death for all this, if I scape hanging for killing that rogue. I have forsworn his company hourly any time this two-and-twenty year, and yet I am bewitched with the rogue’s company. If the rascal have not given me medicines[13] to make me love him, I’ll be hanged; it could not be else: I have drunk medicines. Poins, Hal, a plague upon you both! Bardolph! Peto! I’ll starve ere[15] I rob a foot further. An ’twere not as good a deed as to drink, to turn true man[16] and to leave these rogues, I am the veriest varlet that ever chewed with a tooth. Eight yards of uneven ground is threescore and ten miles afoot with me, and the stony-hearted villains know it well enough. A plague upon’t when thieves cannot be true one to another! The Prince, Poins, Peto and Bardolph come forward They whistle

Whew![20] A plague light upon you all! Give me my horse, you rogues. Give me my horse, and be hanged!

PRINCE HENRYPeace, ye fat-guts! Lie down, lay thine ear close to the ground and list if thou can hear the tread of travellers.

FALSTAFFHave you any levers to lift me up again, being down? I’ll not bear mine own flesh so far afoot again for all the coin in thy father’s exchequer.[25] What a plague mean ye to colt[26] me thus?

PRINCE HENRYThou liest. Thou art not colted, thou art uncolted.[27]

FALSTAFFI prithee, good Prince Hal, help me to[28] my horse, good king’s son.

PRINCE HENRYOut, you rogue! Shall I be your ostler?

FALSTAFFGo, hang thyself in thine own heir-apparent garters![30] If I be ta’en, I’ll peach for this. An I have not ballads[31] made on all and sung to filthy tunes, let a cup of sack be my poison. When a jest is so forward,[32] and afoot too! I hate it.

Enter Gadshill

GADSHILL Stand.

FALSTAFFSo I do, against my will.

POINSO, ’tis our setter.[35] I know his voice.

BARDOLPHWhat news?

GADSHILLCase ye,[37] case ye; on with your vizards. There’s money of the king’s coming down the hill, ’tis going to the king’s exchequer.

FALSTAFFYou lie, you rogue, ’tis going to the King’s Tavern.

GADSHILLThere’s enough to make us all.[40]

FALSTAFFTo be hanged.

PRINCE HENRYYou four shall front[42] them in the narrow lane. Ned and I will walk lower;[43] if they scape from your encounter, then they light on us.

PETOBut how many be[44] of them?

GADSHILLSome eight or ten.

FALSTAFFWill they not rob us?

PRINCE HENRYWhat, a coward, Sir John Paunch?

FALSTAFFIndeed, I am not John of Gaunt,[48] your grandfather; but yet no coward, Hal.

PRINCE HENRYWe’ll leave that to the proof.[49]

POINSSirrah Jack, thy horse stands behind the hedge. When thou need’st him, there thou shalt find him. Farewell, and stand fast.

FALSTAFFNow cannot I strike him, if I should be hanged.

PRINCE HENRYNed, where are our disguises? To Poins

POINS Here, hard[54] by. Stand close. To Prince Henry

[Exeunt Prince Henry and Poins]

FALSTAFFNow, my masters, happy[55] man be his dole, say I. Every man to his business.

Enter Travellers

FIRSTTRAVELLERCome, neighbour. The boy shall lead our horses down the hill. We’ll walk afoot awhile, and ease our legs.

THIEVESStay!

TRAVELLERSJesu bless us!

FALSTAFFStrike, down with them! Cut the villains’ throats. Ah, whoreson[60] caterpillars, bacon-fed[61] knaves! They hate us youth, down with them, fleece them.

TRAVELLERSO, we are undone,[62] both we and ours for ever!

FALSTAFFHang ye, gorbellied[63] knaves, are you undone? No, ye fat chuffs, I would your store[64] were here! On, bacons, on! What, ye knaves? Young men must live. You are grand-jurors,[65] are ye? We’ll jure ye, i’faith.

Here they rob them and bind them [Exeunt]

Enter the Prince and Poins

PRINCE HENRYThe thieves have bound the true men. Now could thou and I rob the thieves and go merrily to London, it would be argument[67] for a week, laughter for a month and a good jest for ever.

POINSStand close. I hear them coming.

Enter Thieves again

FALSTAFFCome, my masters,[70] let us share, and then to horse before day. An the prince and Poins be not two arrant[71] cowards, there’s no equity stirring. There’s no more valour in that Poins than in a wild duck.[72]

PRINCE HENRYYour money!

POINSVillains!

As they are sharing, the Prince and Poins set upon them. They all run away, leaving the booty behind them

75

PRINCE HENRYGot with much ease. Now merrily to horse.

The thieves are scattered and possessed with fear

So strongly that they dare not meet each other:

Each takes his fellow for an officer.

Away, good Ned. Falstaff sweats to death,

80

And lards[80] the lean earth as he walks along.

Were’t not for laughing, I should pity him.

POINSHow the rogue roared!

Exeunt

Act 2 Scene 32.3

running scene 6

Enter Hotspur, solus, reading a letter

HOTSPUR‘But for mine own part, my lord, I could be well contented to be there, in respect of the love I bear your house.[2]’ He could be contented: why is he not, then? In respect of the love he bears our house. He shows in this, he loves his own barn better than he loves our house. Let me see some more. ‘The purpose you undertake is dangerous’ — why, that’s certain: ’tis dangerous to take a cold, to sleep, to drink. But I tell you, my lord fool, out of this nettle, danger, we pluck this flower, safety. ‘The purpose you undertake is dangerous, the friends you have named uncertain,[8] the time itself unsorted and your whole plot too light for the counterpoise[9] of so great an opposition.’ Say you so, say you so? I say unto you again, you are a shallow cowardly hind,[10] and you lie. What a lack-brain is this? I protest,[11] our plot is as good a plot as ever was laid; our friends true and constant: a good plot, good friends, and full of expectation.[12] An excellent plot, very good friends. What a frosty-spirited rogue is this? Why, my lord of York[13] commends the plot and the general course of the action. By this hand if I were now by this rascal, I could brain[15] him with his lady’s fan. Is there not my father, my uncle and myself, Lord Edmund Mortimer, my lord of York and Owen Glendower? Is there not besides the Douglas?[17] Have I not all their letters to meet me in arms by the ninth of the next month? And are they not some of them set forward already? What a pagan rascal is this? An infidel! Ha, you shall see now in[19] very sincerity of fear and cold heart, will he to the king and lay open all our proceedings. O, I could divide myself and go to buffets,[21] for moving such a dish of skimmed milk with so honourable an action![22] Hang him. Let him tell the king we are prepared. I will set forwards tonight.

Enter his Lady

How now, Kate? I must leave you within these two hours.

25

LADY PERCYO, my good lord, why are you thus alone?

For what offence have I this fortnight been

A banished woman from my Harry’s bed?

Tell me, sweet lord, what is’t that takes from thee

Thy stomach,[29] pleasure and thy golden sleep?

30

Why dost thou bend thine eyes upon the earth,

And start so often when thou sit’st alone?

Why hast thou lost the fresh blood in thy cheeks,

And given my treasures[33] and my rights of thee

To thick-eyed[34] musing and cursed melancholy?

35

In my faint[35] slumbers I by thee have watched,

And heard thee murmur tales of iron wars,

Speak terms of manage[37] to thy bounding steed,

Cry ‘Courage! To the field!’ And thou hast talked

Of sallies and retires,[39] trenches, tents,

40

Of palisadoes,[40] frontiers, parapets,

Of basilisks,[41] of cannon, culverin,

Of prisoners’ ransom and of soldiers slain,

And all the current[43] of a heady fight.

Thy spirit within thee hath been so at war

45

And thus hath so bestirred thee in thy sleep,

That beads of sweat hath stood upon thy brow

Like bubbles in a late-disturbèd stream;

And in thy face strange motions[48] have appeared,

Such as we see when men restrain[49] their breath

50

On some great sudden haste. O, what portents are these?

Some heavy[51] business hath my lord in hand,

And I must know it, else he loves me not.

HOTSPURWhat, ho![53]

[Enter a Servant]

Is Gilliams[54] with the packet gone?

55

SERVANTHe is, my lord, an hour agone.

HOTSPURHath Butler[56] brought those horses from the sheriff?

SERVANTOne horse, my lord, he brought even[57] now.

HOTSPURWhat horse? A roan,[58] a crop-ear, is it not?

SERVANTIt is, my lord.

60

HOTSPURThat roan shall be my throne.

Well, I will back[61] him straight.

Esperance!

Bid Butler lead him forth into the park.

[Exit Servant]

LADY PERCYBut hear you, my lord.

HOTSPURWhat say’st thou, my lady?

65

LADY PERCYWhat is it carries you away?[65]

HOTSPURWhy, my horse, my love, my horse.

LADY PERCYOut, you mad-headed ape!

A weasel[68] hath not such a deal of spleen

As you are tossed with. In sooth,

70

I’ll know your business, Harry, that I will.

I fear my brother Mortimer doth stir[71]

About his title,[72] and hath sent for you

To line[73] his enterprise. But if you go—

HOTSPURSo far afoot, I shall be weary, love.

75

LADY PERCYCome, come, you paraquito,[75] answer me

Directly unto this question that I shall ask:

Indeed, I’ll break thy little finger,[77] Harry,

If thou wilt not tell me true.

HOTSPURAway,

80

Away, you trifler![80] Love? I love thee not.

I care not for thee, Kate. This is no world

To play with mammets[82] and to tilt with lips.

We must have bloody noses and cracked crowns,[83]

And pass them current[84] too.— God’s me, my horse!

85

What say’st thou, Kate? What wouldst thou have with me?

LADY PERCYDo ye not love me? Do ye not, indeed?

Well, do not then, for since you love me not,

I will not love myself. Do you not love me?

Nay, tell me if thou speak’st in jest or no.

90

HOTSPURCome, wilt thou see me ride?

And when I am a-horseback, I will swear

I love thee infinitely. But hark you, Kate,

I must not have you henceforth question me

Whither I go, nor reason whereabout.[94]

95

Whither I must, I must. And to conclude,

This evening must I leave thee, gentle Kate.

I know you wise, but yet no further wise

Than Harry Percy’s wife. Constant[98] you are,

But yet a woman: and for secrecy,

100

No lady closer,[100] for I well believe

Thou wilt not utter what thou dost not know,

And so far will I trust thee, gentle Kate.

LADY PERCYHow? So far?

HOTSPURNot an inch further. But hark you, Kate:

105

Whither I go, thither shall you go too.

Today will I set forth, tomorrow you.

Will this content you, Kate?

LADY PERCYIt must of force.[108]

Exeunt

Act 2 Scene 42.4

running scene 7

Enter Prince and Poins

PRINCE HENRYNed, prithee come out of that fat[1] room, and lend me thy hand to laugh a little.

POINSWhere hast been, Hal?

PRINCE HENRYWith three or four loggerheads[4] amongst three or fourscore hogsheads. I have sounded[5] the very base-string of humility. Sirrah, I am sworn brother to a leash[6] of drawers, and can call them by their names, as Tom, Dick and Francis. They take it already upon their confidence that though I be but Prince of Wales, yet I am the king of courtesy, telling me flatly I am no proud[8] Jack like Falstaff, but a Corinthian,[9] a lad of mettle, a good boy, and when I am king of England, I shall command all the good lads in Eastcheap. They call drinking deep, dyeing scarlet;[10] and when you breathe[11] in your watering, then they cry ‘Hem!’ and bid you play it off. To conclude, I am so good a proficient in one quarter of an hour that I can drink[13] with any tinker in his own language during my life. I tell thee, Ned, thou hast lost much honour that thou wert not with me in this action.[14] But, sweet Ned — to sweeten which name of Ned, I give thee this pennyworth of sugar,[15] clapped even now into my hand by an under-skinker,[16] one that never spake other English in his life than ‘Eight shillings and sixpence’ and ‘You are welcome’, with this shrill addition, ‘Anon,[18] anon, sir!— Score a pint of bastard in the Half-Moon’, or so. But, Ned, to drive[19] away time till Falstaff come, I prithee do thou stand in some by-room while I question my puny[20] drawer to what end he gave me the sugar and do never leave[21] calling ‘Francis’, that his tale to me may be nothing but ‘Anon’. Step aside, and I’ll show thee a precedent.[22]

POINSFrancis!

PRINCE HENRYThou art perfect.[24]

POINSFrancis!

[Exit Poins]

Enter Drawer [Francis]

FRANCISAnon, anon, sir.— Look down into the Pomgarnet,[26] Ralph.

PRINCE HENRYCome hither, Francis.

FRANCISMy lord?

PRINCE HENRYHow long hast thou to serve,[29] Francis?

FRANCISForsooth, five years, and as much as to—

POINSFrancis! Within

FRANCISAnon, anon, sir.

PRINCE HENRYFive years. By’r lady,[33] a long lease for the clinking of pewter. But Francis, darest thou be so valiant as to play the coward with thy indenture[34] and show it a fair pair of heels and run from it?

FRANCISO lord, sir, I’ll be sworn upon all the books[36] in England, I could find in my heart—

POINSFrancis! Within

FRANCISAnon, anon, sir.

PRINCE HENRYHow old art thou, Francis?

FRANCISLet me see — about Michaelmas[41] next I shall be—

POINS Francis! Within

FRANCISAnon, sir.— Pray you stay[43] a little, my lord.

PRINCE HENRYNay, but hark you, Francis, for[44] the sugar thou gavest me, ’twas a pennyworth, was’t not?

FRANCISO lord, sir, I would it had been two!

PRINCE HENRYI will give thee for it a thousand pound. Ask me when thou wilt, and thou shalt have it.

POINS Francis! Within

FRANCISAnon, anon.

PRINCE HENRYAnon, Francis? No, Francis. But tomorrow, Francis, or, Francis, on Thursday, or indeed, Francis, when thou wilt. But, Francis!

FRANCISMy lord?

PRINCE HENRYWilt thou rob[54] this leathern jerkin, crystal-button, not-pated, agate-ring,[55] puke-stocking, caddis-garter, smooth-tongue, Spanish-pouch—

FRANCISO lord, sir, who do you mean?

PRINCE HENRYWhy, then, your brown bastard[57] is your only drink, for look you, Francis, your white canvas doublet[58] will sully. In Barbary, sir, it cannot come to so much.

FRANCISWhat, sir?

POINS Francis! Within

PRINCE HENRYAway, you rogue! Dost thou hear them call?

Here they both call him. The Drawer stands amazed, not knowing which way to go Enter Vintner

VINTNERWhat, stand’st thou still, and hear’st such a calling? Look to the guests

within.

[Exit Francis]

My lord, old Sir John, with half-a-dozen more, are at the door: shall I let them in?

PRINCE HENRYLet them alone awhile, and then open the door.

[Exit Vintner]

Poins!

Enter Poins

POINS Anon, anon, sir.

PRINCE HENRYSirrah, Falstaff and the rest of the thieves are at the door. Shall we be merry?

POINS As merry as crickets,[71] my lad. But hark ye: what cunning match have you made with this jest of the drawer? Come, what’s the issue?[72]

PRINCE HENRYI[73] am now of all humours that have showed themselves humours since the old days of goodman Adam to the pupil age of this present twelve o’clock at midnight.

[Enter Francis]

What’s o’clock, Francis?

FRANCISAnon,[77] anon, sir.

[Exit]

PRINCE HENRYThat ever this fellow should have fewer words than a parrot, and yet[78] the son of a woman! His industry[79] is upstairs and downstairs, his eloquence the parcel of a reckoning. I am not yet of Percy’s mind,[80] the Hotspur of the north, he that kills me[81] some six or seven dozen of Scots at a breakfast, washes his hands, and says to his wife ‘Fie upon this quiet life! I want work.’ ‘O my sweet Harry’, says she, ‘how many hast thou killed today?’ ‘Give my roan horse a drench[83]’, says he, and answers ‘Some fourteen’, an hour after, ‘a trifle, a trifle’. I prithee call in

Falstaff. I’ll play Percy, and that damned brawn[85] shall play Dame Mortimer his

wife. ‘Rivo!’[86] says the drunkard. Call in ribs, call in tallow. Poins calls

Enter Falstaff, [Gadshill, Bardolph and Peto. Francis follows with wine]

POINSWelcome, Jack. Where hast thou been?

FALSTAFFA plague of[88] all cowards, I say, and a vengeance too, marry and amen!— Give me a cup of sack, boy.— Ere I lead this life long, I’ll sew nether stocks[89] and To Francis mend them and foot[90] them too. A plague of all cowards!— Give me a cup of sack,

rogue. Is there no virtue extant?[91] Drinks

PRINCE HENRYDidst thou never see Titan[92] kiss a dish of butter — pitiful-hearted Titan — that melted at the sweet tale of the sun? If thou didst, then behold that compound.[94]

FALSTAFFYou rogue, here’s lime[95] in this sack too.— There is nothing but roguery to To Francis

be found in villainous man; yet a coward is worse than a cup of sack with lime in’t.

[Francis may exit]

A villainous coward! Go thy ways,[98] old Jack, die when thou wilt, if manhood, good manhood, be not forgot upon the face of the earth, then am I a shotten herring.[99] There lives not three good men unhanged in England, and one of them is fat and grows old. God help the while![101] A bad world, I say. I would I were a weaver. I could sing all manner of songs. A plague of all cowards, I say still.

PRINCE HENRYHow now, wool-sack,[103] what mutter you?

FALSTAFFA king’s son? If I do not beat thee out of thy kingdom with a dagger of lath,[104] and drive all thy subjects afore thee like a flock of wild geese, I’ll[105] never wear hair on my face more. You Prince of Wales?

PRINCE HENRYWhy, you whoreson round[107] man, what’s the matter?

FALSTAFFAre you not a coward? Answer me to that. And Poins there?

POINSYe fat paunch, an ye call me coward, I’ll stab thee.

FALSTAFFI call thee coward? I’ll see thee damned ere I call thee coward, but I would give a thousand pound I could run as fast as thou canst. You are straight enough in the shoulders, you care not who sees your back. Call you that backing[112] of your friends? A plague upon such backing! Give me them that will face[113] me. Give me a cup of sack. I am a rogue, if I drunk[114] today.

PRINCE HENRYO, villain, thy lips are scarce wiped since thou drunk’st last.

FALSTAFFAll’s[116] one for that.

He drinks

A plague of all cowards, still say I.

PRINCE HENRYWhat’s the matter?

FALSTAFFWhat’s the matter? Here be four of us have ta’en[119] a thousand pound this morning.

PRINCE HENRYWhere is it, Jack? Where is it?

FALSTAFFWhere is it? Taken from us it is: a hundred upon poor[122] four of us.

PRINCE HENRYWhat, a hundred, man?

FALSTAFFI am a rogue, if I were not at half-sword[124] with a dozen of them two hours together. I have scaped by miracle. I am eight times thrust through the doublet, four through the hose,[126] my buckler cut through and through, my sword hacked like a hand-saw[127] — ecce signum! I never dealt better since I was a man: all would not do. A plague of all cowards! Let them speak; if they speak more or less than truth, they are villains and the sons of darkness.[129]

PRINCE HENRYSpeak, sirs, how was it?

GADSHILL We four set upon some dozen—

FALSTAFFSixteen at least, my lord.

GADSHILLAnd bound them.

PETONo, no, they were not bound.

FALSTAFFYou rogue, they were bound, every man of them, or I am a Jew else, an Ebrew Jew.[136]

GADSHILL As we were sharing, some six or seven fresh men set upon us—

FALSTAFFAnd unbound the rest, and then come[138] in the other.

PRINCE HENRYWhat, fought ye with them all?

FALSTAFFAll? I know not what ye call all, but if I fought not with fifty of them, I am a bunch of radish: if there were not two or three and fifty upon poor old Jack, then am I no two-legged creature.

POINS Pray heaven you have not murdered some of them.

FALSTAFFNay, that’s past praying for, I have peppered[144] two of them: two I am sure I have paid,[145] two rogues in buckram suits. I tell thee what, Hal, if I tell thee a lie, spit in my face, call me horse. Thou knowest my old ward.[146] Here I lay and thus I bore my point. Four rogues in buckram let drive at[147] me—

PRINCE HENRYWhat, four? Thou saidst but two even now.

FALSTAFFFour, Hal, I told thee four.

POINS Ay, ay, he said four.

FALSTAFFThese four came all a-front,[151] and mainly thrust at me. I made no more ado but took all their seven points[152] in my target, thus.

PRINCE HENRYSeven? Why, there were but four even now.

FALSTAFFIn buckram?

POINS Ay, four, in buckram suits.

FALSTAFFSeven, by these hilts,[156] or I am a villain else.

PRINCE HENRYPrithee let him alone. We shall have more anon. Aside to Poins

FALSTAFFDost thou hear me, Hal?

PRINCE HENRYAy, and mark[159] thee too, Jack.

FALSTAFFDo so, for it is worth the listening to. These nine in buckram that I told

thee of—

PRINCE HENRYSo, two more already.

FALSTAFFTheir points[163] being broken—

POINSDown fell his hose.

FALSTAFFBegan to give me ground.[165] But I followed me close, came in foot and hand; and with a thought[166] seven of the eleven I paid.

PRINCE HENRYO, monstrous! Eleven buckram men grown out of two?

FALSTAFFBut, as the devil would have it, three misbegotten[168] knaves in Kendal green came at my back and let drive at me; for it was so dark, Hal, that thou couldst not see thy hand.

PRINCE HENRYThese lies are like the father[171] that begets them, gross as a mountain, open, palpable. Why, thou clay-brained[172] guts, thou knotty-pated fool, thou whoreson, obscene, greasy tallow-catch[173]—

FALSTAFFWhat, art thou mad? Art thou mad? Is not the truth the truth?

PRINCE HENRYWhy, how couldst thou know these men in Kendal green when it was so dark thou couldst not see thy hand? Come, tell us your reason: what say’st thou to this?

POINSCome, your reason, Jack, your reason.

FALSTAFFWhat, upon compulsion?[179] No. Were I at the strappado, or all the racks in the world, I would not tell you on compulsion. Give you a reason on compulsion? If reasons[181] were as plentiful as blackberries, I would give no man a reason upon compulsion, I.

PRINCE HENRYI’ll be no longer guilty of this sin. This sanguine[183] coward, this bed-presser,[184] this horseback-breaker, this huge hill of flesh—

FALSTAFFAway, you starveling, you elf-skin,[185] you dried neat’s tongue, bull’s pizzle, you stock-fish![186] O, for breath to utter what is like thee! You tailor’s-yard, you sheath,[187] you bowcase, you vile standing-tuck—

PRINCE HENRYWell, breathe awhile, and then to’t again: and when thou hast tired thyself in base comparisons, hear me speak but thus.

POINS Mark, Jack.

PRINCE HENRYWe two saw you four set on four and bound them, and were masters of their wealth. Mark now, how a plain tale shall put you down. Then did we two set on you four, and with a word,[193] out-faced you from your prize, and have it, yea, and can show it you in the house. And, Falstaff, you carried your guts away as nimbly, with as quick dexterity, and roared for mercy and still ran and roared, as ever I heard bull-calf. What a slave[196] art thou, to hack thy sword as thou hast done, and then say it was in fight! What trick, what device, what starting-hole[197] canst thou now find out to hide thee from this open and apparent[198] shame?

POINS Come, let’s hear, Jack: what trick hast thou now?

FALSTAFFI knew[200] ye as well as he that made ye. Why, hear ye, my masters, was it for me to kill the heir-apparent? Should I turn upon the true prince? Why, thou knowest I am as valiant as Hercules,[202] but beware instinct. The lion will not touch the true prince. Instinct is a great matter. I was a coward on instinct. I shall think the better of myself and thee during my life: I for a valiant lion, and thou for a true prince. But, lads, I am glad you have the money.— Hostess, clap to[205] the doors. Watch[206] tonight, pray tomorrow. Gallants, lads, boys, hearts of gold, all the good titles of fellowship come to you! What, shall we be merry? Shall we have a play extempore?[208]

PRINCE HENRYContent, and the argument[209] shall be thy running away.

FALSTAFFAh, no more of that, Hal, an[210] thou lovest me!

Enter Hostess [Quickly]

HOSTESS QUICKLYMy lord the prince?

PRINCE HENRYHow now, my lady the hostess? What say’st thou to me?

HOSTESS QUICKLYMarry, my lord, there is a nobleman of the court at door would speak with you: he says he comes from your father.

PRINCE HENRYGive him as much as will make him a royal[215] man, and send him back again to my mother.

FALSTAFFWhat manner of man is he?

HOSTESS QUICKLYAn old man.

FALSTAFFWhat doth gravity[219] out of his bed at midnight? Shall I give him his answer?

PRINCE HENRYPrithee do, Jack.

FALSTAFF’Faith, and I’ll send him packing.

Exit

PRINCE HENRYNow, sirs: you fought fair; so did you, Peto, so did you, Bardolph. You are lions too, you ran away upon instinct. You will not touch the true prince; no, fie![224]

BARDOLPH’Faith, I ran when I saw others run.

PRINCE HENRYTell me now in earnest, how came Falstaff’s sword so hacked?

PETOWhy, he hacked it with his dagger, and said he would swear[227] truth out of England but he would make you believe it was done in fight, and persuaded us to do the like.

BARDOLPHYea, and to tickle our noses with spear-grass[230] to make them bleed, and then to beslubber[231] our garments with it and swear it was the blood of true men. I did that[232] I did not this seven years before, I blushed to hear his monstrous devices.

PRINCE HENRYO, villain, thou stolest a cup of sack eighteen years ago, and wert taken[233] with the manner, and ever since thou hast blushed extempore.[234] Thou hadst fire and sword on thy side, and yet thou ran’st away; what instinct hadst thou for it?

BARDOLPHMy lord, do you see these meteors?[236] Do you behold these exhalations?

PRINCE HENRY I do.

BARDOLPHWhat think you they portend?[238]

PRINCE HENRYHot[239] livers and cold purses.

BARDOLPHCholer,[240] my lord, if rightly taken.

PRINCE HENRYNo, if rightly taken, halter.[241]

Enter Falstaff

Here comes lean Jack, here comes bare-bone.— How now, my sweet creature of bombast?[243] How long is’t ago, Jack, since thou saw’st thine own knee?

FALSTAFFMy own knee? When I was about thy years, Hal, I was not an[244] eagle’s talon in the waist. I could have crept into any alderman’s thumb-ring.[245] A plague of sighing and grief! It blows a man up like a bladder. There’s villainous news abroad: here was Sir John Braby from your father; you must go to the court in the morning. That same mad fellow of the north, Percy,[248] and he of Wales that gave Amamon[249] the bastinado and made Lucifer cuckold and swore the devil his true liegeman upon the cross of a Welsh hook[250] — what a plague call you him?

POINS O, Glendower.

FALSTAFFOwen, Owen the same, and his son-in-law Mortimer, and old Northumberland, and that sprightly Scot of Scots, Douglas, that runs o’horseback up a hill perpendicular—

PRINCE HENRYHe that rides at high speed and with a pistol kills a sparrow flying.

FALSTAFFYou have hit it.[256]

PRINCE HENRYSo did he never the sparrow.

FALSTAFFWell, that rascal hath good mettle[258] in him. He will not run.

PRINCE HENRYWhy, what a rascal art thou then, to praise him so for running?[259]

FALSTAFFA-horseback, ye cuckoo,[260] but afoot he will not budge a foot.

PRINCE HENRYYes, Jack, upon instinct.

FALSTAFFI grant ye, upon instinct. Well, he is there too, and one Mordake, and a thousand blue-caps[263] more. Worcester is stolen away by night. Thy father’s beard is turned white with the news; you[264] may buy land now as cheap as stinking mackerel.

PRINCE HENRYThen ’tis like,[266] if there come a hot sun and this civil buffeting hold, we shall buy maidenheads[267] as they buy hob-nails, by the hundreds.

FALSTAFFBy the mass, lad, thou say’st true. It is like we shall have good trading[268] that way. But tell me, Hal, art not thou horrible afeard? Thou being heir apparent, could the world pick thee out three such enemies again as that fiend Douglas, that spirit[271] Percy, and that devil Glendower? Art not thou horrible afraid? Doth not thy blood thrill[272] at it?

PRINCE HENRYNot a whit, I lack some of thy instinct.

FALSTAFFWell, thou wilt be horrible chid[274] tomorrow when thou comest to thy father: if thou do love me, practise an answer.

PRINCE HENRYDo thou stand for[276] my father, and examine me upon the particulars of my life.

FALSTAFFShall I? Content.[278] This chair shall be my state, this dagger my sceptre and this cushion my crown.

PRINCE HENRYThy state is taken for a joint-stool,[280] thy golden sceptre for a leaden dagger, and thy precious rich crown[281] for a pitiful bald crown.

FALSTAFFWell, an the fire of grace[282] be not quite out of thee, now shalt thou be moved.[283] Give me a cup of sack to make mine eyes look red, that it may be thought I have wept, for I must speak in passion, and I will do it in King Cambyses’ vein.[284]

PRINCE HENRY Well, here is my leg. He bows or kneels

FALSTAFFAnd here is my speech. Stand aside, nobility.[286]

HOSTESS QUICKLYThis is excellent sport, i’faith!

FALSTAFFWeep[288] not, sweet queen, for trickling tears are vain.

HOSTESS QUICKLYO,[289] the father, how he holds his countenance!

FALSTAFFFor God’s sake, lords, convey[290] my tristful queen, For tears do stop[291] the flood-gates of her eyes.

HOSTESS QUICKLYO, rare,[292] he doth it as like one of these harlotry players as ever I see!

FALSTAFFPeace, good pint-pot,[293] peace, good tickle-brain.— Harry, I do not only Quickly may exit, perhaps escorted by Bardolph marvel where thou spendest thy time, but also how thou art accompanied, for though the camomile,[295] the more it is trodden the faster it grows, yet youth, the more it is wasted the sooner it wears. Thou art my son, I have partly thy mother’s word, partly my opinion, but chiefly a villainous trick[297] of thine eye and a foolish hanging of thy nether lip that doth warrant[298] me. If then thou be son to me, here lieth the point: why, being son to me, art thou so pointed at?[299] Shall the blessed sun of heaven prove a micher[300] and eat blackberries? A question not to be asked. Shall the son of England prove a thief and take purses? A question to be asked. There is a thing, Harry, which thou hast often heard of and it is known to many in our land by the name of pitch:[303] this pitch, as ancient writers do report, doth defile; so doth the company thou keepest. For, Harry, now I do not speak to thee in drink but in tears: not in pleasure but in passion:[305] not in words only, but in woes also. And yet there is a virtuous man whom I have often noted in thy company, but I know not his name.

PRINCE HENRYWhat manner of man, an it like[308] your majesty?

FALSTAFFA goodly portly[309] man, i’faith, and a corpulent: of a cheerful look, a pleasing eye and a most noble carriage,[310] and as I think, his age some fifty, or, by’r lady, inclining to threescore;[311] and now I remember me, his name is Falstaff. If that man should be lewdly given,[312] he deceives me; for, Harry, I see virtue in his looks. If then the tree may be known by the fruit, as the fruit by the tree, then peremptorily[313] I speak it, there is virtue in that Falstaff: him keep with, the rest banish. And tell me now, thou naughty[315] varlet, tell me, where hast thou been this month?

PRINCE HENRYDost thou speak like a king? Do thou stand for me, and I’ll play my father.

FALSTAFFDepose me? If thou dost it half so gravely, so majestically, both in word and matter, hang me up by the heels for a rabbit-sucker[319] or a poulter’s hare.

PRINCE HENRYWell, here I am set.[320]

FALSTAFFAnd here I stand. Judge, my masters.[321]

PRINCE HENRYNow, Harry, whence come you?

FALSTAFFMy noble lord, from Eastcheap.

PRINCE HENRYThe complaints I hear of thee are grievous.

FALSTAFFI’faith, my lord, they are false. — Nay, I’ll tickle ye[325] for a young prince.

PRINCE HENRYSwearest thou, ungracious[326] boy? Henceforth ne’er look on me. Thou art violently carried away from grace: there is a devil haunts thee in the likeness of a fat old man; a tun[328] of man is thy companion. Why dost thou converse with that trunk[329] of humours, that bolting-hutch of beastliness, that swollen parcel of dropsies,[330] that huge bombard of sack, that stuffed cloak-bag of guts, that roasted Manningtree[331] ox with the pudding in his belly, that reverend Vice, that grey Iniquity,[332] that father Ruffian, that Vanity in years? Wherein is he good, but to taste sack and drink it? Wherein neat and cleanly,[333] but to carve a capon and eat it? Wherein cunning,[334] but in craft? Wherein crafty, but in villainy? Wherein villainous, but in all things? Wherein worthy, but in nothing?

FALSTAFFI would your grace would take[336] me with you: whom means your grace?

PRINCE HENRYThat villainous abominable misleader of youth, Falstaff, that old white-bearded Satan.

FALSTAFF My lord, the[339] man I know.

PRINCE HENRYI know thou dost.

FALSTAFFBut to say I know more harm in him than in myself, were to say more than I know. That he is old, the more the pity, his white hairs do witness it. But that he is, saving your reverence,[343] a whoremaster, that I utterly deny. If sack and sugar be a fault, heaven help the wicked: if to be old and merry be a sin, then many an old host[345] that I know is damned: if to be fat be to be hated, then Pharaoh’s lean kine[346] are to be loved. No, my good lord, banish Peto, banish Bardolph, banish Poins, but for sweet Jack Falstaff, kind Jack Falstaff, true Jack Falstaff, valiant Jack Falstaff, and therefore more valiant, being, as he is old Jack Falstaff, banish not him thy Harry’s company, banish not him thy Harry’s company: banish plump Jack, and banish all the world.

PRINCE HENRY I do, I will. Knocking

Enter Bardolph, running

BARDOLPH O, my lord, my lord! The sheriff with a most monstrous[352] watch is at the door.

FALSTAFFOut, you rogue!— Play out the play: I have much to say in the behalf of that Falstaff.

Enter the Hostess [Quickly]

HOSTESS QUICKLYO, my lord, my lord!

PRINCE HENRYHeigh, heigh! The[357] devil rides upon a fiddlestick. What’s the matter?

HOSTESS QUICKLYThe sheriff and all the watch are at the door: they are come to search the house. Shall I let them in?

FALSTAFFDost thou hear, Hal? Never[360] call a true piece of gold a counterfeit: thou art essentially made, without seeming so.

PRINCE HENRYAnd thou a natural coward, without instinct.

FALSTAFFI deny your major.[363] If you will deny the sheriff, so: if not, let him enter: if I become[364] not a cart as well as another man, a plague on my bringing up! I hope I shall as soon[365] be strangled with a halter as another.

PRINCE HENRYGo, hide thee behind the arras.[366] The rest walk up above. Now, my masters, for a true[367] face and good conscience.

FALSTAFFBoth which I have had: but their date is out,[368] and therefore I’ll hide me. Falstaff hides behind

PRINCE HENRYCall in the sheriff.

Exeunt [all except Prince Henry and Peto] the arras

Enter Sheriff and the Carrier Now, master sheriff, what is your will with me?

SHERIFFFirst, pardon me, my lord. A hue and cry[371]

Hath followed certain men unto this house.

PRINCE HENRYWhat men?

SHERIFFOne of them is well known, my gracious lord,

375

A gross fat man.

CARRIERAs fat as butter.

PRINCE HENRYThe man, I do assure you, is not here,

For I myself at this time have employed him.

And, sheriff, I will engage[379] my word to thee

380

That I will, by tomorrow dinnertime,[380]

Send him to answer thee,[381] or any man,

For anything he shall be charged withal:[382]

And so let me entreat you leave the house.

SHERIFFI will, my lord. There are two gentlemen

385

Have in this robbery lost three hundred marks.

PRINCE HENRYIt may be so: if he have robbed these men,

He shall be answerable,[387] and so farewell.

SHERIFFGoodnight, my noble lord.

PRINCE HENRYI think it is good morrow,[389] is it not?

390

SHERIFFIndeed, my lord, I think it be two o’clock.

Exeunt [Sheriff and Carrier]

PRINCE HENRYThis oily[391] rascal is known as well as Paul’s. Go, call him forth. To Peto

PETOFalstaff! Fast asleep behind the arras, and snorting like a horse.

PRINCE HENRYHark, how hard he fetches breath. Search his pockets.

He searcheth his pockets, and findeth certain papers

What hast thou found?

PETONothing but papers, my lord.

PRINCE HENRYLet’s see, what be they? Read them.

PETO‘Item, A capon, 2s 2d.[397] Item, Sauce, 4d. Item, Sack, two gallons, 5s 8d. Item, Reads

Anchovies and sack after supper, 2s 6d. Item, Bread, ob.[398]’

PRINCE HENRYO, monstrous! But[399] one halfpenny-worth of bread to this intolerable deal

of sack? What there is else, keep close,[400] we’ll read it at more advantage. There let him sleep till day. I’ll to the court in the morning. We must all to the wars, and thy place shall be honourable. I’ll procure this fat rogue a charge of foot,[402] and I know his death will be a march of twelvescore.[403] The money shall be paid back again with advantage.[404] Be with me betimes in the morning, and so, good morrow, Peto.

PETOGood morrow, good my lord.

Exeunt

Act 3 Scene 13.1

running scene 8

Enter Hotspur, Worcester, Lord Mortimer and Owen Glendower

MORTIMERThese promises[1] are fair, the parties sure,

And our induction[2] full of prosperous hope.

HOTSPURLord Mortimer, and cousin Glendower,

Will you sit down?

5

And uncle Worcester — a plague upon it,

I have forgot the map!

GLENDOWER No, here it is. Shows a map

Sit, cousin Percy, sit, good cousin Hotspur —

For by that name as oft as Lancaster[9]

10

Doth speak of you, his cheeks look pale and with

A rising sigh he wisheth you in heaven.

HOTSPURAnd you in hell, as oft as he hears Owen Glendower spoke of.

GLENDOWERI cannot blame him: at my nativity

The front[14] of heaven was full of fiery shapes,

15

Of burning cressets,[15] and at my birth

The frame and foundation of the earth

Shaked like a coward.

HOTSPURWhy, so it would have done at the same season, if your mother’s cat had

but kittened, though yourself had never been born.

20

GLENDOWERI say the earth did shake when I was born.

HOTSPURAnd I say the earth was not of my mind,

If you suppose as fearing you[22] it shook.

GLENDOWERThe heavens were all on fire, the earth did tremble.

HOTSPURO, then the earth shook to see the heavens on fire,

25

And not in fear of your nativity.

Diseasèd nature oftentimes breaks forth

In strange eruptions;[27] and the teeming earth

Is with a kind of colic[28] pinched and vexed

By the imprisoning of unruly wind

30

Within her womb,[30] which, for enlargement striving,

Shakes the old beldam[31] earth and tumbles down

Steeples and moss-grown[32] towers. At your birth

Our grandam[33] earth, having this distemperature,

In passion[34] shook.

35

GLENDOWERCousin, of many men

I do not bear these crossings.[36] Give me leave

To tell you once again that at my birth

The front of heaven was full of fiery shapes,

The goats ran from the mountains, and the herds

40

Were strangely clamorous[40] to the frighted fields.

These signs have marked me[41] extraordinary,

And all the courses[42] of my life do show

I am not in the roll[43] of common men.

Where is the living,[44] clipped in with the sea

45

That chides[45] the banks of England, Scotland and Wales,

Which calls me pupil, or hath read to[46] me?

And bring him out that is but woman’s son

Can trace[48] me in the tedious ways of art

And hold me pace[49] in deep experiments.

50

HOTSPURI think there’s no man speaks better Welsh.[50]

I’ll to dinner.

MORTIMERPeace, cousin Percy, you will make him mad.

GLENDOWER I can call[53] spirits from the vasty deep.

HOTSPURWhy, so can I, or so can any man.

55

But will they come when you do call for them?

GLENDOWER Why, I can teach thee, cousin, to command the devil.

HOTSPURAnd I can teach thee, cousin, to shame the devil

By telling truth: tell[58] truth and shame the devil.

If thou have power to raise him, bring him hither,

60

And I’ll be sworn I have power to shame him hence.

O, while you live, tell truth and shame the devil!

MORTIMERCome, come, no more of this unprofitable chat.

GLENDOWER Three times hath Henry Bullingbrook made head[63]

Against my power:[64] thrice from the banks of Wye

65

And sandy-bottomed Severn have I sent him

Bootless[66] home and weather-beaten back.

HOTSPURHome without boots, and in foul weather too!

How scapes he agues,[68] in the devil’s name?

GLENDOWER Come, here’s the map: shall we divide our right[69]

70

According to our threefold order ta’en?[70]

MORTIMERThe archdeacon[71] hath divided it

Into three limits[72] very equally:

England, from Trent[73] and Severn hitherto,

By south and east is to my part assigned:

75

All westward, Wales beyond the Severn shore,

And all the fertile land within that bound,

To Owen Glendower: and, dear coz, to you

The remnant northward, lying off from Trent.

And our indentures tripartite[79] are drawn,

80

Which being sealèd interchangeably[80] —

A business that this[81] night may execute—

Tomorrow, cousin Percy, you and I

And my good lord of Worcester will set forth

To meet your father and the Scottish power,

85

As is appointed[85] us, at Shrewsbury.

My father[86] Glendower is not ready yet,

Nor shall we need his help these fourteen days.—

Within that space[88] you may have drawn together To Glendower

Your tenants, friends and neighbouring gentlemen.

90

GLENDOWERA shorter time shall send me to you, lords.

And in my conduct[91] shall your ladies come,

From whom you now must steal[92] and take no leave,

For there will be a[93] world of water shed

Upon the parting of your wives and you.

95

HOTSPURMethinks my moiety,[95] north from Burton here, Looks at map

In quantity equals not one of yours:

See how this river comes[97] me cranking in,

And cuts me from the best of all my land

A huge half-moon, a monstrous cantle out.[99]

100

I’ll have the current in this place dammed up,

And here the smug[101] and silver Trent shall run

In a new channel, fair and evenly.

It shall not wind with such a deep indent,[103]

To rob me of so rich a bottom[104] here.

105

GLENDOWERNot wind? It shall, it must. You see it doth.

MORTIMERYea, but

Mark how he[107] bears his course, and runs me up

With like advantage[108] on the other side,

Gelding[109] the opposèd continent as much

110

As on the other side it takes from you.

WORCESTERYea, but a little charge[111] will trench him here

And on this north side win this cape[112] of land,

And then he runs straight and even.

HOTSPURI’ll have it so. A little charge will do it.

115

GLENDOWERI’ll not have it altered.

HOTSPURWill not you?

GLENDOWERNo, nor you shall not.

HOTSPURWho shall say me nay?

GLENDOWERWhy, that will I.

120

HOTSPURLet[120] me not understand you, then. Speak it in Welsh.

GLENDOWERI can speak English, lord, as well as you,

For I was trained up in the English court;

Where, being but young,[123] I framed to the harp

Many an English ditty[124] lovely well

125

And gave[125] the tongue a helpful ornament;

A virtue[126] that was never seen in you.

HOTSPURMarry,

And I am glad of it with all my heart.

I had rather be a kitten and cry mew

130

Than one of these same metre ballad-mongers.[130]

I had rather hear a brazen[131] candlestick turned,

Or a dry[132] wheel grate on the axle-tree,

And that would set my teeth nothing on edge,

Nothing[134] so much as mincing poetry:

135

’Tis like the forced gait of a shuffling nag.[135]

GLENDOWER Come, you shall have Trent turned.

HOTSPURI do not care: I’ll give thrice so much land

To any well-deserving friend;

But in[139] the way of bargain, mark ye me,

140

I’ll cavil on[140] the ninth part of a hair.

Are the indentures drawn?[141] Shall we be gone?

GLENDOWER The moon shines fair, you may away by night.

I’ll haste the writer[143] and withal

Break with[144] your wives of your departure hence.

145

I am afraid my daughter will run mad,

So much she doteth on[146] her Mortimer.

Exit

MORTIMERFie, cousin Percy, how you cross[147] my father!

HOTSPURI cannot choose:[148] sometime he angers me

With telling me of the mouldwarp[149] and the ant,

150

Of the dreamer[150] Merlin and his prophecies,

And of a dragon and a finless fish,

A clip-winged[152] griffin and a moulten raven,

A couching[153] lion and a ramping cat,

And such a deal of skimble-skamble[154] stuff

155

As puts[155] me from my faith. I tell you what,

He held me last night at least nine hours

In reck’ning up[157] the several devils’ names

That were his lackeys:[158] I cried ‘Hum’, and ‘Well, go to’,

But marked him[159] not a word. O, he is as tedious

160

As a tired horse, a railing[160] wife,

Worse than a smoky house. I had rather live

With cheese[162] and garlic in a windmill far,

Than feed on cates[163] and have him talk to me

In any summer-house[164] in Christendom.

165

MORTIMERIn faith,[165] he was a worthy gentleman,

Exceeding well read, and profited[166]

In strange concealments, valiant as a lion

And wondrous affable and as bountiful

As mines of India.[169] Shall I tell you, cousin?

170

He holds your temper[170] in a high respect

And curbs himself even of his natural scope[171]

When you do[172] cross his humour — ’faith, he does.

I warrant you, that man is not alive

Might so have tempted[174] him as you have done,

175

Without the taste[175] of danger and reproof:

But do not use it oft,[176] let me entreat you.

WORCESTERIn faith, my lord, you are too wilful-blame,[177] To Hotspur

And since your coming hither have done enough

To put him quite besides[179] his patience.

180

You must needs[180] learn, lord, to amend this fault:

Though sometimes it show[181] greatness, courage, blood —

And that’s the dearest grace[182] it renders you —

Yet oftentimes it doth present[183] harsh rage,

Defect of manners, want of government,[184]

185

Pride, haughtiness, opinion[185] and disdain,

The least of which haunting[186] a nobleman

Loseth[187] men’s hearts and leaves behind a stain

Upon the beauty of all parts besides,[188]

Beguiling[189] them of commendation.

190

HOTSPURWell, I am schooled.[190] Good manners be your speed!

Here come our wives, and let us take our leave.

Enter Glendower with the Ladies

MORTIMERThis is the deadly spite[192] that angers me:

My wife can speak no English, I no Welsh.

GLENDOWERMy daughter weeps. She’ll not part with you,

195

She’ll be a soldier too, she’ll to the wars.

MORTIMERGood father, tell her that she and my aunt Percy[196]

Shall follow in your conduct[197] speedily.

Glendower speaks to her in Welsh, and she answers him in the same

GLENDOWERShe is desperate here:[198] a peevish self-willed harlotry,

One that no persuasion can do good upon.

The Lady speaks in Welsh

200

MORTIMERI understand thy looks: that pretty Welsh[200]

Which thou pour’st down from these swelling heavens[201]

I am too perfect[202] in, and, but for shame,

In such a parley[203] should I answer thee.

The Lady [speaks] again in Welsh

I understand thy kisses and thou mine,

205

And that’s a feeling disputation.[205]

But I will never be a truant,[206] love,

Till I have learned thy language, for thy tongue

Makes Welsh as sweet as ditties highly penned,[208]

Sung by a fair queen in a summer’s bower,

210

With ravishing division,[210] to her lute.

GLENDOWERNay, if thou melt,[211] then will she run mad.

The Lady speaks again in Welsh

MORTIMERO, I am ignorance itself in this![212]

GLENDOWERShe bids you on the wanton rushes[213] lay you down

And rest your gentle head upon her lap,

215

And she will sing the song that pleaseth you

And on your eyelids crown[216] the god of sleep,

Charming your blood with pleasing heaviness,[217]

Making such difference ’twixt wake and sleep

As is the difference betwixt day and night

220

The hour before the heavenly-harnessed team[220]

Begins his golden progress[221] in the east.

MORTIMERWith all my heart I’ll sit and hear her sing:

By that time will our book,[223] I think, be drawn.

GLENDOWERDo so,

225

And those musicians that shall play to you

Hang in the air[226] a thousand leagues from hence,

And straight[227] they shall be here: sit, and attend.

HOTSPURCome, Kate, thou art perfect in[228] lying down: come, quick, quick, that I may lay my head in thy lap.

LADY PERCYGo, ye giddy goose.

HOTSPURNow I perceive the devil understands Welsh,[231] and ’tis no marvel he is so humorous.[232] By’r lady, he’s a good musician.

LADY PERCYThen would you be nothing but musical, for you are altogether governed by humours.[234] Lie still, ye thief, and hear the lady sing in Welsh.

235

HOTSPURI had rather hear Lady, my brach,[235] howl in Irish.

LADY PERCYWouldst have thy head broken?[236]

HOTSPURNo.

LADY PERCYThen be still.[238]

HOTSPURNeither,[239] ’tis a woman’s fault.

240

LADY PERCYNow God help thee!

HOTSPURTo the Welsh lady’s bed.

LADY PERCYWhat’s that?

HOTSPURPeace, she sings.

Here the Lady sings a Welsh song

HOTSPURCome, I’ll have your song too. To Lady Percy

245

LADY PERCYNot mine, in good sooth.[245]

HOTSPURNot yours, in good sooth?

You swear like a comfit-maker’s[247] wife.

‘Not you, in good sooth’, and ‘As true as I live’,

And ‘As God shall mend me’ and ‘As sure as day!’

250

And givest such sarcenet surety[250] for thy oaths,

As if thou never walk’st further than Finsbury.[251]

Swear me,[252] Kate, like a lady as thou art,

A good mouth-filling oath, and leave ‘in sooth’,

And such protest of pepper-gingerbread,[254]

255

To velvet-guards[255] and Sunday-citizens.

Come, sing.

LADY PERCYI will not sing.

HOTSPUR’Tis the next way to turn tailor,[258] or be red-breast teacher. An the indentures be drawn, I’ll away within these two hours, and so, come in when ye will.

Exit

260

GLENDOWERCome, come, Lord Mortimer, you are as slow

As hot Lord Percy is on fire to go.

By this[262] our book is drawn, we’ll but seal,

And then to horse immediately.

MORTIMERWith all my heart.

Exeunt

Act 3 Scene 23.2

running scene 9

Enter the King, Prince of Wales and others

KING HENRY IVLords, give us leave.[1] The Prince of Wales and I

Must have some private conference. But be near at hand,

For we shall presently have need of you.

Exeunt Lords

I know not whether heaven will have it so,

5

For some displeasing service I have done,

That in his secret doom,[6] out of my blood

He’ll breed revengement and a scourge[7] for me.

But thou dost in thy passages[8] of life

Make me believe that thou art only marked[9]

10

For the hot vengeance and the rod[10] of heaven

To punish my mistreadings.[11] Tell me else,

Could such inordinate[12] and low desires,

Such poor, such bare,[13] such lewd, such mean attempts,

Such barren pleasures, rude society,[14]

15

As thou art matched withal[15] and grafted to,

Accompany the greatness of thy blood

And hold their level[17] with thy princely heart?

PRINCE HENRYSo please your majesty, I would I could

Quit[19] all offences with as clear excuse

20

As well as I am doubtless[20] I can purge

Myself of many I am charged withal:

Yet such extenuation let me beg,

As, in reproof[23] of many tales devised,

Which oft the ear of greatness[24] needs must hear

25

By smiling pick-thanks[25] and base news-mongers,

I may, for some things true,[26] wherein my youth

Hath faulty[27] wand’red and irregular,

Find pardon on my true submission.[28]

KING HENRY IVHeaven pardon thee! Yet let me wonder,[29] Harry,

30

At thy affections,[30] which do hold a wing

Quite from the flight of all thy ancestors.

Thy place in council thou hast rudely[32] lost,

Which by thy younger brother is supplied,[33]

And art almost an alien[34] to the hearts

35

Of all the court and princes of my blood.

The hope and expectation of thy time[36]

Is ruined, and the soul of every man

Prophetically do forethink[38] thy fall.

Had I so lavish of my presence been,

40

So common-hackneyed[40] in the eyes of men,

So stale and cheap to vulgar company,

Opinion,[42] that did help me to the crown,

Had[43] still kept loyal to possession

And left me in reputeless[44] banishment,

45

A fellow of no mark[45] nor likelihood.

By being seldom seen, I could not stir

But like a comet I was wondered at,

That men would tell their children, ‘This is he.’

Others would say, ‘Where? Which is Bullingbrook?’

50

And then I stole[50] all courtesy from heaven,

And dressed myself in such humility

That I did pluck allegiance from men’s hearts,

Loud shouts and salutations from their mouths,

Even in the presence of the crownèd king.

55

Thus I did keep my person fresh and new;

My presence, like a robe pontifical,[56]

Ne’er seen but wondered at: and so my state,[57]

Seldom[58] but sumptuous, showed like a feast

And won by rareness such solemnity.[59]

60

The skipping[60] king, he ambled up and down

With shallow jesters and rash bavin[61] wits,

Soon kindled and soon burnt, carded his state,[62]

Mingled his royalty with carping[63] fools,

Had his great name profanèd with their scorns[64]

65

And gave his countenance, against his name,[65]

To laugh at gibing[66] boys and stand the push

Of every beardless vain comparative;[67]

Grew a companion to the common streets,

Enfeoffed[69] himself to popularity,

70

That, being daily swallowed by men’s eyes,

They surfeited[71] with honey and began

To loathe[72] the taste of sweetness, whereof a little

More than a little is by much too much.

So when he had occasion to be seen,

75

He was but as the cuckoo[75] is in June,

Heard, not regarded, seen, but with such eyes

As, sick and blunted with community,[77]

Afford no extraordinary gaze,[78]

Such as is bent on sun-like majesty

80

When it shines seldom in admiring eyes.

But rather drowsed and hung their eyelids down,

Slept in his face[82] and rendered such aspect

As cloudy[83] men use to do to their adversaries,

Being with his presence glutted, gorged and full.

85

And in that very line,[85] Harry, standest thou,

For thou hast lost thy princely privilege

With vile participation.[87] Not an eye

But is a-weary of thy common[88] sight,

Save mine, which hath desired to see thee more,

90

Which now doth that I would not have it do,

Make blind itself with foolish tenderness.[91]

PRINCE HENRYI shall hereafter, my thrice-gracious lord,

Be more myself.[93]

KING HENRY IVFor[94] all the world

95

As thou art to this hour was Richard then,

When I from France set foot at Ravenspurgh,

And even as I was then is Percy now.

Now, by my sceptre and my soul to boot,

He[99] hath more worthy interest to the state

100

Than thou, the shadow of succession;[100]

For of[101] no right, nor colour like to right,

He doth fill fields with harness[102] in the realm,

Turns head[103] against the lion’s armèd jaws,

And, being no more in[104] debt to years than thou,

105

Leads ancient[105] lords and reverend bishops on

To bloody battles and to bruising[106] arms.

What never-dying honour hath he got

Against renownèd Douglas, whose[108] high deeds,

Whose hot incursions[109] and great name in arms

110

Holds from all soldiers chief[110] majority

And military title capital

Through all the kingdoms that acknowledge Christ!

Thrice hath the Hotspur, Mars[113] in swaddling clothes,

This infant warrior, in his enterprises[114]

115

Discomfited[115] great Douglas, ta’en him once,

Enlargèd[116] him and made a friend of him,

To fill[117] the mouth of deep defiance up

And shake the peace and safety of our throne.

And what say you to this? Percy, Northumberland,

120

The archbishop’s grace of York, Douglas, Mortimer,

Capitulate[121] against us and are up.

But wherefore do I tell these news to thee?

Why, Harry, do I tell thee of my foes,

Which art my near’st and dearest[124] enemy?

125

Thou that art like[125] enough, through vassal fear,

Base inclination[126] and the start of spleen,

To fight against me under Percy’s pay,

To dog his heels and curtsy[128] at his frowns,

To show how much thou art degenerate.

130

PRINCE HENRYDo not think so. You shall not find it so.

And heaven forgive them that so much have swayed

Your majesty’s good thoughts away from me!

I will redeem all this on Percy’s head[133]

And in[134] the closing of some glorious day

135

Be bold to tell you that I am your son,

When I will wear a garment all of blood

And stain my favours[137] in a bloody mask,

Which, washed away, shall scour[138] my shame with it.

And that shall be the day, whene’er it lights,[139]

140

That this same child of honour and renown,

This gallant Hotspur, this all-praisèd knight,

And your unthought-of[142] Harry chance to meet.

For every honour sitting on his helm,[143]

Would they were multitudes, and on my head

145

My shames redoubled! For the time will come,

That I shall make this northern youth exchange

His glorious deeds for my indignities.

Percy is but my factor,[148] good my lord,

To engross up[149] glorious deeds on my behalf,

150

And I will call him to so strict account,

That he shall render every glory up,

Yea, even the slightest worship[152] of his time,

Or I will tear the reckoning[153] from his heart.

This, in the name of heaven, I promise here:

155

The which if I perform and do survive

I do beseech your majesty may salve[156]

The long-grown wounds of my intemperature.[157]

If not, the end of life cancels all bonds,

And I will die a hundred thousand deaths

160

Ere break the smallest parcel[160] of this vow.

KING HENRY IVA hundred thousand rebels die in this:

Thou shalt have charge[162] and sovereign trust herein.

Enter Blunt

How now, good Blunt? Thy looks are full of speed.[163]

BLUNTSo hath the business that I come to speak of.

165

Lord Mortimer of Scotland hath sent word

That Douglas and the English rebels met

The eleventh of this month at Shrewsbury.

A mighty and a fearful head[168] they are,

If[169] promises be kept on every hand,

170

As ever offered foul play in a state.

KING HENRY IVThe Earl of Westmorland set forth today,

With him my son, Lord John of Lancaster,

For this advertisement[173] is five days old.

On Wednesday next, Harry, thou shalt set forward:

175

On Thursday we ourselves will march.

Our meeting is Bridgnorth,[176] and, Harry, you shall march

Through Gloucestershire, by which account,

Our business valuèd,[178] some twelve days hence

Our general forces at Bridgnorth shall meet.

180

Our hands are full of business: let’s away.

Advantage feeds him fat[181] while men delay.

Exeunt

Act 3 Scene 33.3

running scene 10

Enter Falstaff and Bardolph

FALSTAFFBardolph, am I not fallen away vilely[1] since this last action? Do I not bate? Do I not dwindle? Why my skin hangs about me like an old lady’s loose gown. I am withered like an old apple-john.[3] Well, I’ll repent, and that suddenly, while I am in some liking.[4] I shall be out of heart shortly, and then I shall have no strength[5] to repent. An I have not forgotten what the inside of a church is made of, I am a peppercorn,[6] a brewer’s horse. The inside of a church! Company, villainous company, hath been the spoil of me.

BARDOLPHSir John, you are so fretful,[8] you cannot live long.

FALSTAFFWhy, there is it:[9] come sing me a bawdy song, make me merry. I was as virtuously given[10] as a gentleman need to be; virtuous enough: swore little, diced not — above seven times a week, went to a bawdy-house[11] not above once in a quarter — of an hour, paid money that I borrowed — three of four times, lived well and in good compass:[13] and now I live out of all order, out of compass.

BARDOLPHWhy, you are so fat, Sir John, that you must needs be out of all compass, out of all reasonable compass, Sir John.

FALSTAFFDo thou amend thy face, and I’ll amend my life: thou art our admiral,[16] thou bearest the lantern in the poop,[17] but ’tis in the nose of thee; thou art the Knight of the Burning Lamp.

BARDOLPHWhy, Sir John, my face does you no harm.

FALSTAFFNo, I’ll be sworn, I make as good use of it as many a man doth of a death’s-head[21] or a memento mori: I never see thy face but I think upon hellfire and Dives[22] that lived in purple, for there he is in his robes, burning, burning. If thou wert any way given to virtue, I would swear by thy face; my oath should be ‘By this fire’, but thou art altogether given over;[24] and wert indeed, but for the light in thy face, the son of utter darkness. When thou ran’st up Gad’s Hill in the night to catch my horse, if I did not think that thou hadst been an ignis fatuus[26] or a ball of wildfire, there’s no purchase[27] in money. O, thou art a perpetual triumph, an everlasting bonfire-light![28] Thou hast saved me a thousand marks in links and torches, walking with thee in the night betwixt tavern and tavern. But the sack that thou hast drunk me[30] would have bought me lights as good cheap as the dearest chandler’s[31] in Europe. I have maintained that salamander of yours with fire any time this two and thirty years. Heaven reward me for it!

BARDOLPHI would my face were in your belly![33]

FALSTAFFSo should I be sure to be heart-burned.[34]

Enter Hostess [Quickly]

How now, Dame Partlet[35] the hen! Have you inquired yet who picked my pocket?

HOSTESS QUICKLYWhy, Sir John, what do you think, Sir John? Do you think I keep thieves in my house? I have searched, I have inquired, so has my husband, man by man, boy by boy, servant by servant. The tithe[38] of a hair was never lost in my house before.

FALSTAFFYe lie, hostess: Bardolph was shaved[40] and lost many a hair; and I’ll be sworn my pocket was picked. Go to, you are a woman,[41] go.

HOSTESS QUICKLYWho, I? I defy thee. I was never called so in mine own house before.

FALSTAFFGo to, I know[43] you well enough.

HOSTESS QUICKLYNo, Sir John, you do not know me, Sir John. I know you, Sir John: you owe me money, Sir John, and now you pick a quarrel to beguile[45] me of it. I bought you a dozen of shirts to your back.[46]

FALSTAFFDowlas,[47] filthy dowlas: I have given them away to bakers’ wives, and they have made bolters[48] of them.

HOSTESS QUICKLYNow, as I am a true woman, holland[49] of eight shillings an ell. You owe money here besides, Sir John, for your diet and by-drinkings,[50] and money lent you, four and twenty pounds.

FALSTAFFHe had his part of it, let him pay. Points to Bardolph

HOSTESS QUICKLYHe? Alas, he is poor, he hath nothing.

FALSTAFFHow? Poor? Look upon his face. What call you rich? Let them coin his nose, let them coin his cheeks. I’ll not pay a denier.[55] What, will you make a younker[56] of me? Shall I not take mine ease in mine inn but I shall have my pocket picked? I have lost a seal-ring[57] of my grandfather’s worth forty mark.

HOSTESS QUICKLYI have heard the prince tell him, I know not how oft, that that ring was copper!

FALSTAFFHow? The prince is a jack,[60] a sneak-cup. An if he were here, I would cudgel him like a dog, if he would say so.

Enter the Prince marching [with Peto], and Falstaff meets him playing on his truncheon like a fife

How now, lad? is the wind in that door?[62] Must we all march

BARDOLPHYea, two and two, Newgate fashion.[63]

HOSTESS QUICKLYMy lord, I pray you hear me.

PRINCE HENRYWhat say’st thou, Mistress Quickly? How does thy husband? I love him well. He is an honest man.

HOSTESS QUICKLYGood my lord, hear me.

FALSTAFFPrithee let her alone, and list to me.

PRINCE HENRYWhat say’st thou, Jack?

FALSTAFFThe other night I fell asleep here behind the arras and had my pocket picked. This house is turned bawdy-house: they pick pockets.[71]

PRINCE HENRYWhat didst thou lose, Jack?

FALSTAFFWilt thou believe me, Hal, three or four bonds[73] of forty pound apiece, and a seal-ring of my grandfather’s?

PRINCE HENRYA trifle, some eight-penny matter.

HOSTESS QUICKLYSo I told him, my lord; and I said I heard your grace say so. And, my lord, he speaks most vilely of you, like a foul-mouthed man as he is, and said he would cudgel you.

PRINCE HENRYWhat? He did not?

HOSTESS QUICKLYThere’s neither faith, truth, nor womanhood in me else.

FALSTAFFThere’s no more faith in thee than a stewed prune,[81] nor no more truth in thee than in a drawn fox.[82] And for womanhood, Maid Marian may be the deputy’s wife of the ward to[83] thee. Go, you nothing, go.

HOSTESS QUICKLYSay, what thing? What thing?

FALSTAFFWhat thing?[85] Why, a thing to thank heaven on.

HOSTESS QUICKLYI am no thing to thank heaven on, I would thou shouldst know it. I am an honest man’s wife, and, setting thy knighthood[87] aside, thou art a knave to call me so.

FALSTAFFSetting thy womanhood aside, thou art a beast to say otherwise.

HOSTESS QUICKLYSay, what beast, thou knave, thou?

FALSTAFFWhat beast? Why, an otter.[91]

PRINCE HENRYAn otter, Sir John? Why an otter?

FALSTAFFWhy? She’s neither fish nor flesh; a man knows not where to have[93] her.

HOSTESS QUICKLYThou art an unjust man in saying so; thou or any man knows where to have me, thou knave, thou!

PRINCE HENRYThou say’st true, hostess, and he slanders thee most grossly.

HOSTESS QUICKLYSo he doth you, my lord, and said this other day you owed him a thousand pound.

PRINCE HENRYSirrah, do I owe you a thousand pound?

FALSTAFFA thousand pound, Hal? A million. Thy love is worth a million: thou ow’st me thy love.

HOSTESS QUICKLYNay, my lord, he called you Jack, and said he would cudgel you.

FALSTAFFDid I, Bardolph?

BARDOLPHIndeed, Sir John, you said so.

FALSTAFFYea, if he said my ring was copper.

PRINCE HENRYI say ’tis copper. Dar’st thou be as good as thy word now?

FALSTAFFWhy, Hal, thou know’st, as thou art but a man, I dare, but as thou art a prince, I fear thee as I fear the roaring of the lion’s whelp.[108]

PRINCE HENRYAnd why not as the lion?

FALSTAFFThe king himself is to be feared as the lion: dost thou think I’ll fear thee as I fear thy father? Nay, if I do, let my girdle break.[111]

PRINCE HENRYO, if it should, how would thy guts fall about thy knees! But, sirrah, there’s no room for faith, truth, nor honesty in this bosom of thine: it is all filled up with guts and midriff. Charge an honest woman with picking thy pocket? Why, thou whoreson, impudent, embossed[115] rascal, if there were anything in thy pocket but tavern-reck’nings, memorandums[116] of bawdy-houses, and one poor penny-worth of sugar-candy to make thee long-winded:[117] if thy pocket were enriched with any other injuries[118] but these, I am a villain. And yet you will stand to it, you will not pocket up[119] wrong. Art thou not ashamed?

FALSTAFFDost thou hear, Hal? Thou know’st in the state of innocency Adam fell, and what should poor Jack Falstaff do in the days of villainy? Thou seest I have more flesh[122] than another man, and therefore more frailty. You confess then, you picked my pocket?

PRINCE HENRYIt appears so by the story.

FALSTAFFHostess, I forgive thee. Go, make ready breakfast, love thy husband, look to thy servants and cherish thy guests. Thou shalt find me tractable to any honest reason: thou seest I am pacified still.[127] Nay, prithee be gone.— Exit Hostess Now Hal, to the news at court: for the robbery, lad, how is that answered?[128]

PRINCE HENRYO, my sweet beef,[129] I must still be good angel to thee. The money is paid back again.

FALSTAFFO, I do not like that paying back, ’tis a double labour.[131]

PRINCE HENRYI am good friends with my father and may do anything.

FALSTAFFRob me the exchequer[133] the first thing thou dost, and do it with unwashed hands too.

BARDOLPHDo, my lord.

PRINCE HENRYI have procured thee, Jack, a charge of foot.[136]

FALSTAFFI would it had been of horse. Where shall I find one that can steal well? O, for a fine thief, of two-and-twenty or thereabout! I am heinously unprovided.[138] Well, God be thanked for these rebels, they[139] offend none but the virtuous. I laud them, I praise them.

PRINCE HENRYBardolph.

BARDOLPHMy lord?

PRINCE HENRYGo bear this letter to Lord John of Lancaster, Gives letters To my brother John. This to my lord of Westmorland.—

[Exit Bardolph]

Go, Peto, to horse, for thou and I Have thirty miles to ride yet ere dinner time.—

[Exit Peto]

Jack, meet me tomorrow in the Temple hall[147] At two o’clock in the afternoon. There shalt thou know thy charge[149] and there receive Money and order for their furniture.[150] The land is burning, Percy stands on high, And either they or we must lower lie.

[Exit Prince Henry]

FALSTAFFRare[153] words! Brave world! Hostess, my breakfast, come! O, I could wish this tavern[154] were my drum!

Exit

Act 4 Scene 14.1

running scene 11

Enter Harry Hotspur, Worcester and Douglas

HOTSPURWell said, my noble Scot. If speaking truth

In this fine[2] age were not thought flattery,

Such attribution[3] should the Douglas have,

As not a[4] soldier of this season’s stamp

5

Should go so general current[5] through the world.

By heaven, I cannot flatter: I defy[6]

The tongues of soothers.[7] But a braver place

In my heart’s love hath no man than yourself.

Nay, task[9] me to my word, approve me, lord.

10

DOUGLASThou art the king of honour:

No man so potent breathes[11] upon the ground

But I will beard[12] him.

Enter a Messenger With letters

HOTSPURDo so, and ’tis well.—

What letters hast there? — I can but[14] thank you.

15

MESSENGERThese letters come from your father.

HOTSPURLetters from him? Why comes he not himself?

MESSENGERHe cannot come, my lord, he is grievous sick.

HOTSPURHow? Has he the leisure to be sick now

In such a jostling[19] time? Who leads his power?

20

Under whose government[20] come they along?

MESSENGERHis letters bears[21] his mind, not I his mind.

WORCESTERI prithee tell me, doth he keep[22] his bed?

MESSENGERHe did, my lord, four days ere I set forth,

And at the time of my departure thence

25

He[25] was much feared by his physician.

WORCESTERI would[26] the state of time had first been whole

Ere he by sickness had been visited:

His health was never better worth[28] than now.

HOTSPURSick now? Droop now? This sickness doth infect

30

The very life-blood of our enterprise,

’Tis catching hither,[31] even to our camp.

He writes me here that inward sickness[32] —

And that his friends by deputation[33] could not

So soon be drawn,[34] nor did he think it meet

35

To lay so dangerous and dear[35] a trust

On any soul removed but on his own.

Yet doth he give us bold advertisement,[37]

That with our small conjunction[38] we should on,

To see how fortune is disposed to us,

40

For, as he writes, there is no quailing now,

Because the king is certainly possessed[41]

Of all our purposes. What say you to it?

WORCESTERYour father’s sickness is a maim[43] to us.

HOTSPURA perilous gash, a very limb lopped off:

45

And yet, in faith, it is not. His present want[45]

Seems more[46] than we shall find it. Were it good

To set[47] the exact wealth of all our states

All at one cast?[48] To set so rich a main

On the nice hazard[49] of one doubtful hour?

50

It were not good, for therein should we read[50]

The very bottom[51] and the soul of hope,

The very list,[52] the very utmost bound

Of all our fortunes.

DOUGLAS’Faith, and so we should,

55

Where now remains a sweet reversion,[55]

We may boldly spend upon the hope of what

Is to come in.

A comfort of retirement[58] lives in this.

HOTSPURA rendezvous,[59] a home to fly unto,

60

If that the devil and mischance look big[60]

Upon the maidenhead[61] of our affairs.

WORCESTERBut yet I would your father had been here.

The quality and hair[63] of our attempt

Brooks[64] no division: it will be thought

65

By some, that know not why he is away,

That wisdom, loyalty[66] and mere dislike

Of our proceedings kept the earl from hence.

And think how such an apprehension[68]

May turn the tide of fearful faction[69]

70

And breed a kind of question[70] in our cause,

For well you know, we of the off’ring[71] side

Must keep aloof from strict arbitrement,[72]

And stop all sight-holes, every loop[73] from whence

The eye of reason may pry in upon us:

75

This absence of your father draws[75] a curtain,

That shows the ignorant a kind of fear

Before not dreamt of.

HOTSPURYou strain too far.[78]

I rather of his absence make this use:[79]

80

It lends a lustre and more great opinion,[80]

A larger dare[81] to our great enterprise,

Than if the earl were here, for men must think,

If we without his help can make a head[83]

To push against the kingdom, with his help

85

We shall o’erturn it topsy-turvy down.

Yet[86] all goes well, yet all our joints are whole.

DOUGLASAs[87] heart can think. There is not such a word

Spoke of in Scotland as this dream of fear.

Enter Sir Richard Vernon

HOTSPURMy cousin Vernon, welcome, by my soul.

90

VERNONPray God my news be worth a welcome, lord.

The Earl of Westmorland, seven thousand strong,

Is marching hitherwards, with him Prince John.

HOTSPURNo harm:[93] what more?

VERNONAnd further, I have learned,

95

The king himself in person hath set forth,

Or hitherwards intended[96] speedily,

With strong and mighty preparation.[97]

HOTSPURHe shall be welcome too. Where is his son,

The nimble-footed madcap Prince of Wales,

100

And his comrades that daffed[100] the world aside

And bid it pass?

VERNONAll furnished,[102] all in arms,

All plumed like estridges[103] that with the wind

Bated[104] like eagles having lately bathed,

105

Glittering in golden coats[105] like images,

As full of spirit as the month of May,

And gorgeous[107] as the sun at midsummer,

Wanton[108] as youthful goats, wild as young bulls.

I saw young Harry with his beaver[109] on,

110

His cuisses[110] on his thighs, gallantly armed,

Rise from the ground like feathered Mercury,[111]

And vaulted with such ease into his seat,[112]

As if an angel dropped down from the clouds,

To turn and wind[114] a fiery Pegasus

115

And witch[115] the world with noble horsemanship.

HOTSPURNo more, no more. Worse than the sun in March,

This praise doth nourish agues.[117] Let them come.

They come like sacrifices in their trim,[118]

And to the fire-eyed maid[119] of smoky war

120

All hot and bleeding will we offer them:

The mailèd Mars[121] shall on his altar sit

Up to the ears in blood. I am on fire

To hear this rich reprisal[123] is so nigh

And yet not ours. Come, let me take my horse,

125

Who is to bear me like a thunderbolt

Against the bosom of the Prince of Wales.

Harry to Harry, shall hot horse to horse

Meet and ne’er part till one drop down a corpse!

O, that Glendower were come!

130

VERNONThere is more news:

I learned in Worcester,[131] as I rode along,

He cannot draw[132] his power this fourteen days.

DOUGLASThat’s the worst tidings that I hear of yet.

WORCESTERAy, by my faith, that bears a frosty sound.

135

HOTSPURWhat may the king’s whole battle reach unto?[135]

VERNONTo thirty thousand.

HOTSPURForty let it be.

My father and Glendower being both away,

The powers of us[139] may serve so great a day.

140

Come, let us take a muster[140] speedily:

Doomsday[141] is near; die all, die merrily.

DOUGLASTalk not of dying. I am out of[142] fear

Of death or death’s hand for this one-half year.[143]

Exeunt

Act 4 Scene 24.2

running scene 12

Enter Falstaff and Bardolph

FALSTAFFBardolph, get[1] thee before to Coventry. Fill me a bottle of sack. Our soldiers shall march through, we’ll to Sutton Coldfield[2] tonight.

BARDOLPHWill you give me money, captain?

FALSTAFFLay out,[4] lay out.

BARDOLPHThis bottle makes[5] an angel.

FALSTAFFAn if it do, take it for thy labour. And if it make twenty, take them all, I’ll answer the coinage.[7] Bid my lieutenant Peto meet me at the town’s end.

BARDOLPHI will, captain. Farewell.

Exit

FALSTAFFIf I be not ashamed of my soldiers, I am a soused gurnet.[9] I have misused the king’s press[10] damnably. I have got, in exchange of a hundred and fifty soldiers, three hundred and odd pounds. I press me none but good[11] householders, yeoman’s sons, inquire me out[12] contracted bachelors, such as had been asked twice on the banns,[13] such a commodity of warm slaves as had as lieve hear the devil as a drum; such as fear the report of a caliver[14] worse than a struck fowl or a hurt wild duck. I pressed me none but such toasts-and-butter,[15] with hearts in their bellies no bigger than pins’ heads, and they have bought[16] out their services. And now my whole charge[17] consists of ancients, corporals, lieutenants, gentlemen of companies, slaves as ragged as Lazarus[18] in the painted cloth, where the glutton’s dogs licked his sores; and such as indeed were never soldiers, but discarded unjust servingmen,[19] younger[20] sons to younger brothers, revolted tapsters and ostlers trade-fallen, the cankers[21] of a calm world and long peace, ten times more dishonourable ragged than an old-faced ancient;[22] and such have I, to fill up the rooms[23] of them that have bought out their services, that you would think that I had a hundred and fifty tattered prodigals[24] lately come from swine-keeping, from eating draff and husks.[25] A mad fellow met me on the way and told me I had unloaded all the gibbets[26] and pressed the dead bodies. No eye hath seen such scarecrows. I’ll not march through Coventry with them, that’s flat. Nay, and the villains march wide betwixt the legs, as if they had gyves[28] on; for indeed, I had the most of them out of prison. There’s not a shirt and a half in all my company, and the half shirt is two napkins tacked together and thrown over the shoulders like a herald’s coat[31] without sleeves, and the shirt, to say the truth, stolen from my host of St Albans,[32] or the red-nose innkeeper of Daventry. But that’s all one, they’ll find[33] linen enough on every hedge.

Enter the Prince and the Lord of Westmorland

PRINCE HENRYHow now, blown[34] Jack? How now, quilt?

FALSTAFFWhat, Hal? How now, mad wag? What a devil dost thou in Warwickshire? — My good lord of Westmorland, I cry you mercy:[36] I thought your honour had already been at Shrewsbury.

WESTMORLAND’Faith, Sir John, ’tis more than time that I were there, and you too, but my powers are there already. The king, I can tell you, looks for[39] us all: we must away all tonight.

FALSTAFFTut, never fear[41] me. I am as vigilant as a cat to steal cream.

PRINCE HENRYI think to steal cream indeed, for thy theft hath already made thee butter.[43] But tell me, Jack, whose fellows are these that come after?

FALSTAFFMine, Hal, mine.

PRINCE HENRYI did never see such pitiful rascals.

FALSTAFFTut, tut, good enough to toss:[46] food for powder, food for powder. They’ll fill a pit[47] as well as better. Tush, man, mortal men, mortal men.

WESTMORLANDAy, but, Sir John, methinks they are exceeding poor and bare,[48] too beggarly.

FALSTAFFFaith, for their poverty, I know not where they had that; and for their bareness, I am sure they never learned that of me.

PRINCE HENRYNo, I’ll be sworn, unless you call three[52] fingers on the ribs bare. But, sirrah, make haste. Percy is already in the field.[53]

FALSTAFFWhat, is the king encamped?

WESTMORLANDHe is, Sir John. I fear we shall stay[55] too long.

FALSTAFFWell,

To[57] the latter end of a fray and the beginning of a feast

Fits a dull fighter and a keen guest.

Exeunt

Act 4 Scene 34.3

running scene 13

Enter Hotspur, Worcester, Douglas and Vernon

HOTSPUR WE’LLfight with him[1] tonight.

WORCESTERIt may not be.

DOUGLASYou give him then[3] advantage.

VERNONNot a whit.

5

HOTSPURWhy say you so? Looks he not for supply?[5]

VERNONSo do we.

HOTSPURHis is certain, ours is doubtful.

WORCESTERGood cousin, be advised, stir not tonight.

VERNONDo not, my lord.

10

DOUGLASYou do not counsel well:

You speak it out of fear and cold heart.

VERNONDo me no slander, Douglas: by my life,

And I dare well maintain[13] it with my life,

If well-respected[14] honour bid me on,

15

I hold as little counsel[15] with weak fear

As you, my lord, or any Scot that this day lives.

Let it be seen tomorrow in the battle

Which of us fears.

DOUGLASYea, or tonight.

20

VERNONContent.

HOTSPURTonight, say I.

VERNONCome, come it may not be. I wonder much,

Being men of such great leading[23] as you are,

That you foresee not what impediments

25

Drag[25] back our expedition: certain horse

Of my cousin Vernon’s are not yet come up,

Your uncle Worcester’s horse came but today,

And now their pride and mettle[28] is asleep,

Their courage with hard labour tame and dull,

30

That[30] not a horse is half the half of himself.

HOTSPURSo are the horses of the enemy

In general, journey-bated[32] and brought low.

The better part of ours are full of rest.

WORCESTERThe number of the king exceedeth ours:

35

For God’s sake, cousin, stay till all come in.

The trumpet sounds a parley[35]

Enter Sir Walter Blunt

BLUNTI come with gracious offers from the king,

If you vouchsafe[37] me hearing and respect.

HOTSPURWelcome, Sir Walter Blunt, and would to God

You were of our determination.[39]

40

Some of us love you well, and even those some[40]

Envy your great deservings and good name,

Because you are not of our quality,[42]

But stand against us like an enemy.

BLUNTAnd heaven defend[44] but still I should stand so,

45

So long as out of limit[45] and true rule

You stand against anointed[46] majesty.

But to my charge:[47] the king hath sent to know

The nature of your griefs,[48] and whereupon

You conjure[49] from the breast of civil peace

50

Such bold hostility, teaching his duteous land

Audacious cruelty. If that[51] the king

Have any way your good deserts[52] forgot,

Which he confesseth to be manifold,

He bids you name your griefs, and with all speed

55

You shall have your desires with interest,[55]

And pardon absolute for yourself and these

Herein misled by your suggestion.[57]

HOTSPURThe king is kind, and well we know the king

Knows at what time to promise, when to pay.

60

My father, my uncle and myself

Did give him that same royalty he wears,

And when he was[62] not six and twenty strong,

Sick[63] in the world’s regard, wretched and low,

A poor unminded[64] outlaw sneaking home,

65

My father gave him welcome to the shore.

And when he heard him swear and vow to God

He came but to be Duke of Lancaster,

To sue his livery[68] and beg his peace,

With tears of innocency and terms of zeal,[69]

70

My father, in kind heart and pity moved,

Swore him assistance and performed it too.

Now when the lords and barons of the realm

Perceived Northumberland did lean to him,

The more[74] and less came in with cap and knee,

75

Met him in boroughs, cities, villages,

Attended[76] him on bridges, stood in lanes,

Laid gifts before him, proffered him their oaths,

Gave him their heirs,[78] as pages followed him

Even at the heels in golden[79] multitudes.

80

He presently,[80] as greatness knows itself,

Steps[81] me a little higher than his vow

Made to my father, while his[82] blood was poor,

Upon the naked shore at Ravenspurgh,

And now, forsooth,[84] takes on him to reform

85

Some certain edicts and some strait[85] decrees

That lay too heavy on the commonwealth,

Cries[87] out upon abuses, seems to weep

Over his country’s wrongs, and by this face,

This seeming brow of justice, did he win

90

The hearts of all that he did angle for.

Proceeded further — cut[91] me off the heads

Of all the favourites that the absent king

In deputation[93] left behind him here,

When he was personal in[94] the Irish war.

95

BLUNTTut, I came not to hear this.

HOTSPURThen to the point.

In short time after, he deposed the king.

Soon after that, deprived him of his life,

And in[99] the neck of that, tasked the whole state.

100

To make that worse, suffered his kinsman March[100] —

Who is, if[101] every owner were placed,

Indeed his king — to be engaged[102] in Wales,

There without ransom to lie forfeited,[103]

Disgraced[104] me in my happy victories,

105

Sought to entrap me by intelligence,[105]

Rated[106] my uncle from the council board,

In rage dismissed my father from the court,

Broke oath on oath, committed wrong on wrong,

And in conclusion drove us to seek out

110

This head of safety;[110] and withal to pry

Into his title, the which we find

Too indirect[112] for long continuance.

BLUNTShall I return this answer to the king?

HOTSPURNot so, Sir Walter. We’ll withdraw awhile.

115

Go to the king, and let there be impawned[115]

Some surety[116] for a safe return again,

And in the morning early shall my uncle

Bring him our purpose. And so farewell.

BLUNTI would you would accept[119] of grace and love.

120

HOTSPURAnd’t may be so we shall.

BLUNTPray heaven you do.

Exeunt

Act 4 Scene 44.4

running scene 14

Enter the Archbishop of York and Sir Michael

ARCHBISHOP OF YORKHie,[1] good Sir Michael; bear this sealèd brief Gives a letter

With wingèd haste to the Lord Marshal,

This to my cousin Scroop, and all the rest

To whom they are directed.[4] If you knew

5

How much[5] they do import, you would make haste.

SIR MICHAELMy good lord,

I guess their tenor.[7]

ARCHBISHOP OF YORKLike[8] enough you do.

Tomorrow, good Sir Michael, is a day

10

Wherein the fortune of ten thousand men

Must bide the touch,[11] for, sir, at Shrewsbury,

As I am truly given to understand,

The king with mighty and quick-raisèd power

Meets with Lord Harry.[14] And I fear, Sir Michael,

15

What with the sickness of Northumberland,

Whose power[16] was in the first proportion,

And what with Owen Glendower’s absence thence,

Who with them was rated firmly[18] too

And comes not in,[19] o’er-ruled by prophecies,

20

I fear the power of Percy is too weak

To wage an instant trial[21] with the king.

SIR MICHAELWhy, my good lord, you need not fear.

There is Douglas and Lord Mortimer.

ARCHBISHOP OF YORKNo, Mortimer is not there.

25

SIR MICHAELBut there is Mordake, Vernon, Lord Harry Percy,

And there is my lord of Worcester and a head[26]

Of gallant warriors, noble gentlemen.

ARCHBISHOP OF YORKAnd so there is. But yet the king hath drawn

The special head[29] of all the land together:

30

The Prince of Wales, Lord John of Lancaster,

The noble Westmorland and warlike Blunt;

And many more corrivals[32] and dear men

Of estimation[33] and command in arms.

SIR MICHAELDoubt not, my lord, he shall be well opposed.

35

ARCHBISHOP OF YORKI hope no less, yet needful ’tis to fear.

And, to prevent the worst, Sir Michael, speed;

For if Lord Percy thrive[37] not, ere the king

Dismiss his power, he means to visit us,

For he hath heard of our confederacy,[39]

40

And ’tis but wisdom to make strong[40] against him:

Therefore make haste. I must go write again

To other friends, and so farewell, Sir Michael.

Exeunt

Act 5 Scene 15.1

running scene 15

Enter the King, Prince of Wales, Lord John of Lancaster, Earl of Westmorland, Sir Walter Blunt and Falstaff

KING HENRY IVHow bloodily the sun begins to peer

Above yon busky[2] hill! The day looks pale

At his distemperature.[3]

PRINCE HENRYThe southern wind

5

Doth play the trumpet[5] to his purposes,

And by his hollow whistling in the leaves

Foretells a tempest and a blust’ring day.

KING HENRY IVThen with the losers let it sympathize,

For nothing can seem foul[9] to those that win.

The trumpet sounds

Enter Worcester [and Vernon]

10

How now, my lord of Worcester? ’Tis not well

That you and I should meet upon such terms

As now we meet. You have deceived our trust,

And made us doff[13] our easy robes of peace,

To crush our old limbs in ungentle steel:[14]

15

This is not well, my lord, this is not well.

What say you to it? Will you again unknit[16]

This churlish[17] knot of all-abhorrèd war?

And move in that obedient orb[18] again

Where you did give a fair and natural light,

20

And be no more an exhaled meteor,[20]

A prodigy[21] of fear and a portent

Of broachèd[22] mischief to the unborn times?

WORCESTERHear me, my liege:

For mine own part, I could be well content

25

To entertain[25] the lag-end of my life

With quiet hours, for I do protest,

I have not sought the day of this dislike.[27]

KING HENRY IVYou have not sought it? How comes it, then?

FALSTAFFRebellion lay in his way, and he found it.

30

PRINCE HENRYPeace, chewet,[30] peace!

WORCESTERIt pleased your majesty to turn your looks

Of favour from myself and all our house;

And yet I must remember[33] you, my lord,

We were the first and dearest of your friends.

35

For you my staff of office[35] did I break

In Richard’s time, and posted[36] day and night

To meet you on the way, and kiss your hand,

When yet you were in place and in account

Nothing[39] so strong and fortunate as I.

40

It was myself, my brother and his son,

That brought[41] you home and boldly did outdare

The danger of the time. You swore to us,

And you did swear that oath at Doncaster,[43]

That you did[44] nothing of purpose gainst the state,

45

Nor claim no further than your new-fall’n right,[45]

The seat[46] of Gaunt, dukedom of Lancaster.

To this we swore our aid. But in short space

It rained down fortune show’ring on your head,

And such a flood of greatness fell on you —

50

What with our help, what with the absent king,

What with the injuries[51] of wanton time,

The seeming sufferances[52] that you had borne,

And the contrarious[53] winds that held the king

So long in the unlucky[54] Irish wars

55

That all in England did repute[55] him dead —

And from this swarm of fair advantages

You took occasion[57] to be quickly wooed

To gripe[58] the general sway into your hand,

Forgot your oath to us at Doncaster,

60

And being fed by us, you used us so

As that ungentle gull,[61] the cuckoo’s bird,

Useth the sparrow, did oppress our nest,

Grew by our feeding to so great a bulk

That even our love[64] durst not come near your sight

65

For fear of swallowing.[65] But with nimble wing

We were enforced, for safety sake, to fly

Out of your sight and raise this present head,

Whereby we stand opposèd[68] by such means

As you yourself have forged against yourself

70

By unkind[70] usage, dangerous countenance,

And violation of all faith and troth[71]

Sworn to us in your younger[72] enterprise.

KING HENRY IVThese things indeed you have articulated,

Proclaimed at market-crosses, read in churches,

75

To face[75] the garment of rebellion

With some fine colour[76] that may please the eye

Of fickle changelings[77] and poor discontents,

Which gape and rub the elbow[78] at the news

Of hurly-burly[79] innovation:

80

And never yet did insurrection want[80]

Such water-colours[81] to impaint his cause,

Nor moody[82] beggars, starving for a time

Of pell-mell havoc[83] and confusion.

PRINCE HENRYIn both our[84] armies there is many a soul

85

Shall pay full dearly for this encounter,

If once they join in trial.[86] Tell your nephew,

The Prince of Wales doth join with all the world

In praise of Henry Percy: by my hopes[88] —

This present enterprise set[89] off his head —

90

I do not think a braver[90] gentleman,

More active-valiant or more valiant-young,

More daring or more bold, is now alive

To grace this latter[93] age with noble deeds.

For my part, I may speak it to my shame,

95

I have a truant been to chivalry,

And so I hear he doth account me too.

Yet this[97] before my father’s majesty:

I am content that he shall take the odds[98]

Of his great name and estimation,[99]

100

And will, to save the blood on either side,

Try fortune with him in a single fight.

KING HENRY IVAnd, Prince of Wales, so dare we venture[102] thee,

Albeit[103] considerations infinite

Do make[104] against it. No, good Worcester, no,

105

We love our people well; even those we love

That are misled upon your cousin’s[106] part.

And, will they take the offer of our grace,[107]

Both he and they and you, yea, every man

Shall be my friend again and I’ll be his.

110

So tell your cousin, and bring me word

What he will do. But if he will not yield,

Rebuke[112] and dread correction wait on us

And they shall do their office.[113] So, be gone,

We will not now be troubled with reply.

115

We offer fair,[115] take it advisedly.

Exeunt Worcester [and Vernon]

PRINCE HENRYIt will not be accepted, on my life.

The Douglas and the Hotspur both together

Are confident against the world in arms.

KING HENRYIV Hence, therefore, every leader to his charge,[119]

120

For on their answer[120] will we set on them;

And God befriend us as our cause is just!

Exeunt all but Prince and Falstaff

FALSTAFFHal, if thou see me down in the battle and bestride[122] me, so; ’tis a point of friendship.

PRINCE HENRYNothing but a colossus[124] can do thee that friendship. Say thy prayers, and farewell.

FALSTAFFI would it were bedtime, Hal, and all well.

PRINCE HENRYWhy, thou ow’st heaven a death.[127]

[Exit Prince Henry]

FALSTAFF’Tis not due yet. I would be loath to pay him before his day. What need I be so forward[129] with him that calls not on me? Well, ’tis no matter, honour pricks me on. But how if honour prick me off[130] when I come on? How then? Can honour set to a leg? No. Or an arm? No. Or take away the grief[131] of a wound? No. Honour hath no skill in surgery, then? No. What is honour? A word. What is that word ‘honour’? Air. A trim[133] reckoning! Who hath it? He that died o’Wednesday. Doth he feel it? No. Doth he hear it? No. Is it insensible,[134] then? Yea, to the dead. But will it not live with the living? No. Why? Detraction[135] will not suffer it. Therefore I’ll none of it. Honour is a mere scutcheon:[136] and so ends my catechism.

Exit

Act 5 Scene 25.2

running scene 16

Enter Worcester and Sir Richard Vernon

WORCESTERO, no, my nephew must not know, Sir Richard,

The liberal kind offer of the king.

VERNON’Twere best he did.

WORCESTERThen we are all undone.[4]

5

It is not possible, it cannot be,

The king would keep his word in loving us.

He will suspect us still[7] and find a time

To punish this offence in other faults.

Supposition[9] all our lives shall be stuck full of eyes;

10

For treason is but trusted like the fox,

Who, ne’er so tame,[11] so cherished and locked up,

Will have a wild trick[12] of his ancestors.

Look[13] how he can, or sad or merrily,

Interpretation will misquote[14] our looks,

15

And we shall feed like oxen at a stall,

The[16] better cherished, still the nearer death.

My nephew’s trespass[17] may be well forgot,

It hath the excuse of youth and heat of blood,

And an adopted[19] name of privilege,

20

A hare-brained[20] Hotspur, governed by a spleen:

All his offences live upon[21] my head

And on his father’s. We did train[22] him on,

And, his corruption being ta’en[23] from us,

We as the spring[24] of all, shall pay for all.

25

Therefore, good cousin, let not Harry know,

In any case,[26] the offer of the king.

VERNONDeliver[27] what you will, I’ll say ’tis so.

Here comes your cousin.

Enter Hotspur [and Douglas]

HOTSPURMy uncle is returned.

30

Deliver up[30] my lord of Westmorland.—

Uncle, what news?

WORCESTERThe king will bid you battle[32] presently.

DOUGLASDefy him by[33] the lord of Westmorland.

HOTSPURLord Douglas, go you and tell him so.

35

DOUGLASMarry, and shall, and very willingly.

Exit Douglas

WORCESTERThere is no seeming[36] mercy in the king.

HOTSPURDid you beg any? God forbid!

WORCESTERI told him gently[38] of our grievances,

Of his oath-breaking, which he mended[39] thus,

40

By now forswearing[40] that he is forsworn.

He calls us rebels, traitors, and will scourge[41]

With haughty arms this hateful name in us.

Enter Douglas

DOUGLASArm,[43] gentlemen, to arms! For I have thrown

A brave defiance in King Henry’s teeth,

45

And Westmorland that was engaged[45] did bear it,

Which cannot choose but bring him quickly on.

WORCESTERThe Prince of Wales stepped forth before the king,

And, nephew, challenged you to single fight.

HOTSPURO, would[49] the quarrel lay upon our heads,

50

And that no man might draw short breath[50] today

But I and Harry Monmouth![51] Tell me, tell me,

How showed his talking? Seemed it in contempt?

VERNONNo, by my soul. I never in my life

Did hear a challenge urged[54] more modestly,

55

Unless a brother should a brother dare

To gentle[56] exercise and proof of arms.

He gave you all the duties of[57] a man,

Trimmed[58] up your praises with a princely tongue,

Spoke your deservings like a chronicle,[59]

60

Making[60] you ever better than his praise

By still dispraising praise valued with you.

And, which became him like a prince indeed,

He made a blushing cital[63] of himself,

And chid[64] his truant youth with such a grace

65

As if he mastered there a double[65] spirit

Of teaching and of learning instantly.

There did he pause. But let me tell the world,

If he outlive the envy[68] of this day,

England did never owe[69] so sweet a hope,

70

So much misconstrued in his wantonness.[70]

HOTSPURCousin, I think thou art enamourèd

On[72] his follies: never did I hear

Of any prince so[73] wild a liberty.

But be he as he will, yet once ere night

75

I will embrace him with a soldier’s arm,

That he shall shrink[76] under my courtesy.

Arm, arm with speed. And, fellows, soldiers, friends,

Better[78] consider what you have to do

Than I, that have not well the gift of tongue,

80

Can lift your blood up with persuasion.

Enter a Messenger

MESSENGERMy lord, here are letters for you.

HOTSPURI cannot read them now.

O, gentlemen, the time of life is short!

To[84] spend that shortness basely were too long,

85

If life did ride upon a dial’s point,

Still ending at the arrival of an hour.

And if we live, we live to tread on kings,

If die, brave[88] death, when princes die with us!

Now, for our consciences, the arms are fair,[89]

90

When the intent for bearing them is just.

Enter another Messenger

MESSENGERMy lord, prepare, the king comes on apace.[91]

HOTSPURI thank him, that he cuts me[92] from my tale,

For I profess not[93] talking. Only this:

Let each man do his best. And here I draw a sword

95

Whose worthy temper[95] I intend to stain

With the best blood that I can meet withal

In the adventure[97] of this perilous day.

Now, Esperance![98] Percy! And set on.

Sound all the lofty instruments[99] of war,

100

And by that music let us all embrace,

For, heaven to earth,[101] some of us never shall

A second time do such a courtesy.

They embrace [and exeunt]. The trumpets sound. The King entereth with his power. Alarum unto the battle. Then enter Douglas and Sir Walter Blunt [dressed like the King]

BLUNTWhat is thy name, that in battle thus

Thou crossest me? What honour dost thou seek

105

Upon my head?

DOUGLASKnow then, my name is Douglas,

And I do haunt[107] thee in the battle thus

Because some tell me that thou art a king.

BLUNTThey tell thee true.

110

DOUGLASThe Lord of Stafford dear[110] today hath bought

Thy likeness, for instead of thee, King Harry,

This sword hath ended him. So shall it thee,

Unless thou yield thee as a prisoner.

BLUNTI was not born to yield, thou haughty Scot,

115

And thou shalt find a king that will revenge

Lord Stafford’s death.

Fight. Blunt is slain

Then enters Hotspur

HOTSPURO Douglas, had’st thou fought at Holmedon[117] thus,

I never had triumphed o’er a Scot.

DOUGLASAll’s done, all’s won, here breathless lies the king.

120

HOTSPURWhere?

DOUGLASHere.

HOTSPURThis, Douglas? No. I know this face full[122] well:

A gallant knight he was, his name was Blunt,

Semblably furnished[124] like the king himself.

125

DOUGLASAh, fool, go with thy soul, whither it goes!

A borrowed title hast thou bought too dear.

Why didst thou tell me that thou wert a king?

HOTSPURThe king hath many marching[128] in his coats.

DOUGLASNow, by my sword, I will kill all his coats.

130

I’ll murder all his wardrobe, piece by piece,

Until I meet the king.

HOTSPURUp, and away!

Our soldiers stand[133] full fairly for the day.

Exeunt

Alarum, and enter Falstaff, solus

FALSTAFFThough I could scape shot-free[134] at London, I fear the shot here: here’s no scoring[135] but upon the pate. Soft! Who are you? Sir Walter Blunt. There’s honour for you! Here’s no vanity![136] I am as hot as molten lead,[137] and as heavy too; heaven keep lead out of me! I need no more weight than mine own bowels. I have led my ragamuffins[138] where they are peppered: there’s not three of my hundred and fifty left alive, and they for the town’s end,[139] to beg during life. But who comes here?

Enter the Prince

140

PRINCE HENRYWhat, stand’st thou idle here? Lend me thy sword.

Many a nobleman lies stark and stiff

Under the hoofs of vaunting[142] enemies,

Whose deaths are unrevenged. Prithee

Lend me thy sword.

FALSTAFFO Hal, I prithee give me leave to breathe awhile. Turk Gregory[145] never did such deeds in arms as I have done this day. I have paid[146] Percy, I have made him sure.[147]

PRINCE HENRYHe is, indeed, and living to kill thee. I prithee lend me thy sword.

FALSTAFFNay, Hal, if Percy be alive, thou get’st not my sword; but take my pistol, if thou wilt.

PRINCE HENRYGive it me. What, is it in the case?[151]

FALSTAFFAy, Hal, ’tis hot.[152] There’s that will sack a city.

The Prince draws out a bottle of sack

PRINCE HENRYWhat, is it a time to jest and dally now?

Exit. [He] throws it at him [as he leaves]

FALSTAFFIf Percy be alive, I’ll pierce[154] him. If he do come in my way, so:[156] if he do not, if I come in his willingly, let him make a carbonado[155] of me. I like not such grinning honour as Sir Walter hath. Give me life, which if I can save, so: if not, honour comes unlooked for,[157] and there’s an end.

Exit

Act 5 Scene 35.3

running scene 16 continues

Alarum. Excursions. Enter the King, the Prince, Lord John of Lancaster and Earl of Westmorland The Prince has been wounded

KING HENRY IVI prithee,

Harry, withdraw thyself, thou bleed’st too much.

Lord John of Lancaster, go you with him.

PRINCE JOHNNot I, my lord, unless I did bleed too.

5

PRINCE HENRYI beseech your majesty, make up,[5]

Lest your retirement[6] do amaze your friends.

KING HENRY IVI will do so.

My lord of Westmorland, lead him to his tent.

WESTMORLANDCome, my lord, I’ll lead you to your tent.

10

PRINCE HENRYLead me, my lord? I do not need your help;

And heaven forbid a shallow scratch should drive

The Prince of Wales from such a field as this,

Where stained[13] nobility lies trodden on,

And rebels’ arms triumph in massacres!

15

PRINCE JOHNWe breathe[15] too long: come, cousin Westmorland,

Our duty this way lies. For heaven’s sake, come.

[Exeunt Lancaster and Westmorland]

PRINCE HENRYBy heaven, thou hast deceived me, Lancaster.

I did not think thee lord of such a spirit:

Before, I loved thee as a brother, John;

20

But now, I do respect thee as my soul.

KING HENRY IVI saw him hold Lord Percy at the point[21]

With lustier maintenance[22] than I did look for

Of such an ungrown[23] warrior.

PRINCE HENRYO, this boy lends mettle[24] to us all!

Exit

Enter Douglas

25

DOUGLASAnother king? They grow like Hydra’s heads.[25]

I am the Douglas, fatal to all those

That wear those colours[27] on them. What art thou,

That counterfeit’st[28] the person of a king?

KING HENRY IVThe king himself, who, Douglas, grieves at heart

30

So many of his shadows[30] thou hast met

And not the very[31] king. I have two boys

Seek[32] Percy and thyself about the field:

But, seeing thou fall’st on me so luckily,

I will assay[34] thee, so defend thyself.

35

DOUGLASI fear thou art another counterfeit,

And yet, in faith, thou bear’st thee like a king.

But mine[37] I am sure thou art, whoe’er thou be,

And thus I win thee.

They fight, the King being in danger

Enter Prince

PRINCE HENRYHold up thy head, vile Scot, or thou art like[39]

40

Never to hold it up again! The spirits

Of valiant Shirley, Stafford, Blunt, are[41] in my arms;

It is the Prince of Wales that threatens thee,

Who never promiseth but he means to pay.[43]

They fight. Douglas flieth

Cheerly,[44] my lord. How fares your grace?

45

Sir Nicholas Gawsey hath for succour sent,

And so hath Clifton: I’ll to Clifton straight.

KING HENRY IVStay, and breathe awhile.

Thou hast redeemed thy lost opinion,[48]

And showed thou mak’st[49] some tender of my life,

50

In this fair rescue thou hast brought to me.

PRINCE HENRYO heaven! They did me too much injury

That ever said I hearkened[52] to your death.

If it were so, I might have let alone

The insulting[54] hand of Douglas over you,

55

Which would have been as speedy in your end

As all the poisonous potions in the world

And saved the treacherous labour of your son.

KING HENRY IVMake up to[58] Clifton, I’ll to Sir Nicholas Gawsey.

Exit

Enter Hotspur

HOTSPURIf I mistake not, thou art Harry Monmouth.

60

PRINCE HENRYThou speak’st as if I would deny my name.

HOTSPURMy name is Harry Percy.

PRINCE HENRYWhy, then I see

A very valiant rebel of that name.

I am the Prince of Wales; and think not, Percy,

65

To share with me in glory any more:

Two stars keep not their motion[66] in one sphere,

Nor can one England brook[67] a double reign,

Of Harry Percy and the Prince of Wales.

HOTSPURNor shall it, Harry, for the hour is come

70

To end the one of us; and would to heaven

Thy name in arms[71] were now as great as mine!

PRINCE HENRYI’ll make it greater ere I part from thee,

And all the budding[73] honours on thy crest

I’ll crop, to make a garland for my head.

75

HOTSPURI can no longer brook thy vanities.[75]

Fight

Enter Falstaff

FALSTAFFWell said,[76] Hal! To it Hal! Nay, you shall find no boy’s play here, I can tell you.

Enter Douglas, he fights with Falstaff, who falls down as if he were dead

[Exit Douglas]

The Prince killeth Percy [Hotspur]

HOTSPURO, Harry, thou hast robbed me of my youth!

I better brook the loss of brittle[79] life

80

Than those proud titles[80] thou hast won of me.

They wound my thoughts worse than the sword my flesh:

But thought’s the slave of life, and life, time’s fool;

And time that takes survey of all the world

Must have a stop. O, I could prophesy,[84]

85

But that the earth and the cold hand of death

Lies on my tongue. No, Percy, thou art dust

And food for— Dies

PRINCE HENRYFor worms, brave Percy. Farewell, great heart!

Ill-weaved[89] ambition, how much art thou shrunk?

90

When that this body did contain a spirit,

A kingdom for it was too[91] small a bound,

But now two paces of the vilest earth

Is room enough. This earth that bears thee dead

Bears not alive so stout[94] a gentleman.

95

If thou wert sensible[95] of courtesy,

I should not make so great a show of zeal,[96]

But let my favours[97] hide thy mangled face, Covers Hotspur’s face

And, even in thy behalf, I’ll thank myself

For doing these fair rites of tenderness.

100

Adieu, and take thy praise with thee to heaven!

Thy ignominy[101] sleep with thee in the grave,

But not remembered in thy epitaph!—

What? Old acquaintance? Could not all this flesh He sees Falstaff on the ground

Keep in a little life? Poor Jack, farewell!

105

I could have better spared a better man.

O, I should have a heavy[106] miss of thee,

If I were much in love with vanity!

Death hath not struck so fat a deer today,

Though many dearer,[109] in this bloody fray.

110

Embowelled[110] will I see thee by and by:

Till then in blood[111] by noble Percy lie.

Exit

Falstaff riseth up

FALSTAFFEmbowelled! If thou embowel me today, I’ll give you leave to powder[112] me and eat me too tomorrow. ’Twas time to counterfeit, or that hot termagant[113] Scot had paid me scot and lot[114] too. Counterfeit? I am no counterfeit; to die, is to be a counterfeit, for he is but the counterfeit of a man who hath not the life of a man. But to counterfeit dying, when a man thereby liveth, is to be no counterfeit, but the true and perfect image of life indeed. The better part of valour is discretion,[117] in the which better part I have saved my life. I am afraid of this gunpowder[118] Percy, though he be dead. How, if he should counterfeit too and rise? I am afraid he would prove the better counterfeit: therefore I’ll make him sure, yea, and I’ll swear I killed him. Why may not he rise as well as I? Nothing confutes[121] me but eyes, and nobody sees me. Stabs him Therefore, sirrah, with a new wound in your thigh, come you along with me.

Takes Hotspur on his back

Enter Prince and John of Lancaster

PRINCE HENRYCome, brother John, full bravely hast thou fleshed[124]

125

Thy maiden[125] sword.

PRINCE JOHNBut, soft! Who have we here?

Did you not tell me this fat man was dead?

PRINCE HENRYI did. I saw him dead,

Breathless and bleeding on the ground.—

130

Art thou alive? Or is it fantasy[130] To Falstaff

That plays upon our eyesight? I prithee speak.

We will not trust our eyes without our ears.

Thou art not what thou seem’st.

FALSTAFFNo, that’s certain: I am not a double man.[134] But if I be not Jack[135] Falstaff, then am I a jack. There is Percy. Throws the body down If your father will do me any honour, so: if not, let him kill the next Percy himself. I look to be either earl or duke, I can assure you.

PRINCE HENRYWhy, Percy I killed myself and saw thee dead.

FALSTAFFDidst thou? Lord, Lord, how the world is given to lying! I grant you I was down and out of breath, and so was he. But we rose both at an instant[139] and fought a long hour by Shrewsbury clock.[140] If I may be believed, so: if not, let them that should reward valour bear the sin upon their own heads. I’ll take’t[141] on my death, I gave him this wound in the thigh: if the man were alive and would deny it, I would make him eat a piece of my sword.

PRINCE JOHNThis is the strangest tale that e’er I heard.

145

PRINCE HENRYThis is the strangest fellow, brother John.—

Come, bring your luggage[146] nobly on your back. To Falstaff

For my part, if a lie may do thee grace,[147]

I’ll gild[148] it with the happiest terms I have.—

A retreat is sounded

The[149] trumpets sound retreat, the day is ours.—

150

Come, brother, let’s to the highest[150] of the field,

To see what friends are living, who are dead.

Exeunt [Prince Henry and Lancaster]

FALSTAFFI’ll follow, as they say, for reward. He that rewards me, heaven reward him! If I do[153] grow great again, I’ll grow less, for I’ll purge, and leave sack, and live cleanly as a nobleman should do.

Exit

Act 5 Scene 4

running scene 16 continues

The trumpets sound. Enter the King, Prince of Wales, Lord John of Lancaster, Earl of Westmorland [and others], with Worcester and Vernon prisoners

KING HENRY IVThus ever did rebellion find rebuke.[1]

Ill-spirited[2] Worcester, did we not send grace,

Pardon and terms of love to all of you?

And wouldst thou turn[4] our offers contrary?

5

Misuse[5] the tenor of thy kinsman’s trust?

Three knights upon our party[6] slain today,

A noble earl and many a creature else

Had been alive this hour,

If like a Christian thou hadst truly borne

10

Betwixt our armies true intelligence.[10]

WORCESTERWhat I have done my safety[11] urged me to,

And I embrace this fortune patiently,

Since not to be avoided it falls on me.

KING HENRY IVBear Worcester to death[14] and Vernon too:

15

Other offenders we will pause upon.[15]

Exeunt Worcester and Vernon, [guarded]

How goes the field?[16]

PRINCE HENRYThe noble Scot, Lord Douglas, when he saw

The fortune of the day quite turned from him,

The noble Percy slain, and all his men

20

Upon[20] the foot of fear, fled with the rest;

And falling from a hill, he was so bruised

That the pursuers took[22] him. At my tent

The Douglas is, and I beseech your grace

I may dispose of[24] him.

25

KING HENRY IVWith all my heart.

PRINCE HENRYThen, brother John of Lancaster, to you

This honourable bounty[27] shall belong:

Go to the Douglas, and deliver him

Up to his pleasure,[29] ransomless and free:

30

His valour shown upon our crests[30] today

Hath taught us how to cherish such high[31] deeds

Even[32] in the bosom of our adversaries.

KING HENRY IVThen this remains, that we divide our power.[33]—

You, son John, and my cousin Westmorland

35

Towards York shall bend you[35] with your dearest speed,

To meet Northumberland and the prelate[36] Scroop,

Who, as we hear, are busily in arms.[37]—

Myself and you, son Harry, will towards Wales,

To fight with Glendower and the Earl of March.

40

Rebellion in this land shall lose his way,

Meeting the check[41] of such another day.

And since this business so fair[42] is done,

Let us not leave[43] till all our own be won.

Exeunt

Textual Notes

Q = First Quarto text of 1598

Q5 = Fifth Quarto text of 1613

Q7 = Seventh Quarto text of 1632

F = First Folio text of 1623

F2 = a correction introduced in the Second Folio text of 1632

F3 = a correction introduced in the Third Folio text of 1663–64

Ed = a correction introduced by a later editor

SD = stage direction

SH = speech heading (i.e., speaker’s name)

List of parts = Ed

BARDOLPH = F. Q = Bardoll

1.1.64 Stained = Q. F = Strain’d 66 welcome = Q. F = welcomes 76 In…is = Ed. F includes at end of king’s speech, making his answer his own rhetorical question

1.2.0 SD Falstaff = Ed. F = Falstaffe and Pointz (it is conceivable that Poins enters here and remains silently in the background during the first 74 lines of dialogue, but more likely that he enters when his name is mentioned at line 72) 29 of Hybla = Q. Not in F 55 similes = Q5. F = smiles 61 for…it = F. Q = for wisedome cries out in the streets and no man regards it 72 Poins set as a speech heading in F 82 had been = Q. F = had 108 Peto, Bardolph = Ed. F = Haruey, Rossill (Shakespeare’s original names for these characters) 152 foil = Q. F = soyle

1.3.24 name = Q. Not in F 27 As…son = F. Q = As is deliuered to your maiestie. / Either enuie therefore, or misprision, / Is guiltie of this fault, and not my sonne (F is more likely to be purposeful revision than compositorial error) 43 bore = Q. F = bare 45 corpse spelled corse in F 68 this = F. Q = his 78 yet he doth= Q. F = yet doth 136 downfall = F. Q = down-trod 164 wore = F. Q = weare 239 poisoned him = F. Q = him poisoned 256 candy = Q. F = caudie 303 Lord = Ed. F = loe

2.1.25 SH FIRST CARRIER = Ed. F = Car.

2.2.0 SD and Bardolph (not in F but implied by Q’s ‘and Peto &c.’) 8 thief’s = Q. F = Theefe 9 square spelled squire in F 20 me my = Q. F = my 35 SH BARDOLPH = Ed. F = Bardolfe, what newes? (continuation of Poins’ speech) 36 SH GADSHILL = Ed. F = Bar. 55 SH FIRST TRAVELLER = Ed. F = Tra. 60 Ah, whoreson = Ed. F = a whorson

2.3.1 SH HOTSPUR = Ed. Not in F 11 our friends = Q. F = our Friend 46 beads = Q. F = beds 100 well believe = Q. F = will beleeue 102 far will = Q. F = farre wilt

2.4.90 and foot them = Q. Not in F 96 with lime in’t F (uncorrected) reads with in’t F (corrected) reads with lime 109 SH POINS = Q. F = Prin. 146 ward = Q. F = word 171 the = F. Q = their 181 plentiful = Q. F = plentie 244 talon spelled talent in F 247 Braby = F. Q = Bracy 248 That = Q. F = The 253 that = Q. F = the 290 tristful = Ed. F = trustfull 299 sun spelled Sonne in F 352 most = Q. F = most most 403 march = Q. F = Match

3.1.44 the = F. Q = he 65 sent = Q. F = hent 191 our = Q. F = your 218 ’twixt = Q. F = betwixt 226 hence = Q. F = thence

3.2.154 heaven…survive = F. Q = God I promise heere, / The which if he be pleasd I shall performe (F alteration due to 1606 Parliamentary ‘Act to restrain the Abuses of Players’)

3.3.16 my = Q. F = thy 25 son spelled sunne in F 38 tithe = Ed. F = tight 60 sneak-cup = F. Q = sneakeup 97 owed spelled ought in F 126 and cherish = F. Q = cherish (F sets this speech as verse, though it is prose in Q; seems to have been added in an attempt to create a pentameter line)

4.1.21 I his mind = F. Q = I my mind. Ed = I, my lord 63 hair = Q. F = Heire 81 our = Q. F = your 88 as = Q. F = At dream = F. Q = tearme 92 with him = Q. F = with 127 hot = Q. F = not

4.2.2 Coldfield = Ed. F = cop-hill 14 fowl = Q. F = Foole 24 tattered = F3. F = totter’d

4.4.0 SD Michael spelled Michell in F

5.1.47 swore = Q. F = sware 72 your younger = Q. F = yonger 134 Is it = F. Q = tis

5.2.8 other = Q. F = others 31 news = Q. F = newe- 52 talking = F. Q = tasking 73 a liberty = Q. F = at Liberty 79 Than = Q. F = That 89 are = Q. F = is 138 ragamuffins = Ed. F = rag of Muffins 141 lies = Q. F = likes

5.3.6 Lest your = Q. F = Least you 63 that = F. Q = the 93 thee dead = Q7. Q/F = the dead 123 with me = Q. F = me

Act 1 Scene 1

1.1    Location: the royal court. Henry Bullingbrook had usurped the English crown in 1399 when he forced his cousin, Richard II, to abdicate. Richard died shortly afterward in mysterious circumstances. The early years of Henry’s reign were dominated by a determination to justify and consolidate his claim to the throne and by a number of insurrections. As the play opens, Henry voices his anxiety about civil unrest

1    we i.e., the king/the nation as a whole wan pale, sickly

2    Find we let us find frighted frightened

3    breathe short-winded accents speak while out of breath broils quarrels, fighting

4    strands afar remote distant shores

5    entrance mouth

6    daub smear, plaster

7    trenching ploughing

8    flow’rets small flowers armèd iron-shod/armored

9    paces (horse’s) tread/gallop opposèd hostile, malevolent

10    meteors regarded as bad omens

12    intestine shock internal, domestic military encounter

13    close hand-to-hand fighting

14    mutual well-beseeming united and ordered

19    sepulchre of Christ Christ’s tomb (at Jerusalem; Henry is planning a crusade to the Holy Land)

21    impressèd conscripted engaged pledged, committed

22    power army levy raise, muster

23    arms upper limbs/weapons mother’s natural mother’s/England’s

24    fields lands/battlefields

25    blessèd feet i.e., Christ’s

27    bitter painful/pitiable

29    bootless pointless

31    gentle kindly/noble cousin kinsman

32    yesternight last night

33    dear important/urgent/noble/costly expedience expedition

34    liege lord, superior to whom feudal service was due hot in question hotly debated

35    limits…charge responsibilities relating to the undertaking

36    But only, as recently as athwart adversely, at odds with our business

37    post messenger loaden weighed down heavy sad/weighty

40    irregular…Glendower uncivilized guerrilla fighter (Glendower was leader of the Welsh rebels)

41    rude rough

43    corpse corpses

44    transformation mutilation

47    tidings news

48    Brake archaic past tense of “break”

49    matched with together with, accompanied by

50    uneven rough, unsettling

52    Holy Rood day September 14, dedicated to the cross (rood) of Christ Hotspur Henry Percy’s nickname suggests that he is vigorous, hasty, and hot-headed

54    approvèd tried and tested (in battle)

55    Holmedon the Northumberland site of the battle

56    sad serious/leading to sorrow

58    shape of likelihood likely conjecture

59    heat…contention middle of the fiercest fighting

61    issue outcome any either

62    Here either “here at court” or a line indicating Blunt’s presence among the “other” lords in attendance on stage

63    new lighted only just dismounted

64    variation of each different types of

65    Betwixt between seat residence/throne

66    smooth pleasant, welcome

67    discomfited defeated

69    Balked heaped up (in “balks,” i.e., ridges)

71    Mordake…Douglas Mordake was Earl of Fife but not Douglas’ son—Shakespeare misread Holinshed’s Chronicles, his main source

73    Menteith not in fact another earl, but one of Mordake’s titles

74    honourable spoil noble gains of war

75    gallant fine, splendid

80    theme subject, chief topic

81    straightest plant most upright tree

82    minion favorite

84    riot debauchery, corruption

86    night-tripping moving nimbly through the night fairy popular belief held that fairies sometimes stole human infants, substituting (troublesome) fairy children for them

88    Plantagenet the surname of this royal dynasty

90    from go from coz short for “cousin” (i.e., kinsman)

92    adventure enterprise, venture surprised captured, ambushed

97    prune preen (like a bird) bristle raise, ruffle angrily

98    dignity worthiness/kingship

100    cause reason

106    out…utterèd can be spoken openly in anger

Act 1 Scene 2

1.2    Location: in London, but unspecified; perhaps the prince’s apartments

2    fat-witted dull-witted (plays on Falstaff’s physical size) sack Spanish white wine

3    forgotten neglected/forgotten how

4    demand that truly ask accurately, rightly truly genuinely/accurately

5    capons castrated cockerels, a common dish

6    bawds pimps, procurers of sex dials sundials/clock faces leaping-houses brothels

7    hot lustful taffeta silky material associated with prostitutes

8    superfluous unnecessarily curious, irrelevant

9    come near me touch the point, begin to understand me go by travel by the light of/tell the time according to

10    the seven stars the Pleiades (a group of stars in the constellation Taurus) Phoebus the sun god ‘wandering…fair’ probably a phrase from a ballad or popular romance, referring to the sun as a knight in a tale of romance

11    wag mischievous boy grace term of address for royalty (but sense then shifts to “spiritual grace” and then to “prayer before a meal”)

14    egg and butter i.e., a very light meal (barely requiring grace tobe said as a blessing)

15    roundly plainly, straightforwardly (may play on Falstaff’s shape)

16    Marry by the Virgin Mary squires…body the night’s personal attendants (night’s puns on “knight’s”)

17    thieves…beauty i.e., by sleepily wasting the day (beauty puns on “booty”) Diana Roman goddess of the moon, patron of hunting and virginity foresters forest dwellers, servants

18    minions favorites of good government of good conduct/who live under a good ruler

20    countenance face, appearance/support, authority steal rob/move furtively

21    holds applies, is apt

24    ‘Lay by’ highwayman’s command that his victims lay aside their weapons

25    ‘Bring in’ an order for drinks now…gallows one moment one’s fortune is as low as the bottom of the ladder leading to the gallows, the next as high as the crossbar at the top of the gallows—i.e., whatever a thief’s course, the result (hanging) is the same

27    hostess landlady

29    Hybla Sicilian town famous for its honey old…castle carouser (plays on “Oldcastle,” Shakespeare’s original name for Falstaff; castle may play on the sense of “stocks,” instruments of public punishment in which a thief might be confined; a London brothel called The Castle may also be alluded to, appropriately named given that castle was slang for “vagina”) buff jerkin tight leather jacket worn by sheriffs officers (plays on the sense of “naked vagina”)

30    robe of durance long-lasting garment (with sexual connotations; durance plays on the sense of “imprisonment”)

31    quiddities quibbles

32    What a plague emphatic form of “what”

33    pox venereal disease

34    called…reck’ning asked her for the bill/asked her to explain herself/had sex with her

35    pay thy part pay for your share/have sex

37    coin would stretch money would go/penis would grow; coin puns on “quoin”—i.e., carpenter’s wedge (a euphemism for “penis”)

39    heir puns on here (which was pronounced in a similar manner)

41    resolution determination fobbed cheated curb restraint (literally, chain passed under a horse’s jaw) old father antic the elderly buffoon (that is)

44    rare splendid brave fine, excellent

47    jumps…humour fits my disposition

48    waiting waiting around/being in attendance

49    suits requests, legal petitions (Falstaff plays on the sense of “suits of clothes”; the hangman had the right to keep his victims’ garments)

50    no lean wardrobe i.e., no small amount (because hangings were common; wardrobe may pun on “wardrope,” a type of thick rope)

51    gib cat tom cat lugged bear baited bear, pulled by the ears and tugged on a chain

52    lute the stringed instrument was associated with lovers

53    bagpipe musical instrument/tedious, moaning speaker

54    hare a proverbially melancholy animal Moorditch notoriously filthy drainage ditch outside the northern walls of the City of London

56    comparative prone to making comparisons rascalli’st most rascal-like

57    vanity foolishness, trifles commodity supply names reputations

58    rated scolded

59    marked him not took no notice of him

61    no…it biblical allusion, “Wisdom crieth without…and no man regarded” (Proverbs 1:20–4), truncated in Folio because of the 1606 Parliamentary “Act to restrain the Abuses of Players”

62    damnable iteration a way of constantly quoting Scripture that will lead to damnation saint puritan term for a person chosen by God to be saved

65    An if

66    never a no

67    Jack affectionate form of “John”

68    make one make up one of the party

69    baffle publicly disgrace (a knight)

70    amendment reformation

71    vocation calling (from God)

72    Gadshill named after Gad’s Hill in Kent, a notorious place for highway robberies set a watch surveyed the targeted area, conducted a recce (as part of planning a robbery; some editors emend to “set a match”—slang for “plan a robbery”)

73    saved by merit had their souls saved through good works and personal desert (as opposed to divine grace)

74    omnipotent unparalleled, almighty ‘Stand’ stand and deliver—highwayman’s command true honest

76    Monsieur Remorse teasing reference to Falstaff Sir…Jack i.e., Falstaff; another mocking reference, apparently alluding to Falstaff’s taste for sweetened wine

78    Good Friday the Friday before Easter Sunday, a strict fast day Madeira a strong white wine

80    give…due proverbial

82    Else he had Otherwise he had been cozening cheating

83    Gad’s Hill the notorious spot for robberies was situated on the Dover road near Rochester in Kent; pilgrims traveling to Canterbury were often targets

85    vizards masks

86    lies lodges bespoke ordered

87    Eastcheap London street running from the junction of Cannon and Gracechurch Streets to Great Tower Street secure safely

88    crowns gold coins tarry stay

89    Yedward dialect form of “Edward” hang you i.e., report it and get you hanged

90    chops fat cheeks

94    blood royal regal descent (Falstaff goes on to play on the sense of “gold coin worth ten shillings“) stand for stand and fight for/be worth

102    Well…believed Falstaff parodies the language of a Protestant sermon on the power of God’s word to move the congregation

104    abuses wrongdoings, sins

105    want countenance lack recognition and support

106    latter…summer late spring and summer lasting until All Hallows’ Eve (October 31); the suggestion is that Falstaff’s youthful behavior is not in keeping with his age

109    waylaid set an ambush for

114    pleasure preference, decision fail i.e., to turn up

117    like likely habits clothes

118    appointment piece of gear

120    sirrah sir (familiar form often used to inferiors, jocular here) cases of buckram suits of coarse cloth

121    nonce purpose, occasion immask disguise noted well known

122    doubt fear hard tough, powerful

124    turned back turned their backs to flee forswear swear to give up

125    incomprehensible boundless, unlimited

127    wards defensive maneuvers (fencing term) reproof disproving, refutation/shame, reprimand

130    sup have supper (the last meal of the day)

132    uphold carry on with/support

133    unyoked humour unrestrained behavior, wild whim

134    sun common symbol of royalty

135    contagious noxious, infectious; clouds were thought to harbor disease

138    wanted missed, lacked

142    sport play, entertain oneself

144    rare accidents unusual events

148    falsify men’s hopes prove expectations of me false

149    sullen ground dark background

152    foil contrast, background (technically, setting for a jewel)

153    so offend misbehave in such a way skill art/cunning tactic

154    Redeeming time making up for lost time (Redeeming has religious connotations)

Act 1 Scene 3

1.3    Location: the royal court

1    temperate calm, restrained

2    Unapt not inclined or ready to

3    found me found me to be so

4    tread upon try, take advantage of

5    myself my royal self

6    condition natural disposition

8    title of claim

9    proud fine, splendid, possessed of self-respect

10    house family

11    scourge punishing whip

13    holp helped portly prosperous, majestic/overweight, too comfortable

17    peremptory determined/imperious

19    moody frontier threatening look frontier literally, military fortification

20    good leave full permission

21    use services

26    with…denied refused so emphatically

27    delivered reported

28    envy or misprision malice or misunderstanding

32    dry with rage thirsty after the fury of battle

34    neat elegant trimly finely, immaculately

35    new reaped freshly shaven

36    stubble-land at harvest-home shorn stalks of crops at the end of the harvest

37    milliner seller of fancy goods (originally those from Milan)

39    pouncet-box small box with a perforated lid, used for holding perfume or snuff ever and anon time and again

40    gave held up to

41    Who therewith angry at which (removal of the box) his nose became angry

42    Took…snuff inhaled/took offense still continually

44    untaught ignorant, ill-mannered

45    slovenly dirty, untidy unhandsome unattractive, unbecoming

46    nobility elegant, aristocratic personage

47    holiday…terms refined, genteel expressions

48    questioned conversed with/asked questions of

50    cold untended/congealing

51    popinjay parrot (i.e., gaudy prattler)

52    grief pain

53    neglectingly unthinkingly, carelessly

55    brisk sprucely, smartly

56    waiting-gentlewoman woman of good family attending on a great lady

57    God…mark! conventional expression of apology

58    sovereign’st best, most healing

59    parmaceti corruption of “spermaceti”—fat from the head of a sperm whale, used for treating bruises

61    saltpetre potassium nitrate, the chief ingredient of gunpowder, also used medicinally

63    tall fine, valiant

66    bald unjointed chat empty, incoherent chatter

67    indirectly inattentively

68    beseech beg

69    Come current be accepted at face value

74    retold related, explained

75    die i.e., be forgotten

76    impeach discredit, accuse

77    so provided that

78    yet he still Hotspur (the king does not reply to him directly) deny refuse (to hand over)

79    proviso and exception terms and conditions

80    charge expense straight straight away

85    Earl of March i.e., Mortimer; in fact, Shakespeare confuses two Edmund Mortimers: one was indeed the Earl of March, but it was his uncle of the same name who married Glendower’s daughter

86    coffers money chests, treasury

88    indent make a contract fears those traitors who give us cause for fear/cowards

93    revolted rebellious

95    fall off abandon loyalty

98    mouthèd open, gaping/famous, spoken of

99    Severn’s sedgy bank reed-covered banks of the River Severn, which divided England and south Wales

101    confound spend, consume

102    changing hardiment exchanging valiant blows

103    breathed broke off to catch their breath

104    Upon agreement by mutual consent flood water, torrent

105    affrighted frightened

107    crisp wavy, rippled (personifies the river as curly-haired) hollow empty, sunken

109    base…policy lowly and corrupt plotting

110    Colour disguise/dye

113    slandered “sland’red” in Folio revolt i.e., the accusation of being a rebel

114    belie misrepresent, lie about

115    encounter fight

116    durst (would have) dared

121    kind manner

123    license formally authorize

125    An if if

126    after follow

128    with hazard of at the risk (of losing)

129    choler anger

133    Want mercy lack God’s mercy, i.e., be damned

136    downfall downfallen

138    ingrate ungrateful cankered diseased, corrupted Bullingbrook Henry’s surname before he was king (taken from the castle in which he was born—Hotspur refuses to acknowledge Henry’s royal status)

140    heat anger

141    forsooth in truth

142    urged pressed, brought forward

144    eye of death fearful look, perhaps also threatening

146    he i.e., Mortimer

147    Richard Richard II, deposed by Henry next of blood nearest blood relation, i.e., heir to the throne; confusion between the two Mortimers continues—it was in fact the younger man who was proclaimed heir, rather than his uncle (husband of Glendower’s daughter and the man who is meant here)

149    unhappy unfortunate

150    in us i.e., at our hands—the Percy family had supported Henry against Richard

152    intercepted interrupted (in the middle of his Irish campaign)

156    soft wait a moment

157    brother brother-in-law

160    cousin may pun on “cozen” (i.e., “cheat”)

164    blot (moral) stain

165    subornation incitement (to Richard’s murder)

167    second means agents, instruments

170    line status (plays on the sense of “rope”) predicament category/dangerous situation

171    range move/are ranked subtle crafty

175    gage pledge

178    canker wild rose/worm that destroys plants/ulcer

180    fooled made fools of/duped, frustrated

186    studies reflects, plans, endeavors

187    answer repay

191    unclasp i.e., open

192    quick-conceiving ready, quick to understand

193    deep deep-rooted/grave/cunning

195    o’er-walk cross

196    unsteadfast unsteady spear i.e., used as a bridge

197    goodnight i.e., he’s dead or…swim whether he sinks or swims/he’ll either sink or swim

199    So provided cross meet/thwart, oppose

207    fathom-line weighted line used for measuring the depth of water

209    redeem rescue, restore thence from there

210    corrival rival, competitor

211    out upon away with half-faced fellowship partial, unsatisfactory partnership

212    apprehends conceives of, perceives figures images/forms/figures of speech

213    form essential principle attend consider

214    list listen

215    cry you mercy beg your pardon

219    Scot puns on the sense of “small payment”

229    holla shout

232    still constantly

234    defy renounce

235    gall and pinch irritate and torment

236    sword-and-buckler weapons associated with servants; a gentleman carried rapier and dagger buckler small shield

237    But that were it not for the fact that

238    mischance accident

241    better…attend in the right frame of mind to listen

244    Tying…own listening to no one but yourself

246    pismires ants

247    politician crafty plotter

250    duke his uncle i.e., Edmund of Langley, Duke of York kept lived

253    Ravenspurgh Spurn Head on the Yorkshire coast

254    Berkeley Castle a castle in Gloucestershire, near Bristol

256    candy deal sickly sweet (flattering) quantity

258    Look when wait for the time when, as soon as infant…age i.e., I come into my inheritance

260    cozeners deceivers (puns on “cousin”)

263    stay await

264    sooth truth

267    the Douglas’ son i.e., Mordake mean For powers agent or means of raising an army

268    divers various

272    bosom i.e., confidence, trust

273    prelate church dignitary

276    bears hard takes badly

277    lord Scroop William Scroop, Earl of Wiltshire, executed by Bullingbrook in 1399; in fact the archbishop’s cousin

278    estimation guessing

281    stays waits face…occasion i.e., opportunity

283    smell it catch the scent, as in hunting

285    Before…slip you always release the dogs before the prey has been sighted

287    power army

290    aimed devised, directed

292    head army

293    even steadily, patiently

296    pay us home repay us in full/administer a fatal blow

302    suddenly soon

303    steal go secretly

304    at once all at the same time

305    happily fortunately

310    fields battlefields

Act 2 Scene 1

2.1    Location: an inn-yard on the road between London and Canterbury Carrier deliveryman

1    by the day in the morning Charles’ wain Charlemagne’s wagon, old name for the constellation of the Plough

2    packed loaded ostler groom at an inn

3    anon soon, in a moment

4    Tom presumably the Second Carrier, though possibly the Ostler beat Cut’s saddle beating a saddle would soften it; Cut is the horse’s name flocks tufts of wool (for padding) point pommel of saddle

5    jade worn-out old horse wrung…withers rubbed sore between the shoulders out…cess beyond measure

6    Peas and beans i.e., horses’ food dank…dog damp

7    bots intestinal worms house inn

9    joyed was happy

12    tench freshwater fish with spots said to resemble flea bites

14    first cock first cockcrow, midnight

15    jordan chamber-pot leak urinate

16    chimney fireplace chamber-lye urine loach small freshwater fish, thought to harbor fleas

17    Come away come along

18    gammon of bacon ham razes either “races” (roots) or “rasers” (a measure amounting to four bushels)

19    Charing Cross village between London and Westminster, site of a market

20    pannier one of a pair of baskets

21    An…thee if cracking your skull were not as good a thing as drinking

23    Hast have you faith honesty, trustworthiness

25    two o’clock either an error, since the First Carrier earlier said that he thought it was four o’clock, or a lie to mislead Gadshill (who may have aroused suspicion)

26    gelding castrated horse

27    I…that i.e., I’m not so stupid as to fall for such an old trick

29    Ay…tell? What time is it? Do you know? (repeating Gadshill’s earlier request); or proverbial phrase meaning “you must be joking” quoth a did you say

32    Time…candle i.e., sometime tonight warrant assure

33    neighbour Mugs i.e., the First Carrier; neighbour is a friendly form of address call wake along…charge want to travel in a group because they’re carrying valuable goods Chamberlain inn attendant in charge of the bedrooms

36    At …pick-purse I’m ready, as the pickpocket says

37    That’s…as i.e., you might as well have said

38    giving…labouring giving orders does from working

39    lay’st…how devise the plan, direct the thief

40    holds current that remains true what

41    franklin small landowner wild of Kent Kentish weald, wooded country between the North and South Downs of southern England three…gold i.e., £200, a mark was an accounting unit (rather than a coin) worth two-thirds of a pound

43    auditor treasury official abundance of charge a lot of baggage

44    eggs and butter i.e., breakfast presently immediately

45    Saint Nicholas’ clerks thieves, highwaymen; Saint Nicholas was supposedly their patron saint I’ll…neck i.e., you can hang me

50    starveling skinny, starving person Trojans fine fellows (slang) the which who

51    profession i.e., of robbery

52    make all whole put everything right, sort things out

53    foot-land rakers thieves who operate on foot (as opposed to on a horse) long-staff sixpenny strikers thieves who, merely to steal sixpence, strike their victims with a long stick mustachio purple-hued malt-worms purple-faced drunkards with large moustaches

54    tranquillity those living a peaceful life burgomasters town officials

55    oneyers exact meaning uncertain, perhaps “ones,” i.e., great personages hold in hold firm/keep silent

57    commonwealth nation

58    ride i.e., like a horse, but also with sexual connotations boots booty, plunder (the Chamberlain plays on the sense of “footwear”; there is also a quibble on the sense of “vagina”)

59    hold…way keep you dry on a muddy road/piss herself

61    liquored oiled (to make waterproof)/plied with alcohol as…castle i.e., in complete safety

62    cocksure completely secure receipt of fern-seed recipe for fern-seed (supposed to confer invisibility)

65    true honest

68    Homo Latin for “man” common name to general name for

69    muddy muddled, dull-witted (plays on the sense of “dirty”)

Act 2 Scene 2

2.2    Location: the highway near Gad’s Hill

1    frets…velvet fusses or, literally, frays like cheap velvet stiffened with gum

3    close concealed

5    fat-kidneyed i.e., fat-bellied (rascal may play on the sense of “young or inferior deer,” a creature Falstaff is frequently compared to) keep make, keep up

9    by the square exactly square a measuring instrument

10    break my wind lose my breath (plays on the sense of “fart”) Well…rogue I expect to die well despite everything, as long as I’m not hanged for killing Poins

13    medicines potions

15    ere before An if

16    turn true man reform, become honest/become an informer veriest varlet most complete rogue

20    Whew! Expression of alarm or perhaps Falstaff trying to whistle

25    exchequer treasury

26    colt cheat

27    uncolted without a horse

28    to i.e., to find, but the prince takes him to mean “to mount”

30    heir-apparent garters jokes on the fact that as heir apparent, the prince belonged to the knightly Order of the Garter peach turn informer, betray (my accomplices)

31    ballads…all songs made up about you filthy disgraceful, obscene

32    forward far advanced/presumptuous, immodest afoot when the robbery plot is underway/when I am on foot

35    setter one who plans robberies

37    Case ye mask yourselves

40    make us all make our fortunes

42    front confront

43    lower further down light on come upon

44    be are there

48    Gaunt plays on the literal sense of “thin” (though actually the name was a form of “Ghent”)

49    proof test

54    hard near

55    happy…dole may good fortune be every man’s lot

60    whoreson caterpillars bastard parasites whoreson son of a whore

61    bacon-fed fat, well-fed youth youngsters

62    undone ruined

63    gorbellied big-bellied chuffs clowns/misers

64    store savings, full possessions bacons pigs

65    grand-jurors wealthy men, eligible to sit on a jury jure judge, see to/make a juror of

67    argument a topic of conversation

70    my masters sirs

71    arrant absolute equity stirring judgement in the world

72    wild duck i.e., easily frightened

80    lards drips fat on

Act 2 Scene 3

2.3    Location: Hotspur’s estate (historically, Warkworth Castle in Northumberland) solus alone

2    house family (Hotspur goes on to play on the literal meaning, contrasting it with barn)

8    uncertain unreliable unsorted unsuitable

9    counterpoise counterbalance

10    hind peasant/menial/nervous female deer lack-brain idiot

11    protest declare, affirm

12    expectation promise

13    lord of York the Archbishop of York, Richard Scroop

15    brain…fan knock his brains out with a lady’s fan—light and suitable for one with little brain

17    the Douglas Archibald, Earl of Douglas; the signifies the head of a Scottish clan

19    in…of i.e., really motivated by

21    go to buffets come to blows (with myself) moving trying to persuade dish…milk i.e., weak, cowardly one

22    action course of action/military enterprise/rhetorical gesture/division in a logical argument prepared drawn up for military action

29    stomach appetite

33    treasures…rights treasured intimacy and wifely rights

34    thick-eyed dull-sighted, preoccupied/heavy-lidded (from lack of sleep)

35    faint light, restless watched remained awake

37    terms of manage words of control

39    sallies and retires advances and retreats

40    palisadoes defensive fortifications

41    basilisks large cannon (named after a mythical reptile) culverin another type of large cannon

43    current movement, onward flow heady violent, swiftly moving

48    motions movements, expressions/emotions

49    restrain hold/catch

51    heavy important, weighty

53    What, ho! summons to servant

54    Gilliams name of another servant packet packet of letters, dispatch

56    Butler another servant

57    even just

58    roan with a coat of mixed color crop-ear with the top of the ears cropped

61    back mount straight straight away Esperance! Hope! (the Percy family motto was “Esperance ma comforte,” French for “In hope is my strength/consolation”)

65    carries you away transports you with emotion

68    weasel a notoriously aggressive animal (Hotspur responds literally) spleen anger, impulsiveness

71    stir become roused, rebellious

72    title claim to the throne

73    line support

75    paraquito little parrot

77    little finger phallic connotations

80    trifler frivolous time waster

82    mammets dolls, perhaps with play on Latin mamma (“breasts”) tilt joust

83    crowns heads (plays on the sense of “coins” as well as having royal connotations)

84    pass them current pass them off as good currency God’s me God save me

94    whereabout speculate why

98    Constant faithful, trustworthy

100    closer more tight-lipped

108    force necessity

Act 2 Scene 4

2.4    Location: a tavern in Eastcheap, London

1    fat stuffy (possibly “vat”) lend…hand help me

4    loggerheads blockheads, idiots three or fourscore sixty or eighty (a score is twenty) hogsheads large wine casks

5    sounded…humility played the lowest note of baseness/humbleness sworn brother avowed intimate friend

6    leash set of three (usually animals tied together) drawers bartenders, waiters Francis name of the bartender Hal subsequently teases

8    proud pompous Jack fellow, knave/Jack Falstaff (diminutive version of John)

9    Corinthian fine fellow—Corinth in ancient Greece was notorious for riotous living mettle spirit, worth

10    dyeing scarlet probably because heavy drinking reddens the complexion; perhaps because urine, a product of drinking, was used to fix dye

11    breathe…watering pause for breath while drinking (possibly “fart while urinating”) ‘Hem!’ sound of disapproval/a clearing of the throat play it off finish it up

13    drink…language i.e., consort comfortably with a drinker of any social class/drink heavily (tinkers were reputedly heavy drinkers)

14    action encounter (usually military)

15    pennyworth of sugar small quantity of sugar used to sweeten wine

16    under-skinker low-ranking waiter (to “skink” is to pour out liquor)

18    Anon (I’m) coming, just a moment Score put on the bill bastard sweet Spanish wine Half-Moon one of the rooms in the tavern

19    drive pass by-room side room

20    puny inexperienced/young/weedy to what end why

21    leave stop

22    precedent example

24    perfect word-perfect

26    Pomgarnet Pomegranate, the name of another room in the tavern

29    to serve left of your apprenticeship (the usual length was seven years; Francis is probably fourteen or sixteen)

33    By’r lady by Our Lady (the Virgin Mary) long…pewter long apprenticeship to learn to be a barman (drinking vessels were made of pewter)

34    indenture contract by which an apprentice was bound

36    books i.e., Bibles

41    Michaelmas the feast of Saint Michael, September 29

43    stay wait

44    for as for, about

54    rob i.e., rob your master of service by running away leathern jerkin (the master who wears a) tight-fitting leather jacket crystal-button fashionable shiny buttons not-pated short-haired

55    agate-ring ring set with a carved agate stone puke-stocking dark-colored heavy woollen stockings caddis-garter garter made of woollen tape smooth tongue smooth talker, flatterer Spanish-pouch wallet of Spanish leather

57    brown bastard Spanish wine, sweeter than the white variety your only drink the best of drinks

58    doublet tight-fitting jacket sully get dirty Barbary region in northern Africa (from which sugar was imported) it i.e., sugar amazed dumbfounded Vintner innkeeper selling wine

71    merry as crickets proverbial presumably because they jump about “singing” cunning match clever game, contest of wits

72    issue outcome, point

73    I…midnight I now understand all the moods that have ever existed from the beginning of time until now (i.e., I’m in the mood for anything/I have seen everything) goodman title for those below the rank of gentleman (the biblical Adam was a gardener) pupil age youthful time (i.e., the present)

77    Anon puns on “one” (pronounced similarly)

78    yet nevertheless (be)

79    industry business, labor, diligence is is to run the…reckoning consists of the items on a bill

80    mind opinion, way of thinking

81    kills me kills (me is colloquial/emphatic)

83    drench drink/draught of medicine

85    brawn lump of flesh/fattened boar or pig

86    ‘Rivo!’ presumably a drinking cry; of uncertain origin ribs fatty meat on bones (i.e., Falstaff) tallow animal fat

88    of on

89    nether stocks stockings for the lower leg

90    foot darn the sole, repair the foot

91    virtue extant courage still alive

92    Titan Roman sun god (large and red-faced like Falstaff as he “kisses” the cup of sack); there may be sexual innuendo in butter (a whore was a “dish of butter”), melted (ejaculated), and tail (genitals) pitiful-hearted compassionate, tender

94    compound mixture (melted butter), i.e., either Falstaff and sack or Falstaff and sweat

95    lime calcium oxide, used to preserve wine

98    Go thy ways off you go

99    shotten herring a herring that has spawned its eggs (i.e., thin and weak)

101    while present age weaver many were Protestant immigrants, known for psalm-singing

103    wool-sack large bale of wool; judges traditionally sat on them

104    dagger of lath stage dagger made of soft wood, traditionally used by the comic Vice in morality plays

105    I’ll…more i.e., I’m not a real man hair a beard

107    round fat/plain speaking

112    backing supporting/turning one’s back, running away

113    face stand face to face/defy, contradict

114    drunk have had anything to drink

116    All’s…that sow hat, it doesn’t matter

119    ta’en taken

122    poor only

124    at half-sword at close quarters/fighting with short swords

126    hose breeches buckler small shield—sword and buckler were considered old-fashioned or lower-class weapons

127    like a hand-saw with the edge so notched from blows it appears serrated like the blade of a saw ecce signum “behold the sign or proof” (Latin; echoes words from the Catholic Mass) dealt fought all…do all this was not enough though

129    sons of darkness biblical phrase (1 Thessalonians 5:5)

136    Ebrew Jew a real (Hebrew) Jew, i.e., a knave

138    come…other the others came in

144    peppered made it hot for, stabbed repeatedly

145    paid settled with, killed buckram coarse linen cloth

146    ward defensive posture (fencing term) lay positioned myself bore my point pointed my sword

147    let drive at bore down on, attacked

151    a-front abreast mainly violently made…ado didn’t wait any longer

152    points sword points target shield

156    these hilts this sword handle

159    mark observe, take note of/keep count

163    points sword points, but Poins takes it to mean the laces attaching the hose to the doublet

165    give me ground back away (me is emphatic) foot and hand at close range

166    with a thought as quick as thought

168    misbegotten wretched, bastard Kendal green coarse, green woollen cloth from Kendal in Cumbria (associated with forest outlaws)

171    father i.e., Falstaff, here compared to the devil—the proverbial “father of lies” begets conceives, creates

172    clay-brained dull-witted knotty-pated thick-headed

173    tallow-catch accumulation of animal fat

179    upon compulsion under force strappado means of torture: the victim was raised by ropes that tied his arms behind his back, then dropped suddenly, which usually dislocated the joints racks instruments of torture: the victim was tied to a frame, which was then extended, stretching the arms and legs in opposite directions

181    reasons puns on “raisins” (i.e., grapes, less readily available than blackberries)

183    sanguine red-faced (with coward, this creates an oxymoron, as a sanguine temperament was equated with courage)

184    bed-presser heavyweight who will strain beds; perhaps also lazy, one who stays in bed horseback-breaker one so fat he breaks horses’ backs (pun on “horse”/”whore’s”)

185    elf-skin man of shrunken, fragile form (often emended to “eel-skin”) neat’s ox’s pizzle penis; a dried bull’s penis was sometimes used as a whip

186    stock-fish dried cod (suggestive of physical weakness and an impotent penis) tailor’s-yard measuring yardstick/penis (tailors were sometimes imaged as thin or effeminate men)

187    sheath cover for knife or sword, i.e., empty case/vagina bowcase long, thin case for an archer’s bow, hence starveling/vagina standing-tuck slender sword that is either rigid (i.e., useless because insufficiently resilient) or upright (not engaged in action) or idle, delaying; with phallic connotations

193    with a word in a word/with merely a single word out-faced confronted and intimidated

196    slave base-minded villain

197    starting-hole bolt hole, hiding place

198    apparent evident

200    knew recognized

202    Hercules Greek hero renowned for strength instinct impulse/innate tendency/intuition lion…prince lions were popularly thought to recognize and refuse to harm royalty

205    clap to shut

206    Watch remain awake (for revelry)/be on guard Gallants fine, fashionable young men hearts fine companions

208    extempore immediately, improvised without rehearsal

209    argument plot, theme

210    an if

215    royal plays on the sense of “coin of greater value than the ‘noble’ [another type of coin]”

219    gravity aged respectability

224    fie expression of reproach or disgust

227    swear…England swear (falsely) with such conviction that truth fled the country

230    spear-grass tough, coarse grass

231    beslubber daub, smear true valiant/honest

232    that something monstrous devices outrageous tricks

233    taken…manner caught red-handed with the evidence/got into the habit

234    extempore spontaneously (i.e., Bardolph has a permanently red face from drinking) fire i.e., a fiery face

236    meteors …exhalations i.e., red blotches on Bardolph’s face; meteors were considered bad omens and thought to result from the sun sucking up poisonous vapors from the earth

238    portend foretell

239    Hot…purses drunkenness and poverty

240    Choler anger (choler was one of the four bodily “humors” governing the disposition) rightly taken correctly understood (the prince shifts the sense to “justly arrested”)

241    halter a noose (Hal puns on choler/collar)

243    bombast padding/high-flown language

244    an…in the width of an eagle’s claw around

245    alderman’s thumb-ring seal ring often worn by wealthy citizens on the thumb

248    Percy i.e., Hotspur he of Wales i.e., Glendower

249    Amamon name of a demon bastinado beating with a stick Lucifer the devil cuckold man with an unfaithful wife swore…liegeman made the devil swear to be his true servant

250    Welsh hook hooked staff used as a weapon and lacking the cross shape of a sword (on which oaths were customarily sworn) what a plague intensified form of “what”

256    hit it got it right (the prince plays on the literal sense)

258    mettle spirit (plays on the sense of “metal,” i.e., not fluid and liable to run) run flee (plays on sense of “melt”)

259    running i.e., speeding o’ horseback

260    cuckoo i.e., mindless repeater of words

263    blue-caps Scottish soldiers, who wore blue hats

264    you…mackerel i.e., for very little indeed—mackerel was a cheap fish even when fresh; perhaps land was being sold off to raise money for war or because of general economic anxiety about conflict (mackerel plays on the sense of “pimp/whore”)

266    like likely hot plays on angry/lecherous buffeting hold strife continues

267    maidenheads virginities as…hundreds i.e., as cheaply as nails for boots, suggesting that in troubled times women will be raped or forced to sell themselves

268    trading commerce/prostitution/sex

271    spirit devil (though the word also has connotations of “courage”)

272    thrill tremble/go cold

274    chid scolded

276    stand for stand in for, play the part of particulars details

278    Content I’m content, very well state throne

280    joint-stool low stool made by a joiner (“I took you for a joint stool” was a way of mockingly apologizing for ignoring someone)

281    crown head

282    fire of grace effects of divine grace

283    moved affected emotionally, stirred

284    King Cambyses’ vein ranting style; Cambyses was the tyrant in Thomas Preston’s Life of Cambyses, King of Persia (1569)

286    Stand aside, nobility presumably those in the tavern are being asked to clear a space

288    Weep…vain Falstaff addresses Mistress Quickly, who is presumably weeping from merriment (puns on “quean,” i.e., harlot, whore)

289    O, the father i.e., in God’s name; or refers to Falstaff acting the part of the prince’s father holds his countenance keeps a straight face, remains in character

290    convey take away/escort (to a seat) tristful sorrowful

291    stop fill up

292    rare marvelous harlotry players knavish actors

293    pint-pot Falstaff addresses Mistress Quickly with a nickname for one who sells beer tickle-brain potent liquor (here, one who sells it)

295    camomile daisy-like plant with medicinal qualities; it grows rapidly, proverbially more so when trodden on

297    trick habit, feature foolish…lip way of hanging your lower lip, regarded as a sign of loose living foolish affected/idiotic/lecherous

298    warrant assure

299    pointed at i.e., gossiped about/mocked sun puns on “son”

300    micher truant/loiterer/petty thief

303    pitch black tar-like substance defile stain, corrupt; Falstaff paraphrases Ecclesiastes 13:1: “Whoso toucheth pitch shall be defiled”

305    passion sincere emotion, distress

308    an it like if it please

309    portly dignified/fat corpulent solid, well-built/fat

310    noble carriage dignified bearing

311    three score sixty

312    lewdly given wickedly, lasciviously inclined

313    peremptorily determinedly

315    naughty wicked

319    rabbit-sucker unweaned baby rabbit poulter’s hare hare hanging up in a poulterer’s shop (which sold fowl and game)

320    set seated (on the mock throne)

321    Judge, my masters the tavern audience must decide who is the more kingly

325    tickle ye amuse you in the role of

326    ungracious without grace, blasphemous

328    tun large barrel especially for wine or beer/ton weight converse associate

329    trunk container/body humours diseases/fluids that determine the disposition: blood, bile, choler, phlegm bolting-hutch large bin used for sifting grain

330    dropsies diseases, which made the body swell with an accumulation of fluid bombard a leather wine jug cloak-bag large bag for carrying clothes

331    Manningtree Essex town with a well-known fair and cattle market pudding stuffing/sausage reverend worthy of respect Vice comic character in medieval morality plays who tempted the youthful hero grey gray-haired

332    Iniquity sinfulness/allegorical name for morality play character father i.e., elderly Vanity vain, proud, foolish, worthless character In years i.e., advanced in years, aged Wherein…good what is he good for

333    neat and cleanly refined and skillful

334    cunning knowledgeable, skillful craft deceit crafty skillful

336    take…you enable me to follow you, help me to understand

339    the…know i.e., I recognize the man but not the description

343    saving your reverence begging your pardon/if you will excuse my language whoremaster user of whores, i.e., a wicked man

345    host innkeeper, pub landlord

346    Pharoah’s lean kine biblical reference to Pharoah’s dream in which the seven lean kine (cattle) devour the seven fat kine, foretelling famine to come (Genesis 41:1–31)

352    monstrous unnaturally large watch group of citizens responsible for keeping order in the streets at night

357    The…fiddlestick i.e., here’s a fine commotion (proverbial)

360    Never…counterfeit a much debated line; Falstaff seems to be referring to himself as genuine gold (i.e., loyal, worthy), despite the prince’s earlier accusations of cowardice and hypocrisy thou…so another obscure line; probably either “you are basically true (essentially made) to your friends, even if some of your recent declarations seem to contradict this” or “you are fundamentally a deceptive play-actor (made), despite seeming to be loyal”; some editors adopt a later reading, and substitute “mad” for “made”

363    deny your major reject your main premise deny refuse entrance to so so be it

364    become suit, befit cart wagon used to transport the condemned man to the gallows bringing up upbringing, breeding (which entitled him, as a knight, to death by beheading)/being brought before the authorities/being hanged

365    soon willingly/quickly

366    arras large tapestry wall hanging (hung so that there was space behind it to hide) walk up above go upstairs

367    true honest

368    date is out lease has expired, i.e., it’s too late for that

371    hue and cry the noise and shouting of citizens in pursuit of a felon

379    engage pledge

380    dinnertime i.e., midday

381    answer thee respond to your charges, account for himself to you

382    withal with

387    answerable held responsible

389    morrow morning

391    oily greasy/cunning, slippery Paul’s St. Paul’s Cathedral, the tallest landmark in London at this time

397    2s 2d two shillings and two pence

398    ob. abbreviation of “obolus,” i.e., halfpenny

399    But merely intolerable deal excessive quantity

400    close hidden, safe advantage a better opportunity

402    charge of foot command of an infantry company

403    twelvescore i.e., 240 yards money i.e., that was stolen

404    advantage interest betimes early

Act 3 Scene 1

3.1    Location: unspecified; probably in Glendower’s house

1    promises i.e., of support sure secure, reliable

2    induction beginning prosperous hope hope of prospering

9    Lancaster i.e., King Henry; Glendower deliberately refers to him by his former title (Duke of Lancaster)

14    front forehead, face

15    cressets torches (literally fires burning in iron baskets), hence meteors (signs of ill omen)

22    as fearing you because it feared you

27    eruptions outbreaks of disease/natural or meteorological disturbances teeming fertile, breeding

28    colic severe stomach pains

30    womb bowels/stomach enlargement release

31    beldam old woman, grandmother

32    moss-grown overgrown with moss, old

33    grandam grandmother distemperature bodily disturbance

34    passion suffering, bodily affliction

36    crossings contradictions

40    clamorous noisy frighted fields fields full of fear

41    marked me marked me out as

42    courses events

43    roll list

44    the living any person living clipped in with surrounded by

45    chides beats, contends with

46    read to i.e., instructed, educated

48    trace follow tedious time-consuming, lengthy, complex art scholarship/magic, occult arts

49    hold me pace keep up with me deep experiments profound, learned investigations

50    Welsh i.e., nonsense, gibberish

53    call summon, invoke (Hotspur shifts the sense to “call out to”) vasty deep immense abyss

58    tell…devil proverbial

63    made head advanced

64    power army Wye river on the Welsh-English border

66    Bootless unsuccessful, without gain (Hotspur plays on the literal sense)

68    agues violent fevers characterized by shaking

69    right just claim (to land)

70    threefold order ta’en three-way agreement

71    archdeacon not identified; chronicle sources suggest Archdeacon of Bangor

72    limits regions

73    Trent…hitherto the rivers Trent and Severn up to this point (presumably Mortimer indicates the map)

79    indentures tripartite contracts drawn up in triplicate drawn drawn up

80    sealèd interchangeably each party has a copy signed and sealed by all

81    this…execute can be done tonight

85    appointed agreed by Shrewsbury town on the Welsh-English border

86    father father-in-law

88    space period of time

91    in my conduct escorted by me

92    steal slip away

93    a…water i.e., many tears

95    moiety share, portion Burton Derbyshire town of Burton-upon-Trent

97    comes…in twists sharply into my section; Hotspur objects that the river turns north from Burton and deprives him of the fertile lands of Lincolnshire and part of Nottinghamshire

99    cantle out corner or portion cut off

101    smug smooth

103    deep indent sharp angled section, indentation

104    bottom river valley

107    he it (the river Trent) runs me runs

108    like advantage the same effect

109    Gelding depriving, cutting (land) off from opposèd continent land on the opposite side

111    charge cost/gunpowder used in blasting trench create a trench or channel

112    cape spur, projecting piece

120    Let…Welsh i.e., say it in Welsh (which I don’t understand) so that I won’t understand (and take offence)

123    being but young since I was young at the time framed to composed for

124    ditty poem, ballad lovely beautifully

125    gave…ornament adorned the English language with music and poetry/decorated the words with the music/improved the sound of the language with my Welsh accent

126    virtue accomplishment, skill

130    metre ballad-mongers sellers of predictably rhymed popular ballads

131    brazen brass turned i.e., on a lathe (which made an unpleasant grating noise)

132    dry unoiled axle-tree axle

134    Nothing…as nothing like as much as mincing affectedly dainty

135    nag feeble old horse

139    in…bargain when it comes to bargaining

140    cavil on dispute insistently over

141    drawn drawn up

143    haste the writer hurry the writer of the indentures withal at the same time

144    Break with speak to, inform

146    doteth on loves very dearly, is infatuated with

147    cross antagonize

148    choose help it

149    mouldwarp mole; according to Holinshed’s Chronicles the division of the map was arranged in accordance with a prophecy that imaged Henry IV as a mole and the others as dragon, lion, and wolf

150    dreamer visionary Merlin wizard and prophet at the legendary court of King Arthur

152    clip-winged with its wings clipped, i.e., prevented from flying griffin mythical beast, half lion, half eagle moulten having molted, lost its feathers

153    couching lying down (form of “couchant,” a heraldic term) ramping rearing, standing on its hind legs (form of “rampant,” a heraldic term)

154    skimble-skamble incoherent, nonsensical

155    puts…faith makes me forget or disbelieve my religion

157    reck’ning up listing, recounting several various

158    lackeys servants, followers ‘Hum’ noncommittal sound expressing agreement ‘Well, go to’ i.e., you don’t say, well I never

159    marked him took no notice of

160    railing complaining, scolding

162    cheese…windmill i.e., poor food in uncomfortable, noisy accommodation

163    cates delicacies

164    summer-house rich man’s country house

165    In faith truly

166    profited…concealments proficient in secret arts

169    India i.e., the West Indies

170    temper temperament, character

171    scope freedom of expression

172    do…humour antagonize him

174    tempted provoked

175    taste…reproof experiencing harm and rebuke

176    use it oft do it often

177    wilful-blame blameworthy for being obstinately self-willed

179    beside out of

180    must needs must

181    show is evidence of blood spirit

182    dearest grace most valuable advantage renders offers

183    present represent, demonstrate

184    want of government lack of self-control

185    opinion arrogance, conceit

186    haunting being associated with

187    Loseth causes him to lose

188    parts besides other qualities

189    Beguiling depriving

190    schooled instructed/admonished be your speed bring you good fortune

192    spite vexation, regret

196    aunt Percy more confusion between the two Edmund Mortimers: Lady Percy (Hotspur’s wife) was in fact the sister of the Mortimer married to Glendower’s daughter and aunt of the younger man

197    in your conduct under your escort

198    desperate here recklessly determined on this point (her decision not to leave Mortimer) peevish self-willed harlotry obstinate headstrong hussy

200    pretty Welsh i.e., her eloquent tears

201    swelling heavens i.e., her eyes filled with tears

202    too perfect only too accomplished, fluent

203    parley language, conversation (perhaps, picking up on soldier, with a sense of “military negotiation”)

205    feeling disputation moving, heartfelt discussion/conversation conducted through touch

206    truant negligent student

208    highly penned elaborately composed

210    division ornamentation, variation (specifically, passage in which a series of short notes elaborates on a longer passage)

211    melt give way to your feelings, weep

212    this i.e., Welsh

213    wanton rushes luxuriant floor covering of reeds

216    crown give power to

217    heaviness drowsiness

220    heavenly-harnessed team horses that drew the sun god’s chariot

221    progress course/royal journey

223    book indentures, legal contracts drawn drawn up

226    Hang…air i.e., they’re spirits thousand leagues three thousand miles

227    straight straight away

228    perfect in expert at, practiced at lying down with sexual connotations (continued in lap)

231    devil understands Welsh i.e., because the supposed spirits have answered Glendower’s call and music is playing

232    humorous capricious, whimsical

234    humours moods, whims (thought to be generated by bodily fluids or “humors”)

235    brach bitch, female dog (called Lady) Irish designed as insult here; may possibly suggest his bitch’s breed

236    broken beaten, grazed

238    still quiet, calm

239    Neither i.e., I won’t do that either woman’s fault i.e., being silent (or sexually passive) is a woman’s trait; may play on “broken head” as “broken maidenhead” (lost virginity), perhaps with fault quibbling on its sense of “vagina/sinful sexual yielding”

245    sooth truth

247    comfit-maker’s confectioner’s; Hotspur makes fun of a genteel oath and offers several more

250    sarcenet surety flimsy assurance sarcenet fine silken cloth

251    Finsbury Finsbury Fields, popular place of recreation just outside the city of London

252    Swear me swear/swear for me

254    protest of pepper-gingerbread i.e., mild oaths pepper-gingerbread in which pepper was partly substituted for ginger, making the gingerbread less spicy and pungent

255    velvet-guards velvet trimmings on clothes, or those who wore them Sunday-citizens those keeping their best clothes for Sunday

258    tailor tailors were supposed to be enthusiastic singers be red-breast teacher teach singing to robins (small red-breasted birds)

262    this this time but seal just put our seals on the documents

Act 3 Scene 2

3.2    Location: the royal court

1    give us leave please leave us alone

6    doom judgment blood family, offspring

7    scourge punishment of divine origin/punishing whip

8    passages course through, way of

9    only marked For solely designated tobe

10    rod i.e., of punishment

11    mistreadings wrongful steps, sins else how else

12    inordinate immoderate, disorderly

13    bare wretched, paltry/undisguised lewd vulgar, low attempts undertakings

14    rude society vulgar, uncivilized companionship

15    withal with grafted united

17    hold their level think themselves equal to

19    Quit acquit myself of clear honest

20    doubtless sure

23    reproof refutation, disproof

24    greatness the great, the high-ranking

25    pick-thanks flatterers and informers news-mongers tellers of tales, gossips

26    things true genuine misdemeanors

27    faulty…irregular gone astray off the proper path

28    true submission honest admission

29    wonder express surprise

30    affections tastes, inclinations hold a wing fly

32    rudely violently, in an uncivilized manner (according to an apocryphal tale, the prince was expelled from the King’s Privy Council for hitting the Lord Chief Justice)

33    supplied filled

34    alien stranger

36    time youth, life

38    forethink expect/prophesy

40    common-hackneyed cheapened by habitual exposure (from “hackney,” a horse for hire)

42    Opinion public opinion

43    Had…possession would have remained loyal to the holder of the crown (Richard II, deposed by Henry)

44    reputeless inglorious, shameful/anonymous, unacknowledged

45    mark significance likelihood prospect of success

50    stole…heaven adopted a manner of heavenly graciousness

56    pontifical belonging to a bishop

57    state magnificence, kingship

58    Seldom infrequently seen feast special occasion, celebration

59    solemnity ceremonious dignity

60    skipping frivolous up and down i.e., aimlessly

61    rash bavin quickly burnt up bavin brushwood or kindling soon ignited and burnt

62    carded his state destroyed his dignity, kingly status (to “card” is either to mix or to comb impurities from wool)

63    Carping chattering (Quarto has “capring,” so most editors print “capering”)

64    scorns foolishness, mockeries/contemptuous way of speaking

65    against his name to the detriment of his royal reputation

66    gibing mocking, taunting stand the push expose himself to the proximity/mockery of

67    beardless vain comparative immature, worthless maker of mocking comparisons

69    Enfeoffed committed, bound (literally, to vow loyalty to a lord in return for land)

71    surfeited grew overindulged and sick

72    loathe…sweetness i.e., they got sick of the sight of him

75    cuckoo…June i.e., commonplace by midsummer, not noticed any longer

77    community familiarity

78    extraordinary gaze special notice

82    face i.e., presence rendered such aspect with such an expression

83    cloudy sullen, gloomy use to habitually

85    line category

87    vile participation associating with commoners and base, vulgar people

88    common widespread, public/cheap, vulgar

91    tenderness i.e., tears of affection

93    Be more myself act in a manner more befitting my position

94    For…world i.e., in every way

99    He…state He (Percy) has a more honorable claim to the crown

100    shadow of succession mere shadow of a proper heir

101    of having colour like to semblance, pretext of

102    harness armor, i.e., armed men

103    Turns head directs his attention/leads his army lion’s i.e., the king’s (the lion is a traditional symbol of royalty)

104    in…years older (historically Hotspur was actually twenty-three years older than the prince)

105    ancient long-established

106    bruising damaging, crushing

108    whose i.e., Hotspur’s high illustrious, noble

109    hot incursions fierce attacks

110    chief…capital military fame and pre-eminence

113    Mars Roman god of war swaddling clothes wrappings for babies (refers to Hotspur’s youth)

114    enterprises military undertakings

115    Discomfited defeated ta’en him once captured him on one occasion

116    Enlargèd released

117    fill…up complete the number of opponents/add to the roar of opposition

121    Capitulate have formed a league, draw up agreements up i.e., in arms

124    dearest most precious, loved/worst, most bitter

125    like likely vassal base, servile

126    Base inclination taste for the inferior/acceding to base motives start of spleen rush of anger

128    curtsy bow, show respect

133    redeem…head atone for my sins with Percy’s head/make Percy pay for all this

134    in…day at the end of some victorious battle

137    favours facial features/chivalric tokens worn to symbolize pledges or great feats bloody mask face made unrecognizable because covered in blood/mass, covering of blood

138    scour cleanse, get rid of

139    lights arrives/dawns

142    unthought-of ignored, associated with no great expectations

143    helm helmet

148    factor agent, commercial broker

149    engross up accumulate, buy up

152    worship…time honor gained in his lifetime

153    reckoning account, bill

156    salve apply healing ointment to

157    intemperature intemperance, lack of restraint/diseased body, disordered health

160    parcel part

162    charge command (of troops) sovereign supreme, royal (perhaps continuing the disease imagery with play on the sense of “healing”)

163    speed urgency

168    head military force

169    If…hand if all who have promised to join them do so

173    advertisement announcement, news

176    Bridgnorth small Shropshire town on the River Severn, south of Shrewsbury

178    our business valuèd according to this reckoning

181    Advantage…fat opportunity (for rebellion) increases

Act 3 Scene 3

3.3    Location: the tavern in Eastcheap

1    fallen away vilely horribly shrunken action engagement, battle (i.e., the robbery on Gad’s Hill) bate decrease

3    apple-john type of apple said to be in best eating condition when shriveled suddenly immediately

4    in some liking in the mood/in good physical condition out of heart disheartened/out of condition

5    strength i.e., physical or spiritual

6    peppercorn i.e., small and shriveled brewer’s horse i.e., old and worn out

8    fretful restless, anxious/frayed, worn

9    there is it i.e., exactly, that’s the situation

10    given inclined

11    bawdy-house brothel

13    compass measure, moderation/circumference (referring to his wide girth), belt

16    admiral flagship with a lantern to guide the rest of the fleet

17    poop stern or rear of a ship nose i.e., because it is red from drinking Knight…Lamp mock-chivalric title parodying heroic names in tales of romance

21    death’s-head skull (i.e., emblem of mortality, often carved into a stone set in a ring) memento mori object used to symbolize death (Latin: “reminder of death”)

22    Dives…purple refers to Christ’s parable of Dives, the rich man clothed in purple who goes to hell for allowing the pauper, Lazarus, to starve (Luke 16:19–31)

24    given over lost to virtue, committed to sin

26    ignis fatuus will-o’-the-wisp, marsh gas that gives off phosphorescent light and misleads night wanderers ball of wildfire will-o’-the-wisp/ball of lightning/skin disease characterized by vivid eruptions

27    purchase value

28    bonfire-light Folio spells “Bone-fire-Light,” suggesting both etymology and original pronunciation links torches

30    drunk me drunk (me is emphatic) good cheap cheap

31    chandler’s candle maker’s salamander lizard-like creature supposed to live in fire

33    I…belly! proverbial retort (compares to modern “Get stuffed!”)

34    be heart-burned have indigestion/my heart would be literally on fire

35    Dame Partlet traditional name for a hen

38    tithe tenth part

40    was shaved had his beard cut/went bald through syphilis/had his head shaved to get rid of lice/was robbed; hair may play on “whore”

41    woman i.e., inadequate/deceitful/promiscuous

43    know am acquainted with/have sexual knowledge of

45    beguile cheat

46    to your back for you to wear

47    Dowlas coarse linen (from Doulas in Brittany)

48    bolters cloths used for sifting flour

49    holland fine linen (originally from Holland) ell a measure of length (forty-five inches)

50    diet and by-drinkings meals and drinks in between meals

55    denier small coin worth one tenth of a penny

56    younker fashionable and gullible young man, easily duped take mine ease relax

57    seal-ring engraved ring used for sealing documents with wax, frequently an heirloom forty mark a substantial sum of money; a mark was worth two thirds of a pound

60    jack knave, rascal sneak-cup sneaky person, knave/one who sneaks drinks from others’ cups truncheon cudgel (symbol of his new military office)

62    Is…door? i.e., is that the situation door direction

63    two…fashion prisoners were shackled together and led in pairs to Newgate, the City prison

71    pick pockets plays on the sense of “plunder vaginas”

73    bonds deeds promising the bearer payment

81    stewed prune commonly available in brothels, hence “whore/pimp”

82    drawn fox hunted fox (drawn from cover and dependent on its cunning for safety) Maid Marian a disreputable character in morris dances and May games, played by a boy in female clothing deputy’s…ward wife of the deputy of the ward (an administrative district), i.e., a respectable woman

83    to compared to nothing thing of no significance/vagina (“no thing”)

85    thing whore/vagina on for

87    thy knighthood the respect usually due to one who is a knight

91    otter an aquatic mammal whose exact nature and type was a subject of debate

93    have place, categorize/have sex with

108    whelp cub, offspring

111    let…break the breaking of one’s belt (girdle) proverbially signified bad luck

115    embossed swollen/foaming at the mouth with exhaustion like a hunted animal rascal rogue/young, inferior deer

116    memorandums bills, invoices

117    sugar-candy…long-winded sugar was used to improve stamina

118    injuries items whose loss you claim has caused you injury stand to it insist, maintain your grievance

119    pocket up accept (plays on literal sense of “pocket”)

122    flesh…frailty Falstaff plays with the biblical saying “the flesh is frail” (Matthew 26:41 and elsewhere)

127    still always

128    answered accounted for

129    sweet beef plump, fresh, unsalted beef good angel guardian angel

131    double labour i.e., first taking it, then returning it

133    exchequer royal treasury with unwashed hands straight away/without scruple

136    charge of foot command of an infantry company

138    unprovided ill-equipped (for villainous exploits)

139    they…virtuous i.e., by causing war, which provides opportunities for theft and profiteering laud celebrate, praise

147    Temple hall the Inner Temple at one of the London Inns of Court (where young men studied law)

149    charge company, regiment

150    furniture equipment

153    Rare marvelous Brave splendid

154    tavern…drum Falstaff wishes he might remain at the inn; a drum summoned soldiers to battle (possible pun on tavern/“taborin,” a type of drum)

Act 4 Scene 1

4.1    Location: the rebel camp near Shrewsbury

2    fine over-refined

3    attribution honor, praise

4    As not a that no other season’s stamp year’s design or mint (coinage term)

5    general current generally accepted (continues coining imagery)

6    defy reject, challenge

7    soothers flatterers braver more honorable

9    task hold approve me prove, test

11    breathes…ground lives

12    beard i.e., challenge, defy (literally, pull insultingly by the beard)

14    but only

19    jostling clashing, contentious power army

20    government leadership

21    bears contain/reveal I his mind this Folio reading makes sense, though it is cheeky for the messenger to answer back in this way; most modern editors emend to “not I, my lord”

22    keep keep to

25    He…by his health was much feared for

26    would wish state of time present situation whole sound, healthy

28    better worth more important

31    catching hither contagious even here

32    inward sickness possibly an incomplete line, or one that expresses Hotspur’s hasty manner of speaking

33    by deputation through those acting on his behalf

34    drawn drawn together, assembled meet fitting, appropriate

35    dear important

37    bold advertisement resolute advice/advice to be resolute

38    conjunction combined forces on proceed

41    possessed informed

43    maim serious injury

45    present want absence now

46    more…it worse than it will actually prove to be

47    set hazard, stake

48    cast throw of the dice main army/gambling stake

49    nice hazard delicate risk/precarious game of dice doubtful uncertain

50    read discern

51    very bottom full extent

52    list limit bound extent, boundary

55    reversion back-up, something to be relied on (literally, future inheritance)

58    retirement something to fall back on/peace, seclusion

59    rendezvous retreat, refuge

60    big threateningly, menacingly

61    maidenhead beginning, first trial (literally, virginity)

63    hair nature

64    Brooks tolerates

66    loyalty i.e., to the king mere absolute

68    apprehension thought, perception

69    fearful faction (rebel) alliances that generate fear/frightened groups (of rebel sympathizers)

70    question doubt, mistrust

71    off’ring challenging, aggressing

72    strict arbitrement close scrutiny, rigorous judgment

73    loop loophole, aperture

75    draws opens

78    strain too far exaggerate

79    make this use find this advantage

80    opinion renown, prestige

81    dare boldness

83    make a head raise an army

86    Yet still joints limbs

87    As…think i.e., as can possibly be wished

93    No harm i.e., that doesn’t matter

96    intended is about to leave

97    preparation equipped military force

100    daffed tossed carelessly

102    furnished equipped

103    estridges ostriches (presumably the men’s helmets are adorned with feathers)

104    Bated fluttered

105    golden coats sleeveless outer garments richly adorned with heraldic arms, worn over armor images gilded statues/emblems

107    gorgeous brightly colored, magnificent

108    Wanton wild, frolicsome, carefree

109    beaver helmet (technically, the visor)

110    cuisses thigh armor

111    feathered Mercury Roman messenger of the gods, usually depicted with wings on cap and sandals

112    seat i.e., saddle

114    wind wheel about, turn Pegasus winged horse in Greek mythology

115    witch bewitch

117    agues violent fevers thought to be bred or worsened by the early spring sun

118    trim finery, adornment (like animals garlanded for sacrifice)

119    maid…war Bellona, the Roman goddess of war

121    mailèd Mars Roman god of war, clad in armor

123    reprisal prize

131    Worcester English town on the River Severn

132    draw…days gather his forces for a fortnight

135    What…unto? What is the total number of the king’s troops?

139    powers of us forces we have serve suffice for

140    muster roll call

141    Doomsday Judgment Day

142    out of free from

143    this one-half year six months; Douglas does not expect to die within this period

Act 4 Scene 2

4.2    Location: the road (they are traveling, probably along the Roman road Watling Street from London to Shrewsbury via Coventry, a Midlands town near Stratford-upon-Avon)

1    get thee before you go on ahead

2    Sutton Coldfield Warwickshire town twenty miles northwest of Coventry

4    Lay out pay for it yourself

5    makes brings the amount you owe me to (Falstaff responds to the sense of “creates”) angel a gold coin variously worth between 6s 8d and 10s

7    answer the coinage be responsible for the validity of the coins

9    soused gurnet type of pickled fish/drunkard

10    press power of conscription I…pounds Falstaff has allowed those who can afford it to buy their way out of being soldiers of for

11    good substantial, wealthy yeomen’s sons the sons of freeholders of small landed estates

12    inquire me out ask for, seek contracted engaged (to be married)

13    banns public notice of the intention to marry, announced in church on three successive Sundays; the bachelors here are to be married soon commodity portion, quantity warm comfortably off/sexually eager lieve soon drum i.e., customarily sounded to enlist recruits or call men to battle

14    caliver musket, lightweight firearm

15    toasts-and-butter milksops, pampered fellows hearts…heads i.e., those with little appetite for fighting

16    bought…services bribed Falstaff to be exempted from military service

17    charge command, unit ancients ensigns, i.e., soldiers who carried military banners (plays on the sense of “elderly people”) gentlemen of companies gentlemen soldiers without formal rank

18    Lazarus…sores refers to the biblical story of the beggar Lazarus and the contemptuous rich man (Luke 16:19–21) painted cloth cheap wall hanging depicting the biblical tale

19    discarded unjust serving-men dismissed dishonest servants

20    younger…brothers i.e., those with no hope of a substantial inheritance revolted tapsters apprentice barmen who have run away from their masters ostlers trade-fallen out-of-work stablemen

21    cankers ulcers/parasites

22    ancient military banner

23    rooms places

24    prodigals in the biblical parable, the prodigal (extravagant) son wasted his inheritance and was reduced to feeding with the pigs

25    draff and husks pigswill and corn husks

26    gibbets gallows

28    gyves leg irons, shackles

31    herald’s…sleeves the tabard was a sleeveless outer garment open down the sides

32    Saint Albans town along Watling Street about twenty-five miles north of London Daventry Northamptonshire town southeast of Coventry

33    find…hedge i.e., they’ll steal clothes left to dry on hedgerows

34    blown swollen/short of breath quilt padded covering/fat man (plays on Falstaff’s name, Jack, which could also mean a padded tunic worn instead of armor

36    cry you mercy beg your pardon

39    looks for expects

41    fear doubt

43    butter i.e., fat

46    toss throw away/impale on a pike food for powder cannon-fodder

47    pit mass grave as well as better just as well as better men would Tush exclamation of contempt

48    bare poorly clothed/inadequately equipped (Falstaff shifts the sense to “bare-boned, thin”)

52    three…ribs three fingers’ depth of fat covering his ribs; a “finger” measured three quarters of an inch

53    field battlefield

55    stay delay

57    To…guest i.e., the end of a fight and the beginning of a feast is the best time to arrive for one keener on eating than fighting (proverbial)

Act 4 Scene 3

4.3    Location: the rebel camp near Shrewsbury

1    him i.e., the king

3    then in that case, if you wait

5    Looks…supply? Is he not expecting reinforcements?

13    maintain justify, support, prove

14    well-respected well-considered bid me on urges me forward

15    counsel conference

23    leading leadership

25    drag hold expedition speedy action horse horses, cavalry

28    pride and mettle spirit and liveliness

30    That…himself so that none of the horses is even a quarter of its normal strength

32    journey-bated exhausted by travelling

35    parley trumpet summons to negotiation between enemy forces

37    vouchsafe permit respect consideration

39    determination mind, conviction

40    even those some those very people

42    quality party

44    defend forbid

45    out of limit past the bounds of natural order and allegiance

46    anointed i.e., rightful, legitimate (having been marked with holy oil as part of the coronation ceremony)

47    charge duty, task

48    griefs grievances, complaints whereupon on what grounds

49    conjure call forth (with connotations of magical invocation and bewitchment)

51    If that if

52    deserts deservings, merits

55    with interest and more in addition

57    suggestion prompting, incitement

62    was…strong had fewer than twenty-six followers

63    Sick…regard suffering poor public reputation

64    unminded disregarded outlaw Richard II had banished Henry Bullingbrook; he returned following his father’s death and Richard’s seizure of his land and titles

68    sue his livery legally claim his right to inherit his father’s lands and title beg his peace seek reconciliation with King Richard

69    terms of zeal i.e., eager assurances of loyalty

74    more…knee those of higher and lower social status offered him allegiance—with cap in hand and knees bent in a bow/kneeling

76    Attended awaited/accompanied lanes paths/rows

78    heirs…followed punctuated thus in Folio, but most editors emend to “heirs as pages, followed,” thus altering the sense

79    golden splendidly or brightly dressed/celebratory, joyous/rich, abundant

80    presently soon greatness knows itself those in power come to understand their situation

81    Steps…higher becomes more ambitious

82    his…poor he was still humble/before he was king

84    forsooth in truth, perhaps used ironically here

85    strait harsh, strict

87    Cries…abuses condemns corruption, draws attention to wrongs

91    cut…favourites Richard’s favorite courtiers were beheaded cut me cut (me is emphatic)

93    In deputation as his deputies

94    was personal in went in person to

99    in…of on the strength of/immediately after tasked taxed

100    March the Earl of March, Edmund Mortimer

101    if…placed if every claimant were entitled to occupy their rightful position

102    engaged held hostage

103    forfeited abandoned

104    Disgraced…victories i.e., by demanding my prisoners, the King turned my triumphs into disgrace

105    intelligence spying

106    Rated chided angrily, dismissed

110    head of safety defensive army withal furthermore pry…title examine his claim (to the throne)

112    indirect insufficiently direct in the line of succession/devious, irregular for long continuance to last long

115    impawned pledged, held in pawn

116    surety guarantee

119    accept…love i.e., be reconciled

Act 4 Scene 4

4.4    Location: unspecified; presumably in the Archbishop of York’s palace Sir Michael presumably a priest or a knight; “sir” can be a courtesy title for clergymen

1    Hie go quickly brief letter, dispatch

4    directed addressed

5    much…import much information they contain/important they are

7    tenor substance, drift

8    Like likely

11    bide the touch be put to the test (as gold is tested with a touchstone)

14    Lord Harry i.e., Hotspur

16    power…proportion army was of the greatest size/importance

18    rated firmly considered to be strong, a powerful source of support

19    comes not in does not participate o’er-ruled by prophecies i.e., he is staying away due to unfavorable predictions of events

21    instant trial immediate test of strength

26    head force, army

29    special head exceptional military leadership

32    corrivals partners dear honorable/valuable

33    estimation worth, reputation

37    thrive flourish, succeed

39    confederacy league, conspiracy (with the rebels)

40    make strong strengthen our defenses

Act 5 Scene 1

5.1    Location: the king’s camp near Shrewsbury

2    busky bush-covered

3    distemperature unhealthy, unnatural appearance

5    the trumpet part of trumpeter or herald

9    foul gloomy, bad (weather)

13    doff take off easy comfortable

14    ungentle steel hard, uncomfortable steel armor

16    unknit undo

17    churlish rude, ungracious, base

18    orb orbit, sphere

20    exhaled meteor meteors were believed to be formed of vapors drawn from the earth (“exhaled”) by the sun; they were considered bad omens

21    prodigy omen/unnatural thing

22    broachèd already begun mischief evil, calamity unborn times future

25    entertain occupy lag-end latter part

27    dislike animosity, discord

30    chewet chough, jackdaw, i.e., chatterer/minced meat or fish pie

33    remember remind

35    staff of office Worcester had been steward of the king’s household

36    posted rode speedily

39    Nothing nowhere near

41    brought escorted, accompanied outdare defy

43    Doncaster town in the northeast of England

44    did…state had no intention of threatening the realm

45    new-fall’n right recently inherited title (after his father’s death)

46    seat estate Gaunt John of Gaunt, Henry’s father

51    injuries abuses, wrongdoing wanton ungoverned, poorly managed

52    seeming sufferances apparent wrongs

53    contrarious opposing, unfavorable

54    unlucky ill-fated

55    repute believe him to be

57    occasion the opportunity wooed persuaded

58    gripe grip, grasp general sway overall power

61    ungentle gull cruel/dishonorable young bird cuckoo’s…sparrow the cuckoo lays its eggs in other birds’ nests to be hatched and fed; cuckoo chicks are much bigger and eventually take over the nest

64    our love those of us who loved you durst not did not dare

65    swallowing being eaten

68    opposèd…means in opposition to you as a result of such factors

70    unkind cruel/unnatural

71    troth honesty, integrity

72    younger earlier, original

75    face adorn, cover

76    colour hue/pretexts, pretence

77    changelings turncoats, changeable people discontents discontented persons

78    rub the elbow hug themselves in pleasure

79    hurly burly chaotic innovation novelty, change, revolution

80    want need, lack

81    water-colours watery deceptions impaint paint, color

82    moody sullen, angry

83    havoc plundering, violent disorder

84    both our i.e., the king’s and the rebels’

86    trial battle

88    by my hopes i.e., of salvation

89    set…head not counted against him

90    braver finer/more courageous

93    latter recent, present

97    this I say this

98    odds advantages

99    estimation reputation

102    venture hazard, risk

103    Albeit despite the fact that

104    make weigh, argue

106    cousin’s relative’s (i.e., nephew’s)

107    grace pardon

112    Rebuke shame, disgrace dread correction terrible punishment wait on us are at my command

113    office duty, task

115    fair fairly, fair terms take it advisedly consider it carefully

119    charge command/company, unit/responsibility

120    on their answer once we’ve had their answer, i.e., refusal of the terms

122    bestride stand astride a fallen man in order to defend him so thus—presumably Falstaff demonstrates the gesture

124    colossus giant; the Colossus of Rhodes, a gigantic statue of Apollo, supposedly stood astride the entrance to the harbor

127    death proverbial; puns on “debt”

129    forward eager pricks spurs

130    pricks me off marks me down (for a dead man) set…leg join together, set a broken leg

131    grief pain

133    trim fine, neat

134    insensible cannot be felt by the senses

135    Detraction slander

136    scutcheon heraldic shield, decorated with coats of arms and often used at funerals catechism set series of questions and answers (used as a form of instruction by the Church)

Act 5 Scene 2

5.2    Location: the rebel camp near Shrewsbury, then the battlefield

4    undone ruined

7    still always

9    Supposition notions, uncertainty, speculation stuck…eyes always watching, suspicious

11    ne’er so tame however tame he appears

12    trick trait

13    Look…can however one appears or either

14    misquote falsely report, misinterpret

16    The…death refers to the fact that oxen are fattened up before being killed

17    trespass wrongdoing, transgression

19    adopted…privilege nickname, which gives him licence (i.e., Hotspur, signifying rash impulsiveness)

20    hare-brained reckless, rash spleen violent bad temper (from the abdominal organ regarded as the location of strong emotion)

21    live upon shall be blamed on

22    train lead

23    ta’en derived, caught (like an infectious disease)

24    spring source

26    In any case whatever happens

27    Deliver…so say what you like, I’ll agree

30    Deliver up release—Westmorland has been held as surety for Worcester’s safe return

32    battle to engage in battle

33    Defy him by send our defiant response through

36    seeming apparent

38    gently with dignity, like a gentleman

39    mended improved on, contributed to

40    forswearing…forsworn falsely swearing that he had not broken his word

41    scourge punish

43    Arm prepare, put on your armor

45    engaged held as hostage bear convey

49    would…heads if only the quarrel was just between the two of us

50    draw short breath become out of breath (from fighting)/die

51    Monmouth nickname for the prince; the name of the town on the Welsh-English border where he was born

54    urged proposed

56    gentle honorable/not excessively violent proof of arms trial of fighting skills

57    duties of respect due to

58    Trimmed…praises adorned his praise of you

59    chronicle factual historical account

60    Making…you increasing your worth since no praise of his could do justice to your merits

63    blushing cital modest account

64    chid rebuked, condemned truant neglectful, misspent

65    double…instantly two sides of himself, both teacher and pupil, at the same time

68    envy malice, hostility

69    owe own

70    wantonness wild, dissolute behavior

72    On of

73    so…liberty who indulged in so much lawless freedom, wild behavior

76    shrink…courtesy be overwhelmed by my degree of courtesy/collapse, be wounded by me

78    Better…persuasion you are better off thinking for yourselves about what you have to do than expecting me, who lacks the gift of eloquence, to try to rouse your spirits

84    To…hour a life spent basely goes on for too long even if it only lasts an hour If even if dial’s point hand of a clock

88    brave glorious

89    fair justifiable

91    apace swiftly

92    cuts me forces me to break off

93    profess not don’t claim to be expert at

95    temper character/degree of hardness

97    adventure risky venture

98    Esperance! hope (French; part of the Percy family motto)

99    instruments i.e., trumpets, drums

101    heaven to earth I’ll wager heaven against earth (i.e., something eternal and valuable against something transitory and unimportant) [and exeunt] most editions introduce a scene break here, but Folio does not have one and the action continues, with the imaginary location shifting seamlessly from rebel camp to battlefield Alarum call to battle (played on a trumpet) dressed like the King wearing the king’s colors, Blunt is acting as a decoy. Most editors introduce a scene break at this stage direction, since the stage is momentarily bare and the imaginary location shifts from the rebel camp to the battlefield, but in the early texts and on stage the action is continuous

107    haunt follow

110    dear at great cost bought thy likeness paid for appearing like you (i.e., Stafford was also dressed like the king)

117    Holmedon town in Northumberland

122    full extremely

124    Semblably furnished similarly dressed and armed

128    marching…coats wearing the same clothing as him coats sleeveless outer garments adorned with heraldic arms, worn over armor

133    stand…day seem likely to win the battle solus alone

134    shot-free without paying the tavern bill/without getting shot

135    scoring adding to tavern bill/being wounded pate head

136    Here’s no vanity! There’s no self-conceit or concern for frivolity in death! molten melted

137    lead i.e., bullets bowels guts, stomach

138    ragamuffins i.e., his ragged company of soldiers peppered shot and killed; this would enable Falstaff to pocket his soldiers’ pay

139    town’s end outskirts of the town where beggars congregate

142    vaunting bragging, vainglorious

145    Turk Gregory Pope Gregory VII or XIII; both had violent reputations Turk violent barbarian

146    paid repaid, settled with (i.e., killed)

147    sure i.e., dead, but the prince shifts the sense to “out of danger”

151    case holster

152    hot Falstaff claims it has recently been fired frequently sack destroy out i.e., from Falstaff’s holster

154    pierce pronounced “perse”—the word puns on “Percy” so so be it/thus—presumably miming his action

155    carbonado dish of scored, grilled meat grinning honour i.e., the sort of honor Blunt has earned, whose expression is now fixed as death stiffens his facial muscles

156    so all well and good

157    unlooked for without being sought, unexpectedly an end death/of my speech

Act 5 Scene 3

5.3    Location: the battlefield at Shrewsbury Excursions outbursts of fighting moving across the stage

5    make up advance, bring up your forces

6    retirement retreat, insufficiently aggressive strategy amaze alarm, bewilder

13    stained bloodstained (may play on sense of “dishonored”)

15    breathe rest, pause

21    point i.e., of his sword

22    lustier maintenance more vigorous bearing

23    ungrown immature; historically, John was thirteen at the time of the battle

24    mettle courage, spirit

25    Hydra’s heads in Greek mythology, the Hydra was a monster that grew two heads for every one that was cut off

27    colours i.e., the king’s

28    counterfeit’st impersonates

30    shadows reflections/those in disguise, actors

31    very real, true

32    Seek who seek

34    assay test

37    mine my victim, conquest

39    like likely

41    are…arms lend strength to my arms

43    pay settle the debt/kill flieth runs away

44    Cheerly expression of encouragement

48    opinion reputation

49    mak’st…life have some care for my life

52    hearkened waited eagerly for, sought

54    insulting threatening, harmful/boastful, contemptuous

58    Make up to move your forces forward

66    motion course, trajectory, orbit sphere orbit; stars and planets were thought to be contained within crystalline spheres

67    brook endure

71    name in arms military reputation

73    budding…crest literally, chivalric favors decorating his helmet; figuratively, his glorious reputation

75    vanities vain boasts

76    said done killeth i.e., fatally wounds

79    brittle fragile

80    titles claims to honor

84    prophesy conventional belief held that the dying were able to foretell the future

89    III-weaved devious, tangled

91    too…bound insufficient to contain it

94    stout strong, valiant

95    sensible aware

96    show of zeal expression of feeling

97    favours chivalric tokens worn on his helmet

101    ignominy shame

106    heavy…thee miss you greatly (heavy plays on the sense of “weighty, fat”)

109    dearer more noble/more valuable

110    Emboweled disemboweled (in preparation for embalming)

111    in blood in his own blood (plays on hunting term; a deer that was in blood was vigorous and full of life)

112    powder embalm/preserve in salt (like venison)

113    termagant savage, violent

114    scot and lot in full

117    discretion good judgment

118    gunpowder i.e., fiery, explosive

121    confutes refutes, contradicts

124    fleshed initiated into fighting (plays on the sense of “sexual initiated”; from the practice of feeding hunting dogs raw meat to excite them)

125    maiden virgin, previously unused sword with phallic connotations

130    fantasy illusion, imagination

134    double man ghost/two men (referring to the fact he carries Hotspur on his back)

135    jack knave

139    at an instant simultaneously

140    Shrewsbury clock perhaps referring to an actual clock (e.g., the church clock), or a metaphorical phrase

141    take’t…death swear as though I were about to die and my soul depended upon it

146    luggage i.e., Hotspur

147    do thee grace bring you honor

148    gild embellish happiest most favorable retreat specific trumpet call signaling retreat

149    the…ours we have won

150    highest highest vantage point

153    do…less become a powerful nobleman/I’ll slim down purge repent, purify myself/take laxatives or emetics to cause weight loss leave give up

Act 5 Scene 4

1    rebuke punishment

2    III-spirited wicked, evil-hearted grace good will, forgiveness

4    turn…contrary report the opposite

5    Misuse abuse tenor character, nature

6    upon our party on our side

10    true intelligence honest information

11    safety concern for personal safety

14    the death execution

15    pause upon think about, consider their fates

16    field battlefield

20    Upon…fear running away in fear

22    took seized, arrested

24    dispose of decide what to do with

27    honourable bounty the honor of this act of generosity

29    to his pleasure to do as he pleases

30    crests helmets

31    high noble

32    Even…adversaries in Quarto, Prince John replies before the king’s closing speech: “I thank your grace for this high courtesy, / Which I shall give away immediately.” (“give away”: undertake, pass on [to Douglas])

33    power army

35    bend you direct your course dearest utmost

36    prelate ecclesiastical dignitary (i.e., the Archbishop of York, Richard Scroop)

37    busily in arms engaged in preparing for battle

41    check curb, reprimand such another day another battle like today’s

42    fair successfully

43    leave stop all…won everything that rightfully belongs to us is under our control (won puns on “one”)

THE SECOND PART OF HENRY THE FOURTH,

Containing His Death and the Coronation of King Henry the Fifth*

RUMOUR, the presenter

KING HENRY IV

PRINCE HENRY, later King Henry V, also known as Hal or Harry Monmouth

Prince John of LANCASTER, brother to the prince

Humphrey, Duke of GLOUCESTER, a younger brother

Thomas, Duke of CLARENCE, a younger brother

LADY NORTHUMBERLAND, Northumberland’s wife

LADY PERCY, Northumberland’s daughter-in-law, widow of Henry Percy known as Hotspur

Northumberland’s PORTER

LORD CHIEF JUSTICE and his SERVANT

HOSTESS QUICKLY, landlady of a tavern

DOLL TEARSHEET

FRANCIS, a drawer

WILLIAM, a drawer

SECOND DRAWER

SHALLOW, a country Justice of the Peace

SILENCE, his kinsman, another Justice of the Peace

DAVY, servant to Shallow

FANG, a constable

SNARE, his yeoman or assistant

Page to the King, Messengers, Servants, Musicians, Grooms, Beadles, Soldiers, Attendants

Speaker of the EPILOGUE

Induction1.1

Enter Rumour

RUMOUROpen your ears, for which of you will stop

The vent of hearing[2] when loud Rumour speaks?

I, from the orient[3] to the drooping west,

Making the wind my post-horse,[4] still unfold

5

The acts[5] commencèd on this ball of earth.

Upon my tongue continual slanders ride,

The which in every language I pronounce,

Stuffing the ears of them with false reports.

I speak of peace, while covert enmity

10

Under the smile of safety wounds the world.

And who but Rumour, who but only I,

Make fearful[12] musters and prepared defence

Whilst the big[13] year, swoll’n with some other griefs,

Is thought with child by the stern tyrant war,

15

And[15] no such matter? Rumour is a pipe

Blown by surmises, jealousies,[16] conjectures

And of[17] so easy and so plain a stop

That the blunt[18] monster with uncounted heads,

The still-discordant[19] wavering multitude,

20

Can play upon it. But what need I thus

My well-known body to anatomize[21]

Among my household?[22] Why is Rumour here?

I run before King Harry’s victory,[23]

Who in a bloody field[24] by Shrewsbury

25

Hath beaten down young Hotspur[25] and his troops,

Quenching the flame of bold rebellion

Even with the rebels’ blood. But what mean I

To speak so true at first? My office[28] is

To noise abroad that Harry Monmouth[29] fell

30

Under the wrath of noble Hotspur’s sword,

And that the king before the Douglas’[31] rage

Stooped his anointed[32] head as low as death.

This have I rumoured through the peasant[33] towns

Between the royal field of Shrewsbury

35

And this worm-eaten hold[35] of ragged stone,

Where Hotspur’s father, old Northumberland,

Lies crafty-sick.[37] The posts come tiring on,

And not a man of them brings other news

Than[39] they have learned of me. From Rumour’s tongues

40

They bring smooth comforts false, worse than true wrongs.[40]

Exit

Act 1 Scene [1]1.1

running scene 1

Enter Lord Bardolph and the Porter [separately]

LORD BARDOLPHWho keeps[1] the gate here, ho?

Where is the earl?

PORTERWhat[3] shall I say you are?

LORD BARDOLPHTell thou the earl

5

That the lord Bardolph doth attend[5] him here.

PORTERHis[6] lordship is walked forth into the orchard.

Please it[7] your honour, knock but at the gate,

And he himself will answer.

Enter Northumberland

LORD BARDOLPHHere comes the earl.

[Exit Porter]

10

NORTHUMBERLANDWhat news, Lord Bardolph? Every minute now

Should be the father of some stratagem;[11]

The times are wild:[12] contention, like a horse

Full of high feeding,[13] madly hath broke loose

And bears down[14] all before him.

15

LORD BARDOLPHNoble earl,

I bring you certain[16] news from Shrewsbury.

NORTHUMBERLANDGood, an[17] heaven will!

LORD BARDOLPHAs good as heart can wish:

The king is almost wounded to the death

20

And, in the fortune of my lord your son,[20]

Prince Harry slain outright, and both the Blunts[21]

Killed by the hand of Douglas, young Prince John[22]

And Westmorland[23] and Stafford fled the field,

And Harry Monmouth’s brawn,[24] the hulk Sir John,

25

Is prisoner to your son. O, such a day,

So fought, so followed[26] and so fairly won,

Came not till now to dignify the times

Since Caesar’s fortunes![28]

NORTHUMBERLANDHow[29] is this derived?

30

Saw you the field? Came you from Shrewsbury?

LORD BARDOLPHI spake with one, my lord, that came from thence,

A gentleman well bred and of good name,

That freely rendered[33] me these news for true.

NORTHUMBERLANDHere comes my servant Travers,[34] whom I sent

35

On Tuesday last to listen after news.

Enter Travers

LORD BARDOLPHMy lord, I over-rode[36] him on the way,

And he is furnished with no certainties

More than he haply[38] may retail from me.

NORTHUMBERLANDNow, Travers, what good tidings comes from you?

40

TRAVERSMy lord, Sir John Umfrevile[40] turned me back

With joyful tidings; and, being better horsed,

Outrode[42] me. After him came spurring hard

A gentleman, almost forspent[43] with speed,

That stopped by me to breathe[44] his bloodied horse.

45

He asked the way to Chester,[45] and of him

I did demand what news from Shrewsbury:

He told me that rebellion had ill luck

And that young Harry Percy’s spur was cold.

With that, he gave his able[49] horse the head,

50

And bending forwards struck his able[50] heels

Against the panting sides of his poor jade[51]

Up to the rowel-head,[52] and starting so

He seemed in running to devour the way,[53]

Staying[54] no longer question.

55

NORTHUMBERLANDHa? Again:

Said he young Harry Percy’s spur was cold?

Of Hotspur Coldspur? That rebellion

Had met ill luck?

LORD BARDOLPHMy lord, I’ll tell you what:

60

If my young lord your son have[60] not the day,

Upon mine honour, for a silken point[61]

I’ll give my barony.[62] Never talk of it.

NORTHUMBERLANDWhy should the gentleman that rode by Travers

Give then such instances[64] of loss?

65

LORD BARDOLPHWho, he?

He was some hilding[66] fellow that had stolen

The horse he rode on, and, upon my life,

Spoke at a venture.[68] Look, here comes more news.

Enter Morton

NORTHUMBERLANDYea, this man’s brow, like to a title-leaf,[69]

70

Foretells the nature of a tragic volume:

So looks the strand[71] when the imperious flood

Hath left a witnessed usurpation.[72]—

Say, Morton, didst thou come from Shrewsbury?

MORTONI ran from Shrewsbury, my noble lord,

75

Where hateful death put on his ugliest mask

To fright our party.

NORTHUMBERLANDHow doth my son and brother?

Thou trembl’st; and the whiteness in thy cheek

Is apter[79] than thy tongue to tell thy errand.

80

Even[80] such a man, so faint, so spiritless,

So dull, so dead in look, so woe-begone,

Drew[82] Priam’s curtain in the dead of night,

And would have told him half his Troy was burned.

But Priam found the fire ere[84] he his tongue,

85

And I my Percy’s death ere thou report’st it.

This thou wouldst say, ‘Your son did thus and thus.

Your brother thus. So fought the noble Douglas’,

Stopping[88] my greedy ear with their bold deeds.

But in the end, to stop[89] mine ear indeed,

90

Thou hast a sigh to blow away this praise,

Ending with ‘Brother, son, and all are dead.’

MORTONDouglas is living, and your brother, yet.

But, for my lord your son—

NORTHUMBERLANDWhy, he is dead.

95

See what a ready tongue suspicion hath!

He that but fears the thing he would not know

Hath by instinct knowledge from others’ eyes

That what he feared is chanced.[98] Yet speak, Morton —

Tell thou thy earl his divination[99] lies,

100

And I will take it as a sweet disgrace

And make thee rich for doing[101] me such wrong.

MORTONYou are too great to be by me gainsaid:[102]

Your spirit[103] is too true, your fears too certain.

NORTHUMBERLANDYet, for all this, say not that Percy’s dead.

105

I see a strange confession in thine eye:

Thou shak’st thy head and hold’st[106] it fear or sin

To speak a truth. If he be slain, say so:

The tongue offends not that reports his death.

And he doth sin that doth belie[109] the dead,

110

Not he which says the dead is not alive.

Yet the first bringer of unwelcome news

Hath but a losing office,[112] and his tongue

Sounds ever after as a sullen[113] bell,

Rememb’red knolling[114] a departing friend.

115

LORD BARDOLPHI cannot think, my lord, your son is dead.

MORTONI am sorry I should force you to believe

That which I would[117] to heaven I had not seen.

But these mine eyes saw him in bloody state,

Rend’ring faint quittance,[119] wearied and out-breathed,

120

To Henry Monmouth, whose swift wrath beat down

The never-daunted[121] Percy to the earth,

From whence with life he never more sprung up.

In few,[123] his death, whose spirit lent a fire

Even to the dullest peasant in his camp,

125

Being bruited[125] once, took fire and heat away

From the best tempered[126] courage in his troops,

For from his mettle[127] was his party steeled;

Which once in him abated,[128] all the rest

Turned on themselves, like dull and heavy lead.

130

And as the thing that’s heavy in itself,

Upon enforcement[131] flies with greatest speed,

So did our men, heavy in[132] Hotspur’s loss,

Lend[133] to this weight such lightness with their fear

That arrows fled not swifter toward their aim

135

Than did our soldiers, aiming at their safety,

Fly from the field. Then was the noble Worcester[136]

Too soon ta’en prisoner. And that furious Scot,

The bloody Douglas, whose well-labouring[138] sword

Had three times slain th’appearance of the king,[139]

140

’Gan[140] vail his stomach and did grace the shame

Of those that turned their backs, and in his flight,

Stumbling in fear, was took. The sum of all

Is that the king hath won, and hath sent out

A speedy power[144] to encounter you, my lord,

145

Under the conduct of young Lancaster[145]

And Westmorland. This is the news at[146] full.

NORTHUMBERLANDFor this I shall have time enough to mourn.

In poison there is physic,[148] and this news,

Having been well, that would have made me sick,

150

Being sick, have in[150] some measure made me well.

And as the wretch, whose fever-weakened joints,

Like strengthless hinges, buckle under life,

Impatient[153] of his fit, breaks like a fire

Out of his keeper’s[154] arms, even so my limbs,

155

Weakened[155] with grief, being now enraged with grief,

Are thrice themselves. Hence, therefore, thou nice[156] crutch! Throws down his crutch

A scaly gauntlet[157] now with joints of steel

Must glove this hand. And hence, thou sickly coif![158] Throws down his nightcap

Thou art a guard too wanton[159] for the head

160

Which princes, fleshed[160] with conquest, aim to hit.

Now bind my brows with iron, and approach

The ragged’st[162] hour that time and spite dare bring

To frown upon th’enraged Northumberland!

Let heaven kiss earth! Now let not Nature’s hand

165

Keep the wild flood confined! Let order die!

And let the world no longer be a stage

To feed contention[167] in a ling’ring act,

But let one spirit of the first-born Cain[168]

Reign in all bosoms, that, each heart being set

170

On bloody courses, the rude[170] scene may end,

And darkness be the burier of the dead!

LORD BARDOLPHSweet earl, divorce not wisdom from your honour.

MORTONThe lives of all your loving complices[173]

Lean on your health, the which, if you give o’er[174]

175

To stormy passion,[175] must perforce decay.

You cast th’event[176] of war, my noble lord,

And summed[177] the account of chance, before you said ‘

Let us make head.’[178] It was your presurmise

That in the dole[179] of blows, your son might drop.

180

You knew he walked o’er perils on an edge,[180]

More likely to fall in than to get o’er:

You were advised[182] his flesh was capable

Of wounds and scars and that his forward[183] spirit

Would lift him where most trade of[184] danger ranged:

185

Yet did you say ‘Go forth’, and none of this,

Though strongly apprehended,[186] could restrain

The stiff-borne[187] action. What hath then befallen,

Or what hath this bold enterprise brought forth,

More than that being which was like[189] to be?

190

LORD BARDOLPHWe all that are engagèd to[190] this loss

Knew that we ventured on such dangerous seas

That if[192] we wrought our life was ten to one.

And yet we ventured, for the gain proposed

Choked the respect[194] of likely peril feared.

195

And since we are o’erset,[195] venture again.

Come, we will all put forth,[196] body and goods.

MORTON’Tis[197] more than time. And, my most noble lord,

I hear for certain, and do speak the truth:

The gentle[199] Archbishop of York is up

200

With well-appointed powers.[200] He is a man

Who with a double surety[201] binds his followers.

My lord your son had only but the corpse,[202]

But[203] shadows and the shows of men, to fight,

For that same word, rebellion, did divide

205

The action of their bodies from their souls,

And they did fight with queasiness,[206] constrained,

As[207] men drink potions, that their weapons only

Seemed on our side. But, for their spirits and souls,

This word, rebellion, it had froze them up,

210

As fish are in a pond. But now the bishop

Turns insurrection to religion.[211]

Supposed[212] sincere and holy in his thoughts,

He’s followed both with body and with mind,

And doth enlarge his rising[214] with the blood

215

Of fair King Richard, scraped from Pomfret stones:

Derives from heaven his quarrel and his cause:

Tells them he doth bestride[217] a bleeding land,

Gasping for life under great Bullingbrook:[218]

And more and less[219] do flock to follow him.

220

NORTHUMBERLANDI knew of this before. But, to speak truth,

This present grief had wiped it from my mind.

Go in with me, and counsel every man

The aptest[223] way for safety and revenge.

Get posts[224] and letters, and make friends with speed.

225

Never so few, nor never yet more need.

Exeunt

Act 1 Scene [2]1.2

running scene 2

Enter Falstaff and Page

FALSTAFFSirrah,[1] you giant, what says the doctor to my water?

PAGEHe said, sir, the water itself was a good healthy water, but, for the party that owed[3] it, he might have more diseases than he knew for.

FALSTAFFMen of all sorts take a pride to gird at[4] me. The brain of this foolish-compounded clay, man, is not able to invent anything that tends to laughter, more than I invent or is invented on me. I am not only witty in myself, but the cause that wit is in other men. I do here walk before thee like a sow that hath o’erwhelmed[8] all her litter but one. If the prince put thee into my service for any other reason than to set me off,[9] why then I have no judgement. Thou whoreson mandrake,[10] thou art fitter to be worn in my cap than to wait at my heels. I was never manned with[11] an agate till now: but I will set you neither in gold nor silver, but in vile apparel, and send[12] you back again to your master, for a jewel — the juvenal,[13] the prince your master, whose chin is not yet fledged. I will sooner have a beard grow in the palm of my hand than he shall get one on his cheek, yet he will not stick[15] to say his face is a face-royal. Heaven may finish it when he will, it is not a hair amiss[16] yet. He may keep it still at a face-royal, for a barber shall never earn sixpence out of it; and yet he will be crowing as if he had writ[17] man ever since his father was a bachelor. He may keep his own grace,[18] but he is almost out of mine, I can assure him. What said Master Dombledon[19] about the satin for my short cloak and slops?[20]

PAGEHe said, sir, you should procure him better assurance[21] than Bardolph: he would not take his bond and yours. He liked not the security.

FALSTAFFLet[23] him be damned, like the glutton! May his tongue be hotter! A whoreson Achitophel![24] A rascally yea-forsooth knave, to bear a gentleman in hand, and then stand[25] upon security! The whoreson smooth-pates do now wear nothing but high[26] shoes, and bunches of keys at their girdles. And if a man is through[27] with them in honest taking up, then they must stand upon security. I had as lief[28] they would put ratsbane in my mouth as offer to stop it with security. I looked[29] he should have sent me two and twenty yards of satin, as I am true knight, and he sends me security. Well, he may sleep in security, for he hath the horn of abundance,[30] and the lightness[31] of his wife shines through it, and yet cannot he see, though he have his own lanthorn[32] to light him. Where’s Bardolph?

PAGEHe’s gone into Smithfield[33] to buy your worship a horse.

FALSTAFFI bought him in Paul’s,[34] and he’ll buy me a horse in Smithfield. If I could get me a wife in the stews,[35] I were manned, horsed, and wived.

Enter Chief Justice and Servant

PAGESir, here comes the nobleman[36] that committed the prince for striking him about Bardolph.

FALSTAFFWait, close.[38] I will not see him. Tries to sneak away

LORD CHIEF JUSTICEWhat’s he that goes there?

SERVANTFalstaff, an’t[40] please your lordship.

LORD CHIEF JUSTICEHe that was in question for[41] the robbery?

SERVANTHe, my lord. But he hath since done good service[42] at Shrewsbury, and, as I hear, is now going with some charge[43] to the lord John of Lancaster.

LORD CHIEF JUSTICEWhat, to York? Call him back again.

SERVANTSir John Falstaff!

FALSTAFFBoy, tell him I am deaf.

PAGEYou must speak louder: my master is deaf.

LORD CHIEF JUSTICEI am sure he is, to the hearing of anything good. Go, pluck him by the elbow, I must speak with him.

SERVANTSir John!

FALSTAFFWhat? A young knave, and beg? Is there not wars?[51] Is there not employment? Doth not the king lack subjects? Do not the rebels want[52] soldiers? Though it be a shame to be on any side but one, it is worse shame to beg than to be on the worstr side, were[54] it worse than the name of rebellion can tell how to make it.

SERVANTYou mistake me, sir.

FALSTAFFWhy, sir, did I say you were an honest man? Setting[57] my knighthood and my soldiership aside, I had lied in my throat,[58] if I had said so.

SERVANTI pray you, sir, then set your knighthood and your soldiership aside, and give me leave to tell you, you lie in your throat if you say I am any other than an honest man.

FALSTAFFI give thee leave to tell me so? I lay aside that which grows to[62] me? If thou gett’st any leave of me, hang me: if thou tak’st leave, thou wert better be hanged. You hunt counter,[64] hence! Avaunt!

SERVANTSir, my lord would speak with you.

LORD CHIEF JUSTICESir John Falstaff, a word with you.

FALSTAFFMy good lord! Give your lordship good time of the day. I am glad to see your lordship abroad.[68] I heard say your lordship was sick. I hope your lordship goes abroad by advice.[69] Your lordship, though not clean past your youth, hath yet some smack[70] of age in you, some relish of the saltness of time, and I most humbly beseech your lordship to have a reverend[71] care of your health.

LORD CHIEF JUSTICESir John, I sent for you before your expedition to Shrewsbury.

FALSTAFFIf it please your lordship, I hear his majesty is returned with some discomfort from Wales.

LORD CHIEF JUSTICEI talk not of his majesty: you would not come when I sent for you.

FALSTAFFAnd I hear, moreover, his highness is fallen into this same whoreson apoplexy.[77]

LORD CHIEF JUSTICEWell, heaven mend him! I pray, let me speak with you.

FALSTAFFThis apoplexy is, as I take it, a kind of lethargy, a sleeping of the blood, a whoreson tingling.

LORD CHIEF JUSTICEWhat[81] tell you me of it? Be it as it is.

FALSTAFFIt hath it original[82] from much grief, from study and perturbation of the brain. I have read the cause of his effects in Galen:[83] it is a kind of deafness.

LORD CHIEF JUSTICEI think you are fallen into the disease, for you hear not what I say to you.

FALSTAFFVery well, my lord, very well. Rather, an’t please you, it is the disease of not listening, the malady of not marking,[87] that I am troubled withal.

LORD CHIEF JUSTICETo punish[88] you by the heels would amend the attention of your ears, and I care not if I be your physician.

FALSTAFFI am as poor as Job,[90] my lord, but not so patient: your lordship may minister the potion of imprisonment to me in[91] respect of poverty, but how I should be your patient to follow your prescriptions, the wise[92] may make some dram of a scruple, or indeed a scruple itself.

LORD CHIEF JUSTICEI sent for you, when there were matters[94] against you for your life, to come speak with me.

FALSTAFFAs I was then advised by my learned counsel in the laws of this land-service,[96] I did not come.

LORD CHIEF JUSTICEWell, the truth is, Sir John, you live in great infamy.

FALSTAFFHe[99] that buckles him in my belt cannot live in less.

LORD CHIEF JUSTICEYour means[100] is very slender, and your waste great.

FALSTAFFI would it were otherwise: I would my means were greater, and my waist slenderer.

LORD CHIEF JUSTICEYou have misled the youthful prince.

FALSTAFFThe young prince hath misled me. I[104] am the fellow with the great belly, and he my dog.

LORD CHIEF JUSTICEWell, I am loath to gall[106] a new-healed wound: your day’s service at Shrewsbury hath a little gilded over your night’s exploit[107] on Gad’s Hill. You may thank the unquiet[108] time for your quiet o’er-posting that action.

FALSTAFFMy lord?

LORD CHIEF JUSTICEBut since all is well, keep it so: wake not a sleeping wolf.

FALSTAFFTo wake a wolf is as bad as to smell a fox.[111]

LORD CHIEF JUSTICEWhat? You are as a candle, the better[112] part burnt out.

FALSTAFFA wassail candle,[113] my lord, all tallow: if I did say of wax, my growth would approve[114] the truth.

LORD CHIEF JUSTICEThere is not a white hair on your face but should have his[115] effect of gravity.

FALSTAFFHis effect of gravy,[117] gravy, gravy.

LORD CHIEF JUSTICEYou follow the young prince up and down, like his evil angel.[118]

FALSTAFFNot so, my lord, your ill angel is light:[119] but I hope he that looks upon me will take me without weighing.[120] And yet, in some respects, I grant, I cannot go: I cannot tell.[121] Virtue is of so little regard in these costermongers that true valour is turned bear-herd:[122] pregnancy is made a tapster, and hath his quick wit wasted in giving reckonings:[123] all the other gifts appertinent to man — as the malice of this age shapes them — are not worth a gooseberry. You that are old consider not the capacities of us that are young. You measure the heat of our livers[125] with the bitterness of your galls.[126] And we that are in the vaward of our youth, I must confess, are wags[127] too.

LORD CHIEF JUSTICEDo you set down your name in the scroll of youth, that are written down old with all the characters[129] of age? Have you not a moist eye? A dry hand? A yellow cheek? A white beard? A decreasing leg? An increasing belly? Is not your voice broken?[131] Your wind short? Your wit single? And every part about you blasted[132] with antiquity? And will you call yourself young? Fie, fie, fie, Sir John.

FALSTAFFMy lord, I was born with a white head and something a round belly. For my voice, I have lost it with halloing[134] and singing of anthems. To approve my youth further, I will not. The truth is, I am only old in judgement and understanding, and he that will caper with[136] me for a thousand marks, let him lend me the money, and have at him![137] For the box of th’ear that the prince gave you, he gave it like a rude[138] prince, and you took it like a sensible lord. I have checked him for it, and the young lion repents; marry,[139] not in ashes and sackcloth, but in new silk and old sack.[140]

LORD CHIEF JUSTICEWell, heaven send the prince a better companion!

FALSTAFFHeaven send the companion a better prince! I cannot rid my hands of him.

LORD CHIEF JUSTICEWell, the king hath severed you and Prince Harry. I hear you are going with Lord John of Lancaster against the archbishop and the Earl of Northumberland.

FALSTAFFYes, I[146] thank your pretty sweet wit for it. But look you pray — all you that kiss my lady Peace at home — that our armies join not in a hot day, for if I take but two shirts out with me, and I mean not to sweat extraordinarily: if it be a hot day, if I brandish anything but my bottle, would I might never spit white[149] again. There is not a dangerous action[150] can peep out his head but I am thrust upon it. Well, I cannot last ever.

LORD CHIEF JUSTICEWell, be honest,[152] be honest, and heaven bless your expedition.

FALSTAFFWill your lordship lend me a thousand pound to furnish me forth?[153]

LORD CHIEF JUSTICENot a penny, not a penny. You are too impatient to bear crosses.[154] Fare you well. Commend me to my cousin Westmorland.

[Exeunt Lord Chief Justice and Servant]

LORD CHIEF JUSTICEIf I do, fillip[156] me with a three-man beetle. A man can no more separate age and covetousness than he can part young limbs and lechery: but the gout galls the one, and the pox[158] pinches the other; and so both the degrees prevent my curses.— Boy!

PAGESir?

FALSTAFFWhat money is in my purse?

PAGESeven groats[162] and two-pence.

FALSTAFFI can get no remedy against this consumption[163] of the purse. Borrowing only lingers and lingers it out, but the disease is incurable. Gives letters Go bear this letter to my lord of Lancaster, this to the prince, this to the Earl of Westmorland, and this to old Mistress Ursula,[166] whom I have weekly sworn to marry since I perceived the first white hair on my chin. About it: you know where to find me.

[Exit Page]

A pox of[168] this gout, or a gout of this pox! For the one or th’other plays the rogue with my great toe. It is no matter if I do halt.[169] I have the wars for my colour, and my pension shall seem the more reasonable. A good wit will make use of anything: I will turn diseases to commodity.[171]

Exit

Act 1 Scene [3]1.3

running scene 3

Enter Archbishop, Hastings, Mowbray and Lord Bardolph

ARCHBISHOP OF YORKThus have you heard our causes[1] and know our means,

And, my most noble friends, I pray you all

Speak plainly your opinions of our hopes.

And first, lord marshal,[4] what say you to it?

5

MOWBRAYI well allow[5] the occasion of our arms,

But gladly would be better satisfied

How in[7] our means we should advance ourselves

To look with forehead bold and big enough

Upon the power and puissance[9] of the king.

10

HASTINGSOur[10] present musters grow upon the file

To five and twenty thousand men of choice,[11]

And our supplies[12] live largely in the hope

Of great Northumberland, whose bosom burns

With an incensèd fire of injuries.

15

LORD BARDOLPHThe question then, Lord Hastings, standeth thus:

Whether our present five and twenty thousand

May hold up head[17] without Northumberland?

HASTINGSWith him, we may.

LORD BARDOLPHAy, marry, there’s the point:

20

But if without him we be thought too feeble,

My judgement is, we should not step too far

Till we had his assistance by the hand.[22]

For in a theme[23] so bloody-faced as this,

Conjecture, expectation and surmise

25

Of aids incertain[25] should not be admitted.

ARCHBISHOP OF YORK’Tis very true, Lord Bardolph, for indeed

It was young Hotspur’s case[27] at Shrewsbury.

LORD BARDOLPHIt was, my lord, who lined[28] himself with hope,

Eating the air[29] on promise of supply,

30

Flatt’ring himself with project[30] of a power

Much smaller[31] than the smallest of his thoughts,

And so, with great imagination

Proper to madmen, led his powers to death

And winking[34] leaped into destruction.

35

HASTINGSBut, by your leave,[35] it never yet did hurt

To lay down likelihoods and forms of hope.

LORD CHIEF JUSTICEYes,[37] if this present quality of war —

Indeed the instant[38] action, a cause on foot —

Lives[39] so in hope as in an early spring

40

We see th’appearing buds, which to prove fruit,

Hope gives not so much warrant as despair

That frosts will bite them. When we mean to build,

We first survey the plot, then draw the model,

And when we see the figure[44] of the house,

45

Then must we rate[45] the cost of the erection,

Which if we find outweighs ability,[46]

What do we then but draw anew the model

In fewer offices?[48] Or at least desist

To build at all? Much more, in this great work —

50

Which is almost to pluck a kingdom down

And set another up — should we survey

The plot of situation and the model,

Consent[53] upon a sure foundation,

Question surveyors, know our own estate,[54]

55

How able[55] such a work to undergo,

To weigh against his opposite.[56] Or else

We fortify[57] in paper and in figures,

Using the names of men instead of men,

Like one that draws the model of a house

60

Beyond his power to build it; who, half through,

Gives o’er[61] and leaves his part-created cost

A naked subject[62] to the weeping clouds

And waste for churlish[63] winter’s tyranny.

HASTINGSGrant that our hopes, yet likely of fair birth,

65

Should be still-born, and that we now[65] possessed

The utmost man of expectation,

I think we are a body strong enough,

Even as we are, to equal with the king.

LORD BARDOLPHWhat, is the king but five and twenty thousand?

70

HASTINGSTo us no more, nay, not so much, Lord Bardolph.

For his divisions — as[71] the times do brawl —

Are in three heads: one power against the French,

And one against Glendower,[73] perforce a third

Must take up us. So is the unfirm[74] king

75

In three divided, and his coffers[75] sound

With hollow poverty and emptiness.

ARCHBISHOP OF YORKThat he should draw his several strengths together

And come against us in full puissance

Need not be dreaded.

80

HASTINGSIf he should do so,

He leaves his back unarmed, the French and Welsh

Baying[82] him at the heels: never fear that.

LORD BARDOLPHWho is it like[83] should lead his forces hither?

HASTINGSThe Duke of Lancaster and Westmorland:

85

Against the Welsh, himself and Harry Monmouth.

But who is substituted[86] gainst the French,

I have no certain notice.[87]

ARCHBISHOP OF YORKLet us on,

And publish the occasion[89] of our arms.

90

The commonwealth is sick of their own choice,

Their over-greedy love hath surfeited:[91]

An habitation[92] giddy and unsure

Hath he that buildeth on the vulgar heart.[93]

O thou fond many,[94] with what loud applause

95

Didst thou beat heaven with blessing Bullingbrook,

Before he was what thou wouldst have him be!

And being now trimmed[97] in thine own desires,

Thou,[98] beastly feeder, art so full of him

That thou provok’st thyself to cast[99] him up.

100

So,[100] so, thou common dog, didst thou disgorge

Thy glutton bosom of the royal Richard,

And now thou wouldst eat[102] thy dead vomit up,

And howl’st to find it. What trust is in these times?

They that, when Richard lived, would have him die,

105

Are now become enamoured on his grave.

Thou, that threw’st dust upon his goodly head

When through proud London he came sighing on

After th’admirèd heels of Bullingbrook,

Criest now ‘O earth, yield us that king again,

110

And take thou this.’ O, thoughts of men accursed!

Past and to come seems best; things present worst.

MOWBRAYShall we go draw[112] our numbers and set on?

HASTINGSWe are time’s subjects, and time bids be gone.

[Exeunt]

Act 2 Scene 12.1

running scene 4

Enter Hostess [Quickly], with two officers: Fang and Snare

HOSTESS QUICKLYMaster[1] Fang, have you entered the action?

FANGIt is entered.

HOSTESS QUICKLYWhere’s your yeoman?[3] Is it a lusty yeoman? Will he stand to it?

FANGSirrah— Looks around Where’s Snare?

HOSTESS QUICKLYAy, ay, good Master Snare.

SNAREHere, here. Comes forward

FANGSnare, we must arrest Sir John Falstaff.

HOSTESS QUICKLYAy, good Master Snare, I have entered[8] him and all.

SNAREIt may chance cost some of us our lives: he will stab.

HOSTESS QUICKLYAlas the day. Take heed of him: he stabbed[10] me in mine own house, and that most beastly. He cares not what mischief he doth, if his weapon[11] be out. He will foin[12] like any devil, he will spare neither man, woman nor child.

FANGIf I can close[13] with him, I care not for his thrust.

HOSTESS QUICKLYNo, nor I neither: I’ll be at your elbow.

FANGIf I but fist[15] him once, if he come but within my vice—

HOSTESS QUICKLYI am undone[16] with his going. I warrant he is an infinitive thing upon my score.[17] Good Master Fang, hold him sure: good Master Snare, let him not scape.[18] He comes continuantly to Pie-corner — saving your manhoods — to buy a saddle,[19] and he is indited to dinner to the Lubber’s-head in Lombard Street, to Master Smooth’s the silkman. I pra’ye, since my exion[20] is entered and my case so openly known to the world, let him be brought in to his answer. A hundred mark[21] is a long one[22] for a poor lone woman to bear, and I have borne, and borne, and borne, and have been fubbed[23] off, and fubbed off, from this day to that day, that it is a shame to be thought on. There is no honesty in such dealing,[24] unless a woman should be made an ass and a beast, to bear every knave’s wrong.[25]

Enter Falstaff [with his Page] and Bardolph

Yonder he comes, and that arrant[26] malmsey-nose Bardolph, with him. Do your offices,[27] do your offices: Master Fang and Master Snare, do me, do me, do me your offices.

FALSTAFFHow now? Whose mare’s dead?[29] What’s the matter?

FANGSir John, I arrest you at the suit of Mistress Quickly.

FALSTAFFAway, varlets![31] Draw, Bardolph. They draw Cut me off the villain’s head. Throw the quean[32] in the channel.

HOSTESS QUICKLYThrow me in the channel? I’ll throw thee there. Wilt thou? Wilt thou? Thou bastardly rogue! Murder, murder! O, thou honeysuckle[34] villain, wilt thou kill God’s officers and the king’s? O, thou honey-seed[35] rogue, thou art a honey-seed, a man-queller,[36] and a woman-queller.

FALSTAFFKeep them off, Bardolph.

FANGA rescue, a rescue!

HOSTESS QUICKLYGood people, bring a rescue.[39]— To Page Thou wilt not? Thou wilt not? Do, do, thou rogue! Do, thou hemp-seed![40]

PAGEAway, you scullion,[41] you rampallion, you fustilarian! To Fang I’ll tuck your catastrophe.[42]

Enter Chief Justice

LORD CHIEF JUSTICEWhat’s the matter? Keep the peace here, ho!

HOSTESS QUICKLYGood my[44] lord, be good to me. I beseech you stand to me.

LORD CHIEF JUSTICEHow now, Sir John? What are you brawling here? Doth this become[46] your place, your time and business? You should have been well on your way to York. Stand from him, fellow; wherefore[47] hang’st upon him?

HOSTESS QUICKLYO my most worshipful lord, an’t please your grace, I am a poor widow of Eastcheap,[49] and he is arrested at my suit.

LORD CHIEF JUSTICEFor what sum?

HOSTESS QUICKLYIt is more than for some, my lord, it is for all, all I have. He hath eaten me out of house and home; he hath put all my substance into that fat belly of his. But I will have some of it out again, or I will ride[53] thee o’nights like the mare.

FALSTAFFI think I am as like to ride the mare, if I have any vantage of ground[55] to get up.[56]

LORD CHIEF JUSTICEHow comes this, Sir John? Fie, what a man of good temper[57] would endure this tempest of exclamation? Are you not ashamed to enforce a poor widow to so rough a course to come[59] by her own?

FALSTAFFWhat is the gross[60] sum that I owe thee?

HOSTESS QUICKLYMarry,[61] if thou wert an honest man, thyself and the money too. Thou didst swear to me upon a parcel-gilt[62] goblet, sitting in my Dolphin-chamber at the round table, by a sea-coal[63] fire, on Wednesday in Whitsun week, when the prince broke[64] thy head for lik’ning him to a singing-man of Windsor; thou didst swear to me then, as I was washing thy wound, to marry me and make me my lady thy wife. Canst thou deny it? Did not goodwife[66] Keech, the butcher’s wife, come in then and call me gossip[67] Quickly, coming in to borrow a mess of vinegar, telling us she had a good dish[68] of prawns, whereby thou didst desire to eat some, whereby I told thee they were ill for a green[69] wound? And didst not thou, when she was gone downstairs, desire me to be no more familiar with such poor people, saying that ere long they should call me madam?[71] And didst thou not kiss me and bid me fetch thee thirty shillings? I put thee now to thy book-oath:[72] deny it, if thou canst.

FALSTAFFMy lord, this is a poor mad soul, and she says up and down the town that her eldest son[75] is like you. She hath been in good case, and the truth is, poverty hath distracted her.[76] But for these foolish officers, I beseech you I may have redress against them.

LORD CHIEF JUSTICESir John, Sir John, I am well acquainted with your manner of wrenching the true cause the false way. It is not a confident brow, nor the throng of words that come with such more than impudent sauciness from you, can thrust me from a level[81] consideration. I know you ha’ practised upon the easy-yielding[82] spirit of this woman.

HOSTESS QUICKLYYea, in troth,[83] my lord.

LORD CHIEF JUSTICEPrithee, peace.— Pay[84] her the debt you owe her, and unpay the villainy you have done her: the one you may do with sterling money, and the other with current[86] repentance.

FALSTAFFMy lord, I will not undergo this sneap[87] without reply. You call honourable boldness ‘impudent sauciness’. If a man will curtsy[88] and say nothing, he is virtuous. No, my lord — your[89] humble duty remembered — I will not be your suitor. I say to you, I desire deliverance from these officers, being upon hasty employment in the king’s affairs.

LORD CHIEF JUSTICEYou speak as having power[92] to do wrong. But answer in the effect of your reputation, and satisfy[93] the poor woman.

FALSTAFFCome hither, hostess. Takes Quickly aside

Enter Master Gower

LORD CHIEF JUSTICENow, Master Gower, what news?

GOWERThe king, my lord, and Henry Prince of Wales Are near at hand: Gives a paper the rest the paper tells.

FALSTAFFAs I am a gentleman.

HOSTESS QUICKLYNay, you said so before.

FALSTAFFAs I am a gentleman. Come, no more words of it.

HOSTESS QUICKLYBy this heavenly ground[101] I tread on, I must be fain to pawn both my plate[102] and the tapestry of my dining chambers.

FALSTAFFGlasses,[103] glasses is the only drinking. And for thy walls, a pretty slight drollery,[104] or the story of the Prodigal, or the German hunting in water-work is worth a thousand of these bed-hangings and these fly-bitten tapestries. Let it be ten pound, if thou canst. Come, if it were not for thy humours,[106] there is not a better wench in England. Go, wash thy face, and draw thy action.[107] Come, thou must not be in this humour with me. Come, I know thou wast set on[108] to this.

HOSTESS QUICKLYPrithee, Sir John, let it be but twenty nobles.[109] I loath to pawn my plate, in good earnest, la.[110]

FALSTAFFLet it alone. I’ll make other shift.[111] You’ll be a fool still.

HOSTESS QUICKLYWell, you shall have it, although I pawn my gown. I hope you’ll come to supper. You’ll pay me all together?

FALSTAFFWill I live?[114] — To Bardolph Go, with her, with her — hook on, hook on.

HOSTESS QUICKLYWill you have Doll[115] Tearsheet meet you at supper?

FALSTAFFNo more words. Let’s have[116] her.

[Exeunt Quickly, Bardolph, Fang and others]

LORD CHIEF JUSTICEI have heard bitter news.

FALSTAFFWhat’s the news, my good lord?

LORD CHIEF JUSTICEWhere lay the king last night?

GOWERAt Basingstoke,[120] my lord.

FALSTAFFI hope, my lord, all’s well. What is the news, my lord?

LORD CHIEF JUSTICECome all his forces back?

GOWERNo. Fifteen hundred foot, five hundred horse,

Are marched up to my lord of Lancaster,

125

Against Northumberland and the Archbishop.

FALSTAFFComes the king back from Wales, my noble lord?

LORD CHIEF JUSTICEYou shall have letters of me presently.[127] Come, go along with me, good Master Gower.

FALSTAFFMy lord!

LORD CHIEF JUSTICEWhat’s the matter?

FALSTAFFMaster Gower, shall I entreat you with me to dinner?

GOWERI must wait upon my good lord here. I thank you, good Sir John.

LORD CHIEF JUSTICESir John, you loiter here too long, being[133] you are to take soldiers up in counties as you go.

FALSTAFFWill you sup with me, Master Gower?

LORD CHIEF JUSTICEWhat foolish master taught you these manners, Sir John?

FALSTAFFMaster Gower, if they become me not, he was a fool that taught them me. This is the right fencing grace,[138] my lord: tap for tap, and so part fair.

LORD CHIEF JUSTICENow the lord lighten thee![139] Thou art a great fool.

Exeunt

Act 2 Scene 22.2

running scene 5

Enter Prince Henry and Poins

PRINCE HENRYTrust me, I am exceeding weary.

POINSIs it come to that? I had thought weariness durst not have attached[2] one of so high blood.

PRINCE HENRYIt doth me, though it discolours[4] the complexion of my greatness to acknowledge it. Doth it not show vilely[5] in me to desire small beer?

POINSWhy, a prince should not be so loosely studied[6] as to remember so weak a composition.[7]

PRINCE HENRYBelike[8] then my appetite was not princely got, for, in troth, I do now remember the poor creature, small beer. But indeed these humble considerations make me out of love with my greatness. What a disgrace[10] is it to me to remember thy name? Or to know thy face tomorrow? Or to take note how many pair of silk stockings thou hast — videlicet[12] these — and those that were thy peach-coloured ones — or to bear[13] the inventory of thy shirts, as one for superfluity, and one other for use? But that the tennis-court-keeper knows better than I, for it is a low[14] ebb of linen with thee when thou kept’st not racket there, as thou hast not done a great while, because the rest of thy Low Countries[16] have made a shift to eat up thy Holland.

POINSHow ill it follows, after you have laboured so hard, you should talk so idly! Tell me, how many good young princes would do so, their fathers lying so sick as yours is?

PRINCE HENRYShall I tell thee one thing, Poins?

POINSYes, and let it be an excellent good thing.

PRINCE HENRYIt shall serve among wits of no higher breeding than thine.

POINSGo to.[24] I stand the push of your one thing that you’ll tell.

PRINCE HENRYWhy, I tell thee it is not meet[25] that I should be sad now my father is sick — albeit[26] I could tell to thee, as to one it pleases me, for fault of a better, to call my friend, I could be sad, and sad indeed too.

POINSVery hardly[28] upon such a subject.

PRINCE HENRYThou think’st me as far in the devil’s book as thou and Falstaff for obduracy and persistency. Let the end try[30] the man. But I tell thee, my heart bleeds inwardly that my father is so sick: and keeping such vile company as thou art hath in reason taken from me all ostentation[32] of sorrow.

POINSThe reason?

PRINCE HENRYWhat wouldst thou think of me, if I should weep?

POINSI would think thee a most princely hypocrite.

PRINCE HENRYIt would be every man’s thought, and thou art a blessed fellow to think as every man thinks: never a[37] man’s thought in the world keeps the roadway better than thine: every man would think me an hypocrite indeed. And what accites[39] your most worshipful thought to think so?

POINSWhy, because you have been so lewd[40] and so much engrafted to Falstaff.

PRINCE HENRYAnd to thee.

POINSNay, I am well spoken of. I can hear it with mine own ears: the worst that they can say of me is that I am a second brother[43] and that I am a proper fellow of my hands. And those two things, I confess, I cannot help. Look, look, here comes Bardolph.

PRINCE HENRYAnd the boy that I gave Falstaff. He had him from me Christian, and see if the fat villain have not transformed him ape.[47]

Enter Bardolph [and Falstaff’s Page]

BARDOLPHSave[48] your grace.

PRINCE HENRYAnd yours, most noble Bardolph.

POINSCome, you pernicious ass, you bashful fool, must you be blushing?[50] To Bardolph Wherefore blush you now? What a maidenly man-at-arms are you become! Is it such a matter to get[52] a pottle-pot’s maidenhead?

PAGEHe called me even now, my lord, through a red lattice,[53] and I could discern no part of his face from the window. At last I spied his eyes, and methought he had made two holes in the ale-wife’s new petticoat[55] and peeped through.

PRINCE HENRYHath not the boy profited?[56] To Poins

BARDOLPHAway, you whoreson upright rabbit, away!

PAGEAway, you rascally Althaea’s dream,[58] away!

PRINCE HENRYInstruct us, boy. What dream, boy?

PAGEMarry, my lord, Althaea dreamed she was delivered of a fire-brand,[60] and therefore I call him her dream.

PRINCE HENRYA crown’s worth of good interpretation.— Gives Page money There it is, boy.

POINSO, that this good blossom[63] could be kept from cankers!— Gives Page money Well, there is sixpence[64] to preserve thee.

BARDOLPHIf[65] you do not make him be hanged among you, the gallows shall be wronged.

PRINCE HENRYAnd how doth thy master, Bardolph?

BARDOLPHWell, my good lord. He heard of your grace’s coming to town. Gives a letter There’s a letter for you.

POINSDelivered with good respect.[70] And how doth the martlemas, your master?

BARDOLPHIn bodily health, sir.

POINSMarry, the immortal part needs a physician, but that moves not him: though that be sick, it dies not.

PRINCE HENRYI do allow this wen[74] to be as familiar with me as my dog, and he holds his place, for look you he writes.

POINSReads

(Letter)

‘John Falstaff, knight.’ — Every man must know that, as[77] oft as he hath occasion to name himself, even like[78] those that are kin to the king, for they never prick their finger but they say, ‘There is some of the king’s blood spilt.’ ‘How comes that?’ says he that takes upon him not to conceive.[80] The answer is as ready as a borrower’s cap,[81] ‘I am the king’s poor cousin, sir.’

PRINCE HENRYNay, they will be[82] kin to us, but they will fetch it from Japhet. But to the letter: Reads ‘Sir John Falstaff, knight, to the son of the king, nearest his father, Harry Prince of Wales, greeting.’

POINSWhy, this is a certificate.[85]

PRINCE HENRYPeace! Reads ‘I will imitate the honourable Romans in brevity.’

POINSSure he means brevity in breath, short-winded. Takes the letter and reads ‘I commend me to thee, I commend thee, and I[88] leave thee. Be not too familiar with Poins, for he misuses thy favours so much, that he swears thou art to marry his sister Nell. Repent at idle times[90] as thou mayst, and so farewell. Thine, by yea and no, which is as much as to say, as thou usest him, Jack Falstaff with my familiars,[91] John with my brothers and sister, and Sir John with all Europe.’ My lord, I will steep[92] this letter in sack[93] and make him eat it.

PRINCE HENRYThat’s to make him eat twenty[94] of his words. But do you use me thus, Ned? Must I marry your sister?

POINSMay the wench have no worse fortune! But I never said so.

PRINCE HENRYWell, thus we play[97] the fools with the time, and the spirits of the wise sit in the clouds and mock us.— To Bardoloph Is your master here in London?

BARDOLPHYes, my lord.

PRINCE HENRYWhere sups he? Doth the old boar feed in the old frank?[100]

BARDOLPHAt the old place, my lord, in Eastcheap.

PRINCE HENRYWhat company?

PAGEEphesians,[103] my lord, of the old church.

PRINCE HENRYSup any women with him?

PAGENone, my lord, but old Mistress Quickly and Mistress Doll Tearsheet.

PRINCE HENRYWhat pagan[106] may that be?

PAGEA proper[107] gentlewoman, sir, and a kinswoman of my master’s.

PRINCE HENRYEven such kin as the parish heifers are to the town bull.[108]— To Poins Shall we steal upon them, Ned, at supper?

POINSI am your shadow, my lord: I’ll follow you.

PRINCE HENRYSirrah, you boy, and Bardolph, no word to your master that I am yet in town. Gives money There’s for your silence.

BARDOLPHI have no tongue, sir.

PAGEAnd for mine, sir, I will govern it.

PRINCE HENRYFare ye well. Go.

[Exeunt Bardolph and Page]

This Doll Tearsheet should be some road.[116]

POINSI warrant you, as common as the way[117] between St Albans and London.

PRINCE HENRYHow might we see Falstaff bestow[118] himself tonight in his true colours, and not ourselves be seen?

POINSPut on two leathern jerkins and aprons, and wait upon him at his table like drawers.[121]

PRINCE HENRYFrom a God[122] to a bull? A heavy declension! It was Jove’s case. From a prince to a prentice,[123] a low transformation: that shall be mine, for in everything the purpose must weigh with[124] the folly. Follow me, Ned.

Exeunt

Act 2 Scene 32.3

running scene 6

Enter Northumberland and his Lady, and Harry Percy’s Lady

NORTHUMBERLANDI prithee, loving wife and gentle daughter,

Give an even way[2] unto my rough affairs.

Put not you on the visage[3] of the times

And be like them to Percy troublesome.

5

LADY NORTHUMBERLANDI have given over, I will speak no more.

Do what you will: your wisdom be your guide.

NORTHUMBERLANDAlas, sweet wife, my honour is at pawn,

And, but[8] my going, nothing can redeem it.

LADY PERCYO, yet, for heaven’s sake, go not to these wars!

10

The time[10] was, father, when you broke your word,

When you were more endeared to it than now,

When your own Percy, when my heart-dear Harry,

Threw many a northward look to see his father

Bring up his powers. But he did long in vain.

15

Who then persuaded you to stay at home?

There were two honours lost, yours and your son’s.

For yours, may heavenly glory brighten it.

For his, it stuck upon him as the sun

In the grey[19] vault of heaven, and by his light

20

Did all the chivalry of England move

To do brave acts. He was indeed the glass[21]

Wherein the noble youth did dress themselves:[22]

He[23] had no legs that practised not his gait:

And speaking thick,[24] which nature made his blemish,

25

Became the accents of the valiant,

For those that could speak low and tardily

Would turn[27] their own perfection to abuse,

To seem like him: so that in speech, in gait,

In diet, in affections of delight,[29]

30

In military rules, humours of blood,[30]

He was the mark[31] and glass, copy and book,

That fashioned others. And him — O, wondrous him!

O, miracle of men! — him did you leave,

Second to none, unseconded[34] by you,

35

To look upon the hideous god of war

In disadvantage, to abide a field[36]

Where nothing but the sound of Hotspur’s name

Did seem defensible.[38] So you left him.

Never, O, never, do his ghost[39] the wrong

40

To hold your honour more precise and nice[40]

With others than with him. Let them alone.

The marshal[42] and the archbishop are strong.

Had my sweet Harry had but half their numbers,

Today might I, hanging on Hotspur’s neck,

45

Have talked of Monmouth’s[45] grave.

NORTHUMBERLANDBeshrew[46] your heart,

Fair daughter, you do draw my spirits[47] from me

With new[48] lamenting ancient oversights.

But I must go and meet with danger there,

50

Or it will seek me in another place

And find me worse provided.[51]

LADY NORTHUMBERLANDO, fly to Scotland,

Till that the nobles and the armèd commons

Have of their puissance[54] made a little taste.

55

LADY PERCYIf they get ground[55] and vantage of the king,

Then join you with them, like a rib of steel,

To make strength stronger. But, for all our loves,

First let them try themselves. So did your son.

He was so suffered;[59] so came I a widow,

60

And never shall have length of life enough

To rain upon remembrance[61] with mine eyes,

That it may grow and sprout as high as heaven,

For recordation to[63] my noble husband.

NORTHUMBERLANDCome, come, go in with me. ’Tis with my mind

65

As with the tide swelled up unto his height,

That makes a still-stand,[66] running neither way.

Fain would I go to meet the archbishop,

But many thousand reasons hold me back.

I will resolve for[69] Scotland: there am I,

70

Till time and vantage crave my company.

Exeunt

Act 2 Scene 42.4

running scene 7

Enter two Drawers

FIRST DRAWERWhat hast thou brought there? Apple-johns?[1] Thou know’st Sir John cannot endure an apple-john.

SECOND DRAWERThou say’st true. The prince once set a dish of apple-johns before him, and told him there were five more Sir Johns, and, putting off his hat, said ‘I will now take my leave of these six dry, round, old, withered knights.’ It angered him to the heart, but he hath forgot that.

FIRST DRAWERWhy then, cover[7] and set them down, and see if thou canst find out Sneak’s noise;[8] Mistress Tearsheet would fain have some music.

SECOND DRAWERSirrah, here will be the prince and Master Poins anon,[9] and they will put on two of our jerkins[10] and aprons, and Sir John must not know of it. Bardolph hath brought word.

FIRST DRAWERThen here will be old Utis:[12] it will be an excellent stratagem.

SECOND DRAWERI’ll see if I can find out Sneak.

Exit

Enter Hostess [Quickly] and Doll [Tearsheet]

HOSTESS QUICKLYSweetheart, methinks now you are in an excellent good temperality:[15] your pulsidge beats as extraordinarily as heart would desire; and your colour, I warrant you, is as red as any rose. But, you have drunk too much canaries,[17] and that’s a marvellous searching wine, and it perfumes the blood ere we can say ‘What’s this?’ How do you now?

DOLL TEARSHEETBetter than I was. Hem![19]

HOSTESS QUICKLYWhy, that was well said. A good heart’s worth gold. Look, here comes Sir John.

Enter Falstaff

FALSTAFF‘When[22] Arthur first in court’— Sings Empty the jordan.[23]— To First Drawer‘And was a worthy king’. How now, Mistress Doll? Sings

[Exit First Drawer]

HOSTESS QUICKLYSick of a calm,[25] yea, good sooth.

FALSTAFFSo is all her sect.[26] If they be once in a calm, they are sick.

DOLL TEARSHEETYou muddy rascal, is that all the comfort you give me?

FALSTAFFYou make fat rascals,[28] Mistress Doll.

DOLL TEARSHEETI make[29] them? Gluttony and diseases make them, I make them not.

FALSTAFFIf the cook[30] make the gluttony, you help to make the diseases, Doll. We catch of[31] you, Doll, we catch of you. Grant that, my poor virtue, grant that.

DOLL TEARSHEETAy, marry, our chains and our jewels.

FALSTAFF‘Your[33] broaches, pearls and ouches.’ For to serve bravely is to come halting off, you know. To come off the breach[34] with his pike bent bravely, and to surgery bravely; to venture upon the charged chambers[35] bravely—

HOSTESS QUICKLYWhy, this is the old fashion: you two never meet but you fall to some discord. You are both, in good troth, as rheumatic[37] as two dry toasts. You cannot one bear with another’s confirmities.[38] To Doll What the good year! One must bear,[39] and that must be you: you are the weaker vessel, as they say, the emptier vessel.

DOLL TEARSHEETCan a weak empty vessel[41] bear such a huge full hogshead? There’s a whole merchant’s venture[42] of Bordeaux stuff in him. You have not seen a hulk better stuffed in the hold. Come, I’ll be friends with thee, Jack. Thou art going to the wars, and whether I shall ever see thee again or no, there is nobody cares.

Enter [First] Drawer

FIRST DRAWERSir, Ancient[45] Pistol is below, and would speak with you.

DOLL TEARSHEETHang him, swaggering[46] rascal! Let him not come hither: it is the foul-mouthed’st rogue in England.

HOSTESS QUICKLYIf he swagger, let him not come here. I must live amongst my neighbours. I’ll[49] no swaggerers. I am in good name and fame with the very best. Shut the door, there comes no swaggerers here. I have not lived all this while, to have swaggering now. Shut the door, I pray you.

FALSTAFFDost thou hear, hostess?

HOSTESS QUICKLYPray you, pacify yourself, Sir John. There comes no swaggerers here.

FALSTAFFDost thou hear? It is mine ancient.

HOSTESS QUICKLYTilly-fally,[56] Sir John, never tell me: your ancient swaggerer comes not in my doors. I was before Master Tisick,[57] the deputy, the other day, and as he said to me — it was no longer ago than Wednesday last — ‘Neighbour Quickly’, says he — Master Dumbe,[59] our minister, was by then — ‘Neighbour Quickly,’ says he, ‘receive[60] those that are civil; for’, sayeth he, ‘you are in an ill name.’ Now he said so, I can tell whereupon. ‘For’, says he, ‘you are an honest woman, and well thought on; therefore take heed what guests you receive. Receive’, says he, ‘no swaggering companions.’[63] There comes none here. You would bless you to hear what he said. No, I’ll no swaggerers.

FALSTAFFHe’s no swaggerer, hostess: a tame[65] cheater he. You may stroke him as gently as a puppy greyhound. He will not swagger with a Barbary hen,[66] if her feathers turn back in any show of resistance.— Call him up, drawer.

[Exit First Drawer]

HOSTESS QUICKLY‘Cheater’, call you him? I will bar no honest man my house, nor no cheater, but I do not love swaggering. I am the worse[69] when one says ‘swagger’. Feel, masters, how I shake. Look you, I warrant you.

DOLL TEARSHEETSo you do, hostess.

HOSTESS QUICKLYDo I? Yea, in very truth do I, if it[72] were an aspen leaf: I cannot abide swaggerers.

Enter Pistol, and Bardolph and his Boy

PISTOLSave you, Sir John!

FALSTAFFWelcome, Ancient Pistol. Here, Pistol, I charge[75] you with a cup of sack. Do you discharge[76] upon mine hostess.

PISTOLI will discharge upon her, Sir John, with two bullets.[77]

FALSTAFFShe is Pistol-proof,[78] sir. You shall hardly offend her.

HOSTESS QUICKLYCome,[79] I’ll drink no proofs nor no bullets: I will drink no more than will do me good, for no man’s pleasure, I.

PISTOLThen to you, Mistress Dorothy.[81] I will charge you.

DOLL TEARSHEETCharge[82] me? I scorn you, scurvy companion. What? You poor, base, rascally, cheating, lack-linen mate![83] Away, you mouldy rogue, away! I am meat for your master.

PISTOLI know[85] you, Mistress Dorothy.

DOLL TEARSHEETAway, you cutpurse[86] rascal, you filthy bung, away! By this wine, I’ll thrust my knife in your mouldy chaps,[87] if you play the saucy cuttle with me. Away, you bottle-ale[88] rascal, you basket-hilt stale juggler, you! Since when, I pray you, sir? What, with two points[89] on your shoulder? Much!

PISTOLI will murder[90] your ruff for this.

HOSTESS QUICKLYNo, Good Captain[91] Pistol. Not here, sweet captain.

DOLL TEARSHEETCaptain? Thou abominable damned cheater, art thou not ashamed to be called captain? If captains were of my mind, they would truncheon[93] you out for taking their names upon you before you have earned them. You a captain? You slave, for what? For tearing a poor whore’s ruff in a bawdy-house?[95] He a captain? Hang him, rogue! He lives upon mouldy stewed prunes[96] and dried cakes. A captain? These villains will make the word ‘captain’ odious: therefore captains had need look to it.[98]

BARDOLPHPray thee go down,[99] good ancient. To Pistol

FALSTAFFHark thee hither, Mistress Doll.

PISTOLNot I. I tell thee what, Corporal Bardolph, I could tear her. I’ll be revenged on her.

PAGEPray thee go down. To Pistol

PISTOLI’ll[104] see her damned first

105

To Pluto’s damnèd lake,[105]

To the infernal deep,

With Erebus[107] and tortures vile also.

Hold[108] hook and line, say I.

Down, down, dogs! Down, Fates![109]

110

Have we not Hiren[110] here?

HOSTESS QUICKLYGood Captain Peesel,[111] be quiet. It is very late. I beseek you now, aggravate[112] your choler.

PISTOLThese be good humours[113] indeed. Shall pack-horses

And hollow pampered jades[114] of Asia,

115

Which cannot go but thirty miles a day,

Compare with Caesar and with cannibals,[116]

And Trojan Greeks?[117]

Nay, rather damn them with King Cerberus,[118]

And let the welkin[119] roar. Shall we fall foul for toys?

120

HOSTESS QUICKLYBy my troth, captain, these are very bitter words.

BARDOLPHBe gone, good ancient: this will grow to a brawl anon.

PISTOLDie men[122] like dogs! Give crowns like pins!

Have we not Hiren here?

HOSTESS QUICKLYOn my word, captain, there’s none such here. What the goodyear, do you think I would deny her?[125] I pray be quiet.

PISTOLThen feed,[126] and be fat, my fair Calipolis.

Come, give me some sack.

Si[128] fortune me tormente, sperato me contento.

Fear we broadsides?[129] No, let the fiend give fire.

130

Give me some sack. And, sweetheart, lie thou there. Lays down his sword

Come we to full points[131] here? And are etceteras nothing?

FALSTAFFPistol, I would be quiet.

PISTOLSweet knight, I kiss thy neaf.[133] What, we have seen the seven stars!

DOLL TEARSHEETThrust him downstairs. I cannot endure such a fustian[134] rascal.

135

PISTOL‘Thrust him down stairs’? Know we not Galloway nags?[135]

FALSTAFFQuoit[136] him down, Bardolph, like a shove-groat shilling. Nay, if he do nothing but speak nothing, he shall be nothing here.

BARDOLPHCome, get you downstairs.

PISTOLWhat? Shall we have incision?[139] Shall we imbrue? Snatches up his sword

140

Then death[140] rock me asleep, abridge my doleful days.

Why then, let grievous, ghastly, gaping wounds

Untwined[142] the Sisters Three! Come, Atropos, I say!

HOSTESS QUICKLYHere’s good stuff toward.[143]

FALSTAFFGive me my rapier,[144] boy.

145

DOLL TEARSHEETI prithee, Jack, I prithee do not draw.

FALSTAFFGet you downstairs. Draws and attacks Pistol

[Exit Pistol, driven out by Bardolph]

HOSTESS QUICKLYHere’s a goodly tumult! I’ll forswear[147] keeping house, before I’ll be in these tirrits[148] and frights. So, murder, I warrant now. Alas, alas, put up your naked weapons, put up your naked weapons.

DOLL TEARSHEETI prithee, Jack, be quiet. The rascal is gone. Ah, you whoreson little valiant villain, you!

HOSTESS QUICKLYAre you not hurt i’th’groin? Methought he made a shrewd[152] thrust at your belly.

[Enter Bardolph]

FALSTAFFHave you turned him out of doors? To Bardolph

BARDOLPHYes, sir. The rascal’s drunk. You have hurt him, sir, in the shoulder.

FALSTAFFA rascal to brave[156] me!

DOLL TEARSHEETAh, you sweet little rogue, you! Alas, poor ape, how thou sweat’st! Come, let me wipe thy face. Come on, you whoreson chops.[158] Ah, rogue, I love thee. Thou art as valorous as Hector of Troy,[159] worth five of Agamemnon, and ten times better than the Nine Worthies.[160] Ah, villain!

FALSTAFFA rascally slave, I will toss[161] the rogue in a blanket.

DOLL TEARSHEETDo, if thou dar’st for thy heart. If thou dost, I’ll canvass[162] thee between a pair of sheets.

Enter Musicians

PAGEThe music is come, sir.

FALSTAFFLet them play.— Play, sirs.— Sit on my knee, Doll. A rascal bragging slave! The rogue fled from me like quicksilver.[166]

DOLL TEARSHEETAnd thou followed’st him like a church.[167] Thou whoreson little tidy Bartholomew boar-pig,[168] when wilt thou leave fighting on days and foining on nights, and begin to patch up thine old body for heaven?

Enter the Prince and Poins, disguised

FALSTAFFPeace, good Doll. Do not speak like a death’s-head,[170] do not bid me remember mine end.

DOLL TEARSHEETSirrah, what humour[172] is the prince of?

FALSTAFFA good shallow young fellow: he would have made a good pantler,[173] he would have chipped bread[174] well.

DOLL TEARSHEETThey say Poins hath a good wit.

FALSTAFFHe a good wit? Hang him, baboon! His wit is as thick as Tewkesbury mustard.[176] There is no more conceit[177] in him than is in a mallet.

DOLL TEARSHEETWhy doth the prince love him so, then?

FALSTAFFBecause their legs[179] are both of a bigness, and he plays at quoits well, and eats conger and fennel,[180] and drinks off candles’ ends for flap-dragons, and rides the wild-mare with the boys, and jumps upon joint-stools,[181] and swears with a good grace, and wears his boot very smooth,[182] like unto the sign of the leg, and breeds no bate with telling of discreet[183] stories, and such other gambol faculties he hath, that show a weak mind and an able body, for the which the prince admits[184] him; for the prince himself is such another.[185] The weight of an hair will turn the scales between their avoirdupois.[186]

PRINCE HENRYWould not this nave of a wheel[187] have his ears cut off? Aside to Poins

POINSLet us beat him before his whore.

PRINCE HENRYLook, if the withered elder[189] hath not his poll clawed like a parrot.

POINSIs it not strange that desire should so many years outlive performance?

FALSTAFFKiss me, Doll. She kisses him

PRINCE HENRYSaturn and Venus[192] this year in conjunction! Aside to Poins What says the almanac to that?

POINSAnd look whether the fiery Trigon,[194] his man, be not lisping to his master’s old tables,[195] his notebook, his counsel-keeper.

FALSTAFFThou dost give me flatt’ring busses.[196] To Doll

DOLL TEARSHEETNay truly, I kiss thee with a most constant heart.

FALSTAFFI am old, I am old.

DOLL TEARSHEETI love thee better than I love e’er a scurvy young boy of them all.

FALSTAFFWhat stuff[200] wilt thou have a kirtle of? I shall receive money on Thursday. Thou shalt have a cap tomorrow. A merry song, come. It grows late. We will to bed. Thou wilt forget me when I am gone.

DOLL TEARSHEETThou wilt set me a-weeping, if thou say’st so. Prove that ever I dress myself handsome[204] till thy return. Well, hearken the end.

FALSTAFFSome sack, Francis.

PRINCE HENRY and POINS Anon,[206] anon, sir. Stepping forward

FALSTAFFHa? A bastard son of the king’s?— And art not thou Poins his[207] brother?

PRINCE HENRYWhy, thou globe of sinful continents,[208] what a life dost thou lead!

FALSTAFFA better than thou: I am a gentleman, thou art a drawer.

PRINCE HENRYVery true, sir, and I come to draw you out by the ears.

HOSTESS QUICKLYO, the lord preserve thy good grace! Welcome to London. Now, heaven bless that sweet face of thine! What, are you come from Wales?

FALSTAFFThou whoreson mad compound[213] of majesty, by this light flesh and corrupt blood, thou art welcome.

DOLL TEARSHEETHow? You fat fool, I scorn you.

POINSMy lord, he will drive you out of your revenge and turn all to a merriment, if you take[217] not the heat.

PRINCE HENRYYou whoreson candle-mine,[218] you, how vilely did you speak of me even now before this honest,[219] virtuous, civil gentlewoman!

HOSTESS QUICKLYBlessing on your good heart, and so she is, by my troth.

FALSTAFFDidst thou hear me? To Prince Henry

PRINCE HENRYYes, and you knew[222] me, as you did when you ran away by Gad’s Hill: you knew I was at your back, and spoke it on purpose to try my patience.

FALSTAFFNo, no, no, not so. I did not think thou wast within hearing.

PRINCE HENRYI shall drive you then to confess the wilful abuse,[225] and then I know how to handle you.

FALSTAFFNo abuse, Hal, on mine honour, no abuse.

PRINCE HENRYNot to dispraise me, and call me pantler and bread-chopper and I know not what?

FALSTAFFNo abuse, Hal.

POINSNo abuse?

FALSTAFFNo abuse, Ned, in the world, honest Ned, none. I dispraised him before the wicked, that the wicked might not fall in love with him — in which doing, I have done the part of a careful friend and a true subject, and thy father is to give me thanks for it. No abuse, Hal.— None, Ned, none.— No, boys, none.

PRINCE HENRYSee now whether pure fear and entire cowardice doth not make thee wrong this virtuous gentlewoman to close[237] with us? Is she of the wicked? Is thine hostess here of the wicked? Or is the boy of the wicked? Or honest Bardolph, whose zeal burns[239] in his nose, of the wicked?

POINSAnswer, thou dead elm,[240] answer.

FALSTAFFThe fiend hath pricked[241] down Bardolph irrecoverable, and his face is Lucifer’s privy-kitchen,[242] where he doth nothing but roast malt-worms. For the boy, there is a good angel about him, but the devil outbids[243] him too.

PRINCE HENRYFor the women?

FALSTAFFFor one of them, she is in hell[245] already, and burns poor souls. For the other, I owe[246] her money, and whether she be damned for that, I know not.

HOSTESS QUICKLYNo, I warrant you.

FALSTAFFNo, I think thou art not. I think thou art quit[248] for that. Marry, there is another indictment upon thee, for suffering[249] flesh to be eaten in thy house, contrary to the law, for the which I think thou wilt howl.[250]

HOSTESS QUICKLYAll victuallers[251] do so. What is a joint of mutton or two in a whole Lent?

PRINCE HENRYYou, gentlewoman— To Doll

DOLL TEARSHEETWhat says your grace?

FALSTAFFHis grace says[255] that which his flesh rebels against. Knocking within

HOSTESS QUICKLYWho knocks so loud at door? Look to the door there, Francis.

Enter Peto

PRINCE HENRYPeto, how now? What news?

PETOThe king your father is at Westminster,[258]

And there are twenty weak and wearied posts[259]

260

Come from the north, and as I came along,

I met and overtook a dozen captains,

Bare-headed,[262] sweating, knocking at the taverns,

And asking every one for Sir John Falstaff.

PRINCE HENRYBy heaven, Poins, I feel me much to blame,

265

So idly to profane[265] the precious time,

When tempest of commotion,[266] like the south

Borne[267] with black vapour, doth begin to melt

And drop upon our bare unarmèd heads.—

Give me my sword and cloak.— Falstaff, goodnight.

Exeunt [Prince Henry, Poins and Peto]

FALSTAFFNow comes in the sweetest morsel[270] of the night, and we must hence and leave it unpicked.[271] Knocking within More knocking at the door? How now? What’s the matter?

Bardolph goes to the door

BARDOLPHYou must away to court, sir, presently.[272] A dozen captains stay[273] at door for you.

FALSTAFFPay the musicians, sirrah.— To the Page Farewell, hostess.— Farewell, Doll. You see, my good wenches, how men of merit are sought after. The undeserver may sleep, when the man of action is called on. Farewell good wenches. If I be not sent away post,[277] I will see you again ere I go.

DOLL TEARSHEETI cannot speak. If my heart be not ready to burst — well, sweet Jack, have a care of thyself.

FALSTAFFFarewell, farewell.

Exeunt [Falstaff, Bardolph and Page]

HOSTESS QUICKLYWell, fare thee well. I have known[281] thee these twenty-nine years, come peascod-time,[282] but an honester and truer-hearted man — well, fare thee well.

BARDOLPHMistress Tearsheet! Within

HOSTESS QUICKLYWhat’s the matter?

BARDOLPHBid Mistress Tearsheet come to my master. Within

HOSTESS QUICKLYO, run, Doll, run. Run, good Doll!

Exeunt

Act 3 Scene 13.1

running scene 8

Enter the King, with a Page

KING HENRY IVGo call the Earls of Surrey and of Warwick. Gives letters

But ere they come, bid them o’er-read these letters,

And well consider of them. Make good speed.

Exit [Page]

How many thousand of my poorest subjects

5

Are at this hour asleep? O sleep, O gentle sleep,

Nature’s soft nurse, how have I frighted thee,

That thou no more wilt weigh my eyelids down

And steep my senses in forgetfulness?

Why rather, sleep, liest thou in smoky cribs,[9]

10

Upon uneasy pallets[10] stretching thee

And hushed with buzzing night-flies to thy slumber,

Than in the perfumed chambers of the great,

Under the canopies of costly state,[13]

And lulled with sounds of sweetest melody?

15

O thou dull god, why liest thou with the vile[15]

In loathsome beds, and leav’st the kingly couch

A watch-case[17] or a common ’larum-bell?

Wilt thou upon the high and giddy mast

Seal up the ship-boy’s eyes, and rock his brains

20

In cradle of the rude imperious surge[20]

And in the visitation[21] of the winds,

Who take the ruffian billows[22] by the top,

Curling their monstrous heads and hanging them

With deaf’ning clamours in the slipp’ry[24] clouds,

25

That,[25] with the hurly, death itself awakes?

Canst thou, O partial[26] sleep, give thy repose

To the wet sea-boy in an hour so rude,[27]

And in the calmest and most stillest night,

With all appliances and means to boot,[29]

30

Deny it to a king? Then happy low,[30] lie down!

Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown.

Enter Warwick and Surrey

WARWICKMany good morrows[32] to your majesty!

KING HENRY IVIs it good morrow, lords?

WARWICK’Tis one o’clock, and past.

35

KING HENRY IVWhy then, good morrow to you all, my lords.

Have you read o’er the letters that I sent you?

WARWICKWe have, my liege.

KING HENRY IVThen you perceive the body of our kingdom

How foul[39] it is, what rank diseases grow

40

And with what danger, near the heart of it?

WARWICKIt is but as a body yet distempered,[41]

Which to his former strength may be restored

With good advice and little[43] medicine:

My lord Northumberland will soon be cooled.[44]

45

WARWICKO, heaven! That one might read the book of fate,

And see the revolution[46] of the times

Make mountains level, and the continent,[47]

Weary of solid firmness, melt itself

Into the sea. And other times, to see

50

The beachy[50] girdle of the ocean

Too wide for Neptune’s[51] hips; how chance’s mocks

And changes fill the cup of alteration

With divers[53] liquors! ’Tis not ten years gone

Since Richard[54] and Northumberland, great friends,

55

Did feast together, and in two years after

Were they at wars. It is but eight years since

This Percy[57] was the man nearest my soul,

Who like a brother toiled in my affairs

And laid his love and life under my foot,[59]

60

Yea, for my sake, even to the eyes[60] of Richard

Gave him defiance. But which of you was by—

You, cousin Neville,[62] as I may remember— To Warwick

When Richard, with his eye brimful of tears,

Then checked and rated[64] by Northumberland,

65

Did speak these words, now proved a prophecy?

‘Northumberland,[66] thou ladder by the which

My cousin Bullingbrook ascends my throne’ —

Though then, heaven knows, I had no such intent,

But that necessity so bowed the state

70

That I and greatness were compelled to kiss —

‘The time shall come’, thus did he follow it,

‘The time will come that foul sin, gathering head,[72]

Shall break into corruption.[73]’ So went on,

Foretelling this same[74] time’s condition

75

And the division of our amity.

WARWICKThere is a history in all men’s lives,

Figuring[77] the nature of the times deceased,

The which observed, a man may prophesy,

With a near aim,[79] of the main chance of things

80

As yet not come to life, which in their seeds

And weak beginnings lie intreasurèd.[81]

Such things become the hatch and brood[82] of time;

And by the necessary form[83] of this,

King Richard might create a perfect guess

85

That great Northumberland, then false[85] to him,

Would of that seed grow to a greater falseness,

Which should not find a ground to root upon,

Unless on you.

KING HENRY IVAre these things then necessities?

90

Then let us meet them like necessities;

And that same word even now cries out on[91] us.

They say the bishop and Northumberland

Are fifty thousand strong.

WARWICKIt cannot be, my lord.

95

Rumour doth double, like the voice and echo,

The numbers of the feared. Please it your grace

To go to bed. Upon my life, my lord,

The powers that you already have sent forth

Shall bring this prize in very easily.

100

To comfort you the more, I have received

A certain instance[101] that Glendower is dead.

Your majesty hath been this fortnight ill,

And these unseasoned[103] hours perforce must add

Unto your sickness.

105

KING HENRY IVI will take your counsel.

And were these inward[106] wars once out of hand,

We would,[107] dear lords, unto the Holy Land.

Exeunt

Act 3 Scene 23.2

running scene 9

Enter Shallow and Silence, with Mouldy, Shadow, Wart, Feeble, Bullcalf [and Servants]

SHALLOWCome on, come on, come on. Give me your hand, sir; give me your hand, sir. An early stirrer, by the rood![2] And how doth my good cousin Silence?

SILENCEGood morrow, good cousin Shallow.

SHALLOWAnd how doth my cousin, your bedfellow?[4] And your fairest daughter and mine, my goddaughter Ellen?

SILENCEAlas, a black[6] ouzel, cousin Shallow!

SHALLOWBy[7] yea and nay, sir. I dare say my cousin William is become a good scholar: he is at Oxford[8] still, is he not?

SILENCEIndeed, sir, to my cost.

SHALLOWHe must then to the Inns of Court[10] shortly. I was once of Clement’s Inn, where I think they will talk of mad Shallow yet.

SILENCEYou were called ‘lusty[12] Shallow’ then, cousin.

SHALLOWI was called anything, and I would have done anything indeed too, and roundly[14] too. There was I, and little John Doit of Staffordshire, and black George Bare, and Francis Pickbone,[15] and Will Squele, a Cotswold man. You had not four such swinge-bucklers[16] in all the Inns of Court again. And I may say to you, we knew where the bona-robas[17] were and had the best of them all at commandment. Then was Jack Falstaff, now Sir John, a boy, and page to Thomas Mowbray, Duke of Norfolk.

SILENCEThis Sir John, cousin, that comes hither anon about soldiers?

SHALLOWThe same Sir John, the very same. I saw him break Scoggin’s[21] head at the court-gate,[22] when he was a crack not thus high. And the very same day did I fight with one Sampson Stockfish,[23] a fruiterer, behind Gray’s Inn. O, the mad days that I have spent! And to see how many of mine old acquaintance are dead!

SILENCEWe shall all follow, cousin.

SHALLOWCertain, ’tis certain, very sure, very sure: death is certain to all, all shall die. How[27] a good yoke of bullocks at Stamford Fair?

SILENCETruly, cousin, I was not there.

SHALLOWDeath is certain. Is old Double of your town living yet?

SILENCEDead, sir.

SHALLOWDead? See, see, he drew[31] a good bow, and dead? He shot a fine shoot. John of Gaunt loved him well, and betted much money on his head. Dead? He would have clapped[33] in the clout at twelvescore, and carried you a forehand shaft at fourteen[34] and fourteen and a half, that it would have done a man’s heart good to see. How a score[35] of ewes now?

SILENCEThereafter[36] as they be: a score of good ewes may be worth ten pounds.

SHALLOWAnd is old Double dead?

Enter Bardolph and his Boy [Falstaff’s Page]

SILENCEHere come two of Sir John Falstaffs men, as I think.

SHALLOWGood morrow, honest gentlemen.

BARDOLPHI beseech[40] you, which is Justice Shallow?

SHALLOWI am Robert Shallow, sir, a poor esquire[41] of this county, and one of the king’s justices of the peace.[42] What is your good pleasure with me?

BARDOLPHMy captain, sir, commends him to you — my captain, Sir John Falstaff, a tall[43] gentleman, and a most gallant leader.

SHALLOWHe greets me well, sir. I knew him a good backsword[45] man. How doth the good knight? May I ask how my lady his wife doth?

BARDOLPHSir, pardon. A soldier is better accommodated[47] than with a wife.

SHALLOWIt is well said, sir; and it is well said indeed too. Better accommodated! It is good, yea, indeed, is it. Good phrases are surely, and everywhere, very commendable. Accommodated! It comes of accommodo.[50] Very good, a good phrase.

BARDOLPHPardon, sir, I have heard the word. Phrase call you it? By this day, I know not the phrase, but I will maintain the word with my sword to be a soldier-like word, and a word of exceeding good command. ‘Accommodated’, that is when a man is, as they say, accommodated, or when a man is being whereby he thought to be accommodated, which is an excellent thing.

Enter Falstaff

SHALLOWIt is very just.[56] Look, here comes good Sir John. Give me your good hand, give me your worship’s good hand. Trust me, you look well and bear your years very well. Welcome, good Sir John.

FALSTAFFI am glad to see you well, good Master Robert Shallow.— Master Surecard,[59] as I think?

SHALLOWNo, Sir John, it is my cousin Silence, in commission[61] with me.

FALSTAFFGood Master Silence, it well befits you should be of the peace.[62]

SILENCEYour good worship is welcome.

FALSTAFFFie, this is hot weather, gentlemen. Have you provided me here half a dozen of sufficient[65] men?

SHALLOWMarry, have we, sir. Will you sit?

FALSTAFFLet me see them, I beseech you. They sit

SHALLOWWhere’s the roll? Where’s the roll? Where’s the roll? Let me see, let me see, let me see. So, so, so, so. Yea, marry, sir.— Ralph Mouldy! Let them appear as I call, let them do so, let them do so. Let me see, where is Mouldy?

MOULDYHere, if it please you.

SHALLOWWhat think you, Sir John? A good-limbed fellow: young, strong, and of good friends.[73]

FALSTAFFIs thy name Mouldy?

MOULDYYea, if it please you.

FALSTAFF’Tis the more time thou wert used.

SHALLOWHa, ha, ha! Most excellent! Things that are mouldy lack use: very singular good. Well said, Sir John, very well said.

FALSTAFFPrick[79] him.

MOULDYI was pricked[80] well enough before, if you could have let me alone. My old dame[81] will be undone now for one to do her husbandry and her drudgery; you need not to have pricked me. There are other men fitter to go out than I.

FALSTAFFGo to. Peace, Mouldy, you shall go. Mouldy, it is time you were spent.[83]

MOULDYSpent?

SHALLOWPeace, fellow, peace; stand aside. Know you where you are?— For the other,[86] Sir John, let me see.— Simon Shadow?

FALSTAFFAy, marry, let me have him to sit under: he’s like to be a cold[87] soldier.

SHALLOWWhere’s Shadow?

SHADOWHere, sir.

FALSTAFFShadow, whose son[90] art thou?

SHADOWMy mother’s son, sir.

FALSTAFFThy mother’s son! Like enough, and thy father’s shadow.[92] So the son of the female is the shadow of the male. It is often so, indeed, but not[93] of the father’s substance!

SHALLOWDo you like him, Sir John?

FALSTAFFShadow will serve[96] for summer. Aside Prick him,— for we have a number of shadows[97] to fill up the muster book.

SHALLOWThomas Wart?

FALSTAFFWhere’s he?

WARTHere, sir.

FALSTAFFIs thy name Wart?

WARTYea, sir.

FALSTAFFThou art a very ragged[103] wart.

SHALLOWShall I prick him down, Sir John?

FALSTAFFIt were superfluous, for his apparel[105] is built upon his back, and the whole frame stands upon pins. Prick him no more.

SHALLOWHa, ha, ha! You can do it, sir, you can do it. I commend you well.—Francis Feeble?

FEEBLEHere, sir.

FALSTAFFWhat trade art thou, Feeble?

FEEBLEA woman’s tailor,[111] sir.

SHALLOWShall I prick him, sir?

FALSTAFFYou may: but if he had been a man’s tailor, he would have pricked[113] you. Wilt thou make as many holes in an enemy’s battle[114] as thou hast done in a woman’s petticoat?

FEEBLEI will do my good will,[116] sir. You can have no more.

FALSTAFFWell said, good woman’s tailor! Well said, courageous Feeble! Thou wilt be as valiant as the wrathful dove or most magnanimous[118] mouse. Prick the woman’s tailor well,[119] Master Shallow, deep, Master Shallow.

FEEBLEI would Wart might have gone, sir.

FALSTAFFI would thou wert a man’s tailor, that thou mightst mend him and make him fit to go.[122] I cannot put him to a private soldier that is the leader of so many thousands.[123] Let that suffice, most forcible Feeble.

FEEBLEIt shall suffice.

FALSTAFFI am bound to thee, reverend Feeble.— Who is the next?

SHALLOWPeter Bullcalf of the green?[126]

FALSTAFFYea, marry, let us see Bullcalf.

BULLCALFHere, sir.

FALSTAFFTrust me, a likely[129] fellow! Come, prick me Bullcalf till he roar again.

BULLCALFO, good my lord captain—

FALSTAFFWhat, dost thou roar before th’art pricked?

BULLCALFO, sir! I am a diseased man.

FALSTAFFWhat disease hast thou?

BULLCALFA whoreson cold, sir, a cough, sir, which I caught with ringing[134] in the king’s affairs upon his coronation day,[135] sir.

FALSTAFFCome, thou shalt go to the wars in a gown.[136] We will have away thy cold, and I will take such order[137] that thy friends shall ring for thee.— Is here all?

SHALLOWThere is two[138] more called than your number. You must have but four here, sir, and so I pray you go in with me to dinner.

FALSTAFFCome, I will go drink with you, but I cannot tarry[140] dinner. I am glad to see you, in good troth, Master Shallow.

SHALLOWO, Sir John, do you remember since we lay all night in the Windmill[142] in St George’s Field?[143]

FALSTAFFNo more of that, good Master Shallow, no more of that.

SHALLOWHa, it was a merry night. And is Jane Nightwork[145] alive?

FALSTAFFShe lives, Master Shallow.

SHALLOWShe never could away with[147] me.

FALSTAFFNever, never. She would always say she could not abide Master Shallow.

SHALLOWI could anger her to the heart. She was then a bona-roba.[149] Doth she hold her own well?

FALSTAFFOld, old, Master Shallow.

SHALLOWNay, she must be old. She cannot choose but be old, certain she’s old, and had Robin Nightwork by old Nightwork before I came to Clement’s Inn.

SILENCEThat’s fifty-five years ago.

SHALLOWHa, cousin Silence, that thou hadst seen that that this knight and I have seen! Ha, Sir John, said I well?

FALSTAFFWe have heard the chimes at midnight, Master Shallow.

SHALLOWThat we have, that we have, in faith, Sir John, we have. Our watch-word[158] was ‘Hem boys!’ Come, let’s to dinner; come, let’s to dinner. O, the days that we have seen! Come, come.

[Exeunt Falstaff and the Justices]

BULLCALFGood Master Corporate[161] Bardolph, stand my friend, Gives money to Bardolph and here is four Harry ten shillings in French crowns for you. In very truth, sir, I had as lief[162] be hanged, sir, as go. And yet, for mine own part, sir, I do not care; but rather, because I am unwilling, and for mine own part, have a desire to stay with my friends.[164] Else, sir, I did not care, for mine own part, so much.

BARDOLPHGo to.[166] Stand aside.

MOULDYAnd, good master corporal captain, for my old dame’s sake, stand my friend: she hath nobody to do anything about her when I am gone, and she is old, and cannot help herself. Gives money You shall have forty,[169] sir.

BARDOLPHGo to. Stand aside.

FEEBLEI care not. A man can die but once: we owe a death. I will never bear a base mind. If it be my destiny, so:[172] if it be not, so. No man is too good to serve his prince, and let it go which way it will, he that dies this year is quit[173] for the next.

BARDOLPHWell said. Thou art a good fellow.

FEEBLENay, I will bear no base mind.

[Enter Falstaff and the Justices]

FALSTAFFCome, sir, which men shall I have?

SHALLOWFour of which you please.

BARDOLPHSir, a word with you: I have three pound to free Mouldy and Bullcalf.

FALSTAFFGo to, well.

SHALLOWCome, Sir John, which four will you have?

FALSTAFFDo you choose for me.

SHALLOWMarry, then, Mouldy, Bullcalf, Feeble and Shadow.

FALSTAFFMouldy and Bullcalf: for you, Mouldy, stay at home till you are past service.[184]— And for your part, Bullcalf, grow till you come unto it. I will none of you.

SHALLOWSir John, Sir John, do not yourself wrong. They are your likeliest[186] men, and I would have you served with the best.

FALSTAFFWill you tell me, Master Shallow, how to choose a man? Care I for the limb, the thews,[189] the stature, bulk, and big assemblance of a man? Give me the spirit, Master Shallow. Where’s Wart? You see what a ragged appearance it is. He shall charge[191] you and discharge you with the motion of a pewterer’s hammer, come off and on[192] swifter than he that gibbets on the brewer’s bucket. And this same half-faced[193] fellow, Shadow, give me this man: he presents no mark to the enemy. The foeman may with as great aim[194] level at the edge of a penknife. And for a retreat, how swiftly will this Feeble, the woman’s tailor, run off! O, give me the spare[196] men, and spare me the great ones. Put me a caliver into Wart’s hand, Bardolph.

BARDOLPHHold, Wart, traverse.[198] Gives Wart a caliver Thus, thus, thus.

FALSTAFFCome, manage me[199] your caliver. So, very well, go to, very good, exceeding good. O, give me always a little, lean, old, chopped,[200] bald shot. Well said, Wart. Thou art a good scab.[201] Gives money Hold, there is a tester for thee.

SHALLOWHe is not his craft’s master. He doth not do it right. I remember at Mile-End Green,[202] when I lay at Clement’s Inn — I was then Sir[203] Dagonet in Arthur’s show — there was a little quiver[204] fellow, and he would manage you his piece thus. And he would about and about, and come you in and come you in. ‘Ra, ta, ta’, would he say. ‘Bounce’, would he say, and away again would he go, and again would he come. I shall never see such a fellow.

FALSTAFFThese fellows will do well, Master Shallow. Farewell, Master Silence. I wil not use many words with you. Fare you well, gentlemen both. I thank you. I must[210] a dozen mile tonight. Bardolph, give the soldiers coats.

SHALLOWSir John, heaven bless you and prosper your affairs, and send us peace! As you return, visit my house. Let our old acquaintance be renewed. Peradventure[212] I will with you to the court.

FALSTAFFI would[214] you would, Master Shallow.

SHALLOWGo to. I have[215] spoke at a word. Fare you well.

Exit

FALSTAFFFare you well, gentle[216] gentlemen.— On, Bardolph. Lead the men away.

[Exeunt Bardolph, Mouldy, Shadow, Wart, Feeble and Bullcalf]

As I return, I will fetch off[217] these justices. I do see the bottom of Justice Shallow. How subject we old men are to this vice of lying! This same starved justice hath done nothing but prate[219] to me of the wildness of his youth, and the feats he hath done about Turnbull Street,[220] and every third word a lie, duer paid to the hearer than the Turk’s tribute.[221] I do remember him at Clement’s Inn like a man made after supper of a cheese-paring. When he was naked, he was, for all the world, like a forked radish, with a head fantastically carved upon it with a knife. He was so forlorn,[224] that his dimensions to any thick sight were invincible. He was the very genius[225] of famine. He came ever in the rearward of the fashion. And now is this Vice’s dagger[226] become a squire, and talks as familiarly of John of Gaunt as if he had been sworn brother[227] to him, and I’ll be sworn he never saw him but once in the Tilt-yard,[228] and then he burst his head for crowding among the marshal’s men. I saw it, and told John of Gaunt he beat his own name,[229] for you might have trussed him[230] and all his apparel into an eel-skin, the case of a treble hautboy was a mansion for him, a court. And now hath he land and beefs.[231] Well, I will be acquainted[232] with him, if I return, and it shall go hard but I will make him a philosopher’s two stones[233] to me. If the young dace be a bait for the old pike, I see no reason in the law of nature but I may snap at him. Let time shape,[234] and there an end.

Exit

Act 4 Scene 14.1

running scene 10

Enter the Archbishop, Mowbray, Hastings

ARCHBISHOP OF YORKWhat is this forest called?

HASTINGS’Tis Gaultree Forest,[2] an’t shall please your grace.

ARCHBISHOP OF YORKHere stand, my lords, and send discoverers[3] forth

To know the numbers of our enemies.

5

HASTINGSWe have sent forth already.

ARCHBISHOP OF YORK’Tis well done.

My friends and brethren in these great affairs,

I must acquaint you that I have received

New-dated[9] letters from Northumberland.

10

Their cold intent, tenor and substance, thus:

Here doth he wish his person, with such powers[11]

As might hold sortance with[12] his quality,

The which he could not levy,[13] whereupon

He is retired,[14] to ripe his growing fortunes,

15

To Scotland; and concludes in hearty prayers

That your attempts may overlive[16] the hazard

And fearful meeting of their opposite.[17]

MOWBRAYThus do the hopes we have in him touch ground[18]

And dash themselves to pieces.

Enter a Messenger

20

HASTINGSNow, what news?

MESSENGERWest of this forest, scarcely off a mile,

In goodly form[22] comes on the enemy.

And by the ground they hide, I judge their number

Upon or near the rate[24] of thirty thousand.

25

MOWBRAYThe just[25] proportion that we gave them out.

Let us sway on[26] and face them in the field.

Enter Westmorland

ARCHBISHOP OF YORKWhat well-appointed[27] leader fronts us here?

MOWBRAYI think it is my lord of Westmorland.

WESTMORLANDHealth and fair greeting from our general,

30

The prince,[30] Lord John and Duke of Lancaster.

ARCHBISHOP OF YORKSay on, my lord of Westmorland, in peace:

What doth[32] concern your coming?

WESTMORLANDThen, my lord,

Unto your grace do I in chief address

35

The substance of my speech. If that[35] rebellion

Came like itself,[36] in base and abject routs,

Led on by bloody[37] youth, guarded with rage,

And countenanced[38] by boys and beggary,

I say, if damned commotion[39] so appeared,

40

In his true, native and most proper[40] shape,

You, reverend[41] father, and these noble lords

Had not[42] been here to dress the ugly form

Of base and bloody insurrection

With your fair honours.[44] You, lord archbishop,

45

Whose see[45] is by a civil peace maintained,

Whose beard the silver hand of peace hath touched,

Whose learning and good letters[47] peace hath tutored,

Whose white investments[48] figure innocence,

The dove and very blessèd spirit of peace,

50

Wherefore do you so ill translate yourself

Out of the speech of peace that bears such grace,

Into the harsh and boisterous tongue of war,

Turning your books to graves, your ink to blood,

Your pens to lances and your tongue divine

55

To a loud trumpet and a point[55] of war?

ARCHBISHOP OF YORKWherefore do I this? So the question stands.

Briefly to this end: we are all diseased,

And with our surfeiting and wanton[58] hours

Have brought ourselves into a burning fever,

60

And we must bleed[60] for it, of which disease

Our late King Richard, being infected, died.

But, my most noble lord of Westmorland,

I take[63] not on me here as a physician,

Nor do I as an enemy to peace

65

Troop in the throngs of military men,

But rather show[66] awhile like fearful war,

To diet rank[67] minds sick of happiness

And purge th’obstructions which begin to stop

Our very veins of life. Hear me more plainly.

70

I have in equal balance justly[70] weighed

What wrongs our arms may do, what wrongs we suffer,

And find our griefs[72] heavier than our offences.

We see which way the stream of time doth run,

And are enforced from our most quiet there[74]

75

By the rough torrent of occasion,[75]

And have the summary of all our griefs,

When time shall serve, to show in articles;[77]

Which long ere this we offered to the king,

And might by no suit[79] gain our audience.

80

When we are wronged and would unfold[80] our griefs,

We are denied access unto his person

Even by those men that most have done us wrong.

The dangers of the days but newly gone,[83]

Whose memory[84] is written on the earth

85

With yet appearing[85] blood, and the examples

Of[86] every minute’s instance, present now,

Hath put us in these ill-beseeming[87] arms,

Not to break peace or any branch of it,

But to establish here a peace indeed,

90

Concurring both in name and quality.

WESTMORLANDWhenever yet was your appeal denied?

Wherein have you been gallèd[92] by the king?

What peer hath been suborned[93] to grate on you,

That you should seal[94] this lawless bloody book

95

Of forged rebellion with a seal divine?

ARCHBISHOP OF YORKMy brother general, the commonwealth,[96]

I make my quarrel in particular.

WESTMORLANDThere is no need of any such redress,

Or if there were, it not belongs to you.

100

MOWBRAYWhy not to him in part, and to us all

That feel the bruises of the days before,

And suffer the condition of these times

To lay a heavy and unequal[103] hand

Upon our honours?

105

WESTMORLANDO, my good lord Mowbray,

Construe[106] the times to their necessities,

And you shall say indeed, it is the time,

And not the king, that doth you injuries.

Yet for your part, it not appears[109] to me

110

Either from the king or in the present time

That you should have an inch of any ground

To build a grief on. Were you not restored

To all the Duke of Norfolk’s signories,[113]

Your noble and right well rememb’red father’s?

115

MOWBRAYWhat thing, in honour, had my father lost,

That need to be revived and breathed[116] in me?

The king that loved him, as the state[117] stood then,

Was force perforce[118] compelled to banish him,

And then that Henry Bullingbrook and he,

120

Being mounted and both rousèd[120] in their seats,

Their neighing coursers[121] daring of the spur,

Their armèd[122] staves in charge, their beavers down,

Their eyes of fire sparkling through sights of steel[123]

And the loud trumpet blowing them together,[124]

125

Then, then, when there was nothing could have stayed[125]

My father from the breast of Bullingbrook,

O, when the king did throw his warder[127] down —

His own life hung upon the staff he threw —

Then threw he down himself and all their lives[129]

130

That by indictment[130] and by dint of sword

Have since miscarried[131] under Bullingbrook.

WESTMORLANDYou speak, Lord Mowbray, now you know not what.

The Earl of Hereford[133] was reputed then

In England the most valiant gentleman.

135

Who knows on whom fortune would then have smiled?

But if your father had been victor there,

He[137] ne’er had borne it out of Coventry,

For all the country in a general voice

Cried hate upon him, and all their prayers and love

140

Were set on Hereford, whom they doted on

And blessed and graced and did[141] more than the king —

But this is mere digression from my purpose.

Here come I from our princely general

To know your griefs; to tell you from his grace

145

That he will give you audience, and wherein[145]

It shall appear that your demands are just,

You shall enjoy them,[147] everything set off,

That might so much as think you[148] enemies.

MOWBRAYBut he hath forced us to compel[149] this offer,

150

And it proceeds from policy,[150] not love.

WESTMORLANDMowbray, you overween[151] to take it so.

This offer comes from mercy, not from fear.

For, lo, within a ken[153] our army lies,

Upon mine honour, all too confident

155

To give admittance to a thought of fear.

Our battle[156] is more full of names than yours,

Our men more perfect[157] in the use of arms,

Our armour all as strong, our cause the best;

Then reason will[159] our hearts should be as good.

160

Say you not then our offer is compelled.

MOWBRAYWell, by my will, we shall admit no parley.[161]

WESTMORLANDThat argues but the shame of your offence:

A rotten[163] case abides no handling.

HASTINGSHath the Prince John a full commission,

165

In very ample virtue[165] of his father,

To hear and absolutely to determine[166]

Of what conditions we shall stand upon?

WESTMORLANDThat is intended[168] in the general’s name.

I muse[169] you make so slight a question.

170

ARCHBISHOP OF YORKThen take, my lord of Westmorland, this schedule,[170] Gives paper

For this contains our general grievances:

Each several article[172] herein redressed,

All members of our cause, both here and hence,[173]

That are insinewed to[174] this action,

175

Acquitted[175] by a true substantial form

And present[176] execution of our wills

To us and to our purposes confined,

We come within our awful banks[178] again

And knit[179] our powers to the arm of peace.

180

WESTMORLANDThis will I show the general. Please you,[180] lords,

In sight of both our battles[181] we may meet,

At either end[182] in peace, which heaven so frame,

Or to the place of difference call the swords

Which must decide it.

185

ARCHBISHOP OF YORKMy lord, we will do so.

[Exit Westmorland]

MOWBRAYThere is a thing within my bosom tells me

That no conditions of our peace can stand.

HASTINGSFear you not that. If we can make our peace

Upon such large terms and so absolute[189]

190

As our conditions shall consist upon,[190]

Our peace shall stand as firm as rocky mountains.

MOWBRAYAy, but our valuation[192] shall be such

That every slight and false-derivèd[193] cause,

Yea, every idle, nice and wanton[194] reason

195

Shall to the king taste of this action,

That, were[196] our royal faiths martyrs in love,

We shall be winnowed[197] with so rough a wind

That[198] even our corn shall seem as light as chaff

And good from bad find no partition.

200

ARCHBISHOP OF YORKNo, no, my lord. Note this: the king is weary

Of dainty[201] and such picking grievances,

For he hath found to end one doubt[202] by death

Revives two greater in the heirs of life,[203]

And therefore will he wipe his tables[204] clean

205

And keep no tell-tale to his memory

That may repeat and history[206] his loss

To new remembrance. For full well he knows

He cannot so precisely[208] weed this land

As his misdoubts present occasion:[209]

210

His foes are so enrooted[210] with his friends

That, plucking to unfix an enemy,

He doth unfasten so and shake a friend,

So that this land, like an offensive wife

That hath enraged him on[214] to offer strokes,

215

As he is striking, holds his infant up

And hangs resolved correction[216] in the arm

That was upreared to execution.[217]

HASTINGSBesides, the king hath wasted[218] all his rods

On late[219] offenders, that he now doth lack

220

The very instruments of chastisement,

So that his power, like to a fangless lion,

May offer,[222] but not hold.

ARCHBISHOP OF YORK’Tis very true,

And therefore be assured, my good lord marshal,

225

If we do now make our atonement[225] well,

Our peace will, like a broken limb united,

Grow stronger for the breaking.

MOWBRAYBe it so.

Here is returned my lord of Westmorland.

Enter Westmorland

230

WESTMORLANDThe prince is here at hand. Pleaseth your lordship

To meet his grace just[231] distance ’tween our armies.

MOWBRAYYour grace of York, in heaven’s name then forward.

ARCHBISHOP OF YORKBefore,[233] and greet his grace.— My lord, we come.

Enter Prince John [and Attendants]a

PRINCE JOHNYou are well encountered here, my cousin[234] Mowbray.—

235

Good day to you, gentle[235] lord archbishop.—

And so to you, Lord Hastings, and to all.—

My lord of York, it better[237] showed with you

When that your flock, assembled by the bell,

Encircled you to hear with reverence

240

Your exposition on the holy text

Than now to see you here an iron[241] man,

Cheering a rout of rebels with your drum,

Turning the word[243] to sword and life to death.

That man that sits within a monarch’s heart,

245

And ripens in the sunshine of his favour,

Would he[246] abuse the countenance of the king,

Alack, what mischiefs might he set abroach[247]

In shadow of such greatness! With you, lord bishop,

It is even so. Who hath not heard it spoken

250

How deep[250] you were within the books of heaven?

To us, the speaker[251] in his parliament;

To us, th’imagined voice of heaven itself,

The very opener and intelligencer[253]

Between the grace, the sanctities[254] of heaven

255

And our dull workings.[255] O, who shall believe

But you[256] misuse the reverence of your place,

Employ the countenance[257] and grace of heaven,

As a false[258] favourite doth his prince’s name,

In deeds dishonourable? You have taken up,[259]

260

Under the counterfeited zeal[260] of heaven,

The subjects of heaven’s substitute,[261] my father,

And both against the peace of heaven and him

Have here upswarmèd[263] them.

ARCHBISHOP OF YORKGood my lord of Lancaster,

265

I am not here against your father’s peace,

But, as I told my lord of Westmorland,

The time misordered[267] doth, in common sense,

Crowd us and crush us to this monstrous[268] form,

To hold[269] our safety up. I sent your grace

270

The parcels[270] and particulars of our grief,

The which hath been with scorn shoved[271] from the court,

Whereon this Hydra[272] son of war is born,

Whose dangerous eyes[273] may well be charmed asleep

With grant of our most just and right desires,

275

And true obedience, of this madness cured,

Stoop tamely to the foot of majesty.

MOWBRAYIf not, we ready are to try our fortunes

To the last man.

HASTINGSAnd though we here fall down,

280

We have supplies[280] to second our attempt:

If they miscarry, theirs shall second them,

And so success[282] of mischief shall be born

And heir from heir shall hold this quarrel up

Whiles[284] England shall have generation.

285

PRINCE JOHNYou are too shallow, Hastings, much too shallow,

To sound the bottom[286] of the after-times.

WESTMORLANDPleaseth your grace to answer them directly

How far forth[288] you do like their articles.

PRINCE JOHNI like them all, and do allow them well,[289]

290

And swear here, by the honour of my blood,

My father’s purposes have been mistook,[291]

And some about him have too lavishly[292]

Wrested his meaning and authority.—

My lord, these griefs shall be with speed redressed, To Archbishop

295

Upon my life, they shall. If this may please you,

Discharge your powers[296] unto their several counties,

As we will ours, and here between the armies,

Let’s drink together friendly and embrace,

That all their eyes may bear those tokens[299] home

300

Of our restorèd love and amity.

ARCHBISHOP OF YORKI take your princely word for these redresses.

PRINCE JOHNI give it you, and will maintain my word,

And thereupon I drink unto your grace. Toasts Archbishop

HASTINGSGo, captain, and deliver to the army

305

This news of peace: let them have pay, and part.[305]

I know it will well please them. Hie[306] thee, captain.

Exit [Officer]

ARCHBISHOP OF YORKTo you, my noble lord of Westmorland. Toasts Westmorland

WESTMORLANDI pledge[308] your grace, and if you knew what pains Toasts Archbishop

I have bestowed to breed this present peace,

310

You would drink freely. But my love to ye

Shall show itself more openly hereafter.

ARCHBISHOP OF YORKI do not doubt you.

WESTMORLANDI am glad of it.—

Health to my lord and gentle cousin, Mowbray. Toasts Mowbray

315

MOWBRAYYou wish me health in very happy season,[315]

For I am, on the sudden, something[316] ill.

ARCHBISHOP OF YORKAgainst[317] ill chances men are ever merry,

But heaviness[318] foreruns the good event.

WESTMORLANDTherefore be merry, coz,[319] since sudden sorrow

320

Serves to say thus: ‘Some good thing comes tomorrow.’

ARCHBISHOP OF YORKBelieve me, I am passing[321] light in spirit.

MOWBRAYSo much the worse, if your own rule be true.

PRINCE JOHNThe word of peace is rendered.[323] Hark, how they shout!

MOWBRAYThis had been cheerful[324] after victory.

325

ARCHBISHOP OF YORKA peace is of the nature of a conquest,

For then both parties nobly are subdued,

And neither party loser.

PRINCE JOHNGo, my lord, To Westmorland

And let our army be dischargèd too.—

Exit [Westmorland]

330

And, good my lord, so please you, let our trains[330] To Archbishop

March by us, that we may peruse[331] the men

We should have coped withal.[332]

ARCHBISHOP OF YORKGo, good Lord Hastings,

And ere they be dismissed, let them march by.

Exit [Hastings]

335

PRINCE JOHNI trust, lords, we shall lie[335] tonight together.

Enter Westmorland

Now, cousin, wherefore stands our army still?

WESTMORLANDThe leaders, having charge from you to stand,

Will not go off until they hear you speak.

PRINCE JOHNThey know their duties.

Enter Hastings

340

HASTINGSOur army is dispersed.

Like youthful steers unyoked,[341] they took their course

East, west, north, south, or, like a school broke up,

Each hurries toward his home and sporting-place.[343]

WESTMORLANDGood tidings, my lord Hastings, for the which

345

I do arrest thee, traitor, of high treason.—

And you, lord archbishop, and you, Lord Mowbray,

Of[347] capital treason I attach you both.

MOWBRAYIs this proceeding just and honourable?

WESTMORLANDIs your assembly so?

350

ARCHBISHOP OF YORKWill you thus break your faith?

PRINCE JOHNI pawned[351] thee none:

I promised you redress of these same grievances

Whereof you did complain; which, by mine honour,

I will perform with a most Christian care.

355

But for you, rebels, look to taste the due

Meet[356] for rebellion and such acts as yours.

Most shallowly[357] did you these arms commence,

Fondly[358] brought here and foolishly sent hence.

Strike up our drums, pursue the scattered stray.[359]

360

Heaven, and not we, have safely fought today.

Some guard these traitors to the block of death,

Treason’s true bed and yielder up of breath.

Exeunt

Enter Falstaff and Coleville [separately]

FALSTAFFWhat’s your name, sir? Of what condition[363] are you, and of what place, I pray?

COLEVILLEI am a knight, sir, and my name is Coleville of the Dale.

FALSTAFFWell, then, Coleville is your name, a knight is your degree, and your place, the Dale.[368] Coleville shall still be your name, a traitor your degree, and the dungeon your place, a place deep enough so shall you be still Coleville of the Dale.

COLEVILLEAre not you Sir John Falstaff?

FALSTAFFAs good a man as he, sir, whoe’er I am. Do ye yield, sir, or shall I sweat for you? If I do sweat, they are the drops[371] of thy lovers, and they weep for thy death: therefore rouse up fear and trembling, and do observance[372] to my mercy.

COLEVILLEI think you are Sir John Falstaff, and in that thought yield me.

FALSTAFFI[374] have a whole school of tongues in this belly of mine, and not a tongue of them all speaks any other word but my name. An[375] I had but a belly of any indifferency,[376] I were simply the most active fellow in Europe. My womb, my womb, my womb, undoes me. Here comes our general.

Enter Prince John and Westmorland [with Blunt and others]

PRINCE JOHNThe heat is past. Follow no further now.Call in the powers, good cousin Westmorland.Now, Falstaff, where have you been all this while?When everything is ended, then you come.These tardy tricks[382] of yours will, on my life, One time or other break[383] some gallows’ back.

[Exit Westmorland]

FALSTAFFI would be sorry, my lord, but[384] it should be thus: I never knew yet but rebuke and check was the reward of valour. Do you think me a swallow, an arrow, or a bullet? Have I, in my poor and old motion, the expedition[386] of thought? I have speeded hither with[387] the very extremest inch of possibility. I have foundered nine[388] score and odd posts, and here, travel-tainted as I am, have in my pure and immaculate valour, taken Sir John Coleville of the Dale, a most furious[389] knight and valorous enemy. But what of that? He saw me, and yielded, that I may justly say, with the hook-nosed[391] fellow of Rome, ‘I came, saw, and overcame.’

PRINCE JOHNIt was more of his courtesy than your deserving.

FALSTAFFI know not. Here he is, and here I yield him. And I beseech your grace, let it be booked[394] with the rest of this day’s deeds; or, I swear, I will have it in a particular ballad,[395] with mine own picture on the top of it, Coleville kissing my foot: to the which course, if I be enforced, if you do not all show like gilt two-pences[396] to me, and I in the clear sky of fame o’ershine you as much as the full moon doth the cinders[398] of the element — which show like pins’ heads to her — believe not the word of the noble: therefore let me have right, and let desert mount.[399]

PRINCE JOHNThine’s too heavy[400] to mount.

FALSTAFFLet it shine, then.

PRINCE JOHNThine’s too thick[402] to shine.

FALSTAFFLet it do something, my good lord, that may do me good, and call it what you will.

PRINCE JOHNIs thy name Coleville?

COLEVILLEIt is, my lord.

PRINCE JOHNA famous rebel art thou, Coleville.

FALSTAFFAnd a famous true subject took him.

COLEVILLEI am, my lord, but as my betters are

410

That led me hither. Had they been[410] ruled by me,

You should have won them dearer[411] than you have.

FALSTAFFI know not how they sold[412] themselves, but thou, like a kind fellow, gav’st thyself away; and I thank thee for thee.

Enter Westmorland

PRINCE JOHNHave you left[414] pursuit?

WESTMORLANDRetreat is made and execution stayed.[415]

PRINCE JOHNSend Coleville with his confederates

To York, to present[417] execution.—

Blunt, lead him hence, and see you guard him sure.[418]

Exeunt [Blunt and others] with Coleville

And now dispatch we toward the court, my lords.

420

I hear the king my father is sore[420] sick.

Our news shall go before us to his majesty,

Which, cousin, you shall bear to comfort him, To Westmorland

And we with sober[423] speed will follow you.

FALSTAFFMy lord, I beseech you give me leave to go through Gloucestershire, and, when you come to court, stand my good lord, pray, in your good report.

PRINCE JOHNFare you well, Falstaff. I, in my condition[426] Shall better speak of you than you deserve.

Exeunt [all but Falstaff]

FALSTAFFI would[428] you had but the wit: ’twere better than your dukedom. Good faith, this same young sober-blooded boy doth not love me, nor a man cannot make him laugh. But that’s no marvel: he drinks no wine. There’s never any of these demure boys come[431] to any proof, for thin drink doth so over-cool their blood, and making many fish-meals,[432] that they fall into a kind of male green-sickness, and then when they marry, they get wenches.[433] They are generally fools and cowards; which some of us should be too, but for inflammation.[434] A good sherry-sack hath a two-fold operation in it: it ascends me[435] into the brain, dries me there all the foolish and dull and curdy[436] vapours which environ it, makes it apprehensive, quick, forgetive,[437] full of nimble, fiery and delectable shapes, which, delivered o’er to the voice, the tongue, which is the birth, becomes excellent wit. The second property of your excellent sherry is the warming of the blood, which, before cold and settled, left the liver[440] white and pale, which is the badge of pusillanimity and cowardice. But the sherry warms it and makes it course from the inwards to the parts extremes:[442] it illuminateth the face, which as a beacon gives warning to all the rest of this little kingdom, man, to arm. And then the vital[443] commoners and inland petty spirits muster me[444] all to their captain, the heart, who, great and puffed up with his retinue, doth any deed of courage, and this valour comes of sherry. So that skill in the weapon is nothing without sack, for that sets it a-work,[446] and learning a[447] mere hoard of gold kept by a devil, till sack commences it and sets it in act and use. Hereof comes it that Prince Harry is valiant, for the cold blood he did naturally inherit of his father, he hath, like lean, sterile and bare land, manured, husbanded[450] and tilled with excellent endeavour of drinking good and good store of fertile sherry, that he is become very hot and valiant. If I had a thousand sons, the first principle I would teach them should be to forswear thin potations[453] and to addict themselves to sack.

Enter Bardolph

How now Bardolph?

BARDOLPHThe army is discharged all and gone.

FALSTAFFLet them go. I’ll through Gloucestershire, and there will I visit Master Robert Shallow, Esquire. I have him already tempering[457] between my finger and my thumb, and shortly will I seal with him.[458] Come away.

Exeunt

Act 4 Scene 24.2

running scene 11

Enter King, Warwick, Clarence, Gloucester

KING HENRY IVNow, lords, if heaven doth give successful end

To this debate[2] that bleedeth at our doors,

We will our youth lead on to higher fields[3]

And draw no swords but what are sanctified.[4]

5

Our navy is addressed,[5] our power collected,

Our substitutes[6] in absence well invested,

And everything lies level[7] to our wish;

Only we want[8] a little personal strength,

And pause us,[9] till these rebels, now afoot,

10

Come underneath the yoke of government.

WARWICKBoth which we doubt not but your majesty

Shall soon enjoy.

KING HENRY IVHumphrey, my son of Gloucester,

Where is the prince your brother?

15

GLOUCESTERI think he’s gone to hunt, my lord, at Windsor.

KING HENRY IVAnd how accompanied?

GLOUCESTERI do not know, my lord.

KING HENRY IVIs not his brother, Thomas of Clarence, with him?

GLOUCESTERNo, my good lord, he is in presence[19] here.

20

CLARENCEWhat would my lord and father? Comes forward

KING HENRY IVNothing but well to thee, Thomas of Clarence.

How chance[22] thou art not with the prince thy brother?

He loves thee, and thou dost neglect him, Thomas.

Thou hast a better place in his affection

25

Than all thy brothers. Cherish it, my boy,

And noble offices[26] thou mayst effect

Of mediation, after I am dead,

Between his greatness and thy other brethren:[28]

Therefore omit[29] him not, blunt not his love,

30

Nor lose the good advantage of his grace

By seeming cold or careless of his will,

For he is gracious, if he be observed.[32]

He hath a tear for pity and a hand

Open as day for melting[34] charity:

35

Yet notwithstanding, being incensed, he’s flint,[35]

As humorous[36] as winter, and as sudden

As flaws congealèd[37] in the spring of day.

His temper,[38] therefore, must be well observed:

Chide him for faults, and do it reverently,[39]

40

When you perceive his blood inclined to mirth,

But being moody, give him line[41] and scope,

Till that his passions, like a whale on ground,[42]

Confound[43] themselves with working. Learn this, Thomas,

And thou shalt prove a shelter to thy friends,

45

A hoop of gold to bind thy brothers in,

That the united vessel of their blood,

Mingled with venom of suggestion[47] —

As, force perforce,[48] the age will pour it in —

Shall never leak, though it do work as strong

50

As aconitum[50] or rash gunpowder.

CLARENCEI shall observe him with all care and love.

KING HENRY IVWhy art thou not at Windsor with him, Thomas?

CLARENCEHe is not there today. He dines in London.

KING HENRY IVAnd how accompanied? Canst thou tell that?

55

CLARENCEWith Poins, and other his continual[55] followers.

KING HENRY IVMost subject is the fattest[56] soil to weeds,

And he, the noble image of my youth,

Is overspread with them: therefore my grief

Stretches itself beyond the hour of death.

60

The blood[60] weeps from my heart when I do shape

In forms imaginary th’unguided days

And rotten times that you shall look upon

When I am sleeping with my ancestors.

For when his headstrong riot hath no curb,[64]

65

When rage and hot blood are his counsellors,

When means and lavish[66] manners meet together,

O, with what wings shall his affections fly

Towards fronting[68] peril and opposed decay!

WARWICKMy gracious lord, you look[69] beyond him quite:

70

The prince but studies his companions

Like a strange tongue, wherein, to gain the language,

’Tis needful that the most immodest word

Be looked upon and learned, which once attained,

Your highness knows, comes to no further use

75

But to be known and hated. So, like gross terms,

The prince will, in the perfectness[76] of time,

Cast off his followers, and their memory

Shall as a pattern or a measure[78] live,

By which his grace must mete[79] the lives of others,

80

Turning past evils to advantages.

KING HENRY IV’Tis[81] seldom when the bee doth leave her comb

In the dead carrion.

Enter Westmorland

Who’s here? Westmorland?

WESTMORLANDHealth to my sovereign, and new happiness

85

Added to that that I am to deliver!

Prince John, your son, doth kiss your grace’s hand.

Mowbray, the Bishop Scroop,[87] Hastings and all

Are brought to the correction of your law.

There is not now a rebel’s sword unsheathed,

90

But peace puts forth her olive everywhere.

The manner how this action hath been borne[91]

Here at more leisure may your highness read, Gives a paper

With every course[93] in his particular.

KING HENRY IVO Westmorland, thou art a summer bird,

95

Which ever in the haunch[95] of winter sings

The lifting up[96] of day.

Enter Harcourt

Look, here’s more news.

HARCOURTFrom enemies heaven keep your majesty,

And when they stand against you, may they fall

100

As those that I am come to tell you of.

The Earl Northumberland and the lord Bardolph,

With a great power of English and of Scots

Are by the sheriff of Yorkshire overthrown:

The manner and true order of the fight

105

This packet,[105] please it you, contains at large. Gives papers

KING HENRY IVAnd wherefore should these good news make me sick?

Will fortune never come with both hands full,

But write her fair words still in foulest letters?

She either gives a stomach[109] and no food —

110

Such are the poor, in health — or else a feast

And takes away the stomach — such are the rich,

That have abundance and enjoy it not.

I should rejoice now at this happy news,

And now my sight fails, and my brain is giddy.

115

O, me! Come near me, now I am much ill.

GLOUCESTERComfort, your majesty!

CLARENCEO my royal father!

WESTMORLANDMy sovereign lord, cheer up yourself, look up.

WARWICKBe patient, princes. You do know these fits

120

Are with his highness very ordinary.

Stand from him. Give him air. He’ll straight[121] be well.

CLARENCENo, no, he cannot long hold out: these pangs,[122]

Th’incessant care and labour of his mind,

Hath wrought the mure[124] that should confine it in

125

So thin that life looks through and will break out.

GLOUCESTERThe people fear me,[126] for they do observe

Unfathered heirs[127] and loathly births of nature:

The seasons change their manners,[128] as the year

Had found some months asleep and leaped them over.

130

CLARENCEThe river hath thrice flowed,[130] no ebb between,

And the old folk, time’s doting[131] chronicles,

Say it did so a little time before

That our great-grandsire, Edward,[133] sicked and died.

WARWICKSpeak lower, princes, for the king recovers.

135

GLOUCESTERThis apoplexy[135] will certain be his end.

KING HENRY IVI pray you take me up and bear me hence

Into some other chamber. Softly, pray.

Let there be no noise made, my gentle friends,

Unless some dull[139] and favourable hand

140

Will whisper music to my weary spirit.

WARWICKCall for the music in the other room. To Servant

KING HENRY IVSet me the crown upon my pillow here. Crown is set on the pillow

CLARENCEHis eye is hollow, and he changes much.

WARWICKLess noise, less noise!

Enter Prince Henry

145

PRINCE HENRYWho saw the Duke of Clarence?

CLARENCEI am here, brother, full of heaviness.[146] Weeps

PRINCE HENRYHow now? Rain[147] within doors, and none abroad?

How doth the king?

GLOUCESTERExceeding ill.

150

PRINCE HENRYHeard he the good news yet?

Tell it him.

GLOUCESTERHe altered much upon the hearing it.

PRINCE HENRYIf he be sick with joy, he’ll recover without physic.[153]

WARWICKNot so much noise, my lords.— Sweet prince, speak low,

155

The king your father is disposed to sleep.

CLARENCELet us withdraw into the other room.

WARWICKWill’t please your grace to go along with us?

PRINCE HENRYNo, I will sit and watch here by the king.

[Exeunt all but Prince Henry]

Why doth the crown lie there upon his pillow,

160

Being so troublesome a bedfellow?

O polished perturbation![161] Golden care!

That keep’st the ports[162] of slumber open wide

To many a watchful[163] night! Sleep with it now,

Yet not so sound and half so deeply sweet

165

As he whose brow with homely biggen[165] bound

Snores out the watch[166] of night. O majesty!

When thou dost pinch thy bearer, thou dost sit

Like a rich armour[168] worn in heat of day,

That scald’st with safety. By his gates of breath[169]

170

There lies a downy feather which stirs not:

Did he suspire,[171] that light and weightless down

Perforce must move. My gracious lord, my father,

This sleep is sound indeed. This is a sleep

That from this golden rigol[174] hath divorced

175

So many English kings. Thy due from me

Is tears and heavy sorrows of the blood,

Which nature, love, and filial tenderness,

Shall, O dear father, pay thee plenteously.

My due from thee is this imperial crown,

180

Which, as immediate[180] from thy place and blood,

Derives itself[181] to me. Lo, here it sits, Puts crown on his head

Which heaven shall guard. And put[182] the world’s whole strength

Into one giant arm, it shall not force

This lineal[184] honour from me. This from thee

185

Will I to mine[185] leave, as ’tis left to me.

Exit

KING HENRY IVWarwick! Gloucester! Clarence! Waking

Enter Warwick, Gloucester, Clarence

CLARENCEDoth the king call?

WARWICKWhat would your majesty? How fares your grace?

KING HENRY IVWhy did you leave me here alone, my lords?

190

CLARENCEWe left the prince my brother here, my liege,

Who undertook to sit and watch by you.

KING HENRY IVThe Prince of Wales? Where is he? Let me see him.

WARWICKThis door is open. He is gone this way.

GLOUCESTERHe came not through the chamber where we stayed.

195

KING HENRY IVWhere is the crown? Who took it from my pillow?

WARWICKWhen we withdrew, my liege, we left it here.

KING HENRY IVThe prince hath ta’en it hence. Go, seek him out.

Is he so hasty that he doth suppose

My sleep my death?

200

Find him, my lord of Warwick. Chide[200] him hither.

[Exit Warwick]

This part[201] of his conjoins with my disease

And helps to end me. See, sons, what things you are,

How quickly nature falls into revolt[203]

When gold becomes her object!

205

For this the foolish over-careful fathers

Have broke their sleeps with thoughts, their brains with care,

Their bones with industry,

For this they have engrossed[208] and pilèd up

The cankered[209] heaps of strange-achievèd gold.

210

For this they have been thoughtful[210] to invest

Their sons with arts[211] and martial exercises.

When, like the bee, culling from every flower

The virtuous sweets,

Our thighs[214] packed with wax, our mouths with honey,

215

We bring it to the hive, and, like the bees,[215]

Are murdered for our pains. This[216] bitter taste

Yields his engrossments to the ending[217] father.

Enter Warwick

Now, where is he that will not stay[218] so long

Till his friend sickness hath determined[219] me?

220

WARWICKMy lord, I found the prince in the next room,

Washing with kindly[221] tears his gentle cheeks,

With such a deep demeanour in great sorrow

That tyranny,[223] which never quaffed but blood,

Would, by beholding him, have washed his knife

225

With gentle eye-drops. He is coming hither.

KING HENRY IVBut wherefore did he take away the crown?

Enter Prince Henry [with the crown]

Lo, where he comes.— Come hither to me, Harry.—

Depart the chamber, leave us here alone.

Exeunt [Warwick, Gloucester, Clarence]

PRINCE HENRYI never thought to hear you speak again.

230

KING HENRY IVThy wish was father, Harry, to that thought:

I stay too long by thee, I weary thee.

Dost thou so hunger for my empty chair[232]

That thou wilt needs invest thee with mine honours

Before thy hour be ripe? O foolish youth!

235

Thou seek’st the greatness that will o’erwhelm thee.

Stay but a little, for my cloud of dignity[236]

Is held from falling with so weak a wind

That it will quickly drop. My day is dim.

Thou hast stolen that which after some few hours

240

Were[240] thine without offence, and at my death

Thou hast sealed[241] up my expectation.

Thy life did manifest[242] thou lovedst me not,

And thou wilt have me die assured of it.

Thou hid’st a thousand daggers in thy thoughts,

245

Which thou hast whetted[245] on thy stony heart,

To stab at half an hour of my life.

What? Canst thou not forbear[247] me half an hour?

Then get thee gone and dig my grave thyself,

And bid the merry bells ring to thy ear

250

That thou art crownèd, not that I am dead.

Let all the tears that should bedew my hearse

Be drops of balm[252] to sanctify thy head,

Only compound[253] me with forgotten dust.

Give that which gave thee life unto the worms.

255

Pluck down my officers, break my decrees,

For now a time is come to mock at form.[256]

Henry the Fifth is crowned. Up, vanity,

Down, royal state, all you sage counsellors, hence!

And to the English court assemble now,

260

From ev’ry region, apes of idleness![260]

Now, neighbour confines,[261] purge you of your scum:

Have you a ruffian that will swear, drink, dance,

Revel the night, rob, murder, and commit

The oldest sins the newest kind of ways?

265

Be happy, he will trouble you no more.

England shall double gild[266] his treble guilt.

England shall give him office,[267] honour, might,

For the fifth Harry from curbèd licence plucks

The muzzle of restraint, and the wild dog

270

Shall flesh his tooth[270] in every innocent.

O my poor kingdom, sick with civil blows!

When that my care[272] could not withhold thy riots,

What wilt thou do when riot is thy care?

O, thou wilt be a wilderness again,

275

Peopled with wolves, thy old inhabitants!

PRINCE HENRYO, pardon me, my liege! But for my tears,

The moist impediments unto my speech,

I had[278] forestalled this dear and deep rebuke

Ere you with grief had spoke and I had heard

280

The course of it so far. There is your crown, Puts it back on the pillow

And he that wears the crown immortally

Long guard it yours. If I affect[282] it more

Than as your honour and as your renown,

Let me no more from this obedience[284] rise, Kneels

285

Which my most true and inward duteous spirit

Teacheth, this prostrate and exterior bending.

Heaven witness with me, when I here came in,

And found no course[288] of breath within your majesty,

How cold it struck my heart. If I do feign,

290

O, let me in my present wildness die

And never live to show th’incredulous world

The noble change that I have purposèd.[292]

Coming to look on you, thinking you dead,

And dead almost, my liege, to think you were,

295

I spake unto the crown as having sense,[295]

And thus upbraided it: ‘The care on thee depending[296]

Hath fed upon the body of my father:

Therefore, thou best of gold art worst of gold.

Other, less fine in carat,[299] is more precious,

300

Preserving life in med’cine potable,[300]

But thou, most fine,[301] most honoured, most renowned,

Hast eat the bearer up.’ Thus, my royal liege,

Accusing it, I put it on my head,

To try[304] with it, as with an enemy

305

That had before my face murdered my father,

The quarrel of a true inheritor.

But if it did infect my blood with joy,

Or swell my thoughts to any strain of pride,

If any rebel or vain spirit of mine

310

Did with the least affection[310] of a welcome

Give entertainment to[311] the might of it,

Let heaven forever keep it from my head

And make me as the poorest vassal[313] is

That doth with awe and terror kneel to it!

315

KING HENRY IVO my son,

Heaven put it in thy mind to take it hence,

That thou mightst join the more[317] thy father’s love,

Pleading so wisely in excuse of it!

Come hither, Harry, sit thou by my bed Prince Henry rises

320

And hear, I think, the very latest[320] counsel

That ever I shall breathe. Heaven knows, my son,

By what by-paths[322] and indirect crooked ways

I met[323] this crown, and I myself know well

How troublesome it sat upon my head.

325

To thee it shall descend with better quiet,

Better opinion, better confirmation,

For all the soil[327] of the achievement goes

With me into the earth. It seemed in me

But as an honour snatched with boist’rous[329] hand,

330

And I had many[330] living to upbraid

My gain of it by their assistances,

Which daily grew to quarrel and to bloodshed,

Wounding supposèd peace. All these bold fears[333]

Thou see’st with peril I have answerèd,

335

For all my reign hath been but as a scene

Acting that argument.[336] And now my death

Changes the mood, for what in me was purchased,[337]

Falls upon thee in a more fairer sort.[338]

So thou the garland[339] wear’st successively.

340

Yet, though thou stand’st more sure than I could do,

Thou art not firm enough, since griefs are green,[341]

And all thy friends, which thou must make[342] thy friends,

Have but their stings and teeth newly taken out,

By whose fell working[344] I was first advanced

345

And by whose power I well might lodge[345] a fear

To be again displaced, which to avoid,

I cut them off and had a purpose now

To lead out many to the Holy Land,

Lest rest and lying still might make them look

350

Too near[350] unto my state. Therefore, my Harry,

Be it thy course to busy giddy[351] minds

With foreign quarrels, that action,[352] hence borne out,

May waste[353] the memory of the former days.

More would I,[354] but my lungs are wasted so

355

That strength of speech is utterly denied me.

How I came by the crown, O heaven forgive,

And grant it may with thee in true peace live!

PRINCE HENRYMy gracious liege,

You won it, wore it, kept it, gave it me.

360

Then plain and right must my possession be;

Which I with more than with a common pain[361]

Gainst all the world will rightfully maintain.

Enter Lord John of Lancaster [Prince John] and Warwick [behind]

KING HENRY IVLook, look, here comes my John of Lancaster.

PRINCE JOHNHealth, peace, and happiness to my royal father!

365

KING HENRY IVThou bring’st me happiness and peace, son John,

But health, alack, with youthful wings is flown

From this bare withered trunk.[367] Upon thy sight

My worldly business makes a period.[368]

Where is my lord of Warwick?

370

PRINCE HENRYMy lord of Warwick!

KING HENRY IVDoth any name particular belong

Unto the lodging[372] where I first did swoon?

WARWICK’Tis called Jerusalem, my noble lord.

KING HENRY IVLaud[374] be to heaven! Even there my life must end.

375

It hath been prophesied to me many years,[375]

I should not die but[376] in Jerusalem,

Which vainly[377] I supposed the Holy Land.

But bear me to that chamber. There I’ll lie.

In that Jerusalem shall Harry die.

Exeunt

Act 5 Scene 15.1

running scene 12

Enter Shallow, Silence, Falstaff, Bardolph, Page and Davy

SHALLOWBy[1] cock and pie, you shall not away tonight. What, Davy, I say!

FALSTAFFYou must excuse me, Master Robert Shallow.

SHALLOWI will not excuse you. You shall not be excused. Excuses shall not be admitted. There is no excuse shall serve. You shall not be excused.— Why, Davy!

DAVYHere, sir. Steps forward

SHALLOWDavy, Davy, Davy, let me see, Davy, let me see. William Cook, bid him come hither. Sir John, you shall not be excused.

DAVYMarry, sir, thus: those precepts[8] cannot be served. And again, sir, shall we sow the headland[9] with wheat?

SHALLOWWith red wheat,[10] Davy. But for William Cook: are there no young pigeons?

DAVYYes, sir. Gives a paper Here is now the smith’s note[11] for shoeing and plough-irons.

SHALLOWLet it be cast[12] and paid.— Sir John, you shall not be excused.

DAVYSir, a new link[13] to the bucket must needs be had. And, sir, do you mean to stop any of William’s wages, about the sack he lost the other day at Hinckley Fair?[14]

SHALLOWHe shall answer[15] it. Some pigeons, Davy, a couple of short-legged hens, a joint of mutton, and any pretty little tiny kickshaws,[16] tell William Cook. They talk aside

DAVYDoth the man of war[17] stay all night, sir?

SHALLOWYes, Davy. I will use[18] him well. A friend i’th’court is better than a penny in purse. Use his men well, Davy, for they are arrant knaves,[19] and will backbite.

DAVYNo worse than they are bitten,[20] sir, for they have marvellous foul linen.

SHALLOWWell conceited,[21] Davy. About thy business, Davy.

DAVYI beseech you, sir, to countenance[22] William Visor of Woncot against Clement Perkes of the Hill.

SHALLOWThere are many complaints, Davy, against that Visor. That Visor is an arrant knave, on my knowledge.

DAVYI grant your worship that he is a knave, sir, but yet, heaven forbid, sir, but a knave should have some countenance at his friend’s request. An honest man, sir, is able to speak for himself, when a knave is not. I have served your worship truly, sir, these eight years, and if I cannot once or twice in a quarter bear out[29] a knave against an honest man, I have but a very little credit[30] with your worship. The knave is mine honest friend, sir: therefore, I beseech your worship let him be countenanced.

SHALLOWGo to, I say he shall have no wrong. Look about,[33] Davy.

[Exit Davy]

Where are you, Sir John? Come, off with your boots.— Give me your hand, Master Bardolph.

BARDOLPHI am glad to see your worship.

SHALLOWI thank thee with all my heart, kind Master Bardolph, and welcome, my tall[37] fellow.— Come, Sir John.

FALSTAFFI’ll follow you, good Master Robert Shallow.

[Exit Shallow]

Bardolph, look to our horses.

[Exeunt Bardolph and Page]

If I were sawed into quantities,[41] I should make four dozen of such bearded hermits’ staves[42] as Master Shallow. It is a wonderful thing to see the semblable coherence of his men’s spirits and his: they, by observing of him, do bear themselves like foolish justices: he, by conversing[44] with them, is turned into a justice-like servingman. Their spirits are so married in conjunction[45] with the participation of society that they flock together in consent, like so many wild geese. If I had a suit to[46] Master Shallow, I would humour his men with the imputation[47] of being near their master: if to his men, I would curry[48] with Master Shallow that no man could better command his servants. It is certain that either wise bearing or ignorant carriage[50] is caught, as men take diseases, one of another: therefore let men take heed of their company. I will devise matter enough out of this Shallow to keep Prince Harry in continual laughter the wearing out of six fashions, which is four terms,[53] or two actions, and he shall laugh with intervallums. O, it is much that a lie with a slight oath and a jest with a sad brow[54] will do with a fellow that never had the ache in his shoulders. O, you shall see him laugh till his face be like a wet cloak ill laid up.[56]

SHALLOWSir John! Within

FALSTAFFI come, Master Shallow, I come, Master Shallow.

Exit

Act 5 Scene 25.2

running scene 13

Enter the Earl of Warwick and the Lord Chief Justice

WARWICKHow now, my Lord Chief Justice whither away?[1]

LORD CHIEF JUSTICEHow doth the king?

WARWICKExceeding well, his cares are now all ended.

LORD CHIEF JUSTICEI hope, not dead.

5

WARWICKHe’s walked the way of nature,

And to our purposes he lives no more.

LORD CHIEF JUSTICEI would his majesty had called me with him.

The service[8] that I truly did his life

Hath left me open to all injuries.

10

WARWICKIndeed I think the young king loves you not.

LORD CHIEF JUSTICEI know he doth not, and do arm myself

To welcome the condition of the time,

Which cannot look more hideously upon me

Than I have drawn it in my fantasy.[14]

Enter John of Lancaster [Prince John], Gloucester and Clarence, [Westmorland and others]

15

WARWICKHere come the heavy issue[15] of dead Harry.

O, that the living Harry had the temper[16]

Of him, the worst of these three gentlemen!

How many nobles then should hold their places[18]

That must strike sail[19] to spirits of vile sort!

20

LORD CHIEF JUSTICEAlas, I fear all will be overturned.

PRINCE JOHNGood morrow, cousin Warwick, good morrow.

GLOUCESTER and CLARENCEGood morrow, cousin.

PRINCE JOHNWe meet like men that had forgot to speak.

WARWICKWe do remember, but our argument[24]

25

Is all too heavy to admit much talk.

PRINCE JOHNWell, peace be with him that hath made us heavy.

LORD CHIEF JUSTICEPeace be with us, lest we be heavier!

GLOUCESTERO, good my lord, you have lost a friend indeed,

And I dare swear you borrow not[29] that face

30

Of seeming sorrow, it is sure[30] your own.

PRINCE JOHNThough no man be assured what grace[31] to find,

You stand in coldest expectation.[32]

I am the sorrier, would ’twere otherwise.

CLARENCEWell, you must now speak Sir John Falstaff fair,

35

Which swims against your[35] stream of quality.

LORD CHIEF JUSTICESweet princes, what I did, I did in honour,

Led by th’impartial conduct of my soul,

And never shall you see that I will beg

A ragged[39] and forestalled remission.

40

If troth[40] and upright innocency fail me,

I’ll to the king my master that is dead,

And tell him who hath sent me after him.

WARWICKHere comes the prince.

Enter Prince Henry [now King Henry V]

LORD CHIEF JUSTICEGood morrow, and heaven save your majesty!

45

KING HENRY VThis new and gorgeous garment majesty

Sits not so easy on me as you think.—

Brothers, you mix your sadness with some fear.

This is the English, not the Turkish court,

Not Amurah[49] an Amurah succeeds,

50

But Harry Harry. Yet be sad, good brothers,

For, to speak truth, it very well becomes you.

Sorrow so royally in you appears

That I will deeply put the fashion on

And wear it in my heart. Why then, be sad,

55

But entertain no more of it, good brothers,

Than a joint burden laid upon us all.

For me, by heaven, I bid you be assured,

I’ll be your father and your brother too.

Let me but bear your love, I’ll bear your cares;

60

But weep that Harry’s dead, and so will I;

But Harry lives, that shall convert those tears

By number[62] into hours of happiness.

PRINCE JOHN, GLOUCESTER and CLARENCEWe hope no other from your majesty.

KING HENRY VYou all look strangely[64] on me.— And you most: To Lord Chief Justice

65

You are, I think, assured[65] I love you not.

LORD CHIEF JUSTICEI am assured, if I be measured rightly,

Your majesty hath no just cause to hate me.

KING HENRY VNo?

How might a prince of my great hopes[69] forget

70

So great indignities you laid upon me?

What? Rate,[71] rebuke, and roughly send to prison

Th’immediate heir of England? Was this easy?[72]

May this be washed in Lethe,[73] and forgotten?

LORD CHIEF JUSTICEI then did use the person[74] of your father,

75

The image of his power lay then in me,

And in th’administration of his law,

Whiles I was busy for the commonwealth,

Your highness pleasèd to forget my place,

The majesty and power of law and justice,

80

The image of the king whom I presented,[80]

And struck me in my very seat of judgement,

Whereon, as an offender to your father,

I gave bold way to my authority

And did commit[84] you. If the deed were ill,

85

Be you[85] contented, wearing now the garland,

To have a son set your decrees at nought?

To pluck down justice from your awful[87] bench?

To trip the course of law and blunt the sword

That guards the peace and safety of your person?

90

Nay, more, to spurn[90] at your most royal image

And mock your workings in a second body?[91]

Question your royal thoughts, make[92] the case yours,

Be now the father and propose[93] a son,

Hear your own dignity so much profaned,[94]

95

See your most dreadful[95] laws so loosely slighted,

Behold yourself so by a son disdained,

And then imagine me taking your part

And in your power soft[98] silencing your son.

After this cold considerance,[99] sentence me;

100

And, as you are a king, speak in your state[100]

What I have done that misbecame[101] my place,

My person, or my liege’s sovereignty.

KING HENRY VYou are right, Justice, and you weigh[103] this well:

Therefore still[104] bear the balance and the sword.

105

And I do wish your honours may increase

Till you do live to see a son of mine

Offend you and obey you, as I did.

So shall I live to speak my father’s words:

‘Happy am I, that have a man so bold,

110

That dares do justice on my proper[110] son;

And no less happy, having such a son,

That would deliver up his greatness so

Into the hands of justice.’ You did commit me,

For which, I do commit[114] into your hand

115

Th’unstained sword that you have used[115] to bear,

With this remembrance:[116] that you use the same

With the like bold, just and impartial spirit

As you have done gainst me. There is my hand. Offers his hand

You shall be as a father to my youth,

120

My voice shall sound[120] as you do prompt mine ear,

And I will stoop and humble my intents[121]

To your well-practised[122] wise directions.

And, princes all, believe me, I beseech you:

My father is gone wild into his grave,

125

For in his tomb lie my affections,[125]

And with his spirits sadly[126] I survive,

To mock[127] the expectation of the world,

To frustrate prophecies and to raze out[128]

Rotten opinion,[129] who hath writ me down

130

After my seeming.[130] The tide of blood in me

Hath proudly flowed in vanity[131] till now.

Now doth it turn and ebb back to the sea,

Where it shall mingle with the state of floods[133]

And flow henceforth in formal majesty.

135

Now call we our high court of parliament,

And let us choose such limbs[136] of noble counsel,

That the great body of our state may go

In equal rank with the best governed nation,

That war, or peace, or both at once, may be

140

As things acquainted and familiar to us,—

In which you, father, shall have foremost hand. To Lord Chief Justice

Our coronation done, we will accite,[142]

As I before remembered,[143] all our state.

And, heaven consigning to[144] my good intents,

145

No prince nor peer shall have just cause to say,

Heaven shorten Harry’s happy life one day!

Exeunt

Act 5 Scene 35.3

running scene 14

Enter Falstaff, Shallow, Silence, Bardolph, [Davy] and Page

SHALLOWNay, you shall see mine orchard,[1] where, in an arbour, we will eat a last year’s pippin[2] of my own graffing, with a dish of caraways, and so forth.— Come, cousin Silence.— And then to bed.

FALSTAFFYou have here a goodly dwelling and a rich.[4]

SHALLOWBarren, barren, barren: beggars all, beggars all, Sir John. Marry, good air.— Spread,[6] Davy, spread, Davy. Well said, Davy.

FALSTAFFThis Davy serves you for good uses. He is your servingman and your husband.[8]

SHALLOWA good varlet,[9] a good varlet, a very good varlet, Sir John. I have drunk too much sack at supper. A good varlet. Now sit down, now sit down. Come, cousin.

SILENCEAh, sirrah, quoth a,[11] we shall

Do nothing but eat, and make good cheer, Sings

And praise heaven for the merry year.

When flesh[14] is cheap and females dear,

15

And lusty[15] lads roam here and there

So merrily, and ever among so merrily.

FALSTAFFThere’s a merry heart. Good Master Silence, I’ll give you a health[17] for that anon.

SHALLOWGive Master Bardolph some wine, Davy.

DAVYSweet sir, sit. I’ll be with you anon. Most sweet sir, sit. Master page, good master page, sit. Proface![21] What you want in meat, we’ll have in drink, but you bear.[22] The heart’s all.

[Exit]

SHALLOWBe merry, Master Bardolph.— And, my little soldier there, be merry.

SILENCEBe merry, be merry, my wife has all, Sings

25

For women are shrews,[25] both short and tall.

’Tis merry in[26] hall when beards wag all,

And welcome merry Shrovetide.[27]

Be merry, be merry.

FALSTAFFI did not think Master Silence had been a man of this mettle.[29]

SILENCEWho, I? I have been merry twice and once[30] ere now.

[Enter Davy with apples]

DAVYThere is a dish of leather-coats[31] for you. To Bardolph?

SHALLOWDavy!

DAVYYour worship! I’ll be with you straight.— A cup of wine, sir?

SILENCEA cup of wine that’s brisk[34] and fine, Sings

35

And drink unto the leman[35] mine,

And a merry heart lives long-a.

FALSTAFFWell said, Master Silence.

SILENCEIf we shall be merry, now comes in the sweet of the night.

FALSTAFFHealth and long life to you, Master Silence.

40

SILENCEFill the cup, and let it come,[40] Sings

I’ll pledge[41] you a mile to the bottom.

SHALLOWHonest Bardolph, welcome. If thou want’st anything, and wilt not call, beshrew[43] thy heart.— To Page Welcome, my little tiny thief.— And welcome indeed too. I’ll drink to Master Bardolph, and to all the cavalieros[44] about London.

DAVYI hope to see London once ere I die.

BARDOLPHIf I might see you there, Davy.

SHALLOWYou’ll crack a quart[47] together, ha! Will you not, Master Bardolph?

BARDOLPHYes, sir, in a pottle-pot.[48]

SHALLOWI thank thee. The knave will stick by thee,[49] I can assure thee that. He will not out:[50] he is true bred.

BARDOLPHAnd I’ll stick by him, sir.

SHALLOWWhy, there spoke a king. Lack nothing: be merry. Knocking within Look who’s at door there, ho! Davy goes to the door Who knocks?

FALSTAFFWhy, now you have done me right.[54]

55

SILENCEDo[55] me right, Sings

And dub me knight,

Samingo.

Is’t not so?

FALSTAFF’Tis so.

SILENCEIs’t so? Why then, say an old man can do somewhat.[60]

DAVYIf it please your worship, there’s one Pistol come from the court with news.

FALSTAFFFrom the court? Let him come in.

Enter Pistol

How now, Pistol?

PISTOLSir John, save you, sir!

FALSTAFFWhat wind blew you hither, Pistol?

PISTOLNot the ill wind which blows none to good, sweet knight. Thou art now one of the greatest[67] men in the realm.

SILENCEIndeed, I think he be, but[68] Goodman Puff of Barson.

PISTOLPuff? Puff in thy teeth, most recreant[69] coward base!

70

Sir John, I am thy Pistol and thy friend,

Helter-skelter have I rode to thee,

And tidings do I bring and lucky joys

And golden times and happy news of price.[73]

FALSTAFFI prithee now deliver them like a man[74] of this world.

75

PISTOLA[75] foutre for the world and worldlings base!

I speak of Africa and golden joys.

FALSTAFFO base Assyrian[77] knight, what is thy news?

Let King Cophetua[78] know the truth thereof.

SILENCEAnd Robin[79] Hood, Scarlet and John. Sings

80

PISTOLShall dunghill curs[80] confront the Helicons?

And shall good news be baffled?[81]

Then, Pistol, lay[82] thy head in Furies’ lap.

SILENCEHonest gentleman, I know not your breeding.[83]

PISTOLWhy then, lament therefore. ↓Silence falls asleep↓

SHALLOWGive me pardon, sir. If, sir, you come with news from the court, I take it there is but two ways, either to utter them, or to conceal them. I am, sir, under the king, in some authority.

PISTOLUnder which king, Besonian?[88] Speak or die.

SHALLOWUnder King Harry.

90

PISTOLHarry the Fourth or Fifth?

SHALLOWHarry the Fourth.

PISTOLA foutre for thine office!—

Sir John, thy tender lambkin now is king.

Harry the Fifth’s the man. I speak the truth.

95

When Pistol lies, do[95] this, and fig me, like

The bragging Spaniard.

FALSTAFFWhat, is the old king dead?

PISTOLAs nail in door. The things I speak are just.[98]

FALSTAFFAway,[99] Bardolph!— Saddle my horse.— Master Robert Shallow, choose what office thou wilt in the land, ’tis thine.— Pistol, I will double-charge[100] thee with dignities.

BARDOLPHO, joyful day! I would not take[102] a knighthood for my fortune.

PISTOLWhat? I do bring good news.

FALSTAFFCarry[104] Master Silence to bed.— Master Shallow, my lord Shallow, be what thou wilt. I am fortune’s steward. Get on thy boots. We’ll ride all night. O sweet Pistol! Away, Bardolph!

[Exit Bardolph]

Come, Pistol, utter more to me, and withal[107] devise something to do thyself good. Boot,[108] boot, Master Shallow. I know the young king is sick for me. Let us take any man’s horses. The laws of England are at my commandment. Happy are they which have been my friends, and woe unto my Lord Chief Justice!

PISTOLLet vultures[111] vile seize on his lungs also! ‘Where is the life that late I led?’[112] say they. Why, here it is. Welcome those pleasant days.

Exeunt

Act 5 Scene 45.4

running scene 15

Enter Hostess Quickly, Doll Tearsheet and Beadles

HOSTESS QUICKLYNo, thou arrant knave. I would I might die, that[1] I might have thee hanged.[2] Thou hast drawn my shoulder out of joint.

FIRST BEADLEThe constables have delivered her over[3] to me, and she shall have whipping-cheer[4] enough, I warrant her. There hath been a man or two lately killed about her.[5]

DOLL TEARSHEETNut-hook,[6] nut-hook, you lie. Come on, I’ll tell thee what, thou[8] damned tripe-visaged[7] rascal. If the child I now go with do miscarry, thou hadst better thou hadst struck thy mother, thou paper-faced villain.

HOSTESS QUICKLYO, that Sir John were come, he would make this a bloody[9] day to somebody, But I[10] would the fruit of her womb might miscarry!

FIRST BEADLEIf it do, you shall have a dozen of cushions[11] again, you have but eleven now. Come, I charge you both go with me, for the man is dead that you and Pistol beat among you.

DOLL TEARSHEET I’ll tell thee what, thou thin man in a censer,[14] I will have you as soundly swinged[15] for this, you blue-bottled rogue, you filthy famished correctioner. If you be not swinged, I’ll forswear half-kirtles.[16]

FIRST BEADLECome, come, you she knight-errant,[17] come.

HOSTESS QUICKLYO, that right[18] should thus o’ercome might! Well, of sufferance comes ease.

DOLL TEARSHEETCome, you rogue, come. Bring me to a justice.

HOSTESS QUICKLYYes, come, you starved bloodhound.

DOLL TEARSHEETGoodman[22] death, goodman bones!

HOSTESS QUICKLYThou anatomy,[23] thou!

DOLL TEARSHEETCome, you thin thing,[24] come you rascal.

FIRST BEADLEVery well.

Exeunt

Act 5 Scene 55.5

running scene 16

Enter two Grooms

FIRST GROOMMore rushes,[1] more rushes.

SECOND GROOMThe trumpets have sounded twice.

FIRST GROOMIt will be two of the clock ere they come from the coronation.

Exeunt Grooms

Enter Falstaff, Shallow, Pistol, Bardolph and Page

FALSTAFFStand here by me, Master Robert Shallow. I will make the king do you grace. I will leer upon[5] him as he comes by, and do but mark the countenance that he will give me.

PISTOLBless thy lungs, good knight.

FALSTAFFCome here, Pistol, stand behind me.— O, if I had had time to have made new liveries,[9] I would have bestowed the thousand pound I borrowed of you. But it is no matter, this poor show doth better: this doth infer[10] the zeal I had to see him.

SHALLOWIt doth so.

FALSTAFFIt shows my earnestness in affection—

PISTOLIt doth so.

FALSTAFFMy devotion—

PISTOLIt doth, it doth, it doth.

FALSTAFFAs it were, to ride day and night, and not to deliberate, not to remember, not to have patience to shift me[17]—

SHALLOWIt is most certain.

FALSTAFFBut to stand stained with travel, and sweating with desire to see him, thinking of nothing else, putting all affairs in oblivion, as if there were nothing else to be done but to see him.

PISTOL’Tis semper idem,[22] for obsque hoc nihil est. ’Tis all in every part.

SHALLOW’Tis so, indeed.

PISTOLMy knight, I will inflame thy noble liver,[24]

25

And make thee rage.

Thy Doll, and Helen[26] of thy noble thoughts,

Is in base durance[27] and contagious prison,

Haled[28] thither

By most mechanical[29] and dirty hand.

30

Rouse up revenge from ebon[30] den with fell

Alecto’s[31] snake,

For Doll is in.[32] Pistol speaks naught but troth.

FALSTAFFI will deliver her.

PISTOLThere roared the sea, and trumpet-clangour sounds.

The trumpets sound. Enter King Henry V, [with his] brothers [Prince John, Clarence, Gloucester], Lord Chief Justice [and others]

FALSTAFFSave thy grace, King Hal, my royal Hal!

PISTOLThe heavens thee guard and keep, most royal imp[36] of fame!

FALSTAFFSave thee, my sweet boy!

KING HENRY VMy Lord Chief Justice, speak to that vain[38] man.

LORD CHIEF JUSTICEHave you your wits? Know you what ’tis you speak?

FALSTAFFMy king, my Jove![40] I speak to thee, my heart!

KING HENRY VI know thee not, old man. Fall to thy prayers.

How ill white hairs become a fool and jester!

I have long dreamed of such a kind of man,

So surfeit-swelled,[44] so old and so profane.

45

But being awake, I do despise my dream.

Make less thy body hence,[46] and more thy grace,

Leave gormandizing;[47] know the grave doth gape

For thee thrice wider than for other men.

Reply not to me with a fool-born jest.

50

Presume not that I am the thing I was,

For heaven doth know — so shall the world perceive —

That I have turned away my former self,

So will I those that kept me company.

When thou dost hear I am as I have been,

55

Approach me, and thou shalt be as thou wast,

The tutor and the feeder of my riots:[56]

Till then, I banish thee, on pain of death,

As I have done the rest of my misleaders,

Not to come near our[59] person by ten mile.

60

For competence of life[60] I will allow you,

That[61] lack of means enforce you not to evil.

And, as we hear you do reform yourselves,

We will, according to your strength and qualities,

Give you advancement.[64]— Be it your charge, my lord, To Chief Justice

65

To see performed the tenor[65] of our word.— Set on.

Exeunt King [and his train]

FALSTAFFMaster Shallow, I owe you a thousand pound.

SHALLOWAye, marry, Sir John, which I beseech you to let me have home with me.

FALSTAFFThat can hardly be, Master Shallow. Do not you grieve at this: I shall be sent for in private to him. Look you, he must seem thus to the world. Fear not your advancement. I will be the man yet that shall make you great.

SHALLOWI cannot well perceive how, unless you should give me your doublet[71] and stuff me out with straw. I beseech you, good Sir John, let me have five hundred of my thousand.

FALSTAFFSir, I will be as good as my word. This that you heard was but a colour.[74]

SHALLOWA colour[75] I fear that you will die in, Sir John.

FALSTAFFFear no colours.[76] Go with me to dinner.— Come, Lieutenant Pistol. Come, Bardolph. I shall be sent for soon at night.[77]

[Enter Prince John, the Lord Chief Justice and Officers]

LORD CHIEF JUSTICEGo, carry Sir John Falstaff to the Fleet.[78]

Take all his company along with him.

FALSTAFFMy lord, my lord—

LORD CHIEF JUSTICEI cannot now speak. I will hear you soon. Take them away.

PISTOLSi[82] fortuna me tormento, spero me contento.

Exeunt all but Lancaster [Prince John] and Chief Justice

PRINCE JOHNI like this fair proceeding[83] of the king’s.

He hath intent[84] his wonted followers

85

Shall all be very well provided for,

But all are banished till their conversations[86]

Appear more wise and modest to the world.

LORD CHIEF JUSTICEAnd so they are.

PRINCE JOHNThe king hath called his parliament, my lord.

90

LORD CHIEF JUSTICEHe hath.

PRINCE JOHNI will lay odds that, ere this year expire,

We bear our civil swords[92] and native fire

As far as France. I heard a bird so sing,

Whose music, to my thinking, pleased the king.

95

Come, will you hence?

Exeunt

Epilogue

[Enter the Epilogue]

First my fear, then my curtsy,[96] last my speech. My fear is your displeasure: my curtsy, my duty: and my speech, to beg your pardons. If you look for a good speech now, you undo me, for what I have to say is of mine own making, and what indeed I should say will, I doubt,[99] prove mine own marring. But to the purpose, and so to the venture.[100] Be it known to you, as it is very well, I was lately here in the end of a displeasing play, to pray your patience for it and to promise you a better. I did mean indeed to pay you with this, which, if like an ill venture[102] it come unluckily home, I break,[103] and you, my gentle creditors, lose. Here I promised you I would be and here I commit my body to your mercies: bate me[104] some and I will pay you some and, as most debtors do, promise you infinitely. If my tongue cannot entreat you to acquit me, will you command me to use my legs? And yet that were but light payment, to dance out of your debt. But a good conscience will make any possible satisfaction, and so will I. All the gentlewomen here have forgiven me: if the gentlemen will not, then the gentlemen do not agree with the gentlewomen, which was never seen before in such an assembly. One word more, I beseech you: if you be not too much cloyed with fat meat, our humble author will continue[112] the story, with Sir John in it, and make you merry with fair Katherine of France, where, for anything I know, Falstaff shall die of a sweat,[113] unless already he be killed with your hard[114] opinions. For Oldcastle died a martyr, and this is not the man. My tongue is weary, when my legs are too, I will bid you goodnight, and so kneel down before you; but, indeed, to pray for the queen.

[Exit]

Quarto passages that do not appear in the Folio

Following 1.2.186:

but it was alway yet the trick of our English nation, if they have a good thing, to make it too common. If ye will needs say I am an old man, you should give me rest. I would to God my name were not so terrible to the enemy as it is: I were better to be eaten to death with a rust than to be scoured to nothing with perpetual motion.

Following 2.2.20:

and God knows, whether those that bawl out the ruins of thy linen shall inherit his kingdom: but the midwives say the children are not in the fault; whereupon the world increases, and kindreds are mightily strengthened.

Following 2.4.10:

Dispatch: the room where they supped is too hot; they’ll come in straight.

Following 2.4.44:

DOLL TEARSHEETHang yourself, you muddy conger, hang yourself!

Following 2.4.109:

FALSTAFFNo more, Pistol; I would not have you discharge yourself of our company, Pistol.

After ‘divers liquors!’ in 3.1.53:

O, if this were seen,

The happiest youth, viewing his progress through,

What perils past, what crosses to ensue,

Would shut the book, and sit him down and die.

Textual Notes

Q = First Quarto text of 1600

F = First Folio text of 1623

F2 = a correction introduced in the Second Folio text of 1632

Ed = a correction introduced by a later editor

SD = stage direction

SH = speech heading (i.e., speaker’s name)

List of parts: adapted from THE ACTORS NAMES at end of F text

Induction SH RUMOUR = Ed. Not in F 35 hold = Ed. F = Hole

1.1.42 hard = Q. F = head 68 Spoke = Q. F = Speake a venture = Q. F = aduenture 188 brought = F2. F = bring

1.2.5 clay, man spelled Clay-man in F 72 for = Q. Not in F

2.1.1 SH HOSTESS QUICKLY = Ed. F = Hostesse 120, 123 SH GOWER = Ed. F = Mes. 134 counties = Q. F = Countries

2.2.12 videlicet spelled Viz. in F 81 borrower’s = Ed. F = borrowed

2.3.5 SH LADY NORTHUMBERLAND = Ed. F = Wife. (throughout the scene)

2.4.107 With = Q. F = where 163 SD Musicians = Ed. F = Musique 186 avoirdupois spelled Haber-de-pois in F

3.2.110 SH FALSTAFF = Ed. F = Shal.

4.1.39 appeared = Ed. F = appeare 118 force = Ed. F = forc’d 252 th’imagined = Ed. F = th’imagine 424 My…report set as prose in F, but some eds set as verse because of rhyme on court/report 436 curdy spelled cruddie in F

4.2.262 will = Q. F = swill 277 moist = Q. F = most 372 swoon = Q. F = swoon’d

5.2.37 th’impartial = Q. F = th’Imperiall 45 SH KING HENRY V = Ed. F = Prince. 97 your = Q. F = you

5.3.19 Give = Q. F = Good 78 Cophetua = Q. F = Couitha 83 SH SILENCE = Ed. F = Shal.

5.4.3 SH FIRST BEADLE = Ed. F = Off.

5.5.13 SH PISTOL = F. Some eds reassign to SHALLOW 15 SH PISTOL = F. Some eds reassign to SHALLOW 96 Epilogue text follows F. Q divides into three paragraphs: (1) from First my feare to promise you infinitely: and so I kneele downe before you; but indeed, to pray for the Queene. (2) from If my tongue cannot to such as assemblie. (3) from One word more to wil bid you, good night. I.e., F moves prayer for the Queen to the end. The confusion may be caused by the conflation of two distinct epilogues, perhaps one for public and one for court performance

Induction

*   List of parts: irregular humorists lawless/disorderly men with wayward temperaments

1.1 prologue. The Second Part of Henry the Fourth is continuous with The First Part, taking place immediately after the battle of Shrewsbury   Rumour allegorical figure traditionally covered in painted tongues

2    vent of hearing i.e., ear

3    orient east    drooping declining, where the sun sets

4    post-horse horse kept at a post house or inn for the use of messengers or travelers    still always, continually    unfold reveal

5    acts actions, events/divisions of a play

12    fearful…defence enrollment of troops and preparations for defense inspired by fear

13    big pregnant    griefs suffering, hardship

15    And…matter which is not the case    pipe small wind instrument, recorder

16    jealousies suspicions

17    of…stop so easy and straightforward to play stop finger-hole of a wind instrument

18    blunt stupid, dull

19    still-discordant constantly quarrelling

21    anatomize dissect, analyze

22    household domestic intimates, i.e., audience

23    King Harry’s victory Henry IV’s troops defeated Hotspur and the other rebels at the Battle of Shrewsbury (dramatized in 1 Henry IV)

24    field battlefield Shrewsbury town on the Welsh-English border

25    Hotspur Sir Henry (or Harry) Percy, the Earl of Northumberland’s son

28    office duty, task

29    Harry Monmouth Prince Henry (or Harry, or Hal), named after the town on the Welsh-English border where he was born

31    the Douglas Archibald, Earl of Douglas; the signifies the head of a Scottish clan

32    anointed i.e., royal, legitimate (having been marked with holy oil as part of the coronation ceremony)

33    peasant country, rustic (with connotations of “unsophisticated, credulous”)

35    hold fortress; Warkworth Castle was the Earl of Northumberland’s residence    ragged rough, eroded

37    crafty-sick feigning illness    posts messengers on horseback    tiring on in tearing haste/exhausting themselves and their horses

39    Than except what

40    true wrongs the painful truth

Act 1 Scene 1

1.1   Location: Warkworth Castle (residence of the Earl of Northumberland)    Porter gatekeeper

1    keeps guards

3    What who

5    attend wait for/wait upon

6    is has    orchard garden

7    Please it if it please

11    stratagem violent deed/scheme, plot

12    wild savage, rebellious, unruly

13    high feeding overly rich food

14    bears down tramples

16    certain definite

17    an if    will is willing, wishes it

20    your son Sir Henry Percy (Hotspur)

21    Blunts Sir Walter Blunt was killed by Douglas in 1 Henry IV, Act 5 Scene 1; another Blunt is only mentioned in one of the play’s sources

22    Prince John Prince Henry’s younger brother

23    Westmorland Ralph Neville, a kinsman of the king’s    Stafford in 1 Henry IV, Act 5 Scene 1, the Earl of Stafford is said to have been killed in the battle

24    brawn lump of flesh/fattened boar or pig    hulk big, unwieldy person (literally, large ship)    Sir John i.e., Falstaff

26    followed supported by loyal troops

28    fortunes successes

29    How…derived? What is the source of your information?

33    Rendered gave, related

34    Travers his name suggests his function to contradict Lord Bardolph

36    over-rode overtook

38    haply perhaps    retail recount

40    Sir John Umfrevile either the name originally given to Lord Bardolph’s character in an earlier version of the scene, or the gentleman who also gave Bardolph good news of the battle

42    Outrode rode faster than, left behind

43    forspent exhausted

44    breathe allow to rest and recover breath    bloodied i.e., from the constant digging of spurs

45    Chester town in the northwest of England

49    able recovered/strong/easy to handle    gave…head let him go freely, without restraint of the bridle

50    able capable/powerful

51    jade worn-out horse

52    rowel-head spiked wheel at the end of a spur

53    devour the way eat up the road

54    Staying waiting for

60    have…day has not won the battle

61    point lace for fastening clothing, i.e., something of small value

62    barony land held by a baron

64    instances evidence

66    hilding worthless

68    at a venture without due consideration/in a speculative manner    Morton another servant of Northumberland’s; his name suggests death

69    title-leaf title page of a book describing the contents

71    strand shore, beach    flood sea

72    witnessed usurpation visible signs of its invasion (left by the retreating tide)

79    apter more likely/more suitable

80    Even just

82    Drew drew aside, opened    Priam King of Troy, killed in the Trojan war against the Greeks    curtain i.e., of his bed

84    ere before

88    Stopping filling

89    stop…indeed prevent me from ever hearing anything again, i.e., kill me

98    is chanced has happened

99    divination prophecy, intuition

101    doing…wrong i.e., by telling me that I’m mistaken (a servant should not contradict his master)

102    gainsaid contradicted

103    spirit instinct, intelligence

106    hold’st maintain, believe

109    belie slander

112    losing office profitless task

113    sullen mournful

114    knolling ringing the funeral bell for

117    would wish

119    quittance repayment (of blows)    out-breathed breathless

121    never-daunted never overcome with fear

123    In few in short

125    bruited reported

126    best tempered of finest quality, most hardened (literally refers to the treating of a sword to give it strength and resilience)

127    mettle character, courage plays on “metal”    steeled hardened, literally overlaid with steel

128    abated blunted/diminished

131    Upon enforcement under compulsion, with force applied

132    heavy in weighed down/saddened by

133    Lend…fear i.e., despite the weight of their loss, fear made them light

136    Worcester Thomas Percy, Earl of Worcester, Northumberland’s brother

138    well-labouring hard-working

139    th’appearance…king several men, including Sir Walter Blunt and the Earl of Stafford, had been dressed like the king to act as decoys on the battlefield

140    ’Gan…stomach began to lessen his courage    grace…backs i.e., Douglas joined those fleeing the battle grace dignify, sanction

144    power armed force    encounter meet in battle

145    Lancaster Prince John (so called because he was born in Lancaster)

146    at in

148    physic medicine

150    in…well i.e., had I been healthy this bad news would have made me ill; being ill, it has gone some way toward giving me strength

153    Impatient…fit unable to endure his attack of fever

154    keeper nurse

155    Weakened “weak’ned” in Folio, perhaps playing on “weak-kneed”

156    nice effeminate, unmanly

157    scaly gauntlet armored glove covered with plates of steel, giving it the appearance of scales

158    coif nightcap

159    wanton self-indulgent, effeminate

160    fleshed made eager after having their appetites whetted (as hunting dogs are fed raw meat to excite them)

162    ragged’st roughest, harshest

167    contention strife    ling’ring act painfully protracted struggle/drawn-out part of a play

168    Cain son of Adam and Eve who in killing his brother Abel became the world’s first murderer

170    rude violent/unpolished

173    complices confederates, supporters

174    give o’er give way, give in

175    passion outburst of emotion    perforce necessarily

176    cast th’event calculated the likely outcome

177    summed added up

178    make head raise an army    presurmise suspicion beforehand

179    dole dealing out (may play on “dole,” i.e., sorrow)    drop fall, die

180    edge i.e., narrow bridge/sword edge

182    advised aware    capable Of susceptible to

183    forward eager, adventurous, rash

184    trade of trafficking in    ranged was positioned

186    apprehended anticipated/feared

187    stiff-borne proudly, stubbornly carried

189    like likely

190    engagèd to involved in

192    if…one the odds of coming out alive were ten to one

194    respect consideration

195    o’erset overcome

196    all put forth all set out (as if going to sea)/stake everything

197    ’Tis…time i.e., we shouldn’t delay

199    gentle well-born    up prepared for battle

200    well-appointed powers well-equipped forces

201    double surety i.e., as he has both spiritual and temporal authority

202    corpse bodies (not the souls)

203    But mere

206    queasiness uncertainty, reluctance

207    As…potions like men who drink medicine

211    religion i.e., a religious cause

212    Supposed known to be

214    enlarge his rising fortify, justify his uprising    with…stones by recalling the murder of Richard II at Pomfret (Pontefract) Castle; Richard had been usurped by his cousin, Henry Bullingbrook, now Henry IV

217    bestride stand over

218    Bullingbrook i.e., Henry IV

219    more and less those of both high and low rank

223    aptest best, readiest

224    posts messengers

Act 1 Scene 2

1.2    Location: in London, but unspecified, probably a street

1    Sirrah sir (used to social inferiors)    giant ironic since the page is a boy    water urine

3    owed owned    knew for was aware of

4    gird at taunt    foolish-compounded made up of folly

8    o’erwhelmed squashed with her bulk

9    set me off display me to my best advantage; perhaps plays on “make me appear ridiculous”    whoreson bastard (son of a whore)

10    mandrake poisonous plant whose forked root made it resemble the human form

11    manned with attended by    agate diminutive person, an allusion to the tiny figures cut in the agate stones that appeared in rings

12    send…jewel Falstaff jokingly threatens to return the page to the prince as an ornament

13    juvenal youth (puns on first syllable of “jewel”)    fledged covered with down, i.e., he hasn’t got a beard

15    stick hesitate    face-royal majestic face (royal plays on the sense of “coin with the king’s face on it”)

16    amiss out of place    a…it no barber could charge sixpence to shave a beardless face

17    writ called himself

18    grace term of address to a prince/favor

19    Dombledon a name probably derived from “dommel” or “dummel,” i.e., dummy, stupid

20    slops loose baggy breeches

21    assurance financial guarantee    Bardolph Falstaff’s follower is unrelated to the rebel lord of the same name

23    Let…hotter! refers to the biblical parable of Dives and Lazarus in which the rich Dives refused food to the poor leper Lazarus, and was condemned to hell where he begged for water to cool his tongue; gluttony is one of the seven deadly sins

24    Achitophel an adviser to King David who betrayed him; Old Testament equivalent to Judas Iscariot    yea-forsooth obsequious, like a tradesman who affects propriety by using mild oaths    bear…hand lead a man on

25    stand insist    smooth-pates men with short hair, an image associated with puritan tradesmen

26    high high-heeled, suggestive of pride    girdles belts; the keys signify the men’s showy self-importance

27    through…up has agreed an honest and straightforward purchase with them

28    lief soon, willingly    ratsbane rat poison

29    looked expected

30    horn of abundance cornucopia or horn of plenty, i.e., lots of wealth (plays on the notion of the horns supposedly sprouted by cuckolds, i.e., men with unfaithful wives)

31    lightness light/sexual promiscuity

32    lanthorn lantern (continues play on “horn”)

33    Smithfield area in the City of London with a horse and cattle market; of poor reputation

34    Paul’s St. Paul’s Cathedral; the aisle served as a place for servants to seek new masters

35    stews brothels

36    nobleman…Bardolph according to an apocryphal tale, the prince was expelled from the King’s Privy Council for hitting the Lord Chief Justice, an episode also referred to in 1 Henry IV, Act 3 Scene 2    committed imprisoned

38    close stay close/stay out of sight    not see him avoid him/pretend I have not seen him

40    an’t if it

41    in question for suspected of/was questioned about

42    good service in 1 Henry IV Falstaff claimed the credit for killing Hotspur, although Prince Henry had in fact done so

43    charge military command

51    A…wars? Falstaff pretends to think the servant is begging rather than undertaking proper employment

52    want lack

54    were…it although it’s hard to say what could be worse than rebellion

57    Setting…aside disregarding my honor as a knight and soldier (which signify I couldn’t lie)

58    in my throat outrageously

62    grows to belongs to, is an integral part of

64    hunt counter one on the wrong track (hunting term: following the wrong scent); conceivably “one asking to go to prison (the Counter)”    Avaunt! Be off!

68    abroad out of doors

69    by advice with the doctor’s permission

70    smack hint, taste    relish flavor, taste    saltness artificially preserved vitality of youth (salt is used to preserve meat)

71    reverend respectful

77    apoplexy illness causing paralysis

81    What why

82    it original its origin

83    Galen famous second-century Greek physician

87    marking paying attention    withal with

88    punish…heels i.e., shackle your ankles, or put you in the stocks

90    Job biblical character who lost all his wealth but bore his ill-luck with patience

91    in…poverty i.e., because I am too poor to pay a fine    how why, in what way

92    wise…itself a wise person might question    dram unit of weight/small measure of medicine    scruple third of a dram/doubt

94    matters…life charges laid against you that are punishable by the death penalty

96    land-service military service, which meant one could not be summoned to answer a civil charge; also a euphemistic way of referring to the robbery Falstaff carried out at Gad’s Hill (in 1 Henry IV)

99    He…less i.e., one of my large girth cannot be anything but great

100    means financial resources, income waste expenditure (puns on “waist”)

104    I…dog presumably a joke about a fat man being led by his dog; possibly alludes to the full moon, popularly supposed to be inhabited by a man with a dog

106    gall irritate

107    exploit…Hill i.e., the robbery at Gad’s Hill in Kent in which Falstaff was involved in 1 Henry IV

108    unquiet disturbed by war    your…action having that offence quietly passed over

111    smell a fox be suspicious

112    better greater, most useful/more virtuous

113    wassail candle fat candle used at a feast    tallow animal fat (used in candle making)    wax beeswax (used for high-quality candles; plays on the sense of “growth”)

114    approve demonstrate, prove

115    his its

117    gravy grease, sweat

118    angel attendant spirit (Falstaff plays on the sense of “gold coin”)

119    light slim, underweight/counterfeit or fraudulently filed/satanic (the devil was originally Lucifer, the angel of light)

120    weighing considering, judging/determining physical weight    go pass as currency/walk/perform sexually

121    cannot tell do not know/cannot be counted as a legitimate coin    costermongers barrow boys, street salesmen; originally sellers of costard apples

122    bear-herd keeper of a performing bear    pregnancy cleverness, quick-wittedness    tapster innkeeper, barman

123    reckonings tavern bills    appertinent belonging

125    livers considered the seat of the passions

126    galls the source of bitterness and anger    vaward vanguard, forefront, early part

127    wags mischievous fellows

129    characters letters/characteristics    moist watery, rheumy

131    broken cracked, weak    single weak, poor

132    blasted blighted    Fie expression of shame and indignation

134    halloing shouting/calling to hunting dogs    approve prove/commend

136    caper with dance with/compete in dancing with    marks a mark was worth two-thirds of a pound

137    have at him expression of defiance: so much    for him/let’s go for it For as for

138    rude violent, unmannerly    sensible reasonable/capable of physical sensation    checked rebuked

139    marry by the Virgin Mary    ashes and sackcloth symbols of repentance

140    sack Spanish white wine

146    I…it either a sarcastic “thank you for reminding me” or implies that the Lord Chief Justice is responsible for the separation    look you be sure to

149    spit white i.e., be healthy (red spittle would result from illness or internal injury)

150    action engagement with the enemy

152    be honest behave honorably

153    furnish me forth equip me for the expedition

154    bear crosses sustain hardships/carry coins (stamped on one side with a cross)

156    fillip strike    three-man beetle huge sledgehammer requiring three men to lift it

158    pox venereal disease    pinches torments    both the degrees i.e., of age and youth

162    groats coins worth four old pence

163    consumption disease (specifically, tuberculosis, which caused victims to waste slowly away)

166    Mistress Ursula not mentioned elsewhere; either an error for Mistress Quickly (Nell) or perhaps Falstaff is involved with another woman

168    pox of plague on    pox syphilis

169    halt limp    colour excuse, pretext

171    commodity profit, advantage

Act 1 Scene 3

1.3    Location: presumably York, the Archbishop’s palace

1    causes concerns/matters of legal dispute    means methods/resources

4    lord marshal i.e., Thomas Mowbray, Duke of Norfolk, the son of the man banished by Richard II

5    allow grant    occasion motive/necessity/opportunity    arms taking arms

7    in with    advance ourselves promote our cause/be so ambitious/make military advances

9    puissance strength, influence

10    Our…file i.e., our current list of recruited soldiers grows

11    men of choice selected troops

12    supplies reinforcements    live…Of rely chiefly on/are greatly increased by the expectation of support from

17    hold up head form a sufficient army

22    by the hand at hand, ready

23    theme cause    bloody-faced violent, bloody (perhaps with additional sense of “shameful”)

25    aids incertain uncertain support    admitted entertained, treated as valid

27    case situation

28    lined fortified

29    Eating the air i.e., feeding on false hopes

30    project the mental conception, prospect    power army

31    Much smaller which turned out to be much smaller

34    winking with his eyes shut (to reality)

35    by your leave with your permission (to contradict)

37    Yes i.e., yes it can hurt    quality state, condition

38    instant present    cause on foot business that is already underway

39    Lives…them has as little chance of success as early spring buds that are likely to be killed by frosts before they have borne fruit    warrant assurance, grounds for optimism

44    figure design

45    rate calculate

46    ability i.e., to pay

48    offices rooms    least worst

53    Consent agree

54    estate wealth, resources

55    able…undergo practical it is to undertake the project

56    opposite adverse factors/the resources of the enemy

57    fortify plays on sense of “strengthen structurally, build”    figures numbers/designs

61    o’er up    cost object of expense, i.e., the building

62    naked subject exposed, unprotected victim

63    churlish rough, unkind

65    now…expectation already have all the men we can expect

71    as…brawl given the present strife

73    Glendower leader of the Welsh rebels    perforce of necessity

74    unfirm insecure/indecisive

75    coffers money chests, i.e., treasury

82    Baying hunting, barking at in pursuit like a pack of dogs

83    like likely

86    substituted delegated

87    notice information

89    publish the occasion proclaim the cause

91    surfeited overindulged and become sick

92    habitation dwelling

93    vulgar heart popular, public affection

94    fond many foolish multitude

97    trimmed furnished with, adorned/strengthened

98    Thou i.e., the people

99    cast vomit

100    So in the same way    disgorge vomit up from

102    eat…up the idea that a dog eats its vomit is proverbial (originating in Proverbs 26:11 and 2 Peter 2:22)

112    draw add up/assemble

Act 2 Scene 1

2.1    Location: Eastcheap, London, near a tavern Hostess landlady of a tavern

1    Master Quickly errs in using an overly respectful title for a mere constable    entered the action begun the lawsuit

3    yeoman police officer’s assistant    lusty strong, vigorous/lustful    stand to it be up to the task/get an erection

8    entered brought a lawsuit against

10    stabbed hurt (financially; plays on sense of “penetrated sexually”    house inn (plays on sense of “vagina”)

11    weapon with phallic connotations

12    foin lunge, thrust with a weapon (sexual connotations, continued in thrust)

13    close grapple, fight (plays on sense of “embrace sexually”)

15    fist punch (plays on the sense of “masturbate”)    come plays on sense of “have an orgasm”    vice grip

16    undone ruined (financially/sexually, in terms of reputation)    going plays on the sense of “sexual activity”    warrant assure you    infinitive malapropism for “infinite”    thing with phallic connotations

17    score tavern bill, accounts    sure securely, firmly

18    scape escape    continuantly malapropism for “continually” or for “incontinently,” i.e., immediately (plays on “continently,” i.e., chastely)    Pie-corner the corner of Giltspur Street and Cock Lane, in Smithfield, London; famous for cooks’ shops and saddlers, also known for prostitution (pie and corner were both slang terms for the vagina)    saving…manhoods apologetic formula for mentioning an indelicate subject (manhoods may have phallic connotations)

19    saddle with slang sense of “whore”    indited malapropism for invited (to “indite” is to summon for trial)    Lubber’s-head i.e., Libbard’s or Leopard’s Head, name of a public house; a lubber is a clumsy, idle lout    Lombard Street London street running from Mansion House to Gracechurch Street

20    exion i.e., action    case lawsuit (plays on sense of “vagina”)

21    A hundred mark equivalent to £66—a large sum; mark also means “score, reckoning,” and has phallic connotations

22    long one i.e., large bill (with phallic connotations)    borne endured patiently (plays on the sense of “borne the weight of a man during sex”)

23    fubbed fobbed

24    dealing plays on the sense of “having sex”

25    wrong assumes additional sense of “(shaming) penis” or possibly “illegitimate child”

26    arrant notorious, downright    malmsey-nose red-nosed (from drink; malmsey is a sweet red wine)

27    offices official duties/acts of bodily excretion    do me do (me is emphatic; plays on sense of “have sex with me”)

29    Whose mare’s dead? What’s the fuss?    mare plays on the sense of “whore”

31    varlets rogues, rascals

32    quean whore    channel gutter

34    honeysuckle malapropism for “homicidal”

35    honey-seed i.e., homicide (plays on sense of “sweet semen”)

36    man-queller murderer, crusher of men (appropriate given Falstaff’s size)    woman-queller with sexual connotations

39    a rescue i.e., help (or perhaps Quickly thinks a rescue is some type of weapon or restraining rope)

40    hemp-seed i.e., one fit for the hangman’s rope (made of hemp); perhaps another malapropism for “homicide”

41    scullion most menial kitchen servant    rampallion scoundrel, ruffian    fustilarian unclear; perhaps derived from “fustilugs” (i.e., a fat, unkempt woman)    tuck punish (may pun on “fuck”)

42    catastrophe arse

44    Good my my good    stand to support (plays on sense of “become erect for”)

46    become befit, suit

47    wherefore why

49    Eastcheap London Street running from the junction of Cannon and Gracechurch Streets to Great Tower Street

53    ride…mare sit on you and suffocate you like the nightmare, a female spirit supposedly responsible for bad dreams; with sexual connotations mare plays on the sense of “whore”

55    vantage of ground superior position, favorable opportunity

56    get up with sexual connotations

57    temper disposition

59    come…own get what is due to her (come plays on the sense of “orgasm”)

60    gross total (perhaps with play on “fat/lecherous”)

61    Marry by the Virgin Mary (plays on the sense of “marriage”)

62    parcel-gilt partly gilded    Dolphin-chamber a particular room in the inn (these were often individually named)

63    sea-coal superior type of coal transported by sea from the north of England    Whitsun week seven weeks after Easter

64    broke hit, grazed    singing-man of Windsor chorister of the royal chapel; possibly a reference to John Magdalen of the King’s Chapel, who passed himself off as Richard II in a plot to overthrow Henry IV

66    goodwife term of address for a married woman    Keech lump of congealed fat, an appropriate name for a butcher

67    gossip familiar form of address for a female friend    mess small quantity

68    dish perhaps with vaginal connotations    whereby whereupon

69    green fresh, unhealed

71    madam i.e., a suitable term of address for the wife of a knight

72    book-oath oath on the Bible

75    son…you i.e., that you’re his father    in good case well-off (case plays on the sense of “vagina”)

76    distracted her driven her mad

81    level fair, balanced    practised upon worked craftily on, taken advantage of

82    easy-yielding generous, soft-hearted/sexually pliant

83    troth truth (plays on the sense of “pledge of marriage”)

84    Pay…debt plays on the sense of “undertake your obligation of marital sex”    unpay undo, make good

86    current present, immediate/genuine

87    sneap snub, rebuke

88    curtsy bow

89    your…remembered not forgetting the respect due to one in your position    be your suitor petition you for a favor

92    power authorization    in…reputation in accordance with the reputation you claim

93    satisfy financially reimburse/sexually pleasure

101    heavenly ground Quickly mixes religious and secular oaths: by this heavenly light/by the ground I walk on    fain content

102    plate silver or gold tableware, presumably cups in view of Falstaff’s response

103    Glasses…drinking in the late sixteenth century glassware was becoming more fashionable than metal drinking vessels

104    drollery comic picture or drawing    Prodigal biblical story of the wasteful prodigal son, a popular subject for wall hangings    German hunting hunting scenes of German origin    water-work imitation tapestry/watercolor

106    humours moods

107    draw thy action withdraw your lawsuit

108    set on put up

109    nobles gold coins worth about a third of a pound    I I am

110    la exclamation used for emphasis

111    shift arrangements    still always

114    Will I live? i.e., as sure as I live    Hook on hang on to her, don’t let her out of sight

115    Doll a common name for a prostitute    Tearsheet again suggestive of prostitution, evoking vigorous sexual activity sufficient to tear the bedsheets

116    have plays on the sense of “possess sexually”

120    Basingstoke a market town in Hampshire, forty-six miles southwest of London

127    presently immediately

133    being it being the case that    take soldiers up enlist soldiers

138    grace style    tap for tap tit for tat    fair on good terms

139    lighten thee enlighten you/reduce your weight    great considerable/fat

Act 2 Scene 2

2.2   Location: in London but unspecified—either the prince’s apartments or the same street location as the previous scene

2    attached arrested, taken into custody (legal term)

4    discolours…greatness makes me blush/tarnishes my princely status

5    show vilely appear base    small beer weak or thin beer/trivial occupations

6    loosely studied poorly educated/concerned with immoral matters

7    composition mixture, brew/invention

8    Belike perhaps, most likely    got begotten, created

10    disgrace…name a member of the royal family would not have been expected to have any kind of personal relationship with a commoner

12    videlicet “namely” (Latin)

13    bear be aware of    for superfluity as a spare

14    low…racket i.e., he doesn’t play when he hasn’t got a shirt to change into

16    low countries nether regions, i.e., his sexual appetite and brothel use    made…Holland contrived to use up the money that would have been spent on shirts (Holland, one of the Low Countries, was a source of fine linen)

24    Go to exclamation of dismissive impatience    stand the push withstand the thrust

25    meet fitting

26    albeit even though    fault lack

28    Very hardly with difficulty

30    try test, judge, determine

32    ostentation outward show

37    never a no    keeps the roadway sticks to the common path (of men’s thoughts)

39    accites induces/summons (in legal sense)

40    lewd common, base    engraffed closely attached

43    second brother i.e., a younger son without an inheritance, dependent on his wits    proper…hands good in a fight

47    transformed him ape apparently Falstaff has dressed his page up in an elaborate outfit, like a performing monkey

48    Save God save    your grace respectful title, but Henry shifts the sense of grace to “virtue, honor”

50    blushing i.e., red-faced from drink

52    get…maidenhead i.e., drain a tankard of ale    maidenhead virginity

53    red lattice the lattice windows of alehouses were usually painted red; Bardolph’s face is therefore indistinguishable from the background

55    ale-wife’s new petticoat landlady’s (red) skirt (not necessarily underwear); red clothing was associated with prostitution

56    profited benefited (from Falstaff’s teaching)

58    Althaea’s dream in classical mythology Althaea was told that her son would live until a burning brand was consumed; the page confuses her with Hecuba, mother of Paris, who dreamed that she would give birth to a fire-brand that would destroy Troy (as Paris’ actions later did)

60    fire-brand burning log/mischief maker

63    blossom i.e., the page    cankers grubs that destroy plants

64    sixpence probably alludes to the cross on an Elizabethan sixpence

65    If…you if your influence doesn’t end up getting him hanged

70    good respect very properly, most ceremoniously (ironic given Bardolph’s blunt delivery)    martlemas i.e., fattened beast; Martinmas, the feast of Saint Martin (November 11), was associated with the slaughter of cattle and pigs

74    wen wart, growth    holds his place insists on his rank

77    as…himself since he continually reminds them whenever he mentions his name

78    even like in the same way as

80    conceive understand

81    borrower’s cap i.e., readily removed in humble respect

82    will be are determined to be    but…Japhet even if they have to derive their claim from as far back as Japhet, Noah’s third son

85    certificate licence issued to a subject by the king; in a letter the addressee’s name should come first

88    I…thee Falstaff imitates Roman brevity by emulating the structure of Caesar’s veni, vidi, vici (“I came, I saw, I conquered”): “I present my kind regards, praise your virtues and say goodbye”

90    idle times leisure mayst can    by…no a mild oath

91    familiars close friends

92    steep soak

93    sack Spanish white wine

94    twenty i.e., a lot    use treat, behave toward

97    play…time pass the time foolishly

100    frank sty, pig-pen

103    Ephesians…church good old companions of the usual disreputable ways

106    pagan heathen/prostitute

107    proper respectable

108    town bull commonly owned bull that was used to impregnate all the heifers

116    road i.e., whore (used by all men; road was slang for “vagina”)

117    way…London i.e., Watling Street, the main road from London to the Midlands    St Albans Hertfordshire town twenty-five miles north of London

118    bestow behave

121    drawers bartenders, waiters

122    God…bull refers to the supreme god Jove’s transformation into a bull, in which form he raped Europa    heavy declension serious decline    case plays on the sense of “vagina”

123    prentice apprentice (bartender)

124    weigh with equal, counterbalance

Act 2 Scene 3

2.3   Location: Warkworth Castle, Northumberland

2    even way smooth passage    rough difficult

3    visage face, i.e., attitude

8    but except for

10    time…word Lady Percy refers to Northumberland’s failure to join his son at Shrewsbury (see 1 Henry IV)

19    grey pale blue

21    glass mirror

22    dress themselves fashion themselves, using him as a model

23    He…gait there was no one did not imitate his manner of walking

24    thick rapidly and loudly

27    turn…abuse spoil their naturally pleasant manner of speaking

29    affections of delight enjoyment of pleasures

30    humours of blood moods

31    mark reference point

34    unseconded unsupported

36    abide a field face a battle

38    defensible to offer any defense

39    ghost soul, spirit

40    precise and nice scrupulous and particular

42    marshal…archbishop i.e., Mowbray and the Archbishop of York

45    Monmouth’s i.e., the Prince of Wales’

46    Beshrew curse

47    spirits vital powers

48    new newly, again    ancient oversights past mistakes

51    provided prepared, equipped

54    puissance power, strength

55    ground…of superiority and advantage over

59    so suffered allowed to do so    came I I became

61    remembrance perhaps the plant of remembrance, rosemary

63    recordation to commemoration of

66    still-stand pause, standstill

69    for to make for

Act 2 Scene 4

2.4   Location: Quickly’s tavern in Eastcheap, London    Drawers bartenders, waiters

1    Apple-johns type of apple said to be in best eating condition when shriveled

7    cover lay the table

8    noise band of musicians    fain gladly

9    anon soon

10    jerkins close-fitting jackets often made of leather

12    old Utis fine larks, high jinks (from the now obsolete word utas, meaning “festivity”)

15    temperality Quickly means “temper” (plays on “temporality,” i.e., time)    pulsidge malapropism for “pulse”    extraordinarily malapropism for “ordinarily”

17    canaries wine from the Canary Islands    searching penetrating, powerful    perfumes probably a malapropism for “perfuses,” i.e., suffuses, permeates

19    Hem! probably a hiccup

22    ‘When…court’ a line from the popular ballad “Sir Launcelot du Lake”

23    jordan chamber pot

25    calm i.e., “qualm,” a fit of faintness    good sooth truly

26    sect sex/type/profession    If…sick for a woman or a prostitute to be quiet means she is unwell

28    rascals rogues/lean young deer

29    make possibly with sexual connotations: “have sex with”

30    cook plays on the sense of “pimp” and puns on “cock”

31    catch of get diseases (specifically, venereal disease) from (Doll responds to the sense of “steal from”)

33    ‘Your…ouches’ presumably a line from a ballad, but “broaches, pearls and ouches” are also terms for skin lesions (associated with venereal disease) ouch gem/boil    serve in military and sexual sense    bravely courageously/showily    halting limping (from injury sustained in war/as a result of syphilitic bone erosion; “come off” could mean “dismount sexually”)

34    breach gap in fortifications/vagina    pike staff with an iron spike/penis    surgery treatment (for injury/venereal disease)

35    charged chambers loaded barrels of small cannon/infectious vagina

37    rheumatic Quickly probably intends “choleric,” i.e., temperamentally hot and dry

38    confirmities malapropism for “infirmities” misleadingly suggesting “resemblances”    What…year! common exclamation of impatience (like “What the devil!”)

39    bear be tolerant/bear the weight of a man during sex/bear children

41    vessel now takes on vaginal connotations    hogshead large wine barrel, i.e., Falstaff

42    venture i.e., cargo (risked in a sea voyage)    Bordeaux stuff wine from Bordeaux in France    hulk big, unwieldy person/large ship

45    Ancient ensign, i.e., soldier responsible for carrying military banners    Pistol pronounced “pizzle,” generating a pun on the sense of “penis”

46    swaggering blustering, insolent, quarrelsome

49    I’ll I’ll have    fame reputation

56    Tilly-fally nonsense

57    Tisick i.e., “phthisic” or tuberculosis, a wasting disease of the lungs    deputy one acting in place of a magistrate, before whom Quickly has been summoned for keeping a disorderly tavern

59    Dumbe parsons who did not preach or who did so with insufficient vigour were known as “dumb dogs”    by nearby

60    receive i.e., as customers    are…name have a bad reputation    Now…whereupon and now I understand why

63    companions fellows    bless you be surprised/consider yourself fortunate

65    tame harmless    cheater crafty card-player (with connotations of “deceiver”)

66    Barbary hen guinea fowl/prostitute

69    am the worse feel ill

72    if it as if I were

75    charge load (like a gun)/toast

76    discharge fire/toast/ejaculate

77    two bullets plays on the idea of “testicles”

78    Pistol-proof bulletproof/resistant to your charms, or penis/past child-bearing age    hardly plays on notion of erectile hardness

79    Come possible play on sense of “orgasm”    drink plays on the sense of “have sex”

81    Dorothy Doll is the shortened form of the name

82    Charge Doll interprets this in a sexual sense, perhaps “charge at with a (phallic) weapon” or “burden (with pregnancy)”    scurvy worthless, contemptible

83    lack-linen mate poorly dressed fellow    meat…master i.e., too good for you (meat puns on “mate” and on the sense of “whore”)

85    know perhaps with sexual overtones (i.e., “am familiar with you sexually”)

86    cutpurse thieving, pickpocket    bung pickpocket

87    chaps cheeks    saucy cuttle insolent thief (a cuttle was the knife used by thieves to cut the strings securing purses to people’s belts)

88    bottle-ale perhaps meaning cheap or frothy    basket-hilt i.e., swashbuckling, inadequate (literally, sword hilt provided with a defense for the swordsman’s hand, consisting of narrow plates of steel curved into the shape of a basket)    juggler trickster    Since when i.e., how long have you claimed to be a soldier/so manly

89    points laces for attaching armor    Much! sarcastic exclamation (i.e., “Much manly prowess you have!”/”Two points certainly is a lot!”

90    murder i.e., rip off, tear (i.e., sexually assault;    ruff was slang for “vagina”) ruff prostitutes were known for wearing large ruffs

91    Captain Quickly promotes Pistol (who is an ensign), either inadvertently or in order to flatter him

93    truncheon beat    out i.e., of their ranks, from military service

95    bawdy-house brothel

96    stewed prunes a dish commonly available in brothels (hence also “whores”)    dried stale

98    look to it beware, look out

99    down downstairs

104    I’ll…first this and several of Pistol’s subsequent speeches are set in prose in Folio, but consist of fragments and parodies of verse plays, so they should be spoken as verse, though the rhythms and line-breaks are highly irregular

105    Pluto’s damnèd lake Pluto was the Roman god of the underworld, which had several rivers; the Romans thought that the Italian lake Avernus was the entrance to the underworld

107    Erebus son of Chaos and Night, used to personify the underworld

108    Hold…line i.e., don’t let go (angling terminology)

109    Fates classical goddesses of destiny

110    Hiren perhaps Pistol has affectedly named his sword; Hiren (Irene) may refer to a character in George Peele’s lost play The Turkish Mahomet and Hiren the Fair Greek; puns on “iron,” again suggesting Pistol’s sword

111    Peesel variant pronunciation of “Pistol,” further emphasizing play on “pizzle” (penis)    beseek i.e., beseech

112    aggravate in fact Quickly means the opposite, perhaps “abrogate” (put an end to)    choler anger, one of the four bodily humors

113    humours moods (literally, bodily fluids governing the temperament)    Shall…day closely modeled on lines in Christopher Marlowe’s Tamburlaine Part II, 4.3.1–2; much of Pistol’s speech parodies theatrical rhetoric

114    jades worn-out horses/whores

116    cannibals Pistol may mean “Hannibal” (i.e., famous Carthaginian general who fought the Romans in the third century BC)

117    Trojan Greeks Greeks besieging Troy in the Trojan war, or Pistol confuses the two groups (may play on sense of “jolly, roistering fellows”)

118    King Cerberus the three-headed dog that guarded the entrance to the underworld; not a king

119    welkin sky, heavens    fall…toys quarrel/be destroyed over trifles

122    Die men let men die    Give…pins give crowns away as though they were worth no more than pins

125    deny her deny that she is here (Quickly thinks that Pistol is referring to an actual woman, probably a prostitute)

126    feed…Calipolis parodies a line in George Peele’s The Battle of Alcazar

128    Si…contento “If fortune torments me, hope contents me” (rather garbled Italian)

129    broadsides simultaneous discharge of artillery from one side of a ship    give fire shoot

131    full points an end (literally, full stops, periods); plays on the sense of “erect penises”    etceteras nothing both euphemisms for the vagina

133    neaf hand    seven stars constellation of the Pleiades; Pistol suggests they’ve enjoyed themselves at night

134    fustian cheap/bombastic

135    Galloway nags small Scottish horses/prostitutes

136    Quoit throw    shove-groat shilling shilling coin used in shove-groat, a board game that involved moving a coin toward a compartment

139    incision i.e., bloodshed    imbrue stain (with blood)

140    death…asleep quotation from a song attributed to Anne Boleyn, written as she awaited execution    abridge shorten

142    Untwined unravel, spin out (like the thread of a person’s life, spun by the Fates)    Sisters Three Fates of classical mythology    Atropos one of the Fates, who cut the thread of life after her sisters, Clotho and Lachesis, spun and unwound it

143    toward coming up, imminent

144    rapier lightweight sword

147    forswear reject, give up    keeping house inn-keeping

148    tirrits fits of fear, upsets    put…weapons sheathe, or hold back your swords (plays on the sense of “get an erection with your bare penises”)

152    shrewd vicious, dangerous

156    brave challenge, defy

158    chops fat cheeks

159    Hector of Troy leader of the Trojan army, known for his valiant and honorable nature    Agamemnon leader of the Greek army when it opposed the Trojans

160    Nine Worthies historical figures embodying the ideals of chivalry: three Jews (Joshua, David, and Judas Maccabaeus), three pagans (Hector of Troy, Alexander the Great, and Julius Caesar), and three Christians (Arthur, Charlemagne, and Godfrey of Bouillon)

161    toss…blanket proverbial punishment for cowards

162    canvass…sheets i.e., have sex with you canvass toss

166    quicksilver mercury, i.e., rapidly

167    like a church unclear; perhaps “slowly, in a stately manner/not at all”    tidy fat, healthy

168    Bartholomew boar-pig pig roasts were traditional at London’s St. Bartholomew’s fair (August 24)    foining thrusting (with a sword; sexual connotations)

170    death’s head skull used as a memento mori, a reminder of the inevitability of death

172    humour disposition

173    pantler servant in charge of the pantry

174    chipped bread cut away the hard crusts

176    Tewkesbury mustard creamy mustard blended with horseradish, produced in the West Country town of Tewkesbury in Gloucestershire

177    conceit wit, understanding, imagination

179    legs…bigness i.e., they’re the same type (vain, fashion-conscious); men were judged by the shapeliness of their legs    of a the same    quoits game in which a metal ring was thrown at a peg fixed in the ground

180    conger and fennel conger eel seasoned with fennel, difficult to digest    drinks…flap-dragons plays a drinking game in which one must drink liquor with burning objects (in this case candles’ ends) floating in it    flap-dragons raisins that had to be plucked from burning brandy and swallowed    rides the wild-mare plays a game similar to leapfrog in which players land on rather than jump over others (mare plays on the sense of “whore”)

181    jumps upon joint-stools i.e., indulges in high spirits    joint-stool low stool made by a joiner

182    smooth close-fitting (to show off his legs)    sign of the leg sign over a boot maker’s shop    breeds no bate causes no dissent, rouses no disagreement

183    discreet cautious, prudent (i.e., dull)    gambol playful

184    admits receives, socializes with

185    such another the same type

186    avoirdupois weight

187    nave of a wheel wheel hub (puns on “knave” and on Falstaff’s rotundity)    ears cut off the punishment for slandering royalty

189    elder elder tree/old man    poll…parrot Doll is ruffling his hair poll head (plays on popular name for a parrot)

192    Saturn and Venus planets thought to govern old age and love respectively    in conjunction together in the heavens (plays on the sense of “in sexual union”)    almanac astrological calendar

194    fiery Trigon i.e., red-faced Bardolph; signs of the zodiac were divided into four groups of three (trigons), the fiery set consisting of Aries, Leo, and Sagittarius    lisping whispering/talking in a loving voice

195    tables…counsel-keeper i.e., Mistress Quickly tables notebook (for recording secret assignations)

196    busses kisses

200    stuff material    kirtle gown

204    handsome smartly, respectably    harken the end judge by the outcome (whether I’m faithful or not), wait and see

206    Anon coming, right away

207    Poins his Poins’

208    continents parts of the world/contents

213    compound composition, piece    light loose, immoral (refers to Doll)

217    take…heat do not act now

218    candle-mine source of animal fat for making candles

219    honest chaste

222    knew recognized

225    wilful abuse deliberate slander

237    close unite, agree    wicked mocking the language of puritan zealots

239    burns…nose another reference to Bardolph’s alcoholically red face

240    dead elm rotten old tree; the elm tree was traditionally used to support vines, and to make coffins

241    pricked marked

242    Lucifer’s privy-kitchen i.e., hell    malt-worms drunkards

243    outbids i.e., is more influential than

245    hell…burns i.e., has syphilis, with which she infects others

246    owe…that puritans considered money lending sinful

248    quit acquitted, forgiven/paid back

249    suffering permitting    flesh…eaten i.e., meat to be eaten during Lent (when it was forbidden)/prostitution to take place

250    howl be punished/be damned

251    victuallers innkeepers    mutton sheep/prostitute

255    says…against i.e., the polite title gentlewoman is one that the prince (or his sexual impulse) knows instinctively to be misapplied to a loose woman like Doll    grace title for a prince/honor, virtue

258    Westminster location of the royal court in London

259    posts messengers

262    Bare-headed a sign of haste; it was customary to cover the head

265    profane i.e., misuse

266    commotion insurrection    south south wind, thought to carry disease and storms

267    Borne…vapour carried along with dark clouds

270    morsel part/sexual titbit

271    unpicked untasted

272    presently at once

273    stay wait

277    post posthaste, immediately

281    known perhaps with sexual connotations

282    peascod-time the time when peas ripen in the pod (plays on sense of “testicle time”)

Act 3 Scene 1

3.1   Location: the royal court

9    cribs hovels

10    pallets straw mattresses

13    state splendor

15    vile mean, wretched, low-born

17    watch-case ticking watch in a case/sentry box    common ’larum-bell public alarm bell, rung by a night watchman in an emergency

20    rude imperious surge rough, overwhelming swell of the sea

21    visitation violent, destructive force

22    ruffian billows rough waves

24    slipp’ry rapidly passing/unable to be grasped

25    That so that    hurly tumult, uproar

26    partial unfair, biased/sympathetic

27    rude rough, dangerous

29    to boot besides

30    happy low fortunate humble men

32    morrows mornings

39    foul diseased, polluted    rank festering, gross, abundant

41    distempered out of sorts

43    little a little

44    cooled calm down, regain equilibrium

46    revolution change, movement

47    continent dry land

50    beachy…ocean i.e., seashore, imaged as a belt

51    Neptune Roman god of the sea    chance’s mocks mockeries of fortune

53    divers various/unfavorable

54    Richard Richard II

57    This Percy i.e., Northumberland

59    under my foot at my service

60    eyes i.e., face

62    Neville in fact, Warwick’s name is Richard de Beauchamp, although the Earl of Warwick in 3 Henry VI is Richard Neville

64    rated berated

66    ‘Northumberland…throne’ for these and the other lines the king recalls, see Richard II, Act 5 Scene 1

72    head to a head (of a boil, with play on the sense of “insurrection/army”)

73    corruption pus (plays on the sense of “sin, destruction”)

74    same current

77    Figuring reproducing, depicting    deceased past, gone by

79    near aim accurate guess    main chance likely outcome

81    intreasurèd safely stored

82    hatch and brood outcome and offspring

83    necessary form inevitable pattern

85    false disloyal

91    cries out on denounces/calls for attention from

101    A certain instance secure evidence    Glendower leader of the Welsh rebels

103    unseasoned late, unseasonable    perforce of necessity

106    inward civil    out of hand over and done with

107    would wish to go

Act 3 Scene 2

3.2   Location: Gloucestershire, west England (the home of Shallow—though Falstaff is supposed to be going from London to York and this would not be on his way)    Shallow and Silence both Justices of the Peace (magistrates); Silence (from Lincolnshire?) appears to be visiting his kinsman Mouldy…Bullcalf army recruits (Folio groups their entrance at the beginning of the scene, but they could come on individually when their names are called from the roll)

2    rood (Christ’s) cross

4    bedfellow i.e., wife

6    black of dark hair and/or complexion (considered less attractive than fair hair and skin)    ouzel blackbird

7    By…nay a mild oath

8    Oxford Oxford University, sixty miles northwest of London

10    Inns of Court in London where young men trained for the legal profession    Clement’s Inn one of the Inns of Chancery, a step below the Inns of Court

12    lusty lively/lustful

14    roundly to the full    Doit an appropriate name for a little man; a doit is a small coin of little value

15    Pickbone a name suggestive of greed    Squele suggests an excitable man, or one with a shrill, high-pitched voice    Cotswold the Cotswolds are a range of hills in Gloucestershire

16    swinge-bucklers swashbucklers, swaggerers

17    bona-robas attractive whores

21    Scoggin’s John Scoggin was court jester to Edward IV

22    court-gate palace gates    crack lively lad (picks up on the language of breaking)

23    Sampson Stockfish ironic combination of names: Sampson is a biblical hero and stockfish is dried cod (used to suggest physical weakness and an impotent penis)    Gray’s Inn one of the Inns of Court

27    How what price is    yoke of bullocks pair of young bulls    Stamford town in Lincolnshire famous for horse and cattle fairs; some editors suspect that this scene is in fact located near Stamford, a more logical stopping place for Falstaff as he travels from London to York, but Shakespeare was often careless of geographical realism

31    drew…bow was a good archer    John of Gaunt Henry IV’s father; he dies in Richard II

33    clapped…clout hit the target clout square of cloth marking the center    twelvescore i.e., 240 yards (twelve times twenty)    forehand shaft arrow shot directly, without the usual curved trajectory employed when shooting at distance

34    fourteen…half i.e., 280–90 yards

35    score twenty    ewes female sheep

36    Thereafter…be depending on their quality

40    beseech seek to know

41    esquire one ranking just below a knight

42    justices of the peace local magistrates

43    tall brave

45    backsword fencing weapon with a protective basket-work hilt

47    accommodated equipped (a fashionable word unfamiliar to the provincial Shallow)

50    accommodo Shallow considers the word’s Latin origin    phrase the term could refer to a single word

56    just true

59    Surecard the name means “one certain of success”

61    in commission authorized to act as a magistrate

62    of the peace a magistrate/silent

65    sufficient competent

73    friends family

79    Prick mark down on the list

80    pricked vexed/sour, mouldy (plays on the sense of “equipped with a penis”)

81    dame wife (possibly mother, but the sexual punning makes a wife seem more likely)    undone at a loss    do her husbandry undertake agricultural or household work/perform the sexual role of a husband    drudgery domestic/sexual labor

83    spent used up, consumed (plays on the sense of “sexually exhausted after orgasm”)

86    other others, rest

87    cold cool (like shade)/cowardly

90    son puns on “sun”

92    shadow reflection, image

93    not…substance i.e., potentially the son of another man

96    serve do, suffice/perform military service

97    shadows names of dead or imaginary men, a ruse to enable the captain of the regiment to claim their pay    muster military recruitment

103    ragged rough/tattered (may pun on “ragwort,” a plant thought to be an aphrodisiac)

105    apparel…pins suggesting his clothes are held together by pins, or that his physical frame is poorly put together (pins plays on the sense of “legs”)

111    tailor the profession had a reputation for effeminacy as well as for lechery (“tail” plays on the sense of “sexual organs,” thus leading to renewed sexual play on prick in the following lines)

113    pricked clothed/stabbed with a pin/penetrated sexually

114    battle army

116    good will best (will plays on the sense of “penis”)

118    magnanimous brave

119    well…deep i.e., firmly (with continued sexual play)

122    go plays on the sense of “have sex”    put him to enlist him as

123    thousands i.e., vermin/lice

126    green i.e., village green

129    likely promising    again in response

134    ringing…affairs church bellringing on behalf of the king

135    coronation day i.e., anniversary of the coronation

136    gown dressing gown/nightgown

137    take such order issue instructions, arrange    ring for thee ring the bells instead of you/for your funeral

138    two…four Shallow counts six but we only see five

140    tarry stay for

142    Windmill probably the name of a brothel, perhaps a tavern

143    St George’s Field area between Southwark and Lambeth, south of the River Thames; known for prostitution

145    Nightwork her surname suggests her occupation as a prostitute

147    away with endure, get on with

149    bona-roba whore

158    watch-word code word, password/drinking cry

161    Corporate malapropism for “Corporal”    stand act as    Harry ten shillings shillings from the reign of Henry VII, subsequently worth only half their original value

162    lief willingly

164    friends family

166    Go to i.e., very well, off you go

169    forty i.e., shillings

172    so so be it

173    quit free

184    service military/domestic/sexual service    come unto it reach manhood

186    likeliest ablest

189    thews physique, strength    assemblance appearance, frame, composition

191    charge…you load and fire    pewterer’s hammer pewter was hammered out with rapid actions

192    come off and on advance and retreat/lower and raise (the gun)/stay still and act    gibbets…bucket slightly unclear meaning; perhaps hangs on, carries, balances the beam (bucket) from which the brewer’s buckets are suspended

193    half-faced thin    mark target

194    aim chance of hitting the target    level aim

196    spare thin/surplus to requirement    caliver light musket

198    traverse march/take aim

199    manage me handle skillfully

200    chopped chapped, i.e., dried up    shot marksman (possible play on sense of “animal left over after the best of the herd have been selected”)    said done

201    scab rascal (plays on his name)    tester sixpence

202    Mile-End Green East London drill ground for citizen soldiers; now Stepney Green

203    Sir…show refers to a display of archery on Mile-End Green in which participants took the names of King Arthur’s knights of the Round Table; Shallow played Arthur’s fool

204    quiver nimble (plays on sense of “case for arrows”)    manage…come i.e., was quick and skillful at firing, then retreating to the rear rank of musketeers in order to reload before advancing to fire once more; “Ra, ta, ta” is the noise of reloading and “Bounce” that of the shot

210    must i.e., must go

212    Peradventure perhaps

214    would wish

215    have…word meant what I said

216    gentle noble

217    fetch off trick, get the better of

219    prate chatter

220    Turnbull Street in Clerkenwell, London; known haunt of thieves and prostitutes    duer more punctually

221    Turk’s tribute regular tribute money due the sultan; failure to pay was punishable by death    man…cheese-paring figure of a man carved idly out of the rind of cheese

224    forlorn pitiful, meager    thick dull, weak    invincible impossible to make out; some editors emend to “invisible”

225    genius spirit    rearward rear

226    Vice’s dagger thin, insubstantial wooden dagger used by the Vice character in morality plays    squire of a rank just below that of knight    John of Gaunt father of King Henry IV

227    sworn brother avowed companion in arms, intimate friend

228    Tilt-yard area for jousting tournaments near Whitehall, London    burst…men got his head beaten trying to get past the guards

229    his own name i.e., a gaunt, very thin person

230    him i.e., Shallow    eel-skin i.e., because he is so thin    treble hautboy oboe

231    beefs cattle

232    acquainted familiar    go…will be hard luck if I do not

233    philosopher’s two stones the philosopher’s stone supposedly turned base metal into gold; Falstaff intends to make a money out of Shallow (two stones plays on the sense of “testicles”)    dace small freshwater fish    pike large, voracious freshwater fish (also, appropriately enough, known as a jack)

234    shape shape matters

Act 4 Scene 1

4.1   Location: Gaultree Forest, north of York

2    Gaultree Forest ancient royal forest to the north of York    an’t if it

3    discoverers scouts

9    New-dated of recent date

11    powers forces

12    hold sortance with correspond, agree    quality rank

13    levy raise, muster

14    retired withdrawn    ripe ripen, develop

16    overlive survive

17    opposite adversary

18    touch ground run aground

22    form formation

24    rate estimate, number

25    just…out exact number we estimated

26    sway on move forward

27    well-appointed well-equipped    fronts faces, confronts

30    prince…Lancaster Prince John, although born at Lancaster was actually Duke of Bedford

32    doth…coming does your arrival mean

35    If that if

36    like itself in its true colors    routs mobs, gangs

37    bloody bloodthirsty    guarded adorned, trimmed/protected, flanked by

38    countenanced approved, supported

39    commotion insurrection, rebellion

40    most proper own true

41    reverend respected

42    Had not would not have been    dress dress up, adorn

44    honours noble selves

45    see diocese

47    letters scholarship

48    investments ecclesiastical robes    figure symbolize

55    point musical signal (perhaps plays on the sense of “sword”)

58    wanton uncontrolled/idle/self-indulgent/lascivious

60    bleed let blood as a medical cure/shed blood in battle

63    take…me do not take on the role of

66    show appear

67    rank coarse, gross/corrupt

70    justly exactly/fairly

72    griefs sufferings, grievances

74    most quiet there former peacefulness in the stream of time

75    occasion circumstances

77    articles account of charges, list of grievances

79    suit supplication/legal petition    gain our audience be granted a hearing

80    unfold disclose, explain

83    but newly gone only recently passed

84    memory…earth i.e., the land bears scars of battle

85    yet appearing still visible

86    Of…instance of which every minute gives us evidence/which each moment urges upon us

87    ill-beseeming unbecoming

92    gallèd vexed, wounded

93    suborned bribed    grate on harass

94    seal approve, ratify by affixing a wax seal

96    commonwealth state, general good

103    unequal unjust

106    Construe make sense of/judge    to their necessities according to what is urgent and immediate

109    not appears doesn’t appear

113    signories estates

116    breathed reanimated

117    the state circumstances

118    force perforce with violent compulsion    banish him Richard II banished both Mowbray’s father and Henry Bullingbrook (Henry IV), rather than allow them to meet in combat, in events dramatized in Richard II

120    rousèd raised/angry, roused

121    coursers horses    daring…spur i.e., eager to charge

122    armèd…charge lances held in position    beavers visors or face guards of their helmets

123    sights of steel slits in their visors

124    blowing them together giving them the signal to charge

125    stayed kept, prevented

127    warder staff held by one presiding over combat

129    all their lives the lives of all those

130    indictment legal accusation    dint of sword force of arms

131    miscarried come to grief

133    Earl of Hereford i.e., Bullingbrook

137    He…Coventry he would not have got away in safety from Coventry (Midlands town, the location of the combat)

141    did did so, did bless and grace (him)

145    wherein on those matters in which

147    enjoy them have those requests granted    set off put aside

148    think you make you seem

149    compel oblige him to make

150    policy strategy, cunning

151    overween go too far

153    ken range of sight

156    battle army    names noblemen, famed soldiers

157    perfect skilled

159    reason will it stands to reason

161    parley negotiation with the enemy

163    rotten…handling something putrid won’t stand close examination (rotten case plays on sense of “syphilitic vagina”)

165    very ample virtue full authority

166    determine Of decide on

168    intended implied    name title

169    muse marvel

170    schedule list

172    Each several article provided that each separate charge

173    hence elsewhere

174    insinewed to an integral part of, bound to

175    Acquitted provided that we are cleared    true substantial form binding legal proceedings

176    present…confined immediate carrying out of the demands relating to us and our intentions

178    awful banks respectful (awe-full) boundaries

179    knit bind, unite

180    Please you if you’re content

181    battles armies

182    At either end on both sides    frame arrange

189    absolute unconditional

190    consist upon insist upon/consist of

192    valuation estimation in the eyes of the king

193    false-derivèd wrongly attributed

194    nice and wanton petty and frivolous

196    were…love even if we were willing to die for love of the king

197    winnowed separated, as is the corn from the worthless husks (chaff) by the action of the wind

198    That…partition the king will be unable to distinguish the good from the bad in us

201    dainty petty    picking trifling

202    doubt fear

203    heirs of life survivors

204    tables records

206    history record, recount

208    precisely completely

209    misdoubts present occasion i.e., to the extent that he would like misdoubts suspicions, fears

210    enrooted entangled by the roots

214    enraged him on provoked him

216    hangs resolved correction forestalls the determined punishment

217    execution carry out the action

218    wasted used up    rods whipping rods

219    late recent/dead

222    offer threaten

225    atonement reconciliation

231    just at an equal

233    Before lead on

234    cousin form of address between nobles, not necessarily denoting kinship

235    gentle noble

237    better…you suited you better

241    iron armored/unyielding

243    word i.e., holy word of scripture

246    Would he were he to    countenance favor, patronage

247    set abroach unleash

250    deep…heaven learned in Scripture/firmly in God’s grace

251    speaker intermediary between monarch and parliament; here, between God and the people

253    opener and intelligencer one who explains and informs

254    sanctities holiness, sacred nature

255    workings efforts/perceptions

256    But you that you don’t    place position

257    countenance favor

258    false dishonest, disloyal

259    taken up raised

260    zeal puns on “seal,” i.e., authority

261    heaven’s substitute the monarch was regarded as God’s deputy on earth

263    upswarmèd made them rise up like an angry swarm

267    misordered confused    in common sense as all acknowledge

268    monstrous unnatural

269    hold…up maintain our security

270    parcels details

271    shoved i.e., dismissed

272    Hydra in Greek mythology, a monster that grew two heads for every one that was cut off

273    dangerous eyes refers to another monster, Argus, whose hundred eyes kept permanent watch until charmed to sleep by Mercury

280    supplies reinforcements    second support, renew

282    success succession

284    Whiles…generation for as long as people continue to be born

286    sound the bottom gauge the depth, i.e., foretell

288    How far forth to what extent    like approve of, agree to

289    allow them well approve of them

291    mistook misunderstood

292    lavishly freely

296    powers forces    several various, separate

299    tokens signs

305    part depart

306    Hie hurry

308    pledge toast

315    happy season opportune moment

316    something somewhat

317    Against in anticipation of

318    heaviness…event sadness comes over men before a positive outcome

319    coz abbreviation of “cousin”

321    passing surpassingly, extremely

323    rendered given

324    had been cheerful would have been uplifting

330    trains retinues, followers

331    peruse look over

332    coped withal had to fight with

335    lie lodge

341    steers unyoked calves freed from the yoke

343    sporting-place place of entertainment, leisure

347    Of for, on the grounds of    attach arrest

351    pawned pledged

356    Meet appropriate

357    shallowly foolishly, thoughtlessly

358    Fondly stupidly

359    stray stragglers

363    condition rank

368    Dale the sense now widens from “valley” to include “pit”

371    drops tears    lovers friends

372    do observance show respect

374    I…name i.e., I am known by name everywhere on account of my vast stomach    school crowd

375    An if

376    indifferency ordinary size    womb belly

382    tardy tricks delaying dodges

383    break…back i.e., get you hanged (and your weight will cause the gallows to break)

384    but…be if it were not

386    expedition speed

387    with…possibility as fast as possible    foundered lamed

388    nine…posts over 180 horses

389    furious violent, wrathful

391    hook-nosed…Rome i.e., Julius Caesar

394    booked recorded

395    particular ballad special ballad written about me    picture ballads were commonly illustrated with woodcuts

396    gilt two-pences false coins, twopenny pieces gilded and passed off as gold half-crowns    to compared to

398    cinders…element i.e., stars

399    desert mount merit be recognized

400    heavy fat, weighty/heinous, dreadful

402    thick fat/dim

410    been…me taken my advice

411    won them dearer they would have cost more, i.e., you would have had to fight for them

412    sold presented/betrayed/bartered away

414    left left off, given up

415    execution stayed bloodshed halted

417    present immediate

418    sure carefully, securely

420    sore seriously

423    sober moderate, dignified

426    in my condition according to my disposition/as military commander

428    would wish

431    come…proof turn out well

432    making many fish-meals they eat such a lot of fish (as opposed to red meat)    green-sickness anaemia causing a greenish complexion; it often afflicted teenage girls

433    get wenches father only daughters

434    inflammation roused emotions resulting from drink/swelling weight    sherry-sack sweet Spanish white wine

435    ascends me ascends (me is used colloquially for emphasis)

436    curdy thick, curdled    vapours noxious exhalations supposedly produced in the body and rising to the brain    environ surround    apprehensive intelligent, perceptive

437    forgetive apt at forging, inventive

440    liver considered the seat of the passions    pusillanimity lack of courage, timidity

442    parts extremes extremities

443    vital…spirits the “vital spirits” were thought to be the essence of life

444    muster me assemble

446    a-work to work

447    a is a    commences initiates, unleashes (puns on “Commencement,” the formal term for the degree award ceremony at Cambridge University)

450    husbanded cultivated

453    potations liquors

457    tempering becoming pliant, softening like wax

458    seal with him come to an agreement/shape him to my purposes

Act 4 Scene 2

4.2   Location: the Jerusalem Chamber in Westminster Abbey, though here transferred to the royal court

2    debate strife, conflict

3    higher fields i.e., to Jerusalem, on a crusade

4    sanctified consecrated, holy

5    addressed ready

6    substitutes…invested deputies installed in office

7    level equal

8    want lack

9    pause us rest, wait

19    in presence present/in the royal presence

22    chance does it happen

26    offices services

28    brethren brothers

29    omit neglect

32    observed treated with respect

34    melting tender

35    flint i.e., hard, unyielding

36    humorous moody, volatile

37    flaws congealèd icy gusts of wind    spring dawn/gentle warmth

38    temper disposition/mood

39    reverently respectfully

41    line range, scope

42    on ground beached

43    confound defeat, overthrow    working exertion

47    suggestion suspicion/incitement to evil

48    force perforce of necessity

50    aconitum aconite or wolfsbane, a poisonous plant    rash hasty, violent

55    other his continual his other constant

56    fattest richest, most fertile

60    blood…heart every sigh was thought to drain a drop of blood from the heart

64    curb restraint (literally, chain passed under a horse’s jaw)

66    lavish wild, unrestrained

68    fronting advancing/confronting    opposed hostile

69    look…quite go too far in judging him

76    perfectness fullness

78    measure guide

79    mete measure

81    ’Tis…carrion i.e., people rarely give up their pleasures despite the corrupt surroundings; drawn from the biblical story of Samson who found a bees’ nest in the carcass of a lion (Judges 14:8)

87    Bishop Scroop i.e., the Archbishop of York, Richard Scroop

91    borne carried out

93    course…particular turn of events set out in detail

95    haunch hindquarter, back end

96    lifting up rising, breaking

105    packet i.e., of letters, dispatch

109    stomach appetite

121    straight straightaway

122    pangs attacks, spasms of pain

124    wrought the mure made the wall

126    fear me fill me with fear

127    Unfathered heirs children supposed to be unnatural, conceived supernaturally    loathly births deformed infants, regarded as ill omens

128    change their manners alter their usual patterns    as as if

130    flowed flooded

131    doting weak-minded/foolish/fond, attentive

133    Edward Edward III    sicked sickened

135    apoplexy illness causing paralysis

139    dull gentle    favourable kindly

146    heaviness sadness

147    Rain i.e., tears    abroad outside

153    physic medicine

161    perturbation cause of trouble    care source of anxiety

162    ports doors, gates (i.e., eyelids)

163    watchful wakeful

165    homely biggen plain nightcap

166    watch portion of the night/watchful vigil

168    armour…safety metal armor that gets hot and burns the wearer at the same time it protects him from attack

169    gates of breath i.e., mouth and nose

171    suspire breathe out

174    rigol circle (i.e., crown)

180    immediate direct successor

181    Derives itself descends

182    put…strength even if all the strength in the world were concentrated

184    lineal inherited

185    mine i.e., my heir

200    Chide drive with rebukes

201    part action    conjoins unites

203    falls into revolt betrays itself, is unnatural

208    engrossed amassed

209    cankered tarnished/corrupt    strange-achievèd ill-gotten/brought from overseas

210    thoughtful careful    invest endow (plays on financial sense)

211    arts scholarship

214    thighs…wax beeswax is stored in sacs on the upper parts of bees’ legs

215    bees…pains in fact it is not workers, but drones (bees whose sole purpose is to impregnate the queen) who die after mating or are cast out of the hive to die

216    This…engrossments these accumulations give a bitter taste

217    ending dying

218    stay wait

219    determined terminated

221    kindly filial/   gentle gentle noble/tender

223    tyranny cruelty    but anything but

232    chair position/throne

236    cloud of dignity rank or honor, insubstantial as a cloud

240    Were would have been

241    sealed…expectation confirmed my fears

242    manifest demonstrate

245    whetted sharpened

247    forbear endure, permit

252    balm consecrated oil used in the coronation of the monarch    sanctify consecrate, render holy

253    compound mix

256    form established order, custom

260    apes of idleness fools prone to all unworthy vices

261    confines states, countries

266    gild cover with gold (puns on guilt)

267    office official position

270    flesh his tooth sink his tooth into the flesh

272    care anxiety, concerned efforts (sense then shifts to “chief concern”)

278    had would have    dear heartfelt

282    affect desire

284    obedience i.e., kneeling posture

288    course current

292    have purposèd intend

295    as having sense as though it were alive

296    on thee depending attached to you

299    fine in carat pure

300    med’cine potable i.e., aurum potabile, a liquid medicine supposed to contain gold

301    fine refined, pure

304    try dispute, engage in

310    affection tendency to

311    Give entertainment to receive, be hospitable to    might power

313    vassal subject

317    join the more be further united to

320    latest last, final

322    by-paths obscure, indirect paths

323    met came by

327    soil grounds, foundation/stain, dishonor

329    boist’rous unruly, violent

330    many i.e., of the men who claimed to have assisted him

333    fears sources of fear

336    argument plot, theme/subject of contention

337    purchased bought, acquired not inherited

338    fairer sort just manner/favorable lot

339    garland i.e., crown    successively by right of succession

341    griefs are green grievances remain fresh, unhealed

342    make work to maintain as

344    fell working fierce efforts

345    lodge harbor

350    near closely    state kingship

351    giddy foolish, restless

352    action war    hence borne out undertaken abroad

353    waste dispel

354    I I say    wasted worn out

361    common pain ordinary effort

367    trunk body/tree trunk

368    a period an end

372    lodging room    swoon faint

374    Laud praise

375    years i.e., years ago

376    but except

377    vainly foolishly/conceitedly

Act 5 Scene 1

5.1   Location: at Justice Shallow’s, Gloucestershire    Davy one of Shallow’s servants

1    By…pie a mild oath    cock form of “God”    pie Roman Catholic service book

8    precepts writs, summons

9    headland strip of unplowed land in a field; used for turning the plough it was sown later than the rest of the field

10    red wheat a dark-colored late variety

11    smith’s note blacksmith’s bill    plough-irons any iron parts of a plow

12    cast calculated (plays on the sense of “form metal into shape”)

13    link…bucket rope or chain, most likely for the pail drawing water up from a well

14    Hinckley Fair well-known cattle fair held every August at Hinckley, a market town on the Warwickshire/Leicestershire border

15    answer repay

16    kickshaws fancy dishes

17    man of war soldier/large warship (i.e., Falstaff)

18    use treat    A…purse i.e., it’s useful to have friends in high places

19    arrant knaves absolute rogues    backbite tell tales, slander

20    bitten…linen i.e., clothes full of lice

21    Well conceited very witty

22    countenance favor

29    bear out support

30    credit trust/reputation

33    Look about watch out/get busy

37    tall valiant, or perhaps ironically addressed to the page

41    quantities little bits

42    staves i.e., long and thin    semblable coherence close correspondence

44    conversing associating

45    married in conjunction intimately connected

46    suit to lawsuit for/favor to beg

47    imputation…near suggestion that I am friendly with

48    curry curry favor, flatter

50    carriage behavior, bearing

53    terms sessions of the law courts (four in a year)    actions lawsuits    intervallums intervals between terms

54    sad brow straight face    never…shoulders i.e., was young and carefree

56    ill laid up badly folded, i.e., creased up

Act 5 Scene 2

5.2   Location: the royal court

1    whither away where are you going

8    service…injuries presumably the Lord Chief Justice is recalling the time he had Prince Henry arrested and is worried about repercussions now that Hal is king    truly faithfully

14    fantasy imagination

15    heavy issue sorrowful offspring

16    temper disposition

18    hold their places retain their positions

19    strike sail lower their sails, i.e., submit    vile base

24    argument subject for discussion

29    borrow not do not put on

30    sure certainly

31    grace favor (from Hal)

32    coldest expectation the least favorable situation

35    your…quality the current of your nature and position

39    ragged wretched    forestalled remission pardon so certain to be refused it is not worth asking

40    troth good faith, honesty

49    Amurah a Turkish sultan who, upon gaining the throne, had all his brothers killed; his successor did the same thing

62    number…happiness i.e., for each tear there shall be an hour of happiness

64    strangely in a distant, unfamiliar manner

65    assured convinced

69    hopes expectations

71    Rate berate

72    easy insignificant/lenient

73    Lethe in Greek mythology, the river in the underworld; immersion in its waters induced forgetfulness

74    use the person represent

80    presented represented

84    commit imprison

85    Be you would you be    garland crown

87    awful awe-inspiring, majestic    bench judge’s seat, i.e., judicial system

90    spurn strike/disdain

91    second body deputy, substitute

92    make…yours put yourself in that situation

93    propose imagine

94    profaned abused, treated with contempt

95    dreadful formidable, awe-inspiring    loosely carelessly, casually

98    soft gently

99    cold considerance calm consideration

100    state role as king

101    misbecame was not appropriate to

103    weigh consider, reason

104    still…sword i.e., retain your position; balance (scales) and sword are the emblems of justice

110    proper own

114    commit sense shifts from “imprison” to “entrust”

115    used been accustomed

116    remembrance reminder

120    sound speak out

121    intents intentions

122    well-practised experienced

125    affections wild inclinations, self-indulgent behavior

126    sadly solemnly, seriously

127    mock defy

128    raze out erase, obliterate

129    Rotten opinion poor, corrupt reputation

130    After my seeming in accordance with the way I appeared to be

131    vanity worthlessness, folly

133    state of floods majesty of the sea

136    limbs…counsel i.e., advisers

142    accite summon

143    remembered mentioned (pronounced remembred)

144    consigning to approving, setting its seal to

Act 5 Scene 3

5.3   Location: Shallow’s garden, Gloucestershire

1    orchard garden

2    pippin variety of apple    graffing grafting, cultivation    caraways sweets or cakes made with caraway seeds

4    rich fertile/well-off one

6    Spread lay the cloth for eating    said done

8    husband steward

9    varlet servant/rogue

11    quoth a said he

14    flesh meat/whores    dear beloved/expensive

15    lusty lively/lustful

17    health toast

21    Proface! a toast or welcoming cry: “May it do you good!” (from old French or Italian)    want in meat lack in flesh, i.e., size

22    bear put up with it    all i.e., the most important thing

25    shrews nags and scolds

26    in…all at dinner when men’s beards move up and down in lively conversation

27    Shrovetide the three feast days before Ash Wednesday and the beginning of Lent

29    mettle character/liveliness

30    twice and once comic inversion of “once or twice”

31    leather-coats russet apples that have tough skins

34    brisk dry/sparkling

35    leman sweetheart

40    let it come pass it round

41    pledge toast    a…bottom the whole cup, even if it were a mile deep

43    beshrew a curse on

44    cavalieros fashionable young men

47    crack a quart empty a quart pot, i.e., two pints of ale

48    pottle-pot tankard containing two quarts (four pints), twice what Shallow proposed

49    stick by thee keep up with you (in drinking)

50    out drop out    true bred i.e., made of the right stuff

54    done me right i.e., by matching me in drinking

55    Do…Samingo popular drinking song    Samingo Sir Mingo (mingo is Latin for “I urinate”)

60    somewhat something

67    greatest most influential (Silence takes the sense of “fattest”)

68    but except for    Goodman title for those below the rank of gentleman    Puff name suggestive of swelling (Pistol shifts the sense to “brag, boast”)

69    recreant cowardly

73    price great value

74    man…world an ordinary mortal, i.e., in plain language

75    A foutre i.e., “I don’t give a fuck” (from the French)

77    Assyrian native of Assyria, ancient Middle Eastern country renowned in the Bible for robbery and pillage, later associated with luxury

78    King Cophetua African king who fell in love with a beggar girl; a popular topic for ballads

79    Robin…John fragment from the ballad Robin Hood and the Pinder of Wakefield

80    curs dogs    Helicons i.e., the Muses who lived on Mount Helicon in Greece—hence “true poets”

81    baffled frustrated/treated with contempt

82    lay…lap appeal to the Furies, mythological goddesses of revenge

83    breeding social status

88    Besonian beggar, knave (from Italian besogno)

95    do…me make the indecent gesture known as the “fig of Spain,” which consisted of thrusting the thumb between the index and middle fingers

98    just true

99    Away let’s go

100    double-charge…dignities load you, like a firearm, twice over with honors

102    take exchange

104    Carry…bed presumably Silence has passed out from too much drink

107    withal moreover

108    Boot get your boots on    sick i.e., longing, pining for (unconscious play on sense of “sick of”)

111    vultures…also refers to the punishment inflicted on Prometheus by the Greek gods; for stealing fire from heaven, he had his liver pecked out by vultures each day (it regrew at night)

112    ‘Where…led?’ line from a lost poem or ballad

Act 5 Scene 4

5.4   Location: London, but unspecified—almost certainly a street    Beadles parish officers with the power to punish petty offenders, perhaps synonymous with Fang and Snare

1    that so that

2    hanged i.e., as her murderer

3    over up (for punishment)

4    whipping-cheer feast of whipping, a common punishment for whores

5    killed about her murdered on her account; may play on “brought to orgasm” in her company

6    Nut-hook beadle or constable; literally a long pole with a hook at the end for gathering nuts

7    tripe-visaged with a face like tripe (i.e., sallow, pock-marked)    go am pregnant

8    thou…struck you’d have been better off if you’d struck    paper-faced i.e., thin, pale

9    bloody…somebody he’d fight and make somebody pay for this

10    I…miscarry either she hopes Doll will miscarry and the beadle be punished or she’s confused and means the opposite

11    cushions implying that Doll is feigning pregnancy by stuffing a cushion under her gown    but only

14    man in a censer vessels in which incense was burnt were embossed with figures

15    swinged thrashed    blue-bottled beadles wore dark-blue uniforms    correctioner one who administers punishment; or more specifically, officer at the Bridewell House of Correction for prostitutes

16    forswear half-kirtles give up wearing skirts; a kirtle consisted of a bodice and a skirt

17    she knight-errant female knight/prostitute (who commits her misdeeds, or errs by night)

18    right…might inversion of the proverb “might overcomes right”    sufferance…ease undergoing suffering/patient forbearance produces relief/comfort

22    Goodman…bones insults referring to the beadle’s thinness

23    anatomy skeleton

24    thing perhaps with phallic connotations    rascal rogue/underweight young deer

Act 5 Scene 5

5.5   Location: a public place in Westminster, near the Abbey    Grooms manservants

1    rushes with which Elizabethan floors were commonly strewn

5    leer upon look sideways at, catch his eye    countenance look/patronage

9    liveries servants’ uniforms    bestowed laid out, used

10    infer imply, demonstrate

17    shift me change my shirt

22    semper idem, “ever the same” (Latin) obsque…est “apart from this there is nothing” (Latin; obsque is a mistake for absque)    ’Tis…part Pistol’s rough translation of the Latin

24    liver regarded as the seat of the passions

26    Helen i.e., Helen of Troy, supposedly the most beautiful woman in the world

27    durance imprisonment

28    Haled hauled, dragged

29    mechanical vulgar, common

30    ebon ebony, black    fell fierce

31    Alecto one of the Furies, described by Virgil as being crowned with snakes

32    in in prison; possibly plays on “pregnant” (hence Falstaff’s “deliver”)

36    imp scion or offspring of a noble house

38    vain foolish, worthless

40    Jove supreme Roman god    heart dear old friend

44    surfeit-swelled swollen from overindulgence

46    hence henceforth

47    gormandizing excessive eating

56    riots debauched behavior, revelry, disorderly deeds

59    our Hal uses the royal plural pronoun

60    competence of life a sufficient allowance

61    That…evil so that poverty will not make you turn to crime

64    advancement promotion, favor    charge responsibility, orders

65    tenor substance

71    doublet close-fitting jacket

74    colour pretence (of Henry’s)

75    colour puns on “collar” (hangman’s noose),    die puns on “dye”

76    colours enemy flags

77    soon at night this very evening/early in the evening

78    Fleet prison in the City of London

82    Si…contento “If fortune torments me, hope contents me” (Italian; the same motto Pistol uttered in Act 2 Scene 4, with the Italian differently garbled)

83    fair proceeding kindly/just course of action

84    hath intent intends    wonted customary

86    conversations behavior

92    civil swords used in civil wars

96    curtsy bow    your addressed to the audience

99    doubt fear    marring ruin

100    venture attempt/risk

102    ill venture unsuccessful commercial voyage

103    break break my promise/am bankrupt    creditors plays on both financial sense and “people who believe my promise”

104    bate me let me off

112    continue…it i.e., in Henry V, although in the end Falstaff did not feature in that play

113    sweat a fit of sweating due to either physical exertion, the plague or a type of cure for venereal disease

114    hard unfavorable    Oldcastle…martyr Sir John Oldcastle, the name originally given to Falstaff, was an early fifteenth-century Lollard leader, subsequently regarded as a martyr by the puritans; Shakespeare had to drop the name from the play due to objections from Oldcastle’s descendants

THE LIFE OF HENRY THE FIFTH

Henry the Fifth has become synonymous with English patriotism. A dashing young king achieves a stunning military victory against all odds, stirring his men to impossible valor through sheer rhetorical force. The phrases have become legendary: “Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more”; “Cry ‘God for Harry, England, and Saint George!’ ”; “We few, we happy few, we band of brothers.” Whereas all Shakespeare’s other history plays of the 1590s portray an England riven by faction and anxiety over rightful succession to the throne, here the nation seems united and all-conquering. Perhaps no other Shakespeare play has such a simple plot: King Harry makes his claim for France, thwarts a small conspiracy, sets sail, takes Harfleur, wins the battle of Agincourt, and marries the defeated king’s daughter. The cast consists almost entirely of his loyal army and his French enemies, among whom the dauphin in particular is parodied as a kind of poor man’s Hotspur. Yet, as so often with Shakespeare, a wealth of reservations are held within that “almost.” 2 Henry IV ended with an epilogue promising a continuation of the story “with Sir John in it”: the fat knight’s absence casts a shadow across the king’s triumphs.

The play does not begin with a ceremonial entrance and a large-scale royal court scene. First the Chorus appears alone on the bare stage. The audience are invited to reflect upon the fact that what they are about to witness is performance, not reality, and that their imaginary forces will be necessary in order to transform stage and playing company into battlefield and army. The play is intended to work upon us as King Harry works upon his followers: the dazzling power of words creates the triumph out of extremely limited resources. Between each act the Chorus returns to remind us that it is all a theatrical trick: we only suppose that we have been transported to France and that the little band of players and extras constitute a great army on the march or fighting to the death in hand-to-hand combat. Players, as Macbeth and Prospero will remind later Shakespearean audiences, are but shadows. After two or three turns of the hourglass, the revels end and the action vanishes like a dream. So too with Harry’s triumph: the closing chorus, an artfully turned sonnet, compares the imaginative work of the author (“In little room confining mighty men”) with the brevity of the victorious king’s reign (“Small time, but in that small most greatly lived / This star of England”). Could it then be that the secret of Harry’s success is linguistic might rather than the right of his cause?

The action proper commences with the representatives of the Church confirming the “reformation” of the king, his conversion to piety from the “wildness” of the Henry IV plays. He has transformed himself into a master of divinity, political affairs, and the theory of war. The dialogue of the bishops also introduces another theme, familiar from the historical Reformation of the sixteenth century: the sequestration of ecclesiastical assets by the state. This precipitates a political deal: the archbishop will provide legal justification for the king’s proposed invasion of France and in return the crown will take the side of the Church in their financial dispute with parliament. The whole apparatus of justification by precedent and lines of descent and debate over the applicability of the Salic law, elaborated in the archbishop’s interminable speech in the following scene is a charade acted out for politic ends. The king has a one-line question—“May I with right and conscience make this claim?”— and he gets the answer he wants to hear: yes. He is not interested in the small print.

By starting the action with the scheming bishops, Shakespeare suggests that the motivation for war is a matter more of political pragmatism than high principle. King Harry is anxious about a possible Scottish incursion and he is aware that his own hold on the throne is insecure—hence the need to dispatch the traitors Cambridge, Scroop, and Grey by means of a piece of theater that shows his capacity for both mercy and stern justice, to reveal the iron fist in his velvet glove. For all the talk of ancient rights to France and the need to bounce back the insult of the tennis balls, one cannot help suspecting that Harry’s real motivation for going to war is driven by his dying father’s strategic advice:

…Therefore, my Harry,

Be it thy course to busy giddy minds

With foreign quarrels, that action, hence borne out,

May waste the memory of the former days. (2 Henry IV, 4.2.350–3)

There is nothing like an overseas military adventure to unite a divided nation.

Prince Hal’s riotous behavior in the Henry IV plays is now revealed to have been an elaborate game, a piece of playacting. He continues to play games once he is king: his handling of the traitors in the second act and the business of the glove in the cap after Agincourt are theatrical devices designed to demonstrate his quasi-magical power of seeing into his subjects’ souls. The manner in which an actor plays the part of King Harry will be largely determined by the extent to which he plays up the character’s actorliness. The wooing of Katherine is a crux in this regard: how much of a performance is the combination of charm, wit, boyish embarrassment, and delight in power (“in loving me, you should love the friend of France, for I love France so well that I will not part with a village of it”)? Or is Harry genuinely smitten with Kate?

The king’s mastery comes above all from what the archbishop calls “his sweet and honeyed sentences.” Rhetorical force is his greatest gift: he can debate, cajole, command, inspire. Shakespeare gives him more than three times as many words as any other character in the play. Only Hamlet can match Harry in the ease with which he moves between highly wrought verse and conversational prose. Many a modern general has reached for the Saint Crispin’s day oration in preparing his men to go into battle: Laurence Olivier’s 1944 film, dedicated to the British, American, and other Allied troops who were liberating Europe from the Nazis, is only the most renowned of the frequent military appropriations of the play (it was reputedly at Winston Churchill’s insistence that Olivier cut the scene with the three traitors—at such a critical historical moment, there had to be unity in the Allied ranks). Even hardened cynics find themselves becoming patriotic when the king addresses his band of brothers, especially in film when the words are further pumped up by sweeping camera action and rousing music.

Harry’s rallying speeches reveal a sharp political intelligence at work. For instance, “Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more” is carefully modulated in three parts. The “dear friends” with which it begins are the king’s immediate kinsmen and closest followers. They set the lead example. Attention then turns to the aristocracy and gentry, the “noblest English,” whose role is to “Be copy now to men of grosser [i.e., less high-class] blood/And teach them how to war.” Then come the “yeomen” and finally “the mean and base.” All will be of “noble lustre” if they surge forward into the breach in Harfleur’s wall. The speech thus enacts the chain of command down the ranks. It offers a textbook image of the officer class leading from the front by example. Even lowly Corporal Bardolph is momentarily inspired. But Nym, Pistol, and Falstaff’s boy are not. They stop in their tracks and have to be physically beaten to the breach by loyal Captain Fluellen. The power of the king’s rhetoric is thus called into question.

Fluellen believes in fighting war by the book. His modern equivalent would be a liberal-minded army officer intent upon fighting according to the rules of the Geneva convention. But his very mode of thinking exposes cracks in the king’s moral armor. King Harry of Monmouth is compared to Alexander the Great of Macedon not only because they are both great warriors (both come from places beginning with “M,” each of which has a river running through it, “and there is salmons in both”), but also because “as Alexander killed his friend Cleitus, being in his ales and his cups, so also Harry Monmouth, being in his right wits and his good judgments, turned away the fat knight with the great belly-doublet.” The audience is thus reminded that the price of Harry’s greatness is the killing of Falstaff’s heart.

There is also the matter of the killing of the French prisoners, strikingly omitted not only from Olivier’s wartime film but also from Kenneth Branagh’s generally more hard-edged portrayal of Agincourt in his 1989 movie. For Fluellen, the French army’s killing of the boys and the baggage-handlers is “expressly against the law of arms.” Gower replies that, since the French have broken the rules, the English have been forced to do so as well: “wherefore the king, most worthily, hath caused every soldier to cut his prisoner’s throat. O, ’tis a gallant king!” But the text is quite explicit that King Harry gives the order to kill the prisoners before he hears of the attack on the camp followers. The reason for their summary slaughter is that every last soldier is needed to cope with the arrival of French reinforcements. It is a pragmatic decision, not a gallant or a worthy one. So too at Harfleur earlier: though a threat rather than an action, the idea of raping the maidens and massacring the innocents of the city does not immediately conjure up the terms “gallant” or “worthily.”

Most searching of all is the debate between the disguised Harry “le Roi” and Michael Williams on the night before the battle:

But if the cause be not good, the king himself hath a heavy reckoning to make, when all those legs and arms and heads, chopped off in battle, shall join together at the latter day and cry all, “We died at such a place”—some swearing, some crying for a surgeon, some upon their wives left poor behind them, some upon the debts they owe, some upon their children rawly left. I am afeard there are few die well that die in a battle, for how can they charitably dispose of anything, when blood is their argument?

This little touch of Michael in the night pricks Harry’s conscience, leading him to soliloquize on the responsibilities of leadership and to pray that God will not choose this moment to punish him for the fault his father made in compassing the crown. After the battle, the king succeeds in embarrassing and, with typical double-handedness, offers to reward Williams. But he never finds a full answer to the point: every subject’s duty is the king’s while every subject’s soul is his own, but the fact remains that bloody battle is not a place for “dying well” in the sense of drawing up one’s spiritual accounts and making peace with God.

Where 1 Henry IV began with rebellion coming from Scotland (the Douglas) and Wales (Owen Glendower), Henry the Fifth brings the whole of the British Isles together in the fight against France. Included in King Henry’s army is a quartet representing England (Gower), Wales (Fluellen), Scotland (Jamy), and Ireland (MacMorris). But we cannot say for sure that the play is celebrating the unification of the four nations into one, for during the campaign against France, King Harry’s army is not without its tensions. The Irish MacMorris, in particular, is an odd man out, not even at peace with the affable Fluellen:

FLUELLENCaptain MacMorris, I think, look you, under your correction, there is not many of your nation—

MACMORRISOf my nation? What ish my nation? Ish a villain and a bastard and a knave and a rascal. What ish my nation? Who talks of my nation?

In the chorus to the fifth act, the Earl of Essex is celebrated because as the audience is watching the play in London in 1599 he is “broaching” (spiking) the Irish on his sword. Yet here in the body of the third act, Shakespeare gives a voice to Ireland. Or rather, he questions England’s—for the Welsh Fluellen in his loyalty to Harry of Monmouth, once Prince of Wales and now King of England, speaks for England—he questions England’s right to speak for Ireland. What Englishman or anglicized Welshman dare talk of MacMorris’ nation? What kind of a nation can Ireland be when the Irish are construed by the English as villains and bastards and knaves and rascals? And that is how the dominant voice of Elizabethan England’s national poet, Edmund Spenser, did construe them in his dialogue of the mid-1590s, A View of the Present State of Ireland. But even Spenser had his counter-voices. A View is written in the form of a dialogue and it is more sharply critical of the “Old English” settlers in Ireland than the Irish themselves, while in The Faerie Queene there is a Savage Nation resembling Ireland, but also a Savage Man who is the noblest man.

As for Shakespeare, he is all countervoice. When MacMorris says “What ish my nation?” Ireland in its anguish is allowed to speak, just as in The Tempest Shakespeare’s most beautiful poetry is put into the mouth of a “savage and deformed slave” whose name evokes Carib and Cannibal. Because he was hardly ever narrowly topical in his own age and culture, Shakespeare has remained topical in other ages and cultures. Because he addresses great political issues rather than local political circumstances, his plays speak to such perennial problems as tyranny and aggressive nationalism. Because his own positions are so elusive, because every one of his voices has its countervoice—Fluellen his MacMorris, King Harry his Michael Williams, Prospero his Caliban—he has become the voice of many positions.

Perhaps surprisingly, given the amount of space that is given to the king’s stirring speeches and the archbishop’s convoluted history lesson, Henry the Fifth has almost as high a proportion of prose as the two parts of Henry IV. And it is the prose scenes that are the most emotionally engaging: Hostess Quickly’s simultaneously comic and moving account of Falstaff’s death, the moment of tenderness as the women say farewell to their men going off to war, the figure of Fluellen (portrayed with great affection for his loyalty and professionalism, yet simultaneously teased for his pedantry in the history and theory of warfare), the utterly authentic combination of fear, common sense, and bloody-mindedness shown by the common soldiers in their debate with the disguised king on the night before the battle.

Falstaff is dead, but his spirit is reanimated in his friends who follow the wars to France. Throughout the Henry IV/V trilogy, there is an under-commentary cutting away at Prince Hal’s growth into the role of warrior-king and patriot: a confused but vibrant prose voice is counterpointed against the polished verse of law, order, and military glory. It is a voice summed up most concisely in the words of Falstaff’s sometime page. In response to the king’s cry that battle is the opportunity to achieve immortal fame, the boy says, “Would I were in an ale-house in London: I would give all my fame for a pot of ale and safety.” This is not just the sentiment of a pint-sized Falstaff out from under King Arthur’s bosom: it is the voice of the foot soldier in every age. After Agincourt, the king thanks God for the miracle whereby fewer than thirty English have been killed in the battle. In his listing of the dead, he does not mention Falstaff’s proxies, yet they are the ones whom the audience mourns most: Bardolph and Nym, hanged; the boy, killed with the luggage; Quickly or Doll,[*] dead in the spital of a malady of France. They have died not for Harry’s but for Falstaff’s England; they have fought not for a palace or parliament in Westminster but for an alehouse in Eastcheap.

KEY FACTS

PLOT: Soon after his accession to the throne King Henry V is considering asserting his right to rule France as well as England. Consulting the Archbishop of Canterbury as to the justness of his claim, he receives a gift of tennis balls sent by the dauphin—a scornful jibe at his youth, which spurs him on to the invasion of France. The king’s former companions from his days in the Eastcheap tavern hear of the death of Sir John Falstaff from Hostess Quickly. They take their leave of her and set out to join Henry’s army. Despite the dauphin’s insistence that Henry is an unworthy opponent, the French king receives the English ambassadors but finally rejects Henry’s claim to the crown. Henry’s forces besiege and then take the town of Harfleur. While her father rouses his nobles to retaliation, Princess Katherine begins to learn English with the help of her companion Alice. Following the victory at Harfleur, the English forces begin a retreat through Normandy on account of the poor condition of the men, who are disheartened by sickness and foul weather. Even so, Henry rejects the French Herald’s offer of ransom and the two armies prepare to fight. On the eve of the battle of Agincourt, Henry tours the camp in disguise and, sounding out the opinions of his men, is led to consider the heavy responsibilities of kingship. In the French camp, by contrast, confidence is high. As battle is joined, Henry rallies his troops and places them all in God’s hands. An English victory is confirmed, with miraculously small losses. As part of the subsequent treaty, Henry woos and wins Katherine to ensure the linking of the two countries through marriage.

MAJOR PARTS: (with percentage of lines/number of speeches/scenes on stage) King Henry V (32%/147/11), Fluellen (9%/68/6), Chorus (7%/6/6), Archbishop of Canterbury (7%/18/2), Pistol (5%/62/7), Duke of Exeter (4%/22/8), Constable of France (4%/40/5), Lewis the Dauphin (4%/31/5), French King (3%/19/3), Boy (2%/16/4), Williams (2%/28/3), Duke of Burgundy (2%/8/1), Gower (2%/5/1), Katherine (2%/33/2), Montjoy (2%/11/3), Nym (1%/ 20/3), Hostess (1%/11/2), Duke of Orléans (1%/29/3).

LINGUISTIC MEDIUM: 60% verse, 40% prose.

DATE: 1599. Must have been written soon after 2 Henry IV; not mentioned by Meres in 1598; published 1600. It is nearly always assumed that “the general…from Ireland coming” (Act 5 Chorus) refers to the Earl of Essex’s Irish expedition, which lasted from March to September 1599. A small minority of commentators suppose that “the general” is Lord Mountjoy, who was Master-General of the Ordnance and Lord Deputy of Ireland from February 1600 onward, which would date the play, or at least the choruses, rather later, but the allusion implies public fame much more fitting with Essex than Mountjoy. Self-conscious theatrical references (“this wooden O”) suggest that the play may have been written as a showpiece for the newly built Globe theatre, which opened some time between February and September 1599, but it could have opened at the Curtain.

SOURCES: Based primarily on the 1587 edition of Holinshed’s Chronicles; some probable use of Holinshed’s main source, Edward Halle’s Union of the Two Noble and Illustre Families of Lancaster and York (1548). Like the Henry IV plays, also draws on the anonymous play The Famous Victories of Henry the Fifth: containing the Honourable Battell of Agin-court (published 1598, but in the repertoire for up to a decade before this). The old play includes such details as Canterbury’s justification of the claim to France, the tennis balls, and the courtship of Princess Katherine. The rival acting company of Philip Henslowe also had a Henry V play, but it is lost, so its influence on Shakespeare cannot be determined. The sequence on the night before Agincourt is influenced by a 1590s dramatic tradition of scenes in which a ruler goes in disguise among his people.

TEXT: A Quarto was published in 1600 (The Chronicle History of Henry the fift, With his battell fought at Agin Court in France. Together with Auntient Pistoll. As it hath bene sundry times playd by the Right honorable the Lord Chamberlaine his servants). Less than half the length of the later Folio text, with many errors and inconsistencies, and some notable differences from the Folio (e.g., no Chorus whatsoever; Bourbon instead of the dauphin on the French side in the Agincourt scenes), it is some kind of reconstruction, perhaps from memory, of a version of the play as performed on stage. This Quarto was reprinted in 1602 and 1619 (the latter with a false date of 1608). The Folio text is much fuller and better printed; it is almost certainly derived from Shakespeare’s manuscript or a scribal copy of it. There are, however, some occasions when the Quarto can be used to correct errors. It is possible that the Folio editor occasionally consulted a copy of the Third Quarto. The most awkward speeches for modern editors are those written in French: a combination of Shakespeare’s imperfect French, incomprehension on the part of the printers and the differences between sixteenth-century and modern French means that the creation of a usable text requires more than usual editorial licence in correcting and modernizing.

GENEALOGY: See this page.

THE LIFE OF HENRY THE FIFTH

CHORUS

The English side

KING HENRY V

Duke of BEDFORD, his younger brother

Humphrey, Duke of GLOUCESTER, another younger brother

Duke of EXETER, the king’s uncle

Duke of YORK, the king’s cousin

Earl of WESTMORLAND

Earl of WARWICK

Earl of SALISBURY

Archbishop of CANTERBURY

Bishop of ELY

Corporal NYM

Lieutenant BARDOLPH

Ancient PISTOL

HOSTESS QUICKLY, keeper of a tavern, married to Pistol

BOY, previously page to Falstaff

HERALD

The French side

FRENCH KING, Charles VI

QUEEN ISABEL, his Wife

Lewis the DAUPHIN, their son and heir

KATHERINE, their daughter

ALICE, Katherine’s lady-in-waiting

CONSTABLE of France

Duke of BURGUNDY

MONTJOY, the French Herald

GOVERNOR of Harfleur

Duke of BOURBON

Duke of ORLEANS

Duke of BERRI

Lord RAMBURES

Lord GRANDPRE

French AMBASSADORS to England

FRENCH LORDS

Soldiers, Messengers, Attendants

Prologue

Enter Prologue

CHORUSO, for a muse[1] of fire, that would ascend

The brightest heaven of invention,[2]

A kingdom for a stage, princes to act

And monarchs to behold the swelling[4] scene!

5

Then should the warlike[5] Harry, like himself,

Assume the port[6] of Mars, and at his heels,

Leashed in like hounds, should famine, sword and fire

Crouch for employment. But pardon, gentles[8] all,

The flat unraisèd[9] spirits that hath dared

10

On this unworthy scaffold[10] to bring forth

So great an object. Can this cockpit[11] hold

The vasty[12] fields of France? Or may we cram

Within this wooden O,[13] the very casques

That did affright[14] the air at Agincourt?

15

O, pardon! Since a crooked[15] figure may

Attest in little place a million,

And let us, ciphers[17] to this great accompt,

On your imaginary[18] forces work.

Suppose[19] within the girdle of these walls

20

Are now confined two mighty monarchies,[20]

Whose high uprearèd[21] and abutting fronts

The perilous narrow ocean[22] parts asunder.

Piece out[23] our imperfections with your thoughts:

Into a thousand parts divide one man,

25

And make imaginary puissance.[25]

Think when we talk of horses, that you see them

Printing their proud hoofs i’th’receiving earth,

For ’tis your thoughts that now must deck[28] our kings,

Carry them here and there, jumping o’er times,

30

Turning th’accomplishment of many years

Into an hourglass: for[31] the which supply,

Admit me chorus to this history;

Who prologue-like your humble patience pray,

Gently to hear, kindly to judge, our play.

Exit

Act 1 Scene 11.1

running scene 1

Enter the two Bishops of Canterbury and Ely

CANTERBURYMy lord, I’ll tell you: that self[1] bill is urged,

Which in th’eleventh year of the last king’s[2] reign

Was like,[3] and had indeed against us passed,

But that the scambling[4] and unquiet time

5

Did push it out of further question.[5]

ELYBut how, my lord, shall we resist it now?

CANTERBURYIt must be thought on: if it pass against us,

We lose the better half of our possession.

For all the temporal[9] lands which men devout

10

By testament[10] have given to the Church

Would they strip from us; being valued thus:

As much as would maintain,[12] to the king’s honour,

Full fifteen earls and fifteen hundred knights,

Six thousand and two hundred good esquires,[14]

15

And, to relief of lazars[15] and weak age

Of indigent[16] faint souls past corporal toil,

A hundred almshouses right well supplied,

And to the coffers[18] of the king beside,

A thousand pounds by th’year. Thus runs the bill.[19]

20

ELYThis would drink deep.[20]

CANTERBURY’Twould drink the cup and all.

ELYBut what prevention?

CANTERBURYThe king is full of grace[23] and fair regard.

ELYAnd a true lover of the holy church.

25

CANTERBURYThe courses[25] of his youth promised it not.

The breath no sooner left his father’s body,

But that his wildness, mortified[27] in him,

Seemed to die too. Yea, at that very moment

Consideration[29] like an angel came

30

And whipped th’offending Adam[30] out of him,

Leaving his body as a paradise,[31]

T’envelop and contain celestial spirits.[32]

Never was such a sudden scholar made,

Never came reformation in a flood,

35

With such a heady currance,[35] scouring faults,

Nor never Hydra-headed[36] wilfulness

So soon did lose his seat,[37] and all at once,

As in this king.

ELYWe are blessèd in the change.

40

CANTERBURYHear him but reason in divinity,

And, all-admiring, with an inward wish

You would desire the king were made a prelate.

Hear him debate of commonwealth affairs,

You would say it hath been all in all[44] his study.

45

List[45] his discourse of war, and you shall hear

A fearful battle rendered[46] you in music.

Turn him to any cause of policy,[47]

The Gordian knot[48] of it he will unloose,

Familiar[49] as his garter, that, when he speaks,

50

The air, a chartered[50] libertine, is still,

And the mute wonder lurketh in men’s ears

To steal his sweet and honeyed sentences,

So that the art and practic[53] part of life

Must[54] be the mistress to this theoric:

55

Which is a wonder how his grace should glean[55] it,

Since his addiction was to courses vain,[56]

His companies[57] unlettered, rude and shallow,

His hours filled up with riots,[58] banquets, sports,

And never noted[59] in him any study,

60

Any retirement, any sequestration[60]

From open[61] haunts and popularity.

ELYThe strawberry grows underneath the nettle

And wholesome berries thrive and ripen best

Neighboured by fruit of baser quality.

65

And so the prince obscured[65] his contemplation

Under the veil of wildness, which, no doubt,

Grew like the summer grass, fastest by night,

Unseen, yet crescive[68] in his faculty.

CANTERBURYIt must be so, for miracles are ceased.

70

And therefore we must needs[70] admit the means

How things are perfected.

ELYBut, my good lord,

How now for mitigation[73] of this bill

Urged by the commons?[74] Doth his majesty

75

Incline to[75] it, or no?

CANTERBURYHe seems indifferent,

Or rather swaying more upon[77] our part

Than cherishing th’exhibitors against us,[78]

For I have made an offer to his majesty,

80

Upon[80] our spiritual convocation

And in regard of causes[81] now in hand,

Which I have opened[82] to his grace at large,

As touching[83] France, to give a greater sum

Than[84] ever at one time the clergy yet

85

Did to his predecessors part withal.

ELYHow did this offer seem received, my lord?

CANTERBURYWith good acceptance of his majesty,

Save that there was not time enough to hear,

As I perceived his grace would fain[89] have done,

90

The severals[90] and unhidden passages

Of his true titles to some certain dukedoms

And generally to the crown and seat of France,

Derived from Edward,[93] his great-grandfather.

ELYWhat was th’impediment that broke this off?

95

CANTERBURYThe French ambassador upon that instant

Craved audience; and the hour I think is come

To give him hearing. Is it four o’clock?

ELYIt is.

CANTERBURYThen go we in to know his embassy,[99]

100

Which I could with a ready guess declare,

Before the Frenchman speak a word of it.

ELYI’ll wait upon you and I long to hear it.

Exeunt

[Act 1 Scene 2]

running scene 1 continues

Enter the King [Henry V], Humphrey [Duke of Gloucester], Bedford, Clarence, Warwick, Westmorland, Exeter [and Attendants]

KING HENRY VWhere is my gracious[1] lord of Canterbury?

EXETERNot here in presence.[2]

KING HENRY VSend for him, good uncle.

WESTMORLANDShall we call in th’ambassador, my liege?

5

KING HENRY VNot yet, my cousin:[5] we would be resolved,

Before we hear him, of some things of weight

That task[7] our thoughts, concerning us and France.

Enter [the] two Bishops

CANTERBURYGod and his angels guard your sacred throne

And make you long become[9] it!

10

KING HENRY VSure, we thank you.

My learnèd lord, we pray you to proceed

And justly[12] and religiously unfold

Why the law Salic[13] that they have in France

Or[14] should, or should not, bar us in our claim.

15

And God forbid, my dear and faithful lord,

That you should fashion,[16] wrest, or bow your reading,

Or nicely charge[17] your understanding soul

With opening titles miscreate,[18] whose right

Suits[19] not in native colours with the truth,

20

For God doth know how many now in health

Shall drop their blood[21] in approbation

Of what your reverence shall incite us to.

Therefore take heed how[23] you impawn our person,

How you awake our sleeping sword of war;

25

We charge[25] you, in the name of God, take heed,

For never two such kingdoms did contend

Without much fall of blood, whose guiltless drops

Are every one a woe, a sore complaint[28]

Gainst him whose wrongs[29] gives edge unto the swords

30

That make such waste in brief mortality.

Under this conjuration,[31] speak, my lord,

For we will hear, note[32] and believe in heart

That what you speak is in your conscience washed

As pure as sin with baptism.

35

CANTERBURYThen hear me, gracious sovereign, and you peers,

That owe yourselves, your lives and services

To this imperial throne. There is no bar

To make against your highness’ claim to France

But this, which they produce from Pharamond,[39]

40

‘In terram Salicam mulieres ne succedant’,

‘No woman shall succeed in Salic land.’

Which Salic land the French unjustly gloss[42]

To be the realm of France, and Pharamond

The founder of this law and female bar.

45

Yet their own authors faithfully affirm

That the land Salic is in Germany,

Between the floods[47] of Sala and of Elbe,

Where Charles the Great,[48] having subdued the Saxons,

There left behind and settled certain French,

50

Who, holding in disdain the German women

For some dishonest manners[51] of their life,

Established then this law; to wit,[52] no female

Should be inheritrix[53] in Salic land —

Which Salic, as I said, ’twixt[54] Elbe and Sala,

55

Is at this day in Germany called Meisen.

Then doth it well appear the Salic law

Was not devisèd for the realm of France,

Nor did the French possess the Salic land

Until four hundred one-and-twenty years

60

After defunction[60] of King Pharamond —

Idly[61] supposed the founder of this law —

Who died within[62] the year of our redemption

Four hundred twenty-six, and Charles the Great

Subdued the Saxons, and did seat[64] the French

65

Beyond the river Sala, in the year

Eight hundred five. Besides,[66] their writers say,

King Pepin, which deposèd Childeric,

Did, as heir general,[68] being descended

Of Blithild, which was daughter to King Clothair,

70

Make claim and title to the crown of France.

Hugh Capet also, who usurped the crown

Of Charles the Duke of Lorraine, sole heir male

Of the true line and stock of Charles the Great,[73]

To find[74] his title with some shows of truth,

75

Though, in pure truth, it was corrupt and naught,

Conveyed himself[76] as th’heir to th’Lady Lingare,

Daughter to Charlemagne,[77] who was the son

To Lewis the emperor, and Lewis the son

Of Charles the Great. Also King[79] Lewis the Tenth,

80

Who was sole heir to the usurper Capet,

Could not keep quiet[81] in his conscience,

Wearing the crown of France, till satisfied

That fair Queen Isabel, his grandmother,

Was lineal[84] of the Lady Ermengare,

85

Daughter to Charles the foresaid Duke of Lorraine:

By the which marriage the line of Charles the Great

Was reunited to the crown of France.

So that, as clear as is the summer’s sun,

King Pepin’s title and Hugh Capet’s claim,

90

King Lewis his satisfaction,[90] all appear

To hold in[91] right and title of the female:

So do the kings of France unto this day,

Howbeit[93] they would hold up this Salic law

To bar your highness claiming from the female,

95

And rather choose to hide them in a net[95]

Than amply[96] to imbar their crooked titles

Usurped from you and your progenitors.[97]

KING HENRY VMay I with right and conscience make this claim?

CANTERBURYThe[99] sin upon my head, dread sovereign!

100

For in the book[100] of Numbers is it writ,

When the man dies, let the inheritance

Descend unto the daughter. Gracious lord,

Stand for[103] your own, unwind your bloody flag,

Look back into your mighty ancestors:

105

Go, my dread lord, to your great-grandsire’s[105] tomb,

From[106] whom you claim; invoke his warlike spirit,

And your great-uncle’s, Edward[107] the Black Prince,

Who on the French ground played a tragedy,

Making defeat on the full power of France,

110

Whiles his most mighty father on a hill

Stood smiling to behold his lion’s whelp[111]

Forage[112] in blood of French nobility.

O, noble English, that could entertain[113]

With half their forces the full pride of France

115

And let another half stand laughing by,

All out of work and cold for[116] action!

ELYAwake remembrance of these valiant dead[117]

And with your puissant[118] arm renew their feats;

You are their heir, you sit upon their throne:

120

The blood and courage that renownèd[120] them

Runs in your veins, and my thrice-puissant liege

Is in the very May-morn of his youth,

Ripe for exploits and mighty enterprises.

EXETERYour brother kings and monarchs of the earth

125

Do all expect that you should rouse yourself,

As did the former[126] lions of your blood.

WESTMORLANDThey know your grace hath cause and means and might;

So hath your highness. Never King of England

Had nobles richer and more loyal subjects,

130

Whose[130] hearts have left their bodies here in England

And lie pavilioned[131] in the fields of France.

CANTERBURYO, let their bodies follow, my dear liege,

With bloods and sword and fire to win your right.[133]

In aid whereof we of the spiritualty[134]

135

Will raise your highness such a mighty sum

As never did the clergy at one time

Bring in to any of your ancestors.

KING HENRY VWe must not only arm t’invade the French,

But lay[139] down our proportions to defend

140

Against the Scot, who will make road[140] upon us

With all advantages.[141]

CANTERBURYThey of those marches,[142] gracious sovereign,

Shall be a wall sufficient to defend

Our inland from the pilfering borderers.[144]

145

KING HENRY VWe do not mean the coursing snatchers[145] only,

But fear the main intendment[146] of the Scot,

Who hath been still a giddy[147] neighbour to us.

For you shall read that my great-grandfather

Never went with his forces into France

150

But that the Scot on his unfurnished[150] kingdom

Came pouring like the tide into a breach,[151]

With ample and brim[152] fullness of his force,

Galling[153] the gleanèd land with hot assays,

Girding[154] with grievous siege castles and towns,

155

That England, being empty of defence,

Hath shook and trembled at th’ill neighbourhood.[156]

CANTERBURYShe[157] hath been then more feared than harmed, my liege,

For hear[158] her but exampled by herself:

When all her chivalry[159] hath been in France

160

And she a mourning widow of her nobles,

She hath herself not only well defended

But taken and impounded as a stray[162]

The king[163] of Scots, whom she did send to France,

To fill King Edward’s fame[164] with prisoner kings

165

And make their[165] chronicle as rich with praise

As is the ooze[166] and bottom of the sea

With sunken wreck and sumless treasuries.[167]

ELYBut there’s a saying very old and true,

‘If that you will France win,

170

Then with Scotland first begin.’

For once the eagle England being in prey,[171]

To her unguarded nest the weasel Scot

Comes sneaking and so sucks her princely eggs,

Playing the mouse in absence of the cat,

175

To ’tame[175] and havoc more than she can eat.

EXETERIt follows then the cat must stay at home,

Yet that is but a crushed[177] necessity,

Since we have locks to safeguard necessaries

And pretty[179] traps to catch the petty thieves.

180

While that the armèd hand doth fight abroad,

Th’advisèd[181] head defends itself at home,

For government, though high[182] and low and lower,

Put into parts, doth keep in one consent,[183]

Congreeing[184] in a full and natural close,

185

Like music.

CANTERBURYTherefore doth heaven divide

The state of man in divers[187] functions,

Setting endeavour in continual motion,

To which is fixèd, as an aim[189] or butt,

190

Obedience, for so work the honeybees,

Creatures that by a rule in nature teach

The act of order to a peopled kingdom.

They have a king[193] and officers of sorts,

Where some, like magistrates, correct[194] at home,

195

Others, like merchants, venture trade abroad:

Others, like soldiers, armèd in their stings,[196]

Make boot upon[197] the summer’s velvet buds,

Which pillage[198] they with merry march bring home

To the tent-royal of their emperor,

200

Who, busied in his majesty,[200] surveys

The singing masons[201] building roofs of gold,

The civil[202] citizens kneading up the honey,

The poor mechanic[203] porters crowding in

Their heavy burdens at his narrow gate,

205

The sad-eyed justice,[205] with his surly hum,

Delivering o’er to executors[206] pale

The lazy yawning drone.[207] I this infer,

That many things, having[208] full reference

To one consent, may work contrariously.[209]

210

As many arrows, loosèd several ways,

Come to one mark,[211] as many ways meet in one town,

As many fresh streams meet in one salt sea,

As many lines close[213] in the dial’s centre,

So may a thousand actions, once afoot

215

End in one purpose, and be all well borne[215]

Without defeat. Therefore to France, my liege.

Divide your happy[217] England into four,

Whereof take you one quarter into France,

And you withal[219] shall make all Gallia shake.

220

If we with thrice such powers left at home

Cannot defend our own doors from the dog,

Let us be worried[222] and our nation lose

The name of hardiness and policy.[223]

KING HENRY VCall in the messengers sent from the dauphin.[224]

[Exeunt some]

225

Now are we well resolved,[225] and, by God’s help

And yours, the noble sinews of our power,

France being ours, we’ll bend[227] it to our awe,

Or[228] break it all to pieces. Or there we’ll sit,

Ruling in large[229] and ample empery

230

O’er France and all her almost kingly dukedoms,

Or lay these bones in an unworthy urn,

Tombless, with no remembrance over them:

Either our history shall with full mouth[233]

Speak freely of our acts, or else our grave,

235

Like Turkish mute,[235] shall have a tongueless mouth,

Not worshipped with a waxen[236] epitaph.

Enter Ambassadors of France

Now are we well prepared to know the pleasure[237]

Of our fair cousin dauphin, for we hear

Your greeting is from him, not from the king.

240

FIRST AMBASSADORMay’t please your majesty to give us leave

Freely to render[241] what we have in charge,

Or shall we sparingly[242] show you far off

The dauphin’s meaning and our embassy?

KING HENRY VWe are no tyrant, but a Christian king,

245

Unto[245] whose grace our passion is as subject

As are our wretches fettered[246] in our prisons:

Therefore with frank and with uncurbèd plainness

Tell us the dauphin’s mind.

FIRST AMBASSADORThus, then, in few:[249]

250

Your highness, lately sending into[250] France,

Did claim some certain dukedoms, in the right

Of your great predecessor, King Edward the Third.

In answer of which claim, the prince our master

Says that you savour[254] too much of your youth,

255

And bids you be advised[255] there’s naught in France

That can be with a nimble galliard[256] won.

You cannot revel into dukedoms there:

He therefore sends you, meeter[258] for your spirit,

This tun[259] of treasure; and in lieu of this, Presents a box

260

Desires you let the dukedoms that you claim

Hear no more of you. This the dauphin speaks.

KING HENRY VWhat treasure, uncle?

EXETERTennis balls, my liege. Looks in the box

KING HENRY VWe are glad the dauphin is so pleasant[264] with us.

265

His present and your pains we thank you for:

When we have matched our rackets[266] to these balls,

We will in France, by God’s grace, play a set

Shall strike his father’s crown[268] into the hazard.

Tell him he hath made a match with such a wrangler[269]

270

That all the courts[270] of France will be disturbed

With chaces.[271] And we understand him well,

How he comes o’er us[272] with our wilder days,

Not measuring[273] what use we made of them.

We never valued this poor seat[274] of England,

275

And therefore, living hence,[275] did give ourself

To barbarous licence,[276] as ’tis ever common

That men are merriest when they are from home.

But tell the dauphin I will keep my state,[278]

Be like a king and show my sail of greatness[279]

280

When I do rouse me[280] in my throne of France.

For that[281] I have laid by my majesty

And plodded like[282] a man for working days,

But I will rise there with so full a glory

That I will dazzle all the eyes of France,

285

Yea, strike the dauphin blind to look on us.

And tell the pleasant prince this mock[286] of his

Hath turned his balls[287] to gun-stones, and his soul

Shall stand sore chargèd[288] for the wasteful vengeance

That shall fly with them, for many a thousand widows

290

Shall this his mock mock out of their dear husbands;

Mock mothers from their sons, mock castles down,

And some are yet ungotten[292] and unborn

That shall have cause to curse the dauphin’s scorn.

But this lies all within the will of God,

295

To whom I do appeal, and in whose name

Tell you the dauphin I am coming on

To venge me[297] as I may and to put forth

My rightful hand in a well-hallowed[298] cause.

So get you hence in peace, and tell the dauphin

300

His jest will savour but of shallow wit,

When thousands weep more than did laugh at it.

Convey them with safe conduct. Fare you well.

Exeunt Ambassadors

EXETERThis was a merry message.

KING HENRY VWe hope to make the sender blush at it:

305

Therefore, my lords, omit[305] no happy hour

That may give furth’rance[306] to our expedition,

For we have now no thought in us but France,

Save those to[308] God, that run before our business.

Therefore let our proportions[309] for these wars

310

Be soon collected and all things thought upon

That may with reasonable swiftness add

More feathers to our wings, for, God before,[312]

We’ll chide[313] this dauphin at his father’s door.

Therefore let every man now task[314] his thought,

315

That this fair[315] action may on foot be brought.

Flourish. Exeunt

[Act 2]

Enter Chorus

CHORUSNow all the youth of England are on fire,[1]

And silken dalliance[2] in the wardrobe lies:

Now thrive the armourers, and honour’s thought

Reigns solely in the breast of every man.

5

They sell the pasture now to buy the horse,

Following the mirror[6] of all Christian kings,

With wingèd[7] heels, as English Mercuries.

For now sits expectation in the air,

And hides a sword from hilts[9] unto the point

10

With crowns imperial, crowns and coronets,[10]

Promised to Harry and his followers.

The French, advised by good intelligence[12]

Of this most dreadful preparation,[13]

Shake in their fear and with pale[14] policy

15

Seek to divert the English purposes.

O England! Model to[16] thy inward greatness,

Like little body with a mighty heart,

What[18] mightst thou do, that honour would thee do,

Were all thy children[19] kind and natural?

20

But see, thy fault France hath in thee found out,

A nest of hollow[21] bosoms, which he fills

With treacherous crowns,[22] and three corrupted men:

One, Richard Earl of Cambridge, and the second,

Henry Lord Scroop of Masham, and the third,

25

Sir Thomas Grey, knight, of Northumberland,

Have, for the gilt[26] of France — O guilt indeed! —

Confirmed conspiracy with fearful[27] France,

And by their hands this[28] grace of kings must die,

If hell and treason hold their promises,

30

Ere[30] he take ship for France, and in Southampton.

Linger your patience on, and we’ll digest[31]

Th’abuse of distance;[32] force a play.

The sum is paid, the traitors are agreed,

The king is set from London, and the scene

35

Is now transported, gentles, to Southampton.

There is the playhouse now, there must you sit,

And thence to France shall we convey you safe,

And bring you back, charming[38] the narrow seas

To give you gentle pass,[39] for if we may,

40

We’ll not offend one stomach[40] with our play.

But, till[41] the king come forth, and not till then,

Unto Southampton do we shift our scene.

Exit

[Act 2 Scene 1]2.1

running scene 2

Enter Corporal Nym and Lieutenant Bardolph

BARDOLPHWell met, Corporal Nym.

NYMGood morrow,[2] Lieutenant Bardolph.

BARDOLPHWhat, are Ancient[3] Pistol and you friends yet?

NYMFor my part,[4] I care not: I say little, but when time shall serve, there shall be smiles — but that shall be as it may. I dare not fight, but I will wink[5] and hold out mine iron:[6] it is a simple one, but what though? It will toast cheese, and it will endure cold as another man’s sword will, and there’s an end.[7]

BARDOLPHI will bestow[8] a breakfast to make you friends, and we’ll be all three sworn brothers to France. Let’t be so, good Corporal Nym.

NYMFaith, I will live so long as I may, that’s the certain[10] of it. And when I cannot live any longer, I will do as I may. That is my rest,[11] that is the rendezvous of it.

BARDOLPHIt is certain, corporal, that he is married to Nell Quickly, and certainly she did you wrong, for you were troth-plight[13] to her.

NYMI cannot tell.[14] Things must be as they may: men may sleep, and they may have their throats about them at that time, and some say knives have edges. It must be as it may: though[16] patience be a tired mare, yet she will plod. There must be conclusions. Well, I cannot tell.

Enter Pistol and [Hostess] Quickly

BARDOLPHHere comes Ancient Pistol and his wife. Good corporal, be patient here.— How now, mine host[19] Pistol?

PISTOLBase tike,[20] call’st thou me host? Now, by this hand, I swear, I scorn the term, nor shall my Nell keep lodgers.[21]

HOSTESS QUICKLYNo, by my troth,[22] not long, for we cannot lodge and board a dozen or fourteen gentlewomen that live honestly by the prick of their needles,[23] but it will be thought we keep a bawdy house[24] straight. O, well-a-day, lady. Nym and Pistol draw If he be not drawn[25] now, we shall see wilful adultery and murder committed.

BARDOLPHGood lieutenant, good corporal, offer[26] nothing here.

NYMPish![27]

PISTOLPish for thee, Iceland dog![28] Thou prick-eared cur of Iceland!

HOSTESS QUICKLYGood Corporal Nym, show thy valour[29] and put up your sword. They sheathe their swords

NYMWill you shog off?[30] I would have you solus.

PISTOL‘Solus’, egregious[31] dog? O viper vile!

The ‘solus’ in thy most marvellous face,

The ‘solus’ in thy teeth and in thy throat

And in thy hateful lungs, yea, in thy maw,[34] perdy,

35

And, which is worse, within thy nasty mouth!

I do retort[36] the ‘solus’ in thy bowels,

For I can take,[37] and Pistol’s cock is up,

And flashing fire[38] will follow.

NYMI am not Barbason.[39] You cannot conjure me. I have an humour to knock you indifferently[40] well. If you grow foul with me, Pistol, I will scour you with my rapier,[41] as I may, in fair terms. If you would walk off, I would prick your guts a little, in good terms, as I may, and that’s the humour of it.

PISTOLO braggart[43] vile and damnèd furious wight!

The grave doth gape, and doting death is near:

45

Therefore exhale.[45] They draw again

BARDOLPHHear me, hear me what I say: Draws he that strikes the first stroke, I’ll run[46] him up to the hilts, as I am a soldier. They sheathe their swords

PISTOLAn oath of mickle[48] might, and fury shall abate.—

Give me thy fist,[49] thy fore-foot to me give. To Nym

50

Thy spirits are most tall.[50]

NYMI will cut thy throat, one time or other, in fair terms: that is the humour of it.

PISTOL‘Couple a gorge![52]’

That is the word. I defy thee again.

O hound of Crete,[54] think’st thou my spouse to get?

55

No, to the spital[55] go,

And from the powd’ring tub[56] of infamy

Fetch forth the lazar[57] kite of Cressid’s kind,

Doll Tearsheet[58] she by name, and her espouse:

I have,[59] and I will hold, the quondam Quickly

60

For the only she;[60] and — pauca, there’s enough.

Go to.

Enter the Boy

BOYMine host Pistol, you must come to my master,[62] and you, hostess. He is very sick, and would to bed.— Good Bardolph, put[63] thy face between his sheets, and do the office of a warming-pan. Faith, he’s very ill.

BARDOLPHAway, you rogue!

HOSTESS QUICKLYBy my troth, he’ll yield[66] the crow a pudding one of these days. The king[67] has killed his heart. Good husband, come home presently.

Exeunt [Hostess and Boy]

BARDOLPHCome, shall I make you two friends? We must to France together.

Why the devil should we keep knives to cut one another’s throats?

PISTOLLet floods o’erswell, and fiends for food howl on!

NYMYou’ll pay me the eight shillings I won of you at betting?

PISTOLBase[72] is the slave that pays.

NYMThat now I will have: that’s the humour of it.

PISTOLAs manhood shall compound.[74] Push home.

[They] draw

BARDOLPHBy this sword, he that makes the first thrust, I’ll kill him. By this sword, I will.

PISTOLSword[77] is an oath, and oaths must have their course. Sheathes his sword

BARDOLPHCorporal Nym, an[78] thou wilt be friends, be friends: an thou wilt not, why, then, be enemies with me too. Prithee put up.[79]

80

PISTOLA noble[80] shalt thou have, and present pay,

And liquor likewise will I give to thee,

And friendship shall combine, and brotherhood.

I’ll live by Nym,[83] and Nym shall live by me.

Is not this just?[84] For I shall sutler be

85

Unto the camp,[85] and profits will accrue.

Give me thy hand.

NYMI shall have my noble?

PISTOLIn cash most justly[88] paid.

NYMWell, then, that’s the humour of’t.

Enter Hostess [Quickly]

HOSTESS QUICKLYAs ever you come of[90] women, come in quickly to Sir John. Ah, poor heart! He is so shaked of a burning quotidian tertian,[91] that it is most lamentable to behold. Sweet men, come to him.

[Exit]

NYMThe king hath run bad humours[93] on the knight, that’s the even of it.

PISTOLNym, thou hast spoke the right. His heart is fracted[95] and corroborate.

NYMThe king is a good king, but it must be as it may, he passes[96] some humours and careers.[97]

PISTOLLet us condole[98] the knight, for, lambkins we will live.

[Exeunt]

[Act 2 Scene 2]2.2

running scene 3

Enter Exeter, Bedford and Westmorland

BEDFORD’Fore God, his grace is bold[1] to trust these traitors.

EXETERThey shall be apprehended[2] by and by.

WESTMORLANDHow smooth[3] and even they do bear themselves,

As if allegiance in their bosoms sat,

5

Crownèd with faith and constant loyalty.

BEDFORDThe king hath note[6] of all that they intend,

By interception[7] which they dream not of.

EXETERNay, but the man that was his bedfellow,[8]

Whom he hath dulled[9] and cloyed with gracious favours,

10

That he should for a foreign purse[10] so sell

His sovereign’s life to death and treachery.

Sound trumpets

Enter the King, Scroop, Cambridge, Grey [and Attendants]

KING HENRY VNow sits the wind fair, and we will aboard.—

My lord of Cambridge, and my kind lord of Masham,

And you, my gentle[14] knight, give me your thoughts:

15

Think you not that the powers[15] we bear with us

Will cut their passage through the force of France,

Doing the execution[17] and the act

For which we have in head[18] assembled them?

SCROOPNo doubt, my liege, if each man do his best.

20

KING HENRY VI doubt not that, since we are well persuaded

We carry not a heart with us from hence

That grows[22] not in a fair consent with ours,

Nor leave not one behind that doth not wish

Success and conquest to attend on[24] us.

25

CAMBRIDGENever was monarch better feared[25] and loved

Than is your majesty: there’s not, I think, a subject

That sits in heart-grief[27] and uneasiness

Under the sweet shade of your government.

GREYTrue: those that were your father’s enemies

30

Have steeped[30] their galls in honey and do serve you

With hearts create[31] of duty and of zeal.

KING HENRY VWe therefore have great cause of thankfulness,

And[33] shall forget the office of our hand,

Sooner than quittance of desert and merit

35

According to the weight and worthiness.[35]

SCROOPSo service shall with steelèd[36] sinews toil,

And labour shall refresh itself with hope,

To do your grace incessant services.

KING HENRY VWe judge[39] no less.— Uncle of Exeter,

40

Enlarge[40] the man committed yesterday,

That railed[41] against our person: we consider

It was excess of wine that set him on,

And on his more advice[43] we pardon him.

SCROOPThat’s mercy, but too much security.[44]

45

Let him be punished, sovereign, lest example

Breed, by his sufferance,[46] more of such a kind.

KING HENRY VO, let us yet be merciful.

CAMBRIDGESo may your highness, and yet punish too.

GREYSir,

50

You show great mercy, if you give him life,

After the taste of much correction.[51]

KING HENRY VAlas, your too much love and care of me

Are heavy orisons[53] gainst this poor wretch!

If little faults, proceeding on distemper[54]

55

Shall not be winked at,[55] how shall we stretch our eye

When capital[56] crimes, chewed, swallowed and digested,

Appear before us? — we’ll yet enlarge that man,

Though Cambridge, Scroop and Grey, in their dear[58] care

And tender preservation of our person,

60

Would have him punished. — And now to our French causes:

Who are the late commissioners?[61]

CAMBRIDGEI one, my lord.

Your highness bade me ask for it today.

SCROOPSo did you me, my liege.

65

GREYAnd I, my royal sovereign.

KING HENRY VThen, Richard Earl of Cambridge, there is yours.— Gives each a paper

There yours, Lord Scroop of Masham.— And, sir knight,

Grey of Northumberland, this same is yours.

Read them, and know I know your worthiness.—

70

My lord of Westmorland, and uncle Exeter,

We will aboard tonight.— Why, how now, gentlemen?

What see you in those papers that you lose[72]

So much complexion?— Look ye, how they change:

Their cheeks are paper.[74]— Why, what read you there

75

That hath so cowarded and chased your blood

Out of appearance?[76]

CAMBRIDGEI do confess my fault,

And do submit me to your highness’ mercy.

GREY and SCROOPTo which we all appeal.

80

KING HENRY VThe mercy that was quick[80] in us but late,

By your own counsel is suppressed and killed.

You must not dare, for shame, to talk of mercy,

For your own reasons[83] turn into your bosoms,

As dogs upon their masters, worrying[84] you.—

85

See you, my princes, and my noble peers,

These English monsters. My lord of Cambridge here,

You know how apt our love was to accord[87]

To furnish[88] him with all appertinents

Belonging to his honour; and this man

90

Hath, for a few light[90] crowns, lightly conspired

And sworn unto the practices[91] of France

To kill us here in Hampton. To the which

This knight,[93] no less for bounty bound to us

Than Cambridge is, hath likewise sworn.— But, O,

95

What shall I say to thee, Lord Scroop, thou cruel,

Ingrateful, savage and inhuman creature?

Thou that didst bear the key of all my counsels,[97]

That knew’st the very bottom of my soul,

That almost mightst have coined[99] me into gold,

100

Wouldst thou have practised on[100] me for thy use?

May it be possible that foreign hire

Could out of thee extract one spark of evil

That might annoy[103] my finger? ’Tis so strange,

That though the truth of it stands off as gross[104]

105

As black and white, my eye will scarcely see it.

Treason and murder, ever kept together,

As two yoke-devils[107] sworn to either’s purpose,

Working so grossly[108] in a natural cause,

That admiration did not whoop[109] at them.

110

But thou gainst all proportion,[110] didst bring in

Wonder to wait on[111] treason and on murder,

And whatsoever cunning fiend it was

That wrought[113] upon thee so preposterously

Hath got the voice[114] in hell for excellence,

115

All other devils that suggest[115] by treasons

Do botch[116] and bungle up damnation

With patches,[117] colours and with forms being fetched

From glist’ring[118] semblances of piety.

But he that tempered[119] thee, bade thee stand up,

120

Gave thee no instance[120] why thou shouldst do treason,

Unless to dub[121] thee with the name of traitor.

If that same demon that hath gulled[122] thee thus

Should with his lion gait[123] walk the whole world,

He might return to vasty Tartar[124] back,

125

And tell the legions[125] ‘I can never win

A soul so easy[126] as that Englishman’s.’

O, how hast thou with jealousy[127] infected

The sweetness of affiance![128] Show men dutiful?

Why, so didst thou. Seem they grave and learnèd?

130

Why, so didst thou. Come they of noble family?

Why, so didst thou. Seem they religious?

Why, so didst thou. Or are they spare[132] in diet,

Free from gross passion[133] or of mirth or anger,

Constant in spirit,[134] not swerving with the blood,

135

Garnished and decked in modest complement,[135]

Not working[136] with the eye without the ear,

And but in purgèd[137] judgement trusting neither?

Such and so finely bolted[138] didst thou seem:

And thus thy fall hath left a kind of blot,

140

To mark the full-fraught[140] man and best indued

With some suspicion. I will weep for thee,

For this revolt of thine, methinks, is like

Another[143] fall of man.— Their faults are open. To Exeter

Arrest them to[144] the answer of the law,

145

And God acquit them of their practices.[145]

EXETERI arrest thee of high treason, by[146] the name of Richard Earl of Cambridge.— I arrest thee of high treason, by the name of Henry Lord Scroop of Masham.— I arrest thee of high treason, by the name of Thomas Grey, knight, of Northumberland.

150

SCROOPOur purposes God justly hath discovered,[150]

And I repent my fault more than my death,

Which I beseech your highness to forgive,

Although my body pay the price of it.

CAMBRIDGEFor me, the gold of France did not seduce,

155

Although I did admit it as a motive

The sooner to effect what I intended.[156]

But God be thankèd for prevention,

Which I in sufferance[158] heartily will rejoice,

Beseeching God and you to pardon me.

160

GREYNever did faithful subject more rejoice

At the discovery of most dangerous treason

Than I do at this hour joy o’er myself,

Prevented from a damnèd enterprise.

My fault, but not my body, pardon, sovereign.

165

KING HENRY VGod quit[165] you in his mercy! Hear your sentence:

You have conspired against our royal person,

Joined with an enemy proclaimed[167] and from his coffers

Received the golden earnest[168] of our death,

Wherein you would have sold your king to slaughter,

170

His princes and his peers to servitude,

His subjects to oppression and contempt

And his whole kingdom into desolation.[172]

Touching our person,[173] seek we no revenge,

But we our kingdom’s safety must so tender,[174]

175

Whose ruin you have sought, that to her laws

We do deliver you. Get you therefore hence,

Poor miserable wretches, to your death:

The taste whereof, God of his mercy give

You patience to endure, and true repentance

180

Of all your dear[180] offences!— Bear them hence.—

Exeunt [Cambridge, Scroop and Grey, guarded]

Now, lords, for France: the enterprise whereof

Shall be to[182] you, as us, like glorious.

We doubt not of a fair[183] and lucky war,

Since God so graciously hath brought to light

185

This dangerous treason lurking in our way

To hinder our beginnings. We doubt not now

But every rub[187] is smoothèd on our way.

Then forth, dear countrymen. Let us deliver

Our puissance[189] into the hand of God,

190

Putting it straight in expedition.[190]

Cheerly[191] to sea, the signs of war advance:

No King of England, if not King of France.

Flourish [Exeunt]

[Act 2 Scene 3]2.3

running scene 4

Enter Pistol, Nym, Bardolph, Boy and Hostess [Quickly]

HOSTESS QUICKLYPrithee, honey-sweet husband, let me bring[1] thee to Staines.

PISTOLNo, for my manly heart doth yearn.[2]

Bardolph, be blithe:[3] Nym, rouse thy vaunting veins:

Boy, bristle[4] thy courage up, for Falstaff he is dead,

5

And we must earn[5] therefore.

BARDOLPHWould I were with him, wheresome’er he is, either in heaven or in hell.

HOSTESS QUICKLYNay, sure, he’s not in hell: he’s in Arthur’s bosom,[7] if ever man went to Arthur’s bosom. A[8] made a finer end and went away an it had been any christom[9] child. A parted e’en just between twelve and one, e’en at the turning o’th’tide. For after I saw him fumble with the sheets and play with flowers[10] and smile upon[11] his fingers’ end, I knew there was but one way, for his nose was as sharp as a pen[12] on a table of green fields. ‘How now, Sir John?’ quoth I. ‘What, man? Be o’good cheer.’ So a cried out, ‘God, God, God!’ three or four times. Now I, to comfort him, bid him a should not think of God; I hoped there was no need to trouble himself with any such thoughts yet. So a bade me lay more clothes[15] on his feet. I put my hand into the bed and felt them, and they were as cold as any stone. Then I felt to his knees, and so up-peered and upward, and all[17] was as cold as any stone.

NYMThey say he cried out of[19] sack.

HOSTESS QUICKLYAy, that a did.

BARDOLPHAnd of women.

HOSTESS QUICKLYNay, that a did not.

BOYYes, that a did, and said they were devils incarnate.[23]

HOSTESS QUICKLYA could never abide carnation,[24] ’twas a colour he never liked.

BOYA said once the devil would have him about[25] women.

HOSTESS QUICKLYA did in some sort, indeed, handle[26] women, but then he was rheumatic,[27] and talked of the whore of Babylon.

BOYDo you not remember, a saw a flea stick upon[28] Bardolph’s nose, and a said it was a black soul burning[29] in hell?

BARDOLPHWell, the fuel[30] is gone that maintained that fire: that’s all the riches I got in his service.

NYMShall we shog?[32] The king will be gone from Southampton.

PISTOLCome, let’s away.— My love, give me thy lips. Kisses her

Look to my chattels[34] and my movables.

35

Let senses rule.[35] The world is ‘pitch and pay’,

Trust none,

For oaths[37] are straws, men’s faiths are wafer-cakes,

And hold-fast[38] is the only dog. My duck,

Therefore, Caveto[39] be thy counsellor.

40

Go, clear thy crystals.[40] Yoke-fellows in arms,

Let us to France, like horse-leeches,[41] my boys,

To suck, to suck, the very blood to suck!

BOYAnd that’s but unwholesome food they say.

PISTOLTouch her soft mouth, and march.

BARDOLPHFarewell, hostess. Kisses her

NYMI cannot kiss, that is the humour of it. But, adieu.

PISTOLLet housewifery[47] appear. Keep close, I thee command.

HOSTESS QUICKLYFarewell. Adieu.

Exeunt [separately]

[Act 2 Scene 4]*

running scene 5

Flourish. Enter the French King, the Dauphin, the Dukes of Berri and Brittany, [the Constable and others]

FRENCH KINGThus comes the English with full power upon us,

And more[2] than carefully it us concerns

To answer royally in our defences.

Therefore the Dukes of Berri and of Brittany,

5

Of Brabant and of Orléans, shall make forth,

And you, Prince Dauphin, with all swift dispatch[6]

To line[7] and new repair our towns of war

With men of courage and with means defendant,[8]

For England his approaches[9] makes as fierce

10

As waters to the sucking of a gulf.[10]

It fits us[11] then to be as provident

As fear may teach us, out of late examples[12]

Left by the fatal and neglected[13] English

Upon our fields.

15

DAUPHINMy most redoubted[15] father,

It is most meet[16] we arm us gainst the foe,

For peace itself should not so dull a kingdom,

Though[18] war nor no known quarrel were in question,

But that defences, musters,[19] preparations,

20

Should be maintained, assembled and collected,

As were a war in expectation.

Therefore, I say ’tis meet we all go forth

To view the sick and feeble parts of France,

And let us do it with no show of fear —

25

No, with no more than if we heard that England

Were busied with a Whitsun morris-dance,[26]

For, my good liege, she is so idly[27] kinged,

Her sceptre[28] so fantastically borne

By a vain, giddy, shallow, humorous[29] youth,

30

That fear attends[30] her not.

CONSTABLEO, peace, Prince Dauphin!

You are too much mistaken in this king.

Question your grace the late[33] ambassadors,

With what great state[34] he heard their embassy,

35

How well supplied with noble counsellors,

How modest[36] in exception, and withal

How terrible[37] in constant resolution,

And you shall find his vanities forespent[38]

Were but the outside of the Roman[39] Brutus,

40

Covering discretion with a coat of folly;

As gardeners do with ordure[41] hide those roots

That shall first spring and be most delicate.

DAUPHINWell, ’tis not so, my lord high constable.

But though[44] we think it so, it is no matter.

45

In cases of defence ’tis best to weigh[45]

The enemy more mighty than he seems,

So[47] the proportions of defence are filled,

Which of[48] a weak and niggardly projection

Doth, like a miser, spoil his coat with scanting[49]

50

A little cloth.

FRENCH KINGThink we[51] King Harry strong,

And, princes, look you[52] strongly arm to meet him.

The kindred of him hath been fleshed[53] upon us,

And he is bred out of that bloody strain[54]

55

That haunted[55] us in our familiar paths.

Witness our too much memorable shame

When Crécy battle fatally was struck,[57]

And all our princes captived by the hand

Of that black name, Edward, Black Prince of Wales,

60

Whiles that his mountain[60] sire, on mountain standing,

Up in the air, crowned with the golden sun,

Saw his heroical seed,[62] and smiled to see him

Mangle[63] the work of nature and deface

The patterns[64] that by God and by French fathers

65

Had twenty years been made. This[65] is a stem

Of that victorious stock, and let us fear

The native[67] mightiness and fate of him.

Enter a Messenger

MESSENGERAmbassadors from Harry King of England

Do crave admittance to your majesty.

70

FRENCH KINGWe’ll give them present[70] audience. Go, and bring them.

[Exeunt Messenger and others]

You see this chase[71] is hotly followed, friends.

DAUPHINTurn head,[72] and stop pursuit, for coward dogs

Most spend their mouths[73] when what they seem to threaten

Runs far before them. Good my sovereign,

75

Take[75] up the English short, and let them know

Of what a monarchy you are the head.

Self-love, my liege, is not so vile a sin

As self-neglecting.[78]

Enter Exeter [and others]

FRENCH KINGFrom our brother of England?

80

EXETERFrom him, and thus he greets your majesty.

He wills[81] you, in the name of God Almighty,

That you divest[82] yourself and lay apart

The borrowed glories[83] that by gift of heaven,

By law of nature and of nations, longs[84]

85

To him and to his heirs, namely, the crown

And all wide-stretchèd[86] honours that pertain

By custom and the ordinance of times[87]

Unto the crown of France. That you may know

’Tis no sinister[89] nor no awkward claim,

90

Picked from the worm-holes[90] of long-vanished days,

Nor from the dust of old oblivion raked,

He sends you this most memorable line,[92] Gives a paper

In every branch truly demonstrative;

Willing you overlook this pedigree.

95

And when you find him evenly derived[95]

From his most famed of famous ancestors,

Edward the Third, he bids you then resign

Your crown and kingdom, indirectly[98] held

From him the native[99] and true challenger.

100

FRENCH KINGOr else what follows?

EXETERBloody constraint.[101] For if you hide the crown

Even in your hearts, there will he rake for it:

Therefore in fierce tempest is he coming,

In thunder and in earthquake, like a Jove,[104]

105

That, if requiring[105] fail, he will compel,

And bids you, in the bowels[106] of the Lord,

Deliver up the crown, and to take mercy

On the poor souls for whom this hungry war

Opens his vasty jaws, and on[109] your head

110

Turning the widows’ tears, the orphans’ cries

The dead men’s blood, the pining maidens’ groans,

For husbands, fathers and betrothèd lovers,

That shall be swallowed in this controversy.

This is his claim, his threatening and my message —

115

Unless the dauphin be in presence here,

To whom expressly I bring greeting too.

FRENCH KINGFor us, we will consider of this further:

Tomorrow shall you bear our full intent

Back to our brother of England.

120

DAUPHINFor the dauphin,

I stand here for him. What to him from England?

EXETERScorn and defiance, slight[122] regard, contempt,

And anything that may not misbecome[123]

The mighty sender, doth he prize you at.[124]

125

Thus says my king: an if[125] your father’s highness

Do not, in grant of all demands at large,[126]

Sweeten the bitter mock you sent his majesty,

He’ll call you to so hot an answer of it,

That caves and womby[129] vaultages of France

130

Shall chide your trespass and return your mock

In second accent[131] of his ordinance.

DAUPHINSay, if my father render fair return,[132]

It is against my will, for I desire

Nothing but odds[134] with England. To that end,

135

As matching to his youth and vanity,

I did present him with the Paris balls.

EXETERHe’ll make your Paris Louvre[137] shake for it,

Were it the mistress-court[138] of mighty Europe.

And be assured, you’ll find a diff’rence,

140

As we his subjects have in wonder found,

Between the promise of his greener days[141]

And these he masters[142] now. Now he weighs time

Even to the utmost grain: that you shall read[143]

In your own losses, if he stay in France.

145

FRENCH KINGTomorrow shall you know our mind at full.

Flourish

EXETERDispatch us with all speed, lest that our king

Come here himself to question our delay;

For he is footed[148] in this land already.

FRENCH KINGYou shall be soon dispatched with fair conditions:

150

A night is but small breath[150] and little pause

To answer matters of this consequence.

Flourish. Exeunt

[Act 3]

Enter Chorus

CHORUSThus with imagined wing[1] our swift scene flies

In motion of no less celerity[2]

Than that of thought. Suppose that you have seen

The well-appointed[4] king at Dover pier

5

Embark his royalty,[5] and his brave fleet

With silken streamers,[6] the young Phoebus fanning.

Play with[7] your fancies, and in them behold

Upon the hempen tackle[8] ship-boys climbing;

Hear the shrill whistle[9] which doth order give

10

To sounds confused. Behold the threaden[10] sails,

Borne with th’invisible and creeping wind,

Draw[12] the huge bottoms through the furrowed sea,

Breasting the lofty surge.[13] O, do but think

You stand upon the rivage[14] and behold

15

A city on th’inconstant billows[15] dancing;

For so appears this fleet majestical,

Holding due course to Harfleur.[17] Follow, follow.

Grapple[18] your minds to sternage of this navy,

And leave your England as dead midnight still,

20

Guarded with grandsires, babies and old women,

Either past or not arrived to pith[21] and puissance,

For who is he, whose[22] chin is but enriched

With one appearing hair, that will not follow

These culled[24] and choice-drawn cavaliers to France?

25

Work,[25] work your thoughts, and therein see a siege:

Behold the ordnance[26] on their carriages,

With fatal mouths gaping on girded[27] Harfleur.

Suppose[28] th’ambassador from the French comes back,

Tells Harry that the king doth offer him

30

Katherine his daughter, and with her, to dowry,

Some petty and unprofitable dukedoms.

The offer likes not,[32] and the nimble gunner

With linstock[33] now the devilish cannon touches,

Alarum, and chambers go off

And down goes all before them. Still be kind,

35

And eke out[35] our performance with your mind.

Exit

Act 3 Scene 13.1

running scene 6

Enter the King, Exeter, Bedford and Gloucester. Alarum. [Enter Soldiers with] scaling-ladders at Harfleur

KING HENRY VOnce more unto the breach,[1] dear friends, once more,

Or close the wall up with our English dead.

In peace there’s nothing so becomes a man

As modest stillness and humility,

5

But when the blast of war blows in our ears,

Then imitate the action of the tiger:

Stiffen the sinews, conjure up the blood,[7]

Disguise fair nature with hard-favoured[8] rage,

Then lend[9] the eye a terrible aspect:

10

Let it pry through the portage[10] of the head

Like the brass cannon, let the brow o’erwhelm[11] it

As fearfully[12] as doth a gallèd rock

O’erhang and jutty[13] his confounded base,

Swilled[14] with the wild and wasteful ocean.

15

Now set the teeth[15] and stretch the nostril wide,

Hold hard the breath and bend up[16] every spirit

To his full height. On, on, you noblest English,

Whose blood is fet[18] from fathers of war-proof,

Fathers that, like so many Alexanders,[19]

20

Have in these parts from morn till even fought

And sheathed[21] their swords for lack of argument.

Dishonour[22] not your mothers: now attest

That those whom you called fathers did beget[23] you.

Be copy[24] now to men of grosser blood,

25

And teach them how to war. And you, good yeoman,[25]

Whose limbs were made in England, show us here

The mettle[27] of your pasture: let us swear

That you are worth your breeding, which I doubt not,

For there is none of you so[29] mean and base,

30

That hath not noble lustre in your eyes.

I see you stand like greyhounds in the slips,[31]

Straining upon the start.[32] The game’s afoot:

Follow your spirit, and upon this charge[33]

Cry ‘God for Harry,[34] England, and Saint George!’

[Exeunt]

Alarum, and chambers go off

[Act 3 Scene 2]

running scene 6 continues

Enter Nym, Bardolph, Pistol and Boy

BARDOLPHOn, on, on, on, on! To the breach, to the breach!

NYMPray thee, corporal, stay: the knocks[2] are too hot, and for mine own part, I have not a case[3] of lives. The humour of it is too hot, that is the very plainsong of it.

PISTOLThe plainsong is most just, for humours[5] do abound. Knocks go and come, God’s vassals[6] drop and die,

And sword and shield, Sings

In bloody field,

Doth win immortal fame.

BOYWould I were in an ale-house in London: I would give all my fame[10] for a pot of ale and safety.

PISTOLAnd I:

If wishes would prevail[13] with me, Sings

My[14] purpose should not fail with me,

15

But thither would I hie.[15]

BOYAs duly, Sings

But not as truly,[17]

As bird doth sing on bough.

Enter Fluellen

FLUELLENUp to the breach, you dogs! Avaunt,[19] you cullions! Drives them on

20

PISTOLBe merciful, great duke,[20] to men of mould.

Abate thy rage, abate thy manly rage,

Abate thy rage, great duke!

Good bawcock,[23] bate thy rage: use lenity, sweet chuck!

NYMThese be good humours! Your[24] honour wins bad humours.

Exeunt [all but Boy]

BOYAs young as I am, I have observed these three swashers.[25] I am boy to them all three, but all they three, though they would serve me, could not be man[26] to me; for indeed three such antics[27] do not amount to a man. For Bardolph, he is white-livered and red-faced; by the means whereof a faces[28] it out, but fights not. For Pistol, he hath a killing tongue and a quiet sword; by the means whereof a breaks words,[29] and keeps whole[30] weapons. For Nym, he hath heard that men of few words are the best men, and therefore he scorns to say his prayers, lest a should be thought a coward. But his few bad words are matched with as few good deeds; for a never broke any man’s head but his own, and that was against a post when he was drunk. They will steal anything, and call it purchase.[34] Bardolph stole a lute-case, bore it twelve leagues,[35] and sold it for three halfpence. Nym and Bardolph are sworn brothers[36] in filching, and in Calais they stole a fire-shovel. I knew by that piece of service[37] the men would carry coals. They would have me as familiar with men’s pockets as their gloves or their handkerchiefs, which makes much against my manhood,[39] if I should take from another’s pocket to put into mine; for it is plain pocketing[40] up of wrongs. I must leave them, and seek some better service: their villainy goes[41] against my weak stomach, and therefore I must cast it up.

Exit

Enter Gower [and Fluellen]

GOWERCaptain Fluellen, you must come presently[42] to the mines; the Duke of Gloucester would speak with you.

FLUELLENTo the mines? Tell you the duke, it is not[45] so good to come to the mines, for look you, the mines is not according to the disciplines of the war: the concavities of it is not sufficient, for look you, th’athversary,[46] you may discuss unto the duke, look you, is digt[47] himself, four yard under, the countermines. By Cheshu, I think a will plow up[48] all, if there is not better directions.

GOWERThe Duke of Gloucester, to whom the order[49] of the siege is given, is altogether directed by an Irishman, a very valiant gentleman, i’faith.

FLUELLENIt is Captain MacMorris, is it not?

GOWERI think it be.

FLUELLENBy Cheshu, he is an ass, as in[53] the world. I will verify as much in his beard. He has no more directions in the true disciplines of the wars, look you, of the Roman disciplines,[55] than is a puppy dog.

Enter MacMorris and Captain Jamy

GOWERHere a comes, and the Scots captain, Captain Jamy, with him.

FLUELLENCaptain Jamy is a marvellous falorous[57] gentleman, that is certain, and of great expedition[58] and knowledge in th’aunchient wars, upon my particular knowledge of his directions. By Cheshu, he will maintain his argument as well as any military man in the world, in the disciplines of the pristine wars of the Romans.

JAMYI say gud[62] day, Captain Fluellen.

FLUELLENGod-den[63] to your worship, good Captain James.

GOWERHow now, Captain MacMorris? Have you quit the mines? Have the pioneers[64] given o’er?[65]

MACMORRISBy Chrish, la,[66] tish ill done: the work ish give over, the trompet sound the retreat. By my hand, I swear, and my father’s soul, the work ish ill done, it ish give over.[68] I would have blowed up the town, so Chrish save me, la, in an hour. O, tish ill done, tish ill done. By my hand, tish ill done!

FLUELLENCaptain MacMorris, I beseech you now, will you voutsafe[70] me, look you, a few disputations[71] with you, as partly touching or concerning the disciplines of the war, the Roman wars, in the way of argument, look you, and friendly communication — partly to satisfy my opinion, and partly for the satisfaction, look you, of my mind, as touching the direction of the military discipline, that is the point.

JAMYIt sall[76] be vary gud, gud feith, gud captains bath, and I sall quit you with gud leve, as I may pick occasion;[77] that sall I, marry.

MACMORRISIt is no time to discourse, so Chrish save me. The day is hot and the weather and the wars and the king and the dukes: it is no time to discourse. The town is beseeched,[80] and the trumpet call us to the breach, and we talk, and, be Chrish, do nothing. ’Tis shame for us all. So God sa’[81] me, ’tis shame to stand still, it is shame, by my hand. And there is throats to be cut, and works to be done, and there ish nothing done, so Chrish sa’ me, la!

JAMYBy the mess,[84] ere these eyes of mine take themselves to slomber, I’ll de gud service, or I’ll lig[85] i’th’grund for it; ay, or go to death. And I’ll pay’t as valorously as I may, that sall I suerly[86] do, that is the breff and the long. Marry, I wad full fain heard[87] some question ’tween you tway.

FLUELLENCaptain MacMorris, I think, look you, under your correction,[88] there is not many of your nation—

MACMORRISOf my nation? What ish[90] my nation? Ish a villain and a bastard and a knave and a rascal. What ish my nation? Who talks of my nation?

FLUELLENLook you, if you take the matter otherwise than is meant, Captain MacMorris, peradventure[93] I shall think you do not use me with that affability as in discretion[94] you ought to use me, look you, being as good a man as yourself, both in the disciplines of war, and in the derivation of my birth, and in other particularities.

MACMORRISI do not know you so good a man as myself. So Chrish save me, I will cut off your head.

GOWERGentlemen both, you will[99] mistake each other.

JAMYAh, that’s a foul fault.

A parley[100]

GOWERThe town sounds a parley.

FLUELLENCaptain MacMorris, when there is more better opportunity to be required,[102] look you, I will be so bold as to tell you I know the disciplines of war, and there is an end.

Exeunt

[Act 3 Scene 3]3.3

running scene 6 continues

Enter the King and all his train before the gates

KING HENRY VHow yet resolves[1] the governor of the town?

This is the latest[2] parle we will admit:

Therefore to our best mercy give yourselves,

Or like to men proud of destruction[4]

5

Defy us to our worst, for as I am a soldier,

A name that in my thoughts becomes[6] me best,

If I begin the batt’ry[7] once again,

I will not leave the half-achieved[8] Harfleur

Till in her ashes she lie burièd.

10

The gates of mercy shall be all shut up,

And the fleshed[11] soldier, rough and hard of heart,

In liberty[12] of bloody hand shall range

With conscience wide as hell, mowing like grass

Your fresh fair virgins and your flow’ring[14] infants.

15

What is it then to me, if impious[15] war,

Arrayed in flames like to the prince of fiends,[16]

Do with his smirched[17] complexion all fell feats

Enlinked[18] to waste and desolation?

What is’t to me, when you yourselves are cause,

20

If your pure maidens fall into the hand

Of hot[21] and forcing violation?

What rein[22] can hold licentious wickedness

When down the hill he holds his fierce career?[23]

We may as bootless[24] spend our vain command

25

Upon th’enragèd soldiers in their spoil[25]

As send precepts[26] to the leviathan

To come ashore. Therefore, you men of Harfleur,

Take pity of[28] your town and of your people,

Whiles yet my soldiers are in my command,

30

Whiles yet the cool and temperate[30] wind of grace

O’erblows[31] the filthy and contagious clouds

Of heady[32] murder, spoil and villainy.

If not, why, in a moment look[33] to see

The blind and bloody soldier with foul hand

35

Defile the locks[35] of your shrill-shrieking daughters,

Your fathers taken by the silver beards,

And their most reverend heads dashed to the walls,

Your naked infants spitted[38] upon pikes,

Whiles the mad mothers with their howls confused[39]

40

Do break the clouds, as did the wives of Jewry[40]

At Herod’s bloody-hunting slaughtermen.[41]

What say you? Will you yield, and this avoid?

Or, guilty in defence,[43] be thus destroyed?

Enter Governor [above, on the walls]

GOVERNOROur expectation[44] hath this day an end.

45

The dauphin, whom of succours[45] we entreated,

Returns[46] us that his powers are yet not ready

To raise[47] so great a siege: therefore, great king,

We yield our town and lives to thy soft[48] mercy.

Enter our gates, dispose[49] of us and ours,

50

For we no longer are defensible.

KING HENRY VOpen your gates.— Come, uncle Exeter,

Go you and enter Harfleur; there remain,

And fortify it strongly gainst the French.

Use mercy to them all. For us, dear uncle,

55

The winter coming on and sickness growing

Upon our soldiers, we will retire to Calais.

Tonight in Harfleur will we be your guest;

Tomorrow for the march are we addressed.[58]

Flourish, and [the King and his train] enter the town

[Act 3 Scene 4]3.4

running scene 7

Enter Katherine and [Alice,] an old gentlewoman

KATHERINEAlice,[1] tu as été en Angleterre, et tu bien parles le langage.

ALICEUn[2] peu, madame.

KATHERINEJe[3] te prie, m’enseignez: il faut que j’apprenne à parler. Comment appelez-vous la main en anglais?

ALICELa[5] main? Elle est appelée de hand.

KATHERINEDe[6] hand. Et les doigts?

ALICELes[7] doigts? Ma foi, j’oublie les doigts, mais je me souviendrai. Les doigts? Je pense qu’ils sont appelés de fingres. Oui, de fingres.

KATHERINELa[9] main, de hand, les doigts, de fingres. Je pense que je suis le bon écolier. J’ai gagné deux mots d’anglais vitement. Comment appelez-vous les ongles?

ALICELes[11] ongles? Nous les appelons de nails.

KATHERINEDe nails. Écoutez,[12] dites-moi, si je parle bien: de hand, de fingres, et de nails.

ALICEC’est[13] bien dit, madame. Il est fort bon anglais.

KATHERINEDites-moi[14] l’anglais pour le bras.

ALICEDe[15] arm, madame.

KATHERINEEt[16] le coude?

ALICED’elbow.

KATHERINED’elbow. Je[18] m’en fais la répétition de tous les mots que vous m’avez appris dès à présent.

ALICEIl[20] est trop difficile, madame, comme je pense.

KATHERINEExcusez-moi,[21] Alice, écoutez: de hand, de fingres, de nails, de arma, de bilbow.[22]

ALICED’elbow, madame.

KATHERINEO Seigneur[24] Dieu, je m’en oublie! D’elbow. Comment appelez-vous le col?

ALICEDe neck, madame.

KATHERINEDe nick.[26] Et le menton?

ALICEDe chin.

KATHERINEDe sin.[28] Le col, de nick, le menton, de sin.

ALICEOui.[29] Sauf votre honneur, en vérité, vous prononcez les mots aussi droit que les natifs d’Angleterre.

KATHERINEJe[31] ne doute point d’apprendre, par la grâce de Dieu, et en peu de temps.

ALICEN’avez[32] vous pas déjà, oublié ce que je vous ai enseigne?

KATHERINENon, je réciterai à vous promptement:[33] de hand, de fingres, de mails—

ALICEDe nails, madame.

KATHERINEDe nails, de arm, de ilbow.

ALICESauf[36] votre honneur, d’elbow.

KATHERINEAinsi[37] dis-je, d’elbow, de nick, et de sin. Comment appelez-vous le pied et la robe?

ALICELe foot,[39] madame, et le coun.

KATHERINELe foot et le coun! O[40] Seigneur Dieu! Ce sont les mots de son mauvais, corruptible, gros, et impudique, et non pour les dames d’honneur d’user. Je ne voudrais prononcer ces mots devant les seigneurs de France pour tout le monde. Foh! Le foot et le coun! Néanmoins, je réciterai une autre fois ma leçon ensemble: de hand, de fingres, de nails, de arm, d’elbow, de nick, de sin, de foot, de coun.

ALICEExcellent,[45] madame!

KATHERINEC’est[46] assez pour une fois. Allons-nous à dîner.

Exeunt

[Act 3 Scene 5]

running scene 7 continues

Enter the King of France, the Dauphin, [the Duke of Brittany,] the Constable of France and others

FRENCH KING’Tis certain he hath passed the River Somme.[1]

CONSTABLEAnd if he be not fought withal,[2] my lord,

Let us not live in France, let us quit all

And give our vineyards to a barbarous people.

5

DAUPHINO[5] Dieu vivant! Shall a few sprays of us,

The emptying[6] of our fathers’ luxury,

Our scions,[7] put in wild and savage stock,

Spirt[8] up so suddenly into the clouds,

And overlook[9] their grafters?

10

BRITTANYNormans,[10] but bastard Normans, Norman bastards!

Mort[11] de ma vie! If they march along

Unfought withal, but I will sell my dukedom

To buy a slobb’ry[13] and a dirty farm

In that nook-shotten[14] isle of Albion.

15

CONSTABLEDieu[15] de batailles! Where have they this mettle?

Is not their climate foggy, raw and dull,

On whom, as in despite,[17] the sun looks pale,

Killing their fruit with frowns? Can sodden[18] water,

A drench[19] for sur-reined jades, their barley broth,

20

Decoct[20] their cold blood to such valiant heat?

And shall our quick blood, spirited with wine,

Seem frosty? O, for honour of our land,

Let us not hang like roping[23] icicles

Upon our houses’ thatch, whiles a more frosty people

25

Sweat drops of gallant youth in our rich fields!

Poor[26] we may call them in their native lords.

DAUPHINBy faith and honour,

Our madams[28] mock at us, and plainly say

Our mettle is bred out[29] and they will give

30

Their bodies to the lust of English youth

To new-store[31] France with bastard warriors.

BOURBONThey bid us to the English dancing-schools,

And teach lavoltas[33] high and swift corantos,

Saying our[34] grace is only in our heels

35

And that we are most lofty[35] runaways.

FRENCH KINGWhere is Montjoy the herald?[36] Speed him hence.

Let him greet England[37] with our sharp defiance.

Up, princes, and with spirit of honour edged

More sharper than your swords, hie[39] to the field:

40

Charles Delabret, High Constable of France,

You Dukes of Orléans, Bourbon, and of Berri,

Alençon, Brabant, Bar, and Burgundy;

Jaques Chatillion, Rambures, Vaudemont,

Beaumont, Grandpré, Roussi, and Fauconbridge,

45

Foix, Lestrale, Boucicault, and Charolais,

High dukes, great princes, barons, lords and knights,

For your great seats[47] now quit you of great shames.

Bar[48] Harry England, that sweeps through our land

With pennons[49] painted in the blood of Harfleur.

50

Rush on his host,[50] as doth the melted snow

Upon the valleys, whose low vassal seat

The Alps doth spit and void[52] his rheum upon.

Go down upon him, you have power enough,

And in a captive chariot into Rouen[54]

55

Bring him our prisoner.

CONSTABLEThis becomes the great.[56]

Sorry am I his numbers are so few,

His soldiers sick and famished in their march,

For I am sure, when he shall see our army,

60

He’ll drop his heart[60] into the sink of fear

And for achievement[61] offer us his ransom.

FRENCH KINGTherefore, lord constable, haste on[62] Montjoy,

And let him say to England that we send

To know what willing ransom he will give.—

65

Prince Dauphin, you shall stay with us in Rouen.

DAUPHINNot so, I do beseech your majesty.

FRENCH KINGBe patient, for you shall remain with us.—

Now forth, lord constable and princes all,

And quickly bring us word of England’s fall.

Exeunt

[Act 3 Scene 6]3.6

running scene 8

Enter Captains, English and Welsh: Gower and Fluellen

GOWERHow now, Captain Fluellen? Come you from the bridge?[1]

FLUELLENI assure you, there is very excellent services[2] committed at the bridge.

GOWERIs the Duke of Exeter safe?

FLUELLENThe Duke of Exeter is as magnanimous[4] as Agamemnon, and a man that I love and honour with my soul and my heart and my duty and my life and my living and my uttermost power. He is not — God be praised and blessed! — any hurt in the world, but keeps the bridge most valiantly, with excellent discipline. There is an aunchient lieutenant there at the pridge,[8] I think in my very conscience he is as valiant a man as Mark Antony,[9] and he is a man of no estimation in the world, but I did see him do as gallant service.

GOWERWhat do you call him?

FLUELLENHe is called Aunchient[12] Pistol.

GOWERI know him not.

Enter Pistol

FLUELLENHere is the man.

15

PISTOLCaptain, I thee beseech to do me favours:

The Duke of Exeter doth love thee well.

FLUELLENAy, I praise God, and I have merited some love at his hands.

PISTOLBardolph, a soldier, firm and sound of heart,

And of buxom[19] valour, hath, by cruel fate,

20

And giddy[20] Fortune’s furious fickle wheel,

That goddess blind,

That stands upon the rolling restless stone[22]—

FLUELLENBy your patience,[23] Aunchient Pistol. Fortune is painted blind, with a muffler[24] afore her eyes, to signify to you that Fortune is blind; and she is painted also with a wheel, to signify to you, which is the moral[28] of it, that she is turning and inconstant, and mutability, and variation. And her foot, look you, is fixed upon a spherical stone, which rolls and rolls and rolls. In good truth, the poet makes a most excellent description of it. Fortune is an excellent moral.

PISTOLFortune is Bardolph’s foe, and frowns on him,

30

For he hath stol’n a pax,[30]

And hangèd must a be — a damnèd death!

Let gallows gape for dog, let man go free

And let not hemp[33] his wind-pipe suffocate.

But Exeter hath given the doom[34] of death

35

For pax of little price.

Therefore, go speak — the duke will hear thy voice —

And let not Bardolph’s vital thread[37] be cut

With edge of penny cord[38] and vile reproach.

Speak, captain, for his life, and I will thee requite.[39]

FLUELLENAunchient Pistol, I do partly[40] understand your meaning.

PISTOLWhy then, rejoice therefore.

FLUELLENCertainly, aunchient, it is not a thing to rejoice at, for if,[42] look you, he were my brother, I would desire the duke to use his good pleasure and put him to execution; for discipline ought to be used.

PISTOLDie and be damned! And figo[45] for thy friendship!

FLUELLENIt is well.

PISTOLThe fig of Spain!

Exit

FLUELLENVery good.

GOWERWhy, this is an arrant[49] counterfeit rascal. I remember him now: a bawd, a cutpurse.[50]

FLUELLENI’ll assure you, a uttered as prave words at the pridge as you shall see in a summer’s day.[51] But it is very well. What he has spoke to me, that is well, I warrant[52] you, when time is serve.[53]

GOWERWhy, ’tis a gull,[54] a fool, a rogue, that now and then goes to the wars to grace himself at his return into London under the form of a soldier; and such fellows are perfect[56] in the great commanders’ names, and they will learn you by rote where services were done; at such and such a sconce,[57] at such a breach, at such a convoy,[58] who came off bravely, who was shot, who disgraced, what terms the enemy stood on — and this they con[59] perfectly in the phrase of war, which they trick up[60] with new-tuned oaths. And what a beard of the general’s cut and a horrid[61] suit of the camp will do among foaming bottles and ale-washed wits is wonderful to be thought on. But you must learn to know such slanders[62] of the age, or else you may be marvellously mistook.[63]

FLUELLENI tell you what, Captain Gower, I do perceive he is not the man that he would gladly make show to the world he is: if I find a hole[65] in his coat, I will tell him my mind. Drum heard Hark you, the king is coming and I must speak with him from[66] the pridge.

Drum and colours. Enter the King and his poor Soldiers [and Gloucester]

God pless your majesty!

KING HENRY VHow now, Fluellen? Cam’st thou from the bridge?

FLUELLENAy, so please your majesty. The Duke of Exeter has very gallantly maintained the pridge; the French is gone off, look you, and there is gallant and most prave passages.[72] Marry, th’athversary was have possession of the pridge, but he is enforced[73] to retire, and the Duke of Exeter is master of the pridge. I can tell your majesty, the duke is a prave man.

KING HENRY VWhat men have you lost, Fluellen?

FLUELLENThe perdition[76] of th’athversary hath been very great, reasonable great. Marry, for my part, I think the duke hath lost never a man,[77] but one that is like to be executed for robbing a church, one Bardolph, if your majesty know the man: his face is all bubukles[79] and whelks and knobs and flames o’ fire, and his lips blows at his nose and it is like a coal of fire, sometimes plue and sometimes red. But his nose is executed and his fire’s out.

KING HENRY VWe would have all such offenders so cut off:[82] and we give express charge,[83] that in our marches through the country, there be nothing compelled from the villages, nothing taken but paid for, none of the French upbraided or abused in disdainful language; for when lenity[85] and cruelty play for a kingdom, the gentler gamester[86] is the soonest winner.

Tucket. Enter Montjoy

MONTJOYYou know me by my habit.[87]

KING HENRY VWell then, I know thee: what shall I know of[88] thee?

MONTJOYMy master’s mind.

KING HENRY VUnfold[90] it.

MONTJOYThus says my king: ‘Say thou to Harry of England, though we seemed dead, we did but sleep. Advantage[92] is a better soldier than rashness. Tell him we could have rebuked[93] him at Harfleur, but that we thought not good to bruise an injury till it were full ripe. Now we speak upon our cue,[94] and our voice is imperial: England shall repent his folly, see his weakness, and admire our sufferance.[95] Bid him therefore consider of his ransom, which must proportion[96] the losses we have borne, the subjects we have lost, the disgrace we have digested;[97] which in weight to re-answer, his pettiness[98] would bow under. For our losses, his exchequer is too poor; for th’effusion of our blood, the muster[99] of his kingdom too faint a number; and for our disgrace, his own person, kneeling at our feet, but a weak and worthless satisfaction. To this add defiance, and tell him, for conclusion, he hath betrayed his followers, whose condemnation is pronounced.’ So far[102] my king and master; so much my office.

KING HENRY VWhat is thy name? I know thy quality.[104]

MONTJOYMontjoy.

KING HENRY VThou dost thy office fairly. Turn thee back,

And tell thy king I do not seek him now,

But could be willing to march on to Calais

Without impeachment.[109] For, to say the sooth,

110

Though ’tis no wisdom to confess so much

Unto an enemy of craft and vantage,[111]

My people are with sickness much enfeebled,

My numbers lessened, and those few I have,

Almost no better than so many French;

115

Who when they were in health, I tell thee, herald,

I thought upon one pair of English legs

Did march three Frenchmen.— Yet, forgive me, God,

That I do brag thus. This your air of France

Hath blown that vice in me: I must repent.—

120

Go therefore, tell thy master here I am;

My ransom is this frail and worthless trunk;[121]

My army but a weak and sickly guard:

Yet, God before,[123] tell him we will come on,

Though France himself and such another neighbour

125

Stand in our way. There’s for thy labour, Montjoy. Gives money

Go bid thy master well advise himself.

If we may pass, we will. If we be hindered,

We shall your tawny[128] ground with your red blood

Discolour. And so Montjoy, fare you well.

130

The sum of all our answer is but this:

We would not seek a battle, as we are,

Nor, as we are, we say we will not shun it.

So tell your master.

MONTJOYI shall deliver so. Thanks to your highness.

[Exit]

GLOUCESTERI hope they will not come upon us now.

KING HENRY VWe are in God’s hand, brother, not in theirs.

March to the bridge, it now draws toward night.

Beyond the river we’ll encamp ourselves,

And on tomorrow, bid them[139] march away.

Exeunt

[Act 3 Scene 7]3.7

running scene 9

Enter the Constable of France, the Lord Rambures, Orléans, Dauphin with others

CONSTABLETut, I have the best armour of the world. Would it were day!

ORLÉANSYou have an excellent armour, but let my horse have his due.

CONSTABLEIt is the best horse of Europe.

ORLÉANSWill it never be morning?

DAUPHINMy lord of Orléans, and my lord high constable, you talk of horse and armour?

ORLÉANSYou are as well provided of both as any prince in the world.

DAUPHINWhat a long night is this? I will not change my horse with any that treads but on four pasterns.[9] Ch’ha! He bounds from the earth, as if his entrails were hairs: le cheval volant,[10] the Pegasus, chez les narines de feu! When I bestride him, I soar, I am a hawk: he trots the air, the earth sings when he touches it, the basest[11] horn of his hoof is more musical than the pipe of Hermes.[12]

ORLÉANSHe’s of the colour of the nutmeg.

DAUPHINAnd of the heat of the ginger. It is a beast for Perseus:[14] he is pure air and fire; and the dull elements of earth and water never appear in him, but only in patient stillness while his rider mounts him. He is indeed a horse, and all other jades[16] you may call beasts.

CONSTABLEIndeed, my lord, it is a most absolute[18] and excellent horse.

DAUPHINIt is the prince of palfreys.[19] His neigh is like the bidding of a monarch and his countenance[20] enforces homage.

ORLÉANSNo more, cousin.

DAUPHINNay, the man hath no wit that cannot, from the rising[22] of the lark to the lodging[23] of the lamb, vary deserved praise on my palfrey. It is a theme as fluent as the sea: turn the sands[24] into eloquent tongues and my horse is argument for them all. ’Tis a subject for a sovereign to reason on, and for a sovereign’s sovereign to ride on, and for the world, familiar to us and unknown, to lay[26] apart their particular functions and wonder at him. I once writ a sonnet in his praise and began thus: ‘Wonder of nature’—

ORLÉANSI have heard a sonnet begin so to one’s mistress.

DAUPHINThen did they imitate that which I composed to my courser,[30] for my horse is my mistress.

ORLÉANSYour mistress bears[32] well.

DAUPHINMe[33] well, which is the prescript praise and perfection of a good and particular[34] mistress.

CONSTABLENay, for methought yesterday your mistress shrewdly[35] shook your back.

DAUPHINSo perhaps did yours.

CONSTABLEMine[37] was not bridled.

DAUPHINO, then belike[38] she was old and gentle, and you rode like a kern of Ireland, your French hose[39] off, and in your straight strossers.

CONSTABLEYou have good judgement in horsemanship.[40]

DAUPHINBe warned by me, then: they that ride so and ride not warily, fall into foul bogs.[41] I had rather have my horse to my mistress.

CONSTABLEI had as lief[43] have my mistress a jade.

DAUPHINI tell thee, constable, my[44] mistress wears his own hair.

CONSTABLEI could make as true a boast as that, if I had a sow to[45] my mistress.

DAUPHIN‘Le[46] chien est retourné à son propre vomissement, et la truie lavée au bourbier.’ Thou makest use of anything.

CONSTABLEYet do I not use[48] my horse for my mistress, or any such proverb so little kin[49] to the purpose.

RAMBURESMy lord constable, the armour that I saw in your tent tonight, are those stars or suns upon it?

CONSTABLEStars, my lord.

DAUPHINSome of them will fall[53] tomorrow, I hope.

CONSTABLEAnd yet my sky shall not want.[54]

DAUPHINThat may be, for you bear a many[55] superfluously and ’twere more honour some were away.

CONSTABLEEv’n[57] as your horse bears your praises, who would trot as well, were some of your brags dismounted.

DAUPHINWould I were able to load him with his desert![59] Will it never be day? I will trot tomorrow a mile, and my way shall be paved with English faces.

CONSTABLEI will not say so, for fear I should be faced[61] out of my way. But I would it were morning, for I would fain be about the ears[62] of the English.

RAMBURESWho will go to hazard[63] with me for twenty prisoners?

CONSTABLEYou must first go yourself to hazard,[64] ere you have them.

DAUPHIN’Tis midnight, I’ll go arm myself.

Exit

ORLÉANSThe dauphin longs for morning.

RAMBURESHe longs to eat the English.

CONSTABLEI think he will eat all he kills.[68]

ORLÉANSBy the white hand of my lady, he’s a gallant prince.

CONSTABLESwear by her foot,[70] that she may tread out the oath.

ORLÉANSHe is simply the most active[71] gentleman of France.

CONSTABLEDoing[72] is activity, and he will still be doing.

ORLÉANSHe never did harm,[73] that I heard of.

CONSTABLENor will do none tomorrow: he will keep that good name still.

ORLÉANSI know him to be valiant.

CONSTABLEI was told that by one that knows him better than you.

ORLÉANSWhat’s[77] he?

CONSTABLEMarry, he[78] told me so himself, and he said he cared not who knew it.

ORLÉANSHe needs not, it is no hidden virtue[79] in him.

CONSTABLEBy my faith, sir, but it is: never anybody saw it but his lackey.[80] ’Tis a hooded[81] valour, and when it appears, it will bate.

ORLÉANSIll will never said well.

CONSTABLEI will cap that proverb with ‘There is flattery in friendship.’

ORLÉANSAnd I will take up[84] that with ‘Give the devil his due.’

CONSTABLEWell placed: there stands your friend for the devil. Have[85] at the very eye of that proverb with ‘A pox of the devil.’

ORLÉANSYou are the better at proverbs, by how much ‘A fool’s bolt[87] is soon shot.’

CONSTABLEYou have shot over.[88]

ORLÉANS’Tis not the first time you were overshot.[89]

Enter a Messenger

MESSENGERMy lord high constable, the English lie within fifteen hundred paces of your tents.

CONSTABLEWho hath measured the ground?

MESSENGERThe lord Grandpré.

CONSTABLEA valiant and most expert gentleman. Would it were day! Alas, poor Harry of England: he longs not for the dawning as we do.

ORLÉANSWhat a wretched and peevish[96] fellow is this king of England, to mope with his fat-brained[97] followers so far out of his knowledge!

CONSTABLEIf the English had any apprehension,[98] they would run away.

ORLÉANSThat they lack, for if their heads had any intellectual armour, they could never wear such heavy head-pieces.[100]

RAMBURESThat island of England breeds very valiant creatures; their mastiffs[101] are of unmatchable courage.

ORLÉANSFoolish curs, that run[103] winking into the mouth of a Russian bear and have their heads crushed like rotten apples. You may as well say, that’s a valiant flea that dare eat his breakfast[105] on the lip of a lion.

CONSTABLEJust, just. And the men do sympathize with the mastiffs in robustious[106] and rough coming on,[107] leaving their wits with their wives, and then give them great meals of beef and iron and steel; they will eat like wolves and fight like devils.

ORLÉANSAy, but these English are shrewdly[109] out of beef.

CONSTABLEThen shall we find tomorrow they have only stomachs[110] to eat and none to fight. Now is it time to arm. Come, shall we about it?

ORLÉANSIt is now two o’clock, but let me see, by ten

We shall have each a hundred Englishmen.

Exeunt

[Act 4]

[Enter] Chorus

CHORUSNow entertain conjecture of[1] a time

When creeping murmur[2] and the poring dark

Fills the wide vessel of the universe.

From camp to camp through the foul[4] womb of night

5

The hum of either army stilly[5] sounds,

That the fixed sentinels almost receive

The secret whispers of each other’s watch.

Fire answers fire, and through their paly[8] flames

Each battle sees the other’s umbered[9] face.

10

Steed threatens steed, in high and boastful neighs

Piercing the night’s dull ear, and from the tents,

The armourers, accomplishing[12] the knights,

With busy hammers closing rivets[13] up,

Give dreadful note[14] of preparation.

15

The country cocks do crow, the clocks do toll,

And the third hour of drowsy morning name.

Proud of their numbers and secure[17] in soul,

The confident and over-lusty[18] French

Do the low-rated[19] English play at dice;

20

And chide[20] the cripple tardy-gaited night,

Who like a foul and ugly witch doth limp

So tediously[22] away. The poor condemnèd English,

Like sacrifices, by their watchful fires

Sit patiently and inly[24] ruminate

25

The morning’s danger, and their gesture sad[25]

Investing[26] lank-lean cheeks and war-worn coats

Presented them unto the gazing moon

So many horrid ghosts. O, now, who[28] will behold

The royal captain of this ruined band

30

Walking from watch[30] to watch, from tent to tent,

Let him cry ‘Praise and glory on his head!’

For forth he goes and visits all his host,[32]

Bids them good morrow with a modest smile

And calls them brothers, friends and countrymen.

35

Upon his royal face there is no note[35]

How dread an army hath enrounded[36] him;

Nor doth he dedicate[37] one jot of colour

Unto the weary and all-watchèd[38] night,

But freshly looks and over-bears[39] attaint

40

With cheerful semblance[40] and sweet majesty,

That every wretch, pining[41] and pale before,

Beholding him, plucks comfort from his looks.

A largess[43] universal like the sun

His liberal[44] eye doth give to every one,

45

Thawing cold fear, that[45] mean and gentle all,

Behold, as may unworthiness[46] define,

A little touch[47] of Harry in the night.

And so our scene must to the battle fly,

Where — O, for pity! — we shall much disgrace

50

With four or five most vile and ragged[50] foils,

Right ill-disposed[51] in brawl ridiculous,

The name of Agincourt. Yet sit and see,

Minding[53] true things by what their mock’ries be.

Exit

[Act 4 Scene 1]4.1

running scene 10

Enter the King, Bedford and Gloucester

KING HENRY VGloucester, ’tis true that we are in great danger,

The greater therefore should our courage be.—

Good morrow, brother Bedford. God Almighty!

There is some soul of goodness in things evil,

5

Would men[5] observingly distil it out.

For our bad[6] neighbour makes us early stirrers,

Which is both healthful and good husbandry.[7]

Besides, they are our outward consciences

And preachers to us all, admonishing

10

That we should dress us[10] fairly for our end.

Thus may we gather[11] honey from the weed,

And make[12] a moral of the devil himself.—

Enter Erpingham

Good morrow, old Sir Thomas Erpingham:

A good soft pillow for that good white head

15

Were better than a churlish[15] turf of France.

ERPINGHAMNot so, my liege. This lodging likes[16] me better,

Since I may say ‘Now lie I like a king.’

KING HENRY V’Tis good for men to love their present pains

Upon example,[19] so the spirit is eased:

20

And when the mind is quickened,[20] out of doubt,

The organs, though defunct and dead before,

Break up[22] their drowsy grave and newly move

With casted slough[23] and fresh legerity.

Lend me thy cloak, Sir Thomas. Brothers both,

25

Commend me[25] to the princes in our camp;

Do my good morrow to them, and anon[26]

Desire them all to my pavilion.[27]

GLOUCESTERWe shall, my liege.

ERPINGHAMShall I attend your grace?

30

KING HENRY VNo, my good knight.

Go with my brothers to my lords of England:

I and my bosom[32] must debate awhile Covers himself with Erpingham’s cloak

And then I would no other company.

ERPINGHAMThe Lord in heaven bless thee, noble Harry!

Exeunt [all but King Henry]

35

KING HENRY VGod-a-mercy, old heart! Thou speak’st cheerfully.

Enter Pistol

PISTOLChe[36] vous là?

KING HENRY VA friend.

PISTOLDiscuss[38] unto me: art thou officer?

Or art thou base, common and popular?[39]

40

KING HENRY VI am a gentleman[40] of a company.

PISTOLTrail’st[41] thou the puissant pike?

KING HENRY VEven so.[42] What are you?

PISTOLAs good a gentleman as the emperor.

KING HENRY VThen you are a better than the king.

45

PISTOLThe king’s a bawcock,[45] and a heart of gold,

A lad of life, an imp[46] of fame,

Of parents good, of fist most valiant.

I kiss his dirty shoe and from heartstring

I love the lovely bully.[49] What is thy name?

50

KING HENRY VHarry le Roy.[50]

PISTOLLe Roy? A Cornish name: art thou of Cornish crew?[51]

KING HENRY VNo, I am a Welshman.

PISTOLKnow’st thou Fluellen?

KING HENRY VYes.

55

PISTOLTell him I’ll knock his leek about his pate[55]

Upon Saint Davy’s day.[56]

KING HENRY VDo not you wear your dagger in your cap that day, lest he knock that about yours.

PISTOLArt thou his friend?

KING HENRY VAnd his kinsman too.

PISTOLThe figo for thee, then!

KING HENRY VI thank you. God be with you!

PISTOLMy name is Pistol called.

Exit. The King remains [and stands aside]

KING HENRY VIt sorts[64] well with your fierceness.

Enter Fluellen and Gower

GOWERCaptain Fluellen!

FLUELLENSo, in the name of Jesu Christ, speak fewer.[66] It is the greatest admiration in the universal world, when the true and aunchient prerogatifes[67] and laws of the wars is not kept: if you would take the pains but to examine the wars of Pompey the Great,[68] you shall find, I warrant you, that there is no tiddle[69] taddle nor pibble babble in Pompey’s camp. I warrant you, you shall find the ceremonies[70] of the wars, and the cares[71] of it, and the forms of it, and the sobriety of it, and the modesty[72] of it, to be otherwise.

GOWERWhy, the enemy is loud. You hear him all night.

FLUELLENIf the enemy is an ass and a fool and a prating[74] coxcomb, is it meet, think you, that we should also, look you, be an ass and a fool and a prating coxcomb, in your own conscience, now?

GOWERI will speak lower.

FLUELLENI pray you and beseech you that you will.

Exeunt [Gower and Fluellen]

KING HENRY VThough it appear a little out of fashion, There is much care[80] and valour in this Welshman.

Enter three soldiers: John Bates, Alexander Court and Michael Williams

COURTBrother John Bates, is not that the morning which breaks yonder?

BATESI think it be. But we have no great cause to desire the approach of day.

WILLIAMSWe see yonder the beginning of the day, but I think we shall never see the end of it.— Who goes there?

KING HENRY VA friend.

WILLIAMSUnder what captain serve you?

KING HENRY VUnder Sir Thomas Erpingham.

WILLIAMSA good old commander and a most kind gentleman. I pray you, what thinks he of our estate?[89]

KING HENRY VEven as men wrecked[90] upon a sand, that look to be washed off the next tide.

BATESHe hath not told his thought to the king?

KING HENRY VNo, nor it is not meet he should. For, though[93] I speak it to you, I think the king is but a man, as I am: the violet smells to him as it doth to me: the element[95] shows to him as it doth to me; all his senses have but human conditions, his ceremonies[96] laid by, in his nakedness he appears but a man; and though his affections[97] are higher mounted than ours, yet, when they stoop, they stoop with the like wing.[98] Therefore, when he sees reason of fears, as we do, his fears, out of doubt, be of the same relish[99] as ours are. Yet, in reason, no man should possess him with any appearance of fear, lest he[100], by showing it, should dishearten his army.

BATESHe may show what outward courage he will, but I believe, as cold a night as ’tis, he could wish himself in Thames[103] up to the neck; and so I would he were, and I by him, at all adventures,[104] so we were quit here.

KING HENRY VBy my troth, I will speak my conscience of the king: I think he would not wish himself anywhere but where he is.

BATESThen I would he were here alone; so should he be sure to be ransomed, and a many poor men’s lives saved.

KING HENRY VI dare say you love him not so ill to wish him here alone, howsoever you speak this to feel[110] other men’s minds. Methinks I could not die anywhere so contented as in the king’s company; his cause being just and his quarrel honourable.

WILLIAMSThat’s more than we know.

BATESAy, or more than we should seek after;[114] for we know enough, if we know we are the king’s subjects. If his cause be wrong, our obedience to the king wipes the crime of it out of us.

WILLIAMSBut if the cause be not good, the king himself hath a heavy reckoning[117] to make, when all those legs and arms and heads, chopped off in a battle, shall join together[118] at the latter day[119] and cry all, ‘We died at such a place’ — some swearing, some crying for a surgeon, some upon[120] their wives left poor behind them, some upon the debts they owe, some upon their children rawly[121] left. I am afeard there are few die well that die in a battle, for how can they charitably[122] dispose of anything, when blood is their argument?[123] Now, if these men do not die well, it will be a black matter for the king that led them to it — who to disobey were against all proportion[125] of subjection.

KING HENRY VSo, if a son that is by his father sent about merchandise[126] do sinfully miscarry upon the sea, the imputation of[127] his wickedness, by your rule, should be imposed upon his father that sent him. Or if a servant, under his master’s command transporting a sum of money, be assailed by robbers and die in many irreconciled[130] iniquities, you may call the business of the master the author of the servant’s damnation. But this is not so: the king is not bound to answer the particular endings of his soldiers, the father of his son, nor the master of his servant; for they purpose[133] not their death, when they purpose their services. Besides, there is no king, be his cause never so spotless, if it come to the arbitrement of swords,[135] can try it out with all unspotted soldiers: some peradventure[136] have on them the guilt of premeditated and contrived murder; some, of beguiling[137] virgins with the broken seals of perjury; some, making the wars their bulwark,[138] that have before gored the gentle bosom of peace with pillage and robbery. Now, if these men have defeated the law and outrun native punishment,[139] though they can outstrip men, they have no wings to fly from God. War is his beadle,[141] war is his vengeance, so that here men are punished for before-breach of the king’s laws in now[142] the king’s quarrel. Where they feared the death, they have borne life away;[143] and where they would be safe, they perish. Then if they die unprovided,[144] no more is the king guilty of their damnation than he was before guilty of those impieties for the which they are now visited.[145] Every subject’s duty is the king’s, but every subject’s soul is his own. Therefore should every soldier in the wars do as every sick man in his bed, wash every mote out of his conscience, and dying so, death is to him advantage; or not dying, the time was blessedly[149] lost wherein such preparation was gained. And in him that escapes, it were not sin to think that, making[150] God so free an offer, he let him outlive that day to see his greatness and to teach others how they should prepare.[151]

WILLIAMS’Tis certain, every man that dies ill,[152] the ill upon his own head, the king is not to answer it.[153]

BATESBut I do not desire he should answer for me, and yet I determine to fight lustily[155] for him.

KING HENRY VI myself heard the king say he would not be ransomed.

WILLIAMSAy, he said so, to make us fight cheerfully. But when our throats are cut, he may be ransomed, and we ne’er the wiser.

KING HENRY VIf I live to see it,[159] I will never trust his word after.

WILLIAMSYou pay[160] him then. That’s a perilous shot out of an elder-gun, that a poor and a private displeasure can do against a monarch. You may as well go about[161] to turn the sun to ice with fanning in his face with a peacock’s feather. You’ll never trust his word after! Come, ’tis a foolish saying.

KING HENRY VYour reproof is something too round.[164] I should be angry with you, if the time were convenient.

WILLIAMSLet it be a quarrel between us, if you live.

KING HENRY VI embrace[167] it.

WILLIAMSHow shall I know thee again?

KING HENRY VGive me any gage[169] of thine, and I will wear it in my bonnet: then, if ever thou darest[170] acknowledge it, I will make it my quarrel.

WILLIAMSHere’s my glove. Give me another of thine.

KING HENRY VThere. They exchange gloves

WILLIAMSThis will I also wear in my cap. If ever thou come to me and say, after tomorrow, ‘This is my glove’, by this hand, I will take[174] thee a box on the ear.

KING HENRY VIf ever I live to see it, I will challenge it.

WILLIAMSThou dar’st as well be hanged.

KING HENRY VWell, I will do it, though[177] I take thee in the king’s company.

WILLIAMSKeep thy word. Fare thee well.

BATESBe friends, you English fools, be friends. We have French quarrels enough, if you could tell how to reckon.[180]

Exeunt Soldiers

KING HENRY VIndeed, the French may lay twenty French crowns[181] to one, they will beat us; for they bear them on their shoulders. But it is no English treason to cut French crowns,[183] and tomorrow the king himself will be a clipper.

Upon the king! Let us our lives, our souls,

185

Our debts, our careful[185] wives,

Our children and our sins lay on[186] the king!

We must bear all. O, hard condition,[187]

Twin-born[188] with greatness, subject to the breath

Of every fool, whose sense no more can feel

190

But his own wringing.[190] What infinite heart’s-ease

Must kings neglect, that private men enjoy?

And what have kings, that privates[192] have not too,

Save[193] ceremony, save general ceremony?

And what art thou, thou idle[194] ceremony?

195

What kind of god art thou, that suffer’st more

Of mortal[196] griefs than do thy worshippers?

What are thy rents? What are thy comings in?[197]

O ceremony, show me but thy worth.

What? Is thy soul of adoration?[199]

200

Art thou aught[200] else but place, degree and form,

Creating awe and fear in other men?

Wherein thou art less happy being feared

Than they in fearing.

What drink’st thou oft, instead of homage sweet,

205

But poisoned flattery? O, be sick, great greatness,

And bid thy ceremony give thee cure!

Think’st thou the fiery fever will go out

With titles[208] blown from adulation?

Will it give place[209] to flexure and low bending?

210

Canst thou, when thou command’st[210] the beggar’s knee,

Command the health of it? No, thou proud dream,

That play’st so subtly[212] with a king’s repose.

I am a king that find thee,[213] and I know

’Tis not the balm,[214] the sceptre and the ball,

215

The sword, the mace,[215] the crown imperial,

The intertissued[216] robe of gold and pearl,

The farcèd[217] title running ’fore the king,

The throne he sits on, nor the tide of pomp[218]

That beats upon the high shore of this world.

220

No, not all these, thrice-gorgeous ceremony,

Not all these, laid in bed majestical,

Can sleep so soundly as the wretched slave,

Who with a body filled and vacant mind

Gets him to rest, crammed with distressful[224] bread,

225

Never sees horrid night, the child of hell,

But like a lackey,[226] from the rise to set,

Sweats in[227] the eye of Phoebus and all night

Sleeps in Elysium:[228] next day after dawn,

Doth rise and help Hyperion[229] to his horse,

230

And follows so the ever-running year,

With profitable[231] labour, to his grave.

And but for ceremony, such a wretch,

Winding up days with toil and nights with sleep,

Had the forehand[234] and vantage of a king.

235

The slave, a member[235] of the country’s peace,

Enjoys it; but in gross[236] brain little wots

What watch[237] the king keeps to maintain the peace,

Whose hours the peasant best advantages.[238]

Enter Erpingham

ERPINGHAMMy lord, your nobles, jealous of[239] your absence,

240

Seek through your camp to find you.

KING HENRY VGood old knight,

Collect them all together at my tent:

I’ll be before thee.

ERPINGHAMI shall do’t, my lord.

Exit

245

KING HENRY VO God of battles, steel my soldiers’ hearts,

Possess them not with fear. Take from them now

The sense of reck’ning,[247] ere th’opposèd numbers

Pluck their hearts from them. Not today, O lord,

O, not today, think not upon the fault

250

My[250] father made in compassing the crown!

I Richard’s body have interrèd new,[251]

And on it have bestowed more contrite tears

Than from it issued forcèd[253] drops of blood.

Five hundred poor I have in yearly pay,

255

Who twice a day their withered hands hold up

Toward heaven, to pardon blood,[256] and I have built

Two chantries,[257] where the sad and solemn priests

Sing still[258] for Richard’s soul. More will I do,

Though all that I can do is nothing worth,

260

Since that my penitence comes after all,

Imploring pardon.

Enter Gloucester

GLOUCESTERMy liege.

KING HENRY VMy brother Gloucester’s voice?— Ay,

I know thy errand. I will go with thee.

265

The day, my friends, and all things stay[265] for me.

Exeunt

[Act 4 Scene 2]4.2

running scene 11

Enter the Dauphin, Orléans, Rambures and Beaumont

ORLÉANSThe sun doth gild our armour. Up, my lords!

DAUPHINMonte[2] à cheval! My horse, varlet! Laquais! Ha!

ORLÉANSO brave spirit!

DAUPHINVia,[4] les eaux et la terre.

5

ORLÉANSRien[5] puis? L’air et feu.

DAUPHINCieux,[6] cousin Orléans.

Enter Constable

Now, my lord constable?

CONSTABLEHark, how our steeds for present service[8] neigh.

DAUPHINMount them, and make[9] incision in their hides,

10

That their hot blood may spin[10] in English eyes,

And dout[11] them with superfluous courage. Ha!

RAMBURESWhat, will you have them weep our horses’ blood?

How shall we then behold their natural tears?

Enter Messenger

MESSENGERThe English are embattled,[14] you French peers.

15

CONSTABLETo horse, you gallant princes, straight to horse!

Do but behold yond[16] poor and starvèd band,

And your fair show[17] shall suck away their souls,

Leaving them but the shales[18] and husks of men.

There is not work enough for all our hands,

20

Scarce blood enough in all their sickly veins

To give each naked curtle-axe[21] a stain,

That our French gallants[22] shall today draw out,

And sheathe for lack of sport. Let us but blow on them,

The vapour of our valour will o’erturn them.[24]

25

’Tis positive gainst all exceptions,[25] lords,

That our superfluous lackeys and our peasants,

Who in unnecessary action swarm

About our squares of battle,[28] were enow

To purge this field of such a hilding[29] foe,

30

Though we upon this mountain’s basis[30] by

Took stand for idle speculation:

But that our honours[32] must not. What’s to say?

A very little little let us do

And all is done. Then let the trumpets sound

35

The tucket sonance[35] and the note to mount,

For our approach shall so much dare[36] the field

That England shall couch down in fear and yield.

Enter Grandpre

GRANDPREWhy do you stay[38] so long, my lords of France?

Yond[39] island carrions, desperate of their bones,

40

Ill-favouredly become[40] the morning field:

Their ragged curtains[41] poorly are let loose,

And our air shakes them passing[42] scornfully.

Big Mars[43] seems bankrupt in their beggared host

And faintly through a rusty beaver[44] peeps.

45

The horsemen sit like fixèd candlesticks,[45]

With torch-staves[46] in their hand, and their poor jades

Lob[47] down their heads, dropping the hides and hips,

The gum[48] down-roping from their pale dead eyes

And in their pale dull mouths the gimmaled[49] bit

50

Lies foul[50] with chewed grass, still and motionless,

And their executors,[51] the knavish crows,

Fly o’er them all, impatient for their hour.[52]

Description cannot suit[53] itself in words

To demonstrate[54] the life of such a battle

55

In life so lifeless as it shows itself.

CONSTABLEThey have said their prayers and they stay for death.

DAUPHINShall we go send them dinners and fresh suits

And give their fasting[58] horses provender,

And after fight with them?

60

CONSTABLEI stay but for my guidon.[60] To the field!

I will the banner from a trumpet take

And use it for my haste. Come, come, away!

The sun is high and we outwear[63] the day.

Exeunt

[Act 4 Scene 3]4.3

running scene 12

Enter Gloucester, Bedford, Exeter, Erpingham with all his host, Salisbury and Westmorland

GLOUCESTERWhere is the king?

BEDFORDThe king himself is rode to view their battle.

WESTMORLANDOf fighting men they have full threescore[3] thousand.

EXETERThere’s five to one. Besides, they all are fresh.

5

SALISBURYGod’s arm strike with us! ’Tis a fearful odds.

God buy’[6] you, princes all; I’ll to my charge.

If we no more meet till we meet in heaven,

Then joyfully, my noble Lord of Bedford,

My dear Lord Gloucester, and my good Lord Exeter,

10

And my kind kinsman,[10] warriors all, adieu!

BEDFORDFarewell, good Salisbury, and good luck go with thee!

EXETERFarewell, kind lord. Fight valiantly today.

And yet I do thee wrong to mind[13] thee of it,

For thou art framed[14] of the firm truth of valour.

[Exit Salisbury]

15

BEDFORDHe is as full of valour as of kindness,

Princely in both.

Enter the King

WESTMORLANDO, that we now had here

But one ten thousand of those men in England

That do no work today!

20

KING HENRY VWhat’s he that wishes so?

My cousin Westmorland? No, my fair cousin,

If we[22] are marked to die, we are enough

To do our country loss, and if to live,

The fewer men, the greater share of honour.

25

God’s will, I pray thee, wish[25] not one man more.

By Jove,[26] I am not covetous for gold,

Nor care I who doth feed upon my cost,[27]

It yearns[28] me not if men my garments wear;

Such outward things dwell not in my desires.

30

But if it be a sin to covet honour,

I am the most offending soul alive.

No, faith, my coz,[32] wish not a man from England.

God’s peace, I would not lose so great an honour

As one man more, methinks, would share[34] from me

35

For the best hope I have. O, do not wish one more.

Rather proclaim it,[36] Westmorland, through my host,

That he which hath no stomach to[37] this fight,

Let him depart, his passport[38] shall be made

And crowns for convoy[39] put into his purse:

40

We would not die in that man’s company

That fears his[41] fellowship to die with us.—

This day is called the feast of Crispian:[42] To all

He that outlives this day, and comes safe home,

Will stand a tiptoe[44] when this day is named,

45

And rouse him at the name of Crispian.

He that shall see this day, and live old age,

Will yearly on the vigil[47] feast his neighbours,

And say, ‘Tomorrow is Saint Crispian.’

Then will he strip his sleeve and show his scars,

50

And say, ‘These wounds I had on Crispin’s day.’

Old men forget; yet all[51] shall be forgot,

But he’ll remember with advantages[52]

What feats he did that day. Then shall our names,

Familiar in his mouth as household words —

55

Harry the king, Bedford and Exeter,

Warwick and Talbot, Salisbury and Gloucester —

Be[57] in their flowing cups freshly rememberèd.

This story shall the good man teach his son,

And Crispin Crispian[59] shall ne’er go by,

60

From this day to the ending of the world,

But we in it shall be rememberèd;

We few, we happy[62] few, we band of brothers.

For he today that sheds his blood with me

Shall be my brother, be he ne’er so vile,[64]

65

This day shall gentle his condition.[65]

And gentlemen in England now abed

Shall think themselves accursed they were not here,

And hold their manhoods[68] cheap whiles any speaks

That fought with us upon Saint Crispin’s day.

Enter Salisbury

70

SALISBURYMy sovereign lord, bestow yourself[70] with speed:

The French are bravely[71] in their battles set,

And will with all expedience[72] charge on us.

KING HENRY VAll things are ready, if our minds be so.

WESTMORLANDPerish the man whose mind is backward[74] now!

75

KING HENRY VThou dost not wish more help from England, coz?

WESTMORLANDGod’s will, my liege, would you and I alone,

Without more help, could fight this royal battle!

KING HENRY VWhy, now thou hast unwished five thousand men,

Which likes[79] me better than to wish us one.—

80

You know your places. God be with you all!

Tucket. Enter Montjoy

MONTJOYOnce more I come to know of thee, King Harry,

If for thy ransom thou wilt now compound,[82]

Before thy most assurèd overthrow,

For certainly thou art so near the gulf,[84]

85

Thou needs must be englutted.[85] Besides, in mercy,

The constable desires thee thou wilt mind[86]

Thy followers of repentance; that their souls

May make a peaceful and a sweet retire[88]

From off these fields, where, wretches, their poor bodies

90

Must lie and fester.

KING HENRY V Who hath sent thee now?

MONTJOYThe Constable of France.

KING HENRY V I pray thee bear my former answer back:

Bid them achieve[94] me and then sell my bones.

95

Good God, why should they mock poor fellows thus?

The[96] man that once did sell the lion’s skin

While the beast lived, was killed with hunting him.

A many[98] of our bodies shall no doubt

Find native[99] graves, upon the which, I trust,

100

Shall witness live in brass[100] of this day’s work.

And those that leave their valiant bones in France,

Dying like men, though buried in your dunghills,

They shall be famed, for there the sun shall greet them,

And draw their honours reeking[104] up to heaven,

105

Leaving their earthly parts to choke your clime,[105]

The smell whereof shall breed a plague in France.

Mark[107] then abounding valour in our English,

That being dead, like to the bullet’s crazing,[108]

Break out into a second course of mischief,[109]

110

Killing in[110] relapse of mortality.

Let me speak proudly: tell the constable

We are but warriors for the working day.[112]

Our gayness[113] and our gilt are all besmirched

With rainy marching in the painful field.[114]

115

There’s not a piece of feather[115] in our host —

Good argument, I hope, we will not fly[116] —

And time hath worn us into slovenry.[117]

But, by the mass, our hearts are in the trim,[118]

And my poor soldiers tell me, yet ere night,

120

They’ll be in fresher robes, or they will pluck[120]

The gay new coats o’er the French soldiers’ heads

And turn them out of service. If they do this —

As, if God please, they shall — my ransom then

Will soon be levied.[124] Herald, save thou thy labour:

125

Come thou no more for ransom, gentle herald.

They shall have none, I swear, but these my joints,[126]

Which if they have as[127] I will leave ’em them,

Shall yield them little, tell the constable.

MONTJOYI shall, King Harry. And so fare thee well:

130

Thou never shalt hear herald any more.

Exit

KING HENRY VI fear thou wilt once more come again for a ransom.

Enter York

YORKMy lord, most humbly on my knee I beg Kneels

The leading of the vanguard.

KING HENRY VTake it, brave York.— Now, soldiers, march away.

135

And how thou pleasest, God, dispose[135] the day!

Exeunt

[Act 4 Scene 4]4.4

running scene 13

Alarum. Excursions. Enter Pistol, French Soldier [and] Boy

PISTOLYield, cur!

FRENCH SOLDIERJe[2] pense que vous êtes le gentilhomme de bon qualité.

PISTOLQualtitie[3] calmie custure me? Art thou a gentleman? What is thy name? Discuss.[4]

5

FRENCH SOLDIERO Seigneur Dieu![5]

PISTOLO, Signieur Dew should be a gentleman.

Perpend[7] my words, O Signieur Dew, and mark:

O Signieur Dew, thou diest on point of fox,[8] Draws his sword

Except,[9] O signieur, thou do give to me

10

Egregious[10] ransom.

FRENCH SOLDIERO,[11] prenez miséricorde! Ayez pitié de moi!

PISTOL‘Moy’[12] shall not serve. I will have forty moys,

For I will fetch thy rim[13] out at thy throat

In drops of crimson blood.

15

FRENCH SOLDIEREst-il[15] impossible d’échapper la force de ton bras?

PISTOLBrass,[16] cur?

Thou damnèd and luxurious[17] mountain goat,

Offer’st me brass?

FRENCH SOLDIERO, pardonnez-moi![19]

20

PISTOLSay’st thou me so? Is that a ton of moys?[20]

Come hither, boy. Ask me this slave in French

What is his name.

BOYÉcoutez, comment êtes-vous appelé?[23]

FRENCH SOLDIERMonsieur le Fer[24].

BOYHe says his name is Master Fer.

PISTOLMaster Fer?[26] I’ll fer him, and firk him, and ferret him. Discuss the same in French unto him.

BOYI do not know the French for fer and ferret and firk.

PISTOLBid him prepare, for I will cut his throat.

30

FRENCH SOLDIERQue dit-il, monsieur?[30]

BOYIl[31] me commande à vous dire que vous faites vous prêt, car ce soldat ici est disposé

tout à cette heure de couper votre gorge.

PISTOLOwy,[33] cuppele gorge, permafoy,

Peasant, unless thou give me crowns, brave[34] crowns;

35

Or mangled shalt thou be by this my sword.

FRENCH SOLDIERO,[36] je vous supplie, pour l’amour de Dieu, me pardonner! Je suis gentilhomme de bonne maison. Gardez ma vie, et je vous donnerai deux cents écus.

PISTOLWhat are his words?

BOYHe prays you to save his life: he is a gentleman of a good house, and for his ransom he will give you two hundred crowns.

PISTOLTell him my fury shall abate, and I the crowns will take.

FRENCH SOLDIERPetit[42] monsieur, que dit-il?

BOYEncore[43] qu’il est contre son jurement de pardonner aucun prisonnier, néanmoins, pour les écus que vous l’avez promis, il est content à vous donner la liberté, le franchisement.

FRENCH SOLDIERKneels Sur[46] mes genoux je vous donne mille remerciements, et je m’estime heureux que j’ai tombé entre les mains d’un chevalier, je pense, le plus brave, vaillant, et très distingué seigneur d’Angleterre.

PISTOLExpound[49] unto me, boy.

BOYHe gives you, upon his knees, a thousand thanks, and he esteems himself happy that he hath fallen into the hands of one, as he thinks, the most brave, valorous, and thrice-worthy[52] signieur of England.

PISTOLAs I suck blood,[53] I will some mercy show. Follow me!

BOYSuivez-vous le grand capitaine![54]

[Exeunt Pistol and French Soldier]

I did never know so full[55] a voice issue from so empty a heart. But the saying is true, ‘The empty vessel makes the greatest sound’. Bardolph and Nym had ten times more valour than this roaring devil i’th’old play,[57] that everyone may pare his nails with a wooden dagger,[58] and they are both hanged, and so would this be, if he durst steal anything adventurously.[59] I must stay with the lackeys, with the luggage of our camp. The French might have a good prey[60] of us, if he knew of it, for there is none to guard it but boys.

Exit

[Act 4 Scene 5]

running scene 13 continues

Enter Constable, Orléans, Bourbon, Dauphin and Rambures

CONSTABLEO diable![1]

ORLÉANSO[2] Seigneur! Le jour est perdu, tout est perdu!

DAUPHINMort[3] de ma vie! All is confounded, all.

Reproach and everlasting shame

5

Sits mocking in our plumes.[5] O méchante fortune!

A short alarum

Do not run away.

CONSTABLEWhy, all our ranks are broke.[7]

DAUPHINO, perdurable[8] shame! Let’s stab ourselves.

Be these the wretches that we played at dice for?

10

ORLÉANSIs this the king we sent to for his ransom?

BOURBONShame and eternal shame, nothing but shame!

Let us die! In[12] once more, back again.

And he that will not follow Bourbon now,

Let him go hence, and with his cap in hand,

15

Like a base pander,[15] hold the chamber door

Whilst by a base slave, no gentler[16] than my dog,

His fairest daughter is contaminated.

CONSTABLEDisorder that hath spoiled[18] us, friend us now.

Let us on[19] heaps go offer up our lives.

20

ORLÉANSWe are enough yet living in the field

To smother up the English in our throngs,

If any order might be thought upon.[22]

BOURBONThe devil take order now! I’ll to the throng;

Let life be short, else shame will be too long.

Exeunt

[Act 4 Scene 6]4.6

running scene 13 continues

Alarum. Enter the King and his train [Exeter and others,] with prisoners

KING HENRY VWell have we done, thrice-valiant countrymen.

But all’s not done, yet keep[2] the French the field.

EXETERThe Duke of York commends him to your majesty.

KING HENRY VLives he, good uncle? Thrice within this hour

5

I saw him down; thrice up again and fighting,

From helmet to the spur all blood he was.

EXETERIn which array, brave soldier, doth he lie,

Larding[8] the plain, and by his bloody side,

Yoke-fellow to his honour-owing[9] wounds,

10

The noble Earl of Suffolk also lies.

Suffolk first died, and York, all haggled over,[11]

Comes to him, where in gore he lay insteeped,[12]

And takes him by the beard, kisses the gashes

That bloodily did yawn upon his face,

15

And cries aloud, ‘Tarry,[15] my cousin Suffolk!

My soul shall thine keep company to heaven.

Tarry, sweet soul, for mine, then fly abreast,[17]

As in this glorious and well-foughten field[18]

We kept together in our chivalry.[19]’

20

Upon these words I came and cheered him up.[20]

He smiled me in the face, raught[21] me his hand

And with a feeble grip says, ‘Dear my lord,

Commend[23] my service to my sovereign.’

So did he turn and over Suffolk’s neck

25

He threw his wounded arm and kissed his lips,

And so espoused[26] to death, with blood he sealed

A testament[27] of noble-ending love.

The pretty and sweet manner of it forced

Those waters[29] from me which I would have stopped,

30

But I had not so much of man in me,

And all my mother[31] came into mine eyes

And gave me up to tears.

KING HENRY VI blame you not,

For hearing this, I must perforce[34] compound

35

With mixed-full[35] eyes, or they will issue too.

Alarum

But, hark, what new alarum is this same?

The French have reinforced their scattered men.

Then every soldier kill his prisoners.

Give the word through.

Exeunt

[Act 4 Scene 7]

running scene 13 continues

Enter Fluellen and Gower

FLUELLENKill the poys[1] and the luggage! ’Tis expressly against the law of arms. ’Tis as arrant a piece of knavery, mark you now, as can be offer’t,[2] in your conscience, now, is it not?

GOWER’Tis certain there’s not a boy left alive, and the cowardly rascals that ran from the battle ha’ done this slaughter. Besides, they have burned and carried away all that was in the king’s tent, wherefore[6] the king, most worthily, hath caused every soldier to cut his prisoner’s throat. O, ’tis a gallant king!

FLUELLENAy, he was porn at Monmouth,[8] Captain Gower. What call you the town’s name where Alexander the Pig[9] was born?

GOWERAlexander the Great.

FLUELLENWhy, I pray you, is not ‘pig’ great? The pig, or the great, or the mighty, or the huge, or the magnanimous, are all[12] one reckonings, save the phrase is a little variations.

GOWERI think Alexander the Great was born in Macedon,[14] his father was called Philip of Macedon, as I take[15] it.

FLUELLENI think it is in Macedon where Alexander is porn. I tell you, captain, if you look in the maps of the ’orld, I warrant you sall find, in the comparisons between Macedon and Monmouth, that the situations,[18] look you, is both alike. There is a river in Macedon, and there is also moreover a river at Monmouth: it is called Wye[20] at Monmouth, but it is out of my prains what is the name of the other river. But ’tis all one, ’tis alike as my fingers is to my fingers, and there is salmons in both.[22] If you mark Alexander’s life well, Harry of Monmouth’s life is come after it indifferent well, for there is figures[23] in all things. Alexander, God knows, and you know, in his rages and his furies and his wraths and his cholers[24] and his moods and his displeasures and his indignations and also being a little intoxicates[25] in his prains, did, in his ales[26] and his angers, look you, kill his best friend, Cleitus.

GOWEROur king is not like him in that: he never killed any of his friends.

FLUELLENIt is not well done, mark you now, to take the tales out of my mouth ere it is made and finished. I speak but in the figures and comparisons of it: as Alexander killed his friend Cleitus, being in his ales and his cups,[30] so also Harry Monmouth, being in his right wits and his good judgements, turned away the fat knight with the great belly-doublet.[32] He was full of jests and gipes and knaveries and mocks[33] — I have forgot his name.

GOWERSir John Falstaff.

FLUELLENThat is he. I’ll tell you there is good men porn at Monmouth.

GOWERHere comes his majesty.

Alarum. Enter King Harry and Bourbon [and others] with prisoners. Flourish

KING HENRY VI was not angry since I came to France

Until this instant.[38] Take a trumpet, herald,

Ride thou unto the horsemen on yond hill:

40

If they will fight with us, bid them come down,

Or void the field: they do offend our sight.

If they’ll do neither, we will come to them

And make them skirr[43] away, as swift as stones

Enforcèd[44] from the old Assyrian slings.

45

Besides,[45] we’ll cut the throats of those we have,

And not a man of them that we shall take[46]

Shall taste our mercy. Go and tell them so.

Enter Montjoy

EXETERHere comes the herald of the French, my liege.

GLOUCESTERHis eyes are humbler than they used to be.

50

KING HENRY VHow now? What means this, herald? Know’st thou not

That I have fined[51] these bones of mine for ransom?

Com’st thou again for ransom?

MONTJOYNo, great king:

I come to thee for charitable licence,[54]

55

That we may wander o’er this bloody field

To book[56] our dead and then to bury them,

To sort our nobles from our common men.

For many of our princes — woe the while! —

Lie drowned and soaked in mercenary[59] blood,

60

So do our vulgar[60] drench their peasant limbs

In blood of princes, and our wounded steeds

Fret[62] fetlock-deep in gore and with wild rage

Yerk[63] out their armèd heels at their dead masters,

Killing them twice. O, give us leave, great king,

65

To view the field in safety and dispose

Of their dead bodies!

KING HENRY VI tell thee truly, herald,

I know not if the day[68] be ours or no,

For yet a many of your horsemen peer[69]

70

And gallop o’er the field.

MONTJOYThe day is yours.

KING HENRY VPraised be God, and not our strength, for it!—

What is this castle called that stands hard[73] by?

MONTJOYThey call it Agincourt.

75

KING HENRY VThen call we this the field of Agincourt,

Fought on the day of Crispin Crispianus.

FLUELLENYour grandfather[77] of famous memory, an’t please your majesty, and your great-uncle Edward the Plack Prince of Wales, as I have read in the chronicles,[78] fought a most prave pattle here in France.

KING HENRY VThey did, Fluellen.

FLUELLENYour majesty says very true: if your majesties is remembered of it, the Welshmen did good service in a garden where leeks did grow, wearing leeks in their Monmouth caps,[83] which, your majesty know, to this hour is an honourable badge[84] of the service, and I do believe your majesty takes no scorn to wear the leek upon Saint Tavy’s[85] day.

KING HENRY VI wear it for a memorable honour,[86] For I am Welsh, you know, good countryman.

FLUELLENAll the water in Wye cannot wash your majesty’s Welsh plood out of your pody, I can tell you that. God pless it and preserve it, as long as it pleases his grace,[89] and his majesty too!

KING HENRY VThanks, good my countryman.

FLUELLENBy Jeshu, I am your majesty’s countryman, I care not who know it. I will confess it to all the ’orld. I need not to be ashamed of your majesty, praised be God, so long as your majesty is an honest man.

95

KING HENRY VGod keep me so!

Enter Williams

Our heralds go with him.

Bring me just notice of the numbers dead

On both our parts.—

[Exeunt Heralds with Montjoy]

Call yonder fellow hither. Points to Williams

EXETERSoldier, you must come to the king.

KING HENRY VSoldier, why wear’st thou that glove in thy cap?

WILLIAMSAn’t please your majesty, ’tis the gage[102] of one that I should fight withal, if he be alive.

KING HENRY VAn Englishman?

WILLIAMSAn’t please your majesty, a rascal that swaggered[105] with me last night, who, if alive and ever dare to challenge[106] this glove, I have sworn to take him a box o’th’ear, or if I can see my glove in his cap, which he swore as he was a soldier he would wear if alive, I will strike it out soundly.

KING HENRY VWhat think you, Captain Fluellen? Is it fit[109] this soldier keep his oath?

FLUELLENHe is a craven[110] and a villain else, an’t please your majesty, in my conscience.

KING HENRYVIt may be his enemy is a gentleman of great sort,[112] quite from the answer of his degree.

FLUELLENThough he be as good a gentleman as the devil is, as Lucifer and Beelzebub[114] himself, it is necessary, look your grace, that he keep his vow and his oath: if he be perjured, see you now, his reputation is as arrant a villain and a jack-sauce[116] as ever his black[117] shoe trod upon God’s ground and his earth, in my conscience, la!

KING HENRYVThen keep thy vow, sirrah,[118] when thou meet’st the fellow.

WILLIAMSSo I will, my liege, as I live.

KING HENRYVWho servest thou under?

WILLIAMSUnder Captain Gower, my liege.

FLUELLENGower is[122] a good captain, and is good knowledge and literatured in the wars.

KING HENRY VCall him hither to me, soldier.

WILLIAMSI will, my liege.

Exit

KING HENRY VHere, Fluellen, wear thou this favour[126] for me and stick it in thy cap. Gives him Williams’ glove When Alençon[127] and myself were down together, I plucked this glove from his helm:[128] if any man challenge this, he is a friend to Alençon and an enemy to our person; if thou encounter any such, apprehend[129] him, an thou dost me love.

FLUELLENYour grace does me as great honours as can be desired in the hearts of his subjects. I would fain[131] see the man that has but two legs that shall find himself aggriefed at this glove; that is all. But I would fain see it[132] once, an please God of his grace that I might see.

KING HENRY VKnow’st thou Gower?

FLUELLENHe is my dear friend, an please you.

KING HENRY VPray thee go seek him, and bring him to my tent.

FLUELLENI will fetch him.

Exit

KING HENRY VMy lord of Warwick, and my brother Gloucester,

Follow Fluellen closely at the heels.

140

The glove which I have given him for a favour

May haply[141] purchase him a box o’th’ear.

It is the soldier’s, I by bargain should

Wear it myself. Follow, good cousin Warwick:

If that the soldier strike him, as I judge

145

By his blunt[145] bearing he will keep his word,

Some sudden mischief[146] may arise of it,

For I do know Fluellen valiant

And, touched[148] with choler, hot as gunpowder,

And quickly will return an injury.

150

Follow and see there be no harm between them.

Go you with me, uncle of Exeter.

Exeunt

[Act 4 Scene 8]

running scene 13 continues

Enter Gower and Williams

WILLIAMSI warrant it is to knight you, captain.

Enter Fluellen

FLUELLENGod’s will and his pleasure, captain, I beseech you now, come apace[2] to the king: there is more good toward you peradventure,[3] than is in your knowledge to dream of.

WILLIAMSSir, know you[5] this glove?

FLUELLENKnow the glove? I know the glove is a glove.

WILLIAMSI know this, and thus I challenge it.

Strikes him

FLUELLEN’Sblood,[8] an arrant traitor as any’s in the universal world, or in France, or in England!

GOWERHow now, sir? You villain! To Williams

WILLIAMSDo you think I’ll be[11] forsworn?

FLUELLENStand away,[12] Captain Gower. I will give treason his payment into ploughs, I warrant you.

WILLIAMSI am no traitor.

FLUELLENThat’s a lie[15] in thy throat. I charge you in his majesty’s name, apprehend him. He’s a friend of the Duke Alençon’s.

Enter Warwick and Gloucester

WARWICKHow now, how now? What’s the matter?

FLUELLENMy lord of Warwick, here is — praised be God for it! — a most contagious treason come to light, look you, as you shall desire in a summer’s day.[19] Here is his majesty.

Enter King and Exeter

KING HENRY VHow now? What’s the matter?

FLUELLENMy liege, here is a villain and a traitor, that, look your grace, has struck the glove which your majesty is take out[23] of the helmet of Alençon.

WILLIAMSMy liege, this was my glove, here is the fellow of it. Shows other glove And he that I gave it to in change promised to wear it in his cap. I promised to strike him, if he did. I met this man with my glove in his cap, and I have been as good as my word.

FLUELLENYour majesty hear now, saving your majesty’s manhood, what an arrant, rascally, beggarly, lousy knave it is. I hope your majesty is pear[28] me testimony and witness, and will avouchment,[29] that this is the glove of Alençon that your majesty is give[30] me, in your conscience, now.

KING HENRY VGive me thy glove, soldier. Look, here is the fellow of it. Shows his glove ’Twas I, indeed, thou promisèd’st to strike, And thou hast given me most bitter terms.[33]

FLUELLENAn please your majesty, let his neck answer for it, if there is any martial law in the world.

KING HENRY VHow canst thou make me satisfaction?[36]

WILLIAMSAll offences, my lord, come from the heart. Never came any from mine that might offend your majesty.

KING HENRY VIt was ourself thou didst abuse.[39]

WILLIAMSYour majesty came not like yourself: you appeared to me but as a common man; witness the night, your garments, your lowliness.[41] And what your highness suffered under that shape, I beseech you take it for your own fault and not mine, for had you been as I took you for, I made no offence: therefore, I beseech your highness, pardon me.

KING HENRY VHere, uncle Exeter, fill this glove with crowns, And give it to this fellow.— Keep it, fellow, And wear it for an honour in thy cap Till I do challenge it.— Give him the crowns.— Exeter gives And captain, you must needs be friends with him. Williams money

FLUELLENBy this day and this light, the fellow has mettle[50] enough in his belly.—Hold, Offers Williams money there is twelve-pence for you, and I pray you to serve God, and keep you out of prawls and prabbles[52] and quarrels and dissensions and, I warrant you, it is the better for you.

WILLIAMSI will[54] none of your money.

FLUELLENIt is with a good will. I can tell you, it will serve you to mend your shoes. Come, wherefore should you be so pashful? Your shoes is not so good.[56] ’Tis a good silling, I warrant you, or I will change it.

Enter Herald

KING HENRY VNow, herald, are the dead numbered?

HERALDHere is the number of the slaughtered French. Gives a paper

KING HENRY VWhat prisoners of good sort[60] are taken, uncle?

EXETER‘Charles Duke of Orléans, nephew to the king, Reads

John Duke of Bourbon, and Lord Bouciqualt.

Of other lords and barons, knights and squires,

Full fifteen hundred, besides common men.’

65

KING HENRY VThis note doth tell me of ten thousand French

That in the field lie slain: of princes, in this number,

And nobles bearing banners, there lie dead

One hundred twenty six: added to these,

Of knights, esquires, and gallant gentlemen,

70

Eight thousand and four hundred, of the which,

Five hundred were but yesterday dubbed knights.

So that in these ten thousand they have lost,

There are but sixteen hundred mercenaries:

The rest are princes, barons, lords, knights, squires,

75

And gentlemen of blood[75] and quality.

The names of those their nobles that lie dead:

Charles Delabreth, High Constable of France,

Jaques of Chatillion, Admiral[78] of France,

The master of the cross-bows, Lord Rambures,

80

Great Master[80] of France, the brave Sir Guichard Dolphin,

John Duke of Alençon, Anthony Duke of Brabant,

The brother to the Duke of Burgundy,

And Edward Duke of Bar. Of lusty[83] earls,

Grandpré and Roussi, Fauconbridge and Foix,

85

Beaumont and Marle, Vaudemont and Lestrale.

Here was a royal fellowship of death.—

Where is the number of our English dead?— Herald gives him another paper

‘Edward the Duke of York, the Earl of Suffolk, Reads

Sir Richard Ketly, Davy Gam, Esquire’;

90

None else of name,[90] and of all other men

But five-and-twenty. O God, thy arm[91] was here.

And not to us, but to thy arm alone,

Ascribe we all! When, without stratagem,[93]

But in plain shock[94] and even play of battle,

95

Was ever known so great and little loss

On one part and on th’other? Take it, God,

For it is none but thine.

EXETER’Tis wonderful.[98]

KING HENRY VCome, go we in procession to the village.

100

And be it death proclaimèd through our host

To boast of this or take that praise from God

Which is his only.

FLUELLENIs it not lawful, an please your majesty, to tell how many is killed?

KING HENRY VYes, captain, but with this acknowledgement:

105

That God fought for us.

FLUELLENYes, my conscience, he did us great good.

KING HENRY VDo we all holy rites.

Let there be sung Non nobis[108] and Te Deum,

The dead with[109] charity enclosed in clay,

110

And then to Calais, and to England then,

Where ne’er from France arrived more happy men.

Exeunt

Act 5

Enter Chorus

CHORUSVouchsafe[4] to those that have not read the story,

That I may prompt[2] them: and of such as have,

I humbly pray them to admit th’excuse

Of time,[4] of numbers and due course of things,

5

Which cannot in their huge[5] and proper life

Be here presented. Now we bear the king

Toward Calais: grant[7] him there; there seen,

Heave him away upon your wingèd thoughts

Athwart[9] the sea. Behold, the English beach

10

Pales[10] in the flood with men, wives and boys,

Whose shouts and claps[11] out-voice the deep-mouthed sea,

Which like a mighty whiffler[12] ’fore the king

Seems to prepare his way. So let him land,

And solemnly[14] see him set on to London.

15

So swift a pace hath thought that even now

You may imagine him upon Blackheath,[16]

Where that[17] his lords desire him to have borne

His bruisèd[18] helmet and his bended sword

Before him through the city. He forbids it,

20

Being free from vainness[20] and self-glorious pride;

Giving full trophy,[21] signal and ostent

Quite from himself to God. But now behold,

In the quick forge and working-house[23] of thought,

How London doth pour out her citizens.

25

The mayor and all his brethren[25] in best sort,

Like to the senators of th’antique[26] Rome,

With the plebeians swarming at their heels,

Go forth and fetch their conqu’ring Caesar in:

As by a lower[29] but by loving likelihood,

30

Were now the general[30] of our gracious empress,

As in good time he may, from Ireland coming,

Bringing rebellion broachèd[32] on his sword,

How many would the peaceful city quit,

To welcome him? Much[34] more, and much more cause,

35

Did they this Harry. Now in London place him,

As yet the lamentation[36] of the French

Invites[37] the King of England’s stay at home:

The emperor’s coming[38] in behalf of France,

To order peace between them.[39] And omit

40

All the occurrences, whatever chanced,

Till Harry’s back return again to France:

There must we bring him; and myself have played[42]

The interim, by rememb’ring you ’tis past.

Then brook[44] abridgment, and your eyes advance,

45

After your thoughts, straight back again to France.

Exit

[Act 5 Scene 1]5.1

running scene 14

Enter Fluellen and Gower

GOWERNay, that’s right. But why wear you your leek today? Saint Davy’s day is past.

FLUELLENThere is occasions and causes why and wherefore[3] in all things. I will tell you, asse[4] my friend, Captain Gower: the rascally, scald, beggarly, lousy, pragging knave, Pistol, which you and yourself and all the world know to be no petter than a fellow, look you now, of no merits, he is come to me and prings me pread and salt yesterday, look you, and bid me eat my leek. It was in a place where I could not breed no contention[8] with him, but I will be so bold as to wear it in my cap till I see him once again, and then I will tell him a little piece of my desires.

Enter Pistol

GOWERWhy, here he comes, swelling[10] like a turkey-cock.

FLUELLEN’Tis no matter for his swellings nor his turkey-cocks.— God pless you, aunchient Pistol. You scurvy,[12] lousy knave, God pless you!

PISTOLHa, art thou bedlam?[13] Dost thou thirst, base Trojan, To have me fold[14] up Parcas fatal web? Hence, I am qualmish[15] at the smell of leek.

FLUELLENI peseech you heartily, scurvy, lousy knave, at my desires, and my requests, and my petitions, to eat, look you, this leek; because, look you, you do not love it, nor your affections and your appetites and your disgestions[18] doo’s not agree with it, I would desire you to eat it.

PISTOLNot for Cadwallader[20] and all his goats.

FLUELLENThere is one goat[21] for you.

Strikes him

Will you be so good, scald[22] knave, as eat it?

PISTOLBase Trojan, thou shalt die.

FLUELLENYou say very true, scald knave, when God’s will is:[24] I will desire you to live in the meantime, and eat your victuals.[25] Come, there is sauce for it. Strikes him You called me yesterday ‘mountain squire’, but I will make you today a squire of low degree. I pray you fall to:[27] if you can mock a leek, you can eat a leek.

GOWEREnough, captain, you have astonished[28] him.

FLUELLENI say, I will make him eat some part of my leek, or I will peat his pate four days.— Bite, I pray you, it is good for your green[30] wound and your ploody coxcomb.

PISTOLMust I bite?

FLUELLENYes, certainly, and out of doubt and out of question too, and ambiguities.

PISTOLBy this leek, I will most horribly revenge.[34] I eat and eat, I swear— Eats

FLUELLENEat, I pray you. Fluellen threatens him or strikes him Will you have some more sauce to your leek? There is not enough leek to swear by.

PISTOLQuiet thy cudgel, thou dost see I eat. Eats

FLUELLENMuch good do you, scald knave, heartily. Nay, pray you throw none away, the skin is good for your broken coxcomb. When you take occasions[39] to see leeks hereafter, I pray you mock at ’em, that is all.

PISTOLGood.[41]

FLUELLENAy, leeks is good. Hold you, there is a groat[42] to heal your pate. Offers a coin

PISTOLMe a groat?

FLUELLENYes, verily and in truth, you shall take it, or I have another leek in my pocket, which you shall eat.

PISTOLI take thy groat in earnest of[46] revenge.

FLUELLENIf I owe you anything, I will pay[47] you in cudgels. You shall be a woodmonger,[48] and buy nothing of me but cudgels. God buy you, and keep you, and heal your pate.

Exit

PISTOLAll hell shall stir for this.

GOWERGo, go, you are a counterfeit[51] cowardly knave. Will you mock at an ancient tradition, begun upon an honourable respect, and worn as a memorable trophy of predeceased[53] valour and dare not avouch in your deeds any of your words? I have seen you gleeking[54] and galling at this gentleman twice or thrice. You thought because he could not speak English in the native garb,[55] he could not therefore handle an English cudgel: you find it otherwise, and henceforth let a Welsh correction teach you a good English condition.[57] Fare ye well.

Exit

PISTOLDoth Fortune play the hussy with me now?

News have I, that my Doll[59] is dead i’th’spital

60

Of a malady of France,[60]

And there my rendezvous[61] is quite cut off.

Old I do wax,[62] and from my weary limbs

Honour is cudgelled. Well, bawd[63] I’ll turn,

And something[64] lean to cutpurse of quick hand.

65

To England will I steal,[65] and there I’ll steal,

And patches[66] will I get unto these cudgelled scars,

And swear I got them in the Gallia[67] wars.

Exit

Act 5 [Scene 2]*

running scene 15

Enter, at one door King Henry, Exeter, Bedford, Warwick, [Gloucester, Clarence, Westmorland] and other Lords: at another, Queen Isabel, the [French] King, the Duke of Burgundy and other French [including Katherine and Alice]

KING HENRY VPeace to this meeting, wherefore[1] we are met.

Unto our brother[2] France, and to our sister,

Health and fair[3] time of day, joy and good wishes

To our most fair and princely[4] cousin Katherine,

5

And, as a branch and member of this royalty,[5]

By whom this great assembly is contrived,

We do salute you, Duke of Burgundy,

And princes French and peers, health to you all!

FRENCH KINGRight joyous are we to behold your face,

10

Most worthy brother England, fairly met.

So are you, princes English, every one.

QUEEN ISABELSo happy be the issue,[12] brother England,

Of this good day and of this gracious[13] meeting,

As we are now glad to behold your eyes —

15

Your eyes, which hitherto have borne in them

Against the French, that met them in their bent,[16]

The fatal balls[17] of murdering basilisks.

The venom of such looks, we fairly hope,

Have lost their quality,[19] and that this day

20

Shall change all griefs and quarrels into love.

KING HENRY VTo cry amen to that, thus we appear.

QUEEN ISABELYou English princes all, I do salute you.

BURGUNDYMy duty to you both, on[23] equal love,

Great Kings of France and England! That I have laboured,

25

With all my wits, my pains[25] and strong endeavours,

To bring your most imperial majesties

Unto this bar[27] and royal interview,

Your mightiness on both parts best can witness.

Since then my office hath so far prevailed

30

That,[30] face to face and royal eye to eye,

You have congreeted,[31] let it not disgrace me,

If I demand, before[32] this royal view,

What rub[33] or what impediment there is,

Why that the naked, poor and mangled Peace,

35

Dear nurse[35] of arts, plenties and joyful births,

Should not in this best garden of the world,

Our fertile France, put up[37] her lovely visage?

Alas, she hath from France too long been chased,

And all her husbandry[39] doth lie on heaps,

40

Corrupting[40] in it own fertility.

Her vine, the merry cheerer of the heart,

Unprunèd dies: her hedges even-pleached,[42]

Like prisoners wildly overgrown with hair,

Put forth disordered twigs: her fallow leas[44]

45

The darnel,[45] hemlock and rank fumitory

Doth root upon,[46] while that the coulter rusts

That should deracinate[47] such savagery.

The even mead,[48] that erst brought sweetly forth

The freckled[49] cowslip, burnet and green clover,

50

Wanting[50] the scythe, withal uncorrected, rank,

Conceives[51] by idleness and nothing teems

But hateful docks,[52] rough thistles, kecksies, burs,

Losing both beauty and utility;

And all our vineyards, fallows,[54] meads and hedges,

55

Defective in their natures,[55] grow to wildness.

Even so our houses and ourselves and children

Have lost, or do not learn for want of time,

The sciences[58] that should become our country,

But grow like savages — as soldiers will

60

That nothing do but meditate on blood —

To swearing and stern looks, diffused[61] attire

And everything that seems unnatural.

Which to reduce[63] into our former favour

You are assembled, and my speech entreats

65

That I may know the let,[65] why gentle Peace

Should not expel these inconveniences

And bless us with her former qualities.

KING HENRY VIf, Duke of Burgundy, you would[68] the peace,

Whose want[69] gives growth to th’imperfections

70

Which you have cited, you must buy that peace

With full accord[71] to all our just demands,

Whose tenors[72] and particular effects

You have enscheduled[73] briefly in your hands.

BURGUNDYThe king hath heard them, to the which as yet

75

There is no answer made.

KING HENRY VWell then, the peace,

Which you before so urged, lies in his answer.

FRENCH KINGI have but with a cursitory eye[78]

O’erglanced[79] the articles. Pleaseth your grace

80

To appoint some of your council presently

To sit with us once more, with better heed[81]

To re-survey them, we will suddenly[82]

Pass[83] our accept and peremptory answer.

KING HENRY VBrother, we shall.— Go, uncle Exeter,

85

And brother Clarence, and you, brother Gloucester,

Warwick and Huntingdon, go with the king,

And take with you free power to ratify,[87]

Augment, or alter, as your wisdoms best

Shall see advantageable for our dignity,

90

Anything in or out of our demands,

And we’ll consign[91] thereto.— Will you, fair sister, To Queen Isabel

Go with the princes, or stay here with us?

QUEEN ISABELOur gracious brother, I will go with them:

Haply[94] a woman’s voice may do some good,

95

When articles too nicely[95] urged be stood on.

KING HENRY VYet leave our cousin Katherine here with us.

She is our capital[97] demand comprised

Within the fore-rank[98] of our articles.

QUEEN ISABELShe hath good leave.

Exeunt all. Henry, Katherine [and Alice] remain

100

KING HENRY VFair Katherine, and most fair,

Will you vouchsafe to teach a soldier terms[101]

Such as will enter at a lady’s ear

And plead his love-suit[103] to her gentle heart?

KATHERINEYour majesty shall mock at me: I cannot speak your England.

KING HENRY VO fair Katherine, if you will love me soundly with your French heart, I will be glad to hear you confess it brokenly with your English tongue. Do you like me, Kate?

KATHERINEPardonnez-moi,[108] I cannot tell vat is ‘like me’.

KING HENRY VAn angel is like you, Kate, and you are like an angel.

KATHERINEQue[110] dit-il? Que je suis semblable à les anges? To Alice

ALICEOui,[111] vraiment, sauf votre grâce, ainsi dit-il.

KING HENRY VI said so, dear Katherine, and I must not blush to affirm it.

KATHERINEO[113] bon Dieu! Les langues des hommes sont pleines de tromperies.

KING HENRY VWhat says she, fair one? To Alice That the tongues of men are full of deceits?

ALICEOui, dat de tongues of de mans is be full of deceits: dat is de princess.[115]

KING HENRY VThe princess is the better Englishwoman.[116] I’faith, Kate, my wooing is fit for thy understanding. I am glad thou canst speak no better English, for, if thou couldst, thou wouldst find me such a plain[118] king that thou wouldst think I had sold my farm to buy my crown. I know no ways to mince[119] it in love, but directly to say ‘I love you.’ Then if you urge me further than to say, ‘Do you in faith?’, I wear out my suit.[121] Give me your answer, i’faith, do, and so clap hands and a bargain. How say you, lady?

KATHERINESauf votre honneur,[123] me understand veil.

KING HENRY VMarry, if you would put[124] me to verses or to dance for your sake, Kate, why you undid[125] me, for the one I have neither words nor measure; and for the other, I have no strength in measure,[126] yet a reasonable measure in strength. If I could win a lady at leap-frog, or by vaulting into my saddle with my armour on my back, under[128] the correction of bragging be it spoken, I should quickly leap into a wife. Or if I might buffet[129] for my love, or bound my horse for her favours, I could lay on[130] like a butcher and sit like a jackanapes, never off. But, before God, Kate, I cannot look greenly[131] nor gasp out my eloquence, nor I have no cunning in protestation; only downright[132] oaths, which I never use till urged, nor never break for urging.[133] If thou canst love a fellow of this temper, Kate, whose face is not worth sunburning, that never looks in his glass[134] for love of anything he sees there, let thine eye be thy cook.[135] I speak to thee plain soldier: if thou canst love me for this, take me: if not, to say to thee that I shall die, is true; but for thy love, by the lord, no. Yet I love thee too. And while thou liv’st, dear Kate, take a fellow of plain and uncoined[138] constancy, for he perforce must do thee right, because he hath not the gift to woo in other places. For these fellows of infinite tongue,[139] that can rhyme themselves into ladies’ favours,[140] they do always reason themselves out again. What![141] A speaker is but a prater, a rhyme is but a ballad. A good leg will fall, a straight back will stoop, a black beard will turn white, a curled pate will grow bald, a fair face will wither, a full[143] eye will wax hollow: but a good heart, Kate, is the sun and the moon — or rather the sun and not the moon, for it shines bright and never changes, but keeps his course truly. If thou would have such a one, take me: and take me, take a soldier: take a soldier, take a king. And what say’st thou then to my love? Speak, my fair, and fairly,[147] I pray thee.

KATHERINEIs it possible dat I sould love de enemy of France?

KING HENRY VNo, it is not possible you should love the enemy of France, Kate; but in loving me, you should love the friend[150] of France, for I love France so well that I will not part with a village of it; I will have it all mine: and, Kate, when France is mine and I am yours, then yours is France and you are mine.

KATHERINEI cannot tell vat is dat.

KING HENRY VNo, Kate? I will tell thee in French, which I am sure will hang upon my tongue like a new-married wife about her husband’s neck, hardly to be shook off. Je[156] quand sur le possession de France, et quand vous avez le possession de moi — let me see, what then? Saint[157] Denis be my speed! — donc vôtre est France et vous êtes mienne. It is as easy for me, Kate, to conquer the kingdom as to speak so much more French. I shall never move[159] thee in French, unless it be to laugh at me.

KATHERINESauf[160] votre honneur, le français que vous parlez, il est meilleur que l’anglais lequel je parle.

KING HENRY VNo, faith, is’t not, Kate. But thy speaking of my tongue, and I thine, most truly-falsely,[163] must needs be granted to be much at one. But, Kate, dost thou understand thus much English, canst thou love me?

KATHERINEI cannot tell.

KING HENRY VCan any of your neighbours[166] tell, Kate? I’ll ask them. Come, I know thou lovest me. And at night, when you come into your closet,[167] you’ll question this gentlewoman about me; and I know, Kate, you will to her dispraise[168] those parts in me that you love with your heart, but, good Kate, mock me mercifully, the rather, gentle princess, because I love thee cruelly.[170] If ever thou beest mine, Kate, as I have a saving faith[171] within me tells me thou shalt, I get thee with scambling, and thou must therefore needs prove a good soldier-breeder. Shall not thou and I, between Saint Denis and Saint George, compound[173] a boy, half French, half English, that shall go to Constantinople and take[174] the Turk by the beard? Shall we not? What say’st thou, my fair flower-de-luce?[175]

KATHERINEI do not know dat.

KING HENRY VNo, ’tis hereafter[177] to know, but now to promise: do but now promise, Kate, you will endeavour for your French part[178] of such a boy; and for my English moiety[179] take the word of a king and a bachelor. How answer you, la plus belle Katherine du monde, mon très chère et devin déesse?

KATHERINEYour majestee ’ave[181] fausse French enough to deceive de most sage demoiselle[182] dat is en France.

KING HENRY VNow, fie upon my false French! By mine honour, in true English, I love thee, Kate: by which honour I dare not swear thou lovest me, yet my blood[184] begins to flatter me that thou dost, notwithstanding[185] the poor and untempering effect of my visage. Now, beshrew[186] my father’s ambition! He was thinking of civil wars when he got[187] me: therefore was I created with a stubborn outside, with an aspect of iron, that when I come to woo ladies, I fright them. But, in faith, Kate, the elder I wax, the better I shall appear. My comfort is that old age, that ill layer-up[189] of beauty, can do no more spoil[190] upon my face. Thou hast me, if thou hast me, at the worst; and thou shalt wear[191] me, if thou wear me, better and better. And therefore tell me, most fair Katherine, will you have me? Put off your maiden blushes, avouch the thoughts of your heart with the looks of an empress, take me by the hand, and say, ‘Harry of England I am thine.’ Which word thou shalt no sooner bless mine ear withal, but I will tell thee aloud, ‘England is thine, Ireland is thine, France is thine, and Henry Plantagenet[196] is thine’; who though I speak it before his face, if he be not fellow with[197] the best king, thou shalt find the best king of good fellows. Come, your answer in broken music; for thy voice is music and thy English broken: therefore, queen of all, Katherine, break[199] thy mind to me in broken English; wilt thou have me?

KATHERINEDat is as it sall please de[201] roi mon père.

KING HENRY VNay, it will please him well, Kate; it shall please him, Kate.

KATHERINEDen it sall also content me.

KING HENRY VUpon that I kiss your hand, and I call you my queen. Tries to kiss her hand

KATHERINELaissez,[205] mon seigneur, laissez, laissez: ma foi, je ne veux point que vous abaissiez votre grandeur en baisant la main d’une, de votre seigneurie, indigne serviteur. Excusez-moi, je vous supplie, mon très-puissant seigneur.

KING HENRY VThen I will kiss your lips, Kate.

KATHERINELes[209] dames et demoiselles pour être baisées devant leur noces, il n’est pas la coutume de France.

KING HENRY VMadam my interpreter, what says she?

ALICEDat it is not be de fashion pour les ladies of France — I cannot tell vat is baiser en Anglish.

KING HENRY VTo kiss.

ALICEYour majesty entendre[215] bettre que moi.

KING HENRY VIt is not a fashion for the maids in France to kiss before they are married, would she say?

ALICEOui,[218] vraiment.

KING HENRY VO, Kate, nice[219] customs curtsy to great kings. Dear Kate, you and I cannot be confined within the weak list[220] of a country’s fashion: we are the makers of manners, Kate; and the liberty that follows[221] our places stops the mouth of all find-faults,[222] as I will do yours, for upholding the nice fashion of your country in denying me a kiss: Kisses her therefore, patiently and yielding. You have witchcraft in your lips, Kate: there is more eloquence in a sugar touch of them than in the tongues of the French council; and they should sooner persuade Harry of England than a general petition of monarchs. Here comes your father.

Enter the French power [King, Queen, Burgundy] and the English Lords

BURGUNDYGod save your majesty! My royal cousin, teach you our princess English?

KING HENRY VI would have her learn, my fair cousin, how perfectly I love her, and that is good English.

BURGUNDYIs she not apt?[230]

KING HENRY VOur tongue is rough, coz, and my condition[231] is not smooth, so that, having neither the voice nor the heart of flattery about me, I cannot so conjure up the spirit of love in her that he will appear in his true likeness.

BURGUNDYPardon the frankness of my mirth, if I answer you for that. If you would conjure[235] in her, you must make a circle: if conjure up love in her in his true likeness, he must appear naked and blind.[236] Can you blame her then, being a maid yet rosed[237] over with the virgin crimson of modesty, if she deny the appearance of a naked blind boy in[238] her naked seeing self? It were, my lord, a hard condition for a maid to consign[239] to.

KING HENRY VYet they do wink and yield,[240] as love is blind and enforces.

BURGUNDYThey are then excused, my lord, when they see not what they do.[241]

KING HENRY VThen, good my lord, teach your cousin to consent winking.[242]

BURGUNDYI will wink on[243] her to consent, my lord, if you will teach her to know my meaning, for maids, well summered[244] and warm kept, are like flies at Bartholomew-tide: blind,[245] though they have their eyes, and then they will endure handling, which before would not abide looking on.

KING HENRY VThis moral[247] ties me over to time and a hot summer; and so I shall catch the fly, your cousin, in the latter end[248] and she must be blind too.

BURGUNDYAs love is, my lord, before it loves.[249]

KING HENRY VIt is so: and you may, some of you, thank love for my blindness, who cannot see many a fair French city for one fair French maid that stands in my way.

FRENCH KINGYes, my lord, you see them perspectively,[253] the cities turned into a maid; for they are all girdled with maiden[254] walls that war hath never entered.

KING HENRY VShall Kate be my wife?

FRENCH KINGSo please you.

KING HENRY VI am content, so[257] the maiden cities you talk of may wait on her. So the maid that stood in the way for my wish shall show me the way to my will.[258]

FRENCH KINGWe have consented to all terms of reason.[259]

KING HENRY VIs’t so, my lords of England?

WESTMORLANDThe king hath granted every article:

His daughter first, and then in sequel[262] all,

According to their firm proposèd natures.

EXETEROnly he hath not yet subscribed[264] this: where your majesty demands, that the King of France, having any occasion to write for matter of grant,[265] shall name your highness in this form and with this addition[266] in French, Notre très cher fils Henri, Roi d’Angleterre, Héritier de France: and thus in Latin, Praeclarissimus[267] filius noster Henricus, Rex Angliae, et Haeres Franciae.

FRENCH KINGNor this I have not, brother, so denied,

270

But your request[270] shall make me let it pass.

KING HENRY VI pray you then, in love and dear alliance,

Let that one article rank with the rest,

And thereupon give me your daughter.

FRENCH KINGTake her, fair son, and from her blood raise up

275

Issue[275] to me, that the contending kingdoms

Of France and England, whose very shores look pale[276]

With envy of each other’s happiness,

May cease their hatred, and this dear[278] conjunction

Plant neighbourhood[279] and Christian-like accord

280

In their sweet bosoms,[280] that never war advance

His bleeding sword ’twixt England and fair France.

LORDSAmen!

KING HENRY VNow, welcome, Kate: and bear me witness all,

That here I kiss her as my sovereign queen. Kisses her

Flourish

285

QUEEN ISABELGod, the best maker of all marriages,

Combine your hearts in one, your realms in one!

As man and wife, being two, are one in love,

So be there ’twixt your kingdoms such a spousal,[288]

That never may ill office,[289] or fell jealousy,

290

Which troubles oft the bed of blessèd marriage,

Thrust in between the paction[291] of these kingdoms,

To make divorce of their incorporate[292] league,

That English may as French, French Englishmen,

Receive each other. God speak this Amen!

295

ALLAmen!

KING HENRY VPrepare we for our marriage, on which day,

My lord of Burgundy, we’ll take your oath,

And all the peers’, for surety[298] of our leagues.

Then shall I swear to Kate, and you to me,

300

And may our oaths well kept and prosp’rous be!

Sennet. Exeunt

[Epilogue]

Enter Chorus

CHORUSThus far, with rough[1] and all-unable pen,

Our bending[2] author hath pursued the story,

In little room confining mighty men,

Mangling by starts[4] the full course of their glory.

5

Small time,[5] but in that small most greatly lived

This star of England. Fortune made his sword;

By which the world’s best garden[7] be achieved,

And of it left his son imperial lord.

Henry the Sixth, in infant bands[9] crowned King

10

Of France and England, did this king succeed,

Whose[11] state so many had the managing,

That they lost France and made his England bleed,

Which oft our stage hath shown; and, for their[13] sake,

In your fair minds let this acceptance take.[14]

[Exit]

Textual Notes

Q = First Quarto text of 1600

F = First Folio text of 1623

F2 = a correction introduced in the Second Folio text of 1632

F4 = a correction introduced in the Fourth Folio text of 1685

Ed = a correction introduced by a later editor

SD = stage direction

SH = speech heading (i.e., speaker’s name)

List of parts = Ed

Prologue SH CHORUS = Ed. Not in F

1.2.40 succedant = F2. F = succedaul 47, 54 Elbe = Ed. F = Elue 200 majesty = Ed. F = Maiesties 215 End = Q. F = And 224 dauphin spelled Dolphin throughout F 246 are = Q. F = is 315 SD Flourish = Ed. F places after Exeunt

2.0.1 SH CHORUS = Ed. Not in F

2.1.16 mare = Q. F = name 22 SH HOSTESS QUICKLY = Ed. F = Host. 25 drawn = Ed. F = hewne 28 Iceland spelled Island in F 60 enough. Go to = Ed. F = enough to go to 62 you, hostess = Ed. F = your Hostesse 89 that’s = F2. F = that

2.2.29 SH GREY = Ed. F = Kni. 88 furnish him = F2. F = furnish 108 a = F2. F = an 109 whoop = Ed. F = hoope 115 All = Ed. F = And 140 mark the = Ed. F = make thee 147 Henry = Q. F = Thomas 158 Which I = F2. F = Which 175 you have = Q. F = you

2.3.12 on a table = Ed. F = and a Table 24 SH HOSTESS QUICKLY = Ed. F = Woman.

2.4.111 pining = Q. F = priuy 137 Louvre spelled Louer in F 151 SD Flourish = Ed. After act break in F

3.0 Act 3 = Ed. F = Actus Secundus 1 SH CHORUS = Ed. Not in F 6 fanning = Ed. F = fayning 17 Harfleur spelled Harflew in F

3.1.7 conjure = Ed. F = commune 17 noblest = F2. F = Noblish 24 men = F4. F = me 32 Straining = Ed. F = Straying

3.2.36 Calais spelled Callice in F 51 SH FLUELLEN = Ed. F = Welch. 62 SH JAMY = Ed. F = Scot. 66 SH MACMORRIS = Ed. F = Irish.

3.3.32 heady = F2. F = headly 35 Defile = Ed. F = Desire

3.4.1 parles = F2. F = parlas. Textual notes for the French-language scenes are selective, since the distinction between modernization and emendation is hard to maintain 6 Et les doigts? assigned to Alice in F 7 SH ALICE = Ed. F = Kat. 9 SH KATHERINE = Ed. F = Alice 11 Nous = Ed. Not in F 16 le = F2. F = de 39 coun = Q. F = Count 40 Ce = F2. F = il

3.5.7 scions spelled Syens in F 11 de = F2. F = du 43 Vaudemont = F2. F = Vandemint 45 Foix = Ed. F = Loys 46 knights = Ed. F = Kings

3.6.5 life = Q. F = liue 24 her = Q. F = his 56 perfect spelled perfit in F 85 lenity = Q. F = Leuitie

3.7.9 pasterns = F2. F = postures 43 lief spelled liue in F 46 truie = Ed. F = leuye

4.0 Act 4 = Ed. F = Actus Tertius 1 SH CHORUS = Ed. Not in F 16 name = Ed. F = nam’d 20 cripple spelled creeple in F

4.1.3 Good spelled God in F 87 Thomas = Ed. F = Iohn 199 adoration = F2. F = Odoration 207 Think’st spelled Thinks in F 229 Hyperion = F2. F = Hiperio 247 ere = Ed. F = of 265 friends = Q. F = friend

4.2.2 Monte à = Ed. F = Monte 6 Cieux = Ed. F = Cein 25 gainst = F2. F = against 49 gimmaled = Ed. F = Iymold 50 chewed spelled chaw’d in F 60 guidon = Ed. F = Guard: on

4.3.12 Farewell…today printed after line 14 in F 13 And…valour assigned to Bedford in F 50 And…day.’ = Q. Not in F 133 vanguard = F (spelled Vaward)

4.4.11 miséricorde = F2. F = miserecordie pitié = F2. F = pitez 32 à cette heure = Ed. F = asture 47 j’ai tombé = Ed. F = Ie intombe 54 Suivez-vous = Ed. F = Saaue vous

4.5.3 Mort de = Q. F = Mor Dieu 16 by a = Q. F = a

Act 4 Scene 7 = Ed. F = Actus Quartus 61 our = Ed. F = with 95 God = Q. F = Good

4.8.99 we = Ed. F = me

5.0.1 SH CHORUS = Ed. Not in F

5.1.52 begun = Ed. F = began 58 hussy = F (huswife) 67 swear = Q. F = swore

5.2.12 England = F2. F = Ireland 21 SH KING HENRY V = Ed. F = Eng. or England in lines 21, 68, 76, 84, 96 45 fumitory spelled Femetary in F 78 cursitory = Ed. F = curselarie 108 vat = Ed. F = wat 123 vell = Ed. F = well 201 sall = Ed. F = shall 212 baiser = Ed. F = buisse 254 hath never = Ed. F = hath 262 then in F2. F = in 291 paction = Ed. F = Pation

Epilogue SH CHORUS = Ed. Not in F

* Pistol is married to Nell Quickly, but says in Act 5 that “my Doll is dead i’th’spital / Of malady of France”: this is one of the numerous cruxes where Shakespeare or the printer may have muddled a name or where there may be purposeful dramatic play. The sense of loss suggests that he is talking about his wife, but death by way of sexually transmitted disease (the French malady) is much likelier for the whore Doll Tearsheet than the hostess Quickly, and has already been prepared for by Pistol’s lines in Act 2 Scene 1 about Doll in “the powdering-tub of infamy.” Either way, the point is to make Pistol into the last survivor of the Eastcheap cronies.

Prologue

1    muse source of inspiration (originally, one of nine classical goddesses inspiring learning and the arts)

2    invention imagination, creativity/rhetorical term for the discovery of topics

4    swelling growing/magnificent

5    warlike skilled in warfare/like war (or Mars) itself    like himself in a manner befitting his status as a kingly warrior

6    port bearing, stance    Mars Roman god of war

8    gentles ladies and gentlemen

9    flat unraisèd dull, lifeless, dormant    spirits i.e., the actors and playwright (plays on the idea of supernatural spirits that may be raised by incantation)

10    scaffold stage

11    cockpit circular arena (literally, ring used for cockfighting—much smaller than a theater)

12    vasty vast

13    wooden O i.e., the circular, timber-built theater (wooden plays on the sense of “dull, lifeless”)    casques helmets

14    affright frighten    Agincourt English forces defeated the French at the battle of Agincourt (northern France) on October 25, 1415

15    crooked…million i.e., a zero added to 100,000 increases the number to 1,000,000    crooked rounded; perhaps with connotations of “deceptive, crafty”    figure may play on the sense of “person, actor”

17    ciphers zeros/nonentities/symbols, visual representations    accompt account, total/story

18    imaginary imaginative

19    Suppose imagine    girdle circumference

20    monarchies i.e., England and France

21    uprearèd raised up, erected, reared up    abutting neighboring, adjoining (perhaps with a suggestion of fighting animals butting one another)    fronts cliffs of Dover and Calais/frontiers/foreheads

22    narrow ocean i.e., the English Channel

23    Piece out supplement

25    puissance power

28    deck adorn, equip

31    for…supply for the purposes of which

Act 1 Scene 1

1.1   Location: the royal court, London

1    self same    urged put forward

2    last king’s i.e., Henry IV’s

3    like likely (to have been passed)

4    scambling quarrelsome, scuffling

5    question consideration

9    temporal secular, not belonging to the Church

10    by testament in their wills

12    maintain stand the cost of

14    esquires one ranking just below a knight

15    lazars lepers

16    indigent needy, poor    corporal toil physical work

18    coffers money chests, i.e., treasury    beside in addition

19    bill (proposed) parliamentary act/total owed

20    drink deep i.e., swallow much of their wealth

23    grace honor/virtue/divine grace/goodwill    fair regard consideration, respect/is well respected

25    courses actions, behavior

27    mortified killed/subdued by self-denial

29    Consideration meditation, self-reflection

30    th’offending Adam i.e., original sin, the result of the biblical Adam and Eve’s disobedience of God

31    paradise i.e., place of innocence, like Eden before Adam and Eve sinned

32    spirits traits of character (perhaps plays on the sense of “supernatural celestial beings”)

35    heady currance strong current    scouring cleaning away

36    Hydra-headed in Greek mythology, the Hydra was a monster who grew two new heads for every one that was cut off

37    seat throne/position

44    all in all entirely, exclusively

45    List listen to

46    rendered…music i.e., described eloquently

47    cause of policy political issue, explanation of statecraft

48    Gordian knot proverbially too intricate to undo (a prophecy decreed that whoever could untie the knot would rule Asia; Alexander the Great cut it with his sword)

49    Familiar…garter as easily as his garter (band tied around leg to keep up hosiery)

50    chartered privileged, licensed    libertine free spirit

53    practic practical

54    Must…theoric must have taught him how to theorize

55    glean have learned

56    courses vain idle, worthless behavior

57    companies companions    unlettered illiterate, ignorant    rude rough, coarse, uncivilized

58    riots debauched, disorderly behavior, revelry

59    noted was seen

60    sequestration retreat into privacy

61    open public    popularity associating with the public, low company

65    obscured disguised, hid    contemplation meditation, thought

68    crescive…faculty growing, in accordance with its natural function

70    needs necessarily    means natural cause

73    mitigation reducing (the severity of)

74    commons the House of Commons, parliament

75    Incline to favor

77    upon toward

78    th’exhibitors against us i.e., those who are putting forward the bill

80    Upon on behalf of    convocation assembly, gathering

81    causes matters, legal issues

82    opened disclosed, explained    at large in full

83    touching concerning

84    Than…withal than the clergy ever gave to any previous monarch withal with

89    fain gladly

90    severals particulars    unhidden passages clear, undisputed lines of inheritance

93    Edward i.e., Edward III

99    embassy message

Act 1 Scene 2

1    gracious holy, filled with divine grace

2    presence the royal presence

5    cousin term of address used by members of the nobility    resolved satisfied, decided about

7    task occupy

9    become grace, honor

12    justly precisely/in a legal sense    unfold reveal, explain

13    law Salic a law preventing inheritance through the female line

14    Or either    bar prevent, obstruct

16    fashion…bow shape, twist, or bend    reading interpretation

17    nicely charge burden through ingenious subtlety

18    opening titles miscreate expounding false claims

19    Suits…colours i.e., does not match

21    drop their blood i.e., be injured or die    approbation putting to the test

23    how…person i.e., what you commit me to

25    charge command

28    complaint lament

29    wrongs grievances/wrongdoings

31    conjuration solemn appeal

32    note pay attention

39    Pharamond legendary French king

42    gloss define

47    floods rivers    Sala and of Elbe rivers in Germany (Sala is now Saale)

48    Charles the Great Charlemagne, Holy Roman Emperor and eighth-century French king

51    dishonest manners unchaste behavior

52    to wit that is to say

53    inheritrix heiress

54    ’twixt between

60    defunction death

61    Idly foolishly

62    within…redemption i.e., AD

64    seat settle, establish

66    Besides in addition

68    heir general legitimate heir (claiming through male or female lines)

73    Charles the Great Charlemagne

74    find supply, refine

76    Conveyed himself pretended to be

77    Charlemagne Charles II, rather than the Charlemagne mentioned earlier

79    King…Tenth an error for Louis IX, thirteenth-century King of France; the slip appears in Holinshed’s Chronicles, Shakespeare’s source here

81    quiet peace of mind

84    lineal a direct descendant

90    satisfaction i.e., of his lineage

91    hold in rely on, derive from

93    Howbeit however    would wish to

95    net i.e., tangle of contradictory legalities/network of lineal justifications (rather than a direct line)/possibly refers to the proverbial “you dance in a net and think nobody sees you”—i.e., try to conceal what is obvious

96    amply openly    imbar bar claim to/make bare, reveal    crooked false/indirect

97    progenitors ancestors

99    The…head i.e., if the claim is false, the moral blame will lie with Canterbury    dread revered

100    book…daughter a reference to Numbers 27:8

103    Stand for defend/uphold

105    great-grandsire i.e., Edward III

106    From…claim i.e., as whose ancestor you make this claim; Edward was descended through his mother from the French king Philip IV

107    Edward…France the English defeated France at the battle of Crécy, 1346; Edward III had given command of his armies to his eldest son, the Black Prince

111    lion’s whelp cub

112    Forage plunder/eat greedily

113    entertain engage, meet with

116    for through lack of

117    valiant dead i.e., Henry’s ancestors

118    puissant powerful

120    renownèd made famous

126    former…blood i.e., kingly ancestors; the lion is the symbol of kingship, and appears on the royal coat of arms

130    Whose…England i.e., who are already imagining themselves in France

131    pavilioned in military tents

133    right i.e., rightful claim to the French throne

134    spiritualty clergy

139    lay…proportions allocate troops

140    make road invade

141    advantages opportunities

142    marches northern border regions

144    borderers i.e., the Scottish

145    coursing snatchers swift-riding raiders (from hare-coursing with greyhounds; the “snatch” was the act of capture)

146    intendment intention

147    giddy wild, unstable

150    unfurnished unprotected

151    breach hole, gap (in this instance in a sea wall)

152    brim i.e., total

153    Galling vexing, wounding    gleanèd stripped (of defenders)    hot fast/hot-tempered    assays attacks

154    Girding surrounding

156    th’ill neighbourhood poor neighborliness, hostility

157    She i.e., England

158    hear…herself i.e., listen to instructive examples from the past

159    chivalry knights, protectors

162    stray stray dog

163    King…France David II of Scotland was captured and imprisoned by English forces in 1346; Edward III was in France at the time but David was not, in fact, sent there

164    fame reputation

165    their i.e., Edward and England’s    chronicle historical account

166    ooze mud

168    ELY spoken by Ely in Folio, but many editors reassign to WESTMORLAND, who speaks the corresponding lines in Shakespeare’s chronicle sources (would the Bishop contradict his superior, the archbishop?)

171    in prey out hunting

175    ’tame attame, i.e., break into    havoc destroy

177    crushed forced, distorted

179    pretty clever

181    Th’advisèd the sensible, prudent

182    high…parts divided into melodies of differing pitches    high…lower i.e., of three different social groups

183    consent harmony

184    Congreeing coming together, agreeing    close cadence

187    divers various, different

189    aim target    butt archery target

193    king Aristotle’s belief that the queen bee was male remained influential

194    correct enforce order

196    stings bee stings/staffs used as weapons

197    Make boot upon plunder

198    pillage spoils, booty

200    majesty royal responsibilities

201    masons stonemasons, builders

202    civil civilized, orderly

203    mechanic engaged in manual labor

205    sad-eyed justice solemn judge    surly stern    hum “hmm”—noise signifying displeasure or deliberation/noise made by a bee

206    executors executioners

207    drone male bee whose sole function was to impregnate the queen; they died after mating or were cast out of the hive to die

208    having…consent working together for an agreed cause

209    contrariously in opposed ways

211    mark target ways roads

213    close converge, meet    dial’s sundial’s

215    borne carried out

217    happy fortunate

219    withal with it    Gallia Gaul, i.e., France

222    worried anxious, concerned/shaken in the jaws of a dog

223    policy statesmanship, strategy

224    dauphin title of the heir to the French throne

225    well resolved free from doubt/determined

227    bend…awe make it revere us

228    Or either

229    large great/generous/unrestrained    empery sovereignty

233    with full mouth loudly, with mouth wide open

235    Turkish mute a Turkish slave, perhaps a castrated harem guard, who has had his tongue cut out to ensure secrecy

236    waxen i.e., quickly worn away and forgotten

237    pleasure wish, intention

241    render deliver    in charge been ordered (to say)

242    sparingly with restraint and delicacy    far off indirectly, more generally

245    unto…subject i.e., his temper is ruled by his Christian goodness

246    fettered chained

249    in few in brief

250    sending into i.e., sending an ambassador with his claims

254    savour smell, have a flavor

255    advised warned/informed

256    galliard lively dance

258    meeter more suitable

259    tun box, chest

264    pleasant merry, jocular

266    rackets tennis rackets/noisy assaults of war

268    crown royal crown/coin staked on a game of tennis, which gave its name to the final point scored in the game    hazard danger/opening in the wall of a tennis court; a ball that entered it became unplayable so no point could be scored

269    wrangler quarrelsome opponent

270    courts tennis courts/royal court

271    chaces double bounces of the ball in tennis before it is returned, hence no points/hunts, pursuits

272    comes o’er us assumes superiority, taunts us

273    measuring judging

274    seat throne

275    hence i.e., away from the court

276    licence wild freedoms

278    state throne/dignity, kingship

279    sail of greatness fully unfurled power

280    rouse me raise or rear up

281    For that with that ultimate glory in mind

282    like…days i.e., like a common man

286    mock act of mockery

287    balls tennis balls (may also play on the sense of “testicles”)    gun-stones cannon balls

288    chargèd burdened (plays on the sense of “loaded with ammunition”)    wasteful damaging

292    ungotten not yet conceived

297    venge me revenge myself

298    well-hallowed holy, much blessed

305    omit…hour do not neglect any favorable opportunity

306    furth’rance help

308    to for

309    proportions military resources

312    God before with God on our side

313    chide rebuke, punish

314    task employ

315    fair honorable/favored/lawful    on…brought get underway    Flourish trumpet fanfare accompanying a person in authority

Act 2

1    on fire i.e., burning to fight

2    silken dalliance fine clothes/idle pastimes

6    mirror i.e., model, example

7    wingèd…Mercuries i.e., swiftly, like Mercury, messenger of the Roman god Jove; he wore winged sandals

9    hilts crosspiece by the handle

10    coronets small crowns, worn by some members of the nobility

12    intelligence information obtained by spying

13    preparation equipped military force

14    pale fearful, cowardly, ineffective    policy stratagems, intrigue

16    model to replica of

18    What i.e., what great things    would i.e., would have

19    thy children i.e., Englishmen    kind honorable/full of natural family affection

21    hollow empty/false    bosoms hearts/clothing covering the breast, in which a purse could be concealed

22    crowns gold coins

26    gilt gold

27    fearful frightened

28    this…kings i.e., Henry V

30    Ere before    Southampton port on the south coast of England

31    digest breakdown/set in order

32    Th’abuse of distance i.e., the violation of the theatrical unity of place as the action moves to Southampton    force cram full

38    charming casting a spell over

39    pass passage

40    offend one stomach offend good taste/make anyone seasick

41    till…then i.e., this accounts for the fact that the following scene takes place in London

Act 2 Scene 1

2.1   Location: in London, but unspecified, probably a street   Nym means “thief” or “to thieve”

2    morrow morning

3    Ancient ensign, i.e., soldier responsible for carrying military banners    Pistol pronounced “pizzle,” generating a pun on the sense of “penis”

4    part possible sexual quibble on the sense of “penis”    time…serve i.e., opportunity arises

5    wink close both eyes

6    iron sword (perhaps with phallic connotations)    what though what of it

7    there’s an end i.e., that’s that (end may play on the sense of “penis”)

8    bestow give    sworn brothers avowedly loyal brothers-in-arms

10    certain certainty, fact

11    rest last resolve (term from card-playing referring to the final, reserved stake)    rendezvous last resort, refuge

13    troth-plight engaged, betrothed (a much more binding contract than it is now)

14    cannot tell do not know

16    though…plod plod on, wait her turn; Nym may hint at eventual revenge on Pistol

19    host innkeeper (Pistol picks up on the sense of “pimp”)

20    tike dog, mongrel

21    keep lodgers rent out rooms/run a brothel

22    troth faith

23    love…needles make a respectable living from taking in sewing (but prick plays on the senses of “penis/sexual penetration” and needles on “vaginas”)

24    bawdy house brothel    straight straight away    well-a-day exclamation of dismay    draw i.e., draw their swords    lady i.e., by Our Lady (the Virgin Mary)

25    drawn refers to his sword being out/his penis being erect

26    offer start, attempt

27    Pish! exclamation of contempt, disgust

28    Iceland dog species of lap dog with an abundance of long, rough hair (being a lap dog may generate sexual connotations: one that burrows into ladies’ laps)    prick-eared pointy-eared/with an eagerly erect penis/having cuckold’s horns (men with unfaithful wives were popularly supposed to grow horns)    cur dog

29    valour honor/courage    put up sheathe, put away

30    shog off go away    solus alone

31    egregious outrageous

34    maw throat/stomach    perdy i.e., par dieu, French for “by God”

36    retort return    bowels intestines, guts

37    take catch fire/have sex    cock is up pistol is cocked, ready to fire/penis is erect

38    fire the retort of the gun/the burning effects of venereal disease

39    Barbason name of a demon    conjure summon/control    humour inclination, mood (governed by one of the four “humors,” or bodily fluids believed to influence health and disposition)

40    indifferently fairly    foul insulting, foul-mouthed/dirty from firing/syphilitic (“the foul disease”)    scour clean (a gun) with a scouring-rod/stab/have sex

41    rapier light sword used for fencing    fair terms plain language/justly, legitimately/terms that are not foul, like Pistol’s    prick stab (with sexual connotations)

43    braggart boaster    wight person

45    exhale i.e., draw your sword

46    run…hilts i.e., plunge my sword all the way into him

48    mickle much

49    fist hand    fore-foot hand, paw

50    tall bold, valiant

52    ‘Couple a gorge!’ i.e., Couper la gorge!—French for “Cut the throat!”

54    hound of Crete hairy dog

55    spital hospital

56    powd’ring tub sweating tub for the treatment of venereal disease    infamy bad reputation

57    lazar leprous    kite bird of prey/prostitute    Cressid’s in classical legend, Cressida was the unfaithful lover of Troilus; in Robert Henryson’s Testament of Cressid she gets leprosy

58    Doll Tearsheet Doll was a common name for a prostitute; Tearsheet is similarly suggestive, evoking vigorous sexual activity sufficient to tear the bedsheets    espouse marry

59    have…hold familiar phrase from the marriage service    quondam former (her name has changed through marriage)

60    only she i.e., unequaled female    pauca “few” (Latin), i.e., few words

62    my master i.e., Falstaff, companion of Henry’s wild youth (see 1 and 2 Henry IV)

63    put…warming-pan i.e., because his face is fiery red from drinking warming-pan flat, closed dish used to hold hot coals for warming pan

66    yield…pudding i.e., die (proverbial, referring to providing the crow with dead flesh to eat)

67    king…heart on coming to the throne, Henry rejected Falstaff and his former wild companions (see 2 Henry IV, Act 5 Scene 5)    presently immediately/soon

72    Base poor, low (in spirit/in money)

74    manhood shall compound i.e., valor will decide (in a fight)

77    Sword…oath plays on “ ’s word”—i.e., “by God’s word,” a common oath

78    an if

79    put up sheathe (your sword)

80    noble gold coin worth six shillings and eightpence

83    Nym may play on the meaning of the name: “thieving”

84    just honorable/true    sutler seller of provisions

85    camp military camp

88    justly exactly/fairly

90    come of were born of (may play on “come off”—i.e., dismount after sex)

91    quotidian tertian types of fever, a quotidian afflicting the patient daily, a tertian every third day; illness that combined fevers was deemed almost certainly fatal

93    run bad humours i.e., vented his bad temper/caused Falstaff’s misery and illness    even of it i.e., the truth of the matter

95    fracted broken    corroborate strengthened; Pistol presumably errs, meaning the opposite

96    passes lets pass, indulges in    humours inclinations, whims

97    careers short gallops at full speed—i.e., sudden impulses

98    condole comfort, sympathize with    live i.e., outlive Falstaff

Act 2 Scene 2

2.2   Location: Southampton (a port on the south coast of England)

1    bold daring/overconfident

2    apprehended arrested

3    smooth in a pleasant, plausible manner    even steadily    bear present, conduct

6    hath note is informed aware

7    interception i.e., intercepting their messages

8    bedfellow i.e., close companion

9    dulled dulled the appetite of cloyed overfilled and sickened

10    a foreign purse i.e., French money

14    gentle noble

15    powers troops

17    execution action/killing

18    in head as an army

22    grows…consent is not in total agreement, sympathy

24    attend on wait upon

25    feared revered, viewed with awe

27    heart-grief discontent, unhappiness

30    steeped…honey soaked their bitterness in honey

31    create created

33    And…merit i.e., I am more likely to forget how to use my own hand than to forget to repay what is due to people    office use, proper function quittance repayment

35    weight and worthiness due proportion and worth (of the deserving deeds)

36    steelèd hardened, steely

39    judge think

40    Enlarge release    committed imprisoned

41    railed ranted, spoke abusively

43    more advice thinking better of it (in sobriety)

44    security complacency, overconfidence

46    his sufferance i.e., your pardoning him

51    correction punishment

53    orisons pleas, prayers

54    on distemper from mental ill-health (in this case, drunkenness)

55    winked at i.e., ignored    how…eye how wide must we open our eyes

56    capital punishable by death    chewed…digested i.e., carefully planned and organized

58    dear worthy, tender (puns on the sense of “dire, grievous”)

61    late commissioners officials recently appointed to act for the king in his absence

72    lose…complexion grow so pale

74    paper i.e., white/easily read

76    Out of appearance away from sight/out of your faces

80    quick alive/prompt

83    reasons i.e., the arguments you made about showing no mercy

84    worrying biting at

87    accord agree

88    furnish provide    appertinents…honour things appropriate for his dignified position

90    light of little value/immoral    lightly readily, easily

91    practices plots

93    This knight i.e., Grey    bounty (kingly) generosity

97    counsels secrets

99    coined…gold i.e., used me to make as much gold as you liked

100    practised on worked on, deceived    use profit

103    annoy harm

104    off as gross out as plainly

107    yoke-devils devils yoked together in evil

108    grossly blatantly    natural i.e., natural to evil creatures

109    whoop exclaim

110    proportion natural order

111    wait on serve

113    wrought worked    preposterously unnaturally

114    voice vote

115    suggest tempt    treasons suggesting treasonous acts

116    botch…up clumsily patch

117    patches pieces of material/fools/rogues    colours outward appearances/excuses, pretexts/military flags denoting allegiance    forms outward behavior

118    glist’ring shining, glittering

119    tempered shaped/made resolved (as a sword is hardened)    stand up make a stand, rebel

120    instance motive, evidence

121    dub invest, knight

122    gulled tricked

123    lion gait alludes to 1 Peter 5:8: “Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour”

124    vasty Tartar vast hell (Tartarus is hell in classical mythology)

125    legions multitudes of devils

126    easy easily

127    jealousy suspicion

128    affiance trust    Show appear

132    spare frugal, abstemious

133    gross passion powerful feeling, coarse emotion

134    Constant in spirit steadfast in disposition    blood passions

135    complement qualities, accomplishments/outward appearance

136    working…ear i.e., without observing and listening together

137    purged purified, refined

138    bolted sifted

140    full-fraught fully laden (with virtues)    indued endowed

143    another…man i.e., the disobedience of the biblical Adam and Eve    open obvious/revealed

144    to…of i.e., so that they will be answerable to the law

145    practices sinful plots, treacheries

146    by…of you who go by the name of

150    discovered revealed

156    what I intended Cambridge’s main intention was to make Edmund Mortimer king

158    sufferance patience/suffering

165    quit acquit, pardon

167    enemy proclaimed i.e., France, an officially designated enemy of the state

168    earnest advance payment

172    desolation ruin, destruction

173    Touching our person with regard to myself

174    tender hold dear, value

180    dear dire/costly

182    to…glorious as glorious to you as to me

183    fair favored/honorable/just    lucky successful, fortunate

187    rub obstacle (bowling term)

189    puissance power

190    straight in expedition straight away to speedy action

191    Cheerly heartily, cheerfully    advance move forward/raise banners

Act 2 Scene 3

2.3   Location: in London, but unspecified, probably a street

1    bring accompany    Staines town seventeen miles west of London, on the way to Southampton

2    yearn grieve

3    blithe merry    rouse…veins raise your lively spirits/drum up some courage    vaunting boasting

4    bristle arouse, cause to stand on end

5    earn make money/grieve

7    Arthur’s bosom malapropism for “Abraham’s bosom,” i.e., heaven

8    A he    a finer end as fine a death as there could be    an as if

9    christom innocent, newly christened—literally, a child that died within a month of birth    e’en just

10    flowers used to keep the sickroom sweet-smelling

11    upon…end at his own fingers

12    pen quill pen (i.e., white, cold, and pointed)    table…fields perhaps alluding to the fields on a green gaming (backgammon) table; also biblical in tone (“he maketh me to lie down in green pastures,” Psalm 23:2); many editors emend to “and a babbled/talked of green fields”

15    clothes bedclothes, blankets

17    all…stone plays on senses of “penis” (“awl”) and “testicle”

19    of against    sack Spanish white wine

23    incarnate in human form

24    carnation shade of red

25    about concerning, because of

26    handle discuss/touch, feel

27    rheumatic feverish/malapropism for “lunatic” (plays on “Rome-atic,” thus anticipating the whore of Babylon)    whore of Babylon a popular image for the Roman Catholic Church

28    stick upon cling to/pierce, bite

29    burning i.e., as Bardolph’s nose is fiery red from drink

30    the fuel i.e., alcohol, supplied by Falstaff

32    shog be gone

34    chattels…movables movable possessions

35    Let senses rule i.e., be sensible, keep your wits about you    world…pay’ i.e., in this world it’s “cash down, no credit” (proverbial)

37    oaths promises (to pay)    straws i.e., worthless    wafer-cakes thin, lightweight cakes

38    hold-fast…dog “Brag is a good dog, but Holdfast is a better” (proverbial); a brag is a large nail, a hold-fast a clamp or bolt and a dog a vice or clamp

39    Caveto “beware” (Latin)

40    clear thy crystals wipe your eyes    Yoke-fellows comrades

41    horse-leeches large leeches

47    housewifery careful housekeeping    close indoors/reticent/chaste

Act 2 Scene 4

2.4   Location: the French royal court, at Rouen, northern France   French King i.e., Charles VI    Constable title of the commander-in-chief of the French army

2    more…defences i.e., it is vitally important that we put up strong defenses

6    dispatch haste

7    line reinforce

8    defendant defensive

9    approaches attacks

10    gulf whirlpool

11    fits us is appropriate    provident forward-thinking

12    late examples i.e., former French defeats, such as Crécy (1346) and Poitiers (1356)

13    neglected underestimated by the French

15    redoubted revered

16    meet right, fit

18    Though even if

19    musters lists or recruitment of soldiers

26    Whitsun morris-dance folk dance, traditionally held at Whitsun (the seventh Sunday after Easter)

27    idly frivolously, uselessly    kinged ruled (by Henry)

28    sceptre staff carried as a symbol of sovereignty/baton carried by the fool of a morris troupe, or possibly scepter carried by the mock figure of a king that the troupe used    fantastically fancifully, bizarrely

29    humorous capricious, whimsical

30    attends accompanies, waits on

33    late recent

34    state dignity/ceremony/demeanor

36    modest moderate, mild    exception i.e., taking exception, objecting    withal in addition

37    terrible frightening, inspiring dread

38    forespent previous used up

39    Roman…folly Lucius Junius Brutus feigned stupidity to dupe and expel Tarquinius Superbus, King of Rome

41    ordure manure

44    though even if

45    weigh judge, estimate

47    So…filled so that the defenses will be on an adequate scale

48    of…projection if planned in too miserly a fashion

49    scanting witholding

51    Think we let us think

52    look you be prepared, make sure you

53    fleshed hunting term referring to feeding hounds raw meat to excite them for the chase

54    bloody strain bloodthirsty breed

55    haunted pursued    familiar habitual/familial

57    struck fought/stricken

60    mountain i.e., ascendant/immovable, sturdy; may also refer to Edward’s birth in mountainous Wales    sire father

62    seed offspring

63    Mangle wound, hack at

64    patterns exemplary models

65    This i.e., Henry

67    native inborn    fate destiny

70    present immediate

71    chase…followed hunt is urgently pursued

72    Turn head turn and face your pursuers (hunting term)

73    spend their mouths bark, cry

75    Take…short take quick and decisive action toward the English

78    self-neglecting a lack of self-respect

81    wills urges, demands

82    divest undress    apart aside

83    borrowed glories i.e., the glories of kingship that are not rightfully his

84    longs appertains

86    wide-stretchèd far-reaching

87    ordinance of times law established through long tradition

89    sinister irregular, unjust, deceitful    awkward oblique

90    worm-holes decay, incomplete remains

92    line family tree

95    evenly derived directly descended

98    indirectly dishonestly, wrongfully

99    native natural/rightful by birth

101    Bloody constraint violent force, military compulsion

104    Jove ruler of the Roman gods, whose weapon was a thunderbolt

105    requiring demanding

106    bowels inmost mercy

109    on…Turning places responsibility with you for

122    slight disdainful

123    misbecome be unbecoming to

124    prize you at consider you worth

125    an if if

126    At large in full

129    womby womblike, hollow    vaultages vaults, caverns

131    second accent echo    ordinance artillery (ordnance)/decree

132    fair return an agreeable reply

134    odds conflict

137    Louvre palace in Paris/puns on “lover”

138    mistress-court principal court/mistress, lover

141    greener days i.e., his wild youth

142    masters possesses/rules    weighs…grain i.e., makes careful use of his time

143    read see, learn

148    footed present, disembarked

150    breath breathing space, break

Act 3

1    with imagined wing i.e., the wings of imagination

2    celerity speed

4    well-appointed well-equipped    Dover port on the south coast of England: Shakespeare seems to have forgotten that he had previously specified Southampton

5    his royalty his royal person, himself    brave bold/impressive, splendid

6    streamers banners, pennants    the…fanning fanning the hot face of the sun (Phoebus, Roman god of the sun)

7    Play with indulge, exercise    fancies imaginations

8    hempen tackle rigging made from hemp

9    whistle i.e., that of the ship’s chief officer    order command/harmony

10    threaden made of linen thread

12    Draw move, drag (perhaps with play on the sense of “create, represent”)    bottoms i.e., ships (literally hulls or keels)

13    lofty surge high, swelling waves

14    rivage shore

15    inconstant billows shifting waves

17    Harfleur French port at the mouth of the River Seine

18    Grapple fasten (nautical term; grappling hooks were used to attach one ship to another)    sternage the sterns of ships

21    pith strength

22    whose…hair i.e., who has only just reached the early manhood (when stubble appears)

24    culled chosen    choice-drawn specially selected    cavaliers military gentlemen

25    Work be industrious/create, fashion

26    ordnance cannons    carriages wheeled frames that cannons are mounted on

27    girded besieged, surrounded

28    Suppose imagine

32    likes not displeases

33    linstock stick for holding the gunner’s lighted match    Alarum a call to arms by trumpets or drums    chambers small cannons

35    eke out supplement

Act 3 Scene 1

3.1   Location: Harfleur, northern France   scaling-ladders used by soldiers to climb defensive fortifications

1    breach gap in defensive fortifications

7    the blood i.e., heat, courage and ferocity

8    hard-favoured ugly

9    lend give    terrible terrifying    aspect appearance, gaze

10    portage porthole

11    o’erwhelm overhang, project over

12    fearfully frighteningly    gallèd battered

13    jutty jut out over    confounded ruined

14    Swilled washed    wasteful destructive

15    set the teeth i.e., bare/grit your teeth

16    bend up strain (from archery: to bring tension to the string of a bow)

18    fet derived    of war-proof tested and proved in war

19    Alexanders i.e., Alexander the Great who lamented that he had no more worlds to conquer

21    sheathed…argument only stopped fighting because there was no opposition left

22    Dishonour…mothers i.e., by suggesting that they were unfaithful to your fathers

23    beget conceive

24    copy an example    grosser lesser, coarser

25    yeoman man of property who is not a gentleman

27    mettle quality    your pasture the land you were raised on, i.e., your breeding

29    so…base of such low social status

31    slips leashes designed for quick release

32    upon the start in anticipation of release

33    charge order/report of the cannon

34    Harry i.e., Henry    Saint George patron saint of England    chambers pieces of artillery, such as cannon

Act 3 Scene 2

2    knocks hard blows

3    case box/set, pair (of pistols)    plainsong i.e., truth (literally, simple melody)

5    humours dampness, mist/emotions/bodily fluids, especially blood

6    vassals servants

10    fame reputation, honor

13    prevail succeed

14    My…me i.e., I would get what I want

15    hie hurry

17    truly honorably/in tune    Fluellen anglicized spelling of Llewellyn

19    Avaunt begone    cullions rascals/testicles

20    duke captain, leader    mould clay (perhaps with play on the sense of “decay, rottenness”)

23    bawcock fine fellow (from French beau coq)    lenity mildness    chuck chick

24    Your…humours perhaps “you are making everyone unhappy, distempered”; many editors emend “wins” to “runs”

25    swashers swashbucklers, boasters    boy servant/youth

26    man manservant/manly

27    antics buffoons    white-livered i.e., cowardly (the liver was thought to be the seat of the passions)

28    a faces he brazens, blusters

29    breaks words exchanges words/breaks promises/mangles vocabulary (puns on “break swords,” which Pistol fails to do)

30    whole i.e., unused

34    purchase plunder, booty

35    twelve leagues approximately thirty-six miles (a league was about three miles)

36    sworn brothers brothers-in-arms    filching stealing    Calais port on the northern coast of France, occupied by the English 1347–1558    fire-shovel shovel for placing coals on the fire

37    piece of service military exploit    carry coals show cowardice/submit to insults/do degrading work    familiar…pockets i.e., by picking them

39    manhood manliness

40    pocketing…wrongs pocketing stolen goods/accepting insults

41    goes…stomach makes me sick/goes against my valor    cast it up give it up/vomit it up

42    presently at once    mines tunnels dug under besieged places and packed with explosives

45    not i.e., not constructed    disciplines proper procedures    concavities hollowness, depth

46    th’athversary the adversary; Shakespeare attempts to render his Welsh accent phonetically    discuss explain, declare

47    is digt has digged    countermines passages dug by the besieged defenders as a means of trying to intercept enemies    Chesu Jesus (suggesting Welsh pronunciation)

48    plow up blowup    directions instructions, plans

49    order control, organization

53    in any in    in his beard i.e., to his face

55    Roman disciplines i.e., traditional military tactics, not so heavily reliant on gunpowder

57    falorous i.e., valorous

58    expedition quickness of argument; possibly an error for “experience” and “erudition”

62    gud i.e., good; Jamy’s Scottish accent is also rendered phonetically

63    God-den good day/evening

64    pioneers soldiers employed to dig trenches and tunnels

65    given o’er finished

66    la exclamation used as a substitute for an oath    tish ’tis, i.e., it is (MacMorris’s Irish pronunciation)

68    give over abandoned, given up

70    voutsafe vouchsafe, i.e., permit

71    disputations conversations

76    sall shall    feith faith    bath both    quit requite, answer    good leve your good leave, i.e., permission

77    pick occasion find the opportunity    marry by the Virgin Mary

80    beseeched besieged    be by

81    sa’ save

84    mess mass (a common oath)    ere before

85    lig lie

86    suerly surely    breff…long i.e., the long and the short of it breff brief    wad would    full fain very gladly

87    heard have heard    question discussion, debate    tway two (Scottish dialect)

88    under your correction i.e., with your permission

90    Ish…rascal either MacMorris declares that anyone who criticizes the Irish is a villain, etc., or he anticipates the habitual terms of abuse leveled at the Irish

93    peradventure perhaps    use treat

94    discretion good judgment

99    will are going to/are determined to

100    parley trumpet call indicating a ceasefire whilst negotiation is to take place between the opposing sides

102    required asked for, i.e., available

Act 3 Scene 3

3.3   Location: still outside Harfleur   gates town gates

1    resolves answers, determines

2    latest last    parle ceasefire and negotiation    admit allow, grant

4    destruction their own ruin

6    becomes fits, suits

7    batt’ry bombardment

8    half-achieved half-conquered

11    fleshed used to war/eager for bloodshed

12    liberty…range shall be allowed total freedom to kill

14    flow’ring flourishing

15    impious sinful, wicked

16    prince of fiends i.e., the devil

17    smirched discolored, filthy    fell cruel, fierce

18    Enlinked joined, linked

21    hot lustful/eager/aggressive    violation violence/rape

22    rein puns on “reign”    hold contain, restrain

23    career rapid gallop

24    bootless uselessly    spend waste    vain useless

25    spoil act of pillaging/booty

26    precepts legal summons/moral instructions    leviathan biblical sea creature of enormous size

28    of on

30    temperate moderate, restrained

31    O’erblows blows away    contagious noxious, infectious (clouds were thought to harbor disease)

32    heady impulsive, violent    spoil pillaging

33    look expect

35    locks hair/guarded chastity

38    spitted impaled    pikes weapons with long wooden handles and pointed metal heads

39    confused disordered/mingled together

40    Jewry Judaea (region in southern Palestine, now Israel)/the Jewish people

41    Herod’s bloody-hunting slaughtermen in an attempt to destroy the infant Jesus, King Herod ordered the slaughter of all boys under the age of two in Bethlehem and surrounding areas (Matthew 2:16–18)

43    guilty in defence i.e., guilty of bringing about this slaughter through persisting in trying to defend the town

44    expectation hopefulness

45    succours help/reinforcements

46    Returns replies to    powers troops

47    raise put an end to

48    soft compassionate

49    dispose control, govern/make arrangements for

58    addressed prepared, directed

Act 3 Scene 4

3.4   Location: not specified, but presumably the French royal court, at Rouen, northern France

1    Alice…langage “Alice, you have been in England, and you speak the language well”

2    Un peu, madame “a little, my lady”

3    Je…anglais? “I pray you, teach me: I must learn to speak [it]. What do you call the hand in English?”

5    La…hand “The hand? It is called ‘de hand’ ”   de mispronunciation of English “the”

6    De…doigts? “ ‘De hand.’ And the fingers?”

7    Les …fingres “The fingers? By my faith, I forget the fingers; but I will remember. The fingers? I think that they are called ‘de fingres.’ Yes, ‘de fingres’ ”

9    La…ongles? “The hand, ‘de hand’; the fingers, ‘de fingres.’ I think that I am a good pupil. I have learned two English words quickly. What do you call the nails?”

11    Les…nails “The nails? We call them ‘de nails’ ”

12    Écoutez…bien “Listen, tell me, if I speak well”

13    C’est…anglais “That’s well said, my lady. It is very good English”

14    Dites-moi…bras “Tell me the English for the arm”

15    De arm, madame “ ‘De arm,’ my lady”

16    Et le coude? “And the elbow?”

18    Je…prissent “I shall repeat all of the words that you have taught me so far”

20    Il…pense “It is too difficult, my lady, I think”

21    Excusez-moi, Alice, écoutez “Pardon me, Alice, listen”

22    bilbow type of sword/manacle for the ankles

24    O…col? “O Lord God, I am forgetting! ’D’elbow.’ What do you call the neck?”

26    nick puns on English slang sense of “vagina”    Et le menton? “And the chin?”

28    sin given the slang sense of “nick,” “sin” takes on a sense of “sexual transgression”

29    Oui…d’Angleterre “Yes. Saving your honor, in truth, you pronounce the words as correctly as the natives of England”

31    Je…temps “I do not doubt that I shall learn [English], by the grace of God, and in a short space of time”

32    N’avez…enseignés? “Have you not already forgotten what I have taught you?”

33    Non…promptement “No, I will recite it to you promptly” mails possible pun on “males”

36    Sauf… d’elbow “Saving your honor, ’d’elbow’ ”

37    Ainsi…robe? “So I said, ’d’elbow, de nick’ and ‘de sin.’ What do you call the foot and the gown?”

39    foot puns on French foutre, i.e., “fuck” coun “gown,” puns on French con, i.e., “cunt”

40    O…ensemble “O Lord God! These are words with a wicked sound, corrupting, coarse, and lewd, and not for ladies of honor to use: I would not like to utter these words before the gentlemen of France for all the world. Fie! The ‘foot’ and the ‘coun’! Nevertheless, I will recite my whole lesson once again”

45    Excellent, madame! “Excellent, my lady!”

46    C’est…dinner “That’s enough for one time. Let us go to dinner.”

Act 3 Scene 5

1    River Somme just over halfway between Calais and Harfleur

2    withal wit

5    O Dieu vivant! “O living God!” (French)    sprays offshoots/spurts of semen (refers to the fact that after the Norman Conquest of 1066, many English have some French heritage)

6    emptying ejaculate    luxury lust

7    scions shoots used for grafting (when a shoot from one plant is fused to the stem of another)    stock the plant that receives the graft (here, the English)

8    Spirt sprout

9    overlook rise above/look down on/ignore/bewitch    grafters i.e., those who have done the grafting/the trees from which the grafted shoot was taken

10    Normans i.e., the English who have French ancestry    bastard illegitimat

11    Mort…viel “Death of my life!”

13    Slobb’ry slimy, muddy

14    nook-shotten crookedly shaped    Albion the island composed of England, Scotland, and Wale

15    Dieu de batailles! “God of battles!”    mettle spirit, temperament, courage

17    despite contempt, malice    looks pale i.e., barely shines

18    sodden boiled, stewed

19    drench drink/dose of medicine    sur-reined overridden    jades worn-out horses    barley-broth strong ale

20    Decoct heat up

23    roping hanging like ropes

26    Poor…lords i.e., while our fields are    rich in themselves, they may be called poor if they are owned by such spiritless masters as we are proving to be

28    madams ladies/wives

29    bred out weakened by generations of breeding

31    new-store freshly populate

33    lavoltas…corantos dances that involve leaping, turning, and running (implying cowardice)

34    our…heels our only accomplishment is in dancing/running away

35    lofty highborn/proficient/high leaping

36    herald messenger

37    England the country/King Henry

39    hie hurry

47    seats estates/ranks, status    quit absolve/avenge/rid

48    Bar obstruct

49    pennons banners, streamers attached to lances

50    host army

52    void empty, cough up, sneeze    rheum watery discharge, mucus (here, melted snow)

54    Rouen town in northern France, capital of Normandy

56    becomes the great befits kingly greatness

60    heart courage, spirit    sink cesspit

61    for achievement in exchange for honor/as the only paltry thing to be achieved    his ransom amount that must be paid on his defeat

62    haste on dispatch with speed

Act 3 Scene 6

3.6   Location: the English camp, northern France

1    bridge historically, this would have been over the River Ternoise, on the way to Calais

2    services military feats

4    magnanimous of great and generous spirit, nobly valiant    Agamemnon leader of the Greeks at the siege of Troy

8    pridge bridge (Fluellen’s Welsh accent renders “b” as “p”)

9    Mark Antony famous Roman general    no estimation reputation/social standing

12    Aunchient i.e., Ancient, an ensign or bearer of military banners

19    buxom lively, vigorous/pliant

20    giddy fickle    Fortune…blind Fortune was traditionally depicted as a blind woman turning a wheel that raised humans up and cast them down    furious cruel/violently turning

22    rolling restless stone alternative image of Fortune, the possessor of a rolling stone on which humans balanced precariously

23    By your patience i.e., forgive me for interrupting

24    muffler blindfold

28    moral symbolic figure, allegory

30    pax disc, usually of gold or silver, bearing an image of the crucifixion, kissed by those taking Communion

33    hemp i.e., rope made of hemp

34    doom judgment

37    vital thread thread of life, supposedly spun and cut by the three Fates

38    penny cord cheap rope    reproach blame, disgrace

39    requite repay (with a bribe)

40    partly i.e., because it is implied rather than stated/because Pistol’s speech is confusing

42    if even i

45    figo a fig (from old Spanish figo or Italian fico); exclamation of contempt, often accompanied by an obscene gesture known as the fig of Spain, which consisted of thrusting the thumb between the index and middle fingers or into the mouth

49    arrant downright    counterfeit deceptive, feigning    bawd pimp

50    cutpurse pickpocket

51    a summer’s day i.e., a long day

52    warrant assure

53    time is serve there is opportunity

54    gull fool, dupe/hoaxer

56    perfect word perfect    learn you teach/learn (you being emphatic)

57    sconce small fort

58    convoy armed escort    came off acquitted himself    what…on i.e., what conditions the enemy insisted on

59    con learn, memorize    the…war military terminology

60    trick up adorn, dress up    new-tuned newly invented, fashionable    general’s cut same style as the general’s

61    horrid fearful, intimidating    suit outfit, uniform/shout, battle cry    ale-washed drunken

62    slanders…age i.e., people who are a disgrace to current times

63    mistook mistaken, misled

65    hole…coat i.e., slip in the way he presents himself/chance to expose him

66    from i.e., about    colours military banners or flags    poor shabby, tired, unwell

72    passages fights    was have i.e., did have

73    enforced compelled

76    perdition loss/destruction

77    never a man no man    like likely

79    bubukles inflamed swellings    whelks pimples    knobs lumps, swellings    flames o’ fire i.e., red streaks or patches    blows i.e., like bellows on a fire

82    cut off killed

83    charge command    compelled forcibly taken

85    lenity gentleness, mercifulness

86    gamester player/gambler    Tucket trumpet call

87    habit clothing (French herald’s uniform, which would bear his king’s coat of arms)

88    of from

90    Unfold reveal, relate

92    Advantage superior position for a military attack/favorable circumstances/greater numbers

93    rebuked repressed, checked    bruise an injury squeeze a boil

94    upon our cue at the right time for us

95    sufferance patience, endurance

96    proportion be proportionate to, compensate for

97    digested endured    in…re-answer to pay back in full measure

98    pettiness weakness, inadequacy

99    muster roll call, number of soldiers (or total population)

102    So far i.e., this concludes the message of

104    quality character/rank/occupation

109    impeachment hindrance    sooth truth

111    craft and vantage cunning and military advantage

121    trunk body

123    God before with God on our side

128    tawny yellowish-brown

139    them i.e., the English soldiers

Act 3 Scene 7

3.7   Location: the French camp, near Agincourt

9    pasterns i.e., hoofs (literally, part of the leg between the fetlock and the hoof)    Ch’ha! exclamation of triumph and pride, or onomatopoeic sound of a horse    entrails were hairs i.e., as if he weighed nothing entrails intestine

10    le cheval volant “the flying horse”    Pegasus winged horse in classical mythology    chez…feu “with fiery nostrils”

11    basest horn lowest part (plays on the sense of “musical instrument lowest in pitch”)

12    Hermes in classical mythology, Hermes played his pipe to charm the hundred-eyed giant Argus asleep

14    Perseus in classical mythology, the hero who beheaded the gorgon Medusa; from her blood sprang the horse Pegasus

16    jades worn-out horses

18    absolute perfect

19    palfreys horses for riding (particularly by women) as opposed to warhorses; a word associated with romantic tales of wandering knights bidding command

20    countenance appearance/bearing

22    rising…lamb i.e., all day long

23    lodging going to bed, settling down    vary express a set    theme in fresh words (rhetorical term)

24    the sands i.e., infinite particles of sand

26    lay…functions set aside their business or occupation

30    courser swift horse, charger

32    bears carries your weight in riding/during sex

33    Me i.e., only me    prescript prescribed, appropriate

34    particular personal, private

35    shrewdly sharply, severely/shrewishly, bad-temperedly    shook your back jolted you/had sex with you

37    Mine…bridled i.e., my mistress is a woman, not a horse

38    belike presumably    rode as a horseman/sexually    kern of Ireland Irish foot soldier/peasant

39    hose breeches    straight strossers tight trousers (worn by the Irish)/ bare skin

40    horsemanship perhaps with a pun on “whores”

41    foul bogs muddy mires/diseased vaginas/dirty anuses

43    as lief rather    jade worn-out horse/prostitute (possibly picking up a pun in the dauphin’s    horse and rendering it “whores”)

44    my…hair implying that the Constable’s bewigged mistress does not, as she is bald from syphilis

45    to as

46   ‘Le…bourbier’ “The dog is returned to his own vomit, and the washed sow to the mire” (proverbial)

48    use utilize/employ sexually

49    kin…purpose relevant

53    fall i.e., be knocked off

54    want lack (stars)

55    many great many    honour honest/noble

57    Ev’n just

59    desert what he deserves

61    faced…way outfaced, shamed and driven away

62    about the ears i.e., beating the heads

63    go to hazard place a bet

64    hazard risk, danger

68    eat all he kills implies that he won’t kill anyone

70    foot may play on the sense of “vulva” or on French    foutre (“fuck”)    tread out trample on and erase, i.e., prove wrong (with sexual connotations, to tread being also “to have sex”)

71    active energetic/sexually vigorous

72    Doing having sex    still constantly

73    did harm hurt, injured/upset anyone

77    What’s who’s

78    he i.e., the dauphin

79    no hidden virtue i.e., it is obvious/it does not exist

80    lackey servant, who has presumably seen the dauphin’s supposed valor in the form of a beating

81    hooded concealed, masked (like a hunting falcon)    bate flutter its wings/abate, diminish

84    take up counter

85    Have…eye I’ll strike the very target/tenderest part

87    bolt short blunt arrow suitable for use by a fool/penis    soon shot plays on the notion of premature ejaculation

88    shot over overshot the target, i.e., your proverb does not fit the sequence

89    overshot outshot, beaten in archery

96    peevish foolish/headstrong    mope wander about aimlessly

97    fat-brained thick-witted, stupid    out…knowledge i.e., out of known territory, familiar affairs

98    apprehension understanding

100    head-pieces helmets

101    mastiffs strong and fierce breed of dog

103    run…bear i.e., in bear-baiting with dogs    winking with eyes closed

105    eat his breakfast i.e., suck blood from

106    robustious noisy, rough

107    coming on advancing    give if you give

109    shrewdly seriously, severely

110    stomachs appetites

Act 4

1    entertain conjecture of i.e., imagine    conjecture supposition

2    murmur rumor    poring eye-straining (puns on “pouring”)

4    foul loathsome/dark, dirty

5    stilly quietly

8    paly pale

9    umbered shadowed/orange-brown, as though stained with umber (brown pigment made from earth)

12    accomplishing equipping

13    rivets bolts for fastening armor

14    note sound/notice

17    secure overconfident

18    over-lusty overly lively and cheerful

19    low-rated little valued    play gamble for

20    chide scold    tardy-gaited slow-moving

22    tediously laboriously/painfully

24    inly inwardly

25    gesture sad serious/sorrowful bearing

26    Investing enveloping, clothing    lank-lean gaunt

28    who whoever

30    watch group of soldiers on guard

32    host army

35    note sign

36    enrounded surrounded

37    dedicate give up, sacrifice

38    all-watchèd i.e., spent entirely in watchfulness

39    over-bears overcomes    attaint sign of weariness (perhaps plays on the sense of “false color”)

40    semblance appearance

41    pining wasting away

43    largess largesse (generosity, warmth)

44    liberal unrestrained, generous

45    that…all so that men of low and high ranks

46    unworthiness the Chorus refers to his own humble status or inadequate means of expression

47    touch glimpse

50    ragged shabby    foils light fencing swords

51    ill-disposed poorly handled

53    Minding calling to mind    mock’ries imitations

Act 4 Scene 1

4.1   Location: the English camp, near Agincourt

5    Would men if men would    observingly observantly    distil extract

6    bad…stirrers proverbial: “he that has an ill neighbor has oftentimes an ill morning” (the neighbors here being the French)

7    husbandry domestic management (here applies to life rather than a household)

10    dress us prepare ourselves

11    gather…weed proverbial

12    make…of i.e., draw a moral from

15    churlish hard, unyielding

16    likes pleases

19    upon example by taking another’s example

20    quickened revived

22    Break up break out of

23    casted slough cast off skin (like a snake’s)    legerity lightness

25    commend me convey my greetings

26    anon shortly

27    pavilion ceremonial tent

32    bosom i.e., heart

36    Che vous là? Pistol’s rendering of Qui va la?, French for “Who goes there?”

38    Discuss declare

39    popular of the common people

40    gentleman…company gentleman volunteer serving in the ranks

41    Trail’st…pike? i.e., are you in the infantry

42    Even so just so

45    bawcock fine fellow

46    imp shoot, scion

49    bully fine fellow

50    le Roy the king (roi is French for “king”)

51    crew group/military company

55    pate head

56    Saint Davy’s day March 1, when Welshmen wore leeks in their caps to commemorate Saint David, the patron saint of Wales

64    sorts fits

66    fewer less/more quietly    admiration wonder

67    prerogatifes i.e., prerogatives—principles, rights

68    Pompey the Great famous Roman general

69    tiddle…pabble tittle-tattle, babbling

70    ceremonies formalities

71    cares duties    forms due procedures, codes of conduct    sobriety seriousness

72    modesty discipline    otherwise i.e., other than as things are here

74    prating prattling    coxcomb fool

80    care responsibility

89    estate situation, circumstances

90    wrecked shipwrecked sand sandbank

93    though…it i.e., though I myself say so (but should not)

95    element sky    conditions qualities, functions, limitations

96    ceremonies kingly trappings    laid by put aside

97    affections emotions    higher mounted more lofty and sophisticated    stoop swoop, descend (falconry term)

98    like wing i.e., in the same way that ours do    of for

99    relish flavor    possess him with show him/induce in him

100    he i.e., the king

103    Thames the River Thames, which runs through London

104    at all adventures at all events, whatever the outcome    quit away from, finished

110    feel test

114    seek after try to find out

117    reckoning account of debts (both literal losses and spiritual debts)

118    join together remake whole bodies/unite in crying out

119    latter day Judgment Day

120    upon on account of

121    rawly too young/unprovided for    afeard afraid

122    charitably i.e., with Christian charity    dispose of make arrangements for/bestow (possessions in a will/souls to God)

123    argument theme

125    proportion natural order    subjection the condition of being a subject

126    merchandise trading, commerce    sinfully miscarry i.e., die in a state of sin

127    imputation of accusation of, responsibility for

130    irreconciled unreconciled to God, unabsolved    iniquities wicked acts, sins    author person responsible for, creator of

133    purpose intend, plan

135    arbitrement of swords arbitration, determining of the matter through war    try it out i.e., put his cause to the test    unspotted pure, sin-free

136    peradventure perhaps

137    beguiling deceiving    perjury oath-breaking

138    bulwark (military) fortification/safeguard, means of escape (from punishment for crimes)

139    native punishment the punishment due to them at home

141    beadle parish officer with the power to punish petty offenders    before-breach previous breaking

142    now…quarrel the war that is now being fought on behalf of the king    death death penalty

143    borne life away i.e., got away with their lives

144    unprovided unprepared

145    visited punished

149    blessedly fortunately, in a holy manner    lost spent

150    making…offer in offering himself to God

151    prepare i.e., for death

152    ill i.e., unprepared, in sin

153    to answer it responsible for it

155    lustily heartily

159    it i.e., that outcome

160    pay punish    perilous dangerous (said ironically)    elder-gun toy gun, pellet gun (made from an elder stick)    a…displeasure the displeasure of a commoner

161    go about try

164    round blunt, plainspoken

167    embrace heartily accept

169    gage pledge (usually signifying a commitment to duel; often a glove or gauntlet)    bonnet hat

170    darest dare to

174    take give

177    though even if take find

180    reckon count

181    crowns coins/heads

183    cut French crowns cut French heads off/shave silver or gold from French coins    clipper clipper of coins/barber

185    careful full of cares or grief

186    lay on burden/assault

187    condition situation/social rank

188    twin-born born at the same birth    breath i.e., opinion

190    wringing aches and pains    heart’s-ease inner peace, contentment

192    privates men who do not hold public office

193    Save except    general public

194    idle useless

196    mortal human

197    comings in income

199    of adoration made up of insubstantial admiration/of the things that provoke admiration

200    aught anything    place…form i.e., social rank and eminence

208    titles puns on “tittles,” i.e., trifles    blown fanned, breathed (as if to cool fever)/corrupted, contaminated

209    give place retreat, give way    flexure kneeling    bending bowing

210    command’st…knee claim it as your right that the beggar kneels before you

212    subtly deceptively    repose rest

213    find thee find you out, discover your true nature

214    balm consecrated oil (used at a coronation)    ball monarch’s orb

215    mace official scepter

216    intertissued interwoven

217    farcèd stuffed, pompous

218    pomp ceremonious trappings, splendor

224    distressful earned by labor

226    lackey servant, specifically a footman who ran alongside his master’s coach (here, Phoebus’ chariot)    the…set sunrise to sunset

227    in…Phoebus under the sun (Phoebus, the Roman sun god)

228    Elysium i.e., perfect contentment (the heaven of classical mythology)

229    Hyperion in classical mythology, father of the sun; sometimes the sun itself

231    profitable useful, valuable (not “remunerative”)

234    forehand…of advantage over

235    member sharer in

236    gross dull    wots knows

237    watch sleeplessness/guard

238    advantages benefits from

239    jealous of anxious about

247    sense of reck’ning counting, calculation    th’opposèd numbers the numbers of enemy soldiers

250    My…crown! Henry’s father, Henry IV, deposed Richard II, who was murdered whilst in captivity    compassing obtaining

251    interrèd new newly buried, with proper ceremony

253    forcèd violently shed

256    blood i.e., murder

257    chantries endowed chapels where priests sing masses for the founders or for individuals specified by them (in this case, Richard)    sad serious, grave

258    still to this day/continually

265    stay wait

Act 4 Scene 2

4.2   Location: the French camp near Agincourt

2    Monte à cheval “To horse!” varlet manservant/rascal Laquais! “Lackey!”

4    Via…terre “Go through and over water and earth”

5    Rien…feu “Nothing else? Air and fire”

6    Cieux “the heavens”

8    present service immediate action

9    make…hides i.e., with spurs

10    spin spurt

11    dout extinguish, douse    superfluous courage an excess of French courage (shown by the abundance of    blood)

14    embattled arranged in battle formation    peers companions

16    yond…band i.e., the English

17    fair show splendid appearance

18    shales shells

21    curtle-axe cutlass, short sword

22    gallants fine, spirited young men

24    o’erturn them knock them over

25    exceptions objections

28    squares of battle square formations of soldiers

29    hilding worthless, contemptible

30    basis base    by nearby

32    honours noble ranks/sense of honor    What’s what’s left

35    tucket sonance trumpet sound

36    dare defy/daze, paralyze with fear

38    stay wait

39    Yond yonder, those (over there)    island i.e., English    carrions carcasses    desperate…bones without hope of saving their lives

40    Ill-favouredly become i.e., ill-befit, disgrace

41    curtains banners

42    passing surpassingly, extremely

43    Mars Roman god of war    beggared host impoverished army

44    beaver helmet’s visor

45    fixèd candlesticks i.e., inanimate metal objects

46    torch-staves staffs for holding torches

47    Lob hang heavily

48    gum rheum, gummy discharge    down-roping hanging in strings

49    gimmaled jointed

50    foul dirty, stained

51    executors those who dispose of what is left after death

52    hour i.e., of death

53    suit clothe/befit

54    demonstrate…battle vividly depict such an army

58    fasting starving provender fodder

60    guidon pointed flag or pennant

63    outwear waste

Act 4 Scene 3

4.3   Location: the English camp, near Agincourt

3    threescore thousand sixty thousand

6    buy’ be with    charge company

10    kinsman i.e., Westmorland, whose son was married to Salisbury’s daughter

13    mind remind

14    framed composed    truth principle

22    we…loss there are enough of us for England to feel the loss

25    wish wish for

26    Jove supreme Roman god

27    upon my cost at my expense

28    yearns grieves

32    coz cousin

34    share take away as his share

36    proclaim it declare, announce

37    stomach to appetite/courage for

38    passport document of authorization (to pass through France and board a ship)

39    convoy i.e., his journey

41    his fellowship duty as a companion

42    feast of Crispian Saint Crispin’s day, October 25

44    stand a tiptoe i.e., feel uplifted, proud, eager

47    vigil evening before a feast day

51    all all else

52    advantages additions

57    Be…rememberèd i.e., a toast will be raised to them

59    Crispin Crispian Saint Crispin’s day marks the martyring of two brothers, Crispin and Crispianus

62    happy fortunate

64    vile low-ranking

65    gentle his condition ennoble him

68    manhoods manliness    any anyone

70    bestow yourself act, move

71    bravely showily, with great display    in…set in military formations

72    expedience speed

74    backward reluctant/not    ready

79    likes pleases

82    compound agree terms

84    gulf whirlpool

85    englutted swallowed up

86    mind remind

88    retire retreat

94    achieve win, capture

96    The…him “to sell the bear’s (lion’s) skin before the beast is caught” (proverbial) is foolish and dangerous

98    many great number

99    native English, i.e., they will survive the war

100    in brass inscribed on brass memorial plaques

104    reeking smelling (not necessarily unpleasantly)/blood-smeared

105    clime region/climate

107    Mark take notice of

108    crazing shattering (once lodged in the body); may also suggest “grazing”—i.e., ricocheting

109    mischief damage, harm

110    in…mortality as their bodies decompose

112    for the working day i.e., dressed for work, not requiring finery

113    gayness showy appearance, brightness of color    besmirched discolored, stained

114    painful field arduous terrain

115    feather i.e., ornamental helmet feathers

116    fly flee

117    slovenry slovenliness, dirtiness

118    in the trim finely dressed/ready for action

120    pluck…service on dismissal from service, a servant would have his livery removed (additional play on sense of military service)

124    levied raised

126    joints limbs

127    as…them i.e., dead

135    dispose direct, govern

Act 4 Scene 4

4.4   Location: the battlefield at Agincourt   Excursions: bouts of fighting across the stag

2    Je…qualité “I think that you are a gentleman of good quality”

3    Qualtitie uncomprehending repetition of    qualité calmie custure me apparently a corruption of a fairly popular Irish refrain cailin og a stor (“maiden, my treasure”); Pistol seems to have picked up on the the “qu/c” sound of the French

4    Discuss declar

5    O Seigneur Dieu! “O Lord God!”

7    Perpend consider    mark take note

8    fox type of sword

9    Except unless

10    Egregious exceptionally larg

11    O…moi! “O, have mercy! Have pity on me!”

12    Moy mispronunciation of “moi”; Pistol understands this to mean a type of coin, though it could also mean “measurement of corn, approximately a bushel”

13    rim stomach linin

15    Est-il…bras? “Is it impossible to escape the strength of your arm?”

16    Brass i.e., inferior metal; Pistol’s misunderstanding of bras

17    luxurious lecherous

19    O pardonnez-moi! “O spare me!”

20    ton of moys Pistol’s interpretation of the French

23    Écoutez…appelé? “Listen, what is your name?”

24    le Fer iron

26    fer a nonce usage of the word, roughly intending “beat”; possible play on “fear,” i.e., frighten    firk beat (puns on “fuck”)    ferret worry, tear at (plays on sense of “have sex with”)

30    Que…monsieur? “What did he say, sir?”

31    Il…gorge He orders me to tell you that you are to make yourself ready, because this soldier here is disposed, at this very hour, to cut your throat

33    Owy…permafoy Pistol’s mangled attempt to say Oui, couper la gorge, par ma foi, i.e., “yes, cut the throat, by my faith”

34    brave fine/worthy

36    O…écus “O I beseech you, for the love of God, to spare me. I am a gentleman of a good house [i.e., family]. Save my life and I will give you two hundred crowns”

42    Petit…dit-il? “Little sir, what does he say?”

43    Encore…franchisement “Although it is contrary to his vow to spare any prisoner, nevertheless, for the crowns that you have promised him, he is content to give you liberty, freedom”

46    Sur…d’Angleterre the Boy’s ensuing translation is accurate

49    Expound explain, translate

52    thrice-worthy most worthy

53    suck blood kill/am a leech

54    Suivez-vous…capitaine! “Follow the great captain!”

55    full loud

57    devil i’th’old play i.e., one like the character of the devil in an old morality play    pare trim

58    wooden dagger the traditional prop of a morality-play devil    this this man, Pistol

59    adventurously in a manner involving genuine risk

60    prey plunder

Act 4 Scene 5

1    O diable! “O the devil!”

2    O…perdu! “O Lord! The day is lost, all is lost!”

3    Mort…vie! “Death of my life!”    confounded ruined

5    in our plumes i.e., over us (in their feathered helmets)    O méchante fortune! “O wicked fortune!”

7    broke broken, scattered

8    perdurable everlasting

12    In i.e., into battle

15    pander go-between, pimp    hold…door guard the bedroom door

16    gentler nobler/kinder

18    spoiled ruined/plundered    friend befriend

19    on in

22    upon of

Act 4 Scene 6

4.6    train followers

2    keep remain (on)

8    Larding enriching

9    honour-owing i.e., honorable

11    all haggled over hacked all over

12    insteeped drenched

15    Tarry linger, wait

17    abreast side by side

18    well-foughten field well-fought battle

19    chivalry knightly prowess/bravery in war

20    cheered him up spoke comfortingly to him

21    raught reached

23    Commend offer, remember

26    espoused married, united

27    testament will, bequest

29    waters i.e., tears

31    my mother i.e., his tender, womanly side

34    perforce necessarily    compound come to terms (may play on the sense of “mix”)

35    mixed-full unclear meaning, perhaps “swimming confusedly with tears/fully mixed with tears” (some editors emend to “mistful” or “willful”)    issue discharge (tears)

Act 4 Scene 7

1    poys boys    luggage perhaps “those guarding the luggage”

2    offer’t attempted, dared

6    wherefore because of which    worthily deservedly, justly

8    Monmouth town in south Wales, near the English border

9    Pig i.e., Big (Great)

12    all one reckonings all amount to the same thing    phrase…variations wording is slightly different

14    Macedon Macedonia, a region in what is now northern Greece

15    take understand 17 ’orld world

18    situations geographical layout

20    Wye the River Wye, on the Welsh-English border

22    both i.e., both rivers    is…it follows, resembles

23    figures comparisons, parallels

24    cholers fits of anger (governed by choler, one of the four bodily humors controlling mood)

25    intoxicates intoxicated, drunk

26    in his ales i.e., while drunk    Cleitus friend and general to Alexander the Great (killed in a drunken argument by Alexander)

30    his cups i.e., drunk

32    belly-doublet close-fitting jacket with the lower part padded (in Falstaff’s case, with his fat)    gipes jibes    knaveries roguish tricks

33    mocks jeers, acts of mockery

38    this instant i.e., at the death of the boys    trumpet trumpeter

43    skirr scurry, flee

44    Enforcèd forcibly flung

45    Besides in addition    those i.e., those French prisoners

46    take capture

51    fined undertaken to pay    bones i.e., and nothing more

54    licence permission

56    book record

59    mercenary belonging to paid soldiers

60    vulgar common people

62    Fret struggle, chafe    fetlock-deep up to the fetlock (back of a horse’s leg, above the hoof)

63    Yerk lash, jerk    armèd heels iron-shod hooves

68    day i.e., victory

69    peer appear/look carefully

73    hard close

77    grandfather…memory i.e., Edward III    an’t if it

78    chronicles historical accounts

83    Monmouth caps round brimless caps with tapering crowns, originally made in Monmouth

84    badge emblem, insignia

85    Tavy’s i.e., David’s

86    memorable honour honor well worth commemorating

89    his grace i.e., the king (or possibly “God’s grace”)

102    gage pledge

105    swaggered quarreled, blustered

106    challenge claim

109    fit appropriate

110    craven coward else otherwise

112    sort rank    quite…degree of too high a rank to have to answer Williams’ challenge

114    Lucifer and Beelzebub the devil

116    jack-sauce saucy, impudent fellow

117    black dirty/wicked, damned

118    sirrah sir (used to an inferior)

122    is has    literatured is well-read

126    favour token worn as mark of favor

127    Alençon a French duke    down i.e., on the ground

128    helm helmet

129    apprehend arrest    love an act of love and loyalty

131    fain eagerly    that…legs i.e., whoever he might be

132    it him

141    haply perhaps

145    blunt forthright

146    mischief harm

148    touched affected/lit, fired (like gunpowder) choler anger

Act 4 Scene 8

2    apace quickly

3    peradventure perhaps

5    know you do you recognize

8    ’Sblood God’s blood

11    be forsworn break my word

12    away aside    into ploughs in blows (perhaps “in two blows”)

15    lie…throat deliberate lie

19    summer’s day i.e., long day

23    is take out took out

28    is pear will bear

29    avouchment avouch, affirm

30    is give gave

33    terms language, words

36    satisfaction amends

39    abuse insult

41    lowliness apparent low rank

50    mettle spirit, courage

52    prawls and prabbles brawls and brabbles (i.e., petty quarrels)    dissensions quarrels, disputes

54    will want

56    good genuine, not counterfeit

60    good sort high rank

75    blood nobility

78    Admiral commander-in-chief of the navy

80    Great Master chief official of the royal household

83    lusty strong, vigorous

90    name note, rank

91    arm i.e., might, power

93    stratagem tricks designed to outwit the enemy

94    plain shock direct clash of forces    even play straightforward contest

98    wonderful to be marveled at, extraordinary

108    Non nobis opening words of Psalm 115 (“Give praise not unto us, O God”)    Te Deum thanksgiving hymn “Te Deum laudamus” (“We praise thee O God”)

109    with…clay i.e., given a Christian burial

Act 5

1    Vouchsafe grant

2    prompt them i.e., remind them what comes next

4    time the (five-year) time lapse between the last scene and the next/the limited time in which to perform a play    numbers limited number of actors and the multitude they are called on to represent    due…things the nature of historical events

5    huge…life i.e., true enormous scale

7    grant acknowledge, allow imaginatively

9    Athwart across

10    Pales fences    flood sea

11    claps applause    deep-mouthed loud, deep-voiced

12    whiffler attendant who clears the way at a procession

14    solemnly ceremoniously

16    Blackheath a large common, just south of London

17    Where that where

18    bruiséd dented    bended bent

20    vainness personal vanity, pride

21    trophy token of victory    signal symbol, sign    ostent display

23    working-house workshop

25    brethren fellow councillors    best sort i.e., civic robes

26    th’antique ancient

29    lower…likelihood i.e., less glorious, but as loving, similar circumstance

30    general…empress apparently a reference to the Earl of Essex, for much of 1599 the commander of English troops in    Ireland on behalf of Elizabeth I

32    broachèd pierced, speared

34    much many and and with

36    lamentation mourning, grievances

37    Invites requires

38    emperor’s coming the Holy Roman Emperor Sigismund came to England in 1416

39    them editors have conjectured that there may be a line or so missing at this point in the text    omit let us pass over, ignore

42    played The interim performed, represented the intervening period

44    brook tolerate

Act 5 Scene 1

5.1   Location: the English camp, France

3    wherefore how, why

4    asse as (plays on “ass/arse”) scald vile/scabby

8    breed no contention start any argument

10    swelling…turkey-cock i.e., puffed up with self-importance (in Fluellen’s response    swellings and    cock have potentially phallic resonances)

12    scurvy contemptible, worthless

13    bedlam mad    thirst i.e., long    base Trojan knave

14    fold…web i.e., end your life (in classical mythology, the Parcae are the three Fates, who spin, reel out, and cut the thread of each human life)

15    qualmish made sick

18    disgestions digestions, perhaps implying “hard-earned,” “difficult to digest”

20    Cadwallader seventh-century Welsh warrior king    goats traditionally associated with Wales

21    goat possible pun on “goad” (i.e., rod for driving cattle/powerful incitement)

22    scald scabby

24    God’s will is God decides

25    victuals food    sauce flavoring/a rebuke

27    fall to begin eating

28    astonished stunned

30    green fresh/festering, infected    ploody coxcomb bloody head

34    revenge have my revenge

39    take occasions should happen, have the opportunity

41    Good very well

42    groat small coin worth four old pence

46    in earnest of as a down payment for

47    pay punish    cudgels beatings

48    woodmonger one who deals in wood    buy be with

51    counterfeit deceitful

53    predeceased former, past

54    gleeking taunting, insulting    galling harassing, scoffing

55    garb fashion

57    condition disposition

59    Doll some editors emend to “Nell,” assuming that Pistol refers to his wife, Nell Quickly    i’th’spital in the hospital

60    malady of France syphilis, the “French disease”

61    rendezvous refuge, haven, perhaps with play on “sexual encounter”

62    wax grow

63    bawd pimp

64    something…hand am somewhat inclined to become a deft pickpocket

65    steal steal away (plays on the sense of “rob”)

66    patches bandages (also with suggestion of patches to conceal syphilitic scars)

67    Gallia i.e., French

Act 5 Scene 2

5.2   Location: the royal court, France

1    wherefore for which

2    brother fellow monarch sister i.e., Queen Isabel, wife of the French king

3    fair…day i.e., good day

4    princely royal

5    royalty collection of royal persons

12    issue outcome

13    gracious happy/prosperous

16    bent line of sight/direction of fire

17    balls eyeballs/cannonballs    basilisks large cannon/mythical reptiles whose gaze could kill

19    quality i.e., deadly nature

23    on based on

25    pains efforts

27    barcourt, tribunal    interview meeting

30    That in the sense that

31    congreeted greeted each other

32    before…view in such royal company

33    rub obstacle (bowling term)

35    nurse nourisher    arts learning, scholarship

37    put up raise    visage face

39    husbandry agricultural cultivation and produce    on heaps in a mess

40    Corrupting…fertility rotting for being overripe/ruining itself by being overgrown it its

42    even-pleached regularly interwoven

44    fallow leas unplowed arable fields

45    darnel…fumitory weeds    rank overabundant

46    root upon take root, grow    coulter blade on a plow

47    deracinate uproot    savagery wild plants

48    even mead level meadow    erst formerly

49    freckled…clover i.e., all useful plants or herbs

50    Wanting lacking    withal uncorrected unchecked by it

51    Conceives germinates, breeds    teems is fertile, flourishes

52    docks…burs all types of weed    kecksies dry hollow stems

54    fallows arable lands

55    natures proper functions

58    sciences knowledge, skills

61    diffused disordered

63    reduce restore    favour appearance/approval, good grace

65    let hindrance

68    would desire

69    want lack

71    accord agreement    just exact/legitimate

72    tenors substances, contents    effects purposes/drifts

73    enscheduled listed, written down

78    cursitory eye cursory glance

79    O’erglanced looked over    Pleaseth if it please

81    better heed greater care, attention

82    suddenly in a short time

83    Pass pronounce    accept acceptable (to us), agreed    peremptory final, resolved

87    ratify confirm

91    consign subscribe, agree

94    Haply perhaps

95    nicely strictly, fastidiously    stood on insisted

97    capital principal comprised included

98    fore-rank front row    articles conditions

101    terms words, expressions (plays on the sense of “conditions of a truce”)

103    love-suit courtship

108    Pardonnez-moi “excuse me”

110    Que…anges? “What does he say? That I resemble angels?”

111    Oui…dit-il “Yes, truly, saving your grace, he says so”

113    O…tromperies “O good God! The tongues of men are full of deceits”

115    is de princess i.e., is what the princess said

116    the better Englishwoman i.e., like an Englishwoman for mistrusting his flattery    fit appropriate, suitable

118    plain plainspoken/simple

119    mince speak in a delicate or pretentious way/behave affectedly

121    suit courtship (perhaps with suggestion of worn-out clothing)    clap…bargain shake hands on a deal

123    Sauf votre honneur “saving your honor”

124    put…verses have me write love poetry

125    undid would ruin    measure poetic meter

126    strength in measure i.e., ability in dancing measure slow, stately dance    measure in strength amount of physical strength

128    under…spoken at the risk of punishment for boasting, let it be said    leap into gain/have sex with

129    buffet box    bound make jump

130    lay on strike vigorously/lie upon during sex    sit on his horse/on his wife    jackanapes monkey (or someone acting like one)    off failing off

131    look greenly i.e., as an inexperienced young lover does    cunning in protestation skill in declarations (of love)

132    downright plain    urged provoked

133    urging being persuaded by others    temper temperament, disposition    not worth sunburning i.e., so ugly that the sun could not make it worse (Elizabethans considered fair skin a particular mark of beauty)

134    glass mirror

135    be thy cook i.e., dress the dish (his face) to make it appetizing

138    uncoined genuine, freshly minted and uncirculated (amongst women)

139    infinite tongue clever, unlimited speech

140    favours sexual benevolence

141    What! exclamation of scorn    prater chatterbox    ballad popular, common form of poetry    fall waste away

143    full perfect, lustrous    wax hollow sunken/insincere

147    fairly favorably

150    friend also has sense of “lover”

156    Je…moi “I, when I have possession of France, and when you have the possession of me” (imperfect but generally comprehensible French)

157    Saint…speed!    Saint Denis help me! Saint Denis patron saint of France    donc…mienne “therefore yours is France and you are mine”

159    move i.e., stir emotion in

160    Sauf…parle “Saving your honor, the French that you speak, it is better than the English that I speak”

163    truly-falsely sincerely and inaccurately    at one the same

166    neighbours close acquaintances

167    closet private room

168    dispraise belittle

170    cruelly extremely    beest be

171    saving faith faith deep enough for salvation    scambling struggling, scuffling

173    compound compose, create

174    take…beard humiliate, drive the Turks out

175    flower-de-luce fleur-de-lis (lily), emblem on the French coat of arms

177    hereafter in time to come    know plays on sense of “have sex”

178    part behalf (plays on sense of “genitals”)

179    moiety half, portion    la…déesse “the most fair Katherine of the world, my most dear and divine goddess”

181    ’ave have, i.e., has    fausse “false”—i.e., “incorrect/insincere”    sage prudent, wise

182    demoiselle “young lady”

184    blood passion/sexual desire

185    notwithstanding in spite of    untempering unsoftening, unsettling

186    beshrew curse    civil wars i.e., Richard II’s deposition

187    got conceived    aspect facial appearance

189    ill layer-up poor preserver/wrinkler

190    spoil damage

191    wear use, possess (plays on sense of “exhaust sexually”)

196    Plantagenet name of the dynasty to which Henry V belonged

197    fellow with equal to

199    break open, broach

201    de…pere “the king my father”

205    Laissez…seigneur “Desist, my lord, desist, desist: my faith, I do not at all wish you to abase your greatness in kissing the hand of one [who is] your lordship’s unworthy servant. Excuse me, I beg of you, my most mighty lord”

209    Les…France “In France it is not the custom for ladies and young ladies to be kissed before their marriages”

215    entendre…moi “understands” better “than me”

218    Oui, vraiment “Yes, truly”

219    nice fastidious/coy/trivial

220    list boundary (literally, barrier enclosing a jousting or duelling area)

221    follows our places goes with our high rank

222    find-faults people who seek to criticize

230    apt ready, quick to learn

231    condition disposition

235    conjure i.e., raise up (spirits, but here a penis)    make a circle magic circle for conjuring/open her vagina

236    naked and blind like Cupid (Roman god of love, traditionally depicted thus)/in the form of a penis (with its “blind eye”)    maid virgin

237    rosed…modesty i.e., blushing in modesty/flushed in sexual excitement

238    in within (emotionally)/inside (sexually) naked seeing emotionally exposed/aware of her physical nakedness hard plays on the idea of penile hardness

239    consign assent

240    wink and yield close their eyes and give in    enforces (love/the penis) pushes his way in

241    do plays on the sense of “have sex with”

242    consent winking agree to wink and yield

243    on at know understand (with sexual connotations)

244    summered tended, nurtured    warm comfortably, well-off/sexually aroused    Bartholomew-tide Saint Bartholomew’s day, August 24

245    blind…eyes sluggish, unaware (from the summer heat)    handling with sexual connotations

247    moral lesson    ties me over confines me to

248    latter end late summer/lower body

249    before it loves i.e., until it sees the object of its love/before sexual consummation

253    perspectively obliquely, distortedly (through a perspective: either a lens that distorts objects or a painting that only becomes clear when viewed from an angle)

254    maiden unbreached by military/sexual force    entered invaded in war/penetrated sexually

257    so so long as    wait on her follow her (as a dowry)

258    will political, military desire/sexual desire/penis

259    terms of reason reasonable terms

262    in sequel succession

264    subscribed signed, agreed to

265    matter of grant official conferment of lands or titles

266    addition title    Notre…France “Our very dear son Henry, King of England, heir of France”

267    Praeclarissimus…Franciae “Our very dear son Henry, King of England, heir of France”

270    request i.e., to marry Katherine

275    Issue descendants

276    pale due to the chalk cliffs

278    dear tender/costly

279    neighbourhood friendly, neighborly

280    bosoms hearts    advance raise

288    spousal marriage, union

289    ill office disservice, poor dealings    fell fierce

291    paction pact, contract

292    incorporate united in one body, indivisible

298    surety…leagues security of our alliance    Sennet trumpet signalling a procession

Epilogue

1    rough imperfect, coarse    all-unable inadequate

2    bending i.e., over his work/bowing

4    by starts in fits and starts, intermittently

5    Small time Henry died aged thirty-five, after a nine-year reign

7    world’s best garden i.e., France

9    infant bands strips of linen babies were wrapped in

11    Whose of whose

13    their i.e., Shakespeare’s plays concerning Henry VI

14    this acceptance take this play find favor

THE THREE PARTS OF HENRY THE SIXTH

Henry V ends with the Chorus speaking an epilogue in sonnet form. It offers a forward look that somewhat deflates the triumph of Agincourt. King Henry, the “star of England,” will live but a small time. “The world’s best garden,” having been brought to order by his charismatic arts, will soon be choked with weeds. His son will be crowned King of France and England whilst still an infant. So many rivals then had the managing of his state “That they lost France and made his England bleed, / Which oft our stage hath shown.” Shakespeare thus reminds his audience that his cycle of history plays is complete: the sequence from Richard II to Henry V at this point joins on to the earlier written tetralogy of the three parts of Henry the Sixth and Richard III. Sometimes gathered together in modern productions under a title such as The Wars of the Roses or The Plantagenets, these plays tell the story of England’s self-scarring and “dire division.”

In The First Part of Henry the Sixth, Henry V’s miraculous conquest of France goes into reverse, despite the exploits of the noble Talbot; meanwhile civil war brews at home. In The Second Part, the war with France is brought to an end by the marriage of King Henry VI to Margaret of Anjou, but the weak king cannot prevent the rise of the Yorkist faction. At the beginning of The Third Part, the succession is surrendered to Richard Duke of York, but his ascendancy is halted on a Yorkshire battlefield, where Queen Margaret brings his life to an undignified end; his sons spend the rest of the play avenging him—and of those sons, it is Richard of Gloucester, the future Richard III, who proves most unscrupulous and therefore most to be feared.

The Romantic poet and Shakespearean commentator Samuel Taylor Coleridge did not think well of this bloody triple-header. He said of the opening lines of The First Part, “if you do not feel the impossibility of this speech having been written by Shakespeare, all I dare suggest is, that you may have ears—for so has another animal—but an ear you cannot have.” To his own finely tuned ear for poetry, the rhythm of the verse was crude and far inferior to that of even Shakespeare’s earliest plays. Coleridge was lecturing on Shakespeare only a few years after the publication of Edmond Malone’s scholarly Dissertation on the Three Parts of King Henry VI, tending to show that these plays were not written originally by Shakespeare. Ever since Shakespeare rose in the course of the eighteenth century to his status as supreme cultural icon, there has been a tendency to assume that any less-than-perfect work—Titus Andronicus, say, or Pericles—must have been the product of some lesser dramatist, or at the very least that Shakespeare was merely patching up a rickety old play for which he was not originally responsible. In the case of the Henry the Sixth plays, support for the latter possibility seemed to come from the existence of early editions of versions of the second and third parts under the titles The First Part of the Contention of the two Famous Houses of York and Lancaster with the Death of the Good Duke Humphrey (published in 1594) and The True Tragedy of Richard Duke of York and the Death of Good King Henry the Sixth, with the Whole Contention between the two houses Lancaster and York (1595). Malone and his successors argued that these were the originals, written by another dramatist (probably one of the so-called university wits, Robert Greene or George Peele), and that Shakespeare merely undertook the work of a reviser. As for The First Part of Henry the Sixth, Malone regarded it as almost holly un-Shakespearean. Though grounded in textual scholarship, his arguments were driven by critical distaste for the plays’ style of verse, the “stately march” whereby “the sense concludes or pauses uniformly at the end of every line.”

More recently, scholars have suggested that The First Part of the Contention and Richard Duke of York are in fact texts of works by Shakespeare, albeit poorly transcribed ones. The titles The First Part and The Whole Contention strongly suggest that the plays that we now call The Second Part and The Third Part of Henry the Sixth originally constituted a two-part work. They were probably first produced in the early 1590s, when Christopher Marlowe’s mighty Tamburlaine the Great had established a vogue for two-part plays filled with battles, processions, and high-sounding verse.

What we now call The First Part of Henry the Sixth would then stand slightly apart. Since it appears to have been premiered—to considerable acclaim—in 1592, it was probably written after the two Wars of the Roses plays that are now called the second and third parts. Perhaps it was what in modern film parlance is called a “prequel,” designed to cash in on the success of a blockbuster. Its lack of unity and its use of different source materials for different scenes suggest that it may have been a collaborative work. Thomas Nashe, who also wrote in partnership with Marlowe, has been suggested as a prime contributor, but there may have been three or even four hands in the composition. The possibility that Shakespeare was not the principal author of the Talbot/Joan of Arc play would account for some of the inconsistencies in the sequence considered as a trilogy. Among these is the fact that in The Second Part Humphrey Duke of Gloucester is a statesmanlike figure, a Lord Protector worthy of his late brother Henry V, whereas in The First Part he is more rough-hewn, and the plot discrepancy whereby the surrender of Anjou and Maine, a condition of the marriage between King Henry VI and Margaret of Anjou, is much resented in The Second Part yet not challenged in the marriage negotiations in The First Part.

There is a long tradition of attempting to establish literary authorship by stylistic tests—preference for feminine endings in verse lines, contractions (them versus ’em), frequency of grammatical function words, and so forth. The availability of large-scale databases of texts and computer programs to crunch them means that such tests are becoming ever more sophisticated and reliable. When several different tests give the same result, one can speak tentatively of the evidence attaining scientific standards of probability. Twenty-first-century stylometric research of this kind suggests that nearly all of The Second Part can be confidently attributed to Shakespeare, that there are some doubts about The Third Part and that Shakespeare probably wrote only a few scenes of The First Part. Perhaps the only thing that makes one hesitate about these results is that they seem too convenient, in that they so neatly mirror the consensus about the relative dramatic quality of the three plays: The Second Part has gloriously Shakespearean energy and variety, and it nearly always works superbly in the theater; The Third Part has some immensely powerful rhetorical encounters but many longueurs; The First Part is generally the least admired—save for the rose-plucking scene in the second act and the moving dialogue of Talbot and his son in the fourth-act battle, the very sequences that the computer tests ascribe to Shakespeare.

It cannot be determined whether the traces of non-Shakespearean language are the vestiges of older plays that Shakespeare was revising or whether they are signs of active collaboration. Nor do we know whether the plays were ever staged as a trilogy in Shakespeare’s lifetime. They only came to be labeled as such in the posthumously published 1623 Folio, where all his histories were collected and ordered by the chronology of their subject matter as opposed to their composition. Since the charismatic villain Richard of Gloucester appears in The Second Part and The Third Part, it becomes very tempting to think of the whole group as a tetralogy capped by The Tragedy of Richard the Third. Perhaps the best approach is to try to treat each of the plays both on its own terms—they were, after all, designed to be performed one at a time—and as part of Shakespeare’s unfolding panorama of English history.

Richard III, probably first staged between 1592 and 1594, does seem to represent a quantum leap in Shakespeare’s dramatic art. Whilst Crookback Richard has been a role that has made the names of great actors from David Garrick in the eighteenth century to Edmund Kean in the nineteenth to Antony Sher in the twentieth, the Henry the Sixth plays have not fared well on the English (or any other) stage. The second and third parts were given a few outings in a heavily adapted and compressed form between the Restoration and Regency periods, but almost three hundred years elapsed before there was a full-scale revival of the entire sequence, and even the twentieth century, which restored to favor such previously unpopular early Shakespearean plays as Love’s Labour’s Lost and Titus Andronicus, only saw some half-dozen major productions: those of F. R. Benson at the beginning of the century, Sir Barry Jackson shortly after World War II, John Barton and Peter Hall (rewritten and compressed into two plays under the title The Wars of the Roses) at Stratford-upon-Avon in the early 1960s, Terry Hands and Adrian Noble in succeeding decades at Stratford (the latter reducing the tetralogy to a trilogy entitled The Plantagenets), and Michael Bogdanov as part of a brave attempt to stage all of the history plays in modern dress, with a strong anti-Thatcherite political agenda, for the touring English Shakespeare Company in the 1980s.

The early-twenty-first century, however, witnessed a reversal of fortune: Michael Boyd directed a much-admired version with full texts under the title This England in the intimate space of the Swan theater in Stratford-upon-Avon, then on becoming artistic director of the Royal Shakespeare Company revived his productions on a larger stage. Edward Hall, meanwhile, followed his father, Peter, in reducing three to two, with an energetic version set in a slaughterhouse and entitled Rose Rage. In a new millennium, at a time of renewed religious war and deep uncertainty about the meaning of nation and national identity, Shakespeare’s exploration of the foundations of the fractured Tudor polity seemed powerfully prescient.

The Henry the Sixth plays reveal Shakespeare learning his art with great rapidity. Poetic styles and stage business are snapped up from the university men, source material from the prose chronicles of English history. Edward Hall’s Union of the Two Noble and Illustrious Families of Lancaster and York (1548) is compressed in such a way as to give a pattern to the march of history. The action is concerned less with individual characters than with the roles that individuals play in the drama of the nation’s destiny. Shakespeare is quite willing to change someone’s age or even their nature in order to subordinate them to his overall scheme. The demonization of Richard of Gloucester is only the most striking example. Whereas we associate the mature Shakespeare with contemplation—King Harry or Prince Hamlet in troubled soliloquy—the driving force of these early plays is action. The First Part deploys a set of variations on an underlying structure in which dramatic action precedes explanation, then a scene will end with epigrammatic recapitulation; each scene is presented in such a way that a different character’s viewpoint is emphasized or a new aspect of an existing character developed. The scene with Talbot in the Countess of Auvergne’s castle, for instance, highlights the courtesy and prudence of a man who has previously been seen as the exemplar of heroic courage. It also provides a contrast against which the later confrontation of Suffolk and Margaret can be measured: Talbot is a relic from the days of Henry V and England’s conquest of France, while Suffolk is a harbinger of division and the Wars of the Roses.

In The Second Part, Shakespeare used a structural pattern to which he returned in later tragedies such as King Lear and Timon of Athens: the hero, Duke Humphrey of Gloucester, is progressively isolated as prominence is given to the legalistic conspiracies of his malicious enemies. But since the subject is the nation, not an individual hero, Humphrey is dispatched in the third act, and the remainder of the play turns to the subject of rebellion (Jack Cade’s proletarian rising in Act 4) and attempted usurpation (the altogether more dangerous Duke of York’s march on London). The Third Part begins in chaos, with each of the first two acts ending in a battle (at Wakefield, then Towton), then proceeds in an uneasy equilibrium that sees two kings alive simultaneously and their respective claims only resolved after a bewildering series of encounters, parleys and changes of allegiance.

Balanced scene structure is paralleled by formal rhetorical style. The formality of the world of these plays is also apparent from the use of dramatic tableaux. The civil strife of the Wars of the Roses could have no better epitome than the paired entrances in Act 2 Scene 5 of The Third Part, where a son that has killed his father appears at one stage door and a moment later a father that has killed his son emerges through the other. Their entry rudely interrupts King Henry’s meditation on how he only wants a quiet life, how he’d rather be a shepherd than a king. The aspirations of the weak but pious king are formally visualized in the stage direction for his next entry, in Act 3 Scene 1: “Enter King Henry, disguised, carrying a prayer-book.” Only in retreat and disguise can he fulfill his desire to be a holy man. And even then his peace lasts only an instant, for two gamekeepers overhear and apprehend him, taking him to captivity in the hands of usurping King Edward. By contrast, when Richard of Gloucester becomes King Richard in the next play, a prayer-book is itself a form of disguise.

The unifying theme that makes the plays work as a trilogy, whatever the circumstances of their origin, is the pitching of two world-pictures against each other. Opposites cannot coexist in harmony, so chaos ensues. In The First Part the opposition takes the form of French against English, Joan against Talbot, magical thinking against rationality, female against male, and implicitly Catholic against Protestant. The historical Talbot was a Catholic, but to an audience in the early 1590s, his plain-speaking Englishness and his heroic deeds on the continental mainland would inevitably have evoked the knightly warriors such as Sir Philip Sidney who fought with Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, in the religious wars of the 1580s in the Spanish Netherlands. Joan, meanwhile, is a figure familiar from anti-Catholic propaganda: a virgin branded whore (“pucelle” means “maiden” but “puzzel” connotes prostitute), a saint and martyr converted into a conjuror of devils, a figure linked to Papist veneration of the Virgin Mary by way of the suggestion of miraculous pregnancy.

The dialectic of The Second Part pits honest old Duke Humphrey of Gloucester and pious young King Henry VI against the scheming Plantagenets. Richard Duke of York’s brain, “more busy than the labouring spider,” “weaves tedious snares to trap” his enemies; his son Richard, future Duke of Gloucester and eventual Richard III, will develop both this kind of language and his father’s strategizing to chilling effect. As various characters shift allegiance between the houses of York and Lancaster, so audience sympathies shift as the fast-moving action unfolds: the power-hungry York of The Second Part becomes a figure of pathos when he is forced to wear a paper crown in the final moments before he is stabbed to death in The Third Part.

Shakespeare does not reveal his own allegiances, but he knows the direction in which history is moving. A key incident in this regard is the fake miracle of Simpcox in The Second Part: King Henry is taken in, a mark of his naive faith, whereas Humphrey of Gloucester adopts the sceptical, interrogative voice of a witchfinder—for which the contemporary equivalent would have been a seeker after closet Catholics. Revealingly, the source for this scene was not the pro-Tudor chronicle of Edward Hall but the anti-Catholic martyrology of John Foxe. Other “medieval,” and thus implicitly Catholic, elements are also subverted: the Duchess of Gloucester’s reliance on conjuration and the trial by combat between the armorer Horner and his man Peter both backfire.

Protestantism, with its rejection of the hierarchies of saints and cardinals, its commitment to the Bible in the language of the people, was associated with a democratization of religious faith. The Second Part is the element of the trilogy that toys with the popular voice (hence its significant proportion of prose writing, which is entirely absent from the first and third parts), but it cannot be said to endorse a modern notion of democracy. Jack Cade is a highly attractive figure on stage because he speaks in the same language as the commoners in the audience; his clowning offers welcome respite from the high rhetoric and low cunning of the aristocrats, and such lines as “the first thing we do, let’s kill all the lawyers” elicit an approving laugh in every age. But Shakespeare, who made his living by the literacy that his father lacked, can hardly be said to approve of a character who orders the hanging of a village clerk for the crime of being able to read and write. And Cade’s vision of England is self-contradictory to the core:

CADEBe brave, then, for your captain is brave, and vows reformation. There shall be in England seven halfpenny loaves sold for a penny: the three-hooped pot shall have ten hoops, and I will make it felony to drink small beer. All the realm shall be in common, and in Cheapside shall my palfrey go to grass: and when I am king, as king I will be—

ALLGod save your majesty!

This is a double-edged “reformation”: cheap bread, unwatered ale and the land held in common sound Utopian, but Cade does not really want representative government. He wants to be king himself. Shakespeare plays the same trick against the “commonwealth” idealism of the courtier Gonzalo twenty years later in The Tempest: “No sovereignty— / Yet he would be king on’t.” If Shakespeare has an Eden, it is not a place anterior to class distinction on the lines of the old rhyme “When Adam delved and Eve span / Who was then the gentleman?” but rather an English gentleman’s country estate, a place of peace and retreat where Cade is an intruder: the Kentish garden of Alexander Iden.

There is a primal quality to the three plays of Henry the Sixth. The basis of drama is agon, the Greek word for “struggle” or “contest.” According to Aristotle, the origin of tragedy was the moment when an actor split off from a chorus and began to enter into dialogue with them. Later came a second actor and a further opportunity for confrontation—the term for the first actor was “protagonist” and the second “deuteragonist.” Conversation in the theater of historical tragedy is always a form of agon, which rapidly escalates into emotional intensity (agony) and thence to physical violence. Shakespeare, with his highly self-conscious theatrical art, is always acutely aware of the several agons that coexist in the theater: between the actor and his role (the struggle to master a part), between the players and the audience (the struggle to grab attention, to move a crowd of onlookers to woe and wonder), within each individual character (the play of conflicting desires and duties), as well as between the characters in their dialogue and stage disposition.

War is the logical culmination of an agonistic world: it is the beginning and end of the three parts of Henry the Sixth. The process of escalation is such that The Third Part in particular portrays the complete breakdown of society. The play has the harrowing, relentless quality of Greek tragedy, where people live and die according to a code of revenge, the sins of the fathers are visited upon the children, and the language moves between rhetorical, proto-operatic arias of anger, anguish, invective, and rapid-fire one-line exchanges in which the brutal conflicts between Lancastrians and Yorkists, men and women, old and young, self-servers and seekers after justice, winners and losers, are stripped to their essentials. In this world, words are weapons, but just occasionally they are harbingers of hope, as when King Henry VI lays his hands on young Henry Richmond’s head and says:

Come hither, England’s hope. If secret powers

Suggest but truth to my divining thoughts,

This pretty lad will prove our country’s bliss.

His looks are full of peaceful majesty,

His head by nature framed to wear a crown,

His hand to wield a sceptre, and himself

Likely in time to bless a regal throne.

Make much of him, my lords, for this is he

Must help you more than you are hurt by me.

This anointing looks forward to the establishment of the Tudor dynasty when Richmond becomes Henry VII, Queen Elizabeth’s grandfather. But, as always seems to happen at moments of apparent stasis in these plays, a messenger then rushes on with the news that the rival king, Edward, has escaped. The violence continues apace. And before the final victory of Richmond at Bosworth Field, England must endure the darkness and blood of Crookback Richard’s reign, to which Shakespeare will turn his attention in his next tragedy.

KEY FACTS: THE FIRST PART OF HENRY THE SIXTH

AUTHORSHIP: Shakespeare clearly wrote at least some of the play, as witnessed by its inclusion in the Folio, but of the three Henry the Sixth plays this is the one that is most likely to be collaborative. A wide range of stylometric tests raise very severe doubts over the likelihood of sole Shakespearean authorship. Modern scholarship favors Thomas Nashe (who praised the Talbot scenes in a pamphlet of 1592) as the likeliest collaborator, but one or two other authorial hands may also be present. Robert Greene, Christopher Marlowe, George Peele and whichever dramatist wrote the chronicle play of Locrine have all been suggested. The scenes most likely to be Shakespeare’s are 2.4 (the roses in the Temple garden) and 4.2–4.7.32 (the battle scenes dominated by Talbot).

PLOT: Following the death of his father, Henry V, the young Henry VI is proclaimed king under the protectorship of his uncles, the Dukes of Gloucester and Exeter. There is conflict between Gloucester and his long-term rival, the Bishop of Winchester, and their respective supporters. Richard Plantagenet, having established a claim to the throne through the Mortimer line of his family, declares his animosity toward the Duke of Somerset. Each adopts a rose as an emblem for his faction: white for York, red for Lancaster. Charles the Dauphin, fortified by his alliance with the mysterious maid Joan la Pucelle (Joan of Arc), dominates the battles in France. The Duke of Bedford, Henry’s uncle, is killed. The English captain Talbot—a legendary warrior, much feared by the French—is also killed. His death occurs as a direct result of the continuing enmity between York and Somerset, both of whom failed to supply reinforcements to the English troops. Fortunes turn and Joan is captured and burned. An uneasy peace is concluded between England and France. In light of this, Gloucester engineers a politically astute marriage between Henry and the Earl of Armagnac’s daughter. Meanwhile, in France, Suffolk is enchanted by Margaret, the daughter of the Duke of Anjou. Suffolk woos Margaret to be Henry’s queen and in order to gain her father’s consent cedes the newly conquered French territories of Anjou and Maine. Suffolk returns to England and persuades Henry, against opposition from the court, to marry Margaret and make her Queen of England.

MAJOR PARTS: (with percentage of lines/number of speeches/scenes on stage) Talbot (15%/59/12), Joan la Pucelle (9%/46/10), Richard Plantagenet, later Duke of York (7%/56/7), Duke of Gloucester (7%/48/7), King Henry VI (7%/29/5), Earl of Suffolk (6%/41/3), Charles, King of France (5%/41/8), Winchester (4%/27/6), Edmund Mortimer (3%/9/1), Sir William Lucy (3%/14/3), Duke of Bedford (3%/19/4), Earl of Warwick (3%/24/4), Duke of Somerset (2%/ 27/4), Duke of Exeter (2%/11/5), Reignier (2%/24/6), Duke of Alençon (2%/18/7), John Talbot (2%/11/2), Countess of Auvergne (2%/13/1), Duke of Burgundy (2%/17/6).

LINGUISTIC MEDIUM: 100% verse.

DATE: 1592. Generally assumed to be the “harey the vi” performed at the Rose Theatre in March 1592 (marked as “ne”—new?—by proprietor Philip Henslowe). Nashe’s pamphlet Pierce Penniless (registered for publication August 1592) refers to the Talbot scenes inspiring “the tears of ten thousand spectators.”

SOURCES: Different chronicle sources seem to have been used, perhaps by the play’s different authors. So, for example, Edward Hall’s The Union of the Two Noble and Illustre Famelies of Lancastre and Yorke (1548) is the main source for the civil contention in England, whereas the account of Joan of Arc draws on Holinshed’s Chronicles (1587 edition). Strikingly, the scenes most likely to be Shakespeare’s—the Temple garden and Talbot with his son—seem to be pure dramatic invention, with no source in the chronicles.

TEXT: 1623 Folio is the only text. There is dispute over whether it was set from (multi-?) authorial holograph or scribal copy, and the extent to which it was influenced by the playhouse bookkeeper. Some textual inconsistencies (e.g., whether Winchester is a bishop or a cardinal) may have been the result of different authors making different assumptions. The Folio editors introduced act and scene divisions that are perhaps more literary than theatrical.

TRILOGY?: Modern scholarship leans to the view that the plays the Folio calls the second and third parts of Henry the Sixth were originally a two-part “Wars of the Roses” drama (The First Part of the Contention and The True Tragedy of Richard Duke of York) and that this play was a (collaborative) “prequel,” written later to cash in on their success. This argument supposes that the three plays only became a “trilogy” when they were renamed and ordered by historical sequence in the 1623 Folio. Some scholars, however, adhere to the minority view that all three parts were written in sequence as a trilogy.

GENEALOGY: See this page.

KEY FACTS: THE SECOND PART OF HENRY THE SIXTH

AUTHORSHIP: Inclusion in the Folio is a presumption in favor of Shakespeare’s authorship, but stylometric tests raise some doubts about his sole authorship. Peele, Greene and Nashe have been suggested as possible contributors. There is no scholarly consensus on the question, which is closely related to the problem of the nature of the Quarto text (see below), but of the three Henry the Sixth plays this is the one with the strongest probability of near-exclusive Shakespearean authorship.

PLOT: Despite the recently concluded peace between England and France, dissension is rife within the English court. Suffolk’s influence, both at court and with the new Queen Margaret, intensifies. The fractious English nobles unite in their common aim to get rid of the Duke of Gloucester. His wife, Eleanor, the Duchess of Gloucester, aspires to the crown and is lured by a priest, John Hume, who is in the pay of Suffolk, to consult a witch about her ambitions. She is brought to trial and banished. Gloucester resigns his staff of office, allowing Henry to become king in his own right. Somerset returns from France with the news of the loss of all English territories. York and others seize this opportunity to implicate Gloucester in the loss of France and to accuse him of treason. Suffolk, Margaret, Winchester and York agree that Gloucester should be murdered. Meanwhile, there is a rebellion in Ireland and York is sent by Suffolk to deal with the crisis. York incites Jack Cade, a clothier posing as Mortimer, to promote further dissension by rebelling in Kent. Gloucester is murdered and the king turns against Suffolk, who is subsequently banished and murdered. Cardinal Beaufort (Winchester) outlives his old enemy by only a few hours. Cade’s rebellion is finally quashed but York returns to claim the crown, supported by his sons, Edward, Richard and George, and by Salisbury and Warwick. The two sides take up arms, Henry supported by Margaret, Somerset, Buckingham and the Cliffords. For the first time, Lancastrians face Yorkists at the battle of St Albans. The play ends with the king and queen in flight and the Yorkists contemplating the crown.

MAJOR PARTS: (with percentage of lines/number of speeches/scenes on stage) Richard Plantagenet, Duke of York (12%/58/9), King Henry VI (10%/82/11), Duke of Gloucester (10%/69/7), Duke of Suffolk (10%/67/7), Queen Margaret (10%/61/9), Jack Cade (8%/61/6), Earl of Warwick (4%/32/8), Cardinal Beaufort (4%/31/6), Eleanor (4%/21/5), Earl of Salisbury (3%/17/8), Duke of Buckingham (2%/24/9), Lord Clifford (2%/17/4), Captain (2%/ 11/1), Lord Say (2%/13/2), Alexander Iden (2%/9/2), Young Clifford (2%/4/2), Dick (1%/24/4).

LINGUISTIC MEDIUM: 85% verse, 15% prose.

DATE: 1591? Unquestionably precedes the play now known as The Third Part, a line of which was parodied in a pamphlet entered for publication in September 1592. Almost certainly played as a two-parter with the following play by Pembroke’s Men, who were active in 1592. The possibility of an earlier pre-Shakespearean version and a later Shakespearean revision cannot be ruled out.

SOURCES: The main historical source seems to have been either Edward Hall’s The Union of the Two Noble and Illustre Famelies of Lancastre and Yorke (1548) or Richard Grafton’s abridged and very slightly altered version thereof (1569); Holinshed’s Chronicles also seems to have been used, but there are fewer signs of its influence than in any of the other English histories. The false miracle of Simpcox was added by Grafton to Hall, but Shakespeare almost certainly read it in John Foxe’s hugely influential protestant martyrology Actes and Monuments (perhaps read in the enlarged edition of 1583).

TEXT: A short version was published in Quarto form in 1594, entitled The First Part of the Contention betwixt the two famous Houses of Yorke and Lancaster, with the death of the good Duke Humphrey: And the banishment and death of the Duke of Suffolke, and the Tragicall end of the proud Cardinall of Winchester, with the notable Rebellion of lacke Cade: And the Duke of Yorkes first claime vnto the Crowne, reprinted 1600 and, with attribution to Shakespeare and title combined with that of the following play, 1619 (The Whole Contention betweene the two Famous Houses, Lancaster and Yorke). The Quarto text is a reconstruction of a playing version, but there is much dispute over whether it is a short and often poorly remembered version of the play that is preserved in full in the Folio or the text of an early version (not by Shakespeare? partly by Shakespeare?) that Shakespeare then revised into the play that was printed in the Folio. It is equally unclear whether the possible linguistic signs of a non-Shakespearean hand (or hands) in the Folio text are vestiges of an older version or the result of active collaboration/coauthorship. We use the Folio text, which has the authority of Hemings and Condell; it is usually thought to represent a fairly close approximation of Shakespeare’s manuscript, though the Third Quarto sometimes seems to have been consulted. The Quarto remains valuable for certain details of staging and the more significant of its variations are recorded in the textual notes.

GENEALOGY: See this page.

KEY FACTS: THE THIRD PART OF HENRY THE SIXTH

AUTHORSHIP: Inclusion in the Folio and Chettle/Greene’s “upstart crow” jibe (see “Date,” below) are presumptions in favor of Shakespeare’s authorship, but stylometric tests raise grave doubts about his sole authorship. Peele, Greene and Nashe have been suggested as possible contributors. There is no scholarly consensus on the question, which is closely related to the problem of the nature of the Octavo text (see below).

PLOT: Having won the battle of St. Albans and with Richard Plantagenet sitting on the throne of England, the Yorkists confront the Lancastrians. King Henry, to his wife’s dismay, agrees to York’s demand that he disinherit his son, Edward, Prince of Wales. Margaret vows to destroy York and his followers. She enlists the support of Clifford and others to raise an army. Margaret’s forces meet with those of York in battle, during which York’s youngest son, Rutland, is killed by Clifford. York is then captured by Clifford and Northumberland, taunted with details of Rutland’s death and brutally murdered. Edward and Richard are informed of their father’s murder and unite with Warwick, who proclaims Edward the new Duke of York. They raise an army and defeat the Lancastrians at Towton. Henry, Margaret and their son are forced to flee north; Clifford is killed. Henry is captured and brought to London, where he is placed in the Tower by the new King Edward. In France, Margaret and Warwick meet at the court of King Lewis. News reaches them that Edward has married Lady Elizabeth Grey, in spite of his earlier betrothal, instigated by Warwick, to King Lewis’ sister, Lady Bona. This insult turns both Warwick and Lewis against Edward. Warwick pledges support to Margaret, releasing Henry from the Tower and reinstating him as King of England. Warwick leaves London to muster his army, during which time Edward returns and recaptures Henry. The forces of Edward and Warwick meet at Barnet, where Warwick is killed. Margaret arrives in England with reinforcements. Her forces encounter Edward’s for the last time at Tewkesbury, where, after much bloodshed, the Wars of the Roses seem finally to be over.

MAJOR PARTS: (with percentage of lines/number of speeches/scenes on stage) Edward, Earl of March/King Edward IV (15%/132/18), Earl of Warwick (15%/99/12), Richard/Duke of Gloucester (14%/108/17), King Henry VI (12%/71/7), Queen Margaret (10%/53/7), Richard, Duke of York (6%/37/3), Lord Clifford (5%/35/6), George/Duke of Clarence (4%/39/12), Lady Elizabeth Grey/Queen Elizabeth (3%/31/4), King Lewis XI (2%/21/1), Edward, Prince of Wales (2%/16/6).

LINGUISTIC MEDIUM: 100% verse.

DATE: 1591? York’s line “O, tiger’s heart wrapt in a woman’s hide!” is parodied in Greene’s Groatsworth of Wit (a pamphlet prepared for the press—entered for publication September 1592—by Henry Chettle, perhaps based in part on the papers of the late dramatist Robert Greene), where Shakespeare is described as an “upstart crow, beautified with our feathers, that with his Tiger’s heart wrapped in a player’s hide, supposes he is as well able to bombast out a blank verse as the best of you.” Pembroke’s Men, who played the Octavo version, were active in 1592. The possibility of an earlier pre-Shakespearean version and a later Shakespearean revision cannot be ruled out.

SOURCES: Based primarily on Edward Hall, The Union of the Two Noble and Illustre Famelies of Lancastre and Yorke (1548) and the second (1587) edition of Holinshed’s Chronicles. In some details, the Octavo text seems to follow Hall and the Folio Holinshed, which may support the theory of revision (see below).

TEXT: A short version was published in Octavo form in 1595, entitled The true Tragedie of Richard Duke of Yorke, and the death of good King Henrie the Sixt, with the whole contention betweene the two Houses Lancaster and Yorke, as it was sundrie times acted by the Right Honourable the Earle of Pembrooke his seruants, reprinted in Quarto in 1600 and, with attribution to Shakespeare and title combined with that of the previous play, 1619 (The Whole Contention betweene the two Famous Houses, Lancaster and Yorke). The Octavo text is a reconstruction of a playing version, but there is much dispute over whether it is a short and often poorly remembered version of the play that is preserved in full in the Folio or the text of an early version (not by Shakespeare? partly by Shakespeare?) that Shakespeare then revised into the play that was printed in the Folio. It is equally unclear whether the linguistic signs of a non-Shakespearean hand (or hands) in the Folio text are vestiges of an older version or the result of active collaboration/coauthorship. We use the Folio text, which has the authority of Hemings and Condell, though the nature of the copy from which it was set is disputed. The Octavo remains valuable for certain details of staging.

GENEALOGY: See this page.

THE FIRST PART OF HENRY THE SIXTH

The English side

KING HENRY VI, probably a boy player

Duke of BEDFORD, Regent of France

Duke of GLOUCESTER, Lord Protector, brother of the late Henry V, uncle of the king

Duke of EXETER, uncle of the late Henry V, great-uncle of the king

Bishop of WINCHESTER, later a Cardinal, Exeter’s younger brother, family name Beaufort

Duke of SOMERSET, Exeter’s nephew

RICHARD PLANTAGENET, later DUKE OF YORK and Regent of France

Earl of WARWICK

Earl of SALISBURY

Earl of SUFFOLK, William de la Pole

Lord TALBOT, later Earl of Shrewsbury

JOHN Talbot, his son

Edmund MORTIMER, Earl of March

Sir Thomas GARGRAVE

Sir William GLASDALE

Sir John FALSTAFF (historically Fastolf, not the same character as in Henry IV and The Merry Wives of Windsor)

Sir William LUCY

WOODVILLE, Lieutenant of the Tower of London

MAYOR of London

OFFICER to the Mayor of London

VERNON

BASSET

A LAWYER

A Papal LEGATE

JAILERS

English CAPTAIN

FIRST SERVINGMAN

FIRST MESSENGER

SECOND MESSENGER

THIRD MESSENGER

FIRST WARDER

SECOND WARDER

The French side

CHARLES the Dauphin, later King of France

REIGNIER, Duke of Anjou, King of Naples

MARGARET, his daughter

Duke of ALENÇON

BASTARD of Orléans

Duke of BURGUNDY

French GENERAL

Joan la PUCELLE, also called Joan of Arc

SHEPHERD, father of Joan

MASTER GUNNER of Orleans

Master Gunner’s BOY, his son

COUNTESS of Auvergne

Her PORTER

French SERGEANT

FIRST SENTINEL

WATCH

FIRST SOLDIER

French SCOUT

Soldiers, Attendants, Ambassadors, the Governor of Paris, French herald, Servingmen, Messengers, Sentinels, Captains, Fiends, Trumpeters

Act 1 Scene 11.1

running scene 1

Dead march. Enter the funeral of King Henry the Fifth, attended on by the Duke of Bedford, Regent of France; the Duke of Gloucester, Protector; the Duke of Exeter, [the Earl of] Warwick, the Bishop of Winchester, and the Duke of Somerset, [and Heralds]

BEDFORDHung[1] be the heavens with black: yield, day, to night!

Comets,[2] importing change of times and states,

Brandish[3] your crystal tresses in the sky,

And with them scourge[4] the bad revolting stars

5

That have consented unto[5] Henry’s death:

King Henry the Fifth, too[6] famous to live long:

England ne’er lost a king of so much worth.

GLOUCESTEREngland ne’er had a king until his time:

Virtue[9] he had, deserving to command:

10

His[10] brandished sword did blind men with his beams:

His arms spread wider than a dragon’s wings:

His sparkling eyes, replete with[12] wrathful fire,

More dazzlèd and drove back his enemies

Than midday sun, fierce bent against their faces.

15

What[15] should I say? His deeds exceed all speech:

He[16] ne’er lift up his hand but conquerèd.

EXETERWe mourn in black: why mourn we not in blood?[17]

Henry is dead and never shall revive:[18]

Upon a wooden[19] coffin we attend,

20

And death’s dishonourable victory

We with our stately presence glorify,

Like captives bound to a triumphant car.[22]

What, shall we curse the planets of mishap,[23]

That plotted[24] thus our glory’s overthrow?

25

Or shall we think the subtle-witted[25] French

Conjurers and sorcerers, that, afraid of him,

By magic verses[27] have contrived his end?

WINCHESTERHe was a king blessed of the King of Kings.[28]

Unto the French the dreadful judgement day

30

So dreadful[30] will not be as was his sight.

The battles of the Lord of hosts[31] he fought:

The church’s prayers made him so prosperous.[32]

GLOUCESTERThe church? Where is it? Had not churchmen prayed,[33]

His thread of life[34] had not so soon decayed.

35

None do you like but an effeminate prince,[35]

Whom like a schoolboy you may overawe.[36]

WINCHESTERGloucester, whate’er we like, thou art Protector[37]

And lookest[38] to command the Prince and realm.

Thy wife is proud: she holdeth thee in awe,

40

More than God or religious churchmen may.

GLOUCESTERName not religion, for thou lov’st the flesh,[41]

And ne’er throughout the year to church thou go’st

Except it be to pray against thy foes.

BEDFORDCease, cease these jars,[44] and rest your minds in peace:

45

Let’s to the altar: heralds, wait on us:

[Exeunt funeral procession]

Instead of gold, we’ll offer up our arms:

Since arms avail not[47] now that Henry’s dead:

Posterity, await for[48] wretched years,

When, at[49] their mothers’ moistened eyes, babes shall suck,

50

Our isle be made a nourish[50] of salt tears,

And none but women left to wail the dead.

Henry the Fifth, thy ghost I invocate:[52]

Prosper this realm, keep it from civil broils,[53]

Combat with adverse planets[54] in the heavens:

55

A far more glorious star[55] thy soul will make

Than Julius Caesar, or bright—

Enter a Messenger

FIRST MESSENGERMy honourable lords, health to you all:

Sad tidings bring I to you out of France,

Of loss, of slaughter and discomfiture:[59]

60

Guyenne, Champaigne,[60] Rouen, Rheims, Orléans,

Paris, Gisors, Poitiers, are all quite lost.

BEDFORDWhat say’st thou, man, before dead Henry’s corpse?

Speak softly, or the loss of those great towns

Will make him burst his lead[64] and rise from death.

65

GLOUCESTERIs Paris lost? Is Rouen yielded up?

If Henry were recalled to life again,

These news would cause him once more yield the ghost.[67]

EXETERHow were they lost? What treachery was used?

FIRST MESSENGERNo treachery, but want[69] of men and money.

70

Amongst the soldiers this is mutterèd:

That here you maintain several[71] factions,

And whilst a field[72] should be dispatched and fought,

You are disputing of[73] your generals.

One would have lingering wars with little cost:

75

Another would fly swift, but wanteth wings:

A third thinks, without expense at all,

By guileful[77] fair words peace may be obtained.

Awake, awake, English nobility!

Let not sloth dim your honours new-begot:[79]

80

Cropped are the flower-de-luces[80] in your arms:

Of England’s coat,[81] one half is cut away.

[Exit]

EXETERWere our tears wanting to[82] this funeral,

These tidings would call forth her[83] flowing tides.

BEDFORDMe they concern: Regent[84] I am of France:

85

Give me my steelèd coat:[85] I’ll fight for France.

Away with these disgraceful wailing robes! He removes his mourning robes

Wounds will I lend the French instead of eyes,

To weep their intermissive[88] miseries.

Enter to them another Messenger

SECOND MESSENGERLords, view these letters, full of bad mischance.[89]

90

France is revolted from the English quite,[90]

Except some petty[91] towns of no import.

The dauphin[92] Charles is crownèd king in Rheims:

The Bastard[93] of Orléans with him is joined:

Reignier, Duke of Anjou, doth take his part:

95

The Duke of Alençon flieth to his side.

Exit

EXETERThe dauphin crownèd king! All fly to him?

O whither shall we fly[97] from this reproach?

GLOUCESTERWe will not fly, but to our enemies’ throats.

Bedford, if thou be slack, I’ll fight it out.

100

BEDFORDGloucester, why doubt’st thou of my forwardness?[100]

An army have I mustered in my thoughts,

Wherewith already France is overrun.

Enter another Messenger

THIRD MESSENGERMy gracious lords, to add to your laments,

Wherewith you now bedew[104] King Henry’s hearse,

105

I must inform you of a dismal[105] fight

Betwixt the stout Lord Talbot and the French.

WINCHESTERWhat? Wherein Talbot overcame — is’t so?

THIRD MESSENGERO no: wherein Lord Talbot was o’erthrown:

The circumstance[109] I’ll tell you more at large.

110

The tenth of August[110] last, this dreadful lord,

Retiring from the siege of Orléans,

Having full scarce[112] six thousand in his troop,

By three and twenty thousand of the French

Was round encompassèd[114] and set upon:

115

No leisure had he to enrank[115] his men.

He wanted[116] pikes to set before his archers:

Instead whereof, sharp stakes plucked out of hedges

They pitchèd in the ground confusedly,[118]

To keep the horsemen off from breaking in.

120

More than three hours the fight continuèd,

Where valiant Talbot above human thought[121]

Enacted wonders with his sword and lance.

Hundreds he sent to hell, and none durst stand[123] him:

Here, there, and everywhere, enraged he slew.

125

The French exclaimed the devil was in arms:

All the whole army stood agazed on[126] him.

His soldiers spying his undaunted spirit

‘A[128] Talbot! A Talbot!’ cried out amain

And rushed into the bowels[129] of the battle.

130

Here had the conquest fully been sealed up,[130]

If Sir John Falstaff[131] had not played the coward.

He, being in the vanguard, placed behind

With[133] purpose to relieve and follow them,

Cowardly fled, not having struck one stroke.

135

Hence grew the general wrack[135] and massacre;

Enclosèd[136] were they with their enemies.

A base Walloon,[137] to win the dauphin’s grace,

Thrust Talbot with a spear into the back,

Whom all France with their chief assembled strength

140

Durst not presume to look once in the face.

BEDFORDIs Talbot slain then? I will slay myself,

For living idly here in pomp[142] and ease,

Whilst such a worthy leader, wanting aid,

Unto his dastard foemen[144] is betrayed.

145

THIRD MESSENGERO no, he lives, but is took prisoner,

And Lord Scales with him, and Lord Hungerford:

Most of the rest slaughtered, or took likewise.

BEDFORDHis ransom there is none but I shall pay.

I’ll hale[149] the dauphin headlong from his throne:

150

His crown shall be the ransom of my friend:

Four of their lords I’ll change[151] for one of ours.

Farewell, my masters: to my task will I.

Bonfires in France forthwith I am to make,

To keep[154] our great Saint George’s feast withal.

155

Ten thousand soldiers with me I will take,

Whose bloody deeds shall make all Europe quake.

THIRD MESSENGERSo you had need, for Orléans is besieged.

The English army is grown weak and faint:

The Earl of Salisbury craveth supply,[159]

160

And hardly[160] keeps his men from mutiny,

Since they, so few, watch such a multitude.

[Exit]

EXETERRemember, lords, your oaths to Henry sworn:

Either to quell[163] the dauphin utterly,

Or bring him in obedience to your yoke.

165

BEDFORDI do remember it, and here take my leave,

To go about my preparation.

Exit Bedford

GLOUCESTERI’ll to the Tower[167] with all the haste I can,

To view th’artillery and munition,

And then I will proclaim young Henry king.

Exit Gloucester

170

EXETERTo Eltham[170] will I, where the young king is,

Being[171] ordained his special governor,

And for his safety there I’ll best devise.

Exit

WINCHESTEREach hath his place and function to attend:

I am left out; for me nothing remains:

175

But long I will not be Jack-out-of-office.[175]

The king from Eltham I intend to steal

And sit[177] at chiefest stern of public weal.

Exit

[Act 1 Scene 2]1.2

running scene 2

Sound a flourish. Enter Charles [the Dauphin, the Duke of] Alençon and Reignier [Duke of Anjou], marching with Drum and Soldiers

CHARLESMars[1] his true moving, even as in the heavens

So in the earth, to this day is not known.

Late[3] did he shine upon the English side:

Now we are victors: upon us he smiles.

5

What towns of any moment[5] but we have?

At pleasure here we lie near Orléans;

Otherwhiles[7] the famished English, like pale ghosts,

Faintly besiege us one hour in a month.

ALENÇONThey want[9] their porridge and their fat bull-beeves:

10

Either they must be dieted[10] like mules,

And have their provender[11] tied to their mouths,

Or piteous they will look, like drownèd mice.

REIGNIERLet’s raise[13] the siege: why live we idly here?

Talbot is taken, whom we wont[14] to fear:

15

Remaineth none but mad-brained Salisbury,

And he may well in fretting[16] spend his gall,

Nor men nor money hath he to make war.

CHARLESSound, sound alarum![18] We will rush on them.

Now for the honour of the forlorn[19] French:

20

Him I forgive my death that killeth me

When he sees me go back one foot or fly.

Exeunt

Here alarum: they are beaten back by the English with great loss

Enter Charles, Alençon and Reignier

CHARLESWho ever saw the like? What men have I?

Dogs, cowards, dastards![23] I would ne’er have fled,

But that they left me ’midst my enemies.

25

REIGNIERSalisbury is a desperate homicide;[25]

He fighteth as one weary of his life:

The other lords, like lions wanting food,

Do rush upon us as their hungry[28] prey.

ALENÇONFroissart,[29] a countryman of ours, records

30

England all[30] Olivers and Rowlands bred,

During the time Edward the Third did reign:

More truly now may this be verified;

For none but Samsons and Goliases[33]

It sendeth forth to skirmish:[34] one to ten!

35

Lean raw-boned[35] rascals, who would e’er suppose

They had such courage and audacity?

CHARLESLet’s leave this town, for they are hare-brained slaves,[37]

And hunger will enforce them to be more eager:[38]

Of old I know them; rather with their teeth

40

The walls they’ll tear down than forsake[40] the siege.

REIGNIERI think by some odd gimmers[41] or device

Their arms are set, like clocks, still[42] to strike on;

Else ne’er could they hold out so as they do:

By my consent,[44] we’ll even let them alone.

45

ALENÇONBe it so.

Enter the Bastard of Orléans

BASTARDWhere’s the Prince Dauphin? I have news for him.

CHARLESBastard of Orléans, thrice welcome to us.

BASTARDMethinks your looks are sad, your cheer appalled.[48]

Hath the late overthrow wrought[49] this offence?

50

Be not dismayed, for succour is at hand:

A holy maid hither with me I bring,

Which by a vision sent to her from heaven,

Ordainèd[53] is to raise this tedious siege

And drive the English forth[54] the bounds of France:

55

The spirit of deep prophecy she hath,

Exceeding the nine sibyls[56] of old Rome:

What’s past and what’s to come she can descry.[57]

Speak, shall I call her in? Believe my words,

For they are certain and unfallible.

60

CHARLESGo, call her in.

[Exit Bastard of Orléans]

But first, to try[60] her skill,

Reignier, stand thou as dauphin in my place:

Question her proudly:[62] let thy looks be stern:

By this means shall we sound[63] what skill she hath.

Enter [the Bastard of Orléans, with] Joan [la] Pucelle [armed]

REIGNIERFair maid, is’t thou wilt do these wondrous feats? As Charles

65

PUCELLEReignier, is’t thou that thinkest to beguile[65] me?

Where is the dauphin?— Come, come from behind: To Charles

I know thee well, though never seen before.

Be not amazed, there’s nothing hid from me;

In private will I talk with thee apart:

70

Stand back, you lords, and give us leave awhile. Reignier, Alençon and Bastard stand apart[70]

REIGNIERShe takes upon her[71] bravely at first dash.

PUCELLEDauphin, I am by birth a shepherd’s daughter,

My wit[73] untrained in any kind of art:

Heaven and our Lady gracious[74] hath it pleased

75

To shine on my contemptible estate.[75]

Lo,[76] whilst I waited on my tender lambs,

And to sun’s parching heat displayed my cheeks,

God’s mother deignèd to appear to me,

And in a vision full of majesty,

80

Willed me to leave my base vocation

And free my country from calamity:

Her aid she promised, and assured success.

In complete[83] glory she revealed herself:

And whereas I was black and swart[84] before,

85

With those clear rays which she infused on[85] me

That beauty am I blessed with, which you may see.

Ask me what question thou canst possible,

And I will answer unpremeditated:[88]

My courage try by combat, if thou dar’st,

90

And thou shalt find that I exceed my sex.

Resolve on[91] this, thou shalt be fortunate,

If thou receive me for thy warlike mate.[92]

CHARLESThou hast astonished me with thy high terms:[93]

Only this proof[94] I’ll of thy valour make,

95

In single combat thou shalt buckle[95] with me,

And if thou vanquishest,[96] thy words are true:

Otherwise I renounce all confidence.[97]

PUCELLEI am prepared: here is my keen-edged[98] sword,

Decked[99] with five flower-de-luces on each side,

100

The which at Touraine,[100] in Saint Katherine’s churchyard,

Out of a great deal of old iron I chose forth.

CHARLESThen come, a[102] God’s name: I fear no woman.

PUCELLEAnd while I live, I’ll[103] ne’er fly from a man.

Here they fight, and Joan la Pucelle overcomes

CHARLESStay, stay thy hands! Thou art an Amazon[104]

105

And fightest with the sword of Deborah.[105]

PUCELLEChrist’s mother helps me, else[106] I were too weak.

CHARLESWhoe’er helps thee, ’tis thou that must help me:

Impatiently I burn with thy desire:[108]

My heart and hands thou hast at once subdued.

110

Excellent Pucelle, if thy name be so,

Let me thy servant[111] and not sovereign be:

’Tis the French dauphin sueth to[112] thee thus.

PUCELLEI must not yield to any rites of love,

For my profession’s[114] sacred from above:

115

When I have chased all thy foes from hence,

Then will I think upon a recompense.[116]

CHARLESMeantime, look gracious[117] on thy prostrate thrall.

REIGNIERMy lord, methinks, is very long in talk. To the others, apart

ALENÇONDoubtless he shrives[119] this woman to her smock,

120

Else ne’er could he so long protract[120] his speech.

REIGNIERShall we disturb him, since he keeps no mean?[121]

ALENÇONHe may mean more than we poor men do know.[122]

These women are shrewd[123] tempters with their tongues.

REIGNIERMy lord, where are you?[124] What devise you on?

125

Shall we give o’er[125] Orléans, or no?

PUCELLEWhy, no, I say: distrustful recreants,[126]

Fight till the last gasp: I’ll be your guard.

CHARLESWhat she says, I’ll confirm: we’ll fight it out.

PUCELLEAssigned am I to be the English scourge.[129]

130

This night the siege assuredly I’ll raise:

Expect Saint Martin’s summer,[131] halcyon’s days,

Since I have entered into these wars.

Glory is like a circle in the water,

Which never ceaseth to enlarge itself

135

Till by broad spreading, it disperse to naught.

With Henry’s death, the English circle ends:

Dispersèd are the glories it included:

Now am I like that proud insulting[138] ship

Which Caesar[139] and his fortune bare at once.

140

CHARLESWas Mahomet[140] inspirèd with a dove?

Thou with[141] an eagle art inspirèd then.

Helen,[142] the mother of great Constantine,

Nor yet Saint Philip’s daughters[143] were like thee.

Bright star of Venus,[144] fall’n down on the earth,

145

How may I reverently worship thee enough?

ALENÇONLeave off delays, and let us raise the siege.

REIGNIERWoman, do what thou canst to save our honours;

Drive them from Orléans, and be immortalized.[148]

CHARLESPresently[149] we’ll try: come, let’s away about it:

150

No prophet will I trust, if she prove false.

Exeunt

[Act 1 Scene 3]1.3

running scene 3

Enter Gloucester, with his Servingmen [in blue coats]

GLOUCESTERI am come to survey the Tower this day:

Since Henry’s death, I fear, there is conveyance:[2]

Where be these warders,[3] that they wait not here? Servingmen knock on gates

Open the gates; ’tis Gloucester that calls.

5

FIRST WARDERWho’s there that knocks so imperiously? Within

FIRST SERVINGMANIt is the noble Duke of Gloucester.

SECOND WARDERWhoe’er he be, you may not be let in. Within

FIRST SERVINGMANVillains,[8] answer you so the Lord Protector?

FIRST WARDERThe Lord protect him, so we answer him: Within

10

We do no otherwise than we are willed.[10]

GLOUCESTERWho willèd you? Or whose will stands but mine?

There’s none[12] protector of the realm but I.

Break up[13] the gates, I’ll be your warrantize: To Servingmen

Shall I be flouted[14] thus by dunghill grooms?

Gloucester’s men rush at the Tower Gates, and Woodville the Lieutenant speaks within

15

WOODVILLEWhat noise is this? What traitors have we here?

GLOUCESTERLieutenant, is it you whose voice I hear?

Open the gates: here’s Gloucester that would enter.

WOODVILLEHave patience, noble duke: I may not open:

The Cardinal[19] of Winchester forbids:

20

From him I have express commandment

That thou nor none of thine shall be let in.

GLOUCESTERFaint-hearted Woodville, prizest him ’fore[22] me?

Arrogant Winchester, that haughty prelate,

Whom Henry, our late sovereign, ne’er could brook?[24]

25

Thou art no friend to God or to the king:

Open the gates, or I’ll shut[26] thee out shortly.

SERVINGMENOpen the gates unto the Lord Protector,

Or we’ll burst them open, if that you come not quickly.

Enter to the [Lord] Protector at the Tower Gates, [the Bishop of] Winchester and his men in tawny coats

WINCHESTERHow now, ambitious umpire![29] What means this?

30

GLOUCESTERPeeled[30] priest, dost thou command me to be shut out?

WINCHESTERI do, thou most usurping proditor,[31]

And not ‘Protector’, of the king or realm.

GLOUCESTERStand back, thou manifest conspirator,

Thou that contrived’st[34] to murder our dead lord:

35

Thou that giv’st whores[35] indulgences to sin:

I’ll canvass[36] thee in thy broad cardinal’s hat,

If thou proceed in this thy insolence.

WINCHESTERNay, stand thou back, I will not budge a foot:

This be Damascus,[39] be thou cursèd Cain,

40

To slay thy brother Abel, if thou wilt.

GLOUCESTERI will not slay thee, but I’ll drive thee back:

Thy scarlet robes as a child’s bearing-cloth[42]

I’ll use to carry thee out of this place.

WINCHESTERDo what thou dar’st, I beard[44] thee to thy face.

45

GLOUCESTERWhat? Am I dared[45] and bearded to my face?

Draw, men, for all this[46] privilegèd place; All draw their swords

Blue coats to tawny coats. Priest, beware your beard,

I mean to tug it and to cuff you soundly.

Under my feet I stamp thy cardinal’s hat:

50

In spite of Pope or dignities[50] of Church,

Here by the cheeks I’ll drag thee up and down.

WINCHESTERGloucester, thou wilt answer this before the Pope.

GLOUCESTERWinchester[53] goose, I cry, ‘A rope, a rope!’—

Now beat them hence: why do you let them stay?— To Servingmen

55

Thee I’ll chase hence, thou wolf in sheep’s array.— To Winchester

Out, tawny coats!— Out, scarlet hypocrite!

Here Gloucester’s men beat out the [Bishop of Winchester’s] men, and enter in the hurly-burly the Mayor of London and his Officers

MAYORFie,[57] lords, that you, being supreme magistrates,

Thus contumeliously[58] should break the peace!

GLOUCESTERPeace, mayor, thou know’st little of my wrongs:

60

Here’s Beaufort, that regards nor God nor king,

Hath here distrained[61] the Tower to his use.

WINCHESTERHere’s Gloucester — a foe to citizens,

One that still[63] motions war and never peace,

O’ercharging[64] your free purses with large fines—

65

That seeks to overthrow religion,

Because he is Protector of the realm,

And would have armour here out of the Tower,

To crown himself king and suppress the prince.[68]

GLOUCESTERI will not answer thee with words, but blows.

Here they skirmish again

70

MAYORNaught rests[70] for me, in this tumultuous strife,

But to make open proclamation.

Come, officer, as loud as e’er thou canst, cry. Handing a paper to the Officer, who reads

OFFICERAll manner of men assembled here in arms this day against God’s peace and the king’s, we charge and command you, in his highness’ name, to repair[74] to your several[75] dwelling-places, and not to wear, handle, or use any sword, weapon, or dagger, henceforward, upon pain of death. The skirmish ends

GLOUCESTERCardinal, I’ll be no breaker of the law:

But we shall meet, and break[78] our minds at large.

WINCHESTERGloucester, we’ll meet to thy cost, be sure:

80

Thy heart-blood I will have for this day’s work.

MAYOR I’ll call for clubs,[81] if you will not away:

This cardinal’s more haughty than the devil.

GLOUCESTERMayor, farewell: thou dost but what thou mayst.

WINCHESTERAbominable[84] Gloucester, guard thy head,

85

For I intend to have it ere[85] long.

Exeunt [separately, Gloucester and Bishop of Winchester with their Servingmen]

MAYORSee the coast cleared, and then we will depart.

Good God, these nobles should such stomachs[87] bear!

I myself fight not once in forty year.

Exeunt

[Act 1 Scene 4]1.4

running scene 4

Enter the Master Gunner of Orléans and his Boy

MASTER GUNNERSirrah,[1] thou know’st how Orléans is besieged,

And how the English have the suburbs[2] won.

BOYFather, I know, and oft have shot at them,

Howe’er, unfortunate, I missed my aim.

5

MASTER GUNNERBut now thou shalt not. Be thou ruled by me:

Chief Master Gunner am I of this town,

Something I must do to procure me grace:[7]

The prince’s espials[8] have informèd me

How the English, in the suburbs close entrenched,[9]

10

Wont,[10] through a secret grate of iron bars

In yonder tower, to overpeer the city,

And thence discover how with most advantage

They may vex us with shot or with assault.

To intercept this inconvenience,[14]

15

A piece of ordnance[15] gainst it I have placed,

And even these three days have I watched,

If I could see them. Now do thou watch

For I can stay no longer.

If thou spy’st any, run and bring me word,

20

And thou shalt find me at the governor’s.

BOYFather, I warrant you, take[21] you no care:

Exit [Master Gunner]

I’ll never trouble you, if I may spy them.

Exit

Enter Salisbury and Talbot on the turrets, with others [including Sir Thomas Gargrave and Sir William Glasdale]

SALISBURYTalbot, my life, my joy, again returned?

How wert thou handled, being prisoner?

25

Or by what means got’st thou to be released?

Discourse, I prithee, on this turret’s top.

TALBOTThe Earl of Bedford had a prisoner,

Called the brave Lord Ponton de Santrailles:

For him was I exchanged and ransomèd.

30

But with a baser[30] man of arms by far

Once in contempt they would have bartered me:

Which I, disdaining, scorned, and cravèd[32] death,

Rather than I would be so pilled[33] esteemed:

In fine,[34] redeemed I was as I desired.

35

But O, the treacherous Falstaff wounds my heart,

Whom with my bare fists I would execute,

If I now had him brought into my power.

SALISBURYYet tell’st thou not how thou wert entertained.[38]

TALBOTWith scoffs and scorns and contumelious[39] taunts:

40

In open market-place produced they me,

To be a public spectacle to all:

‘Here’, said they, ‘is the terror of the French,

The scarecrow that affrights our children so.’

Then broke I from the officers that led me,

45

And with my nails digged stones out of the ground,

To hurl at the beholders of my shame.

My grisly[47] countenance made others fly:

None durst come near for fear of sudden[48] death.

In iron walls they deemed me not secure:

50

So great fear of my name ’mongst them was spread,

That they supposed I could rend bars of steel,

And spurn[52] in pieces posts of adamant.

Wherefore[53] a guard of chosen shot I had,

That walked about me every minute while:[54]

55

And if I did but stir out of my bed,

Ready they were to shoot me to the heart.

Enter the Boy [who passes over the stage and exits] with a linstock [lit and burning]

SALISBURYI grieve to hear what torments you endured,

But we will be revenged sufficiently.

Now it is supper-time in Orléans:

60

Here, through this grate, I count each one

And view the Frenchmen how they fortify:

Let us look in: the sight will much delight thee:

Sir Thomas Gargrave, and Sir William Glasdale,

Let me have your express[64] opinions

65

Where is best place to make our batt’ry[65] next. They look through the grate

GARGRAVEI think, at the north gate, for there stands lords.

GLASDALEAnd I, here, at the bulwark[67] of the bridge.

TALBOTFor aught[68] I see, this city must be famished,

Or with light skirmishes enfeeblèd.[69]

Here they shoot [within] and Salisbury [and Gargrave] fall down

70

SALISBURYO Lord have mercy on us, wretched sinners!

GARGRAVEO Lord have mercy on me, woeful man!

TALBOTWhat chance[72] is this that suddenly hath crossed us?

Speak, Salisbury; at least, if thou canst, speak:

How far’st thou, mirror[74] of all martial men?

75

One of thy eyes and thy cheek’s side struck off?

Accursèd tower! Accursèd fatal[76] hand

That hath contrived this woeful tragedy.

In thirteen battles Salisbury o’ercame:

Henry the Fifth he first trained to the wars:

80

Whilst any trump[80] did sound, or drum struck up,

His sword did ne’er leave striking in the field.

Yet liv’st thou, Salisbury? Though thy speech doth fail,

One eye thou hast to look to heaven for grace.

The sun with one eye vieweth all the world.

85

Heaven, be thou gracious to none alive,

If Salisbury wants[86] mercy at thy hands.

Sir Thomas Gargrave, hast thou any life?

Speak unto Talbot: nay, look up to him.

Bear hence his body: I will help to bury it.

[Exit one with Gargrave’s body]

90

Salisbury, cheer thy spirit with this comfort:

Thou shalt not die whiles—

He beckons with his hand and smiles on me:

As[93] who should say ‘When I am dead and gone,

Remember to avenge me on the French.’

95

Plantagenet,[95] I will; and like thee, Nero,

Play on the lute, beholding the towns burn:

Wretched shall France be only in[97] my name.

Here an alarum, and it thunders and lightens

What stir is this? What tumult’s in the heavens?

Whence cometh this alarum and the noise?

Enter a Messenger

100

MESSENGERMy lord, my lord, the French have gathered head.[100]

The dauphin, with one Joan la Pucelle joined,

A holy prophetess new risen up,

Is come with a great power[103] to raise the siege.

Here Salisbury lifteth himself up and groans

TALBOTHear, hear, how dying Salisbury doth groan!

105

It irks[105] his heart he cannot be revenged.

Frenchmen, I’ll be a Salisbury to you.

Puzzel or pucelle,[107] dolphin or dogfish,

Your hearts I’ll stamp out with my horse’s heels,

And make a quagmire of your mingled[109] brains.

110

Convey[110] me Salisbury into his tent,

And then we’ll try what these dastard Frenchmen dare.

Alarum. Exeunt

[Act 1 Scene 5]

running scene 4 continues

Here an alarum again, and Talbot pursueth the Dauphin, and driveth him: then enter Joan la Pucelle, driving Englishmen before her, [and exeunt]. Then enter Talbot

TALBOTWhere is my strength, my valour, and my force?

Our English troops retire, I cannot stay[2] them:

A woman clad in armour chaseth them.

Enter [Joan la] Pucelle

Here, here she comes. I’ll have a bout[4] with thee:

5

Devil or devil’s dam,[5] I’ll conjure thee:

Blood[6] will I draw on thee — thou art a witch —

And straightway give thy soul to him[7] thou serv’st.

PUCELLECome, come, ’tis only I that must disgrace thee.

Here they fight

TALBOTHeavens, can you suffer hell so to prevail?

10

My breast I’ll burst with straining of my courage[10]

And from my shoulders crack my arms asunder.

But I will chastise this high-minded[12] strumpet.

They fight again

PUCELLETalbot, farewell: thy hour is not yet come:

I must go victual[14] Orléans forthwith.

A short alarum: then [the French] enter the town with soldiers

15

O’ertake me if thou canst: I scorn thy strength.

Go, go, cheer up thy hungry-starvèd men:

Help Salisbury to make his testament:[17]

This day is ours, as many more shall be.

Exit

TALBOTMy thoughts are whirlèd like a potter’s wheel:

20

I know not where I am, nor what I do:

A witch by fear, not force, like Hannibal,[21]

Drives back our troops and conquers as she lists:[22]

So bees with smoke and doves with noisome[23] stench

Are from their hives and houses driven away.

25

They called us, for our fierceness, English dogs:

Now, like to whelps,[26] we crying run away.

A short alarum

Hark, countrymen: either renew the fight,

Or tear the lions out of England’s coat;[28]

Renounce your soil, give[29] sheep in lions’ stead:

30

Sheep run not half so treacherous[30] from the wolf,

Or horse or oxen from the leopard,

As you fly from your oft-subduèd[32] slaves.

Alarum. Here another skirmish

It[33] will not be: retire into your trenches:

You all consented[34] unto Salisbury’s death,

35

For none would strike a stroke in his revenge.[35]

Pucelle is entered into Orléans,

In spite of us or aught that we could do.

O would[38] I were to die with Salisbury!

The shame hereof will make me hide my head.

Exit Talbot

Alarum: retreat: flourish

[Act 1 Scene 6]

running scene 4 continues

Enter on the walls,* [Joan la] Pucelle, Charles [the Dauphin], Reignier, Alençon and Soldiers [with colours]

PUCELLEAdvance[1] our waving colours on the walls:

Rescued is Orléans from the English.

Thus Joan la Pucelle hath performed her word.

CHARLESDivinest creature, Astraea’s[4] daughter,

5

How shall I honour thee for this success?

Thy promises are like Adonis’ garden[6]

That one day bloomed and fruitful were the next.

France, triumph in thy glorious prophetess!

Recovered is the town of Orléans:

10

More blessèd hap[10] did ne’er befall our state.

REIGNIERWhy ring not out the bells aloud throughout the town?

Dauphin, command the citizens make bonfires

And feast and banquet in the open streets,

To celebrate the joy that God hath given us.

15

ALENÇONAll France will be replete with mirth and joy,

When they shall hear how we have played the men.[16]

CHARLES’Tis Joan, not we, by whom the day is won:

For which I will divide my crown with her,

And all the priests and friars in my realm

20

Shall in procession sing her endless praise.

A statelier pyramid[21] to her I’ll rear

Than Rhodope’s of Memphis’ ever was.

In memory of her, when she is dead,

Her ashes, in an urn more precious

25

Than the rich-jewelled[25] coffer of Darius,

Transported shall be at high[26] festivals

Before the kings and queens of France.

No longer on Saint Denis[28] will we cry,

But Joan la Pucelle shall be France’s saint.

30

Come in, and let us banquet royally,

After this golden day of victory.

Flourish. Exeunt

Act 2 Scene 1

running scene 5

Enter [above] a [French] Sergeant of a band[*] with two Sentinels

SERGEANTSirs, take your places and be vigilant:

If any noise or soldier you perceive

Near to the walls, by some apparent[3] sign

Let us have knowledge at the court of guard.[4]

5

FIRST SENTINELSergeant, you shall.

[Exit Sergeant]

Thus are poor servitors,[5]

When others sleep upon their quiet beds,

Constrained[7] to watch in darkness, rain and cold.

Enter Talbot, Bedford, Burgundy, [and soldiers], with scaling-ladders, their drums beating a dead march

TALBOTLord Regent, and redoubted[8] Burgundy,

By whose approach[9] the regions of Artois,

10

Wallon,[10] and Picardy are friends to us:

This happy[11] night the Frenchmen are secure,

Having all day caroused and banqueted:

Embrace we then this opportunity,

As fitting best to quittance[14] their deceit,

15

Contrived by art[15] and baleful sorcery.

BEDFORDCoward of France![16] How much he wrongs his fame,

Despairing of his own arm’s fortitude,[17]

To join with witches and the help of hell.

BURGUNDYTraitors have never other company.

20

But what’s that Pucelle whom they term so pure?

TALBOTA maid, they say.

BEDFORDA maid? And be so martial?

BURGUNDYPray God she prove not masculine[23] ere long,

If underneath the standard[24] of the French

25

She carry armour[25] as she hath begun.

TALBOTWell, let them practise and converse[26] with spirits.

God is our fortress, in whose conquering name

Let us resolve to scale their flinty[28] bulwarks.

BEDFORDAscend, brave Talbot, we will follow thee.

30

TALBOTNot all together: better far, I guess,

That we do make our entrance several[31] ways:

That, if it chance the one of us do fail,

The other yet may rise against their force.

BEDFORDAgreed: I’ll to yond[34] corner.

35

BURGUNDYAnd I to this.

TALBOTAnd here will Talbot mount, or make his grave.

Now, Salisbury, for thee, and for the right

Of English Henry, shall this night appear

How much in duty I am bound to both.

40

SENTINELSArm! Arm! The enemy doth make assault!

[English soldiers, having scaled the walls] cry: ‘Saint George,’ ‘A Talbot.’

The French leap o’er the walls in their shirts. Enter several ways [the] Bastard [of Orléans],

Alençon [and] Reignier, half ready, and half unready

ALENÇONHow now, my lords? What, all unready so?

BASTARDUnready? Ay, and glad we scaped so well.

REIGNIER’Twas time, I trow,[43] to wake and leave our beds,

Hearing alarums at our chamber doors.

45

ALENÇONOf all exploits since first I followed arms,

Ne’er heard I of a warlike enterprise

More venturous[47] or desperate than this.

BASTARDI think this Talbot be a fiend of hell.

REIGNIERIf not of hell, the heavens sure favour him.

50

ALENÇONHere cometh Charles: I marvel[50] how he sped.

Enter Charles and Joan [la Pucelle]

BASTARDTut, holy[51] Joan was his defensive guard.

CHARLESIs this thy cunning,[52] thou deceitful dame?

Didst thou at first, to flatter[53] us withal,

Make us partakers of a little gain,

55

That now our loss might be ten times so much?

PUCELLEWherefore is Charles impatient[56] with his friend?

At all times will you have my power alike?[57]

Sleeping or waking must I still prevail,[58]

Or will you blame and lay the fault on me?

60

Improvident[60] soldiers, had your watch been good,

This sudden mischief[61] never could have fall’n.

CHARLESDuke of Alençon, this was your default,[62]

That, being captain of the watch tonight,

Did look no better to that weighty charge.[64]

65

ALENÇONHad all your quarters[65] been as safely kept

As that whereof I had the government,[66]

We had not been thus shamefully surprised.[67]

BASTARDMine was secure.

REIGNIERAnd so was mine, my lord.

70

CHARLESAnd for myself, most part of all this night,

Within her quarter[71] and mine own precinct

I was employed in passing[72] to and fro,

About[73] relieving of the sentinels.

Then how or which way should they first break in?

75

PUCELLEQuestion, my lords, no further of the case,

How or which way: ’tis sure they found some place

But[77] weakly guarded, where the breach was made:

And now there rests[78] no other shift but this:

To gather our soldiers, scattered and dispersed,

80

And lay new platforms[80] to endamage them.

Alarum. Enter an [English] Soldier, crying ‘A Talbot! A Talbot!’ [The French] fly, leaving their clothes behind

SOLDIERI’ll be so bold to take what they have left:

The cry of ‘Talbot’ serves me for a sword,

For I have loaden me with many spoils,[83]

Using no other weapon but his name.

Exit

[Act 2 Scene 2]

running scene 5 continues

Enter Talbot, Bedford, Burgundy, [a Captain, and others]

BEDFORDThe day begins to break, and night is fled,

Whose pitchy[2] mantle over-veiled the earth.

Here sound retreat, and cease our hot pursuit.

Retreat [sounded]

TALBOTBring forth the body of old Salisbury,

5

And here advance[5] it in the market-place,

The middle centre of this cursèd town.

Now have I paid my vow[7] unto his soul:

For every drop of blood was drawn from him,

There hath at least five Frenchmen died tonight.

10

And that hereafter ages may behold

What ruin[11] happened in revenge of him,

Within their chiefest temple I’ll erect

A tomb, wherein his corpse shall be interred:

Upon the which, that everyone may read,

15

Shall be engraved the sack of Orléans,

The treacherous manner of his mournful[16] death,

And what a terror he had been to France.

But, lords, in all our bloody massacre,

I muse[19] we met not with the dauphin’s grace,

20

His new-come champion,[20] virtuous Joan of Arc,

Nor any of his false confederates.

BEDFORD’Tis thought, Lord Talbot, when the fight began,

Roused on the sudden from their drowsy beds,

They did amongst the troops of armèd men

25

Leap o’er the walls for refuge in the field.

BURGUNDYMyself, as far as I could well discern

For smoke and dusky vapours of the night,

Am sure I scared the dauphin and his trull,[28]

When arm in arm they both came swiftly running,

30

Like to a pair of loving turtle-doves[30]

That could not live asunder day or night.

After that things are set in order here,

We’ll follow them with all the power[33] we have.

Enter a Messenger

MESSENGERAll hail, my lords! Which of this princely train

35

Call ye the warlike Talbot, for his acts

So much applauded through the realm of France?

TALBOTHere is the Talbot: who would speak with him?

MESSENGERThe virtuous lady, Countess of Auvergne,

With modesty admiring thy renown,

40

By me entreats, great lord, thou wouldst vouchsafe[40]

To visit her poor[41] castle where she lies,

That she may boast she hath beheld the man

Whose glory fills the world with loud report.[43]

BURGUNDYIs it even so? Nay, then I see our wars

45

Will turn unto a peaceful comic sport,[45]

When ladies crave to be encountered with.[46]

You may not, my lord, despise[47] her gentle suit.

TALBOTNe’er trust me then: for when a world[48] of men

Could not prevail with all their oratory,[49]

50

Yet hath a woman’s kindness overruled:[50]

And therefore tell her I return great thanks,

And in submission will attend on[52] her.

Will not your honours bear me company?

BEDFORDNo, truly, ’tis more than manners will:

55

And I have heard it said, unbidden[55] guests

Are often welcomest when they are gone.

TALBOTWell then, alone, since there’s no remedy,[57]

I mean to prove[58] this lady’s courtesy.

Come hither, captain.

60

You perceive my mind?[60]

Whispers

CAPTAINI do, my lord, and mean[61] accordingly.

Exeunt

[Act 2 Scene 3]2.3

running scene 6

Enter [the] Countess [of Auvergne and her Porter]

COUNTESSPorter, remember what I gave[1] in charge,

And when you have done so, bring the keys to me.

PORTERMadam, I will.

Exit

COUNTESSThe plot is laid: if all things fall out right,

5

I shall as famous be by this exploit

As Scythian Tomyris[6] by Cyrus’ death.

Great is the rumour of this dreadful knight,

And his achievements of no less account:

Fain[9] would mine eyes be witness with mine ears,

10

To give their censure[10] of these rare reports.

Enter Messenger and Talbot

MESSENGERMadam, according as your ladyship desired,

By message craved, so is Lord Talbot come.

COUNTESSAnd he is welcome. What, is this the man?

MESSENGERMadam, it is.

15

COUNTESSIs this the scourge of France?

Is this the Talbot, so much feared abroad[16]

That with his name the mothers still[17] their babes?

I see report is fabulous[18] and false:

I thought I should have seen some Hercules,[19]

20

A second Hector,[20] for his grim aspect,

And large proportion[21] of his strong-knit limbs.

Alas, this is a child, a silly[22] dwarf:

It cannot be this weak and writhled[23] shrimp

Should strike such terror to his enemies.

25

TALBOTMadam, I have been bold to trouble you:

But since your ladyship is not at leisure,

I’ll sort[27] some other time to visit you.

COUNTESSWhat means he now? Go ask him whither he goes.

MESSENGERStay, my lord Talbot, for my lady craves

30

To know the cause of your abrupt departure.

TALBOTMarry,[31] for that she’s in a wrong belief,

I[32] go to certify her Talbot’s here.

Enter Porter with keys

COUNTESSIf thou be he, then art thou prisoner.

TALBOTPrisoner? To whom?

35

COUNTESSTo me, bloodthirsty lord;

And for that cause I trained[36] thee to my house.

Long time thy shadow[37] hath been thrall to me,

For in my gallery thy picture hangs:

But now the substance shall endure the like,

40

And I will chain these legs and arms of thine,

That hast by tyranny[41] these many years

Wasted[42] our country, slain our citizens,

And sent our sons and husbands captivate.[43]

TALBOTHa, ha, ha!

45

COUNTESSLaughest thou, wretch? Thy mirth shall turn to moan.

TALBOTI laugh to see your ladyship so fond[46]

To think that you have aught[47] but Talbot’s shadow

Whereon to practise your severity.

COUNTESSWhy, art not thou the man?

50

TALBOTI am indeed.

COUNTESSThen have I substance too.

TALBOTNo, no, I am but shadow of myself:

You are deceived, my substance is not here;

For what you see is but the smallest part

55

And least[55] proportion of humanity:

I tell you, madam, were the whole frame[56] here,

It is of such a spacious lofty pitch,[57]

Your roof were not sufficient to contain’t.

COUNTESSThis is a riddling merchant[59] for the nonce:

60

He will be here, and yet he is not here:

How can these contrarieties[61] agree?

TALBOTThat will I show you presently.[62]

Winds his horn, drums strike up, a peal of ordnance. Enter Soldiers

How say you, madam? Are you now persuaded

That Talbot is but shadow of himself?

65

These are his substance, sinews, arms and strength,

With which he yoketh[66] your rebellious necks,

Razeth[67] your cities and subverts your towns

And in a moment makes them desolate.

COUNTESSVictorious Talbot, pardon my abuse:[69]

70

I find thou art no less than fame hath bruited,[70]

And more than may be gathered by thy shape.

Let my presumption not provoke thy wrath,

For I am sorry that with reverence

I did not entertain[74] thee as thou art.

75

TALBOTBe not dismayed, fair lady, nor misconster[75]

The mind of Talbot, as you did mistake

The outward composition of his body.

What you have done hath not offended me:

Nor other satisfaction do I crave,

80

But only, with your patience,[80] that we may

Taste of your wine and see what cates[81] you have,

For soldiers’ stomachs[82] always serve them well.

COUNTESSWith all my heart, and think me honourèd

To feast so great a warrior in my house.

Exeunt

[Act 2 Scene 4]2.4

running scene 7

A rose briar revealed

Enter Richard Plantagenet, Warwick, Somerset, Suffolk, [Vernon, and a Lawyer]

RICHARD PLANTAGENETGreat lords and gentlemen, what means this silence?

Dare no man answer in a case[2] of truth?

SUFFOLKWithin the Temple hall we were[3] too loud:

The garden here is more convenient.

5

RICHARD PLANTAGENETThen say at once if I maintained the truth:

Or else[6] was wrangling Somerset in th’error?

SUFFOLKFaith, I have been a truant[7] in the law,

And never yet could frame[8] my will to it,

And therefore frame the law unto my will.

10

SOMERSETJudge you, my lord of Warwick, then between us.

WARWICKBetween two hawks, which flies the higher pitch,[11]

Between two dogs, which hath the deeper mouth,[12]

Between two blades,[13] which bears the better temper,

Between two horses, which doth bear him[14] best,

15

Between two girls, which hath the merriest eye,

I have perhaps some shallow[16] spirit of judgement:

But in these nice[17] sharp quillets of the law,

Good faith, I am no wiser than a daw.[18]

RICHARD PLANTAGENETTut, tut, here is a mannerly forbearance:[19]

20

The truth appears so naked[20] on my side

That any purblind[21] eye may find it out.

SOMERSETAnd on my side it is so well apparelled,[22]

So clear, so shining, and so evident

That it will glimmer through a blind[24] man’s eye.

25

RICHARD PLANTAGENETSince you are tongue-tied and so loath to speak,

In dumb significants[26] proclaim your thoughts:

Let him that is a true-born gentleman

And stands[28] upon the honour of his birth,

If he suppose that I have pleaded[29] truth,

30

From off this brier pluck a white rose[30] with me. He plucks a white rose

SOMERSETLet him that is no coward nor no flatterer,

But dare maintain the party[32] of the truth,

Pluck a red[33] rose from off this thorn with me. He plucks a red rose

WARWICKI love no colours,[34] and without all colour

35

Of base insinuating flattery

I pluck this white rose with Plantagenet.

SUFFOLKI pluck this red rose with young Somerset

And say withal[38] I think he held the right.

VERNONStay, lords and gentlemen, and pluck no more

40

Till you conclude that he upon whose side

The fewest roses are cropped from the tree

Shall yield[42] the other in the right opinion.

SOMERSETGood Master Vernon, it is well objected:[43]

If I have fewest, I subscribe[44] in silence.

RICHARD PLANTAGENETAnd I.

VERNONThen for the truth and plainness of the case.

I pluck this pale and maiden[47] blossom here,

Giving my verdict on the white rose side.

SOMERSETPrick not your finger as you pluck it off,

50

Lest bleeding you do paint the white rose red

And fall on my side so against your will.

VERNONIf I, my lord, for my opinion bleed,

Opinion[53] shall be surgeon to my hurt

And keep me on the side where still[54] I am.

55

SOMERSETWell, well, come on, who else?

LAWYERUnless my study and my books be false,

The argument you held was wrong in law: To Somerset

In sign whereof I pluck a white rose too.

RICHARD PLANTAGENETNow, Somerset, where is your argument?

60

SOMERSETHere in my scabbard,[60] meditating that

Shall dye your white rose in a bloody red.

RICHARD PLANTAGENETMeantime your cheeks do counterfeit[62] our roses:

For pale they look with fear, as witnessing

The truth on our side.

65

SOMERSETNo, Plantagenet,

’Tis not for fear, but anger, that thy cheeks

Blush for pure shame to counterfeit our roses,

And yet thy tongue will not confess thy error.

RICHARD PLANTAGENETHath not thy rose a canker,[69] Somerset?

70

SOMERSETHath not thy rose a thorn, Plantagenet?

RICHARD PLANTAGENETAy, sharp and piercing, to maintain his[71] truth,

Whiles thy consuming canker eats his falsehood.

SOMERSETWell, I’ll find friends to wear my bleeding roses,

That shall maintain what I have said is true,

75

Where false[75] Plantagenet dare not be seen.

RICHARD PLANTAGENETNow, by this maiden blossom in my hand,

I scorn thee and thy fashion,[77] peevish boy.

SUFFOLKTurn not thy scorns this way, Plantagenet.

RICHARD PLANTAGENETProud Pole,[79] I will, and scorn both him and thee.

80

SUFFOLKI’ll turn[80] my part thereof into thy throat.

SOMERSETAway, away, good William de la Pole:

We grace[82] the yeoman by conversing with him.

WARWICKNow, by God’s will, thou wrong’st him, Somerset:

His grandfather[84] was Lionel Duke of Clarence,

85

Third son to the third Edward King of England:

Spring crestless[86] yeomen from so deep a root?

RICHARD PLANTAGENETHe bears[87] him on the place’s privilege,

Or durst not for his craven[88] heart say thus.

SOMERSETBy him that made me, I’ll maintain[89] my words

90

On any plot of ground in Christendom.

Was not thy father, Richard Earl of Cambridge,

For treason executed in our late king’s days?

And by his treason, stand’st not thou attainted,[93]

Corrupted, and exempt from ancient gentry?

95

His trespass yet lives guilty in thy blood,

And till thou be restored,[96] thou art a yeoman.

RICHARD PLANTAGENETMy father was attachèd, not attainted,[97]

Condemned to die for treason, but no traitor;

And that I’ll prove on better men than Somerset,

100

Were[100] growing time once ripened to my will.

For your partaker[101] Pole and you yourself,

I’ll note[102] you in my book of memory,

To scourge you for this apprehension:[103]

Look to it[104] well, and say you are well warned.

105

SOMERSETAh, thou shalt find us ready for thee still,

And know us by these colours for thy foes,

For these my friends in spite[107] of thee shall wear.

RICHARD PLANTAGENETAnd by my soul, this pale and angry rose,

As cognizance[109] of my blood-drinking hate,

110

Will I for ever and my faction wear,

Until it wither with me to my grave,

Or flourish to the height of my degree.[112]

SUFFOLKGo forward and be choked with thy ambition:

And so farewell until I meet thee next.

Exit

SOMERSETHave with thee,[115] Pole.— Farewell, ambitious Richard.

Exit

RICHARD PLANTAGENETHow I am braved[116] and must perforce endure it!

WARWICKThis blot that they object[117] against your house

Shall be wiped out in the next parliament,

Called for[119] the truce of Winchester and Gloucester:

120

And if thou be not then created York,

I will not live to be accounted Warwick.

Meantime, in[122] signal of my love to thee,

Against proud Somerset and William Pole,

Will I upon thy party[124] wear this rose.

125

And here I prophesy: this brawl today,

Grown to this faction[126] in the Temple garden,

Shall send, between the red rose and the white,

A thousand souls to death and deadly night.

RICHARD PLANTAGENETGood Master Vernon, I am bound to you,

130

That you on my behalf would pluck a flower.

VERNONIn your behalf still[131] will I wear the same.

LAWYERAnd so will I.

RICHARD PLANTAGENETThanks, gentles.[133]

Come, let us four to dinner: I dare say

135

This quarrel will drink blood another day.

Exeunt

[Act 2 Scene 5]2.5

running scene 8

Enter Mortimer, brought in a chair, and Jailers

MORTIMERKind keepers[1] of my weak decaying age,

Let dying Mortimer here rest himself.

Even like a man new haled[3] from the rack,

So fare my limbs with long imprisonment:

5

And these grey locks, the pursuivants[5] of death,

Nestor-like[6] agèd in an age of care,

Argue the end of Edmund Mortimer.

These eyes, like lamps whose wasting oil is spent,

Wax[9] dim, as drawing to their exigent:

10

Weak shoulders, overborne[10] with burdening grief,

And pithless[11] arms, like to a withered vine,

That droops his sapless branches to the ground.

Yet are these feet, whose strengthless stay is numb,[13]

Unable to support this lump of clay,

15

Swift-wingèd with desire to get a grave,

As witting[16] I no other comfort have.

But tell me, keeper, will my nephew come?

FIRST JAILERRichard Plantagenet, my lord, will come:

We sent unto the Temple, unto his chamber,

20

And answer was returned that he will come.

MORTIMEREnough: my soul shall then be satisfied.

Poor gentleman, his wrong[22] doth equal mine.

Since Henry Monmouth[23] first began to reign,

Before whose glory I was great in arms,

25

This loathsome sequestration[25] have I had:

And even[26] since then hath Richard been obscured,

Deprived of honour and inheritance.

But now, the arbitrator[28] of despairs,

Just death, kind umpire[29] of men’s miseries,

30

With sweet enlargement[30] doth dismiss me hence:

I would his[31] troubles likewise were expired,

That so he might recover what was lost.

Enter Richard [Plantagenet]

FIRST JAILERMy lord, your loving nephew now is come.

MORTIMERRichard Plantagenet, my friend, is he come?

35

RICHARD PLANTAGENETAy, noble uncle, thus ignobly used,[35]

Your nephew, late[36] despisèd Richard, comes.

MORTIMERDirect mine arms I may embrace his neck,

And in his bosom spend my latter[38] gasp.

O tell me when my lips do touch his cheeks,

40

That I may kindly[40] give one fainting kiss. He embraces Richard

And now declare, sweet stem from York’s great stock,[41]

Why didst thou say of late thou wert despised?

RICHARD PLANTAGENETFirst, lean thine agèd back against mine arm,

And in that ease I’ll tell thee my disease.[44]

45

This day in argument upon a case,

Some words there grew ’twixt Somerset and me:

Among which terms he used his lavish[47] tongue

And did upbraid me with my father’s death:

Which obloquy[49] set bars before my tongue,

50

Else with the like I had requited[50] him.

Therefore, good uncle, for my father’s sake,

In honour of a true Plantagenet,

And for alliance’[53] sake, declare the cause

My father, Earl of Cambridge, lost his head.

55

MORTIMERThat cause, fair nephew, that imprisoned me

And hath detained me all my flowering youth

Within a loathsome dungeon, there to pine,

Was cursèd instrument of his decease.

RICHARD PLANTAGENETDiscover[59] more at large what cause that was,

60

For I am ignorant and cannot guess.

MORTIMERI will, if that my fading breath permit

And death approach not ere my tale be done.

Henry the Fourth, grandfather to this king,

Deposed his nephew[64] Richard, Edward’s son,

65

The first begotten and the lawful heir

Of Edward king, the third of that descent,

During whose[67] reign the Percies of the north,

Finding his usurpation most unjust,

Endeavoured my advancement to the throne.

70

The reason moved[70] these warlike lords to this

Was for that — young King Richard thus removed,

Leaving no heir begotten of his body —

I was the next by birth and parentage:

For by my mother[74] I derivèd am

75

From Lionel Duke of Clarence, the third son

To King Edward the Third; whereas the king

From John of Gaunt[77] doth bring his pedigree,

Being but fourth of that heroic line.

But mark:[79] as in this haughty great attempt

80

They[80] labourèd to plant the rightful heir,

I lost my liberty and they their lives.

Long after this, when Henry the Fifth,

Succeeding his father Bullingbrook,[83] did reign,

Thy father, Earl of Cambridge then, derived

85

From famous Edmund Langley, Duke of York,

Marrying my sister that thy mother was,

Again, in pity of my hard[87] distress,

Levied an army, weening[88] to redeem

And have installed me in the diadem:[89]

90

But, as the rest, so fell that noble earl,

And was beheaded. Thus the Mortimers,

In whom the title rested, were suppressed.

RICHARD PLANTAGENETOf which, my lord, your honour is the last.

MORTIMERTrue, and thou see’st that I no issue[94] have,

95

And that my fainting words do warrant[95] death:

Thou art my heir; the rest I wish thee gather:[96]

But yet be wary in thy studious[97] care.

RICHARD PLANTAGENETThy grave admonishments[98] prevail with me:

But yet methinks my father’s execution

100

Was nothing less than bloody tyranny.

MORTIMERWith silence, nephew, be thou politic:[101]

Strong-fixèd is the house of Lancaster,

And like a mountain, not to be removed.

But now thy uncle is removing[104] hence,

105

As princes do their courts, when they are cloyed[105]

With long continuance in a settled place.

RICHARD PLANTAGENETO uncle, would some part of my young years

Might but redeem the passage[108] of your age.

MORTIMERThou dost then wrong me, as that slaughterer doth

110

Which giveth many wounds when one will kill.

Mourn not, except[111] thou sorrow for my good,

Only give order[112] for my funeral.

And so farewell, and fair be all thy hopes,

And prosperous be thy life in peace and war.

Dies

115

RICHARD PLANTAGENETAnd peace, no war, befall thy parting soul.

In prison hast thou spent a pilgrimage,

And like a hermit overpassed[117] thy days.

Well, I will lock his counsel in my breast,

And what I do imagine, let that rest.[119]

120

Keepers, convey him hence, and I myself

Will see his burial better than his life.

Exeunt [Jailers with Mortimer’s body]

Here dies the dusky[122] torch of Mortimer,

Choked with ambition of[123] the meaner sort.

And for[124] those wrongs, those bitter injuries,

125

Which Somerset hath offered to my house,[125]

I doubt not but with honour to redress.

And therefore haste I to the parliament,

Either to be restorèd to my blood,[128]

Or make[129] mine ill the advantage of my good.

Exit

Act 3 Scene 1*

running scene 9

Flourish. Enter King [Henry VI], Exeter, Gloucester, [Bishop of] Winchester, Warwick, Somerset, Suffolk, Richard Plantagenet. Gloucester offers to put up a bill: Winchester snatches it, tears it

WINCHESTERCom’st thou with deep premeditated lines?[1]

With written pamphlets studiously devised?

Humphrey of Gloucester, if thou canst accuse,

Or aught intend’st to lay unto my charge,

5

Do it without invention,[5] suddenly,

As I with sudden and extemporal[6] speech

Purpose to answer what thou canst object.[7]

GLOUCESTERPresumptuous priest, this place commands my patience,[8]

Or thou shouldst find thou hast dishonoured me.

10

Think not, although in writing I preferred[10]

The manner of thy vile[11] outrageous crimes,

That therefore I have forged,[12] or am not able

Verbatim[13] to rehearse the method of my pen.

No, prelate, such is thy audacious wickedness,

15

Thy lewd,[15] pestiferous and dissentious pranks,

As very[16] infants prattle of thy pride.

Thou art a most pernicious[17] usurer,

Froward[18] by nature, enemy to peace,

Lascivious, wanton,[19] more than well beseems

20

A man of thy profession and degree.[20]

And for[21] thy treachery, what’s more manifest?

In that thou laid’st a trap to take my life,

As well at London Bridge as at the Tower.

Beside, I fear me, if thy thoughts were sifted,[24]

25

The king, thy sovereign, is not quite exempt

From envious[26] malice of thy swelling heart.

WINCHESTERGloucester, I do defy thee. Lords, vouchsafe

To give me hearing what I shall reply.

If I were covetous, ambitious or perverse,

30

As he will have me, how am I so poor?

Or how haps[31] it I seek not to advance

Or raise myself, but keep my wonted[32] calling?

And for dissension, who preferreth peace

More than I do? — Except[34] I be provoked.

35

No, my good lords, it is not that[35] offends:

It is not that that hath incensed the Duke:

It is because no one should sway[37] but he,

No one but he should be about[38] the king:

And that engenders thunder in his breast

40

And makes him roar these accusations forth.

But he shall know I am as good—

GLOUCESTERAs good?

Thou bastard[43] of my grandfather.

WINCHESTERAy, lordly sir: for what are you, I pray,

45

But one imperious[45] in another’s throne?

GLOUCESTERAm I not Protector, saucy[46] priest?

WINCHESTERAnd am not I a prelate of the Church?

GLOUCESTERYes, as an outlaw in a castle keeps[48]

And useth it to patronage[49] his theft.

50

WINCHESTERUnreverent Gloucester.

GLOUCESTERThou art reverent[51]

Touching[52] thy spiritual function, not thy life.

WINCHESTERRome[53] shall remedy this.

WARWICKRoam thither then.

55

My lord, it were your duty to forbear.[55] To Gloucester

SOMERSETAy, see the bishop be not overborne.[56]

Methinks my lord should be religious To Winchester

And know the office[58] that belongs to such.

WARWICKMethinks his lordship[59] should be humbler:

60

It fitteth not a prelate so to plead.

SOMERSETYes, when his holy state[61] is touched so near.

WARWICKState holy or unhallowed, what of that?

Is not his grace Protector to the king?

RICHARD PLANTAGENETPlantagenet, I see, must hold his tongue, Aside

65

Lest it be said ‘Speak, sirrah,[65] when you should:

Must your bold verdict enter talk with lords?’

Else would I have a fling[67] at Winchester.

KING HENRY VIUncles of Gloucester and of Winchester,

The special watchmen of our English weal,[69]

70

I would prevail, if prayers might prevail,

To join your hearts in love and amity.

O what a scandal is it to our crown,

That two such noble peers as ye should jar![73]

Believe me, lords, my tender years[74] can tell

75

Civil dissension is a viperous worm[75]

That gnaws the bowels[76] of the commonwealth.

A noise within: ‘Down with the tawny-coats!’

What tumult’s this?

WARWICKAn uproar, I dare warrant,

Begun through malice of the Bishop’s men.

A noise again: ‘Stones, stones!’ Enter Mayor [of London]

80

MAYORO my good lords, and virtuous Henry,

Pity the city of London, pity us!

The Bishop and the Duke of Gloucester’s men,

Forbidden late[83] to carry any weapon,

Have filled their pockets full of pebble stones

85

And, banding themselves[85] in contrary parts,

Do pelt so fast at one another’s pate[86]

That many have their giddy[87] brains knocked out:

Our windows are broke down in every street,

And we, for fear, compelled to shut our shops.

Enter [Servingmen] in skirmish with bloody pates

90

KING HENRY VIWe charge you, on allegiance to ourself,

To hold your slaught’ring hands and keep the peace.

Pray, uncle Gloucester, mitigate[92] this strife.

FIRST SERVINGMANNay, if we be forbidden stones, we’ll fall to it with our teeth.

SECOND SERVINGMANDo what ye dare, we are as[94] resolute.

Skirmish again

95

GLOUCESTERYou of my household, leave this peevish[95] broil

And set this unaccustomed fight aside.

THIRD SERVINGMANMy lord, we know your grace to be a man

Just and upright and, for your royal birth,

Inferior to none but to his majesty:

100

And ere that we will suffer[100] such a prince,

So kind a father of the commonweal,

To be disgracèd[102] by an inkhorn mate,

We and our wives and children all will fight

And have our bodies slaughtered by thy foes.

105

FIRST SERVINGMANAy, and the very parings[105] of our nails

Shall pitch a field[106] when we are dead.

Begin again

GLOUCESTERStay, stay, I say!

And if you love me, as you say you do,

Let me persuade you to forbear awhile.

110

KING HENRY VIO how this discord doth afflict my soul!

Can you, my lord of Winchester, behold

My sighs and tears and will not once relent?

Who should be pitiful, if you be not?

Or who should study[114] to prefer a peace,

115

If holy churchmen take delight in broils?

WARWICKYield, my Lord Protector, yield, Winchester:

Except you mean with obstinate repulse[117]

To slay your sovereign and destroy the realm.

You see what mischief[119] and what murder too

120

Hath been enacted through your enmity:

Then be at peace, except ye thirst for blood.

WINCHESTERHe shall submit, or I will never yield.

GLOUCESTERCompassion on the king commands me stoop,

Or I would see his[124] heart out, ere the priest

125

Should ever get that privilege of[125] me.

WARWICKBehold, my lord of Winchester, the duke

Hath banished moody[127] discontented fury,

As by his smoothèd brows it doth appear:

Why look you still so stern and tragical?[129]

130

GLOUCESTERHere, Winchester, I offer thee my hand. Winchester turns away

KING HENRY VIFie, uncle Beaufort! I have heard you preach To Winchester

That malice was a great and grievous sin:

And will not you maintain the thing you teach,

But prove a chief offender in the same?

135

WARWICKSweet king: the bishop hath[135] a kindly gird.

For shame, my lord of Winchester, relent:

What, shall a child instruct you what to do?

WINCHESTERWell, Duke of Gloucester, I will yield to thee

Love for thy love and hand for hand I give.

140

GLOUCESTERAy, but I fear me with a hollow[140] heart.— Aside

See here, my friends and loving countrymen, To the others

This token[142] serveth for a flag of truce

Betwixt ourselves and all our followers:

So help me God, as I dissemble[144] not.

145

WINCHESTERSo help me God,— as I intend it not. Aside

KING HENRY VIO loving uncle, kind Duke of Gloucester,

How joyful am I made by this contract.[147]—

Away, my masters,[148] trouble us no more,

But join in friendship, as your lords have done.

150

FIRST SERVINGMANContent: I’ll to the surgeon’s.[150]

SECOND SERVINGMANAnd so will I.

THIRD SERVINGMANAnd I will see what physic[152] the tavern affords.

Exeunt [the Mayor and Servingmen]

WARWICKAccept this scroll, most gracious sovereign,

Which in the right of Richard Plantagenet

155

We do exhibit[155] to your majesty.

GLOUCESTERWell urged, my lord of Warwick — for sweet prince,

And if your grace mark[157] every circumstance,

You have great reason to do Richard right,

Especially for those occasions[159]

160

At Eltham Place I told your majesty.

KING HENRY VIAnd those occasions, uncle, were of[161] force:

Therefore, my loving lords, our pleasure is

That Richard be restorèd to his blood.[163]

WARWICKLet Richard be restorèd to his blood;

165

So shall his father’s wrongs[165] be recompensed.

WINCHESTERAs will the rest, so willeth Winchester.

KING HENRY VIIf Richard will be true, not that alone

But all the whole inheritance I give

That doth belong unto the House of York,

170

From whence you spring by lineal descent.

RICHARD PLANTAGENETThy humble servant vows obedience

And humble service till the point of death.

KING HENRY VIStoop then and set your knee against my foot, Richard kneels

And, in reguerdon[174] of that duty done,

175

I gird[175] thee with the valiant sword of York:

Rise Richard, like a true Plantagenet,

And rise created princely[177] Duke of York.

RICHARD DUKE OF YORKAnd so thrive Richard as thy foes may fall: Plantagenet is henceforth known as Richard Duke of York

And as my duty springs, so perish they

180

That grudge one thought[180] against your majesty.

ALLWelcome, high prince, the mighty Duke of York!

SOMERSETPerish, base prince, ignoble Duke of York! Aside

GLOUCESTERNow will it best avail your majesty

To cross the seas and to be crowned in France:

185

The presence of a king engenders love

Amongst his subjects and his loyal friends,

As it disanimates[187] his enemies.

KING HENRY VIWhen Gloucester says the word, King Henry goes,

For friendly counsel cuts off many foes.

190

GLOUCESTERYour ships already are in readiness.

Sennet. Flourish

Exeunt all but Exeter

EXETERAy, we may march in England or in France,

Not seeing what is likely to ensue:

This late dissension grown betwixt the peers

Burns under feignèd ashes of forged[194] love,

195

And will at last break out into a flame:

As festered[196] members rot but by degree,

Till bones and flesh and sinews fall away,

So will this base and envious[198] discord breed.

And now I fear that fatal prophecy

200

Which, in the time of Henry named the Fifth,

Was in the mouth of every sucking babe:

That Henry[202] born at Monmouth should win all

And Henry[203] born at Windsor lose all:

Which is so plain that Exeter doth wish

205

His days may finish ere that hapless[205] time.

Exit

Act 3 Scene 23.2

running scene 10

Enter [Joan la] Pucelle disguised, with four [French] Soldiers with sacks upon their backs

PUCELLEThese are the city gates, the gates of Rouen,

Through which our policy[2] must make a breach.

Take heed, be wary how you place your words:

Talk like the vulgar[4] sort of market men

5

That come to gather money for their corn.

If we have entrance, as I hope we shall,

And that[7] we find the slothful watch but weak,

I’ll by a sign give notice to our friends,

That Charles the Dauphin may encounter[9] them.

10

FIRST SOLDIEROur sacks shall be a mean[10] to sack the city,

And we be[11] lords and rulers over Rouen:

Therefore we’ll knock.

[They] knock

WATCHQui là?[13] Within

PUCELLEPaysans, la pauvre gens de France:[14]

15

Poor market folks that come to sell their corn.

WATCHEnter, go in: the market bell is rung. Opening the gates

PUCELLENow, Rouen, I’ll shake thy bulwarks to the ground.

Exeunt

Enter Charles, [the] Bastard [of Orléans], Alençon, [Reignier, and forces]

CHARLESSaint Denis bless this happy[18] stratagem,

And once again we’ll sleep secure in Rouen.

20

BASTARDHere entered Pucelle and her practisants:[20]

Now she is there, how will she specify

Here is the best and safest passage in?

REIGNIERBy thrusting out a torch from yonder tower,

Which, once discerned, shows that her meaning is,

25

No[25] way to that, for weakness, which she entered.

Enter [Joan la] Pucelle on the top, thrusting out a torch burning

PUCELLEBehold, this is the happy wedding[26] torch

That joineth Rouen unto her countrymen,

But burning fatal to the Talbonites!

BASTARDSee, noble Charles, the beacon of our friend:

30

The burning torch in yonder turret stands.

CHARLESNow shine it[31] like a comet of revenge,

A prophet to[32] the fall of all our foes!

REIGNIER Defer no time, delays have dangerous ends:

Enter and cry, ‘The dauphin!’, presently,[34]

35

And then do[35] execution on the watch.

Alarum [Exeunt]

An alarum. [Enter] Talbot in an excursion

TALBOTFrance, thou shalt rue this treason with thy tears,

If Talbot but survive thy treachery.

Pucelle, that witch, that damnèd sorceress,

Hath wrought this hellish mischief unawares,[39]

40

That hardly[40] we escaped the pride of France.

Exit

An alarum: excursions. Bedford brought in sick in a chair. Enter Talbot and Burgundy without: within, [Joan la] Pucelle, Charles, Bastard of Orléans, [Alençon] and Reignier on the walls

PUCELLEGood morrow, gallants:[41] want ye corn for bread?

I think the Duke of Burgundy will fast

Before he’ll buy again at such a rate.[43]

’Twas full of darnel:[44] do you like the taste?

45

BURGUNDYScoff on, vile fiend and shameless courtesan:

I trust ere long to choke thee with thine own And make thee curse the harvest of that corn.

CHARLESYour grace may starve, perhaps, before that time.

BEDFORDO, let no words, but deeds, revenge this treason.

50

PUCELLEWhat will you do, good grey-beard? Break a lance

And run a-tilt at[51] death within a chair?

TALBOTFoul fiend of France, and hag[52] of all despite,

Encompassed with[53] thy lustful paramours,

Becomes it thee to taunt his valiant age

55

And twit[55] with cowardice a man half dead?

Damsel, I’ll have a bout[56] with you again,

Or else let Talbot perish with this shame.

PUCELLEAre ye so hot,[58] sir? Yet, Pucelle, hold thy peace:

If Talbot do but thunder, rain will follow.

[The English] whisper together in counsel

60

God speed[60] the parliament: who shall be the speaker?

TALBOTDare ye come forth and meet us in the field?[61]

PUCELLEBelike[62] your lordship takes us then for fools,

To try if that our own be ours or no.

TALBOTI speak not to that railing Hecate,[64]

65

But unto thee, Alençon, and the rest.

Will ye, like soldiers, come and fight it out?

ALENÇONSeigneur,[67] no.

TALBOTSeigneur, hang! Base muleteers[68] of France,

Like peasant footboys[69] do they keep the walls,

70

And dare not take up arms like gentlemen.

PUCELLEAway, captains, let’s get us from the walls,

For Talbot means no goodness by his looks.

Goodbye, my lord: we came but to tell you

That we are here.

Exeunt from the walls

75

TALBOTAnd there will we be too, ere it be long,

Or else reproach be Talbot’s greatest fame.

Vow, Burgundy, by honour of thy house,

Pricked[78] on by public wrongs sustained in France,

Either to get the town again or die.

80

And I, as sure as English Henry lives,

And as his[81] father here was conqueror,

As sure as in this late betrayèd town

Great Coeur-de-lion’s[83] heart was burièd,

So sure I swear to get the town or die.

85

BURGUNDYMy vows are equal partners with thy vows.

TALBOTBut ere we go, regard[86] this dying prince,

The valiant Duke of Bedford.— Come, my lord, To Bedford

We will bestow you in some better place,

Fitter for sickness and for crazy[89] age.

90

BEDFORDLord Talbot, do not so dishonour me:

Here will I sit before the walls of Rouen

And will be partner of your weal[92] or woe.

BURGUNDYCourageous Bedford, let us now persuade you.

BEDFORDNot to be gone from hence: for once I read

95

That stout[95] Pendragon, in his litter sick,

Came to the field and vanquishèd his foes.

Methinks I should revive the soldiers’ hearts,

Because I ever[98] found them as myself.

TALBOTUndaunted spirit in a dying breast!

100

Then be it so: heavens keep old Bedford safe.

And now no more ado,[101] brave Burgundy,

But gather we our forces out of hand,[102]

And set upon our boasting enemy.

Exit [with Burgundy and forces]

An alarum: excursions. Enter Sir John Falstaff and a Captain

CAPTAINWhither away, Sir John Falstaff, in such haste?

105

FALSTAFFWhither away? To save myself by flight:

We are like to have the overthrow[106] again.

CAPTAINWhat? Will you fly, and leave Lord Talbot?

FALSTAFFAy, all the Talbots in the world, to save my life.

Exit

CAPTAINCowardly knight, ill fortune follow thee!

Exit

Retreat: excursions. [Joan la] Pucelle, Alençon and Charles fly

110

BEDFORDNow, quiet soul, depart when heaven please,

For I have seen our enemies’ overthrow.

What is the trust or strength of foolish man?

They that of late were daring[113] with their scoffs

Are glad[114] and fain by flight to save themselves.

Bedford dies, and is carried in by two in his chair.

An alarum. Enter Talbot, Burgundy and the rest [of the English soldiers]

115

TALBOTLost, and recovered in a day again!

This is a double honour, Burgundy:

Yet heavens have glory for this victory.

BURGUNDYWarlike and martial Talbot, Burgundy

Enshrines thee in his heart, and there erects

120

Thy noble deeds as valour’s monuments.

TALBOTThanks, gentle[121] duke. But where is Pucelle now?

I think her old familiar[122] is asleep.

Now where’s the Bastard’s braves,[123] and Charles his gleeks?

What, all amort?[124] Rouen hangs her head for grief

125

That such a valiant company are fled.

Now will we take some order[126] in the town,

Placing therein some expert[127] officers,

And then depart to Paris, to the king,

For there young Henry with his nobles lie.[129]

130

BURGUNDYWhat wills Lord Talbot pleaseth Burgundy.

TALBOTBut yet, before we go, let’s not forget

The noble Duke of Bedford late deceased,

But see his exequies[133] fulfilled in Rouen.

A braver soldier never couchèd lance,[134]

135

A gentler heart did never sway[135] in court.

But kings and mightiest potentates[136] must die,

For that’s the end[137] of human misery.

Exeunt

Act 3 Scene 3[*]

running scene 11

Enter Charles, [the] Bastard [of Orléans], Alençon, [Joan la] Pucelle [and French soldiers]

PUCELLEDismay not, princes, at this accident,[1]

Nor grieve that Rouen is so recoverèd:[2]

Care[3] is no cure, but rather corrosive,

For things that are not to be remedied.

5

Let frantic Talbot triumph for a while

And like a peacock sweep along his tail:

We’ll pull his plumes and take away his train,[7]

If Dauphin and the rest will be but ruled.[8]

CHARLESWe have been guided by thee hitherto,

10

And of thy cunning[10] had no diffidence:

One sudden foil[11] shall never breed distrust.

BASTARDSearch out thy wit[12] for secret policies,

And we will make thee famous through the world.

ALENÇONWe’ll set thy statue in some holy place,

15

And have thee reverenced like a blessèd saint.

Employ thee then, sweet virgin, for our good.

PUCELLEThen thus it must be: this doth Joan devise:

By fair[18] persuasions, mixed with sugared words,

We will entice the Duke of Burgundy

20

To leave the Talbot and to follow us.

CHARLESAy, marry, sweeting,[21] if we could do that,

France were no place for Henry’s warriors,

Nor should that nation boast it so with us,

But be extirpèd[24] from our provinces.

25

ALENÇONFor ever should they be expulsed[25] from France

And not have title of an earldom here.

PUCELLEYour honours shall perceive how I will work

To bring this matter to the wishèd end.

Drum sounds afar off

Hark! By the sound of drum you may perceive

30

Their powers are marching unto Paris-ward.[30]

Here sound an English march

There goes the Talbot, with his colours spread,[31]

And all the troops of English after him.

[Here sound a] French march

Now in the rearward comes the duke and his:

Fortune in[34] favour makes him lag behind.

35

Summon a parley:[35] we will talk with him.

Trumpets sound a parley

CHARLESA parley with the Duke of Burgundy.

[Enter Burgundy with soldiers]

BURGUNDYWho craves a parley with the Burgundy?

PUCELLE The princely Charles of France, thy countryman.

BURGUNDYWhat say’st thou, Charles? For I am marching hence.

40

CHARLESSpeak, Pucelle, and enchant[40] him with thy words.

PUCELLE Brave Burgundy, undoubted hope of France,

Stay, let thy humble handmaid speak to thee.

BURGUNDYSpeak on, but be not over-tedious.[43]

PUCELLELook on thy country, look on fertile France,

45

And see the cities and the towns defaced

By wasting[46] ruin of the cruel foe,

As looks the mother on her lowly[47] babe

When death doth close his tender-dying[48] eyes.

See, see the pining[49] malady of France:

50

Behold the wounds, the most unnatural[50] wounds,

Which thou thyself hast given her woeful breast.

O turn thy edgèd[52] sword another way:

Strike those that hurt, and hurt not those that help:

One drop of blood drawn from thy country’s bosom

55

Should grieve thee more than streams of foreign gore.

Return thee therefore with a flood of tears,

And wash away thy country’s stainèd[57] spots.

BURGUNDYEither she hath bewitched me with her words,

Or nature[59] makes me suddenly relent.

60

PUCELLEBesides, all French and France exclaims on[60] thee,

Doubting thy birth and lawful progeny.[61]

Who join’st thou with, but with a lordly nation

That will not trust thee but for profit’s sake?

When Talbot hath set footing once in France

65

And fashioned thee that instrument of ill,

Who then but English Henry will be lord

And thou be thrust out like a fugitive?

Call we to mind, and mark but[68] this for proof:

Was not the Duke of Orléans thy foe?

70

And was he not in England prisoner?

But when they heard he was thine enemy,

They set him free without his ransom paid,

In spite of Burgundy and all his friends.

See, then, thou fight’st against thy countrymen,

75

And join’st with them[75] will be thy slaughtermen.

Come, come, return; return, thou wandering[76] lord:

Charles and the rest will take thee in their arms.

BURGUNDYI am vanquished: these haughty[78] words of hers Aside

Have battered me like roaring cannon-shot,

80

And made me almost yield upon my knees.

Forgive me, country, and sweet countrymen:

And, lords, accept this hearty[82] kind embrace.

My forces and my power[83] of men are yours.

So farewell, Talbot: I’ll no longer trust thee.

85

PUCELLEDone like a Frenchman: turn and turn again. Aside

CHARLESWelcome, brave duke: thy friendship makes us fresh.[86]

BASTARDAnd doth beget[87] new courage in our breasts.

ALENÇONPucelle hath bravely[88] played her part in this,

And doth deserve a coronet[89] of gold.

90

CHARLESNow let us on, my lords, and join our powers,

And seek how we may prejudice[91] the foe.

Exeunt

Act 3 Scene 43.4

running scene 12

Enter King [Henry VI], Gloucester, [Bishop of] Winchester, [Richard Plantagenet, now Duke of] York, Suffolk, Somerset, Warwick, Exeter, [Vernon, Basset and others]. To them, with his Soldiers, Talbot

TALBOTMy gracious prince, and honourable peers,

Hearing of your arrival in this realm,

I have awhile given truce unto my wars,

To do[4] my duty to my sovereign:

5

In sign whereof, this arm, that hath reclaimed[5]

To your obedience fifty fortresses,

Twelve cities and seven walled towns of strength,

Beside five hundred prisoners of esteem,[8]

Lets fall his sword before your highness’ feet,

10

And with submissive loyalty of heart

Ascribes the glory of his conquest got

First to my God and next unto your grace. He kneels

KING HENRY VIIs this the lord Talbot, uncle Gloucester,

That hath so long been resident in France?

15

GLOUCESTERYes, if it please your majesty, my liege.

KING HENRY VIWelcome, brave captain and victorious lord. To Talbot

When I was young, as yet I am not old,

I do remember how my father said

A stouter[19] champion never handled sword.

20

Long since we were resolvèd[20] of your truth,

Your faithful service and your toil in war,

Yet never have you tasted our reward,

Or been reguerdoned[23] with so much as thanks,

Because till now we never saw your face.

25

Therefore stand up, and for these good deserts[25] Talbot rises

We here create you Earl of Shrewsbury,

And in our coronation take your place.

Sennet. Flourish

Exeunt all but Vernon and Basset

VERNONNow sir, to you that were so hot[28] at sea,

Disgracing[29] of these colours that I wear

30

In honour of my noble lord of York,

Dar’st thou maintain the former words thou spak’st?

BASSETYes, sir, as well as you dare patronage[32]

The envious[33] barking of your saucy tongue

Against my lord the Duke of Somerset.

35

VERNONSirrah,[35] thy lord I honour as he is.

BASSETWhy, what is he? As good a man as York.

VERNONHark ye, not so: in witness, take ye that.

Strikes him

BASSETVillain, thou know’st the law of arms[38] is such

That whoso draws a sword ’tis present[39] death,

40

Or else this blow should broach[40] thy dearest blood.

But I’ll unto his majesty, and crave[41]

I may have liberty[42] to venge this wrong,

When thou shalt see I’ll meet thee to thy cost.

VERNONWell, miscreant,[44] I’ll be there as soon as you,

45

And after[45] meet you sooner than you would.

Exeunt

Act 4 Scene 1

running scene 13

Enter King [Henry VI], Gloucester, [Bishop of] Winchester, York, Suffolk, Somerset, Warwick, Talbot, and [the] Governor [of Paris and] Exeter

GLOUCESTERLord Bishop, set the crown upon his head.

WINCHESTERGod save King Henry, of that name the sixth! Crowns King Henry

GLOUCESTERNow, Governor of Paris, take your oath,

That you elect[4] no other king but him;

5

Esteem[5] none friends but such as are his friends,

And none your foes but such as shall pretend[6]

Malicious practices against his state:

This shall ye do, so help you righteous God.

Enter Falstaff

FALSTAFFMy gracious sovereign, as I rode from Calais

10

To haste unto your coronation,

A letter was delivered to my hands, He shows the letter

Writ to your grace from th’Duke of Burgundy.

TALBOTShame to the Duke of Burgundy and thee!

I vowed, base knight, when I did meet thee next,

15

To tear the Garter[15] from thy craven’s leg, Plucks it off

Which I have done, because unworthily

Thou wast installèd in that high degree.

Pardon me, princely Henry, and the rest:

This dastard,[19] at the battle of Patay,

20

When but in all I was six thousand strong

And that the French were almost ten to one,

Before we met or that a stroke was given,

Like to a trusty squire did run away:

In which assault we lost twelve hundred men.

25

Myself and divers[25] gentlemen beside

Were there surprised and taken prisoners.

Then judge, great lords, if I have done amiss:

Or whether that such cowards ought to wear

This ornament of knighthood: yea or no?

30

GLOUCESTERTo say the truth, this fact[30] was infamous

And ill beseeming any common[31] man,

Much more a knight, a captain[32] and a leader.

TALBOTWhen first this order was ordained, my lords,

Knights of the Garter were of noble birth,

35

Valiant and virtuous, full of haughty courage,[35]

Such as were grown to credit[36] by the wars:

Not fearing death, nor shrinking for[37] distress,

But always resolute in most extremes.

He then that is not furnished[39] in this sort

40

Doth but usurp the sacred name of knight,

Profaning this most honourable order,

And should, if I were worthy to be judge,

Be quite degraded,[43] like a hedge-born swain

That doth presume to boast of gentle[44] blood.

45

KING HENRY VIStain to thy countrymen, thou hear’st thy doom:[45]

Be packing,[46] therefore, thou that wast a knight:

Henceforth we banish thee on pain of death.

[Exit Falstaff]

And now, my Lord Protector, view the letter

Sent from our uncle Duke of Burgundy.

50

GLOUCESTERWhat means his grace, that he hath changed his style?[50]

No more but[51] plain and bluntly ‘To the king’?

Hath he forgot he is his sovereign?

Or doth this churlish[53] superscription

Pretend[54] some alteration in good will?

55

What’s here? — ‘I have upon especial cause, Reads

Moved with compassion of my country’s wrack,[56]

Together with the pitiful complaints

Of such as your oppression feeds upon,

Forsaken your pernicious[59] faction

60

And joined with Charles, the rightful King of France.’

O monstrous treachery! Can this be so?

That in alliance, amity and oaths,

There should be found such false dissembling guile?

KING HENRY VIWhat? Doth my uncle Burgundy revolt?[64]

65

GLOUCESTERHe doth, my lord, and is become your foe.

KING HENRY VIIs that the worst this letter doth contain?

GLOUCESTERIt is the worst, and all, my lord, he writes.

KING HENRY VIWhy then Lord Talbot there shall talk with him

And give him chastisement[69] for this abuse.

70

How say you, my lord? Are you not content?

TALBOTContent, my liege? Yes: but[71] that I am prevented,

I should have begged I might have been employed.

KING HENRY VIThen gather strength[73] and march unto him straight:

Let him perceive how ill we brook[74] his treason

75

And what offence it is to flout[75] his friends.

TALBOTI go, my lord, in heart desiring still[76]

You may behold confusion[77] of your foes.

[Exit]

Enter Vernon and Basset

VERNONGrant me the combat,[78] gracious sovereign.

BASSETAnd me, my lord, grant me the combat too.

80

RICHARD DUKE OF YORKThis is my servant:[80] hear him, noble prince. Pointing to Vernon

SOMERSETAnd this is mine, sweet Henry, favour him. Pointing to Basset

KING HENRY VIBe patient, lords, and give them leave to speak.

Say, gentlemen, what makes you thus exclaim,[83]

And wherefore crave you combat, or with whom?

85

VERNONWith him, my lord, for he hath done me wrong.

BASSETAnd I with him, for he hath done me wrong.

KING HENRY VIWhat is that wrong whereof you both complain?

First let me know, and then I’ll answer you.

BASSETCrossing the sea from England into France,

90

This fellow here with envious[90] carping tongue,

Upbraided me about the rose I wear,

Saying the sanguine[92] colour of the leaves

Did represent my master’s blushing cheeks,

When stubbornly he did repugn[94] the truth

95

About a certain question[95] in the law

Argued betwixt the Duke of York and him:

With other vile and ignominious terms:

In confutation[98] of which rude reproach

And in defence of my lord’s worthiness,

100

I crave the benefit[100] of law of arms.

VERNONAnd that is my petition,[101] noble lord:

For though he seem with forgèd[102] quaint conceit

To set[103] a gloss upon his bold intent,

Yet know, my lord, I was provoked by him,

105

And he first took exceptions at[105] this badge,

Pronouncing that the paleness of this flower

Bewrayed[107] the faintness of my master’s heart.

RICHARD DUKE OF YORKWill not this malice, Somerset, be left?

SOMERSETYour private grudge, my lord of York, will out,

110

Though ne’er so cunningly you smother it.

KING HENRY VIGood Lord, what madness rules in brainsick[111] men,

When for so slight and frivolous a cause

Such factious emulations[113] shall arise?

Good cousins[114] both of York and Somerset,

115

Quiet yourselves, I pray, and be at peace.

RICHARD DUKE OF YORKLet this dissension first be tried by fight,

And then your highness shall command a peace.

SOMERSETThe quarrel toucheth[118] none but us alone:

Betwixt ourselves let us decide it then.

120

RICHARD DUKE OF YORKThere is my pledge:[120] accept it, Somerset.

VERNONNay, let it rest[121] where it began at first.

BASSETConfirm it so, mine honourable lord.

GLOUCESTERConfirm it so? Confounded[123] be your strife,

And perish ye with your audacious prate:[124]

125

Presumptuous vassals,[125] are you not ashamed

With this immodest[126] clamorous outrage

To trouble and disturb the king and us?

And you, my lords, methinks you do not well

To bear with their perverse objections:[129]

130

Much less to take occasion[130] from their mouths

To raise a mutiny[131] betwixt yourselves.

Let me persuade you take a better course.

EXETERIt grieves his highness: good my lords, be friends.

KING HENRY VICome hither, you that would be combatants:

135

Henceforth I charge you, as you love our favour,

Quite to forget this quarrel and the cause.

And you, my lords, remember where we are:

In France, amongst a fickle wavering nation:

If they perceive dissension in our looks

140

And that within ourselves[140] we disagree,

How will their grudging stomachs[141] be provoked

To wilful disobedience, and rebel![142]

Beside, what infamy will there arise,

When foreign princes shall be certified,[144]

145

That for a toy,[145] a thing of no regard,

King Henry’s peers and chief nobility

Destroyed themselves, and lost the realm of France!

O, think upon the conquest of my father,

My tender years, and let us not forgo[149]

150

That[150] for a trifle that was bought with blood.

Let me be umpire in this doubtful[151] strife:

I see no reason, if I wear this rose, Putting on a red rose

That any one should therefore be suspicious[153]

I more incline to[154] Somerset than York:

155

Both are my kinsmen, and I love them both.

As[156] well they may upbraid me with my crown,

Because, forsooth,[157] the King of Scots is crowned.

But your discretions[158] better can persuade

Than I am able to instruct or teach:

160

And therefore, as we hither came in peace,

So let us still continue peace and love.

Cousin of York, we institute[162] your grace

To be our regent in these parts[163] of France:

And good my lord of Somerset, unite

165

Your troops of horsemen with his bands of foot,[165]

And like true subjects, sons of your progenitors,[166]

Go cheerfully together and digest[167]

Your angry choler[168] on your enemies.

Ourself, my Lord Protector and the rest,

170

After some respite,[170] will return to Calais;

From thence to England, where I hope ere long

To be presented, by your victories,

With Charles, Alençon and that traitorous rout.[173]

Flourish

Exeunt all but York, Warwick, Exeter [and] Vernon

WARWICKMy lord of York, I promise you, the king

175

Prettily,[175] methought, did play the orator.

RICHARD DUKE OF YORKAnd so he did: but yet I like it not,

In that he wears the badge of Somerset.

WARWICKTush, that was but his fancy,[178] blame him not:

I dare presume, sweet prince, he thought no harm.

180

RICHARD DUKE OF YORKAn[180] if I wist he did—but let it rest:

Other affairs must now be managèd.

Exeunt [all but] Exeter

EXETERWell didst thou, Richard, to suppress thy voice:

For had the passions[183] of thy heart burst out,

I fear we should have seen deciphered[184] there

185

More rancorous spite, more furious raging broils,

Than yet can be imagined or supposed:

But howsoe’er, no simple[187] man that sees

This jarring discord of nobility,

This shouldering[189] of each other in the court,

190

This factious bandying[190] of their favourites,

But that[191] it doth presage some ill event.

’Tis much[192] when sceptres are in children’s hands:

But more, when envy[193] breeds unkind division,

There comes the ruin, there begins confusion.[194]

Exit

[Act 4 Scene 2]4.2

running scene 14

Enter Talbot, with Trump and Drum before Bordeaux

TALBOTGo to the gates of Bordeaux, trumpeter:

Summon their general unto the wall.

[Trumpet] sounds. Enter General aloft

English John Talbot, captains, calls you forth,

Servant in arms to Harry King of England,

5

And thus he would:[5] open your city gates,

Be humble to us, call my sovereign yours,

And do him homage as obedient subjects,

And I’ll withdraw me and my bloody[8] power.

But if you frown upon this proffered peace,

10

You tempt the fury of my three attendants,

Lean famine, quartering[11] steel, and climbing fire,

Who in a moment even[12] with the earth

Shall lay your stately and air-braving[13] towers,

If you forsake[14] the offer of their love.

15

GENERALThou ominous[15] and fearful owl of death,

Our nation’s terror and their bloody scourge,

The period[17] of thy tyranny approacheth.

On us thou canst not enter but by death:

For I protest we are well fortified

20

And strong enough to issue out[20] and fight.

If thou retire, the dauphin well appointed[21]

Stands with the snares of war to tangle thee.

On either hand thee[23] there are squadrons pitched,

To wall[24] thee from the liberty of flight;

25

And no way canst thou turn thee for redress,[25]

But death doth front[26] thee with apparent spoil,

And pale[27] destruction meets thee in the face:

Ten thousand French have ta’en the sacrament[28]

To rive[29] their dangerous artillery

30

Upon no Christian soul but English Talbot:

Lo, there thou stand’st, a breathing valiant man

Of an invincible unconquered spirit:

This is the latest[33] glory of thy praise

That I thy enemy due[34] thee withal:

35

For ere the glass[35] that now begins to run

Finish the process of his sandy hour,

These eyes that see thee now well colourèd[37]

Shall see thee withered, bloody, pale and dead.

Drum afar off

Hark, hark, the dauphin’s drum, a warning bell,[39]

40

Sings heavy[40] music to thy timorous soul,

And mine shall ring thy dire[41] departure out.

Exit

TALBOTHe fables[42] not: I hear the enemy:

Out, some light horsemen, and peruse[43] their wings.

O negligent and heedless[44] discipline,

45

How are we parked[45] and bounded in a pale?

A little herd of England’s timorous deer,

Mazed[47] with a yelping kennel of French curs.

If we be English deer, be then in blood,[48]

Not rascal-like[49] to fall down with a pinch,

50

But rather, moody-mad:[50] and desperate stags

Turn on the bloody hounds with heads of steel[51]

And make the cowards stand[52] aloof at bay:

Sell every man his life as dear as mine,

And they shall find dear[54] deer of us, my friends.

55

God and Saint George, Talbot and England’s right,

Prosper our colours in this dangerous fight!

Exeunt]

[Act 4 Scene 3]4.3

running scene 15

Enter a Messenger that meets York. Enter York with Trumpet and many Soldiers

RICHARD DUKE OF YORKAre not the speedy scouts returned again,

That dogged[2] the mighty army of the dauphin?

MESSENGERThey are returned, my lord, and give it out[3]

That he is marched to Bordeaux with his power

5

To fight with Talbot: as he marched along,

By your espials[6] were discoverèd

Two mightier troops than that the dauphin led,

Which joined with him and made their march for Bordeaux.

RICHARD DUKE OF YORKA plague upon that villain Somerset,

10

That thus delays my promisèd supply

Of horsemen, that were levied for this siege.

Renownèd Talbot doth expect my aid,

And I am louted[13] by a traitor villain,

And cannot help the noble chevalier:

15

God comfort him in this necessity:[15]

If he miscarry,[16] farewell wars in France.

Enter another messenger [Sir William Lucy]

LUCYThou princely leader of our English strength,

Never so needful[18] on the earth of France,

Spur to the rescue of the noble Talbot,

20

Who now is girdled[20] with a waist of iron

And hemmed about with grim destruction:

To Bordeaux, warlike duke, to Bordeaux, York,

Else farewell Talbot, France, and England’s honour.

RICHARD DUKE OF YORKO God, that Somerset, who in proud heart

25

Doth stop[25] my cornets, were in Talbot’s place,

So should we save a valiant gentleman

By forfeiting a traitor and a coward:

Mad ire and wrathful fury makes me weep,

That thus we die, while remiss[29] traitors sleep.

30

LUCYO, send some succour to the distressed[30] lord.

RICHARD DUKE OF YORKHe dies, we lose: I break my warlike word:

We mourn, France smiles: we lose, they daily get,

All ’long of[33] this vile traitor Somerset.

LUCYThen God take mercy on brave Talbot’s soul,

35

And on his son young John, who two hours since

I met in travel toward his warlike father:

This seven years did not Talbot see his son,

And now they meet where both their lives are done.

RICHARD DUKE OF YORKAlas, what joy shall noble Talbot have

40

To bid his young son welcome to his grave?

Away, vexation[41] almost stops my breath,

That sundered[42] friends greet in the hour of death.

Lucy, farewell: no more my fortune can,[43]

But curse the cause[44] I cannot aid the man.

45

Maine, Blois, Poitiers, and Tours are won away,

’Long all[46] of Somerset and his delay.

Exeunt [all but Lucy]

LUCYThus, while the vulture of sedition[47]

Feeds in the bosom of such great commanders,

Sleeping neglection[49] doth betray to loss

50

The conquest of our scarce-cold[50] conqueror,

That ever-living[51] man of memory,

Henry the Fifth: whiles they each other cross,[52]

Lives, honours, lauds,[53] and all hurry to loss.

[Exit]

[Act 4 Scene 4]

running scene 16

Enter Somerset with his army, [a Captain of Talbot’s with him]

SOMERSETIt is too late, I cannot send them now:

This expedition[2] was by York and Talbot

Too rashly plotted. All our general force

Might with a sally[4] of the very town

5

Be buckled with:[5] the over-daring Talbot

Hath sullied all his gloss[6] of former honour

By this unheedful,[7] desperate, wild adventure:

York set him on to fight and die in shame,

That, Talbot dead, great York might bear the name.

10

CAPTAINHere is Sir William Lucy, who with me

Set from our o’ermatched[11] forces forth for aid.

[Enter Sir William Lucy]

SOMERSETHow now, Sir William, whither were you sent?

LUCYWhither, my lord? From bought and sold[13] Lord Talbot,

Who, ringed about with bold adversity,

15

Cries out for noble York and Somerset,

To beat assailing death from his weak legions:[16]

And whiles the honourable captain there

Drops bloody sweat from his war-wearied limbs,

And, in advantage ling’ring,[19] looks for rescue,

20

You, his false hopes, the trust[20] of England’s honour,

Keep off aloof[21] with worthless emulation:

Let not your private discord[22] keep away

The levied succours[23] that should lend him aid,

While he, renownèd noble gentleman,

25

Yields up his life unto a world of[25] odds.

Orléans the Bastard, Charles, Burgundy,

Alençon, Reignier, compass him about,[27]

And Talbot perisheth by your default.[28]

SOMERSETYork set him on:[29] York should have sent him aid.

30

LUCYAnd York as fast upon your grace exclaims,

Swearing that you withhold his levied host,[31]

Collected for this expedition.

SOMERSETYork lies: he might have sent[33] and had the horse:

I owe him little duty, and less love,

35

And take foul scorn[35] to fawn on him by sending.

LUCYThe fraud of England, not the force of France,

Hath now entrapped the noble-minded Talbot:

Never to England shall he bear his life,

But dies betrayed to fortune by your strife.

40

SOMERSETCome, go: I will dispatch the horsemen straight:

Within six hours they will be at his aid.

LUCYToo late comes rescue: he is ta’en or slain.

For fly he could not, if he would have fled,

And fly would Talbot never, though[44] he might.

45

SOMERSETIf he be dead, brave Talbot, then adieu.

LUCYHis fame lives in the world, his shame in you.

Exeunt

[Act 4 Scene 5]4.5

running scene 17

Enter Talbot and his son [John]

TALBOTO young John Talbot, I did send for thee

To tutor thee in stratagems of war,

That Talbot’s name might be in thee revived

When sapless age and weak unable limbs

5

Should bring thy father to his drooping[5] chair.

But — O malignant[6] and ill-boding stars —

Now thou art come unto a feast of death,

A terrible and unavoided[8] danger:

Therefore, dear boy, mount on my swiftest horse,

10

And I’ll direct thee how thou shalt escape

By sudden[11] flight. Come, dally not, be gone.

JOHNIs my name Talbot? And am I your son?

And shall I fly? O, if you love my mother,

Dishonour not her honourable name,

15

To make a bastard and a slave of me:

The world will say, he is not Talbot’s blood,

That basely fled when noble Talbot stood.

TALBOTFly to revenge my death if I be slain.

JOHNHe that flies so will ne’er return again.

20

TALBOTIf we both stay, we both are sure to die.

JOHNThen let me stay and, father, do you fly:

Your[22] loss is great, so your regard should be;

My worth unknown, no loss is known in me.

Upon my death the French can little boast;

25

In yours they will, in you all hopes are lost.

Flight cannot stain the honour you have won,

But mine[27] it will, that no exploit have done.

You fled for vantage,[28] everyone will swear:

But if I bow,[29] they’ll say it was for fear.

30

There is no hope that ever I will stay,

If the first hour I shrink and run away:

Here on my knee I beg mortality,[32]

Rather than life preserved with infamy.

TALBOTShall all thy mother’s hopes lie in one tomb?

35

JOHNAy, rather than I’ll shame my mother’s womb.

TALBOTUpon my blessing I command thee go.

JOHNTo fight I will, but not to fly the foe.

TALBOTPart of thy father may be saved in thee.

JOHNNo part of him but will be shame in me.

40

TALBOTThou never hadst renown, nor canst not lose it.

JOHNYes, your renownèd name: shall flight abuse[41] it?

TALBOTThy father’s charge[42] shall clear thee from that stain.

JOHNYou cannot witness for me, being slain.

If death be so apparent,[44] then both fly.

45

TALBOTAnd leave my followers here to fight and die?

My age[46] was never tainted with such shame.

JOHNAnd shall my youth be guilty of such blame?

No more can I be severed from your side,

Than can yourself yourself in twain divide:

50

Stay, go, do what you will, the like do I;

For live I will not, if my father die.

TALBOTThen here I take my leave of thee, fair son,

Born to eclipse[53] thy life this afternoon:

Come, side by side, together live and die,

55

And soul with soul from France to heaven fly.

Exeunt

[Act 4 Scene 6]

running scene 17 continues

Alarum: excursions, wherein Talbot’s son [John] is hemmed about [by French soldiers], and Talbot rescues him

TALBOTSaint George and victory! Fight, soldiers, fight:

The Regent[2] hath with Talbot broke his word

And left us to the rage of France his[3] sword.

Where is John Talbot? Pause, and take thy breath:

5

I gave thee life and rescued thee from death.

JOHNO, twice my father, twice am I thy son:

The life thou gav’st me first was lost and done,

Till with thy warlike sword, despite of fate,

To my determined[9] time thou gav’st new date.

10

TALBOTWhen from the dauphin’s crest[10] thy sword struck fire,

It warmed thy father’s heart with proud desire

Of bold-faced victory. Then leaden age,

Quickened[13] with youthful spleen and warlike rage,

Beat down Alençon, Orléans, Burgundy,

15

And from the pride[15] of Gallia rescued thee.

The ireful[16] bastard Orléans, that drew blood

From thee, my boy, and had the maidenhood[17]

Of thy first fight, I soon encountered,

And interchanging blows I quickly shed

20

Some of his bastard blood, and in disgrace[20]

Bespoke him thus: ‘Contaminated, base

And misbegotten[22] blood I spill of thine,

Mean[23] and right poor, for that pure blood of mine

Which thou didst force from Talbot, my brave boy.’

25

Here, purposing[25] the Bastard to destroy,

Came in strong rescue. Speak, thy father’s care:

Art thou not weary, John? How dost thou fare?

Wilt thou yet leave the battle, boy, and fly,

Now thou art sealed[29] the son of chivalry?

30

Fly, to revenge my death when I am dead:

The help of one stands me in little stead.

O, too much folly is it, well I wot,[32]

To hazard all our lives in one small boat.

If I today die not with Frenchmen’s rage,

35

Tomorrow I shall die with mickle[35] age.

By me they nothing gain, and if I stay

’Tis but the short’ning of my life one day.

In thee thy mother dies, our household’s name,

My death’s revenge, thy youth, and England’s fame:

40

All these and more we hazard by thy stay;

All these are saved if thou wilt fly away.

JOHNThe sword of Orléans hath not made me smart:[42]

These words of yours draw life-blood from my heart.

On that advantage,[44] bought with such a shame,

45

To save a paltry life and slay bright fame,

Before young Talbot from old Talbot fly,

The[47] coward horse that bears me fall and die:

And like[48] me to the peasant boys of France,

To be shame’s scorn[49] and subject of mischance.

50

Surely, by all the glory you have won,

An if I fly, I am not Talbot’s son.

Then talk no more of flight, it is no boot:[52]

If son to Talbot, die at Talbot’s foot.

TALBOTThen follow[54] thou thy desp’rate sire of Crete,

55

Thou Icarus: thy life to me is sweet:

If thou wilt fight, fight by thy father’s side,

And commendable proved, let’s die in pride.[57]

Exeunt

[Act 4 Scene 7]

running scene 17 continues

Alarum. Excursions. Enter old Talbot led [by a Servant]

TALBOTWhere is my other life? Mine own is gone.

O, where’s young Talbot? Where is valiant John?

Triumphant[3] death, smeared with captivity,

Young Talbot’s valour makes me smile at thee.

5

When he perceived me shrink and on my knee,

His bloody sword he brandished over me,

And like a hungry lion did commence

Rough deeds of rage and stern impatience:[8]

But when my angry guardant[9] stood alone,

10

Tend’ring my ruin[10] and assailed of none,

Dizzy-eyed[11] fury and great rage of heart

Suddenly made him from my side to start

Into the clust’ring[13] battle of the French:

And in that sea of blood my boy did drench[14]

15

His over-mounting[15] spirit, and there died,

My Icarus, my blossom, in his pride.

SERVANTO my dear lord, lo[17] where your son is borne.

Enter [Soldiers] with [the body of] John Talbot borne

TALBOTThou antic[18] death, which laugh’st us here to scorn,

Anon,[19] from thy insulting tyranny,

20

Couplèd in bonds of perpetuity,

Two Talbots, wingèd through the lither[21] sky,

In thy despite[22] shall scape mortality.

O thou whose wounds become hard-favoured[23] death, To John

Speak to thy father ere thou yield thy breath.

25

Brave[25] death by speaking, whether he will or no:

Imagine him a Frenchman and thy foe.

Poor boy, he smiles, methinks, as who[27] should say,

‘Had death been French, then death had died today.’

Come, come, and lay him in his father’s arms:

30

My spirit can no longer bear these harms.

Soldiers, adieu: I have what I would have,

Now my old arms are young John Talbot’s grave.

Dies

Enter Charles, Alençon, Burgundy, Bastard [of Orléans] and [Joan la] Pucelle

CHARLESHad York and Somerset brought rescue in,

We should have found a bloody day of this.

35

BASTARDHow the young whelp[35] of Talbot’s, raging wood,

Did flesh[36] his puny sword in Frenchmen’s blood.

PUCELLE Once I encountered him, and thus I said:

‘Thou maiden[38] youth, be vanquished by a maid.’

But with a proud majestical high scorn,

40

He answered thus: ‘Young Talbot was not born

To be the pillage[41] of a giglot wench’:

So rushing in the bowels[42] of the French,

He left me proudly, as unworthy fight.

BURGUNDYDoubtless he would have made a noble knight:

45

See where he lies inhearsèd[45] in the arms

Of the most bloody[46] nurser of his harms.

BASTARDHew them to pieces, hack their bones asunder

Whose life was England’s glory, Gallia’s wonder.[48]

CHARLESO no, forbear: for that[49] which we have fled

50

During the life, let us not wrong it dead.

Enter Lucy [with a French herald]

LUCYHerald, conduct me to the dauphin’s tent,

To know who hath obtained the glory of the day.

CHARLESOn what submissive message[53] art thou sent?

LUCYSubmission, dauphin? ’Tis a mere[54] French word:

55

We English warriors wot[55] not what it means.

I come to know what prisoners thou hast ta’en

And to survey[57] the bodies of the dead.

CHARLESFor prisoners ask’st thou? Hell our prison is.

But tell me whom thou seek’st?

60

LUCYBut[60] where’s the great Alcides of the field,

Valiant Lord Talbot, Earl of Shrewsbury,

Created for his rare[62] success in arms

Great Earl of Washford, Waterford, and Valence,

Lord Talbot of Goodrich and Urchinfield,

65

Lord Strange of Blackmere, Lord Verdun of Alton,

Lord Cromwell of Wingfield, Lord Furnival of Sheffield,

The thrice victorious lord of Falconbridge,

Knight of the noble order of Saint George,

Worthy[69] Saint Michael and the Golden Fleece,

70

Great Marshal to Henry the Sixth

Of all his wars within the realm of France?

PUCELLEHere is a silly stately style[72] indeed:

The Turk,[73] that two-and-fifty kingdoms hath,

Writes not so tedious a style as this.

75

Him that thou magnifi’st with all these titles,

Stinking and fly-blown[76] lies here at our feet.

LUCYIs Talbot slain, the Frenchmen’s only scourge,

Your kingdom’s terror and black Nemesis?[78]

O were mine eyeballs into bullets turned,

80

That I in rage might shoot them at your faces!

O, that I could but call these dead to life!

It were enough to fright the realm of France.

Were but his picture left amongst you here,

It would amaze[84] the proudest of you all.

85

Give me their bodies, that I may bear them hence

And give them burial as beseems[86] their worth.

PUCELLE I think this upstart is old Talbot’s ghost,

He speaks with such a proud commanding spirit:

For God’s sake let him have them: to keep them here,

90

They would but stink, and putrefy the air.

CHARLESGo take their bodies hence.

LUCYI’ll bear them hence: but from their ashes[92] shall be reared

A phoenix that shall make all France afeard.

CHARLESSo[94] we be rid of them, do with them what thou wilt.

95

And now to Paris in this conquering vein:

All will be ours, now bloody Talbot’s slain.

Exeunt

Act 5 Scene 15.1

running scene 18

Sennet. Enter King [Henry VI], Gloucester, and Exeter [attended]

KING HENRY VIHave you perused the letters from the Pope,

The Emperor, and the Earl of Armagnac?

GLOUCESTERI have, my lord, and their intent is this:

They humbly sue unto[4] your excellence

5

To have a godly peace concluded of[5]

Between the realms of England and of France.

KING HENRY VIHow doth your grace affect their motion?[7]

GLOUCESTERWell, my good lord, and as the only means

To stop effusion of our Christian blood

10

And stablish[10] quietness on every side.

KING HENRY VIAy, marry, uncle, for I always thought

It was both impious and unnatural

That such immanity[13] and bloody strife

Should reign among professors of one faith.

15

GLOUCESTERBeside, my lord, the sooner to effect

And surer bind this knot of amity,

The Earl of Armagnac, near knit[17] to Charles,

A man of great authority in France,

Proffers his only daughter to your grace

20

In marriage, with a large and sumptuous dowry.

KING HENRY VIMarriage, uncle? Alas, my years are young:[21]

And fitter is my study and my books

Than wanton[23] dalliance with a paramour.

Yet call th’ambassadors, and as you please,

25

So let them have their answers every one:

Exit Attendant

I shall be well content with any choice

Tends[27] to God’s glory and my country’s weal.

Enter Winchester [in Cardinal’s habit], and three Ambassadors [one a Papal legate]

EXETERWhat, is my lord of Winchester installed, Aside

And called unto a cardinal’s degree?[29]

30

Then I perceive that will be verified[30]

Henry the Fifth did sometime[31] prophesy:

‘If once he come to be a cardinal,

He’ll make his cap[33] co-equal with the crown.’

KING HENRY VIMy lords ambassadors, your several[34] suits

35

Have been considered and debated on:

Your purpose is both good and reasonable:

And therefore are we certainly resolved

To draw[38] conditions of a friendly peace,

Which by my lord of Winchester we mean

40

Shall be transported presently[40] to France.

GLOUCESTERAnd for the proffer of my lord your master, To Armagnac ambassador

I have informed his highness so at large[42]

As[43] liking of the lady’s virtuous gifts,

Her beauty and the value of her dower,

45

He doth intend she shall be England’s queen.

KING HENRY VIIn argument[46] and proof of which contract,

Bear her this jewel, pledge of my affection.

And so, my Lord Protector, see them guarded

And safely brought to Dover, wherein shipped[49]

50

Commit them to the fortune of the sea.

Exeunt [all but Winchester and Legate]

WINCHESTERStay, my lord legate, you shall first receive

The sum of money which I promised

Should be delivered to his holiness

For clothing me in these grave ornaments.[54]

55

LEGATEI will attend upon your lordship’s leisure.

[Exit]

WINCHESTERNow Winchester will not submit, I trow,[56]

Or be inferior to the proudest peer:

Humphrey of Gloucester, thou shalt well perceive

That neither in birth or for authority,

60

The bishop will be overborne by thee:

I’ll either make thee stoop and bend thy knee,

Or sack this country with a mutiny.[62]

Exit

Act 5 Scene 25.2

running scene 19

Enter Charles, Burgundy, Alençon, Bastard [of Orléans], Reignier and Joan [la Pucelle]

CHARLESThese news, my lords, may cheer our drooping spirits:

’Tis said the stout[2] Parisians do revolt

And turn again unto the warlike French.

ALENÇONThen march to Paris, royal Charles of France,

5

And keep not back your powers[5] in dalliance.

PUCELLEPeace be amongst them, if they turn to us,

Else ruin combat with[7] their palaces.

Enter Scout

SCOUTSuccess unto our valiant general,

And happiness to his accomplices.[9]

10

CHARLESWhat tidings send our scouts? I prithee speak.

SCOUTThe English army that divided was

Into two parties, is now conjoined in one,

And means to give you battle presently.

CHARLESSomewhat too sudden, sirs, the warning is,

15

But we will presently provide[15] for them.

BURGUNDYI trust the ghost of Talbot is not there:

Now he is gone, my lord, you need not fear.

PUCELLEOf all base passions, fear is most accursed.

Command the conquest, Charles, it shall be thine:

20

Let Henry fret and all the world repine.[20]

CHARLESThen on, my lords, and France be fortunate!

Exeunt

[Act 5 Scene 3]

running scene 19 continues

Alarum. Excursions. Enter Joan la Pucelle

PUCELLEThe regent conquers, and the Frenchmen fly.

Now help, ye charming[2] spells and periapts,

And ye choice[3] spirits that admonish me,

And give me signs of future accidents.[4]

Thunder

5

You speedy helpers, that are substitutes[5]

Under the lordly[6] monarch of the north,

Appear, and aid me in this enterprise.

Enter Fiends

This speedy and quick[8] appearance argues proof

Of your accustomed diligence to me.

10

Now, ye familiar spirits[10] that are culled

Out of the powerful regions under earth,

Help me this once, that France may get the field.[12]

They walk, and speak not

O hold me not with silence over-long:

Where[14] I was wont to feed you with my blood,

15

I’ll lop a member[15] off and give it you

In earnest[16] of a further benefit,

So you do condescend to help me now.

They hang their heads

No hope to have redress?[18] My body shall

Pay recompense, if you will grant my suit.

They shake their heads

20

Cannot my body nor blood-sacrifice

Entreat you to your wonted furtherance?[21]

Then take my soul — my body, soul and all —

Before that England give the French the foil.[23]

They depart

See, they forsake me! Now the time is come

25

That France must vail[25] her lofty-plumèd crest

And let her head fall into England’s lap.

My ancient[27] incantations are too weak,

And hell too strong for me to buckle[28] with:

Now, France, thy glory droopeth to the dust.

Exit

Excursions. Burgundy and York fight hand to hand. [The] French fly [leaving Joan la Pucelle in York’s power]

30

RICHARD DUKE OF YORKDamsel of France, I think I have you fast:[30]

Unchain your spirits now with spelling[31] charms

And try if they can gain your liberty.

A goodly prize, fit for the devil’s grace![33]

See how the ugly witch doth bend her brows,[34]

35

As if with[35] Circe she would change my shape!

PUCELLE Changed to a worser shape thou canst not be.

RICHARD DUKE OF YORKO, Charles the Dauphin is a proper[37] man:

No shape but his can please your dainty[38] eye.

PUCELLE A plaguing mischief[39] light on Charles and thee,

40

And may ye both be suddenly surprised

By bloody hands, in[41] sleeping on your beds!

RICHARD DUKE OF YORKFell banning hag,[42] enchantress, hold thy tongue.

PUCELLE I prithee, give me leave to curse awhile.

RICHARD DUKE OF YORKCurse, miscreant,[44] when thou com’st to the stake.

Exeunt

Alarum. Enter Suffolk with Margaret in his hand

45

SUFFOLKBe what thou wilt, thou art my prisoner.

Gazes on her

O fairest beauty, do not fear nor fly:

For I will touch thee but with reverent hands:

I kiss these fingers for[48] eternal peace,

And lay[49] them gently on thy tender side.

50

Who art thou? Say, that I may honour thee.

MARGARETMargaret my name, and daughter to a king,

The King of Naples, whosoe’er thou art.

SUFFOLKAn earl I am, and Suffolk am I called.

Be not offended, nature’s miracle,

55

Thou art allotted[55] to be ta’en by me:

So doth the swan her downy cygnets save,[56]

Keeping them prisoner underneath her wings:

Yet if this servile usage[58] once offend,

Go, and be free again, as Suffolk’s friend.

She is going

60

O stay!— I have no power to let her pass; Aside

My hand would free her, but my heart says no.

As plays the sun upon the glassy[62] streams,

Twinkling[63] another counterfeited beam,

So seems this gorgeous beauty to mine eyes.

65

Fain would I woo her, yet I dare not speak:

I’ll call for pen and ink, and write my mind:

Fie, de la Pole,[67] disable not thyself!

Hast not a tongue? Is she not here?

Wilt thou be daunted at a woman’s sight?[69]

70

Ay, beauty’s princely majesty is such

Confounds[71] the tongue and makes the senses rough.

MARGARETSay, Earl of Suffolk — if thy name be so —

What ransom must I pay before I pass?

For I perceive I am thy prisoner.

75

SUFFOLKHow canst thou tell she will deny thy suit, Aside

Before thou make a trial of her love?

MARGARETWhy speak’st thou not? What ransom must I pay?

SUFFOLKShe’s beautiful, and therefore to be wooed: Aside

She is a woman, therefore to be won.

80

MARGARETWilt thou accept of ransom, yea or no?

SUFFOLKFond[81] man, remember that thou hast a wife: Aside

Then how can Margaret be thy paramour?

MARGARETI were best to leave him, for he will not hear. Aside

SUFFOLKThere all is marred: there lies a cooling card.[84] Aside

85

MARGARETHe talks at random: sure, the man is mad. Aside

SUFFOLKAnd yet a dispensation[86] may be had. Aside

MARGARETAnd yet I would that you would answer me.

SUFFOLKI’ll win this Lady Margaret. For whom? Aside

Why, for my king: tush, that’s a wooden thing.[89]

90

MARGARETHe talks of wood: it is some carpenter. Aside

SUFFOLKYet so my fancy[91] may be satisfied, Aside

And peace establishèd between these realms.

But there remains a scruple[93] in that too:

For though her father be the King of Naples,

95

Duke of Anjou and Maine, yet is he poor,

And our nobility will scorn the match.

MARGARETHear ye, captain? Are you not at leisure?

SUFFOLKIt shall be so, disdain[98] they ne’er so much. Aside

Henry is youthful and will quickly yield.—

100

Madam, I have a secret to reveal. To Margaret

MARGARETWhat though I be enthralled,[101] he seems a knight, Aside

And will not any way dishonour me.

SUFFOLKLady, vouchsafe to listen what I say.

MARGARETPerhaps I shall be rescued by the French, Aside

105

And then I need not crave his courtesy.

SUFFOLKSweet madam, give me a hearing in a cause.

MARGARETTush, women have been captivate[107] ere now. Aside

SUFFOLKLady, wherefore talk you so?

MARGARETI cry you mercy,[109] ’tis but quid for quo.

110

SUFFOLKSay, gentle princess, would you not suppose

Your bondage happy[111] to be made a queen?

MARGARETTo be a queen in bondage is more vile[112]

Than is a slave in base servility,[113]

For princes should be free.

115

SUFFOLKAnd so shall you,

If happy England’s royal king be free.

MARGARETWhy, what concerns his freedom unto me?

SUFFOLKI’ll undertake to make thee Henry’s queen,

To put a golden sceptre in thy hand

120

And set a precious crown upon thy head,

If thou wilt condescend to be my—

MARGARET What?

SUFFOLKHis love.

MARGARETI am unworthy to be Henry’s wife.

125

SUFFOLKNo, gentle madam, I unworthy am

To woo so fair a dame to be his wife,

And have no portion[127] in the choice myself.

How say you, madam, are ye so content?

MARGARETAn if[129] my father please, I am content.

130

SUFFOLKThen call our captains and our colours[130] forth,

And, madam, at your father’s castle walls

We’ll crave a parley,[132] to confer with him.

[Enter Captains, Colours and Trumpeters]

Sound [a parley]. Enter Reignier on the walls

See, Reignier, see, thy daughter prisoner.

REIGNIER To whom?

135

SUFFOLKTo me.

REIGNIER Suffolk, what remedy?[136]

I am a soldier, and unapt to weep,

Or to exclaim on[138] fortune’s fickleness.

SUFFOLKYes, there is remedy enough, my lord:

140

Consent, and for thy honour give consent,

Thy daughter shall be wedded to my king,

Whom[142] I with pain have wooed and won thereto:

And this her easy-held[143] imprisonment

Hath gained thy daughter princely liberty.

145

REIGNIERSpeaks Suffolk as he thinks?

SUFFOLKFair Margaret knows

That Suffolk doth not flatter, face,[147] or feign.

REIGNIERUpon thy princely warrant,[148] I descend

To give thee answer of thy just[149] demand.

[Exit from the walls]

150

SUFFOLKAnd here I will expect[150] thy coming.

Trumpets sound. Enter Reignier [below]

REIGNIERWelcome, brave earl, into our territories:

Command in Anjou what your honour pleases.

SUFFOLKThanks, Reignier, happy[154] for so sweet a child,

155

Fit to be made companion with a king:

What answer makes your grace unto my suit?

REIGNIERSince thou dost deign to woo her little worth[157]

To be the princely bride of such a lord,

Upon condition I may quietly[159]

160

Enjoy mine own, the country Maine and Anjou,

Free from oppression or the stroke of war,

My daughter shall be Henry’s, if he please.

SUFFOLKThat is her ransom: I deliver her,

And those two counties[164] I will undertake

165

Your grace shall well and quietly enjoy.

REIGNIERAnd I again[166] in Henry’s royal name,

As deputy[167] unto that gracious king,

Give thee her hand for sign of plighted[168] faith.

SUFFOLKReignier of France, I give thee kingly thanks,

170

Because this is in traffic[170] of a king.—

And yet, methinks, I could be well content Aside

To be mine own attorney[172] in this case.—

I’ll over then to England with this news, To Reignier

And make this marriage to be solemnized:[174]

175

So farewell, Reignier: set this diamond safe

In golden palaces, as it becomes.[176]

REIGNIERI do embrace thee, as I would embrace

The Christian prince King Henry, were he here.

MARGARETFarewell, my lord: good wishes, praise and prayers

180

Shall Suffolk ever have of Margaret.

She is going

SUFFOLKFarewell, sweet madam: but hark you, Margaret:

No princely[182] commendations to my king?

MARGARETSuch commendations as becomes a maid,

A virgin and his servant, say to him.

185

SUFFOLKWords sweetly placed[185] and modestly directed.

But madam, I must trouble you again;

No loving token to his majesty?

MARGARETYes, my good lord, a pure unspotted heart,

Never yet taint[189] with love, I send the king.

190

SUFFOLKAnd this withal.[190]

Kisses her

MARGARETThat for thyself: I will not so presume

To send such peevish[192] tokens to a king.

[Exeunt Reignier and Margaret]

SUFFOLKO, wert thou for myself! But, Suffolk, stay:[193]

Thou mayst not wander in that labyrinth:[194]

195

There Minotaurs and ugly treasons lurk.

Solicit[196] Henry with her wondrous praise.

Bethink[197] thee on her virtues that surmount,

Mad natural graces that extinguish[198] art,

Repeat their semblance[199] often on the seas,

200

That when thou com’st to kneel at Henry’s feet,

Thou mayst bereave[201] him of his wits with wonder.

Exit

[Act 5 Scene 4]5.4

running scene 20

Enter York, Warwick, [a] Shepherd [and Joan la] Pucelle [guarded]

RICHARD DUKE OF YORKBring forth that sorceress condemned to burn.

SHEPHERDAh, Joan, this kills thy father’s heart outright.

Have I sought every country[3] far and near,

And now it is my chance[4] to find thee out,

5

Must I behold thy timeless[5] cruel death?

Ah, Joan, sweet daughter Joan, I’ll die with thee.

PUCELLEDecrepit miser,[7] base ignoble wretch,

I am descended of a gentler[8] blood.

Thou art no father, nor no friend[9] of mine.

10

SHEPHERDOut, out![10]— My lords, an’t please you, ’tis not so:

I did beget[11] her, all the parish knows:

Her mother liveth yet, can testify

She was the first fruit of my bach’lorship.[13]

WARWICKGraceless, wilt thou deny thy parentage?

15

RICHARD DUKE OF YORKThis argues[15] what her kind of life hath been:

Wicked and vile, and so her death concludes.[16]

SHEPHERDFie, Joan, that thou wilt be so obstacle:[17]

God knows thou art a collop[18] of my flesh,

And for thy sake have I shed many a tear:

20

Deny me not, I prithee, gentle Joan.

PUCELLEPeasant, avaunt![21]— You have suborned this man, To the English

Of[22] purpose to obscure my noble birth.

SHEPHERD’Tis true, I gave a noble[23] to the priest

The morn that I was wedded to her mother.

25

Kneel down and take my blessing, good my girl.

Wilt thou not stoop? Now cursèd be the time

Of thy nativity:[27] I would the milk

Thy mother gave thee when thou sucked’st her breast,

Had been a little ratsbane[29] for thy sake.

30

Or else, when thou didst keep[30] my lambs afield,

I wish some ravenous wolf had eaten thee.

Dost thou deny thy father, cursèd drab?[32]—

O burn her, burn her: hanging is too good.

Exit

RICHARD DUKE OF YORKTake her away; for she hath lived too long,

35

To fill the world with vicious qualities.

PUCELLEFirst let me tell you whom you have condemned:

Not one begotten of a shepherd swain,[37]

But issued from the progeny[38] of kings:

Virtuous and holy, chosen from above,

40

By inspiration of celestial grace,

To work exceeding[41] miracles on earth.

I never had to do[42] with wicked spirits:

But you that are polluted with your lusts,

Stained with the guiltless blood of innocents,

45

Corrupt and tainted with a thousand vices:

Because you want[46] the grace that others have,

You judge it straight[47] a thing impossible

To compass[48] wonders but by help of devils.

No misconceivèd,[49] Joan of Arc hath been

50

A virgin from her tender[50] infancy,

Chaste and immaculate in very thought,

Whose maiden blood thus rigorously[52] effused

Will cry for vengeance at the gates of heaven.

RICHARD DUKE OF YORKAy, ay.— Away with her to execution. To Guards

55

WARWICKAnd hark ye, sirs: because she is a maid,

Spare[56] for no faggots: let there be enough:

Place barrels of pitch[57] upon the fatal stake,

That so her torture may be shortenèd.

PUCELLEWill nothing turn your unrelenting hearts?

60

Then, Joan, discover[60] thine infirmity,

That warranteth[61] by law to be thy privilege.

I am with child, ye bloody homicides:

Murder not then the fruit within my womb,

Although ye hale[64] me to a violent death.

65

RICHARD DUKE OF YORKNow heaven forfend,[65] the holy maid with child?

WARWICKThe greatest miracle that e’er ye wrought.

Is all your strict preciseness[67] come to this?

RICHARD DUKE OF YORKShe and the dauphin have been juggling.[68]

I did imagine what would be her refuge.[69]

70

WARWICKWell, go to: we’ll have no bastards live,

Especially since Charles must father it.

PUCELLEYou are deceived: my child is none of his:

It was Alençon that enjoyed my love.

RICHARD DUKE OF YORKAlencon, that notorious machiavel?[74]

75

It dies, an[75] if it had a thousand lives.

PUCELLE O give me leave, I have deluded you:

’Twas neither Charles nor yet the duke I named,

But Reignier, King of Naples, that prevailed.[78]

WARWICKA married man: that’s most intolerable!

80

RICHARD DUKE OF YORKWhy, here’s a girl! I think she knows not well,

There were so many, whom she may accuse.

WARWICKIt’s sign she hath been liberal and free.[82]

RICHARD DUKE OF YORKAnd yet, forsooth, she is a virgin pure.—

Strumpet, thy words condemn thy brat and thee.

85

Use no entreaty, for it is in vain.

PUCELLE Then lead me hence, with whom I leave my curse:

May never glorious sun reflex[87] his beams

Upon the country where you make abode:

But darkness and the gloomy shade of death

90

Environ you, till mischief and despair

Drive you to break your necks or hang yourselves!

Exit [guarded]

RICHARD DUKE OF YORKBreak thou in pieces and consume[92] to ashes,

Thou foul accursèd minister[93] of hell!

Enter [Bishop of Winchester, now] Cardinal [attended]

WINCHESTERLord Regent, I do greet your excellence

95

With letters of commission[95] from the king.

For know, my lords, the states of Christendom,

Moved with remorse[97] of these outrageous broils,

Have earnestly implored a general peace

Betwixt our nation and the aspiring[99] French,

100

And here at hand the dauphin and his train

Approacheth to confer about some matter.

RICHARD DUKE OF YORKIs all our travail[102] turned to this effect?

After the slaughter of so many peers,

So many captains, gentlemen and soldiers,

105

That in this quarrel have been overthrown

And sold their bodies for their country’s benefit,

Shall we at last conclude effeminate peace?

Have we not lost most part of all the towns,

By treason, falsehood and by treachery,

110

Our great progenitors had conquerèd?

O Warwick, Warwick, I foresee with grief

The utter loss of all the realm of France.

WARWICKBe patient, York: if we conclude[113] a peace,

It shall be with such strict and severe covenants[114]

115

As little shall the Frenchmen gain thereby.

Enter Charles, Alençon, Bastard [of Orléans] and Reignier

CHARLESSince, lords of England, it is thus agreed

That peaceful truce shall be proclaimed in France,

We come to be informèd by yourselves

What the conditions of that league must be.

120

RICHARD DUKE OF YORKSpeak, Winchester, for boiling choler chokes

The hollow passage of my poisoned voice,

By sight of these our baleful[122] enemies.

WINCHESTERCharles and the rest, it is enacted[123] thus:

That, in regard[124] King Henry gives consent,

125

Of mere[125] compassion and of lenity,

To ease your country of distressful[126] war,

And suffer[127] you to breathe in fruitful peace,

You shall become true liegemen[128] to his crown.

And, Charles, upon condition thou wilt swear

130

To pay him tribute,[130] and submit thyself,

Thou shalt be placed as viceroy under him,

And still enjoy thy regal dignity.

ALENÇONMust he be then as shadow of himself?

Adorn his temples with a coronet,[134]

135

And yet in substance and authority

Retain but[136] privilege of a private man?

This proffer[137] is absurd and reasonless.

CHARLES’Tis known already that I am possessed

With more than half the Gallian[139] territories,

140

And therein reverenced for[140] their lawful king.

Shall I, for lucre[141] of the rest unvanquished,

Detract so much from that prerogative,

As to be called but viceroy of the whole?

No, lord ambassador, I’ll rather keep

145

That which I have than, coveting for more,

Be cast[146] from possibility of all.

RICHARD DUKE OF YORKInsulting Charles, hast thou by secret means

Used intercession to obtain a league,

And, now the matter grows to compromise,[149]

150

Stand’st thou aloof upon comparison?[150]

Either accept the title thou usurp’st,

Of benefit[152] proceeding from our king

And not of any challenge of desert,[153]

Or we will plague thee with incessant wars.

155

REIGNIERMy lord, you do not well in obstinacy Aside to Charles

To cavil[156] in the course of this contract:

If once it be neglected,[157] ten to one

We shall not find like opportunity.

ALENÇONTo say the truth, it is your policy Aside to Charles

160

To save your subjects from such massacre

And ruthless slaughters as are daily seen

By our proceeding in hostility:

And therefore take this compact[163] of a truce,

Although you break it when your pleasure serves.

165

WARWICKHow say’st thou, Charles? Shall our condition[165] stand?

CHARLESIt shall:

Only reserved[167] you claim no interest

In any of our towns of garrison.[168]

RICHARD DUKE OF YORKThen swear allegiance to his majesty,

170

As thou art knight, never to disobey

Nor be rebellious to the crown of England,

Thou, nor thy nobles, to the crown of England.

So, now dismiss your army when ye please:

Hang up your ensigns,[174] let your drums be still,

175

For here we entertain[175] a solemn peace.

Exeunt

Act 5 [Scene 5]*

running scene 21

Enter Suffolk in conference with King [Henry VI], Gloucester and Exeter

KING HENRY VIYour wondrous rare description, noble earl,

Of beauteous Margaret hath astonished me:

Her virtues gracèd with external gifts

Do breed love’s settled[4] passions in my heart,

5

And like as rigour[5] of tempestuous gusts

Provokes[6] the mightiest hulk against the tide,

So am I driven by breath of her renown

Either to suffer shipwreck or arrive

Where I may have fruition of her love.

10

SUFFOLKTush, my good lord, this superficial tale

Is but a preface of her worthy praise:[11]

The chief perfections of that lovely dame,

Had I sufficient skill to utter them,

Would make a volume of enticing lines,

15

Able to ravish any dull conceit:[15]

And, which is more, she is not so divine,

So full[17] replete with choice of all delights,

But with as humble lowliness[18] of mind

She is content to be at your command:

20

Command, I mean, of virtuous chaste intents,

To love and honour Henry as her lord.

KING HENRY VIAnd otherwise will Henry ne’er presume:

Therefore, my Lord Protector, give consent

That Margaret may be England’s royal queen.

25

GLOUCESTERSo should I give consent to flatter[25] sin.

You know, my lord, your highness is betrothed

Unto another lady of esteem:[27]

How shall we then dispense with that contract,[28]

And not deface your honour with reproach?[29]

30

SUFFOLKAs doth a ruler with unlawful oaths,

Or one that, at a triumph[31] having vowed

To try his strength, forsaketh yet the lists[32]

By reason of his adversary’s odds.

A poor earl’s daughter is unequal odds,

35

And therefore may be broke[35] without offence.

GLOUCESTERWhy, what, I pray, is Margaret more than that?

Her father is no better than an earl,

Although in glorious titles he excel.

SUFFOLKYes, my lord, her father is a king,

40

The King of Naples and Jerusalem,

And of such great authority in France

As his alliance will confirm[42] our peace

And keep the Frenchmen in allegiance.

GLOUCESTERAnd so the Earl of Armagnac may do,

45

Because he is near kinsman unto Charles.

EXETERBeside, his wealth doth warrant[46] a liberal dower,

Where[47] Reignier sooner will receive than give.

SUFFOLKA dower, my lords? Disgrace not so your king,

That he should be so abject, base and poor,

50

To choose for wealth and not for perfect love.

Henry is able to enrich his queen,

And not to seek a queen to make him rich:

So worthless peasants bargain for their wives,

As market men for oxen, sheep, or horse.

55

Marriage is a matter of more worth

Than to be dealt in by attorneyship:[56]

Not whom we will,[57] but whom his grace affects,

Must be companion of his nuptial bed.

And therefore, lords, since he affects her most,

60

Most of all these reasons bindeth us,

In our opinions she should be preferred.[61]

For what is wedlock forcèd but a hell,

An age of discord and continual strife?

Whereas the contrary bringeth bliss,

65

And is a pattern[65] of celestial peace.

Whom should we match with Henry, being a king,

But Margaret, that is daughter to a king?

Her peerless feature,[68] joinèd with her birth,

Approves[69] her fit for none but for a king:

70

Her valiant courage and undaunted spirit,

More than in women commonly is seen,

Will answer our hope in issue[72] of a king.

For Henry, son unto a conqueror,

Is likely to beget more conquerors,

75

If with a lady of so high resolve,[75]

As is fair Margaret, he be linked in love.

Then yield, my lords, and here conclude with me

That Margaret shall be queen, and none but she.

KING HENRY VIWhether it be through force of your report,

80

My noble lord of Suffolk, or for that[80]

My tender youth was never yet attaint[81]

With any passion of inflaming love,

I cannot tell: but this I am assured,

I feel such sharp dissension[84] in my breast,

85

Such fierce alarums both of hope and fear,

As I am sick with working of my thoughts.

Take therefore shipping: post,[87] my lord, to France:

Agree to any covenants, and procure[88]

That Lady Margaret do vouchsafe to come

90

To cross the seas to England, and be crowned

King Henry’s faithful and anointed[91] queen.

For your expenses and sufficient charge,[92]

Among the people gather up a tenth.[93]

Be gone, I say, for, till you do return,

95

I rest perplexèd with a thousand cares.

And you, good uncle, banish all offence:[96]

If you do censure[97] me by what you were,

Not what you are, I know it will excuse

This sudden execution of my will.

100

And so conduct me where from company[100]

I may revolve and ruminate[101] my grief.

Exit

GLOUCESTERAy, grief, I fear me, both at first and last.

Exit [with Exeter]

SUFFOLKThus Suffolk hath prevailed, and thus he goes

As did the youthful Paris[104] once to Greece,

105

With hope to find the like event[105] in love,

But prosper better than the Trojan did:

Margaret shall now be queen, and rule the king:

But I will rule both her, the king, and realm.

Exit

Textual Notes

F = First Folio text of 1623, the only authority for the play

F2 = a correction introduced in the Second Folio text of 1632

Ed = a correction introduced by a later editor

SD = stage direction

SH = speech heading (i.e., speaker’s name)

List of parts = Ed

1.1.60 Champaigne = F. Ed = Compiègne Rouen = Ed. Not in F, but implicit in the text 92 dauphin = Ed. F = Dolphin 94 Reignier = Ed. F = Reynold 131 Falstaff = F. Ed = Fastolf 176 steal = Ed. F = send

1.2.21 fly = F. Ed = flee 30 bred = Ed. F = breed 47 SH CHARLES = Ed. F = Dolph. 65 SH PUCELLE = Ed. F = Puzel 99 five = Ed. F = fine

1.3.6 SH FIRST SERVINGMAN = Ed. F = Glost. I. Man. 19 The Cardinal = F. Ed = My lord 29 umpire = F2. F = Vmpheir 30 peeled spelled Piel’d in F 42 scarlet = F. Ed = purple 49 cardinal’s hat = F. Ed = bishop’s mitre 56 scarlet = F. Ed = cloakèd 56 SD [Bishop of Winchester’s] = Ed. F = Cardinalls 73 SH OFFICER = Ed. Not in F 77 Cardinal = F. Ed = Bishop 82 cardinal’s = F. Ed = bishop is

1.4.10 Wont = Ed. F = Went 27 Earl = F. Ed. = Duke 66 lords = F. Ed = Lou 69 SD shoot = Ed. F = shot SD fall = Ed. F = falls 89 Bear…it moved from its position in F two lines before, since the body referred to cannot be that of Salisbury, and must be that of Gargrave 95 Nero = Ed

1.6.21 pyramid = Ed. F = pyramis 22 of = Ed. F = or

2.1.5 SH FIRST SENTINEL = Ed. F = Sent. 80 SD [The French] fly = Ed. F = they flye (F has additional “Exeunt” cue for the French one line above)

2.2.20 Arc = Ed. F = Acre

2.4.0 SD Suffolk = Ed. F = Poole 1 SH RICHARD PLANTAGENET = Ed. F = Yorke 41 are…tree = F. Ed = from the tree are cropped 57 law = Ed. F = you 118 wiped = F2 (wip’t). F = whipt 133 gentles = Ed. F = gentle. Ed = gentle sirs/gentlemen

2.5.33 SH FIRST JAILER = Ed. F = Keeper 71 King = Ed. F2 = K. Not in F 75 the = F2. Not in F 76 the king = Ed. F = hee 129 mine ill = Ed. F = my will

3.1.56 see = F. Ed = so 167 that = Ed. F = that all

4.1.19 Patay = Ed. F = Poictiers. Probably an authorial error, since the battle of Poitiers took place much earlier 48 my = Ed. Not in F SD [Flourish] = Ed. F places in stage direction eight lines later 180 wist = Ed. F = wish

4.2.15 SH GENERAL = Ed. F = Cap. 29 rive = F. Ed = fire

4.3.17 SH LUCY = Ed. F = 2. Mes. 53 lauds = F. Ed = lands

4.4.16 legions = Ed. F = Regions. Suggested compositorial confusion between Shakespeare’s lower-case “l” and “r,” which similarly occurs in other plays 19 in advantage = F. Ed = unadvantaged 31 host = F. Ed = horse

4.7.17 SD Enter…borne = Ed. F places one line earlier 63 Washford = F. Ed = Wexford 89 them = Ed. F = him 94 them = Ed. F = him

Act 5 Scene 1 = Ed. F = Scena secunda

5.2 Scene 2 = Ed. F = Scoena Tertia SD Pucelle = Ed. F = Ione 57 her = Ed. F = his 160 country = F. Ed = countries 185 modestly = F2. F = modestie

5.4.10 an’t = Ed. F = and 37 one = Ed. F = me 49 Arc = Ed. F = Aire 93 SD Enter…Cardinal = Ed. F places two lines earlier

5.5.60 Most = F. Ed. = It most or That most

Act 1 Scene 1

1.1   Location: Westminster Abbey, London    Dead march solemn piece of music accompanying a funeral; probably played with a muffled drum

1    Hung…black some scholars believe that the projecting roof or canopy over the Elizabethan stage (the heavens) was conventionally draped with black for the performance of a tragedy

2    Comets these were thought to presage change and were often deemed to be evil omens    states circumstances/ruling bodies

3    Brandish flourish/shine, flash    crystal tresses clear, gleaming strands (of hair—i.e., the comets’ tails)

4    scourge punish, whip revolting rebellious stars thought to influence human destiny

5    consented unto conspired in

6    too…long Henry died when he was thirty-five, after a nine-year reign

9    Virtue merit/grace/power

10    his its

12    replete with full of

15    What…say? i.e., I have not words to express it

16    He…conquerèd he never raised his arm (i.e., sword) without conquering the enemy

17    in blood i.e., by declaring war against the French

18    revive live again

19    wooden plays on the sense of “unfeeling, lifeless”

22    car chariot (to which captives were traditionally bound, to be paraded through the streets by the victors)

23    of mishap of evil influence, that bring misfortune

24    plotted schemed/mapped out

25    subtle-witted crafty, clever

27    verses spells, incantations    contrived plotted

28    King of Kings name for Christ, used especially during descriptions of Judgement Day (Revelations 19:16)

30    dreadful awe-inspiring, causing dread and fear

31    Lord of hosts frequent biblical name for God

32    prosperous successful, fortunate

33    prayed i.e., for Henry’s downfall; puns on “preyed”

34    thread of life in classical mythology, the three Fates spun, measured out and cut the thread of a person’s life

35    effeminate prince weak, unmanly ruler

36    overawe i.e., repress and control

37    Protector surrogate ruler of the realm, while the new king was too young to reign; Henry VI was a baby when Henry V died

38    lookest expect

41    the flesh worldly, material pleasures/sexual pursuits

44    jars discords, conflicts

47    avail not are of no use or advantage

48    await for expect, anticipate

49    at…suck babies are suckled only by their mother’s tears

50    nourish nurse

52    invocate invoke, summon

53    broils turmoil, conflict

54    adverse planets planets of unfavorable influences

55    star…Caesar according to Roman tradition, the great ruler’s soul was turned into a star

59    discomfiture overthrow, utter defeat

60    Champaigne Compiègne (not Champagne)

64    burst his lead break out of the leaden inner lining of the wooden coffin

67    yield the ghost die

69    want lack

71    several separate, divisive

72    field battle    dispatched prepared, organized

73    of about

77    guileful deceitful, devious

79    new-begot newly created

80    flower-de-luces fleur-de-lis, or lily of France; after Edward III claimed his right to the French throne, the flower was incorporated into the English royal coat of    arms arms coat of arms

81    coat coat of arms

82    wanting to lacking for

83    her i.e., England’s    tides picks up on    tidings

84    Regent ruler in the king’s absence

85    steelèd coat armor

88    intermissive coming at intervals

89    mischance misfortune

90    quite entirely

91    petty small, insignificant

92    dauphin title of the French king’s eldest son, heir to the throne

93    Bastard illegitimate son of Charles, Duke of Orléans

97    fly flee (Gloucester shifts the sense to “rush upon in attack”)    reproach shame, disgrace

100    forwardness readiness, preparedness

104    bedew i.e., wet with tears

105    dismal disastrous, ominous    fight i.e., the battle of Patay, which, historically, took place after the siege of Orléans that is depicted in the following two scenes

109    circumstances details

110    tenth of August historically, 18 June (1429)    dreadful frightening, inspiring dread and awe

112    full scarce barely

114    round encompassèd completely surrounded

115    enrank draw up in battle ranks

116    wanted lacked    pikes stakes bound with iron and sharpened at either end, set in the ground to protect archers from enemy cavalry

118    confusedly in a disorderly manner

121    above human thought beyond human belief

123    stand resist

126    agazed on amazed by, gaping at

128    A to    amain forcefully

129    bowels innards, intestines

130    sealed up finished

131    Falstaff historically “Fastolf”; not the character who features in 1 and 2 Henry IV and is declared dead in Henry V

133    With on

135    wrack wreck, ruin

136    Enclosèd surrounded

137    Walloon inhabitant of a region that is now part of southern Belgium    grace favor

142    pomp luxury, splendor

144    dastard foemen cowardly enemies

149    hale haul, drag

151    change exchange

154    keep celebrate    Saint George’s feast 23 April, feast day of the patron saint of England    withal with

159    supply reinforcements, relief

160    hardly with difficulty

163    quell crush, overcome

167    Tower Tower of London, which housed the royal armory

170    Eltham royal palace nine miles southeast of London, on the road to Canterbury

171    Being as I am    special governor guardian

175    Jack-out-of-office a knave who has been dismissed from his post

177    sit…stern control the ship of state, i.e., assume the government    public weal the commonwealth, the state

Act 1 Scene 2

1.2   Location: the French camp, near Orléans, a town on the River Loire, south of Paris    flourish trumpet fanfare accompanying a person in authority    Drum drummers

1    Mars…moving the exact orbit of the planet Mars (a source of uncertainty to Elizabethan astronomers); Mars was also the Roman god of war

3    Late recently

5    moment importance

7    Otherwhiles at times

9    want lack    porridge vegetable stew    bull-beeves bull-beef, joints of beef

10    dieted fed

11    provender animal feed, fodder

13    raise put an end to

14    wont used, were accustomed

16    fretting impatience, bad temper spend his gall wear out his bitterness

18    alarum call to arms

19    forlorn in imminent danger of death

23    dastards cowards

25    homicide murderer

28    hungry a transferred epithet; the lions are hungry for the prey

29    Froissart Jean Froissart, fourteenth-century French author who chronicled contemporary conflicts between France and England

30    all…Rowlands like the two knights in the twelfth-century poem La Chanson de Roland (The Song of Roland), who embody Christian virtue, heroism and true friendship

33    Samsons and Goliases biblical characters famed for great strength; Samson appears in Judges 14, and Goliath (Golias), the giant killed by David, in 1 Samuel 17

34    skirmish do battle,   fight one…ten one (English) man for every ten (French)

35    raw-boned skeleton-like, excessively lean or gaunt    rascals lean, inferior deer in a herd

37    hare-brained slaves reckless villains

38    eager fierce, hungry for violence

40    forsake give up, leave

41    gimmers gimmals, mechanical connecting links, used especially for transmitting motion    device mechanism

42    still continually

44    consent agreement (to your suggestion to leave this town)    even completely

48    cheer appalled face pale

49    wrought worked, brought about    offence harm

53    Ordainèd destined, appointed by God    raise put an end to    tedious harrowing, lengthy

54    forth out of    bounds territory

56    nine sibyls female prophets from classical times, not exclusively from Rome and usually said to be ten in number

57    descry discern, see

60    try test

62    proudly haughtily, with authority

63    sound probe, measure    Joan [la] Pucelle i.e., Joan of Arc; pucelle is French for “maid, virgin,” with play on “puzzel,” i.e., “whore”

65    beguile deceive

70    apart aside

71    takes upon her takes the initiative boldly/plays her part splendidly    at first dash from the outset, at the first encounter (with sexual connotations)

73    wit intellect    art scholarship, learning

74    our Lady gracious the Virgin Mary, God’s (Christ’s) mother

75    contemptible estate lowly, humble condition

76    Lo look (a general speech marker; may pun on “low”)    tender young

83    complete perfect

84    black and swart dark, unattractive, and swarthy

85    infused on shed on, poured into

88    unpremeditated spontaneously

91    Resolve on be assured of

92    mate companion, brother-in-arms (with play on the sense of “sexual partner”; warlike may pun on “whorelike”)

93    high terms lofty/eloquent words

94    proof test

95    buckle fight at close quarters, grapple (plays on sense of “have sex”)

96    vanquishest overcome me

97    confidence trust, belief/intimacy

98    keen-edged sharp

99    Decked adorned    flower-de-luces fleurs-de-lis, the lily on French coat of arms

100    Touraine region in central France    Saint Katherine fourth-century saint and virgin martyr who was beheaded for her Christian faith; Joan of Arc claimed to have seen her in a vision

102    a in

103    I’ll…man unwitting sexual innuendo

104    Amazon mythical race of female warriors

105    Deborah Old Testament prophetess who lead the Israelites in revolt against their Canaanite oppressors (Judges 4 and 5)

106    else otherwise

108    thy desire the same urge to fight that you feel/sexual desire for you

111    servant plays on the notion of sexual service

112    sueth to begs, woos

114    profession religious calling, profession of faith

116    recompense return, repayment

117    gracious with divine grace/with favor    prostrate either figurative (“adoring, submissive”) or Charles may literally still be on the floor after the fight    thrall slave

119    shrives hears confession and grants absolution/undresses/has sex with    smock undergarment

120    protract extend (plays on notion of penile erection)

121    mean limit, measure

122    know perhaps with sexual connotations (to know: to have sex with)

123    shrewd cunning, artful    tongues speech/tongues used sexually

124    where are you what are your intentions    devise you on do you decide upon, are you planning

125    give o’er abandon, leave

126    recreants cowards, deserters, those who abandon the true cause

129    scourge one sent by God to punish

131    Saint Martin’s summer a late spell of fine weather; Saint Martin’s day is November 11    halcyon’s days a period of calm (from the legend that the kingfisher laid its eggs in a nest on the surface of the water; whilst they incubated the waters remained untroubled)

138    insulting exultant, mocking

139    Caesar…once in a story related by the ancient writer Plutarch, Caesar tells a sea captain not to fear the rough weather as his ship contains both Caesar and Caesar’s good fortune

140    Mahomet…dove Mohammed, the prophet and founder of Islam who received divine revelations from a dove that whispered in his ear; sceptics said that he had merely trained the bird to nibble corn lodged there

141    with by    eagle a Christian symbol

142    Helen mother of the emperor    Constantine; after being led by a vision to the discovery of the true cross, she converted her son to Christianity, which he made the official religion in the Roman Empire

143    Saint Philip’s daughters four virgins said to have prophetic powers (Acts 21:9)

144    Venus Roman goddess of love; the planet Venus is known as the Morning Star

148    immortalized gain immortal fame

149    Presently immediately

Act 1 Scene 3

1.3   Location: the Tower of London    blue coats Gloucester’s livery and the typical color of Elizabethan servants’ uniforms

2    conveyance trickery, theft

3    warders guards

8    Villains scoundrels/base servants

10    willed ordered

12    none no other

13    Break up open    warrantize guarantee, surety

14    flouted mocked, taunted

19    Cardinal an error; he has only just been made a Cardinal in Act 5 Scene 1

22    prizest him ’fore do you esteem him more than

24    brook endure

26    shut…shortly have you dismissed immediately    tawny yellowish brown, the color of the uniform worn by summoners or officers of an ecclesiastical court

29    umpire one who sets himself up as arbitrator (Second Folio’s emendation of Folio’s “Vmpheir”; some editors emend to “Humphrey,” but there is no reason for the bishop to use his adversary’s Christian name)

30    Peeled bald, tonsured

31    proditor traitor

34    contrived’st plotted    dead lord i.e., Henry V

35    whores…sin the see of the Bishop of Winchester owned and leased land in Southwark, an area south of the Thames notorious for brothels; prostitutes were known as “Winchester geese”    indulgences official documents, purchasable from the Church, that granted absolution from sin

36    canvass entangle in a net/sift, examine, as through a canvas sieve/punish (literally toss in a canvas sheet)    cardinal’s hat also the name of a long-standing Southwark brothel; the Bishop of Winchester does not actually become a cardinal until later in the play

39    Damascus…Cain the city of Damascus, in Syria, was thought to have been built at the place where Adam and Eve’s son Cain murdered his brother Abel

42    bearing-cloth christening robe

44    beard defy (literally, pull insultingly by the beard)

45    dared challenged

46    for all this despite this being    privilegèd place i.e., royal residence, where it was illegal to draw swords

50    dignities dignitaries

53    Winchester goose syphilitic swelling in the groin/client of prostitutes a rope i.e., for flogging (dominant sense); also “hangman’s noose/penis/parrot’s cry (abusive)”    hurly-burly tumult, uproar

57    Fie expression of impatience

58    contumeliously disgracefully, insolently

61    distrained seized

63    still constantly, always motions promotes, urges

64    O’ercharging…fines i.e., overburdening with heavy taxation (levied to fund war)    free generous

68    prince ruler, king

70    rests remains

74    repair return

75    several various

78    break reveal, broach    at large in full

81    call for clubs give the rallying cry for apprentices armed with clubs (used to suppress a riot)

84    Abominable loathsome (often popularly “inhuman, unnatural”)

85    ere before

87    stomachs tempers, anger

Act 1 Scene 4

1.4   Location: Orléans, France

1    Sirrah sir (used to inferiors)

2    suburbs outskirts, areas outside the city walls

7    grace honor/favor

8    espials spies

9    close entrenched securely dug-in/fortified nearby

10    Wont are accustomed

14    inconvenience harm, injury

15    ordnance cannon, artillery    gainst aimed at

21    take…care do not worry

30    baser of lower birth or rank    man of arms soldier

32    cravèd entreated

33    pilled peeled, i.e., reduced, worthless, deprived of honor

34    In fine in short, to sum up    redeemed ransomed

38    entertained treated

39    contumelious contemptuous, insolent

47    grisly grim, terrifying

48    sudden immediate

52    spurn kick adamant a legendary substance of unsurpassed hardness

53    Wherefore for which reason    chosen shot specially selected marksman

54    every minute while at one-minute intervals    linstock forked stick for holding the gunner’s lighted match

64    express precise, considered

65    batt’ry assault, bombardment

67    bulwark manned fortification

68    aught anything, what

69    enfeeblèd weakened

72    chance unfortunate event    crossed thwarted

74    mirror i.e., model, image

76    fatal deadly/that deals fate

80    trump trumpet

86    wants lacks

93    As as one

95    Plantagenet Salisbury (Thomas Montacute) was a descendant of Edward III    Nero…burn Roman emperor, Nero supposedly played music (popularly “fiddled”) while Rome burned

97    only in at the mere sound of    lightens lightning flashes

100    gathered head raised an army, drawn their forces together

103    power army

105    irks distresses

107    Puzzel or pucelle though it means the opposite, the word had in England taken on a slang sense of “whore”    dolphin i.e., Dauphin (pronounced in the same way)

109    mingled mixed together/mangled

110    Convey me convey (me is emphatic)

Act 1 Scene 5

2    stay prevent

4    bout of fighting/of sex

5    dam mother    conjure control with incantations, exorcise (perhaps “have sex with”)

6    Blood…witch superstition held anyone who drew blood from a witch was then protected from her spells

7    him the devil/the dauphin

10    courage vigor, spirit

12    high-minded arrogant

14    victual supply with provisions

17    testament will

21    Hannibal famous third-century Carthaginian general who once outwitted his Roman enemies by tying firebrands to the horns of a vast herd of oxen so that they thought they were outnumbered

22    lists pleases

23    noisome noxious

26    whelps puppies

28    England’s coat coat of arms, in which three    lions featured, quartered with the French fleur-de-lis

29    give display    stead place

30    treacherous cowardly

32    subduèd overcome, subjugated

33    It…be i.e., it is useless

34    consented unto conspired to bring about

35    his revenge revenge of him

38    would if only, I wish

Act 1 Scene 6

*    walls city walls

1    Advance raise aloft    colours military banners or flags

4    Astraea Greek goddess of justice

6    Adonis’ garden mythical garden of extraordinary fertility

10    hap chance, fortune

16    played the men performed our role of soldier, displayed manliness

21    pyramid…Memphis Rhodope was a Greek courtesan, who married a king of Memphis and supposedly built the third Egyptian pyramid

25    rich-jewelled…Darius King of Persia, conquered by Alexander the Great; the coffer is either Darius’ jeweled treasure chest (in which Alexander stored the works of Homer), or his coffin

26    high elaborate, important

28    Saint Denis patron saint of France

Act 2 Scene 1

*    band company of soldiers guarding the town

3    apparent clear, manifest

4    court of guard guardhouse

5    servitors soldiers, those who perform military service

7    Constrained obliged    scaling-ladders used by soldiers to climb defensive fortifications    dead march funeral march or simply march played on muffled drums

8    redoubted revered/feared

9    approach arrival

10    Wallon region that is now part of southern Belgium

11    happy fortunate    secure carefree/overconfident

14    quittance requite, repay

15    art magic    baleful malignant, deadly

16    Coward of France! i.e., the dauphin    fame reputation

17    fortitude strength

23    prove not masculine does not turn out to be a man/turns out to be a woman (by getting pregnant)

24    standard military banner/soldier who carries the banner/erect penis

25    carry armour wear armor/bear the weight of a man in armor (during sex)

26    practise and converse scheme and talk, associate/have sex

28    flinty hard, stony

31    several separate, various

34    yond yonder, that (over there)    ready dressed

43    I trow I am sure

47    venturous risky    desperate reckless, hazardous

50    marvel…sped wonder how he fared

51    holy may pun on “holey” (i.e., “with a vagina,” imaging Joan in her sexual capacity)

52    cunning magic/skill/craftiness

53    flatter falsely encourage    withal with it

56    impatient angry

57    alike in the same way

58    prevail be victorious

60    Improvident careless, shortsighted

61    mischief calamity, harm    fall’n befallen, happened

62    default failure, negligence

64    weighty charge important responsibility

65    quarters part of an army camp/rooms, apartments    kept guarded, secured

66    government control, management

67    surprised ambushed, assaulted

71    her quarter Joan’s rooms (possibly plays sexually on sense of “hindquarters”)    precinct sector, area of control

72    passing moving

73    About concerned with    relieving…sentinels possibly plays on the sense of “sexually relieving my erection”

77    But only

78    rests remains    shift strategy

80    platforms plans    endamage them harm the enemy

83    spoils plunder, booty

Act 2 Scene 2

2    pitchy black (as pitch, a tarlike substance)    Retreat trumpet signal recalling the pursuing force

5    advance display/raise

7    vow i.e., of vengeance

11    ruin death, destruction

16    mournful sorrowful, causing grief

19    muse wonder

20    champion one who fights for another, defendant    virtuous said with irony

28    trull whore

30    turtle-doves emblematic of faithful love, they supposedly formed couples for life

33    power military force

40    vouchsafe grant, deign

41    poor humble lies lives

43    report plays on the sense of “explosion of a gun or cannon”

45    comic sport amusing entertainment (sport plays on the sense of “sexual activity”)

46    encountered with met/fought with/had sex with

47    despise scorn    gentle kind/courteous/honorable

48    world i.e., great number

49    oratory eloquence, rhetorical skill

50    overruled prevailed

52    attend on visit, wait on

55    unbidden uninvited

57    remedy alternative

58    prove try/test sexually

60    mind intention

61    mean mean to act

Act 2 Scene 3

2.3   Location: the castle of the Countess of Auvergne, near Orléans, France

1    gave in charge ordered

6    Tomyris…death in revenge for her son’s death, Queen Tomyris killed his murderer, the Persian king Cyrus, and put his head in a wineskin full of blood

9    Fain willingly

10    censure opinion (not necessarily negative)    rare exceptional/splendid

16    abroad everywhere, out in the world

17    still silence

18    fabulous fantastical, fictitious

19    Hercules famous Greek hero and demigod, possessed of exceptional strength

20    Hector famed Trojan warrior    for in terms of    grim aspect stern expression

21    proportion size, bulk    strong-knit powerfully built, well constructed

22    silly feeble, weak

23    writhled wrinkled

27    sort arrange, choose

31    Marry by the Virgin Mary    for that because    in…belief under a misapprehension

32    I…here i.e., by leaving I demonstrate that I am the real Talbot, independent-minded and not inclined to listen to insults/I go as a means of demonstrating my presence

36    trained lured

37    shadow portrait/(illusory) image built on reputation/insubstantial thing    thrall slave

41    tyranny cruelty, oppressive violence

42    Wasted ravaged/exhausted

43    captivate into captivity

46    fond foolish

47    aught nothing

55    least…humanity smallest part of humankind (here referring to the army)

56    frame structure, i.e., the body/the army

57    pitch height

59    merchant fellow/trader (in riddles)    for the nonce as the occasion requires

61    contrarieties paradoxes, contradictions

62    presently immediately    Winds blows    ordnance artillery

66    yoketh subjects, imprisons, yokes like an animal

67    Razeth wipes out, obliterates    subverts overthrows

69    abuse insulting, aggressive behavior/delusion, misconception

70    bruited reported, proclaimed

74    entertain receive

75    misconster misconstrue

80    patience permission

81    cates delicacies

82    stomachs appetites

Act 2 Scene 4

2.4   Location: London, a garden at the Temple (area west of the City that housed the Inns of Court, where young men studied law)

2    case of truth legal term for a case that is to be resolved by considering the facts rather than any ethical implications; given the ensuing dialogue, the dispute may have been one concerning Plantagenet’s claim to the throne

3    were would have been

6    Or else perhaps “or alternatively, to put it another way,” but probably Plantagenet simply inquires, “Was I right or was Somerset wrong?,” to which he can only receive a favorable answer    wrangling quarreling/disputing (formally on an academic issue)

7    a truant negligent

8    frame adapt

11    pitch height (falconry term: highest point in the flight of a bird of prey)

12    mouth bark

13    blades swords’ blades    temper quality, hardness

14    bear him carry himself

16    shallow naive

17    nice precise, fastidious    sharp subtle, discerning    quillets fine distinctions

18    daw jackdaw, a proverbially stupid bird

19    mannerly forbearance courteous reluctance (to be involved)

20    naked evident, palpable

21    purblind partially blind

22    apparelled dressed (as opposed to being naked)

24    blind i.e., totally blind as opposed to merely purblind

26    significants signs

28    stands insists

29    pleaded stated (legal sense)

30    white rose badge of the Mortimers (from whom Richard is descended) and then the House of York

32    party side

33    red rose badge of the House of Lancaster

34    colours literally, hues/corroborative evidence (legal sense)/military banners    colour outward appearance

38    withal with it

42    yield concede in law

43    objected urged, brought forward as an argument

44    subscribe submit, agree (literally, sign a document)

47    maiden unblemished, pure

53    Opinion public opinion, reputation (a shift from the usual sense in the previous line)

54    still always

60    scabbard sheath for a sword    meditating that thinking on that which

62    counterfeit imitate

69    canker parasitic grub that destroys plants

71    his its

75    false dishonest (also continues Somerset’s accusation that Richard is counterfeit)

77    fashion sort/fashion of wearing a red rose peevish foolish/stubborn

79    Pole Suffolk’s family name

80    turn…throat throw the slanders back down your throat

82    grace favor, ennoble    yeoman man who owns property but is not a gentleman

84    grandfather ancestor (actually his great-great-grandfather)

86    crestless without heraldic crest/without a top to his family tree (an image picked up on in root)/with lowered (cock’s) crest, i.e., cowardly

87    bears…privilege relies on the fact that this is a privileged place (where it was forbidden to draw swords)

88    craven cowardly

89    maintain stand by, defend

93    attainted tainted, corrupt/subject to attainder (legal term), i.e., unable to inherit property or title from a relative who received the death penalty

96    be restored have title and property returned, be reinstated

97    attachèd, not attainted arrested, but not made legally subject to attainder (perhaps having been executed on the king’s orders, without being formally indicted by bill of attainder)

100    Were…will i.e., given the opportunity

101    partaker part-taker, supporter

102    note record/brand

103    apprehension opinion

104    Look to it beware it, expect it

107    spite contempt

109    cognizance badge, distinguishing mark

112    degree rank

115    Have with thee I will go with you

116    braved defied, insulted    perforce of necessity

117    object bring forward as a charge, an accusation

119    for…of to make peace between

122    in signal as a sign

124    party side

126    faction dissent, forming of factions

131    still always

133    gentles gentlemen

Act 2 Scene 5

2.5   Location: the Tower of London

1    keepers carers, nurses/jailers

3    haled hauled, dragged rack torture instrument that stretched the limbs

5    pursuivants messengers (one of whose tasks was to announce the imminent arrival of their master)

6    Nestor oldest of the Greek leaders who fought at Troy; famed for his wisdom    care anxiety, sorrow

9    Wax grow    exigent end

10    overborne overburdened

11    pithless feeble, lacking “pith” or vital essence

13    stay is numb support is paralyzed

16    witting knowing

22    his wrong the wrong done to him

23    Henry Monmouth Henry V, so nicknamed because he was born at Monmouth, a town in southern Wales near the English border

25    sequestration imprisonment/loss of income

26    even exactly

28    arbitrator one who decides and settles a matter between opposed parties

29    umpire one brought in to decide a matter when arbitrators cannot agree

30    enlargement release

31    his i.e., Richard’s

35    used treated

36    late lately, recently

38    latter last

40    kindly in kinship

41    stock main body of a tree or plant

44    disease pronounced “dis-ease”

47    lavish unrestrained, excessive

49    obloquy disgrace, slander    set…tongue made me speechless/made me grit my teeth (in rage)

50    requited repaid, answered

53    alliance’ kinship’s, family’s    declare explain

59    Discover reveal    at large fully

64    nephew relative (here, cousin)    Richard, Edward’s son Richard II, son to Edward III; the deposition is dramatized in Richard II

67    whose i.e., Henry IV’s    Percies Henry Percy, Earl of Northumberland, and his son (nicknamed “Hotspur”); these events are dramatized in 1 and 2 Henry IV

70    moved that moved

74    mother actually his grandmother, daughter to the Duke of Clarence; probably this Edmund Mortimer is being confused with his uncle of the same name, although “mother” can mean “female ancestor” derivèd descended

77    John of Gaunt Edward III’s fourth son

79    mark pay attention    haughty proud, aspiring

80    They i.e., the Mortimers and the Percies

83    Bullingbrook i.e., Henry IV, known by this name before he was king

87    hard severe

88    weening aiming, thinking

89    diadem crown

94    issue children

95    warrant guarantee

96    gather infer/regain (the inheritance)

97    studious diligent

98    admonishments warnings

101    politic prudent

104    removing departing (i.e., dying)

105    cloyed sickened, satiated

108    passage passing

111    except unless    sorrow…good mourn for the good in me/can use your grief for my (posthumous) advantage, i.e., revenge

112    give order make arrangements

117    overpassed lived out, spent

119    let that rest leave that alone

122    dusky dim, flickering (perhaps referring to his failing eyesight)

123    of…sort belonging to less noble people (i.e., Bullingbrook and his supporters)

124    for as for

125    house family

128    blood i.e., inheritance rights

129    make…good turn the wrongs done to me to my advantage, let my injuries fuel my ambition

Act 3 Scene 1

3.1   Location: London, parliament    offers…bill attempts to present a list of accusations

1    deep premeditated lines carefully planned statements

5    invention stratagem/fabrication/written exposition    suddenly spontaneously

6    extemporal unplanned

7    object bring forward in accusation

8    commands my patience obliges me to endure this

10    preferred put forward

11    vile contemptible, shameful

12    forged fabricated, invented

13    Verbatim word for word/orally    rehearse relate, repeat    method…pen order and arrangement of what I have written

15    lewd low, wicked    pestiferous poisonous, deadly    dissentious quarrelsome, provoking disorder    pranks wicked deeds, malicious acts

16    As very that even

17    pernicious destructive    usurer moneylender who charges (often very high) interest; another reference to the leasing of land in Southwark and sanctioning of brothels there

18    Froward demanding, stubborn

19    wanton dissolute    beseems befits, is appropriate to

20    degree position, status

21    for as for

24    sifted closely examined

26    envious malicious    swelling arrogant

31    haps happens, chances

32    wonted customary, usual

34    except unless

35    that that which

37    sway rule, have influence

38    about concerned with

43    bastard Winchester was the illegitimate son of John of Gaunt by Catherine Swynford (whom Gaunt later married)

45    imperious acting like a king

46    saucy insolent

48    keeps resides for defense

49    patronage protect

51    reverent worthy of respect

52    Touching concerning    function role, occupation

53    Rome i.e., the Pope

55    forbear desist

56    overborne overruled, subdued

58    office duty, behavior    such i.e.,    religious persons

59    his lordship i.e., Winchester

61    holy state ecclesiastical status    touched…near so closely concerned

65    sirrah term of address for social inferiors

67    fling verbal attack

69    weal commonwealth, state

73    jar clash, quarrel

74    tender years historically, Henry, a baby when his father died, was five at the time of this dispute

75    viperous worm malevolent, poisonous snake

76    bowels insides, intestines    tawny-coats i.e., ecclesiastical officials, supporters of Winchester

83    late lately

85    banding themselves forming groups    contrary parts opposing parties

86    pate head (s)

87    giddy consumed by disorder, mad with fury

92    mitigate calm, lessen

94    as just as

95    peevish foolish/stubborn

100    suffer allow

102    disgracèd insulted; treated without reverent respect    inkhorn mate mere scribe (i.e., low status)

105    parings trimmings

106    pitch a field prepare for battle pitch prepare defensive stakes

114    study endeavor, labor    prefer put forward, favor

117    repulse refusal, rejection

119    mischief harm, calamity

124    his i.e., Winchester’s

125    privilege of advantage over

127    moody angry, disordered

129    tragical foreboding/sorrowful

135    hath…gird has been given a suitable rebuke

140    hollow empty, insincere, deceptive

142    token i.e., the handshake

144    dissemble deceive, pretend

147    contract accord, agreement

148    masters i.e., the servants (a condescending though not offensive form of address)

150    surgeon more particularly, physician

152    physic medicine

155    exhibit show, submit for consideration

157    mark note, pay attention to circumstance detail, particular

159    occasions reasons, circumstances

161    of force convincing, forceful

163    blood hereditary rights (to property and titles)

165    wrongs i.e., wrongs suffered by him

174    reguerdon recompense, reward

175    gird invest (with a title; picks up on the sound of reguerdon)

177    princely of the royal blood

180    grudge one thought have one resentful thought

187    disanimates discourages, disheartens    Sennet trumpet call signaling a procession

194    forged false (may play on the sense of “moulded in fire”)

196    festered rotten, decomposing    members limbs    by degree gradually, in stages

198    envious malicious

202    Henry…Monmouth i.e., Henry V

203    Henry…Windsor i.e., Henry VI

205    hapless unlucky

Act 3 Scene 2

3.2   Location: Rouen, a French town on the River Seine, between Le Havre and Paris

2    policy strategy, cunning

4    vulgar common, ordinary

7    that if

9    encounter assail, confront

10    mean means

11    be shall be

13    Qui là? “Who goes there?” (French)

14    Paysans…France “Peasants, the poor folk of France”

18    happy fortunate

20    practisants conspirators, plotters

25    No…entered no entrance is as weakly guarded as the one she entered    top i.e., gallery, upper staging level

26    wedding torch Hymen, the Greek and Roman god of marriage, was traditionally depicted carrying a burning torch

31    shine it may it shine

32    prophet to portent of (comets were thought to be bad omens)

34    presently immediately

35    do…watch kill the guards    excursion a bout of fighting across the stage

39    unawares unexpectedly

40    hardly with difficulty    pride power and arrogance/the dauphin (and his fellow nobles)    without on the main stage    within probably, but not necessarily on the upper staging level, conventionally used to represent city walls

41    gallants fine young gentlemen (sarcastic)

43    rate cost

44    darnel weeds

51    run a-tilt at joust with, charge at    within whilst seated in

52    hag witch    of all despite full of spite or malice

53    Encompassed with surrounded by

55    twit taunt

56    bout of fighting/of sex

58    hot hot-tempered/lustful

60    speed aid/hurry up    speaker spokesperson/chairman (of the parliament)

61    in the field for battle

62    Belike presumably

64    Hecate in classical mythology, the goddess of night and the underworld and the patroness of witches

67    Seigneur lord

68    Base muleteers lowly mule drivers

69    footboys boy servants, often assistants to footmen    keep stay near

78    Pricked spurred

81    his…conqueror Henry V besieged and captured Rouen in 1419

83    Coeur-de-lion Richard I of England, nicknamed “the Lionheart” after he fought a lion and tore its heart out; he asked that his heart be buried in Rouen

86    regard observe/tend to

89    crazy infirm, fragile

92    weal happiness

95    stout brave    Pendragon Uther Pendragon, father of King Arthur; the story referred to here is related in Geoffrey of Monmouth’s Historia Regnum Britanniae    litter transportable bed for the sick

98    ever always

101    ado business, fuss

102    out of hand at once, immediately

106    have the overthrow be defeated

113    daring challenging, defiant

114    glad here, relieved    fain willing

121    gentle noble/kind

122    familiar witch’s attendant spirit, demon

123    braves boasts    Charles his gleeks Charles’ scoffs, jests

124    amort downcast, dispirited

126    take some order establish order, make arrangements

127    expert experienced

129    lie dwells

133    exequies funeral rites

134    couchèd lance leveled his lance in attack

135    sway exert influence

136    potentates powerful rulers

137    end sum, final destination/purpose/ending, death

Act 3 Scene 3

3.3   Location: near Rouen

1    accident unforeseen event

2    recoverèd regained by the English

3    Care…cure sorrow, anxiety

7    train peacock’s tail/army

8    be but ruled merely follow advice

10    cunning skill/magical powers    diffidence distrust

11    foil defeat

12    wit intelligence    secret policies surprise stratagems

18    fair plausible, flattering

21    sweeting sweetheart, darling

24    extirpèd uprooted

25    expulsed expelled

30    unto Paris-ward toward Paris

31    colours spread flags unfurled

34    in in our

35    parley negotiation between opposing sides (summoned with a particular trumpet call)

40    enchant bewitch

43    tedious laborious, lengthy

46    wasting destructive, ravaging

47    lowly laid low, prostrate/tiny

48    tender-dying youthful dying

49    pining wasting    malady of France plays on the sense of “syphilis” (“the French disease”)

50    unnatural against the natural order/against one’s own country

52    edgèd sharp

57    stainèd i.e., staining

59    nature natural, inherent feeling/a sense of kinship

60    exclaims on accuses, condemns loudly

61    lawful progeny legitimate lineage

68    mark but only note

75    them those who

76    wandering straying, erring

78    haughty high, lofty

82    hearty sincere, heartfelt

83    power force, army

86    makes us fresh invigorates, renews us, makes us eager

87    beget breed, create

88    bravely courageously/splendidly

89    coronet small crown worn by members of the nobility

91    prejudice injure, damage

Act 3 Scene 4

3.4   Location: Paris, France

4    do my duty pay homage

5    reclaimed won back

8    esteem high rank

19    stouter bolder, more hardy champion one who fights on behalf of another

20    resolvèd convinced truth loyalty

23    reguerdoned rewarded

25    deserts deservings, merits

28    hot hot-tempered, angry

29    Disgracing…colours insulting the badge (that identifies his loyalty)

32    patronage defend, uphold

33    envious malicious    saucy insolent

35    Sirrah sir (used to an inferior; here, contemptuous)    as he is i.e., for what he’s worth (implying not much)

38    law of arms law that forbade fighting near a royal residence

39    present immediate

40    broach set flowing

41    crave request earnestly

42    liberty permission

44    miscreant villain, wretch

45    after i.e., after the king’s permission to fight has been obtained

Act 4 Scene 1

4    elect acknowledge, accept

5    Esteem consider

6    pretend intend, plan

15    Garter sign of membership of the Order of the Garter, the highest order of English knighthood, consisting of a blue and gold ribbon tied below the left knee    craven’s coward’s

19    dastard despicable coward

25    divers several, various

30    fact deed, crime

31    common ordinary, without rank

32    captain commander of a regiment

35    haughty courage high spirit, exalted bravery

36    grown to credit risen to honor

37    for from    distress hardship, adversity

39    furnished…sort so equipped

43    degraded lowered in rank    hedge-born swain person of very low birth, peasant born out of doors

44    gentle noble

45    doom sentence, judgment

46    Be packing be off, get packing

50    style form of address

51    but than

53    churlish ungracious, blunt    superscription form of address appearing at the head of the letter

54    Pretend imply, intend

56    wrack ruin

59    pernicious destructive

64    revolt rebel; literally, perform a complete turnaround

69    chastisement punishment, retribution

71    but…prevented were it not for the fact that I have been anticipated (by you)

73    strength troops    straight straightaway

74    brook tolerate

75    flout mock, abuse

76    still (that) always

77    confusion destruction, overthrow

78    the combat permission to fight a duel

80    servant follower

83    exclaim outcry, protest

90    envious malicious

92    sanguine blood-red    leaves petals

94    repugn reject, oppose

95    question…law i.e., the question of succession, and the attainder of York’s father (see Act 2 Scene 4)

98    confutation refutation (legal term)    rude ignorant

100    benefit (legal) privilege

101    petition formal request

102    forgèd false, crafted    quaint conceit cunning invention/ingenious rhetoric

103    set…upon give a plausible, attractive appearance to

105    took exceptions at objected to

107    Bewrayed betrayed, revealed    faintness cowardice, timidity

111    brainsick foolish, demented

113    factious emulations divisive rivalries

114    cousins kinsmen; also a term used to fellow nobles

118    toucheth concerns

120    pledge gage, i.e., item (often a glove or gauntlet) that signified the giver’s commitment to a duel

121    rest remain

123    Confounded destroyed, overcome

124    prate prattle, chatter

125    vassals servants

126    immodest arrogant, outspoken

129    objections accusations, allegations

130    occasion grounds, opportunity

131    mutiny strife, riot

140    within ourselves amongst ourselves (plays on the sense of “within our own bodies”)

141    grudging stomachs resentful tempers/stomachs exhibiting signs of disease

142    rebel rebellion

144    certified informed, shown

145    toy trifle    regard value, consequence

149    forgo forfeit, lose

150    That…that for a trifle that which was

151    doubtful precarious, generating fear

153    suspicious anxious

154    incline to favor

156    As…may they might as well

157    forsooth in truth

158    discretions judgments

162    institute appoint

163    parts regions

165    bands of foot regiments of infantry, foot soldiers

166    progenitors forefathers

167    digest i.e., break down, assimilate, get rid of

168    angry choler anger

170    respite interval, delay

173    rout rabble

175    Prettily charmingly/ingeniously

178    fancy whim

180    An…wist if I knew

183    passions powerful feelings

184    deciphered revealed, detected

187    simple common, ordinary

189    shouldering jostling

190    bandying verbal contests    favourites supporters

191    that sees that    event outcome

192    much a weighty business

193    envy malice, enmity    unkind unnatural

194    confusion chaos, destruction

Act 4 Scene 2

4.2   Location: outside the gates of Bordeaux (a major port on the River Garonne in southwest France)    Trump and Drum trumpeter and drummer aloft gallery, upper staging level, conventionally used to represent city walls

5    would wishes

8    bloody bloodthirsty, warlike

11    quartering dismembering

12    even level

13    air-braving defying the heavens, lofty

14    forsake reject

15    ominous…death the owl’s cry was thought to portend evil or death

17    period end

20    issue out come forth

21    appointed equipped

23    hand thee side of you    pitched drawn up in battle formation

24    wall block, shut off

25    redress relief, aid

26    front confront, face    apparent spoil obvious destruction

27    pale i.e., deathly

28    ta’en the sacrament taken Communion as a means of confirming their oaths

29    rive split open (with explosions)

33    latest last

34    due endow

35    glass hourglass

37    well colourèd in good health

39    warning bell bell rung to warn of fire or invasion

40    heavy solemn, sad, burdensome

41    dire dreadful    departure i.e., death

42    fables lies, fabricates

43    peruse investigate, survey    wings flanks, forces at the sides of a main body of troops

44    heedless careless, slack    discipline military strategy

45    parked…pale fenced in and confined within an enclosure

47    Mazed bewildered, confused    kennel pack    curs hounds

48    in blood full of life, in fine condition (hunting term)

49    rascal-like like young, inferior deer    pinch bite, nip

50    moody-mad wild with rage

51    heads of steel antlers like swords

52    stand…bay back off as we, like the maddened, cornered deer, turn to face our pursuers

54    dear costly (with obvious pun)

Act 4 Scene 3

4.3   Location: France; six hours’ journey from Bordeaux, exact location unspecified

2    dogged tracked, followed

3    give it out assert

6    espials spies

13    louted made a fool of, mocked; or possibly “delayed”

15    necessity unavoidable event

16    miscarry come to harm

18    needful necessary

20    girdled belted, surrounded    waist belt (puns on “waste,” i.e., vast expanse)

25    stop detain, delay    cornets cavalry, troops of horsemen

29    remiss careless

30    distressed undergoing adversity

33    ’long of because of

41    vexation terrible anguish, affliction

42    sundered separated    friends relatives

43    can can do

44    cause i.e., Somerset

46    ’Long all all because

47    sedition disputes between factions/mutiny, revolt

49    Sleeping neglection careless, lazy neglect

50    scarce-cold recently dead (historically, however, the events of this scene took place thirty-one years after the death of Henry V)

51    ever-living…memory man who will live forever in memory

52    cross thwart, obstruct

53    lauds praises    Exit some editors have Lucy remaining on stage; he speaks again shortly after the beginning of the following scene

Act 4 Scene 4

2    expedition speedy action, military enterprise

4    sally sudden attack, sortie    very town merely the town’s garrison, unsupported by further troops

5    buckled with encountered, tackled

6    gloss luster

7    unheedful careless, negligent

11    o’ermatched outnumbered

13    bought and sold betrayed

16    legions troops

19    in advantage ling’ring trying to draw out any kind of benefit through delaying tactics/desperately protracting his superior military position for as long as possible

20    trust trustee, guardian

21    Keep off aloof stand aside    worthless emulation ignoble ambition, rivalry

22    private discord personal disagreement

23    levied succours mustered military assistance

25    world of immense, overwhelming

27    compass him about surround him

28    default negligence, failure to act

29    set him on incited him

31    host army, specifically cavalry

33    sent sent for

35    take foul scorn think scornfully, find it disgraceful

44    though even if

Act 4 Scene 5

4.5   Location: a battlefield near Bordeaux, France

5    drooping transferred epithet: decaying, failing

6    malignant of evil influence    ill-boding inauspicious

8    unavoided unavoidable

11    sudden rapid/immediate

22    Your…great the loss of you would have a devastating impact regard self-regard, care of yourself

27    mine i.e., my honour exploit warlike deeds

28    vantage military advantage

29    bow retreat

32    mortality death

41    abuse dishonor

42    charge order, command

44    apparent certain, evident

46    age whole life

53    eclipse extinguish

Act 4 Scene 6

2    Regent i.e., York, who was appointed regent in Act 4 Scene 1

3    France his France’s

9    determined limited, with an appointed ending    date limit, term

10    crest helmet

13    Quickened was reanimated, lived    spleen fiery temper, impetuosity

15    pride arrogance/foremost nobility    Gallia France

16    ireful enraged

17    maidenhood virginity

20    in disgrace with contempt, insultingly

22    misbegotten illegitimate, wrongly created

23    Mean base

25    purposing as I was intending

29    sealed confirmed

32    wot know

35    mickle great

42    smart suffer, feel pain

44    On that advantage for the sake of that advantage (i.e., safety)

47    The may the

48    like liken

49    scorn object of scorn    subject of mischance victim of misfortune

52    boot use

54    follow…Icarus Icarus and his father, Daedalus, tried to escape imprisonment in Crete using wings made out of feathers and wax; Icarus flew too close to the sun and the wax melted so that he fell to his death

57    pride honor, glory

Act 4 Scene 7

3    Triumphant victorious, celebrating victory    captivity the blood of injured captives

8    stern impatience cruel fury

9    guardant protector, guard

10    Tend’ring my ruin tending to my injuries, caring for me in my fall of by

11    Dizzy-eyed with dazzled, glazed eyes

13    clust’ring crowded, swarming

14    drench drown

15    over-mounting overambitious

17    lo look

18    antic grinning, grotesque

19    Anon soon

21    lither yielding, supple

22    In thy despite in contempt, in spite of you    scape mortality escape death (through the immortality of the soul)

23    become hard-favoured suit ugly, hideous

25    Brave defy, challenge

27    who one who

35    whelp puppy (plays on the fact that a “talbot” is a type of hunting dog)    wood mad

36    flesh initiate (from the practice of feeding hunting dogs raw meat to excite them) puny inexperienced, novice

38    maiden virginal, inexperienced

41    pillage plunder    giglot strumpet, whorish

42    bowels depths, core

45    inhearsèd laid as in a coffin

46    bloody bloodthirsty/covered in blood    nurser…harms person who taught him to harm his enemies/person who has caused his injuries (by allowing him into battle)/person bent or slumped over him and seemingly tending his wounds

48    wonder source of amazement and awe

49    that…fled i.e., Talbot

53    submissive message message of submission, surrender

54    a mere an exclusively

55    wot know

57    survey examine, take note of

60    But…France this epic list of Talbot’s many titles may have been derived from an epitaph on his original tomb in France    Alcides Hercules, the mythical hero famed for feats of strength

62    rare extraordinary/splendid

69    Worthy equal to/worthy of    Saint Michael the Order of Saint Michael, a French chivalric order in fact not established until 1469, after the events of the play occurred    Golden Fleece another French order of knights, set up in 1429

72    style list of titles, mode of expression

73    The Turk conventional title for the Turkish sultan

76    fly-blown putrefied, rotting (literally, with fly’s eggs laid in his decomposing flesh)

78    Nemesis Greek goddess of justice and retribution, who punished pride and arrogance

84    amaze terrify, alarm

86    beseems befits, is appropriate to

92    ashes…phoenix the phoenix, a mythical bird, was said to live for five hundred years, consume itself in fire and then rise again from its own ashes

94    So provided

Act 5 Scene 1

5.1   Location: the royal court, London

4    sue unto entreat

5    concluded of resolved, settled

7    affect their motion incline to their proposal

10    stablish establish

13    immanity barbarity, atrocities

17    near knit closely related

21    young historically Henry was actually twenty-one

23    wanton lascivious

27    Tends that tends    weal welfare legate representative

29    degree rank

30    verified come true

31    sometime at one time, formerly

33    cap i.e., Cardinal’s red hat

34    several separate, respective

38    draw draw up

40    presently immediately

42    at large in full

43    As that

46    In argument as evidence

49    wherein shipped where once embarked

54    grave ornaments dignified robes of office

56    trow am sure

62    a mutiny an open revolt, rebellion

Act 5 Scene 2

5.2   Location: France, exact location unspecified

2    stout brave, resolute

5    powers troops dalliance idleness, time wasting

7    combat with fight, bring down

9    accomplices allies

15    provide prepare ourselves

20    repine complain

Act 5 Scene 3

2    charming magic    periapts amulets, charms (worn on the body)

3    choice excellent, worthy    admonish forewarn

4    accidents events, chance happenings

5    substitutes servants, agents

6    lordly…north i.e., the devil

8    quick lively, in living form/alert, vigorous

10    familiar spirits attendant spirits that served a witch, often inhabiting the bodies of animals    culled selected

12    get the field win the battle

14    Where whereas    wont accustomed

15    member limb

16    earnest advance payment

18    redress assistance, relief    body…recompense with sexual connotations (to pay: to have sex)

21    wonted furtherance usual assistance

23    the foil defeat

25    vail lower (in submission) lofty-plumèd crest helmet adorned with tall feathers

27    ancient former/very old

28    buckle fight (plays on the sense of “have sex”)    Excursions sortie, bouts of fighting (during which Joan reenters)

30    fast secure

31    spelling conjuring

33    devil’s grace favor; also touches on the paradoxical notion of the devil possessing divine grace

34    bend her brows scowl

35    with like    Circe in Greek mythology, an island-dwelling sorceress who turned men into pigs with a magic potion

37    proper handsome, perfect

38    dainty fastidious, scrupulous

39    plaguing mischief tormenting calamity

41    in while

42    Fell banning hag fierce cursing witch

44    miscreant heretic    in his hand led by the hand

48    for to signify

49    lay…side i.e., release her hand so that it hangs by her side

55    allotted destined

56    save protect

58    usage treatment

62    glassy mirrorlike

63    Twinkling causing to twinkle    counterfeited mirrored, reflected

67    de la Pole Suffolk’s family name    disable devalue, disparage

69    a woman’s sight the sight of a woman/the gaze of a woman

71    Confounds that it destroys the power of    rough dulls/agitated

81    Fond foolish

84    cooling card opponent’s card that, when played, ruins one’s hopes of winning (plays on the idea of “cooling” down hot desire)

86    dispensation special permission from the Pope to dissolve a marriage

89    wooden thing stupid idea/man (the king) not moved by passion/(Suffolk’s) erect penis

91    fancy infatuation/love

93    scruple difficulty

98    disdain…much however disdainful they are

101    enthralled taken captive

107    captivate taken prisoner, both literally and metaphorically (either in love or servitude)

109    cry you mercy beg your pardon    quid    for    quo quid pro quo (Latin), i.e., tit for tat

111    bondage happy imprisonment fortunate were you

112    vile degraded, low (punned on in    servility)

113    servility slavery

127    portion share, part (plays on the sense of “marriage portion, dowry”)    choice an act of choice/object chosen

129    An if if

130    colours ensigns, bearers of military flags

132    parley military negotiation between opposing sides

136    what remedy i.e., there’s no help

138    exclaim on accuse

142    Whom refers to Margaret

143    easy-held easily endured

147    face deceive, show a false face

148    warrant guarantee

149    just honorable, worthy

150    expect await    below i.e., the main stage

154    happy for fortunate in having

157    her little worth her relative poverty, playing on the notion of moral value

159    quietly peacefully

164    counties i.e., regions, domains

166    again in return

167    deputy i.e., Suffolk

168    plighted pledged, promised

170    traffic business, trade

172    attorney (legal) representative, advocate

174    solemnized celebrated, formalized

176    it becomes befits it

182    princely commendations royal greetings, compliments

185    placed arranged

189    taint touched, tainted, stained

190    withal in addition

192    peevish foolish

193    stay stop

194    labyrinth…Minotaurs in Greek mythology, the Minotaur was a legendary monster with the head of a bull and the body of a man, living in the labyrinth of King Minos, in Crete

196    Solicit urge, move her wondrous praise   praise of her wondrous qualities

197    Bethink thee reflect, remember    surmount excel

198    extinguish art outdo artifice

199    Repeat their semblance recall, dwell on the image of them

201    bereave deprive, rob

Act 5 Scene 4

5.4   Location: France, exact location unspecified

3    sought every country searched every region

4    chance fortune

5    timeless untimely, premature

7    miser miserable creature

8    gentler nobler

9    friend relative

10    Out, out! expression of dismay and denial an’t if it

11    beget conceive, father

13    bach’lorship suggesting, either intentionally or unwittingly for comic purposes, that Joan was illegitimate; the Shepherd may intend “youth,” and the word can also mean “period as a novice or apprentice”

15    argues demonstrates

16    concludes proves/is a fitting end

17    obstacle i.e., “obstinate,” an error that apparently demonstrates the Shepherd’s humble origins

18    collop piece, part

21    avaunt begone suborned bribed, corrupted

22    Of on

23    noble gold coin

27    nativity birth, with a particular emphasis on astronomy

29    ratsbane rat poison

30    keep look after    afield in the field

32    drab whore

37    swain rustic

38    progeny lineage

41    exceeding exceptional

42    to do plays on the sense of “sexual intercourse”

46    want lack

47    straight instantly

48    compass bring about

49    No misconceivèd not wickedly created/illegitimate; some editors emend punctuation, e.g., to “No, misconceivèd!,” meaning “No, you have misunderstood”

50    tender young/mild, gentle

52    rigorously effused savagely spilt

56    Spare…faggots do not be miserly with the bundles of kindling (a bigger blaze made it more likely for a victim to lose consciousness from smoke inhalation before their flesh burned)

57    pitch black tarlike substance (burning it would increase the amount of asphyxiating smoke produced)

60    discover reveal    infirmity weakness, vulnerability

61    warranteth…privilege legally guarantees my exemption (as putting a pregnant woman to death would entail killing the innocent child)

64    hale drag, haul

65    forfend forbid

67    preciseness morality, propriety

68    juggling having sex

69    refuge last resource, final defense

74    machiavel i.e., intriguer/unscrupulous schemer (from Niccolò Machiavelli’s The Prince, a sixteenth-century treatise perceived as advocating ruthless political cunning)

75    an if even if

78    prevailed seduced me

82    liberal and free licentious and promiscuous (perhaps with mocking play on the senses of “generous and innocent”)

87    reflex reflect, shine

92    consume be burned

93    minister servant, agent

95    commission warrant, authority to act

97    remorse pity    outrageous broils excessively violent turmoil

99    aspiring ambitious

102    travail labor, effort

113    conclude resolve, settle

114    covenants terms of agreement

122    baleful deadly, poisonous

123    enacted decreed

124    in regard in so far as

125    mere pure, entire    lenity mildness, mercifulness

126    distressful devastating, ruinous

127    suffer permit

128    liegemen loyal followers

130    tribute (usually annual) payment made as an act of homage

134    coronet small crown worn by members of the nobility

136    but only

137    proffer proposal, offer

139    Gallian French

140    reverenced for held in respect as

141    lucre acquisition, gain    the rest remaining territories (that are)

146    cast excluded, driven

149    compromise resolution

150    upon comparison by insisting on comparing your current state with the one you are being offered/on comparing our position to yours

152    Of benefit out of generosity/as a benefaction

153    challenge of desert claim based on merit

156    cavil dispute, raise quibbling objections

157    neglected disregarded, underestimated

163    compact agreement, contract

165    condition terms of agreement

167    reserved with the sole reservation that

168    town of garrison fortified towns

174    ensigns military banners

175    entertain accept, receive

Act 5 Scene 5

5.5   Location: the royal court, London

4    settled rooted, firmly entrenched

5    rigour the harshness

6    Provokes impels    hulk large vessel

11    her worthy praise praise of her true worth

15    conceit imagination

17    full fully

18    lowliness meekness

25    flatter gloss over, mitigate

27    lady of esteem i.e., the daughter of the Earl of Armagnac (see Act 5 scene 1)

28    contract betrothal

29    reproach disgrace, shame

31    triumph jousting tournament

32    lists designated combat arena

35    be broke broken off with

42    confirm strengthen, entrench

46    warrant guarantee

47    Where whereas

56    attorneyship legal practices, negotiations between lawyers

57    will want    affects loves, prefers

61    preferred put forward, recommended, promoted

65    pattern model

68    feature physical appearance

69    Approves proves

72    issue…king giving a child to the king/giving birth to the future king

75    resolve constancy, courage, resolution

80    for that because

81    attaint touched, affected

84    dissension conflict

87    post hurry

88    procure ensure, contrive

91    anointed marked with holy oil, the sign of monarchy

92    charge money to spend

93    tenth a tax of ten percent on income or property

96    offence hostility, opposition

97    censure judge (not necessarily negatively)    what you were i.e., your own youthful impulsiveness

100    from company alone

101    revolve and ruminate consider, meditate on    grief anxieties/love melancholy (Gloucester then intensifies the sense)

104    Paris…Greece in Greek legend, Paris’ abduction of the beautiful Helen, wife of the King of Troy, provoked the devastating Trojan war with the Greeks

105    like event same outcome

THE SECOND PART OF HENRY THE SIXTH, WITH THE DEATH OF THE GOOD DUKE HUMPHREY

Lancastrians

KING HENRY VI

QUEEN MARGARET

Duke Humphrey of GLOUCESTER, Lord Protector, the king’s uncle

ELEANOR, Duchess of Gloucester

CARDINAL Beaufort, Bishop of Winchester, the king’s great-uncle

Duke of SOMERSET, the Cardinal’s nephew

Duke of BUCKINGHAM, Humphrey Stafford

Marquis, later Duke, of SUFFOLK, William de la Pole

Old Lord CLIFFORD

YOUNG CLIFFORD, his son

Yorkists

Richard Plantagenet, Duke of YORK

EDWARD, Earl of March, his son

RICHARD (who will eventually become King Richard III), another son

Earl of SALISBURY, Richard Neville

Earl of WARWICK, his son

The conjuration

John HUME, a priest

John SOUTHWELL, a priest

MARGARET JORDAN, a witch

Roger BULLINGBROOK, a conjurer

ASNATH, a spirit

The petitions and combat

Thomas HORNER, an armourer

PETER Thump, the Armourer’s man

FIRST PETITIONER

SECOND PETITIONER

FIRST NEIGHBOUR

SECOND NEIGHBOUR

THIRD NEIGHBOUR

FIRST PRENTICE

SECOND PRENTICE

The false miracle

Saunder SIMPCOX

Simpcox’s WIFE

MAYOR of St. Albans

TOWNSMAN

BEADLE

Eleanor’s penance

Gloucester’s SERVANT

Sir John STANLEY

A SHERIFF of London

A HERALD

The murder of Gloucester

FIRST MURDERER

SECOND MURDERER

The murder of Suffolk

LIEUTENANT, commander of a ship

MASTER of the same ship

The Master’s MATE

Walter WHITMORE

Cade’s rebellion

George BEVIS (probably the original actor’s name, the character being an anonymous commoner)

John HOLLAND (probably the original actor’s name, the character being an anonymous commoner)

Jack CADE, also known as John

DICK the butcher

SMITH the weaver

Emmanuel, a CLERK of Chartham

Sir Humphrey STAFFORD

William, STAFFORD’S BROTHER

MICHAEL

Lord SAYE

MESSENGER

SECOND MESSENGER

Lord SCALES

FIRST CITIZEN

SOLDIER

Alexander IDEN, an esquire of Kent

VAUX, a messenger

Petitioners, Servant, Servingman, Brethren of St. Albans, Townspeople of St. Albans, Gloucester’s Men, Sheriff’s Officers, Attendants, Commons, a Sawyer, Matthew Gough, Iden’s Men, Soldiers

Act 1 Scene 1*

running scene 1

Flourish of trumpets, then hautboys. Enter King [Henry VI], Duke Humphrey [of Gloucester], Salisbury, Warwick and [Cardinal] Beaufort on the one side. The Queen [Margaret], Suffolk, York, Somerset and Buckingham on the other

SUFFOLKAs by your high imperial majesty

I had in charge[2] at my depart for France,

As procurator to[3] your excellence,

To marry[4] Princess Margaret for your grace,

5

So, in the famous ancient city, Tours,[5]

In presence of the Kings of France and Sicil,[6]

The Dukes of Orleans, Calaber,[7] Bretagne and Alençon,

Seven earls, twelve barons and twenty reverend bishops,

I have performed my task and was espoused,[9]

10

And humbly now upon my bended knee,

In sight of England and her lordly peers,

Deliver up my title in the queen

To your most gracious hands, that are the substance

Of that great shadow[14] I did represent:

15

The happiest[15] gift that ever marquis gave,

The fairest queen that ever king received.

KING HENRY VISuffolk, arise. Welcome, Queen Margaret:

I can express no kinder[18] sign of love

Than this kind kiss: O Lord, that lends me life,

20

Lend me a heart replete with thankfulness:

For thou hast given me in this beauteous face

A world of earthly blessings to my soul,

If sympathy[23] of love unite our thoughts.

QUEEN MARGARETGreat King of England and my gracious lord,

25

The mutual conference[25] that my mind hath had,

By day, by night, waking and in my dreams,

In courtly company or at my beads,[27]

With you, mine alderliefest[28] sovereign,

Makes me the bolder to salute[29] my king

30

With ruder[30] terms, such as my wit affords

And overjoy of heart doth minister.[31]

KING HENRY VIHer sight[32] did ravish, but her grace in speech,

Her words yclad[33] with wisdom’s majesty,

Makes me from wond’ring[34] fall to weeping joys,

35

Such is the fullness of my heart’s content.

Lords, with one cheerful voice, welcome my love.

ALLLong live Queen Margaret, England’s happiness!

Kneel

QUEEN MARGARETWe thank you all. They rise

Flourish

SUFFOLKMy Lord Protector,[39] so it please your grace, To Gloucester

40

Here are the articles[40] of contracted peace

Between our sovereign and the French King Charles,

For eighteen months concluded[42] by consent.

GLOUCESTERReads. ‘Imprimis,[43] it is agreed between the French King Charles, and William de la Pole, Marquess of Suffolk, ambassador for Henry King of England, that the said Henry shall espouse the Lady Margaret, daughter unto Reignier King of Naples, Sicilia and Jerusalem, and crown her Queen of England ere[46] the thirtieth of May next ensuing.

Item:[48] that the duchy of Anjou and the county of Maine shall be released and delivered to the king her father’— Lets the paper fall

KING HENRY VIUncle, how now?

GLOUCESTERPardon me, gracious lord,

Some sudden qualm[52] hath struck me at the heart

And dimmed mine eyes, that[53] I can read no further.

KING HENRY VIUncle[54] of Winchester, I pray, read on.

CARDINAL Reads ‘Item: it is further agreed between them, that the duchies of Anjou and Maine shall be released and delivered over to the king her father, and she sent over of[57] the King of England’s own proper cost and charges, without having any dowry.’

KING HENRY VIThey please us well.— Lord marquis, kneel down: To Suffolk

60

We here create thee the first Duke of Suffolk, Suffolk kneels

And gird[61] thee with the sword.— Suffolk rises

Cousin[62] of York,

We here discharge your grace from being regent[63]

I’th’parts of France, till term of eighteen months

65

Be full[65] expired. Thanks, uncle Winchester,

Gloucester, York, Buckingham, Somerset,

Salisbury and Warwick.

We thank you all for this great favour done,

In entertainment[69] to my princely queen.

70

Come, let us in, and with all speed provide[70]

To see her coronation be performed.

Exeunt King [Henry VI], Queen [Margaret] and Suffolk. The rest remain

GLOUCESTERBrave[72] peers of England, pillars of the state,

To you Duke Humphrey must unload his grief:

Your grief, the common grief of all the land.

75

What? Did my brother Henry[75] spend his youth,

His valour, coin and people, in the wars?

Did he so often lodge[77] in open field,

In winter’s cold and summer’s parching heat,

To conquer France, his true inheritance?

80

And did my brother Bedford toil his wits,

To keep by policy[81] what Henry got?

Have you yourselves, Somerset, Buckingham,

Brave York, Salisbury and victorious Warwick,

Received deep scars in France and Normandy:

85

Or hath mine uncle Beaufort and myself,

With all the learnèd Council[86] of the realm,

Studied so long, sat in the Council house

Early and late, debating to and fro

How France and Frenchmen might be kept in awe,[89]

90

And had his highness in his infancy

Crownèd in Paris in despite of foes?

And shall these labours and these honours die?

Shall Henry’s conquest, Bedford’s vigilance,

Your deeds of war and all our counsel[94] die?

95

O peers of England, shameful is this league,[95]

Fatal this marriage, cancelling your fame,[96]

Blotting your names from books of memory,

Razing[98] the characters of your renown,

Defacing monuments[99] of conquered France,

100

Undoing all, as[100] all had never been!

CARDINALNephew, what means this passionate discourse?

This peroration[102] with such circumstance:

For France, ’tis ours; and we will keep it still.

GLOUCESTERAy, uncle, we will keep it, if we can:

105

But now it is impossible we should.

Suffolk, the new-made duke that rules the roost,

Hath given the duchy of Anjou and Maine

Unto the poor King Reignier, whose large style[108]

Agrees not with the leanness of his purse.

110

SALISBURYNow by the death of him[110] that died for all,

These counties were the keys of Normandy.—

But wherefore[112] weeps Warwick, my valiant son?

WARWICKFor grief that they are past recovery.

For were there hope to conquer them again,

115

My sword should shed hot blood, mine eyes no tears.

Anjou and Maine? Myself did win them both:

Those provinces these arms of mine did conquer.

And are the cities that I got with wounds

Delivered up again with peaceful words?

120

Mort Dieu![120]

YORK For[121] Suffolk’s duke, may he be suffocate,

That dims the honour of this warlike isle:

France should have torn and rent[123] my very heart

Before I would have yielded to this league.

125

I never read but England’s kings have had

Large sums of gold and dowries with their wives:

And our King Henry gives away his own,

To match[128] with her that brings no vantages.

GLOUCESTERA proper[129] jest, and never heard before,

130

That Suffolk should demand a whole fifteenth[130]

For costs and charges in transporting her:

She should have stayed in France and starved in France,

Before—

CARDINALMy lord of Gloucester, now ye grow too hot:[134]

135

It was the pleasure[135] of my lord the king.

GLOUCESTERMy lord of Winchester, I know your mind.

’Tis not my speeches that you do mislike,

But ’tis my presence that doth trouble ye.

Rancour will out: proud prelate, in thy face

140

I see thy fury: if I longer stay,

We shall begin our ancient[141] bickerings.—

Lordings,[142] farewell, and say when I am gone,

I prophesied France will be lost ere long.

Exit Humphrey [Gloucester]

CARDINALSo, there goes our Protector in a rage:

145

’Tis known to you he is mine enemy:

Nay more, an enemy unto you all,

And no great friend, I fear me, to the king:

Consider, lords, he is the next of blood[148]

And heir apparent to the English crown:

150

Had Henry got an empire by his marriage,

And all the wealthy[151] kingdoms of the west,

There’s reason he should be displeased at it.

Look to it, lords: let not his smoothing[153] words

Bewitch your hearts: be wise and circumspect.

155

What though the common people favour him,

Calling him ‘Humphrey, the good Duke of Gloucester’,

Clapping their hands, and crying with loud voice,

‘Jesu maintain your royal excellence!’

With ‘God preserve the good Duke Humphrey!’

160

I fear me, lords, for all this flattering gloss,[160]

He will be found a dangerous Protector.

BUCKINGHAMWhy should he then protect our sovereign,

He[163] being of age to govern of himself?

Cousin of Somerset, join you with me,

165

And all together, with the Duke of Suffolk,

We’ll quickly hoist Duke Humphrey from his seat.

CARDINALThis weighty business will not brook[167] delay:

I’ll to the Duke of Suffolk presently.[168]

Exit Cardinal

SOMERSETCousin of Buckingham, though Humphrey’s pride

170

And greatness of his place be grief to us,

Yet let us watch the haughty[171] cardinal:

His insolence is more intolerable

Than[173] all the princes in the land beside:

If Gloucester be displaced, he’ll be Protector.

175

BUCKINGHAMOr[175] thou or I, Somerset, will be Protector,

Despite Duke Humphrey or the cardinal. Exeunt Buckingham and Somerset

SALISBURYPride[177] went before, ambition follows him.

While these do labour for their own preferment,[178]

Behoves it[179] us to labour for the realm.

180

I[180] never saw but Humphrey Duke of Gloucester

Did bear him[181] like a noble gentleman:

Oft have I seen the haughty cardinal,

More like a soldier than a man o’th’Church,

As stout[184] and proud as he were lord of all,

185

Swear like a ruffian and demean[185] himself

Unlike the ruler of a commonweal.

Warwick, my son, the comfort of my age,

Thy deeds, thy plainness[188] and thy housekeeping

Hath won the greatest favour of the commons,

190

Excepting none but[190] good Duke Humphrey.

And, brother[191] York, thy acts in Ireland

In bringing them to civil discipline,

Thy late[193] exploits done in the heart of France,

When thou wert regent for our sovereign,

195

Have made thee feared and honoured of the people:

Join we together for the public good,

In what we can, to bridle[197] and suppress

The pride of Suffolk and the cardinal,

With Somerset’s and Buckingham’s ambition:

200

And, as we may, cherish[200] Duke Humphrey’s deeds,

While they do tend[201] the profit of the land.

WARWICKSo God help Warwick, as he loves the land,

And common[203] profit of his country.

YORKAnd so says York,— for he hath greatest cause.[204] Aside

205

SALISBURYThen let’s make haste away, and look[205] unto the main.

WARWICKUnto the main? O, father, Maine[206] is lost,

That Maine which by main[207] force Warwick did win,

And would have kept so long as breath did last:

Main chance, father, you meant, but I meant Maine,

210

Which I will win from France, or else be slain,

Exeunt Warwick and Salisbury, leaving York

YORKAnjou and Maine are given to the French,

Paris is lost, the state of Normandy

Stands on a tickle[213] point now they are gone:

Suffolk concluded[214] on the articles,

215

The peers agreed, and Henry was well pleased

To change[216] two dukedoms for a duke’s fair daughter.

I cannot blame them all: what is’t to them?

’Tis thine[218] they give away, and not their own.

Pirates may make[219] cheap pennyworths of their pillage

220

And purchase friends[220] and give to courtesans,

Still[221] revelling like lords till all be gone,

While as[222] the silly owner of the goods

Weeps over them, and wrings his hapless[223] hands,

And shakes his head, and trembling[224] stands aloof,

225

While all is shared and all is borne away,

Ready[226] to starve and dare not touch his own.

So York must sit and fret and bite his tongue,

While his own lands are bargained for and sold:

Methinks the realms of England, France and Ireland

230

Bear that proportion[230] to my flesh and blood,

As did the fatal brand Althaea[231] burnt

Unto the prince’s heart of Calydon.

Anjou and Maine both given unto the French!

Cold news for me: for I had hope of France,

235

Even as I have of fertile England’s soil.

A day will come when York shall claim his own,

And therefore I will take the Nevilles’[237] parts

And make a show of love to proud Duke Humphrey,

And, when I spy advantage, claim the crown,

240

For that’s the golden mark[240] I seek to hit:

Nor shall proud Lancaster[241] usurp my right,

Nor hold the sceptre in his childish[242] fist,

Nor wear the diadem[243] upon his head,

Whose church-like humours[244] fits not for a crown.

245

Then, York, be still[245] awhile, till time do serve:

Watch[246] thou, and wake when others be asleep,

To pry into the secrets of the state,

Till Henry, surfeiting[248] in joys of love,

With his new bride and England’s dear-bought[249] queen,

250

And Humphrey with the peers be fall’n at jars:[250]

Then will I raise aloft the milk-white rose,[251]

With whose sweet smell the air shall be perfumed,

And in my standard[253] bear the arms of York,

To grapple[254] with the House of Lancaster:

255

And force perforce[255] I’ll make him yield the crown,

Whose bookish[256] rule hath pulled fair England down.

Exit York

[Act 1 Scene 2]1.2

running scene 2

Enter Duke Humphrey [of Gloucester] and his wife Eleanor

ELEANORWhy droops my lord like over-ripened corn,

Hanging the head at Ceres’[2] plenteous load?

Why doth the great Duke Humphrey knit his brows,

As[4] frowning at the favours of the world?

5

Why are thine eyes fixed to the sullen[5] earth,

Gazing on that which seems to dim thy sight?

What see’st thou there? King Henry’s diadem,

Enchased[8] with all the honours of the world?

If so, gaze on, and grovel[9] on thy face,

10

Until thy head be circlèd with the same.

Put forth thy hand, reach at the glorious gold.

What, is’t[12] too short? I’ll lengthen it with mine,

And having both together heaved it up,

We’ll both together lift our heads to heaven,

15

And never more abase our sight so low

As to vouchsafe[16] one glance unto the ground.

GLOUCESTERO Nell, sweet Nell, if thou dost love thy lord,

Banish the canker[18] of ambitious thoughts:

And may that thought, when I imagine ill[19]

20

Against my king and nephew, virtuous Henry,

Be my last breathing[21] in this mortal world.

My troublous dreams this night[22] doth make me sad.

ELEANORWhat dreamed my lord? Tell me, and I’ll requite[23] it

With sweet rehearsal[24] of my morning’s dream.

25

GLOUCESTERMethought this staff,[25] mine office-badge in court,

Was broke in twain:[26] by whom I have forgot,

But, as I think, it was by th’cardinal:

And on the pieces of the broken wand

Were placed the heads of Edmund Duke of Somerset,

30

And William de la Pole, first Duke of Suffolk.

This was my dream: what it doth bode, God knows.

ELEANORTut, this was nothing but an argument[32]

That he that breaks[33] a stick of Gloucester’s grove

Shall lose his head for his presumption.

35

But list[35] to me, my Humphrey, my sweet duke:

Methought I sat in seat of majesty

In the cathedral church of Westminster,

And in that chair[38] where kings and queens are crowned,

Where Henry and Dame Margaret kneeled to me

40

And on my head did set the diadem.

GLOUCESTERNay, Eleanor, then must I chide[41] outright:

Presumptuous dame, ill-nurtured[42] Eleanor,

Art thou not second woman in the realm,

And the Protector’s wife, beloved of[44] him?

45

Hast thou not worldly pleasure at command,

Above the reach or compass[46] of thy thought?

And wilt thou still be hammering[47] treachery,

To tumble down thy husband and thyself

From top of honour to disgrace’s feet?

50

Away from me, and let me hear no more!

ELEANORWhat, what, my lord? Are you so choleric[51]

With Eleanor for telling but[52] her dream?

Next time I’ll keep my dreams unto myself,

And not be checked.[54]

55

GLOUCESTERNay, be not angry: I am pleased again.

Enter [a] Messenger

MESSENGERMy Lord Protector, ’tis his highness’ pleasure

You do prepare to ride unto St Albans,[57]

Where as[58] the king and queen do mean to hawk.

GLOUCESTERI go. Come, Nell, thou wilt ride with us?

60

ELEANORYes, my good lord, I’ll follow presently.[60]

Exit Humphrey [Duke of Gloucester with Messenger]

Follow I must: I cannot go before,

While Gloucester bears this base[62] and humble mind.

Were I a man, a duke, and next of blood,

I would remove these tedious stumbling blocks

65

And smooth my way upon their headless necks.

And, being a woman, I will not be slack

To play my part in Fortune’s pageant.[67]—

Where are you there? Sir[68] John! Nay, fear not, man, Calling

We are alone: here’s none but thee and I.

Enter Hume

70

HUMEJesus preserve your royal majesty.

ELEANORWhat say’st thou? ‘Majesty’: I am but grace.[71]

HUMEBut by the grace of God, and Hume’s advice,

Your grace’s title shall be multiplied.[73]

ELEANORWhat say’st thou, man? Hast thou as yet conferred

75

With Margery Jordan, the cunning[75] witch,

With Roger Bullingbrook, the conjurer?[76]

And will they undertake to do me good?

HUMEThis they have promised to show your highness:

A spirit raised from depth of underground,

80

That shall make answer to such questions

As by your grace shall be propounded[81] him.

ELEANORIt is enough: I’ll think upon the questions:

When from St Albans we do make return,

We’ll see these things effected to the full.

85

Here, Hume, take this reward: make merry, man, Giving him money

With thy confederates in this weighty cause.

Exit Eleanor

HUMEHume must make merry with the duchess’ gold:

Marry,[88] and shall: but how now, Sir John Hume?

Seal up your lips, and give no words but mum:[89]

90

The business asketh silent secrecy.

Dame Eleanor gives gold to bring the witch:

Gold cannot come amiss, were she a devil.

Yet have I gold flies[93] from another coast:

I dare not say from the rich cardinal

95

And from the great and new-made Duke of Suffolk,

Yet I do find it so: for to be plain,

They, knowing Dame Eleanor’s aspiring humour,[97]

Have hired me to undermine the duchess

And buzz[99] these conjurations in her brain.

100

They say ‘A crafty knave does need no broker[100]’,

Yet am I Suffolk and the cardinal’s broker.

Hume, if you take not heed, you shall go near[102]

To call them both a pair of crafty knaves.

Well, so it stands: and thus, I fear, at last

105

Hume’s knavery will be the duchess’ wrack,[105]

And her attainture[106] will be Humphrey’s fall:

Sort[107] how it will, I shall have gold for all.

Exit

[Act 1 Scene 3][*]

running scene 3

Enter three or four Petitioners, [Peter] the armourer’s man being one

FIRST PETITIONERMy masters,[1] let’s stand close: my Lord Protector will come this way by and by, and then we may deliver our supplications in the quill.[2]

SECOND PETITIONERMarry, the Lord protect[3] him, for he’s a good man, Jesu bless him.

Enter Suffolk and Queen [Margaret]

FIRST PETITIONERHere a[4] comes, methinks, and the queen with him. I’ll be the first, sure. He goes to meet Suffolk and the Queen

SECOND PETITIONERCome back, fool: this is the Duke of Suffolk, and not my Lord Protector.

SUFFOLKHow now, fellow: wouldst[8] anything with me?

FIRST PETITIONERI pray, my lord, pardon me: I took ye for my Lord Protector.

QUEEN MARGARET Reading ‘To my Lord Protector!’— Are your supplications to his lordship?

Let me see them: what is thine?

FIRST PETITIONERMine is, an’t[12] please your grace, against John Goodman, my lord cardinal’s man,[13] for keeping my house and lands and wife and all from me.

SUFFOLKThy wife too? That’s some wrong indeed.— To Second Petitioner What’s yours?

What’s here?— Reading supplication ‘Against the Duke of Suffolk, for enclosing the commons[15] of Melford.’— How now, Sir Knave? To Second Petitioner

SECOND PETITIONERAlas, sir, I am but a poor petitioner of our whole township.

PETER Offering his petition Against my master, Thomas Horner, for saying that the Duke of York was rightful heir to the crown.

QUEEN MARGARETWhat say’st thou? Did the Duke of York say he was rightful heir to the crown?

PETERThat my master was? No, forsooth:[22] my master said that he was, and that the king was an usurper.

SUFFOLKWho is there?

Enter Servant

Take this fellow in, and send for his master with a pursuivant[25] presently.— We’ll hear more of your matter before the king.

Exit [Servant with Peter]

QUEEN MARGARETAnd as for you that love to be protected

Under the wings of our Protector’s grace,

Begin your suits anew, and sue to[29] him.

Tear the supplication

30

Away, base cullions![30]— Suffolk, let them go.

ALL [PETITIONERS]Come, let’s be gone.

Exeunt [Petitioners]

QUEEN MARGARETMy lord of Suffolk, say, is this the guise?[32]

Is this the fashions[33] in the court of England?

Is this the government of Britain’s isle?

35

And this the royalty of Albion’s[35] king?

What, shall King Henry be a pupil still

Under the surly Gloucester’s governance?

Am I a queen in title and in style,[38]

And must be made a subject to a duke?

40

I tell thee, Pole,[40] when in the city Tours

Thou ran’st a-tilt[41] in honour of my love

And stol’st away the ladies’ hearts of France,

I thought King Henry had resemblèd thee

In courage, courtship and proportion:[44]

45

But all his mind is bent[45] to holiness,

To number[46] Ave-Maries on his beads:

His champions[47] are the prophets and apostles,

His weapons holy saws[48] of sacred writ,

His study is his tilt-yard,[49] and his loves

50

Are brazen images[50] of canonizèd saints.

I would the college[51] of the cardinals

Would choose him Pope, and carry him to Rome,

And set the triple crown[53] upon his head:

That were a state[54] fit for his holiness.

55

SUFFOLKMadam, be patient: as I was cause

Your highness came to England, so will I

In England work[57] your grace’s full content.

QUEEN MARGARETBeside the haughty Protector, have we Beaufort

The imperious churchman, Somerset, Buckingham,

60

And grumbling York: and not[60] the least of these

But can do more in England than the king.

SUFFOLKAnd he of these that can do most of all

Cannot do more in England than the Nevilles:

Salisbury and Warwick are no simple[64] peers.

65

QUEEN MARGARETNot all these lords do vex me half so much

As that proud dame, the Lord Protector’s wife:

She sweeps it[67] through the court with troops of ladies,

More like an empress than Duke Humphrey’s wife:

Strangers[69] in court do take her for the queen:

70

She bears[70] a duke’s revenues on her back,

And in her heart she scorns our poverty:

Shall I not live to be avenged on her?

Contemptuous[73] base-born callet as she is,

She vaunted[74] ’mongst her minions t’other day,

75

The very train of her worst wearing[75] gown

Was better worth[76] than all my father’s lands,

Till[77] Suffolk gave two dukedoms for his daughter.

SUFFOLKMadam, myself have limed a bush[78] for her,

And placed a choir of such enticing birds,[79]

80

That she will light[80] to listen to the lays,

And never mount to trouble you again.

So let her rest: and, madam, list to me,

For I am bold to counsel you in this:

Although we fancy[84] not the cardinal,

85

Yet must we join with him and with the lords,

Till we have brought Duke Humphrey in disgrace.

As for the Duke of York, this late complaint[87]

Will make[88] but little for his benefit:

So one by one we’ll weed[89] them all at last,

90

And you yourself shall steer the happy helm.

Sound a sennet. Enter the King [Henry VI with Somerset and] York [whispering on either side of him], Duke Humphrey [of Gloucester], Cardinal, Buckingham, Salisbury, Warwick and the Duchess [Eleanor]

KING HENRY VIFor my part, noble lords, I care not which:

Or[92] Somerset or York, all’s one to me.

YORK If York have ill demeaned[93] himself in France,

Then let him be denied the regentship.[94]

95

SOMERSETIf Somerset be unworthy of the place,

Let York be regent: I will yield to him.

WARWICKWhether your grace be worthy, yea or no,

Dispute not that: York is the worthier.

CARDINALAmbitious Warwick, let thy betters speak.

100

WARWICKThe cardinal’s not my better in the field.[100]

BUCKINGHAM ALLin this presence[101] are thy betters, Warwick.

WARWICKWarwick may live to be the best of all.

SALISBURYPeace, son, and show some reason, Buckingham,

Why Somerset should be preferred in this.

105

QUEEN MARGARETBecause the king, forsooth, will have it so.

GLOUCESTERMadam, the king is old enough himself

To give his censure:[107] these are no women’s matters.

QUEEN MARGARETIf he be old enough, what needs your grace

To be Protector of his excellence?

110

GLOUCESTERMadam, I am Protector of the realm,

And at his pleasure will resign my place.

SUFFOLKResign it then and leave[112] thine insolence.

Since thou wert king — as who is king but thou? —

The commonwealth hath daily run to wrack,

115

The dauphin[115] hath prevailed beyond the seas,

And all the peers and nobles of the realm

Have been as bondmen[117] to thy sovereignty.

CARDINALThe commons hast thou racked:[118] the clergy’s bags

Are lank[119] and lean with thy extortions.

120

SOMERSETThy sumptuous buildings and thy wife’s attire

Have cost a mass of public treasury.[121]

BUCKINGHAMThy cruelty in execution

Upon offenders hath exceeded law,

And left thee to the mercy of the law.

125

QUEEN MARGARETThy sale of offices[125] and towns in France,

If they were known, as the suspect[126] is great,

Would make thee quickly hop[127] without thy head.

Exit Gloucester

Queen Margaret drops her fan

Give me my fan: what, minion,[128] can ye not? To Eleanor

She gives the Duchess [Eleanor] a box on the ear

I cry you mercy,[129] madam: was it you?

130

ELEANORWas’t I? Yea, I it was, proud Frenchwoman:

Could I come near your beauty with my nails,

I’d set[132] my ten commandments in your face.

KING HENRY VISweet aunt, be quiet: ’twas against her will.[133]

ELEANORAgainst her will, good king? Look to’t[134] in time,

135

She’ll hamper[135] thee and dandle thee like a baby:

Though in this place most master[136] wear no breeches,

She shall not strike Dame Eleanor unrevenged.

Exit Eleanor

BUCKINGHAMLord Cardinal, I will follow Eleanor,

And listen after[139] Humphrey, how he proceeds:

140

She’s tickled[140] now, her fury needs no spurs,

She’ll gallop far enough to her destruction.

Exit Buckingham

Enter Humphrey [Duke of Gloucester]

GLOUCESTERNow, lords, my choler being overblown

With walking once about the quadrangle,

I come to talk of commonwealth affairs.

145

As for your spiteful false objections,[145]

Prove them, and I lie open to the law:

But God in mercy so deal with my soul,

As I in duty love my king and country.

But to the matter that we have in hand:—

150

I say, my sovereign, York is meetest[150] man

To be your regent in the realm of France.

SUFFOLKBefore we make election,[152] give me leave

To show some reason, of no little force,

That York is most unmeet of any man.

155

YORKI’ll tell thee, Suffolk, why I am unmeet:

First, for[156] I cannot flatter thee in pride:

Next, if I be appointed for the place,

My Lord of Somerset will keep me here,

Without discharge,[159] money, or furniture,

160

Till France be won into the dauphin’s hands:

Last time I danced attendance on his will

Till Paris was besieged, famished, and lost.

WARWICKThat can I witness, and a fouler fact[163]

Did never traitor in the land commit.

165

SUFFOLKPeace, headstrong Warwick.

WARWICKImage[166] of pride, why should I hold my peace?

Enter [guarded, Horner the] armourer and his man [Peter]

SUFFOLKBecause here is a man accused of treason:

Pray God the Duke of York excuse himself!

YORKDoth anyone accuse York for[169] a traitor?

170

KING HENRY VIWhat[170] mean’st thou, Suffolk? Tell me, what are these?

SUFFOLKPlease it your majesty, this is the man Indicating Peter

That doth accuse his master of high treason:

His words were these: that Richard, Duke of York,

Was rightful heir unto the English crown

175

And that your majesty was an usurper.

KING HENRY VISay, man, were these thy words?

HORNERAn’t[177] shall please your majesty, I never said nor thought any such matter: God is my witness, I am falsely accused by the villain.

PETER Raising his hands By these ten bones,[179] my lords, he did speak them to me in the garret one night, as we were scouring[180] my Lord of York’s armour.

YORKBase dunghill villain and mechanical,[181]

I’ll have thy head for this thy traitor’s speech.—

I do beseech your royal majesty,

Let him have all the rigour of the law.

HORNERAlas, my lord, hang me if ever I spake the words: my accuser is my prentice,[186] and when I did correct him for his fault the other day, he did vow upon his knees he would be even with me — I have good witness of this — therefore I beseech your majesty, do not cast away an honest man for a villain’s accusation.

KING HENRY VIUncle, what shall we say to this in law? To Gloucester

190

GLOUCESTERThis doom,[190] my lord, if I may judge:

Let Somerset be regent o’er the French,

Because in York this[192] breeds suspicion:

And let these have a day appointed them Indicating Horner and Peter

For single combat in convenient[194] place,

195

For he hath witness of his servant’s malice: Indicating Horner

This is the law, and this Duke Humphrey’s doom.

SOMERSETI humbly thank your royal majesty.

HORNERAnd I accept the combat willingly.

PETERAlas, my lord, I cannot fight: for God’s sake, pity my case: the spite of man prevaileth against me. O Lord, have mercy upon me! I shall never be able to fight a blow. O Lord, my heart!

GLOUCESTERSirrah,[202] or you must fight, or else be hanged.

KING HENRY VIAway with them to prison, and the day

Of combat shall be the last of the next month.

205

Come, Somerset, we’ll see thee sent away.

Flourish. Exeunt

[Act 1 Scene 4]1.4

running scene 4

Enter the Witch [Margaret Jordan], the two priests [Hume and Southwell] and Bullingbrook

HUMECome, my masters, the duchess, I tell you, expects performance of your promises.

BULLINGBROOK Master Hume, we are therefore provided:[3] will her ladyship behold and hear our exorcisms?[4]

HUMEAy, what else? Fear you not her courage.

BULLINGBROOK I have heard her reported to be a woman of an invincible spirit: but it shall be convenient, Master Hume, that you be by her aloft, while we be busy below: and so, I pray you, go in God’s name and leave us.

Exit Hume

She lies down upon her face Mother Jordan, be you prostrate and grovel on the earth. John Southwell, read you, and let us to our work.

Enter Eleanor aloft [Hume following]

ELEANORWell said,[11] my masters, and welcome all. To this gear the sooner the better.

BULLINGBROOK Patience, good lady: wizards know their times:

Deep night, dark night, the silent of the night,

The time of night when Troy[14] was set on fire,

15

The time when screech-owls[15] cry and bandogs howl,

And spirits walk, and ghosts break up[16] their graves:

That time best fits the work we have in hand.

Madam, sit you and fear not: whom we raise,

We will make fast[19] within a hallowed verge.

Here [they] do the ceremonies belonging, and make the circle: Bullingbrook or Southwell reads, ‘Conjuro te’, etc. It thunders and lightens terribly: then the Spirit [Asnath] riseth

20

ASNATHAdsum.[20]

MARGARET JORDANAsnath,

By the eternal God, whose name and power

Thou tremblest at, answer that[23] I shall ask:

For till thou speak, thou shalt not pass from hence.

25

ASNATHAsk what thou wilt: that[25] I had said and done.

BULLINGBROOK‘First of the king: what shall of him become?’ Reads

ASNATHThe duke yet lives that Henry shall depose:

But him outlive, and die a violent death. As the Spirit speaks, Southwell writes the answer

BULLINGBROOK‘What fates await the Duke of Suffolk?’ Reads

30

ASNATHBy water shall he die, and take his end.

BULLINGBROOK‘What shall befall the Duke of Somerset?’ Reads

ASNATHLet him shun castles;

Safer shall he be upon the sandy plains

Than where castles mounted[34] stand.

35

Have done, for more I hardly can endure.

BULLINGBROOKDescend to darkness and the burning lake!

False[37] fiend, avoid!

Thunder and lightning. Exit Spirit

Enter the Duke of York and the Duke of Buckingham with their guard [Sir Humphrey Stafford as Captain] and break in

YORKLay hands upon these traitors and their trash:[38]

Beldam,[39] I think we watched you at an inch. To Jordan

40

What, madam, are you there? The king and commonweal

Are deeply indebted for this piece of pains:[41]

My Lord Protector will, I doubt it not,

See you well guerdoned[43] for these good deserts.

ELEANORNot half so bad as thine to England’s king,

45

Injurious[45] duke, that threatest where’s no cause.

BUCKINGHAMTrue, madam, none at all: what call you this? Pointing to the papers

Away with them: let them be clapped up close[47]

And kept asunder.[48]— You, madam, shall with us. To Eleanor

Stafford, take her to[49] thee.

[Exeunt above Eleanor and Hume, guarded]

50

We’ll see your trinkets[50] here all forthcoming.

All, away!

Exeunt [below guard with Margaret Jordan, Southwell and Bullingbrook]

YORKLord Buckingham, methinks you watched her well:

A pretty[53] plot, well chosen to build upon.

Now pray, my lord, let’s see the devil’s writ.[54] Buckingham gives him the papers

55

What have we here?

‘The duke yet lives, that Henry shall depose:

Reads

But him outlive, and die a violent death.’

Why, this is just[58]

‘Aio Aeacidam,[59] Romanos vincere posse.’

60

Well, to the rest:

‘Tell me what fate awaits the Duke of Suffolk?’

‘By water shall he die, and take his end.’

‘What shall betide the Duke of Somerset?’

‘Let him shun castles:

65

Safer shall he be upon the sandy plains

Than where castles mounted stand.’

Come, come, my lords,

These oracles are hardly attained,[68]

And hardly[69] understood.

70

The king is now in progress[70] towards St Albans,

With him the husband of this lovely lady:

Thither goes these news as fast as horse can carry them:

A sorry breakfast for my Lord Protector.

BUCKINGHAMYour grace shall give me leave, my lord of York,

75

To be the post[75] in hope of his reward.

YORKAt your pleasure, my good lord. Who’s within there, ho! Calling within

Enter a Servingman

Invite my lords of Salisbury and Warwick

To sup[78] with me tomorrow night. Away.

Exeunt [severally]

[Act 2 Scene 1]2.1

running scene 5

Enter the King [Henry VI], Queen [Margaret], Protector [Gloucester], Cardinal and Suffolk, with Falconers hallooing

QUEEN MARGARETBelieve me, lords, for flying[1] at the brook,

I saw not better sport these[2] seven years’ day:

Yet, by your leave, the wind was very high,

And,[4] ten to one, old Joan had not gone out.

5

KING HENRY VIBut what a point,[5] my lord, your falcon made, To Gloucester

And what a pitch[6] she flew above the rest:

To see how God in all his creatures works!

Yea, man and birds are fain of[8] climbing high.

SUFFOLKNo marvel, an it like[9] your majesty,

10

My Lord Protector’s hawks do tower[10] so well:

They know their master loves to be aloft,[11]

And bears his thoughts above his falcon’s pitch.

GLOUCESTERMy lord, ’tis but a base ignoble mind

That mounts no higher than a bird can soar.

15

CARDINALI thought as much: he would be above the clouds.

GLOUCESTERAy, my lord cardinal, how[16] think you by that?

Were it not good your grace could fly to heaven?

KING HENRY VIThe treasury of everlasting joy.

CARDINALThy heaven is on earth: thine eyes and thoughts

20

Beat on a crown, the treasure of thy heart,

Pernicious[21] Protector, dangerous peer,

That smooth’st it[22] so with king and commonweal!

GLOUCESTERWhat, cardinal?

Is your priesthood grown peremptory?[24]

25

Tantaene[25] animis coelestibus irae?

Churchmen so hot?[26] Good uncle, hide such malice:

With such holiness, can you do it?

SUFFOLKNo malice, sir, no more than well becomes

So good a quarrel and so bad a peer.

30

GLOUCESTERAs who, my lord?

SUFFOLKWhy, as you, my lord,

An’t like your lordly Lord’s Protectorship.

GLOUCESTERWhy, Suffolk, England knows thine insolence.

QUEEN MARGARETAnd thy ambition, Gloucester.

35

KING HENRY VII prithee, peace, good queen,

And whet not on[36] these furious peers,

For blessèd[37] are the peacemakers on earth.

CARDINALLet me be blessèd for the peace I make

Against this proud Protector, with my sword.

40

GLOUCESTERFaith, holy uncle, would’t were come to that. Gloucester and Cardinal speak aside

CARDINAL Marry,[41] when thou dar’st.

GLOUCESTERMake[42] up no factious numbers for the matter,

In thine own person answer thy abuse.[43]

CARDINALAy, where thou dar’st not peep:[44] an if thou dar’st,

45

This evening, on the east side of the grove.

KING HENRY VIHow now, my lords?

CARDINALBelieve me, cousin Gloucester,

Had not your man[48] put up the fowl so suddenly,

We had had[49] more sport.— Come with thy two-hand sword.

50

GLOUCESTERTrue, uncle.—

Are ye advised?[51] The east side of the grove?

CARDINALI am with you.

KING HENRY VIWhy, how now, uncle Gloucester?

GLOUCESTERTalking of hawking; nothing else, my lord.—

55

Now, by God’s mother,[55] priest, I’ll shave your crown for this,

Or all my fence[56] shall fail.

CARDINALMedice,[57] teipsum—

Protector, see to’t well, protect yourself.

KING HENRY VIThe winds grow high: so do your stomachs,[59] lords:

60

How irksome is this music to my heart!

When such strings jar,[61] what hope of harmony?

I pray, my lords, let me compound[62] this strife.

Enter one [Townsman] crying ‘A miracle!’

GLOUCESTERWhat means this noise?

Fellow, what miracle dost thou proclaim?

65

TOWNSMANA miracle, a miracle!

SUFFOLKCome to the king and tell him what miracle.

TOWNSMANForsooth,[67] a blind man at Saint Alban’s shrine

Within this half-hour hath received his sight:

A man that ne’er saw in his life before.

70

KING HENRY VINow, God be praised, that to believing souls

Gives light in darkness, comfort in despair.

Enter the Mayor of St Albans, and his brethren, bearing the man [Simpcox] between two in a chair, [Simpcox’s Wife and Townspeople following]

CARDINALHere comes the townsmen on procession,

To present your highness with the man.

KING HENRY VIGreat is his comfort in this earthly vale,[74]

75

Although by[75] his sight his sin be multiplied.

GLOUCESTERStand by, my masters, bring him near the king:

His highness’ pleasure is to talk with him.

KING HENRY VIGood fellow, tell us here the circumstance,[78]

That we for thee may glorify the Lord.

80

What, hast thou been long blind and now restored?

SIMPCOXBorn blind, an’t please your grace.

WIFEAy, indeed, was he.

SUFFOLKWhat woman is this?

WIFEHis wife, an’t like your worship.

85

GLOUCESTERHadst thou[85] been his mother, thou couldst have better told.

KING HENRY VIWhere wert thou born? To Simpcox

SIMPCOXAt Berwick[87] in the north, an’t like your grace.

KING HENRY VIPoor soul, God’s goodness hath been great to thee:

Let never day nor night unhallowed pass,[89]

90

But still[90] remember what the Lord hath done.

QUEEN MARGARETTell me, good fellow, cam’st thou here by chance, To Simpcox

Or of[92] devotion, to this holy shrine?

SIMPCOXGod knows, of pure devotion, being called

A hundred times and oft’ner in my sleep,

95

By good Saint Alban, who said, ‘Simon, come:

Come offer[96] at my shrine, and I will help thee.’

WIFEMost true, forsooth: and many time and oft

Myself have heard a voice to call him so.

CARDINALWhat, art thou lame?

100

SIMPCOXAy, God Almighty help me.

SUFFOLKHow cam’st thou so?

SIMPCOXA fall[102] off of a tree.

WIFEA plum tree, master.

GLOUCESTERHow long hast thou been blind?

105

SIMPCOXO, born so, master.

GLOUCESTERWhat, and wouldst climb a tree?

SIMPCOXBut that[107] in all my life, when I was a youth.

WIFEToo true, and bought his climbing very dear.

GLOUCESTERMass,[109] thou lov’dst plums well, that wouldst venture so.

110

SIMPCOX Alas, good master, my wife desired some damsons,[110]

And made me climb,[111] with danger of my life.

GLOUCESTERA subtle[112] knave, but yet it shall not serve:

Let me see thine eyes: wink[113] now: now open them:

In my opinion, yet[114] thou see’st not well.

SIMPCOX Yes, master, clear as day, I thank God and Saint Alban.

GLOUCESTERSay’st[116] thou me so: what colour is this cloak of?

SIMPCOX Red, master, red as blood.

GLOUCESTERWhy, that’s well said: what colour is my gown of?

SIMPCOX Black, forsooth, coal-black as jet.

KING HENRY VIWhy, then, thou know’st what colour jet is of?

SUFFOLKAnd yet, I think, jet did he never see.

GLOUCESTERBut cloaks and gowns, before this day, a many.[122]

WIFENever, before this day, in all his life.

GLOUCESTERTell me, sirrah, what’s my name?

SIMPCOXAlas, master, I know not.

GLOUCESTERWhat’s his name?

SIMPCOXI know not.

GLOUCESTERNor his?

SIMPCOX No, indeed, master.

GLOUCESTERWhat’s thine own name?

SIMPCOX Saunder Simpcox, an if it please you, master.

GLOUCESTERThen, Saunder, sit there, the lying’st knave in Christendom. If thou hadst been born blind, thou might’st as well have known all our names as thus to name the several[134] colours we do wear. Sight may distinguish of colours, but suddenly to nominate[135] them all, it is impossible.— My lords, Saint Alban here hath done a miracle: and would ye not think his cunning[136] to be great, that could restore this cripple to his legs again?

SIMPCOXO master, that you could!

GLOUCESTERMy masters of St Albans, have you not beadles[139] in your town, and things called whips?

MAYORYes, my lord, if it please your grace.

GLOUCESTERThen send for one presently.[142]

MAYORSirrah, go fetch the beadle hither straight.[143]

Exit [a Townsperson]

GLOUCESTERNow fetch me a stool hither by and by.[144]— Now, sirrah, if you mean to save yourself from whipping, leap me over this stool and run away.

SIMPCOXAlas, master, I am not able to stand alone:[146] You go about to torture me in vain.

Enter a Beadle with whips

GLOUCESTERWell, sir, we must have you find your legs.— Sirrah beadle, whip him till he leap over that same stool.

BEADLEI will, my lord.— Come on, sirrah, off with your doublet[150] quickly.

SIMPCOXAlas, master, what shall I do? I am not able to stand.

After the Beadle hath hit him once, he leaps over the stool and runs away: and they follow and cry, ‘A miracle!’

KING HENRY VIO God, see’st thou this, and bearest[152] so long?

QUEEN MARGARETIt made me laugh to see the villain run.

GLOUCESTERFollow the knave, and take this drab[154] away.

155

WIFEAlas, sir, we did it for pure need.

GLOUCESTERLet them be whipped through every market town

Till they come to Berwick, from whence they came.

Exeunt [Wife, Beadle, Mayor and Townspeople]

CARDINALDuke Humphrey has done a miracle today.

SUFFOLKTrue: made the lame to leap and fly away.

160

GLOUCESTERBut you have done more miracles than I:

You made in a day, my lord, whole towns[161] to fly.

Enter Buckingham

KING HENRY VIWhat tidings with our cousin Buckingham?

BUCKINGHAMSuch as my heart doth tremble to unfold:

A sort[164] of naughty persons, lewdly bent,

165

Under[165] the countenance and confederacy

Of Lady Eleanor, the Protector’s wife,

The ringleader and head of all this rout,[167]

Have practised[168] dangerously against your state,

Dealing with witches and with conjurers,

170

Whom we have apprehended[170] in the fact,

Raising up wicked spirits from under ground,

Demanding of[172] King Henry’s life and death,

And other of your highness’ Privy Council,

As more at large[174] your grace shall understand.

175

CARDINALAnd so, my Lord Protector, by this means

Your lady is forthcoming yet[176] at London.

This news, I think, hath turned[177] your weapon’s edge:

’Tis like,[178] my lord, you will not keep your hour.

GLOUCESTERAmbitious churchman, leave to afflict[179] my heart:

180

Sorrow and grief have vanquished all my powers:

And, vanquished as I am, I yield to thee,

Or to the meanest groom.[182]

KING HENRY VIO God, what mischiefs work the wicked ones,

Heaping confusion[184] on their own heads thereby!

185

QUEEN MARGARETGloucester, see here the tainture[185] of thy nest,

And look[186] thyself be faultless, thou wert best.

GLOUCESTERMadam, for myself, to heaven I do appeal,

How I have loved my king and commonweal:

And for my wife, I know not how it stands:[189]

190

Sorry I am to hear what I have heard.

Noble she is: but if she have forgot

Honour and virtue and conversed[192] with such

As, like to pitch,[193] defile nobility,

I banish her my bed and company

195

And give her as a prey to law and shame,

That hath dishonoured Gloucester’s honest name.

KING HENRY VIWell, for this night we will repose us here:

Tomorrow toward London back again,

To look into this business thoroughly

200

And call these foul offenders to their answers,

And poise[201] the cause in justice’ equal scales,

Whose beam stands sure,[202] whose rightful cause prevails.

Flourish. Exeunt

[Act 2 Scene 2]*

running scene 6

Enter York, Salisbury and Warwick

YORKNow, my good lords of Salisbury and Warwick,

Our simple supper ended, give me leave

In this close[3] walk to satisfy myself

In craving your opinion of my title,

5

Which is infallible, to England’s crown.

SALISBURYMy lord, I long to hear it at full.

WARWICKSweet York, begin: and if thy claim be good,

The Nevilles are thy subjects to command.

YORKThen thus:

10

Edward the Third, my lords, had seven sons:

The first, Edward the Black Prince, Prince of Wales;

The second, William of Hatfield: and the third,

Lionel Duke of Clarence: next to whom

Was John of Gaunt, the Duke of Lancaster;

15

The fifth was Edmund Langley, Duke of York;

The sixth was Thomas of Woodstock, Duke of Gloucester;

William of Windsor was the seventh and last.

Edward the Black Prince died before his father,

And left behind him Richard,[19] his only son,

20

Who, after Edward the Third’s death, reigned as king,

Till Henry Bullingbrook, Duke of Lancaster,

The eldest son and heir of John of Gaunt,

Crowned by the name of Henry the Fourth,

Seized on the realm, deposed the rightful king,

25

Sent his poor queen to France, from whence she came,

And him to Pomfret:[26] where, as all you know,

Harmless Richard was murdered traitorously.

WARWICKFather, the duke hath told the truth:

Thus got the house of Lancaster the crown.

30

YORKWhich now they hold by force and not by right:

For Richard, the first son’s heir, being dead,

The issue[32] of the next son should have reigned.

SALISBURYBut William of Hatfield died without an heir.

YORKThe third son, Duke of Clarence, from whose line

35

I claim the crown, had issue Philippa, a daughter,

Who married Edmund Mortimer, Earl of March.

Edmund had issue, Roger Earl of March;

Roger had issue, Edmund,[38] Anne and Eleanor.

SALISBURYThis Edmund,[39] in the reign of Bullingbrook,

40

As I have read, laid claim unto the crown,

And but for Owen Glendower, had been king,

Who[42] kept him in captivity till he died.

But to the rest.

YORKHis eldest sister, Anne,

45

My mother, being heir unto the crown,

Married Richard Earl of Cambridge, who was son

To Edmund Langley, Edward the Third’s fifth son.

By her I claim the kingdom: she was heir

To Roger Earl of March, who was the son

50

Of Edmund Mortimer, who married Philippe,

Sole daughter unto Lionel Duke of Clarence.

So, if the issue of the elder son

Succeed before the younger, I am king.

WARWICKWhat plain proceedings[54] is more plain than this?

55

Henry doth claim the crown from John of Gaunt,

The fourth son: York claims it from the third:

Till Lionel’s issue[57] fails, his should not reign.

It fails not yet, but flourishes in thee

And in thy sons, fair slips[59] of such a stock.

60

Then, father Salisbury, kneel we together,

And in this private plot[61] be we the first

That shall salute our rightful sovereign

With honour of his birthright to the crown.

BOTHLong live our sovereign Richard, England’s king!

65

YORKWe[65] thank you, lords: but I am not your king

Till I be crowned and that[66] my sword be stained

With heart-blood of the house of Lancaster:

And that’s not suddenly[68] to be performed,

But with advice[69] and silent secrecy.

70

Do you as I do in these dangerous days:

Wink at[71] the Duke of Suffolk’s insolence,

At Beaufort’s pride, at Somerset’s ambition,

At Buckingham, and all the crew of them,

Till they have snared the shepherd of the flock,

75

That virtuous prince, the good Duke Humphrey:

’Tis that they seek, and they, in seeking that,

Shall find their deaths, if York can prophesy.

SALISBURYMy lord, break we off: we know your mind at full.

WARWICKMy heart assures me that the Earl of Warwick

80

Shall one day make the Duke of York a king.

YORKAnd, Neville,[81] this I do assure myself:

Richard shall live to make the Earl of Warwick

The greatest man in England but[83] the king.

Exeunt

[Act 2 Scene 3]2.3

running scene 7

Sound trumpets. Enter the King [Henry VI] and state [Queen Margaret, Gloucester, Suffolk, Buckingham and Cardinal], with Guard, to banish the Duchess [Eleanor, with Margaret Jordan, Southwell, Hume and Bullingbrook, all guarded. Enter to them York, Salisbury and Warwick]

KING HENRY VIStand forth, Dame Eleanor Cobham, Gloucester’s wife:

In sight of God, and us, your guilt is great:

Receive the sentence of the law for sins

Such as by God’s book[4] are adjudged to death.—

5

You four, from hence to prison back again:

From thence unto the place of execution:

The witch in Smithfield[7] shall be burned to ashes,

And you three shall be strangled[8] on the gallows.

You, madam, for[9] you are more nobly born,

10

Despoilèd[10] of your honour in your life,

Shall, after three days’ open[11] penance done,

Live in your country here in banishment,

With[13] Sir John Stanley, in the Isle of Man.

ELEANORWelcome is banishment, welcome were[14] my death.

15

GLOUCESTEREleanor, the law, thou see’st, hath judged thee:

I cannot justify[16] whom the law condemns.—

[Exeunt Eleanor and other prisoners, guarded]

Mine eyes are full of tears, my heart of grief.

Ah, Humphrey, this dishonour in thine age

Will bring thy head with sorrow to the ground.

20

I beseech your majesty, give me leave to go:

Sorrow would[21] solace and mine age would ease.

KING HENRY VIStay,[22] Humphrey Duke of Gloucester: ere thou go,

Give up thy staff:[23] Henry will to himself

Protector be, and God[24] shall be my hope,

25

My stay,[25] my guide, and lantern to my feet:

And go in peace, Humphrey, no less beloved

Than when thou wert Protector to thy king.

QUEEN MARGARETI see no reason why a king of years[28]

Should be to be[29] protected like a child:

30

God and King Henry govern England’s realm:

Give up your staff, sir, and the king his[31] realm.

GLOUCESTERMy staff? Here, noble Henry, is my staff:

As willingly do I the same resign

As e’er thy father Henry made it mine:

35

And even as willingly at thy feet I leave it

As others would ambitiously receive it. He lays the staff at Henry’s feet

Farewell, good king: when I am dead and gone,

May honourable peace attend thy throne!

Exit Gloucester

QUEEN MARGARETWhy, now is Henry king, and Margaret queen,

40

And Humphrey Duke of Gloucester scarce himself,

That bears[41] so shrewd a maim: two pulls at once:

His lady banished, and a limb lopped off. She picks up the staff

This staff of honour raught,[43] there let it stand

Where it best fits to be, in Henry’s hand. She gives the staff to Henry

45

SUFFOLKThus droops this lofty pine[45] and hangs his sprays:

Thus Eleanor’s pride dies in her youngest days.[46]

YORK Lords, let him go.[47]— Please it your majesty,

This is the day appointed for the combat,

And ready are the appellant[49] and defendant,

50

The armourer and his man, to enter the lists,[50]

So please your highness to behold the fight.

QUEEN MARGARETAy, good my lord: for purposely therefore[52]

Left I the court, to see this quarrel tried.

KING HENRY VIA[54] God’s name, see the lists and all things fit:

55

Here let them end it, and God defend the right.

YORK I never saw a fellow worse bestead,[56]

Or more afraid to fight, than is the appellant,

The servant of this armourer, my lords.

Enter at one door [Horner] the armourer and his [three] Neighbours, drinking to him so much that he is drunk: and he enters with a Drum before him and his staff with a sandbag fastened to it: and at the other door [Peter] his man, with a drum and sandbag, and Prentices drinking to him

FIRST NEIGHBOURHere, neighbour Horner, I drink to you in a cup of sack:[59] and fear

not, neighbour, you shall do well enough.

SECOND NEIGHBOURAnd here, neighbour, here’s a cup of charneco.[61]

THIRD NEIGHBOURAnd here’s a pot of good double[62] beer, neighbour: drink, and fear not your man.

HORNERLet it come, i’faith, and I’ll pledge[64] you all, and a fig for Peter! Horner drinks with them

FIRST PRENTICEHere, Peter, I drink to thee, and be not afraid.

SECOND PRENTICEBe merry, Peter, and fear not thy master: fight for credit of the prentices. Peter rejects their offers of drinks

PETERI thank you all: drink, and pray for me, I pray you, for I think I have taken

my last draught in this world. Here, Robin, an if I die, I give thee my apron: and, Will, thou shalt have my hammer: and here, Tom, take all the money that I have. O Lord bless me, I pray God, for I am never able to deal[71] with my master: he hath learnt so much fence[72] already.

SALISBURYCome, leave your drinking, and fall to blows. Sirrah, what’s thy name?

PETERPeter, forsooth.

SALISBURYPeter! What more?

PETERThump.

SALISBURYThump? Then see thou thump thy master well.

HORNERMasters, I am come hither, as it were, upon my man’s instigation, to prove him a knave and myself an honest man: and touching[79] the Duke of York, I will take my death[80] I never meant him any ill, nor the king, nor the queen: and therefore, Peter, have at thee[81] with a downright blow.

YORK Dispatch:[82] this knave’s tongue begins to double.

Sound, trumpets, alarum[83] to the combatants!

[Alarum.] They fight, and Peter strikes him [Horner] down

HORNERHold, Peter, hold! I confess, I confess treason. Dies

YORKTake away his weapon.— Fellow, thank God, and the good wine in[85] thy master’s way.

PETERO God, have I overcome mine enemies in this presence?[87] O Peter, thou hast prevailed in right.

KING HENRY VIGo, take hence that traitor from our sight,

90

For by his death we do perceive his guilt,

And God in justice hath revealed to us

The truth and innocence of this poor fellow,

Which he[93] had thought to have murdered wrongfully.

Come, fellow, follow us for thy reward.

Sound a flourish. Exeunt

[Act 2 Scene 4]2.4

running scene 8

Enter Duke Humphrey [Gloucester] and his Men in mourning cloaks

GLOUCESTERThus sometimes hath the brightest day a cloud:

And after summer evermore succeeds[2]

Barren winter, with his wrathful nipping cold:

So cares and joys abound, as seasons fleet.[4]

5

Sirs, what’s o’clock?

SERVANTTen, my lord.

GLOUCESTERTen is the hour that was appointed me

To watch the coming of my punished duchess:

Uneath[9] may she endure the flinty streets,

10

To tread them with her tender-feeling feet.

Sweet Nell, ill can thy noble mind abrook[11]

The abject[12] people gazing on thy face,

With envious[13] looks laughing at thy shame,

That erst[14] did follow thy proud chariot-wheels

15

When thou didst ride in triumph through the streets.

But soft, I think she comes: and I’ll prepare

My tear-stained eyes to see her miseries.

Enter the Duchess [Eleanor barefoot] in a white sheet, [with verses pinned on her back] and a taper burning in her hand, with [Sir John Stanley,] the Sheriff and Officers

SERVANTSo please your grace, we’ll take her from the sheriff.

GLOUCESTERNo, stir not for your lives, let her pass by.

20

ELEANORCome you, my lord, to see my open shame?

Now thou dost penance too. Look how they gaze,

See how the giddy[22] multitude do point,

And nod their heads, and throw[23] their eyes on thee.

Ah, Gloucester, hide thee from their hateful[24] looks,

25

And, in thy closet[25] pent up, rue my shame,

And ban[26] thine enemies, both mine and thine.

GLOUCESTERBe patient, gentle Nell: forget this grief.

ELEANORAh, Gloucester, teach me to forget myself,

For whilst I think I am thy married wife

30

And thou a prince, Protector of this land,

Methinks I should not thus be led along,

Mailed up[32] in shame, with papers on my back,

And followed with a rabble that rejoice

To see my tears and hear my deep-fet[34] groans.

35

The ruthless flint doth cut my tender feet,

And when I start,[36] the envious people laugh

And bid me be advisèd[37] how I tread.

Ah, Humphrey, can I bear this shameful yoke?

Trowest thou[39] that e’er I’ll look upon the world,

40

Or count them happy that enjoys the sun?

No: dark shall be my light, and night my day.

To think upon my pomp[42] shall be my hell.

Sometime I’ll say, I am Duke Humphrey’s wife,

And he a prince and ruler of the land:

45

Yet so he ruled and such a prince he was,

As[46] he stood by, whilst I, his forlorn duchess,

Was made a wonder[47] and a pointing-stock

To every idle[48] rascal follower.

But be thou mild[49] and blush not at my shame,

50

Nor stir at nothing till the axe of death

Hang over thee, as sure it shortly will.

For Suffolk, he that can do all in all

With her[53] that hateth thee and hates us all,

And York and impious Beaufort, that false priest,

55

Have all limed[55] bushes to betray thy wings,

And fly thou how thou canst,[56] they’ll tangle thee.

But fear not thou, until thy foot be snared,

Nor never seek prevention of thy foes.

GLOUCESTERAh, Nell, forbear:[59] thou aimest all awry.

60

I must offend before I be attainted:[60]

And had I twenty times so many foes,

And each of them had twenty times their power,

All these could not procure[63] me any scathe,

So long as I am loyal, true and crimeless.

65

Wouldst have me rescue thee from this reproach?

Why yet thy scandal were not[66] wiped away

But I in danger for the breach of law.

Thy greatest help is quiet,[68] gentle Nell:

I pray thee sort[69] thy heart to patience,

70

These few days’ wonder[70] will be quickly worn.

Enter a Herald

HERALDI summon your grace to his majesty’s parliament,

Holden[72] at Bury the first of this next month.

GLOUCESTERAnd my consent ne’er asked herein before?

This is close dealing.[74] Well, I will be there.—

[Exit Herald]

75

My Nell, I take my leave: and, Master Sheriff,

Let not her penance exceed the king’s commission.[76]

SHERIFFAn’t please your grace, here my commission stays,[77]

And Sir John Stanley is appointed now

To take her with him to the Isle of Man.

80

GLOUCESTERMust you, Sir John, protect[80] my lady here?

STANLEYSo am I given in charge, may’t please your grace.

GLOUCESTEREntreat[82] her not the worse in that I pray

You use her well: the world may laugh again,

And I may live to do you kindness if

85

You do it her. And so, Sir John, farewell. He begins to leave

ELEANORWhat, gone, my lord, and bid me not farewell?

GLOUCESTERWitness my tears, I cannot stay to speak.

Exeunt Gloucester [and his Men]

ELEANORArt thou gone too? All comfort go with thee,

For none abides with me: my joy is death:

90

Death, at whose name I oft have been afeared,[90]

Because I wished this world’s eternity.[91]

Stanley, I prithee go, and take me hence:

I care not whither, for I beg no favour,

Only convey me where thou art commanded.

95

STANLEYWhy, madam, that is to the Isle of Man,

There to be used[96] according to your state.

ELEANORThat’s bad enough, for I am but reproach:[97]

And shall I then be used reproachfully?

STANLEYLike to a duchess, and Duke Humphrey’s lady:

100

According to that state you shall be used.

ELEANORSheriff, farewell, and better[101] than I fare,

Although thou hast been conduct[102] of my shame.

SHERIFFIt is my office;[103] and, madam, pardon me.

ELEANORAy, ay, farewell, thy office is discharged:[104]

105

Come, Stanley, shall we go?

STANLEYMadam, your penance done, throw off this sheet,

And go we to attire[107] you for our journey.

ELEANORMy shame will not be shifted[108] with my sheet:

No, it will hang upon my richest robes

110

And show itself, attire me how I can.

Go, lead the way: I long to see my prison.

Exeunt

[Act 3 Scene 1]3.1

running scene 9

Sound a sennet. Enter King [Henry VI], Queen [Margaret], Cardinal, Suffolk, York, Buckingham, Salisbury and Warwick to the parliament [with Attendants]

KING HENRY VII muse[1] my lord of Gloucester is not come:

’Tis not his wont[2] to be the hindmost man,

Whate’er occasion keeps him from us now.

QUEEN MARGARETCan you not see? Or will ye not observe

5

The strangeness[5] of his altered countenance?

With what a majesty he bears himself,

How insolent[7] of late he is become,

How proud, how peremptory,[8] and unlike himself?

We know[9] the time since he was mild and affable,

10

And if we did but glance a far-off[10] look,

Immediately he was upon his knee,

That all the court admired him for[12] submission.

But meet him now, and be it in the morn,

When everyone will give[14] the time of day,

15

He knits his brow[15] and shows an angry eye,

And passeth by with stiff unbowèd knee,[16]

Disdaining duty[17] that to us belongs.

Small curs[18] are not regarded when they grin,

But great men tremble when the lion roars,

20

And Humphrey is no little man in England.

First note that he is near you in descent,

And should you fall, he is the next will mount.

Meseemeth[23] then it is no policy,

Respecting[24] what a rancorous mind he bears,

25

And his advantage following your decease,

That he should come about[26] your royal person

Or be admitted to your highness’ Council.

By flattery hath he won the commons’ hearts:

And when he please to make commotion,[29]

30

’Tis to be feared they all will follow him.

Now ’tis the spring, and weeds are shallow-rooted:[31]

Suffer[32] them now, and they’ll o’ergrow the garden

And choke the herbs for want[33] of husbandry.

The reverent care I bear unto my lord

35

Made me collect[35] these dangers in the duke.

If it be fond,[36] call it a woman’s fear:

Which fear, if better reasons can supplant,[37]

I will subscribe[38] and say I wronged the duke.

My lord of Suffolk, Buckingham and York,

40

Reprove[40] my allegation, if you can,

Or else conclude my words effectual.[41]

SUFFOLKWell hath your highness seen into this duke:

And had I first been put[43] to speak my mind,

I think I should have told your grace’s tale.

45

The duchess, by his subornation,[45]

Upon my life, began her devilish practices:[46]

Or if he were not privy to[47] those faults,

Yet by reputing[48] of his high descent,

As next the[49] king he was successive heir,

50

And such high vaunts[50] of his nobility,

Did instigate the bedlam brain-sick[51] duchess

By wicked means to frame[52] our sovereign’s fall.

Smooth runs the water where the brook is deep:

And in his simple show[54] he harbours treason.

55

The fox barks not when he would steal the lamb.—

No, no, my sovereign, Gloucester is a man To King Henry

Unsounded[57] yet and full of deep deceit.

CARDINALDid he not, contrary to form of law, To King Henry

Devise strange[59] deaths for small offences done?

60

YORKAnd did he not, in his Protectorship, To King Henry

Levy[61] great sums of money through the realm

For soldiers’ pay in France, and never sent it,

By means whereof[63] the towns each day revolted?

BUCKINGHAMTut, these are petty faults to[64] faults unknown,

65

Which time will bring to light in smooth[65] Duke Humphrey.

KING HENRY VIMy lords, at once:[66] the care you have of us

To mow down thorns that would annoy[67] our foot

Is worthy praise: but shall[68] I speak my conscience,

Our kinsman Gloucester is as innocent

70

From meaning treason to our royal person

As is the sucking lamb or harmless dove:

The duke is virtuous, mild and too well given[72]

To dream on evil or to work my downfall.

QUEEN MARGARETAh, what’s more dangerous than this fond affiance?[74]

75

Seems he a dove? His feathers are but borrowed,

For he’s disposèd as[76] the hateful raven.

Is he a lamb? His skin is surely lent him,

For he’s inclined[78] as is the ravenous wolves.

Who cannot steal a shape[79] that means deceit?

80

Take heed, my lord, the welfare of us all

Hangs[81] on the cutting short that fraudful man.

Enter Somerset

SOMERSETAll health unto my gracious sovereign.

KING HENRY VIWelcome, Lord Somerset. What news from France?

SOMERSETThat all your interest[84] in those territories

85

Is utterly bereft[85] you: all is lost.

KING HENRY VICold news, Lord Somerset: but God’s will be done.

YORKCold news for me: for I had hope of France Aside

As firmly as I hope for fertile England.

Thus are my blossoms blasted[89] in the bud

90

And caterpillars eat my leaves away:

But I will remedy this gear[91] ere long,

Or sell my title for a glorious grave.

Enter Gloucester

GLOUCESTERAll happiness unto my lord the king:

Pardon, my liege, that I have stayed[94] so long.

95

SUFFOLKNay, Gloucester, know that thou art come too soon,

Unless thou wert more loyal than thou art:

I do arrest thee of high treason here.

GLOUCESTERWell, Suffolk, thou shalt not see me blush

Nor change my countenance for this arrest:

100

A heart unspotted is not easily daunted.

The purest spring is not so free from mud

As I am clear from treason to my sovereign.

Who can accuse me? Wherein am I guilty?

YORK’Tis thought, my lord, that you took bribes of[104] France,

105

And, being Protector, stayed[105] the soldiers’ pay,

By means whereof his highness hath lost France.

GLOUCESTERIs it but thought so? What[107] are they that think it?

I never robbed the soldiers of their pay,

Nor ever had one penny bribe from France.

110

So help me God, as I have watched the night,[110]

Ay, night by night, in studying[111] good for England,

That[112] doit that e’er I wrested from the king,

Or any groat[113] I hoarded to my use,

Be brought against me at my trial day!

115

No: many a pound of mine own proper store,[115]

Because I would not tax the needy commons,

Have I disbursèd[117] to the garrisons,

And never asked for restitution.

CARDINALIt serves you well, my lord, to say so much.

120

GLOUCESTERI say no more than truth, so help me God.

YORKIn your Protectorship you did devise

Strange tortures for offenders, never heard of,

That[123] England was defamed by tyranny.

GLOUCESTERWhy, ’tis well known that whiles[124] I was Protector,

125

Pity was all the fault that was in me:

For I should melt at an offender’s tears,

And lowly[127] words were ransom for their fault:

Unless it were a bloody murderer,

Or foul felonious[129] thief that fleeced poor passengers,

130

I never gave them condign[130] punishment.

Murder indeed, that bloody sin, I tortured

Above[132] the felon or what trespass else.

SUFFOLKMy lord, these faults are easy,[133] quickly answered:

But mightier crimes are laid unto your charge,

135

Whereof you cannot easily purge yourself.

I do arrest you in his highness’ name,

And here commit you to my lord cardinal

To keep[138] until your further time of trial.

KING HENRY VIMy lord of Gloucester, ’tis my special hope

140

That you will clear yourself from all suspense:[140]

My conscience tells me you are innocent.

GLOUCESTERAh, gracious lord, these days are dangerous:

Virtue is choked with foul ambition

And charity chased hence by rancour’s hand:

145

Foul subornation[145] is predominant

And equity[146] exiled your highness’ land.

I know their complot[147] is to have my life:

And if my death might make this island happy,

And prove the period[149] of their tyranny,

150

I would expend it[150] with all willingness.

But mine[151] is made the prologue to their play:

For thousands more, that yet suspect no peril,

Will not conclude their plotted tragedy.

Beaufort’s red sparkling eyes blab[154] his heart’s malice,

155

And Suffolk’s cloudy brow his stormy hate:

Sharp[156] Buckingham unburdens with his tongue

The envious[157] load that lies upon his heart:

And doggèd[158] York, that reaches at the moon,

Whose overweening[159] arm I have plucked back,

160

By false accuse[160] doth level at my life.—

And you, my sovereign lady, with the rest, To Queen Margaret

Causeless[162] have laid disgraces on my head,

And with your best endeavour have stirred up

My liefest liege[164] to be mine enemy:

165

Ay, all of you have laid your heads together —

Myself had notice of your conventicles[166] —

And all to make away my guiltless life.

I shall not want[168] false witness to condemn me,

Nor store[169] of treasons to augment my guilt:

170

The ancient proverb will be well effected:

‘A staff is quickly found to beat a dog.’

CARDINALMy liege, his railing[172] is intolerable.

If those that care to keep your royal person

From treason’s secret knife and traitors’ rage

175

Be thus upbraided, chid[175] and rated at,

And the offender granted scope[176] of speech,

’Twill make them cool in zeal[177] unto your grace.

SUFFOLKHath he not twit[178] our sovereign lady here

With ignominious words, though clerkly couched,[179]

180

As if she had subornèd[180] some to swear

False allegations to o’erthrow his state?[181]

QUEEN MARGARETBut I can give the loser leave to chide.

GLOUCESTERFar truer spoke than meant: I lose indeed:

Beshrew[184] the winners, for they played me false,

185

And well such losers may have leave to speak.

BUCKINGHAMHe’ll wrest[186] the sense and hold us here all day.

Lord Cardinal, he is your prisoner.

CARDINALSirs, take away the duke, and guard him sure.[188]

GLOUCESTERAh, thus King Henry throws away his crutch

190

Before his legs be firm to bear his body.

Thus is the shepherd beaten from thy side,

And wolves are gnarling[192] who shall gnaw thee first.

Ah, that my fear were false: ah, that it were:

For, good King Henry, thy decay[194] I fear.

Exit Gloucester [guarded]

195

KING HENRY VIMy lords, what to your wisdoms seemeth best,

Do or undo, as if ourself were here.

QUEEN MARGARETWhat, will your highness leave the parliament?

KING HENRY VIAy, Margaret: my heart is drowned with grief,

Whose flood begins to flow within mine eyes:

200

My body round engirt[200] with misery:

For what’s more miserable than discontent?—

Ah, uncle Humphrey, in thy face I see

The map[203] of honour, truth and loyalty:

And yet, good Humphrey, is the hour to come

205

That e’er I proved thee false[205] or feared thy faith.

What louring star now envies thy estate,[206]

That these great lords and Margaret our queen

Do seek subversion[208] of thy harmless life?

Thou never didst them wrong, nor no man wrong:

210

And as the butcher takes away the calf,

And binds the wretch, and beats it when it strays,[211]

Bearing it to the bloody slaughterhouse,

Even so remorseless have they borne him hence:

And as the dam[214] runs lowing up and down,

215

Looking the way her harmless young one went,

And can do naught but wail her darling’s loss,

Even so myself bewails good Gloucester’s case

With sad unhelpful tears, and with dimmed eyes

Look after him, and cannot do him good:

220

So mighty are his vowèd[220] enemies.

His fortunes I will weep, and ’twixt[221] each groan

Say ‘Who’s a traitor? Gloucester he is none.’

Exit [with Buckingham, Salisbury and Warwick]

QUEEN MARGARETFree[223] lords, cold snow melts with the sun’s hot beams:

Henry my lord is cold[224] in great affairs,

225

Too full of foolish pity: and Gloucester’s show[225]

Beguiles[226] him as the mournful crocodile

With sorrow snares relenting passengers,

Or as the snake rolled in a flow’ring bank,

With shining chequered slough,[229] doth sting a child

230

That for the beauty thinks it excellent.

Believe me, lords, were none more wise than I—

And yet herein I judge mine own wit[232] good—

This Gloucester should be quickly rid[233] the world,

To rid us from the fear we have of him.

235

CARDINALThat he should die is worthy[235] policy:

But yet we want a colour[236] for his death:

’Tis meet[237] he be condemned by course of law.

SUFFOLKBut, in my mind, that were[238] no policy:

The king will labour still[239] to save his life,

240

The commons haply rise,[240] to save his life:

And yet we have but trivial argument,[241]

More than mistrust,[242] that shows him worthy death.

YORKSo that, by this,[243] you would not have him die.

SUFFOLKAh, York, no man alive so fain[244] as I.

245

YORK’Tis York that hath more reason for his death.— Aside

But, my lord cardinal, and you my lord of Suffolk, Aloud

Say as you think, and speak it from your souls:

Were’t not all one,[248] an empty eagle were set

To guard the chicken from a hungry kite,[249]

250

As place Duke Humphrey for the king’s Protector?

QUEEN MARGARETSo the poor chicken should be sure of death.

SUFFOLKMadam, ’tis true: and were’t not madness then

To make the fox surveyor[253] of the fold,

Who being accused a crafty murderer,

255

His guilt should be but idly posted over,[255]

Because[256] his purpose is not executed?

No: let him die, in that he is a fox,

By nature proved an enemy to the flock,

Before his chaps[259] be stained with crimson blood,

260

As Humphrey, proved[260] by reasons, to my liege.

And do not stand[261] on quillets how to slay him:

Be it by gins, by snares,[262] by subtlety,

Sleeping or waking, ’tis no matter how,

So[264] he be dead: for that is good deceit

265

Which mates[265] him first that first intends deceit.

QUEEN MARGARETThrice-noble Suffolk, ’tis resolutely spoke.

SUFFOLKNot resolute, except[267] so much were done:

For things are often spoke and seldom meant:

But that[269] my heart accordeth with my tongue,

270

Seeing the deed is meritorious,[270]

And to preserve my sovereign from his foe,

Say but the word, and I will be his priest.[272]

CARDINALBut I would have him dead, my lord of Suffolk,

Ere[274] you can take due orders for a priest:

275

Say you consent and censure[275] well the deed,

And I’ll provide his executioner,

I tender so[277] the safety of my liege.

SUFFOLKHere is my hand, the deed is worthy doing.

QUEEN MARGARETAnd so say I.

280

YORKAnd I: and now we three have spoke it,

It skills[281] not greatly who impugns our doom.

Enter a Post

POSTGreat lords, from Ireland am I come amain[282]

To signify[283] that rebels there are up

And put the Englishmen unto the sword.

285

Send succours,[285] lords, and stop the rage betime,

Before the wound do grow uncurable:

For, being green,[287] there is great hope of help.

CARDINALA breach[288] that craves a quick expedient stop!

What counsel give you in this weighty cause?[289]

290

YORKThat Somerset be sent as regent thither:

’Tis meet[291] that lucky ruler be employed:

Witness the fortune he hath had in France.

SOMERSETIf York, with all his far-fet[293] policy,

Had been the regent there instead of me,

295

He never would have stayed in France so long.

YORKNo, not to lose it all, as thou hast done.

I rather would have lost my life betimes[297]

Than bring a burden of dishonour home

By staying there so long till all were lost.

300

Show me one scar charactered[300] on thy skin:

Men’s flesh[301] preserved so whole do seldom win.

QUEEN MARGARETNay, then, this spark will prove a raging fire

If wind and fuel be brought to feed it with:

No more, good York: sweet Somerset, be still:

305

Thy fortune, York, hadst thou been regent there,

Might happily[306] have proved far worse than his.

YORKWhat, worse than naught? Nay, then a shame take all!

SOMERSETAnd, in the number,[308] thee that wishest shame.

CARDINALMy lord of York, try[309] what your fortune is:

310

The uncivil[310] kerns of Ireland are in arms

And temper clay[311] with blood of Englishmen.

To Ireland will you lead a band of men,

Collected choicely,[313] from each county some,

And try your hap[314] against the Irishmen?

35

YORKI will, my lord, so please his majesty.

SUFFOLKWhy, our authority is his consent,

And what we do establish he confirms:

Then, noble York, take thou this task in hand.

YORKI am content: provide me soldiers, lords,

320

Whiles I take order[320] for mine own affairs.

SUFFOLKA charge, Lord York, that I will see performed.

But now return we to the false Duke Humphrey.

CARDINALNo more of him: for I will deal with him

That henceforth he shall trouble us no more:

325

And so break off: the day is almost spent.

Lord Suffolk, you and I must talk of that event.

YORKMy lord of Suffolk, within fourteen days

At Bristol I expect my soldiers,

For there I’ll ship them all for Ireland.

330

SUFFOLKI’ll see it truly done, my lord of York.

Exeunt [leaving] York

YORKNow, York, or never, steel thy fearful thoughts,

And change misdoubt[332] to resolution:

Be that[333] thou hop’st to be, or what thou art

Resign to death: it is not worth th’enjoying:

335

Let pale-faced fear keep[335] with the mean-born man,

And find no harbour[336] in a royal heart.

Faster than springtime showers comes thought on thought,

And not a thought but thinks on dignity.[338]

My brain, more busy than the labouring spider,

340

Weaves tedious[340] snares to trap mine enemies.

Well, nobles, well: ’tis politicly[341] done,

To send me packing with an host of men:

I fear me[343] you but warm the starvèd snake,

Who, cherished in your breasts, will sting your hearts.

345

’Twas men I lacked and you will give them me:

I take it kindly: yet be well assured

You put sharp weapons in a madman’s hands.

Whiles I in Ireland nourish[348] a mighty band,

I will stir up in England some black storm

350

Shall[350] blow ten thousand souls to heaven or hell:

And this fell[351] tempest shall not cease to rage

Until the golden circuit[352] on my head,

Like to the glorious sun’s transparent beams,

Do calm the fury of this mad-bred[354] flaw.

355

And for a minister[355] of my intent,

I have seduced a headstrong Kentishman,

John Cade of Ashford,[357]

To make commotion,[358] as full well he can,

Under the title of John Mortimer.[359]

360

In Ireland have I seen this stubborn Cade

Oppose himself against a troop of kerns,

And fought so long, till that[362] his thighs with darts

Were almost like a sharp-quilled porcupine:

And in the end, being rescued, I have seen

365

Him caper[365] upright like a wild Morisco,

Shaking the[366] bloody darts as he his bells.

Full[367] often, like a shag-haired crafty kern,

Hath he conversèd with the enemy,

And, undiscovered, come to me again

370

And given me notice[370] of their villainies.

This devil here shall be my substitute:

For that John[372] Mortimer, which now is dead,

In face, in gait,[373] in speech, he doth resemble.

By this I shall perceive the commons’[374] mind,

375

How they affect[375] the house and claim of York.

Say he be taken,[376] racked and torturèd,

I know no pain they can inflict upon him

Will make him say I moved[378] him to those arms.

Say that he thrive, as ’tis great like[379] he will,

380

Why then from Ireland come I with my strength

And reap the harvest which that rascal[381] sowed.

For Humphrey being dead, as he shall be,

And Henry put apart,[383] the next for me.

Exit

[Act 3 Scene 2]

running scene 10

Enter two or three [Murderers] running over the stage, from the murder of Duke Humphrey [Gloucester]

FIRST MURDERERRun to my lord of Suffolk: let him know

We have dispatched[2] the duke, as he commanded.

SECOND MURDERERO, that it were to do![3] What have we done?

Didst ever hear a man so penitent?

Enter Suffolk

5

FIRST MURDERERHere comes my lord.

SUFFOLKNow, sirs, have you dispatched this thing?

FIRST MURDERERAy, my good lord, he’s dead.

SUFFOLKWhy, that’s well said. Go, get you to my house:

I will reward you for this venturous[9] deed:

10

The king and all the peers are here at hand.

Have you laid fair[11] the bed? Is all things well,

According as I gave directions?

FIRST MURDERER’Tis, my good lord.

SUFFOLKAway! Be gone.

Exeunt [Murderers]

Sound trumpets. Enter the King [Henry VI], the Queen [Margaret], Cardinal, Somerset, with Attendants

15

KING HENRY VIGo call our uncle to our presence straight:[15]

Say we intend to try his grace today

If[17] he be guilty, as ’tis publishèd.

SUFFOLKI’ll call him presently, my noble lord.

Exit

KING HENRY VILords, take your places: and, I pray you all,

20

Proceed no straiter[20] gainst our uncle Gloucester

Than from true evidence of good esteem[21]

He be approved in[22] practice culpable.

QUEEN MARGARETGod forbid any malice should prevail,

That faultless[24] may condemn a noble man:

25

Pray God he may acquit him[25] of suspicion!

KING HENRY VII thank thee, Meg: these words content me much.

Enter Suffolk

How now? Why look’st thou pale? Why tremblest thou?

Where is our uncle? What’s the matter, Suffolk?

SUFFOLKDead in his bed, my lord: Gloucester is dead.

30

QUEEN MARGARETMarry, God forfend![30]

CARDINALGod’s secret judgement: I did dream tonight[31]

The duke was dumb and could not speak a word.

King [Henry VI] swoons

QUEEN MARGARETHow fares my lord?— Help, lords, the king is dead!

SOMERSETRear up[34] his body: wring him by the nose.

35

QUEEN MARGARETRun, go, help, help! O Henry, ope thine eyes!

SUFFOLKHe doth revive again: madam, be patient.

KING HENRY VIO heavenly God!

QUEEN MARGARETHow fares my gracious lord?

SUFFOLKComfort, my sovereign: gracious Henry, comfort.

40

KING HENRY VIWhat, doth my lord of Suffolk comfort me?

Came he right now to sing a raven’s note,[41]

Whose dismal[42] tune bereft my vital powers:

And thinks he that the chirping of a wren,

By crying comfort from a hollow[44] breast,

45

Can chase away the first-conceivèd[45] sound?

Hide not thy poison with such sugared words:

Lay not thy hands on me: forbear I say,

Their touch affrights[48] me as a serpent’s sting.

Thou baleful[49] messenger, out of my sight:

50

Upon thy eyeballs murderous tyranny

Sits in grim majesty, to fright the world.

Look not upon me, for thine eyes are wounding:

Yet do not go away: come, basilisk,[53]

And kill the innocent gazer with thy sight:

55

For in the shade of death I shall find joy:

In life, but double death, now Gloucester’s dead.

QUEEN MARGARETWhy do you rate[57] my lord of Suffolk thus?

Although the duke was enemy to him,

Yet he most Christian-like laments his death:

60

And for myself, foe as he was to me,

Might liquid tears, or heart-offending[61] groans,

Or blood-consuming sighs recall his life,

I would be blind with weeping, sick with groans,

Look pale as primrose with blood-drinking sighs,

65

And all to have the noble duke alive.

What know I how the world may deem[66] of me?

For it is known we were but hollow[67] friends:

It may be judged I made the duke away.

So shall my name with slander’s tongue be wounded,

70

And princes’ courts be filled with my reproach:[70]

This get I by his death: ay me, unhappy,

To be a queen, and crowned with infamy.

KING HENRY VIAh, woe is me for Gloucester, wretched man!

QUEEN MARGARETBe woe[74] for me, more wretched than he is.

75

What, dost thou turn away and hide thy face?

I am no loathsome leper: look on me.

What, art thou, like the adder, waxen deaf?[77]

Be poisonous too and kill thy forlorn[78] queen.

Is all thy comfort shut in Gloucester’s tomb?

80

Why, then, Dame Margaret was ne’er thy joy.

Erect his statue and worship it,

And make my image but an ale-house sign.

Was I for this nigh[83] wracked upon the sea

And twice by awkward[84] wind from England’s bank

85

Drove back again unto my native clime?[85]

What boded this, but[86] well forewarning wind

Did seem to say ‘Seek not a scorpion’s nest,

Nor set no footing on this unkind[88] shore’?

What did I then, but cursed the gentle[89] gusts

90

And he[90] that loosed them forth their brazen caves,

And bid them blow towards England’s blessèd shore,

Or turn our stern upon a dreadful rock?

Yet Aeolus[93] would not be a murderer,

But left that hateful office unto thee.

95

The pretty[95] vaulting sea refused to drown me,

Knowing that thou wouldst have me drowned on shore

With tears as salt as sea, through thy unkindness.

The splitting[98] rocks cowered in the sinking sands,

And would not dash me with their ragged sides,

100

Because[100] thy flinty heart, more hard than they,

Might in thy palace perish[101] Margaret.

As far as I could ken[102] thy chalky cliffs,

When from thy shore the tempest beat us back,

I stood upon the hatches[104] in the storm,

105

And when the dusky sky began to rob

My earnest-gaping[106] sight of thy land’s view,

I took a costly jewel from my neck —

A heart it was, bound in with[108] diamonds —

And threw it towards thy land. The sea received it,

110

And so I wished thy body might my heart:

And even with this, I lost fair England’s view,

And bid mine eyes be packing[112] with my heart,

And called them blind and dusky spectacles,

For losing ken of Albion’s wishèd[114] coast.

115

How often have I tempted Suffolk’s tongue,

The agent[116] of thy foul inconstancy,

To sit and witch[117] me as Ascanius did,

When he to madding[118] Dido would unfold

His father’s acts commenced in burning Troy.

120

Am I not witched like her? Or thou not false[120] like him?

Ay me, I can no more:[121] die, Margaret,

For Henry weeps that thou dost live so long.

Noise within. Enter Warwick, [Salisbury] and many Commons

WARWICKIt is reported, mighty sovereign,

That good Duke Humphrey traitorously is murdered

125

By Suffolk and the Cardinal Beaufort’s means:

The commons, like an angry hive of bees

That want[127] their leader, scatter up and down

And care not who they sting in his revenge.[128]

Myself have calmed their spleenful[129] mutiny,

130

Until they hear the order[130] of his death.

KING HENRY VIThat he is dead, good Warwick, ’tis too true:

But how he died, God knows, not Henry:

Enter his chamber, view his breathless corpse,

And comment then upon[134] his sudden death.

135

WARWICKThat shall I do, my liege.— Stay, Salisbury,

With the rude[136] multitude till I return.

[Exeunt Warwick, Salisbury and Commons]

KING HENRY VIO, thou that judgest all things, stay[137] my thoughts:

My thoughts, that labour to persuade my soul

Some violent hands were laid on Humphrey’s life:

140

If my suspect[140] be false, forgive me, God,

For judgement only doth belong to thee:

Fain[142] would I go to chafe his paly lips

With twenty thousand kisses, and to drain

Upon his face an ocean of salt tears,

145

To tell my love unto his dumb deaf trunk,[145]

And with my fingers feel his hand unfeeling:

But all in vain are these mean obsequies;[147]

Bed put forth

And to survey his dead and earthy image:

What were it but to make my sorrow greater?

[Enter Warwick to reveal Gloucester’s body in his bed]

150

WARWICKCome hither, gracious sovereign, view this body.

KING HENRY VIThat is to see how deep my grave is made,

For with his soul fled all my worldly solace:

For seeing him, I see my[153] life in death.

WARWICKAs surely as my soul intends to live

155

With that dread[155] king that took our state upon him

To free us from his father’s wrathful curse,

I do believe that violent hands were laid

Upon the life of this thrice-famèd[158] duke.

SUFFOLKA dreadful oath, sworn with a solemn tongue:

160

What instance[160] gives Lord Warwick for his vow?

WARWICKSee how the blood is settled[161] in his face.

Oft have I seen a timely-parted ghost,[162]

Of ashy semblance, meagre,[163] pale and bloodless,

Being[164] all descended to the labouring heart,

165

Who in the conflict that it holds with death,

Attracts the same for aidance[166] gainst the enemy,

Which[167] with the heart there cools, and ne’er returneth

To blush and beautify the cheek again.

But see, his face is black and full of blood:

170

His eyeballs further out than when he lived,

Staring full ghastly like a strangled man:

His hair upreared,[172] his nostrils stretched with struggling:

His hands abroad displayed,[173] as one that grasped

And tugged for life and was by strength subdued.

175

Look, on the sheets his hair, you see, is sticking.

His well-proportioned[176] beard, made rough and rugged,

Like to the summer’s corn by tempest lodged:[177]

It cannot be but he was murdered here:

The least of all these signs were probable.[179]

180

SUFFOLKWhy, Warwick, who should do the duke to death?

Myself and Beaufort had him in protection,

And we, I hope, sir, are no murderers.

WARWICKBut both of you were vowed Duke Humphrey’s foes,

And you, forsooth, had the good duke to keep:[184]

185

’Tis like[185] you would not feast him like a friend,

And ’tis well seen[186] he found an enemy.

QUEEN MARGARETThen you, belike,[187] suspect these noblemen

As guilty of Duke Humphrey’s timeless[188] death.

WARWICKWho finds the heifer dead and bleeding fresh,

190

And sees fast by a butcher with an axe,

But will suspect ’twas he that made the slaughter?

Who finds the partridge in the puttock’s[192] nest,

But may imagine how the bird was dead,

Although the kite soar with unbloodied beak?

195

Even so suspicious is this tragedy.

QUEEN MARGARETAre you the butcher, Suffolk? Where’s your knife?

Is Beaufort termed a kite? Where are his talons?

SUFFOLKI wear no knife to slaughter sleeping men:

But here’s a vengeful sword, rusted with ease,[199]

200

That shall be scoured[200] in his rancorous heart

That slanders me with murder’s crimson badge.[201]

Say, if thou dar’st, proud Lord of Warwickshire,

That I am faulty[203] in Duke Humphrey’s death.

[Exeunt Cardinal and Somerset]

WARWICKWhat dares not Warwick, if false Suffolk dare him?

205

QUEEN MARGARETHe dares not calm his contumelious[205] spirit,

Nor cease to be an arrogant controller,[206]

Though Suffolk dare him twenty thousand times.

WARWICKMadam, be still: with reverence may I say,

For every word you speak in his behalf

210

Is slander to your royal dignity.

SUFFOLKBlunt-witted lord, ignoble in demeanour,

If ever lady wronged her lord so much,

Thy mother took into her blameful bed

Some stern untutored churl:[214] and noble stock

215

Was graft[215] with crab-tree slip, whose fruit thou art,

And never of the Nevilles’ noble race.

WARWICKBut that the guilt of murder bucklers[217] thee,

And[218] I should rob the deathsman of his fee,

Quitting[219] thee thereby of ten thousand shames,

220

And that my sovereign’s presence makes[220] me mild,

I would, false murd’rous coward, on thy knee

Make thee beg pardon for thy passèd[222] speech,

And say it was thy mother that thou meant’st,

That thou thyself was born in bastardy:

225

And after all this fearful[225] homage done,

Give thee thy hire[226] and send thy soul to hell,

Pernicious[227] bloodsucker of sleeping men!

SUFFOLKThou shalt be waking while I shed thy blood,

If from this presence[229] thou dar’st go with me.

230

WARWICKAway even now, or I will drag thee hence:

Unworthy though thou art, I’ll cope[231] with thee,

And do some service to Duke Humphrey’s ghost.

Exeunt [Suffolk and Warwick]

KING HENRY VIWhat stronger breastplate than a heart untainted?

Thrice is he armed that hath his quarrel just:[234]

235

And he but naked, though locked up in steel,[235]

Whose conscience with injustice is corrupted.

A noise within

QUEEN MARGARETWhat noise is this?

Enter Suffolk and Warwick, with their weapons drawn

KING HENRY VIWhy, how now, lords? Your wrathful weapons[238] drawn

Here in our presence? Dare you be so bold?

240

Why, what tumultuous clamour have we here?

SUFFOLKThe trait’rous Warwick with the men of Bury

Set all upon me, mighty sovereign.

Enter Salisbury [from the Commons, within]

SALISBURYSirs, stand apart: the king shall know your mind.— To the Commons

Dread lord, the commons send you word by me, To King Henry

245

Unless Lord Suffolk straight be done to death,

Or banishèd fair England’s territories,

They will by violence tear him from your palace,

And torture him with grievous ling’ring death.

They say, by him the good Duke Humphrey died:

250

They say, in him they fear your highness’ death:

And mere[251] instinct of love and loyalty,

Free from a stubborn opposite[252] intent,

As[253] being thought to contradict your liking,

Makes them thus forward in[254] his banishment.

255

They say, in care of your most royal person,

That if your highness should intend to sleep

And charge[257] that no man should disturb your rest

In[258] pain of your dislike, or pain of death,

Yet, notwithstanding such a strait[259] edict,

260

Were there a serpent seen, with forkèd tongue,

That slyly glided towards your majesty,

It were but necessary you were waked:

Lest, being suffered[263] in that harmful slumber,

The mortal worm[264] might make the sleep eternal.

265

And therefore do they cry, though you forbid,

That they will guard you, whe’er[266] you will or no,

From such fell[267] serpents as false Suffolk is,

With whose envenomèd and fatal sting,

Your loving uncle, twenty times his worth,

270

They say, is shamefully bereft of life.

COMMONSAn answer from the king, my lord of Salisbury!

Within

SUFFOLK’Tis like[272] the commons, rude unpolished hinds,

Could send such message to their sovereign:

But you, my lord, were glad to be employed,

275

To show how quaint[275] an orator you are.

But all the honour Salisbury hath won

Is that he was the Lord Ambassador

Sent from a sort[278] of tinkers to the king.

COMMONSAn answer from the king, or we will all break in.

Within

280

KING HENRY VIGo, Salisbury, and tell them all from me

I thank them for their tender loving care:

And had I not been cited[282] so by them,

Yet did I purpose[283] as they do entreat:

For sure, my thoughts do hourly prophesy

285

Mischance[285] unto my state by Suffolk’s means.

And therefore by his[286] majesty I swear,

Whose far unworthy deputy I am,

He shall not breathe infection in[288] this air

But[289] three days longer, on the pain of death.

[Exit Salisbury]

290

QUEEN MARGARETO Henry, let me plead for gentle[290] Suffolk.

KING HENRY VIUngentle[291] queen, to call him gentle Suffolk.

No more, I say: if thou dost plead for him,

Thou wilt but add increase unto my wrath.

Had I but said, I would have kept my word:

295

But when I swear, it is irrevocable:

If after three days’ space thou here be’st[296] found

On any ground that I am ruler of,

The world shall not be ransom for thy life.

Come, Warwick, come, good Warwick, go with me:

300

I have great matters to impart to thee.

Exeunt [all but Queen Margaret and Suffolk]

QUEEN MARGARETMischance and sorrow go along with you!

Heart’s discontent and sour affliction

Be playfellows to keep you company!

There’s two of you, the devil make a third,

305

And threefold vengeance tend[305] upon your steps.

SUFFOLKCease, gentle queen, these execrations,[306]

And let thy Suffolk take his heavy[307] leave.

QUEEN MARGARETFie, coward woman and soft-hearted wretch!

Hast thou not spirit to curse thine enemies?

310

SUFFOLKA plague upon them! Wherefore should I curse them?

Could curses kill, as doth the mandrake’s[311] groan,

I would invent as bitter-searching[312] terms,

As curst, as harsh and horrible to hear,

Delivered strongly through my fixèd[314] teeth,

315

With full as many signs of deadly hate,

As lean-faced envy in her loathsome cave.

My tongue should stumble in mine earnest words:

Mine eyes should sparkle like the beaten flint:[318]

Mine hair be fixed on end,[319] as one distract:

320

Ay, every joint should seem to curse and ban,[320]

And even now my burdened heart would break

Should I not curse them. Poison be their drink!

Gall,[323] worse than gall, the daintiest that they taste:

Their sweetest shade, a grove of cypress trees:[324]

325

Their chiefest prospect,[325] murd’ring basilisks:

Their softest touch, as smart[326] as lizards’ stings:

Their music, frightful as the serpent’s hiss,

And boding[328] screech-owls make the consort full!

All the foul terrors in dark-seated hell—

330

QUEEN MARGARETEnough, sweet Suffolk, thou torment’st thyself,

And these dread curses, like the sun gainst glass,

Or like an overchargèd[332] gun, recoil,

And turn the force of them upon thyself.

SUFFOLKYou bade me ban, and will you bid me leave?[334]

335

Now by the ground that I am banished from,

Well could I curse away a winter’s night,

Though standing naked on a mountain top,

Where biting cold would never let grass grow,

And think it but a minute spent in sport.[339]

340

QUEEN MARGARETO, let me entreat thee cease: give me thy hand,

That I may dew it with my mournful tears:

Nor let the rain of heaven wet this place,

To wash away my woeful monuments.[343] She kisses his hand

O, could this kiss be printed in thy hand,

345

That thou mightst think upon these[345] by the seal,

Through whom a thousand sighs are breathed for thee.

So get thee gone, that I may know[347] my grief:

’Tis but surmised[348] whiles thou art standing by,

As one that surfeits[349] thinking on a want:

350

I will repeal[350] thee, or, be well assured,

Adventure[351] to be banishèd myself:

And banishèd I am, if but from thee.

Go, speak not to me: even now be gone.

O, go not yet. Even thus two friends[354] condemned

355

Embrace, and kiss, and take ten thousand leaves,

Loather[356] a hundred times to part than die:

Yet now farewell, and farewell life with thee.

SUFFOLKThus is poor Suffolk ten times banishèd:

Once by the king, and three times thrice by thee.

360

’Tis not the land I care for, wert thou thence:[360]

A wilderness is populous enough,

So[362] Suffolk had thy heavenly company:

For where thou art, there is the world itself,

With every several[364] pleasure in the world:

365

And where thou art not, desolation.

I can no more: live thou to joy[366] thy life:

Myself no joy in naught but that thou liv’st.

Enter Vaux

QUEEN MARGARETWhither goes Vaux so fast? What news, I prithee?

VAUXTo signify unto his majesty

370

That Cardinal Beaufort is at point of death:

For suddenly a grievous sickness took him,

That makes him gasp, and stare, and catch the[372] air,

Blaspheming God and cursing men on earth.

Sometimes he talks as if Duke Humphrey’s ghost

375

Were by his side: sometime he calls the king,

And whispers to his pillow, as[376] to him,

The secrets of his overchargèd[377] soul;

And I am sent to tell his majesty

That even now he cries aloud for him.

380

QUEEN MARGARETGo tell this heavy[380] message to the king.

Exit [Vaux]

Ay me! What is this world? What news are these?

But wherefore grieve I at an[382] hour’s poor loss,

Omitting[383] Suffolk’s exile, my soul’s treasure?

Why only, Suffolk, mourn I not for thee,

385

And with the southern clouds[385] contend in tears?

Theirs for the earth’s increase, mine for my sorrows.

Now get thee hence: the king, thou know’st, is coming:

If thou be found by[388] me, thou art but dead.

SUFFOLKIf I depart from thee, I cannot live:

390

And in thy sight to die,[390] what were it else

But like a pleasant slumber in thy lap?[391]

Here could I breathe[392] my soul into the air,

As mild and gentle as the cradle-babe

Dying with mother’s dug[394] between its lips.

395

Where,[395] from thy sight, I should be raging mad,

And cry out for thee to close up mine eyes,

To have thee with thy lips to stop my mouth,

So shouldst thou either turn[398] my flying soul, He kisses her

Or I should breathe it so into thy body,

400

And then it lived[400] in sweet Elysium.

To die by thee were but[401] to die in jest:

From thee to die were torture more than death:

O let me stay, befall what may befall!

QUEEN MARGARETAway: though parting be a fretful[404] corrosive,

405

It is applièd to a deathful[405] wound.

To France, sweet Suffolk: let me hear from thee:

For wheresoe’er thou art in this world’s globe,

I’ll have an Iris[408] that shall find thee out.

SUFFOLK I go.

410

QUEEN MARGARETAnd take my heart with thee. She kisses him

SUFFOLKA jewel, locked into the woefull’st cask[411]

That ever did contain a thing of worth:

Even as a splitted bark,[413] so sunder we:

This way fall I to death.

415

QUEEN MARGARETThis way for me.

Exeunt [severally[415]]

[Act 3 Scene 3]3.3

running scene 11

Enter the King [Henry VI], Salisbury and Warwick, to the Cardinal in bed

KING HENRY VIHow fares my lord? Speak, Beaufort, to thy sovereign.

CARDINALIf thou be’st death, I’ll give thee England’s treasure,

Enough to purchase such another island,

So[4] thou wilt let me live, and feel no pain.

5

KING HENRY VIAh, what a sign it is of evil life,

Where death’s approach is seen[6] so terrible.

WARWICKBeaufort, it is thy sovereign speaks to thee.

CARDINALBring me unto my trial when you will.

Died he[9] not in his bed? Where should he die?

10

Can I make men live, whe’er they will or no?

O torture me no more, I will confess.

Alive again? Then show me where he is:

I’ll give a thousand pound to look upon him.

He hath no eyes, the dust[14] hath blinded them.

15

Comb down his hair: look, look, it stands upright,

Like lime-twigs[16] set to catch my wingèd soul:

Give me some drink, and bid the apothecary

Bring the strong poison that I bought of[18] him.

KING HENRY VIO, thou eternal mover of the heavens,

20

Look with a gentle eye upon this wretch:

O beat away the busy meddling fiend[21]

That lays strong siege unto this wretch’s soul,

And from his bosom purge this black despair.

WARWICKSee how the pangs of death do make him grin.[24]

25

SALISBURYDisturb him not: let him pass peaceably.

KING HENRY VIPeace to his soul, if God’s good pleasure be.

Lord Card’nal, if thou think’st on heaven’s bliss,

Hold up thy hand, make signal of thy hope. Cardinal dies

He dies and makes no sign: O God, forgive him.

30

WARWICKSo bad a death argues[30] a monstrous life.

KING HENRY VIForbear to judge, for we are sinners all.

Close up his eyes and draw the curtain close,[32]

And let us all to meditation.[33]

Exeunt

[Act 4 Scene 1]4.1

running scene 12

Alarum. Fight at sea. Ordnance goes off. Enter [a] Lieutenant, [a Master, a Master’s Mate, Walter Whitmore; with] Suffolk [disguised and two Gentlemen as their prisoners] and others

LIEUTENANTThe gaudy,[1] blabbing and remorseful day

Is crept into the bosom of the sea:

And now loud-howling wolves arouse[3] the jades

That drag the tragic melancholy night:

5

Who, with their drowsy, slow and flagging[5] wings

Clip[6] dead men’s graves, and from their misty jaws

Breathe foul contagious darkness in the air:

Therefore bring forth the soldiers of our prize,[8]

For whilst our pinnace[9] anchors in the Downs,

10

Here shall they make their ransom on the sand,

Or with their blood stain this discoloured[11] shore.

Master, this prisoner freely give I thee, Pointing to First Gentleman

And thou that art his mate, make boot[13] of this: Pointing to Second Gentleman

The other, Walter Whitmore, is thy share. Pointing to Suffolk

15

FIRST GENTLEMANWhat is my ransom, master, let me know? To the Master

MASTERA thousand crowns, or else lay down your head.

MATEAnd so much shall you give, or off goes yours. To Second Gentleman

LIEUTENANTWhat, think you much[18] to pay two thousand crowns, To both Gentlemen

And bear the name and port[19] of gentlemen?

20

WHITMORECut both the villains’ throats, for die you shall:

The lives of those which we have lost in fight

Be counterpoised[22] with such a petty sum.

FIRST GENTLEMANI’ll give it, sir, and therefore spare my life. To the Master

SECOND GENTLEMANAnd so will I, and write home for it straight. To the Mate

25

WHITMOREI lost mine eye in laying[25] the prize aboard, To Suffolk

And therefore to revenge it, shalt thou die,

And so should these, if I might have my will.

LIEUTENANTBe not so rash: take ransom: let him live.

SUFFOLKLook on my George:[29] I am a gentleman:

30

Rate[30] me at what thou wilt, thou shalt be paid.

WHITMOREAnd so am I: my name is Walter[31] Whitmore.

How now? Why starts thou? What, doth death affright?[32]

SUFFOLKThy name affrights me, in whose sound is death:

A cunning man[34] did calculate my birth

35

And told me that by water I should die:

Yet let not this make thee be bloody-minded:[36]

Thy name is Gualtier, being rightly sounded.[37]

WHITMOREGualtier or Walter, which it is, I care not:

Never yet did base dishonour blur our name,

40

But with our sword we wiped away the blot.

Therefore, when merchant-like I sell revenge,[41]

Broke be my sword, my arms[42] torn and defaced,

And I proclaimed a coward through the world.

SUFFOLKStay, Whitmore, for thy prisoner is a prince,

45

The Duke of Suffolk, William de la Pole.

WHITMOREThe Duke of Suffolk muffled up in rags?

SUFFOLKAy, but these rags are no part of the duke:

Jove[48] sometimes went disguised, and why not I?

LIEUTENANTBut Jove was never slain as thou shalt be,

50

Obscure[50] and lousy swain, King Henry’s blood!

SUFFOLKThe honourable blood of Lancaster

Must not be shed by such a jaded[52] groom:

Hast thou not kissed thy hand[53] and held my stirrup?

Bare-headed[54] plodded by my foot-cloth mule

55

And thought thee happy[55] when I shook my head?

How often hast thou waited[56] at my cup,

Fed[57] from my trencher, kneeled down at the board,

When I have feasted with Queen Margaret?

Remember it, and let it make thee crest-fall’n,[59]

60

Ay, and allay this thy abortive pride:

How in our voiding lobby[61] hast thou stood

And duly waited for my coming forth?

This hand of mine hath writ in thy behalf,

And therefore shall it charm[64] thy riotous tongue.

65

WHITMORESpeak, captain, shall I stab the forlorn swain?[65]

LIEUTENANTFirst let my words stab him, as he hath me.

SUFFOLKBase slave, thy words are blunt[67] and so art thou.

LIEUTENANTConvey him hence and on our longboat’s[68] side

Strike off his head.

70

SUFFOLKThou dar’st not for thy own.[70]

LIEUTENANTPole—

SUFFOLKPole?[72]

LIEUTENANTAy, kennel,[73] puddle, sink, whose filth and dirt

Troubles[74] the silver spring where England drinks:

75

Now will I dam up this thy yawning[75] mouth

For swallowing the treasure of the realm.

Thy lips that kissed the queen shall sweep the ground:[77]

And thou that smiled’st at good Duke Humphrey’s death,

Against[79] the senseless winds shalt grin in vain,

80

Who[80] in contempt shall hiss at thee again.

And wedded be thou to the hags of hell,[81]

For daring to affy[82] a mighty lord

Unto the daughter of a worthless king,

Having neither subject,[84] wealth, nor diadem:

85

By devilish policy[85] art thou grown great,

And like ambitious Sylla,[86] overgorged

With gobbets[87] of thy mother’s bleeding heart.

By thee Anjou and Maine were sold to France,

The false revolting[89] Normans thorough thee

90

Disdain to call us lord, and Picardy[90]

Hath slain their governors, surprised[91] our forts,

And sent the ragged soldiers wounded home.

The princely Warwick, and the Nevilles all,

Whose dreadful swords were never drawn in vain,

95

As hating[95] thee, are rising up in arms:

And now the House of York, thrust from the crown

By shameful murder[97] of a guiltless king

And lofty proud encroaching[98] tyranny,

Burns with revenging fire, whose[99] hopeful colours

100

Advance[100] our half-faced sun, striving to shine,

Under the which is writ ‘Invitis nubibus’.[101]

The commons[102] here in Kent are up in arms,

And, to conclude, reproach and beggary

Is crept into the palace of our king,

105

And all by thee.— Away, convey him hence.

SUFFOLKO, that I were a god,[106] to shoot forth thunder

Upon these paltry, servile, abject drudges:[107]

Small things make base men proud. This villain here,

Being captain of a pinnace,[109] threatens more

110

Than Bargulus[110] the strong Illyrian pirate.

Drones[111] suck not eagles’ blood, but rob beehives:

It is impossible that I should die

By such a lowly vassal[113] as thyself.

Thy words move rage and not remorse in me:

115

I go of[115] message from the queen to France:

I charge thee waft[116] me safely cross the Channel.

LIEUTENANTWalter—

WHITMORECome, Suffolk, I must waft thee to thy death.

SUFFOLKPaene[119] gelidus timor occupat artus: it is thee I fear.

120

WHITMOREThou shalt have cause to fear before I leave thee.

What, are ye daunted now? Now will ye stoop?

FIRST GENTLEMANMy gracious lord, entreat him, speak him fair.[122]

SUFFOLKSuffolk’s imperial[123] tongue is stern and rough:

Used to command, untaught to plead for favour.

125

Far be it we[125] should honour such as these

With humble suit:[126] no, rather let my head

Stoop to the block than these knees bow to any,

Save to the God of heaven and to my king:

And sooner dance upon a bloody pole[129]

130

Than stand uncovered[130] to the vulgar groom.

True nobility is exempt from fear:

More can I bear than you dare execute.

LIEUTENANTHale[133] him away, and let him talk no more.

SUFFOLKCome, soldiers, show what cruelty ye can,

135

That this my death may never be forgot.

Great men oft die by vile[136] Besonians:

A Roman sworder[137] and banditto slave

Murdered sweet[138] Tully: Brutus’ bastard hand

Stabbed Julius Caesar: savage islanders

140

Pompey the Great:[140] and Suffolk dies by pirates.

Exit Walter [Whitmore] with Suffolk

LIEUTENANTAnd as for these whose ransom we have set,

It is our pleasure one of them depart:

Therefore come you with us and let him go.

Exit Lieutenant, and the rest [leaving]the First Gentleman

Enter Whitmore with the body [of Suffolk]

WHITMOREThere let his head and lifeless body lie,

145

Until the queen his mistress[145] bury it.

Exit

FIRST GENTLEMANO, barbarous and bloody spectacle!

His body will I bear unto the king:

If he revenge it not, yet will his friends:

So will the queen, that living held him dear.

[Exit with the body]

[Act 4 Scene 2]4.2

running scene 13

Enter [George] Bevis and John Holland [with long staves]

BEVIS Come and get thee a sword, though made of a lath:[1] they have been up these two days.

HOLLANDThey have the more need to sleep now then.

BEVISI tell thee, Jack Cade the clothier[4] means to dress the commonwealth, and turn it,[5] and set a new nap upon it.

HOLLANDSo he had need, for ’tis threadbare. Well, I say it was never merry world[6] in England since gentlemen came up.[7]

BEVISO miserable age: virtue is not regarded[8] in handicraftsmen.

HOLLANDThe nobility think scorn[9] to go in leather aprons.

BEVISNay more, the King’s Council are no good workmen.

HOLLANDTrue: and yet it is said, ‘Labour[11] in thy vocation’: which is as much to say as, ‘Let the magistrates be labouring[12] men’, and therefore should we be magistrates.

BEVISThou hast hit it:[14] for there’s no better sign of a brave mind than a hard hand.

HOLLANDI see them! I see them! There’s Best’s[16] son, the tanner of Wingham.

BEVISHe shall have the skins of our enemies to make dog’s[17] leather of.

HOLLANDAnd Dick the Butcher.

BEVISThen is sin struck down like an ox, and iniquity’s throat cut like a calf.

HOLLANDAnd Smith the weaver.

BEVIS Argo,[21] their thread of life is spun.

HOLLANDCome, come, let’s fall in[22] with them.

Drum. Enter Cade, Dick [the] Butcher, Smith the Weaver, and a Sawyer, with infinite numbers [with long staves]

CADEWe,[23] John Cade, so termed of our supposed father—

DICKOr rather of[24] stealing a cade of herrings. Aside

CADEFor our enemies shall fail[25] before us, inspired with the spirit of putting down kings and princes.— Command silence.

DICKSilence!

CADEMy father was a Mortimer—

DICK Aside He was an honest man, and a good bricklayer.[29]

CADEMy mother a Plantagenet—

DICK Aside I knew her well, she was a midwife.

CADEMy wife descended of the Lacys[32]—

DICK Aside She was indeed a pedlar’s daughter, and sold many laces.[33]

SMITH Aside But now of late, not able to travel[34] with her furred pack, she washes bucks here at home.

CADETherefore am I of an honourable house.

DICK Aside Ay, by my faith, the field[37] is honourable, and there was he born, under a hedge: for his father had never a house but the cage.[38]

CADEValiant I am—

SMITH Aside A must needs,[40] for beggary is valiant.

CADEI am able to endure much—

DICKNo question of that: Aside for I have seen him whipped[42] three market days together.

CADEI fear neither sword nor fire—

SMITH Aside He need not fear the sword, for his coat is of proof.[45]

DICK Aside But methinks he should stand[46] in fear of fire, being burnt i’th’hand for stealing of sheep.

CADEBe brave, then, for your captain is brave, and vows reformation. There shall be in England seven halfpenny loaves sold for a penny: the[49] three-hooped pot shall have ten hoops, and I will make it felony to drink small[50] beer. All the realm shall be in common, and in Cheapside[51] shall my palfrey go to grass: and when I am king, as king I will be—

ALLGod save your majesty!

CADEI thank you, good people. There shall be no money: all shall eat and drink on my score,[55] and I will apparel them all in one livery, that they may agree like brothers, and worship me their lord.

DICKThe first thing we do, let’s kill all the lawyers.

CADENay, that I mean to do. Is not this a lamentable thing, that of the skin of an innocent lamb should be made parchment? That parchment, being scribbled o’er, should undo a man? Some say the bee stings, but I say, ’tis the bee’s wax:[60] for I did but seal[61] once to a thing, and I was never mine own man since. How now? Who’s there?

Enter [some, bringing forward] a Clerk [of Chartham]

SMITHThe Clerk of Chartham: he can write and read and cast account.[63]

CADEO, monstrous.[64]

SMITHWe took[65] him setting of boys’ copies.

CADEHere’s a villain!

SMITHH’as a book in his pocket with red letters[67] in’t.

CADENay, then he is a conjurer.[68]

DICKNay, he can make obligations,[69] and write court hand.

CADEI am sorry for’t: the man is a proper[70] man, of mine honour: unless I find him guilty, he shall not die. Come hither, sirrah, I must examine thee: what is thy name?

CLERKEmmanuel.[73]

DICKThey use to write it on the top of letters: ’twill go hard with[74] you.

CADELet me alone.— To the Clerk Dost[75] thou use to write thy name? Or hast thou a mark to thyself, like an honest plain-dealing[76] man?

CLERKSir, I thank God, I have been so well brought up that I can write my name.

ALLHe hath confessed: away with him: he’s a villain and a traitor.

CADEAway with him, I say: hang him with his pen and inkhorn[79] about his neck.

Exit one with the Clerk

Enter Michael

MICHAELWhere’s our general?

CADEHere I am, thou particular[81] fellow.

MICHAELFly, fly, fly! Sir Humphrey Stafford and his brother are hard[82] by, with the king’s forces.

CADEStand, villain, stand, or I’ll fell thee down: he shall be encountered[84] with a man as good as himself. He is but a knight, is a[85]?

MICHAELNo.[86]

CADETo equal him I will make myself a knight presently.[87] Kneels

Rise up Sir John Mortimer. Rises

Now have at him!

Enter Sir Humphrey Stafford and his brother, with Drum, [Herald] and Soldiers

90

STAFFORDRebellious hinds,[90] the filth and scum of Kent,

Marked for the gallows: lay your weapons down:

Home to your cottages: forsake this groom.[92]

The king is merciful, if you revolt.[93]

STAFFORD’S BROTHERBut angry, wrathful, and inclined to blood,

95

If you go forward: therefore yield, or die.

CADEAs for these silken-coated slaves, I pass[96] not:

It is to you, good people, that I speak,

Over whom, in time to come, I hope to reign:

For I am rightful heir unto the crown.

100

STAFFORDVillain, thy father was a plasterer,

And thou thyself a shearman,[101] art thou not?

CADEAnd Adam[102] was a gardener.

STAFFORD’S BROTHERAnd what of that?

CADEMarry, this: Edmund Mortimer, Earl of March, married the Duke of Clarence’ daughter, did he not?

STAFFORDAy, sir.

CADEBy her he had two[107] children at one birth.

STAFFORD’S BROTHERThat’s false.

CADEAy, there’s the question:[109] but I say ’tis true:

110

The elder of them, being put to nurse,[110]

Was by a beggar-woman stol’n away,

And, ignorant of his birth and parentage,

Became a bricklayer when he came to age.

His son am I: deny it if you can.

115

DICKNay, ’tis too true: therefore he shall be king.

SMITHSir, he made a chimney in my father’s house, and the bricks are alive[116] at this day to testify it: therefore deny it not.

STAFFORDAnd will you credit this base drudge’s words,

That speaks he knows not what?

120

ALLAy, marry, will we: therefore get ye gone.

STAFFORD’S BROTHERJack Cade, the Duke of York hath taught you this.

CADEHe lies, for I invented it myself.— Aside

Aloud Go to,[123] sirrah, tell the king from me, that for his father’s sake, Henry the Fifth, in whose time boys went to span-counter[124] for French crowns, I am content he shall reign: but I’ll be Protector[125] over him.

DICKAnd furthermore, we’ll have the lord Saye’s head for selling the dukedom of Maine.

CADEAnd good reason: for thereby is England mained,[128] and fain to go with a staff, but that my puissance[129] holds it up. Fellow kings, I tell you that that Lord Saye hath gelded[130] the commonwealth, and made it an eunuch: and more than that, he can speak French, and therefore he is a traitor.

STAFFORDO gross and miserable[132] ignorance!

CADENay, answer if you can: the Frenchmen are our enemies: go to, then, I ask but this: can he that speaks with the tongue[134] of an enemy be a good counsellor, or no?

ALLNo, no, and therefore we’ll have his head.

STAFFORD’S BROTHERWell, seeing gentle[137] words will not prevail,

Assail them with the army of the king.

STAFFORDHerald, away, and throughout every town

140

Proclaim them traitors that are up[140] with Cade,

That[141] those which fly before the battle ends

May, even in their wives’ and children’s sight,

Be hanged up for[143] example at their doors:

And you that be the king’s friends, follow me.

Exeunt [Stafford, Stafford’s brother and Soldiers]

145

CADEAnd you that love the commons, follow me:

Now show yourselves men, ’tis for liberty.

We will not leave one lord, one gentleman:

Spare none but such as go in clouted shoon,[148]

For they are thrifty[149] honest men, and such

150

As would, but that they dare not, take our parts.

DICKThey are all in order[151] and march toward us.

CADEBut then are we in order when we are most out of order.[152] Come, march forward.

[Exeunt]

[Act 4 Scene 3]

running scene 13 continues

Alarums to the fight, wherein both the Staffords [Stafford and Stafford’s brother] are slain. Enter Cade and the rest

CADEWhere’s Dick, the butcher of Ashford?

DICKHere, sir.

CADEThey fell before thee like sheep and oxen, and thou behaved’st thyself as if thou hadst been in thine own slaughter-house: therefore thus will I reward thee: the Lent[5] shall be as long again as it is, and thou shalt have a licence to kill for a hundred lacking one.

DICKI desire no more.

CADEAnd, to speak truth, thou deserv’st no less. This monument[8] of the victory will I bear, Putting on Stafford’s brigandine[9] and the bodies shall be dragged at my horse heels till I do come to London, where we will have the Mayor’s sword borne before us.

DICKIf we mean to thrive and do good, break open the jails and let out the prisoners.

CADEFear[13] not that, I warrant thee. Come, let’s march towards London.

Exeunt

[Act 4 Scene 4]4.4

running scene 14

Enter the King [Henry VI] with a supplication, and the Queen [Margaret] with Suffolk’s head, the Duke of Buckingham and the Lord Saye

QUEEN MARGARETOft have I heard that grief softens the mind, Aside

And makes it fearful and degenerate:

Think therefore on revenge and cease to weep.

But who can cease to weep and look on this?

5

Here may his head lie on my throbbing breast:

But where’s the body that I should embrace?

BUCKINGHAMWhat answer makes your grace to the rebels’ supplication? To the King

KING HENRY VII’ll send some holy bishop to entreat:

For God forbid so many simple souls

10

Should perish by the sword. And I myself,

Rather than bloody war shall cut them short,

Will parley[12] with Jack Cade their general.

But stay, I’ll read it over once again.

QUEEN MARGARETAh, barbarous villains! Hath this lovely face Aside to Suffolk’s head

15

Ruled like a wandering[15] planet over me,

And could it not enforce them to relent,

That[17] were unworthy to behold the same?

KING HENRY VILord Saye, Jack Cade hath sworn to have thy head.

SAYE Ay, but I hope your highness shall have his.

20

KING HENRY VIHow now, madam?

Still lamenting and mourning for Suffolk’s death?

I fear me, love, if that I had been dead,

Thou wouldst not have mourned so much for me.

QUEEN MARGARETNo, my love, I should not mourn, but die for thee.

Enter a Messenger

25

KING HENRY VIHow now? What news? Why com’st thou in such haste?

MESSENGERThe rebels are in Southwark:[26] fly, my lord!

Jack Cade proclaims himself Lord Mortimer,

Descended from the Duke of Clarence’ house,

And calls your grace usurper, openly,

30

And vows to crown himself in Westminster.

His army is a ragged multitude

Of hinds and peasants, rude and merciless:

Sir Humphrey Stafford and his brother’s death

Hath given them heart and courage to proceed:

35

All scholars, lawyers, courtiers, gentlemen,

They call false caterpillars,[36] and intend their death.

KING HENRY VIO, graceless[37] men: they know not what they do.

BUCKINGHAMMy gracious lord, retire to Killingworth,[38]

Until a power[39] be raised to put them down.

40

QUEEN MARGARETAh, were the Duke of Suffolk now alive,

These Kentish rebels would be soon appeased.[41]

KING HENRY VILord Saye, the traitors hateth thee,

Therefore away with us to Killingworth.

SAYESo[44] might your grace’s person be in danger.

45

The sight of me is odious in their eyes:

And therefore in this city will I stay

And live alone as secret as I may.

Enter another Messenger

SECOND MESSENGERJack Cade hath gotten London Bridge.

The citizens fly and forsake their houses:

50

The rascal people,[50] thirsting after prey,

Join with the traitor, and they jointly swear

To spoil[52] the city and your royal court.

BUCKINGHAMThen linger not, my lord, away, take horse.

KING HENRY VICome, Margaret: God, our hope, will succour us.

55

QUEEN MARGARETMy hope is gone now Suffolk is deceased. Aside

KING HENRY VIFarewell, my lord: trust not the Kentish rebels. To Saye

BUCKINGHAMTrust nobody, for fear you be betrayed.

SAYEThe trust I have is in mine innocence,

And therefore am I bold and resolute.

Exeunt

[Act 4 Scene 5]4.5

running scene 15

Enter Lord Scales upon the Tower walking. Then enters two or three Citizens below

SCALESHow now? Is Jack Cade slain?

FIRST CITIZENNo, my lord, nor likely to be slain: for they have won the bridge,[2] killing all those that withstand them: the Lord Mayor craves[3] aid of your honour from the Tower to defend the city from the rebels.

5

SCALESSuch aid as I can spare you shall command,

But I am troubled here with them myself:

The rebels have assayed to win the Tower.

But get you to Smithfield, and gather head,[8]

And thither I will send you Matthew Gough.[9]

10

Fight for your king, your country, and your lives:

And so, farewell, for I must hence again.

Exeunt

[Act 4 Scene 6]*

running scene 16

Enter Jack Cade and the rest, and strikes his staff on London Stone

CADENow is Mortimer lord of this city, and here sitting upon London Stone, I charge and command that, of[2] the city’s cost, the Pissing Conduit run nothing but claret wine this first year of our reign. And now henceforward it shall be treason for any that calls me other than Lord Mortimer.

Enter a Soldier running

SOLDIERJack Cade! Jack Cade!

CADEKnock him down there. They kill him

SMITHIf this fellow be wise, he’ll never call ye Jack Cade more: I think he hath a very fair warning.

DICKMy lord, there’s an army gathered together in Smithfield.

CADECome then, let’s go fight with them: but first, go and set London Bridge on fire, and, if you can, burn down the Tower too. Come, let’s away.

Exeunt all

[Act 4 Scene 7]4.7

running scene 17

Alarums. Matthew Gough is slain, and all the rest [of his followers with him]. Then enter Jack Cade, with his company [including Dick, Smith and Holland]

CADESo, sirs: now go some and pull down the Savoy:[1] others to the Inns of Court: down with them all.

DICKI have a suit unto your lordship.

CADEBe it a lordship,[4] thou shalt have it for that word.

DICKOnly that the laws of England may come out of your mouth.

HOLLANDMass, ’twill be sore law, then; Aside for he was thrust in the mouth with a spear, and ’tis not whole[7] yet.

SMITH Aside Nay, John, it will be stinking law, for his breath stinks with eating toasted cheese.

CADEI have thought upon it: it shall be so. Away, burn all the records of the realm: my mouth shall be the Parliament of England.

HOLLAND Aside Then we are like to have biting[12] statutes, unless his teeth be pulled out.

CADEAnd henceforward all things shall be in common.

Enter a Messenger

MESSENGERMy lord, a prize, a prize! Here’s the Lord Saye which sold the towns[14] in France. He that made us pay[15] one and twenty fifteens, and one shilling to the pound, the last subsidy.[16]

Enter George [Bevis], with the Lord Saye

CADEWell, he shall be beheaded for it ten times.— To Saye Ah, thou say,[17] thou serge, nay, thou buckram[18] lord! Now art thou within point-blank of our jurisdiction regal. What canst thou answer to my majesty for giving up of Normandy unto Mounsieur Basimecu,[20] the Dauphin of France? Be it known unto thee by these presence, even the presence of Lord Mortimer, that I am the besom[21] that must sweep the court clean of such filth as thou art: thou hast most traitorously corrupted the youth of the realm in erecting a grammar school: and whereas before, our forefathers had no other books but the score[24] and the tally, thou hast caused printing[25] to be used, and contrary to the king, his crown, and dignity, thou hast built a paper-mill. It will be proved to thy face that thou hast men about thee that usually[27] talk of a noun and a verb, and such abominable words as no Christian ear can endure to hear. Thou hast appointed justices of peace, to call poor men before them about matters they were not able to answer. Moreover, thou hast put them in prison, and because they could not read, thou hast hanged them, when, indeed, only[31] for that cause they have been most worthy to live. Thou dost ride on a foot-cloth,[32] dost thou not?

SAYE What of that?

CADEMarry,[34] thou ought’st not to let thy horse wear a cloak, when honester men than thou go in their hose and doublets.[35]

DICKAnd work in their shirt too, as myself, for example, that am a butcher.

SAYE You men of Kent—

DICKWhat say you of Kent?

SAYENothing but this: ’tis ‘bona[39] terra, mala gens’.

CADEAway with him, away with him! He speaks Latin.

SAYE Hear me but speak, and bear[41] me where you will:

Kent, in the commentaries Caesar writ,[42]

Is termed the civil’st place of this isle:

Sweet is the country, because full of riches:

45

The people liberal,[45] valiant, active, wealthy:

Which makes me hope you are not void of pity.

I sold not Maine, I lost not Normandy,

Yet to recover them would lose my life.

Justice with favour[49] have I always done:

50

Prayers and tears have moved me, gifts could never.

When have I aught[51] exacted at your hands,

Kent to maintain, the king, the realm and you?

Large gifts have I bestowed on learnèd clerks,[53]

Because my book[54] preferred me to the king.

55

And seeing ignorance is the curse of God,

Knowledge the wing wherewith we fly to heaven.

Unless you be possessed with devilish spirits,

You cannot but forbear[58] to murder me:

This tongue hath parleyed unto[59] foreign kings

60

For your behoof[60]—

CADETut, when struck’st thou one blow in the field?[61]

SAYE Great men have reaching[62] hands: oft have I struck

Those that I never saw and struck them dead.

BEVIS O monstrous coward! What, to come behind[64] folks?

65

SAYE These cheeks are pale for watching[65] for your good.

CADEGive him a box o’th’ear and that will make ’em red again.

SAYE Long sitting[67] to determine poor men’s causes

Hath made me full of sickness and diseases.

CADEYe shall have a hempen caudle,[69] then, and the help of hatchet.

DICKWhy dost thou quiver, man?

SAYE The palsy,[71] and not fear, provokes me.

CADENay, he nods at us, as who[72] should say, ‘I’ll be even with you.’ I’ll see if his head will stand steadier on a pole, or no: take him away, and behead him.

SAYETell me: wherein have I offended most?

75

Have I affected[75] wealth or honour? Speak.

Are my chests filled up with extorted gold?

Is my apparel sumptuous to behold?

Whom have I injured, that ye seek my death?

These hands are free from guiltless bloodshedding,[79]

80

This breast from harbouring foul deceitful thoughts.

O, let me live!

CADEI feel remorse[82] in myself with his words: Aside but I’ll bridle it: he shall die, an it be but for pleading so well for his life.— Aloud Away with him: he has a familiar[83] under his tongue: he speaks not a[84] God’s name. Go, take him away, I say, and strike off his head presently, and then break into his son-in-law’s house, Sir James Cromer, and strike off his head, and bring them both upon two poles hither.

ALLIt shall be done.

SAYE Ah, countrymen, if when you make your prayers,

God should be so obdurate[89] as yourselves,

90

How would it fare with your departed souls?

And therefore yet relent, and save my life.

CADEAway with him, and do as I command ye.

Exeunt one or two with the Lord Saye

The proudest peer in the realm shall not wear a head on his shoulders, unless he pay me tribute:[94] there shall not a maid be married, but she shall pay to me her maidenhead ere they have it: men shall hold[95] of me in capite. And we charge and command that their wives be as free[96] as heart can wish or tongue can tell.

DICKMy lord, when shall we go to Cheapside and take[97] up commodities upon our bills?

CADEMarry, presently.

ALLO, brave![100]

Enter one with the heads [of Saye and Cromer on poles]

CADEBut is not this braver? The heads are made to kiss Let them kiss one another, for they loved well when they were alive. Now part them again, lest they consult about the giving up of some more towns in France. Soldiers, defer the spoil[103] of the city until night: for with these borne before us, instead of maces,[104] will we ride through the streets, and at every corner have them kiss. Away!

Exeunt

[Act 4 Scene 8]4.8

running scene 17 continues

Alarum and retreat. Enter again Cade and all his rabblement

CADEUp Fish Street,[1] down St Magnus’ Corner, kill and knock down: throw them into Thames!

Sound a parley

What noise is this I hear? Dare any be so bold to sound retreat or parley, when I command them kill?

Enter Buckingham and old Clifford

5

BUCKINGHAMAy, here they be that dare and will disturb thee:

Know, Cade, we come ambassadors from the king

Unto the commons whom thou hast misled,

And here pronounce[8] free pardon to them all

That will forsake thee and go home in peace.

10

CLIFFORDWhat say ye, countrymen? Will ye relent

And yield to mercy whilst ’tis offered you,

Or let a rabble lead you to your deaths?

Who[13] loves the king and will embrace his pardon,

Fling up his cap, and say ‘God save his majesty!’

15

Who hateth him, and honours not his father,

Henry the Fifth, that made all France to quake,

Shake he[17] his weapon at us and pass by. The rebels fling up their

ALLGod save the king! God save the king! caps and forsake Cade

CADEWhat, Buckingham and Clifford, are ye so brave?[19]—

To the rabble And you, base peasants, do ye believe him? Will you needs be hanged with your pardons about your necks? Hath my sword therefore broke through London gates, that you should leave me at the White Hart[22] in Southwark? I thought ye would never have given out[23] these arms till you had recovered your ancient freedom. But you are all recreants[24] and dastards, and delight to live in slavery to the nobility. Let them break your backs with burdens, take your houses over your heads, ravish[26] your wives and daughters before your faces. For me, I will make shift for one, and so God’s curse light upon you all.

ALLWe’ll follow Cade, we’ll follow Cade! They run to Cade again

CLIFFORDIs Cade the son of Henry the Fifth,

30

That thus you do exclaim you’ll go with him?

Will he conduct you through the heart of France,

And make the meanest[32] of you earls and dukes?

Alas, he hath no home, no place to fly to:

Nor knows he how to live but by the spoil,[34]

35

Unless by robbing of your friends and us.

Were’t not a shame, that whilst you live at jar,[36]

The fearful[37] French, whom you late vanquishèd,

Should make a start[38] o’er seas and vanquish you?

Methinks already in this civil broil[39]

40

I see them lording it in London streets,

Crying ‘Villiago!’[41] unto all they meet.

Better ten thousand base-born Cades miscarry[42]

Than you should stoop unto a Frenchman’s mercy.

To France, to France, and get what you have lost:

45

Spare England, for it is your native coast:

Henry hath money, you are strong and manly:

God on our side, doubt not of victory.

ALLA[48] Clifford, a Clifford! We’ll follow the king and Clifford.

CADEWas ever feather so lightly blown to and fro as this multitude? The name of Henry the Fifth hales[50] them to an hundred mischiefs, and makes them leave me desolate. I see them lay their heads together to surprise[51] me. My sword make way for me, for here is no staying: in despite[52] of the devils and hell, have through the very middest of you: and heavens and honour be witness, that no want of resolution in me, but only my followers’ base and ignominious treasons, makes me betake me[55] to my heels.

Exit

BUCKINGHAMWhat, is he fled? Go, some, and follow him,

And he that brings his head unto the king

Shall have a thousand crowns for his reward.

Exeunt some of them

Follow me, soldiers: we’ll devise a mean[59]

60

To reconcile you all unto the king.

Exeunt all

[Act 4 Scene 9]4.9

running scene 18

Sound Trumpets. Enter King [Henry VI], Queen [Margaret] and Somerset on the terrace [above]

KING HENRY VIWas ever king that joyed[1] an earthly throne,

And could command no more content than I?

No sooner was I crept out of my cradle

But I was made a king at nine months old.

5

Was never subject longed to be a king

As I do long and wish to be a subject.

Enter Buckingham and Clifford

BUCKINGHAMHealth and glad tidings to your majesty.

KING HENRY VIWhy, Buckingham, is the traitor Cade surprised?[8]

Or is he but retired[9] to make him strong?

Enter [below] Multitudes with halters about their necks

10

CLIFFORDHe is fled, my lord, and all his powers[10] do yield,

And humbly thus with halters on their necks,

Expect[12] your highness’ doom of life or death.

KING HENRY VIThen, heaven, set ope[13] thy everlasting gates,

To entertain[14] my vows of thanks and praise.

15

Soldiers, this day have you redeemed your lives,

And showed how well you love your prince and country:

Continue still in this so good a mind,

And Henry, though he be infortunate,[18]

Assure yourselves, will never be unkind:

20

And so, with thanks and pardon to you all,

I do dismiss you to your several countries.[21]

ALLGod save the king! God save the king!

Enter a Messenger

MESSENGERPlease it your grace to be advertisèd[23]

The Duke of York is newly[24] come from Ireland,

25

And with a puissant[25] and a mighty power

Of galloglasses[26] and stout kerns

Is marching hitherward in proud array,[27]

And still[28] proclaimeth, as he comes along,

His arms are only to remove from thee

30

The Duke of Somerset, whom he terms a traitor.

KING HENRY VIThus stands my state,[31] ’twixt Cade and York distressed,

Like to a ship that, having scaped a tempest,

Is straightway calmed[33] and boarded with a pirate.

But now is Cade driven back, his men dispersed,

35

And now is York in arms to second[35] him.

I pray thee, Buckingham, go and meet him,

And ask him what’s the reason of[37] these arms:

Tell him I’ll send Duke Edmund[38] to the Tower,

And, Somerset, we will commit thee thither,

40

Until his army be dismissed from him.

SOMERSETMy lord,

I’ll yield myself to prison willingly,

Or unto death, to do my country good.

KING HENRY VIIn any case, be not too rough in terms,[44]

45

For he is fierce and cannot brook[45] hard language.

BUCKINGHAMI will, my lord, and doubt not so to deal[46]

As all things shall redound unto[47] your good.

KING HENRY VICome, wife, let’s in, and learn to govern better,

For yet[49] may England curse my wretched reign.

Flourish. Exeunt

[Act 4 Scene 10]4.10

running scene 19

Enter Cade

CADEFie[1] on ambitions: fie on myself, that have a sword, and yet am ready to famish.[2] These five days have I hid me in these woods and durst not peep out, for all the country is laid[3] for me: but now am I so hungry that if I might have a lease of my life for a thousand years I could stay[4] no longer. Wherefore o’er a brick wall have I climbed into this garden, to see if I can eat grass, or pick a sallet[5] another while,[6] which is not amiss to cool a man’s stomach this hot weather: and I think this word[7] ‘sallet’ was born to do me good: for many a time, but for a sallet, my brain-pan[8] had been cleft with a brown bill: and many a time when I have been dry[9] and bravely marching, it hath served me instead of a quart pot to drink in: and now the word ‘sallet’ must serve me to feed on.

Enter Iden [and his Men]

IDEN Lord, who would live turmoiled[11] in the court,

And may enjoy such quiet walks as these?

This small inheritance my father left me

Contenteth me, and worth a monarchy.

15

I seek not to wax[15] great by others’ waning,

Or gather wealth I[16] care not with what envy:

Sufficeth that[17] I have maintains my state

And sends the poor well pleasèd[18] from my gate.

CADEHere’s the lord[19] of the soil come to seize me for a stray, for entering his fee-simple without leave. Ah, villain, thou wilt betray me, and get a thousand crowns of[21] the king by carrying my head to him: but I’ll make thee eat iron like an ostrich, and swallow my sword like a great pin ere thou and I part.

IDENWhy, rude companion,[23] whatsoe’er thou be,

I know thee not: why, then, should I betray thee?

25

Is’t not enough to break into my garden,

And, like a thief, to come to rob my grounds,

Climbing my walls in spite of me the owner,

But thou wilt brave[28] me with these saucy terms?

CADEBrave thee? Ay, by the best blood that ever was broached,[29] and beard thee too. Look on me well: I have eat[30] no meat these five days, yet come thou and thy five men, and if I do not leave you all as dead as a doornail, I pray God I may never eat grass more.

IDENNay, it shall ne’er be said, while England stands,

That Alexander Iden, an esquire[34] of Kent,

35

Took odds[35] to combat a poor famished man.

Oppose thy steadfast gazing eyes to mine,

See if thou canst outface[37] me with thy looks:

Set limb to limb, and thou art far the lesser:

Thy hand is but a finger to my fist,

40

Thy leg a stick comparèd with this truncheon:[40]

My foot shall fight with all the strength thou hast,

And if[42] mine arm be heavèd in the air,

Thy grave is digged already in the earth:

As for words, whose[44] greatness answers words,

45

Let this my sword report what speech forbears.[45]

CADEBy my valour, the most complete[46] champion that ever I heard. Steel, if thou turn the edge,[47] or cut not out the burly-boned clown in chines of beef ere thou sleep in thy sheath, I beseech Jove on my knees thou mayst be turned to hobnails.[48]

Here they fight. [Cade falls]

O, I am slain! Famine and no other hath slain me: let ten thousand devils come against me, and give me but the ten meals I have lost, and I’d defy them all. Wither, garden, and be henceforth a burying place to all that do dwell in this house, because the unconquered soul of Cade is fled.

IDENIs’t Cade that I have slain, that monstrous[53] traitor?

Sword, I will hallow[54] thee for this thy deed,

55

And hang thee o’er my tomb when I am dead.

Ne’er shall this blood be wipèd from thy point,

But thou shalt wear it as a herald’s coat,[57]

To emblaze[58] the honour that thy master got.

CADEIden, farewell, and be proud of thy victory. Tell Kent from me, she hath lost her best man, and exhort all the world to be cowards: for I that never feared any, am vanquished by famine, not by valour.

Dies

IDENHow much thou wrong’st me, heaven be my judge:

Die, damnèd wretch, the curse of her that bare[63] thee:

And as I thrust[64] thy body in with my sword,

65

So wish I I might thrust thy soul to hell.

Hence will I drag thee headlong by the heels

Unto a dunghill which shall be thy grave,

And there cut off thy most ungracious[68] head,

Which I will bear in triumph to the king,

70

Leaving thy trunk[70] for crows to feed upon.

Exeunt [with Cade’s body]

[Act 5 Scene 1]5.1

running scene 20

Enter York, and his army of Irish, with Drum and Colours

YORKFrom Ireland thus comes York to claim his right,

And pluck the crown from feeble Henry’s head.

Ring, bells, aloud: burn, bonfires, clear and bright,

To entertain[4] great England’s lawful king.

5

Ah, sancta majestas![5] Who would not buy thee dear?

Let them obey that knows not how to rule.

This hand was made to handle naught but gold.[7]

I cannot give due action to my words,

Except[9] a sword or sceptre balance it.

10

A sceptre shall it have, have I[10] a soul,

On which I’ll toss[11] the flower-de-luce of France.

Enter Buckingham

Whom have we here? Buckingham to disturb me? Aside

The king hath sent him sure: I must dissemble.[13]

BUCKINGHAMYork, if thou meanest well, I greet thee well.

15

YORKHumphrey of Buckingham, I accept thy greeting.

Art thou a messenger, or come of pleasure?[16]

BUCKINGHAMA messenger from Henry, our dread liege,

To know the reason of these arms in peace:

Or why thou, being a subject as I am,

20

Against thy oath and true allegiance sworn,

Should raise so great a power without his leave,

Or dare to bring thy force so near the court.

YORKScarce can I speak, my choler[23] is so great. Aside

O, I could hew up rocks and fight with flint,

25

I am so angry at these abject[25] terms.

And now, like Ajax Telamonius,[26]

On sheep or oxen could I spend[27] my fury.

I am far better born[28] than is the king:

More like a king, more kingly in my thoughts.

30

But I must make fair weather[30] yet a while,

Till Henry be more weak and I more strong.—

Buckingham, I prithee pardon me, Aloud

That I have given no answer all this while:

My mind was troubled with deep melancholy.

35

The cause why I have brought this army hither

Is to remove proud Somerset from the king,

Seditious to his grace and to the state.

BUCKINGHAMThat is too much presumption on thy part:

But if thy arms be to no other end,

40

The king hath yielded unto thy demand:

The Duke of Somerset is in the Tower.

YORKUpon thine honour, is he prisoner?

BUCKINGHAMUpon mine honour, he is prisoner.

YORKThen, Buckingham, I do dismiss my powers.

45

Soldiers, I thank you all: disperse yourselves:

Meet me tomorrow in St George’s Field,[46]

You shall have pay and everything you wish.

And let my sovereign, virtuous Henry,

Command[49] my eldest son, nay, all my sons,

50

As pledges of my fealty[50] and love,

I’ll send them all as willing as I live:

Lands, goods, horse, armour, anything I have,

Is his to use, so[53] Somerset may die.

BUCKINGHAMYork, I commend this kind[54] submission:

55

We twain[55] will go into his highness’ tent.

Enter King [Henry VI] and Attendants

KING HENRY VIBuckingham, doth York intend no harm to us,

That thus he marcheth with thee arm in arm?

YORKIn all submission and humility

York doth present himself unto your highness.

60

KING HENRY VIThen what intends these forces thou dost bring?

YORK To heave the traitor Somerset from hence,

And fight against that monstrous rebel Cade,

Who since I heard to be discomfited.[63]

Enter Iden with Cade’s head

IDEN If one so rude[64] and of so mean condition

65

May pass into the presence of a king,

Lo, I present your grace a traitor’s head,

The head of Cade, whom I in combat slew.

KING HENRY VIThe head of Cade? Great God, how just art thou!

O, let me view his visage, being dead,

70

That living wrought[70] me such exceeding trouble.

Tell me, my friend, art thou the man that slew him?

IDENI was, an’t like[72] your majesty.

KING HENRY VIHow art thou called? And what is thy degree?[73]

IDENAlexander Iden, that’s my name:

75

A poor esquire of Kent, that loves his king.

BUCKINGHAMSo please it you, my lord, ’twere not amiss

He were created knight for his good service.

KING HENRY VIIden, kneel down. Iden kneels and is knighted

Rise up a knight. He rises

We give thee for reward a thousand marks,[79]

80

And will[80] that thou henceforth attend on us.

IDENMay Iden live to merit such a bounty,

And never live but true unto his liege.

[Exit]

Enter Queen [Margaret] and Somerset

KING HENRY VISee, Buckingham, Somerset comes wi’th’queen:

Go bid her hide him quickly from the duke.

85

QUEEN MARGARETFor thousand Yorks he shall not hide his head,

But boldly stand and front[86] him to his face.

YORKHow now? Is Somerset at liberty?

Then, York, unloose thy long-imprisoned thoughts,

And let thy tongue be equal with thy heart.

90

Shall I endure the sight of Somerset?

False king, why hast thou broken faith with me,

Knowing how hardly[92] I can brook abuse?

King did I call thee? No, thou art not king:

Not fit to govern and rule multitudes,

95

Which[95] dar’st not, no, nor canst not rule a traitor.

That head of thine doth not become[96] a crown:

Thy hand is made to grasp a palmer’s[97] staff,

And not to grace an awful[98] princely sceptre.

That gold must round engirt[99] these brows of mine,

100

Whose smile and frown, like to Achilles’ spear,[100]

Is able with the change to kill and cure.

Here is a hand to hold a sceptre up,

And with the same to act[103] controlling laws:

Give place: by heaven, thou shalt rule no more

105

O’er him whom heaven created for thy ruler.

SOMERSETO monstrous traitor! I arrest thee, York,

Of capital[107] treason gainst the king and crown:

Obey, audacious traitor, kneel for grace.

YORKWouldst have me kneel? First let me ask of these,[109]

110

If they can brook[110] I bow a knee to man.

Sirrah, call in my sons to be my bail;

[Exit Attendant]

I know, ere they will have me go to ward,[112]

They’ll pawn their swords for my enfranchisement.[113]

QUEEN MARGARETCall hither Clifford: bid him come amain,[114]

115

To say if that[115] the bastard boys of York

Shall be the surety for their traitor father.

[Exit Buckingham]

YORKO blood-bespotted[117] Neapolitan,

Outcast of Naples, England’s bloody scourge![118]

The sons of York, thy betters in their birth,

120

Shall be their father’s bail, and bane[120] to those

That for my surety will refuse the boys.

Enter Edward and Richard

See where they come: I’ll warrant they’ll make it good.

Enter Clifford [and his son Young Clifford]

QUEEN MARGARETAnd here comes Clifford to deny their bail.

CLIFFORDHealth and all happiness to my lord the king. Kneeling to Henry, then rising

125

YORKI thank thee, Clifford: say, what news with thee?

Nay, do not fright us with an angry look:

We are thy sovereign, Clifford, kneel again:

For thy mistaking so, we pardon thee.

CLIFFORDThis is my king, York, I do not mistake:

130

But thou mistakes me much to think I do:

To Bedlam[131] with him! Is the man grown mad?

KING HENRY VIAy, Clifford, a bedlam[132] and ambitious humour

Makes him oppose himself against his king.

CLIFFORDHe is a traitor: let him to[134] the Tower,

135

And chop away that factious pate[135] of his.

QUEEN MARGARETHe is arrested, but will not obey:

His sons, he says, shall give their words for him.

YORKWill you not, sons?

EDWARDAy, noble father, if our words will serve.

140

RICHARDAnd if words will not, then our weapons shall.

CLIFFORDWhy, what a brood of traitors have we here?

YORKLook in a glass,[142] and call thy image so.

I am thy king, and thou a false-heart[143] traitor:

Call hither to the stake[144] my two brave bears,

145

That with the very shaking of their chains

They may astonish[146] these fell-lurking curs:

Bid Salisbury and Warwick come to me.

Enter the Earls of Warwick and Salisbury

CLIFFORDAre these thy bears? We’ll bait thy bears to death,

And manacle the bearherd[149] in their chains,

150

If thou dar’st bring them to the baiting place.[150]

RICHARDOft have I seen a hot o’erweening[151] cur

Run[152] back and bite, because he was withheld:

Who, being suffered[153] with the bear’s fell paw,

Hath clapped his tail between his legs and cried:

155

And such a piece of service[155] will you do,

If you oppose yourselves[156] to match Lord Warwick.

CLIFFORDHence, heap of wrath, foul indigested lump,[157]

As crooked[158] in thy manners as thy shape!

YORKNay, we shall heat you[159] thoroughly anon.

160

CLIFFORDTake heed, lest by your heat you burn yourselves.

KING HENRY VIWhy, Warwick, hath thy knee forgot to bow?

Old Salisbury, shame to thy silver hair,

Thou mad misleader of thy brainsick son!

What, wilt thou on thy death-bed play the ruffian,

165

And seek for sorrow with thy spectacles?[165]

O, where is faith? O, where is loyalty?

If it be banished from the frosty[167] head,

Where shall it find a harbour[168] in the earth?

Wilt thou go dig a grave to find out war,

170

And shame thine honourable age with blood?

Why art thou old and want’st experience,

Or wherefore dost abuse it if thou hast it?

For shame in duty bend thy knee to me,

That bows unto the grave with mickle[174] age.

175

SALISBURYMy lord, I have considered with myself

The title of this most renownèd duke,

And in my conscience do repute[177] his grace

The rightful heir to England’s royal seat.

KING HENRY VIHast thou not sworn allegiance unto me?

180

SALISBURYI have.

KING HENRY VICanst thou dispense with[181] heaven for such an oath?

SALISBURYIt is great sin to swear unto a sin:

But greater sin to keep a sinful oath:

Who can be bound by any solemn vow

185

To do a murd’rous deed, to rob a man,

To force a spotless virgin’s chastity,

To reave[187] the orphan of his patrimony,

To wring[188] the widow from her customed right,

And have no other reason for this wrong

190

But that he was bound by a solemn oath?

QUEEN MARGARETA subtle[191] traitor needs no sophister.

KING HENRY VICall Buckingham, and bid him arm himself.

YORKCall Buckingham, and all the friends thou hast,

I am resolved for death or dignity.[194]

195

CLIFFORDThe first I warrant thee, if dreams prove true.

WARWICKYou were best to go to bed and dream again,

To keep thee from the tempest of the field.[197]

CLIFFORDI am resolved to bear a greater storm

Than any thou canst conjure up today:

200

And that I’ll write upon thy burgonet,[200]

Might I but know[201] thee by thy household badge.

WARWICKNow by my father’s[202] badge, old Neville’s crest,

The rampant[203] bear chained to the ragged staff,

This day I’ll wear aloft[204] my burgonet,

205

As on a mountain top the cedar shows[205]

That keeps his leaves in spite of any storm,

Even to affright thee with the view thereof.

CLIFFORDAnd from thy burgonet I’ll rend[208] thy bear

And tread it under foot with all contempt,

210

Despite the bearherd that protects the bear.

YOUNG CLIFFORDAnd so to arms, victorious father,

To quell the rebels and their complices.[212]

RICHARDFie, charity, for shame! Speak not in spite,

For you shall sup with Jesu Christ tonight.

215

YOUNG CLIFFORDFoul stigmatic,[215] that’s more than thou canst tell.

RICHARDIf not in heaven, you’ll surely sup in hell.

Exeunt [severally]

[Act 5 Scene 2]

running scene 21

[Alarums to the battle.] Enter Warwick

WARWICKClifford of Cumberland, ’tis Warwick calls:

And if thou dost not hide thee from the bear,

Now, when the angry trumpet sounds alarum

And dead[4] men’s cries do fill the empty air,

5

Clifford, I say, come forth and fight with me:

Proud northern lord, Clifford of Cumberland,

Warwick is hoarse with calling thee to arms.

Enter York

How now, my noble lord? What, all afoot?[8]

YORKThe deadly-handed Clifford slew my steed:

10

But match to match I have encountered him

And made a prey for carrion kites[11] and crows

Even of the bonny beast he loved so well.

Enter Clifford

WARWICKOf[13] one or both of us the time is come.

YORK Hold, Warwick: seek thee out some other chase,[14]

15

For I myself must hunt this deer to death.

WARWICKThen, nobly,[16] York: ’tis for a crown thou fight’st:—

As I intend, Clifford, to thrive today,

It grieves my soul to leave thee unassailed.

Exit Warwick

CLIFFORDWhat seest thou in me, York? Why dost thou pause?

20

YORK With thy brave bearing should I be in love,

But that thou art so fast[21] mine enemy.

CLIFFORDNor should thy prowess want praise and esteem,

But that ’tis shown ignobly and in treason.

YORK So let it help me now against thy sword

25

As I in justice and true right express it.[25]

CLIFFORDMy soul and body on[26] the action both!

YORK A dreadful lay![27] Address thee instantly. They fight, and Clifford falls

CLIFFORDLa[28] fin couronne les oeuvres. Dies

YORK Thus war hath given thee peace, for thou art still.

30

Peace with his soul, heaven, if it be thy will.

[Exit]

Enter Young Clifford

YOUNG CLIFFORDShame and confusion,[31] all is on the rout!

Fear frames[32] disorder, and disorder wounds

Where it should guard. O war, thou son of hell,

Whom angry heavens do make their minister,

35

Throw in the frozen[35] bosoms of our part

Hot coals of vengeance. Let no soldier fly.[36]

He that is truly dedicate[37] to war

Hath no self-love:[38] nor he that loves himself

Hath not essentially[39] but by circumstance

40

The name of valour.— O, let the vile world end, Seeing his dead father

And the premised[41] flames of the last day

Knit[42] earth and heaven together.

Now let the general trumpet[43] blow his blast,

Particularities[44] and petty sounds

45

To cease. Wast thou ordainèd,[45] dear father,

To lose[46] thy youth in peace, and to achieve

The silver livery[47] of advisèd age,

And in thy reverence and thy chair-days,[48] thus

To die in ruffian battle? Even at this sight

50

My heart is turned to stone: and while ’tis mine,

It shall be stony. York not our old men spares:

No more will I their babes: tears virginal[52]

Shall be to me even as the dew to fire,[53]

And beauty that the tyrant oft reclaims[54]

55

Shall to my flaming wrath be oil and flax:[55]

Henceforth I will not have to do with pity.

Meet I an infant of the House of York,

Into as many gobbets[58] will I cut it

As wild Medea young Absyrtus[59] did.

60

In cruelty will I seek out my fame.

Come, thou new ruin of old Clifford’s house:

As did Aeneas[62] old Anchises bear,

So bear I thee upon my manly shoulders:

But then Aeneas bare[64] a living load,

65

Nothing so heavy[65] as these woes of mine.

[Exit with Clifford’s body]

Enter Richard and Somerset to fight [Somerset is killed]

RICHARDSo lie thou there:

For underneath an ale-house’ paltry sign,

The Castle in St Albans, Somerset

Hath made the wizard[69] famous in his death:

70

Sword, hold thy temper:[70] heart, be wrathful still:

Priests pray for enemies, but princes kill.

[Exit]

Fight. Excursions. Enter King [Henry VI], Queen [Margaret] and others

QUEEN MARGARETAway, my lord, you are slow: for shame, away!

KING HENRY VICan we outrun the heavens? Good Margaret, stay.[73]

QUEEN MARGARETWhat are you made of? You’ll nor[74] fight nor fly:

75

Now is it[75] manhood, wisdom and defence,

To give the enemy way, and to secure us[76]

By what[77] we can, which can no more but fly.

Alarum afar off

If you be ta’en,[78] we then should see the bottom

Of all our fortunes: but if we haply scape,[79]

80

As well we may, if not through your neglect,

We shall to London get, where you are loved

And where this breach[82] now in our fortunes made

May readily be stopped.

Enter [Young] Clifford

YOUNG CLIFFORDBut that my heart’s on future mischief[84] set,

85

I would speak blasphemy ere[85] bid you fly:

But fly you must: uncurable discomfit[86]

Reigns in the hearts of all our present parts.[87]

Away, for your relief,[88] and we will live

To see their[89] day and them our fortune give.

90

Away, my lord, away!

Exeunt

[Act 5 Scene 3]

running scene 7

Alarum. Retreat. Enter York, Richard, Warwick and Soldiers, with Drum and Colours

YORK Of Salisbury, who can report of him,

That winter[2] lion, who in rage forgets

Agèd contusions[3] and all brush of time,

And, like a gallant[4] in the brow of youth,

5

Repairs[5] him with occasion? This happy day

Is not itself, nor have we won one foot,[6]

If Salisbury be lost.

RICHARDMy noble father:

Three times today I holp[9] him to his horse,

10

Three times bestrid him:[10] thrice I led him off,

Persuaded him from any further act:

But still[12] where danger was, still there I met him,

And like rich hangings[13] in a homely house,

So was his will in his old feeble body.

15

But noble as he is, look where he comes.

Enter Salisbury

SALISBURYNow, by my sword, well hast thou fought today:

By th’mass, so did we all. I thank you, Richard.

God knows how long it is I have to live:

And it hath pleased him that three times today

20

You have defended me from imminent death.

Well, lords, we have not got[21] that which we have:

’Tis not enough our foes are this time fled,

Being[23] opposites of such repairing nature.

YORK I know our safety[24] is to follow them,

25

For, as I hear, the king is fled to London,

To call a present[26] court of parliament:

Let us pursue him ere the writs[27] go forth.

What says Lord Warwick, shall we after them?

WARWICKAfter them? Nay, before them, if we can:

30

Now by my hand, lords, ’twas a glorious day.

St Albans battle won by famous York

Shall be eternized[32] in all age to come.

Sound drum and trumpets, and to London all,

And more such days as these to us befall!

Exeunt

Textual Notes

Q = First Quarto text of 1594

Q2 = Second Quarto text of 1600

Q3 = Third Quarto text of 1619

F = First Folio text of 1623

F2 = a correction introduced in the Second Folio text of 1632

F4 = a correction introduced in the Fourth Folio text of 1685

Ed = a correction introduced by a later editor

SD = stage direction

SH = speech heading (i.e., speaker’s name)

List of parts = Ed

THE…HUMPHREY = F. Printed as The First Part of the Contention betwixt the two famous Houses of York and Lancaster, with the death of the good Duke Humphrey in Q, Q2 and Q3

1.1.24–31 Great…minister Q has the following alternative lines (all alternative Q passages are here edited and modernized):

Th’excessive love I bear unto your grace

Forbids me to be lavish of my tongue,

Lest I should speak more than beseems a woman:

Let this suffice: my bliss is in your liking,

And nothing can make poor Margaret miserable,

Unless the frown of mighty England’s King.

49 SD Lets…fall derived from Q’s direction: Duke Humphrey lets it fall 90 had = Ed. F = hath 98 Razing = Ed. F = Racing 129 SH GLOUCESTER = Ed. F = Hum./Glo. (throughout) 166 hoist spelled hoyse in F 175 Protector = Q. F = Protectors 253 in my = Ed. F = in in my 254 grapple = F, Q3. Q = graffle, although there is no record of it in the OED

1.2.19 thought = F. Ed = hour 22 dreams = F (dreames). Ed = dream 38 are = Q. F = wer 75 witch = F. Q = witch of Ely. Q3 = witch of Rye. Ed = witch of Eye

1.3.4 SH FIRST PETITIONER = F4. F = Peter. In agreement with the Textual Companion that the First Petitioner must have pushed forward to warrant his apology, “Peter” and “Petitioner” being easily confused; other editors defend F 22 master = Ed. F = Mistresse 23 usurper = F. Q = usurer 58 haughty = F (haughtie). F2 = haught 80 the = F. Ed = their 90 At this point F has an exit direction for Suffolk, yet he contributes to the following discussion; therefore his exit direction has been removed 94 denied = Ed. F = denay’d 115 dauphin = Ed. F = Dolphin 132 I’d = Q. F = I could 140 fury = Ed. F = Fume. However, the emendation better fits the metre and the mistake can be explained as a minim error 177 SH HORNER = Ed. F = Armorer 190 judge = F. Ed = judge by case 203–5 Away…away = F. The following alternative lines are spoken by Gloucester in Q, where the action takes place before Queen Margaret drops her glove (as opposed to F’s fan):

The law my lord is this by case, it rests suspicious

That a day of combat be appointed

And there to try each other’s right or wrong

Which shall be on the thirtieth of this month,

With Eben staves and standbags combatting

In Smithfield before your royal majesty.

The reference to “Eben staves” and “standbags” might refer to the remembered performance of the scene

1.4.20 SH ASNATH = Ed. F = Spirit 21 SH MARGARET JORDAN = Ed. F = Witch 36–7 Descend…avoid = F. Q has the following longer alternative:

Then down, I say, unto the damnèd pool,

Where Pluto in his fiery wagon sits

Riding, amidst the singed and parchèd smokes,

The road of Ditis by the River Styx.

There howl and burn for ever in those flames.

Rise, Jordan, rise, and stay thy charming spells.

Zounds, we are betrayed!

56–7 The…death some editors move the reading aloud of the prophecies to the next scene, following Q, which also assigns them to King Henry

2.1.27 such = F. Ed = some 52 SH CARDINAL…you. = Ed. F = Cardinall, I am with you. F presents the line as a continuation of Gloucester’s speech rather than a response from the cardinal 65 SH TOWNSMAN = Ed. F = One 136 his = Q. F = it,

2.2.35 Philippa = Ed. F = Phillip 46–7 who…son = Ed. F’s lines are considered unmetrical and nonsensical:

Who was to Edmond Langley,

Edward the thirds fift Sonnes Sonne;

2.3.3 sins = Ed. F = sinne 65 After the First Prentice Q inserts a third prentice who speaks the following line: Here, Peter, here’s a pint of claret wine for thee. Q also adds the following extra line at the beginning of F’s “Second” Prentice’s line: And here’s a quart for me.

3.1.0 SD Enter…parliament = F. Q has the following stage direction, which may reflect contemporary performance:

Enter to the parliament. Enter two heralds before, then the Duke of Buckingham, and the Duke of Suffolk, and then the Duke of York, and the Cardinal of Winchester, and then the King and the Queen, and then the Earl of Salisbury, and the Earl of Warwick.

78 wolves = F. Ed = wolf 117 disbursèd = Ed. F = dis-pursed which is now archaic 264 deceit = F. Ed = conceit 329 For = F. Ed = From

3.2.0 SD Enter…Humphrey = F. Q = Then the curtains being drawn, Duke Humphrey is discovered in his bed, and two men lying on his breast and smothering him in his bed. And then enter the Duke of Suffolk to them. 14 Away…gone = F. Q = Then draw the curtains again and get you gone. Ed = Then draw the curtains close; away, be gone! SD Sound…Attendants F’s original direction includes an entry for Suffolk, who is already onstage, and is therefore omitted here 26 Meg = Ed. F = Nell 76 leper = Ed. F = Leaper 80 Dame = F. Ed = Queen Margaret = Ed. F = Elianor 101 Margaret = Ed. F = Elianor 117 witch = Ed. F = watch 121 Margaret = Ed. F = Elinor 203 SD [Exeunt…Somerset] the direction “Exit Cardinal” is found in Q; editors add an exit direction for Somerset here because he has no further activity in the scene 232 SD Exeunt…Warwick based on Q’s direction: Warwick pulls him out. Exit Warwick and Suffolk. F = Exeunt Q’s stage direction continues: and then all the Commons within, cries, “Down with Suffolk, down with Suffolk.” This presumably represents original performance, and it is on this basis that some editors have decided to insert stage directions and/or spoken lines for Commons

279 SH COMMONS = Ed. Not in F 309 enemies = Q. F = enemy. Privileging Q over F results in agreement with “them” in the following line 311 Could = Q. F = Would. Emendation directed by the editorial tradition in response to the repeated use of “would” in the following line 319 Mine = F. Q = My on = Ed. F = an 333 turn = Ed. F = turnes 335 the = F. Q = this 345 these = F. Ed = these lips 410 SD [She kisses him] = Q. Not in F 415 SD severally = Q. Not in F

3.3.0 SD to…bed = F. Q = and then the curtains be drawn, and the Cardinal is discovered in his bed, raving and staring as if he were mad

4.1.0 SD a Master…prisoners based on Q’s stage direction: Alarms within, and the chambers be discharged, like as it were a fight at sea. And then enter the Captain of the ship and the Master, and the Master’s Mate, and the Duke of Suffolk disguised, and others with him, and Walter Whickmore 1 SH LIEUTENANT = F. Q = Captain 6 Clip = Ed. F = Cleape 20 SH WHITMORE = Ed. In F these lines continue the Lieutenant’s speech 32 death = F. Ed = thee 48 Jove…I = Q. Not in F; justified by the Lieutenant’s following line 50 Obscure…blood = F. Editors often reassign this line to Suffolk, arguing that he is distinguishing between himself and the Lieutenant. However, F’s reading can be supported as a slight on Suffolk by the Lieutenant, and by Whitmore’s subsequent line in response to Suffolk’s speech where he refers directly to Suffolk as “swain” lousy = F (lowsie). Ed = lowly 72 SH SUFFOLK = Ed. F = Sir; presumed compositor misreading of “Suf” or “S” or “Su” 73 SH LIEUTENANT = Ed. F = Lord; presumed compositor misreading of “Lieu” or “L” 79 shalt = Q. F = shall 87 mother’s bleeding = Ed. F = Mother-bleeding 95 are = Ed. F = and 114 Thy…me Q has an extra line at this point attributed to the “Captain,” F’s Lieutenant: Ay, but my deeds shall stay thy fury soon. Some editions print the following: But my deeds, Suffolk, soon shall stay thy rage. 134 SH SUFFOLK = Ed. In F this line is spoken by the Lieutenant, but Suffolk’s “That” appears to refer to it as his own

4.2.0, 22 SD with long staves = Q. Not in F 24 SH DICK = Ed. F = But. 25 fail = F. Ed = fall, on the grounds that Cade is punning on his name, Latin “cadere” meaning “to fall” 34 SH SMITH = Ed. F = Weaver 62 SD Chartham = Ed. Q = Chattam. Both are places in the southeast of England 76 an = F2. F = a 79 SD Michael = F. Q = Tom. Ed = a messenger 88 Mortimer at this point in Q Cade also knights Dick the butcher

4.4.21 mourning for = F, Q. Ed = mourning 42 traitors = F. Ed = trait’rous rabble 48 hath = F. Q = hath almost 57 be betrayed = F2. F = betraid

4.6.7 SH SMITH = Ed. F = But.

4.7.6 SH HOLLAND = Ed. F = Iohn. In this edition the character labelled “John” is identified as “John Holland” and therefore assigned the speech heading “Holland,” rather than identifying him as a new character, as in other editions 32 on = Q. F = in 40 Away…Latin = F. In place of this Q has the following lines:

CADE‘Bonum terrum’. Zounds, what is that?

DICKHe speaks French.

WILLNo, ’tis Dutch.

NICKNo, ’tis Outalian: I know it well enough.

52 Kent = F. Ed = But 69 caudle = F4. F = Candle help of = F. Ed = health o’th’ 84 At this point Q adds the following detail taken from the Chronicles: to the Standard in Cheapside 85 Q again adds the following detail, again present in the Chronicles: go to Mile End Green 95 men = F. Q = Married men 96 At this point Q has the following additional lines, thought to be an authorial addition to the promptbook by some editors:

Enter Robin

ROBINO captain, London Bridge is afire!

CADERun to Billingsgate and fetch pitch and flax and squench it.

Enter Dick and a Sergeant

SERGEANTJustice, justice, I pray you, sir, let me have justice of this fellow here.

CADEWhy, what has he done?

SERGEANTAlas, sir, he has ravished my wife.

BUTCHERWhy, my lord, he would have ‘rested me and I went and entered my action in his wife’s paper house.

CADEDick, follow thy suit in her common place. You whoreson villain, you are a sergeant — you’ll take any man by the throat for twelvepence, and ‘rest a man when he’s at dinner, and have him to prison ere the meat be out of his mouth. Go, Dick, take him hence: cut out his tongue for cogging, hough him for running, and, to conclude, brave him with his own mace.

Exit [Butcher] with the Sergeant

99 Additional lines at this point in Q for Cade: He that will lustily stand to it shall go with me and take up these commodities following: item, a gown, a kirtle, a petticoat, and a smock.

[Act 4 Scene 8] there is no scene break at this point in Q. Some editors explain the apparent scene break in F as necessary in order to waste space at the end of the page due to incorrectly cast-off copy.

4.8.12 rabble = F. Ed = rebel 28 SD They…again = Q. Not in F

4.9.33 calmed = F4. F = calme 34 dispersed = Ed. F = dispierc’d

4.10.4 o’er = Ed. F = on 15 waning = Ed. F = warning 48 Jove = F. Q = God

5.1.10 soul = F. Ed = sword 30–1 But…strong = F. In place of these lines Q has the following:

But York dissemble, till thou meet thy sons,

Who now in arms expect their father’s sight,

And not far hence I know they cannot be.

70 trouble Q adds the following lines:

A visage stern, coal-black his curlèd locks,

Deep trenchèd furrows in his frowning brow,

Presageth warlike humours in his life.

83 wi’th’queen = Ed. F = with th’Queen 109 these = Ed. F = thee 111 sons = Q. F = sonne 113 for = F2. F = of 149 bearherd = Ed. F = Berard 194 or = Ed. F = and 201 household = Q. F = housed. F2 = house’s 210 bearherd = Ed. F = Bearard

5.2.0 SD [Alarums…battle] = Q. Not in F 62 As…mine = F. Q includes a confrontation between Young Clifford and Richard in place of F’s lines:

[YOUNG CLIFFORD]And thus as old Anchises’ son did bear

His agèd father on his manly back,

And fought with him against the bloody Greeks,

Even so will I. But stay, here’s one of them,

To whom my soul hath sworn immortal hate.

Enter RICHARD, and then [YOUNG] CLIFFORD lays down his father, fights with him, and Richard flies away again.

Out, crookback villain, get thee from my sight,

But I will after thee, and once again

When I have borne my father to his tent,

I’ll try my fortune better with thee yet.

Exit Young Clifford with his father

5.3.1 SH YORK York has four lines in Q which precede his speech in F:

How now, boys: fortunate this fight hath been,

I hope to us and ours, for England’s good,

And our great honour, that so long we lost

Whilst faint-heart Henry did usurp our rights:

Act 1 Scene 1

1.1   Location: the royal court, London    Flourish trumpet fanfare accompanying a person in authority    hautboys oboe-like instruments

2    had in charge was commanded    depart departure

3    procurator to deputy, representative for

4    marry i.e., by proxy, on the king’s behalf    for on behalf of

5    Tours a city southwest of Orléans, located at the junction of the Rivers Cher and Loire

6    Sicil Sicily

7    Calaber Calabria, a region of southern Italy    Bretagne Brittany

9    espoused married

14    shadow image, reflection

15    happiest most fortunate    marquis i.e., Suffolk

18    kinder more natural, affectionate

23    sympathy harmony, mutual feeling

25    mutual conference intimate conversation

27    beads i.e., prayers, said over a Catholic rosary (beads used as prompts in the reciting of prayers)

28    alderliefest most beloved

29    salute address/greet

30    ruder unaccomplished, unpolished    wit skill, intellect

31    minister supply, provide

32    Her sight the sight of her

33    yclad decked out, clothed

34    wond’ring marveling, admiring

39    Protector surrogate ruler of the realm, while the new king was too young to reign (Henry VI had inherited the throne as a baby)    so if

40    articles terms, conditions    contracted formally agreed

42    concluded resolved, settled

43    Imprimis “in the first place” (Latin)

46    ere before

48    Item “likewise” (Latin)

52    qualm sudden feeling of nausea/fit of misgiving

53    that so that

54    Uncle technically, Henry’s great-uncle

57    of at    proper personal

61    gird invest (with the title)

62    Cousin a common form of address used among nobles

63    regent one who rules in the king’s absence

65    full fully

69    entertainment hospitality    princely royal

70    provide prepare

72    Brave noble, splendid/valiant

75    Henry i.e., Henry V

77    lodge dwell, sleep

81    policy skillful political strategy

86    Council i.e., the Privy Council of the king’s ministers and advisers

89    awe subjection, dread

94    counsel advice, plans

95    league union, alliance

96    fame honor, reputations

98    Razing erasing    characters written records

99    monuments records, memorials

100    as as though

102    peroration rhetorical speech    circumstance elaborate details

108    large style grand title

110    him…all i.e., Christ

112    wherefore why

120    Mort Dieu! “God’s death!” (a French oath)

121    For as for    suffocate suffocated (puns on Suffolk)

123    rent ripped up

128    match marry    vantages advantages, assets

129    proper fine, resounding

130    fifteenth tax of one fifteenth of the value of income or property

134    hot angry, worked-up

135    pleasure will, desire

141    ancient former, long-standing

142    Lordings my lords

148    next of blood next in line (to the throne; Henry VI does not, at this point, have children, and Gloucester is his father’s brother)

151    wealthy…west i.e., Spanish possessions in the Americas (an anachronism)

153    smoothing flattering, ingratiating, plausible

160    flattering gloss deceptively attractive appearance

163    He i.e., Henry VI

167    brook tolerate

168    presently immediately

171    haughty proud, aspiring

173    Than than that of

175    Or either

177    Pride i.e., the cardinal    ambition i.e., Buckingham and Somerset

178    preferment advancement

179    Behoves it it is appropriate for

180    I…but I have always seen that

181    him himself

184    stout arrogant, haughty    as as if

185    demean behave, conduct

188    plainness openness, frankness    housekeeping hospitality

190    Excepting none but with the exception only of that shown to

191    brother brother-in-law (York was married to Salisbury’s sister, Cecily Neville)

193    late recent

197    bridle control, restrain

200    cherish encourage, nurture

201    tend promote, encourage, tend to

203    common communal, general

204    cause i.e., as one with a claim to the throne

205    look…main see to the most important business at hand (from the dice game of hazard where the “main” was the successful throw)

206    Maine French province lost as part of the recent treaty

207    main sheer

213    tickle precarious

214    concluded settled, decided

216    change exchange

218    thine your inheritance (York addresses himself)

219    make…pillage barter their booty for virtually nothing

220    purchase friends i.e., through such generosity courtesans prostitutes; plays on the original meaning “one attached to the court of a prince”

221    Still continually

222    While as while    silly helpless

223    hapless unfortunate

224    trembling frightened    aloof to one side (unable to intervene)

226    Ready about

230    proportion relation

231    Althaea…Calydon in Greek mythology, it was prophesied that Meleager, Prince of Calydon, would only live for as long as a log burned in the fire; his mother, Althaea, snatched the brand out, but cast it back into the flames when, years later, Meleager killed her brothers

237    Nevilles’ i.e., Salisbury and Warwick’s

240    mark target

241    Lancaster i.e., Henry VI

242    childish Henry was only nine months old when he was crowned

243    diadem crown

244    church-like humours pious disposition

245    still quiet, patient    time do serve an opportunity arises

246    Watch remain awake/be on guard

248    surfeiting overindulging

249    dear-bought expensive, obtained at too high a price

250    at jars into conflict, discord

251    milk-white rose emblem of the House of York

253    standard military banner, battle flag

254    grapple struggle, wrestle

255    force perforce through violence, by compulsion

256    bookish studious (perhaps with particular reference to religious texts)

Act 1 Scene 2

1.2   Location: the residence of the Duke of Gloucester

2    Ceres Roman goddess of agriculture and the harvest

4    As as though

5    sullen drab, somber, dull in color

8    Enchased adorned, decorated as with jewels

9    grovel lie facedown, prostrate

12    is’t is your arm

16    vouchsafe allow

18    canker infection, ulcer

19    imagine ill formulate evil plans

21    breathing breath

22    this night last night

23    requite repay, recompense

24    rehearsal recounting    morning’s dream according to popular belief, morning dreams were supposed to tell the truth

25    staff formal rod of office    office-badge badge of office

26    twain two

32    an argument proof, evidence

33    breaks…grove i.e., damages Gloucester in the slightest

35    list listen

38    chair throne

41    chide rebuke

42    ill-nurtured ill-mannered, poorly bred

44    of by

46    compass scope, limit

47    hammering thinking insistently on/devising

51    choleric angry (choler was one of the four bodily humors thought to govern temperament)

52    but only

54    checked scolded

57    St Albans town about twenty-five miles north of London

58    Where as where    hawk hunt with trained hawks

60    presently immediately/shortly

62    base unambitious, lowly

67    pageant spectacle, entertainment

68    Sir conventional form of address for clergymen

71    grace the correct term of address for a duchess

73    multiplied amplified, increased

75    cunning skilled in magic

76    conjurer magician, one who conjures spirits

81    propounded asked of, put to

88    Marry by the Virgin Mary

89    mum silence

93    flies that flies, comes    coast quarter, source

97    aspiring humour ambitious frame of mind

99    buzz whisper    conjurations incantations

100    broker agent, go-between

102    go near come close

105    wrack wreck, ruin

106    attainture conviction for treason

107    Sort…will however it falls out

Act 1 Scene 3

1.3   Location: the royal court, London    Petitioners those with formal requests to make to those in authority    armourer’s man servant or apprentice to a maker of armor

1    My masters gentlemen close near one another as a group

2    in the quill as a group; possibly “in their written forms”

3    protect plays on the title of Lord Protector

4    a he

8    wouldst do you want

12    an’t if it

13    man servant, agent

15    enclosing the commons fencing in common land available to all and converting it to private use

22    forsooth in truth

25    pursuivant state messenger with the power to execute warrants

29    sue to entreat

30    cullions rogues, wretches

32    guise manner, style

33    fashions customs, practices

35    Albion ancient name for England

38    style mode of address, formal title

40    Pole de la Pole, Suffolk’s family name

41    ran’st a-tilt took part in a jousting tournament

44    proportion physical form

45    bent directed

46    number count    Ave-Maries Hail Marys, prayers frequently recited over a rosary    beads rosary

47    champions most admired combatants/defenders, those who fight on behalf of another

48    saws sayings, maxims

49    tilt-yard tournament ground

50    brazen images bronze statues

51    college…cardinals highest council of the Catholic Church, responsible for electing new Popes

53    triple crown i.e., the crown worn by the Pope

54    state status    his holiness plays on the Pope’s official title

57    work enable, effect

60    not…But even the least of them

64    simple ordinary, humble

67    sweeps it parades, struts

69    Strangers foreigners

70    bears…back i.e., dresses in a magnificent style    revenues wealth, income

73    Contemptuous contemptible/scornful    callet whore

74    vaunted boasted    minions favorites

75    worst wearing most unfashionable

76    better worth worth more

77    Till…daughter before Suffolk handed over two dukedoms (Anjou and Maine) as part of the dowry from Henry VI

78    limed a bush created a trap (from the process of smearing twigs with birdlime, a sticky substance used to catch birds)

79    enticing birds i.e., decoys

80    light alight    lays songs

84    fancy favor, incline to

87    late complaint i.e., Peter’s allegation that his master said York was the rightful heir to the throne

88    make…benefit do him little service

89    weed uproot, weed out    sennet trumpet call signaling a procession

92    Or either

93    ill demeaned badly conducted

94    regentship position of ruling in France on the king’s behalf

100    field battlefield

101    presence royal reception chamber, presence of the king

107    censure judgment, opinion

112    leave stop, give up

115    dauphin title of the French king’s eldest son, heir to the throne (here used to refer to Charles VII as the English considered Henry VI the rightful King of France) prevailed gained in strength and influence

117    bondmen slaves

118    racked ruined, exhausted (through taxation)    bags moneybags

119    lank shrunken

121    treasury money

125    offices official functions, positions

126    suspect suspicion

127    hop…head be beheaded, executed

128    minion hussy, servant

129    cry you mercy beg your pardon (sarcastic)

132    set…commandments i.e., scratch with my fingernails

133    against her will unintentional, a mistake

134    Look to’t beware

135    hamper obstruct, fetter    dandle pamper, pet

136    most master the greatest master (i.e., the queen)

139    listen after watch out for

140    tickled vexed, provoked

145    objections accusations

150    meetest the most suitable

152    election choice    give me leave permit me

156    for…pride because my self-respect will not allow me to flatter you/because I cannot flatter your pride

159    discharge payment    furniture military equipment

163    fouler fact more wicked deed, crime

166    Image embodiment

169    for of being

170    what who

177    An’t if it

179    ten bones i.e., fingers    garret turret, watchtower

180    scouring cleaning

181    mechanical manual worker, laborer

186    prentice apprentice    correct punish

190    doom judgment, sentence

192    this i.e., the business involving Peter and Horner

194    convenient appropriate, suitable

202    Sirrah sir (used to an inferior)    or either

Act 1 Scene 4

1.4   Location: the residence of the Duke of Gloucester

3    therefore provided equipped to that end

4    exorcisms conjuring up of spirits    aloft i.e., on the upper staging level or gallery

11    said done    gear business, matter

14    Troy…fire under cover of darkness the city of Troy was set on fire and destroyed by the Greeks, who had entered the city concealed in the Trojan horse

15    screech-owls barn owls, so-named from their discordant cry and considered birds of ill omen    bandogs fierce tied-up watchdogs

16    up open, out of

19    make fast secure, restrain    hallowed verge magic circle    belonging necessary, appropriate    ‘Conjuro te’ “I conjure you” (Latin; the beginning of an invocation)    Asnath an anagram of “Sathan,” i.e., Satan    riseth presumably through a trapdoor

20    Adsum “I am here” (Latin)

23    that that which

25    that i.e., would that (I wish that)

34    mounted situated on a mount

37    False treacherous    avoid be gone

38    trash rubbish, paraphernalia

39    Beldam hag, witch    at an inch very closely

41    piece of pains trouble you have taken

43    guerdoned rewarded    deserts deserving deeds

45    Injurious insulting    threatest threatens

47    clapped up close securely locked up

48    asunder apart

49    to with

50    trinkets trifles, rubbish (used for conjuring)    all forthcoming safe and ready to be produced as evidence in court

53    pretty artful, cunning    plot scheme/plot of land

54    devil’s writ as opposed to “holy writ,” i.e., Scripture

58    just exactly

59    ‘Aio…posse’ words spoken by the oracle at Delphi to Pyrrhus when he asked whether he would conquer Rome; they may be interpreted to mean either “I proclaim that you, the descendant of Aeacus, can conquer the Romans” or “I proclaim that the Romans can conquer you, the descendant of Aeacus”

68    hardly attained obtained with difficulty

69    hardly barely

70    in progress on a state journey or procession

75    post messenger

78    sup take supper    severally separately

Act 2 Scene 1

2.1   Location: St. Albans (a town about twenty-five miles north of London)    hallooing calling out to the dogs

1    flying…brook hunting waterfowl by using dogs to drive the birds from the bankside bushes so that trained hawks might swoop upon them

2    these…day for the last seven years, i.e., for a long time (proverbial)

4    And…out i.e., the odds were against the hawk Joan being able to fly (letting birds out in a high wind risked losing them)

5    point advantageous position from which to swoop on the fowl

6    pitch height (literally, the highest point in a falcon’s flight)

8    fain of inclined to, fond of

9    an it like if it please

10    tower soar in circling movements to the highest point

11    aloft up high, dominant

16    how…that what do you mean by that

21    Pernicious destructive, wicked

22    smooth’st it flatters, speaks plausibly

24    peremptory unchallengeable, overbearing

25    Tantaene…irae? “Is there so much anger in heavenly minds?” (Latin; from Virgil’s Aeneid, 1.11)

26    hot hot-tempered, angry

36    whet not on do not encourage

37    blessèd…earth biblical; the king cites Matthew 5:9

41    Marry by the Virgin Mary

42    Make…matter do not bring any of your supporters into the business

43    abuse wrongdoing, insult (to me)

44    peep appear, show your face    an if if

48    your man i.e., the falconer    put up raised, provoked from cover into flight

49    had had would have had    two-hand sword long, heavy sword

51    Are ye advised? Do you understand?

55    God’s mother i.e., the Virgin Mary    crown the tonsure, the shaved crown of a priest’s head

56    fence fencing skills, swordsmanship

57    Medice, teipsum “Physician, heal thyself” (Latin; from the Bible, Luke 4:23)

59    stomachs tempers, angry appetites

61    jar sound discordant

62    compound settle

67    Forsooth in truth    Saint Alban’s shrine allegedly the first Christian martyr in England, Saint Alban was executed in the early fourth century for sheltering Christian converts    brethren members of the town corporation

74    earthly vale i.e., the earth, the mortal world

75    by…multiplied i.e., as he will be subject to more temptations

78    circumstance details

85    thou…told you would have been in a better position to say so (i.e., that he had been blind from birth)

87    Berwick Berwick-upon-Tweed, town on the border between Scotland and England

89    unhallowed pass i.e., pass without saying your prayers    unhallowed unholy

90    still continually

92    of out of, from

96    offer make an offering

102    fall…tree “climbing a plum tree” could be euphemistic for copulation

107    But that only that time, once

109    Mass by the (religious) Mass

110    damsons plays on sense of “testicles”

111    climb play son sense of “mount sexually”

112    subtle crafty    shall not serve will not hold, suffice

113    wink close your eyes

114    yet still

116    Say’st…so do you say so

122    many multitude

134    several various of between

135    nominate name

136    cunning skill

139    beadles parish constables

142    presently immediately

143    straight straightaway

144    by and by immediately

146    alone unsupported

150    doublet close-fitting jacket

152    bearest (do you) endure it

154    drab whore

161    towns i.e., the French towns given away as part of Margaret’s dowry

164    sort gang naughty wicked, villainous    lewdly bent bent on evil

165    Under…confederacy supported by and in collusion with

167    rout gang, crowd

168    practised plotted

170    apprehended…fact caught in the act, arrested as they committed the crime

172    Demanding of asking about

174    at large at length

176    forthcoming yet in custody, awaiting trial

177    turned blunted

178    like likely    hour appointed time

179    leave to afflict stop tormenting

182    meanest groom humblest servingman

184    confusion destruction, devastation

185    tainture defilement

186    look make sure, take care

189    how it stands the full circumstances

192    conversed kept company, associated

193    like to pitch resembling pitch (a black, tarlike substance)

201    poise weigh, balance    cause court case

202    beam stands sure scales are evenly balanced

Act 2 Scene 2

2.2   Location: York’s private garden

3    close secluded, private

19    Richard i.e., Richard II

26    Pomfret Pontefract, near York

32    issue offspring

38    Edmund i.e., Edmund Mortimer, fifth Earl of March, declared heir presumptive by Richard II

39    This Edmund following an error in the historical sources he used, Shakespeare now confuses Edmund Mortimer with his uncle of the same name, the man who was captured by the Welsh rebel leader    Owen Glendower but went on to marry Glendower’s daughter and fight on the rebel side

42    Who i.e., Glendower    captivity…died another error

54    proceedings line of descent

57    issue descendants, line of descent    fails dies out, comes to an end

59    slips cuttings    stock tree

61    plot ground

65    We York uses the royal pronoun

66    that until the time that

68    suddenly immediately/impetuously

69    with advice advisedly, prudently

71    Wink at shut your eyes to, ignore

81    Neville Warwick’s family name

83    but except for

Act 2 Scene 3

2.3   Location: London, a place of judgment (exact location unspecified)

4    God’s book i.e., the Bible    adjudged to judged in advance to be worthy of

7    Smithfield area in the City of London; the customary place for the execution of heretics

8    strangled i.e., hanged

9    for because

10    Despoilèd stripped, deprived in i.e., for the rest of

11    open public

13    With i.e., in the custody of    Isle of Man small island off the northwest coast of England

14    were would be

16    justify excuse

21    would desires, would have

22    Stay wait

23    staff the official symbol of the Protector’s role

24    God…feet Henry draws on the words of several Psalms

25    stay support

28    of years of maturity

29    be to be need to be

31    king his king’s

41    bears…maim suffers such a serious injury    pulls wrenches

43    raught seized

45    pine possibly alludes to the emblem adopted by Henry IV, Gloucester’s father    sprays branches (offspring)

46    her youngest days its prime

47    let him go i.e., forget him

49    appellant challenger, accuser

50    lists designated combat area

52    purposely therefore specifically for that reason

54    A in    fit prepared

56    bestead prepared    Drum drummer    staff…it a basic but potentially vicious type of weapon

59    sack type of Spanish sweet white wine

61    charneco sweet Portuguese wine, a kind of port

62    double very strong

64    pledge toast    fig from old Spanish figo; exclamation of contempt, often accompanied by an obscene gesture that consisted of thrusting the thumb between the index and middle fingers

71    deal fight

72    fence fencing

79    touching concerning

80    take my death stake my life on it

81    have at thee i.e., here I come (standard utterance at the opening of a fight)    downright forthright, literally “vertically downward”

82    Dispatch get on with it    double slur (perhaps plays on the sense of “deceive”)

83    alarum trumpet call to arms

85    in…way in between you and your master/hindering your master

87    presence i.e., of the king

93    he i.e., Horner

Act 2 Scene 4

2.4   Location: a London street

2    evermore succeeds always follows

4    fleet pass swiftly away

9    Uneath not easily flinty hard, stony

11    abrook endure

12    abject base, lowly

13    envious malicious

14    erst formerly    proud splendid, luxurious    chariot-wheels…triumph the image is of a glorious military victor returning home in ceremony    verses…back wrongdoers undertaking public penance were required to wear papers listing their crimes    taper candle

22    giddy fickle, unstable, heady, excited

23    throw turn, cast

24    hateful hate-filled

25    closet private chamber rue pity, grieve for

26    ban curse

32    Mailed up enveloped, wrapped up (falconry term referring to the covering of the hawk to quiet it)

34    deep-fet fetched up from deep within, profound

36    start flinch (in pain)

37    advisèd careful

39    Trowest thou do you think

42    pomp (former) splendor

46    As that

47    wonder spectacle    pointing-stock object of ridicule

48    idle useless/foolish/trifling    rascal lowborn

49    mild placid, calm

53    her i.e., Queen Margaret

55    limed smeared with birdlime (sticky substance used to catch birds)

56    how thou canst as best you may

59    forbear desist    aimest guess, conjecture    awry mistakenly

60    attainted convicted of treason

63    procure…scathe bring about any damage

66    scandal were not disgrace would not be

68    quiet acceptance, calm

69    sort fashion, adapt

70    few days’ wonder passing spectacle (proverbial: “a wonder lasts but nine days”)    worn worn away, forgotten

72    Holden to be held    Bury Bury St. Edmunds, a town in Suffolk

74    close dealing secretive business, plotting

76    commission orders, authorization

77    stays ends

80    protect take custody of

82    Entreat treat

90    afeared afraid

91    this world’s eternity eternal enjoyment of this world

96    used treated    state rank (Eleanor develops the sense of “condition of shame”)

97    reproach disgrace itself

101    better…fare may you fare better than I

102    conduct conductor, guide

103    office job, duty

104    is discharged has been carried out

107    attire clothe

108    shifted moved, altered (puns on the sense of “changed as an undergarment or ‘shift’ ”)

Act 3 Scene 1

3.1   Location: Bury St. Edmunds

1    muse wonder

2    wont usual practice    hindmost last (to arrive)

5    strangeness aloof, distant nature

7    insolent haughty, arrogant

8    peremptory overbearing

9    know remember    since when

10    far-off distant

12    admired him for marveled at his

14    give…day greet one another

15    knits his brow frowns

16    stiff unbowèd knee a respectful bow involved bending the knee

17    duty i.e., dutiful gestures of respect

18    curs dogs    grin bare their teeth, snarl

23    Meseemeth it seems to me    no policy not expedient, imprudent

24    Respecting considering    rancorous malicious, bitter

26    come about frequent, be in contact with

29    commotion rebellion, riot

31    shallow-rooted i.e., easily pulled up

32    Suffer allow

33    want lack    husbandry cultivation

35    collect gather (information about)/conclude, deduce

36    fond foolish

37    supplant uproot, overthrow, replace

38    subscribe give in, concede

40    Reprove refute, disprove

41    effectual pertinent, valid

43    put obliged, called upon

45    subornation incitement (to do wrong)

46    practices plots

47    privy to privately aware of

48    reputing boasting/thinking proudly

49    the to the

50    vaunts boasts

51    bedlam brain-sick insane and foolish

52    frame organize, devise

54    simple show innocent appearance

57    Unsounded unfathomed, not probed or measured

59    strange i.e., cruel or illegal

61    Levy raise

63    By means whereof as a result of which

64    to compared to

65    smooth glib, apparently amiable

66    at once in answer to you all/without further ado/once and for all

67    annoy injure

68    shall I if I

72    given disposed, inclined

74    fond affiance misguided trust/foolish affinity

76    disposèd as of the disposition of    raven a bird of ill omen

78    inclined of the same disposition    wolves i.e., who proverbially wear sheep’s clothing

79    steal a shape adopt a disguise    means intends

81    Hangs depends    cutting short plays on the idea of beheading    fraudful treacherous, fraudulent

84    interest legal claim

85    bereft deprived

89    blasted blighted, withered

91    gear business

94    stayed delayed, been absent

104    of from

105    stayed withheld

107    What who

110    watched the night stayed awake

111    studying pursuing/meditating on

112    That may that    doit small coin of little value

113    groat coin worth four old pence

115    proper store personal wealth

117    disbursèd paid out

123    That so that    was defamed by became infamous for

124    whiles while

127    lowly…fault humble words of repentance were payment enough for the crime

129    felonious wicked, criminal    fleeced plundered, robbed    passengers travelers

130    condign fitting, appropriate

132    Above…else more severely than other types of offense

133    easy slight, small

138    keep guard, detain further subsequent

140    suspense suspicion

145    subordination incitement to wrongdoing, bribery    predominant in the ascendant (astronomical term)

146    equity justice

147    complot plot, conspiracy

149    period end

150    expend it pay the price (of death)

151    mine i.e., my death

154    blab reveal, betray

156    Sharp merciless, severe

157    envious malicious

158    doggèd doglike, ill-tempered, stubborn

159    overweening overreaching, presumptuous

160    accuse accusation    level aim

162    Causeless without cause

164    liefest liege dearest sovereign

166    conventicles secret meetings

168    want lack

169    store abundance

172    railing ranting, complaining

175    chid rebuked    rated at berated

176    scope range, opportunity

177    zeal loyalty, devotion

178    twit taunted, reproached

179    clerky couched skillfully expressed

180    subornèd bribed

181    state authority, high position

184    Beshrew curse    played me false cheated, deceived me

186    wrest the sense twist the meaning

188    sure securely

192    gnarling snarling, growling

194    decay ruin, downfall

200    engirt encircled

203    map image

205    proved thee false found you disloyal    feared thy faith doubted your loyalty

206    envies thy estate feels malice toward your position

208    subversion the destruction, overthrow

211    strays a problematic image as the calf is bound, unless this means loosely leashed about the neck or penned in—possibly and functions more like “or” as Henry lists the things a butcher might do to a calf; many editors emend to “strains”

214    dam mother

220    vowèd avowed, sworn

221    ’twixt in between

223    Free noble, honorable

224    cold indifferent, passive

225    show false appearance, deceptive behavior

226    Beguiles deceives, distracts    crocodile…passengers crocodiles were believed to shed tears as a means of enticing victims relenting pitying

229    chequered slough patterned, multicolored outer skin

232    wit intellect, reasoning

233    rid removed from

235    worthy sensible, shrewd

236    colour pretext, excuse (picks up on die/dye to pun on the sense of “hue”; also puns on “collar”—i.e., hangman’s noose)

237    meet appropriate, fitting

238    were would be    policy clever strategy

239    still continually

240    haply rise may perhaps rebel

241    trivial argument scant evidence, slight grounds

242    More than mistrust except for suspicion

243    by this on the strength of this reasoning

244    fain willing

248    all one the same (if)    empty hungry

249    kite bird of prey

253    surveyor…fold keeper of the sheepfold

255    idly posted over foolishly ignored

256    Because…executed simply because he had yet to kill one of the sheep

259    chaps jaws

260    proved…liege has been demonstrated through reasoned argument to be a threat to Henry

261    stand insist    quillets fine distinctions, quibbles

262    gins, by snares two types of traps for catching game    subtlety cunning, crafty strategy

264    So provided

265    mates checkmates, catches out

267    except unless

269    that to show that    accordeth is in accordance with

270    meritorious worthy, deserving of God’s reward

272    be his priest preside over his death like a priest administering the last rites (i.e., kill him)

274    Ere…priest before you have time to be ordained as a priest/to arrange for a priest to be there

275    censure approve

277    tender so hold so dear

281    skills…doom does not make much difference who questions our judgment    Post messenger

282    amain in haste

283    signify inform, report    up up in arms

285    succours assistance    betime rapidly, at an early stage

287    green fresh

288    breach gash, hole/uprising, rebellion

289    weighty cause pressing circumstance, important matter

291    meet appropriate    lucky…France York is being sarcastic and insulting toward Somerset

293    far-fet far-fetched, devious

297    betimes early

300    charactered inscribed, written

301    Men’s flesh men whose flesh is

306    happily perhaps

308    in the number among them

309    try put to the test

310    uncivil uncivilized, rebellious    kerns lightly armed Irish foot soldiers

311    temper clay soften, mix earth

313    Collected choicely carefully selected

314    hap luck, fortune

320    take order make arrangements

332    misdoubt mistrust, uncertainty

333    that that which

335    keep dwell, remain    mean-born lowborn, humble

336    harbour dwelling, shelter

338    dignity honor, high rank, kingship

340    tedious laborious, painstakingly intricate

341    politicly strategically, cunningly

343    fear me fear    warm…hearts refers to the proverbial cautionary tale of the man who warms a frozen snake against his chest, only to have it revive and bite him starvèd stiff from cold

348    nourish generate, support

350    Shall that shall

351    fell fierce, cruel

352    circuit i.e., crown

354    mad-bred created by madness    flaw squall, blast

355    minister…intent agent of my intentions

357    Ashford town in Kent, south of Canterbury

358    make commotion rouse rebellion

359    John Mortimer like York, a member of the Mortimer family, who were descended from Edward III’s third son, Lionel, Duke of Clarence, and could thus claim entitlement to the throne

362    till that until    darts arrows

365    caper perform a leaping, nimble dance    Morisco morris dancer

366    he the morris dancer    bells traditionally tied to the dancer’s legs

367    Full very    shag-haired shaggy-haired, wild-haired

370    notice information

372    John…dead Mortimer was executed in 1424

373    gait bearing

374    commons’ common people’s, public’s

375    affect favor, incline to

376    taken arrested    racked tortured by being strapped upon a frame and having the limbs stretched

378    moved persuaded

379    great like very likely

381    rascal lowborn man/rogue

383    put apart ousted, put aside (perhaps with murderous suggestion)

Act 3 Scene 2

2    dispatched done away with, killed (Suffolk shifts the sense to “managed, carried out”)

3    to do still to be done (i.e., that we had not done it)

9    venturous risky

11    laid fair tidied, straightened up

15    straight straightaway

17    If (to determine) whether    publishèd declared

20    straiter more harshly

21    of good esteem worthy of belief

22    approved in proved guilty of    practice culpable guilty plotting, wrongful conspiracy

24    faultless…man may condemn an innocent and noble man

25    acquit him clear himself

30    forfend forbid

31    tonight last night

34    Rear up raise, support    wring twist, squeeze (to restore circulation)

41    raven’s note proverbially ominous and associated with death

42    dismal fatal, ominous    bereft robbed me of

44    hollow empty, insincere

45    first-conceivèd original, first perceived

48    affrights frightens

49    baleful deadly

53    basilisk mythological reptile whose gaze had the power to kill

57    rate berate

61    heart-offending heart-wounding (each groan or sigh was thought to deprive the heart of a drop of blood)

66    deem judge, think

67    hollow shallow, insincere

70    reproach censure, disgrace

74    woe sorry

77    adder, waxen deaf in order to resist snake charmers, the adder supposedly blocked one ear with its tail and placed the other to the ground waxen grown

78    forlorn wretched, neglected, outcast

83    nigh nearly

84    awkward adverse, unfavorable    bank shore

85    clime land, region

86    but unless (the)

88    unkind hostile, unnatural

89    gentle kindly (i.e., in relation to what follows)

90    he i.e.,    Aeolus forth forth from    brazen strong (as brass); in classical mythology, Aeolus’ island is described as being surrounded by bronze walls

93    Aeolus in Greek mythology, the ruler of the winds

95    pretty artful/clever/charming    vaulting leaping

98    splitting vicious, jagged, capable of splitting ships    sinking sands sands capable of sinking ships

100    Because so that

101    perish destroy

102    ken see, make out

104    hatches deck

106    earnest-gaping eagerly gazing

108    bound in with surrounded by

112    packing gone    heart i.e., the    jewel (plays on the sense of “affections, desires”)

114    wishèd longed for, desired

116    agent i.e., as Henry’s deputy

117    witch bewitch    Ascanius son of Aeneas, in whose form Cupid disguised himself so that he could enchant Dido with tales of Aeneas’ bravery in the battle of Troy, and make her fall in love with the boy’s father; Aeneas responded to Dido’s passion, but eventually deserted her

118    madding frantic, maddened by love

120    false inconstant, disloyal

121    can no more cannot go on    Commons commoners

127    want lack

128    his revenge payment for his death

129    spleenful enraged

130    order nature, circumstances

134    comment then upon explain

136    rude rough, ignorant

137    stay stop, restrain

140    suspect suspicion

142    Fain gladly    chafe restore warmth to    paly bloodless, pale

145    trunk body

147    mean obsequies meager funeral rites    Enter…bed i.e., the curtains are drawn to reveal the discovery space, a sizable alcove at the back of the stage

153    my…death an image of my own death

155    dread revered, awe-inspiring king i.e., Christ

158    thrice-famèd well-renowned, much honored

160    instance evidence

161    settled congealed, not flowing

162    timely-parted ghost corpse of a person who has died naturally, at their right time

163    meagre emaciated

164    Being (the blood) having

166    aidance assistance

167    Which i.e., the blood

172    upreared standing on end

173    abroad displayed spread out widely

176    well-proportioned well-shaped    rugged shaggy, disheveled

177    lodged flattened

179    probable sufficient evidence

184    keep guard, protect

185    like likely    feast entertain

186    well seen obvious

187    belike perhaps

188    timeless untimely

192    puttock bird of prey, especially the kite

199    ease disuse

200    scoured cleaned (often with a thrusting action)

201    badge insignia, sign of allegiance

203    faulty guilty

205    contumelious contemptuous, insolent

206    controller critic

214    stern untutored churl coarse ignorant peasant    stock tree trunk/family tree

215    graft united (horticultural image from the practice of grafting a cutting of one plant or tree onto the trunk of another, usually a stronger but coarser tree that allowed the superior cutting to flourish)    crab-tree slip cutting of a wild apple tree (slip plays on the sense of “moral lapse”)

217    bucklers shields (a buckler is a small round shield)

218    And…fee i.e., by killing you myself rather than you being executed for the murder of Gloucester    deathsman executioner

219    Quitting ridding

220    makes me mild makes me restrain myself

222    passèd recently uttered

225    fearful homage timorous servility

226    hire payment (i.e., death)

227    Pernicious destructive, wicked

229    presence royal presence

231    cope fight, encounter

234    just justified, with righteousness on his side

235    steel i.e., armor

238    weapons…presence it was a punishable offense to draw a sword in the presence of the king

251    mere pure, absolute

252    opposite hostile, opposing

253    As…liking that might be thought to be opposed to your wishes

254    forward in insistent in demanding

257    charge order

258    In on

259    strait strict

263    suffered allowed to remain

264    mortal worm fatal snake

266    whe’er whether

267    fell dangerous, destructive

272    like likely (sarcastic)    hinds peasants

275    quaint skillful, cunning

278    sort gang    tinkers menders of metal pots and kettles (also applied to beggars or thieves)

282    cited urged, incited

283    purpose intend (to do)

285    Mischance calamity, misfortune    state kingly status

286    his i.e., God’s

288    breathe infection in contaminate

289    But any more than

290    gentle noble

291    Ungentle discourteous, unkind

296    be’st be

305    tend attend

306    execrations curses

307    heavy sorrowful

311    mandrake plant with forked roots that resembled the human form; it was said to shriek when pulled from the ground, causing madness or death in any who heard it

312    bitter-searching sharp, piercing, probing

314    fixèd gritted, clenched

318    beaten flint this stone gives off sparks when it is struck

319    fixed on end standing upright    distract frenzied, mad

320    ban curse

323    Gall bile    daintiest most refined thing

324    cypress trees often planted in graveyards, they were associated with death

325    prospect view    basilisks mythical reptiles that could kill with a look

326    smart painful, sharp    lizards these reptiles were often confused with snakes and thought to be poisonous

328    boding ominous    consort group of musicians

332    overchargèd overloaded

334    leave stop

339    sport entertainment, diversion

343    monuments memorials, mementoes

345    these…seal these lips by the imprint they left on your hand

347    know feel, realize the extent of

348    surmised guessed at, imagined

349    surfeits overindulges and grows sick    want deprivation

350    repeal recall from exile

351    Adventure venture, hazard

354    friends plays on the sense of “lovers”

356    Loather more reluctant

360    wert thou thence if you were not in it

362    So provided

364    several various

366    joy enjoy

372    catch the gasp for

376    as as if

377    overchargèd overburdened

380    heavy sorrowful

382    an…loss i.e., the cardinal’s old age would mean he did not have long to live in any event

383    Omitting disregarding

385    southern clouds rain was thought to come chiefly from the south    contend in compete for

388    by near    but as good as

390    die plays on the sense of “have an orgasm”

391    lap plays on the sense of “vagina”

392    breathe…air i.e., die

394    dug nipple

395    Where whereas    from away from

398    turn turn back, return

400    lived would live    Elysium heaven or paradise of Greek mythology

401    but…jest not really to die at all/to play at dying (with sexual connotations)

404    fretful abrasive, aggravating

405    deathful deadly, fatal

408    Iris in Greek mythology, goddess of the rainbow and the messenger of Juno, queen of the gods (plays on the sense of “part of the eye”)

411    cask casket

413    bark ship    sunder we we are split in two, we separate

415    severally separately

Act 3 Scene 3

3.3   Location: the cardinal’s bedchamber

4    So if

6    is seen appears

9    he i.e., Gloucester

14    dust i.e., to which all bodies return

16    lime-twigs twigs smeared with birdlime, a sticky substance used to catch birds

18    of from

21    fiend the devil

24    grin grimace

30    argues testifies to, suggests

32    close tightly

33    meditation reflection and prayer

Act 4 Scene 1

4.1   Location: the coast of Kent    Ordnance cannon Master officer in charge of sailing a ship

1    gaudy bright blabbing revealing, telltale

3    arouse awaken    jades worn-out horses, but here dragons (who drew the chariot of Hecate, Greek goddess of the night)

5    flagging drooping

6    Clip strike glancingly, skim/embrace, clasp

8    prize captured vessel

9    pinnace small two-masted boat Downs an anchorage off the coast of Kent

11    discoloured i.e., which will be discolored

13    make boot take advantage, make profit

18    much it too much

19    port social position

22    counterpoised compensated, offset

25    laying…aboard boarding the captured ship

29    George badge or emblem of Saint George, patron saint of England; part of the insignia of the knightly Order of the Garter

30    Rate value

31    Walter pronounced like “water”

32    affright frighten you

34    cunning man one skilled in magic and fortune-telling    calculate my birth cast my horoscope

36    bloody-minded intent on murder/think on my death

37    sounded pronounced

41    sell revenge i.e., ransom prisoners

42    arms coat of arms

48    Jove Roman king of the gods

50    Obscure lowly, insignificant    lousy despicable, louse-infested    swain rustic, yokel

52    jaded contemptible (language in the next line picks up a play on “jades,” i.e., worn-out horses)    groom servant/servant who tended to horses

53    kissed thy hand a gesture of respect

54    Bare-headed servants did not wear hats in deference to their masters    foot-cloth mule mule used to carry (or possibly wearing) the stately ornamental cloth used to drape a nobleman’s horse

55    happy fortunate    shook my head nodded in approval/gave the slightest sign of acknowledgment

56    waited…cup served me drink

57    Fed…trencher acted as my taster/been supported by my household trencher plate    kneeled…board bowed, served deferentially at the table (board)

59    crest-fall’n humbled

61    voiding lobby antechamber or lobby for those leaving the main chamber

64    charm i.e., silence (with a spell)

65    forlorn swain wretched fellow/neglected lover (of Queen Margaret; or Whitmore mocks the idea of the servant–master relationship Suffolk has just elaborated on)

67    blunt forthright/unthreatening, lacking sharpness

68    longboat the largest boat belonging to a sailing vessel, presumably used to bring the men ashore

70    for thy own for fear of losing your own head

72    Pole? Suffolk reacts to the insolent use of his family name by an inferior; in his ensuing speech, the Lieutenant puns on “pool”

73    kennel gutter    sink sewer

74    Troubles stirs up, muddies

75    yawning gaping

77    sweep the ground either as the body kneels with its head bowed for execution or as the decapitated head falls to the ground, its lips against the dirt

79    Against exposed to    senseless unfeeling    grin grimace

80    Who i.e., the    winds again in response

81    hags of hell the three Furies of classical mythology

82    affy betroth, engage    mighty…king i.e., Henry VI to Margaret

84    subject subjects

85    policy cunning, strategy

86    Sylla Sulla (138–78 BC), notoriously cruel Roman dictator who drew up a list of his enemies who were to be killed    overgorged stuffed, glutted

87    gobbets chunks of raw flesh    mother’s i.e., native country’s

89    revolting rebellious    thorough through, because of

90    Picardy region of northern France

91    surprised seized

95    As hating in hate of

97    murder…king i.e., Richard II, who was deposed by Bullingbrook (Henry IV), thus establishing the ascendancy of the House of Lancaster

98    encroaching grasping (wrongfully)

99    whose i.e., the House of York   colours military banners (of the House of York)

100    Advance raise, hold up    half-faced sun the emblem of Edward III and Richard II consisted of the sun’s rays emerging above clouds

101    ‘Invitis nubibus’ “In spite of clouds” (Latin)

102    commons common people

106    god…thunder Jove (Jupiter), the Roman king of the gods, was traditionally armed with a thunderbolt

107    drudges base servants

109    pinnace i.e., relatively small boat, often in attendance on a larger

110    Bargulus…pirate a pirate mentioned in Cicero’s De Officiis, a standard text in Elizabethan schools

111    Drones…beehives nonworking male bees (whose sole purpose is to impregnate the queen) were thought to eat the honey other bees had made; equally inaccurate was the belief that beetles sucked eagles’ blood

113    vassal servant, slave

115    of with a

116    waft guide, convey

119    Paene…artus “Cold fear almost entirely seizes my limbs” (Latin)

122    fair courteously

123    imperial commanding

125    we Suffolk uses the royal pronoun

126    suit entreaty

129    bloody pole the heads of traitors were mounted on spikes and displayed on London Bridge; pole puns on Suffolk’s family name

130    uncovered hatless (a mark of deference)

133    Hale haul, drag

136    vile low, contemptible    Besonians beggars, base men

137    sworder assassin    banditto bandit, lawless

138    sweet sweet-voiced, rhetorically masterful    Tully Cicero, famous Roman orator and statesman of the first century BC; in fact, he was killed by a centurion and a tribune, though Thomas Nashe refers to his murder by “slaves”    Brutus’ bastard rumor had it that Brutus was Julius Caesar’s illegitimate son

140    Pompey the Great famous Roman general of the first century BC; he was killed in Egypt, but a play by George Chapman depicted his death on the Greek island of Lesbos

145    mistress “female master,” but here predominantly “lover”

Act 4 Scene 2

4.2   Location: Kent [   George]…   Holland probably the names of the actors Shakespeare had in mind as he wrote this scene; John Holland is known to have been an actor at the time    staves staffs used as weapons

1    lath thin strip of wood; a dagger of lath was the conventional weapon of the Vice character in morality plays    up in rebellion, up in arms

4    clothier cloth worker who dealt with cloth after it had been woven    dress clothe/reform

5    turn it turn it inside out (as a means of renewing it and prolonging its use)/turn it upside down socially    set…it give it a smooth finish    nap projecting fibers, surface texture

6    merry world like the good old days

7    up into fashion

8    regarded noticed, valued

9    think scorn disdain, consider it lowly    leather aprons the typical clothing of an artisan

11    ‘Labour…vocation’ proverbial, i.e., each man must walk in his own calling

12    labouring working (manually)

14    hit it got it, hit the nail on the head    brave fine    hard hardened, toughened (through manual labor)

16    Best’s…tanner the son of Best, the tanner (leather worker)    Wingham village near Canterbury, in Kent

17    dog’s-leather used for glove making

21    Argo i.e., ergo—“therefore” (Latin)    thread…spun in classical mythology, the three Fates spun, measured out and cut the thread of a person’s life

22    fall in join    Sawyer workman who saws timber infinite numbers i.e., a large group of people

23    We Cade uses the royal pronoun    termed of named after

24    of for    cade barrel

25    fail some editors emend to “fall,” thus generating a possible play on Cade’s name as    cadere is Latin for “to fall”

29    bricklayer puns on Mortimer/mortarer

32    Lacys the family name of the earls of Lincoln

33    laces puns on Lacys

34    travel puns on “travail” (work, labor/have sex, as a roaming whore)    furred pack pedlar’s pack (made of or trimmed with fur)/vagina covered with pubic hair    washes bucks washes laundry/has sex with lecherous men

37    field may play on the sense of “background of a coat of arms”    under a hedge proverbial birthplace for the very lowly

38    cage prison for petty criminals and vagabonds

40    A must needs he must be    valiant sturdy, capable of work

42    whipped the standard punishment for vagabonds

45    proof tried resistance (i.e., old, much worn; usually applied to impenetrable armor)

46    stand remain    burnt branded (with a “T” for “Thief”)

49    the…hoops wooden drinking vessels had hoops around them as a means of measuring their contents; a    three-hooped pot contained two pints, so Cade’s suggestion means that a drinker would get considerably more for his money

50    small weak    be in common become common land, available to all

51    Cheapside market area of London    palfrey a horse for riding (as opposed to a warhorse)    grass graze

55    score account, expense    apparel dress    livery servants’ uniform    agree match/get on

60    wax sealing wax, used on official documents

61    seal agree, put my name (plays on the sense of “have sex”)    thing i.e., document (plays on the sense of “vagina”)    Clerk parish clerk with secretarial responsibilities as scribe or notary    Chartham a village near Canterbury, in Kent

63    cast account do arithmetic, add up accounts

64    monstrous unnatural (a lack of literacy and numeracy was very common among country folk)

65    took found, encountered/arrested, captured    setting…copies preparing written exercises for schoolboys

67    red letters in almanacs, the saints’ days were printed in red as were the capital letters in school primers

68    conjurer magician (using an almanac to make predictions)

69    make obligations draw up legal bonds    court hand the script used in official, legal documents

70    proper fine/handsome

73    Emmanuel meaning “God with us,” a phrase often found at the heads of letters or deeds

74    go hard with be the worse

75    Dost…to do you usually    mark to thyself illiterate people “signed” their name by making a mark such as an “X”

76    plain-dealing simple, straightforward

79    inkhorn portable inkwell

81    particular private (playing on opposite of    general)

82    hard close

84    encountered i.e., in combat

85    a he

86    No i.e., no, nothing but a knight

87    presently immediately    Drum drummer

90    hinds peasants

92    groom servant (i.e., Cade)

93    revolt turn back (to your former allegiance)

96    pass care

101    shearman one who shears excess fiber from woollen cloth as it is made

102    Adam in the Bible, the first man; he looked after the Garden of Eden

107    two…birth i.e., twins

109    question problem

110    put to nurse given to a wet nurse to be breastfed (noble women did not generally breastfeed their own babies)

116    alive still there

123    Go to expression of impatient dismissal

124    span-counter game in which a player tried to throw a counter or coin as close to that of his opponent as possible (and within the distance of the span of a hand)    French crowns coins/syphilitic baldness/monarch’s crowns (refers to the campaigns against the French under Henry V)

125    Protector legal and political guardian

128    mained maimed (puns on Maine)    fain to go obliged to walk

129    puissance power

130    gelded castrated

132    miserable contemptible, pitiable

134    tongue language

137    gentle peaceable

140    up up in arms

141    That so that

143    for as

148    clouted shoon patched or hobnailed shoes (i.e., workingmen’s footwear)

149    thrifty respectable, worthy

151    order battle formation

152    out of order rebellious

Act 4 Scene 3

5    Lent…one during Lent, the forty-day period before Easter when Christians were to eat fish rather than meat, butchers required a special license to slaughter animals; Cade promises to double the length of Lent and grants Dick the right to kill ninety-nine animals/supply ninety-nine customers/hold a license for ninety-nine years

8    monument memorial trophy

9    brigandine body armor

13    Fear doubt    warrant assure

Act 4 Scene 4

4.4   Location: the royal court, London    supplication formal petition

12    parley negotiate

15    wandering unfixed, having its own motion

17    That who

26    Southwark area just south of the Thames, on the outskirts of the City

36    false caterpillars treacherous parasites

37    graceless rough, ignorant/lacking divine grace    they…do echoes Christ’s words from the cross (Luke 23:34)

38    Killingworth Kenilworth Castle, near Coventry in Warwickshire

39    power army

41    appeased pacified

44    So then

50    rascal people rabble

52    spoil plunder, loot

Act 4 Scene 5

4.5   Location: the Tower of London

2    the bridge i.e., London Bridge

3    craves requests/begs

8    gather head raise an army

9    Matthew Gough historically a very experienced soldier

Act 4 Scene 6

4.6   Location: Cannon Street, London    London Stone central City landmark located in Cannon Street

2    of at    Pissing Conduit the nickname for Little Conduit, a water fountain used by the lower-class Londoners

Act 4 Scene 7

4.7   Location: Smithfield, London

1    Savoy the London residence of the Duke of Lancaster    Inns of Court series of buildings west of the City where young men studied law

4    lordship title and estate of a lord

7    whole healed, healthy

12    biting severe/gnawed, bitten with teeth

14    towns i.e., Anjou and Maine

15    pay…fifteens a tax of 140 percent on each person’s assets

16    subsidy levying of taxation to meet a special requirement, e.g., war

17    say fine part-silk fabric (puns on Saye)    serge hard-wearing woollen fabric

18    buckram coarse linen    point-blank direct range

20    Basimecu i.e., baise mon cul, French for “kiss my arse”    Be…presence the standard legal phrase used at the beginning of a document (where “these presents” refers to the document) is confused with the royal “presence”

21    besom broom (puns on “basimecu”)

24    score…tally means of keeping accounts where sticks were scored, or notched, with a total, then split into halves (tallies) so that debtor and creditor had one each

25    printing…paper-mill an anachronism: the printing press (1476) and the paper mill (1495) were not established in England until the late-fifteenth century

27    usually habitually

31    only…live if a criminal could prove that he could read Latin he could claim “benefit of clergy” and avoid being hanged

32    foot-cloth stately ornamental cloth draped over the back of a horse

34    Marry by the Virgin Mary

35    hose and doublets breeches and jackets (with no outer garment)

39    ‘bona…gens’ “a good land, bad people” (Italian catchphrase used of England and the English)

41    bear (then) take

42    commentaries Caesar writ Julius Caesar’s Commentarii de Bello Gallico describes his campaigns from 58 to 52 BC; in Golding’s 1564 translation the people of Kent are described as the “civillest” in England

45    liberal generous

49    favour leniency, compassion

51    aught anything    exacted enforced (payment of taxes)

53    clerks scholars

54    book learning, education    preferred me gained me preferment, recommended me

58    forbear desist, refrain

59    parleyed unto negotiated with

60    behoof benefit, advantage

61    field battlefield

62    reaching far-reaching, influential

64    come behind a dishonorable way to attack an enemy

65    watching remaining awake, on guard

67    sitting i.e., as a judge    determine settle, decide    causes lawsuits, cases

69    hempen caudle i.e., hangman’s rope caudle strengthening medicinal gruel    hatchet the executioner’s axe

71    palsy illness characterized by trembling

72    who one who    even fair, forthright/steady, unwavering

75    affected loved, aimed at

79    guiltless bloodshedding the shedding of innocent blood

82    remorse pity    bridle restrain    an…but if only

83    familiar attendant spirit, demon

84    a in

89    obdurate unyielding

94    tribute payment made to a monarch as an act of homage    pay…it alludes to the “droit de seigneur,” the right of a feudal lord to have sex with the bride of a vassal on her wedding night    maidenhead virginity

95    hold hold property    in capite directly from the crown (legal term); puns on Latin caput, i.e., “head/maidenhead”

96    free sexually available

97    take…bills acquire goods on credit or by means of force/spear decapitated heads on our weapons/have sex with whores bills financial accounts/long-handled bladed weapons/penises

100    brave marvelous, fine

103    spoil looting, plunder

104    maces staffs of office

Act 4 Scene 8

4.8   Location: near London Bridge, on the north side of the River Thames    rabblement riotous followers

1    Fish Street on the north side of London Bridge, across the river from Southwark    St Magnus’ Corner site of St. Magnus’ Church, by London Bridge at the bottom of Fish Street    parley trumpet summons for negotiation between opposing sides, during which fighting was to stop

8    pronounce formally declare, proclaim

13    Who whoever

17    Shake he let him shake (in defiance)

19    brave audacious

22    White Hart an inn on Borough High Street in    Southwark, south of the Thames, at which Cade had lodged; its name plays on the sense of “coward”

23    out up

24    recreants deserters    dastards cowards

26    ravish rape    make…one look out for myself

32    meanest lowliest, most humble

34    the spoil looting, plunder

36    at jar in discord

37    fearful frightened

38    start sudden invasion

39    broil turmoil, battle

41    ‘Villiago!’ version of the Italian (here generally “foreign”) word for coward, vigliacco

42    miscarry perish, come to harm

48    A to

50    hales hauls, drags

51    surprise capture

52    despite spite    have through here I come through

55    betake me take

59    mean way, means

Act 4 Scene 9

4.9   Location: unspecified, presumably Kenilworth Castle    terrace i.e., the upper staging level or gallery

1    joyed enjoyed

8    surprised seized

9    retired retreated    halters nooses

10    powers forces, soldiers

12    Expect await    doom judgment, sentence

13    ope open

14    entertain receive

18    infortunate unfortunate

21    several countries various regions

23    advertisèd warned

24    newly recently, just

25    puissant powerful

26    galloglasses Irish soldiers armed with axes    stout bold, hardy    kerns lightly armed Irish foot soldiers

27    array readiness for combat

28    still continually

31    state situation/country/kingship    distressed afflicted with adversity

33    calmed becalmed

35    second support, reinforce

37    of for

38    Duke Edmund i.e., Somerset

44    rough in terms harsh in your choice of language

45    brook tolerate

46    deal negotiate

47    redound unto turn out for

49    yet so far, up until now

Act 4 Scene 10

4.10   Location: Iden’s garden, Kent

1    Fie expression of angry impatience

2    famish starve    durst dared

3    laid set with traps

4    stay wait, delay

5    sallet salad (leaves and vegetables)

6    while time    stomach appetite

7    word possible pun on “wort,” i.e., edible herb or vegetable    sallet light helmet

8    brain-pan skull    brown bill long-handled weapon with an axelike blade, either painted or varnished brown, or stained with dried blood

9    dry thirsty

11    turmoiled harried, in a state of upheaval

15    wax grow    waning diminishing, loss

16    I…envy regardless of others’ envy or malice

17    Sufficeth that it is enough that what

18    well pleasèd i.e., with plenty of food

19    lord…soil i.e., owner of the estate    stray trespasser    fee-simple land or property that is owned outright, and may be passed on to heirs in such a condition

21    of from    eat…ostrich it was a popularly thought that ostriches did so; Cade means that he will stab Iden

23    rude companion lowly, rough fellow

28    brave defy    saucy insolent

29    broached shed    beard defy (literally, pull insultingly by the beard)

30    eat eaten    meat food

34    esquire a gentleman ranking below a knight

35    Took odds accepted such an unequal challenge

37    outface defy

40    truncheon thick staff, i.e., Iden’s leg

42    if…earth i.e., if I but raise my arm, you are as good as dead

44    whose…words either “whose power is only inflicted upon mere words” or “the power of this (my sword) answers them”

45    forbears refrains from, cannot express

46    complete consummate, accomplished    champion defender of a person or cause

47    turn the edge fail to cut    chines joints

48    turned to hobnails melted down and turned into the nails used in boots

53    monstrous unnatural

54    hallow consecrate, bless

57    herald’s coat heraldic device

58    emblaze set forth by means of a heraldic device

63    bare bore, gave birth to

64    thrust…sword thrust my sword into your body

68    ungracious lacking divine grace

70    trunk body

Act 5 Scene 1

5.1   Location: St. Albans    Drum drummer    Colours flagbearers

4    entertain welcome

5    sancta majestas “sacred majesty” (Latin)

7    gold i.e., the official regalia of kingship

9    Except unless

10    have I as sure as I have

11    toss impale    flower-de-luce fleur-de-lis, the heraldic lily of the French royal coat of arms

13    dissemble deceive, disguise the truth

16    of pleasure on your own initiative, to please yourself

23    choler anger

25    abject lowly, despicable

26    Ajax Telamonius a hero of the Trojan War, Ajax, son of Telamon, flew into a mad fit of rage when the armor of Achilles was awarded to Odysseus rather than himself; in his frenzy he slaughtered a flock of sheep, thinking they were his enemies

27    spend expend

28    better born i.e., have a superior claim to the throne

30    make fair weather pretend to be agreeable

46    St George’s Field area between Southwark and Lambeth on the south side of the Thames

49    Command demand, send for

50    fealty loyalty

53    so provided that

54    kind proper, noble

55    twain two

63    discomfited defeated

64    rude…condition ignorant and of such low rank

70    wrought created for

72    an’t like if it please

73    degree rank

79    marks a mark was an accounting unit, rather than a coin, worth two thirds of a pound

80    will desire

86    front confront

92    how hardly with what difficulty    brook abuse tolerate deception, abide insult

95    Which who

96    become befit

97    palmer’s pilgrim’s; carrying a staff signaled that one had visited the Holy Land

98    awful awe-inspiring

99    engirt encircle

100    Achilles’ spear having received a fatal wound from the spear of the Greek hero, Telephus was able to cure it with rust from the same weapon

103    act enact, bring about    controlling i.e., firm, effective

107    capital punishable by death

109    these may refer to attendants/sons/weapons

110    brook permit man any man

112    ward custody

113    enfranchisement liberty

114    amain quickly

115    if that whether

117    blood-bespotted warmongering, bloodthirsty    Neapolitan Margaret was the daughter of Reignier, the titular King of Naples

118    scourge punishment, whip

120    bane destruction, poison

131    Bedlam the hospital of Saint Mary of Bethlehem in London, an institution for the insane

132    bedlam mad    humour mood, temperament

134    to be sent to

135    factious pate rebellious head

142    glass mirror

143    false-heart treacherous, disloyal

144    stake…bears an image from bear-baiting, a popular entertainment at which a bear was chained to a stake and set upon by dogs

146    astonish terrify    fell-lurking curs fierce dogs waiting to attack

149    bearherd bear keeper, handler (i.e., York)

150    baiting place bear pit

151    o’erweening overexcited, presumptuous

152    Run…bite i.e., twist round and bite the dog handler

153    suffered released/hurt    fell savage, fierce

155    piece of service sort of action

156    oppose yourselves set yourselves in opposition    match fight/equal the strength of

157    lump possibly continues bear imagery as newborn cubs were popularly supposed to be licked into shape by their mother

158    crooked…shape Richard is famed for a hunched back and various other physical deformities or ailments

159    heat you make things hot for you/make you hot from fighting

165    spectacles eyes/eyeglasses (suggests the failing eyesight of Salisbury’s old age)

167    frosty i.e., white-haired

168    harbour refuge

174    mickle great

177    repute consider

181    dispense with obtain dispensation from/disregard, do without

187    reave rob

188    wring force    customed right legally sanctioned rights of inheritance

191    subtle cunning, skillful    sophister one who makes skillful use of false logic, a specious reasoner

194    dignity honor, high rank, kingship

197    field battlefield

200    burgonet light helmet, often bearing a crest

201    know recognize, identify    household badge family crest

202    father’s father-in-law’s

203    rampant rearing, on hind legs    ragged rough-hewn

204    aloft mounted on    burgonet visored helmet

205    shows is visible, shows itself

208    rend tear, rip

212    complices accomplices

215    stigmatic criminal who has been branded, i.e., deformed one

Act 5 Scene 2

4    dead dying

8    afoot on foot

11    carrion kites birds of prey that feed on dead flesh

13    Of for

14    chase prey

16    nobly i.e., may you fight nobly

21    fast firmly

25    it i.e., my    prowess

26    on…both I lay upon the outcome of the action

27    lay wager, bet    Address prepare

28    La…oeuvres “The end crowns the works” (French)

31    confusion overthrow, ruin    on the rout in disorderly retreat

32    frames creates

35    frozen inactive, frozen with fear    part party, side

36    fly flee

37    dedicate dedicated

38    self-love self-interest, concern for preserving himself

39    essentially inherently    circumstance accident, chance events

41    premised preordained    last day Judgment Day

42    Knit unite, join

43    general trumpet the trumpet sounding doomsday to all men

44    Particularities individual trifles

45    ordainèd folio reads “ordain’d”—final syllable may or may not be sounded

46    lose spend

47    livery i.e., hair    advisèd cautious/experienced, prudent

48    chair-days infirm or inactive old age

52    tears virginal virgins’ tears

53    dew to fire it was thought that dew encouraged fire to burn more fiercely

54    reclaims calms, subdues

55    oil and flax both highly flammable

58    gobbets chunks of raw flesh

59    Medea young Absyrtus daughter of the King of Colchis,    Medea fell in love with Jason, and ran away with him; to delay her father’s pursuit, she killed her brother    Absyrtus and scattered pieces of his body in her wake

62    Aeneas…bear in Virgil’s    Aeneid, Aeneas carried his elderly father,    Anchises, on his back as they escaped from burning Troy

64    bare bore

65    heavy sorrowful/weighty

69    wizard Roger Bullingbrook, who raised a spirit that predicted that Somerset would die “where castles mounted stand” (Act 1 Scene 4)

70    temper hardness    still always Excursions bouts of fighting across the stage

73    stay wait

74    nor neither

75    is it it is

76    secure us save ourselves

77    what whatever (means)

78    ta’en captured

79    haply scape by chance escape

82    breach hole (literally, gap in defensive fortifications)

84    mischief harm (to the enemy)

85    ere before I would, rather than

86    discomfit discouragement, defeat

87    present parts surviving forces

88    relief safety

89    their…give a day of victory like theirs and to make them suffer our misfortunes

Act 5 Scene 3

2    winter i.e., aged

3    Agèd contusions the bruises of old age    brush hostile encounters, collisions

4    gallant fashionable young man    brow i.e., height, prime

5    Repairs…occasion restores himself with opportunity (for action)

6    foot i.e., of ground

9    holp helped

10    bestrid him stood over him to defend him when he was down

12    still always

13    hangings wall hangings, tapestries    homely humble

21    got…have secured what we in essence possess (refers either to the gains of the battle or to York’s kingship)

23    Being…nature since they are enemies who can recover swiftly (repairing plays on the sense of “returning”)

24    safety best means of safeguard

26    a present an immediate

27    writs summons to parliament

32    eternized immortalized

THE THIRD PART OF HENRY THE SIXTH, WITH THE DEATH OF THE DUKE OF YORK

Lancastrians

KING HENRY VI

QUEEN MARGARET

PRINCE EDWARD, their son

Lord CLIFFORD

Duke of EXETER

Duke of SOMERSET, adherent of both Lancaster and York

Earl of NORTHUMBERLAND

Earl of WESTMORLAND

Earl of OXFORD

Henry, Earl of Richmond, the future King Henry VII

Mayor of Coventry

SOMERVILLE

A FATHER who has killed his son in battle, while fighting for Lancaster

A HUNTSMAN

Yorkists

Richard Plantagenet, Duke of YORK

EDWARD, Earl of March, his eldest son, later KING EDWARD IV

GEORGE, his second son, later Duke of CLARENCE

RICHARD, his third son, later Duke of GLOUCESTER, the future King Richard III

Edmund, his youngest son, Earl of RUTLAND

TUTOR to Rutland

Duke of NORFOLK

Earl of WARWICK

MONTAGUE, brother to Warwick

Earl of PEMBROKE

Lord STAFFORD

Lord HASTINGS

Sir JOHN MORTIMER

Sir Hugh Mortimer

Sir William STANLEY

Sir John MONTGOMERY

Elizabeth, LADY GREY, later QUEEN ELIZABETH

Lord RIVERS, her brother (adherent first of Lancaster, then of York)

Prince Edward, infant son of Edward IV and Lady Grey

MAYOR of York

LIEUTENANT of the Tower of London

A SON who has killed his father in battle, while fighting for York

NURSE of Prince Edward of York

NOBLEMAN

Three WATCHMEN

The French

KING LEWIS XI of France

Lady BONA of Savoy

Lord Bourbon

Others

Two GAMEKEEPERS

MESSENGERS

POSTS

Two Aldermen of York

Soldiers, Drummers, Trumpeters, Colours (military flagbearers), Attendants

Act 1 Scene 11.1

running scene 1

Alarum. Enter Plantagenet, [the Duke of York,] Edward, Richard, Norfolk, Montague, Warwick [with white roses in their hats,] and Soldiers

WARWICKI wonder how the king escaped our hands.

YORKWhile we pursued the horsemen of the north,

He slyly stole away and left his men:

Whereat the great lord of Northumberland,

5

Whose warlike ears could never brook retreat,[5]

Cheered up the drooping[6] army, and himself,

Lord Clifford and Lord Stafford, all abreast,

Charged our main battle’s[8] front, and breaking in,

Were by the swords of common soldiers slain.

10

EDWARDLord Stafford’s father, Duke of Buckingham,

Is either slain or wounded dangerous.[11]

I cleft[12] his beaver with a downright blow.

That this is true, father, behold his blood.

MONTAGUEAnd, brother,[14] here’s the Earl of Wiltshire’s blood,

15

Whom I encountered[15] as the battles joined.

RICHARDSpeak thou[16] for me and tell them what I did. Shows Somerset’s head

YORKRichard hath best deserved of all my sons.—

But is your grace dead, my lord of Somerset?

NORFOLKSuch[19] hope have all the line of John of Gaunt.

20

RICHARDThus do I hope to shake King Henry’s head.

WARWICKAnd so do I.— Victorious Prince of York,

Before[22] I see thee seated in that throne

Which now the house of Lancaster usurps,

I vow by heaven these eyes shall never close.

25

This is the palace of the fearful[25] king,

And this the regal seat: possess[26] it, York,

For this is thine and not King Henry’s heirs’.

YORKAssist me, then, sweet Warwick, and I will,

For hither we have broken in by force.

30

NORFOLKWe’ll all assist you, he that flies shall die.

YORKThanks, gentle[31] Norfolk.— Stay by me, my lords,

And soldiers, stay and lodge by me this night. They go up [to the throne]

WARWICKAnd when the king comes, offer[33] him no violence,

Unless he seek to thrust you out perforce.[34]

35

YORKThe queen this day here holds her parliament,

But little thinks we shall be of her council.

By words or blows here let us win our right.

RICHARDArmed as we are, let’s stay within this house.

WARWICKThe bloody parliament shall this be called,

40

Unless Plantagenet, Duke of York, be king,

And bashful[41] Henry deposed, whose cowardice

Hath made us bywords[42] to our enemies.

YORKThen leave me not, my lords: be resolute.

I mean to take possession of my right.

45

WARWICKNeither the king, nor he that loves him best,

The proudest he that holds up[46] Lancaster,

Dares stir a wing, if Warwick shake his bells.[47]

I’ll plant[48] Plantagenet, root him up who dares.

Resolve thee, Richard: claim the English crown.

Flourish. Enter King Henry, Clifford, Northumberland, Westmorland, Exeter [with red roses in their hats,] and the rest

50

KING HENRY VIMy lords, look where the sturdy[50] rebel sits,

Even in the chair of state:[51] belike he means,

Backed by the power of Warwick, that false peer,[52]

To aspire unto the crown and reign as king.

Earl of Northumberland, he slew thy father,

55

And thine, Lord Clifford, and you both have vowed revenge

On him, his sons, his favourites and his friends.

NORTHUMBERLANDIf I be not,[57] heavens be revenged on me!

CLIFFORDThe hope thereof makes Clifford mourn in steel.[58]

WESTMORLANDWhat, shall we suffer[59] this? Let’s pluck him down.

60

My heart for anger burns. I cannot brook[60] it.

KING HENRY VIBe patient, gentle Earl of Westmorland.

CLIFFORDPatience is for poltroons,[62] such as he.

He durst not[63] sit there had your father lived.

My gracious lord, here in the parliament

65

Let us assail[65] the family of York.

NORTHUMBERLANDWell hast thou spoken, cousin:[66] be it so.

KING HENRY VIAh, know you not the city[67] favours them,

And they have troops of soldiers at their beck?[68]

WESTMORLANDBut when the duke is slain, they’ll quickly fly.

70

KING HENRY VIFar be the thought of this from Henry’s heart,

To make a shambles[71] of the parliament house.—

Cousin of Exeter, frowns, words and threats

Shall be the war that Henry means to use.—

Thou factious[74] Duke of York, descend my throne,

75

And kneel for grace and mercy at my feet.

I am thy sovereign.

YORKI am thine.

EXETERFor shame, come down. He[78] made thee Duke of York.

YORKIt was my inheritance, as the earldom[79] was.

80

EXETERThy father was a traitor[80] to the crown.

WARWICKExeter, thou art a traitor to the crown

In following this usurping Henry.

CLIFFORDWhom should he follow but his natural king?

WARWICKTrue, Clifford, that’s Richard Duke of York.

85

KING HENRY VIAnd shall I stand, and thou sit in my throne?

YORKIt must and shall be so. Content thyself.[86]

WARWICKBe Duke of Lancaster, let him be king. To King Henry

WESTMORLANDHe is both king and Duke of Lancaster,

And that the Lord of Westmorland shall maintain.[89]

90

WARWICKAnd Warwick shall disprove it. You forget

That we are those which chased you from the field[91]

And slew your fathers, and with colours[92] spread

Marched through the city to the palace gates.

NORTHUMBERLANDYes, Warwick, I remember it to my grief.

95

And by his[95] soul, thou and thy house shall rue it.

WESTMORLANDPlantagenet, of thee and these thy sons,

Thy kinsmen and thy friends, I’ll have more lives

Than drops of blood were in my father’s veins.

CLIFFORDUrge[99] it no more, lest that instead of words,

100

I send thee, Warwick, such a messenger[100]

As shall revenge his death before I stir.

WARWICKPoor Clifford, how I scorn his worthless threats.

YORKWill you we[103] show our title to the crown?

If not, our swords shall plead[104] it in the field.

105

KING HENRY VIWhat title hast thou, traitor, to the crown?

Thy father[106] was, as thou art, Duke of York:

Thy grandfather, Roger Mortimer, Earl of March:

I am the son of Henry the Fifth,

Who made the dauphin[109] and the French to stoop

110

And seized upon their towns and provinces.

WARWICKTalk not of France, sith[111] thou hast lost it all.

KING HENRY VIThe Lord Protector[112] lost it and not I:

When I was crowned, I was but nine months old.

RICHARDYou are old enough now, and yet,[114] methinks, you lose.—

115

Father, tear the crown from the usurper’s head.

EDWARDSweet father, do so, set it on your head.

MONTAGUEGood brother, as thou lov’st and honourest arms,

Let’s fight it out and not stand cavilling[118] thus.

RICHARDSound drums and trumpets, and the king will fly.

120

YORKSons, peace!

KING HENRY VIPeace, thou, and give King Henry leave[121] to speak.

WARWICKPlantagenet shall speak first: hear him, lords,

And be you silent and attentive too,

For he that interrupts him shall not live.

125

KING HENRY VIThink’st thou that I will leave my kingly throne,

Wherein my grandsire and my father sat?

No: first shall war unpeople[127] this my realm;

Ay, and their colours, often borne in France,

And now in England to our heart’s great sorrow,

130

Shall be my winding-sheet.[130] Why faint you, lords?

My title’s good, and better far than his.

WARWICKProve it, Henry, and thou shalt be king.

KING HENRY VIHenry the Fourth by conquest got the crown.

YORK’Twas by rebellion against his king.[134]

135

KING HENRY VII know not what to say, my title’s weak.— Aside

Tell me, may not a king adopt an heir?

YORKWhat then?

KING HENRY VIAn if[138] he may, then am I lawful king,

For Richard, in the view of many lords,

140

Resigned the crown to Henry the Fourth,

Whose heir my father was, and I am his.

YORKHe rose against him, being[142] his sovereign,

And made him to resign his crown perforce.

WARWICKSuppose, my lords, he did it unconstrained,[144]

145

Think you ’twere[145] prejudicial to his crown?

EXETERNo, for he could not so resign his crown,

But that the next heir[147] should succeed and reign.

KING HENRY VIArt thou against us, Duke of Exeter?

EXETERHis[149] is the right, and therefore pardon me.

150

YORKWhy whisper you, my lords, and answer not?

EXETERMy conscience tells me he is lawful king.

KING HENRY VIAll will revolt from me and turn to him. Aside?

NORTHUMBERLANDPlantagenet, for all the claim thou lay’st, To York

Think not that Henry shall be so deposed.

155

WARWICKDeposed he shall be, in despite[155] of all.

NORTHUMBERLANDThou art deceived.[156] ’Tis not thy southern power,

Of Essex, Norfolk, Suffolk, nor of Kent,

Which makes thee thus presumptuous and proud,

Can set the duke up[159] in despite of me.

160

CLIFFORDKing Henry, be thy title right or wrong,

Lord Clifford vows to fight in thy defence:

May that ground gape and swallow me alive,

Where I shall kneel to him that slew my father!

KING HENRY VIO Clifford, how thy words revive my heart!

165

YORKHenry of Lancaster, resign thy crown.

What mutter you, or what conspire you, lords?

WARWICKDo right unto this princely Duke of York,

Or I will fill the house with armèd men,

And over the chair of state, where now he sits,

170

Write up his title with usurping blood.[170]

He stamps with his foot and the Soldiers show themselves

KING HENRY VIMy lord of Warwick, hear me but one word:

Let me for this my lifetime reign as king.

YORKConfirm the crown to me and to mine heirs,

And thou shalt reign in quiet while thou liv’st.

175

KING HENRY VII am content. Richard Plantagenet,

Enjoy the kingdom after my decease.

CLIFFORDWhat wrong is this unto the prince your son!

WARWICKWhat good is this to England and himself!

WESTMORLANDBase,[179] fearful and despairing Henry!

180

CLIFFORDHow hast thou injured both thyself and us!

WESTMORLANDI cannot stay to hear these articles.[181]

NORTHUMBERLANDNor I.

CLIFFORDCome, cousin, let us tell the queen these news. To Northumberland

WESTMORLANDFarewell, faint-hearted and degenerate king,

185

In whose cold[185] blood no spark of honour bides.

NORTHUMBERLANDBe thou a prey unto the House of York,

And die in bands[187] for this unmanly deed.

CLIFFORDIn dreadful war mayst thou be overcome,

Or live in peace abandoned and despised.

[Exeunt Northumberland, Clifford and Westmorland]

190

WARWICKTurn this way, Henry, and regard them not.

EXETERThey seek revenge and therefore will not yield.

KING HENRY VIAh, Exeter.

WARWICKWhy should you sigh, my lord?

KING HENRY VINot for myself, Lord Warwick, but my son,

195

Whom I unnaturally shall disinherit.

But be it as it may.— I here entail[196] To York

The crown to thee and to thine heirs for ever,

Conditionally,[198] that here thou take an oath

To cease this civil war, and, whilst I live,

200

To honour me as thy king and sovereign,

And neither by treason nor hostility

To seek to put me down[202] and reign thyself.

YORKThis oath I willingly take and will perform.

WARWICKLong live King Henry!— Plantagenet embrace him.

205

KING HENRY VIAnd long live thou and these thy forward[205] sons!

YORKNow York and Lancaster are reconciled.

EXETERAccursed be he that seeks to make them foes.

Sennet. Here they come down

YORKFarewell, my gracious lord, I’ll to my castle.

[Exeunt York, his sons and their Soldiers]

WARWICKAnd I’ll keep[209] London with my soldiers.

[Exit]

210

NORFOLKAnd I to Norfolk with my followers.

[Exit]

MONTAGUEAnd I unto the sea[211] from whence I came.

[Exit]

KING HENRY VIAnd I with grief and sorrow to the court.

Enter the Queen [Margaret, with Prince Edward]

EXETERHere comes the queen, whose looks bewray[213] her anger.

I’ll steal away. Starts to leave

215

KING HENRY VIExeter, so will I.

QUEEN MARGARETNay, go not from me, I will follow thee.

KING HENRY VIBe patient, gentle queen, and I will stay.

QUEEN MARGARETWho can be patient in such extremes?

Ah, wretched man, would[219] I had died a maid

220

And never seen thee, never borne thee son,

Seeing thou hast proved so unnatural a father.

Hath he deserved to lose his birthright thus?

Hadst thou but loved him half so well as I,

Or felt that pain[224] which I did for him once,

225

Or nourished him as I did with my blood,[225]

Thou wouldst have left thy dearest heart-blood there,

Rather than have made that savage duke thine heir

And disinherited thine only son.

PRINCE EDWARDFather, you cannot disinherit me:

230

If you be king, why should not I succeed?

KING HENRY VIPardon me, Margaret.— Pardon me, sweet son.

The Earl of Warwick and the duke enforced me.

QUEEN MARGARETEnforced thee? Art thou king, and wilt be forced?

I shame to hear thee speak. Ah, timorous wretch,

235

Thou hast undone[235] thyself, thy son and me,

And given unto the House of York such head[236]

As thou shalt reign but by their sufferance.[237]

To entail him and his heirs unto the crown,

What is it, but to make thy sepulchre[239]

240

And creep into it far before thy time?

Warwick is chancellor and the lord of Calais,

Stern Falconbridge commands the narrow seas,[242]

The duke[243] is made protector of the realm,

And yet shalt thou be safe? Such safety finds

245

The trembling lamb environèd[245] with wolves.

Had I been there, which am a silly[246] woman,

The soldiers should have tossed[247] me on their pikes

Before I would have granted[248] to that act.

But thou preferr’st thy life before thine honour.

250

And seeing thou dost, I[250] here divorce myself

Both from thy table, Henry, and thy bed,

Until that act of parliament be repealed

Whereby my son is disinherited.

The northern lords that have forsworn[254] thy colours

255

Will follow mine, if once they see them spread:

And spread they shall be, to thy foul disgrace

And utter ruin of the House of York.

Thus do I leave thee.— Come, son, let’s away.

Our army is ready; come, we’ll after them.

260

KING HENRY VIStay, gentle Margaret, and hear me speak.

QUEEN MARGARETThou hast spoke too much already. Get thee gone.

KING HENRY VIGentle son Edward, thou wilt stay with me?

QUEEN MARGARETAy, to be murdered by his enemies.

PRINCE EDWARDWhen I return with victory from the field

265

I’ll see your grace: till then I’ll follow her.

QUEEN MARGARETCome, son, away. We may not linger thus.

[Exeunt Queen Margaret and Prince Edward]

KING HENRY VIPoor queen, how love to me and to her son

Hath made her break out into terms of rage.

Revenged may she be on that hateful duke,

270

Whose haughty spirit, wingèd with desire,

Will cost[271] my crown, and like an empty eagle

Tire[272] on the flesh of me and of my son.

The loss of those three lords torments my heart:

I’ll write unto them and entreat them fair.[274]

275

Come, cousin you shall be the messenger.

EXETERAnd I, I hope, shall reconcile them all.

Flourish. Exeunt

[Act 1 Scene 2]1.2

running scene 2

Enter Richard, Edward and Montague

RICHARDBrother, though I be youngest, give me leave.[1]

EDWARDNo, I can better play the orator.

MONTAGUEBut I have reasons strong and forcible.[3]

Enter the Duke of York

YORKWhy, how now, sons and brother, at a strife?

5

What is your quarrel? How began it first?

EDWARDNo quarrel, but a slight contention.

YORKAbout what?

RICHARDAbout that which concerns your grace and us:

The crown of England, father, which is yours.

10

YORKMine boy? Not till King Henry be dead.

RICHARDYour right depends not on his life or death.

EDWARDNow you are heir: therefore enjoy it now.

By giving the House of Lancaster leave to breathe,[13]

It will outrun[14] you, father, in the end.

15

YORKI took an oath that he should quietly[15] reign.

EDWARDBut for a kingdom any oath may be broken:

I would break a thousand oaths to reign one year.

RICHARDNo: God forbid your grace should be forsworn.[18]

YORKI shall be, if I claim by open war.

20

RICHARDI’ll prove the contrary, if you’ll hear me speak.

YORKThou canst not, son: it is impossible.

RICHARDAn oath is of no moment,[22] being not took

Before a true and lawful magistrate,

That hath authority over him that swears.

25

Henry had none, but did usurp the place.

Then, seeing ’twas he that made you to depose,[26]

Your oath, my lord, is vain[27] and frivolous.

Therefore to arms: and, father, do but think

How sweet a thing it is to wear a crown,

30

Within whose circuit[30] is Elysium

And all that poets feign[31] of bliss and joy.

Why do we linger thus? I cannot rest

Until the white rose that I wear be dyed[33]

Even in the lukewarm blood of Henry’s heart.

35

YORKRichard, enough: I will be king or die.

Brother, thou shalt to London presently,[36]

And whet on[37] Warwick to this enterprise.

Thou, Richard, shalt to the Duke of Norfolk,

And tell him privily[39] of our intent.

40

You Edward, shall unto my lord Cobham,

With whom the Kentishmen will willingly rise.[41]

In them I trust, for they are soldiers,

Witty,[43] courteous, liberal, full of spirit.

While you are thus employed, what resteth more,[44]

45

But that I seek occasion[45] how to rise,

And yet the king not privy[46] to my drift,

Nor any of the House of Lancaster?

Enter a Messenger

But stay.[48] What news? Why com’st thou in such post?

MESSENGERThe queen with all the northern earls and lords

50

Intend here to besiege you in your castle.

She is hard[51] by with twenty thousand men,

And therefore fortify your hold,[52] my lord.

[Exit]

YORKAy, with my sword. What, think’st thou that we fear them?

Edward and Richard, you shall stay with me,

55

My brother Montague shall post[55] to London.

Let noble Warwick Cobham and the rest,

Whom we have left protectors of the king,

With powerful policy[58] strengthen themselves,

And trust not simple[59] Henry nor his oaths.

60

MONTAGUEBrother, I go: I’ll win them, fear it not.

And thus most humbly I do take my leave.

Exit

Enter [John] Mortimer and his brother [Hugh]

YORKSir John and Sir Hugh Mortimer, mine uncles,

You are come to Sandal in a happy[63] hour.

The army of the queen mean to besiege us.

65

JOHN MORTIMERShe shall not need:[65] we’ll meet her in the field.

YORKWhat, with five thousand men?

RICHARDAy, with five hundred, father, for a need.[67]

A woman’s general: what should we fear?

A march afar off

EDWARDI hear their drums: let’s set our men in order,

70

And issue forth and bid them battle straight.[70]

YORKFive men to twenty: though the odds be great,

I doubt not, uncle, of our victory.

Many a battle have I won in France,

Whenas[74] the enemy hath been ten to one.

75

Why should I not now have the like[75] success?

Alarum. Exeunt

[Act 1 Scene 3]1.3

running scene 3

Enter Rutland and his Tutor

RUTLANDAh, whither shall I fly to scape[1] their hands?

Ah, tutor, look where bloody[2] Clifford comes.

Enter Clifford [and Soldiers]

CLIFFORDChaplain, away, thy priesthood saves thy life.

As for the brat of this accursèd duke,[4]

5

Whose father slew my father, he shall die.

TUTORAnd I, my lord, will bear him company.

CLIFFORDSoldiers, away with him.

TUTORAh, Clifford, murder not this innocent child,

Lest thou be hated both of[9] God and man.

Exit [dragged off by Soldiers]

10

CLIFFORDHow now? Is he dead already? Or is it fear

That makes him close his eyes? I’ll open them.

RUTLANDSo[12] looks the pent-up lion o’er the wretch

That trembles under his devouring paws:

And so he walks, insulting[14] o’er his prey,

15

And so he comes, to rend[15] his limbs asunder.

Ah, gentle Clifford, kill me with thy sword,

And not with such a cruel threat’ning look.

Sweet Clifford, hear me speak before I die:

I am too mean[19] a subject for thy wrath.

20

Be thou revenged on men, and let me live.

CLIFFORDIn vain thou speak’st, poor boy. My father’s blood

Hath stopped the[22] passage where thy words should enter.

RUTLANDThen let my father’s blood open it again.

He is a man, and, Clifford, cope[24] with him.

25

CLIFFORDHad I thy brethren here, their lives and thine

Were not revenge sufficient for me.

No, if I digged up thy forefathers’ graves

And hung their rotten coffins up in chains,

It could not slake[29] mine ire, nor ease my heart.

30

The sight of any of the house of York

Is as a fury[31] to torment my soul,

And till I root out their accursèd line

And leave not one alive, I live in hell.

Therefore— Raises his rapier

35

RUTLANDO, let me pray before I take my death!

To thee I pray: sweet Clifford, pity me! Kneels?

CLIFFORDSuch pity as my rapier’s[37] point affords.

RUTLANDI never did thee harm: why wilt thou slay me?

CLIFFORDThy father hath.

40

RUTLANDBut ’twas ere[40] I was born.

Thou hast one son, for his sake pity me,

Lest in revenge thereof, sith[42] God is just,

He be as miserably slain as I.

Ah, let me live in prison all my days,

45

And when I give occasion[45] of offence,

Then let me die, for now thou hast no cause.

CLIFFORDNo cause?

Thy father slew my father: therefore, die. Stabs him

RUTLANDDi[49] faciant laudis summa sit ista tuae! Dies

50

CLIFFORDPlantagenet, I come, Plantagenet!

And this thy son’s blood cleaving to my blade

Shall rust upon my weapon, till thy blood,

Congealed with this, do make me wipe off both.

Exit

[Act 1 Scene 4]

running scene 3 continues

Alarum. Enter Richard, Duke of York

YORKThe army of the queen hath got[1] the field.

My uncles[2] both are slain in rescuing me;

And all my followers to[3] the eager foe

Turn back and fly, like ships before the wind,

5

Or lambs pursued by hunger-starvèd wolves.

My sons, God knows what hath bechancèd[6] them:

But this I know, they have demeaned[7] themselves

Like men born to renown by life or death.

Three times did Richard make a lane[9] to me,

10

And thrice cried ‘Courage, father, fight it out!’

And full as oft[11] came Edward to my side,

With purple[12] falchion, painted to the hilt

In blood of those that had encountered[13] him.

And when the hardiest[14] warriors did retire,

15

Richard cried ‘Charge, and give no foot of ground!’

And cried ‘A crown, or else a glorious tomb,

A sceptre, or an earthly sepulchre!’

With this we charged again, but, out, alas,[18]

We bodged[19] again, as I have seen a swan

20

With bootless[20] labour swim against the tide

And spend[21] her strength with overmatching waves.

A short alarum within

Ah, hark, the fatal[22] followers do pursue,

And I am faint and cannot fly their fury.

And were I strong, I would not shun their fury.

25

The sands[25] are numbered that makes up my life.

Here must I stay, and here my life must end.

Enter the Queen, Clifford, Northumberland, the young Prince and Soldiers

Come, bloody Clifford, rough Northumberland,

I dare your quenchless fury to more rage:

I am your butt,[29] and I abide your shot.

30

NORTHUMBERLANDYield to our mercy, proud Plantagenet.

CLIFFORDAy, to such mercy as his ruthless arm,

With downright payment,[32] showed unto my father.

Now Phaethon[33] hath tumbled from his car,

And made an evening at the noontide prick.[34]

35

YORKMy ashes, as the phoenix,[35] may bring forth

A bird[36] that will revenge upon you all.

And in that hope I throw mine eyes to heaven,

Scorning whate’er you can afflict me with.

Why come you not? What, multitudes and fear?[39]

40

CLIFFORDSo cowards fight when they can fly no further,

So doves do peck the falcon’s piercing talons,

So desperate thieves, all hopeless of their lives,

Breathe out invectives gainst the officers.

YORKO Clifford, but bethink thee[44] once again,

45

An in thy thought o’er-run[45] my former time:

An if thou canst for[46] blushing, view this face,

And bite thy tongue that slanders him with cowardice

Whose frown hath made thee faint and fly ere this!

CLIFFORDI will not bandy[49] with thee word for word,

50

But buckler[50] with thee blows, twice two for one.

QUEEN MARGARETHold,[51] valiant Clifford, for a thousand causes

I would prolong awhile the traitor’s life.—

Wrath makes him deaf; speak thou, Northumberland.

NORTHUMBERLANDHold, Clifford, do not honour him so much

55

To prick thy finger, though to[55] wound his heart.

What valour were it, when a cur doth grin,[56]

For one to thrust his hand between his teeth,

When he might spurn[58] him with his foot away?

It is war’s prize[59] to take all vantages,

60

And ten[60] to one is no impeach of valour. They seize York, who struggles

CLIFFORDAy, ay, so strives the woodcock[61] with the gin.

NORTHUMBERLANDSo doth the cony[62] struggle in the net.

YORKSo triumph thieves upon their conquered booty,

So true[64] men yield, with robbers so o’ermatched.

65

NORTHUMBERLANDWhat would your grace have done unto him now?

QUEEN MARGARETBrave warriors, Clifford and Northumberland,

Come, make him stand upon this molehill here,

That raught[68] at mountains with outstretchèd arms,

Yet parted[69] but the shadow with his hand.—

70

What, was it you that would be England’s king? To York

Was’t you that revelled[71] in our parliament,

And made a preachment[72] of your high descent?

Where are your mess[73] of sons to back you now,

The wanton[74] Edward and the lusty George?

75

And where’s that valiant crook-back prodigy,[75]

Dicky, your boy, that with his grumbling[76] voice

Was wont[77] to cheer his dad in mutinies?

Or with the rest, where is your darling Rutland?

Look, York, I stained this napkin[79] with the blood

80

That valiant Clifford, with his rapier’s point,

Made issue[81] from the bosom of the boy.

And if thine eyes can water for his death,

I give thee this to dry thy cheeks withal.[83]

Alas poor York, but[84] that I hate thee deadly,

85

I should lament thy miserable state.

I prithee[86] grieve to make me merry, York.

What, hath thy fiery heart so parched[87] thine entrails

That not a tear can fall for Rutland’s death?

Why art thou patient, man? Thou shouldst be mad.

90

And I, to make thee mad, do mock thee thus.

Stamp, rave and fret,[91] that I may sing and dance.

Thou wouldst be fee’d,[92] I see, to make me sport.

York cannot speak unless he wear a crown.

A crown for York! And, lords, bow low to him.

95

Hold you his hands, whilst I do set it on. Puts a paper crown on his head

Ay, marry,[96] sir, now looks he like a king.

Ay, this is he that took King Henry’s chair,[97]

And this is he was his adopted heir.

But how is it that great Plantagenet

100

Is crowned so soon and broke his solemn oath?

As I bethink me, you should not be king

Till our King Henry had shook hands with death.

And will you pale[103] your head in Henry’s glory,

And rob his temples of the diadem,[104]

105

Now in his life, against your holy oath?

O, ’tis a fault too too unpardonable!

Off with the crown, and with the crown his head.

And whilst we breathe,[108] take time to do him dead.

CLIFFORDThat is my office,[109] for my father’s sake.

110

QUEEN MARGARETNay, stay, let’s hear the orisons[110] he makes.

YORKShe-wolf of France, but worse than wolves of France,

Whose tongue more poisons than the adder’s tooth!

How ill-beseeming[113] is it in thy sex

To triumph,[114] like an Amazonian trull,

115

Upon their woes whom fortune captivates![115]

But that thy face is vizard-like,[116] unchanging,

Made impudent[117] with use of evil deeds,

I would assay,[118] proud queen, to make thee blush.

To tell thee whence[119] thou cam’st, of whom derived,

120

Were shame enough to shame thee, wert thou not shameless.

Thy father bears the type[121] of King of Naples,

Of both the Sicils[122] and Jerusalem,

Yet not so wealthy as an English yeoman.[123]

Hath that poor monarch taught thee to insult?[124]

125

It needs not, nor it boots[125] thee not, proud queen,

Unless the adage[126] must be verified,

That beggars mounted[127] run their horse to death.

’Tis beauty that doth oft make women proud,

But, God he knows, thy share thereof is small.

130

’Tis virtue that doth make them most admired,

The contrary doth make thee wondered[131] at.

’Tis government[132] that makes them seem divine,

The want[133] thereof makes thee abominable.

Thou art as opposite to every good

135

As the Antipodes[135] are unto us,

Or as the south to the Septentrion.[136]

O, tiger’s heart wrapt in a woman’s hide!

How couldst thou drain the life-blood of the child,

To bid the father wipe his eyes withal,[139]

140

And yet be seen to bear a woman’s face?

Women are soft, mild, pitiful[141] and flexible;

Thou stern, obdurate,[142] flinty, rough, remorseless.

Bid’st thou me rage? Why, now thou hast thy wish.

Wouldst have me weep? Why, now thou hast thy will.

145

For raging wind blows up incessant showers,

And when the rage allays, the rain begins.

These tears are my sweet Rutland’s obsequies,[147]

And every drop cries vengeance for his death,

Gainst thee, fell[149] Clifford, and thee, false Frenchwoman.

150

NORTHUMBERLANDBeshrew[150] me, but his passions moves me so

That hardly can I check[151] my eyes from tears.

YORKThat face of his the hungry cannibals

Would not have touched, would not have stained with blood.

But you are more inhuman, more inexorable,

155

O, ten times more, than tigers of Hyrcania.[155]

See, ruthless queen, a hapless[156] father’s tears.

This cloth thou dipped’st in blood of my sweet boy,

And I with tears do wash the blood away.

Keep thou the napkin, and go boast of this,

160

And if thou tell’st the heavy[160] story right,

Upon my soul, the hearers will shed tears.

Yea, even my foes will shed fast-falling tears,

And say ‘Alas, it was a piteous[163] deed!’

There, take the crown, and with the crown, my curse.

165

And in thy need such comfort come to thee

As now I reap at thy too cruel hand.

Hard-hearted Clifford, take me from the world:

My soul to heaven, my blood upon your heads.

NORTHUMBERLANDHad he been slaughterman to all my kin,

170

I should not for my life but weep with him,

To see how inly[171] sorrow gripes his soul.

QUEEN MARGARETWhat, weeping-ripe,[172] my lord Northumberland?

Think but upon the wrong he did us all,

And that will quickly dry thy melting tears.

175

CLIFFORDHere’s for my oath, here’s for my father’s death. Stabs him twice

QUEEN MARGARETAnd here’s to right our gentle-hearted[176] king. Stabs him

YORKOpen thy gate of mercy, gracious God.

My soul flies through these wounds to seek out thee. Dies

QUEEN MARGARETOff with his head and set it on York gates,

180

So York may overlook the town of York.

Flourish. Exeunt [with the body]

[Act 2 Scene 1]*

running scene 4

A march. Enter Edward, Richard and their power

EDWARDI wonder how our princely father scaped,

Or whether he be scaped away or no

From Clifford’s and Northumberland’s pursuit?

Had he been ta’en,[4] we should have heard the news:

5

Had he been slain, we should have heard the news:

Or had he scaped, methinks we should have heard

The happy tidings of his good escape.

How fares my brother? Why is he so sad?

RICHARDI cannot joy, until I be resolved[9]

10

Where[10] our right valiant father is become.

I saw him in the battle range[11] about

And watched him how he singled Clifford forth.[12]

Methought he bore him[13] in the thickest troop

As doth a lion in a herd of neat,[14]

15

Or as a bear encompassed round with dogs,

Who having pinched[16] a few and made them cry,

The rest stand all aloof,[17] and bark at him.

So fared our father with his enemies,

So fled his enemies my warlike father.

20

Methinks, ’tis prize[20] enough to be his son. Three suns appear

See how the morning opes[21] her golden gates,

And takes her farewell of the glorious sun.

How well resembles it the prime of youth,

Trimmed[24] like a younker prancing to his love.

25

EDWARDDazzle mine eyes, or do I see three suns?[25]

RICHARDThree glorious suns, each one a perfect sun,

Not separated with the racking[27] clouds,

But severed[28] in a pale clear-shining sky.

See, see: they join, embrace, and seem to kiss,

30

As if they vowed some league inviolable.

Now are they but one lamp, one light, one sun.

In this the heaven figures[32] some event.

EDWARD’Tis wondrous strange, the like yet never heard of.

I think it cites[34] us, brother, to the field,

35

That we, the sons of brave Plantagenet,

Each one already blazing by our meeds,[36]

Should notwithstanding join our lights together

And overshine[38] the earth, as this the world.

Whate’er it bodes, henceforward will I bear

40

Upon my target[40] three fair-shining suns.

RICHARDNay, bear three daughters:[41] by your leave, I speak it,

You love the breeder[42] better than the male.

Enter one [a Messenger] blowing

But what art thou, whose heavy[43] looks foretell

Some dreadful story hanging on thy tongue?

45

MESSENGERAh, one that was a woeful looker-on

Whenas[46] the noble Duke of York was slain,

Your princely father and my loving lord!

EDWARDO, speak no more, for I have heard too much.

RICHARDSay how he died, for I will hear it all.

50

MESSENGEREnvironèd[50] he was with many foes,

And stood against them, as the hope of Troy[51]

Against the Greeks that would have entered Troy.

But Hercules[53] himself must yield to odds,

And many strokes, though with a little axe,

55

Hews down and fells the hardest-timbered oak.

By many hands your father was subdued,

But only slaughtered by the ireful arm

Of unrelenting Clifford and the queen,

Who crowned the gracious duke in high despite,[59]

60

Laughed in his face, and when with grief he wept,

The ruthless queen gave him to dry his cheeks

A napkin steepèd in the harmless[62] blood

Of sweet young Rutland, by rough[63] Clifford slain.

And after many scorns, many foul taunts,

65

They took his head, and on the gates of York

They set the same, and there it doth remain,

The saddest spectacle that e’er I viewed.

[Exit]

EDWARDSweet Duke of York, our prop to lean upon,

Now thou art gone, we have no staff, no stay.[69]

70

O Clifford, boist’rous[70] Clifford, thou hast slain

The flower of Europe for his chivalry,

And treacherously hast thou vanquished him,

For hand to hand he would have vanquished thee.

Now my soul’s palace[74] is become a prison.

75

Ah, would she[75] break from hence, that this my body

Might in the ground be closèd up in rest,

For never henceforth shall I joy again:

Never, O, never, shall I see more joy![78]

RICHARDI cannot weep, for all my body’s moisture

80

Scarce serves to quench my furnace-burning heart.

Nor can my tongue unload my heart’s great burden,

For selfsame wind[82] that I should speak withal

Is kindling coals that fires all my breast,

And burns me up with flames that tears would quench.

85

To weep is to make less the depth of grief:

Tears then for babes; blows and revenge for me.

Richard, I bear thy name, I’ll venge[87] thy death,

Or die renownèd by attempting it.

EDWARDHis name that valiant duke hath left with thee:

90

His dukedom and his chair[90] with me is left.

RICHARDNay, if thou be that princely eagle’s[91] bird,

Show thy descent by gazing gainst the sun.

For chair and dukedom, throne and kingdom say,

Either that[94] is thine, or else thou wert not his.

March. Enter Warwick, Marquis [of] Montague and their army

95

WARWICKHow now, fair lords? What fare?[95] What news abroad?

RICHARDGreat Lord of Warwick, if we should recount

Our baleful[97] news, and at each word’s deliverance

Stab poniards[98] in our flesh till all were told,

The words would add more anguish than the wounds.

100

O, valiant lord, the Duke of York is slain!

EDWARDO Warwick, Warwick, that Plantagenet

Which held thee dearly as his soul’s redemption,

Is by the stern[103] Lord Clifford done to death.

WARWICKTen days ago I drowned these news in tears,

105

And now, to add more measure[105] to your woes,

I come to tell you things sith[106] then befall’n.

After the bloody fray at Wakefield[107] fought,

Where your brave father breathed his latest[108] gasp,

Tidings, as swiftly as the posts[109] could run,

110

Were brought me of your loss and his depart.[110]

I, then in London, keeper[111] of the king,

Mustered my soldiers, gathered flocks of friends,

Marched toward St Albans[113] to intercept the queen,

Bearing the king in my behalf[114] along.

115

For by my scouts I was advertisèd[115]

That she was coming with a full intent

To dash[117] our late decree in parliament

Touching[118] King Henry’s oath and your succession.

Short tale to make, we at St Albans met

120

Our battles[120] joined, and both sides fiercely fought.

But whether ’twas the coldness[121] of the king,

Who looked full[122] gently on his warlike queen,

That robbed my soldiers of their heated spleen,[123]

Or whether ’twas report of her success,

125

Or more than common fear of Clifford’s rigour,[125]

Who thunders to his captives blood and death,

I cannot judge: but to conclude with truth,

Their weapons like to[128] lightning came and went,

Our soldiers’ like the night-owl’s lazy flight,

130

Or like an idle thresher with a flail,[130]

Fell gently down, as if they struck their friends.

I cheered them up with justice of our cause,

With promise of high pay and great rewards,

But all in vain: they had no heart to fight,

135

And we in them no hope to win the day,

So that we fled. The king unto the queen,

Lord George your brother, Norfolk and myself,

In haste, post-haste, are come to join with you,

For in the marches[139] here we heard you were,

140

Making another head[140] to fight again.

EDWARDWhere is the Duke of Norfolk, gentle Warwick?

And when came George from Burgundy to England?

WARWICKSome six miles off the duke is with the soldiers,

And for your brother, he was lately sent

145

From your kind aunt,[145] Duchess of Burgundy,

With aid of soldiers to this needful[146] war.

RICHARD’Twas odds, belike,[147] when valiant Warwick fled;

Oft have I heard his praises in pursuit,[148]

But ne’er till now his scandal of retire.[149]

150

WARWICKNor now my scandal, Richard, dost thou hear,

For thou shalt know this strong right hand of mine

Can pluck the diadem from faint Henry’s head,

And wring[153] the awful sceptre from his fist,

Were he as famous and as bold in war

155

As he is famed for mildness, peace, and prayer.

RICHARDI know it well, Lord Warwick, blame me not.

’Tis love I bear thy glories make me speak.

But in this troublous time, what’s to be done?

Shall we go throw away our coats of steel,

160

And wrap our bodies in black mourning gowns,

Numb’ring[161] our Ave Maries with our beads?

Or shall we on the helmets of our foes

Tell[163] our devotion with revengeful arms?

If for the last, say ay, and to it, lords.

165

WARWICKWhy, therefore[165] Warwick came to seek you out,

And therefore comes my brother Montague.

Attend[167] me, lords: the proud insulting queen,

With Clifford and the haught[168] Northumberland,

And of their feather many more proud birds,

170

Have wrought[170] the easy-melting king like wax.

He swore consent to your succession,

His oath enrollèd[172] in the parliament.

And now to London all the crew[173] are gone,

To frustrate[174] both his oath and what beside

175

May make[175] against the house of Lancaster.

Their power, I think, is thirty thousand strong.

Now, if the help of Norfolk and myself,

With all the friends that thou, brave Earl of March,

Amongst the loving Welshmen canst procure,

180

Will but amount to five-and-twenty thousand,

Why, via,[181] to London will we march,

And once again bestride[182] our foaming steeds,

And once again cry ‘Charge!’ upon our foes,

But never once again turn back and fly.

185

RICHARDAy, now methinks I hear great Warwick speak;

Ne’er may he live to see a sunshine day,

That cries ‘Retire!’[187] if Warwick bid him stay.

EDWARDLord Warwick, on thy shoulder will I lean,

And when thou fail’st — as God forbid the hour —

190

Must Edward fall, which peril heaven forfend![190]

WARWICKNo longer Earl of March, but Duke of York:

The next degree[192] is England’s royal throne.

For King of England shalt thou be proclaimed

In every borough as we pass along.

195

And he that throws not up his cap for joy

Shall for the fault make forfeit of his head.

King Edward, valiant Richard, Montague,

Stay we no longer, dreaming of renown,

But sound the trumpets, and about our task.

200

RICHARDThen, Clifford, were thy heart as hard as steel,

As thou hast shown it flinty by thy deeds,

I come to pierce it or to give thee mine.

EDWARDThen strike up drums. God and Saint George[203] for us!

Enter a Messenger

WARWICKHow now? What news?

205

MESSENGERThe Duke of Norfolk sends you word by me,

The queen is coming with a puissant host,[206]

And craves[207] your company for speedy counsel.

WARWICKWhy then it sorts,[208] brave warriors, let’s away.

Exeunt

[Act 2 Scene 2]2.2

running scene 5

Flourish. Enter the King, the Queen, Clifford, Northumberland] and young Prince, with Drum and Trumpets York’s head is set above the city gates

QUEEN MARGARETWelcome, my lord, to this brave[1] town of York.

Yonder’s the head of that arch-enemy

That sought to be encompassed with your crown:

Doth not the object cheer your heart, my lord?

5

KING HENRY VIAy, as the rocks cheer them that fear their wreck:[5]

To see this sight, it irks[6] my very soul.

Withhold revenge, dear God! ’tis not my fault,

Nor wittingly have I infringed my vow.

CLIFFORDMy gracious liege, this too much lenity[9]

10

And harmful pity must be laid aside.

To whom do lions cast their gentle looks?

Not to the beast that would usurp their den.

Whose hand is that the forest bear doth lick?

Not his that spoils[14] her young before her face.

15

Who scapes the lurking serpent’s mortal sting?

Not he that sets his foot upon her back.

The smallest worm will turn being trodden on,

And doves will peck in safeguard of their brood.

Ambitious York doth level[19] at thy crown,

20

Thou smiling while he knit[20] his angry brows:

He, but a duke, would have his son a king,

And raise[22] his issue, like a loving sire;

Thou, being a king, blest with a goodly[23] son,

Didst yield consent to disinherit him,

25

Which argued thee[25] a most unloving father.

Unreasonable[26] creatures feed their young;

And though man’s face be fearful[27] to their eyes,

Yet, in protection of their tender[28] ones,

Who hath not seen them, even with those wings

30

Which sometime they have used with fearful flight,

Make war with him that climbed unto their nest,

Offering their own lives in their young’s defence?

For shame, my liege, make them your precedent![33]

Were it not pity[34] that this goodly boy

35

Should lose his birthright by his father’s fault,

And long hereafter say unto his child,

‘What my great-grandfather and his grandsire got

My careless father fondly[38] gave away’?

Ah, what a shame[39] were this! Look on the boy;

40

And let his manly face, which promiseth

Successful fortune, steel thy melting[41] heart

To hold thine own and leave thine own with him.

KING HENRY VIFull well hath Clifford played the orator,

Inferring[44] arguments of mighty force:

45

But, Clifford, tell me, didst thou never hear

That things ill-got[46] had ever bad success?

And happy[47] always was it for that son

Whose father for his hoarding[48] went to hell?

I’ll leave my son my virtuous deeds behind,

50

And would my father had left me no more:

For all the rest is held at such a rate[51]

As brings a thousand-fold more care[52] to keep

Than in possession any jot of pleasure.

Ah, cousin York, would thy best friends did know

55

How it doth grieve me that thy head is here!

QUEEN MARGARETMy lord, cheer up your spirits: our foes are nigh,[56]

And this soft courage makes your followers faint.[57]

You promised knighthood to our forward[58] son:

Unsheathe your sword, and dub[59] him presently.

60

Edward, kneel down.

KING HENRY VIEdward Plantagenet, arise a knight;

And learn this lesson, draw thy sword in right.[62]

PRINCE EDWARDMy gracious father, by your kingly leave,

I’ll draw it as apparent[64] to the crown,

65

And in that quarrel use it to the death.

CLIFFORDWhy, that is spoken like a toward[66] prince.

Enter a Messenger

MESSENGERRoyal commanders, be in readiness:

For with a band of thirty thousand men

Comes Warwick, backing of[69] the Duke of York;

70

And in the towns, as they do march along,

Proclaims him king, and many fly to him.

Deraign[72] your battle, for they are at hand.

[Exit]

CLIFFORDI would your highness would depart the field:

The queen hath best success when you are absent.

75

QUEEN MARGARETAy, good my lord, and leave us to our fortune.

KING HENRY VIWhy, that’s my fortune too: therefore I’ll stay.

NORTHUMBERLANDBe it with resolution then to fight.

PRINCE EDWARDMy royal father, cheer these noble lords

And hearten those that fight in your defence.

80

Unsheathe your sword, good father, cry ‘Saint George!’

March. Enter Edward, Warwick, Richard, Clarence [George], Norfolk, Montague and Soldiers

EDWARDNow, perjured Henry, wilt thou kneel for grace,

And set thy diadem upon my head,

Or bide[83] the mortal fortune of the field?

QUEEN MARGARETGo, rate[84] thy minions, proud insulting boy.

85

Becomes it thee to be thus bold in terms

Before thy sovereign and thy lawful king?

EDWARDI am his king, and he should bow his knee:

I was adopted heir by his consent.

Since when, his oath is broke, for as I hear,

90

You that are king, though he do wear the crown,

Have caused him, by new act of parliament,

To blot out me and put his own son in.

CLIFFORDAnd reason too:

Who should succeed the father but the son?

95

RICHARDAre you there, butcher? O, I cannot speak!

CLIFFORDAy, crookback, here I stand to answer thee,

Or any he,[97] the proudest of thy sort.

RICHARD’Twas you that killed young Rutland, was it not?

CLIFFORDAy, and old York, and yet not satisfied.

100

RICHARDFor God’s sake, lords, give signal to the fight.

WARWICKWhat say’st thou, Henry, wilt thou yield the crown?

QUEEN MARGARETWhy, how now, long-tongued[102] Warwick, dare you speak?

When you and I met at St Albans last,

Your legs[104] did better service than your hands.

105

WARWICKThen ’twas my turn to fly, and now ’tis thine.

CLIFFORDYou said so much before and yet you fled.

WARWICK’Twas not your valour, Clifford, drove me thence.

NORTHUMBERLANDNo, nor your manhood that durst[108] make you stay.

RICHARDNorthumberland, I hold thee reverently.[109]

110

Break off the parley,[110] for scarce I can refrain

The execution[111] of my big-swol’n heart

Upon that Clifford, that cruel child-killer.

CLIFFORDI slew thy father. Call’st thou him a child?

RICHARDAy, like a dastard[114] and a treacherous coward,

115

As thou didst kill our tender[115] brother Rutland.

But ere sunset, I’ll make thee curse the deed.

KING HENRY VIHave done with words, my lords, and hear me speak.

QUEEN MARGARETDefy them then, or else hold close thy lips.

KING HENRY VII prithee, give no limits to my tongue:

120

I am a king and privileged to speak.

CLIFFORDMy liege, the wound that bred this meeting here

Cannot be cured by words: therefore be still.[122]

RICHARDThen, executioner, unsheathe thy sword:

By him[124] that made us all, I am resolved

125

That Clifford’s manhood lies[125] upon his tongue.

EDWARDSay, Henry, shall I have my right or no?

A thousand men have broke their fasts[127] today,

That ne’er shall dine unless thou yield the crown.

WARWICKIf thou deny,[129] their blood upon thy head,

130

For York in justice puts his armour on.

PRINCE EDWARDIf that be right which Warwick says is right,

There is no wrong, but everything is right.

RICHARDWhoever got[133] thee, there thy mother stands,

For well I wot,[134] thou hast thy mother’s tongue.

135

QUEEN MARGARETBut thou art neither like thy sire nor dam,[135]

But like a foul misshapen stigmatic,[136]

Marked[137] by the destinies to be avoided,

As venom[138] toads or lizards’ dreadful stings.

RICHARDIron of Naples[139] hid with English gilt,

140

Whose father bears the title of a king

As if a channel[141] should be called the sea

Sham’st thou not,[142] knowing whence thou art extraught,

To let thy tongue detect[143] thy base-born heart?

EDWARDA wisp of straw[144] were worth a thousand crowns,

145

To make this shameless callet[145] know herself.

Helen[146] of Greece was fairer far than thou,

Although thy husband may be Menelaus;

And ne’er was Agamemnon’s brother[148] wronged

By that false woman, as this king by thee.

150

His father[150] revelled in the heart of France,

And tamed the king, and made the dauphin stoop.

And had he[152] matched according to his state,

He might have kept that glory to this day.

But when he took a beggar to his bed,

155

And graced[155] thy poor sire with his bridal-day,

Even then that sunshine brewed a shower for him,

That washed his father’s fortunes forth[157] of France,

And heaped sedition[158] on his crown at home.

For what hath broached[159] this tumult but thy pride?

160

Hadst thou been meek, our title[160] still had slept,

And we, in pity of the gentle king,

Had slipped[162] our claim until another age.

GEORGEBut when we saw our[163] sunshine made thy spring,

And that thy summer bred us no increase,[164]

165

We set the axe to thy usurping root.

And though the edge hath something[166] hit ourselves,

Yet, know thou, since we have begun to strike,

We’ll never leave till we have hewn thee down,

Or bathed thy growing with our heated bloods.

170

EDWARDAnd in this resolution, I defy thee,

Not willing any longer conference,

Since thou denied’st[172] the gentle king to speak.

Sound trumpets, let our bloody colours wave,

And either victory or else a grave!

175

QUEEN MARGARETStay, Edward.

EDWARDNo, wrangling woman, we’ll no longer stay.

These words will cost ten thousand lives this day.

Exeunt

[Act 2 Scene 3]*

running scene 5 continues

Alarum. Excursions. Enter Warwick

WARWICKForspent[1] with toil, as runners with a race,

I lay me down a little while to breathe,[2]

For strokes received, and many blows repaid

Have robbed my strong-knit sinews of their strength,

5

And spite of spite[5] needs must I rest awhile.

Enter Edward running

EDWARDSmile, gentle heaven, or strike, ungentle death,

For this world frowns, and Edward’s sun is clouded.

WARWICKHow now, my lord, what hap?[8] What hope of good?

Enter Clarence [George]

GEORGEOur hap is loss, our hope but sad despair,

10

Our ranks are broke, and ruin follows us.

What counsel give you? Whither shall we fly?

EDWARDBootless[12] is flight, they follow us with wings,

And weak we are and cannot shun pursuit.

Enter Richard

RICHARDAh, Warwick, why hast thou withdrawn thyself?

15

Thy brother’s[15] blood the thirsty earth hath drunk,

Broached with the steely point of Clifford’s lance,

And in the very pangs of death he cried,

Like to[18] a dismal clangour heard from far,

‘Warwick, revenge! Brother, revenge my death!’

20

So, underneath the belly of their steeds,

That stained their fetlocks[21] in his smoking blood,

The noble gentleman gave up the ghost.

WARWICKThen let the earth be drunken with our blood.

I’ll kill my horse, because I will not fly.

25

Why stand we like soft-hearted women here,

Wailing our losses, whiles the foe doth rage,

And look upon,[27] as if the tragedy

Were played in jest[28] by counterfeiting actors?

Here on my knee, I vow to God above, Kneels

30

I’ll never pause again, never stand still,

Till either death hath closed these eyes of mine

Or fortune given me measure[32] of revenge.

EDWARDO Warwick, I do bend my knee with thine,

And in this vow do chain my soul to thine.

35

And, ere my knee rise from the earth’s cold face,

I throw[36] my hands, mine eyes, my heart to thee,

Thou setter-up and plucker-down of kings,

Beseeching thee, if with thy will it stands[38]

That to my foes this body must be prey,

40

Yet that thy brazen[40] gates of heaven may ope,

And give sweet passage to my sinful soul.

Now, lords, take leave until we meet again,

Where’er it be, in heaven or in earth.

RICHARDBrother, give me thy hand, and, gentle Warwick,

45

Let me embrace thee in my weary arms.

I, that did never weep, now melt with woe

That winter should cut off our springtime so.

WARWICKAway, away! Once more, sweet lords farewell.

GEORGEYet let us all together to our troops,

50

And give them leave to fly that will not stay,

And call them pillars that will stand to[51] us.

And, if we thrive,[52] promise them such rewards

As victors wear at the Olympian games.[53]

This may plant courage in their quailing breasts,

55

For yet is hope of life and victory.

Forslow[56] no longer, make we hence amain.

Exeunt

[Act 2 Scene 4]

running scene 5 continues

Excursions. Enter Richard and Clifford

RICHARDNow, Clifford, I have singled thee alone.[1]

Suppose this arm is for the Duke of York,

And this for Rutland, both bound to revenge,

Wert thou[4] environed with a brazen wall.

5

CLIFFORDNow, Richard, I am with thee here alone.

This is the hand that stabbed thy father York,

And this the hand that slew thy brother Rutland,

And here’s the heart that triumphs in their death And cheers these hands that slew thy sire and brother

10

To execute the like upon thyself.

And so, have at thee![11]

They fight

Warwick comes [and rescues Richard], Clifford flies

RICHARDNay Warwick, single out some other chase,[12]

For I myself will hunt this wolf to death.

Exeunt

[Act 2 Scene 5]

running scene 5 continues

Alarum. Enter King Henry alone

KING HENRY VIThis battle fares like to the morning’s war,

When dying clouds contend with growing light,

What[3] time the shepherd, blowing of his nails,

Can neither call it perfect[4] day nor night.

5

Now sways it this way, like a mighty sea

Forced by the tide to combat with the wind.

Now sways it that way, like the selfsame sea

Forced to retire by fury of the wind.

Sometime the flood[9] prevails, and then the wind,

10

Now one the better, then another best;

Both tugging to be victors, breast to breast,

Yet neither conqueror nor conquerèd:

So is the equal poise[13] of this fell war.

Here on this molehill will I sit me down.

15

To whom God will, there be the victory.

For Margaret my queen, and Clifford too,

Have chid[17] me from the battle, swearing both

They prosper best of all when I am thence.

Would I were dead, if God’s good will were so;

20

For what is in this world but grief and woe?

O, God! Methinks it were a happy life,

To be no better than a homely swain,[22]

To sit upon a hill, as I do now,

To carve out dials[24] quaintly, point by point,

25

Thereby to see the minutes how they run:

How many makes the hour full complete,

How many hours brings about[27] the day,

How many days will finish up the year,

How many years a mortal man may live.

30

When this is known, then to divide the times:

So many hours must I tend my flock,

So many hours must I take my rest,

So many hours must I contemplate,

So many hours must I sport[34] myself,

35

So many days my ewes have been with young,[35]

So many weeks ere the poor fools will ean,[36]

So many years ere I shall shear the fleece.

So minutes, hours, days, months and years,

Passed over to the end they[39] were created,

40

Would bring white hairs unto a quiet grave.

Ah, what a life were this! How sweet! How lovely!

Gives not the hawthorn bush a sweeter shade

To shepherds looking on their silly[43] sheep,

Than doth a rich embroidered canopy[44]

45

To kings that fear their subjects’ treachery?

O, yes, it doth; a thousand-fold it doth.

And to conclude, the shepherd’s homely curds,[47]

His cold thin drink out of his leather bottle,

His wonted[49] sleep under a fresh tree’s shade,

50

All which secure[50] and sweetly he enjoys,

Is far beyond a prince’s delicates,[51]

His viands[52] sparkling in a golden cup,

His body couchèd in a curious[53] bed,

When care,[54] mistrust and treason waits on him.

Alarum. Enter a Son that has killed his father, at one door, and a Father that hath killed his son at another door [with their bodies]

55

SONIll blows the wind that profits nobody.

This man, whom hand to hand I slew in fight,

May be possessèd with[57] some store of crowns,

And I, that haply[58] take them from him now,

May yet ere night yield both my life and them

60

To some man else, as this dead man doth me.

Who’s this? O, God! It is my father’s face,

Whom in this conflict I unwares[62] have killed.

O heavy[63] times, begetting such events!

From London by the king was I pressed[64] forth.

65

My father, being the Earl of Warwick’s man,[65]

Came on the part[66] of York, pressed by his master.

And I, who at his hands received my life,

Have by my hands of life bereavèd him.

Pardon me, God, I knew not what I did.

70

And pardon, father, for I knew not thee.

My tears shall wipe away these bloody marks,

And no more words till they have flowed their fill.

KING HENRY VIO, piteous spectacle! O, bloody times!

Whiles lions war and battle for their dens,

75

Poor harmless lambs abide[75] their enmity.

Weep, wretched man: I’ll aid thee tear for tear,

And let our hearts and eyes, like civil war,

Be blind with tears and break o’ercharged[78] with grief.

[The] Father [steps forward], bearing of his Son

FATHERThou that so stoutly[79] hath resisted me,

80

Give me thy gold, if thou hast any gold,

For I have bought it with an hundred blows.

But let me see: is this our foeman’s face?

Ah, no, no, no, it is mine only son!

Ah, boy, if any life be left in thee,

85

Throw up[85] thine eye! See, see what showers arise,

Blown with the windy tempest of my heart,

Upon thy wounds, that kills mine eye and heart.

O, pity, God, this miserable age!

What stratagems,[89] how fell, how butcherly,

90

Erroneous,[90] mutinous and unnatural,

This deadly quarrel daily doth beget!

O boy, thy father gave thee life too soon,

And hath bereft thee of thy life too late![93]

KING HENRY VIWoe above woe! Grief more than common grief!

95

O, that my death would stay[95] these ruthful deeds!

O, pity, pity, gentle heaven, pity!

The red rose and the white are on his face,[97]

The fatal colours of our striving houses:

The one his purple[99] blood right well resembles,

100

The other his pale cheeks, methinks, presenteth.[100]

Wither one rose, and let the other flourish.

If you contend,[102] a thousand lives must wither.

SONHow will my mother for a father’s death

Take on with[104] me and ne’er be satisfied!

105

FATHERHow will my wife for slaughter of my son

Shed seas of tears and ne’er be satisfied!

KING HENRY VIHow will the country for these woeful chances[107]

Misthink[108] the king and not be satisfied!

SONWas ever son so rued[109] a father’s death?

110

FATHERWas ever father so bemoaned his son?

KING HENRY VIWas ever king so grieved for subjects’ woe?

Much is your sorrow; mine ten times so much.

SONI’ll bear thee hence, where I may weep my fill.

[Exit with the body]

FATHERThese arms of mine shall be thy winding-sheet,[114]

115

My heart, sweet boy, shall be thy sepulchre,

For from my heart thine image ne’er shall go.

My sighing breast shall be thy funeral bell;

And so obsequious[118] will thy father be,

E’en for the loss of thee, having no more,

120

As Priam[120] was for all his valiant sons.

I’ll bear thee hence; and let them fight that will,

For I have murdered where I should not kill.

Exit [with the body]

KING HENRY VISad-hearted men, much overgone[123] with care,

Here sits a king more woeful than you are.

Alarums. Excursions. Enter the Queen, the Prince and Exeter

125

PRINCE EDWARDFly, father, fly! For all your friends are fled,

And Warwick rages like a chafèd[126] bull:

Away, for death doth hold us in pursuit.

QUEEN MARGARETMount you, my lord, towards Berwick[128] post amain.

Edward and Richard, like a brace[129] of greyhounds

130

Having the fearful flying hare in sight,

With fiery eyes sparkling for very[131] wrath,

And bloody steel grasped in their ireful hands,

Are at our backs, and therefore hence amain.[133]

EXETERAway, for vengeance comes along with them.

135

Nay, stay not to expostulate,[135] make speed,

Or else come after. I’ll away before.

KING HENRY VINay, take me with thee, good sweet Exeter:

Not that I fear to stay, but love to go

Whither the queen intends. Forward, away!

Exeunt

[Act 2 Scene 6]

running scene 5 continues

A loud alarum. Enter Clifford wounded

CLIFFORDHere burns my candle out; ay, here it dies,

Which whiles it lasted gave King Henry light.

O Lancaster, I fear thy overthrow

More than my body’s parting with my soul!

5

My[4] love and fear glued many friends to thee,

And now I fall. Thy tough commixtures[6] melts,

Impairing Henry, strength’ning misproud[7] York,

The common people swarm like summer flies,

And whither fly the gnats but to the sun?[9]

10

And who shines now but Henry’s enemies?

O Phoebus,[11] hadst thou never given consent

That Phaethon[12] should check thy fiery steeds,

Thy burning car never had scorched the earth!

And, Henry, hadst thou swayed[14] as kings should do,

15

Or as thy father and his father did,

Giving no ground[16] unto the House of York,

They never then had sprung like summer flies;

I and ten thousand in this luckless realm

Had left no mourning widows for our death,

20

And thou this day hadst kept thy chair[20] in peace.

For what doth cherish[21] weeds but gentle air?

And what makes robbers bold but too much lenity?

Bootless are plaints,[23] and cureless are my wounds.

No way to fly, nor strength to hold out flight.

25

The foe is merciless, and will not pity,

For at their hands I have deserved no pity.

The air hath got into my deadly wounds,

And much effuse[28] of blood doth make me faint.

Come, York and Richard, Warwick and the rest:

30

I stabbed your fathers’ bosoms; split my breast. Faints

Alarum and retreat. Enter Edward, Warwick, Richard and Soldiers, Montague and Clarence

[George]

EDWARDNow breathe[31] we, lords. Good fortune bids us pause,

And smooth the frowns of war with peaceful looks.

Some troops pursue the bloody-minded queen,

That led calm Henry, though he were a king,

35

As doth a sail, filled with a fretting[35] gust,

Command[36] an argosy to stem the waves.

But think you, lords, that Clifford fled with them?

WARWICKNo, ’tis impossible he should escape,

For, though before his[39] face I speak the words,

40

Your brother Richard marked[40] him for the grave,

And wheresoe’er he is, he’s surely dead.

Clifford groans [and dies]

RICHARDWhose soul is that which takes her heavy[42] leave?

A deadly groan, like life and death’s departing.[43]

EDWARDSee who it is. And now the battle’s ended,

45

If friend or foe, let him be gently used.[45]

RICHARDRevoke that doom[46] of mercy, for ’tis Clifford,

Who not contented that he lopped the branch

In hewing Rutland when his leaves put forth,

But set his murd’ring knife unto the root

50

From whence that tender spray[50] did sweetly spring,

I mean our princely father, Duke of York.

WARWICKFrom off the gates of York fetch down the head,

Your father’s head, which Clifford placèd there,

Instead whereof let this[54] supply the room:

55

Measure[55] for measure must be answered.

EDWARDBring forth that fatal screech-owl[56] to our house,

That nothing sung[57] but death to us and ours:

Now death shall stop his dismal[58] threat’ning sound,

And his ill-boding[59] tongue no more shall speak.

60

WARWICKI think his understanding is bereft.[60]

Speak, Clifford, dost thou know who speaks to thee?

Dark cloudy death o’ershades his beams[62] of life,

And he nor[63] sees nor hears us what we say.

RICHARDO, would he did, and so perhaps he doth.

65

’Tis but his policy[65] to counterfeit,

Because he would avoid such bitter taunts

Which in the time of death he gave our father.

GEORGEIf so thou think’st, vex him with eager[68] words.

RICHARDClifford, ask mercy and obtain no grace.

70

EDWARDClifford, repent in bootless penitence.

WARWICKClifford, devise excuses for thy faults.[71]

GEORGEWhile we devise fell tortures for thy faults.

RICHARDThou didst love York, and I am son to York.

EDWARDThou pitied’st Rutland, I will pity thee.

75

GEORGEWhere’s Captain Margaret to fence[75] you now?

WARWICKThey mock thee, Clifford: swear as thou wast wont.[76]

RICHARDWhat, not an oath? Nay, then the world goes hard[77]

When Clifford cannot spare his friends an oath.

I know by that he’s dead, and, by my soul,

80

If this right hand would buy two hours’ life,

That I in all despite[81] might rail at him,

This[82] hand should chop it off, and with the issuing blood

Stifle[83] the villain whose unstanchèd thirst

York and young Rutland could not satisfy.

85

WARWICKAy, but he’s dead. Off with the traitor’s head,

And rear[86] it in the place your father’s stands.

And now to London with triumphant march,

There to be crownèd England’s royal king:

From whence shall Warwick cut[89] the sea to France,

90

And ask[90] the lady Bona for thy queen.

So shalt thou sinew[91] both these lands together,

And having France thy friend, thou shalt not dread

The scattered foe that hopes to rise again,

For though they cannot greatly sting to hurt,

95

Yet look to have them buzz[95] to offend thine ears.

First will I see the coronation,

And then to Brittany I’ll cross the sea,

To effect this marriage, so it please my lord.

EDWARDEven[99] as thou wilt, sweet Warwick, let it be,

100

For in thy shoulder[100] do I build my seat,

And never will I undertake the thing

Wherein thy counsel and consent is wanting.[102]

Richard, I will create thee Duke of Gloucester,

And George, of Clarence; Warwick, as ourself,

105

Shall do and undo as him pleaseth best.

RICHARDLet me be Duke of Clarence, George of Gloucester,

For Gloucester’s dukedom is too ominous.[107]

WARWICKTut, that’s a foolish observation.

Richard, be Duke of Gloucester. Now to London,

110

To see these honours in possession.

Exeunt

[Act 3 Scene 1]3.1

running scene 6

Enter two Keepers with crossbows in their hands

FIRST KEEPERUnder this thick-grown brake[1] we’ll shroud ourselves,

For through this laund[2] anon the deer will come,

And in this covert[3] will we make our stand,

Culling the principal[4] of all the deer.

5

SECOND KEEPERI’ll stay above the hill, so both may shoot.

FIRST KEEPERThat cannot be. The noise of thy crossbow

Will scare the herd, and so my shoot[7] is lost.

Here stand we both, and aim we at the best,

And, for[9] the time shall not seem tedious,

10

I’ll tell thee what befell me on a day

In this self-place[11] where now we mean to stand.

SECOND KEEPERHere comes a man. Let’s stay till he be past.

Enter the King, [disguised,] with a prayer-book

KING HENRY VIFrom Scotland am I stol’n, even of[13] pure love,

To greet mine own land with my wishful[14] sight.

15

No, Harry, Harry, ’tis no land of thine:

Thy place is filled, thy sceptre wrung from thee,

Thy balm[17] washed off wherewith thou wast anointed.

No bending knee will call thee Caesar[18] now,

No humble suitors press to speak for right,[19]

20

No, not a man comes for redress of[20] thee.

For how can I help them, and not myself?

FIRST KEEPERAy, here’s a deer whose skin’s a keeper’s fee:[22]

This is the quondam[23] king; let’s seize upon him.

KING HENRY VILet me embrace the sour adversaries,

25

For wise men say it is the wisest course.

SECOND KEEPERWhy linger we? Let us lay hands upon him.

FIRST KEEPERForbear[27] awhile, we’ll hear a little more.

KING HENRY VIMy queen and son are gone to France for aid,

And, as I hear, the great commanding Warwick

30

Is thither gone, to crave[30] the French king’s sister

To wife for Edward. If this news be true,

Poor queen and son, your labour is but lost,

For Warwick is a subtle[33] orator,

And Lewis[34] a prince soon won with moving words.

35

By this account then Margaret may win him,

For she’s a woman to be pitied much:

Her sighs will make a batt’ry[37] in his breast,

Her tears will pierce into a marble heart,

The tiger will be mild whiles she doth mourn;

40

And Nero[40] will be tainted with remorse,

To hear and see her plaints,[41] her brinish tears.

Ay, but she’s come to beg, Warwick to give:

She on his left side, craving aid for Henry,

He on his right, asking a wife for Edward.

45

She weeps, and says her Henry is deposed,

He smiles, and says his Edward is installed;

That she, poor wretch, for grief can speak no more,

Whiles Warwick tells his title,[48] smooths the wrong,

Inferreth[49] arguments of mighty strength,

50

And in conclusion wins the king from her,

With promise of his sister, and what[51] else,

To strengthen and support King Edward’s place.

O Margaret, thus ’twill be, and thou, poor soul,

Art then forsaken, as thou went’st forlorn.[54]

55

SECOND KEEPERSay, what art thou that talk’st of kings and queens?

KING HENRY VIMore than I seem, and less than I was born to:

A man at least, for less I should not be.

And men may talk of kings, and why not I?

SECOND KEEPERAy, but thou talk’st as if thou wert a king.

60

KING HENRY VIWhy, so I am, in mind, and that’s enough.

SECOND KEEPERBut, if thou be a king, where is thy crown?

KING HENRY VIMy crown is in my heart, not on my head,

Not decked with diamonds and Indian stones,[63]

Nor to be seen: my crown is called content.

65

A crown it is that seldom kings enjoy.

SECOND KEEPERWell, if you be a king crowned with content,

Your crown content and you must be contented

To go along with us, for, as we think,

You are the king King Edward hath deposed,

70

And we his subjects sworn in all allegiance

Will apprehend[71] you as his enemy.

KING HENRY VIBut did you never swear and break an oath?

SECOND KEEPERNo, never such an oath, nor will not now.

KING HENRY VIWhere did you dwell when I was King of England?

75

SECOND KEEPERHere in this country,[75] where we now remain.

KING HENRY VII was anointed king at nine months old.

My father and my grandfather were kings,

And you were sworn true subjects unto me:

And tell me, then, have you not broke your oaths?

80

FIRST KEEPERNo,

For we were subjects but[81] while you were king.

KING HENRY VIWhy? Am I dead? Do I not breathe a[82] man?

Ah, simple[83] men, you know not what you swear.

Look, as I blow this feather from my face,

85

And as the air blows it to me again,

Obeying with[86] my wind when I do blow,

And yielding to another when it blows,

Commanded always by the greater gust,

Such is the lightness[89] of you, common men.

90

But do not break your oaths, for of that sin

My mild entreaty shall not make you guilty.

Go where you will, the king shall be commanded,

And be you kings, command, and I’ll obey.

FIRST KEEPERWe are true subjects to the king, King Edward.

95

KING HENRY VISo would you be again to Henry,

If he were seated as King Edward is.

FIRST KEEPERWe charge[97] you, in God’s name and the king’s,

To go with us unto the officers.

KING HENRY VIIn God’s name, lead. Your king’s name be obeyed,

100

And what God will, that let your king perform,

And what he will, I humbly yield unto.

Exeunt

[Act 3 Scene 2]3.2

running scene 7

Enter King Edward, [Richard, now Duke of] Gloucester, [George, now Duke of] Clarence, Lady Grey Richard is henceforth known as Gloucester, George as Clarence

KING EDWARD IVBrother of Gloucester, at St Alban’s field[1]

This lady’s husband, Sir Richard[2] Grey, was slain,

His land then seized on by the conqueror.

Her suit[4] is now to repossess those lands,

5

Which we in justice cannot well deny,

Because in quarrel of[6] the House of York

The worthy gentleman did lose his life.

GLOUCESTERYour highness shall do well to grant her suit:

It were dishonour to deny it her.

10

KING EDWARD IVIt were no less, but yet I’ll make a pause. Gloucester and Clarence speak aside throughout

GLOUCESTERYea, is it so?

I see the lady hath a thing[12] to grant,

Before the king will grant her humble suit.

CLARENCEHe knows the game.[14] How true he keeps the wind!

15

GLOUCESTERSilence!

KING EDWARD IVWidow, we will consider of your suit,

And come some other time to know our mind.

LADY GREYRight gracious lord, I cannot brook[18] delay.

May it please your highness to resolve[19] me now,

20

And what your pleasure[20] is, shall satisfy me.

GLOUCESTERAy, widow? Then I’ll warrant[21] you all your lands,

An if[22] what pleases him shall pleasure you.

Fight closer,[23] or good faith, you’ll catch a blow.

CLARENCEI fear her not,[24] unless she chance to fall.

25

GLOUCESTERGod forbid that, for he’ll take vantages.[25]

KING EDWARD IVHow many children hast thou, widow? Tell me.

CLARENCEI think he means to beg[27] a child of her.

GLOUCESTERNay, then, whip me:[28] he’ll rather give her two.

LADY GREYThree, my most gracious lord.

30

GLOUCESTERYou shall have four, if you’ll be ruled by him.

KING EDWARD IV’Twere pity they should lose their father’s lands.

LADY GREYBe pitiful, dread[32] lord, and grant it then.

KING EDWARD IVLords, give us leave:[33] I’ll try this widow’s wit. Gloucester and Clarence step back and continue to speak aside

GLOUCESTERAy, good[34] leave have you, for you will have leave,

35

Till youth take leave and leave you to the[35] crutch.

KING EDWARD IVNow tell me, madam, do you love your children?

LADY GREYAy, full as dearly as I love myself.

KING EDWARD IVAnd would you not do much to do them good?

LADY GREYTo do them good, I would sustain some harm.

40

KING EDWARD IVThen get your husband’s lands, to do them good.

LADY GREYTherefore[41] I came unto your majesty.

KING EDWARD IVI’ll tell you how these lands are to be got.

LADY GREYSo shall you bind me to your highness’ service.

KING EDWARD IVWhat service[44] wilt thou do me, if I give them?

45

LADY GREYWhat you command, that rests in me[45] to do.

KING EDWARD IVBut you will take exceptions to my boon.[46]

LADY GREYNo, gracious lord, except[47] I cannot do it.

KING EDWARD IVAy, but thou canst do[48] what I mean to ask.

LADY GREYWhy, then I will do what your grace commands.

50

GLOUCESTERHe plies her hard,[50] and much rain wears the marble.

CLARENCEAs red[51] as fire! Nay, then her wax must melt.

LADY GREYWhy stops my lord? Shall I not hear my task?

KING EDWARD IVAn easy task,[53] ’tis but to love a king.

LADY GREYThat’s soon performed, because I am a subject.

55

KING EDWARD IVWhy, then, thy husband’s lands I freely give thee.

LADY GREYI take my leave with many thousand thanks.

GLOUCESTERThe match[57] is made: she seals it with a curtsy.

KING EDWARD IVBut stay thee, ’tis the fruits of love I mean.

LADY GREYThe fruits of love I mean, my loving liege.

60

KING EDWARD IVAy, but, I fear me, in another sense.

What love, think’st thou, I sue so much to get?

LADY GREYMy love till death, my humble thanks, my prayers,

That love which virtue begs and virtue grants.

KING EDWARD IVNo, by my troth, I did not mean such love.

65

LADY GREYWhy, then you mean not as I thought you did.

KING EDWARD IVBut now you partly may perceive my mind.

LADY GREYMy mind will never grant what I perceive

Your highness aims at, if I aim aright.

KING EDWARD IVTo tell thee plain, I aim to lie with thee.

70

LADY GREYTo tell you plain, I had rather lie in prison.

KING EDWARD IVWhy, then thou shalt not have thy husband’s lands.

LADY GREYWhy, then mine honesty shall be my dower,

For by that loss I will not purchase them.

KING EDWARD IVTherein thou wrong’st thy children mightily.

75

LADY GREYHerein your highness wrongs both them and me.

But, mighty lord, this merry inclination[76]

Accords not with the sadness[77] of my suit.

Please you dismiss me either with ‘Ay’ or ‘No’.

KING EDWARD IVAy, if thou wilt say ‘Ay’ to my request;

80

No if thou dost say ‘No’ to my demand.

LADY GREYThen, no, my lord. My suit is at an end.

GLOUCESTERThe widow likes him not, she knits her brows.[82]

CLARENCEHe is the bluntest[83] wooer in Christendom.

KING EDWARD IVHer looks do argue her[84] replete with modesty, Aside

85

Her words doth show her wit incomparable,

All her perfections challenge[86] sovereignty.

One way or other, she is for a king,

And she shall be my love,[88] or else my queen.—

Say that King Edward take thee for his queen? To her

90

LADY GREY’Tis better said than done, my gracious lord:

I am a subject fit to jest withal,

But far unfit to be a sovereign.

KING EDWARD IVSweet widow, by my state[93] I swear to thee,

I speak no more than what my soul intends,

95

And that is, to enjoy thee for my love.

LADY GREYAnd that is more than I will yield unto:

I know I am too mean[97] to be your queen

And yet too good to be your concubine.

KING EDWARD IVYou cavil,[99] widow: I did mean, my queen.

100

LADY GREY’Twill grieve your grace my sons should call you father.

KING EDWARD IVNo more than when my daughters call thee mother.

Thou art a widow, and thou hast some children,

And, by God’s mother, I, being but a bachelor,

Have other some.[104] Why, ’tis a happy thing

105

To be the father unto many sons.

Answer no more, for thou shalt be my queen.

GLOUCESTERThe ghostly father[107] now hath done his shrift.

CLARENCEWhen he was made a shriver,[108] ’twas for shift.

KING EDWARD IVBrothers, you muse[109] what chat we two have had.

110

GLOUCESTERThe widow likes it not, for she looks very sad. To Edward

KING EDWARD IVYou’ll think it strange if I should marry her.

CLARENCETo who, my lord?

KING EDWARD IVWhy, Clarence, to myself.

GLOUCESTERThat would be ten[114] days’ wonder at the least.

115

CLARENCEThat’s a day longer than a wonder lasts.

GLOUCESTERBy so much is the wonder in[116] extremes.

KING EDWARD IVWell, jest on, brothers. I can tell you both

Her suit is granted for her husband’s lands.

Enter a Nobleman

NOBLEMANMy gracious lord, Henry your foe is taken,[119]

120

And brought your prisoner to your palace gate.

KING EDWARD IVSee that he be conveyed unto the Tower,

And go we, brothers, to the man that took him,

To question[123] of his apprehension.—

Widow, go you along.— Lords, use[124] her honourably.

Exeunt. Richard [of Gloucester] remains

125

GLOUCESTERAy, Edward will use women honourably.

Would he were wasted,[126] marrow, bones and all,

That from his loins no hopeful branch[127] may spring,

To cross[128] me from the golden time I look for.

And yet, between my soul’s desire and me —

130

The[130] lustful Edward’s title buried —

Is Clarence, Henry, and his son young Edward,

And all the unlooked for[132] issue of their bodies,

To take their rooms,[133] ere I can place myself.

A cold premeditation[134] for my purpose.

135

Why, then, I do but dream on sovereignty,

Like one that stands upon a promontory,[136]

And spies a far-off shore where he would tread,

Wishing his foot were equal with[138] his eye,

And chides[139] the sea that sunders him from thence,

140

Saying, he’ll lade[140] it dry to have his way:

So do I wish[141] the crown, being so far off,

And so I chide the means[142] that keeps me from it,

And so I say, I’ll cut[143] the causes off,

Flattering me[144] with impossibilities.

145

My eye’s too quick, my heart o’erweens[145] too much,

Unless my hand and strength could equal them.

Well, say there is no kingdom then for Richard:

What other pleasure can the world afford?

I’ll make my heaven in a lady’s lap,

150

And deck[150] my body in gay ornaments,

And witch[151] sweet ladies with my words and looks.

O, miserable thought, and more unlikely

Than to accomplish[153] twenty golden crowns.

Why, love forswore[154] me in my mother’s womb,

155

And, for[155] I should not deal in her soft laws,

She did corrupt frail nature with some bribe,

To shrink mine arm up like a withered shrub,

To make an envious[158] mountain on my back,

Where sits deformity to mock my body;

160

To shape my legs of an unequal size,

To disproportion me in every part,

Like to a chaos[162] or an unlicked bear-whelp,

That carries no impression[163] like the dam.

And am I then a man to be beloved?

165

O, monstrous[165] fault, to harbour such a thought.

Then, since this earth affords no joy to me,

But to command, to check,[167] to o’erbear such

As are of better person[168] than myself,

I’ll make my heaven to dream upon the crown,

170

And whiles I live, t’account[170] this world but hell,

Until my misshaped trunk[171] that bears this head

Be round impalèd[172] with a glorious crown.

And yet I know not how to get the crown,

For many lives stand between me and home,[174]

175

And I — like one lost in a thorny wood,

That rents[176] the thorns and is rent with the thorns,

Seeking a way and straying from the way,

Not knowing how to find the open air,

But toiling desperately to find it out —

180

Torment myself to catch[180] the English crown:

And from that torment I will free myself,

Or hew my way out with a bloody axe.

Why, I can smile, and murder whiles I smile,

And cry ‘Content’ to that which grieves my heart,

185

And wet my cheeks with artificial tears,

And frame[186] my face to all occasions.

I’ll drown more sailors than the mermaid[187] shall,

I’ll slay more gazers than the basilisk,[188]

I’ll play the orator as well as Nestor,[189]

190

Deceive more slyly than Ulysses[190] could,

And, like a Sinon,[191] take another Troy.

I can add colours to the chameleon,

Change shapes with Proteus[193] for advantages,

And set[194] the murderous Machevil to school.

195

Can I do this, and cannot get a crown?

Tut, were it further off, I’ll pluck it down.

Exit

[Act 3 Scene 3]3.3

running scene 8

Flourish. Enter Lewis the French King, his sister Bona, his Admiral called Bourbon, Prince Edward, Queen Margaret and the Earl of Oxford. Lewis sits and riseth up again

KING LEWISFair Queen of England, worthy Margaret,

Sit down with us. It ill befits thy state[2]

And birth, that thou shouldst stand while Lewis doth sit.

QUEEN MARGARETNo, mighty King of France: now Margaret

5

Must strike her sail[5] and learn awhile to serve

Where kings command. I was, I must confess,

Great Albion’s[7] queen in former golden days,

But now mischance[8] hath trod my title down

And with dishonour laid me on the ground,

10

Where I must take like seat unto[10] my fortune,

And to my humble seat conform myself.

KING LEWISWhy, say, fair queen, whence springs this deep despair?

QUEEN MARGARETFrom such a cause as fills mine eyes with tears

And stops my tongue, while heart is drowned in cares.

15

KING LEWISWhate’er it be,[15] be thou still like thyself,

And sit thee by our side:

Seats her by him

Yield not thy neck

To fortune’s yoke, but let thy dauntless mind

Still ride in triumph over all mischance.

Be plain, Queen Margaret, and tell thy grief:

20

It shall be eased, if France[20] can yield relief.

QUEEN MARGARETThose gracious words revive my drooping thoughts

And give my tongue-tied sorrows leave to speak.

Now therefore be it known to noble Lewis,

That Henry, sole possessor of my love,

25

Is, of[25] a king, become a banished man,

And forced to live in Scotland a forlorn;[26]

While proud ambitious Edward, Duke of York,

Usurps the regal title and the seat

Of England’s true-anointed lawful king.

30

This is the cause that I, poor Margaret,

With this my son, Prince Edward, Henry’s heir,

Am come to crave thy just and lawful aid.

And if thou fail us, all our hope is done.

Scotland hath will to help, but cannot help,

35

Our people and our peers are both misled,

Our treasures seized, our soldiers put to flight,

And, as thou see’st, ourselves in heavy[37] plight.

KING LEWISRenownèd queen, with patience calm the storm,[38]

While we bethink a means to break it off.

40

QUEEN MARGARETThe more we stay,[40] the stronger grows our foe.

KING LEWISThe more I stay,[41] the more I’ll succour thee.

QUEEN MARGARETO, but impatience waiteth on[42] true sorrow.

And see where comes the breeder of my sorrow!

Enter Warwick

KING LEWISWhat’s he approacheth boldly to our presence?

45

QUEEN MARGARETOur Earl of Warwick, Edward’s greatest friend.

KING LEWISWelcome, brave Warwick, What brings thee to France?

He descends. She ariseth

QUEEN MARGARETAy, now begins a second storm to rise,

For this is he that moves both wind and tide.

WARWICKFrom worthy Edward, King of Albion,

50

My lord and sovereign, and thy vowèd friend,

I come, in kindness and unfeignèd love,

First, to do greetings to thy royal person,

And then to crave a league of amity,

And lastly, to confirm that amity

55

With nuptial knot, if thou vouchsafe[55] to grant

That virtuous Lady Bona, thy fair sister,

To England’s king in lawful marriage.

QUEEN MARGARETIf that go forward, Henry’s hope is done. Aside?

WARWICKAnd, gracious madam, in[59] our king’s behalf,

Speaking to Bona

60

I am commanded, with your leave and favour,

Humbly to kiss your hand, and with my tongue

To tell the passion of my sovereign’s heart;

Where fame,[63] late ent’ring at his heedful ears,

Hath placed thy beauty’s image and thy virtue.

65

QUEEN MARGARETKing Lewis and Lady Bona, hear me speak,

Before you answer Warwick. His demand

Springs not from Edward’s well-meant honest love,

But from deceit bred by necessity.

For how can tyrants[69] safely govern home,

70

Unless abroad they purchase great alliance?

To prove him tyrant this reason may suffice,

That Henry liveth still: but were he dead,

Yet here Prince Edward stands, King Henry’s son.

Look,[74] therefore, Lewis, that by this league and marriage

75

Thou draw[75] not on thy danger and dishonour,

For though usurpers sway the rule[76] awhile,

Yet heav’ns are just, and time suppresseth wrongs.

WARWICKInjurious[78] Margaret.

PRINCE EDWARDAnd why not queen?

80

WARWICKBecause thy father Henry did usurp,

And thou no more art prince than she is queen.

OXFORDThen Warwick disannuls[82] great John of Gaunt,

Which[83] did subdue the greatest part of Spain;

And, after John of Gaunt, Henry the Fourth,

85

Whose wisdom was a mirror[85] to the wisest,

And after that wise prince, Henry the Fifth,

Who by his prowess conquerèd all France:

From these our Henry lineally descends.

WARWICKOxford, how haps[89] it, in this smooth discourse,

90

You told not how Henry the Sixth hath lost

All that which Henry Fifth had gotten?

Methinks these peers of France should smile at that.

But for the rest, you tell[93] a pedigree

Of threescore[94] and two years, a silly time

95

To make prescription[95] for a kingdom’s worth.

OXFORDWhy, Warwick, canst thou speak against thy liege,

Whom thou obeyed’st thirty-and-six years,[97]

And not bewray[98] thy treason with a blush?

WARWICKCan Oxford, that did ever fence[99] the right,

100

Now buckler[100] falsehood with a pedigree?

For shame, leave Henry and call Edward king.

OXFORDCall him my king by whose injurious doom[102]

My elder brother, the lord Aubrey Vere,[103]

Was done to death? And more than so,[104] my father,

105

Even in the downfall[105] of his mellowed years,

When nature brought him to the door of death?

No, Warwick, no: while life upholds this arm,

This arm upholds the House of Lancaster.

WARWICKAnd I the House of York.

110

KING LEWISQueen Margaret, Prince Edward, and Oxford,

Vouchsafe, at our request, to stand aside,

While I use[112] further conference with Warwick.

They stand aloof

QUEEN MARGARETHeavens grant that Warwick’s words bewitch him not.

KING LEWISNow Warwick, tell me, even[114] upon thy conscience,

115

Is Edward your true king? For I were loath

To link with him that were not lawful chosen.

WARWICKThereon I pawn[117] my credit and mine honour.

KING LEWISBut is he gracious[118] in the people’s eye?

WARWICKThe more that[119] Henry was unfortunate.

120

KING LEWISThen further, all dissembling[120] set aside,

Tell me for truth[121] the measure of his love

Unto our sister Bona.

WARWICKSuch it seems

As may beseem[124] a monarch like himself.

125

Myself have often heard him say and swear

That this his love was an external[126] plant,

Whereof the root was fixed in virtue’s ground,

The leaves and fruit maintained with beauty’s sun,

Exempt from envy,[129] but not from disdain,

130

Unless the lady Bona quit[130] his pain.

KING LEWISNow, sister, let us hear your firm resolve.

BONAYour grant,[132] or your denial, shall be mine.—

Yet I confess that often ere this day,

Speaks to Warwick

When I have heard your king’s desert[134] recounted,

135

Mine ear hath tempted judgement to desire.

KING LEWISThen, Warwick, thus: our sister shall be Edward’s.

And now forthwith shall articles[137] be drawn

Touching[138] the jointure that your king must make,

Which with her dowry shall be counterpoised.[139]—

140

Draw near, Queen Margaret, and be a witness

That Bona shall be wife to the English king.

PRINCE EDWARDTo Edward, but not to the English king.

QUEEN MARGARETDeceitful Warwick, it was thy device[143]

By this alliance to make void my suit.

145

Before thy coming Lewis was Henry’s friend.

KING LEWISAnd still is friend to him and Margaret.

But if your title to the crown be weak,

As may appear by Edward’s good success,[148]

Then ’tis but reason that I be released

150

From giving aid which late[150] I promisèd.

Yet shall you have all kindness at my hand

That your estate[152] requires and mine can yield.

WARWICKHenry now lives in Scotland at his ease,

Where having nothing, nothing can he lose.

155

And as for you yourself, our quondam[155] queen,

You have a father able to maintain you,

And better ’twere you troubled him than France.

QUEEN MARGARETPeace, impudent and shameless Warwick,

Proud setter-up and puller-down of kings.

160

I will not hence,[160] till with my talk and tears —

Both full of truth — I make King Lewis behold

Thy sly conveyance[162] and thy lord’s false love,

Post blowing a horn within

For both of you are birds of selfsame feather.

KING LEWISWarwick, this is some post to us or thee.

Enter the Post

165

POSTMy lord ambassador, these letters are for you,

Speaks to Warwick

Sent from your brother, Marquis Montague.—

These from our king unto your majesty.—

To Lewis

And, madam, these for you, from whom I know not.

To Margaret

They all read their letters

OXFORDI like it well that our fair queen and mistress

170

Smiles at her news, while Warwick frowns at his.

PRINCE EDWARDNay, mark how Lewis stamps, as[171] he were nettled.

I hope all’s for the best.

KING LEWISWarwick, what are thy news?— And yours, fair queen?

QUEEN MARGARETMine, such as fill my heart with unhoped[174] joys.

175

WARWICKMine, full of sorrow and heart’s discontent.

KING LEWISWhat? Has your king married the Lady Grey?

And now, to soothe[177] your forgery and his,

Sends me a paper to persuade me patience?

Is this th’alliance that he seeks with France?

180

Dare he presume to scorn[180] us in this manner?

QUEEN MARGARETI told your majesty as much before:

This proveth Edward’s love and Warwick’s honesty.

WARWICKKing Lewis, I here protest, in sight of heaven

And by the hope I have of heavenly bliss,

185

That I am clear from[185] this misdeed of Edward’s,

No more my king, for he dishonours me,

But most himself, if he could see his shame.

Did I forget that by the house of York

My father came untimely[189] to his death?

190

Did I let pass th’abuse[190] done to my niece?

Did I impale him[191] with the regal crown?

Did I put[192] Henry from his native right?

And am I guerdoned[193] at the last with shame?

Shame on himself, for my desert[194] is honour.

195

And to repair my honour lost for him,

I here renounce him and return to Henry.—

My noble queen, let former grudges pass,

And henceforth I am thy true servitor.[198]

I will revenge his wrong to Lady Bona,

200

And replant Henry in his former state.

QUEEN MARGARETWarwick, these words have turned my hate to love,

And I forgive and quite forget old faults,

And joy[203] that thou becom’st King Henry’s friend.

WARWICKSo much his friend, ay, his unfeignèd[204] friend,

205

That, if King Lewis vouchsafe to furnish[205] us

With some few bands[206] of chosen soldiers,

I’ll undertake to land them on our coast

And force the tyrant from his seat by war.

’Tis not his new-made bride shall succour him.

210

And as for Clarence, as my letters tell me,

He’s very likely now to fall from[211] him

For matching[212] more for wanton lust than honour,

Or than for strength and safety of our country.

BONADear brother, how shall Bona be revenged

215

But by thy help to this distressèd queen?

QUEEN MARGARETRenowned prince, how shall poor Henry live,

Unless thou rescue him from foul despair?

BONAMy quarrel and this English queen’s are one.

WARWICKAnd mine, fair Lady Bona, joins with yours.

220

KING LEWISAnd mine with hers, and thine, and Margaret’s.

Therefore at last I firmly am resolved

You shall have aid.

QUEEN MARGARETLet me give humble thanks for all at once.

KING LEWISThen, England’s messenger, return in post[224]

225

And tell false Edward, thy supposèd king,

That Lewis of France is sending over masquers[226]

To revel it with him and his new bride.

Thou see’st what’s passed,[228] go fear thy king withal.

BONATell him, in hope he’ll prove a widower shortly,

230

I’ll wear the willow garland[230] for his sake.

QUEEN MARGARETTell him, my mourning weeds[231] are laid aside,

And I am ready to put armour on.

WARWICKTell him from me that he hath done me wrong,

And therefore I’ll uncrown him ere’t be[234] long.

235

There’s thy reward.[235] Be gone. Gives money

Exit Post

KING LEWISBut, Warwick,

Thou and Oxford, with five thousand men

Shall cross the seas, and bid[238] false Edward battle.

And, as occasion[239] serves, this noble queen

240

And prince shall follow with a fresh supply.[240]

Yet, ere thou go, but answer me one doubt:

What pledge have we of thy firm loyalty?

WARWICKThis shall assure my constant loyalty,

That if our queen and this young prince agree,

245

I’ll join mine eldest daughter[245] and my joy

To him forthwith in holy wedlock bands.[246]

QUEEN MARGARETYes, I agree, and thank you for your motion.[247]—

Son Edward, she is fair and virtuous:

Therefore delay not, give thy hand to Warwick,

250

And, with thy hand, thy faith irrevocable,

That only Warwick’s daughter shall be thine.

PRINCE EDWARDYes, I accept her, for she well deserves it.

And here, to pledge my vow, I give my hand.

He gives his hand to Warwick

KING LEWISWhy stay we now? These soldiers shall be levied.—

255

And thou, Lord Bourbon, our High Admiral,

Shall waft[256] them over with our royal fleet.

I long till Edward fall by war’s mischance,

For mocking marriage with a dame of France.

Exeunt. Warwick remains

WARWICKI came from Edward as ambassador,

260

But I return his sworn and mortal foe:

Matter of marriage was the charge he gave me,

But dreadful war shall answer his demand.

Had he none else to make a stale[263] but me?

Then none but I shall turn his jest to sorrow.

265

I was the chief that raised him to the crown,

And I’ll be chief to bring him down again,

Not that I pity Henry’s misery,

But seek revenge on Edward’s mockery.

Exit

[Act 4 Scene 1]4.1

running scene 9

Enter Richard [of Gloucester], Clarence, Somerset and Montague

GLOUCESTERNow tell me, brother Clarence, what think you

Of this new marriage with the lady Grey?

Hath not our brother made a worthy choice?

CLARENCEAlas, you know, ’tis far from hence to France.

5

How could he stay[5] till Warwick made return?

SOMERSETMy lords, forbear this talk: here comes the king.

GLOUCESTERAnd his well-chosen bride.

CLARENCEI mind[8] to tell him plainly what I think.

Flourish. Enter King Edward, Lady Grey [now Queen Elizabeth], Pembroke, Stafford,

Hastings: four stand on one side and four on the other

KING EDWARD IVNow, brother of Clarence, how like you our choice,

10

That you stand pensive, as half malcontent?[10]

CLARENCEAs well as Lewis of France, or the Earl of Warwick,

Which[12] are so weak of courage and in judgement

That they’ll take no offence at our abuse.[13]

KING EDWARD IVSuppose they take offence without a cause:

15

They are but Lewis and Warwick. I am Edward,

Your king and Warwick’s, and must have my will.[16]

GLOUCESTERAnd shall have your will, because our king.

Yet hasty marriage seldom proveth well.

KING EDWARD IVYea, brother Richard, are you offended too?

20

GLOUCESTERNot I, no:

God forbid that I should wish them severed

Whom God hath joined together. Ay, and ’twere pity

To sunder them that yoke[23] so well together.

KING EDWARD IVSetting your scorns and your mislike[24] aside,

25

Tell me some reason why the lady Grey

Should not become my wife and England’s queen.—

And you too, Somerset and Montague,

Speak freely what you think.

CLARENCEThen this is mine opinion: that King Lewis

30

Becomes your enemy, for mocking him

About the marriage of the lady Bona.

GLOUCESTERAnd Warwick, doing what you gave in charge,[32]

Is now dishonoured by this new marriage.

KING EDWARD IVWhat if both Lewis and Warwick be appeased

35

By such invention[35] as I can devise?

MONTAGUEYet, to have joined with France in such alliance

Would more have strengthened this our commonwealth

Gainst foreign storms than any home-bred marriage.

HASTINGSWhy, knows not Montague that of itself

40

England is safe, if true[40] within itself?

MONTAGUEBut the safer when ’tis backed with France.

HASTINGS’Tis better using France than trusting France.

Let us be backed with God and with the seas

Which he hath given for fence[44] impregnable,

45

And with their helps only[45] defend ourselves.

In them, and in ourselves, our safety lies.

CLARENCEFor this one speech, Lord Hastings well deserves

To have[48] the heir of the lord Hungerford.

KING EDWARD IVAy, what of that? It was my will and grant,

50

And for this once my will shall stand for law.

GLOUCESTERAnd yet methinks your grace hath not done well,

To give the heir[52] and daughter of Lord Scales

Unto the brother of your loving bride;

She better would have fitted me or Clarence,

55

But in your bride you bury[55] brotherhood.

CLARENCEOr else you would not have bestowed the heir

Of the lord Bonville on your new wife’s son,[57]

And leave your brothers to go speed[58] elsewhere.

KING EDWARD IVAlas, poor Clarence, is it for a wife

60

That thou art malcontent? I will provide thee.

CLARENCEIn choosing for yourself, you showed your judgement,

Which being shallow, you shall give me leave

To play the broker[63] in mine own behalf.

And to that end, I shortly mind[64] to leave you.

65

KING EDWARD IVLeave me, or tarry,[65] Edward will be king,

And not be tied unto his brother’s will.

LADY GREYMy lords, before it pleased his majesty

To raise my state to title of a queen,

Do me but right, and you must all confess

70

That I was not ignoble of descent,

And meaner[71] than myself have had like fortune.

But as this title honours me and mine,

So your dislikes,[73] to whom I would be pleasing,

Doth cloud my joys with danger[74] and with sorrow.

75

KING EDWARD IVMy love, forbear to fawn[75] upon their frowns.

What danger or what sorrow can befall thee,

So long as Edward is thy constant friend,[77]

And their true sovereign, whom they must obey?

Nay, whom they shall obey, and love thee too,

80

Unless they seek for hatred at my hands,

Which if they do, yet will I keep thee safe,

And they shall feel the vengeance of my wrath.

GLOUCESTERI hear, yet say not much, but think the more. Aside

Enter a Post

KING EDWARD IVNow, messenger, what letters or what news From France?

85

POSTMy sovereign liege, no letters, and few words,

But such as I, without your special pardon,

Dare not relate.

KING EDWARD IVGo to,[88] we pardon thee: therefore, in brief,

Tell me their words as near as thou canst guess[89] them.

90

What answer makes King Lewis unto our letters?

POSTAt my depart, these were his very words:

‘Go tell false Edward, thy supposèd king,

That Lewis of France is sending over masquers

To revel it with him and his new bride.’

95

KING EDWARD IVIs Lewis so brave?[95] Belike he thinks me Henry.

But what said Lady Bona to my marriage?

POSTThese were her words, uttered with mild disdain:

‘Tell him, in hope he’ll prove a widower shortly,

I’ll wear the willow garland for his sake.’

100

KING EDWARD IVI blame not her; she could say little less.

She had the wrong.— But what said Henry’s queen?

For I have heard that she was there in place.[102]

POST‘Tell him’, quoth she, ‘my mourning weeds are done,[103]

And I am ready to put armour on.’

105

KING EDWARD IVBelike she minds to play the Amazon.[105]

But what said Warwick to these injuries?[106]

POSTHe, more incensed against your majesty

Than all the rest, discharged[108] me with these words:

‘Tell him from me that he hath done me wrong,

110

And therefore I’ll uncrown him ere’t be long.’

KING EDWARD IVHa? Durst the traitor breathe out so proud words?

Well, I will arm me, being thus forewarned.

They shall have wars and pay for their presumption.—

But say, is Warwick friends with Margaret?

115

POSTAy, gracious sovereign, they are so linked in friendship

That young Prince Edward marries Warwick’s daughter.

CLARENCEBelike[117] the elder; Clarence will have the younger.— Aside

Now, brother king, farewell, and sit you fast,[118]

For I will hence to Warwick’s other daughter,

120

That, though I want[120] a kingdom, yet in marriage

I may not prove inferior to yourself.

You that love me and Warwick, follow me.

Exit Clarence, and Somerset follows

GLOUCESTERNot I. Aside

My thoughts aim at a further matter:

125

I stay not for the love of Edward, but the crown.

KING EDWARD IVClarence and Somerset both gone to Warwick!

Yet am I armed against the worst can happen,

And haste is needful[128] in this desp’rate case.—

Pembroke and Stafford, you in our behalf

130

Go levy men, and make prepare[130] for war;

They are already, or quickly will be landed.

Myself in person will straight[132] follow you.

Exeunt Pembroke and Stafford

But, ere I go, Hastings and Montague,

Resolve my doubt. You twain,[134] of all the rest,

135

Are near to Warwick by blood and by alliance:

Tell me if you love Warwick more than me?

If it be so, then both depart to him.

I rather wish you foes than hollow[138] friends.

But if you mind to hold your true obedience,

140

Give me assurance with some friendly vow,

That I may never have you in suspect.[141]

MONTAGUESo God help Montague as he proves true.

HASTINGSAnd Hastings as he favours Edward’s cause.

KING EDWARDIV Now, brother Richard, will you stand by us?

145

GLOUCESTERAy, in despite of all that shall withstand[145] you.

KING EDWARD IVWhy, so. Then am I sure of victory.

Now therefore let us hence, and lose no hour

Till we meet Warwick with his foreign power.[148]

Exeunt

[Act 4 Scene 2]4.2

running scene 10

Enter Warwick and Oxford in England, with French Soldiers

WARWICKTrust me, my lord, all hitherto[1] goes well.

The common people by numbers swarm to us.

Enter Clarence and Somerset

But see where Somerset and Clarence comes.

Speak suddenly,[4] my lords, are we all friends?

5

CLARENCEFear not that, my lord.

WARWICKThen, gentle Clarence, welcome unto Warwick.—

And welcome, Somerset. I hold it cowardice

To rest[8] mistrustful where a noble heart

Hath pawned[9] an open hand in sign of love;

10

Else might I think that Clarence, Edward’s brother,

Were but a feignèd friend to our proceedings.[11]

But welcome, sweet Clarence, my daughter shall be thine.

And now what rests but, in night’s coverture,[13]

Thy brother being carelessly[14] encamped,

15

His soldiers lurking[15] in the towns about,

And but[16] attended by a simple guard,

We may surprise[17] and take him at our pleasure?

Our scouts have found the[18] adventure very easy,

That as Ulysses[19] and stout Diomede

20

With sleight and manhood stole to Rhesus’ tents,

And brought from thence the Thracian fatal steeds,

So we, well covered with the night’s black mantle,

At unawares[23] may beat down Edward’s guard

And seize himself. I say not, slaughter him,

25

For I intend but only to surprise him.

You that will follow me to this attempt,

Applaud the name of Henry with your leader.

They all cry, ‘Henry!’

Why, then, let’s on our way in silent sort,[28]

For Warwick and his friends, God and Saint George!

Exeunt

[Act 4 Scene 3]*

running scene 11

Enter three Watchmen to guard the King’s tent

FIRST WATCHMANCome on, my[1] masters, each man take his stand.

The king by this[2] is set him down to sleep.

SECOND WATCHMANWhat, will he not to bed?

FIRST WATCHMANWhy, no, for he hath made a solemn vow

5

Never to lie and take his natural rest

Till Warwick or himself be quite suppressed.

SECOND WATCHMANTomorrow then belike shall be the day,

If Warwick be so near as men report.

THIRD WATCHMANBut say, I pray, what nobleman is that

10

That with the king here resteth in his tent?

FIRST WATCHMAN’Tis the lord Hastings, the king’s chiefest friend.

THIRD WATCHMANO, is it so? But why commands the king

That his chief followers lodge in towns about[13] him,

While he himself keeps[14] in the cold field?

15

SECOND WATCHMAN’Tis the more honour, because more dangerous.

THIRD WATCHMANAy, but give me worship[16] and quietness.

I like it better than a dangerous honour.

If Warwick knew in what estate[18] he stands,

’Tis to be doubted[19] he would waken him.

20

FIRST WATCHMANUnless our halberds[20] did shut up his passage.

SECOND WATCHMANAy, wherefore[21] else guard we his royal tent,

But to defend his person from night-foes?

Enter Warwick, Clarence, Oxford, Somerset and French Soldiers, silent all

WARWICKThis is his tent, and see where stand his guard.

Courage, my masters: honour now or never:

25

But[25] follow me, and Edward shall be ours.

FIRST WATCHMANWho goes there?

SECOND WATCHMANStay, or thou diest!

Warwick and the rest cry all, ‘Warwick! Warwick!’ and set upon the guard, who fly, crying, ‘Arm! Arm!’ Warwick and the rest following them. The Drum playing and Trumpet sounding, enter Warwick, Somerset and the rest bringing the King [Edward] out in his gown, sitting in a chair. Richard and Hastings fly over the stage

SOMERSETWhat[28] are they that fly there?

WARWICKRichard and Hastings. Let them go. Here is

30

The duke.

KING EDWARD IVThe duke? Why, Warwick, when we parted,

Thou called’st me king.

WARWICKAy, but the case is altered.

When you disgraced me in my embassade,[34]

35

Then I degraded[35] you from being king,

And come now to create you Duke of York.

Alas, how should you govern any kingdom,

That know not how to use ambassadors,

Nor how to be contented with one wife,

40

Nor how to use your brothers brotherly,

Nor how to study for the people’s welfare,

Nor how to shroud yourself from enemies?

KING EDWARD IVYea, brother of Clarence, art thou here too?

Nay, then I see that Edward needs must down.[44]—

45

Yet, Warwick, in despite of all mischance,

Of thee thyself and all thy complices,[46]

Edward will always bear himself as king.

Though fortune’s malice overthrow my state,[48]

My mind exceeds the compass[49] of her wheel.

50

WARWICKThen, for his mind, be Edward England’s king,

Takes off his crown

But Henry now shall wear the English crown,

And be true king indeed, thou but the shadow.—

My lord of Somerset, at my request,

See that forthwith Duke Edward be conveyed

55

Unto my brother, Archbishop of York.

When I have fought with Pembroke and his fellows,

I’ll follow you, and tell what answer

Lewis and the lady Bona send to him.—

Now, for awhile farewell, good Duke of York.

They lead him out forcibly

60

KING EDWARD IVWhat fates impose, that men must needs abide;[60]

It boots not[61] to resist both wind and tide.

Exeunt [all but Oxford and Warwick]

OXFORDWhat now remains, my lords, for us to do

But march to London with our soldiers?

WARWICKAy, that’s the first thing that we have to do,

65

To free King Henry from imprisonment

And see him seated in the regal throne.

Exeunt

[Act 4 Scene 4]4.4

running scene 12

Enter Rivers and Lady Grey [Queen Elizabeth]

RIVERSMadam, what makes[1] you in this sudden change?

LADY GREYWhy brother Rivers, are you yet to learn

What late misfortune is befall’n King Edward?

RIVERSWhat? Loss of some pitched[4] battle against Warwick?

5

LADY GREYNo, but the loss of his own royal person.

RIVERSThen is my sovereign slain?

LADY GREYAy, almost slain, for he is taken prisoner,

Either betrayed by falsehood[8] of his guard

Or by his foe surprised at[9] unawares.

10

And as I further have to understand,

Is new committed to[11] the Bishop of York,

Fell[12] Warwick’s brother and by that our foe.

RIVERSThese news I must confess are full of grief,

Yet, gracious madam, bear it as you may,

15

Warwick may lose, that now hath won the day.

LADY GREYTill then fair hope must hinder[16] life’s decay.

And I the rather wean me from despair

For love of Edward’s offspring in my womb.

This is it that makes me bridle[19] passion

20

And bear with mildness my misfortune’s cross.

Ay, ay, for this I draw in many a tear

And stop the rising of blood-sucking sighs,[22]

Lest with my sighs or tears I blast[23] or drown

King Edward’s fruit, true heir to th’English crown.

25

RIVERSBut, madam, where[25] is Warwick then become?

LADY GREYI am informed that he comes towards London,

To set the crown once more on Henry’s head.

Guess thou the rest: King Edward’s friends must down.[28]

But, to prevent the tyrant’s[29] violence —

30

For trust not him that hath once broken faith —

I’ll hence forthwith unto the sanctuary,[31]

To save at least the heir of Edward’s right.[32]

There shall I rest secure[33] from force and fraud.

Come, therefore, let us fly while we may fly.

35

If Warwick take us we are sure to die.

Exeunt

[Act 4 Scene 5]4.5

running scene 13

Enter Richard, Lord Hastings and Sir William Stanley [with Soldiers]

GLOUCESTERNow, my lord Hastings and Sir William Stanley,

Leave[2] off to wonder why I drew you hither,

Into this chiefest[3] thicket of the park.

Thus stands the case:[4] you know our king, my brother,

5

Is prisoner to the bishop here, at whose hands

He hath good usage[6] and great liberty,

And, often but[7] attended with weak guard,

Comes hunting this way to disport[8] himself.

I have advertised[9] him by secret means

10

That if about this hour he make this way

Under the colour[11] of his usual game,

He shall here find his friends with horse and men

To set him free from his captivity.

Enter King Edward and a Huntsman with him

HUNTSMANThis way, my lord, for this way lies the game.[14]

15

KING EDWARD IVNay, this way, man. See where the huntsmen stand.—

Now, brother of Gloucester, Lord Hastings and the rest,

Stand you thus close,[17] to steal the bishop’s deer?

GLOUCESTERBrother, the time and case requireth haste.

Your horse stands ready at the park-corner.

20

KING EDWARD IVBut whither shall we then?

HASTINGSTo Lynn,[21] my lord,

And shipped from thence to Flanders.

GLOUCESTERWell guessed, believe me, for that was my meaning.

KING EDWARD IVStanley, I will requite[24] thy forwardness.

25

GLOUCESTERBut wherefore stay we? ’Tis no time to talk.

KING EDWARD IVHuntsman, what say’st thou? Wilt thou go along?

HUNTSMANBetter do so than tarry and be hanged.

GLOUCESTERCome then, away. Let’s ha’ no more ado.[28]

KING EDWARD IVBishop, farewell. Shield thee from Warwick’s frown,

30

And pray that I may repossess the crown.

Exeunt

[Act 4 Scene 6]*

running scene 14

Flourish. Enter King Henry the Sixth, Clarence, Warwick, Somerset, young Henry of Richmond], Oxford, Montague and Lieutenant

KING HENRY VIMaster lieutenant, now that God and friends

Have shaken Edward from the regal seat,

And turned my captive state to liberty,

My fear to hope, my sorrows unto joys,

5

At our enlargement[5] what are thy due fees?

LIEUTENANTSubjects may challenge[6] nothing of their sov’reigns,

But if an humble prayer may prevail,

I then crave pardon of your majesty.

KING HENRY VIFor what, lieutenant? For well using me?

10

Nay, be thou sure I’ll well requite thy kindness,

For that[11] it made my imprisonment a pleasure.

Ay, such a pleasure as encagèd birds

Conceive,[13] when after many moody thoughts,

At last, by notes[14] of household harmony,

15

They quite forget their loss of liberty.

But, Warwick, after God, thou set’st me free,

And chiefly therefore I thank God and thee.

He was the author,[18] thou the instrument.

Therefore, that I may conquer fortune’s spite

20

By living low,[20] where fortune cannot hurt me,

And that the people of this blessèd land

May not be punished with my thwarting stars,[22]

Warwick, although my head still wear the crown,

I here resign my government to thee,

25

For thou art fortunate in all thy deeds.

WARWICKYour grace hath still[26] been famed for virtuous

And now may seem as wise as virtuous,

By spying[28] and avoiding fortune’s malice,

For few men rightly temper[29] with the stars:

30

Yet in this one thing let me blame your grace,

For choosing me when Clarence is in place.[31]

CLARENCENo, Warwick, thou art worthy of the sway,[32]

To whom the heav’ns in thy nativity

Adjudged[34] an olive branch and laurel crown,

35

As likely to be blest in peace and war.

And therefore I yield[36] thee my free consent.

WARWICKAnd I choose Clarence only[37] for Protector.

KING HENRY VIWarwick and Clarence give me both your hands.

Now join your hands, and with your hands your hearts,

40

That no dissension[40] hinder government.

I make you both protectors of this land,

While I myself will lead a private life

And in devotion[43] spend my latter days,

To sin’s rebuke and my creator’s praise.

45

WARWICKWhat answers Clarence to his sovereign’s will?

CLARENCEThat he consents, if Warwick yield consent,

For on thy fortune I repose myself.[47]

WARWICKWhy, then, though loath, yet must I be content.

We’ll yoke[49] together, like a double shadow

50

To Henry’s body, and supply[50] his place,

I mean, in bearing weight of government,

While he enjoys the honour and his ease.

And, Clarence, now then it is more than needful

Forthwith that Edward be pronounced a traitor,

55

And all his lands and goods be confiscate.

CLARENCEWhat else?[56] And that succession be determinèd.

WARWICKAy, therein Clarence[57] shall not want his part.

KING HENRY VIBut, with the first of all your chief affairs,

Let me entreat, for I command no more,

60

That Margaret your queen and my son Edward

Be sent for, to return from France with speed.

For till I see them here, by doubtful[62] fear

My joy of liberty is half eclipsed.

CLARENCEIt shall be done, my sovereign, with all speed.

65

KING HENRY VIMy lord of Somerset, what youth is that,

Of whom you seem to have so tender care?

SOMERSETMy liege, it is young Henry,[67] Earl of Richmond.

KING HENRY VICome hither, England’s hope.

Lays his hand on his head

If secret powers

Suggest but truth to my divining[69] thoughts,

70

This pretty[70] lad will prove our country’s bliss.

His looks are full of peaceful majesty,

His head by nature framed to wear a crown,

His hand to wield a sceptre, and himself

Likely in time to bless a regal throne.

75

Make much of him, my lords, for this is he

Must help you more than you are hurt by me.

Enter a Post

WARWICKWhat news, my friend?

POSTThat Edward is escapèd from your brother,[78]

And fled, as he hears since, to Burgundy.

80

WARWICKUnsavoury news! But how made he escape?

POSTHe was conveyed[81] by Richard, Duke of Gloucester,

And the Lord Hastings, who attended[82] him

In secret ambush on the forest side

And from the bishop’s huntsmen rescued him,

85

For hunting was his daily exercise.

WARWICKMy brother was too careless of his charge.[86]

But let us hence, my sovereign, to provide

A salve[88] for any sore that may betide.

Exeunt. Somerset, Richmond and Oxford remain

SOMERSETMy lord, I like not of this flight of Edward’s,

90

For doubtless Burgundy will yield him help,

And we shall have more wars before’t be long.

As Henry’s late presaging prophecy

Did glad my heart with hope of this young Richmond,

So doth my heart misgive me, in these conflicts

95

What may befall him, to his harm and ours:

Therefore, Lord Oxford, to prevent the worst,

Forthwith we’ll send him hence to Brittany,

Till storms be past of civil enmity.

OXFORDAy, for if Edward repossess the crown,

100

’Tis like that Richmond with the rest, shall down.

SOMERSETIt shall be so. He shall to Brittany.

Come, therefore, let’s about it speedily.

Exeunt

[Act 4 Scene 7]4.7

running scene 15

Flourish. Enter Edward, Richard, Hastings and Soldiers

KING EDWARD IVNow, brother Richard, Lord Hastings and the rest,

Yet thus far fortune maketh us amends,

And says that once more I shall interchange[3]

My wanèd[4] state for Henry’s regal crown.

5

Well have we passed and now repassed the seas

And brought desirèd help from Burgundy.

What then remains, we being thus arrived

From Ravenspurgh[8] haven before the gates of York,

But that we enter, as into our dukedom? Hastings knocks

10

GLOUCESTERThe gates made fast?[10] Brother, I like not this,

For many men that stumble at the threshold

Are well foretold[12] that danger lurks within.

KING EDWARD IVTush, man, abodements[13] must not now affright us.

By fair or foul means we must enter in,

15

For hither will our friends repair[15] to us.

HASTINGSMy liege, I’ll knock once more to summon them. Knocks

Enter [above], on the walls, the Mayor of York and his brethren

MAYORMy lords, we were forewarned of your coming,

And shut the gates for safety of ourselves;

For now we owe allegiance unto Henry.

20

KING EDWARD IVBut, Master Mayor, if Henry be your king,

Yet Edward, at the least, is Duke of York.

MAYORTrue, my good lord, I know you for no less.

KING EDWARD IVWhy, and I challenge[23] nothing but my dukedom,

As being well content with that alone.

25

GLOUCESTERBut when the fox hath once got[25] in his nose, Aside

He’ll soon find means to make the body follow.

HASTINGSWhy, Master Mayor, why stand you in a doubt?

Open the gates, we are King Henry’s friends.

MAYORAy, say you so? The gates shall then be opened.

He descends [with his brethren]

30

GLOUCESTERA wise stout[30] captain, and soon persuaded.

HASTINGSThe good old man would fain[31] that all were well,

So[32] ’twere not long of him. But being entered,

I doubt not, I, but we shall soon persuade

Both him and all his brothers unto reason.

Enter the Mayor and two Aldermen [below]

35

KING EDWARD IVSo, Master Mayor, these gates must not be shut

But[36] in the night or in the time of war.

What! Fear not, man, but yield me up the keys.

Takes his keys

For Edward will defend the town and thee,

And all those friends that deign[39] to follow me.

March. Enter Montgomery, with Drum and Soldiers

40

GLOUCESTERBrother, this is Sir John Montgomery,

Our trusty friend, unless I be deceived.

KING EDWARD IVWelcome, Sir John. But why come you in arms?

MONTGOMERYTo help King Edward in his time of storm,

As every loyal subject ought to do.

45

KING EDWARD IVThanks, good Montgomery, but we now forget[45]

Our title to the crown and only claim

Our dukedom, till God please to send the rest.

MONTGOMERYThen fare you well, for I will hence again.

I came to serve a king and not a duke.—

50

Drummer, strike up and let us march away.

The Drum begins to march

KING EDWARD IVNay, stay, Sir John, awhile, and we’ll debate

By what safe means the crown may be recovered.

MONTGOMERYWhat talk you of debating? In few words,

If you’ll not here proclaim yourself our king,

55

I’ll leave you to your fortune and be gone

To keep them back that come to succour you.

Why shall we fight, if you pretend[57] no title?

GLOUCESTERWhy, brother, wherefore stand you[58] on nice points?

KING EDWARD IVWhen we grow stronger, then we’ll make our claim.

60

Till then, ’tis wisdom to conceal our meaning.[60]

HASTINGSAway with scrupulous wit,[61] now arms must rule.

GLOUCESTERAnd fearless minds climb soonest unto crowns.

Brother, we will proclaim you out of hand.[63]

The bruit[64] thereof will bring you many friends.

65

KING EDWARD IVThen be it as you will, for ’tis my right,

And Henry but usurps the diadem.

MONTGOMERYAy, now my sovereign speaketh like himself,

And now will I be Edward’s champion.[68]

HASTINGSSound trumpet. Edward shall be here proclaimed.

70

Come, fellow soldier, make thou proclamation.

Flourish. Sound[70]

SOLDIER[71]Reads ‘Edward the Fourth, by the grace of God, King of England and France, and Lord of Ireland, etc.’

MONTGOMERYAnd whosoe’er gainsays[73] King Edward’s right,

By this I challenge him to single fight.

Throws down his gauntlet[74]

75

ALLLong live Edward the Fourth!

KING EDWARD IVThanks, brave[76] Montgomery, and thanks unto you all.

If fortune serve me, I’ll requite this kindness.

Now, for this night, let’s harbour[78] here in York,

And when the morning sun shall raise his car[79]

80

Above the border of this horizon,

We’ll forward towards Warwick and his mates;

For well I wot[82] that Henry is no soldier.

Ah, froward[83] Clarence, how evil it beseems thee

To flatter Henry and forsake thy brother!

85

Yet, as we may, we’ll meet both thee and Warwick.

Come on, brave soldiers, doubt not of the day,[86]

And that once gotten, doubt not of large pay.

Exeunt

[Act 4 Scene 8]*

running scene 16

Flourish. Enter the King, Warwick, Montague, Clarence, Oxford and Somerset

WARWICKWhat counsel, lords? Edward from Belgia,[1]

With hasty[2] Germans and blunt Hollanders,

Hath passed in safety through the narrow seas,[3]

And with his troops doth march amain[4] to London,

5

And many giddy[5] people flock to him.

KING HENRY VILet’s levy men and beat him back again.

CLARENCEA little fire is quickly trodden out,

Which, being suffered,[8] rivers cannot quench.

WARWICKIn Warwickshire I have true-hearted friends,

10

Not mutinous in peace, yet bold in war.

Those will I muster up, and thou, son[11] Clarence,

Shalt stir up in Suffolk, Norfolk and in Kent,

The knights and gentlemen to come with thee.

Thou, brother Montague, in Buckingham,

15

Northampton and in Leicestershire, shalt find

Men well inclined to hear what thou command’st.

And thou, brave Oxford, wondrous[17] well beloved,

In Oxfordshire shalt muster up thy friends.

My sovereign, with the loving citizens,

20

Like to his island girt in with[20] the ocean,

Or modest Dian[21] circled with her nymphs,

Shall rest[22] in London till we come to him.

Fair lords, take leave and stand not[23] to reply.

Farewell, my sovereign.

25

KING HENRY VIFarewell, my Hector,[25] and my Troy’s true hope.

CLARENCEIn sign of truth,[26] I kiss your highness’ hand.

KING HENRY VIWell-minded[27] Clarence, be thou fortunate.

MONTAGUEComfort,[28] my lord, and so I take my leave.

OXFORDAnd thus[29] I seal my truth, and bid adieu.

30

KING HENRY VISweet Oxford, and my loving Montague,

And all at once,[31] once more a happy farewell.

WARWICKFarewell, sweet lords, let’s meet at Coventry.

Exeunt. [King Henry and Exeter remain]

KING HENRY VIHere at the palace will I rest awhile.

Cousin of Exeter, what thinks your lordship?

35

Methinks the power that Edward hath in field

Should not be able to encounter[36] mine.

EXETERThe doubt[37] is that he will seduce the rest.

KING HENRY VIThat’s not my fear. My meed[38] hath got me fame:

I have not stopped mine ears to their demands,[39]

40

Nor posted off[40] their suits with slow delays.

My pity hath been balm to heal their wounds,

My mildness hath allayed their swelling griefs,

My mercy dried their water-flowing tears.

I have not been desirous of their wealth,

45

Nor much oppressed them with great subsidies,[45]

Nor forward of[46] revenge, though they much erred.

Then why should they love Edward more than me?

No, Exeter, these graces challenge grace,[48]

And when the lion fawns upon the lamb,

50

The lamb will never cease to follow him.

Shout within, ‘A Lancaster! A Lancaster!’

EXETERHark, hark, my lord, what shouts are these?

Enter Edward and his Soldiers

KING EDWARD IVSeize on the shame-faced[52] Henry. Bear him hence,

And once again proclaim us King of England.—

You are the fount[54] that makes small brooks to flow:

55

Now stops thy spring, my sea shall suck them dry,

And swell so much the higher by their ebb.[56]—

Hence with him to the Tower. Let him not speak.

Exeunt [some] with King Henry

And, lords, towards Coventry bend[58] we our course

Where peremptory[59] Warwick now remains.

60

The sun shines hot, and if we use delay,

Cold biting winter mars[61] our hoped-for hay.

GLOUCESTERAway betimes,[62] before his forces join,

And take the great-grown traitor unawares.

Brave warriors, march amain towards Coventry.

Exeunt

[Act 5 Scene 1]5.1

running scene 17

Enter Warwick, the Mayor of Coventry, two Messengers and others upon the walls

WARWICKWhere is the post that came from valiant Oxford?

How far hence is thy lord, mine honest fellow?

FIRST MESSENGERBy this[3] at Dunsmore, marching hitherward.

[He may exit]

WARWICKHow far off is our brother Montague?

5

Where is the post that came from Montague?

SECOND MESSENGERBy this at Daintry,[6] with a puissant troop.

[He may exit]

Enter Somerville

WARWICKSay, Somerville, what says my loving son?[7]

And, by thy guess, how nigh is Clarence now?

SOMERVILLEAt Southam[9] I did leave him with his forces

10

And do expect him here some two hours hence. Drum heard

WARWICKThen Clarence is at hand, I hear his drum.

SOMERVILLEIt is not his, my lord, here[12] Southam lies.

The drum your honour hears marcheth from Warwick.

WARWICKWho should that be? Belike, unlooked-for friends.

15

SOMERVILLEThey are at hand, and you shall quickly know.

[Exit into the city]

March. Flourish. Enter Edward, Richard and Soldiers

KING EDWARD IVGo, trumpet, to the walls, and sound a parle.[16]

GLOUCESTERSee how the surly[17] Warwick mans the wall.

WARWICKO, unbid[18] spite, is sportful Edward come?

Where slept our scouts or how are they seduced,

20

That we could hear no news of his repair?[20]

KING EDWARD IVNow, Warwick, wilt thou ope the city gates,

Speak gentle words and humbly bend thy knee?

Call Edward king and at his hands beg mercy,

And he shall pardon thee these outrages.

25

WARWICKNay, rather, wilt thou draw[25] thy forces hence,

Confess who set thee up and plucked thee down,

Call Warwick patron[27] and be penitent?

And thou shalt still remain the Duke of York.

GLOUCESTERI thought, at least, he would have said the king,

30

Or did he make the jest against his will?

WARWICKIs not a dukedom, sir, a goodly gift?

GLOUCESTERAy, by my faith, for a poor earl[32] to give.

I’ll do thee service for so good a gift.

WARWICK’Twas I that gave the kingdom to thy brother.

35

KING EDWARD IVWhy then ’tis mine, if but by Warwick’s gift.

WARWICKThou art no Atlas[36] for so great a weight,

And weakling, Warwick takes his gift again,

And Henry is my king, Warwick his subject.

KING EDWARD IVBut Warwick’s king is Edward’s prisoner.

40

And, gallant Warwick, do but answer this:

What is the body when the head is off?

GLOUCESTERAlas, that Warwick had no more forecast,[42]

But whiles he thought to steal the single ten,[43]

The king was slyly fingered[44] from the deck.

45

You left poor Henry at the bishop’s palace,

And ten to one you’ll meet him in the Tower.

EDWARD’Tis even[47] so, yet you are Warwick still.

GLOUCESTERCome, Warwick, take the time,[48] kneel down, kneel down.

Nay, when?[49] Strike now, or else the iron cools.

50

WARWICKI had rather chop this hand off at a blow,

And with the other fling it at thy face,

Than bear so low a sail to strike to thee.

KING EDWARD IVSail how thou canst, have wind and tide thy friend,

This hand, fast wound about thy coal-black hair,

55

Shall, whiles thy head is warm and new cut off,

Write in the dust this sentence with thy blood,

‘Wind-changing[57] Warwick now can change no more.’

Enter Oxford with Drum and Colours

WARWICKO, cheerful colours, see where Oxford comes!

OXFORDOxford, Oxford, for Lancaster! He and his forces enter the city

60

GLOUCESTERThe gates are open, let us enter too.

KING EDWARD IVSo other foes may set[61] upon our backs.

Stand we in good array,[62] for they no doubt

Will issue out again and bid[63] us battle;

If not, the city being but of small defence,[64]

65

We’ll quickly rouse[65] the traitors in the same. Oxford appears on the walls

WARWICKO, welcome, Oxford, for we want[66] thy help.

Enter Montague with Drum and Colours

MONTAGUEMontague, Montague, for Lancaster! He and his forces enter the city

GLOUCESTERThou and thy brother both shall buy[68] this treason

Even with the dearest blood your bodies bear.

70

KING EDWARD IVThe harder matched,[70] the greater victory.

My mind presageth[71] happy gain and conquest.

Enter Somerset with Drum and Colours

SOMERSETSomerset, Somerset, for Lancaster! He and his forces enter the city

GLOUCESTERTwo[73] of thy name, both Dukes of Somerset,

Have sold their lives unto the house of York,

75

And thou shalt be the third if this sword hold.

Enter Clarence with Drum and Colours

WARWICKAnd lo, where George of Clarence sweeps along,

Of force enough to bid his brother battle,

With whom an upright zeal to right[78] prevails

More than the nature[79] of a brother’s love.

80

Come, Clarence, come. Thou wilt, if Warwick call.

CLARENCEFather[81] of Warwick, know you what this means? Takes red rose out of his hat

Look here, I throw my infamy at thee. Throws it at Warwick

I will not ruinate[83] my father’s house,

Who gave his blood to lime[84] the stones together,

85

And set up Lancaster. Why, trowest thou,[85] Warwick,

That CIarence is so harsh, so blunt,[86] unnatural,

To bend[87] the fatal instruments of war

Against his brother and his lawful king?

Perhaps thou wilt object[89] my holy oath:

90

To keep that oath were more impiety

Than Jephthah,[91] when he sacrificed his daughter.

I am so sorry for my trespass[92] made

That, to deserve well at my brother’s hands,

I here proclaim myself thy mortal foe,

95

With resolution, wheresoe’er I meet thee —

As I will meet thee, if thou stir abroad[96] —

To plague thee for thy foul misleading me.

And so, proud-hearted Warwick, I defy thee,

And to my brother turn my blushing[99] cheeks.—

100

Pardon me, Edward, I will make amends.—

And, Richard, do not frown upon my faults,

For I will henceforth be no more unconstant.[102]

KING EDWARD IVNow welcome more, and ten times more beloved,

Than if thou never hadst deserved our hate.

105

GLOUCESTERWelcome, good Clarence, this is brotherlike.

WARWICKO passing[106] traitor, perjured and unjust!

KING EDWARD IVWhat, Warwick, wilt thou leave the town and fight?

Or shall we beat the stones about thine ears?

WARWICKAlas, I am not cooped[109] here for defence.

110

I will away towards Barnet[110] presently,

And bid thee battle, Edward, if thou dar’st.

KING EDWARD IVYes, Warwick, Edward dares, and leads the way.—

Lords, to the field. Saint George and victory!

Exeunt [King Edward and his company]. March.

Warwick and his company follows

[Act 5 Scene 2]5.2

running scene 18

Alarum and excursions. Enter Edward bringing forth Warwick wounded

KING EDWARD IVSo, lie thou there. Die thou, and die our fear,

For Warwick was a bug[2] that feared us all.

Now, Montague, sit fast:[3] I seek for thee,

That[4] Warwick’s bones may keep thine company.

Exit

5

WARWICKAh, who is nigh? Come to me, friend or foe,

And tell me who is victor, York or Warwick?

Why ask I that? My mangled body shows,

My blood, my want of strength, my sick heart shows,

That I must yield my body to the earth

10

And, by my fall, the conquest to my foe.

Thus yields the cedar[11] to the axe’s edge,

Whose arms[12] gave shelter to the princely eagle,

Under whose shade the ramping[13] lion slept,

Whose top-branch overpeered[14] Jove’s spreading tree

15

And kept low shrubs from winter’s powerful wind.

These eyes, that now are dimmed with death’s black veil,

Have been as piercing as the midday sun,

To search[18] the secret treasons of the world.

The wrinkles in my brows, now filled with blood,

20

Were likened oft to kingly sepulchres,

For who lived king, but I could dig his grave?

And who durst smile when Warwick bent his brow?[22]

Lo, now my glory smeared in dust and blood.

My parks,[24] my walks, my manors that I had,

25

Even now forsake me; and of all my lands

Is nothing left me but my body’s length.

Why, what is pomp,[27] rule, reign, but earth and dust?

And live we how we can, yet die we must.

Enter Oxford and Somerset

SOMERSETAh, Warwick, Warwick, wert thou as we are,

30

We might recover all our loss again.

The queen from France hath brought a puissant power.[31]

Even now we heard the news. Ah, couldst thou fly.

WARWICKWhy, then I would not fly. Ah, Montague,

If thou be there, sweet brother, take my hand

35

And with[35] thy lips keep in my soul awhile.

Thou lov’st me not, for, brother, if thou didst,

Thy tears would wash this cold congealèd blood

That glues my lips and will not let me speak.

Come quickly, Montague, or I am dead.

40

SOMERSETAh, Warwick, Montague hath breathed his last,

And to the latest gasp cried out for Warwick

And said ‘Commend me to my valiant brother.’

And more he would have said, and more he spoke,

Which sounded like a cannon in a vault,

45

That mought[45] not be distinguished, but at last

I well might hear, delivered with a groan,

‘O, farewell, Warwick!’

WARWICKSweet rest his soul. Fly, lords, and save yourselves,

For Warwick bids you all farewell to meet in heaven. Dies

50

OXFORDAway, away, to meet the queen’s great power.

Here they bear away his body. Exeunt

[Act 5 Scene 3]

running scene 18 continues

Flourish. Enter King Edward in triumph,* with Richard, Clarence and the rest

KING EDWARD IVThus far our fortune keeps an upward course,

And we are graced with wreaths of victory.

But, in the midst of this bright-shining day,

I spy a black, suspicious, threat’ning cloud,

5

That will encounter with our glorious sun,

Ere he attain his easeful western bed.

I mean, my lords, those powers that the queen

Hath raised in Gallia[8] have arrived our coast

And, as we hear, march on to fight with us.

10

CLARENCEA little gale will soon disperse that cloud

And blow it to the source from whence it came.

Thy very beams will dry those vapours up,

For every cloud engenders not a storm.

GLOUCESTERThe queen is valued[14] thirty thousand strong,

15

And Somerset with Oxford fled to her:

If she have time to breathe,[16] be well assured

Her faction will be full as strong as ours.

KING EDWARD IVWe are advertised[18] by our loving friends

That they do hold their course toward Tewkesbury.[19]

20

We, having now the best at Barnet field,

Will thither straight, for willingness rids way,[21]

And as we march, our strength will be augmented

In every county as we go along.

Strike up the drum, cry ‘Courage!’ and away.

Exeunt

[Act 5 Scene 4]5.4

running scene 19

Flourish. March. Enter the Queen, young Edward, Somerset, Oxford and Soldiers

QUEEN MARGARETGreat lords, wise men ne’er sit and wail their loss,

But cheerly[2] seek how to redress their harms.

What though the mast be now blown overboard,

The cable broke, the holding-anchor[4] lost,

5

And half our sailors swallowed in the flood?[5]

Yet lives our pilot[6] still. Is’t meet that he

Should leave the helm and like a fearful lad,

With tearful eyes add water to the sea

And give more strength to that which hath too much,

10

Whiles, in his moan,[10] the ship splits on the rock,

Which industry[11] and courage might have saved?

Ah, what a shame! Ah, what a fault were this!

Say Warwick was our anchor: what of that?

And Montague our topmast: what of him?

15

Our slaughtered friends the tackles:[15] what of these?

Why, is not Oxford here another anchor?

And Somerset another goodly mast?

The friends of France our shrouds[18] and tacklings?

And, though unskilful, why not Ned[19] and I

20

For once allowed the skilful pilot’s charge?[20]

We will not from[21] the helm to sit and weep,

But keep our course, though the rough wind say no,

From shelves[23] and rocks that threaten us with wreck.

As good to chide the waves as speak them fair.

25

And what is Edward but a ruthless sea?

What Clarence but a quicksand of deceit?

And Richard but a ragged[27] fatal rock?

All these the enemies to our poor bark.[28]

Say you can swim, alas, ’tis but a while:

30

Tread on the sand, why, there you quickly sink,

Bestride[31] the rock, the tide will wash you off,

Or else you famish, that’s a three-fold death.

This speak I, lords, to let you understand,

If case some one of you would fly from us,

35

That there’s no hoped-for mercy with the brothers

More than with ruthless waves, with sands and rocks.

Why, courage then: what cannot be avoided

’Twere childish weakness to lament or fear.

PRINCE EDWARDMethinks a woman of this valiant spirit

40

Should, if a coward heard her speak these words,

Infuse his breast with magnanimity[41]

And make him, naked,[42] foil a man at arms.

I speak not this as doubting any here,

For did I but suspect a fearful man

45

He should have leave to go away betimes,[45]

Lest in our need he might infect another

And make him of like spirit to himself.

If any such be here — as God forbid —

Let him depart before we need his help.

50

OXFORDWomen and children[50] of so high a courage,

And warriors faint: why, ’twere perpetual shame.

O, brave young prince, thy famous grandfather[52]

Doth live again in thee: long mayst thou live

To bear his image and renew his glories!

55

SOMERSETAnd he that will not fight for such a hope,

Go home to bed, and like the owl by day,

If he arise, be mocked and wondered at.

QUEEN MARGARETThanks, gentle Somerset. Sweet Oxford, thanks.

PRINCE EDWARDAnd take his[59] thanks that yet hath nothing else.

Enter a Messenger

60

MESSENGERPrepare you, lords, for Edward is at hand.

Ready to fight: therefore be resolute.

[He may exit]

OXFORDI thought no less: it is his policy[62]

To haste thus fast, to find us unprovided.[63]

SOMERSETBut he’s deceived: we are in readiness.

65

QUEEN MARGARETThis cheers my heart, to see your forwardness.[65]

OXFORDHere pitch our battle,[66] hence we will not budge.

Flourish and march. Enter Edward, Richard, Clarence and Soldiers

KING EDWARDIV Brave followers, yonder stands the thorny wood,

Which by the heavens’ assistance and your strength,

Must by the roots be hewn up yet ere night.

70

I need not add more fuel to your fire,

For well I wot[71] ye blaze to burn them out.

Give signal to the fight, and to it, lords!

QUEEN MARGARETLords, knights, and gentlemen, what I should say

My tears gainsay,[74] for every word I speak,

75

Ye see I drink the water of my eye.

Therefore no more but this: Henry, your sovereign,

Is prisoner to the foe, his state[77] usurped,

His realm a slaughter-house, his subjects slain,

His statutes cancelled and his treasure spent,

80

And yonder is the wolf that makes this spoil.[80]

You fight in justice. Then, in God’s name, lords,

Be valiant and give signal to the fight.

Alarum, retreat, excursions. Exeunt

[Act 5 Scene 5]

running scene 19 continues

Flourish. Enter Edward, Richard [and] Clarence [with] Queen, Oxford, Somerset,

[prisoners]

KING EDWARD IVNow here a period[1] of tumultuous broils.

Away with Oxford to Hames[2] Castle straight.

For Somerset, off with his guilty head.

Go, bear them hence: I will not hear them speak.

5

OXFORDFor my part, I’ll not trouble thee with words.

SOMERSETNor I, but stoop[6] with patience to my fortune.

Exeunt [Oxford and Somerset, guarded]

QUEEN MARGARETSo part we sadly in this troublous world,

To meet with joy in sweet Jerusalem.[8]

KING EDWARD IVIs proclamation made that who[9] finds Edward

10

Shall have a high reward, and he[10] his life?

GLOUCESTERIt is, and lo[11] where youthful Edward comes!

Enter [Soldiers with] the Prince

KING EDWARD IVBring forth the gallant,[12] let us hear him speak.

What? Can so young a thorn begin to prick?

Edward, what satisfaction[14] canst thou make

15

For bearing arms, for stirring up my subjects,

And all the trouble thou hast turned me to?

PRINCE EDWARDSpeak like a subject, proud ambitious York.

Suppose that I am now my father’s mouth.

Resign thy chair,[19] and where I stand kneel thou,

20

Whilst I propose the selfsame words to thee,

Which, traitor, thou wouldst have me answer to.

QUEEN MARGARETAh, that thy father had been so resolved!

GLOUCESTERThat you might still have worn the petticoat,

And ne’er have stol’n the breech[24] from Lancaster.

25

PRINCE EDWARDLet Aesop[25] fable in a winter’s night,

His currish[26] riddles sorts not with this place.

GLOUCESTERBy heaven, brat, I’ll plague ye for that word.

QUEEN MARGARETAy, thou wast born to be a plague to men.

GLOUCESTERFor God’s sake, take away this captive scold.[29]

30

PRINCE EDWARDNay, take away this scolding crookback rather.

KING EDWARD IVPeace, wilful boy, or I will charm[31] your tongue.

CLARENCEUntutored lad, thou art too malapert.[32]

PRINCE EDWARDI know my duty. You are all undutiful:

Lascivious Edward, and thou perjured George,

35

And thou misshapen Dick,[35] I tell ye all

I am your better, traitors as ye are,

And thou usurp’st my father’s right and mine.

KING EDWARD IVTake that, the likeness[38] of this railer here.

Stabs him

GLOUCESTERSprawl’st thou?[39] Take that to end thy agony.

Richard stabs him

40

CLARENCEAnd there’s for twitting[40] me with perjury.

Clarence stabs him

QUEEN MARGARETO, kill me too!

GLOUCESTERMarry, and shall.[42]

Offers to kill her

KING EDWARD IVHold, Richard, hold, for we have done too much.

GLOUCESTERWhy should she live to fill the world with words?

45

KING EDWARD IVWhat, doth she swoon? Use means for her recovery.

GLOUCESTERClarence, excuse me to the king my brother.

I’ll hence to London on a serious matter.

Ere ye come there, be sure[48] to hear some news.

CLARENCEWhat? What?

50

GLOUCESTERTower, the Tower.

Exit

QUEEN MARGARETO Ned, sweet Ned! Speak to thy mother, boy.

Canst thou not speak? O, traitors, murderers!

They that stabbed Caesar shed no blood at all,

Did not offend, nor were not worthy blame,

55

If this foul deed were by[55] to equal it.

He was a man; this, in respect,[56] a child,

And men ne’er spend their fury on a child.

What’s worse than murderer, that I may name it?

No, no, my heart will burst, an if I speak —

60

And I will speak, that so my heart may burst.

Butchers and villains, bloody cannibals!

How sweet a plant have you untimely[62] cropped.

You have no[63] children, butchers! If you had,

The thought of them would have stirred up remorse.[64]

65

But if you ever chance to have a child,

Look[66] in his youth to have him so cut off

As, deathmen, you have rid[67] this sweet young prince.

KING EDWARD IVAway with her: go, bear her hence perforce.[68]

QUEEN MARGARETNay, never bear me hence, dispatch[69] me here:

70

Here[70] sheathe thy sword, I’ll pardon thee my death.

What, wilt thou not? Then, Clarence, do it thou.

CLARENCEBy heaven, I will not do thee so much ease.[72]

QUEEN MARGARETGood Clarence, do, sweet Clarence, do thou do it.

CLARENCEDidst thou not hear me swear I would not do it?

75

QUEEN MARGARETAy, but thou usest[75] to forswear thyself.

’Twas sin before, but now ’tis charity.

What, wilt thou not? Where is that devil’s butcher, Richard?

Hard-favoured[78] Richard? Richard, where art thou?

Thou art not here; murder is thy alms-deed:[79]

80

Petitioners for blood thou ne’er put’st back.[80]

KING EDWARD IVAway, I say: I charge ye, bear her hence.

QUEEN MARGARETSo come to[82] you and yours, as to this prince.

Exit Queen, [dragged out by Soldiers]

KING EDWARD IVWhere’s Richard gone?

CLARENCETo London all in post and, as I guess,

85

To make a bloody supper in the Tower.

KING EDWARD IVHe’s sudden[86] if a thing comes in his head.

Now march we hence. Discharge the common sort[87]

With pay and thanks, and let’s away to London

And see our gentle queen how well she fares:

90

By this, I hope, she hath a son for me.

Exeunt

[Act 5 Scene 6]5.6

running scene 20

Enter Henry the Sixth and Richard, with the Lieutenant, on the walls

GLOUCESTERGood day, my lord. What, at your book[1] so hard?

KING HENRY VIAy, my good lord — my lord, I should say rather.

’Tis sin to flatter. ‘Good’ was little better.[3]

‘Good Gloucester’ and ‘good devil’ were alike,

5

And both preposterous:[5] therefore, not ‘good lord’.

GLOUCESTERSirrah,[6] leave us to ourselves: we must confer.

[Exit Lieutenant]

KING HENRY VISo flies the reckless[7] shepherd from the wolf,

So first the harmless sheep doth yield his fleece

And next his throat unto the butcher’s knife.

10

What scene of death hath Roscius[10] now to act?

GLOUCESTERSuspicion[11] always haunts the guilty mind,

The thief doth fear each bush an officer

KING HENRY VIThe bird that hath been limèd[13] in a bush

With trembling wings misdoubteth[14] every bush;

15

And I, the hapless male[15] to one sweet bird,

Have now the fatal[16] object in my eye

Where[17] my poor young was limed, was caught and killed.

GLOUCESTERWhy, what a peevish[18] fool was that of Crete,

That taught his son the office of a fowl!

20

And yet, for all his wings, the fool[20] was drowned.

KING HENRY VII, Daedalus, my poor boy, Icarus,

Thy father, Minos,[22] that denied our course,

The sun[23] that seared the wings of my sweet boy,

Thy brother Edward, and thyself the sea

25

Whose envious[25] gulf did swallow up his life.

Ah, kill me with thy weapon, not with words!

My breast can better brook[27] thy dagger’s point

Than can my ears that tragic history.[28]

But wherefore dost thou come? Is’t for my life?

30

GLOUCESTERThink’st thou I am an executioner?

KING HENRY VIA persecutor I am sure, thou art,

If murdering innocents be executing,

Why then, thou art an executioner.

GLOUCESTERThy son I killed for his presumption.

35

KING HENRY VIHadst thou been killed when first thou didst presume,

Thou hadst not lived to kill a son of mine.

And thus I prophesy, that many a thousand,

Which now mistrust[38] no parcel of my fear,

And many an old man’s sigh and many a widow’s,

40

And many an orphan’s water-standing[40] eye —

Men for their sons, wives for their husbands,

Orphans for their parents’ timeless[42] death —

Shall rue the hour that ever thou wast born.

The owl shrieked at thy birth — an evil sign —

45

The night-crow[45] cried, aboding luckless time,

Dogs howled, and hideous tempest shook down trees,

The raven rooked her[47] on the chimney’s top,

And chatt’ring pies[48] in dismal discords sung.

Thy mother felt more than a mother’s pain,[49]

50

And yet brought forth less than a mother’s hope,

To wit,[51] an indigested and deformèd lump,

Not like the fruit of such a goodly tree.

Teeth[53] hadst thou in thy head when thou wast born,

To signify thou cam’st to bite the world.

55

And if the rest be true which I have heard,

Thou cam’st—

GLOUCESTERI’ll hear no more: die, prophet, in thy speech,

For this amongst the rest, was I ordained.[58]

Stabs him

KING HENRY VIAy, and for much more slaughter after this.

60

O, God forgive my sins and pardon thee!

Dies

GLOUCESTERWhat? Will the aspiring blood of Lancaster

Sink in the ground? I thought it would have mounted.

See how my sword weeps[63] for the poor king’s death.

O, may such purple[64] tears be alway shed

65

From those that wish the downfall of our house.

If any spark of life be yet remaining,

Down, down to hell, and say I sent thee thither,

I, that have neither pity, love, nor fear.

Stabs him again

Indeed, ’tis true that[69] Henry told me of,

70

For I have often heard my mother say

I came[71] into the world with my legs forward.

Had I not reason, think ye, to make haste,

And seek their ruin that usurped our right?

The midwife wondered[74] and the women cried

75

‘O, Jesus bless us, he is born with teeth!’

And so I was, which plainly signified

That I should snarl and bite and play the dog.

Then, since the heavens have shaped my body so,

Let hell make crook’d my mind to answer[79] it.

80

I have no brother, I am like no brother.

And this word ‘love’, which greybeards[81] call divine,

Be resident in men like[82] one another

And not in me: I am myself alone.

Clarence, beware, thou keep’st me from the light,[84]

85

But I will sort[85] a pitchy day for thee,

For I will buzz abroad[86] such prophecies

That Edward shall be fearful of[87] his life,

And then, to purge his fear, I’ll be thy death.

King Henry and the prince his son are gone.

90

Clarence, thy turn is next, and then the rest,

Counting myself but bad[91] till I be best.

I’ll throw thy body in another room

And triumph, Henry, in thy day of doom.[93]

Exit [with the body]

[Act 5 Scene 7]5.7

running scene 21

Flourish. Enter King, Queen, Clarence, Richard, Hastings, Nurse [with the young Prince] and Attendants

KING EDWARD IVOnce more we sit in England’s royal throne,

Repurchased with the blood of enemies.

What valiant foemen, like to autumn’s corn,

Have we mowed down in tops[4] of all their pride!

5

Three Dukes of Somerset, three-fold renowned

For hardy[6] and undoubted champions,

Two Cliffords, as[7] the father and the son,

And two Northumberlands: two braver men

Ne’er spurred their coursers[9] at the trumpet’s sound.

10

With them, the two brave bears,[10] Warwick and Montague,

That in[11] their chains fettered the kingly lion

And made the forest tremble when they roared.

Thus have we swept suspicion[13] from our seat

And made our footstool of security.—

15

Come hither, Bess, and let me kiss my boy.—

Young Ned, for thee, thine uncles and myself

Have in our armours watched[17] the winter’s night,

Went all afoot[18] in summer’s scalding heat,

That thou mightst repossess the crown in peace,

20

And of our labours thou shalt reap the gain.

GLOUCESTERI’ll blast[21] his harvest, if your head were laid, Aside

For yet I am not looked on[22] in the world.

This shoulder was ordained so thick[23] to heave,

And heave it shall some weight, or break my back.

25

Work[25] thou the way, and that shalt execute.

KING EDWARD IVClarence and Gloucester, love my lovely queen,

And kiss your princely nephew, brothers both.

CLARENCEThe duty that I owe unto your majesty

I seal upon the lips of this sweet babe. Kisses the baby

30

QUEEN ELIZABETHThanks, noble Clarence. Worthy brother,[30] thanks.

GLOUCESTERAnd that[31] I love the tree from whence thou sprang’st,

Witness the loving kiss I give the fruit.—

To say the truth, so Judas[33] kissed his master Aside

And cried ‘All hail!’ whenas[34] he meant all harm.

35

KING EDWARD IVNow am I seated as my soul delights,

Having my country’s peace and brothers’ loves.

CLARENCEWhat will your grace have done with Margaret?

Reynard,[38] her father, to the King of France

Hath pawned the Sicils and Jerusalem,

40

And hither have they sent it[40] for her ransom.

KING EDWARD IVAway with her, and waft[41] her hence to France.

And now what rests but that we spend the time

With stately triumphs,[43] mirthful comic shows,

Such as befits the pleasure of the court.

45

Sound drums and trumpets! Farewell sour[45] annoy,

For here I hope begins our lasting joy.

Exeunt all

Textual Notes

O = First Octavo text of 1595

Q3 = Third Quarto text of 1619

F = First Folio text of 1623

F2 = a correction introduced in the Second Folio text of 1632

F3 = a correction introduced in the Third Folio text of 1663–64

Ed = a correction introduced by a later editor

SD = Stage direction

SH = Speech heading (i.e., speaker’s names)

List of parts = Ed

1.1.2 SH YORK = O. F = Pl. or Plat. (throughout) 106 Thy = O. F = My 171 hear me = F3. F = heare 262 with me = O. F = me 264 from = O. F = to 276 SD Flourish printed as part of the entrance direction to the next scene in F 1.2.47 SD a Messenger = O. F = Gabriel (the name of an actor in Shakespeare’s company) 49 SH MESSENGER = O. F = Gabriel 2.1.96 recount = F3. F = tecompt 130 an idle = O. F = a lazie 2.2.89 Since = F2. F = Cla. Since (assigning lines 89–92 to George of Clarence) 151 dauphin spelled Dolphin in F 163 SH GEORGE = O. F = Cla.

2.5.89 stratagems = F3. F = Stragems 90 Erroneous = F2. F = Erreoneous 119 E’en = Ed. F = Men

2.6.8 The…flies = O. Not in F 44 SH EDWARD See…is. = O. Assigned to Richard in F 60 his = O. F = is 91 sinew spelled sinow in F

3.1.0 SD two Keepers = O. F = Sinklo, and Humfrey (the names of actors in Shakespeare’s company) 1 SH FIRST KEEPER = Ed. F = Sink. or Sinklo. (throughout) 5 SH SECOND KEEPER = Ed. F = Hum. throughout 17 wast = F3. F = was 30 Is = F2. F = I: 55 that = O. Not in F

3.2.8 SH GLOUCESTER F = Rich. 18 SH LADY GREY = Ed. F = Wid. 84 looks do = F2. F = Looks doth 124 honourably = O. F = honorable

3.3.126 external = F. O = eternall

4.1.92 thy = O. F = the

4.2.15 towns = Ed. F = Towne

4.4.17 wean spelled waine in F

4.5.4 stands = Ed. F = stand 8 Comes = Ed. F = Come

5.1.78 an = F2. F = in

5.7.5 renowned = Q3. F = Renowne 30 SH QUEEN ELIZABETH = O. F = Cla. Thanks = O. F = Thanke

Act 1 Scene 1

1.1   Location: the Parliament House at Westminster, London    Alarum trumpet call to arms    white roses emblems of the House of York

5    brook retreat tolerate the sound of a trumpet call signaling retreat

6    drooping flagging, spiritless

8    battle’s army’s, battalion’s

11    dangerous dangerously, potentially fatally

12    cleft split    beaver face-guard, helmet visor    downright directed from above, straight down

14    brother historically, Montague was Warwick’s brother; his father was York’s brother-in-law

15    encountered fought with

16    thou Richard addresses Somerset’s head

19    Such…Gaunt may all the descendants of Gaunt have such a fate

22    Before until

25    fearful anxious, frightened

26    possess sit in (literally)/seize (metaphorically)

31    gentle noble

33    offer attempt, start

34    perforce by force

41    bashful timorous

42    bywords proverbial

46    holds up supports

47    shake his bells i.e., move, make to swoop on (an image from falconry: bells attached to the bird’s legs served to terrify its prey)

48    plant establish, install (puns on Plantagenet)    Flourish trumpet fanfare signaling the arrival of a person of authority    red roses emblems of the House of Lancaster

50    sturdy uncompromising, obstinate, defiant

51    chair of state throne    belike presumably, probably

52    false peer disloyal lord

57    be not i.e., be not avenged

58    steel armor (rather than the traditional black cloth; i.e., ready for revenge)

59    suffer allow

60    brook endure

62    poltroons cowards, worthless men

63    durst not would not have dared

65    assail attack, assault

66    cousin kinsman; a common form of address among the nobility

67    city i.e., citizens of London

68    beck command, call

71    shambles slaughterhouse

74    factious rebellious, generator of division

78    He…York in 1 Henry VI (Act 3 Scene 1), Henry restores Richard to a noble title (previously denied him because his father had been executed for treason)

79    earldom York inherited the earldom of March through his mother, through whom he claimed a right to the throne

80    traitor…crown the Earl of Cambridge, York’s father, was executed for treason (Henry V, Act 2 Scene 2)

86    Content thyself accept it

89    maintain defend, support

91    field battlefield

92    colours military flags

95    his i.e., Northumberland’s father, slain in the battle

99    Urge claim, insist on

100    messenger perhaps Clifford means an avenging angel

103    Will you we do you want me to

104    plead make a case for

106    father…York historically, York inherited the title from his uncle Edward, his father’s elder brother

109    dauphin title of the French king’s eldest son, heir to the throne    stoop submit, bow down

111    sith since

112    Lord Protector Duke of Gloucester, murdered in 2 Henry VI; the Protector ruled on behalf of a monarch who was too young to do so

114    yet still

118    cavilling disputing over details

121    leave permission, opportunity

127    unpeople depopulate

130    winding-sheet burial shroud    faint you do you lose heart

134    his king i.e., Richard II, whom Henry IV deposed

138    An if if

142    him, being Richard II, who was

144    unconstrained voluntarily

145    ’twere…crown it would invalidate his right (or that of his descendants) to the throne

147    heir i.e., heir who is next in line or has been specifically nominated (by Richard)

149    His i.e., York’s

155    despite spite

156    deceived mistaken    power army, forces

159    up i.e., on the throne

170    usurping blood i.e., the blood of Henry VI

179    Base dishonorable, unworthy

181    articles conditions, terms of agreement

185    cold weak, cowardly, unnatural

187    bands bonds, chains

196    entail bequeath as a legally untransferable possession

198    Conditionally on the condition

202    put me down depose/murder me

205    forward precocious, promising/presumptuous, demanding    Sennet trumpet call signaling a procession    down i.e., from the throne, or a dais on which it sits

209    keep remain in/guard

211    unto the sea meaning obscure, since Montague did not have any particular connection with the sea; Shakespeare may be confusing him with Falconbridge

213    bewray betray, reveal

219    would I wish    maid a virgin, unmarried

224    pain i.e., of labor

225    blood i.e., breast milk, thought to be converted from blood, and popularly supposed to convey to the child some of the mother’s temperament (another sense of “blood”)

235    undone ruined

236    head free reign

237    sufferance permission, tolerance

239    sepulchre tomb

242    narrow seas i.e., the English Channel

243    duke i.e., of York

245    environèd surrounded

246    silly helpless, defenseless

247    tossed impaled    pikes spears

248    granted agreed

250    I…bed legally, a type of divorce known as mensa et thoro, in which partners were free from the duty to cohabit, but not permitted to remarry

254    forsworn rejected their oaths to serve under

271    cost cost me, deprive me of/accost, attack    empty hungry

272    Tire feed voraciously

274    fair courteously

Act 1 Scene 2

1.2   Location: the Duke of York’s castle (historically Sandal Castle in Yorkshire, northern England)

1    leave permission (to speak)

3    forcible compelling

13    breathe rest, recover itself

14    outrun escape, elude

15    quietly peacefully

18    forsworn guilty of perjury, an oath breaker

22    moment significance

26    depose take an oath

27    vain worthless    frivolous paltry

30    circuit circumference    Elysium in Greek mythology, a paradise inhabited by the good or distinguished after death

31    feign conjure up, imagine (plays on “fain,” i.e., to make glad, rejoice in)

33    dyed puns on “died”

36    presently immediately

37    whet on encourage, sharpen the inclination of

39    privily privately, secretly

41    rise rebel, rise up in arms

43    Witty intelligent    liberal generous-hearted    spirit courage, vigor

44    resteth more else remains

45    occasion opportunity

46    privy…drift aware of my intentions

48    stay wait    post haste

51    hard close

52    hold stronghold, fortress

55    post ride swiftly

58    policy strategy/cunning

59    simple foolish

63    happy fortunate

65    need need to

67    for a need if necessary

70    straight straightaway

74    Whenas when, although

75    like same

Act 1 Scene 3

1.3   Location: the battlefield, near Sandal Castle, Yorkshire

1    scape escape

2    bloody bloodthirsty, warmongering

4    duke i.e., York, who killed Clifford’s father in 2 Henry VI (Act 5 Scene 2)

9    of by

12    So thus    pent-up caged (furious and ravenous)

14    insulting exulting scornfully

15    rend tear    asunder apart

19    mean unworthy, small, young

22    the…enter i.e., the route to compassion

24    cope fight

29    slake reduce, abate

31    fury avenging spirit (in classical mythology, the Furies were the goddesses of vengeance)

37    rapier light sharp-pointed sword

40    ere before

42    sith since

45    occasion instance/cause

49    Di…tuae! (Latin) “The gods grant that this may be the height of your glory” (Ovid, Heroides 2.66)

Act 1 Scene 4

1    got won

2    uncles i.e., Sir John and Sir Hugh Mortimer

3    to compared to/faced with    eager fierce, savage/impatient

6    bechancèd happened to

7    demeaned behaved

9    lane path, passage

11    full as oft just as frequently

12    purple bloodied, blood-red    falchion curved sword

13    encountered fought with

14    hardiest boldest

18    out, alas exclamation of dismay

19    bodged budged, gave way/botched, bungled

20    bootless pointless

21    spend expend, use up    overmatching overwhelming, more powerful

22    fatal death-bringing

25    sands i.e., grains of sand in an hourglass

29    butt target (archery term)    abide await, will endure

32    payment dealing out of death

33    Phaethon…car in Greek mythology, Phaethon was the son of the sun god Apollo/Phoebus; he drove his father’s sun-chariot (car), but could not control it, burned part of the earth and was killed with a thunderbolt hurled by Zeus

34    noontide prick mark of noon on a sundial

35    phoenix mythical Arabian bird that was consumed by fire every five hundred years, then resurrected from the ashes; only one existed at a time

36    bird i.e., child

39    fear still afraid

44    bethink thee remind yourself/think

45    o’er-run recollect, go over

46    for in spite of

49    bandy exchange (insults)

50    buckler fight at close quarters/ward off (blows)

51    Hold wait, desist    causes reasons

55    though to even though it

56    cur doth grin dog bears its teeth

58    spurn kick

59    prize benefit, privilege    vantages advantages, opportunities

60    ten…valour for ten men to attack one is no disgrace

61    woodcock a proverbially stupid, and easily captured, bird    gin trap

62    cony rabbit

64    true honest    o’ermatched outnumbered

68    That raught he who reached

69    parted took as his share/divided (as he reached for something illusory)

71    revelled made merry

72    preachment sermon

73    mess group of four

74    wanton wild/lascivious    lusty vigorous, lively/lustful

75    prodigy monster, abnormal child (considered ominous)

76    grumbling growling, deep/discontented

77    wont accustomed

79    napkin handkerchief

81    issue flow, spring forth

83    withal with

84    but were it not

86    prithee beg, pray you

87    parched dried up, shriveled entrails insides, intestines

91    fret rage

92    fee’d paid    sport entertainment

96    marry by the Virgin Mary

97    chair throne

103    pale encircle

104    diadem crown

108    breathe pause for breath

109    office duty, task

110    orisons prayers

113    ill-beseeming unbecoming

114    triumph exult (literally, return home in great ceremony, displaying one’s captives)    Amazonian the Amazons were a mythical race of female warriors    trull whore

115    captivates captures

116    vizard-like masklike, expressionless

117    impudent shameless    use habitual practice

118    assay attempt

119    whence from where    derived descended

121    type title

122    both the Sicils i.e., Naples and Sicily

123    yeoman man who owns property but is not a gentleman

124    insult be insolent, scornful

125    boots profits

126    adage maxim, saying

127    mounted on horseback/socially elevated

131    wondered marveled

132    government self-control

133    want lack abominable loathsome (often popularly “inhuman, unnatural”)

135    Antipodes the other side of the world

136    Septentrion i.e., the north (literally, the seven stars that make up the Plough or Big Dipper constellation)

139    withal with it (the handkerchief stained with Rutland’s blood)

141    pitiful full of pity, compassionate    flexible yielding, easily moved

142    obdurate stubborn, unmovable    flinty hard, stony    rough violent, harsh

147    obsequies funeral rites

149    fell cruel, savage    false treacherous

150    Beshrew curse

151    check restrain

155    Hyrcania in ancient times the region south of the Caspian Sea; its    tigers were proverbially fierce

156    hapless unfortunate

160    heavy sorrowful, terrible

163    piteous worthy of pity

171    inly inward    gripes grips

172    weeping-ripe on the verge of tears

176    gentle-hearted noble-hearted/tender-hearted

Act 2 Scene 1

2.1   Location: the borders of Wales    power army

4    ta’en taken, captured

9    resolved satisfied, informed

10    Where…become what has become of our very valiant father

11    range move, wander

12    forth out

13    bore him conducted himself

14    neat cattle

16    pinched bitten, tormented

17    aloof at a distance

20    prize privilege, reward

21    opes opens

24    Trimmed adorned, decked out    younker fashionable young man    prancing posturing, nimbly dancing for

25    suns the emblem of Edward III and Richard II consisted of the sun’s rays emerging above clouds

27    racking drifting, scudding

28    severed separate

32    figures foretells, prefigures

34    cites summons

36    meeds merits

38    overshine illuminate, shine on/outshine, surpass    this this phenomenon

40    target shield

41    daughters Richard plays on    suns/“sons”

42    breeder woman    blowing out of breath

43    heavy serious, sad

46    Whenas when

50    Environèd surrounded

51    hope of Troy Hector, the mighty warrior who defended the city of Troy against the invasion of the Greeks

53    Hercules semi-divine hero of classical mythology, famed for his strength

59    despite contempt, scorn, mockery

62    harmless innocent

63    rough cruel, violent

69    stay support

70    boist’rous brutal

74    soul’s palace i.e., body

75    she i.e., his soul

78    more joy joy any more

82    wind breath

87    venge avenge

90    chair seat of authority as duke; also, claim to the throne

91    eagle’s…sun eagles were thought to be able to gaze unblinkingly at the sun and to test their young by making them do so

94    that the sun (i.e., kingship)

95    What fare? What is the state of things?    abroad in the world

97    baleful deadly

98    poniards daggers

103    stern cruel

105    measure quantity

106    sith since

107    Wakefield town in West Yorkshire

108    latest last

109    posts messengers

110    depart death

111    keeper guard

113    St Albans town about twenty-five miles north of London

114    in my behalf for my own interests

115    advertisèd notified, warned

117    dash overturn    late recent

118    Touching regarding

120    battles armies

121    coldness indifference, apathy

122    full very, extremely

123    heated spleen fiery passion

125    rigour cruelty, severity

128    like to like

130    flail instrument used to thresh corn, consisting of a staff from which a shorter pole swings

139    marches borders of Wales

140    Making another head raising another army

145    aunt…Burgundy this granddaughter of John of Gaunt was in fact a distant cousin

146    needful needing reinforcements

147    ’Twas odds, belike the odds were probably very unfavorable

148    in pursuit for pursuing the enemy

149    scandal of retire notoriety for retreating

153    wring wrench    awful awe-inspiring

161    Numb’ring counting    Ave Maries Hail Marys, prayers frequently recited over a rosary    beads rosary (beads used as prompts in the reciting of prayers)

163    Tell proclaim/count (with sword strokes rather than prayers)

165    therefore for that reason

167    Attend listen, pay attention to

168    haught haughty, arrogant

170    wrought worked, molded

172    enrollèd officially recorded

173    crew body of men, gang

174    frustrate annul    what beside anything else

175    make work, be used

181    via “onward”(Italian)

182    bestride straddle

187    ‘Retire!’ Withdraw!

190    forfend forbid

192    degree rank/step

203    Saint George patron saint of England

206    puissant host powerful army

207    craves requests

208    sorts arranges itself

Act 2 Scene 2

2.2   Location: outside the city walls of York    Drum and Trumpets drummer and trumpeters

1    brave splendid

5    wreck shipwreck

6    irks distresses, troubles

9    lenity mildness

14    spoils slaughters, destroys

19    level aim

20    knit furrows

22    raise promote (the rank of; plays on the sense of “conceive, bring into existence”)    issue offspring    sire father

23    goodly fine, excellent

25    argued thee demonstrated, suggested that you were

26    Unreasonable brute, not endowed with reason

27    fearful frightening

28    tender young/vulnerable

33    precedent example

34    pity a disaster, a shame

38    fondly foolishly

39    shame disgrace, dishonor

41    melting i.e., soft, compassionate

44    Inferring offering, adducing

46    ill-got wrongfully gained    success outcome

47    happy fortunate (i.e., in his inheritance)

48    hoarding i.e., of goods, money

51    rate cost

52    care troubles, burdensome responsibilities    keep maintain, defend, protect

56    nigh near

57    faint lose heart

58    forward promising, precocious

59    dub create a knight (by touching the shoulders with a sword while the knight kneeled before the monarch)    presently immediately

62    right righteousness, a just cause

64    apparent heir

66    toward bold, promising

69    backing of supporting

72    Deraign set in order, prepare    battle army    Clarence    [George] George is not in fact made Duke of Clarence until Act 2 Scene 6

83    bide undergo/await    mortal fatal

84    rate rebuke, berate    minions favorites/servants

97    he man    sort gang

102    long-tongued i.e., prattling

104    legs…hands i.e., in fleeing rather than fighting

108    durst dared

109    reverently in great esteem, in respect

110    parley conversation, exchange/negotiation between opposing sides    refrain hold back

111    execution carrying out, enacting (of feelings; plays on sense of “putting to death”)    big-swol’n i.e., with anger, grief, revenge

114    dastard coward

115    tender young

122    still silent

124    him…all i.e., God    resolved convinced, satisfied

125    lies plays on the sense of “deceives”    upon his tongue i.e., only in his words

127    broke their fasts breakfasted, i.e., started the day

129    deny refuse

133    got begot, conceived, fathered

134    wot know

135    dam mother

136    stigmatic one marked with a physical deformity or blemish

137    Marked branded    destinies i.e., fate (in classical mythology, the three Fates who controlled the birth, life, and death of all)

138    venom poisonous

139    Naples Margaret was the daughter of Reignier, the titular King of Naples    gilt gold veneer (i.e., marriage to an Englishman); puns on “guilt”

141    channel stream/gutter

142    Sham’st thou not are you not ashamed    extraught descended

143    detect reveal

144    wisp of straw scolds (verbally abusive women) were traditionally made to wear a straw garland as a means of publicly shaming them

145    callet scold/whore

146    Helen…Menelaus Helen of Troy was allegedly the most beautiful woman in the world; she betrayed her husband, Menelaus, King of Sparta and Agamemnon’s brother, when Paris carried her off and provoked the Trojan War

148    Agamemnon’s brother Menelaus

150    His father i.e., Henry V    revelled made merry, had his will

152    he i.e., Henry VI    matched married    state social standing, rank

155    graced…sire honored your impoverished father    his i.e., Henry VI’s

157    forth out

158    sedition turbulence, violence, rebellion

159    broached set flowing, initiated

160    title claim to the throne    still always

162    slipped passed over, left unasserted

163    our…spring i.e., that we were not benefiting from your prosperity/that our favor was making you successful rather than ourselves

164    increase harvest, yield

166    something somewhat, to some extent

172    denied’st forbad, refused to allow

Act 2 Scene 3

2.3   Location: the battlefield, near York    Excursions bouts of fighting across the stage

1    Forspent exhausted

2    breathe rest, draw breath

5    spite of spite come what may

8    hap fortune

12    Bootless pointless, useless

15    brother’s i.e., Warwick’s illegitimate half brother, Thomas Neville

18    Like to like    dismal ominous    clangour ringing, reverberation

21    fetlocks the parts of a horse’s legs just above the hooves

27    upon on

28    played in jest pretend, make-believe, performed for entertainment    counterfeiting imitating, pretending

32    measure due proportion, full quantity

36    throw i.e., give over, dedicate    thee i.e., God

38    stands agrees

40    brazen strong (as brass)    ope open

51    to by

52    thrive succeed/live

53    Olympian games held every four years in honor of the supreme Greek god Zeus; winners were honored with olive garlands

56    Forslow delay    amain speedily

Act 2 Scene 4

1    singled thee alone isolated you from the rest (hunting term for separating a deer from the herd)

4    Wert thou were you, even if you were

11    have at thee i.e., here I come (standard utterance at the opening of a fight)

12    chase prey

Act 2 Scene 5

3    What that    blowing…nails i.e., warming his hands by blowing on them/having nothing much to do    of on

4    perfect complete

9    flood sea

13    poise balance    fell fierce, cruel

17    chid driven with rebukes

22    homely swain simple rustic

24    dials sundials    quaintly skillfully, intricately

27    brings about conclude

34    sport enjoy, entertain

35    with young pregnant

36    ean give birth

39    they for which they

43    silly simple/helpless

44    canopy i.e., one above a bed, throne, or carried over the king in a procession

47    curds cheese-like foodstuff made from coagulated milk

49    wonted usual, accustomed

50    secure carefree, safe

51    delicates luxuries, delicacies

52    viands food

53    curious finely, skillfully made

54    care anxiety, troubles    waits on attends (like a servant)/lies in wait for

57    possessèd with in possession of    crowns gold coins

58    haply by chance/with luck

62    unwares unknowingly, unintentionally

63    heavy sorrowful

64    pressed conscripted, enlisted compulsorily

65    man servant

66    part side

75    abide endure

78    o’ercharged overburdened

79    stoutly bravely

85    Throw up open

89    stratagems violent, bloody deeds

90    Erroneous wrongful, criminal

93    late recently, early

95    stay stop, prevent    ruthful piteous, lamentable

97    on his face in his complexion

99    purple deep red

100    presenteth represents, imitates

102    contend compete, fight

104    Take on with rage against, cry out on

107    chances fortunes, events

108    Misthink think badly of

109    rued regretted, lamented

114    winding-sheet burial shroud

118    obsequious dutiful in performing funeral rites

120    Priam…sons Priam, King of Troy, had fifty sons, all of whom were killed in the Trojan War

123    overgone overcome, worn out

126    chafèd provoked, angered

128    Berwick Berwick-upon-Tweed, town on the Scotland–England border    post amain ride with extreme haste

129    brace pair

131    very absolute

133    hence amain leave quickly

135    expostulate remonstrate, debate (the matter)

Act 2 Scene 6

5    My…fear love for and fear of me

6    commixtures compounds (produced by love and fear)

7    misproud wrongfully proud, treacherously arrogant

9    sun i.e., Edward’s emblem

11    Phoebus the sun god

12    Phaethon…earth Phoebus’ son, who was unable to control (check) the horses that drew his father’s sun-chariot (car), burned part of the earth and was killed

14    swayed ruled

16    ground advantage

20    chair throne

21    cherish nurture

23    Bootless are plaints laments are useless

28    effuse loss, effusion retreat trumpet or drum call signaling retreat

31    breathe rest, pause

35    fretting sporadic, blustery/impatient, nagging

36    Command compel, force    argosy large merchant ship    stem cut through

39    his may refer to either Clifford or Richard

40    marked destined/wounded

42    heavy sorrowful

43    departing separation, parting

45    gently used treated honorably

46    doom judgment, sentence

50    spray branch, offshoot

54    this…room Clifford’s head fill the place

55    Measure due proportion/retribution/justice

56    fatal screech-owl owl (i.e., Clifford) whose cry foretold death to our family    house family

57    nothing sung has sung nothing

58    dismal ominous

59    ill-boding evil-predicting, ominous

60    bereft gone

62    beams eye beams (thought to radiate from the eyes and enable sight)

63    nor neither

65    policy strategy, cunning

68    eager sharp, biting

71    faults crimes

75    fence protect

76    wast wont used to do, were accustomed to

77    goes hard is harsh, tough

81    despite malice, anger    rail rant, insult

82    This i.e., the other

83    Stifle choke    unstanchèd insatiable

86    rear raise

89    cut cross

90    ask ask for    lady Bona daughter of the Duke of Savoy; her sister was married to King Louis XI of France

91    sinew unite, tie closely

95    buzz spread rumors, agitate

99    Even just

100    in thy shoulder i.e., relying on your support    seat throne

102    wanting lacking

107    ominous the three previous Dukes of Gloucester had all met violent deaths

Act 3 Scene 1

3.1   Location: a forest in northern England, near the Scottish border    Keepers gamekeepers

1    brake thicket, bush

2    laund clearing, glade    anon soon

3    covert concealed spot    stand hiding place from which to shoot

4    principal superior, best

7    shoot shot

9    for so

11    self-place same place

13    of out of

14    wishful longing

17    balm consecrated oil with which the monarch was anointed at coronation

18    Caesar emperor, ruler

19    speak for right ask for justice

20    redress of aid from

22    keeper’s fee the horns and skin of a slain deer were customarily given to the park’s gamekeeper

23    quondam former

27    Forbear desist

30    crave ask for    sister sister-in-law

33    subtle skillful, cunning

34    Lewis Louis XI

37    batt’ry assault, bombardment/breach, entry

40    Nero notoriously cruel Roman emperor    tainted tinged, touched (unnaturally in such a cruel man)

41    plaints laments, pleas    brinish salty

48    tells his title recounts the rightfulness of Edward’s claims to the throne    smooths glosses over

49    Inferreth presents, adduces    arguments evidence

51    what whatever

54    forlorn neglected, destitute

63    stones jewels

71    apprehend arrest

75    country region

81    but only

82    a as a

83    simple foolish

86    Obeying with obeying, following    wind breath

89    lightness lack of weight/fickleness

97    charge order

Act 3 Scene 2

3.2   Location: the royal court, London

1    field battlefield

2    Richard historically John

4    suit petition, entreaty    repossess regain possession of

6    of on behalf of

12    thing plays on the sense of “vagina”

14    game animal being hunted/woman being pursued sexually    true…wind determinedly he remains downwind of the prey (so that it cannot scent him)

18    brook endure

19    resolve answer

20    pleasure will (plays on the sense of “sexual desire”) satisfy content (plays on the sense of “satisfy sexually”)

21    warrant guarantee, assure

22    An if if

23    closer closer to the enemy, so as to contain and avoid his thrusts (with sexual suggestion)    blow hit/sexual thrust

24    fear her not do not fear for her    fall stumble in the fight/succumb sexually/become pregnant

25    vantages superior position in fighting/sexual opportunity

27    beg…her request legal guardianship of one of her children (this could generate financial profit for the guardian)/get her pregnant

28    whip me a mild oath

32    dread revered

33    give us leave give us privacy    try test    wit intellect (probably also “genitals”)

34    good…leave enjoy your privacy for you will take liberties

35    the crutch i.e., old age (puns on “crotch”)

41    Therefore for that reason

44    service i.e., as a subject/sexually

45    rests in me is in my power

46    boon request

47    except unless

48    do plays on the sense of “perform sexually”

50    plies her hard works on her persistently/works on her sexually with an erect penis

51    red hot

53    task duty, job/sexual action

57    match agreement/sexual encounter

76    inclination attitude, disposition

77    sadness seriousness

82    knits her brows frowns

83    bluntest most unceremonious, plain-spoken

84    argue her demonstrate her to be

86    challenge call for, lay claim to

88    love lover

93    state majesty, royal status

97    mean humble

99    cavil quibble over details

104    other some some others, i.e., illegitimate children

107    ghostly father priest ghostly holy, spiritual    done his shrift heard confession (plays on the sense of “had sex”)

108    shriver confessor, priest/sexually active man    for shift out of strategy, a trick/to get at women’s undergarments (puns on    shrift)

109    muse wonder/speculate

114    ten…lasts proverbial: “a wonder lasts but nine days”

116    in extremes excessive, much greater

119    taken captured

123    question…apprehension ask about his arrest

124    use treat (Gloucester shifts the sense to “employ sexually”)

126    wasted consumed with disease (particularly syphilis, which eats at the bones)    marrow bone marrow/semen

127    branch i.e., offspring, child (also with phallic connotations)

128    cross thwart, hinder    golden time i.e., kingship, the crown

130    The…burièd i.e., once Edward is dead

132    unlooked for unwanted/unforeseeable    issue children, offspring

133    rooms places, positions

134    cold premeditation discouraging prospect

136    promontory headland jutting into the sea

138    were equal with could reach as far as

139    chides chastises    sunders separates

140    lade drain, empty

141    wish wish for

142    means obstacle

143    cut…off murder those in my way

144    Flattering me deluding myself

145    o’erweens is arrogant, presumptuous

150    deck adorn    gay ornaments bright, ostentatious attire

151    witch bewitch, seduce

153    accomplish get hold of

154    forswore rejected

155    for so that    deal in have dealings with (plays on the sense of “have sex according to”)

158    envious spiteful, malicious

162    chaos shapeless mass    unlicked bear-whelp bear cubs were thought to be licked into shape by their mothers

163    impression…dam shape like that of the mother

165    monstrous unnatural, deformed    fault mistake

167    check rebuke    o’erbear dominate

168    person appearance

170    t’account to consider

171    trunk body

172    impalèd surrounded, enclosed

174    home my target

176    rents tears apart

180    catch seize

186    frame fashion, adapt

187    mermaid the siren of classical mythology was said to sing sweetly in order to draw sailors onto rocks where they would drown

188    basilisk mythical reptile whose gaze had the power to kill

189    Nestor Greek leader who fought at Troy; famed for his wisdom and eloquence

190    Ulysses King of Ithaca and hero of Homer’s Odyssey; noted for his cunning

191    Sinon in Virgil’s Aeneid, the man who pretended to desert the Greeks and persuaded King Priam of Troy to admit the wooden horse into the city, as a result of which Troy was destroyed

193    Proteus the sea god Neptune’s herdsman who had the ability to change shape at will

194    set…school teach Machiavelli a few things    Machevil an intriguer, an unscrupulous schemer (from Niccolò Machiavelli’s The Prince, a sixteenth-century treatise perceived as advocating ruthless political cunning)

Act 3 Scene 3

3.3   Location: the royal court, France

2    state rank

5    strike her sail humble herself (literally, lower a ship’s sail in deference to a vessel of greater importance)

7    Albion’s England’s

8    mischance misfortune

10    like seat unto a place befitting

15    be…thyself always behave in a manner that befits your position

20    France i.e., the King of France

25    of from

26    forlorn destitute, abandoned person

37    heavy burdensome/sorrowful

38    storm i.e., of grief, passion

40    stay wait, delay

41    stay plays on the sense of “support” succour help

42    waiteth on attends, accompanies    descends i.e., from the throne, or dais on which it sits

55    vouchsafe permit, consent

59    in on

63    fame report    late recently    heedful attentive

69    tyrants usurpers

74    Look beware

75    draw…thy do not bring on yourself

76    sway the rule wield power

78    Injurious slanderous, offensive

82    disannuls cancels, ignores    John of Gaunt father of    Henry the Fourth, great-grandfather of Henry VI; he features in Richard II

83    Which who

85    mirror i.e., image, model

89    haps happens, chances    smooth plausible, glib

93    tell recount

94    threescore…years i.e., the sixty-two years between 1399, when Henry IV deposed Richard II, and 1461, when Edward IV deposed Henry VI    silly meager, trifling

95    prescription a claim founded on long use (legal term)

97    thirty-and-six years a period that corresponds more fittingly to Warwick’s age (he was born in 1428) rather than his allegiance, as he had joined the Yorkists in 1455

98    bewray betray, reveal

99    fence protect

100    buckler defend

102    injurious doom wrongful judgment, sentence

103    Aubrey Vere he and his father, the Earl of Oxford, were executed for treason by Edward IV in 1462

104    more than so furthermore

105    downfall decline    mellowed ripened

112    use engage in    conference discussion    aloof aside

114    even justly, fully

117    pawn pledge, stake    credit reputation

118    gracious esteemed, popular

119    more that more so because

120    dissembling duplicity, pretence

121    for truth truly    measure extent

124    beseem befit

126    external visible; some editors prefer Octavo’s “eternal”

129    envy malice    disdain (Bona’s possible) loathing, scorn

130    quit end

132    grant consent    mine the decision I make—i.e., I will agree with whatever you think fit

134    desert merits

137    articles terms, conditions    drawn drawn up

138    Touching regarding    jointure marriage settlement provided for the wife by the husband

139    counterpoised matched, equaled

143    device plot, strategy

148    success fortune/outcome (plays on the sense of “succession to the throne”)

150    late recently

152    estate status

155    quondam former

160    hence go from here

162    conveyance trickery, cunning    Post messenger

171    as as if

174    unhoped unexpected

177    soothe smooth over    forgery deception

180    scorn insult

185    clear from innocent of

189    untimely…death Warwick’s father, the Earl of Salisbury, was executed after being captured fighting for the Yorkists at the battle of Wakefield untimely prematurely

190    th’abuse…niece Holinshed’s Chronicles, one of Shakespeare’s key sources, reports that Edward tried to “deflower” Warwick’s daughter or niece

191    impale him encircle his head

192    put force

193    guerdoned rewarded

194    my desert what I deserve

198    servitor servant

203    joy rejoice

204    unfeignèd sincere, honest

205    vouchsafe to furnish will consent to equip

206    bands troops

211    fall from abandon, turn against

212    matching marrying

224    post haste

226    masquers performers of masques (courtly entertainments involving dancing and elaborate costume; often put on to celebrate aristocratic marriages)

228    passed happened    fear frighten    withal with it

230    willow garland token of a forsaken lover

231    weeds garments

234    ere’t be before

235    reward payment

238    bid challenge (to)

239    occasion opportunity/events

240    supply reinforcements

245    eldest daughter historically Warwick’s second daughter, Anne, who was betrothed to Edward, although he died before they married

246    bands bonds

247    motion suggestion

256    waft convey (by water)

263    stale fool, mockery (of)

Act 4 Scene 1

4.1   Location: the royal court, London

5    stay wait (spoken in irony)

8    mind intend

10    malcontent dissatisfied, discontented

12    Which who

13    abuse insult

16    will wishes (plays on the sense of “sexual desire”)

23    yoke are joined, coupled like oxen under a yoke (plays on the sense of “sexually united”)

24    mislike displeasure

32    gave in charge ordered

35    invention scheme, plan

40    true loyal, trustworthy

44    fence defence

45    only alone

48    have…Hungerford marry the rich heiress, Mary, daughter of Lord Hungerford; historically, it was Hastings’ son who married her

52    heir…bride the wealthy Lord Scales’ daughter, Elizabeth, was married to Lord Anthony Rivers, the new queen’s brother

55    bury forget

57    new wife’s son Sir Thomas Grey, married to the heir of Lord Harrington and    Bonville

58    speed get on, fare/succeed

63    broker marriage broker, agent

64    mind intend

65    tarry stay

71    meaner humbler people, those of lower rank

73    dislikes disapproval    would wish to

74    danger hurt/apprehension

75    fawn…frowns i.e., try to ingratiate yourself, win them round

77    friend supporter/lover

88    Go to expression of impatience

89    guess reconstruct from memory

95    brave daring, insolent, defiant

102    in place present

103    done over with, no longer worn

105    Amazon member of a legendary race of female warriors

106    injuries insults

108    discharged dismissed

117    Belike probably

118    sit you fast sit tight, hold on to your throne

120    want lack

128    needful necessary

130    prepare preparation

132    straight straightaway

134    twain two

138    hollow insincere

141    in suspect under suspicion

145    withstand resist

148    power army

Act 4 Scene 2

4.2   Location: England (historically, near Warwick)

1    hitherto thus far

4    suddenly immediately

8    rest remain

9    pawned pledged

11    proceedings course of action

13    in night’s coverture under cover of darkness

14    carelessly without concern/without proper military precautions

15    lurking idling

16    but only

17    surprise ambush, seize

18    the…easy venturing into Edward’s camp is simple/there is little hazard

19    Ulysses…steeds in Homer’s Iliad, Ulysses and Diomede sneak under cover of night into the camp of the Thracian leader, Rhesus, and steal his horses, an oracle having predicted that Troy would not fall to the Greeks as long as the horses of Rhesus grazed on the plains of Troy    stout bold    sleight cunning    fatal fated, part of destiny/causing death

23    At unawares suddenly, unexpectedly

28    sort manner

Act 4 Scene 3

4.3   Location: King Edward’s camp (historically, near Warwick)

1    my masters gentlemen stand post, position

2    this this time set sat

13    about around

14    keeps lodges, sleeps

16    worship dignified ease

18    estate situation    he i.e., Edward

19    doubted feared

20    halberds long-handled weapons with axelike heads    shut up prevent, bar    passage progress

21    wherefore why

25    But only, merely    gown dressing gown or nightgown/loose upper garment for men

28    What who

34    embassade ambassadorial mission

35    degraded lowered in rank

44    down fall

46    complices accomplices

48    state sovereignty    fortune’s…wheel fortune was traditionally depicted as a blind woman turning a wheel that raised humans up and cast them down

49    compass range, circumference    for i.e., in

60    abide endure

61    boots not is useless

Act 4 Scene 4

4.4   Location: London

1    makes…change is the reason for your sudden change in mood

4    pitched planned, designated

8    falsehood disloyalty, treachery

9    surprised at captured

11    to i.e., to the custody of    Bishop i.e., Archbishop

12    Fell fierce, cruel    by that therefore

16    hinder delay, prevent

19    bridle reign in, restrain    passion intense feeling, grief

22    blood-sucking sighs each sigh was thought to drain a drop of blood from the heart

23    blast blight, wither

25    where…become what has become of/where is Warwick

28    down fall

29    tyrant’s usurper’s

31    sanctuary churches and associated Church-owned buildings provided sanctuary from arrest; the historical sources Shakespeare drew on say that Elizabeth went to Westminster

32    right title to the throne

33    secure protected    fraud trickery, treachery

Act 4 Scene 5

4.5   Location: Yorkshire, at hunting grounds belonging to the Archbishop of York

2    Leave off cease

3    chiefest largest, most dense    park private hunting ground

4    case circumstances

6    hath good usage is well treated

7    but only

8    disport entertain, amuse

9    advertised informed, alerted

11    colour pretext    game hunting

14    game prey, quarry

17    close concealed

21    Lynn King’s Lynn, a town on the Norfolk coast

24    requite reward    forwardness eagerness, zeal

28    ado fuss, time-wasting

Act 4 Scene 6

4.6   Location: the Tower of London    Lieutenant the second-in-command at the Tower of London

5    enlargement release due fees wealthy prisoners could pay for special food or service

6    challenge require, ask

11    For that because

13    Conceive begin to experience    moody melancholy, somber

14    notes…harmony filling the house with song, singing in a manner that is harmonious with their domestic environment

18    author creator, originator

20    low humbly

22    thwarting stars bad fortune

26    still always    famed for renowned as being

28    spying spying out/foreseeing

29    temper…stars allow themselves to conform to their fate, mold their dispositions to their fate

31    in place present

32    sway power, influence

34    Adjudged awarded    olive branch a symbol of peace    laurel crown a symbol of victory

36    yield grant    free consent willing agreement

37    only alone    Protector one who governs in the absence of the monarch

40    dissension dissent, disagreement

43    devotion prayer, religious commitment    latter last, remaining

47    repose myself depend, rely

49    yoke join

50    supply fill

56    What else? i.e., “yes, of course”

57    Clarence…part if the Lancastrian claim were set aside, Edward attainted for treason and his unborn child disregarded, then Clarence would have a significant claim to the throne    want lack

62    doubtful apprehensive

67    Henry…Richmond Henry Tudor, the future Henry VII, whose kingship put an end to the Wars of the Roses

69    divining foreseeing, prophetic

70    pretty fine, handsome

78    brother i.e., the Archbishop of York

81    conveyed carried away in secrecy

82    attended awaited

86    charge duty, orders/prisoner

88    salve healing ointment    betide occur

Act 4 Scene 7

4.7    Location: outside the city gates of York

3    interchange exchange

4    wanèd weakened, diminished

8    Ravenspurgh former Yorkshire port on the River Humber    haven harbor

10    made fast tightly secured

12    well foretold clearly warned

13    abodements omens, premonitions    affright frighten

15    repair make their way, return    above i.e., on the upper staging level or gallery, conventionally used to represent city walls    brethren members of the town corporation

23    challenge demand, require

25    got…nose got his nose in

30    stout valiant

31    fain be glad

32    So…him so long as he is not held accountable    Aldermen members of the town council

36    But except

39    deign are willing

45    forget disregard

57    pretend claim, profess

58    wherefore stand you why do you dwell, insist on    nice overly precise, particular

60    meaning intention

61    scrupulous wit quibbling reason, cautious intellect

63    out of hand immediately

64    bruit news, announcement

68    champion defender

70    Sound i.e., trumpets sound

71    SOLDIER some editors suppose that this speech heading has been inserted erroneously and that Montgomery should read the proclamation

73    gainsays denies

74    gauntlet armored glove, traditionally thrown down as a means of challenging one’s enemy to single combat; to pick it up was to accept a challenge to a duel

76    brave noble

78    harbour make our lodging

79    car chariot (of the sun god)

82    wot know

83    froward willful, obstinate, perverse    beseems suits, befits

86    the day victory in battle

Act 4 Scene 8

4.8   Location: London, at the Bishop of London’s palace

1    Belgia the Netherlands

2    hasty rash, quick-tempered blunt harsh, uncivilized, rough

3    narrow seas i.e., the English Channel

4    amain speedily

5    giddy unstable, fickle, excitable

8    suffered tolerated, permitted (to burn)

11    son son-in-law

17    wondrous extraordinarily

20    girt in with surrounded by

21    Dian Diana, Roman goddess of the moon, hunting, and chastity; often portrayed with her attendant virginal    nymphs

22    rest remain

23    stand not do not wait

25    Hector the eldest son of Priam, King of Troy, Hector was one of the great warriors of the Trojan War

26    truth faith, loyalty

27    Well-minded loyal, virtuous, well-intentioned

28    Comfort be encouraged

29    thus Oxford probably also kisses Henry’s hand

31    at once together    happy propitious, fortunate

36    encounter fight and defeat

37    doubt fear

38    meed merit, virtue

39    their demands the various requests and appeals of the people

40    posted off postponed    suits pleas, petitions

45    subsidies taxes

46    forward of eager for

48    graces challenge grace virtues claim respect and favor

52    shame-faced timid, shy, modest

54    fount spring, source

56    ebb waning, reducing

58    bend direct

59    peremptory imperious, overbearing

61    mars ruins    hay i.e., yield, harvest

62    betimes quickly

Act 5 Scene 1

5.1   Location: the city walls of Coventry

3    this this time, now    Dunsmore between Coventry and Daventry

6    Daintry Daventry    puissant powerful

7    son son-in-law

9    Southam town about ten miles southeast of Coventry

12    here in this direction

16    parle parley, a trumpet summons for negotiation between opposing sides, during which fighting was to stop

17    surly imperious, arrogant

18    unbid unwelcome    sportful lecherous

20    repair approach

25    draw withdraw

27    patron protector

32    earl lower in rank than a duke

36    Atlas…weight in classical mythology, the giant Atlas carried the earth on his shoulders

42    forecast forethought, prudence/anticipated

43    single ten a mere ten-point card, valuable but less so than a royal card

44    fingered stolen

47    even exactly    are Warwick still i.e., will always be yourself, and doubtless will not change your attitude/remain in position, and have the chance to change your attitude

48    time opportunity

49    Nay, when? expression of impatience    Strike…cools proverbial: “strike while the iron is hot” (Warwick shifts the sense of    strike to “lower one’s sail in submission”)

57    Wind-changing i.e., changeable, fickle    Colours military flagbearers

61    set…backs attack our rearguard forces

62    array readiness for combat

63    bid challenge

64    of small defence poorly fortified

65    rouse draw out (from a lair; a hunting term)

66    want need

68    buy pay for

70    harder matched greater the enemy

71    presageth foretells    happy fortunate

73    Two…name Edmund, second Duke of Somerset, killed at the 1455 battle of St. Albans (his head appears in Act 1 Scene 1), and his son Henry, third duke, beheaded in 1464 for his Lancastrian sympathies

78    to right for justice

79    nature natural instinct

81    Father father-in-law

83    ruinate ruin

84    lime stick, join

85    trowest thou do you think

86    blunt rough, ignorant

87    bend aim, direct

89    object bring up, urge as an objection

91    Jephthah…daughter biblical character who vowed that if the Israelites defeated the Ammonites in battle he would sacrifice the first thing he saw on his return home, little realizing that it would mean having to kill his own daughter (Judges 11)

92    trespass wrong, crime

96    abroad i.e., outside Coventry

99    blushing i.e., in shame

102    unconstant changeable, disloyal

106    passing surpassing, extreme

109    cooped protectively enclosed

110    Barnet town about ten miles north of London (seventy-five miles southeast of Coventry, but Shakespeare has compressed various historical events for dramatic purposes; the action between this and the next scene is virtually continuous)    presently immediately

Act 5 Scene 2

5.2   Location: the battlefield, near Barnet, ten miles north of London

2    bug imaginary terror, bogeyman    feared frightened

3    sit fast be on guard, secure yourself

4    That so that

11    cedar the tallest of evergreen trees was a popular symbol of sovereignty, like the eagle and the lion

12    arms branches

13    ramping rearing fiercely onto its hind legs

14    overpeered peered over/lorded over, outranked    Jove’s spreading tree the oak, the tree associated with the Roman king of the gods

18    search seek out, discern/probe

22    bent his brow frowned

24    parks private hunting grounds    walks pathways of garden or park

27    pomp splendor, luxury

31    puissant power powerful army

35    with…awhile i.e., kiss me; at death the soul was thought to escape through the mouth

45    mought might

Act 5 Scene 3

*    triumph a display of victorious celebration

8    Gallia France

14    valued estimated to be

16    breathe rest, gather her strength

18    advertised informed

19    Tewkesbury town in Gloucestershire

21    rids way makes the journey seem shorter

Act 5 Scene 4

5.4   Location: near Tewkesbury, in Gloucestershire

2    cheerly cheerfully, optimistically

4    holding-anchor i.e., anchor, used to secure a ship by holding fast to the bottom of the sea

5    flood sea

6    pilot captain, i.e., Henry    meet right, fitting

10    in his moan as he laments

11    industry hard work

15    tackles rigging

18    shrouds ropes that brace and support the mast

19    Ned i.e., Edward, Henry and Margaret’s son

20    charge responsibility

21    from leave

23    shelves sandbanks

27    ragged jagged, uneven

28    bark ship

31    Bestride sit upon, straddle

41    magnanimity greatness of spirit

42    naked unarmed    foil…arms defeat an armed man in combat

45    betimes at once

50    Women and children i.e., Margaret and Edward

52    grandfather i.e., Henry V

59    his i.e., Edward’s    that yet who as yet

62    policy stratagem, cunning

63    unprovided unprepared

65    forwardness eagerness, readiness

66    pitch our battle set up, deploy our army

71    wot know    blaze burn with zeal, excitement

74    gainsay contradict

77    state sovereignty

80    spoil destruction, pillage

Act 5 Scene 5

1    a period an end    broils turmoil, confused fighting

2    Hames now Ham, a town on the River Somme near Calais straight immediately

6    stoop submit

8    Jerusalem i.e., heaven

9    who whoever

10    he i.e., Edward

11    lo look

12    gallant fine young man (usually applied to a fashionable man about town)

14    satisfaction amends, atonement

19    chair throne

24    breech breeches, trousers

25    Aesop the Greek writer of moral fables concerning animals was a slave and reputedly hunchbacked fable tell tales

26    currish snarling, contemptible, cynical/about animals    sort not are not in keeping

29    scold verbally abusive woman

31    charm subdue, silence with a charm

32    malapert impudent

35    Dick possibly plays on the sense of “penis”

38    likeness image    railer abusive ranter (i.e., Margaret)

39    Sprawl’st thou? Do you thrash, writhe around?

40    twitting taunting/rebuking

42    Marry, and shall I shall, by the Virgin Mary    Offers attempts

48    be sure expect

55    by…it there to compare with it

56    respect comparison

62    untimely prematurely

63    have no cannot possibly have

64    remorse pity

66    Look expect

67    rid killed

68    perforce forcibly

69    dispatch kill

70    Here i.e., in my body

72    ease comfort, release

75    usest are accustomed    forswear thyself perjure yourself, break your word

78    Hard-favoured ugly

79    alms-deed act of charity

80    put’st back rejected, turned away

82    So come to may the same happen to

86    sudden swift, impulsive

87    common sort ordinary soldiers

Act 5 Scene 6

5.6   Location: the Tower of London

1    book probably prayer book or Bible

3    better i.e., than flattery

5    preposterous an inversion of the natural order

6    Sirrah sir (used to an inferior)

7    reckless negligent, careless

10    Roscius famous first-century Roman actor

11    Suspicion apprehension of something evil

13    limèd trapped with birdlime, a sticky substance spread on branches to snare birds

14    misdoubteth suspects, fears

15    male father    bird offspring

16    fatal deadly/fateful    object…eye sight, scene in my mind’s eye/thing, person before me (or, conceivably, Gloucester has already drawn the    weapon Henry goes on to refer to)

17    Where in which/by whom

18    peevish foolish, childish    fool…fowl Icarus and his father,    Daedalus, tried to escape imprisonment in Crete using wings Daedalus had made out of feathers and wax;    Icarus flew too close to the sun, the wax melted and he fell to his death    office function, role

20    fool continues the punning on fowl

22    Minos the King of Crete, who imprisoned Daedalus and    Icarus course departure

23    sun likened here to    Edward, the sun alludes to the Yorkist emblem

25    envious malicious, evil    gulf whirlpool/voracious depths

27    brook endure, take

28    history story

38    mistrust…fear apprehend, suspect no part of what I fear (will happen)

40    water-standing filled, flooded with tears

42    timeless untimely, premature

45    night-crow literary name for a bird whose nighttime croak was an evil omen    aboding forewarning

47    rooked her cowered, huddled (perhaps with play on “rook,” a type of bird)

48    pies magpies (also thought to be bad luck)    dismal ominous, sinister

49    pain labor pains

51    To wit that is to say    indigested shapeless

53    Teeth…born this was considered abnormal and ominous

58    ordained destined

63    weeps i.e., drips blood

64    purple blood-colored    alway always

69    that…of what Henry said about me/what Henry said to me

71    came…forward i.e., was a breech birth, where the baby is born feet first

74    wondered was amazed

79    answer correspond to

81    greybeards wise old men

82    like who resemble

84    light the crown (an image drawn from the Yorkist sun)

85    sort arrange/set    pitchy black as pitch (a tarlike substance)

86    buzz abroad spread rumors in the world    prophecies omens, forewarnings

87    of for

91    bad worthless, contemptible

93    doom judgment, i.e., your death

Act 5 Scene 7

5.7   Location: the royal court, London

4    in tops at the height

6    hardy bold, resolute undoubted unquestionable/fearless champions warriors, men of valor

7    as namely

9    coursers powerful horses used in war

10    bears refers to Warwick’s family emblem, a bear chained to a ragged staff

11    in with fettered shackled

13    suspicion apprehension, anxiety seat throne

17    watched kept watch, remained awake throughout

18    all afoot on foot, as soldiers/all over the place

21    blast blight, wither    head plays the sense of “head of wheat”    laid cut off (maintains the crop image)

22    looked on held in high regard

23    thick sturdy (referring to his hunched back)

25    Work devise (addressed to himself)    that i.e., his shoulder    execute carry it out (with grim play on the sense of “put to death”)

30    brother i.e., brother-in-law

31    that because    tree i.e., the family of York, his own stock

33    Judas…master Judas famously kissed Christ and betrayed him

34    whenas although

38    Reynard…Jerusalem Margaret’s father, Reignier, was the titular King of Sicily, Naples (the Sicils) and Jerusalem; spelling “Reynard” may imply the craft of a fox

40    it i.e., the money raised

41    waft convey by sea

43    triumphs public processions celebrating victory

45    sour annoy bitter trouble

THE TRAGEDY OF RICHARD THE THIRD

Shakespeare’s first group of historical plays comes to a harmonious conclusion with the defeat of wicked King Richard at the battle of Bosworth Field in 1485. The victorious Henry, Earl of Richmond, belongs to the House of Lancaster. He marries the Princess Elizabeth, of the House of York, thus unifying the nobility and bringing to an end the Wars of the Roses. In the final scene of Richard the Third, the Lord Stanley, Earl of Derby, places the crown on Richmond’s head and he becomes King Henry VII, inaugurator of the Tudor dynasty. The play closes with a speech in which Henry looks back on the civil strife that has been the subject not just of this play but also of the Henry VI sequence, and forward to the golden age over which his wife’s namesake, Queen Elizabeth, liked to believe that she reigned. On hearing these lines, Shakespeare’s audience would themselves have looked both forward and back: back to a bloody period in the nation’s history, with relief at how it was providentially ended by the Tudor dispensation; forward to an uncertain future, in the knowledge that the queen was now too old to sustain the line.

Historians still debate the question of how villainous Richard III really was, and in particular whether he personally ordered the slaying of the princes in the Tower. What is not in doubt is that it was convenient for the Tudors to paint him as a villain, in order to make his opponent, the future Henry VII, into a hero and a saint. Sir Thomas More played a major part in the process with his History of King Richard III, written at the court of Richmond’s son, Henry VIII. Shakespeare finished the work, immortalizing Richard as the scheming Crookback, in the public theater of Henry VIII’s younger daughter. The English are notorious for getting their theology from Milton and their history from Shakespeare, rather than from more orthodox sources. The endurance of the image of a Richard who is “determinèd to prove a villain” is testimony to the power of drama to be more memorable than written history. Richard the Third is one of those core Shakespearean plays that everybody has heard of, even if they have never read it. The success of two film versions—first Sir Laurence Olivier’s and subsequently Sir Ian McKellen’s dazzling update to the fascist 1930s—has assured its continuing life.

As in the Henry VI plays, the language is frequently elevated and highly rhetorical. The combination of formal language and a sense of symmetry in the events—action leading to reaction, bloody violence to revenge, a slippery rise followed by a crashing fall as the wheel of fortune turns—places the play in the tradition of the Roman tragedian Seneca. The influence on Shakespeare was probably both direct—Seneca had been published in English translation in the 1580s—and indirect, via the Mirror for Magistrates, a highly Senecan collection of “complaint” poems, telling of misfortunes and wickedness, written in the voices of the victims of history, including both King Richard’s brother George, Duke of Clarence, and King Edward IV’s mistress, Jane Shore.

The Senecan symmetry is taken to an extreme in the role of Queen Margaret, the widow of King Henry VI, who had been such a powerful force throughout the Wars of the Roses plays. In Act 1 Scene 3, she formally curses Rivers, Dorset, Hastings, Buckingham, and Richard himself. All her curses are fulfilled and as each character dies, he realizes that this is the case. Senecan tragedy traditionally began with a Ghost returning from the underworld and demanding revenge for his or her murder. In an elegant variation, Shakespeare withholds the Ghosts for the climax of the play, bringing them on to taunt King Richard in his tent on the eve of the battle that will be his downfall.

Whereas nearly everybody in the Henry VI plays appears to be caught up in a maelstrom of historical events that they are not able to control, Richard attempts to take command of his own and his country’s destiny. There is little doubt that the part was written for Richard Burbage, just as he was becoming Shakespeare’s closest friend in the theater world. Richard the Third is the first of the small group of Shakespearean plays that are not ensemble pieces—which the Henry VI plays so clearly were—but star vehicles, in which the leading player has three times as many lines as anybody else. This play was the making of both the writer and the star. It accounts for their nicknames in a well-attested theatrical anecdote that has them as rivals in the bed of a theater-crazed citizen’s wife: Burbage is “Richard the Third” and Shakespeare “William the Conqueror.”

The trick that they seem to have worked out together was to make the leading character into the apparent author of his own script. From the very opening soliloquy, Richard takes the audience into his confidence and shares with them the role he will adopt and the plot of the drama that he intends to act out, which might be titled “an unlovely but clever man plans his ascent to the throne, not letting anybody—even an innocent child—get in his way.” He is master of the wink and the aside; he rejoices in playing the role of Iniquity, the Vice in the old tradition of morality plays. The audience enjoys his performance exactly because they know it is a performance.

The master actor needs a straight man. For Richard, this role is played by Buckingham, who assists him as he stage-manages his public image for his appearance before the Lord Mayor and citizens of London. In the previous play in the sequence, Henry VI’s prayer book was a sign that he did not want to be king; Richard’s is a sign that he is pretending not to want to be king, thus leading the Londoners to beg him to take on the office. “Will you enforce me to a world of cares?” he says, feigning reluctance—and in the next breath he whispers “Call them again,” ensuring that the offer is renewed so that this time it can be accepted. In all this, he is, as always, the consummate actor.

There are two key turning points for Richard. One is when he contrives to lose his right-hand man, Buckingham. The comedian begins to flounder without his stooge. The other is when the lamenting women who serve as a kind of Greek chorus to the action come together and confront him in the enormously long fourth scene of the fourth act. Richard’s bravura seduction of the Lady Anne had revealed his skill with words, but now his verbal power is matched by the combined forces of the Queens Margaret and Elizabeth. If one innovation in the writing of Richard the Third was the conversion of the ensemble chronicle play into a star vehicle for a single huge theatrical personality, the other was the feminization of this traditionally masculine form. In Shakespeare’s earlier history plays, in those of other authors, and indeed in the tragedies of Marlowe, women are bit-part players. Here, however, the boy-actors who play Elizabeth, Margaret, and Anne are given larger parts and more richly inflected rhetoric than all of their adult colleagues save the leading three who play Richard, Buckingham, and Clarence. Symbolically, given that Richard explains his own lust for power as a consequence of his inadequacy in the arts of love, it is fitting that he meets his match in the form of women and boys.

It is Richard’s theatrical self-consciousness that ultimately sets his play above the three parts of Henry VI. In The First Part, Talbot is a manly hero and Joan an intriguing semicomic villain; in The Second Part, there is splendid energy (Queen Margaret running amok) and variety (Jack Cade and the voice of the discontented commons); in The Third Part, we witness a scene of high drama when York is taunted with a paper crown before being stabbed to death. But it is not until Richard of Gloucester gets into his stride that we meet a figure with the compelling theatrical presence of a Falstaff or an Iago. At the climax of his first long soliloquy in Act 3 of 3 Henry VI—a speech that the theatrical tradition has often imported into Richard the Third—he announces that he will “play the orator,” “add colours to the chameleon,” and “change shapes with Proteus for advantages”: each image is of the art of the actor, with his persuasive tongue and power of self-transformation.

Richard adds that he will “set the murderous machiavel to school.” In his black farce The Jew of Malta, Christopher Marlowe had brought on a representation of Machiavelli, the Renaissance archetype of the scheming politician, to speak the prologue. As soon as the Prologue leaves the stage, Barabas the Jew is revealed, speaking his opening soliloquy. The audience thus makes the equation that Barabas is a machiavellian schemer. In Richard the Third, Shakespeare made a bold advance on this device. He dispensed with a prologue and began the action with Richard’s riveting soliloquy, “Now is the winter of our discontent.” Where Marlowe had cast Barabas in the role of the machiavel by means of a pointed structural device, Shakespeare’s Richard casts himself. He announces that since his crookback prevents him from playing the role of a stage-lover, he will self-consciously adopt that of a stage-villain. For good measure, he goes on in the second scene to show that he can in fact play the lover—with such accomplishment that he successfully woos Lady Anne over the very corpse of her father-in-law when she knows that he has been responsible for the murder of her first husband. As promised, he plays the orator to supreme effect. By the third act, he is changing shapes with Proteus and, as we have seen, appearing between two bishops in the color of a holy man. By means of the orator’s art of saying the opposite of what he means—“I cannot, nor I will not” accept the crown—he wins over the Mayor and citizens of London.

The character of Richard III is Shakespeare’s improvment on the Marlovian antihero. Marlowe’s Tamburlaine, Barabas, and Dr. Faustus fashion their identities by assuming roles—scourge of God, machiavel, conjuror. They do not stop to think that such roles are precisely that: flimsy theatrical impersonations. If they did stop, the whole Marlovian house of cards would come tumbling down. But Shakespeare began from a different place. He was an actor himself. This was the one trump card that was unavailable to Marlowe. Richard is quintessentially Shakespearean, supremely charismatic in the theater, because he knows that he is a role-player. He revels, and makes the audience revel, in play-acting. He is the first full embodiment of a Shakespearean obsession that culminates in Macbeth’s “poor player” and Prospero’s “These our actors.” It is Iago in Othello who says “I am not what I am.” But Richard could have said it too.

Only in his dreams does Richard stop acting. And when that happens, his identity collapses. Since he has forged his identity through acting, Richard denies the possibility of an essential being that is anterior to performance. He cannot sustain a language of being—“I am,” “I am not”—because he keeps coming back to particular roles (“villain”) and actions (murdering). The moment when an authentic self ought to be asserted, as in a deathbed repentance, becomes that when the self collapses. This is an actor-dramatist’s way of looking at the nature of human being. The Ghosts who appear to him in his dream the night before the last battle make him realize that actions have consequences: murder will bring him “to the bar” and a verdict of “guilty” will be pronounced. This final emphasis upon guilt is the pragmatic Shakespeare’s correction of the blasphemous Marlowe toward religious and moral orthodoxy. Having been granted his earthly crown, Richard is defeated by Henry of Richmond, who has spent the night before the battle of Bosworth Field in pious prayer to the Christian God: “O thou, whose captain I account myself, / Look on my forces with a gracious eye.” The fall of the overreacher is thus yoked to the Tudor myth of that providential scheme of history that combined the houses of York and Lancaster and established the dynasty that brought unity, then Reformation and ambition for imperial glory to the nation.

KEY FACTS

AUTHORSHIP: Though closely related to the Henry VI plays, authorship of which is much disputed, Richard the Third is almost certainly entirely Shakespeare’s.

PLOT: After years of civil unrest between the royal Houses of York and Lancaster, the Yorkist Edward IV is undisputed king. His brother, Richard Duke of Gloucester, plots to seize the throne for himself, removing anybody in his path. Richard decides he needs a wife and sets out to woo Lady Anne, widow of Henry VI’s heir. Against all the odds he wins her and celebrates by having his brother Clarence covertly killed in the Tower. On hearing of Clarence’s death, Edward IV is taken ill and dies. In his new role as Lord Protector, Richard has Edward’s heirs confined in the Tower, supposedly for safekeeping and to await the coronation. Edward IV’s widow, Queen Elizabeth, mistrusts Richard and is proved right when he orders the execution of her brother Rivers and son (by her first marriage) Grey. The Duke of Buckingham becomes Richard’s chief adviser and together they mastermind and manipulate Richard’s accession to the throne. Richard promises Buckingham an earldom for his help but refuses to grant it when Buckingham will not kill the princes held in the Tower. Richard finds other killers. Fearing for his safety, Buckingham flees to join the last Lancastrian heir Henry Tudor, Earl of Richmond, who is leading an army from France against Richard. Having willed the death of his wife Anne, Richard plans to marry Edward IV’s daughter (also Elizabeth, not seen in the play) in order to prevent Richmond from doing so and thereby strengthening his claim to the throne; Queen Elizabeth tricks him by pretending that she will assist him in this. Richmond and his followers arrive in England and the two armies camp close at Bosworth Field. The night before the battle, the Ghosts of his victims torment Richard in his dreams. The next day Richard is killed in battle and Richmond claims the crown as Henry VII. He announces he will marry Elizabeth of York and finally unite the two warring factions.

MAJOR PARTS: (with percentage of lines/number of speeches/scenes on stage) Richard III/Duke of Gloucester (32%/301/14), Duke of Buckingham (10%/91/11), Queen Elizabeth (7%/98/6), Queen Margaret (6%/33/2), George, Duke of Clarence (5%/33/3), Lady Anne (5%/51/3), Lord Hastings (4%/47/8), Duchess of York (4%/43/4), Henry, Earl of Richmond (4%/14/3), Lord Stanley, Earl of Derby (3%/32/9), King Edward IV (2%/11/1), Sir William Catesby (2%/31/9), Earl Rivers (2%/24/5), Edward, Prince of Wales (1%/19/2), Richard, Duke of York (1%/21/2).

LINGUISTIC MEDIUM: 98% verse, 2% prose.

DATE: 1592? 1594? Must follow the Henry VI plays, so perhaps written shortly before the theaters were closed due to plague in June 1592. Alteration of the chronicle sources to flatter Lord Stanley, Earl of Derby, has led some scholars to suppose that the play was written for the acting company of Lord Strange’s Men, active at this time, whose patron was Stanley’s descendant. Alternatively, Shakespeare might have been writing for Pembroke’s Men in 1592: the text also includes brief praise of the Pembroke family name. Some scholars, by contrast, suppose the play to be Shakespeare’s first work for the Lord Chamberlain’s Men, the company formed after the post-plague reopening of the theaters in summer 1594. Support for this view might come from the way in which the play was clearly written as a showcase for Richard Burbage, the Chamberlain’s leading man.

SOURCES: The main source for the representation of Richard as a hunchbacked villain is Sir Thomas More’s History of King Richard III (c.1513). Since More was writing at the court of King Henry VIII, son of Henry VII, who defeated Richard at Bosworth Field, he had a vested interest in portraying Richard as unfavorably as possible. He got much of his information from Bishop Morton of Ely, a bitter enemy of Richard. More’s account was incorporated in the major Tudor chronicles; Shakespeare probably read it via Edward Hall’s Union of the Noble and Illustre Famelies of Lancastre and York (1548). He may also have consulted Holinshed and one or more other chronicles. The historical poem sequence known as The Mirror for Magistrates (1559, expanded 1563) seems to have shaped Shakespeare’s treatment of the Clarence plot. The relationship to an anonymous drama The True Tragedie of Richard the Third (registered for publication June 1594, poorly printed) is unclear: it seems to have been an older play, belonging to the Queen’s Men, that was perhaps published to cash in on the success of Shakespeare’s version.

TEXT: Quarto edition, 1597, with title advertising the content of the play: The Tragedy of King Richard the third. Containing, His treacherous Plots against his brother Clarence: the pittiefull murther of his innocent nephewes: his tyrannicall vsurpation: with the whole course of his detested life, and most deserued death. As it hath beene lately Acted by the Right honourable the Lord Chamberlaine his servants. Reprinted 1598, with Shakespeare’s name on the title page (one of the first printed plays to be so attributed), and again in 1602, 1605, 1612, 1622, 1629, 1634, indicating the play’s popularity. Each Quarto was reprinted from the last, with some errors and occasional editorial correction. The 1623 Folio text derives from an independent manuscript that differed substantially from the Quarto tradition, though the Sixth Quarto and to a lesser extent the Third Quarto were consulted in its preparation. There has been much scholarly debate over the sources and relationship of the two texts: their relationship and relative authority has been justifiably described as the most difficult textual problem in all Shakespeare. It appears that the Folio, though printed much later, reflects an earlier version of the play. The Folio text is about 200 lines longer than the Quarto, a difference more probably due to Quarto cutting and streamlining than Folio expansion. The Quarto has just under 40 lines that are not in Folio. There are hundreds of variants of wording. The Folio text is generally more coherent; some of the difficulties of the Quarto have been attributed to “memorial reconstruction” by actors, but current scholarship questions this view. Though Folio has many deficiencies, some imported from the Quarto tradition and others introduced by the compositors, it requires less editorial intervention to render it comprehensible and theatrically workable. It has been the copy text for most, though not all, scholarly editions, as it is for ours, in accordance with our Folio-based policy.

GENEALOGY: See this page.

THE TRAGEDY OF RICHARD THE THIRD: with the Landing of Earl Richmond and the Battle at Bosworth Field*

RICHARD, Duke of Gloucester, later King RICHARD III

Duke of CLARENCE, his brother

Duke of BUCKINGHAM

Lord HASTINGS, the Lord Chamberlain

Sir William CATESBY

Sir Richard RATCLIFFE

Lord LOVELL

BRACKENBURY, Lord Lieutenant of the Tower

Lord Stanley, Earl of DERBY (sometimes addressed as Derby and sometimes as Stanley, here given speech prefix Derby)

KING EDWARD IV, Gloucester’s older brother

QUEEN ELIZABETH, his Wife

PRINCE EDWARD, their older son

Duke of YORK, their younger son

Lord RIVERS, Elizabeth’s brother

Lord GREY, Elizabeth’s son by her first husband

Marquis of DORSET, his brother

Sir Thomas VAUGHAN

Lady ANNE, widow of Edward, Prince of Wales, later Duchess of Gloucester

QUEEN MARGARET, widow of Henry VI

DUCHESS OF YORK, mother to Gloucester, Clarence, Edward IV

Earl of RICHMOND, later King Henry VII

Earl of OXFORD

Sir JAMES BLUNT

Sir WALTER HERBERT

Sir WILLIAM BRANDON

Duke of NORFOLK

Earl of SURREY

CARDINAL, Archbishop of Canterbury

ARCHBISHOP OF YORK

BISHOP OF ELY

SIR CHRISTOPHER, a priest

Sir John, a PRIEST

Lord MAYOR of London

Three CITIZENS

JAMES TYRRELL

Two MURDERERS

MESSENGERS

KEEPER

PURSUIVANT

PAGE

Ghost of KING HENRY VI

Ghost of EDWARD, his son

Two Bishops, Soldiers, Halberdiers, Gentlemen, Lords, Citizens, Attendants

Act 1 Scene 11.1

running scene 1

Enter Richard, Duke of Gloucester, solus

RICHARDNow is the winter of our discontent

Made glorious summer by this son of York:[2]

And all the clouds that loured[3] upon our house

In the deep bosom of the ocean buried.

5

Now are our brows bound with victorious wreaths,

Our bruisèd arms[6] hung up for monuments,

Our stern alarums[7] changed to merry meetings,

Our dreadful[8] marches to delightful measures.

Grim-visaged war hath smoothed his wrinkled front,[9]

10

And now, instead of mounting barbèd[10] steeds

To fright the souls of fearful[11] adversaries,

He capers[12] nimbly in a lady’s chamber

To the lascivious pleasing[13] of a lute.

But I, that am not shaped for sportive[14] tricks,

15

Nor made to court[15] an amorous looking-glass:

I, that am rudely stamped,[16] and want love’s majesty

To strut before a wanton[17] ambling nymph:

I, that am curtailed[18] of this fair proportion,

Cheated of feature[19] by dissembling nature,

20

Deformed, unfinished, sent[20] before my time

Into this breathing world, scarce half made up,[21]

And that so lamely and unfashionable[22]

That dogs bark at me as I halt[23] by them —

Why, I, in this weak piping[24] time of peace,

25

Have no delight to pass away the time,

Unless to see my shadow in the sun

And descant[27] on mine own deformity.

And therefore, since I cannot prove a lover,

To entertain[29] these fair well-spoken days,

30

I am determinèd[30] to prove a villain

And hate the idle pleasures of these days.

Plots have I laid, inductions[32] dangerous,

By drunken prophecies, libels and dreams,

To set my brother Clarence and the king

35

In deadly hate the one against the other.

And if King Edward be as true and just

As I am subtle,[37] false and treacherous,

This day should Clarence closely be mewed up,[38]

About[39] a prophecy, which says that ‘G’

40

Of Edward’s heirs the murderer shall be.

Dive, thoughts, down to my soul: here Clarence comes.—

Enter Clarence, guarded, and Brackenbury

Brother, good day. What means this armèd guard

That waits upon[43] your grace?

CLARENCEHis majesty,

45

Tend’ring[45] my person’s safety, hath appointed

This conduct[46] to convey me to th’Tower.

RICHARDUpon what cause?

CLARENCEBecause my name is George.

RICHARDAlack, my lord, that fault is none of yours.

50

He should, for that, commit[50] your godfathers.

O, belike[51] his majesty hath some intent

That you should be new-christened[52] in the Tower.

But what’s the matter,[53] Clarence, may I know?

CLARENCEYea, Richard, when I know, but I protest[54]

55

As yet I do not. But, as I can learn,

He hearkens after[56] prophecies and dreams,

And from the cross-row[57] plucks the letter G,

And says a wizard told him that by ‘G’

His issue[59] disinherited should be:

60

And, for[60] my name of George begins with G,

It follows in his thought that I am he.

These, as I learn, and such like toys[62] as these,

Hath moved his highness to commit me now.

RICHARDWhy, this it is when men are ruled by women:

65

’Tis not the king that sends you to the Tower,

My lady Grey[66] his wife, Clarence, ’tis she

That tempts him to this harsh extremity.

Was it not she and that good man of worship,[68]

Anthony Woodville,[69] her brother there,

70

That made him send Lord Hastings to the Tower,

From whence this present day he is delivered?[71]

We are not safe, Clarence, we are not safe.

CLARENCEBy heaven, I think there is no man secure

But the queen’s kindred and night-walking heralds[74]

75

That trudge betwixt[75] the king and Mistress Shore.

Heard you not what an humble suppliant[76]

Lord Hastings was to her, for his delivery?[77]

RICHARDHumbly complaining[78] to her deity

Got my Lord Chamberlain[79] his liberty.

80

I’ll tell you what: I think it is our way,

If we will keep in favour with the king,

To be her men[82] and wear her livery.

The jealous o’erworn[83] widow and herself,

Since that our brother dubbed them[84] gentlewomen,

85

Are mighty gossips[85] in our monarchy.

How say you sir? Can you deny all this?

BRACKENBURYI beseech your graces both to pardon me:

His majesty hath straitly[87] given in charge

That no man shall have private conference,

Of[89] what degree soever, with your brother.

90

RICHARDEven so, an[90] please your worship, Brackenbury,

You may partake of anything we say.

We speak no treason, man: we say the king

Is wise and virtuous, and his noble queen

Well[94] struck in years, fair and not jealous.

95

We say that Shore’s wife hath a pretty foot,

A cherry lip, a bonny eye, a passing[96] pleasing tongue,

And that the queen’s kindred are made gentlefolks.

How say you sir? Can you deny all this?

BRACKENBURYWith this, my lord, myself have nought to do.

100

RICHARDNaught to do with Mistress Shore? I tell thee, fellow,

He that doth naught[101] with her, excepting one,

Were best to do it secretly, alone.

BRACKENBURYWhat one, my lord?

RICHARDHer husband, knave. Wouldst thou betray[104] me?

105

BRACKENBURYI do beseech your grace to pardon me, and withal[105]

Forbear[106] your conference with the noble duke.

CLARENCEWe know thy charge,[107] Brackenbury, and will obey.

RICHARDWe are the queen’s abjects,[108] and must obey.—

Brother, farewell. I will unto the king,

110

And whatsoe’er you will employ me in,

Were it to call King Edward’s widow sister,

I will perform it to enfranchise[112] you.

Meantime, this deep disgrace in brotherhood

Touches[114] me deeper than you can imagine. Embraces him

115

CLARENCEI know it pleaseth neither of us well.

RICHARDWell, your imprisonment shall not be long.

I will deliver you or else lie for you.[117]

Meantime, have patience.

CLARENCEI must perforce.[119] Farewell.

Exit Clarence [led by Brackenbury and Guards]

120

RICHARDGo, tread the path that thou shalt ne’er return.

Simple, plain Clarence, I do love thee so

That I will shortly send thy soul to heaven,

If heaven will take the present[123] at our hands.

But who comes here? The new-delivered[124] Hastings?

Enter Lord Hastings

125

HASTINGSGood time of day unto my gracious lord.

RICHARDAs much unto my good Lord Chamberlain.

Well are you welcome to this open air.

How hath your lordship brooked[128] imprisonment?

HASTINGSWith patience, noble lord, as prisoners must.

130

But I shall live, my lord, to give them thanks[130]

That were the cause of my imprisonment.

RICHARDNo doubt, no doubt. And so shall Clarence too,

For they that were your enemies are his,

And have prevailed as much on him as you.

135

HASTINGSMore pity that the eagles should be mewed,[135]

Whiles kites and buzzards[136] play at liberty.

RICHARDWhat news abroad?[137]

HASTINGSNo news so bad abroad as this at home:

The king is sickly, weak and melancholy,

140

And his physicians fear him[140] mightily.

RICHARDNow, by Saint John, that news is bad indeed.

O, he hath kept an evil diet[142] long,

And overmuch consumed his royal person.

’Tis very grievous to be thought upon.

145

Where is he, in his bed?

HASTINGSHe is.

RICHARDGo you before, and I will follow you.

Exit Hastings

He cannot live, I hope, and must not die

Till George be packed[149] with post-horse up to heaven.

150

I’ll in to urge his hatred more to Clarence,

With lies well steeled[151] with weighty arguments.

And, if I fail not in my deep[152] intent,

Clarence hath not another day to live:

Which done, God take King Edward to his mercy,

155

And leave the world for me to bustle[155] in.

For then I’ll marry Warwick’s youngest daughter.[156]

What though I killed her husband[157] and her father?

The readiest way to make the wench amends

Is to become her husband and her father:

160

The which will I, not all so much for love

As for another secret close[161] intent,

By marrying her which I must reach unto.[162]

But yet I run[163] before my horse to market:

Clarence still breathes, Edward still lives and reigns.

165

When they are gone, then must I count my gains.

Exit

Act 1 Scene 21.2

running scene 1 continues

Enter the corpse of Henry the Sixth with [Gentlemen bearing] halberds to guard it, Lady Anne being the mourner

ANNESet down, set down your honourable load —

If honour may be shrouded[2] in a hearse —

Whilst I awhile obsequiously[3] lament

Th’untimely fall of virtuous Lancaster.[4] They set down the coffin

5

Poor key-cold[5] figure of a holy king,

Pale ashes[6] of the house of Lancaster,

Thou bloodless remnant of that royal blood,

Be it[8] lawful that I invocate thy ghost,

To hear the lamentations of poor Anne,

10

Wife to thy Edward, to thy slaughtered son,

Stabbed by the selfsame hand that made these wounds.

Lo,[12] in these windows that let forth thy life,

I pour the helpless balm[13] of my poor eyes.

O, cursèd be the hand that made these holes:

15

Cursed the heart that had the heart to do it:

Cursed the blood that let this blood from hence!

More direful hap[17] betide that hated wretch

That makes us wretched by the death of thee

Than I can wish to wolves, to spiders, toads,[19]

20

Or any creeping venomed thing that lives.

If ever he have child, abortive[21] be it,

Prodigious,[22] and untimely brought to light,

Whose ugly and unnatural aspect[23]

May fright the hopeful mother at the view,

25

And that[25] be heir to his unhappiness.

If ever he have wife, let her be made

More miserable by the death of him

Than I am made by my young lord and thee.—

Come, now towards Chertsey[29] with your holy load,

30

Taken from Paul’s[30] to be interrèd there. They lift the coffin

And still as[31] you are weary of this weight,

Rest you, whiles I lament King Henry’s corpse.

Enter Richard, Duke of Gloucester

RICHARDStay, you that bear the corpse, and set it down.

ANNEWhat black magician conjures up this fiend,

35

To stop devoted[35] charitable deeds?

RICHARDVillains, set down the corpse, or, by Saint Paul,

I’ll make a corpse of him that disobeys.

GENTLEMANMy lord, stand back, and let the coffin pass.

RICHARDUnmannered dog, stand’st thou when I command.

40

Advance[40] thy halberd higher than my breast,

Or, by Saint Paul, I’ll strike thee to my foot,

And spurn upon[42] thee, beggar, for thy boldness They set down the coffin

ANNEWhat, do you tremble? Are you all afraid?

Alas, I blame you not, for you are mortal,

45

And mortal eyes cannot endure the devil.—

Avaunt,[46] thou dreadful minister of hell!

Thou hadst but power over his mortal body,

His soul thou canst not have: therefore be gone.

RICHARDSweet saint, for charity, be not so curst.[49]

50

ANNEFoul devil, for God’s sake, hence,[50] and trouble us not,

For thou hast made the happy earth thy hell,

Filled it with cursing cries and deep exclaims.[52]

If thou delight to view thy heinous deeds,

Behold this pattern[54] of thy butcheries.— Uncovers the body

55

O, gentlemen, see, see dead Henry’s wounds

Open their congealed mouths and bleed afresh.—

Blush, blush, thou lump of foul deformity,

For ’tis thy[58] presence that exhales this blood

From cold and empty veins, where no blood dwells.

60

Thy deeds, inhuman and unnatural,

Provokes this deluge most unnatural.—

O God, which this blood mad’st, revenge his death!

O earth, which this blood drink’st, revenge his death!

Either heav’n with lightning strike the murd’rer dead,

65

Or earth gape open wide and eat him quick,

As thou dost swallow up this good king’s blood

Which his hell-governed arm hath butcherèd!

RICHARDLady, you know no rules of charity,

Which renders good for bad, blessings for curses.

70

ANNEVillain, thou know’st nor law of God nor man:

No beast so[71] fierce but knows some touch of pity.

RICHARDBut I know none, and therefore am no beast.

ANNEO, wonderful,[73] when devils tell the truth!

RICHARDMore wonderful, when angels are so angry.

75

Vouchsafe,[75] divine perfection of a woman,

Of these supposèd crimes to give me leave,[76]

By circumstance[77] but to acquit myself.

ANNEVouchsafe, defused[78] infection of man,

Of these known evils, but to give me leave,

80

By circumstance to curse thy cursèd self.

RICHARDFairer than tongue can name thee, let me have

Some patient leisure[82] to excuse myself.

ANNEFouler than heart can think thee, thou canst make

No excuse current,[84] but to hang thyself.

85

RICHARDBy such despair,[85] I should accuse myself.

ANNEAnd by despairing shalt thou stand excused

For doing worthy[87] vengeance on thyself,

That didst unworthy[88] slaughter upon others.

RICHARDSay that I slew them not.

90

ANNEThen say they were not slain.

But dead they are, and devilish slave,[91] by thee.

RICHARDI did not kill your husband.

ANNEWhy, then he is alive.

RICHARDNay, he is dead, and slain by Edward’s hands.

95

ANNEIn[95] thy foul throat thou liest: Queen Margaret saw

Thy murd’rous falchion[96] smoking in his blood,

The which thou once[97] didst bend against her breast,

But that thy brothers beat aside the point.

RICHARDI was provokèd by her sland’rous tongue,

100

That laid their guilt upon my guiltless shoulders.

ANNEThou wast provokèd by thy bloody mind,

That never dream’st on aught[102] but butcheries.

Didst thou not kill this king?

RICHARDI grant ye.

105

ANNEDost grant me, hedgehog?[105] Then, God grant me too

Thou mayst be damnèd for that wicked deed.

O, he was gentle, mild and virtuous!

RICHARDThe better for the king of heaven that hath him.

ANNEHe is in heaven, where thou shalt never come.

110

RICHARDLet him thank me, that holp[110] to send him thither,

For he was fitter for that place than earth.

ANNEAnd thou unfit for any place but hell.

RICHARDYes, one place else, if you will hear me name it.

ANNESome dungeon.

115

RICHARDYour bedchamber.[115]

ANNEIll rest betide the chamber where thou liest.

RICHARDSo will it, madam, till I lie with you.

ANNEI hope so.[118]

RICHARDI know so. But, gentle Lady Anne,

120

To leave this keen[120] encounter of our wits,

And fall something into a slower method:

Is not the causer of the timeless[122] deaths

Of these Plantagenets, Henry and Edward,

As blameful as the executioner?

125

ANNEThou wast the cause and most accursed effect.[125]

RICHARDYour beauty was the cause of that effect.

Your beauty, that did haunt me in my sleep

To undertake the death of all the world,

So I might live one hour in your sweet bosom.

130

ANNEIf I thought that, I tell thee, homicide,[130]

These nails should rend that beauty from my cheeks.

RICHARDThese eyes could never endure that beauty’s wreck.

You should not blemish it, if I stood by:

As all the world is cheerèd by the sun,

135

So I by that: it is my day, my life.

ANNEBlack night o’ershade thy day, and death thy life.

RICHARDCurse not thyself, fair creature: thou art both.[137]

ANNEI would[138] I were, to be revenged on thee.

RICHARDIt is a quarrel most unnatural

140

To be revenged on him that loveth thee.

ANNEIt is a quarrel just and reasonable

To be revenged on him that killed my husband.

RICHARDHe that bereft thee, lady, of thy husband,

Did it to help thee to a better husband.

145

ANNEHis better doth not breathe upon the earth.

RICHARDHe lives[146] that loves thee better than he could.

ANNEName him.

RICHARDPlantagenet.[148]

ANNEWhy, that was he.

150

RICHARDThe selfsame name, but one of better nature.

ANNEWhere is he?

RICHARDHere.

Spits at him

Why dost thou spit at me?

ANNEWould it were mortal poison, for thy sake.

155

RICHARDNever came poison from so sweet a place.

ANNENever hung poison on a fouler toad.

Out of my sight, thou dost infect mine eyes.

RICHARDThine eyes, sweet lady, have infected mine.[158]

ANNEWould they were basilisks,[159] to strike thee dead.

160

RICHARDI would they were, that I might die[160] at once,

For now they kill me with a living death.

Those eyes of thine from mine have drawn salt tears,

Shamed their aspects[163] with store of childish drops:

These eyes, which never shed remorseful tear —

165

No,[165] when my father York and Edward wept,

To hear the piteous moan that Rutland[166] made

When black-faced[167] Clifford shook his sword at him,

Nor when thy warlike father,[168] like a child,

Told the sad story of my father’s death,

170

And twenty times made pause to sob and weep,

That[171] all the standers-by had wet their cheeks

Like trees bedashed[172] with rain: in that sad time,

My manly eyes did scorn an humble[173] tear.

And what these sorrows could not thence exhale,[174]

175

Thy beauty hath, and made them blind with weeping.

I never sued[176] to friend nor enemy:

My tongue could never learn sweet smoothing[177] word.

But now thy beauty is proposed my fee,[178]

My proud heart sues, and prompts my tongue to speak.

She looks scornfully at him

180

Teach not thy lip such scorn, for it was made

For kissing, lady, not for such contempt.

If thy revengeful heart cannot forgive,

Lo, here I lend thee this sharp-pointed sword, Gives her his sword

Which if thou please to hide in this true breast. ↓Kneels↓

185

And let the soul forth that adoreth thee,

I lay it naked to the deadly stroke

And humbly beg the death upon my knee.

He lays his breast open: she offers at [it] with his sword

Nay, do not pause, for I did kill King Henry —

But ’twas thy beauty that provokèd me.

190

Nay, now dispatch: ’twas I that stabbed young Edward —

But ’twas thy heavenly face that set me on.[191]

She falls the sword

Take up the sword again, or take up me.[192]

ANNEArise, dissembler.[193] Though I wish thy death,

I will not be thy executioner.

195

RICHARDThen bid me kill myself, and I will do it.

Takes his sword back

ANNEI have already.

RICHARDThat was in thy rage:

Speak it again, and even with the word,

This hand, which for thy love did kill thy love,

200

Shall for thy love kill a far truer love.[200]

To both their deaths shalt thou be accessory.

ANNEI would I knew thy heart.

RICHARD’Tis figured in[203] my tongue.

ANNEI fear me both are false.

205

RICHARDThen never man was true.

ANNEWell, well, put up your sword.

RICHARDSay, then, my peace is made.

ANNEThat shalt thou know hereafter.

RICHARDBut shall I live in hope?

210

ANNEAll men, I hope, live so.

RICHARDVouchsafe to wear this ring. Puts a ring on her

Look how my ring encompasseth thy finger.

Even so[213] thy breast encloseth my poor heart:

Wear both of them, for both of them are thine.

215

And if thy poor devoted servant may

But beg one favour at thy gracious hand,

Thou dost confirm his happiness for ever.

ANNEWhat is it?

RICHARDThat it may please you leave these sad designs

220

To him that hath most cause to be a mourner,

And presently[221] repair to Crosby House,

Where after I have solemnly interred

At Chertsey monast’ry this noble king,

And wet his grave with my repentant tears —

225

I will with all expedient duty[225] see you.

For divers[226] unknown reasons, I beseech you,

Grant me this boon.[227]

ANNEWith all my heart, and much it joys me too,

To see you are become so penitent.—

230

Tressell and Berkeley,[230] go along with me.

RICHARDBid me farewell.

ANNE’Tis more than you deserve,

But since you teach me how to flatter you,

Imagine I have said farewell already.

Exeunt two [Tressell and Berkeley] with Anne

235

GENTLEMENTowards Chertsey, noble lord?

RICHARDNo, to Whitefriars.[236] There attend my coming.

Exit corpse [borne by the other gentlemen]

Was ever woman in this humour[237] wooed?

Was ever woman in this humour won?

I’ll have her, but I will not keep her long.

240

What? I, that killed her husband and his father,

To take her in her heart’s extremest hate,

With curses in her mouth, tears in her eyes,

The bleeding witness[243] of my hatred by,

Having God, her conscience, and these bars[244] against me,

245

And I no friends to back my suit[245] withal,

But the plain devil and dissembling looks?

And yet to win her, all[247] the world to nothing?

Ha!

Hath she forgot already that brave[249] prince,

250

Edward, her lord, whom I, some three months since,

Stabbed in my angry mood[251] at Tewkesbury?

A sweeter and a lovelier gentleman,

Framed[253] in the prodigality of nature,

Young, valiant, wise, and, no doubt, right royal,[254]

255

The spacious world cannot again afford.

And will she yet abase her eyes on me,

That cropped the golden prime[257] of this sweet prince,

And made her widow to a woeful bed?

On me, whose[259] all not equals Edward’s moiety?

260

On me, that halts[260] and am misshapen thus?

My dukedom to a beggarly denier![261]

I do mistake my person all this while.

Upon my life, she finds, although I cannot,

Myself to be a marv’llous proper[264] man.

265

I’ll be[265] at charges for a looking-glass,

And entertain[266] a score or two of tailors

To study fashions to adorn my body.

Since I am crept in favour with myself,

I will maintain it with some little cost.

270

But first I’ll turn yon fellow in[270] his grave,

And then return lamenting to my love.

Shine out, fair sun, till I have bought a glass,[272]

That I may see my shadow[273] as I pass.

Exit

Act 1 Scene 3*

running scene 2

Enter [Elizabeth] the Queen Mother, Lord Rivers and Lord Grey

RIVERSHave patience, madam. There’s no doubt his majesty

Will soon recover his accustomed health.

GREYIn that you brook[3] it ill, it makes him worse: To Queen Elizabeth

Therefore, for God’s sake, entertain good comfort,[4]

5

And cheer his grace with quick and merry eyes.

QUEEN ELIZABETHIf he were dead, what would betide on[6] me?

GREYNo other harm but loss of such a lord.

QUEEN ELIZABETHThe loss of such a lord includes[8] all harms.

GREYThe heavens have blessed you with a goodly[9] son

10

To be your comforter when he is gone.

QUEEN ELIZABETHAh, he is young, and his minority

Is put unto the trust of Richard Gloucester,

A man that loves not me, nor none of you.

RIVERSIs it concluded[14] he shall be Protector?

15

QUEEN ELIZABETHIt is determined, not concluded yet:

But so it must be, if the king miscarry.[16]

Enter Buckingham and [Stanley, Earl of] Derby

GREYHere come the lords of Buckingham and Derby.

BUCKINGHAMGood time of day unto your royal grace.

DERBYGod make your majesty joyful as you have been.

20

QUEEN ELIZABETHThe Countess Richmond,[20] good my lord of Derby,

To your good prayer will scarcely say amen.

Yet, Derby, notwithstanding she’s your wife,

And loves not me, be you, good lord, assured

I hate not you for her proud arrogance.

25

DERBYI do beseech you either not believe

The envious[26] slanders of her false accusers,

Or, if she be accused on true report,

Bear with her weakness, which I think proceeds

From wayward[29] sickness and no grounded malice.

30

QUEEN ELIZABETHSaw you the king today, my lord of Derby?

DERBYBut now the Duke of Buckingham and I

Are come from visiting his majesty.

QUEEN ELIZABETHWhat likelihood of his amendment, lords?

BUCKINGHAMMadam, good hope: his grace speaks cheerfully.

35

QUEEN ELIZABETHGod grant him health. Did you confer with him?

BUCKINGHAMAy, madam. He desires to make atonement[36]

Between the Duke of Gloucester and your brothers,[37]

And between them and my Lord Chamberlain,

And sent to warn[39] them to his royal presence.

40

QUEEN ELIZABETHWould all were well! But that will never be.

I fear our happiness[41] is at the height.

Enter Richard [with Hastings and Dorset]

RICHARDThey do me wrong, and I will not endure it.

Who is it that complains unto the king

That I, forsooth,[44] am stern and love them not?

45

By holy Paul, they love his grace but lightly[45]

That fill his ears with such dissentious[46] rumours.

Because I cannot flatter and look fair,[47]

Smile in men’s faces, smooth,[48] deceive and cog,

Duck[49] with French nods and apish courtesy,

50

I must be held a rancorous enemy.

Cannot a plain[51] man live and think no harm,

But thus his simple truth must be abused

By silken,[53] sly, insinuating jacks?

GREYTo who in all this presence[54] speaks your grace?

55

RICHARDTo thee, that hast nor[55] honesty nor grace.

When have I injured thee? When done thee wrong?

Or thee? Or thee? Or any of your faction?

A plague upon you all! His royal grace —

Whom God preserve better than you would wish —

60

Cannot be quiet scarce a breathing-while,[60]

But you must trouble him with lewd[61] complaints.

QUEEN ELIZABETHBrother of Gloucester, you mistake the matter.

The king, on his own royal disposition,

And not provoked by any suitor else,

65

Aiming, belike,[65] at your interior hatred,

That in your outward action shows itself

Against my children, brothers, and myself,

Makes him to send,[68] that he may learn the ground.

RICHARDI cannot tell. The world is grown so bad

70

That wrens[70] make prey where eagles dare not perch.

Since every Jack became a gentleman,

There’s many a gentle person made a jack.

QUEEN ELIZABETHCome, come, we know your meaning, brother Gloucester:

You envy my advancement and my friends’.[74]

75

God grant we never may have need of you.

RICHARDMeantime, God grants that I have need of you.

Our brother[77] is imprisoned by your means,

Myself disgraced, and the nobility

Held in contempt, while great promotions

80

Are daily given to ennoble those

That scarce some two days since were worth a noble.[81]

QUEEN ELIZABETHBy him that raised me to this careful[82] height

From that contented hap[83] which I enjoyed,

I never did incense his majesty

85

Against the Duke of Clarence, but have been

An earnest advocate to plead for him.

My lord, you do me shameful injury,

Falsely to draw me[88] in these vile suspects.

RICHARDYou may deny that you were not the mean

90

Of my lord Hastings’ late[90] imprisonment.

RIVERSShe may, my lord, for—

RICHARDShe may, Lord Rivers? Why, who knows not so?

She may do more, sir, than denying that.

She may help you to many fair preferments,[94]

95

And then deny her aiding hand therein,

And lay those honours on your high desert.[96]

What may she not? She may, ay, marry,[97] may she—

RIVERSWhat, marry, may she?

RICHARDWhat, marry, may she? Marry with a king,

100

A bachelor and a handsome stripling[100] too.

Iwis[101] your grandam had a worser match.

QUEEN ELIZABETHMy lord of Gloucester, I have too long borne

Your blunt upbraidings and your bitter scoffs.

By heaven, I will acquaint his majesty

105

Of those gross[105] taunts that oft I have endured.

I had rather be a country servant-maid

Than a great queen, with this condition,

To be so bated, scorned and stormèd at.

Enter old Queen Margaret [unseen by the others]

Small joy have I in being England’s queen.

110

QUEEN MARGARETAnd lessened be that small, God, I beseech him! Speaks aside throughout

Thy honour, state[111] and seat is due to me.

RICHARDWhat? Threat[112] you me with telling of the king? To Queen Elizabeth

I will avouch’t[113] in presence of the king.

I dare adventure[114] to be sent to th’Tower.

115

’Tis time to speak, my pains[115] are quite forgot.

QUEEN MARGARETOut,[116] devil! I do remember them too well:

Thou kill’dst my husband Henry in the Tower,

And Edward, my poor son, at Tewkesbury.

RICHARDEre[119] you were queen, ay, or your husband king, To Queen Elizabeth

120

I was a packhorse[120] in his great affairs,

A weeder-out of his proud[121] adversaries,

A liberal rewarder of his friends.

To royalize his blood, I spent mine own.

QUEEN MARGARETAy, and much better blood than his or thine.

125

RICHARDIn all which time you and your husband Grey

Were factious for[126] the House of Lancaster.—

And, Rivers, so were you.— Was not your husband[127]

In Margaret’s battle at St Albans slain?

Let me put in your minds, if you forget,

130

What you have been ere this,[130] and what you are:

Withal,[131] what I have been, and what I am.

QUEEN MARGARETA murd’rous villain, and so still thou art.

RICHARDPoor Clarence[133] did forsake his father, Warwick,

Ay, and forswore himself[134] — which Jesu pardon! —

135

QUEEN MARGARETWhich God revenge!

RICHARDTo fight on Edward’s party for the crown.

And for his meed,[137] poor lord, he is mewed up.

I would to God my heart were flint, like Edward’s,

Or Edward’s soft and pitiful,[139] like mine.

140

I am too childish-foolish[140] for this world.

QUEEN MARGARETHie[141] thee to hell for shame, and leave this world,

Thou cacodemon![142] There thy kingdom is.

RIVERSMy lord of Gloucester, in those busy days

Which here you urge[144] to prove us enemies,

145

We followed then our lord, our sovereign king.

So should we you, if you should be our king.

RICHARDIf I should be? I had rather be a pedlar.

Far be it from my heart, the thought thereof.

QUEEN ELIZABETHAs little joy, my lord, as you suppose

150

You should enjoy were you this country’s king,

As little joy you may suppose in me,

That I enjoy, being the queen thereof.

QUEEN MARGARETA little joy enjoys the queen thereof,

For I am she, and altogether joyless.

155

I can no longer hold me patient.— Comes forward

Hear me, you wrangling pirates, that fall out

In sharing that which you have pilled[157] from me.

Which of you trembles not that looks on me?

If[159] not, that I am queen, you bow like subjects,

160

Yet that, by you deposed, you quake like rebels.

Ah, gentle[161] villain, do not turn away. To Richard

RICHARDFoul wrinkled witch, what mak’st thou[162] in my sight?

QUEEN MARGARETBut repetition of[163] what thou hast marred,

That will I make[164] before I let thee go.

165

RICHARDWert thou not banishèd on pain of death?

QUEEN MARGARETI was, but I do find more pain in banishment

Than death can yield me here by my abode.[167]

A husband and a son thou ow’st to me,

And thou[169] a kingdom; all of you allegiance.

170

The sorrow that I have, by right is yours,

And all the pleasures you usurp are mine.

RICHARDThe curse[172] my noble father laid on thee,

When thou didst crown his warlike brows with paper

And with thy scorns drew’st rivers from his eyes,

175

And then, to dry them, gav’st the duke a clout[175]

Steeped in the faultless blood of pretty[176] Rutland —

His curses then, from bitterness of soul

Denounced against thee, are all fall’n upon thee,

And God, not we, hath plagued[179] thy bloody deed.

180

QUEEN ELIZABETHSo just is God, to right the innocent.

HASTINGSO, ’twas the foulest deed to slay that babe,[181]

And the most merciless that e’er was heard of!

RIVERSTyrants themselves wept when it was reported.

DORSETNo[184] man but prophesied revenge for it.

185

BUCKINGHAMNorthumberland, then present, wept to see it.

QUEEN MARGARETWhat? Were you snarling all before I came,

Ready to catch[187] each other by the throat,

And turn you all your hatred now on me?

Did York’s dread curse prevail so much with heaven?

190

That Henry’s death, my lovely Edward’s death,

Their kingdom’s loss, my woeful banishment,

Should all but answer for[192] that peevish brat?

Can curses pierce the clouds and enter heaven?

Why then give way, dull[194] clouds, to my quick curses.

195

Though not by war, by surfeit[195] die your king,

As ours by murder, to make him a king.—

Edward thy son, that now is Prince of Wales, To Elizabeth

For Edward our son, that was Prince of Wales,

Die in his youth by like[199] untimely violence!

200

Thyself a queen, for me that was a queen,

Outlive thy glory, like my wretched self!

Long mayst thou live to wail thy children’s death,

And see another, as I see thee now,

Decked[204] in thy rights, as thou art stalled in mine.

205

Long die thy happy days before thy death,

And, after many lengthened hours of grief,

Die neither mother, wife, nor England’s queen.—

Rivers and Dorset, you were standers-by,[208]

And so wast thou, Lord Hastings, when my son

210

Was stabbed with bloody daggers: God, I pray him,

That none of you may live his natural age,

But by some unlooked[212] accident cut off.

RICHARDHave done thy charm,[213] thou hateful withered hag.

QUEEN MARGARETAnd leave out thee? Stay, dog, for thou shalt hear me.

215

If heaven have any grievous plague in store

Exceeding those that I can wish upon thee,

O, let them[217] keep it till thy sins be ripe,

And then hurl down their indignation

On thee, the troubler of the poor world’s peace.

220

The worm of conscience still[220] begnaw thy soul.

Thy friends suspect for[221] traitors while thou liv’st,

And take deep traitors for thy dearest friends.

No sleep close up that deadly[223] eye of thine,

Unless it be while some tormenting dream

225

Affrights thee with a hell of ugly devils.

Thou elvish-marked,[226] abortive, rooting hog,

Thou that wast sealed[227] in thy nativity

The slave of nature[228] and the son of hell.

Thou slander[229] of thy heavy mother’s womb,

230

Thou loathèd issue[230] of thy father’s loins,

Thou rag[231] of honour, thou detested—

RICHARDMargaret.[232]

QUEEN MARGARETRichard.

RICHARDHa?

235

QUEEN MARGARETI call thee not.

RICHARDI cry thee mercy[236] then, for I did think

That thou hadst called me all these bitter names.

QUEEN MARGARETWhy, so I did, but looked for[238] no reply.

O, let me make the period[239] to my curse.

240

RICHARD’Tis done by me, and ends in ‘Margaret’.

QUEEN ELIZABETHThus have you breathed your curse against yourself.

QUEEN MARGARETPoor painted[242] queen, vain flourish of my fortune.

Why strew’st thou sugar on that bottled[243] spider,

Whose deadly web ensnareth thee about?

245

Fool, fool, thou whet’st[245] a knife to kill thyself.

The day will come that thou shalt wish for me

To help thee curse this poisonous bunch-backed[247] toad.

HASTINGSFalse-boding[248] woman, end thy frantic curse,

Lest to thy harm thou move our patience.

250

QUEEN MARGARETFoul shame upon you! You have all moved mine.

RIVERSWere you well served,[251] you would be taught your duty.

QUEEN MARGARETTo serve me well, you all should do me duty,[252]

Teach me to be your queen, and you my subjects.

O, serve me well, and teach yourselves that duty.

255

DORSETDispute not with her, she is lunatic.

QUEEN MARGARETPeace, Master Marquis,[256] you are malapert:

Your fire-new[257] stamp of honour is scarce current.

O, that your young nobility[258] could judge

What ’twere to lose it, and be miserable.

260

They that stand high have many blasts to shake them,

And if they fall, they dash themselves to pieces.

RICHARDGood counsel, marry. Learn it, learn it, marquis.

DORSETIt touches you, my lord, as much as me.

RICHARDAy, and much more. But I was born so high,[264]

265

Our eyrie[265] buildeth in the cedar’s top,

And dallies with[266] the wind and scorns the sun.

QUEEN MARGARETAnd turns the sun[267] to shade. Alas, alas!

Witness my son, now in the shade of death,

Whose bright out-shining beams thy cloudy wrath

270

Hath in eternal darkness folded up.

Your eyrie buildeth in our eyrie’s nest.

O God, that see’st it, do not suffer[272] it.

As it is won with blood, lost be it so!

BUCKINGHAMPeace, peace, for shame, if not for charity.

275

QUEEN MARGARETUrge neither charity nor shame to me:

Uncharitably with me have you dealt,

And shamefully my hopes by you are butchered.

My charity[278] is outrage, life my shame,

And in that shame still[279] live my sorrow’s rage.

280

BUCKINGHAMHave done, have done.

QUEEN MARGARETO princely Buckingham, I’ll kiss thy hand

In sign of league and amity with thee.

Now fair[283] befall thee and thy noble house.

Thy garments are not spotted with our blood,

285

Nor thou within the compass[285] of my curse.

BUCKINGHAMNor no one here, for curses never pass[286]

The lips of those that breathe them in the air.

QUEEN MARGARETI will not think but[288] they ascend the sky,

And there awake God’s gentle-sleeping peace.

290

O Buckingham, take heed of yonder dog:

Look when[291] he fawns, he bites; and when he bites,

His venom[292] tooth will rankle to the death.

Have not to do with him, beware of him.

Sin, death and hell have set their marks[294] on him,

295

And all their ministers attend on him.

RICHARDWhat doth she say, my lord of Buckingham?

BUCKINGHAMNothing that I respect,[297] my gracious lord.

QUEEN MARGARETWhat, dost thou scorn me for my gentle counsel?

And soothe[299] the devil that I warn thee from?

300

O, but remember this another day,

When he shall split thy very heart with sorrow,

And say poor Margaret was a prophetess.—

Live each of you the subjects to his hate,

And he to yours, and all of you to God’s.

Exit

305

BUCKINGHAMMy hair doth stand on end to hear her curses.

RIVERSAnd so doth mine. I muse why she’s at liberty.

RICHARDI cannot blame her. By God’s holy mother,

She hath had too much wrong, and I repent

My part thereof that I have done to her.

310

QUEEN ELIZABETHI never did her any, to my knowledge.

RICHARDYet you have all the vantage[311] of her wrong.

I was too hot[312] to do somebody good,

That is too cold[313] in thinking of it now.

Marry, as for Clarence, he is well repaid:

315

He is franked[315] up to fatting for his pains —

God pardon them that are the cause thereof!

RIVERSA virtuous and a Christian-like conclusion,

To pray for them that have done scathe[318] to us.

RICHARDSo do I ever, being well advised.[319]—

320

For had I cursed now, I had cursed myself.

Speaks to himself

Enter Catesby

CATESBYMadam, his majesty doth call for you,

And for your grace, and yours, my gracious lord.

QUEEN ELIZABETHCatesby, I come. Lords, will you go with me?

RIVERSWe wait upon[324] your grace.

Exeunt all but [Richard of] Gloucester

325

RICHARDI do the wrong, and first begin to brawl.

The secret mischiefs[326] that I set abroach

I lay[327] unto the grievous charge of others.

Clarence, who I indeed have cast in darkness,[328]

I do beweep[329] to many simple gulls —

330

Namely, to Derby, Hastings, Buckingham —

And tell them ’tis the queen and her allies[331]

That stir[332] the king against the duke my brother.

Now they believe it, and withal whet[333] me

To be revenged on Rivers, Dorset, Grey.

335

But then I sigh, and with a piece of scripture,

Tell them that God bids us do good for evil:

And thus I clothe my naked villainy

With odd old ends[338] stol’n forth of holy writ,

And seem a saint when most I play the devil.

Enter two Murderers

340

But, soft, here come my executioners.—

How now, my hardy,[341] stout-resolvèd mates,

Are you now going to dispatch[342] this thing?

FIRST MURDERERWe are, my lord, and come to have the warrant

That we may be admitted where he is.

345

RICHARDWell thought upon. I have it here about me. Gives the warrant

When you have done, repair[346] to Crosby Place.

But, sirs, be sudden[347] in the execution,

Withal obdurate,[348] do not hear him plead;

For Clarence is well-spoken,[349] and perhaps

350

May move your hearts to pity if you mark[350] him.

FIRST MURDERERTut, tut! My lord, we will not stand to prate:[351]

Talkers are no good doers. Be assured

We go to use our hands and not our tongues.

RICHARDYour eyes drop millstones[354] when fools’ eyes fall tears.

355

I like you, lads. About your business straight.[355]

Go, go, dispatch.

FIRST MURDERERWe will, my noble lord.

[Exeunt]

Act 1 Scene 41.4

running scene 3

Enter Clarence and Keeper

KEEPERWhy looks your grace so heavily[1] today?

CLARENCEO, I have passed a miserable night,

So full of fearful dreams, of ugly sights,

That, as I am a Christian faithful man,

5

I would not spend[5] another such a night,

Though ’twere[6] to buy a world of happy days,

So full of dismal[7] terror was the time.

KEEPERWhat was your dream, my lord? I pray you tell me.

CLARENCEMethoughts that I had broken from the Tower,

10

And was embarked to cross to Burgundy,

And in my company my brother Gloucester,

Who from my cabin tempted me to walk

Upon the hatches:[13] there we looked toward England,

And cited up[14] a thousand heavy times,

15

During the wars of York and Lancaster

That had befall’n us. As we paced along

Upon the giddy[17] footing of the hatches,

Methought that Gloucester stumbled, and in falling

Struck me, that thought to stay[19] him, overboard,

20

Into the tumbling billows of the main.[20]

O lord, methought, what pain it was to drown!

What dreadful noise of water in mine ears,

What sights of ugly death within mine eyes.

Methoughts I saw a thousand fearful wrecks:

25

A thousand men that fishes gnawed upon:

Wedges of gold, great anchors, heaps of pearl,

Inestimable[27] stones, unvalued jewels,

All scattered in the bottom of the sea.

Some lay in dead men’s skulls, and in the holes

30

Where eyes did once inhabit, there were crept,

As ’twere in scorn of eyes, reflecting gems,

That wooed the slimy bottom of the deep,

And mocked the dead bones that lay scattered by.

KEEPERHad you such leisure in the time of death

35

To gaze upon these secrets of the deep?

CLARENCEMethought I had, and often did I strive

To yield the ghost.[37] But still the envious flood

Stopped in[38] my soul, and would not let it forth

To find the empty, vast[39] and wand’ring air,

40

But smothered it within my panting bulk,[40]

Which almost burst to belch it in the sea.

KEEPERAwaked you not in this sore[42] agony?

CLARENCENo, no, my dream was lengthened after life.

O, then began the tempest to my soul,

45

I passed, methought, the melancholy flood,[45]

With that sour ferryman[46] which poets write of,

Unto the kingdom[47] of perpetual night.

The first that there did greet my stranger[48] soul,

Was my great father-in-law, renownèd Warwick,

50

Who spake aloud, ‘What scourge for perjury[50]

Can this dark monarchy[51] afford false Clarence?’

And so he vanished. Then came wand’ring by

A shadow[53] like an angel, with bright hair

Dabbled in blood, and he shrieked[54] out aloud,

55

‘Clarence is come: false, fleeting,[55] perjured Clarence,

That stabbed me in the field[56] by Tewkesbury.

Seize on him, Furies,[57] take him unto torment!’

With that, methought, a legion[58] of foul fiends

Environed[59] me, and howlèd in mine ears

60

Such hideous cries, that with the very noise

I trembling waked, and for a season[61] after

Could not believe but that I was in hell,

Such terrible impression made the dream.

KEEPERNo marvel, lord, though[64] it affrighted you,

65

I am afraid, methinks, to hear you tell it.

CLARENCEAh, keeper, keeper, I have done these things,

That now give evidence against my soul,

For Edward’s sake, and see how he requites[68] me.

O God! If my deep prayers cannot appease thee,

70

But thou wilt be avenged on my misdeeds,

Yet execute thy wrath in me alone,

O, spare my guiltless wife and my poor children.

Keeper, I prithee[73] sit by me awhile.

My soul is heavy,[74] and I fain would sleep.

75

KEEPERI will, my lord. God give your grace good rest. Clarence sleeps

Enter Brackenbury, the Lieutenant

BRACKENBURYSorrow breaks[76] seasons and reposing hours,

Makes the night morning, and the noontide[77] night.

Princes have but their titles for[78] their glories,

An outward honour for[79] an inward toil,

80

And, for[80] unfelt imaginations,

They often feel a world of restless cares:[81]

So that between their titles and low name,[82]

There’s nothing differs but the outward fame.[83]

Enter [the] two Murderers

FIRST MURDERERHo, who’s here?

BRACKENBURYWhat wouldst thou, fellow? And how cam’st thou hither?

SECOND MURDERERI would speak with Clarence, and I came hither on my legs.

BRACKENBURYWhat, so brief?

FIRST MURDERER’Tis better, sir, than to be tedious. Gives Brackenbury a paper Let him see our commission, and talk no more.

90

BRACKENBURYI am in this commanded to deliver

Reads

The noble Duke of Clarence to your hands.

I will not reason[92] what is meant hereby,

Because I will[93] be guiltless from the meaning.

There lies the duke asleep, and there the keys.

95

I’ll to the king and signify to[95] him

That thus I have resigned to you my charge.

Exit

FIRST MURDERERYou may, sir, ’tis a point of wisdom. Fare you well.

SECOND MURDERERWhat, shall we stab him as he sleeps?

FIRST MURDERERNo: he’ll say ’twas done cowardly, when he wakes.

SECOND MURDERERWhy he shall never wake until the great judgement day.

FIRST MURDERERWhy, then he’ll say we stabbed him sleeping.

SECOND MURDERERThe urging of[102] that word ‘judgement’ hath bred a kind of remorse in me.

FIRST MURDERERWhat? Art thou afraid?

SECOND MURDERERNot to kill him, having a warrant, but to be damned for killing him, from the which no warrant can defend me.

FIRST MURDERERI thought thou hadst been resolute.

SECOND MURDERERSo I am, to let him live.

FIRST MURDERERI’ll back to the Duke of Gloucester and tell him so.

SECOND MURDERERNay, I prithee stay[110] a little. I hope this passionate humour of mine will change. It[111] was wont to hold me but while one tells twenty. They pause or count to twenty

FIRST MURDERERHow dost thou feel thyself now?

SECOND MURDERERSome certain dregs of conscience are yet within me.

FIRST MURDERERRemember our reward, when the deed’s done.

SECOND MURDERERCome, he dies. I had forgot the reward.

FIRST MURDERERWhere’s thy conscience now?

SECOND MURDERERO, in the Duke of Gloucester’s purse.

FIRST MURDERERWhen he opens his purse to give us our reward, thy conscience flies out.

SECOND MURDERER’Tis no matter, let it go. There’s few or none will entertain[120] it.

FIRST MURDERERWhat if it come to thee again?

SECOND MURDERERI’ll not meddle with it: it makes a man a coward. A man cannot steal, but it accuseth him: a man cannot swear, but it checks[123] him: a man cannot lie[124] with his neighbour’s wife, but it detects him. ’Tis a blushing shamefaced spirit that mutinies in a man’s bosom: it fills a man full of obstacles: it made me once restore[126] a purse of gold that, by chance, I found: it beggars any man that keeps it: it is turned out of towns and cities for[127] a dangerous thing: and every man that means to live well[128] endeavours to trust to himself and live without it.

FIRST MURDERER’Tis even now at my elbow, persuading me not to kill the duke.

SECOND MURDERERTake the devil in thy mind, and believe him[130] not: he would insinuate[131] with thee but to make thee sigh.

FIRST MURDERERI am strong-framed, he cannot prevail with me.

SECOND MURDERERSpoke like a tall[133] man that respects thy reputation. Come, shall we fall to work?

FIRST MURDERERTake[135] him on the costard with the hilts of thy sword, and then throw him into the malmsey-butt[136] in the next room.

SECOND MURDERERO, excellent device;[137] and make a sop of him.

FIRST MURDERERSoft, he wakes.

SECOND MURDERERStrike!

140

FIRST MURDERERNo, we’ll reason[140] with him.

CLARENCEWhere art thou, keeper? Give me a cup of wine.

SECOND MURDERERYou shall have wine enough, my lord, anon.[142]

CLARENCEIn God’s name, what art thou?

FIRST MURDERERA man, as you are.

145

CLARENCEBut not, as I am, royal.

FIRST MURDERERNor you, as we are, loyal.

CLARENCEThy voice is thunder, but thy looks are humble.

FIRST MURDERERMy voice is now the king’s, my looks mine own.

CLARENCEHow darkly and how deadly dost thou speak!

150

Your eyes do menace me: why look you pale?

Who sent you hither? Wherefore[151] do you come?

SECOND MURDERERTo, to, to—

CLARENCETo murder me?

BOTHAy, ay.

155

CLARENCEYou scarcely have the hearts to tell me so,

And therefore cannot have the hearts to do it.

Wherein, my friends, have I offended you?

FIRST MURDEREROffended us you have not, but the king.

CLARENCEI shall be reconciled to him again.

160

SECOND MURDERERNever, my lord: therefore prepare to die.

CLARENCEAre you drawn forth[161] among a world of men

To slay the innocent? What is my offence?

Where is the evidence that doth accuse me?

What lawful quest[164] have given their verdict up

165

Unto the frowning judge? Or who pronounced

The bitter sentence of poor Clarence’ death,

Before I be convict[167] by course of law?

To threaten me with death is most unlawful.

I charge[169] you, as you hope for any goodness

170

That you depart and lay no hands on me.

The deed you undertake is damnable.

FIRST MURDERERWhat we will do, we do upon command.

SECOND MURDERERAnd he that hath commanded is our king.

CLARENCEErroneous[174] vassals, the great king of kings

175

Hath in the table[175] of his law commanded

That thou shalt do no murder.[176] Will you then

Spurn at[177] his edict and fulfil a man’s?

Take heed, for he holds vengeance in his hand,

To hurl upon their heads that break his law.

180

SECOND MURDERERAnd that same vengeance doth he hurl on thee,

For false forswearing[181] and for murder, too.

Thou didst receive the sacrament[182] to fight

In quarrel of[183] the house of Lancaster.

FIRST MURDERERAnd, like a traitor to the name of God,

185

Didst break that vow, and with thy treacherous blade

Unripp’dst[186] the bowels of thy sovereign’s son.

SECOND MURDERERWhom thou wast sworn to cherish and defend.

FIRST MURDERERHow canst thou urge God’s dreadful[188] law to us,

When thou hast broke it in such dear[189] degree?

190

CLARENCEAlas, for whose sake did I that ill deed?

For Edward, for my brother, for his sake.

He sends you not to murder me for this,

For in that sin he is as deep as I.

If God will be avengèd for the deed,

195

O, know you yet he doth it publicly.

Take not the quarrel[196] from his powerful arm:

He needs no indirect[197] or lawless course

To cut off[198] those that have offended him.

FIRST MURDERERWho made thee, then, a bloody[199] minister,

200

When gallant-springing[200] brave Plantagenet,

That princely novice,[201] was struck dead by thee?

CLARENCEMy brother’s love,[202] the devil and my rage.

FIRST MURDERERThy brother’s love, our duty and thy faults,

Provoke us hither now to slaughter thee.

205

CLARENCEIf you do love my brother, hate not me.

I am his brother and I love him well.

If you are hired for meed,[207] go back again,

And I will send you to my brother Gloucester,

Who shall reward you better for my life

210

Than Edward will for tidings of my death.

SECOND MURDERERYou are deceived, your brother Gloucester hates you.

CLARENCEO no, he loves me, and he holds me dear.

Go you to him from me.

FIRST MURDERERAy, so we will.

215

CLARENCETell him, when that our princely father York

Blessed his three sons with his victorious arm,

He little thought of this divided friendship.[217]

Bid Gloucester think on this, and he will weep.

FIRST MURDERERAy, millstones, as he lessoned[219] us to weep.

220

CLARENCEO, do not slander him, for he is kind.[220]

FIRST MURDERERRight, as snow in harvest.

Come, you deceive yourself:

’Tis he that sends us to destroy you here.

CLARENCEIt cannot be, for he bewept my fortune,

225

And hugged me in his arms, and swore, with sobs

That he would labour my delivery.[226]

FIRST MURDERERWhy, so he doth, when he delivers you

From this earth’s thraldom[228] to the joys of heaven.

SECOND MURDERERMake peace with God, for you must die, my lord.

230

CLARENCEHave you that holy feeling[230] in your souls

To counsel me to make my peace with God,

And are you yet to your own souls so blind

That you will war with God by murd’ring me?

O, sirs, consider, they that set you on

235

To do this deed will hate you for the deed.

SECOND MURDERERWhat shall we do? To First Murderer

CLARENCERelent, and save your souls.

Which of you, if you were a prince’s son,

Being pent[239] from liberty, as I am now,

240

If two such murderers as yourselves came to you,

Would not entreat for life as you would beg,

Were you in my distress?

FIRST MURDERERRelent? No: ’tis cowardly and womanish.

CLARENCENot to relent is beastly,[244] savage, devilish.

245

My friend, I spy some pity in thy looks. To Second Murderer

O, if thine eye be not a flatterer,

Come thou on my side, and entreat for me,

A begging prince what beggar pities not?

SECOND MURDERERLook behind you, my lord.

250

FIRST MURDERERTake that, and that: if all this will not do,

Stabs him

I’ll drown you in the malmsey-butt within.

Exit [with the body]

SECOND MURDERERA bloody deed, and desperately dispatched.[252]

How fain,[253] like Pilate, would I wash my hands

Of this most grievous murder!

Enter First Murderer

255

FIRST MURDERERHow now? What mean’st thou, that thou help’st me not?

By heaven, the duke shall know how slack you have been!

SECOND MURDERERI would he knew that I had saved his brother.

Take thou the fee, and tell him what I say,

For I repent me that the duke is slain.

Exit

260

FIRST MURDERERSo do not I. Go, coward as thou art.

Well, I’ll go hide the body in some hole

Till that the duke give order for his burial.

And when I have my meed, I will away,

For this will out,[264] and then I must not stay.

Exit

Act 2 Scene 12.1

running scene 4

Flourish. Enter the King, sick, the Queen, Lord Marquis Dorset, Rivers, Hastings, Catesby, Buckingham, Woodville [and others]

KING EDWARD IVWhy, so. Now have I done a good day’s work.

You peers, continue this united league.

I every day expect an embassage[3]

From my redeemer to redeem me hence,

5

And more to peace my soul shall part to heaven,

Since I have made my friends at peace on earth.—

Dorset and Rivers, take each other’s hand:

Dissemble not[8] your hatred, swear your love.

RIVERSBy heaven, my soul is purged from[9] grudging hate,

10

And with my hand I seal my true[10] heart’s love. Gives his hand to Hastings

HASTINGSSo thrive I,[11] as I truly swear the like!

KING EDWARD IVTake heed you dally[12] not before your king,

Lest he that is the supreme king of kings[13]

Confound[14] your hidden falsehood, and award

15

Either of you to be the other’s end.[15]

HASTINGSSo prosper I, as I swear perfect love.

RIVERSAnd I, as I love Hastings with my heart.

KING EDWARD IVMadam, yourself is not exempt from this,

Nor you, son[19] Dorset, Buckingham, nor you;

20

You have been factious[20] one against the other.

Wife, love Lord Hastings: let him kiss your hand,

And what you do, do it unfeignedly.[22]

QUEEN ELIZABETHThere, Hastings, I will never more remember

Our former hatred, so thrive I and mine.

25

KING EDWARD IVDorset, embrace him.— Hastings, love Lord Marquis.

DORSETThis interchange of love, I here protest,[26]

Upon my part shall be inviolable.

HASTINGSAnd so swear I. They embrace

KING EDWARD IVNow, princely Buckingham, seal thou this league

30

With thy embracements to my wife’s allies,[30]

And make me happy in your unity.

BUCKINGHAMWhenever Buckingham doth turn his hate To the Queen

Upon your grace, but[33] with all duteous love

Doth cherish you and yours, God punish me

35

With hate in those where I expect most love.

When I have most need to employ a friend,

And most assurèd that he is a friend,

Deep,[38] hollow, treacherous, and full of guile

Be he unto me. This do I beg of heaven,

40

When I am cold in love to you or yours.

Embrace

KING EDWARD IVA pleasing cordial,[41] princely Buckingham,

Is this thy vow unto my sickly heart.

There wanteth[43] now our brother Gloucester here,

To make the blessed period[44] of this peace.

45

BUCKINGHAMAnd, in good time,[45]

Here comes Sir Richard Ratcliffe and the duke.

Enter Ratcliffe and [Richard of] Gloucester

RICHARDGood morrow[47] to my sovereign king and queen.

And, princely peers, a happy time of day!

KING EDWARD IVHappy, indeed, as we have spent the day.

50

Gloucester, we have done deeds of charity,

Made peace of enmity, fair love of hate,

Between these swelling[52] wrong-incensed peers.

RICHARDA blessèd labour, my most sovereign lord.

Among this princely heap,[54] if any here,

55

By false intelligence,[55] or wrong surmise,

Hold me a foe, if I unwillingly, or in my rage,

Have aught committed that is hardly borne[57]

To any in this presence, I desire

To reconcile me to his friendly peace.

60

’Tis death to me to be at enmity:

I hate it, and desire all good men’s love.—

First, madam, I entreat true peace of you,

Which I will purchase with my duteous service.—

Of you, my noble cousin Buckingham,

65

If ever any grudge were lodged between us.—

Of you and you, Lord Rivers, and of Dorset,

That all without desert[67] have frowned on me.—

Of you, Lord Woodville, and, Lord Scales,[68] of you:

Dukes, earls, lords, gentlemen, indeed, of all.

70

I do not know that Englishman alive

With whom my soul is any jot at odds

More than the[72] infant that is born tonight.

I thank my God for my humility.

QUEEN ELIZABETHA holy day shall this be kept hereafter.

75

I would to God all strifes were well compounded.[75]—

My sovereign lord, I do beseech your highness

To take our brother Clarence to your grace.[77]

RICHARDWhy, madam, have I offered love for this

To be so flouted[79] in this royal presence?

80

Who knows not that the gentle[80] duke is dead?

They all start

You do him injury to scorn his corpse.

KING EDWARD IVWho knows not he is dead? Who knows he is?

QUEEN ELIZABETHAll-seeing heaven, what a world is this?

BUCKINGHAMLook I so pale, Lord Dorset, as the rest?

85

DORSETAy, my good lord, and no man in the presence

But his red colour hath forsook[86] his cheeks.

KING EDWARD IVIs Clarence dead? The order was reversed.

RICHARDBut he, poor man, by your first order died,

And that[89] a wingèd Mercury did bear:

90

Some tardy[90] cripple bare the countermand,

That came too lag[91] to see him burièd.

God[92] grant that some, less noble and less loyal,

Nearer in bloody thoughts, and not in blood,

Deserve not worse than wretched Clarence did,

95

And yet go current from suspicion.

Enter [Lord Stanley,] Earl of Derby

DERBYA boon,[96] my sovereign, for my service done. Kneels

KING EDWARD IVI prithee peace. My soul is full of sorrow.

DERBYI will not rise, unless your highness hear me.

KING EDWARD IVThen say at once what is it thou requests.

100

DERBYThe forfeit,[100] sovereign, of my servant’s life, Rises

Who slew today a riotous gentleman

Lately attendant on the Duke of Norfolk.

KING EDWARD IVHave I a tongue to doom[103] my brother’s death,

And shall that tongue give pardon to a slave?

105

My brother killed no man: his fault was thought,

And yet his punishment was bitter death.

Who sued[107] to me for him? Who, in my wrath,

Kneeled at my feet, and bid me be advised?[108]

Who spoke of brotherhood? Who spoke of love?

110

Who told me how the poor soul did forsake[110]

The mighty Warwick and did fight for me?

Who told me, in the field[112] at Tewkesbury

When Oxford had me down,[113] he rescued me,

And said, ‘Dear brother, live, and be a king’?

115

Who told me, when we both lay in the field,

Frozen almost to death, how he did lap[116] me

Even in his garments, and did give himself,

All thin[118] and naked, to the numb cold night?

All this from my remembrance[119] brutish wrath

120

Sinfully plucked, and not a man of you

Had so much grace to put it in my mind.

But when your carters[122] or your waiting vassals

Have done a drunken slaughter, and defaced[123]

The precious image of our dear Redeemer,

125

You straight[125] are on your knees for pardon, pardon,

And I, unjustly too, must grant it you.

But[127] for my brother not a man would speak,

Nor I, ungracious,[128] speak unto myself

For him, poor soul. The proudest[129] of you all

130

Have been beholding[130] to him in his life,

Yet none of you would once beg for his life.

O God, I fear thy justice will take hold

On[133] me, and you, and mine, and yours for this!—

Come, Hastings, help me to my closet.[134]

135

Ah, poor Clarence.

Exeunt some with King and Queen

RICHARDThis is the fruits of rashness. Marked[136] you not

How that the guilty kindred of the queen

Looked pale when they did hear of Clarence’ death?

O, they did urge it still[139] unto the king!

140

God will revenge it. Come, lords, will you go

To comfort Edward with our company.

BUCKINGHAMWe wait upon your grace.

Exeunt

Act 2 Scene 2

running scene 4 continues

Enter the old Duchess of York with the two children of Clarence

BOYGood grandam,[1] tell us, is our father dead?

DUCHESS OF YORKNo, boy.

DAUGHTERWhy do you weep so oft, and beat your breast,

And cry ‘O Clarence, my unhappy son’?

5

BOYWhy do you look on us, and shake your head,

And call us orphans, wretches,[6] castaways,

If that our noble father were alive?

DUCHESS OF YORKMy pretty cousins,[8] you mistake me both:

I do lament the sickness of the king,

10

As[10] loath to lose him, not your father’s death.

It were lost[11] sorrow to wail one that’s lost.

BOYThen you conclude, my grandam, he is dead.

The king mine uncle is to blame for it.

God will revenge it, whom I will importune[14]

15

With earnest prayers all to that effect.

DAUGHTERAnd so will I.

DUCHESS OF YORKPeace, children, peace. The king doth love you well.

Incapable[18] and shallow innocents,

You cannot guess who caused your father’s death.

20

BOYGrandam, we can, for my good uncle Gloucester

Told me the king, provoked to it by the queen,

Devised impeachments[22] to imprison him;

And when my uncle told me so, he wept,

And pitied me, and kindly[24] kissed my cheek,

25

Bade me rely on him as on my father,

And he would love me dearly as a child.

DUCHESS OF YORKAh, that deceit should steal such gentle shape,[27]

And with a virtuous visor[28] hide deep vice!

He is my son — ay, and therein my shame.

30

Yet from my dugs[30] he drew not this deceit.

BOYThink you my uncle did dissemble, grandam?

DUCHESS OF YORKAy, boy.

BOYI cannot think it. Hark, what noise is this? Wailing within

Enter the Queen with her hair about her ears, Rivers and Dorset after her

QUEEN ELIZABETHAh, who shall hinder me to wail and weep,

35

To chide[35] my fortune, and torment myself?

I’ll join with black[36] despair against my soul,

And to[37] myself become an enemy.

DUCHESS OF YORKWhat means this scene of rude impatience?[38]

QUEEN ELIZABETHTo make an act[39] of tragic violence.

40

Edward, my lord, thy son, our king, is dead.

Why grow the branches when the root is gone?

Why wither not the leaves that want[42] their sap?

If you will live, lament: if die, be brief,[43]

That our swift-wingèd souls may catch[44] the king’s,

45

Or, like obedient subjects, follow him

To his new kingdom of ne’er-changing night.

DUCHESS OF YORKAh, so much interest[47] have I in thy sorrow

As I had title in[48] thy noble husband.

I have bewept a worthy husband’s death,

50

And lived with looking on his images:[50]

But now two mirrors[51] of his princely semblance

Are cracked in pieces by malignant death,

And I for comfort have but one false glass,[53]

That grieves me when I see my shame in him.

55

Thou art a widow, yet thou art a mother,

And hast the comfort of thy children left.

But death hath snatched my husband from mine arms,

And plucked two crutches from my feeble hands,

Clarence and Edward. O, what cause have I,

60

Thine being but a moiety[60] of my moan,

To overgo[61] thy woes and drown thy cries.

BOYAh, aunt, you wept not for our father’s death: To the Queen

How can we aid you with our kindred[63] tears?

DAUGHTEROur fatherless distress was left unmoaned.[64]

65

Your widow-dolour[65] likewise be unwept. To the Queen

QUEEN ELIZABETHGive me no help in lamentation,

I am not barren to[67] bring forth complaints.

All springs reduce[68] their currents to mine eyes,

That I, being governed by the watery moon,[69]

70

May send forth plenteous tears to drown the world.

Ah, for my husband, for my dear lord Edward!

CHILDRENAh, for our father, for our dear lord Clarence!

DUCHESS OF YORKAlas for both, both mine, Edward and Clarence!

QUEEN ELIZABETHWhat stay[74] had I but Edward? And he’s gone.

75

CHILDRENWhat stay had we but Clarence? And he’s gone.

DUCHESS OF YORKWhat stays had I but they? And they are gone.

QUEEN ELIZABETHWas never widow[77] had so dear a loss.

CHILDRENWere never orphans had so dear a loss!

DUCHESS OF YORKWas never mother had so dear a loss.

80

Alas, I am the mother of these griefs!

Their woes are parcelled,[81] mine is general.

She for an Edward weeps, and so do I:

I for a Clarence weep, so doth not she:

These babes for Clarence weep, and so do I:

85

I for an Edward weep, so do not they.

Alas, you three, on me, threefold distressed,

Pour all your tears! I am your sorrow’s nurse,[87]

And I will pamper[88] it with lamentation.

DORSETComfort, dear mother. God is much displeased To the Queen

90

That you take with unthankfulness, his doing.

In common worldly things, ’tis called ungrateful,

With dull[92] unwillingness to repay a debt

Which with a bounteous hand was kindly lent,

Much more to be thus opposite[94] with heaven,

95

For it requires[95] the royal debt it lent you.

RIVERSMadam, bethink you, like a careful[96] mother

Of the young prince your son: send straight for him

Let him be crowned. In him your comfort lives.

Drown desperate sorrow in dead Edward’s grave

100

And plant your joys in living Edward’s throne.

Enter Richard, Buckingham, [Stanley, Earl of] Derby, Hastings and Ratcliffe

RICHARDSister, have comfort. All of us have cause To the Queen

To wail the dimming of our shining star,

But none can help our harms by wailing them.—

Madam, my mother, I do cry you mercy:[104] Kneels

105

I did not see your grace. Humbly on my knee

I crave your blessing.

DUCHESS OF YORKGod bless thee, and put meekness[107] in thy breast,

Love, charity, obedience and true duty. Richard rises

RICHARDAmen.— And make me die a good old man. Aside

110

That is the butt-end[110] of a mother’s blessing;

I marvel that her grace[111] did leave it out.

BUCKINGHAMYou cloudy[112] princes and heart-sorrowing peers,

That bear this heavy mutual load of moan,[113]

Now cheer each other in each other’s love.

115

Though we have spent our harvest of this king,

We are to reap the harvest of his son.

The broken rancour[117] of your high-swoll’n hates,

But lately splintered,[118] knit, and joined together,

Must gently be preserved, cherished, and kept.[119]

120

Meseemeth[120] good, that, with some little train,

Forthwith[121] from Ludlow the young prince be fet

Hither to London, to be crowned our king.

RIVERSWhy with some little train, my lord of Buckingham?

BUCKINGHAMMarry, my lord, lest by a multitude,[124]

125

The new-healed wound of malice should break out,

Which would be so much the more dangerous

By how much the estate[127] is green and yet ungoverned.

Where[128] every horse bears his commanding rein,

And may direct his course as please himself,

130

As[130] well the fear of harm, as harm apparent,

In my opinion, ought to be prevented.

RICHARDI hope the king made peace with[132] all of us,

And the compact[133] is firm and true in me.

RIVERSAnd so in me, and so, I think, in all.

135

Yet since it is but green,[135] it should be put

To no apparent[136] likelihood of breach,

Which haply[137] by much company might be urged:

Therefore I say with noble Buckingham,

That it is meet[139] so few should fetch the prince.

140

HASTINGSAnd so say I.

RICHARDThen be it so, and go we to determine

Who they shall be that straight shall post[142] to Ludlow.

Madam, and you my sister, will you go

To give your censures[144] in this business? Exeunt. Buckingham and Richard remain

145

BUCKINGHAMMy lord, whoever journeys to the prince,

For God’s sake, let not us two stay at home.

For by[147] the way I’ll sort occasion,

As index[148] to the story we late talked of,

To part the queen’s proud kindred from the prince.

150

RICHARDMy other self, my counsel’s[150] consistory,

My oracle, my prophet, my dear cousin,

I, as a child, will go by thy direction.[152]

Towards Ludlow then, for we’ll not stay behind.

Exeunt

Act 2 Scene 32.3

running scene 5

Enter one Citizen at one door, and another at the other

FIRST CITIZENGood morrow, neighbour. Whither away so fast?

SECOND CITIZENI promise you, I scarcely know myself.

Hear you the news abroad?[3]

FIRST CITIZENYes, that the king is dead.

5

SECOND CITIZENIll news, by’r lady,[5] seldom comes the better:

I fear, I fear ’twill prove a giddy[6] world.

Enter another Citizen

THIRD CITIZENNeighbours, God speed.[7]

FIRST CITIZENGive[8] you good morrow, sir.

THIRD CITIZENDoth[9] the news hold of good King Edward’s death?

10

SECOND CITIZENAy, sir, it is too true, God[10] help the while.

THIRD CITIZENThen, masters,[11] look to see a troublous world.

FIRST CITIZENNo, no. By God’s good grace his son shall reign.

THIRD CITIZENWoe to that land that’s governed by a child.

SECOND CITIZENIn him there is a hope of government,

15

Which in his nonage,[15] council under him,

And in his full and ripened years, himself,

No doubt shall then, and till then govern well.

FIRST CITIZENSo stood the state when Henry the Sixth

Was crowned in Paris but at nine months old.

20

THIRD CITIZENStood the state so?[20] No, no, good friends, God wot,

For then this land was famously enriched

With politic grave counsel;[22] then the king

Had virtuous uncles to protect[23] his grace.

FIRST CITIZENWhy, so hath this, both by his father and mother.

25

THIRD CITIZENBetter it were they all came by his father,

Or by his father there were none at all.

For emulation,[27] who shall now be nearest,

Will touch[28] us all too near, if God prevent not.

O, full of danger is the Duke of Gloucester,

30

And the queen’s sons and brothers haught[30] and proud:

And were they to be ruled, and not to rule,

This sickly land might solace[32] as before.

FIRST CITIZENCome, come, we fear the worst. All will be well.

THIRD CITIZENWhen clouds are seen, wise men put on their cloaks;

35

When great leaves fall, then winter is at hand;

When the sun sets, who doth not look for[36] night?

Untimely storms makes men expect a dearth.[37]

All may be well; but, if God sort[38] it so,

’Tis more than we deserve or I expect.

40

SECOND CITIZENTruly, the hearts of men are full of fear.

You cannot reason[41] almost with a man

That looks not heavily[42] and full of dread.

THIRD CITIZENBefore the days of change, still[43] is it so.

By a divine instinct men’s minds mistrust[44]

45

Pursuing danger. As by proof,[45] we see

The water swell before a boist’rous[46] storm.

But leave it all to God. Whither away?[47]

SECOND CITIZENMarry, we were sent for to the justices.[48]

THIRD CITIZENAnd so was I. I’ll bear you company.

Exeunt

Act 2 Scene 42.4

running scene 6

Enter [the] Archbishop, young York, the Queen and the Duchess

ARCHBISHOP OF YORKLast night, I heard, they lay[1] at Stony Stratford

And at Northampton[2] they do rest tonight.

Tomorrow, or next day, they will be here.

DUCHESS OF YORKI long with all my heart to see the prince.

5

I hope he is much grown since last I saw him.

QUEEN ELIZABETHBut I hear, no. They say my son of York

Has almost overta’en him in his growth.

YORKAy, mother, but I would not have it so.

DUCHESS OF YORKWhy, my good cousin,[9] it is good to grow.

10

YORKGrandam, one night as we did sit at supper,

My uncle Rivers talked how I did grow

More than my brother. ‘Ay’, quoth my uncle Gloucester,

‘Small herbs have grace,[13] great weeds do grow apace.’

And since, methinks, I would not grow so fast,

15

Because sweet flowers are slow and weeds make haste.

DUCHESS OF YORKGood faith, good faith, the saying did not hold[16]

In him that did object the same[17] to thee.

He was the wretched’st thing when he was young,

So long a-growing and so leisurely,

20

That, if his rule were true, he should be gracious.

ARCHBISHOP OF YORKAnd so no doubt he is, my gracious madam.

DUCHESS OF YORKI hope he is, but yet let mothers doubt.

YORKNow, by my troth,[23] if I had been remembered,

I could have given my uncle’s grace a flout,[24]

25

To touch[25] his growth nearer than he touched mine.

DUCHESS OF YORKHow, my young York? I prithee let me hear it.

YORKMarry, they say my uncle grew so fast

That he could gnaw[28] a crust at two hours old.

’Twas full two years ere I could get a tooth.

30

Grandam, this would have been a biting[30] jest.

DUCHESS OF YORKI prithee, pretty York, who told thee this?

YORKGrandam, his nurse.

DUCHESS OF YORKHis nurse? Why, she was dead ere thou wast born.

YORKIf ’twere not she, I cannot tell who told me.

35

QUEEN ELIZABETHA parlous[35] boy. Go to, you are too shrewd.

DUCHESS OF YORKGood madam, be not angry with the child.

QUEEN ELIZABETHPitchers have ears.[37]

Enter a Messenger

ARCHBISHOP OF YORKHere comes a messenger. What news?

MESSENGERSuch news, my lord, as grieves me to report.

QUEEN ELIZABETHHow doth the prince?

MESSENGERWell, madam, and in health.

DUCHESS OF YORKWhat is thy news?

MESSENGERLord Rivers and Lord Grey are sent to Pomfret,[43]

And with them Sir Thomas Vaughan, prisoners.

45

DUCHESS OF YORKWho hath committed them?

MESSENGERThe mighty dukes, Gloucester and Buckingham.

ARCHBISHOP OF YORKFor what offence?

MESSENGERThe sum of all I can,[48] I have disclosed.

Why or for what the nobles were committed

50

Is all unknown to me, my gracious lord.

QUEEN ELIZABETHAy me, I see the ruin of my house.[51]

The tiger now hath seized the gentle hind,[52]

Insulting[53] tyranny begins to jut

Upon the innocent and aweless[54] throne.

55

Welcome, destruction, blood and massacre.

I see, as in a map,[56] the end of all.

DUCHESS OF YORKAccursed and unquiet wrangling days,

How many of you have mine eyes beheld?

My husband lost his life to get the crown,

60

And often up and down my sons were tossed,

For me to joy and weep their gain and loss.

And being seated,[62] and domestic broils

Clean overblown,[63] themselves the conquerors,

Make war upon themselves, brother to brother,

65

Blood to blood, self against self. O, preposterous[65]

And frantic outrage,[66] end thy damnèd spleen,

Or let me die, to look on earth no more!

QUEEN ELIZABETHCome, come, my boy, we will to sanctuary.[68]— To young York

Madam, farewell. To the Duchess

70

DUCHESS OF YORKStay, I will go with you.

QUEEN ELIZABETHYou have no cause.

ARCHBISHOP OF YORKMy gracious lady, go,

And thither bear your treasure and your goods.

For my part, I’ll resign unto your grace

75

The seal[75] I keep: and so betide to me

As well I tender you and all of yours!

Go, I’ll conduct you to the sanctuary.

Exeunt

Act 3 Scene 13.1

running scene 7

The trumpets sound. Enter young Prince [Edward], the Dukes of Gloucester [Richard] and Buckingham, Lord Cardinal with others

BUCKINGHAMWelcome, sweet prince, to London, to your chamber.[1]

RICHARDWelcome, dear cousin, my thoughts’ sovereign.[2]

The weary way hath made you melancholy.

PRINCE EDWARDNo, uncle, but our crosses[4] on the way

5

Have made it tedious, wearisome, and heavy.[5]

I want[6] more uncles here to welcome me.

RICHARDSweet prince, the untainted virtue of your years

Hath not yet dived into the world’s deceit.

No more can you distinguish of a man

10

Than of his outward show, which — God he knows —

Seldom or never jumpeth[11] with the heart.

Those uncles which you want were dangerous:

Your grace attended[13] to their sugared words,

But looked not on the poison of their hearts.

15

God keep you from them, and from such false friends.

PRINCE EDWARDGod keep me from false friends, but they were none.

RICHARDMy lord, the Mayor of London comes to greet you.

Enter Lord Mayor

LORD MAYORGod bless your grace with health and happy days.

PRINCE EDWARDI thank you, good my lord, and thank you all.—

20

I thought my mother, and my brother York,

Would long ere[21] this have met us on the way.

Fie, what a slug[22] is Hastings, that he comes not

To tell us whether they will come or no.

Enter Lord Hastings

BUCKINGHAMAnd, in good time, here comes the sweating lord.

25

PRINCE EDWARDWelcome, my lord. What, will our mother come?

HASTINGSOn what occasion,[26] God he knows, not I,

The queen your mother, and your brother York,

Have taken sanctuary. The tender[28] prince

Would fain[29] have come with me to meet your grace,

30

But by his mother was perforce[30] withheld.

BUCKINGHAMFie, what an indirect[31] and peevish course

Is this of hers?— Lord Cardinal, will your grace

Persuade the queen to send the Duke of York

Unto his princely brother presently?[34]—

35

If she deny, Lord Hastings, go with him,

And from her jealous[36] arms pluck him perforce.

CARDINALMy lord of Buckingham, if my weak oratory[37]

Can from his mother win the Duke of York,

Anon[39] expect him here. But if she be obdurate

40

To mild entreaties, God forbid

We should infringe the holy privilege

Of blessèd sanctuary. Not for all this land

Would I be guilty of so great a sin.

BUCKINGHAMYou are too senseless[44] obstinate, my lord,

45

Too ceremonious and traditional.

Weigh[46] it but with the grossness of this age,

You break not sanctuary in seizing him.

The benefit[48] thereof is always granted

To those whose dealings[49] have deserved the place,

50

And those who have the wit[50] to claim the place:

This prince hath neither claimed it nor deserved it,

And therefore, in mine opinion, cannot have it.

Then, taking him from thence[53] that is not there,

You break no privilege nor charter[54] there.

55

Oft have I heard of sanctuary men,

But sanctuary children ne’er till now.

CARDINALMy lord, you shall o’er-rule my mind for once.—

Come on, Lord Hastings, will you go with me?

HASTINGSI go, my lord.

Exeunt Cardinal and Hastings

60

PRINCE EDWARDGood lords, make all the speedy haste you may.—

Say, uncle Gloucester, if our brother come,

Where shall we sojourn[62] till our coronation?

RICHARDWhere it think’st best unto your royal self.

If I may counsel you, some day or two

65

Your highness shall repose you[65] at the Tower:

Then where you please, and shall be thought most fit

For your best health and recreation.

PRINCE EDWARDI do not like the Tower, of any place.[68]—

Did Julius Caesar build that place, my lord? To Buckingham

70

BUCKINGHAMHe did, my gracious lord, begin that place,

Which, since, succeeding ages have re-edified.[71]

PRINCE EDWARDIs it upon record?[72] Or else reported

Successively from age to age, he built it?

BUCKINGHAMUpon record, my gracious lord.

75

PRINCE EDWARDBut say, my lord, it were not registered,[75]

Methinks the truth should live from age to age,

As ’twere retailed[77] to all posterity,

Even to the general ending day.[78]

RICHARDSo[79] wise so young, they say, do never live long. Aside

80

PRINCE EDWARDWhat say you, uncle?

RICHARDI say, without characters,[81] fame lives long.—

Thus, like the formal[82] Vice, Iniquity, Aside

I moralize[83] two meanings in one word.

PRINCE EDWARDThat Julius Caesar was a famous man.

85

With[85] what his valour did enrich his wit,

His wit set down to make his valour live.

Death makes no conquest of his conqueror,[87]

For now he lives in fame, though not in life.

I’ll tell you what, my cousin Buckingham—

90

BUCKINGHAMWhat, my gracious lord?

PRINCE EDWARDAn if[91] I live until I be a man,

I’ll win our ancient right in France again,

Or die a soldier, as I lived a king.

RICHARDShort summers lightly[94] have a forward spring. Aside

Enter young York, Hastings and Cardinal

95

BUCKINGHAMNow, in good time, here comes the Duke of York.

PRINCE EDWARDRichard of York, how fares our noble brother?

YORKWell, my dear lord, so must I call you now.

PRINCE EDWARDAy, brother, to our grief,[98] as it is yours:

Too late[99] he died that might have kept that title,

100

Which by his death hath lost much majesty.

RICHARDHow fares our cousin, noble lord of York?

YORKI thank you, gentle uncle. O, my lord,

You said that idle[103] weeds are fast in growth:

The prince my brother hath outgrown me far.

105

RICHARDHe hath, my lord.

YORKAnd therefore is he idle?

RICHARDO, my fair cousin, I must not say so.

YORKThen he is more beholding[108] to you than I.

RICHARDHe may command me as my sovereign,

110

But you have power in me as in[110] a kinsman.

YORKI pray you, uncle, give me this dagger.[111]

RICHARDMy dagger, little cousin? With[112] all my heart.

PRINCE EDWARDA beggar, brother?

YORKOf my kind uncle, that I know will give,

115

And being but a toy,[115] which is no grief to give.

RICHARDA greater gift than that I’ll give my cousin.

YORKA greater gift? O, that’s the sword to it.[117]

RICHARDAy, gentle cousin, were it light[118] enough.

YORKO, then, I see, you will part but with light gifts.

120

In weightier things you’ll say a beggar nay.[120]

RICHARDIt is too weighty for your grace to wear.

YORKI weigh it lightly,[122] were it heavier.

RICHARDWhat, would you have[123] my weapon, little lord?

YORKI would, that I might thank you as you call me.

125

RICHARDHow?

YORKLittle.

PRINCE EDWARDMy lord of York will still[127] be cross in talk.

Uncle, your grace knows how to bear with him.

YORKYou mean to bear me, not to bear with me.—

130

Uncle, my brother mocks both you and me,

Because that I am little, like[131] an ape,

He thinks that you should bear me on your shoulders.

BUCKINGHAMWith what a sharp-provided[133] wit he reasons! Aside

To mitigate[134] the scorn he gives his uncle,

135

He prettily[135] and aptly taunts himself.

So cunning[136] and so young is wonderful.

RICHARDMy lord, will’t please you pass along?

Myself and my good cousin Buckingham

Will to your mother, to entreat of her

140

To meet you at the Tower and welcome you.

YORKWhat, will you go unto the Tower, my lord?

PRINCE EDWARDMy Lord Protector will have it so.

YORKI shall not sleep in quiet at the Tower.

RICHARDWhy, what should you fear?

145

YORKMarry, my uncle Clarence’ angry ghost.

My grandam told me he was murdered there.

PRINCE EDWARDI fear no uncles dead.

RICHARDNor none that live, I hope.

PRINCE EDWARDAn if they live, I hope I need not fear.

150

But come, my lord and with a heavy heart,

Thinking on them, go I unto the Tower.

A sennet.

Exeunt Prince, York, Hastings and Dorset. Richard, Buckingham and Catesby remain

BUCKINGHAMThink you, my lord, this little prating[152] York

Was not incensèd[153] by his subtle mother

To taunt and scorn you thus opprobriously?[154]

155

RICHARDNo doubt, no doubt. O, ’tis a perilous[155] boy:

Bold, quick, ingenious, forward,[156] capable.

He is all the mother’s,[157] from the top to toe.

BUCKINGHAMWell, let them rest.[158]— Come hither, Catesby.

Thou art sworn as deeply[159] to effect what we intend

160

As closely[160] to conceal what we impart.

Thou know’st our reasons urged[161] upon the way,

What think’st thou? Is it not an easy matter

To make William Lord Hastings of[163] our mind,

For the instalment of this noble duke

165

In the seat royal of this famous isle?

CATESBYHe[166] for his father’s sake so loves the prince,

That he will not be won to aught[167] against him.

BUCKINGHAMWhat think’st thou, then, of Stanley? Will not he?

CATESBYHe will do all in all as Hastings doth.

170

BUCKINGHAMWell, then, no more but this: go, gentle Catesby,

And, as[171] it were far off sound thou Lord Hastings,

How he doth stand affected[172] to our purpose,

And summon him tomorrow to the Tower,

To sit[174] about the coronation.

175

If thou dost find him tractable to us,

Encourage him, and tell him all our reasons.

If he be leaden, icy-cold, unwilling,

Be thou so too, and so break off the talk,

And give us notice of his inclination,

180

For we tomorrow hold divided[180] councils,

Wherein thyself shalt highly[181] be employed.

RICHARDCommend me to Lord[182] William. Tell him, Catesby,

His ancient[183] knot of dangerous adversaries

Tomorrow are let blood[184] at Pomfret Castle,

185

And bid my lord, for joy of this good news,

Give Mistress[186] Shore one gentle kiss the more.

BUCKINGHAMGood Catesby, go effect this business soundly.

CATESBYMy good lords both, with all the heed[188] I can.

RICHARDShall we hear from you, Catesby, ere we sleep?

190

CATESBYYou shall, my lord.

RICHARDAt Crosby House, there shall you find us both.

Exit Catesby

BUCKINGHAMNow my lord, what shall we do if we perceive

Lord Hastings will not yield to our complots?[193]

RICHARDChop off his head: something we will determine:

195

And look when I am king, claim thou of me

The earldom of Hereford, and all the movables[196]

Whereof the king my brother was possessed.

BUCKINGHAMI’ll claim that promise at your grace’s hand.

RICHARDAnd look to have it yielded with all kindness.

200

Come, let us sup betimes,[200] that afterwards

We may digest[201] our complots in some form.

Exeunt

Act 3 Scene 23.2

running scene 8

Enter a Messenger to the door of Hastings

MESSENGERMy lord, my lord!

HASTINGSWho knocks? Within

MESSENGEROne from the lord Stanley.

HASTINGSWhat is’t o’clock? Within

5

MESSENGERUpon the stroke of four.

Enter Lord Hastings

HASTINGSCannot my lord Stanley sleep these tedious[6] nights?

MESSENGERSo it appears by that I have to say.

First, he commends him to your noble self.

HASTINGSWhat then?

10

MESSENGERThen certifies your lordship that this night

He dreamt the boar[11] had razèd off his helm.

Besides, he says there are two councils kept,

And that[13] may be determined at the one

Which may make you and him to rue[14] at th’other:

15

Therefore he sends to know your lordship’s pleasure,[15]

If you will presently[16] take horse with him,

And with all speed post[17] with him toward the north,

To shun the danger that his soul divines.

HASTINGSGo, fellow, go, return unto thy lord,

20

Bid him not fear the separated council:

His honour[21] and myself are at the one,

And at the other is my good friend Catesby,

Where nothing can proceed that toucheth[23] us

Whereof I shall not have intelligence.[24]

25

Tell him his fears are shallow, without instance.[25]

And for his dreams, I wonder he’s so simple

To trust the mock’ry[27] of unquiet slumbers.

To fly[28] the boar before the boar pursues,

Were[29] to incense the boar to follow us

30

And make pursuit where he did mean[30] no chase.

Go, bid thy master rise and come to me

And we will both together to the Tower,

Where he shall see the boar will use[33] us kindly.

MESSENGERI’ll go, my lord, and tell him what you say.

Exit

Enter Catesby

35

CATESBYMany good morrows to my noble lord.

HASTINGSGood morrow, Catesby. You are early stirring.

What news, what news, in this our tott’ring state?

CATESBYIt is a reeling world, indeed, my lord,

And I believe will never stand upright

40

Till Richard wear the garland[40] of the realm.

HASTINGSHow? Wear the garland? Dost thou mean the crown?

CATESBYAy, my good lord.

HASTINGSI’ll have this crown[43] of mine cut from my shoulders

Before I’ll see the crown so foul[44] misplaced.

45

But canst thou guess that he doth aim at it?

CATESBYAy, on my life, and hopes to find you forward[46]

Upon his party for the gain thereof:

And thereupon he sends you this good news,

That this same very day your enemies,

50

The kindred of the queen, must die at Pomfret.

HASTINGSIndeed, I am no mourner for that news,

Because they have been still my adversaries.

But that I’ll give my voice on Richard’s side

To bar my master’s[54] heirs in true descent,

55

God knows I will not do it, to the death.

CATESBYGod keep your lordship in that gracious mind.

HASTINGSBut I shall laugh at this a twelvemonth hence,

That they[58] which brought me in my master’s hate,

I live to look upon their tragedy.

60

Well, Catesby, ere a fortnight make me older,

I’ll send some packing that yet think not on’t.

CATESBY’Tis a vile thing to die, my gracious lord,

When men are unprepared and look not for it.

HASTINGSO, monstrous,[64] monstrous! And so falls it out

65

With Rivers, Vaughan, Grey: and so ’twill do

With some men else, that think themselves as safe

As thou and I — who, as thou know’st, are dear

To princely Richard and to Buckingham.

CATESBYThe princes both make high account[69] of you.—

70

For they account[70] his head upon the bridge. Aside

HASTINGSI know they do, and I have well deserved it.

Enter Lord Stanley [Earl of Derby]

Come on, come on, where is your boar-spear, man? To Derby

Fear you the boar, and go so unprovided?[73]

DERBYMy lord, good morrow.— Good morrow, Catesby.

75

You may jest on, but, by the holy rood,[75]

I do not like these several[76] councils, I.

HASTINGSMy lord, I hold my life as dear as yours,

And never in my days, I do protest,[78]

Was it so precious to me as ’tis now.

80

Think you, but that I know our state secure,

I would be so triumphant[81] as I am?

DERBYThe lords at Pomfret, when they rode from London,

Were jocund[83] and supposed their states were sure,

And they indeed had no cause to mistrust:[84]

85

But yet you see how soon the day o’ercast.

This[86] sudden stab of rancour I misdoubt:

Pray God, I say, I prove a needless coward.

What, shall we toward the Tower? The day is spent.[88]

HASTINGSCome, come, have with you.[89] Wot you what, my lord?

90

Today the lords you talk of are beheaded.

LORD DERBYThey, for their truth,[91] might better wear their heads

Than some that have accused them wear their hats.[92]

But come, my lord, let’s away.

Enter a Pursuivant

HASTINGSGo on before:[94] I’ll talk with this good fellow.—

Exeunt Derby and Catesby

95

How now, sirrah?[95] How goes the world with thee?

PURSUIVANTThe better that your lordship please to ask.

HASTINGSI tell thee, man, ’tis better with me now

Than when thou met’st me last where now we meet:

Then was I going prisoner to the Tower,

100

By the suggestion[100] of the queen’s allies.

But now, I tell thee — keep it to thyself —

This day those enemies are put to death,

And I in better state[103] than e’er I was.

PURSUIVANTGod hold[104] it to your honour’s good content.

105

HASTINGSGramercy,[105] fellow. There, drink that for me.

Throws him his purse

PURSUIVANTI thank your honour.

Exit

Enter a Priest

PRIESTWell met, my lord. I am glad to see your honour.

HASTINGSI thank thee, good Sir[108] John, with all my heart.

I[109] am in your debt for your last exercise:

110

Come the next Sabbath, and I will content[110] you. Whispers in his ear

PRIESTI’ll wait upon your lordship.

Enter Buckingham

BUCKINGHAMWhat, talking with a priest, Lord Chamberlain?

Your friends at Pomfret, they do need the priest:

Your honour hath no shriving work[114] in hand.

115

HASTINGSGood faith, and when I met this holy man,

The men you talk of came into my mind.

What, go you toward the Tower?

BUCKINGHAMI do, my lord, but long I cannot stay there.

I shall return before your lordship thence.[119]

120

HASTINGSNay, like enough, for I stay[120] dinner there.

BUCKINGHAMAnd supper too, although thou know’st it not.— Aside

Come, will you go?

HASTINGSI’ll wait upon your lordship.

Exeunt

Act 3 Scene 33.3

running scene 9

Enter Sir Richard Ratcliffe with Halberds, carrying the nobles [Rivers, Grey and Vaughan] to death at Pomfret

RIVERSSir Richard Ratcliffe, let me tell thee this:

Today shalt thou behold a subject die

For truth, for duty, and for loyalty.

GREYGod bless the prince from all the pack of you.

5

A knot[5] you are of damnèd blood-suckers!

VAUGHANYou live that shall cry woe for this hereafter.

RATCLIFFEDispatch.[7] The limit of your lives is out.

RIVERSO Pomfret, Pomfret! O thou bloody prison!

Fatal and ominous to noble peers!

10

Within the guilty closure[10] of thy walls

Richard the Second here was hacked to death.

And, for[12] more slander to thy dismal seat,

We give to thee our guiltless blood to drink.

GREYNow Margaret’s curse is fall’n upon our heads,

15

When she exclaimed on[15] Hastings, you and I,

For standing by when Richard stabbed her son.

RIVERSThen cursed she Richard, then cursed she Buckingham,

Then cursed she Hastings. O, remember, God,

To hear her prayer for them, as now for us:

20

And for[20] my sister and her princely sons,

Be satisfied, dear God, with our true blood,

Which, as thou know’st, unjustly must be spilt.

RATCLIFFEMake haste: the hour of death is expiate.[23]

RIVERSCome, Grey, come, Vaughan, let us here embrace.

25

Farewell, until we meet again in heaven.

Exeunt

Act 3 Scene 4*

running scene 10

Enter Buckingham, Derby, Hastings, Bishop of Ely, Norfolk, Ratcliffe, Lovell, with others.

[They take their seats] at a table

HASTINGSNow, noble peers, the cause why we are met

Is to determine of[2] the coronation.

In God’s name speak: when is the royal day?

BUCKINGHAMIs all things ready for the royal time?

5

DERBYIt is, and wants but nomination.[5]

BISHOP OF ELYTomorrow, then, I judge a happy[6] day.

BUCKINGHAMWho knows the Lord Protector’s mind herein?

Who is most inward[8] with the noble duke?

BISHOP OF ELYYour grace, we think, should soonest know his mind.[9]

10

BUCKINGHAMWe know each other’s faces: for[10] our hearts,

He knows no more of mine, than I of yours,

Or I of his, my lord, than you of mine.—

Lord Hastings, you and he are near in love.[13]

HASTINGSI thank his grace, I know he loves me well.

15

But, for his purpose in the coronation,

I have not sounded[16] him, nor he delivered

His gracious pleasure any way therein:

But you, my honourable lords, may name the time,

And in[19] the duke’s behalf I’ll give my voice,

20

Which I presume he’ll take[20] in gentle part.

Enter [Richard of] Gloucester

BISHOP OF ELYIn happy time, here comes the duke himself.

RICHARDMy noble lords and cousins[22] all, good morrow.

I have been long a sleeper: but I trust

My absence doth neglect[24] no great design

25

Which by my presence might have been concluded.

BUCKINGHAMHad you not come upon your cue, my lord,

William Lord Hastings had pronounced your part[27] —

I mean your voice — for crowning of the king.

RICHARDThan my lord Hastings no man might be bolder:[29]

30

His lordship knows me well, and loves me well.—

My lord of Ely, when I was last in Holborn,

I saw good strawberries in your garden there:

I do beseech you send for some of them.

BISHOP OF ELYMarry, and will, my lord, with all my heart.

Exit Bishop

35

RICHARDCousin of Buckingham, a word with you.

Catesby hath sounded Hastings in our business, They speak aside

And finds the testy[37] gentleman so hot

That he will lose his head[38] ere give consent

His master’s child, as worshipfully[39] he terms it,

40

Shall lose the royalty of England’s throne.

BUCKINGHAMWithdraw yourself a while. I’ll go with you.

Exeunt [Richard and Buckingham]

DERBYWe have not yet set[42] down this day of triumph.

Tomorrow, in my judgement, is too sudden,

For I myself am not so well provided[44]

45

As else I would be, were the day prolonged.[45]

Enter the Bishop of Ely

BISHOP OF ELYWhere is my lord, the Duke of Gloucester?

I have sent for these strawberries.

HASTINGSHis grace looks cheerfully and smooth[48] this morning:

There’s some conceit[49] or other likes him well,

50

When that he bids good morrow with such spirit.

I think there’s never a man in Christendom

Can lesser hide his love or hate than he,

For by his face straight[53] shall you know his heart.

DERBYWhat of his heart perceive you in his face

55

By any livelihood[55] he showed today?

HASTINGSMarry, that with no man here he is offended:

For, were he, he had shown it in his looks.

Enter Richard and Buckingham

RICHARDI pray you all, tell me what they deserve

That do conspire my death with devilish plots

60

Of damned witchcraft, and that have prevailed

Upon my body with their hellish charms.[61]

HASTINGSThe tender love I bear your grace, my lord,

Makes me most forward in this princely presence

To doom[64] th’offenders, whosoe’er they be:

65

I say, my lord, they have deserved death.

RICHARDThen be your eyes the witness of their evil.

Look how I am bewitched: behold, mine arm Points to his arm

Is like a blasted[68] sapling, withered up:

And this is[69] Edward’s wife, that monstrous witch,

70

Consorted[70] with that harlot, strumpet Shore,

That by their witchcraft thus have markèd me.

HASTINGSIf they have done this deed, my noble lord—

RICHARDIf? Thou protector of this damnèd strumpet—

Talk’st thou to me of ‘ifs’? Thou art a traitor.

75

Off with his head! Now, by Saint Paul I swear,

I will not dine until I see the same.[76] —

Lovell and Ratcliffe, look that it be done.

The rest that love me, rise and follow me.

Exeunt. Lovell and Ratcliffe with the Lord Hastings remain

HASTINGSWoe, woe for England! Not a whit for me,

80

For I, too fond,[80] might have prevented this.

Stanley did dream the boar did rouse[81] our helms;

And I did scorn it and disdain to fly.

Three times today my foot-cloth horse[83] did stumble,

And started,[84] when he looked upon the Tower,

85

As[85] loath to bear me to the slaughter-house.

O, now I need the priest that spake to me:

I now repent I told the pursuivant,

As too triumphing[88] how mine enemies

Today at Pomfret bloodily were butchered,

90

And I myself secure in grace and favour.

O Margaret, Margaret, now thy heavy curse

Is lighted on poor Hastings’ wretched head!

RATCLIFFECome, come, dispatch. The duke would be at dinner.

Make a short shrift:[94] he longs to see your head.

95

HASTINGSO, momentary grace[95] of mortal men,

Which we more hunt for than the grace of God!

Who[97] builds his hope in air of your good looks,

Lives like a drunken sailor on a mast,

Ready with every nod to tumble down

100

Into the fatal bowels of the deep.

LOVELLCome, come, dispatch: ’tis bootless[101] to exclaim.

HASTINGSO bloody Richard! Miserable England!

I prophesy the fearful’st time to thee

That ever wretched age hath looked upon.

105

Come, lead me to the block: bear him my head.

They smile at me who shortly shall be dead.

Exeunt

[Act 3 Scene 5]3.5

running scene 11

Enter Richard and Buckingham, in rotten armour, marvellous ill-favoured

RICHARDCome, cousin, canst thou quake and change thy colour,[1]

Murder[2] thy breath in middle of a word,

And then again begin, and stop again,

As if thou were distraught and mad with terror?

5

BUCKINGHAMTut, I can counterfeit[5] the deep tragedian,

Speak and look back,[6] and pry on every side,

Tremble and start at wagging[7] of a straw:

Intending[8] deep suspicion, ghastly looks

Are at my service,[9] like enforcèd smiles,

10

And both are ready in their offices[10]

At any time to grace my stratagems.

But what, is Catesby gone?

RICHARDHe is, and see, he brings the mayor along.

Enter the Mayor and Catesby

BUCKINGHAMLord Mayor—

15

RICHARDLook to the drawbridge there!

BUCKINGHAMHark, a drum!

RICHARDCatesby, o’erlook[17] the walls.

BUCKINGHAMLord Mayor, the reason we have sent—

RICHARDLook back, defend thee, here are enemies.

20

BUCKINGHAMGod and our innocency defend and guard us!

Enter Lovell and Ratcliffe, with Hastings’ head

RICHARDBe patient,[21] they are friends: Ratcliffe and Lovell.

LOVELLHere is the head of that ignoble traitor,

The dangerous and unsuspected Hastings.

RICHARDSo dear I loved the man that I must weep.

25

I took him for the plainest[25] harmless creature

That breathed upon the earth a Christian,

Made him my book,[27] wherein my soul recorded

The history[28] of all her secret thoughts.

So smooth[29] he daubed his vice with show of virtue

30

That, his[30] apparent open guilt omitted —

I mean, his conversation[31] with Shore’s wife —

He lived from[32] all attainder of suspects.

BUCKINGHAMWell, well, he was the covert’st sheltered[33] traitor

That ever lived.

35

Would you imagine, or almost[35] believe,

Were’t not that, by great preservation

We live to tell it, that the subtle[37] traitor

This day had plotted, in the council house,

To murder me and my good lord of Gloucester?

40

MAYORHad he done so?

RICHARDWhat? Think you we are Turks[41] or infidels?

Or that we would, against the form[42] of law,

Proceed thus rashly[43] in the villain’s death,

But that the extreme peril of the case,

45

The peace of England and our person’s safety,

Enforced us to this execution?

MAYORNow fair[47] befall you! He deserved his death,

And your good graces, both have well proceeded[48]

To warn false traitors from the like attempts.

50

BUCKINGHAMI never looked for[50] better at his hands,

After he once fell[51] in with Mistress Shore.

Yet had[52] we not determined he should die

Until your lordship came to see[53] his end,

Which now the loving haste of these our friends,

55

Something against our meanings, have prevented;

Because, my lord, I would have had you heard

The traitor speak, and timorously[57] confess

The manner and the purpose of his treasons,

That you might well have signified the same

60

Unto the citizens, who haply[60] may

Misconster[61] us in him and wail his death.

MAYORBut, my good lord, your grace’s words shall serve

As well as[63] I had seen and heard him speak:

And do not doubt, right noble princes both,

65

But I’ll acquaint our duteous citizens

With all your just proceedings in this case.

RICHARDAnd to that end we wished your lordship here,

T’avoid the censures of the carping[68] world.

BUCKINGHAMWhich since you come too late of[69] our intent,

70

Yet witness[70] what you hear we did intend.

And so, my good Lord Mayor, we bid farewell.

Exit Mayor

RICHARDGo, after, after, cousin Buckingham.

The mayor towards Guildhall[73] hies him in all post:

There, at your meetest vantage[74] of the time,

75

Infer[75] the bastardy of Edward’s children:

Tell them how Edward put to death a citizen

Only for saying he would make his son

Heir to the crown, meaning indeed his house,[78]

Which, by the sign[79] thereof was termèd so.

80

Moreover, urge his hateful luxury[80]

And bestial appetite in change of lust,[81]

Which stretched unto their servants, daughters, wives,

Even where[83] his raging eye or savage heart,

Without control, lusted to make a prey.

85

Nay, for a need,[85] thus far come near my person:

Tell them, when that my mother went[86] with child

Of that insatiate Edward, noble York

My princely father then had wars in France,

And by true[89] computation of the time,

90

Found that the issue was not his begot[90] —

Which well[91] appearèd in his lineaments,

Being nothing like the noble duke my father.

Yet touch this sparingly,[93] as ’twere far off,

Because, my lord, you know my mother lives.

95

BUCKINGHAMDoubt not, my lord, I’ll play the orator

As if the golden fee[96] for which I plead

Were for myself. And so, my lord, adieu.

RICHARDIf you thrive well,[98] bring them to Baynard’s Castle,

Where you shall find me well accompanied

100

With reverend fathers and well-learned bishops.

BUCKINGHAMI go: and towards three or four o’clock

Look for the news that the Guildhall affords.

Exit Buckingham

RICHARDGo, Lovell, with all speed to Doctor Shaw.[103]—

Go thou to Friar Penker: bid them both To Catesby or Ratcliffe

105

Meet me within this hour at Baynard’s Castle.

Exeunt [all but Richard]

Now will I go to take[106] some privy order

To draw the brats of Clarence out of sight,

And to give order that no manner[108] person

Have any time recourse[109] unto the princes.

Exit

[Act 3 Scene 6]3.6

running scene 12

Enter a Scrivener

SCRIVENERHere is the indictment[1] of the good Lord Hastings, Shows a paper

Which in a set hand[2] fairly is engrossed,

That it may be today read o’er in Paul’s.[3]

And mark how well the sequel[4] hangs together:

5

Eleven hours I have spent to write it over,

For yesternight by Catesby was it sent me,

The precedent[7] was full as long a-doing.

And yet within these five hours Hastings lived,

Untainted,[9] unexamined, free, at liberty.

10

Here’s a good world the while![10] Who is so gross

That cannot see this palpable device?[11]

Yet who so bold, but says he sees it not?

Bad is the world, and all will come to nought

When such ill dealing must be seen in thought.[14]

Exit

[Act 3 Scene 7]*

running scene 13

Enter Richard and Buckingham, at several doors

RICHARDHow now, how now? What say the citizens?

BUCKINGHAMNow, by the holy mother of our lord,

The citizens are mum,[3] say not a word.

RICHARDTouched you[4] the bastardy of Edward’s children?

5

BUCKINGHAMI did: with his contract[5] with Lady Lucy,

And his contract[6] by deputy in France,

Th’unsatiate greediness of his desire,

And his enforcement[8] of the city wives,

His tyranny for trifles,[9] his own bastardy,

10

As being got,[10] your father then in France,

And his resemblance, being not like the duke.

Withal I did infer your lineaments,

Being the right idea of your father,

Both in your form and nobleness of mind:

15

Laid open[15] all your victories in Scotland,

Your discipline[16] in war, wisdom in peace,

Your bounty,[17] virtue, fair humility:

Indeed, left nothing fitting for[18] your purpose

Untouched, or slightly[19] handled, in discourse.

20

And when my oratory drew toward end,

I bid them that did love their country’s good

Cry ‘God save Richard, England’s royal king!’

RICHARDAnd did they so?

BUCKINGHAMNo, so God help me, they spake not a word,

25

But, like dumb statues or breathing stones,

Stared each on other and looked deadly pale:

Which when I saw, I reprehended them,

And asked the mayor what meant this wilful silence:

His answer was, the people were not used

30

To be spoke to but by the recorder.[30]

Then he was urged to tell my tale again:

‘Thus saith the duke, thus hath the duke inferred’[32] —

But nothing spoke in[33] warrant from himself.

When he had done, some followers of mine own,

35

At lower end of the hall,[35] hurled up their caps,

And some ten voices cried, ‘God save King Richard!’

And thus I took the vantage[37] of those few:

‘Thanks, gentle citizens and friends,’ quoth I,

‘This general[39] applause and cheerful shout

40

Argues[40] your wisdom and your love to Richard.’

And even here[41] brake off, and came away.

RICHARDWhat tongueless blocks[42] were they? Would they not speak?

Will not the mayor then and his brethren[43] come?

BUCKINGHAMThe mayor is here at hand. Intend[44] some fear:

45

Be not you spoke with, but by mighty suit.[45]

And look[46] you get a prayer-book in your hand,

And stand between two churchmen, good my lord,

For on that ground[48] I’ll make a holy descant:

And be not easily won[49] to our requests.

50

Play the maid’s[50] part: still answer nay, and take it.

RICHARDI go. And if you plead as well for them

As I can say nay to thee for myself,[52]

No doubt we bring it to a happy issue.[53]

BUCKINGHAMGo, go, up to the leads.[54] The Lord Mayor knocks.

[Exit Richard]

Enter the Mayor and Citizens

55

Welcome, my lord. I dance attendance[55] here:

I think the duke will not be spoke withal.

Enter Catesby

Now, Catesby, what says your lord to my request.

CATESBYHe doth entreat your grace, my noble lord,

To visit him tomorrow or next day:

60

He is within, with two right reverend fathers,

Divinely bent[61] to meditation,

And in no worldly suits[62] would he be moved,

To draw him from his holy exercise.[63]

BUCKINGHAMReturn, good Catesby, to the gracious duke:

65

Tell him myself, the Mayor and Alderman,

In deep[66] designs, in matter of great moment,

No less importing[67] than our general good,

Are come to have some conference with his grace.

CATESBYI’ll signify so much unto him straight.

Exit

70

BUCKINGHAMAh, ha, my lord, this prince is not an Edward!

He is not lulling[71] on a lewd love-bed,

But on his knees at meditation:

Not dallying[73] with a brace of courtesans,

But meditating with two deep[74] divines:

75

Not sleeping, to engross[75] his idle body,

But praying, to enrich his watchful[76] soul.

Happy[77] were England, would this virtuous prince

Take on his grace[78] the sovereignty thereof:

But sure I fear we shall not win him to it.

80

MAYORMarry, God defend[80] his grace should say us nay!

BUCKINGHAMI fear he will. — Here Catesby comes again.

Enter Catesby

Now, Catesby, what says his grace?

CATESBYHe wonders to what end you have assembled

Such troops of citizens to come to him,

85

His grace not being warned thereof before.

He fears, my lord, you mean no good to him.

BUCKINGHAMSorry I am my noble cousin should

Suspect me that I mean no good to him.

By heaven, we come to him in perfect[89] love,

90

And so once more return and tell his grace.

Exit [Catesby]

When holy and devout religious men

Are at their beads,[92] ’tis hard to draw them thence,

So sweet is zealous[93] contemplation.

Enter Richard aloft, between two Bishops. [Catesby returns]

MAYORSee, where his grace stands ’tween two clergymen.

95

BUCKINGHAMTwo props[95] of virtue for a Christian prince,

To stay[96] him from the fall of vanity:

And, see, a book of prayer in his hand,

True ornaments to know a holy man.—

Famous Plantagenet, most gracious prince,

100

Lend favourable ear to our requests,

And pardon us the interruption

Of thy devotion and right[102] Christian zeal.

RICHARDMy lord, there needs no such apology:

I do beseech your grace to pardon me,

105

Who, earnest in the service of my God,

Deferred the visitation[106] of my friends.

But, leaving this, what is your grace’s pleasure?

BUCKINGHAMEven that, I hope, which pleaseth God above,

And all good men of this ungoverned isle.

110

RICHARDI do suspect I have done some offence

That seems disgracious[111] in the city’s eye,

And that you come to reprehend my ignorance.[112]

BUCKINGHAMYou have, my lord: would it might please your grace,

On our entreaties, to amend your fault.

115

RICHARDElse[115] wherefore breathe I in a Christian land?

BUCKINGHAMKnow then, it is your fault that you resign

The supreme seat, the throne majestical,

The sceptred[118] office of your ancestors,

Your state[119] of fortune and your due of birth,

120

The lineal[120] glory of your royal house,

To the corruption of a blemished[121] stock;

Whiles, in the mildness of your sleepy thoughts,

Which here we waken to our country’s good,

The noble isle doth want[124] his proper limbs:

125

His face defaced with scars of infamy,[125]

His royal stock graft[126] with ignoble plants,

And almost shouldered[127] in the swallowing gulf

Of dark forgetfulness and deep oblivion.

Which to recure,[129] we heartily solicit

130

Your gracious self to take on you the charge

And kingly government of this your land —

Not as Protector, steward, substitute,

Or lowly factor[133] for another’s gain;

But as successively[134] from blood to blood,

135

Your right of birth, your empery,[135] your own.

For this, consorted[136] with the citizens,

Your very worshipful[137] and loving friends,

And by their vehement instigation,

In this just cause come I to move[139] your grace.

140

RICHARDI cannot tell if to depart in silence,

Or bitterly to speak in your reproof

Best fitteth my degree[142] or your condition.

If not[143] to answer, you might haply think

Tongue-tied ambition, not replying, yielded[144]

145

To bear the golden yoke of sovereignty,

Which fondly[146] you would here impose on me.

If to reprove you for this suit of yours,

So seasoned with your faithful love to me,

Then on the other side I checked[149] my friends.

150

Therefore, to speak, and to avoid the first,

And then, in speaking, not to incur the last,

Definitively thus I answer you:

Your love deserves my thanks, but my desert[153]

Unmeritable shuns your high request.

155

First, if all obstacles were cut away,[155]

And that my path were even[156] to the crown,

As the ripe revenue[157] and due of birth,

Yet so much is my poverty of spirit,

So mighty and so many my defects,

160

That I would rather hide me from my greatness[160] —

Being a bark[161] to brook no mighty sea —

Than in[162] my greatness covet to be hid,

And in the vapour[163] of my glory smothered.

But, God be thanked, there is no need of me,

165

And much I need[165] to help you, were there need.

The royal tree[166] hath left us royal fruit,

Which, mellowed[167] by the stealing hours of time,

Will well become[168] the seat of majesty,

And make, no doubt, us happy by his reign.

170

On him I lay that[170] you would lay on me,

The right and fortune of his happy[171] stars,

Which God defend[172] that I should wring from him!

BUCKINGHAMMy lord, this argues[173] conscience in your grace,

But the respects thereof[174] are nice and trivial,

175

All circumstances well considerèd.

You say that Edward is your brother’s son:

So say we too, but not by Edward’s wife,

For first was he contract[178] to Lady Lucy —

Your mother lives a witness to his vow —

180

And afterward by substitute[180] betrothed

To Bona, sister[181] to the King of France.

These both put off, a poor petitioner,[182]

A care-crazed[183] mother to a many sons,

A beauty-waning and distressed widow,

185

Even in the afternoon of her best days,

Made prize and purchase[186] of his wanton eye,

Seduced the pitch[187] and height of his degree

To base declension[188] and loathed bigamy.

By her, in his unlawful bed, he got

190

This Edward, whom our manners[190] call the prince.

More bitterly could I expostulate,[191]

Save that, for reverence to some alive,[192]

I give a sparing[193] limit to my tongue.

Then, good my lord, take to your royal self

195

This proffered benefit[195] of dignity:

If not to bless us and the land withal,

Yet to draw forth your noble ancestry

From the corruption of abusing times,

Unto a lineal true-derivèd[199] course.

200

MAYORDo, good my lord: your citizens entreat you. To Richard

BUCKINGHAMRefuse not, mighty lord, this proffered love.

CATESBYO, make them joyful, grant their lawful suit!

RICHARDAlas, why would you heap this care[203] on me?

I am unfit for state and majesty.

205

I do beseech you, take it not amiss:

I cannot nor I will not yield to you.

BUCKINGHAMIf you refuse it — as,[207] in love and zeal,

Loath to depose the child, your brother’s son,

As well we know your tenderness of heart

210

And gentle, kind, effeminate[210] remorse,

Which we have noted in you to your kindred

And equally indeed to all estates[212] —

Yet know, whe’er you accept our suit or no,

Your brother’s son shall never reign our king,

215

But we will plant some other in the throne

To the disgrace and downfall of your house:

And in this resolution here we leave you.—

Come, citizens, we will entreat no more.

Exeunt [Buckingham with Citizens]

CATESBYCall him again, sweet prince. Accept their suit.

220

If you deny them all the land will rue it.

RICHARDWill you enforce me to a world of cares?

Call them again. I am not made of stones,

But penetrable to your kind entreaties,

Albeit against my conscience and my soul.

Enter Buckingham and the rest

225

Cousin of Buckingham, and sage, grave men,

Since you will buckle[226] fortune on my back,

To bear her burden, whe’er I will or no,

I must have patience to endure the load:

But if black scandal or foul-faced reproach

230

Attend the sequel[230] of your imposition,

Your[231] mere enforcement shall acquittance me

From all the impure blots and stains thereof;

For God doth know, and you may partly see,

How far I am from the desire of this.

235

MAYORGod bless your grace! We see it and will say it.

RICHARDIn saying so, you shall but say the truth.

BUCKINGHAMThen I salute you with this royal title:

Long live King Richard, England’s worthy king!

ALLAmen.

240

BUCKINGHAMTomorrow may it please you to be crowned?

RICHARDEven[241] when you please, for you will have it so.

BUCKINGHAMTomorrow, then, we will attend your grace.

And so most joyfully we take our leave.

RICHARDCome, let us to our holy work again.— To the Bishops

245

Farewell, my cousins: farewell, gentle friends.

Exeunt

Act 4 Scene 14.1

running scene 14

Enter the Queen, Anne Duchess of Gloucester [leading a girl], the Duchess of York and Marquis Dorset

DUCHESS OF YORKWho meets us here? My niece[1] Plantagenet

Led in the hand of her kind aunt of Gloucester?

Now, for my life, she’s wand’ring to the Tower,

On pure heart’s love to greet the tender[4] prince.

5

Daughter, well met.

ANNEGod give your graces both

A happy and a joyful time of day.

QUEEN ELIZABETHAs much to you, good sister. Whither away?

ANNENo further than the Tower, and, as I guess,

10

Upon the like devotion[10] as yourselves,

To gratulate[11] the gentle princes there.

QUEEN ELIZABETHKind sister, thanks: we’ll enter all together.

Enter the Lieutenant [Brackenbury]

And, in good time, here the lieutenant comes.

Master Lieutenant, pray you, by your leave,

15

How doth the prince, and my young son of York?

BRACKENBURYRight well, dear madam. By your patience,

I may not suffer[17] you to visit them:

The king hath strictly charged the contrary.

QUEEN ELIZABETHThe king? Who’s that?

20

BRACKENBURYI mean the Lord Protector.

QUEEN ELIZABETHThe lord protect him from that kingly title!

Hath he set bounds[22] between their love and me?

I am their mother: who shall bar me from them?

DUCHESS OF YORKI am their father’s mother: I will see them.

25

ANNETheir aunt I am in law,[25] in love their mother:

Then bring me to their sights. I’ll bear thy blame

And take thy office[27] from thee, on my peril.

BRACKENBURYNo, madam, no; I may not leave it so:

I am bound by oath, and therefore pardon me.

Exit

Enter Stanley [Earl of Derby]

30

DERBYLet me but meet you, ladies, one hour hence,

And I’ll salute your grace of York as mother,[31]

And reverend looker-on,[32] of two fair queens.—

Come, madam, you must straight[33] to Westminster, To Anne

There to be crownèd Richard’s royal queen.

35

QUEEN ELIZABETHAh, cut my lace[35] asunder,

That my pent[36] heart may have some scope to beat,

Or else I swoon with this dead-killing news!

ANNEDespiteful[38] tidings! O, unpleasing news!

DORSETBe of good cheer. Mother, how fares your grace?

40

QUEEN ELIZABETHO Dorset, speak not to me, get thee gone!

Death and destruction dogs thee at thy heels:

Thy mother’s name is ominous to children.

If thou wilt outstrip death, go cross the seas,

And live with Richmond,[44] from the reach of hell.

45

Go, hie[45] thee, hie thee from this slaughter-house,

Lest thou increase the number of the dead

And make me die the thrall[47] of Margaret’s curse,

Nor[48] mother, wife, nor England’s counted queen.

DERBYFull of wise care is this your counsel, madam.—

50

Take all the swift advantage of the hours. To Dorset

You shall have letters[51] from me to my son

In your behalf, to meet you on the way.

Be not ta’en[53] tardy by unwise delay.

DUCHESS OF YORKO ill-dispersing[54] wind of misery!

55

O my accursèd womb, the bed of death!

A cockatrice[56] hast thou hatched to the world,

Whose unavoided[57] eye is murderous.

DERBYCome, madam, come: I in all haste was sent. To Anne

ANNEAnd I with all unwillingness will go.

60

O, would to God that the inclusive[60] verge

Of golden metal that must round my brow

Were red-hot steel, to sear me to the brains!

Anointed[63] let me be with deadly venom,

And die, ere men can say, ‘God save the queen!’

65

QUEEN ELIZABETHGo, go, poor soul, I envy not thy glory:

To[66] feed my humour wish thyself no harm.

ANNENo? Why? When he that is my husband now

Came to me, as I followed Henry’s corpse,

When scarce the blood was well washed from his hands

70

Which issued from my other angel husband[70]

And that dear saint which then I weeping followed —

O, when I say I looked on Richard’s face,

This was my wish: ‘Be thou’, quoth I, ‘accursed

For making me, so young, so old[74] a widow!

75

And, when thou wed’st, let sorrow haunt thy bed;

And be thy wife — if any be so mad —

More miserable by the life of thee

Than thou hast made me by my dear lord’s death!’

Lo, ere I can repeat this curse again,

80

Within so small a time, my woman’s heart

Grossly[81] grew captive to his honey words

And proved the subject of mine own soul’s curse,

Which hitherto hath held mine eyes from rest,

For never yet one hour in his bed

85

Did I enjoy the golden dew of sleep,

But with his timorous[86] dreams was still awaked.

Besides, he hates me for my father Warwick,[87]

And will, no doubt, shortly be rid of me.

QUEEN ELIZABETHPoor heart, adieu! I pity thy complaining.[89]

90

ANNENo more than with my soul I mourn for yours.

DORSETFarewell, thou woeful welcomer of glory.

ANNEAdieu, poor soul, that tak’st thy leave of it.

DUCHESS OF YORKGo thou to Richmond, and good fortune guide thee.— To Dorset

Go thou to Richard, and good angels tend thee.— To Anne

95

Go thou to sanctuary, and good thoughts possess thee.— To Queen Elizabeth

I to my grave, where peace and rest lie with me.

Eighty odd years of sorrow have I seen,

And each hour’s joy wrecked with a week of teen.[98] She starts to leave

QUEEN ELIZABETHStay, yet look back with me unto the Tower.

100

Pity, you ancient stones, those tender babes

Whom envy hath immured[101] within your walls,

Rough cradle for such little pretty ones,

Rude[103] ragged nurse, old sullen playfellow

For tender princes: use my babies well.

105

So[105] foolish sorrows bids your stones farewell.

Exeunt

Act 4 Scene 24.2

running scene 15

Sound a sennet. Enter Richard in pomp, Buckingham, Catesby, Ratcliffe, Lovell, [a Page and others. A throne is brought forth]

RICHARDStand all apart.[1]— Cousin of Buckingham.

BUCKINGHAMMy gracious sovereign?

RICHARDGive me thy hand.

Sound [trumpets]

He ascends the throne

Thus high, by thy advice and thy assistance, Richard and Buckingham speak aside

5

Is King Richard seated.

But shall we wear these glories for a day?

Or shall they last, and we rejoice in them?

BUCKINGHAMStill live they and forever let them last!

RICHARDAh, Buckingham, now do I play the touch,[9]

10

To try[10] if thou be current gold indeed:

Young Edward lives. Think now what I would speak.

BUCKINGHAMSay on, my loving lord.

RICHARDWhy, Buckingham, I say I would be king,

BUCKINGHAMWhy, so you are, my thrice-renownèd lord.

15

RICHARDHa? Am I king? ’Tis so: but Edward lives.

BUCKINGHAMTrue, noble prince.

RICHARDO, bitter consequence,[17]

That Edward still should live — true noble prince.[18]

Cousin, thou wast not wont[19] to be so dull.

20

Shall I be plain? I wish the bastards dead,

And I would have it suddenly[21] performed.

What say’st thou now? Speak suddenly, be brief.

BUCKINGHAMYour grace may do your pleasure.

RICHARDTut, tut, thou art all ice: thy kindness freezes.

25

Say, have I thy consent that they shall die?

BUCKINGHAMGive me some little breath,[26] some pause, dear lord,

Before I positively[27] speak in this:

I will resolve[28] you herein presently.

Exit

CATESBYThe king is angry: see, he gnaws his lip. Aside

30

RICHARDI will converse with iron-witted[30] fools

And unrespective[31] boys: none are for me

That look into me with considerate[32] eyes.

High-reaching[33] Buckingham grows circumspect.—

Boy!

35

PAGEMy lord? Comes forward

RICHARDKnow’st thou not any whom corrupting gold

Will tempt unto a close[37] exploit of death?

PAGEI know a discontented gentleman,

Whose humble means match not his haughty[39] spirit:

40

Gold were as good as twenty orators,[40]

And will, no doubt, tempt him to anything.

RICHARDWhat is his name?

PAGEHis name, my lord, is Tyrrell.

RICHARDI partly know the man. Go, call him hither, boy.

Exit [Page]

45

The deep-revolving[45] witty Buckingham

No more shall be the neighbour to my counsels.[46]

Hath he so long held out[47] with me untired,

And stops he now for breath? Well, be it so.

Enter Stanley

How now, Lord Stanley, what’s the news?

50

DERBYKnow, my loving lord, the marquis Dorset

As I hear, is fled to Richmond,

In the parts where he abides. Stands apart

RICHARDCome hither, Catesby. Rumour it abroad

That Anne, my wife, is very grievous sick:

55

I will take order[55] for her keeping close.

Inquire me out some mean[56] poor gentleman,

Whom I will marry straight to Clarence’ daughter:

The boy[58] is foolish, and I fear not him.

Look, how thou dream’st![59] I say again, give out

60

That Anne my queen is sick and like to die:

About it,[61] for it stands me much upon,

To stop all hopes whose growth may damage me.

[Exit Catesby]

I must be married to my brother’s daughter,[63]

Or else my kingdom stands on brittle glass.

65

Murder her brothers, and then marry her:

Uncertain way of gain! But I am in

So far in blood that sin will pluck on[67] sin:

Tear-falling pity[68] dwells not in this eye.

Enter [Page, with] Tyrrell

Is thy name Tyrrell?

70

TYRRELLJames Tyrrell, and your most obedient subject.

RICHARDArt thou, indeed?

TYRRELLProve[72] me, my gracious lord. King Richard and Tyrrell speak aside

RICHARDDar’st thou resolve to kill a friend[73] of mine?

TYRRELLPlease you:

75

But I had rather kill two enemies.

RICHARDWhy, then thou hast it: two deep enemies,

Foes to my rest and my sweet sleep’s disturbers

Are they that I would have thee deal upon[78] —

Tyrrell, I mean those bastards in the Tower.

80

TYRRELLLet me have open[80] means to come to them,

And soon I’ll rid you from the fear of them.

RICHARDThou sing’st sweet music. Hark, come hither, Tyrrell

Go, by this token:[83] rise, and lend thine ear. Gives a token

There[84] is no more but so: say it is done,

Whispers

85

And I will love thee, and prefer[85] thee for it.

TYRRELLI will dispatch it straight.

Exit [Tyrrell, with the Page]

Enter Buckingham

BUCKINGHAMMy lord, I have considered in my mind

The late[88] request that you did sound me in.

RICHARDWell, let that rest. Dorset is fled to Richmond.

90

BUCKINGHAMI hear the news, my lord.

RICHARDStanley, he[91] is your wife’s son. Well, look unto it.

BUCKINGHAMMy lord, I claim the gift, my due by promise,

For which your honour and your faith is pawned:[93]

Th’earldom of Hereford and the movables[94]

95

Which you have promisèd I shall possess.

RICHARDStanley, look to[96] your wife: if she convey

Letters to Richmond, you shall answer[97] it.

BUCKINGHAMWhat says your highness to my just request?

RICHARDI do remember me, Henry the Sixth

100

Did prophesy that Richmond should be king,

When Richmond was a little peevish[101] boy.

A king, perhaps—

BUCKINGHAMMay it please you to resolve[103] me in my suit.

RICHARDThou troublest me: I am not in the vein.[104]

Exit

105

BUCKINGHAMAnd is it thus? Repays he my deep service

With such contempt? Made I him king for this?

O, let me think on Hastings, and be gone

To Brecknock,[108] while my fearful head is on!

Exit

[Act 4 Scene 3]

running scene 15 continues

Enter Tyrrell

TYRRELLThe tyrannous and bloody act is done,

The most arch[2] deed of piteous massacre

That ever yet this land was guilty of.

Dighton and Forrest, who I did suborn[4]

5

To do this piece of ruthful[5] butchery,

Albeit they were fleshed[6] villains, bloody dogs,

Melted with tenderness and mild compassion,

Wept like to children in their[8] deaths’ sad story.

‘O, thus’, quoth Dighton, ‘lay the gentle babes.’

10

‘Thus, thus’, quoth Forrest, ‘girdling[10] one another

Within their alabaster[11] innocent arms.

Their lips were four red roses on a stalk,

And in their summer beauty kissed each other.

A book of prayers on their pillow lay,

15

Which one[15]’, quoth Forrest, ‘almost changed my mind.

But O! The devil’— there the villain stopped.

When Dighton thus told on: ‘We smotherèd

The most replenishèd[18] sweet work of nature,

That from the prime[19] creation e’er she framed.’

20

Hence both are gone[20] with conscience and remorse:

They could not speak, and so I left them both,

To bear this tidings to the bloody[22] king.

Enter Richard

And here he comes.— All heath, my sovereign lord!

RICHARDKind Tyrrell, am I happy in thy news?

25

TYRRELLIf to have done the thing you gave in charge[25]

Beget your happiness, be happy then,

For it is done.

RICHARDBut didst thou see them dead?

TYRRELLI did, my lord.

30

RICHARDAnd buried, gentle Tyrrell?

TYRRELLThe chaplain of the Tower hath buried them,

But where, to say the truth, I do not know.

RICHARDCome to me, Tyrrell, soon and[33] after supper,

When thou shalt tell the process[34] of their death.

35

Meantime, but think how I may do thee good,

And be[36] inheritor of thy desire.

Farewell till then.

TYRRELLI humbly take my leave.

[Exit]

RICHARDThe son of Clarence have I pent up close,[39]

40

His daughter meanly[40] have I matched in marriage,

The sons of Edward sleep in Abraham’s bosom,[41]

And Anne my wife hath bid the world good night.

Now, for[43] I know the Breton Richmond aims

At young Elizabeth, my brother’s daughter,

45

And by that knot[45] looks proudly on the crown,

To her go I, a jolly thriving wooer.

Enter Ratcliffe

RATCLIFFEMy lord!

RICHARDGood or bad news, that thou com’st in so bluntly?[48]

RATCLIFFEBad news, my lord: Morton[49] is fled to Richmond,

50

And Buckingham, backed with the hardy[50] Welshmen,

Is in the field, and still his power[51] increaseth.

RICHARDEly with Richmond troubles me more near[52]

Than Buckingham and his rash-levied[53] strength.

Come, I have learned that fearful commenting[54]

55

Is leaden servitor[55] to dull delay:

Delay leads[56] impotent and snail-paced beggary.

Then fiery expedition[57] be my wing,

Jove’s Mercury,[58] and herald for a king!

Go, muster men. My[59] counsel is my shield:

60

We must be brief[60] when traitors brave the field.

Exeunt

[Act 4 Scene 4]*

running scene 16

Enter old Queen Margaret

QUEEN MARGARETSo, now prosperity begins to mellow[1]

And drop into the rotten mouth of death.

Here in these confines[3] slyly have I lurked,

To watch the waning of mine enemies.

5

A dire induction[5] am I witness to,

And will to France, hoping the consequence[6]

Will prove as bitter, black, and tragical.

Withdraw thee, wretched Margaret. Who comes here?

Enter Duchess [of York] and Queen [Elizabeth]

QUEEN ELIZABETHAh, my poor princes! Ah, my tender babes!

10

My unblowed[10] flowers, new-appearing sweets!

If yet your gentle souls fly in the air

And be not fixed in doom perpetual,[12]

Hover about me with your airy wings

And hear your mother’s lamentation!

15

QUEEN MARGARETHover about her: say that right for right[15] Aside

Hath dimmed your infant morn to agèd night.

DUCHESS OF YORKSo many miseries have crazed[17] my voice,

That my woe-wearied tongue is still and mute.

Edward Plantagenet,[19] why art thou dead?

20

QUEEN MARGARETPlantagenet doth quit[20] Plantagenet: Aside

Edward for Edward[21] pays a dying debt.

QUEEN ELIZABETHWilt thou, O God, fly from such gentle lambs,

And throw them in the entrails[23] of the wolf?

When didst thou sleep when such a deed was done?

25

QUEEN MARGARETWhen holy Harry[25] died, and my sweet son. Aside

DUCHESS OF YORKDead life, blind sight, poor mortal living ghost,

Woe’s scene, world’s shame, grave’s[27] due by life usurped,

Brief abstract[28] and record of tedious days,

Rest thy unrest on England’s lawful[29] earth, Sits down

30

Unlawfully made drunk with innocent blood!

QUEEN ELIZABETHAh, that thou[31] wouldst as soon afford a grave

As thou canst yield a melancholy seat!

Then would I hide my bones, not rest them here.

Ah, who hath any cause to mourn but we? Sits with her

35

QUEEN MARGARETIf ancient sorrow be most reverend, Comes forward

Give mine the benefit of seniory,[36]

And let my griefs frown on[37] the upper hand.

If sorrow can admit society,[38] Sits with them

I had an Edward,[39] till a Richard killed him:

40

I had a husband,[40] till a Richard killed him:

Thou hadst an Edward,[41] till a Richard killed him:

Thou hadst a Richard,[42] till a Richard killed him.

DUCHESS OF YORKI had a Richard[43] too, and thou didst kill him;

I had a Rutland[44] too, thou holp’st to kill him.

45

QUEEN MARGARETThou hadst a Clarence too, and Richard killed him.

From forth the kennel of thy womb hath crept

A hell-hound that doth hunt us all to death:

That dog, that had his teeth[48] before his eyes,

To worry[49] lambs and lap their gentle blood,

50

That foul defacer[50] of God’s handiwork,

That reigns in gallèd[51] eyes of weeping souls,

That excellent[52] grand tyrant of the earth,

Thy womb let loose, to chase us to our graves.

O upright,[54] just, and true-disposing God,

55

How do I thank thee, that this carnal cur[55]

Preys on the issue[56] of his mother’s body,

And makes her pew-fellow[57] with others’ moan!

DUCHESS OF YORKO Harry’s wife, triumph[58] not in my woes!

God witness with me, I have wept for thine.

60

QUEEN MARGARETBear with me: I am hungry for revenge,

And now I cloy me[61] with beholding it.

Thy Edward[62] he is dead, that killed my Edward:

The other Edward[63] dead, to quit my Edward:

Young York[64] he is but boot, because both they

65

Matched not the high perfection[65] of my loss.

Thy Clarence he is dead that stabbed my Edward,

And the beholders of this frantic[67] play,

Th’adulterate[68] Hastings, Rivers, Vaughan, Grey,

Untimely smothered in their dusky graves.

70

Richard yet lives, hell’s black intelligencer,[70]

Only reserved[71] their factor to buy souls

And send them thither. But at hand, at hand,

Ensues his piteous and unpitied end:

Earth gapes, hell burns, fiends roar, saints pray,

75

To have him suddenly conveyed from hence.

Cancel his bond of life, dear God, I pray,

That I may live and say, ‘The dog is dead!’

QUEEN ELIZABETHO, thou didst prophesy the time would come

That I should wish for thee to help me curse

80

That bottled[80] spider, that foul bunch-backed toad!

QUEEN MARGARETI called thee then vain flourish[81] of my fortune:

I called thee then poor shadow,[82] painted queen,

The presentation[83] of but what I was,

The flattering index[84] of a direful pageant,

85

One heaved a-high, to be hurled down below,

A mother only mocked[86] with two fair babes,

A dream[87] of what thou wast, a garish flag,

To be the aim of every dangerous shot;

A sign[89] of dignity, a breath, a bubble;

90

A queen in jest,[90] only to fill the scene.

Where is thy husband now? Where be thy brothers?

Where be thy two sons? Wherein dost thou joy?

Who sues,[93] and kneels and says, ‘God save the queen’?

Where be the bending[94] peers that flattered thee?

95

Where be the thronging troops[95] that followed thee?

Decline[96] all this, and see what now thou art:

For[97] happy wife, a most distressèd widow:

For joyful mother, one that wails the name:[98]

For one being sued to, one that humbly sues:

100

For queen, a very caitiff[100] crowned with care:

For she that scorned at me, now scorned of[101] me:

For she being feared of all, now fearing one:

For she commanding all, obeyed of none.

Thus hath the course[104] of justice whirled about,

105

And left thee but a very[105] prey to time,

Having no more but thought[106] of what thou wast,

To torture thee the more, being what thou art.

Thou didst usurp my place, and dost thou not

Usurp the just proportion of my sorrow?

110

Now thy proud neck bears half my burdened yoke,

From which even here I slip my wearied head,

And leave the burden of it all on thee.

Farewell, York’s wife, and queen of sad mischance:[113]

These English woes shall make me smile in France. Starts to leave

115

QUEEN ELIZABETHO thou well skilled in curses, stay awhile,

And teach me how to curse mine enemies!

QUEEN MARGARETForbear[117] to sleep the night, and fast the day:

Compare dead happiness with living woe:

Think that thy babes were sweeter than they were,

120

And he that slew them fouler than he is.

Bett’ring[121] thy loss makes the bad causer worse:

Revolving[122] this will teach thee how to curse.

QUEEN ELIZABETHMy words are dull.[123] O, quicken them with thine!

QUEEN MARGARETThy woes will make them sharp, and pierce like mine.

Exit Margaret

125

DUCHESS OF YORKWhy should calamity be full of words?

QUEEN ELIZABETHWindy[126] attorneys to their client’s woes,

Airy succeeders of intestine[127] joys,

Poor breathing orators of miseries!

Let them have scope:[129] though what they will impart

130

Help nothing else, yet do they ease the heart.

DUCHESS OF YORKIf so, then be not tongue-tied: go with me.

And in the breath of bitter words let’s smother

My damnèd son, that thy two sweet sons smothered. Trumpet

The trumpet sounds: be copious in exclaims.[134]

Enter King Richard and his train

135

RICHARDWho intercepts me in my expedition?[135]

DUCHESS OF YORKO, she that might[136] have intercepted thee,

By strangling thee in her accursèd womb,

From[138] all the slaughters, wretch, that thou hast done!

QUEEN ELIZABETHHid’st thou that forehead with a golden crown

140

Where’t should be branded,[140] if that right were right,

The slaughter of the prince that owed[141] that crown,

And the dire death of my poor sons and brothers?

Tell me, thou villain[143] slave, where are my children?

DUCHESS OF YORKThou toad, thou toad, where is thy brother Clarence?

145

And little Ned Plantagenet, his son?

QUEEN ELIZABETHWhere is the gentle Rivers, Vaughan, Grey?

DUCHESS OF YORKWhere is kind Hastings?

RICHARDA flourish,[148] trumpets! Strike alarum, drums!

Let not the heavens hear these tell-tale[149] women

150

Rail[150] on the lord’s anointed. Strike, I say!

Flourish. Alarums

Either be patient and entreat[151] me fair,

Or with the clamorous report[152] of war

Thus will I drown your exclamations.

DUCHESS OF YORKArt thou my son?

155

RICHARDAy, I thank God, my father, and yourself.

DUCHESS OF YORKThen patiently hear my impatience.[156]

RICHARDMadam, I have a touch of your condition,[157]

That cannot brook[158] the accent of reproof.

DUCHESS OF YORKO, let me speak!

160

RICHARDDo then, but I’ll not hear.

DUCHESS OF YORKI will be mild and gentle in my words.

RICHARDAnd brief, good mother, for I am in haste.

DUCHESS OF YORKArt thou so hasty? I have stayed[163] for thee,

God knows, in torment and in agony.

165

RICHARDAnd came I not at last to comfort you?

DUCHESS OF YORKNo, by the holy rood,[166] thou know’st it well,

Thou cam’st on earth to make the earth my hell.

A grievous burden was thy birth to me:

Tetchy[169] and wayward was thy infancy:

170

Thy schooldays frightful,[170] desp’rate, wild, and furious:

Thy prime[171] of manhood daring, bold, and venturous:

Thy age confirmed,[172] proud, subtle, sly and bloody,

More mild, but yet more harmful, kind in hatred.[173]

What comfortable[174] hour canst thou name,

175

That ever graced me with thy company?

RICHARDFaith, none, but Humphrey[176] Hour, that called your grace

To breakfast once forth[177] of my company.

If I be so disgracious in your eye,

Let me march on and not offend you, madam.

180

Strike up the drum. Drums

DUCHESS OF YORKI prithee hear me speak.

RICHARDYou speak too bitterly.

DUCHESS OF YORKHear me a word,

For I shall never speak to thee again.

185

RICHARDSo.

DUCHESS OF YORKEither thou wilt die, by God’s just ordinance[186]

Ere from this war thou turn[187] a conqueror,

Or I with grief and extreme age shall perish

And never more behold thy face again.

190

Therefore take with thee my most grievous curse,

Which in the day of battle tire[191] thee more

Than all the complete[192] armour that thou wear’st!

My prayers on the adverse party fight,

And there the little souls of Edward’s children

195

Whisper[195] the spirits of thine enemies

And promise them success and victory.

Bloody thou art, bloody will be thy end:

Shame serves[198] thy life and doth thy death attend.

Exit

QUEEN ELIZABETHThough far more cause, yet much less spirit to curse

200

Abides in me: I say amen to her.

RICHARDStay, madam, I must talk a word with you.

QUEEN ELIZABETHI have no more sons of the royal blood

For thee to slaughter: for my daughters, Richard,

They shall be praying nuns, not weeping queens,

205

And therefore level[205] not to hit their lives.

RICHARDYou have a daughter called Elizabeth,

Virtuous and fair, royal and gracious.

QUEEN ELIZABETHAnd must she die for this? O, let her live,

And I’ll corrupt her manners,[209] stain her beauty,

210

Slander myself as false[210] to Edward’s bed,

Throw over her the veil[211] of infamy:

So[212] she may live unscarred of bleeding slaughter,

I will confess she was not Edward’s daughter.

RICHARDWrong not her birth, she is a royal princess.

215

QUEEN ELIZABETHTo save her life, I’ll say she is not so.

RICHARDHer life is safest[216] only in her birth.

QUEEN ELIZABETHAnd only in that safety died her brothers.

RICHARDLo, at their birth good stars were opposite.[218]

QUEEN ELIZABETHNo, to their lives ill friends[219] were contrary.

220

RICHARDAll unavoided[220] is the doom of destiny.

QUEEN ELIZABETHTrue, when avoided grace[221] makes destiny.

My babes were destined to a fairer[222] death,

If grace had blessed thee with a fairer life.

RICHARDYou speak as if that I had slain my cousins.

225

QUEEN ELIZABETHCousins, indeed, and by their uncle cozened[225]

Of comfort, kingdom, kindred, freedom, life.

Whose hand soever[227] lanched their tender hearts,

Thy head,[228] all indirectly, gave direction.

No doubt the murd’rous knife was dull and blunt

230

Till it was whetted on thy stone-hard heart,

To revel in the entrails of my lambs.

But[232] that still use of grief makes wild grief tame,

My tongue should to thy ears not name my boys

Till that my nails were anchored in thine eyes,

235

And I, in such a desp’rate bay[235] of death,

Like a poor bark,[236] of sails and tackling reft,

Rush[237] all to pieces on thy rocky bosom.

RICHARDMadam, so thrive I[238] in my enterprise

And dangerous success[239] of bloody wars,

240

As[240] I intend more good to you and yours,

Than ever you and yours by me were harmed.

QUEEN ELIZABETHWhat good is covered[242] with the face of heaven,

To be discovered,[243] that can do me good?

RICHARDTh’advancement[244] of your children, gentle lady.

245

QUEEN ELIZABETHUp to some scaffold,[245] there to lose their heads?

RICHARDUnto the dignity[246] and height of fortune,

The high imperial type[247] of this earth’s glory.

QUEEN ELIZABETHFlatter[248] my sorrow with report of it:

Tell me what state,[249] what dignity, what honour,

250

Canst thou demise[250] to any child of mine?

RICHARDEven[251] all I have; ay, and myself and all,

Will I withal endow[252] a child of thine,

So[253] in the Lethe of thy angry soul

Thou drown the sad remembrance[254] of those wrongs

255

Which thou supposest I have done to thee.

QUEEN ELIZABETHBe brief, lest that the process[256] of thy kindness

Last longer telling[257] than thy kindness’ date.

RICHARDThen know, that from my soul I love thy daughter.

QUEEN ELIZABETHMy daughter’s mother thinks[259] it with her soul.

260

RICHARDWhat do you think?

QUEEN ELIZABETHThat thou dost love my daughter from[261] thy soul.

So from thy soul’s love didst thou love her brothers,

And from my heart’s love I do thank thee for it.

RICHARDBe not so hasty to confound[264] my meaning:

265

I mean that with my soul I love thy daughter

And do intend to make her Queen of England.

QUEEN ELIZABETHWell then, who dost thou mean shall be her king?

RICHARDEven he that makes her queen. Who else should be?

QUEEN ELIZABETHWhat, thou?

270

RICHARDEven so. How[270] think you of it?

QUEEN ELIZABETHHow canst thou woo her?

RICHARDThat I would learn of you,

As one being best acquainted with her humour.[273]

QUEEN ELIZABETHAnd wilt thou learn of me?

275

RICHARDMadam, with all my heart.

QUEEN ELIZABETHSend to her, by the man that slew her brothers,

A pair of bleeding hearts: thereon engrave[277]

‘Edward’ and ‘York’, then haply[278] will she weep:

Therefore present to her — as sometime[279] Margaret

280

Did to thy father, steeped in Rutland’s blood —

A handkerchief, which, say to her, did drain

The purple[282] sap from her sweet brother’s body,

And bid her wipe her weeping eyes withal.[283]

If this inducement move her not to love,

285

Send her a letter of thy noble deeds:

Tell her thou mad’st away[286] her uncle Clarence,

Her uncle Rivers, ay, and, for her sake,

Mad’st quick conveyance[288] with her good aunt Anne.

RICHARDYou mock me, madam: this is not the way

290

To win your daughter.

QUEEN ELIZABETHThere is no other way,

Unless thou couldst put on some other shape,[292]

And not be Richard that hath done all this.

RICHARDSay that I did all this for love of her.

295

QUEEN ELIZABETHNay, then indeed she cannot choose but hate thee,

Having bought love with such a bloody spoil.[296]

RICHARDLook what[297] is done cannot be now amended:

Men shall deal[298] unadvisedly sometimes,

Which after-hours[299] give leisure to repent.

300

If I did take the kingdom from your sons,

To make amends, I’ll give it to your daughter.

If I have killed the issue[302] of your womb,

To quicken[303] your increase, I will beget

Mine issue of your blood upon[304] your daughter.

305

A grandam’s name is little less in love

Than is the doting title of a mother;

They are as children but one step below,

Even of your mettle,[308] of your very blood,

Of all one[309] pain, save for a night of groans

310

Endured of her,[310] for whom you bid like sorrow.

Your children were vexation to your youth,

But mine shall be a comfort to your age.

The loss you have is but a son being king,

And by that loss your daughter is made queen.

315

I cannot make you what amends I would:[315]

Therefore accept such kindness as I can.[316]

Dorset your son, that with a fearful soul

Leads discontented steps in foreign soil,

This fair alliance quickly shall call home

320

To high promotions and great dignity.

The king that calls your beauteous daughter wife

Familiarly[322] shall call thy Dorset brother.

Again shall you be mother to a king,

And all the ruins of distressful times

325

Repaired with double riches of content.

What? We have many goodly days to see.

The liquid drops of tears that you have shed

Shall come again, transformed to orient[328] pearl,

Advantaging[329] their love with interest

330

Of ten times double gain of happiness.

Go then, my mother,[331] to thy daughter go:

Make bold[332] her bashful years with your experience,

Prepare her ears to hear a wooer’s tale,

Put in her tender heart th’aspiring flame

335

Of golden sovereignty, acquaint the princess

With the sweet silent hours of marriage joys.

And when this arm of mine hath chastisèd

The petty rebel, dull-brained Buckingham,

Bound with triumphant garlands will I come

340

And lead thy daughter to a conqueror’s bed:

To whom I will retail[341] my conquest won,

And she shall be sole victoress,[342] Caesar’s Caesar.

QUEEN ELIZABETHWhat were I best to say? Her father’s brother

Would be her lord?[344] Or shall I say her uncle?

345

Or he that slew her brothers and her uncles?

Under what title shall I woo for thee,

That God, the law, my honour and her love,

Can make seem pleasing to her tender years?

RICHARDInfer[349] fair England’s peace by this alliance.

350

QUEEN ELIZABETHWhich she shall purchase[350] with still lasting war.

RICHARDTell her the king, that may command, entreats.

QUEEN ELIZABETHThat[352] at her hands which the king’s king forbids.

RICHARDSay she shall be a high and mighty queen.

QUEEN ELIZABETHTo vail[354] the title, as her mother doth.

355

RICHARDSay I will love her everlastingly.

QUEEN ELIZABETHBut how long shall that title[356] ‘ever’ last?

RICHARDSweetly in force[357] unto her fair life’s end.

QUEEN ELIZABETHBut how long fairly[358] shall her sweet life last?

RICHARDAs long as heaven and nature lengthens it.

360

QUEEN ELIZABETHAs long as hell and Richard likes of it.

RICHARDSay I, her sovereign, am her subject low.

QUEEN ELIZABETHBut she, your subject, loathes[362] such sovereignty.

RICHARDBe eloquent in[363] my behalf to her.

QUEEN ELIZABETHAn honest tale speeds[364] best being plainly told.

365

RICHARDThen plainly to her tell my loving tale.

QUEEN ELIZABETHPlain and not honest is too harsh a style.

RICHARDYour reasons are too shallow and too quick.[367]

QUEEN ELIZABETHO no, my reasons are too[368] deep and dead:

Too deep and dead, poor infants, in their graves.

370

RICHARDHarp not on that string, madam: that is past.

QUEEN ELIZABETHHarp on it still shall I till heart-strings[371] break.

RICHARDNow, by my George,[372] my garter and my crown—

QUEEN ELIZABETHProfaned, dishonoured and the third usurped.

RICHARDI swear—

375

QUEEN ELIZABETHBy nothing, for this is no oath:

Thy George, profaned, hath lost his[376] lordly honour;

Thy garter, blemished, pawned his knightly virtue;

Thy crown, usurped, disgraced his kingly glory.

If something thou wouldst swear to be believed,

380

Swear then by something that thou hast not wronged.

RICHARDThen, by myself—

QUEEN ELIZABETHThyself is self-misused.[382]

RICHARDNow, by the world—

QUEEN ELIZABETH’Tis full of thy foul wrongs.

385

RICHARDMy father’s death—

QUEEN ELIZABETHThy life hath it dishonoured.

RICHARDWhy then, by heaven—

QUEEN ELIZABETHHeaven’s wrong is most of all.

If thou didst fear to break an oath with him,[389]

390

The unity[390] the king my husband made

Thou hadst[391] not broken, nor my brothers died.

If thou hadst feared to break an oath by him,

Th’imperial metal, circling now thy head,

Had graced the tender temples of my child,

395

And both the princes had been breathing here,

Which now, two tender bedfellows for dust,

Thy broken faith hath made the prey for worms.

What canst thou swear by now?

RICHARDThe time to come.

400

QUEEN ELIZABETHThat thou hast wrongèd in the time o’erpast,[400]

For I myself have many tears to wash

Hereafter time,[402] for time past wronged by thee.

The children live whose fathers thou hast slaughtered,

Ungoverned[404] youth, to wail it with their age:

405

The parents live whose children thou hast butchered,

Old barren plants, to wail it with[406] their age.

Swear not by time to come, for that thou hast

Misused ere used, by time’s ill-used repast.

RICHARDAs I intend to prosper and repent,

410

So thrive I[410] in my dangerous affairs

Of hostile arms. Myself myself confound.[411]

Heaven and fortune bar me happy hours!

Day, yield me not thy light; nor, night, thy rest.

Be opposite[414] all planets of good luck

415

To my proceeding[415] if, with dear heart’s love,

Immaculate devotion, holy thoughts,

I tender not[417] thy beauteous princely daughter.

In her consists my happiness and thine:

Without her, follows to myself and thee,

420

Herself, the land and many a Christian soul,

Death, desolation, ruin and decay.

It cannot be avoided but by this:

It will not be avoided but by this.

Therefore, dear mother — I must call you so —

425

Be the attorney[425] of my love to her:

Plead[426] what I will be, not what I have been:

Not my deserts,[427] but what I will deserve.

Urge the necessity and state of times,[428]

And be not peevish found in great designs.[429]

430

QUEEN ELIZABETHShall I be tempted of[430] the devil thus?

RICHARDAy, if the devil tempt you to do good.

QUEEN ELIZABETHShall I forget[432] myself to be myself?

RICHARDAy, if[433] yourself’s remembrance wrong yourself.

QUEEN ELIZABETHYet thou didst kill my children.

435

RICHARDBut in your daughter’s womb I bury them,

Where in that nest of spicery[436] they will breed

Selves of themselves, to your recomforture.[437]

QUEEN ELIZABETHShall I go win my daughter to thy will?

RICHARDAnd be a happy mother by the deed.

440

QUEEN ELIZABETHI go. Write to me very shortly,

And you shall understand from me her mind.[441]

RICHARDBear her my true love’s kiss, and so, farewell. Kisses her

Exit [Queen Elizabeth]

Relenting fool, and shallow, changing woman!—

How now, what news?

Enter Ratcliffe [with Catesby following]

445

RATCLIFFEMost mighty sovereign, on the western coast

Rideth a puissant[446] navy: to our shores

Throng many doubtful[447] hollow-hearted friends,

Unarmed, and unresolved to beat them back.

’Tis thought that Richmond is their[449] admiral,

450

And there they hull,[450] expecting but the aid

Of Buckingham to welcome them ashore.

RICHARDSome light-foot[452] friend post to the Duke of Norfolk:

Ratcliffe, thyself, or Catesby. Where is he?

CATESBYHere, my good lord.

455

RICHARDCatesby, fly to the duke.

CATESBYI will, my lord, with all convenient haste.

RICHARDRatcliffe, come hither. Post to Salisbury.

When thou com’st thither— Dull, unmindful[458] villain, To Catesby

Why stay’st thou here, and go’st not to the duke?

460

CATESBYFirst, mighty liege, tell me your highness’ pleasure,

What from your grace I shall deliver to him.

RICHARDO, true, good Catesby. Bid him levy straight

The greatest strength and power[463] that he can make,

And meet me suddenly[464] at Salisbury.

465

CATESBYI go.

Exit

RATCLIFFEWhat, may it please you, shall I do at Salisbury?

RICHARDWhy, what wouldst thou do there before I go?

RATCLIFFEYour highness told me I should post before.

RICHARDMy mind is changed.—

Enter Lord Stanley [Earl of Derby]

470

Stanley, what news with you?

DERBYNone good, my liege, to please you with the hearing,

Nor none so bad, but well[472] may be reported.

RICHARDHoyday,[473] a riddle: neither good nor bad.

Why need’st thou run so many miles about,

475

When thou mayst tell thy tale the nearest[475] way?

Once more, what news?

DERBYRichmond is on the seas.

RICHARDThere let him sink, and be the seas on him!

White-livered runagate,[479] what doth he there?

480

DERBYI know not, mighty sovereign, but by guess.

RICHARDWell, as you guess?

DERBYStirred up by Dorset, Buckingham and Morton,

He makes for England, here to claim the crown.

RICHARDIs the chair[484] empty? Is the sword unswayed?

485

Is the king dead? The empire[485] unpossessed?

What heir of York is there alive but we?

And who is England’s king but great York’s heir?

Then tell me, what makes he[488] upon the seas?

DERBYUnless for that,[489] my liege, I cannot guess.

490

RICHARDUnless for that[490] he comes to be your liege,

You cannot guess wherefore the Welshman[491] comes.

Thou wilt revolt, and fly to him, I fear.

DERBYNo, my good lord: therefore mistrust me not.

RICHARDWhere is thy power,[494] then, to beat him back?

495

Where be thy tenants[495] and thy followers?

Are they not now upon the western shore,

Safe-conducting the rebels from their ships?

DERBYNo, my good lord, my friends are in the north.

RICHARDCold[499] friends to me: what do they in the north,

500

When they should serve their sovereign in the west?

DERBYThey have not been commanded, mighty king.

Pleaseth[502] your majesty to give me leave,

I’ll muster up my friends and meet your grace

Where and what time your majesty shall please.

505

RICHARDAy, thou wouldst be gone to join with Richmond.

But I’ll not trust thee.

DERBYMost mighty sovereign,

You have no cause to hold[508] my friendship doubtful:

I never was nor never will be false.

510

RICHARDGo then and muster men, but, leave behind

Your son, George Stanley. Look[511] your heart be firm,

Or else his head’s assurance[512] is but frail.

DERBYSo deal with him as I prove true to you.

Exit Stanley [Earl of Derby]

Enter a Messenger

MESSENGERMy gracious sovereign, now in Devonshire,

515

As I by friends am well advertisèd,[515]

Sir Edward Courtney and the haughty prelate,

Bishop of Exeter, his elder brother,

With many more confederates, are in arms.

Enter another Messenger

SECOND MESSENGERIn Kent, my liege, the Guildfords are in arms,

520

And every hour more competitors[520]

Flock to the rebels, and their power grows strong.

Enter another Messenger

THIRD MESSENGERMy lord, the army of great Buckingham—

RICHARDOut on ye, owls![523] Nothing but songs of death?

He striketh him

There, take thou that, till thou bring better news.

525

THIRD MESSENGERThe news I have to tell your majesty

Is that by sudden floods and fall of waters[526]

Buckingham’s army is dispersed and scattered,

And he himself wandered away alone,

No man knows whither.

530

RICHARDI cry thee mercy:[530]

There is my purse to cure that blow of thine. Gives money

Hath any well-advisèd[532] friend proclaimed

Reward to him that brings the traitor in?

THIRD MESSENGERSuch proclamation hath been made, my lord.

Enter another Messenger

535

FOURTH MESSENGERSir Thomas Lovell and Lord Marquis Dorset,

’Tis said, my liege, in Yorkshire are in arms.

But this good comfort bring I to your highness:

The Breton navy is dispersed by tempest.

Richmond, in Dorsetshire, sent out a boat

540

Unto the shore, to ask those on the banks

If they were his assistants,[541] yea or no,

Who answered him they came from Buckingham

Upon his party:[543] he, mistrusting them,

Hoised[544] sail and made his course again for Brittany.

545

RICHARDMarch on, march on, since we are up in arms.

If not to fight with foreign enemies,

Yet to beat down these rebels here at home.

Enter Catesby

CATESBYMy liege, the Duke of Buckingham is taken:[548]

That is the best news. That the Earl of Richmond

550

Is with a mighty power landed at Milford[550]

Is colder[551] news, but yet they must be told.

RICHARDAway towards Salisbury! While we reason[552] here,

A royal battle might be won and lost.

Someone take order Buckingham be brought

555

To Salisbury. The rest march on with me.

Flourish. Exeunt

[Act 4 Scene 5]4.5

running scene 17

Enter [Stanley, Earl of] Derby and Sir Christopher

DERBYSir Christopher, tell Richmond this from me:

That in the sty[2] of the most deadly boar

My son George Stanley is franked[3] up in hold.

If I revolt, off goes young George’s head:

5

The fear of that holds off my present aid.

So get thee gone: commend me to thy lord.

Withal say that the queen hath heartily consented

He should espouse[8] Elizabeth her daughter.

But tell me, where is princely Richmond now?

10

CHRISTOPHERAt Pembroke,[10] or at Ha’rfordwest, in Wales.

DERBYWhat men of name[11] resort to him?

CHRISTOPHERSir Walter Herbert, a renownèd soldier,

Sir Gilbert Talbot, Sir William Stanley,

Oxford, redoubted[14] Pembroke, Sir James Blunt,

15

And Rice[15] ap Thomas with a valiant crew,

And many other of great name and worth:

And towards London do they bend[17] their power,

If by[18] the way they be not fought withal.

DERBYWell, hie thee to thy lord: I kiss his hand,

20

My letter will resolve[20] him of my mind. Farewell.

Exeunt

Act 5 Scene 1*

running scene 18

Enter Buckingham with [Guards bearing] halberds [and the Sheriff], led to execution

BUCKINGHAMWill not King Richard let me speak with him?

SHERIFFNo, my good lord: therefore be patient.

BUCKINGHAMHastings, and Edward’s children, Grey and Rivers,

Holy King Henry, and thy fair son Edward,

5

Vaughan, and all that have miscarrièd[5]

By underhand corrupted foul injustice,

If that your moody[7] discontented souls

Do through the clouds behold this present hour,

Even for revenge mock my destruction!—

10

This is All Souls’ day,[10] fellow, is it not?

SHERIFFIt is.

BUCKINGHAMWhy, then All Souls’ day is my body’s doomsday.

This[13] is the day which, in King Edward’s time,

I wished might fall on me, when I was found

15

False to his children and his wife’s allies:

This is the day wherein I wished to fall

By the false faith of him whom most I trusted:

This, this All Souls’ day to my fearful soul

Is the determined respite of[19] my wrongs.

20

That high all-seer[20] which I dallied with

Hath turned my feignèd[21] prayer on my head

And given in earnest what I begged in jest:[22]

Thus doth he force the swords of wicked men

To turn their own points in their masters’ bosoms.

25

Thus Margaret’s curse falls heavy on my neck:

‘When he’, quoth she, ‘shall split thy heart with sorrow,

Remember Margaret was a prophetess.’

Come lead me, officers, to the block[28] of shame.

Wrong hath but wrong, and blame the due of blame.

Exeunt Buckingham with Officers

Act 5 Scene 25.2

running scene 19

Enter Richmond, Oxford, Blunt, Herbert and others, with Drum and Colours

RICHMONDFellows in arms, and my most loving friends

Bruised underneath the yoke of tyranny,

Thus far into the bowels[3] of the land

Have we marched on without impediment;

5

And here receive we from our father[5] Stanley

Lines of fair comfort and encouragement.

The wretched, bloody, and usurping boar —

That spoiled[8] your summer fields and fruitful vines,

Swills[9] your warm blood like wash, and makes his trough

10

In your embowelled[10] bosoms — this foul swine

Is now even in the centre of this isle,

Near to the town of Leicester,[12] as we learn.

From Tamworth thither is but one day’s march.

In God’s name, cheerly[14] on, courageous friends,

15

To reap the harvest of perpetual peace

By this one bloody trial of sharp[16] war.

OXFORDEvery man’s conscience is a thousand men,

To fight against this guilty homicide.[18]

HERBERTI doubt not but his friends will turn to us.

20

BLUNTHe hath no friends but what are friends for fear,

Which in his dearest need will fly from him.

RICHMONDAll for our vantage.[22] Then, in God’s name, march.

True hope is swift, and flies with swallow’s wings:

Kings it makes gods and meaner[24] creatures kings.

Exeunt

[Act 5 Scene 3]5.3

running scene 20

Enter King Richard in arms, with Norfolk, Ratcliffe and the Earl of Surrey [with Soldiers, who pitch Richard’s tent]

RICHARDHere pitch our tent, even here in Bosworth Field.

My lord of Surrey, why look you so sad?[2]

SURREYMy heart is ten times lighter than my looks.

RICHARDMy lord of Norfolk—

5

NORFOLKHere, most gracious liege.

RICHARDNorfolk, we must have knocks,[6] ha? Must we not?

NORFOLKWe must both give and take, my loving lord.

RICHARDUp with my tent! Here will I lie tonight,

But where tomorrow? Well, all’s[9] one for that.

10

Who hath descried[10] the number of the traitors?

NORFOLKSix or seven thousand is their utmost power.

RICHARDWhy, our battalia[12] trebles that account:

Besides, the king’s name is a tower of strength,

Which they upon the adverse faction want.[14]

15

Up with the tent! Come, noble gentlemen,

Let us survey the vantage[16] of the ground.

Call for some men of sound direction:[17]

Let’s lack no discipline, make no delay,

For, lords, tomorrow is a busy day.

Exeunt [into the tent]

Enter Richmond, Sir William Brandon, Oxford, [Blunt] and Dorset [with Soldiers, who pitch Richmond’s tent]

20

RICHMONDThe weary sun hath made a golden set,

And by the bright tract[21] of his fiery car,

Gives token of a goodly day tomorrow.

Sir William Brandon, you shall bear my standard.[23]

Give me some ink and paper in my tent:

25

I’ll draw the form and model[25] of our battle,

Limit[26] each leader to his several charge,

And part[27] in just proportion our small power.

My lord of Oxford, you, Sir William Brandon,

And you, Sir Walter Herbert, stay with me.

30

The Earl of Pembroke keeps[30] his regiment;

Good Captain Blunt, bear my goodnight to him,

And by the second hour in the morning

Desire the earl to see me in my tent.

Yet one thing more, good captain, do for me:

35

Where is Lord Stanley quartered,[35] do you know?

BLUNTUnless I have mista’en his colours[36] much —

Which well I am assured I have not done —

His regiment lies half a mile at least South from the mighty power of the king.

40

RICHMONDIf without peril it be possible,

Sweet Blunt, make some good means to speak with him,

And give him from me this most needful[42] note.

BLUNTUpon my life, my lord, I’ll undertake it.

And so, God give you quiet rest tonight.

[Exit]

45

RICHMONDGood night, good Captain Blunt. Come gentlemen,

Let us consult upon tomorrow’s business;

Into my tent: the dew is raw and cold.

They withdraw into the tent

Enter Richard, Ratcliffe, Norfolk and Catesby [and other Soldiers]

RICHARDWhat is’t o’clock?

CATESBYIt’s supper-time, my lord: it’s nine o’clock.

50

RICHARDI will not sup tonight.

Give me some ink and paper.

What, is my beaver[52] easier than it was?

And all my armour laid into[53] my tent?

CATESBYIt is, my liege, and all things are in readiness.

55

RICHARDGood Norfolk, hie[55] thee to thy charge:

Use careful watch, choose trusty sentinels.

NORFOLKI go, my lord.

RICHARDStir with the lark tomorrow, gentle Norfolk.

NORFOLKI warrant[59] you, my lord.

Exit

60

RICHARDRatcliffe!

RATCLIFFEMy lord?

RICHARDSend out a pursuivant at arms[62]

To Stanley’s regiment: bid him bring his power

Before sun-rising, lest his son George fall

65

Into the blind cave of eternal night.—

Fill me a bowl of wine. Give me a watch.[66] To other Soldiers

Saddle white Surrey[67] for the field tomorrow.

Look that my staves[68] be sound, and not too heavy. Exit some Soldiers

Ratcliffe!

70

RATCLIFFEMy lord?

RICHARDSaw’st the melancholy Lord Northumberland?

RATCLIFFEThomas the Earl of Surrey and himself,

Much about cockshut[73] time, from troop to troop

Went through the army, cheering up[74] the soldiers. Enter a Soldier

75

RICHARDSo, I am satisfied.— Give me a bowl of wine:—

I have not that alacrity[76] of spirit,

Nor cheer of mind, that I was wont[77] to have.—

Set it[78] down.— Is ink and paper ready?

RATCLIFFEIt is, my lord.

80

RICHARDBid my guard watch. Leave me.

Ratcliffe, about the mid of night come to my tent

And help to arm me.[82] Leave me, I say.

Exeunt Ratcliffe [and Soldiers] Richard withdraws to his tent, writes, and then sleeps

Enter Derby to Richmond in his tent

DERBYFortune and victory sit on thy helm![83]

RICHMONDAll comfort that the dark night can afford

85

Be to thy person, noble father-in-law![85]

Tell me, how fares our noble mother?

DERBYI, by attorney,[87] bless thee from thy mother

Who prays continually for Richmond’s good.

So much for that. The silent hours steal on,

90

And flaky[90] darkness breaks within the east.

In brief — for so the season[91] bids us be —

Prepare thy battle early in the morning,

And put thy fortune to th’arbitrement[93]

Of bloody strokes and mortal-staring[94] war.

95

I, as I may — that[95] which I would I cannot —

With[96] best advantage will deceive the time,

And aid thee in this doubtful shock[97] of arms.

But on thy side I may not be too forward[98]

Lest, being seen, thy brother,[99] tender George,

100

Be executed in his father’s sight.

Farewell. The leisure[101] and the fearful time

Cuts off the ceremonious vows of love

And ample interchange[103] of sweet discourse

Which so long sundered[104] friends should dwell upon:

105

God give us leisure for these rites of love!

Once more, adieu. Be valiant, and speed well!

RICHMONDGood lords, conduct him to his regiment:

I’ll strive with[108] troubled noise to take a nap,

Lest leaden slumber peise[109] me down tomorrow,

110

When I should mount with wings of victory.

Once more, good night, kind lords and gentlemen.

Exeunt. Richmond remains

O thou, whose captain I account[112] myself, Kneels

Look on my forces with a gracious[113] eye:

Put in their hands thy bruising irons[114] of wrath,

115

That they may crush down with a heavy fall

Th’usurping helmets of our adversaries!

Make us thy ministers of chastisement,

That we may praise thee in thy victory!

To thee I do commend my watchful[119] soul,

120

Ere I let fall the windows of mine eyes:

Sleeping and waking, O, defend me still!

Sleeps

Enter the Ghost of Prince Edward, son to Henry VI

GHOST OF PRINCE EDWARDLet me sit heavy on thy soul tomorrow!

To Richard

Think how thou stab’st me in my prime of youth

At Tewkesbury: despair[124] therefore, and die!—

125

Be cheerful, Richmond, for the wrongèd souls

To Richmond

Of butchered princes fight in thy behalf.

King Henry’s issue,[127] Richmond, comforts thee.

[Exit?] The Ghosts either exit individually or remain onstage

Enter the Ghost of Henry the Sixth

GHOST OF KING HENRY VIWhen I was mortal, my anointed[128] body To Richard

By thee was punchèd[129] full of holes;

130

Think on the Tower[130] and me: despair and die!

Harry the Sixth bids thee despair and die!—

Virtuous and holy, be thou conqueror!

To Richmond

Harry, that prophesied thou shouldst be king,

Doth comfort thee in sleep: live and flourish!

[Exit?]

Enter the Ghost of Clarence

135

GHOST OF CLARENCELet me sit heavy in thy soul tomorrow! To Richard

I, that was washed[136] to death with fulsome wine,

Poor Clarence, by thy guile betrayed to death!

Tomorrow in the battle think on me,

And fall[139] thy edgeless sword: despair and die!—

140

Thou offspring of the House of Lancaster,

To Richmond

The wrongèd heirs of York do pray for thee.

Good angels guard thy battle![142] Live and flourish!

[Exit?]

Enter the Ghosts of Rivers, Grey and Vaughan

GHOST OF RIVERSLet me sit heavy in thy soul tomorrow, To Richard

Rivers that died at Pomfret: despair and die!

145

GHOST OF GREYThink upon Grey, and let thy soul despair! To Richard

GHOST OF VAUGHANThink upon Vaughan, and, with guilty fear, To Richard

Let fall thy lance: despair and die!

ALLAwake, and think our wrongs in Richard’s bosom

To Richmond

Will conquer him! Awake, and win the day!

[Exeunt Ghosts?]

Enter the Ghost of Lord Hastings

150

GHOST OF HASTINGSBloody and guilty, guiltily awake To Richard

And in a bloody battle end thy days!

Think on Lord Hastings: despair and die!

Quiet untroubled soul, awake, awake!

To Richmond

Arm, fight, and conquer, for fair England’s sake!

[Exit?]

Enter the Ghosts of the two young Princes

155

GHOSTS OF PRINCESDream on thy cousins smothered in the Tower: To Richard

Let us be laid[156] within thy bosom, Richard,

And weigh thee down to ruin, shame, and death!

Thy nephews’ souls bid thee despair and die!—

Sleep, Richmond, sleep in peace and wake in joy:

To Richmond

160

Good angels guard thee from the boar’s annoy![160]

Live and beget a happy race of kings!

Edward’s unhappy sons do bid thee flourish.

[Exit Ghosts?]

Enter the Ghost of Anne, his wife

GHOST OF ANNERichard, thy wife, that wretched Anne thy wife,

To Richard

That never slept a quiet[164] hour with thee,

165

Now fills thy sleep with perturbations.

Tomorrow in the battle think on me,

And fall thy edgeless sword: despair and die!—

Thou quiet soul, sleep thou a quiet sleep:

To Richmond

Dream of success and happy victory!

170

Thy adversary’s wife doth pray for thee.

[Exit?]

Enter the Ghost of Buckingham

GHOST OF BUCKINGHAMThe first was I that helped thee to the crown:

To Richard

The last was I that felt thy tyranny.

O, in the battle think on Buckingham,

And die in terror of thy guiltiness!

175

Dream on, dream on, of bloody deeds and death:

Fainting,[176] despair; despairing, yield thy breath!—

I died for hope ere I could lend thee aid;

To Richmond

But cheer thy heart, and be thou not dismayed:

God and good angels fight on Richmond’s side,

180

And Richard[180] fall in height of all his pride.

[Exit?] If the Ghosts have not exited individually, they all vanish at this point

Richard starts out of his dream

RICHARDGive me another horse! Bind up my wounds!

Have mercy, Jesu! — Soft,[182] I did but dream.

O coward conscience, how dost thou afflict me!

The lights burn blue.[184] It is not dead midnight.

185

Cold fearful drops[185] stand on my trembling flesh.

What? Do I fear myself? There’s none else by.

Richard loves Richard: that is, I am I.

Is there a murderer here? No. Yes, I am.

Then fly. What, from myself? Great reason why:

190

Lest I revenge. What? Myself upon myself?

Alack, I love myself. Wherefore?[191] For any good

That I myself have done unto myself?

O no! Alas, I rather hate myself

For hateful deeds committed by myself!

195

I am a villain: yet I lie, I am not.

Fool, of thyself speak well: fool, do not flatter.

My conscience hath a thousand several[197] tongues,

And every tongue brings[198] in a several tale,

And every tale condemns me for a villain.

200

Perjury in the high’st degree,

Murder, stern murder, in the direst degree,

All several sins, all used[202] in each degree,

Throng all to th’bar,[203] crying all, ‘Guilty! Guilty!’

I shall despair. There is no creature[204] loves me;

205

And if I die, no soul shall pity me.

Nay, wherefore should they, since that I myself

Find in myself no pity to myself?

Methought the souls of all that I had murdered

Came to my tent, and every one did threat[209]

210

Tomorrow’s vengeance on the head of Richard.

Enter Ratcliffe

RATCLIFFEMy lord?

RICHARDWho’s there?

RATCLIFFERatcliffe, my lord, ’tis I. The early village cock

Hath twice done salutation to the morn.

215

Your friends are up and buckle on their armour.

RICHARDO Ratcliffe, I fear, I fear—

RATCLIFFENay, good my lord, be not afraid of shadows.[217]

RICHARDBy the apostle Paul, shadows tonight

Have struck more terror to the soul of Richard

220

Than can the substance of ten thousand soldiers

Armèd in proof,[221] and led by shallow Richmond.

’Tis not yet near day. Come, go with me:

Under our tents I’ll play the eavesdropper,

To hear if any mean to shrink from[224] me.

Exeunt Richard and Ratcliffe

Enter the Lords to Richmond, sitting in his tent

225

LORDSGood morrow, Richmond!

RICHMONDCry mercy,[226] lords and watchful gentlemen,

That you have ta’en[227] a tardy sluggard here.

LORDSHow have you slept, my lord?

RICHMONDThe sweetest sleep, and fairest-boding dreams

230

That ever entered in a drowsy head,

Have I since your departure had, my lords.

Methought their souls, whose bodies Richard murdered,

Came to my tent and cried on[233] victory:

I promise you my heart is very jocund[234]

235

In the remembrance of so fair a dream.

How far into the morning is it, lords?

LORDSUpon the stroke of four.

RICHMONDWhy, then ’tis time to arm and give direction.—

More than I have said,[239] loving countrymen,

His oration to his Soldiers

240

The leisure[240] and enforcement of the time

Forbids to dwell upon. Yet remember this:

God and our good cause fight upon our side,

The prayers of holy saints and wrongèd souls,

Like high-reared bulwarks,[244] stand before our faces,

245

Richard except,[245] those whom we fight against

Had rather have us win than him they follow:

For what is he they follow? Truly, gentlemen,

A bloody tyrant and a homicide:

One raised[249] in blood, and one in blood established;

250

One that made means[250] to come by what he hath,

And slaughtered those that were the means to help him:

A base foul stone,[252] made precious by the foil

Of England’s chair,[253] where he is falsely set:

One that hath ever been God’s enemy.

255

Then if you fight against God’s enemy,

God will in justice ward[256] you as his soldiers:

If you do swear to put a tyrant down,

You sleep in peace, the tyrant being slain:

If you do fight against your country’s foes,

260

Your country’s fat[260] shall pay your pains the hire:

If you do fight in safeguard of your wives,

Your wives shall welcome home the conquerors:

If you do free your children from the sword,

Your children’s children quits[264] it in your age.

265

Then, in the name of God and all these rights,

Advance your standards,[266] draw your willing swords.

For me, the[267] ransom of my bold attempt

Shall be this cold corpse on the earth’s cold face:

But if I thrive,[269] the gain of my attempt

270

The least of you shall share his part thereof.

Sound drums and trumpets boldly and cheerfully.

God and Saint George,[272] Richmond and victory!

[Exeunt]

Enter King Richard, Ratcliffe and Catesby [with Attendants and Soldiers]

RICHARDWhat said Northumberland as touching[273] Richmond?

RATCLIFFEThat he was never trainèd up in arms.

275

RICHARDHe said the truth: and what said Surrey then?

RATCLIFFEHe smiled and said, ‘The better for our purpose.’

RICHARDHe was in the right, and so indeed it is.

Clock strikes

Tell[278] the clock there. Give me a calendar.

Who saw the sun today?

280

RATCLIFFENot I, my lord.

RICHARDThen he disdains to shine, for by the book[281]

He should have braved the east[282] an hour ago

A black[283] day will it be to somebody. Ratcliffe!

RATCLIFFEMy lord?

285

RICHARDThe sun will not be seen today:

The sky doth frown and lour[286] upon our army.

I would these dewy tears were from[287] the ground.

Not shine today? Why, what is that to me

More than to Richmond? For the selfsame heaven

290

That frowns on me looks sadly[290] upon him.

Enter Norfolk

NORFOLKArm, arm, my lord: the foe vaunts[291] in the field.

RICHARDCome, bustle, bustle. Caparison[292] my horse. He arms

Call up Lord Stanley, bid him bring his power.

I will lead forth my soldiers to the plain,

295

And thus my battle shall be orderèd:

My foreward[296] shall be drawn in length,

Consisting equally of horse and foot:[297]

Our archers shall be placèd in the midst;

John Duke of Norfolk, Thomas Earl of Surrey,

300

Shall have the leading of the foot and horse.

They thus directed,[301] we will follow

In the main battle, whose puissance[302] on either side

Shall be well wingèd[303] with our chiefest horse.

This, and Saint George to boot![304] What think’st thou, Norfolk?

305

NORFOLKA good direction, warlike sovereign.

This found I on my tent this morning: Shows a paper

‘Jockey[307] of Norfolk, be not so bold, Reads

For Dickon[308] thy master is bought and sold.’

RICHARDA thing devisèd by the enemy.

310

Go, gentleman, every man to his charge

Let not our babbling dreams affright our souls:

For conscience is a word that cowards use,

Devised at first to keep the strong in awe.

Our strong arms be our conscience, swords our law.

315

March on, join[315] bravely, let us to’t pell-mell:

If not to heaven, then hand in hand to hell.—

What shall I say more than I have inferred?[317] His oration to his army

Remember whom you are to cope[318] withal:

A sort[319] of vagabonds, rascals and runaways,

320

A scum of Bretons and base lackey peasants,

Whom their o’er-cloyèd[321] country vomits forth

To desperate adventures and assured destruction.

You sleeping safe, they bring you to unrest:

You having lands, and blest with beauteous wives,

325

They would restrain[325] the one, distain the other.

And who doth lead them but a paltry fellow,[326]

Long kept in Bretagne[327] at our mother’s cost?

A milksop,[328] one that never in his life

Felt so much cold as over-shoes in snow?[329]

330

Let’s whip these stragglers[330] o’er the seas again,

Lash[331] hence these overweening rags of France,

These famished beggars, weary of their lives,

Who, but[333] for dreaming on this fond exploit,

For want[334] of means, poor rats, had hanged themselves.

335

If we be conquered, let men conquer us,

And not these bastard Bretons, whom our fathers

Have in their own land[337] beaten, bobbed and thumped,

And on[338] record, left them the heirs of shame.

Shall these enjoy our lands? Lie[339] with our wives?

340

Ravish[340] our daughters?

Drum afar off

Hark! I hear their drum.

Fight, gentlemen of England! Fight boldly, yeomen![341]

Draw, archers, draw your arrows to the head!

Spur your proud[343] horses hard, and ride in blood:

Amaze[344] the welkin with your broken staves!

Enter a Messenger

345

What says Lord Stanley? Will he bring his power?

MESSENGERMy lord, he doth deny[346] to come.

RICHARDOff with his son George’s head!

NORFOLKMy lord, the enemy is past the marsh[348]

After the battle let George Stanley die.

350

RICHARDA thousand hearts are great[350] within my bosom.

Advance our standards, set upon our foes.

Our ancient word of courage,[352] fair Saint George,

Inspire us with the spleen[353] of fiery dragons!

Upon them! Victory sits on our helms.

[Exeunt]

Alarum, excursions. Enter Catesby

355

CATESBYRescue, my lord of Norfolk, rescue, rescue!

The king enacts more wonders than a[356] man,

Daring an opposite[357] to every danger:

His horse is slain, and all on foot he fights,

Seeking for Richmond in the throat of death.

360

Rescue, fair lord, or else the day is lost!

Alarums. Enter Richard

RICHARDA horse! A horse! My kingdom for a horse!

CATESBYWithdraw, my lord: I’ll help you to a horse.

RICHARDSlave, I have set[363] my life upon a cast,

And I will stand[364] the hazard of the die.

365

I think there be six Richmonds[365] in the field:

Five have I slain today instead of him.

A horse! A horse! My kingdom for a horse!

[Exeunt]

Alarum. Enter Richard and Richmond: they fight. Richard is slain. Retreat and flourish.

Enter Richmond, Derby bearing the crown, with divers other Lords

RICHMONDGod and your arms be praised, victorious friends!

The day is ours, the bloody dog is dead.

370

DERBYCourageous Richmond, well hast thou acquit thee.[370]

Lo, here, these long-usurpèd royalties[371]

From the dead temples of this bloody wretch

Have I plucked off, to grace thy brows withal:

Wear it and make much of it.

375

RICHMONDGreat God of heaven, say ‘Amen’ to all!

But, tell me, is young George Stanley living?

DERBYHe is, my lord, and safe in Leicester town,

Whither, if you please, we may withdraw us.

RICHMONDWhat men of name[379] are slain on either side?

380

DERBYJohn Duke of Norfolk, Walter Lord Ferris,

Sir Robert Brackenbury, and Sir William Brandon.

RICHMONDInter their bodies as become their births:[382]

Proclaim a pardon to the soldiers fled

That in submission will return to us:

385

And then, as we have ta’en the sacrament,[385]

We will unite[386] the white rose and the red.

Smile heaven upon this fair conjunction,[387]

That long have frowned upon their enmity!

What traitor hears me and says not ‘Amen’?

390

England hath long been mad, and scarred herself;

The brother blindly shed the brother’s blood,

The father rashly slaughtered his own son,

The son, compelled, been butcher to the sire:[393]

All this divided York and Lancaster,

395

Divided in their dire division.

O, now let Richmond and Elizabeth,

The true succeeders[397] of each royal house,

By God’s fair ordinance[398] conjoin together.

And let thy heirs — God, if thy will be so —

400

Enrich the time to come with smooth-faced peace,

With smiling plenty and fair prosperous days!

Abate[402] the edge of traitors, gracious Lord,

That would reduce[403] these bloody days again,

And make poor England weep in streams of blood;

405

Let them not live to taste this land’s increase[405]

That would with treason wound this fair land’s peace.

Now civil wounds are stopped,[407] peace lives again:

That she may long live here, God say ‘Amen’!

Exeunt

Quarto passages that do not appear in the Folio

Following 4.2.103:

BUCKINGHAMMy lord!

RICHARDHow chance the prophet could not at that time

Have told me, I being by, that I should kill him?

BUCKINGHAMMy lord, your promise for the earldom,—

RICHARDRichmond! When last I was at Exeter,

The mayor in courtesy showed me the castle,

And called it Rougemont: at which name I started,

Because a bard of Ireland told me once

I should not live long after I saw Richmond.

BUCKINGHAMMy lord!

RICHARDAy, what’s o’clock?

BUCKINGHAMI am thus bold to put your grace in mind

Of what you promised me.

RICHARDWell, but what’s o’clock?

BUCKINGHAMUpon the stroke of ten.

RICHARDWell, let it strike.

BUCKINGHAMWhy let it strike?

RICHARDBecause that, like a Jack, thou keep’st the stroke

Betwixt thy begging and my meditation.

I am not in the giving vein today.

Following 5.3.212:

RICHARDO Ratcliffe, I have dreamed a fearful dream!

What thinkest thou, will our friends prove all true?

RATCLIFFENo doubt, my lord.

Textual Notes

Q = First Quarto text of 1597

F = First Folio text of 1623

F2 = a correction introduced in the Second Folio text of 1632

Ed = a correction introduced by a later editor

SD = stage direction

SH = speech heading (i.e., speaker’s name)

List of parts = Ed

1.1.1 SH RICHARD = Ed. Not in F 77 was…his = Q. F = was, for her

1.2.211 SH RICHARD = Q. F assigns line to Lady Anne

1.3.6 If…me? accidentally printed twice in F 17 come the lords = Q. F = comes the Lord 158 of spelled off in F 305 on = Q. F = an 310 SH QUEEN ELIZABETH = Q. F = Mar. 343 SH FIRST MURDERER = Ed. F = Vil. (for Villain)

2.1.108 at = Q. F = and

2.2.1 SH BOY = Q. F = Edw. 3 you = Q. Not in F 47 I = Q. Not in F 83 weep = Q. F = weepes 84–5 and…they = Q. F = sodo not they (i.e., one line omitted due to eyeskip) 87 Pour spelled Power in F 142 Ludlow = Q. F = London 146 God’s = Q. F = God 153 Ludlow = Q. F = London

3.1.124 as = Q. F = as, as,

3.4.26 cue spelled Q in F

3.5.104 Penker = Ed. F = Pevker

4.1.16 SH BRACKENBURY = Ed. F = Lieu.

Act 4 Scene 4 = Ed. F = Scena Tertia 36 seniory = Q. F = signeurie 44 holp’st spelled hop’st in F 289 this is not = Q, F2. F = this not 370 Harp…past mistakenly printed after the following line in F 442 SD Exit [Queen Elizabeth] = Ed. F = Exit (directly after her last speech) 457 Ratcliffe = Ed. F = Catesby 519 SH SECOND = Ed. Not in F 522 SH THIRD = Ed. Not in F 535 SH FOURTH = Ed. Not in F 538 Breton spelled Brittaine in F 544 Brittany spelled Brittaine in F

Act 4 Scene 5 = Ed. F = Scena Quarta 10 Ha’rfordwest = Ed. F = Hertford West

5.2.11 centre = Q. F = Centry

5.3.29 you = F2. F = your 122 SH GHOST OF PRINCE EDWARD = Ed. F = Gh 128 SH GHOST OF KING HENRY VI = Ed. F = Ghost 135 SH GHOST OF CLARENCE = Ed. F = Ghost 143 SH GHOST OF RIVERS = Ed. F = Riu 145 SH GHOST OF GREY = Ed. F = Grey. 146 SH GHOST OF VAUGHAN = Ed. F = Vaugh. 150 SH GHOST OF HASTINGS = Ed. F = Gho. 155 SH GHOSTS OF PRINCES = Ed. F = Ghosts. 158 souls bid = Q. F = soule bids 163 SH GHOST OF ANNE = Ed. F = Ghost 171 SH GHOST OF BUCKINGHAM = Ed. F = Ghost 225 SH LORDS = Q. F = Richm. 317 SD His…army = Q. Not in F 341 Fight = Q. F = Right 354 helms = Q. F = helpes

Act 1 Scene 1

*    List of parts: GREY…DORSET in the early scenes, these two may be treated as one figure    widow historically she was betrothed, not married, to Prince Edward (son of King Henry VI), but in the play (following Hall’s chronicle) she is described as his wife/widow

1.1   Location: near the Tower of London    solus alone

2    son of York i.e., Edward IV, whose father was Richard Duke of York (puns on “sun,” the emblem of the House of York)

3    loured frowned threateningly    house family (of York)

6    arms armor, weapons    for as

7    alarums calls to arms/sudden attacks

8    dreadful fearsome, inspiring dread    measures stately dances

9    front forehead

10    barbèd armored

11    fearful frightened (or possibly “frightening”)

12    capers dances with leaping movements/has sex    chamber plays on the sense of “vagina”

13    pleasing attraction, delight

14    sportive pleasurable/amorous/sexual    tricks behavior, skills/sexual acts

15    court…looking-glass i.e., gaze lovingly at myself in a mirror, flirt with my own reflection

16    rudely stamped crudely formed, roughly printed with an image    want lack

17    wanton flirtatious, lascivious    ambling sauntering, walking with a sexy rolling gait

18    curtailed deprived, cut short (literally refers to the docking of a dog’s tail)

19    feature a pleasing shape    dissembling cheating, deceitful

20    sent…time i.e., born prematurely

21    made up fully formed

22    unfashionable odd-looking, inelegant/poorly shaped

23    halt limp

24    piping characterized by pastoral pipes, rather than warlike instruments/shrill, weak, contemptible

27    descant improvise variations on (musical term), i.e., ponder, comment

29    entertain pass enjoyably    well-spoken courteous, harmonious

30    determinèd resolved/destined

32    inductions initial steps, preparations

37    subtle cunning, sly    false dishonest, disloyal

38    mewed up imprisoned, cooped up (like a caged bird of prey)

39    About as a result of    ‘G’ Clarence’s first name is George; Richard, however, is the Duke of Gloucester

43    waits upon attends

45    Tend’ring holding dear, being concerned for (ironic)

46    conduct escort    th’Tower the Tower of London

50    commit imprison    godfathers sometimes responsible for the naming of the child at baptism

51    belike probably/perhaps

52    new-christened a grim anticipation of Clarence’s death by drowning

53    matter reason

54    protest declare

56    hearkens after listens to

57    cross-row alphabet (prefixed by a cross in children’s primers)

59    issue children

60    for because

62    toys whims, trifles

66    lady Grey Elizabeth’s title before her marriage to Edward; Richard is being contemptuous

68    worship repute, honor

69    Anthony Woodville i.e., Earl Rivers

71    delivered released

74    night-walking heralds secret, nighttime messengers (a night-walker also meant a thief or a prostitute)

75    trudge betwixt go to and fro between    Mistress Shore Jane Shore, wife of a London goldsmith and Edward IV’s lover; she later became Hastings’    mistress Mistress usual title for a woman; perhaps here with suggestive play on the sense of “lover” or even “female master”

76    suppliant petitioner

77    delivery release from prison

78    complaining appealing, lamenting, pleading    her deity a mocking title for Mistress Shore

79    Lord Chamberlain i.e., Hastings

82    men servants (perhaps with sexual connotations)    livery uniform indicating whom one served (wear her livery may play on a sense of “have sex with her”)

83    o’erworn worn out (like old clothing/sexually)    widow i.e., Queen Elizabeth

84    dubbed them conferred on them the rank of

85    gossips chatterers/godparents

87    straitly…charge strictly ordered

89    Of…soever regardless of social rank

90    an if it

94    Well…years well advanced in age (Richard seems to pretend to mean “mature, wise” or “well-preserved”)    fair attractive/just

96    passing surpassingly, exceptionally

101    doth naught Richard shifts the sense to “sexually penetrates her vagina”

104    betray me i.e., by making me name the king as Shore’s lover

105    withal moreover

106    Forbear restrain, cease

107    charge duty, instructions

108    abjects varies “subjects” to incorporate sense of “contemptible outcasts”

112    enfranchise free

114    Touches affects

117    lie for you take your place in prison (playing on the sense of “lie about you”)

119    perforce of necessity (“patience perforce” was proverbial)

123    present gift

124    new-delivered recently released

128    brooked tolerated

130    give them thanks i.e., pay them back, have revenge

135    mewed caged

136    kites and buzzards inferior birds of prey

137    abroad in the world

140    him for him

142    diet lifestyle

149    packed packed off, dispatched    post-horse all possible speed

151    steeled strengthened with steel, reinforced

152    deep cunning/secret

155    bustle busy myself, be active

156    Warwick’s youngest daughter i.e., Lady Anne Neville; having changed sides, the Earl of Warwick died fighting against the House of York

157    her husband Anne Neville was not in fact married to Prince Edward (Henry VI’s son) although she had been betrothed to him before his death    father father-in-law, i.e., Henry VI

161    close concealed

162    reach unto strive to carry out

163    run…market i.e., get ahead of myself (proverbial)

Act 1 Scene 2

1.2   Location: a London street    halberds long-handled weapons with axe-like heads

2    shrouded concealed/wrapped in a shroud    hearse probably here an open coffin, or litter beneath a frame supporting a funereal cloth

3    obsequiously in a manner proper to the dead

4    Lancaster i.e., Henry VI, former head of the House of Lancaster

5    key-cold cold as a metal key (proverbial)

6    ashes i.e., remains, lifeless body

8    Be it let it be    invocate invoke, call upon

12    Lo look    windows vents, i.e., wounds

13    balm healing ointment/substance with which the dead are anointed (i.e., tears)

17    direful hap dreadful fortune    betide befall, happen to

19    spiders, toads thought to be poisonous

21    abortive monstrous, deformed

22    Prodigious unnatural/ill-omened

23    aspect appearance

25    that may that (child)    unhappiness ill fortune/misery

29    Chertsey on the River Thames, in Surrey; site of a famous monastery

30    Paul’s St. Paul’s Cathedral in London

31    still as whenever

35    devoted holy, devout

40    Advance raise

42    spurn upon kick

46    Avaunt be gone

49    curst ill-tempered/cursed, damnable

50    hence get hence, go away

52    exclaims outcries, exclamations

54    pattern example, model

58    thy…blood it was popularly believed that the wounds of a murder victim would bleed in the presence of the murderer    exhales draws forth

71    so is so

73    wonderful extraordinary, astonishing    devils…truth Anne interprets Richard’s    am no beast to mean that, as neither man nor beast, he must be a devil

75    Vouchsafe permit, consent

76    leave permission

77    circumstance detailed explanation

78    defused dispersed, spreading

82    leisure time, opportunity

84    current genuine, valid

85    despair spiritual hopelessness (thought to precede suicide)

87    worthy…thyself i.e., committing suicide (a highly sinful act)

88    unworthy dishonorable, contemptible/causeless, unjustified

91    slave villain, wretch

95    In…liest i.e., you lie outrageously

96    falchion curved sword

97    once at once

102    aught anything

105    hedgehog a contemptuous reference to Richard’s crest, which featured a wild boar

110    holp helped

115    bedchamber like hell, “chamber” could also be euphemistic for the vagina

118    I hope so i.e., I certainly hope it will, as I shall never lie with you (in an ironic anticipation of future events, however, the phrase may also be construed as “I hope to lie with you”)

120    keen sharp/eager    encounter…wits plays on the sense of “sexual encounter of our genitals”

122    timeless untimely, premature

125    effect agent, perpetrator (Richard then shifts the sense to “outcome”)

130    homicide murderer

137    thou art both i.e.,day and life

138    would wish

146    He lives i.e., there is a man

148    Plantagenet the name was used by Richard Duke of York, Richard’s father

158    infected mine both disease and love were thought to enter through the eyes

159    basilisks mythical reptiles whose gaze could kill

160    die plays on the sense of “achieve sexual orgasm”

163    aspects appearance/looks, gazes

165    No, when not even when

166    Rutland Richard’s younger brother; his death is depicted in 3 Henry IV, Act 1 Scene 3

167    black-faced evil, threatening, devilish

168    father i.e., the Earl of Warwick (originally a Yorkist, although he later changed sides)

171    That so that

172    bedashed splattered

173    humble lowly

174    exhale draw out

176    sued entreated, begged (for favor)

177    smoothing flattering

178    fee payment, reward    lays…open bears his chest    offers aims, makes to thrust

191    set me on this probably has connotations of sexual arousal like provokèd falls lets fall

192    take up me accept me (perhaps with connotations of “possess me sexually/make my penis erect”; Anne interprets “raise me from my kneeling position”)

193    dissembler deceiver

200    truer love i.e., Richard himself (supposedly a truer lover than the murdered Edward)

203    figured in represented by

213    Even so in just such a way

221    presently immediately    Crosby House Richard’s London house, in Bishopsgate Street; later referred to as Crosby Place

225    expedient duty dutiful haste

226    divers various, several    unknown private, that cannot be divulged

227    boon request, favor

230    Tressell and Berkeley minor characters, not mentioned again in the play

236    Whitefriars a priory in London

237    humour manner, style, way

243    bleeding witness i.e., Henry’s body    by nearby

244    bars obstacles

245    suit courtship/formal supplication    withal with

247    all…nothing i.e., against huge odds, with everything stacked against me

249    brave splendid, noble

251    mood fit of fury    Tewkesbury site of the Gloucestershire battle where the Lancastrians were defeated; Edward’s murder took place after the battle and is dramatized in 3 Henry VI, Act 5 Scene 5

253    Framed…nature created when nature was most generous, lavish

254    royal majestic, noble

257    prime youthful manhood/springtime

259    whose…moiety the entirety of whom is not worth half of Edward

260    halt limps    unshapen deformed

261    denier small coin worth one tenth of a penny

264    proper handsome, fine

265    be…for buy, spend money on

266    entertain employ    score…of twenty or forty

270    in into

272    glass mirror, looking glass

273    shadow also means “reflection”; the shadow cast by the sun will substitute for the mirror’s image

Act 1 Scene 3

1.3   Location: the royal court, London

3    brook it ill endure it with difficulty, take it badly

4    entertain good comfort take comfort, be cheerful

6    betide on happen to, befall

8    includes incorporates, is the sum of

9    goodly splendid, fine

14    concluded legally finalized    Protector guardian, who ruled on behalf of a king who was too young to do so

16    miscarry die

20    Countess Richmond Margaret Beaufort, Derby’s wife; by her first husband, Edmund Tudor, she was mother to Henry, Earl of Richmond (later Henry VII)    good my my good

26    envious malicious

29    wayward obstinate, wilful

36    atonement reconciliation

37    brothers only one brother, Anthony Woodville (Earl Rivers), appears in the play, but Shakespeare may have thought of him as two characters: Rivers and Woodville are listed separately in the opening stage directions at Act 2 Scene 1, and are addressed separately later in that scene

39    warn summon

41    happiness good fortune

44    forsooth indeed, in truth    stern harsh, unfriendly

45    lightly little

46    dissentious inflammatory, quarrelsome

47    fair pleasing, charming

48    smooth flatter    cog fawn, flatter, deceive

49    Duck…nods i.e., bow in an affected, courtly manner    apish idiotic/imitative

51    plain unaffected, simple, honest

53    silken smooth-tongued, ingratiating/elaborately dressed    jacks knaves, low-born men; plays on    Jack, a common name

54    presence company/royal presence

55    nor neither    grace virtue/propriety/nobility (picking up on    grace as a form of address in the previous line)

60    breathing-while time to draw breath

61    lewd wicked/ignorant/lowly

65    belike probably/perhaps

68    to send summon (you)

70    wrens small, gentle birds (unlike large, predatory eagles)

74    friends relatives

77    brother i.e., George, Duke of Clarence

81    noble gold coin worth about a third of a pound (puns on    ennoble)

82    careful full of cares

83    hap fortune

88    draw me implicate me/represent me    suspects suspicions

90    late recent

94    preferments promotions, advancements

96    desert deserving, merit

97    marry by the Virgin Mary (Richard goes on to shift the sense to “wed”)

100    stripling young man

101    Iwis indeed, certainly    grandam grandmother

105    gross base/wicked/excessive    Queen Margaret historically, the widow of Henry VI was imprisoned after the battle of Tewkesbury, and later exiled to her native France

111    state rank    seat throne

112    Threat threaten

113    avouch’t affirm, declare it

114    adventure risk

115    pains efforts (made on behalf of the king)

116    Out exclamation of outrage and impatience

119    Ere before

120    packhorse workhorse

121    proud ambitious, arrogant

126    factious for on the side of, promoting dissent in the interests of

127    husband…slain historically, Elizabeth’s first husband, Sir John Grey, was killed fighting for the Lancastrians, although in 3 Henry VI (Act 3 Scene 2) he is depicted as having fought for the Yorkists    battle army

130    ere this before now

131    Withal moreover

133    Clarence…Warwick Clarence and the Earl of Warwick deserted the Yorkists; Clarence married Warwick’s daughter, but later returned to the Yorkist cause, events that are depicted in 3 Henry VI   father father-in-law

134    forswore himself broke his oath (of loyalty)

137    meed reward

139    pitiful full of pity, compassionate

140    childish-foolish innocent, inexperienced

141    Hie hurry

142    cacodemon evil spirit

144    urge bring forward, offer as evidence

157    pilled pillaged, robbed

159    If…rebels Even if you do not bow to me as your queen, then you tremble like the rebels who deposed me

161    gentle noble, high-born/kind    villain low-born, rustic/scoundrel; the phrase is oxymoronic

162    mak’st thou are you doing

163    But repetition of merely recounting    marred destroyed

164    make do

167    abode remaining

169    thou i.e., Elizabeth

172    curse…paper before his death, Richard Duke of York curses Margaret after she mockingly places a paper crown on his head (see 3 Henry VI, Act 1 Scene 4)

175    clout cloth

176    pretty youthful, fine-looking Rutland York’s young son; the episode with the cloth also appears in 3 Henry VI, Act 1 Scene 4

179    plagued punished ceaselessly

181    that babe i.e., Rutland

184    No…prophesied there was no man who did not prophesy

187    catch seize

192    but answer for merely equal    peevish foolish, childish/obstinate

194    dull thick, dark, sluggish    quick vigorous, lively, sharp

195    surfeit sickness resulting from overindulgence

199    like the same

204    Decked adorned, dressed    stalled installed

208    standers-by bystanders, lookers-on

212    unlooked unforeseen, unexpected

213    charm magic spell, curse    hag witch

217    them i.e., the heavens

220    still constantly    begnaw eat away at, gnaw

221    for tobe

223    deadly murderous

226    elvish-marked physically marked by evil elves at birth    abortive monstrous, deformed    rooting hog i.e., hunched and greedy; alludes to the boar on Richard’s crest

227    sealed…nativity branded at birth

228    slave of nature slave to bestial natural impulses/one irredeemably marked out by nature

229    slander disgrace, shame    heavy pregnant, weighty/sorrowful

230    issue offspring

231    rag discarded scrap

232    Margaret Richard makes Margaret the subject of her insults to him

236    cry thee mercy beg your pardon

238    looked for expected

239    period end

242    painted artificial/made-up with cosmetics    vain flourish meaningless, frivolous adornment    fortune (rightful) position

243    bottled swollen (with venom), rounded, bottle-shaped

245    thou whet’st you are sharpening

247    bunch-backed hunchbacked

248    False-boding falsely prophesying    frantic deranged, mad

251    well served treated as befits you (Margaret maintains the sense of “treated” and adds the sense of “obeyed, paid respect to”)

252    duty respect, deference

256    Master Marquis Margaret contemptuously prefaces the aristocratic “marquis” with the form of address for an untitled man    malapert impertinent

257    fire-new brand new, newly minted    current valid, legitimate

258    nobility continues the coining imagery with a quibble on “noble” (a gold coin)

264    so high this high (i.e., noble)

265    eyrie nest/brood of young birds of prey (especially eagles, king of birds)/noble stock of children

266    dallies with teases, plays with    scorns the sun eagles were thought to be able to gaze unblinkingly into the sun

267    sun puns on son

272    suffer endure, permit

278    My charity the charity I feel/the charity I am shown    outrage violence, hostility    life my shame the only life I am allowed is a dishonorable one/I am ashamed to live

279    still perpetually

283    fair good fortune

285    compass bounds

286    pass go any further than

288    but anything other than that

291    Look when whenever

292    venom poisonous    rankle inflict a festering wound

294    marks blemishes/identifying insignia/aims, sights

297    respect deem worthy of listening to

299    soothe flatter, humor

311    vantage advantages, benefits (i.e., being queen)    her wrong the wrong done to her

312    hot eager    do somebody good i.e., help Edward to the crown

313    cold ungrateful, indifferent

315    franked…fatting penned in to be fattened up (for slaughter)

318    scathe harm

319    well advised cautious

324    wait upon attend

326    mischiefs wicked, evil deeds    abroach in motion

327    lay…of impose as a serious accusation against (i.e., blame on)

328    cast in darkness caused to be imprisoned (with connotations of death)

329    beweep cry over    gulls idiots, gullible people

331    allies supporters, relatives

332    stir incite, stir up

333    whet encourage, incite

338    ends scraps

341    hardy bold

342    dispatch carry out (plays on the sense of “kill”)

346    repair make your way

347    sudden swift

348    obdurate inflexible, determined

349    well-spoken articulate, persuasive

350    mark pay attention to, listen to

351    prate chat

354    eyes drop millstones proverbial image of hard-heartedness    fall let fall, drop

355    straight straightaway

Act 1 Scene 4

1.4   Location: the Tower of London    Keeper guard (this role could be conflated with Brackenbury)

1    heavily sadly

5    spend pass/expend (like money)

6    Though ’twere even if it were

7    dismal ominous, sinister

13    hatches deck

14    cited up recalled

17    giddy swaying, unstable

19    stay steady, restrain

20    main sea

27    Inestimable impossible to count or value    unvalued priceless

37    yield the ghost die    envious flood malicious sea

38    Stopped in shut up, blocked in

39    vast boundless/empty

40    bulk body

42    sore serious, extreme

45    melancholy flood the River Styx, which had to be crossed to get to Hades, the classical underworld

46    sour ferryman Charon, who ferried souls to Hades

47    kingdom…night Hades, the underworld

48    stranger foreign, newly arrived

50    perjury oath-breaking; Clarence broke his oath of allegiance to Warwick by returning to fight for the Yorkists after he and Warwick had changed sides to support the Lancastrians

51    monarchy kingdom (the underworld)    afford offer, give to

53    shadow ghost (of Prince Edward, Henry VI’s son)

54    shrieked ghosts were traditionally supposed to speak in shrill voices

55    fleeting fickle, capricious

56    field battlefield

57    Furies in classical mythology, three female spirits of vengeance

58    legion army

59    Environed surrounded

61    season while, time

64    though if

68    requites rewards, repays

73    prithee beg you (literally “I pray thee”)

74    heavy oppressed, burdened, sorrowful

76    breaks cracks, disrupts seasons natural rhythms of time    reposing hours time for rest

77    noontide midday

78    for as

79    for at the cost of, as the result of

80    for in exchange for    unfelt imaginations abstract concepts that cannot actually be experienced, illusory glories

81    cares anxieties

82    low name those of ordinary humble status

83    fame reputation, name

92    reason deduce, workout

93    will want to

95    signify to inform

102    urging of bringing forth/emphasis on

110    stay wait    passionate humour emotional mood

111    It…me it usually lasts    tells twenty counts to twenty

120    entertain receive, be hospitable to

123    checks rebukes

124    lie have sex

126    restore return    keeps retains/maintains, supports

127    for as

128    well prosperously/virtuously

130    him i.e., conscience

131    insinuate ingratiate himself

133    tall brave

135    Take strike    costard head (literally, a type of large apple)

136    malmsey-butt barrel of strong, sweet wine from Greece

137    device plan    sop piece of bread soaked in wine

140    reason converse, talk

142    anon soon

151    Wherefore why

161    drawn forth selected

164    quest inquest, those holding a judicial inquiry

167    convict convicted

169    charge command

174    Erroneous misguided, erring    vassals servants, slaves    king of kings i.e., God

175    table…law i.e., the Ten Commandments

176    do no murder the Sixth Commandment (Exodus 20:13)

177    Spurn at reject, scorn

181    false forswearing breaking your oath (forbidden by the Ninth Commandment)

182    receive the sacrament take Communion as a means of affirming your oath

183    In quarrel of in the cause of

186    Unripp’dst tore open    bowels intestines,    entrails sovereign’s son i.e., Prince Edward, son of Henry VI

188    dreadful inspiring dread and awe

189    dear extreme, grievous (a)

196    quarrel (settling of the) dispute

197    indirect devious, oblique

198    cut off kill

199    bloody violent, bloodthirsty

200    gallant-springing gallant and youthful, growing promisingly

201    novice youth, beginner

202    My brother’s love love for my brother

207    meed money, reward

217    friendship also kinship

219    lessoned taught

220    is kind is gentle, well-meaning/has feelings of natural kinship

226    labour my delivery strive to obtain my release

228    thraldom servitude, enslavement

230    feeling sensibility, awareness

239    pent shut up

244    beastly not human, lacking in reason

252    desperately dispatched carried out in desperation, executed recklessly (desperately has connotations of spiritual hopelessness)

253    fain willingly    Pilate…murder Pontius Pilate, the Roman governor of Judaea involved in the crucifixion of Christ, washed his hands before the discontented crowd as a means of exonerating himself from blame

264    out get out, be known (“murder will out” was proverbial)

Act 2 Scene 1

2.1   Location: the royal court, London    Flourish trumpet fanfare signaling the arrival of a person in authority

3    embassage message

8    Dissemble not (in shaking hands) do not conceal, disguise

9    from of

10    true honest, faithful

11    thrive I may I thrive

12    dally trifle, feign, mock

13    king of kings i.e., God

14    confound overthrow, catch out    award sentence, appoint

15    end (cause of) death

19    son i.e., stepson

20    factious divisive, generators of factions

22    unfeignedly sincerely, without deception

26    protest declare

30    allies relatives

33    but…Doth i.e., and does not, with all duteous love

38    Deep cunning    hollow insincere    guile cunning, deceit

41    cordial heart-restoring medicine

43    wanteth only lacks

44    period end, completion

45    in good time right on time, at the perfect moment

47    morrow morning

52    swelling proud, arrogant/incensed, angry    wrong-incensèd full of wrongly directed anger/enraged by perceived wrongs

54    heap gathering, group (casual and demeaning term in this context)

55    intelligence information    surmise assumption, conjecture

57    is hardly borne has caused offense, is resented

67    desert deserving, justification

68    Lord Scales actually another title of Lord Rivers; Shakespeare erroneously supposes another character; some editors omit the line

72    the…tonight a newborn baby

75    well compounded settled as effectively

77    to your grace into your favor

79    flouted mocked

80    gentle kind, mild/noble

86    forsook abandoned

89    that i.e., that first order    Mercury swift messenger of the Roman gods, usually depicted with wings on his cap and sandals

90    tardy slow    bare the countermand brought the order revoking the first

91    lag late, slowly

92    God…suspicion I pray God there are none, less noble and loyal than Clarence, more involved in treachery yet less closely related to the king, who deserve worse than Clarence’s fate yet go free from suspicion (a pointed remark aimed at Elizabeth and her relatives)    go current pass as legitimate coin

96    boon request for a favor

100    forfeit…life revocation of the death penalty that his servant has incurred

103    doom…death sentence (doom) my brother to death

107    sued pleaded

108    be advised to reconsider, reflect/to be cautious

110    forsake abandon, renounce

112    field battlefield

113    down on the ground, unhorsed/at his mercy

116    lap enfold, swathe

118    thin thinly dressed    numb numbing

119    remembrance memory

122    carters cart drivers    waiting vassals attendant servants

123    defaced…Redeemer i.e., committed murder (since man is made in God’s image)

125    straight straightaway

127    But yet

128    ungracious wickedly, lacking divine grace

129    proudest most splendid, eminent/most self-esteeming

130    beholding beholden, indebted

133    On of    you i.e., the assembled company

134    closet private room/bedchamber

136    Marked observed, noticed

139    still constantly

Act 2 Scene 2

1    grandam grandmother

6    wretches exiles/miserable people    castaways rejected ones

8    cousins a general term for relatives

10    As being

11    lost wasted, pointless (sense then shifts to “gone”)

14    importune urge, entreat persistently

18    Incapable inexperienced, unknowing    shallow naïve

22    impeachments accusations, charges

24    kindly gently, benevolently/as a family member

27    gentle shape an appearance of nobility, a benevolent guise

28    visor mask

30    dugs breasts (breast milk was popularly thought to convey some of the qualities of the mother)    hair…ears disheveled and loose hair was a theatrical convention signifying distress

35    chide berate, chastise

36    black profound, dark, hellish

37    to…enemy i.e., commit suicide

38    rude impatience uncontrolled outburst, violent want of endurance

39    act deed/division of a play (continuing the theatrical image begun with scene)

42    want lack

43    brief quick

44    catch catch up with

47    interest right, entitlement

48    title in claim on (as Edward’s mother)

50    his images i.e., his sons

51    mirrors i.e., images, reflections    semblance likeness

53    false glass i.e., Richard, a distorted, false image of his father

60    moiety small portion

61    overgo exceed

63    kindred similar, belonging to relatives

64    unmoaned unlamented, not grieved for

65    widow-dolour widow’s grief    be shall be

67    barren to so infertile that I cannot    complaints grief, lamentations

68    reduce return, bring together

69    watery moon i.e., the moon, which controls the tides

74    stay support

77    Was never widow there was never a widow who    dear grievous/costly

81    parcelled in specific parts, divided between them    general all-encompassing

87    nurse nourisher, feeder

88    pamper cram, feed luxuriously

92    dull sluggish, reluctant

94    opposite antagonistic, adversarial

95    For it requires because it reclaims

96    careful caring

104    cry you mercy beg your pardon

107    meekness humility

110    butt-end concluding part

111    grace quibbling on the duchess’ title and on the sense of “religious virtue”

112    cloudy gloomy

113    moan sorrow, grief

117    broken rancour divisive animosity (broken begins an image of an injured limb) high-swoll’n very inflamed/proud

118    But lately splintered only recently splinted, reset (though at the same time continuing the imagery of fragmentation)

119    kept looked after

120    Meseemeth it seems to me    little train small retinue of attendants and accompanying nobles

121    Forthwith immediately    Ludlow Ludlow Castle, in Shropshire, near the Welsh border    fet fetched

124    multitude large group

127    estate state, kingdom    green new, vulnerable (with suggestions of the prince’s youth)

128    Where…himself when each horse is in control of his own reins and may go where he pleases (i.e., in the absence of a strong rider to govern)

130    As…apparent both the fear of possible harm as well as actual harm

132    with between

133    compact agreement, contract

135    green new, not tested

136    apparent evident, real breach breakage, rupture

137    haply perhaps/probably urged encouraged

139    meet appropriate, suitable

142    post hasten

144    censures opinions

147    by on    sort occasion arrange an opportunity

148    index preface    story plan, business    late recently

150    counsel’s innermost thoughts’ (puns on advisory “council”)    consistory council chamber, meeting place

152    direction instruction, guidance

Act 2 Scene 3

2.3   Location: a London street

3    abroad at large, in the outside world

5    by’r lady by Our Lady (the Virgin Mary)    seldom…better is rarely followed by better things

6    giddy inconstant, unstable

7    God speed God be with you; a standard greeting

8    Give…morrow God give you good day; a standard greeting

9    Doth…hold is the news true

10    God…while i.e., God help us    while age, times

11    masters sirs    look expect

15    nonage minority, youth    council under him the Privy Council, a group of the king’s ministers, governing for him

20    so in the same condition    wot knows

22    politic grave counsel wise and reverend guidance

23    protect act as formal guardians for

27    emulation rivalry    nearest most closely related to the king/most influential over the king

28    touch…near affect us all too closely

30    haught haughty, aspiring

32    solace take comfort, be happy

36    look for expect

37    dearth famine, shortage

38    sort ordain, arrange

41    cannot reason almost can scarcely reason

42    heavily gravely, anxiously

43    still always

44    mistrust suspect

45    proof experience

46    boist’rous violent

47    Whither away? Where are you going?

48    justices justices of the peace; the reason for this is never stated

Act 2 Scene 4

2.4   Location: the royal court, London

1    lay spent the night    Stony Stratford small town in Buckinghamshire

2    Northampton Northamptonshire town twelve miles further from London than Stony Stratford, an apparent confusion explained by Shakespeare’s sources: Richard and Buckingham met the Prince at Stony Stratford, then (Rivers, Vaughan and Grey having been arrested) took him back to Northampton before resuming the journey to London

9    cousin general term for a relative

13    grace virtuous qualities; possibly Richard quibbles on “herb of grace” or rue, a herb with medicinal qualities whose name means “sorrow”    apace quickly

16    hold apply, prove true

17    object the same suggest it, apply it

23    troth faith    been remembered remembered

24    flout taunt, mocking insult

25    touch…mine mock his growth more pointedly than he mocked mine

28    gnaw…old various historical accounts claim that Richard was born with teeth, something considered abnormal and ominous

30    biting sharp/to do with teeth

35    parlous mischievous, wily    Go to expression of dismissive impatience    shrewd sharp-tongued, cheeky

37    Pitchers have ears proverbial; pitchers were jugs with large handles (“ears”)—Elizabeth means that the boy has been eavesdropping on adult conversation

43    Pomfret Pontefract castle, in Yorkshire

48    can know, can say

51    house family

52    hind female deer

53    Insulting threatening, harmful/exulting scornfully    jut thrust, shove/project, encroach

54    aweless inspiring no awe or dread    throne i.e., Prince Edward

56    map chart of the world/diagram/summary, epitome

62    seated in power, having gained the throne    broils turmoil

63    overblown blown over

65    preposterous unnatural (literally, in reverse order)

66    frantic outrage insane violence    spleen fury (the spleen was thought to be the seat of extreme emotion)

68    sanctuary churches and their precincts provided sanctuary from arrest; Elizabeth went to Westminster Abbey

75    seal great seal of England, used by the king to authenticate documents; the Archbishop was its official keeper    so…you may my fortunes depend on the care I show you

Act 3 Scene 1

3.1   Location: London; exact location unspecified, possibly a street

1    chamber London was known as the camera regis, Latin for the “king’s chamber”

2    my thoughts’ sovereign my chief concern/head of my thoughts

4    crosses troubles (i.e., the arrests of Rivers, Vaughan and Grey)

5    heavy laborious, burdensome, sorrowful

6    want lack/desire

11    jumpeth accords, agrees

13    attended paid attention, listened

21    ere before

22    slug sluggard, lazy fellow

26    On what occasion for what reason

28    tender young    prince i.e., Edward’s younger brother, Richard

29    fain willingly

30    perforce forcibly

31    indirect devious/oblique, lengthy/erroneous    peevish obstinate/perverse

34    presently immediately

36    jealous suspicious, mistrustful, overprotective

37    oratory rhetorical skill

39    Anon shortly    obdurate inflexible, determined

44    senseless unreasonably, foolishly

46    Weigh…with if you only judge it by    grossness low standards, coarseness

48    benefit protection

49    dealings actions, conduct

50    wit intelligence, mature judgment

53    thence…there a place that cannot really be considered as sanctuary in his case

54    charter privilege, legal right

62    sojourn stay, reside

65    repose you settle yourself, rest    Tower a royal residence as well as a much-feared prison

68    any place all places

71    re-edified rebuilt, developed

72    upon record written down

75    registered recorded

77    retailed recounted, retold

78    general ending day universal doomsday, the end of the world

79    So…long proverbial: “too soon wise to live long”

81    characters written records

82    formal Vice conventional Vice figure of morality plays, an allegorical character named after a particular sin and known for wordplay and grim humor    Iniquity sinfulness; a stock name for a Vice figure

83    moralize interpret (perhaps playing on the idea of expounding God’s word for the purpose of moral teaching)

85    With…live i.e., he used his intellect to write down the courageous military exploits that had enriched it, in order to ensure that his reputation lived on

87    his conqueror the one who conquers death

91    An if if

94    lightly usually    forward early

98    grief Edward refers to the death of his father

99    late recently

103    idle useless

108    beholding beholden, indebted

110    as in in that I am

111    dagger perhaps maintaining the link between Richard and the medieval Vice figure, who traditionally carried a dagger

112    With…heart very willingly (but also implying that he would gladly stab York with it)

115    toy trifle grief hardship

117    to it that goes with it

118    light not heavy (York shifts the sense to “trifling, cheap”)

120    a beggar nay no to a beggar

122    weigh it lightly consider it a trifle/do not think it weighs very much    were it even if it were

123    have continues the grim play on “receive as a gift/receive in death”

127    still always    cross contrary, perverse

131    like…shoulders professional fools or tame bears carried apes on their backs at fairs; attention is drawn here to Richard’s hunched back bear puns on the name of the animal

133    sharp-provided quick and ready

134    mitigate moderate, lessen

135    prettily cleverly, charmingly

136    cunning crafty, clever    sennet trumpet call signaling the continuation of a procession

152    prating chattering, prattling

153    incensèd urged on, incited    subtle cunning

154    opprobriously scornfully, insultingly

155    perilous wily, dangerous, mischievous

156    forward spirited, ready    capable responsive, receptive

157    all the mother’s exactly like his mother

158    let them rest enough of them, leave them for the moment; or perhaps literally “let them take their rest”

159    deeply profoundly, solemnly

160    closely secretly

161    urged proposed, discussed way i.e., the journey from Ludlow to London

163    of…For share our opinion and intention regarding

166    He…father’s Hastings for Edward IV’s

167    won to aught persuaded to do anything

171    as…off in a roundabout way, indirectly    sound sound out, probe

172    affected to disposed toward

174    sit confer, sit in council

180    divided councils two separate meetings

181    highly crucially

182    Lord William i.e., Hastings

183    ancient knot long-standing group (knot may play on the sense of “tumor”)

184    are let blood i.e., will be executed; literally, refers to surgical bloodletting

186    Mistress Shore Hastings’ mistress Jane Shore (formerly mistress ofEdward IV)

188    heed care

193    complots conspiracies, schemes

196    movables portable property

200    sup betimes have supper early

201    digest arrange (plays on the sense of literal digestion)    form good order

Act 3 Scene 2

3.2   Location: outside Hastings’ house

6    tedious weary, long

11    boar Richard’s heraldic emblem    razèd pulled, torn helm helmet

13    that…determined decisions may be taken

14    to rue grieve

15    pleasure will, inclination

16    presently immediately

17    post ride swiftly

21    His honour Lord Stanley

23    toucheth affects, relates to

24    have intelligence be informed

25    without instance lacking evidence

27    mock’ry foolish delusions, false images

28    fly flee

29    Were would be

30    mean (originally) intend

33    use treat    kindly gently, courteously (plays on the sense of “according to his [boarlike] nature”)

40    garland i.e., crown (with connotations of a victor’s garland)

43    crown head

44    foul wickedly, wrongfully/in an ugly manner (perhaps recalling Richard’s appearance)

46    forward…party ready to support him, eagerly on his side

54    master’s i.e., Edward IV’s

58    they i.e., the queen’s relatives    in into

64    monstrous unnatural    falls it out it has happened

69    make high account hold you in high estimation (in the context of the following line, high plays on the sense of “high up, aloft”)

70    account consider, expect    the bridge London Bridge, on which traitors’ heads were displayed on poles

73    unprovided unprepared, ill-equipped

75    rood (Christ’s) cross

76    several separate

78    protest declare

81    triumphant cheerful/exultant (over my enemies’ deaths)

83    jocund merry, cheerful    states were sure positions were secure

84    mistrust doubt, suspect

86    This…misdoubt i.e., this sudden hostile attack has made me fearful, mistrustful

88    spent coming to an end (although the scene begins at 4 a.m.; perhaps Stanley refers figuratively to his own “time,” i.e., life)

89    have with you literally “I’ll join you” or as a reprimand “come along now” Wot know

91    truth loyalty, honesty

92    hats i.e., official positions (Stanley has Richard’s role as royal Protector in mind)    Pursuivant state messenger with the power to execute warrants

94    before ahead

95    sirrah sir (used to inferiors)

100    suggestion instigation, prompting

103    state prosperity, position, circumstances

104    hold keep, maintain

105    Gramercy great thanks

108    Sir conventional title for a clergyman

109    I…exercise Hastings apologizes for not attending the last church service (during which he was in prison) exercise religious service

110    content recompense

114    shriving work business of saying confession and receiving absolution

119    thence from there

120    stay stay for

Act 3 Scene 3

3.3   Location: Pomfret (Pontefract) castle, Yorkshire

5    knot tight group

7    Dispatch get on with it

10    closure enclosure

12    for…seat to add to the disgrace associated with this place    dismal seat ominous position

15    exclaimed on cried out against, condemned    Hastings…I in fact, Margaret does not mention Grey (see Act 1 Scene 3)

20    for instead of

23    expiate reached, fully come

Act 3 Scene 4

3.4   Location: council chamber, the Tower of London

2    of about

5    wants but nomination requires only the appointing of the date

6    happy auspicious, favorable

8    inward intimate

9    mind temperament/opinion on the coronation/intentions in general

10    for as for

13    near in love close, intimate

16    sounded questioned, sounded out

19    in on    voice vote

20    take…part accept in a gracious manner

22    cousins term of address between nobles

24    neglect cause the neglect of

27    part role (continues the theatrical language begun with cue)

29    bolder more confident

37    testy headstrong, short-tempered hot angry/impetuous

38    head plays on the etymology of testy, i.e., teste, Old French for “head”

39    worshipfully respectfully

42    set down confirmed

44    provided prepared

45    prolonged postponed, delayed

48    smooth seemingly amiable or friendly

49    conceit idea, fancy    likes pleases

53    straight instantly

55    livelihood liveliness

61    charms magic spells

64    doom sentence

68    blasted shriveled, blighted by supernatural means

69    is i.e., is the doing of monstrous unnatural

70    Consorted associated, in conjunction    Shore Jane Shore, Hastings’ mistress and formerly Edward IV’s

76    the same i.e., Hastings’ beheading accomplished

80    fond foolish

81    rouse move violently, pull from our heads

83    foot-cloth horse horse with a long ornate cloth draped over its back

84    started shied, moved suddenly

85    As as if    loath reluctant, unwilling

88    triumphing exulting victoriously

94    shrift confession (to a priest)

95    grace fortune, favor (in the next line, the sense shifts to “divine grace, mercy”)

97    Who he who    in air on the insubstantial foundation, in the emptiness    good favoring, approving

101    bootless useless    exclaim protest, cry out

Act 3 Scene 5

3.5   Location: within the walls of the Tower of London    rotten rusty/old, decaying marvellous ill-favoured (looking) extremely unsightly

1    change thy colour i.e., make yourself look pale with fear

2    Murder i.e., cut off, catch

5    counterfeit imitate    deep artful, cunning    tragedian tragic actor

6    back behind me, over my shoulder (presumably in alarm or distrust)    pry peer (nervously or suspiciously)

7    at wagging at the mere stirring, shaking

8    Intending expressing, pretending    ghastly full of fear

9    service command enforcèd false, deliberate

10    offices roles, tasks

17    o’erlook look over (seems to suggest that the scene takes place on the battlements)

21    patient calm

25    plainest most honest

27    book i.e., diary, personal notebook

28    history narrative, record

29    smooth plausibly

30    his…omitted apart from his manifest guilt

31    conversation sexual relationship

32    from free from    attainder of suspects stain of suspicion

33    covert’st sheltered most secretly concealed

35    almost even

37    subtle cunning

41    Turks i.e., barbarians, non-Christians

42    form order, code

43    rashly hastily

47    fair good fortune

48    proceeded acted (perhaps with connotations of “taken legal proceedings”)

50    looked for expected

51    fell in plays on the sense of “penetrated sexually”

52    had…die we had determined that he should not die

53    see attend to, manage

57    timorously with fear, tremblingly

60    haply perhaps

61    Misconster misconstrue    us in him our role in or motives for his death

63    as as if

68    carping faultfinding, dissatisfied

69    of regarding

70    witness testify to

73    Guildhall central building in which civic affairs were conducted    hies…post hurries as quickly as possible

74    meetest vantage best opportunity

75    Infer allege

78    house both home and either shop or inn

79    sign i.e., sign bearing the name (The Crown) of the shop or inn

80    luxury lechery, lust

81    change of lust constantly requiring new sexual partners

83    Even where wherever

85    for a need if necessary    come…person i.e., tell a tale that will affect me too

86    went…Of was pregnant with

89    true exact, accurate

90    his begot conceived by him

91    well…lineaments was obvious in Edward’s features, appearance

93    sparingly carefully, discreetly, with restraint

96    golden fee i.e., the crown (fee perhaps plays on the legal sense of “inherited estate”; the sense of “payment” anticipates the reward Buckingham expects for his services)

98    thrive well are successful Baynard’s Castle London residence owned by the Duchess of York, situated by the River Thames near Blackfriars

103    Shaw…Penker both clergymen who supported Richard

106    take…order make some secret arrangements

108    manner manner of

109    recourse means of access

Act 3 Scene 6

3.6   Location: London    Scrivener professional scribe, particularly of legal documents

1    indictment formal statement of charges

2    a set hand formal handwriting    fairly elegantly    engrossed written in large characters appropriate for legal documents (“gross” in its sense of “wicked, reprehensible” may pick up on its moral opposite, “fair”)

3    Paul’s St. Paul’s Cathedral (where public proclamations were often made)

4    the sequel the following/the sequence of events/subsequent scribal copy he produced

7    precedent preceding document, first draft (from which the final copy has been made)

9    Untainted unstained by accusation    unexamined not questioned, interrogated    free at liberty/innocent/untroubled

10    the while these days    gross stupid

11    palpable device obvious contrivance

14    seen in thought i.e., not acknowledged openly

Act 3 Scene 7

3.7   Location: Baynard’s Castle, London    several separate

3    mum silent

4    Touched you did you mention

5    contract betrothal

6    contract…France in 3 Henry VI (Act 3 Scene 3) the Earl of Warwick goes to France as Edward’s deputy to secure a betrothal with the King of France’s sister-in-law; he and the French king are furious and humiliated when word comes that Edward has abruptly married Elizabeth instead

8    enforcement coercion/rape

9    tyranny for trifles severe punishment of minor crimes/oppressive behavior even with regard to trivialities

10    got begot, conceived

15    Laid open revealed/described/elaborated on

16    discipline strategic skill

17    bounty generosity    fair honorable

18    fitting for relevant to

19    slightly neglectfully

30    recorder civic official in the City of London

32    inferred alleged

33    in…himself on his own authority

35    hall i.e., the Guildhall

37    the vantage advantage

39    general public/widespread

40    Argues demonstrates

41    even here at this point    brake broke

42    blocks blockheads, idiots

43    brethren members of the town corporation

44    Intend pretend, feign fear an intimidating manner/religious veneration/fearfulness

45    suit request, entreaty

46    look make sure

48    ground base melody    descant accompaniment to or improvised variation on the    ground, or underlying melody

49    won persuaded

50    maid’s young woman’s/virgin’s    still constantly, repeatedly    and take it yet have sex all the same

52    for myself on my own behalf/for my own advantage

53    issue outcome

54    leads lead-covered flat roof

55    dance attendance am being kept waiting, am eager to be seen

61    bent occupied, concerned/bent over (in prayer)

62    suits affairs, petitions (especially legal)

63    exercise prayers

66    deep very important, profound    moment significance

67    No less importing concerning no less a matter

71    lulling lolling, reclining

73    dallying toying sexually, having sex    brace pair

74    deep learned, profoundly wise    divines priests

75    engross fatten

76    watchful alert/awake

77    Happy fortunate

78    his grace plays on the ducal title and on the sense of “divine grace” (suggesting a God-given right to the crown)

80    defend forbid

89    perfect complete

92    beads rosary beads

93    zealous pious, devout    aloft i.e., on the upper staging level, or gallery

95    props supports

96    stay keep    fall of moral fall caused by

102    right rightful/genuine, true/extremely

106    visitation visit (especially by an ecclesiastical body); Richard is deliberately employing language with religious connotations

111    disgracious disliked

112    reprehend my ignorance rebuke me for the fault I am unaware of

115    Else…land? Why else do I live as a Christian (if not to amend my faults)?

118    sceptred involving the bearing of a royal scepter

119    state position, rank/kingship    of fortune to which fortune entitles you

120    lineal hereditary

121    blemished morally tainted (through illegitimacy) stock family tree (sense subsequently shifts to “tree trunk”)

124    want lack    proper rightful, own

125    infamy bad reputation, disgrace

126    graft grafted, i.e., united (as in horticulture)    plants may pun on “Plantagenet”

127    shouldered shoved (possibly “immersed up to the shoulders”) gulf abyss/whirlpool

129    recure redress, cure

133    factor agent

134    successively by right of succession

135    empery sovereign dominions

136    consorted united, in league

137    worshipful honorable/respectful

139    move persuade

142    degree rank or perhaps “spiritual    condition” condition social status

143    not to I do not    haply perhaps

144    yielded consented

146    fondly foolishly

149    checked (would have) rebuked

153    desert Unmeritable unworthiness

155    cut away with sinister connotations of “cut off, killed”

156    even direct, smooth

157    revenue possession/yield, income

160    greatness i.e., kingship

161    bark ship brook endure, withstand

162    in…hid desire to be enveloped by greatness

163    vapour mist/spray

165    much I need I would need a great deal (i.e., I am inadequate)

166    royal tree i.e., King Edward IV

167    mellowed matured    stealing creeping (forward)

168    become suit, befit seat throne

170    that what

171    happy auspicious, favorable

172    defend forbid wring wrench

173    argues shows, is evidence of

174    respects thereof factors in your argument nice unimportant, trifling

178    contract…vow the verbal contract entered into at betrothal was considered binding

180    substitute deputy, delegate

181    sister sister-in-law

182    petitioner Elizabeth Grey catches Edward’s eye when she entreats him for the return of her dead husband’s lands (see 3 Henry VI, Act 3 Scene 2)

183    care-crazed fraught, worn out with anxiety

186    purchase booty, plunder wanton lustful

187    pitch height (literally, the highest point in a falcon’s flight)

188    base declension descent to baseness    bigamy i.e., because Edward had been engaged to two other women previously

190    our manners courtesy

191    expostulate expound on, argue about

192    some alive i.e., Richard and Edward’s mother, the Duchess of York

193    sparing considerate, forbearing

195    benefit benevolent bestowal dignity honor, high rank, kingship

199    true-derivèd legitimate, directly descended

203    care duty, trouble, source of anxiety

207    as being, because (you are) zeal devotion

210    effeminate tender, gentle

212    estates social ranks

226    buckle i.e., like armor; my back draws attention to Richard’s hunched back

230    sequel consequences

231    Your…me the fact that you forced me shall acquit me mere absolute

241    Even just, exactly

Act 4 Scene 1

4.1   Location: outside the Tower of London    Anne…Gloucester i.e., Lady Anne, who has married Richard at some point since his wooing of her in Act 1 Scene 2    leading a girl probably Clarence’s daughter

1    niece granddaughter

4    tender young

10    like devotion same devoted purpose

11    gratulate greet, welcome

17    suffer allow

22    bounds boundaries

25    in law i.e., by marriage

27    office responsibility, official duty

31    mother mother-in-law (of Elizabeth and Anne)

32    looker-on beholder    two fair queens i.e., Elizabeth and Anne (as wife of Richard, who is shortly to be crowned)

33    straight (go) straightaway

35    lace cords that fastened the tightly laced bodice (often cut when a woman became faint)

36    pent confined, penned in

38    Despiteful cruel, malicious

44    Richmond i.e., Henry Tudor, Earl of Richmond (later Henry VII), who had sought refuge in Brittany    from away from

45    hie hurry

47    thrall slave

48    Nor neither counted accounted, acknowledged

51    letters…way i.e., the letters will be sent to Dorset while en route/the letters will ask George Stanley to meet Dorset on the way and assist his journey/the letters will enable Dorset to be introduced to and assisted by Richmond when he reaches Brittany son stepson (Richmond), or possibly Stanley’s own son George

53    ta’en tardy caught by surprise

54    ill-dispersing evil-spreading

56    cockatrice basilisk, a mythical reptile that could kill with its gaze

57    unavoided unavoidable

60    inclusive enclosing verge band, rim

63    Anointed anointing with holy oil was a key part of the coronation

66    To…harm Do not wish yourself harm just to satisfy my mood

70    other angel husband my other (first) husband, who was an angel/my first husband, who was a different (i.e., good) type of angel (implying that Richard is the fallen angel Lucifer)

74    old experienced/worn-out

81    Grossly stupidly/excessively/coarsely

86    timorous full or fear

87    Warwick with Clarence, the Earl of Warwick deserted the Yorkist cause

89    complaining lamentations

98    teen grief, suffering

101    immured imprisoned, closed in

103    Rude harsh, rough    ragged rugged, eroded    sullen dismal, melancholy

105    So such/thus    foolish fond, doting

Act 4 Scene 2

4.2   Location: the royal court, London    pomp ceremony, splendor, celebration

1    apart aside

9    play the touch act the touchstone (used to test the validity of gold)

10    try test    current genuine

17    consequence outcome

18    true noble prince Richard adapts Buckingham’s phrase so that it applies to Edward

19    wont…dull accustomed to be so stupid

21    suddenly immediately

26    breath breathing space

27    positively definitively, directly

28    resolve answer

30    iron-witted dull-witted, stupid, obtuse

31    unrespective inattentive, disrespectful

32    considerate thoughtful

33    High-reaching ambitious

37    close secret

39    haughty proud, aspiring

40    orators persuasive speakers

45    deep-revolving deeply thoughtful, musing    witty sharp, clever

46    counsels secrets, confidences

47    held out kept up

55    take order make arrangements    close shut away

56    mean humble, low-ranking

58    The boy i.e., Clarence’s son

59    how thou dream’st i.e., pay attention (perhaps Catesby is shocked)    give out make it known

61    it…upon it is very important for me

63    brother’s daughter i.e., Edward IV’s daughter Elizabeth

67    pluck on draw on

68    Tear-falling pity mercy, compassion that induces weeping

72    Prove test, try

73    friend plays on the sense of “relative”

78    deal upon deal with, act against

80    open unrestricted

83    token some symbol of authority, perhaps a ring

84    There…so that is all there is to it

85    prefer advance, promote

88    late recent    sound me in ask me about

91    he i.e., Richmond

93    pawned pledged

94    movables portable property

96    look to beware, watch

97    answer be answerable for

101    peevish foolish, childish

103    resolve answer, satisfy

104    vein mood

108    Brecknock Brecon in Wales, Buckingham’s family seat

Act 4 Scene 3

2    arch extreme, foremost

4    suborn bribe

5    ruthful lamentable, sad

6    fleshed experienced (hunting term referring to feeding hounds raw meat to excite them for the chase)

8    their…story in telling the sad story of their deaths

10    girdling hugging, encircling

11    alabaster i.e., white (the substance was often used for human figures that formed part of funeral monuments)

15    Which one which, which thing

18    replenishèd complete, perfect

19    prime first    framed created

20    gone overcome

22    bloody bloodthirsty

25    gave in charge ordered

33    soon and i.e., soon

34    process account, story

36    be…desire you shall get what you wish

39    close securely, privately

40    meanly…marriage I have married to a low-ranking man

41    Abraham’s bosom i.e., heaven

43    for because    Breton from Brittany (where Richmond is taking refuge)

45    by that knot through that marriage

48    bluntly unceremoniously, abruptly

49    Morton John Morton, Bishop of Ely (whom Richard asks for strawberries in Act 3 scene 4)

50    hardy bold, resolute

51    power army

52    near deeply

53    rash-levied rapidly mustered

54    fearful commenting nervous talk

55    leaden servitor the slow servant

56    leads precedes, generates    beggary ruin

57    expedition speed, quick action

58    Jove’s Mercury swift messenger of Jove, king of the Roman gods

59    My…shield the best advice is to arm myself/arms shall be my advisers (i.e., let us not waste time discussing matters)

60    brief swift    brave the field challenge us on the battlefield

Act 4 Scene 4

4.4   Location: unspecified; probably somewhere near the royal court

1    mellow ripen

3    confines regions, territories (of England)

5    induction introduction, opening scene

6    consequence unfolding events and their conclusion

10    unblowed young and unopened, not yet in bloom    sweets flowers/dear ones

12    in doom perpetual eternally in the place appointed for you

15    right for right even-handed justice

17    crazed cracked

19    Edward Plantagenet could refer to Edward IV or his son

20    quit requite, repay

21    Edward for Edward probably refers to Elizabeth’s son and Margaret’s (with Henry VI)

23    entrails insides, intestines

25    Harry Henry VI (Margaret’s husband)

27    grave’s…usurped i.e., one who should have died but remains living

28    abstract summary/epitome

29    lawful own proper, that is rightfully England’s

31    thou i.e., the earth afford offer

36    seniory seniority

37    on…hand from the superior position

38    admit society permit company

39    Edward Margaret’s son with Henry VI (murdered by Richard, Edward IV and Clarence; see 3 Henry VI, Act 5 Scene 5)

40    husband Henry VI (murdered by Richard; see 3 Henry VI, Act 5 Scene 6)

41    Edward Elizabeth’s eldest son with Edward IV

42    Richard Elizabeth’s second son, the young Duke of York

43    Richard the Duke of York, the Duchess’ husband (killed by Margaret and Clifford; see 3 Henry VI, Act 1 Scene 4)

44    Rutland the Duchess’ youngest son (murdered by Clifford; see 3 Henry IV, Act 1 Scene 3)    holp’st helped

48    teeth…eyes i.e., could bite before he could see properly; Richard was born with teeth

49    worry seize by the throat

50    defacer…handiwork i.e., murderer (perhaps also alludes to Richard’s own deformed physique)

51    gallèd irritated, swollen (from weeping)

52    excellent supreme

54    upright righteous, just    true-disposing arranging all justly

55    carnal cur flesh-eating dog

56    issue offspring, children

57    pew-fellow fellow mourner    moan lamentations, grief

58    triumph glory, exult

61    cloy me gorge myself

62    Thy Edward Edward IV    my Edward Margaret’s son with Henry VI

63    other Edward Elizabeth’s eldest son with Edward IV

64    Young York Elizabeth’s second son, the young Duke of York    but boot merely added to make up the total    both they Edward IV and his eldest son

65    perfection…loss completeness, extent of the loss I experience/excellence of the people I have lost

67    frantic mad, frenzied

68    Th’adulterate the adulterous (Hastings; refers to his affair with Jane Shore)

70    intelligencer spy, secret agent

71    Only reserved solely kept alive (to be)/exclusively selected (as)    factor agent, representative

80    bottled swollen (with venom), rounded, bottle-shaped    bunch-backed hunchbacked

81    vain flourish meaningless, frivolous adornment

82    shadow illusory, fragile image/actor    painted artificial/made-up with cosmetics

83    presentation imitation

84    flattering index deceptively attractive prologue    pageant play

86    mocked taunted/imitated, playacted

87    dream mere image flag army’s identifying banner, highly visible in battle/type of flower belonging to the iris family

89    sign mere symbol/military banner    dignity monarchy

90    in jest for entertainment/pretend    fill the fulfill the requirements of/make up numbers in

93    sues pays court, entreats

94    bending bowing/yielding

95    troops retinues

96    Decline go through in order (grammatical term)

97    For instead of

98    name i.e., of mother

100    caitiff wretch    care troubles, grief

101    of by

104    course…about an image that recalls the popular conception of    fortune as a wheel that raised humans up and cast them down as it came full circle

105    very absolute

106    thought i.e., memory

113    mischance misfortune

117    Forbear refrain, refuse

121    Bett’ring amplifying    bad causer person responsible for the evil

122    Revolving considering, reflecting on

123    dull lifeless, sluggish/blunt    quicken enliven/sharpen

126    Windy…woes (words are) empty, wind-blown representatives of the grief of the speakers

127    intestine internal (both in the sense of “experienced within” and in the sense of “digestive,” the latter making words into farts)

129    scope range, room

134    exclaims outcries, exclamations

135    expedition military enterprise/haste

136    might i.e., should

138    From i.e., to prevent

140    branded i.e., branded with

141    owed owned

143    villain wicked one/servant

148    flourish trumpet fanfare (usually signaling the arrival or departure of a person in authority)    alarum call to arms

149    tell-tale prattling

150    Rail rant lord’s anointed i.e., the king, supposedly chosen by God and anointed with holy oil at the coronation to signify this

151    entreat me fair plead with me courteously

152    report loud noise, specifically the explosion of a gun or cannon

156    impatience anger

157    condition temperament

158    brook…reproof bear the language of rebuke

163    stayed waited

166    rood cross

169    Tetchy fretful wayward willful, obstinate

170    frightful frightening desp’rate reckless

171    prime early years

172    age confirmed maturity

173    kind in hatred concealing hatred in kindness (kind may play on the sense of “natural”)

174    comfortable cheerful, comforting

176    Humphrey Hour unclear; possibly a reference to “dining with Duke Humphrey,” which meant going hungry, or perhaps an actual person is meant grace puns on graced

177    forth out

186    ordinance law (plays on the sense of “artillery”)

187    turn return

191    tire may it weigh heavy on, exhaust

192    complete full, well-equipped

195    Whisper whisper to

198    serves supplies/accompanies    doth i.e., will

205    level aim, set your target sights

209    manners morals/courteous habits

210    false unfaithful

211    veil shroud (usually associated with either modesty or mourning)

212    So provided of by

216    safest…birth only safeguarded by her high birth

218    opposite hostile, antagonistic

219    friends also “relatives” contrary opposed

220    unavoided unavoidable    doom decree/destined judgment/condemnation

221    avoided grace an absence of God’s grace (i.e., Richard)

222    fairer better/nobler/more just

225    cozened cheated

227    Whose hand soever whoever’s hand    lanched pierced

228    head brain/instigation/command    all indirectly through indirect means (plays on the sense of “wrongly”)

232    But…use did not the constant experience

235    bay cove, inlet/point at which the cornered deer turns to face the hounds pursuing it

236    poor bark shabby, ill-equipped ship    tackling rigging    reft deprived

237    Rush am dashed

238    thrive I may I thrive    enterprise military undertaking

239    dangerous success risky outcome

240    As only as far as

242    covered…heaven i.e., concealed by God

243    discovered revealed

244    Th’advancement the promotion, favoring (Elizabeth responds to the literal sense)

245    scaffold raised platform on which executions took place

246    dignity honor, high rank

247    type symbol, emblem

248    Flatter increase, pander to/alleviate, mollify

249    state high rank

250    demise convey, transfer (legal term)

251    Even exactly

252    endow bestow upon/give as a dowry

253    So if    Lethe in Greek mythology, the river in the underworld that induced forgetfulness in any who drank from or were immersed in it

254    remembrance memory

256    process story, narrative

257    telling in the telling date duration, end

259    thinks i.e., believes

261    from Elizabeth now shifts the sense to “away from, at variance with”

264    confound overturn, destroy

270    How what

273    humour temperament

277    engrave inscribe (plays on the sense of “place in the grave”)

278    haply probably/perhaps

279    sometime once, formerly

282    purple blood-red

283    withal with it

286    mad’st away disposed of, killed

288    conveyance removal, dispatch (playing on the senses of “stealing” and “deceit, trickery”)

292    shape appearance/role/disguise

296    spoil booty gained from plunder

297    Look what whatever

298    deal act, behave (plays on the sense of “kill”)

299    after-hours later moments

302    issue offspring, children

303    quicken give life to    increase descendants, children    beget conceive

304    upon by

308    mettle substance, spirit, temperament

309    Of all one causing the same amount of

310    of her by the younger Elizabeth (Queen Elizabeth’s daughter)    bid like sorrow endured similar pain

315    would would like to

316    can am able (to offer)

322    Familiarly as a family member

328    orient shining

329    Advantaging adding to the value of    their love the love that caused the tears to be shed

331    mother mother-in-law

332    bold confident, prepared (with connotations of “sexually ready”)

341    retail relate, retell

342    victoress female victor    Caesar’s Caesar i.e., the conqueror of the victor

344    lord husband

349    Infer allege, give as a reason

350    purchase…war pay for with everlasting (personal) strife

352    That i.e., a relationship (uncle/niece) considered by the Church as incestuous    king’s king i.e., God

354    vail lower (in submission), yield

356    title claim (plays on the sense of “queen’s title”)

357    in force in place, active (perhaps with sinister play on “enforce”)

358    fairly justly/in safety

362    loathes puns on low

363    in on

364    speeds succeeds    plainly honestly/in simple terms, without adornment

367    quick hasty (Elizabeth plays on the sense of “alive” when she responds with its opposite: dead)

368    too puns on “two” deep profound, learned (sense then shifts to “deep down, buried”)

371    heart-strings tendons or nerves supposed to brace the heart, hence intense feelings (puns on “harp strings”)

372    my George the image of Saint George, patron saint of England, that formed part of the insignia of the Order of the Garter, the highest order of knighthood in England garter band tied around the leg to keep up hosiery; Knights of the Garter wore a blue and gold one below the left knee

376    his its

382    self-misused disgraced, abused by yourself

389    him i.e., God

390    unity i.e., reconciliation between court factions in Act 2 Scene 1

391    hadst would have

400    o’erpast past

402    Hereafter time the future

404    Ungoverned parentless, without a father’s control    wail…age lament it in their maturity/throughout their lifetime

406    with along with

410    So thrive I to the same extent may I thrive

411    Myself myself confound may I destroy myself

414    opposite hostile, adversarial

415    proceeding course of action

417    tender not do not love, hold dear princely royal

425    attorney representative, pleader of a cause

426    Plead offer as a plea in court

427    my deserts what I deserve

428    times affairs/the present time

429    great designs important affairs, the business of state (plays on the sense of “schemes aimed at attaining power”)

430    of by

432    forget…myself forget my anguish and the wrongs done to me in order to be mother of a monarch

433    if…yourself if remembering yourself (i.e., collecting your wits/remembering your wrongs) compromises your future

436    spicery spices

437    recomforture new comfort

441    mind opinion, intention

446    puissant mighty, powerful

447    doubtful fearful/unreliable hollow-hearted false, insincere

449    their i.e., the attacking navy’s

450    hull float with sails furled

452    light-foot swift-footed post hurry

458    unmindful inattentive

463    strength and power army

464    suddenly immediately Salisbury town in Wiltshire, southwest England

472    well easily, readily

473    Hoyday exclamation of contemptuous impatience

475    nearest most direct

479    White-livered runagate cowardly renegade, runaway

484    chair throne    sword official sword of office    unswayed not wielded

485    empire kingdom    unpossessed not inherited/not ruled

488    makes he is he doing

489    that i.e., the crown

490    for that because

491    the Welshman i.e., Richmond, grandson of the Welsh Owen Tudor and Katherine of Valois (widow of Henry V)

494    power army

495    tenants who would have been required to undertake military service for their lord

499    Cold unfriendly, distant (plays on the fact that the north of England often undergoes cold weather)

502    Pleaseth if it please

508    hold consider, deem

511    Look make sure

512    assurance safety

515    advertisèd informed

520    competitors associates, allies

523    owls thought to be birds of ill omen, whose cry portended death

526    fall of waters i.e. heavy rain, storms

530    cry thee mercy beg your pardon

532    well-advisèd prudent

541    assistants supporters

543    his party Richmond’s faction

544    Hoised hoisted

548    taken captured

550    Milford Milford Haven, on the coast of southwest Wales

551    colder less welcome

552    reason talk

Act 4 Scene 5

4.5   Location: unspecified; possibly Stanley’s home in the north of England, to which Richard sent him to muster troops, or his London residence

2    sty pen    boar i.e., Richard

3    franked penned    hold custody

8    espouse marry

10    Pembroke town in southwest Wales, just south of Milford Haven    Ha’rfordwest Haverfordwest, a town north of Milford Haven

11    name rank/reputation    resort gather

14    redoubted revered/feared    Pembroke Earl of Pembroke (Richmond’s uncle)

15    Rice i.e., Rhys

17    bend direct

18    by on

20    resolve…mind explain my intentions

Act 5 Scene 1

5.1   Location: Salisbury

5    miscarrièd come to harm, died

7    moody angry

10    All Souls’ day November 2, the day in the Church calendar devoted to prayer for the souls of the dead

13    This…allies Buckingham refers to his speech in Act 2 Scene 1, in which, following the formal reconciliation of court factions, he wished to be punished with treacherous friends if he was ever disloyal to Elizabeth and her allies

19    determined respite of ordained end to the postponement in punishing

20    all-seer i.e., God    dallied with trifled with, mocked

21    feignèd insincere, pretend

22    in jest in pretense

28    block execution block

Act 5 Scene 2

5.2   Location: Tamworth, in the East Midlands

3    bowels center, inmost part

5    father stepfather

8    spoiled stripped, despoiled

9    Swills gulps    wash pig food

10    emboweled disemboweled

12    Leicester chief town of Leicestershire, east of Tamworth

14    cheerly cheerfully, hopefully

16    sharp harsh, merciless

18    homicide murderer

22    vantage advantage

24    meaner humbler

Act 5 Scene 3

5.3   Location: Bosworth Field, to the east of Leicester

2    sad solemn, grave

6    knocks hard blows

9    all’s…that it doesn’t matter, it makes no difference

10    descried discovered, seen

12    battalia army    account number

14    want lack

16    vantage…ground best position for military action

17    sound direction good tactical judgment

21    tract traces, streaks    car chariot (which in classical mythology was driven by the sun god)

23    standard flag, military banner

25    form and model arrangement and ground plan

26    Limit appoint, designate    several separate, respective    charge duty

27    part…proportion distribute evenly

30    keeps stays with

35    quartered encamped

36    colours identifying battle flags

42    needful urgent

52    beaver helmet’s visor    easier looser, moving more efficiently

53    into in

55    hie hasten    charge duty/post

59    warrant assure, guarantee

62    pursuivant at arms officer attendant on a herald, i.e., messenger

66    watch watch light, a slow-burning candle or one marked at regular divisions to measure the passing of time/guard, watchman

67    Surrey the name of a horse

68    staves staffs used as weapons sound in good condition

73    cockshut time dusk, twilight (when poultry are cooped up)

74    cheering up encouraging, rallying

76    alacrity readiness, sharpness

77    wont used, accustomed

78    it presumably the wine

82    arm me put on my armor

83    helm helmet

85    father-in-law stepfather

87    attorney proxy

90    flaky streaked with light

91    season time of day

93    th’arbitrement the decision, final judgment

94    mortal-staring deathly faced, with fatal gaze

95    that…would what I would like to do (i.e., fight openly on your side)

96    With…time with every opportunity I get, I will be strategically duplicitous (toward Richard)

97    doubtful shock clash of forces, the outcome of which is uncertain/frightening military encounter

98    forward eager

99    brother stepbrother    tender young

101    leisure time available

103    ample interchange full exchange sweet discourse pleasant conversation

104    sundered separated

108    with against

109    peise weigh

112    account consider

113    gracious filled with divine grace/favorable

114    irons swords

119    watchful wakeful    Prince Edward son of Margaret and Henry VI

124    despair experience spiritual hopelessness (thought to precede suicide)

127    issue child, offspring

128    anointed marked with holy oil, the sign of monarchy

129    punchèd punctured, pierced

130    Tower of London, where Henry was murdered (see 3 Henry VI, Act 5 Scene 6)

136    washed i.e., drowned (in a cask of malmsey, a strong sweet wine)    fulsome nauseating/an abundant quantity of

139    fall drop, let fall    edgeless blunt, useless

142    battle army

156    laid buried

160    annoy injury, harm

164    quiet peaceful

176    Fainting staggering, losing consciousness/losing heart    yield give up

180    Richard may Richard

182    Soft wait

184    lights burn blue thought to be a sign of the presence of ghosts

185    drops i.e., of sweat

191    Wherefore? Why?

197    several different, separate

198    brings in introduces (as evidence)

202    used…degree committed at every degree of severity

203    th’bar i.e., of the court

204    creature person/minion created through favor, i.e., not a genuine supporter

209    threat threaten

217    shadows something insubstantial (Richard shifts the sense to “ghosts”)

221    proof impenetrable armor

224    shrink from i.e., desert

226    Cry mercy forgive me    watchful alert/protective, guarding

227    ta’en caught

233    cried on invoked, called out to

234    jocund lively, joyful

239    said already said, said before

240    leisure time available    enforcement constraints

244    bulwarks fortifications

245    except excepted

249    raised promoted (to the throne)    established confirmed in power

250    made means contrived, grasped opportunities, used any resource

252    stone jewel    foil setting for a jewel (designed to highlight the jewel’s beauty)

253    chair throne    falsely wrongfully, treacherously/artificially

256    ward protect

260    fat wealth, prosperous growth    hire recompense

264    quits requites, repays    age old age

266    Advance your standards raise your battle flags

267    the…face i.e., if I fail the only ransom to be paid for me shall be my death (noblemen captured in war were often released on payment of a ransom)

269    thrive succeed/live

272    Saint George patron saint of England

273    touching regarding

278    Tell count (the chimes of)    calendar almanac, containing astrological predictions that dealt with meteorology

281    book almanac

282    braved the east i.e., risen    braved made splendid/challenged

283    black dark, gloomy/evil, disastrous

286    lour glower, threaten darkly

287    from not on

290    sadly solemnly

291    vaunts flaunts itself proudly

292    Caparison harness, equip

296    foreward vanguard, front line of troops drawn extended

297    horse and foot cavalry and infantry, horsemen and foot soldiers

301    directed positioned, deployed

302    puissance power

303    wingèd flanked    chiefest horse best cavalry

304    to boot (to support us) as well

307    Jockey contraction of “John-kin,” a nickname for “John” (Norfolk’s first name)

308    Dickon diminutive of Dick, i.e., Richard    bought and sold betrayed for a bribe

315    join join battle    pell-mell with headlong haste/at close quarters, with hand-to-hand combat

317    inferred stated

318    cope fight, grapple

319    sort gang

321    o’er-cloyèd overfull and sickened

325    restrain deprive you of    distain defile, soil, rape

326    fellow with lower-class connotations

327    Bretagne Brittany    mother’s an error (for “brother’s”) that appears in the second edition of Shakespeare’s major source, Holinshed’s Chronicles; just conceivably “mother” might refer to “mother England”

328    milksop weak, cowardly person/infant still on a milk diet

329    over-shoes in snow when snow is above the level of one’s shoes

330    whip these stragglers i.e., as vagabonds were whipped out of the parish by a local official

331    Lash hence whip away from here    overweening ambitious, overreaching    rags vagrants/old scraps

333    but were it not for    fond exploit foolish military undertaking

334    want lack

337    land with connotations of “sexual territory,” i.e., wives and daughters    bobbed and thumped beaten, pounded/had sex with, raped (their women)

338    on record as is officially recorded    the…shame in disgrace/illegitimate children

339    Lie have sex with

340    Ravish rape

341    yeomen property-owning men below the level of gentlemen

343    proud splendid/rearing blood i.e., the    blood drawn from spurring the horses so hard

344    Amaze terrify, alarm, bewilder    welkin sky    broken i.e., shattered from energetic use

346    deny refuse

348    past the marsh i.e., advancing

350    great full of emotion

352    word of courage i.e., battle cry

353    spleen fury    dragons Saint George was famed for the legendary killing of a dragon    Alarum, excursions trumpet call to arms and bouts of fighting across the stage

356    a man is humanly possible

357    Daring an opposite defying an enemy

363    set…cast gambled my life on the throw of a die

364    stand await, endure    hazard chance    die singular of dice (with connotations of death)

365    six Richmonds probably refers to the military precaution of disguising other soldiers as their commander

370    acquit thee acquitted yourself

371    royalties emblems of sovereignty, i.e., the crown

379    name rank

382    become their births befits their social standing

385    ta’en the sacrament confirmed an oath by taking Holy Communion

386    unite…red i.e., unite the Houses of Lancaster (symbolized by a red rose) and York (a white rose) by marrying Elizabeth, daughter of Edward IV

387    conjunction union (literally, proximity of planets)

393    sire father

397    succeeders inheritors, heirs

398    ordinance decree

402    Abate blunt edge sword edge

403    reduce bring back

405    increase growth, harvest, prosperity

407    stopped staunched, stopped from bleeding/no longer inflicted

THE FAMOUS HISTORY OF THE LIFE OF KING HENRY THE EIGHTH

Henry the Eighth, coauthored with John Fletcher, is the only English history play of the second half of Shakespeare’s career, when his men were under the patronage of King James I. Written at a time of nostalgia for the age of Queen Elizabeth, the action comes to a climax when a doll representing the newborn future queen is brought on stage, her reign as a “maiden phoenix” is predicted, and her chosen successor, King James, is praised. “A pattern to all princes,” she is later described as one who “shall make it Holy-day”: such language suggests how the English Protestant cult of the Virgin Queen derived some of its power from the way in which it reworked the Roman Catholic cult of the Virgin Mary.

The speech is spoken by the princess’ godfather, Thomas Cranmer, famous as the architect of the English Reformation and a martyr burned to death in the reign of bloody Queen Mary: the linking of the infant Elizabeth to Protestant ideology could not be more strongly expressed. Though the final scene was written by Fletcher, Cranmer’s subsequent image of a “cedar” tree as a representation of the royal genealogical line replicates a prophecy spoken by the god Jupiter in Shakespeare’s Cymbeline. Events in Henry the Eighth do not, however, seem to have been driven by that sense of destiny, of a providential design leading to the establishment of a new dynasty, which shaped Shakespeare’s earlier chronicle plays. The emphasis is rather on the vicissitudes of court life. The play’s structure is built on an apparently arbitrary pattern of rises and falls: Buckingham falls, Anne Bullen rises, Wolsey rises, Katherine falls, Wolsey falls, Cranmer rises. Again, as Wolsey goes down, Thomas Cromwell comes up: Anne Bullen is “the weight” on this pulley of fortune. There is some skilled compression of history for the sake of dramatic effect: in the play, the fall of Cardinal Wolsey and the triple elevation of Thomas More, Thomas Cranmer, and Anne Bullen effectively work as a single event, whereas in reality these three came to eminence in, respectively, 1529, 1532, and 1533. Wolsey actually died in 1530, three years before the coronation of Anne as Henry’s second queen.

Though grounded in history, the pattern of ascent and descent is analogous to that of romance, with its highs and lows, its voyages and reunions, things lost and found. The play was originally staged under the title All is True, a wittily ironic pointer to its fantastical moments, such as Queen Katherine’s divine vision, which can hardly be literally true. Shakespeare and Fletcher may have chosen to infuse their play with the spirit of romance, so far from the tough world of the Richard and the other Henry plays, in order to create a safety zone that was necessary because Henry the Eighth dramatizes the still contentious issue over which England broke from the Church of Rome, the replacement of Queen Katherine with Anne Bullen. The crux of the action is the fall of Wolsey, mediator between the king and the pope. It becomes the occasion not to pass judgment on the rights and wrongs of the Reformation, but for a generalized reflection on the fickleness of fortune and the fruitlessness of hanging “on princes’ favors.” Henry the Eighth was a great favorite on the eighteenth- and nineteenth-century stage. That was partly because of the opportunity for spectacle provided by the coronation and the play’s other scenes of procession and court business. But it was also because of the opportunity given to actors by Wolsey’s great set-piece, “Farewell? A long farewell to all my greatness…”

Shakespeare’s Elizabethan history plays were dominated by wars, either civil or on French soil, and battles for succession to the crown. They were written in times of war when the question of the succession to Elizabeth was deeply troubling to the nation. Henry the Eighth, by contrast, was written after several years of peace. Indeed, King James regarded himself as an international peacemaker. Furthermore, he was a married king, so there was no anxiety about the succession, despite the nation’s sorrow at the premature death of his eldest son, Prince Henry, in November 1612. The wedding of the king’s daughter, Princess Elizabeth, to Frederick the Elector Palatine, the most prominent Protestant ruler in continental Europe, was postponed until February 1613 so as not to be overshadowed by the funeral. Henry the Eighth, a play with both a royal death and a royal wedding, was written in the next few months.

Despite the Protestant match for the princess, there were anxieties about a possible revival of Roman Catholicism: the religious allegiance of James’ queen was a matter of public interest about which rumors circulated. And there was considerable concern over court favorites, as different factions jostled for power. Ever since the spectacular entrance procession of King James into London at the beginning of his reign, the new court had displayed its power through pageantry. The theater played a key role here. The king, his family and his courtiers participated actively in masques, and, in their new capacity as the King’s Men, Shakespeare and his fellows were frequently called upon to play at court. All these concerns are woven into the fabric of Henry the Eighth, making it a distinctively Jacobean drama.

Kingly authority is asserted by pageantry, but also by the ruthless axing of counselors who have served their purpose. Buckingham says of York that “no man’s pie is freed / From his ambitious finger,” a sentiment that could apply to any one of the play’s thrusting courtiers as they jostle for the top seat at the table of power. A stage direction in the third act is typical both of the world of the drama and the environment that Shakespeare would have experienced when he took his men to play at court: “Exit King, frowning upon the Cardinal; the nobles throng after him, smiling and whispering.”

The question inevitably raised is whether or not the personal authority of the monarch is absolute. In order to please the courtly audience it was necessary for Shakespeare and Fletcher to follow a broadly pro-Henry line, but there do seem to be moments when a critique of the conscience of the king is built into the action. Specifically, a series of puns on words such as “prick” and “rule” imply that his policy is being determined by his sex drive as much as his desire to serve and shape his nation. The king clearly suffers a failure of “temperance,” a key Protestant virtue, in relation to Anne. And at the most elementary structural level, there is a tension between the representation of the two queens and the state ideology of Protestantism. Katherine of Aragon is the Catholic queen who becomes a near-saint granted a divine vision, while Anne, the trigger for the Reformation, is given a very small part and serves primarily as an object of sexual desire. Equally, although the chancellorship of Sir Thomas More only figures briefly in the play, there is a clear allusion to his subsequent martyrdom for the Catholic cause:

But he’s a learnèd man. May he continue

Long in his highness’ favour, and do justice

For truth’s sake and his conscience, that his bones,

When he has run his course and sleeps in blessings,

May have a tomb of orphans’ tears wept on him.

Shakespeare’s late plays share a fascination with the very different directions in which poetic language may lead. Elaborate rhetoric and honeyed words reveal how the verbal arts are tools for preferment and power. Words are both baits for advancement and means of getting off the hook: “may it like your grace / To let my tongue excuse all.” On other occasions, there is a plangent poetry of withdrawal, of retirement from the courtly fray. How is one to achieve inner peace in this world of political turmoil? The courtiers have varying degrees of success in their attempts to learn the Senecan art of patience, of using soliloquy and self-examination as a means of coming to terms with the buffets of political fortune. For Queen Katherine, uniquely, there is a moment of transcendence and divine vision. But it is only a moment, ending with a dissolution analogous to that of Prospero’s masque in The Tempest: “Spirits of peace, where are ye? Are ye all gone? / And leave me here in wretchedness behind ye?”

The voice that is absent from Henry the Eighth is the one that was so forceful in Henry IV and Henry V: the commoners, whose plain prose pricks the bubble of pretentious courtly language. As in The Winter’s Tale, gentlemen are brought on stage in the role of witnesses. But there are no equivalents to The Winter’s Tale’s lower-class characters of Shepherd and Clown. The only prose intervention belongs to a porter in the final act, who hears the hubbub of young gallants outside the closed door of the council chambers. “These are the youths that thunder at a playhouse, and fight for bitter apples,” he remarks, perhaps implying that of the three audiences for whom Shakespeare and Fletcher were writing—the court, the select company of the indoor Blackfriars theater and the mass public who paid a penny to stand in the yard of the Globe—it is the first two who now interest them more. Insofar as the play does explore the consciousness of the low born, it is when commoners such as Cromwell and above all Wolsey—son of a provincial butcher—become “great” men, provoking the enmity of the dukes and earls born to ermine. At some level, Shakespeare—son of a provincial glover who had close links with butcher’s business—is reflecting upon his own extraordinary rise. Fletcher, by contrast, was born into a higher social echelon; he and Beaumont did write for the public stage, but always with a particular eye to the court audience.

There was, perhaps, a particular frisson when the play was performed at the Blackfriars, since this was the very location of the trial of Queen Katherine. But there is no doubt that Henry the Eighth was also played at the Globe soon after it was written. At a performance in June 1613, when “chambers” (small cannon) were discharged in the fourth scene, the theater burned down. One of the several surviving accounts of the fire, by the diplomat Sir Henry Wotton, combines reportage with a perceptive reading of the play:

Now, to let matters of state sleep, I will entertain you at the present with what has happened this week at the Bank’s side. The King’s players had a new play, called All is True, representing some principal pieces of the reign of Henry VIII, which was set forth with many extraordinary circumstances of pomp and majesty, even to the matting of the stage; the Knights of the Order with their Georges and garters, the Guards with their embroidered coats, and the like: sufficient in truth within a while to make greatness very familiar, if not ridiculous. Now, King Henry making a masque at the Cardinal Wolsey’s house, and certain chambers being shot off at his entry, some of the paper, or other stuff, wherewith one of them was stopped, did light on the thatch, where being thought at first but an idle smoke, and their eyes more attentive to the show, it kindled inwardly, and ran round like a train, consuming within less than an hour the whole house to the very grounds. This was the fatal period of that virtuous fabric, wherein yet nothing did perish but wood and straw, and a few forsaken cloaks; only one man had his breeches set on fire, that would perhaps have broiled him, if he had not by the benefit of a provident wit put it out with bottle ale.

Wotton’s account reveals how much care the King’s Men took in their efforts to represent “pomp and majesty” on stage: from the matting on the floor to the garters and crosses of Saint George on the costumes, everything is contrived “to make greatness very familiar.” Intriguingly, though, the effect of transforming royal processions through Whitehall and Westminster into passages of a play on the matted stage of a thatched theater in the margins of Southwark is also to make greatness seem just a little ridiculous. The representation of the intrinsic theatricality of state power hints at its flimsiness, its reliance on the same mechanisms of show as those of the theater. Wotton’s insight serves as an epilogue not just on Henry the Eighth but on Shakespeare’s whole sequence of English history plays: on his stage, the people of England became intimately familiar for the first time with the story of their great ones, and at the same time they learned—through laughter and through debate—to respect the structures of greatness just a little less. Having witnessed the fall of lords and even monarchs on the boards of the Globe, they were ready some forty years later to erect a scaffold in Whitehall and witness the fall of an axe on the head of a real king, Charles I.

KEY FACTS

AUTHORSHIP: A collaboration between Shakespeare and John Fletcher. Neither the First Folio nor any contemporary reference mentions joint authorship, but many stylistic studies, the first of them published in 1850, have decisively revealed two hands in the composition. Alfred Lord Tennyson was apparently the first to realize that the coauthor was Fletcher. The different tests of verbal preferences (e.g., you versus ye, them versus ’em) and poetic techniques (e.g., pause patterns, feminine endings, extra monosyllables in pentameter lines) have shown remarkable unanimity in dividing the scenes in the following clear pattern of alternation:

1.1, 1.2

Shakespeare

1.3, 1.4, 2.1, 2.2

Fletcher

2.3, 2.4

Shakespeare

3.1

Fletcher

3.2.1–250

Shakespeare

3.2.251–533, 4.1, 4.2

Fletcher

5.1

Shakespeare

5.2, 5.3, 5.4

Fletcher

Prologue and Epilogue: probably Fletcher, but too short for statistically reliable analysis.

Some scholars have argued that 2.1, 2.2, the second half of 3.2, 4.1 and 4.2 were originally by Shakespeare, but touched up by Fletcher.

TITLE: Three contemporary accounts of the early performance when the Globe caught fire (see “Date,” below) refer to the play as All is True; another calls it “the play of Hen: 8.” This suggests that it was originally advertised along the lines of “All is True: The Famous History of King Henry the Eighth,” but the Folio editors opted for simply The Famous History of the Life of King HENRY the Eight.

PLOT: The Duke of Norfolk tells Buckingham of the meeting between Henry VIII and Francis I of France at the Field of the Cloth of Gold. On the instigation of Cardinal Wolsey, Buckingham is arrested for high treason. The Queen interrupts the indictment of Buckingham to demand that the king rescind a tax imposed by Wolsey to finance the French war. At a party held by Wolsey, Henry meets Anne Bullen and falls in love with her. Buckingham is tried and executed. The Dukes of Norfolk and Suffolk fail to turn the king against Wolsey. Henry, questioning the legality of his marriage to Katherine, sets up a tribunal, presided over by Wolsey and the papal representative Cardinal Campeius. Anne Bullen is made Marchioness of Pembroke. Katherine walks out of the tribunal, and demands that the case be decided in Rome. Wolsey and Campeius fail to convince the queen to throw herself on the king’s mercy. Anne secretly marries Henry. A conspiracy by the Dukes of Norfolk and Suffolk to disgrace Wolsey is successful, and Wolsey falls. Cranmer is appointed Archbishop of Canterbury. Katherine is divorced, Anne is crowned queen. Katherine is told of Wolsey’s death, and she herself dies. Anne gives birth to a girl, who will grow up to become Queen Elizabeth. Stephen Gardiner, Bishop of Winchester, attempts to indict Cranmer for heresy. He fails through Henry’s intervention. Elizabeth is christened and Cranmer predicts the glory of her reign.

MAJOR PARTS: (with percentage of lines/number of speeches/scenes on stage) Henry VIII (14%/ 81/9), Cardinal Wolsey (14%/79/7), Queen Katherine (12%/50/4), Duke of Norfolk (7%/48/5), Duke of Buckingham (6%/26/2), Lord Chamberlain (5%/38/7), Thomas Cranmer (4%/21/4), Duke of Suffolk (3%/30/4), Gardiner (3%/22/3), Earl of Surrey (3%/24/2), Sir Thomas Lovell (2%/21/4), Old Lady (2%/14/2), Surveyor (2%/9/1), Griffith (2%/13/2), Anne Bullen (2%/18/2), Cardinal Campeius (2%/14/3), Thomas Cromwell (2%/21/2), Lord Sands (2%/17/2).

LINGUISTIC MEDIUM: 98% verse, 2% prose.

DATE: 1613. The first Globe theater burned down in a fire that started during a performance of the play on June 29, 1613. A letter by Sir Henry Wotton describes it as “a new play” at this time.

SOURCES: Principally based on the third volume of Holinshed’s Chronicles, probably in the 1587 edition; the Stephen Gardiner sequence in Act 5 draws on John Foxe’s virulently anti-Catholic Actes and Monuments (perhaps in 1583 edition); John Stow’s Annals (1592) and John Speed’s Theatre of the Empire of Great Britain (1611) also seem to have been consulted and there may be some influence from an earlier play in celebration of the birth of one of Henry VIII’s children, Samuel Rowley’s When you see me, You know me. Or the famous Chronicle Historie of king Henrie the eighth, with the birth and vertuous life of Edward Prince of Wales (1605).

TEXT: First Folio is only early text. Good quality of printing, probably set from a scribal transcript of the authorial manuscript.

GENEALOGY: See this page.

THE FAMOUS HISTORY OF THE LIFE OF KING HENRY THE EIGHTH

PROLOGUE/EPILOGUE

KING HENRY VIII

QUEEN KATHERINE (of Aragon), Henry’s first wife, later Princess Dowager

CARDINAL WOLSEY, Lord Chancellor and Archbishop of York

ANNE Bullen, later Queen, Henry’s second wife

CARDINAL CAMPEIUS, legate from the Pope

Thomas CRANMER, later Archbishop of Canterbury

Stephen GARDINER, the king’s secretary, later Bishop of Winchester

Bishop of LINCOLN

Lord CHAMBERLAIN

Lord CHANCELLOR,* after Wolsey’s fall

Thomas CROMWELL, Wolsey’s servant and later secretary to the King’s Council

Duke of BUCKINGHAM

Duke of NORFOLK

Duke of SUFFOLK

Earl of SURREY, Buckingham’s son-in-law

Lord ABERGAVENNY, Buckingham’s son-in-law

Lord SANDS

Sir Thomas LOVELL

Sir Henry (Harry) GUILDFORD

Sir Nicholas VAUX

Sir Anthony DENNY

GRIFFITH, Gentleman-usher to Katherine

WOMAN (who sings), attendant on Katherine

PATIENCE, attendant on Katherine

OLD LADY, friend to Anne

SECRETARY to Wolsey

BRANDON

SERGEANT-at-Arms

SURVEYOR to the Duke of Buckingham

THREE GENTLEMEN

SCRIBE to the court

CRIER to the court

KEEPER of the door of the Council Chamber

MESSENGER at Kimbolton

PAGE to Gardiner

DR. BUTTS, the king’s physician

PORTER and his MAN

GARTER King-at-Arms

Lord Mayor of London

Marquis of Dorset

Marchioness of Dorset

Old Duchess of Norfolk

Guards, Tipstaves, Halberds, Secretaries, Scribes, Bishops, Priests, Gentlemen, Vergers, Aldermen, Lords, Ladies, Women, Spirits, Attendants

The Prologue

[Enter Prologue]

I come no more to make you laugh: things now

That bear a weighty and a serious brow,

Sad,[3] high, and working, full of state and woe:

Such noble scenes as draw the eye to flow

5

We now present. Those that can pity here

May, if they think it well, let fall a tear:

The subject will deserve it. Such as give

Their money out of hope they may believe,

May here find truth too. Those that come to see

10

Only a show[10] or two, and so agree

The play may pass,[11] if they be still, and willing,

I’ll undertake may see away their shilling[12]

Richly in two short hours.[13] Only they

That come to hear a merry, bawdy play,

15

A noise of targets,[15] or to see a fellow

In a long[16] motley coat guarded with yellow,

Will be deceived.[17] For, gentle hearers, know

To rank our chosen truth with such a show

As fool and fight is, beside forfeiting[19]

20

Our own brains, and the opinion[20] that we bring

To make that only true we now intend,

Will leave us never an understanding[22] friend.

Therefore, for goodness’ sake, and as you are known

The first and happiest[24] hearers of the town,

25

Be sad,[25] as we would make ye. Think ye see

The very persons of our noble story

As[27] they were living: think you see them great,

And followed with the general throng and sweat

Of thousand friends: then, in a moment, see

30

How soon this mightiness meets misery:

And if you can be merry then, I’ll say

A man may weep upon his wedding day.

[Exit]

Act 1 Scene 11.1

running scene 1

Enter the Duke of Norfolk at one door. At the other, the Duke of Buckingham and the Lord Abergavenny

BUCKINGHAMGood morrow, and well met. How have ye done

Since last we saw[2] in France?

NORFOLKI thank your grace:

Healthful, and ever since a fresh[4] admirer

5

Of what[5] I saw there.

BUCKINGHAMAn untimely ague[6]

Stayed[7] me a prisoner in my chamber when

Those suns of glory, those two lights of men,

Met in the vale of Andres.

10

NORFOLK’Twixt[10] Guînes and Ardres:

I was then present, saw them salute on horseback,

Beheld them when they lighted,[12] how they clung

In their embracement as[13] they grew together,

Which had they,[14] what four throned ones could have weighed

15

Such a compounded one?

BUCKINGHAMAll the whole time

I was my chamber’s prisoner.

NORFOLKThen you lost

The view of earthly glory: men might say

20

Till this time pomp[20] was single, but now married

To one above itself. Each[21] following day

Became the next day’s master, till the last

Made former wonders its.[23] Today the French,

All clinquant,[24] all in gold, like heathen gods

25

Shone down[25] the English; and tomorrow they

Made Britain India:[26] every man that stood

Showed[27] like a mine. Their dwarfish pages were

As cherubins,[28] all gilt: the madams too,

Not used to toil, did almost sweat to bear

30

The pride[30] upon them, that their very labour

Was to them as a painting. Now this masque[31]

Was cried[32] incomparable, and th’ensuing night

Made[33] it a fool and beggar. The two kings,

Equal in lustre, were[34] now best, now worst,

35

As presence did present them: him[35] in eye,

Still him in praise, and being[36] present both,

’Twas said they saw but one, and no discerner[37]

Durst[38] wag his tongue in censure. When these suns —

For so they phrase[39] ’em — by their heralds challenged

40

The noble spirits to arms, they did perform[40]

Beyond thought’s compass, that[41] former fabulous story,

Being now seen possible enough, got credit,

That Bevis[43] was believed.

BUCKINGHAMO, you go[44] far.

45

NORFOLKAs I belong to worship,[45] and affect

In honour honesty, the tract[46] of ev’rything

Would by a good discourser[47] lose some life,

Which action’s self was tongue to. All was royal:

To[49] the disposing of it nought rebelled:

50

Order[50] gave each thing view. The office did

Distinctly his full function.

BUCKINGHAMWho did guide —

I mean, who set the body and the limbs

Of this great sport[54] together, as you guess?

55

NORFOLKOne, certes,[55] that promises no element

In such a business.

BUCKINGHAMI pray you who, my lord?

NORFOLKAll this was ordered[58] by the good discretion

Of the right reverend Cardinal of York.[59]

60

BUCKINGHAMThe devil speed[60] him! No man’s pie is freed

From his ambitious finger. What had he

To do in these fierce[62] vanities? I wonder

That such a keech[63] can with his very bulk

Take[64] up the rays o’th’beneficial sun

65

And keep it from the earth.

NORFOLKSurely, sir,

There’s in him stuff[67] that puts him to these ends:

For being not propped by ancestry,[68] whose grace

Chalks[69] successors their way, nor called upon

70

For high[70] feats done to th’crown, neither allied

To eminent assistants,[71] but spider-like,

Out of his self-drawing[72] web, a gives us note,

The force of his own merit makes his way

A gift that heaven gives for him, which buys

75

A place next[75] to the king.

ABERGAVENNYI cannot tell

What heaven hath given him — let some graver[77] eye

Pierce into that — but I can see his pride

Peep through each part of him: whence has he that,

80

If not from hell? The devil is a niggard,[80]

Or has given all before, and he[81] begins

A new hell in himself.

BUCKINGHAMWhy the devil,

Upon this French going out,[84] took he upon him,

85

Without the privity[85] o’th’king, t’appoint

Who should attend on him?[86] He makes up the file

Of all the gentry: for the most part such[87]

To whom as great a charge as little honour

He meant to lay upon: and his own letter,[89]

90

The honourable board of council[90] out,

Must fetch[91] him in, he papers.

ABERGAVENNYI do know

Kinsmen of mine, three at the least, that have

By this so sickened[94] their estates, that never

95

They shall abound[95] as formerly.

BUCKINGHAMO, many

Have broke their backs with laying[97] manors on ’em

For this great journey. What did this vanity[98]

But minister[99] communication of

100

A most poor issue?

NORFOLKGrievingly[101] I think

The peace between the French and us not[102] values

The cost that did conclude it.

BUCKINGHAMEvery man,

105

After the hideous storm that followed, was

A thing inspired,[106] and, not consulting, broke

Into a general[107] prophecy: that this tempest,

Dashing[108] the garment of this peace, aboded

The sudden breach on’t.[109]

110

NORFOLKWhich is budded out,[110]

For France hath flawed[111] the league, and hath attached

Our merchants’ goods at Bordeaux.

ABERGAVENNYIs it therefore[113]

Th’ambassador is silenced?[114]

115

NORFOLKMarry,[115] is’t.

ABERGAVENNYA proper title of[116] a peace, and purchased

At a superfluous rate.[117]

BUCKINGHAMWhy, all this business

Our reverend cardinal carried.[119]

120

NORFOLKLike it[120] your grace,

The state[121] takes notice of the private difference

Betwixt you and the cardinal. I advise you —

And take it from a heart that wishes towards you

Honour and plenteous safety — that you read[124]

125

The cardinal’s malice and his potency[125]

Together: to consider further that

What his high hatred would[127] effect wants not

A minister[128] in his power. You know his nature,

That he’s revengeful: and I know his sword

130

Hath a sharp edge: it’s long and’t may be said,

It reaches far, and where ’twill not extend,

Thither he darts[132] it. Bosom up my counsel,

You’ll find it wholesome.[133] Lo, where comes that rock

That I advise your shunning.

Enter Cardinal Wolsey, the purse borne before him, certain of the Guard, and two Secretaries with papers. The Cardinal in his passage fixeth his eye on Buckingham, and Buckingham on him, both full of disdain

135

CARDINAL WOLSEYThe Duke of Buckingham’s surveyor,[135] ha?

Where’s his examination?[136]

SECRETARYHere, so please you.

CARDINAL WOLSEYIs he in person ready?

SECRETARYAy, please your grace.

140

CARDINAL WOLSEYWell, we shall then know more, and Buckingham

Shall lessen this big[141] look.

Exeunt Cardinal and his train

BUCKINGHAMThis butcher’s cur[142] is venom-mouthed, and I

Have not the power to muzzle him: therefore best

Not wake him in his slumber. A beggar’s[144] book

145

Outworths a noble’s blood.

NORFOLKWhat, are you chafed?[146]

Ask God for temp’rance:[147] that’s th’appliance only

Which your disease requires.

BUCKINGHAMI read in’s looks

150

Matter[150] against me, and his eye reviled

Me as his abject object:[151] at this instant

He bores[152] me with some trick: he’s gone to th’king:

I’ll follow, and outstare him.

NORFOLKStay, my lord,

155

And let your reason with your choler[155] question

What ’tis you go about: to climb steep hills

Requires slow pace at first. Anger is like

A full hot[158] horse, who being allowed his way,

Self-mettle[159] tires him: not a man in England

160

Can advise me like you: be to yourself

As you would to your friend.

BUCKINGHAMI’ll to the king,

And from a mouth of honour[163] quite cry down

This Ipswich[164] fellow’s insolence, or proclaim

165

There’s difference[165] in no persons.

NORFOLKBe advised:[166]

Heat not a furnace for your foe so hot

That it do singe yourself. We may outrun,

By violent swiftness, that which we run at,

170

And lose by overrunning:[170] know you not

The fire that mounts[171] the liquor till’t run o’er,

In seeming to augment it wastes it? Be advised:

I say again there is no English soul

More stronger to direct you than yourself,

175

If with the sap of reason you would quench

Or but allay[176] the fire of passion.

BUCKINGHAMSir,

I am thankful to you, and I’ll go along

By your prescription:[179] but this top-proud fellow —

180

Whom from the flow of gall[180] I name not, but

From sincere motions[181] — by intelligence,

And proofs as clear as founts[182] in July when

We see each grain of gravel, I do know

To be corrupt and treasonous.

185

NORFOLKSay not ‘treasonous’.

BUCKINGHAMTo th’king I’ll say’t, and make my vouch[186] as strong

As shore of rock: attend. This holy fox,

Or wolf, or both — for he is equal[188] rav’nous

As he is subtle,[189] and as prone to mischief

190

As able to perform’t, his mind and place[190]

Infecting one another, yea, reciprocally —

Only to show his pomp[192] as well in France

As here at home, suggests[193] the king our master

To this last[194] costly treaty, th’interview

195

That swallowed so much treasure,[195] and like a glass

Did break i’th’wrenching.[196]

NORFOLKFaith, and so it did.

BUCKINGHAMPray give me favour,[198] sir: this cunning cardinal

The articles[199] o’th’combination drew

200

As himself pleased: and they were ratified

As he cried ‘Thus let be’, to as much end[201]

As give a crutch to th’dead. But our count-cardinal[202]

Has done this, and ’tis well: for worthy Wolsey,

Who cannot err, he did it. Now this follows —

205

Which, as I take it, is a kind of puppy

To th’old dam[206] treason — Charles the Emperor,

Under pretence to see the queen his aunt —

For ’twas indeed his colour,[208] but he came

To whisper[209] Wolsey — here makes visitation:

210

His fears were that the interview betwixt

England and France might through their amity

Breed him some prejudice, for from this league

Peeped harms that menaced him. He privily[213]

Deals with our cardinal, and as I trow[214] —

215

Which I do well, for I am sure the emperor

Paid ere[216] he promised, whereby his suit was granted

Ere it was asked — but[217] when the way was made

And paved with gold, the emperor thus desired

That he[219] would please to alter the king’s course,

220

And break the foresaid peace. Let the king know,

As soon he shall by me, that thus the cardinal

Does buy and sell his[222] honour as he pleases,

And for his own advantage.

NORFOLKI am sorry

225

To hear this of him, and could wish he were

Something[226] mistaken in’t.

BUCKINGHAMNo, not a syllable:

I do pronounce him in that very shape

He shall appear in proof.[229]

Enter Brandon, a Sergeant-at-Arms before him, and two or three of the Guard

230

BRANDONYour office,[230] sergeant: execute it.

SERGEANTSir, To Buckingham

My lord the Duke of Buckingham, and Earl

Of Hertford,[233] Stafford and Northampton, I

Arrest thee of high treason, in the name

235

Of our most sovereign king.

BUCKINGHAMLo you, my lord,

The net has fall’n upon me: I shall perish

Under device and practice.[238]

BRANDONI am sorry

240

To see you ta’en from liberty, to look on[240]

The business present. ’Tis his highness’ pleasure[241]

You shall to th’Tower.[242]

BUCKINGHAMIt will help me nothing[243]

To plead mine innocence, for that dye is on me

245

Which makes my whit’st part black. The will of heav’n

Be done in this and all things: I obey.

O my Lord Aberga’nny, fare you well.

BRANDONNay, he must bear you company.— The king To Abergavenny

Is pleased you shall to th’Tower, till you know

250

How he determines further.

ABERGAVENNYAs the duke said,

The will of heaven be done, and the king’s pleasure

By me obeyed.

BRANDONHere is a warrant from

255

The king t’attach[255] Lord Montague and the bodies

Of the duke’s confessor, John de la Car,

One Gilbert Perk, his chancellor—

BUCKINGHAMSo, so;

These are the limbs o’th’plot: no more, I hope.

260

BRANDONA monk o’th’Chartreux.[260]

BUCKINGHAMO, Nicholas Hopkins?

BRANDONHe.

BUCKINGHAMMy surveyor is false:[263] the o’er-great cardinal

Hath showed him gold:[264] my life is spanned already:

265

I am the shadow[265] of poor Buckingham,

Whose[266] figure even this instant cloud puts on,

By dark’ning my clear sun. My lord, farewell.

Exeunt

Act 1 Scene 2

Running scene 2

Cornets.* Enter King Henry [VIII], leaning on the Cardinal [Wolsey]’s shoulder, the Nobles, [Wolsey’s Secretary] and Sir Thomas Lovell: the Cardinal places himself under the King’s feet on his right side

KING HENRY VIIIMy life itself, and the best[1] heart of it,

Thanks you for this great care: I stood i’th’level[2]

Of a full-charged[3] confederacy, and give thanks

To you that choked it. Let be called before us

5

That gentleman of Buckingham’s: in person

I’ll hear him his confessions justify,[6]

And point by point the treasons of his master

He shall again relate.

A noise within crying ‘Room for the Queen, ushered by the Duke of Norfolk’. Enter the Queen [Katherine], Norfolk and Suffolk: she kneels. [The] King riseth from his state, takes her up, kisses and placeth her by him

QUEEN KATHERINENay, we[9] must longer kneel: I am a suitor.

10

KING HENRY VIIIArise, and take place[10] by us: half your suit The Queen moves to his side

Never name to us: you have half our power:

The other moiety[12] ere you ask is given:

Repeat your will[13] and take it.

QUEEN KATHERINEThank[14] your majesty.

15

That you would love yourself, and in that love

Not unconsidered leave your honour, nor

The dignity[17] of your office, is the point

Of my petition.

KING HENRY VIII Lady mine, proceed.

20

QUEEN KATHERINEI am solicited,[20] not by a few,

And those of true condition,[21] that your subjects

Are in great grievance:[22] there have been commissions

Sent down among ’em which hath flawed[23] the heart

Of all their loyalties: wherein, although,

25

My good lord cardinal, they vent reproaches

Most bitterly on you, as putter-on[26]

Of these exactions,[27] yet the king our master —

Whose honour heaven shield from soil[28] — even he escapes not

Language unmannerly, yea, such which breaks

30

The sides of loyalty, and almost appears

In loud rebellion.

NORFOLKNot ‘almost appears’,

It doth appear: for, upon these taxations,

The clothiers[34] all, not able to maintain

35

The many to them longing,[35] have put off

The spinsters,[36] carders, fullers, weavers, who,

Unfit for other life,[37] compelled by hunger

And lack of other means, in desperate manner

Daring[39] th’event to th’teeth, are all in uproar,

40

And danger[40] serves among them.

KING HENRY VIIITaxation?

Wherein, and what taxation? My lord cardinal,

You that are blamed for it alike with us,

Know you of this taxation?

45

CARDINAL WOLSEYPlease you, sir,

I know but of a single part[46] in aught

Pertains to th’state, and front[47] but in that file

Where others tell steps with me.

QUEEN KATHERINENo, my lord?

50

You[50] know no more than others? But you frame

Things that are known alike, which are not wholesome

To those which would not know them, and yet must

Perforce be their acquaintance. These exactions,

Whereof my sovereign would have note,[54] they are

55

Most pestilent to th’hearing, and to bear[55] ’em

The back is[56] sacrifice to th’load. They say

They are devised by you, or else you suffer

Too hard an exclamation.[58]

KING HENRY VIIIStill ’exaction’:

60

The nature of it? In what kind,[60] let’s know,

Is this exaction?

QUEEN KATHERINEI am much too venturous[62]

In tempting of[63] your patience, but am boldened

Under your promised pardon. The subjects’ grief[64]

65

Comes through commissions, which compels from each

The sixth part of his substance,[66] to be levied

Without delay, and the pretence[67] for this

Is named your wars in France: this makes bold mouths:

Tongues spit their duties out, and cold hearts freeze

70

Allegiance in them: their curses now

Live where their prayers[71] did: and it’s come to pass

This tractable[72] obedience is a slave

To each incensèd will. I would[73] your highness

Would give it quick consideration, for

75

There is no primer baseness.[75]

KING HENRY VIIIBy my life,

This is against our pleasure.[77]

CARDINAL WOLSEYAnd for me,

I have no further gone in this than by

80

A single voice,[80] and that not passed me but

By learnèd approbation[81] of the judges: if I am

Traduced[82] by ignorant tongues, which neither know

My faculties[83] nor person, yet will be

The chronicles of my doing, let me say

85

’Tis but the fate of place,[85] and the rough brake

That virtue must go through: we must not stint[86]

Our necessary actions, in the fear

To cope[88] malicious censurers, which ever,

As rav’nous fishes, do a vessel follow

90

That is new trimmed,[90] but benefit no further

Than vainly longing.[91] What we oft do best,

By sick interpreters, once weak ones, is

Not ours, or not allowed: what[93] worst, as oft,

Hitting a grosser quality, is cried up

95

For our best act: if we shall stand still,

In[96] fear our motion will be mocked or carped at,

We should take root here where we sit,

Or sit state-statues[98] only.

KING HENRY VIIIThings done well,

100

And with a care, exempt themselves from fear:

Things done without example,[101] in their issue

Are to be feared. Have you a precedent

Of[103] this commission? I believe not any.

We must not rend[104] our subjects from our laws,

105

And stick them in our will. Sixth part of each?

A trembling[106] contribution; why, we take

From every tree lop,[107] bark, and part o’th’timber:

And though we leave it with a root, thus hacked

The[109] air will drink the sap. To every county

110

Where this is questioned[110] send our letters, with

Free pardon to each man that has denied

The force of this commission: pray, look to’t;

I put it to your care.

CARDINAL WOLSEYA word with you. To the Secretary

115

Let there be letters writ to every shire,

Of the king’s grace[116] and pardon.— The grievèd commons Aside to Secretary

Hardly conceive[117] of me. Let it be noised

That through our[118] intercession this revokement

And pardon comes: I shall anon[119] advise you

120

Further in the proceeding.

Exit Secretary

Enter Surveyor

QUEEN KATHERINEI am sorry that the Duke of Buckingham To the King

Is run in[122] your displeasure.

KING HENRY VIIIIt grieves many:

The gentleman is learnèd, and a most rare[124] speaker,

125

To[125] nature none more bound: his training such

That he may furnish and instruct great teachers,

And never seek for aid out of[127] himself: yet see,

When these so noble benefits shall prove

Not well disposed,[129] the mind growing once corrupt,

130

They turn to vicious[130] forms, ten times more ugly

Than ever they were fair. This man so complete,[131]

Who was enrolled ’mongst wonders — and when we,

Almost with ravished[133] listening, could not find

His hour of speech a minute — he, my lady,

135

Hath into monstrous[135] habits put the graces

That once were his, and is become as black

As if besmeared in hell. Sit by us: you shall hear —

This was his gentleman in trust[138] — of him

Things to strike honour sad.— Bid him recount To Wolsey

140

The fore-recited practices,[140] whereof

We cannot feel too little, hear too much.[141]

CARDINAL WOLSEYStand forth, and with bold spirit relate what you To the Surveyor

Most like a careful[143] subject have collected

Out of the Duke of Buckingham.

145

KING HENRY VIIISpeak freely.

SURVEYORFirst, it was usual with him — every day

It would infect his speech — that if the king

Should without issue[148] die, he’ll carry it so

To make the sceptre[149] his. These very words

150

I’ve heard him utter to his son-in-law,

Lord Aberga’nny, to whom by oath he menaced[151]

Revenge upon the cardinal.

CARDINAL WOLSEYPlease your highness note

His dangerous conception[154] in this point,

155

Not[155] friended by his wish to your high person:

His will is most malignant, and it stretches

Beyond you to your friends.[157]

QUEEN KATHERINEMy learnèd lord cardinal,

Deliver[159] all with charity.

160

KING HENRY VIIISpeak on: To the Surveyor

How[161] grounded he his title to the crown

Upon our fail? To this point[162] hast thou heard him

At any time speak aught?

SURVEYORHe was brought to this

165

By a vain prophecy of Nicholas Hopkins.

KING HENRY VIIIWhat was that Hopkins?

SURVEYORSir, a Chartreux[167] friar,

His confessor, who fed him every minute

With words of sovereignty.

170

KING HENRY VIIIHow know’st thou this?

SURVEYORNot long before your highness sped to France,

The Duke being at the Rose,[172] within the parish

St Lawrence Poultney,[173] did of me demand

What was the speech[174] among the Londoners

175

Concerning the French journey. I replied

Men feared the French would prove perfidious[176]

To[177] the king’s danger: presently the duke

Said ’twas the fear indeed and that he doubted[178]

’Twould prove the verity of certain words

180

Spoke by a holy monk that oft, says he,

‘Hath sent to me, wishing me to permit

John de la Car, my chaplain, a choice[182] hour

To hear from him a matter of some moment:[183]

Whom after under the confession’s seal

185

He solemnly had sworn that what he spoke

My chaplain to no creature living but

To me should utter, with demure confidence[187]

This pausingly ensued: “Neither the king nor’s heirs,

Tell you the duke, shall prosper: bid him strive

190

To gain the love o’th’commonalty:[190] the duke

Shall govern England.’ ”

QUEEN KATHERINEIf I know you well,

You were the duke’s surveyor, and lost your office

On the complaint o’th’tenants: take good heed

195

You charge not in your spleen[195] a noble person

And spoil your nobler[196] soul: I say, take heed:

Yes, heartily beseech you.

KING HENRY VIIILet him on:[198]

Go forward. To the Surveyor

200

SURVEYOROn my soul, I’ll speak but[200] truth.

I told my lord the duke, by th’devil’s illusions

The monk might be deceived, and that ’twas dangerous

For him to ruminate on this so far, until

It forged[204] him some design, which being believed,

205

It was much[205] like to do: he answered, ‘Tush,

It can do me no damage’, adding further,

That had the king in his last sickness failed,[207]

The cardinal’s and Sir Thomas Lovell’s heads

Should have gone off.

210

KING HENRY VIII Ha? What, so rank?[210] Ah, ha!

There’s mischief in this man: canst thou say further?

SURVEYORI can, my liege.

KING HENRY VIII Proceed.

SURVEYORBeing at Greenwich,[214]

215

After your highness had reproved the duke

About Sir William Bulmer—

KING HENRY VIII I remember

Of such a time: being my sworn servant,

The duke retained him his.[219] But on: what hence?

220

SURVEYOR‘If’, quoth he, ‘I for this had been committed’[220] —

As to the Tower, I thought, — ‘I would have played

The part my father meant to act upon

Th’usurper Richard,[223] who, being at Salisbury,

Made suit[224] to come in’s presence: which if granted,

225

As he made[225] semblance of his duty, would

Have put his knife to him.’

KING HENRY VIII A giant traitor.

CARDINAL WOLSEYNow, madam, may his highness live in freedom,

And this man out of prison?

230

QUEEN KATHERINEGod mend all.[230]

KING HENRY VIIIThere’s something more would out of thee: what say’st?

SURVEYORAfter ‘the duke his father’, with ‘the knife’,

He stretched him,[233] and with one hand on his dagger,

Another spread on’s breast, mounting[234] his eyes,

235

He did discharge a horrible oath, whose tenor

Was, were he evil used,[236] he would outgo

His father by as much as a performance

Does an irresolute[238] purpose.

KING HENRY VIIIThere’s his period:[239]

240

To sheathe his knife in us: he is attached:[240]

Call him to present[241] trial: if he may

Find mercy in the law, ’tis his: if none,

Let him not seek’t of us: by day and night,

He’s traitor to th’height.[244]

Exeunt

Act 1 Scene 3

running scene 2 continues

Enter [the] Lord Chamberlain and Lord Sands

CHAMBERLAINIs’t possible the spells[1] of France should juggle

Men into such strange mysteries?[2]

SANDSNew customs,

Though they be never so ridiculous,

5

Nay, let ’em be[5] unmanly, yet are followed.

CHAMBERLAINAs far as I see, all the good our English

Have got by the late[7] voyage is but merely

A fit[8] or two o’th’face: but they are shrewd ones,

For when they hold ’em,[9] you would swear directly

10

Their very noses had been counsellors

To Pepin or Clotharius,[11] they keep state so.

SANDSThey have all new legs,[12] and lame ones: one would take it,

That never see ’em pace before, the spavin[13]

Or springhalt[14] reigned among ’em.

15

CHAMBERLAINDeath,[15] my lord,

Their clothes are after[16] such a pagan cut to’t

That sure they’ve worn out[17] Christendom.

Enter Sir Thomas Lovell

How now?

What news, Sir Thomas Lovell?

LOVELLFaith, my lord,

20

I hear of none, but the new proclamation

That’s clapped[21] upon the court gate.

CHAMBERLAINWhat is’t for?

LOVELLThe reformation of our travelled gallants,

That fill the court with quarrels, talk and tailors.

25

CHAMBERLAINI’m glad ’tis there: now I would pray our monsieurs

To think an English courtier may be wise,

And never see the Louvre.[27]

LOVELLThey must either,

For so run the conditions, leave those remnants

30

Of fool and feather[30] that they got in France,

With all their honourable[31] points of ignorance

Pertaining thereunto — as[32] fights and fireworks,

Abusing[33] better men than they can be

Out[34] of a foreign wisdom, renouncing clean

35

The faith they have in tennis and tall[35] stockings,

Short blistered breeches, and those types[36] of travel —

And understand[37] again like honest men,

Or pack[38] to their old playfellows: there, I take it,

They may cum privilegio[39] ‘oui’ away

40

The lag end[40] of their lewdness and be laughed at.

SANDS’Tis time to give ’em physic,[41] their diseases

Are grown so catching.

CHAMBERLAINWhat a loss our ladies

Will have of these trim vanities![44]

45

LOVELLAy, marry,[45]

There will be woe indeed, lords: the sly whoresons[46]

Have got a speeding[47] trick to lay down ladies:

A French song and a fiddle[48] has no fellow.

SANDSThe devil fiddle[49] ’em! I am glad they are going,

50

For sure there’s no converting of ’em:[50] now

An honest country lord, as I am, beaten

A long time out of play,[52] may bring his plainsong

And have an hour of hearing,[53] and, by’r lady,

Held[54] current music too.

55

CHAMBERLAINWell said, Lord Sands:

Your colt’s tooth[56] is not cast yet?

SANDSNo, my lord,

Nor shall not, while I have a stump.[58]

CHAMBERLAINSir Thomas, To Lovell

60

Whither were you a-going?

LOVELLTo the cardinal’s:

Your lordship is a guest too.

CHAMBERLAINO, ’tis true:

This night he makes[64] a supper, and a great one,

65

To many lords and ladies: there will be

The beauty of this kingdom, I’ll assure you.

LOVELLThat churchman bears a bounteous mind indeed,

A hand as fruitful[68] as the land that feeds us:

His dews[69] fall everywhere.

70

CHAMBERLAINNo doubt he’s noble:

He had a black[71] mouth that said other of him.

SANDSHe may, my lord, he’s wherewithal[72] in him:

Sparing[73] would show a worse sin than ill doctrine:

Men of his way[74] should be most liberal:

75

They are set here for examples.

CHAMBERLAINTrue, they are so:

But few now give so great ones.[77] My barge stays:

Your lordship shall along.[78] Come, good Sir Thomas, To Lovell

We shall be late else, which I would not be,

80

For I was spoke to,[80] with Sir Henry Guildford,

This night to be comptrollers.[81]

SANDSI am your[82] lordship’s.

Exeunt

Act 1 Scene 41.4

running scene 3

Hautboys. A small table under a state for the Cardinal, a longer table for the guests. Then enter Anne Bullen, and divers other Ladies and Gentlemen, as guests at one door; at another door enter Sir Henry Guildford

GUILDFORDLadies, a general welcome from his grace

Salutes ye all: this night he dedicates

To fair content and you: none here, he hopes,

In all this noble bevy,[4] has brought with her

5

One care abroad:[5] he would have all as merry

As, first, good company, good wine, good welcome,

Can make good people.

Enter Lord Chamberlain, Lords Sands and Lovell

O, my lord, you’re tardy:[7] To Chamberlain

The very thought of this fair company

Clapped[9] wings to me.

10

CHAMBERLAINYou are young, Sir Harry Guildford.

SANDSSir Thomas Lovell, had the cardinal

But half my lay[12] thoughts in him, some of these

Should find a running banquet[13] ere they rested

I think would better please ’em: by my life,

15

They are a sweet society[15] of fair ones.

LOVELLO, that your lordship were but now confessor[16]

To one or two of these.

SANDSI would I were:

They should find easy[19] penance.

20

LOVELLFaith, how easy?

SANDSAs easy as a down[21] bed would afford it.

CHAMBERLAINSweet ladies, will it please you sit?— Sir Harry, To Guildford

Place you[23] that side, I’ll take the charge of this:

His grace is ent’ring. Nay, you must not freeze:

25

Two women placed together makes cold[25] weather:

My lord Sands, you are one will keep ’em waking:[26]

Pray sit between these ladies.

SANDSBy my faith,

And thank[29] your lordship.— He sits between Anne and another lady

By your leave, sweet ladies,

30

If I chance to talk a little wild,[30] forgive me:

I had it from my father.

ANNEWas he mad,[32] sir?

SANDSO, very mad, exceeding mad, in love too:

But he would bite[34] none: just as I do now,

35

He would kiss you twenty[35] with a breath. He kisses her

CHAMBERLAINWell said,[36] my lord.

So now you’re fairly[37] seated: gentlemen,

The penance lies on you, if these fair ladies

Pass away[39] frowning.

40

SANDSFor[40] my little cure,

Let me alone.[41]

Hautboys. Enter Cardinal Wolsey, and takes his state

CARDINAL WOLSEYYou’re welcome, my fair guests: that noble lady

Or gentleman that is not freely merry,

Is not my friend. This, to confirm my welcome,

45

And to you all, good health. He drinks

SANDSYour grace is noble:

Let me have such a bowl[47] may hold my thanks,

And save me so much talking.

CARDINAL WOLSEYMy lord Sands,

50

I am beholding[50] to you: cheer your neighbours:

Ladies, you are not merry: gentlemen,

Whose fault is this?

SANDSThe red wine first must rise

In their fair cheeks, my lord, then we shall have ’em

55

Talk us to silence.

ANNEYou are a merry gamester,[56]

My lord Sands.

SANDSYes, if I make my play:[58]

Here’s to your ladyship: and pledge it,[59] madam,

60

For ’tis to such a thing[60]—

ANNEYou cannot show me.

SANDSI told your grace they would talk anon.[62]

Drum and Trumpet: chambers discharged

CARDINAL WOLSEYWhat’s that?

CHAMBERLAINLook out there, some of ye. To Servants

65

CARDINAL WOLSEYWhat warlike voice,[65]

Exit Servants

And to what end is this? Nay, ladies, fear not:

By all the laws of war you’re privileged.[67]

Enter a Servant

CHAMBERLAINHow now, what is’t?

SERVANTA noble troop of strangers,[69]

70

For so they seem: they’ve left their barge and landed,

And hither make,[71] as great ambassadors

From foreign princes.

CARDINAL WOLSEYGood Lord Chamberlain,

Go, give ’em welcome: you can speak the French tongue:

75

And pray receive ’em nobly, and conduct ’em

Into our presence, where this heaven of beauty[76]

Shall shine at full upon them. Some attend him.

[Exit Chamberlain, attended]

All rise, and tables removed

You have now a broken[78] banquet, but we’ll mend it.

A good digestion to you all: and once more

80

I shower a welcome on ye: welcome all.

Hautboys. Enter King [Henry] and others as Masquers, habited like shepherds, ushered by the Lord Chamberlain. They pass directly before the Cardinal, and gracefully salute him

A noble company: what are their pleasures?[81]

CHAMBERLAINBecause they speak no English, thus they prayed

To tell your grace: that having heard by fame[83]

Of this so noble and so fair assembly

85

This night to meet here, they could do no less,

Out of the great respect they bear to beauty,

But leave their flocks, and under your fair conduct,[87]

Crave leave to view these ladies, and entreat

An hour of revels[89] with ’em.

90

CARDINAL WOLSEY Say, Lord Chamberlain,

They have done my poor house grace; for which I pay ’em

A thousand thanks, and pray ’em take their pleasures.

[The Masquers] choose Ladies [for the dance]. [The] King [chooses] Anne Bullen

KING HENRY VIII The fairest hand I ever touched. O beauty,

Till now I never knew thee!

Music. [They] dance

95

CARDINAL WOLSEY My lord.

CHAMBERLAINYour grace?

CARDINAL WOLSEY Pray, tell ’em thus much from me:

There should be one amongst ’em, by his person,

More worthy this[99] place than myself, to whom,

100

If I but[100] knew him, with my love and duty

I would surrender it.

CHAMBERLAINI will, my lord.

[He talks in a] whisper [to the Masquers]

CARDINAL WOLSEY What say they?

CHAMBERLAINSuch a one, they all confess,

105

There is indeed, which they would have your grace

Find out, and he will take it.[106]

CARDINAL WOLSEY Let me see, then.

By all your good leaves, gentlemen, here I’ll make

My royal choice.

110

KING HENRY VIII Ye have found him, cardinal: He unmasks

You hold a fair[111] assembly: you do well, lord.

You[112] are a churchman, or I’ll tell you, cardinal,

I should judge now unhappily.

CARDINAL WOLSEY I am glad

115

Your grace is grown so pleasant.[115]

KING HENRY VIII My Lord Chamberlain,

Prithee[117] come hither: what fair lady’s that?

CHAMBERLAINAn’t[118] please your grace, Sir Thomas Bullen’s daughter —

The Viscount Rochford — one of her highness’ women.[119]

120

KING HENRY VIII By heaven, she is a dainty[120] one.— Sweetheart, To Anne

I were unmannerly to take you out[121]

And not to kiss you. A health,[122] gentlemen: He drinks

Let it go round.

CARDINAL WOLSEYSir Thomas Lovell, is the banquet[124] ready

125

I’th’privy chamber?[125]

LOVELLYes, my lord.

CARDINAL WOLSEYYour grace, To the King

I fear, with dancing is a little heated.[128]

KING HENRY VIIII fear too much.

130

CARDINAL WOLSEYThere’s fresher air, my lord,

In the next chamber.

KING HENRY VIIILead in your ladies, ev’ry one: sweet partner, To Anne

I must not yet forsake[133] you:— let’s be merry, To Cardinal Wolsey

Good my lord cardinal: I have half a dozen healths

135

To drink to these fair ladies, and a measure[135]

To lead ’em once again, and then let’s dream[136]

Who’s best in favour.[137] Let the music knock it.

Exeunt with Trumpets

Act 2 Scene 12.1

running scene 4

Enter two Gentlemen at several doors

FIRST GENTLEMANWhither away so fast?

SECOND GENTLEMANO, God save ye:

Ev’n to the hall,[3] to hear what shall become

Of the great Duke of Buckingham.

5

FIRST GENTLEMANI’ll save you

That labour, sir. All’s now done but the ceremony

Of bringing back the prisoner.

SECOND GENTLEMANWere you there?

FIRST GENTLEMANYes, indeed was I.

10

SECOND GENTLEMANPray speak what has happened.

FIRST GENTLEMANYou may guess quickly what.

SECOND GENTLEMANIs he found guilty?

FIRST GENTLEMANYes, truly is he, and condemned upon’t.

SECOND GENTLEMANI am sorry for’t.

15

FIRST GENTLEMANSo are a number more.

SECOND GENTLEMANBut pray, how passed it?[16]

FIRST GENTLEMANI’ll tell you in a[17] little. The great duke

Came to the bar, where to his accusations[18]

He pleaded still[19] not guilty, and alleged

20

Many sharp reasons to defeat the law.[20]

The king’s attorney, on the contrary,

Urged on the examinations,[22] proofs, confessions

Of divers[23] witnesses, which the duke desired

To him brought[24] viva voce to his face:

25

At which appeared against him his surveyor,

Sir Gilbert Perk his chancellor, and John Car,

Confessor to him, with that devil monk,

Hopkins, that made this mischief.

SECOND GENTLEMANThat was he

30

That fed him with his prophecies.

FIRST GENTLEMANThe same:

All these accused him strongly, which he fain[32]

Would have flung from him, but indeed he could not:

And so his peers, upon this evidence,

35

Have found him guilty of high treason. Much

He spoke, and learnedly, for life, but all

Was either pitied in him[37] or forgotten.

SECOND GENTLEMANAfter all this, how did he bear himself?

FIRST GENTLEMANWhen he was brought again to th’bar, to hear

40

His knell[40] rung out, his judgement, he was stirred

With such an agony, he sweat[41] extremely,

And something spoke in choler,[42] ill and hasty:

But he fell[43] to himself again, and sweetly

In all the rest showed a most noble patience.

45

SECOND GENTLEMANI do not think he fears death.

FIRST GENTLEMANSure he does not:

He never was so womanish: the cause

He may a little grieve at.

SECOND GENTLEMANCertainly

50

The cardinal is the end[50] of this.

FIRST GENTLEMAN’Tis likely

By all conjectures: first, Kildare’s attainder,[52]

Then deputy[53] of Ireland, who, removed,

Earl Surrey was sent thither, and in haste too,

55

Lest he should help his father.[55]

SECOND GENTLEMANThat trick of state[56]

Was a deep envious[57] one.

FIRST GENTLEMANAt his[58] return

No doubt he will requite[59] it: this is noted,

60

And generally,[60] whoever the king favours,

The card’nal instantly will find employment,

And far enough from court too.

SECOND GENTLEMANAll the commons

Hate him perniciously[64] and, o’my conscience,

65

Wish him ten fathom deep: this duke as much

They love and dote on, call him ‘bounteous Buckingham,

The mirror[67] of all courtesy’—

Enter Buckingham from his arraignment, Tipstaves before him, the axe with the edge towards him, Halberds on each side, accompanied with Sir Thomas Lovell, Sir Nicholas Vaux, Sir William Sands, and Common People etc.

FIRST GENTLEMANStay there, sir,

And see the noble ruined man you speak of.

70

SECOND GENTLEMANLet’s stand close[70] and behold him.

BUCKINGHAMAll good people,

You that thus far have come to pity me:

Hear what I say, and then go home and lose[73] me.

I have this day received a traitor’s judgement,[74]

75

And by that name must die: yet heaven bear witness,

And if I have a conscience, let it sink[76] me,

Even as the axe falls, if I be not faithful.

The law I bear no malice for my death,

’T has done upon the premises,[79] but justice:

80

But those that sought it I could wish more[80] Christians:

Be what they will, I heartily forgive ’em:

Yet let ’em look[82] they glory not in mischief,

Nor build their evils[83] on the graves of great men,

For then my guiltless blood must cry against ’em.

85

For further life in this world I ne’er hope,

Nor will I sue,[86] although the king have mercies

More[87] than I dare make faults. You few that loved me,

And dare be bold to weep for Buckingham,

His noble friends and fellows, whom to leave

90

Is only[90] bitter to him, only dying:

Go with me like good angels to my end,

And as the long divorce[92] of steel falls on me,

Make of your prayers one sweet sacrifice,[93]

And lift my soul to heaven.— Lead on, i’God’s name. To Lovell

95

LOVELLI do beseech your grace, for charity,

If ever any malice in your heart

Were hid against me, now to forgive me frankly.

BUCKINGHAMSir Thomas Lovell, I as free forgive you

As I would be forgiven: I forgive all.

100

There cannot be those numberless offences

Gainst me that I cannot take[101] peace with: no black envy

Shall make my grave. Commend me to his grace:

And if he speak of Buckingham, pray tell him

You met him half in heaven: my vows and prayers

105

Yet[105] are the king’s, and, till my soul forsake,

Shall cry for blessings on him. May he live

Longer than I have time to tell[107] his years:

Ever beloved and loving may his rule be:

And when old[109] time shall lead him to his end,

110

Goodness and he fill up one monument.[110]

LOVELLTo th’water-side I must conduct your grace,

Then give my charge[112] up to Sir Nicholas Vaux,

Who undertakes[113] you to your end.

VAUXPrepare there,

115

The duke is coming: see the barge be ready,

And fit it with such furniture[116] as suits

The greatness of his person.

BUCKINGHAMNay, Sir Nicholas,

Let it alone: my state[119] now will but mock me.

120

When I came hither, I was Lord High Constable

And Duke of Buckingham: now, poor Edward Bohun:

Yet I am richer than my base[122] accusers,

That never knew what truth[123] meant. I now seal it,

And with that blood will make ’em one day groan for’t.

125

My noble father, Henry of Buckingham,

Who first raised head[126] against usurping Richard,

Flying for succour to his servant Banister,

Being distressed, was by that wretch betrayed,

And without trial fell: God’s peace be with him.

130

Henry the Seventh succeeding, truly pitying

My father’s loss, like a most royal prince,

Restored me to my honours, and out of ruins

Made my name once more noble. Now his son,

Henry the Eighth, life, honour, name and all

135

That made me happy, at one stroke[135] has taken

For ever from the world. I had my trial,

And must needs say a noble one, which makes me

A little happier[138] than my wretched father:

Yet thus far we are one in fortunes: both

140

Fell by our servants, by those men we loved most:

A most unnatural and faithless service.

Heaven has an end[142] in all: yet, you that hear me,

This from[143] a dying man receive as certain:

Where you are liberal of[144] your loves and counsels,

145

Be sure you be not loose:[145] for those you make friends

And give your hearts to, when they once perceive

The least rub[147] in your fortunes, fall away

Like water from ye, never found again

But[149] where they mean to sink ye. All good people,

150

Pray for me. I must now forsake ye: the last hour

Of my long weary life is come upon me. Farewell:

And when you would say something that is sad,

Speak how I fell. I have done, and God forgive me.

Exeunt Duke and train

FIRST GENTLEMANO, this is full of pity. Sir, it calls,

155

I fear, too many curses on their heads

That were the authors.[156]

SECOND GENTLEMANIf the duke be guiltless,

’Tis full of woe: yet I can give you inkling

Of an ensuing evil, if it fall,[159]

160

Greater than this.

FIRST GENTLEMANGood angels keep it from us.

What may it be? You do not doubt my faith,[162] sir?

SECOND GENTLEMANThis secret is so weighty, ’twill require

A strong faith to conceal it.

165

FIRST GENTLEMANLet me have it:

I do not talk much.

SECOND GENTLEMANI am confident:[167]

You shall,[168] sir: did you not of late days hear

A buzzing[169] of a separation

170

Between the king and Katherine?

FIRST GENTLEMANYes, but it held not:[171]

For when the king once heard it, out of anger

He sent command to the Lord Mayor straight[173]

To stop the rumour, and allay[174] those tongues

175

That durst disperse it.

SECOND GENTLEMANBut that slander, sir,

Is found a truth now: for it grows again

Fresher than e’er it was, and held for[178] certain

The king will venture at it.[179] Either the cardinal,

180

Or some about him near,[180] have, out of malice

To the good queen, possessed[181] him with a scruple

That will undo her: to confirm this too,

Cardinal Campeius[183] is arrived, and lately,

As all think, for this business.

185

FIRST GENTLEMAN’Tis the cardinal:

And merely to revenge him on the emperor[186]

For not bestowing on him at his asking

The archbishopric of Toledo, this is purposed.[188]

SECOND GENTLEMANI think you have[189] hit the mark: but is’t not cruel

190

That she should feel the smart[190] of this? The cardinal

Will have his will, and she must fall.

FIRST GENTLEMAN’Tis woeful.

We are too open[193] here to argue this:

Let’s think in private more.

Exeunt

Act 2 Scene 22.2

running scene 5

Enter Lord Chamberlain, reading this letter

CHAMBERLAIN‘My lord, the horses your lordship sent for, with all the care I had, I saw well chosen, ridden[2] and furnished. They were young and handsome, and of the best breed in the north. When they were ready to set out for London, a man of my lord cardinal’s, by commission[4] and main power, took ’em from me, with this reason: his master would be served before a subject, if not before the king, which stopped our mouths, sir.’ I fear he will indeed: well, let him have them: he will have all, I think.

Enter to the Lord Chamberlain the Dukes of Norfolk and Suffolk

NORFOLKWell met, my Lord Chamberlain.

CHAMBERLAINGood day to both your graces.

10

SUFFOLKHow is the king employed?

CHAMBERLAINI left him private,[11]

Full of sad[12] thoughts and troubles.

NORFOLKWhat’s the cause?

CHAMBERLAINIt seems the marriage with his brother’s wife

15

Has crept too near his conscience.

SUFFOLKNo, his conscience[16]

Has crept too near another lady.

NORFOLK’Tis so:

This is the cardinal’s doing: the king-cardinal,

20

That blind[20] priest, like the eldest son of fortune,

Turns what he list.[21] The king will know him one day.

SUFFOLKPray God he do: he’ll never know himself else.

NORFOLKHow holily he[23] works in all his business,

And with what zeal! For now he has cracked the league

25

Between us and the emperor, the queen’s great-nephew,

He dives into the king’s soul, and there scatters

Dangers, doubts, wringing of the conscience,

Fears, and despairs, and all these for his marriage.

And out of all these, to restore the king,

30

He counsels a divorce, a loss of her

That like a jewel has hung twenty years

About his neck, yet never lost her lustre:

Of her that loves him with that excellence

That angels love good men with: even of her

35

That when the greatest stroke of fortune falls

Will bless the king: and is not this course pious?

CHAMBERLAINHeaven keep me from such counsel: ’tis most true

These news are everywhere, every tongue speaks ’em,

And every true heart weeps for’t. All that dare

40

Look into these affairs see this main end:[40]

The French king’s sister.[41] Heaven will one day open

The king’s eyes, that so long have slept upon[42]

This bold[43] bad man.

SUFFOLKAnd free us from his slavery.

45

NORFOLKWe had need pray,

And heartily, for our deliverance,

Or this imperious man will work us all

From princes into pages: all men’s honours

Lie like one lump[49] before him, to be fashioned

50

Into what pitch[50] he please.

SUFFOLKFor[51] me, my lords,

I love him not, nor fear him: there’s my creed:

As I am made[53] without him, so I’ll stand,

If the king please: his curses and his blessings

55

Touch me alike: they’re breath[55] I not believe in.

I knew him, and I know him: so I leave him

To him that made him proud: the Pope.

NORFOLKLet’s in,

And with some other business put the king

60

From these sad thoughts, that work too much upon him:

My lord, you’ll bear us company?

CHAMBERLAINExcuse me,

The king has sent me otherwhere:[63] besides,

You’ll find a most unfit time to disturb him:

65

Health to your lordships.

NORFOLKThanks, my good Lord Chamberlain.

Exit Lord Chamberlain, and the King [Henry] draws the curtain and sits reading pensively

SUFFOLKHow sad he looks: sure, he is much afflicted.

KING HENRY VIIIWho’s there? Ha?

NORFOLKPray God he be not angry.

70

KING HENRY VIIIWho’s there, I say? How dare you thrust yourselves

Into my private meditations?

Who am I? Ha?

NORFOLKA gracious king that pardons all offences

Malice ne’er meant: our breach of duty this way[74]

75

Is business of estate,[75] in which we come

To know your royal pleasure.

KING HENRY VIIIYe are too bold:

Go to:[78] I’ll make ye know your times of business:

Is this an hour for temporal[79] affairs? Ha?

Enter [Cardinal] Wolsey and [Cardinal] Campeius with a commission

80

Who’s there? My good lord cardinal? O my Wolsey,

The quiet[81] of my wounded conscience:

Thou art a cure[82] fit for a king.— You’re welcome, To Cardinal Campeius

Most learnèd reverend sir, into our kingdom:

Use us and it.— My good lord, have great care To Cardinal Wolsey

85

I be not found a talker.[85]

CARDINAL WOLSEYSir, you cannot:

I would your grace would give us but an hour

Of private conference.

KING HENRY VIIIWe are busy: go. To Norfolk and Suffolk

90

NORFOLKThis priest[90] has no pride in him? Norfolk and Suffolk speak aside

SUFFOLKNot to speak of:

I would not be so sick[92] though for his place:

But this cannot continue.

NORFOLKIf it do,

95

I’ll venture one have-at-him.[95]

SUFFOLKI another.

Exeunt Norfolk and Suffolk

CARDINAL WOLSEYYour grace has given a precedent[97] of wisdom

Above all princes, in committing freely

Your scruple[99] to the voice of Christendom:

100

Who can be angry now? What envy[100] reach you?

The Spaniard,[101] tied by blood and favour to her,

Must now confess,[102] if they have any goodness,

The trial just and noble. All the clerks,[103]

I mean the learnèd ones in Christian kingdoms,

105

Have[105] their free voices. Rome, the nurse of judgement,

Invited by your noble self, hath sent

One general tongue[107] unto us: this good man,

This just and learnèd priest, Card’nal Campeius,

Whom once more I present unto your highness.

110

KING HENRY VIIIAnd once more in mine arms I bid him welcome,

And thank the holy conclave[111] for their loves:

They have sent me such a man I would have wished for.

CARDINAL CAMPEIUSYour grace must needs deserve all strangers’[113] loves,

You are so noble: to your highness’ hand

115

I tender[115] my commission, by whose virtue,

The court of Rome commanding, you my lord

Cardinal of York, are joined with me their servant

In the unpartial[118] judging of this business.

KING HENRY VIIITwo equal men: the queen shall be acquainted

120

Forthwith for what you come. Where’s Gardiner?

CARDINAL WOLSEYI know your majesty has always loved her

So dear in heart, not to deny her that[122]

A woman of less place[123] might ask by law:

Scholars allowed freely to argue for her.

125

KING HENRY VIIIAy, and the best she shall have, and my favour

To him that does best, God forbid else. Cardinal,

Prithee call Gardiner to me, my new secretary.

I find him a fit[128] fellow. Cardinal Wolsey calls Gardiner

Enter Gardiner

CARDINAL WOLSEYGive me your hand: much joy and favour to you;

130

You are the king’s now. Aside to Gardiner

GARDINERBut to be commanded Aside to Wolsey

For ever by your grace, whose hand has raised me.

KING HENRY VIIICome hither, Gardiner.

[The King] walks and whispers [with Gardiner]

CARDINAL CAMPEIUSMy lord of York, was not one Doctor Pace

135

In this man’s place before him?

CARDINAL WOLSEYYes, he was.

CARDINAL CAMPEIUSWas he not held a learnèd man?

CARDINAL WOLSEYYes, surely.

CARDINAL CAMPEIUSBelieve me, there’s an ill opinion spread then,

140

Even of yourself, lord cardinal.

CARDINAL WOLSEYHow? Of me?

CARDINAL CAMPEIUSThey will not stick[142] to say you envied him,

And fearing he would rise, he was so virtuous,

Kept[144] him a foreign man still, which so grieved him,

145

That he ran mad and died.

CARDINAL WOLSEYHeav’n’s peace be with him:

That’s Christian care enough: for living murmurers[147]

There’s places of rebuke. He was a fool,

For he would needs be virtuous. That good fellow,

150

If I command him, follows my appointment:[150]

I will have none[151] so near else. Learn this, brother,

We live not to be griped[152] by meaner persons.

KING HENRY VIIIDeliver[153] this with modesty to th’queen. To Gardiner

Exit Gardiner

The most convenient place that I can think of

155

For[155] such receipt of learning is Blackfriars:

There ye shall meet about this weighty business.

My Wolsey, see it furnished.[157] O, my lord,

Would it not grieve an able[158] man to leave

So sweet a bedfellow?[159] But, conscience, conscience:

160

O, ’tis a tender place, and I must leave her.

Exeunt

Act 2 Scene 3

running scene 6

Enter Anne Bullen and an Old Lady

ANNENot[1] for that neither: here’s the pang that pinches:

His highness having lived so long with her, and she

So good a lady that no tongue could ever

Pronounce[4] dishonour of her — by my life,

5

She never knew harm-doing — O, now, after

So many courses[6] of the sun enthroned,

Still growing in a majesty and pomp, the which

To leave a thousandfold more bitter than

’Tis sweet at first to acquire — after this process,[9]

10

To give her the avaunt,[10] it is a pity

Would move a monster.

OLD LADYHearts of most hard temper[12]

Melt and lament for her.

ANNEO, God’s will! Much better

15

She ne’er had known pomp: though’t be temporal,[15]

Yet, if that quarrel,[16] fortune, do divorce

It from the bearer, ’tis a sufferance panging[17]

As soul and body’s severing.

OLD LADYAlas, poor lady,

20

She’s a stranger[20] now again.

ANNESo much the more

Must pity drop upon her: verily,

I swear, ’tis better to be lowly born,

And range[24] with humble livers in content,

25

Than to be perked up[25] in a glist’ring grief,

And wear a golden sorrow.

OLD LADYOur content

Is our best having.[28]

ANNEBy my troth[29] and maidenhead,

30

I would not be a queen.

OLD LADYBeshrew[31] me, I would,

And venture maidenhead for’t, and so would you,

For all this spice[33] of your hypocrisy:

You, that have so fair parts[34] of woman on you,

35

Have, too, a woman’s heart, which ever yet

Affected[36] eminence, wealth, sovereignty:

Which, to say sooth,[37] are blessings: and which gifts,

Saving[38] your mincing, the capacity

Of your soft cheverel[39] conscience would receive,

40

If you might please to stretch it.

ANNENay, good troth.[41]

OLD LADYYes, troth and troth: you would not be a queen?

ANNENo, not for all the riches under heaven.

OLD LADY’Tis strange: a three-pence bowed[44] would hire me,

45

Old as I am, to queen it:[45] but, I pray you,

What think you of a duchess? Have you limbs

To bear[47] that load of title?

ANNENo, in truth.

OLD LADYThen you are weakly made: pluck off[49] a little:

50

I would not be a young count[50] in your way,

For[51] more than blushing comes to: if your back

Cannot vouchsafe[52] this burden, ’tis too weak

Ever to get[53] a boy.

ANNEHow you do talk!

55

I swear again, I would not be a queen

For all the world.

OLD LADYIn faith, for little England[57]

You’d venture an emballing:[58] I myself

Would for Caernarvonshire,[59] although there longed

60

No more to th’crown but that. Lo, who comes here?

Enter Lord Chamberlain

CHAMBERLAINGood morrow, ladies: what were’t worth to know

The secret of your conference?[62]

ANNEMy good lord,

Not your demand: it values not[64] your asking:

65

Our mistress’ sorrows we were pitying.

CHAMBERLAINIt was a gentle[66] business, and becoming

The action of good women: there is hope

All will be well.

ANNENow I pray God, amen.

70

CHAMBERLAINYou bear a gentle mind, and heav’nly blessings

Follow such creatures. That you may, fair lady,

Perceive I speak sincerely, and high note’s

Ta’en of your many virtues: the king’s majesty

Commends[74] his good opinion of you, and

75

Does purpose[75] honour to you no less flowing

Than Marchioness of Pembroke: to which title

A thousand pound a year, annual support,

Out of his grace[78] he adds.

ANNEI do not know

80

What kind[80] of my obedience I should tender:

More[81] than my all is nothing: nor my prayers

Are not words duly hallowed,[82] nor my wishes

More[83] worth than empty vanities: yet prayers and wishes

Are all I can return. Beseech your lordship,

85

Vouchsafe[85] to speak my thanks and my obedience,

As from a blushing handmaid to his highness,

Whose health and royalty I pray for.

CHAMBERLAINLady,

I shall not fail t’approve[89] the fair conceit

90

The king hath of you.— I have perused[90] her well: Aside

Beauty and honour in her are so mingled

That they have caught the king: and who knows yet

But from this lady may proceed a gem[93]

To lighten[94] all this isle.— I’ll to the king To Anne

95

And say I spoke with you.

ANNEMy honoured lord.

Exit Lord Chamberlain

OLD LADYWhy, this it is: see, see!

I have been begging sixteen years in court,

Am yet a courtier beggarly,[99] nor could

100

Come[100] pat betwixt too early and too late

For any suit of pounds,[101] and you — O fate! —

A very fresh[102] fish here — fie, fie, fie upon

This compelled[103] fortune! — have your mouth filled up

Before you open it.

105

ANNEThis is strange[105] to me.

OLD LADYHow tastes[106] it? Is it bitter? Forty pence, no:

There was a lady once, ’tis an old story,

That would not be a queen,[108] that would she not

For all the mud[109] in Egypt: have you heard it?

110

ANNECome, you are pleasant.[110]

OLD LADYWith your theme,[111] I could

O’ermount[112] the lark. The Marchioness of Pembroke?

A thousand pounds a year for pure respect?

No other obligation? By my life,

115

That promises more thousands: honour’s[115] train

Is longer than his foreskirt: by this time

I know your[117] back will bear a duchess. Say,

Are you not stronger than you were?

ANNEGood lady,

120

Make yourself mirth with your particular fancy,[120]

And leave me out on’t.[121] Would I had no being

If this salute[122] my blood a jot: it faints me,

To think what follows.

The queen is comfortless, and we forgetful

125

In our long absence: pray, do not deliver[125]

What here you’ve heard to her.

OLD LADYWhat do you think me?

Exeunt

Act 2 Scene 42.4

running scene 7

Trumpets, sennet and cornets. Enter two Vergers, with short silver wands; next them two Scribes in the habit of doctors [and a Crier]: after them, the [Arch]bishop of Canterbury alone: after him, the Bishops of Lincoln, Ely, Rochester and St Asaph: next them, with some small distance, follows a Gentleman bearing the purse, with the great seal, and a cardinal’s hat: then two Priests, bearing each a silver cross: then a Gentleman-usher bare-headed, accompanied with a Sergeant-at-arms, bearing a silver mace: then two Gentlemen bearing two great silver pillars: after them, side by side, the two Cardinals [Wolsey and Campeius], two Noblemen, with the sword and mace. The King [Henry] takes place under the cloth of state. The two Cardinals sit under him as judges. The Queen [Katherine, attended by Griffith] takes place some distance from the King. The Bishops place themselves on each side the court in manner of a consistory: below them, the Scribes. The Lords sit next the Bishops. The rest of the Attendants stand in convenient order about the stage

CARDINAL WOLSEYWhilst our commission from Rome is read,

Let silence be commanded.

KING HENRY VIII What’s the need?

It hath already publicly been read,

5

And on all sides th’authority allowed:[5]

You may then spare that time.

CARDINAL WOLSEYBe’t so. Proceed.

SCRIBESay, ‘Henry, King of England, come into the court.’

CRIERHenry, King of England, come into the court.

10

KING HENRY VIII Here.

SCRIBESay, ‘Katherine, Queen of England, come into the court.’

CRIERKatherine, Queen of England, come into the court.

The Queen makes no answer, rises out of her chair, goes about the court, comes to the King, and kneels at his feet: then speaks

QUEEN KATHERINESir, I desire you do me right and justice,

And to bestow your pity on me, for

15

I am a most poor woman, and a stranger,[15]

Born out of your dominions, having here

No judge indifferent,[17] nor no more assurance

Of equal[18] friendship and proceeding. Alas, sir,

In what have I offended you? What cause

20

Hath my behaviour given to your displeasure,

That thus you should proceed[21] to put me off,

And take your good grace[22] from me? Heaven witness,

I have been to you a true and humble wife,

At all times to your will conformable,[24]

25

Ever in fear to kindle your dislike,[25]

Yea, subject to your countenance,[26] glad or sorry,

As I saw it inclined. When was the hour

I ever contradicted your desire,

Or made it not mine too? Or which of your friends

30

Have I not strove to love, although I knew

He were mine enemy? What friend of mine,

That had to him derived[32] your anger, did I

Continue in my liking? Nay, gave notice

He was from thence discharged? Sir, call to mind

35

That I have been your wife, in this obedience,

Upward of twenty years, and have been blessed

With many children[37] by you. If, in the course

And process of this time, you can report,

And prove it too, against mine honour[39] aught,

40

My bond to wedlock, or my love and duty

Against[41] your sacred person, in God’s name,

Turn me away, and let the foul’st contempt

Shut door upon me, and so give me up

To the sharp’st kind of justice. Please you, sir,

45

The king your father was reputed for

A prince most prudent, of an excellent

And unmatched wit[47] and judgement. Ferdinand

My father, King of Spain, was reckoned one

The wisest[48] prince that there had reigned by many

50

A year before. It is not to be questioned

That they had gathered a wise council to them

Of every realm, that did debate this business,

Who deemed our marriage lawful. Wherefore[53] I humbly

Beseech you, sir, to spare me, till I may

55

Be by my friends in Spain advised, whose counsel

I will implore. If not, i’th’name of God,

Your pleasure be fulfilled.

CARDINAL WOLSEYYou have here, lady,

And of your choice, these reverend fathers,[59] men

60

Of singular integrity and learning,

Yea, the elect[61] o’th’land, who are assembled

To plead your cause. It shall be therefore bootless[62]

That longer[63] you desire the court, as well

For your own quiet,[64] as to rectify

65

What is unsettled in the king.

CARDINAL CAMPEIUSHis grace

Hath spoken well and justly: therefore, madam,

It’s fit this royal session[68] do proceed,

And that, without delay, their arguments

70

Be now produced and heard.

QUEEN KATHERINELord cardinal,

To you I speak.

CARDINAL WOLSEYYour pleasure, madam?

QUEEN KATHERINESir,

75

I am about to weep: but, thinking that

We are a queen, or long have dreamed so, certain[76]

The daughter of a king, my drops of tears

I’ll turn to sparks of fire.

CARDINAL WOLSEYBe patient yet.

80

QUEEN KATHERINEI will, when you are humble: nay, before,[80]

Or God will punish me. I do believe,

Induced by potent circumstances, that

You are mine enemy, and make my challenge[83]

You shall not be my judge. For it is you

85

Have blown this coal[85] betwixt my lord and me,

Which God’s dew quench. Therefore, I say again,

I utterly abhor,[87] yea, from my soul,

Refuse you for my judge, whom yet once more

I hold my most malicious foe, and think not

90

At all a friend to truth.

CARDINAL WOLSEYI do profess

You speak not like yourself, who ever yet

Have stood to[93] charity, and displayed th’effects

Of disposition gentle, and of wisdom

95

O’ertopping woman’s power. Madam, you do me wrong:

I have no spleen[96] against you, nor injustice

For you or any: how far I have proceeded,

Or how far further shall, is warranted

By a commission from the consistory,

100

Yea, the whole consistory of Rome. You charge me

That I have blown this coal: I do deny it:

The king is present: if it be known to him

That I gainsay[103] my deed, how may he wound,

And worthily,[104] my falsehood: yea, as much

105

As you have done my truth. If he know

That I am free[106] of your report, he knows

I am not of your wrong.[107] Therefore in him

It lies to cure me, and the cure is to

Remove these thoughts from you: the which before

110

His highness shall speak in,[110] I do beseech

You, gracious madam, to unthink your speaking

And to say so no more.

QUEEN KATHERINEMy lord, my lord,

I am a simple woman, much too weak

115

T’oppose your cunning. You’re meek and humble-mouthed:

You sign[116] your place and calling, in full seeming,

With meekness and humility: but your heart

Is crammed with arrogancy, spleen and pride.

You have by fortune and his highness’ favours,

120

Gone slightly[120] o’er low steps, and now are mounted

Where powers[121] are your retainers, and your words,

Domestics[122] to you, serve your will as’t please

Yourself pronounce their office. I must tell you,

You tender[124] more your person’s honour than

125

Your high profession spiritual, that[125] again

I do refuse you for my judge, and here,

Before you all, appeal unto the Pope,

To bring my whole cause[128] ’fore his holiness,

And to be judged by him.

She curtsies to the King, and offers to depart

130

CARDINAL CAMPEIUSThe queen is obstinate,

Stubborn[131] to justice, apt to accuse it, and

Disdainful to be tried by’t: ’tis not well.

She’s going away.

KING HENRY VIIICall her again. To the Crier

135

CRIERKatherine, Queen of England, come into the court.

GRIFFITHMadam, you are called back. To Queen Katherine

QUEEN KATHERINEWhat need you note it? Pray you keep your way:[137]

When you are called, return. Now the Lord help:

They vex me past my patience. Pray you, pass on:

140

I will not tarry:[140] no, nor ever more

Upon this business my appearance make

In any of their courts.

Exeunt Queen and her Attendants

KING HENRY VIIIGo thy ways, Kate.

That man i’th’world who shall report he has

145

A better wife, let him in naught be trusted

For speaking false in that: thou art alone —

If thy rare[147] qualities, sweet gentleness,

Thy meekness saint-like, wife-like government,[148]

Obeying in commanding,[149] and thy parts

150

Sovereign and pious else, could speak thee out[150] —

The queen of earthly queens: she’s noble born:

And like her true nobility, she has

Carried[153] herself towards me.

CARDINAL WOLSEYMost gracious sir,

155

In humblest manner I require[155] your highness,

That it shall please you to declare in hearing

Of all these ears — for where I am robbed and bound,

There must I be unloosed, although not there

At once and fully satisfied[159] — whether ever I

160

Did broach this business to your highness, or

Laid any scruple in your way, which might

Induce you to the question on’t, or ever

Have to you, but with thanks to God for such

A royal lady, spake one the least word that might

165

Be to the prejudice[165] of her present state,

Or touch[166] of her good person?

KING HENRY VIIIMy lord cardinal,

I do excuse[168] you: yea, upon mine honour,

I free you[169] from’t: you are not to be taught

170

That you have many enemies, that know not

Why they are so, but like to village curs,[171]

Bark when their fellows do. By some of these

The queen is put in anger. You’re excused:

But will you be more justified? You ever

175

Have wished the sleeping of this business, never desired

It to be stirred, but oft have hindered, oft,

The passages[177] made toward it: on my honour,

I speak[178] my good lord card’nal to this point,

And thus far clear him. Now, what moved me to’t,

180

I will be bold with time and your attention:

Then mark th’inducement.[181] Thus it came: give heed to’t:

My conscience first received a tenderness,[182]

Scruple, and prick, on certain speeches uttered

By th’Bishop of Bayonne, then French ambassador,

185

Who had been hither sent on the debating

A marriage ’twixt[186] the Duke of Orléans and

Our daughter Mary: i’th’progress of this business,

Ere a determinate resolution,[188] he,

I mean the bishop, did require a respite,

190

Wherein he might the king his lord advertise[190]

Whether our daughter were legitimate,

Respecting this our marriage with the dowager,[192]

Sometimes[193] our brother’s wife. This respite shook

The bosom of my conscience, entered me,

195

Yea, with a spitting[195] power, and made to tremble

The region of my breast, which forced such way,

That many mazed considerings[197] did throng

And pressed in with this caution. First, methought

I stood not in the smile[199] of heaven, who had

200

Commanded nature that my lady’s womb,

If it conceived a male child by me, should

Do no more offices[202] of life to’t than

The grave does to th’dead: for her male issue

Or[204] died where they were made, or shortly after

205

This[205] world had aired them. Hence I took a thought,

This was a judgement on me, that my kingdom,

Well worthy the best heir o’th’world, should not

Be gladded[208] in’t by me. Then follows that

I weighed the danger which my realms stood in

210

By this my issue’s[210] fail, and that gave to me

Many a groaning throe:[211] thus hulling in

The wild sea of my conscience, I did steer

Toward this remedy, whereupon we are

Now present here together: that’s to say,

215

I meant to rectify my conscience, which

I then did feel full[216] sick, and yet not well,

By all the reverend fathers of the land

And doctors[218] learned. First I began in private

With you, my lord of Lincoln: you remember

220

How under my oppression[220] I did reek

When I first moved[221] you.

LINCOLNVery well, my liege.

KING HENRY VIIII have spoke long: be pleased yourself to say

How far you satisfied[224] me.

225

LINCOLNSo please your highness,

The question did at first so stagger me,

Bearing[227] a state of mighty moment in’t

And consequence of dread, that I committed[228]

The daring’st counsel which I had to doubt,

230

And did entreat your highness to this course

Which you are running here.

KING HENRY VIIII then moved you, To Canterbury

My lord of Canterbury, and got your leave

To make this present summons: unsolicited

235

I left no reverend person in this court,

But by particular[236] consent proceeded

Under[237] your hands and seals: therefore, go on:

For no dislike i’th’world against the person

Of the good queen, but the sharp thorny points

240

Of my alleged reasons, drives this forward:

Prove but[241] our marriage lawful, by my life

And kingly dignity, we are contented

To wear[243] our mortal state to come with her,

Katherine our queen, before the primest[244] creature

245

That’s paragoned[245] o’th’world.

CARDINAL CAMPEIUSSo please your highness,

The queen being absent, ’tis a needful fitness[247]

That we adjourn this court till further[248] day:

Meanwhile must be an earnest motion[249]

250

Made to the queen, to call back her appeal

She intends unto his holiness.[251]

KING HENRY VIIII may perceive Aside

These cardinals trifle with me: I abhor

This dilatory[254] sloth and tricks of Rome.

255

My learned and well-belovèd servant, Cranmer,

Prithee return:[256] with thy approach, I know,

My comfort comes along.— Break up the court: Aloud

I say, set[258] on.

Exeunt in manner as they entered

Act 3 Scene 13.1

running scene 8

Enter Queen [Katherine] and her Women, as at work One with a lute

QUEEN KATHERINETake thy lute,[1] wench: my soul grows sad with troubles:

Sing, and disperse ’em, if thou canst: leave[2] working.

WOMANOrpheus[3] with his lute made trees, Sings

And the mountain tops that freeze,

5

Bow themselves when he did sing.

To his music plants and flowers

Ever sprung, as[7] sun and showers

There had made a lasting spring.

Every thing that heard him play,

10

Even the billows[10] of the sea,

Hung their heads, and then lay[11] by.

In sweet music is such art,

Killing[13] care and grief of heart

Fall asleep, or hearing, die.

Enter [Griffith] a Gentleman

15

QUEEN KATHERINEHow now?

GRIFFITHAn’t please your grace, the two great cardinals

Wait in the presence.[17]

QUEEN KATHERINEWould they speak with me?

GRIFFITHThey willed[19] me say so, madam.

20

QUEEN KATHERINEPray[20] their graces

To come near.

[Exit Griffith]

What can be their business

With me, a poor weak woman, fall’n from favour?

I do not like their coming: now I think on’t,

They should be good men, their affairs as righteous:[24]

25

But all hoods make not monks.

Enter the two Cardinals, Wolsey and Campeius

CARDINAL WOLSEYPeace to your highness.

QUEEN KATHERINEYour graces find me here part[27] of a housewife:

I would be all,[28] against the worst may happen.

What are your pleasures with me, reverend lords?

30

CARDINAL WOLSEYMay it please you, noble madam, to withdraw

Into your private chamber: we shall give you

The full cause of our coming.

QUEEN KATHERINESpeak it here.

There’s nothing I have done yet, o’ my conscience,

35

Deserves a corner:[35] would all other women

Could speak this with as free[36] a soul as I do.

My lords, I care not, so much I am happy[37]

Above a number,[38] if my actions

Were tried by ev’ry tongue, ev’ry eye saw ’em,

40

Envy[40] and base opinion set against ’em,

I know my life so even.[41] If your business

Seek me out, and that[42] way I am wife in,

Out with it boldly: truth loves open dealing.

CARDINAL WOLSEYTanta[44] est erga te mentis integritas, Regina serenissima—

45

QUEEN KATHERINEO, good my lord, no Latin:

I am not such a truant[46] since my coming,

As not to know the language I have lived in:

A strange[48] tongue makes my cause more strange, suspicious:

Pray, speak in English: here are some will thank you,

50

If you speak truth, for their poor mistress’ sake:

Believe me, she has had much wrong. Lord cardinal,

The willing’st[52] sin I ever yet committed

May be absolved in English.

CARDINAL WOLSEYNoble lady,

55

I am sorry my integrity should breed,

And service to his majesty and you,

So deep suspicion, where all[57] faith was meant:

We come not by the way[58] of accusation,

To taint that honour every good tongue blesses,

60

Nor to betray you any way to sorrow:

You have too much, good lady: but to know

How you stand minded[62] in the weighty difference

Between the king and you, and to deliver,

Like free[64] and honest men, our just opinions

65

And comforts to your cause.

CARDINAL CAMPEIUSMost honoured madam,

My lord of York, out of his noble nature,

Zeal and obedience he still bore your grace,

Forgetting, like a good man, your late censure

70

Both of his truth and him, which was too far,

Offers, as I do, in a sign of peace,

His service and his counsel.

QUEEN KATHERINETo betray me. Aside

My lords, I thank you both for your good wills: Aloud

75

Ye speak like honest men:— pray God ye prove so. Aside?

But how to make ye suddenly[76] an answer

In such a point of weight, so near mine honour —

More near my life, I fear — with my weak wit,[78]

And to such men of gravity and learning:

80

In truth I know not. I was set[80] at work

Among my maids, full little, God knows, looking[81]

Either for such men or such business:

For her[83] sake that I have been — for I feel

The last fit[84] of my greatness — good your graces,

85

Let me have time and counsel for my cause:

Alas, I am a woman friendless, hopeless.

CARDINAL WOLSEYMadam, you wrong the king’s love with these fears.

Your hopes and friends are infinite.

QUEEN KATHERINEIn England

90

But little for my profit:[90] can you think, lords,

That any Englishman dare give me counsel?

Or be a known friend gainst his highness’ pleasure,

Though he be grown so desperate[93] to be honest,

And live[94] a subject? Nay forsooth, my friends,

95

They that must weigh out[95] my afflictions,

They that my trust must grow to, live not here:

They are, as all my other comforts, far hence

In mine own country, lords.

CARDINAL CAMPEIUSI would your grace

100

Would leave your griefs, and take my counsel.

QUEEN KATHERINEHow, sir?

CARDINAL CAMPEIUSPut your main cause into the king’s protection:

He’s loving and most gracious. ’Twill be much

Both for your honour better and your cause:

105

For if the trial of the law o’ertake ye,

You’ll part away[106] disgraced.

CARDINAL WOLSEYHe tells you rightly.

QUEEN KATHERINEYe tell me what ye wish for both — my ruin:

Is this your Christian counsel? Out upon ye.[109]

110

Heaven is above all yet: there sits a judge

That no king can corrupt.

CARDINAL CAMPEIUSYour rage mistakes[112] us.

QUEEN KATHERINEThe more shame for ye: holy men I thought ye,

Upon my soul, two reverend cardinal virtues:[114]

115

But cardinal[115] sins and hollow hearts I fear ye:

Mend ’em for shame, my lords. Is this your comfort?

The cordial[117] that ye bring a wretched lady?

A woman lost among ye, laughed at, scorned?

I will not wish ye half my miseries:

120

I have more charity. But say I warned ye:

Take heed, for heaven’s sake, take heed, lest at[121] once

The burden of my sorrows fall upon ye.

CARDINAL WOLSEYMadam, this is a mere distraction:[123]

You turn the good we offer into envy.[124]

125

QUEEN KATHERINEYe turn me into nothing. Woe upon ye

And all such false professors.[126] Would you have me —

If you have any justice, any pity,

If ye be anything but churchmen’s habits[128] —

Put my sick cause into his hands that hates me?

130

Alas, he’s banished me his[130] bed already,

His love, too long ago. I am old, my lords,

And all the fellowship[132] I hold now with him

Is only my obedience. What can happen

To me above[134] this wretchedness? All your studies

135

Make me a curse like this.

CARDINAL CAMPEIUSYour fears are worse.

QUEEN KATHERINEHave I lived thus long — let me speak[137] myself,

Since virtue finds no friends — a wife, a true one?

A woman, I dare say without vainglory,[139]

140

Never yet branded with suspicion?

Have I with all my full[141] affections

Still[142] met the king? Loved him next heaven? Obeyed him?

Been, out of fondness,[143] superstitious to him?

Almost forgot my prayers to content him?

145

And am I thus rewarded? ’Tis not well, lords.

Bring me a constant woman to her husband,

One that ne’er dreamed a joy beyond his pleasure,

And to that woman, when she has done most,

Yet will I add an honour, a great patience.

150

CARDINAL WOLSEYMadam, you wander from[150] the good we aim at.

QUEEN KATHERINEMy lord, I dare not make myself so guilty,

To give up willingly that noble title

Your master wed me to: nothing but death

Shall e’er divorce my dignities.[154]

155

CARDINAL WOLSEYPray, hear me.

QUEEN KATHERINEWould I[156] had never trod this English earth,

Or felt the flatteries that grow upon it:

Ye have angels’ faces, but heaven knows your hearts.

What will become of me now, wretched lady?

160

I am the most unhappy woman living.

Alas, poor wenches, where are now your fortunes?

Shipwrecked upon a kingdom, where no pity,

No friends, no hope, no kindred weep for me?

Almost no grave allowed me? Like the lily

165

That once was mistress of the field and flourished,

I’ll hang my head and perish.

CARDINAL WOLSEYIf your grace

Could but be brought to know our ends[168] are honest,

You’d feel more comfort. Why should we, good lady,

170

Upon what cause, wrong you? Alas, our places,[170]

The way of our profession is against it:

We are to cure such sorrows, not to sow ’em.

For goodness’ sake, consider what you do,

How you may hurt yourself, ay, utterly

175

Grow from the king’s acquaintance, by this carriage.[175]

The hearts of princes kiss obedience,

So much they love it, but to stubborn spirits

They swell and grow as terrible as storms.

I know you have a gentle, noble temper,[179]

180

A soul as even[180] as a calm: pray think us

Those we profess: peacemakers, friends and servants.

CARDINAL CAMPEIUSMadam, you’ll find it so: you wrong your virtues

With these weak women’s fears. A noble spirit,

As yours was put into you, ever casts[184]

185

Such doubts as false coin from it. The king loves you:

Beware you lose it not: for us, if you please

To trust us in your business, we are ready

To use our utmost studies[188] in your service.

QUEEN KATHERINEDo what ye will, my lords: and pray forgive me

190

If I have used[190] myself unmannerly.

You know I am a woman, lacking wit

To make a seemly answer to such persons.

Pray do my service[193] to his majesty:

He has my heart yet, and shall have my prayers

195

While I shall have my life. Come, reverend fathers,

Bestow your counsels on me. She now begs,

That[197] little thought, when she set footing here,

She should have bought her dignities so dear.

Exeunt

Act 3 Scene 2

running scene 9

Enter the Duke of Norfolk, Duke of Suffolk, Lord Surrey and Lord Chamberlain

NORFOLKIf you will now unite in your complaints,

And force[2] them with a constancy, the cardinal

Cannot stand under them. If you omit[3]

The offer of this time, I cannot promise

5

But that you shall sustain more new disgraces,

With these you bear already.

SURREYI am joyful

To meet the least occasion that may give me

Remembrance of my father-in-law the duke,[9]

10

To be revenged on him.[10]

SUFFOLKWhich of the peers

Have uncontemned[12] gone by him, or at least

Strangely neglected?[13] When did he regard

The stamp of nobleness in any person

15

Out[15] of himself?

CHAMBERLAINMy lords, you speak your pleasures:

What he deserves of you and me I know:

What we can do to him, though now the time

Gives way[19] to us, I much fear. If you cannot

20

Bar his access to th’king, never attempt

Anything on him: for he hath a witchcraft

Over the king in’s[22] tongue.

NORFOLKO, fear him not:

His spell in that is out:[24] the king hath found

25

Matter against him that forever mars

The honey of his language. No, he’s[26] settled,

Not to come off,[27] in his displeasure.

SURREYSir,

I should be glad to hear such news as this

30

Once every hour.

NORFOLKBelieve it, this is true.

In the divorce his contrary[32] proceedings

Are all unfolded,[33] wherein he appears

As I would wish mine enemy.

35

SURREYHow came

His practices[36] to light?

SUFFOLKMost strangely.

SURREYO, how, how?

SUFFOLKThe cardinal’s letters to the Pope miscarried,[39]

40

And came to th’eye o’th’king, wherein was read

How that the cardinal did entreat his holiness

To stay[42] the judgment o’th’divorce, for if

It did take place, ‘I do’, quoth he, ‘perceive

My king is tangled in affection to

45

A creature[45] of the queen’s, Lady Anne Bullen.’

SURREYHas the king this?

SUFFOLKBelieve it.

SURREYWill this work?

CHAMBERLAINThe king in this perceives him[49] how he coasts

50

And hedges his own way. But in this point

All his tricks founder, and he brings his physic[51]

After his patient’s death: the king already

Hath married the fair lady.

SURREYWould he had.

55

SUFFOLKMay you be happy in your wish, my lord,

For I profess you have it.

SURREYNow, all my joy

Trace the conjunction.[58]

SUFFOLKMy amen to’t.

60

NORFOLKAll men’s.[60]

SUFFOLKThere’s order given for her coronation:

Marry,[62] this is yet but young, and may be left

To some ears unrecounted. But, my lords,

She is a gallant[64] creature, and complete

65

In mind and feature. I persuade me,[65] from her

Will fall[66] some blessing to this land, which shall

In it be memorized.[67]

SURREYBut will the king

Digest[69] this letter of the cardinal’s?

70

The Lord forbid!

NORFOLKMarry, amen.

SUFFOLKNo, no:

There be more wasps that buzz about his nose

Will make this sting the sooner. Cardinal Campeius

75

Is stol’n away to Rome: hath ta’en no leave:

Has left the cause[76] o’th’king unhandled, and

Is posted[77] as the agent of our cardinal

To second all his plot. I do assure you

The king cried ‘Ha!’ at this.

80

CHAMBERLAINNow, God incense him,

And let him cry ‘Ha!’ louder.

NORFOLKBut, my lord,

When returns Cranmer?

SUFFOLKHe[84] is returned in his opinions, which

85

Have satisfied the king for his divorce,

Together with all famous colleges

Almost in Christendom: shortly, I believe,

His second marriage shall be published,[88] and

Her coronation. Katherine no more

90

Shall be called ‘Queen’, but ‘Princess Dowager’

And ‘widow to Prince Arthur’.

NORFOLKThis same Cranmer’s

A worthy fellow, and hath ta’en much pain

In the king’s business.

95

SUFFOLKHe has, and we shall see him

For it an archbishop.

NORFOLKSo I hear.

SUFFOLK’Tis so.

Enter [Cardinal] Wolsey and Cromwell

The cardinal.

100

NORFOLKObserve, observe, he’s moody.[100]

CARDINAL WOLSEYThe packet,[101] Cromwell: gave’t you the king?

CROMWELLTo his own hand, in’s bedchamber.

CARDINAL WOLSEYLooked[103] he

O’th’inside of the paper?

105

CROMWELLPresently[105]

He did unseal them, and the first he viewed,

He did it with a serious mind: a heed[107]

Was in his countenance. You he bade

Attend him here this morning.

110

CARDINAL WOLSEYIs he ready

To come abroad?[111]

CROMWELLI think by this[112] he is.

CARDINAL WOLSEYLeave me awhile.—

Exit Cromwell

It shall be to the Duchess of Alençon, Aside

115

The French king’s sister: he shall marry her.

Anne Bullen? No, I’ll no Anne Bullens for him:

There’s more in’t than fair visage.[117] Bullen?

No, we’ll no Bullens. Speedily I wish

To hear from Rome. The Marchioness of Pembroke?

120

NORFOLKHe’s discontented.

SUFFOLKMaybe he hears the king

Does whet his anger to him.

SURREYSharp enough,

Lord, for thy justice.

125

CARDINAL WOLSEYThe late[125] queen’s gentlewoman? A knight’s daughter, Aside

To be her mistress’ mistress? The queen’s queen?

This candle burns not clear:[127] ’tis I must snuff it,

Then out it goes. What though I know her virtuous

And well deserving? Yet I know her for

130

A spleeny Lutheran,[130] and not wholesome to

Our cause, that she should lie i’th’bosom of[131]

Our hard-ruled[132] king. Again, there is sprung up

An heretic, an arch-one:[133] Cranmer, one

Hath[134] crawled into the favour of the king,

135

And is his oracle.

NORFOLKHe is vexed at something.

Enter King [Henry], reading of a schedule [and Lovell]

SURREYI would ’twere something that would fret[137] the string,

The master-cord[138] on’s heart!

SUFFOLKThe king, the king!

140

KING HENRY VIIIWhat piles of wealth hath he accumulated Aside

To his own portion?[141] And what expense by th’hour

Seems to flow from him? How i’th’name of thrift

Does he rake this together?— Now, my lords, Aloud

Saw you the cardinal?

145

NORFOLKMy lord, we have

Stood here observing him. Some strange commotion[146]

Is in his brain: he bites his lip, and starts,

Stops on a sudden, looks upon the ground,

Then lays his finger on his temple, straight[149]

150

Springs out into fast gait, then stops again,

Strikes his breast hard, and anon he casts

His eye against[152] the moon: in most strange postures

We have seen him set himself.

KING HENRY VIIIIt may well be,

155

There is a mutiny in’s mind. This morning

Papers of state he sent me to peruse,

As I required: and wot[157] you what I found

There, on my conscience put unwittingly?

Forsooth, an inventory, thus importing[159]

160

The several parcels[160] of his plate, his treasure,

Rich stuffs[161] and ornaments of household, which

I find at such proud rate,[162] that it outspeaks

Possession of a subject.

NORFOLKIt’s heaven’s will:

165

Some spirit put this paper in the packet,

To bless your eye withal.[166]

KING HENRY VIII If we did think

His contemplation[168] were above the earth,

And fixed on spiritual object, he should[169] still

170

Dwell in his musings: but I am afraid

His thinkings are below[171] the moon, not worth

His serious considering.

King takes his seat; [and] whispers [with] Lovell, who goes to the Cardinal

CARDINAL WOLSEY Heaven forgive me!—

Ever God bless your highness. To the King

175

KING HENRY VIII Good, my lord,

You are full of heavenly stuff,[176] and bear the inventory

Of your best graces[177] in your mind, the which

You were now running o’er: you have scarce time

To steal from spiritual leisure[179] a brief span

180

To keep[180] your earthly audit: sure, in that

I deem you an ill husband,[181] and am glad

To have you therein my companion.

CARDINAL WOLSEY Sir,

For holy offices I have a time: a time

185

To think upon the part of business which

I bear i’th’state: and nature does require

Her times of preservation,[187] which perforce

I, her frail son, amongst my brethren mortal,

Must give my tendance[189] to.

190

KING HENRY VIII You have said well.

CARDINAL WOLSEY And ever may your highness yoke together,

As I will lend you cause, my doing well

With my well saying.

KING HENRY VIII ’Tis well said again,

195

And ’tis a kind of good deed to say well:

And yet words are no deeds. My father loved you:

He said he did, and with his deed did crown[197]

His word upon you. Since I had my office,

I have kept you next my heart, have not alone[199]

200

Employed you where high profits might come home,

But pared[201] my present havings, to bestow

My bounties upon you.

CARDINAL WOLSEY What should this mean? Aside

SURREYThe Lord increase this business! Aside

205

KING HENRY VIIIHave I not made you,

The prime[206] man of the state? I pray you tell me

If what I now pronounce[207] you have found true:

And if you may confess it, say withal[208]

If you are bound to us or no. What say you?

210

CARDINAL WOLSEY My sovereign, I confess your royal graces,[210]

Showered on me daily, have been more than could[211]

My studied purposes requite, which went

Beyond all man’s endeavours. My endeavours

Have ever come too short of my desires,

215

Yet filed[215] with my abilities: mine own ends

Have been mine so[216] that evermore they pointed

To th’good of your most sacred person and

The profit of the state. For your great graces

Heaped upon me, poor undeserver, I

220

Can nothing render but allegiant[220] thanks,

My prayers to heaven for you, my loyalty,

Which ever has and ever shall be growing,

Till death, that winter, kill it.

KING HENRY VIIIFairly answered:

225

A loyal and obedient subject is

The rein illustrated: the[226] honour of it

Does pay the act of it, as i’th’contrary

The foulness[228] is the punishment. I presume

That as my hand has opened bounty to you,

230

My heart dropped love, my power rained honour, more

On you than any: so your hand and heart,

Your brain, and every function of your power,[232]

Should, notwithstanding[233] that your bond of duty,

As ’twere in love’s particular,[234] be more

235

To me, your friend, than any.

CARDINAL WOLSEYI do profess

That for your highness’ good I ever laboured

More than mine own: that[238] am, have and will be —

Though all the world should crack[239] their duty to you,

240

And throw it from their soul: though perils did

Abound, as thick as thought could make ’em, and

Appear in forms more horrid[242] — yet my duty,

As doth a rock against the chiding[243] flood,

Should the approach of this wild river break,[244]

245

And stand unshaken yours.

KING HENRY VIII’Tis nobly spoken:

Take notice, lords, he has a loyal breast,

For you have seen him open’t. Read o’er this, Gives Wolsey a paper

And after, this, and then to breakfast with Gives him another paper

250

What appetite you have.

Exit King, frowning upon the Cardinal, the Nobles throng

after him, smiling and whispering

CARDINAL WOLSEYWhat should this mean?

What sudden anger’s this? How have I reaped it?

He parted frowning from me, as if ruin

Leaped from his eyes. So looks the chafèd[254] lion

255

Upon the daring huntsman that has galled[255] him:

Then makes him nothing.[256] I must read this paper:

I fear the story[257] of his anger.— ’Tis so: He reads one of the papers

This paper has undone[258] me: ’tis the account

Of all that world[259] of wealth I have drawn together

260

For mine own ends — indeed, to gain the popedom,

And fee[261] my friends in Rome. O negligence,

Fit for a fool to fall by! What cross[262] devil

Made me put this main[263] secret in the packet

I sent the king? Is there no way to cure this?

265

No new device[265] to beat this from his brains?

I know ’twill stir[266] him strongly. Yet I know

A way, if it take right,[267] in spite of fortune

Will bring me off[268] again. What’s this? ‘To th’Pope’?

The letter, as I live, with all the business

270

I writ to’s holiness. Nay then, farewell:

I have touched the highest point of all my greatness,

And from that full meridian[272] of my glory,

I haste now to my setting.[273] I shall fall

Like a bright exhalation[274] in the evening,

275

And no man see me more.

Enter to Wolsey, the Dukes of Norfolk and Suffolk, the Earl of Surrey and the Lord Chamberlain

NORFOLKHear the king’s pleasure, cardinal, who commands you

To render up the great seal presently[277]

Into our hands, and to confine yourself

To Asher[279] House, my lord of Winchester’s,

280

Till you hear further from his highness.

CARDINAL WOLSEYStay:

Where’s your commission,[282] lords? Words cannot carry

Authority so weighty.

SUFFOLKWho dare cross[284] ’em,

285

Bearing the king’s will from his mouth expressly?

CARDINAL WOLSEYTill I find more than will or words to do it[286] —

I mean your malice — know, officious lords,

I dare and must deny it. Now I feel

Of what coarse metal[289] ye are moulded: envy.

290

How eagerly ye follow my disgraces,

As if it fed ye, and how sleek[291] and wanton

Ye appear in everything may bring my ruin!

Follow your envious courses, men of malice:

You have Christian warrant for ’em, and no doubt

295

In time will find their fit rewards.[295] That seal

You ask with such a violence, the king,

Mine and your master, with his own hand gave me:

Bade me enjoy[298] it, with the place and honours,

During my life: and to confirm his goodness,

300

Tied[300] it by letters patents. Now, who’ll take it?

SURREYThe king, that gave it.

CARDINAL WOLSEYIt must be himself, then.

SURREYThou art a proud traitor, priest.

CARDINAL WOLSEYProud lord, thou liest:

305

Within these forty hours[305] Surrey durst better

Have burnt that tongue than said so.

SURREYThy ambition,

Thou scarlet sin,[308] robbed this bewailing land

Of noble Buckingham, my father-in-law:

310

The heads of all thy brother cardinals,

With thee, and all thy best parts[311] bound together,

Weighed[312] not a hair of his. Plague of your policy,

You sent me deputy for Ireland,

Far from his succour,[314] from the king, from all

315

That might have mercy on the fault[315] thou gav’st him:

Whilst your great goodness, out of holy pity,

Absolved him with an axe.

CARDINAL WOLSEYThis, and all else

This talking lord can lay upon my credit,[319]

320

I answer is most false. The duke by law

Found his deserts. How innocent I was

From[322] any private malice in his end,

His noble jury and foul cause[323] can witness.

If I loved many words, lord, I should tell you

325

You have as little honesty as honour,

That[326] in the way of loyalty and truth

Toward the king, my ever royal master,

Dare mate[328] a sounder man than Surrey can be,

And all that love his follies.

330

SURREYBy my soul,

Your long coat, priest, protects you: thou shouldst feel

My sword i’th’life-blood of thee else. My lords,

Can ye endure to hear this arrogance?

And from this fellow?[334] If we live thus tamely,

335

To be thus jaded[335] by a piece of scarlet,

Farewell nobility: let his grace go forward,

And dare[337] us with his cap, like larks.

CARDINAL WOLSEYAll goodness

Is poison to thy stomach.

340

SURREYYes, that goodness

Of gleaning all the land’s wealth into one,

Into your own hands, Card’nal, by extortion:

The goodness of your intercepted packets

You writ to th’Pope against the king: your goodness,

345

Since you provoke me, shall be most notorious.

My lord of Norfolk, as you are truly noble,

As you respect the common good, the state

Of our despised nobility, our issues,[348]

Whom if he[349] live will scarce be gentlemen,

350

Produce the grand sum of his sins, the articles[350]

Collected from his life. I’ll startle you

Worse than the sacring bell,[352] when the brown wench

Lay kissing in your arms, lord cardinal.

CARDINAL WOLSEYHow much, methinks, I could despise this man, Aside

355

But that I am bound in charity against it.

NORFOLKThose articles, my lord, are in the king’s hand:[356]

But thus much:[357] they are foul ones.

CARDINAL WOLSEYSo much fairer

And spotless shall mine innocence arise,

360

When the king knows my truth.

SURREYThis cannot save you:

I thank my memory, I yet remember

Some of these articles, and out[363] they shall.

Now, if you can blush and cry ‘Guilty’, cardinal,

365

You’ll show a little honesty.

CARDINAL WOLSEYSpeak on, sir:

I dare[367] your worst objections: if I blush,

It is to see a nobleman want[368] manners.

SURREYI had rather want those than my head. Have at you![369]

370

First, that without the king’s assent or knowledge,

You wrought[371] to be a legate, by which power

You maimed the jurisdiction of all bishops.

NORFOLKThen, that in all you writ to Rome, or else

To foreign princes, ‘Ego[374] et Rex meus’

375

Was still[375] inscribed, in which you brought the king

To be your servant.

SUFFOLKThen, that without the knowledge

Either of king or council, when you went

Ambassador[379] to the emperor, you made bold

380

To carry[380] into Flanders the great seal.

SURREYItem,[381] you sent a large commission

To Gregory[382] de Cassado, to conclude

Without the king’s will or the state’s allowance,[383]

A league between his highness and Ferrara.[384]

385

SUFFOLKThat out of mere[385] ambition, you have caused

Your holy hat to be stamped on the king’s coin.

SURREYThen, that you have sent innumerable substance[387] —

By what means got, I leave to your own conscience —

To furnish[389] Rome, and to prepare the ways

390

You have for dignities, to[390] the mere undoing

Of all the kingdom. Many more[391] there are,

Which since they are of you, and odious,

I will not taint my mouth with.

CHAMBERLAINO my lord,

395

Press not a falling man too far. ’Tis virtue:[395]

His faults lie open[396] to the laws, let them,

Not you, correct him. My heart weeps to see him

So little of his great self.

SURREYI forgive him.

400

SUFFOLKLord cardinal, the king’s further pleasure is,

Because all those things you have done of late

By your power legative[402] within this kingdom,

Fall into th’compass of a praemunire,[403]

That therefore such a writ be sued[404] against you,

405

To forfeit all your goods, lands, tenements,[405]

Castles,[406] and whatsoever, and to be

Out of the king’s protection. This is my charge.[407]

NORFOLKAnd so we’ll leave you to your meditations

How to live better. For[409] your stubborn answer

410

About the giving back the great seal to us,

The king shall know it, and, no doubt, shall thank you.

So fare you well, my little good lord cardinal.

Exeunt all but Wolsey

CARDINAL WOLSEYSo farewell to the little good you bear me.

Farewell? A long farewell to all my greatness.

415

This is the state of man: today he puts forth

The tender[416] leaves of hopes: tomorrow blossoms,

And bears his blushing[417] honours thick upon him:

The third day comes a frost, a killing frost,

And when he thinks, good easy[419] man, full surely

420

His greatness is a-ripening, nips his root,

And then he falls, as I do. I have ventured,

Like little wanton[422] boys that swim on bladders,

This[423] many summers in a sea of glory,

But far beyond my depth: my high-blown[424] pride

425

At length broke under me, and now has left me

Weary, and old with service, to the mercy

Of a rude stream,[427] that must for ever hide me.

Vain[428] pomp and glory of this world, I hate ye:

I feel my heart new opened. O, how wretched

430

Is that poor man that hangs on princes’ favours?

There is betwixt that smile we would aspire to,

That sweet aspect[432] of princes, and their ruin,

More pangs[433] and fears than wars or women have:

And when he falls, he falls like Lucifer,[434]

435

Never to hope again.

Enter Cromwell, standing amazed

Why, how now, Cromwell?

CROMWELLI have no power to speak, sir.

CARDINAL WOLSEYWhat, amazed

At my misfortunes? Can thy spirit wonder

A great man should decline?[439] Nay, an you weep

440

I am fall’n indeed.

CROMWELLHow does your grace?

CARDINAL WOLSEYWhy, well:

Never so truly happy,[443] my good Cromwell.

I know myself now, and I feel within me

445

A peace above all earthly dignities,

A still and quiet conscience. The king has cured me,

I humbly thank his grace, and from these shoulders,

These ruined pillars,[448] out of pity, taken

A load would sink a navy: too much honour.

450

O, ’tis a burden, Cromwell, ’tis a burden

Too heavy for a man that hopes for heaven.

CROMWELLI am glad your grace has made that right use of it.[452]

CARDINAL WOLSEYI hope I have: I am able now, methinks,

Out of a fortitude of soul I feel,

455

To endure more miseries and greater far

Than my weak-hearted enemies dare offer.

What news abroad?

CROMWELLThe heaviest[458] and the worst

Is your displeasure[459] with the king.

460

CARDINAL WOLSEYGod bless him.

CROMWELLThe next is that Sir Thomas More is chosen

Lord Chancellor in your place.

CARDINAL WOLSEYThat’s somewhat sudden,

But he’s a learned man. May he continue

465

Long in his highness’ favour, and do justice

For truth’s sake and his conscience, that[466] his bones,

When he has run his course and sleeps in blessings,

May have a tomb of orphans’[468] tears wept on him.

What more?

470

CROMWELLThat Cranmer is returned with welcome,

Installed Lord Archbishop of Canterbury.

CARDINAL WOLSEYThat’s news indeed.

CROMWELLLast, that the Lady Anne,

Whom the king hath in secrecy long married,

475

This day was viewed in open[475] as his queen,

Going to chapel, and the voice[476] is now

Only about her coronation.

CARDINAL WOLSEYThere was the weight that pulled me down.

O Cromwell,

480

The king has gone beyond[480] me: all my glories

In[481] that one woman I have lost for ever.

No sun shall ever usher forth mine honours,

Or gild again the noble troops[483] that waited

Upon my smiles. Go, get thee from me, Cromwell:

485

I am a poor fall’n man, unworthy now

To be thy lord and master. Seek the king —

That sun I pray may never set — I have told him

What and how true thou art: he will advance thee:

Some little memory of me will stir him —

490

I know his noble nature — not to let

Thy hopeful[491] service perish too. Good Cromwell,

Neglect him not: make use[492] now, and provide

For thine own future safety.

CROMWELLO my lord,

495

Must I then leave you? Must I needs forgo[495]

So good, so noble and so true a master?

Bear witness, all that have not hearts of iron,

With what a sorrow Cromwell leaves his lord.

The king shall have my service: but my prayers

500

For ever and for ever shall be yours.

CARDINAL WOLSEYCromwell, I did not think to shed a tear He weeps

In all my miseries: but thou hast forced me,

Out of thy honest truth,[503] to play the woman.

Let’s dry our eyes: and thus far hear me Cromwell,

505

And when I am forgotten, as I shall be,

And sleep in dull[506] cold marble, where no mention

Of me more must be heard of, say I taught thee:

Say Wolsey, that once trod the ways of glory,

And sounded[509] all the depths and shoals of honour,

510

Found thee a way, out of his wreck,[510] to rise in:

A sure and safe one, though thy master missed it.

Mark[512] but my fall, and that that ruined me:

Cromwell, I charge thee, fling away ambition:

By that sin fell the angels: how can man then,

515

The image of his maker, hope to win by it?

Love thyself last: cherish those hearts that hate thee:

Corruption wins not more than honesty.

Still[518] in thy right hand carry gentle peace

To silence envious tongues. Be just, and fear not:

520

Let all the ends thou aim’st at be thy country’s,

Thy God’s, and truth’s. Then if thou fall’st, O Cromwell,

Thou fall’st a blessèd martyr.

Serve the king: and prithee lead me in:

There take an inventory of all I have:

525

To the last penny ’tis the king’s. My robe,

And my integrity to heaven, is all

I dare now call mine own. O Cromwell, Cromwell,

Had I but served my God with half the zeal

I served my king, he would not in mine age

530

Have left me naked[530] to mine enemies.

CROMWELLGood sir, have patience.

CARDINAL WOLSEYSo I have. Farewell

The hopes of court: my hopes in heaven do dwell.

Exeunt

Act 4 Scene 14.1

running scene 10

Enter two Gentlemen, meeting one another [the First holding a paper]

FIRST GENTLEMANYou’re well met once again.

SECOND GENTLEMANSo are you.

FIRST GENTLEMANYou come to take your stand here, and behold

The Lady Anne pass from her coronation?

5

SECOND GENTLEMAN’Tis all my business.[5] At our last encounter,

The Duke of Buckingham came from his trial.

FIRST GENTLEMAN’Tis very true. But that time offered sorrow,

This, general[8] joy.

SECOND GENTLEMAN’Tis well: the citizens,

10

I am sure, have shown at full their royal[10] minds —

As, let[11] ’em have their rights, they are ever forward —

In celebration of this day with shows,

Pageants and sights of honour.

FIRST GENTLEMANNever greater,

15

Nor, I’ll assure you, better taken,[15] sir.

SECOND GENTLEMANMay I be bold to ask what that contains,

That paper in your hand?

FIRST GENTLEMANYes, ’tis the list

Of those that claim their offices this day

20

By custom of the coronation.

The Duke of Suffolk is the first, and claims

To be High Steward:[22] next, the Duke of Norfolk,

He to be Earl Marshal:[23] you may read the rest.

SECOND GENTLEMANI thank you, sir: had I not known those customs,

25

I should have been beholding[25] to your paper:

But I beseech you, what’s become of Katherine,

The Princess Dowager? How goes her business?

FIRST GENTLEMANThat I can tell you too. The Archbishop

Of Canterbury, accompanied with other

30

Learnèd and reverend fathers of his order,[30]

Held a late[31] court at Dunstable, six miles off

From Ampthill,[32] where the princess lay: to which

She was often cited[33] by them, but appeared not:

And, to be short,[34] for not appearance and

35

The king’s late scruple,[35] by the main assent

Of all these learnèd men she was divorced,

And the late marriage made of none effect,[37]

Since which she was removed to Kimbolton,[38]

Where she remains now sick.

40

SECOND GENTLEMANAlas, good lady. Trumpets

The trumpets sound: stand close,[41] the queen is coming. Hautboys

The Order of the Coronation

1. A lively flourish of Trumpets.

2. Then, [enter] two Judges.

3. Lord Chancellor, with purse and mace before him.

4. Choristers, singing. Music [being played by musicians].

5. Mayor of London, bearing the mace. Then Garter, in his coat of arms, and on his head he wore a gilt copper crown.

6. Marquis Dorset, bearing a sceptre of gold, on his head a demi-coronal of gold. With him, the Earl of Surrey, bearing the rod of silver with the dove, crowned with an earl’s coronet. Collars of esses.

7. Duke of Suffolk, in his robe of estate, his coronet on his head, bearing a long white wand, as High Steward. With him, the Duke of Norfolk, with the rod of marshalship, a coronet on his head. Collars of esses.

8. A canopy, borne by four [Barons] of the Cinque Ports, under it the Queen [Anne] in her robe, in her hair, richly adorned with pearl, crowned. On each side her, the Bishops of London and Winchester.

9. The old Duchess of Norfolk, in a coronal of gold, wrought with flowers, bearing the Queen’s train.

10. Certain Ladies or Countesses, with plain circlets of gold without flowers.

Exeunt, first passing over the stage in order and state [while being discussed by the Gentlemen]

SECOND GENTLEMANA royal train,[42] believe me: these I know.

Who’s that that bears the sceptre?

FIRST GENTLEMANMarquis Dorset,

45

And that the Earl of Surrey, with the rod.

SECOND GENTLEMANA bold brave gentleman. That should[46] be

The Duke of Suffolk?

FIRST GENTLEMAN’Tis the same: High Steward.

SECOND GENTLEMANAnd that my lord of Norfolk?

50

FIRST GENTLEMANYes.

SECOND GENTLEMANHeaven bless thee! He sees Anne

Thou hast the sweetest face I ever looked on.—

Sir, as I have a soul, she is an angel:

Our king has all the Indies[54] in his arms,

55

And more, and richer, when he strains[55] that lady:

I cannot blame his conscience.[56]

FIRST GENTLEMANThey that bear

The cloth of honour[58] over her, are four barons

Of the Cinque Ports.[59]

60

SECOND GENTLEMANThose men are happy,

And so are all are near her.

I take it she that carries up the train

Is that old noble lady, Duchess of Norfolk.

FIRST GENTLEMANIt is, and all the rest are countesses.

65

SECOND GENTLEMANTheir coronets say so. These are stars indeed,

And sometimes falling[66] ones.

FIRST GENTLEMANNo more of that.

[Exit the end of the procession,] and then a great flourish of Trumpets

Enter a Third Gentleman

FIRST GENTLEMANGod save you, sir. Where have you been broiling?[68]

THIRD GENTLEMANAmong the crowd i’th’Abbey,[69] where a finger

70

Could not be wedged in more: I am stifled

With the mere[71] rankness of their joy.

SECOND GENTLEMANYou saw

The ceremony?

THIRD GENTLEMANThat I did.

75

FIRST GENTLEMANHow was it?

THIRD GENTLEMANWell worth the seeing.

SECOND GENTLEMANGood sir, speak[77] it to us.

THIRD GENTLEMANAs well as I am able. The rich stream

Of lords and ladies, having brought the queen

80

To a prepared place in the choir, fell off[80]

A distance from her, while her grace sat down

To rest a while, some half an hour or so,

In a rich chair of state, opposing[83] freely

The beauty of her person to the people.

85

Believe me, sir, she is the goodliest[85] woman

That ever lay by man: which when the people

Had the full view of, such a noise arose[87]

As the shrouds[88] make at sea in a stiff tempest,

As loud, and to as many tunes. Hats, cloaks —

90

Doublets,[90] I think — flew up, and had their faces

Been loose, this day they had been lost. Such joy

I never saw before. Great-bellied[92] women,

That had not half a week to go, like rams[93]

In the old time of war, would shake the press[94]

95

And make ’em reel before ’em. No man living

Could say ‘This is my wife’ there, all were woven

So strangely in one piece.

SECOND GENTLEMANBut, what followed?

THIRD GENTLEMANAt length her grace rose, and with modest paces

100

Came to the altar, where she kneeled, and saint-like

Cast her fair eyes to heaven and prayed devoutly.

Then rose again and bowed her to the people:

When by the Archbishop of Canterbury

She had all the royal makings[104] of a queen,

105

As[105] holy oil, Edward Confessor’s crown,

The rod, and bird of peace, and all such emblems

Laid nobly on her: which performed, the choir,

With all the choicest music[108] of the kingdom,

Together sung Te Deum.[109] So she parted,

110

And with the same full state[110] paced back again

To York Place, where the feast is held.

FIRST GENTLEMANSir,

You must no more call it York Place, that’s past:

For, since the cardinal fell, that title’s lost:

115

’Tis now the king’s, and called Whitehall.

THIRD GENTLEMANI know it;

But ’tis so lately[117] altered, that the old name

Is fresh about me.

SECOND GENTLEMANWhat two reverend bishops

120

Were those that went on each side of the queen?

THIRD GENTLEMANStokesley and Gardiner, the one[121] of Winchester,

Newly preferred[122] from the king’s secretary:

The other, London.

SECOND GENTLEMANHe of Winchester

125

Is held no great good lover of the archbishop’s,

The virtuous Cranmer.

THIRD GENTLEMANAll the land knows that:

However, yet there is no great breach: when it comes,

Cranmer will[129] find a friend will not shrink from him.

130

SECOND GENTLEMANWho may that be, I pray you?

THIRD GENTLEMANThomas Cromwell;

A man in much esteem with th’king, and truly

A worthy friend. The king has made him

Master o’th’Jewel House,[134]

135

And one already of the Privy Council.

SECOND GENTLEMANHe will deserve more.

THIRD GENTLEMANYes, without all doubt.

Come, gentlemen, ye shall go my way,

Which is to th’court, and there ye shall be my guests:

140

Something[140] I can command. As I walk thither,

I’ll tell ye more.

FIRST and SECOND GENTLEMENYou may command us, sir.

Exeunt

Act 4 Scene 2*

running scene 11

Enter Katherine Dowager, sick, led between Griffith, her Gentleman-usher, and Patience, her Woman

GRIFFITHHow does your grace?

KATHERINEO Griffith, sick to death:

My legs like loaden[3] branches, bow to th’earth,

Willing to leave their burden. Reach a chair: She sits

5

So now, methinks, I feel a little ease.

Didst thou not tell me, Griffith, as thou led’st me,

That the great child of honour, Cardinal Wolsey, was dead?

GRIFFITHYes, madam, but I think your grace,

Out of the pain you suffered, gave no ear to’t.

10

KATHERINEPrithee, good Griffith, tell me how he died.

If well, he stepped before me happily[11]

For my example.

GRIFFITHWell, the voice[13] goes, madam:

For after the stout[14] Earl Northumberland

15

Arrested him at York, and brought him forward,[15]

As a man sorely tainted,[16] to his answer,

He fell sick suddenly, and grew so ill

He could not sit[18] his mule.

KATHERINEAlas, poor man.

20

GRIFFITHAt last, with easy roads,[20] he came to Leicester,

Lodged in the abbey, where the reverend abbot,

With all his convent,[22] honourably received him,

To whom he gave these words: ‘O father abbot,

An old man, broken with the storms of state,

25

Is come to lay his weary bones among ye:

Give him a little earth[26] for charity.’

So went to bed, where eagerly[27] his sickness

Pursued him still: and three nights after this,

About the hour of eight, which he himself

30

Foretold should be his last, full of repentance,

Continual meditations, tears, and sorrows,

He gave his honours to the world again,

His blessèd part[33] to heaven, and slept in peace.

KATHERINESo may he rest: his faults lie gently on him.

35

Yet thus far, Griffith, give me leave to speak[35] him,

And yet with charity. He was a man

Of an unbounded stomach,[37] ever ranking

Himself with princes: one that by suggestion[38]

Tied[39] all the kingdom. Simony was fair play:

40

His own opinion was his law. I’th’presence[40]

He would say untruths, and be ever double[41]

Both in his words and meaning. He was never,

But where he meant to ruin, pitiful.[43]

His promises were, as he then was, mighty:

45

But his performance, as he is now, nothing:

Of his own body[46] he was ill, and gave

The clergy ill example.

GRIFFITHNoble madam,

Men’s evil manners live in brass, their virtues

50

We write in water. May it please your highness

To hear me speak his good[51] now?

KATHERINEYes, good Griffith,

I were malicious else.

GRIFFITHThis cardinal,

55

Though from an humble stock, undoubtedly

Was fashioned to[56] much honour. From his cradle

He was a scholar, and a ripe[57] and good one:

Exceeding wise, fair-spoken, and persuading:

Lofty[59] and sour to them that loved him not:

60

But to those men that sought him, sweet as summer.

And though he were unsatisfied in getting,[61]

Which was a sin, yet in bestowing, madam,

He was most princely: ever witness for him

Those twins of learning that he raised in you,[64]

65

Ipswich and Oxford:[65] one of which fell with him,

Unwilling to outlive the good that did[66] it:

The other, though unfinished, yet so famous,

So excellent in art,[68] and still so rising,

That Christendom shall ever speak his virtue.

70

His overthrow heaped happiness upon him:

For then, and not till then, he felt himself,

And found the blessedness of being little.[72]

And, to add greater honours to his age

Than man could give him, he died fearing God.

75

KATHERINEAfter my death I wish no other herald,

No other speaker of my living actions,

To keep mine honour from corruption,

But such an honest chronicler as Griffith.

Whom[79] I most hated living, thou hast made me,

80

With thy religious[80] truth and modesty,

Now in his ashes honour: peace be with him.

Patience, be near me still, and set me lower:[82] To Patience

I have not long to trouble thee. Good Griffith,

Cause the musicians play me that sad note[84]

85

I named my knell,[85] whilst I sit meditating

On that celestial harmony[86] I go to. She sleeps

Sad and solemn music

GRIFFITHShe is asleep: good wench, let’s sit down quiet

For fear we wake her. Softly, gentle Patience.

The Vision

Enter, solemnly tripping one after another, six personages, clad in white robes, wearing on their heads garlands of bays, and golden vizards on their faces, branches of bays or palm in their hands. They first congee unto her, then dance: and at certain changes, the first two hold a spare garland over her head, at which the other four make reverent curtsies. Then the two that held the garland deliver the same to the other next two, who observe the same order in their changes, and holding the garland over her head. Which done, they deliver the same garland to the last two, who likewise observe the same order. At which, as it were by inspiration, she makes in her sleep signs of rejoicing, and holdeth up her hands to heaven. And so, in their dancing vanish, carrying the garland with them. The music continues

KATHERINESpirits of peace, where are ye? Are ye all gone,

90

And leave me here in wretchedness behind ye?

GRIFFITHMadam, we are here.

KATHERINEIt is not you I call for:

Saw ye none enter since I slept?

GRIFFITHNone, madam.

95

KATHERINENo? Saw you not even now a blessèd troop

Invite me to a banquet, whose bright faces

Cast thousand beams upon me, like the sun?

They promised me eternal happiness,

And brought me garlands, Griffith, which I feel

100

I am not worthy yet to wear: I shall, assuredly.

GRIFFITHI am most joyful, madam, such good dreams

Possess your fancy.[102]

KATHERINEBid the music leave,[103]

They are harsh and heavy[104] to me.

Music ceases

105

PATIENCEDo you note Patience and Griffith speak aside

How much her grace is altered on the sudden?

How long her face is drawn? How pale she looks,

And of an earthy cold? Mark her eyes!

GRIFFITHShe is going, wench: pray, pray.

110

PATIENCEHeaven comfort her.

Enter a Messenger

MESSENGERAn’t[111] like your grace—

KATHERINEYou are a saucy[112] fellow:

Deserve we no more reverence?

GRIFFITHYou are to blame, To the Messenger

115

Knowing she will not lose[115] her wonted greatness,

To use so rude behaviour. Go to, kneel.

MESSENGERI humbly do entreat your highness’ pardon:

My haste made me unmannerly. There is staying[118]

A gentleman sent from the king to see you.

120

KATHERINEAdmit him entrance, Griffith. But this fellow

Let me ne’er see again.

Exit Messenger

Enter Lord Caputius [ushered by Griffith]

If my sight fail not,

You should be lord ambassador from the emperor,[122]

My royal nephew, and your name Caputius.

CAPUTIUSMadam, the same. Your servant.

125

KATHERINEO my lord,

The times and titles now are altered strangely

With me since first you knew me. But I pray you,

What is your pleasure with me?

CAPUTIUSNoble lady,

130

First mine own service to your grace: the next,

The king’s request that I would visit you,

Who grieves much for your weakness, and by me

Sends you his princely commendations,

And heartily entreats you take good comfort.

135

KATHERINEO my good lord, that comfort comes too late,

’Tis like a pardon after execution:

That gentle physic[137] given in time had cured me,

But now I am past all comforts here but prayers.

How does his highness?

140

CAPUTIUSMadam, in good health.

KATHERINESo may he ever do, and ever flourish,

When I shall dwell with worms, and my poor name

Banished the kingdom. Patience, is that letter

I caused you write yet sent away?

145

PATIENCENo, madam. Gives it to Katherine

KATHERINESir, I most humbly pray you to deliver

This to my lord the king. Gives the letter to Caputius

CAPUTIUSMost willing,[148] madam.

KATHERINEIn which I have commended to his goodness

150

The model[150] of our chaste loves, his young daughter —

The dews of heaven fall thick in blessings on her —

Beseeching him to give her virtuous breeding.[152]

She is young, and of a noble modest nature:

I hope she will deserve well — and a little

155

To love her for her mother’s sake, that loved him,

Heaven knows how dearly. My next poor petition

Is that his noble grace would have some pity

Upon my wretched women, that so long

Have followed both my fortunes[159] faithfully:

160

Of which there is not one, I dare avow,

And now I should not lie, but will deserve

For virtue and true beauty of the soul,

For honesty[163] and decent carriage,

A right good husband — let him be a noble —

165

And sure those men are happy[165] that shall have ’em.

The last is for my men — they are the poorest,

But poverty could never draw ’em from me —

That they may have their wages duly paid ’em,

And something over[169] to remember me by.

170

If heaven had pleased to have given me longer life

And able[171] means, we had not parted thus.

These are the whole contents, and, good my lord,

By that you love the dearest in this world,

As you wish Christian peace to souls departed,

175

Stand these poor people’s friend, and urge the king

To do me this last right.

CAPUTIUSBy heaven, I will,

Or let me lose the fashion[178] of a man.

KATHERINEI thank you, honest[179] lord. Remember me

180

In all humility unto his highness:

Say his long trouble now is passing

Out of this world. Tell him in death I blessed him,

For so I will. Mine eyes grow dim. Farewell,

My lord. Griffith, farewell. Nay, Patience,

185

You must not leave me yet. I must to bed:

Call in more women. When I am dead, good wench,

Let me be used[187] with honour: strew me over

With maiden flowers,[188] that all the world may know

I was a chaste wife to my grave: embalm me,

190

Then lay me forth:[190] although unqueened, yet like

A queen and daughter to a king inter me.

I can[192] no more.

Exeunt leading Katherine

Act 5 Scene 15.1

running scene 12

Enter Gardiner, Bishop of Winchester, a Page with a torch before him, met by Sir Thomas Lovell

GARDINERIt’s one o’clock, boy, is’t not?

PAGEIt hath struck.

GARDINERThese should be hours for necessities,[3]

Not for delights: times to repair our nature

5

With comforting repose, and not for us

To waste these times. Good hour of night, Sir Thomas:

Whither[7] so late?

LOVELLCame you from the king, my lord?

GARDINERI did, Sir Thomas, and left him at primero[9]

10

With the Duke of Suffolk.

LOVELLI must[11] to him too,

Before he go to bed. I’ll take my leave.

GARDINERNot yet, Sir Thomas Lovell. What’s the matter?

It seems you are in haste: an if[14] there be

15

No great offence[15] belongs to’t, give your friend

Some touch[16] of your late business: affairs that walk,

As they say spirits do, at midnight, have

In them a wilder nature than the business

That seeks dispatch by day.

20

LOVELLMy lord, I love you,

And durst commend[21] a secret to your ear

Much weightier than this work.[22] The queen’s in labour —

They say in great extremity — and feared[23]

She’ll with the labour end.

25

GARDINERThe fruit[25] she goes with

I pray for heartily, that it may find

Good time,[27] and live: but for the stock, Sir Thomas,

I wish it grubbed up[28] now.

LOVELLMethinks I could

30

Cry the amen,[30] and yet my conscience says

She’s a good creature and, sweet lady, does

Deserve our better wishes.

GARDINERBut, sir, sir,

Hear me, Sir Thomas: you’re a gentleman

35

Of mine own way.[35] I know you wise, religious,

And let me tell you, it will ne’er be well —

’Twill not, Sir Thomas Lovell, take’t of me —

Till Cranmer, Cromwell, her two hands,[38] and she

Sleep in their graves.

40

LOVELLNow, sir, you speak of two

The most remarked[41] i’th’kingdom. As for Cromwell,

Beside that of the Jewel House, is made Master

O’th’Rolls[42] and the king’s secretary. Further, sir,

Stands in the gap and trade[44] of more preferments,

45

With which the time[45] will load him. Th’archbishop

Is the king’s hand and tongue, and who dare speak

One syllable against him?

GARDINERYes, yes, Sir Thomas,

There are[49] that dare, and I myself have ventured

50

To speak my mind of him: and indeed this day,

Sir, I may tell it you, I think I have

Incensed[52] the lords o’th’council, that he is —

For so I know he is, they know he is —

A most arch-heretic,[54] a pestilence

55

That does infect the land: with which they, moved,[55]

Have broken[56] with the king, who hath so far

Given ear to our complaint, of his great grace

And princely care, foreseeing those fell[58] mischiefs

Our reasons laid before him, hath commanded

60

Tomorrow morning to the council board

He be convented.[61] He’s a rank weed, Sir Thomas,

And we must root him out. From your affairs

I hinder you too long. Goodnight, Sir Thomas.

LOVELLMany good nights, my lord: I rest[64] your servant.

Exeunt Gardiner and Page

Enter King [Henry] and Suffolk

65

KING HENRY VIIICharles, I will play no more tonight: To Suffolk

My mind’s not on’t: you are too hard[66] for me.

SUFFOLKSir, I did never win of you before.

KING HENRY VIIIBut little, Charles,

Nor shall not when my fancy’s[69] on my play.

70

Now, Lovell, from the queen what is the news?

LOVELLI could not personally deliver to her

What you commanded me, but by her woman

I sent your message, who returned her thanks

In the great’st humbleness, and desired your highness

75

Most heartily to pray for her.

KING HENRY VIIIWhat say’st thou? Ha?

To pray for her? What, is she crying out?

LOVELLSo said her woman, and that her suff’rance[78] made

Almost each pang a death.

80

KING HENRY VIIIAlas, good lady.

SUFFOLKGod[81] safely quit her of her burden, and

With gentle travail,[82] to the gladding of

Your highness with an heir!

KING HENRY VIII’Tis midnight, Charles.

85

Prithee to bed, and in thy prayers remember

Th’estate[86] of my poor queen. Leave me alone,

For I must think of that which company

Would not be friendly to.

SUFFOLKI wish your highness

90

A quiet night, and my good mistress will

Remember in my prayers.

KING HENRY VIIICharles, goodnight.

Exit Suffolk

Enter Sir Anthony Denny

Well, sir, what follows?

DENNYSir, I have brought my lord the archbishop,

95

As you commanded me.

KING HENRY VIIIHa? Canterbury?

DENNYAy, my good lord.

KING HENRY VIII’Tis true: where is he, Denny?

DENNYHe attends[99] your highness’ pleasure.

100

KING HENRY VIIIBring him to us.

[Exit Denny]

LOVELLThis is about that which the bishop[101] spake. Aside

I am happily[102] come hither.

Enter Cranmer and Denny

KING HENRY VIIIAvoid[103] the gallery.

Lovell seems to stay

Ha? I have said. Be gone.

Exeunt Lovell and Denny

What?

105

CRANMERI am fearful: wherefore frowns he thus? Aside

’Tis his aspect of terror.[106] All’s not well.

KING HENRY VIIIHow now, my lord? You desire to know

Wherefore I sent for you.

CRANMERIt is my duty He kneels

110

T’attend your highness’ pleasure.

KING HENRY VIIIPray you, arise,

My good and gracious lord of Canterbury.

Come, you and I must walk a turn together:

I have news to tell you. Come, come, give me your hand. Cranmer stands. They walk

115

Ah, my good lord, I grieve at what I speak,

And am right sorry to repeat what follows.

I have, and most unwillingly, of late

Heard many grievous[118] — I do say, my lord,

Grievous — complaints of you, which, being considered,

120

Have moved[120] us and our council, that you shall

This morning come before us, where I know

You cannot with such freedom[122] purge yourself,

But that, till further trial in those charges

Which will require your answer, you must take[124]

125

Your patience to you, and be well contented

To make your house our Tower.[126] You a brother of us,

It fits[127] we thus proceed, or else no witness

Would come against you.

CRANMERI humbly thank your highness, He kneels

130

And am right glad to catch this good occasion

Most throughly[131] to be winnowed, where my chaff

And corn shall fly asunder. For I know

There’s none stands under[133] more calumnious tongues

Than I myself, poor man.

135

KING HENRY VIIIStand up, good Canterbury:

Thy truth and thy integrity is rooted

In us, thy friend. Give me thy hand, stand up:

Prithee, let’s walk. Now, by my halidom,[138] Cranmer stands. They walk

What manner of man are you? My lord, I looked[139]

140

You would have given[140] me your petition that

I should have ta’en some pains to bring together

Yourself and your accusers, and to have heard you

Without endurance further.[143]

CRANMERMost dread[144] liege,

145

The good I stand on is my truth and honesty:

If they shall fail, I with mine enemies

Will triumph[147] o’er my person, which I weigh not,

Being[148] of those virtues vacant. I fear nothing

What can be said against me.

150

KING HENRY VIIIKnow you not

How your state stands i’th’world, with the whole world?

Your enemies are many, and not small:[152] their practices

Must bear[153] the same proportion, and not ever

The justice and the truth o’th’question carries

155

The dew o’th’verdict[155] with it: at what ease

Might corrupt minds procure knaves as corrupt

To swear[157] against you? Such things have been done.

You are potently opposed, and with a malice

Of as great size. Ween you of[159] better luck —

160

I mean in perjured witness[160] — than your master,

Whose minister you are, whiles here he lived

Upon this naughty[162] earth? Go to, go to:

You take[163] a precipice for no leap of danger,

And woo[164] your own destruction.

165

CRANMERGod and your majesty

Protect mine innocence, or I fall into

The trap is[167] laid for me.

KING HENRY VIIIBe of good cheer:

They shall no more prevail than we give way[169] to.

170

Keep comfort to you, and this morning see

You do appear before them. If they shall chance,[171]

In charging you with matters, to commit[172] you,

The best persuasions to the contrary

Fail not to use, and with what vehemency

175

Th’occasion shall instruct you. If entreaties

Will render you no remedy, this ring

Deliver them, and your appeal to us

There make before them. Look, the good man weeps: Cranmer weeps

He’s honest, on mine honour. God’s blest mother,

180

I swear he is true-hearted, and a soul

None better in my kingdom. Get you gone,

And do as I have bid you.

Exit Cranmer

He has strangled

His language in his tears.

Enter Old Lady

LOVELLCome back: what mean you? Within

185

OLD LADYI’ll not come back: the tidings that I bring

Will make my boldness manners.— Now[186] good angels To the King

Fly o’er thy royal head, and shade thy person

Under their blessèd wings.

KING HENRY VIIINow by thy looks

190

I guess thy message. Is[190] the queen delivered?

Say, ‘Ay, and of a boy.’

OLD LADYAy, ay, my liege,

And of a lovely boy: the God of heaven

Both now and ever bless her. ’Tis a girl[194]

195

Promises[195] boys hereafter. Sir, your queen

Desires your visitation, and[196] to be

Acquainted with this stranger: ’tis as like you

As cherry is to cherry.

KING HENRY VIIILovell.

200

LOVELLSir?

KING HENRY VIIIGive her an hundred marks.[201] I’ll to the queen.

Exit King

OLD LADYAn hundred marks? By this light, I’ll ha’ more.

An ordinary groom[203] is for such payment.

I will have more, or scold it out of him.

205

Said I for this, the girl was like to him? I’ll

Have more, or else unsay’t: and now, while ’tis hot,[206]

I’ll put[207] it to the issue.

Exit [Old] Lady [with Lovell]

Act 5 Scene 2

running scene 13

Enter Cranmer, Archbishop of Canterbury

CRANMERI hope I am not too late, and yet the gentleman

That was sent to me from the council prayed me

To make great haste. All fast?[3] What means this? Ho!

Who waits there?

Enter [Door] Keeper

Sure[4] you know me?

5

KEEPERYes, my lord,

But yet I cannot help you.

CRANMERWhy?

KEEPERYour grace must wait till you be called for.

Enter Doctor Butts [passing over the stage]

CRANMERSo.[9]

10

DOCTOR BUTTSThis is a piece of malice. I am glad Aside

I came this way so happily.[11] The king

Shall understand it presently.[12]

Exit [Doctor] Butts

CRANMER’Tis Butts, Aside

The king’s physician: as he passed along

15

How earnestly he cast his eyes upon me:

Pray heaven he sound[16] not my disgrace: for certain

This is of purpose laid[17] by some that hate me —

God turn[18] their hearts, I never sought their malice —

To quench mine honour: they would shame to make me

20

Wait else at door, a fellow councillor,

’Mong boys, grooms, and lackeys. But their pleasures

Must be fulfilled, and I attend[22] with patience.

Enter the King [Henry] and [Doctor] Butts at a window above

DOCTOR BUTTSI’ll show your grace the strangest sight—

KING HENRY VIIIWhat’s that, Butts?

25

DOCTOR BUTTSI think your highness saw this many a day.

KING HENRY VIIIBody o’me,[26] where is it?

DOCTOR BUTTSThere, my lord:

The high promotion of his grace of Canterbury,

Who[29] holds his state at door, ’mongst pursuivants,

30

Pages, and footboys.[30]

KING HENRY VIIIHa? ’Tis he, indeed.

Is this the honour they do one another?

’Tis well there’s one above ’em[33] yet: I had thought

They had parted[34] so much honesty among ’em —

35

At least good manners — as not thus to suffer[35]

A man of his place,[36] and so near our favour,

To dance attendance[37] on their lordships’ pleasures —

And at the door, too, like a post[38] with packets.

By holy Mary, Butts, there’s knavery:

40

Let ’em alone, and draw the curtain close:[40]

We shall hear more anon.

[Exeunt above]

A council table brought in with chairs and stools, and placed under the state. Enter Lord Chancellor, places himself at the upper end of the table, on the left hand: a seat being left void above him, as for Canterbury’s seat. Duke of Suffolk, Duke of Norfolk, Surrey, Lord Chamberlain, Gardiner, seat themselves in order on each side. Cromwell at lower end, as secretary

CHANCELLORSpeak to the business, master secretary: To Cromwell

Why are we met in council?

CROMWELLPlease your honours,

45

The chief cause concerns his grace of Canterbury.

GARDINERHas he had knowledge of it?

CROMWELLYes.

NORFOLKWho waits there?

KEEPERWithout,[49] my noble lords?

50

GARDINERYes.

KEEPERMy lord archbishop:

And has done half an hour to know your pleasures.

CHANCELLORLet him come in.

KEEPERYour grace may enter now.

Cranmer [enters below and] approaches the council table

55

CHANCELLORMy good lord archbishop, I’m very sorry

To sit here at this present,[56] and behold

That chair[57] stand empty: but we all are men,

In our own natures frail, and capable[58]

Of our flesh:[59] few are angels: out of which frailty

60

And want[60] of wisdom, you that best should teach us,

Have misdemeaned yourself,[61] and not a little:

Toward the king first, then his laws, in filling

The whole realm, by your teaching and your chaplains —

For so we are informed — with new opinions,

65

Divers[65] and dangerous, which are heresies,

And, not reformed, may prove pernicious.[66]

GARDINERWhich reformation must be sudden too,

My noble lords, for those that tame wild horses

Pace[69] ’em not in their hands to make ’em gentle,

70

But stop their mouths with stubborn[70] bits and spur ’em

Till they obey the manage.[71] If we suffer,

Out of our easiness[72] and childish pity

To one man’s honour, this contagious sickness,

Farewell all physic:[74] and what follows then?

75

Commotions, uproars, with a general taint[75]

Of the whole state, as of late days our neighbours,

The upper[77] Germany, can dearly witness,

Yet freshly pitied in our memories.

CRANMERMy good lords, hitherto, in all the progress

80

Both of my life and office, I have laboured,

And with no little study, that my teaching

And the strong course[82] of my authority

Might go one way, and safely: and the end

Was ever to do well: nor is there living —

85

I speak it with a single[85] heart, my lords —

A man that more detests, more stirs against,

Both in his private conscience and his place,[87]

Defacers of a public peace than I do:

Pray heaven the king may never find a heart

90

With less allegiance in it. Men that make

Envy and crooked malice nourishment

Dare bite the best. I do beseech your lordships

That in this case of justice, my accusers,

Be what they will, may stand forth face to face,

95

And freely urge[95] against me.

SUFFOLKNay, my lord,

That cannot be: you are a councillor,

And by that virtue[98] no man dare accuse you.

GARDINERMy lord, because we have business of more moment,[99]

100

We will be short[100] with you. ’Tis his highness’ pleasure

And our consent, for better trial of you,

From hence you be committed to the Tower,

Where being but a private[103] man again,

You shall know many dare accuse you boldly,

105

More than, I fear, you are provided[105] for.

CRANMERAh, my good lord of Winchester, I thank you:

You are always my good friend: if your will pass,[107]

I shall both find your lordship judge and juror,

You are so merciful. I see your end:[109]

110

’Tis my undoing. Love and meekness, lord,

Become[111] a churchman better than ambition:

Win straying souls with modesty again:

Cast none away. That I shall clear myself,

Lay all the weight ye can upon my patience,

115

I make as little doubt[115] as you do conscience

In doing daily wrongs. I could say more,

But reverence to your calling makes me modest.

GARDINERMy lord, my lord, you are a sectary,[118]

That’s the plain truth: your painted[119] gloss discovers

120

To men that understand you words[120] and weakness.

CROMWELLMy lord of Winchester, you’re a little,

By[122] your good favour, too sharp: men so noble,

However faulty, yet should find respect

For what they have been: ’tis a cruelty

125

To load a falling man.

GARDINERGood Master Secretary,

I cry[127] your honour mercy: you may worst

Of all this table say so.

CROMWELLWhy, my lord?

130

GARDINERDo not I know you for a favourer

Of this new sect? Ye are not sound.[131]

CROMWELLNot sound?

GARDINERNot sound, I say.

CROMWELLWould you were half so honest:

135

Men’s prayers then would seek you, not their fears.

GARDINERI shall remember this bold[136] language.

CROMWELLDo.

Remember your bold life, too.

CHANCELLORThis is too much:

140

Forbear[140] for shame, my lords.

GARDINERI have done.

CROMWELLAnd I.

CHANCELLORThen thus for you, my lord: it stands agreed, To Cranmer

I take it, by all voices, that forthwith

145

You be conveyed to th’Tower a prisoner,

There to remain till the king’s further pleasure

Be known unto us: are you all agreed, lords?

ALLWe are.

CRANMERIs there no other way of mercy,

150

But I must needs to th’Tower, my lords?

GARDINERWhat other

Would you expect? You are strangely troublesome:

Let some o’th’guard be ready there.

Enter the Guard

CRANMERFor me?

155

Must I go like a traitor thither?

GARDINERReceive[156] him, To the Guard

And see him safe[157] i’th’Tower.

CRANMERStay, good my lords,

I have a little yet to say. Look there, my lords, He shows the King’s ring

160

By virtue of that ring, I take my cause

Out of the gripes[161] of cruel men, and give it

To a most noble judge, the king my master.

CHAMBERLAIN[163]This is the king’s ring.

SURREY’Tis no counterfeit.

165

SUFFOLK’Tis the right ring, by heaven: I told ye all,

When we first put this dangerous stone a-rolling,

’Twould fall upon ourselves.

NORFOLKDo you think, my lords,

The king will suffer but the little finger

170

Of this man to be vexed?

CHAMBERLAIN’Tis now too certain:

How much more is his life in value with him?[172]

Would I were fairly out on’t.[173]

CROMWELLMy mind gave[174] me,

175

In seeking tales and informations[175]

Against this man, whose honesty the devil

And his disciples only envy at,

Ye blew the fire that burns ye: now have at ye!

Enter King [Henry] frowning on them: takes his seat

GARDINERDread sovereign, how much are we bound to heaven

180

In daily thanks, that gave us such a prince,

Not only good and wise, but most religious:

One that, in all obedience, makes the Church

The chief aim[183] of his honour and, to strengthen

That holy duty out of dear respect,[184]

185

His royal self in judgement comes to hear

The cause betwixt her and this great offender.

KING HENRY VIIIYou were ever good at sudden[187] commendations,

Bishop of Winchester. But know I come not

To hear such flattery now, and in my presence

190

They[190] are too thin and base to hide offences:

To me you cannot reach. You play the spaniel,

And think with wagging of your tongue to win me:

But whatsoe’er thou tak’st me for, I’m sure

Thou hast a cruel nature and a bloody.[194]—

195

Good man, sit down.— Now let me see the proudest

He,[196] that dares most, but wag his finger at thee. To Cranmer, who sits in vacant seat at head of table

By all that’s holy, he had better starve[197]

Than but once think his place becomes thee not.

SURREYMay it please your grace—

200

KING HENRY VIIINo, sir, it does not please me.

I had thought I had had men of some understanding

And wisdom of my council, but I find none.

Was it discretion,[203] lords, to let this man,

This good man — few of you deserve that title —

205

This honest man, wait like a lousy footboy

At chamber door? And one as great as you are?

Why, what a shame was this? Did my commission

Bid ye so far forget yourselves? I gave ye

Power as he was a councillor to try[209] him,

210

Not as a groom. There’s some of ye, I see,

More out of malice than integrity,

Would try him to the utmost, had ye mean,[212]

Which ye shall never have while I live.

CHANCELLORThus far,

215

My most dread sovereign, may it like[215] your grace

To let my tongue excuse all. What was purposed[216]

Concerning his imprisonment, was rather —

If there be faith in men — meant for his trial,

And fair purgation[219] to the world than malice,

220

I’m sure, in me.

KING HENRY VIIIWell, well, my lords, respect him:

Take him, and use[222] him well: he’s worthy of it.

I will say thus much for him: if a prince

May be beholding to a subject, I

225

Am for his love and service so to him.

Make me no more ado,[226] but all embrace him:

Be friends, for shame, my lords.— My lord of Canterbury, To Cranmer

I have a suit which you must not deny me:

That is, a fair young maid that yet wants[229] baptism:

230

You must be godfather, and answer for her.

CRANMERThe greatest monarch now alive may glory

In such an honour: how may I deserve it

That am a poor and humble subject to you?

KING HENRY VIIICome, come, my lord, you’d spare your spoons:[234] you shall have two

235

noble partners with you: the old Duchess of Norfolk, and Lady Marquess Dorset:

will these please you?

Once more, my lord of Winchester, I charge you To Gardiner

Embrace and love this man.

GARDINERWith a true heart He embraces Cranmer

240

And brother-love I do it.

CRANMERAnd let heaven He weeps

Witness how dear I hold this confirmation.

KING HENRY VIIIGood man, those joyful tears show thy true heart:

The common voice,[244] I see, is verified

245

Of thee, which says thus: ‘Do my lord of Canterbury

A shrewd[246] turn, and he’s your friend for ever.’

Come, lords, we trifle time away: I long

To have this young one made a Christian.

As I have made ye one,[249] lords, one remain:

250

So I grow stronger, you more honour gain.

Exeunt

Act 5 Scene 35.3

running scene 14

Noise and tumult within: enter Porter [with a broken cudgel] and his Man

PORTERYou’ll leave[1] your noise anon, ye rascals: To those within do you take the court for Paris Garden? Ye rude[2] slaves, leave your gaping.

[VOICE] WITHINGood master porter, I belong to[3] th’larder.

PORTERBelong to th’gallows, and be hanged, ye rogue! Is this a place to roar in?—

Fetch me a dozen crab-tree[5] staves, and strong ones: To his Man these are but switches to ’em.— To those within I’ll scratch[6] your heads: you must be seeing christenings? Do you look for ale and cakes here, you rude rascals?

MANPray, sir, be patient: ’tis as much impossible,

Unless we sweep ’em from the door with cannons,

10

To scatter ’em, as ’tis to make ’em sleep

On May-day morning,[11] which will never be:

We may as well push against Paul’s,[12] as stir ’em.

PORTERHow got they in, and be hanged?[13]

MANAlas, I know not: how gets the tide in?

15

As much as one sound cudgel of four foot —

You see the poor remainder — could distribute, Holds up the cudgel

I made no spare,[17] sir.

PORTERYou did nothing, sir.

MANI am not Samson,[19] nor Sir Guy, nor Colbrand,

20

To mow ’em down before me: but if I spared any

That had a head to hit, either young or old,

He or she, cuckold[22] or cuckold-maker,

Let me ne’er hope to see a chine[23] again,

And that I would not for a cow,[24] God save her!

25

[VOICE] WITHINDo you hear, master porter?

PORTERI shall be with you presently,[26] good master puppy.—

Keep the door close,[27] sirrah. To his Man

MANWhat would you have me do?

PORTERWhat should you do, but knock ’em down by th’dozens? Is this Moorfields[29] to muster[30] in? Or have we some strange Indian with the great tool come to court, the women so besiege us? Bless me, what a fry[31] of fornication is at door! On my Christian conscience, this one christening will beget a thousand: here will be father, godfather, and all together.

MANThe spoons[34] will be the bigger, sir. There is a fellow somewhat near the door, he should be a brazier[35] by his face, for, o’my conscience twenty of the dog-days now reign in’s nose:[36] all that stand about him are under the line, they need no other penance: that fire-drake[37] did I hit three times on the head, and three times was his nose discharged[38] against me: he stands there like a mortar-piece, to blow[39] us. There was a haberdasher’s wife of small wit near him, that railed upon me till her pinked[40] porringer fell off her head, for kindling such a combustion in the state. I missed the meteor[41] once, and hit that woman, who cried out ‘Clubs!’, when I might see from far some forty truncheoners[42] draw to her succour, which were the hope o’th’Strand,[43] where she was quartered. They fell on: I made good my place: at length they came[44] to th’broomstaff to me: I defied ’em still, when suddenly a file of boys behind ’em, loose shot,[45] delivered such a shower of pebbles, that I was fain[46] to draw mine honour in, and let ’em win the work: the devil was amongst ’em, I think, surely.

PORTERThese are the youths[48] that thunder at a playhouse, and fight for bitten apples, that no audience but the tribulation[49] of Tower Hill, or the limbs of Limehouse,[50] their dear brothers, are able to endure. I have some of ’em in limbo patrum, and there they are like[51] to dance these three days, besides the running banquet of two beadles[52] that is to come.

Enter Lord Chamberlain

CHAMBERLAINMercy o’me: what a multitude are here!

They grow still, too: from all parts they are coming,

55

As if we kept a fair here! Where are these porters,

These lazy knaves?— You’ve made[56] a fine hand, fellows: To the Porter and his Man

There’s a trim[57] rabble let in: are all these

Your faithful friends[58] o’th’suburbs? We shall have

Great[59] store of room, no doubt, left for the ladies,

60

When they pass back from the christening!

PORTERAn’t[61] please your honour,

We are but men, and what so many may do,

Not being torn a-pieces, we have done:

An army cannot rule[64] ’em.

65

CHAMBERLAINAs I live,

If the king blame me for’t, I’ll lay[66] ye all

By th’heels, and suddenly,[67] and on your heads

Clap round[68] fines for neglect: you’re lazy knaves,

And here ye lie baiting of bombards,[69] when

70

Ye should do service.[70] Hark, the trumpets sound: Trumpet

They’re come already from the christening:

Go break among[72] the press, and find a way out

To let the troop[73] pass fairly, or I’ll find

A Marshalsea[74] shall hold ye play these two months.

75

PORTERMake way there for the princess.

MANYou great fellow,

Stand close up,[77] or I’ll make your head ache.

PORTERYou i’th’camlet,[78] get up o’th’rail:

I’ll peck[79] you o’er the pales else.

Exeunt

Act 5 Scene 4

running scene 15

Enter Trumpets* sounding: then two Aldermen, Lord Mayor, Garter, Cranmer, Duke of Norfolk with his Marshal’s staff, Duke of Suffolk, two Noblemen bearing great standing bowls for the christening gifts: then four Noblemen bearing a canopy, under which the Duchess of Norfolk, godmother, bearing the child richly habited in a mantle, etc., train borne by a Lady: then follows the Marchioness Dorset, the other godmother, and Ladies. The troop pass once about the stage, and Garter speaks

GARTERHeaven, from thy endless goodness, send prosperous life, long, and ever

happy, to the high and mighty Princess of England, Elizabeth.

Flourish. Enter King [Henry] and Guard

CRANMERAnd to your royal grace, and the good queen, He kneels

My noble partners[4] and myself thus pray

5

All comfort, joy, in this most gracious lady,

Heaven ever laid[6] up to make parents happy,

May hourly fall upon ye.

KING HENRY VIIIThank you, good lord archbishop:

What is her name?

10

CRANMERElizabeth.

KING HENRY VIIIStand up, lord.

With this kiss take my blessing: God protect thee, He kisses the child

Into whose hand I give thy life.

CRANMERAmen.

15

KING HENRY VIIIMy noble gossips,[15] you’ve been too prodigal:

I thank ye heartily: so shall this lady,

When she has so much English.

CRANMERLet me speak, sir,

For heaven now bids me: and the words I utter

20

Let none think flattery, for they’ll find ’em truth.

This royal infant — heaven[21] still move about her —

Though in her cradle, yet now promises

Upon this land a thousand thousand blessings,

Which time shall bring to ripeness: she shall be —

25

But few now living can behold that goodness —

A pattern[26] to all princes living with her,

And all that shall succeed: Saba[27] was never

More covetous of wisdom and fair virtue

Than this pure soul shall be. All princely graces

30

That mould up[30] such a mighty piece as this is,

With all the virtues that attend the good,

Shall still[32] be doubled on her. Truth shall nurse her,

Holy and heavenly thoughts still counsel her:

She shall be loved and feared. Her own[34] shall bless her:

35

Her foes shake like a field of beaten[35] corn,

And hang their heads with sorrow: good grows with her.

In her days, every man shall eat in safety

Under his own vine what he plants, and sing

The merry songs of peace to all his neighbours.

40

God[40] shall be truly known, and those about her

From her shall read[41] the perfect ways of honour,

And by those claim their greatness,[42] not by blood.

Nor shall this peace sleep[43] with her: but as when

The bird of wonder dies, the maiden phoenix,[44]

45

Her ashes new create another heir,

As great in admiration[46] as herself.

So shall she leave her blessedness to one,[47]

When heaven shall call her from this cloud of darkness,[48]

Who from the sacred ashes of her honour

50

Shall star-like rise, as great in fame as she was,

And so stand fixed.[51] Peace, plenty, love, truth, terror,

That were the servants to this chosen infant,

Shall then be his, and like a vine grow to him:

Wherever the bright sun of heaven shall shine,

55

His honour and the greatness of his name

Shall be, and make new nations. He shall flourish,

And like a mountain cedar, reach his branches

To all the plains about him: our children’s children

Shall see this, and bless heaven.

60

KING HENRY VIIIThou speakest wonders.

CRANMERShe shall be to the happiness of England

An agèd princess: many days shall see her,

And yet no day without a deed[63] to crown it.

Would[64] I had known no more: but she must die,

65

She must, the saints must have her: yet a virgin,

A most unspotted lily shall she pass

To th’ground, and all the world shall mourn her.

KING HENRY VIIIO lord archbishop,

Thou hast made me now a man. Never before

70

This happy child did I get[70] anything.

This oracle of comfort has so pleased me,

That when I am in heaven I shall desire

To see what this child does, and praise my maker.

I thank ye all. To you, my good Lord Mayor,

75

And your good brethren, I am much beholding:[75]

I have received much honour by your presence,

And ye shall find me thankful. Lead the way, lords:

Ye must all see the queen, and she must thank ye:

She will be sick[79] else. This day, no man think

80

H’as[80] business at his house, for all shall stay:

This little one shall make it holiday.[81]

Exeunt

The Epilogue

[Enter Epilogue]

’Tis ten to one this play can never please

All that are here: some come to take their ease,

And sleep an act or two: but those, we fear,

We’ve frighted with our trumpets: so ’tis clear,

5

They’ll say ’tis naught.[5] Others to hear the city

Abused extremely, and to cry ‘That’s witty!’

Which we have not done neither: that,[7] I fear

All the expected good we’re like to hear.

For this play at this time, is only in

10

The merciful construction[10] of good women,

For such a one[11] we showed ’em. If they smile,

And say ’twill do, I know within a while

All the best men are ours, for ’tis ill hap[13]

If they hold[14] when their ladies bid ’em clap.

[Exit]

Textual Notes

F = First Folio text of 1623, the only authority for the play

F2 = a correction introduced in the Second Folio text of 1632

F3 = a correction introduced in the Third Folio text of 1663–64

F4 = a correction introduced in the Fourth Folio text of 1685

Ed = a correction introduced by a later editor

SD = stage direction

SH = speech heading (i.e., speaker’s name)

List of parts = Ed

THE…EIGHTH Various contemporary references suggest the play was performed as “All is True”

1.1.9 Andres = Ed. F = Andren. Ed = Ardres 10 Guînes = Ed. F = Guynes Ardres = Ed. F = Arde 28 cherubins = F. Ed = cherubim/cherubims madams = F. Ed = mesdames 48–51 All…function F assigns these lines to Buckingham who states he wasn’t present. This edition follows editorial tradition in reassigning them to Norfolk 54 as you guess this edition follows F4’s assignation of these words to Buckingham, whereas F places them at the beginning of Norfolk’s reply 72 a = Ed. F = O 142 venom-mouthed = Ed. F = venom’d-mouth’d 196 wrenching = F. Ed = rinsing 213 He privily = F2. F = Priuily. 255 Montague spelled Mountacute in F 257 Perk = Ed. F = Pecke. Emendation is based on Holinshed and Hall’s accounts chancellor = Ed. F = Councellour. The emendation is made in accordance with Holinshed’s account 261 Nicholas = Ed. F = Michaell. The emendation is made in accordance with Holinshed’s account 267 lord = Ed. F = Lords

1.2.75 baseness = F. Ed = business 154 His = Ed. F = This 165, 166 Hopkins = Ed. F = Henton. Henton was the name of Hopkins’ monastery 176 feared = Ed. F = feare 184 confession’s = Ed. F = Commissions 190 gain = F4. Not in F; other suggestions are win and purchase 203 him = Ed. F = this 216 Bulmer = Ed. F = Blumer

1.3.0 SD Sands spelled Sandys in F 13 see = F. Ed = saw 14 Or = Ed. F = A 17 SD Enter…Lovell = Ed. Two lines down in F 39 oui = Ed. F = wee. F2 = weare 72 he’s = Ed. F = Ha’s. Ed = ’has

1.4.6 first = F. Ed = feast

2.1.26 Perk = Ed. F = Pecke 67 SD William = Ed. F = Walter. Emendation in accordance with Holinshed 102 make = F. Ed = mark

2.2.1 SH CHAMBERLAIN = Ed. Not in F 95 one have-at-him = Ed. F = one; haue at him

2.3.74 you = Ed. F = you, to you. Omitted by editors because thought to be a compositorial error, copied prematurely from the following line 102 fie, fie, fie = F. Ed = fie, fie

2.4.136 SH GRIFFITH = Ed. F = Gent. Ush.

3.1.3 SH WOMAN = Ed. F reads “SONG” instead of using a speech heading, but the song must be sung by one of the Queen’s women 25 SD Campeius = F4. F = Campian 55 should = Ed. F = shoul 65 your = F2. F = our 130 he’s = Ed.F = ha’s 135 acurse = F. Ed = accursed

3.2.215 filed = Ed. F = fill’d 402 legative = F. Ed = legatine, legantine 406 Castles = F. Ed = chattels

4.1.24 SH SECOND GENTLEMAN = F4. F = I, i.e., First Gentleman 38 Kimbolton = F3. F = Kymmalton 66 And…ones some editors ascribe this line to the First Gentleman, allocating his line to the Second Gentleman 67 SH FIRST GENTLEMAN = Ed. F = 2 SD and … Trumpets moved from its original position at the end of “The Order of the Coronation” 121 Stokesley = F4. F = Stokely 142 SH FIRST…GENTLEMEN = Ed. F = Both

4.2.8 think = F2. F = thanke 22 convent = Ed. F = Couent 108 cold = F. Ed = color 114 to = Ed. F = too. Some editors retain F arguing it means “too blameworthy”

5.1.2 SH PAGE = Ed. F = Boy 45 time = F4. F = Lime 138 halidom spelled Holydame in F 145 good = F. Ed = ground 163 precipice = F2. F = Precepit 164 woo = Ed. F = woe 184 SH LOVELL = Ed. F = Gent.

5.2.10 piece = F2. F = Peere 16 sound = F. Ed = found 21 ’Mong…lackeys some editors direct the pursuivants, pages, footboys and grooms referred to in the text to enter with Cranmer at the beginning of this scene. However, it seems perfectly possible that these figures could also be imagined, hence the need for them to be “pointed out” by Cranmer and Butts 123 faulty = F2. F = faultly 139, 143 SH CHANCELLOR = Ed. F = Cham 190 base = F. Ed = bare 198 his = F. F4 = this 243 heart = F2. F = hearts

5.3.1 Paris = F4. F = Parish

5.4.41 ways = F4. F = way 75 your = Ed. F = you

The Prologue

*    CHANCELLOR…fall in Act 3 Scene 2, it is announced that Sir Thomas More has been made Chancellor in Wolsey’s place; historically, More resigned before the coronation of Queen Anne, so the character who marches in the procession in Act 4 Scene 1 and speaks in Act 5 Scene 2 would have been Sir Thomas Audley, but he is unnamed in the text

3    Sad serious, solemn high lofty/important working emotive, moving state stateliness, dignity

10    show spectacle

11    pass be approved, pass muster still, and willing attentive and well-inclined

12    shilling the cost of some of the most expensive seats in the theater

13    two short hours i.e., the length of the play

15    targets shields

16    long…yellow a fool’s customary costume motley parti- or multicolored guarded trimmed

17    deceived disappointed know understand (that)

19    forfeiting…brains abandoning our intelligence

20    opinion…intend reputation we have for presenting truthfully what we intend to perform

22    understanding comprehending (plays on the sense of audience members “standing under” the stage, in the yard)

24    happiest most favored

25    sad serious

27    As as if great influential, of high rank

Act 1 Scene 1

1.1    Location: the royal court, London

2    saw saw one another

4    fresh untired, eager

5    what…there Norfolk refers to the meeting of Henry VIII and the French King François I at the Field of the Cloth of Gold

6    untimely ague badly-timed fever

7    Stayed detained

10    ’Twixt between Guînes and Ardres towns near Calais in northern France

12    lighted alighted, dismounted

13    as as if

14    Which had they i.e., had they grown together throned ones i.e., kings weighed balanced, equaled

20    pomp splendor, ceremony

21    Each…master i.e., each day learned something from the one before it following succeeding master teacher

23    its i.e., it sown

24    clinquant glittering

25    Shone down outshone tomorrow i.e., the next day they i.e., the English

26    India i.e., seem as wealthy as the Indies (whose mines were thought to be sources of immeasurable riches)

27    Showed appeared

28    cherubins (statues of) angels madams high-ranking ladies

30    pride magnificent finery, rich clothing, and accessories that so that labour…painting efforts caused them to flush, so that they looked as if they were wearing rouge

31    masque courtly entertainment involving elaborate costume

32    cried proclaimed night i.e., night’s entertainments

33    Made…beggar i.e., seemed trivial and cheap in comparison

34    were…them were deemed more or less splendid depending on which one was on view at the time

35    him…praise the king on view always being the one praised

36    being…one when both kings were present they appeared indistinguishable in their splendor

37    discerner observer/one who perceives a difference

38    Durst dared censure judgment (in favor of one rather than the other)

39    phrase call, term

40    perform…compass enact unimaginable feats compass bounds, limit

41    that…credit so that tales formerly thought to be mythical and far-fetched gained such credibility

43    Bevis the tale of Bevis of Hampton; the hero of an early English romance, he carried out legendary feats of chivalry and skill

44    go far are making very great claims/exaggerate

45    belong to worship hold high rank, am a nobleman affect…honesty respect integrity in matters of honor

46    tract narrative, course of events

47    discourser narrator lose…to fall short in describing the actual vivid events

49    To…rebelled i.e., nothing interfered with the arrangement and handling of events

50    Order…view good preparations meant that everything was visible The…function officials carried out their respective duties properly

54    sport entertainment

55    certes certainly promises no element is not in his usual role

58    ordered organized discretion judgment

59    Cardinal of York i.e., Wolsey

60    speed prosper, i.e., dispatch, hasten to his death

62    fierce high-spirited/warlike vanities entertainments/extravagances

63    keech lump of animal fat (probably alludes to Wolsey’s origins as a butcher’s son as well as to his size)

64    Take up absorb, occupy o’th’beneficial plays on the sense of “granting benefices” (ecclesiastical positions) sun i.e., King Henry VIII

67    stuff substance, personal traits (plays on the sense of “meat for stuffing a pie”) puts encourages, provokes

68    ancestry i.e., high birth grace honor, renown, virtue

69    Chalks shows

70    high feats important services

71    eminent assistants noble patrons/influential helpers

72    self-drawing self-made a…note he lets us know a he

75    next to intimately close to/next in status to

77    graver more reverend, wiser

80    niggard miser

81    he i.e., Wolsey

84    going out expedition

85    privity private knowledge and consent

86    attend on him i.e., accompany the king to France (a costly enterprise) file register, list

87    such…upon i.e., those listed will have to pay a disproportionately large amount for the small honor bestowed on them

89    own letter personal summons (to attend)

90    board of council i.e., Privy Council, the king’s advisers out disregarded, not consulted

91    fetch…papers summon whoever is listed papers sets down on paper

94    sickened weakened, depleted

95    abound prosper, be wealthy

97    laying…’em selling property to pay for fine clothes

98    vanity foolish extravagance (i.e., the lavish meeting of the two kings)

99    minister…issue provide the opportunity for a useless discussion (communication may possibly play on the sense of “sexual procreation,” and poor issue does play on the sense of “impoverished children”; the sale of assets will affect the noblemen’s heirs)

101    Grievingly sadly

102    not values is not worth

106    inspired i.e., with divine, prophetic power not consulting without consulting one another, independently

107    general universal

108    Dashing destroying aboded predicted, foretold

109    on’t of it

110    is budded out has developed, come to pass

111    flawed broken, contravened attached seized

113    therefore for that reason

114    silenced placed under house arrest

115    Marry by the Virgin Mary

116    proper title of fine name for

117    superfluous rate very high cost

119    carried managed

120    Like it may it please

121    state Privy Council/the king difference dispute, discord

124    read consider/interpret

125    potency power

127    would wishes to wants lacks

128    minister agent

132    darts thrusts Bosom up keep secret/take to heart

133    wholesome healthy, beneficial Lo look purse containing the great seal of England, used by the king to authenticate documents; the Lord Chancellor (Wolsey) was its official keeper

135    surveyor estate manager

136    examination deposition, statement

141    big proud, haughty train retinue, attendants

142    butcher’s cur another reference to Wolsey’s origins as a butcher’s son cur dog

144    beggar’s…blood a poor man’s (i.e., Wolsey’s) learning is more highly valued than a nobleman’s lineage

146    chafed irritated, angry

147    temp’rance self-control, moderation th’appliance only the only remedy

150    Matter substance, something significant (plays on the sense of “rheum, infected ocular discharge”)

151    abject object despicable view

152    bores cheats

155    choler anger

158    full hot very headstrong, overly hasty

159    Self-mettle his own vigorous spirit

163    mouth of honour i.e., gentleman’s mouth quite completely

164    Ipswich Wolsey’s birthplace, a town in Suffolk in eastern England

165    difference distinction of rank

166    advised warned

170    overrunning running past it

171    mounts causes to rise up, i.e., boils

176    allay diminish, moderate/mix, alloy

179    prescription direction, advice top-proud proud to the highest degree

180    gall bile, bitterness

181    motions motives intelligence secret information

182    founts springs

186    vouch affirmation, allegation

188    equal just as

189    subtle cunning

190    place official position (as Lord Chancellor)

192    pomp greatness, splendor

193    suggests persuades, encourages, tempts

194    last recent th’interview the meeting (between the French and English kings)

195    treasure money, wealth

196    i’th’wrenching in the rinsing/distortion of meaning

198    give me favour i.e., permit me to continue

199    articles clauses, terms o’th’combination of the treaty drew drafted, drew up

201    end effect, use

202    count-cardinal i.e., cardinal behaving like an aristocrat (contemptuous); often emended to “court-cardinal”

206    dam mother Charles the Emperor Holy Roman Emperor, Charles V, Katherine of Aragon’s nephew

208    colour pretext

209    whisper whisper to

213    privily privately, secretly

214    trow believe

216    ere before

217    but only

219    he i.e., Wolsey

222    his i.e., the king’s he i.e., Wolsey

226    Something somewhat mistaken misunderstood, misrepresented

229    in proof when put to the test/in fact, according to evidence

230    office duty, task

233    Hertford historically Hereford, to which some editors emend

238    device and practice plots and stratagems

240    look on witness

241    pleasure will

242    th’Tower the Tower of London

243    nothing in no way

255    t’attach to arrest bodies persons

260    o’th’Chartreux of the Carthusian order—a monastical order noted for its severity

263    false disloyal

264    showed him gold bribed him (to betray Buckingham; whether the surveyor lies or reveals an actual plot is unclear) spanned measured out

265    shadow…Buckingham the shadowy likeness of my former self

266    Whose…sun my form being now obscured by cloud and its former innocent brightness (clear sun) dimmed/my form being shrouded by a sudden cloud that darkens my king’s favor (sun)

Act 1 Scene 2

*    Cornets hornlike wind instruments (here announcing the king’s arrival) under…feet standing at the foot of the king’s throne or dais on which it sits

1    best heart very essence

2    level aim, target sights

3    full-charged fully loaded confederacy conspiracy, plot

6    justify prove, confirm state throne

9    we the royal plural suitor person with a request to make, favor to ask

10    place your official place as queen

12    moiety half

13    Repeat your will utter your desire

14    Thank i.e., I thank

17    dignity honor, kingly status

20    solicited urged, entreated

21    true condition loyal disposition

22    grievance distress commissions official authorization (to collect taxes)

23    flawed cracked, damaged

26    putter-on instigator

27    exactions extortionate charges

28    soil dishonorable stain

34    clothiers cloth workers, who dealt with woolen fabric

35    longing belonging, i.e., dependent on them for employment put off dismissed

36    spinsters spinners of wool into thread for weaving into cloth carders those who prepared wool for spinning by combing out impurities and aligning the fibers fullers those who beat cloth to clean and thicken it

37    life i.e., ways of making a living

39    Daring…th’teeth pushing the situation to the extreme, challenging matters to the limit

40    danger i.e., the potential for outright revolt serves has joined ranks

46    single part individual role, i.e., only my share aught anything

47    front…me merely march in the front rank along with others who keep the same pace tell count

50    you…acquaintance you devise matters that are known to everyone, which are damaging to those who would rather not know of them but who are obliged to endure them nevertheless

54    have note be informed

55    bear carry

56    is…th’load i.e., is bowed down painfully by the burden

58    exclamation outcry, reproach

60    In what kind of what nature

62    venturous adventurous, daring

63    tempting of testing boldened Under made bold by

64    grief grievance, complaint

66    substance wealth

67    pretence alleged reason/pretext

71    prayers i.e., for the king

72    tractable compliant slave…will i.e., now governed by wrath

73    would wish

75    primer baseness greater manifestation of low, dishonorable behavior

77    pleasure wishes

80    single voice (his) individual vote/unanimous vote (of the Privy Council) passed ratified, approved by

81    approbation consent

82    Traduced slandered, dishonored

83    faculties capabilities/qualities

85    place high office brake thicket

86    stint restrain, withhold

88    To cope of encountering censurers critics

90    new trimmed newly fitted out

91    vainly longing i.e., hoping in vain for the refurbished and seaworthy boat to sink and provide food What…allowed malicious or essentially foolish interpreters often refuse to believe in or give us credit for our best actions

93    what…act our worst actions, which often appeal to baser people, are declared the best we ever did

96    In for motion action/proposal carped at complained of

98    state-statues images of statesmen

101    example precedent issue outcome

103    Of for

104    rend…will i.e., force the subjects to obey the changing will of the monarch rather than the law

106    trembling fearful

107    lop lopped-off branch

109    The…sap i.e., the tree will die

110    questioned challenged, resisted

116    grace good will/mercy commons common people

117    Hardly conceive think harshly noised rumored, reported

118    our Wolsey uses the royal plural revokement repeal

119    anon shortly

122    Is run in has incurred, come into

124    rare splendid/exceptional

125    To…bound no one is more indebted to nature for such qualities

127    out of beyond

129    disposed applied, directed

130    vicious wicked, immoral

131    complete accomplished, perfect

133    ravished entranced

135    monstrous unnatural habits clothing/behavior, practices

138    gentleman in trust trusted servant

140    practices plots

141    hear too much i.e., for our own protection

143    careful dutiful, full of care (for the king) collected picked up, gathered (as evidence)

148    issue children carry manage

149    sceptre staff carried as a symbol of sovereignty

151    menaced threatened

154    conception intention, plan

155    Not…person not being gratified in his wish regarding you (i.e., that the king should die childless)

157    friends i.e., Wolsey

159    Deliver speak

161    How…fail? On what did he base his claim to the throne in the event of my death without an heir?

162    To this point on this subject

167    Chartreux Carthusian, i.e., one of a strict monastic order from Chartreux near Grenoble in France

172    the Rose the name of a manor house belonging to Buckingham

173    St Lawrence Poultney a church on Candlewick Street in London

174    speech talk, gossip, prevailing opinion

176    perfidious treacherous

177    To…danger resulting in danger for the king presently instantly

178    doubted feared/suspected

182    choice chosen, appointed

183    moment importance

187    demure confidence grave assurance, solemn certainty

190    o’th’commonalty of the common people

195    spleen anger, malice

196    nobler i.e., as the immortal soul is more important than worldly rank

198    on go on

200    but only

204    forged formed, created (in)

205    much…do very likely to be carried out

207    failed died

210    rank foul, corrupt, gross

214    Greenwich a royal palace south of the River Thames

219    his as his own (instead of the king’s)

220    committed imprisoned

223    Richard i.e., Richard III Salisbury town in Wiltshire, southwest England

224    suit a formal request

225    made…duty i.e., by kneeling before Richard in feigned respect

230    God mend all may God put everything right

233    stretched him stood fully upright

234    mounting raising

236    evil used badly treated outgo surpass

238    irresolute shaky, undecided/not accomplished

239    period end, purpose

240    attached arrested

241    present immediate

244    to th’height in the highest degree

Act 1 Scene 3

1    spells magic charms juggle trick, deceive, conjure

2    mysteries enigmatic behavior (i.e., the imitation of French courtly fashions)

5    let ’em be even if they are

7    late recent

8    fit…o’th’face one or two grimaces, contrived facial expressions shrewd cunning, artful/sharp, clever

9    hold ’em assume such facial expressions

11    Pepin or Clotharius eighth- and sixth-century Kings of the Franks keep state so maintain such affected dignity (presumably those referred to are walking around with their noses in the air)

12    legs i.e., ways of walking/bowing take it think, assume/affirm, swear

13    spavin tumor on a horse’s leg caused by inflammation of cartilage

14    springhalt stringhalt, a disease of a horse’s hind legs, causing spasmodic muscle contractions

15    Death contracted form of the oath “by God’s death”

16    after…to’t fashioned in such a pagan manner

17    worn out exhausted (all the styles available in)

21    clapped placed

27    Louvre French royal palace in Paris

30    fool and feather foolishness and elaborate dress (such as feathers worn on hats)

31    honourable…ignorance foolish trivia they consider worthy (points plays on the sense of “laces used for fastening clothing”)

32    as such as fights i.e., duels fireworks fighting/whoring (perhaps also with associations of “elaborate pyrotechnic displays”)

33    Abusing dishonoring, mocking

34    Out…wisdom using the so-called “wisdom” they have gained abroad renouncing clean they must now renounce totally

35    tall…breeches i.e., French fashions, playing on notion of venereal disease blistered short and puffed/covered in blisters, symptomatic of venereal disease

36    types marks, indications travel plays on sense of sexual travail, exertion

37    understand comprehend/stand up properly (with sexual connotations) honest honorable/true

38    pack depart playfellows (sexual) partners

39    cum privilegio “with immunity” (Latin; an abbreviated form of the phrase announcing the exclusive right of a printer to publish a book) oui “yes” (French)

40    lag end latter part, tail end (with phallic connotations) lewdness foolishness/wickedness/lechery

41    physic medicine, specifically perhaps a cure for venereal disease

44    trim vanities smart dandies/worthless fripperies/handsome playthings

45    marry by the Virgin Mary

46    whoresons bastards, wretches (a coarse term of abuse)

47    speeding successful/speedy lay down seduce/have sex with

48    fiddle musical instrument/penis/mirth-maker, jester fellow equal

49    fiddle play with/cheat

50    converting of ’em i.e., reforming their behavior

52    play performing music/sexual play plainsong simple melody, i.e., straightforward manner of wooing

53    hearing i.e., audience (with a woman) by’r lady by Our Lady (the Virgin Mary)

54    Held be considered current fashionable

56    colt’s tooth youthful lust cast discarded

58    stump remains of a tooth/penis

64    makes gives

68    fruitful generous

69    dews i.e., favors, benevolence (puns on “dues” or taxes)

71    black slanderous/sinful other otherwise

72    he’s wherewithal he has the necessary means

73    Sparing frugality, economy

74    way way of life, i.e., as a cardinal

77    ones i.e., examples stays waits

78    along i.e., come along

80    spoke to asked

81    comptrollers stewards, masters of ceremonies

82    your lordship’s i.e., entirely at your disposal

Act 1 Scene 4

1.4    Location: York Place (now Whitehall)—Wolsey’s residence Hautboys oboelike instruments state canopy divers various, several

4    bevy company

5    abroad out with her, from home

7    tardy slow, late

9    Clapped fixed

12    lay secular/sexual

13    running banquet hasty meal/rewarding sexual pursuit or sex itself

15    society group

16    confessor plays on the sense of “sexual partner”

19    easy penance with sexual connotations

21    down feather

23    Place you you arrange the seating

25    cold plays on the sense of “sexually unresponsive”

26    waking awake, lively (with suggestion of sexual activity)

29    thank I thank

30    wild erratically, madly/recklessly, excitably/lustfully

32    mad insane/uncontrollable, high-spirited

34    bite biting was thought to be a common trait of madmen

35    twenty i.e., twenty ladies with a breath in one breath, in a very short space of time

36    said done

37    fairly properly/favorably/fully

39    Pass away leave

40    For as for cure spiritual duty/remedy (for frowning)/sexual remedy

41    Let me alone leave it to me

47    bowl i.e., full of wine may as may

50    beholding beholden, indebted cheer entertain/encourage/cheer up

56    gamester sporting, fun-loving person/gambler/one fond of sex

58    make my play score (in cards/in love)

59    pledge it drink to my toast

60    thing plays on the sense of “penis”

62    anon soon chambers small cannon

65    voice i.e., noise

67    privileged protected

69    strangers foreigners

71    make make their way

76    heaven of beauty i.e., gathering of beautiful ladies

78    broken disrupted Masquers costumed nobles taking part in a courtly entertainment involving dancing habited dressed

81    pleasures wills, desires

83    fame report, rumor

87    conduct guidance, permission

89    revels merriment/courtly entertainment

99    this place i.e., the chair of state

100    but only

106    it i.e., the chair of state

111    fair fine/virtuous/beautiful

112    You…unhappily i.e., if you were not a rightfully minded clergyman, I should look unfavorably upon this gathering of beautiful women

115    pleasant merry

117    Prithee please (literally “I pray thee”)

118    An’t if it

119    her highness’ women i.e., lady-in-waiting to Queen Katherine

120    dainty delicately pretty

121    take you out i.e., to dance

122    health toast

124    banquet separate course of sweetmeats after the main feast, served in a different room

125    I’th’privy chamber i.e., in a private inner room

128    heated hot, but in his reply Henry plays on the sense of “lustful, hot-blooded”

133    forsake leave, give up

135    measure slow stately dance

136    dream focus on/conjecture

137    best in favour best-looking/most popular with the ladies knock it strike up

Act 2 Scene 1

2.1    Location: a street in Westminster, London several separate

3    hall i.e., Westminster Hall

16    passed it did the trial proceed

17    a little brief

18    to his accusations in response to the accusations brought against him

19    still consistently alleged brought forward

20    law i.e., case against him

22    examinations testimonies, statements proofs evidence

23    divers various, several

24    him brought i.e., have brought to him viva voce “in person, in live speech” (Latin)

32    fain gladly

37    pitied in him i.e., prompted useless pity forgotten i.e., was ineffectual

40    knell funeral bell, i.e., death sentence

41    sweat sweated

42    choler anger ill unfavorable/wicked/bitter

43    fell to recovered

50    end root, bottom

52    Kildare’s attainder the accusation and disgrace of the Earl of Kildare; he was imprisoned on a number of charges and his role as Lord Deputy in Ireland was given to the Earl of Surrey, Buckingham’s son-in-law

53    deputy governor

55    father father-in-law

56    trick of state political contrivance

57    envious malicious

58    his i.e., Surrey’s

59    requite avenge, repay

60    generally universally, by all

64    perniciously deeply, desiring his death or ruin

67    mirror image, model Tipstaves court officers, named after their badge of office, a metal-tipped staff axe…him signifying that the prisoner had been condemned to death Halberds i.e., halberdiers, carrying long-handled weapons topped with a combination of spearhead and axe blade

70    close out of sight/quietly

73    lose forget

74    judgement sentence

76    sink ruin/damn

79    premises evidence (submitted in court)

80    more better

82    look beware, watch out

83    evils wrongdoings, evil careers/hovels or privies

86    sue plead

87    More…faults i.e., much greater than the magnitude of offense I would dare to commit

90    only…dying the only thing that is bitter to him, the only real death he experiences

92    divorce of steel i.e., separation of body and soul by the axe

93    sacrifice offering

101    take make envy malice

105    Yet still forsake leaves (my body)

107    tell count

109    old time perhaps a personification here

110    monument tomb

112    charge duty, role

113    undertakes takes responsibility for

116    furniture furnishings, equipment

119    state rank

122    base dishonorable, unworthy/lowborn

123    truth loyalty/honesty seal confirm, ratify

126    head an army Richard i.e., Richard III

135    stroke action/executioner’s blow

138    happier more fortunate

142    end purpose

143    from…certain the words of a dying man were considered especially wise or prophetic

144    liberal of generous with

145    loose careless

147    rub obstacle (bowling term)

149    But except

156    authors originators, causes

159    fall happens

162    faith reliability, trustworthiness

167    am confident i.e., trust you

168    shall i.e., shall have it late recent

169    buzzing rumor

171    held not did not stand firm, did not last

173    straight straightaway

174    allay subdue, silence

178    held for it is thought

179    venture at it risk acting on it

180    about him near who are close to him

181    possessed…scruple put a doubt into his mind (perhaps with connotations of demonic possession; the doubt is that Henry’s marriage is invalid because Katherine had originally been married to his older brother Arthur; marrying one’s brother’s widow is prohibited in Leviticus 20:21)

183    Cardinal Campeius the Pope’s legate sent from Rome to determine the legality of the king’s marriage

186    emperor Holy Roman Emperor, Charles V, Queen Katherine’s nephew

188    purposed intended, planned

189    have…mark i.e., are accurate mark target (in archery)

190    smart pain

193    open exposed, public

Act 2 Scene 2

2.2    Location: the royal court, London

2    ridden broken in furnished equipped

4    commission warrant main considerable

11    private on his own

12    sad serious

16    conscience Suffolk plays on the sexual sense of “genital expansiveness”

20    blind without regard for others; fortune was commonly depicted as a blind woman who turns the wheel of people’s fortunes

21    list pleases know understand, recognize

23    he i.e., Wolsey

40    end purpose/outcome

41    French king’s sister the Duchess of Alençon, suggested by Wolsey as a second wife for Henry

42    slept upon failed to notice, not perceived truly

43    bold daring, overconfident

49    lump probably lump of clay

50    pitch height, i.e., stature

51    For as for

53    made i.e., successful, of noble rank stand remain, stand firm

55    breath i.e., mere words

63    otherwhere elsewhere curtain separating the main stage from the discovery space or recess at the back of the stage

74    this way in this respect

75    estate state

78    Go to expression of impatient dismissal

79    temporal worldly, secular commission warrant (from the Pope)

81    quiet calm

82    cure physical remedy (but with connotations of spiritual care)

85    talker i.e., man of words rather than action

90    priest i.e., Wolsey

92    sick envious

95    have-at-him thrust, attack (fencing term)

97    precedent example

99    scruple doubt voice of Christendom i.e., the Pope and the various clergymen who were consulted over Henry’s problem of conscience

100    envy malice

101    Spaniard i.e., Charles V (Katherine’s nephew), or the Spanish in general her i.e., Queen Katherine

102    confess admit, allow

103    clerks scholars

105    Have…voices may vote as they please

107    general tongue i.e., representative spokesperson

111    conclave body of cardinals (in Rome)

113    strangers foreigners

115    tender submit virtue power

118    unpartial impartial

122    that that which

123    place rank

128    fit suitable, able

142    stick hesitate

144    Kept…still i.e., always had him traveling abroad (on diplomatic missions)

147    murmurers gossips, rumormongers/troublemakers

150    appointment order

151    none…else i.e., no one else so close to the king

152    griped seized, clutched at meaner lower ranking

153    Deliver tell, report modesty propriety/consideration

155    For…learning to receive, play host to such a learned discussion Blackfriars Dominican monastery in London

157    furnished equipped

158    able (sexually) vigorous

159    bedfellow i.e., Katherine conscience perhaps playing on “con-science” meaning “knowledge of the vagina” (i.e., Anne Bullen’s)

Act 2 Scene 3

1    Not…neither Anne and the Old Lady enter mid-conversation pinches torments

4    Pronounce declare/utter

6    courses…sun i.e., years

9    process course (of events)

10    avaunt order to be gone pity pity-provoking situation

12    temper substance, hardness/disposition

15    temporal worldly (rather than heavenly)

16    quarrel quarreler

17    sufferance panging hardship as tormenting

20    stranger outsider/foreigner

24    range roam/live/be ranked humble livers those of low rank

25    perked up decked out glist’ring glittering, sparkling

28    having possession

29    troth faith maidenhead virginity

31    Beshrew curse

33    spice dash, touch

34    so fair parts such beauty/such good qualities

36    Affected likes, is drawn to

37    sooth truth

38    Saving despite mincing pretentious manner, affectations

39    cheverel kid leather (noted for its softness)

41    troth truth, faith

44    bowed bent, i.e., worthless (puns on “bawd”)

45    queen it play the queen; puns on “quean” meaning “prostitute”

47    bear endure/support during sex/give birth to load of title title of duchess/duke himself/duke’s child

49    pluck off come down (in aspiration; literally “undress”)

50    count i.e., rank lower than a duke; puns on “cunt” way path/condition (of being a virgin)

51    For…to i.e., on account of sexual modesty

52    vouchsafe permit, accept burden i.e., of a man’s body during sex

53    get beget, conceive

57    little England affectionate term for England itself/Pembrokeshire, south Wales, where most people spoke English rather than Welsh/Westminster Hall

58    emballing to be invested with the orb of sovereignty (as queen)/sexual intercourse

59    Caernarvonshire a poor rural county in north Wales longed belonged

62    conference conversation

64    values not is not worth

66    gentle noble/kind

74    Commends declares, offers

75    purpose intend

78    grace favor

80    kind manifestation tender offer (in return)

81    More…nothing more than all I am able to offer is still insufficient (nothing may pick up on the sense of “vagina,” which is of course what Anne is required to supply)

82    hallowed blessed, sanctified

83    More of more

85    Vouchsafe agree

89    t’approve to corroborate, confirm conceit opinion, notion

90    perused observed, examined

93    gem i.e., an heir (anticipating Elizabeth’s birth)

94    lighten illuminate (some jewels were thought to emit light)

99    beggarly still poor

100    Come…late i.e., ask at the appropriate time pat neatly

101    suit of pounds request for money pound plays on the sense of rags/(fish) ponds

102    fresh young/blooming fish woman/whore fie expression of reproach

103    compelled enforced/unsought have…it i.e., to get plenty without even needing to ask (probably also refers to oral sex)

105    strange odd, incomprehensible/new, unfamiliar

106    tastes probably continues to play on the idea of oral sex Forty pence i.e., I’ll bet a small amount

108    queen continues to pun of “quean” (i.e., prostitute)

109    mud i.e., wealth, since Egypt was known for its rich soil

110    pleasant merry, joking

111    your theme your subject (i.e., the same advancement as you)

112    O’ermount rise higher than

115    honour’s…foreskirt i.e., more rewards will follow, just as the train of a dress is longer than the front of the skirt (perhaps with some sexual suggestion of lifting one’s skirt)

117    your…duchess i.e., you will marry a duke and bear his children

120    particular fancy personal imaginings

121    on’t of it

122    salute affects, excites blood passions, spirits (perhaps with play on “sexual desires”) faints me makes me faint

125    deliver report

Act 2 Scene 4

2.4    Location: Blackfriars (a Dominican monastery in London) sennet trumpet fanfare signaling a procession Vergers officials carrying rods of office who process in front of Church dignitaries habit of doctors academic robes worn by Doctors of Law, i.e., black gowns and flat hats St Asaph Llanelwy, an ancient bishopric in north Wales purse it contained the great seal of England, used by the king to authenticate documents; the Lord Chancellor (Wolsey) was its official keeper two…pillars like the mace, emblems of Wolsey’s role as cardinal cloth of state canopy over a throne consistory ecclesiastical court

5    th’authority allowed its authority recognized

15    stranger foreigner

17    indifferent impartial

18    equal fair proceeding course of action/legal proceedings

21    proceed…off go about to dismiss me/take legal action to discard me

22    grace favor/royal person

24    conformable compliant, obedient

25    dislike displeasure

26    countenance facial expression/favor/disposition

32    to him derived drawn upon himself

37    many children Katherine had six children by Henry, of whom only one (Mary) survived infancy

39    honour good name aught anything

41    Against toward

47    wit wisdom

48    one The wisest the very wisest

53    Wherefore for which reason

59    reverend fathers clergymen

61    elect best, most choice men

62    bootless useless

63    longer any longer desire request (i.e., the trial’s postponement)

64    quiet peace of mind

68    session court, judicial gathering

76    certain certainly

80    before i.e., before you are humble (which you’ll never be)

83    challenge formal objection (legal term)

85    blown this coal i.e., stirred up trouble (proverbial)

87    abhor reject

93    stood to upheld

96    spleen malice

103    gainsay deny

104    worthily justly

106    free innocent report condemnation, allegation

107    your wrong the wrong you do me in making such statements

110    in about, with regard to

116    sign display in full seeming to all appearances

120    slightly with ease

121    powers officials in power/power of position retainers servants

122    Domestics servants as’t…office in whatever manner you wish, as soon as you utter their tasks

124    tender regard, are concerned with

125    that so that

128    cause legal case offers attempts, makes to

131    Stubborn resistant apt quick, ready

137    keep your way keep going

140    tarry stay, linger

147    rare excellent/exceptional

148    government control (of self and others)

149    Obeying in commanding behaving with restraint even when issuing orders/behaving both like a queen and a dutiful wife parts…else other superior and pious qualities Sovereign excellent/royal

150    speak thee out declare themselves as being in you

153    Carried conducted

155    require request

159    satisfied compensated

165    prejudice detriment state situation/rank

166    touch taint, stain

168    excuse exonerate

169    you…taught i.e., you know full well

171    curs dogs

177    passages proceedings

178    speak support

181    mark th’inducement note what persuaded me

182    tenderness sensitivity

186    ’twixt between

188    determinate resolution conclusive outcome

190    advertise notify, discuss with

192    dowager i.e., Katherine, the widow of Henry’s brother Arthur

193    Sometimes formerly

195    spitting piercing, stabbing

197    mazed considerings bewildered thoughts, confused wonderings

199    smile i.e., favor

202    offices duties, services

204    Or either

205    This…them i.e., birth

208    gladded made glad

210    issue’s offspring’s

211    throe pain (a word often used of labor pains) hulling drifting (with sails furled)

216    full very yet still (now)

218    doctors scholars

220    oppression burdensome distress reek sweat

221    moved put the matter to, appealed to

224    satisfied reassured

227    Bearing…dread given that it concerned a matter of great importance and potentially alarming consequences

228    committed…doubt questioned the most extreme, audacious advice I was inclined to give (i.e., to pursue divorce)

236    particular individual

237    Under…seals i.e., with your formal written agreement hands signatures

241    Prove but if you can only prove

243    wear…come spend our remaining life (or perhaps “our earthly sovereignty”)

244    primest most supreme (perhaps plays on the sense of “youngest, freshest”)

245    paragoned put forth as an ideal model

247    a needful fitness necessarily appropriate behavior

248    further another

249    motion request

251    his holiness i.e., the Pope

254    dilatory delaying (with specifically legal sense of entering a dilatory plea to delay proceedings)

256    return the clergyman Thomas Cranmer was at this point in Europe, gathering support for Henry’s divorce

258    set on advance, proceed

Act 3 Scene 1

3.1    Location: the royal court, London

1    lute stringed musical instrument played like a guitar

2    leave stop

3    Orpheus legendary Greek poet, whose music had the power to charm trees, animals, and stones made i.e., made them bow

7    as as if

10    billows swelling waves

11    lay by subsided, became calm

13    Killing fatal, deadly

17    presence royal reception chamber

19    willed ordered

20    Pray ask (politely)

24    as righteous i.e., as their goodness

27    part of partly

28    all i.e., wholly a housewife against in anticipation of worst i.e., divorce from Henry (which would necessitate careful domestic and economic management for a woman living alone)

35    corner i.e., secrecy

36    free innocent

37    happy fortunate

38    a number many others

40    Envy malice

41    even straightforward, constant

42    that…in it concerns my wifely status

44    Tanta…serenissima “So great is my integrity toward you, most serene queen” (Latin)

46    truant negligent student coming i.e., to England from Spain

48    strange foreign

52    willing’st most deliberate

57    all only faith loyalty, integrity, honesty

58    by the way for the purpose of

62    minded inclined difference disagreement

64    free honorable, upright

76    suddenly immediately, spontaneously

78    wit intelligence

80    set seated

81    looking prepared

83    her…been i.e., my sake as the queen I was till now

84    fit brief period

90    profit benefit

93    desperate reckless

94    live a subject i.e., continue to be treated as a loyal subject to Henry (despite supporting the queen) forsooth in truth

95    weigh out counterbalance, compensate for/outweigh/assess fully

106    part away depart

109    Out upon ye dismissive exclamation, “Away with you”

112    mistakes causes you to misunderstand

114    cardinal virtues there were four of these: justice, prudence, temperance, and fortitude

115    cardinal sins the seven deadly sins: pride, covetousness, envy, wrath, gluttony, sloth, and lechery (cardinal, as well as playing on the men’s ecclesiastical titles, may pun on “carnal”)

117    cordial heart-restoring remedy

121    at once suddenly/all at once

123    mere distraction complete frenzy

124    envy hatred, ill will

126    professors those who profess to be Christians

128    habits garments, i.e., the mere outer appearance

130    his from his

132    fellowship partnership/sexual intimacy

134    above more than studies efforts

137    speak speak for, defend

139    vainglory boasting

141    full affections complete love

142    Still always, with constancy next next to

143    fondness affection/foolishness superstitious excessively devoted, idolatrous

150    wander from stray from/mistake

154    dignities nobleness, high rank

156    Would I wish

168    ends intentions

170    places (Church) positions

175    carriage behavior

179    temper temperament

180    even level calm calm sea

184    casts rejects (plays on sense of melting metal to form coins)

188    studies efforts

190    used conducted

193    do my service pay my respects

197    That who set footing here arrived in England

Act 3 Scene 2

2    force urge, press a constancy persistence

3    omit…time neglect this current opportunity

9    duke i.e., of Buckingham

10    him i.e., Wolsey

12    uncontemned unscorned, not treated contemptuously

13    neglected disregarded/slighted

15    Out of beyond

19    Gives way favors fear doubt

22    in’s in his

24    out ended, lost

26    he’s may apply to Wolsey or to Henry

27    come off escape (if Wolsey)/desist (if Henry) his i.e., Henry’s

32    contrary oppositional/contradictory

33    unfolded exposed

36    practices schemes

39    miscarried went astray/were intercepted

42    stay delay

45    creature dependant, servant

49    perceives him perceives coasts And hedges is indirect and devious (as if traveling in a roundabout manner along a coastline or by hedgerows)

51    physic remedy

58    Trace the conjunction follow the marriage

60    All men’s puns on amen

62    Marry by the Virgin Mary (picks up on the notion of marriage) young i.e., recent news may…unrecounted perhaps not everyone will have heard it/not everyone needs to hear it

64    gallant fine, splendid complete perfect

65    persuade me am convinced

66    fall befall/be born

67    memorized made memorable

69    Digest endure, stomach

76    cause i.e., the divorce unhandled unresolved, without management

77    Is posted has gone in haste

84    He…opinions i.e., letters from him have been received ahead of his arrival; the opinions may be Cranmer’s own or, more likely, those that he was sent to gather on the divorce

88    published announced publicly

100    moody sullen, angry

101    packet dispatch, packet of letters

103    Looked…paper? i.e., Did he open it?

105    Presently immediately

107    heed care, attention

111    abroad out of his bedchamber

112    this this time

117    visage face

125    late former

127    clear bright snuff it trim its wick

130    spleeny Lutheran hot-headed Protestant wholesome beneficial, healthy

131    lie i’th’bosom of i.e., have sex with/share the secrets of

132    hard-ruled difficult to manage; possible erectile connotations

133    arch-one major, principal one (plays on “archbishop”)

134    Hath who has schedule document

137    fret gnaw, fray/add frets or ridges (to aid tuning on a stringed instrument)

138    master-cord main sinew, chief string on’s of his

141    portion share

146    commotion agitation

149    straight straightaway

152    against toward

157    wot know

159    importing concerning

160    several parcels various pieces plate gold or silver tableware

161    stuffs material, cloth ornaments of household furnishings

162    proud rate great cost/vast quantity outspeaks…subject far exceeds what a subject ought to own

166    withal with

168    contemplation thoughts/religious musing

169    should would be allowed (to)

171    below the moon i.e., worldly

176    stuff matter (plays on the sense of “(rich) fabric”; the king’s loaded language continues with inventory, steal, audit)

177    graces virtues

179    leisure time for contemplation

180    keep…audit see to your worldly accounts (as opposed to the spiritual reckoning at Judgment Day)

181    ill husband poor domestic manager glad i.e., because Wolsey is so unconcerned with self-seeking material matters (ironic)

187    times of preservation life-sustaining activities (i.e., eating, sleeping) perforce of necessity

189    tendance attention

197    crown…you i.e., by investing Wolsey with Church promotions

199    alone only

201    pared trimmed, reduced havings fortune

206    prime foremost, most powerful (under the king)

207    pronounce declare

208    withal moreover, in addition

210    graces favors

211    could…requite my most deliberate efforts could repay

215    filed kept pace

216    so only to the extent

220    allegiant loyal

226    the…it “honor is the reward of virtue” was proverbial

228    foulness dishonor, public shame

232    power faculties

233    notwithstanding…duty despite your duty to the Church/beyond the debt of allegiance of any subject to his king that your i.e., that

234    in love’s particular on account of the intimacy of close friendship

238    that…be I who am, have been and will be (after digressing, Wolsey never in fact finishes this sentence)

239    crack violate, destroy

242    horrid frightening

243    chiding tumultuous, angry

244    break interrupt/stem

254    chafèd enraged

255    galled wounded/angered

256    makes him nothing destroys him (the huntsman)

257    story cause/narrative

258    undone ruined account may play on the sense of “story, narrative”

259    world vast quantity

261    fee pay/bribe

262    cross perverse, thwarting

263    main chief, significant

265    device strategy, trick

266    stir anger

267    take right works properly, succeeds

268    bring me off rescue me

272    meridian highest point (of the sun)

273    setting decline, sunset

274    exhalation shooting star, meteor

277    presently immediately

279    Asher House Esher House, Surrey, which belonged to Wolsey as Bishop of Winchester

282    commission warrant, authority

284    cross challenge

286    it i.e., obey their orders

289    metal material/mettle (i.e., disposition, spirit) envy malice

291    sleek fawning, oily wanton unprincipled, lawless, merciless

295    rewards i.e., punishments

298    enjoy use, benefit from

300    Tied authorized, confirmed letters patents documents signed by the king conferring land, title, or official position

305    forty hours used indefinitely to convey a broad period of time

308    scarlet sin refers to the color of a cardinal’s robes; also to Isaiah 1:18, which describes sins as “red like scarlet”

311    parts qualities

312    Weighed equaled in weight of on policy political strategy, cunning

314    his succour being able to help him (Buckingham)

315    fault offense gav’st assigned to

319    credit reputation

322    From of

323    cause case (tried in court)

326    That I who

328    mate be a match for, contend with

334    fellow common man/servant/good-for-nothing (a contemptuous term for one of Wolsey’s status)

335    jaded deceived, made fools of (plays on the sense of “made green”)

337    dare…larks birds could be caught by being distracted with a piece of scarlet cloth while nets were dropped on them; there may be an implicit reference to Joan Larke, Wolsey’s mistress dare daze

348    issues children, i.e., sons

349    he i.e., Wolsey

350    articles items in a list of formal charges

352    sacring bell small bell rung at the consecration of the host, the holiest part of the Mass (after the Reformation it signified the bell rung to announce morning prayers) brown brunette/dark-complexioned (or sunburned; another dig at Wolsey, suggesting this particular lover is a common peasant) wench girl of the rustic or working class/mistress

356    hand possession/handwriting

357    thus much I can say this much foul plays on the sense of “illegible, blotted”

363    out be revealed

367    dare challenge, defy objections accusations

368    want lack

369    Have at you! i.e., here I come (standard utterance at the opening of a fight)

371    wrought planned, connived, worked legate one of the Pope’s representatives

374    ‘Ego…meus’ “My king and I” (Latin); literally “I and my king,” which leads Norfolk to claim that Wolsey places himself before the king; however, this is the required Latin word order and Wolsey’s real offence is to equate himself with the monarch

375    still always

379    Ambassador i.e., as Henry’s ambassador emperor the Holy Roman Emperor, Charles V made bold dared

380    carry…seal taking the great seal of England out of the country was forbidden Flanders part of the Netherlands

381    Item next (on the list; Latin) commission delegation with specific instructions

382    Gregory de Cassado English ambassador to the Pope

383    allowance permission

384    Ferrara the Duke of Ferrara (one of the Italian city-states)

385    mere absolute, utter

387    innumerable substance incalculable wealth

389    furnish…dignities bribe Rome as a means of paving your way to personal titles and offices

390    to…kingdom i.e., at England’s expense

391    Many more i.e., accusations, offenses

395    virtue i.e., virtuous not to list the offenses

396    lie open are exposed, i.e., are at the mercy (of)

402    legative as a papal legate

403    praemunire the offense of recognizing papal legal authority over that of the English monarch

404    sued instituted, legally enforced

405    tenements houses/leased land or property

406    Castles some editors emend to “chattels” on the basis of the equivalent passage in Holinshed, but the Folio reading is a suitable climax to the list

407    charge order, instruction

409    For as for

416    tender young, fresh

417    blushing glowing, vibrant (perhaps with reference to the red robes of a cardinal)

419    easy comfortable, complacent

422    wanton playful, wild, careless bladders inflated animal bladders used as floats

423    This (for) these

424    high-blown over-inflated (like the bladders; also a suggestion of “fully blooming,” recalling the vegetation imagery of a few lines earlier)

427    rude stream rough current

428    Vain proud/empty, meaningless/foolish, frivolous

432    aspect facial appearance/gaze (with astrological connotations of “influential position of a planet”) their ruin the ruin they can cause

433    pangs pains (often applied to labor pains)

434    Lucifer the brightest angel in heaven, who rebelled, was cast into hell and became the devil amazed stunned

439    decline fall an if

443    happy fortunate

448    pillars may recall the silver pillars that were emblems of Wolsey’s role as cardinal

452    it i.e., self-knowledge

458    heaviest saddest/most weighty

459    displeasure disgrace

466    that so that

468    orphans the Lord Chancellor was the legal guardian of all orphans under the age of twenty-one

475    open public

476    voice talk

480    gone beyond overreached

481    In i.e., because of

483    troops retinues, groups of followers

491    hopeful promising

492    make use take advantage, profit

495    forgo forsake

503    truth loyalty play the woman i.e., weep

506    dull lifeless

509    sounded fathomed, probed the depth of shoals shallows

510    wreck shipwreck/ruin

512    Mark note, heed

518    Still always

530    naked defenseless

Act 4 Scene 1

4.1    Location: a street in Westminster, London

5    all my business what I’m here for

8    general public, universal

10    royal generous/supportive of the monarchy

11    let…rights to give them their due forward eager, ready

15    taken received

22    High Steward the officer presiding over the coronation

23    Earl Marshal a high-ranking state office

25    beholding beholden, indebted

30    order rank, status (i.e., other bishops)

31    late recent Dunstable Bedfordshire town, about thirty-five miles north of London

32    Ampthill Ampthill Castle, in fact closer to ten miles north of Dunstable lay lodged

33    cited summoned

34    short brief

35    late scruple recent doubt (over the validity of his marriage to Katherine) main assent general agreement

37    of none effect null and void

38    Kimbolton a castle in Cambridgeshire, not far from Huntingdon

41    close quiet/to one side flourish fanfare Garter Garter King-at-Arms, chief herald of the College of Arms and a key official in the management of royal ceremonies demi-coronal small coronet dove emblematic of peace Collars of esses ornamental gold chains composed of S-shaped links estate state Cinque Ports five ports on the southeast coast of England, originally Dover, Hastings, Sandwich, Hythe, and Romney; their barons had the right to hold the canopy over the king during processions in her hair with her hair loose, as was customary for brides coronal coronet train excess material at the back of a dress

42    train retinue

46    should must

54    Indies i.e., great wealth

55    strains embraces, with suggestion of sexual exertion

56    conscience plays on the sense of “genitals”

58    cloth of honour royal canopy

59    Cinque Ports five (later seven) ports on the southeast coast of England that provided the navy and were granted privileges in return

66    falling plays on the sense of “sexually receptive”

68    broiling becoming heated, sweating (from struggling for a good view among a crowd of onlookers)

69    i’th’Abbey in Westminster Abbey, venue for coronations finger…more perhaps with sexual connotations (especially if rankness is given its sexual sense)

71    mere absolute, utter rankness exuberance/foul (sweaty) smell/lustfulness

77    speak describe

80    fell off withdrew

83    opposing displaying

85    goodliest finest, most good-looking

87    arose perhaps with connotations of penile erection

88    shrouds ropes attached to the mast, standard part of a ship’s rigging (perhaps with phallic connotations; a rope was a slang image for a penis) stiff strong; again with connotations of penile erection

90    Doublets men’s close-fitting jackets

92    Great-bellied i.e., pregnant

93    rams battering rams

94    press crowd, throng

104    royal makings trappings of royalty bestowed during a coronation

105    As such as

108    music musicians

109    Te Deum thanksgiving hymn “Te Deum laudamus” (Latin; “We praise thee O God”) parted departed

110    state procession/pomp/dignity

117    lately recently

121    the one i.e., Gardiner

122    preferred promoted

129    will who will

134    Master o’th’Jewel House i.e., responsible for the Crown Jewels in the Tower of London

140    Something…command i.e., I have some degree of influence

Act 4 Scene 2

4.2    Location: Kimbolton Castle, Cambridgeshire

3    loaden laden, overburdened

11    happily fittingly/fortunately/perhaps

13    voice word, rumor

14    stout brave, resolute

15    brought him forward escorted him

16    tainted disgraced/corrupted answer trial

18    sit sit on

20    roads stages (of the journey) Leicester chief town of Leicestershire, in central England

22    convent members of the monastery

26    little earth i.e., grave

27    eagerly keenly/fiercely

33    blessèd part i.e., soul

35    speak speak of/describe

37    stomach pride/ambitious appetite

38    suggestion incitement, prompting (to wrongdoing)

39    Tied subjected, tied up Simony buying and selling ecclesiastical posts

40    I’th’presence in the royal reception chamber/presence of the king

41    double duplicitous/ambiguous

43    pitiful merciful, compassionate

46    body i.e., sexual appetites, love of worldly pleasures ill immoral

51    good goodness, virtues

56    to for

57    ripe mature, sophisticated

59    Lofty haughty

61    unsatisfied in getting never satisfied with what he had acquired

64    you Griffith addresses Ipswich and Oxford

65    Ipswich and Oxford Wolsey founded colleges in both towns, though only the one at Oxford survived him; originally intended to be Cardinal’s College, it was renamed Christ Church

66    did made, founded

68    art scholarship rising growing (in reputation and excellence; plays on the idea of physical completion)

72    little humble

79    Whom he whom (i.e., Wolsey)

80    religious conscientious modesty moderation, restraint

82    set me lower i.e., help me to lie back or sit lower in the chair

84    note tune

85    knell funeral bell

86    celestial harmony i.e., heaven tripping moving nimbly and lightly bays bay-tree leaves, a symbol of triumph vizards masks congee make a formal bow changes turns or stages of the dance in their i.e., still

102    fancy imagination

103    music leave musicians cease

104    heavy oppressive/sorrowful

111    An’t like if it please

112    saucy insolent

115    lose give up wonted accustomed

118    staying waiting

122    emperor Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, Katherine’s nephew

137    physic medicine had would have

148    willing willingly

150    model image daughter i.e., Mary

152    breeding upbringing

159    both my fortunes i.e., good and bad, as queen and subsequently

163    honesty chastity/virtue carriage behavior

165    happy fortunate

169    over extra

171    able sufficient

178    fashion form, nature, character

179    honest honorable

187    used treated

188    maiden flowers i.e., those flowers befitting chastity

190    forth i.e., out for burial

192    can i.e., say or do

Act 5 Scene 1

5.1    Location: the royal court, London

3    necessities essential activities, i.e., sleep

7    Whither where are you going

9    primero gambling card game

11    must must go

14    an if if

15    offence harm

16    touch sense, hint late recent/late night

21    durst commend dare entrust

22    this work i.e., what he has been engaged in

23    feared it is feared

25    fruit i.e., child goes with carries/is in the throes of labor with

27    time delivery, outcome stock tree that bore the fruit, i.e., Anne

28    grubbed up uprooted

30    Cry the amen i.e., agree

35    way of thinking, i.e., Catholic religious views

38    hands i.e., assistants, supporters

41    remarked notable/conspicuous

42    Master O’th’Rolls a high-ranking legal position

44    gap and trade opening and path

45    time age, state of affairs/time to come/opportunity

49    are are those

52    Incensed angered

54    arch-heretic major, principal holder of unorthodox religious views (puns on “archbishop”)

55    moved angered, stirred

56    broken broached (the matter)

58    fell fierce, terrible mischiefs evils, misfortunes

61    convented summoned to appear rank rapidly growing, abundant

64    rest remain

66    hard strong (a player)

69    fancy mind, inclination

78    suff’rance suffering

81    God may God quit release, relieve

82    travail labor gladding delighting

86    estate state, situation

99    attends awaits

101    bishop i.e., Gardiner

102    happily fortunately, opportunely

103    Avoid leave gallery long room used for walking in

106    aspect of terror angry expression

118    grievous serious

120    moved prompted, decided

122    with such freedom so freely, easily purge clear, exonerate

124    take…you be patient

126    Tower Tower of London brother of us being a fellow member of the council

127    fits is fitting

131    throughly thoroughly winnowed i.e., cleared of impurity, as corn is exposed to wind in order to separate it from worthless husks (chaff)

133    stands under endures/is subject to calumnious slanderous

138    my halidom all I consider holy

139    looked anticipated

140    given…petition requested

143    endurance further further hardship/forthcoming imprisonment

144    dread revered

147    triumph exult (at the downfall of) weigh value

148    Being should it be nothing not at all

152    small insignificant practices plots

153    bear…proportion be correspondingly powerful ever always

155    The dew o’th’verdict i.e., a successful outcome at with

157    swear testify

159    Ween you of do you expect

160    perjured witness false testimony your master i.e., Christ

162    naughty wicked

163    take…danger behave as though jumping off a cliff were not dangerous

164    woo invite, court

167    is that is

169    give way to i.e., allow

171    chance happen

172    commit imprison

186    Now now may

190    Is…delivered? Has the queen given birth?

194    girl may apply either to Anne or to the newly born Elizabeth

195    Promises i.e., who promises to give birth to

196    and and for you

201    marks a mark was a monetary unit (rather than a coin) worth two thirds of a pound

203    groom servingman for suitable for

206    hot “to strike while the iron is hot” was proverbial

207    put…issue undertake it, insist on it (issue may play on the sense of “child”)

Act 5 Scene 2

3    fast locked up

4    Sure surely

9    So so be it/I see

11    happily fortunately/by chance

12    understand it presently be informed of it at once

16    sound perceive/proclaim

17    laid arranged (like a trap)

18    turn alter

22    attend wait above i.e., on the upper staging level or gallery

26    Body o’me upon my body (i.e., life)

29    Who…state who maintains his dignity/is detained according to his status (ironic) pursuivants state messengers

30    footboys boy servants, often assistants to footmen

33    one above ’em i.e., the king/God

34    parted divided honesty integrity/decorum

35    suffer permit

36    place status

37    dance attendance be kept waiting

38    post courier packets i.e., of letters

40    close shut state throne above next to, at the upper end of the table; the seating arrangements reflect the men’s positions

49    Without outside

56    present present time

57    chair i.e., Cranmer’s vacant chair next to the Lord Chancellor

58    capable Of susceptible to

59    flesh bodily urges, mortal weakness

60    want lack

61    misdemeaned yourself behaved improperly

65    Divers various/different/perverse, cruel heresies views contrary to orthodox religious opinion

66    pernicious destructive

69    Pace…hands do not train them gently, by hand

70    stubborn unyielding

71    obey the manage perform the specific movements correctly (from French manège, “horsemanship”) suffer permit

72    easiness indulgence, leniency

74    physic medicine

75    taint corruption/infection

77    upper…witness a reference either to the Saxony peasants’ revolt of 1524 or to the rising of the Anabaptists in Münster in 1535 upper higher/inland

82    course current/series of undertakings

85    single united, honest

87    place official public position

95    urge make allegations

98    by that virtue by virtue of that

99    moment importance

100    short brief

103    private i.e., not exercising public office

105    provided prepared

107    pass be approved, prevail

109    end aim, purpose

111    Become befit, suit

115    doubt i.e., of my innocence conscience i.e., trouble your conscience

118    sectary follower of a heretical sect

119    painted counterfeit/superficial discovers reveals

120    words i.e., mere words

122    By…favour if you will permit me (to say so)

127    cry…mercy beg your honor’s pardon worst least

131    sound orthodox, honest

136    bold audacious, impertinent

140    Forbear stop, desist

156    Receive take into custody

157    safe securely confined

161    gripes grips, clutches

163    CHAMBERLAIN some editors reassign this line to the Chancellor

172    in…him of value to the king

173    on’t of it (the present business)

174    gave misgave, prompted fearful doubts (in)

175    informations pieces of intelligence/accusations/tales seat throne

183    aim i.e., beneficiary

184    dear respect earnest regard (for the Church)

187    sudden hasty/spontaneous

190    They i.e., the commendations

194    bloody bloodthirsty, destructive

196    He i.e., man

197    starve die

203    discretion prudence, wisdom

209    try put on trial (sense then shifts to “afflict, torment”)

212    mean the means

215    like please

216    purposed intended

219    purgation clearing of his name

222    use treat

226    ado fuss

229    wants lacks

234    spoons a set of spoons was a common christening gift

244    voice opinion

246    shrewd injurious, vicious

249    one united

Act 5 Scene 3

5.3    Location: by a gate of the royal court, London cudgel club Man servant

1    leave cease Paris Garden bear-baiting arena on London’s Bankside, near the Globe theater

2    rude rough, uncivilized gaping shouting

3    belong to i.e., work in

5    crab-tree i.e., made from the tough wood of a crab-apple tree these i.e., these cudgels switches slim, flexible shoots cut from a tree

6    scratch i.e., beat

11    May-day morning traditional day of early rising for dawn festivities

12    Paul’s St. Paul’s Cathedral

13    and be hanged an oath

17    made no spare didn’t hold back (when beating the crowd)

19    Samson biblical character possessed of legendary strength Sir…Colbrand Colbrand was a Danish giant killed by Sir Guy of Warwick

22    cuckold man with an unfaithful wife

23    chine cut of meat from the backbone of an animal (possibly quibbles on the sense of “chink, fissure,” i.e., “vagina”)

24    for a cow a slightly obscure phrase, apparently meaning “for anything,” though cow may play on the sense of “prostitute”

26    presently shortly puppy impertinent young man

27    close closed tightly sirrah sir (used to an inferior)

29    Moorfields an area of open ground just outside London’s city walls, at one point used for training militia

30    muster assemble (soldiers) strange foreign Indian native Americans had been known to be exhibited to London’s paying public (although “Indian” could also signify a person from the East or West Indies, or the Far East) great tool large penis

31    fry seething brood

34    spoons spoons given as christening presents/penises

35    brazier brass-worker (working in high temperatures) dog-days hottest days of the year, associated with the dog Dog Star Sirius

36    in’s nose i.e., his nose is red as if from heat (presumably from drinking) under the line at the Equator

37    fire-drake dragon/fiery meteor

38    discharged fired off (like a gun) mortar-piece small cannon

39    blow us blow us up/blow his nose all over us haberdasher seller of small items relating to clothing, such as thread and ribbon railed upon ranted at

40    pinked ornamented with small holes or slits porringer hat shaped like a soup dish kindling…combustion provoking such a tumult/lighting such a fire

41    meteor i.e., the red-nosed brazier ‘Clubs!’ rallying cry to summon apprentices to a fight

42    truncheoners cudgel-carriers succour aid, assistance

43    hope o’th’Strand strapping apprentices from workshops on the Strand, a London street near the Thames was quartered lodged/lived fell on attacked made good secured, defended

44    came…me fought at close quarters with me (literally, close enough to use broomsticks)

45    loose shot marksmen not attached to a company

46    fain obliged work earthwork, i.e., fort

48    youths i.e., apprentices

49    tribulation troublemakers, rabble Tower Hill site of public executions and a rough residential area limbs members, residents/fighters, fists

50    Limehouse rough dockyard area in London’s East End (puns on limb) limbo patrum i.e., prison (literally, the name of the dwelling place for the souls of the unbaptized and of those who had died before Christ’s coming; continues the pun on limb)

51    like likely running banquet i.e., a whipping through the streets (literally, hasty meal)

52    beadles parish constables

56    made…hand done a fine job (sarcastic)

57    trim fine/smartly dressed (sarcastic)

58    friends plays on the sense of “lovers” (i.e., whores) o’th’suburbs in the areas outside the City walls and its jurisdiction, known for lawlessness and prostitution

59    Great…room plenty of space

61    An’t if it

64    rule control

66    lay…th’heels put you in the stocks or shackles

67    suddenly straightaway

68    round heavy

69    baiting of bombards drinking from leather jugs/harassing drunkards/giving drinks to drunkards

70    service your job

72    break among push through press crowd

73    troop christening procession fairly easily

74    Marshalsea prison in Southwark hold ye play keep you from amusement

77    close up i.e., back

78    camlet fabric made from silk and goat hair o’th’rail off the railing (possibly the rail around the stage, suggesting that the groundlings in the yard took the part of the crowd)

79    peck fling pales railings

Act 5 Scene 4

5.4    Trumpets trumpeters Garter i.e., Garter King-at-Arms, an important ceremonial post Marshal’s staff the rod of office belonging to the Earl Marshal, a high-ranking state official standing bowls bowls supported by legs or a base habited clothed

4    partners fellow godparents

6    laid stored

15    gossips godparents prodigal lavish (with christening gifts)

21    heaven…her may God always be at her side

26    pattern exemplary model

27    Saba the Queen of Sheba, who tested Solomon’s wisdom with difficult questions (1 Kings 10:1–10)

30    mould up form, make up piece masterpiece, work of art

32    still always

34    own own people

35    beaten (presumably) wind-beaten

40    God i.e., religion

41    read learn

42    greatness power/honor/nobility blood inheritance

43    sleep i.e., die

44    maiden phoenix mythical Arabian bird that was consumed by fire every five hundred years, then resurrected from the ashes; only one existed at a time

46    admiration the inspiring of wonder

47    one i.e., James I, who succeeded Elizabeth in 1603

48    cloud of darkness i.e., earthly life

51    fixed constant/established/unswayed by varying fortune terror the power to inspire awe

63    deed beneficial action

64    Would I wish

70    get beget, conceive/gain, achieve

75    beholding indebted

79    sick unhappy, hurt

80    H’as he has stay remain/cease (work)

81    holiday derived from “Holy-day” (as originally spelled in the Folio), emphasizing the word’s origins as a spiritual as well as celebratory time

The Epilogue

5    naught worthless city London and its citizens

7    that so that

10    construction interpretation, judgment, appraisal

11    such a one could refer to either Katherine, Anne, or Elizabeth

13    ill hap bad luck

14    hold refrain, refuse

THE TRAGEDY OF TROILUS AND CRESSIDA

Troilus and Cressida perhaps reveals more of Shakespeare’s mature mind at work than any of the other plays. It is highly intelligent, rich in rhetorical complexity and linguistic invention, mentally rigorous, morally skeptical, sexually charged, full of dangerous intellectual and political energy, markedly unpleasant. Most characteristically of all, it is impossible to characterize generically.

It was written towards the end of Shakespeare’s great run of comedies. The cynicism of parts of the near-contemporaneous Measure for Measure and All’s Well that Ends Well, together with the concern in those dark comedies with the rough edges of human sexuality, led early twentieth-century critics to group them together with Troilus under the rubric “problem plays.” The First Folio prints it between the histories and the tragedies, which is a fitting place: it is a tragedy in that the Trojan war, the subject of Homer’s Iliad, was western tragedy’s foundational theme, but it had been published independently in Quarto format in 1609 as The Famous History of Troilus and Cresseid, a title emphasizing a medieval romance accretion to the classical epic tale. A prefatory epistle in some copies of the Quarto performs a delicate balancing act, acknowledging that the play is “passing full of the palm comical,” but emphasizing its serious literary content and praising Shakespeare’s works for being “so framed to the life that they serve for the most common commentaries of all the actions of our lives.”

Despairing of whether to call it history, comedy, or tragedy, many modern critics, with some justification, regard Troilus and Cressida as a satire. The military plot concerning Achilles, Agamemnon, Ajax, Hector, and the rest is derived primarily from Homer and his descendants, most notably George Chapman’s 1598 translation of seven books of The Iliad into elevated English verse. The love plot concerning Troilus and Cressida, the efforts of Pandarus to bring them together, and the infidelity of Cressida in the Greek camp, is derived primarily from Chaucer’s Troilus and Criseyde. The handling of each plot is equally cynical. In its love plot the play is an anti-romance, while in its martial plot it is an anti-epic. In his anti-heroic representation of the exemplary heroes of the Trojan war, Shakespeare undermines both the style and the attitudes of Chapman’s recent translation of Homer. The prologue speaks in high Chapmanesque style of “princes orgulous,” “crownets regal,” “strong immures,” and “warlike freightage,” but the action begins with Troilus saying, “I’ll unarm again” and going on to describe himself as “weaker than a woman’s tear…Less valiant than the virgin in the night.” The admission of a “feminine” language strips all glamour from the male code of war. But then the code of love is submitted to a similar pummeling: Pandarus compares the art of love to bread-making, with its progression from grinding to bolting to kneading to leavening to cooling. Troilus idealizes his love in courtly language, but at the same time compares his desire to a wound, speaking of “the open ulcer of my heart.”

Scabs, pus, and running sores ooze through the play, while the foul-mouthed Thersites proves to be the truest commentator on the war. In the second scene we are given a first account of Hector, traditionally the most noble of heroes. Here, however, he is reported to be wrathful, chiding his devoted wife Andromache and striking his armorer. An honorable man should respect his wife and servants: the honor of Hector is thus questioned from the start. There is a clear progression from the reported striking of the armorer to Hector’s ignominious end, in which he is killed because of an act of vanity: he has unarmed himself in order to put on the alluring golden armor of a slain warrior. Our first image of Ajax, another magnificent hero in Homer, is yet one more debunking. “They say he is a very man per se, and stands alone,” says Alexander: this sounds like the glorious self-sufficiency of the epic hero. “So do all men, unless they are drunk, sick, or have no legs,” replies Cressida: “stands alone” is taken literally and thus reduced to ignobility. And, sure enough, Ajax does prove to be a singularly unheroic blockhead. As for the great Achilles, he has withdrawn from the battle and is camping around in his tent with his gay lover, Patroclus, acting out parodies of the inflated mannerisms of the other Greek generals. Again and again, Troilus and Cressida reveals the discrepancy between the polished surface that is projected by a value system, whether the heroic code or courtly love, and the tawdry reality beneath. At a philosophical level, the effect of this is deeply troubling: it is to question whether there can be such a thing as an absolute moral value.

In a purposeful anachronism during the debate about whether or not the war is worth fighting, Trojan man of action Hector appeals to the Greek thinker who was regarded in Shakespeare’s time as the father of moral philosophy: having begun by commending the argumentative powers of his brothers Troilus and Paris, Hector adds that they have reasoned “superficially, not much / Unlike young men, whom Aristotle thought / Unfit to hear moral philosophy.” To the modern ear, the language is typically dense and frustrating. Why can’t Hector say “like young men,” we wonder, instead of “not much” / brief pause for the end of the verse line / “Unlike young men”? Trust Shakespeare to prefer “not unlike” to mere “like.” The flow of argument through the play is like a serpentine river, twisting and turning with double negatives, retractions, qualifications, hypothetical cases, generalizations exploded by particular instances. The modern equivalent is the tortured language of legal opinions and government regulations, which is perhaps why the play is sometimes considered to have been a showpiece for lawyers. But we need to remember that rhetoric—the construction of elaborate edifices of argument that are expounded pro and contra with both words and sentence structures arranged in highly complex ways—was the absolute staple of each long day’s work in the Elizabethan grammar school classroom. Anyone in Shakespeare’s original audience with a few years’ formal education would have had their ears tuned to the mode of speaking that characterizes the formal debates in the respective council scenes of the Trojans and Greeks. And for some in the audience who lacked a formal education—women among them—the theater was an alternative classroom, a place to learn the art of manipulating words without the burden of having to do so in Latin.

Motivating the expansion of the grammar school network in sixteenth-century England was the educational revolution known to scholars as “humanism.” The purpose of study was not only to achieve a command of the linguistic arts, but also to be inspired to virtue by the example of the ancient heroes: to learn integrity from Hector, fortitude from Andromache, courage from Achilles, leadership from Agamemnon, strength from Ajax, wisdom from Ulysses, and so forth. It is this moral dimension that the play systematically strips away. The mythic heroes are resolutely anti-heroic. The idea that manliness can be proved in battle is subverted by the voice of Thersites. Thus when Menelaus and Paris, great rivals in Helen’s love, meet in single combat: “The cuckold and the cuckold-maker are at it. Now, bull! Now, dog!” Here at it suggests sexual congress as well as fighting, while “bull” and “dog” reduce the grandeur of the plain of Troy to the baying confines of the baiting ring (on London’s Bankside, theater and bear-baiting shared the same arenas). As Thersites lances the martial values, so the leering Pandarus reduces love to sex: coming to Troilus and Cressida after they have spent the night together for the first time, he addresses his niece as if she were synonymous with her sexual parts, battered and chafed by the repeated assaults of Troilus’ member (“How go maidenheads?…Ah, poor chipochia! Hast not slept tonight? Would he not—a naughty man—let it sleep?”). Hector quotes Aristotle as saying that “young men” are shallow in the art of moral philosophy. The play seems to reply that young men will be young men: they will squabble and sulk, they will argue for the sake of it and swear till the air is blue, they thrive on anger and violence. And old men are no better: they are petulant and manipulative, prurient and self-interested. As for women, Andromache makes but a fleeting appearance, Cassandra is no more than the voice of doom, Helen is not so much the most beautiful woman in the world as one half of a comic double act with Pandarus, and Cressida knows that her only means of survival is to use her sexuality.

Moral philosophy is not a fixed point of reference. It is itself interrogated and found wanting. Hector attempts to distinguish between the dangers of actions based on emotion (“the hot passion of distempered blood”) and the propriety of those based on reason (“a free determination / ’Twixt right and wrong”). But in the case of the Trojan war, right and wrong cannot be judged objectively: “What’s aught but as ’tis valued?” asks Troilus. Hector tries to maintain the case that value exists above “particular will,” but the play as a whole—with its constant counterpointing of Trojan and Greek, battlefield and bedroom, high rhetoric and low bawdy—proposes that all moral judgments are relative. It is Ulysses who makes this point most eloquently: a man or an action can only be judged “by reflection, / As when his virtues shining upon others / Heat them and they retort that heat again / To the first giver.” This argument is articulated as part of a cunning scheme to persuade Achilles to switch back from the role of Patroclus’ effeminate lover to the Greek army’s most masculine warrior: the image of the bullish Ajax being presented as top soldier will retort on Achilles and make him strive to regain his military preeminence.

Ulysses’ speech about the need for society to maintain a strict hierarchical order or “degree” is part of the same strategy. He argues that one of the causes of the untuning of degree in the Greek camp is the fact that their exemplary warrior Achilles is sulking in his tent when he should be in the appropriate place for an exemplary warrior, namely on the battlefield. But the method he proposes by which Achilles is to be restored to his proper place is itself a disruption of degree. Hector has issued a challenge to single combat. Degree should dictate that Hector’s equal on the Greek side, Achilles, is put forward, but Ulysses proposes Ajax instead, thus snubbing Achilles and provoking him into rejoining the army. Ulysses then achieves his end by rigging an election. Even in the midst of a rhetorically powerful vision of the chaos that ensues when the moral and social order are not upheld, he lets slip his knowledge of the relativity of value. In the very act of warning that “right and wrong” will “lose their names” if “degree” is not observed, Ulysses adds parenthetically that justice resides not inherently on the side of right, as one would expect it to, but rather in the “endless jar” between right and wrong. The play as a whole is a demonstration that order, moral and social, is not a predetermined value system answerable to a harmonious cosmic design, but rather a process, an endless debate and negotiation of terms, in which reason and judgment cannot be separated from appetite and will.

So it is that two kinds of absolute statement are juxtaposed against each other. On the one hand, aspirations to truth and fixity: “True swains in love shall in the world to come / Approve their truths by Troilus…As truth’s authentic author to be cited, / ‘As true as Troilus’ shall crown up the verse.” And on the other, cynical reductions to the lowest common denominator of the body: “Here is such patchery, such juggling and such knavery! All the argument is a cuckold and a whore, a good quarrel to draw emulations, factions and bleed to death upon. Now, the dry serpigo on the subject, and war and lechery confound all!” “Hector is dead, there is no more to say”: that is how a tragedy ought to end. But having said that line, Troilus says “Stay yet.” Shakespeare just won’t stop arguing with himself. If there is a victor in these endless jars, it is the voice of the cynical commentators, Thersites and Pandarus. The latter gets the last word, addressing the theater audience in a broken sonnet that is a symptom of this play’s fragmented world.

Troilus disintegrates because of the incompatibility between his mental image of Cressida and what he sees of her in the Greek camp when she has become Diomedes’ mistress: “This is and is not Cressid.” The sight causes him to believe that the whole rationality of the world has collapsed and “The bonds of heaven are slipped, dissolved and loosed.” He has not, however, seen Cressida brutally manhandled and kissed, treated like a piece of meat, on her arrival in the camp. Shakespeare’s point in bringing Troilus to “madness of discourse” is not to make a moral judgment about Cressida—you can’t help feeling that he admires her improvisational skills and the way in which she maintains linguistic dignity even as her body is taken by another man—but rather to strip away the illusion that bodily beauty and strength are signs of inner grace and greatness. The symbolic figure that comes closest to the rotten core of the play is that knight in sumptuous armor who is pursued by Hector. He is so fair without, but what does Hector find within? A “Most putrified core,” a decaying human body.

KEY FACTS

PLOT: For seven years the Greeks and Trojans have been at war following the Trojan prince Paris’ abduction of Helen, the most beautiful woman in the world, from her Greek husband Menelaus. The besieging Greek army is encamped under the walls of Troy and, at the point at which the play begins, the war has reached stalemate. The Greeks are quarreling among themselves. Achilles, their greatest champion, refuses to fight and has withdrawn to his tent with his lover, Patroclus. Ulysses tries to entice Achilles back to the field by arousing his jealously against Ajax, a rival warrior, whom he acclaims as their new hero and elects to meet Hector, the Trojan champion, in single combat. Equally at odds with themselves, the Trojans are debating the value of continuing the war merely for the sake of keeping Helen. Hector declares her not worth the lives she costs but when his brother Troilus contends that honor demands they continue to fight for her, Hector is brought around to his point of view. Although the single combat between Ajax and Hector ends in a show of amity, hostilities are resumed the following day. Troilus, however, is much distracted from these military concerns by his love for Cressida, the daughter of Calchas, a Trojan who has defected to the Greek camp while leaving his daughter in Troy. The young lovers are eagerly abetted by Cressida’s uncle Pandarus, who acts as their go-between. However, after only one night together they are parted when, in exchange for the captured general Antenor, Cressida is sent to join her father in the Greek camp. Almost immediately she betrays Troilus with the Greek Diomedes and, discovering this, Troilus is plunged into despair. Despite his sister Cassandra’s prophecies of doom, Hector goes into battle and is treacherously murdered by Achilles, who has finally been roused into action by the death of Patroclus. With the fall of Troy certain, Troilus, disillusioned as a lover, assumes Hector’s role as the Trojan champion and vows revenge on Achilles. The dying, disease-ridden Pandarus is left to end the play.

MAJOR PARTS: (with percentage of lines/number of speeches/scenes on stage) Troilus (15%/131/ 13), Ulysses (14%/80/7), Pandarus (11%/153/8), Cressida (8%/152/6), Thersites (8%/90/7), Achilles (6%/74/9), Hector (6%/57/7), Agamemnon (6%/52/7), Nestor (5%/38/6), Aeneas (4%/44/8), Diomedes (3%/54/11), Paris (3%/27/5), Ajax (2%/55/8), Patroclus (2%/37/5).

LINGUISTIC MEDIUM: 70% verse, 30% prose.

DATE: 1601–02. Registered for publication February 7, 1603 (“as yt is acted by my lo: Chamberlens Men”). Not mentioned by Meres in 1598; influenced by Chapman’s Homer translation of the same year. The armed prologue (Folio only) seems to parody that of Ben Jonson’s Poetaster (performed summer 1601). There are apparent allusions to the play in Thomas Lord Cromwell (Chamberlain’s Men, registered for publication in August 1602) and Thomas Middleton’s The Family of Love (?1602–03).

SOURCES: Chaucer’s Troilus and Criseyde (perhaps in Speght’s 1598 edition) for the love plot; George Chapman’s translation of seven books of Homer’s Iliad (1598) and William Caxton’s Recuyell of the Historyes of Troye (1474, the first printed book in English) for the war. Perhaps also John Lydgate’s Troy Book (1513) and Robert Henryson’s The Testament of Cresseid (1532).

TEXT:: Quarto, 1609, in two separate states: one with title page The Historie of Troylus and Cresseida. As it was acted by the Kings Maiesties seruants at the Globe. Written by William Shakespeare, the other with title page omitting reference to the stage (The Famous Historie of Troylus and Cresseid. Excellently expressing the beginning of their loues, with the conceited wooing of Pandarus Prince of Licia. Written by William Shakespeare) and a prefatory epistle that makes claims for the readerly as opposed to the theatrical text. The nature of the printer’s copy for both the Quarto and Folio’s The Tragedie of Troylus and Cressida is fiercely debated by scholars, as is the relationship between the texts. The original intention of the Folio editors was to print Troilus after Romeo and Juliet, using the Quarto as copy text (a few early copies of the Folio survive with a canceled last page of Romeo and first page of Troilus). But printing was broken off after three pages, perhaps due to a copyright dispute, and Troilus was eventually squeezed in between the Histories and Tragedies (after the setting of the “Catalogue” of plays in the Folio’s preliminary matter). When printing was resumed, a manuscript that had many differences from the Quarto text was used, though the influence of Quarto can still be strongly detected. Some scholars suppose that Folio was printed from an annotated Quarto, but this does not square with the superiority of many individual Quarto readings: why annotate a sound reading in a printed text with an alteration that makes less good sense? It is therefore probable that an independent scribal copy, perhaps based on the theater promptbook, and perhaps reflecting playhouse revision, also lies behind the Folio. In accordance with our editorial policy, we follow Folio where it is viable, but, in the light of the demonstrable presence of Quarto in the editing or printing of the Folio, we adopt Quarto readings where Folio cannot be defended.

On two occasions the text includes passages that seem to be authorial “first thoughts” intended for deletion. Most modern editors relegate such lines to an appendix. Our fidelity to Folio means that we have not done so, though we have indicated the lines in question by enclosing them within double solidi (// //): they should almost certainly be cut in performance, but are of great interest in apparently revealing Shakespeare in the process of composition.

THE TRAGEDY OF TROILUS AND CRESSIDA

PROLOGUE, in armor

Trojans

PRIAM, King of Troy

CASSANDRA, Priam’s daughter, a prophetess

ANDROMACHE, wife of Hector

HELEN, wife of Paris, previously wife of Menelaus

PANDARUS, a lord

CRESSIDA, his niece

CALCHAS, her father who has joined the Greeks

ALEXANDER, her servant

BOY,servant to Troilus

Greeks

AGAMEMNON, Commander-in-Chief

MENELAUS, his brother

ULYSSES

NESTOR

ACHILLES

PATROCLUS, his friend

AJAX

DIOMEDES

THERSITES

MYRMIDONS, Achilles’ soldiers Servants, Attendants

The Prologue

[Enter the Prologue, in armour]

In Troy there lies the scene. From isles of Greece

The princes orgulous,[2] their high blood chafed,

Have to the port of Athens sent their ships

Fraught[4] with the ministers and instruments

5

Of cruel war: sixty and nine, that wore

Their crownets[6] regal, from th’Athenian bay

Put forth toward Phrygia,[7] and their vow is made

To ransack Troy, within whose strong immures[8]

The ravished[9] Helen, Menelaus’ queen,

10

With wanton[10] Paris sleeps, and that’s the quarrel.

To Tenedos[11] they come,

And the deep-drawing barks[12] do there disgorge

Their warlike fraughtage:[13] now on Dardan plains

The fresh and yet unbruisèd Greeks do pitch

15

Their brave pavilions:[15] Priam’s six-gated city,

Dardan,[16] and Tymbria, Helias, Chetas, Troien,

And Antenorides, with massy[17] staples

And corresponsive and fulfilling bolts,

Stir up the sons of Troy.

20

Now expectation, tickling[20] skittish spirits,

On one and other side, Trojan and Greek,

Sets all on hazard.[22] And hither am I come,

A prologue armed,[23] but not in confidence

Of author’s pen or actor’s voice, but suited[24]

25

In like conditions as our argument,

To tell you, fair beholders, that our play

Leaps o’er the vaunt and firstlings[27] of those broils,

Beginning in the middle,[28] starting thence away

To what may be digested[29] in a play.

30

Like or find fault, do as your pleasures are:

Now good or bad, ’tis but the chance of war.

[Exit]

Act 1 Scene 11.1

running scene 1

Enter Pandarus and Troilus

TROILUSCall here my varlet,[1] I’ll unarm again:

Why should I war without[2] the walls of Troy

That find such cruel battle here within?

Each Trojan that is master of his heart,

5

Let him to field:[5] Troilus, alas, hath none.

PANDARUSWill this gear[6] ne’er be mended?

TROILUSThe Greeks are strong and skilful to[7] their strength,

Fierce to their skill and to their fierceness valiant,

But I am weaker than a woman’s tear,

10

Tamer[10] than sleep, fonder than ignorance,

Less valiant than the virgin in the night,

And skilless[12] as unpractised infancy.

PANDARUSWell, I have told you enough of this: for my part, I’ll not meddle nor make.[13] no further. He that will have a cake out of the wheat must needs tarry[14] the grinding[15]

TROILUSHave I not tarried?

PANDARUSAy, the grinding, but you must tarry the bolting.[17]

TROILUSHave I not tarried?

PANDARUSAy, the bolting, but you must tarry the leav’ning.[19]

TROILUSStill have I tarried.

PANDARUSAy, to the leavening, but here’s yet in the word ‘hereafter’ the kneading, the making of[22] the cake, the heating of the oven and the baking; nay, you must stay[23] the cooling too, or you may chance to burn your lips.

TROILUSPatience herself, what goddess e’er she be,

25

Doth[25] lesser blench at suff’rance than I do.

At Priam’s royal table do I sit;

And when fair Cressid comes into my thoughts —

So, traitor,[28] when she comes? When is she thence?

PANDARUSWell, she looked yesternight fairer than ever I saw her look, or any woman else.

TROILUSI was about to tell thee — when my heart,

As wedgèd[32] with a sigh, would rive in twain,

Lest Hector or my father should perceive me —

I have, as when the sun doth light a-scorn,[34]

35

Buried this sigh in wrinkle of a smile:

But sorrow, that is couched[36] in seeming gladness

Is like that mirth fate turns to sudden sadness.

PANDARUSAn[38] her hair were[39] not somewhat darker than Helen’s — well, go to — there were no more comparison between the women. But, for my part, she is my kinswoman: I would[40] not, as they term it, praise her, but I would somebody had heard her talk yesterday, as I did. I will not dispraise[41] your sister Cassandra’s wit, but—

TROILUSO Pandarus! I tell thee, Pandarus —

When I do tell thee, there my hopes lie drowned,

45

Reply not in how many fathoms[45] deep

They lie indrenched.[46] I tell thee I am mad

In Cressid’s love.[47] Thou answer’st she is fair,

Pour’st in the open ulcer of my heart

Her eyes, her hair, her cheek, her gait, her voice,

50

Handlest[50] in thy discourse, O, that her hand

In whose comparison[51] all whites are ink

Writing their own reproach, to[52] whose soft seizure

The cygnet’s[53] down is harsh and spirit of sense

Hard as the palm of ploughman: this thou tell’st me —

55

As true thou tell’st me — when I say I love her,

But, saying thus, instead of oil and balm,[56]

Thou lay’st in every gash[57] that love hath given me

The knife that made it.

PANDARUSI speak no more than truth.

60

TROILUSThou dost not speak so much.

PANDARUSFaith, I’ll not meddle in’t. Let her be as she is: if she be fair, ’tis the better for her: an she be not, she has the mends[62] in her own hands.

TROILUSGood Pandarus, how now, Pandarus?

PANDARUSI[64] have had my labour for my travail: ill-thought on of her and ill-thought on of you: gone between and between, but small thanks for my labour.

TROILUSWhat, art thou angry, Pandarus? What, with me?

PANDARUSBecause she’s kin to me, therefore she’s not so fair as Helen: an[67] she were not kin to me, she would be as fair on Friday as Helen is on Sunday. But what care I? I care not an she were a blackamoor:[69] ’tis all one to me.

TROILUSSay I she is not fair?[70]

PANDARUSI do not care whether you do or no. She’s a fool to stay behind her father:[71] let her[72] to the Greeks, and so I’ll tell her the next time I see her. For my part, I’ll meddle nor make no more i’th’matter.

TROILUSPandarus—

PANDARUSNot I.

TROILUSSweet Pandarus—

PANDARUSPray you speak no more to me: I will leave all as I found it, and there an end.

Exit Pandarus

Sound alarum

TROILUSPeace, you ungracious[79] clamours, peace, rude sounds!

80

Fools on both sides! Helen must needs be fair

When with your blood you daily paint[81] her thus.

I cannot fight upon this argument:[82]

It is too starved[83] a subject for my sword.

But Pandarus — O gods, how do you plague me!

85

I cannot come to Cressid but by Pandar,

And he’s as tetchy[86] to be wooed to woo

As she is stubborn, chaste, against all suit.[87]

Tell me, Apollo,[88] for thy Daphne’s love,

What Cressid is, what Pandar, and what we?[89]

90

Her bed is India:[90] there she lies, a pearl.

Between our Ilium[91] and where she resides,

Let it be called the wild and wand’ring flood,[92]

Ourself the merchant,[93] and this sailing Pandar

Our doubtful hope, our convoy[94] and our bark.

Alarum. Enter Aeneas

95

AENEASHow now, Prince Troilus? Wherefore not afield?[95]

TROILUSBecause not there:[96] this woman’s answer sorts,

For womanish it is to be from thence.

What news, Aeneas, from the field today?

AENEASThat Paris is returnèd home and hurt.

100

TROILUSBy whom, Aeneas?

AENEASTroilus, by Menelaus.

TROILUSLet Paris bleed, ’tis but a scar[102] to scorn:

Paris is gored with Menelaus’ horn.[103]

Alarum

AENEASHark, what good sport[104] is out of town today!

105

TROILUSBetter at home, if ‘would I might’ were ‘may’.

But to the sport abroad:[106] are you bound thither?

AENEASIn all swift haste.

TROILUSCome, go we then together.

Exeunt

[Act 1 Scene 2]

running scene 2

Enter Cressida and her Man [Alexander]

CRESSIDAWho were those went by?

ALEXANDERQueen Hecuba and Helen.

CRESSIDAAnd whither go they?

ALEXANDERUp to the eastern tower,

5

Whose height commands as subject[5] all the vale,

To see the battle. Hector, whose patience

Is as a virtue fixed,[7] today was moved:

He chides Andromache and struck his armourer,

And, like[9] as there were husbandry in war,

10

Before the sun rose he was harnessed light,[10]

And to the field goes he, where every flower

Did as a prophet weep what it foresaw

In Hector’s wrath.

CRESSIDAWhat was his cause of anger?

15

ALEXANDERThe noise[15] goes, this: there is among the Greeks

A lord of Trojan blood, nephew[16] to Hector:

They call him Ajax.

CRESSIDAGood,[18] and what of him?

ALEXANDERThey say he is a very man per se,[19] and stands alone.

CRESSIDASo do all men, unless they are drunk,[20] sick, or have no legs.

ALEXANDERThis man, lady, hath robbed many beasts of their particular additions:[21] he is as valiant as the lion, churlish[22] as the bear, slow as the elephant: a man into whom nature hath so crowded humours[23] that his valour is crushed into folly, his folly sauced with discretion. There is no man hath a virtue that he hath not a glimpse[25] of, nor any man an attaint but he carries some stain of it: he is melancholy without cause, and merry against the hair:[26] he hath the joints of everything, but everything so out of joint that he is a gouty[27] Briareus, many hands and no use, or purblinded[28] Argus, all eyes and no sight.

CRESSIDABut how should this man, that makes me smile make Hector angry?

ALEXANDERThey say he yesterday coped[30] Hector in the battle and struck him down, the disdain[31] and shame whereof hath ever since kept Hector fasting and waking.

Enter Pandarus

CRESSIDAWho comes here?

ALEXANDERMadam, your uncle Pandarus.

CRESSIDAHector’s a gallant man.

ALEXANDERAs may be in the world, lady.

PANDARUSWhat’s that? What’s that?

CRESSIDAGood morrow, uncle Pandarus.

PANDARUSGood morrow, cousin Cressid. What do you talk of?— Good morrow, Alexander.— How do you, cousin? When were you at Ilium?

CRESSIDAThis morning, uncle.

PANDARUSWhat were you talking of when I came? Was Hector armed and gone ere[41] ye came to Ilium? Helen was not up, was she?

CRESSIDAHector was gone, but Helen was not up.

PANDARUSE’en so; Hector was stirring early.

CRESSIDAThat were we talking of, and of his anger.

PANDARUSWas he angry?

CRESSIDASo he says here.

PANDARUSTrue, he was so; I know the cause too: he’ll lay about him[48] today, I can tell them that, and there’s Troilus will not come far behind him: let them take heed of Troilus, I can tell them that too.

CRESSIDAWhat, is he angry too?

PANDARUSWho, Troilus? Troilus is the better man of the two.

CRESSIDAO Jupiter,[53] there’s no comparison.

PANDARUSWhat, not between Troilus and Hector? Do you know a man[54] if you see him?

CRESSIDAAy, if I ever saw him before and knew him.

PANDARUSWell, I say Troilus is Troilus.

CRESSIDAThen you say as I say, for I am sure he is not Hector.

PANDARUSNo, nor Hector is not Troilus in some degrees.[59]

CRESSIDA’Tis just[60] to each of them: he is himself.

PANDARUSHimself? Alas, poor Troilus, I would he were.

CRESSIDASo he is.

PANDARUSCondition,[63] I had gone barefoot to India.

CRESSIDAHe is not Hector.

PANDARUSHimself? No, he’s not himself: would a[65] were himself! Well, the gods are above, time[66] must friend or end. Well, Troilus, well. I would my heart were in her body. No, Hector is not a better man than Troilus.

CRESSIDAExcuse me.[68]

PANDARUSHe is elder.

CRESSIDAPardon me, pardon me.

PANDARUSTh’other’s[71] not come to’t; you shall tell me another tale, when th’other’s come to’t. Hector shall not have his wit[72] this year.

CRESSIDAHe shall not need it if he have his own.

PANDARUSNor his qualities.

CRESSIDANo matter.

PANDARUSNor his beauty.

CRESSIDA’Twould not become[77] him: his own’s better.

PANDARUSYou have no judgement, niece; Helen herself swore th’other day that Troilus for a brown favour[79] — for so ’tis, I must confess — not brown neither—

CRESSIDANo, but brown.[80]

PANDARUS’Faith, to say truth, brown and not brown.

CRESSIDATo say the truth, true and not true.

PANDARUSShe praised his complexion above Paris.

CRESSIDAWhy, Paris hath colour enough.

PANDARUSSo he has.

CRESSIDAThen Troilus should[86] have too much: if she praised him above, his complexion is higher than his: he having colour enough, and the other higher, is too flaming[88] a praise for a good complexion. I had as lief Helen’s golden tongue had commended Troilus for a copper[89] nose.

PANDARUSI swear to you, I think Helen loves him better than Paris.

CRESSIDAThen she’s a merry Greek[91] indeed.

PANDARUSNay, I am sure she does. She came to him th’other day into the compassed[93] window — and, you know, he has not past three or four hairs on his chin—

CRESSIDAIndeed, a tapster’s arithmetic[95] may soon bring his particulars therein to a total.

PANDARUSWhy, he is very young, and yet will he within three pound lift as much as his brother Hector.

CRESSIDAIs he so young a man and so old[99] a lifter?

PANDARUSBut to prove to you that Helen loves him, she came and puts me her white hand to his cloven[101] chin—

CRESSIDAJuno[102] have mercy! How came it cloven?

PANDARUSWhy, you know ’tis dimpled. I think his smiling becomes him better than any man in all Phrygia.

CRESSIDAO, he smiles valiantly.

PANDARUSDoes he not?

CRESSIDAO yes, an[107] ’twere a cloud in autumn.

PANDARUSWhy, go to, then. But to prove to you that Helen loves Troilus—

CRESSIDATroilus will stand[109] to the proof, if you’ll prove it so.

PANDARUSTroilus? Why, he esteems her no more than I esteem an addle[110] egg.

CRESSIDAIf[111] you love an addle egg as well as you love an idle head, you would eat chickens i’th’shell.

PANDARUSI cannot choose but laugh to think how she tickled his chin. Indeed, she has a marvellous[114] white hand, I must needs confess—

CRESSIDAWithout the rack.[115]

PANDARUSAnd she takes upon her to spy a white hair on his chin.

CRESSIDAAlas, poor chin. Many a wart is richer.[117]

PANDARUSBut there was such laughing! Queen Hecuba laughed that[118] her eyes ran o’er.

CRESSIDAWith millstones.[120]

PANDARUSAnd Cassandra laughed.

CRESSIDABut there was more temperate fire under the pot[122] of her eyes: did her eyes run o’er too?

PANDARUSAnd Hector laughed.

CRESSIDAAt what was all this laughing?

PANDARUSMarry,[126] at the white hair that Helen spied on Troilus’ chin.

CRESSIDAAn’t had been a green[127] hair, I should have laughed too.

PANDARUSThey laughed not so much at the hair as at his pretty[128] answer.

CRESSIDAWhat was his answer?

PANDARUSQuoth she, ‘Here’s but two and fifty hairs on your chin, and one of them is white.’

CRESSIDAThis is her question.

PANDARUSThat’s true, make no question of that. ‘Two and fifty hairs,[133]’ quoth he, ‘and one white: that white hair is my father, and all,[134] the rest are his sons.’ ‘Jupiter!’ quoth she, ‘Which of these hairs is Paris, my husband?’ ‘The forked[135] one,’ quoth he, ‘pluck’t out, and give it him.’ But there was such laughing, and Helen so blushed, and Paris so chafed[137] and all the rest so laughed, that it passed.

CRESSIDASo[138] let it now, for it has been a great while going by.

PANDARUSWell, cousin. I told you a thing yesterday: think on’t.

CRESSIDASo I do.

PANDARUSI’ll be sworn ’tis true, he will weep[141] you, an ’twere a man born in April.

Sound a retreat

CRESSIDAAnd I’ll spring[142] up in his tears, an ’twere a nettle against May.

PANDARUSHark, they are coming from the field: shall we stand up here and see them as they pass toward Ilium? Good niece, do, sweet niece Cressida.

CRESSIDAAt your pleasure.

PANDARUSHere, here, here’s an excellent place, here we may see most bravely.[146] I’ll tell you them all by their names as they pass by, but mark[147] Troilus above the rest.

Enter Aeneas [and passes over the stage]

CRESSIDASpeak not so loud.

PANDARUSThat’s Aeneas. Is not that a brave.[149] man? He’s one of the flowers of Troy, I can tell you. But mark Troilus: you shall see anon[150]

CRESSIDAWho’s that?

Enter Antenor [and passes over the stage]

PANDARUSThat’s Antenor. He has a shrewd[152] wit, I can tell you, and he’s a man good enough: he’s one o’th’soundest judgement[153] in Troy whosoever, and a proper man of person. When comes Troilus? I’ll show you Troilus anon: if he see me, you shall see him nod at me.

CRESSIDAWill he give[156] you the nod?

PANDARUSYou shall see.

CRESSIDAIf he do, the[158] rich shall have more.

Enter Hector [and passes over the stage]

PANDARUSThat’s Hector, that, that, look you, that there’s a fellow! Go thy way,.[159] Hector! There’s a brave man, niece. O brave Hector! Look how he looks! There’s a countenance[161] Is’t not a brave man?

CRESSIDAO brave man!

PANDARUSIs a,[163] not? It does a man’s heart good. Look you what hacks are on his helmet. Look you yonder, do you see? Look you there? There’s no jesting[164] there’s laying on,[165] take’t off who will, as they say. There be hacks!

CRESSIDABe those with swords?[166]

Enter Paris [and passes over the stage]

PANDARUSSwords, anything, he cares not: an the devil come to him, it’s all one. By God’s lid,[168] it does one’s heart good. Yonder comes Paris, yonder comes Paris. Look ye yonder, niece. Is’t not a gallant man too, is’t not? Why, this is brave now. Who said he came hurt home today? He’s not hurt. Why, this will do Helen’s heart good now, ha? Would I could see Troilus now. You shall see Troilus anon.

CRESSIDAWho’s that?

Enter Helenas [and passes over the stage]

PANDARUSThat’s Helenus. I marvel[173] where Troilus is. That’s Helenus, I think he went not forth[174] today: that’s Helenus.

CRESSIDACan Helenus fight, uncle?

PANDARUSHelenus? No. Yes, he’ll fight indifferent[176] well. I marvel where Troilus is. Hark, do you not hear the people cry ‘Troilus’? Helenus is a priest.

CRESSIDAWhat sneaking[178] fellow comes yonder?

Enter Troilus [and passes over the stage]

PANDARUSWhere? Yonder? That’s Deiphobus. ’Tis Troilus! There’s a man, niece!— Hem![180] Brave Troilus, the prince of chivalry!

CRESSIDAPeace, for shame, peace!

PANDARUSMark him, note him. O brave Troilus! Look well upon him, niece. Look you how his sword is bloodied, and his helm,.[183] more hacked than Hector’s, and how he looks, and how he goes[184] O admirable youth! He ne’er saw three and twenty. Go thy way, Troilus, go thy way! Had I a sister were a grace[185] or a daughter a goddess, he should take his choice. O admirable man! Paris? Paris is dirt to[186] him, and I warrant[187] Helen, to change, would give money to boot.

Enter Common Soldiers [and pass over the stage]

CRESSIDAHere come more.

PANDARUSAsses, fools, dolts. Chaff and bran,[189] chaff and bran; porridge after meat. I could live and die i’th’eyes of Troilus. Ne’er look, ne’er look. The eagles are gone: crows and daws,[191] crows and daws! I had rather be such a man as Troilus than Agamemnon and all Greece.

CRESSIDAThere is among the Greeks Achilles, a better man than Troilus.

PANDARUSAchilles? A drayman,[194] a porter, a very camel.

CRESSIDAWell, well.

PANDARUS‘Well, well’? Why, have you any discretion?,[196] Have you any eyes? Do you know what a man is? Is not birth[197] beauty, good shape, discourse, manhood, learning, gentleness,[198] virtue, youth, liberality, and so forth, the spice and salt that seasons a man?

CRESSIDAAy, a minced[200] man, and then to be baked with no date in the[201] pie, for then the man’s date’s out.

PANDARUSYou[202] are such another woman! One knows not at what ward you lie.

CRESSIDAUpon my back, to defend my belly;,[203] upon my wit, to defend my wiles; upon my secrecy[204] to defend mine honesty; my mask, to defend my beauty, and you, to defend all these: and at all these wards[205] I lie at, at a thousand watches.

PANDARUSSay one of your watches.[206]

CRESSIDANay, I’ll watch[207] you for that, and that’s one of the chiefest of them too: if I cannot ward[208] what I would not have hit, I can watch you for telling how I took the blow, unless it swell[209] past hiding, and then it’s past watching.

Enter [Troilus’] Boy

210

PANDARUSYou[210] are such another!

BOYSir, my lord would instantly speak with you.

PANDARUSWhere?

BOYAt your own house.

PANDARUSGood boy, tell him I come.

[Exit Boy]

215

I doubt[215] he be hurt. Fare ye well, good niece.

CRESSIDAAdieu, uncle.

PANDARUSI’ll be with you, niece, by and by.[217]

CRESSIDATo bring,[218] uncle?

PANDARUSAy, a token[219] from Troilus.

220

CRESSIDABy[220] the same token, you are a bawd.

Exit Pandarus

Words, vows, gifts, tears, and love’s full sacrifice,

He offers in[222] another’s enterprise,

But more in Troilus thousand-fold I see

Than in the glass[224] of Pandar’s praise may be;

225

Yet hold I off. Women are angels, wooing:[225]

Things won are done,[226] joy’s soul lies in the doing.

That she[227] beloved knows nought that knows not this:

Men[228] prize the thing ungained more than it is:

That[229] she was never yet that ever knew

230

Love got so sweet as when desire did sue.

Therefore this maxim out of[231] love I teach:

‘Achievement[232] is command; ungained, beseech.’

That[233] though my heart’s contents firm love doth bear,

Nothing of that shall from mine eyes appear.

Exit [with Alexander]

[Act 1 Scene 3]*

running scene 3

Sennet. Enter Agamemnon, Nestor, Ulysses, Diomedes, Menelaus, with others

AGAMEMNONPrinces,

What grief[2] hath set the jaundice on your cheeks?

The ample proposition[3] that hope makes

In all designs begun on earth below

5

Fails in[5] the promised largeness: checks and disasters

Grow in the veins[6] of actions highest reared,

As knots, by[7] the conflux of meeting sap,

Infect the sound pine[8] and diverts his grain

Tortive and errant[9] from his course of growth.

10

Nor, princes, is it matter new to us

That we come short of our suppose[11] so far

That after seven years’ siege yet Troy walls stand,

Sith[13] every action that hath gone before,

Whereof we have record, trial did draw

15

Bias and thwart, not[15] answering the aim

And that unbodied figure of the thought

That gave’t surmisèd shape. Why then, you princes,

Do you with cheeks abashed behold our works[18]

And think them shame, which are indeed nought else

20

But the protractive[20] trials of great Jove

To find persistive[21] constancy in men,

The fineness of which metal[22] is not found

In fortune’s love?[23] For then the bold and coward,

The wise and fool, the artist[24] and unread,

25

The hard and soft seem all affined[25] and kin.

But in the wind and tempest of her[26] frown,

Distinction[27] with a loud and powerful fan,

Puffing at all, winnows[28] the light away;

And what hath mass or matter[29] by itself

30

Lies rich in virtue[30] and unminglèd.

NESTORWith due observance[31] of thy godly seat,

Great Agamemnon, Nestor shall apply[32]

Thy latest words. In the reproof[33] of chance

Lies the true proof[34] of men: the sea being smooth,

35

How many shallow bauble[35] boats dare sail

Upon her patient breast, making their way

With those of nobler bulk!

But let the ruffian Boreas[38] once enrage

The gentle Thetis,[39] and anon behold

40

The strong-ribbed bark[40] through liquid mountains cut,

Bounding between the two moist elements,[41]

Like Perseus’ horse:[42] where’s then the saucy boat

Whose weak untimbered[43] sides but even now

Co-rivalled greatness? Either to harbour fled,

45

Or made a toast[45] for Neptune. Even so

Doth valour’s show[46] and valour’s worth divide

In storms of fortune; for in her[47] ray and brightness

The herd hath more annoyance by the breeze[48]

Than by the tiger, but when the splitting wind

50

Makes flexible the knees of knotted oaks,

And flies fled under shade,[51] why, then the thing of courage,

As roused with rage with rage doth sympathize,[52]

And with an accent tuned in selfsame key

Retires[54] to chiding fortune.

55

ULYSSESAgamemnon,

Thou great commander, nerve[56] and bone of Greece,

Heart of our numbers,[57] soul and only spirit,

In whom the tempers[58] and the minds of all

Should be shut up,[59] hear what Ulysses speaks:

60

Besides the applause and approbation

The which[61]— most mighty for thy place and sway,— To Agamemnon

And thou most reverend[62] for thy stretched-out life,— To Nestor

I give to both your speeches, which were such

As Agamemnon and[64] the hand of Greece

65

Should hold up high in brass,[65] and such again

As venerable Nestor, hatched in silver,[66]

Should with a bond of air,[67] strong as the axle-tree

In which the heavens ride, knit[68] all the Greeks’ ears

To his experienced tongue: yet let it please both,

70

Thou great, and wise,[70] to hear Ulysses speak.

AGAMEMNONSpeak, prince of Ithaca,[71] and be’t of less expect

That matter needless, of importless burden,[72]

Divide thy lips than we are confident,

When rank[74] Thersites opes his mastic jaws,

75

We shall hear music, wit and oracle.

ULYSSESTroy, yet[76] upon his basis, had been down,

And the great Hector’s sword had lacked a master,

But for these instances.[78]

The specialty of rule[79] hath been neglected;

80

And look how[80] many Grecian tents do stand

Hollow[81] upon this plain, so many hollow factions.

When that the general[82] is not like the hive

To whom the foragers shall all repair,[83]

What honey is expected? Degree[84] being vizarded,

85

Th’unworthiest shows as fairly[85] in the mask.

The heavens themselves, the planets and this centre[86]

Observe degree, priority and place,

Insisture,[88] course, proportion, season, form,

Office[89] and custom, in all line of order:

90

And therefore is the glorious planet Sol[90]

In noble eminence enthroned and sphered[91]

Amidst the other,[92] whose med’cinable eye

Corrects the ill[93] aspects of planets evil,

And posts,[94] like the commandment of a king,

95

Sans check,[95] to good and bad. But when the planets

In evil mixture[96] to disorder wander,

What plagues and what portents, what mutiny,

What raging of the sea, shaking of earth,

Commotion in the winds, frights, changes, horrors,

100

Divert and crack, rend and deracinate[100]

The unity and married[101] calm of states

Quite[102] from their fixure? O, when degree is shaked,

Which is the ladder to all high[103] designs,

The enterprise is sick! How could communities,

105

Degrees in schools[105] and brotherhoods in cities,

Peaceful commerce from dividable shores,[106]

The primogenitive[107] and due of birth,

Prerogative of age, crowns, sceptres, laurels,

But[109] by degree, stand in authentic place?

110

Take but degree away, untune that string,

And, hark, what discord follows. Each thing meets

In mere oppugnancy.[112] The bounded waters

Should[113] lift their bosoms higher than the shores

And make[114] a sop of all this solid globe:

115

Strength should be lord of imbecility,[115]

And the rude[116] son should strike his father dead:

Force should be right, or rather, right and wrong,

Between whose endless jar[118] justice resides,

Should lose their names,[119] and so should justice too.

120

Then everything includes[120] itself in power,

Power into will,[121] will into appetite,

And appetite, an universal wolf,

So doubly seconded[123] with will and power,

Must make[124] perforce an universal prey,

125

And last eat up himself. Great Agamemnon,

This chaos, when degree is suffocate,[126]

Follows the choking.[127]

And this neglection of degree is it

That by a pace[129] goes backward, in a purpose

130

It hath to climb. The general’s disdained

By him one step below, he by the next,

That next by him beneath, so every step

Exampled[133] by the first pace that is sick

Of his superior, grows to an envious fever

135

Of pale and bloodless emulation:[135]

And ’tis this fever that keeps Troy on foot,[136]

Not her own sinews. To end a tale of length,

Troy in our weakness lives, not in her strength.

NESTORMost wisely hath Ulysses here discovered[139]

140

The fever whereof all our power[140] is sick.

AGAMEMNONThe nature of the sickness found, Ulysses,

What is the remedy?

ULYSSESThe great Achilles, whom opinion[143] crowns

The sinew and the forehand[144] of our host,

145

Having his ear full of his airy[145] fame,

Grows dainty of[146] his worth, and in his tent

Lies mocking our designs: with him Patroclus

Upon[148] a lazy bed the livelong day

Breaks[149] scurril jests,

150

And with ridiculous[150] and awkward action —

Which, slanderer, he imitation calls —

He pageants[152] us. Sometime, great Agamemnon,

Thy topless deputation[153] he puts on,

And, like a strutting player, whose conceit[154]

155

Lies in his hamstring,[155] and doth think it rich

To hear the wooden[156] dialogue and sound

’Twixt his stretched footing and the scaffoldage,

Such to-be-pitied[158] and o’er-wrested seeming

He acts thy greatness in: and when he speaks,

160

’Tis like a chime a-mending,[160] with terms unsquared,

Which from the tongue of roaring Typhon[161] dropped

Would seems hyperboles. At this fusty[162] stuff

The large[163] Achilles, on his pressed bed lolling,

From his deep[164] chest laughs out a loud applause,

165

Cries ‘Excellent! ’Tis Agamemnon just.[165]

Now play me[166] Nestor: hum and stroke thy beard,

As he being dressed to[167] some oration.’

That’s done, as[168] near as the extremest ends

Of parallels, as[169] like as Vulcan and his wife,

170

Yet god[170] Achilles still cries, ‘Excellent!

’Tis Nestor right. Now play him me,[171] Patroclus,

Arming to answer[172] in a night alarm.’

And then, forsooth,[173] the faint defects of age

Must be the scene of mirth: to cough and spit,

175

And, with a palsy-fumbling[175] on his gorget,

Shake in and out the rivet:[176] and at this sport

Sir Valour[177] dies; cries ‘O, enough, Patroclus,

Or give me ribs of steel! I shall split all

In pleasure of my spleen.[179]’ And in this fashion,

180

All our abilities, gifts, natures, shapes,

Severals[181] and generals of grace exact,

Achievements, plots, orders, preventions,[182]

Excitements[183] to the field, or speech for truce,

Success or loss, what is or is not, serves

185

As stuff for these two to make paradoxes.[185]

NESTORAnd in the imitation of these twain[186] —

Who, as Ulysses says, opinion crowns

With an imperial voice[188] — many are infect.

Ajax is grown self-willed, and bears[189] his head

190

In such a rein, in[190] full as proud a place

As broad[191] Achilles, and keeps his tent like him;

Makes factious[192] feasts, rails on our state of war,

Bold as an oracle, and sets Thersites,

A slave[194] whose gall coins slanders like a mint,

195

To match us in comparisons with dirt,

To weaken and discredit our exposure,[196]

How[197] rank soever rounded in with danger.

ULYSSESThey tax our policy,[198] and call it cowardice,

Count wisdom as no member of the war,

200

Forestall prescience,[200] and esteem no act

But that of hand:[201] the still and mental parts,

That do contrive[202] how many hands shall strike

When fitness[203] calls them on, and know by measure

Of their observant toil the enemies’ weight —

205

Why, this hath[205] not a finger’s dignity.

They call this bed-work,[206] mapp’ry, closet-war,

So that the ram[207] that batters down the wall,

For[208] the great swing and rudeness of his poise,

They place[209] before his hand that made the engine,

210

Or those that with the fineness[210] of their souls

By reason guide his execution.[211]

NESTORLet[212] this be granted, and Achilles’ horse

Makes many Thetis’ sons.

Tucket[213]

AGAMEMNONWhat trumpet?[216] Look, Menelaus.

215

MENELAUSFrom Troy.

Enter Aeneas

AGAMEMNONWhat would you ’fore our tent?

AENEASIs this great Agamemnon’s tent, I pray you?

AGAMEMNONEven this.

AENEASMay one that is a herald and a prince

220

Do a fair[220] message to his kingly ears?

AGAMEMNONWith surety[221] stronger than Achilles’ arm

’Fore[222] all the Greekish heads, which with one voice

Call Agamemnon head and general.

AENEASFair leave[224] and large security. How may

225

A stranger to those most imperial looks

Know them from eyes of other mortals?

AGAMEMNONHow?

AENEASAy,

I ask that I might waken reverence,[229]

230

And on the cheek be ready with a blush

Modest as morning when she coldly[231] eyes

The youthful Phoebus.[232]

Which is that god in office, guiding men?

Which is the high and mighty Agamemnon?

235

AGAMEMNONThis Trojan scorns us, or the men of Troy

Are ceremonious courtiers.

AENEASCourtiers as free,[237] as debonair, unarmed,

As bending[238] angels: that’s their fame in peace.

But when they would seem soldiers, they have galls,[239]

240

Good arms, strong joints, true swords, and,

Jove’s accord,[241]

Nothing[242] so full of heart. But peace, Aeneas,

Peace, Trojan, lay thy finger on thy lips.

The worthiness of praise distains his worth,[244]

245

If[245] that the praised himself bring the praise forth.

But what the repining[246] enemy commends,

That[247] breath fame blows, that praise, sole pure, transcends.

AGAMEMNONSir, you of Troy, call you yourself Aeneas?

AENEASAy, Greek, that is my name.

250

AGAMEMNONWhat’s your affair I pray you?

AENEASSir, pardon, ’tis for Agamemnon’s ears.

AGAMEMNONHe hears nought privately that comes from Troy.

AENEASNor I from Troy come not to whisper him:

I bring a trumpet[254] to awake his ear,

255

To set his sense[255] on the attentive bent,

And then to speak.

AGAMEMNONSpeak frankly[257] as the wind:

It is not Agamemnon’s sleeping hour,

That thou shalt know. Trojan, he is awake,

260

He tells thee so himself.

AENEASTrumpet, blow loud,

Send thy brass voice through all these lazy tents,

And every Greek of mettle,[263] let him know

What Troy means fairly shall be spoke aloud.

The trumpets sound

265

We have, great Agamemnon, here in Troy

A prince called Hector — Priam is his father —

Who in this dull[267] and long-continued truce

Is rusty grown. He bade me take a trumpet,

And to this purpose speak: kings, princes, lords,

270

If there be one amongst the fair’st[270] of Greece

That holds his honour higher than his ease,[271]

That seeks his praise more than he fears his peril,

That knows his valour, and knows not his fear,

That[274] loves his mistress more than in confession,

275

With truant vows to her own lips he loves,

And dare avow her beauty and her worth

In[277] other arms than hers — to him this challenge.

Hector, in view of Trojans and of Greeks,

Shall make it good, or do his best to do it.

280

He hath a lady, wiser, fairer, truer,

Than ever Greek did compass[281] in his arms,

And will[282] tomorrow with his trumpet call

Midway between your tents and walls of Troy,

To rouse[284] a Grecian that is true in love:

285

If any come, Hector shall honour him:

If none, he’ll say in Troy when he retires,[286]

The Grecian dames are sunburnt[287] and not worth

The splinter[288] of a lance. Even so much.

AGAMEMNONThis shall be told our lovers, Lord Aeneas:

290

If none of them have soul[290] in such a kind,

We left them all at home. But we are soldiers,

And may that soldier a mere[292] recreant prove,

That means not,[293] hath not, or is not in love!

If then one is, or hath, or means to be,

295

That one meets Hector: if none else, I’ll be he.

NESTORTell him of Nestor, one that was a man

When Hector’s grandsire[297] sucked. He is old now,

But if there be not in our Grecian mould

One noble man that hath one spark of fire,

300

To answer for his love, tell him from me

I’ll hide my silver beard in a gold beaver[301]

And in my vantbrace[302] put this withered brawn,

And meeting him will tell him that my lady

Was fairer than his grandam[304] and as chaste

305

As may be in the world. His youth in flood,[305]

I’ll pawn[306] this truth with my three drops of blood.

AENEASNow heavens forbid such scarcity of youth!

ULYSSESAmen.

AGAMEMNONFair Lord Aeneas, let me touch your hand:

310

To our pavilion[310] shall I lead you first.

Achilles shall have word of this intent,

So shall each lord of Greece, from tent to tent.

Yourself shall feast with us before you go

And find the welcome of a noble foe.

Exeunt. Ulysses and Nestor remain

315

ULYSSESNestor.

NESTORWhat says Ulysses?

ULYSSESI have a young conception[317] in my brain,

Be[318] you my time to bring it to some shape.

NESTORWhat is’t?

320

ULYSSESThis ’tis:

Blunt[321] wedges rive hard knots: the seeded pride

That hath to this maturity blown up[322]

In rank[323] Achilles must or now be cropped

Or, shedding,[324] breed a nursery of like evil,

325

To overbulk[325] us all.

NESTORWell, and how?

ULYSSESThis challenge that the gallant[327] Hector sends,

However it is spread[328] in general name,

Relates in purpose only to Achilles.

330

NESTORThe purpose is perspicuous[330] even as substance

Whose grossness little characters sum up:

And, in[332] the publication, make no strain

But that Achilles, were his brain as barren

As banks[334] of Libya — though, Apollo knows,

335

’Tis dry[335] enough — will, with great speed of judgement,

Ay, with celerity,[336] find Hector’s purpose

Pointing on[337] him.

ULYSSESAnd wake[338] him to the answer, think you?

NESTORYes, ’tis most meet;[339] who may you else oppose

340

That can from[340] Hector bring his honour off,

If not Achilles? Though’t be a sportful[341] combat,

Yet in this trial[342] much opinion dwells,

For here the Trojans taste[343] our dear’st repute

With their fin’st[344] palate: and trust to me, Ulysses,

345

Our imputation[345] shall be oddly poised

In this wild[346] action. For the success,

Although particular,[347] shall give a scantling

Of good or bad unto the general,[348]

And in such indexes,[349] although small pricks

350

To[350] their subsequent volumes, there is seen

The baby figure[351] of the giant mass

Of things to come at[352] large. It is supposed

He that meets Hector issues[353] from our choice;

And choice, being mutual act of all our souls,

355

Makes merit her election,[355] and doth boil,

As ’twere from forth us all, a man distilled[356]

Out of our virtues; who miscarrying,[357]

What heart[358] from hence receives the conqu’ring part

To steel[359] a strong opinion to themselves,

360

Which[360] entertained, limbs are his instruments,

In no less working than are swords and bows

Directive by the limbs.

ULYSSESGive pardon to my speech:

Therefore ’tis meet[364] Achilles meet not Hector.

365

Let us, like merchants, show our foulest[365] wares,

And think perchance[366] they’ll sell: if not,

The lustre of the better yet to show,

Shall show the better. Do not consent

That ever Hector and Achilles meet,

370

For both our honour and our shame in this

Are dogged with two strange followers.[371]

NESTORI see them not with my old eyes: what are they?

ULYSSESWhat glory our Achilles shares[373] from Hector,

Were he not proud, we all should wear with him:

375

But he already is too insolent,[375]

And we were[376] better parch in Afric sun

Than in the pride and salt[377] scorn of his eyes,

Should he scape[378] Hector fair. If he were foiled,

Why then, we did[379] our main opinion crush

380

In taint[380] of our best man. No, make a lott’ry,

And by device[381] let blockish Ajax draw

The sort[382] to fight with Hector: among ourselves

Give him allowance[383] as the worthier man,

For that will physic[384] the great Myrmidon

385

Who broils[385] in loud applause, and make him fall

His crest[386] that prouder than blue Iris bends.

If the dull brainless Ajax come safe off,[387]

We’ll dress[388] him up in voices: if he fail,

Yet[389] go we under our opinion still

390

That we have better men. But, hit or miss,

Our[391] project’s life this shape of sense assumes:

Ajax employed[392] plucks down Achilles’ plumes.

NESTORNow, Ulysses,

I begin to relish[394] thy advice;

395

And I will give a taste of it forthwith

To Agamemnon. Go we to him straight.[396]

Two curs[397] shall tame each other: pride alone

Must tarre[398] the mastiffs on, as ’twere their bone.

Exeunt

[Act 2 Scene 1]

running scene 3 continues

Enter Ajax and Thersites

AJAXThersites!

THERSITESAgamemnon, how[2] if he had boils, full, all over, generally?

AJAXThersites!

THERSITESAnd those boils did run?[4] Say so: did not the general run? Were not that a botchy core?[5]

AJAXDog!

THERSITESThen there would come some matter[7] from him: I see none now.

AJAXThou bitch-wolf’s son, canst thou not hear? Feel, then.

Strikes him

THERSITESThe plague of Greece upon thee, thou mongrel[9] beef-witted lord!

AJAXSpeak then, you whinid’st.[10] leaven, speak. I will beat thee into handsomeness.[11]

THERSITESI shall sooner rail[12] thee into wit and holiness: but I think thy horse will sooner con[13] an oration than thou learn a prayer without book. Thou canst strike, canst thou? A red murrain[14] o’thy jade’s tricks!

AJAXToadstool,[15] learn me the proclamation.

THERSITESDost thou think I have no sense,[16] thou strik’st me thus?

AJAXThe proclamation!

THERSITESThou art proclaimed a fool, I think.

AJAXDo not, porcupine,[19] do not; my fingers itch.

THERSITESI would thou didst itch from head to foot and I had the scratching of thee: I would make thee the loathsom’st scab[21] in Greece.

AJAXI say, the proclamation!

THERSITESThou grumblest and railest every hour on[23] Achilles, and thou art as full of envy at his greatness as Cerberus[24] is at Proserpina’s beauty, ay, that thou bark’st at him.

AJAXMistress Thersites!

THERSITESThou shouldst strike him.

AJAXCobloaf![28]

THERSITESHe would pun[29] thee into shivers with his fist, as a sailor breaks a biscuit.

AJAXYou whoreson cur![30] Beats him

THERSITESDo, do.

AJAXThou stool[32] for a witch!

THERSITESAy, do, do, thou sodden-witted,[33] lord! Thou hast no more brain than I have in mine elbows: an asinico[34] may tutor thee. Thou scurvy-valiant ass, thou art here but to thrash Trojans, and thou art bought and sold[35] among those of any wit, like a barbarian[36] slave. If thou use to beat me, I will begin at thy heel, and tell what thou art by inches, thou thing of no bowels[37] thou!

AJAXYou dog!

THERSITESYou scurvy[39] lord!

AJAXYou cur! Beats him

THERSITESMars his[41] idiot! Do, rudeness, do, camel: do, do.

Enter Achilles and Patroclus

ACHILLESWhy, how now, Ajax? Wherefore[42] do you this? How now, Thersites? What’s the matter, man?

THERSITESYou see him there, do you?

ACHILLESAy, what’s the matter?

THERSITESNay, look upon him.

ACHILLESSo I do: what’s the matter?

THERSITESNay, but regard him well.

ACHILLESWell,[49] why, I do so.

THERSITESBut yet you look not well.[50] upon him, for whosomever you take him to be, he is Ajax[51]

ACHILLESI know that, fool.

THERSITESAy, but that[53] fool knows not himself.

AJAXTherefore[54] I beat thee.

THERSITESLo,[55] lo, lo, lo, what modicums of wit he utters! His evasions have ears thus long. I have bobbed[56] his brain more than he has beat my bones: I will buy nine sparrows[57] for a penny, and his pia mater is not worth the ninth part of a sparrow. This lord, Achilles — Ajax, who wears his wit in his belly and his guts in his head — I’ll tell you what I say of him.

ACHILLESWhat?

THERSITESI say, this Ajax— Ajax attempts to beat him

ACHILLESNay, good Ajax. Intervenes

THERSITESHas not so much wit—

ACHILLESNay, I must hold you. To Ajax

THERSITESAs will stop[65] the eye of Helen’s needle, for whom he comes to fight.

ACHILLESPeace, fool!

THERSITESI would have peace and quietness, but the fool will not: he there, that he,[67] look you there.

AJAXO thou damned cur, I shall—

ACHILLESWill you set your wit to[70] a fool’s?

THERSITESNo, I warrant[71] you, for a fool’s will shame it.

PATROCLUSGood words,[72] Thersites.

ACHILLESWhat’s the quarrel?

AJAXI bade the vile owl[74] go learn me the tenor of the proclamation, and he rails upon me.

THERSITESI serve thee not.

AJAXWell, go to, go to.

THERSITESI serve here voluntary.

ACHILLESYour last service,[79] was sufferance, ’twas not voluntary: no man is beaten voluntary. Ajax was here the voluntary[80] and you as under an impress.

THERSITESE’en so.[81] A great deal of your wit, too, lies in your sinews, or else there be liars. Hector shall have a great catch if he knock out either of your brains: he were as good[83] crack a fusty nut with no kernel.

ACHILLESWhat, with[84] me too, Thersites?

THERSITESThere’s Ulysses and old Nestor, whose wit was mouldy ere[85] your grandsires had nails on their toes, yoke[86] you like draught-oxen and make you plough up the war.

ACHILLESWhat? What?

THERSITESYes, good sooth.[89] To, Achilles! To, Ajax! To—

AJAXI shall cut out your tongue.

THERSITES’Tis no matter, I shall speak as much as thou afterwards.

PATROCLUSNo more words, Thersites, peace!

THERSITESI will hold my peace[93] when Achilles’ brach bids me, shall I?

ACHILLESThere’s[94] for you, Patroclus.

THERSITESI will see you hanged like clodpolls[95] ere I come any more to your tents: I will keep[96] where there is wit stirring and leave the faction of fools.

Exit

PATROCLUSA good riddance.

ACHILLESMarry, this, sir, is proclaimed through all our host:[98]

That Hector, by the fifth[99] hour of the sun,

100

Will with a trumpet ’twixt[100] our tents and Troy

Tomorrow morning call some knight to arms

That hath a stomach,[102] and such a one that dare

Maintain— I know not what: ’tis trash. Farewell.

AJAXFarewell? Who shall answer him?[104]

105

ACHILLESI know not: ’tis put to lott’ry, otherwise

He knew[106] his man.

AJAXO, meaning you? I will go learn more of it.

Exeunt

[Act 2 Scene 2]2.2

running scene 4

Enter Priam, Hector, Troilus, Paris and Helenus

PRIAMAfter so many hours, lives, speeches spent,

Thus once again says Nestor from the Greeks:

‘Deliver[3] Helen, and all damage else —

As[4] honour, loss of time, travail, expense,

5

Wounds, friends, and what else dear[5] that is consumed

In hot digestion of this cormorant[6] war —

Shall be struck off.[7]’ Hector, what say you to’t?

HECTORThough no man lesser fears the Greeks than I,

As far as touches my particular,[9]

10

Yet, dread[10] Priam,

There is no lady of more softer bowels,[11]

More spongy to suck in the sense of fear,

More ready to cry out ‘Who knows what follows?’

Than Hector is. The wound of peace is surety,[14]

15

Surety secure,[15] but modest doubt is called

The beacon of the wise, the tent[16] that searches

To th’bottom of the worst.[17] Let Helen go:

Since the first sword was drawn about this question,[18]

Every tithe[19] soul ’mongst many thousand dimes,

20

Hath been as dear as Helen — I mean, of ours.

If we have lost so many tenths of ours

To guard a thing not ours nor worth to us,

Had[23] it our name, the value of one ten,

What merit’s in that reason[24] which denies

25

The yielding of her up?

TROILUSFie,[26] fie, my brother!

Weigh you the worth and honour of a king

So great as our dread father in a scale[28]

Of common ounces? Will you with counters[29] sum

30

The[30] past proportion of his infinite,

And buckle in a waist most fathomless[31]

With spans[32] and inches so diminutive

As fears and reasons? Fie, for godly shame!

HELENUSNo marvel, though you bite so sharp at reasons,[34]

35

You are so empty of them. Should not our father

Bear[36] the great sway of his affairs with reasons,

Because your[37] speech hath none that tells him so?

TROILUSYou are for dreams and slumbers, brother priest.

You fur[39] your gloves with reason. Here are your reasons:

40

You know an enemy intends you harm,

You know a sword employed is perilous,

And reason flies[42] the object of all harm.

Who marvels then, when Helenus beholds

A Grecian and his sword, if he do set

45

The very wings of reason to his heels

And fly like chidden[46] Mercury from Jove,

Or like a star disorbed?[47] Nay, if we talk of reason,

Let’s shut our gates and sleep: manhood and honour

Should have hard[49] hearts, would they but fat their thoughts

50

With this crammed[50] reason. Reason and respect

Makes livers[51] pale and lustihood deject.

HECTORBrother, she is not worth what she doth cost

The holding.[53]

TROILUSWhat’s aught[54] but as ’tis valued?

55

HECTORBut value dwells not in particular will:[55]

It holds his[56] estimate and dignity

As well[57] wherein ’tis precious of itself

As[58] in the prizer. ’Tis mad idolatry

To make the service[59] greater than the god,

60

And the will dotes[60] that is inclinable

To what[61] infectiously itself affects,

Without some image[62] of th’affected merit.

TROILUSI[63] take today a wife, and my election

Is led on in the conduct[64] of my will;

65

My will enkindled by mine eyes and ears,

Two traded[66] pilots ’twixt the dangerous shores

Of will and judgement. How may I avoid,[67]

Although my will distaste[68] what it elected,

The wife I chose? There can be no evasion[69]

70

To blench[70] from this and to stand firm by honour:

We turn not back the silks upon the merchant

When we have spoiled them; nor the remainder[72] viands

We do not throw in unrespective[73] sieve,

Because we now are full. It was thought meet[74]

75

Paris should do some vengeance on the Greeks;

Your breath of full consent bellied[76] his sails,

The seas and winds, old wranglers,[77] took a truce

And did him service; he touched[78] the ports desired,

And for[79] an old aunt whom the Greeks held captive,

80

He brought a Grecian queen,[80] whose youth and freshness

Wrinkles[81] Apollo’s and makes stale the morning.

Why keep we her? The Grecians keep our aunt:

Is she worth keeping? Why, she is a pearl

Whose price[84] hath launched above a thousand ships,

85

And turned crowned kings to merchants.

If you’ll avouch[86] ’twas wisdom Paris went —

As you must needs,[87] for you all cried ‘Go, go’ —

If you’ll confess he brought home noble prize —

As you must needs, for you all clapped your hands

90

And cried ‘Inestimable!’ — why do you now

The issue[91] of your proper wisdoms rate,

And do[92] a deed that fortune never did,

Beggar the estimation[93] which you prized

Richer than sea and land? O, theft most base,

95

That we have stol’n what we do fear to keep!

But[96] thieves unworthy of a thing so stol’n,

That[97] in their country did them that disgrace,

We fear to warrant in our native place!

Enter Cassandra [at a distance] with her hair about her ears

CASSANDRACry, Trojans, cry!

100

PRIAMWhat noise? What shriek is this?

TROILUS’Tis our mad sister, I do know her voice.

CASSANDRACry, Trojans! Coming forward

HECTORIt is Cassandra.

CASSANDRACry, Trojans, cry! Lend me ten thousand eyes,

105

And I will fill them with prophetic tears.

HECTORPeace, sister, peace!

CASSANDRAVirgins and boys, mid-age[107] and wrinkled old,

Soft[108] infancy, that nothing can but cry,

Add to my clamour! Let us pay betimes[109]

110

A moiety[110] of that mass of moan to come.

Cry, Trojans, cry! Practise[111] your eyes with tears!

Troy must not be, nor goodly Ilium stand:

Our firebrand[113] brother, Paris, burns us all.

Cry, Trojans, cry! A Helen and a woe;

115

Cry, cry! Troy burns, or else let Helen go.

Exit

HECTORNow, youthful Troilus, do not these high strains[116]

Of divination in our sister work[117]

Some touches of remorse?[118] Or is your blood

So madly hot that no discourse of reason,

120

Nor fear of bad success[120] in a bad cause,

Can qualify the same?[121]

TROILUSWhy, brother Hector,

We may not think[123] the justness of each act

Such[124] and no other than event doth form it,

125

Nor once deject[125] the courage of our minds

Because Cassandra’s mad: her brainsick raptures[126]

Cannot distaste[127] the goodness of a quarrel

Which hath our several[128] honours all engaged

To make it gracious.[129] For my private part,

130

I am no more touched[130] than all Priam’s sons:

And Jove forbid there should be done amongst us

Such[132] things as might offend the weakest spleen

To fight for and maintain.

PARISElse[134] might the world convince of levity

135

As well[135] my undertakings as your counsels:

But I attest[136] the gods, your full consent

Gave wings to my propension[137] and cut off

All fears attending on so dire[138] a project.

For what, alas, can[139] these my single arms?

140

What propugnation[140] is in one man’s valour

To stand the push[141] and enmity of those

This quarrel would excite? Yet, I protest,

Were I alone to pass[143] the difficulties

And had as ample power as I have will,

145

Paris should ne’er retract what he hath done,

Nor faint[146] in the pursuit.

PRIAMParis, you speak

Like one besotted[148] on your sweet delights:

You have the honey still, but these[149] the gall,

150

So[150] to be valiant is no praise at all.

PARISSir, I propose[151] not merely to myself

The pleasures such a beauty brings with it,

But I would have the soil[153] of her fair rape

Wiped off in honourable keeping her.[154]

155

What treason were it[155] to the ransacked queen,

Disgrace to your great worths and shame to me,

Now to deliver her possession[157] up

On terms of base compulsion! Can it be

That so degenerate a strain[159] as this

160

Should once set footing in your generous[160] bosoms?

There’s not the meanest spirit[161] on our party

Without[162] a heart to dare or sword to draw

When Helen is defended, nor none so noble

Whose life were ill bestowed[164] or death unfamed

165

Where Helen is the subject. Then, I say,

Well may we fight for her whom, we know well,

The world’s large spaces cannot parallel.

HECTORParis and Troilus, you have both said well,

And on the cause and question now in hand

170

Have glozed,[170] but superficially, not much

Unlike young men, whom Aristotle[171] thought

Unfit to hear moral philosophy:

The reasons you allege[173] do more conduce

To the hot passion of distempered[174] blood

175

Than to make up a free determination[175]

’Twixt right and wrong, for pleasure and revenge

Have ears more deaf than adders[177] to the voice

Of any true decision. Nature craves

All dues[179] be rendered to their owners: now,

180

What nearer[180] debt in all humanity

Than wife is to the husband? If this law

Of nature be corrupted through affection,[182]

And that[183] great minds, of partial indulgence

To their benumbèd[184] wills, resist the same,

185

There is a law in each well-ordered nation

To curb those raging appetites that are

Most disobedient and refractory.[187]

If Helen then be wife to Sparta’s king,

As it is known she is, these moral laws

190

Of nature and of nation speak aloud

To have her back returned: thus to persist

In doing wrong extenuates not[192] wrong,

But makes it much more heavy.[193] Hector’s opinion

Is this in way of[194] truth, yet ne’ertheless,

195

My spritely[195] brethren, I propend to you

In resolution to keep Helen still,[196]

For ’tis a cause that hath[197] no mean dependence

Upon our joint[198] and several dignities.

TROILUSWhy, there you touched[199] the life of our design:

200

Were it not glory that we more affected[200]

Than the performance[201] of our heaving spleens,

I would not wish a drop of Trojan blood

Spent more in her defence. But, worthy Hector,

She is a theme[204] of honour and renown,

205

A spur to valiant and magnanimous[205] deeds,

Whose present courage[206] may beat down our foes,

And fame in time to come canonize[207] us,

For I presume brave Hector would not lose

So rich advantage of a promised glory

210

As smiles[210] upon the forehead of this action

For[211] the wide world’s revenue.

HECTORI am yours,

You valiant offspring of great Priamus.

I have a roisting[214] challenge sent amongst

215

The dull and factious nobles of the Greeks

Will[216] strike amazement to their drowsy spirits.

I was advertised[217] their great general slept

Whilst emulation[218] in the army crept:

This, I presume, will wake him.

Exeunt

[Act 2 Scene 3]2.3

running scene 5

Enter Thersites, solus

THERSITESHow now, Thersites? What, lost in the labyrinth of thy fury? Shall the elephant,[2] Ajax carry it thus? He beats me, and I rail at him. O, worthy satisfaction! Would[3] it were otherwise: that I could beat him, whilst he railed at me. ’Sfoot, I’ll learn to conjure[4] and raise devils, but I’ll see some issue of my spiteful execrations. Then there’s Achilles, a rare[5] engineer. If Troy be not taken till these two undermine[6] it, the walls will stand till they fall of themselves. O thou great thunder-darter[7] of Olympus, forget that thou art Jove, the king of gods and, Mercury, lose all the serpentine craft[8] of thy caduceus, if thou take not that little, little, less than little wit from them that they have, which short-armed[9] ignorance itself knows is so abundant scarce, it will not in circumvention[10] deliver a fly from a spider without drawing the massy[11] irons and cutting the web. After this, the vengeance on the whole camp! Or, rather, the bone-ache,[12] for that, methinks, is the curse dependent on[13] those that war for a placket. I have said my prayers and devil Envy say ‘Amen’.— What ho? My lord Achilles?

Enter Patroclus [from the tent]

PATROCLUSWho’s there? Thersites? Good Thersites, come in and rail. Patroclus returns to the tent

THERSITESIf I could have remembered a gilt counterfeit,[16] thou wouldst not have slipped[17] out of my contemplation. But it is no matter: thyself upon thyself! The common curse of mankind, folly and ignorance, be thine in great revenue![18] Heaven bless[19] thee from a tutor, and discipline come not near thee! Let thy blood be thy direction[20] till thy death! Then if she that lays thee out says thou art a fair corpse, I’ll be sworn and sworn upon’t she never shrouded[21] any but lazars. Amen.— Where’s Achilles? Patroclus reemerges from the tent

PATROCLUSWhat, art thou devout? Wast thou in a prayer?

THERSITESAy, the heavens hear me!

Enter Achilles [from the tent]

ACHILLESWho’s there?

PATROCLUSThersites, my lord.

ACHILLESWhere, where? Art thou come? Why, my cheese,[27] my digestion, why hast thou not served[28] thyself in to my table so many meals? Come, what’s Agamemnon?

THERSITESThy commander, Achilles. Then tell me, Patroclus, what’s Achilles?

PATROCLUSThy lord, Thersites: then tell me, I pray thee, what’s thyself?

THERSITESThy knower,[32] Patroclus: then tell me, Patroclus, what art thou?

PATROCLUSThou mayst tell that know’st.

ACHILLESO, tell, tell.

THERSITESI’ll decline[35] the whole question: Agamemnon commands Achilles, Achilles is my lord, I am Patroclus’ knower, and Patroclus is a fool.

PATROCLUSYou rascal!

THERSITESPeace, fool, I have not done.[38]

ACHILLESHe is a privileged man.[39] Proceed, Thersites.

THERSITESAgamemnon is a fool, Achilles is a fool, Thersites is a fool, and, as aforesaid, Patroclus is a fool.

ACHILLESDerive[42] this: come.

THERSITESAgamemnon is a fool to offer.[43] to command Achilles, Achilles is a fool to be commanded of[44] Agamemnon, Thersites is a fool to serve such a fool, and Patroclus is a fool positive[45]

PATROCLUSWhy am I a fool?

Enter Agamemnon, Ulysses, Nestor, Diomedes, Ajax and Calchas [at a distance]

THERSITESMake[47] that demand to the creator: it suffices me thou art. Look you, who comes here?

ACHILLESPatroclus, I’ll speak with nobody. Come in with me, Thersites.

Exit

THERSITESHere is such patchery,[50] such juggling and such knavery! All the argument is a cuckold[51] and a whore, a good quarrel to draw emulations, factions and bleed to death upon. Now, the dry serpigo[52] on the subject, and war and lechery confound[53] all!

[Exit]

AGAMEMNONWhere is Achilles? Comes forward

55

PATROCLUSWithin his tent, but ill disposed,[55] my lord.

AGAMEMNONLet it be known to him that we are here.

He shent[57] our messengers, and we lay by

Our appertainments,[58] visiting of him:

Let him be told of,[59] so perchance he think

60

We dare not move[60] the question of our place,

Or know not what we are.

PATROCLUSI shall so say to him.

[Exit]

ULYSSESWe saw him at the opening of his tent:

He is not sick.

AJAXYes, lion-sick,[65] sick of proud heart: you may call it melancholy if you will favour the man, but, by my head, it is pride. But why, why? Let him show us the cause.— A word, my lord. Ajax and Agamemnon speak aside

NESTORWhat moves Ajax thus to bay[68] at him?

ULYSSESAchilles hath inveigled[69] his fool from him.

NESTORWho, Thersites?

ULYSSESHe.

NESTORThen will Ajax lack matter,[72] if he have lost his argument.

ULYSSESNo, you see, he[73] is his argument that has his argument — Achilles.

NESTORAll the better: their fraction[74] is more our wish than their faction, but it was a strong council that a fool could disunite.

ULYSSESThe amity[76] that wisdom knits not, folly may easily untie.

Enter Patroclus

Here comes Patroclus.

NESTORNo Achilles with him?

ULYSSESThe elephant[79] hath joints, but none for courtesy: his legs are legs for necessity, not for flight.

PATROCLUSAchilles bids me say, he is much sorry

If anything more than your sport[82] and pleasure

Did move your greatness and this noble state[83]

To call upon him; he hopes it[84] is no other

85

But for your health and your digestion’ sake,

An after-dinner’s breath.[86]

AGAMEMNONHear you, Patroclus:

We are too well acquainted with these answers,

But his evasion, winged thus swift with scorn,

90

Cannot outfly our apprehensions.[90]

Much attribute[91] he hath, and much the reason

Why we ascribe it to him, yet all his virtues,

Not virtuously of[93] his own part beheld,

Do in our eyes begin to lose their gloss,

95

Yea, and like fair[95] fruit in an unwholesome dish,

Are like[96] to rot untasted. Go and tell him,

We came to speak with him; and you shall not sin[97]

If you do say we think him over-proud

And under-honest,[99] in self-assumption greater

100

Than in the note of judgement, and worthier[100] than himself

Here tends the savage strangeness he puts on,

Disguise the holy strength of their command,[102]

And underwrite[103] in an observing kind

His humorous[104] predominance. Yea, watch

105

His pettish lunes,[105] his ebbs, his flows, as if

The passage[106] and whole carriage of this action

Rode[107] on his tide. Go tell him this, and add

That if he overhold[108] his price so much,

We’ll none[109] of him; but let him, like an engine

110

Not portable, lie under[110] this report:

‘Bring action hither, this[111] cannot go to war:

A stirring[112] dwarf we do allowance give

Before[113] a sleeping giant.’ Tell him so.

PATROCLUSI shall, and bring his answer presently.[114]

115

AGAMEMNONIn second voice[115] we’ll not be satisfied:

We come to speak with him.— Ulysses, enter you.

Exit Ulysses [following Patroclus]

AJAXWhat is he more than another?

AGAMEMNONNo more than what he thinks he is.

AJAXIs he so much? Do you not think he thinks himself a better man than I am?

AGAMEMNONNo question.

AJAXWill you subscribe[121] his thought, and say he is?

AGAMEMNONNo, noble Ajax: you are as strong, as valiant, as wise, no less noble, much more gentle,[123] and altogether more tractable.

AJAXWhy should a man be proud? How doth pride grow? I know not what it is.

AGAMEMNONYour mind is the clearer,[125] Ajax, and your virtues the fairer. He that is proud eats up himself: pride is his own glass,[126] his own trumpet, his own chronicle, and whatever praises itself but[127] in the deed, devours the deed in the praise.

Enter Ulysses

AJAXI do hate a proud man, as I hate the engendering[128] of toads.

NESTORYet he loves himself: is’t not strange? Aside

130

ULYSSESAchilles will not to the field[130] tomorrow.

AGAMEMNONWhat’s his excuse?

ULYSSESHe doth rely on none,

But carries on the stream[133] of his dispose

Without observance[134] or respect of any,

135

In will peculiar[135] and in self-admission.

AGAMEMNONWhy will he not upon our fair[136] request

Untent his person[137] and share the air with us?

ULYSSESThings small as nothing, for[138] request’s sake only,

He makes important: possessed he is with greatness,[139]

140

And speaks[140] not to himself but with a pride

That quarrels at self-breath: imagined worth

Holds in his blood such swoll’n and hot[142] discourse

That ’twixt his mental and his active parts

Kingdomed Achilles[144] in commotion rages

145

And batters gainst itself. What should I say?

He is so plaguy[146] proud that the death-tokens of it

Cry ‘No recovery.’

AGAMEMNONLet Ajax go to him.—

Dear lord, go you and greet him in his tent;

150

’Tis said he holds[150] you well, and will be led

At your request a little from himself.[151]

ULYSSESO Agamemnon, let it not be so!

We’ll consecrate[153] the steps that Ajax makes

When they go from[154] Achilles. Shall the proud lord

155

That bastes his arrogance with his own seam[155]

And never suffers[156] matter of the world

Enter his thoughts, save such as do revolve[157]

And ruminate himself: shall he be worshipped

Of[159] that we hold an idol more than he?

160

No, this thrice-worthy and right valiant lord

Must not so stale[161] his palm, nobly acquired,

Nor by my will assubjugate[162] his merit,

As[163] amply titled as Achilles is, by going to Achilles:

That were[164] to enlard his fat-already pride

165

And add[165] more coals to Cancer when he burns

With entertaining great Hyperion.

This lord go to him? Jupiter forbid,

And say in thunder ‘Achilles go to him.’

NESTORO, this is well: he rubs[169] the vein of him. Aside

170

DIOMEDESAnd how his silence drinks up this applause! Aside

AJAXIf I go to him, with my armèd[171] fist

I’ll pash[172] him o’er the face.

AGAMEMNONO, no, you shall not go.

AJAXAn a[174] be proud with me, I’ll pheeze his pride.

175

Let me go to him.

ULYSSESNot for the worth[176] that hangs upon our quarrel.

AJAXA paltry, insolent fellow!

NESTORHow he describes himself! Aside

AJAXCan he not be sociable?

180

ULYSSESThe[180] raven chides blackness. Aside

AJAXI’ll let[181] his humours blood.

AGAMEMNONHe will be the physician that should be the patient. Aside

AJAXAn[183] all men were o’my mind—

ULYSSESWit would be out of fashion. Aside

AJAXA[185] should not bear it so, a should eat swords first: shall pride carry it?

NESTORAn ’twould,[186] you’d carry half. Aside

ULYSSESA would have ten shares.[187] Aside

AJAXI will knead[188] him: I’ll make him supple.

NESTORHe’s not yet through[189] warm. Force him with praises: pour in, pour in, his Aside

ambition is dry.[190]

ULYSSESMy lord, you feed[191] too much on this dislike. To Agamemnon

NESTOROur noble general, do not do so.

DIOMEDESYou must prepare to fight without Achilles.

ULYSSESWhy, ’tis this naming of him[194] doth him harm.

195

Here is a man[195] — but ’tis before his face:

I will be silent.

NESTORWherefore should you so?

He is not emulous,[198] as Achilles is.

ULYSSESKnow[199] the whole world, he is as valiant.

200

AJAXA whoreson dog, that shall palter[200] thus with us!

Would he were a Trojan!

NESTORWhat a vice were it in Ajax now—

ULYSSESIf he were proud—

DIOMEDESOr covetous of praise—

205

ULYSSESAy, or surly borne[205]—

DIOMEDESOr strange,[206] or self-affected!

ULYSSESThank the heavens, lord,[207] thou art of sweet composure:

Praise him that got[208] thee, she that gave thee suck:

Fame[209] be thy tutor, and thy parts of nature

210

Thrice famed beyond, beyond all erudition:

But he that disciplined[211] thy arms to fight,

Let Mars divide eternity[212] in twain,

And give him half, and for thy vigour,

Bull-bearing Milo[214] his addition yield

215

To sinewy Ajax. I will not praise thy wisdom,

Which, like a bourn,[216] a pale, a shore, confines

Thy spacious and dilated parts.[217] Here’s Nestor —

Instructed by the antiquary[218] times —

He must, he is, he cannot but be wise:

220

Put pardon, father Nestor, were your days

As green[221] as Ajax’ and your brain so tempered,

You should not have[222] the eminence of him,

But be as Ajax.

AJAXShall I call you father?

225

ULYSSESAy, my good son.

DIOMEDESBe ruled[226] by him, Lord Ajax.

ULYSSESThere is no tarrying[227] here: the hart Achilles

Keeps[228] thicket. Please it our general

To call together all his state[229] of war.

230

Fresh kings are come to Troy; tomorrow

We must with all our main of power[231] stand fast.

And here’s a lord— come knights from east to west,

And cull their flower,[233] Ajax shall cope the best.

AGAMEMNONGo we to council. Let Achilles sleep:

235

Light boats may sail swift, though greater bulks draw deep.[235]

Exeunt

[Act 3 Scene 1]*

running scene 6

Music sounds within. Enter Pandarus and a Servant

PANDARUSFriend, you! Pray you, a word: do not you follow[1] the young lord Paris?

SERVANTAy, sir, when he goes before me.

PANDARUSYou depend upon[3] him, I mean?

SERVANTSir, I do depend uon the lord.[4]

PANDARUSYou depend upon a noble gentleman: I must needs[5] praise him.

SERVANTThe lord be praised!

PANDARUSYou know me, do you not?

SERVANTFaith, sir, superficially.[8]

PANDARUSFriend, know me better: I am the Lord Pandarus.

SERVANTI hope I shall know[10] your honour better.

PANDARUSI do desire it.

SERVANTYou[12] are in the state of grace?

PANDARUSGrace? Not so,[13] friend: honour and lordship are my title. What music is this?

SERVANTI do but partly know, sir: it is music in parts.

PANDARUSKnow you the musicians?

SERVANTWholly, sir.

PANDARUSWho play they to?

SERVANTTo the hearers, sir.

PANDARUSAt whose pleasure,[20] friend?

SERVANTAt mine, sir, and theirs that love music.

PANDARUSCommand, I mean, friend.

SERVANTWho[23] shall I command, sir?

PANDARUSFriend, we understand not one another: I am too courtly[24] and thou art too cunning. At whose request do these men play?

SERVANTThat’s to’t,[26] indeed, sir. Marry, sir, at the request of Paris, my lord, who’s there in person; with him, the mortal Venus[27] the heart-blood of beauty, love’s invisible soul—

PANDARUSWho? My cousin Cressida?

SERVANTNo, sir, Helen: could you not find out that[30] by her attributes?

PANDARUSIt should seem, fellow, that thou hast not seen the lady Cressida. I come to speak with Paris from the Prince Troilus: I will make a complimental.[32] assault upon him, for my business seethes[33]

SERVANTSodden[34] business. There’s a stewed phrase indeed!

Enter Paris and Helen [with Attendants]

PANDARUSFair[35] be to you, my lord, and to all this fair company. Fair desires in all fair measure fairly[36] guide them, especially to you, fair queen. Fair thoughts be your fair pillow.

HELENDear lord, you are full of fair[38] words.

PANDARUSYou speak your fair pleasure,[39] sweet queen. Fair prince, here is good broken[40] music.

PARISYou have broke[41] it, cousin, and, by my life, you shall make it whole again: you shall piece it out[42] with a piece of your performance. Nell, he is full of harmony.

PANDARUSTruly, lady, no.

HELENO, sir—

PANDARUSRude,[45] in sooth, in good sooth, very rude.

PARISWell said, my lord. Well, you say so in fits.[46]

PANDARUSI have business to[47] my lord, dear queen. My lord, will you vouchsafe me a word?

HELENNay, this shall not hedge us out:[49] we’ll hear you sing, certainly.

PANDARUSWell, sweet queen, you are pleasant[50] with me. But, marry, thus, my lord: my dear lord and most esteemed friend, your brother Troilus—

HELENMy lord Pandarus, honey-sweet lord—

PANDARUSGo to, sweet queen,[53] go to.—To Paris Commends himself most affectionately to you—

HELENYou shall not bob[55] us out of our melody: if you do, our melancholy upon your head!

PANDARUSSweet queen, sweet queen: that’s a sweet queen, i’faith.

HELENAnd to make a sweet lady sad is a sour[58] offence.

PANDARUSNay, that shall not serve your turn,[59] that shall it not, in truth, la. Nay, I care not for such words, no, no. And, my lord, he desires[60] you, that if the king call for him at supper, you will make his excuse.

HELENMy lord Pandarus—

PANDARUSWhat says my sweet queen, my very very sweet queen?

PARISWhat exploit’s in hand?[64] Where sups he tonight?

HELENNay, but, my lord—

PANDARUSWhat says my sweet queen? My[66] cousin will fall out with you.

HELENYou must not know where he sups. To Paris

PARISWith my disposer[68] Cressida?

PANDARUSNo, no; no such matter, you are wide.[69] Come, your disposer is sick.

PARISWell, I’ll make excuse.[70]

PANDARUSAy, good my lord. Why should you say Cressida? No, your poor disposer’s sick.

PARISI spy.[73]

PANDARUSYou spy? What do you spy?— Come, give me an instrument.—He is handed a musical instrument Now, sweet queen.

HELENWhy, this is kindly done.

PANDARUSMy niece is horrible[77] in love with a thing you have, sweet queen.

HELENShe shall have it, my lord, if it be not my lord Paris.

PANDARUSHe? No, she’ll none of him: they two are twain.[79]

HELENFalling[80] in after falling out may make them three.

PANDARUSCome, come, I’ll hear no more of this. I’ll sing you a song now.

HELENAy, ay, prithee now. By my troth, sweet lord, thou hast a fine forehead.[82]

PANDARUSAy, you may,[83] you may.

HELENLet thy song be[84] love: this love will undo us all. O Cupid, Cupid, Cupid!

PANDARUSLove? Ay, that it shall, i’faith.

PARISAy, good now,[86] ‘Love, love, nothing but love’.

PANDARUSIn good troth, it begins so.

Love, love, nothing but love, still more! Sings

For, O, love’s[89] bow

90

Shoots[90] buck and doe:

The shaft[91] confounds,

Not that it wounds,

But tickles[93] still the sore.

These lovers cry, O ho,[94] they die!

95

Yet that which seems the wound to kill,[95]

Doth turn O ho, to ha, ha, he![96]

So dying love lives still:

O ho, awhile, but ha, ha, ha!

O[99] ho, groans out for ha, ha, ha!—

Hey-ho!

HELENIn love,[101] i’faith, to the very tip of the nose.

PARISHe eats nothing but doves,[102] love, and that breeds hot blood, and hot blood begets[103] hot thoughts, and hot thoughts beget hot deeds, and hot deeds is love.

PANDARUSIs this the generation of love?[104] Hot blood, hot thoughts, and hot deeds? Why, they are vipers:[105] is love a generation of vipers?— Sweet lord, who’s afield today?

PARISHector, Deiphobus, Helenus, Antenor, and all the gallantry[107] of Troy: I would fain[108] have armed today, but my Nell would not have it so. How chance my brother Troilus went not?

HELENHe[110] hangs the lip at something; you know all, Lord Pandarus.

PANDARUSNot I, honey-sweet queen. I long to hear how they sped[111] today.— You’ll remember your brother’s excuse?

PARISTo a hair.[113]

PANDARUSFarewell, sweet queen.

HELENCommend me to your niece.

PANDARUSI will, sweet queen.

[Exit]

Sound a retreat

PARISThey’re come from field: let us to Priam’s hall

To greet the warriors. Sweet Helen, I must woo[118] you

To help unarm[119] our Hector: his stubborn buckles,

120

With these your white enchanting fingers touched,

Shall more obey[121] than to the edge of steel

Or force of Greekish sinews. You shall do more

Than all the island kings:[123] disarm great Hector.

HELEN’Twill make us proud to be his servant, Paris.

125

Yea, what he shall receive of us[125] in duty

Gives us more palm[126] in beauty than we have,

Yea, overshines ourself.

PARISSweet, above thought[128] I love thee.

Exeunt

[Act 3 Scene 2]3.2

running scene 7

Enter Pandarus and Troilus’ Man

PANDARUSHow now? Where’s thy master? At my cousin Cressida’s?

MANNo, sir, he stays[2] for you to conduct him thither.

Enter Troilus

PANDARUSO, here he comes.—How now, how now?

TROILUSSirrah,[4] walk off.

[Exit Troilus’ Man]

5

PANDARUSHave you seen my cousin?[5]

TROILUSNo, Pandarus: I stalk[6] about her door,

Like a strange[7] soul upon the Stygian banks

Staying for waftage.[8] O, be thou my Charon,

And give me swift transportance to those fields[9]

10

Where I may wallow in the lily-beds[10]

Proposed[11] for the deserver. O gentle Pandarus,

From Cupid’s shoulder pluck his painted[12] wings

And fly with me to Cressid!

PANDARUSWalk here i’th’orchard,[14] I’ll bring her straight.

Exit Pandarus

15

TROILUSI am giddy; expectation whirls me round.

Th’imaginary relish[16] is so sweet

That it enchants my sense:[17] what will it be,

When that the wat’ry[18] palates taste indeed

Love’s thrice-repurèd[19] nectar? Death, I fear me,

20

Swooning destruction, or some joy too fine,[20]

Too subtle-potent,[21] tuned too sharp in sweetness,

For the capacity[22] of my ruder powers;

I fear it much, and I do fear besides,

That I shall lose[24] distinction in my joys,

25

As doth a battle,[25] when they charge on heaps

The enemy flying.[26]

Enter Pandarus

PANDARUSShe’s making her.[27] ready, she’ll come straight. You must be witty now: she does so blush, and fetches[28] her wind so short, as if she were fraid with a sprite. I’ll fetch her. It is the prettiest[29] villain: she fetches her breath so short as a new-ta’en sparrow[30]

Exit Pandarus

TROILUSEven[31] such a passion doth embrace my bosom:

My heart beats thicker[32] than a feverous pulse,

And all my powers do their bestowing[33] lose,

Like vassalage[34] at unawares encount’ring

35

The eye of majesty.

Enter Pandarus and Cressida [veiled]

PANDARUSCome, come, what need you blush? Shame’s a baby. Here she is now: swear the oaths now to her that you have sworn to me.— What, are you gone again? You must be watched,[38] ere you be made tame, must you? Come your ways, come your ways, an you draw backward[39] we’ll put you i’th’fills.— Why do you not speak to her? Come, draw this curtain,[40] and let’s see your picture. Alas the day, how loath you are to offend daylight! An ’twere dark, you’d close[41] sooner. So, so, rub[42] on, and kiss the mistress. How now, a kiss in fee-farm? Build there, carpenter, the air[43] is sweet. Nay, you shall fight your hearts out ere I part you. The falcon[44] as the tercel, for all the ducks i’th’river. Go to, go to.

TROILUSYou have bereft[45] me of all words, lady.

PANDARUSWords pay no debts,.[46] give her deeds. But she’ll bereave you o’th’deeds too, if she call your activity[47] in question. What, billing again? Here’s ‘In witness whereof the parties interchangeably.’ Come in, come in: I’ll go get a fire[48]

[Exit]

CRESSIDAWill you walk in, my lord?

TROILUSO Cressida, how often have I wished me thus!

CRESSIDAWished, my lord? The gods grant— O my lord!

TROILUSWhat should they grant? What makes this pretty[52] abruption? What too curious[53] dreg espies my sweet lady in the fountain of our love?

CRESSIDAMore dregs than water, if my fears have eyes.

TROILUSFears make devils of cherubims: they never see truly.

CRESSIDABlind fear, that seeing reason leads,[56] finds safer footing than blind reason stumbling without fear: to fear the worst oft cures the worse.

TROILUSO, let my lady apprehend[58] no fear: in all Cupid’s pageant there is presented no monster.

CRESSIDANor nothing monstrous[60] neither?

TROILUSNothing, but our undertakings,[61] when we vow to weep seas, live in fire, eat rocks, tame tigers; thinking it harder for our mistress to devise imposition enough[62] than for us to undergo any difficulty imposed. This is the monstruosity in[63] love, lady, that the will[64] is infinite and the execution confined, that the desire is boundless and the act[65] a slave to limit.

CRESSIDAThey say all lovers swear more performance than they are able, and yet reserve[67] an ability that they never perform, vowing more than the perfection of ten and discharging less than the tenth part of one. They that have the voice of lions and the act of hares, are they not monsters?

TROILUSAre there such?,[70] Such are not we: praise us as we are tasted, allow us as we prove[71] our head shall go bare till merit crown it. No perfection in reversion shall have a praise in present: we will not name desert[72] before his birth, and, being born, his addition[73] shall be humble. Few words to fair faith. Troilus shall be such to Cressid as[74] what envy can say worst shall be a mock for his truth, and what truth can speak truest not truer than Troilus.

CRESSIDAWill you walk in, my lord?

Enter Pandarus

PANDARUSWhat, blushing still? Have you not done talking yet?

CRESSIDAWell, uncle, what folly[78] I commit, I dedicate to you.

PANDARUSI thank you for that: if my lord get,[79] a boy of you, you’ll give him me. Be true to my lord: if he flinch[80] chide me for it.

TROILUSYou know now your hostages: your uncle’s word and my firm faith.

PANDARUSNay, I’ll give my word for her too: our kindred, though they be long ere they are wooed, they are constant being won. They are burrs,.[83] I can tell you: they’ll stick where they are thrown[84]

85

CRESSIDABoldness[85] comes to me now, and brings me heart.

Prince Troilus, I have loved you night and day

For many weary months.

TROILUSWhy was my Cressid then so hard to win?

CRESSIDAHard to seem won: but I was won, my lord,

90

With the first glance that ever — pardon me —

If I confess much, you will play the tyrant.[91]

I love you now, but not, till now, so much

But[93] I might master it; in faith, I lie:

My thoughts were like unbridled[94] children grown

95

Too headstrong for their mother. See, we fools!

Why have I blabbed? Who shall be true to us,

When we are so unsecret to ourselves?

But, though I loved you well, I wooed you not,

And yet, good faith, I wished myself a man,

100

Or that we women had men’s privilege[100]

Of speaking first. Sweet, bid me hold my tongue,

For in this rapture I shall surely speak

The thing I shall repent. See, see, your silence,

Cunning[104] in dumbness, from my weakness draws

105

My soul of counsel[105] from me. Stop my mouth.

TROILUSAnd shall,[106] albeit sweet music issues thence. Kisses her

PANDARUSPretty, i’faith.

CRESSIDAMy lord, I do beseech you pardon me:

’Twas not my purpose, thus to beg a kiss.

110

I am ashamed. O heavens, what have I done?

For this time[111] will I take my leave, my lord.

TROILUSYour leave, sweet Cressid?

PANDARUSLeave? An you take leave till tomorrow morning—

CRESSIDAPray you content you.[114]

115

TROILUSWhat offends you, lady?

CRESSIDASir, mine own company.

TROILUSYou cannot shun yourself.

CRESSIDALet me go and try:

I have a kind of self resides with you,

120

But an unkind[120] self, that itself will leave

To be another’s fool.[121] Where is my wit?

I would be gone: I speak I know not what.

TROILUSWell[123] know they what they speak that speaks so wisely.

CRESSIDAPerchance,[124] my lord, I show more craft than love,

125

And fell so roundly[125] to a large confession

To angle for your thoughts: but you are wise,[126]

Or else you love not, for to be wise and love

Exceeds man’s might: that[128] dwells with gods above.

TROILUSO, that I thought it could be in a woman —

130

As, if it can, I will presume[130] in you —

To feed for aye[131] her lamp and flames of love,

To keep her constancy in plight[132] and youth,

Outliving beauty’s outward,[133] with a mind

That doth renew swifter[134] than blood decays!

135

Or that persuasion could but thus convince me

That my integrity and truth to you

Might be affronted[137] with the match and weight

Of such a winnowed[138] purity in love,

How were I[139] then uplifted! But, alas,

140

I am as true as truth’s simplicity[140]

And simpler[141] than the infancy of truth.

CRESSIDAIn that I’ll war with you.

TROILUSO virtuous fight,

When right with right wars who shall be most right!

145

True swains[145] in love shall in the world to come

Approve[146] their truths by Troilus: when their rhymes,

Full of protest,[147] of oath and big compare,

Wants[148] similes, truth tired with iteration,

As true as steel, as plantage[149] to the moon,

150

As sun to day, as turtle[150] to her mate,

As iron to adamant,[151] as earth to th’centre,

Yet, after all comparisons[152] of truth,

As truth’s authentic[153] author to be cited,

‘As true as Troilus’ shall crown up[154] the verse,

155

And sanctify the numbers.[155]

CRESSIDAProphet may you be!

If I be false,[157] or swerve a hair from truth,

When time is old and hath forgot itself,

When waterdrops have worn the stones of Troy,

160

And blind oblivion swallowed cities up,

And mighty states characterless[161] are grated

To dusty nothing, yet let memory,

From false to false, among false maids in love,

Upbraid my falsehood! When they’ve said ‘As false

165

As air, as water, as wind, as sandy earth,

As fox to lamb, as wolf to heifer’s calf,

Pard[167] to the hind, or stepdame to her son’,

‘Yea’, let them say, to stick the heart[168] of falsehood,

‘As false as Cressid.’

PANDARUSGo to, a bargain made: seal it,[170] seal it, I’ll be the witness. Here I hold your hand, here my cousin’s. If ever you prove false one to another, since I have taken such pains to bring you together, let all pitiful goers-between be called to the world’s end after my name: call them all panders; let all constant men be Troiluses, all false women Cressids, and all brokers-between panders! Say, ‘Amen.’

TROILUSAmen.

CRESSIDAAmen.

PANDARUSAmen. Whereupon I will show you a chamber with a bed, which bed, because[178] it shall not speak of your pretty encounters, press it to death. Away! And Cupid grant all tongue-tied maidens[179] here Bed, chamber and pander to provide this gear![180]

Exeunt

[Act 3 Scene 3]3.3

running scene 8

Enter Ulysses, Diomedes, Nestor, Agamemnon, Menelaus and Calchas. Flourish

CALCHASNow, princes, for the service I have done you,

Th’advantage[2] of the time prompts me aloud

To call for recompense. Appear it[3] to your mind

That through the sight[4] I bear in things to come,

5

I have abandoned Troy, left my possession,[5]

Incurred a traitor’s name, exposed myself,

From[7] certain and possessed conveniences,

To doubtful fortunes, sequest’ring[8] from me all

That time, acquaintance, custom and condition[9]

10

Made tame[10] and most familiar to my nature,

And here, to do you service, am become

As[12] new into the world, strange, unacquainted.

I do beseech you, as in way of taste,[13]

To give me now a little benefit

15

Out of those many registered in promise,[15]

Which, you say, live to come[16] in my behalf.

AGAMEMNONWhat wouldst thou of us, Trojan? Make demand.

CALCHASYou have a Trojan prisoner, called Antenor,

Yesterday took:[19] Troy holds him very dear.

20

Oft have you — often[20] have you thanks therefore —

Desired my Cressid in[21] right great exchange,

Whom Troy hath still denied. But this Antenor,

I know is such a wrest[23] in their affairs

That their negotiations all must slack,[24]

25

Wanting his manage,[25] and they will almost

Give us a prince of blood,[26] a son of Priam,

In change of[27] him: let him be sent, great princes,

And he shall buy my daughter, and her presence

Shall quite strike off[29] all service I have done,

30

In[30] most accepted pain.

AGAMEMNONLet Diomedes bear him,[31]

And bring us Cressid hither: Calchas shall have

What he requests of us. Good Diomed,

Furnish you fairly[34] for this interchange.

35

Withal[35] bring word if Hector will tomorrow

Be answered in[36] his challenge: Ajax is ready.

DIOMEDESThis shall I undertake, and ’tis a burden

Which I am proud to bear.

Exit [Diomedes with Calchas]

Enter Achilles and Patroclus in their tent

ULYSSESAchilles stands i’th’entrance of his tent;

40

Please it[40] our general to pass strangely by him,

As if he were forgot, and, princes all,

Lay negligent and loose[42] regard upon him;

I will come last. ’Tis like[43] he’ll question me

Why such unplausive[44] eyes are bent, why turned on him.

45

If so, I have derision medicinable[45]

To use between your strangeness and his pride,

Which his own will shall have desire to drink;

It may do good: pride hath no other glass[48]

To show itself but pride, for supple[49] knees

50

Feed arrogance and are the proud man’s fees.

AGAMEMNONWe’ll execute your purpose,[51] and put on

A form[52] of strangeness as we pass along:

So do each lord, and either greet him not

Or else disdainfully, which shall shake[54] him more

55

Than if not looked on. I will lead the way.

ACHILLESWhat, comes the general to speak with me?

You know my mind: I’ll fight no more gainst Troy.

AGAMEMNONWhat says Achilles? Would he aught[58] with us?

NESTORWould you, my lord, aught with the general?

60

ACHILLESNo.

NESTORNothing, my lord.

AGAMEMNONThe better.[62]

[Exeunt Agamemnon and Nestor]

ACHILLESGood day, good day. To Menelaus

MENELAUSHow do you? How do you?

[Exit]

65

ACHILLESWhat, does the cuckold scorn me?

AJAXHow now, Patroclus?

ACHILLESGood morrow, Ajax.

AJAXHa?

ACHILLESGood morrow.

70

AJAXAy, and good next day too.

Exit

ACHILLESWhat mean these fellows? Know[71] they not Achilles?

PATROCLUSThey pass by strangely: they were used[72] to bend

To send their smiles before them to Achilles,

To come as humbly as they used to creep

75

To holy altars.

ACHILLESWhat, am I poor[76] of late?

’Tis certain, greatness, once fall’n out with fortune,

Must fall out with men too: what the declined[78] is

He shall as soon read in the eyes of others

80

As feel in his own fall, for men, like butterflies,

Show not their mealy[81] wings but to the summer,

And not a man, for being simply man,

Hath any honour, but[83] honoured for those honours

That are without him, as[84] place, riches and favour,

85

Prizes of accident[85] as oft as merit,

Which when they[86] fall, as being slippery standers,

The love[87] that leaned on them as slippery too,

Doth one pluck down another and together

Die in the fall. But ’tis not so with me;

90

Fortune and I are friends: I do enjoy

At ample point[91] all that I did possess,

Save[92] these men’s looks, who do, methinks, find out

Something not worth in me such rich beholding[93]

As they have often given. Here is Ulysses:

95

I’ll interrupt his reading.— How now Ulysses?

ULYSSESNow, great Thetis’ son!

ACHILLESWhat are you reading?

ULYSSESA strange fellow here

Writes me[99] that man, how dearly ever parted,

100

How much in having, or[100] without or in,

Cannot make boast to have that which he hath,

Nor feels not what he owes,[102] but by reflection,

As when his virtues shining upon others

Heat them and they retort[104] that heat again

105

To the first giver.

ACHILLESThis is not strange, Ulysses.

The beauty that is borne here in the face

The bearer knows not, but[108] commends itself

Not[109] going from itself, but eye to eye opposed

110

Salutes each other with each other’s form.

For speculation[111] turns not to itself

Till it hath travelled[112] and is mirrored there

Where it may see itself. This is not strange[113] at all.

ULYSSESI do not strain[114] it at the position —

115

It is familiar — but at the author’s drift,[115]

Who in his circumstance[116] expressly proves

That no man is the lord of anything —

Though in[118] and of him there is much consisting —

Till he communicate his parts[119] to others,

120

Nor doth he of himself know[120] them for aught

Till he behold them formed in th’applause[121]

Where they are extended, who,[122] like an arch, reverb’rate

The voice[123] again, or, like a gate of steel

Fronting[124] the sun, receives and renders back

125

His figure[125] and his heat. I was much wrapt in this,

And apprehended[126] here immediately

The unknown[127] Ajax.

Heavens, what a man is there! A very horse,[128]

That[129] has he knows not what. Nature, what things there are

130

Most[130] abject in regard and dear in use!

What things again[131] most dear in the esteem

And poor in worth! Now shall we see tomorrow —

An act that very chance doth throw upon him —

Ajax renowned! O heavens, what some men do,

135

While some men leave to do![135]

How some men creep[136] in skittish fortune’s hall,

Whiles others play the idiots[137] in her eyes!

How one man eats into another’s pride,[138]

While pride is[139] fasting in his wantonness!

140

To see these Grecian lords! Why, even already

They clap the lubber[141] Ajax on the shoulder,

As if his foot were on brave Hector’s breast

And great Troy shrinking.[143]

ACHILLESI do believe it, for they passed by me

145

As misers do by beggars, neither gave to me

Good word nor look. What, are my deeds forgot?

ULYSSESTime hath, my lord, a wallet[147] at his back,

Wherein he puts alms for oblivion,[148]

A great-sized monster of ingratitudes:

150

Those scraps are good deeds past, which are devoured

As fast as they are made, forgot as soon

As done: perseverance, dear my lord,

Keeps honour bright: to have done[153] is to hang

Quite out of fashion, like a rusty mail[154]

155

In monumental mock’ry.[155] Take the instant way,

For honour travels in a strait[156] so narrow

Where one[157] but goes abreast. Keep then the path,

For emulation[158] hath a thousand sons

That one by one pursue: if you give way,

160

Or hedge[160] aside from the direct forthright,

Like to an entered[161] tide they all rush by

And leave you hindmost,[162]

Or like a gallant horse fall’n in first rank,[163]

Lie there for[164] pavement to the abject rear,

165

O’er-run and trampled on: then what they do in present,

Though less than yours in past, must o’ertop yours,

For time is like a fashionable host

That slightly[168] shakes his parting guest by th’hand,

And with his arms outstretched as[169] he would fly,

170

Grasps[170] in the comer. The welcome ever smiles,

And farewell goes out sighing. O, let not virtue seek

Remuneration[172] for the thing it was.

For beauty, wit,

High birth, vigour of bone,[174] desert in service,

175

Love, friendship, charity, are subjects all

To envious and calumniating[176] time.

One touch of nature[177] makes the whole world kin,

That all with one consent[178] praise new-born gawds,

Though they are made and moulded of things past,

180

And give to dust[180] that is a little gilt

More laud[181] than gilt o’er-dusted.

The present eye praises the present object.[182]

Then marvel not, thou great and complete[183] man,

That all the Greeks begin to worship Ajax;

185

Since things in motion begin to catch the eye

Than what not stirs. The cry[186] went out on thee,

And still it might, and yet it may again,

If thou wouldst not entomb thyself alive

And case[189] thy reputation in thy tent;

190

Whose glorious deeds, but[190] in these fields of late,

Made emulous missions[191] ’mongst the gods themselves

And drave[192] great Mars to faction.

ACHILLESOf this my privacy

I have strong reasons.

195

ULYSSESBut gainst your privacy

The reasons are more potent and heroical:

’Tis known, Achilles, that you are in love

With one[198] of Priam’s daughters.

ACHILLESHa? Known?

200

ULYSSESIs that a wonder?

The providence[201] that’s in a watchful state

Knows almost every grain of Pluto’s[202] gold,

Finds bottom in th’uncomprehensive deeps,[203]

Keeps place[204] with thought, and almost, like the gods,

205

Do thoughts[205] unveil in their dumb cradles.

There is a mystery[206] — with whom relation

Durst never meddle — in the soul of state;[207]

Which hath an operation[208] more divine

Than breath or pen can give expressure[209] to:

210

All the commerce[210] that you have had with Troy

As perfectly[211] is ours as yours, my lord,

And better would it fit[212] Achilles much

To throw[213] down Hector than Polyxena.

But it must grieve young Pyrrhus[214] now at home,

215

When fame shall in our island sound her trump,[215]

And all the Greekish girls[216] shall tripping sing,

‘Great Hector’s sister did Achilles win,

But our great Ajax bravely beat down him.[218]’

Farewell, my lord: I as your lover[219] speak;

220

The[220] fool slides o’er the ice that you should break.

[Exit]

PATROCLUSTo this effect, Achilles, have I moved[221] you:

A woman impudent[222] and mannish grown

Is not more loathed than an effeminate man

In time of action. I stand condemned for this;

225

They think my little stomach to[225] the war

And your great love to me restrains you thus:

Sweet, rouse yourself; and the weak wanton[227] Cupid

Shall from your neck unloose his amorous fold,[228]

And, like a dew-drop from the lion’s mane,

230

Be shook to airy air.

ACHILLESShall Ajax fight with Hector?

PATROCLUSAy, and perhaps receive much honour by him.[232]

ACHILLESI see my reputation is at stake,

My fame[234] is shrewdly gored.

235

PATROCLUSO, then, beware:

Those wounds heal ill[236] that men do give themselves.

Omission to do what is necessary

Seals[238] a commission to a blank of danger,

And danger, like an ague,[239] subtly taints

240

Even then when we sit idly in the sun.

ACHILLESGo call Thersites hither, sweet Patroclus:

I’ll send the fool to Ajax and desire him

T’invite the Trojan lords after the combat

To see us here unarmed. I have a woman’s longing,[244]

245

An appetite that I am sick withal,[245]

To see great Hector in his weeds[246] of peace,

Enter Thersites

To talk with him and to behold his visage,

Even[248] to my full of view.— A labour saved! Sees Thersites

THERSITESA wonder!

ACHILLESWhat?

THERSITESAjax goes up and down the field, asking for himself.[251]

ACHILLESHow so?

THERSITESHe must fight singly tomorrow with Hector, and is so prophetically proud[253] of an heroical cudgelling that he raves[254] in saying nothing.

ACHILLESHow can that be?

THERSITESWhy, he stalks up and down like a peacock,.[256] a stride and a stand: ruminates like an hostess,[257] that hath no arithmetic but her brain to set down her reckoning: bites his lip with a politic regard[258] as who should say ‘There were wit in this head, an ’twould out,[259]’; and so there is, but it lies as coldly in him as fire in a flint, which will not show without knocking[260] The man’s undone for ever; for if Hector break not his neck i’th’combat, he’ll break’t himself in vainglory. He knows.[262] not me: I said, ‘Good morrow, Ajax’; and he replies, ‘Thanks, Agamemnon.’ What think you of this man that takes me for the general? He’s grown a very land-fish[264] language-less, a monster. A plague of opinion! A man may wear it on both sides, like a leather jerkin[265]

ACHILLESThou must be my ambassador to him, Thersites.

THERSITESWho, I? Why, he’ll answer nobody. He professes not[267] answering: speaking is for beggars, he wears[268] his tongue in’s arms. I will put on his presence; let Patroclus make his demands[269] to me, you shall see the pageant of Ajax.

ACHILLESTo him,[270] Patroclus; tell him I humbly desire the valiant Ajax to invite the most valorous Hector to come unarmed to my tent, and to procure safe conduct for his person of the magnanimous and most illustrious six-or-seven-times-honoured captain-general of the Grecian army, Agamemnon, et cetera. Do this.

PATROCLUSJove bless great Ajax!

THERSITESHum![275]

PATROCLUSI come from the worthy Achilles—

THERSITESHa!

PATROCLUSWho most humbly desires you to invite Hector to his tent—

THERSITESHum!

PATROCLUSAnd to procure safe conduct from Agamemnon.

THERSITESAgamemnon?

PATROCLUSAy, my lord.

THERSITESHa?

PATROCLUSWhat say you to’t?

THERSITESGod buy you,[285] with all my heart.

PATROCLUSYour answer, sir.

THERSITESIf tomorrow be a fair day, by eleven o’clock it will go one way or other: howsoever,[288] he shall pay for me ere he has me.

PATROCLUSYour answer, sir.

THERSITESFare you well, with all my heart.

ACHILLESWhy, but he is not in this tune,[291] is he?

THERSITESNo, but he’s out o’tune thus. What music will be in him when Hector has knocked out his brains, I know not, but I am sure none, unless the fiddler[293] Apollo get his sinews to make catlings[294] on.

ACHILLESCome, thou shalt bear a letter to him straight.

THERSITESLet me carry another to his horse; for that’s the more capable[296] creature.

ACHILLESMy mind is troubled, like a fountain stirred,[297]

And I myself see not the bottom of it.

[Exeunt Achilles and Patroclus]

THERSITESWould the fountain of your mind were clear again, that I might water an ass at it! I had rather be a tick in a sheep than such a valiant[300] ignorance.

[Exit]

[Act 4 Scene 1]4.1

running scene 9

Enter at one door Aeneas with a torch, at another Paris, Deiphobus, Antenor, Diomedes the Grecian, with torches

PARISSee, ho! Who is that there?

DEIPHOBUSIt is the lord Aeneas.

AENEASIs the prince there in person?

Had I so good occasion[4] to lie long

5

As you, Prince Paris, nothing but heavenly business[5]

Should rob my bed-mate of my company.

DIOMEDESThat’s my mind[7] too. Good morrow, Lord Aeneas.

PARISA valiant Greek, Aeneas: take his hand.

Witness[9] the process of your speech, within

10

You told how Diomed, in a whole week by days,[10]

Did haunt[11] you in the field.

AENEASHealth to you, valiant sir,

During all question of[13] the gentle truce,

But when I meet you armed, as black defiance

15

As heart can think[15] or courage execute.

DIOMEDESThe[16] one and other Diomed embraces.

Our bloods[17] are now in calm, and, so long, health!

But when contention[18] and occasion meets,

By Jove, I’ll play the hunter for thy life

20

With all my force, pursuit and policy.[20]

AENEASAnd thou shalt hunt a lion that will fly

With his face backward.[22] In humane gentleness,

Welcome to Troy. Now, by Anchises’[23] life,

Welcome indeed! By Venus’[24] hand I swear,

25

No[25] man alive can love in such a sort

The thing he means to kill more excellently.

DIOMEDESWe sympathize.[27] Jove, let Aeneas live —

If[28] to my sword his fate be not the glory —

A thousand complete[29] courses of the sun!

30

But, in mine[30] emulous honour, let him die

With every joint a wound, and that tomorrow!

AENEASWe know[32] each other well.

DIOMEDESWe do, and long to know[33] each other worse.

PARISThis is the most despiteful’st gentle[34]

35

The noblest hateful love, that e’er I heard of.

What business, lord, so early?

AENEASI was sent for to the king; but why, I know not.

PARISHis purpose meets you: it was to bring this Greek

To Calchas’ house, and there to render[39] him,

40

For the enfreed Antenor, the fair Cressid.

Let’s have your company, or, if you please,

Haste there before us.—

I constantly[42] do think — Aside to Aeneas

Or rather, call my thought[43] a certain knowledge —

My brother Troilus lodges there tonight:

45

Rouse him and give him note[45] of our approach,

With the whole quality whereof.[46] I fear

We shall be much unwelcome.

AENEASThat I assure you:

Troilus had rather Troy were borne to Greece

50

Than Cressid borne from Troy.

PARISThere is no help:

The bitter disposition[52] of the time

Will have it so. On, lord, we’ll follow you.

AENEASGood morrow,[54] all.

Exit Aeneas

55

PARISAnd tell me, noble Diomed, faith, tell me true,

Even in the soul of sound good-fellowship,

Who, in your thoughts, merits fair Helen most,

Myself or Menelaus?

DIOMEDESBoth alike:

60

He[60] merits well to have her that doth seek her,

Not making[61] any scruple of her soilure,

With[62] such a hell of pain and world of charge.

And you as well to keep her that defend her,

Not palating[64] the taste of her dishonour,

65

With such a costly loss of wealth and friends.

He, like a puling[66] cuckold, would drink up

The lees and dregs[67] of a flat tamèd piece:

You, like a lecher, out of whorish loins[68]

Are pleased to breed out[69] your inheritors.

70

Both merits poised,[70] each weighs no less nor more,

But he as he,[71] the heavier for a whore.

PARISYou are too bitter to your countrywoman.

DIOMEDESShe’s bitter to her country. Hear me, Paris:

For every false drop in her bawdy veins

75

A Grecian’s life hath sunk,[75] for every scruple

Of her contaminated carrion[76] weight,

A Trojan hath been slain. Since she could speak,

She hath not given so many good words breath[78]

As for her Greeks and Trojans suffered death.

80

PARISFair Diomed, you do as chapmen[80] do,

Dispraise[81] the thing that you desire to buy:

But[82] we in silence hold this virtue well:

We’ll not commend what we intend to sell.

Here lies our way.[84]

Exeunt

[Act 4 Scene 2]

running scene 10

Enter Troilus and Cressida

TROILUSDear, trouble not yourself: the morn is cold.

CRESSIDAThen, sweet my lord, I’ll call mine uncle down;

He shall unbolt the gates.

TROILUSTrouble him not.

5

To bed, to bed: sleep kill[5] those pretty eyes,

And give as soft attachment[6] to thy senses

As[7] infants empty of all thought!

CRESSIDAGood morrow, then.

TROILUSI prithee now, to bed.

10

CRESSIDAAre you aweary of me?

TROILUSO Cressida! But[11] that the busy day,

Waked by the lark, hath roused the ribald[12] crows,

And dreaming night will hide our joys no longer,

I would not from[14] thee.

15

CRESSIDANight hath been too brief.

TROILUSBeshrew[16] the witch! With venomous wights she stays

As hideously as hell, but flies the grasps[17] of love

With wings more momentary-swift[18] than thought.

You will catch cold and curse me.

20

CRESSIDAPrithee, tarry:[20] you men will never tarry.

O foolish Cressid! I might have still held[21] off,

And then you would have tarried. Hark, there’s one up.

PANDARUSWhat’s[23] all the doors open here?

Within

TROILUSIt is your uncle.

Enter Pandarus

25

CRESSIDAA pestilence[25] on him! Now will he be mocking:

I shall have such a life![26]

PANDARUSHow[27] now, how now? How go maidenheads?

Hear,[28] you maid! Where’s my cousin Cressid?

CRESSIDAGo hang yourself, you naughty[29] mocking uncle!

30

You bring me to do – – – –[30] and then you flout me too.

PANDARUSTo do[31] what? To do what? Let her say what: what have I brought you to do?

CRESSIDACome, come, beshrew your heart! You’ll ne’er be good,

Nor suffer[34] others.

PANDARUSHa, ha! Alas, poor wretch! Ah, poor chipochia![35] Hast not slept tonight?

Would he not — a naughty man — let it sleep? A bugbear[36] take him!

One knocks

CRESSIDADid not I tell you? Would he were knocked i’th’head![37]

Who’s that at door? Good uncle, go and see.—

My lord, come you again into my chamber.

40

You smile and mock me, as if I meant naughtily.[40]

TROILUSHa, ha!

CRESSIDACome, you are deceived, I think of no such thing.[42]

How earnestly they knock! Pray you, come in:

Knock

I would not for half Troy have you seen here.

Exeunt [Troilus and Cressida]

PANDARUSWho’s there? What’s the matter? Will you beat down the door? How now, what’s the matter?

[Enter Aeneas]

AENEASGood morrow, lord, good morrow.

PANDARUSWho’s there? My lord Aeneas? By my troth,

I knew[49] you not: what news with you so early?

50

AENEASIs not Prince Troilus here?

PANDARUSHere? What should he do here?

AENEASCome, he is here, my lord, do not deny him:

It doth import[53] him much to speak with me.

PANDARUSIs he here, say you? ’Tis more than I know, I’ll be sworn.

55

For my own part, I came in late. What should he do here?

AENEASWho,[56] nay then! Come, come, you’ll do him wrong ere you’re ware: you’ll be so true to him, to be false to him. Do[57] not you know of him, but yet go fetch him hither. Go.

Enter Troilus

TROILUSHow now? What’s the matter?

60

AENEASMy lord, I scarce have leisure to salute you,

My matter is so rash:[61] there is at hand

Paris your brother, and Deiphobus,

The Grecian Diomed, and our Antenor

Delivered to us, and for him forthwith,

65

Ere the first sacrifice,[65] within this hour,

We must give up to Diomedes’ hand

The lady Cressida.

TROILUSIs it concluded[68] so?

AENEASBy Priam and the general state[69] of Troy:

70

They are at hand and ready to effect it.

TROILUSHow my achievements[71] mock me!

I will go meet them. And, my lord Aeneas,

We met by chance; you did not find me here.

AENEASGood, good, my lord, the secrets of nature

75

Have[75] not more gift in taciturnity.

Exeunt [Troilus and Aeneas]

Enter Cressida

PANDARUSIs’t possible? No sooner got but lost? The devil take Antenor! The young prince will go mad. A plague upon Antenor! I would they had broke’s[77] neck!

CRESSIDAHow now? What’s the matter? Who was here?

PANDARUSAh, ha!

80

CRESSIDAWhy sigh you so profoundly? Where’s my lord? Gone!

Tell me, sweet uncle, what’s the matter?

PANDARUSWould I were as deep under the earth as I am above!

CRESSIDAO the gods! What’s the matter?

PANDARUSPrithee, get thee in: would thou hadst ne’er been born! I knew thou wouldst be his death. O, poor gentleman! A plague upon Antenor!

CRESSIDAGood uncle, I beseech you, on my knees I beseech you, what’s the matter?

PANDARUSThou must be gone, wench, thou must be gone; thou art changed[87] for Antenor. Thou must to thy father, and be gone from Troilus: ’twill be his death, ’twill be his bane:[89] he cannot bear it.

90

CRESSIDAO you immortal gods! I will not go.

PANDARUSThou must.

CRESSIDAI will not, uncle. I have forgot my father:

I know no touch[93] of consanguinity:

No kin, no love, no blood, no soul so near me

95

As the sweet Troilus. O you gods divine!

Make Cressid’s name the very crown of falsehood,

If ever she leave Troilus! Time, force[97] and death,

Do to this body what extremity you can;

But the strong base[99] and building of my love

100

Is as the very centre[100] of the earth,

Drawing all things to it. I will go in and weep.

PANDARUSDo, do.

CRESSIDATear my bright hair and scratch my praisèd cheeks,

Crack my clear voice with sobs and break my heart

105

With sounding[105] Troilus. I will not go from Troy.

Exeunt

[Act 4 Scene 3]4.3

running scene 11

Enter Paris, Troilus, Aeneas, Deiphobus, Antenor and Diomedes

PARISIt is great morning, and the hour prefixed

Of her delivery to this valiant Greek

Comes fast upon. Good my brother Troilus,

Tell you the lady what she is to do,

5

And haste[5] her to the purpose.

TROILUSWalk into her house:

I’ll bring her to the Grecian presently;[7]

And to his hand when I deliver her,

Think it an altar, and thy brother Troilus

10

A priest there off’ring to it his heart.

PARISI know what ’tis to love,

And would,[12] as I shall pity, I could help!

Please you walk in, my lords.

Exeunt

[Act 4 Scene 4]

running scene 12

Enter Pandarus and Cressida

PANDARUSBe moderate, be moderate.

CRESSIDAWhy tell you me of moderation?

The grief is fine,[3] full, perfect, that I taste,

And no less in a sense as strong

5

As that which causeth it. How can I moderate it?

If I could temporize[6] with my affection,

Or brew[7] it to a weak and colder palate,

The like allayment[8] could I give my grief.

My love admits no qualifying dross.[9]

Enter Troilus

10

No more[10] my grief, in such a precious loss.

PANDARUSHere, here, here he comes, a sweet duck.[11]

CRESSIDAO Troilus! Troilus! Embraces him

PANDARUSWhat a pair[13] of spectacles is here! Let me embrace too. ‘O heart’ as the goodly saying is,

15

‘O heart, heavy heart,

Why sigh’st thou without breaking?’

Where he[17] answers again,

‘Because thou canst not ease thy smart[18]

By friendship nor by speaking.’

There was never a truer rhyme. Let us cast away nothing, for we may live to have need of such a verse: we see it,[21] we see it. How now, Iambs?

TROILUSCressid, I love thee in so strange[22] a purity,

That the blest gods, as[23] angry with my fancy,

More bright[24] in zeal than the devotion which

25

Cold[25] lips blow to their deities, take thee from me.

CRESSIDAHave the gods envy?[26]

PANDARUSAy, ay, ay, ay: ’tis too plain a case.

CRESSIDAAnd is it true that I must go from Troy?

TROILUSA hateful truth.

30

CRESSIDAWhat, and from Troilus too?

TROILUSFrom Troy and Troilus.

CRESSIDAIs’t possible?

TROILUSAnd suddenly, where[33] injury of chance

Puts back[34] leave-taking, jostles roughly by

35

All time of pause, rudely[35] beguiles our lips

Of all rejoindure,[36] forcibly prevents

Our locked embrasures,[37] strangles our dear vows

Even in[38] the birth of our own labouring breath.

We two, that with so many thousand sighs

40

Did buy each other, must poorly sell ourselves

With the rude brevity and discharge[41] of one.

Injurious[42] time now with a robber’s haste

Crams his rich thiev’ry[43] up, he knows not how:

As many farewells as be stars in heaven,

45

With distinct[45] breath and consigned kisses to them,

He fumbles up[46] into a loose adieu,

And scants[47] us with a single famished kiss,

Distasting[48] with the salt of broken tears.

AENEASMy lord, is the lady ready?

Within

50

TROILUSHark! You are called. Some say the genius[50] so

Cries ‘Come’ to him that instantly[51] must die.

Bid them have patience.— She shall come anon.

PANDARUSWhere are my tears? Rain,[53] to lay this wind, or my heart will be blown up by the root.

[Exit]

55

CRESSIDAI must then to the Grecians?

TROILUSNo remedy.

CRESSIDAA woeful Cressid ’mongst the merry Greeks![57]

When shall we see[58] again?

TROILUSHear me, my love: be thou but true of heart—

60

CRESSIDAI true? How now? What wicked deem[60] is this?

TROILUSNay, we must use expostulation[61] kindly,

For it[62] is parting from us.

I speak not ‘Be thou true’ as fearing thee,[63]

For I will throw my glove[64] to Death himself,

65

That there’s no maculation[65] in thy heart:

But ‘Be thou true’, say I, to fashion in[66]

My sequent protestation:[67] be thou true,

And I will see thee.

CRESSIDAO, you shall be exposed, my lord, to dangers

70

As infinite as imminent! But I’ll be true.

TROILUSAnd I’ll grow friend with danger. Wear this sleeve.[71]

CRESSIDAAnd you this glove. When shall I see you? They exchange tokens

TROILUSI will corrupt[73] the Grecian sentinels,

To give thee nightly visitation.

75

But yet be true.

CRESSIDAO heavens! ‘Be true’ again!

TROILUSHear why I speak it, love:

The Grecian youths are full of quality,[78]

Their loving,[79] well composed with gifts of nature,

80

Flowing and swelling o’er with arts and exercise.[80]

How novelties may move,[81] and parts with person,

Alas, a kind of godly[82] jealousy —

Which, I beseech you, call a virtuous sin —

Makes me afraid.

85

CRESSIDAO heavens, you love me not!

TROILUSDie I a villain, then!

In this I do not call your faith in question

So mainly[88] as my merit: I cannot sing,

Nor heel[89] the high lavolt, nor sweeten talk,

90

Nor play at subtle[90] games — fair virtues all,

To which the Grecians are most prompt and pregnant.[91]

But I can tell that in each grace of these

There lurks a still[93] and dumb-discoursive devil

That tempts most cunningly: but be not tempted.

95

CRESSIDADo you think I will?

TROILUSNo.

But something may be done that we will[97] not:

And sometimes we are devils to ourselves,

When we will tempt the frailty of our powers,

100

Presuming[100] on their changeful potency.

AENEASNay, good my lord—

Within

TROILUSCome, kiss, and let us part.

PARISBrother Troilus!

Within

TROILUSGood brother, come you hither,

105

And bring Aeneas and the Grecian with you.

CRESSIDAMy lord, will you be true?

TROILUSWho, I? Alas, it is my vice, my fault:

Whiles others fish with craft[108] for great opinion,

I with great truth catch mere simplicity:[109]

110

Whilst some with cunning gild their copper crowns,[110]

With truth and plainness I do wear mine bare.[111]

Enter the Greeks [Aeneas, Paris, Antenor, Deiphobus and Diomedes]

Fear not my truth: the moral of my wit[112]

Is ‘plain and true’; there’s all the reach[113] of it.—

Welcome, Sir Diomed! Here is the lady

115

Which for Antenor we deliver you.

At the port,[116] lord, I’ll give her to thy hand,

And by[117] the way possess thee what she is.

Entreat her fair;[118] and, by my soul, fair Greek,

If e’er thou stand at mercy of my sword,

120

Name Cressid and thy life shall be as safe

As Priam is in Ilium.

DIOMEDESFair Lady Cressid,

So please you, save[123] the thanks this prince expects:

The lustre in your eye, heaven in your cheek,

125

Pleads[125] your fair usage, and to Diomed

You shall be mistress, and command him wholly.

TROILUSGrecian, thou dost not use me courteously,

To shame the seal of my petition towards[128]

I’praising her: I tell thee, lord of Greece,

130

She is as far high-soaring o’er thy praises

As thou[131] unworthy to be called her servant.

I charge[132] thee use her well, even for my charge,

For, by the dreadful[133] Pluto, if thou dost not,

Though the great bulk Achilles be thy guard,

135

I’ll cut thy throat.

DIOMEDESO, be not moved,[136] Prince Troilus.

Let me be privileged by my place[137] and message,

To be a speaker free: when I am hence[138]

I’ll answer[139] to my lust. And know, my lord,

140

I’ll nothing do on charge.[140] To her own worth

She shall be prized, but that[141] you say ‘Be’t so’,

I’ll speak it[142] in my spirit and honour, ‘No.’

TROILUSCome, to the port. I’ll tell thee, Diomed,

This brave[144] shall oft make thee to hide thy head.—

145

Lady, give me your hand, and, as we walk,

To our own selves bend we[146] our needful talk.

[Exeunt Troilus, Cressida and Diomedes]

Sound trumpet

PARISHark! Hector’s trumpet.

AENEASHow have we spent this morning!

The prince must think me tardy[149] and remiss,

150

That swore to ride before him in the field.

PARIS’Tis Troilus’ fault: come, come, to field with him.

DEIPHOBUSLet us make ready straight.

AENEASYea, with a bridegroom’s fresh[153] alacrity,

Let us address[154] to tend on Hector’s heels:

155

The glory of our Troy doth this day lie[155]

On his fair worth and single chivalry.[156]

Exeunt

[Act 4 Scene 5]4.5

running scene 13

Enter Ajax, armed, Achilles, Patroclus, Agamemnon, Menelaus, Ulysses, Nestor, Calchas and others

AGAMEMNONHere art thou in appointment[1] fresh and fair,

Anticipating[2] time. With starting courage,

Give with thy trumpet a loud note to Troy,

Thou dreadful Ajax, that the appallèd[4] air

5

May pierce the head of the great combatant

And hale[6] him hither.

AJAXThou, trumpet,[7] there’s my purse.

Now crack thy lungs, and split thy brazen[8] pipe:

Blow, villain,[9] till thy spherèd bias cheek

10

Outswell the colic[10] of puffed Aquilon.

Come, stretch thy chest and let thy eyes spout blood.[11]

Thou blowest for[12] Hector. Trumpet sounds

ULYSSESNo trumpet answers.

ACHILLES’Tis but early days.[14]

15

AGAMEMNONIs not yond[15] Diomed, with Calchas’ daughter?

ULYSSES’Tis he, I ken[16] the manner of his gait,

He rises on the toe: that spirit of his

In aspiration[18] lifts him from the earth.

[Enter Diomedes and Cressida]

AGAMEMNONIs this the lady Cressid?

20

DIOMEDESEven she.

AGAMEMNONMost dearly[21] welcome to the Greeks, sweet lady. Kisses her

NESTOROur general doth salute you with a kiss.

ULYSSESYet[23] is the kindness but particular;

’Twere better she were kissed in general.[24]

25

NESTORAnd very courtly[25] counsel: I’ll begin. Kisses her

So much for Nestor.

ACHILLESI’ll take that winter[27] from your lips, fair lady:

Achilles bids you weicome. Kisses her

MENELAUSI had good argument[29] for kissing once.

30

PATROCLUSBut that’s no argument[30] for kissing now;

For thus popped[31] Paris in his hardiment. Kisses her

ULYSSESO, deadly gall, and theme[32] of all our scorns,

For which we lose our heads[33] to gild his horns.

PATROCLUSThe first was Menelaus’ kiss, this, mine:

35

Patroclus kisses you. Kisses her again

MENELAUSO, this is trim![36]

PATROCLUSParis and I kiss evermore for[37] him.

MENELAUSI’ll have my kiss, sir.— Lady, by your leave.[38]

CRESSIDAIn kissing, do you render[39] or receive?

40

PATROCLUSBoth take and give.

CRESSIDAI’ll[41] make my match to live,

The kiss you take[42] is better than you give:

Therefore no kiss.

MENELAUSI’ll give you boot,[44] I’ll give you three for one.

45

CRESSIDAYou are an odd[45] man: give even or give none.

MENELAUSAn odd[46] man, lady? Every man is odd.

CRESSIDANo, Paris is not; for you know ’tis true

That you are odd[48] and he is even with you.

MENELAUSYou fillip me o’th’head.[49]

50

CRESSIDANo, I’ll be sworn.

ULYSSESIt were no match,[51] your nail against his horn.

May I, sweet lady, beg a kiss of you?

CRESSIDAYou may.

ULYSSESI do desire[54] it.

55

CRESSIDAWhy, beg then.

ULYSSESWhy then for Venus’ sake, give me a kiss,

When Helen is a maid[57] again, and his—

CRESSIDAI am your debtor, claim it when ’tis due.[58]

ULYSSESNever’s my day, and then a kiss[59] of you.

60

DIOMEDESLady, a word: I’ll bring you to your father.

NESTORA woman of quick sense.[61]

ULYSSESFie,[62] fie upon her!

There’s a language in her eye, her cheek, her lip;

Nay, her foot speaks, her wanton[64] spirits look out

65

At every joint and motive[65] of her body.

O, these encounterers,[66] so glib of tongue,

That give[67] a coasting welcome ere it comes,

And wide unclasp[68] the tables of their thoughts

To every tickling[69] reader! Set them down

70

For sluttish spoils of opportunity[70]

And daughters[71] of the game.

Exeunt [Diomedes and Cressida]

Enter all of Troy: Hector, Paris, Aeneas, Helenus and Attendants. Flourish

ALLThe Trojans’ trumpet.

AGAMEMNONYonder comes the troop.

AENEASHail, all you state[74] of Greece. What shall be done

75

To him that victory commands?[75] Or do you purpose

A victor shall be known?[76] Will you the knights

Shall to the edge[77] of all extremity

Pursue each other, or shall be[78] divided

By any voice or order of the field?

80

Hector bade[80] ask.

AGAMEMNONWhich way would Hector have it?

AENEASHe cares not: he’ll obey conditions.[82]

ACHILLES’Tis done like Hector, but securely[83] done,

A little proudly, and great deal disprizing[84]

85

The knight opposed.

AENEASIf not Achilles, sir, what is your name?

ACHILLESIf not Achilles, nothing.

AENEASTherefore Achilles. But whate’er know this:

In[89] the extremity of great and little,

90

Valour and pride excel themselves in Hector;

The[91] one almost as infinite as all,

The other[92] blank as nothing. Weigh him well,

And that which looks like pride is courtesy.

This Ajax is half[94] made of Hector’s blood,

95

In love whereof, half Hector stays at home:

Half heart, half hand, half Hector comes to seek

This blended knight, half Trojan and half Greek.

ACHILLESA maiden[98] battle, then? O, I perceive you.

[Enter Diomedes]

AGAMEMNONHere is Sir Diomed. Go, gentle[99] knight,

100

Stand by our Ajax: as you and Lord Aeneas

Consent upon the order[101] of their fight,

So be it, either to the uttermost,[102]

Or else a breath.[103] The combatants being kin

Half stints[104] their strife before their strokes begin. Ajax and Hector enter the lists

105

ULYSSESThey are opposed already.

AGAMEMNONWhat Trojan is that same that looks so heavy?[106]

ULYSSESThe youngest son of Priam, a true knight,

// They call him Troilus: //

Not yet mature, yet matchless,[109] firm of word,

110

Speaking in deeds and deedless[110] in his tongue;

Not soon provoked nor being provoked soon calmed;

His heart and hand both open and both free,[112]

For what he has he gives, what thinks he shows;

Yet gives he not till judgement guide his bounty,[114]

115

Nor dignifies an impare[115] thought with breath:

Manly as Hector, but more dangerous,

For Hector in his blaze of wrath subscribes[117]

To tender objects,[118] but he in heat of action

Is more vindicative[119] than jealous love.

120

They call him Troilus, and on him erect[120]

A second hope as fairly built as Hector.

Thus says Aeneas, one that knows the youth

Even[123] to his inches, and with private soul

Did in great Ilium thus translate[124] him to me.

Alarum

125

AGAMEMNONThey are in action.[125] Hector and Ajax fight

NESTORNow, Ajax, hold thine own!

TROILUSHector, thou sleep’st: awake thee!

AGAMEMNONHis blows are well disposed.[128] There, Ajax!

DIOMEDESYou must no more.[129]

Trumpets cease

130

AENEASPrinces, enough, so[130] please you.

AJAXI am not warm[131] yet: let us fight again.

DIOMEDESAs Hector pleases.

HECTORWhy, then will I no more:

Thou art, great lord, my father’s sister’s son,

135

A cousin-german[135] to great Priam’s seed.

The obligation of our blood forbids

A gory emulation[137] ’twixt us twain:

Were thy commixtion[138] Greek and Trojan so

That thou couldst say ‘This hand is Grecian all,

140

And this is Trojan: the sinews of this leg

All Greek, and this all Troy: my mother’s blood

Runs on the dexter[142] cheek, and this sinister

Bounds in[143] my father’s’, by Jove multipotent,

Thou shouldst not bear[144] from me a Greekish member

145

Wherein my sword had not impressure[145] made

Of our rank[146] feud. But the just gods gainsay

That any drop thou borrowed’st from thy mother,

My sacred aunt, should by my mortal sword

Be drained! Let me embrace thee, Ajax:

150

By him that thunders,[150] thou hast lusty arms;

Hector would have them fall upon him thus.

Cousin, all honour to thee! Embraces him

AJAXI thank thee, Hector.

Thou art too gentle[154] and too free a man:

155

I came to kill thee, cousin, and bear hence

A great addition[156] earnèd in thy death.

HECTORNot Neoptolemus[157] so mirable,

On whose bright crest[158] Fame with her loud’st ‘Oyez’

Cries ‘This is he’, couldst promise[159] to himself

160

A thought of added honour torn from Hector.

AENEASThere is expectance[161] here from both the sides,

What further you will do.

HECTORWe’ll answer it:

The issue[164] is embracement. Ajax, farewell. Embraces Ajax

165

AJAXIf I might in entreaties find success —

As seld[166] I have the chance — I would desire

My famous cousin to our Grecian tents.

DIOMEDES’Tis Agamemnon’s wish, and great Achilles

Doth long to see unarmed the valiant Hector.

170

HECTORAeneas, call my brother Troilus to me,

And signify[171] this loving interview

To the[172] expecters of our Trojan part:

Desire them[173] home.— Give me thy hand, my cousin, To Ajax

I will go eat with thee and see your knights.

Agamemnon and the rest [come forward]

175

AJAXGreat Agamemnon comes to meet us here.

HECTORThe worthiest of them tell me name by name: To Aeneas

But for Achilles, mine own searching eyes

Shall find him by his large and portly[178] size.

AGAMEMNONWorthy of arms,[179] as welcome as to one

180

That would be rid of such an enemy —

But that’s no welcome:[181] understand more clear,

What’s past and what’s to come is strewed with husks

And formless ruin of oblivion,

But in this extant[184] moment, faith and troth,

185

Strained purely[185] from all hollow bias-drawing,

Bids thee, with most divine integrity,

From heart[187] of very heart, great Hector, welcome.

HECTORI thank thee, most imperious[188] Agamemnon.

AGAMEMNONMy well-famed lord of Troy, no less to you. To Troilus

190

MENELAUSLet me confirm my princely brother’s greeting:

You brace[191] of warlike brothers, welcome hither.

HECTORWho[192] must we answer?

AENEASThe noble Menelaus.

HECTORO, you, my lord? By Mars his gauntlet,[194] thanks!

195

Mock not, that I affect[195] th’untraded oath:

Your quondam[196] wife swears still by Venus’ glove.

She’s well, but bade me not[197] commend her to you.

MENELAUSName her not now, sir: she’s a deadly theme.[198]

HECTORO, pardon: I offend.

200

NESTORI have, thou gallant Trojan, seen thee oft,

Labouring for destiny,[201] make cruel way

Through ranks of Greekish youth, and I have seen thee,

As hot[203] as Perseus, spur thy Phrygian steed,

And seen thee scorning forfeits and subduements,[204]

205

When thou hast hung[205] thy advancèd sword i’th’air,

Not letting it decline[206] on the declined,

That[207] I have said unto my standers-by,

‘Lo, Jupiter is yonder, dealing life!’

And I have seen thee pause and take thy breath,

210

When that a ring of Greeks have hemmed thee in,

Like an Olympian[211] wrestling. This have I seen,

But this thy countenance, still[212] locked in steel,

I never saw till now. I knew thy grandsire,

And once fought with him: he was a soldier good,

215

But, by great Mars, the captain of us all,

Never like thee. Let an old man embrace thee,

And, worthy warrior, welcome to our tents.

AENEAS’Tis the old Nestor.

HECTORLet me embrace thee, good old chronicle,[219]

220

That hast so long walked hand in hand with time:

Most reverend Nestor, I am glad to clasp[221] thee.

NESTORI would my arms[222] could match thee in contention,

As they contend[223] with thee in courtesy.

HECTORI would they could.

225

NESTORHa?

By this white beard, I’d fight with thee tomorrow.

Well, welcome, welcome! I have seen the time.[227]

ULYSSESI wonder now how yonder city stands

When we have here her base[229] and pillar by us.

230

HECTORI know your favour,[230] Lord Ulysses, well.

Ah, sir, there’s many a Greek and Trojan dead,

Since first I saw yourself and Diomed

In Ilium, on your Greekish embassy.[233]

ULYSSESSir, I foretold you then what would ensue:

235

My prophecy is but half[235] his journey yet;

For yonder walls, that pertly[236] front your town,

Yond towers, whose wanton[237] tops do buss the clouds,

Must kiss their own feet.

HECTORI must not believe you:

240

There they stand yet, and modestly[240] I think,

The fall of every Phrygian[241] stone will cost

A drop of Grecian blood: the[242] end crowns all,

And that old common arbitrator,[243] Time,

Will one day end it.

245

ULYSSESSo to him[245] we leave it.

Most gentle and most valiant Hector, welcome:

After the general, I beseech you next

To feast with me and see me at my tent.

ACHILLESI shall forestall[249] thee, Lord Ulysses, thou!

250

Now, Hector, I have fed mine eyes on thee,

I have with exact[251] view perused thee, Hector,

And quoted[252] joint by joint.

HECTORIs this Achilles?

ACHILLESI am Achilles.

255

HECTORStand fair,[255] I prithee: let me look on thee.

ACHILLESBehold thy fill.

HECTORNay, I have done already.

ACHILLESThou art too brief: I will the second time,

As[259] I would buy thee, view thee limb by limb.

260

HECTORO, like a book of sport[260] thou’lt read me o’er:

But there’s more in me than thou understand’st.

Why dost thou so oppress[262] me with thine eye?

ACHILLESTell me, you heavens, in which part of his body

Shall I destroy him? Whether there, or there, or there. Points

265

That I may give the local[265] wound a name

And make distinct[266] the very breach whereout

Hector’s great spirit[267] flew. Answer me, heavens!

HECTORIt would discredit the blest gods, proud man,

To answer such a question. Stand again;[269]

270

Think’st thou to catch[270] my life so pleasantly

As to prenominate[271] in nice conjecture

Where thou wilt hit me dead?

ACHILLESI tell thee, yea.

HECTORWert thou the oracle to tell me so,

275

I’d not believe thee. Henceforth guard thee well,

For I’ll not kill thee there, nor there, nor there,

But, by the forge that stithied[277] Mars his helm,

I’ll kill thee everywhere, yea, o’er and o’er.

You wisest Grecians, pardon me this brag:

280

His insolence draws folly from my lips,

But I’ll endeavour deeds to match these words,

Or may I never—

AJAXDo not chafe thee,[283] cousin:

And you, Achilles, let these threats alone,

285

Till accident[285] or purpose bring you to’t.

You may every day enough of Hector

If you have stomach.[287] The general state, I fear,

Can scarce entreat[288] you to be odd with him.

HECTORI pray you let us see you in the field:

290

We have had pelting[290] wars, since you refused

The Grecians’ cause.

ACHILLESDost thou entreat me, Hector?

Tomorrow do I meet thee, fell[293] as death:

Tonight all friends.

295

HECTORThy hand upon that match.[295]

AGAMEMNONFirst, all you peers[296] of Greece, go to my tent:

There in[297] the full convive you. Afterwards,

As Hector’s leisure and your bounties[298] shall

Concur together, severally[299] entreat him.

300

Beat loud the taborins,[300] let the trumpets blow,

That this great soldier may his welcome know.

Exeunt. [Troilus and Ulysses remain]

TROILUSMy lord Ulysses, tell me, I beseech you,

In what place of the field doth Calchas keep?[303]

ULYSSESAt Menelaus’ tent, most princely Troilus:

305

There Diomed doth feast with him tonight,

Who neither looks on heaven nor on earth,

But gives all gaze and bent[307] of amorous view

On the fair Cressid.

TROILUSShall I, sweet lord, be bound[309] to thee so much,

310

After we part from Agamemnon’s tent,

To bring me thither?

ULYSSESYou shall command me, sir.

As gentle[313] tell me, of what honour was

This Cressida in Troy? Had she no lover there

315

That wails her absence?

TROILUSO, sir, to such as[316] boasting show their scars

A mock[317] is due. Will you walk on, my lord?

She was beloved, she loved; she is, and doth:[318]

But still[319] sweet love is food for fortune’s tooth.

Exeunt

[Act 5 Scene 1]5.1

running scene 14

Enter Achilles and Patroclus

ACHILLESI’ll heat his blood with Greekish wine tonight,

Which with my scimitar[2] I’ll cool tomorrow.

Patroclus, let us feast him to the height.

PATROCLUSHere comes Thersites.

Enter Thersites

5

ACHILLESHow now, thou core[5] of envy!

Thou crusty[6] batch of nature, what’s the news?

THERSITESWhy, thou picture[7] of what thou seem’st, and idol of idiot worshippers, here’s a letter for thee. Gives a letter

ACHILLESFrom whence, fragment?[9]

THERSITESWhy, thou full dish of fool,[10] from Troy.

PATROCLUSWho keeps the tent[11] now?

THERSITESThe surgeon’s box[12] or the patient’s wound.

PATROCLUSWell said, adversity,[13] and what need these tricks?

THERSITESPrithee be silent, boy: I profit not by thy talk: thou art thought to be Achilles’ male varlet.[15]

PATROCLUSMale varlet, you rogue? What’s that?

THERSITESWhy, his masculine whore. Now, the rotten diseases,[17] of the south, guts-griping[18] ruptures, catarrhs, loads o’gravel i’th’back, lethargies, cold palsies[19] and the like, take and take again such preposterous discoveries.

PATROCLUSWhy thou damnable box[20] of envy, thou, what mean’st thou to curse thus?

THERSITESDo I curse thee?

PATROCLUSWhy no, you ruinous[23] butt, you whoreson indistinguishable cur.

THERSITESNo? Why art thou then exasperate,[24] thou idle immaterial skein of sleaved silk, thou green sarcenet[25] flap for a sore eye, thou tassel of a prodigal’s purse, thou? Ah, how the poor world is pestered[26] with such waterflies, diminutives of nature!

PATROCLUSOut,[28] gall!

THERSITESFinch-egg![29]

30

ACHILLESMy sweet Patroclus, I am thwarted quite

From my great purpose in tomorrow’s battle.

Here is a letter from Queen Hecuba,

A token from her daughter,[33] my fair love,

Both taxing[34] me and gaging me to keep

35

An oath that I have sworn. I will not break it:

Fall Greeks,[36] fail fame, honour or go or stay,

My major vow lies here, this I’ll obey.

Come, come, Thersites, help to trim[38] my tent:

This night in banqueting must all be spent.

40

Away, Patroclus!

Exeunt [Achilles and Patroclus]

THERSITESWith too much blood,[41] and too little brain, these two may run mad: but if with too much brain and too little blood they do, I’ll be a curer of madmen. Here’s Agamemnon, an honest fellow[43] enough and one that loves quails, but he has not so much brain as earwax; and the goodly transformation of Jupiter[44] there, his brother, the bull — the primitive statue[45] and oblique memorial of cuckolds, a thrifty shoeing-horn[46] in a chain, hanging at his brother’s leg — to what form but that he is should wit[47] larded with malice and malice forced with wit turn him to? To an ass, were nothing: he is both ass and ox. To an ox, were nothing: he is both ox and ass. To be a dog, a mule, a cat, a fitchew[49] a toad, a lizard, an owl, a puttock, or a herring without a roe, I would not care: but to be,[50] Menelaus, I would conspire against destiny. Ask me not what I would be if I were not Thersites, for I care[51] not to be the louse of a lazar, so I were not Menelaus. Hoy-day[52] spirits and fires!

Enter Hector, Ajax, Agamemnon, Ulysses, Nestor, Diomedes, [Troilus and Menelaus,] with lights

AGAMEMNONWe go wrong, we go wrong.

AJAXNo, yonder ’tis: there, where we see the light.

55

HECTORI trouble you.

AJAXNo, not a whit.

Enter Achilles

ULYSSESHere comes himself to guide you.

ACHILLESWelcome, brave Hector. Welcome, princes all.

AGAMEMNONSo now, fair prince of Troy, I bid goodnight.

60

Ajax commands the guard to tend on[60] you.

HECTORThanks and goodnight to the Greeks’ general.

MENELAUSGoodnight, my lord.

HECTORGoodnight, sweet lord Menelaus.

THERSITESSweet draught.[64] ‘Sweet’ quoth a? Sweet sink, sweet sewer. Aside

65

ACHILLESGoodnight and welcome, both at once, to those

That go or tarry.

AGAMEMNONGoodnight.

[Exeunt Agamemnon and Menelaus]

ACHILLESOld Nestor tarries, and you too, Diomed,

Keep Hector company an hour or two.

70

DIOMEDESI cannot, lord. I have important business,

The tide whereof[71] is now.— Goodnight, great Hector.

HECTORGive me your hand.

ULYSSESFollow his torch; he goes to Calchas’ tent: Aside to Troilus

I’ll keep you company.

75

TROILUSSweet sir, you honour me.

HECTORAnd so, goodnight.

[Exit Diomedes, with Ulysses and Troilus following]

ACHILLESCome, come, enter my tent.

Exeunt [Achilles, Hector, Ajax and Nestor]

THERSITESThat same Diomed’s a false-hearted rogue, a most unjust.[78] knave; I will no more trust him when he leers[79] than I will a serpent when he hisses: he will spend his mouth and promise like Brabbler[80] the hound; but when he performs, astronomers foretell it:[81] that it is prodigious, there will come some change. The sun borrows of[82] the moon when Diomed keeps his word. I will rather leave to see Hector than not to dog him[83] They say he keeps a Trojan drab, and uses the traitor Calchas his tent. I’ll after. Nothing but lechery! All incontinent[84] varlets!

Exit

[Act 5 Scene 2]5.2

running scene 15

Enter Diomedes

DIOMEDESWhat, are you up here, ho? Speak.

CALCHASWho calls? Within

DIOMEDESDiomed. Calchas, I think. Where’s your daughter?

CALCHASShe comes to you. Within

Enter Troilus and Ulysses [at a distance, with Thersites following]

Troilus and Ulysses speak aside throughout the scene

ULYSSESStand where the torch may not discover[5] us.

Enter Cressida

TROILUSCressid comes forth to him.

DIOMEDESHow now, my charge?[7]

CRESSIDANow, my sweet guardian! Hark, a word with you. They whisper

TROILUSYea, so familiar?

ULYSSESShe will sing[10] any man at first sight.

THERSITESAnd any man may sing her, if he can take her clef:[11] she’s noted. Aside

DIOMEDESWill you remember?

CRESSIDARemember? Yes.

DIOMEDESNay, but do, then;

15

And let your mind be coupled with your words.

TROILUSWhat should she remember?

ULYSSESList![17]

CRESSIDASweet honey Greek, tempt me no more to folly.[18]

THERSITESRoguery!

20

DIOMEDESNay, then—

CRESSIDAI’ll tell you what—

DIOMEDESFoh, foh! Come, tell a pin:[22] you are a forsworn – – – –.

CRESSIDAIn faith, I cannot. What would you have me do?

THERSITESA juggling trick[24] — to be secretly open. Aside

25

DIOMEDESWhat did you swear you would bestow on me?

CRESSIDAI prithee do not hold me to mine oath:

Bid me do anything but that, sweet Greek.

DIOMEDESGoodnight.

TROILUSHold, patience!

30

ULYSSESHow now, Trojan?

CRESSIDADiomed—

DIOMEDESNo, no, goodnight: I’ll be your fool[32] no more.

TROILUSThy better[33] must.

CRESSIDAHark, one word in your ear.

35

TROILUSO, plague and madness!

ULYSSESYou are moved,[36] prince. Let us depart, I pray you,

Lest your displeasure should enlarge itself

To wrathful terms:[38] this place is dangerous;

The time right deadly. I beseech you go.

40

TROILUSBehold, I pray you!

ULYSSESNay, good my lord, go off:[41]

You flow[42] to great distraction. Come, my lord!

TROILUSI pray thee, stay.

ULYSSESYou have not patience. Come.

45

TROILUSI pray you, stay. By hell and hell-torments

I will not speak a word!

DIOMEDESAnd so, goodnight.

CRESSIDANay, but you part in anger.

TROILUSDoth that grieve[49] thee? O withered truth!

50

ULYSSESWhy, how now, lord?

TROILUSBy Jove, I will be patient.

CRESSIDAGuardian! Why, Greek!

DIOMEDESFoh, foh! Adieu: you palter.[53]

CRESSIDAIn faith, I do not: come hither once again.

55

ULYSSESYou shake, my lord, at something; will you go?

You will break out.[56]

TROILUSShe strokes his cheek!

ULYSSESCome, come.

TROILUSNay, stay. By Jove, I will not speak a word:

60

There is between my will[60] and all offences

A guard of patience; stay a little while.

THERSITESAside How the devil Luxury,[62] with his fat rump and potato-finger, tickles these together! Fry,[63] lechery, fry!

DIOMEDESBut will you, then?

65

CRESSIDAIn faith, I will, lo![65] Never trust me else.

DIOMEDESGive me some token[66] for the surety of it.

CRESSIDAI’ll fetch you one.

Exit

ULYSSESYou have sworn patience.

TROILUSFear me not, sweet lord.

70

I will not be myself,[70] nor have cognition

Of what I feel: I am all patience.

Enter Cressida [with Troilus’ sleeve]

THERSITESNow the pledge: now, now, now!

CRESSIDAHere, Diomed, keep this sleeve. She may give him the sleeve

TROILUSO beauty! Where is thy faith?

75

ULYSSESMy lord—

TROILUSI will be patient: outwardly I will.

CRESSIDAYou look upon that sleeve? Behold it well.

He loved me — O false wench! — Give’t me again.

DIOMEDESWhose was’t? She may take back the sleeve

80

CRESSIDAIt is no matter, now I have’t again.

I will not meet with you tomorrow night:

I prithee, Diomed, visit me no more.

THERSITESNow she sharpens:[83] well said, whetstone! Aside

DIOMEDESI shall have it.

85

CRESSIDAWhat, this?

DIOMEDESAy, that. He may take the sleeve

CRESSIDAO, all you gods! O pretty, pretty pledge!

Thy master now lies thinking in his bed

Of thee and me, and sighs, and takes my glove,

90

And gives memorial[90] dainty kisses to it,

As I kiss thee.[91] She may attempt to take back the sleeve

DIOMEDESNay, do not snatch it from me.

CRESSIDAHe that takes that takes my heart withal.[93]

DIOMEDESI had your heart before, this follows it.

95

TROILUSI did swear patience.

CRESSIDAYou shall not have it, Diomed — faith, you shall not:

I’ll give you something else.

DIOMEDESI will have this. Whose was it?

CRESSIDAIt is no matter.

100

DIOMEDESCome, tell me whose it was.

CRESSIDA’Twas one that loved me better than you will.

But, now you have it, take it.

DIOMEDESWhose was it?

CRESSIDABy all Diana’s waiting-women[104] yond,

105

And by herself, I will not tell you whose.

DIOMEDESTomorrow will I wear it on my helm,

And grieve[107] his spirit that dares not challenge it.

TROILUSWert thou the devil, and wor’st[108] it on thy horn,

It should be challenged.

110

CRESSIDAWell, well, ’tis done, ’tis past. And yet it is not:

I will not keep my word.

DIOMEDESWhy then, farewell:

Thou never shalt mock Diomed again.

CRESSIDAYou shall not go: one cannot speak a word,

115

But it straight starts you.[115]

DIOMEDESI do not like this fooling.

THERSITESNor I, by Pluto: but that that likes[117] not me pleases me best. Aside

DIOMEDESWhat, shall I come? The hour?

CRESSIDAAy, come — O Jove! — do come — I shall be plagued.[119]

120

DIOMEDESFarewell till then.

Exit

CRESSIDAGoodnight: I prithee come.

Troilus, farewell! One eye yet looks on thee,

But with[123] my heart the other eye doth see.

Ah, poor our[124] sex! This fault in us I find,

125

The error[125] of our eye directs our mind:

What[126] error leads must err. O, then conclude

Minds swayed[127] by eyes are full of turpitude.

Exit

THERSITESA proof[128] of strength she could not publish more,

Unless she say ‘My mind is now turned whore.’

130

ULYSSESAll’s done,[130] my lord.

TROILUSIt is.

ULYSSESWhy stay we then?

TROILUSTo make a recordation[133] to my soul

Of every syllable that here was spoke.

135

But if I tell how these two did co-act,[135]

Shall I not lie in publishing a truth?

Sith[137] yet there is a credence in my heart,

An esperance[138] so obstinately strong,

That doth invert that test[139] of eyes and ears,

140

As if those organs had deceptious[140] functions,

Created only to calumniate.[141]

Was Cressid here?

ULYSSESI cannot conjure,[143] Trojan.

TROILUSShe was not, sure.

145

ULYSSESMost sure she was.

TROILUSWhy, my negation[146] hath no taste of madness.

ULYSSESNor mine, my lord: Cressid was here but[147] now.

TROILUSLet it not be believed for[148] womanhood!

Think, we had mothers; do not give advantage[149]

150

To stubborn critics, apt, without a[150] theme

For depravation, to square the general sex

By Cressid’s rule: rather think this not Cressid.

ULYSSESWhat hath she done, prince, that can soil[153] our mothers?

TROILUSNothing at all, unless that this were she.

155

THERSITESWill he swagger[155] himself out on’s own eyes? Aside

TROILUSThis she? No, this is Diomed’s Cressida.

If beauty have a soul, this is not she:

If souls guide vows, if vows are sanctimony,[158]

If sanctimony be the gods’ delight,

160

If there[160] be rule in unity itself,

This is not she: O madness of discourse,[161]

That[162] cause sets up with and against thyself

By[163] foul authority, where reason can revolt

Without perdition,[164] and loss assume all reason

165

Without revolt![165] This is and is not Cressid.

Within my soul there doth conduce[166] a fight

Of this strange nature, that a thing[167] inseparate

Divides more wider[168] than the sky and earth,

And yet the spacious breadth of this division

170

Admits[170] no orifex for a point as subtle

As Ariachne’s[171] broken woof to enter.

Instance,[172] O instance, strong as Pluto’s gates,

Cressid is mine, tied with the bonds of heaven:

Instance, O instance, strong as heaven itself,

175

The bonds of heaven are slipped,[175] dissolved and loosed,

And with another knot, five-finger-tied,[176]

The fractions[177] of her faith, orts of her love,

The fragments, scraps, the bits and greasy relics

Of her o’er-eaten[179] faith, are bound to Diomed.

180

ULYSSESMay[180] worthy Troilus be half attached

With that which here his passion doth express?

TROILUSAy, Greek, and that shall be divulgèd well

In characters as red[183] as Mars his heart

Inflamed with Venus. Never did young man fancy[184]

185

With so eternal and so fixed a soul.

Hark, Greek: as much as I do Cressid love,

So much by weight[187] hate I her Diomed.

That sleeve is mine that he’ll bear in his helm:

Were it a casque[189] composed by Vulcan’s skill

190

My sword should bite it. Not the dreadful spout[190]

Which shipmen do the hurricano call,

Constringed[192] in mass by the almighty Fenne,

Shall dizzy with more clamour Neptune’s ear

In his[194] descent than shall my prompted sword

195

Falling on Diomed.

THERSITESHe’ll[196] tickle it for his concupy. Aside

TROILUSO Cressid! O false Cressid! False, false, false!

Let all untruths stand by[198] thy stainèd name,

And they’ll seem glorious.

200

ULYSSESO, contain yourself:

Your passion draws ears hither.

Enter Aeneas

AENEASI have been seeking you this hour, my lord.

Hector, by this,[203] is arming him in Troy.

Ajax, your guard, stays[204] to conduct you home.

205

TROILUSHave with you,[205] prince.— My courteous lord, adieu.

Farewell, revolted fair![206] And, Diomed,

Stand fast,[207] and wear a castle on thy head!

ULYSSESI’ll bring you to the gates.

TROILUSAccept distracted[209] thanks.

Exeunt Troilus, Aeneas and Ulysses

THERSITESWould I could meet that rogue Diomed! I would croak like a raven:,[210] I would bode[211] I would bode. Patroclus will give me anything for the intelligence of this whore. The parrot[212] will not do more for an almond than he for a commodious drab. Lechery, lechery, still wars and lechery: nothing else holds fashion. A burning devil take them!

[Exit]

[Act 5 Scene 3]5.3

running scene 16

Enter Hector and Andromache

ANDROMACHEWhen was my lord so much ungently tempered,[1]

To stop his ears against admonishment?

Unarm, unarm, and do not fight today.

HECTORYou train[4] me to offend you: get you gone.

5

By all the everlasting gods, I’ll go!

ANDROMACHEMy dreams will, sure, prove ominous to[6] the day.

HECTORNo more, I say.

Enter Cassandra

CASSANDRAWhere is my brother Hector?

ANDROMACHEHere, sister, armed and bloody[9] in intent.

10

Consort[10] with me in loud and dear petition,

Pursue we him on knees: for I have dreamt

Of bloody turbulence, and this whole night

Hath nothing been but shapes and forms of slaughter.

CASSANDRAO, ’tis true.

15

HECTORHo! Bid my trumpet[15] sound!

CASSANDRANo notes of sally,[16] for the heavens, sweet brother.

HECTORBe gone, I say: the gods have heard me swear.

CASSANDRAThe gods are deaf to hot and peevish[18] vows:

They are polluted off’rings, more abhorred

20

Than spotted[20] livers in the sacrifice.

ANDROMACHEO, be persuaded! Do not count it holy

To hurt by being just:[22] it is as lawful,

For[23] we would give much, to use violent thefts,

And rob in the behalf of charity.

25

CASSANDRAIt is the purpose[25] that makes strong the vow;

But vows to every purpose[26] must not hold:

Unarm, sweet Hector.

HECTORHold you still, I say;

Mine honour keeps[29] the weather of my fate:

30

Life[30] every man holds dear, but the dear man

Holds honour far more precious, dear,[31] than life.—

Enter Troilus

How now, young man? Mean’st thou to fight today?

ANDROMACHECassandra, call my father[33] to persuade.

Exit Cassandra

HECTORNo, faith, young Troilus; doff[34] thy harness, youth:

35

I am today i’th’vein of[35] chivalry.

Let grow thy sinews till their knots be strong,

And tempt[37] not yet the brushes of the war.

Unarm thee, go, and doubt thou not, brave boy,

I’ll stand today for thee and me and Troy.

40

TROILUSBrother, you have a vice of mercy in you,

Which better fits a lion[41] than a man.

HECTORWhat vice is that? Good Troilus, chide me for it.

TROILUSWhen many times the captive[43] Grecian falls,

Even in the fan and wind[44] of your fair sword,

45

You bid them rise and live.

HECTORO, ’tis fair play.

TROILUSFool’s play,[47] by heaven, Hector.

HECTORHow now? How now?

TROILUSFor th’love of all the gods,

50

Let’s leave the hermit pity with our mothers,

And when we have our armours buckled on,

The venomed vengeance ride upon our swords,

Spur them to ruthful[53] work, rein them from ruth.

HECTORFie, savage, fie!

55

TROILUSHector, then ’tis wars.[55]

HECTORTroilus, I would not have you fight today.

TROILUSWho should withhold me?

Not fate, obedience, nor the hand of Mars

Beck’ning with fiery truncheon[59] my retire;

60

Not Priamus and Hecuba on knees,

Their eyes o’ergallèd[61] with recourse of tears;

Nor you, my brother, with your true sword drawn,

Opposed to hinder me, should stop my way,

But[64] by my ruin.

Enter Priam and Cassandra

65

CASSANDRALay hold upon him, Priam, hold him fast:

He is thy crutch; now if thou loose thy stay,[66]

Thou on him leaning, and all Troy on thee,

Fall all together.

PRIAMCome, Hector, come, go back:

70

Thy wife hath dreamt, thy mother hath had visions,

Cassandra doth foresee, and I myself

Am like a prophet suddenly enrapt[72]

To tell thee that this day is ominous:

Therefore come back.

75

HECTORAeneas is afield,[75]

And I do stand engaged[76] to many Greeks,

Even in the[77] faith of valour, to appear

This morning to them.

PRIAMAy, but thou shalt not go.

80

HECTORI must not break my faith.

You know me dutiful: therefore, dear sir,

Let me not shame respect;[82] but give me leave

To take that course by your consent and voice,

Which you do here forbid me, royal Priam.

85

CASSANDRAO Priam, yield not to him!

ANDROMACHEDo not, dear father.

HECTORAndromache, I am offended with you:

Upon the love you bear me, get you in.

Exit Andromache

TROILUSThis[89] foolish, dreaming, superstitious girl

90

Makes all these bodements.[90]

CASSANDRAO, farewell, dear Hector!

Look, how thou diest! Look, how thy eye turns pale!

Look, how thy wounds do bleed at many vents!

Hark, how Troy roars, how Hecuba cries out,

95

How poor Andromache shrills[95] her dolour forth!

Behold, distraction,[96] frenzy and amazement,

Like witless antics,[97] one another meet,

And ail cry, ‘Hector! Hector’s dead! O Hector!’

TROILUSAway! Away!

100

CASSANDRAFarewell. Yes, soft:[100] Hector, I take my leave;

Thou dost thyself and all our Troy deceive.[101]

Exit

HECTORYou are amazed,[102] my liege, at her exclaim.

Go in and cheer[103] the town: we’ll forth and fight,

Do deeds of praise and tell you them at night.

105

PRIAMFarewell. The gods with[105] safety stand about thee!

[Exeunt Priam and Hector, separately.] Alarum

TROILUSThey are at it, hark! Proud Diomed, believe,

I come to lose my arm, or win my sleeve.

Enter Pandarus

PANDARUSDo you hear, my lord? Do you hear?

TROILUSWhat now?

110

PANDARUSHere’s a letter come from yond poor girl. Gives a letter

TROILUSLet me read.

PANDARUSA whoreson tisick,.[112] a whoreson rascally tisick so troubles me, and the foolish fortune of this girl, and what one thing, what another, that I shall leave you one o’th’s[114] days: and I have a rheum in mine eyes too, and such an ache in my bones that, unless a man were cursed, I cannot tell what to think on’t[115] What says she there?

TROILUSWords, words, mere words, no matter from the heart;

Th’effect[118] doth operate another way. Tears the letter

Go, wind[119] to wind, there turn and change together.

120

My love with words and errors[120] still she feeds;

But edifies[121] another with her deeds.

// PANDARUSWhy, but hear you? //

// TROILUSHence,[123] brother lackey! Ignomy and shame //

// Pursue thy life, and live aye with thy name! //

Alarum.

Exeunt

[Act 5 Scene 4]5.4

running scene 17

Enter Thersites in [the midst of an] excursion

THERSITESNow they are clapper-clawing,[1] one another, I’ll go look on. That dissembling[2] abominable varlet, Diomed, has got that same scurvy, doting, foolish young knave’s sleeve of Troy there in his helm. I would fain[3] see them meet, that that same young Trojan ass, that loves the whore there, might send that Greekish whore-masterly[5] villain with the sleeve back to the dissembling luxurious drab[6] of a sleeveless errand. O’th’t’other side, the policy of those crafty swearing,[7] rascals — that stale old mouse-eaten dry cheese, Nestor, and that same dog-fox[8] Ulysses — is not proved worth a blackberry. They set me up in policy that mongrel cur, Ajax, against that dog of as bad a kind, Achilles. And now is the cur Ajax prouder than the cur Achilles, and will not arm today, whereupon the Grecians begin to proclaim barbarism,[11] and policy grows into an ill opinion.

Enter Diomedes and Troilus

Soft! Here comes sleeve, and th’other.

TROILUSFly not, for shouldst thou take[13] the river Styx,

I would swim after.

15

DIOMEDESThou dost miscall retire:[15]

I do not fly, but advantageous care[16]

Withdrew me from the odds of multitude.[17]

Have at thee![18]

THERSITESHold[19] thy whore, Grecian! Now for thy whore,

20

Trojan! Now the sleeve, now the sleeve!

[Exeunt Troilus and Diomedes, fighting]

Enter Hector

HECTORWhat art thou, Greek? Art thou for Hector’s match?[21]

Art thou of blood[22] and honour?

THERSITESNo, no. I am a rascal, a scurvy railing knave, a very filthy[23] rogue.

HECTORI do believe thee: live.

[Exit]

THERSITESGod-a-mercy,.[25] that thou wilt believe me; but a plague break thy neck for frighting me! What’s become of the wenching,[26] rogues? I think they have swallowed one another: I would laugh at that miracle — yet, in a sort[27] lechery eats itself[28] I’ll seek them.

Exit

[Act 5 Scene 5]

running scene 17 continues

Enter Diomedes and Servants

DIOMEDESGo, go, my servant, take thou Troilus’ horse;

Present the fair steed to my lady Cressid.

Fellow, commend[3] my service to her beauty;

Tell her I have chastised the amorous Trojan,

5

And am her knight by proof.[5]

SERVANTI go, my lord.

[Exit]

Enter Agamemnon

AGAMEMNONRenew,[7] renew! The fierce Polydamas

Hath beat down Menon: bastard Margarelon[8]

Hath Doreus prisoner,

10

And stands colossus-wise,[10] waving his beam,

Upon the pashèd[11] corpses of the kings

Epistrophus and Cedius: Polyxenes is slain,

Amphimachus and Thoas deadly hurt,

Patroclus ta’en[14] or slain, and Palamedes

15

Sore hurt and bruisèd. The dreadful[15] sagittary

Appals[16] our numbers: haste we, Diomed,

To reinforcement,[17] or we perish all.

Enter Nestor [and Soldiers]

NESTORGo, bear Patroclus’ body to Achilles,

And bid the snail-paced Ajax arm for shame.

20

There is a thousand Hectors in the field:

Now here he fights on Galathe his horse,

And there lacks work: anon[22] he’s there afoot,

And there they fly or die, like scalèd sculls[23]

Before the belching[24] whale; then is he yonder,

25

And there the straying Greeks, ripe for his edge,[25]

Fall down before him, like the mower’s[26] swathe.

Here, there, and everywhere, he leaves and takes,[27]

Dexterity so obeying appetite[28]

That what he will he does, and does so much

30

That proof[30] is called impossibility.

Enter Ulysses

ULYSSESO, courage, courage, princes! Great Achilles

Is arming, weeping, cursing, vowing vengeance:

Patroclus’ wounds have roused his drowsy blood,

Together with his manglèd Myrmidons,[34]

35

That noseless, handless, hacked and chipped, come to him,

Crying on[36] Hector. Ajax hath lost a friend

And foams at mouth, and he is armed and at it,

Roaring for Troilus, who hath done today

Mad[39] and fantastic execution,

40

Engaging[40] and redeeming of himself

With such a careless[41] force and forceless care

As if that luck,[42] in very spite of cunning,

Bade him win all.

Enter Ajax

AJAXTroilus, thou coward Troilus!

Exit

45

DIOMEDESAy, there, there.

NESTORSo, so, we draw together.[46]

Exit

Enter Achilles

ACHILLESWhere is this Hector?

Come, come, thou boy-queller,[48] show thy face:

Know what it is to meet Achilles angry.

50

Hector? Where’s Hector? I will none[50] but Hector.

Exit

[Act 5 Scene 6]

running scene 17 continues

Enter Ajax

AJAXTroilus, thou coward Troilus, show thy head!

Enter Diomedes

DIOMEDESTroilus, I say! Where’s Troilus?

AJAXWhat wouldst thou?

DIOMEDESI would correct[4] him.

5

AJAXWere I the general, thou shouldst have my office[5]

Ere that correction.[6]— Troilus, I say! What, Troilus!

Enter Troilus

TROILUSO traitor Diomed! Turn thy false face, thou traitor,

And pay thy life thou owest me for my horse!

DIOMEDESHa, art thou there?

10

AJAXI’ll fight with him alone: stand,[10] Diomed.

DIOMEDESHe is my prize:[11] I will not look upon.

TROILUSCome, both you cogging[12] Greeks, have at you both!

Exeunt Troilus [fighting Diomedes and Ajax]

Enter Hector

HECTORYea, Troilus? O, well fought, my youngest brother!

Enter Achilles Pursuing Hector

ACHILLESNow do I see thee! Have at thee, Hector! They fight

15

HECTORPause, if thou wilt.[15]

ACHILLESI do disdain thy courtesy, proud Trojan;

Be happy that my arms[17] are out of use:

My rest and negligence[18] befriends thee now,

But thou anon[19] shalt hear of me again:

20

Till when, go seek thy fortune.

Exit

HECTORFare thee well:

I would have been much more a fresher man,

Had I expected thee.— How now, my brother!

Enter Troilus

TROILUSAjax hath ta’en Aeneas. Shall it be?

25

No, by the flame[25] of yonder glorious heaven,

He shall not carry[26] him: I’ll be ta’en too,

Or bring him off.[27] Fate, hear me what I say:

I reck[28] not though thou end my life today.

Exit

Enter one in armour

HECTORStand, stand, thou Greek: thou art a goodly mark.[29]

30

No? Wilt thou not? I like thy armour well:

I’ll frush[31] it and unlock the rivets all,

But I’ll be master of it. Wilt thou not, beast, abide?

Why then fly on, I’ll hunt thee for thy hide.[33]

Exeunt

[Act 5 Scene 7]

running scene 17 continues

Enter Achilles with Myrmidons

ACHILLESCome here about me, you my Myrmidons.

Mark what I say: attend[2] me where I wheel,

Strike not a stroke, but keep yourselves in breath,[3]

And when I have the bloody Hector found,

5

Empale[5] him with your weapons round about,

In fellest[6] manner execute your arm.

Follow me, sirs, and my proceedings[7] eye:

It is decreed Hector the great must die.

Exeunt

[Act 5 Scene 8]

running scene 17 continues

Enter Thersites [at a distance], Menelaus and Paris, [fighting]

THERSITESThe cuckold and the cuckold-maker are at it. Now, bull![1] Now, dog! ’Loo, Paris, ’loo! Now my double-henned sparrow![2] ’Loo, Paris, ’loo! The bull has the game: ’ware[3] horns, ho!

Exeunt Paris and Menelaus

Enter Bastard [Margarelon]

MARGARELONTurn, slave,[4] and fight.

THERSITESWhat[5] art thou?

MARGARELONA bastard son of Priam’s.

THERSITESI am a bastard too: I love bastards. I am a bastard begot,.[7] bastard instructed, bastard in mind, bastard in valour, in everything illegitimate. One bear will not bite another, and wherefore[9] should one bastard? Take heed, the quarrel’s most ominous to us: if the son of a whore fight for a whore, he tempts judgement[10] Farewell, bastard.

[Exit]

MARGARELONThe devil take thee, coward!

Exit

[Act 5 Scene 9]

running scene 17 continues

Enter Hector

HECTORMost putrefied core,[1] so fair without,

Thy goodly armour thus hath cost thy life.

Now is my day’s work done; I’ll take good breath.

Rest, sword, thou hast thy fill of blood and death. Takes off his helmet and hangs his shield behind him

Enter Achilles and his Myrmidons

5

ACHILLESLook, Hector, how the sun begins to set;

How ugly night comes breathing at his heels:

Even with the vail[7] and darking of the sun,

To close the day up, Hector’s life is done.

HECTORI am unarmed: forgo this vantage,[9] Greek.

10

ACHILLESStrike, fellows, strike: this is the man I seek. They attack and Hector falls

So, Ilium, fall thou! Now, Troy, sink down!

Here lies thy heart, thy sinews and thy bone.

On, Myrmidons, cry you all amain,[13]

‘Achilles hath the mighty Hector slain.’

Retreat [sounded]

15

Hark! A retreat upon our Grecian part.

A MYRMIDONThe Trojan trumpet sounds the like, my lord.

ACHILLESThe dragon wing of night o’erspreads the earth,

And, stickler-like,[18] the armies separates.

My half-supped sword, that frankly[19] would have fed,

20

Pleased with this dainty bait,[20] thus goes to bed. Sheathes his sword

Come, tie his body to my horse’s tail;

Along the field I will the Trojan trail.

Exeunt

[Act 5 Scene 10]

running scene 17 continues

Sound retreat. Shout. Enter Agamemnon, Ajax, Menelaus, Nestor, Diomedes and the rest, marching

AGAMEMNONHark, hark! What shout is that?

NESTORPeace, drums!

SOLDIERAchilles! Achilles! Hector’s slain! Achilles! Within?

DIOMEDESThe bruit[4] is, Hector’s slain, and by Achilles.

5

AJAXIf it be so, yet bragless[5] let it be:

Great Hector was a man as good as he.

AGAMEMNONMarch patiently[7] along. Let one be sent

To pray Achilles see us at our tent.

If in his[9] death the gods have us befriended,

10

Great Troy is ours, and our sharp[10] wars are ended.

Exeunt

[Act 5 Scene 11]

running scene 17 continues

Enter Aeneas, Paris, Antenor and Deiphobus

AENEASStand, ho! Yet[1] are we masters of the field:

Never go home; here starve we out[2] the night.

Enter Troilus

TROILUSHector is slain.

ALLHector? The gods forbid!

5

TROILUSHe’s dead, and at the murderer’s horse’s tail,

In beastly sort,[6] dragged through the shameful field.

Frown on, you heavens, effect your rage with speed!

Sit, gods, upon your thrones, and smile at[8] Troy!

I say, at[9] once let your brief plagues be mercy,

10

And linger not our sure destructions on!

AENEASMy lord, you do discomfort[11] all the host!

TROILUSYou understand me not that tell me so:

I do not speak of flight, of fear, of death,

But dare[14] all imminence that gods and men

15

Address their dangers in. Hector is gone:

Who shall tell Priam so? Or Hecuba?

Let him that will a screech-owl[17] aye be called

Go in to Troy and say there ‘Hector’s dead.’

There is a word will Priam turn[19] to stone;

20

Make wells and Niobes[20] of the maids and wives,

Cool statues[21] of the youth, and, in a word,

Scare Troy out of itself. But, march away:

Hector is dead, there is no more to say.

Stay yet. You vile abominable tents,

25

Thus proudly pight[25] upon our Phrygian plains,

Let Titan[26] rise as early as he dare,

I’ll through and through[27] you! And, thou great-sized coward,

No space of earth shall sunder[28] our two hates:

I’ll haunt[29] thee like a wicked conscience still,

30

That mouldeth goblins[30] swift as frenzy’s thoughts.

Strike a free[31] march to Troy! With comfort go:

Hope of revenge shall hide our inward woe.

Enter Pandarus

PANDARUSBut hear you, hear you!

TROILUSHence, broker-lackey![34] Ignomy and shame

35

Pursue thy life, and live aye with thy name!

Exeunt. [Pandarus remains]

PANDARUSA goodly med’cine for mine aching bones![36] O world, world, world! Thus is the poor agent despised! O traitors and bawds, how earnestly are you set a-work, and how ill requited![38] Why should our endeavour be so desired and the performance[39] so loathed? What verse for it? What instance for it? Let me see:

40

Full merrily the humble-bee[40] doth sing,

Till he hath lost his honey[41] and his sting.

And being once subdued[42] in armèd tail,

Sweet honey and sweet notes together fail.

Good traders[44] in the flesh, set this in your painted cloths:

45

As many as be here of panders’ hall,[45]

Your eyes, half out,[46] weep out at Pandar’s fall;

Or if you cannot weep, yet give some groans,

Though not for me, yet for your aching bones.[48]

Brethren and sisters of the hold-door[49] trade,

50

Some two months hence my will shall here be made:

It should be now, but that my fear is this,

Some gallèd[52] goose of Winchester would hiss.

Till then I’ll sweat[53] and seek about for eases,

And at that time bequeath you my diseases.

Exit

Quarto passages that do not appear in the Folio

Following 3.3.108:

To others’ eyes; nor doth the eye itself,

That most pure spirit of sense, behold itself,

Following 4.5.31:

And parted thus you and your argument.

Following 5.1.19 (after “cold palsies”):

raw eyes, dirt-rotten livers, wheezing lungs,

bladders full of impostume, sciaticas, limekilns

i’the palm, incurable bone-ache, and the rivelled

fee-simple of the tetter,

Textual Notes

Q = First Quarto text of 1609

F = First Folio text of 1623

F2 = a correction introduced in the Second Folio text of 1632

F3 = a correction introduced in the Third Folio text of 1663/64

F4 = a correction introduced in the Fourth Folio text of 1685

Ed = a correction introduced by a later editor

SD = stage direction

SH = speech heading (i.e., speaker’s name)

Some copies of the 1609 Quarto have the following prefatory epistle:

A neuer writer, to an euer reader. Newes.

ETernall reader, you haue heere a new play, neuer stal’d with the Stage, neuer clapper-clawd with the palmes of the vulger, and yet passing full of the palme comicall; for it is a birth of your braine, that neuer vnder-tooke any thing commicall, vainely: And were but the vaine names of commedies changed for the titles of Commodities, or of Playes for Pleas; you should see all those grand censors, that now stile them such vanities, flock to them for the maine grace of their grauities: especially this authors Commedies, that are so fram’d to the life, that they serue for the most common Commentaries, of all the actions of our liues, shewing such a dexteritie, and power of witte, that the most displeased with Playes, are pleasd with his Commedies. And all such dull and heauy-witted worldlings, as were neuer capable of the witte of a Commedie, comming by report of them to his representations, haue found that witte there, that they neuer found in them-selues, and haue parted better wittied then they came: feeling an edge of witte set vpon them, more then euer they dreamd they had braine to grinde it on. So much and such sauored salt of witte is in his Commedies, that they seeme (for their height of pleasure) to be borne in that sea that brought forth Venus. Amongst all there is none more witty then this: And had I time I would comment vpon it, though I know it needs not, (for so much as will make you thinke your testerne well bestowd) but for so much worth, as euen poore I know to be stuft in it. It deserues such a labour, as well as the best Commedy in Terence or Plautus. And beleeue this, that when hee is gone, and his Commedies out of sale, you will scramble for them, and set vp a new English Inquisition. Take this for a warning, and at the perrill of your pleasures losse, and Iudgements, refuse not, nor like this the lesse, for not being sullied, with the smoaky breath of the multitude; but thanke fortune for the scape it hath made amongst you. Since by the grand possessors wills I beleeue you should haue prayd for them rather then beene prayd. And so I leaue all such to bee prayd for (for the states of their wits healths) that will not praise it. Vale.

List of parts = Ed

Prologue 12 barks = F2. F = Barke 17 Antenorides = Ed. F = Antenonidus

1.1.28 when…thence = Ed. F = then she comes, when she is thence 40 her = Q. F = it 71 SH PANDARUS = F (uncorrected). F (corrected) = Troy.

1.2.2 SH ALEXANDER = Ed. F = Man. 31 disdain = Q. F = disdaind 59 nor = Q. F = not 72 wit = Ed. F = will 99 heso = Q. F = he is so 114 marvellous spelled maruel’s in F 138 forit = Q. F = for is 140 do = Q. F = does 150 tell = Q. Not in F 164 there’s = Q. Not in F 165 will = Q. F = ill 171 shall see = Q. F = shall 182 note = Q. F = not

1.3.2 jaundice spelled Iaundies in F 119 their = Q. F = her 157 scaffoldage spelled Scaffolage in F 203 calls = Q. F = call 243 Trojan spelled Troyan throughout F 245 the praised = Q. F = he prais’d

2.1.2 boils spelled Biles and Byles in F 14 o’thy = F3. F = o’th thy 19 porcupine spelled Porpentine in F 74 badethe = Q. F = bade thee tenor = Q. F = tenure 85 your = Ed. F = their 92 peace = Q. Not in F 93 brach = Ed. F = Brooch

2.2.46 And…reason = Q. Line 47 printed after line 48 in F 58 mad = Q (madde). F = made 73 sieve = Q. F = same 112 Ilium = Ed. F = Illion (throughout)

2.3.5 engineer spelled Enginer in F 52 serpigo spelled Suppeago in F 57 shent = Ed. F = sent 65 if you = Q. F = if 76 knits not, = Q. F = knits, not 79 his legs = Q. F = his legge 105 lunes = Ed. F = lines 141 worth = Q. F = wroth 189 SH NESTOR =

Ed. Printed after ‘warm’ in F

3.1.128 SH PARIS = Q. Not in F

3.2.19 repurèd = Q. F = reputed 20 Swooning spelled Sounding in F 21 tuned = Q. F = and 54 fears = Ed.F = teares 56 safer = Q. F = safe 60 Nor = Q. F = Not 94 grown = Q. F = grow 104 Cunning = Ed. F = Comming 177 with a bed = Ed. Not in F or Q

3.3.4 come = F4. F = loue 117 man = Q. F = may 139 fasting = Q. F = feasting 164 rear = Ed. F = neere 171 farewell = Q. F = farewels 180 give = Ed. F = goe 215 our = Q. F = her 259 this = Q. F = his

4.1.71 the = Q. F = which

4.2.13 joys = Ed. F = eyes 75 SDEnter Cressida = Ed. F = Enter Pandarus and Cressid 97 force = Q. F = orce

4.4.9 dross = Q. F = crosse 41 one = Q. F = our 49 SDWithin F also prints “Enter AEneas” here, possibly reflecting alternative stagings 79 gifts = Ed. F = guift 80 Flowing = Ed. F = Flawing 106 true? F mistakenly prints an Exit for Cressida here 125 usage = Q. F = visage 156 SD Exeunt placed at line 151 in F

4.5.15 yond = Q. F = yong 103 breath = Q. F = breach 158 ‘Oyez’ = Ed. F = (O yes)

5.1.24 sleaved spelled Sleyd in F 64 sewer = Ed. F = sure

5.2.11 sing = Q. F = finde clef = Q (Cliff). F = life 27 do = Q. F = do not 93 takes = Ed.F = rakes 186 muchas = F2. F = much

5.3.5 By all the = Q. F = By the 23 give…use = Ed. F = count giue much to as 93 do = Q. F = doth

5.4.6 errand spelled errant in F 7 stale = Q. F = stole

5.8.1 ‘Loo = F4. F = lowe (throughout speech) 4 SH MARGARELON = Ed. F = Bast.

5.9.16 SH A MYRMIDON = Ed. F = Gree. trumpet = Q. F = Trumpets 20 bait = Q. F = bed

The Prologue

2   orgulous proud, haughty       high noble/proud chafed heated, roused

4   Fraught laden       ministers agents, i.e., soldiers instruments weapons

6   crownets coronets, small crowns

7   Phrygia region of Asia Minor (now Turkey), location of Troy

8   immures walls

9   ravished abducted/ raped

10   wanton lustful/willful, uncontrolled

11   Tenedos island near Troy

12   deep-drawing barks heavily laden ships lying low in the water    disgorge empty out (literally “vomit up”)

13   fraughtage cargo    Dardan Trojan (from Dardanus, son of Zeus and the great ancestor of the Trojan rulers)

15   brave pavilions splendid tents (brave plays on the sense of “boastful, insolent”)

16   Dardan…Antenorides the names of the six gates of Troy

17   massy…bolts massive metal hoops and the correspondingly sized bolts that fit into them

20   tickling toying with/vexing, provoking    skittish lively, readily roused

22   on hazard at risk

23   armed equipped with weapons/wearing armor/prepared    in confidence Of overconfident about

24   suited…argument costumed to suit the theme    argument plot/quarrel

27   vaunt and firstlings beginnings (vaunt plays on sense of “boast”)    broils battles, turmoil

28   in the middle a translation of the Latin in medias res; the Roman writer Horace advised the aspiring epic poet to go straight to the heart of a story

29   digested understood/condensed within

Act 1 Scene 1

1.1   Location: Troy Pandarus his name came to signify the function of a “pander” or go-between

1   varlet personal servant       unarm disarm, remove armor

2   without outside

5   field the battlefield       none i.e., no heart to be master of, no urge to fight

6   gear business (perhaps with connotations of “sexual organs”)

7   to in addition to/in proportion to

10   Tamer more docile/more dull, spiritless    fonder more foolish

12   skilless ignorant, unaware    unpractised inexperienced/guileless

13   meddle nor make interfere, get involved (perhaps suggestive; both words could mean “have sex”)

14   tarry await

15   grinding plays on the sense of “sexual intercourse”

17   bolting sifting of flour (plays on the slang sense of “bolt,” i.e., “penis”)

19   leav’ning fermenting of the dough with leaven

22   making of plays on the sense of “having sex with”    heating…oven plays on the sense of “sexual arousal of the woman” (oven was a slang term for “vagina”)

23   stay wait for    cooling of the cake/of lust burn your lips also suggestive of the effects of venereal disease

25   Doth…suff’rance flinches less at suffering    suff’rance suffering/patient endurance

28   traitor i.e., to love (Troilus berates himself for suggesting that he might sometimes forget Cressida)    thence out of my thoughts

32   wedgèd split with a wedge (possibly plays on the slang sense of “wedge,” i.e., penis)    would seemed about to/wanted to rive in twain split in two

34   a-scorn in scorn, mockingly (Troilus compares his feigned jollity to the falsely cheerful glare of the sun)

36   couched concealed/expressed

38   An if    go to expression of dismissive impatience

39   were would be

40   would wish

41   dispraise disparage    wit intelligence

45   fathoms a measure of depth; a fathom is about six feet

46   indrenched drowned, submerged

47   In Cressid’s love for love of Cressida

50   Handlest you handle (anticipates hand)    that her hand that hand of hers

51   In whose comparison in comparison to which

52   to compared to    soft seizure gentle grasp

53   cygnet baby swan    spirit of sense i.e., the most delicate touch (literally, the invisible essence thought to transmit sensation to the mind)

56   oil and balm soothing, healing ointments (both words may play on the sense of “semen”; i.e., only sexual climax will heal Troilus’s lovesickness)

57   gash wound (may play on the sense of “vagina”)

62   mends remedy (i.e., she can use cosmetics; possibly also suggestive of masturbation)

64   I…travail nothing but effort has been the reward for my pains (travail plays on the sense of “travel,” alluding to Pandarus’ role as a go-between)    on of of by

67   an…Sunday i.e., if she were not my relative, I would say that she is as beautiful in the plain clothes appropriate to a fasting day as Helen is in her Sunday best

69   blackamoor black African

70   fair beautiful/fair-complexioned

71   behind her father since her father’s departure

72   let her let her go/rent her out    alarum call to battle (usually trumpets or drums)

79   ungracious inconsiderate, unmannerly rude harsh/uncivilized

81   paint i.e., as if with cosmetics, rouge

82   upon this argument for this cause

83   starved meager, insubstantial

86   tetchy irritable, peevish    wooed to woo entreated to court (Cressida)

87   suit courtship

88   Apollo Greek sun god    Daphne wood nymph pursued by Apollo; she evaded him by praying to the river god Peneus for deliverance and was thereupon turned into a laurel tree

89   we I

90   India East/West Indies (thought of as regions of great wealth)

91   Ilium Troy/the royal palace of Troy

92   flood sea

93   merchant trader/merchant ship    sailing possible pun on “selling”

94   convoy escort    bark small vessel (used to escort a larger merchant ship)

95   Wherefore not afield? Why are you not on the battlefield?

96   Because not there i.e., “just because”    woman’s answer alludes to the proverb “because is woman’s reason” sorts is fitting

102   scar to scorn wound so slight it deserves nothing but scorn/wound given in return for Paris’ scornful behavior to Menelaus

103   horn imagined growth on the head of a cuckold (man with an unfaithful wife; Paris has stolen Menelaus’ wife, Helen)

104   sport action, entertainment (in his reply, Troilus shifts the sense to “sexual amusement”) out of town i.e., outside Troy’s walls

106   abroad in the outside world

Act 1 Scene 2

5   commands as subject dominates, overlooks

7   fixed steadfast       moved roused, angry (plays on the literal sense to provide antithesis with fixed)

9   like as       as if husbandry careful management (rising early for work); plays on being a “husband”

10   harnessed light dressed in light armor/armored quickly

15   noise rumor, report

16   nephew cousin

18   Good very well

19   per se in himself/in a class of his own (Latin) stands alone is peerless (Cressida’s response plays on the literal sense, and on the sexual sense of “is erect”)

20   drunk…legs i.e., cannot stand up/are impotent

21   particular additions distinctive characteristics, essential attributes

22   churlish violent/ungracious    slow ponderous, slow-moving

23   humours contradictory moods, temperamental characteristics

25   glimpse trace, small part    attaint fault, stain

26   against the hair contrary to the prevailing mood, perversely    joints parts, components

27   gouty diseased, with swollen deformed joints    Briareus legendary monster with a hundred hands and fifty heads

28   purblinded blind    Argus legendary monster with a hundred eyes

30   coped grappled, fought with

31   disdain anger, wounded pride    whereof of which waking sleepless

41   ere before

48   lay about him strike out/fight hard

53   Jupiter Roman supreme god

54   know a man recognize a proper man (Cressida affects to understand merely “recognize a person”; know may play on the sense of “have sex with”)

59   in some degrees in some respects/by a long distance

60   just fair/accurate

63   Condition…India i.e., Troilus is as likely to recover his true self as I am to walk barefoot to India    Condition on the condition that

65   a he

66   time…end i.e., time will tell    friend befriend

68   Excuse me expression of polite disbelief or disagreement, like Pardon me

71   Th’other’s…to’t i.e., Troilus is not as fully mature (come to’t may have connotations of being sexually active)    tell…tale i.e., change your tune (tale may pun on “tail,” i.e., “penis”)

72   have his wit be able to compete with Troilus’ intelligence

77   become suit

79   a brown favour someone with a dark complexion (considered less attractive)

80   No, but brown Cressida mocks Pandarus’ quibbling distinctions

86   should i.e., must therefore    his…his i.e., Troilus’…Paris’

88   flaming extravagant, high-flown/brightly colored, flushed    as lief rather, just as soon

89   copper red (from drinking; conceivably suggests the metal noses occasionally worn by those who had lost their real noses to syphilis)

91   merry Greek jolly person/one of loose morals

93   compassed curved, rounded

95   tapster’s arithmetic i.e., simple calculation    tapster barman, tavern keeper particulars individual details, particular features

99   old experienced    lifter weightlifter/thief (possibly also plays on the sense of “one who has sex”)

101   cloven dimpled (Cressida plays on the literal sense of “split apart”)

102   Juno queen of the Roman gods, wife of Jupiter

107   an…autumn i.e., as if he were a dark cloud or a cloud through which the sun is vainly trying to shine

109   stand…proof stand up to the test (plays on the sense of “be erect for sex”)

110   addle rotten/partly hatched (the sense Cressida picks up on in her reply)

111   If…i’th’shell perhaps alludes to the proverb “as good be an addled egg as an idle bird” (addle puns on idle)

114   marvellous marvelously confess admit (Cressida plays on the idea of confession after torture)

115   rack torture instrument that stretched the limbs

117   richer i.e., has more hairs than Troilus’ youthful chin

118   that so much that ran o’er watered

120   millstones proverbially the hard-hearted weep millstones

122   pot cooking pot

126   Marry by the Virgin Mary

127   green plays on the sense of “youthful, inexperienced”

128   pretty artful, clever

133   hairs puns on “heirs”

134   all…sons traditionally, Priam had fifty sons; perhaps the forked hair counts as two

135   forked split (alludes to the cuckold’s horns that supposedly grew from the head of a man with an unfaithful wife)

137   so chafed was so irritated it passed the occasion surpassed all description

138   So…now i.e., let it pass, be forgotten going by i.e., in the telling

141   weep…April i.e., weep like one born in the month of showers

142   spring grow (plays on the sense of the season itself) an…May as if I were a nettle anticipating the arrival of May (plays on the notion of “nettling,” i.e., irritating Troilus)

146   bravely splendidly

147   mark note, observe

149   brave splendid/bold

150   anon shortly

152   shrewd sharp

153   one o’th’soundest judgement one of those with the greatest wisdom, discretion whosoever out of anyone proper…person fine example of a man

156   give…nod acknowledge you with a nod of the head/call you a fool (nod)

158   the…more i.e., your foolishness will increase further

159   Go thy way expression of well-wishing

161   countenance (fine) face/demeanor/appearance

163   a he hacks dents, gashes

164   jesting make-believe/playing

165   laying on (evidence of) vigorous attack take’t…will whatever anyone says to the contrary (plays on the antithesis between “lay on” and “take off”)

166   with swords dents made with swords

168   God’s lid God’s eyelid (a common oath)

173   marvel wonder he i.e., Troilus

174   forth out (to fight)

176   indifferent moderately

178   sneaking creeping/shifty

180   Hem! Pandarus either tries to catch Troilus’s attention, coughs awkwardly to cover his error, or tries to prompt Cressida’s agreement

183   helm helmet

184   goes walks, bears himself ne’er…twenty is not yet twenty-three

185   grace in Greek mythology, one of the three goddesses of grace and beauty

186   to compared to

187   warrant am sure change exchange (one man for the other) to boot in addition

189   Chaff and bran husks, i.e., useless things porridge after meat a vegetable soup after the main course (both terms could also refer to sexual organs or their possessors)

191   daws jackdaws (proverbially foolish birds)

194   drayman cart-driver camel i.e., misshapen, lumbering

196   discretion good judgment

197   birth noble ancestry discourse conversational skill/sound understanding

198   gentleness good breeding, courtesy liberality generosity

200   minced cut into small pieces for cooking/dainty, effeminate, pretentious no…pie i.e., with a crucial ingredient lacking/with an impotent penis (no use to the vaginal pie)

201   the…out he is out of date, no good

202   You…woman! What a woman you are! at…lie which defensive position you assume (fencing term; plays on the notion of sexual positions, which Cressida picks up on in her reply)

203   belly stomach/womb/vagina wit may play on a sense of “genitals” wiles tricks

204   secrecy ability to keep secrets (such as a love affair or pregnancy)/sexual organs honesty integrity/virtue/chastity mask worn to shield the complexion from the sun and retain a fashionable pallor

205   wards defensive positions/designated guard stations watches vigilant observances/periods of the night during which a guard was kept (plays on “watch and ward,” i.e., to keep guard)

206   watches wakeful periods of the night (also suggestive of secretive sexual activity, perhaps with more than one man)

207   watch be wary of them i.e., things I have to guard against

208   ward defend hit struck/penetrated sexually watch…telling be on guard to prevent you revealing

209   swell become infected/swell with pregnancy past watching too late to safeguard against Boy servant

210   You…another! What a woman you are!

215   doubt fear

217   by and by soon

218   To bring i.e., are you going to bring something

219   token lover’s gift, keepsake

220   By…token on that basis bawd procurer, pimp

222   in…enterprise on behalf of another

224   glass mirror, reflection

225   wooing while being wooed

226   done finished with (plays on the sense of “sexually conquered”)

227   she woman who is

228   Men…is men value what they have not got more than its worth

229   That…sue never was there a woman for whom love was as sweet after she had been won as when she was still being wooed

231   out of drawn from

232   ‘Achievement…beseech’ “Winning a woman’s love gives a man control; if she has not been won, he must continue entreating her”

233   That so that though…bear i.e., although my heart loves surely, steadily

Act 1 Scene 3

1.3   Location: the Greek camp, not far from Troy Sennet trumpet call signaling a procession

2   grief grievance, displeasure       jaundice i.e., yellowness (suggestive of jealousy and disease)

3   proposition offer, proposal       makes…below gives to all enterprises begun here on earth

5   in…largeness to fulfill its promise       checks obstacles

6   veins i.e., vessels in a plant for carrying       sap actions highest reared the most ambitious military endeavors

7   by…sap at the point where flowing streams of sap meet

8   sound pine healthy pine tree       grain i.e., the grain of the wood

9   Tortive and errant twisted and straying

11   suppose expectation/intention

13   Sith…thwart since every previous recorded military action went wrong

15   not…shape not falling out in accordance with the original plan

18   works deeds, endeavors

20   protractive protracted, drawn-out    Jove Jupiter, Roman king of the gods

21   persistive persistent, enduring

22   metal strong substance (plays on “mettle,” i.e., courage, character)

23   In fortune’s love during the good times

24   artist scholar

25   affined related (continues aural play on find, fineness)

26   her i.e., fortune’s

27   Distinction the practice of distinguishing between things

28   winnows separates and blows away (as the lighter chaff is separated from the wheat by the wind)

29   matter substance, worth

30   virtue worth, value

31   observance of respect for seat throne, i.e., authority

32   apply interpret

33   reproof rebuffing, rebuking, defiance

34   proof test (puns on reproof)

35   bauble toylike

38   Boreas Greek god of the north wind

39   Thetis sea nymph, mother of Achilles (here represents the sea)

40   bark ship    liquid mountains i.e., waves

41   two moist elements i.e., air and water

42   Perseus’ horse Pegasus, the winged horse of Greek mythology that sprang from Medusa’s blood when Perseus beheaded her; technically, he belonged to Bellerophon    saucy insolent

43   untimbered unsound, lacking a strong wooden frame    even…greatness only a moment ago accompanied and competed with greater ships

45   toast sop, piece of bread soaked in wine    Neptune Roman god of the seas Even so in just such a way

46   show outward appearance

47   her i.e., fortune’s

48   breeze gadfly (which bites animals)/light wind

51   shade shelter

52   sympathize respond, be in accordance

54   Retires returns, reverts

56   nerve sinew, muscle

57   numbers i.e., army only sole/preeminent, exceptional    spirit vital power, essence of life

58   tempers temperaments

59   shut up incorporated, absorbed

61   The which which    place and sway position and authority

62   reverend worthy, respected    stretched-out long-lasting

64   and i.e., who is

65   in brass engraved in brass, i.e., as a model of eloquence

66   hatched in silver i.e., white-haired    hatched streaked, inlaid/engraved

67   air i.e., his speech    axle-tree…ride axis on which the universe revolves (the heavens were thought to revolve around the earth)

68   knit unite, tie

70   great, and wise i.e., Agamemnon, and Nestor

71   Ithaca island west of Greece, home of Ulysses    of less expect less likely

72   importless burden insignificant content

74   rank stinking/diseased/lustful/coarse    opes opens mastic gummy/rotten (possibly also relates to “mastix,” a scourge)

76   yet…basis still standing on its foundations    had would have

78   instances factors, reasons

79   specialty of rule rights and obligations of effective authority

80   how however

81   Hollow empty    so…factions there are just as many deceptive factions

82   general military leader    hive beehive (i.e., the focal point, center of command)

83   repair return

84   Degree rank, hierarchy    vizarded masked, concealed

85   shows as fairly appears just as attractive, as worthy

86   this centre i.e., the earth (which, according to the Ptolemaic model, was the center of the universe)

88   Insisture regularity, constancy, steady continuance

89   Office particular function

90   Sol the sun (thought to be a planet)

91   sphered contained within its sphere (each planet was thought to orbit within a hollow crystalline sphere)

92   other i.e., other planets    med’cinable healing

93   ill sick, unwell/ominous, causing misfortune    aspects planetary positions, directions of alignment

94   posts speeds

95   Sans check without pause

96   mixture conjunction    to disorder wander move into unfavorable alignment

100   deracinate uproot

101   married harmonious, united

102   Quite completely fixure fixed position degree rank, hierarchy (plays on the sense of “ladder’s rung”)

103   high designs noble undertakings (high plays on its literal sense)

105   Degrees in schools academic ranks brotherhoods guilds

106   dividable shores countries separated by sea

107   primogenitive primogeniture, the inheritance rights of an eldest son

109   But except, other than stand…place remain in their legitimate positions

112   mere oppugnancy total conflict bounded enclosed, contained (by their shores)

113   Should would

114   make…globe i.e., drown the world sop piece of bread soaked in wine

115   imbecility physical weakness

116   rude violent, uncivilized

118   jar conflict, clash

119   names individual identities

120   includes subsumes, absorbs/concludes, terminates

121   will willfulness appetite desire, greed

123   seconded supported, assisted

124   make…prey inevitably prey upon everything

126   suffocate suffocated

127   choking act of suffocating

129   by a pace step by step in…climb when the intention had been to climb upwards

133   Exampled given the example, shown a precedent the…superior the morally corrupt step taken previously by his superior

135   emulation rivalry/grudging envy

136   on foot upstanding

139   discovered revealed

140   power army/strength/authority

143   opinion public opinion/reputation

144   forehand foremost part, mainstay host army

145   airy widely acknowledged/insubstantial

146   dainty of particular, fastidious about

148   Upon…bed lazily upon a bed (transferred epithet)

149   Breaks cracks, makes scurril scurrilous, vulgar

150   ridiculous comically derisory awkward unfavorable, perverse (also possibly “turned the wrong way, back foremost,” suggesting a joke about anal sex)

152   pageants impersonates, parodies

153   topless deputation supreme role puts on imitates

154   conceit intellect, wits

155   hamstring i.e., legs

156   wooden dull, lifeless, stupid/resounding on a wooden surface dialogue…scaffoldage echoing noise of his long strides over the stage platform

158   to-be-pitied…seeming pitiable and overstrained appearance

160   a-mending in need of tuning terms unsquared ill-fitting words, clumsy expressions

161   Typhon giant monster of Greek mythology who made war upon the gods and was associated with winds, earthquakes, and volcanoes

162   fusty moldy, stale (glances perhaps at “fustian,” i.e., inflated, hyperbolic language)

163   large powerfully built (also suggesting self-importance and licentiousness) pressed weighed down (with his body)

164   deep large and resounding

165   just exactly

166   me for me hum murmur in displeasure or in thought/make a throat-clearing sound

167   dressed to prepared for, ready to begin

168   as…parallels i.e., unconvincingly (parallel lines never meet)

169   as…wife Vulcan differs completely from his wife Venus: he is the deformed Roman god of fire, she the beautiful goddess of love

170   god sarcastic (perhaps nods to Achilles’ near-immortal status in mythology; his mother was the sea nymph Thetis who made him invulnerable, apart from his heel)

171   me for me

172   answer in respond to

173   forsooth in truth faint frail, feeble

175   palsy-fumbling fumbling because his hand is shaking palsy shaking fit, tremor, paralysis gorget piece of armor protecting the throat

176   rivet bolt for fastening armor sport amusement

177   Sir Valour sarcastic title for Achilles dies i.e., dies laughing

179   spleen thought to be the seat of laughter and strong emotion

181   Severals…exact accomplished virtues, both individual and universal

182   preventions defensive measures

183   Excitements exhortations, encouragement

185   paradoxes absurdities, statements contrary to received belief

186   twain two

188   an imperial voice absolute approval, a ruling vote infect infected

189   bears…rein (like a horse) resists the reins, is skittish and willful (rein puns on “reign”)

190   in…place just as proudly/with just such a proud sense of his own status

191   broad physically large/outspoken, unrestrained keeps keeps to

192   factious divisive, faction-forming rails on denounces, rants about

194   slave rogue, wretch/lackey gall bitterness coins…mint invents insults as fast as a mint coins money

196   exposure vulnerable situation

197   How…danger however abundantly we are surrounded by dangers

198   tax our policy criticize our strategy/condemn our diplomacy

200   Forestall prescience obstruct forward planning

201   that of hand physical combat/immediate action

202   contrive plan

203   fitness the right moment/a proper state of readiness know…weight by careful observation judge the enemy’s strength

205   hath…dignity is not deemed worth a finger (in relation to the whole body)

206   bed-work armchair strategy, dreaming up of plans mapp’ry mapmaking closet-war i.e., war conducted from the study

207   ram battering ram

208   For due to rudeness…poise brute force of its impact

209   place…engine value more highly than the man who designed it

210   fineness…souls subtlety of their intelligence

211   his execution the operation of the battering ram

212   Let…sons if this is the case then Achilles’ horse is worth many an Achilles (son of Thetis)

213   Tucket personal trumpet call

216   ’fore before

220   fair courteous

221   surety security arm might, power

222   ’Fore…heads foremost among or leading the Greek army

224   leave permission large comprehensive/generous

229   waken reverence summon a respectful demeanor (in myself)

231   coldly with the chill of dawn/chastely, modestly

232   Phoebus Roman name for the sun god

237   free honorable, generous debonair gracious unarmed i.e., during peacetime

238   bending bowing, reverential fame reputation

239   galls spirit to resent insult

241   Jove’s accord with Jove’s favor

242   Nothing…heart no one is so courageous

244   distains his worth sullies its value

245   If…forth if the subject of praise does the praising himself

246   repining begrudging, discontented commends compliments

247   That…blows fame broadcasts that praise sole entirely/incomparably

254   trumpet trumpeter

255   sense…bent hearing in an attentive direction

257   frankly freely

263   mettle spirit (picks up on brass to play on the sense of “metal”)

267   dull lifeless, inactive

270   fair’st noblest, most honorable

271   ease personal comfort

274   That…loves who loves his lady more than can be demonstrated by mere words and potentially untrustworthy vows

277   In…hers by taking up weapons rather than remaining in her embraces

281   compass embrace

282   will will come

284   rouse challenge, stir up (with sexual connotations)

286   retires returns

287   sunburnt dark or tanned complexions were considered unattractive

288   splinter…lance breaking a lance in combat (lance plays on the sense of “penis”) Even so much i.e., that is the sum of my message

290   soul inner conviction, spirit kind matter, business

292   mere recreant complete coward

293   not not to be not not been

297   grandsire grandfather sucked i.e., was a baby

301   beaver helmet’s visor

302   vantbrace armor for the forearm brawn muscle, arm

304   grandam grandmother

305   flood full flow, vigorous health

306   pawn pledge three…blood i.e., what little blood I have left

310   pavilion ceremonial tent

317   conception plan/notion (with connotations of pregnancy)

318   Be…shape i.e., help me to develop and give birth to this idea

321   Blunt…knots blunt tools are needed to split tough knotty wood, i.e., Achilles must be stopped by decisive action seeded planted/matured, overgrown

322   blown up become swollen/bloomed/become infected

323   rank puffed up/overabundantly growing/diseased or either

324   shedding spilling/scattering seed nursery training ground/collection of young plants like similar

325   overbulk outgrow, dominate

327   gallant fine, splendid/brave

328   spread…name issued to everyone

330   perspicuous…up as obvious as wealth, whose enormity is revealed in little digits

332   in…strain when it is announced publicly, have no doubt

334   banks of Libya shores of the Libyan desert

335   dry barren, dull

336   celerity swiftness

337   on at

338   wake…answer will it rouse him to respond

339   meet fitting oppose put forward as an opponent

340   from…off acquit himself honorably against Hector

341   sportful recreational, not pursued to the death

342   trial contest, test of skill opinion reputation

343   taste…repute sample our most precious reputation

344   fin’st refined, most discerning

345   imputation reputation oddly poised unbalanced, i.e., at great risk

346   wild reckless success result, outcome

347   particular specific to the individual fighter scantling guideline, measure

348   the general everyone

349   indexes tables of contents/prefaces pricks marks, indicators (plays on the sense of “penis”)

350   To compared to subsequent volumes the following main portion of the book (with erectile connotations)

351   baby figure i.e., microcosm (plays on the idea of conception)

352   at large in full (plays on the idea of pregnancy)

353   issues results (plays on the sense of “is born”)

355   election basis for choice boil distill by boiling

356   distilled extracted, refined

357   miscarrying should he fail

358   heart spirit, encouragement hence this (failure) part side, i.e., the Trojans

359   steel…themselves strengthen their good opinion of themselves (steel plays on “steal”)

360   Which…limbs which opinion being held, limbs become weapons no less effective than the swords and bows controlled by those limbs

364   meet fitting meet encounter in combat

365   foulest most unattractive

366   perchance perhaps

371   strange followers i.e., undesirable outcomes (regardless of whether Achilles wins or loses)

373   shares takes

375   insolent arrogant

376   were…sun would be better off shriveling up under the African sun

377   salt bitter, stinging (perhaps, picking up on parch, with connotations of “thirst-provoking, drying out”)

378   scape escape fair successfully

379   did…crush would destroy the chief part of our reputation

380   taint the dishonoring

381   device strategy, trick blockish stupid

382   sort lot

383   allowance acknowledgment

384   physic dose with medicine, cure Myrmidon i.e., Achilles (who led a band of Myrmidon warriors from Thessaly)

385   broils basks, glows fall lower, let fall

386   crest feathers on his helmet (with connotations of the strutting cock’s crest) Iris i.e., the rainbow (of which Iris, the messenger of the Greek gods, was goddess) bends arches

387   come safe off emerges successfully from the combat

388   dress…voices cover him with praise/we can retain the general conviction

389   Yet…opinion we can maintain our reputation

391   Our…assumes the outcome of our plan comes down to this

392   employed used in this way

394   relish taste, appreciate

396   straight straightaway

397   curs dogs

398   tarre incite, provoke

Act 2 Scene 1

2   how what       full everywhere/big, swollen generally everywhere (puns on Agamemnon’s rank as general)

4   run seep (sense then shifts to “run away”)       Say so say it were so did would

5   botchy core boil-covered body/flawed (i.e., cowardly) heart (core may pun on “corps,” i.e., “soldiers stationed on guard”; it can also mean “hardened mass in the centre of a boil”)

7   matter pus/significant subject matter, reason

9   mongrel alludes to Ajax’s Greek/Trojan ancestry; his mother Hesione was sister to King Priam, his father was the Greek Telamon       beef-witted thickheaded, brainless

10   whinid’st moldiest    leaven agent used to ferment dough beat plays on the idea of kneading dough

11   handsomeness graciousness, courtesy (playing on the antithetical idea of a beating making Thersites more physically handsome)

12   rail berate, rant wit intelligence holiness respectful piety

13   con memorize

14   red murrain bloody plague (literally, disease affecting cattle and sheep)    jade’s tricks worthless horse’s bad habits/whore’s acts (picks up on strike as “copulate”)

15   Toadstool poisonous mushroom (plays on the sense of “toad’s excrement”)    learn me inform me of

16   sense feeling

19   porcupine suggesting Thersites’ prickly nature    itch i.e., to beat you

21   scab crust covering a wound/rascal

23   on at

24   Cerberus three-headed guard dog of the classical underworld    Proserpina Roman goddess of the classical underworld

28   Cobloaf a small loaf of bread with a round head

29   pun pound    shivers splinters, pieces sailor…biscuit ships’ biscuits were proverbially dry and brittle

30   whoreson cur bastard dog    whoreson son of a whore (a common term of abuse)

32   stool stool/seat containing a toilet/ducking stool

33   sodden-witted stupid/drunken

34   asinico little ass (from Spanish asnico)    scurvy-valiant supremely worthless

35   bought and sold betrayed for a bribe

36   barbarian uncivilized or savage foreigner    use continue, make it a habit tell reveal/count

37   bowels depths, sensitivity (given Ajax’s size, plays ironically on the sense of “substance, internal organs”)

39   scurvy contemptible, worthless

41   Mars his Mars’ (Roman god of war)    rudeness rough, ill-mannered one camel i.e., ungainly, misshapen one

42   Wherefore why

49   Well all right, very well/closely, properly (Thersites’ sense in the previous line)

50   well approvingly

51   Ajax perhaps puns on “a jakes,” i.e., a toilet

53   that fool i.e., Ajax

54   Therefore…thee i.e., it is because I forgot myself that I beat you (though Ajax unwittingly agrees that he is a fool)

55   Lo look    modicums tiny amounts evasions verbal shuffling, dodges ears thus long i.e., long ass’s ears

56   bobbed cheated/pummeled

57   sparrows i.e., creatures of little value    pia mater brain (literally the membrane covering the brain)

65   stop fill up    eye probably plays on the sense of “vagina”

67   that he him

70   to against; wit may have genital connotations and fool’s penises were proverbially supposed to be large

71   warrant assure

72   Good words i.e., speak more appropriately, be courteous

74   owl i.e., dullard    tenor substance, nature

79   service performance of duty/military service/beating    sufferance compulsory/suffering

80   the voluntary voluntarily    as…impress conscripted/marked with beatings

81   E’en so exactly    there be liars i.e., reports are untrue

83   were as good might as well    fusty old, moldy

84   with i.e., will you argue with

85   ere before    grandsires grandfathers

86   yoke…war i.e., they make you do the work

89   good sooth in good truth    To the call of a plowman urging on his oxen

93   peace puns on “piece,” i.e., genitals    brach bitch, i.e., (homosexual) whore

94   There’s i.e., there’s an insult

95   clodpolls idiots, blockheads

96   keep lodge, dwell

98   host army

99   fifth…sun i.e., eleven a.m.

100   ’twixt between

102   stomach appetite for fighting, courage

104   answer him respond to the challenge/oppose him

106   knew would know

Act 2 Scene 2

2.2   Location: Troy

3   Deliver release

4   As suchas travail labor, exertion

5   dear revered, valued

6   cormorant greedy, voracious (from the large seabird of that name)

7   struck off canceled

9   touches my particular I am concerned

10   dread deeply honored, revered

11   bowels sensitivity, compassion

14   surety confidence, security

15   secure overconfident modest doubt reasonable caution

16   tent surgical probe

17   worst i.e., worst wound

18   question issue, dispute

19   tithe soul tenth life/life taken as war’s tithe tithe the tenth of one’s annual income due to the Church dimes tenths

23   Had…name even if it (Helen) were Trojan one ten i.e., one Trojan life

24   reason argument, reasoning

26   Fie expression of disgust or reproach

28   scale…ounces i.e., one designed to weigh light, inconsequential things

29   counters worthless tokens used to represent coins in calculation sum add up, total

30   The…infinite the immeasurable value of his infinite worth

31   fathomless too large to measure

32   spans measures of nine inches (roughly equivalent to a handspan)

34   reasons may pun on “raisins”

36   Bear…affairs rule over matters of state

37   your…so you urge him to act unreasonably

39   fur…reason i.e., live in comfort, prefer appeasement for an easy life

42   flies flees    object sight

46   chidden scolded    Mercury Jove’s messenger, usually depicted with wings on his sandals

47   disorbed out of its orbit

49   hard dishonorably callous, cruel/lean, deprived (many editors prefer Quarto’s “hare,” i.e., timid) fat fatten, feed up

50   crammed force-fed/overfed/fat

51   livers considered the seat of the passions, including courage lustihood vigor

53   The holding to keep hold of

54   aught anything (worth)    valued i.e., by others, externally

55   particular will individual preference

56   his its    estimate and dignity value and worth

57   As well both    of itself intrinsically

58   As and prizer one who values it

59   the service performance (of worship)

60   dotes is mad/is infatuated    is inclinable To inclines towards

61   what…affects something it loves in a diseased manner/whatever infectious object it loves

62   image…merit appearance of worth in that object

63   I if I were to    election choice

64   in the conduct under the guidance    will wish, desire/intention, determination/carnal appetite/genitals, usually “penis”

66   traded experienced

67   avoid reject, get rid of

68   distaste (now) dislikes

69   evasion evasive argument, subterfuge

70   blench turn away, shrink    stand firm by i.e., retain, plays on “erection”

72   remainder viands leftover food

73   unrespective sieve undiscriminating basket (for scraps)

74   meet fitting (puns on “meat,” i.e., food)

76   bellied filled, swelled

77   wranglers quarrelsome opponents

78   touched reached, landed at

79   for in retaliation for    aunt i.e., Hesione, Ajax’s mother and sister of Priam; she was rescued from a sea monster by Hercules and given to the Greek Telamon; plays on slang sense of “prostitute,” “bawd”

80   Grecian queen i.e., Helen

81   Wrinkles Apollo’s makes the sun god Apollo seem wrinkled

84   price…ships echoes Faustus’ line to Helen in Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus (“Was this the face that launched a thousand ships”)    above more than

86   avouch affirm

87   must needs must necessarily do

91   issue outcome    proper own rate berate, condemn

92   do…did i.e., behave even more inconsistently than fortune

93   Beggar the estimation render worthless the valued object

96   But but we are/we are merely

97   That…place who insulted them in their own land and are afraid to justify the deed in ours    hair…ears a conventional sign of distress or madness

107   mid-age the middle-aged

108   Soft tender, vulnerable

109   betimes early, in advance

110   moiety part/half moan grief, lamentation

111   Practise employ, make use of

113   firebrand when pregnant, Paris’ mother, Hecuba, dreamed that she would give birth to a firebrand that would burn down Troy

116   high strains exalted lyrical outpourings

117   work bring about, activate

118   remorse pity, regret blood passion/temper (suggests sexual passion)

120   success outcome

121   qualify the same moderate, pacify it

123   think believe, deem

124   Such…it to be shaped solely by the way that things turn out

125   deject lessen

126   raptures fits

127   distaste make distasteful goodness virtue, rightfulness

128   several various/individual

129   gracious righteous, honorable For…part in my personal case

130   touched affected

132   Such…maintain anything that might offend even the least courageous among us and make him unwilling to fight in its defense

134   Else otherwise convince convict levity wantonness, immorality

135   As well both as and counsels advice, opinion

136   attest call to witness

137   propension inclination

138   dire dangerous

139   can…arms can my arms achieve alone arms limbs/weapons

140   propugnation defense, justification

141   stand the push withstand the attack

143   pass undergo

146   faint slacken

148   besotted intoxicated, drunk

149   these i.e., these other Trojans gall bitterness (i.e., the hostilities resulting from Paris’ abduction of Helen)

150   So therefore/in this manner praise virtue

151   propose bring up for consideration

153   soil stain, dishonor her fair rape the abduction of one so beautiful/the honorable abduction of her (rape’s more sinister connotations are picked up in ransacked)

154   honourable keeping her the honorable keeping of her

155   were it would it be ransacked violated/carried off as plunder

157   her possession our holding of her

159   strain trait, tendency

160   generous noble

161   meanest spirit most low-born soul/most small-minded character party side

162   Without who has not

164   were ill bestowed would be unworthily given death unfamed whose death would go uncelebrated

170   glozed expounded, explained

171   Aristotle famous Greek philosopher; in fact, he lived several centuries after the Trojan war

173   allege put forward conduce lead, tend

174   distempered imbalanced (in which the four bodily fluids believed to govern individual temperament are disordered)

175   free determination unbiased judgment

177   adders in order to resist snake charmers, the adder supposedly blocked one ear with its tail and placed the other to the ground

179   dues debts rendered given up, returned

180   nearer more pressing/more intimate

182   affection passion, desire

183   that if of partial out of self-interested

184   benumbèd paralyzed, powerless the same i.e., nature’s law

187   refractory rebellious, stubborn

192   extenuates not does not lessen

193   heavy serious

194   in way of as a point of, in terms of

195   spritely animated, full of spirit propend incline, yield

196   still nevertheless/always

197   hath…dependence i.e., depends in no small measure

198   joint collective several individual dignities honors

199   touched…design hit on the essence of our undertaking

200   affected were concerned with, cultivated

201   performance…spleens working out of our impassioned anger

204   theme subject, cause (for action)

205   magnanimous heroic, courageous

206   Whose present courage the ready courage of which

207   canonize memorialize, revere

210   smiles…forehead looks favorably in the face

211   For in exchange for revenue wealth

214   roisting rousing, swaggering

216   Will that will

217   advertised informed general i.e., Agamemnon

218   emulation ignoble ambition, divisive rivalry

Act 2 Scene 3

2.3   Location: the Greek camp solus “alone” (Latin)

2   elephant i.e., large, clumsy, thick-skinned       carry it win the day rail rant, verbally abuse satisfaction recompense, compensation (sarcastic)

3   Would I wish       ’Sfoot by God’s foot

4   conjure invoke       but I’ll see if it takes that to see issue result execrations curses

5   rare fine, splendid       engineer constructor of military works/contriver, plotter

6   undermine lay mines underneath       of themselves by their own accord

7   thunder-darter thrower of thunderbolts (Jove’s personal weapon)

8   craft cunning/skill       caduceus Mercury’s wand, which featured two serpents entwined about it

9   short-armed inadequate, lacking in reach

10   circumvention craft, power to outwit    deliver release

11   massy heavy, massive    irons swords After following, as a result of

12   bone-ache i.e., syphilis, which weakens the bones

13   dependent on hanging over/attendant upon    placket the slit at the front of a skirt or petticoat, hence “woman/vagina”

16   gilt counterfeit false coin

17   slipped plays on “slip,” another term for a counterfeit coin    contemplation mind, thoughts (Thersites has forgotten to curse Patroclus along with Ajax and Achilles) thyself upon thyself i.e., may you be cursed by being yourself

18   revenue abundance

19   bless save, protect    discipline learning, instruction blood impulses, passions (rather than reason)

20   direction guide    lays thee out prepares you for burial fair virtuous/attractive/undiseased

21   shrouded wrapped in a shroud, prepared for burial    lazars lepers (sometimes confused with syphilitics)

27   cheese thought to aid digestion

28   served…meals i.e., come to see me for such a long time

32   Thy knower one who knows you

35   decline go through in order (grammatical term)

38   done finished

39   privileged man i.e., professional fool allowed to speak without restraint

42   Derive explain, trace the source of (grammatical term)

43   offer dare, presume/attempt

44   of by

45   fool positive absolute fool

47   Make…to ask that question of    suffices is enough for

50   patchery trickery    juggling cheating, deceiving All the argument the entire subject (of the war)

51   cuckold…whore i.e., Menelaus and Helen    cuckold man with an unfaithful wife draw bring about, generate

52   serpigo skin disease/venereal disease    subject whole business/the cause, Helen

53   confound destroy, overcome

55   ill disposed indisposed, unwell

57   shent abused, insulted    lay by put aside

58   appertainments prerogatives of rank    visiting of in visiting

59   of of this    so i.e., in case

60   move…place insist on the issue of our authority

65   lion-sick i.e., sick with pride

68   bay bark, howl

69   inveigled lured away

72   matter subject matter/material for arguing    his argument subject matter/subject of his complaints, i.e., Thersites

73   he…Achilles Achilles is his new cause for complaint as he has taken away his old one, Thersites

74   fraction…faction we prefer them quarreling to forming a faction against us    it…disunite it must have been a strong faction if a fool could divide it (sarcastic)

76   amity friendship, unity

79   elephant…courtesy elephants were thought to lack leg joints that would enable them to kneel

82   sport recreation/exercise

83   noble state group of nobles

84   it…other i.e., it is for no other reason

86   breath i.e., of fresh air

90   apprehensions understanding (plays on the sense “arrest”)

91   attribute reputation, honor

93   of…beheld upheld by him

95   fair fresh, attractive    unwholesome unsightly, contaminated

96   like likely

97   sin i.e., lie, do wrong

99   under-honest less than honorable    self-assumption…judgement more arrogant than of good judgment/greater in his own estimation than those of good judgment know him to be

100   worthier…on worthier men than he wait here on account of the uncivil aloofness he affects

102   command authority

103   underwrite…predominance submit in a deferential manner to his prevailing mood

104   humorous relating to the four bodily humors thought to govern mood

105   pettish lunes petulant fits

106   passage progress carriage conduct action enterprise, i.e., the war

107   Rode…tide i.e., relied on him

108   overhold overestimate

109   none of have nothing to do with engine piece of military equipment

110   lie under be subject to

111   this i.e., this engine (Achilles)

112   stirring active allowance approval, praise

113   Before over, rather than

114   presently immediately

115   In second voice i.e., with a reply conveyed through a messenger

121   subscribe confirm, endorse

123   gentle courteous, honorable

125   the clearer more innocent

126   glass mirror trumpet announcer chronicle record

127   but…deed other than in performing worthy deeds devours consumes the value of

128   engendering mating/offspring, spawn

130   field battlefield

133   stream…dispose course of his inclination

134   observance notice/consideration/respect respect notice/regard for

135   will peculiar personal inclination, independent will self-admission self-approbation, self-centeredness

136   fair courteous/legitimate

137   Untent his person emerge from his tent

138   for…only simply because they are requested

139   greatness self-worth

140   speaks…self-breath i.e., he is almost too proud to speak

142   hot fired-up/passionate/angry

144   Kingdomed Achilles Achilles, as if he were a kingdom commotion rebellion/agitation

146   plaguy insufferably, damnably death-tokens fatal symptoms

150   holds regards

151   from himself i.e., away from his arrogant, self-absorbed behavior

153   We’ll consecrate we would rather bless

154   from away from

155   seam fat, grease

156   suffers allows

157   revolve…himself involve contemplating and meditating on himself

159   Of…he? by one whom we consider more worthy of worship (i.e., Ajax)

161   stale cheapen, lower the dignity of palm honor (literally, palm leaf, a symbol of victory or prowess)

162   assubjugate demean, debase

163   As…is granted that Achilles is well-reputed

164   were would be enlard fatten, smear with grease fat-already already bloated

165   add…Hyperion increase summer’s heat (the sun, Hyperion, enters the zodiacal sign of Cancer at the beginning of summer)

169   rubs…him stirs up his temperament, plays on his disposition

171   armèd armored/ready

172   pash smash, strike

174   An a if he proud haughty pheeze fix, do for

176   worth…quarrel all the cost attendant on our war with the Trojans

180   The…blackness i.e., Ajax condemns Achilles for faults he himself possesses (ravens are black)

181   let…blood draw his blood to balance his bodily humors (as doctors bled their patients)

183   An if

185   A he bear it behave eat swords i.e., be stabbed (possibly puns on “eat his words”) carry it prevail

186   An ’twould if it did carry half i.e., bear half the load of pride

187   ten shares ten tenths, all of it

188   knead mould (like dough), i.e., strike

189   through thoroughly Force stuff, cram

190   dry shriveled/thirsty

191   feed…dislike brood too much on Achilles’ dissension

194   naming of him repeated reference to Achilles, constant citing of his heroism

195   a man i.e., Ajax

198   emulous greedy for praise, filled with ambitious rivalry

199   Know…world let the whole world know

200   palter equivocate, be evasive

205   surly borne bore himself in an arrogant manner

206   strange aloof, distant self-affected egotistical, self-loving

207   lord i.e., Ajax composure temperament

208   got begot, conceived gave thee suck suckled you

209   Fame renown, honor thy…erudition may your natural qualities exceed three-fold anything learned

211   disciplined trained

212   eternity i.e., eternal fame twain two

214   Milo Greek athlete of the sixth century BC, famed for carrying a bull on his shoulders addition title, claim to fame

216   bourn boundary pale fenced area, enclosure shore border, shoreline confines encloses, contains

217   dilated parts extensive qualities (sarcastically plays on Ajax’s large physical size)

218   antiquary ancient

221   green youthful tempered molded, composed

222   have…of be superior to

226   ruled guided, directed

227   tarrying (point in) delaying hart male deer

228   Keeps stays hidden in the

229   state council

231   main of power full force

233   cull their flower select their very best cope match/encounter (in combat)

235   draw deep require deeper water (due to their weight)

Act 3 Scene 1

3.1   Location: Troy

1   follow serve, attend (the servant plays on the literal sense)

3   depend upon serve, wait on

4   the lord i.e., Paris, but plays on the sense of “God”

5   must needs must

8   superficially slightly/by sight

10   know…better get to know your lordship better/see you become a better man

12   You…grace? Are you in receipt of the divine favor necessary for salvation? (but Pandarus understands “Are you a duke eligible to be addressed as ‘your grace’?”)

13   Grace? Not so here Pandarus declares such a title inappropriate for his rank

20   pleasure command (the servant deliberately understands “enjoyment”)

23   Who…sir? the servant willfully misunderstands Pandarus to be giving him an instruction

24   courtly refined, possessed of the manners and language of the court    too cunning clever, skillful/devious

26   to’t to the point

27   Venus Roman goddess of love    heart-blood i.e., life blood, essence

30   find out that work that out

32   complimental courteous

33   seethes boils with urgency (with sodden and stewed the servant picks up on connotations of the “boiling” effects of syphilis and of the sweating treatments used to try and cure it)

34   Sodden boiled/limp, flaccid (phallic connotations)    business may play on the sense of “sexual activity”; conceivably plays on a sense of “penis” stewed saturated (puns on a “stew” or brothel)

35   Fair i.e., fair wishes (sense shifts to “elegant” and then “pleasing”)    fair measure just proportion

36   fairly favorably

38   fair charming, flattering

39   pleasure thoughts, wishes

40   broken arranged in parts, for different instruments or voices

41   broke interrupted    cousin friendly form of address among social equals

42   piece it out put it back together    piece part of a song Nell nickname for Helen harmony tuneful singing/agreeable sentiments

45   Rude (I am) unaccomplished, unpolished

46   fits spurts, fits and starts (plays on the sense of “section of a poem or song”)

47   to with    vouchsafe permit, grant

49   hedge us out exclude, get rid of me

50   pleasant merry, jocular

53   queen plays on “quean” meaning “prostitute”

55   bob cheat, swindle    melancholy ill temper, sullenness

58   sour i.e., the antithesis of sweet

59   serve your turn meet your purpose, i.e., win the argument    la exclamation used for emphasis

60   desires requests

64   in hand underway    sups dines

66   My…you my friend Paris will get cross with you (for your repeated interruptions)

68   disposer unclear meaning; perhaps “one who controls arrangements” hence possibly “courtly mistress” or, similarly, “one who may dispose of me as she wishes” (said playfully)

69   wide i.e., of the mark

70   make excuse i.e., on behalf of Troilus

73   I spy i.e., I see what’s going on here

77   horrible horribly, extremely    thing plays on the sense of “penis”

79   twain at odds, have nothing in common (Helen plays on the literal sense of “two”)

80   Falling…out making up after arguing (falling in plays on the notion of sexual penetration)    make them three i.e., result in childbirth

82   fine forehead commanding countenance

83   you may i.e., you may have your joke, so you say

84   be be about    undo ruin

86   good now please, be so good

89   love’s i.e., Cupid’s    bow plays on the sense of “penis”

90   Shoots plays on the sense of “ejaculates (in)”    buck and doe male and female (deer)

91   shaft arrow of love/penis    confounds Not that does not damage what

93   tickles sexually excites    still continually the sore wound/vagina (sore plays on the sense of “four-year-old male deer”)

94   O, ho i.e., groans of pain/cries of sexual pleasure    die plays on the sense of “orgasm”

95   to kill that will prove fatal

96   ha, ha, he i.e., laughter/increasingly excited sexual cries

99   O…out possibly also suggestive of the subsequent pains of childbirth

101   In love you’re in love tip…nose i.e., completely (nose plays on the sense of “penis”)

102   doves birds associated with love; they pulled Venus’ chariot hot blood sexual desire

103   begets conceives

104   generation of love how love is created

105   vipers proverbially vicious offspring afield on the battlefield

107   gallantry gallant warriors

108   fain gladly chance comes it

110   He…lip Pandarus pouts, looks vexed/Troilus is sulking

111   sped fared/succeeded

113   To a hair i.e., down to the last detail

118   woo entreat

119   unarm remove armor from

121   more obey be more obedient edge sword edge

123   island kings kings from the Greek islands

125   of us from me

126   palm honor in…have than I have from my beauty

128   above thought beyond thought itself (perhaps suggests the rashness of Paris’ actions in obtaining Helen)

Act 3 Scene 2

3.2   Man manservant

2   stays waits       conduct escort

4   Sirrah sir (used to a social inferior)

5   cousin i.e., niece (the term could designate any close relative)

6   stalk move stealthily (hunting term, used of an approach to the prey)

7   strange foreign, newly arrived       Stygian banks banks of the Styx, the river that the souls of the dead had to cross to reach the underworld

8   waftage conveyance by water       Charon the ferryman who transported departed souls to the underworld

9   fields the Elysian fields, the dwelling place of blessed souls in the underworld

10   lily-beds with connotations of the sexual bed/vagina

11   Proposed promised

12   painted brightly colored/artificial/as depicted in paintings

14   i’th’orchard in the garden    straight straightaway

16   imaginary relish imagined taste

17   sense senses/power of reason    be be like

18   wat’ry tasteless/watering in anticipation    indeed in reality

19   thrice-repurèd thrice-refined, purified    nectar with connotations of sexual juices Death with connotations of orgasm

20   fine refined, pure

21   subtle-potent powerfully refined    sharp high-pitched (plays on the sense of “pungent-tasting, acidic” to provide antithesis with sweetness)

22   capacity capability, understanding    ruder coarser, more uncultivated powers faculties

24   lose…joys be unable to distinguish one pleasure from another

25   battle battalion    on heaps in a mass, all together

26   flying retreating

27   her herself    witty sharp, clever, amusing

28   fetches…short is so breathless    fraid with frightened by sprite ghost

29   prettiest most delightful, charming    villain here a playful term new-ta’en newly captured

30   sparrow proverbially lecherous birds, sacred to Venus

31   Even exactly

32   thicker faster

33   bestowing use, function

34   vassalage subordination, a servant    at unawares unexpectedly

38   watched kept awake (a method used to tame and train hawks)    Come your ways come along

39   draw backward retreat, shy away    i’th’fills in the shafts of a cart (like a horse)

40   draw this curtain i.e., draw back your veil (paintings are sometimes kept behind curtains to protect them from the light)    picture i.e., face

41   close come close/embrace intimately/bring matters to a close

42   rub…mistress a bowling metaphor; to rub is to negotiate obstacles in the way of the ball (playing on the idea of sexual friction), and to kiss the mistress to touch the target ball (with obvious sexual suggestion)    kiss in fee-farm i.e., a prolonged kiss fee-farm the absolute possession of land subject to a fixed rent

43   air i.e., Cressida’s breath    fight…out compete to outdo one another in love (fighting plays on the notion of sexual grappling)

44   falcon…tercel i.e., female is as vigorous as the male    tercel a male hawk for…river I’ll bet you all the ducks on the river

45   bereft deprived

46   pay no debts i.e., count for little (to pay one’s debt also means to have sex)    deeds actions/sexual acts/legal documents

47   activity sexual performance    billing kissing, caressing (like doves)/drawing up a legal document/entering items in a financial account ‘In…interchangeably’ phrase used in indentures (legal contract that was halved along a zigzag line to form two documents that, when placed together, were a unique match—in this context, may suggest sexual coupling)

48   fire suggestive of sexual passion

52   pretty artful/charming    abruption breaking off

53   curious subtle, well-hidden    dreg impurity, sediment

56   seeing reason leads is guided by clear-sighted reason

58   apprehend conceive of, perceive/fear    in…pageant spectacle, show, entertainment

60   nothing monstrous nothing unnatural (possibly plays on phallic connotations of monstrous and “thing” to suggest “no huge penis”)

61   undertakings (lover’s) responsibilities, vows (plays on the sense of “copulations”)

62   imposition enough sufficiently difficult tasks

63   monstruosity in extraordinary nature of (variant form of “monstrosity”)

64   will desire/sexual appetite/penis    execution confined acting on it limited

65   the act human endeavor/the sexual act

67   reserve keep back    the…ten the ability of ten other lovers/the maximum, 100 percent

70   such such men    Such…we I am not one tasted tested/sampled sexually allow praise/accept, approve

71   prove plays on the sense of “perform sexually”    head may play on the sense of “head of the penis” (which will be “crowned” vaginally) crown it i.e., with a victor’s wreaths perfection in reversion promise of future achievement

72   desert deserving, merit

73   addition title, name    Few…faith truth needs few words (proverbial)

74   as…truth that the worst malice can do is mock Troilus’ faith and constancy

78   folly foolishness/lechery    I…you bestow as a gift to you/hold you responsible for

79   get begets, conceives    give him me i.e., name him after me

80   flinch fall short, recoil (also suggests detumescence or sexual reluctance)

83   burrs prickly seed-heads that stick easily to clothing

84   thrown plays on the sense of “thrown down sexually, seduced”)

85   Boldness courage/sexual immodesty

91   play the tyrant i.e., have mastery over me/behave in a cruel manner

93   But…it that I could not control it

94   unbridled uncontrolled, not reigned in

100   privilege advantage/license

104   Cunning skilled, clever

105   soul of counsel innermost secret thoughts

106   shall I shall

111   this time the time being

114   content you be contented, be quiet

120   unkind unnatural

121   fool plaything

123   Well…wisely those who speak so wisely must know what they are saying

124   Perchance perhaps (you think) craft skill/cunning

125   roundly openly, frankly large unrestrained, outspoken/full

126   wise i.e., as you didn’t take the bait

128   that that ability (to be wise and in love)

130   presume presume that it is

131   aye ever

132   plight youthful good health

133   outward outward appearance

134   renew swifter renew itself more quickly blood decays passion wanes/aging occurs

137   affronted matched, set face to face

138   winnowed refined (like wheat separated from chaff)

139   were I would I be

140   truth’s simplicity simple truth

141   simpler…truth more sincere than truth at its purest

145   swains lovers

146   Approve attest, confirm their…Troilus with reference to Troilus

147   protest declarations of love big compare extravagant comparisons

148   Want lack tired having been exhausted, rendered cliche´d iteration repetition

149   plantage plant life, vegetation (which supposedly grew more effectively under moonlight)

150   turtle turtledove (a proverbially faithful bird)

151   adamant legendary magnetic rock th’center its center (thought to be the point to which everything was drawn)

152   comparisons i.e., similes

153   authentic most authoritative, legitimate

154   crown up add the final touches to/dignify

155   numbers poetic meter

157   false untrue, unfaithful a hair i.e., even a very tiny amount

161   characterless featureless/leaving no trace, no written records grated eroded

167   Pard leopard hind female deer stepdame stepmother

168   stick the heart pierce the center

170   seal it plays on the sense of “have sex”

178   because so that encounters sexual activities press…death punish it severely (alludes to a punishment that involved pressing a suspect with heavy weights until he pleaded innocent or guilty, or died; plays on the sense of “have sex until you orgasm”)

179   maidens virgins/young women here generally/in the audience

180   gear necessary equipment/genitals

Act 3 Scene 3

3.3   Location: the Greek camp

2   advantage opportunity, right moment

3   Appear it let it appear

4   sight foresight, visionary power

5   possession property, belongings

7   From by turning from       conveniences advantages

8   sequest’ring separating, removing

9   condition social position and circumstances

10   tame familiar, customary

12   As as though    strange foreign, unfamiliar unacquainted unfamiliar/without acquaintances

13   taste foretaste, i.e., advance payment

15   registered in promise recorded as pledges

16   live to come await fulfillment

19   took captured

20   often…therefore you have often been thanked for doing so

21   in…exchange in exchange for a Trojan of rank

23   wrest tuning implement (i.e., Antenor is essential to the harmonious operation of Trojan affairs)

24   slack slow down, become less effective (like slack strings on an untuned instrument)

25   Wanting his manage lacking his guidance

26   blood royal lineage

27   change of exchange for

29   strike off cancel out, pay for

30   In…pain with most willing effort

31   bear him i.e., take Antenor back

34   Furnish you fairly equip yourself fully    interchange exchange

35   Withal in addition

36   Be answered in meet the man who will answer

40   Please it if it please    strangely distantly, as if he were a stranger

42   loose casual, careless    regard looks

43   like likely

44   unplausive disapproving, disdainful

45   derision medicinable i.e., a way to use scorn to cure him

48   glass mirror

49   supple…fees i.e., submissive behavior such as kneeling only encourages arrogance and is the reward the proud man expects

51   purpose plan

52   form appearance

54   shake affect, unsettle

58   aught have anything to do

62   The better so much the better

71   Know recognize

72   used accustomed

76   poor devalued, insignificant

78   the declined man whose fortune has declined, one brought low

81   mealy powdery (as if covered with meal or flour)    but except

83   but…him except the honor bestowed by external recognition

84   as such as    place position, rank

85   of accident gained by chance, fate

86   they i.e., such men    as…standers like those standing on slippery ground (may play on the sense of “lecherous erections,” in which case Die…fall plays on the sense of “orgasm and lose the erection,” enjoy and possess resonate sexually and ample point plays on the sense of “fully erect penis”)

87   love i.e., adulation of others    slippery sense now also includes “fickle”

91   At ample point to the full (possibly puns on sexual sense point as penis)

92   Save except

93   such rich beholding of such high regard

99   Writes me writes (me is emphatic)    how…parted however richly endowed with personal qualities

100   or…in either externally or internally

102   owes owns, possesses but by reflection except in how his qualities are reflected in others’ responses to him

104   retort reflect, cast back

108   but unless it/but instead it

109   Not…form not in leaving and looking back at itself, but through facing another person, which enables the gazers to see themselves mirrored in each other’s eyes

111   speculation the power of sight/contemplation, thought

112   travelled plays on the sense of “travailed,” i.e., labored/become learned through study

113   strange odd/unfamiliar

114   strain…position have difficulty accepting the hypothesis

115   drift application (of the argument)

116   his circumstance the surrounding details of his argument

118   in…consisting he is composed of many fine qualities

119   parts personal qualities

120   know…aught recognize them as anything significant

121   th’applause…extended the praise of those who have seen them displayed

122   who refers to those applauding or to the applause itself an arch i.e., of a city gate or bridge

123   voice praise/vote of approval gate door

124   Fronting facing renders returns

125   His figure the sun’s shape wrapt in involved in, engaged by

126   apprehended thought of, recognized

127   unknown little known, unacknowledged

128   horse i.e., strong (perhaps slyly alludes to Ajax being large and stupid)

129   That…what i.e., who knows not what strength he possesses (perhaps also a dig at Ajax’s ignorance)

130   Most…use that are considered contemptible but are of immense practical value

131   again also/conversely

135   leave to do give up/neglect (a reference to Achilles)

136   creep…hall creep furtively into fickle fortune’s domain

137   idiots jesters, clowns, fools

138   pride glory

139   is…wantonness starves on account of his willful behavior

141   lubber clumsy lout

143   shrinking recoiling in fear

147   wallet bag, knapsack

148   alms for oblivion i.e., admirable deeds destined to be forgotten alms charitable offerings

153   to have done i.e., to have done a good deed in the past

154   mail piece of armor made of chain-mail links

155   in monumental mock’ry as a mocking trophy to forgotten glory instant immediate, direct

156   strait narrow passage, confined path

157   one…abreast i.e., one must go in single file Keep…path i.e., stick to the path/keep moving along the path

158   emulation ambitious rivalry

160   hedge aside deviate, shift forthright straight path

161   entered inrushing, broken through

162   hindmost last

163   rank line of attacking troops

164   for…rear as a paved thoroughfare for the contemptible troops in the back ranks

168   slightly casually, inattentively

169   as…fly as if he was about to fly

170   Grasps in embraces ever always

172   Remuneration payment, reward

174   vigour of bone bodily strength desert in service worthy deeds in war

176   calumniating slandering, defaming

177   touch of nature natural trait/human weakness makes…kin unites all people

178   with one consent in mutual agreement, with one voice new-born gawds trifling novelties, fashionable trinkets (gawds puns on “gods”)

180   dust…gilt i.e., worthless objects that are covered with a thin veneer of gold

181   laud praise, honor gilt o’er-dusted true gold covered with dust (here gilt as gold)

182   present object item immediately within its view

183   complete accomplished

186   cry…thee you were once acclaimed

189   case enclose, conceal

190   but…late even lately on the battlefield

191   Made emulous missions caused forays into the battle provoked by envy/rivalry

192   drave drove to faction to take sides

198   one…daughters i.e., Polyxena

201   providence foresight, forethought

202   Pluto the wealthy Greek god of the underworld

203   th’uncomprehensive deeps the fathomless seas

204   Keeps place keeps up

205   thoughts…cradles i.e., discerns thoughts even before they can be fully formulated or uttered

206   mystery inexplicable essence/art, skill/trade secret with…meddle that is never discussed relation report, narration

207   state affairs of state, government, statecraft

208   operation effect, function, power

209   expressure expression

210   commerce dealings, transactions

211   perfectly…yours is as well known to us as to you

212   fit befit, suit

213   throw…Polyxena defeat Hector in battle than to seduce Polyxena

214   Pyrrhus Achilles’ son

215   trump trumpet

216   Greekish girls women of Greece (suggests also wanton women) tripping skipping, with dancing steps

218   him i.e., Hector (also suggestive of Ajax bettering Achilles; while Ajax defeats Hector, Achilles will beat—i.e., have sex with—Polyxena)

219   lover friend, supporter

220   The…break i.e., Ajax deals incompetently with matters you would deal with properly/Ajax is such an idiot that he escapes dangers that would prove fatal to a man of your stature

221   moved encouraged, urged

222   impudent shameless

225   stomach to appetite for

227   wanton willful/lustful (may act as noun or verb)

228   fold embrace

232   by him i.e., by defeating him

234   fame reputation, renown shrewdly gored severely wounded

236   ill badly

238   Seals…danger gives danger full license, gives it a blank warrant which it may fill in as it wishes

239   ague fever characterized by shaking taints infects

244   woman’s longing i.e., cravings like those experienced in pregnancy

245   withal with

246   weeds clothes

248   Even…view until my gaze is entirely satisfied

251   himself i.e., Ajax, perhaps punning on “a jakes”

253   prophetically proud proud in anticipation

254   raves…nothing rants incoherently

256   peacock proverbially proud bird a…stand stopping and starting

257   hostess tavern landlady arithmetic ability to calculate her reckoning the bill

258   politic regard calculated expression, wise look as as one

259   an ’twould out if only it would emerge

260   knocking being struck (refers to the flint and to beating Ajax) undone ruined, destroyed, brought down

262   knows recognizes

264   land-fish fish living on land, i.e., an unnatural creature of opinion on reputation/self-regard

265   leather jerkin close-fitting leather jacket (here presumably reversible)

267   professes not does not engage in

268   wears…arms gives his answer with his weapons put on imitate presence bearing, demeanor, appearance

269   demands requests, questions

270   To him set to it, tackle him

275   Hum! i.e., hmm

285   God buy you God be with you, i.e., goodbye

288   howsoever in either case pay for me i.e., receive a beating has defeats

291   tune i.e., mood

293   fiddler fiddle-player Apollo Greek god of music

294   catlings catgut, used to make strings for musical instruments on out of

296   capable receptive, intelligent

297   stirred i.e., disturbed with sediment

300   valiant hearty, utter ignorance ignorant fool

Act 4 Scene 1

4.1   Location: Troy torch torch (held by Aeneas)/torchbearer

4   occasion opportunity/reason lie i.e., in bed

5   heavenly business i.e., worship or deeds for the gods

7   mind opinion

9   Witness…speech bear witness to the drift of your own remarks (regarding Diomedes’ worth)

10   by days daily

11   haunt pursue

13   question of discussions permitted during gentle noble/peaceful

15   think conceive of/intend execute carry out (plays on the sense of “kill”)

16   The…other i.e., both sentiments (health and defiance)

17   bloods tempers so long i.e., while the truce lasts

18   contention dispute, conflict occasion opportunity

20   policy cunning/strategy

22   backward i.e., courageously facing the pursuer

23   Anchises Aeneas’ father

24   Venus the goddess was Aeneas’ mother

25   No…excellently no man alive can love in such a manner, so excellently the thing he means to kill

27   sympathize agree, are in accord

28   If…glory if I am not to have the glory of killing him

29   complete…sun i.e., years

30   in mine for, in the cause of emulous ambitious, rivalrous

32   know understand

33   know…worse see the other one in a worse state/meet as enemies

34   despiteful’st gentle maliciously courteous

39   render give

42   constantly assuredly, firmly

43   call my thought let my thought be called

45   note notice, news

46   quality whereof reason for it

52   disposition nature/arrangements

54   morrow morning

60   He i.e., Menelaus

61   making…of worrying about, entertaining moral doubts about soilure defilement, sexual dishonoring

62   With…charge and the pain and cost of war

64   palating tasting, affected by

66   puling whimpering, whining

67   lees and dregs remains, sediment flat tame’d piece wine cask that has been left open (tame’d) and the contents of which have become stale; plays on the sense of “sexually conquered woman” (piece), with flat suggesting unresponsive submission

68   whorish loins i.e., Helen’s

69   breed out conceive, create/taint and dilute the lineage of

70   poised balanced

71   he as he i.e., both men are equal the heavier both are more sorrowful whore plays on the antithesis of “light” (i.e., sexually immoral), a common descriptor for whores

75   sunk i.e., been lost scruple tiny amount

76   carrion putrefied, rotten (also a term for a whore)

78   breath utterance

80   chapmen traders, merchants

81   Dispraise disparage, belittle

82   But…sell i.e., we won’t play the tradesman hold uphold commend praise/hand over

84   way path, route

Act 4 Scene 2

5   kill subdue, overpower

6   soft attachment gentle confinement

7   As as have/as to those of

11   But were it not busy active/interfering

12   ribald raucously abusive, irreverent

14   from go from

16   Beshrew curse venomous wights malignant people stays lingers

17   grasps clutches/embraces

18   momentary-swift fleeting

20   tarry linger, delay

21   held off i.e., from intercourse

23   What’s i.e., why are

25   pestilence plague

26   life i.e., hard time of it

27   how go how is it with/what is the current price for maidenheads virginities

28   Hear…Cressid? Pandarus pretends not to recognize Cressida now that she is no longer a virgin

29   naughty wicked (perhaps also “licentious”)

30   – – – – the original text has this sequence of dashes to suggest an obscenity flout insult, mock, taunt

31   do plays on the sense of “have sex with”

34   suffer others allow others to be

35   chipochia vulva, vagina (from Italian poccia dell’amore, woman’s genitalia); most editors incorrectly emend to capocchia, “foreskin,” which would require the line to be addressed to Troilus

36   bugbear hobgoblin, bogeyman (used to frighten children; Pandarus continues teasingly speaking in a manner appropriate to small children)

37   knocked i’th’head bashed over the head (perhaps Cressida unconsciously employs sexual language: “to knock” could mean to have sex and head could refer to the head of a penis)

40   meant naughtily had wicked intentions, i.e., was inviting you in for sex (in addition, to come could mean “to orgasm” and chamber could mean “vagina”)

42   thing perhaps plays on the sense of “penis”

49   knew recognized

53   import concern

56   Who a form of “ho” or “whoa” (expressions of impatience) ere you’re ware unintentionally, before you know it you’ll…him i.e., in trying to be loyal you will end up doing him a disservice

57   Do…him i.e., very well, so you don’t know where he is (Aeneas will play along with Pandarus’ lie) yet nevertheless

61   rash urgent

65   sacrifice religious observance, offering to the gods (made at regular intervals throughout the day)

68   concluded decided, settled

69   state council

71   achievements accomplishments, success/sexual conquest

75   Have…taciturnity are not more gifted than in keeping silent

77   broke’s broken his

87   changed exchanged

89   bane poison/destruction/murder

93   touch feeling, hint consanguinity kinship, blood relationship

97   force violence

99   base foundation

100   centre…it refers to the Elizabethan idea that all things were drawn toward the earth’s core; plays on architectural sense of centre as a “temporary framework supporting any superstructure”

105   sounding crying out resoundingly

Act 4 Scene 3

1   great morning broad daylight prefixed Of prearranged for

5   haste…purpose hurry her along, get her ready for it

7   presently immediately/soon

12   would I wish as…pity as much as I pity

Act 4 Scene 4

3   fine refined, pure

6   temporize negotiate, effect a compromise

7   brew dilute, water down

8   like allayment same moderation, lessening

9   qualifying dross diluting impurity

10   No more no more does, neither can such…loss the loss of something so precious

11   duck term of endearment for a lover

13   pair…here sight the pair of you make (possibly pair of spectacles plays on the sense of “eyeglasses”)

17   he i.e., the heart

18   smart pain

21   we see it i.e., we have seen how such words can console

22   strange rare, exceptional

23   as as if they are fancy love

24   More bright which fancy is more bright

25   Cold chaste blow breathe out (as they make their vows)

26   envy malice/jealousy

33   where…chance so that the cruelty of fate

34   Puts back prevents by aside

35   rudely roughly, harshly, unkindly beguiles cheats

36   rejoindure reunion (i.e., a kiss; also suggestive of “rejoinder,” i.e., reply)

37   embrasures embraces dear precious/heartfelt

38   in…breath as we struggle to give them voice (a grim image of infanticide)

41   discharge exhalation/payment one i.e., one sigh

42   Injurious wounding, wrongful

43   thiev’ry booty, stolen valuables

45   distinct…kisses individual words and ratifying kisses to accompany each one

46   fumbles up gathers clumsily together

47   scants restricts, supplies inadequately

48   Distasting its sweetness destroyed broken interrupted (by sobs)

50   genius attendant spirit thought to accompany and influence a person throughout life

51   instantly at that moment, imminently

53   Rain…wind i.e., I must cry to stop myself sighing lay allay, calm blown…root uprooted (like a tree)

57   merry Greeks a “merry Greek” was a popular phrase for a jolly fellow

58   see see each other

60   deem thought, notion, suspicion

61   use expostulation kindly remonstrate gently with one another

62   it i.e., the opportunity to even talk

63   as fearing thee as if I doubted you

64   throw my glove issue a challenge (to a duel)

65   maculation stain

66   fashion in introduce

67   sequent protestation following declaration

71   sleeve detachable sleeve, ornamented cuff (given as a love token)

73   corrupt bribe

78   quality accomplishments/personal qualities

79   Their loving i.e., as lovers, in wooing composed made up, put together

80   arts and exercise well-practiced skills (arts)

81   move incite to love/arouse (sexually suggestive) parts with person natural gifts together with the handsome man they belong to (possibly parts plays on the sense of “genitals”)

82   godly i.e., righteous

88   mainly much

89   heel dance high lavolt a lively dance that involved leaping movements (from Italian la volta, “the turn”)

90   subtle cunning, involving strategy

91   prompt and pregnant readily disposed and receptive

93   still continual/silent dumb-discoursive silently persuasive, eloquent in silence

97   will desire, wish

100   Presuming…potency relying too readily on a power that may in fact prove changeable

108   craft cunning for great opinion to secure great reputations

109   simplicity sincerity

110   crowns royal headgear (in the next line Troilus picks up on the sense of “heads”)

111   wear mine bare in its natural copper/go bareheaded

112   wit thinking

113   all the reach the full extent

116   port city gate

117   by on possess inform

118   Entreat her fair treat her courteously fair noble

123   save keep, withhold

125   Pleads makes the case for usage treatment

128   petition towards request to you

131   thou you are servant devotee, lover (like mistress, a term of courtly love)

132   charge command even…charge simply because I command it

133   dreadful inspiring dread, fear-inducing Pluto Greek god of the underworld

136   moved provoked, angered

137   place i.e., as a diplomat, negotiator message mission

138   hence gone from here

139   answer…lust do as I please (e.g., respond to you in battle/seduce Cressida) lust will/sexual desire

140   on charge because it was commanded To according to

141   that insofar as, just because

142   speak it say

144   brave boast/defiance

146   bend we let us direct

149   tardy reluctant, slow

153   fresh eager

154   address prepare tend attend, follow

155   lie depend

156   single chivalry individual valor/valor in single combat

Act 4 Scene 5

4.5   Location: near the Greek camp

1   in appointment armed, equipped

2   Anticipating i.e., ahead of starting energetic, eager

4   appalle’d terrified, made pale

6   hale haul, drag

7   trumpet trumpeter

8   brazen brass/audacious

9   villain wretch/servant sphere’d puffed out, rounded bias i.e., puffed out on one side, as if with a bias in it (i.e., the weight in a bowling ball that enabled it to be rolled in a curve)

10   colic griping abdominal pain (here, attributed to excess wind) Aquilon the north wind (often depicted with swollen cheeks)

11   spout blood i.e., due to burst blood vessels from blowing so hard

12   for to summon

14   early days early on in the day

15   yond yonder, over there

16   ken know gait walk, bearing

18   aspiration longing for something above one

21   dearly heartily (with suggestion of the expense incurred by the war that has brought her there)

23   Yet as yet/however particular individual/a single event

24   in general by everyone/indiscriminately

25   courtly befitting court affairs and fashionable, elegant behavior/befitting courtly love

27   winter i.e., Nestor’s old age

29   argument subject (Menelaus refers to Helen; may play on a sense of “vagina”)

30   argument basis, reason

31   popped arrived unexpectedly/moved in suddenly hardiment boldness/erect penis

32   theme…scorns reason for our being mocked/grounds of our contempt/cause for the indignities of war

33   lose our heads lose our judgment/risk our lives gild his horns add false shine to Menelaus’ cuckoldry (men with unfaithful wives were popularly supposed to grow horns)

36   trim fine (sarcastic)

37   for instead of/in his place

38   by your leave with your permission

39   render give

41   I’ll…live I’ll stake my life on it, I’ll bet

42   take i.e., receive from Cressida

44   boot something extra, an advantage, odds

45   odd peculiar/unique/single, i.e., wifeless (also plays on the notion of odd numbers and of odds in a betting game) even an even number/equally/straightforwardly

46   odd individual, unique

48   odd alone, wifeless is even has settled his score (playing on the idea of being part of a couple)

49   fillip me o’th’head touch a sensitive spot, i.e., his cuckold’s horns fillip tap, strike smartly

51   match equal contest nail fingernail horn tough cuckold’s horns

54   desire request (Cressida’s response either points out a difference between this more formal request and begging, or picks up desire’s sense of “want, long for”)

57   maid unmarried/a virgin (i.e., never) his i.e., returned to Menelaus; alternatively, Ulysses breaks off without finishing

58   when ’tis due i.e., when that has happened

59   a kiss I’ll claim a kiss

61   quick sense quick wit/lively sensibility/a ready sensuality

62   Fie expression of disgust or reproach

64   wanton lustful spirits sentiments, character traits

65   motive moving limb, motion

66   encounterers flirts, forward women

67   give…comes behave in a forward, overly welcoming manner before even being approached (coasting, i.e., accosting; may pun on “costing,” i.e., costly to the man involved)

68   wide unclasp open wide tables writing tablets, notebooks (often hinged; plays on the sense of “vaginas”)

69   tickling lecherous/engaged in sexual stimulation with the fingers Set them down record, note them (plays on the sexual sense of “put them on their backs”)

70   spoils of opportunity women who are sexually available on any occasion spoils sexual plunder; plays on the idea of women sexually spoiled from over-use

71   daughters…game prostitutes

74   state men of rank What i.e., what honor, reward

75   that victory commands who wins purpose intend that

76   known acknowledged, declared Will you do you wish that

77   edge…extremity point of death (without any interruption)

78   be…field they be separated by a marshal or by set rules in the field of combat

80   bade ordered me to

82   conditions agreed procedure

83   securely overconfidently, carelessly

84   disprizing undervaluing, disdaining

89   In…Hector i.e., Hector’s courage is as great as his vanity is non-existent

91   The one i.e., valor all the sum of everything

92   The other i.e., pride blank i.e., absent Weigh judge, assess the value of

94   half…blood Ajax’s mother Hesione was Priam’s sister, so he and Hector are cousins

98   maiden virginal, i.e., without bloodshed (with derogatory connotations of weakness) perceive understand

99   gentle noble

101   order procedure, direction

102   uttermost point of death

103   a breath i.e., a series of more sporting bouts with pauses for breath

104   stints restrains strife endeavors, strong exertions opposed facing one another lists designated combat area (literally, the barriers enclosing it)

106   heavy sad

109   matchless without equal firm of word resolute in speech

110   deedless…tongue i.e., never boasting of his achievements

112   free generous

114   bounty generosity

115   impare uneven, unconsidered, unworthy

117   subscribes yields, grants mercy

118   tender objects pitiful sights, i.e., the defeated and defenseless

119   vindicative vindictive, revengeful

120   erect…Hector i.e., he is expected to prove as worthy as Hector

123   Even…inches in every detail, from top to toe with private soul confidentially, privately and from the heart

124   translate interpret, explain, i.e., describe Alarum call to battle (usually trumpets or drums)

125   in action engaged in combat

128   disposed placed, distributed

129   no more stop

130   so if it

131   warm warmed up

135   cousin-german first cousin

137   emulation rivalry

138   commixtion…Trojan Trojan-Greek mixture

142   dexter right sinister left

143   Bounds in encloses multipotent massively powerful

144   bear carry away member body part

145   impressure imprint

146   rank large/grievous/violent feud i.e., the Trojan-Greek war gainsay forbid

150   him that thunders i.e., Jupiter/Jove, whose weapon was the thunderbolt lusty strong, vigorous

154   gentle noble free generous

156   addition title (i.e., honor, enhanced reputation)

157   Neoptolemus i.e., Achilles; in fact the name of his son, Pyrrhus Neoptolemus mirable admirable, marvelous

158   crest heraldic device on a coat of arms/helmet, i.e., head ‘Oyez’ cries of “oyez,” the shout a town crier used to summon attention

159   promise…Hector assure himself of additional honor gained by defeating Hector

161   expectance watchful anticipation, expectation

164   issue outcome

166   seld seldom chance i.e., to issue such an invitation desire ask, invite

171   signify make known, report

172   the…part those Trojans who are awaiting news

173   Desire them ask them to go

178   portly stately, dignified

179   Worthy of arms you who are so worthy to bear arms/receive embraces as…one you are as welcome as you possibly can be to one such as myself

181   welcome i.e., true, proper welcome

184   extant present, existing troth truth

185   Strained purely entirely purified hollow false, insincere bias-drawing deviation, crooked dealing (bowling metaphor: the bias causes swerving)

187   heart…heart the center of the heart

188   imperious majestic

191   brace pair

192   Who…answer? a polite way of asking Menelaus’ name

194   Mars his gauntlet Mars’ armored glove

195   affect favor, assume, use th’untraded the unconventional, unfamiliar

196   quondam former Venus’ glove as Mars’ lover Venus was unfaithful to her husband, Vulcan; the phrase plays on the sense of “vagina” (Latin for “sheath,” “scabbard”)

197   bade me not did not ask me to/asked me not to

198   deadly theme subject for mortal conflict/dire subject for discussion

201   Labouring for destiny doing the work of, employed by fate (in putting people to death)

203   hot hot-tempered/keen Perseus killer of the snake-haired gorgon Medusa Phrygian steed i.e., the winged horse Pegasus

204   forfeits and subduements the defeated, those near death (i.e., easy victims)

205   hung suspended, checked the swing of advance’d outstretched, raised

206   decline…declined descend on the vanquished

207   That so that

211   Olympian god of Mount Olympus/wrestler at the Olympic games

212   still always locked in steel i.e., covered by your helmet

219   chronicle historical record (Nestor’s age makes him a storehouse of memories; perhaps suggests a penchant for lengthy stories)

221   clasp embrace

222   arms limbs/weapons contention battle, strife

223   contend engage

227   I…time i.e., I can remember the time when I could have fought you

229   base and pillar foundation and support

230   favour appearance, face

233   embassy ambassadorial mission (i.e., an earlier negotiation regarding reparations for the loss of Helen)

235   half…yet half-fulfilled

236   pertly audaciously, boldly

237   wanton insolent/playful/lascivious buss kiss

240   modestly demurely, chastely (applies to the walls)/without exaggeration

241   Phrygian i.e., Trojan; Phrygia, a region in Asia Minor (now Turkey), was the location of Troy

242   the…all i.e., the eventual outcome is all that matters, time decides all things (proverbial)

243   arbitrator one who decides and settles a matter between opposed parties (legal term)

245   him i.e., Time

249   forestall prevent

251   exact detailed, precise perused inspected, examined

252   quoted scrutinized joint limb, body part (probably, picking up on fed and continued in fill, with connotations of a butcher’s joint of meat)

255   fair in full view

259   As as if

260   book of sport hunting manual

262   oppress (seek to) dominate

265   local individual, specific

266   make distinct mark out/differentiate

267   spirit soul/life-giving essence (thought to be carried in the blood) flew took flight/flowed

269   Stand again stand up (implying Achilles has knelt to the gods)/stand still/stand forward

270   catch capture, seize pleasantly easily/mockingly

271   prenominate specify in advance nice precise, detailed conjecture prediction

277   stithied…helm forged Mars’ helmet

283   chafe thee anger yourself

285   accident chance event to’t i.e., to fight Hector

287   stomach appetite general state Greek generals, council/whole Greek cause

288   entreat prevail upon, persuade odd at odds, at variance

290   pelting paltry, petty refused spurned, cast off

293   fell fierce, cruel

295   match agreement, contract (plays on the sense of “contest”)

296   peers nobles/companions

297   in to convive you feast, be convivial

298   bounties generosity, kindness

299   severally individually entreat invite

300   taborins drums

303   keep lodge, dwell

307   bent direction

309   bound obliged, indebted

313   As gentle i.e., be so courteous as to honour reputation, good name

316   such as those who scars i.e., wounds of love

317   A mock mockery (i.e., for boasting, but the further implication is that Diomedes’ flirtation with Cressida would make her former lover the object of ridicule)

318   is, and doth is still beloved and still loves

319   still always food…tooth subject to being preyed on by fortune (playing on the idea of fortune having a sweet tooth)

Act 5 Scene 1

5.1   Location: the Greek camp

2   scimitar short curved sword cool i.e., by exposing it to the air (with connotations of chilling with fear)

5   core essence/center (as in the hard center of a boil)

6   crusty scabby/ill-tempered (plays on the sense of “with a baked crust”) batch product/baker’s batch (plays on “botch,” i.e., boil) nature conceivably plays on the sense of “semen”

7   picture mere image

9   fragment insignificant or incomplete being/leftover, scrap of food

10   fool idiocy (plays on the sense of “cream and stewed fruit pudding”)

11   keeps the tent is looking after Achilles’ tent/is guilty of keeping to their tent

12   surgeon’s box surgeon’s instrument case (Thersites responds to tent’s meaning of “surgical implement for cleaning a wound”)

13   adversity perversity (because Thersites deliberately misunderstands words) need is the point of

15   varlet knave, rogue/attendant, servant (hence ‘prostitute’)

17   diseases…south i.e., venereal disease, popularly perceived as coming from Italy, especially the southern city of Naples, which had high rates of syphilis; also suggests the south wind, thought to convey disease, and perhaps the lower half of the body

18   guts-griping colic or similar illness causing intestinal spasms ruptures hernias catarrhs colds, phlegm-producing illnesses loads o’gravel i’th’back kidney stones

19   palsies fever characterized by trembling; the Quarto text has a longer list at this point (see appended list of “Quarto passages that do not appear in the Folio,” on this page) take strike, infect preposterous discoveries revelations of perversity (preposterous literally means “back to front,” suggesting anal sex)

20   box plays on the sense of “vagina”

23   ruinous ruined, i.e., rotten (also suggesting “diseased”) butt cask (plays on the sense of “buttocks”) indistinguishable shapeless, misshapen

24   exasperate exasperated, enraged immaterial insubstantial, flimsy skein…silk reel of fine silk thread sleaved separated into filaments, plays on “sleeved”

25   sarcenet fine silken cloth; green suggests immaturity or girlish weakness flap patch tassel dangling fringed decoration (possible phallic connotations) prodigal lavish, wasteful spender (perhaps suggestive of sexual exhaustion) purse may play on the sense of “scrotum”

26   pestered infested/irritated waterflies i.e., buzzing insects

28   Out expression of dismissive irritation gall bitterness/poison/irritating sore or painful pustule

29   Finch-egg! i.e., small/ insignificant thing

33   daughter…love i.e., Polyxena

34   taxing imposing duty on/calling to account/reproving gaging binding, committing

36   Fall Greeks should the Greeks be defeated or either

38   trim tidy, deck out

41   blood temper, hot-headedness/passion/sexual desire

43   fellow usually used for servants, lower-class or worthless men, so a dismissive term for Agamemnon quails birds eaten as delicacies/prostitutes

44   Jupiter…bull i.e., Menelaus, the horned cuckold, here compared to Jupiter who transformed himself into a bull in order to abduct Europa

45   primitive statue original, archetypal image oblique memorial indirect reminder thrifty useful/ordinary, not elaborate

46   shoeing-horn again alluding to the cuckold’s horns; plays on the sexual senses of “shoe” (vagina) and “horn” (penis) in on hanging…leg i.e., Menelaus is a hanger-on, dependent on Agamemnon that he is his current one

47   wit i.e., Thersites’ wit larded mixed, saturated/stuffed (culinary term for the insertion of bacon strips into chicken) forced strengthened/stuffed (in a culinary sense) To i.e., to transform him into ass and ox suggesting fool and cuckold

49   fitchew polecat/prostitute puttock scavenging bird of prey, buzzard

50   but to be faced with the prospect of being/were I to be

51   care…be wouldn’t mind being lazar leper so so long as

52   Hoy-day expression of surprise

60   tend on escort, protect

64   draught cesspool, sewer quoth a did he say sink cesspool, sewer

71   tide whereof time for which

78   unjust dishonest, untrustworthy

79   leers looks sideways/smiles disarmingly/glances seductively spend his mouth bay, bark loudly (hunting term)

80   Brabbler a boastful liar, a brawler performs keeps his word, follows his words with deeds

81   astronomers fortell it i.e., like a rare and significant event in the heavens prodigious ominous

82   borrows of i.e., dims, reflects the light of (an unnatural event) leave to see abandon seeing

83   dog him follow Diomedes drab whore uses regularly visits

84   incontinent sexually unrestrained

Act 5 Scene 2

5.2   Location: the Greek camp (outside Calchas’ tent)

5   discover reveal

7   charge responsibility, one entrusted to my care

10   sing…sight sing to/get to know instantly, as if sight-reading music/have sex with any man quickly as if he were music to be sight-read (possible allusion to the sirens’ song)

11   take her clef find the right musical key (clef)/possess her sexually (punning on cleft, i.e., “vagina”) noted marked, observed/notorious/set down in musical notation

17   List! Listen!

18   folly foolishness/lechery

22   tell a pin i.e., don’t talk to me of trifles (pin may play on the sense of “(small) penis,” a derogatory reference to Troilus) forsworn – – – – perjured, oath-breaking…(dashes in original text indicate an omitted obscenity)

24   juggling trick magic trick/deceitful ruse/sexual intercourse secretly open frank in private/sexually available in secret/modest and bold simultaneously/sexually accessible (playing on sense of secret meaning genitals)

32   fool plaything/dupe

33   Thy better i.e., Troilus himself

36   moved agitated, upset, angry

38   wrathful terms i.e., a fight

41   go off leave

42   flow…distraction are becoming increasingly agitated, frenzied (alludes to a swelling river)

49   grieve distress, upset truth fidelity

53   palter equivocate/haggle/trifle/mumble

56   break out explode in anger/leap out from concealment

60   will i.e., desire to confront Cressida and Diomedes all offences the actions Troilus might take/Cressida’s wrongdoing to him

62   Luxury lechery potato-finger large penis/fat finger (also sexually suggestive as a digit that tickles sexually)

63   Fry burn with lust (with connotations of the burning symptoms of venereal disease)/burn in hell

65   lo used to add emphasis else otherwise

66   token item used as a pledge surety assurance

70   be myself i.e., allow myself to act on my feelings cognition recognition, knowledge

83   sharpens toughens her resistance/sharpens Diomedes’ desire (with erectile connotations) whetstone stone used for sharpening swords (plays on the senses of vagina/woman/whore)

90   memorial bestowed in remembrance

91   thee refers to the sleeve; various stagings are possible in this sequence, and some editors have suggested that the ensuing line (“do not snatch it”) should be spoken by Cressida, not Diomedes

93   withal with it, as well

104   Diana’s waiting-women i.e., the stars (Diana was the Roman goddess of chastity and the moon) yond up there

107   grieve hurt, distress his spirit i.e., the spirit of whoever owns the sleeve

108   wor’st wore

115   starts you provokes a sudden reaction in you, makes you swerve off in another direction

117   likes pleases

119   be plagued suffer, be tormented/be afflicted with divine punishment

123   with…see i.e., my other eye, representative of my true feelings, focuses on Diomedes (eye puns on “I”)

124   poor our our poor

125   error mistake/deception/wandering, straying

126   What whatever

127   swayed ruled, directed turpitude wickedness, depravity

128   proof…more she could not state a stronger proof (i.e., tried and tested truth)

130   All’s done i.e., it’s over, there is no more to see

133   recordation record, commemorative account

135   co-act behave together

137   Sith since credence faith, belief, trust

138   esperance hope

139   test evidence, testimony (most editors prefer Quarto’s “th’attest”)

140   deceptious deceptive, misleading

141   calumniate slander

143   conjure i.e., magically produce a vision of Cressida

146   negation denial hath…of does not seem like

147   but now only a moment ago

148   for for the sake of

149   advantage opportunity

150   a…depravation grounds on which to base all women’s depravity/grounds for vilification

153   soil stain, dishonor

155   swagger…eyes blusteringly talk himself out of believing the evidence of his own eyes

158   sanctimony holy, holiness

160   there…itself unity cannot be divided

161   discourse rationality

162   That…thyself that sets up arguments (cause) for and against itself

163   By abiding by, employing foul false/corrupt, flawed/illegible, incomprehensible revolt i.e., against itself

164   perdition destroying itself loss loss of reason, i.e., madness (also recalls loss of Cressida) reason appearance of reason

165   revolt contradiction

166   conduce take place

167   a thing i.e., Cressida inseparate indivisible

168   Divides more wider is more widely divided

170   Admits allows orifex orifice, opening subtle finely spun

171   Ariachne i.e., Arachne, a weaver turned into a spider by Minerva; alternatively a conflation of Arachne and Ariadne, who gave Theseus thread to use in finding his way out of the labyrinth of the Minotaur woof cross-threads in weaving (hence the strand of a spider’s web)

172   Instance evidence Pluto’s gates the gates of the underworld

175   slipped unloosed, let go (with connotations of moral failure)

176   five-finger-tied i.e., bound by human hands

177   fractions fragments, shreds orts scraps, leftovers (culinary term)

179   o’er-eaten gnawed at all over, eaten away (the sense of “surfeited” is possible but less likely)

180   May…express? Can worthy Troilus be half as seized by the emotion of events as his passionate words suggest?

183   red passionate/bloody (captures sense of sexual desire and the consequences of warfare) Mars his heart Mars’ heart

184   fancy love

187   by weight in equal proportion

189   casque helmet

190   spout waterspout, or the hurricane that produces it/heavy downpour

192   Constringed compressed, drawn together Fenne dragon of classical myth

194   his i.e., the spout’s prompted ready/provoked

196   He’ll…concupy Troilus will be provoked to violence on account of his own (or Diomedes’) lust/ Diomedes will receive blows (or fight it out) for his (or Troilus’) lust tickle beat, chastise (or Thersites may mockingly employ the milder sense of “titillate, assault gently”; sexual connotations are probable) concupy concupiscence, lust/concubine, mistress

198   by next to

203   this this time

204   stays waits

205   Have with you I’ll come with you, let’s go lord i.e., Ulysses

206   revolted fair faithless beauty

207   Stand fast be prepared castle type of close helmet

209   distracted agitated, troubled, confused

210   raven a bird of ill omen, often associated with death

211   bode prophesy the intelligence of information about

212   parrot proverbially fond of almonds commodious drab accommodating whore

Act 5 Scene 3

5.3   Location: Troy

1   ungently tempered unkindly, roughly disposed

4   train induce offend pain, hurt/sin against, wrong

6   to with regard to

9   bloody bloodthirsty

10   Consort join dear heartfelt, earnest

15   trumpet trumpeter

16   sally sudden attack

18   peevish foolish/headstrong, obstinate

20   spotted tainted, discolored, diseased

22   just faithful to an oath is i.e., would be

23   For…much because we wish to be generous use engage in/make a habit of

25   purpose intention (i.e., cause for which the vow was taken)

26   every purpose any intention (i.e., unworthy, spurious reasons) hold be binding

29   keeps…of maintains the advantage over (literally, keeps to the windward side of)

30   Life…man every man considers life precious, but the honorable man

31   dear addressed to Cassandra? alternatively “precious-dear”

33   father father-in-law, i.e., Priam

34   doff take off harness armor

35   i’th’vein of in the mood for

37   tempt risk brushes collisions, hostile encounters

41   lion as the noblest of beasts, the lion was proverbially said to spare the defenseless

43   captive defeated, with no escape

44   fan and wind i.e., as he brandishes it, without even needing to strike fair noble, fine/even-handed, just

47   Fool’s play perhaps puns on “foul play” (to oppose fair play)

53   ruthful piteous, lamentable, causing woe ruth pity, compassion

55   then ’tis wars that (the abandonment of pity) is true war

59   truncheon thick staff (such as that used by a marshal to control procedure in an official duel) retire retreat

61   o’ergallèd heavily inflamed recourse repeated flowing

64   But…ruin except by killing me

66   loose thy stay release your support, prop; loose plays on “lose”—the two words were not always distinguished

72   enrapt carried away by prophetic inspiration

75   afield on the battlefield

76   engaged pledged

77   the…valour a warrior’s honorable pledge

82   shame respect i.e., violate my duty to respect your wishes

89   This…girl i.e., Cassandra

90   bodements prophecies, forebodings

95   shrills…her shrieks out her grief

96   distraction madness amazement alarm, bewilderment

97   antics grotesque buffoons

100   soft wait a moment

101   deceive delude/betray

102   amazed stunned/confused/dismayed exclaim outcry

103   cheer encourage, urge on

105   with…about i.e., protect

112   tisick consumptive cough, infection of lungs and throat

114   o’th’s of these rheum watery discharge (the eyes are affected by syphilis) ache…bones suggestive of syphilis, which causes bone decay

115   on’t of it

118   Th’effect…way i.e., the effect of the letter goes quite against its aim/her actions contradict her words

119   wind empty, insubstantial words (sense then shifts to “gusts of air”) turn and change flutter, intermingle (turn plays on the senses of “deceive/alter/desert” and change on the sense of “alter, change loyalty”)

120   errors lies, deceit still yet/constantly

121   edifies builds up (plays on the idea of causing penile erection) deeds actions/sexual acts

123   Hence get away Ignomy ignominy, shame, dishonor

Act 5 Scene 4

5.4   Location: the battlefield, between Troy and the Greek camp excursion bout of fighting (moving across the stage)

1   clapper-clawing beating up, thrashing

2   dissembling deceitful

3   fain gladly

5   whore-masterly lecherous, whore-using

6   luxurious drab lustful whore of on sleeveless fruitless, futile (plays on the literal sense of “without Troilus’ sleeve”) policy strategy/cunning

7   swearing i.e., uttering (grand or false) pledges and claims

8   dog-fox male fox (proverbially cunning) set me set (me is used for emphasis)

11   proclaim barbarism declare a preference for lawlessness, ignorance (as opposed to policy, i.e., authoritative strategy) grows…opinion becomes poorly regarded

13   take take to Styx river that departed souls had to cross in order to reach the classical underworld (i.e., Troilus would pursue Diomedes beyond death itself)

15   miscall retire wrongly term this withdrawal a retreat

16   advantageous care concern for my advantage

17   of multitude i.e., that were stacked against me

18   Have at thee! i.e., here I come (standard utterance at the opening of a fight)

19   Hold hold onto/defend for i.e., fight for

21   for Hector’s match a match for Hector

22   blood noble blood/spirit, passion

23   filthy low, scurvy, contemptible

25   God-a-mercy God have mercy on you plague blow/affliction

26   wenching whoring

27   sort way, manner

28   eats itself is self-destructive; perhaps alludes to the corrosive effects of syphilis, which decays the bones

Act 5 Scene 5

3   commend convey, present

5   proof trial in combat/evidence/the result

7   Renew i.e., renew the assault

8   bastard Margarelon illegitimate son of Priam (Margareton in the sources)

10   colossus-wise like the Colossus of Rhodes, a gigantic statue of Apollo that supposedly stood astride the entrance to the harbor beam staff/lance

11   pashèd smashed, battered

14   ta’en captured

15   dreadful fear-inducing sagittary centaur (half-man, half-horse) who supposedly fought for the Trojans; famed for his archery

16   Appals terrifies, make pale

17   To reinforcement i.e., to reinforce our struggling troops/to renew our attack

22   anon shortly/at another time afoot on foot

23   scale’d sculls schools of scaly fish

24   belching spouting

25   edge sword edge

26   mower reaper swathe row of scythed crops

27   leaves and takes leaves one dead as he cuts down another/spares one man and kills another

28   appetite desire, will

30   proof…impossibility the deeds he carries out seem impossible

34   Myrmidons band of warriors from Thessaly, led by Achilles

36   Crying on crying out in complaint/calling for vengeance against

39   Mad furious fantastic extraordinary execution actions/slaughter

40   Engaging…himself entering into combat and emerging alive (financial language; to engage was to mortgage, to redeem to buy back)

41   careless…care casual attacking strength and effortless self-defense

42   luck fortune in…cunning i.e., in defiance of his enemy’s skills

46   draw together grow united, pull together (in contrast to the previous factional state)

48   boy-queller boy-killer (referring to the death of Patroclus)

50   none have nobody

Act 5 Scene 6

4   correct punish, deliver retribution

5   office position, role

6   Ere that correction i.e., before I’d let you (rather than me) punish Troilus

10   stand stay put

11   prize reward, trophy/captive of war/booty seized in war look upon be an onlooker

12   cogging deceitful, cheating Greeks plays on the sense of “cunning people”

15   wilt would like to, need to (an honorable offer of pause to the presumably battle-weary Achilles)

17   arms limbs/weapons out of use not working, out of action (due to exhaustion)

18   rest and negligence i.e., need for rest and abandonment of the fight

19   anon shortly

25   flame i.e., sun

26   carry capture/prevail over

27   bring him off rescue him

28   reck care

29   mark target/notable sight

31   frush smash, bruise

33   hide (animal) skin, i.e., armor

Act 5 Scene 7

2   attend follow/pay attention wheel range around/turn around, change direction (military term applying to the movement of troops)

3   in breath i.e., fit and ready

5   Empale enclose, fence (may pun on “impale” and possibly plays on the sense of “make pale”)

6   fellest cruellest, fiercest execute your arm use your weapons

7   proceedings actions

Act 5 Scene 8

1   bull i.e., Menelaus (who has a cuckold’s horns) dog i.e., Paris; dogs were used in bull-baiting, a popular pastime; as an insult, “dog” implies base qualities ’Loo a call of encouragement to a dog

2   double-henned sparrow i.e., Paris, as he has two women (Helen and his first wife, Oenone); the sparrow was associated with lechery and a “hen” is a derogatory term for a woman/whore has the game is winning (ironically playing on the sense of game as “sexual quarry”)

3   ’ware beware of

4   slave villain, wretch

5   What who

7   begot conceived

9   wherefore why quarrel cause of the war

10   judgement divine retribution

Act 5 Scene 9

1   core body without on the outside (refers to the armor Hector admired in Act 5 scene 6)

7   vail going down (literally, lowering a flag or weapons in submission; puns on “veil”) darking darkening

9   vantage advantage Greek again recalls the proverbial association between Greeks and cheats

13   amain loudly, with might

18   stickler-like like a tournament umpire

19   frankly freely, without restraint (perhaps with connotations of porcine greed; a “frank” was a sty, as well as a term for the process of fattening pigs)

20   dainty bait tasty morsel, fine snack

Act 5 Scene 10

4   bruit news

5   bragless without boasting

7   patiently calmly, with quiet expectation

9   his i.e., Hector’s

10   sharp harsh, vicious, merciless

Act 5 Scene 11

1   Yet still

2   starve we out let us endure

6   sort manner

8   smile at smile in mocking scorn at/be kind to (i.e., by meting out swift destruction)

9   at…mercy be merciful by making our afflictions immediate and brief

11   discomfort discourage host army

14   dare…in dare to face all impending evils that gods and men can prepare to endanger me

17   screech-owl thought to be birds of ill omen, their cry believed to herald death aye forever

19   will Priam turn that will turn Priam

20   Niobes Niobe boasted that having numerous children made her superior to Latona/Leto, mother to Apollo and Diana; as a punishment for her blasphemy, Niobe’s children were killed and she turned into a rock that forever shed tears

21   Cool statues i.e., struck dumb and frozen in grief

25   pight pitched

26   Titan Roman sun god

27   through and through i.e., rampage through wreaking havoc (perhaps with suggestion of running through with a sword) great-sized coward i.e., Achilles

28   sunder divide, part two hates mutual hatred

29   haunt frequent, hang around/pursue, molest in the manner of troubling thoughts/visit in the manner of a spirit still constantly

30   goblins demons frenzied thoughts the frenzied thoughts of madness

31   free unregimented, in no formal marching order (i.e., hasty)/unimpeded, direct comfort courage

34   broker-lackey pander, lowly go-between ignomy ignominy, dishonor

36   aching bones suggestive of syphilis, which decays the bones

38   requited rewarded endeavour efforts

39   performance fulfillment, achievement verse rhyme, song/biblical text instance illustrative example

40   humble-bee bumblebee

41   honey plays on the senses of “sexual joy/semen” sting plays on the sense of “erect penis”

42   subdued…tail having lost his sting/having lost his erection/having been infected by a diseased vagina

44   traders…flesh pimps/whores/fornicators painted cloths wall-hangings decorated with morally instructive scenes or mottos

45   hall guild, profession

46   out blind from either weeping or syphilis

48   aching bones symptom of syphilis

49   hold-door brothel-keeping

52   gallèd vexed, angered/inflamed and sore with venereal disease goose of Winchester prostitute, so called because of the many brothels of Southwark, which was under the jurisdiction of the Bishop of Winchester

53   sweat the conventional treatment for syphilis involved inducing sweating eases treatments, means of easing symptoms

THE TRAGEDY OF CORIOLANUS

Where did Shakespeare learn the Roman history that he so memorably dramatized in Julius Caesar, Antony and Cleopatra, and Coriolanus? Minor variants and improvisations apart, the answer is simple. While most of his plays involved him in the cutting and pasting of a whole range of literary and theatrical sources, in the Roman tragedies he kept his eye focused on the pages of a single great book.

That book was Plutarch’s Lives of the Most Noble Grecians and Romanes. Plutarch was a Greek, born in Boeotia in the first century AD. His book included forty-six biographies of the great figures of ancient history, arranged in pairs, half Greek and half Roman, with a brief “comparison” between each pair. The purpose of the “parallel” was to ask such questions as “Who was the greater general, the Greek Alexander or the Roman Julius Caesar?” Shakespeare affectionately mocks the device of parallelism in Henry the Fifth, when Fluellen argues that Harry of Monmouth is like Alexander of Macedon because their respective birthplaces begin with an “M” and there’s a river in each and “there is salmons in both.” But the comedy here is at Fluellen’s expense, not Plutarch’s—and, like all Shakespeare’s richest jokes, it has a serious point. As Alexander the Great killed his bosom-friend Cleitus in a drunken brawl, so King Harry in all sobriety caused his old chum Falstaff to die of a broken heart.

For Shakespeare, the historical parallel was a device of great power. The censorship of the stage exercised by court officialdom meant that it was exceedingly risky to dramatize contemporary affairs, so the best way of writing political drama was to take subjects from the past and leave it to the audience to see the parallel in the present. The uncertainty over the succession to the Virgin Queen meant that there were frequent whispers of conspiracy in the final years of Elizabeth’s reign. It would hardly have been appropriate to write a play about a group of highly placed courtiers (the Earl of Essex and his circle, say) plotting to overthrow the monarchy. But a play about a group of highly placed Roman patricians (Brutus, Cassius, and company) plotting to assassinate Julius Caesar had the capacity to raise some awkward questions by means of the implicit parallel.

Plutarch’s greatest importance for Shakespeare was his way of writing history through biography. He taught the playwright that the little human touch often says more than the large impersonal historical force. Plutarch explained his method in the Life of Alexander: “My intent is not to write histories, but only lives. For the noblest deeds do not always show men’s virtues and vices; but oftentimes a light occasion, a word, or some sport, makes men’s natural dispositions and manners appear more plain than the famous battles won wherein are slain ten thousand men, or the great armies, or cities won by siege or assault.” So too in Shakespeare’s Roman plays. It is the particular occasion—the single word, the moment of tenderness or jest—that humanizes the superpower politicians: Brutus and Cassius making up after their quarrel, the defeated Cleopatra remembering it is her birthday, Caius Martius exhausted from battle forgetting the name of the man who helped him in Corioles.

In his “Life of Caius Martius” Plutarch gives a brief character sketch of the Roman general who, by virtue of his heroic endeavor behind the closed gates of Corioles, gained the surname Coriolanus: “For this Martius’ natural wit and great heart did marvelously stir up his courage to do and attempt noble acts. But on the other side, for lack of education he was so choleric and impatient that he would yield to no living creature, which made him churlish, uncivil, and altogether unfit for any man’s conversation.” As the name “Martius” suggests, Coriolanus has all the martial virtues. His tragedy is that he has none of the civil ones. He devotes himself wholly to the code of valor (Latin virtus). Where Mark Antony is led astray from Roman values by his lover Cleopatra, Coriolanus is trained up in virtus by his mother Volumnia. He has a suitably austere Roman wife, who usually appears in company with a chaste companion (Valeria, the very opposite of Cleopatra’s companion Charmian). And when his son Young Martius, a chip off the old block, is praised for tearing the wings off a butterfly with his teeth, we gain a glimpse into the kind of upbringing that Coriolanus may be imagined to have had. “Anger’s my meat,” says Volumnia: perhaps in compensation for the premature disappearance of her husband, she has bred up an angry young man, ready to serve Rome on the battlefield where one senses she wishes she could go herself—as she does at the end of the play. If Antony and Cleopatra is about the tragic consequences of the dissolution of Romanness, Coriolanus is about the equally tragic result of an unyielding adherence to it. “It is held,” says Cominius,

That valour is the chiefest virtue, and

Most dignifies the haver: if it be,

The man I speak of cannot in the world

Be singly counterpoised…

“If it be”: Coriolanus’ own mode of speaking, by contrast, is what he calls the “absolute shall.” To leave room for an “if” would be to call his whole world-picture into question.

The play brings the absolute embodiment of virtus into hostile dialogue with other voices. As in Julius Caesar, the action begins not with the hero but with the people, to whom Plutarch (a believer in the theory that history is shaped by the deeds of great men alone) never gives a voice. In the very early period of the Roman republic, around the fifth century BC, Rome faced two threats: an external danger from neighboring territories (the Volscians, based in Antium and Corioles) and the internal danger of division between the patricians and the plebeians. The martial hero is supremely successful in dealing with the external threat through force, but his attempt to handle internal affairs in the same way leads to his banishment and eventual death. The opening scene reveals that the people do have a case: the first citizen argues cogently against inequality, speaking “in hunger for bread, not in thirst for revenge.” Diplomacy is the skill needed here; Coriolanus, who is always “himself alone” and who trusts in the deeds of the sword rather than the blandishments of the word, will have no truck with compromise. His pride and his desire to stand alone are only allayed when he faces his mother, wife, and son pleading for him to have mercy on the city. Volumnia appeals to the bond of family; after her eloquent entreaty, Coriolanus hovers for a moment in one of the most powerful silences in Shakespeare. He sets aside his code of manly strength, accepts the familial tie, and in so doing effectively signs his own death warrant. He has for the first time fully recognized the claims of other people, escaped the bond of absolute self. The knowledge of what he has done brings a kind of peace: “But let it come,” he says of his inevitable end. He is speaking here in the voice of Stoic resignation.

The nineteenth-century critic William Hazlitt said that anyone who was familiar with Coriolanus could save themselves the trouble of reading Edmund Burke’s attack on the French Revolution and Tom Paine’s defense of it, because Shakespeare gives you both sides of the question. The play anatomizes the strengths and the weaknesses of both absolutism and republicanism, interrogates both the principle of aristocracy and that of democracy. The plebeians and their elected representatives, the tribunes, have arguments as good as those of the patricians who, at the beginning of the play, have been hoarding grain for no good reason.

But ultimately, Hazlitt contended, Shakespeare had a leaning toward the side of arbitrary power, that of Coriolanus himself. Perhaps in contempt of his own lowly origins, or out of politic fear of the consequences of “confusion” in the state, Shakespeare gives charisma to aristocratic swagger. Stage directions such as “Citizens slink away” and “Enter a rabble of plebeians” suggest where authorial sympathies do not lie. “The language of poetry,” Hazlitt said, “naturally falls in with the language of power.” All the memorable poetry belongs to Coriolanus, none to the tribunes. Whatever the force of the arguments on either side, the audience is swept away by the energy of the play’s warrior hero. In particular, there is something irresistible about his solitary intensity. “Alone I did it,” he vaunts, remembering the deed that gave him his name: the conquest of Corioles, achieved when the plebeian soldiers ran away and the gates of the enemy city clanged shut behind him. In its way, his arrogance is as magnificent as his courage. Accused of being an enemy to the people, he is banished from the city for which he has been prepared to lay down his life on the battlefield. His reply turns the sentence on its head:

You common cry of curs, whose breath I hate

As reek o’th’rotten fens: whose loves I prize

As the dead carcasses of unburied men

That do corrupt my air: I banish you,

And here remain with your uncertainty.

The brilliance of the writing is in the detail: not only the glorious turn in the verb from passive “banished” to active “I banish you,” but also the first person pronoun “my” applied to the very “air,” thus showing how Coriolanus’ world revolves around himself, and the riposte “here [may you] remain with your uncertainty,” which reveals the gulf between the solitary martial hero’s firmness of vision and the messy vicissitudes of communal life.

Coriolanus walks proudly away from Rome, soon to face the humiliation of being ordered around by mere servingmen. The very qualities that made him a great warrior—his singleness of purpose and lack of compromise—are those that make him a poor politician. The play is a tragedy because the man of war cannot keep the peace. It is also a work of deep irony. Coriolanus is the walking embodiment of masculinity. He feels a peculiarly intense bond with Aufidius, his opponent on the battlefield. The single erotic speech in the play is spoken by Aufidius when he welcomes the exiled Coriolanus to his home, an arrival that excites him more than his wife crossing his threshold on their wedding night. His nightly dream has been to wrestle with Coriolanus’ body in hand-to-hand combat:

We have been down together in my sleep,

Unbuckling helms, fisting each other’s throat,

And waked half dead with nothing…

Though Coriolanus does not respond to this extraordinary advance in verbal kind, he is manifestly a man who is at his most fulfilled when among other men. And yet the march of this supremely manly man comes to an abrupt halt in the face of his mother, Volumnia. “The ladies have prevailed”: by a lovely irony, Rome is saved by the words of an old woman, not the deeds of a young man. No wonder Caius Martius is so angry when Aufidius calls him “boy”: Coriolanus is Peter Pan in full body armor, a boy who refuses to grow up.

KEY FACTS

PLOT: Famine in Rome is kindling unrest between the common people and the patricians. The people particularly resent the arrogant Caius Martius, son of Volumnia, who makes no secret of the fact that he despises them. The citizens rise up against the patricians, whom they suspect of hoarding corn for themselves. They are rewarded with the creation of two people’s representatives, or tribunes, who are given new powers to sit in the Senate. War with the neighboring Volscians halts the rioting, however, and, in the battle for the town of Corioli, Caius Martius leads the Roman army with such spectacular bravery that he is honored with the title “Coriolanus.” Back in Rome, the patricians urge Coriolanus to seek the consulship. Reluctantly, he agrees to submit himself to the necessary public display of humility in order to win the assent of the citizens, but once again his inability to mask his contempt turns them against him. Not only do they refuse their assent but, incited by their tribunes, they banish Coriolanus from Rome. In revenge, he joins the Volscians and his former enemy Tullus Aufidius. Together they march on Rome. Coriolanus refuses all attempts at conciliation by his former comrades and only through the intercession of his mother, wife, and son is he finally persuaded to spare the city. He establishes a peace, but is killed by the resentful Volscians.

MAJOR PARTS: (with percentage of lines/number of speeches/scenes on stage) Caius Martius/Coriolanus (23%/189/18), Menenius Agrippa (15%/162/13), Volumnia (8%/57/6), Sicinius Velutus (8%/117/10), Cominius (8%/67/11), Tullus Aufidius (7%/45/8), Junius Brutus (7%/ 91/9), Titus Lartius (2%/23/6), First Citizen (2%/33/4), Third Servingman (1%/20/1), Third Citizen (1%/18/3), and Valeria (1%/14/2).

LINGUISTIC MEDIUM: 80% verse, 20% prose.

DATE: 1608? Probably uses Camden’s Remaines (1605); a phrase is parodied in Ben Jonson’s Epicoene (late 1609). Allusion to “coal of fire upon the ice” in Act 1 scene 1 sometimes taken to refer to the great frost of winter 1607/08, when the Thames was frozen and people with “pans of coals to warm your fingers” were stationed on the middle of the river; the issue of grain shortage and hoarding with which the action begins has been related to an insurrection in the English midlands in 1607–08. Theaters were closed because of the plague for the majority of the time in these years, so the play may belong to the open period of April–July 1608.

SOURCES: Closely based on “The Life of Caius Martius Coriolanus” in Sir Thomas North’s English translation of Plutarch’s Lives of the Most Noble Grecians and Romanes (Shakespeare probably used the 1595 edition). Menenius’ fable of the belly in the first scene is the only occasion on which an additional source seems to have been used: the wording suggests the influence of both Livy’s Romane Historie (trans. Philemon Holland, 1600) and William Camden’s Remaines of a greater worke concerning Britaine (1605).

TEXT: 1623 Folio, apparently set from Shakespeare’s manuscript or a scribal transcript of it, is the only early edition; irregular lineation is the main problem in the printing.

THE TRAGEDY OF CORIOLANUS

Caius MARTIUS, later CORIOLANUS

VOLUMNIA, Coriolanus’ mother

VIRGILIA, his wife

YOUNG MARTIUS, his son

VALERIA, friend of Virgilia

GENTLEWOMAN, attending on Virgilia

MENENIUSAgrippa, Coriolanus’ elderly friend

NICANOR, a Roman traitor

Two MESSENGERS

LIEUTENANT

Two SOLDIERS

Two OFFICERS

Five CITIZENS

Three ROMANS

A HERALD

An AEDILE

A PATRICIAN

Two SENATORS

Tullus AUFIDIUS, Volscian general

LIEUTENANTto Aufidius

ADRIAN, a Volscian

Three SERVINGMEN

Three CONSPIRATORS

Two WATCHMEN

Three LORDS

Usher, Valeria’s Gentlewoman, Captains, Soldiers,

Drummer, Trumpeter, Scout, Nobles, Attendants

Act 1 Scene 11.1

running scene 1

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

FIRST CITIZENBefore we proceed any further, hear me speak.

ALLSpeak, speak.

FIRST CITIZENYou are all resolved rather to die than to famish?[3]

ALLResolved, resolved.

FIRST CITIZENFirst, you know Caius Martius is chief enemy to the people.

ALLWe know’t, we know’t.

FIRST CITIZENLet us kill him, and we’ll have corn at our own price. Is’t a verdict?[7]

ALLNo more talking on’t:[8] let it be done: away, away.

SECOND CITIZENOne word, good citizens.

FIRST CITIZENWe are accounted poor,[10] citizens, the patricians good: what authority surfeits on[11] would relieve us. If they would yield us but the superfluity while it were wholesome[12] we might guess they relieved us humanely: but they think we are too dear:,[13] the leanness that afflicts us, the object of our misery, is as an inventory[14] to particularize their abundance: our sufferance is a gain to them. Let us revenge this with our pikes[15] ere we become rakes. For the gods know, I speak this in hunger for bread, not in thirst for revenge.

SECOND CITIZENWould you proceed especially against Caius Martius?

ALLAgainst him first: he’s a very dog[18] to the commonalty.

SECOND CITIZENConsider you what services he has done for his country?

FIRST CITIZENVery well, and could be content to give him good report for’t, but that he pays himself with being proud.

ALLNay, but speak not maliciously.

FIRST CITIZENI say unto you, what he hath done famously,[23] he did it to that end: though soft-conscienced[24] men can be content to say it was for his country, he did it to[25] please his mother and to be partly proud, which he is, even to the altitude of his virtue.

SECOND CITIZENWhat he cannot help in his nature, you account a vice in him. You must in no way say he is covetous.

FIRST CITIZENIf.[29] I must not, I need not be barren of accusations: he hath faults, with surplus, to tire in repetition[30]

Shouts within

What shouts are these? The other side o’th’city is risen:[31] why stay we prating here? To th’Capitol![32]

ALLCome, come.

FIRST CITIZENSoft,[34] who comes here?

Enter Menenius Agrippa

SECOND CITIZENWorthy Menenius Agrippa, one that hath always loved the people.

FIRST CITIZENHe’s one honest enough: would all the rest were so!

MENENIUSWhat work’s, my countrymen, in hand? Where go you With bats[38] and clubs? The matter, speak, I pray you.

SECOND CITIZENOur business is not unknown to th’senate: they have had inkling this fortnight what we intend to do, which now we’ll show ’em in deeds. They say poor suitors[41] have strong breaths: they shall know we have strong arms too.

MENENIUSWhy, masters,[42] my good friends, mine honest neighbours, Will you undo[43] yourselves?

SECOND CITIZENWe cannot, sir, we are undone already.

45

MENENIUSI tell you, friends, most charitable care

Have the patricians of you. For[46] your wants,

Your suffering in this dearth,[47] you may as well

Strike at the heaven with your staves[48] as lift them

Against the Roman state, whose course will on[49]

50

The way it takes, cracking ten thousand curbs[50]

Of more strong link asunder than can ever

Appear in your[52] impediment. For the dearth,

The gods, not the patricians, make it, and

Your knees[54] to them, not arms, must help. Alack,

55

You are transported[55] by calamity

Thither where more attends[56] you, and you slander

The helms[57] o’th’state, who care for you like fathers,

When you curse them as enemies.

SECOND CITIZENCare for us? True,[59] indeed, they ne’er cared for[60] us yet. Suffer us to famish, and their store-houses crammed with grain: make edicts for usury, to support usurers: repeal daily any wholesome act established against the rich, and provide more piercing[62] statutes daily, to chain up and restrain the poor. If the wars eat us not up, they will: and there’s all the love they bear us.

MENENIUSEither you must

65

Confess yourselves wondrous[65] malicious,

Or be accused of folly. I shall tell you

A pretty[67] tale: it may be you have heard it,

But since it serves my purpose, I will venture

To stale’t[69] a little more.

SECOND CITIZENWell, I’ll hear it, sir: yet you must not think to fob off our disgrace[70] with a tale: but, an’t[71] please you, deliver.

MENENIUSThere was a time when all the body’s members

Rebelled against the belly, thus accused it:

That only like a gulf it did remain

75

I’th’midst o’th’body, idle and unactive,

Still cupboarding[76] the viand, never bearing

Like[77] labour with the rest, where th’other instruments

Did see and hear, devise,[78] instruct, walk, feel,

And, mutually participate,[79] did minister

80

Unto the appetite and affection[80] common

Of the whole body. The belly answered—

SECOND CITIZENWell, sir, what answer made the belly?

MENENIUSSir, I shall tell you: with a kind of smile,

Which ne’er[84] came from the lungs, but even thus —

85

For look you, I may make the belly smile

As well as speak — it tauntingly replied

To th’discontented members, the mutinous parts

That envied his[88] receipt: even so most fitly

As you malign our senators for that[89]

90

They are not such as you.

SECOND CITIZENYour belly’s answer: what?

The kingly crownèd head, the vigilant eye,

The counsellor heart, the arm our soldier,

Our steed the leg, the tongue our trumpeter,

95

With other muniments[95] and petty helps

In this our fabric,[96] if that they—

MENENIUSWhat then? Fore me,[97] this fellow speaks! What then? What then?

SECOND CITIZENShould by the cormorant[98] belly be restrained,

Who is the sink[99] o’th’body—

100

MENENIUSWell, what then?

SECOND CITIZENThe former[101] agents, if they did complain,

What could the belly answer?

MENENIUSI will tell you,

If you’ll bestow a small[104] — of what you have little —

105

Patience awhile, you’st[105] hear the belly’s answer.

SECOND CITIZENYou’re long about it.

MENENIUSNote me this, good friend:

Your[108] most grave belly was deliberate,

Not rash like his accusers, and thus answered:

110

‘True is it, my incorporate[110] friends,’ quoth he,

‘That I receive the general[111] food at first

Which you do live upon: and fit it is,

Because I am the storehouse and the shop

Of the whole body. But, if you do remember,

115

I send it through the rivers of your blood

Even to the court,[116] the heart, to th’seat o’th’brain,

And through the cranks[117] and offices of man,

The strongest nerves[118] and small inferior veins

From me receive that natural competency[119]

120

Whereby they live. And though that all at once’ —

You, my good friends, this says the belly, mark[121] me—

SECOND CITIZENAy, sir, well, well.

MENENIUS‘Though all at once cannot

See what I do deliver out to each,

125

Yet I can make[125] my audit up, that all

From me do back receive the flour[126] of all,

And leave me but the bran.[127]’ What say you to’t?

SECOND CITIZENIt was an answer: how apply you this?

MENENIUSThe senators of Rome are this good belly,

130

And you the mutinous members: for examine

Their counsels and their cares, digest[131] things rightly

Touching the weal o’th’common,[132] you shall find

No public benefit which you receive

But it proceeds or comes from them to you

135

And no way from yourselves. What do you think,

You, the great toe of this assembly?

SECOND CITIZENI the great toe? Why the great toe?

MENENIUSFor that, being one o’th’lowest, basest, poorest

Of this most wise rebellion, thou goest foremost:

140

Thou rascal,[140] that art worst in blood to run,

Lead’st first to win some vantage.[141]

But make you ready your stiff bats and clubs:

Rome and her rats are at the point of battle:

The one side[144] must have bale.

Enter Caius Martius

Hail, noble Martius.

145

MARTIUSThanks. What’s the matter, you dissentious[145] rogues,

That, rubbing the poor itch of your opinion,

Make yourselves scabs?[147]

SECOND CITIZENWe have ever[148] your good word.

MARTIUSHe that will give good words to thee will flatter

150

Beneath abhorring.[150] What would you have, you curs,

That like nor[151] peace nor war? The one affrights you,

The other makes you proud.[152] He that trusts to you,

Where he should find you lions, finds you hares:[153]

Where foxes,[154] geese: you are no surer, no,

155

Than is the coal of fire upon the ice,

Or hailstone in the sun. Your virtue[156] is

To make[157] him worthy whose offence subdues him

And curse that justice did it. Who[158] deserves greatness

Deserves[159] your hate, and your affections are

160

A sick man’s appetite, who desires most that

Which would increase his evil.[161] He that depends

Upon your favours swims with fins of lead,

And hews down oaks with rushes.[163] Hang ye! Trust ye?

With every minute you do change a mind,

165

And call him noble that was now[165] your hate,

Him vile that was your garland.[166] What’s the matter,

That in these several[167] places of the city

You cry against the noble senate, who,

Under the gods, keep you in awe, which else[169]

170

Would feed on one another?—What’s their seeking?[170] To Menenius

MENENIUSFor corn at their own rates, whereof they say

The city is well stored.

MARTIUSHang ’em! They say?

They’ll sit by th’fire, and presume to know

175

What’s done i’th’Capitol: who’s like to rise,

Who thrives and who declines: side[176] factions and give out

Conjectural marriages,[177] making parties strong

And feebling[178] such as stand not in their liking

Below their cobbled[179] shoes. They say there’s grain enough?

180

Would the nobility lay aside their ruth,[180]

And let me use my sword, I’d make a quarry[181]

With thousands of these quartered[182] slaves, as high

As I could pick[183] my lance.

MENENIUSNay, these are almost thoroughly persuaded:

185

For though abundantly they lack discretion,

Yet are they passing[186] cowardly. But I beseech you,

What says the other troop?

MARTIUSThey are dissolved: hang ’em:

They said they were an-hungry,[189] sighed forth proverbs

190

That hunger broke stone walls, that dogs[190] must eat,

That meat[191] was made for mouths, that the gods sent not

Corn for the rich men only: with these shreds[192]

They vented their complainings, which being answered,

And a petition granted them, a strange one —

195

To break the heart of generosity,[195]

And make bold power look pale — they threw their caps

As[197] they would hang them on the horns o’th’moon,

Shouting their emulation.[198]

MENENIUSWhat is granted them?

200

MARTIUSFive tribunes[200] to defend their vulgar wisdoms,

Of their own choice. One’s Junius Brutus,

Sicinius Velutus, and I know not. ’Sdeath,[202]

The rabble should have first unroofed the city,

Ere so prevailed with me: it will in time

205

Win upon power[205] and throw forth greater themes

For insurrection’s arguing.[206]

MENENIUSThis is strange.

MARTIUSGo get you home, you fragments.[208] To the Citizens

Enter a Messenger hastily

MESSENGERWhere’s Caius Martius?

210

MARTIUSHere: what’s the matter?

MESSENGERThe news is, sir, the Volsces are in arms.

MARTIUSI am glad on’t: then we shall ha’ means to vent[212]

Our musty superfluity.[213] See, our best elders.

Enter Sicinius Velutus, Junius Brutus, Cominius, Titus Lartius, with other Senators

FIRST SENATORMartius, ’tis true that[214] you have lately told us:

215

The Volsces are in arms.

MARTIUSThey have a leader,

Tullus Aufidius, that will put you to’t:[217]

I sin in envying his nobility,

And were I anything but what I am,

220

I would wish me only he.

COMINIUSYou have fought together![221]

MARTIUSWere half to half the world by th’ears[222] and he

Upon my party,[223] I’d revolt to make

Only my wars with[224] him. He is a lion

225

That I am proud to hunt.

FIRST SENATORThen, worthy Martius,

Attend upon[227] Cominius to these wars.

COMINIUSIt is your former promise. To Martius

MARTIUSSir, it is,

230

And I am constant:[230] Titus Lartius, thou

Shalt see me once more strike at Tullus’ face.

What, art thou stiff?[232] Stand’st out?

LARTIUSNo, Caius Martius,

I’ll lean upon one crutch and fight with t’other,

235

Ere[235] stay behind this business.

MENENIUSO, true-bred!

FIRST SENATORYour[237] company to th’Capitol, where I know

Our greatest friends attend[238] us.

LARTIUSLead you on.— To Cominius

240

Follow Cominius, we must follow you, To Martius

Right[241] worthy your priority.

COMINIUSNoble Martius.

FIRST SENATORHence to your homes, be gone. To the Citizens

MARTIUSNay, let them follow:

245

The Volsces have much corn: take these rats thither

To gnaw their garners.[246] Worshipful mutineers,

Your valour puts well forth:[247] pray follow.

Exeunt

Citizens steal away. Sicinius and Brutus remain

SICINIUSWas ever man so proud as is this Martius?

BRUTUSHe has no equal.

250

SICINIUSWhen we were chosen tribunes for the people—

BRUTUSMarked you his lip and eyes?

SICINIUSNay, but his taunts.

BRUTUSBeing moved,[253] he will not spare to gird the gods.

SICINIUSBemock the modest[254] moon.

255

BRUTUSThe[255] present wars devour him: he is grown

Too proud to be so valiant.

SICINIUSSuch a nature,

Tickled with[258] good success, disdains the shadow

Which he treads on at noon:[259] but I do wonder

260

His insolence[260] can brook to be commanded

Under Cominius.

BRUTUSFame, at the which he aims,

In whom already he’s well graced, cannot

Better be held nor more attained than by

265

A place below the first: for what miscarries[265]

Shall be the general’s fault, though he perform

To th’utmost of a man, and giddy censure[267]

Will then cry out of Martius ‘O, if he

Had borne the business!’

270

SICINIUSBesides, if things go well,

Opinion[271] that so sticks on Martius shall

Of his demerits[272] rob Cominius.

BRUTUSCome:

Half all Cominius’ honours are[274] to Martius,

275

Though Martius earned them not: and all his faults

To Martius shall be honours, though indeed

In aught[277] he merit not.

SICINIUSLet’s hence, and hear

How the dispatch[279] is made, and in what fashion,

280

More[280] than his singularity, he goes

Upon this present action.[281]

BRUTUSLet’s along.[282]

Exeunt

[Act 1 Scene 2]1.2

running scene 2

Enter Tullus Aufidius with Senators of Corioles

FIRST SENATORSo, your opinion is, Aufidius,

That they of Rome are entered[2] in our counsels

And know how we proceed.

AUFIDIUSIs it not yours?

5

Whatever have been thought on in this state,

That could be brought to bodily act ere[6] Rome

Had circumvention?[7] ’Tis not four days gone

Since I heard thence: these are the words: I think

I have the letter here: yes, here it is. He reads the letter1

10

‘They have pressed a power,[10] but it is not known

Whether for east or west: the dearth is great,

The people mutinous: and it is rumoured,

Cominius, Martius your old enemy,

Who is of[14] Rome worse hated than of you,

15

And Titus Lartius, a most valiant Roman,

These three lead on this preparation[16]

Whither[17] ’tis bent: most likely ’tis for you:

Consider of it.’

FIRST SENATOROur army’s in the field:[19]

20

We never yet made doubt but[20] Rome was ready

To answer us.

AUFIDIUSNor did you think it folly

To keep your great pretences[23] veiled, till when

They needs[24] must show themselves, which in the hatching,

25

It seemed, appeared to Rome. By the discovery,

We shall be shortened[26] in our aim, which was

To take in[27] many towns ere, almost, Rome

Should know we were afoot.

SECOND SENATORNoble Aufldius,

30

Take your commission, hie[30] you to your bands:

Let us alone to guard Corioles.

If they set down before’s,[32] for the remove

Bring up your army: but, I think, you’ll find

They’ve not prepared for us.

35

AUFIDIUSO, doubt not that:

I speak from certainties. Nay, more,

Some parcels[37] of their power are forth already,

And only hitherward.[38] I leave your honours.

If we and Caius Martius chance to meet,

40

’Tis sworn between us we shall ever[40] strike

Till one can do no more.

ALLThe gods assist you!

AUFIDIUSAnd keep your honours safe

FIRST SENATORFarewell.

45

SECOND SENATORFarewell.

ALLFarewell.

Exeunt

Act 1 Scene 31.3

running scene 3

Enter Volumnia and Virgilia, mother and wife to Martius: they set them down on two low stools and sew

VOLUMNIAI pray you, daughter, sing, or express yourself in a more comfortable,.[1] sort: if my son were my husband, I should freelier[2] rejoice in that absence wherein he won honour than in the embracements of his bed where he would show most love. When yet he was but tender-bodied[4] and the only son of my womb, when youth with comeliness[5] plucked all gaze his way, when for a day of kings’ entreaties a mother should not sell him an hour from her beholding, I, considering how honour would become[7] such a person, that it was no better than, picture-like[8] to hang by th’wall if renown made it not stir, was pleased to let him seek danger where he was like[9] to find fame: to a cruel war I sent him, from whence he returned, his brows bound with oak[10] I tell thee, daughter, I sprang not more in joy at first hearing he was a man-child than now[11] in first seeing he had proved himself a man.

VIRGILIABut had he died in the business, madam, how then?

VOLUMNIAThen his good report should have been my son: I therein would have found issue.[15] Hear me profess sincerely: had I a dozen sons, each in my love alike, and none less dear than thine and my good Martius, I had rather had eleven die nobly for their country than one voluptuously surfeit[17] out of action.

Enter a Gentlewoman

GENTLEWOMANMadam, the lady Valeria is come to visit you. To Volumnia

VIRGILIABeseech you give[19] me leave to retire myself. To Volumnia

20

VOLUMNIAIndeed, you shall not.

Methinks I hear hither[21]

See[22] him pluck Aufidius down by th’hair,

As children from a bear, the Volsces shunning him:

Methinks I see him stamp thus, and call thus,

25

‘Come on, you cowards, you were got[25] in fear,

Though you were born in Rome’; his bloody brow

With his mailed[27] hand then wiping, forth he goes,

Like to a harvest-man that’s tasked[28] to mow

Or all or lose his hire.[29]

30

VIRGILIAHis bloody brow? O Jupiter,[30] no blood!

VOLUMNIAAway, you fool! It more becomes a man

Than gilt his trophy.[32] The breasts of Hecuba

When she did suckle Hector looked not lovelier

Than Hector’s forehead when it spit forth blood

35

At Grecian sword, contemning.[35]— Tell Valeria, To the Gentlewoman

We are fit[36] to bid her welcome.

Exit Gentlewoman

VIRGILIAHeavens bless[37] my lord from fell Aufidius!

VOLUMNIAHe’ll beat Aufidius’ head below his knee

And tread upon his neck

Enter Valeria with an Usher and a Gentlewoman

VALERIAMy ladies both, good day to you.

VOLUMNIASweet madam

VIRGILIAI am glad to see your ladyship

VALERIAHow do you both? You are manifest housekeepers,.[43] What are you sewing here? A fine spot[44] in good faith. How does your little son?

VIRGILIAI thank your ladyship: well, good madam

VOLUMNIAHe had rather see the swords and hear a drum than look upon his schoolmaster

VALERIAO’my[48] word, the father’s son: I’ll swear ’tis a very pretty boy. O’my troth, I looked upon him o’Wednesday half[49] an hour together: he’s such a confirmed countenance. I saw him run after[51] a gilded butterfly, and when he caught it, he let it go again, and after it again, and over and over he comes, and up again, catched it again: or whether[52] his fall enraged him, or how ’twas, he did so set his teeth and tear it. O, I warrant[53] how he mammocked it!

VOLUMNIAOne on’s[54] father’s moods

VALERIAIndeed, la,[55] ’tis a noble child.

VIRGILIAA crack,[56] madam

VALERIACome, lay aside your stitchery, I must have you play the idle housewife[57] with me this afternoon.

VIRGILIANo, good madam, I will not out[59] of doors

VALERIANot out of doors?

VOLUMNIAShe shall, she shall

VIRGILIAIndeed, no, by your patience: I’ll not over the threshold till my lord return from the wars

VALERIAFie,.[64] you confine yourself most unreasonably: come, you must go visit the good lady that lies in[65]

VIRGILIAI will wish her speedy strength, and visit her with my prayers: but I cannot go thither

VOLUMNIAWhy, I pray you?

VIRGILIA’Tis not to save labour, nor that I want[69] love

VALERIAYou would be another Penelope:[70] yet they say all the yarn she spun in Ulysses’ absence did but fill Ithaca full of moths. Come, I would[71] your cambric were sensible[72] as your finger, that you might leave pricking it for pity. Come, you shall go with us.

VIRGILIANo, good madam, pardon me, indeed I will not forth

VALERIAIn truth, la, go with me, and I’ll tell you excellent news of your husband.

VIRGILIAO, good madam, there can be none yet

VALERIAVerily[77] I do not jest with you: there came news from him last night.

VIRGILIAIndeed, madam?

VALERIAIn earnest, it’s true: I heard a senator speak it. Thus it is: the Volsces have an army forth, against whom Cominius the general is gone, with one part of our Roman power. Your lord and Titus Lartius are set down before their city Corioles: they nothing doubt prevailing[82] and to make it brief wars. This is true, on mine honour: and so, I pray, go with us.

VIRGILIAGive me excuse,[84] good madam: I will obey you in everything hereafter.

VOLUMNIALet her alone, lady: as she is now, she will but disease[85] our better mirth.

VALERIAIn troth,[86] I think she would. Fare you well, then. Come, good sweet lady. Prithee, Virgilia, turn thy solemness out o’door, and go along with us.

VIRGILIANo, at a word,[88] madam: indeed, I must not. I wish you much mirth.

VALERIAWell then, farewell.

Exeunt Ladies

[Act 1 Scene 4]1.4

running scene 4

Enter Martius, Titus Lartius, with Drum [, Trumpeter] and Colours, with Captains and

Soldiers [with scaling ladders], as before the city Corioles: to them a Messenger

MARTIUSYonder comes news: a wager they have met.[1]

LARTIUSMy[2] horse to yours, no.

MARTIUS’Tis done.

LARTIUSAgreed.

5

MARTIUSSay, has our general met the enemy? To the Messenger

MESSENGERThey lie in view, but have not spoke[6] as yet.

LARTIUSSo, the good horse is mine.

MARTIUSI’ll buy him of you.

LARTIUSNo, I’ll nor[9] sell nor give him: lend you him I will

10

For half a hundred years.— Summon the town. To Trumpeter

MARTIUSHow far off lie these armies?

MESSENGERWithin this mile and half.

MARTIUSThen shall we hear their ’Iarum,[13] and they ours.

Now, Mars,[14] I prithee make us quick in work,

15

That we with smoking[15] swords may march from hence

To help our fielded[16] friends.— Come, blow thy blast. To Trumpeter

They sound a parley: enter two Senators with others on the walls of Corioles

Tullus Aufidius, is he within your walls?

FIRST SENATORNo, nor[18] a man that fears you less than he,

That’s lesser than a little.!

Hark, our drums

Drum afar off

20

Are bringing forth our youth: we’ll break our walls

Rather than they shall pound us up:[21] our gates,

Which yet seem shut, we have but pinned with rushes:[22]

They’ll open of themselves.

Hark you, far off

Alarum far off

There is Aufidius. List[24] what work he makes

25

Amongst your cloven[25] army.

MARTIUSO, they are at it!

LARTIUSTheir[27] noise be our instruction. Ladders, ho! They prepare their ladders to assault the walls

Enter the army of the Volsces

MARTIUSThey fear us not, but issue forth their city.

Now put your shields before your hearts, and fight

30

With hearts more proof[30] than shields. Advance, brave Titus:

They do disdain us much beyond our thoughts,[31]

Which makes me sweat with wrath. Come on, my fellows:

He that retires, I’ll take him for a Volsce,

And he shall feel mine edge.[34]

Alarum: the Romans are beat back to their trenches [and exeunt, followed by the Volsces].

Enter Martius cursing

35

MARTIUSall the contagion of the south[35] light on you,

You shames of Rome! You herd of— boils and plagues

Plaster you o’er, that you may be abhorred

Further than seen,[38] and one infect another

Against[39] the wind a mile: you souls of geese

40

That bear the shapes of men, how have you run

From slaves that apes would beat! Pluto[41] and hell:

All hurt behind,[42] backs red, and faces pale

With flight and agued[43] fear! Mend and charge home,

Or, by the fires of heaven, I’ll leave the foe

45

And make my wars on you: look to’t. Come on:

If you’ll stand fast, we’ll beat[46] them to their wives,

As they us to our trenches followed.

Another alarum, and Martius follows [the Volsces] to [the] gates

So, now the gates are open:[48] now prove good seconds:

’Tis for the followers[49] fortune widens them,

50

Not for the fliers:[50] mark me, and do the like.

[He] enter[s] the gates

FIRST SOLDIERFoolhardiness: not I.

SECOND SOLDIERNor I.

[The gates close and Martius] is shut in

FIRST SOLDIERSee, they have shut him in.

Alarum continues

ALLTo th’pot,[54] I warrant him.

Enter Titus Lartius

55

LARTIUSWhat is become of Martius?

ALLSlain, sir, doubtless.

FIRST SOLDIERFollowing the fliers at the very heels,

With them he enters, who upon the sudden

Clapped to[59] their gates: he is himself alone,

60

To answer[60] all the city.

LARTIUSO noble fellow!

Who sensibly[62] outdares his senseless sword,

And when it bows,[63] stand’st up. Thou art left, Martius:

A carbuncle entire,[64] as big as thou art,

65

Were not so rich a jewel. Thou wast a soldier

Even to Cato’s[66] wish, not fierce and terrible

Only in strokes: but with thy grim looks, and

The thunder-like percussion of thy sounds,

Thou mad’st thine enemies shake, as if the world

70

Were feverous and did tremble.

Enter Martius, bleeding, assaulted by the enemy

FIRST SOLDIERlook, sir.

LARTIUSO, ’tis martius!

Let’s fetch him off,[73] or make remain alike.

They fight, and all enter the city

[Act 1 Scene 5]

running scene 4 continues

Enter certain Romans with spoils

FIRST ROMANThis will I carry to Rome.

SECOND ROMANAnd I this.

THIRD ROMANA murrain[3] on’t, I took this for silver.

Exeunt

Alarum continues still afar off

Enter Martius and Titus [Lartius] with a Trumpet

MARTIUSSee here these movers that do prize[4] their honours

5

At a cracked drachma:[5] cushions, leaden spoons,

Irons[6] of a doit, doublets that hangmen would

Bury with those that wore them, these base slaves,

Ere yet the fight be done, pack up: down with them!

And hark, what noise the general[9] makes: to him.

10

There is the man of my soul’s hate, aufidius,

Piercing our romans: then, valiant titus, take

Convenient[12] numbers to make good the city,

Whilst I, with those that have the spirit, will haste

To help Cominius.

15

LARTIUSWorthy sir, thou bleed’st:

Thy exercise hath been too violent

For a second course of fight.

MARTIUSSir, praise me not:

My work hath yet not warmed me. fare you well:

20

The blood i drop is rather physical[20]

Than dangerous to me: to Aufidius thus

I will appear, and fight.

LARTIUSNow the fair goddess, Fortune,

Fall deep in love with thee, and her great charms[24]

25

Misguide thy opposers’[25] swords! Bold gentleman,

Prosperity[26] be thy page.

MARTIUSThy[27] friend no less

Than those she placeth highest. So farewell.

LARTIUSThou worthiest Martius!

[Exit Martius]

30

Go sound thy trumpet in the market-place:

Call thither all the officers o’th’town,

Where they shall know our mind. Away.

Exeunt

Act 1 Scene 6

running scene 4 continues

Enter Cominius, as it were in retire*, with Soldiers

COMINIUSBreathe you,[1] my friends: well fought: we are come off

Like Romans, neither foolish in our stands,[2]

Nor cowardly in retire: believe me, sirs,

We shall be charged again. Whiles we have struck,[4]

5

By[5] interims and conveying gusts we have heard!

The[6] charges of our friends. The Roman gods

Lead their successes as we wish our own,

That both our powers, with smiling fronts[8] encount’ring,

May give you thankful sacrifice.

Enter a Messenger

Thy news?

10

MESSENGERThe citizens of Corioles have issued,[10]

And given to Lartius and to Martius battle:

I saw our party to their trenches driven,

And then I came away.

COMINIUSThough thou speak’st truth,

15

Methinks thou speak’st not well. How long is’t since?

MESSENGERAbove an hour, my lord

COMINIUS’Tis not a mile: briefly[17] we heard their drums.

How couldst thou in a mile confound[18] an hour,

And bring thy news so late?

20

MESSENGERSpies of the Volsces

Held me in chase, that[21] I was forced to wheel

Three or four miles about, else had I, sir,

Half an hour since brought my report.

Enter Martius [bleeding]

COMINIUSWho’s yonder,

25

That does appear as[25] he were flayed? O gods,

He has the stamp[26] of Martius, and I have

Before-time[27] seen him thus.

MARTIUSCome I too late?

COMINIUSThe shepherd knows not thunder from a tabor[29]

30

More than I know the sound of Martius’ tongue

From every meaner[31] man.

MARTIUSCome I too late?

COMINIUSAy, if you come not in the blood of others,

But mantled in your own.

35

MARTIUSO, let me clip[35] ye

In arms as sound as when I wooed in heart,

As merry as when our nuptial day was done,

And tapers[38] burned to bedward. He embraces Cominius

COMINIUSFlower of warriors, how is’t with Titus Lartius?

40

MARTIUSAs with a man busied about decrees:[40]

Condemning some to death, and some to exile,

Ransoming him, or pitying, threat’ning th’other;

Holding Corioles in the name of Rome,

Even like a fawning greyhound in the leash,

45

To let him slip[45] at will.

COMINIUSWhere is that slave

Which told me they had beat you to your trenches?

Where is he? Call him hither.

MARTIUSLet him alone:

50

He did inform the truth: but for our gentlemen,

The common file[51] — a plague — tribunes for them! —

The mouse ne’er shunned the cat as they did budge[52]

From rascals worse than they.

COMINIUSBut how prevailed you?

55

MARTIUSWill the time serve to tell? I do not think.[55]

Where is the enemy? Are you lords o’th’field?

If not, why cease you till you are so?

COMINIUSMartius, we have at disadvantage fought

And did retire to[59] win our purpose.

60

MARTIUSHow lies their battle?[60] Know you on which side

They have placed their men of trust?

COMINIUSAs I guess, Martius,

Their bands i’th’vanguard[63] are the Antiates,

Of[64] their best trust: o’er them Aufidius,

65

Their very heart of hope.

MARTIUSI do beseech you,

By all the battles wherein we have fought,

By th’blood we have shed together, by th’vows

We have made to endure[69] friends, that you directly

70

Set me against Aufidius and his Antiates,

And that you not delay the present, but,

Filling the air with swords advanced[72] and darts,

We prove[73] this very hour.

COMINIUSThough I could wish

75

You were conducted to a gentle bath

And balms[76] applied to you, yet dare I never

Deny your asking: take your choice of those

That best can aid your action.

MARTIUSThose are they

80

That most are willing: if any such be here,

As it were sin to doubt, that love this painting[81]

Wherein you see me smeared, if any fear

Lesser[83] his person than an ill report:

If any think brave[84] death outweighs bad life,

85

And that his country’s dearer than himself,

Let him alone,[86] or so many so minded,

Wave thus to express his disposition,

And follow Martius.

They all shout and wave their swords, take him up in their arms, and cast up their caps

O, me[89] alone, make you a sword of me?

90

If these shows be not outward,[90] which of you

But is[91] four Volsces? None of you but is

Able to bear against the great Aufidius

A shield as hard as his. A certain number,

Though thanks to all, must I select from all.

95

The rest shall bear the business in some other fight,

As cause[96] will be obeyed. Please you to march,

And I shall quickly draw out my command,

Which men are best inclined.

COMINIUSMarch on, my fellows:

100

Make[100] good this ostentation, and you shall

Divide in all[101] with us.

Exeunt

Act 1 Scene 7

running scene 4 continues

Titus Lartius, having set a guard upon Corioles, going with Drum and Trumpet toward

Cominius and Caius Martius, enters with a Lieutenant, other Soldiers and a Scout

LARTIUSSo, let the ports[1] be guarded: keep your duties To the Lieutenant

As I have set them down. If I do send, dispatch

Those centuries[3] to our aid: the rest will serve

For a short holding:[4] if we lose the field,

5

We cannot keep the town.

LIEUTENANTFear not[6] our care, sir.

LARTIUSHence, and shut your gates upon’s:

Our guider, come; to th’Roman camp conduct us.

Exeunt

[Act 1 Scene 8]

running scene 4 continues

Alarum, as in battle. Enter Martius and Aufidius at several* doors

MARTIUSI’ll fight with none but thee, for I do hate thee

Worse than a promise-breaker.

AUFIDIUSWe hate alike:

Not Afric owns[4] a serpent I abhor

5

More than thy fame and envy.[5] Fix thy foot.

MARTIUSLet the first budger[6] die the other’s slave,

And the gods doom him after.

AUFIDIUSIf I fly, Martius, holla[8] me like a hare.

MARTIUSWithin these three hours, Tullus,

10

Alone I fought in your Corioles’ walls,

And made what work I pleased: ’tis not my blood

Wherein thou see’st me masked: for thy revenge

Wrench up[13] thy power to th’highest.

AUFIDIUSWert thou the Hector

15

That was the whip of your bragged progeny,[15]

Thou shouldst not scape[16] me here.

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

Officious, and not valiant, you have shamed me

In[18] your condemnèd seconds.

[Exit]

[Act 1 Scene 9]

running scene 4 continues

Alarum. Flourish*. A retreat is sounded. Enter at one door Cominius with the Romans: at another door Martius, with his arm in a scarf

COMINIUSIf I should tell thee o’er[1] this thy day’s work,

Thou’t not believe thy deeds: but I’ll report it

Where senators shall mingle tears with smiles,

Where great patricians shall attend[4] and shrug,

5

I’th’end admire:[5] where ladies shall be frighted,

And, gladly quaked,[6] hear more: where the dull tribunes,

That with the fusty[7] plebeians, hate thine honours,

Shall say against their hearts,[8] ‘We thank the gods

Our Rome hath such a soldier.’

10

Yet cam’st[10] thou to a morsel of this feast,

Having fully dined before.

Enter Titus [Lartius] with his power, from the pursuit

LARTIUSO general,

Here is the steed, we the caparison:[13]

Hadst thou beheld—

15

MARTIUSPray now, no more: my mother,

Who has a charter[16] to extol her blood,

When she does praise me, grieves me. I have done

As you have done: that’s what I can, induced[18]

As you have been, that’s for my country:

20

He that has but effected[20] his good will

Hath overta’en[21] mine act.

COMINIUSYou shall not be[22] the grave of your deserving:

Rome must know the value of her own:

’Twere a concealment worse than a theft,

25

No less than a traducement,[25]

To hide your doings, and to silence that

Which, to[27] the spire and top of praises vouched,

Would seem but modest: therefore, I beseech you

In sign[29] of what you are, not to reward

30

What you have done, before our army hear me.

MARTIUSI have some wounds upon me, and they smart

To hear themselves remembered.

COMINIUSShould they not,[33]

Well might they fester gainst[34] ingratitude,

35

And tent[35] themselves with death. Of all the horses,

Whereof we have ta’en good[36] and good store, of all

The treasure in[37] this field achieved and city,

We render you the[38] tenth, to be ta’en forth,

Before the common distribution,

40

At[40] your only choice.

MARTIUSI thank you, general:

But cannot make my heart consent to take

A bribe to pay my sword: I do refuse it,

And stand[44] upon my common part with those

45

That have beheld the doing.[45]

A long flourish. They all cry ‘Martius, Martius!’ cast up their caps and lances: Cominius and Lartius stand bare

May these same instruments, which you profane,

Never sound more: when drums and trumpets shall

I’th’field prove flatterers, let courts and cities be

Made all of false-faced soothing:[49] when steel grows

50

Soft as the parasite’s[50] silk, let him be made

An overture[51] for th’wars: no more, I say,

For that[52] I have not washed my nose that bled,

Or foiled some debile[53] wretch, which, without note,

Here’s many else have done, you shout me forth[54]

55

In acclamations hyperbolical,

As if I loved my little[56] should be dieted

In praises sauced[57] with lies.

COMINIUSToo modest are you:

More cruel to your good report than grateful

60

To us that give[60] you truly: by your patience,

If gainst yourself you be incensed, we’ll put you,

Like one that means[62] his proper harm, in manacles,

Then reason safely with you: therefore be it known,

As to us, to all the world, that Caius Martius

65

Wears this war’s garland:[65] in token of the which,

My noble steed, known to the camp, I give him,

With all his trim belonging:[67] and from this time,

For what he did before Corioles, call him,

With all th’applause and clamour of the host,[69]

70

Martius Caius Coriolanus. Bear th’addition[70] nobly ever!

Flourish. Trumpets sound, and Drums

ALLMartius Caius Coriolanus!

CORIOLANUSI will go wash: To Cominius

And when my face is fair,[73] you shall perceive

Whether I blush or no: howbeit,[74] I thank you:

75

I mean to stride[75] your steed, and at all times

To undercrest[76] your good addition

To th’fairness[77] of my power.

COMINIUSSo, to our tent,

Where, ere we do repose us, we will write

80

To Rome of our success. You, Titus Lartius,

Must to Corioles back: send us to Rome

The best,[82] with whom we may articulate,

For their own good and ours.

LARTIUSI shall, my lord.

85

CORIOLANUSThe gods begin to mock me: I, that now

Refused most princely gifts, am bound to beg

Of my lord general.

COMINIUSTake’t, ’tis yours: what is’t?

CORIOLANUSI sometime[89] lay here in Corioles

90

At a poor man’s house: he used[90] me kindly:

He cried[91] to me: I saw him prisoner:

But then Aufidius was within my view,

And wrath o’erwhelmed my pity: I request you

To give my poor host freedom.

95

COMINIUSO, well begged!

Were he the butcher of my son, he should

Be free as is the wind. Deliver[97] him, Titus.

LARTIUSMartius, his name?

CORIOLANUSBy Jupiter, forgot:

100

I am weary: yea, my memory is tired:

Have we no wine here?

COMINIUSGo we to our tent:

The blood upon your visage[103] dries: ’tis time

It should be looked to: come.

Exeunt

[Act 1 Scene 10]

running scene 4 continues

A flourish. Cornets. Enter Tullus Aufidius, bloody, with two or three Soldiers

AUFIDIUSThe town is ta’en.[1]

FIRST SOLDIER’Twill be delivered back on good condition.[2]

AUFIDIUSCondition?

I would I were a Roman, for I cannot,

5

Being a Volsce, be that[5] I am. Condition?

What good condition[6] can a treaty find

I’th’part[7] that is at mercy? Five times, Martius,

I have fought with thee: so often hast thou beat me,

And wouldst do so, I think, should we encounter[9]

10

As often as we eat. By th’elements,

If e’er again I meet him beard to beard,

He’s mine, or I am his: mine emulation[12]

Hath not that honour in’t it had: for where[13]

I thought to crush him in an equal force,

15

True sword to sword, I’ll potch[15] at him some way

Or[16] wrath or craft may get him.

FIRST SOLDIERHe’s the devil.

AUFIDIUSBolder, though not so subtle:[18] my valour’s poisoned

With only suff’ring stain[19] by him: for him

20

Shall[20] fly out of itself: nor sleep nor sanctuary,

Being naked,[21] sick, nor fane nor Capitol,

The prayers of priests, nor times of sacrifice,

Embarquements[23] all of fury, shall lift up

Their rotten[24] privilege and custom gainst

25

My hate to Martius. Where I find him, were it

At home, upon[26] my brother’s guard, even there,

Against the hospitable canon,[27] would I

Wash my fierce hand in’s heart. Go you to th’city:

Learn how ’tis held, and what[29] they are that must

30

Be hostages for Rome.

FIRST SOLDIERWill not you go?

AUFIDIUSI am attended[32] at the cypress grove. I pray you —

’Tis south[33] the city mills — bring me word thither

How the world goes, that to the pace of it

35

I may spur on my journey.

FIRST SOLDIERI shall, sir.

[Exeunt]

Act 2 [Scene 1]2.1

running scene 5

Enter Menenius with the two Tribunes of the people, Sicinius and Brutus

MENENIUSThe augurer[1] tells me we shall have news tonight.

BRUTUSGood or bad?

MENENIUSNot[3] according to the prayer of the people, for they love not Martius.

SICINIUSNature teaches beasts[4] to know their friends.

MENENIUSPray you, who does the wolf love?

SICINIUSThe lamb.

MENENIUSAy, to devour him, as the hungry plebeians would the noble Martius.

BRUTUSHe’s a Iamb indeed that baas[8] like a bear

MENENIUSHe’s a bear indeed that lives like a Iamb. You two are old men: tell me one thing that I shall ask you.

SICINIUS and BRUTUSWell, sir.

MENENIUSIn what enormity[12] is Martius poor in that you two have not in abundance?

BRUTUSHe’s poor in no one fault, but stored[13] with all

SICINIUSEspecially in pride.

BRUTUSAnd topping all others in boasting

MENENIUSThis is strange now: do you two know how you are censured[16] here in the city, I mean of us o’th’right-hand file?[17] Do you?

SICINIUS and BRUTUSWhy? How are we censured?

MENENIUSBecause you talk of pride now: will you not be angry?

SICINIUS and BRUTUSWell, well, sir, well.

MENENIUSWhy, ’tis,[21] no great matter: for a very little thief of occasion will rob you of a great deal of patience: give your dispositions the reins, and be angry at your pleasures[22] at the least, if you take it as a pleasure to you in being so: you blame Martius for being proud.

BRUTUSWe do it not alone, sir

MENENIUSI know you can do very little alone, for your helps are many, or else your actions would grow wondrous single:[27] your abilities are too infant-like for doing much alone. You talk of pride: O, that you could turn your eyes toward[28] the napes of your necks, and make but an interior survey of your good selves! O, that you could!

BRUTUSWhat then, sir?

MENENIUSWhy, then you should discover a brace[32] of unmeriting, proud, violent, testy magistrates, alias fools, as any in Rome

SICINIUSMenenius, you are known well enough too.

MENENIUSI am known to be a humorous,[35] patrician, and one that loves a cup of hot wine with not a drop of allaying[36] Tiber in’t: said to be something imperfect in favouring the first complaint[37] hasty and tinder-like upon too trivial motion: one that converses,[38] more with the buttock of the night than with the forehead of the morning. What I think, I utter, and spend[39] my malice in my breath. Meeting two such wealsmen[40] as you are — I cannot call you Lycurguses — if the drink you give me touch my palate adversely, I[41] make a crooked face at it. I can say your worships have delivered[42] the matter well, when I find the ass in compound with the[43] major part of your syllables. And though I must be content to bear with thosethat say you are reverend grave men, yet they lie deadly[44] that tell you have good faces: if you see this[45] in the map of my microcosm, follows it that I am known well enough too? What harm can your bisson[46] conspectuities glean out of this character[47] if I be known well enough too?

BRUTUSCome, sir, come, we know you well enough

MENENIUSYou know neither me, yourselves nor anything: you are ambitious for poor knaves’ caps,[50] and legs: you wear out a good wholesome forenoon in hearing a cause between an orange-wife[51] and a faucet-seller, and then rejourn the controversy[52] of threepence to a second day of audience. When you are hearing a matter between party and party[53] if you chance to be pinched with the colic, you make faces like mummers,[54] set up the bloody flag against all patience, and in roaring for a chamber-pot, dismiss the controversy bleeding,[55] the more entangledby your hearing: all the peace you make in their cause is calling both the parties knaves. You are a pair of strange ones.

BRUTUSCome, come, you are well understood to be a perfecter giber[58] for the table than a necessary bencher[59] in the Capitol.

MENENIUSOur very priests must become mockers, if they shall encounter such ridiculous subjects,[61] as you are. When you speak best unto the purpose, it is not worth the wagging of your beards, and your beards deserve not so honourable a grave as to stuff a botcher’s[63] cushion, or to be entombed in an ass’s pack-saddle: yet you must be saying, ‘Martius is proud’, who, in a cheap[64] estimation, is worth all your predecessors since Deucalion[65] though peradventure some of the best of ’em were hereditary hangmen. Good e’en[66] to your worships: more of your conversation would infect my brain, being the herdsmen of the beastly plebeians. I will be bold to take my leave of you.

Brutus and Sicinius [stand] aside

Enter Volumnia, Virgilia and Valeria

How now, my as fair as noble ladies: and the moon,[69] were she earthly, no nobler:

whither do you follow your eyes[70] so fast?

VOLUMNIAHonourable Menenius, my boy Martius approaches: for the love of Juno,[71] let’s go.

MENENIUSHa? Martius coming home?

VOLUMNIAAy, worthy Menenius, and with most prosperous approbation.[74]

MENENIUSTake my cap, Jupiter, and I thank thee. He throws up his cap Hoo, Martius coming home?

VIRGILIA and VALERIA Nay, ’tis true.

VOLUMNIALook, here’s a letter from him: the state hath another, his wife another, and, I think, there’s one at home for you.

MENENIUSI will make my very house reel tonight: a letter for me?

VIRGILIAYes, certain, there’s a letter for you: I saw’t.

MENENIUSA letter for me? It gives me an estate,[81] of seven years’ health, in which time I will make[82] a lip at the physician: the most sovereign prescription in Galen is but empiricutic[83] and to this preservative, of no better report than a horse-drench. Is he not wounded? He was wont[84] to come home wounded.

VIRGILIAO, no, no, no.

VOLUMNIAO, he is wounded, I thank the gods for’t.

MENENIUSSo do I too, if it be not too much: brings a[87] victory in his pocket? The wounds become him.

VOLUMNIAOn’s brows:[89] Menenius, he comes the third time home with the oaken garland.

MENENIUSHas he disciplined[91] Aufidius soundly?

VOLUMNIATitus Lartius writes they fought together, but Aufidius got off.

MENENIUSAnd ’twas time for him too, I’ll warrant him that: an[93] he had stayed by him, I would not have been so ’fidiussed[94] for all the chests in Corioles, and the gold that’s in them. Is the senate possessed[95] of this?

VOLUMNIAGood ladies, let’s go. Yes, yes, yes: the senate has letters from the general, wherein he gives my son the whole name of[97] the war: he hath in this action outdone his former deeds doubly.

VALERIAIn troth, there’s wondrous things spoke of him.

MENENIUSWondrous: ay, I warrant you, and not without his true purchasing.[100]

VIRGILIAThe gods grant them true.

VOLUMNIATrue? Pow waw![102]

MENENIUSTrue? I’ll be sworn they are true. Where is he wounded?— God save your good worships! Martius is coming home: he has more cause to be proud.— Where is he wounded? To the Tribunes

VOLUMNIAI’th’shoulder, and i’th’left arm: there will be large cicatrices[106] to show the people, when he shall stand for his place:[107] he received in the repulse of Tarquin seven hurts i’th’body.

MENENIUSOne[109] i’th’neck, and two i’th’thigh: there’s nine that I know.

VOLUMNIAHe had, before this last expedition, twenty-five wounds upon him.

MENENIUSNow it’s twenty-seven: every gash was an enemy’s grave.

A shout and flourish

Hark, the trumpets.

VOLUMNIAThese are the ushers of Martius: before him he carries noise, and behind him he leaves tears:

115

Death, that dark spirit, in’s nervy[115] arm doth lie,

Which being advanced,[116] declines, and then men die.

A sennet. Trumpets sound. Enter Cominius the general, and Titus Lartius: between them

Coriolanus, crowned with an oaken garland with Captains and Soldiers, and a Herald

HERALDKnow, Rome, that all alone Martius did fight

Within Corioles’ gates: where he hath won,

With fame, a name to[119] ‘Martius Caius’:

120

These[120] in honour follows ‘Coriolanus’.

Welcome to Rome, renownèd Coriolanus!

Sound [a] flourish

ALLWelcome to Rome, renownèd Coriolanus!

CORIOLANUSNo more of this, it does offend my heart:

Pray now, no more.

125

COMINIUSLook, sir, your mother.

CORIOLANUSO, you have, I know, petitioned all the gods

For my prosperity.[127]

Kneels

VOLUMNIANay, my good soldier, up: He rises

My gentle[129] Martius, worthy Caius,

130

And by deed-achieving honour[130] newly named:

What is it? ‘Coriolanus’ must I call thee?

But O, thy wife!

CORIOLANUSMy gracious[133] silence, hail. To Virgilia

Wouldst thou have laughed had I come coffined home,

135

That weep’st to see me triumph? Ah, my dear,

Such eyes the widows in Corioles wear,

And mothers that lack sons.

MENENIUSNow the gods crown thee!

CORIOLANUSAnd live you yet? O my sweet lady, pardon. To Valeria

140

VOLUMNIAI know not where to turn. O, welcome home:

And welcome, general, and you’re welcome all.

MENENIUSA hundred thousand welcomes: I could weep

And I could laugh, I am light[143] and heavy: welcome:

A curse begin at very root on’s[144] heart

145

That is not glad to see thee. You are three

That Rome should dote on: yet, by the faith of men,

We have some old crab-trees[147] here at home that will not

Be grafted[148] to your relish. Yet welcome, warriors:

We[149] call a nettle but a nettle and

150

The faults of fools but folly.

COMINIUSEver right!

CORIOLANUSMenenius, ever, ever.

HERALDGive[153] way there, and go on

CORIOLANUSYour hand, and yours. To Volumnia and Virgilia

155

Ere in our own house I do shade[155] my head,

The good patricians must be visited,

From whom I have received not only greetings,

But with them change of honours.[158]

VOLUMNIAI have lived

160

To see inherited[160] my very wishes,

And the buildings of my fancy:[161] only

There’s one thing wanting,[162] which I doubt not but

Our Rome will cast[163] upon thee.

CORIOLANUSKnow, good mother,

165

I had rather be their servant in my way,

Than sway[166] with them in theirs.

COMINIUSOn, to the Capitol

Flourish. Cornets. Exeunt in state, as before

Enter Brutus and Sicinius

BRUTUSAll tongues speak of him, and the blearèd[168] sights

Are spectacled[169] to see him. Your prattling nurse

170

Into a rapture[170] lets her baby cry

While she chats[171] him: the kitchen malkin pins

Her richest lockram[172] ’bout her reechy neck,

Clamb’ring the walls to eye him: stalls,[173] bulks, windows

Are smothered up, leads[174] filled, and ridges horsed

175

With variable complexions,[175] all agreeing

In earnestness to see him: seld-shown[176] flamens

Do press among the popular[177] throngs and puff

To win a vulgar station:[178] our veiled dames

Commit[179] the war of white and damask in

180

Their nicely gauded cheeks to th’wanton spoil

Of Phoebus’ burning kisses: such a pother[181]

As if that[182] whatsoever god who leads him

Were slily crept into his human powers,[183]

And gave him graceful posture.[184]

185

SICINIUSOn the sudden,[185] I warrant him consul

BRUTUSThen our office[186] may, during his power, go sleep

SICINIUSHe[187] cannot temp’rately transport his honours

From where he should begin and end, but will

Lose those he hath won.

190

BRUTUSIn that there’s comfort

SICINIUSDoubt not

The commoners, for[192] whom we stand, but they

Upon[193] their ancient malice will forget

With the least cause these his new honours, which[194]

195

That he will give them make I as little question

As[196] he is proud to do’t.

BRUTUSI heard him swear,

Were he to stand for consul, never would he

Appear i’th’market-place nor on him put

200

The napless vesture[200] of humility,

Nor, showing, as the manner is, his wounds

To th’people, beg their stinking breaths.[202]

SICINIUS’Tis right.

BRUTUSIt was his word: O, he would miss it[204] rather

205

Than carry it but[205] by the suit of the gentry to him,

And the desire of the nobles.

SICINIUSI wish no better

Than have him hold that purpose and to put it

In execution.

210

BRUTUS’Tis most like[210] he will

SICINIUSIt shall be to him then, as our good wills:[211]

A sure destruction.

BRUTUSSo[213] it must fall out

To him or our authorities for an end.

215

We must suggest[215] the people in what hatred

He still[216] hath held them: that to’s power he would

Have made them mules,[217] silenced their pleaders,

And dispropertied[218] their freedoms, holding them,

In human action and capacity,[219]

220

Of no more soul nor fitness for the world

Than camels in their war, who have their provand[221]

Only for bearing burdens, and sore blows

For sinking under them.

SICINIUSThis, as you say, suggested

225

At some time when his soaring insolence

Shall teach the people — which time shall not want,[226]

If he be put upon’t,[227] and that’s as easy

As to set dogs on sheep — will be his fire

To kindle their dry stubble, and their blaze

230

Shall darken[230] him for ever.

Enter a Messenger

BRUTUSWhat’s the matter?

MESSENGERYou are sent for to the Capitol: ’tis thought

That Martius shall be consul: I have seen

The dumb men throng to see him and the blind

235

To hear him speak: matrons[235] flung gloves,

Ladies and maids their scarves and handkerchiefs,

Upon him as he passed: the nobles bended[237]

As to Jove’s[238] statue, and the commons made

A shower and thunder with their caps and shouts:

240

I never saw the like.

BRUTUSLet’s to the Capitol,

And carry[242] with us ears and eyes for th’time,

But hearts[243] for the event.

SICINIUSHave with you.[244]

Exeunt

[Act 2 Scene 2]2.2

running scene 6

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

FIRST OFFICERCome, come, they are almost here: how many stand for consulships?

SECOND OFFICERThree, they say: but ’tis thought of[2] everyone Coriolanus will carry it.

FIRST OFFICERThat’s a brave[3] fellow: but he’s vengeance proud, and loves not the common people.

SECOND OFFICERFaith, there hath been many great men that have flattered the people, who ne’er loved them:[6] and there be many that they have loved, they know not wherefore:[7] so that if they love they know not why, they hate upon no better a ground. Therefore, for Coriolanus neither to care whether they love or hate him manifests the true knowledge he has in[9] their disposition, and out of his noble carelessness lets them plainly see’t.

FIRST OFFICERIf he did not care whether he had their love or no, he waved[11] indifferently ’twixt doing them neither good nor harm: but he seeks their hate with greater devotion than they can render it him, and leaves nothing undone that may fully discover him[14] their opposite. Now to seem to affect the malice and displeasure of the people is as bad as that which he dislikes, to flatter them for their love.

SECOND OFFICERHe hath deserved worthily of his country, and his ascent is not by such easy degrees,[18] as those who, having been supple and courteous to the people, bonneted[19] without any further deed to have them at all into their estimation and report: but he hath so planted his honours in their eyes and his actions in their hearts that for their tongues to be silent and not confess so much were a kind of ingrateful injury: to report otherwise were a malice that, giving[22] itself the lie, would pluck reproof and rebuke from every ear that heard it.

FIRST OFFICERNo more of him: he’s a worthy man: make way, they are coming.

A sennet. Enter the Patricians, and the Tribunes of the people [Sicinius and Brutus], Lictors before them: Coriolanus, Menenius, Cominius the consul. Sicinius and Brutus take their places by themselves: Coriolanus stands

25

MENENIUSHaving determined of[25] the Volsces and

To send for Titus Lartius, it remains

As the main point of this our after-meeting,[27]

To gratify[28] his noble service that

Hath thus stood for[29] his country. Therefore please you,

30

Most reverend and grave[30] elders, to desire

The present consul and last general

In our well-found[32] successes to report

A little of that worthy work performed

By Martius Caius Coriolanus, whom

35

We met here both to thank and to remember

With honours like himself.[36]

FIRST SENATORSpeak, good Cominius:

Leave nothing out for length,[38] and make us think

Rather our state’s defective for requital[39]

40

Than we to stretch it out.— Masters o’th’people, To the Tribunes

We do request your kindest ears: and after[41]

Your loving motion[42] toward the common body,

To yield[43] what passes here.

SICINIUSWe are convented[44] upon a pleasing treaty, and have hearts inclinable to honour and advance the theme[45] of our assembly.

BRUTUSWhich the rather we shall be blest[46] to do if he remember a kinder value of the people than he hath hereto[47] prized them at.

MENENIUSThat’s off,[48] that’s off. I would you rather had been silent: please you to hear Cominius speak?

BRUTUSMost willingly: but yet my caution was more pertinent than the rebuke you give it.

MENENIUSHe loves your people, but tie him not to be their bedfellow. Worthy Cominius, speak.

Coriolanus rises, and offers to go away

Nay, keep your place.To Coriolanus

55

FIRST SENATORSit, Coriolanus: never shame to hear

What you have nobly done.

CORIOLANUSYour honour’s pardon:

I had rather have my wounds to heal again

Than hear say how I got them.

60

BRUTUSSir, I hope my words disbenched[60] you not?

CORIOLANUSNo, sir: yet oft,

When blows have made me stay, I fled from words.

You soothed[63] not, therefore hurt not: but your people,

I love them as they weigh[64]—

65

MENENIUSPray now, sit down.

CORIOLANUSI had rather have[66] one scratch my head i’th’sun

When the alarum were struck than idly sit

To hear my nothings monstered.[68]

Exit Coriolanus

MENENIUSMasters of the people,

70

Your multiplying spawn[70] how can he flatter —

That’s[71] thousand to one good one — when you now see

He had rather venture all his limbs for honour

Than one on’s[73] ears to hear it? Proceed, Cominius.

COMINIUSI shall lack voice: the deeds of Coriolanus

75

Should not be uttered feebly: it is held

That valour is the chiefest virtue, and

Most dignifies the haver: if it be,

The man I speak of cannot in the world

Be singly counterpoised.[79] At sixteen years,

80

When Tarquin made[80] a head for Rome, he fought

Beyond the mark[81] of others: our then dictator,

Whom with all praise I point at,[82] saw him fight,

When with his Amazonian[83] chin he drove

1The bristled lips before him: he bestrid[84]

85

An o’erpressed[85] Roman, and i’th’consul’s view

Slew three opposers: Tarquin’s self he met,

And struck him on[87] his knee: in that day’s feats,

When he might[88] act the woman in the scene,

He proved best man i’th’fleld and for his meed[89]

90

Was brow-bound[90] with the oak. His pupil age

Man-entered thus, he waxèd[91] like a sea,

And in the brunt[92] of seventeen battles since

He lurched[93] all swords of the garland: for this last,

Before and in Corioles, let me say

95

I cannot speak him home:[95] he stopped the fliers,

And by his rare[96] example made the coward

Turn terror into sport: as weeds before

A vessel under sail, so men obeyed

And fell below his stem:[99] his sword, death’s stamp,

100

Where it did mark, it took:[100] from face to foot

He was a thing of blood, whose every motion

Was timed[102] with dying cries: alone he entered

The mortal[103] gate of th’city, which he, painted

With shunless destiny, aidless came off,[104]

105

And with a sudden reinforcement[105] struck

Corioles like a planet: now all’s his:

When by and by the din of war gan[107] pierce

His ready sense:[108] then straight his doubled spirit

Requickened[109] what in flesh was fatigate,

110

And to the battle came he, where he did

Run reeking[111] o’er the lives of men, as if

’Twere a perpetual spoil:[112] and till we called

Both field and city ours, he never stood

To ease his breast with panting.

MENENIUSWorthy man.

FIRST SENATORHe cannot but with measure[116] fit the honours which we devise him.

COMINIUSOur spoils he kicked[117] at,

And looked upon things precious as[118] they were

The common muck of the world: he covets less

120

Than misery[120] itself would give, rewards

His deeds with doing them,[121] and is content

To[122] spend the time to end it.

MENENIUSHe’s right noble: let him be called for.

FIRST SENATORCall Coriolanus.

125

OFFICERHe doth appear.

Enter Coriolanus

MENENIUSThe senate, Coriolanus, are well pleased to make thee consul.

CORIOLANUSI do owe them still[127] my life and services.

MENENIUSIt then remains that you do speak to the people.

CORIOLANUSI do beseech you,

130

Let me o’erleap that custom, for I cannot

Put on the gown, stand naked,[131] and entreat them,

For my wounds’ sake, to give their sufferage:[132]

Please you that I may pass[133] this doing.

SICINIUSSir, the people must have their voices:[134]

135

Neither will they bate[135] one jot of ceremony.

MENENIUSPut[136] them not to’t:

Pray you, go fit you to the custom and

Take to you, as your predecessors have,

Your honour with your form.[139]

140

CORIOLANUSIt is a part that I shall blush in acting,

And might well be taken from the people.

BRUTUSMark you that?To Sicinius

CORIOLANUSTo brag unto them, ‘Thus I did, and thus’:

Show them th’unaching scars which I should hide,

145

As if I had received them for the hire[145]

Of their breath only!

MENENIUSDo not stand upon’t:[147]

We recommend[148] to you, tribunes of the people,

Our purpose to them,[149] and to our noble consul

150

Wish we all joy and honour.

SENATORSTo Coriolanus come all joy and honour!

Flourish [of] cornets. Then exeunt [all but]Sicinius and Brutus

BRUTUSYou see how he intends to use[152] the people.

SICINIUSMay they perceive’s intent! He will require[153] them

As if he did contemn[154] what he requested

155

Should be in them to give.

BRUTUSCome, we’ll inform them

Of our proceedings here: on th’market-place

I know they do attend[158] us.

[Exeunt]

[Act 2 Scene 3]2.3

running scene 7

Enter seven or eight Citizens

FIRST CITIZENOnce,[1] if he do require our voices, we ought not to deny him.

SECOND CITIZENWe may, sir, if we will.

THIRD CITIZENWe have power,[4] in ourselves to do it, but it is a power that we have no power to do: for, if he show us his wounds and tell us his deeds, we are to put our tongues into those wounds and speak for them: so, if he tell us his noble deeds, we must also tell him our noble acceptance of them. Ingratitude is monstrous[6] and for the multitude to be ingrateful, were to make a monster of the multitude: of the which we, being members, should bring ourselves to be monstrous members.

FIRST CITIZENAnd to make us no better thought of, a[9] little help will serve: for once we stood up about the corn, he himself stuck[10] not to call us the many-headed multitude.

THIRD CITIZENWe have been called so of,[12] many, not that our heads are some brown, some black, some abram[13] some bald, but that our wits are so diversely coloured: and truly I think if all our wits were to issue out of one skull, they would fly east, west, north, south, and their consent of[15] one direct way should be at once to all the points o’th’compass.

SECOND CITIZENThink you so? Which way do you judge my wit would fly?

THIRD CITIZENNay, your wit will not so soon out.[18] as another man’s will: ’tis strongly wedged up in a blockhead: but if it were at liberty, ’twould sure southward[19]

SECOND CITIZENWhy that way?

THIRD CITIZENTo lose itself in a fog, where being three parts melted away with rotten[21] dews, the fourth would return for conscience’ sake, to help to get thee a wife.

SECOND CITIZENYou are never without your tricks: you may,[23] you may.

THIRD CITIZENAre you all resolved to give your voices? But that’s no matter, the greater part[25] carries it. I say, if he would incline to the people, there was never a worthier man.

Enter Coriolanus in a gown of humility, with Menenius

Here he comes, and in the gown of humility: mark his behaviour. We are not to stay all together, but to come by him where he stands, by ones, by twos, and by threes. He’s to make his requests by particulars,[29] wherein every one of us has a single honour,[30] in giving him our own voices with our own tongues: therefore follow me, and I’ll direct you how you shall go by him.

ALLContent, content.

[Exeunt Citizens]

MENENIUSO sir, you are not right: have you not known

The worthiest men have done’t?

35

CORIOLANUSWhat must I say?

‘I pray, sir’? Plague upon’t, I cannot bring

My tongue to such a pace:[37] ‘Look, sir, my wounds:

I got them in my country’s service when

Some certain of your brethren roared and ran

40

From th’noise of our own drums.’

MENENIUSO me, the gods! You must not speak of that:

You must desire them to think upon you.

CORIOLANUSThink upon me? Hang ’em:

I would[44] they would forget me, like the virtues

45

Which our divines[45] lose by ’em.

MENENIUSYou’ll mar all:

I’ll leave you: pray you, speak to ’em, I pray you,

In wholesome[48] manner.

Exit

CORIOLANUSBid them wash their faces

50

And keep their teeth clean.

Enter three of the Citizens

So, here comes a brace.[50]

You know the cause, sir, of my standing here.

THIRD CITIZENWe do, sir: tell us what hath brought you to’t.

CORIOLANUSMine own desert.

SECOND CITIZENYour own desert?

CORIOLANUSAy, but not mine own desire.

THIRD CITIZENHow not your own desire?

CORIOLANUSNo, sir, ’twas never my desire yet to trouble the poor with begging.

THIRD CITIZENYou must think, if we give you anything, we hope to gain by you.

CORIOLANUSWell then, I pray, your price o’th’consulship?

FIRST CITIZENThe price is to ask it kindly.[60]

CORIOLANUSKindly, sir, I pray let me ha’t: I have wounds to show you, which shall be yours[62] in private: your good voice, sir: what say you?

SECOND CITIZENYou shall ha’t, worthy sir.

CORIOLANUSA match,[64] sir. There’s in all two worthy voices begged: I have your alms: adieu.

THIRD CITIZENBut this is something[66] odd.

SECOND CITIZENAn ’twere[67] to give again — but ’tis no matter.

Exeunt [Citizens]

Enter two other Citizens

CORIOLANUSPray you now, if it may stand[68] with the tune of your voices that I may be consul, I have here the customary gown.

FOURTH CITIZENYou have deserved nobly of your country, and you have not deserved nobly.

CORIOLANUSYour enigma?[72]

FOURTH CITIZENYou have been a scourge[73] to her enemies, you have been a rod to her friends: you have not indeed loved the common people.

CORIOLANUSYou should account me the more virtuous that I have not been common[76] in my love: I will, sir, flatter my sworn brother the people to earn a dearer estimation of them: ’tis a condition[77] they account gentle: and since the wisdom of their choice is rather to have my hat[78] than my heart, I will practise the insinuating[79] nod, and be off to them most counterfeitly: that is, sir, I will counterfeit the bewitchment[80] of some popular man and give it bountiful to the desirers. Therefore, beseech you, I may be consul.

FIFTH CITIZENWe hope to find you our friend, and therefore give you our voices heartily.

FOURTH CITIZENYou have received many wounds for your country.

CORIOLANUSI will not seal[85] your knowledge with showing them. I will make much of your voices, and so trouble you no further.

BOTH CITIZENSThe gods give you joy, sir, heartily.

[Exeunt Citizens]

CORIOLANUSMost sweet voices:

Better it is to die, better to starve,

90

Than crave[90] the hire which first we do deserve.

Why in[91] this wolvish tongue should I stand here,

To beg of Hob[92] and Dick that does appear

Their needless[93] vouches? Custom calls me to’t.

What custom wills, in all things should we do’t?

95

The dust on antique time[95] would lie unswept,

And mountainous error be too highly heaped

For truth to o’erpeer.[97] Rather than fool it so,

Let the high office and the honour go

To one that would do thus.[99] I am half through:

100

The one part suffered, the other will I do.

Enter three Citizens more

Here come more voices.[101]

Your voices! For your voices I have fought,

Watched[103] for your voices: for your voices bear

Of wounds two dozen odd: battles thrice six

105

I have seen and heard of:[105] for your voices have

Done many things, some less, some more: your voices!

Indeed I would be consul.

SIXTH CITIZENHe has done nobly, and cannot go without any honest man’s voice.

SEVENTH CITIZENTherefore let him be consul: the gods give him joy, and make him good friend to the people.

ALL CITIZENSAmen, amen. God save thee, noble consul.

CORIOLANUSWorthy voices!

[Exeunt Citizens]

Enter Menenius, with Brutus and Sicinius

MENENIUSYou have stood your limitation,[113] and the tribunes

Endue[114] you with the people’s voice: remains

115

That in th’official marks[115] invested, you

Anon[116] do meet the senate.

CORIOLANUSIs this done?

SICINIUSThe custom of request[118] you have discharged:

The people do admit you, and are summoned

120

To meet anon, upon your approbation.[120]

CORIOLANUSWhere? At the senate house?

SICINIUSThere, Coriolanus.

CORIOLANUSMay I change these garments?

SICINIUSYou may, sir.

125

CORIOLANUSThat I’ll straight do, and, knowing myself again,

Repair[126] to th’senate house.

MENENIUSI’ll keep you company.— Will you along? To the Tribunes

BRUTUSWe stay here for the people.

SICINIUSFare you well.

Exeunt Coriolanus and Menenius

130

He has it now, and by his looks methinks

’Tis warm at’s heart.

BRUTUSWith a proud heart he wore his humble weeds.[132]

Will you dismiss the people?

Enter the Plebeians [Citizens]

SICINIUSHow now, my masters,[134] have you chose this man?

135

FIRST CITIZENHe has our voices, sir.

BRUTUSWe pray the gods he may deserve your loves.

SECOND CITIZENAmen, sir: to my poor unworthy notice,[137]

He mocked us when he begged our voices.

THIRD CITIZENCertainly: he flouted[139] us downright.

140

FIRST CITIZENNo, ’tis his kind of speech:[140] he did not mock us.

SECOND CITIZENNot one amongst us, save yourself, but says

He used us scornfully: he should have showed us

His marks of merit, wounds received for’s country.

SICINIUSWhy, so he did, I am sure.

145

ALL CITIZENSNo, no: no man saw ’em.

THIRD CITIZENHe said he had wounds, which he could show in private;

And with his hat, thus waving it in scorn,

‘I would be consul’, says he: ‘Agèd custom,

But by your voices, will not so permit me.

150

Your voices therefore.’ When we granted that,

Here was ‘I thank you for your voices: thank you:

Your most sweet voices: now you have left your voices,

I have no further with[153] you.’ Was not this mockery?

SICINIUSWhy either were you ignorant[154] to see’t,

155

Or, seeing it, of such childish friendliness

To yield your voices?

BRUTUSCould you not have told him To the Citizens

As you were lessoned:[158] when he had no power,

But was a petty servant to the state,

160

He was your enemy, ever[160] spake against

Your liberties and the charters[161] that you bear

I’th’body of the weal: and now arriving[162]

A place of potency and sway o’th’state,[163]

If he should still malignantly remain

165

Fast foe to th’plebeii,[165] your voices might

Be curses to yourselves. You should have said

That as his worthy deeds did claim no less

Than what[168] he stood for, so his gracious nature

Would think upon[169] you for your voices, and

170

Translate[170] his malice towards you into love,

Standing[171] your friendly lord.

SICINIUSThus to have said, To the Citizens

As you were fore-advised, had touched[173] his spirit

And tried his inclination: from him plucked

175

Either his gracious promise, which you might,

As cause[176] had called you up, have held him to:

Or else it would have galled[177] his surly nature,

Which easily endures not article[178]

Tying him to aught:[179] so putting him to rage,

180

You should have ta’en th’advantage of his choler[180]

And passed him unelected.

BRUTUSDid you perceive To the Citizens

He did solicit you in free[183] contempt

When he did need your loves? And do you think

185

That his contempt shall not be bruising to you

When he hath power to crush? Why, had your bodies

No heart[187] among you? Or had you tongues to cry

Against the rectorship[188] of judgement?

SICINIUSHave you, ere[189] now, denied the asker, To the Citizens

190

And now again, of him that did not ask but mock,

Bestow your sued-for[191] tongues?

THIRD CITIZENHe’s not confirmed: we may deny him yet.

SECOND CITIZENAnd will deny him:

I’ll have five hundred voices of that sound.

195

FIRST CITIZENI twice five hundred and their friends to piece[195] ’em.

BRUTUSGet you hence instantly, and tell those friends

They have chose a consul that will from them take

Their liberties: make them of no more voice

Than dogs that are as often beat for barking

200

As therefor[200] kept to do so.

SICINIUSLet them assemble, and on a safer[201] judgement To the Citizens

All revoke your ignorant election: enforce[202] his pride,

And his old hate unto you: besides, forget not

With what contempt he wore the humble weed,

205

How in his suit[205] he scorned you: but your loves,

Thinking upon his services, took from you

Th’apprehension[207] of his present portance,

Which most gibingly,[208] ungravely, he did fashion

After[209] the inveterate hate he bears you.

210

BRUTUSLay[210] a fault on us, your tribunes, To the Citizens

That we laboured, no impediment between,[211]

But that you must cast your election on him.

SICINIUSSay you chose him more after our commandment To the Citizens

Than as guided by your own true affections,[214] and that

215

Your minds, preoccupied with what you rather must do

Than what you should, made you against the grain[216]

To voice[217] him consul. Lay the fault on us.

BRUTUSAy, spare us not: say we read lectures to[218] you, To the Citizens

How youngly[219] he began to serve his country,

220

How long continued, and what stock he springs of,

The noble house o’th’Martians, from whence came

That Ancus Martius,[222] Numa’s daughter’s son,

Who after great Hostilius[223] here was king:

Of the same house Publius[224] and Quintus were,

225

That our best water brought by conduits[225] hither:

And Censorinus[226] that was so surnamed,

And nobly named so, twice being censor,[227]

Was his great ancestor.

SICINIUSOne thus descended,

230

That[230] hath beside well in his person wrought

To be set high in place, we did commend

To your remembrances: but you have found,

Scaling[233] his present bearing with his past,

That he’s your fixed enemy, and revoke

235

Your sudden[235] approbation.

BRUTUSSay, you ne’er had done’t —

Harp on that still — but by our putting[237] on:

And presently,[238] when you have drawn your number,

Repair[239] to th’Capitol.

240

ALLWe will so: almost all repent in their election.

Exeunt Plebeians [Citizens]

BRUTUSLet them go on:

This mutiny were better put in hazard,[242]

Than[243] stay, past doubt, for greater:

If, as his nature is, he fall in rage

245

With their refusal, both observe and answer[245]

The vantage of his anger.

SICINIUSTo th’Capitol, come:

We will be there before the stream o’th’people,

And this shall seem, as partly ’tis, their own,[249]

250

Which we have goaded onward.

Exeunt

Act 3 [Scene 1]3.1

running scene 8

Cornets. Enter Coriolanus, Menenius, all the gentry, Cominius, Titus Lartius, and other Senators

CORIOLANUSTullus Aufidius then had made new head?[1]

LARTIUSHe had, my lord, and that it was which caused

Our swifter composition.[3]

CORIOLANUSSo then the Volsces stand but as at first,

5

Ready, when time shall prompt them, to make road[5]

Upon’s again.

COMINIUSThey are worn,[7] lord consul, so,

That we shall hardly in our ages[8] see

Their banners wave again.

10

CORIOLANUSSaw you Aufidius? To Lartius

LARTIUSOn safeguard[11] he came to me, and did curse

Against the Volsces, for[12] they had so vilely

Yielded the town: he is retired[13] to Antium.

CORIOLANUSSpoke he of me?

15

LARTIUSHe did, my lord.

CORIOLANUSHow? What?

LARTIUSHow often he had met you sword to sword:

That of all things upon the earth, he hated

Your person most: that he would pawn his fortunes

20

To hopeless restitution,[20] so he might

Be called your vanquisher.

CORIOLANUSAt Antium lives he?

LARTIUSAt Antium.

CORIOLANUSI wish I had a cause to seek him there,

25

To oppose his hatred fully. Welcome home.

Enter Sicinius and Brutus

Behold, these are the tribunes of the people,

The tongues o’th’common mouth. I do despise them,

For they do prank them[28] in authority,

Against[29] all noble sufferance.

30

SICINIUSPass no further.

CORIOLANUSHa? What is that?

BRUTUSIt will be dangerous to go on. No further.

CORIOLANUSWhat makes this change?

MENENIUSThe matter?

35

COMINIUSHath he not passed[35] the noble and the common?

BRUTUSCominius, no.

CORIOLANUSHave I had children’s voices?

FIRST SENATORTribunes, give way: he shall to th’market-place.

BRUTUSThe people are incensed against him.

40

SICINIUSStop, or all will fall in broil.[40]

CORIOLANUSAre these your herd?

Must these have voices,[42] that can yield them now

And straight[43] disclaim their tongues? What are your offices?

You being their mouths, why rule[44] you not their teeth?

45

Have you not set them on?[45]

MENENIUSBe calm, be calm.

CORIOLANUSIt is a purposed[47] thing, and grows by plot,

To curb the will of the nobility:

Suffer’t, and live[49] with such as cannot rule

50

Nor ever will be ruled.

BRUTUSCall’t not a plot:

The people cry you mocked them, and of late,[52]

When corn was given them gratis,[53] you repined,

Scandalled[54] the suppliants for the people, called them

55

Time-pleasers,[55] flatterers, foes to nobleness.

CORIOLANUSWhy, this was known before.

BRUTUSNot to them all.

CORIOLANUSHave you informed them sithence?[58]

BRUTUSHow? I inform them?

60

CORIOLANUSYou are like[60] to do such business.

BRUTUSNot[61] unlike each way to better yours.

CORIOLANUSWhy then should I be consul? By yond[62] clouds,

Let me deserve so ill as you, and make me

Your fellow tribune.

65

SICINIUSYou show too much of that[65]

For which the people stir: if you will pass

To where you are bound, you must inquire your way,

Which you are out of,[68] with a gentler spirit,

Or never be so noble as a consul,

70

Nor yoke[70] with him for tribune.

MENENIUSLet’s be calm.

COMINIUSThe people are abused:[72] set on. This palt’ring

Becomes not Rome: nor has Coriolanus

Deserved this so dishonoured[74] rub, laid falsely

75

I’th’plain[75] way of his merit.

CORIOLANUSTell me of corn?

This was my speech, and I will speak’t again—

MENENIUSNot now, not now.

FIRST SENATORNot in this heat, sir, now.

80

CORIOLANUSNow, as I live, I will.

My nobler friends, I crave their pardons:

For[82] the mutable, rank-scented meinie,

Let them regard[83] me, as I do not flatter,

And therein behold themselves:[84] I say again,

85

In soothing[85] them, we nourish gainst our senate

The cockle[86] of rebellion, insolence, sedition,

Which we ourselves have ploughed for, sowed and scattered,

By mingling them with us, the honoured[88] number,

Who lack not virtue, no, nor power, but that

90

Which they have given to beggars.

MENENIUSWell, no more.

FIRST SENATORNo more words, we beseech you.

CORIOLANUSHow? No more?

As for my country I have shed my blood,

95

Not fearing outward force: so shall my lungs

Coin[96] words till their decay against those measles

Which we disdain should tetter[97] us, yet sought

The very way to catch them.

BRUTUSYou speak o’th’people as if you were a god

100

To punish, not a man of their infirmity.[100]

SICINIUS’Twere well we let the people know’t.

MENENIUSWhat, what, his choler?[102]

CORIOLANUSCholer? Were I as patient[103] as the midnight sleep,

By Jove, ’twould be my mind.[104]

105

SICINIUSIt is a mind that shall remain a poison

Where it is, not poison any further.

CORIOLANUSShall remain?

Hear you this Triton[108] of the minnows? Mark you

His absolute ‘shall’?

110

COMINIUS’Twas from the canon.[110]

CORIOLANUS‘Shall’? O good but most unwise patricians: why,

You grave but reckless senators, have you thus

Given[113] Hydra here to choose an officer,

That with his peremptory[114] ‘shall’, being but

115

The horn and noise[115] o’th’monster’s, wants not spirit

To say he’ll turn[116] your current in a ditch,

And make your channel his? If he have power

Then vail your ignorance:[118] if none, awake

Your dangerous lenity. If you are learned,

120

Be not as common fools: if you are not,

Let them have cushions[121] by you. You are plebeians,

If they be senators: and they are no less,

When, both your voices[123] blended, the great’st taste

Most palates theirs. They choose their magistrate,

125

And such a one as he, who puts his ‘shall’,

His popular[126] ‘shall’, against a graver bench

Than ever frowned in Greece. By Jove himself,

It makes the consuls base: and my soul aches

To know, when two authorities are up,[129]

130

Neither supreme, how soon confusion[130]

May enter ’twixt the gap of both,[131] and take

The one by[132] th’other.

COMINIUSWell, on to th’market-place.

CORIOLANUSWhoever gave that counsel to give forth

135

The corn o’th’storehouse gratis, as ’twas used[135]

Sometime in Greece—

MENENIUSWell, well, no more of that.

CORIOLANUSThough there the people had more absolute power,

I say, they nourished disobedience, fed

140

The ruin of the state.

BRUTUSWhy shall the people give[141]

One that speaks thus their voice?

CORIOLANUSI’ll give my reasons,

More worthier than their voices. They know the corn

145

Was not our recompense,[145] resting well assured

They ne’er did service for’t: being pressed[146] to th’war,

Even when the navel[147] of the state was touched,

They would not thread[148] the gates: this kind of service

Did not deserve corn gratis. Being i’th’war,

150

Their mutinies and revolts, wherein they showed

Most valour, spoke not for[151] them. Th’accusation

Which they have often made against the senate,

All cause unborn,[153] could never be the native

Of our so frank[154] donation. Well, what then?

155

How shall this bosom multiplied[155] digest

The senate’s courtesy? Let deeds express

What’s like[157] to be their words: ‘We did request it,

We are the greater poll,[158] and in true fear

They gave us our demands.’ Thus we debase

160

The nature of our seats, and make the rabble

Call our cares[161] fears, which will in time

Break ope the locks o’th’senate, and bring in

The crows[163] to peck the eagles.

MENENIUSCome, enough.

165

BRUTUSEnough with over-measure.[165]

CORIOLANUSNo, take more.

What may be sworn by, both divine and human,

Seal[168] what I end withal. This double worship,

Where one part does disdain with cause, the other

170

Insult[170] without all reason: where gentry, title, wisdom,

Cannot conclude[171] but by the yea and no

Of general[172] ignorance, it must omit

Real necessities, and give way the while[173]

To unstable slightness.[174] Purpose so barred, it follows,

175

Nothing is done to purpose.[175] Therefore, beseech you —

You that will be less fearful[176] than discreet,

That love[177] the fundamental part of state

More than you doubt the change on’t, that prefer

A noble life before a long, and wish

180

To jump[180] a body with a dangerous physic

That’s sure of death without it — at once pluck out

The multitudinous tongue:[182] let them not lick

The sweet[183] which is their poison. Your dishonour

Mangles true judgement, and bereaves[184] the state

185

Of that integrity[185] which should become’t,

Not having the power to do the good it would,

For th’ill[187] which doth control’t.

BRUTUSHe’s said enough.

SICINIUSHe’s spoken like a traitor, and shall answer[189]

190

As traitors do.

CORIOLANUSThou wretch, despite[191] o’erwhelm thee!

What should the people do with these bald[192] tribunes?

On whom depending, their obedience fails

To th’greater bench?[194] In a rebellion,

195

When what’s[195] not meet, but what must be, was law,

Then were they chosen: in a better hour,

Let what[197] is meet be said it must be meet,

And throw their power i’th’dust.

BRUTUSManifest treason.

200

SICINIUSThis a consul? No.

BRUTUSThe aediles,[201] ho!

Enter an Aedile

Let him be apprehended.[202]

SICINIUSGo, call the people:—

[Exit Aedile]

in whose name myself To Coriolanus

Attach[204] thee as a traitorous innovator,

205

A foe to th’public weal.[205] Obey, I charge thee,

And follow to thine answer.[206]

CORIOLANUSHence, old goat!

ALL PATRICIANSwe’ll surety[208] him.

COMINIUSAgèd sir, hands off. To Sicinius

210

CORIOLANUSHence, rotten thing, or I shall shake thy bones To Sicinius

Out of thy garments.

SICINIUSHelp, ye citizens!

Enter a rabble of Plebeians [Citizens] with the Aediles

MENENIUSOn both sides more respect.

SICINIUSHere’s he that would take from you all your power.

215

BRUTUSSeize him, aediles!

ALL CITIZENSDown with him, down with him!

SECOND SENATORWeapons, weapons, weapons!

They all bustle about Coriolanus

Tribunes! Patricians! Citizens! What, ho!

Sicinius! Brutus! Coriolanus! Citizens!

220

ALLPeace, peace, peace! Stay, hold, peace!

MENENIUSWhat is about to be? I am out of breath:

Confusion’s[222] near: I cannot speak. You, tribunes

To th’people, Coriolanus, patience!

Speak, good Sicinius.

225

SICINIUSHear me, people, peace.

ALL CITIZENSLet’s hear our tribune: peace! Speak, speak, speak!

SICINIUSYou are at[227] point to lose your liberties:

Martius would have all from you: Martius,

Whom late you have named for consul.

230

MENENIUSFie, fie, fie, this is the way to kindle, not to quench.

FIRST SENATORTo unbuild the city and to lay all flat.

SICINIUSWhat is the city but the people?

ALL CITIZENSTrue, the people are the city.

BRUTUSBy the consent of all, we were established the people’s magistrates.

235

ALL CITIZENSYou so remain.

MENENIUSAnd so are like to do.

CORIOLANUSThat is the way to lay the city flat,

To bring the roof to the foundation,

And bury all, which yet distinctly ranges,[239]

240

In heaps and piles of ruin.

SICINIUSThis deserves death.

BRUTUSOr[242] let us stand to our authority,

Or let us lose it: we do here pronounce,

Upon the part[244] o’th’people, in whose power

245

We were elected theirs, Martius is worthy

Of present[246] death.

SICINIUSTherefore lay hold of him:

Bear him to th’rock Tarpeian,[248] and from thence

Into destruction cast him.

250

BRUTUSAediles, seize him.

ALL CITIZENSYield, Martius, yield.

MENENIUSHear me one word: beseech you, tribunes,

Hear me but a word.

AEDILESPeace, peace!

255

MENENIUSBe that[255] you seem, truly your country’s friend,

And temp’rately[256] proceed to what you would

Thus violently redress.

BRUTUSSir, those cold[258] ways,

That seem like prudent helps, are very poisonous

260

Where the disease is violent. Lay hands upon him,

And bear him to the rock.

Coriolanus draws his sword

CORIOLANUSNo, I’ll die here:

There’s some among you have beheld me fighting:

Come, try upon yourselves what you have seen me.[264]

265

MENENIUSDown with that sword: tribunes, withdraw a while.

BRUTUSLay hands upon him.

COMINIUSHelp Martius, help! You that be noble, help him, young and old.

ALL CITIZENSDown with him, down with him.

Exeunt

In this mutiny, the Tribunes, the Aediles and the people are beat in

MENENIUSGo, get you to your house: be gone, away!

270

All will be naught[270] else.

SECOND SENATORGet you gone.

CORIOLANUSStand fast: we have as many friends as enemies.

MENENIUSShall it be put to that?

FIRST SENATORThe gods forbid!

275

I prithee, noble friend, home to thy house:

Leave us to cure this cause.[276]

MENENIUSFor ’tis a sore upon us,

You cannot tent[278] yourself: be gone, beseech you.

COMINIUSCome, sir, along with us.

280

CORIOLANUSI would they were barbarians, as they are,

Though in Rome littered:[281] not Romans, as they are not,

Though calved i’th’porch o’th’Capitol.

MENENIUSBe gone:

Put not your worthy rage into your tongue:

285

One[285] time will owe another.

CORIOLANUSOn fair ground I could beat forty of them.

MENENIUSI could myself take up[287] a brace o’th’best of them, yea, the two tribunes.

COMINIUSBut now ’tis[288] odds beyond arithmetic,

And manhood[289] is called foolery when it stands

290

Against a falling fabric.[290] Will you hence,

Before the tag[291] return, whose rage doth rend

Like interrupted[292] waters and o’erbear

What they are used to bear?

MENENIUSPray you be gone: To Coriolanus

295

I’ll try whether my old wit be in request[295]

With those that have but little: this must be patched[296]

With cloth of any colour.

COMINIUSNay, come away.

Exeunt Coriolanus and Cominius

A PATRICIANThis man has marred his fortune.

300

MENENIUSHis nature is too noble for the world:

He would not flatter Neptune[301] for his trident,

Or Jove for’s power to thunder:[302] his heart’s his mouth:

What his breast forges, that his tongue must vent,

And, being angry, does forget that ever

305

He heard the name of death.

A noise within

Here’s goodly work.

A PATRICIANI would they were abed.

MENENIUSI would they were in Tiber.[307] What the vengeance!

Could he not speak ’em fair?[308]

Enter Brutus and Sicinius with the rabble again

SICINIUSWhere is this viper

310

That would depopulate the city and

Be every man himself?

MENENIUSYou worthy tribunes—

SICINIUSHe shall be thrown down the Tarpeian rock

With rigorous[314] hands: he hath resisted law,

315

And therefore law shall scorn[315] him further trial

Than the severity of the public power

Which he so sets[317] at naught.

FIRST CITIZENHe shall well know the noble tribunes are

The people’s mouths, and we their hands.

320

ALL CITIZENSHe shall, sure on’t.[320]

MENENIUSSir, sir—

SICINIUSPeace!

MENENIUSDo not cry havoc[323] where you should but hunt

With modest warrant.[324]

325

SICINIUSSir, how com’st that you have holp[325]

To make this rescue?[326]

MENENIUSHear me speak: as I do know

The consul’s worthiness, so can I name his faults.

SICINIUSConsul? What consul?

330

MENENIUSThe consul Coriolanus.

BRUTUSHe consul?

ALL CITIZENSNo, no, no, no, no.

MENENIUSIf, by the tribunes’ leave,[333] and yours, good people,

I may be heard, I would crave a word or two,

335

The which shall turn you to no further harm

Than so much loss of time.

SICINIUSSpeak briefly then,

For we are peremptory[338] to dispatch

This viperous traitor: to eject him hence[339]

340

Were but our danger, and to keep him here

Our certain death: therefore it is decreed

He dies tonight.

MENENIUSNow the good gods forbid

That our renownèd Rome, whose gratitude

345

Towards her deservèd[345] children is enrolled

In Jove’s own book, like an unnatural dam[346]

Should now eat up her own!

SICINIUSHe’s a disease that must be cut away.

MENENIUSO, he’s a limb that has but a disease:

350

Mortal[350] to cut it off: to cure it, easy.

What has he done to Rome that’s worthy death?

Killing our enemies, the blood he hath lost —

Which I dare vouch is more than that he hath

By many an ounce — he dropped it for his country:

355

And what is left, to lose it by[355] his country,

Were to us all that do’t and suffer[356] it,

A brand[357] to th’end o’th’world.

SICINIUSThis is clean cam.[358]

BRUTUSMerely[359] awry:

360

When he did love his country, it honoured him.

MENENIUSThe service of the foot,

Being once gangrened, is not then respected

For what before it was.

BRUTUSWe’ll hear no more:

365

Pursue him to his house, and pluck him thence,

Lest his infection, being of catching nature,

Spread further.

MENENIUSOne word more, one word:

This tiger-footed rage, when it shall find

370

The harm of unscanned[370] swiftness, will too late

Tie leaden pounds to’s[371] heels. Proceed by process,

Lest parties,[372] as he is beloved, break out,

And sack great Rome with Romans.

BRUTUSIf it were so?

375

SICINIUSWhat[375] do ye talk? To Menenius

Have we not had a taste of his obedience?

Our aediles smote,[377] ourselves resisted? Come.

MENENIUSConsider this: he has been bred i’th’wars

Since a[379] could draw a sword, and is ill-schooled

380

In bolted[380] language: meal and bran together

He throws without distinction. Give me leave,

I’ll go to him, and undertake to bring him

Where[383] he shall answer by a lawful form,

In peace, to his utmost peril.

385

FIRST SENATORNoble tribunes,

It is the humane way: the other course

Will prove too bloody, and the end of it

Unknown[388] to the beginning.

SICINIUSNoble Menenius,

390

Be you then as the people’s officer:

Masters, lay down your weapons.

BRUTUSGo not home.

SICINIUSMeet on the market-place: we’ll attend[393] you there,

Where, if you bring not Martius, we’ll proceed

395

In our first way.

MENENIUSI’ll bring him to you.

Let me desire your company: he must come, To the Senators

Or what is worst will follow.

FIRST SENATORPray you, let’s to him.

Exeunt

[Act 3 Scene 2]*

running scene 9

Enter Coriolanus with Nobles

CORIOLANUSLet them pull[1] all about mine ears, present me

Death on the wheel,[2] or at wild horses’ heels,

Or pile ten hills on the Tarpeian rock,

That the precipitation[4] might down stretch

5

Below the beam[5] of sight, yet will I still

Be thus to them.

Enter Volumnia

A PATRICIANYou do the nobler.

CORIOLANUSI muse[8] my mother

Does not approve[9] me further, who was wont

10

To call them woollen[10] vassals, things created

To buy and sell with groats,[11] to show bare heads

In congregations,[12] to yawn, be still and wonder,

When one but of my ordinance[13] stood up

To speak of peace or war.— I talk of you: To Volumnia

15

Why did you wish me milder? Would you have me

False to my nature? Rather say I play

The man I am.

VOLUMNIAO, sir, sir, sir,

I would have had you put[19] your power well on,

20

Before you had worn it out.

CORIOLANUSLet go.[21]

VOLUMNIAYou might have been enough the man you are,

With striving less to be so: lesser[23] had been

The things of your dispositions, if

25

You had not showed them how ye were disposed

Ere[26] they lacked power to cross you.

CORIOLANUSLet them hang.

VOLUMNIAAy, and burn too.

Enter Menenius with the Senators

MENENIUSCome, come, you have been too rough, something[29] too rough:

30

You must return and mend it.

FIRST SENATORThere’s no remedy:

Unless by not so doing, our good city

Cleave[33] in the midst and perish.

VOLUMNIAPray, be counselled: To Coriolanus

35

I have a heart as little apt[35] as yours,

But yet a brain that leads my use of anger

To better vantage.[37]

MENENIUSWell said, noble woman:

Before he should thus stoop to th’herd, but[39] that

40

The violent fit[40] o’th’time craves it as physic

For the whole state, I would put mine armour on,

Which I can scarcely bear.

CORIOLANUSWhat must I do?

MENENIUSReturn to th’tribunes.

45

CORIOLANUSWell, what then? What then?

MENENIUSRepent what you have spoke.

CORIOLANUSFor them? I cannot do it to the gods:

Must I then do’t to them?

VOLUMNIAYou are too absolute,[49]

50

Though therein[50] you can never be too noble,

But when extremities speak. I have heard you say,

Honour and policy,[52] like unsevered friends,

I’th’war do grow together: grant that, and tell me

In peace what each of them by th’other lose,

55

That they combine not there.

CORIOLANUSTush, tush!

MENENIUSA good demand.[57]

VOLUMNIAIf it be honour in your wars to seem[58]

The same you are not, which for your best ends

60

You adopt[60] your policy, how is it less or worse

That[61] it shall hold companionship in peace

With honour, as in war, since that to both

It stands in like request?

CORIOLANUSWhy force[64] you this?

65

VOLUMNIABecause that now it lies you on[65] to speak to th’people,

Not by your own instruction,[66] nor by th’matter

Which your heart prompts you, but with such words

That are but roted[68] in your tongue, though but

Bastards[69] and syllables of no allowance

70

To your bosom’s truth. Now this no more

Dishonours you at all than to take in[71]

A town with gentle[72] words, which else would put you

To your fortune and the hazard of much blood.

I would dissemble with[74] my nature where

75

My fortunes and my friends at stake required

I[76] should do so in honour. I am in this

Your wife, your son, these senators, the nobles:

And you will rather show our general[78] louts

How you can frown than spend a fawn[79] upon ’em,

80

For the inheritance[80] of their loves, and safeguard

Of what that want[81] might ruin.

MENENIUSNoble lady!—

Come, go with us: speak fair: you may salve[83] so, To Corioianus

Not[84] what is dangerous present, but the loss

85

Of what is past.

VOLUMNIAI prithee now, my son,

Go to them, with this bonnet[87] in thy hand,

And thus far having stretched[88] it — here be with them —

Thy knee bussing[89] the stones: for in such business

90

Action is eloquence, and the eyes of th’ignorant

More learnèd[91] than the ears — waving thy head,

With often thus correcting thy stout[92] heart,

Now humble as the ripest mulberry

That will not hold[94] the handling: or say to them,

95

Thou art their soldier, and being bred in broils[95]

Hast not the soft[96] way which, thou dost confess,

Were fit[97] for thee to use as they to claim,

In asking[98] their good loves, but thou wilt frame

Thyself, forsooth,[99] hereafter theirs so far

100

As thou hast power and person.[100]

MENENIUSThis but done,

Even[102] as she speaks, why, their hearts were yours:

For they have pardons, being asked, as free[103]

As words to little purpose.

105

VOLUMNIAPrithee now,

Go, and be ruled: although I know thou hadst rather

Follow thine enemy in a fiery gulf

Than flatter him in a bower.[108]

Enter Cominius

Here is Cominius.

110

COMINIUSI have been i’th’market-place: and, sir, ’tis fit

You make[111] strong party, or defend yourself

By calmness or by absence: all’s in anger.

MENENIUSOnly fair speech.

COMINIUSI think ’twill serve, if he can thereto frame his spirit.

115

VOLUMNIAHe must, and will:

Prithee now, say you will, and go about it.

CORIOLANUSMust I go show them my unbarbèd sconce?[117]

Must I with my base tongue give to my noble heart

A lie that it must bear? Well, I will do’t:

120

Yet were there but this single plot[120] to lose,

This mould[121] of Martius, they to dust should grind it

And throw’t against the wind. To th’market-place:

You have put me now to such a part which never

I shall discharge to th’life.[124]

125

COMINIUSCome, come, we’ll prompt you.

VOLUMNIAI prithee now, sweet son, as thou hast said

My praises made thee first a soldier, so

To have my praise for this, perform a part

Thou hast not done before.

130

CORIOLANUSWell, I must do’t:

Away, my disposition, and possess me

Some harlot’s[132] spirit: my throat of war be turned,

Which choirèd[133] with my drum, into a pipe

Small[134] as an eunuch, or the virgin voice

135

That babies lull[135] asleep: the smiles of knaves

Tent[136] in my cheeks, and schoolboys’ tears take up

The[137] glasses of my sight: a beggar’s tongue

Make motion through my lips, and my armed knees,

Who bowed but in my stirrup, bend like his

140

That hath received an alms.[140] I will not do’t,

Lest I surcease[141] to honour mine own truth

And by my body’s action teach my mind

A most inherent[143] baseness.

VOLUMNIAAt thy choice, then:

145

To beg of thee, it is my more dishonour

Than thou of them. Come all to ruin: let

Thy mother rather feel[147] thy pride than fear

Thy dangerous stoutness:[148] for I mock at death

With as big heart[149] as thou. Do as thou list:

150

Thy valiantness was mine, thou sucked’st it from me,

But owe[151] thy pride thyself.

CORIOLANUSPray, be content:

Mother, I am going to the market-place:

Chide me no more. I’ll mountebank[154] their loves,

155

Cog[155] their hearts from them, and come home beloved

Of all the trades in Rome. Look, I am going:

Commend me to my wife. I’ll return consul,

Or never trust to what my tongue can do

I’th’way of flattery further.

160

VOLUMNIADo your will.

Exit

COMINIUSAway, the tribunes do attend you: arm[161] yourself

To answer mildly: for they are prepared

With accusations, as I hear, more strong

Than are upon you yet.

165

CORIOLANUSThe word[165] is ‘mildly’. Pray you, let us go:

Let them accuse me by invention:[166] I

Will answer in mine honour.

MENENIUSAy, but mildly.

CORIOLANUSWell, mildly be it then: mildly.

Exeunt

[Act 3 Scene 3]3.3

running scene 10

Enter Sicinius and Brutus

BRUTUSIn this point charge him home,[1] that he affects

Tyrannical power: if he evade us there,

Enforce[3] him with his envy to the people,

And that the spoil got on[4] the Antiates

5

Was ne’er distributed.

Enter an Aedile

What, will he come?

AEDILEHe’s coming.

BRUTUSHow accompanied?

AEDILEWith old Menenius, and those senators

That always favoured him.

10

SICINIUSHave you a catalogue[10]

Of all the voices that we have procured

Set down by th’poll?[12]

AEDILEI have: ’tis ready.

SICINIUSHave you collected them by tribes?[14]

15

AEDILEI have.

SICINIUSAssemble presently[16] the people hither:

And when they hear me say ‘It shall be so,

I’th’right and strength o’th’commons’, be it either

For death, for fine, or banishment, then let them

20

If I say ‘Fine’, cry ‘Fine!’, if ‘Death’, cry ‘Death!’,

Insisting on the old prerogative[21]

And power i’th’truth o’th’cause.[22]

AEDILEI shall inform them.

BRUTUSAnd when such time they have begun to cry,[24]

25

Let them not cease, but with a din confused

Enforce the present execution[26]

Of what we chance to sentence.

AEDILEVery well.

SICINIUSMake them be strong and ready for this hint

30

When we shall hap[30] to give’t them.

BRUTUSGo about it.

[Exit Aedile]

Put[32] him to choler straight: he hath been used

Ever to conquer, and to have his worth[33]

Of contradiction. Being once chafed,[34] he cannot

35

Be reined again to temperance: then he speaks

What’s in his heart, and that is there which looks[36]

With us[37] to break his neck.

Enter Coriolanus, Menenius and Cominius, with others [Senators and Patricians]

SICINIUSWell, here he comes.

MENENIUSCalmly, I do beseech you. To Coriolanus

40

CORIOLANUSAy, as an ostler,[40] that for th’poorest piece

Will bear[41] the knave by th’volume. Th’honoured gods

Keep Rome in safety and the chairs of justice

Supplied with worthy men: plant love among’s,[43]

Throng our large temples with the shows[44] of peace,

45

And not our streets with war!

FIRST SENATORAmen, amen.

MENENIUSA noble wish.

Enter the Aedile with the Plebians [Citizens]

SICINIUSDraw near, ye people.

AEDILEList[49] to your tribunes. Audience: peace, I say.

50

CORIOLANUSFirst, hear me speak.

SICINIUS and BRUTUS Well, say.— Peace, ho!

CORIOLANUSShall I be charged no further than this present?[52]

Must all determine[53] here?

SICINIUSI do demand[54]

55

If you submit you to the people’s voices,

Allow[56] their officers, and are content

To suffer lawful censure[57] for such faults

As shall be proved upon you.

CORIOLANUSI am content.

60

MENENIUSLo, citizens, he says he is content.

The warlike service he has done, consider: think

Upon the wounds his body bears, which show

Like graves i’th’holy churchyard.

CORIOLANUSScratches with briers, scars to move laughter only.

65

MENENIUSConsider further

That when he speaks not like a citizen,

You find him like a soldier: do not take

His rougher accents[68] for malicious sounds,

But, as I say, such as become a soldier,

70

Rather than envy you.[70]

COMINIUSWell, well, no more.

CORIOLANUSWhat is the matter

That being passed for consul with full voice,

I am so dishonoured that the very[74] hour

75

You take it off again?

SICINIUSAnswer to us.[76]

CORIOLANUSSay, then: ’tis true, I ought so.[77]

SICINIUSWe charge you that you have contrived[78] to take

From Rome all seasoned[79] office, and to wind

80

Yourself into a power tyrannical,

For which you are a traitor to the people.

CORIOLANUSHow?[82] Traitor?

MENENIUSNay, temperately: your promise.

CORIOLANUSThe fires i’th’lowest hell fold in[84] the people!

85

Call me their traitor,[85] thou injurious tribune?

Within[86] thine eyes sat twenty thousand deaths,

In thy hands clutched as many millions, in

Thy lying tongue both numbers, I would say ‘

Thou liest’ unto thee with a voice as free[89]

90

As I[90] do pray the gods.

SICINIUSMark you this, people?

ALL CITIZENSTo th’rock, to th’rock with him!

SICINIUSPeace!

We need not put[94] new matter to his charge:

95

What you have seen him do and heard him speak,

Beating your officers, cursing yourselves,

Opposing laws with strokes,[97] and here defying

Those whose great power must try him.

Even this, so criminal, and in such capital[99] kind,

100

Deserves th’extremest death.

BRUTUSBut since he hath served well for Rome—

CORIOLANUSWhat do you prate[102] of service?

BRUTUSI talk of that, that know it.

CORIOLANUSYou?

105

MENENIUSIs this the promise that you made your mother?

COMINIUSKnow, I pray you—

CORIOLANUSI’ll know no further:

Let them pronounce the steep Tarpeian death,

Vagabond exile, flaying, pent[109] to linger

110

But with a grain a day, I would not buy

Their mercy at the price of one fair word,

Nor check[112] my courage for what they can give,

To have’t[113] with saying ‘Good morrow.’

SICINIUSFor[114] that he has,

115

As much as in him lies,[115] from time to time

Envied against[116] the people, seeking means

To pluck away their power, as[117] now at last

Given hostile strokes, and that not[118] in the presence

Of dreaded justice, but on the ministers

120

That doth distribute it. In the name o’th’people,

And in the power of us the tribunes, we,

Even from this instant, banish him our city,

In peril of precipitation[123]

From off the rock Tarpeian, never more

125

To enter our Rome gates. I’th’people’s name,

I say it shall be so.

ALL CITIZENSIt shall be so, it shall be so: let him away:

He’s banished, and it shall be so.

COMINIUSHear me, my masters, and my common friends—

130

SICINIUSHe’s sentenced: no more hearing.

COMINIUSLet me speak:

I have been consul, and can show for Rome

Her enemies’ marks upon me. I do love

My country’s good with a respect more tender,

135

More holy and profound, than mine own life,

My dear wife’s estimate,[136] her womb’s increase,

And treasure of my loins: then if I would

Speak that—

SICINIUSWe know your drift. Speak what?

140

BRUTUSThere’s no more to be said, but he is banished,

As enemy to the people and his country.

It shall be so.

ALL CITIZENSIt shall be so, it shall be so.

CORIOLANUSYou common cry[144] of curs, whose breath I hate

145

As reek[145] o’th’rotten fens: whose loves I prize

As the dead carcasses of unburied men

That do corrupt my air: I banish you,

And here remain[148] with your uncertainty.

Let every feeble rumour shake your hearts:

150

Your enemies, with nodding of their plumes,[150]

Fan you into despair: have[151] the power still

To banish your defenders, till at length

Your ignorance, which finds[153] not till it feels,

Making[154] but reservation of yourselves,

155

Still[155] your own foes, deliver you

As most abated[156] captives to some nation

That won you without blows, despising,

For[158] you, the city. Thus I turn my back:

There is a world elsewhere.

Exeunt Coriolanus, Cominius, [Menenius, Senators and Patricians. The Citizens] all shout, and throw up their caps

160

AEDILEThe people’s enemy is gone, is gone!

ALL CITIZENSOur enemy is banished, he is gone. Hoo-oo!

SICINIUSGo see him out at gates, and follow him

As he hath followed you, with all despite:[163]

Give him deserved vexation.[164] Let a guard

165

Attend us through the city.

ALL CITIZENSCome, come, let’s see him out at gates: come.

The gods preserve our noble tribunes! Come.

Exeunt

Act 4 [Scene 1]4.1

running scene 11

Enter Coriolanus, Volumnia, Virgilia, Menenius, Cominius, with the young nobility of Rome

CORIOLANUSCome, leave[1] your tears: a brief farewell: the beast

With many heads butts me away. Nay, mother,

Where is your ancient[3] courage? You were used

To say extremities[4] was the trier of spirits,

5

That common chances[5] common men could bear:

That when the sea was calm, all boats alike

Showed mastership in floating. Fortune’s[7] blows,

When most struck home, being gentle wounded, craves

A noble cunning. You were used to load me

10

With precepts that would make invincible

The heart that conned[11] them.

VIRGILIAO heavens! O heavens!

CORIOLANUSNay, I prithee, woman—

VOLUMNIANow the red pestilence[14] strike all trades in Rome,

15

And occupations[15] perish!

CORIOLANUSWhat, what, what?

I shall be loved when I am lacked.[17] Nay, mother,

Resume that spirit, when you were wont[18] to say,

If you had been the wife of Hercules,[19]

20

Six of his labours you’d have done, and saved

Your husband so much sweat. Cominius,

Droop[22] not: adieu. Farewell, my wife, my mother:

I’ll do well yet. Thou old and true Menenius,

Thy tears are salter than a younger man’s,

25

And venomous[25] to thine eyes. My sometime general,

I have seen thee stern, and thou hast oft beheld

Heart-hardening spectacles. Tell these sad women

’Tis fond[28] to wail inevitable strokes,

As ’tis to laugh at ’em. My mother, you wot[29] well

30

My hazards still[30] have been your solace, and

Believe’t not lightly:[31] though I go alone,

Like to a lonely dragon, that his fen[32]

Makes feared and talked of more than seen: your son

Will or[34] exceed the common, or be caught

35

With cautelous[35] baits and practice.

VOLUMNIAMy first son,

Whither will thou go? Take good Cominius

With thee awhile: determine on some course

More than a wild exposture[39] to each chance

40

That starts[40] i’th’way before thee.

VIRGILIAO the gods!

COMINIUSI’ll follow[42] thee a month, devise with thee

Where thou shalt rest, that thou mayst hear of us

And we of thee. So if the time thrust forth

45

A cause for thy repeal,[45] we shall not send

O’er the vast world to seek a single man,

And lose advantage,[47] which doth ever cool

I’th’absence of the needer.

CORIOLANUSFare ye well:

50

Thou hast years upon thee, and thou art too full

Of the wars’ surfeits[51] to go rove with one

That’s yet unbruised: bring[52] me but out at gate.

Come, my sweet wife, my dearest mother, and

My friends of noble touch:[54] when I am forth,

55

Bid me farewell, and smile. I pray you, come:

While I remain above the ground, you shall

Hear from me still, and never of me aught

But what is like me formerly.

MENENIUSThat’s worthily

60

As any ear can hear. Come, let’s not weep:

If I could shake off but one seven[61] years

From these old arms and legs, by the good gods,

I’d with thee, every foot.[63]

CORIOLANUSGive me thy hand: come.

Exeunt

[Act 4 Scene 2]4.2

running scene 12

Enter the two Tribunes, Sicinius and Brutus, with the Aedile

SICINIUSBid them all home:[1] he’s gone, and we’ll no further.

The nobility are vexed, whom we see have sided

In his behalf.

BRUTUSNow we have shown our power,

5

Let us seem humbler after it is done

Than when it was a-doing.

SICINIUSBid them home: say their great enemy is gone,

And they stand in their ancient[8] strength.

BRUTUSDismiss them home.

[Exit Aedile]

Enter Volumnia, Virgilia and Menenius

10

Here comes his mother.

SICINIUSLet’s not meet her.

BRUTUSWhy?

SICINIUSThey say she’s mad.[13]

BRUTUSThey have ta’en note of us: keep on your way.

15

VOLUMNIAO, you’re well met:

Th’hoarded[16] plague o’th’gods requite your love!

MENENIUSPeace, peace: be not so loud.

VOLUMNIAIf that I could for weeping, you should hear—

Nay, and you shall hear some. Will you be gone?

20

VIRGILIAYou shall stay too: I would I had the power To the Tribunes

To say so to my husband.

SICINIUSAre you mankind?[22] To Volumnia

VOLUMNIAAy, fool: is that a shame? Note but this, fool:

Was not a man my father? Hadst thou foxship[24]

25

To banish him that struck more blows for Rome

Than thou hast spoken words?

SICINIUSO blessèd heavens!

VOLUMNIAMore noble blows than ever thou wise words,

And for Rome’s good. I’ll tell thee what: yet go:

30

Nay, but thou shalt stay too: I would[30] my son

Were in Arabia,[31] and thy tribe before him,

His good sword in his hand.

SICINIUSWhat then?

VIRGILIAWhat then? He’d make an end of thy posterity.[34]

35

VOLUMNIABastards and all.

Good man, the wounds that he does bear for Rome!

MENENIUSCome, come, peace.

SICINIUSI would he had continued to his country

As he began, and not unknit[39] himself

40

The noble knot[40] he made.

BRUTUSI would he had.

VOLUMNIA‘I would he had’? ’Twas you incensed the rabble:

Cats,[43] that can judge as fitly of his worth

As I can of those mysteries which heaven

45

Will not have earth to know.

BRUTUSPray, let’s go.

VOLUMNIANow pray, sir, get you gone.

You have done a brave[48] deed: ere you go, hear this:

As far as doth the Capitol exceed

50

The meanest[50] house in Rome, so far my son —

This lady’s husband here, this, do you see? —

Whom you have banished, does exceed you all.

BRUTUSWell, well, we’ll leave you.

SICINIUSWhy stay we to be baited[54]

55

With one that wants her wits?

Exeunt Tribunes

VOLUMNIATake my prayers with you.

I would the gods had nothing else to do

But to confirm my curses. Could I meet ’em[58]

But once a day, it would unclog my heart

60

Of what lies heavy to’t.[60]

MENENIUSYou have told[61] them home,

And, by my troth, you have cause. You’ll sup[62] with me?

VOLUMNIAAnger’s my meat:[63] I sup upon myself,

And so shall starve with feeding.[64] Come, let’s go:

65

Leave this faint puling[65] and lament as I do,

In anger, Juno-like.[66] Come, come, come.

Exeunt [Volumnia and Virgilia]

MENENIUSFie, fie, fie!

Exit

[Act 4 Scene 3]4.3

running scene 13

Enter [Nicanor], a Roman, and [Adrian] a Volsce

NICANORI know you well, sir, and you know me: your name, I think, is Adrian.

ADRIANIt is so, sir: truly, I have forgot you.

NICANORI am a Roman, and my services are, as you are, against ’em.[3] Know you me yet?

ADRIANNicanor? No?

NICANORThe same, sir.

ADRIANYou had more beard when I last saw you, but your favour[7] is well appeared by your tongue. What’s the news in Rome? I have a note[8] from the Volscian state to find you out there. You have well saved me a day’s journey.

NICANORThere hath been in Rome strange insurrections: the people against the senators, patricians and nobles.

ADRIANHath been? Is it ended then? Our state thinks not so: they are in a most warlike preparation, and hope to come upon them in the heat of their division.

NICANORThe main blaze of it is past, but a small thing would make it flame again. For the nobles receive so to heart the banishment of that worthy Coriolanus, that they are in a ripe,[16] aptness to take all power from the people and to pluck from them their tribunes for ever. This lies glowing[17] I can tell you, and is almost mature for the violent breaking out.

ADRIANCoriolanus banished?

NICANORBanished, sir.

ADRIANYou will be welcome with this intelligence, Nicanor.

NICANORThe day serves well for them[22] now. I have heard it said, the fittest time to corrupt a man’s wife is when she’s fallen out with her husband. Your noble Tullus Aufidius will appear well in these wars, his great opposer Coriolanus being now in no request of[25] his country.

ADRIANHe cannot choose.[26] I am most fortunate, thus accidentally to encounter you. You have ended my business, and I will merrily accompany you home.

NICANORI shall between this[28] and supper tell you most strange things from Rome, all tending to the good of their adversaries. Have you an army ready, say you?

ADRIANA most royal one: the centurions,[30] and their charges, distinctly billeted already in th’entertainment[31] and to be on foot at an hour’s warning.

NICANORI am joyful to hear of their readiness, and am the man, I think, that shall set them in present[33] action. So, sir, heartily well met, and most glad of your company.

ADRIANYou take my part[34] from me, sir: I have the most cause to be glad of yours.

NICANORWell, let us go together.

Exeunt

[Act 4 Scene 4]4.4

running scene 14

Enter Coriolanus in mean apparel, disguised and muffled

CORIOLANUSA goodly city is this Antium. City,

’Tis I that made thy widows: many an heir

Of these fair edifices ’fore my wars[3]

Have I heard groan and drop: then know me not,

5

Lest that thy wives with spits and boys with stones

In puny[6] battle slay me.

Enter a Citizen

Save you, sir.

CITIZENAnd you.

CORIOLANUSDirect me, if it be your will,

Where great Aufidius lies:[9] is he in Antium?

10

CITIZENHe is, and feasts the nobles of the state

At his house this night.

CORIOLANUSWhich is his house, beseech you?

CITIZENThis here before you.

CORIOLANUSThank you, sir: farewell.

Exit Citizen

15

O world, thy slippery turns![15] Friends now fast sworn,

Whose double[16] bosoms seem to wear one heart,

Whose hours, whose bed, whose meal and exercise

Are still[18] together: who twin, as ’twere, in love,

Unseparable, shall within this hour,

20

On a dissension[20] of a doit, break out

To bitterest enmity: so fellest[21] foes,

Whose passions and whose plots[22] have broke their sleep

To take the one the other, by some chance,

Some trick[24] not worth an egg, shall grow dear friends

25

And interjoin their issues.[25] So with me:

My birthplace hate I, and my love’s upon

This enemy town. I’ll enter: if he slay me,

He does fair justice: if he give me way,[28]

I’ll do his country service.

Exit

[Act 4 Scene 5]4.5

running scene 15

Music plays. Enter a Servingman

FIRST SERVINGMANWine, wine, wine! What service is here? I think our fellows[1] are asleep.

[Exit]

Enter another Servingman

SECOND SERVINGMANWhere’s Cotus? My master calls for him. Cotus!

Exit

Enter Coriolanus

CORIOLANUSA goodly house: the feast smells well; but I Appear not like a guest.

Enter the First Servingman

FIRST SERVINGMANWhat would you have, friend? Whence[6] are you? Here’s no place for you: pray, go[7] to the door. Exit

CORIOLANUSI have deserved no better entertainment,[8] In being Coriolanus.

Enter Second Servingman

SECOND SERVINGMANWhence are you, sir? Has the porter his eyes in his head, that he gives entrance to such companions?[11] Pray, get you out.

CORIOLANUSAway.

SECOND SERVINGMANAway? Get you away

CORIOLANUSNow thou’rt troublesome.

SECOND SERVINGMANAre you so brave?[15] I’ll have you talked with anon

Enter Third Servingman: the first meets him

THIRD SERVINGMANWhat fellow’s this?

FIRST SERVINGMANA strange one as ever I looked on: I cannot get him out o’th’house: prithee, call my master to him.

THIRD SERVINGMANWhat have you to do here, fellow? Pray you, avoid[19] the house

CORIOLANUSLet me but stand: I will not hurt your hearth.

THIRD SERVINGMANWhat are you?

CORIOLANUSA gentleman.

THIRD SERVINGMANA marvellous poor one

CORIOLANUSTrue, so I am.

THIRD SERVINGMANPray you, poor gentleman, take up some other station:[25] here’s no place for you: pray you, avoid: come

CORIOLANUSFollow[27] your function: go and batten on cold bits.

Pushes him away from him

THIRD SERVINGMANWhat, you will not? Prithee, tell my master what a strange guest he has here

SECOND SERVINGMANAnd I shall.

Exit Second Servingman

THIRD SERVINGMANWhere dwell’st thou?

CORIOLANUSUnder the canopy.[32]

THIRD SERVINGMANUnder the canopy?

CORIOLANUSAy.

THIRD SERVINGMANWhere’s that?

CORIOLANUSI’th’city of kites and crows.[36]

THIRD SERVINGMANI’th’city of kites and crows? What an ass it is: then thou dwell’st with daws[38] too?

CORIOLANUSNo, I serve not thy master.

THIRD SERVINGMANHow, sir! Do you meddle[40] with my master?

CORIOLANUSAy, ’tis an honester service than to meddle with thy mistress. Thou prat’st,[42] and prat’st: serve with thy trencher, hence!

Beats him away

Enter Aufidius with the [Second] Servingman

AUFIDIUSWhere is this fellow?

SECOND SERVINGMANHere, sir: I’d have beaten him like a dog, but[44] for disturbing the

lords within. Servingmen stand aside

AUFIDIUSWhence com’st thou? What wouldst thou? Thy name?

Why speak’st not? Speak, man: what’s thy name?

CORIOLANUSIf, Tullus, Unmuffling

Not yet thou know’st me, and seeing me dost not

50

Think me for the man I am, necessity

Commands me name myself.

AUFIDIUSWhat is thy name?

CORIOLANUSA name unmusical to the Volscians’ ears,

And harsh in sound to thine.

55

AUFIDIUSSay, what’s thy name?

Thou hast a grim[56] appearance, and thy face

Bears a command[57] in’t: though thy tackle’s torn,

Thou show’st[58] a noble vessel: what’s thy name?

CORIOLANUSPrepare thy brow to frown: know’st thou me yet?

60

AUFIDIUSI know thee not: thy name?

CORIOLANUSMy name is Caius Martius, who hath done

To thee particularly,[62] and to all the Volsces,

Great hurt and mischief:[63] thereto witness may

My surname, Coriolanus. The painful[64] service,

65

The extreme dangers, and the drops of blood

Shed for my thankless country, are requited

But with that surname: a good memory[67]

And witness of the malice and displeasure

Which thou shouldst bear me: only that name remains.

70

The cruelty and envy of the people,

Permitted by our dastard[71] nobles, who

Have all forsook[72] me, hath devoured the rest,

And suffered me by th’voice of slaves to be

Whooped[74] out of Rome. Now this extremity

75

Hath brought me to thy hearth, not out of hope —

Mistake me not — to save my life: for if

I had feared death, of all the men i’th’world

I would have ’voided thee. But in[78] mere spite

To be[79] full quit of those my banishers,

80

Stand I before thee here. Then if thou hast

A heart of wreak[81] in thee, that wilt revenge

Thine own particular wrongs and stop those maims[82]

Of shame seen through[83] thy country, speed thee straight,

And make my misery serve thy turn: so use it

85

That my revengeful services may prove

As benefits to thee, for I will fight

Against my cankered[87] country with the spleen

Of all the under-fiends.[88] But if so be

Thou dar’st not this, and that to prove more fortunes[89]

90

Thou’rt tired, then, in a word, I also am

Longer to live most weary, and present

My throat to thee and to thy ancient[92] malice,

Which not to cut would show thee but a fool,

Since I have ever followed thee with hate,

95

Drawn tuns[95] of blood out of thy country’s breast,

And cannot live but to thy shame, unless

It be to do thee service.

AUFIDIUSO Martius, Martius!

Each word thou hast spoke hath weeded from my heart

100

A root of ancient envy. If Jupiter

Should from yond cloud speak divine things,

And say ‘’Tis true’, I’d not believe them more

Than thee, all noble Martius. Let me twine

Mine arms about that body, where against[104]

105

My grainèd ash[105] an hundred times hath broke,

And scarred the moon with splinters: here I clip[106] He embraces Corioianus

The anvil[107] of my sword, and do contest

As hotly and as nobly with thy love

As ever in ambitious strength I did

110

Contend against thy valour. Know thou first,

I loved the maid I married: never man

Sighed truer breath. But that I see thee here,

Thou noble thing, more dances[113] my rapt heart

Than when I first my wedded mistress saw

115

Bestride[115] my threshold. Why, thou Mars, I tell thee,

We have a[116] power on foot, and I had purpose

Once more to hew thy target[117] from thy brawn,

Or lose mine arm for’t: thou hast beat me out[118]

Twelve several[119] times, and I have nightly since

120

Dreamt of encounters ’twixt thyself and me:

We have been down together[121] in my sleep,

Unbuckling helms,[122] fisting each other’s throat,

And waked[123] half dead with nothing. Worthy Martius,

Had we no other quarrel else to Rome, but that

125

Thou art thence banished, we would muster all[125]

From twelve to seventy, and pouring war

Into the bowels of ungrateful Rome,

Like a bold flood o’erbear’t.[128] O, come, go in,

And take our friendly senators by th’hands

130

Who now are here, taking their leaves of me,

Who am prepared[131] against your territories,

Though not for Rome itself.

CORIOLANUSYou bless me, gods.

AUFIDIUSTherefore, most absolute[134] sir, if thou wilt have

135

The leading of thine own revenges, take

Th’one half of my commission,[136] and set down —

As best thou art experienced, since thou know’st

Thy country’s strength and weakness — thine own ways:

Whether to knock against the gates of Rome,

140

Or rudely[140] visit them in parts remote,

To fright them, ere destroy.[141] But come in:

Let me commend[142] thee first to those that shall

Say yea to thy desires. A thousand welcomes!

And more a friend than ere an enemy:

145

Yet, Martius, that was much. Your hand: most welcome!

Exeunt [Coriolanus and Aufidius]

The two Servingmen come forward

FIRST SERVINGMANHere’s a strange alteration!

SECOND SERVINGMANBy my hand, I had thought to have strucken him with a cudgel, and yet my mind gave[148] me his clothes made a false report of him.

FIRST SERVINGMANWhat an arm he has! He turned me about with his finger and his thumb, as one would set up[150] a top.

SECOND SERVINGMANNay, I knew by his face that there was something in him. He had, sir, a kind of face, methought…I cannot tell how to term it.

FIRST SERVINGMANHe had so, looking, as it were — would I were hanged, but I thought there was more in him than I could think.

SECOND SERVINGMANSo did I, I’ll be sworn: he is simply the rarest[155] man i’th’world.

FIRST SERVINGMANI think he[156] is: but a greater soldier than he you wot on.

SECOND SERVINGMANWho, my master?

FIRST SERVINGMANNay, it’s[158] no matter for that.

SECOND SERVINGMANWorth six on[159] him.

FIRST SERVINGMANNay, not so neither: but I take him to be the greater soldier.

SECOND SERVINGMANFaith, look you, one cannot tell how to say that: for the defence of a town, our general is excellent.

FIRST SERVINGMANAy, and for an assault too.

Enter the Third Servingman

THIRD SERVINGMANO slaves,[164] I can tell you news: news, you rascals!

FIRST and SECOND SERVINGMANWhat, what, what? Let’s partake.

THIRD SERVINGMANI would not be a Roman of all nations: I had as lief[166] be a condemned man.

FIRST and SECOND SERVINGMANWherefore?[168] Wherefore?

THIRD SERVINGMANWhy, here’s he that was wont[169] to thwack our general, Caius Martius.

FIRST SERVINGMANWhy do you say ‘thwack our general’?

THIRD SERVINGMANI do not say ‘thwack our general’, but he was always good enough for him.

SECOND SERVINGMANCome, we are fellows and friends: he was ever too hard for him: I have heard him say so himself.

FIRST SERVINGMANHe was too hard for him directly, to say the truth on’t:[176] before Corioles he scotched[177] him and notched him like a carbonado.

SECOND SERVINGMANAn[178] he had been cannibally given, he might have boiled and eaten him too.

FIRST SERVINGMANBut more of thy news!

THIRD SERVINGMANWhy, he is so made on.[181] here within, as if he were son and heir to Mars: set at upper end o’th’table:[182] no question asked him by any of the senators, but[183] they stand bald before him. Our general himself makes a mistress of him: sanctifies[184] himself with’s hand and turns up the white o’th’eye to his discourse. But the bottom[185] of the news is, our general is cut i’th’middle and but one half of what he was yesterday: for the other has half, by the entreaty and grant of the whole table. He’ll go, he says, and sowl[187] the porter of Rome gates by th’ears. He will mow all down before him, and leave his passage polled[188]

SECOND SERVINGMANAnd he’s as like to do’t as any man I can imagine.

THIRD SERVINGMANDo’t? He will do’t: for look you, sir, he has as many friends as enemies: which friends, sir, as it were, durst not, look you, sir, show themselves, as we term it, his friends whilst he’s in directitude.[192]

FIRST SERVINGMANDirectitude? What’s that?

THIRD SERVINGMANBut when they shall see, sir, his crest[194] up again, and the man in blood, they will[195] out of their burrows, like conies after rain, and revel all with him.

FIRST SERVINGMANBut when goes this forward?

THIRD SERVINGMANTomorrow, today, presently:[197] you shall have the drum struck up this afternoon: ’tis as it were a parcel[198] of their feast, and to be executed ere they wipe their lips.

SECOND SERVINGMANWhy, then we shall have a stirring[200] world again. This peace i nothing but to rust iron, increase tailors, and breed ballad-makers.

FIRST SERVINGMANLet me have war, say I: it exceeds peace as far as day does night: it’s sprightly walking, audible,[203] and full of vent. Peace is a very apoplexy, lethargy, mulled,[204] deaf, sleepy, insensible: a getter of more bastard children than war’s a destroyer of men.

SECOND SERVINGMAN’Tis so: and as wars in some sort may be said to be a ravisher,[206] so it cannot be denied but peace is a great maker of cuckolds[207]

FIRST SERVINGMANAy, and it makes men hate one another.

THIRD SERVINGMANReason: because they then less need one another. The wars for my money: I hope to see Romans as cheap as Volscians. They are rising,[210] they are rising.

FIRST and SECOND SERVINGMANIn, in, in, in.

Exeunt

[Act 4 Scene 6]4.6

running scene 16

Enter the two Tribunes, Sicinius and Brutus

SICINIUSWe hear not of him, neither need we fear him:

His[2] remedies are tame: the present peace

And quietness of the people, which before

Were in wild hurry.[4] Here do we make his friends

5

Blush that the world goes well, who rather had,

Though they themselves did suffer by’t, behold

Dissentious numbers pest’ring[7] streets than see

Our tradesmen singing in their shops and going

About their functions[9] friendly.

Enter Menenius

10

BRUTUSWe stood[10] to’t in good time. Is this Menenius?

SICINIUS’Tis he, ’tis he: O, he is grown most kind of late.—

Hail, sir

MENENIUSHail to you both.

SICINIUSYour Coriolanus is not much missed

15

But[15] with his friends: the commonwealth doth stand,

And so would do, were[16] he more angry at it.

MENENIUSAll’s well, and might have been much better if

He could have temporized.[18]

SICINIUSWhere is he, hear you?

20

MENENIUSNay, I hear nothing:

His mother and his wife hear nothing from him.

Enter three or four Citizens

ALL CITIZENSThe gods preserve you both. To the Tribunes

SICINIUSGood e’en,[23] our neighbours.

BRUTUSGood e’en to you all, good e’en to you all.

25

FIRST CITIZENOurselves, our wives and children, on our knees,

Are bound to pray for you both.

SICINIUSLive and thrive.

BRUTUSFarewell, kind neighbours.

We wished Coriolanus had loved you as we did.

30

ALL CITIZENSNow the gods keep you!

SICINIUS and BRUTUSFarewell, farewell.

Exeunt Citizens

SICINIUSThis is a happier and more comely[32] time

Than when these fellows ran about the streets,

Crying confusion.

35

BRUTUSCaius Martius was

A worthy officer i’th’war, but insolent,

O’ercome with pride, ambitious past all thinking,

Self-loving—

SICINIUSAnd affecting[39] one sole throne, without assistance.

40

MENENIUSI think not so.

SICINIUSWe should by this,[41] to all our lamentation,

If he had gone forth consul, found it so.

BRUTUSThe gods have well prevented it, and Rome

Sits safe and still without him.

Enter an Aedile

45

AEDILEWorthy tribunes,

There is a slave, whom we have put in prison,

Reports the Volsces with two several powers[47]

Are entered in the Roman territories,

And with the deepest malice of the war

50

Destroy what lies before ’em.

MENENIUS’Tis Aufidius,

Who, hearing of our Martius’ banishment,

Thrusts forth his horns[53] again into the world

Which were inshelled[54] when Martius stood for Rome,

55

And durst not once peep out.

SICINIUSCome, what[56] talk you of Martius?

BRUTUSGo see this rumourer whipped.— It cannot be To the Aedile

The Volsces dare break[58] with us.

MENENIUSCannot be?

60

We have record that very well it can,

And three examples of the like hath been

Within my age.[62] But reason with the fellow,

Before you punish him, where he heard this,

Lest you shall chance to whip your information[64]

65

And beat the messenger who bids beware

Of what is to be dreaded.

SICINIUSTell not me: I know this cannot be.

BRUTUSNot possible

Enter a Messenger

MESSENGERThe nobles in great earnestness are going

70

All to the senate house: some news is come

That turns[71] their countenances.

SICINIUS’Tis this slave:—

Go whip him, fore the people’s eyes.— His[73] raising, To the Aedile

Nothing but his report.

75

MESSENGERYes, worthy sir,

The slave’s report is seconded[76] and more,

More fearful, is delivered.

SICINIUSWhat more fearful?

MESSENGERIt is spoke freely out of many mouths —

80

How probable I do not know — that Martius,

Joined with Aufidius, leads a power gainst Rome,

And vows revenge as[82] spacious as between

The young’st and oldest thing.

SICINIUSThis is most likely!

85

BRUTUSRaised[85] only, that the weaker sort may wish

Good Martius home again.

SICINIUSThe very trick on’t.[87]

MENENIUSThis is unlikely:

He and Aufidius can no more atone[89]

90

Than violent’st contrariety.[90]

Enter [another] Messenger

SECOND MESSENGERYou are sent for to the senate:

A fearful army, led by Caius Martius,

Associated with Aufidius, rages

Upon our territories, and have already

95

O’erborne[95] their way, consumed with fire, and took

What lay before them.

Enter Cominius

COMINIUSO, you have made good work!

MENENIUSWhat news? What news?

COMINIUSYou have holp[99] to ravish your own daughters and

100

To melt the city leads[100] upon your pates,

To see your wives dishonoured to your noses.[101]

MENENIUSWhat’s the news? What’s the news?

COMINIUSYour temples burnèd in their cement,[103] and

Your franchises,[104] whereon you stood, confined

105

Into an auger’s bore.[105]

MENENIUSPray now, your news?

You have made fair work, I fear me.— To the Tribunes

Pray, your news.— To Cominius

If Martius should be joined with Volscians.

COMINIUSIf? He is their god: he leads them like a thing

110

Made by some other deity than nature,

That shapes man better, and they follow him

Against us brats,[112] with no less confidence

Than boys pursuing summer butterflies,

Or butchers killing flies.

115

MENENIUSYou have made good work, To the Tribunes

You and your apron-men:[116] you that stood so much

Upon the voice of occupation[117] and

The breath of garlic-eaters![118]

COMINIUSHe’ll shake your Rome about your ears. To the Tribunes

120

MENENIUSAs Hercules[120] did shake down mellow fruit.

You have made fair work.

BRUTUSBut is this true, sir?

COMINIUSAy, and you’ll look pale

Before you find it other.[124] All the regions

125

Do smilingly[125] revolt, and who resists

Are mocked for valiant ignorance,

And perish constant[127] fools. Who is’t can blame him?

Your enemies and his find something[128] in him.

MENENIUSWe are all undone,[129] unless

130

The noble man have mercy.

COMINIUSWho shall ask it?

The tribunes cannot do’t for shame: the people

Deserve such pity of him as the wolf

Does of the shepherds: for[134] his best friends, if they

135

Should say ‘Be good to Rome’, they charged[135] him even

As those should do that had deserved his hate,

And therein showed[137] like enemies.

MENENIUS’Tis true: if he were putting to my house the brand[138]

That should consume it, I have not the face

140

To say ‘Beseech you, cease.’— You have made fair hands,[140] To the Tribunes

You and your crafts:[141] you have crafted fair!

COMINIUSYou have brought

A trembling upon Rome, such as was never

S’incapable of help.[144]

145

SICINIUS and BRUTUSSay not we brought it.

MENENIUSHow? Was’t we? We loved him,

But, like beasts and cowardly nobles,

Gave way unto your clusters,[148] who did hoot

Him out o’th’city.

150

COMINIUSBut I fear

They’ll roar[151] him in again. Tullus Aufidius,

The second name[152] of men, obeys his points

As if he were his officer: desperation

Is all the policy, strength and defence

155

That Rome can make against them.

Enter a troop of Citizens

MENENIUSHere come the clusters.

And is Aufidius with him? You are they

That made the air unwholesome when you cast

Your stinking greasy caps in hooting at

160

Coriolanus’ exile. Now he’s coming,

And not a hair upon a soldier’s head

Which will not prove a whip: as many coxcombs[162]

As you threw caps up will he tumble down,

And pay you for your voices. ’Tis no matter:

165

If he could burn us all into one coal,[165]

We have deserved it.

ALL CITIZENSFaith, we hear fearful news.

FIRST CITIZENFor mine own part,

When I said ‘Banish him’ I said ’twas pity.

170

SECOND CITIZENAnd so did I.

THIRD CITIZENAnd so did I: and to say the truth, so did very many of us: that we did, we did for the best, and though we willingly consented to his banishment, yet it was against our will.

COMINIUSYou’re goodly things, you voices.

175

MENENIUSYou have made good work,

You and your cry.[176] Shall’s to the Capitol?

COMINIUSO, ay, what else?

Exeunt [Cominius and Menenius]

SICINIUSGo, masters, get you home: be not dismayed:

These are a side[179] that would be glad to have

180

This true which they so seem to fear. Go home,

And show no sign of fear.

FIRST CITIZENThe gods be good to us! Come, masters, let’s home. I ever said we were i’th’wrong when we banished him.

SECOND CITIZENSo did we all. But, come, let’s home.

Exeunt Citizens

185

BRUTUSI do not like this news.

SICINIUSNor I.

BRUTUSLet’s to the Capitol. Would[187] half my wealth

Would buy this for a lie.

SICINIUSPray, let’s go.

Exeunt Tribunes

[Act 4 Scene 7]4.7

running scene 17

Enter Aufidius with his Lieutenant

AUFIDIUSDo they still fly to th’Roman?

LIEUTENANTI do not know what witchcraft’s in him, but

Your soldiers use him as the grace fore meat,

Their talk at table, and their thanks at end;

5

And you are darkened[5] in this action, sir,

Even by your own.[6]

AUFIDIUSI cannot help it now,

Unless by using means[8] I lame the foot

Of our design. He bears himself more proudlier,

10

Even to my person, than I thought he would

When first I did embrace him. Yet his nature

In that’s no changeling,[12] and I must excuse

What cannot be amended.

LIEUTENANTYet I wish, sir —

15

I mean for your particular[15] — you had not

Joined in commission[16] with him, but either

Have[17] borne the action of yourself, or else

To him had left it solely.

AUFIDIUSI understand thee well, and be thou sure,

20

When he shall come to his account,[20] he knows not

What I can urge[21] against him. Although it seems,

And so he thinks, and is no less apparent

To th’vulgar[23] eye, that he bears all things fairly,

And shows good husbandry for[24] the Volscian state,

25

Fights dragon-like, and does achieve[25] as soon

As draw his sword: yet he hath left undone

That which shall break his neck or hazard mine,

Whene’er we come to our account.

LIEUTENANTSir, I beseech you, think you he’ll carry[29] Rome?

30

AUFIDIUSAll places yields to him ere he sits down,[30]

And the nobility of Rome are his:

The senators and patricians love him too:

The tribunes are no soldiers, and their people

Will be as rash in the repeal,[34] as hasty

35

To expel him thence. I think he’ll be to Rome

As is the osprey[36] to the fish, who takes it

By sovereignty of nature. First he was

A noble servant to them, but he could not

Carry his honours even:[39] whether ’twas pride,

40

Which out[40] of daily fortune ever taints

The happy[41] man: whether defect of judgement,

To fail in the disposing[42] of those chances

Which he was lord of: or whether nature,[43]

Not to be other than one thing, not moving

45

From th’casque[45] to th’cushion, but commanding peace

Even with the same austerity and garb[46]

As he controlled the war. But one of these —

As he hath spices[48] of them all — not all,

For I dare so far free[49] him — made him feared,

50

So[50] hated, and so banished: but he has a merit,

To choke it in the utt’rance. So our virtues

Lie in th’interpretation of the time,[52]

And power,[53] unto itself most commendable,

Hath not a tomb so evident as a chair

55

T’extol what it hath done.

One fire drives out one fire: one nail, one nail:

Rights[57] by rights foulder, strengths by strengths do fail.

Come, let’s away. When, Caius, Rome is thine,

Thou art poor’st of all: then shortly art thou mine.

Exeunt

Act 5 [Scene 1]5.1

running scene 18

Enter Menenius, Cominius, Sicinius, Brutus, the two Tribunes, with others

MENENIUSNo, I’ll not go: you hear what he[1] hath said

Which[2] was sometime his general: who loved him

In[3] a most dear particular. He called me ‘father’:

But what o’that?— Go, you that banished him: To the Tribunes

5

A mile before his tent fall down, and knee[5]

The way into his mercy: nay, if he coyed[6]

To hear Cominius speak, I’ll keep at home.

COMINIUSHe would[8] not seem to know me.

MENENIUSDo you hear?

10

COMINIUSYet one time he did call me by my name:

I urged our old acquaintance, and the drops

That we have bled together. ‘Coriolanus’

He would not answer to: forbad all names:

He was a kind of nothing, titleless,

15

Till he had forged himself a name o’th’fire

Of burning Rome.

MENENIUSWhy, so! You have made good work: the Tribunes

A pair of tribunes that have wracked[18] for Rome,

To make coals[19] cheap: a noble memory!

20

COMINIUSI minded[20] him how royal ’twas to pardon

When it was less expected. He replied

It was a bare[22] petition of a state

To one whom they had punished.

MENENIUSVery well: could he say less?

25

COMINIUSI offered[25] to awaken his regard

For’s private[26] friends. His answer to me was

He could not stay[27] to pick them in a pile

Of noisome[28] musty chaff. He said ’twas folly

For one poor grain or two to leave unburnt,

30

And still to nose th’offence.[30]

MENENIUSFor one poor grain or two?

I am one of those: his mother, wife, his child,

And this brave[33] fellow too: we are the grains.

You are the musty chaff, and you are smelt

35

Above the moon. We must be burnt for you.

SICINIUSNay, pray, be patient: if you refuse your aid

In this so never-needed help,[37] yet do not

Upbraid’s with our distress.[38] But sure, if you

Would be your country’s pleader, your good tongue,

40

More than the instant[40] army we can make,

Might stop our countryman.

MENENIUSNo, I’ll not meddle.

SICINIUSPray you, go to him.

MENENIUSWhat should I do?

45

BRUTUSOnly make trial what your love can do

For Rome, towards Martius.

MENENIUSWell, and say that Martius return me,

As Cominius is returned, unheard: what then?

But as a discontented friend, grief-shot[49]

50

With his unkindness? Say’t be so?

SICINIUSYet your good will

Must have that thanks from Rome, after[52] the measure

As you intended well.

MENENIUSI’ll undertake’t:

55

I think he’ll hear me. Yet to bite[55] his lip

And hum at good Cominius much unhearts[56] me.

He was not taken well,[57] he had not dined:

The veins unfilled, our blood is cold, and then

We pout upon[59] the morning, are unapt

60

To give or to forgive: but when we have stuffed

These pipes and these conveyances[61] of our blood

With wine and feeding, we have suppler[62] souls

Than in our priest-like fasts: therefore I’ll watch him

Till he be dieted to[64] my request,

65

And then I’ll set upon him.

BRUTUSYou know the very road into his kindness,

And cannot lose your way.

MENENIUSGood faith, I’ll prove[68] him,

Speed[69] how it will. I shall ere long have knowledge

70

Of my success.[70]

Exit

COMINIUSHe’ll never hear him.

SICINIUSNot?

COMINIUSI tell you, he does sit in gold,[73] his eye

Red as ’twould burn Rome, and his injury[74]

75

The jailer to his pity. I kneeled before him:

’Twas very faintly[76] he said ‘Rise’: dismissed me

Thus with his speechless hand. What[77] he would do

He sent in writing after me: what he would not,

Bound with an oath to yield to his conditions:

80

So that all hope is vain, unless his noble mother

And his wife, who, as I hear, mean to solicit him

For mercy to his country. Therefore, let’s hence,

And with our fair entreaties haste them on.

Exeunt

[Act 5 Scene 2]5.2

running scene 19

Enter Menenius to the Watch or Guard

FIRST WATCHMANStay: whence are you?

SECOND WATCHMANStand, and go back.

MENENIUSYou guard like men: ’tis well.

But, by your leave, I am an officer

5

Of state, and come to speak with Coriolanus.

FIRST WATCHMANFrom whence?

MENENIUSFrom Rome.

FIRST WATCHMANYou may not pass, you must return: our general will no more hear from thence.

SECOND WATCHMANYou’ll see your Rome embraced with fire before you’ll speak with Coriolanus.

MENENIUSGood my friends,

If you have heard your general talk of Rome,

And of his friends there, it is lots to blanks,[14]

15

My name hath touched your ears: it is Menenius.

FIRST WATCHMANBe it so: go back: the virtue[16] of your name is not here passable.

MENENIUSI tell thee, fellow,

The general is my lover:[18] I have been

The book[19] of his good acts, whence men have read

20

His fame unparalleled, happily[20] amplified:

For I have ever verified[21] my friends,

Of whom he’s chief, with all the size[22] that verity

Would without lapsing suffer:[23] nay, sometimes,

Like to a bowl[24] upon a subtle ground,

25

I have tumbled[25] past the throw: and in his praise

Have almost stamped the leasing.[26] Therefore, fellow,

I must have leave to pass.

FIRST WATCHMANFaith, sir, if you had told as many lies in his behalf as you have uttered words in your own, you should not pass here: no, though it were as virtuous to lie as to live chastely.[30] Therefore, go back.

MENENIUSPrithee, fellow, remember my name is Menenius, always factionary[31] on the party of your general.

SECOND WATCHMANHowsoever you have been his liar, as you say you have, I am one that, telling true under[34] him, must say you cannot pass. Therefore, go back.

MENENIUSHas he dined, canst thou tell? For I would not speak with him till after dinner.

FIRST WATCHMANYou are a Roman, are you?

MENENIUSI am as thy general is.

FIRST WATCHMANThen you should hate Rome, as he does. Can you, when you have pushed out your gates the very defender of them, and in a violent popular ignorance,[40] given your enemy your shield,[41] think to front his revenges with the easy[42] groans of old women, the virginal palms of your daughters, or with the palsied[43] intercession of such a decayed dotant as you seem to be? Can you think to blow out the intended fire your city is ready to flame in, with such weak breath as this? No, you are deceived: therefore back to Rome, and prepare for your execution: you are condemned, our general has sworn you out of[46] reprieve and pardon.

MENENIUSSirrah,[48] if thy captain knew I were here, he would use me with estimation.

FIRST WATCHMANCome, my captain knows you not.

MENENIUSI mean, thy general.

FIRST WATCHMANMy general cares not for you. Back, I say, go: lest I let forth your half-pint of blood. Back: that’s the utmost[52] of your having: back.

MENENIUSNay, but fellow, fellow—

Enter Coriolanus with Aufidius

CORIOLANUSWhat’s the matter?

MENENIUSTo First Watchman Now, you companion,[55] I’ll say an errand for you: you shall know now that I am in estimation: you shall perceive that a jack guardant,[56] cannot office me from my son Coriolanus: guess but my entertainment[57] with him: if thou stand’st not i’th’state of hanging, or of some death more long in spectatorship[58] and crueller in suffering, behold now presently, and swoon for what’s to come upon thee.—To Coriolanus The glorious gods sit in hourly synod[60] about thy particular prosperity, and love thee no worse than thy old father Menenius does! O my son, my son! Thou art preparing fire for us: look thee, here’s water to quench it. He weeps I was hardly moved[62] to come to thee, but being assured none but myself could move thee, I have been blown out of our gates with sighs, and conjure[64] thee to pardon Rome, and thy petitionary countrymen. The good gods assuage thy wrath, and turn the dregs of it upon this varlet[66] here: this, who like a block hath denied my access to thee.

CORIOLANUSAway!

MENENIUSHow? Away?

CORIOLANUSWife, mother, child, I know not. My affairs

70

Are servanted[70] to others: though I owe

My revenge properly,[71] my remission lies

In Volscian breasts. That[72] we have been familiar,

Ingrate forgetfulness shall poison, rather

Than pity note how much. Therefore, be gone.

75

Mine ears against your suits are stronger than

Your gates against my force. Yet, for[76] I loved thee,

Take this along: I writ it for thy sake, He gives him a letter

And would have sent it. Another word, Menenius,

I will not hear thee speak. This man, Aufidius,

80

Was my beloved in Rome: yet thou behold’st.

AUFIDIUSYou keep a constant temper.[81]

Exeunt [Coriolanus and Aufidius]

The Guard and Menenius [remain]

FIRST WATCHMANNow, sir, is your name Menenius?

SECOND WATCHMAN’Tis a spell, you see, of much power: you know the way home again.

FIRST WATCHMANDo you hear how we are shent[85] for keeping your greatness back?

SECOND WATCHMANWhat cause, do you think, I have to swoon?

MENENIUSI neither care for.[87] th’world nor your general: for such things as you, I can scarce think there’s any, you’re so slight[88] He that hath a will to die by himself fears it not from another: let your general do his worst. For you, be[89] that you are long, and your misery increase with your age. I say to you, as I was said to, ‘Away!’

Exit

FIRST WATCHMANA noble fellow, I warrant him.

SECOND WATCHMANThe worthy fellow is our general. He’s the rock, the oak not to be wind-shaken.

Exeunt

[Act 5 Scene 3]

running scene 19 continues

Enter Coriolanus and Aufidius

CORIOLANUSWe will before the walls of Rome tomorrow

Set down[2] our host. My partner in this action,

You must report to th’Volscian lords, how plainly[3]

I have borne this business.

5

AUFIDIUSOnly their ends[5] you have respected,

Stopped your ears against the general suit of Rome:

Never admitted a private whisper, no, not with such friends

That thought them sure of you.

CORIOLANUSThis last old man,

10

Whom with a cracked heart I have sent to Rome,

Loved me above the measure of a father,

Nay, godded me,[12] indeed. Their latest refuge

Was to send him, for whose old love I have,

Though I showed[14] sourly to him, once more offered

15

The first conditions, which they did refuse

And cannot now accept, to grace[16] him only

That thought he could do more. A very little

I have yielded to. Fresh embassies and suits,

Nor[19] from the state nor private friends, hereafter

20

Will I lend ear to.— Ha? What shout is this?

Shout within

Shall I be tempted to infringe my vow

In the same time ’tis made? I will not.

Enter Virgilia, Volumnia, Valeria, young Martius, with Attendants

My wife comes foremost, then the honoured mould[23]

Wherein this trunk[24] was framed, and in her hand

25

The grandchild to her blood. But out, affection![25]

All bond and privilege of nature break:

Let it be virtuous to be obstinate.[27] Virgilia curtsies

What is that curtsy worth? Or those dove’s eyes,[28]

Which can make gods forsworn?[29] I melt, and am not

30

Of stronger earth than others. My mother bows, Volumnia bows

As if Olympus[31] to a molehill should

In supplication nod: and my young boy

Hath an aspect[33] of intercession, which

Great nature cries ‘Deny not’. Let the Volsces

35

Plough Rome and harrow Italy: I’ll never

Be such a gosling[36] to obey instinct, but stand,

As if a man were author[37] of himself

And knew no other kin.

VIRGILIAMy lord and husband.

40

CORIOLANUSThese eyes are not the same I wore in Rome.

VIRGILIAThe sorrow that delivers[41] us thus changed

Makes you think so.

CORIOLANUSLike a dull[43] actor now,

I have forgot my part, and I am out,[44]

45

Even to a full disgrace. Best[45] of my flesh,

Forgive my tyranny,[46] but do not say

For that ‘Forgive our Romans’. O, a kiss Virgilia kisses him

Long as my exile, sweet as my revenge!

Now, by the jealous[49] queen of heaven, that kiss

50

I carried from thee, dear, and my true lip

Hath virgined it[51] e’er since. You gods, I prate,

And the most noble mother of the world

Leave unsaluted: sink, my knee, i’th’earth: Kneels

Of thy deep duty more impression[54] show

55

Than that of common sons.

VOLUMNIAO, stand up blest! Coriolanus rises

Whilst, with no softer cushion than the flint,

I kneel before thee, and unproperly[58]

Show[59] duty as mistaken all this while

60

Between the child and parent. She kneels

CORIOLANUSWhat’s this? Your knees to me?

To your corrected[62] son?

Then let the pebbles on the hungry[63] beach He raises her

Fillip[64] the stars: then let the mutinous winds

65

Strike the proud cedars gainst the fiery sun,

Murd’ring impossibility,[66] to make

What cannot be, slight[67] work.

VOLUMNIAThou art my warrior: I holp[68] to frame thee.

Do you know this lady?

70

CORIOLANUSThe noble sister of Publicola,[70]

The moon[71] of Rome, chaste as the icicle

That’s curdied[72] by the frost from purest snow

And hangs on Dian’s[73] temple: dear Valeria!

VOLUMNIAThis is a poor epitome[74] of yours, Indicating Young Martius

75

Which by th’interpretation[75] of full time

May show like all[76] yourself.

CORIOLANUSThe[77] god of soldiers, To Young Martius

With the consent of supreme Jove, inform[78]

Thy thoughts with nobleness, that thou mayst prove

80

To shame[80] unvulnerable, and stick i’th’wars

Like a great sea-mark[81] standing every flaw,

And saving those that eye[82] thee!

VOLUMNIAYour knee, sirrah. To Young Martius, who then kneels

CORIOLANUSThat’s my brave boy.

85

VOLUMNIAEven he, your wife, this lady, and myself,

Are suitors to you.

CORIOLANUSI beseech you, peace:

Or if you’d ask, remember this before:

The[89] thing I have forsworn to grant may never

90

Be held by you denials. Do not bid me

Dismiss my soldiers, or capitulate[91]

Again with Rome’s mechanics.[92] Tell me not

Wherein I seem unnatural: desire not t’allay[93]

My rages and revenges with your colder[94] reasons.

95

VOLUMNIAO, no more, no more!

You have said you will not grant us anything:

For we have nothing else to ask, but that

Which you deny already: yet we will ask

That, if you fail in our request, the blame

100

May hang upon your hardness: therefore hear us.

CORIOLANUSAufidius, and you Volsces, mark: for we’ll

Hear nought from Rome in private. Your request? He sits

VOLUMNIAShould we[103] be silent and not speak, our raiment

And state of bodies would bewray[104] what life

105

We have led since thy exile. Think with thyself[105]

How more unfortunate than all living women

Are we come hither: since that thy sight, which should

Make our eyes flow with joy, hearts dance with comforts,

Constrains them[109] weep and shake with fear and sorrow,

110

Making the mother, wife and child to see

The son, the husband and the father tearing

His country’s bowels out: and to poor we

Thine enmity’s most capital:[113] thou barr’st us

Our prayers to the gods, which is a comfort

115

That all but we enjoy. For how can we,

Alas, how can we for our country pray?

Whereto we are bound, together with thy victory,

Whereto we are bound? Alack, or[118] we must lose

The country, our dear nurse, or else thy person,

120

Our comfort in the country. We must find

An evident[121] calamity, though we had

Our wish, which[122] side should win. For either thou

Must as a foreign recreant[123] be led

With manacles through our streets, or else

125

Triumphantly tread on thy country’s ruin,

And bear the palm[126] for having bravely shed

Thy wife and children’s blood. For myself, son,

I purpose[128] not to wait on fortune till

These wars determine:[129] if I cannot persuade thee

130

Rather to show a noble grace[130] to both parts

Than seek the end of one, thou shalt no sooner

March to assault thy country than to tread —

Trust to’t, thou shalt not — on thy mother’s womb

That brought thee to this world.

135

VIRGILIAAy, and mine, that brought you forth this boy,

To keep your name living to time.

YOUNG MARTIUSA[137] shall not tread on me:

I’ll run away till I am bigger, but then I’ll fight.

CORIOLANUSNot[139] of a woman’s tenderness to be,

140

Requires nor child nor woman’s face to see:

I have sat[141] too long. He rises and turns to leave

VOLUMNIANay, go not from us thus:

If it were so that our request did tend[143]

To save the Romans, thereby to destroy

145

The Volsces whom you serve, you might condemn us

As poisonous of your honour. No, our suit

Is that you reconcile them: while[147] the Volsces

May say ‘This mercy we have showed’, the Romans,

‘This we received’, and each in either side

150

Give the all-hail[150] to thee, and cry ‘Be blest

For making up this peace!’ Thou know’st, great son,

The end of war’s uncertain: but this[152] certain,

That if thou conquer Rome, the benefit

Which thou shalt thereby reap is such a name

155

Whose repetition will be dogged with curses:

Whose chronicle thus writ: ‘The man was noble,

But with his last attempt he wiped it[157] out,

Destroyed his country, and his name remains

To th’ensuing age abhorred.’ Speak to me, son:

160

Thou hast affected[160] the fine strains of honour,

To imitate the graces of the gods,[161]

To tear with thunder the wide cheeks o’th’air,

And yet to charge[163] thy sulphur with a bolt

That should but[164] rive an oak. Why dost not speak?

165

Think’st thou it honourable for a noble man

Still[166] to remember wrongs? Daughter, speak you:

He cares not for your weeping. Speak thou, boy:

Perhaps thy childishness will move him more

Than can our reasons. There’s no man in the world

170

More bound to’s mother, yet here he lets me prate

Like one i’th’stocks.[171] Thou hast never in thy life

Showed thy dear mother any courtesy,

When she, poor hen, fond[173] of no second brood,

Has clucked thee to the wars and safely home,

175

Loaden with honour. Say my request’s unjust,

And spurn me back: but if it be not so,

Thou art not honest,[177] and the gods will plague thee

That thou restrain’st[178] from me the duty which

To a mother’s part belongs. He turns away:

180

Down, ladies: let us shame him with our knees.

To his surname ‘Coriolanus’ ’longs[181] more pride

Than pity to our prayers. Down: an end:

This is the last. So we will home to Rome, The Ladies and Young Martius kneel

And die among our neighbours. Nay, behold’s:

185

This boy, that cannot[185] tell what he would have,

But kneels and holds up hands for fellowship,

Does reason[187] our petition with more strength

Than thou hast to deny’t. Come, let us go:

This fellow had a Volscian to[189] his mother:

190

His wife is in Corioles, and his child

Like him by chance. Yet give us our dispatch:[191]

I am hushed until our city be afire,

And then I’ll speak a little.

[Coriolanus] holds her by the hand, silent

CORIOLANUSO mother, mother!

195

What have you done? Behold, the heavens do ope,

The gods look down, and this unnatural scene

They laugh at. O my mother, mother, O!

You have won a happy victory to Rome.

But for your son, believe it, O believe it,

200

Most dangerously you have with him prevailed,

If not most mortal[201] to him. But let it come. The Ladies and Young Martius rise

Aufidius, though I cannot make true[202] wars,

I’ll frame convenient[203] peace. Now, good Aufidius,

Were you in my stead, would you have heard

205

A mother less? Or granted less, Aufidius?

AUFIDIUSI was moved withal.[206]

CORIOLANUSI dare be sworn you were:

And, sir, it is no little thing to make

Mine eyes to sweat[209] compassion. But, good sir,

210

What peace you’ll make, advise me. For my part,

I’ll not to Rome: I’ll back[211] with you, and pray you

Stand to[212] me in this cause.— O mother! Wife!

AUFIDIUSI am glad thou hast set thy mercy and thy honour Aside

At difference in thee: out of that I’ll work

215

Myself a former fortune.[215]

CORIOLANUSAy, by and by: To the Ladies

But we will drink together, and you shall bear

A better witness[218] back than words, which we,

On[219] like conditions, will have counter-sealed.

220

Come, enter with us. Ladies, you deserve

To have a temple built you: all the swords

In Italy, and her confederate arms,[222]

Could not have made this peace.

Exeunt

[Act 5 Scene 4]*

running scene 20

Enter Menenius and Sicinius

MENENIUSSee you yond coign[1] o’th’Capitol, yond corner-stone?

SICINIUSWhy, what of that?

MENENIUSIf it be possible for you to displace it with your little finger, there is some hope the ladies of Rome, especially his mother, may prevail with him. But I say there is no hope in’t: our throats are sentenced and stay upon[5] execution.

SICINIUSIs’t possible that so short a time can alter the condition[6] of a man?

MENENIUSThere is differency[7] between a grub and a butterfly, yet your butterfly was a grub. This Martius is grown from man to dragon: he has wings: he’s more than a creeping thing.

SICINIUSHe loved his mother dearly

MENENIUSSo did he me, and he no more remembers his mother now than an eight-year-old horse. The tartness of his face sours ripe grapes. When he walks, he moves like an engine,[13] and the ground shrinks before his treading. He is able to pierce a corslet,[14] with his eye, talks like a knell, and his hum is a battery. He sits in his state[15] as a thing made for Alexander. What he bids be done is finished with his bidding. He wants[16] nothing of a god but eternity and a heaven to throne in.

SICINIUSYes, mercy, if you report him truly

MENENIUSI paint him in the character.[18] Mark what mercy his mother shall bring from him. There is no more mercy in him than there is milk in a male tiger: that shall our poor city find: and all this is long of[20] you.

SICINIUSThe gods be good unto us!

MENENIUSNo, in such a case the gods will not be good unto us. When we banished him, we respected not them, and, he returning to break our necks, they respect not us.

Enter a Messenger

25

MESSENGERSir, if you’d save your life, fly to your house: To Sicinius

The plebeians have got your fellow tribune

And hale[27] him up and down, all swearing if

The Roman ladies bring not comfort home,

They’ll give him death by inches.[29]

Enter another Messenger

30

SICINIUSWhat’s the news?

SECOND MESSENGERGood news, good news: the ladies have prevailed,

The Volscians are dislodged,[32] and Martius gone:

A merrier day did never yet greet Rome,

No, not th’expulsion of the Tarquins.[34]

35

SICINIUSFriend, art thou certain this is true?

Is’t most certain?

SECOND MESSENGERAs certain as I know the sun is fire:

Where have you lurked that you make doubt of it?

Ne’er through an arch so hurried the blown[39] tide

40

As the recomforted[40] through th’gates.

Trumpets, hautboys, drums beat all together

Why, hark you:

The trumpets, sackbuts,[41] psalteries and fifes,

Tabors[42] and cymbals and the shouting Romans

Make the sun dance. A shout within

Hark you!

MENENIUSThis is good news:

45

I will go meet the ladies. This Volumnia

Is worth of consuls, senators, patricians,

A city full of tribunes, such as you,

A sea and land full. You have prayed well today:

This morning for ten thousand of your throats

50

I’d not have given a doit.[50] Hark, how they joy!

[Music] sound still with the shouts

SICINIUSFirst, the gods bless you for your tidings: next, To the Messenger

Accept my thankfulness.

SECOND MESSENGERSir, we have all great cause to give great thanks.

SICINIUSThey are near the city?

55

SECOND MESSENGERAlmost at point[55] to enter.

SICINIUSWe’ll meet them, and help the joy.

Exeunt

[Act 5 Scene 5]

running scene 20 continues

Enter two Senators with Ladies [Volumnia, Virgilia and Valeria] passing over the stage, with other Lords

A SENATORBehold our patroness, the life of Rome!

Call all your tribes together, praise the gods,

And make triumphant fires: strew flowers before them:

Unshout the noise that banished Martius:

5

Repeal him with the welcome of his mother:

Cry ‘Welcome, ladies, welcome!’

ALLWelcome, ladies, welcome!

A flourish with Drums and Trumpets

[Exeunt]

[Act 5 Scene 6]5.6

running scene 21

Enter Tullus Aufidius with Attendants

AUFIDIUSGo tell the lords o’th’city I am here:

Deliver them this paper: having read it,

Bid them repair[3] to th’market-place, where I,

Even in theirs and in the commons’ ears,

5

Will vouch the truth of it. Him[5] I accuse

The city ports[6] by this hath entered, and

Intends t’appear before the people, hoping

To purge himself with words. Dispatch.

[Exeunt Attendants]

Enter three or four Conspirators of Aufidius’ faction

Most welcome.

10

FIRST CONSPIRATORHow is it with our general?

AUFIDIUSEven so as with a man by his own

Alms impoisoned, and with his[12] charity slain.

SECOND CONSPIRATORMost noble sir, if you do hold the same intent

Wherein you wished us parties,[14] we’ll deliver you

15

Of[15] your great danger.

AUFIDIUSSir, I cannot tell:

We must proceed as we do find the people.

THIRD CONSPIRATORThe people will remain uncertain whilst

’Twixt you there’s difference:[19] but the fall of either

20

Makes the survivor heir of all.

AUFIDIUSI know it,

And my pretext to strike at him admits[22]

A good construction.[23] I raised him, and I pawned

Mine honour for his truth:[24] who being so heightened,

25

He watered his new plants[25] with dews of flattery,

Seducing so my friends: and to this end

He bowed his nature, never known before

But to be rough, unswayable, and free.[28]

THIRD CONSPIRATORSir, his stoutness[29]

30

When he did stand for consul, which he lost

By lack of stooping—

AUFIDIUSThat[32] I would have spoke of:

Being banished for’t, he came unto my hearth,

Presented to my knife his throat: I took him,

35

Made him joint-servant[35] with me, gave him way

In all his own desires, nay, let him choose

Out of my files,[37] his projects to accomplish,

My best and freshest men: served his designments[38]

In mine own person: holp[39] to reap the fame

40

Which he did end[40] all his, and took some pride

To do myself this wrong: till at the last

I seemed his follower, not partner, and

He waged[43] me with his countenance, as if

I had been mercenary.[44]

45

FIRST CONSPIRATORSo he did, my lord:

The army marvelled at it, and in[46] the last,

When he had carried[47] Rome and that we looked

For no less spoil than glory—

AUFIDIUSThere was it,[49]

50

For which my sinews[50] shall be stretched upon him.

At a few drops of women’s rheum,[51] which are

As cheap as lies, he sold the blood and labour

Of our great action: therefore shall he die,

And I’ll renew me in his fall.

Drums and Trumpets sound, with great shouts of the people

But hark.

55

FIRST CONSPIRATORYour native town you entered like a post,[55]

And had no welcomes home: but he returns

Splitting the air with noise.

SECOND CONSPIRATORAnd patient fools,

Whose children he hath slain, their base throats tear

60

With giving him glory.

THIRD CONSPIRATORTherefore, at your vantage,[61]

Ere he express himself, or move the people

With what he would say, let him feel your sword,

Which we will second. When he lies along,[64]

65

After[65] your way his tale pronounced shall bury

His reasons[66] with his body.

Enter the Lords of the city

AUFIDIUSSay no more: here come the lords.

ALL THE LORDSYou are most welcome home.

AUFIDIUSI have not deserved it.

70

But, worthy lords, have you with heed[70] perused

What I have written to you?

ALL THE LORDSWe have.

FIRST LORDAnd grieve to hear’t.

What faults he made before the last, I think

75

Might have found easy fines:[75] but there to end

Where he was to begin, and give away

The benefit of our levies,[77] answering us

With our own charge,[78] making a treaty where

There was a yielding[79] — this admits no excuse.

80

AUFIDIUSHe approaches: you shall hear him.

Enter Coriolanus marching with Drum and Colours, the Commoners being with him

CORIOLANUSHail, lords! I am returned your soldier,

No more infected with my country’s love

Than when I parted hence, but still subsisting

Under your great command. You are to know

85

That prosperously[85] I have attempted and

With bloody passage led your wars even to

The gates of Rome. Our spoils we have brought home

Doth more[88] than counterpoise a full third part

The charges[89] of the action. We have made peace

90

With no less honour to the Antiates[90]

Than shame to th’Romans. And we here deliver,

Subscribed[92] by th’consuls and patricians,

Together with the seal o’th’senate, what

We have compounded[94] on. He gives the Lords a paper

95

AUFIDIUSRead it not, noble lords,

But tell the traitor in the highest degree

He hath abused your powers.

CORIOLANUSTraitor? How now?

AUFIDIUSAy, traitor, Martius.

100

CORIOLANUSMartius?

AUFIDIUSAy, Martius, Caius Martius: dost thou think

I’ll grace thee with that robbery, thy stol’n name,

‘Coriolanus’ in Corioles?

You lords and heads o’th’state, perfidiously[104]

105

He has betrayed your business, and given up,

For certain drops of salt,[106] your city Rome:

I say ‘your city’ to his wife and mother,

Breaking his oath and resolution like

A twist[109] of rotten silk, never admitting

110

Counsel o’th’war: but at his nurse’s tears

He whined and roared away your victory,

That pages blushed at him and men of heart[112]

Looked wond’ring each at others.

CORIOLANUSHear’st thou, Mars?

115

AUFIDIUSName not the god, thou boy of tears.

CORIOLANUSHa?

AUFIDIUSNo more.

CORIOLANUSMeasureless liar, thou hast made my heart

Too great for what contains it. Boy? O slave!—

120

Pardon me, lords, ’tis the first time that ever

I was forced to scold.[121] Your judgements, my grave lords,

Must give[122] this cur the lie: and his own notion —

Who wears my stripes[123] impressed upon him, that

Must bear my beating to his grave — shall join

125

To thrust the lie unto him.

FIRST LORDPeace, both, and hear me speak.

CORIOLANUSCut me to pieces, Volsces: men and lads,

Stain all your edges[128] on me. ‘Boy’! False hound,

If you have writ your annals true, ’tis there,

130

That, like an eagle in a dovecote, I

Fluttered[131] your Volscians in Corioles.

Alone I did it. ‘Boy’!

AUFIDIUSWhy, noble lords,

Will you be put in mind of his blind fortune,[134]

135

Which was your shame, by this unholy braggart,

’Fore your own eyes and ears?

ALL CONSPIRATORS Let him die for’t.

ALL [THE] PEOPLETear him to pieces! Do it presently![138] Shouting individually

He killed my son! My daughter! He killed my cousin

140

Marcus! He killed my father!

SECOND LORDPeace, ho! No outrage:[141] peace!

The man is noble, and his fame folds in[142]

This orb o’th’earth. His last offences to us

Shall have judicious hearing.[144] Stand, Aufidius,

145

And trouble not the peace.

CORIOLANUSO that I had him, with six Aufidiuses, Drawing his sword

Or more, his tribe, to use my lawful sword!

AUFIDIUSInsolent villain! Drawing his sword

ALL CONSPIRATORS Kill, kill, kill, kill, kill him!

Draw both the Conspirators, and kill Martius, who falls: Aufidius stands on him

150

LORDSHold, hold, hold, hold!

AUFIDIUSMy noble masters, hear me speak.

FIRST LORDO Tullus!

SECOND LORDThou hast done a deed whereat[153] To Aufidius

Valour will weep.

155

THIRD LORDTread not upon him, masters: To Aufidius and the Conspirators

All be quiet: put up your swords.

AUFIDIUSMy lords,

When you shall know — as in this rage,

Provoked by him, you cannot — the great danger

160

Which this man’s life did owe[160] you, you’ll rejoice

That he is thus cut off. Please it[161] your honours

To call me to your senate, I’ll deliver[162]

Myself your loyal servant, or endure

Your heaviest censure.[164]

165

FIRST LORDBear from hence his body,

And mourn you for him. Let him be regarded

As the most noble corpse that ever herald

Did follow to his urn.

SECOND LORDHis own impatience

170

Takes from Aufidius a great part of blame.

Let’s make the best of it.

AUFIDIUSMy rage is gone,

And I am struck with sorrow. Take him up:

Help three o’th’chiefest soldiers: I’ll be one.[174]

175

Beat thou the drum, that it speak mournfully:

Trail[176] your steel pikes. Though in this city he

Hath widowed and unchilded many a one,

Which to this hour bewail the injury,

Yet he shall have a noble memory.[179] Assist.

Exeunt bearing the body of Martius. A dead march sounded

Textual Notes

F = First Folio text of 1623, the only authority for the play

F2 = a correction introduced in the Second Folio text of 1632

F3 = a correction introduced in the Third Folio text of 1663–64

F4 = a correction introduced in the Fourth Folio text of 1685

Ed = a correction introduced by a later editor

SD = stage direction

SH = speech heading (i.e., speaker’s name)

List of parts = Ed

1.1.11 on = Ed. F = one 46 you. For = Ed. F = you for 69 stale’t = Ed. F = scale’t 86 tauntingly = Ed. F = tauntingly 154 geese: you are = Ed. F = Geese you are: 183 pick = F. Ed = pitch 198 Shouting = Ed.F = Shooting 203 unroofed = Ed. F = vnroo’st 213 SDJunius = F4 (Iunius). F = Annius 230 Lartius = Ed. F = Lucius 241 your = F4. F = you 247 SDremain = Ed. F = Manet 268 of = F. Ed = on

1.2.5 on = Ed. F = one 17 Whither = Ed. F = Whether

1.3.28 that’s = F2. F = that 35 sword, contemning. = Ed. F = sword. Contenning, 70 yarn = Ed. F = yearne 71 Ithaca = Ed. F = Athica

1.4.36 boils = Ed. F = Byles 47 followed = F2. F = followes. Ed = Follow/Follow me 50 SD gates = F2. F = Gati 52 SD is shut in this direction is transferred from the end of the stage direction five lines previously. It has been repositioned because Martius has lines to speak after this direction in F; furthermore, the gates do not shut until the soldier remarks upon it 63 left = F. Ed = lost 66 Cato’s = Ed. F = Calues

1.5.4 honours = Ed. F = hours 7 them, = F3. F = them. 9 him. = F3. F = him

1.6.6 The = F. Ed = Ye 63 Antiates = Ed. F = Antients. F could make sense as “ancients” is a common spelling of “ensigns”; however, six lines later reference is made to the “Antiats,” suggesting an earlier error 83 Lesser = F3. F = Lessen 97 I = Ed. F = foure

1.9.0 SD Flourish moved from before “Alarum” since it should herald the entry of the Romans 45 beheld = F. Ed = upheld 51 An overture = F. Ed = a coverture/an ovator. If the coverture reading is preferred, it would mean a “covering,” possibly signifying a special garment. Ovator means “one who receives a public ovation” 54 shout = Ed. F = shoot, 71 Martius = Ed. F = Marcus 72 SH CORIOLANUS = Ed. F = Martius (F speech heading changes to Cor., Corio., Coriol. with effect from return to Rome in Act 2)

1.10.23 Embarquements = F. Ed = Embargements

2.1.11 SH SICINIUS and BRUTUS = Ed. F = Both. This emendation, for the purposes of clarification, also occurs at lines 18 and 20 13 with all = F3. F = withall 18 How are = F2. F = ho ware 41 can = F. Ed = cannot. The Folio reading can be defended if one agrees that Menenius is being sarcastic 44 tell you = F. Ed = tell you, you 46 bisson = Ed. F = beesome 51 faucet = Ed. F = Forset 61 are. When…purpose it = F4. F = are, when…purpose. It 66 Good e’en = Ed. F = Godden 76 SH VIRGILIA and VALERIA = Ed. F = 2. Ladies. 111 SD A…flourish moved from F’s original positioning after “Hark, the trumpets” 120 ‘Coriolanus’ = Ed. F = Martius Caius Coriolanus 136 wear = F2. F = were 139 SH CORIOLANUS = Ed. F = Com. 180 gauded = F (gawded). Ed = guarded 214 authorities…end. = F (Authorities,…end.). Ed = authorities. For an end, 226 teach = F. Ed = touch

2.2.55 SH FIRST SENATOR = Ed.F = Senat. 73 one on’s = Ed.F = on ones 83 chin = F (Shinne) 100 took:…foot = Ed.F = tooke…foot: Ed = took.… foot 143 thus‘: = F3 (thus,). F = thus 151 SH SENATORS = Ed. F = Senat.

2.3.19 wedged = F (wadg’d) 25 it. I say, = Ed. F = it, I say. 28 all together = F (altogether) 50 SD three = F. Ed = two. The speech headings were also altered by Rowe, in keeping with the emendation 55 but not = Ed. F = but 70 SH FOURTH CITIZEN = Ed. F = I. This is to distinguish between these two other citizens and the three who have just exited 82 SH FIFTH CITIZEN = Ed. F = 2. 89 starve = Ed. F = sterue 90 hire = F2 (hier). F = higher 91 tongue = F. Ed = toge 108 SH SIXTH CITIZEN = Ed. F = I.Cit. 109 SH SEVENTH CITIZEN = Ed.F = 2.Cit. 226 And…surnamed = Ed. Delius suggests inserting a line derived from North’s “Plutarch,” possibly missed by the compositor’s eyeskip from And to And.

3.1.5 road = F (roade). Ed = raid 38 SH FIRST SENATOR = Ed. F = Senat. (throughout scene) 54 suppliants = F4. F = Suppliants: 60 SH CORIOLANUS = Ed. F = Com. 72 on. = Ed. F = on, 111 good = Ed. F = God! 117 he = F. Ed = they 118 ignorance = F. Ed = impotence 153 native = F. Ed = motive 155 bosom multiplied = F. Ed = bison multitude 169 Where one = Ed. F = Whereon, 189 He’s = F (Ha’s) 194 bench? = Ed. F = Bench, 208 SH ALL PATRICIANS = Ed.F = All. 216 SH ALL CITIZENS = Ed.F = All. (throughout scene) 237 SH CORIOLANUS = Ed. F = Com. 259 poisonous = F. Ed = poisons 269 your = Ed. F = our 272 SH CORIOLANUS = Ed. F = Com. 279 SH COMINIUS = F2. F = Corio. 280 SH CORIOLANUS = Ed. F = Mene. 283 SH MENENIUS = Ed. The speech heading has been moved from three lines above 299 SH A PATRICIAN = F (Patri.) 340 our = Ed. F = one 382 him = Ed. F = bring him in peace (thought to be an error by the compositor, anticipating two lines later) 399 SH FIRST SENATOR = F (Sena.)

3.2.7 SH A PATRICIAN = Ed. F = Noble. 31 SH FIRST SENATOR = F (Sen.) 39 herd = Ed. F = heart 65 you on = F. Ed = on you 92 With = Ed. F = Which 119 bear? Well, = Ed. F = beare well? 120 plot to lose = Ed. F = Plot, to loose

3.3.12 poll = F (Pole) 40 for th’ = F2 (forth). F = fourth 44 Throng = Ed.F = Through 51 SH SICINIUS and BRUTUS = F (Both Tri.) 68 accents = Ed. F = Actions 84 hell fold = Ed. F = hell. Fould 87 clutched = Ed. F = clutcht: 92 SH ALL CITIZENS = Ed. F = All. (throughout scene) 132 for = Ed. F = from 159 SD Menenius…Patricians = Ed. F = with Cumalijs. It seems that the compositor misunderstood a direction for Coriolanus and Cominius to exit “with the others” and set it as a proper name

4.1.5 chances = F2. F = chances. 26 thee = F (the) 37 will thou = F. F2 = will you. Ed = wilt thou 41 SH VIRGILIA = Ed. F = Corio.

4.2.28 words, = Ed. F = words.

4.3.1 SH NICANOR = Ed. F = Rom. The speech heading “Roman” has been altered to the character’s proper name throughout the scene 2 SH ADRIAN = Ed. F = Volce. The speech heading “Volsce” has been altered to the character’s proper name throughout the scene 7 appeared = F. Ed = approved 24 will = F2. F = well

4.4.16 seem = F4 (seeme). F = seemes 26 hate = Ed. F = haue. Ed = leave

4.5.9 SD Servingman = Ed.F = Seruant. 74 Whooped = Ed.F = Hoop’d 124 no other = F.F3 = no 128 o’erbear’t = Ed.F = o’re-beate. Ed = o’er-bear 145 SDThe…forward = Ed. F = Enter two of the Seruingmen. The Servingmen have clearly overheard the dialogue between Aufidius and Coriolanus, so it is necessary for them to remain onstage, rather than exit and re-enter 156 on = F (one) 165 SH FIRSTand SECOND SERVINGMAN = Ed. F = Both. (throughout scene) 166 lief = F (liue) 178 boiled = F (boyld). Ed = broiled 203 sprightly walking = F. Ed = sprightly, walking 204 sleepy = F3 (sleepie). F = sleepe

4.6.22 SH ALL CITIZENS = F (All.) (throughout scene) 70 come = Ed. F = comming 91 SH SECOND MESSENGER = Ed. F = Mes. 145 SH SICINIUS and BRUTUS = F (Tri.) 167 SH ALL CITIZENS = Ed. F = Omnes.

4.7.39 ‘twas = F3. F = ‘was 41 defect = F2. F = detect 51 virtues = F2. F = Vertue 57 foulder = Ed. F = fouler.

5.1.18 for = F. Ed = fair 79 yield to his = F. Ed = hold to his/yield no new/yield to no

5.2.55 errand = Ed. F = arrant 59 swoon = Ed. F = swoond 64 our = F4. F = your 74 pity = Ed. F = pitty: 86 swoon = Ed. F = swoond

5.3.51 prate = Ed. F = pray 68 holp = Ed. F = hope 72 curdied = F. Ed = candied 89 thing = F. Ed = things 124 through = F. Ed = thorough 137 SH YOUNG MARTIUS = Ed. F = Boy. 160 fine = Ed.F = fiue 163 charge = Ed.F = change 165 noble man = F2. F = Nobleman 174 clucked = Ed. F = clock’d 180 him with = F2. F = him with him with 190 his = F. Ed = this

5.5.4 Unshout = F (Vnshoot)

5.6.37 projects to accomplish, = F3. F = projects, to accomplish 64–5 second.… way = Ed. F = second,…way. 131 Fluttered = F3. F = Flatter’d 149 SDkill = F4. F = kils

Act 1 Scene 1

1.1   Location: Rome (a public place)

3    famish starve

7    verdict agreed decision

8    on’t i.e., about it

10    poor impoverished (playing on the sense of “bad, unworthy”) patricians members of the noble families of Rome from whom senators and consuls were chosen good wealthy, well-to-do (playing on the sense of “worthy”) authority those in power, i.e., the patricians

11    surfeits on is overfed on, overindulges in but the superfluity merely the excess

12    wholesome nutritious, good, restorative guess believe, judge

13    dear costly object sight

14    inventory…abundance detailed account that enables them to itemize their own wealth through contrast sufferance suffering

15    pikes long-handled weapon topped with a spearhead ere before rakes i.e., very thin

18    dog i.e., cruel, pitiless commonalty common people

23    famously gloriously, in a manner that gained him fame to that end i.e., in order to achieve fame

24    soft-conscienced weak-minded

25    to…proud i.e., partly out of pride even…virtue i.e., he is just as proud as he is courageous

29    If even if

30    tire in repetition exhaust the speaker in recounting them

31    risen in revolt prating chattering

32    th’Capitol Capitoline Hill, site of the temple of Jupiter; used in the play as the location of the senate house

34    Soft wait a moment

38    bats cudgels matter matter in hand/reason

41    suitors petitioners strong strong-smelling (sense then shifts to “powerful”)

42    masters sirs

43    undo ruin

46    For as for

47    dearth scarcity, famine

48    staves staffs used as weapons

49    on continue on

50    curbs restraints (literally, chain passed under a horse’s jaw)

52    your impediment any obstacle you can present

54    knees i.e., in prayer arms weapons (playing on the sense of “limbs”)

55    transported carried away

56    attends awaits

57    helms helmsmen, i.e., guides (possibly plays on the sense of “protective helmets”)

59    True, indeed either spoken ironically or “indeed, as a matter of fact” Suffer allow (plays on the sense of “inflict pain on”)

60    for i.e., allowing usury money lending (often at very high rates of interest) usurers moneylenders

62    piercing oppressive, severe

65    wondrous extraordinarily

67    pretty apt

69    stale’t make it stale, wear it out

70    disgrace misfortune/injury

71    an’t if it deliver tell (the tale)

76    cupboarding hoarding viand food

77    Like equal instruments functioning body parts, organs

78    devise think

79    participate participating

80    affection desires, inclination

84    ne’er…lungs i.e., was not hearty and genuine thus Menenius imitates the smile, either with his mouth or with his belly (perhaps by belching)

88    his receipt what he received even…fitly just as aptly, fittingly (said in irony)

89    for that because

95    muniments provisions/defenses, fortifications

96    fabric building, structure (i.e., body)

97    Fore me before me (oath) speaks i.e., talks a lot

98    cormorant greedy (like the seabird)

99    sink sewer

101    former previously named

104    small i.e., small quantity

105    you’st you shall

108    Your i.e., this grave serious, dignified

110    incorporate united in one body

111    general belonging to everyone

116    court plays on the Latin cor (“heart”) and on “core” (“inmost part”)

117    cranks winding passages offices parts of the house used by servants (kitchen, etc.)

118    nerves sinews

119    competency means of life

121    mark pay attention, listen to

125    make…up compile my account, balance my records

126    flour i.e., finest quality meal of wheat or other grain, plays on “flower” (the best part)

127    bran husks (separated from flour after grinding), i.e., inedible part

131    digest interpret, understand (plays on the bodily sense)

132    weal o’th’common public welfare

140    rascal rogue/one of low birth/(hunting) dog worst in blood least lively, in poorest condition (hunting term)/most ill-bred

141    vantage (individual) advantage

144    The one side one side or the other bale misfortune

145    dissentious quarrelsome, rebellious

147    scabs sores/contemptible rogues

148    ever always

150    abhorring contempt curs dogs

151    nor neither The one i.e., war

152    proud arrogant, self-important

153    hares i.e., timid

154    foxes i.e., clever, cunning geese i.e., foolish surer more reliable

156    virtue particular ability

157    make…it honor a man whose wrongdoing is punished, and curse the justice that did so

158    Who whoever

159    Deserves earns, acquires affections desires, inclinations

161    evil sickness

163    rushes flimsy reeds

165    now just now, recently

166    garland hero (deserving of a wreath of victory)

167    several various

169    which else who otherwise

170    seeking request/demand

176    side takes sides in give out report

177    marriages political alliances

178    feebling weakening

179    cobbled patched, roughly mended

180    ruth compassion, pity

181    quarry pile of dead bodies (hunting term)

182    quartered mutilated, cut into quarters

183    pick pitch, throw

186    passing surpassingly, excessively

189    an-hungry hungry (Martius mocks the people’s unsophisticated speech)

190    dogs even dogs

191    meat food

192    shreds scraps (of reasoning)

195    generosity the nobles

197    As as if

198    Shouting their emulation each competing to shout the loudest/shouting in ambitious triumph

200    tribunes officials appointed to protect the interests and rights of the people vulgar common, public, plebeian

202    ’Sdeath by God’s death (common oath)

205    Win upon power gain the advantage over those in power themes subjects/arguments

206    For insurrection’s arguing to justify rebellion

208    fragments insignificant beings (literally, scraps of food)

212    vent get rid of/excrete or urinate

213    musty superfluity moldy excess, i.e., the troublesome citizens (imaged as stale goods or as bodily waste matter)

214    that what

217    to’t i.e., to the test

221    together i.e., against each other

222    by th’ears fighting

223    party side

224    with i.e., against

227    Attend upon serve under, follow

230    constant unchanging, true to my word

232    stiff reluctant/stiff with age/rendered incapable by injury Stand’st out? Will you not fight?

235    Ere in preference to

237    Your i.e., may I have your

238    attend await

241    Right…priority you deserve to go first

246    garners granaries, storehouses Worshipful esteemed (sarcastic)

247    puts well forth develops well, is promising (mocking)

253    moved roused, angered spare to gird refrain from mocking

254    modest chaste (the moon was associated with Diana, Roman goddess of chastity)

255    The may the

258    Tickled with pleased by/excited by/provoked, urged on by

259    noon suggestive of the height of success, when shadows are smallest (but later grow)

260    insolence haughty pride brook bear

265    miscarries fails

267    giddy censure fickle (public) opinion

271    Opinion the reputation/public opinion

272    demerits deserts

274    are belong

277    aught anything

279    dispatch settlement of affairs

280    More…singularity his individual qualities aside/with even greater self-importance

281    action military enterprise

282    along go

Act 1 Scene 2

1.2   Location: Corioli (also known as Corioles)

2    entered in acquainted with counsels opinions/plans/secrets

6    ere before

7    circumvention a chance to outwit (the plan)

10    pressed a power raised an army

14    of by

16    preparation equipped military force

17    Whither wherever bent directed

19    field battlefield

20    made doubt but doubted that

23    pretences plans

24    needs necessarily

26    shortened curtailed

27    take in capture

30    hie hurry bands troops

32    set down before’s besiege us remove removal, lifting (of the siege)

37    parcels parts, sections power army forth out, on the move

38    only hitherward march only in our direction

40    ever ceaselessly, constantly

Act 1 Scene 3

1.3   Location: Martius’ house, Rome

1    comfortable cheerful sort manner

2    freelier more freely

4    tender-bodied young

5    comeliness good looks

7    become befit, suit person character/physical appearance

8    picture-like…th’wall i.e., purely ornamental renown (desire for) honor

9    like likely

10    oak a garland of oak leaves, signifying that he had saved the life of a fellow Roman citizen

11    now i.e., at that time

15    issue offspring

17    voluptuously surfeit live in luxurious, sensual excess

19    give…myself permit me to withdraw

21    hither from here/coming this way

22    See i.e., I imagine I see

25    got begot, conceived

27    mailed armored

28    tasked employed mow Or either mow

29    hire fee

30    Jupiter Roman supreme god

32    gilt his trophy than a covering of gold befits the monument to his victory Hecuba Queen of Troy and mother of Hector, who led the Trojan army

35    contemning in scorn

36    fit ready, in a proper state

37    bless i.e., protect fell fierce, cruel Usher male attendant who walked before a person of rank

43    manifest housekeepers clearly engaged in domestic affairs

44    spot piece of embroidery

48    O’my on my troth faith

49    half…together for a full half hour he’s he has confirmed determined

51    after i.e., ran after

52    or whether whether set clench

53    warrant assure you mammocked tore to pieces

54    on’s of his

55    la exclamation used for emphasis

56    crack little rascal

57    housewife may play on the sense of “hussy, worthless woman”

59    out go out

64    Fie expression of reproach

65    lies in is due to have a baby soon

69    want lack

70    Penelope faithful wife of Ulysses, King of Ithaca; while he was away fighting in the Trojan wars, she deterred her suitors by insisting that she had to finish weaving her father-in-law’s shroud, which she then unpicked every night

71    would wish cambric fine linen (originally from Cambray in Flanders)

72    sensible capable of feeling, sensitive leave cease

77    Verily truly

82    nothing doubt prevailing have no doubt they will succeed

84    Give me excuse excuse me, i.e., permit me to stay

85    disease…mirth spoil our good cheer

86    troth truth

88    at a word once and for all, in a word

Act 1 Scene 4

1.4   Location: outside Corioles; the rest of the scenes in Act 1 take place at varying distances from the city Drum a drummer Colours ensigns, bearers of military banners or flags to them i.e., to them comes

1    met i.e., in battle

2    My…no i.e., I bet my horse against yours that they haven’t

6    spoke encountered one another, fought

9    nor neither

13    ’Iarum alarum, i.e., call to arms

14    Mars Roman god of war

15    smoking i.e., steaming (after immersion in hot blood)

16    fielded engaged on the battlefield parley trumpet summons to negotiation between enemy forces on the walls i.e., the upper staging level or gallery, conventionally used to represent city walls

18    nor…he i.e., there are no men within the walls who fear you

21    pound us up confine us (like animals)

22    pinned with rushes i.e., bolted weakly, as if with mere reeds

24    List listen (to)

25    cloven split in two, divided

27    Their let their our instruction our example, a lesson to us

30    proof impenetrable

31    beyond our thoughts more than we had imagined

34    edge sword edge

35    south south wind, thought to carry disease

38    Further than seen even before you are seen (because of your diseased stench)

39    Against…mile so contagiously that the infection will carry a whole mile against a contrary wind souls of geese i.e., cowards and fools

41    Pluto Roman god of the underworld

42    behind in the back, i.e., as they fled in cowardice

43    agued trembling (an ague was a fever characterized by shaking) Mend improve home toward the target, i.e., the enemy

46    beat drive with blows

48    ope open seconds supporters

49    followers pursuers them i.e., the gates

50    fliers those who retreat

54    th’pot the cooking pot, i.e., death

59    Clapped to shut

60    answer face/encounter in a fight

62    sensibly capable of feeling pain outdares dares more than

63    bows bends stand’st he stands left i.e., alone in the city

64    carbuncle entire flawless red precious stone

66    Cato Marcus Cato, known as the “Censor,” an advocate of Rome’s military virtues (an anachronism: Cato lived 234–149 BC)

73    fetch him off rescue him make remain stay (with him)

Act 1 Scene 5

3    murrain plague (literally, disease affecting cattle and sheep) Trumpet trumpeter

4    prize value

5    drachma silver coin (here deemed of little value)

6    Irons iron weapons, swords of a doit i.e., worth very little doit Dutch coin worth only half an English farthing doublet close-fitting jacket hangmen hangmen were entitled to keep the clothing of those they put to death

9    the general i.e., Cominius

12    Convenient appropriate make good secure

20    physical medicinal, restorative (a reference to the common medical treatment of bloodletting)

24    charms magic spells

25    opposers’ opponents’

26    Prosperity…page i.e., may success attend on you

27    Thy…highest i.e., may prosperity be no less a friend to you

Act 1 Scene 6

*   retire retreat

1    Breathe you catch your breath, rest

2    stands resistance/holding of a military position

4    struck been fighting, given blows

5    By…gusts at intervals and blown in on the wind

6    The may the

8    fronts faces/front ranks (of the army)

10    issued come forth

17    briefly not long ago

18    confound waste

21    that so that

25    as as if

26    stamp imprint, i.e., form, bearing

27    Before-time formerly

29    tabor small drum used for reveling

31    meaner humbler, lower-ranking/less worthy

35    clip clasp, embrace

38    tapers candles to bedward to indicate bedtime, to show the way to bed

40    busied about decrees busy with legal judgments

45    slip be unleashed

51    common file ordinary soldiers

52    budge flinch

55    think think so

59    to…purpose i.e., draw breath, regroup (in order to win)

60    lies their battle are their troops drawn up

63    bands i’th’vanguard troops in the foremost part of the army (spelled “vaward” in Shakespearean English) Antiates people from Antium, now Anzio, in southern Italy

64    Of…trust their most reliable men

69    endure remain

72    advanced upraised darts small spears/arrows

73    prove test

76    balms healing ointments

81    painting i.e., blood

83    Lesser…report less for his personal safety than for his reputation

84    brave noble, splendid/courageous

86    him alone only that man

89    O…me? Do you choose me as your sword? (where O, me alone is an exclamation of surprise)/Do you select only me as your weapon? (perhaps referring to the fact that the soldiers have raised him aloft like a sword)

90    outward superficial, for the sake of appearance

91    But is is not worth

96    cause…obeyed circumstance dictates

100    Make…ostentation i.e., match this impressive display with action

101    Divide in all have a portion of all (the booty)

Act 1 Scene 7

1    ports gates

3    centuries companies of one hundred soldiers

4    holding i.e., of the city

6    Fear not do not doubt/do not worry about care diligence/responsibility

Act 1 Scene 8

*   several separate

4    Not Afric owns Africa does not possess

5    fame and envy great reputation and personal malice/envied reputation/hated reputation Fix thy foot stand firm (in preparation for hand-to-hand combat)

6    budger one who flinches

8    holla shout at (as, while hunting, one would cry out after a fleeing hare)

13    Wrench up strain, summon

15    bragged progeny the (Trojan) ancestry you boast of

16    scape escape from

18    In…seconds with your damned supporters

Act 1 Scene 9

*   Flourish trumpet fanfare (usually signaling the arrival or departure of a person in authority) retreat trumpet call instructing soldiers to retreat scarf sling/bandage

1    tell thee o’er recount to you

4    attend listen shrug i.e., in disbelief

5    I’th’end admire and eventually marvel

6    gladly quaked willingly frightened, eager and trembling dull sluggish/stupid

7    fusty stale, mouldy

8    hearts wills, inclinations

10    cam’st…before i.e., this was a trifling challenge for you, in comparison with the battle you fought at Corioles

13    caparison mere trappings

16    charter…blood right to praise her offspring

18    induced prevailed upon

20    effected carried out

21    overta’en outdone

22    be…deserving i.e., bury your worthiness

25    a traducement slander

27    to…vouched i.e., affirmed in the highest possible terms

29    In sign as a token

33    not i.e., not hear themselves remembered

34    gainst in the face of

35    tent probe, clean surgically (i.e., cure)

36    good…store fine ones and plenty of them

37    in…city gained in the field and in the city

38    the i.e., one

40    At…choice entirely as you choose

44    stand insist common part ordinary share

45    beheld the doing seen the action bare bareheaded, a sign of respect

49    soothing flattery

50    parasite sycophantic, sponging courtier (playing on the sense of “silkworm”) him i.e., the parasite (though functioning as “it,” him could refer to steel or silk)

51    overture announcer, a herald/leader, opener of the attack (some editors emend to “ovator,” i.e., one who receives an ovation or a processional entrance into Rome for a military commander)

52    For that because

53    debile feeble note attention, notice being taken

54    shout me forth proclaim my virtues/hail me

56    little small achievements dieted In fed on

57    sauced seasoned, flavored

60    give portray, report by your patience with your permission

62    means intends proper own

65    garland wreath of victory

67    his trim belonging the equipment (trim) that goes with him

69    host army

70    th’addition the title/mark of distinction

73    fair clean

74    howbeit nevertheless

75    stride sit astride

76    undercrest bear (as if on a crest)

77    th’fairness…power the best of my ability

82    best leading citizens, most high-ranking men (of Corioles) articulate negotiate a treaty

89    sometime at one time, formerly lay lodged

90    used treated

91    cried called out

97    Deliver release

103    visage face

Act 1 Scene 10

1    ta’en captured

2    good condition favorable terms

5    that what

6    condition quality

7    I’th’part…mercy for the side that is at the mercy of the victors

9    encounter meet in combat

12    emulation rivalry

13    where whereas

15    potch poke, thrust

16    Or either craft skill/cunning

18    subtle cunning, treacherous

19    stain disgrace/eclipse

20    Shall…itself shall my valor fly from its own nature

21    naked defenseless fane temple

23    Embarquements prohibitions

24    rotten corrupt, decayed

26    upon under guard protection

27    hospitable canon law of hospitality

29    what who

32    attended awaited

33    south south of

Act 2 Scene 1

2.1   Location: Rome

1    augurer Roman religious official who foretold the future through studying celestial phenomena, the behavior and entrails of birds and other sacrificial creatures

3    Not…people not what the people wish for

4    beasts i.e., even beasts

8    baas bleats

12    enormity vice, wickedness

13    stored well supplied

16    censured judged, thought of

17    o’th’right-hand file by honorable and noble men (who were, in battle, traditionally placed on the right-hand side of a troop formation)

21    ’tis…matter i.e., if you do get angry a…occasion i.e., the slightest opportunity, serving as a thief

22    at your pleasures as you choose

27    single solitary/feeble

28    toward…necks i.e., inward

32    brace pair testy irritable

35    humorous temperamental (governed by the four bodily humors thought to control disposition and mood) hot spiced/warm

36    allaying moderating, cooling Tiber Rome’s river, i.e., water imperfect faulty (in character)

37    complaint i.e., complainant in a legal case tinder-like hot-tempered, easily incensed motion cause

38    converses associates, is familiar buttock…night i.e., late nights

39    spend expend, use up breath utterance, words (i.e., he does not bear grudges)

40    wealsmen public servants Lycurguses i.e., wise men; Lycurgus was a legendary Spartan legislator, noted for his wisdom

41    I…it i.e., my grimace will reveal what I think

42    delivered expressed, reported

43    the…syllables i.e., foolishness in most of what you say compound union, association

44    deadly excessively tell say/report good honest/handsome

45    this i.e., all that I have just admitted about myself the…microcosm i.e., my face (which charts the nature of the body, often viewed as a “little world”)

46    bisson bleary-eyed conspectuities faculties of sight/insights

47    character personality sketch/physical appearance

50    caps i.e., doffing of caps in deference legs i.e., bows wholesome forenoon potentially profitable morning

51    orange-wife woman who sells oranges; perhaps suggesting a dispute between a prostitute and her client; prostitutes often posed as orange-sellers in the public theaters faucet-seller seller of taps for wine or beer barrels rejourn postpone, adjourn

52    controversy dispute audience hearing

53    party and party i.e., two sides ina legal dispute pinched tormented

54    mummers actors in a mime set…flag i.e., declare war

55    bleeding unhealed, unresolved

58    giber joker table dinner table

59    bencher magistrate

61    subjects citizens/topics When even when

63    botcher one who mends old clothes

64    in a cheap even at the lowest

65    Deucalion in Greek mythology, the son of Prometheus; he and his wife were the only survivors of Zeus’ great flood peradventure perhaps/probably

66    e’en evening, i.e., farewell

69    the moon governed by Diana, Roman goddess of chastity

70    follow your eyes i.e., go eagerly

71    Juno supreme Roman goddess and wife of Jupiter

74    most prosperous approbation great proof of success/great success and acclaim

81    estate endowment

82    make…at mock dismissively sovereign efficacious, excellent Galen famous Greek physician (an anachronism; Galen lived in the second century)

83    empiricutic empirical/fraudulent to compared with report reputation horse-drench dose of horse medicine

84    wont accustomed

87    a he

89    brows i.e., in the form of a victor’s garland

91    disciplined beaten, punished

93    an if

94    ’fidiussed i.e., treated as Aufidius was; Menenius playfully coins a word from Aufidius’ name

95    possessed aware, informed

97    name of honor, credit for action military enterprise

100    purchasing deserving, winning

102    Pow waw! expression of dismissive scorn (i.e., “Of course they’re true!”)

106    cicatrices scars

107    place i.e., as a consul repulse driving back/defeat Tarquin the last king of Rome, defeated in about 496 BC

109    One…nine either an error arising from the desire to outdo Volumnia, or Menenius begins adding up aloud, then does not bother to enumerate the other six wounds as he makes a mental leap to the total

115    nervy sinewy, muscular

116    advanced raised up declines descends sennet trumpet call signaling a procession

119    to in addition to

120    These…follows these names, as a mark of honor, are to be followed by

127    prosperity good fortune, success

129    gentle noble, honorable

130    deed-achieving honour honor won by actions

133    gracious delightful/virtuous/full of divine grace

143    light joyful (playing on the sense of “not weighty” to provide antithesis with the literal sense of heavy here signifying “sad”)

144    on’s of his

147    crab-trees crab apple trees, i.e., the bitter tribunes

148    grafted altered, made to grow (literally, grafted to a superior tree) relish taste

149    We…folly i.e., some painful or foolish things must be accepted for what they are and cannot be called otherwise

153    Give make

155    shade conceal

158    change of honours new honors (i.e., his new name)

160    inherited realized, acquired

161    fancy imagination

162    wanting lacking

163    cast bestow

166    sway rule state ceremony, formal procession

168    blearèd dim, bleary

169    spectacled made clear, given glasses prattling gossiping, chattering

170    rapture fit

171    chats chats about malkin girl, wench

172    lockram linen reechy dirty (picks up aurally on richest)

173    stalls display tables in front of shops bulks frameworks projecting from the fronts of shops, used to display goods

174    leads lead-covered flat roofs ridges roof ridges horsed straddled

175    variable complexions various types of person agreeing in agreement/alike, equal

176    seld-shown seldom-seen flamens priests

177    popular plebeian puff become out of breath

178    vulgar station place amongst the crowd

179    Commit…kisses i.e., they raise their veils and risk getting sunburn damask pink nicely gauded skillfully made-up th’wanton spoil the unrestrained destruction/lascivious plundering Phoebus the sun god

181    pother fuss, commotion

182    that…him whichever god it is that leads Coriolanus

183    his human powers i.e., Coriolanus’ body powers faculties

184    graceful posture divine bearing

185    On the sudden suddenly/immediately warrant guarantee/predict

186    office task, function power authority, i.e., term of office

187    He…end he cannot carry his honors steadily from their beginning to their proper conclusion, i.e., he cannot long maintain his new honors

192    for…stand whom we represent

193    Upon because of ancient long-standing

194    which i.e., which cause

196    As as that

200    napless vesture threadbare garment

202    breaths i.e., voices of support

204    miss it i.e., not be appointed consul

205    carry it but i.e., obtain it other than

210    like likely

211    good wills interest wishes

213    So…end matters shall end either with his destruction or that of us and our authority (many editors emend authorities to “authority’s”)

215    suggest hint, insinuate to

216    still always

217    mules i.e., subservient beasts of burden pleaders i.e., the tribunes

218    dispropertied deprived, dispossessed (them of)

219    capacity capability, understanding

221    provand provender, food

226    want be lacking

227    put upon’t encouraged, incited to it

230    darken obscure/taint

235    matrons married women

237    bended i.e., bowed

238    Jove Roman supreme god (also known as Jupiter)

242    carry…th’time i.e., let us be vigilant for the present

243    hearts i.e., valor/commitment/hidden desires    event future outcome

244    Have with you I’ll join you/let’s go

Act 2 Scene 2

2.2   Location: Rome (the Capitol)

2    of by

3    brave splendid vengeance exceedingly

6    them refers either to the people or to the great men they i.e., the people

7    wherefore why

9    in of

11    waved would waver

14    discover him reveal him to be opposite enemy affect seek out/like, enjoy

18    degrees steps supple compliant, obsequious

19    bonneted removed their hats (a mark of respect)    without…report and gained others’ esteem and a good reputation without doing anything else

22    giving…lie being manifestly untrue    Lictors officers attending magistrates

25    determined of made a decision about

27    after-meeting follow-up meeting

28    gratify reward

29    stood for defended

30    grave dignified, respected

32    well-found commendable/found to be good

36    like himself appropriate to him, as worthy as he is

38    length fear of taking too long

39    for requital in its ability to recompense (such deeds)

41    after afterwards, then

42    motion encouragement, prompting body i.e., people

43    yield consent to

44    convented assembled upon i.e., to consider treaty proposition

45    theme subject

46    blest happy kinder value more generous estimation

47    hereto previously

48    off beside the point offers attempts

60    disbenched unseated

63    soothed flattered

64    as they weigh according to their worth

66    have…struck i.e., remain idle when the call to battle goes out

68    monstered made into unnatural marvels

70    multiplying spawn rapidly breeding commoners

71    That’s…one i.e., for one good Coriolanus there are a thousand inadequate commoners/for every worthy commoner there are a thousand bad ones

73    one on’s for one of his

79    singly counterpoised matched by any other individual

80    made…for raised troops to attack

81    mark range, capacity dictator leader

82    point at allude to

83    Amazonian beardless, like the Amazons, a race of female warriors

84    bestrid stood over to defend

85    o’erpressed overpowered view sight

87    on onto

88    might…scene i.e., might have wept or been afraid (act and scene set up the image of a boy player)

89    meed reward

90    brow-bound…oak given a wreath of oak leaves to wear on his head (signifying that he had saved the life of a fellow Roman) pupil…thus his youth being thus initiated into manhood/his apprenticeship thus begun in the manner of a fully grown man

91    waxèd grew

92    brunt shock, violence

93    lurched…garland robbed all fellow soldiers of the victory garland for as for

95    speak him home find words to describe him adequately fliers those fleeing

96    rare marvelous/exceptional

99    stem prow stamp tool with which to imprint a design

100    took made a lasting impression (i.e., killed)

102    timed accompanied regularly

103    mortal fatal (either threatening death to Coriolanus or bringing death to the city) which from which painted…destiny i.e., stained with the blood of the dead shunless inescapable

104    came off came away, emerged

105    reinforcement fresh attack struck astrological term referring to the power of a planet to emit a deadly influence

107    gan began to

108    ready sense alert sense of hearing straight straightaway doubled redoubled in strength

109    requickened revived, reanimated fatigate weary, fatigued

111    reeking steaming (with the fresh blood of enemies)

112    spoil slaughter, destruction

116    with measure fittingly, with due proportion

117    kicked at rejected, spurned

118    as as if

120    misery complete poverty

121    with doing them i.e., by taking satisfaction from performing them

122    To…it that time well spent is an end in itself/in seeking death

127    still always

131    naked exposed (to the view of the people)/ vulnerable/wearing nothing beneath the gown (to permit a better view of war wounds)

132    sufferage vote, approval

133    pass avoid, bypass

134    voices votes

135    bate omit

136    Put force

139    your form the formality that befits your status

145    hire payment

147    stand upon’t make an issue of it

148    recommend commit, entrust

149    purpose to them intentions regarding the people

152    use treat

153    require ask

154    contemn…give despise the fact that what he requested should be in their power to give

158    attend await

Act 2 Scene 3

2.3   Location: Rome (marketplace)

1    Once once and for all

4    power…do a legal prerogative that we have no moral right to exercise

6    monstrous unnatural

9    a…serve will require little effort once once when

10    stuck hesitated

12    of by that because

13    abram auburn, here meaning “blond”

15    consent of agreement on

18    out emerge, come out wit…will perhaps playing on sexual connotations of both words to signify “penis”

19    southward the south wind was thought to carry disease and storms/the lower regions, i.e., genitals

21    rotten corrupting, unwholesome—playing on “affected by venereal disease”; conscience and tricks also have potential sexual meanings

23    you may i.e., go on, say what you like

25    greater part majority incline be well-disposed

29    by particulars to individuals, one by one

30    single honour individual privilege, right

37    pace obedient, measured movement

44    would wish virtues i.e., exhortations to virtue

45    divines priests lose by waste on

48    wholesome profitable/beneficial

50    brace pair (originally used of dogs); an inconsistency, as three citizens have entered; similarly, the subsequent acknowledgment of two worthy voices seems to neglect the third citizen

60    kindly pleasantly

62    yours i.e., yours to view

64    A match agreed

66    something somewhat

67    An ’twere if it were

68    stand agree

72    enigma riddle

73    scourge punishing whip rod punishment cane

76    common promiscuous, indiscriminate sworn brother loyal friend bound by oath a…them a more valuable place in their esteem

77    condition attribute, habit gentle noble

78    have my hat i.e., have me remove my hat as a mark of respect and deference

79    insinuating ingratiating be off remove my hat counterfeitly falsely, insincerely

80    counterfeit the bewitchment copy the bewitching charm popular man man who curries favor with the people/man of the people bountiful bountifully

85    seal confirm

90    crave beg hire payment, reward

91    in…tongue i.e., uttering such deceptions (many editors emend to “toge,” i.e., “toga,” the gown of humility Coriolanus wears)

92    Hob…appear any fellow who turns up (Hob and Dick were typical names for common men or rustics)

93    needless unnecessary vouches formal confirmations

95    antique time ancient customs

97    o’erpeer peer over, rise above

99    do thus behave in such a foolish manner

101    voices votes

103    Watched kept guard

105    heard of heard, i.e., experienced firsthand

113    limitation allotted time

114    Endue endow remains it only remains

115    marks insignia of office

116    Anon shortly

118    request i.e., asking for the people’s approval

120    upon your approbation to confirm their approval of you

126    Repair make my way

132    weeds clothes

134    my masters sirs

137    notice observation

139    flouted insulted, mocked

140    kind of speech way of speaking

153    further with further need of

154    ignorant too dull

158    lessoned instructed

160    ever always

161    charters…weal privileges that you hold in the commonwealth

162    arriving reaching

163    sway o’th’state state authority

165    th’plebeii the plebeians

168    what…for i.e., the position of consul

169    think upon esteem

170    Translate transform

171    Standing…lord supporting you as a patron, acting on your behalf

173    had touched would have tested (as the quality of gold was tested by rubbing it on a touchstone)

176    cause occasion called you up prompted you

177    galled irritated, inflamed

178    article condition, stipulation

179    aught anything

180    choler anger

183    free frank, undisguised

187    heart courage, spirit cry protest, rebel

188    rectorship rule

189    ere…asker on previous occasions refused to vote for one who asked you

191    sued-for begged for/formally entreated

195    piece add to, augment

200    therefor for that purpose, i.e., barking

201    safer more sensible

202    enforce emphasize

205    suit petition (may play on the sense of “clothing”)

207    Th’apprehension the understanding portance behavior, demeanor

208    gibingly tauntingly ungravely derisively, disrespectfully

209    After according to inveterate long-standing

210    Lay…on blame

211    no impediment between allowing nothing to stand in the way

214    affections wishes, preferences

216    against the grain perversely, against your true inclinations

217    voice vote

218    read lectures to instructed

219    youngly early in life

222    Ancus Martius traditionally, the fourth king of Rome Numa Numa Pompilius, second king of Rome

223    Hostilius Tullus Hostilius, third King of Rome

224    Publius unknown ancestor of Coriolanus Quintus…conduits an anachronism: Quintus Martius Rex was involved in building the Aqua Martia aqueduct in Rome in the second century BC

225    conduits aqueducts

226    Censorinus another anachronism: Caius Martius Rutilus was given the title “Censorinus” in the third century BC

227    censor magistrate in charge of the census of citizens

230    That…wrought who has, in addition, well deserved through his own actions

233    Scaling weighing up

235    sudden hasty

237    putting on encouragement, urging

238    presently…number as soon as you have gathered your crowd of supporters

239    Repair make your way

242    put in hazard risked

243    Than…greater than to await the greater revolt that would doubtless occur

245    answer…of respond to the advantages offered by

249    own i.e., own doing

Act 3 Scene 1

3.1   Location: Rome (a street—the procession is on its way to the market-place)

1    made new head raised a new army

3    composition coming to terms

5    road inroads, incursions

7    worn weakened, exhausted

8    ages lifetimes

11    On safeguard under safe conduct

12    for because vilely contemptibly, shamefully

13    retired withdrawn Antium town situated on the coast, about thirty-five miles south of Rome; now Anzio

20    To hopeless restitution beyond hope of recovery so provided that

28    prank them dress themselves up

29    Against…sufferance beyond what the nobility can endure

35    passed…common been approved by the nobility and the common people

40    broil turmoil, fighting

42    voices votes

43    straight immediately (afterward) offices roles, responsibilities

44    rule…teeth i.e., can you not control their vicious snapping

45    set them on encouraged them (suggesting the incitement of dogs in bear-baiting)

47    purposed planned

49    Suffer’t, and live if you put up with it, you will have to live

52    of late recently

53    gratis free repined complained

54    Scandalled scorned, slandered

55    Time-pleasers followers of fashion/opportunists

58    sithence since

60    like likely

61    Not…yours i.e., I am likely to better you in any case

62    yond yonder, those

65    that that quality

68    are out of have strayed from

70    yoke associate yourself

72    abused deceived palt’ring evasiveness, trickery

74    dishonoured dishonorable rub obstacle (bowling term) laid falsely placed treacherously

75    I’th’plain in the level, smooth

82    For as for meinie common people, rabble (pronounced “many” or “meeny”)

83    regard take note of, observe

84    behold themselves i.e., reflected in the unflattering truths Coriolanus will utter

85    soothing flattering

86    cockle weed sedition revolt

88    honoured honorable

96    Coin create their i.e., the lungs’ measles red spots of disease; possibly also “lepers”

97    tetter cover with pustules yet sought although we have sought

100    infirmity (human) weakness

102    choler bile, i.e., anger; one of the four humors of early physiology, causing irascibility of temper

103    patient calm

104    mind opinion

108    Triton minor Greek sea god minnows small fish, i.e., common people

110    from the canon out of order, exceeding a tribune’s authority

113    Given allowed Hydra in Greek mythology, a monster that grew two heads for every one that was cut off

114    peremptory imperious

115    horn and noise noisy horn wants lacks

116    turn divert current flow of water

118    vail your ignorance yield in ignorant submission vail to lower a flag or weapon in submission awake…lenity rouse yourselves from this dangerous mildness

121    cushions i.e., seats in the senate by with, next to/courtesy of

123    both your voices i.e., those of senators and plebeians the…theirs the blend of voices tastes most strongly of the plebeians/the plebeians most enjoy the prevalent taste (i.e., their own)

126    popular i.e., on behalf of the people graver more revered bench governing body/judicial court

129    up active, exerting power

130    confusion destruction/chaos

131    of both between the two take conquer/destroy

132    by by using

135    used Sometime formerly customary

141    give…voice give their vote to one who speaks thus

145    our recompense reward from us

146    pressed impressed, conscripted

147    navel i.e., very center touched threatened, affected

148    thread pass through

151    spoke not for didn’t recommend

153    All cause unborn without any justification native origin

154    frank generous, free

155    bosom multiplied (creature of) many stomachs digest comprehend/digest bodily

157    like likely

158    greater poll majority poll number of people (literally, heads)

161    cares concerns (for state welfare)

163    crows plays on the sense of “crowbars” (with which to break the locks o’th’senate) eagles i.e., superior birds; a symbol of Roman power

165    over-measure excess

168    Seal (may it) confirm withal with double worship divided authority

170    Insult behave insolently without all without any/beyond all gentry social rank, being a gentleman

171    conclude come to a decision

172    general common, popular omit neglect

173    the while in the meantime

174    slightness triviality Purpose so barred proper planning being thus prevented

175    to purpose effectively

176    fearful timid, cowardly discreet discerning, prudent

177    love…on’t love the foundations of sound government more than you fear making the changes that are necessary to preserve it (i.e., getting rid of the tribunes)

180    jump risk (treating) physic medicine

182    multitudinous tongue voice of the multitude, i.e., the tribunes

183    sweet i.e., power dishonour current shameful situation

184    bereaves deprives

185    integrity unity

187    For th’ill because of the evil (i.e., the tribunes and the people they represent)

189    answer pay for it

191    despite contempt

192    bald lacking both hair and wisdom

194    th’greater bench the more important governing body, i.e., the senate

195    what’s…law when force and circumstance, rather than what was right, prevailed

197    what…meet what is right and proper be openly acknowledged as the correct thing to do

201    aediles public officers, assistants to the tribunes

202    apprehended arrested

204    Attach arrest innovator revolutionary

205    th’public weal the commonwealth

206    answer interrogation, trial/punishment

208    surety stand bail for

222    Confusion destruction/disorder/overthrow

227    at…lose on the point of losing

239    distinctly ranges is laid out in a clear and orderly manner

242    Or either stand to uphold

244    part behalf

246    present immediate

248    th’rock Tarpeian the precipice on the Capitoline Hill, from which criminals were thrown to their deaths

255    that what

256    temp’rately calmly

258    cold calm, unimpassioned beat in beaten offstage

264    seen me seen me do

270    naught lost, brought to nothing else otherwise

276    cause disease

278    tent probe and clean (a wound) surgically, i.e., cure

281    littered born (like calved, used of animals)

285    One…another another time will compensate for this one

287    up on brace pair

288    ’tis…arithmetic i.e., we are incalculably outnumbered

289    manhood manliness/valor foolery folly

290    fabric building

291    tag rabble rend tear apart, lay waste

292    interrupted obstructed o’erbear…bear overwhelm what usually contains them (i.e., riverbanks)

295    in request With required by

296    patched…colour i.e., mended by any means possible

301    Neptune Roman god of the sea, who traditionally carried a trident (three-pronged spear)

302    thunder Jove’s weapon was the thunderbolt his…mouth i.e., he speaks what he feels

307    Tiber Rome’s river What the vengeance! intensifying phrase, similar to “What the hell!”

308    ’em fair to them courteously

314    rigorous harsh, severe

315    scorn disdain to offer

317    sets values

320    sure on’t be sure of it

323    cry havoc call for slaughter and general devastation

324    modest warrant limited license

325    holp helped

326    rescue forcible removal of a prisoner from custody (legal term)

333    leave permission

338    peremptory resolved

339    eject him hence exile him

345    deservèd deserving enrolled recorded

346    dam mother

350    Mortal fatal

355    by at the hands of

356    suffer permit

357    brand mark of disgrace

358    clean cam utterly misleading cam crooked, awry

359    Merely totally

370    unscanned thoughtless

371    to’s to its process proper legal procedure

372    parties sides, factions

375    What why

377    smote struck

379    a he

380    bolted sifted (i.e., refined, considered) meal and bran flour and worthless husks

383    Where…peril where he, his life at stake, shall answer for his behavior through the calm process of a trial

388    Unknown…beginning unpredictable

393    attend await

Act 3 Scene 2

3.2   Location: Rome (Coriolanus’ house)

1    pull…ears i.e., destroy everything, crush me present me put me forward for

2    wheel torture wheel to which the victim was tied and their bones broken before they died at…heels a form of death in which the victim’s limbs were tied to horses that then ran in different directions

4    precipitation steep drop

5    beam the eyes were thought to emit beams that enabled vision

8    muse wonder (that)

9    approve support, praise wont accustomed

10    woollen i.e., coarsely clothed vassals servants/slaves

11    groats coins worth four old pence (suggesting the people are mere petty traders) show bare heads i.e., remove their hats as a mark of deference

12    congregations gatherings yawn gape

13    ordinance rank, standing

19    put…on i.e., fully gained and exercised your new authority

21    Let go enough

23    lesser…dispositions the people would have understood less of your plans/moods (sense is awkward, so many editors emend “things,” e.g., to “thwartings”)

26    Ere…you i.e., before they could prevent you actually becoming consul cross thwart

29    something somewhat

33    Cleave…midst split down the middle

35    apt compliant, submissive

37    vantage advantage, benefit

39    but were it not

40    fit attack of illness/seizure physic medicine

49    absolute inflexible

50    therein…speak i.e., being uncompromising is a noble stance, except in cases of extreme urgency

52    policy strategy/cunning unsevered inseparable, united

57    demand question

58    seem…not dissimulate, pretend to be what you are not

60    adopt adopt as less i.e., less honorable

61    That…request for policy to be honorable in peacetime as well in as war, given that both situations require it equally

64    force urge

65    lies you on is incumbent upon you

66    instruction conviction, prompting

68    but roted merely learned by heart

69    Bastards i.e., illegitimate, not genuine of…To unacknowledged by

71    take in capture

72    gentle honorable/soft, kind else otherwise put…blood put your chances to the test and risk much bloodshed

74    dissemble with disguise where…honour in a case where, my fortunes and friends being at risk, honor required me to do so

76    I…this i.e., my views represent those of

78    general common

79    a fawn flattery

80    inheritance acquisition

81    want lack (i.e., of their loves/of flattery)

83    salve heal, remedy

84    Not not only

87    bonnet hat

88    stretched it held it out to them here…them go this far in humoring them/on this point, give them what they want

89    bussing kissing

91    learnèd i.e., responsive waving shaking or bowing (in repentance and humility)

92    stout proud

94    hold withstand

95    broils turmoil, battles

96    soft sociable/gentle

97    fit as fit

98    asking asking for frame adapt, make

99    forsooth in truth

100    person personal authority, influential presence

102    Even…speaks exactly as she describes

103    free freely granted

108    bower arbor/boudoir

111    make gather party faction, side

117    unbarbèd sconce unarmed head

120    plot piece of earth, i.e., body

121    mould earth/frame

124    discharge to th’life perform convincingly

132    harlot’s beggar’s/whore’s throat of war i.e., soldier’s voice

133    choirèd sang in harmony

134    Small high-pitched

135    babies lull lulls, soothes babies

136    Tent encamp take up occupy

137    The…sight my eyeballs

140    alms charitable gift

141    surcease cease

143    inherent permanent, abiding

147    feel experience, undergo the effects of

148    stoutness obstinacy

149    heart i.e., courage list please

151    owe own

154    mountebank use trickery to win

155    Cog cheat

161    arm prepare

165    word watchword, password

166    by invention with invented charges

Act 3 Scene 3

3.3   Location: Rome (the market-place)

1    charge him home press home your accusations affects seeks out/is drawn to

3    Enforce urge against/attack/constrain envy malice

4    spoil got on booty won from

10    catalogue list

12    by th’poll by head, individually

14    tribes divisions of the populace of Rome

16    presently immediately

21    old prerogative traditional rights (of the people)

22    i’th’truth o’th’cause in the justice of the case

24    cry cry out, shout

26    present execution immediate carrying out

30    hap happen

32    Put…straight rouse him to anger him straightaway

33    worth Of contradiction full share of answering back, pennyworth of defiance

34    chafed roused, angered

36    looks looks likely, promises

37    us i.e., our assistance

40    ostler stable groom piece coin

41    bear…th’volume put up with being called knave any number of times/endure any degree of ill treatment from a knave Th’honoured may the honored

43    among’s among us

44    shows ceremonies

49    List listen Audience listen, pay attention

52    this present with this present allegation

53    determine be settled

54    demand ask

56    Allow acknowledge

57    censure judgment

68    accents ways of speaking/words

70    envy you display malice toward you

74    very very same

76    Answer to us i.e., you have no right to ask the questions

77    so to do so, i.e., answer to you

78    contrived plotted

79    seasoned established (or perhaps “qualified, moderate” as opposed to tyrannical) wind insinuate

82    How? What?

84    fold in enfold, encircle

85    their traitor traitor to them injurious insulting, wrongful

86    Within Even if within, i.e., whatever you might do to me

89    free frank/honest/unrestrained

90    I…the that with which I pray to the

94    put add

97    strokes blows, assaults

99    capital i.e., worthy of the death penalty

102    prate chatter, babble

109    pent imprisoned linger barely survive, linger on

112    check restrain, curb

113    have’t have it (i.e., the people’s mercy)

114    For that because

115    in him lies he possibly could

116    Envied against shown malice toward

117    as inasmuch as (he has)

118    not not only

123    precipitation being thrown

136    estimate reputation, honor womb’s…loins i.e., children

144    cry pack

145    reek stench/foggy vapor

148    remain may you remain

150    plumes feathers on a helmet

151    have may you have still always

153    finds…feels only learns through experience

154    Making…yourselves trying only to protect yourselves/having banished everyone except yourselves

155    Still…foes always your own worst enemies

156    abated humbled, beaten down

158    For because of

163    despite disdain, contempt

164    vexation torment, mortification

Act 4 Scene 1

4.1   Location: Rome (near the city gates)

1    leave cease

3    ancient former used accustomed

4    extremities extreme circumstances, crisis

5    common chances ordinary events

7    Fortune’s…cunning when fortune strikes hardest, it takes noble skill to bear one’s wounds like a gentleman

11    conned learned, memorized

14    red pestilence red sores were characteristic of the plague

15    occupations trades

17    lacked absent/missed

18    wont accustomed

19    Hercules legendary Greek hero who achieved twelve seemingly impossible labours

22    Droop look downcast, despair

25    venomous i.e., stinging, causing inflammation sometime former

28    fond foolish strokes blows, afflictions

29    wot know

30    still always

31    Believe’t not lightly do not doubt this

32    fen swamp

34    or either exceed the common outdo ordinary men, exceed ordinary expectations

35    cautelous…practice deceitful snares and plotting

39    exposture exposure

40    starts leaps up

42    follow accompany

45    repeal recall from exile

47    advantage the advantageous opportunity

51    wars’ surfeits excesses of military service

52    bring accompany

54    noble touch noble qualities/proven nobility (as the quality of gold is proved with a touchstone)

61    one seven i.e., seven

63    foot step of the way

Act 4 Scene 2

4.2   Location: Rome (a street)

1    home go home

8    ancient former

13    mad furious/wild, high-spirited/mentally disturbed

16    Th’hoarded the stored-up requite repay

22    mankind masculine/furious (Volumnia replies to the sense of “human”)

24    foxship sly cunning

30    would wish

31    Arabia i.e., the desert (a suitably lawless place for death, and one with nowhere for the enemy to hide) tribe supporters/family before in front of, facing

34    posterity descendants

39    unknit untied for

40    knot bond between him and Rome

43    Cats i.e., wretched creatures (contemptuous)

48    brave splendid/courageous (sarcastic)

50    meanest poorest, humblest

54    baited With harassed by

58    ’em i.e., the tribunes

60    to’t on it

61    told chastised home thoroughly

62    sup dine

63    meat food

64    starve with feeding i.e., consume myself/starve from not eating actual food

65    faint puling feeble whining

66    Juno-like like the supreme Roman goddess, Juno; her merciless fury is described in Virgil’s Aeneid

Act 4 Scene 3

4.3   Location: on the road, between Rome and Antium

3    ’em i.e., the Romans

7    favour…tongue identity is confirmed by your voice favour appearance/face

8    note i.e., of instruction

16    ripe ready

17    glowing smoldering mature ready

22    them i.e., the Volscians

25    of from

26    choose do otherwise (than appear well)

28    this this time, now

30    centurions officers, each in charge of one hundred men charges i.e., troops distinctly billeted individually enrolled

31    in th’entertainment on the payroll, employed

33    present immediate

34    part role, words

Act 4 Scene 4

4.4   Location: Antium (outside Aufidius’ house) mean humble, poor

3    ’fore my wars in the face of my attacks

6    puny inexperienced Save God save

9    lies lives

15    slippery turns fickle, treacherous changes fast firmly

16    double two (plays on the sense of “deceitful”)

18    still always

20    dissension…doit dispute over something trivial doit Dutch coin of small value

21    fellest fiercest, most cruel

22    plots…other plots to capture one another have kept them awake

24    trick trifle

25    interjoin their issues unite their fortunes/join their children in marriage

28    give me way allow me to go freely/grant my request

Act 4 Scene 5

4.5   Location: Antium (inside Aufidius’ house)

1    fellows fellow servants

6    Whence from what place

7    go…door i.e., leave

8    entertainment hospitality, reception

11    companions rogues

15    brave defiant anon in a moment

19    avoid leave

25    station place to stand

27    Follow your function get on with your job batten grow fat cold bits i.e., left overs

32    canopy i.e., the sky

36    kites and crows birds of prey, scavengers

38    daws jackdaws, proverbially foolish birds

40    meddle concern yourself, interfere (Coriolanus then shifts the sense to “have sex with”)

42    prat’st speak insolently/to little purpose trencher wooden serving dish

44    but were it not

56    grim fierce, cruel/forbidding, severe

57    command authority tackle gear, equipment—i.e., clothing (plays on sense of “ship’s rigging”)

58    show’st seem to be

62    particularly in person, individually

63    mischief injury thereto…Coriolanus which is attested by my honorary surname, “Coriolanus”

64    painful arduous, diligent

67    memory memorial/reminder

71    dastard cowardly

72    forsook rejected, abandoned

74    Whooped jeered, hooted

78    in mere out of pure

79    be…of fully pay back

81    wreak vengeance

82    maims Of shame shameful wounds

83    through throughout

87    cankered corrupted, diseased

88    under-fiends hell’s devils

89    prove more fortunes try your fortunes further

92    ancient long-standing

95    tuns barrels

104    where against against which

105    grainèd ash strong spear (made of straight-grained ash)

106    clip embrace

107    anvil i.e., Coriolanus, who has been struck by Aufidius’ sword as an anvil is hit with a hammer

113    dances sets dancing, excites rapt enraptured

115    Bestride step across Mars Roman god of war; may pun on “Martius”

116    a…foot an army mobilized

117    target shield brawn muscular arm

118    out outright, fully

119    several separate

121    down together fighting with each other on the ground; the speech betrays a perhaps unconscious homoeroticism, with many of its terms having sexual connotations (hotly, encounters, half dead)

122    helms helmets fisting clutching, throttling; also slang for “breaking wind,” so anal connotations are not impossible

123    waked I have waked

125    muster all recruit all men

128    o’erbear’t overwhelm it (Rome)

131    am prepared have forces drawn up

134    absolute incomparable, perfect

136    commission authority/those in my command set down determine

140    rudely violently

141    ere destroy before destroying them

142    commend introduce (favorably)

148    gave told

150    set up set spinning

155    rarest most exceptional/most splendid

156    he…on you know who (i.e., Aufidius)

158    it’s…for never mind about

159    on of him like him in the following line, this may refer either to Coriolanus or to Aufidius

164    slaves rogues/servants

166    as lief rather

168    Wherefore? Why?

169    was wont used

176    on’t of it

177    scotched slashed carbonado meat scored for cooking

178    An if given inclined

181    on much of

182    upper end o’th’table i.e., in the place of honor

183    but…bald without them standing hatless (a mark of respect)

184    sanctifies…hand touches Coriolanus’ hand as if it were holy

185    bottom essence, bottom line

187    sowl roughly seize

188    polled stripped bare (literally, with the branches lopped away)

192    directitude a nonsense word; perhaps the Third Servingman means “discredit”

194    crest cockerel’s crest/feathers on a helmet in blood in good condition, full of life (hunting term)

195    will will come conies rabbits

197    presently immediately

198    parcel part

200    stirring lively, active

203    audible noisy/keen of hearing (like a hunting dog) full of vent full of shouts and noise/has picked up the scent of a hunted animal apoplexy paralysis

204    mulled numbed, stupefied getter begetter, conceiver

206    ravisher rapist

207    cuckolds men with unfaithful wives

210    rising i.e., from the table

Act 4 Scene 6

4.6   Location: Rome

2    His…tame the remedies needed to get rid of Coriolanus (i.e., the protesting people) are quiet

4    hurry commotion, urgent activity

7    pest’ring obstructing

9    functions tasks, occupations

10    stood to’t made a stand against it

15    But except

16    were even were

18    temporized compromised, been moderate

23    e ’en evening (i.e., any time after noon)

32    comely decent, pleasing

39    affecting aiming for/desiring assistance partners

41    this this time, now

47    several powers separate armies

53    horns i.e., like those of a snail

54    inshelled within his (snail’s) shell, withdrawn stood fought

56    what why

58    break with us i.e., break the terms of our treaty

62    age lifetime reason with converse with, question

64    information source of information

71    turns transforms

73    His raising this is his rumormongering

76    seconded corroborated

82    as…between wide enough to include

85    Raised stirred up, rumored

87    trick on’t nature, aim of it

89    atone be reconciled

90    violent’st contrariety most extreme opposites

95    O’erborne overcome (everything in) took captured

99    holp helped ravish rape

100    leads lead roofs pates heads

101    to your noses in front of you, in your faces

103    in their cement i.e., to their foundations

104    franchises rights, freedom

105    auger’s bore small hole made with a carpenter’s tool (auger)

112    brats children

116    apron-men tradesmen

117    voice of occupation workingmen’s votes

118    garlic-eaters i.e., the lower classes

120    Hercules…fruit the eleventh labor of Hercules was to pluck the golden apples of the Hesperides (the three sisters who guarded them)

124    other otherwise

125    smilingly willingly who whoever

127    constant steadfast, loyal

128    something some admirable quality

129    undone ruined

134    for as for

135    charged would be entreating

137    showed would appear

138    brand flaming torch

140    hands i.e., work (sarcastic)

141    crafts skills/craftsmen/guiles crafted worked skillfully/been cunning

144    S’incapable of help so incapable of being helped

148    clusters crowd, mobs

151    roar i.e., with fear

152    name greatest (after Coriolanus) his points Coriolanus’ instructions

162    coxcombs i.e., fool’s heads (literally, headgear with a crest like a cock’s comb)

165    coal smoldering piece of charcoal

176    cry pack (of dogs)/shouting, noise Shall’s shall we go

179    side faction

187    Would…lie i.e., I would give half my wealth to have this be untrue

Act 4 Scene 7

4.7   Location: the Volscian camp, near Rome

5    darkened obscured, eclipsed

6    own own men, followers

8    using means taking action lame…design cripple our plans (for Rome)

12    changeling fickle thing

15    for your particular as far as you personally are concerned

16    Joined in commission decided to share power

17    Have…yourself had orchestrated the campaign by yourself

20    account reckoning, judgment

21    urge bring forward

23    th’vulgar the common bears manages

24    husbandry for management on behalf of

25    achieve succeed in his aims

29    carry overcome, capture

30    sits down begins a siege

34    repeal recall from exile

36    osprey fish hawk, thought to be so kingly that fish turned belly-up in surrender to it

39    even steadily, evenly

40    out…fortune due to repeated success

41    happy fortunate

42    disposal management

43    nature his character

45    casque helmet cushion i.e., senator’s seat/comfort of peacetime

46    austerity and garb severe manner

48    spices traces, a flavor

49    free absolve

50    So therefore he…utt’rance his merit stifles itself even as it is being praised/his merit is sufficient to stifle any talk of whatever fault was responsible

52    time current age, contemporary opinion

53    power…done while power may be inherently worthy of praise it never entombs itself more surely than when it is publicly proclaimed chair public rostrum T’extol to raise up with praise

57    Rights…fail i.e., other, more dominant rights or strengths overcome the original ones; foulder, which could mean either “fire out” or “crumble,” is the most satisfactory emendation of Folio’s senseless “fouler,” though some editors prefer “falter”

Act 5 Scene 1

5.1   Location: Rome

1    he i.e., Cominius

2    Which who sometime formerly

3    In…particular with heartfelt personal affection He i.e., Coriolanus

5    knee crawl

6    coyed was reluctant

8    would…to acted as if he did not

18    wracked ruined (puns on “racked,” i.e., strained, worked)

19    coals charcoal (because Rome will be burned down) memory memorial

20    minded reminded

22    bare worthless/threadbare

25    offered attempted

26    private personal

27    stay delay, make time in from

28    noisome foul-smelling

30    nose th’offence smell the offensive matter (the musty chaff)

33    brave fine

37    so never-needed help matter in which help is needed more than ever before

38    distress hardship, affliction

40    instant quickly mobilized

49    grief-shot grief-stricken

52    after…well in proportion to your good intentions

55    bite…hum signs of anger

56    unhearts discourages

57    taken well tackled at the right moment

59    pout upon look moodily on

61    conveyances channels (i.e., veins)

62    suppler more yielding, receptive

64    dieted to sufficiently well-fed to hear

68    prove test

69    Speed prosper, fare

70    success outcome

73    gold i.e., splendor, a chair of state

74    injury sense of having been wronged

76    faintly indifferently, disinterestedly

77    What…conditions i.e., he listed the concessions that he would and would not make, provided that the Romans swore to comply with his conditions/he stated exactly what he would and would not do to Rome, swearing that he would abide by his intentions/he stated his wishes, and swore to stick to them

Act 5 Scene 2

5.2   Location: the Volscian camp

14    lots to blanks a certainty (literally, prize-winning tickets in a lottery compared to worthless ones)

16    virtue power/worth passable valid

18    lover good friend

19    book record

20    happily favorably

21    verified supported, guaranteed the worth of

22    size magnitude verity truth

23    without lapsing suffer permit without collapsing

24    bowl bowling ball subtle deceptive

25    tumbled…throw overshot the mark

26    stamped the leasing given the stamp of truth to falsehood

30    chastely honestly (lie…chastely plays on the sense of “have sex as to be sexually chaste”)

31    factionary active as a partisan

34    under while serving under

40    violent popular ignorance surge of ignorant public violence

41    shield i.e., Coriolanus front confront, meet

42    easy ready palms outstretched hands

43    palsied trembling dotant dotard, i.e., imbecile/in senile decay

46    out of beyond

48    Sirrah sir (used to address an inferior) use treat estimation respect

52    utmost…having all you’re going to get/the furthest you’re going to go

55    companion fellow, rogue say…for deliver the report for you

56    jack guardant knavish guardsman office officiously keep

57    entertainment (favorable) reception stand’st…of are not already condemned to

58    spectatorship watching

60    synod council, assembly

62    hardly moved persuaded with great difficulty

64    conjure solemnly ask petitionary entreating

66    varlet knave block idiot/impediment

70    servanted in service owe own

71    properly personally, as my own remission inclination to forgive

72    That…much our friendship shall be poisoned by Rome’s ungrateful forgetfulness rather than recalled through compassion

76    for because

81    constant temper steadfast state of mind

85    shent rebuked/blamed

87    for as for

88    slight worthless die by himself kill himself

89    be…long may you live a long life

Act 5 Scene 3

2    Set down encamp host army

3    plainly openly, straightforwardly

5    their ends Volscian aims

12    godded me treated me like a god latest refuge last resort

14    showed appeared

16    grace do honor to

19    Nor neither

23    mould i.e., form of his mother, Volumnia

24    this trunk my body framed formed, created

25    affection emotion/love

27    obstinate unyielding, hard-hearted

28    dove’s eyes i.e., (Virgilia’s) beautiful eyes; the dove symbolized peace and fidelity in love

29    forsworn perjured, oath-breakers

31    Olympus the mountain home of the Greek gods

33    aspect look

36    gosling young goose, i.e., fool to as to stand resist

37    author creator, originator

41    delivers presents

43    dull stupid/inactive

44    am out have forgotten my lines

45    Best…flesh i.e., Virgilia (refers to the idea that husband and wife are one flesh)

46    tyranny cruelty

49    jealous…heaven i.e., Juno, Roman goddess of marriage

51    virgined it kept it chaste prate talk idly

54    more impression a deeper indentation

58    unproperly unfittingly, against propriety

59    Show…parent show that all this time duty has been wrongly supposed to be owed by a child to its parent

62    corrected reprimanded

63    hungry sterile, barren

64    Fillip strike smartly

66    Murd’ring impossibility destroying the laws by which some things are impossible

67    slight easy

68    holp helped

70    Publicola one of Rome’s first consuls

71    moon i.e., chaste one

72    curdied congealed

73    Dian Diana, Roman goddess of the moon and chastity

74    epitome miniature, summary

75    th’interpretation the expounding, unfolding

76    show like all resemble in full

77    The…soldiers i.e., Mars

78    inform infuse, invest

80    shame being shamed/shameful deeds stick stand out

81    sea-mark sailor’s guide, either a beacon or landmark standing withstanding flaw gust of wind

82    eye see, i.e., follow

89    The…denials i.e., I have already sworn not to and therefore can never grant certain requests; therefore you must not consider me to be denying you personally

91    capitulate negotiate, come to terms

92    mechanics laborers

93    t’allay to lessen/temper/dilute

94    colder calmer, less impassioned

103    Should we were we to raiment clothing

104    bewray betray, reveal

105    Think with thyself reflect

109    Constrains them compels them to

113    capital fatal

118    or either

121    evident certain, unavoidable

122    which whichever

123    foreign recreant deserter to a foreign power

126    palm palm leaf, symbol of victory

128    purpose intend

129    determine decide the matter

130    grace favor/mercy parts sides

137    A he

139    Not…see to avoid womanly tenderness one must not look at the faces of women or children

141    sat i.e., stayed

143    tend aim

147    while so that while

150    Give the all-hail i.e., welcome, praise

152    but this only this is

157    it i.e., his nobility

160    affected been drawn to/sought

161    gods specifically Jupiter/Jove, whose weapon was the thunderbolt

163    charge load sulphur lightning bolt thunderbolt

164    but…oak i.e., do no harm to mankind rive split

166    Still constantly

171    i’th’stocks the stocks were a public instrument of punishment in which the arms and/or legs were confined

173    fond…brood i.e., with no other children fond of doting on/desirous of

177    honest honorable/truthful

178    restrain’st withhold

181    ’longs belongs

185    cannot…have does not know what he asks

187    reason argue for

189    to for

191    dispatch dismissal

201    mortal fatally

202    true i.e., true to my word

203    convenient appropriate, suitable

206    withal by it

209    sweat i.e., weep

211    back go back

212    Stand to support

215    former fortune fortune like my former one

218    A better witness i.e., an official treaty

219    On…counter-sealed having agreed to the same terms, will have countersigned

222    her confederate arms the weapons of her allies

Act 5 Scene 4

5.4   Location: Rome

1    coign corner (of a building)

5    stay upon await

6    condition disposition

7    differency difference

13    engine instrument of war

14    corslet armor protecting the torso knell the tolling of a funeral bell hum sound of displeasure or impatience battery assault

15    state chair of state as…Alexander like a statue of Alexander the Great with his bidding as soon as he asks

16    wants lacks throne be enthroned

18    in the character to the life, accurately

20    long of on account of

27    hale haul, drag

29    death by inches i.e., a slow death

32    are dislodged i.e., have withdrawn

34    Tarquins last kings of Rome (before it became a republic)

39    blown swollen/roused by the wind

40    recomforted relieved/refreshed hautboys oboelike instruments

41    sackbuts type of trumpet psalteries type of stringed instrument fifes flutelike instrument, often used for military music

42    Tabors small drums

50    doit small Dutch coin, worth half an English farthing

55    at point about

Act 5 Scene 6

5.6   Location: Corioli

3    repair go

5    Him he whom

6    ports gates this this time, now

12    his his own

14    parties supporters

15    Of from

19    difference disagreement, opposition

22    admits allows

23    construction interpretation pawned pledged

24    truth allegiance heightened raised to a position of importance

25    plants i.e., followers

28    free frank, honorable

29    stoutness stubbornness, firmness

32    That…of I was about to mention that

35    joint-servant i.e., equal partner gave him way let him have his way/gave him opportunity

37    files troops

38    designments enterprises

39    holp helped

40    end gather in as (harvesting term)

43    waged paid, rewarded countenance patronage, approval

44    mercenary a hired soldier

46    in at

47    had carried was about to overcome

49    There was it i.e., that was the thing

50    sinews…stretched strength will be exerted to the utmost against

51    rheum i.e., tears

55    post messenger (sent in advance of the main arrival); Aufidius’ native town is Antium, where this scene is set in Plutarch, but for the dramatic effect of Coriolanus’ downfall, Shakespeare locates it in Corioli

61    your vantage this opportune moment for you

64    along stretched out

65    After…pronounced his story told in your words

66    reasons explanations, justifications

70    heed care

75    easy fines lenient penalties

77    levies expenses incurred in raising troops answering rewarding

78    charge expenses

79    yielding surrender

85    prosperously…attempted my endeavors have been prosperous

88    more…part outweigh by a full third

89    charges costs

90    Antiates citizens of Antium

92    Subscribed signed

94    compounded agreed

104    perfidiously treacherously

106    drops of salt i.e., tears

109    twist twined thread admitting Counsel o’th’war taking advice from fellow soldiers

112    heart courage

121    scold speak violently

122    give…lie accuse this dog of lying notion understanding

123    stripes lashes

128    edges swords’ edges

131    Fluttered threw into agitation, caused to flutter in panic

134    blind fortune random good luck (fortune was traditionally depicted as a blind woman)

138    presently immediately

141    outrage violence

142    folds in enfolds

144    judicious hearing i.e., lawful trial Stand stop

153    whereat at which

160    owe have in store for

161    Please it if it please

162    deliver prove, demonstrate

164    censure criticism/judgment

174    one i.e., the fourth bearer of the body

176    Trail i.e., turn the pikes upside down and carry them so that the metal heads trail along the ground; a customary practice at military funerals

179    memory memorial/posthumous reputation dead march solemn piece of music accompanying a funeral; probably played with a muffled drum

THE LAMENTABLE TRAGEDY OF TITUS ANDRONICUS

From the 1700s to the Second World War Titus Andronicus was considered so shocking and such a subversion of the noble Roman ideal of decorum that it was hardly ever staged and was frequently said to be by someone other than Shakespeare. High-minded critics and scholars could not imagine the National Poet soiling himself with a barbaric feast of rape, dismemberment, and cannibalism. Yet Titus was one of the most popular plays of the Elizabethan age.

A glorious mishmash of history and invention, it creates an imaginary Rome that is simultaneously democratic and imperial. The play is not so much an historical work as a meditation on history. We might call it a “meta-history.” The political structures of the early Roman republic and the decadence of the late Roman Empire are deliberately overlaid upon each other. They are also mingled with the preoccupations of late Elizabethan England: the opening political dispute between Saturninus and Bassianus is over the question of the succession to the recently deceased emperor, a matter of considerable concern at the time Shakespeare was writing, when the old Virgin Queen was nearing the end of her life and there were several rival candidates to succeed her.

We are asked to imagine that this could be any time in the Roman era and no time. The spiral of revenge begins with an act of human sacrifice, the slaying of Tamora’s son Alarbus to appease the spirits of those of Titus’ sons who have been killed in the wars against the Goths. Historically, human sacrifice was never practiced in ancient Rome, but all cultures have their foundational myths of sacrifice. For Shakespeare and his audience, Rome was evocative of the Roman Catholic Church as well as the pagan empire of the past. So it is that the action is peppered with allusions to the ultimate sacrifice, the crucifixion of God’s own Son, and to the doctrinal differences consequent upon it. The word martyred, which was deeply significant to both Catholics and Protestants, is applied to Lavinia, and when she assists her father in the butchery of Chiron and Demetrius, she is asked to “receive the blood,” a phrase that darkly parodies the language of the Eucharist, in which we are redeemed by the blood of Christ—though whether the wine of the feast was real or symbolic blood was a matter for fierce debate.

The play sealed Shakespeare’s reputation as the authentic successor to the original angry young man of English drama, Christopher Marlowe. Aaron’s delight in his own villainy is shamelessly pillaged from Barabas’ and Ithamore’s boasting in the same vein in Marlowe’s Jew of Malta. Shakespeare was a contrarian. He took the commonplaces of his age and stood them on their heads—or perhaps sliced off their heads and baked them in a pastry. Rome was synonymous with civilization and the Goths with barbarism: so Shakespeare considers the possibility that Rome was just as barbarous as the Gothic forest. Roman Stoicism proposed that it was healthy to keep your emotions under tight restraint: so Shakespeare voices the need to give your feelings vent (“Sorrow concealed, like an oven stopped, / Doth burn the heart to cinders where it is”). The law prescribed that punishment should be left to the justice system: so Shakespeare dramatized the primal—though ultimately self-destructive—attraction of acting out revenge for oneself. A daughter has been raped and mutilated. The law is not there to help; even the poor Clown goes from quest for imperial justice to arbitrary execution. Titus accordingly raises the stakes and thinks of a revenge so hideous that it outdoes the original crime. This is but an extreme version of an instinct that is still with us: the police do nothing about the burglaries, so out comes the homeowner’s shotgun.

Structurally, the violence in Titus is always artistically purposeful, never gratuitous. There is a harsh but elegant symmetry to the action. Alarbus’ limbs are lopped, and so then are Lavinia’s: since Tamora, Queen of the Goths, loses her son, so Titus, General of the Romans, must lose his daughter. Ever since the time of ancient Greek tragedy, western culture has been haunted by the figure of the revenger. He or she stands on a whole series of borderlines: between civilization and barbarity, between an individual’s accountability to his or her own conscience and the community’s need for the rule of law, between the conflicting demands of justice and mercy. Do we have a right—a duty even—to exact revenge against those who have destroyed our loved ones? Or should we leave vengeance to the law or the gods? And if we do take action into our own hands, are we not reducing ourselves to the same moral level as the original perpetrator of murderous deeds? In the Elizabethan public theater, Thomas Kyd began to explore these questions in The Spanish Tragedy. Shakespeare developed them further in Titus Andronicus and then refined them to their highest level in Hamlet.

Revenge drama can deal as powerfully with emotional trauma as with ethical dilemma. Hieronimo in The Spanish Tragedy is driven mad by the death of his son. In the end his grief becomes so intense that it is literally inexpressible, causing him to bite out his own tongue. Shakespeare nods towards Hieronomo when Titus says “Or shall we bite our tongues, and in dumb shows / Pass the remainder of our hateful days?”

Is it possible to relieve emotional anguish through language? The attempt to do so is the traditional cathartic function of poetic tragedy. In Titus, Marcus—the play’s chief “spectator” figure—confronts the appalling mutilation of his niece, Lavinia, and finds himself searching for a language of mourning that will “ease [her] misery.” Her father, Titus, later tries to share her pain by holding her closely to him and comparing her to the weeping wind, himself to first the sea, and then the earth. But even this elemental language is insufficient. Lavinia’s woes are literally unspeakable. Throughout Titus, Shakespeare pushes at the boundaries between true expression and false, sanity and madness, speech and silence.

In particular, he is fascinated by the ways in which the human body itself can be made to speak. The actor on the Elizabethan stage communicated with his audience in two ways: through words and through gestures. Shakespeare began his career as an actor, learning the elaborate rhetorical speeches and highly formalized physical gestures that characterized the relatively crude dramatic repertory of the time. The top box-office star of this period, the early 1590s, was Edward Alleyn. The first Hieronimo, Alleyn was renowned for his grand style. Shakespeare, though, quickly saw the dangers of going “over the top” on stage. Working closely with his leading actor, Richard Burbage, he sought to develop a much subtler style, in which poetic language became a medium less for showy display and more for a flexible, inquiring exploration of the inner life. Titus has its share of windy rhetorical grandiloquence—that was necessary in order to bring in the crowds. But its unique brilliance occurs in those passages where Shakespeare deliberately deprives himself of the dramatist’s usual resources of word and gesture. Kyd’s Hieronimo only bites himself into silence in the final scene before his death, whereas Shakespeare’s Lavinia has her tongue cut out before the halfway mark in the action. For the remainder of the time, she can speak only in dumb show. Nor can she express herself with gestures, for her hands have been cut off. She has become a visual icon of man’s inhumanity to woman. So it is that her father, Titus, has to “wrest an alphabet” from the “martyred signs” of her mutilated body.

Titus’ own body has been battered by years of war, and yet he survives. Shakespeare reminds us that real human beings are not supermen or action heroes, but vulnerable creatures. Titus is scarred, muddy, physically made to stoop low, yet he remains high and indomitable in spirit, despite all the wrongs he has to endure in a cruel world devoid of divine justice:

Marcus, we are but shrubs, no cedars we,

No big-boned men framed of the Cyclops’ size,

But metal, Marcus, steel to the very back,

Yet wrung with wrongs more than our backs can bear.

Aaron, meanwhile, is the first great Shakespearean villain, the forerunner of Richard III, Iago in Othello, and Edmund in King Lear. But he is also the first great black role in English drama. Motivated throughout by his status as an outsider, at first he seems to be the devil incarnate. But toward the end, there is an astonishing turnaround. “Is black so base a hue?” he asks the nurse who has handed him his first-born son with an insult. Black pride and paternal affection undo the ancient racist equation of darkness with evil.

Titus Andronicus plays like the work of a very clever, very naughty schoolboy. In the classroom of the Stratford-upon-Avon grammar school, young Will would have learned that the purpose of studying the classics was to be inspired by their heroic actions and moral virtues. This was the message of books such as Plutarch’s Lives of the Most Noble Grecians and Romans, out of which he would later create his Julius Caesar and Antony and Cleopatra. But what he also found in classical literature were glorious tales of blood and gore, not to mention every sex crime imaginable. The brilliance of Titus is that it is suffused with the language of the Elizabethan classroom—words like “tutor,” “instruct,” “lesson”—yet it uses classical literature as “pattern and precedent” not for virtue but for high crime and misdemeanor. The story of the rape of Philomel by Tereus and her sister Progne’s juicy act of revenge, as told in Ovid’s Metamorphoses, is explicitly invoked first by Demetrius and Chiron as the pattern for what they do to Lavinia and then by Titus as the precedent for what he will do to them. And it is by way of reference to the actual book of Ovid that the silenced Lavinia contrives to reveal what has happened.

Again, the lesson of classical literature was that tragedy should be kept apart from comedy, high art from low. Shakespeare was perfectly capable of following this precept when he wanted: Julius Caesar probably has fewer laughs than any other play in the canon. But in Titus, he wantonly flouts the classical rules. He recognizes that there is actually a very narrow borderline between tragedy and farce. Four hundred years before the enfants terribles of modern Hollywood, he saw that audiences love the shock of the rollercoaster ride from violence to humor. Jokes are always at someone’s expense and it is one of the obligations of the serious artist to push at the barrier of good taste so that we can discover when the expense is so great that we feel sick.

If the play has a fault, it is that the formality of both language and action in the opening scenes create a sense of stiffness that suggests classicism at its most tedious. This is probably not Shakespeare’s fault: modern scholarship has persuasively demonstrated by means of close stylistic analysis that Titus Andronicus was begun by another dramatist, George Peele, who had a high-level classical education and a taste for large-scale symmetrical stage encounters spoken in high-flown rhetoric. It is almost certainly Peele who deserves credit for the play’s ingenious syncretism, its sweep across the diversity of Roman history. We do not know whether the play was written as a purposeful collaboration or whether Shakespeare came in to do a rewrite or to complete an unfinished work. Nor do we know at precisely what point the writing became his alone—though there is no doubt that he is the author of all the most dramatic scenes, from the rape through the hand-chopping to the fly-killing banquet (which was his later addition, not included in the earliest printed text) to the feast at the climax.

Perhaps the most profoundly Shakespearean moment—a dramatic move far beyond the capacity of Peele—comes when Titus is confronted with the dismembered ruins of his family and his brother Marcus tells him that it is time to “storm,” to rend his hair and explode into a great tirade of words, to rant in the style of a ham actor. But he does not cry or curse. He laughs. In times of extremity, you have to throw away the rulebook. In real life, tragedy and comedy don’t live in different boxes. William Wordsworth once wrote of thoughts that lie too deep for tears. Only William Shakespeare could have dramatized the astonishing but profoundly human idea that the place you get to when you go beyond tears is not silence but laughter.

KEY FACTS

AUTHORSHIP: Mostly by Shakespeare, but the first act and possibly the beginning of the second and fourth acts have the stylistic marks of George Peele. It is not known whether this was an active collaboration or whether Shakespeare took over an older play by Peele and revised the later acts much more thoroughly than the first one. Francis Meres in 1598 and the 1623 Folio editors had no hesitation in attributing the play to Shakespeare.

PLOT: The brothers Saturninus and Bassianus are in contention for the Roman emperorship. Titus Andronicus, Rome’s most honored general, returns from wars against the Goths with their queen, Tamora, her sons, and her lover, Aaron the Moor, as captives. Her eldest son is sacrificed by Titus; she vows revenge. Titus is nominated emperor by his brother Marcus, one of Rome’s tribunes. This Titus declines, instead nominating Saturninus. To seal the bond of friendship, the new emperor offers to marry Titus’ daughter Lavinia. She, however, is already pledged to Bassianus. Saturninus, by now infatuated with Tamora, makes her empress. Manipulated by Aaron, Tamora’s sons, Chiron and Demetrius, avenge their mother by raping and mutilating Lavinia, and killing Bassianus. Aaron falsely implicates two of Titus’ sons in this murder. In his turn Titus vows revenge and sends his surviving son Lucius to the Goths to raise an army. Titus achieves his revenge by killing Tamora’s sons and serving them up to her at a banquet, and then killing her. He himself is killed by Saturninus and his death avenged by Lucius, who is made emperor.

MAJOR PARTS: (with percentage of lines/number of speeches/scenes on stage) Titus Andronicus (28%/117/9), Aaron the Moor (14%/57/6), Marcus Andronicus (12%/63/9), Tamora (10%/49/5), Saturninus (8%/49/5), Lucius (7%/51/4), Demetrius (4%/39/7), Bassianus (3%/14/3), Lavinia (2%/15/3), Chiron (2%/30/6), and Young Lucius (2%/11/4).

LINGUISTIC MEDIUM: 98% verse, 2% prose.

DATE: 1591/92, perhaps revised 1594? Performed at the Rose in January 1594 and marked by the theater manager as “ne,” possibly meaning “new.” Title page of first published edition, also 1594, seems to imply performance by three successive companies (see “Text,” below), suggesting staging before theaters were closed due to the plague for the second half of 1592 and nearly all of 1593. Perhaps the first two companies performed an old version by Peele and the 1594 performance and text were newly revised by Shakespeare

SOURCES: The story is not historical. An anonymous chapbook narrative, once thought to be the source, is almost certain to be a derivative text rather than a source, so it must be assumed either that there is a lost source or that the plot is freely invented, while drawing on a range of Roman materials, both historical and poetic—most notably the tragedies of Seneca and Ovid’s story of Progne’s revenge on the tyrant Tereus for the rape of her sister Philomel (Metamorphoses book 6, used as a prop and plot device in Act 4 Scene 1). There is also a strong influence from other tragedies of the period, notably Thomas Kyd’s Spanish Tragedy (c.1589, especially for the revenger as a self-consciously theatrical performer) and Christopher Marlowe’s The Jew of Malta (c.1591, for Aaron’s delight in his own villainy).

TEXT: Published in Quarto as The Most Lamentable Romaine Tragedie of Titus Andronicus: As it was Plaide by the Right Honourable the Earle of Darbie, Earle of Pembrooke, and Earle of Sussex their Seruants (1594, reprinted 1600 and 1611). A good-quality text, perhaps printed from Shakespeare’s manuscript, though with one or two signs of revision in the process of composition (some false starts and the possibility that the killing of both Alarbus and Mutius in the first act were late additions—could these be Shakespearean revisions to Peele’s original?). The Second Quarto, which included some good corrections, was printed from a damaged copy of the First Quarto, resulting in some changes to the wording of the final scene and the addition of four new lines at the very end of the play. The Folio text was printed from a copy of the Third Quarto, incorporating both corrections and errors from the Second and Third Quartos; it introduced many new errors of its own, because it was mostly typeset by “Compositor E,” the one genuinely incompetent agent in the creation of the First Folio. The principal value of the Folio text is that it introduces stage directions, presumably derived from the theatrical promptbook, and adds one complete new scene (Act 3 Scene 2, the fly-killing banquet). Most modern editions are based on the First Quarto, but with the banquet inserted from Folio. In accordance with our practice of beginning from Folio and avoiding the conflation of discrete texts, we depart from this tradition and edit the Folio text, though with frequent emendation in places where the text is erroneous, principally as a result of the shoddy work of “Compositor E.” Since they appear in the Folio, the Second Quarto’s extra four lines at the end are included, but they are marked with curly brackets to indicate that they are an addition that seems to derive from the printing shop rather than the playhouse.

THE LAMENTABLE TRAGEDY OF TITUS ANDRONICUS

Romans

SATURNINUS the deceased Emperor’s eldest son, who succeeds as Emperor

BASSIANUS, his brother

TITUS Andronicus, a noble general

LAVINIA his daughter

MARCUS, his brother, a Tribune of the people

BOY/YOUNG LUCIUS, son of Lucius

PUBLIUS, son of Marcus Andronicus

EMILLIUS

A CAPTAIN

A MESSENGER

A NURSE

A CLOWN

A LORD

Senators, Tribunes, Soldiers and Attendants Goths

TAMORA, Queen of the Goths, later Empress of Rome, married to Saturninus

AARON, a Moor, Tamora’s lover

Soldiers

Act 1 Scene 11.1

running scene 1

Flourish. Enter the Tribunes and Senators, aloft. And then enter Saturninus and his followers at one door [below], and Bassianus and his followers at the other, with Drum and Colours

SATURNINUSNoble patricians,[1] patrons of my right,

Defend the justice of my cause with arms.

And countrymen, my loving followers,

Plead my successive[4] title with your swords.

5

I was the first-born son that[5] was the last

That wore the imperial diadem[6] of Rome:

Then let my father’s honours[7] live in me,

Nor wrong mine age with this indignity.

BASSIANUSRomans, friends, followers, favourers of my right,

10

If ever Bassianus, Caesar’s son,

Were gracious[11] in the eyes of royal Rome,

Keep[12] then this passage to the Capitol,

And suffer not[13] dishonour to approach

Th’imperial seat, to virtue consecrate,[14]

15

To justice, continence[15] and nobility:

But let desert[16] in pure election shine,

And, Romans, fight for freedom in your choice.

Enter Marcus Andronicus, aloft, with the crown

MARCUS Princes, that strive by factions and by friends

Ambitiously for rule and empery,[19]

20

Know that the people of Rome, for whom we stand

A special party,[21] have by common voice

In election for the Roman empery,

Chosen Andronicus, surnamèd[23] Pius

For many good and great deserts[24] to Rome:

25

A nobler man, a braver warrior,

Lives not this day within the city walls.

He by the senate is accited[27] home

From weary wars against the barbarous Goths,

That[29] with his sons, a terror to our foes,

30

Hath yoked[30] a nation strong, trained up in arms.

Ten years are spent since first he undertook

This cause of Rome and chastisèd with arms

Our enemies’ pride: five times he hath returned

Bleeding to Rome, bearing his valiant sons

35

In coffins from the field,

And now at last, laden with horror’s spoils,

Returns the good Andronicus to Rome,

Renownèd Titus, flourishing[38] in arms.

Let us entreat, by honour[39] of his name,

40

Whom worthily you would have now succeed,

And in the Capitol and senate’s right,

Whom you pretend[42] to honour and adore,

That you withdraw you and abate your strength,

Dismiss your followers and, as suitors[44] should,

45

Plead your deserts[45] in peace and humbleness.

SATURNINUSHow fair[46] the tribune speaks to calm my thoughts!

BASSIANUSMarcus Andronicus, so I do affy[47]

In thy uprightness and integrity,

And so I love and honour thee and thine,

50

Thy noble brother Titus and his sons,

And her to whom my thoughts are humbled all,[51]

Gracious Lavinia, Rome’s rich ornament,

That I will here dismiss my loving friends,

And to my fortunes and the people’s favour

55

Commit my cause in balance to be weighed.

Exeunt [his] Soldiers

SATURNINUSFriends, that have been thus forward in[56] my right,

I thank you all and here dismiss you all,

And to the love and favour of my country

Commit myself, my person and the cause.

[Exeunt his Soldiers]

60

Rome, be as just and gracious unto me

As I am confident and kind[61] to thee.

Open the gates and let me in.

BASSIANUSTribunes, and me, a poor competitor.[63]

Flourish. They [Saturninus and Bassianus] go up into the senate house. Enter a Captain

CAPTAINRomans, make way: the good Andronicus,

65

Patron[65] of virtue, Rome’s best champion,

Successful in the battles that he fights,

With honour and with fortune is returned

From whence he circumscribèd[68] with his sword

And brought to yoke, the enemies of Rome.

Sound drums and trumpets, and then enter two of Titus’ sons [Martius and Mutius]. After them, two men bearing a coffin covered with black, then two other sons [Lucius and Quintus]. After them, Titus Andronicus [in a chariot], and then Tamora, Queen of Goths, and her two sons Chiron and Demetrius, with Aaron the Moor and others, as many as can be. They set down the coffin and Titus speaks

70

TITUSHail, Rome, victorious in thy mourning weeds![70]

Lo, as the bark[71] that hath discharged his freight

Returns with precious lading[72] to the bay

From whence at first she weighed her anchorage,[73]

Cometh Andronicus, bound with laurel boughs,

75

To resalute his country with his tears,

Tears of true joy for his return to Rome.

Thou[77] great defender of this Capitol,

Stand gracious to[78] the rites that we intend.

Romans, of five and twenty valiant sons,

80

Half of the number that King Priam[80] had,

Behold the poor remains, alive and dead!

These that survive, let Rome reward with love:

These that I bring unto their latest[83] home,

With[84] burial amongst their ancestors.

85

Here Goths have given me leave[85] to sheathe my sword.

Titus, unkind[86] and careless of thine own,

Why suffer’st thou thy sons unburied yet

To hover on the dreadful shore of Styx?[88]

Make way to lay them by their brethren.

They open the tomb

90

There greet in silence, as the dead are wont,[90]

And sleep in peace, slain in your country’s wars.

O sacred receptacle of my joys,

Sweet cell[93] of virtue and nobility,

How many sons of mine hast thou in store,

95

That thou wilt never render to me more![95]

LUCIUSGive us the proudest prisoner of the Goths,

That we may hew[97] his limbs, and on a pile

Ad manus fratrum[98] sacrifice his flesh

Before this earthly prison of their bones,

100

That so[100] the shadows be not unappeased,

Nor we disturbed with prodigies[101] on earth.

TITUSI give him you, the noblest that survives,

The eldest son of this distressèd queen.

TAMORAStay, Roman brethren, gracious[104] conqueror, ↓Kneels↓

105

Victorious Titus, rue[105] the tears I shed,

A mother’s tears in passion[106] for her son:

And if thy sons were ever dear to thee,

O, think my sons to be as dear to me.

Sufficeth not[109] that we are brought to Rome

110

To beautify thy triumphs[110] and return,

Captive to thee and to thy Roman yoke?

But must my sons be slaughtered in the streets

For valiant doings in their country’s cause?

O, if to fight for king and commonweal

115

Were piety in thine, it is in these.

Andronicus, stain not thy tomb with blood.

Wilt thou draw near the nature of the gods?

Draw near them then in being merciful:

Sweet mercy is nobility’s true badge.

120

Thrice-noble Titus, spare my first-born son.

TITUSPatient[121] yourself, madam, and pardon me.

These are the brethren whom you Goths beheld

Alive and dead, and for their brethren slain

Religiously they ask a sacrifice:

125

To this your son is marked, and die he must,

To appease their groaning shadows that are gone.

LUCIUSAway with him, and make a fire straight,[127]

And with our swords, upon a pile of wood,

Let’s hew his limbs till they be clean[129] consumed.

Exeunt Sons [Lucius, Quintus, Martius and Mutius] with Alarbus

130

TAMORAO cruel, irreligious piety! Rises

CHIRONWas ever Scythia[131] half so barbarous?

DEMETRIUSOppose[132] not Scythia to ambitious Rome.

Alarbus goes to rest and we survive

To tremble under Titus’ threat’ning looks.

135

Then, madam, stand resolved, but hope withal[135]

The self-same gods that armed the Queen[136] of Troy

With opportunity of sharp revenge

Upon the Thracian tyrant in his tent

May favour Tamora, the Queen of Goths —

140

When Goths were Goths and Tamora was queen —

To quit[141] the bloody wrongs upon her foes.

Enter the Sons of Andronicus again

LUCIUSSee, lord and father, how we have performed

Our Roman rites: Alarbus’ limbs are lopped,

And entrails[144] feed the sacrificing fire,

145

Whose smoke like incense doth perfume the sky.

Remaineth nought but to inter our brethren

And with loud ’larums[147] welcome them to Rome.

TITUSLet it be so, and let Andronicus

Make this his latest[149] farewell to their souls.

Flourish. Then sound trumpets, and lay the coffins in the tomb

150

In peace and honour rest you here, my sons:

Rome’s readiest champions, repose you here in rest,

Secure from worldly chances and mishaps.

Here lurks no treason, here no envy[153] swells,

Here grow no damnèd grudges, here are no storms,

155

No noise, but silence and eternal sleep:

In peace and honour rest you here, my sons.

Enter Lavinia

LAVINIAIn peace and honour live Lord Titus long:

My noble lord and father, live in fame![158]

Lo, at this tomb my tributary[159] tears

160

I render for my brethren’s obsequies,[160]

And at thy feet I kneel with tears of joy Kneels

Shed on the earth for thy return to Rome.

O, bless me here with thy victorious hand,

Whose fortune Rome’s best citizens applaud.

165

TITUSKind Rome, that hast thus lovingly reserved

The cordial[166] of mine age to glad my heart.

Lavinia, live, outlive thy father’s days

And[168] fame’s eternal date, for virtue’s praise. Lavinia rises

[Enter Marcus, below]

MARCUSLong live Lord Titus, my belovèd brother,

170

Gracious triumpher in the eyes of Rome!

TITUSThanks, gentle[171] tribune, noble brother Marcus.

MARCUSAnd welcome, nephews, from successful wars,

You that survive and you that sleep in fame.

Fair lords, your[174] fortunes are alike in all,

175

That in your country’s service drew your swords:

But safer triumph[176] is this funeral pomp

That hath aspired[177] to Solon’s happiness

And triumphs over chance in honour’s bed.[178]

Titus Andronicus, the people of Rome,

180

Whose friend in justice thou hast ever been,

Send thee by me, their tribune[181] and their trust,

This palliament[182] of white and spotless hue,

And name thee in election for the empire

With these our late-deceasèd emperor’s sons:

185

Be candidatus[185] then and put it on, Offers a robe

And help to set a head on headless Rome.

TITUSA better head her glorious body fits[187]

Than his that shakes for age and feebleness.

What, should I don this robe and trouble you?

190

Be chosen with proclamations today,

Tomorrow yield up rule, resign my life

And set abroad[192] new business for you all?

Rome, I have been thy soldier forty years,

And led my country’s strength successfully,

195

And buried one and twenty valiant sons,

Knighted in field, slain manfully in arms

In right and service[197] of their noble country:

Give me a staff of honour for mine age,

But not a sceptre to control the world.

200

Upright he held it, lords, that held it last.

MARCUSTitus, thou shalt obtain and ask[201] the empery.

SATURNINUSProud and ambitious tribune, canst thou tell?

TITUSPatience, Prince Saturninus—

SATURNINUSRomans, do me right.

Patricians, draw your swords and sheathe them not

205

Till Saturninus be Rome’s emperor.

Andronicus, would[206] thou wert shipped to hell,

Rather than rob me of the people’s hearts.

LUCIUSProud Saturnine, interrupter of the good

That noble-minded Titus means to thee.

210

TITUSContent thee, prince, I will restore to thee

The people’s hearts, and wean[211] them from themselves.

BASSIANUSAndronicus, I do not flatter thee,

But honour thee, and will do till I die:

My faction if thou strengthen with thy friends,

215

I will most thankful be, and thanks to men

Of noble minds is honourable meed.[216]

TITUSPeople of Rome, and noble tribunes here,

I ask your voices[218] and your suffrages,

Will you bestow them friendly on Andronicus?

220

TRIBUNESTo gratify the good Andronicus

And gratulate[221] his safe return to Rome,

The people will accept whom he admits.[222]

TITUSTribunes, I thank you, and this suit[223] I make,

That you create[224] our emperor’s eldest son,

225

Lord Saturnine, whose virtues will, I hope,

Reflect on Rome as Titan’s[226] rays on earth,

And ripen justice in this commonweal:

Then if you will elect by my advice,

Crown him and say, ‘Long live our emperor!’

230

MARCUSWith voices and applause of every sort,

Patricians and plebeians, we create

Lord Saturninus Rome’s great emperor,

And say, ‘Long live our Emperor Saturnine!’

A long flourish till they come down

SATURNINUSTitus Andronicus, for thy favours done

235

To us in our election this day,

I give thee thanks in[236] part of thy deserts,

And will with deeds requite thy gentleness:[237]

And, for an onset,[238] Titus, to advance

Thy name and honourable family,

240

Lavinia will I make my emperess,

Rome’s royal mistress, mistress of my heart,

And in the sacred Pantheon[242] her espouse:

Tell me, Andronicus, doth this motion[243] please thee?

TITUSIt doth, my worthy lord, and in this match

245

I hold me[245] highly honoured of your grace,

And here in sight of Rome to Saturnine,

King and commander of our commonweal,

The wide world’s emperor, do I consecrate

My sword, my chariot and my prisoners,

250

Presents well worthy Rome’s imperial lord:

Receive them then, the tribute that I owe, Titus’ sword chariot and prisoners are given to Saturninus

Mine honour’s ensigns[252] humbled at thy feet.

SATURNINUSThanks, noble Titus, father of my life.

How proud I am of thee and of thy gifts,

255

Rome shall record, and when I do forget

The least of these unspeakable[256] deserts,

Romans forget your fealty[257] to me.

TITUSNow, madam, are you prisoner to an emperor, To Tamora

To him that for[259] your honour and your state,

260

Will use[260] you nobly and your followers.

SATURNINUSA goodly lady, trust me, of the hue[261] Aside?

That I would choose, were I to choose anew.—

Clear up, fair queen, that cloudy countenance: To Tamora

Though chance of war hath wrought this change of cheer,[264]

265

Thou com’st not to be made a scorn in Rome:

Princely shall be thy usage every way.

Rest[267] on my word, and let not discontent

Daunt all your hopes: madam, he comforts[268] you

Can make you greater than the queen of Goths.—

270

Lavinia, you are not displeased with this?

LAVINIANot I, my lord, sith[271] true nobility

Warrants[272] these words in princely courtesy.

SATURNINUSThanks, sweet Lavinia.— Romans, let us go.

Ransomless here we set our prisoners free:

275

Proclaim our honours, lords, with trump and drum. Sound music; prisoners released

BASSIANUSLord Titus, by your leave, this maid is mine. Seizes Lavinia

TITUSHow, sir? Are you in earnest then, my lord?

BASSIANUSAy, noble Titus, and resolved withal[278]

To do myself this reason[279] and this right.

280

MARCUS‘Suum cuique’[280] is our Roman justice:

This prince in justice seizeth but his own.

LUCIUSAnd that he will, and shall, if Lucius live.

TITUSTraitors, avaunt![283] Where is the emperor’s guard?—

Treason, my lord: Lavinia is surprised![284]

285

SATURNINUSSurprised? By whom?

BASSIANUSBy him that justly may

Bear his betrothed from all the world away.

MUTIUSBrothers, help to convey her hence away,

And with my sword I’ll keep this door safe.

[Exeunt Bassianus, Lavinia, Marcus, Martius, Quintus]

290

TITUSFollow, my lord, and I’ll soon bring her back.

[Exeunt Saturninus and Goths]

MUTIUSMy lord, you pass not here.

TITUSWhat, villain boy, barr’st me my way in Rome?

He kills him

MUTIUSHelp, Lucius, help![293]

LUCIUSMy lord, you are unjust, and, more than so:

295

In wrongful quarrel[295] you have slain your son.

TITUSNor[296] thou, nor he, are any sons of mine:

My sons would never so dishonour me.

Traitor, restore Lavinia to the emperor.

LUCIUSDead, if you will, but not to be his wife

300

That is another’s lawful promised love.

[Exit]

Enter aloft the Emperor with Tamora and her two sons, and Aaron the Moor

SATURNINUSNo, Titus, no, the emperor needs her not,

Nor her, nor thee, nor any of thy stock.

I’ll trust by leisure[303] him that mocks me once,

Thee never, nor thy traitorous haughty sons,

305

Confederates all thus to dishonour me.

Was none[306] in Rome to make a stale

But Saturnine? Full well, Andronicus,

Agree these deeds with that proud brag of thine,

That said’st I begged the empire at thy hands.

310

TITUSO, monstrous! What reproachful words are these?

SATURNINUSBut go thy ways, go give that changing piece[311]

To him that flourished[312] for her with his sword.

A valiant son-in-law thou shalt enjoy,

One fit to bandy[314] with thy lawless sons,

315

To ruffle[315] in the commonwealth of Rome.

TITUSThese words are razors to my wounded heart.

SATURNINUSAnd therefore, lovely Tamora, Queen of Goths,

That like the stately Phoebe[318] ’mongst her nymphs

Dost overshine[319] the gallant’st dames of Rome,

320

If thou be pleased with this my sudden choice,

Behold, I choose thee, Tamora, for my bride,

And will create thee emperess of Rome,

Speak, queen of Goths, dost thou applaud my choice?

And here I swear by all the Roman gods,

325

Sith priest and holy water are so near

And tapers[326] burn so bright and everything

In readiness for Hymenaeus[327] stand,

I will not resalute the streets of Rome,

Or climb my palace, till from forth this place

330

I lead espoused my bride along with me.

TAMORAAnd here in sight of heaven to Rome I swear,

If Saturnine advance the Queen of Goths,

She will a handmaid be to his desires,

A loving nurse, a mother to his youth.

335

SATURNINUSAscend, fair queen, Pantheon.[335] Lords, accompany

Your noble emperor and his lovely bride,

Sent by the heavens for Prince Saturnine,

Whose[338] wisdom hath her fortune conquerèd:

There shall we consummate our spousal rites.

Exeunt all. [Titus remains]

340

TITUSI am not bid[340] to wait upon this bride.

Titus, when wert thou wont[341] to walk alone,

Dishonoured thus, and challengèd[342] of wrongs?

Enter Marcus and Titus’ sons [Lucius, Quintus and Martius]

MARCUSO Titus, see! O, see what thou hast done!

In a bad quarrel slain a virtuous son.

345

TITUSNo, foolish tribune, no. No son of mine,

Nor thou, nor these, confed’rates in the deed

That hath dishonoured all our family:

Unworthy brother, and unworthy sons.

LUCIUSBut let us give him burial as becomes:[349]

350

Give Mutius burial with our brethren.

TITUSTraitors, away! He rests not in this tomb.

This monument five hundred years hath stood,

Which I have sumptuously re-edified:[353]

Here none but soldiers and Rome’s servitors[354]

355

Repose in fame — none basely slain in brawls.

Bury him where you can, he comes not here.

MARCUSMy lord, this is impiety in you:

My nephew Mutius’ deeds do plead for him,

He must be buried with his bretheren.[359]

360

TITUS’ TWO SONS[360]‘And shall, or him we will accompany.

TITUS‘And shall’? What villain was it that spake that word?

TITUS’ SON‘ He that would vouch[362] it in any place but here.

TITUSWhat, would you bury him in my despite?[363]

MARCUSNo, noble Titus, but entreat of thee

365

To pardon Mutius and to bury him.

TITUSMarcus, even thou hast struck upon my crest,[366]

And with these boys mine honour thou hast wounded.

My foes I do repute[368] you every one,

So trouble me no more, but get you gone.

370

FIRST SONHe is not himself, let us withdraw.

SECOND SONNot I, till Mutius’ bones be buried.

The brother [Marcus] and the sons kneel

MARCUSBrother, for in that name doth nature plead—

SECOND SONFather, and in that name doth nature speak—

TITUSSpeak thou no more, if all the rest will speed.[374]

375

MARCUSRenownèd Titus, more than half my soul—

LUCIUSDear father, soul and substance of us all—

MARCUSSuffer[377] thy brother Marcus to inter

His noble nephew here in virtue’s nest,

That died in honour and Lavinia’s cause.

380

Thou art a Roman, be not barbarous.

The[381] Greeks upon advice did bury Ajax

That slew himself, and wise Laertes’ son

Did graciously plead for his funerals:

Let not young Mutius then, that was thy joy,

385

Be barred his entrance here.

TITUSRise, Marcus, rise.

The dismall’st[387] day is this that e’er I saw:

To be dishonoured by my sons in Rome!

Well, bury him, and bury me the next.

They put him in the tomb

390

LUCIUSThere lie thy bones, sweet Mutius, with thy friends,

Till we with trophies[391] do adorn thy tomb.

MARCUS and TITUS’ SONSNo man shed tears for noble Mutius:

He lives in fame that died in virtue’s cause.

Exeunt. [Titus and Marcus remain]

MARCUSMy lord, to step out of these sudden dumps,[394]

395

How comes it that the subtle[395] Queen of Goths

Is of a sudden thus advanced in Rome?

TITUSI know not, Marcus, but I know it is[397] —

Whether by device[398] or no — the heavens can tell.

Is she not then beholding[399] to the man

400

That brought her for this high good turn so far?

MARCUSYes, and will nobly him remunerate.

Flourish. Enter the Emperor, Tamora and her two sons with the Moor at one door. Enter at the other door Bassianus and Lavinia with others [Titus’ three sons]

SATURNINUSSo, Bassianus, you have played your prize:[402]

God give you joy, sir, of your gallant bride.

BASSIANUSAnd you of yours, my lord. I say no more,

405

Nor wish no less, and so I take my leave.

SATURNINUSTraitor, if Rome have law or we have power,

Thou and thy faction shall repent this rape.[407]

BASSIANUS‘Rape’ call you it, my lord, to seize my own,

My true-betrothèd love and now my wife?

410

But let the laws of Rome determine all:

Meanwhile I am possessed of that[411] is mine.

SATURNINUS’Tis good,[412] sir: you are very short with us.

But if we live we’ll be as sharp[413] with you.

BASSIANUSMy lord, what I have done, as best I may,

415

Answer[415] I must, and shall do with my life.

Only thus much I give your grace to know:

By all the duties that I owe to Rome,

This noble gentleman, Lord Titus here,

Is in opinion[419] and in honour wronged,

420

That in the rescue of Lavinia

With his own hand did slay his youngest son

In zeal to you, and highly moved to wrath

To be controlled[423] in that he frankly gave:

Receive him then to favour, Saturnine,

425

That hath expressed himself in all his deeds

A father and a friend to thee and Rome.

TITUSPrince Bassianus, leave to plead[427] my deeds:

’Tis thou and those[428] that have dishonoured me.

Rome and the righteous heavens be my judge Kneels

430

How I have loved and honoured Saturnine!

TAMORAMy worthy lord, if ever Tamora To Saturninus

Were gracious in those princely eyes of thine,

Then hear me speak indifferently[433] for all,

And at my suit, sweet, pardon what is past.

435

SATURNINUSWhat, madam, be dishonoured openly,

And basely put it up[436] without revenge?

TAMORANot so, my lord. The gods of Rome forfend[437]

I should be author to dishonour[438] you.

But on mine honour dare I undertake[439]

440

For good Lord Titus’ innocence in all,

Whose fury[441] not dissembled speaks his griefs:

Then at my suit look graciously on him.

Lose not so noble a friend on vain suppose,[443]

Nor with sour looks afflict his gentle heart.—

445

My lord, be ruled by me, be won at last, Aside to Saturninus

Dissemble[446] all your griefs and discontents.

You are but newly planted in your throne:

Lest then the people, and patricians too,

Upon a just survey[449] take Titus’ part,

450

And so supplant you for ingratitude,

Which Rome reputes to be a heinous sin,

Yield at entreats[452] — and then let me alone:

I’ll find a day to massacre them all,

And raze[454] their faction and their family,

455

The cruel father and his traitorous sons

To whom I suèd[456] for my dear son’s life,

And make them know what ’tis to let a queen

Kneel in the streets and beg for grace in vain.—

Come, come, sweet emperor.— Come, Andronicus — Aloud

460

Take up[460] this good old man, and cheer the heart

That dies in tempest of thy angry frown.

SATURNINUSRise, Titus, rise: my empress hath prevailed.

TITUSI thank your majesty and her, my lord: Rises

These words, these looks, infuse new life in me.

465

TAMORATitus, I am incorporate in[465] Rome,

A Roman now adopted happily,[466]

And must advise the emperor for his good.

This day all quarrels die, Andronicus:

And let it be mine honour, good my lord,

470

That I have reconciled your friends and you.—

For[471] you, Prince Bassianus, I have passed

My word and promise to the emperor,

That you will be more mild and tractable.—

And fear not, lords, and you, Lavinia:

475

By my advice, all humbled on your knees,

You shall ask pardon of his majesty. Titus’ sons kneel

LUCIUSWe do, and vow to heaven and to his highness

That what we did was mildly as we might,

Tend’ring[479] our sister’s honour and our own.

480

MARCUSThat on mine honour here I do protest.[480] Kneels

SATURNINUSAway, and talk not: trouble us no more.

TAMORANay, nay, sweet emperor, we must all be friends:

The tribune and his nephews kneel for grace,

I will not be denied: sweet heart, look back.

485

SATURNINUSMarcus, for thy sake and thy brother’s here,

And at my lovely Tamora’s entreats,

I do remit these young men’s heinous faults.—

[Marcus and Titus’ sons] stand up

Lavinia, though you left me like a churl,[488]

I found a friend,[489] and sure as death I swore

490

I would not part a bachelor from the priest.

Come, if the emperor’s court can feast two brides,

You are my guest, Lavinia, and your friends.

This day shall be a love-day,[493] Tamora.

TITUSTomorrow, an[494] it please your majesty

495

To hunt the panther and the hart[495] with me,

With horn and hound we’ll give your grace bonjour.[496]

SATURNINUSBe it so, Titus, and gramercy[497] too. Flourish. Exeunt

Act 2 [Scene 1]

running scene 1 continues

Enter Aaron alone

AARONNow climbeth Tamora Olympus’[1] top,

Safe out of fortune’s shot, and sits aloft,

Secure of[3] thunder’s crack or lightning flash,

Advanced above pale envy’s threat’ning reach.

5

As when the golden sun salutes the morn,

And, having gilt[6] the ocean with his beams,

Gallops[7] the zodiac in his glistering coach

And overlooks[8] the highest-peering hills,

So Tamora.

10

Upon her wit[10] doth earthly honour wait,

And virtue stoops and trembles at her frown.

Then, Aaron, arm thy heart and fit thy thoughts

To mount aloft with thy imperial mistress,

And mount her pitch[14] whom thou in triumph long

15

Hast prisoner held, fettered in amorous chains

And faster bound to Aaron’s charming[16] eyes

Than is Prometheus[17] tied to Caucasus.

Away with slavish weeds[18] and idle thoughts:

I will be bright, and shine in pearl and gold

20

To wait upon this new-made emperess.

To wait, said I? — To wanton[21] with this queen,

This goddess, this Semiramis,[22] this nymph,

This siren[23] that will charm Rome’s Saturnine

And see his shipwreck and his commonweal’s.

25

Hallo! What storm is this?

Enter Chiron and Demetrius, braving

DEMETRIUSChiron, thy years want[26] wit, thy wit wants edge

And manners to intrude where I am graced[27]

And may, for aught[28] thou know’st, affected be

CHIRONDemetrius, thou dost overween[29] in all,

30

And so in this, to bear me down[30] with braves.

’Tis not the difference of a year or two

Makes me less gracious or thee more fortunate:

I am as able and as fit as thou

To serve,[34] and to deserve my mistress’ grace,

35

And that my sword upon thee shall approve,[35]

And plead my passions for Lavinia’s love.

AARONClubs, clubs![37] These lovers will not keep the peace. Aside

DEMETRIUSWhy, boy, although our mother, unadvised,[38]

Gave you a dancing-rapier[39] by your side,

40

Are you so desperate grown to threat your friends?[40]

Go to:[41] have your lath glued within your sheath

Till you know better how to handle it.

CHIRONMeanwhile, sir, with the little skill I have,

Full well shalt thou perceive how much I dare

45

DEMETRIUSAy, boy, grow ye so brave?[45]

They draw

AARONWhy, how now, lords? Comes forward

So near[47] the emperor’s palace dare you draw

And maintain such a quarrel openly?

Full well I wot[49] the ground of all this grudge:

50

I would not for a million of gold

The cause were known to them it most concerns,

Nor would your noble mother for much more

Be so dishonoured in the court of Rome.

For shame, put up.[54]

55

DEMETRIUSNot I, till I have sheathed

My rapier in his bosom and withal

Thrust these reproachful speeches down his throat

That he hath breathed in my dishonour here.

CHIRONFor that I am prepared and full resolved,

60

Foul-spoken coward, that thund’rest with thy tongue,

And with thy weapon nothing dar’st perform!

AARONAway, I say.

Now, by the gods that warlike Goths adore,

This petty brabble[64] will undo us all.

65

Why, lords, and think you not how dangerous

It is to jet[66] upon a prince’s right?

What, is Lavinia then become so loose,[67]

Or Bassianus so degenerate,

That for her love such quarrels may be broached

70

Without controlment,[70] justice, or revenge?

Young lords, beware! And should the empress know

This discord’s ground,[72] the music would not please.

CHIRONI care not, I, knew she[73] and all the world:

I love Lavinia more than all the world.

75

DEMETRIUSYoungling, learn thou to make some meaner[75] choice:

Lavinia is thine elder brother’s hope.

AARONWhy, are ye mad? Or know ye not in Rome

How furious and impatient they be,

And cannot brook[79] competitors in love?

80

I tell you, lords, you do but plot your deaths

By this device.[81]

CHIRONAaron, a thousand deaths[82] would I propose

T’achieve her whom I do love.

AARONT’achieve her how?

85

DEMETRIUSWhy mak’st[85] thou it so strange?

She is a woman, therefore may be wooed:

She is a woman, therefore may be won:

She is Lavinia, therefore must be loved.

What, man, more water glideth by the mill

90

Than wots the miller of, and easy it is

Of a cut loaf to steal a shive,[91] we know:

Though Bassianus be the emperor’s brother,

Better than he have worn Vulcan’s badge.[93]

AARONAy, and as good as Saturninus may. Aside

95

DEMETRIUSThen why should he despair that knows to court it[95]

With words, fair looks and liberality?

What, hast not thou full often struck[97] a doe

And borne her cleanly by the keeper’s nose?

AARONWhy then, it seems some certain snatch[99] or so

100

Would serve your turns.[100]

CHIRONAy, so the turn were served.

DEMETRIUSAaron, thou hast hit it.[102]

AARONWould you had hit it too,

Then should not we be tired with this ado.[104]

105

Why, hark ye, hark ye, and are you such fools

To square for[106] this? Would it offend you then

That both should speed?

CHIRONFaith, not me.

DEMETRIUSNor me, so[109] I were one.

110

AARONFor shame, be friends, and join[110] for that you jar:

’Tis policy[111] and stratagem must do

That you affect,[112] and so must you resolve

That what you cannot as[113] you would achieve,

You must perforce accomplish as you may.

115

Take this of me: Lucrece[115] was not more chaste

Than this Lavinia, Bassianus’ love.

A speedier course than ling’ring languishment[117]

Must we pursue, and I have found the path.

My lords, a solemn[119] hunting is in hand:

120

There will the lovely Roman ladies troop:[120]

The forest walks are wide and spacious,

And many unfrequented plots[122] there are

Fitted by kind[123] for rape and villainy.

Single[124] you thither then this dainty doe,

125

And strike her home[125] by force, if not by words:

This way or not at all stand[126] you in hope.

Come, come, our empress, with her sacred[127] wit

To villainy and vengeance consecrate,

Will we acquaint with all that we intend,

130

And she shall file our engines[130] with advice

That will not suffer you to square yourselves,[131]

But to your wishes’ height advance you both.

The emperor’s court is like the house of Fame,[133]

The palace full of tongues, of eyes, of ears.

135

The woods are ruthless, dreadful,[135] deaf and dull:

There speak and strike,[136] brave boys, and take your turns:

There serve your lusts, shadowed from heaven’s eye,

And revel in Lavinia’s treasury.[138]

CHIRONThy counsel, lad, smells of no cowardice.

140

DEMETRIUSSit[140] fas aut nefas, till I find the streams

To cool this heat, a charm to calm their fits,

Per Stygia, per manes vehor.[142]

Exeunt

[Act 2 Scene 2]2.2

running scene 2

Enter Titus Andronicus and his three sons, making a noise with hounds and horns, and Marcus

TITUSThe hunt is up,[1] the morn is bright and grey,

The fields are fragrant and the woods are green:

Uncouple[3] here, and let us make a bay

And wake the emperor and his lovely bride,

5

And rouse the prince, and ring a hunter’s peal,[5]

That all the court may echo with the noise.

Sons, let it be your charge,[7] as it is ours,

To attend the emperor’s person carefully:

I have been troubled in my sleep this night,

10

But dawning day new comfort hath inspired.

Wind horns. Here a cry of hounds and wind horns in a peal, then enter Saturninus, Tamora, Bassianus, Lavinia, Chiron, Demetrius and their Attendants

Many good morrows to your majesty:

Madam, to you as many and as good.

I promised your grace a hunter’s peal.

SATURNINUSAnd you have rung it lustily,[14] my lords,

15

Somewhat too early for new-married ladies.

BASSIANUSLavinia, how[16] say you?

LAVINIAI say, no:

I have been broad awake two hours and more.

SATURNINUSCome on then, horse and chariots let us have,

20

And to our sport.— Madam, now shall ye see To Tamora

Our Roman hunting.

MARCUSI have dogs, my lord,

Will rouse the proudest panther in the chase[23]

And climb the highest promontory[24] top.

25

TITUSAnd I have horse will follow where the game

Makes way and runs like swallows o’er the plain.

DEMETRIUSChiron, we hunt not, we, with horse nor hound,

But hope to pluck a dainty doe to ground.

Exeunt

[Act 2 Scene 3]2.3

running scene 3

Enter Aaron alone With a bag of gold

AARONHe that had wit would think that I had none,

To bury so much gold under a tree

And never after to inherit[3] it.

Let him that thinks of me so abjectly

5

Know that this gold must coin[5] a stratagem

Which, cunningly effected, will beget[6]

A very excellent piece of villainy:

And so repose, sweet gold, for their unrest Hides the gold

That have their alms[9] out of the empress’ chest.

Enter Tamora to the Moor

10

TAMORAMy lovely Aaron, wherefore[10] look’st thou sad

When everything doth make a gleeful boast?[11]

The birds chant melody on every bush,

The snake lies rollèd in the cheerful sun,

The green leaves quiver with the cooling wind

15

And make a chequered shadow on the ground:

Under their sweet shade, Aaron, let us sit,

And whilst the babbling echo mocks the hounds,

Replying shrilly to the well-tuned horns

As if a double hunt were heard at once,

20

Let us sit down and mark their yelping noise,

And after conflict[21] such as was supposed

The wand’ring[22] prince and Dido once enjoyed,

When with a happy[23] storm they were surprised

And curtained with a counsel-keeping[24] cave,

25

We may, each wreathèd in the other’s arms,

Our pastimes done, possess a golden slumber,

Whiles hounds and horns and sweet melodious birds

Be unto us as is a nurse’s song

Of lullaby to bring her babe asleep.

30

AARONMadam, though Venus[30] govern your desires,

Saturn[31] is dominator over mine:

What signifies my deadly-standing[32] eye,

My silence and my cloudy melancholy,

My fleece of woolly hair that now uncurls

35

Even as an adder when she doth unroll

To do some fatal execution?

No, madam, these are no venereal[37] signs:

Vengeance is in my heart, death in my hand,

Blood and revenge are hammering in my head.

40

Hark Tamora, the empress of my soul,

Which never hopes[41] more heaven than rests in thee,

This is the day of doom for Bassianus:

His Philomel[43] must lose her tongue today,

Thy sons make pillage of her chastity

45

And wash their hands in Bassianus’ blood.

See’st thou this letter? Take it up,[46] I pray thee,

And give the king this fatal-plotted scroll.

Now question me no more: we are espied.

Here comes a parcel[49] of our hopeful booty,

50

Which dreads not yet their lives’ destruction.

Enter Bassianus and Lavinia At a distance

TAMORAAh, my sweet Moor, sweeter to me than life!

AARONNo more, great empress: Bassianus comes.

Be cross[53] with him, and I’ll go fetch thy sons

To back thy quarrels, whatsoe’er they be.

[Exit]

55

BASSIANUSWhom have we here? Rome’s royal emperess,

Unfurnished[56] of her well-beseeming troop?

Or is it Dian,[57] habited like her,

Who hath abandonèd her holy groves

To see the general[59] hunting in this forest?

60

TAMORASaucy[60] controller of our private steps,

Had I the power that some say Dian had,

Thy temples should be planted presently[62]

With horns, as was Actaeon’s,[63] and the hounds

Should drive[64] upon thy new-transformèd limbs,

65

Unmannerly intruder as thou art.

LAVINIAUnder your patience,[66] gentle emperess,

’Tis thought you have a goodly gift in horning,[67]

And to be doubted[68] that your Moor and you

Are singled forth[69] to try experiments:

70

Jove[70] shield your husband from his hounds today —

’Tis pity they should take him for a stag.

BASSIANUSBelieve me, queen, your swarth[72] Cimmerian

Doth make your honour of his body’s hue,

Spotted, detested and abominable.

75

Why are you sequestered[75] from all your train,

Dismounted from your snow-white goodly steed,

And wandered hither to an obscure plot,

Accompanied with a barbarous Moor,

If foul desire had not conducted you?

80

LAVINIAAnd being intercepted in your sport,

Great reason[81] that my noble lord be rated

For sauciness.— I pray you let us hence, To Bassianus

And let her joy[83] her raven-coloured love:

This valley fits the purpose passing[84] well.

85

BASSIANUSThe king my brother shall have note of this.

LAVINIAAy, for these slips[86] have made him noted long:

Good king, to be so mightily abused.

TAMORAWhy, I have patience to endure all this.

Enter Chiron and Demetrius

DEMETRIUSHow now, dear sovereign and our gracious mother,

90

Why doth your highness look so pale and wan?

TAMORAHave I not reason, think you, to look pale?

These two have ’ticed[92] me hither to this place:

A barren detested vale you see it is.

The trees, though summer, yet forlorn and lean,

95

O’ercome[95] with moss and baleful mistletoe:

Here never shines the sun, here nothing breeds

Unless the nightly owl or fatal[97] raven.

And when they showed me this abhorrèd pit,

They told me here at dead time of the night,

100

A thousand fiends, a thousand hissing snakes,

Ten thousand swelling toads,[101] as many urchins,

Would make such fearful and confusèd cries

As any mortal body hearing it

Should straight[104] fall mad, or else die suddenly.

105

No sooner had they told this hellish tale,

But straight they told me they would bind me here

Unto the body of a dismal[107] yew

And leave me to this miserable death.

And then they called me foul adulteress,

110

Lascivious Goth,[110] and all the bitterest terms

That ever ear did hear to such effect:

And had you not by wondrous fortune come,

This vengeance on me had they executed.

Revenge it as you love your mother’s life,

115

Or be ye not henceforth called my children.

DEMETRIUSThis is a witness that I am thy son.

Stab him

CHIRONAnd this for me, struck home to show my strength. He also stabs Bassianus

LAVINIAAy, come, Semiramis,[118] nay, barbarous Tamora,

For no name fits thy nature but thy own.

120

TAMORAGive me thy poniard:[120] you shall know, my boys

Your mother’s hand shall right your mother’s wrong.

DEMETRIUSStay, madam, here is more belongs to her:

First thrash[123] the corn, then after burn the straw.

This minion[124] stood upon her chastity,

125

Upon her nuptial vow, her loyalty,

And with that painted[126] hope braves your mightiness.

And shall she carry this unto her grave?

CHIRONAn if[128] she do, I would I were an eunuch.

Drag hence her husband to some secret hole

130

And make his dead trunk pillow to our lust.

TAMORABut when ye have the honey[131] we desire,

Let not this wasp outlive,[132] us both to sting.

CHIRONI warrant[133] you, madam, we will make that sure.—

Come, mistress, now perforce[134] we will enjoy

135

That nice-preservèd honesty[135] of yours.

LAVINIAO Tamora, thou bear’st a woman’s face—

TAMORAI will not hear her speak, away with her!

LAVINIASweet lords, entreat her hear me but a word.

DEMETRIUSListen, fair madam: let it be your glory To Tamora

140

To see her tears, but be your heart to them

As unrelenting flint to drops of rain.

LAVINIAWhen did the tiger’s young ones teach the dam?[142]

O, do not learn[143] her wrath: she taught it thee.

The milk thou suck’st from her did turn to marble:

145

Even at thy teat thou hadst thy tyranny.[145]

Yet every mother breeds not sons alike:[146]—

Do thou entreat her show a woman pity. To Chiron

CHIRONWhat, wouldst thou have me prove myself a bastard?

LAVINIA’Tis true, the raven[149] doth not hatch a lark

150

Yet have I heard — O, could I find it[150] now! —

The lion moved with pity did endure

To have his princely paws[152] pared all away.

Some say that ravens foster forlorn[153] children

The whilst their own birds[154] famish in their nests:

155

O, be to me though thy hard heart say no,

Nothing[156] so kind, but something pitiful!

TAMORAI know not what it[157] means.— Away with her!

LAVINIAO, let me teach thee for my father’s sake,

That gave thee life when well he might have slain thee.

160

Be not obdurate, open thy deaf ears.

TAMORAHadst thou in person ne’er offended me,

Even for his sake am I pitiless.

Remember, boys, I poured forth tears in vain

To save your brother from the sacrifice,

165

But fierce Andronicus would not relent.

Therefore away with her and use[166] her as you will:

The worse to her, the better loved of me.

LAVINIAO Tamora, be called a gentle queen, Clings to Tamora

And with thine own hands kill me in this place,

170

For ’tis not life that I have begged so long:

Poor I was slain when Bassianus died.

TAMORAWhat begg’st thou, then? Fond[172] woman, let me go.

LAVINIA’Tis present[173] death I beg, and one thing more

That womanhood[174] denies my tongue to tell:

175

O, keep me from their worse-than-killing lust,

And tumble[176] me into some loathsome pit

Where never man’s eye may behold my body.

Do this, and be a charitable murderer.

TAMORASo should I rob my sweet sons of their fee.[179]

180

No, let them satisfy their lust on thee.

DEMETRIUSAway, for thou hast stayed[181] us here too long. To Lavinia

LAVINIANo grace? No womanhood? Ah, beastly creature,

The blot and enemy to our general name,[183]

Confusion[184] fall—

CHIRONNay, then I’ll stop your mouth.— Grabs her

185

Bring thou her husband: To Demetrius

This is the hole where Aaron bid us hide him.

[Demetrius throws Bassianus’ body into the pit, he and Chiron then exeunt, dragging off Lavinia]

TAMORAFarewell, my sons: see that you make her sure.[187]

Ne’er let my heart know merry cheer indeed,

Till all the Andronici[189] be made away.

190

Now will I hence to seek my lovely Moor,

And let my spleenful[191] sons this trull deflower.

Exit

Enter Aaron with two of Titus’ sons [Quintus and Martius]

AARONCome on, my lords, the better foot before:[192]

Straight will I bring you to the loathsome pit

Where I espied the panther fast asleep.

195

QUINTUSMy sight is very dull,[195] whate’er it bodes.

MARTIUSAnd mine, I promise you. Were it not for shame,

Well could I leave our sport to sleep awhile. Falls into the pit

QUINTUSWhat art thou fallen? What subtle[198] hole is this,

Whose mouth is covered with rude-growing[199] briers

200

Upon whose leaves are drops of new-shed blood

As fresh as morning’s dew distilled on flowers?

A very fatal place it seems to me.

Speak, brother, hast thou hurt thee with the fall?

MARTIUSO brother, with the dismall’st object[204] hurt Martius speaks from below

205

That ever eye with sight made heart lament!

AARONNow will I fetch the king to find them here, Aside

That he thereby may have a likely guess

How these were they that made away his brother.

Exit Aaron

MARTIUSWhy dost not comfort me and help me out

210

From this unhallowed[210] and blood-stainèd hole?

QUINTUSI am surprisèd[211] with an uncouth fear,

A chilling sweat o’er-runs my trembling joints:

My heart suspects more than mine eye can see.

MARTIUSTo prove thou hast a true-divining heart,

215

Aaron and thou look down into this den,

And see a fearful sight of blood and death.

QUINTUSAaron is gone and my compassionate[217] heart

Will not permit mine eyes once to behold

The thing whereat it trembles by surmise.[219]

220

O, tell me how it is, for ne’er till now

Was I a child to fear I know not what.

MARTIUSLord Bassianus lies embrewèd[222] here

All on a heap,[223] like to the slaughtered Iamb,

In this detested, dark, blood-drinking pit.

225

QUINTUSIf it be dark, how dost thou know ’tis he?

MARTIUSUpon his bloody finger he doth wear

A precious ring,[227] that lightens all the hole,

Which like a taper in some monument[228]

Doth shine upon the dead man’s earthly[229] cheeks

230

And shows the ragged entrails of the pit:

So pale did shine the moon on Pyramus[231]

When he by night lay bathed in maiden blood.[232]

O brother, help me with thy fainting hand —

If fear hath made thee faint, as me it hath —

235

Out of this fell[235] devouring receptacle,

As hateful as Cocytus’[236] misty mouth.

QUINTUSReach me thy hand that I may help thee out Reaches into the pit

Or, wanting[238] strength to do thee so much good,

I may be plucked into the swallowing womb[239]

240

Of this deep pit, poor Bassianus’ grave.

I have no strength to pluck thee to the brink.

MARTIUSNor I no strength to climb without thy help.

QUINTUSThy hand once more: I will not loose again

Till thou art here aloft or I below.

245

Thou canst not come to me: I come to thee.

Both fall in

Enter the Emperor, Aaron the Moor [and Attendants]

SATURNINUSAlong with me: I’ll see what hole is here,

And what he is that now is leapt into it.—

Say who art thou that lately didst descend Speaks into the pit

Into this gaping hollow of the earth?

250

MARTIUSThe unhappy son of old Andronicus,

Brought hither in a most unlucky hour

To find thy brother Bassianus dead.

SATURNINUSMy brother dead? I know thou dost but jest:

He and his lady both are at the lodge

255

Upon the north side of this pleasant chase.

’Tis not an hour since I left him there.

MARTIUSWe know not where you left him all alive,

But, out alas,[258] here have we found him dead.

Enter Tamora [with Attendants,] Andronicus and Lucius

TAMORAWhere is my lord the king?

260

SATURNINUSHere, Tamora, though gride[260] with killing grief.

TAMORAWhere is thy brother Bassianus?

SATURNINUSNow to the bottom dost thou search[262] my wound:

Poor Bassianus here lies murderèd.

TAMORAThen all too late I bring this fatal writ,[264]

265

The complot[265] of this timeless tragedy,

And wonder greatly that man’s face can fold[266]

In pleasing smiles such murderous tyranny.

She giveth Saturnine a letter

SATURNINUS‘An if we miss to meet him handsomely[268]

Saturninus reads the letter

Sweet huntsman — Bassianus ’tis we mean —

270

Do thou so much as dig the grave for him:

Thou know’st our meaning. Look for thy reward

Among the nettles at the elder tree[272]

Which overshades the mouth of that same pit

Where we decreed[274] to bury Bassianus.

275

Do this, and purchase[275] us thy lasting friends.’

O Tamora, was ever heard the like?

This is the pit and this the elder tree.—

Look, sirs, if you can find the huntsman out

That should[279] have murdered Bassianus here.

280

AARONMy gracious lord, here is the bag of gold. Finds the bag

SATURNINUSTwo of thy whelps, fell curs of bloody kind,[281] To Titus

Have here bereft my brother of his life.—

Sirs, drag them from the pit unto the prison:

There let them bide until we have devised

285

Some never-heard-of torturing pain for them.

TAMORAWhat, are they in this pit? O wondrous[286] thing! ↓Attendants may pull Quintus and Martius from the pit↓

How easily murder is discoverèd.

TITUSHigh emperor, upon my feeble knee Kneels

I beg this boon with tears not lightly shed,

290

That this fell fault of my accursèd sons,

Accursèd if the faults be proved in them—

SATURNINUSIf it be proved? You see it is apparent.[292]

Who found this letter? Tamora, was it you?

TAMORAAndronicus himself did take it up.

295

TITUSI did, my lord. Yet let me be their bail,

For by my father’s reverend tomb I vow

They shall be ready at your highness’ will

To answer their suspicion[298] with their lives.

SATURNINUSThou shalt not bail them: see thou follow me.— ↓Titus rises↓

300

Some bring the murdered body, some the murderers:

Let them not speak a word: the guilt is plain,

For, by my soul, were there worse end than death,

That end upon them should be executed.

TAMORAAndronicus, I will entreat the king:

305

Fear not[305] thy sons, they shall do well enough.

TITUSCome, Lucius, come. Stay not to talk with them.

Exeunt

[Act 2 Scene 4]

running scene 3 continues

Enter the Empress’ sons [Demetrius and Chiron] with Lavinia, her hands cut off and her tongue cut out, and ravished*

DEMETRIUSSo, now go tell, an if thy tongue can speak,

Who ’twas that cut thy tongue and ravished thee.

CHIRONWrite down thy mind, bewray[3] thy meaning so,

An if thy stumps will let thee, play the scribe.

5

DEMETRIUSSee how with signs and tokens she can scrawl.[5]

CHIRONGo home, call for sweet water,[6] wash thy hands.

DEMETRIUSShe hath no tongue to call, nor hands to wash,

And so let’s leave her to her silent walks.

CHIRONAn ’twere my cause,[9] I should go hang myself.

10

DEMETRIUSIf thou hadst hands to help thee knit[10] the cord.

Exeunt [Chiron and Demetrius]

Wind horns. Enter Marcus from hunting to Lavinia Lavinia runs away

MARCUSWho is this? My niece that flies away so fast!

Cousin,[12] a word: where is your husband? Lavinia turns back

If I do dream, would all my wealth would wake me;

If I do wake, some planet strike[14] me down

15

That I may slumber in eternal sleep.

Speak, gentle niece, what stern ungentle hands

Have lopped and hewed and made thy body bare

Of her two branches, those sweet ornaments,

Whose circling shadows[19] kings have sought to sleep in,

20

And might not gain so great a happiness

As half thy love? Why dost not speak to me?

Alas, a crimson river of warm blood, Lavinia opens her mouth

Like to a bubbling fountain stirred with wind,

Doth rise and fall between thy rosèd lips,

25

Coming and going with thy honey breath.

But sure some Tereus[26] hath deflowered thee

And, lest thou shouldst detect[27] him, cut thy tongue.

Ah, now thou turn’st away thy face for shame,

And notwithstanding all this loss of blood,

30

As from a conduit[30] with three issuing spouts,

Yet do thy cheeks look red as Titan’s[31] face

Blushing to be encountered with a cloud.

Shall I speak for thee? Shall I say ’tis so?

O, that I knew thy heart, and knew the beast,

35

That I might rail at[35] him, to ease my mind.

Sorrow concealèd, like an oven stopped,[36]

Doth burn the heart to cinders where it is.

Fair Philomela, she but lost her tongue,

And in a tedious[39] sampler sewed her mind.

40

But, lovely niece, that mean[40] is cut from thee:

A craftier Tereus hast thou met withal,

And he hath cut those pretty fingers off,

That could have better sewed than Philomel.

O, had the monster seen those lily hands

45

Tremble like aspen-leaves upon a lute

And make the silken strings delight to kiss them,

He would not then have touched them for his life.

Or had he heard the heavenly harmony

Which that sweet tongue hath made,

50

He would have dropped his knife and fell asleep,

As Cerberus[51] at the Thracian poet’s feet.

Come, let us go, and make thy father blind,

For such a sight will blind a father’s eye.

One hour’s storm will drown the fragrant meads:[54]

55

What will whole months of tears thy father’s eyes?

Do not draw back, for we will mourn with thee.

O, could our mourning ease thy misery!

Exeunt

Act 3 [Scene 1]3.1

running scene 4

Enter the Judges and Senators with Titus’ two sons [Martius and Quintus] bound, passing on the stage to the place of execution, and Titus going before, pleading

TITUSHear me, grave fathers![1] Noble tribunes, stay!

For pity of mine age, whose youth was spent

In dangerous wars whilst you securely slept,

For all my blood[4] in Rome’s great quarrel shed,

5

For all the frosty nights that I have watched,[5]

And for these bitter tears which now you see

Filling the agèd wrinkles in my cheeks,

Be pitiful to my condemnèd sons,

Whose souls is not corrupted as ’tis thought.

10

For two and twenty sons I never wept,

Because they died in honour’s lofty bed.

Andronicus lieth down and the Judges pass by him

For these, two tribunes, in the dust I write

My heart’s deep languor[13] and my soul’s sad tears:

Let my tears stanch[14] the earth’s dry appetite,

15

My sons’ sweet blood will make it shame[15] and blush.

Exeunt. [Titus remains]

O earth, I will befriend thee more with rain

That shall distil[17] from these two ancient ruins

Than youthful April shall with all his showers.

In summer’s drought I’ll drop upon thee still:[19]

20

In winter with warm tears I’ll melt the snow

And keep eternal springtime on thy face,

So[22] thou refuse to drink my dear sons’ blood.

Enter Lucius, with his weapon drawn

O reverend tribunes, O gentle, agèd men,

Unbind my sons, reverse the doom[24] of death,

25

And let me say, that never wept before,

My tears are now prevailing orators.[26]

LUCIUSO noble father, you lament in vain:

The tribunes hear you not, no man is by,

And you recount your sorrows to a stone.

30

TITUSAh, Lucius, for thy brothers let me plead.

Grave tribunes, once more I entreat of you—

LUCIUSMy gracious lord, no tribune hears you speak.

TITUSWhy, tis no matter, man: if they did hear,

They would not mark[34] me, or if they did mark,

35

They would not pity me.

Therefore I tell my sorrows bootless[36] to the stones,

Who, though they cannot answer my distress,

Yet in some sort they are better than the tribunes

For that they will not intercept[39] my tale:

40

When I do weep, they humbly at my feet

Receive my tears and seem to weep with me,

And were they but attirèd[42] in grave weeds,

Rome could afford[43] no tribune like to these.

A stone is as soft wax, tribunes more hard than stones:

45

A stone is silent, and offendeth not,

And tribunes with their tongues doom men to death.

But wherefore stand’st thou with thy weapon drawn? Rises

LUCIUSTo rescue my two brothers from their death,

For which attempt the judges have pronounced

50

My everlasting doom of banishment.

TITUSO happy[51] man, they have befriended thee.

Why, foolish Lucius, dost thou not perceive

That Rome is but a wilderness of tigers?

Tigers must prey, and Rome affords no prey

55

But me and mine: how happy art thou, then,

From these devourers to be banishèd!

But who comes with our brother Marcus here?

Enter Marcus and Lavinia

MARCUSTitus, prepare thy noble eyes to weep,

Or if not so, thy noble heart to break:

60

I bring consuming sorrow to thine age.

TITUSWill it consume me? Let me see it then.

MARCUSThis was thy daughter.

TITUSWhy, Marcus, so she is.

LUCIUSAy me, this object[64] kills me. Falls to his knees

65

TITUSFaint-hearted boy, arise and look upon her.— Lucius rises

Speak, Lavinia, what accursèd hand

Hath made thee handless in thy father’s sight?

What fool hath added water to the sea?

Or brought a faggot to bright-burning Troy?

70

My grief was at the height before thou cam’st,

And now like Nilus[71] it disdaineth bounds.

Give me a sword, I’ll chop off my hands too,

For they have fought for Rome, and all in vain:

And they have nursed[74] this woe, in feeding life:

75

In bootless prayer have they been held up,

And they have served me to effectless[76] use:

Now all the service I require of them

Is that the one will help to cut the other.

’Tis well, Lavinia, that thou hast no hands,

80

For hands to do Rome service is but vain.

LUCIUSSpeak, gentle sister: who hath martyred[81] thee?

MARCUSO, that delightful engine[82] of her thoughts

That blabbed[83] them with such pleasing eloquence,

Is torn from forth that pretty hollow cage

85

Where, like a sweet melodious bird, it sung

Sweet varied notes, enchanting every ear!

LUCIUSO, say thou for her: who hath done this deed?

MARCUSO, thus I found her, straying in the park,[88]

Seeking to hide herself, as doth the deer

90

That hath received some unrecuring[90] wound.

TITUSIt was my dear,[91] and he that wounded her

Hath hurt me more than had he killed me dead,

For now I stand as one upon a rock

Environed[94] with a wilderness of sea,

95

Who marks the waxing[95] tide grow wave by wave,

Expecting ever[96] when some envious surge

Will in his brinish[97] bowels swallow him.

This way to death my wretched sons are gone:

Here stands my other son, a banished man,

100

And here my brother, weeping at my woes.

But that which gives my soul the greatest spurn[101]

Is dear Lavinia, dearer than my soul.

Had I but seen thy picture in this plight,

It would have madded me. What shall I do

105

Now I behold thy lively[105] body so?

Thou hast no hands to wipe away thy tears,

Nor tongue to tell me who hath martyred thee:

Thy husband he is dead, and for his death

Thy brothers are condemned, and dead by this.[109]—

110

Look, Marcus, ah, son Lucius, look on her!

When I did name her brothers, then fresh tears

Stood on her cheeks, as doth the honey-dew[112]

Upon a gathered lily almost withered.

MARCUSPerchance she weeps because they killed her husband,

115

Perchance because she knows them innocent.

TITUSIf they did kill thy husband, then be joyful,

Because the law hath ta’en revenge on them.

No, no, they would not do so foul a deed:

Witness the sorrow that their sister makes.

120

Gentle Lavinia, let me kiss thy lips

Or make some signs how I may do thee ease:[121]

Shall thy good uncle and thy brother Lucius,

And thou and I sit round about some fountain,

Looking all downwards to behold our cheeks,

125

How they are stained like meadows yet not dry,

With miry[126] slime left on them by a flood?

And in the fountain shall we gaze so long

Till the fresh taste be taken from that clearness,[128]

And made a brine-pit with our bitter tears?

130

Or shall we cut away our hands like thine?

Or shall we bite our tongues and in dumb shows[131]

Pass the remainder of our hateful days?

What shall we do? Let us that have our tongues

Plot some device[134] of further miseries

135

To make us wondered at in time to come.

LUCIUSSweet father, cease your tears, for at your grief

See how my wretched sister sobs and weeps.

MARCUSPatience, dear niece.— Good Titus, dry thine eyes. Gives a handkerchief

TITUSAh, Marcus, Marcus, brother, well I wot[139]

140

Thy napkin[140] cannot drink a tear of mine,

For thou, poor man, hast drowned it with thine own.

LUCIUSAh, my Lavinia, I will wipe thy cheeks.

TITUSMark, Marcus, mark! I understand her signs:

Had she a tongue to speak, now would she say

145

That to her brother which I said to thee.

His napkin with his true tears all bewet

Can do no service on her sorrowful cheeks.

O, what a sympathy[148] of woe is this:

As far from help as Limbo[149] is from bliss!

Enter Aaron the Moor alone

150

AARONTitus Andronicus, my lord the emperor

Sends thee this word: that if thou love thy sons,

Let Marcus, Lucius, or thyself, old Titus,

Or any one of you, chop off your hand

And send it to the king: he for the same

155

Will send thee hither both thy sons alive —

And that shall be the ransom for their fault.

TITUSO gracious emperor, O gentle Aaron!

Did ever raven sing so like a lark

That gives sweet tidings of the sun’s uprise?

160

With all my heart, I’ll send the emperor my hand.

Good Aaron, wilt thou help to chop it off?

LUCIUSStay, father, for that noble hand of thine

That hath thrown down so many enemies

Shall not be sent. My hand will serve the turn:

165

My youth can better spare my blood than you,

And therefore mine shall save my brothers’ lives.

MARCUSWhich of your hands hath not defended Rome,

And reared aloft the bloody battle-axe,

Writing destruction on the enemy’s castle?[169]

170

O, none of both[170] but are of high desert.

My hand hath been but idle: let it serve

To ransom my two nephews from their death,

Then have I kept it to a worthy end.

AARONNay, come, agree whose hand shall go along,

175

For fear they die before their pardon come.

MARCUSMy hand shall go.

LUCIUSBy heaven, it shall not go!

TITUSSirs, strive no more: such withered herbs as these

Are meet[179] for plucking up, and therefore mine.

180

LUCIUSSweet father, if I shall be thought thy son,

Let me redeem my brothers both from death.

MARCUSAnd for our father’s sake and mother’s care,

Now let me show a brother’s love to thee.

TITUSAgree between you: I will spare[184] my hand.

185

LUCIUSThen I’ll go fetch an axe.

MARCUSBut I will use the axe.

Exeunt [Lucius and Marcus]

TITUSCome hither, Aaron, I’ll deceive them both:

Lend me thy hand and I will give thee mine.

AARONIf that be called deceit, I will be honest Aside

190

And never whilst I live deceive men so.

But I’ll deceive you in another sort,

And that you’ll say,[192] ere half an hour pass.

He cuts off Titus’ hand

Enter Lucius and Marcus again

TITUSNow stay your strife:[193] what shall be is dispatched.

Good Aaron, give his majesty my hand:

195

Tell him it was a hand that warded[195] him

From thousand dangers: bid him bury it:

More hath it merited: that[197] let it have.

As for my sons, say I account of[198] them

As jewels purchased at an easy price,

200

And yet dear[200] too, because I bought mine own.

AARONI go, Andronicus, and for thy hand

Look[202] by and by to have thy sons with thee.—

Their heads I mean. O, how this villainy Aside

Doth fat[204] me with the very thoughts of it!

205

Let fools do good and fair[205] men call for grace.

Aaron will have his soul black like his face.

Exit

TITUSO, here I lift this one hand up to heaven

And bow this feeble ruin[208] to the earth. Kneels

If any power pities wretched tears,

210

To that I call!— What, wilt thou kneel with me? Lavinia kneels

Do then, dear heart, for heaven shall hear our prayers,

Or with our sighs we’ll breathe the welkin[212] dim,

And stain the sun with fog, as sometime clouds

When they do hug him in their melting bosoms.

215

MARCUSO brother, speak with possibilities,[215]

And do not break into these deep extremes.

TITUSIs not my sorrow deep, having no bottom?

Then be my passions[218] bottomless with them.

MARCUSBut yet let reason govern thy lament.

220

TITUSIf there were reason for these miseries,

Then into limits could I bind my woes:

When heaven doth weep, doth not the earth o’erflow?[222]

If the winds rage doth not the sea wax mad,

Threat’ning the welkin with his big-swoll’n face?

225

And wilt thou have a reason for this coil?[225]

I am the sea. Hark how her[226] sighs do blow!

She is the weeping welkin, I the earth:

Then must my sea be movèd[228] with her sighs,

Then must my earth with her continual tears

230

Become a deluge overflowed and drowned,

For why[231] my bowels cannot hide her woes,

But like a drunkard must I vomit them.

Then give me leave, for losers will have leave

To ease their stomachs[234] with their bitter tongues.

Enter a Messenger with two heads and a hand Titus and Lavinia may rise here

235

MESSENGERWorthy Andronicus, ill art thou repaid

For that good hand thou sent’st the emperor.

Here are the heads of thy two noble sons,

And here’s thy hand, in scorn to thee sent back: Sets down the heads and hand

Thy griefs their sports,[239] thy resolution mocked,

240

That[240] woe is me to think upon thy woes

More than remembrance of my father’s death.

Exit

MARCUSNow let hot Aetna[242] cool in Sicily,

And be my heart an ever-burning hell!

These miseries are more than may be borne.

245

To weep with them that weep doth ease some deal,[245]

But sorrow flouted[246] at is double death.

LUCIUSAh, that this sight should make so deep a wound,

And yet detested life not shrink[248] thereat!

That ever death should let life bear his name,[249]

250

Where life hath no more interest but to breathe! Lavinia kisses the heads

MARCUSAlas, poor heart, that kiss is comfortless

As frozen water to a starvèd[252] snake.

TITUSWhen will this fearful slumber have an end?

MARCUSNow farewell flattery,[254] die Andronicus:

255

Thou dost not slumber. See thy two sons’ heads,

Thy warlike hand, thy mangled daughter here,

Thy other banished son with this dear[257] sight

Struck pale and bloodless, and thy brother, I,

Even like a stony image, cold and numb.

260

Ah, now no more will I control[260] thy griefs:

Rend off thy silver hair, thy other hand

Gnawing with thy teeth, and be this dismal sight

The closing up of our most wretched eyes.

Now is a time to storm. Why art thou still?

265

TITUSHa, ha, ha!

MARCUSWhy dost thou laugh? It fits not with this hour.

TITUSWhy? I have not another tear to shed:

Besides, this sorrow is an enemy

And would usurp upon my wat’ry eyes

270

And make them blind with tributary[270] tears.

Then which way shall I find Revenge’s cave?

For these two heads do seem to speak to me

And threat[273] me I shall never come to bliss

Till all these mischiefs[274] be returned again

275

Even in their throats that have committed them.

Come, let me see what task I have to do.

You heavy[277] people, circle me about,

That I may turn me to each one of you

And swear unto my soul to right your wrongs. They make a vow

280

The vow is made. Come, brother, take a head,

And in this hand the other I will bear.

And Lavinia, thou shalt be employed in these things:

Bear thou my hand, sweet wench, between thy teeth.

As for thee, boy, go get thee from my sight:

285

Thou art an exile, and thou must not stay:

Hie to the Goths and raise an army there,

And if you love me, as I think you do,

Let’s kiss and part, for we have much to do.

Exeunt. Lucius remains

LUCIUSFarewell Andronicus, my noble father,

290

The woefull’st man that ever lived in Rome.

Farewell, proud Rome, till Lucius come again.

He loves his pledges[292] dearer than his life.

Farewell, Lavinia, my noble sister,

O, would thou wert as thou tofore[294] hast been!

295

But now nor[295] Lucius nor Lavinia lives

But[296] in oblivion and hateful griefs.

If Lucius live, he will requite your wrongs

And make proud Saturnine and his empress

Beg at the gates, like Tarquin[299] and his queen.

300

Now will I to the Goths and raise a power,[300]

To be revenged on Rome and Saturnine.

Exit Lucius

[Act 3 Scene 2]3.2

running scene 5

A banquet

Enter [Titus] Andronicus, Marcus, Lavinia and the Boy [Young Lucius]

TITUSSo, so, now sit, and look you eat no more

Than will preserve just so much strength in us

As will revenge these bitter woes of ours.

Marcus, unknit that sorrow-wreathen knot:[4]

5

Thy niece and I, poor creatures, want[5] our hands

And cannot passionate[6] our tenfold grief

With folded arms. This poor right hand of mine

Is left to tyrannize[8] upon my breast,

Who,[9] when my heart, all mad with misery,

10

Beats in this hollow prison of my flesh,

Then thus I thump it down.—

Thou map[12] of woe, that thus dost talk in signs, To Lavinia

When thy poor heart beats with outrageous[13] beating,

Thou canst not strike it thus to make it still.

15

Wound it with sighing,[15] girl, kill it with groans,

Or get some little knife between thy teeth

And just against thy heart make thou a hole,

That all the tears that thy poor eyes let fall

May run into that sink,[19] and soaking in

20

Drown the lamenting fool[20] in sea-salt tears.

MARCUSFie, brother, fie! Teach her not thus to lay

Such violent hands upon her tender[22] life.

TITUSHow now? Has sorrow made thee dote[23] already?

Why, Marcus, no man should be mad but I.

25

What violent hands can she lay on her life?

Ah, wherefore dost thou urge the name of hands

To bid Aeneas[27] tell the tale twice o’er

How Troy was burnt and he made miserable?

O, handle not the theme, to talk of hands,

30

Lest we remember still[30] that we have none.

Fie, fie, how franticly[31] I square my talk,

As if we should forget we had no hands

If Marcus did not name the word of hands.

Come, let’s fall to,[34] and, gentle girl, eat this.

35

Here is no drink! Hark, Marcus, what she says:

I can interpret all her martyred signs —

She says she drinks no other drink but tears,

Brewed with her sorrow, meshed[38] upon her cheeks.—

Speechless complainer,[39] I will learn thy thought.

40

In thy dumb action[40] will I be as perfect

As begging hermits in their holy prayers:

Thou shalt not sigh, nor hold thy stumps to heaven,

Nor wink,[43] nor nod, nor kneel, nor make a sign,

But I of these will wrest an alphabet

45

And by still[45] practice learn to know thy meaning.

BOYGood grandsire,[46] leave these bitter deep laments:

Make my aunt merry with some pleasing tale.

MARCUSAlas, the tender[48] boy in passion moved

Doth weep to see his grandsire’s heaviness.[49]

50

TITUSPeace, tender sapling, thou art made of tears,

And tears will quickly melt thy life away.

Marcus strikes the dish with a knife

What dost thou strike at, Marcus, with thy knife?

MARCUSAt that that I have killed, my lord: a fly.

TITUSOut on thee,[54] murderer! Thou kill’st my heart:

55

Mine eyes are cloyed with view of tyranny:

A deed of death done on the innocent

Becomes not Titus’ brother. Get thee gone:

I see thou art not for my company.

MARCUSAlas, my lord, I have but killed a fly.

60

TITUS‘But’? How if that fly had a father and mother?

How would he hang his slender gilded wings,

And buzz lamenting doings[62] in the air!

Poor harmless fly,

That with his pretty buzzing melody

65

Came here to make us merry, and thou hast killed him.

MARCUSPardon me, sir, it was a black ill-favoured[66] fly,

Like to the empress’ Moor: therefore I killed him.

TITUSO, O, O!

Then pardon me for reprehending thee,

70

For thou hast done a charitable deed.

Give me thy knife, I will insult on[71] him,

Flattering[72] myself as if it were the Moor

Come hither purposely to poison me.—

There’s for thyself, and that’s for Tamora. Takes the knife and strikes

75

Ah, sirrah![75]

Yet, I think, we are not brought so low

But that between us we can kill a fly

That comes in likeness of a coal-black Moor.

MARCUSAlas, poor man! Grief has so wrought on[79] him

80

He takes false shadows for true substances.

TITUSCome, take away.[81] Lavinia, go with me:

I’ll to thy closet,[82] and go read with thee

Sad stories chancèd[83] in the times of old.

Come, boy, and go with me: thy sight is young,

85

And thou shalt read when mine begin to dazzle.[85]

Exeunt

Act 4 [Scene 1]*

running scene 6

Enter Young Lucius and Lavinia running after him, and the Boy flies from her, with his books under his arm He drops the books

Enter Titus and Marcus

BOYHelp, grandsire, help! My aunt Lavinia

Follows me everywhere, I know not why.

Good uncle Marcus, see how swift she comes.

Alas, sweet aunt, I know not what you mean.

5

MARCUSStand by me, Lucius: do not fear thy aunt.

TITUSShe loves thee, boy, too well to do thee harm.

BOYAy, when my father was in Rome she did.

MARCUSWhat means my niece Lavinia by these signs?

TITUSFear her not, Lucius — somewhat[9] doth she mean:

10

See, Lucius, see how much she makes of thee:

Somewhither would she have thee go with her.

Ah, boy, Cornelia[12] never with more care

Read to her sons than she hath read to thee

Sweet poetry and Tully’s[14] Orator.

15

Canst thou not guess wherefore she plies[15] thee thus?

BOYMy lord, I know not, I, nor can I guess,

Unless some fit or frenzy do possess her,

For I have heard my grandsire say full oft

Extremity of griefs would make men mad,

20

And I[20] have read that Hecuba of Troy

Ran mad through sorrow: that made me to fear,

Although, my lord, I know my noble aunt

Loves me as dear as e’er my mother did,

And would not, but in fury,[24] fright my youth,

25

Which made me down to throw my books and fly,

Causeless perhaps. But pardon me, sweet aunt:

And, madam, if my uncle Marcus go,[27]

I will most willingly attend your ladyship.

MARCUSLucius, I will. Lavinia turns over the books with her stumps

30

TITUSHow now, Lavinia?— Marcus, what means this?

Some book there is that she desires to see.

Which is it, girl, of these?— Open them, boy.—

But thou art deeper[33] read, and better skilled: To Lavinia

Come, and take choice of all my library,

35

And so beguile[35] thy sorrow till the heavens

Reveal the damned contriver of this deed.

What book?

Why lifts she up her arms in sequence[38] thus?

MARCUSI think she means that there was more than one

40

Confederate in the fact.[40] Ay, more there was,

Or else to heaven she heaves[41] them for revenge.

TITUSLucius, what book is that she tosseth[42] so?

BOYGrandsire, ’tis Ovid’s Metamorphosis:

My mother gave it me.

45

MARCUSFor love of her that’s gone,

Perhaps she culled[46] it from among the rest.

TITUSSoft,[47] so busily she turns the leaves!

Helps her

What would she find? Lavinia, shall I read?

This is the tragic tale of Philomel,

50

And treats of Tereus’ treason and his rape —

And rape, I fear, was root of thine annoy.[51]

MARCUSSee, brother, see: note how she quotes[52] the leaves.

TITUSLavinia, wert thou thus surprised,[53] sweet girl,

Ravished and wronged as Philomela was,

55

Forced in the ruthless, vast[55] and gloomy woods? Lavinia nods

See, see!

Ay, such a place there is, where we did hunt —

O, had we never, never hunted there! —

Patterned by that[59] the poet here describes,

60

By nature made for murders and for rapes.

MARCUSO, why should nature build so foul a den,

Unless the gods delight in tragedies?[62]

TITUSGive signs, sweet girl — for here are none but friends —

What Roman lord it was durst do the deed.

65

Or[65] slunk not Saturnine, as Tarquin erst,

That left the camp to sin in Lucrece’ bed?

MARCUSSit down, sweet niece: brother, sit down by me.

Apollo,[68] Pallas, Jove or Mercury

Inspire me, that I may this treason find.

70

My lord, look here: look here, Lavinia.

He writes his name with his staff, and guides it with feet and mouth

This sandy plot is plain:[71] guide, if thou canst,

This after me.[72] I here have writ my name

Without the help of any hand at all.

Cursed be that heart that forced us to that shift.[74]

75

Write thou, good niece, and here display at last

What God will have discovered[76] for revenge.

Heaven guide thy pen to print thy sorrows plain,

That we may know the traitors and the truth!

She takes the staff in her mouth, and guides it with her stumps, and writes

TITUSO, do ye read, my lord, what she hath writ?

80

‘Stuprum,[80] Chiron, Demetrius.’

MARCUSWhat, what? The lustful sons of Tamora

Performers of this heinous, bloody deed?

TITUSMagni[83] dominator poli,

Tam lentus audis scelera, tam lentus vides?

85

MARCUSO, calm thee, gentle lord, although I know

There is enough written upon this earth

To stir a mutiny in the mildest thoughts

And arm the minds of infants to exclaims.[88]

My lord, kneel down with me: Lavinia, kneel:

90

And kneel, sweet boy, the Roman Hector’s hope,[90] They kneel

And swear with me — as, with the woeful fere[91]

And father of that chaste dishonoured dame,

Lord Junius Brutus swore for Lucrece’ rape —

That we will prosecute[94] by good advice

95

Mortal revenge upon these traitorous Goths,

And see their blood, or die with this reproach.[96] They rise

TITUS’Tis sure enough, an[97] you knew how.

But if you hunt these bear-whelps, then beware:

The dam[99] will wake, and, if she wind you once

100

She’s with the lion[100] deeply still in league,

And lulls him whilst she playeth[101] on her back,

And when he sleeps will she do[102] what she list.

You are a young[103] huntsman, Marcus: let it alone,

And come. I will go get a leaf[104] of brass

105

And with a gad[105] of steel will write these words,

And lay it by. The angry northern wind

Will blow these sands, like Sibyl’s leaves[107] abroad,

And where’s your lesson, then? Boy, what say you?

BOYI say, my lord, that if I were a man,

110

Their mother’s bedchamber should not be safe

For these bad bondmen[111] to the yoke of Rome.

MARCUSAy, that’s my boy. Thy father hath full oft

For his ungrateful country done the like.

BOYAnd, uncle, so will I, an if I live.

115

TITUSCome, go with me into mine armoury:

Lucius, I’ll fit[116] thee, and withal my boy

Shall carry from me to the empress’ sons

Presents that I intend to send them both.

Come, come, thou’lt do thy message, wilt thou not?

120

BOYAy, with my dagger in their bosoms, grandsire.

TITUSNo, boy, not so: I’ll teach thee another course.

Lavinia, come: Marcus, look to my house:

Lucius and I’ll go brave it[123] at the court.

Ay, marry,[124] will we, sir, and we’ll be waited on.

Exeunt. [Marcus remains]

125

MARCUSO heavens, can you hear a good man groan

And not relent or not compassion[126] him?

Marcus, attend him in his ecstasy[127]

That hath more scars of sorrow in his heart

Than foemen’s marks upon his battered shield,

130

But yet so just that he will not revenge.

Revenge, the heavens, for old Andronicus!

Exit

[Act 4 Scene 2]4.2

running scene 7

Enter Aaron, Chiron and Demetrius at one door, and at another door Young Lucius and another [Attendant], with a bundle of weapons and verses writ upon them

CHIRONDemetrius, here’s the son of Lucius:

He hath some message to deliver us.

AARONAy, some mad message from his mad grandfather.

BOYMy lords, with all the humbleness I may,

5

I greet your honours from Andronicus.—

And pray the Roman gods confound[6] you both. Aside

DEMETRIUSGramercy,[7] lovely Lucius. What’s the news?

BOYThat you are both deciphered,[8] that’s the news, Aside

For villains marked with rape.— May it please you, To them

10

My grandsire, well advised,[10] hath sent by me

The goodliest weapons of his armoury

To gratify your honourable youth,

The hope of Rome, for so he bade me say,

And so I do, and with his gifts present

15

Your lordships, that, whenever you have need,

You may be armèd and appointed[16] well. Attendant presents the weapons

And so I leave you both— like bloody villains. Aside

Exeunt [Young Lucius and Attendant]

DEMETRIUSWhat’s here? A scroll, and written round about?

Let’s see:

20

‘Integer vitae,[20] scelerisque purus, Reads

Non eget Mauri jaculis, nec arcu.’

CHIRONO, ’tis a verse in Horace, I know it well:

I read it in the grammar[23] long ago.

AARONAy, just:[24] a verse in Horace, right, you have it.—

25

Now, what a thing it is to be an ass! Aside

Here’s no sound jest![26] The old man hath found their guilt,

And sends them weapons wrapped about with lines

That[28] wound beyond their feeling to the quick.

But were our witty[29] empress well afoot

30

She would applaud Andronicus’ conceit:[30]

But let her rest in her unrest[31] awhile.—

And now, young lords, was’t not a happy[32] star To Chiron and Demetrius

Led us to Rome, strangers, and more than so,

Captives, to be advancèd to this height?

35

It did me good before the palace gate

To brave[36] the tribune in his brother’s hearing.

DEMETRIUSBut me more good to see so great a lord

Basely insinuate[38] and send us gifts.

AARONHad he not reason, Lord Demetrius?

40

Did you not use his daughter very friendly?[40]

DEMETRIUSI would we had a thousand Roman dames

At[42] such a bay, by turn to serve our lust.

CHIRONA charitable wish and full of love.

AARONHere lacks but your mother for to say ‘Amen’.

45

CHIRONAnd that would she for twenty thousand more.[45]

DEMETRIUSCome, let us go; and pray to all the gods

For our belovèd mother in her pains.

AARONPray to the devils: the gods have given us over. Aside?

Flourish

DEMETRIUSWhy do the emperor’s trumpets flourish thus?

50

CHIRONBelike[50] for joy the emperor hath a son.

DEMETRIUSSoft, who comes here?

Enter Nurse with a blackamoor child The child hidden in her arms

NURSEGood morrow, lords.

O, tell me, did you see Aaron the Moor?

AARONWell, more[54] or less, or ne’er a whit at all:

55

Here Aaron is, and what[55] with Aaron now?

NURSEO gentle Aaron, we are all undone.[56]

Now help, or woe betide thee evermore!

AARONWhy, what a caterwauling dost thou keep!

What dost thou wrap and fumble in thine arms?

60

NURSEO, that which I would hide from heaven’s eye,

Our empress’ shame and stately Rome’s disgrace!

She is delivered, lords, she is delivered.

AARONTo whom?

NURSEI mean, she is brought abed.

65

AARONWell, God give her good rest! What hath he sent her?

NURSEA devil.

AARONWhy, then she is the devil’s dam: a joyful issue.[67]

NURSEA joyless, dismal, black, and sorrowful issue:

Here is the babe, as loathsome as a toad

70

Amongst the fair-faced breeders[70] of our clime.

The empress sends it thee, thy[71] stamp, thy seal,

And bids thee christen it with thy dagger’s point.

AARONOut, you whore! Is black so base a hue?—

Sweet blowse,[74] you are a beauteous blossom, sure. To the child

75

DEMETRIUSVillain, what hast thou done?

AARONThat which thou canst not undo.

CHIRONThou hast undone our mother.

AARONVillain, I have done[78] thy mother.

DEMETRIUSAnd therein, hellish dog, thou hast undone.

80

Woe to her chance,[80] and damned her loathèd choice,

Accursed the offspring of so foul a fiend.

CHIRONIt shall not live.

AARONIt shall not die.

NURSEAaron, it must: the mother wills it so.

85

AARONWhat, must it, nurse? Then let no man but I

Do execution on my flesh and blood.

DEMETRIUSI’ll broach[87] the tadpole on my rapier’s point.

Nurse, give it me: my sword shall soon dispatch it.

AARONSooner this sword shall plough thy bowels up. Draws his sword and takes the child

90

Stay, murderous villains! Will you kill your brother?

Now, by the burning tapers of the sky,

That shone so brightly when this boy was got,[92]

He dies upon my scimitar’s sharp point

That touches this my first-born son and heir.

95

I tell you, younglings, not Enceladus[95]

With all his threat’ning band of Typhon’s[96] brood,

Nor great Alcides,[97] nor the god of war,

Shall seize this prey out of his father’s hands.

What, what, ye sanguine,[99] shallow-hearted boys!

100

Ye white-limed[100] walls, ye ale-house painted signs!

Coal-black is better than another hue

In that it scorns to bear another hue,

For all the water in the ocean

Can never turn the swan’s black legs to white,

105

Although she lave[105] them hourly in the flood.

Tell the empress from me, I am of age

To keep mine own, excuse it how she can.

DEMETRIUSWilt thou betray thy noble mistress thus?

AARONMy mistress is my mistress, this[109] myself,

110

The vigour and the picture of my youth:

This before all the world do I prefer,

This maugre[112] all the world will I keep safe,

Or some of you shall smoke[113] for it in Rome.

DEMETRIUSBy this our mother is forever shamed.

115

CHIRONRome will despise her for this foul escape.[115]

NURSEThe emperor, in his rage, will doom her death.

CHIRONI blush to think upon this ignomy.[117]

AARONWhy, there’s the privilege your beauty bears:

Fie, treacherous hue, that will betray with blushing

120

The close enacts[120] and counsels of the heart.

Here’s a young lad framed[121] of another leer:

Look how the black slave[122] smiles upon the father,

As[123] who should say ‘Old lad, I am thine own.’

He is your brother, lords, sensibly[124] fed

125

Of that self-blood[125] that first gave life to you,

And from that womb where you imprisoned were

He is enfranchisèd[127] and come to light.

Nay, he is your brother by the surer[128] side,

Although my seal be stampèd in his face.

130

NURSEAaron, what shall I say unto the empress?

DEMETRIUSAdvise thee,[131] Aaron, what is to be done,

And we will all subscribe to thy advice.

Save thou the child, so[133] we may all be safe.

AARONThen sit we down, and let us all consult.

135

My son and I will have[135] the wind of you.

Keep there: now talk at pleasure of your safety. They sit

DEMETRIUSHow many women saw this child of his? To the Nurse

AARONWhy, so, brave lords, when we join in league

I am a Iamb: but if you brave the Moor,

140

The chafèd[140] boar, the mountain lioness,

The ocean swells not so as Aaron storms.—

But say again, how many saw the child? To the Nurse

NURSECornelia the midwife and myself,

And none else but the delivered empress.

145

AARONThe empress, the midwife, and yourself:

Two may keep counsel when the third’s away.

Go to the empress, tell her this I said.

He kills her

Weke, weke![148] So cries a pig preparèd to th’spit. They all stand up

DEMETRIUSWhat mean’st thou, Aaron? Wherefore didst thou this?

150

AARONO Lord, sir, ’tis a deed of policy:[150]

Shall she live to betray this guilt of ours,

A long-tongued[152] babbling gossip? No, lords, no:

And now be it known to you my full intent.

Not far, one Muly lives, my countryman:

155

His wife but yesternight was brought to bed:

His child is like to her,[156] fair as you are.

Go pack[157] with him, and give the mother gold,

And tell them both the circumstance[158] of all,

And how by this their child shall be advanced,

160

And be receivèd for the emperor’s heir,

And substituted in the place of mine,

To calm this tempest whirling in the court,

And let the emperor dandle him for his own.

Hark ye, lords, ye see I have given her physic,[164]

165

And you must needs bestow[165] her funeral:

The fields are near and you are gallant grooms.[166]

This done, see that you take no longer days,[167]

But send the midwife presently[168] to me.

The midwife and the nurse well made away,

170

Then let the ladies tattle what they please.

CHIRONAaron, I see thou wilt not trust the air With secrets.

DEMETRIUSFor this care of Tamora,

Herself and hers are highly bound to thee.

Exeunt [Demetrius and Chiron with the body]

175

AARONNow to the Goths, as swift as swallow flies,

There to dispose this treasure in mine arms,

And secretly to greet the empress’ friends.

Come on, you thick-lipped slave, I’ll bear you hence,

For it is you that puts us to our shifts:[179]

180

I’ll make you feed on berries and on roots,

And feed on curds and whey,[181] and suck the goat,

And cabin[182] in a cave, and bring you up

To be a warrior and command a camp.

Exit

[Act 4 Scene 3]4.3

running scene 8

Enter Titus, Old Marcus, Young Lucius and other Gentlemen [Publius, Sempronius, Caius] with bows and Titus bears the arrows with letters on the end of them

TITUSCome, Marcus, come, kinsmen: this is the way.

Sir Boy, let me see your archery.

Look ye draw home[3] enough, and ’tis there straight.

Terras Astraea reliquit[4]: be you remembered,

5

Marcus, she’s gone, she’s fled.— Sirs, take you to your tools.

You, cousins,[6] shall go sound the ocean,

And cast your nets:

Haply[8] you may find her in the sea,

Yet there’s[9] as little justice as at land.

10

No, Publius and Sempronius, you must do it,

’Tis you must dig with mattock[11] and with spade,

And pierce the inmost centre of the earth.

Then, when you come to Pluto’s region,[13]

I pray you deliver him this petition.

15

Tell him, it is for justice and for aid,

And that it comes from old Andronicus,

Shaken with sorrows in ungrateful Rome.—

Ah, Rome! Well, well, I made thee miserable

What time[19] I threw the people’s suffrages

20

On him that thus doth tyrannize o’er me.—

Go, get you gone, and pray be careful all,

And leave you not a man-of-war[22] unsearched:

This wicked emperor may have shipped her[23] hence,

And, kinsmen, then we may go pipe for[24] justice.

25

MARCUSO Publius, is not this a heavy case,[25]

To see thy noble uncle thus distract?[26]

PUBLIUSTherefore, my lords, it highly us concerns

By day and night t’attend him carefully[28]

And feed his humour[29] kindly as we may,

30

Till time beget some careful[30] remedy.

MARCUSKinsmen, his sorrows are past remedy.

Join[32] with the Goths and with revengeful war

Take wreak[33] on Rome for this ingratitude,

And vengeance on the traitor Saturnine.

35

TITUSPublius, how now? How now, my masters?

What, have you met with her?[36]

PUBLIUSNo, my good lord, but Pluto sends you word

If you will have Revenge from hell, you shall.

Marry, for[39] Justice, she is so employed,

40

He thinks with Jove in heaven or somewhere else,

So that perforce[41] you must needs stay a time.

TITUSHe doth me wrong to feed me with delays.

I’ll dive into the burning lake[43] below

And pull her out of Acheron by the heels.

45

Marcus, we are but shrubs, no cedars we,

No big-boned men framed of the Cyclops’[46] size,

But metal, Marcus, steel to the very back,

Yet wrung[48] with wrongs more than our backs can bear.

And sith[49] there’s no justice in earth nor hell,

50

We will solicit heaven and move[50] the gods

To send down Justice for to[51] wreak our wrongs.

Come, to this gear.[52] You are a good archer, Marcus:

He gives them the arrows

‘Ad Jovem’, that’s for you: here, ‘Ad Apollinem’:

‘Ad Martem’,[54] that’s for myself:

55

Here, boy, to Pallas: here, to Mercury:

To Saturn, Caius, not to Saturnine.

You[57] were as good to shoot against the wind.

To it, boy! Marcus, loose[58] when I bid.

Of[59] my word, I have written to effect:

60

There’s not a god left unsolicited.

MARCUSKinsmen, shoot all your shafts into the court:

We will afflict the emperor in his pride.

TITUSNow, masters, draw. They draw and shoot

O, well said,[64] Lucius.

65

Good boy, in Virgo’s[65] lap. Give it Pallas.

MARCUSMy lord, I aim a mile beyond the moon:

Your letter is with Jupiter by this.

TITUSHa, ha!

Publius, Publius, what hast thou done?

70

See, see, thou hast shot off one of Taurus’[70] horns.

MARCUSThis was the sport, my lord: when Publius shot,

The bull, being galled,[72] gave Aries such a knock

That down fell both the ram’s horns[73] in the court,

And who should find them but the empress’ villain![74]

75

She laughed and told the Moor he should not choose

But give them to his master for a present.

TITUSWhy, there it goes:[77] God give his lordship joy!

Enter the Clown with a basket and two pigeons in it

News, news from heaven! Marcus, the post[78] is come.—

Sirrah, what tidings? Have you any letters?

80

Shall I have justice? What says Jupiter?

CLOWNHo, the gibbet-maker![81] He says that he hath taken them down again, for the man must not be hanged till the next week.

TITUSBut what says Jupiter, I ask thee?

CLOWNAlas, sir, I know not Jupiter: I never drank with him in all my life.

TITUSWhy, villain, art not thou the carrier?[85]

CLOWNAy, of my pigeons, sir, nothing else.

TITUSWhy, didst thou not come from heaven?

CLOWNFrom heaven? Alas, sir, I never came there: God forbid I should be so bold to press[89] to heaven in my young days. Why, I am going with my pigeons to the tribunal plebs[90] to take up a matter of brawl betwixt my uncle and one of the emperial’s[91] men.

MARCUSTo Titus Why, sir, that is as fit as can be to serve for your oration,[92] and let him deliver the pigeons to the emperor from you.

TITUSTell me, can you deliver an oration to the emperor with a grace?[94]

CLOWNNay, truly, sir, I could never say grace in all my life.

TITUSSirrah, come hither: make no more ado,[96]

But give your pigeons to the emperor.

By me thou shalt have justice at his hands.

Hold,[99] hold — meanwhile here’s money for thy charges.

100

Give me pen and ink. Writes

Sirrah, can you with a grace deliver a supplication?[101]

CLOWNAy, sir.

TITUSGives the letter Then here is a supplication for you, and when you come to him, at the first approach you must kneel, then kiss his foot, then deliver up your pigeons, and

then look for[105] your reward. I’ll be at hand, sir: see you do it bravely.

CLOWNI warrant you, sir, let me alone.[106]

TITUSSirrah, hast thou a knife? Come, let me see it.—

Here, Marcus, fold it in the oration—

For thou must take it like an humble suppliant. To the Clown

110

And when thou hast given it the emperor,

Knock at my door, and tell me what he says.

CLOWNGod be with you, sir. I will.

Exit

TITUSCome, Marcus, let us go.— Publius, follow me.

Exeunt

[Act 4 Scene 4]*

running scene 8 continues

Enter Emperor and Empress and her two sons [and Attendants]. The Emperor brings the arrows in his hand that Titus shot at him

SATURNINUSWhy, lords, what wrongs are these? Was ever seen

An emperor in Rome thus overborne,[2]

Troubled, confronted thus, and for the extent[3]

Of equal justice, used in such contempt?

5

My lords, you know, as know the mightful[5] gods,

However these disturbers of our peace

Buzz in the people’s ears, there nought hath passed[7]

But even[8] with law against the wilful sons

Of old Andronicus. And what an if

10

His sorrows have so overwhelmed his wits,

Shall we be thus afflicted in his wreaks,[11]

His fits, his frenzy, and his bitterness?

And now he writes to heaven for his redress.

See, here’s ‘To Jove’, and this ‘To Mercury’,

15

This ‘To Apollo’, this ‘To the god of war’:

Sweet scrolls to fly about the streets of Rome!

What’s this but libelling against the senate

And blazoning[18] our injustice everywhere?

A goodly humour,[19] is it not, my lords?

20

As who would say, in Rome no justice were.

But if I live, his feignèd ecstasies

Shall be no shelter to these outrages,

But he and his shall know that justice lives

In Saturninus’ health, whom, if she[24] sleep,

25

He’ll so awake as she in fury shall

Cut off the proud’st conspirator that lives.

TAMORAMy gracious lord, my lovely Saturnine,

Lord of my life, commander of my thoughts,

Calm thee and bear the faults of Titus’ age,

30

Th’effects of sorrow for his valiant sons

Whose loss hath pierced him deep and scarred his heart;

And rather comfort his distressèd plight

Than prosecute the meanest[33] or the best

For these contempts.— Why, thus it shall become

Aside

35

High-witted[35] Tamora to gloze withal.

But, Titus, I have touched thee to the quick,

Thy life-blood out: if Aaron now be wise,

Then is all safe, the anchor’s in the port.—

Enter Clown

How now, good fellow, wouldst thou speak with us?

CLOWNYea, forsooth,[40] an your mistership be emperial.

TAMORAEmpress I am, but yonder sits the emperor.

CLOWN’Tis he. God and Saint Stephen give you good e’en.[42] I have brought you a letter and a couple of pigeons here.

Saturninus reads the letter

SATURNINUSGo, take him away and hang him presently.

45

CLOWNHow much money must I[45] have?

TAMORACome, sirrah, you must be hanged.

CLOWNHanged? By’r lady,[47] then I have brought up a neck to a fair end.

Exit [guarded]

SATURNINUSDespiteful and intolerable wrongs!

Shall I endure this monstrous villainy?

50

I know from whence this same device[50] proceeds.

May this be borne as if his traitorous sons,

That died by law for murder of our brother,

Have by my means been butchered wrongfully?

Go, drag the villain hither by the hair:

55

Nor age nor honour shall shape privilege.[55]

For this proud mock I’ll be thy slaughterman,[56]

Sly frantic[57] wretch that holp’st to make me great

In hope thyself should govern Rome and me.

Enter a Messenger, Emillius

What news with thee, Emillius?

60

EMILLIUSArm, my lords! Rome never had more cause:

The Goths have gathered head,[61] and with a power

Of high-resolvèd men bent[62] to the spoil

They hither march amain,[63] under conduct

Of Lucius, son to old Andronicus,

65

Who threats in course of this revenge to do

As much as ever Coriolanus[66] did.

SATURNINUSIs warlike Lucius general of the Goths?

These tidings nip me[68] and I hang the head

As flowers with frost or grass beat down with storms.

70

Ay, now begins our sorrows to approach:

’Tis he the common people love so much.

Myself hath often heard them say,

When I have walkèd[73] like a private man,

That Lucius’ banishment was wrongfully,[74]

75

And they have wished that Lucius were their emperor.

TAMORAWhy should you fear? Is not our city strong?

SATURNINUSAy, but the citizens favour Lucius,

And will revolt from me to succour him.

TAMORAKing, be thy thoughts imperious, like thy name.[79]

80

Is the sun dimmed, that gnats do fly in it?

The eagle suffers[81] little birds to sing,

And is not careful[82] what they mean thereby,

Knowing that with the shadow of his wings

He can at pleasure stint[84] their melody:

85

Even so mayst thou the giddy[85] men of Rome.

Then cheer thy spirit, for know thou, emperor,

I will enchant the old Andronicus

With words more sweet and yet more dangerous

Than baits to fish or honey-stalks[89] to sheep,

90

When as the one is wounded with the bait,

The other rotted[91] with delicious food.

SATURNINUSBut he will not entreat his son for us.

TAMORAIf Tamora entreat him, then he will,

For I can smooth[94] and fill his agèd ear

95

With golden promises that, were his heart

Almost impregnable, his old ears deaf,

Yet should both ear and heart obey my tongue.

Go thou before to be our ambassador: To Emillius

Say that the emperor requests a parley[99]

100

Of warlike Lucius, and appoint[100] the meeting

Even at his father’s house, the old Andronicus.

SATURNINUSEmillius, do this message honourably:

And if he stand in[103] hostage for his safety,

Bid him demand what pledge will please him best.

105

EMILLIUSYour bidding shall I do effectually.[105]

Exit

TAMORANow will I to that old Andronicus,

And temper[107] him with all the art I have,

To pluck proud Lucius from the warlike Goths.

And now, sweet emperor, be blithe again,

110

And bury all thy fear in my devices.

SATURNINUSThen go successantly,[111] and plead to him.

Exeunt

Act 5 [Scene 1]5.1

running scene 9

Flourish. Enter Lucius with an army of Goths with Drum and Soldiers

LUCIUSApprovèd[1] warriors and my faithful friends,

I have receivèd letters from great Rome

Which signifies what hate they bear their emperor,

And how desirous of our sight they are.

5

Therefore, great lords, be, as[5] your titles witness,

Imperious and impatient of your wrongs,

And wherein Rome hath done you any scathe[7]

Let him make treble satisfaction.

FIRST GOTHBrave slip[9] sprung from the great Andronicus,

10

Whose name was once our terror, now our comfort,

Whose high exploits and honourable deeds

Ingrateful Rome requites with foul contempt,

Be bold[13] in us. we’ll follow where thou lead’st,

Like stinging bees in hottest summer’s day

15

Led by their master[15] to the flowered fields,

And be avenged on cursèd Tamora.

ALL THE GOTHSAnd as he saith, so say we all with him.

LUCIUSI humbly thank him, and I thank you all.

But who comes here, led by a lusty[19] Goth?

Enter a Goth, leading of Aaron with his child in his arms

20

SECOND GOTHRenownèd Lucius, from our troops I strayed

To gaze upon a ruinous monastery,

And as I earnestly[22] did fix mine eye

Upon the wasted building, suddenly

I heard a child cry underneath a wall.

25

I made unto the noise, when soon I heard

The crying babe controlled[26] with this discourse:

‘Peace, tawny[27] slave, half me and half thy dam!

Did not thy hue bewray[28] whose brat thou art,

Had nature lent thee but thy mother’s look,

30

Villain, thou mightst have been an emperor.

But where the bull and cow are both milk-white,

They never do beget a coal-black calf.

Peace, villain, peace!’ — even thus he rates[33] the babe —

‘For I must bear thee to a trusty Goth

35

Who, when he knows thou art the empress’ babe,

Will hold thee dearly for thy mother’s sake.’

With this, my weapon drawn, I rushed upon him,

Surprised him suddenly, and brought him hither

To use[39] as you think needful of the man.

40

LUCIUSO worthy Goth, this is the incarnate devil

That robbed Andronicus of his good hand,

This is the pearl[42] that pleased your empress’ eye,

And here’s the base fruit[43] of his burning lust.—

Say, wall-eyed[44] slave, whither wouldst thou convey To Aaron

45

This growing image of thy fiend-like face?

Why dost not speak? What, deaf? Not a word?

A halter, soldiers! Hang him on this tree,

And by his side his fruit of bastardy.

AARONTouch not the boy, he is of royal blood.

50

LUCIUSToo like the sire[50] for ever being good.

First hang the child, that he may see it sprawl:[51]

A sight to vex the father’s soul withal.[52]

Get me a ladder. A ladder is brought which Aaron is made to climb

AARONLucius, save the child, A Goth takes the child

55

And bear it from me to the emperess.

If thou do this, I’ll show thee wondrous things

That highly may advantage thee to hear.

If thou wilt not, befall what may befall,

I’ll speak no more but ‘Vengeance rot you all!’

60

LUCIUSSay on, an if it please me which thou speak’st,

Thy child shall live and I will see it nourished.

AARONAn if it please thee? Why, assure thee, Lucius,

’Twill vex thy soul to hear what I shall speak,

For I must talk of murders, rapes and massacres,

65

Acts of black night, abominable deeds,

Complots[66] of mischief, treason, villainies

Ruthful[67] to hear yet piteously performed:

And this shall all be buried by my death

Unless thou swear to me my child shall live.

70

LUCIUSTell on thy mind, I say thy child shall live.

AARONSwear that he shall and then I will begin.

LUCIUSWho should I swear by? Thou believest no god:

That granted, how canst thou believe an oath?

AARONWhat if I do not? — As indeed I do not —

75

Yet for[75] I know thou art religious

And hast a thing within thee called conscience,

With twenty popish[77] tricks and ceremonies

Which I have seen thee careful to observe:

Therefore I urge thy oath, for that I know

80

An idiot holds his bauble[80] for a god

And keeps the oath which by that god he swears,

To that I’ll urge him: therefore thou shalt vow

By that same god, what god soe’er it be,

That thou ador’st and hast in reverence,

85

To save my boy, to nourish and bring him up,

Or else I will discover[86] nought to thee.

LUCIUSEven by my god I swear to thee I will.

AARONFirst know thou I begot him on the empress.

LUCIUSO most insatiate, luxurious[89] woman!

90

AARONTut, Lucius, this was but a deed of charity

To[91] that which thou shalt hear of me anon.

’Twas her two sons that murdered Bassianus,

They cut thy sister’s tongue and ravished her

And cut her hands off and trimmed[94] her as thou saw’st.

95

LUCIUSO detestable villain! Call’st thou that trimming?

AARONWhy, she was washed[96] and cut and trimmed, and ’twas

Trim[97] sport for them that had the doing of it.

LUCIUSO barbarous, beastly villains, like thyself!

AARONIndeed, I was their tutor to instruct them.

100

That codding[100] spirit had they from their mother,

As[101] sure a card as ever won the set:

That bloody[102] mind, I think, they learned of me,

As true a dog[103] as ever fought at head.

Well, let my deeds be witness of my worth.

105

I trained[105] thy brethren to that guileful hole

Where the dead corpse of Bassianus lay:

I wrote the letter that thy father found,

And hid the gold within the letter mentioned,

Confederate[109] with the queen and her two sons:

110

And what not done, that thou hast cause to rue

Wherein I had no stroke of mischief in it?

I played the cheater[112] for thy father’s hand,

And when I had it, drew myself apart

And almost broke my heart with extreme laughter:

115

I pried me[115] through the crevice of a wall

When for his hand he had his two sons’ heads,

Beheld his tears and laughed so heartily

That both mine eyes were rainy like to his.

And when I told the empress of this sport,

120

She swoonèd almost at my pleasing tale

And for my tidings gave me twenty kisses.

A GOTHWhat, canst thou say all this and never blush?

AARONAy, like a black dog, as[123] the saying is.

LUCIUSArt thou not sorry for these heinous deeds?

125

AARONAy, that I had not done a thousand more.

Even now I curse the day — and yet I think

Few come within the compass of my curse —

Wherein I did not some notorious ill,

As kill a man or else devise his death,

130

Ravish a maid or plot the way to do it,

Accuse some innocent and forswear myself,[131]

Set deadly enmity between two friends,

Make poor men’s cattle break their necks,

Set fire on barns and haystacks in the night

135

And bid the owners quench them with their tears.

Oft have I digged up dead men from their graves

And set them upright at their dear friends’ door,

Even when their sorrows almost was forgot,

And on their skins, as on the bark of trees,

140

Have with my knife carved in Roman letters,

‘Let not your sorrow die, though I am dead.’

Tut, I have done a thousand dreadful things

As willingly as one would kill a fly,

And nothing grieves me heartily indeed

145

But that I cannot do ten thousand more.

LUCIUSBring down the devil, for he must not die

So sweet a death as hanging presently.[147] Aaron is made to climb down

AARONIf there be devils, would I were a devil,

To live and burn in everlasting fire,

150

So I might have your company in hell,

But to torment you with my bitter tongue.

LUCIUSSirs, stop his mouth and let him speak no more. Aaron is gagged

Enter Emillius

A GOTHMy lord, there is a messenger from Rome

Desires to be admitted to your presence.

155

LUCIUSLet him come near.

Welcome, Emillius what’s the news from Rome?

EMILLIUSLord Lucius, and you princes of the Goths,

The Roman emperor greets you all by me,

And for[159] he understands you are in arms,

160

He craves a parley at your father’s house,

Willing you to demand your hostages,[161]

And they shall be immediately delivered.

A GOTHWhat says our general?

LUCIUSEmillius, let the emperor give his pledges

165

Unto my father and my uncle Marcus,

And we will come. March away.

Flourish. Exeunt

[Act 5 Scene 2]5.2

running scene 10

Enter Tamora and her two sons [Demetrius and Chiron,] disguised

TAMORAThus, in this strange and sad habiliment,[1]

I will encounter with Andronicus

And say I am Revenge, sent from below

To join with him and right his heinous wrongs:

5

Knock at his study, where they say he keeps,[5]

To ruminate strange plots of dire revenge:

Tell[7] him Revenge is come to join with him

And work confusion[8] on his enemies.

They knock and Titus opens his study door Aloft or within, holding papers

TITUSWho doth molest my contemplation?

10

Is it your trick to make me ope[10] the door,

That so my sad decrees[11] may fly away

And all my study be to no effect?

You are deceived, for what I mean to do

See here in bloody lines[14] I have set down,

15

And what is written shall be executed.[15]

TAMORATitus, I am come to talk with thee.

TITUSNo, not a word. How can I grace[17] my talk,

Wanting[18] a hand to give it action?

Thou hast the odds of[19] me, therefore no more.

20

TAMORAIf thou didst know me, thou would’st talk with me.

TITUSI am not mad, I know thee well enough:

Witness this wretched stump, witness these crimson lines,

Witness these trenches[23] made by grief and care,

Witness the tiring day and heavy[24] night,

25

Witness all sorrow, that I know thee well

For our proud empress, mighty Tamora.

Is not thy coming for my other hand?

TAMORAKnow, thou sad man, I am not Tamora:

She is thy enemy and I thy friend.

30

I am Revenge, sent from th’infernal kingdom

To ease the gnawing vulture of thy mind

By working wreakful[32] vengeance on thy foes.

Come down and welcome me to this world’s light,

Confer with me of murder and of death:

35

There’s not a hollow cave or lurking place,

No vast obscurity or misty vale

Where bloody murder or detested rape

Can couch[38] for fear, but I will find them out,

And in their ears tell them my dreadful[39] name,

40

Revenge, which makes the foul offenders quake.

TITUSArt thou Revenge? And art thou sent to me

To be a torment to mine enemies?

TAMORAI am: therefore come down and welcome me.

TITUSDo me some service ere I come to thee.

45

Lo by thy side where Rape and Murder stands:

Now give some surance[46] that thou art Revenge:

Stab them or tear them on thy chariot-wheels,

And then I’ll come and be thy wagoner,

And whirl along with thee about the globes,[49]

50

Provide thee two proper palfreys,[50] as black as jet,

To hale[51] thy vengeful wagon swift away,

And find out murder[52] in their guilty caves.

And when thy car[53] is loaden with their heads,

I will dismount and by the wagon wheel

55

Trot like a servile footman all day long,

Even from Hyperion’s[56] rising in the east

Until his very downfall[57] in the sea.

And day by day I’ll do this heavy task,

So[59] thou destroy Rapine and Murder there.

60

TAMORAThese are my ministers, and come with me.

TITUSAre these thy ministers? What are they called?

TAMORARape and Murder, therefore callèd so,

Cause they take vengeance of[63] such kind of men.

TITUSGood Lord, how like the empress’ sons they are,

65

And you the empress! But we worldly[65] men

Have miserable, mad, mistaking eyes.

O sweet Revenge, now do I come to thee,

And if one arm’s embracement will content thee,

I will embrace thee in it by and by.

[Exit aloft or within]

70

TAMORAThis closing[70] with him fits his lunacy:

Whate’er I forge[71] to feed his brainsick fits,

Do you uphold and maintain in your speeches,

For now he firmly takes me for Revenge,

And, being credulous in this mad thought,

75

I’ll make him send for Lucius his son,

And whilst I at a banquet hold him sure,[76]

I’ll find some cunning practice[77] out of hand

To scatter and disperse the giddy[78] Goths,

Or at the least make them his enemies.

80

See, here he comes, and I must ply my theme.[80]

[Enter Titus, on main stage]

TITUSLong have I been forlorn, and all for thee.

Welcome, dread Fury,[82] to my woeful house:

Rapine and Murder, you are welcome too.

How like the empress and her sons you are!

85

Well are you fitted,[85] had you but a Moor:

Could not all hell afford you such a devil?

For well I wot the empress never wags[87]

But in her company there is a Moor,

And, would you represent our queen aright

90

It were convenient[90] you had such a devil.

But welcome as you are. What shall we do?

TAMORAWhat wouldst thou have us do, Andronicus?

DEMETRIUSShow me a murderer, I’ll deal with[93] him.

CHIRONShow me a villain that hath done a rape,

95

And I am sent to be revenged on him.

TAMORAShow me a thousand that have done thee wrong,

And I’ll be revengèd on them all.

TITUSLook round about the wicked streets of Rome, To Demetrius

And when thou find’st a man that’s like thyself,

100

Good Murder, stab him: he’s a murderer.—

Go thou with him, and when it is thy hap[101] To Chiron

To find another that is like to thee,

Good Rapine, stab him: he is a ravisher.—

Go thou with them, and in the emperor’s court To Tamora

105

There is a queen, attended by a Moor —

Well mayst thou know her by thy own proportion,[106]

For up and down[107] she doth resemble thee —

I pray thee do on them some violent death:

They have been violent to me and mine.

110

TAMORAWell hast thou lessoned us: this shall we do.

But would it please thee, good Andronicus,

To send for Lucius, thy thrice-valiant son,

Who leads towards Rome a band of warlike Goths,

And bid him come and banquet at thy house?

115

When he is here, even at thy solemn[115] feast,

I will bring in the empress and her sons,

The emperor himself and all thy foes,

And at thy mercy shall they stoop and kneel,

And on them shalt thou ease thy angry heart.

120

What says Andronicus to this device?

Enter Marcus

TITUSMarcus, my brother! ’Tis sad Titus calls.

Go, gentle Marcus, to thy nephew Lucius —

Thou shalt inquire him out among the Goths —

Bid him repair[124] to me and bring with him

125

Some of the chiefest princes of the Goths.

Bid him encamp his soldiers where they are:

Tell him the emperor and the empress too

Feasts at my house, and he shall feast with them.

This do thou for my love, and so let him,

130

As he regards his agèd father’s life.

MARCUSThis will I do, and soon return again.

[Exit]

TAMORANow will I hence about thy business,

And take my ministers along with me.

TITUSNay, nay, let Rape and Murder stay with me,

135

Or else I’ll call my brother back again,

And cleave to no revenge but[136] Lucius.

TAMORAWhat say you, boys? Will you bide with him Aside to her sons

Whiles I go tell my lord the emperor

How I have governed[139] our determined jest?

140

Yield to his humour, smooth[140] and speak him fair,

And tarry with him till I turn[141] again.

TITUSI know them all, though they suppose me mad, Aside

And will o’erreach them in their own devices:

A pair of cursèd hell-hounds and their dam!

145

DEMETRIUSMadam, depart at pleasure, leave us here.

TAMORAFarewell, Andronicus: Revenge now goes

To lay a complot to betray thy foes.

TITUSI know thou dost, and, sweet Revenge, farewell.

[Exit Tamora]

CHIRONTell us, old man, how shall we be employed?

150

TITUSTut, I have work enough for you to do.—

Publius, come hither.— Caius and Valentine!

[Enter Publius, Caius and Valentine]

PUBLIUSWhat is your will?

TITUSKnow you these two?

PUBLIUSThe empress’ sons, I take them: Chiron, Demetrius.

155

TITUSFie, Publius, fie, thou art too much deceived:

The one is Murder, Rape is the other’s name,

And therefore bind them, gentle Publius.

Caius and Valentine, lay hands on them.

Oft have you heard me wish for such an hour,

160

And now I find it: therefore bind them sure, They seize Chiron

And stop their mouths, if they begin to cry.[161]

[Exit] and Demetrius

CHIRONVillains, forbear![162] We are the empress’ sons.

PUBLIUSAnd therefore[163] do we what we are commanded.

Stop close their mouths, let them not speak a word.

165

Is he sure bound? Look that you bind them fast.

Enter Titus Andronicus with a knife, and Lavinia with a basin

TITUSCome, come, Lavinia: look, thy foes are bound.

Sirs, stop their mouths, let them not speak to me,

But let them hear what fearful words I utter.

O villains, Chiron and Demetrius,

170

Here stands the spring[170] whom you have stained with mud,

This goodly summer with your winter mixed.

You killed her husband, and for that vile fault

Two of her brothers were condemned to death,

My hand cut off and made a merry jest,

175

Both her sweet hands, her tongue, and that more dear

Than hands or tongue, her spotless chastity,

Inhuman traitors, you constrained and forced.

What would you say if I should let you speak?

Villains, for shame you could not beg for grace.

180

Hark, wretches, how I mean to martyr[180] you.

This one hand yet is left to cut your throats,

Whilst that Lavinia ’tween her stumps doth hold

The basin that receives your guilty blood.

You know your mother means to feast with me,

185

And calls herself Revenge and thinks me mad:

Hark, villains, I will grind your bones to dust

And with your blood and it I’ll make a paste,[187]

And of the paste a coffin[188] I will rear

And make two pasties[189] of your shameful heads,

190

And bid that strumpet,[190] your unhallowed dam,

Like to the earth swallow her own increase.[191]

This is the feast that I have bid her to,

And this the banquet she shall surfeit[193] on:

For worse than Philomel you used my daughter,

195

And worse than Progne[195] I will be revenged.

And now prepare your throats. Lavinia, come,

Receive the blood, and when that they are dead,

Let me go grind their bones to powder small

And with this hateful liquor temper[199] it,

200

And in that paste let their vile heads be baked.

Come, come, be everyone officious[201]

To make this banquet, which I wish might prove

More stern and bloody than the Centaurs’ feast.[203]

He cuts their throats

So, now bring them in, for I’ll play the cook,

205

And see them ready gainst[205] their mother comes.

Exeunt [with the bodies]

[Act 5 Scene 3]5.3

running scene 10 continues

Enter Lucius, Marcus and the Goths [with Aaron prisoner and one carrying the child]

LUCIUSUncle Marcus, since ’tis my father’s mind

That I repair to Rome, I am content.

A GOTHAnd ours with thine,[3] befall what fortune will.

LUCIUSGood uncle, take you in this barbarous Moor,

5

This ravenous tiger, this accursèd devil:

Let him receive no sustenance, fetter him

Till he be brought unto the empress’ face

For testimony of her foul proceedings.

And see the ambush[9] of our friends be strong:

10

I fear the emperor means no good to us.

AARONSome devil whisper curses in my ear,

And prompt me, that my tongue may utter forth

The venomous malice of my swelling heart.

LUCIUSAway, inhuman dog, unhallowed slave!—

15

Sirs, help our uncle to convey him in. Flourish.

[Exeunt some Goths with Aaron]

The trumpets show the emperor is at hand.

Sound trumpets. Enter Emperor and Empress, with Tribunes and others [including Emillius]

SATURNINUSWhat, hath the firmament[17] more suns than one?

LUCIUSWhat boots[18] it thee to call thyself a sun?

MARCUSRome’s emperor, and nephew, break the parle:[19]

20

These quarrels must be quietly debated.

The feast is ready which the careful[21] Titus

Hath ordainèd to an honourable end,

For peace, for love, for league and good to Rome:

Please you, therefore, draw nigh, and take your places.

25

SATURNINUSMarcus, we will.

Hautboys. A table brought in

Enter Titus like a cook, placing the meat on the table, and Lavinia with a veil over her face

[and Young Lucius]

TITUSWelcome, my gracious lord.— Welcome, dread queen.—

Welcome, ye warlike Goths.— Welcome, Lucius.—

And welcome, all. Although the cheer[28] be poor,

’Twill fill your stomachs. Please you eat of it.

30

SATURNINUSWhy art thou thus attired, Andronicus?

TITUSBecause I would be sure to have all well

To entertain your highness and your empress.

TAMORAWe are beholding[33] to you, good Andronicus.

TITUSAn if your highness knew my heart, you were.

35

My lord the emperor, resolve me this:

Was it well done of rash Virginius[36]

To slay his daughter with his own right hand,

Because she was enforced, stained and deflowered?

SATURNINUSIt was, Andronicus.

40

TITUSYour reason, mighty lord?

SATURNINUSBecause[41] the girl should not survive her shame,

And by her presence still[42] renew his sorrows.

TITUSA reason mighty, strong and effectual:

A pattern, precedent and lively[44] warrant

45

For me, most wretched, to perform the like. Unveils Lavinia

Die, die, Lavinia, and thy shame with thee,

And with thy shame thy father’s sorrow die!

He kills her

SATURNINUSWhat hast done? Unnatural and unkind![48]

TITUSKilled her for whom my tears have made me blind.

50

I am as woeful as Virginius was,

And have a thousand times more cause than he

To do this outrage:[52] and it now is done.

SATURNINUSWhat, was she ravished? Tell who did the deed.

TITUSWill’t please you eat? Will’t please your highness feed?

55

TAMORAWhy hast thou slain thine only daughter?

TITUSNot I, ’twas Chiron and Demetrius:

They ravished her and cut away her tongue,

And they, ’twas they, that did her all this wrong.

SATURNINUSGo fetch them hither to us presently.

60

TITUSWhy, there they are both, bakèd in that pie,

Whereof their mother daintily[61] hath fed,

Eating the flesh that she herself hath bred.

’Tis true, ’tis true, witness my knife’s sharp point.

He stabs the Empress

SATURNINUSDie, frantic wretch, for this accursèd deed! Kills Titus

65

LUCIUSCan the son’s eye behold his father bleed?

There’s meed for meed,[66] death for a deadly deed. Kills Saturninus. An uproar, during which Lucius and Marcus may go aloft

MARCUSYou sad-faced men, people and sons of Rome,

By uproars severed, like a flight of fowl

Scattered by winds and high tempestuous gusts,

70

O, let me teach you how to knit again

This scattered corn into one mutual[71] sheaf,

These broken limbs again into one body.

A GOTHLet Rome herself be bane[73] unto herself,

And she whom mighty kingdoms curtsy to,

75

Like a forlorn[75] and desperate castaway,

Do shameful execution on herself.

MARCUSBut if my frosty signs[77] and chaps of age,

Grave witnesses of true experience,

Cannot induce you to attend my words,

80

Speak, Rome’s dear friend, as erst[80] our ancestor, To Lucius

When with his solemn tongue he did discourse

To lovesick Dido’s sad attending ear

The story of that baleful[83] burning night

When subtle[84] Greeks surprised King Priam’s Troy.

85

Tell us what Sinon[85] hath bewitched our ears,

Or who hath brought the fatal engine[86] in

That gives our Troy, our Rome, the civil wound.

My heart is not compact[88] of flint nor steel,

Nor can I utter all our bitter grief,

90

But floods of tears will drown my oratory

And break my very utterance, even in the time

When it should move you to attend me most,

Lending your kind hand commiseration.

Here is a captain, let him tell the tale:

95

Your hearts will throb and weep to hear him speak.

LUCIUSThis, noble auditory,[96] be it known to you,

That cursèd Chiron and Demetrius

Were they that murderèd our emperor’s brother,

And they it were that ravishèd our sister.

100

For their fell[100] faults our brothers were beheaded,

Our father’s tears despised and basely cozened[101]

Of that true hand that fought[102] Rome’s quarrel out,

And sent her enemies unto the grave.

Lastly, myself unkindly[104] banishèd,

105

The gates shut on me, and turned weeping out,

To beg relief among Rome’s enemies,

Who drowned their enmity in my true tears

And oped their arms to embrace me as a friend.

And I am turned forth, be it known to you,

110

That have preserved her welfare in my blood,

And from her bosom took the enemy’s point,

Sheathing the steel in my advent’rous[112] body.

Alas, you know I am no vaunter,[113] I:

My scars can witness, dumb although they are,

115

That my report is just and full of truth.

But soft, methinks I do digress too much,

Citing my worthless praise: O, pardon me,

For when no friends are by, men praise themselves.

MARCUSNow is my turn to speak. Behold this child: Points to the baby

120

Of this was Tamora deliverèd,

The issue of an irreligious Moor,

Chief architect and plotter of these woes.

The villain is alive in Titus’ house,

And as he is to witness this is true,

125

Now judge what cause had Titus to revenge

These wrongs unspeakable, past patience,

Or more than any living man could bear.

Now you have heard the truth, what say you, Romans?

Have we done aught[129] amiss? Show us wherein,

130

And from the place where you behold us now,

The poor[131] remainder of Andronici

Will hand in hand all headlong cast us down

And on the ragged[133] stones beat forth our brains

And make a mutual closure of our house.

135

Speak, Romans, speak: and if you say we shall,

Lo, hand in hand, Lucius and I will fall.

EMILLIUSCome, come, thou reverend man of Rome,

And bring our emperor gently in thy hand,

Lucius, our emperor, for well I know

140

The common voice do cry it shall be so.

MARCUSLucius, all hail, Rome’s royal emperor!—

Go, go into old Titus’ sorrowful house, To Goths

And hither hale that misbelieving Moor,

To be adjudged some direful slaughtering death,

145

As punishment for his most wicked life. [Exeunt Goths]

[Lucius and Marcus may descend]

ALL ROMANSLucius, all hail, to Rome’s gracious governor!

LUCIUSThanks, gentle Romans. May I govern so

To heal Rome’s harms and wipe away her woe!

But, gentle people, give me aim[149] awhile,

150

For nature puts me to a heavy task:

Stand all aloof,[151] but, uncle, draw you near

To shed obsequious[152] tears upon this trunk.—

O, take this warm kiss on thy pale, cold lips, Kisses Titus

These sorrowful drops upon thy blood-stained face,

155

The last true duties of thy noble son!

MARCUSTear for tear, and loving kiss for kiss, Kisses Titus

Thy brother Marcus tenders[157] on thy lips.

O were the sum of these that I should pay

Countless and infinite, yet would I pay them.

160

LUCIUSCome hither, boy, come, come, and learn of us To his son

To melt in showers. Thy grandsire loved thee well:

Many a time he danced thee on his knee,

Sung thee asleep, his loving breast thy pillow:

Many a matter hath he told to thee,

165

Meet[165] and agreeing with thine infancy:

In that respect, then, like a loving child

Shed yet some small drops from thy tender spring

Because kind nature doth require it so.

Friends should associate[169] friends in grief and woe:

170

Bid him farewell, commit him to the grave,

Do him that kindness and take leave of him.

BOYO grandsire, grandsire, even with all my heart Kisses Titus

Would I were dead, so you did live again.

O Lord, I cannot speak to him for weeping,

175

My tears will choke me if I ope my mouth.

[Enter Aaron guarded by Goths]

A ROMANYou sad Andronici, have done with woes,

Give sentence on this execrable wretch

That hath been breeder of these dire events.

LUCIUSSet him breast-deep in earth and famish[179] him:

180

There let him stand and rave and cry for food.

If anyone relieves or pities him,

For the offence he dies. This is our doom:[182]

Some stay to see him fastened in the earth.

AARONO, why should wrath be mute and fury dumb?

185

I am no baby, I, that with base prayers

I should repent the evils I have done:

Ten thousand worse than ever yet I did

Would I perform, if I might have my will.

If one good deed in all my life I did

190

I do repent it from my very soul.

LUCIUSSome loving friends convey the emperor hence,

And give him burial in his father’s grave:

My father and Lavinia shall forthwith

Be closèd in our household’s monument.

195

As for that heinous[195] tiger, Tamora,

No funeral rite, nor man in mourning weeds,

No mournful bell shall ring her burial,

But throw her forth to beasts and birds of prey:

Her life was beast-like, and devoid of pity,

200

And being so, shall have like want of pity.

{See justice done on Aaron, that damned Moor,}

{From whom our heavy haps[202] had their beginning:}

{Then afterwards, to order well the state,}

{That like events may ne’er it ruinate.}

Exeunt all [with the bodies]

Textual Notes

Q = First Quarto text of 1594

Q2 = Second Quarto text of 1600

F = First Folio text of 1623

F2 = a correction introduced in the Second Folio text of 1632

F3 = a correction introduced in the Third Folio text of 1663

F4 = a correction introduced in the Fourth Folio text of 1685

Ed = a correction introduced by a later editor

SD = stage direction

SH = speech heading (i.e., speaker’s name)

List of parts = Ed

1.1.18 SH MARCUS = Ed. Not in F 23 Pius = Q. F = Pious 71 freight spelled fraught in F 132 not = Q. F = me 174 are = Q. F = are all 214 friends = Q. F = Friend? 223 suit = Ed. F = sure. Q = sute 224 our = Q. F = your 242 Pantheon = F2. F = Pathan 252 thy = Q. F = my 258 you = Q. F = your 259 your honour = Q. F = you Honor 269 you = Q. F = your 280 cuique = F2. F = cuiquam 318 Phoebe = F2. F = Thebe 352 hundred spelled hundreth in F 362 vouch = Q. F = vouch’d 366 struck spelled stroke in F 382 wise = Q. Not in F 392 SH MARCUS…SONS = Ed. F = They all kneele and say 401 SH MARCUS = Ed. Not in F (the line is only in F, not Q1–3) 450 you = Q. F = vs 454 raze spelled race in F 462 SH SATURNINUS = Q. F = King. 477 SH LUCIUS = Ed. F = Son 487 SD stand up printed as part of the dialogue in F (“haynous faults. / Stand vp:”) 489 swore = Q. F = sware 497 SD Flourish placed at the beginning of the next scene in F

2.1.4 above = Q. F = about 22 nymph = Q. F = Queene 26 want = F2. F = wants 64 petty = Q. F = pretty 66 jet = Q. F = set 72 discord’s = Q. F = discord 107 That…speed = Q. Not in F 117 than = Ed. F = this

2.2.18 broad = Q. Not in F 26 like = Q. F = likes

2.3.54 quarrels = Q. F = quarrell 56 her = Q. F = our 64 thy = Q. F = his 85 note = Ed. F = notice 136 woman’s = Q. F = woman 204 hurt = Q. Not in F 236 Cocytus’ = F2. F = Ocitus 245 SD Both = Ed. F = Boths 260 SH SATURNINUS = Q.F = King. gride = Ed. F = grieu’d 268 SH SATURNINUS = Ed. Not in F

2.4.5 scrawl = Q (scrowle). F = scowle 11 SH MARCUS = Ed. Not in F (but implied in previous SD) 27 him = Ed. F = them 30 three = Ed. F = their

3.1.12 two = Ed. Not in F 28 you = Q. Not in F 34 or = Q2. F = oh did mark = Q. F = did heare 115 them = Q. F = him 125 like = Q. F = in 146 his true = F4. F = hertrue 150, 174, 189 SH AARON = Ed. F = Moore 193 your = Q. F = you 194 my = Q. F = me 198 for = Q. F = for for 226 blow = F2. F = flow 256 hand = Q. F = hands 257 son = Q. F = sonnes 260 thy = Q. F = my 261 Rend spelled Rent in F 299 like = Q. F = likes

3.2.13 with outrageous = F2. F = without ragious 39 complainer = Ed. F = complaynet 52 thy knife = F2. F = knife 53 fly = Ed. F = Flys 54 thee = F3. F = the 55 are = F2. Not in F 72 myself = F2. F = my selfes

4.1.9 her not= Q. F = not 41 for = Q. F = to 47 SD Helps her printed as part of the dialogue in F (“Helpe her, what would she finde”) 65 erst = Q. F = ersts 72 here = Ed. Not in F 79 writ = Q. F = writs 93 swore = F3. F = sweare

4.2.8 SH BOY…news, = Q. Not in F 15 that = Ed. Not in F 27 them = Q. F = the 44 your = Q. F = you 70 fair-faced = Q. F = fairest 78 SH AARON…mother = Q. Not in F 141 as = Q. F = at 154 Muly lives = Ed. F = Muliteus

4.3.48 backs = Q. F = backe 56 Saturn, Caius = Ed. F = Saturnine, to Caius 77 his = Q. F = your 109 must take = Ed.F = hast made

4.4.5 know, as know= Q. F = know 24–5 she…she = Ed. F = he…he 34 SD Aside printed at line 35 in F 43 SD Saturninus = Ed. F = He 58 SD a Messenger = Ed. F = Nuntius (Latin for “messenger”) 98 to be = Q. F = to 101 Even…Andronicus = Q. Not in F 111 to = Q. F = for

5.1.9 SH FIRST GOTH = Ed.F = Goth. 13 Be bold = Q. F = behold 17 SH ALL THE GOTHS = F2. Not in F 20 SH SECOND = Ed. Not in F 53 Get…ladder assigned to Aaron in F 87 to = Q. F = to to 120 swoonèd spelled sounded in F 127 the = Q. F = few 156 what’s = Q. F = what

5.2.31 thy = Q. F = the 32 thy = Q. F = my 52 caves = F2. F = cares 56 Hyperion’s = F2. F = Eptons 61 these = Ed. F = them 80 ply = Q. F = play 161 And…cry = Q. Not in F 165 F mistakenly prints “Exeunt” here 191 own = Q. Not in F

5.3.7 empress’ = Q. F = Emperous 10 I fear = Q. F = If ere 52 To…done = Q. Not in F 73 SH A GOTH = F (Goth). Q = Romane Lord 74 curtsy spelled cursie in F 77 SH MARCUS = Ed. F continues with Goth as speaker, Q with Romane Lord 93–7 Lending…Demetrius = F. Q = And force you to commiseration, / Her’s Romes young Captaine let him tell the tale, / While I stand by and weepe to heare him speake. / Lucius. Then gratious auditorie be it knowne to you, / That Chiron and the damn’d Demetrius 125 cause = F4. F = course 130 now = F. Q = pleading 132 cast us down = F. Q = hurle our selues 133 brains = F. Q = soules 146 SH ALL ROMANS = Ed. Not in F 154 blood-stained = F3. F = bloud-slaine 164 matter = F. Q = storie 165–9 Meet…woe = F. Q = And bid thee bare his prettie tales in minde, / And talke of them when he was dead and gone. / Marcus. How manie thousand times hath these poore lips, / When they were liuing warmd themselues on thine, / Oh now sweete boy giue them their latest kisse 176 SH A ROMAN = Q. F = Romans. 196 mourning = Q. F = mournfull

Act 1 Scene 1

1.1    Location: Rome (outside the senate house or Capitol) Flourish trumpet fanfare accompanying the arrival or departure of a person or people of rank Tribunes officials appointed to protect the interests and rights of the people aloft i.e., on the upper staging level or gallery Saturninus a name suggestive of a saturnine temperament, i.e., gloomy, sullen, sluggish Drum and Colours drummers and flagbearers

1    patricians Roman noblemen patrons protectors, supporters

4    successive hereditary

5    that of he who

6    diadem crown

7    honours respect due to rank/reputation/dignity

11    gracious popular/worthy of favor

12    Keep guard Capitol hill on which the temple of Jupiter stood; used in the play as the location of the senate house (the seat of government)

13    suffer not do not permit

14    virtue consecrate worth consecrated

15    continence self-restraint

16    desert merit, worth pure election free choice (as opposed to automatic inheritance by the eldest son)

19    empery status of emperor/absolute dominion

21    A special party i.e., elected representative (a tribune) voice vote/consensus

23    surnamèd given the honorary name Pius i.e., dutiful, patriotic, just (embodying the virtues of Rome’s legendary founder, Pius Aeneas)

24    deserts worthy deeds, actions deserving reward

27    accited summoned

29    That he who

30    yoked conquered

38    flourishing vigorous, thriving, eminent

39    honour…succeed the honorable name of the candidate you wish to succeed worthily to the empery (i.e., “your own honor” as the speech is addressed to Saturninus and Bassianus, each of whom wants the empery)

42    pretend claim

44    suitors petitioners

45    deserts deservings, rights

46    fair courteously, in a balanced manner

47    affy trust

51    all entirely

56    forward in active in supporting

61    confident and kind trustful and well-disposed

63    competitor fellow candidate

65    Patron protector/pattern champion defender

68    circumscribèd confined Tamora her name may be an allusion to Tomyris, Queen of the Massagetae, who carried out a bloody revenge on Cyrus of Persia after he had attacked her lands and killed her son; it perhaps suggests “amor” (Latin for “love”) and the object of her desire, the “Moor” Aaron “aron,” which is how the name is spelled in the earliest (Quarto) text, is the name of a bitter herb Moor person of either African or Middle Eastern origin; a term often used to refer to someone from Barbary, in north Africa

70    weeds garments

71    bark small ship

72    lading cargo (i.e., fresh goods picked up after the discharge of the original load)

73    anchorage anchors

77    Thou i.e., Jupiter Capitolinus, guardian of the city

78    Stand gracious to look favorably on

80    King Priam King of Troy and father of fifty sons, nearly all of whom were slain in the Trojan War

83    latest last

84    With i.e., let Rome reward with

85    given me leave allowed me (i.e., as they have been defeated)

86    unkind lacking in natural family feeling careless negligent, having no care

88    Styx river forming the boundary to the classical underworld, which could only be crossed by souls whose bodies had been properly buried

90    wont accustomed

93    cell storehouse

95    more again

97    hew hack

98    Ad manus fratrum “to the hands of our brothers” (Latin)

100    That so so that shadows ghosts

101    prodigies ill omens/unnatural events

104    gracious favored/merciful

105    rue feel pity for

106    passion grief

109    Sufficeth not is it not enough

110    triumphs victorious processions into Rome

121    Patient calm

127    straight straightaway

129    clean totally

131    Scythia ancient region extending over much of eastern Europe and Asiatic Russia, notorious for its barbarous inhabitants

132    Oppose compare

135    withal as well

136    Queen…tent Hecuba, the wife of King Priam of Troy, took revenge for the death of her son Polydorus by blinding his murderer, the Thracian King Polymestor sharp severe/merciless

141    quit requite, repay

144    entrails bowels, intestines

147    ’larums trumpet calls

149    latest final

153    envy malice

158    fame honor/renown

159    tributary paid as a tribute/like tributary rivers

160    obsequies commemorative rites

166    cordial medicine which invigorates the heart

168    And…praise i.e., may you outlive even eternal fame, on account of your virtue

171    gentle kind/noble

174    your…all i.e., the living and the dead share the same honor

176    triumph ceremonial victory celebration

177    aspired risen Solon’s happiness the ancient Greek philosopher and lawgiver Solon observed that man is only securely happy when dead

178    bed i.e., the grave

181    tribune…trust trusted representative

182    palliament candidate’s gown (George Peele is the only writer in English to use this word, evidence strongly suggesting his authorship of this scene)

185    candidatus “candidate” (literally “one clad in a white robe”)

187    fits befits, suits

192    set abroad generate

197    right and service defending the just cause

201    obtain and ask obtain if you ask

206    would I wish

211    wean…themselves reconcile them to not getting their own way

216    meed reward

218    voices…suffrages votes

221    gratulate express joy at, salute

222    admits acknowledges (as lawful successor)

223    suit formal request

224    create appoint

226    Titan Roman sun god

236    in…deserts as part-payment of the reward you deserve

237    gentleness kindness/nobility

238    an onset a start

242    Pantheon circular temple dedicated to all the gods

243    motion proposal

245    hold me consider myself of by

252    ensigns symbols, tokens

256    unspeakable inexpressible

257    fealty obligation of allegiance

259    for because of state high rank

260    use treat (with possible anticipatory play on the sense of “have sex with”)

261    hue appearance/complexion

264    cheer facial expression

267    Rest rely

268    he comforts he who comforts

271    sith since

272    Warrants justifies/acts as a pledge for/authenticates

278    withal moreover

279    reason justified course of action

280    ‘Suum cuique’ “to each his own” (Latin)

283    avaunt be gone

284    surprised ambushed, captured unexpectedly

293    Lucius, help Lucius may reenter or may have remained at the rear of Bassianus’ party

295    quarrel (hostile) cause

296    Nor neither

303    by leisure barely (i.e., I will not be quick to)

306    Was none was there no one stale laughingstock (especially a ridiculed lover)/person used as a tool for a sinister purpose

311    changing piece fickle woman (piece is derogatory)

312    flourished brandished

314    bandy brawl

315    ruffle fight

318    Phoebe or Diana, Roman goddess of the moon, chastity, and hunting

319    overshine outshine gallant’st finest looking

326    tapers candles

327    Hymenaeus god of marriage

335    Pantheon to the Pantheon

338    Whose…conquerèd i.e., who has wisely overcome her misfortune by accepting Saturninus

340    bid invited

341    wont accustomed

342    challengèd accused

349    becomes is fitting

353    re-edified rebuilt, restored

354    servitors servants/soldiers

359    bretheren brothers

360    TITUS’ TWO SONS i.e., Quintus and Martius, though the theater audience never hears their names

362    vouch maintain, assert

363    in my despite in contemptuous disregard of me/as an act of malice toward me

366    crest helmet (perhaps, anachronistically, with heraldic connotations)

368    repute consider

374    speed succeed/be satisfied

377    Suffer allow

381    The…funerals the Greek warrior Ajax, in a frenzy of rage because the dead Achilles’ armor had been awarded to Odysseus rather than himself, killed a flock of sheep in the maddened belief that they were Greek generals; he committed suicide in shame, but received a proper burial after Odysseus (Laertes’ son) persuaded the Greeks that he deserved one advice deliberation

387    dismall’st most ominous

391    trophies memorials to a military victory

394    dumps melancholy mood, dejection

395    subtle cunning, wily

397    is is so

398    device scheming

399    beholding beholden, indebted

402    played your prize won your bout (fencing term)

407    rape seizure (of Lavinia)

411    that that which

412    ’Tis good very well

413    sharp curt, short, dismissive (but with sinister play on the sense of “violent”)

415    Answer be answerable for (it)

419    opinion reputation

423    controlled checked, thwarted frankly freely, unconditionally

427    leave to plead i.e., leave off pleading on behalf of

428    those i.e., Titus’ sons and brother

433    indifferently impartially

436    put it up submit to it

437    forfend forbid

438    author to dishonour responsible for dishonoring

439    undertake vouch

441    fury…griefs genuine fury attests to the truth of his grief

443    vain suppose needless supposition

446    Dissemble disguise

449    survey consideration, examination

452    at entreats to entreaty let me alone leave it to me

454    raze erase, obliterate

456    suèd pleaded

460    Take up bid to rise

465    incorporate in formally admitted to by legal procedure/part of the body of

466    happily fortunately, opportunely

471    For as for

479    Tend’ring while having regard for

480    protest declare, affirm

488    churl ungenerous person

489    friend (generous) patron/lover

493    love-day day for amicable reconciliation/day for lovemaking

494    an if

495    hart male deer

496    bonjour “good day” (French)

497    gramercy “great thanks” (from the French grand merci)

Act 2 Scene 1

1    Olympus the mountain home of the Greek gods

3    of from

6    gilt covered with gold, i.e., shone over

7    Gallops gallops through glistering glittering

8    overlooks looks down on

10    wit intelligence/ingenuity; it also has sexual connotations of “genitals” in certain contexts

14    mount her pitch rise to the highest point of her flight (falconry term; mount has sexual connotations) in triumph as a victorious conqueror (who would return to Rome leading his chained prisoners behind his chariot)

16    charming spell-casting

17    Prometheus…Caucasus in punishment for stealing fire from the gods, Prometheus was chained to a rock in the Caucasus mountains where he had his liver perpetually gnawed by an eagle

18    weeds garments idle worthless/weary

21    wanton frolic lasciviously queen puns on “quean” (i.e., prostitute)

22    Semiramis Assyrian queen famed for beauty, cruelty, and lust

23    siren bewitching creature (part-woman, part-bird, though often confused with the mermaid); her enchanting singing lured sailors to shipwreck braving challenging one another, behaving with bravado

26    want lack edge sharpness; there seems to be a sexual play around “wit” here

27    graced favored

28    aught anything affected loved

29    overween presume

30    bear me down subdue me braves bravado, boasts

34    serve plays on the sense of “have sex”

35    approve prove

37    Clubs, clubs! rallying cry to summon apprentices armed with clubs to suppress a riot

38    unadvised ill-advisedly

39    dancing-rapier sword worn only for ornament when dancing

40    friends relatives

41    Go to expression of impatient dismissal lath stage sword made of wood

45    brave defiant, insolent

47    near…draw in Elizabethan England, it was illegal to draw weapons near a royal residence

49    wot know

54    put up sheathe your swords

64    brabble brawl, quarrel undo ruin

66    jet encroach

67    loose unchaste, promiscuous

70    controlment restraint

72    ground basis (puns on the musical sense of “base melody, on which variations are developed”)

73    knew she if she knew

75    meaner humbler, lower-ranking

79    brook tolerate

81    device scheme, intention

82    deaths perhaps plays on secondary meaning of death as “sexual orgasm” propose be ready to meet

85    mak’st…strange do you find it so odd

91    shive slice

93    Vulcan’s badge i.e., the cuckold’s horns traditionally supposed to be worn by a man with an unfaithful wife (Vulcan’s wife Venus slept with Mars)

95    court it play the courtier/woo

97    struck…nose killed a deer and smuggled it away without the gamekeeper noticing (struck a doe plays on the sense of “had sex with a woman or whore”; doe female fallow deer)

99    snatch seizure of the prey/hasty sexual act (the modern “quickie”)

100    serve your turns serve your purposes/render sexual service (Chiron plays on this sense in his reply)

102    hit it hit the point exactly/shot the prey (in his reply, Aaron shifts the sense to “penetrated the vagina”)

104    ado fuss/copulating

106    square for quarrel over

109    so provided that

110    join…jar join forces to obtain what you quarrel over

111    policy cunning/strategy

112    affect aim at

113    as…may achieve in the way you would like you must accomplish any way you can

115    Lucrece virtuous Roman wife who killed herself after being raped by Tarquin

117    ling’ring languishment protracted love-sorrow

119    solemn ceremonial

120    troop gather, assemble

122    plots spots (perhaps suggestive of the sense of “schemes”)

123    kind nature

124    Single select, isolate (an animal from the herd) dainty choice/pleasing to the palate/delicately pretty

125    strike her home fatally wound the deer/penetrate the vaginal target

126    stand perhaps with connotations of penile erection

127    sacred devoted (to villainy)/accursed

130    file our engines sharpen our stratagems

131    square yourselves thwart yourselves with quarreling

133    house of Fame house of whispering, gossip and rumor (described in Ovid’s Metamorphoses and Chaucer’s House of Fame)

135    dreadful inspiring awe and fear

136    strike take action/attack/penetrate sexually turns plays on the sense of “sexual acts”

138    treasury with the slang sense of “vagina”

140    Sit…nefas “be it right or wrong” (Latin)

142    Per…vehor “I am carried through the Stygian regions, through the realm of the shades”—i.e., “I am in hell” (Latin, adapted from Seneca’s Hippolytus)

Act 2 Scene 2

2.2    Location: Rome (outside the emperor’s palace). Hitherto, the style of the play has been mainly that of Peele; henceforth, it is mainly that of Shakespeare

1    up afoot

3    Uncouple release the hounds (who were fastened in couples) bay deep prolonged barking of hunting hounds

5    hunter’s peal horn-blowing to rouse the hounds

7    charge responsibility Wind blow a blast on

14    lustily heartily

16    how what

23    chase royal hunting grounds

24    promontory mountain ridge

Act 2 Scene 3

2.3    Location: a forest near Rome

3    inherit possess

5    coin create (literally, stamp metal to form a coin)

6    beget conceive, create

9    alms…chest i.e., this gold from Tamora’s treasury

10    wherefore why

11    boast show

21    conflict sex

22    wand’ring…Dido while on his sea-wanderings after the fall of Troy, Aeneas landed in Carthage and fell in love with Queen Dido; when out hunting they were caught in a storm and took refuge in a cave where they made love (celebrated in Virgil’s Aeneid)

23    happy fortuitous

24    counsel-keeping secret-keeping

30    Venus Roman goddess of love

31    Saturn the planet’s influence was supposed to make men sullen and melancholy dominator dominant planet

32    deadly-standing death-dealing

37    venereal erotic, lustful (from Venus)

41    hopes hopes for

43    Philomel Tereus raped Philomel and cut her tongue out to prevent her naming him as the perpetrator; she revealed his identity by weaving an account of what had happened

46    Take it up take it

49    parcel part hopeful hoped-for/promising

53    cross antagonistic, quarrelsome

56    Unfurnished…troop not equipped with a suitable escort

57    Dian Diana, Roman goddess of hunting, and chastity habited dressed

59    general participated in by all

60    Saucy insolent controller critic/official responsible for household finances (i.e., one of lower status)

62    presently immediately

63    Actaeon having seen Diana bathing naked, Actaeon was punished by being turned into a stag and hunted by his own hounds

64    drive rush

66    Under your patience if I may say so gentle noble

67    horning giving cuckold’s horns (i.e., being unfaithful to one’s husband)

68    doubted suspected

69    Are singled forth have deliberately separated yourselves (as an animal is from the herd) experiments i.e., sexual exploration

70    Jove supreme Roman god

72    swarth swarthy (i.e., black) Cimmerian one of a people who were supposed to live in darkness (i.e., the dark-skinned Aaron)

75    sequestered separated train retinue

81    Great reason i.e., no wonder rated berated, chastised

83    joy enjoy

84    passing surpassingly

86    slips moral errors/sexual lapses noted notorious, branded with disgrace/the subject of talk

92    ’ticed enticed

95    O’ercome overgrown baleful deadly, poisonous

97    fatal ominous raven like the owl, a bird whose call was associated with death

101    toads thought to be poisonous urchins goblins, elves

104    straight straightaway suddenly immediately

107    dismal ominous

110    Goth probably pronounced “goat,” a proverbially lascivious animal

118    Semiramis Assyrian queen noted for beauty, cruelty, and lust

120    poniard dagger

123    thrash plays on the sense of “have sex”

124    minion hussy stood upon insisted upon, made much of

126    painted i.e., false

128    An if if

131    honey sexual sweets

132    outlive live longer

133    warrant assure, guarantee

134    perforce by force

135    nice-preservèd honesty fastidiously maintained chastity

142    dam mother

143    learn teach

145    tyranny violence, cruelty, villainy

146    sons alike identical sons

149    raven a bird of ill omen, associated with (moral) blackness and with “ravening” (ravishing/devoring) lark associated with the brightness of morning and, because of its high flight, heaven

150    it it to be so

152    paws claws

153    forlorn abandoned, destitute

154    birds chicks

156    Nothing…pitiful if not as kind (as the fostering raven), then at least somewhat pitiful

157    it i.e., pity

166    use treat/employ sexually

172    Fond foolish

173    present immediate

174    womanhood female modesty denies forbids

176    tumble ironically to “tumble” can also mean “to have sex with”

179    fee payment, i.e., sexual entitlement

181    stayed delayed

183    our general name the reputation of womankind

184    Confusion ruin, disorder/shame/mental disturbance

187    make her sure secure her, i.e., ensure she is no threat to us

189    Andronici Latin plural of “Andronicus,” i.e., the whole family made away killed

191    spleenful violent, lustful (the spleen was regarded as the seat of strong passions) trull whore

192    better foot before best foot forward

195    dull lacking keenness of perception (associated with a melancholy and foreboding)

198    subtle treacherous, crafty, disguised

199    rude-growing wild, uncultivated

204    object sight

210    unhallowed unholy, wicked

211    surprisèd bewildered, overcome uncouth unfamiliar

217    compassionate afflicted with sorrow

219    by surmise even to imagine

222    embrewèd soaked

223    on a heap prostrate

227    ring…hole presumably the ring is set with a carbuncle, a gem supposed to emit light

228    monument tomb

229    earthly pale, lifeless

231    Pyramus in the mistaken belief that his lover Thisbe had been killed by a lion, Pyramus committed suicide; discovering this, Thisbe did the same

232    maiden blood his own blood, that of a male virgin/Thisbe’s blood (after she had killed herself over his body)

235    fell fierce, cruel

236    Cocytus a river in hell, used here for hell generally

238    wanting lacking

239    womb stomach/uterus

258    out alas alas (out is an intensifier)

260    gride pierced

262    search probe

264    writ document

265    complot plan, plot (with suggestions of “outline of a play” picked up in tragedy) timeless untimely

266    fold hide

268    handsomely conveniently

272    elder tree an ill-omened tree associated with betrayal

274    decreed decided

275    purchase win

279    should was to

281    kind nature

286    wondrous strange/incredible

292    apparent obvious

298    their suspicion the suspicion they are under

305    Fear not fear not for

Act 2 Scene 4

*    ravished raped

3    bewray divulge

5    scrawl gesticulate awkwardly/write untidily

6    sweet water a perfumed preparation similar to rose water

9    cause case, situation

10    knit knot

12    Cousin a term used for any relative

14    strike astrological term referring to the power of a planet to emit a deadly influence

19    circling shadows protective encircling shade

26    Tereus her brother-in-law who raped Philomel

27    detect expose/accuse

30    conduit fountain

31    Titan the sun god

35    rail at berate, rant at

36    stopped shut up

39    tedious laboriously executed sampler piece of embroidery

40    mean method, course of action

51    Cerberus…feet Orpheus (the Thracian poet) played his lute so sweetly that Cerberus, the three-headed dog guarding the entrance to the underworld, fell asleep at his feet

54    meads meadows

Act 3 Scene 1

3.1    Location: Rome (public place)

1    grave fathers dignified and venerable old men

4    my blood i.e., the blood of my sons quarrel cause

5    watched remained awake, on guard

13    languor sorrow, affliction

14    stanch satisfy, quench

15    shame feel shame

17    distil trickle down these…ruins i.e., his eyes

19    still continually

22    So provided that

24    doom sentence

26    prevailing orators successful in their entreaty

34    mark pay attention to

36    bootless in vain, pointlessly

39    intercept interrupt

42    attirèd clothed/covered grave somber/deathly weeds garments/wild plants

43    afford offer/supply

51    happy fortunate

64    object sight

71    Nilus the river Nile, known for its annual flooding disdaineth scorns, treats with contempt (i.e., overflows)

74    nursed…life i.e., in helping to uphold Rome, my hands have contributed to my own grief

76    effectless fruitless

81    martyred mutilated

82    engine instrument

83    blabbed uttered/told what was better kept secret

88    park enclosed hunting ground

90    unrecuring incurable

91    dear puns on deer

94    Environed surrounded

95    waxing swelling

96    Expecting ever always awaiting the time envious malicious

97    brinish briny, salty

101    spurn kick, blow

105    lively living

109    this this time, now

112    honey-dew sweet sticky substance found on the leaves and stems of plants, excreted by aphids but formerly believed to be akin to dew

121    do thee ease comfort you, bring you some relief

126    miry muddy

128    clearness i.e., the pure water of the fountain

131    dumb shows mimes; frequently included in early drama

134    device scheme, plan/dramatic performance

139    wot know

140    napkin handkerchief

148    sympathy agreement, union

149    Limbo dwelling place of the unbaptized, on the borders of hell

169    castle helmet, i.e., head/fortress

170    none of both neither of you

179    meet fit

184    spare save, leave unharmed (but Titus privately intends the sense of “do without”)

192    that you’ll say i.e., you will realize that I have deceived you

193    stay your strife stop arguing

195    warded protected

197    that i.e., burial

198    account of consider/value

200    dear costly/precious mine own what already belonged to me by right

202    Look expect

204    fat nourish/delight

205    fair pale-faced/virtuous

208    ruin i.e., his mutilated body

212    welkin sky

215    with possibilities realistically

218    passions outbursts of feeling

222    o’erflow become flooded

225    coil turmoil

226    her i.e., Lavinia’s

228    be movèd become choppy/be emotionally affected

231    For why because bowels core, interior

234    stomachs bellies/resentments

239    sports entertainments

240    That so that

242    Aetna volcano in Sicily

245    some deal somewhat

246    flouted mocked

248    shrink wither through blood loss

249    bear his name continue to be called life

252    starvèd benumbed with cold

254    flattery self-delusion

257    dear grievous

260    control try to restrain

270    tributary paid asa tribute/like tributary rivers

273    threat warn, give ominous indication

274    mischiefs misfortunes/injuries

277    heavy sorrowful

292    pledges those left behind as bail (i.e., his family)

294    tofore formerly

295    nor neither

296    But except

299    Tarquin…queen the last King of Rome, Tarquinius Superbus, was expelled after his son Sextus Tarquinius raped Lucrece; Lucius Junius Brutus led the people in an uprising that saw the establishment of a republic

300    power army

Act 3 Scene 2

3.2    Location: Rome (Titus’ house) banquet light meal

4    sorrow-wreathen knot Marcus’ arms are folded in a gesture denoting grief

5    want lack

6    passionate express with passion

8    tyrannize i.e., thump violently

9    Who which (referring to hand)

12    map image/epitome

13    outrageous violent/excessive

15    sighing each sigh was thought to drain a drop of blood from the heart

19    sink pool or pit for waste water/receptacle

20    fool term of endearment

22    tender young

23    dote foolish/deranged

27    Aeneas in Virgil’s Aeneid, Dido asks Aeneas to tell the story of the fall of Troy, to which he responds that to repeat it would renew his grief

30    still continually

31    franticly frenziedly/foolishly square shape

34    fall to begin eating

38    meshed mashed (i.e., brewed)

39    complainer one who laments

40    action performance/oratorical gesture perfect perfectly acquainted

43    wink close the eyes

45    still constant

46    grandsire grandfather

48    tender young/tender-hearted/sensitive

49    heaviness sorrow

54    Out on thee expression of reproachful indignation

62    buzz lamenting doings tell of sorrowful deeds

66    ill-favoured ugly

71    insult on triumph scornfully over

72    Flattering…if deluding myself into believing

75    sirrah sir (used to an inferior)

79    wrought on worked on, affected

81    take away clear the table

82    closet private room

83    chancèd that occurred

85    dazzle grow blurred

Act 4 Scene 1

4.1    Location: Rome (outside Titus’ house)

9    somewhat something

12    Cornelia Roman mother, exemplary for educating her sons, the Gracchi, who became notable political reformers

14    Tully’s Orator Cicero’s De Oratore, a widely studied treatise on rhetoric

15    plies importunes, behaves insistently toward

20    I…Troy in Ovid’s Metamorphoses, Hecuba became frenzied with grief and eventually turned into a dog

24    fury a fit of madness

27    go accompany us

33    deeper…skilled i.e., prepared for more advanced reading than Young Lucius’ schoolroom texts

35    beguile while away

38    in sequence one after the other

40    fact crime

41    heaves lifts

42    tosseth turns the leaves of

46    culled selected

47    Soft wait a moment/hush

51    annoy mental anguish

52    quotes observes, examines

53    surprised seized, ambushed

55    vast desolate

59    Patterned by that on the pattern of that which

62    tragedies dire events (with a play on the idea of theatrical tragedies)

65    Or…erst or was it not Saturnine who slunk as Tarquin once did

68    Apollo…Mercury Apollo was associated with the discovery of the truth, Pallas Athene with the law, Jove with the punishment of crime and the messenger-god Mercury with carrying forward the will of Jove

71    plain flat, smooth

72    after me following my example

74    shift means, expedient

76    discovered revealed

80    Stuprum “rape” (Latin)

83    Magni…vides? “Ruler of the great heavens, are you so slow to hear crimes, so slow to see?” (Latin; from Seneca’s Hippolytus)

88    exclaims outcries, protests

90    Roman Hector’s hope Hector was the greatest of the Trojan warriors, so Lucius is claimed as a Roman equivalent; his son Young Lucius is his hope for the future

91    fere spouse

94    prosecute…advice pursue by well-considered means

96    reproach shame, disgrace

97    an if

99    dam mother wind get wind of

100    lion i.e., Saturnine

101    playeth…back rolls playfully/has sex with him

102    do plays on the sense of “have sex (with)” list pleases

103    young inexperienced

104    leaf sheet

105    gad sharp spike, applied to a stylus or pen

107    Sibyl’s leaves the Sibyl (female prophet) of Cumae wrote her prophecies on leaves which were sometimes blown away before there was time to read them

111    bondmen slaves

116    fit equip (with arms) withal in addition

123    brave it swagger defiantly, make a show

124    marry by the Virgin Mary be waited on i.e., not ignored as we have been formerly

126    compassion pity

127    ecstasy fit of madness

Act 4 Scene 2

4.2    Location: Rome (exact location unspecified)

6    confound destroy

7    Gramercy great thanks

8    deciphered discovered/interpreted, read (referring to Lavinia’s writing of their names)

10    well advised after careful consideration, in his right mind

16    appointed equipped

20    ‘Integer…arcu’ “The man of upright life and free from crime does not need the javelins or bows of the Moor” (Latin; from Horace’s Odes)

23    grammar school textbook (the quotation appears in William Lily’s Latin grammar, widely used in schools from 1540 onward)

24    just just so, precisely

26    no sound jest said in irony; the jest could not be sounder

28    That…quick i.e., the message touches the matter to its very heart, but the boys are so stupid that they don’t sense it

29    witty clever afoot up and about

30    conceit ingenious conception

31    her unrest Tamora is in labor

32    happy fortunate

36    brave defy, be insolent toward

38    insinuate Demetrius has misinterpreted Titus’ message as a strategy for gaining entrance at court

40    friendly kindly (ironic; also plays on the sense of “like a lover”)

42    At…bay cornered thus (hunting metaphor referring to the cornered animal turning to face its pursuers) by turn one after the other (plays on the sense of “with copulation”) serve gratify sexually

45    more i.e., more Roman dames

50    Belike probably

54    more puns on Moor ne’er a whit not a bit (perhaps plays on “white”)

55    what what do you want

56    undone ruined

67    issue outcome/offspring

70    fair-faced breeders light-skinned mothers clime climate/region, realm

71    thy…seal i.e., with your mark upon it

74    blowse ruddy fat-faced wench (here applied to the baby as a reaction to the nurse’s condemnation of his blackness)

78    done had sex with

80    chance luck

87    broach stick, as on a spit

92    got conceived

95    Enceladus one of the giants who fought the Olympian gods

96    Typhon another giant (and father of monsters) who fought against the gods

97    Alcides Hercules, the Greek hero famed for feats of great strength god of war Mars

99    sanguine red-faced

100    white-limed whitewashed (puns on “white-limbed”) ale-house painted crudely painted

105    lave wash flood sea/river

109    this i.e., the baby

112    maugre in spite of

113    smoke i.e., suffer (an image drawn from burning at the stake)

115    escape sexual transgression

117    ignomy ignominy, disgrace

120    close enacts secret actions

121    framed made leer complexion/sly sideways glance

122    slave villain

123    As…say as if saying

124    sensibly perceptibly/made capable of sensation

125    self-blood selfsame blood

127    enfranchisèd freed

128    the surer i.e., the mother’s

131    Advise thee consider

133    so provided that

135    have…of watch as a hunter does from the security of a downwind position

140    chafèd angry/provoked

148    Weke, weke! Aaron imitates the Nurse’s dying cry

150    policy expedience, strategy

152    long-tongued chattering

156    like to her i.e., pale-skinned

157    pack make an arrangement/conspire

158    circumstance details

164    physic medicine (ironic)

165    bestow give

166    grooms fellows/herdsmen/court officials responsible for organizing special events like funerals

167    days time

168    presently immediately

179    shifts expedients/stratagems

181    curds and whey coagulated milk, similar to yogurt suck drink the milk of

182    cabin lodge

Act 4 Scene 3

4.3    Location: Rome (outside the emperor’s palace)

3    draw home draw the bow to its fullest extent ’tis there straight it will reach its target straightaway

4    Terras Astraea reliquit: “Astraea [goddess of justice] has left the earth” (Latin; from Ovid’s Metamorphoses) be you remembered remember

6    cousins kinsmen sound measure the depth of

8    Haply perhaps/hopefully

9    there’s i.e., in the sea there is

11    mattock agricultural tool similar to a pick, used to break up hard ground

13    Pluto’s region the classical underworld, over which Pluto ruled

19    What time when suffrages votes

22    man-of-war warship

23    her i.e., Astraea, Greek goddess of justice

24    pipe for look in vain for, whistle for

25    heavy case sad state of affairs

26    distract deranged, mad

28    carefully attentively/with solicitude

29    feed his humour indulge, humor him

30    careful comforting/costing trouble

32    Join…Goths a line is missing before this in the early texts; it was probably something like “But let us live in hope that Lucius will”

33    wreak vengeance

36    her i.e., Astraea

39    for as for

41    perforce of necessity stay wait

43    burning lake both Acheron and the fiery Phlegethon were rivers in the classical underworld

46    Cyclops one-eyed giant

48    wrung racked/wrenched/pressed down upon

49    sith since

50    move provoke/rouse/appeal to

51    for to to

52    gear business

54    ‘Ad…Martem’ “To Jove,” “To Apollo” and “To Mars” (Latin)

57    You…wind i.e., you might as well shoot against the wind as appeal to Saturninus

58    loose let fly

59    Of on

64    said done

65    Virgo the constellation of the virgin, associated with Astraea; shooting an arrow into her lap is sexually suggestive Give it Pallas shoot the arrow labeled “Pallas” (i.e., Pallas Athene, also associated with virginity)

70    Taurus constellation of the bull

72    galled grazed Arles constellation of the ram

73    horns the signs of cuckoldry (i.e., having an unfaithful wife); Marcus imagines Aaron giving them to Saturninus

74    villain servant/doer of wicked deeds

77    there it goes a hunter’s cry of encouragement Clown a rustic/the actor who played low-comic parts

78    post messenger

81    gibbet-maker the Clown has misheard or misunderstood the word Jupiter taken them down i.e., taken down the gallows (because the execution has been postponed)

85    carrier messenger (the Clown responds to the literal sense of “bearer”)

89    press aspire

90    tribunal plebs malapropism for “tribuni plebis”—the tribunes in their capacity as magistrates protecting the plebeians in law take up amicably settle (a legal dispute; the pigeons are to serve as a peace offering)

91    emperial’s malapropism for “emperor’s”

92    oration petition

94    with a grace courteously, pleasingly, with propriety (the Clown understands “along with a prayer before meals”)

96    ado fuss

99    Hold stop, wait charges expenses

101    supplication written request

105    look for expect bravely in good style

106    let me alone leave it to me

Act 4 Scene 4

4.4    Location: action continues, but shifting to interior of palace

2    overborne oppressed

3    for the extent in return for his exercising

5    mightful mighty

7    passed happened/been legally determined

8    even in accordance

11    wreaks acts of vengeance

18    blazoning proclaiming/displaying

19    humour whim, caprice

24    she i.e., justice

33    meanest lowest

35    High-witted clever, sharp gloze use fair, false words withal along with the rest

40    forsooth in truth

42    good e’en good evening (i.e., any time after noon)

45    must I am I to

47    By’r lady by Our Lady (i.e., the Virgin Mary) brought up raised (plays on the sense of “given utterance to a report or legal claim”) neck plays on the sense of “the laying of a charge at law” end i.e., death (plays on the sense of “completion of a legal case”)

50    device trick/plot

55    shape privilege create immunity from prosecution

56    slaughterman executioner

57    frantic mad holp’st helped

61    gathered head raised an army power army

62    bent…spoil determined on destruction

63    amain in full force/at full speed conduct leadership

66    Coriolanus Roman war hero who, having been exiled from Rome, joined forces with his former enemy to march against the city, events that are dramatized in Shakespeare’s Coriolanus

68    nip me cut off my growth/blight me with frost

73    walkèd…man i.e., gone among his citizens in disguise

74    wrongfully wrongfully done

79    thy name i.e., Saturninus, with its suggestion of Saturn, supposedly King of Rome in the golden age

81    suffers allows

82    is not careful does not care

84    stint stop

85    giddy fickle in allegiance/intoxicated with the thought of revolt

89    honey-stalks clover flowers, the overeating of which causes sheep to become bloated and die

91    rotted destroyed/corrupted by the rot, a disease that affects sheep

94    smooth flatter

99    parley peace negotiations during which hostilities are suspended

100    appoint arrange

103    stand in insist upon

105    effectually adequately, to the purpose

107    temper work on

111    successantly at once/one after the other

Act 5 Scene 1

5.1    Location: somewhere near Rome Drum drummer

1    Approvèd tried and tested

5    as…witness as noble as your titles proclaim you to be

7    scathe harm

9    slip offspring (literally, a cutting from a plant)

13    bold confident

15    master in Shakespeare’s time, queen bees were assumed to be masculine

19    lusty vigorous

22    earnestly with sincere feeling

26    controlled calmed

27    tawny brown-skinned

28    bewray betray brat not necessarily contemptuous

33    rates berates, scolds

39    use…man deal with the man as you think necessary

42    pearl…eye proverbial: “a black man is a pearl in a fair woman’s eye”

43    fruit i.e., the baby

44    wall-eyed with glaring eyes

50    sire father

51    sprawl convulse in the throes of death

52    withal with, moreover

66    Complots conspiracies mischief wickedness

67    Ruthful…performed lamentable to hear about, yet done in order to excite pity

75    for because

77    popish i.e., deceptive, superstitious (Protestant term; anachronistic in this context)

80    bauble professional fool’s baton with a carved head at one end

86    discover reveal

89    luxurious lecherous, lascivious

91    To compared to

94    trimmed plays on the sense of “had sex with”

96    washed…trimmed i.e., like dead meat

97    Trim fine

100    codding lecherous (from “cod,” i.e., “testicle”)

101    As…set i.e., their mother’s lecherousness guaranteed theirs, as certain cards are guaranteed to win a game

102    bloody bloodthirsty

103    dog…head in bull- or bear-baiting, dogs were admired for attacking head-on

105    trained lured, as to a snare

109    Confederate in a conspiracy

112    cheater person who cheats/escheator (i.e., officer who looks after property forfeited to the crown)

115    pried me peered, spied

123    as…is “to blush like a black dog” was proverbial for having a brazen face

131    forswear myself swear falsely/break my word

147    presently instantly

159    for since

161    your hostages i.e., such hostages as you may require

Act 5 Scene 2

5.2    Location: Rome (outside Titus’ house)

1    sad habiliment somber clothing

5    keeps dwells, remains (possibly playing on the sense of “watches/lies in wait”)

7    Tell I will tell

8    confusion ruin, overthrow Aloft or within he is either on the upper-stage or in the “discovery space”

10    ope open

11    sad decrees grave resolutions

14    bloody lines writing describing bloody deeds (but with the suggestion that the lines have been, metaphorically, written in his own blood)

15    executed plays on the sense of “killed”

17    grace adorn, augment/give plausibility to

18    Wanting…action lacking a hand to accompany my words with gestures

19    odds of advantage over

23    trenches i.e., wrinkles

24    heavy sorrowful/burdensome

32    wreakful vengeful

38    couch lie hidden

39    dreadful inspiring fear and dread

46    surance assurance, guarantee

49    globes planets (or a printer’s error for “globe”)

50    proper palfreys handsome horses

51    hale haul

52    murder i.e., murderers

53    car chariot

56    Hyperion the Greek sun god

57    downfall descent; perhaps an additional allusion to the story of Hyperion’s son Phaethon, who, attempting to drive the chariot of the sun, was unable to control the horses and crashed into the sea

59    So provided that Rapine Rape

63    of on

65    worldly mortal

70    closing agreeing (may play on the sense of “embracing”)

71    forge invent

76    sure securely

77    practice plot out of hand immediately/spontaneously

78    giddy unstable, excitable, inconstant

80    ply my theme work at my exercise

82    Fury avenging goddess

85    fitted fitted out

87    wags makes the slightest movement/goes anywhere (plays on the sense of sexual motion)

90    convenient fitting, suitable

93    deal with set to work upon (i.e., kill)

101    hap chance

106    proportion physical shape, appearance

107    up and down in every respect

115    solemn stately, ceremonial

124    repair make his way

136    but Lucius i.e., but that revenge which Lucius shall enact

139    governed…jest managed the exploit we planned

140    smooth…fair flatter and humor him

141    turn return

161    cry cry out

162    forbear stop

163    therefore precisely for that reason

170    spring i.e., Lavinia

180    martyr kill with great violence

187    paste usually, a mixture of flour and water

188    coffin pie crust (puns on the usual sense of the word)

189    pasties meat pies (baked without a dish)

190    strumpet whore, harlot unhallowed unholy, wicked

191    increase offspring

193    surfeit feed to excess/become sick from overeating

195    Progne Progne (or Procne), wife of Tereus, revenged his rape of her sister, Philomel, by killing her son Itys and serving him to his father in a pie

199    temper moisten

201    officious diligent in duties

203    Centaurs’ feast the wedding feast of Pirithous the Lapith and Hippodamia ended in a bloody battle between the Lapithae and the Centaurs (half-men, half-horses) when one of the Centaurs launched an attack on the women present by attempting to violate the bride

205    gainst before/in anticipation of the time when

Act 5 Scene 3

5.3    Location: action continues; the scene then moves into the house

3    ours with thine i.e., our minds accord with yours

9    ambush men lying in wait to attack

17    firmament sky

18    boots profits, avails

19    break the parle open the negotiations

21    careful afflicted with care/considerate Hautboys oboelike instruments

28    cheer food/hospitality

33    beholding indebted

36    Virginius the centurion Virginius killed his daughter Virginia to prevent her being raped by Appius Claudius; in some versions of the story he killed her because she had been raped

41    Because so that

42    still continually

44    lively striking/living, active warrant authoritative witness/conclusive proof/sanction/document licensing execution

48    unkind cruel

52    outrage violent action

61    daintily with delicate attention to the palate

66    meed for meed measure for measure

71    mutual unified, mutually supporting

73    bane murderer/poison

75    forlorn outcast

77    frosty signs i.e., white hair chaps wrinkles/cracked skin

80    erst formerly/once ancestor i.e., Aeneas did

83    baleful deadly

84    subtle cunning Greeks…Troy i.e., by gaining entry through hiding in the wooden horse

85    Sinon the man who tricked the Trojans into accepting the horse

86    engine instrument of warfare (i.e., the Trojan horse)

88    compact composed

96    auditory assembly of listeners, audience

100    fell fierce, cruel

101    cozened cheated

102    fought…out fought to the end for Rome’s cause

104    unkindly unnaturally

112    advent’rous willing to incur risk

113    vaunter boaster

129    aught anything

131    poor…Andronici the few remaining members of the Andronicus family

133    ragged rough

149    give me aim stand by and observe (archery metaphor: the person who “gave aim” stood by the target and reported the results of the shots)

151    aloof aside

152    obsequious pertaining to obsequies, i.e., funeral rites trunk body, corpse

157    tenders offers (as one would discharge a financial obligation; also with connotations of tenderness)

165    Meet fitting

169    associate accompany

179    famish starve

182    doom sentence

195    heinous wicked

202    heavy haps sorrowful fortunes

THE TRAGEDY OF ROMEO AND JULIET

Romeo and Juliet contains some of Shakespeare’s most beautiful poetry, including such well-loved lines as “a rose / By any other word would smell as sweet” and “But, soft, what light through yonder window breaks? / It is the east, and Juliet is the sun.” It also contains some of his most raucous bawdy. Seconds before Romeo identifies Juliet with the rising sun, Mercutio makes a baser comparison: “O, that she were / An open arse and thou a pop’rin pear!” The image depends on the resemblance of the fruit known as a medlar to the female genitals and the Poperinghe species of pear to the male. Mercutio’s ribbing of Romeo also puns on “to meddle” and “pop it in,” both meaning to have sex, and on “O” as a sign of the vagina. The juxtaposition of such matter to Romeo’s glorious aria on the transformative effect of love at first sight is typical of Shakespeare’s unsentimental robustness. Youthful as the lovers are, Juliet especially, this is a very grown-up play, which recognizes that love and sex are inseparable.

Shakespeare often thought in pairs. Give him an idea and he is equally interested in its opposite. Sometimes he will handle similar material in successive works, trying it out as comedy in one case and tragedy in the other. A Midsummer Night’s Dream turns on comedy’s ancient plot of young people finding true love in the face of parental opposition. In the final act, the opposite ending of the same story is invoked: Bottom and his friends perform the Roman poet Ovid’s story of Pyramus and Thisbe, a pair of lovers from rival households who lose their lives in a tragedy of bad timing and misapprehension. Though played in the style of parody, the “very tragical mirth” of Pyramus and Thisbe is a reminder that in the matter of love all does not necessarily end well. Romeo and Juliet is the companion piece. As Dream is a comedy darkened by something of the night, so Romeo is a tragedy that keeps surprising us with flashes of comedy. The shock of Juliet’s apparent death is heightened by proximity to the cheerful bustle of the wedding preparations and the comic dialogue of clown and musicians. Equally, Shakespeare takes character types from the comic tradition—the tyrannical father, the bawdy servant, the meddling friar, the witty and cynical friend—and transforms them into such complex, many-layered beings as Old Capulet, the Nurse, and Mercutio.

The spirit of the play is fundamentally Ovidian, although the story is closely based on a different source, an Italian Renaissance novella that was mediated to Shakespeare via a drearily written poem called The Tragicall Historye of Romeus and Juliet. As in Ovid’s Metamorphoses, “violent delights have violent ends”: intense passions lead to dramatic transformations, the bright flame of young love is swiftly and cruelly snuffed out, but something of constancy endures at the close. Ovid’s Pyramus and Thisbe meet by an ancient tomb outside the city. They fall to earth in death, but their love is symbolically remembered in the ripening of the blood-dark mulberry. A couplet of Friar Laurence’s neatly sums up the structure of feeling that underlies this and so many other of Ovid’s transformations: “The earth that’s nature’s mother is her tomb: / What is her burying grave, that is her womb.” Taken as a whole, the friar’s soliloquy cuts to the quick of Shakespeare’s double vision. It is structured around the rhetorical figure of oxymoron, the paradox whereby opposites are held together. Not only womb and tomb, but also day and night, herbs and flowers that are simultaneously poisonous and medicinal, virtue and vice, God’s grace and our own desires: “such opposèd kings encamp them still / In man as well as herbs.”

In Peter Quince’s staging of Pyramus and Thisbe, Snout memorably plays the part of the Wall that divides the households of the two lovers. Romeo and Juliet begins with Samson, a servant of the house of Capulet, bragging of how he will thrust the Montague maids up against a wall. That is to say, having beaten up the rival men, he will have their women: sex is a matter of taking not giving. Samson boasts the biblical name of a man capable of bringing walls tumbling down, but what actually happens is that Romeo lightly o’erleaps the orchard wall—like Ovid’s Hercules entering the fabulous gardens of the Hesperides—and moves the action into a new key. The lovers give themselves to each other and, though they are then taken in death, the wall of division crumbles away. The memory of Romeo and Juliet binds together the houses of Montague and Capulet, bringing their ancient grudge to an end.

Romeo himself has some rapid growing up to do along the way. At the beginning of the play, he is in love with Rosaline. Or rather, he is in love with the idea of being in love. We never actually see Rosaline: she exists solely as the idealized love-object of Romeo. She is nothing more than a literary type, the beautiful but unavailable mistress of the sonnet tradition that goes back to the Italian Renaissance poet Petrarch. The Petrarchan lover thrives on artifice and paradox. The fire in Romeo’s heart is dependent on his lady’s icy maidenhood—“Feather of lead, bright smoke, cold fire, sick health, / Still-waking sleep that is not what it is!” As the Friar recognizes, this is mere “doting,” not true loving. And so long as Mercutio is around, the bubble of poetic language keeps on being pricked—is it not just a matter of rhyming “love” with “dove”?

Romeo still poeticizes on seeing Juliet, though he speaks in richly textured imagery instead of the banal oxymorons inspired by Rosaline: “It seems she hangs upon the cheek of night / As a rich jewel in an Ethiope’s ear.” When the lovers meet at the Capulet ball, they weave a verbal dance that answers to the motions of their bodies and hands: their initial dialogue is wrapped into the form of a sonnet. But over the next few scenes their language evolves into something more fluid and more natural. You can hear Shakespeare growing as a poet even as you see the love between Juliet and Romeo growing from infatuation at first sight to the conviction that each has found the other’s soul mate. Love is a chemistry that begins from a physiological transformation—Romeo is “bewitched by the charm of looks”—but it becomes a discovery of the very core of human being: “Can I go forward when my heart is here? / Turn back, dull earth, and find thy centre out.”

The great Romantic critic and essayist William Hazlitt read Shakespeare as profoundly as he meditated upon love. “Romeo is Hamlet in love,” he said. For Hazlitt, falling in love is like coming home to your dreams. But what also haunts the lover—remember the teasing paradoxes of A Midsummer Night’s Dream—is the suspicion that it might all be a dream. Mercutio spins a tale of how love is but the mischief of Queen Mab, midwife of illusion. Romeo blesses the night, but then acknowledges his fear that “Being in night, all this is but a dream, / Too flattering-sweet to be substantial.”

Juliet has to deal with another fear. For a girl in Shakespeare’s time, chastity was a priceless commodity. To lose her virtue without the prospect of marriage would be to lose herself. In the speech that begins “Thou know’st the mask of night is on my face,” Juliet reveals quite remarkable self-understanding. She is acutely aware that in love the stakes for a woman are far higher than they are for a man. Here Shakespeare’s poetic language becomes the vehicle of both argument and emotion. The artifice of rhyme is replaced by blank verse that moves with the suppleness of thought itself.

In the original production, the lines would have been spoken by a young male actor of perhaps around the same thirteen years as the character of Juliet. By highlighting extreme youthfulness (in the source, Juliet is sixteen), Shakespeare makes a bold implicit claim for his poetic drama. Both actor and character are speaking with maturity far beyond their years: such, the dramatist implies, is the metamorphic potency of the mingled fire and powder of love and art. Though younger than Romeo, Juliet is more knowing. She senses the danger in his talk of idolatry. In the soaring love-duet that is their final scene together before Romeo’s exile, she wills the song to be that of the nightingale rather than the lark because she knows that the break of day will mean the end of their night of love and the dawn of a harsh reality in which she will be reduced to the status of a bargaining chip in the negotiations between Verona’s powerful families.

According to the social code of the time, it is the duty of the young to obey the old. Marriage is a matter not of love, but of the consolidation and perpetuation of wealth and status. Arthur Brooke, author of the Tragicall Historye of Romeus and Juliet which Shakespeare had before him as he wrote, told his readers that the moral of the story was that young lovers who submit to erotic desire, neglecting the authority and advice of parents and listening instead to drunken gossips and superstitious friars, will come to a deservedly sticky end. Shakespeare’s play, by contrast, glories in the energy of youth. It does not seek to advance a moral or to condemn what Juliet calls the “disobedient opposition” of child to parent. The drama offers instead the tragic paradox that the heat in the blood that animates the star-crossed lovers is the same ardor that leads young men to scrap in the street and to kill out of loyalty to their friends. The kinship of love and revenge, the perpetual war between the generations: Shakespeare will return to this territory in later plays such as Hamlet and King Lear.

It is sometimes said that Romeo and Juliet is a lesser work than these “mature” tragedies because its catastrophe is provoked by fate rather than the actions of the characters themselves. Shakespeare does impose an artistic shape upon the plot through the device of the Chorus, with its emphasis on events being written in the stars. But the misadventure that provokes the disastrous ending is not merely a piece of bad luck: the reason Romeo does not get Friar Laurence’s crucial letter is that Friar John is detained for fear that he might have been infected with plague. Plague was an everyday reality in Shakespeare’s London. Puritan preachers may have proclaimed it as a judgment sent by an angry God, but that is not how it would have seemed to Shakespeare’s original audience. Everybody in the theater would have known families whose future had been blighted by plague.

Parents are supposed to die before their children, the old before the young. With plague, it is not always like that. The tragic irony of Romeo and Juliet is that the houses of both Capulet and Montague escape the plague, yet still the children die first. The final scene takes place in an ancestral tomb, but those who lie dead are the flower of a city’s youth—Mercutio, Tybalt, Paris, Juliet, and her Romeo.

KEY FACTS

PLOT: A long-standing feud between the Montagues and the Capulets flares up in a brawl on the streets of Verona, halted only by the arrival of Prince Escalus. Romeo, only son of the Montagues, is hopelessly in love with the unattainable Rosaline. Attempting to shake him out of his melancholy, his friends Mercutio and Benvolio persuade him to go to a party at the Capulets’ house. There he meets and falls instantly in love with Juliet, the Capulets’ only daughter, and she with him. With the help of Juliet’s Nurse, they are secretly married the next day by Friar Laurence. Juliet’s cousin Tybalt quarrels with Romeo and in the fight which ensues Mercutio is killed. Romeo avenges his friend’s death and kills Tybalt, for which he is banished from Verona on pain of death. After spending a single night with his bride, he escapes to Mantua. Juliet learns that her parents plan to marry her to Count Paris. Distraught, she turns to Friar Laurence, who devises a plan. He gives her a drug which will make her appear to be dead. The intention is that her parents will place her in the family tomb and when she awakes from her drugged sleep, Romeo will be waiting to escape with her to Mantua. When Romeo returns to Verona, he believes her really to be dead and kills himself. Waking to find Romeo dead beside her, Juliet kills herself. The two families, united in grief, vow to end their feud.

MAJOR PARTS: (with percentage of lines/number of speeches/scenes on stage) Romeo (20%/163/14), Juliet (18%/118/11), Friar Laurence (11%/55/7), Nurse (9%/90/11), Capulet (9%/51/9), Mercutio (8%/62/4), Benvolio (5%/64/7), Lady Capulet (4%/45/10), Escalus (3%/16/3), Paris (2%/23/5), Montague (1%/10/3).

LINGUISTIC MEDIUM: 90% verse, 10% prose.

DATE: 1595–96. Includes part for Will Kemp, who joined the Lord Chamberlain’s Men in 1594; published 1597, with assignment to “Lord Hunsdon’s Men” (the name of Shakespeare’s company from July 1596 to April 1597); astrological allusions and earthquake reference may suggest composition in 1595–96; close links with A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

SOURCES: Based on Arthur Brooke’s long narrative poem The Tragicall Historye of Romeus and Juliet (1562), which was itself based on an Italian novella by Matteo Bandello (1554, possibly known to Shakespeare via William Painter’s English translation in his 1567 Palace of Pleasure). Shakespeare’s alterations to Brooke include considerable expansion of the roles of the Nurse and Mercutio.

TEXT: The First Quarto (1597) is poorly printed, so has traditionally been assumed to be an orally reconstructed or “reported” text, though this assumption was challenged in the late twentieth century; it seems to have had a playhouse origin. The Second Quarto (1599) is longer and better printed, justifying its title-page claim “Newly corrected, augmented, and amended”; it is generally thought to have been derived from Shakespeare’s manuscript. A Third Quarto (1609) reprinted the Second, and a fourth (1622) reprinted the Third, but with intelligent corrections, some of them deriving from consultation of the First Quarto. The 1623 First Folio text was printed from the Third Quarto, though introducing its own intelligent corrections and additional stage directions, but also many new errors as a result of its being printed almost entirely by “Compositor E,” by far the least competent of the workmen who set the Folio into print. Modern editions are traditionally based on the Second Quarto, but we respect the intentions of the Folio, seeking to retain the innovations of its original editor while eliminating what we judge to be its compositorial errors by means of emendation from the Second Quarto (and occasionally the other Quartos). The Folio lacks the Prologue, an omission we highlight by enclosing the lines within asterisks. Folio follows the Second Quarto in including a number of repeated lines (e.g., the description of dawn at the end of Act 2 Scene 1 and the beginning of Act 2 Scene 2); the likeliest explanation on each of the three occasions when this occurs is that the first of the duplicated passages represents authorial “first thoughts” intended for deletion: these lines are retained in our text but are indicated by enclosure within double solidi (// //).

THE TRAGEDY OF ROMEO AND JULIET

CHORUS

ROMEO

MONTAGUE, Romeo’s father

LADY MONTAGUE, Romeo’s mother

BENVOLIO, Montague’s nephew

ABRAHAM, Montague’s servingman

BALTHASAR, Romeo’s man

JULIET

CAPULET, Juliet’s father

LADY CAPULET, Juliet’s mother

NURSE, to Juliet

TYBALT, Capulet’s nephew

SECOND CAPULET

Petruchio

MUSICIANS

SERVINGMEN

PRINCE, Escalus of Verona

PAGE to Paris

Mercutio’s Page

FRIAR LAURENCE

FRIAR JOHN

APOTHECARY

OFFICER

CITIZENS

CONSTABLE

WATCHMEN

Prologue

[Enter Chorus]

CHORUS[1]Two households, both alike in dignity,

In fair Verona,[2] where we lay our scene,

From ancient[3] grudge break to new mutiny,

Where civil[4] blood makes civil hands unclean.

5

From forth the fatal[5] loins of these two foes

A pair of star-crossed[6] lovers take their life,

Whose misadventured[7] piteous overthrows;

Doth with their death bury their parents’ strife.

The fearful[9] passage of their death-marked love,;

10

And the continuance of their parents’ rage,

Which, but[11] their children’s end, nought could remove,

Is now the two hours’ traffic[12] of our stage;

The which if you with patient ears attend,

What here shall miss,[14] our toil shall strive to mend.

[Exit]

Act 1 Scene 11.1

running scene 1

Enter Sampson and Gregory with swords and bucklers, of the House of Capulet

SAMPSONGregory, o’my word, we’ll not carry coals.[1]

GREGORYNo, for then we should be colliers.[2]

SAMPSONI mean, if we be in choler,[3] we’ll draw.

GREGORYAy, while you live, draw[4] your neck out o’th’collar.

SAMPSONI strike[5] quickly, being moved.

GREGORYBut thou art not quickly moved to strike.

SAMPSONA dog of the house of Montague moves me.

GREGORYTo move[8] is to stir; and to be valiant is to stand: therefore, if thou art moved, thou runn’st away.

SAMPSONA dog of that house shall move me to stand. I will take the wall[10] of any man or maid of Montague’s.

GREGORYThat shows thee a weak slave,[12] for the weakest goes to the wall.

SAMPSONTrue, and therefore women being the weaker vessels are ever thrust[13] to the wall: therefore I will push Montague’s men from the wall, and thrust his maids to the wall.

GREGORYThe quarrel is between our masters and us their men.[16]

SAMPSON’Tis all one,[17] I will show myself a tyrant: when I have fought with the men, I will be civil with the maids, and cut off their heads.

GREGORYThe heads of the maids?

SAMPSONAy, the heads of the maids, or their maidenheads,[20] take it in what sense thou wilt.

GREGORYThey must take[22] it in sense that feel it.

SAMPSONMe they shall feel while I am able to stand,[23] and ’tis known I am a pretty piece of flesh.

GREGORY’Tis well thou art not fish:[25] if thou hadst, thou hadst been poor John. Draw thy tool,[26] here comes of the house of the Montagues.

Enter two other Servingmen [Abraham and Balthasar] Sampson draws

SAMPSONMy naked weapon[27] is out. Quarrel, I will back thee.

GREGORYHow,[28] turn thy back and run?

SAMPSONFear[29] me not.

GREGORYNo, marry,[30] I fear thee!

SAMPSONLet us take the law of[31] our sides: let them begin.

GREGORYI will frown as I pass by, and let them take it as they list.[32] Frowns

SAMPSONNay, as they dare. I will bite my thumb[33] at them, which is a disgrace to them if they bear it. Bites his thumb

ABRAHAMDo you bite your thumb at us, sir?

SAMPSONI do bite my thumb, sir.

ABRAHAMDo you bite your thumb at us, sir?

SAMPSONIs the law of our side, if I say ay? Aside

GREGORYNo.

SAMPSONNo, sir, I do not bite my thumb at you, sir, but I bite my thumb, sir.

GREGORYDo you quarrel, sir?

ABRAHAMQuarrel sir? No, sir.

SAMPSONIf you do, sir, I am for you. I serve as good a man as you.

ABRAHAMNo better?

SAMPSONWell, sir.

Enter Benvolio

GREGORYSay ‘better’— here comes one of my master’s kinsmen. Aside

SAMPSONYes, better.

ABRAHAMYou lie.

SAMPSONDraw, if you be men. Gregory, remember thy swashing[49] blow. They fight

BENVOLIOPart, fools! Draws and parts them Put up your swords, you know not what you do.

Enter Tybalt

TYBALTWhat, art thou drawn among these heartless hinds?[51] Turn thee, Benvolio, look upon thy death. Draws

BENVOLIOI do but keep the peace. Put up thy sword, Or manage[54] it to part these men with me.

TYBALTWhat, drawn, and talk of peace? I hate the word, As I hate hell, all Montagues, and thee. Have at thee, coward!

Fight

Enter three or four Citizens with clubs

OFFICERClubs,[58] bills and partisans! Strike! Beat them down! Down with the Capulets!

Down with the Montagues!

Enter Old Capulet in his gown, and his Wife

60

CAPULETWhat noise is this? Give me my long sword,[60] ho!

LADY CAPULETA crutch, a crutch! Why call you for a sword?

CAPULETMy sword, I say! Old Montague is come,

And flourishes his blade in spite of[63] me.

Enter Old Montague and his Wife

MONTAGUEThou villain Capulet!— Hold me not, let me go.

65

LADY MONTAGUEThou shalt not stir a foot to seek a foe.

Enter Prince Escalus with his train

PRINCERebellious subjects, enemies to peace,

Profaners[67] of this neighbour-stainèd steel—

Will they not hear?— What, ho! You men, you beasts,

That quench the fire of your pernicious[69] rage

70

With purple fountains issuing from your veins:

On pain of torture, from those bloody hands

Throw your mistempered[72] weapons to the ground,

And hear the sentence of your movèd[73] prince.

Three civil broils, bred of an airy word,

75

By thee, Old Capulet, and Montague,

Have thrice disturbed the quiet of our streets,

And made Verona’s ancient[77] citizens

Cast by their grave beseeming ornaments[78]

To wield Old partisans, in hands as old,

80

Cankered[80] with peace, to part your cankered hate:

If ever you disturb our streets again,

Your lives shall pay[82] the forfeit of the peace.

For this time, all the rest depart away:

You Capulet, shall go along with me,

85

And, Montague, come you this afternoon,

To know our further pleasure[86] in this case,

To old Freetown, our common judgement-place.

Once more, on pain of death, all men depart.

Exeunt. [Montague, Lady Montague and Benvolio remain]

MONTAGUEWho set this ancient quarrel new abroach?[89]

90

Speak, nephew, were you by[90] when it began?

BENVOLIOHere were the servants of your adversary,

And yours, close fighting ere[92] I did approach:

I drew to part them: in the instant came

The fiery Tybalt, with his sword prepared,[94]

95

Which, as he breathed defiance to my ears,

He swung about his head and cut the winds,

Who nothing hurt withal[97] hissed him in scorn:

While we were interchanging thrusts and blows,

Came more and more, and fought on part and part,[99]

100

Till the prince came, who parted either part.

LADY MONTAGUEO, where is Romeo? Saw you him today?

Right glad am I he was not at this fray.

BENVOLIOMadam, an hour before the worshipped sun

Peered forth[104] the golden window of the east,

105

A troubled mind drave[105] me to walk abroad,

Where, underneath the grove of sycamore

That westward[107] rooteth from the city side,

So early walking did I see your son:

Towards him I made, but he was ware[109] of me

110

And stole into the covert[110] of the wood:

I, measuring his affections[111] by my own,

Which then[112] most sought where most might not be found,

Being one too many by my weary self,

Pursued my humour,[114] not pursuing his,

115

And gladly shunned who[115] gladly fled from me.

MONTAGUEMany a morning hath he there been seen,

With tears augmenting the fresh morning’s dew,

Adding to clouds more clouds with his deep sighs,

But all so soon as the all-cheering sun

120

Should in the farthest east begin to draw

The shady curtains from Aurora’s[121] bed,

Away from light steals home my heavy[122] son,

And private in his chamber pens himself,

Shuts up his windows, locks fair daylight out

125

And makes himself an artificial night:

Black[126] and portentous must this humour prove,

Unless good counsel may the cause remove.

BENVOLIOMy noble uncle, do you know the cause?

MONTAGUEI neither know it nor can learn of[129] him.

130

BENVOLIOHave you importuned[130] him by any means?

MONTAGUEBoth by myself and many other friends,

But he, his own affections’ counsellor,

Is to himself — I will not say how true[133] —

But to himself so secret and so close,[134]

135

So far from sounding[135] and discovery,

As is the bud bit with an envious[136] worm,

Ere he can spread his sweet leaves to the air,

Or dedicate his beauty to the same.

Could we but learn from whence his sorrows grow,

140

We would as willingly give cure as know.

Enter Romeo

BENVOLIOSee, where he comes. So please you, step aside,

I’ll know his grievance, or be much denied.

MONTAGUEI[143] would thou wert so happy by thy stay

To hear true shrift.[144]— Come, madam, let’s away.

Exeunt [Montague and Lady Montague]

145

BENVOLIOGood morrow, cousin.[145]

ROMEOIs the day so young?

BENVOLIOBut new struck nine.

ROMEOAy me, sad hours seem long.

Was that my father that went hence so fast?

150

BENVOLIOIt was. What sadness lengthens Romeo’s hours?

ROMEONot having that, which, having, makes them short.

BENVOLIOIn love?

ROMEOOut—

BENVOLIOOf love?

155

ROMEOOut of her favour where I am in love.

BENVOLIOAlas that love, so gentle in his view,[156]

Should be so tyrannous and rough in proof![157]

ROMEOAlas that love, whose view is muffled[158] still,

Should, without eyes, see pathways to his will!

160

Where shall we dine? O me! What fray was here?

Yet tell me not, for I have heard it all.

Here’s much to do with hate, but more with love:

Why, then, O brawling love, O loving hate,

O anything of nothing first create![164]

165

O heavy lightness, serious vanity,[165]

Misshapen chaos of well-seeming[166] forms,

Feather of lead, bright smoke, cold fire, sick health,

Still-waking[168] sleep that is not what it is!

This love feel I, that feel no love in this.

170

Dost thou not laugh?

BENVOLIONo, coz, I rather weep.

ROMEOGood heart, at what?

BENVOLIOAt thy good heart’s oppression.

ROMEOWhy, such is love’s transgression.

175

Griefs of mine own lie heavy in my breast,

Which thou wilt propagate,[176] to have it pressed

With more of thine: this love[177] that thou hast shown

Doth add more grief to too much of mine own.

Love is a smoke made with the fume of sighs,

180

Being purged,[180] a fire sparkling in lovers’ eyes,

Being vexed,[181] a sea nourished with loving tears.

What is it else? A madness most discreet,[182]

A choking gall[183] and a preserving sweet.

Farewell, my coz.[184]

185

BENVOLIOSoft,[185] I will go along,

An if[186] you leave me so, you do me wrong.

ROMEOTut, I have lost myself, I am not here:

This is not Romeo, he’s some other where.

BENVOLIOTell me in sadness,[189] who is that you love.

190

ROMEOWhat, shall I groan and tell thee?

BENVOLIOGroan? Why, no. But sadly tell me who.

ROMEOA sick man in sadness makes his will:

A word ill-urged to one that is so ill.

In sadness, cousin, I do love a woman.

195

BENVOLIOI aimed so near,[195] when I supposed you loved.

ROMEOA right good mark-man![196] And she’s fair I love.

BENVOLIOA right fair mark,[197] fair coz, is soonest hit.

ROMEOWell, in that hit you miss: she’ll not be hit

With Cupid’s arrow,[199] she hath Dian’s wit,

200

And in strong proof[200] of chastity well armed,

From love’s[201] weak childish bow she lives uncharmed.

She will not stay[202] the siege of loving terms,

Nor bide[203] th’encounter of assailing eyes,

Nor ope[204] her lap to saint-seducing gold:

205

O, she is rich in beauty, only poor

That[206] when she dies with beauty dies her store.

BENVOLIOThen she hath sworn that she will still[207] live chaste?

ROMEOShe hath, and in that sparing[208] makes huge waste,

For beauty starved[209] with her severity

210

Cuts beauty off from all posterity.

She is too fair,[211] too wise, wisely too fair,

To merit[212] bliss by making me despair.

She hath forsworn to[213] love, and in that vow

Do I live dead that live to tell it now.

215

BENVOLIOBe ruled by me, forget to think of her.

ROMEOO, teach me how I should forget to think.

BENVOLIO By giving liberty unto thine eyes:

Examine other beauties.

ROMEO’Tis[219] the way

220

To call hers exquisite, in question more:

These happy[221] masks that kiss fair ladies’ brows

Being black puts us in mind they hide the fair.

He that is strucken[223] blind cannot forget

The precious treasure of his eyesight lost:

225

Show me a mistress that is passing[225] fair,

What doth her beauty serve, but as a note[226]

Where I may read who passed[227] that passing fair?

Farewell, thou canst not teach me to forget.

BENVOLIOI’ll pay that doctrine,[229] or else die in debt.

Exeunt

[Act 1 Scene 2]1.2

running scene 2

Enter Capulet, County Paris and the Clown [a Servingman]

CAPULETMontague is bound[1] as well as I,

In penalty alike, and ’tis not hard, I think,

For men so old as we to keep the peace.

PARISOf honourable reckoning[4] are you both,

5

And pity ’tis you lived at odds so long.

But now, my lord, what say you to my suit?[6]

CAPULETBut saying o’er[7] what I have said before:

My child is yet a stranger in the world,

She hath not seen the change[9] of fourteen years,

10

Let two more summers wither in their pride,[10]

Ere we may think her ripe to be a bride.

PARISYounger than she are happy mothers made.

CAPULETAnd too soon marred[13] are those so early made.

Earth[14] hath swallowed all my hopes but she:

15

She’s the hopeful[15] lady of my earth.

But woo her, gentle[16] Paris, get her heart:

My will to her consent is but a part;

An[18] she agree, within her scope of choice

Lies my consent and fair according[19] voice.

20

This night I hold an old accustomed[20] feast,

Whereto I have invited many a guest,

Such as I love, and you among the store,[22]

One more, most welcome, makes my number more.

At my poor house look to behold this night

25

Earth-treading stars that make dark heaven light.

Such comfort[26] as do lusty young men feel

When well-apparelled[27] April on the heel

Of limping winter treads, even such delight

Among fresh fennel[29] buds shall you this night

30

Inherit[30] at my house: hear all, all see,

And like her most whose merit most shall be,

Which[32] one more view, of many mine being one,

May stand in number, though in reck’ning[33] none.

Come, go with me.— Go, sirrah,[34] trudge about To Servingman

35

Through fair Verona, find those persons out Gives a list

Whose names are written there and to them say,

My house and welcome on their pleasure stay.[37]

Exeunt [Capulet and Paris]

SERVINGMANFind them out whose names are written. Here it[38] is written that the shoemaker should meddle[39] with his yard, and the tailor with his last, the fisher with his pencil,[40] and the painter with his nets. But I am sent to find those persons whose names are here writ, and can never find what names the writing person hath here writ — I must to the learnèd — in good time.[42]

Enter Benvolio and Romeo

BENVOLIOTut, man, one fire burns out another’s[43] burning,

One pain is lessened by another’s anguish:

45

Turn giddy, and be holp[45] by backward turning:

One desperate grief cures with another’s languish:[46]

Take thou some new infection to thy eye,

And the rank poison of the old will die.

ROMEOYour plaintain[49] leaf is excellent for that.

50

BENVOLIOFor what, I pray thee?

ROMEOFor your broken[51] shin.

BENVOLIOWhy, Romeo, art thou mad?

ROMEONot mad, but bound[53] more than a madman is:

Shut up in prison, kept without my food,

55

Whipped and tormented and— Good e’en,[55] good fellow.

SERVINGMANGod gi’[56] good e’en. I pray, sir, can you read?

ROMEOAy, mine own fortune in my misery.

SERVINGMANPerhaps you have learned it without book:[58] but, I pray, can you read anything you see?

ROMEOAy, if I know the letters and the language.

SERVINGMANYe say honestly, rest you merry![61]

ROMEOStay, fellow, I can read.

He reads the letter

‘Signior Martino and his wife and daughters, County Anselme and his beauteous sisters, the lady widow of Utruvio, Signior Placentio and his lovely nieces, Mercutio and his brother Valentine, mine uncle Capulet, his wife and daughters, my fair niece Rosaline, Livia, Signior Valentio and his cousin Tybalt, Lucio and the lively Helena.’ A fair assembly: whither[67] should they come?

SERVINGMANUp.

ROMEOWhither? To supper?

SERVINGMANTo our house.

ROMEOWhose house?

SERVINGMANMy master’s.

ROMEOIndeed, I should have asked you that before.

SERVINGMANNow I’ll tell you without asking: my master is the great rich Capulet,

and if you be not of the house of Montagues, I pray come and crush[75] a cup of wine. Rest you merry.

Exit

BENVOLIOAt this same ancient[77] feast of Capulet’s

Sups the fair Rosaline whom thou so loves,

With all the admired beauties of Verona:

80

Go thither, and with unattainted[80] eye,

Compare her face with some that I shall show,

And I will make thee think thy swan a crow.

ROMEOWhen the devout religion of mine eye

Maintains[84] such falsehood, then turn tears to fire,

85

And these,[85] who often drowned could never die,

Transparent[86] heretics, be burnt for liars.

One fairer than my love! The all-seeing sun

Ne’er saw her match since first the world begun.

BENVOLIOTut, you saw her fair, none else being by,

90

Herself poised[90] with herself in either eye:

But in that crystal scales let there be weighed

Your lady’s love[92] against some other maid

That I will show you shining at this feast,

And she shall scant[94] show well that now seems best.

95

ROMEOI’ll go along, no such sight to be shown,

But to rejoice in splendour[96] of mine own.

[Exeunt]

[Act 1 Scene 3]*

running scene 3

Enter Capulet’s Wife and Nurse

LADY CAPULETNurse, where’s my daughter? Call her forth to me.

NURSENow by[2] my maidenhead at twelve year old,

I bade her come. What,[3] Iamb! What, ladybird!

God forbid,[4] where’s this girl? What, Juliet!

Enter Juliet

5

JULIETHow now? Who calls?

NURSEYour mother.

JULIETMadam, I am here. What is your will?

LADY CAPULETThis is the matter.— Nurse, give leave[8] awhile,

We must talk in secret.— Nurse, come back again,

10

I have remembered me, thou’s[10] hear our counsel.

Thou know’st my daughter’s of a pretty[11] age.

NURSEFaith, I can tell her age unto an hour.

LADY CAPULETShe’s not fourteen.

NURSEI’ll lay fourteen[14] of my teeth — and yet, to my teen be it spoken, I have but four — she’s not fourteen. How long is it now to Lammas-tide?[15]

LADY CAPULETA fortnight and odd days.

NURSEEven[17] or odd, of all days in the year, come Lammas Eve at night shall she be fourteen. Susan[18] and she — God rest all Christian souls! — were of an age. Well, Susan is with God: she was too good for me. But as I said, on Lammas Eve at night shall she be fourteen, that shall she, marry, I remember it well. ’Tis since the earthquake now eleven years, and she was weaned — I never shall forget it — of all the days of the year, upon that day, for I had then laid[22] wormwood to my dug, sitting in the sun under the dovehouse wall. My lord and you were then at Mantua[24] — nay, I do bear a brain — but, as I said, when it did taste the wormwood on the nipple of my dug and felt it bitter, pretty fool,[25] to see it tetchy and fall out with the dug! ‘Shake’,[26] quoth the dovehouse: ’twas no need, I trow, to bid me trudge.[27] And since that time it is eleven years, for then she could stand alone, nay, by th’rood,[28] she could have run and waddled all about, for even the day before, she broke[29] her brow, and then my husband — God be with his soul, a was a merry man — took up the child, ‘Yea,’ quoth he, ‘dost thou fall upon thy face? Thou wilt fall backward[31] when thou hast more wit, wilt thou not, Jule?’ And by my holidam,[32] the pretty wretch left crying and said ‘Ay’. To see now how a jest shall come about![33] I warrant, an I should live a thousand years, I never should forget it: ‘Wilt thou not, Jule?’ quoth he, and, pretty fool, it stinted[34] and said ‘Ay’.

LADY CAPULETEnough of this, I pray thee, hold thy peace.

NURSEYes, madam, yet I cannot choose but laugh, to think it[37] should leave crying and say ‘Ay’. And yet I warrant it had upon it brow a bump as big as a young cock’rel’s stone,[38] a perilous knock, and it cried bitterly. ‘Yea,’ quoth my husband, ‘fall’st upon thy face? Thou wilt fall backward when thou comest to age, wilt thou not, Jule?’ It stinted and said ‘Ay’.

JULIETAnd stint thou too, I pray thee, Nurse, say I.[41]

NURSEPeace, I have done. God mark[42] thee to his grace! Thou wast the prettiest babe that e’er I nursed. An I might live to see thee married once,[43] I have my wish.

LADY CAPULETMarry, that ‘marry’ is the very theme

45

I came to talk of. Tell me, daughter Juliet,

How stands your disposition[46] to be married?

JULIETIt is an honour that I dream not of.

NURSEAn honour! Were not I thine only nurse, I would say thou hadst sucked

wisdom from thy teat.[49]

50

LADY CAPULETWell, think of marriage now: younger than you,

Here in Verona, ladies of esteem,

Are made already mothers. By my count,

I was your mother much[53] upon these years

That you are now a maid. Thus then in brief:

55

The valiant Paris seeks you for his love.

NURSEA man, young lady! Lady, such a man as all the world — why, he’s a man of wax.[56]

LADY CAPULETVerona’s summer hath not such a flower.

NURSENay, he’s a flower, in faith, a very flower.

60

LADY CAPULETWhat say you? Can you love the gentleman?

This night you shall behold him at our feast:

Read o’er the volume of young Paris’ face,

And find delight writ there with beauty’s pen,

Examine every several[64] lineament,

65

And see how one another lends content[65]

And what obscured in this fair volume lies

Find written in the margent[67] of his eyes.

This precious book of love, this unbound[68] lover,

To beautify him, only lacks a cover.[69]

70

The fish lives in the sea, and ’tis much pride

For fair without the[71] fair within to hide.

That book[72] in many’s eyes doth share the glory,

That in gold clasps[73] locks in the golden story:

So shall you share all that he doth possess,

75

By having him, making yourself no less.

NURSENo less? Nay, bigger: women[76] grow by men.

LADY CAPULETSpeak briefly, can you like of[77] Paris’ love?

JULIETI’ll look[78] to like, if looking liking move:

But no more deep will I endart mine eye[79]

80

Than your consent gives strength to make it fly.

Enter a Servingman

SERVINGMANMadam, the guests are come, supper served up, you called, my young lady asked for, the nurse cursed in the pantry, and everything in extremity. I must hence to wait: I beseech you, follow straight.[83]

Exit

LADY CAPULETWe follow thee.— Juliet, the county[84] stays.

NURSEGo, girl, seek happy nights to happy days.

Exeunt

[Act 1 Scene 4]*

running scene 4

Enter Romeo, Mercutio, Benvolio, with five or six other Masquers, Torchbearers

ROMEOWhat, shall this speech[1] be spoke for our excuse?

Or shall we on without apology?

BENVOLIOThe[3] date is out of such prolixity:

We’ll have no Cupid[4] hoodwinked with a scarf,

5

Bearing a Tartar’s[5] painted bow of lath,

Scaring the ladies like a crow-keeper.[6]

But let them measure[7] us by what they will,

We’ll measure[8] them a measure, and be gone.

ROMEOGive me a torch, I am not for this ambling.[9]

10

Being but heavy,[10] I will bear the light.

MERCUTIONay, gentle Romeo, we must have you dance.

ROMEONot I, believe me. You have dancing shoes

With nimble soles, I have a soul of lead

So stakes me to the ground I cannot move.

15

MERCUTIOYou are a lover, borrow Cupid’s wings,

And soar with them above a common bound.[16]

ROMEOI am too sore enpiercèd[17] with his shaft

To soar with his light feathers and so bound,[18]

I cannot bound a pitch[19] above dull woe:

20

Under love’s heavy burden do I sink.

MERCUTIOAnd[21] to sink in it should you burden love,

Too great oppression[22] for a tender thing.

ROMEOIs love a tender thing? It is too rough,

Too rude,[24] too boist’rous, and it pricks like thorn.

25

MERCUTIOIf love be rough with you, be rough with love:

Prick[26] love for pricking, and you beat love down.

Give me a case[27] to put my visage in,

A visor[28] for a visor! What care I Puts on a mask

What curious eye doth quote[29] deformities?

30

Here are the beetle brows[30] shall blush for me.

BENVOLIOCome, knock and enter, and no sooner in,

But every man betake[32] him to his Iegs.

ROMEOA torch for me: let wantons[33] light of heart

Tickle[34] the senseless rushes with their heels,

35

For I am proverbed[35] with a grandsire phrase,

I’ll[36] be a candle-holder, and look on.

The[37] game was ne’er so fair, and I am done.

MERCUTIOTut, dun’s[38] the mouse, the constable’s own word:

If thou art dun, we’ll draw[39] thee from the mire

40

Or — save your reverence[40] — love, wherein thou stick’st

Up to the ears. Come, we burn daylight,[41] ho!

ROMEONay, that’s not so.

MERCUTIOI mean, sir, in delay

We waste our lights in vain, light lights by day.

45

Take[45] our good meaning, for our judgement sits

Five times in that ere once in our five wits.

ROMEOAnd we mean[47] well in going to this masque,

But ’tis no wit[48] to go.

MERCUTIOWhy, may one ask?

50

ROMEOI dreamt a dream tonight.[50]

MERCUTIOAnd so did I.

ROMEOWell, what was yours?

MERCUTIOThat dreamers often lie.

ROMEOIn bed asleep, while they do dream things true.

55

MERCUTIOO, then I see Queen Mab[55] hath been with you:

She is the fairies’ midwife, and she comes

In shape no bigger than an agate-stone[57]

On the forefinger of an alderman,[58]

Drawn with a team of little atomies[59]

60

Over men’s noses as they lie asleep:

Her wagon-spokes made of long spinners’[61] legs,

The cover of the wings of grasshoppers,

Her traces[63] of the smallest spider’s web,

Her collars of the moonshine’s wat’ry beams,

65

Her whip of cricket’s bone, the lash[65] of film,

Her wagoner[66] a small grey-coated gnat,

Not half so big as a round little worm[67]

Pricked from the lazy finger of a maid,

Her chariot is an empty hazel-nut

70

Made by the joiner[70] squirrel or old grub,

Time out o’mind the fairies’ coachmakers.

And in this state she gallops night by night

Through lovers’ brains, and then they dream of love,

On courtiers’ knees, that dream on curtsies[74] straight,

75

O’er lawyers’ fingers, who straight dream on fees,

O’er ladies’ lips, who straight on kisses dream,

Which oft the angry Mab with blisters plagues,

Because their breath with sweetmeats[78] tainted are:

Sometime she gallops o’er a courtier’s nose,

80

And then dreams he of smelling[80] out a suit:

And sometime comes she with a tithe-pig’s[81] tail

Tickling a parson’s nose as a lies asleep,

Then he dreams of another benefice.[83]

Sometime she driveth o’er a soldier’s neck,

85

And then dreams he of cutting foreign throats,

Of breaches,[86] ambuscadoes, Spanish blades,

Of healths five-fathom deep,[87] and then anon

Drums in his ear, at which he starts and wakes,

And being thus frighted swears a prayer or two

90

And sleeps again. This is that very Mab

That plaits the manes of horses in the night,

And bakes[92] the elflocks in foul sluttish hairs,

Which once untangled, much misfortune bodes.

This is the hag,[94] when maids lie on their backs,

95

That presses them and learns[95] them first to bear,

Making them women of good carriage:[96]

This is she—

ROMEOPeace, peace, Mercutio, peace!

Thou talk’st of nothing.[99]

100

MERCUTIOTrue, I talk of dreams,

Which are the children of an idle brain,

Begot[102] of nothing but vain fantasy,

Which is as thin of substance as the air

And more inconstant than the wind, who woos

105

Even now the frozen bosom of the north,

And being angered puffs away from thence,

Turning his side[107] to the dew-dropping south.

BENVOLIOThis wind you talk of blows us from ourselves

Supper is done, and we shall come too late.

110

ROMEOI fear too early, for my mind misgives[110]

Some consequence yet hanging in the stars

Shall bitterly begin his fearful[112] date

With this night’s revels and expire[113] the term

Of a despisèd life closed in my breast

115

By some vile forfeit[115] of untimely death.

But he that hath the steerage of my course,

Direct my suit. On, lusty gentlemen!

BENVOLIOStrike, drum.[118]

They march about the stage and Servingmen come forth with their napkins

Enter [Chief] Servant

CHIEF SERVINGMANWhere’s Potpan, that he helps not to take away?[119] He shift a trencher?[120] He scrape a trencher?

FIRST SERVINGMANWhen good manners[121] shall lie in one or two men’s hands and they unwashed too, ’tis a foul[122] thing.

CHIEF SERVINGMANAway with the joint-stools,[123] remove the court-cupboard, look to the plate.[124] Good thou, save me a piece of marchpane, and as thou lovest me, let the porter let in Susan Grindstone[125] and Nell.— Antony, and Potpan!

SECOND SERVINGMANAy, boy, ready.

CHIEF SERVINGMANYou are looked for and called for, asked for and sought for, in the great chamber.

FIRST SERVINGMANWe cannot be here and there too. Cheerly,[129] boys, be brisk awhile, and the[130] longer liver take all.

Exeunt [some Servingmen]

Enter all the Guests and Gentlewomen to the Masquers

CAPULETWelcome, gentlemen! Ladies that have their toes

Unplagued with corns will walk a bout[132] with you.

Ah, my mistresses, which of you all

Will now deny[134] to dance? She that makes dainty,

135

She I’ll swear hath corns. Am[135] I come near ye now?

Welcome, gentlemen! I have seen the day

That I have worn a visor and could tell

A whispering tale in a fair lady’s ear,

Such as would please: ’tis gone, ’tis gone, ’tis gone.

140

You are welcome, gentlemen! Come, musicians, play.

Music plays, and they dance

A hall,[141] hall, give room! And foot it, girls.

More light, you knaves, and turn[142] the tables up,

And quench the fire, the room is grown too hot.

Ah, sirrah,[144] this unlooked-for sport comes well.

145

Nay, sit, nay, sit, good cousin Capulet,

For you and I are past our dancing days:

How long is’t now since last yourself and I

Were in a mask?

SECOND CAPULETBy’r lady,[149] thirty years.

150

CAPULETWhat, man? ’Tis not so much, ’tis not so much:

’Tis since the nuptial of Lucentio,

Come Pentecost[152] as quickly as it will,

Some five and twenty years, and then we masked.

SECOND CAPULET’Tis more, ’tis more, his son is elder, sir:

155

His son is thirty.

CAPULETWill you tell me that?

His son was but a ward[157] two years ago.

ROMEOWhat lady is that, which doth enrich the hand To a Servingman

Of yonder knight?

160

SERVINGMANI know not, sir.

ROMEOO, she doth teach the torches to burn bright!

It seems she hangs upon the cheek of night

As a rich jewel in an Ethiope’s[163] ear:

Beauty[164] too rich for use, for earth too dear!

165

So shows a snowy dove trooping with crows,

As yonder lady o’er her fellows shows.

The measure done, I’ll watch her[167] place of stand,

And touching hers, make blessèd my rude[168] hand.

Did my heart love till now? Forswear it,[169] sight,

170

For I ne’er saw true beauty till this night.

TYBALTThis, by his voice, should be a Montague.

Fetch me my rapier,[172] boy.— What dares the slave

[Exit a Servingman]

Come hither, covered with an antic[173] face,

To fleer[174] and scorn at our solemnity?

175

Now, by the stock[175] and honour of my kin,

To strike him dead I hold it not a sin.

CAPULETWhy, how now, kinsman?

Wherefore storm you so?

TYBALTUncle, this is a Montague, our foe,

A villain that is hither come in spite,

180

To scorn at our solemnity this night.

CAPULETYoung Romeo is it?

TYBALT’Tis he, that villain Romeo.

CAPULETContent thee, gentle coz, let him alone:

A bears him like a portly[184] gentleman,

185

And to say truth, Verona brags of him

To be a virtuous and well-governed youth.

I would not for the wealth of all this town

Here in my house do him disparagement:

Therefore be patient, take no note of him.

190

It is my will, the which if thou respect,

Show a fair presence and put off these frowns,

An ill-beseeming semblance[192] for a feast.

TYBALTIt fits when such a villain is a guest:

I’ll not endure him.

195

CAPULETHe shall be endured.

What, goodman boy?[196] I say, he shall: go to.

Am I the master here or you? Go to.

You’ll not endure him? God[198] shall mend my soul,

You’ll make a mutiny among my guests?

200

You will set cock-a-hoop?[200] You’ll be the man?

TYBALTWhy, uncle, ’tis a shame.

CAPULETGo to, go to.

You are a saucy[203] boy. Is’t so, indeed?

This trick may chance to scathe[204] you, I know what.

205

You must contrary[205] me? Marry, ’tis time.—

Well said,[206] my hearts!— You are a princox. Go, To Dancers/To Tybalt

Be quiet, or— More light, more light!— for shame, To Servants/To Tybalt

I’ll make you quiet.— What, cheerly, my hearts! To Dancers

TYBALTPatience perforce[209] with wilful choler meeting

210

Makes my flesh tremble in their different[210] greeting.

I will withdraw, but this intrusion shall

Now seeming sweet convert to bitter gall.

Exit

ROMEOIf I profane[213] with my unworthiest hand To Juliet

This holy shrine,[214] the gentle sin is this:

215

My lips, two blushing pilgrims, ready stand

To smooth that rough touch with a tender kiss.

JULIETGood pilgrim, you do wrong your hand too much,

Which mannerly[218] devotion shows in this,

For saints[219] have hands that pilgrims’ hands do touch,

220

And palm to palm is holy palmers’[220] kiss.

ROMEOHave not saints lips, and holy palmers too?

JULIETAy, pilgrim, lips that they must use in prayer.

ROMEOO, then, dear saint, let lips do what hands do:

They pray, grant thou,[224] lest faith turn to despair.

225

JULIETSaints do not move,[225] though grant for prayers’ sake.

ROMEOThen move not, while my prayer’s effect I take.

Thus from my lips, by thine, my sin is purged. Kisses her

JULIETThen have my lips the sin that they have took.

ROMEOSin from my lips? O, trespass sweetly urged![229]

230

Give me my sin again. Kisses her again

JULIETYou kiss by th’book.[231]

NURSEMadam, your mother craves a word with you. Juliet stands aside

ROMEOWhat[233] is her mother?

NURSEMarry, bachelor,[234]

235

Her mother is the lady of the house,

And a good lady, and a wise and virtuous.

I nursed her daughter, that you talked withal.[237]

I tell you, he that can lay hold of[238] her

Shall have the chinks.[239]

240

ROMEOIs she a Capulet? Aside?

O, dear account![241] My life is my foe’s debt.

BENVOLIOAway, begone, the[242] sport is at the best. Comes forward

ROMEOAy, so I fear, the more is my unrest.

CAPULETNay, gentlemen, prepare not to be gone, The guests indicate that they have to leave

245

We have a trifling foolish banquet[245] towards.

Is it e’en so? Why then I thank you all.

I thank you, honest[247] gentlemen, goodnight.—

More torches here!— Come on, then let’s to bed. To Servingmen

Ah, sirrah, by my fay,[249] it waxes late:

250

I’ll to my rest.

[Exeunt all but Juliet and Nurse]

JULIETCome hither, nurse. What is yond[251] gentleman?

NURSEThe son and heir of old Tiberio.

JULIETWhat’s he that now is going out of door?

NURSEMarry, that I think be young Petruchio.

255

JULIETWhat’s he that follows here, that would not dance?

NURSEI know not.

JULIETGo ask his name.— If he be marrièd, The Nurse goes

My grave is like[258] to be my wedding bed.

NURSEHis name is Romeo, and a Montague, Returning

260

The only son of your great enemy.

JULIETMy only love sprung from my only hate!

Too early seen unknown, and known too late!

Prodigious[263] birth of love it is to me,

That I must love a loathèd enemy.

265

NURSEWhat’s this? What’s this?

JULIETA rhyme I learned even now

Of one I danced withal.

One calls within ‘Juliet!’

NURSEAnon,[268] anon!

Come, let’s away: the strangers all are gone.

Exeunt

[Act 2]

[Enter] Chorus

CHORUSNow old desire doth in his death-bed lie,

And young affection gapes[2] to be his heir:

That fair[3] for which love groaned for and would die,

With tender Juliet matched,[4] is now not fair.

5

Now Romeo is beloved and loves again,[5]

Alike[6] bewitchèd by the charm of looks,

But to his foe supposed[7] he must complain,

And she steal love’s sweet bait from fearful[8] hooks.

Being held a foe, he may not have access

10

To breathe such vows as lovers use[10] to swear,

And she as much in love, her means much less

To meet her new-belovèd anywhere:

But passion lends them power, time means, to meet,

Temp’ring extremities[14] with extreme sweet.

[Exit]

[Act 2 Scene 1]2.1

running scene 5

Enter Romeo alone

ROMEOCan I go forward[1] when my heart is here?

Turn back, dull earth,[2] and find thy centre out. Stands aside

Enter Benvolio with Mercutio

BENVOLIORomeo! My cousin Romeo, Romeo!

MERCUTIOHe is wise,

5

And on my life hath stol’n him home to bed.

BENVOLIOHe ran this way and leapt this orchard[6] wall.

Call, good Mercutio.

MERCUTIONay, I’ll conjure[8] too.

Romeo! Humours![9] Madman! Passion! Lover!

10

Appear thou in the likeness of a sigh,

Speak but one rhyme,[11] and I am satisfied:

Cry but ‘Ay me’, pronounce but ‘love’ and ‘dove’,

Speak to my gossip[13] Venus one fair word,

One nickname for her purblind[14] son and heir,

15

Young Abraham Cupid,[15] he that shot so true,

When King[16] Cophetua loved the beggar-maid!—

He heareth not, he stirreth not, he moveth not, Aside

The[18] ape is dead, and I must conjure him.—

I conjure thee by Rosaline’s bright eyes,

20

By her high forehead and her scarlet lip,

By her fine foot, straight leg and quiv’ring thigh,

And the demesnes[22] that there adjacent lie,

That in thy likeness thou appear to us.

BENVOLIOAn if he hear thee, thou wilt anger him.

25

MERCUTIOThis cannot anger him: ’twould anger him

To raise a spirit[26] in his mistress’ circle

Of some strange[27] nature, letting it there stand

Till she had laid[28] it and conjured it down:

That were some spite.[29] My invocation

30

Is fair and honest,[30] and in his mistress’ name

I conjure only but to raise up him.

BENVOLIOCome, he hath hid himself among these trees,

To be consorted with[33] the humorous night:

Blind is his love and best befits the dark.

35

MERCUTIOIf love be blind, love cannot hit the mark.[35]

Now will he sit under a medlar[36] tree,

And wish his mistress were that kind of fruit

As maids call medlars, when they laugh alone.—

O[39] Romeo, that she were, O, that she were

40

An open arse[40] and thou a pop’rin pear!

Romeo, goodnight: I’ll to my truckle-bed,[41]

This field-bed[42] is too cold for me to sleep.—

Come, shall we go?

BENVOLIOGo, then, for ’tis in vain

45

To seek him here that means not to be found.

Exeunt [Benvolio and Mercutio]

ROMEOHe jests at scars that never felt a wound. Comes forward

[Enter Juliet above]

But, soft, what light through yonder window breaks?

It is the east, and Juliet is the sun.

Arise, fair sun, and kill the envious moon,

50

Who is already sick and pale with grief,

That thou her maid[51] art far more fair than she:

Be not her maid, since she is envious:

Her vestal livery[53] is but sick and green

And none but fools do wear it, cast it off.

55

It is my lady, O, it is my love!

O, that she knew she were!

She speaks yet she says nothing: what of that?

Her eye discourses: I will answer it.

I am too bold, ’tis not to me she speaks:

60

Two of the fairest stars in all the heaven,

Having some business, do entreat her eyes

To twinkle in their spheres[62] till they return.

What if her eyes were there, they in her head?

The brightness of her cheek would shame those stars,

65

As daylight doth a lamp, her eye in heaven

Would through the airy region stream so bright

That birds would sing and think it were not night.

See how she leans her cheek upon her hand!

O, that I were a glove upon that hand,

70

That I might touch that cheek!

JULIETAy me!

ROMEOShe speaks: Aside

O, speak again, bright angel, for thou art

As glorious[74] to this night, being o’er my head

75

As is a wingèd messenger of heaven

Unto the white upturnèd[76] wond’ring eyes

Of mortals that fall back to gaze on him

When he bestrides the lazy puffing clouds,

And sails upon the bosom of the air.

80

JULIETO Romeo, Romeo, wherefore[80] art thou Romeo?

Deny thy father and refuse thy name,

Or if thou wilt not, be but sworn my love,

And I’ll no longer be a Capulet.

ROMEOShall I hear more, or shall I speak at this? Aside

85

JULIET’Tis but thy name that is my enemy,

Thou art thyself, though[86] not a Montague.

What’s Montague? It is nor hand, nor foot,

Nor arm, nor face, nor any other part

Belonging to a man. O, be some other name.

90

What’s in a name? That which we call a rose

By any other word would smell as sweet,

So Romeo would, were he not Romeo called,

Retain that dear perfection which he owes[93]

Without that title. Romeo, doff[94] thy name,

95

And for[95] thy name, which is no part of thee,

Take all myself.

ROMEOI take thee at thy word: To her

Call me but love, and I’ll be new baptized,

Henceforth I never will be Romeo.

100

JULIETWhat man art thou that thus bescreened[100] in night

So stumblest on my counsel?[101]

ROMEOBy a name

I know not how to tell thee who I am:

My name, dear saint, is hateful to myself,

105

Because it is an enemy to thee.

Had I it written, I would tear the word.

JULIETMy ears have yet not drunk a hundred words

Of thy tongue’s uttering, yet I know the sound:

Art thou not Romeo and a Montague?

110

ROMEONeither, fair maid, if either thee dislike.

JULIETHow cam’st thou hither, tell me, and wherefore?

The orchard walls are high and hard to climb,

And the place death, considering who thou art,

If any of my kinsmen find thee here.

115

ROMEOWith love’s light wings did I o’er-perch[115] these walls,

For stony limits cannot hold love out,

And what love can do that dares love attempt:

Therefore thy kinsmen are no stop to me.

JULIETIf they do see thee, they will murder thee.

120

ROMEOAlack, there lies more peril in thine eye

Than twenty of their swords: look thou but sweet,

And I am proof[122] against their enmity.

JULIETI would not for the world they saw thee here.

ROMEOI have night’s cloak to hide me from their eyes,

125

And but[125] thou love me, let them find me here:

My life were better ended by their hate,

Than death proroguèd,[127] wanting of thy love.

JULIETBy whose direction found’st thou out this place?

ROMEOBy love, that first did prompt me to inquire:

130

He lent me counsel[130] and I lent him eyes.

I am no pilot,[131] yet wert thou as far

As that vast shore washed with the farthest sea,

I should adventure for such merchandise.

JULIETThou know’st the mask of night is on my face,

135

Else would a maiden blush bepaint my cheek

For that which thou hast heard me speak tonight

Fain[137] would I dwell on form, fain, fain deny

What I have spoke: but farewell compliment![138]

Dost thou love me? I know thou wilt say ‘Ay’,

140

And I will take thy word. Yet if thou swear’st,

Thou mayst prove false: at lovers’ perjuries

They say Jove[142] laughs. O gentle Romeo,

If thou dost love, pronounce[143] it faithfully:

Or if thou think’st I am too quickly won,

145

I’ll frown and be perverse and say thee nay,

So[146] thou wilt woo, but else not for the world.

In truth, fair Montague, I am too fond,[147]

And therefore thou mayst think my behaviour light:[148]

But trust me, gentleman, I’ll prove more true

150

Than those that have more coying[150] to be strange.

I should have been more strange, I must confess,

But that thou overheard’st, ere I was ware,[152]

My true love’s passion: therefore pardon me,

And not impute this yielding to light love,

155

Which[155] the dark night hath so discoverèd.

ROMEOLady, by yonder blessèd moon I vow

That tips with silver all these fruit-tree tops—

JULIETO, swear not by the moon, th’inconstant moon,

That monthly changes in her circlèd orb,[159]

160

Lest that thy love prove likewise variable.

ROMEOWhat shall I swear by?

JULIETDo not swear at all:

Or if thou wilt, swear by thy gracious[163] self,

Which is the god of my idolatry,

165

And I’ll believe thee.

ROMEOIf my heart’s dear love—

JULIETWell, do not swear. Although I joy in thee,

I have no joy of this contract[168] tonight:

It is too rash, too unadvised, too sudden,

170

Too like the lightning, which doth cease to be

Ere one can say ‘It lightens’. Sweet, goodnight!

This bud of love, by summer’s ripening breath,

May prove a beauteous flower when next we meet.

Goodnight, goodnight, as sweet repose and rest

175

Come to thy heart as that within my breast!

ROMEOO, wilt thou leave me so unsatisfied?

JULIETWhat satisfaction[177] canst thou have tonight?

ROMEOTh’exchange of thy love’s faithful vow for mine.

JULIETI gave thee mine before thou didst request it:

180

And yet I would it were[180] to give again.

ROMEOWouldst thou withdraw it? For what purpose, love?

JULIETBut to be frank[182] and give it thee again.

And yet I wish but for the thing I have.

My bounty[184] is as boundless as the sea,

185

My love as deep: the more I give to thee,

The more I have, for both are infinite.

I hear some noise within. Dear love, adieu!—

[Nurse] calls within

Anon, good nurse!— Sweet Montague, be true.

Stay but a little, I will come again. [Exit, above]

190

ROMEOO blessèd, blessèd night! I am afeard,

Being in night, all this is but a dream,

Too flattering-sweet to be substantial.

[Enter Juliet, above]

JULIETThree words, dear Romeo, and goodnight indeed.

If that thy bent[194] of love be honourable,

195

Thy purpose marriage, send me word tomorrow,

By one that I’ll procure to come to thee,

Where and what time thou wilt perform the rite,

And all my fortunes at thy foot I’ll lay,

And follow thee my lord throughout the world.

[Nurse calls] within ‘Madam!’

200

I come, anon.— But if thou mean’st not well,

I do beseech thee—

[Nurse calls] within ‘Madam!’

By and by, I come.—

To cease thy strife,[203] and leave me to my grief.

Tomorrow will I send.

205

ROMEOSo thrive my soul—

JULIETA thousand times goodnight!

Exit, [above]

ROMEOA thousand times the worse, to want[207] thy light.

Love goes toward love as schoolboys from their books,

But love from love, toward school with heavy looks. Romeo starts to go

Enter Juliet again, [above]

210

JULIETHist,[210] Romeo, hist! O, for a falc’ner’s voice,

To lure this tassel-gentle[211] back again!

Bondage is hoarse,[212] and may not speak aloud,

Else would I tear the cave where Echo[213] lies,

And make her airy tongue more hoarse than mine,

215

With repetition of my ‘Romeo’.

ROMEOIt is my soul that calls upon my name.

How silver-sweet sound lovers’ tongues by night,

Like softest music to attending ears!

JULIETRomeo!

220

ROMEOMy nyas?[220]

JULIETWhat o’clock tomorrow shall I send to thee?

ROMEOBy the hour of nine.

JULIETI will not fail: ’tis twenty years till then.

I have forgot why I did call thee back.

225

ROMEOLet me stand here till thou remember it.

JULIETI shall forget, to[226] have thee still stand there,

Rememb’ring how I love thy company.

ROMEOAnd I’ll still stay, to have thee still forget,

Forgetting any other home but this.

230

JULIET’Tis almost morning, I would have thee gone:

And yet no further than a wanton’s[231] bird,

That lets it hop a little from his hand,

Like a poor prisoner in his twisted gyves,[233]

And with a silken thread plucks it back again,

235

So loving-jealous of his liberty.

ROMEOI would I were thy bird.

JULIETSweet, so would I:

Yet I should kill thee with much cherishing.

Goodnight, goodnight! Parting is such sweet sorrow,

240

That I shall say goodnight till it be morrow.

Exit, [above]

ROMEOSleep dwell upon thine eyes, peace in thy breast!

Would I were sleep and peace, so sweet to rest!

// The grey-eyed morn smiles on the frowning night, //

// Check’ring the eastern clouds with streaks of light, //

245

// And darkness fleckled[245] like a drunkard reels //

// From forth[246] day’s pathway, made by Titan’s wheels. //

Hence will I to my ghostly[247] friar’s close cell,

His help to crave, and my dear hap[248] to tell.

Exit

[Act 2 Scene 2]2.2

running scene 6

Enter Friar Laurence alone with a basket

FRIAR LAURENCEThe grey-eyed morn smiles on the frowning night,

Check’ring the eastern clouds with streaks of light,

And fleckled[3] darkness like a drunkard reels

From forth[4] day’s path and Titan’s burning wheels:

5

Now, ere the sun advance[5] his burning eye,

The day to cheer and night’s dank dew to dry,

I must upfill this osier cage[7] of ours

With baleful[8] weeds and precious-juicèd flowers.

The earth that’s nature’s mother is her tomb:

10

What is her burying grave, that is her womb,

And from her womb children of divers[11] kind

We sucking on her natural bosom find:

Many for many virtues excellent,

None[14] but for some and yet all different.

15

O, mickle[15] is the powerful grace that lies

In plants, herbs, stones, and their true qualities:

For nought so vile that on the earth doth live

But to the earth some special good doth give,

Nor aught[19] so good but strained from that fair use

20

Revolts from true birth, stumbling on abuse.

Virtue itself turns vice, being misapplied,

And vice sometime by action dignified.

Enter Romeo

Within the infant rind of this weak flower

Poison hath residence and medicine power:

25

For this, being smelt, with that part[25] cheers each part,

Being tasted, slays[26] all senses with the heart.

Two such opposèd kings encamp them still[27]

In man as well as herbs, grace and rude will:

And where the worser is predominant,

30

Full soon the canker[30] death eats up that plant.

ROMEOGood morrow, father.

FRIAR LAURENCEBenedicite![32]

What early tongue so sweet saluteth me?

Young son, it argues[34] a distempered head

35

So soon to bid good morrow to thy bed:

Care[36] keeps his watch in every old man’s eye,

And where care lodges, sleep will never lie,

But where unbruisèd youth with unstuffed brain

Doth couch[39] his limbs, there golden sleep doth reign:

40

Therefore thy earliness doth me assure

Thou art uproused with some distemp’rature,

Or if not so, then here I hit it right,

Our Romeo hath not been in bed tonight.

ROMEOThat last is true, the sweeter rest was mine.

45

FRIAR LAURENCEGod pardon sin! Wast thou with Rosaline?

ROMEOWith Rosaline, my ghostly father? No,

I have forgot that name, and that name’s woe.

FRIAR LAURENCEThat’s my good son: but where hast thou been, then?

ROMEOI’ll tell thee ere thou ask it me again:

50

I have been feasting with mine enemy,

Where on a sudden one hath wounded me,

That’s by me wounded: both our remedies

Within thy help and holy physic[53] lies.

I bear no hatred, blessèd man, for lo,[54]

55

My intercession[55] likewise steads my foe.

FRIAR LAURENCEBe plain, good son, rest homely[56] in thy drift,

Riddling confession finds but riddling shrift.[57]

ROMEOThen plainly know my heart’s dear love is set

On the fair daughter of rich Capulet:

60

As mine on hers, so hers is set on mine;

And all combined, save what thou must combine

By holy marriage. When and where and how

We met, we wooed and made exchange of vow,

I’ll tell thee as we pass, but this I pray,

65

That thou consent to marry us today.

FRIAR LAURENCEHoly Saint Francis, what a change is here!

Is Rosaline, that thou didst love so dear,

So soon forsaken? Young men’s love then lies

Not truly in their hearts, but in their eyes.

70

Jesu Maria, what a deal of brine

Hath washed thy sallow cheeks for Rosaline!

How much salt water thrown away in waste,

To season love, that of it doth not taste!

The sun not yet thy sighs from heaven clears,

75

Thy old[75] groans yet ringing in my ancient ears:

Lo, here upon thy cheek the stain doth sit

Of an old tear that is not washed off yet.

If e’er thou wast thyself and these woes thine,

Thou and these woes were all for Rosaline.

80

And art thou changed? Pronounce this sentence[80] then:

Women may fall, when there’s no strength in men.

ROMEOThou chid’st[82] me oft for loving Rosaline.

FRIAR LAURENCEFor doting, not for loving, pupil mine.

ROMEOAnd bad’st[84] me bury love.

85

FRIAR LAURENCENot in a grave,

To lay one in, another out to have.

ROMEOI pray thee, chide me not. Her I love now

Doth grace[88] for grace and love for love allow:

The other did not so.

90

FRIAR LAURENCEO, she knew well

Thy love did read by rote[91] that could not spell.

But come, young waverer, come, go with me,

In one respect[93] I’ll thy assistant be:

For this alliance may so happy prove,

95

To turn your households’ rancour to pure love.

ROMEOO, let us hence! I stand[96] on sudden haste.

FRIAR LAURENCEWisely and slow: they stumble that run fast.

Exeunt

[Act 2 Scene 3]2.3

running scene 7

Enter Benvolio and Mercutio

MERCUTIOWhere the devil should this Romeo be?

Came he not home tonight?[2]

BENVOLIONot to his father’s: I spoke with his man.[3]

MERCUTIOWhy, that same pale hard-hearted wench, that Rosaline,

5

Torments him so, that he will sure run mad.

BENVOLIOTybalt, the kinsman to old Capulet,

Hath sent a letter to his father’s house.

MERCUTIOA challenge, on my life.

BENVOLIORomeo will answer it.[9]

MERCUTIOAny man that can write may answer a letter.

BENVOLIONay, he will answer the letter’s master, how he dares, being dared.[11]

MERCUTIOAlas, poor Romeo, he is already dead, stabbed with a white wench’s black eye,[13] run through the ear with a love-song, the very pin of his heart cleft with the blind bow-boy’s[14] butt-shaft: and is he a man to encounter Tybalt?

BENVOLIOWhy, what is Tybalt?

MERCUTIOMore than prince of cats,[16] O, he’s the courageous captain of compliments: he fights as you sing prick-song,[17] keeps time, distance and proportion: he rests his minim rests, one, two, and the third[18] in your bosom — the very butcher of a silk button — a duellist, a duellist, a gentleman of the very first house,[19] of the first and

second cause. Ah, the immortal passado,[20] the punto reverso, the hay!

BENVOLIOThe what?

MERCUTIOThe pox of[22] such antic, lisping, affecting phantasimes, these new tuners of accent! ‘Jesu, a very good blade,[23] a very tall man, a very good whore!’ Why, is not this a lamentable thing, grandsire,[24] that we should be thus afflicted with these strange flies,[25] these fashion-mongers, these ‘pardon-me’s’, who stand so much on the new form,[26] that they cannot sit at ease on the old bench? O, their bones, their bones!

Enter Romeo

BENVOLIOHere comes Romeo, here comes Romeo.

MERCUTIOWithout his roe,[29] like a dried herring: O flesh, flesh, how art thou fishified! Now is he for the numbers[30] that Petrarch flowed in: Laura to his lady was a kitchen-wench — marry, she had a better love[31] to berhyme her — Dido a dowdy, Cleopatra[32] a gypsy, Helen and Hero hildings and harlots, Thisbe a grey eye or so, but not[33] to the purpose.— Signior Romeo, bon jour: there’s a French salutation to your French slop. You gave us the counterfeit[34] fairly last night.

ROMEOGood morrow to you both. What counterfeit did I give you?

MERCUTIOThe slip, sir, the slip — can you not conceive?[36]

ROMEOPardon, good Mercutio, my business was great, and in such a case[37] as mine a man may strain courtesy.

MERCUTIOThat’s as much as to say, such a case as yours constrains a man to bow[39] in the hams.

ROMEOMeaning, to curtsy.[41]

MERCUTIOThou hast most kindly hit it.[42]

ROMEOA most courteous exposition.

MERCUTIONay, I am the very pink[44] of courtesy.

ROMEOPink for flower.

MERCUTIORight.

ROMEOWhy, then is my pump[47] well flowered.

MERCUTIOSure[48] wit, follow me this jest now till thou hast worn out thy pump, that when the single[49] sole of it is worn, the jest may remain after the wearing sole singular.

ROMEOO single-soled[51] jest, solely singular for the singleness.

MERCUTIOCome between us, good Benvolio, my wits faints.

ROMEOSwitch and spurs,[53] switch and spurs, or I’ll cry a match.

MERCUTIONay, if our wits run the wild-goose chase,[54] I am done, for thou hast more of the wild-goose in one of thy wits than I am sure I have in my whole five. Was[55] I with you there for the goose?

ROMEOThou wast never with me for anything when thou wast not there for the[57] goose.

MERCUTIOI will bite thee by the ear for that jest.

ROMEONay, good goose, bite not.

MERCUTIOThy wit is a very bitter sweeting:[61] it is a most sharp sauce.

ROMEOAnd[62] is it not then well served into a sweet goose?

MERCUTIOO, here’s a wit[63] of cheverel, that stretches from an inch narrow to an ell broad!

ROMEOI stretch it out for that word ‘broad[66]’, which added to the goose, proves thee far and wide a broad goose.

MERCUTIOWhy, is not this better now than groaning for love? Now art thou sociable, now art thou Romeo, now art thou what thou art, by art as well as by nature: for this drivelling[69] love is like a great natural, that runs lolling up and down to hide his bauble[70] in a hole.

BENVOLIOStop there,[71] stop there.

MERCUTIOThou desirest me to stop in[72] my tale against the hair.

BENVOLIOThou wouldst else have made thy tale large.[73]

MERCUTIOO, thou art deceived: I would have made it short,[74] for I was come to the

whole depth of my tale, and meant indeed to occupy[75] the argument no longer.

Enter Nurse and her man [Peter]

ROMEOHere’s goodly gear.[76] A sail, a sail!

MERCUTIOTwo, two: a shirt[77] and a smock.

NURSEPeter?

PETERAnon.

NURSEMy fan, Peter.

MERCUTIOGood Peter, to hide her face, for her fan’s the fairer face.

NURSEGod ye good morrow, gentlemen.

MERCUTIOGod ye good e’en, fair gentlewoman.

NURSEIs it good e’en?

MERCUTIO’Tis no less, I tell you, for the bawdy hand[85] of the dial is now upon the prick of noon.

NURSEOut upon you![87] What a man are you?

ROMEOOne, gentlewoman, that[88] God hath made himself to mar.

NURSEBy my troth,[89] it is well said: ‘for himself to mar’, quoth a? Gentlemen, can any of you tell me where I may find the young Romeo?

ROMEOI can tell you, but young Romeo will be older when you have found him than he was when you sought him: I am the youngest of that name, for fault[92] of a worse.

NURSEYou say well.

MERCUTIOYea, is the worst well? Very well took,[95] i’faith, wisely, wisely.

NURSEIf you be he, sir, I desire some confidence[96] with you.

BENVOLIOShe will indite[97] him to some supper.

MERCUTIOA bawd,[98] a bawd, a bawd! So ho!

ROMEOWhat hast thou found?

MERCUTIONo hare,[100] sir, unless a hare, sir, in a Lenten pie, that is something stale and hoar[101] ere it be spent.

An old hare hoar, Sings

And an old hare hoar,

Is very good meat[104] in Lent.

105

But a hare that is hoar[105]

Is too[106] much for a score,

When it hoars[107] ere it be spent.

Romeo, will you come to your father’s?

We’ll to dinner, thither.

ROMEOI will follow you.

110

MERCUTIOFarewell, ancient lady, farewell, ‘lady, lady, lady’. Sings

Exeunt Mercutio, Benvolio

NURSEI pray you, sir, what saucy merchant[111] was this that was so full of his ropery?

ROMEOA gentleman, nurse, that loves to hear himself talk, and will speak more in a minute than he will stand to[113] in a month.

NURSEAn a[114] speak anything against me, I’ll take him down, an a were lustier than he is, and twenty such Jacks,[115] and if I cannot, I’ll find those that shall. Scurvy knave, I am none of his flirt-gills,[116] I am none of his skains-mates.— And thou To Peter must stand by too, and suffer every knave to use[117] me at his pleasure?

PETERI saw no man use you at his pleasure: if I had, my weapon[118] should quickly have been out, I warrant you. I dare draw as soon as another man, if I see occasion in a good quarrel, and the law on my side.

NURSENow, afore God, I am so vexed that every part[121] about me quivers. Scurvy knave!— To Romeo Pray you, sir, a word: and as I told you, my young lady bid me inquire you out: what she bid me say, I will keep to myself. But first let me tell ye, if ye should lead her in a fool’s paradise, as they say, it were a very gross kind of behaviour, as they say, for the gentlewoman is young, and therefore, if you should deal double with[126] her, truly it were an ill thing to be offered to any gentlewoman, and very weak[127] dealing.

ROMEONurse, commend me to thy lady and mistress. I protest[128] unto thee—

NURSEGood heart, and i’faith I will tell her as much. Lord, Lord, she will be a joyful woman.

ROMEOWhat wilt thou tell her, nurse? Thou dost not mark[131] me.

NURSEI will tell her, sir, that you do protest, which, as I take it, is a gentlemanlike offer.

ROMEOBid her devise

135

Some means to come to shrift[135] this afternoon,

And there she shall at Friar Laurence’ cell

Be shrived[137] and married. Here is for thy pains. Attempts to give money

NURSENo truly, sir, not a penny.

ROMEOGo to, I say you shall.

140

NURSEThis afternoon, sir? Well, she shall be there.

ROMEOAnd stay, good nurse, behind the abbey wall:

Within this hour my man shall be with thee

And bring thee cords[143] made like a tackled stair,

Which to the high top-gallant[144] of my joy

145

Must be my convoy in the secret night.

Farewell, be trusty and I’ll quit[146] thy pains.

Farewell, commend me to thy mistress.

NURSENow God in heaven bless thee! Hark you, sir.

ROMEOWhat say’st thou, my dear nurse?

150

NURSEIs your man secret?[150] Did you ne’er hear say,

‘Two[151] may keep counsel, putting one away’?

ROMEOWarrant thee,[152] my man’s as true as steel.

NURSEWell, sir, my mistress is the sweetest lady — Lord, Lord! When ’twas a little prating[154] thing — O, there is a nobleman in town, one Paris, that would fain lay knife aboard, but she, good soul, had as lief[155] see a toad, a very toad, as see him. I anger her sometimes and tell her that Paris is the properer[156] man, but, I’ll warrant you, when I say so, she looks as pale as any clout[157] in the versal world. Doth not rosemary[158] and Romeo begin both with a letter?

ROMEOAy, nurse, what of that? Both with an R.

NURSEA mocker! That’s the dog’s name:[160] R is for the— no, I know it begins with some other letter — and she hath the prettiest sententious[161] of it, of you and rosemary, that it would do you good to hear it.

ROMEOCommend me to thy lady.

[Exit Romeo]

NURSEAy, a thousand times.— Peter?

PETERAnon.

NURSEBefore and apace.[166]

Exeunt Nurse and Peter

[Act 2 Scene 4][*]

running scene 8

Enter Juliet

JULIETThe clock struck nine when I did send the nurse:

In half an hour she promised to return.

Perchance she cannot meet him: that’s not so.

O, she is lame![4] Love’s herald should be thoughts,

5

Which ten times faster glides than the sun’s beams,

Driving back shadows over louring[6] hills:

Therefore do nimble-pinioned[7] doves draw love,

And therefore hath the wind-swift Cupid wings.

Now is the sun upon the highmost hill

10

Of this day’s journey, and from nine till twelve

Is three long hours, yet she is not come.

Had she affections and warm youthful blood,

She would be as swift in motion as a ball:

My words would bandy[14] her to my sweet love,

15

And his to me.

But old folks, many feign as they were dead,

Unwieldy, slow, heavy and pale as lead.

Enter Nurse [and Peter]

O God, she comes! O honey nurse, what news?

Hast thou met with him? Send thy man away.

20

NURSEPeter, stay at the gate.

[Exit Peter]

JULIETNow, good sweet nurse — O Lord, why look’st thou sad?

Though news be sad, yet tell them merrily:

If good, thou sham’st the music of sweet news

By playing it to me with so sour a face.

25

NURSEI am aweary, give me leave awhile.

Fie, how my bones ache! What a jaunt[26] have I had!

JULIETI would thou hadst my bones, and I thy news:

Nay, come, I pray thee speak, good, good nurse, speak.

NURSEJesu, what haste? Can you not stay awhile?

30

Do you not see that I am out of breath?

JULIETHow art thou out of breath, when thou hast breath

To say to me that thou art out of breath?

The excuse that thou dost make in this delay

Is longer than the tale thou dost excuse.

35

Is thy news good or bad? Answer to that.

Say either, and I’ll stay the circumstance:[36]

Let me be satisfied, is’t good or bad?

NURSEWell, you have made a simple[38] choice, you know not how to choose a man: Romeo? No, not he, though his face be better than any man’s, yet his leg excels all men’s, and for a hand and a foot and a body, though they be not to be talked on, yet they are past compare: he is not the flower of courtesy, but, I’ll warrant him, as gentle as a lamb. Go thy ways, wench, serve God. What, have you dined at home?

JULIETNo, no. But all this did I know before.

45

What says he of our marriage? What of that?

NURSELord, how my head aches! What a head have I!

It beats as it would fall in twenty pieces.

My back o’t’other side — O, my back, my back!

Beshrew[49] your heart for sending me about,

50

To catch my death with jaunting up and down!

JULIETI’faith, I am sorry that thou art not well.

Sweet, sweet, sweet nurse, tell me, what says my love?

NURSEYour love says, like an honest[53] gentleman, and a courteous, and a kind, and a handsome, and, I warrant, a virtuous— Where is your mother?

55

JULIETWhere is my mother? Why, she is within,

Where should she be? How oddly thou repliest:

‘Your love says, like an honest gentleman,

Where is your mother?’

NURSEO God’s lady[59] dear!

60

Are you so hot?[60] Marry, come up, I trow.

Is this the poultice[61] for my aching bones?

Henceforward do your messages yourself.

JULIETHere’s such a coil![63] Come, what says Romeo?

NURSEHave you got leave to go to shrift today?

65

JULIETI have.

NURSEThen hie[66] you hence to Friar Laurence’ cell,

There stays a husband to make you a wife:

Now comes the wanton[68] blood up in your cheeks,

They’ll be in scarlet straight at any news.

70

Hie you to church, I must another way,

To fetch a ladder, by the which your love

Must climb a bird’s nest[72] soon when it is dark:

I am the drudge and toil in your delight,

But you shall bear the burden[74] soon at night.

75

Go, I’ll to dinner: hie you to the cell.

JULIETHie to high fortune! Honest nurse, farewell.

Exeunt

[Act 2 Scene 5]2.5

running scene 9

Enter Friar and Romeo

FRIAR LAURENCESo smile the heavens upon this holy act,

That after-hours with sorrow chide us not.

ROMEOAmen, amen. But come what sorrow can,

It cannot countervail[4] the exchange of joy

5

That one short minute gives me in her sight:

Do thou but close[6] our hands with holy words,

Then love-devouring death do what he dare,

It is enough I may but call her mine.

FRIAR LAURENCEThese violent delights have violent ends,

10

And in their triumph die, like fire and powder,[10]

Which as they kiss consume.[11] The sweetest honey

Is loathsome in his own deliciousness,

And in the taste confounds[13] the appetite:

Therefore love moderately, long love doth so:

15

Too swift arrives as tardy as too slow.

Enter Juliet Running

Here comes the lady. O, so light a foot

Will ne’er wear out the everlasting flint:[17]

A lover may bestride the gossamers[18]

That idles in the wanton[19] summer air,

20

And yet not fall, so light[20] is vanity.

JULIETGood even to my ghostly confessor.

FRIAR LAURENCERomeo shall thank thee,[22] daughter, for us both.

JULIETAs[23] much to him, else is his thanks too much.

ROMEOAh, Juliet, if the measure of thy joy

25

Be heaped like mine, and that[25] thy skill be more

To blazon[26] it, then sweeten with thy breath

This neighbour air, and let rich music’s tongue[27]

Unfold the imagined[28] happiness that both

Receive in either[29] by this dear encounter.

30

JULIETConceit,[30] more rich in matter than in words,

Brags of his substance, not of ornament:[31]

They are but beggars that can count their worth,

But my true love is grown to such excess

I cannot sum up sum[34] of half my wealth.

35

FRIAR LAURENCECome, come with me, and we will make short work,

For, by your leaves, you shall not stay alone

Till holy church incorporate two in one.

[Exeunt]

[Act 3 Scene 1][*]

running scene 10

Enter Mercutio, Benvolio and Men

BENVOLIOI pray thee, good Mercutio, let’s retire:

The day is hot, the Capulets abroad,

And if we meet, we shall not scape[3] a brawl,

For now, these hot days, is the mad blood stirring.

MERCUTIOThou art like one of these fellows that when he enters the confines of a tavern, claps me[6] his sword upon the table and says ‘God send me no need of thee!’ and by[7] the operation of the second cup draws him on the drawer, when indeed there is no need.

BENVOLIOAm I like such a fellow?

MERCUTIOCome, come, thou art as hot a Jack[10] in thy mood as any in Italy, and as soon moved[11] to be moody, and as soon moody to be moved.

BENVOLIOAnd what to?

MERCUTIONay, an there were two[13] such, we should have none shortly, for one would kill the other. Thou? Why, thou wilt quarrel with a man that hath a hair more or a hair less in his beard than thou hast. Thou wilt quarrel with a man for cracking nuts, having no other reason but because thou hast hazel eyes: what eye but such an eye would spy out such a quarrel? Thy head is as full of quarrels as an egg is full of meat,[18] and yet thy head hath been beaten as addle as an egg for quarrelling: thou hast quarrelled with a man for coughing in the street, because he hath wakened thy dog that hath lain asleep in the sun: didst thou not fall out with a tailor for wearing his new doublet[21] before Easter? With another for tying his new shoes with old ribbon. And yet thou wilt tutor me from[22] quarrelling?

BENVOLIOAn I were so apt to quarrel as thou art, any man should buy the fee-simple[23] of my life for[24] an hour and a quarter.

MERCUTIOThe fee-simple? O, simple[25]!

Enter Tybalt, Petruchio and others

BENVOLIOBy my head, here comes the Capulets.

MERCUTIOBy my heel, I care not.

TYBALTFollow me close, for I will speak to them.— To his companions

Gentlemen, good e’en, a word with one of you.

MERCUTIOAnd but one word with one of us? Couple it with something, make it a word and a blow.

TYBALTYou shall find me apt enough to that, sir, an you will give me occasion.

MERCUTIOCould you not take some occasion without giving?

TYBALTMercutio, thou consort’st[34] with Romeo—

MERCUTIOConsort? What, dost thou make us minstrels?[35] An thou make minstrels of us, look[36] to hear nothing but discords. Points to his sword Here’s my fiddlestick, here’s that shall make you dance. Come, consort!

BENVOLIOWe talk here in the public haunt of men:

Either withdraw unto some private place,

40

Or reason coldly[40] of your grievances,

Or else depart: here all eyes gaze on us.

MERCUTIOMen’s eyes were made to look, and let them gaze:

I will not budge for no man’s pleasure, I.

Enter Romeo

TYBALTWell, peace be with you, sir, here comes my man.

45

MERCUTIOBut I’ll be hanged, sir, if he wear your livery.[45]

Marry, go[46] before to field, he’ll be your follower:

Your worship in that sense may call him ‘man’.

TYBALTRomeo, the love I bear thee can afford

No better term than this: thou art a villain.

50

ROMEOTybalt, the reason that I have to love thee

Doth much excuse[51] the appertaining rage

To such a greeting: villain am I none;

Therefore farewell, I see thou know’st me not.

TYBALTBoy, this shall not excuse the injuries

55

That thou hast done me: therefore turn and draw.

ROMEOI do protest I never injured thee,

But love thee better than thou canst devise,[57]

Till thou shalt know the reason of my love:

And so, good Capulet — which name I tender[59]

60

As dearly as my own — be satisfied.

MERCUTIOO calm, dishonourable, vile submission!

Alla stoccado[62] carries it away.

Tybalt, you rat-catcher, will you walk?[63] Draws his sword

TYBALTWhat wouldst thou have with me?

MERCUTIOGood king of cats, nothing but one of your nine lives that I mean to make bold withal,[65] and as[66] you shall use me hereafter, dry-beat the rest of the eight. Will you pluck your sword out of his pilcher[67] by the ears? Make haste, lest mine be about your ears ere it be out.

TYBALTI am for you. Draws

ROMEOGentle Mercutio, put thy rapier up.

MERCUTIOCome, sir, your passado[71]. They fight

ROMEODraw, Benvolio, beat down their weapons.—

Gentlemen, for shame, forbear[73] this outrage!

Tybalt, Mercutio, the prince expressly hath Tries to part them

75

Forbidden bandying[75] in Verona streets:

Hold,[76] Tybalt! Good Mercutio! Tybalt stabs Mercutio

Exit Tybalt

MERCUTIOI am hurt.

A plague o’both the houses! I am sped.[78]

Is he gone and hath nothing?

80

BENVOLIOWhat, art thou hurt?

MERCUTIOAy, ay, a scratch, a scratch, marry, ’tis enough.

Where is my page? Go, villain,[82] fetch a surgeon.

[Exit Page]

ROMEOCourage, man, the hurt cannot be much.

MERCUTIONo, ’tis not so deep as a well, nor so wide as a church door, but ’tis enough, ’twill serve: ask for me tomorrow, and you shall find me a grave[85] man. I am peppered,[86] I warrant, for this world. A plague o’both your houses! What? A dog, a rat, a mouse, a cat, to scratch a man to death! A braggart, a rogue, a villain, that fights by[88] the book of arithmetic!— To Romeo Why the devil came you between us? I was hurt under your arm.

ROMEOI thought all for the best.

MERCUTIOHelp me into some house, Benvolio,

Or I shall faint. A plague o’both your houses!

They have made worms’ meat of me. I have it,

And soundly too. Your houses! Benvolio helping

Exeunt

95

ROMEOThis gentleman, the prince’s near ally,[95] Mercutio

My very[96] friend, hath got his mortal hurt

In my behalf: my reputation stained

With Tybalt’s slander — Tybalt, that an hour

Hath been my cousin. O sweet Juliet,

100

Thy beauty hath made me effeminate,

And in my temper[101] softened valour’s steel!

Enter Benvolio

BENVOLIOO Romeo, Romeo, brave Mercutio is dead!

That gallant spirit hath aspired[103] the clouds,

Which too untimely here did scorn the earth.

105

ROMEOThis day’s black fate on more[105] days doth depend,

This but begins the woe others[106] must end.

Enter Tybalt

BENVOLIOHere comes the furious Tybalt back again.

ROMEOHe gone in triumph and Mercutio slain?

Away to heaven, respective lenity,[109]

110

And fire and fury be my conduct[110] now!

Now, Tybalt, take the ‘villain’ back again,

That late thou gav’st me, for Mercutio’s soul

Is but a little way above our heads,

Staying for thine to keep him company:

115

Either thou or I, or both, must go with him.

TYBALTThou, wretched boy, that didst consort[116] him here,

Shalt with him hence.

ROMEOThis[118] shall determine that.

They fight. Tybalt falls

BENVOLIORomeo, away, begone!

120

The citizens are up, and Tybalt slain.

Stand not amazed:[121] the prince will doom thee death,

If thou art taken. Hence, begone, away!

ROMEOO, I am fortune’s fool![123]

BENVOLIOWhy dost thou stay? Exit Romeo

Enter Citizens

125

CITIZENWhich way ran he that killed Mercutio?

Tybalt, that murderer, which way ran he?

BENVOLIOThere lies that Tybalt.

CITIZENUp, sir, go with me:

I charge[129] thee in the prince’s name, obey.

Enter Prince, Old Montague, Capulet, their Wives and all

130

PRINCEWhere are the vile beginners of this fray?

BENVOLIOO, noble prince, I can discover[131] all

The unlucky[132] manage of this fatal brawl:

There lies the man, slain by young Romeo,

That slew thy kinsman, brave Mercutio.

135

LADY CAPULETTybalt, my cousin?[135] O my brother’s child!

O prince! O cousin! Husband! O, the blood is spilled

Of my dear kinsman! Prince, as thou art true,

For blood of ours, shed blood of Montague.

O cousin, cousin!

140

PRINCEBenvolio, who began this bloody fray?

BENVOLIOTybalt, here slain, whom Romeo’s hand did slay.

Romeo that spoke him fair, bid him bethink

How nice[143] the quarrel was, and urged withal

Your high displeasure: all this utterèd

145

With gentle breath, calm look, knees humbly bowed,

Could not take truce[146] with the unruly spleen

Of Tybalt, deaf to peace, but that he tilts[147]

With piercing steel at bold Mercutio’s breast,

Who, all as hot, turns deadly point to point,

150

And with[150] a martial scorn, with one hand beats

Cold death aside, and with the other sends

It back to Tybalt, whose dexterity

Retorts[153] it. Romeo he cries aloud,

‘Hold, friends! Friends, part!’ and swifter than his tongue,

155

His agile arm beats down their fatal points,

And ’twixt them rushes, underneath whose arm

An envious[157] thrust from Tybalt hit the life

Of stout[158] Mercutio, and then Tybalt fled.

But by and by[159] comes back to Romeo,

160

Who had but newly entertained revenge,

And to’t they go like lightning, for, ere I

Could draw to part them, was stout Tybalt slain.

And as he fell, did Romeo turn and fly.

This is the truth, or let Benvolio die.

165

LADY CAPULETHe is a kinsman to the Montague,

Affection[166] makes him false, he speaks not true:

Some twenty of them fought in this black strife,

And all those twenty could but kill one life.

I beg for justice, which thou, prince, must give:

170

Romeo slew Tybalt, Romeo must not live.

PRINCERomeo slew him, he slew Mercutio:

Who now the price of his dear blood doth owe?

MONTAGUENot Romeo, prince, he was Mercutio’s friend:

His fault concludes but what the law should end,

175

The life of Tybalt.

PRINCEAnd for that offence

Immediately we do exile him hence.

I have an interest[178] in your hearts’ proceeding,

My blood[179] for your rude brawls doth lie a-bleeding:

180

But I’ll amerce[180] you with so strong a fine

That you shall all repent the loss of mine.

It will be deaf to pleading and excuses,

Nor tears nor prayers shall purchase out abuses:[183]

Therefore use none. Let Romeo hence in haste,

185

Else, when he is found, that hour is his last.

Bear hence this body and attend our will:

Mercy[187] but murders, pardoning those that kill.

Exeunt

[Act 3 Scene 2][*]

running scene 11

Enter Juliet alone

JULIETGallop apace,[1] you fiery-footed steeds,

Towards Phoebus’[2] lodging: such a wagoner

As Phaethon[3] would whip you to the west,

And bring in cloudy night immediately.

5

Spread thy close[5] curtain, love-performing night,

That runaway’s[6] eyes may wink and Romeo

Leap to these arms, untalked of and unseen.

Lovers can see to do their amorous rites

By their own beauties, or if love be blind,

10

It best agrees with night. Come, civil[10] night,

Thou sober-suited matron all in black,

And learn[12] me how to lose a winning match,

Played for a pair of stainless maidenhoods:[13]

Hood[14] my unmanned blood, bating in my cheeks,

15

With thy black mantle, till strange[15] love grow bold,

Think true love acted simple modesty.

Come night, come Romeo, come thou day in night,

For thou wilt lie upon the wings of night

Whiter than new snow upon a raven’s back.

20

Come, gentle night, come, loving, black-browed night,

Give me my Romeo, and when I shall die,[21]

Take him and cut him out in little stars,

And he will make the face of heaven so fine

That all the world will be in love with night

25

And pay no worship to the garish sun.

O, I have bought the mansion of a love,

But not possessed[27] it, and though I am sold,

Not yet enjoyed. So tedious is this day

As is the night before some festival

30

To an impatient child that hath new robes

And may not wear them. O, here comes my nurse,

Enter Nurse, with cords

And she brings news, and every tongue that speaks

But Romeo’s name speaks heavenly eloquence.—

Now, nurse, what news? What hast thou there? The cords

35

That Romeo bid thee fetch?

NURSEAy, ay, the cords. Drops the cords

JULIETAy me, what news? Why dost thou wring thy hands?

NURSEAh, welladay![38] He’s dead, he’s dead, he’s dead!

We are undone,[39] lady, we are undone.

40

Alack the day, he’s gone, he’s killed, he’s dead!

JULIETCan heaven be so envious?[41]

NURSERomeo can,

Though heaven cannot: O Romeo, Romeo!

Whoever would have thought it? Romeo!

45

JULIETWhat devil art thou that dost torment me thus?

This torture should be roared in dismal hell.

Hath Romeo slain himself? Say thou but ‘Ay’,

And that bare vowel ‘I’ shall poison more

Than the death-darting eye of cockatrice:[49]

50

I am not I, if there be such an ay,

Or those eyes shut,[51] that makes thee answer ‘Ay’.

If he be slain, say ‘Ay’, or if not, ‘No’:

Brief sounds determine of my weal[53] or woe.

NURSEI saw the wound, I saw it with mine eyes —

55

God[55] save the mark! — here on his manly breast: Points

A piteous corpse, a bloody piteous corpse;

Pale, pale as ashes, all bedaubed in blood,

All in gore-blood:[58] I swoonèd at the sight.

JULIETO, break,[59] my heart, poor bankrupt, break at once!

60

To prison, eyes, ne’er look on liberty!

Vile earth,[61] to earth resign, end motion here,

And thou and Romeo press one heavy bier![62]

NURSEO Tybalt, Tybalt, the best friend I had!

O courteous Tybalt, honest gentleman,

65

That ever I should live to see thee dead!

JULIETWhat storm is this that blows so contrary?

Is Romeo slaughtered, and is Tybalt dead,

My dearest cousin, and my dearer lord?[68]

Then, dreadful trumpet,[69] sound the general doom,

70

For who is living, if those two are gone?

NURSETybalt is gone, and Romeo banishèd,

Romeo that killed him, he is banishèd.

JULIETO, God! Did Romeo’s hand shed Tybalt’s blood?

NURSEIt did, it did, alas the day, it did!

70

JULIETO serpent heart, hid with a flow’ring face!

Did ever dragon keep[76] so fair a cave?

Beautiful tyrant, fiend angelical,

Dove-feathered raven, wolvish-ravening lamb,

Despisèd substance of divinest show!

80

Just[80] opposite to what thou justly seem’st,

A damnèd saint, an honourable villain!

O nature, what hadst thou to do in hell,

When thou didst bower[83] the spirit of a fiend

In mortal paradise of such sweet flesh?

85

Was ever book containing such vile matter

So fairly bound? O, that deceit should dwell

In such a gorgeous palace!

NURSEThere’s no trust,

No faith, no honesty in men: all perjured,

90

All forsworn, all naught, all dissemblers.[90]

Ah, where’s my man? Give me some aqua vitae:[91]

These griefs, these woes, these sorrows make me old.

Shame come to Romeo!

JULIETBlistered be thy tongue

95

For such a wish! He was not born to shame:

Upon his brow shame is ashamed to sit;

For ’tis a throne where honour may be crowned

Sole monarch of the universal earth.

O, what a beast was I to chide at him!

100

NURSEWill you speak well of him that killed your cousin?

JULIETShall I speak ill of him that is my husband?

Ah, poor my lord,[102] what tongue shall smooth thy name,

When I, thy three-hours’ wife, have mangled it?

But wherefore, villain, didst thou kill my cousin?—

105

That villain cousin would have killed my husband.

Back, foolish tears, back to your native spring,

Your tributary[107] drops belong to woe,

Which you mistaking offer up to joy.

My husband lives that Tybalt would have slain,

110

And Tybalt dead that would have slain my husband:

All this is comfort, wherefore weep I then?

Some word there was, worser than Tybalt’s death,

That murdered me. I would forget it fain,

But, O, it presses to my memory,

115

Like damnèd guilty deeds to sinners’ minds:

‘Tybalt is dead, and Romeo banishèd.’

That ‘banishèd’, that one word ‘banishèd’,

Hath slain ten thousand Tybalts. Tybalt’s death

Was woe enough if it had ended there:

120

Or if sour woe delights in fellowship

And needly[121] will be ranked with other griefs,

Why followed not, when she said ‘Tybalt’s dead’,

Thy[123] father, or thy mother, nay, or both,

Which modern[124] lamentation might have moved?

125

But with a rearward[125] following Tybalt’s death,

‘Romeo is banishèd’: to speak that word,

Is father, mother, Tybalt, Romeo, Juliet,

All slain, all dead. ‘Romeo is banishèd’!

There is no end, no limit, measure, bound,

130

In that word’s death:[130] no words can that woe sound.

Where is my father and my mother, nurse?

NURSEWeeping and wailing over Tybalt’s corpse.

Will you go to them? I will bring you thither.

JULIETWash they his wounds with tears: mine shall be spent,

135

When theirs are dry, for Romeo’s banishment.

Take up those cords.— Poor ropes, you are beguiled,[136]

Both you and I, for Romeo is exiled:

He made you for a highway to my bed,

But I, a maid, die maiden-widowèd.

140

Come cord, come nurse, I’ll to my wedding-bed,

And death, not Romeo, take my maidenhead!

NURSEHie to your chamber, I’ll find Romeo

To comfort you: I wot[143] well where he is.

Hark ye, your Romeo will be here at night.

145

I’ll to him, he is hid at Laurence’ cell.

JULIETO, find him! Give this ring to my true knight,

And bid him come to take his last farewell.

Exeunt

[Act 3 Scene 3][*]

running scene 12

Enter Friar and Romeo Romeo hesitating

FRIAR LAURENCERomeo, come forth, come forth, thou fearful[1] man:

Affliction is enamoured of thy parts,[2]

And thou art wedded to calamity.

ROMEOFather, what news? What is the prince’s doom?[4]

5

What sorrow craves acquaintance at my hand,

That I yet know not?

FRIAR LAURENCEToo familiar

Is my dear son with such sour company:

I bring thee tidings of the prince’s doom.

10

ROMEOWhat less than doomsday[10] is the prince’s doom?

FRIAR LAURENCEA gentler judgement vanished[11] from his lips:

Not body’s death, but body’s banishment.

ROMEOHa, banishment? Be merciful, say ‘death’,

For exile hath more terror in his look,

15

Much more than death. Do not say ‘banishment’.

FRIAR LAURENCEHere from Verona art thou banishèd.

Be patient, for the world is broad and wide.

ROMEOThere is no world without[18] Verona walls,

But purgatory, torture, hell itself.

20

Hence banishèd[20] is banished from the world,

And world’s exile[21] is death: then banishèd,

Is death mistermed. Calling death banishèd,

Thou cutt’st my head off with a golden axe,

And smil’st upon the stroke that murders me.

25

FRIAR LAURENCEO deadly sin! O rude unthankfulness!

Thy[26] fault our law calls death, but the kind prince,

Taking thy part, hath rushed[27] aside the law,

And turned that black word ‘death’ to ‘banishment’.

This is dear mercy, and thou see’st it not.

30

ROMEO’Tis torture and not mercy. Heaven is here,

Where Juliet lives, and every cat and dog

And little mouse, every unworthy thing,

Live here in heaven and may look on her,

But Romeo may not. More validity,[34]

35

More honourable state, more courtship[35] lives

In carrion-flies[36] than Romeo: they may seize

On the white wonder of dear Juliet’s hand

And steal immortal blessing from her lips,

Who even in pure and vestal[39] modesty,

40

Still blush, as thinking their own kisses[40] sin.

This may flies do, when I from this must fly —

And say’st thou yet that exile is not death? —

But Romeo may not: he is banishèd.

Hadst thou no poison mixed, no sharp-ground knife,

45

No sudden mean[45] of death, though ne’er so mean,

But[46] ‘banishèd’ to kill me? ‘Banishèd’?

O friar, the damnèd use that word in hell,

Howling attends it: how hast thou the heart,

Being a divine,[49] a ghostly confessor,

50

A sin-absolver, and my friend professed,

To mangle me with that word ‘banishèd’?

FRIAR LAURENCEThen, fond[52] mad man, hear me a little speak.

ROMEOO, thou wilt speak again of banishment.

FRIAR LAURENCEI’ll give thee armour to keep off that word:

55

Adversity’s sweet milk, philosophy,

To comfort thee, though thou art banishèd.

ROMEOYet[57] ‘banishèd’? Hang up philosophy!

Unless philosophy can make a Juliet,

Displant[59] a town, reverse a prince’s doom,

60

It helps not, it prevails not: talk no more.

FRIAR LAURENCEO, then I see that madmen have no ears.

ROMEOHow should they, when wise men have no eyes?

FRIAR LAURENCELet me dispute[63] with thee of thy estate.

ROMEOThou canst not speak of that[64] thou dost not feel:

65

Wert thou as young as I, Juliet thy love,

An hour but married, Tybalt murderèd,

Doting[67] like me and like me banishèd,

Then mightst thou speak, then mightst thou tear thy hair,

And fall upon the ground as I do now,

70

Taking the measure of an unmade grave.

Enter Nurse and knocks From the other side of a door

FRIAR LAURENCEArise, one knocks. Good Romeo, hide thyself.

ROMEONot I, unless the breath of heartsick groans,

Mist-like, enfold me from the search of eyes.

Knock Romeo remains on the floor

FRIAR LAURENCEHark, how they knock!— Who’s there?— Romeo, arise,

75

Thou wilt be taken.[75]— Stay awhile!— Stand up,

Knock

Run to my study.— By and by!— God’s will, Romeo does not move

What simpleness[77] is this?— I come, I come!

Knock

Who knocks so hard? Whence come you? What’s your will?

NURSELet me come in, and you shall know my errand: From the other side of the door

80

I come from Lady Juliet.

FRIAR LAURENCEWelcome, then.

NURSEO holy friar, O, tell me, holy friar,

Where’s my lady’s lord? Where’s Romeo?

FRIAR LAURENCEThere on the ground, with his own tears made drunk.

85

NURSEO, he is even[85] in my mistress’ case,

Just in her case. O, woeful sympathy![86]

Piteous predicament! Even so lies she,

Blubb’ring and weeping, weeping and blubb’ring.

Stand[89] up, stand up, stand, an you be a man:

90

For Juliet’s sake, for her sake, rise and stand.

Why should you fall into so deep an O?[91]

ROMEONurse!

NURSEAh sir, ah sir! Death’s[93] the end of all.

ROMEOSpeak’st thou of Juliet? How is it with her?

95

Doth not she think me an old[95] murderer,

Now I have stained the childhood of our joy

With blood removed but little from her own?

Where is she? And how doth she? And what says

My concealed lady to our cancelled[99] love?

100

NURSEO, she says nothing, sir, but weeps and weeps,

And now falls on her bed, and then starts up,

And Tybalt calls, and then on Romeo cries,[102]

And then down falls again.

ROMEOAs if that name,

105

Shot from the deadly level[105] of a gun,

Did murder her, as that name’s cursèd hand

Murdered her kinsman. O, tell me, friar, tell me,

In what vile part of this anatomy

Doth my name lodge? Tell me, that I may sack[109]

110

The hateful mansion. Draws his sword

FRIAR LAURENCEHold thy desperate hand.

Art thou a man? Thy form cries out thou art:

Thy tears are womanish, thy wild acts denote

The unreasonable fury of a beast.

115

Unseemly woman in a seeming man,

And ill-beseeming beast in seeming both,

Thou hast amazed me. By my holy order,

I thought thy disposition better tempered.[118]

Hast thou slain Tybalt? Wilt thou slay thyself?

120

And slay thy lady that in thy life lives,

By doing damnèd hate upon thyself?

Why rail’st thou on thy birth, the heaven and earth?

Since birth, and heaven, and earth,[123] all three do meet

In thee at once, which thou at once wouldst lose.

125

Fie,[125] fie, thou sham’st thy shape, thy love, thy wit,

Which[126] like a usurer abound’st in all,

And usest none in[127] that true use indeed

Which should bedeck[128] thy shape, thy love, thy wit.

Thy noble shape is but a form of wax,

130

Digressing[130] from the valour of a man:

Thy dear love sworn but hollow perjury,

Killing that love which thou hast vowed to cherish:

Thy wit, that ornament to shape and love,

Misshapen[134] in the conduct of them both,

135

Like powder[135] in a skilless soldier’s flask,

Is set afire by thine own ignorance,

And thou dismembered[137] with thine own defence.

What, rouse thee, man! Thy Juliet is alive,

For whose dear sake thou wast but lately dead:[139]

140

There art thou happy.[140] Tybalt would kill thee,

But thou slew’st Tybalt: there art thou happy.

The law that threatened death became thy friend

And turned it to exile: there art thou happy.

A pack of blessings light upon thy back,

145

Happiness courts thee in her best array,[145]

But like a mishavèd[146] and sullen wench,

Thou pouts upon thy fortune and thy love:

Take heed, take heed, for such die miserable.

Go, get thee to thy love as was decreed,[149]

150

Ascend her chamber, hence and comfort her:

But look thou stay not till the watch be set,[151]

For then thou canst not pass to Mantua,

Where thou shalt live till we can find a time

To blaze[154] your marriage, reconcile your friends,

155

Beg pardon of thy prince, and call thee back

With twenty hundred thousand times more joy

Than thou went’st forth in lamentation.—

Go before, nurse, commend me to thy lady,

And bid her hasten all the house to bed,

160

Which heavy sorrow makes them apt unto:[160]

Romeo is coming.

NURSEO Lord, I could have stayed here all night

To hear good counsel. O, what learning is!—

My lord, I’ll tell my lady you will come.

165

ROMEODo so, and bid my sweet prepare to chide.

NURSEHere, sir, a ring she bid me give you, sir:

Hie you, make haste, for it grows very late.

[Exit]

ROMEOHow well my comfort is revived by this!

FRIAR LAURENCEGo hence, goodnight, and here[169] stands all your state:

170

Either be gone before the watch be set,

Or by the break of day disguised from hence.

Sojourn in Mantua: I’ll find out your man,

And he shall signify[173] from time to time

Every good hap[174] to you that chances here.

175

Give me thy hand, ’tis late. Farewell, goodnight.

ROMEOBut that a joy past joy calls out on me,

It were a grief, so brief[177] to part with thee. Farewell.

Exeunt

[Act 3 Scene 4][*]

running scene 13

Enter Old Capulet, his Wife and Paris

CAPULETThings have fall’n out, sir, so unluckily

That we have had no time to move[2] our daughter:

Look you, she loved her kinsman Tybalt dearly,

And so did I.— Well, we were born to die.

5

’Tis very late, she’ll not come down tonight.

I promise you, but for your company,

I would have been abed an hour ago.

PARISThese times of woe afford no times to woo.

Madam, goodnight, commend me to your daughter.

10

LADY CAPULETI will, and know her mind early tomorrow:

Tonight she is mewed[11] up to her heaviness.

CAPULETSir Paris, I will make a desperate[12] tender

Of my child’s love: I think she will be ruled

In all respects by me, nay, more, I doubt it not.—

15

Wife, go you to her ere you go to bed,

Acquaint her here of my son[16] Paris’ love,

And bid her, mark you me,[17] on Wednesday next —

But, soft, what day is this?

PARISMonday, my lord,

20

CAPULETMonday? Ha, ha! Well, Wednesday is too soon,

O’Thursday let it be: o’Thursday, tell her,

She shall be married to this noble earl.

Will you be ready? Do you like this haste?

We’ll keep no great ado[24] — a friend or two,

25

For hark you, Tybalt being slain so late,[25]

It may be thought we held him carelessly,[26]

Being our kinsman, if we revel much:

Therefore we’ll have some half a dozen friends,

And there an end. But what say you to Thursday?

30

PARISMy lord, I would that Thursday were tomorrow.

CAPULETWell get you gone: o’Thursday be it, then.—

Go you to Juliet ere you go to bed, To Lady Capulet

Prepare her, wife, against[33] this wedding day.—

Farewell, my lord. Light to my chamber, ho!

35

Afore me![35] It is so very late,

That we may call it early by and by.

Goodnight.

Exeunt

[Act 3 Scene 5]

running scene 14

Enter Romeo and Juliet aloft

JULIETWilt thou be gone? It is not yet near day.

It was the nightingale, and not the lark,

That pierced the fearful hollow of thine ear;

Nightly she sings on yon pom’granate tree.

5

Believe me, love, it was the nightingale.

ROMEOIt was the lark, the herald of the morn,

No nightingale: look, love, what envious[7] streaks

Do lace the severing[8] clouds in yonder east:

Night’s candles are burnt out, and jocund[9] day

10

Stands tiptoe on the misty mountains tops.

I must be gone and live or stay and die.

JULIETYon light is not daylight, I know it, I:

It is some meteor[13] that the sun exhales,

To be to thee this night a torchbearer,

15

And light thee on thy way to Mantua.

Therefore stay yet: thou need’st not to be gone.

ROMEOLet me be ta’en,[17] let me be put to death,

I am content, so[18] thou wilt have it so.

I’ll say yon grey is not the morning’s eye,

20

’Tis but the pale reflex[20] of Cynthia’s brow,

Nor that is not the lark, whose notes do beat

The vaulty[22] heaven so high above our heads.

I have more care[23] to stay than will to go:

Come, death, and welcome! Juliet wills it so.

25

How is’t, my soul? Let’s talk, it is not day.

JULIETIt is, it is: hie[26] hence, begone, away!

It is the lark that sings so out of tune,

Straining[28] harsh discords and unpleasing sharps.

Some say the lark makes sweet division;[29]

30

This doth not so, for she divideth us:

Some say the lark and loathèd toad change[31] eyes,

O, now I would they had changed voices too,

Since arm from arm[33] that voice doth us affray,

Hunting thee hence with hunt’s-up[34] to the day.

35

O, now begone, more light and light it grows.

ROMEOMore light and light, more dark and dark our woes!

Enter Nurse

NURSEMadam!

JULIETNurse?

NURSEYour lady mother is coming to your chamber:

40

The day is broke, be wary, look about.

[Exit]

JULIETThen, window, let day in, and let life out.

ROMEOFarewell, farewell! One kiss, and I’ll descend.

JULIETArt thou gone so? Love, lord, ay, husband, friend,[43]

I must hear from thee every day in the hour,

45

For in a minute there are many days.

O, by this count I shall be much in years[46]

Ere I again behold my Romeo!

ROMEOFarewell!

I will omit no opportunity

50

That may convey my greetings, love, to thee.

JULIETO, think’st thou we shall ever meet again?

ROMEOI doubt it not, and all these woes shall serve

For sweet discourses in our time to come.

JULIETO God, I have an ill-divining[54] soul!

55

Methinks I see thee, now thou art so low,

As one dead in the bottom of a tomb:

Either my eyesight fails or thou look’st pale.

ROMEOAnd trust me, love, in my eye so do you:

Dry[59] sorrow drinks our blood. Adieu, adieu!

Exit

60

JULIETO fortune, fortune, all men call thee fickle:

If thou art fickle, what dost thou with him.

That is renowned for faith? Be fickle, fortune,

For then I hope thou wilt not keep him long,

But send him back.

Enter Mother Below

65

LADY CAPULETHo, daughter, are you up?

JULIETWho is’t that calls? It is my lady mother.

Is she not[67] down so late, or up so early?

What unaccustomed cause procures[68] her hither? Juliet could exit aloft and enter below

LADY CAPULETWhy, how now, Juliet!

70

JULIETMadam, I am not well.

LADY CAPULETEvermore weeping for your cousin’s death?

What, wilt thou wash him from his grave with tears?

An if[73] thou couldst, thou couldst not make him live:

Therefore, have done. Some grief shows much of love,

75

But much of grief shows still some want of wit.

JULIETYet let me weep for such a feeling[76] loss.

LADY CAPULETSo shall you feel[77] the loss, but not the friend

Which you weep for.

JULIETFeeling so the loss,

80

I cannot choose but ever weep the friend.

LADY CAPULETWell, girl, thou weep’st not so much for his death,

As that the villain lives which slaughtered him.

JULIETWhat villain, madam?

LADY CAPULETThat same villain, Romeo.

85

JULIETVillain and he be many miles asunder.— Aside?

God pardon him! I do with all my heart:

And yet no man like[87] he doth grieve my heart.

LADY CAPULETThat is because the traitor lives.

JULIETAy, madam, from the reach of these my hands:

90

Would none but I might venge my cousin’s death!

LADY CAPULETWe will have vengeance for it, fear thou not:

Then weep no more. I’ll send to one in Mantua,

Where that same banished runagate[93] doth live,

Shall give him such an unaccustomed dram,[94]

95

That he shall soon keep Tybalt company,

And then I hope, thou wilt be satisfied.

JULIETIndeed, I never shall be satisfied[97]

With Romeo, till I behold him — dead[98] —

Is my poor heart so for a kinsman[99] vexed.

100

Madam, if you could find out but a man

To bear a poison, I would temper[101] it,

That Romeo should upon receipt thereof,

Soon sleep in quiet.[103] O, how my heart abhors

To hear him named and cannot come to him,

105

To wreak[105] the love I bore my cousin

Upon his body that hath slaughtered him!

LADY CAPULETFind thou the means, and I’ll find such a man.

But now I’ll tell thee joyful tidings, girl.

JULIETAnd joy comes well in such a needy[109] time:

110

What are they, beseech your ladyship?

LADY CAPULETWell, well, thou hast a careful[111] father, child,

One who, to put thee from thy heaviness,

Hath sorted out[113] a sudden day of joy,

That thou expects not, nor I looked not for.[114]

115

JULIETMadam, in happy time,[115] what day is that?

LADY CAPULETMarry,[116] my child, early next Thursday morn,

The gallant, young and noble gentleman,

The County Paris, at St Peter’s Church,

Shall happily make thee there a joyful bride.

120

JULIETNow, by St Peter’s Church and Peter too,

He shall not make me there a joyful bride.

I wonder at this haste, that I must wed

Ere he that should be husband comes to woo.

I pray you tell my lord and father, madam,

125

I will not marry yet, and, when I do, I swear

It shall be Romeo, whom you know I hate,

Rather than Paris. These are news indeed!

LADY CAPULETHere comes your father: tell him so yourself,

And see how he will take it at your hands.

Enter Capulet and Nurse

CAPULETWhen the sun sets, the earth doth drizzle dew,

But for the sunset of my brother’s son

It rains downright.

How now? A conduit,[133] girl? What, still in tears?

Evermore show’ring? In one little body

135

Thou counterfeits[135] a bark, a sea, a wind,

For still thy eyes, which I may call the sea,

Do ebb and flow with tears: the bark thy body is,

Sailing in this salt flood:[138] the winds, thy sighs,

Who, raging with thy tears and they with them,

140

Without a sudden calm, will overset[140]

Thy tempest-tossèd body. How now, wife?

Have you delivered to her our decree?

LADY CAPULETAy, sir, but she will none, she gives you thanks.

I would[144] the fool were married to her grave.

145

CAPULETSoft, take[145] me with you, take me with you, wife.

How,[146] will she none? Doth she not give us thanks?

Is she not proud? Doth she not count her[147] blest,

Unworthy as she is, that we have wrought[148]

So worthy a gentleman to be her bridegroom?

150

JULIETNot proud you have, but thankful that you have:

Proud can I never be of what I hate,

But thankful even for hate,[152] that is meant love.

CAPULETHow now? How now? Chopped-logic?[153] What is this?

‘Proud’ and ‘I thank you’ and ‘I thank you not’,

155

And yet ‘not proud’, mistress minion you?

Thank me no thankings nor proud me no prouds,

But fettle[157] your fine joints gainst Thursday next,

To go with Paris to St Peter’s Church,

Or I will drag thee on a hurdle[159] thither.

160

Out,[160] you green-sickness carrion, out, you baggage,

You tallow-face![161]

LADY CAPULETFie, fie, what, are you mad?

JULIETGood father, I beseech you on my knees, Kneels

Hear me with patience but to speak a word.

165

CAPULETHang thee, young baggage, disobedient wretch!

I tell thee what: get thee to church o’Thursday,

Or never after look me in the face.

Speak not, reply not, do not answer me:

My fingers itch.[169] Wife, we scarce thought us blest

170

That God had lent us but this only child,

But now I see this one is one too much,

And that we have a curse in having her.

Out on her, hilding![173]

NURSEGod in heaven bless her!

175

You are to blame, my lord, to rate[175] her so.

CAPULETAnd why, my lady wisdom? Hold your tongue, To Nurse

Good prudence, smatter[177] with your gossips, go.

NURSEI speak no treason.

CAPULETO, God[179] gi’ good e’en.

180

NURSEMay not one speak?

CAPULETPeace, you mumbling fool!

Utter your gravity[182] o’er a gossip’s bowl,

For here we need it not.

LADY CAPULETYou are too hot.

185

CAPULETGod’s bread,[185] it makes me mad!

Day, night, hour, tide, time, work, play,

Alone, in company, still[187] my care hath been

To have her matched: and having now provided

A gentleman of noble parentage,

190

Of fair demesnes,[190] youthful, and nobly allied,

Stuffed, as they say, with honourable parts,[191]

Proportioned as one’s thought would wish a man,

And then to have a wretched puling[193] fool,

A whining mammet,[194] in her fortune’s tender,

195

To answer ‘I’ll not wed, I cannot love,

I am too young, I pray you pardon me.’

But, an you will not wed, I’ll pardon[197] you:

Graze where you will you shall not house with me.

Look to’t, think on’t, I do[199] not use to jest.

200

Thursday is near, lay hand on heart, advise:[200]

An you be mine, I’ll give you to my friend,

An you be not, hang, beg, starve, die in the streets,

For, by my soul, I’ll ne’er acknowledge thee,

Nor what is mine shall never do thee good.

205

Trust to’t, bethink you, I’ll not be forsworn.[205]

Exit

JULIETIs there no pity sitting in the clouds,

That sees into the bottom of my grief?

O, sweet my mother, cast me not away!

Delay this marriage for a month, a week,

210

Or if you do not, make the bridal bed

In that dim monument[211] where Tybalt lies.

LADY CAPULETTalk not to me, for I’ll not speak a word:

Do as thou wilt, for I have done with thee.

Exit

JULIETO God!— O nurse, how shall this be prevented?

215

My husband is on earth, my faith[215] in heaven:

How shall that faith return again to earth,

Unless that husband send it me from heaven

By leaving earth? Comfort me, counsel me.

Alack, alack, that heaven should practise[219] stratagems

220

Upon so soft a subject as myself!

What say’st thou? Hast thou not a word of joy?

Some comfort, nurse.

NURSEFaith, here it is:

Romeo is banished, and all[224] the world to nothing,

225

That he dares ne’er come back to challenge[225] you,

Or if he do, it needs must be by stealth.

Then, since the case so stands as now it doth,

I think it best you married with the county.

O, he’s a lovely gentleman!

230

Romeo’s a dishclout[230] to him. An eagle, madam,

Hath not so green, so quick,[231] so fair an eye

As Paris hath. Beshrew[232] my very heart,

I think you are happy in this second match,

For it excels your first: or if it did not,

235

Your first is dead, or ’twere as good he were,

As living here and you no use[236] of him.

JULIETSpeakest thou from thy heart?

NURSEAnd from my soul too,

Or else beshrew them both.

240

JULIETAmen.[240]

NURSEWhat?

JULIETWell, thou hast comforted me marv’llous much.

Go in and tell my lady I am gone,

Having displeased my father, to Laurence’ cell,

245

To make confession and to be absolved.

NURSEMarry, I will, and this is wisely done.

[Exit]

JULIETAncient damnation![247] O most wicked fiend!

Is it more sin to wish me thus forsworn,[248]

Or to dispraise my lord with that same tongue

250

Which she hath praised him with above compare

So many thousand times? Go, counsellor,

Thou and my bosom[252] henceforth shall be twain.

I’ll to the friar, to know his remedy:

If all else fail, myself have power to die.

Exit

[Act 4 Scene 1][*]

running scene 15

Enter Friar and County Paris

FRIAR LAURENCEOn Thursday, sir? The time is very short.

PARISMy father Capulet will have it so,

And I am nothing slow[3] to slack his haste.

FRIAR LAURENCEYou say you do not know the lady’s mind?[4]

5

Uneven is the course, I like it not.

PARISImmoderately she weeps for Tybalt’s death,

And therefore have I little talk of love,

For Venus[8] smiles not in a house of tears.

Now, sir, her father counts it dangerous

10

That she doth give her sorrow so much sway,[10]

And in his wisdom hastes our marriage,

To stop the inundation of her tears,

Which too much minded[13] by herself alone

May be put from her by society:[14]

15

Now do you know the reason of this haste.

FRIAR LAURENCEI would I knew not why it should be slowed.— Aside

Look, sir, here comes the lady towards my cell.

Enter Juliet

PARISHappily[18] met, my lady and my wife!

JULIETThat may be, sir, when I may be a wife.

20

PARISThat ‘may be’ must be, love, on Thursday next.

JULIETWhat must be shall be.

FRIAR LAURENCEThat’s a certain text.[22]

PARISCome you to make confession to this father?

JULIETTo answer that, I should confess to you.

25

PARISDo not deny to him that you love me.

JULIETI will confess to you that I love him.

PARISSo will ye, I am sure, that you love me.

JULIETIf I do so, it will be of more price,[28]

Being spoke behind your back, than to your face.

30

PARISPoor soul, thy face is much abused with tears.

JULIETThe tears have got small victory by that,

For it was bad enough before their spite.

PARISThou wrong’st it more than tears with that report.

JULIETThat is no slander, sir, which is a truth,

35

And what I spake, I spake it to my face.[35]

PARISThy face is mine, and thou hast slandered it.

JULIETIt may be so, for it is not mine own.[37]—

Are you at leisure, holy father, now,

Or shall I come to you at evening mass?

40

FRIAR LAURENCEMy leisure serves me, pensive[40] daughter, now.—

My lord, we must entreat the time alone.

PARISGod shield[42] I should disturb devotion!

Juliet, on Thursday early will I rouse ye:

Till then, adieu, and keep this holy kiss. Kisses Juliet on forehead or hand or cheek

Exit Paris

45

JULIETO, shut the door, and when thou hast done so,

Come weep with me, past hope, past care, past help!

FRIAR LAURENCEO, Juliet, I already know thy grief,

It strains me past the compass[48] of my wits:

I hear thou must, and nothing may prorogue[49] it,

50

On Thursday next be married to this county.

JULIETTell me not, friar, that thou hearest of this,

Unless thou tell me how I may prevent it:

If in thy wisdom thou canst give no help,

Do thou but call my resolution wise,

55

And with this knife I’ll help it presently.[55] Shows a dagger

God joined my heart and Romeo’s, thou our hands,

And ere this hand, by thee to Romeo sealed,

Shall be the label[58] to another deed,

Or my true heart with treacherous revolt

60

Turn to another, this shall slay them both:[60]

Therefore, out of thy long-experienced time,[61]

Give me some present counsel, or, behold,

’Twixt my extremes[63] and me this bloody knife

Shall play the umpire,[64] arbitrating that

65

Which the commission[65] of thy years and art

Could to no issue[66] of true honour bring.

Be not so long to speak, I long to die,

If what thou speak’st speak not of remedy.

FRIAR LAURENCEHold, daughter: I do spy a kind of hope,

70

Which craves as desp’rate an execution

As that is desperate which we would prevent.

If, rather than to marry County Paris,

Thou hast the strength of will to slay thyself,

Then is it likely thou wilt undertake

75

A thing like death to chide away this shame,

That cop’st[76] with death himself to scape from it:

And if thou dar’st, I’ll give thee remedy.

JULIETO, bid me leap, rather than marry Paris,

From off the battlements of any tower,

80

Or walk in thievish ways,[80] or bid me lurk

Where serpents are, chain me with roaring bears,

Or hide me nightly in a charnel-house,[82]

O’er-covered quite with dead men’s rattling bones,

With reeky shanks[84] and yellow chapless skulls,

85

Or bid me go into a new-made grave

And hide me with a dead man in his tomb —

Things that to hear them told have made me tremble —

And I will do it without fear or doubt,

To live an unstained wife to my sweet love.

90

FRIAR LAURENCEHold, then. Go home, be merry, give consent

To marry Paris. Wednesday is tomorrow:

Tomorrow night look that thou lie alone,

Let not thy nurse lie with thee in thy chamber:

Take thou this vial, being then in bed, Shows a vial

95

And this distilling[95] liquor drink thou off,

When presently through all thy veins shall run

A cold and drowsy humour,[97] for no pulse

Shall keep his native[98] progress, but surcease.

No warmth, no breath shall testify thou liv’st:

100

The roses in thy lips and cheeks shall fade

To wanny[101] ashes, thy eyes’ windows fall,

Like death when he shuts up the day of life.

Each part, deprived of supple government,[103]

Shall stiff and stark and cold appear like death:

105

And in this borrowed likeness of shrunk death

Thou shalt continue two-and-forty hours,

And then awake as from a pleasant sleep.

Now when the bridegroom in the morning comes

To rouse thee from thy bed, there art thou dead:

110

Then as the manner of our country is,

In thy best robes uncovered on the bier,

// Be borne to burial in thy kindred’s grave //

Thou shalt be borne to that same ancient vault

Where all the kindred of the Capulets lie.

115

In the mean time, against[115] thou shalt awake,

Shall Romeo by my letters know our drift,[116]

And hither shall he come, and he and I

Will watch thy waking, and that very night

Shall Romeo bear thee hence to Mantua.

120

And this shall free thee from this present shame,

If no inconstant toy,[121] nor womanish fear,

Abate thy valour in the acting it.

JULIETGive me, give me! O, tell not me of fear! Takes the vial

FRIAR LAURENCEHold, get you gone, be strong and prosperous[124]

125

In this resolve: I’ll send a friar with speed

To Mantua, with my letters to thy lord.

JULIETLove give me strength, and strength shall help afford.[127]

Farewell, dear father!

Exeunt

[Act 4 Scene 2][*]

running scene 16

Enter Father Capulet, Mother, Nurse and Servingmen, two or three

CAPULETSo many guests invite as here are writ.— [Exit a Servingman]

Sirrah, go hire me twenty cunning[2] cooks.

SERVINGMANYou shall have none ill,[3] sir, for I’ll try if they can lick their fingers.

CAPULETHow canst thou try them so?

SERVINGMANMarry, sir, ’tis[5] an ill cook that cannot lick his own fingers: therefore he that cannot lick his fingers goes not with me.

CAPULETGo, begone.

[Exit the Servingman]

We shall be much unfurnished[8] for this time.

What, is my daughter gone to Friar Laurence?

10

NURSEAy, forsooth.[10]

CAPULETWell, he may chance to do some good on her.

A peevish[12] self-willed harlotry it is.

Enter Juliet

NURSESee where she comes from shrift with merry look.

CAPULETHow now, my headstrong? Where have you been gadding?[14]

15

JULIETWhere I have learned me to repent the sin

Of disobedient opposition

To you and your behests,[17] and am enjoined ↓Falls prostrate or kneels↓

By holy Laurence to fall prostrate here,

To beg your pardon. Pardon, I beseech you!

20

Henceforward I am ever ruled by you.

CAPULETSend for the county, go tell him of this:

I’ll have this knot knit up tomorrow morning.

JULIETI met the youthful lord at Laurence’ cell,

And gave him what becomèd[24] love I might,

25

Not stepping o’er the bounds of modesty.

CAPULETWhy, I am glad on’t, this is well — stand up — She rises

This is as’t should be. Let me see the county.

Ay, marry, go, I say, and fetch him hither.

Now, afore God, this reverend holy friar,

30

All our whole city is much bound to him.

JULIETNurse, will you go with me into my closet,[31]

To help me sort such needful ornaments[32]

As you think fit to furnish me tomorrow?

LADY CAPULETNo, not till Thursday: there’s time enough.

35

CAPULETGo, nurse, go with her: we’ll to church tomorrow. Exeunt Juliet and Nurse

LADY CAPULETWe shall be short[36] in our provision,

’Tis now near night.

CAPULETTush, I will stir about,

And all things shall be well, I warrant thee, wife:

40

Go thou to Juliet, help to deck up her:[40]

I’ll not to bed tonight, let me alone.

I’ll play the housewife for this once. What, ho!

They[43] are all forth. Well, I will walk myself

To County Paris, to prepare him up

45

Against tomorrow. My heart is wondrous light,

Since this same wayward girl is so reclaimed.

Exeunt Father and Mother

[Act 4 Scene 3][*]

running scene 17

Enter Juliet and Nurse A curtained bed is provided onstage

JULIETAy, those attires are best, but, gentle nurse,

I pray thee leave me to myself tonight,

For I have need of many orisons[3]

To move the heavens to smile upon my state,

5

Which, well thou know’st, is cross[5] and full of sin.

Enter Mother

LADY CAPULETWhat, are you busy, ho? Need you my help?

JULIETNo, madam, we have culled[7] such necessaries

As are behoveful[8] for our state tomorrow.

So please you, let me now be left alone,

10

And let the nurse this night sit up with you,

For I am sure you have your hands full all,

In this so sudden business.

LADY CAPULETGoodnight.

Get thee to bed, and rest, for thou hast need.

Exeunt [Lady Capulet and Nurse]

15

JULIETFarewell! God knows when we shall meet again.

I have a faint cold fear thrills[16] through my veins,

That almost freezes up the heat of life.

I’ll call them back again to comfort me.—

Nurse!— What should she do here?

20

My dismal[20] scene I needs must act alone.

Come, vial.

What if this mixture do not work at all?

Shall I be married then tomorrow morning?

No, no, this shall forbid it.— Lie thou there.— Lays down a dagger

25

What if it be a poison, which the friar

Subtly[26] hath ministered to have me dead,

Lest in this marriage he should be dishonoured,

Because he married me before to Romeo?

I fear it is, and yet methinks it should not,

30

For he hath still[30] been tried a holy man.

How if, when I am laid into the tomb,

I wake before the time that Romeo

Come to redeem me? There’s a fearful point!

Shall I not then be stifled in the vault,

35

To whose foul mouth no healthsome air breathes in,

And there die strangled ere[36] my Romeo comes?

Or if I live, is it not very like,[37]

The horrible conceit[38] of death and night,

Together with the terror of the place —

40

As in a vault, an ancient receptacle,

Where for these many hundred years the bones

Of all my buried ancestors are packed:

Where bloody Tybalt, yet but green in earth,[43]

Lies fest’ring in his shroud, where, as they say,

45

At some hours in the night spirits resort —

Alack, alack, is it not like that I,

So early waking what with loathsome smells,

And shrieks like mandrakes[48] torn out of the earth,

That living mortals, hearing them, run mad —

50

O, if I wake, shall I not be distraught,[50]

Environèd[51] with all these hideous fears?

And madly play with my forefather’s joints?

And pluck the mangled Tybalt from his shroud?

And in this rage,[54] with some great kinsman’s bone,

55

As with a club, dash out my desp’rate brains?

O, look! Methinks I see my cousin’s ghost

Seeking out Romeo that did spit[57] his body

Upon a rapier’s point. Stay,[58] Tybalt, stay!

Romeo, Romeo, Romeo! Here’s drink: I drink to thee.

She drinks and falls onto the bed within the curtains

[Act 4 Scene 4]

running scene 17 continues

Enter Lady of the house and Nurse

LADY CAPULETHold, take these keys, and fetch more spices, nurse.

NURSEThey call for dates and quinces[2] in the pastry.

Enter Old Capulet

CAPULETCome, stir, stir, stir! The second cock hath crowed,

The curfew-bell[4] hath rung, ’tis three o’clock.

5

Look to the baked meats,[5] good Angelica:

Spare not for cost.

NURSEGo, you cotquean,[7] go, To Capulet

Get you to bed. Faith, you’ll be sick tomorrow

For this night’s watching.[9]

10

CAPULETNo, not a whit. What, I have watched ere now

All night for less cause, and ne’er been sick.

LADY CAPULETAy, you have been a mouse-hunt[12] in your time,

But I will watch[13] you from such watching now. Exeunt Lady and Nurse

CAPULETA jealous hood,[14] a jealous hood!—

15

Now fellow, what is there? Calls

Enter three or four with spits, and logs and baskets

SERVINGMANThings for the cook, sir, but I know not what.

CAPULETMake haste, make haste.—

[Exit Servingman]

Sirrah, fetch drier logs:

Call Peter, he will show thee where they are.

20

ANOTHER SERVINGMANI[14] have a head, sir, that will find out logs,

And never trouble Peter for the matter.

[Exit]

CAPULETMass,[22] and well said, a merry whoreson, ha! Thou shalt be logger-head.[23] Good Father, ’tis day:

Play music

The county will be here with music straight,[24]

25

For so he said he would. I hear him near.—

Nurse! Wife! What, ho! What, Nurse, I say!

Enter Nurse

Go waken Juliet, go and trim her up,[27]

I’ll go and chat with Paris. Hie, make haste,

Make haste: the bridegroom he is come already.

30

Make haste, I say.

[Exit]

NURSEMistress, what, mistress? Juliet?—

Fast,[32] I warrant her, she.— Approaches the bed

Why, lamb, why, lady! Fie, you slug-a-bed!

Why, love, I say, madam, sweetheart, why, bride!

35

What, not a word? You take your pennyworths[35] now,

Sleep for a week, for the next night, I warrant,

The County Paris hath set[37] up his rest,

That you shall rest but little. God forgive me,

Marry and amen.— How sound is she asleep!

40

I must needs wake her. Madam, madam, madam!

Ay, let the county take[41] you in your bed,

He’ll fright[42] you up, i’faith. Will it not be? Draws the curtains

What, dressed, and in your clothes, and down[43] again?

I must needs wake you: lady, lady, lady!—

45

Alas, alas! Help, help! My lady’s dead!

O, welladay, that ever I was born!

Some aqua vitae, ho! My lord! My lady!

Enter Mother

LADY CAPULETWhat noise is here?

NURSEO lamentable day!

50

LADY CAPULETWhat is the matter?

NURSELook, look! O heavy day!

LADY CAPULETO me, O me! My child, my only life,

Revive, look up, or I will die with thee!

Help, help! Call help.

Enter Father

55

CAPULETFor shame, bring Juliet forth, her lord is come.

NURSEShe’s dead, deceased, she’s dead, alack the day!

LADY CAPULETAlack the day, she’s dead, she’s dead, she’s dead!

CAPULETHa? Let me see her. Out, alas,[58] she’s cold:

Her blood is settled, and her joints are stiff.

60

Life and these lips have long been separated:

Death lies on her like an untimely frost

Upon the sweetest flower of all the field.

NURSEO lamentable day!

LADY CAPULETO woeful time!

65

CAPULETDeath, that hath ta’en her hence to make me wail,

Ties up my tongue, and will not let me speak.

Enter Friar and the County Musicians may enter here

FRIAR LAURENCECome, is the bride ready to go to church?

CAPULETReady to go, but never to return.—

O son, the night before thy wedding-day To Paris

70

Hath Death lain with thy wife. There she lies,

Flower as she was, deflowered by him.

Death is my son-in-law, Death is my heir:

My daughter he hath wedded. I will die,

And leave him all: life, living,[74] all is Death’s.

75

PARISHave I thought long[75] to see this morning’s face,

And doth it give me such a sight as this?

LADY CAPULETAccursed, unhappy, wretched, hateful day!

Most miserable hour that e’er time saw

In lasting[79] labour of his pilgrimage!

80

But one, poor one, one poor and loving child,

But one thing to rejoice and solace in,

And cruel death hath catched[82] it from my sight!

NURSEO woe! O woeful, woeful, woeful day!

Most lamentable day, most woeful day,

85

That ever, ever, I did yet behold!

O day, O day, O day, O hateful day!

Never was seen so black a day as this:

O woeful day, O woeful day!

PARISBeguiled,[89] divorcèd, wrongèd, spited, slain!

90

Most detestable death, by thee beguiled,

By cruel cruel thee quite overthrown!

O love, O life! Not life, but love in death!

CAPULETDespised, distressèd, hated, martyred, killed!

Uncomfortable[94] time, why cam’st thou now

95

To murder, murder our solemnity?[95]

O child, O child! My soul, and not my child!

Dead art thou! Alack, my child is dead,

And with my child my joys are burièd.

FRIAR LAURENCEPeace, ho, for shame! Confusion’s[99] care lives not

100

In these confusions. Heaven and yourself

Had part in this fair maid, now heaven hath all,

And all the better is it for the maid:

Your part in her you could not keep from death,

But heaven keeps his part in eternal life.

105

The most you sought was her promotion,[105]

For ’twas your heaven[106] she should be advanced:

And weep ye now, seeing she is advanced

Above the clouds, as high as heaven itself?

O, in this love, you love your child so ill

110

That you run mad, seeing that she is well.

She’s not well married that lives married long,

But she’s best married that dies married young.

Dry up your tears, and stick[113] your rosemary

On this fair corpse, and as the custom is,

115

And in her best array bear her to church:

For though some nature bids us all lament,

Yet nature’s tears are reason’s merriment.[117]

CAPULETAll things that we ordainèd festival,[118]

Turn from their office[119] to black funeral:

120

Our instruments to melancholy bells,

Our wedding cheer[121] to a sad burial feast,

Our solemn[122] hymns to sullen dirges change,

Our bridal flowers serve for a buried corpse,

And all things change them to the contrary.

125

FRIAR LAURENCESir, go you in, and madam, go with him,

And go, Sir Paris: everyone prepare

To follow this fair corpse unto her grave.

The heavens do lour[128] upon you for some ill,

Move[129] them no more by crossing their high will.

Exeunt [all but Nurse]

Musicians may enter here

130

FIRST MUSICIANFaith, we may put up[130] our pipes, and be gone.

NURSEHonest goodfellows, ah, put up, put up,

For well you know this is a pitiful case.[132]

[Exit]

FIRST MUSICIANAy, by my troth, the case may be amended.[133]

Enter Peter

PETERMusicians, O, musicians, ‘Heart’s ease’,[134] ‘Heart’s ease’. O, an you will haveme live, play ‘Heart’s ease’.

FIRST MUSICIANWhy ‘Heart’s ease’?

PETERO, musicians, because my heart itself plays ‘My[134] heart is full of woe’. O, play me some merry dump[138] to comfort me.

FIRST MUSICIANNot a dump we, ’tis no time to play now.

PETERYou will not, then?

FIRST MUSICIANNo.

PETERI will then give it you soundly.[142]

FIRST MUSICIANWhat will you give us?

PETERNo money, on my faith, but the gleek:[144] I will give you the minstrel.

FIRST MUSICIANThen will I give you the serving-creature.[145]

PETERThen will I lay the serving-creature’s dagger on your pate.[146] I will carry no crotchets: I’ll re[147] you, I’ll fa you. Do you note me?

FIRST MUSICIANAn you re us and fa us, you note us.

SECOND MUSICIANPray you put up your dagger, and put out[149] your wit. Then have at you with my wit!

PETERI will dry-beat[151] you with an iron wit, and put up my iron dagger. Answer me like men:

When[153] griping griefs the heart doth wound,

Then music with her silver sound—

155

Why ‘silver sound’? Why ‘music with her silver sound’? What say you, Simon Catling?[156]

FIRST MUSICIANMarry, sir, because silver hath a sweet sound.

PETERPrates.[158] What say you, Hugh Rebeck?

SECOND MUSICIANI say ‘silver sound’, because musicians sound for silver.[159]

PETERPrates too. What say you, James Soundpost?[160]

THIRD MUSICIANFaith, I know not what to say.

PETERO, I cry you mercy,[162] you are the singer: I will say for you. It is ‘music with her silver sound’ because musicians have no gold for sounding:[163]

Then music with her silver sound

165

With speedy help doth lend redress.

Exit

FIRST MUSICIANWhat a pestilent knave is this same!

SECOND MUSICIANHang him, Jack![167] Come, we’ll in here, tarry for the mourners, and stay[168] dinner.

Exeunt

[Act 5 Scene 1]5.1

running scene 18

Enter Romeo

ROMEOIf I may trust the flattering[1] truth of sleep,

My dreams presage[2] some joyful news at hand:

My bosom’s lord[3] sits lightly in his throne,

And all this day an unaccustomed spirit

5

Lifts me above the ground with cheerful thoughts.

I dreamt my lady came and found me dead —

Strange dream, that gives a dead man leave to think! —

And breathed such life with kisses in my lips,

That I revived, and was an emperor.

10

Ah me, how sweet is love itself possessed,[10]

When but love’s shadows[11] are so rich in joy!

Enter Romeo’s Man Wearing riding boots

News from Verona!— How now, Balthasar!

Dost thou not bring me letters from the friar?

How doth my lady? Is my father well?

15

How doth my lady Juliet? That I ask again,

For nothing can be ill, if she be well.

BALTHASARThen she is well, and nothing can be ill:

Her body sleeps in Capel’s monument,

And her immortal part with angels lives.

20

I saw her laid low in her kindred’s vault,

And presently took post[21] to tell it you.

O, pardon me for bringing these ill news,

Since you did leave it for my office,[23] sir.

ROMEOIs it even so? Then I deny[24] you, stars!—

25

Thou know’st my lodging, get me ink and paper,

And hire post-horses:[26] I will hence tonight.

BALTHASARI do beseech you, sir, have patience:

Your looks are pale and wild, and do import[28]

Some misadventure.[29]

30

ROMEOTush, thou art deceived:

Leave me, and do the thing I bid thee do.

Hast thou no letters to me from the friar?

BALTHASARNo, my good lord.

ROMEONo matter: get thee gone,

35

And hire those horses, I’ll be with thee straight.—

Exit Man

Well, Juliet, I will lie with thee tonight.

Let’s see for[37] means. O mischief, thou art swift

To enter in the thoughts of desperate men!

I do remember an apothecary,[39]

40

And hereabouts a[40] dwells, which late I noted

In tattered weeds,[41] with overwhelming brows,

Culling of simples:[42] meagre were his looks,

Sharp misery had worn him to the bones,

And in his needy[44] shop a tortoise hung,

45

An alligator stuffed, and other skins

Of ill-shaped fishes, and about his shelves

A beggarly account[47] of empty boxes,

Green earthen[48] pots, bladders and musty seeds,

Remnants of packthread[49] and old cakes of roses,

50

Were thinly scattered, to make up a show.

Noting this penury, to myself I said

‘An if a man did need a poison now,

Whose[53] sale is present death in Mantua,

Here lives a caitiff[54] wretch would sell it him.’

55

O, this same thought did but forerun my need,

And this same needy man must sell it me.

As I remember, this should be the house.

Being holy-day, the beggar’s shop is shut.

What, ho, apothecary!

Enter Apothecary

60

APOTHECARYWho calls so loud?

ROMEOCome hither, man. I see that thou art poor.

Hold, there is forty ducats:[62] let me have Shows gold

A dram of poison, such soon-speeding gear[63]

As will disperse itself through all the veins

65

That[65] the life-weary taker may fall dead

And that the trunk[66] may be discharged of breath

As violently as hasty powder fired

Doth hurry from the fatal cannon’s womb.

APOTHECARYSuch mortal[69] drugs I have, but Mantua’s law

70

Is death to any he[70] that utters them.

ROMEOArt thou so bare and full of wretchedness,

And fear’st to die? Famine is in thy cheeks,

Need and oppression starveth in thy eyes,

Contempt and beggary hangs upon thy back:

75

The world is not thy friend nor the world’s law:

The world affords no law to make thee rich,

Then be not poor, but break it[77] and take this.

APOTHECARYMy poverty, but not my will, consents.

ROMEOI pray[79] thy poverty, and not thy will.

80

APOTHECARYPut this in any liquid thing you will

And drink it off, and if you had the strength

Of twenty men, it would dispatch you straight.

ROMEOThere’s thy gold, worse poison to men’s souls, Gives gold

Doing more murder in this loathsome world,

85

Than these poor compounds[85] that thou mayst not sell.

I sell thee poison, thou hast sold me none.

Farewell, buy food, and get[87] thyself in flesh.—

Come, cordial[88] and not poison, go with me

To Juliet’s grave, for there must I use thee.

Exeunt [separately]

[Act 5 Scene 2]5.2

running scene 19

Enter Friar John to Friar Laurence

FRIAR JOHNHoly Franciscan friar, brother, ho!

Enter Friar Laurence

FRIAR LAURENCEThis same should be the voice of Friar John.—

Welcome from Mantua: what says Romeo?

Or if his mind be writ, give me his letter.

5

FRIAR JOHNGoing to find a barefoot brother[5] out,

One of our order, to associate[6] me,

Here in this city visiting the sick,

And finding him, the searchers[8] of the town,

Suspecting that we both were in a house

10

Where the infectious pestilence[10] did reign,

Sealed up the doors, and would not let us forth,

So that my speed[12] to Mantua there was stayed.

FRIAR LAURENCEWho bare my letter then to Romeo?

FRIAR JOHNI could not send it — here it is again — Shows the letter

15

Nor get a messenger to bring it thee,

So fearful were they of infection.

FRIAR LAURENCEUnhappy fortune! By my brotherhood,

The letter was not nice[18] but full of charge,

Of dear import,[19] and the neglecting it

20

May do much danger.[20] Friar John, go hence,

Get me an iron crow,[21] and bring it straight

Unto my cell.

FRIAR JOHNBrother, I’ll go and bring it thee.

Exit

FRIAR LAURENCENow must I to the monument alone,

25

Within this three hours will fair Juliet wake:

She will beshrew me much that Romeo

Hath had no notice of these accidents,[27]

But I will write again to Mantua,

And keep her at my cell till Romeo come.

30

Poor living corpse, closed in a dead man’s tomb!

Exit

[Act 5 Scene 3]5.3

running scene 20

Enter Paris and his Page Carrying flowers and a torch

PARISGive me thy torch, boy. Hence, and stand aloof.[1]

Yet put it out, for I would not be seen.

Under yon yew trees lay[3] thee all along,

Holding thy ear close to the hollow ground,

5

So shall no foot upon the churchyard tread,

Being[6] loose, unfirm with digging up of graves,

But thou shalt hear it: whistle then to me

As signal that thou hear’st something approach.

Give me those flowers. Do as I bid thee, go.

10

PAGEI am almost afraid to stand[10] alone Aside

Here in the churchyard, yet I will adventure.[11] Stands back

PARISSweet flower, with flowers thy bridal bed I strew — Strews flowers and sprinkles perfumed water

O woe, thy canopy[13] is dust and stones —

Which with sweet water nightly I will dew,

15

Or wanting that, with tears distilled by moans;

The obsequies[16] that I for thee will keep

Nightly shall be to strew thy grave and weep.

Whistle Boy

The boy gives warning something doth approach.

What cursèd foot wanders this way tonight,

20

To cross[20] my obsequies and true love’s rite?

What, with a torch? Muffle me, night, awhile. Stands back

Enter Romeo and Balthasar Carrying a mattock and wrenching iron

ROMEOGive me that mattock and the wrenching iron.

Hold, take this letter: early in the morning Gives a letter

See thou deliver it to my lord and father.

25

Give me the light. Upon thy life, I charge thee, Takes a torch

Whate’er thou hear’st or see’st, stand all aloof,

And do not interrupt me in my course.

Why I descend into this bed of death

Is partly to behold my lady’s face,

30

But chiefly to take thence from her dead finger

A precious ring, a ring that I must use

In dear employment:[32] therefore hence, begone.

But if thou, jealous,[33] dost return to pry

In what I further shall intend to do,

35

By heaven, I will tear thee joint by joint

And strew this hungry churchyard with thy limbs:

The time and my intents are savage-wild,

More fierce and more inexorable far

Than empty tigers or the roaring sea.

40

BALTHASARI will be gone, sir, and not trouble you.

ROMEOSo shalt thou show me friendship. Take thou that. Gives money

Live and be prosperous, and farewell, good fellow.

BALTHASARFor[43] all this same, I’ll hide me hereabout: Aside

His looks I fear, and his intents I doubt.[44] Stands aside

45

ROMEOThou detestable maw,[45] thou womb of death, Romeo begins to open the tomb

Gorged with the dearest morsel of the earth:

Thus I enforce thy rotten jaws to open,

And in despite[48] I’ll cram thee with more food.

PARISThis is that banished haughty Montague, Aside

50

That murdered my love’s cousin, with which grief

It is supposèd the fair creature died,

And here is come to do some villainous shame

To the dead bodies. I will apprehend him.—

Stop thy unhallowed[54] toil, vile Montague! Comes forward

55

Can vengeance be pursued further than death?

Condemnèd villain, I do apprehend thee:

Obey and go with me, for thou must die.

ROMEOI must indeed, and therefore came I hither.

Good gentle youth, tempt not a desp’rate man,

60

Fly hence, and leave me: think upon these gone,[60]

Let them affright thee. I beseech thee, youth,

Put not another sin upon my head,

By urging me to fury: O, begone!

By heaven, I love thee better than myself,

65

For I come hither armed against myself.

Stay not, begone, live, and hereafter say,

A madman’s mercy bid thee run away.

PARISI do defy thy commiseration,[68]

And apprehend thee for a felon here.

70

ROMEOWilt thou provoke me? Then have at thee, boy! They fight

PAGEO Lord, they fight! I will go call the watch.

[Exit]

PARISO, I am slain! If thou be merciful,

Open the tomb, lay me with Juliet. Dies

ROMEOIn faith, I will. Let me peruse this face.

75

Mercutio’s kinsman, noble County Paris!

What said my man, when my betossèd soul

Did not attend him as we rode? I think He told me

Paris should have[78] married Juliet:

Said he not so? Or did I dream it so?

80

Or am I mad, hearing him[80] talk of Juliet,

To think it was so? O, give me thy hand,

One writ with me in sour misfortune’s book!

I’ll bury thee in a triumphant[83] grave. Opens the tomb, revealing Juliet

A grave? O no, a lantern,[84] slaughtered youth,

85

For here lies Juliet, and her beauty makes

This vault a feasting presence[86] full of light.

Death, lie thou there, by a dead man interred.

How oft when men are at the point of death

Have they been merry, which their keepers[89] call

90

A light’ning before death. O, how may I

Call this a light’ning? O my love, my wife!

Death that hath sucked the honey of thy breath,

Hath had no power yet upon thy beauty:

Thou art not conquered, beauty’s ensign[94] yet

95

Is crimson in thy lips and in thy cheeks,

And death’s pale flag is not advancèd[96] there.—

Tybalt, liest thou there in thy bloody sheet?

O, what more favour can I do to thee

Than with that hand that cut thy youth in twain

100

To sunder his[100] that was thy enemy?

Forgive me, cousin.— Ah, dear Juliet,

Why art thou yet so fair? Shall I believe

That unsubstantial[103] death is amorous,

And that the lean abhorrèd monster keeps

105

Thee here in dark to be his paramour?

For fear of that, I still[106] will stay with thee,

And never from this palace of dim night

// Depart again. Come lie thou in my arms. //

// Here’s to thy health, where’er thou tumblest in. //

110

// O true[110] apothecary, //

// Thy drugs are quick. Thus with a kiss I die.//

Depart again. Here, here will I remain

With worms that are thy chambermaids: O, here

Will I set up my everlasting rest,

115

And shake the yoke of inauspicious stars

From this world-wearied flesh. Eyes, look your last!

Arms, take your last embrace! And, lips, O you

The doors of breath, seal with a righteous kiss

A dateless bargain[119] to engrossing death! Kisses Juliet

120

Come, bitter conduct,[120] come, unsavoury guide!

Thou desperate pilot, now at once run on

The dashing[122] rocks thy seasick weary bark!

Here’s to my love. O true apothecary, Drinks

Thy drugs are quick.[124] Thus with a kiss I die. Dies

Enter Friar Laurence with lantern, crow and spade

125

FRIAR LAURENCESaint Francis be my speed![125] How oft tonight

Have my old feet stumbled at graves! Who’s there?

BALTHASARHere’s one, a friend, and one that knows you well.

FRIAR LAURENCEBliss be upon you! Tell me, good my friend,

What torch is yon that vainly[129] lends his light

130

To grubs and eyeless skulls? As I discern,

It burneth in the Capels’ monument.

BALTHASARIt doth so, holy sir, and there’s my master,

One that you love.

FRIAR LAURENCEWho is it?

135

BALTHASARRomeo.

FRIAR LAURENCEHow long hath he been there?

BALTHASARFull half an hour.

FRIAR LAURENCEGo with me to the vault.

BALTHASARI dare not, sir.

140

My master knows not but I am gone hence,

And fearfully did menace me with death

If I did stay to look on his intents.

FRIAR LAURENCEStay then, I’ll go alone. Fear comes upon me:

O, much I fear some ill unlucky thing.

145

BALTHASARAs I did sleep under this yew tree here,

I dreamt my master and another fought,

And that my master slew him.

FRIAR LAURENCERomeo!

Alack, alack, what blood is this which stains

150

The stony entrance of this sepulchre?

What mean these masterless and gory swords

To lie discoloured by this place of peace?

Romeo! O, pale! Who else? What, Paris too?

And steeped in blood? Ah, what an unkind[154] hour

155

Is guilty of this lamentable chance!

The lady stirs.

JULIETO, comfortable[157] friar, where’s my lord? Waking

I do remember well where I should be,

And there I am. Where is my Romeo?

160

FRIAR LAURENCEI hear some noise. Lady, come from that nest

Of death, contagion and unnatural sleep:

A greater power than we can contradict

Hath thwarted our intents. Come, come away.

Thy husband in thy bosom there lies dead,

165

And Paris too. Come, I’ll dispose of thee

Among a sisterhood of holy nuns.

Stay not to question, for the watch is coming.

Come, go, good Juliet, I dare no longer stay.

Exit

JULIETGo, get thee hence, for I will not away.

170

What’s here? A cup closed in my true love’s hand?

Poison I see hath been his timeless[171] end.

O churl,[172] drink all and left no friendly drop

To help me after? I will kiss thy lips,

Haply[174] some poison yet doth hang on them,

175

To make me die with a restorative. Kisses him

Thy lips are warm.

Enter Boy and Watch [Constable and other Watchmen] At a distance

CONSTABLELead, boy, which way?

JULIETYea, noise? Then I’ll be brief. O happy[178] dagger,

This is thy sheath: there rust, and let me die.

Kills herself

180

PAGEThis is the place, there where the torch doth burn.

CONSTABLEThe ground is bloody, search about the churchyard:

Go, some of you, whoe’er you find attach.[182]

[Exeunt some Watchmen]

Pitiful sight! Here lies the county slain,

And Juliet bleeding, warm, and newly dead,

185

Who here hath lain these two days burièd.

Go, tell the prince, run to the Capulets,

Raise up the Montagues, some others search.

[Exeunt other Watchmen]

We see the ground whereon these woes do lie,

But the true ground[189] of all these piteous woes

190

We cannot without circumstance[190] descry.

Enter Romeo’s man [Balthasar with Watchman]

SECOND WATCHMANHere’s Romeo’s man: we found him in the churchyard.

CONSTABLEHold him in safety, till the prince come hither.

Enter Friar and another Watchman

THIRD WATCHMANHere is a friar that trembles, sighs and weeps:

We took this mattock and this spade from him,

195

As he was coming from this churchyard side.

CONSTABLEA great suspicion: stay[196] the friar too.

Enter the Prince [and Attendants]

PRINCEWhat misadventure is so early up,

That calls our person from our morning rest?

Enter Capulet and his Wife [and others]

CAPULETWhat should it be that they so shriek abroad?

200

LADY CAPULETO, the people in the street cry ‘Romeo’,

Some ‘Juliet’, and some ‘Paris’, and all run

With open outcry toward our monument.

PRINCEWhat fear is this which startles in your ears?

CONSTABLESovereign, here lies the County Paris slain,

205

And Romeo dead, and Juliet, dead before,

Warm and new killed.

PRINCESearch, seek, and know how this foul murder comes.

CONSTABLEHere is a friar, and slaughtered Romeo’s man,

With instruments upon them, fit to open

210

These dead men’s tombs.

CAPULETO heaven! O wife, look how our daughter bleeds!

This dagger hath mista’en[212] — for lo his house

Is empty on the back of Montague —

And is mis-sheathèd in my daughter’s bosom!

215

LADY CAPULETO me, this sight of death is as a bell

That warns[216] my old age to a sepulchre.

Enter Montague

PRINCECome, Montague, for thou art early up

To see thy son and heir now early down.

MONTAGUEAlas, my liege, my wife is dead tonight:[219]

220

Grief of my son’s exile hath stopped her breath.

What further woe conspires against my age?

PRINCELook and thou shalt see.

MONTAGUEO, thou untaught,[223] what manners is in this?

To press before thy father to a grave?

225

PRINCESeal up the mouth of outrage[225] for awhile,

Till we can clear these ambiguities, ↓The tomb may be closed↓

And know their spring, their head,[227] their true descent,

And then will I be general[228] of your woes,

And lead you even to death.[229] Meantime forbear,

230

And let mischance be slave to[230] patience.—

Bring forth the parties of suspicion.

FRIAR LAURENCEI am the greatest, able to do least,

Yet most suspected, as the time and place

Doth make against[234] me of this direful murder:

235

And here I stand both to impeach and purge

Myself condemnèd and myself excused.[235]

PRINCEThen say at once what thou dost know in this.

FRIAR LAURENCEI will be brief, for my short date of breath[238]

Is not so long as is a tedious tale.

240

Romeo, there dead, was husband to that Juliet,

And she, there dead, that’s Romeo’s faithful wife:

I married them and their stol’n marriage day

Was Tybalt’s doomsday, whose untimely death

Banished the new-made bridegroom from this city,

245

For whom, and not for Tybalt, Juliet pined.

You, to remove that siege of grief from her,

Betrothed and would have married her perforce[247]

To County Paris. Then comes she to me,

And with wild looks bid me devise some means

250

To rid her from this second marriage,

Or in my cell there would she kill herself.

Then gave I her — so tutored by my art[252]—

A sleeping potion, which so took effect

As I intended, for it wrought[254] on her

255

The form of death. Meantime I writ to Romeo

That he should hither come as[256] this dire night

To help to take her from her borrowed grave,

Being the time the potion’s force should cease.

But he which bore my letter, Friar John,

260

Was stayed[260] by accident, and yesternight

Returned my letter back. Then all alone,

At the prefixèd hour of her waking,

Came I to take her from her kindred’s vault,

Meaning to keep her closely[264] at my cell,

265

Till I conveniently could send to Romeo.

But when I came — some minute ere the time

Of her awaking — here untimely lay

The noble Paris and true[268] Romeo dead.

She wakes, and I entreated her come forth,

270

And bear this work of heaven with patience:

But then a noise did scare me from the tomb,

And she, too desperate, would not go with me,

But, as it seems, did violence on herself.

All this I know, and to the marriage

275

Her nurse is privy:[275] and if aught in this

Miscarried by my fault, let my old life

Be sacrificed, some hour before the time,[277]

Unto the rigour of severest law.

PRINCEWe still[279] have known thee for a holy man.—

280

Where’s Romeo’s man? What can he say to this?

BALTHASARI brought my master news of Juliet’s death,

And then in post[282] he came from Mantua

To this same place, to this same monument.

This letter he early bid me give his father, Shows letter

285

And threatened me with death, going in the vault,

If I departed not and left him there.

PRINCEGive me the letter, I will look on it.

Where is the county’s page, that raised the watch?—

Sirrah, what made[289] your master in this place?

290

PAGEHe came with flowers to strew his lady’s grave,

And bid me stand aloof, and so I did:

Anon comes one with light to ope the tomb,

And by and by[293] my master drew on him,

And then I ran away to call the watch.

295

PRINCEThis letter doth make good[295] the friar’s words,

Their course of love, the tidings of her death:

And here he writes that he did buy a poison

Of a poor ’pothecary, and therewithal[298]

Came to this vault to die, and lie with Juliet.

300

Where be these enemies? Capulet, Montague?

See, what a scourge[301] is laid upon your hate,

That heaven finds means to kill your joys[302] with love.

And I for winking at[303] your discords too

Have lost a brace[304] of kinsmen: all are punished.

305

CAPULETO brother Montague, give me thy hand:

This is my daughter’s jointure,[306] for no more

Can I demand.

MONTAGUEBut I can give thee more,

For I will raise[309] her statue in pure gold,

310

That whiles Verona by that name is known,

There shall no figure[311] at such rate be set

As that of true and faithful Juliet.

CAPULETAs rich shall Romeo[313] by his lady lie,

Poor sacrifices of[314] our enmity!

315

PRINCEA glooming[315] peace this morning with it brings,

The sun, for sorrow, will not show his head.

Go hence to have more talk of these sad things:

Some shall be pardoned, and some punishèd,

For never was a story of more woe

320

Than this of Juliet and her Romeo.

Exeunt

Textual Notes

Q1 = First Quarto text of 1597 (of uncertain authority)

Q2 = Second Quarto text of 1599

Q1/Q2 = a reading in which the First Quarto and Second Quarto agree

Q3 = Third Quarto text of 1609

Q4 = Fourth Quarto text of 1622

F = First Folio text of 1623

F2 = a correction introduced in the Second Folio text of 1632

Ed = a correction introduced by a later editor

SD = stage direction

SH = speech heading (i.e., speaker’s name)

List of parts = Ed

Prologue…mend = Q2. Not in F

1.1.22 in = Q1. Not in F 49 swashing = Q4. F = washing 61 SH LADY CAPULET = Ed. F = Wife (or Mo. or Old La. throughout) 65 SH LADY MONTAGUE = Ed. F = 2. Wife 86 further = Q1/Q2. F = Fathers 114 humour = Q2. F = Honor 131 other = Q2. F = others 164 create = Q1. F = created 166 well-seeming = Q4. F = welseeing 203 bide = Q2. F = bid 204 ope = Q2. F = open

1.2.41 are here = Q2. F = are 47 thy = Q2. F = the 56 God…e’en spelled Godgigoden in F 63 daughters = Q2. F = daughter 94 she…show = Q1/Q2. F (uncorrected) = she shew scant shell. F (corrected) = she shall scant shell seems = Q2. F = shewes

1.3.27 eleven = Q2. F = a eleuen 33 should = Q1/Q2. F = shall 34 Jule = Q2. F = Iulet. Q1 = Juliet 35 SH LADY CAPULET = Ed. F = Old La. 47, 48 honour = Q1. F = houre 80 it = Q1. Not in F 84 SH LADY CAPULET = Ed. F = Mo.

1.4.18 so = Q2. F = to 43 in = Q2. F = I 44 light lights = Ed. F = lights lights 46 five = Ed. F = fine 55–93 O…bodes = prose in Q2/F, verse in Q 57 an = Q1/Q2. Not in F 65 film = F2. F = Philome 68 maid = Q1. F = man 74 curtsies spelled Cursies in F 75 dream = Q2. F = dreamed 81 a = Q1/Q2. Not in F 88 ear = Q2. F = eares 92 elflocks = Q1. F = Elk-locks 119 SH CHIEF SERVINGMAN = Ed. F = Ser. 131 SH CAPULET = Ed. F = 1. Capu. 132 a bout = Ed. F = about 140 SD they = Q2. F = the 156 SH CAPULET = Q2 (1. Capu.). F = 3. Cap. 187 this = Q2. F = the 199 my = Q2. F = the 215 ready = Q1. F = did ready 258 wedding = Q1/Q2. F = wedded 266 learned = Q1/Q2. F = learne

2.0.1 SH CHORUS = Ed. Not in F

2.1.8 SH MERCUTIO Nay…too = Q1. Line assigned to Benvolio in F 12 but = Q2. F = me but pronounce = Q1. F = Prouant dove = Q1. F = day 14 heir = Q1. F = her 18 and I = Q2. F = I 27 it there = Q2. F = it 40 open arse and = Ed. F = open, or. Q1 = open Et caetera 65 eye = F. Q1 = eyes 88 nor any other part = Q1. Not in F 89 Belonging…name = Ed. F = O be some other name / Belonging to a man 90 What’s…name? = Q1. F = What? in a names 139 love me = Q2. F = Loue 142 laughs = Q2. F = laught 150 more = Q1. Not in F 156 blessèd moon = Q2. F = Moone 209 toward = Q2. F = toward 214 mine = Q1. Not in F 220 nyas = Ed. F = Neece 239–40 Parting…morrow assigned to Juliet as in Q1. F assigns to Romeo 241 SH ROMEO Sleep…breast! = Q1. F assigns to Juliet

2.2.95 households’ = Q2. F = houshould

2.3.18 minim rests = Q2. F = minum 22 phantasimes = Ed. F = phantacies 34 the = Q2. F = the the 37 good Mercutio = Q2. F = Mercutio 41 curtsy spelled cursie in F 53 Switch spelled Swits in F 62 then well = Q2. F = well 74 for = Q1/Q2. F = or 83, 84 good e’en spelled gooden in F 89 well said = Q2. F = said 128 SH ROMEO = Q1/Q2. F = Nur. 141 stay = Q2. F = stay thou 152 man’s = Q2. F = man 155 see a toad = Q2. F = a see Toade

2.4.11 Is = Q2. F = I 39 leg = Q2. F = legs 42 gentle as = Q2. F = gentle 44 this = Q2. F = this this 51 that = Q2. F = that that not = Q2. F = so

2.5.23 is his = Q2. F = in his 33 such = Q2. F = such such 34 sum up sum spelled sum vp some in F

3.1.22 ribbon spelled Riband in F 57 love = Q2. F = lou’d 62 stoccado spelled stucatho in F 102 Mercutio is = Q1/Q2. F = Mercutio’s is 105 more spelled mo in F 129 prince’s name = Q2. F = Princes names 140 bloody fray = Q2. F = Fray 147 Tybalt = Q2. F = Tybalts 155 agile = Q1. F = aged 173 SH MONTAGUE = Q4. F = Cap. 183 out = Q2. F = our 187 but = Q1/Q2. F = not

3.2.9 By = Q4. F = And by 38 welladay spelled welady in F he’s dead = Q2. F omits third repetition 51 shut spelled shot in F 56 corpse spelled Coarse in F throughout 58 swoonèd spelled sounded in F 62 one spelled on in F 74 SH NURSE = Q1. Assigned to Juliet in F 75 SH JULIET = Q1. Assigned to the Nurse in F 78 Dove-feathered = Ed. F = Rauenous Doue-feather’d 81 damnèd = Q4. F = dimne 99 chide at = Q2. F = chide 112 word = Q2. F = words 125 with = Q2. F = which

3.3.48 Howling = Q2. F = Howlings 52 a little speak = Q2. F = speake 63 dispute = Q1/Q2. F = dispaire 65 I, Juliet thy = Q2. F = Iuliet my 78 will? F here prints a redundant entry direction for the Nurse 99 cancelled = Q1/Q2. F = conceal’d 105 deadly = Q2. F = dead 120 lives = F2. F = lies 144 of = Q1/Q2. F = or blessings = Q1/Q2. F = blessing 146 mishavèd = Q2. F = mishaped 147 pouts upon = Q4. F = puttest vp

3.4.35 very late = Q2. F = late

3.5.21 the = Q1. Not in F 35 light it = Q1/Q2. F = itli ght 36 SD Enter Nurse = Ed. F = Enter Madam and Nurse 66 It is = Q2. F = Is it 86 him = Q4. Not in F 115 that = Q2. F = this 119 thee there = Q2. F = thee 123 woo = Q2. F = woe 139 thy = Q2. F = the 151 hate = Q1/Q2. F = haue 155 And…you? = Q2. Line omitted in F, probably due to compositorial eyeskip 177 gossips = Q2. F = gossip 179 SH CAPULET = Q1. F = Father (printed as part of the dialogue) 180 SH NURSE = Q4. Not in F 182 bowl = Q2. F = bowles 186 tide = Q2. F = ride 219 Alack = Q2. F = Hlacke 248 Is it = Q1/Q2. F = It is

4.1.35 my face = Q2. F = thy face 41 we = Q1/Q2. F = you 48 strains = Q2. F = streames 55 with this = Q2. F = with’ his 76 from = Q1/Q2. F = fro 79 off spelled of in F 84 chapless = Q1. F = chappels 86 tomb = Ed (Q1 = Or lay me in tombe with one new dead). F = graue 101 wanny = Ed. F = many thy = Q2. F = the 102 shuts = Q2. F = shut 117–18 and…waking = Q3. Not in F, due to compositorial eyeskip 123 fear = Q2. F = care

4.3.17 life = Q2. F = fire 50 wake = Q4. F = walke 58 a = Q2. F = my

4.4.15 what is = Q2. F = what 16 SH SERVINGMAN = Q1. F = Fel. 20 SH ANOTHER SERVINGMAN = Q1 (Ser:). F = Fel. 106 should = Q2. F = shouldst 116 us all = Q2. F = all us 130 SH FIRST MUSICIAN = Ed. F = Mu. 137 of woe = Q4. Not in F 137–8 O…me = Q2. Not in F, probably due to compositorial eyeskip 158, 160 Prates = Q2. F = Pratest

5.1.3 lord abbreviated L. in F 4 this day = Q2. F = thisan day 17 SH BALTHASAR = Q1. F = Man. (throughout scene) 19 lives = Q2. F = live 34 No = Q2. F = Mo 35 SD Exit Man = positioned here in Q1, two lines earlier in F 40 a dwells = Q2. F = dwells

5.3.1 aloof = Q2. F = aloft 3 yew = Q1. F = young 19 way = Q2. F = wayes 20 rite spelled right in F 21 SD Balthasar = Q1. F = Peter 40 SH BALTHASAR = Q1. F = Pet. (throughout scene) 60 these = Q2. F = those 71 SH PAGE = Q4. F = Pet. 94 art = Q2. F = are 102–3 Shall…That = Ed. F = I will beleeue, / Shall I beleeue, that 143 Fear = Q2. F = feares 145 yew = Ed. F = young 169 not away = Q2. F = notuaway 172 left = Q2. F = lest 177 SH CONSTABLE = Ed. F = Match. (for Watch., but has Con. at 192 and 196) 179 This is = Q2. F = ’Tis in 180 SH PAGE = Ed. F = Boy. 191 SH SECOND WATCHMAN = Ed. F = Watch 198 morning = Q2. F = mornings 202 our = Q2. F = out 223 is in = Q1/Q2. F = in is 281 SH BALTHASAR = Q2. F = Boy. 311 such = Q2. F = that

Prologue

1    CHORUS this speech, which did not appear in the First Folio, is from the Quarto editions of the play; it is written in the form of a sonnet dignity social status/worth

2    Verona city in northern Italy

3    ancient long-standing mutiny discord

4    civil of citizens (plays on the sense of “civilized”)

5    fatal fateful/deadly

6    star-crossed thwarted by fate (the malign influence of a star or planet) take their life derive life (with sinister play on the sense of “commit suicide”)

7    misadventured unfortunate

9    fearful frightened/fearsome passage progress/passing (playing on the sense of “death”)

11    but but for

12    traffic business

14    miss be found wanting, be unsuccessful

Act 1 Scene 1

1.1   Location: a public place in Verona bucklers small round shields

1    carry coals submit to indignity or insult

2    colliers those who carry coal for sale (a dirty profession and one often associated with cheating)

3    in choler angry (puns on “collier”) draw i.e., our swords (puns on the sense of “carry, haul”)

4    draw…o’th’collar withdraw your neck from the hangman’s noose (collar puns on colliers and choler)

5    strike attack (plays on the sense of “have sex”) moved provoked (plays on the sense of “sexually aroused”)

8    move…stir in addition to “be provoked/become sexually aroused,” both verbs also now signify “move physically, displace oneself” valiant courageous/firm physically stand stand firm/get an erection

10    take the wall take the side of the road nearest the wall (forcing anyone else to walk in the gutter that ran down the center of an Elizabethan street)

12    slave rogue goes…wall are always forced to submit (a proverbial expression)

13    thrust…wall i.e., for sex

16    men male servants, i.e., not women

17    one the same thing

20    maidenheads virginities

22    take understand/receive sexually sense meaning/physical feeling

23    stand remain upright/have an erection pretty…flesh fine fellow/man with a fine penis

25    fish i.e., the opposite of flesh (meat)/a woman or a vagina poor John salted hake, a poor type of food/sexually inadequate, the possessor of a shriveled penis

26    tool sword/penis

27    naked weapon continues the phallic wordplay

28    How what

29    Fear doubt (possibly, Gregory then shifts the sense to an incredulous “be afraid of”)

30    marry by the Virgin Mary

31    of on

32    list please

33    bite my thumb an offensive gesture signifying threat or defiance

49    swashing a particular stroke in fencing/slashing with great force

51    heartless hinds cowardly menials, with a pun on “hartless hinds”—i.e., female deer (hinds) without males (harts)

54    manage use

58    Clubs…partisans rallying cry used to summon armed apprentices bills and partisans long-handled weapons with blades at the end gown dressing gown

60    long sword heavy, old-fashioned sword with a long blade

63    in spite of out of spite/malice for train retinue

67    Profaners…steel you who defile your swords by staining them with your fellow citizens’ blood

69    pernicious destructive

72    mistempered disordered/created for wrongful purposes/wrongly tempered (i.e., made hard) with blood instead of water

73    movèd angry

77    ancient aged/venerable

78    grave beseeming ornaments dignified and seemly accessories/the trappings appropriate to dignified old age

80    Cankered corroded, rusted (with disuse) cankered malignant, infected with evil

82    pay…peace be the price for breaching the peace

86    pleasure intentions, resolution

89    new abroach newly in motion

90    by nearby, present

92    ere before

94    prepared i.e., drawn

97    withal thereby

99    part and part one side and the other

104    forth from forth

105    drave drove abroad out, away from home

107    westward…side grows on the west side of the city

109    ware aware/wary

110    covert shelter/hiding place

111    affections emotions/inclinations

112    then…found were chiefly concerned to find a place of solitude

114    humour mood

115    who he who

121    Aurora goddess of the dawn

122    heavy sorrowful (plays on the sense of “weighty,” generating a play on light—i.e., “bright/not weighty”) son puns on sun

126    Black black/gloomy/deadly humour includes the sense of “bodily fluid thought to affect mood,” in this case the black bile that caused melancholy

129    of it of

130    importuned…means urged him to tell you by every means possible

133    true honest/constant/dependable

134    close secretive, shut up from view

135    sounding having his thoughts fathomed

136    envious malicious worm cankerworm, the plant-destroying grub

143    I…stay I hope that by remaining here you will be fortunate enough

144    shrift confession

145    cousin a general term for a relative or close friend

156    view appearance (Romeo’s reply shifts the sense to “sight”)

157    proof practice, experience

158    muffled Cupid, the Roman god of love, was traditionally depicted as being blind or blindfolded still always

164    create created

165    vanity trifles, foolishness

166    well-seeming apparently orderly

168    Still-waking ever wakeful

176    propagate increase, multiply (perhaps with connotations of sexual reproduction, picked up in pressed which can refer to the pressing of one body on another during sex)

177    love i.e., concern for me

180    purged purified, rid of smoke

181    vexed tormented, afflicted

182    discreet discerning, prudent

183    gall bitterness/poison

184    coz cousin

185    Soft wait a moment

186    An if if

189    sadness seriousness (Romeo’s response plays on the sense of “sorrow”) is that is it that

195    aimed so near i.e., guessed as much

196    mark-man marksman

197    fair mark unobstructed target/attractive vagina hit plays on the sense of “copulated with”

199    Cupid’s arrow playing on phallic connotations Dian’s wit the wisdom and ingenuity of Diana, huntress and Roman goddess of chastity (wit may play on a sense of “genitals”)

200    proof proven impenetrability/armor

201    love’s i.e., Cupid’s, who was traditionally depicted as a young boy uncharmed resistant to Cupid’s spells/unsubdued (some editors emend to the First Quarto’s “unharmed”)

202    stay endure

203    bide undergo, suffer encounter assault/sexual engagement

204    ope…gold a reference to Danae, whom Jove, Roman king of the gods, seduced in the form of a shower of gold lap vagina

206    That…store i.e., when she dies unmarried, her beauty will die forever as she has had no children store wealth/stock/potential to reproduce

207    still always

208    sparing thrift, economy waste puns on “waist,” generating the paradoxical image of a pregnant belly resulting from chastity

209    starved killed off

211    fair beautiful/just

212    merit…despair deserve heaven (through her chastity) by casting me into despair (with its attendant risks of damnation) despair spiritual hopelessness (thought to precede suicide)

213    forsworn to abandoned, repudiated

219    ’Tis…more that would only lead me to reflect on her exquisite beauty even more (to “call in question” means “to consider or examine”)

221    happy fortunate masks worn by ladies to protect their fashionably pale complexions from the sun

223    strucken struck

225    passing surpassingly, exceedingly

226    note marginal note/sign/reminder

227    passed surpassed

229    pay that doctrine i.e., give you that lesson

Act 1 Scene 2

1.2   Location: a public place in Verona County Count Clown a rustic, comic character

1    bound formally required (to keep the peace)

4    reckoning estimation, reputation

6    suit request/courtship

7    saying o’er repeating

9    change passage

10    pride prime, fullest flowering (may play on the sense of “sexual desire/tumescence”)

13    marred damaged (puns on “married”) made puns on “maid”

14    Earth…she i.e., his other children are dead and buried

15    hopeful promising/expectant earth world/body, from which she has sprung/land, which she will inherit

16    gentle noble

18    An if

19    according agreeing

20    old accustomed traditional

22    store plentiful company

26    comfort enjoyment, pleasure lusty lively/lustful

27    well-apparelled finely dressed

29    fennel a fragrant herb with yellow flowers, sometimes associated with love

30    Inherit possess

32    Which…none which being the case, you may find that when you have viewed the ladies more thoroughly, my daughter, being but one among a number of them, may make up part of the group, but be found to be worthy of no real consideration; some editors emend “one more view” to the Fourth Quarto’s “on more view”

33    reck’ning estimation/consideration/counting up

34    sirrah sir, often used to address a social inferior

37    stay wait

38    it…nets in assigning the wrong tools to each tradesman, the Servingman, who cannot read, suggests that it is pointless for him to have been given the task of identifying those who appear on a written list; his words parody a passage from John Lyly’s Euphues, the Anatomy of Wit

39    meddle concern himself/interfere/have sex yard measuring rod used by a tailor/penis last wooden model of the foot, used by a shoemaker to mold shoes upon/penis

40    pencil paintbrush/penis

42    in good time I must do this promptly/here comes help just at the right moment

43    another’s i.e., another fire’s

45    holp helped backward turning turning in the reverse direction

46    another’s languish i.e., the languishing caused by another’s grief

49    plaintain herb used to ease minor cuts or bruises

51    broken grazed

53    bound…madman conventional treatments for madness included tying up the sufferer and confining him in darkness

55    e’en evening (used for any time after noon)

56    gi’ give you

58    without book by heart

61    rest you merry i.e., goodbye (the Servingman understands Romeo to imply that he cannot read)

67    whither where

75    crush drink

77    ancient long-established

80    unattainted unbiased/uninfected

84    Maintains upholds falsehood untruth/faithlessness/deception

85    these i.e., my eyes (which cannot drown however often they are flooded with tears)

86    Transparent clear (like eyes)/obvious and easily detected (like heretics) heretics holders of unorthodox religious beliefs; those suspected of heresy or witchcraft were tested by being thrown into water, if they floated they were considered guilty and might be burnt at the stake

90    poised balanced, weighed

92    Your lady’s love the love you bear your lady/the negligible amount of love your lady may bear you

94    scant scarcely

96    splendour the brilliant light mine own i.e., the sight of my own Rosaline

Act 1 Scene 3

1.3 Location: the Capulets’ house, Verona

2    by…old the Nurse cannot swear to having been a virgin at thirteen

3    What an expression of impatience

4    God forbid either an apologetic exclamation for the fact that ladybird, as well as being a term of endearment, could also mean “lewd woman,” or an expression of concern for Juliet’s well-being

8    give leave give us leave (i.e., leave us alone)

10    thou’s thou shalt

11    pretty fair/proper

14    teen sorrow (punning on the suffix of fourteen)

15    Lammas-tide August, 1 the harvest festival

17    Even…‘Ay’ all the early texts print this speech as prose, though it has some verse rhythms within it, which have led many editors to set it as verse; the same goes for the Nurse’s remaining speeches in the scene Even or odd the Nurse has misunderstood Lady Capulet’s sense of odd (i.e., a few) Lammas…night the evening of July 31

18    Susan the Nurse’s dead daughter

22    laid…dug applied the bitter-tasting plant wormwood to my breast (as a means of weaning the baby)

24    Mantua city in northern Italy bear a brain i.e., have a good memory

25    fool a term of endearment

26    ‘Shake’…dovehouse i.e., the dovehouse shook as a result of the earthquake/the shaking of the dovehouse instructed the Nurse tostir herself quoth said trow am sure

27    trudge depart, walk off

28    th’rood Christ’s cross

29    broke banged, grazed A he

31    fall backward i.e., for sex wit understanding

32    holidam holiness/what I consider holy

33    come about come true warrant assure you

34    stinted stopped (crying)

37    it its

38    stone testicle

41    say I puns on said ‘Ay’

42    mark…grace single you out for mercy

43    once one day

46    disposition inclination

49    thy teat the breast that fed you

53    much…years at much the same age

56    man of wax i.e., perfect, as if modeled from wax

64    several individual, separate (an apparently purposeful Folio emendation of Quarto’s “married lineament”) lineament facial feature (playing on the sense of “line or sketch”)

65    content happiness, satisfaction (plays on the sense of “contents of a volume“)

67    margent margin (which might contain additional commentary)

68    unbound unmarried/without a book’s binding

69    cover plays on the notion of “embracing wife” and puns on the phrase “feme covert” (a wife)

71    the…hide the fish is in his element within the confines of the sea, and it is an excellent thing for a beautiful exterior to cover and compliment the beauty that lies within

72    book binding

73    clasps fastenings on a book/embraces

76    women…men i.e., in pregnancy

77    like of be pleased by

78    look expect/use my eyes liking move may generate liking

79    endart mine eye gaze piercingly as if firing one of Cupid’s arrows

83    straight straightaway

84    county count (i.e., Paris) stays awaits

Act 1 Scene 4

1.4   Location: near the Capulets’ house; the action then shifts indoors Masquers masked performers

1    speech…excuse traditionally one of the masquers would make a speech excusing the group’s intrusion and complimenting the company

3    The…prolixity such long-windedness is out of fashion

4    Cupid i.e., boy dressed as Cupid who would deliver the speech for the masquers hoodwinked blindfolded

5    Tartar’s…lath imitation bow made out of a narrow strip of wood and painted to look like the powerful lip-shaped bow of a Tartar (person from central Asia)

6    crow-keeper scarecrow

7    measure judge

8    measure…measure mete out a dance to them/pace out a dance

9    ambling affected way of walking or dancing

10    heavy melancholy (plays on the sense of “weighty,” enabling Romeo to pun on light)

16    common bound ordinary limit (bound puns on the senses of “leap in a dance” and “state of being shackled”)

17    enpiercèd pierced through shaft arrow

18    bound fastened down/imprisoned

19    pitch degree/height (literally, highest point of a falcon’s flight) dull heavy/dim/gloomy

21    And…love plays on the senses of “and if you penetrated your lover sexually you would weigh her down with your body/and if you lost your erection during sex you would disappoint your lover”

22    oppression misfortune/physical pressure thing plays on sense of “vagina” (Romeo then shifts the punning sense to “penis”)

24    rude harsh/turbulent/vulgar/large and coarse boist’rous painful to the feelings/turbulent/stiff (with sexual connotations) pricks plays on sense of “penetrates, thrusts like a penis”

26    Prick wound, stab/penetrate sexually/stimulate sexually (i.e.,, masturbate) for in return for beat love down get the better of love/get rid of your erection

27    case mask

28    visor…visor mask for a face/mask for a face so ugly it resembles a grotesque mask

29    quote take note of

30    beetle brows bushy or overhanging eyebrows (on the mask)

32    betake…legs i.e., dance

33    wantons lively/promiscuous people light of heart carefree/promiscuous

34    Tickle plays on sense of “stimulate sexually” senseless lacking feeling rushes commonly used to cover floors heels often associated with sexual license

35    proverbed…phrase furnished with an old proverb

36    I’ll…on may refer to the proverb “a good candle-holder proves a good gamester” (i.e., one is better off as a spectator)

37    The…done refers to the proverb “when play is at the best, it is time to leave”

38    dun’s…word a reference to the quiet and hidden nature of a dun mouse, hence “be still,” the sort of cautionary phrase a constable might utter dun gray-brown; puns on done

39    draw…mire refers to the game “Dun is in the mire” in which players heave a horse called Dun, represented by a heavy log, out of imaginary mud

40    save your reverence if you’ll excuse my language

41    burn daylight waste time (Romeo interprets this literally and disagrees on the grounds that it is nighttime)

45    Take…wits understand my true meaning, for good sense is five times more likely tobe found there (through the use of reason) than in the exercise of the senses

47    mean intend (playing on Mercutio’s sense of “signify”)

48    wit wisdom

50    tonight last night

55    Queen Mab possibly from the Celtic fairy queen “Mabh,” but queen puns on “quean” (i.e., prostitute) and mab could also mean “promiscuous woman”

57    agate-stone precious stone often set in a ring and carved with tiny figures

58    alderman influential member of a local council

59    atomies creatures as tiny as atoms

61    spinners spiders

63    traces straps linking the collar round an animal’s neck to the crossbar of the chariot

65    lash flexible cord of the whip film fine gossamer-like thread

66    wagoner driver

67    worm…maid worms were said to breed in the fingers of lazy maids

70    joiner skilled craftsman who works in wood grub insect larva or worm that bores holes

74    curtsies bows straight straightaway

78    sweetmeats candied fruit/confectionary

80    smelling…suit finding someone with a petition to present at court from whom he may claim a fee for his assistance

81    tithe-pig pig given to the parson as part of the tithe (the tenth of one’s goods due to the Church annually)

83    another benefice additional Church position (with property and income)

86    breaches gaps in fortifications inflicted by artillery ambuscadoes ambushes Spanish blades Spanish swords, especially those made in Toledo, were famed for being of superior quality

87    healths five-fathom deep toasts drunk from extremely deep glasses anon shortly

92    bakes stiffens/forms into a mass elflocks tangles (which superstition held to be the work of elves)

94    hag evil spirit in female form (here the incubus that presses on sleepers and causes nightmares or erotic dreams)

95    learns teaches bear bear the weight of a man/bear children

96    carriage deportment/ability to carry a burden (i.e., a man or a baby)

99    nothing plays on the sense of “vagina”

102    Begot conceived, created vain worthless, empty, idle

107    Turning his side changing direction/changing allegiance

110    misgives fears/is full of foreboding about

112    fearful fear-inspiring date appointed time

113    expire cause to expire term duration/agreed period for repayment (Romeo has mortgaged his life)

115    forfeit penalty/loss

118    drum drummer

119    take away i.e., clear the table

120    trencher wooden plate

121    manners may quibble on the Latin manuarius to suggest “belonging to the hand”

122    foul bad/dirty

123    joint-stools stools made of parts fitted together by a joiner court-cupboard sideboard

124    plate silver or gold tableware marchpane marzipan

125    Grindstone like Potpan, a name that suggests the character has a domestic function, though Grindstone, used to sharpen knives, may additionally be sexually suggestive (“to grind” had a slang sense of “to have sex,” a “stone” could also mean a “testicle”)

129    Cheerly cheerily

130    the…all a proverb equivalent to “the winner takes all”

132    walk a bout dance a round

134    deny refuse makes dainty is coyly reluctant

135    Am…now? Have I touched a sensitive spot/hit home with this?

141    A hall i.e., clear the hall

142    turn…up clear the tables to one side, probably by removing the boards from trestle tables

144    sirrah sir (used to a social inferior, here either a servant, younger male guest, Capulet himself or, affectionately, the cousin) unlooked-for unexpected

149    By’r lady by Our Lady (the Virgin Mary)

152    Pentecost Whit Sunday (the seventh Sunday after Easter)

157    ward minor under the control of a guardian (i.e., under twenty-one)

163    Ethiope’s Ethiopian’s

164    Beauty possibly puns on “booty” use plays on sense of “financial interest” earth life on earth/death and burial dear beloved/costly

167    her…stand where she stands

168    rude rough/uncivilized

169    Forswear it deny it/renounce my former vows of love (to Rosaline)

172    rapier lightweight sword

173    antic grotesque (refers to Romeo’s mask)

174    fleer mock, laugh scornfully solemnity celebration

175    stock ancestry

184    portly of good bearing/dignified

192    semblance appearance

196    goodman boy a contemptuous and belittling expression goodman a man below the rank of gentleman go to an expression of impatience and reproof

198    God…soul an oath

200    set cock-a-hoop behave recklessly/provoke disorder be the man play the big man

203    saucy insolent

204    scathe injure I know what I assure you/I know how much

205    contrary contradict, defy time i.e., time you complied/time you were taught a lesson/time I concerned myself with my guests

206    said done hearts fine friends (i.e., the guests) princox conceited, impertinent youth

209    perforce enforced choler anger

210    different antagonistic, clashing

213    profane desecrate, defile

214    shrine i.e., Juliet’s hand

218    mannerly…this shows proper devotion in this action

219    saints i.e., images of saints

220    palmers pilgrims who have traveled to the Holy Land and returned with a palm leaf as a symbol of their visit (playing on palm of the hand)

224    grant thou you must concede/grant their prayers

225    move entreat, pray (Romeo shifts the sense to “change position”)

229    urged argued/provoked

231    by th’book expertly, by the rules/religiously, in accordance with the Bible

233    What who

234    bachelor young man

237    withal with

238    lay hold of with sexual connotations

239    the chinks lots of money (plays on sense of “vagina”)

241    dear account costly debt, heavy reckoning (dear puns on sense of “beloved”) my foe’s debt a debt I owe to my foe

242    the…best another allusion to the proverb “when play is at the best, it is time to leave”

245    banquet light meal/course of sweetmeats, fruit, and wine towards ready, imminent

247    honest honorable

249    fay faith

251    yond yonder, that

258    like likely

263    Prodigious abnormal (used to describe a deformed baby)/ill-omened

268    Anon coming, just a minute

Act 2

2    gapes waits eagerly

3    fair beauty (i.e., Rosaline) groaned…die perhaps with sexual connotations (“to die” can mean “to orgasm”)

4    matched compared

5    again in return

6    Alike both equally looks physical appearance/gazes

7    foe supposed i.e., Juliet complain make a lover’s laments

8    fearful frightening

10    use are accustomed

14    Temp’ring extremities modifying severe hardships

Act 2 Scene 1

2.1   Location: outside the Capulets’ walled orchard; the action then shifts to the orchard itself

1    go forward move on, leave

2    earth i.e., his body centre i.e., heart/Juliet

6    orchard garden/land devoted to herbs and fruit trees

8    conjure summon him with an incantation as one would a spirit

9    Humours (creature of) moods

11    rhyme i.e., verse of love poetry

13    gossip old friend Venus Roman goddess of love

14    purblind blind

15    Abraham Cupid i.e., one who is both young and old, and a patriarch like the biblical Abraham

16    King…beggar-maid the tale of the African King Cophetua, who fell in love with a beggar, was popularized in a ballad

18    The…dead probably refers to performing apes who played dead as part of an act (ape is also an affectionate term)

22    demesnes lands (i.e., the vaginal area)

26    raise a spirit summon a supernatural spirit/get an erect penis circle magic circle/vagina

27    strange supernatural/belonging to someone other than Romeo stand continues to play on the idea of having an erection

28    laid…down subdued the spirit/provided sex and caused the erection to subside

29    spite vexation

30    honest honorable (plays on the sense of “chaste”)

33    consorted with associated with/part of (plays on the sense of “sexually intimate with”) humorous damp/subject to varying moods

35    hit the mark strike the target/penetrate the vagina

36    medlar fruit with a deep hollow at the top, hence a slang term for the vagina (also puns on “meddler”—i.e., “fornicator”)

39    O another vaginal pun

40    open arse medlar fruit, with obvious sexual sense pop’rin pear pear from Poperinghe in Flanders and a slang term for the penis; puns on “pop her in” (where “her” signifies “it”)

41    truckle-bed small wheeled bed stored under a larger bed

42    field-bed bed on the ground above i.e., on the upper staging level or gallery; the entry, or the sight of Juliet, might be delayed until “It is my lady”

51    maid votary (of Diana, Roman goddess of the moon and chastity)

53    vestal livery virginal clothing

62    spheres orbits; stars and planets were thought to be contained within transparent concentric spheres that rotated around the earth

74    glorious magnificent/illustrious/shining

76    white upturnèd looking upwards, so that the whites of the eyes are visible

80    wherefore why

86    though even if you were

93    owes owns

94    doff cast off

95    for in exchange for

100    bescreened concealed

101    counsel private thoughts

115    o’er-perch flyover

122    proof impervious/armored

125    but unless

127    proroguèd postponed wanting of lacking

130    counsel advice, guidance

131    pilot navigator, one who directs the course of a ship

137    Fain willingly form formality, decorum

138    compliment etiquette

142    Jove Jupiter, Roman king of the gods

143    pronounce declare

146    So so long as else otherwise

147    fond loving/infatuated/foolish

148    light frivolous/forward/unchaste

150    coying coyness, affected reluctance strange aloof, reserved

152    ware aware (of you)

155    Which which yielding discoverèd revealed

159    circlèd orb i.e., celestial sphere

163    gracious full of divine grace

168    contract i.e., mutual declarations of love

177    satisfaction may pick up on the sense of “sexual satisfaction”

180    were were mine

182    frank generous/candid

184    bounty generosity

194    bent intention, inclination

203    strife antagonism/strivings, efforts

207    want lack

210    Hist a whispered call for attention

211    tassel-gentle tiercel gentle, a male falcon

212    Bondage is hoarse i.e., one who is confined can only whisper

213    Echo in Greek mythology, Echo, rejected by Narcissus, pined away in caves until only her voice was left

220    nyas young hawk (which has yet to fly)

226    to in order to still yet/always (Romeo plays with these meanings and with the sense of “motionless”)

231    wanton’s spoiled child’s

233    gyves fetters

245    fleckled dappled

246    From forth away from, out of Titan Roman sun god, who drove the sun across the heavens in a chariot

247    ghostly holy, spiritual close cell humble dwelling, especially that of a monk

248    dear hap good fortune (though dear may quibble ominously on “dire, grievous”)

Act 2 Scene 2

2.2   Location: near Friar Laurence’s cell, Verona

3    fleckled dappled

4    From forth away from, out of Titan Roman sun god, who drove the sun across the heavens in a chariot

5    advance raise

7    osier cage willow basket

8    baleful deadly

11    divers various

14    None…some there are none that do not have some useful properties

15    mickle great grace beneficent virtue

19    aught anything strained forced

25    that part i.e., its smell

26    slays some editors prefer the Second Quarto’s “stays” with along with

27    them still themselves always

30    canker worm that destroys plants

32    Benedicite! Bless you!

34    argues suggests distempered disordered, unhappy

36    Care worry

39    couch lay, rest

53    physic medicine, healing

54    lo look (a common speech marker)

55    intercession petition, entreaty steads helps

56    rest homely remain simple drift meaning/aim

57    shrift absolution

75    old former/abundant

80    sentence maxim, saying

82    chid’st rebuked

84    bad’st bade, instructed

88    grace favor

91    read by rote recite by memory, without understanding

93    In one respect for one reason

96    stand insist/depend

Act 2 Scene 3

2.3   Location: a public place in Verona

2    tonight last night

3    man servant

9    answer it accept the challenge (in the following line Mercutio plays on the literal meaning)

11    dared challenged

13    eye plays on sense of “vagina” pin wooden peg at the center of a target (plays on sense of “penis”)

14    blind bow-boy’s i.e., Cupid’s butt-shaft strong unbarbed arrow (in archery used for shooting at the butt, a mound on which the target stood)

16    prince of cats an allusion to Tybert, the cat in the moral tale Reynard the Fox captain of compliments master of the fastidious etiquette of dueling

17    prick-song written music rests…rests pauses very briefly (between feinting thrusts), like a musician pausing momentarily between very short notes

18    third i.e., third thrust (the genuine one) butcher…button i.e., so precise he can pierce his opponent’s button

19    first house best fencing school first…cause in the rules of fencing, the two valid reasons for undertaking a duel

20    passado forward thrust with one foot advanced punto reverso backhanded thrust hay penetrating thrust

22    The pox of a plague upon affecting affected, pretentious phantasimes fanciful, extravagant men these…accent those whose speech is peppered with fashionable foreign phrases/those who pronounce words in an affected manner or with a foreign inflection

23    blade sword/fine fellow tall brave/fine

24    grandsire Mercutio addresses an imaginary old man or grandfather

25    strange flies bizarre or foreign parasites stand insist (plays on the literal sense)

26    form code of behavior, etiquette (plays on sense of bench) old bench i.e., traditional behavior and customs their bones i.e., their bones are so tender they cannot sit on a hard bench/their bones are corrupted from venereal disease (plays on the way such men fill their speech with foreign words, here the French bon, i.e., “good”)

29    roe female deer/semen—i.e., he is sexually exhausted (plays on the first syllable of Romeo’s name, leaving “me, o,” the lament of a lover) dried herring withered penis (roe was removed from the herring during the curing process) flesh plays on sense of “penis/erection” fishified made fishlike, i.e., coldblooded/dried out (impotent)/obsessed with your mistress’ vagina

30    numbers…in the Italian poet Petrarch wrote passionate verse (numbers) to his love Laura flowed in wrote fluently/overflowed in/swam in to compared to

31    better love i.e., Petrarch Dido the legendary Queen of Carthage who committed suicide after her lover Aeneas deserted her dowdy shabbily dressed woman

32    Cleopatra Egyptian queen of the first century BC who committed suicide after the loss of her kingdom and the death of her lover Antony Helen and Hero the famously beautiful Helen of Troy, and Hero, lover of Leander, who committed suicide when he drowned swimming the Hellespont to see her hildings good-for-nothings/whores Thisbe the lover of Pyramus committed suicide after his death grey considered a particularly beautiful eye color

33    not nothing bon jour “good day” (French) to…slop to match your French-style loose breeches

34    the counterfeit i.e., the slip (a counterfeit coin was known as a slip)

36    conceive understand, work it out

37    case situation (Mercutio then shifts the sense to “vagina”)

39    bow…hams bow from the waist (playing on courtesy, a form of curtsy)/ hunch over after a heavy bout of sexual activity or with the pain of venereal disease hams thighs and buttocks

41    curtsy bow

42    kindly hit it readily got it/naturally had sex

44    very pink most excellent example (Romeo plays on the fact that a pink is a type of flower and on the verb “to pink” (i.e., to ornament a pump or garment by punching small holes or designs into it)

47    pump light shoe flowered decorated with flowers/pinked

48    Sure sure-footed, secure follow me follow (me is emphatic)

49    single only/thin sole singular uniquely individual/alone

51    single-soled…singleness slight, poor jest, only noteworthy for the fact that there is only one of it/that it is simple

53    Switch and spurs i.e., urge your wits on switch whip cry a match declare the contest is over/declare my victory

54    wild-goose chase horse race in which the leading rider chose the course and the others were obliged to follow him anywhere/a pointless pursuit of the wild-goose i.e., foolishness (geese were proverbially stupid)

55    Was…goose? Have I evened the score with my jest about the goose?

57    for the goose as a stupid person/in search of a prostitute

61    sweeting sweet apple sharp sauce biting riposte/stinging impudence/bitter sauce for food

62    And…goose? Romeo may allude to the proverb “sweet meat must have sour sauce”; he may also shift the sense of sauce to “semen,” so that served plays on the sense of sexual service, and goose continues to play on the sense of “prostitute”

63    wit plays on sense of “penis” cheverel easily stretched kid leather ell forty-five inches/penis

66    broad large/obvious/outspoken/indecent (may pun on “brood-goose” and on “abroad,” i.e., out and about)

69    drivelling tedious/dribbling natural idiot, fool lolling with tongue (or bauble) hanging out

70    bauble baton with a carved head on one end traditionally carried by a fool/penis (fools were supposed to be particularly well-endowed) hole plays on the sense of “vagina”

71    there i.e., now, at this point in your jesting (but Mercutio plays on the sense of “in the hole”)

72    stop in cease telling/stuff in tale puns on “tail,” i.e., penis against the hair against my wish/up against the pubic hair

73    large long/vulgar/erect

74    short plays on the sense of “flaccid, no longer erect” was…depth had reached the conclusion/had achieved orgasm (whole puns on hole)

75    occupy continue/have sex with argument topic (almost certainly plays on a sense of “vagina”)

76    goodly gear applies either to the joke (“good stuff” quibbling on the sense of “fine genitals”) or to the nurse (“fine clothing/good new matter for a joke”) A sail the cry given when a ship is sighted (here a reference to the Nurse’s appearance or manner of approach)

77    shirt…smock i.e., man and a woman

85    hand of the clock (plays on the sense of “human hand”) prick mark on the clock face indicating the hour/penis

87    Out upon you! expression of indignant reproach What what kind of

88    that…mar i.e., though made in God’s image, such a man will ruin it through sin

89    troth faith quoth a said he

92    fault lack

95    took taken, interpreted

96    confidence malapropism for “conference”/private conversation

97    indite intentional malapropism for “invite” supper also euphemistic for sex

98    bawd hare/procurer, pimp So ho! a hunting cry given when game is sighted

100    hare plays on the sense of “prostitute” Lenten pie pie consumed during Lent when meat-eating was prohibited (in theory such a pie should be meatless so this hare pie may be a leftover or one made of old meat that has been obtained illicitly; pie was also a slang term for the vagina) stale plays on the sense of “prostitute”

101    hoar moldy, old (puns on “whore”) be spent used up, eaten/employed sexually

104    meat plays on sense of “sexual goods/vagina”

105    hoar the word now takes on sense of “syphilitic”

106    too…score not worth paying for/not worth having sex with

107    hoars becomes moldy/is diseased/infects with venereal disease

111    merchant fellow ropery roguery/trickery/Iewdness

113    stand to uphold, abide by (plays on the idea of sustaining an erection)

114    An a if he take him down humble him, take him down a peg or two (plays on sense of “quell his erection”) lustier livelier/more lustful

115    Jacks knaves (and possibly “penises”)

116    flirt-gills loose women, whores skains-mates a “skene” is a dagger, hence “knife-wielding companions/whores” (literally, the sheath for his phallic dagger)

117    use…pleasure treat me as he wishes (Peter plays on the sense of “have sex with me”)

118    weapon sword/penis

121    part with vaginal connotations

126    deal double with deceive/betray sexually (“to deal” was to have sex)

127    weak poor, contemptible

128    protest declare/vow

131    mark listen to

135    shrift confession

137    shrived absolved

143    cords…stair a rope ladder

144    top-gallant highest point (literally the platform at the top of the tallest mast on a ship)

146    quit requite, reward

150    secret trustworthy

151    ‘Two…away’ proverbial saying meaning that two may keep a secret in the absence of a third party

152    Warrant thee be assured

154    prating chattering, babbling fain…aboard willingly lay a claim to her (from the practice of bringing one’s own knife to the dinner table, or “board,” and using it to mark one’s place); to “lay aboard” could also refer to boarding a vessel, and plays on the sense of sexual boarding (knife has phallic connotations)

155    as lief rather, as soon

156    properer finer/better-looking

157    clout piece of cloth/sail versal whole (from “universal”)

158    rosemary the herb symbolized fidelity and remembrance, and was used at weddings and funerals

160    dog’s name because “r” sounds like a dog’s growl R is for the—the Nurse may be about to say “arse”

161    sententious malapropism for “sentences,” i.e., maxims

166    apace quickly

Act 2 Scene 4

2.4   Location: either the Capulets’ house or their garden

4    lame slow/unsatisfactory herald messenger

6    louring frowning, darkened

7    nimble-pinioned…love Venus, the Roman goddess of love, had a chariot drawn by swift-winged doves

14    bandy toss (to and fro, like a ball in tennis)

26    jaunt tiring, troublesome journey

36    stay the circumstance wait for the details

38    simple foolish

49    Beshrew curse

53    honest honorable

59    God’s lady the Virgin Mary

60    hot eager/fervent/impatient (with a play on the sense of “lustful”) come up expression of indignant surprise and reproof

61    poultice hot preparation applied to the skin to soothe aches

63    coil fuss

66    hie hurry

68    wanton unrestrained/lively/sexually passionate

72    bird’s nest i.e., Juliet’s room (bird plays on the sense of “young woman” and nest on the sense of “vagina”)

74    bear the burden do the work/bear the weight of Romeo’s body

Act 2 Scene 5

2.5   Location: Friar Laurence’s cell

4    countervail counterbalance

6    close join

10    powder gunpowder

11    consume are destroyed (with a play on sexual consummation)

13    confounds ruins

17    flint i.e., stone floor

18    gossamers fine cobwebs

19    wanton playful

20    light not heavy/worthless vanity transitory worldly joy

22    thank thee i.e., with a kiss

23    As…much i.e., I must kiss him in return or I shall have been overpaid

25    that if

26    blazon describe/proclaim

27    music’s tongue i.e., Juliet’s voice and words

28    imagined i.e., not yet expressed

29    in either from one another

30    Conceit imagination/idea/understanding matter genuine substance

31    ornament i.e., descriptive words

34    sum up sum calculate the total

Act 3 Scene 1

3.1   Location: a public place in Verona

3    scape escape

6    claps me claps (me is emphatic)

7    by…cup by the time his second drink has taken effect draws…drawer draws his sword on the innkeeper

10    Jack knave mood anger

11    moved provoked tobe at being

13    two puns on to

18    meat edible matter addle rotten/muddled, confused

21    doublet close-fitting jacket with a flared base Easter i.e., the time after Lent when new clothes were worn

22    from to avoid

23    fee-simple absolute possession (term relating to property)

24    for…quarter i.e., were he so quarrelsome, his life would be over very soon

25    simple foolish

34    consort’st associate with (Mercutio deliberately interprets this as “play in a musical group, or consort”)

35    minstrels musicians

36    look expect

40    coldly calmly

45    your livery the uniform of your servant (Mercutio has deliberately interpreted man as “manservant”)

46    go…field should you go to the dueling field follower manservant/pursuer

51    excuse…greeting excuse me from displaying the rage that is the appropriate response to such a greeting

57    devise conceive

59    tender value/cherish

62    Alla stoccado Italian fencing term meaning “at the thrust” (here a reference to Tybalt) carries it away wins the day

63    will you walk are you leaving/will you walk aside with me (for a duel)

65    make bold withal take liberties with

66    as…hereafter depending on how you treat me subsequently dry-beat beat severely (without using a sword)

67    pilcher scabbard

71    passado forward thrust with one foot advanced

73    forbear stop

75    bandying exchanging blows

76    Hold desist

78    sped gone, dispatched

82    villain rogue/servant

85    grave serious, dignified/dead and buried

86    peppered done for, ruined

88    by…arithmetic by the fencing manual/precisely

95    ally relative

96    very true

101    temper disposition (plays on the sense of “hardness of a sword after it has been tempered, i.e., heated and immersed in water”)

103    aspired ascended to

105    more i.e., future depend hang over

106    others i.e., other days

109    respective lenity considerate mercy, discriminating mildness

110    conduct guide

116    consort associate with

118    This i.e., his sword

121    amazed overwhelmed/stunned/bewildered doom sentence

123    fool dupe/plaything/jester

129    charge order

131    discover reveal

132    unlucky unfortunate/ill-omened manage conduct fatal deadly/fateful

135    cousin a general term for a relative

143    nice trivial withal moreover

146    take truce make peace spleen fiery temper

147    tilts thrusts

150    with… other Mercutio is fighting with a dagger in one hand, with which he deflects blows, and a sword in the other, with which he attacks

153    Retorts returns

157    envious malicious

158    stout brave

159    by and by immediately

166    Affection partiality/love

178    interest plays on the sense of “legal claim” proceeding plays on the sense of “legal action”

179    My blood Mercutio was the prince’s relative

180    amerce punish

183    purchase out abuses redeem these wrongs

187    Mercy…kill i.e., leniency merely encourages murder

Act 3 Scene 2

3.2   Location: the Capulets’ house

1    apace swiftly

2    Phoebus Greek god of the sun, whose chariot was drawn by fiery horses lodging i.e., the west, where the sun sets

3    Phaethon Phoebus’ son, who, unable to control his father’s chariot, was felled by one of Zeus’ thunderbolts when he burned part of the earth

5    close private/secretive/enclosing

6    runaway’s i.e., Phaethon’s/any roaming fugitive’s/a night wanderer’s wink close

10    civil soberly dressed/grave/seemly

12    learn teach lose…match Juliet will win Romeo by surrendering to him

13    maidenhoods virginities (those of Juliet and Romeo)

14    Hood cover up, blindfold (as a hawk was when it was not pursuing game) unmanned untrained (another term from falconry; plays on the sense of “without a husband”) bating fluttering impatiently (used of a hawk; puns on “beating”)

15    strange new, unfamiliar/reserved, shy

21    die may play on the sense of “orgasm”

27    possessed with sexual connotations (like enjoyed) cords i.e., the rope ladder

38    welladay expression of sorrow

39    undone ruined

41    envious malicious/full of ill will at Juliet’s happiness

49    cockatrice basilisk, a mythical reptile with a gaze that could kill

51    those eyes shut i.e., Romeo’s eyes, shut in death

53    weal well-being

55    God…mark an apologetic exclamation excusing the mention of unpleasant matters

58    gore-blood congealing blood

59    break plays on the sense of “become financially ruined”

61    earth i.e., her body resign surrender (yourself) motion movement, i.e., life (plays on sense of “strong emotion”)

62    bier stretcher-like structure on which a corpse is carried to the grave

68    lord husband

69    trumpet i.e., the last trumpet, the sound of which, according to the Bible, would announce the end of the world

76    keep live in

80    Just exact (justly shifts the sense to “truly, rightfully”)

83    bower shelter/lodge

90    dissemblers deceivers

91    aqua vitae strong alcoholic drink (literally “water of life”)

102    poor my lord my poor lord

107    tributary serving as an offering or tribute (playing on the sense of “streamlike”)

121    needly of necessity ranked accompanied/drawn up in rows (like soldiers)

123    Thy…mother i.e., news of one of their deaths

124    modern…moved might have provoked ordinary sorrow

125    rearward rearguard action (“ward” puns on “word”)

130    word’s death word’s fatal nature (or possibly “word is death”) sound give voice to/measure the depth of

136    beguiled deceived, foiled

143    wot know

Act 3 Scene 3

3.3   Location: Friar Laurence’s cell

1    fearful full of fear

2    parts personal or physical qualities

4    doom judgment

10    doomsday Judgment Day, the end of the world (i.e., death)

11    vanished was expelled, issued into thin air

18    without outside of

20    Hence banishèd banished from here

21    world’s exile exile from the world

26    Thy…death legally, the crime that you have committed requires the death penalty

27    rushed forced

34    validity worth

35    courtship courtliness/wooing

36    carrion-flies flies that feed on rotting flesh

39    vestal virginal

40    their own kisses the fact that they naturally touch one another

45    mean method mean lowly, base

46    But…Banishèd the sequence of clauses is confusing here, suggesting some textual error, perhaps due to undeleted authorial first thoughts; Folio omits a Second Quarto line, “They are freemen, but I am banishèd,” whereas it should perhaps have deleted this line instead

49    divine clergyman

52    fond foolish (plays on sense of “loving”)

57    Yet still Hang up hang

59    Displant uproot

63    dispute reason, talk estate situation

64    that that which

67    Doting loving madly

75    taken arrested

77    simpleness foolishness

85    even exactly case state (the nurse unintentionally plays on the sense of “vagina”)

86    sympathy unity, affinity

89    stand unconscious play on “get an erection” (rise has the same connotations) an if

91    O groan (plays on sense of “vagina”)

93    Death plays on sense of “orgasm”

95    old practiced, experienced

99    cancelled invalidated, nullified (puns on concealed)

102    on Romeo cries calls upon Romeo/cries out against Romeo

105    level aim

109    sack plunder, destroy

118    tempered balanced (plays on “temper,” i.e., disposition)

123    heaven, and earth i.e., soul and body

125    Fie expression of reproach or disgust wit intelligence, reason

126    Which (you) who usurer moneylender (notorious for charging high interest)

127    in…use for its proper purpose (use plays on the sense of “financial interest”)

128    bedeck adorn shape physical appearance

130    Digressing deviating valour honor/courage

134    Misshapen deformed/ill-directed conduct guidance/management

135    powder gunpowder flask container for gunpowder

137    dismembered…defence blown to bits by the weapon that should have been used to protect you (i.e., wit/ powder)

139    dead i.e., suicidal

140    happy fortunate

145    array clothing

146    mishavèd misbehaved

149    decreed decided (earlier)

151    watch be set night watchmen take up their posts at the city gates

154    blaze proclaim, make public friends relatives

160    apt unto ready for

169    here…state your fortunes depend on what happens now

173    signify inform you

174    good hap favorable event

177    brief hurriedly

Act 3 Scene 4

3.4   Location: the Capulets’ house

2    move persuade/encourage

11    mewed…heaviness confined with her sorrow (a “mew” was a cage for a molting hawk)

12    desperate reckless/bold tender offer

16    son (future) son-in-law

17    mark you me listen to me, pay attention

24    ado fuss

25    late recently

26    held him carelessly did not regard him highly

33    against in anticipation of

35    Afore me! either an instruction to a servant bearing a light or a mild oath

Act 3 Scene 5

7    envious malicious/jealous

8    severing separating (the clouds drift apart, and in doing so will separate Romeo and Juliet)

9    jocund merry, sprightly

13    meteor…exhales ill-omened meteors were believed to be formed of vapors drawn up (“exhaled”) from the earth by the sun

17    ta’en arrested

18    so provided

20    reflex reflection Cynthia another name for the goddess of the moon

22    vaulty vaulted, arched

23    care concern/inclination

26    hie hurry

28    Straining singing (plays on the sense of “forcing, making an unnatural effort”)

29    division rapid melodic music

31    change exchange

33    arm from arm from one another’s arms affray frighten

34    hunt’s-up song used to rouse hunters in the morning and sometimes played to the bride the morning after her wedding

43    friend lover

46    much in years very old

54    ill-divining foreseeing evil

59    Dry thirsty (each sigh was thought to drain the heart of a drop of blood)

67    not…late not yet in bed

68    procures brings

73    An if even if

76    feeling powerfully felt

77    feel experience (the loss)/touch (the living friend) friend relative (in her response Juliet privately intends “lover”)

87    like so much as grieve make sorrowful/anger, vex

93    runagate fugitive

94    dram measure (of poisoned drink)

97    be satisfied be content/be revenged (on)/have enough (of)/be sexually satisfied

98    dead can apply to either him or to heart

99    kinsman cousin (Tybalt)/husband (Romeo)

101    temper mix/modify and make safe

103    sleep in quiet die/fall into a harmless sleep

105    wreak avenge/bestow

109    needy destitute

111    careful caring, solicitous

113    sorted out chosen

114    looked not for did not expect

115    in happy time this is opportune

116    Marry plays on the marital sense of the word

133    conduit fountain

135    counterfeits imitates bark small ship

138    flood sea/torrent

140    overset overwhelm/capsize

144    would wish

145    take…you let me understand you properly

146    How what

147    her herself

148    wrought arranged (for)/ persuaded

152    hate…love something hateful that was nevertheless arranged for me out of love

153    Chopped-logic specious, false logic or one who argues in such a manner

157    fettle prepare; literally, “groom (a horse)”

159    hurdle frame on which traitors were dragged to execution

160    Out expression of indignation and scorn green-sickness anemic illness affecting pubescent girls, hence “pale” carrion corpse/worthless wretch

161    tallow-face person with a pale, waxen face tallow animal fat used for making candles and soap

169    itch i.e., to beat you

173    hilding hussy, good-for-nothing

175    rate berate, scold

177    smatter chatter, talk ignorantly gossips women friends

179    God…e’en i.e., for God’s sake/go away (literally, good evening)

182    gravity words of wisdom bowl drinking vessel

185    God’s bread an oath referring to the bread used in the Christian sacrament of Communion

187    still always

190    demesnes lands

191    parts qualities

193    puling whining

194    mammet doll/contemptible weakling in…tender when fortune makes her an offer

197    pardon the sense now shifts from “excuse, forgive” to “give permission to leave”

199    do…jest am not in the habit of joking

200    advise consider

205    be forsworn break my word

211    monument tomb

215    faith i.e., marriage vows

219    practise plot

224    all…nothing the odds are overwhelming

225    challenge lay claim to

230    dishclout dishcloth

231    quick lively/keen

232    Beshrew curse

236    use plays on the sense of “sexual employment”

240    Amen expression of agreement (to the Nurse’s advice/to beshrew them both)

247    Ancient damnation! Damned old woman!

248    forsworn perjured (by breaking marriage vows)

252    bosom i.e., private thoughts twain separated

Act 4 Scene 1

4.1   Location: Friar Laurence’s cell

3    nothing slow in no way reluctant

4    mind opinion

8    Venus the goddess/the planet house plays on the astrological senses of “one of the twelve parts of the heavens” and “sign of the zodiac in which a particular planet has influence”

10    sway rule, influence

13    minded dwelt on, attended to

14    society companionship

18    Happily gladly/fortunately

22    text saying, proverb

28    price value

35    my face openly/about my face

37    not mine own Juliet privately means “as my face belongs to Romeo”

40    pensive sorrowful, full of melancholy musing

42    shield forbid

48    compass bounds

49    prorogue defer

55    presently immediately

58    label seal (technically the strip of paper to which the seal was affixed) deed action/legal document

60    both i.e., hand and heart

61    time age

63    extremes desperate hardships

64    umpire technically, one brought in to decide a legal matter when arbitrators cannot agree

65    commission authority/authority to perform judicial functions art skill, knowledge

66    issue outcome

76    That cop’st you who would embrace

80    thievish ways streets frequented by thieves

82    charnel-house vault containing dead bodies

84    reeky shanks stinking shinbones chapless jawless

95    distilling distilled/infusing liquor liquid off i.e., entirely

97    humour fluid

98    native natural surcease cease

101    wanny wan, pale eyes’ windows i.e., eyelids

103    supple government power of movement

115    against in anticipation of the time when

116    drift scheme/intention

121    toy aversion/whim

124    prosperous successful/fortunate

127    help afford supply help

Act 4 Scene 2

4.2   Location: the Capulets’ house

2    cunning skillful

3    none ill no bad ones try test

5    ’tis…fingers proverbial phrase for one who has no faith in his abilities

8    unfurnished unprovided, unprepared

10    forsooth indeed, in truth

12    peevish foolish/obstinate/headstrong harlotry harlot/wretch

14    gadding wandering, roving idly

17    behests commands

24    becomèd befitting, seemly

31    closet private room

32    ornaments clothing/accessories

36    short lacking

40    deck up her adorn her, prepare her

43    They i.e., the servants forth out of the house (on errands)

Act 4 Scene 3

4.3   Location: Juliet’s bedroom in the Capulets’ house

3    orisons prayers

5    cross perverse/unfavorable

7    culled selected

8    behoveful useful, necessary state ceremony

16    thrills pierces/passes with a shudder of emotion

20    dismal ominous/disastrous

26    Subtly craftily

30    still always tried proved

36    strangled ere suffocated before

37    like likely

38    conceit conception, idea

43    green in earth newly buried (green also suggests putrefying flesh)

48    mandrakes plants with forked roots that resembled the human form and were said to shriek when pulled from the ground, causing madness or death in any who heard them

50    distraught driven to madness

51    Environèd surrounded

54    rage madness

57    spit impale

58    Stay stop

Act 4 Scene 4

2    quinces pear-shaped fruits pastry room in which pastry dishes were made

4    curfew-bell bell that rang at a fixed hour in the morning

5    baked meats meat pies Angelica either the Nurse or Lady Capulet (plays on the herb of the same name)

7    cotquean man who interferes with the housework

9    watching wakefulness

12    mouse-hunt hunter of mice (i.e., women, hence “fornicator”)

13    watch…watching keep an eye on you to prevent such wakeful (sexual) behavior

14    A jealous hood jealousy/a jealous woman/a jealous spy (wearing a hood as a disguise)

20    I…logs I have a good head for finding things/having a wooden (i.e., stupid) head I can easily find logs

22    Mass by the Mass (a common oath) whoreson bastard, whore’s son (spoken jovially)

23    logger-head in charge of fetching logs/a blockhead

24    straight straightaway

27    trim her up adorn her, deck her out

32    Fast fast asleep

35    take your pennyworths take what little sleep you can/sleep soundly

37    set…rest determined (literally a card-playing term meaning “to stake all” and playing on the sense of “got an erection in preparation for the assault”)

41    take find/have sex with

42    fright puns on “freight” (i.e., to load, burden)

43    down in bed

58    Out, alas expression of sorrow

74    living being alive/possessions and property

75    thought long longed/been impatient

79    lasting endless/unceasing

82    catched seized

89    Beguiled deceived, cheated

94    Uncomfortable comfortless/disquieting

95    solemnity celebration, marriage ceremony

99    Confusion disorder/destruction/disaster care management, control

105    promotion social advancement (through marriage to Paris)

106    heaven idea of bliss, of the utmost good

113    stick fasten/place/attach as an adornment rosemary the herb symbolized fidelity and remembrance, and was used at weddings and funerals

117    reason’s merriment i.e., laughably irrational/a cause of joy to reason

118    ordainèd festival intended to be festive

119    office function, appointed role

121    cheer food and drink, provisions

122    solemn ceremonious sullen somber, melancholy

128    lour frown, look threateningly ill wrongdoing

129    Move provoke

130    put up put away, pack up

132    case situation (the First Musician then plays on the sense of “case for a musical instrument”)

133    amended repaired

134    ‘Heart’s ease’ a popular song

137    ‘My…woe’ another popular song, possibly the “Ballad of Two Lovers”

138    dump melody/mournful tune

142    soundly thoroughly/with force (plays in the sense of “audibly, with sound”)

144    gleek gibe, jest (to “give the gleek” meant to mock someone) give…minstrel call you a minstrel (i.e., a vagrant or worthless wanderer)

145    serving-creature derogatory term for a servingman

146    pate head carry no crotchets put up with no whims/sing none of these notes

147    re…you re and fa are musical notes, used here as if they were verbs meaning “to beat” note pay attention to (plays on the sense of “record in musical notation”; in his response the First Musician widens the pun to include “beat us so that we are marked like a musical score”)

149    put out extinguish/display

151    dry-beat beat severely (without using a dagger)

153    When…sound the opening lines of Richard Edwards’ song “In Commendation of Music,” published in The Paradise of Dainty Devices (1576) griping painful/grasping

156    Catling a small lutestring made from catgut

158    Prates mere chatter Rebeck a rebec was a medieval three-stringed fiddle

159    sound for silver play for money

160    Soundpost a supporting wooden peg on a violin or similar instrument

162    cry you mercy beg your pardon

163    for sounding as payment for playing/with which to make a jingling sound

167    Jack the rogue

168    stay await

Act 5 Scene 1

5.1   Location: Mantua

1    flattering pleasing/deceptive

2    presage foretell

3    bosom’s lord i.e., heart

10    possessed actually experienced, enjoyed

11    shadows images, dreams

21    presently took post immediately set off with a post-horse (i.e., horse kept standing by for the speedy delivery of messages)

23    for my office as my responsibility

24    deny repudiate, renounce (some editors emend to the First Quarto’s “defy”)

26    post-horses horses kept at inns for the use of messengers or for hire by travelers

28    import suggest, portend

29    misadventure fatal misfortune

37    see for seek out, think about mischief calamity, harm, wicked deeds

39    apothecary person who prepared and sold drugs

40    a he which whom

41    weeds clothing overwhelming brows overhanging or bushy eyebrows

42    Culling of simples gathering medicinal herbs

44    needy impoverished

47    account number

48    earthen earthenware bladders animal bladders were used for storing liquid

49    packthread twine used for tying up packages cakes of roses preparation of rose petals compressed into a cake for use as perfume

53    Whose…death the sale of which is punishable by instant death

54    caitiff miserable/base

62    ducats gold coins used in most European countries

63    soon-speeding gear rapidly working stuff/stuff that kills quickly

65    That so that

66    trunk body/cylindrical case that discharges explosives in a weapon

69    mortal fatal

70    he man utters sells

77    it i.e., the law

79    pray entreat (some editors emend to the First Quarto’s “pay”)

85    compounds mixtures

87    get…flesh fatten yourself up

88    cordial medicine that invigorates the heart

Act 5 Scene 2

5.2   Location: Friar Laurence’s cell

5    barefoot brother i.e., a fellow Franciscan friar

6    associate accompany

8    searchers officials whose job was to view dead bodies and ascertain the cause of death

10    pestilence plague

12    speed successful journey, rapid progress stayed prevented

18    nice trivial charge importance

19    dear import major significance/costly consequence

20    danger harm

21    crow crowbar

27    accidents events

Act 5 Scene 3

5.3   Location: the churchyard containing the Capulet family tomb, Verona; the action moves into the tomb itself

1    aloof at a distance

3    lay…along lie stretched out

6    Being i.e., the soil being

10    stand remain

11    adventure risk it, take my chances

13    canopy covering or hangings of a bed

16    obsequies rites of remembrance

20    cross thwart mattock pickaxe wrenching iron crowbar

32    dear employment important business/costly purpose

33    jealous suspicious

43    For…same all the same, nonetheless

44    doubt suspect/fear

45    maw throat/stomach womb belly

48    in despite in angry defiance/to spite you

54    unhallowed unholy, wicked

60    gone dead

68    commiseration compassion

78    should have was to have

80    him i.e., Paris

83    triumphant splendid

84    lantern many-windowed turretlike structure often found at the top of a church

86    presence reception room in a palace or great house

89    keepers nurses/jailers

94    ensign military banner

96    advancèd raised

100    his…enemy i.e., Romeo’s own

103    unsubstantial bodiless

106    still always

110    true honest/true to his trade

119    dateless bargain eternal contract engrossing monopolizing/all-consuming (with legal connotations: “to engross” is “to write in a manner appropriate to legal documents”)

120    conduct guide (i.e., the poison)

122    dashing destructive

124    quick speedy/active (with a play on “invigorating/life-giving”)

125    speed protector, aid

129    vainly pointlessly

154    unkind unnatural/cruel

157    comfortable comforting

171    timeless untimely/eternal

172    churl miser/villain

174    Haply perhaps/with luck

178    happy fortunate/opportune

182    attach arrest

189    ground cause (quibbles on the literal meaning in the previous line)

190    circumstance details (perhaps with a play on sense of “physical surroundings”)

196    stay detain

212    mista’en mistaken its rightful house (i.e., sheath)

216    warns summons sepulchre tomb

219    is dead tonight died last night

223    untaught ignorant, unmannerly person (referring to Romeo, whose body he has seen)

225    mouth of outrage may refer to the tomb or to the characters who are reacting to events (or both) outrage violence/disorder/passionate outcry

227    spring, their head source

228    general leader

229    to death to the utmost/to death from grief/to securing death as the penalty for the wrongdoers

230    slave to governed by

234    make against conspire against, accuse

235    impeach…excused accuse myself of what I should be condemned for and exonerate myself where I deserve to be excused

238    date of breath amount of remaining life

247    perforce by compulsion

252    art skill, knowledge

254    wrought brought about/fashioned

256    as on

260    stayed detained

264    closely secretly, concealed

268    true faithful, constant

275    privy aware, in on the secret aught anything

277    the time its natural limit

279    still always

282    post haste

289    made did

293    by and by immediately

295    make good confirm

298    therewithal that being accomplished/with the poison

301    scourge punishment of divine origin

302    joys happiness/children

303    winking at shutting my eyes to

304    brace pair (i.e., Mercutio and Paris)

306    jointure marriage portion given by the bridegroom’s family

309    raise have constructed statue almost certainly a reclining figure that would be set on Juliet’s tomb

311    figure statue (plays on the sense of “number”) rate be set worth be valued

313    Romeo i.e., Romeo’s statue

314    Poor sacrifices of pitiful victims of/inadequate atonements for

315    glooming gloomy/darkened/frowning/melancholy

THE LIFE OF TIMON OF ATHENS

In thirty-seven of Shakespeare’s thirty-eight plays, there are representations of family and sexual relationships—parents and children, siblings, lovers, married couples, usually in multiple combinations. The bonds of family and desire are the very DNA of his dramatic world. Timon of Athens is the unique exception that proves the rule. Nobody in the play has a blood relationship to anyone else. The central character has no family and no lover.

The play seems to have been written around the time when Shakespeare was creating his most demanding female roles—Lady Macbeth and Cleopatra—and yet it almost entirely banishes women. Two whores have walk-on parts in one scene, delivering forty words between them. Some Amazons dance in a masque, though they may be intended as cross-dressed men, like the masquers in Love’s Labour’s Lost and Henry VIII. There are no children either: the boy actors in Shakespeare’s company can seldom have been so underemployed.

Cupid, the mischievous god of love, presides invisibly over all Shakespeare’s comedies and several of his tragedies: Timon is the one play in which he actually puts in an appearance, speaking the prologue to the masque. But ironically, he has no part in the action. No character in the play is struck by the dart of love. Cupidity, however—the desire for money—is the heart of the matter.

“In Timon of Athens,” wrote Karl Marx of his favourite play, “Shakespeare attributes two qualities to money. It is the visible deity, the transformation of all human and natural qualities into their opposites, the universal confusion and inversion of things; it brings incompatibles into fraternity. And it is the universal whore, the universal pander between men and nations.” In simpler language: we worship money, it distorts our view of what is important in life and it turns all relationships into commercial exchanges. As Lucius’ servant puts it, “Ay, and I think one business does command us all, / For mine is money.” No other Shakespearean play gives so much attention to servants: by focusing on the master–servant relationship, as opposed to parent–child or man–woman, Shakespeare and his co-author Thomas Middleton (a master in both the comedy and the tragedy of commercial exchange) bring home the Marxist point. Money as the universal whore: that is the symbolic significance of having prostitutes as the only female roles. It is also why the play begins with a selection of unnamed characters selling their wares: jewels, silks for fine clothing, poems, and a painting.

The presence of a poet is especially interesting, in that it gives a glimpse of Shakespeare’s conception of his own art. He knew from his experience of dedicating his early poems to the Earl of Southampton what was involved in the pursuit of patronage, and as a leading member of the King’s Men he was a firsthand witness of the rush for favors in the febrile atmosphere of the Jacobean court. The painter at the beginning of Timon assumes that the poet is assiduously preparing “some work, some dedication / To the great lord,” but the poet’s reply suggests that Shakespeare conceived of his own art in terms of sprezzatura, the air of seeming artlessness. It takes effort to strike fire from a flint, whereas poetry may slip out “idly” and “as a gum, which oozes / From whence ’tis nourished.”

The opening scenes of the play offer a superb presentation of how culture, both in classical times and Shakespeare’s, operates through an elaborate system of ceremonies and rituals in which hospitality and respect are key elements. The granting of favors and the lavishing of gifts are equally essential to the system. Gift giving was not a spontaneous act of generosity (is it ever?): the custom was integral to the network of social obligations and transactions in the early modern period.

In order to maintain the position in which he commands respect, Timon has to spend vast amounts of money throwing parties. As only the wise steward Flavius perceives, the continuance of the show has exhausted his master’s financial resources. On a smaller scale, Shakespeare himself had probably witnessed a similar process in his youth when his father reached a position of eminence in the community, but then overstretched himself, borrowed money, and ran into trouble because he could not pay his debts. It is a familiar enough story, though in Timon of Athens the scale of the wealth is inflated to an extreme and the spiral into poverty is accompanied by a philosophical commentary.

Generally speaking, Shakespeare is skeptical of the claims of philosophy. He is more interested in how people behave in extreme situations than in what they profess to believe. He only used the word “philosopher” ten times in his complete works. Four of these usages are in wry contexts in the comedies, while the other six are confined to two tragedies, written in close proximity to each other early in the reign of King James I. They are two tragedies that follow a similar pattern of a man going from high to low estate, out from city or court to forest or stormy place where there’s “scarce a bush.” In this “outside” space, the protagonist is filled with fury at his fellow humans. One of those two plays is King Lear, the other is Timon of Athens. The resemblances have often been observed.

VARRO’S SERVANTWhat is a whoremaster, fool?

FOOLA fool in good clothes, and something like thee. ’Tis a spirit: sometime’t appears like a lord, sometime like a lawyer, sometime like a philosopher with two stones more than’s artificial one. He is very often like a knight; and generally in all shapes that man goes up and down in from fourscore to thirteen, this spirit walks in.

VARRO’S SERVANTThou art not altogether a fool.

A snatch of dialogue such as this could easily “change places and handy-dandy” with the voices of Lear and his Fool.

Jaques in As You Like It may fancy himself as a philosopher, but it is in the cast of Timon of Athens that we meet the only professional philosopher in Shakespeare: Apemantus. “I come to observe,” he says during Timon’s first banquet, and he will remain to offer his tart observations throughout the play. He is an extreme embodiment of the philosophy embraced by Jaques: Cynicism. A Cynic takes Stoic rejection of worldliness to an extreme; a Cynic, the saying had it, was a Stoic without a tunic. The paradigm was the outspoken and shameless Diogenes, who rejected “civilization” and returned to the “natural” life by becoming a vagabond. Apemantus is “the philosopher” in Shakespeare. Yet for Apemantus, as for Jaques, Cynicism is a pose. They both actually rather enjoy company and food. It is Timon who becomes the real thing.

In Act 2, the Fool goes off with Apemantus, saying “I do not always follow lover, elder brother and woman: sometime the philosopher.” As on many occasions in King Lear, a line spoken by the Fool is at a deeper level applicable to the main character. Timon is the one who follows the way of the philosopher instead of lover, brother, or woman. “I am Misanthropos, and hate mankind,” he will later announce. He becomes a Diogenes, rejecting all possessions and all worldliness, dying in his cave by the seashore.

The first half of the action is closed with a second banquet, in which with studied irony Timon offers his guests nothing instead of everything. Disgusted with mankind, he retreats to the woods. The general Alcibiades goes into exile at the same time: the point seems to be that both the military hero and the civic benefactor are victims of the system’s ingratitude, scapegoats of Athenian political arrogance. Like the exiled Coriolanus in another classical play written a couple of years later, Alcibiades marches against the city that has mistreated him. The Athenian senators respond by calling on Timon to perform the role of the reconciler that Volumnia plays in Coriolanus; he does so indirectly by committing suicide, symbolically removing hatred from the city and allowing Alcibiades to make peace with the state. The parallel plot is, however, sketched briefly in rather than worked fully out.

The core of the play is the massive third scene of the fourth act in which a succession of visitors comes to Timon in the forest, giving him the opportunity to vent his misanthropy. There is an elegant symmetry between the series of suitors seeking favors in the first half of the play and the series of visitors gawping at Timon’s misfortunes in the second. Among them is Apemantus, the professional philosopher. He has dealt Timon a few home truths in the opening scene, along the lines of “He that loves to be flattered is worthy o’th’flatterer.” Now he says, “The middle of humanity thou never knewest, but the extremity of both ends. When thou wast in thy gilt and thy perfume, they mocked thee for too much curiosity: in thy rags thou know’st none, but art despised for the contrary.” Athenian moral philosophy, embodied for the Renaissance in the figure of Aristotle, extolled the virtues of the middle way, the golden mean. Tragic drama is about people who will not follow that way, who go instead to the extreme. Considered thus, Timon is the exemplary tragic figure.

With its paucity of female characters and absence of familial bonds, this will always remain one of Shakespeare’s least known, least loved, and least performed plays. Its exposure of our enslavement to money is too close to the bone. Why would large numbers of people who have the financial comfort that allows them to benefit from the public art form of theater want to spend an evening being beaten up on the subject? The harsh beauty of Timon’s angry arias in the second half of the play, the exemplary loyalty of the steward Flavius, the incisive wit of Apemantus and the Fool: none of these are quite enough to compensate for the absence of an amorous or heroic counter-voice. Perhaps it would have been a different story if the character of Alcibiades had been more fully developed. It is small wonder that critics have persistently speculated—without any direct evidence—that the play was unfinished or unperformed.

Yet for intellectual muscle, the second half of the play is as powerful as anything in Shakespeare. It directly addresses one of the great questions in both his time and ours: the relationship between culture and nature. The home that Timon leaves and excoriates is the city of Athens, the birthplace of democracy, philosophy, and theater, the epitome of culture. When he goes into the woods, he is returning from culture to nature, reversing the process by which human cultural evolution has led to ever-greater alienation from our environmental origins. Initially, the angry exile believes that the order of nature is no different from that of the city he has left. He perceives natural forces to be in the same kind of relationship of exchange and deception as those of human society:

The sun’s a thief, and with his great attraction

Robs the vast sea: the moon’s an arrant thief,

And her pale fire she snatches from the sun:

The sea’s a thief, whose liquid surge resolves

The moon into salt tears: the earth’s a thief,

That feeds and breeds by a composture stolen

From gen’ral excrement: each thing’s a thief.

And he blames the earth for yielding up the precious metal, which is the origin of that commodity that is the root of all evil.

But in his downward spiral, Timon also makes a kind of spiritual ascent. His trajectory is not after all so very different from that of Antony and Cleopatra in the subsequent play that Shakespeare based on the same source in classical literature. Throwing away the gold, he finds peace in the imminence of death: “My long sickness / Of health and living now begins to mend, / And nothing brings me all things.” He makes “his everlasting mansion / Upon the beachèd verge of the salt flood.” His road from fickle worldly prosperity to the nothingness of death goes via the wood and peters out at the edge of the sea. The nineteenth-century critic William Hazlitt suggested that Timon ends by “seeking in the everlasting solemnities of nature oblivion from the transitory splendour of his lifetime.”

Though the play is couched in the ancient ascetic language of contemptus mundi, there was for Hazlitt, and there should be for us, something profoundly enduring about the image of a human soul contemplating the vastness of the ocean and being brought to the realization that money is not everything and indeed that nothing may bring all things. Like King Lear and his godson Edgar, Timon is one of a tiny handful of tragic characters who are brought to a place that we might call ground zero. The difference between the two plays is that in Lear the meaning of love is discovered amid the apocalypse, whereas in Timon a man dies alone, without any community save that of the elements of earth, sea, and sky.

KEY FACTS

AUTHORSHIP: Long considered to be an incomplete Shakespearean work, Timon of Athens has been shown by modern scholarship to be, in all probability, a collaboration between Shakespeare and Thomas Middleton, with the following likely distribution of scenes:

1.1

Shakespeare, perhaps with some brief additions by Middleton

1.2

Middleton

2.1

Shakespeare

2.2

mixed authorship

3.1–3.6

Middleton

3.7

mixed (beginning and end by Middleton, middle by Shakespeare?)

4.1

Shakespeare

4.2

mixed authorship?

4.3–5.1

Shakespeare, with some Middleton additions (especially to the encounter between Timon and Flavius)

5.2–5.4

Shakespeare

PLOT: Timon, a rich Athenian, is famous for his liberality. As the play opens a group of people is gathering outside Timon’s house, waiting to offer him flattering gifts or beg favors. There is much talk of his generosity and openheartedness, which is immediately borne out when he appears, paying a friend’s debts to free him from prison and giving money to a servant to allow him to marry. Only the cynical philosopher Apemantus has doubts about the sincerity of Timon’s friends. The young general Alcibiades is warmly welcomed by Timon, who invites him and other friends to a banquet, at which there is more lavish distribution of gifts. However, Timon’s steward Flavius realizes what his master doesn’t—that Timon’s extravagant lifestyle has emptied his coffers. Timon’s creditors start to ask for payment and one after another he asks his friends for help, only to be refused by all. He invites them all to a second banquet, where he turns the tables on them. Alcibiades pleads in vain with the senate for the life of one of his soldiers who has committed a murder; in anger they banish him from Athens. The disillusioned Timon goes to live as a recluse outside Athens, railing bitterly against mankind. One day, digging for roots to eat, he discovers gold. He gives it away, first to Alcibiades, to pay the army he has raised against Athens, and his two whores, Timandra and Phrynia, then to some bandits. He finally offers some to his steward Flavius. Hearing of this, more false friends come out to flatter Timon but he drives them away, along with the senators from Athens who come to beg for his help against Alcibiades. Alcibiades wins his war against the Athenian senators, at which point news reaches the city that Timon is dead.

MAJOR PARTS: (with percentage of lines/number of speeches/scenes on stage) Timon (34%/210/8), Apemantus (10%/100/4), Flavius (8%/41/6), Alcibiades (7%/39/5), Poet (4%/30/2), First Senator (4%/27/4), Painter (3%/30/2), Second Senator (3%/14/4), Lucilius (2%/13/2).

LINGUISTIC MEDIUM: 75% verse, 25% prose.

DATE: 1604–06? No firm evidence for date, but stylistic similarity suggests proximity to King Lear and Middleton’s A Trick to Catch the Old One (1605); this was the period when Middleton was writing for the King’s Men, so is likeliest for a collaboration. The shared source with Antony and Cleopatra (see below) supports such a date. The masque and the concern with flatterers are more Jacobean than Elizabethan (i.e., after the death of Queen Elizabeth in 1603); the absence of a clear five-act structure implies composition before the King’s Men began playing the indoor Blackfriars Theatre (i.e., before 1608).

SOURCES: There is a general outline of the Timon story in Plutarch’s “Life of Marcus Antonius,” which was Shakespeare’s main source for Antony and Cleopatra; Plutarch’s Lives of the Most Noble Grecians and Romanes also included a biography of Alcibiades, providing material for the subplot. The other major source is a dialogue on Timon by the second-century Greek satirist Lucian of Samosata (probably in the 1528 Latin translation by Erasmus). There are close resemblances, especially in the second banquet scene, to an anonymous university or Inns of Court comedy of Timon, which may be a source. It is possible that Shakespeare worked from Plutarch while Middleton brought knowledge of the academic play and Lucian. The character of Apemantus may also be indebted to the misanthropic philosopher Diogenes in John Lyly’s comedy Campaspe (1581).

TEXT: The relative brevity of the play and a plethora of internal inconsistencies, such as the interview between Flavius and Ventidius that is arranged at the end of Act 2 Scene 2 but never materializes, led to the hypothesis that Timon was an incomplete work. Co-authorship is now considered a much likelier explanation for the textual problems. Most scholars believe that the copy was set from the dramatists’ rough draft; though this is not known for certain, most of the difficulties are attributable to problems with the copy rather than the quality of the printers’ work.

THE LIFE OF TIMON OF ATHENS

TIMON OF ATHENS

FLAVIUS, steward to Timon

ALCIBIADES, an Athenian captain*

APEMANTUS, a churlish philosopher

A POET

A PAINTER

A JEWELLER

A MERCHANT who trades in silks

A FOOL

AN OLD ATHENIAN MAN

A PAGE

VENTIDIUS, one of Timon’s false friends

SENATORS

CUPID and MASQUERS

BANDITTI

Three STRANGERS, the second called Hostilius

Two MESSENGERS

Other LORDS

Servants, Attendants

Act 1 Scene 11.1

running scene 1

Enter Poet, Painter, Jeweller, Merchant (a Mercer) at several doors

POETGood day, sir.

PAINTERI am glad you’re well.

POETI have not seen you long.[3] How goes the world?

PAINTERIt wears,[4] sir, as it grows.

5

POETAy, that’s well known.

But what particular rarity?[6] What strange,

Which manifold record[7] not matches? See,

Magic of bounty,[8] all these spirits thy power

Hath conjured[9] to attend. I know the merchant.

10

PAINTERI know them both: th’other’s a jeweller.

MERCHANTO, ’tis a worthy lord. To Jeweller

JEWELLERNay, that’s most fixed.[12]

MERCHANTA most incomparable man, breathed,[13] as it were,

To an untirable and continuate[14] goodness:

15

He passes.[15]

JEWELLERI have a jewel here—

MERCHANTO, pray let’s see’t. For the lord Timon, sir?

JEWELLERIf he will touch the estimate.[18] But for that—

POET‘When we[19] for recompense have praised the vile, Recites

20

It stains the glory in that happy[20] verse

Which aptly[21] sings the good.’

MERCHANT’Tis a good form.[22] Looks at the jewel

JEWELLERAnd rich:[23] here is a water, look ye.

PAINTERYou are rapt,[24] sir, in some work, some dedication To Poet

25

To the great lord.

POETA thing slipped idly[26] from me.

Our poesy is as a gum, which oozes

From whence ’tis nourished. The fire i’th’flint

Shows not till it be struck: our gentle flame

30

Provokes itself[30] and like the current flies

Each bound[31] it chafes. What have you there?

PAINTERA picture, sir. When comes your book forth?

POETUpon[33] the heels of my presentment, sir.

Let’s see your piece.

35

PAINTER’Tis a good piece. Shows the painting

POETSo ’tis: this comes off[36] well and excellent.

PAINTERIndifferent.[37]

POETAdmirable. How this[38] grace

Speaks his own standing! What a mental power

40

This eye shoots forth! How big[40] imagination

Moves[41] in this lip! To th’dumbness of the gesture

One might interpret.

PAINTERIt is a pretty[43] mocking of the life.

Here is a touch:[44] is’t good?

45

POETI will say of it,

It tutors nature:[46] artificial strife

Lives in these touches livelier[47] than life.

Enter certain Senators They pass over the stage

PAINTERHow this lord is followed.[48]

POETThe senators of Athens, happy men.

50

PAINTERLook, more.

POETYou see this confluence,[51] this great flood of visitors.

I have in this rough work shaped out a man Shows the poem

Whom this beneath world[53] doth embrace and hug

With amplest entertainment:[54] my free drift

55

Halts not particularly,[55] but moves itself

In a wide sea of wax[56] — no levelled malice

Infects one comma[57] in the course I hold —

But flies an eagle flight, bold and forth on,

Leaving no tract[59] behind.

60

PAINTERHow[60] shall I understand you?

POETI will unbolt[61] to you.

You see how all conditions,[62] how all minds,

As well of glib[63] and slipp’ry creatures as

Of grave[64] and austere quality, tender down

65

Their services to Lord Timon: his large fortune

Upon his good and gracious nature hanging[66]

Subdues[67] and properties to his love and tendance

All sorts of hearts; yea, from the glass-faced[68] flatterer

To Apemantus, that few things loves better

70

Than to abhor[70] himself — even he drops down

The knee before him, and returns[71] in peace

Most rich in Timon’s nod.[72]

PAINTERI saw them speak together.

POETSir, I have upon a high and pleasant hill

75

Feigned[75] Fortune to be throned: the base o’th’mount

Is ranked[76] with all deserts, all kind of natures

That labour on the bosom of this sphere[77]

To propagate[78] their states, amongst them all

Whose eyes are on this sovereign lady[79] fixed

80

One do I personate[80] of Lord Timon’s frame,

Whom Fortune with her ivory hand wafts[81] to her,

Whose[82] present grace to present slaves and servants

Translates his rivals.

PAINTER’Tis conceived to scope.[84]

85

This throne, this Fortune, and this hill, methinks,

With one man beckoned from the rest below,

Bowing his head against[87] the sleepy mount

To climb his happiness, would be well expressed

In our condition.[89]

90

POETNay, sir, but hear me on.[90]

All those which were his fellows[91] but of late,

Some better than his value,[92] on the moment

Follow his[93] strides, his lobbies fill with tendance,

Rain sacrificial[94] whisperings in his ear,

95

Make sacred even his stirrup,[95] and through him

Drink the free air.

PAINTERAy, marry,[97] what of these?

POETWhen Fortune in her shift and change of mood

Spurns down[99] her late belovèd, all his dependants,

100

Which laboured after him to the mountain’s top

Even on their knees and hands, let him fly down,

Not one accompanying his declining[102] foot.

PAINTER’Tis common:

A thousand moral paintings I can show

105

That shall demonstrate these quick[105] blows of Fortune’s

More pregnantly[106] than words. Yet you do well

To show Lord Timon that mean[107] eyes have seen

The[108] foot above the head.

Trumpets sound. Enter Lord Timon [with Lucilius and other servants following], addressing himself courteously to every suitor [and then speaking with a Messenger]

TIMONImprisoned is he, say you?

110

MESSENGERAy, my good lord: five talents[110] is his debt,

His means[111] most short, his creditors most strait.

Your honourable letter he desires

To those have shut him up, which failing,

Periods[114] his comfort.

115

TIMONNoble Ventidius! Well,

I am not of that feather[116] to shake off

My friend when he must need me. I do know him

A gentleman that well deserves a help,

Which he shall have: I’ll pay the debt and free him.

120

MESSENGERYour lordship ever binds him.[120]

TIMONCommend me[121] to him. I will send his ransom,

And being enfranchised,[122] bid him come to me:

’Tis not enough to help the feeble up,

But to support him after. Fare you well.

125

MESSENGERAll happiness to your honour.

Exit

Enter an old Athenian

OLD MANLord Timon, hear me speak.

TIMONFreely, good father.[127]

OLD MANThou hast a servant named Lucilius.

TIMONI have so: what of him?

130

OLD MANMost noble Timon, call the man before thee.

TIMONAttends he here or no? Lucilius! Calls

LUCILIUSHere, at your lordship’s service. Comes forward

OLD MANThis fellow here, Lord Timon, this thy creature,[133]

By night frequents my house. I am a man

135

That from my first[135] have been inclined to thrift,

And my estate deserves an heir more raised[136]

Than one[137] which holds a trencher.

TIMONWell, what further?

OLD MANOne only daughter have I, no kin else

140

On whom I may confer what I have got:

The maid is fair, o’th’youngest[141] for a bride,

And I have bred[142] her at my dearest cost

In qualities[143] of the best. This man of thine

Attempts[144] her love: I prithee, noble lord,

145

Join with me to forbid him her resort,[145]

Myself have spoke in vain.

TIMONThe man is honest.[147]

OLD MANTherefore[148] he will be, Timon:

His honesty rewards him in itself,

150

It must not bear[150] my daughter.

TIMONDoes she love him?

OLD MANShe is young and apt:[152]

Our own precedent[153] passions do instruct us

What levity’s[154] in youth.

155

TIMONLove you the maid? To Lucilius

LUCILIUSAy, my good lord, and she accepts of it.

OLD MANIf in her marriage my consent be missing,

I call the gods to witness, I will choose

Mine heir from forth the beggars of the world,

160

And dispossess her all.[160]

TIMONHow[161] shall she be endowed

If she be mated with an equal husband?

OLD MANThree talents on the present; in future, all.

TIMONThis gentleman[164] of mine hath served me long:

165

To build his fortune I will strain a little,

For ’tis a bond[166] in men. Give him thy daughter:

What you bestow, in him I’ll counterpoise,[167]

And make him weigh with[168] her.

OLD MANMost noble lord,

170

Pawn[170] me to this your honour, she is his.

TIMONMy hand to thee: mine honour on my promise.

LUCILIUSHumbly I thank your lordship: never may

That state[173] or fortune fall into my keeping,

Which is not owed to you!

Exeunt [Lucilius and Old Man]

175

POETVouchsafe[175] my labour, and long live your lordship! Presents the poem

TIMONI thank you. You shall hear from me anon:[176]

Go not away.— What have you there, my friend? To the Painter

PAINTERA piece of painting, which I do beseech

Your lordship to accept. Presents the painting

180

TIMONPainting is welcome.

The painting is almost the natural man,[181]

For since dishonour traffics[182] with man’s nature,

He[183] is but outside: these pencilled figures are

Even[184] such as they give out. I like your work,

185

And you shall[185] find I like it: wait attendance

Till you hear further from me.

PAINTERThe gods preserve ye!

TIMONWell fare you, gentleman: give me your hand,

We must needs[189] dine together.— Sir, your jewel To the Jeweller

190

Hath[190] suffered under praise.

JEWELLERWhat, my lord, dispraise?

TIMONA mere satiety[192] of commendations.

If I should pay you for’t as ’tis extolled[193]

It would unclew[194] me quite.

195

JEWELLERMy lord, ’tis rated[195]

As those[196] which sell would give: but you well know

Things of like[197] value differing in the owners

Are prized[198] by their masters. Believe’t, dear lord,

You mend[199] the jewel by the wearing it. Presents the jewel

200

TIMONWell mocked.[200]

Enter Apemantus

MERCHANTNo, my good lord, he speaks the common tongue[201]

Which all men speak with him.

TIMONLook, who comes here. Will[203] you be chid?

JEWELLERwe’ll bear with your lordship.

205

MERCHANTHe’ll spare none.

TIMONGood morrow[206] to thee, gentle Apemantus!

APEMANTUSTill I be gentle,[207] stay thou for thy good morrow —

When[208] thou art Timon’s dog, and these knaves honest.

TIMONWhy dost thou call them knaves? Thou know’st them not.

APEMANTUSAre they not Athenians?

TIMONYes.

APEMANTUSThen I repent not.

JEWELLERYou know me, Apemantus?

APEMANTUSThou know’st I do: I called thee by thy name.[214]

TIMONThou art proud,[215] Apemantus!

APEMANTUSOf nothing so much as that I am not like Timon.

TIMONWhither art going?

APEMANTUSTo knock out an honest Athenian’s brains.

TIMONThat’s a deed thou’lt die for.

APEMANTUSRight, if doing nothing[220] be death by th’law.

TIMONHow lik’st thou this picture, Apemantus?

APEMANTUSThe best, for the innocence.[222]

TIMONWrought[223] he not well that painted it?

APEMANTUSHe[224] wrought better that made the painter, and yet he’s but a filthy piece of work.

PAINTERYou’re a dog.[226]

APEMANTUSThy mother’s of my generation:[227] what’s she, if I be a dog?

TIMONWilt dine with me, Apemantus?

APEMANTUSNo, I eat not lords.[229]

TIMONAn[230] thou shouldst, thou’dst anger ladies.

APEMANTUSO, they eat[231] lords: so they come by great bellies.

TIMONThat’s a lascivious apprehension.[232]

APEMANTUSSo[233] thou apprehend’st it, take it for thy labour.

TIMONHow dost thou like this jewel, Apemantus?

APEMANTUSNot[235] so well as plain-dealing, which will not cost a man a doit.

TIMONWhat dost thou think ’tis worth?

APEMANTUSNot worth my thinking.— How now,[237] poet?

POETHow now, philosopher?

APEMANTUSThou liest.

POETArt not one?

APEMANTUSYes.

POETThen I lie not.

APEMANTUSArt not a poet?[243]

POETYes.

APEMANTUSThen thou liest: look in thy last work, where thou hast feigned him[245] a worthy fellow.

POETThat’s not feigned, he is so.

APEMANTUSYes, he is worthy of[248] thee, and to pay thee for thy labour. He that loves to be flattered is worthy o’th’flatterer. Heavens, that I were a lord!

TIMONWhat wouldst do then, Apemantus?

APEMANTUSE’en[251] as Apemantus does now: hate a lord with my heart.

TIMONWhat, thyself?

APEMANTUSAy.

TIMONWherefore?[254]

APEMANTUSThat I had no angry wit[255] to be a lord.— Art not thou a merchant?

MERCHANTAy, Apemantus.

APEMANTUSTraffic[257] confound thee, if the gods will not!

MERCHANTIf traffic do it, the gods do it.

APEMANTUSTraffic’s thy god, and thy god confound thee!

Trumpet sounds. Enter a Messenger

TIMONWhat[260] trumpet’s that?

MESSENGER’Tis Alcibiades, and some twenty horse[261] All of companionship.[262]

TIMONPray entertain[263] them, give them guide to us.

[Exeunt some Attendants]

You must needs dine with me.— Go not you hence

265

Till I have thanked you.— When dinner’s done, To Painter

Show me this piece.— I am joyful of your sights.[266] To all

Enter Alcibiades, with the rest

Most welcome, sir!

APEMANTUSSo, so, there![268]

Aches contract and starve[269] your supple joints!

270

That there should be small[270] love amongst these sweet knaves,

And all this courtesy! The strain[271] of man’s bred out

Into baboon and monkey.

ALCIBIADESSir, you have saved my longing,[273] and I feed To Timon

Most hungerly[274] on your sight.

275

TIMONRight welcome, sir!

Ere[276] we depart, we’ll share a bounteous time

In different[277] pleasures. Pray you, let us in.

Exeunt [all except Apemantus]

Enter two Lords

FIRST LORDWhat time o’day is’t, Apemantus?

APEMANTUSTime to be honest.

FIRST LORDThat[280] time serves still.

APEMANTUSThe most accursèd thou, that still omitt’st[281] it.

SECOND LORDThou art going to Lord Timon’s feast?

APEMANTUSAy, to see meat[283] fill knaves and wine heat fools.

SECOND LORDFare thee well, fare thee well.

APEMANTUSThou art a fool to bid me farewell twice.

SECOND LORDWhy, Apemantus?

APEMANTUSShouldst have kept one to thyself, for I mean to give thee none.

FIRST LORDHang thyself!

APEMANTUSNo, I will do nothing at thy bidding: make thy requests to thy friend.

SECOND LORDAway, unpeaceable[290] dog, or I’ll spurn thee hence!

APEMANTUSI will fly,[291] like a dog, the heels o’th’ass.

[Exit]

FIRST LORDHe’s opposite to[292] humanity. Come, shall we in,

And taste Lord Timon’s bounty? He outgoes[293]

The very heart of kindness.

295

SECOND LORDHe pours it out. Plutus,[295] the god of gold,

Is but his steward:[296] no meed, but he repays

Sevenfold above itself: no gift to him

But breeds the giver a return exceeding

All[299] use of quittance.

300

FIRST LORDThe noblest mind he carries

That ever governed man.

SECOND LORDLong may he live in fortunes! Shall we in?

I’ll keep you company.

Exeunt

[Act 1 Scene 2]1.2

running scene 2

Hautboys playing loud music. A great banquet served in: and then enter Lord Timon, the States, the Athenian Lords, [Alcibiades and] Ventidius, which Timon redeemed from prison. Then comes, dropping, after all, Apemantus, discontentedly, like himself

VENTIDIUSMost honoured Timon,

It hath pleased the gods to remember my father’s age,

And call him to long peace.[3]

He is gone happy, and has left me rich:

5

Then, as in grateful virtue I am bound

To your free[6] heart, I do return those talents,

Doubled with thanks and service,[7] from whose help

I derived liberty. Offers money

TIMONO, by no means,

10

Honest Ventidius. You mistake my love:

I gave it freely ever,[11] and there’s none

Can truly say he[12] gives if he receives.

If our betters play at that game,[13] we must not dare

To imitate them: faults[14] that are rich are fair.

15

VENTIDIUSA noble spirit! The Lords stand ceremoniously

TIMONNay, my lords,

Ceremony[17] was but devised at first

To set[18] a gloss on faint deeds, hollow welcomes,

Recanting[19] goodness, sorry ere ’tis shown,

20

But where there is true friendship, there needs none.[20]

Pray, sit: more welcome are ye to my fortunes

Than my fortunes to me. They sit

FIRST LORDMy lord, we always have confessed[23] it.

APEMANTUSHo, ho, confessed it? Hanged[24] it, have you not?

25

TIMONO, Apemantus, you are welcome.

APEMANTUSNo, you shall not make me welcome:

I come to have thee thrust me out of doors.

TIMONFie,[28] thou’rt a churl: ye’ve got a humour there

Does not become[29] a man: ’tis much to blame.

30

They say, my lords, Ira[241] furor brevis est,

But yond[31] man is ever angry.

Go, let him have a table by himself,

For he does neither affect[33] company,

Nor is he fit for’t, indeed.

35

APEMANTUSLet me stay at thine apperil,[35] Timon:

I come to observe,[36] I give thee warning on’t.

TIMONI take no heed[37] of thee; thou’rt an Athenian, therefore welcome. I myself would[38] have no power: prithee let my meat make thee silent.

APEMANTUSI scorn thy meat: ’twould[39] choke me, for I should ne’er flatter thee. O you gods, what a number of men eats[40] Timon, and he sees ’em not! It grieves me to see so many dip[41] their meat in one man’s blood, and all the madness is, he cheers them up too.

I wonder men dare trust themselves with men.

Methinks they should invite them without knives:[44]

45

Good[45] for their meat, and safer for their lives.

There’s much example[46] for’t: the fellow that sits next him, now parts bread with him, pledges[47] the breath of him in a divided draught, is the readiest man to kill him: ’t’as been proved. If I were a huge[48] man, I should fear to drink at meals, Lest they should spy[49] my windpipe’s dangerous notes: Great men should drink with harness[50] on their throats.

TIMONMy lord, in heart,[51] and let the health go round.

SECOND LORDLet it flow this way, my good lord.

APEMANTUS‘Flow this way’? A brave[53] fellow: he keeps his tides well. Those healths will make thee and thy state look ill, Timon.

55

Here’s that which is too weak to be a sinner[55] —

Honest water — which ne’er left man i’th’mire.[56]

This and my food are equals, there’s no odds.[57]

Feasts are too proud[58] to give thanks to the gods.

Apemantus’ grace

Immortal gods, I crave no pelf.[59]

60

I pray for no man but myself:

Grant I may never prove so fond,[61]

To trust man on his oath or bond,

Or a harlot[63] for her weeping

Or a dog that seems a-sleeping,

65

Or a keeper[65] with my freedom,

Or my friends if I should need ’em.

Amen. So fall to’t.[67]

Rich men sin, and I eat root.[68]

Much good dich[69] thy good heart, Apemantus! Eats

70

TIMONCaptain Alcibiades, your heart’s in the field[70] now.

ALCIBIADESMy heart is ever at your service, my lord.

TIMONYou had rather be at a breakfast of enemies[72] than a dinner of friends.

ALCIBIADESSo[73] they were bleeding new, my lord, there’s no meat like ’em: I could wish my best friend at such a feast.

APEMANTUSWould all those flatterers were thine enemies then, that then thou mightst kill ’em and bid[76] me to ’em!

FIRST LORDMight we but have that happiness, my lord, that you would once use our hearts[77] whereby we might express some part of our zeals,[78] we should think ourselves for ever perfect.[79]

TIMONO, no doubt, my good friends, but the gods themselves have provided that I shall have much help from you: how had you been my friends else?[81] Why have you that charitable[82] title from thousands, did not you chiefly belong to my heart? I have told[83] more of you to myself than you can with modesty speak in your own behalf, and thus far I confirm[84] you. O you gods, think I, what need we have any friends if we should ne’er have need of ’em? They were the most needless[85] creatures living, should we ne’er have use for ’em, and would most resemble sweet instruments hung up in cases that keeps their sounds to themselves. Why, I have often wished myself poorer, that I might come nearer to you. We are born to do benefits:[89] and what better or properer can we call our own than the riches of our friends? O, what a precious comfort ’tis to have so many like brothers commanding[91] one another’s fortunes! O joy’s e’en made away ere’t can be born: mine eyes cannot hold out water, methinks. To forget their faults,[92] I drink to you. Weeps, and drinks a toast

APEMANTUSThou[93] weep’st to make them drink, Timon.

SECOND LORDJoy had the like[94] conception in our eyes To Timon

95

And at that instant like a babe sprung up.[95]

APEMANTUSHo, ho! I laugh to think that babe a bastard.[96]

THIRD LORDI promise you, my lord, you moved me much. To Timon

APEMANTUSMuch![98]

Sound tucket

TIMONWhat means that trump?[99] How now?

Enter Servant

SERVANTPlease[100] you, my lord, there are certain ladies most desirous of admittance.

TIMONLadies? What are their wills?

SERVANTThere comes with them a forerunner,[102] my lord, which bears that office to signify their pleasures.

TIMONI pray, let them be admitted.

Enter Cupid with the masque of Ladies The Masquers stay back

105

CUPIDHail to thee, worthy Timon, and to all that

Of his bounties taste! The five best senses

Acknowledge thee their patron, and come freely

To gratulate[108] thy plenteous bosom:

There[109] taste, touch, all, pleased from thy table rise.

110

They only[110] now come but to feast thine eyes.

TIMONThey’re welcome all, let ’em have kind[111] admittance:

Music, make their welcome! Cupid brings forward the Masquers

FIRST LORDYou see, my lord, how ample[113] you’re beloved.

Enter the Masquers of Amazons, with lutes in their hands, dancing and playing

APEMANTUSHoyday,[114] what a sweep of vanity comes this way!

115

They dance? They are madwomen.

Like[116] madness is the glory of this life

As[117] this pomp shows to a little oil and root.

We make ourselves fools to disport[118] ourselves,

And spend[119] our flatteries, to drink those men

120

Upon whose age[120] we void it up again

With poisonous spite and envy.[121]

Who lives that’s not depravèd[122] or depraves?

Who dies that bears not one spurn[123] to their graves

Of[124] their friends’ gift?

125

I should fear those that dance before me now

Would one day stamp upon me. ’T’as been done:

Men shut their doors against a setting sun.

The Lords rise from table, with much adoring of Timon, and to show their loves each single out an Amazon and all dance, men with women, a lofty strain or two to the hautboys, and cease

TIMONYou have done[128] our pleasures much grace, fair ladies,

Set[129] a fair fashion on our entertainment,

130

Which was not half so beautiful and kind:[130]

You have added worth unto’t and lustre,

And entertained me with mine own device.[132]

I am to thank you for’t.

FIRST LADYMy lord, you take[134] us even at the best.

135

APEMANTUSFaith, for[135] the worst is filthy, and would not hold taking, I doubt me.

TIMONLadies, there is an idle[136] banquet attends you:

Please you to dispose yourselves.[137]

ALL LADIESMost thankfully, my lord.

Exeunt [Cupid and Ladies]

TIMONFlavius.

140

FLAVIUSMy lord.

TIMONThe little casket bring me hither.

FLAVIUSYes, my lord.— More jewels yet! Aside

There is no crossing[143] him in’s humour,

Else I should tell him well[144] — i’ faith I should —

145

When all’s spent, he’d be crossed[145] then, an he could.

’Tis pity bounty had[146] not eyes behind,

That man might ne’er be wretched for his mind.[147]

Exit

FIRST LORDWhere be our men?

SERVANTHere, my lord, in readiness.

150

SECOND LORDOur horses.

Enter Flavius Carrying the casket

TIMONO, my friends,

I have one word to say to you: look you, my good lord,

I must entreat you honour me so much Gives a jewel from the casket

As to advance[154] this jewel. Accept it and wear it,

155

Kind my lord.

FIRST LORDI am so[156] far already in your gifts—

ALLSo are we all. Timon gives jewels to all

Enter a Servant

SERVANTMy lord, there are certain nobles of the senate Newly alighted and come to visit you.

160

TIMONThey are fairly[160] welcome.

[Exit Servant]

FLAVIUSI beseech your honour,

Vouchsafe[162] me a word: it does concern you near.

TIMONNear? Why then, another time I’ll hear thee.

I prithee, let’s be provided[164] to show them entertainment.

165

FLAVIUSI scarce know how. Aside

Enter another Servant

SECOND SERVANTMay it please your honour, Lord Lucius —

Out of his free[168] love — hath presented to you

Four milk-white horses trapped[169] in silver.

TIMONI shall accept them fairly. Let the presents

170

Be worthily entertained.[170] [Exit Second Servant]

Enter a Third Servant

How now? What news?

THIRD SERVANTPlease you, my lord, that honourable gentleman, Lord Lucullus, entreats your company tomorrow to hunt with him, and has sent your honour two brace[174] of greyhounds.

175

TIMONI’ll hunt with him, and let them be received

Not without fair[176] reward.

[Exit Third Servant]

FLAVIUSWhat will this come to? Aside

He commands us to provide, and give great gifts,

And all out of an empty coffer:[179]

180

Nor will he know his purse,[180] or yield me this,

To show him what a beggar his heart is,

Being of no power to make[182] his wishes good.

His promises fly so beyond his state[183]

That what he speaks is all in debt, he owes

185

For ev’ry word: he is so kind that he now

Pays interest for’t; his land’s put[186] to their books.

Well, would[187] I were gently put out of office

Before I were forced out.

Happier is he that has no friend to feed

190

Than[190] such that do e’en enemies exceed.

I bleed inwardly for my lord.

Exit

TIMONYou do yourselves To the Lords

Much wrong, you bate[193] too much of your own merits.

Here, my lord, a trifle of our love. Gives a gift to Second Lord

195

SECOND LORDWith more than common thanks I will receive it.

THIRD LORDO, he’s the very soul of bounty!

TIMONAnd now I remember, my lord, you gave To First Lord

Good words[197] the other day of a bay courser[198] I rode on.

’Tis yours, because you liked it.

200

FIRST LORDO, I beseech you pardon me, my lord, in that.[200]

TIMONYou may take my word, my lord: I know, no man

Can justly praise but what he does affect.[202]

I weigh[203] my friend’s affection with mine own,

I’ll tell you true. I’ll call to[204] you.

205

ALL LORDSO, none so welcome.

TIMONI take all and your several visitations[206]

So kind to heart, ’tis not enough to give:

Methinks I could deal[208] kingdoms to my friends,

And ne’er be weary.— Alcibiades,

210

Thou art a soldier, therefore seldom rich.

It comes in charity to thee, for all thy living[211] Gives a gift?

Is ’mongst the dead, and all the lands thou hast

Lie in a pitched[213] field.

ALCIBIADESAy, defiled[214] land, my lord.

215

FIRST LORDWe are so virtuously bound[215]—

TIMONAnd so am I to you.

SECOND LORDSo infinitely endeared[217]—

TIMONAll to you.[218]— Lights, more lights! Calls

FIRST LORDThe best of happiness,

220

Honour and fortunes keep with you, Lord Timon!

TIMONReady for[221] his friends.

Exeunt Lords. [Apemantus and Timon remain]

APEMANTUSWhat a coil’s[222] here,

Serving[223] of becks and jutting-out of bums!

I doubt whether their legs[224] be worth the sums

225

That are given for ’em. Friendship’s full of dregs:[225]

Methinks false[226] hearts should never have sound legs,

Thus honest fools lay out their wealth on curtsies.

TIMONNow, Apemantus, if thou wert not sullen I would be good to thee.

APEMANTUSNo, I’ll[229] nothing; for if I should be bribed too, there would be none left to rail upon[230] thee, and then thou wouldst sin the faster. Thou giv’st so long, Timon, I fear me[231] thou wilt give away thyself in paper shortly. What needs these feasts, pomps and vainglories?[232]

TIMONNay, an[233] you begin to rail on society once, I am sworn not to give regard to you. Farewell, and come[234] with better music.

Exit

235

APEMANTUSSo:[235]

Thou[236] wilt not hear me now, thou shalt not then.

I’ll lock thy heaven[237] from thee.

O, that men’s ears should be

To counsel[239] deaf, but not to flattery!

Exit

[Act 2 Scene 1]2.1

running scene 3

Enter a Senator With bonds in his hand

SENATORAnd late,[1] five thousand: to Varro and to Isidore

He owes nine thousand, besides my former sum,

Which makes it five-and-twenty. Still in motion[3]

Of raging waste? It cannot hold,[4] it will not.

5

If I want gold, steal but a beggar’s dog

And give it Timon, why, the dog coins gold.

If I would sell my horse, and buy twenty more

Better than he, why, give my horse to Timon,

Ask nothing, give it him, it foals[9] me straight

10

And able horses. No porter[10] at his gate,

But rather one that smiles and still[11] invites

All that pass by. It cannot hold: no reason

Can sound[13] his state in safety. Caphis, ho!

Caphis, I say!

Enter Caphis

15

CAPHISHere, sir. What is your pleasure?

SENATORGet on your cloak, and haste you to Lord Timon.

Importune[17] him for my moneys. Be not ceased

With slight[18] denial, nor then silenced when

‘Commend me to your master’, and the cap

20

Plays in the right hand, thus: but tell him

My uses[21] cry to me, I must serve my turn

Out of mine own,[22] his days and times are past

And my reliances on his fracted[23] dates

Have smit[24] my credit. I love and honour him,

25

But must not break my back to heal his finger.

Immediate are my needs, and my relief[26]

Must not be tossed and turned[27] to me in words,

But find supply[28] immediate. Get you gone.

Put on a most importunate[29] aspect,

30

A visage of demand, for I do fear

When every feather[31] sticks in his own wing,

Lord Timon will be left a naked gull,[32]

Which flashes[33] now a phoenix. Get you gone.

CAPHISI go, sir.

35

SENATOR‘I go, sir’? Take the bonds along with you, Gives the bonds

And have[36] the dates in. Come.

CAPHISI will, sir.

SENATORGo.

Exeunt

[Act 2 Scene 2]2.2

running scene 4

Enter Steward [Flavius], with many bills in his hand

FLAVIUSNo care, no stop: so senseless of expense

That he will neither know[2] how to maintain it,

Nor cease his flow of riot,[3] takes no account

How things go from him, nor resume[4] no care

5

Of what[5] is to continue. Never mind

Was to be so unwise, to be so kind.

What shall be done? He will not hear, till feel.[7]

I must be round[8] with him, now he comes from hunting.

Fie, fie, fie, fie!

Enter Caphis, [meeting Servants of] Isidore and Varro

10

CAPHISGood even, Varro. What, you come for money?

VARRO’S SERVANTIs’t not your business too?

CAPHISIt is: and yours too, Isidore?

ISIDORE’S SERVANTIt is so.

CAPHISWould we were all discharged![14]

15

VARRO’S SERVANTI fear it.[15]

CAPHISHere comes the lord.

Enter Timon and his train [including Alcibiades]

TIMONSo soon as dinner’s done, we’ll forth[17] again,

My Alcibiades.— With me? What is your will? To Caphis

CAPHISMy lord, here is a note of certain dues.[19] Gives a bill

20

TIMONDues? Whence are you?[20]

CAPHISOf Athens here, my lord.

TIMONGo to my steward.

CAPHISPlease it your lordship, he hath put me off

To[24] the succession of new days this month:

25

My master is awaked[25] by great occasion

To call[26] upon his own, and humbly prays you

That with[27] your other noble parts you’ll suit

In giving him his right.

TIMONMine honest friend,

30

I prithee but repair[30] to me next morning.

CAPHISNay, good my lord—

TIMONContain thyself, good friend.

VARRO’S SERVANTOne Varro’s servant, my good lord—

ISIDORE’S SERVANTFrom Isidore:

35

He humbly prays your speedy payment.

CAPHISIf you did know, my lord, my master’s wants[36]—

VARRO’S SERVANT’Twas due on forfeiture,[37] my lord, six weeks and past.

ISIDORE’S SERVANTYour steward puts me off, my lord, and I

Am sent expressly to your lordship.

40

TIMONGive me breath.[40]—

I do beseech you, good my lords, keep on:[41] To his train

I’ll wait upon[42] you instantly.—

[Exeunt Alcibiades and Lords]

Come hither. Pray you, To Flavius

How goes[44] the world that I am thus encountered

45

With clamorous demands[45] of broken bonds

And the detention[46] of long-since-due debts,

Against my honour?[47]

FLAVIUSPlease you, gentlemen, To Servants

The time is unagreeable to[49] this business:

50

Your importunacy cease till after dinner,

That I may make his lordship understand

Wherefore you are not paid.

TIMONDo so, my friends.— To Servants

See them well entertained. To Flavius

[Exit]

FLAVIUSPray, draw near.[54] The Servants start to follow

Exit

Enter Apemantus and Fool

CAPHISStay, stay, here comes the fool with Apemantus: let’s ha’ some sport with ’em.

VARRO’S SERVANTHang him, he’ll abuse us.

ISIDORE’S SERVANTA plague upon him, dog!

VARRO’S SERVANTHow dost,[59] fool?

APEMANTUSDost[60] dialogue with thy shadow?

VARRO’S SERVANTI speak not to thee.

APEMANTUSNo,’tis to thyself.— Come away. To Fool

ISIDORE’S SERVANTThere’s[63] the fool hangs on your back already.

APEMANTUSNo,[64] thou stand’st single: thou’rt not on him yet.

CAPHISWhere’s the fool now?

APEMANTUSHe[66] last asked the question. Poor rogues and usurers’ men, bawds between gold and want.[67]

ALL SERVANTSWhat are we, Apemantus?

APEMANTUSAsses.

ALL SERVANTSWhy?

APEMANTUSThat you ask me what you are, and do not know yourselves. Speak to ’em, fool.

FOOLHow do you, gentlemen?

ALL SERVANTSGramercies,[74] good fool. How does your mistress?

FOOLShe’s e’en[75] setting on water to scald such chickens as you are. Would we could see you at Corinth![76]

APEMANTUSGood, gramercy.

Enter Page

FOOLLook you, here comes my master’s page.

PAGEWhy, how now, captain? To the Fool What do you in this wise company?— How dost thou, Apemantus?

APEMANTUSWould I had a rod[81] in my mouth, that I might answer thee profitably.

PAGEPrithee, Apemantus, read me the superscription[82] of these letters: Gives letters I know not which is which.

APEMANTUSCanst not read?

PAGENo.

APEMANTUSThere will little learning die then, that day thou art hanged. This is to Lord Timon, this to Alcibiades. Go, thou wast born a bastard, and thou’lt die a bawd.

PAGEThou wast whelped[89] a dog, and thou shalt famish a dog’s death. Answer not, I am gone.

Exit

APEMANTUSE’en so thou outrunn’st grace.[91]—

Fool, I will go with you to Lord Timon’s.

FOOLWill you leave me there?

APEMANTUSIf[94] Timon stay at home.— To Servants You three serve three usurers?

ALL SERVANTSAy: would[95] they served us!

APEMANTUSSo would I: as good a trick as ever hangman served thief.

FOOLAre you three usurers’ men?

ALL SERVANTSAy, fool.

FOOLI think no usurer but has a fool to[99] his servant: my mistress is one, and I am her fool[100]. When men come to borrow of your masters, they approach sadly[101] and go away merry, but they enter my master’s house merrily and go away sadly: the reason of this?

VARRO’S SERVANTI could render[103] one.

APEMANTUSDo it then, that we may account thee a whoremaster[104] and a knave, which[105] notwithstanding thou shalt be no less esteemed.

VARRO’S SERVANTWhat is a whoremaster, fool?

FOOLA fool in good clothes, and something like thee. ’Tis a spirit: sometime’t appears like a lord, sometime like a lawyer, sometime like a philosopher with two stones[109] more than’s artificial one. He is very often like a knight; and generally in all shapes that man goes[110] up and down in from fourscore to thirteen, this spirit walks in.

VARRO’S SERVANTThou art not altogether a fool.

FOOLNor thou altogether a wise man: as much foolery as I have, so much wit thou lack’st.

APEMANTUSThat answer might have become[115] Apemantus.

ALL SERVANTSAside, aside, here comes Lord Timon.

Enter Timon and Steward

APEMANTUSCome with me, fool, come.

FOOLI do not always follow lover,[118] elder brother and woman: sometime the philosopher.

[Exeunt Apemantus and Fool]

120

FLAVIUSPray you walk near:[120] I’ll speak with you anon.

Exeunt [Servants]

TIMONYou make me marvel[121] wherefore ere this time

Had you not fully laid my state before me,

That I might so have rated[123] my expense

As I had leave of means?

125

FLAVIUSYou would not hear me:

At many leisures[126] I proposed.

TIMONGo to:[127]

Perchance[128] some single vantages you took

When my indisposition[129] put you back,

130

And that[130] unaptness made your minister

Thus to excuse yourself.

FLAVIUSO my good lord,

At many times I brought in my accounts,

Laid them before you: you would throw them off,

135

And say, you found[135] them in mine honesty.

When for some trifling present you have bid me

Return so much, I have shook my head and wept:

Yea, gainst[138] th’authority of manners prayed you

To hold your hand more close.[139] I did endure

140

Not seldom, nor no slight checks[140] when I have

Prompted you in[141] the ebb of your estate

And your great flow of debts. My loved lord,

Though you hear now too late, yet now’s a time:[143]

The greatest[144] of your having lacks a half

145

To pay your present debts.

TIMONLet all my land be sold.

FLAVIUS’Tis all engaged,[147] some forfeited and gone,

And what remains will hardly stop[148] the mouth

Of present dues.[149] The future comes apace:

150

What shall defend the interim,[150] and at length

How goes our reck’ning?[151]

TIMONTo Lacedaemon[152] did my land extend.

FLAVIUSO, my good lord, the world is but a word:

Were it all yours to give it in a breath,

155

How quickly were it gone!

TIMONYou tell me true.

FLAVIUSIf you suspect my husbandry[157] or falsehood,

Call me before th’exactest auditors[158]

And set me on the proof.[159] So the gods bless me,

160

When all our offices[160] have been oppressed

With riotous feeders,[161] when our vaults have wept

With drunken spilth[162] of wine, when every room

Hath blazed with lights and brayed with minstrelsy,[163]

I have retired me to a wasteful cock,[164]

165

And set[165] mine eyes at flow.

TIMONPrithee, no more.

FLAVIUSHeavens, have I said, the bounty of this lord!

How many prodigal bits[168] have slaves and peasants

This night englutted![169] Who is not Timon’s?

170

What heart, head, sword, force, means, but is

Lord Timon’s?

Great Timon, noble, worthy, royal Timon!

Ah, when the means are gone that buy this praise,

The breath is gone whereof this praise is made:

175

Feast-won, fast-lost;[175] one cloud of winter show’rs,

These flies are couched.[176]

TIMONCome, sermon[177] me no further:

No villainous[178] bounty yet hath passed my heart;

Unwisely, not ignobly, have I given.

180

Why dost thou weep? Canst thou the conscience[180] lack,

To think I shall lack friends? Secure thy heart:

If I would broach[182] the vessels of my love

And try[183] the argument of hearts by borrowing,

Men and men’s fortunes could I frankly[184] use

185

As I can bid thee speak.

FLAVIUSAssurance[186] bless your thoughts!

TIMONAnd in some sort[187] these wants of mine are crowned

That I account[188] them blessings, for by these

Shall I try friends: you shall perceive how you

190

Mistake my fortunes. I am wealthy in my friends.—

Within there, Flaminius, Servilius! Calls

Enter three Servants

SERVANTSMy lord, my lord.

TIMONI will dispatch you severally:[193] you to Lord Lucius,— To Servilius

to Lord Lucullus you — I hunted with his honour today— To Flaminius

you to Sempronius. To Third Servant Commend me to their loves, and I am proud, say, that my occasions[196] have found time to use ’em toward a supply of money: let the request be fifty talents.

FLAMINIUSAs you have said, my lord.

[Exeunt the Servants]

FLAVIUSLord Lucius and Lucullus? Hum![199] Aside

200

TIMONGo you, sir, to the senators —

Of whom, even to the state’s best health,[201] I have

Deserved this hearing — bid ’em send o’th’instant

A thousand talents to me.

FLAVIUSI have been bold —

205

For that[205] I knew it the most general way —

To them to use your signet[206] and your name,

But they do shake their heads, and I am here

No richer in return.

TIMONIs’t true? Can’t be?

210

FLAVIUSThey answer in a joint and corporate[210] voice

That now they are at fall,[211] want treasure, cannot

Do what they would, are sorry, you are honourable,

But yet they could have wished — they know not —

Something hath been amiss, a noble nature

215

May catch a wrench[215] — would all were well — ’tis pity.

And so, intending[216] other serious matters,

After distasteful looks and these hard fractions,[217]

With certain half-caps[218] and cold-moving nods

They froze me into silence.

220

TIMONYou gods reward them!

Prithee, man, look cheerly.[221] These old fellows

Have their ingratitude in them hereditary:[222]

Their blood is caked,[223] ’tis cold, it seldom flows:

’Tis[224] lack of kindly warmth they are not kind;

225

And nature, as it grows[225] again toward earth,

Is fashioned for the journey, dull[226] and heavy.—

Go to Ventidius.— Prithee be not sad: To a Servant/To Flavius

Thou art true and honest; ingeniously[228] I speak.

No blame belongs to thee.— Ventidius lately To Servant

230

Buried his father, by whose death he’s stepped[230]

Into a great estate: when he was poor,

Imprisoned and in scarcity of friends,

I cleared him with five talents. Greet him from me,

Bid him suppose some good necessity[234]

235

Touches his friend, which craves to be remembered

With those five talents.—

[Exit Servant]

That had, give’t these fellows To Flavius

To whom ’tis instant due. Ne’er speak or think

That Timon’s fortunes ’mong his friends can sink.

FLAVIUSI would I could not think it: that[239] thought is bounty’s foe;

240

Being free[240] itself, it thinks all others so.

Exeunt

[Act 3 Scene 1]3.1

running scene 5

[Enter] Flaminius waiting to speak with a Lord from his master, enters a Servant to him

SERVANTI have told my lord of you: he is coming down to you.

FLAMINIUSI thank you, sir.

Enter Lucullus

SERVANTHere’s my lord.

LUCULLUSOne of Lord Timon’s men? A gift, I warrant.[4] Why, this hits right: Aside I dreamt of a silver basin and ewer[5] tonight.— Flaminius, honest Flaminius, you are very respectively[6] welcome, sir.— To Servant Fill me some wine.—

And how does that honourable, complete,[7] free-hearted gentleman of Athens, thy very bountiful good lord and master?

[Exit Servant]

FLAMINIUSHis health is well sir.

LUCULLUSI am right glad that his health is well, sir. And what hast thou there under thy cloak, pretty[11] Flaminius?

FLAMINIUSFaith, nothing but an empty box, sir, which in[12] my lord’s behalf I come to entreat your honour to supply,[13] who, having great and instant occasion to use fifty talents, hath sent to your lordship to furnish[14] him, nothing doubting your present[15] assistance therein.

LUCULLUSLa,[16] la, la, la! ‘Nothing doubting’ says he? Alas, good lord! A noble gentleman ’tis, if he would not keep so[17] good a house. Many a time and often I ha’ dined with him, and told him on’t,[18] and come again to supper to him of purpose to have him[19] spend less, and yet he would embrace no counsel, take no warning by my coming. Every man has his fault, and honesty[20] is his: I ha’ told him on’t, but I could ne’er get him from’t.

Enter Servant with wine

SERVANTPlease your lordship, here is the wine.

LUCULLUSFlaminius, I have noted thee always wise. Here’s to thee. Toasts

FLAMINIUSYour lordship speaks your pleasure.[24]

LUCULLUSI have observed thee always for a towardly[25] prompt spirit, give thee thy due, and one that knows what belongs to reason; and canst use the time well, if the time use[27] thee well. Good parts in thee.— To Servant Get you gone, sirrah.—

[Exit Servant]

Draw nearer, honest Flaminius. Thy lord’s a bountiful gentleman, but thou art wise, and thou know’st well enough — although thou com’st to me — that this is no time to lend money, especially upon bare[30] friendship without security. Gives money Here’s three solidares[31] for thee. Good boy, wink at me and say thou saw’st me not. Fare thee well.

FLAMINIUSIs’t possible the world should so much differ,[33]

And we alive that lived? Fly, damnèd baseness,

35

To him that worships thee. Throws back the money

LUCULLUSHa? Now I see thou art a fool, and fit for thy master.

Exit

FLAMINIUSMay these[37] add to the number that may scald thee!

Let molten[38] coin be thy damnation,

Thou disease of a friend, and not himself![39]

40

Has friendship such a faint and milky[40] heart,

It turns[41] in less than two nights? O you gods,

I feel my master’s passion![42] This slave

Unto his honour has my[43] lord’s meat in him:

Why should it thrive and turn to nutriment,[44]

45

When he is turned to poison?

O, may diseases only work upon’t!

And when he’s sick to death, let not that part of nature

Which my lord paid for be of any power

To expel sickness, but prolong his hour.[49]

Exit

[Act 3 Scene 2]3.2

running scene 6

Enter Lucius with three Strangers

LUCIUSWho, the Lord Timon? He is my very good friend, and an honourable gentleman.

FIRST STRANGERWe know him for[3] no less, though we are but strangers to him. But I can tell you one thing, my lord, and which I hear from common rumours: now Lord Timon’s happy hours are done and past, and his estate shrinks from him.

LUCIUSFie, no, do not believe it: he cannot want for money.

SECOND STRANGERBut believe you this, my lord, that not long ago, one of his men was with the lord Lucullus to borrow so many talents — nay, urged extremely for’t and showed what necessity[9] belonged to’t, and yet was denied.

LUCIUSHow?[10]

SECOND STRANGERI tell you, denied, my lord.

LUCIUSWhat a strange case was that? Now before the gods, I am ashamed on’t. Denied that honourable man? There was very little honour showed in’t. For my own part, I must needs confess I have received some small kindnesses from him, as money, plate, jewels and such-like trifles — nothing comparing to his:[15] yet, had he mistook him[16] and sent to me, I should ne’er have denied his occasion so many talents.

Enter Servilius

SERVILIUSSee, by good hap,[18] yonder’s my lord: Aside

I have sweat[19] to see his honour.— My honoured lord.— To Lucius

LUCIUSServilius! You are kindly met, sir. Fare thee well: commend me to thy honourable virtuous lord, my very exquisite[21] friend.

SERVILIUSMay it please your honour, my lord hath sent—

LUCIUSHa? What has he sent? I am so much endeared[23] to that lord; he’s ever sending: how shall I thank him, think’st thou? And what has he sent now?

SERVILIUSHas only sent his present occasion[25] now, my lord, requesting your lordship to supply his instant use[26] with so many talents. Presents a note

LUCIUSI know his lordship is but merry[27] with me:

He cannot want fifty— five hundred talents! Reads the note

SERVILIUSBut in the meantime he wants less, my lord.

30

If his occasion were not virtuous,[30]

I should not urge it half so faithfully.

LUCIUSDost thou speak seriously, Servilius?

SERVILIUSUpon my soul, ’tis true, sir.

LUCIUSWhat a wicked beast was I to disfurnish myself against[34] such a good time, when I might ha’ shown myself honourable! How unluckily it happened that I should purchase[36] the day before for a little part, and undo a great deal of honour. Servilius, now before the gods, I am not able to do — the more beast, I say — I was sending to use[38] Lord Timon myself — these gentlemen can witness — but I would[39] not, for the wealth of Athens, I had done’t now. Commend me bountifully to his good lordship, and I hope his honour will conceive the fairest[40] of me because I have no power to be kind:[41] and tell him this from me, I count it one of my greatest afflictions, say, that I cannot pleasure[42] such an honourable gentleman. Good Servilius, will you befriend[43] me so far, as to use mine own words to him?

SERVILIUSYes, sir, I shall.

Exit Servilius

45

LUCIUSI’ll look[45] you out a good turn, Servilius.— Calls after him

True as you said, Timon is shrunk[46] indeed:

And he that’s once denied will hardly speed.[47]

Exit

FIRST STRANGERDo you observe this, Hostilius?

SECOND STRANGERAy, too well.

50

FIRST STRANGERWhy, this is the world’s soul,[50] and just of the same piece

Is every flatterer’s sport. Who can call him his friend

That dips[52] in the same dish? For, in my knowing,

Timon has been[53] this lord’s father,

And kept his[54] credit with his purse,

55

Supported his estate: nay, Timon’s money

Has paid his men their wages. He ne’er drinks,

But Timon’s silver treads[57] upon his lip,

And yet — O, see the monstrousness[58] of man

When he looks out[59] in an ungrateful shape! —

60

He does deny him, in[60] respect of his,

What charitable men afford to beggars.

THIRD STRANGERReligion groans at it.

FIRST STRANGERFor mine own part,

I never tasted[64] Timon in my life,

65

Nor came any of his bounties over[65] me

To mark me for his friend: yet I protest,

For his right noble mind, illustrious virtue

And honourable carriage,[68]

Had his necessity made use of me

70

I would have put[70] my wealth into donation,

And the best half should have returned to him,

So much I love his heart. But I perceive

Men must learn now with[73] pity to dispense,

For policy[74] sits above conscience.

Exeunt

[Act 3 Scene 3][*]

running scene 7

Enter a third Servant with Sempronius, another of Timon’s friends

SEMPRONIUSMust he needs trouble me in’t. Hum! ’Bove all others?

He might have tried Lord Lucius or Lucullus,

And now Ventidius is wealthy too,

Whom he redeemed from prison: all these

5

Owes their estates unto him.

SERVANTMy lord,

They have all been touched[7] and found base metal,

For they have all denied him.

SEMPRONIUSHow? Have they denied him?

10

Has Ventidius and Lucullus denied him,

And does he send to me? Three? Hum!

It shows but little love or judgement in him.

Must I be his last refuge? His friends, like physicians,

Thrive,[14] give him over: must I take th’cure upon me?

15

He’s much disgraced me in’t: I’m angry at him,

That[16] might have known my place. I see no sense for’t,

But his occasions might have wooed me first,

For, in my conscience,[18] I was the first man

That e’er receivèd gift from him:

20

And does he think so backwardly[20] of me now

That I’ll requite[21] it last? No:

So it may prove an argument[22] of laughter

To th’rest, and ’mongst lords be thought a fool.

I’d rather than the worth of thrice the sum,

25

Had[25] sent to me first, but for my mind’s sake:

I’d such a courage[26] to do him good. But now return,

And with their faint[27] reply this answer join:

Who bates[28] mine honour shall not know my coin.

Exit

SERVANTExcellent. Your lordship’s a goodly[29] villain. The devil knew not what he did when he made man politic;[30] he crossed himself by’t, and I cannot think but in the end the villainies of man will set him clear.[31] How fairly this lord strives to appear foul![32] Takes virtuous copies to be wicked, like those that under hot ardent zeal would set[33] whole realms on fire: of such a nature is his politic love.

This was my lord’s best hope. Now all are fled,

35

Save only the gods. Now his friends are dead.[35]

Doors that were ne’er acquainted with their wards[36]

Many[37] a bounteous year must be employed

Now to guard sure[38] their master.

And this is all a liberal[39] course allows:

40

Who cannot keep his wealth must keep his house.[40]

Exit

[Act 3 Scene 4]3.4

running scene 8

Enter Varro’s man meeting others: all Timon’s creditors to wait for his coming out. Then Enter [a Servant of] Lucius, [Titus] and Hortensius

VARRO’S FIRST SERVANTWell met: good morrow, Titus and Hortensius.

TITUSThe like to you, kind Varro.

HORTENSIUSLucius, what, do we meet together?

LUCIUS’ SERVANTAy, and I think one business does command us all,

5

For mine is money.

TITUSSo is theirs and ours.

Enter Philotus

LUCIUS’ SERVANTAnd Sir Philotus too!

PHILOTUSGood day at once.[8]

LUCIUS’ SERVANTWelcome, good brother.

10

What do you think the hour?[10]

PHILOTUSLabouring for[11] nine.

LUCIUS’ SERVANTSo much?[12]

PHILOTUSIs not my lord seen yet?

LUCIUS’ SERVANTNot yet.

15

PHILOTUSI wonder on’t:[15] he was wont to shine at seven.

LUCIUS’ SERVANTAy, but the days are waxed[16] shorter with him:

You must consider that a prodigal[17] course

Is like the sun’s,[18]

But not, like his, recoverable. I fear

20

’Tis deepest winter in Lord Timon’s purse: that is,

One may reach deep enough, and yet find little.

PHILOTUSI am of[22] your fear for that.

TITUSI’ll show you how t’observe[23] a strange event.

Your lord sends now for money?

25

HORTENSIUSMost true, he does.

TITUSAnd he wears jewels now of Timon’s gift,

For[27] which I wait for money.

HORTENSIUSIt is against my heart.[28]

LUCIUS’ SERVANTMark[29] how strange it shows:

30

Timon in this should pay more than he owes,

And e’en[31] as if your lord should wear rich jewels,

And send for money for ’em.

HORTENSIUSI’m weary of this charge,[33] the gods can witness:

I know my lord hath spent of Timon’s wealth,

35

And now ingratitude makes it worse than stealth.[35]

VARRO’S FIRST SERVANTYes, mine’s three thousand crowns: what’s yours?

LUCIUS’ SERVANTFive thousand mine.

VARRO’S FIRST SERVANT’Tis much deep,[38] and it should seem by th’sum,

Your master’s confidence[39] was above mine,

40

Else surely his had equalled.[40]

Enter Flaminius

TITUSOne of Lord Timon’s men.

LUCIUS’ SERVANT Flaminius! Sir, a word: pray, is my lord ready to come forth?

FLAMINIUSNo, indeed, he is not.

TITUSWe attend[44] his lordship: pray signify so much.

FLAMINIUSI need not tell him that: he knows you are too diligent.[45]

[Exit]

Enter Steward [Flavius] in a cloak, muffled

LUCIUS’ SERVANT Ha? Is not that his steward muffled so? He goes away in a cloud.[47] Call him, call him.

TITUSDo you hear, sir?

VARRO’S SECOND SERVANTBy your leave, sir—

FLAVIUSWhat do ye ask of me, my friend?

TITUSWe wait for certain[51] money here, sir.

FLAVIUSAy,

If money were as certain as your waiting,

’Twere sure enough.

55

Why then preferred[55] you not your sums and bills

When your false[56] masters eat of my lord’s meat?

Then they could smile and fawn[57] upon his debts

And take down[58] th’interest into their glutt’nous maws.

You do yourselves but wrong to stir me up:[59]

60

Let me pass quietly.

Believe’t, my lord and I have made an end:[61]

I have no more to reckon,[62] he to spend.

LUCIUS’ SERVANTAy, but this answer will not serve.[63]

FLAVIUSIf ’twill not serve, ’tis not so base[64] as you,

65

For you serve knaves.

[Exit]

VARRO’S FIRST SERVANTHow? What does his cashiered[66] worship mutter?

VARRO’S SECOND SERVANTNo matter what: he’s poor, and that’s revenge enough. Who can speak broader[68] than he that has no house to put his head in? Such may rail[69] against great buildings.

Enter Servilius

TITUSO, here’s Servilius: now we shall know some answer.

SERVILIUSIf I might beseech you, gentlemen, to repair[71] some other hour, I should derive much from’t, for, take’t[72] of my soul, my lord leans wondrously to discontent: his comfortable[73] temper has forsook him; he’s much out of health, and keeps[74] his chamber.

75

LUCIUS’ SERVANT Many do keep their chambers are not sick,

And if[76] it be so far beyond his health,

Methinks he should the sooner pay his debts

And make[78] a clear way to the gods.

SERVILIUSGood gods!

80

TITUSWe cannot take this for answer, sir.

FLAMINIUSServilius, help! My lord, my lord!

Within

Enter Timon, in a rage

TIMONWhat, are my doors opposed against my passage?[82]

Have I been ever free,[83] and must my house

Be my retentive[84] enemy, my jail?

85

The place which I have feasted, does it now,

Like all mankind, show me an iron heart?

LUCIUS’ SERVANTPut in[87] now, Titus.

TITUSMy lord, here is my bill.

LUCIUS’ SERVANTHere’s mine.

90

HORTENSIUSAnd mine, my lord.

VARRO’S FIRST and SECOND SERVANTSAnd ours, my lord.

PHILOTUSAll our bills.

TIMONKnock[93] me down with ’em: cleave me to the girdle.

LUCIUS’ SERVANTAlas, my lord.

95

TIMONCut my heart in sums.[95]

TITUSMine, fifty talents.

TIMONTell[97] out my blood

LUCIUS’ SERVANTFive thousand crowns, my lord.

TIMONFive thousand drops pays that. What yours? And yours?

100

VARRO’S FIRST SERVANTMy lord—

VARRO’S SECOND SERVANTMy lord—

TIMONTear me, take me, and the gods fall upon[102] you!

Exit Timon

HORTENSIUS’Faith, I perceive our masters may throw[103] their caps at their money: these debts may well be called desperate[104] ones, for a madman owes ’em.

Exeunt

Act 3 Scene 53.5

running scene 8 continues

Enter Timon [and Flavius]

TIMONThey have e’en put[1] my breath from me, the slaves.

Creditors? Devils!

FLAVIUSMy dear lord—

TIMONWhat[4] if it should be so?

5

FLAVIUSMy lord—

TIMONI’ll have it so. My steward!

FLAVIUSHere, my lord.

TIMONSo fitly?[8] Go, bid all my friends again,

Lucius, Lucullus, and Sempronius — all luxurs,[9] all.

10

I’ll once more feast the rascals.

FLAVIUSO my lord,

You only speak from your distracted[12] soul;

There’s not so much left to furnish out

A moderate table.

15

TIMONBe[15] it not in thy care: go,

I charge thee, invite them all. Let in the tide

Of knaves once more: my cook and I’ll provide.

Exeunt

[Act 3 Scene 6]3.6

running scene 9

Enter three Senators at one door, Alcibiades meeting them, with Attendants

FIRST SENATORMy lord, you have my voice[1] to it. The fault’s

Bloody:[2] ’tis necessary he should die.

Nothing emboldens[3] sin so much as mercy.

SECOND SENATORMost true; the law shall bruise[4] ’em.

5

ALCIBIADESHonour, health, and compassion to the senate! Comes forward

FIRST SENATORNow, captain.

ALCIBIADESI am an humble suitor to your virtues;[7]

For pity is the virtue of the law,

And none but tyrants use it cruelly.

10

It pleases time and fortune to lie heavy

Upon a friend of mine, who in hot blood[11]

Hath stepped into[12] the law, which is past depth

To those that, without heed,[13] do plunge into’t.

He is a man, setting his fate[14] aside,

15

Of comely[15] virtues:

Nor did he soil[16] the fact with cowardice —

And honour in him which buys out[17] his fault —

But with a noble fury and fair[18] spirit,

Seeing his reputation touched to death,[19]

20

He did oppose his foe,

And with such sober[21] and unnoted passion

He did behave[22] his anger, ere ’twas spent,

As if he had but[23] proved an argument.

FIRST SENATORYou undergo[24] too strict a paradox,

25

Striving to make an ugly deed look fair:

Your words have took such pains as if they laboured

To bring manslaughter into form[27] and set quarrelling

Upon the head[28] of valour; which indeed

Is valour misbegot[29] and came into the world

30

When sects and factions were newly born.

He’s truly valiant that can wisely suffer[31]

The worst that man can breathe,[32]

And make his wrongs[33] his outsides,

To wear them like his raiment,[34] carelessly,

35

And ne’er prefer[35] his injuries to his heart

To bring it into danger.

If wrongs[37] be evils and enforce us kill,

What folly ’tis to hazard life for ill![38]

ALCIBIADESMy lord—

40

FIRST SENATORYou cannot make gross[40] sins look clear:

To revenge is no valour, but to bear.[41]

ALCIBIADESMy lords, then, under favour,[42] pardon me

If I speak like a captain.[43]

Why do fond[44] men expose themselves to battle,

45

And not endure all threats? Sleep upon’t,

And let the foes quietly cut their throats

Without repugnancy?[47] If there be

Such valour in the bearing, what[48] make we

Abroad? Why then, women are more valiant

50

That stay at home, if bearing[50] carry it.

And the ass more captain than the lion, the fellow

Loaden with irons[52] wiser than the judge,

If wisdom be in suffering. O my lords,

As you are great, be pitifully good.

55

Who cannot condemn rashness in cold blood?

To kill, I grant, is sin’s extremest gust,[56]

But in defence, by mercy,[57] ’tis most just.

To be in anger is impiety,

But who is man that is not angry?

60

Weigh[60] but the crime with this.

SECOND SENATORYou breathe[61] in vain.

ALCIBIADESIn vain? His service done

At Lacedaemon[63] and Byzantium

Were a sufficient briber[64] for his life.

65

FIRST SENATORWhat’s that?

ALCIBIADESWhy, I say, my lords, he’s done fair service,

And slain in fight many of your enemies:

How full of valour did he bear himself

In the last conflict, and made plenteous wounds!

70

SECOND SENATORHe has made[70] too much plenty with ’em.

He’s a sworn rioter: he has a sin[71]

That often drowns him, and takes his valour prisoner:

If there were no foes, that were enough

To overcome him. In[74] that beastly fury

75

He has been known to commit outrages

And cherish factions:[76] ’tis inferred to us,

His days are foul and his drink dangerous.

FIRST SENATORHe dies.

ALCIBIADESHard fate! He might have died in war.

80

My lords, if not for any parts[80] in him —

Though his right[81] arm might purchase his own time

And be in debt to none — yet, more to move you,

Take my deserts[83] to his and join ’em both.

And for[84] I know

85

Your reverend ages love security,[85]

I’ll pawn[86] my victories, all my honour to you,

Upon[87] his good returns.

If by this crime he owes the law his life,

Why, let the war receive’t in valiant gore,[89]

90

For law is strict, and war is nothing more.

FIRST SENATORWe are for law: he dies: urge it no more

On[92] height of our displeasure. Friend or brother,

He forfeits his own blood that spills another.

ALCIBIADESMust it be so? It must not be.

95

My lords, I do beseech you know[95] me.

SECOND SENATORHow?

ALCIBIADESCall me to your remembrances.

THIRD SENATORWhat?

ALCIBIADESI cannot think but your age has forgot me:

100

It could not else be, I should prove so base

To sue[101] and be denied such common grace.

My wounds ache at you.

FIRST SENATORDo you dare our anger?

’Tis in few words, but spacious in effect:[104]

105

We banish thee for ever.

ALCIBIADESBanish me?

Banish your dotage,[107] banish usury

That makes the senate ugly.

FIRST SENATORIf after two days’ shine[109] Athens contain thee,

110

Attend[110] our weightier judgement. And, not to swell our spirit,

He shall be executed presently.[111]

Exeunt [Senators]

ALCIBIADESNow the gods keep you old enough that you may live

Only in bone,[113] that none may look on you!

I’m worse than mad: I have kept back their foes

115

While they have told[115] their money and let out

Their coin upon large interest, I myself

Rich only in large hurts. All those for this?

Is this the balsam[118] that the usuring senate

Pours into captains’ wounds? Banishment!

120

It comes not ill:[120] I hate not to be banished.

It is a cause worthy[121] my spleen and fury,

That I may strike at Athens. I’ll cheer up

My discontented troops, and lay for[123] hearts.

’Tis honour with most lands to be at odds.[124]

125

Soldiers should brook[125] as little wrongs as gods.

Exit

[Act 3 Scene 7]3.7

running scene 10

Enter divers friends [Lords and Senators] at several doors

FIRST LORDThe good time of day to you, sir.

SECOND LORDI also wish it to you. I think this honourable lord did but try[2] us this other day.

FIRST LORDUpon that were my thoughts tiring[4] when we encountered. I hope it is not so low[5] with him as he made it seem in the trial of his several friends.

SECOND LORDIt should not be, by the persuasion[6] of his new feasting.

FIRST LORDI should think so: he hath sent me an earnest inviting, which many[7] my near occasions did urge me to put off, but he hath conjured[8] me beyond them, and I must needs appear.

SECOND LORDIn like manner was I in debt[10] to my importunate business, but he would not hear my excuse. I am sorry when he sent to borrow of me that my provision[11] was out.

FIRST LORDI am sick of[13] that grief too, as I understand how all things go.

SECOND LORDEvery man here’s so.[14] What would he have borrowed of you?

FIRST LORDA thousand pieces.[15]

SECOND LORDA thousand pieces?

FIRST LORDWhat of you?

SECOND LORDHe sent to me, sir — here he comes.

Enter Timon and Attendants

TIMONWith[19] all my heart, gentlemen both; and how fare you?

FIRST LORDEver at the best, hearing well of your lordship.

SECOND LORDThe swallow follows not summer more willing than we your lordship.

TIMONNor[22] more willingly leaves winter, such summer birds are men.— Aside

Gentlemen, our dinner will not recompense this long stay.[23] Feast your ears with the music awhile, if[24] they will fare so harshly o’th’trumpet’s sound: we shall to’t presently.[25]

FIRST LORDI hope it[26] remains not unkindly with your lordship that I returned you an empty messenger.

TIMONO, sir, let it not trouble you.

SECOND LORDMy noble lord—

TIMONAh, my good friend, what cheer?[30]

The banquet brought in

SECOND LORDMy most honourable lord, I am e’en sick of shame, that, when your lordship this other day sent to me, I was so[32] unfortunate a beggar.

TIMONThink not on’t, sir.

SECOND LORDIf you had sent but two hours before,—

TIMONLet it not cumber[35] your better remembrance.—

Come, bring in all together. To Servants, who bring in covered dishes

SECOND LORDAll covered dishes![37]

FIRST LORDRoyal cheer,[38] I warrant you.

THIRD LORDDoubt not that, if money and the season can yield it.

FIRST LORDHow do you? What’s the news?

THIRD LORDAlcibiades is banished: hear you of it?

FIRST and SECOND LORDSAlcibiades banished?

THIRD LORD’Tis so, be sure of it.

FIRST LORDHow? How?

SECOND LORDI pray you upon what?[45]

TIMONMy worthy friends, will you draw near?

THIRD LORDI’ll tell you more anon. Here’s a noble feast toward.[47]

SECOND LORDThis is the old man[48] still.

THIRD LORDWill’t hold?[49] Will’t hold?

SECOND LORDIt does: but time will[50]— and so—

THIRD LORDI do conceive.[51]

TIMONEach man to his stool with that spur[52] as he would to the lip of his mistress: your diet[53] shall be in all places alike. Make not a city feast of it, to let the meat cool ere we can agree upon the first place. Sit, sit. They sit The gods require[54] our thanks.— You great benefactors, sprinkle our society with thankfulness. For your own gifts, make yourselves praised: but reserve still[56] to give, lest your deities be despised. Lend to each man enough that one need not lend to another, for were your godheads to borrow of men, men would forsake the gods. Make the meat be beloved more than the man that gives it. Let no assembly of twenty be without a[59] score of villains: if there sit twelve women at the table, let a dozen of them be as they are.[60] The rest of your foes, O gods — the senators of Athens, together with the common tag[62] of people — what is amiss in them, you gods, make suitable for destruction. For these my present friends, as they are to me nothing, so in nothing bless them, and to nothing are they welcome.— Uncover, dogs, and lap! The dishes are uncovered and seen to be full of warm water and stones

SOME LORDSWhat does his lordship mean?

OTHER LORDSI know not.

TIMONMay you a better feast never behold,

You knot[68] of mouth-friends. Smoke and lukewarm water

Is your perfection.[69] This is Timon’s last,

70

Who, stuck and spangled[70] with your flatteries,

Washes it off, and sprinkles in your faces

Your reeking[72] villainy. Live loathed and long, Throws water at them

Most smiling, smooth, detested parasites,

Courteous destroyers, affable wolves, meek bears,

75

You fools of fortune, trencher-friends,[75] time’s flies,

Cap[76] and knee slaves, vapours, and minute-jacks!

Of man and beast the infinite[77] malady

Crust you quite o’er!— A Lord gets up to leave

What, dost thou go?

Soft,[79] take thy physic first.— Thou too, and thou. Throws the stones at them

80

Stay, I will lend thee money, borrow none. Leaving their caps and gowns

[Exeunt the Lords]

What, all in motion? Henceforth be[81] no feast,

Whereat[82] a villain’s not a welcome guest.

Burn, house! Sink, Athens! Henceforth hated be

Of[84] Timon, man and all humanity!

Exit

Enter the Senators with other Lords

FIRST LORDHow now, my lords?

SECOND LORDKnow you the quality[86] of Lord Timon’s fury?

THIRD LORDPush![87] Did you see my cap?

FOURTH LORDI have lost my gown.

FIRST LORDHe’s but a mad lord, and nought but humours[89] sways him. He gave me a jewel th’other day, and now he has beat it out of my hat. Did you see my jewel? They search

THIRD LORDDid you see my cap?

SECOND LORDHere ’tis.

FOURTH LORDHere lies my gown.

FIRST LORDLet’s make no stay.

SECOND LORDLord Timon’s mad.

THIRD LORDI feel’t upon my bones.[96]

FOURTH LORDOne day he gives us diamonds, next day stones.

Exeunt the Senators [and Lords]

[Act 4 Scene 1]4.1

running scene 11

Enter Timon

TIMONLet me look back upon thee. O thou wall

That girdles in[2] those wolves, dive in the earth,

And fence not Athens! Matrons,[3] turn incontinent,

Obedience fail in children! Slaves and fools,

5

Pluck the grave[5] wrinkled senate from the bench,

And minister[6] in their steads! To general filths

Convert o’th’instant, green[7] virginity:

Do’t[8] in your parents’ eyes! Bankrupts, hold fast

Rather than render back; out with your knives,

10

And cut your trusters’[10] throats! Bound servants, steal!

Large-handed[11] robbers your grave masters are,

And pill[12] by law. Maid, to thy master’s bed,

Thy mistress is o’th’brothel![13] Son of sixteen,

Pluck the lined[14] crutch from thy old limping sire,

15

With it beat out his brains! Piety and fear,

Religion[16] to the gods, peace, justice, truth,

Domestic awe,[17] night-rest, and neighbourhood,

Instruction,[18] manners, mysteries and trades,

Degrees,[19] observances, customs and laws,

20

Decline to your confounding contraries,[20]

And yet confusion live! Plagues incident[21] to men,

Your potent and infectious fevers heap

On Athens, ripe for stroke![23] Thou cold sciatica,

Cripple our senators that their limbs may halt[24]

25

As lamely as their manners. Lust and liberty[25]

Creep in the minds and marrows of our youth,

That gainst the stream of virtue they may strive[27]

And drown themselves in riot![28] Itches, blains,

Sow all th’Athenian bosoms,[29] and their crop

30

Be general leprosy! Breath infect breath,

That their society, as their friendship, may

Be merely[32] poison! Nothing I’ll bear from thee

But nakedness, thou detestable town. Tears off his clothes

Take thou that too, with multiplying bans![34]

35

Timon will to the woods, where he shall find

Th’unkindest beast more kinder[36] than mankind.

The gods confound[37] — hear me, you good gods all —

Th’Athenians both within and out that wall,

And grant, as Timon grows, his hate may grow

40

To the whole race of mankind, high and low! Amen.

Exit

[Act 4 Scene 2]4.2

running scene 12

Enter Steward [Flavius] with two or three Servants

FIRST SERVANTHear you, master steward, where’s our master?

Are we undone,[2] cast off, nothing remaining?

FLAVIUSAlack, my fellows, what should I say to you?

Let[4] me be recorded by the righteous gods,

5

I am as poor as you.

FIRST SERVANTSuch a house[6] broke?

So noble a master fall’n? All gone, and not

One friend to take[8] his fortune by the arm,

And go along with him?

10

SECOND SERVANTAs we do turn our backs

From our companion thrown into his grave,

So his familiars[12] to his buried fortunes

Slink all away, leave their false vows with him

Like empty purses picked;[14] and his poor self,

15

A dedicated[15] beggar to the air,

With his disease of all-shunned[16] poverty,

Walks like contempt alone. More of our fellows.[17]

Enter other Servants

FLAVIUSAll broken implements[18] of a ruined house.

THIRD SERVANTYet do our hearts wear Timon’s livery:[19]

20

That see I by our faces. We are fellows still,

Serving alike in sorrow. Leaked is our bark,[21]

And we, poor mates, stand on the dying[22] deck

Hearing the surges[23] threat: we must all part

Into this sea of air.

25

FLAVIUSGood fellows all,

The latest[26] of my wealth I’ll share amongst you.

Wherever we shall meet, for Timon’s sake,

Let’s yet be fellows: let’s shake our heads and say,

As ’twere a knell[29] unto our master’s fortunes,

30

‘We have seen better days.’ Let each take some: Offers money

Nay, put out all your hands. Not one word more.

Thus part we rich in sorrow, parting poor.

Embrace, and [the Servants] part several ways

O, the fierce wretchedness that glory[33] brings us!

Who would not wish to be from wealth exempt,

35

Since riches point to misery and contempt?

Who would be so mocked with glory, or to live

But in a dream of friendship?

To have his pomp[38] and all what state compounds

But only painted,[39] like his varnished friends?

40

Poor honest lord, brought low by his own heart,

Undone by goodness! Strange, unusual blood,[41]

When man’s worst sin is he does too much good!

Who then dares to be half so kind again?

For bounty, that makes gods, does still mar[44] men.

45

My dearest lord, blessed to be most accursed,

Rich only to be wretched,[46] thy great fortunes

Are made thy chief afflictions. Alas, kind lord!

He’s flung[48] in rage from this ingrateful seat

Of monstrous[49] friends:

50

Nor has he with him to[50] supply his life,

Or that which can command[51] it.

I’ll follow and inquire[52] him out:

I’ll ever serve his mind with my best will.

Whilst I have gold, I’ll be his steward still.

Exit

[Act 4 Scene 3]4.3

running scene 13

Enter Timon in the woods With a spade

TIMONO blessèd breeding[1] sun, draw from the earth

Rotten humidity: below thy sister’s orb[2]

Infect the air. Twinned brothers of one womb,

Whose procreation, residence,[4] and birth,

5

Scarce is dividant,[5] touch them with several fortunes,

The greater scorns the lesser. Not[6] nature,

To whom all sores lay siege, can bear great fortune

But by contempt of nature.

Raise me[9] this beggar, and deny’t that lord,

10

The senators shall bear contempt hereditary,[10]

The beggar native honour.[11]

It is the pasture[12] lards the beggar’s sides,

The want[13] that makes him lean. Who dares, who dares

In purity of manhood[14] stand upright

15

And say ‘This man’s a flatterer’? If one be,

So are they all, for every grece[16] of fortune

Is smoothed[17] by that below. The learnèd pate

Ducks[18] to the golden fool. All’s oblique:

There’s nothing level[19] in our cursèd natures

20

But direct[20] villainy. Therefore be abhorred

All feasts, societies, and throngs of men!

His semblable,[22] yea, himself, Timon disdains.

Destruction fang[23] mankind. Earth, yield me roots. Digs

Who seeks for better of[24] thee, sauce his palate

25

With thy most operant[25] poison! What is here? Discovers gold

Gold? Yellow, glittering, precious gold?

No, gods, I am no idle votarist:[27]

Roots, you clear[28] heavens. Thus much of this will make

Black white, foul fair, wrong right,

30

Base noble, old young, coward valiant.

Ha, you gods! Why this? What this, you gods? Why, this

Will lug[32] your priests and servants from your sides,

Pluck stout men’s pillows from below their heads:

This yellow slave

35

Will knit[35] and break religions, bless th’accursed,

Make the hoar[36] leprosy adored, place thieves

And give them title, knee[37] and approbation

With senators on the bench. This is it

That makes the wappened[39] widow wed again;

40

She whom the spittle house[40] and ulcerous sores

Would cast[41] the gorge at, this embalms and spices

To th’April day[42] again. Come, damnèd earth,

Thou common whore[43] of mankind, that puts odds

Among the rout[44] of nations, I will make thee

45

Do[45] thy right nature.

March afar off

Ha? A drum? Thou’rt quick,

But yet I’ll bury thee: thou’lt go,[46] strong thief, Buries the gold

When gouty keepers[47] of thee cannot stand.

Nay, stay thou out for earnest.[48] Keeps some of the gold

Enter Alcibiades with Drum and Fife in warlike manner, and Phrynia and Timandra

ALCIBIADESWhat art thou there? Speak.

50

TIMONA beast, as thou art. The canker[50] gnaw thy heart

For showing me again the eyes of man!

ALCIBIADESWhat is thy name? Is man so hateful to thee

That art thyself a man?

TIMONI am Misanthropos,[54] and hate mankind.

55

For thy part, I do wish thou wert a dog,

That I might love thee something.[56]

ALCIBIADESI know thee well,

But in thy fortunes am unlearned and strange.[58]

TIMONI know thee too, and more than that I know thee

60

I not desire to know. Follow thy drum,

With man’s blood paint the ground gules,[61] gules.

Religious canons,[62] civil laws are cruel:

Then what should war be? This fell[63] whore of thine

Hath in her more destruction than thy sword,

65

For all her cherubin look.[65]

PHRYNIAThy lips rot off![66]

TIMONI will not kiss thee, then the rot returns

To thine own lips again.

ALCIBIADESHow came the noble Timon to this change?

70

TIMONAs the moon does, by wanting[70] light to give.

But then renew[71] I could not like the moon:

There were no suns to borrow of.

ALCIBIADESNoble Timon, what friendship may I do thee?

TIMONNone, but to maintain my opinion.

ALCIBIADESWhat is it, Timon?

TIMONPromise me friendship, but perform none: if thou wilt not promise, the gods plague thee, for thou art a man. If thou dost perform, confound thee, for thou art a man.

ALCIBIADESI have heard in some sort[79] of thy miseries.

80

TIMONThou saw’st them when I had prosperity.

ALCIBIADESI see them now: then was a blessèd time.

TIMONAs thine is now, held with a brace[82] of harlots.

TIMANDRAIs this th’Athenian minion[83] whom the world

Voiced so regardfully?[84]

85

TIMONArt thou Timandra?

TIMANDRAYes.

TIMONBe a whore still. They love thee not that use[87] thee:

Give them diseases, leaving with thee their lust.

Make use of thy salt[89] hours: season the slaves

90

For tubs and baths,[90] bring down rose-cheeked youth

To the tub-fast[91] and the diet.

TIMANDRAHang thee, monster!

ALCIBIADESPardon him, sweet Timandra, for his wits

Are drowned and lost in his calamities.

95

I have but little gold of late,[95] brave Timon,

The want whereof[96] doth daily make revolt

In my penurious[97] band. I have heard and grieved

How cursèd Athens, mindless[98] of thy worth,

Forgetting thy great deeds, when neighbour states,

100

But[100] for thy sword and fortune trod upon them—

TIMONI prithee beat thy drum and get thee gone.

ALCIBIADESI am thy friend, and pity thee, dear Timon.

TIMONHow dost thou pity him whom thou dost trouble?

I had rather be alone.

105

ALCIBIADESWhy, fare thee well:

Here is some gold for thee.

TIMONKeep it, I cannot eat it.

ALCIBIADESWhen I have laid proud Athens on a heap[108]—

TIMONWarr’st thou gainst Athens?

110

ALCIBIADESAy, Timon, and have cause.

TIMONThe gods confound them all in thy conquest,

And thee after, when thou hast conquered!

ALCIBIADESWhy me, Timon?

TIMONThat by killing of villains

115

Thou wast born to conquer my country.

Put up[116] thy gold. Go on, here’s gold, go on.

Be as a planetary plague[117] when Jove

Will[118] o’er some high-viced city hang his poison

In the sick[119] air. Let not thy sword skip one.

120

Pity not honoured age for his white beard:

He is an usurer. Strike me[121] the counterfeit matron:

It is her habit[122] only that is honest,

Herself’s a bawd. Let not the virgin’s cheek

Make soft thy trenchant[124] sword, for those milk-paps

125

That through the window-bars[125] bore at men’s eyes,

Are not within the leaf of pity[126] writ,

But set[127] them down horrible traitors. Spare not the babe

Whose dimpled smiles from fools exhaust[128] their mercy;

Think it a bastard whom the oracle

130

Hath doubtfully[130] pronounced the throat shall cut,

And mince[131] it sans remorse. Swear against objects,

Put armour on thine ears and on thine eyes

Whose proof[133] nor yells of mothers, maids, nor babes,

Nor sight of priests in holy vestments bleeding,

135

Shall pierce a jot. There’s gold to pay thy soldiers: Offers gold

Make large confusion,[136] and, thy fury spent,

Confounded be thyself. Speak not, be gone.

ALCIBIADESHast thou gold yet? I’ll take the gold thou givest me, Takes gold

Not all thy counsel.[139]

140

TIMONDost[140] thou or dost thou not, heaven’s curse upon thee!

PHRYNIA and TIMANDRAGive us some gold, good Timon. Hast thou more?

TIMONEnough to make a whore forswear[142] her trade,

And to make[143] whores, a bawd. Hold up, you sluts,

Your aprons mountant.[144] Throws gold into their aprons

You are not oathable,

145

Although I know you’ll swear, terribly swear

Into strong shudders and to heavenly agues[146]

Th’immortal gods that hear you. Spare your oaths:

I’ll trust to your conditions.[148] Be whores still,

And he whose pious breath seeks to convert you,

150

Be strong in whore,[150] allure him, burn him up:

Let your close fire[151] predominate his smoke,

And be no turncoats.[152] Yet may your pains six months

Be quite contrary, and thatch your poor thin roofs[153]

With burdens of[154] the dead — some that were hanged,

155

No matter. Wear them, betray with them, whore still,

Paint[156] till a horse may mire upon your face.

A pox[157] of wrinkles!

PHRYNIA and TIMANDRAWell, more gold: what then?

Believe’t that we’ll do[159] anything for gold.

160

TIMONConsumptions[160] sow

In hollow bones of man, strike their sharp[161] shins,

And mar[162] men’s spurring. Crack the lawyer’s voice,

That he may never more false title[163] plead,

Nor sound his quillets[164] shrilly. Hoar the flamen

165

That scolds[165] against the quality of flesh,

And not believes himself. Down[166] with the nose,

Down with it flat: take the bridge quite away

Of him that, his[168] particular to foresee,

Smells[169] from the general weal. Make curled-pate ruffians bald,

170

And let the unscarred braggarts[170] of the war

Derive some pain from you. Plague all,

That your activity[172] may defeat and quell

The source of all erection.[173] There’s more gold.

Do you damn others, and let this damn you,

175

And ditches grave[175] you all!

PHRYNIA and TIMANDRAMore counsel with more money, bounteous Timon.

TIMONMore whore, more mischief first: I have given you earnest.[177]

ALCIBIADESStrike up the drum towards Athens!— Farewell, Timon:

If I thrive well, I’ll visit thee again.

180

TIMONIf I hope well, I’ll never see thee more.

ALCIBIADESI never did thee harm.

TIMONYes, thou spok’st well of me.

ALCIBIADESCall’st thou that harm?

TIMONMen daily find it.[184] Get thee away, and take

185

Thy beagles[185] with thee.

ALCIBIADESWe but offend him. Strike![186] Drums beat

Exeunt [all but Timon]

TIMONThat nature, being sick of[187] man’s unkindness, Digs

Should yet be hungry! Common mother,[188] thou

Whose womb unmeasurable and infinite breast

190

Teems[190] and feeds all, whose selfsame mettle,

Whereof thy proud child, arrogant man, is puffed,[191]

Engenders[192] the black toad and adder blue,

The gilded[193] newt and eyeless venomed worm,

With all th’abhorrèd births below crisp[194] heaven

195

Whereon[195] Hyperion’s quick’ning fire doth shine —

Yield him, who all thy human sons do hate,

From forth thy plenteous bosom one poor root.

Ensear[198] thy fertile and conceptious womb:

Let it no more bring out ingrateful man.

200

Go great[200] with tigers, dragons, wolves, and bears,

Teem with new monsters whom thy upward face

Hath to the marbled[202] mansion all above

Never presented! O, a root. Dear thanks! Finds a root

Dry up thy marrows,[204] vines, and plough-torn leas,

205

Whereof ingrateful man, with liquorish[205] draughts

And morsels unctuous[206] greases his pure mind,

That[207] from it all consideration slips!

Enter Apemantus

More man? Plague, plague!

APEMANTUSI was directed hither. Men report

210

Thou dost affect[210] my manners, and dost use them.

TIMON’Tis then because thou dost not keep a dog,

Whom I would[212] imitate. Consumption catch thee!

APEMANTUSThis is in thee a nature but infected,[213]

A poor unmanly melancholy sprung

215

From change of fortune. Why this spade? This place?

This slave-like habit?[216] And these looks of care?

Thy flatterers yet[217] wear silk, drink wine, lie soft,

Hug their diseased perfumes,[218] and have forgot

That ever Timon was. Shame not these woods

220

By putting on[220] the cunning of a carper.

Be thou a flatterer now, and seek to thrive

By that which has undone thee; hinge thy knee[222]

And let his very breath whom thou’lt observe[223]

Blow off thy cap: praise his most vicious strain,[224]

225

And call it excellent. Thou[225] wast told thus:

Thou gav’st thine ears,[226] like tapsters that bade welcome,

To knaves and all approachers. ’Tis most just

That thou turn rascal:[228] hadst thou wealth again,

Rascals should have’t. Do not assume my likeness.

230

TIMONWere I like thee, I’d throw away myself.

APEMANTUSThou hast cast away thyself being like thyself:

A madman so long, now a fool. What, think’st

That the bleak air, thy boisterous[233] chamberlain,

Will put[234] thy shirt on warm? Will these moist trees

235

That have outlived the eagle page thy heels[235]

And skip[236] when thou point’st out? Will the cold brook,

Candied[237] with ice, caudle thy morning taste

To cure thy o’ernight’s[238] surfeit? Call the creatures

Whose naked natures live in all the spite

240

Of wreakful[240] heaven, whose bare unhousèd trunks

To the conflicting elements exposed

Answer[242] mere nature: bid them flatter thee.

O, thou shalt find—

TIMON—a fool of thee. Depart.

APEMANTUSI love thee better now than e’er I did.

245

TIMONI hate thee worse.

APEMANTUSWhy?

TIMONThou flatter’st misery.

APEMANTUSI flatter not, but say thou art a caitiff.[248]

TIMONWhy dost thou seek me out?

250

APEMANTUSTo vex[250] thee.

TIMONAlways a villain’s office[251] or a fool’s.

Dost[252] please thyself in’t?

APEMANTUSAy.

TIMONWhat, a knave too?

255

APEMANTUSIf thou didst put this sour cold habit[255] on

To castigate thy pride, ’twere well:[256] but thou

Dost it enforcèdly.[257] Thou’dst courtier be again,

Wert thou not beggar. Willing misery[258]

Outlives incertain[259] pomp, is crowned before:

260

The one[260] is filling still, never complete,

The other, at high wish.[261] Best state, contentless,

Hath a distracted and most wretched being,

Worse than the worst, content.

Thou shouldst desire to die, being miserable.

265

TIMONNot by his breath[265] that is more miserable.

Thou art a slave whom Fortune’s tender arm

With favour never clasped, but bred a dog.

Hadst thou like us from our first swath[268] proceeded

The sweet degrees[269] that this brief world affords

270

To such as may the passive drugs[270] of it

Freely command, thou wouldst have plunged thyself

In general riot,[272] melted down thy youth

In different beds of lust, and never learned

The icy precepts of respect,[274] but followed

275

The sugared game[275] before thee. But myself,

Who had the world as my confectionary,

The mouths, the tongues, the eyes and hearts of men

At duty,[278] more than I could frame employment,

That numberless upon me stuck as leaves

280

Do on the oak, have with one winter’s brush[280]

Fell[281] from their boughs and left me open, bare

For every storm that blows: I, to bear this,

That never knew but better, is some burden.

Thy nature did commence in sufferance,[284] time

285

Hath made thee hard in’t.[285] Why shouldst thou hate men?

They never flattered thee. What hast thou given?

If thou wilt curse, thy father, that poor rag,[287]

Must be thy subject, who in spite put[288] stuff

To some she beggar and compounded[289] thee

290

Poor rogue hereditary.[290] Hence, be gone.

If thou hadst not been born the worst[291] of men,

Thou hadst been a knave and flatterer.

APEMANTUSArt thou proud yet?[293]

TIMONAy, that I am not thee.

295

APEMANTUSI, that I was no prodigal.[295]

TIMONI, that I am one now.

Were all the wealth I have shut up in thee

I’d give thee leave[298] to hang it. Get thee gone.

That[299] the whole life of Athens were in this!

300

Thus would I eat it. Eats a root

APEMANTUSHere, I will mend[301] thy feast. Offers food

TIMONFirst mend my company: take away thyself.

APEMANTUSSo I shall mend mine own, by th’lack of thine.

TIMON’Tis not well mended so, it is but botched;[304]

305

If not, I would it were.[305]

APEMANTUSWhat wouldst thou have to[306] Athens?

TIMONThee thither in a whirlwind. If thou wilt,

Tell them there I have gold. Look, so I have. Shows gold

APEMANTUSHere is no use for gold.

310

TIMONThe best and truest,[310]

For here it sleeps, and does[311] no hirèd harm.

APEMANTUSWhere liest a-nights,[312] Timon?

TIMONUnder that’s[313] above me.

Where feed’st thou a-days, Apemantus?

APEMANTUSWhere my stomach finds meat, or rather, where I eat it.

TIMONWould poison were obedient and knew my mind!

APEMANTUSWhere wouldst thou send it?

TIMONTo sauce thy dishes.

APEMANTUSThe middle of humanity[319] thou never knewest, but the extremity of both ends. When thou wast in thy gilt[320] and thy perfume, they mocked thee for too much curiosity:[321] in thy rags thou know’st none, but art despised for the contrary. There’s a medlar[322] for thee, eat it.

TIMONOn what I hate I feed not.

APEMANTUSDost hate a medlar?

TIMONAy, though it look like thee.

APEMANTUSAn[326] th’hadst hated meddlers sooner, thou shouldst have loved thyself better now. What man didst thou ever know unthrift[327] that was beloved after his means?

TIMONWho, without those means thou talk’st of, didst thou ever know beloved?

APEMANTUSMyself.

TIMONI understand thee: thou[331] hadst some means to keep a dog.

APEMANTUSWhat things in the world canst thou nearest compare to thy flatterers?

TIMONWomen nearest, but men, men are the things themselves. What wouldst thou do with the world, Apemantus, if it lay in thy power?

APEMANTUSGive it the beasts, to be rid of the men.

TIMONWouldst thou have thyself fall in the confusion[336] of men, and remain a beast with the beasts?

APEMANTUSAy, Timon.

TIMONA beastly[339] ambition, which the gods grant thee t’attain to. If thou wert the lion, the fox would beguile[340] thee: if thou wert the lamb, the fox would eat thee: if thou wert the fox, the lion would suspect thee when peradventure[341] thou wert accused by the ass: if thou wert the ass, thy dullness[342] would torment thee, and still thou livedst but as a breakfast to the wolf. If thou wert the wolf, thy greediness would afflict thee, and oft thou shouldst hazard thy life for thy dinner. Wert thou the unicorn,[345] pride and wrath would confound thee and make thine own self the conquest[346] of thy fury: wert thou a bear, thou wouldst be killed by the horse: wert thou a horse, thou wouldst be seized by the leopard: wert thou a leopard, thou wert german[348] to the lion and the spots of thy kindred were jurors on thy life: all thy[349] safety were remotion and thy defence absence. What beast couldst thou be that were not subject to a beast? And what a beast art thou already, that see’st not thy[351] loss in transformation!

APEMANTUSIf thou couldst please me with speaking to me, thou mightst have hit[352] upon it here: the commonwealth of Athens is become a forest of beasts.

TIMONHow has the ass broke the wall, that thou art out of the city?

APEMANTUSYonder[355] comes a poet and a painter. The plague of company light upon thee! I will fear to catch it and give way.[356] When I know not what else to do, I’ll see thee again.

TIMONWhen there is nothing living but thee, thou shalt be welcome. I had rather be a beggar’s dog than Apemantus.

360

APEMANTUSThou art the cap[360] of all the fools alive.

TIMONWould thou wert clean enough to spit upon.

APEMANTUSA plague on thee! Thou art too bad to curse.

TIMONAll villains that do stand by[363] thee are pure.

APEMANTUSThere is no leprosy but what thou speak’st.

365

TIMONIf I name thee.

I’ll[366] beat thee, but I should infect my hands.

APEMANTUSI would my tongue[367] could rot them off!

TIMONAway, thou issue[368] of a mangy dog!

Choler[369] does kill me that thou art alive.

370

I swoon to see thee.

APEMANTUSWould thou wouldst burst!

TIMONAway, thou tedious rogue! Throws a stone at him

I am sorry I shall lose a stone by thee.

APEMANTUSBeast!

375

TIMONSlave!

APEMANTUSToad!

TIMONRogue, rogue, rogue!

I am sick of this false world, and will love nought

But even[379] the mere necessities upon’t.

380

Then, Timon, presently[380] prepare thy grave:

Lie where the light foam of the sea may beat

Thy gravestone daily. Make thine epitaph,

That[383] death in me at others’ lives may laugh.—

O thou sweet king-killer, and dear[384] divorce To the gold

385

’Twixt natural[385] son and sire: thou bright defiler

Of Hymen’s[386] purest bed, thou valiant Mars,

Thou ever young, fresh, loved and delicate wooer,

Whose blush doth thaw the consecrated snow

That lies on Dian’s[389] lap: thou visible god,

390

That sold’rest[390] close impossibilities

And mak’st them kiss; that speak’st with every tongue,[391]

To every purpose! O thou touch[392] of hearts:

Think[393] thy slave man rebels, and by thy virtue

Set them into confounding odds,[394] that beasts

395

May have the world in empire.

APEMANTUSWould ’twere so!

But not till I am dead. I’ll say th’hast gold:

Thou wilt be thronged to shortly.

TIMONThronged to?

400

APEMANTUSAy.

TIMONThy back,[401] I prithee.

APEMANTUSLive, and love thy misery. Begins to leave

TIMONLong live so, and so die.— I am quit.[403]

APEMANTUSMore things like men! Eat, Timon, and abhor them.

Exit Apemantus

Enter the Banditti At a distance

FIRST BANDITWhere should he have this gold? It is some poor fragment, some slender ort[406] of his remainder: the mere want of gold, and the falling-from of his friends, drove him into this melancholy.

SECOND BANDITIt is noised[408] he hath a mass of treasure.

THIRD BANDITLet us make the assay[409] upon him: if he care not for’t, he will supply us easily: if he covetously reserve[410] it, how shall’s get it?

SECOND BANDITTrue, for he bears it not about him: ’tis hid.

FIRST BANDITIs not this he?

OTHER BANDITTIWhere?

SECOND BANDIT’Tis his description.

415

THIRD BANDITHe, I know him.

ALL BANDITTISave thee,[416] Timon. They come forward

TIMONNow, thieves.

BANDITTISoldiers, not thieves.

TIMONBoth too,[419] and women’s sons.

420

BANDITTIWe are not thieves, but men that much do want.[420]

TIMONYour greatest want[421] is, you want much of meat.

Why should you want? Behold, the earth hath roots:

Within this mile break forth a hundred springs:

The oaks bear mast,[424] the briers scarlet hips.

425

The bounteous housewife nature on each bush

Lays her full mess[426] before you. Want? Why want?

FIRST BANDITWe cannot live on grass, on berries, water,

As beasts and birds and fishes.

TIMONNor on the beasts themselves, the birds, and fishes:

430

You must eat[430] men. Yet thanks I must you con

That you are thieves professed,[431] that you work not

In holier shapes,[432] for there is boundless theft

In limited[433] professions. Rascal thieves,

Here’s gold. Go, suck[434] the subtle blood o’th’grape

435

Till the high fever seethe[435] your blood to froth,

And so scape hanging.[436] Trust not the physician,

His antidotes are poison, and he slays

More than you rob. Take wealth and lives together:

Do, villains, do, since you protest[439] to do’t,

440

Like workmen. I’ll example you[440] with thievery.

The sun’s a thief, and with his great attraction[441]

Robs the vast sea: the moon’s an arrant[442] thief,

And her pale fire she snatches from the sun:

The sea’s a thief, whose liquid surge resolves[444]

445

The moon into salt tears: the earth’s a thief,

That feeds and breeds by a composture[446] stolen

From gen’ral excrement: each thing’s a thief.

The laws, your[448] curb and whip, in their rough power

Has unchecked theft.[449] Love not yourselves, away,

450

Rob one another: there’s more gold. Cut throats:

All that you meet are thieves. To Athens go,

Break open shops: nothing can you steal

But thieves do lose it. Steal[453] less for this I give you,

And gold confound you howsoe’er. Amen.

THIRD BANDITHas[455] almost charmed me from my profession by persuading me to it.

FIRST BANDIT’Tis in[456] the malice of mankind that he thus advises us, not to have us thrive in our mystery.[457]

SECOND BANDITI’ll believe him as[458] an enemy, and give over my trade.

FIRST BANDITLet us first see peace in Athens: there is no time so miserable but a man may be true.[460]

Exeunt Thieves

Enter the Steward to Timon

FLAVIUSO you gods!

Is yond[462] despised and ruinous man my lord?

Full of decay and failing? O monument[463]

And wonder[464] of good deeds evilly bestowed!

465

What an alteration of honour

Has desp’rate want made!

What viler thing upon the earth than friends

Who can bring noblest minds to basest ends!

How rarely[469] does it meet with this time’s guise,

470

When man was wished to love his enemies!

Grant I may ever love and rather woo

Those that[472] would mischief me than those that do!

Has[473] caught me in his eye: I will present

My honest grief unto him; and as my lord

475

Still[475] serve him with my life.— My dearest master!

TIMONAway! What art thou?

FLAVIUSHave you forgot me, sir?

TIMONWhy dost ask that? I have forgot all men:

Then, if thou grant’st thou’rt a man, I have forgot thee.

480

FLAVIUSAn honest poor servant of yours.

TIMONThen I know thee not.

I never had honest man about me: ay, all

I kept were knaves[483] to serve in meat to villains.

FLAVIUSThe gods are witness,

485

Ne’er did poor steward wear a truer grief

For his undone[486] lord than mine eyes for you. Weeps

TIMONWhat, dost thou weep? Come nearer. Then I love thee

Because thou art a woman, and disclaim’st[488]

Flinty[489] mankind whose eyes do never give

490

But thorough[490] lust and laughter. Pity’s sleeping:

Strange times, that weep with laughing, not with weeping!

FLAVIUSI beg of you to know[492] me, good my lord,

T’accept my grief and whilst this poor wealth lasts

To entertain[494] me as your steward still.

495

TIMONHad I a steward

So true, so just, and now so comfortable?[496]

It almost turns my dangerous nature wild.

Let me behold thy face. Surely, this man

Was born of woman.

500

Forgive my general and exceptless[500] rashness,

You perpetual sober[501] gods! I do proclaim

One honest man — mistake me not, but[502] one,

No more, I pray — and he’s a steward.

How fain[504] would I have hated all mankind,

505

And thou redeem’st thyself. But all save thee

I fell[506] with curses.

Methinks thou art more honest now than wise,

For by oppressing[508] and betraying me

Thou mightst have sooner got another service:[509]

510

For many so arrive at second masters

Upon[511] their first lord’s neck. But tell me true —

For I must ever doubt, though[512] ne’er so sure —

Is not thy kindness subtle,[513] covetous,

If not a usuring[514] kindness, and, as rich men deal gifts,

515

Expecting in return twenty for one?

FLAVIUSNo, my most worthy master, in whose breast

Doubt and suspect,[517] alas, are placed too late.

You should have feared false times when you did feast:

Suspect still comes where an estate is least.

520

That which I show, heaven knows, is merely[520] love,

Duty and zeal to your unmatchèd[521] mind,

Care of your food and living, and, believe it,

My most honoured lord,

For[524] any benefit that points to me,

525

Either in hope[525] or present, I’d exchange

For this one wish: that you had power and wealth

To requite[527] me by making rich yourself.

TIMONLook thee, ’tis so! Thou singly[528] honest man,

Here, take: the gods out of my misery Gives gold

530

Has sent thee treasure. Go, live rich and happy,

But thus conditioned:[531] thou shalt build from men,

Hate all, curse all, show charity to none,

But let the famished flesh slide from the bone

Ere thou relieve the beggar. Give to dogs

535

What thou deniest to men: let prisons swallow ’em,

Debts wither ’em to nothing, be men like blasted[536] woods,

And may diseases lick up their false bloods.

And so farewell and thrive.

FLAVIUSO, let me stay,

540

And comfort you, my master.

TIMONIf thou hat’st curses,

Stay not: fly, whilst thou art blessed and free.

Ne’er see thou man, and let me ne’er see thee.

Exit [Flavius] Timon retires into his cave

[Act 5 Scene 1]

running scene 13 continues

Enter Poet and Painter

PAINTERAs I took note of the place, it cannot be far where he abides.

POETWhat’s to be thought of him? Does the rumour hold for true that he’s so full of gold?

PAINTERCertain. Alcibiades reports it: Phrynia and Timandra had gold of[4] him. He likewise enriched poor straggling soldiers with great quantity. ’Tis said he gave unto his steward a mighty sum.

POETThen this breaking[7] of his has been but a try for his friends?

PAINTERNothing else: you shall see him a palm[8] in Athens again, and flourish with the highest. Therefore ’tis not amiss we tender[9] our loves to him, in this supposed distress of his: it will show[10] honestly in us, and is very likely to load our purposes with what they travail[11] for, if it be a just and true report that goes of his having.

POETWhat have you now to present unto him?

PAINTERNothing at this time but my visitation:[13] only I will promise him an excellent piece.

POETI must serve him so too, tell him of an intent[15] that’s coming toward him.

PAINTERGood[16] as the best. Promising is the very air o’th’time: it opens the eyes of expectation. Performance is ever the duller for his act,[17] and but in the plainer and simpler kind of people the[18] deed of saying is quite out of use. To promise is most courtly and fashionable: performance[19] is a kind of will or testament which argues a great sickness in his judgement that makes it.

Enter Timon from his cave Unobserved by the others

TIMONExcellent workman, Aside thou canst not paint a man so bad as is thyself.

POETI am thinking what I shall say I have provided for him: it must be a personating of himself,[23] a satire against the softness of prosperity, with a discovery of the infinite flatteries that follow youth and opulency.[24]

TIMONMust thou needs stand for[25] a villain in thine own work? Aside Wilt thou whip thine own faults in other men? Do so, I have gold for thee.

POETNay, let’s seek him:

Then[28] do we sin against our own estate,

When we may profit meet and come too late.

30

PAINTERTrue:

When the day serves,[31] before black-cornered night,

Find what thou want’st by free and offered light. Come.

TIMONI’ll meet[33] you at the turn. What a god’s gold, Aside

That he is worshipped in a baser temple

35

Than where swine feed!

’Tis thou[36] that rigg’st the bark and plough’st the foam,

Settlest[37] admirèd reverence in a slave:

To thee be worship, and thy saints[38] for aye

Be crowned with plagues that thee alone obey.

40

Fit[40] I meet them. Comes forward

POETHail, worthy Timon!

PAINTEROur late[42] noble master!

TIMONHave I once[43] lived to see two honest men?

POETSir,

45

Having often of your open[45] bounty tasted,

Hearing you were retired,[46] your friends fall’n off,

Whose thankless natures — O abhorrèd spirits! —

Not all the whips of heaven are large enough:

What, to you,

50

Whose star-like nobleness gave life and influence[50]

To their whole being? I am rapt[51] and cannot cover

The monstrous bulk of this ingratitude

With any size[53] of words.

TIMONLet it go naked, men may see’t the better:

55

You that are honest, by being what you are,

Make them[56] best seen and known.

PAINTERHe and myself

Have travelled in the great shower[58] of your gifts,

And sweetly felt it.

60

TIMONAy, you are honest men.

PAINTERWe are hither come to offer you our service.

TIMONMost honest men. Why, how shall I requite you?

Can you eat roots and drink cold water? No.

BOTHWhat we can do we’ll do to do you service.

65

TIMONYou’re honest men. You’ve heard that I have gold,

I am sure you have. Speak truth: you’re honest men.

PAINTERSo it is said, my noble lord, but therefore[67]

Came not my friend nor I.

TIMONGood honest men.— Thou draw’st a counterfeit[69] To Painter

70

Best in all Athens. Thou’rt, indeed, the best:

Thou counterfeit’st most lively.[71]

PAINTERSo, so,[72] my lord.

TIMONE’en so,[73] sir, as I say.— And for thy fiction, To Poet

Why, thy verse swells with stuff so fine and smooth[74]

75

That thou[75] art even natural in thine art.

But, for all this, my honest-natured friends,

I must needs say you have a little fault:

Marry, ’tis not monstrous[78] in you, neither wish I

You take much pains to mend.

80

BOTHBeseech your honour

To make it known to us.

TIMONYou’ll take it ill.[82]

BOTHMost thankfully, my lord.

TIMONWill you indeed?

85

BOTHDoubt it not, worthy lord.

TIMONThere’s never[86] a one of you but trusts a knave

That mightily deceives you.

BOTHDo we, my lord?

TIMONAy, and you hear him cog,[89] see him dissemble,

90

Know his gross patchery,[90] love him, feed him,

Keep[91] in your bosom: yet remain assured

That he’s a made-up[92] villain.

PAINTERI know none such, my lord.

POETNor I.

95

TIMONLook you, I love you well. I’ll give you gold,

Rid me these villains from your companies:

Hang them or stab them, drown them in a draught,[97]

Confound[98] them by some course, and come to me,

I’ll give you gold enough.

100

BOTHName them, my lord, let’s know them.

TIMONYou[101] that way— and you this— but two in company:

Each man apart, all single and alone,

Yet an arch-villain keeps him company.

If where thou[104] art two villains shall not be,

105

Come not near him. If thou wouldst not reside

But where one villain is, then him abandon. Throws stones at them

Hence, pack![107] There’s gold: you came for gold, ye slaves.

You have work for me; there’s payment. Hence! To Painter

You are an alchemist,[109] make gold of that. To Poet

110

Out, rascal dogs! Timon retires to his cave

Exeunt [Poet and Painter]

Enter Steward and two Senators

FLAVIUSIt is in vain that you would speak with Timon,

For he is set[112] so only to himself

That nothing but himself which looks like man

Is friendly with him.

115

FIRST SENATORBring us to his cave:

It is our part[116] and promise to th’Athenians

To speak with Timon.

SECOND SENATORAt all times alike

Men are not still[119] the same: ’twas time and griefs

120

That framed[120] him thus: time with his fairer hand,

Offering the fortunes of his former days,

The[122] former man may make him. Bring us to him,

And chance[123] it as it may.

FLAVIUSHere is his cave.—

125

Peace and content be here! Lord Timon, Timon,

Look out and speak to friends: th’Athenians

By two of their most reverend senate greet thee.

Speak to them, noble Timon.

Enter Timon out of his cave

TIMONThou sun that comforts burn! Speak and be hanged,

130

For each true word a blister, and each false

Be as a cantherizing[131] to the root o’th’tongue,

Consuming it with speaking!

FIRST SENATORWorthy Timon—

TIMONOf[134] none but such as you, and you of Timon.

135

FIRST SENATORThe senators of Athens greet thee, Timon.

TIMONI thank them, and would send them back the plague

Could I but catch it for them.

FIRST SENATORO, forget

What[139] we are sorry for ourselves in thee.

140

The senators with one consent[140] of love

Entreat thee back to Athens, who have thought

On special dignities[142] which vacant lie

For thy best use and wearing.[143]

SECOND SENATORThey confess

145

Toward thee forgetfulness too general gross;[145]

Which now the public body, which doth seldom

Play the recanter,[147] feeling in itself

A lack of Timon’s aid, hath sense withal[148]

Of it own fall, restraining[149] aid to Timon,

150

And send forth us to make their sorrowed[150] render,

Together with a recompense more fruitful

Than their offence can weigh[152] down by the dram:

Ay, even such heaps and sums of love and wealth

As shall to thee blot out what wrongs were theirs

155

And write in thee[155] the figures of their love,

Ever to read them thine.

TIMONYou witch[157] me in it,

Surprise[158] me to the very brink of tears;

Lend me a fool’s heart and a woman’s eyes,

160

And I’ll beweep[160] these comforts, worthy senators.

FIRST SENATORTherefore so please thee to return with us

And of our Athens, thine and ours, to take

The captainship, thou shalt be met with thanks,

Allowed[164] with absolute power and thy good name

165

Live with authority: so soon we shall drive back

Of[166] Alcibiades th’approaches wild,

Who, like a boar too savage, doth root up

His country’s peace.

SECOND SENATORAnd shakes his threat’ning sword

170

Against the walls of Athens.

FIRST SENATORTherefore, Timon—

TIMONWell, sir, I will: therefore, I will, sir, thus.

If Alcibiades kill my countrymen,

Let Alcibiades know this of Timon:

175

That Timon cares not. But if he sack[175] fair Athens,

And take our goodly agèd men by th’beards,

Giving our holy virgins to the stain[177]

Of contumelious,[178] beastly, mad-brained war,

Then let him know, and tell him Timon speaks it,

180

In pity of our agèd and our youth,

I cannot choose but tell him that I care not.

And let him take’t at worst,[182] for their knives care not

While you have throats to answer.[183] For myself,

There’s not a whittle[184] in th’unruly camp

185

But I do prize[185] it at my love before

The reverend’st throat in Athens. So I leave you

To the protection of the prosperous gods,

As thieves to keepers.[188]

FLAVIUSStay not, all’s in vain.

190

TIMONWhy, I was writing of my epitaph:

It will be seen tomorrow. My long sickness

Of health and living now begins to mend,

And nothing[193] brings me all things. Go, live still,

Be Alcibiades your plague, you his,

195

And last[195] so long enough.

FIRST SENATORWe speak in vain.

TIMONBut yet I love my country, and am not

One that rejoices in the common wreck

As common bruit[199] doth put it.

200

FIRST SENATORThat’s well spoke.

TIMONCommend me to my loving countrymen—

FIRST SENATORThese words become[202] your lips as they pass through them.

SECOND SENATORAnd enter in our ears like great triumphers[203]

In their applauding gates.

205

TIMONCommend me to them,

And tell them that to ease them of their griefs,

Their fears of hostile strokes, their aches, losses,

Their pangs of love, with other incident throes[208]

That nature’s fragile vessel[209] doth sustain

210

In life’s uncertain voyage, I will some kindness do them:

I’ll teach them to prevent wild Alcibiades’ wrath.

FIRST SENATORI like this well: he will return again. Aside?

TIMONI have a tree, which grows here in my close[213]

That mine own use[214] invites me to cut down,

215

And shortly must I fell it. Tell my friends,

Tell Athens, in the sequence of degree[216]

From high to low throughout, that whoso please[217]

To stop affliction, let him take his haste,[218]

Come hither ere my tree hath felt the axe,

220

And hang himself. I pray you do my greeting.

FLAVIUSTrouble him no further: thus you still[221] shall find him.

TIMONCome not to me again, but say to Athens,

Timon hath made his everlasting mansion[223]

Upon the beachèd verge[224] of the salt flood,

225

Who[225] once a day with his embossèd froth

The turbulent surge shall cover: thither come,

And let my gravestone be your oracle.[227]

Lips, let four words go by and language end.

What is amiss, plague and infection mend.

230

Graves only be men’s works, and death their gain.

Sun, hide thy beams. Timon hath done his reign. Into his cave

Exit Timon

FIRST SENATORHis discontents are unremovably

Coupled to nature.[233]

SECOND SENATOROur hope in him is dead: let us return,

235

And strain[235] what other means is left unto us

In our dear[236] peril.

FIRST SENATORIt requires swift foot.

Exeunt

[Act 5 Scene 2]5.2

running scene 14

Enter two other Senators with a Messenger

THIRD SENATORThou hast painfully discovered.[1] Are his files

As full as thy report?

MESSENGERI have spoke the least.[3]

Besides, his[4] expedition promises

5

Present approach.

FOURTH SENATORWe stand much hazard[6] if they bring not Timon.

MESSENGERI met a courier, one[7] mine ancient friend,

Whom, though in[8] general part we were opposed,

Yet our old love made a particular[9] force

10

And made us speak like friends. This man was riding

From Alcibiades to Timon’s cave

With letters of entreaty which imported[12]

His fellowship[13] i’th’cause against your city,

In[14] part for his sake moved.

Enter the other Senators

15

THIRD SENATORHere come our brothers.[15]

FIRST SENATORNo talk of Timon, nothing of him expect.

The enemy’s drum is heard, and fearful[17] scouring

Doth choke the air with dust. In, and prepare:

Ours is the fall,[19] I fear, our foes the snare.

Exeunt

[Act 5 Scene 3]5.3

running scene 15

Enter a Soldier in the woods, seeking Timon

SOLDIERBy all description this should be the place.

Who’s here? Speak, ho! No answer? What is this? Discovers tomb

‘Timon is dead, who hath outstretched his span.[3] Reads?

Some beast read this; there[4] does not live a man.’

5

Dead, sure, and this his grave. What’s on this tomb

I cannot read: the character[6] I’ll take with wax.

Our captain hath in every figure[7] skill,

An aged[8] interpreter, though young in days.

Before proud Athens he’s set down[9] by this,

10

Whose[10] fall the mark of his ambition is.

Exit

[Act 5 Scene 4]5.4

running scene 16

Trumpets sound. Enter Alcibiades with his powers before Athens

ALCIBIADESSound[1] to this coward and lascivious town

Our terrible[2] approach.

Sounds a parley

The Senators appear upon the walls [above]

Till now you have gone on and filled the time

With all licentious measure,[4] making your wills

5

The scope[5] of justice. Till now myself and such

As slept[6] within the shadow of your power

Have wandered with our traversed arms,[7] and breathed

Our sufferance vainly.[8] Now the time is flush

When crouching marrow[9] in the bearer strong

10

Cries of itself[10] ‘No more.’ Now breathless wrong

Shall sit and pant in your great chairs of ease,

And pursy[12] insolence shall break his wind

With fear and horrid flight.

FIRST SENATORNoble and young,

15

When thy first griefs[15] were but a mere conceit,

Ere thou hadst power or we had cause of fear,

We sent[17] to thee to give thy rages balm,

To wipe out our ingratitude with loves

Above their quantity.[19]

20

SECOND SENATORSo[20] did we woo

Transformèd Timon to our city’s love

By humble message and by promised means:[22]

We were not all unkind, nor all deserve

The common[24] stroke of war.

25

FIRST SENATORThese walls of ours

Were not erected by their hands from whom

You have received your grief, nor are they[27] such

That these great tow’rs, trophies and schools[28] should fall

For private[29] faults in them.

30

SECOND SENATORNor are they living

Who were the motives[31] that you first went out:

Shame[32] that they wanted cunning, in excess,

Hath broke their hearts. March, noble lord,

Into our city with thy banners spread:

35

By decimation[35] and a tithèd death —

If thy revenges hunger for that food[36]

Which nature loathes — take thou the destined tenth,

And by the hazard[38] of the spotted die

Let die the spotted.[39]

40

FIRST SENATORAll have not offended.

For those that were,[41] it is not square to take

On those that are,[42] revenge: crimes like lands

Are not inherited. Then, dear countryman,

Bring in thy ranks, but leave without[44] thy rage.

45

Spare thy Athenian cradle and those kin

Which in the bluster[46] of thy wrath must fall

With those that have offended: like a shepherd,

Approach the fold[48] and cull th’infected forth,

But kill not all together.

50

SECOND SENATORWhat thou wilt,[50]

Thou rather shalt enforce it with thy smile

Than hew to’t with thy sword.

FIRST SENATORSet but thy foot

Against our rampired[54] gates, and they shall ope,

55

So[55] thou wilt send thy gentle heart before,

To say thou’lt enter friendly.

SECOND SENATORThrow[57] thy glove,

Or any token[58] of thine honour else,

That thou wilt use the wars as thy redress

60

And not as our confusion:[60] all thy powers

Shall make their harbour[61] in our town till we

Have sealed[62] thy full desire.

ALCIBIADESThen there’s my glove. Throws his glove

Descend, and open your unchargèd ports:[64]

65

Those enemies of Timon’s and mine own

Whom you yourselves shall set[66] out for reproof

Fall and no more; and to atone[67] your fears

With[68] my more noble meaning, not a man

Shall pass[69] his quarter or offend the stream

70

Of regular justice in your city’s bounds

But[71] shall be remedied to your public laws

At heaviest answer.[72]

BOTH’Tis most nobly spoken.

ALCIBIADESDescend, and keep your words. Exeunt Senators, above, and enter below Soldier from previous scene, carrying a tablet of wax

Enter a Messenger

75

MESSENGERMy noble general, Timon is dead:

Entombed upon the very hem o’th’sea.

And on his gravestone this insculpture,[77] which

With wax I brought away, whose soft impression

Interprets[79] for my poor ignorance.

ALCIBIADES

Reads the epitaph

80

‘Here lies a wretched corpse, of wretched soul bereft.

Seek not my name. A plague consume you wicked caitiffs[81] left!

Here lie I, Timon, who alive all living men did hate:

Pass by and curse thy fill, but pass and stay[83] not here thy gait.’

These[84] well express in thee thy latter spirits.

85

Though thou abhorred’st in us our human griefs,

Scornedst our brains’ flow[86] and those our droplets which

From niggard[87] nature fall, yet rich conceit

Taught thee to make vast Neptune[88] weep for aye

On thy low[89] grave, on faults forgiven. Dead

90

Is noble Timon, of whose memory[90]

Hereafter more. Bring me into your city,

And I will use the olive[92] with my sword,

Make war breed peace, make peace stint[93] war, make each

Prescribe to other as each other’s leech.[94]

95

Let our drums strike. Drums

Exeunt

Textual Notes

F = First Folio text of 1623

F2 = a correction introduced in the Second Folio text of 1632

F3 = a correction introduced in the Third Folio text of 1663–64

F4 = a correction introduced in the Fourth Folio text of 1685

Ed = a correction introduced by a later editor

SD = stage direction

SH = speech heading (i.e., speaker’s name)

List of parts adapted from “THE ACTORS NAMES” at end of F text

1.1.27 gum, which oozes = Ed. F = Gowne, which vses 101 hands = F2. F = hand fly = Ed. F = sit 200 SD Apemantus often spelled Apermantus in F 235 cost = F3. F = cast 303 I’ll…company. Later editors have assigned this line to FIRST LORD

1.2.0 SD Ventidius spelled Ventigius in F 28 ye’ve spelled ye’haue in F 31 ever = Ed. F = verie 37 thou’rt spelled Th’art in F 109 There = F. Sometimes emended to “Th’ear” 111 welcome = F2. F = wecome 113 SD Enter…playing placed sixteen lines earlier in F 134 SH LADY = Ed. F = Lord. 150 SD Enter Flavius placed ten lines later in F 166 SH SECOND = Ed. Not in F

2.1.7 more spelled moe in F

2.2.1 SH FLAVIUS = Ed. F = Stew. (throughout rest of F) 11 SH VARRO’S SERVANT = Ed. F = Var. 13 SH ISIDORE’S SERVANT = Ed. F = Isid. 45 broken = Ed. F = debt, broken 68 SH ALL SERVANTS = Ed. F = Al. 82 SH PAGE = F4. F = Boy. 107 sometime’t spelled sometime t’ in F 120 walk near spelled walk en eere in F 126 proposed = F2. F = propose 133 accounts spelled accompts in F 135 found = F2. F = sound. Some editors emend to summed 191 Flaminius = Ed. F = Flavius

3.2.3 SH FIRST STRANGER = Ed. F = 1 (throughout scene) 7 SH SECOND STRANGER = Ed. F = 2 (throughout scene) 20 SH LUCIUS = F2. F = Lucil. 51 sport = F. Sometimes emended to spirit 62 SH THIRD STRANGER = Ed. F = 3

3.4.1 SH FIRST SERVANT = Ed. F = man 4 SH LUCIUS’ SERVANT = Ed. F = Luci. 49 SH VARRO’S SECOND SERVANT = Ed. F = 2. Varro 90 SH HORTENSIUS = Ed. F = 1 Var. 91 VARRO’S FIRST and SECOND SERVANTS = Ed. F = 2 Var.

3.5.9 all luxurs = Ed. F = Vllorxa

3.6.22 behave = Ed. F = behooue 51 fellow = F. Sometimes emended to felon 66 Why, I = F2. F = Why 70 ’em = F2. F = him

3.7.1 SH FIRST LORD = Ed. F = 1 (F provides only numerals for the Lords’ speech headings throughout this scene) 42 SH FIRST and SECOND LORDS = Ed. F = Both 61 foes = Ed. F = Fees 62 tag = Ed. F = legge 65 SH SOME LORDS = Ed. F = Some speake 66 SH OTHER LORDS = Ed. F = Some other 70 with your = Ed. F = you with 91 SH THIRD LORD = Ed. F = 2 92 SH SECOND LORD = Ed. F = 3

4.1.13 Son = F2. F = Some 21 yet = F. Sometimes emended to let

4.2.44 does = F4. F = do

4.3.12 beggar’s = Ed. F = Brothers 13 lean = F3. F = leaue 15 say = F2. F = fay 16 grece spelled grize in F 91 tub-fast = Ed. F = Fubfast 125 window-bars = Ed. F = window Barne 141 SH PHRYNIA and TIMANDRA = Ed. F = Both 165 scolds = Ed. F = scold’st 196 thy = Ed. F = the 215 fortune = Ed. F = future 271 command = Ed. F = command’st 302 my = Ed. F = thy 370 swoon spelled swoond in F 385 son and sire = Ed. F = Sunne and fire 404 them = Ed. F = then 405 SH FIRST BANDIT = Ed. F = 1 (F provides only numerals for the Bandits’ speech headings throughout this scene) 413 SH OTHER BANDITTI = Ed. F = All. 439 villains = Ed. F = Villaine 479 grant’st = Ed. F. = grunt’st 497 wild = F. Sometimes emended to mild

5.1.4 Phrynia = Ed. F = Phrinica Timandra = F2. F = Timandylo 38 worship = Ed. F = worshipt 54 go naked, men = Ed. F = go, Naked men 111 in = F3. Not in F 123 chance = F3. F = chanc’d 148 sense = Ed. F = since 186 reverend’st spelled reuerends in F

5.2.1 SH THIRD SENATOR = Ed. F = 1 (F numbers afresh in this scene: thus the senator at line 6 is “2” and that at line 16 is “3”)

5.3.4 read = F. Sometimes emended to reared

5.4.80 corpse spelled Coarse in F

Act 1 Scene 1

*   List of parts: captain military leader, general

1.1    Location: outside Timon’s house, Athens    Mercer dealer in silk, whose occupation could be indicated by costume; Folio stage direction is “and Mercer” but “both” at line 10 suggests he is synonymous with the Merchant who speaks with the Jeweller    several different

3    long for a long time    How…world? i.e., how are things with you (the Painter responds to a more literal sense)

4    wears wears away, decays    grows gets older

6    rarity exceptional, striking event    strange strange occurrence

7    record memory/recorded history    not matches cannot equal

8    bounty liberality, generosity, goodness    spirits i.e., the other people on stage

9    conjured summoned with an incantation    attend be present (in response to a summons)/serve, wait upon

12    fixed certain

13    breathed accustomed (through exercise)

14    continuate continual

15    passes surpasses, excels

18    touch the estimate meet the designated price

19    we i.e., poets    recompense payment

20    happy fortunate (in having a worthwhile subject)

21    aptly readily/rightfully, fittingly/with appropriate language

22    form shape, appearance

23    rich valuable    water transparency, luster

24    rapt engrossed/emotionally carried away    dedication in the hope of securing patronage poets often dedicated their work to noblemen

26    idly casually, effortlessly

30    Provokes itself occurs spontaneously (unlike flint, which has to be struck to create a spark)    current i.e., of water    flies flees from, rushes past

31    bound bank    chafes moves against/seethes at/erodes

33    Upon…presentment immediately after its presentation (to Timon)

36    comes off turns out

37    Indifferent average

38    this…standing the grace of the painted figure conveys the dignity of the man himself

40    How big how powerfully/what a great

41    Moves comes alive    To…interpret one might readily imagine the words of this silent facial expression

43    pretty clever, artful    mocking imitation

44    touch brushstroke/artistic detail

46    tutors nature i.e., teaches nature what it should be like    artificial strife i.e., the efforts of art to outdo nature

47    livelier more lifelike/more energetic

48    followed sought after

51    confluence meeting point of rivers

53    beneath world earth (below heaven)

54    entertainment welcome/treatment    drift i.e., poetic flow

55    particularly i.e., on specific individuals or details

56    wax i.e., a malleable substance (used to coat writing tablets)/growth    levelled specifically aimed

57    comma punctuation mark/phrase

59    tract trace

60    How…you? What do you mean?/How shall I interpret your poem?

61    unbolt reveal, explain

62    conditions social ranks/dispositions

63    glib smooth, oily    slipp’ry fickle, treacherous

64    grave wise/dignified    austere stern    quality rank/character    tender down offer (plays on the sense of “lay down in payment”)

66    hanging i.e., like clothing

67    Subdues makes subservient    properties appropriates    his…tendance loving and attending on him

68    glass-faced mirror-faced (i.e., flattering)

70    abhor loathe    drops…knee i.e., bows

71    returns goes home

72    nod i.e., acknowledging nod

75    Feigned imagined, depicted poetically

76    ranked…deserts filled with rows of people of all types of worth

77    sphere i.e., the earth

78    propagate multiply, increase    states fortunes/circumstances/status

79    lady i.e., Fortune

80    personate represent    frame disposition/form, appearance

81    wafts beckons

82    Whose refers to Fortune    present…rivals current favor immediately turns all his rivals into slaves and servants

84    conceived to scope devised to the purpose

87    against in the face of

89    our condition i.e., in paint

90    hear me on listen further

91    fellows equals    of late recently

92    value merit/status

93    his…tendance fill his halls with their attentive presence

94    sacrificial worshipping/self-sacrificing

95    stirrup i.e., as they help him onto his horse    through…air i.e., make themselves dependent on him even for the air they breathe

97    marry by the Virgin Mary

99    Spurns down rejects, kicks down the mountain

102    declining falling

105    quick sudden/sharp (plays on the sense of “living”; to be “quick with child” was to be pregnant)

106    pregnantly compellingly

107    mean low, inferior, ignorant

108    The…head i.e., Fortune’s foot, ready to kick one down the mountain/the great man tumbling head over heels suitor petitioner, one with a formal request to make

110    five talents a very large sum of money; the exact value of a talent in the early seventeenth century is unclear, but seems to have been somewhere between £150 and £200

111    means wealth    strait exacting, severe

114    Periods puts an end to    comfort hope, encouragement

116    feather i.e., disposition, type

120    ever binds him makes him obliged to you for ever

121    Commend me convey my greetings

122    enfranchised set free

127    father respectful form of address to an old man

133    creature dependant

135    first i.e., early life    thrift economy/profit making

136    more raised i.e., of higher status

137    one…trencher i.e., a domestic servant    trencher wooden plate

141    o’th’youngest…bride i.e., just old enough to marry

142    bred brought up

143    qualities accomplishments

144    Attempts tries to obtain

145    her resort to visit her

147    honest honorable, worthy

148    Therefore…be i.e., he will continue to be so if he does not pursue her

150    bear carry off as a prize

152    apt impressionable/sexually inclined

153    precedent earlier, youthful

154    levity frivolity/licentiousness, immorality

160    all completely/of everything

161    How…endowed what will her dowry be

164    gentleman a man of good birth attending a man of high rank

166    bond obligation

167    counterpoise match, counterbalance

168    with i.e., as much as

170    Pawn…honour if you will pledge your honor to do this

173    state wealth

175    Vouchsafe deign to accept

176    anon soon

181    the natural man man as he really is

182    traffics has dealings

183    He…outside i.e., human nature is defined by mere (unreliable) outward appearance    pencilled painted

184    Even…out exactly what they appear to be

185    shall…it i.e., will be rewarded for it

189    must needs must

190    Hath…praise i.e., cannot hope to financially match the praise it has received (the Jeweller thinks that Timon means that the jewel has been “underpraised”)

192    A mere satiety an absolute excess

193    extolled praised

194    unclew unwind, undo, ruin

195    rated valued

196    those…give i.e., at the price the seller would pay

197    like the same

198    prized…masters differently valued by different owners/valued according to the respect men have for the owner

199    mend improve, add value to

200    mocked acted

201    common tongue general opinion

203    Will…chid? Do you want to be scolded?

206    morrow morning

207    gentle noble/courteous    stay wait

208    When and that impossibility will only occur when

214    name i.e., knave

215    proud arrogant, presumptuous (Apemantus shifts the sense to “honored, glad”)

220    doing nothing i.e., because there are no honest Athenians

222    innocence inability of the painted character to do harm/foolishness

223    Wrought worked

224    He i.e., God

226    dog plays on the fact that “cynic” is derived from the Greek for “dog”

227    generation species (implying that the Painter’s mother is a “bitch,” i.e., female dog/lewd woman)

229    eat not lords do not consume the wealth (or flesh) of lords

230    An if

231    eat have sex with    come by acquire (perhaps with orgasmic connotations)    great bellies i.e., through overeating/in pregnancy

232    apprehension interpretation/sexual grasping

233    So…labour if you understand it in that way, keep it as a reward for your efforts (labour plays on the sense of “pains of childbirth”)

235    Not…doit “plain-dealing is a jewel, but they that use it die beggars” (proverbial)    plain-dealing honest behavior/forthright lechery    doit coin of little value

237    How now greeting that implies inquiry about well-being

243    poet…liest the idea of the creative artist as a liar was conventional

245    him i.e., Timon

248    worthy of plays on the idea of “of financial value to”

251    E’en even, i.e., exactly

254    Wherefore? Why?

255    no angry wit not enough anger in my wit

257    Traffic trade, business    confound ruin

260    What whose

261    horse horsemen

262    of companionship one party, together

263    entertain welcome    give them guide show them

266    of your sights to see you

268    So, so, there! a comment on the greetings that are underway (“Well, look at that”) exclamation of observation/commentary on the greetings

269    contract and starve shrink and wither

270    small hardly any    sweet smooth, falsely pleasant

271    strain race    bred out degenerated

273    saved my longing i.e., satisfied my desire to see you

274    hungerly hungrily    your sight the sight of you

276    Ere before    depart part    bounteous abundant

277    different various    in go in

280    That…still it is always that time

281    omitt’st neglect

283    meat food

290    unpeaceable quarrelsome    spurn kick

291    fly flee, run away from    o’th’ass of the donkey/idiot

292    opposite to antagonistic toward/the reverse of

293    outgoes exceeds

295    Plutus the wealthy Greek god of the underworld

296    steward servant in charge of all domestic affairs    meed gift

299    All…quittance repayment with interest

Act 1 Scene 2

1.2    Location: the banqueting room in Timon’s house    Hautboys oboelike instruments    States senators    dropping moodily, unenthusiastically/casually

3    long peace i.e., death

6    free generous

7    service respect, homage

11    ever always

12    he…receives biblical: “if ye lend to them of whom ye hope to receive, what thank have ye?” (Luke 6:34), “It is more blessed to give than to receive” (Acts 20:35)

13    that game i.e., appearing freely generous yet permitting repayment

14    faults…fair “rich men have no faults” (proverbial)

17    Ceremony respectful courtesy, formal conduct

18    set…on give a fair appearance to, smooth over    faint half-hearted/trivial    hollow insincere

19    Recanting goodness goodness that will be withdrawn ere before

20    none i.e., no ceremony

23    confessed acknowledged, granted (Apemantus shifts the sense to “heard the confession of a criminal”)

24    Hanged “confess and be hanged” (proverbial)

28    Fie exclamation of disgust or reproach    churl peasant/villain (i.e., ungracious, contemptible)    humour mood, temperament (the four humors were bodily fluids thought to govern health and disposition)

29    become befit, suit

30    Ira…est “Anger is a brief madness” (Latin)

31    yond yonder, that

33    affect like/seek out

35    apperil peril, risk

36    observe scrutinize people and make comments on them    on’t of it

37    heed notice

38    would wish to    power i.e., to silence you    meat…silent i.e., as you eat

39    ’twould…thee i.e., the food is a benefit to be enjoyed by Timon’s flatterers; not being one, Apemantus would choke on it

40    eats i.e., prey upon, consume the wealth of

41    dip…blood may allude to the Last Supper of Christ and his disciples: “he that dippeth his hand with me in the dish, he shall betray me” (Matthew 26:23)    all…up the maddest thing of all is that he encourages them

44    without knives in Shakespeare’s day guests brought their own knives to dinner

45    Good…meat i.e., because less would be eaten

46    example precedent, previous evidence

47    pledges…him i.e., drinks a toast to his life    divided draught shared cup (divided may also suggest deception)

48    huge powerful, high-ranking

49    spy…notes i.e., see his    windpipe dangerously exposed as his head tilts back    notes distinctive signs (plays on the sense of “musical notes,” with the    windpipe as an instrument)

50    harness armor

51    in heart heartily, in friendship    health toast/shared cup

53    brave fine    keeps…well i.e., does not miss an opportunity    tides time/movement of the sea    Those…ill “to drink health is to drink sickness” (proverbial)    health toast/physical healthiness    state estate, wealth/physical condition

55    sinner i.e., cause of sin

56    i’th’mire stuck in the mud, i.e., in trouble

57    odds difference

58    proud lavish/arrogant    grace prayer said before a meal

59    pelf wealth/spoils, booty

61    fond foolish

63    harlot prostitute

65    keeper jailer

67    fall to’t start eating

68    root i.e., vegetables

69    dich do it

70    field battlefield

72    breakfast of enemies i.e., cutting enemies up on the battlefield

73    So provided that    new freshly

76    bid…’em invite me to eat them

77    use our hearts make use of the affection that we have for you

78    zeals loyalties, devotion

79    perfect satisfied, complete

81    else otherwise

82    charitable loving    from from among, out of

83    told…you described you more expansively/estimated you more highly

84    confirm corroborate, approve

85    needless pointless, not needed

89    do benefits give gifts/help    properer more fittingly/more our own    riches…friends wealth of friendship/wealth belonging to our friends

91    commanding having at one’s disposal    made…born destroyed before birth, i.e., expressed in tears, which seem sorrowful

92    faults errors; plays on the sense of “cracks (to let in water)”

93    Thou…drink Apemantus wryly implies that Timon’s weakness enables his flatterers to take advantage of him

94    like same

95    sprung up welled up, like a spring/grew

96    a bastard illegitimate, i.e., insincere

98    Much! exclamation of disbelief or sarcasm    tucket trumpet call

99    trump trumpet

100    Please if it please    most…admittance who wish to enter; may possibly play on sense of “who are desirous to be received sexually”;    wills sexual desires,    office duty/sexual role,    pleasures also resonate sexually

102    forerunner herald    which…pleasures whose job it is to announce their wishes    Cupid Roman god of love, usually depicted as a winged, blindfolded boy    masque courtly entertainment involving dancing and elaborate costumes

108    gratulate greet    plenteous bosom generous heart

109    There refers to Timon’s generosity (plenteous bosom), and the banqueting    table it has provided    all i.e., and the other three senses

110    only…but come solely

111    kind friendly/gracious

113    ample amply    Amazons legendary race of female warriors

114    Hoyday exclamation of surprise    sweep magnificent dancing motion

116    Like similar, comparable    glory vainglory, empty pride

117    As…root as can be seen by comparing this splendor (of banquet and masque) with a simple diet    pomp ceremony, splendor

118    disport amuse

119    spend express/use up/waste    drink toast/swallow, consume

120    Upon whose age old age/decline in fortune    void vomit

121    envy malice

122    depravèd defamed, slandered/morally corrupt

123    spurn insult, rejection

124    Of…gift (that has been) given by their friends    adoring of revering of, expressing respect toward    lofty strain elevated, grand tune

128    done…grace added charm to our enjoyments, honored our revels

129    Set…on i.e., lent elegance to

130    kind gracious

132    mine own device a masque commissioned and invented by me/a masque designed for me

134    take…best evaluate us as highly as it is possible (Apemantus plays on the sexual sense of “take,” i.e., “have sex with”)

135    for because    worst plays on the sense of “worst part,” i.e., vagina    filthy disgusting/infected with venereal disease    hold taking stand up to evaluation/withstand sex (because it is diseased)    doubt me fear, suspect

136    idle light, trifling    banquet light meal, or fruit and sweetmeats served after the main meal    attends awaits

137    dispose yourselves take your places

143    crossing opposing, thwarting    humour mood

144    well plainly, bluntly

145    crossed have his debts crossed out/paid    an if only

146    had…behind i.e., was not wary

147    for his mind as a result of his (generous) disposition

154    advance enhance in value (by wearing)

156    so…gifts already so obliged to you for other gifts

160    fairly kindly/courteously, graciously

162    Vouchsafe permit    near closely, seriously

164    provided prepared

168    free generous, open

169    trapped harnessed

170    worthily entertained received in a manner appropriate to their worth

174    brace pairs

176    fair courteous/generous/just

179    coffer money chest

180    know his purse i.e., pay attention to his finances    yield me this allow me, give me the opportunity

182    make…good put his wishes into effect

183    state estate, wealth

186    put…books mortgaged to them

187    would I wish

190    Than…exceed than to feed such friends as are worse than enemies

193    bate diminish

197    gave good words praised

198    bay courser reddish-brown horse

200    in that for liking it, and thus implying that I wanted it

202    affect desire, like

203    weigh…own consider my friend’s desires to be the same as my own

204    call to visit

206    several visitations your collective and individual visits

208    deal give

211    living income/existence

213    pitched field battle field with armies drawn up for action

214    defiled plays on    pitched as “covered with pitch (a black tarlike substance)”; “file” picks up on the sense of “troop formation”

215    virtuously bound powerfully bound/bound by your virtue

217    endeared indebted/bound by affection/increased in value

218    All to you i.e., the obligation is all mine

221    Ready for at the service of

222    coil confusion, fuss

223    Serving delivering    becks bows

224    legs limbs/bows

225    dregs impurities, corruption

226    false insincere, dishonest

229    I’ll I’ll have

230    rail upon abuse, rant at, insult

231    fear me fear    paper i.e., promissory notes, written securities

232    vainglories showy events

233    an…once if you begin to abuse good company

234    come…music i.e., change your tune, speak more positively

235    So so be it

236    thou…then you will not have the opportunity later

237    heaven salvation (achieved by listening to good advice)

239    counsel advice

Act 2 Scene 1

2.1    Location: a senator’s house, Athens

1    late recently

3    motion…waste in the process of reckless extravagance

4    hold last, be sustained

9    foals brings forth more horses (gifts from Timon)    straight immediately/strong

10    porter i.e., gatekeeper who keeps out visitors

11    still always

13    sound…safety probe his finances and find them to be secure/declare his financial situation to be secure    ho! exclamation to attract attention

17    Importune urge, ask persistently    ceased stopped

18    slight dismissive, casual    when…hand i.e., with courteous words and gestures

21    uses needs (perhaps with a suggestion of “financial interest owed”)    serve my turn provide for myself/meet the financial claims on me

22    own own money    days and times i.e., the deadlines for payment

23    fracted broken

24    smit impacted on, damaged

26    relief i.e., request for repayment

27    tossed and turned hit back (a tennis metaphor)

28    supply financial provision

29    importunate persistent, urgent    aspect facial expression

31    feather…wing i.e., when every creditor is paid what they are due/when everything is back in its rightful place

32    gull unfledged bird/dupe, fool

33    flashes shines brightly/temporarily displays    phoenix mythical Arabian bird that was consumed by fire every five hundred years, then resurrected from the ashes; only one existed at a time

36    have…in i.e., make sure the (missed) repayment dates are included

Act 2 Scene 2

2.2    Location: outside Timon’s house, Athens

2    know learn, be told    maintain afford, stand the cost

3    riot revelling, extravagance

4    resumes assumes

5    what…continue how the future will be provided for/what the consequences will be    Never…kind never was there a mind so unwise in order to be so kind

7    till feel i.e., until he experiences the consequences

8    round plain-spoken, severe

14    discharged paid

15    fear it doubt that that will happen    train retinue

17    forth go out (hunting)

19    dues debts

20    Whence are you? Where are you from?

24    To…month i.e., from day to day for a month

25    awaked…occasion prompted by urgent circumstances

26    call…own call in what is owed to him

27    with…suit you will act in accordance with your other noble qualities

30    repair return

36    wants needs/shortages

37    forfeiture penalty of forfeiting the security for the loan (e.g., land and property)

40    breath breathing space

41    keep on go on ahead

42    wait upon follow

44    How goes what is going on in    encountered confronted/assaulted

45    demands legal claims

46    detention withholding

47    Against my honour contrary to my reputation, damaging my honor

49    unagreeable to unsuitable for

54    draw near i.e., follow me    Fool professional jester

59    dost do, i.e., are you

60    Dost…shadow? Are you talking to yourself?    dialogue with speak to    shadow mirror image

63    There’s…back (to Varro’s servant) you have been labeled “fool”/(to Apemantus) the fool is behind you, follows you (perhaps with homosexual connotations, picked up in Apemantus’ reply with    stand’st—”have an erection”—and    on him)

64    No…single that cannot be as you, a fool, are standing alone

66    He (it is) he who    usurers moneylenders    bawds pimps, go-betweens

67    want financial need/sexual desire

74    Gramercies great thanks

75    e’en even now    setting on putting on to the fire to boil (possibly plays on the sense of “sexually arousing”)    scald remove the feathers of/infect with venereal disease/treat for venereal disease (by inducing sweating)

76    Corinth i.e., a brothel (the Greek port of Corinth was notorious for prostitution)

81    rod punishment cane    answer reply to/punish

82    superscription address

89    whelped born as a puppy    famish die by starvation

91    outrunn’st grace i.e., run away from the advice that might save you (Apemantus shifts the sense of    gone to “damned”)

94    If…home i.e., if Timon is at home, there is a fool at his house

95    would if only, we wish    served provided for, advantaged (Apemantus plays on the phrase “to serve a trick”)

99    to as    one i.e., a usurer (plays on the sense of “pimp, procuress/one who regularly ‘uses’ “men, i.e., has sex with them)

100    fool perhaps with a suggestion of “sexual plaything” (fools were proverbially well-endowed)

101    sadly i.e., because they have spent their money or contracted venereal disease (the Fool continues to joke that the house is a brothel)

103    render give

104    whoremaster user of prostitutes

105    which…esteemed despite which you shall be no less well regarded (i.e., he is poorly regarded already)

109    stones testicles    artificial one philosopher’s stone, which could supposedly turn base metals into gold (mythological)

110    goes…down walks about/gains and loses an erection/has sex    fourscore eighty

115    become done credit to

118    lover…woman i.e., people who are traditionally foolish

120    walk near remain nearby

121    marvel wonder

123    rated…means estimated my expenditure according to what my resources would allow

126    leisures unoccupied moments    proposed brought it up for consideration

127    Go to exclamation of dismissive impatience

128    Perchance perhaps    single isolated/slight, trivial    vantages opportunities

129    indisposition unwillingness    back off

130    that…minister my disinclination became your reason

135    found…honesty i.e., trusted me to calculate them

138    gainst…manners contrary to what good manners require

139    close closed/close to your chest

140    checks rebukes

141    in i.e., about

143    now’s a time at least you can listen now/you must listen now

144    greatest…half the highest estimate of your wealth is not even half enough

147    engaged mortgaged

148    stop feed/silence

149    present dues immediate debts    apace quickly

150    interim the short-term, immediate future    at length in the long run

151    reck’ning settlement of accounts

152    Lacedaemon Sparta (city in southern Greece)

157    husbandry household economy    falsehood dishonesty

158    auditors checkers of accounts

159    proof test

160    offices parts of the house used by servants (kitchen, etc.)    oppressed overstretched/overcrowded

161    feeders guests/servants to guests (who must also be fed)    vaults wine cellars

162    spilth spillage

163    minstrelsy music and singing

164    wasteful cock wastefully flowing tap of a wine barrel

165    set…flow i.e., cried

168    bits excessive tidbits, wasteful morsels    slaves servants/rogues

169    englutted swallowed    Timon’s Timon’s friend, kept at Timon’s expense

175    fast-lost lost quickly/lost due to the absence of food

176    couched hidden

177    sermon preach at

178    villainous proceeding from unworthy motives/extended to villains

180    conscience understanding

182    broach tap (a barrel)

183    try test    argument of hearts protestations of love

184    frankly as freely

186    Assurance…thoughts may your thoughts be blessed by proving true

187    sort way, sense    crowned given dignity/made wealthy

188    account consider (may play on the financial sense)

193    severally separately

196    occasions needs    time occasion, opportunity    toward for/to contribute toward

199    Hum! exclamation of doubt or displeasure

201    even…health for my services to the welfare of the state

205    For that because    general usual

206    signet ring used as a seal, proof of authority

210    corporate collective

211    fall a low ebb (financially)    want lack

215    catch a wrench be accidentally twisted from its natural course

216    intending pretending/occupying themselves with

217    hard fractions harsh fragmentary sentences

218    half-caps semi-courteous greetings, half-doffed hats    cold-moving stiff/indicative of cold feelings

221    cheerly cheerful

222    hereditary i.e., inherited with old age

223    caked congealed

224    ’Tis it is due to    kindly natural

225    grows…earth approaches the grave

226    dull unresponsive, sluggish

228    ingeniously honestly

230    stepped Into has inherited

234    good necessity genuine need

239    that…foe i.e., the belief that friends will remain loyal during times of hardship is the undoing of the generous person

240    free generous (plays on the notion that “thought is free”)

Act 3 Scene 1

3.1    Location: Lucullus’ house, Athens

4    warrant am sure    hits right fits in perfectly

5    ewer pitcher used to contain water for handwashing    tonight i.e., last night

6    respectively respectfully

7    complete accomplished    free-hearted generous

11    pretty excellent, fine

12    in on

13    supply fill

14    furnish provide    nothing in no way

15    present immediate

16    La…la! either an exclamation of disdain or equivalent to “Indeed!”

17    so…house i.e., one in which hospitality is so lavish

18    on’t of it

19    have him persuade him to    embrace accept

20    honesty generosity

24    speaks your pleasure is kind to say so

25    towardly promising/helpful, friendly    prompt ready and willing give to give

27    use…well i.e., make the most of opportunities that arise    parts qualities    sirrah sir (used to a social inferior)

30    bare mere    security deposit or pledge that guarantees a loan

31    solidares invented term for a coin of low value, perhaps from the Roman solidus or Italian soldo    wink close your eyes

33    differ…lived change in the course of a single lifetime

37    these i.e., the coins    scald burn (in hell)

38    molten…damnation being boiled in molten metal was the traditional punishment of usurers in hell

39    himself i.e., a true friend

40    milky i.e., weak, cowardly

41    turns curdles

42    passion suffering/extreme emotion

43    my…him been fed by Timon

44    nutriment nourishment

49    hour suffering as he dies

Act 3 Scene 2

3.2    Location: a public place in Athens

3    for to be

9    necessity belonged to’t how urgent it was

10    How? What?

15    his i.e., the gifts Lucullus received from Timon

16    mistook him made a mistake    occasion need

18    hap chance

19    sweat sweated (through hurrying)

21    exquisite excellent/accomplished

23    endeared obliged/affectionate

25    present occasion urgent needs (present plays ironically on the sense of “gift”)

26    use need

27    merry joking

30    virtuous i.e., incurred through virtuous generosity

34    disfurnish myself against leave myself unprepared for

36    purchase…part yesterday have spent a sum of money/made a small investment    undo…honour i.e., ruin my chance of helping Timon

38    use borrow from

39    would wish

40    conceive the fairest think the best

41    kind generous, helpful

42    pleasure oblige

43    befriend…far i.e., be so kind

45    look…turn find something to do for you in return

46    shrunk i.e., diminished in fortune

47    hardly speed prosper with great difficulty

50    world’s soul i.e., the essence of the world    piece kind, type (cut from the same cloth)

52    dips…dish “he that dippeth his hand with me in the dish, he shall betray me” (Matthew 26:23)    in my knowing to my knowledge

53    been…father i.e., behaved as a father to him

54    kept his maintained Lucius’    credit finances/reputation    his i.e., Timon’s

57    treads presses

58    monstrousness unnatural behavior (from proverbial “ingratitude is monstrous”)

59    looks out shows himself

60    in…his considering, relative to Lucius’ entire fortune

64    tasted Timon had experience of Timon’s generosity

65    over upon

68    carriage conduct

70    put…donation made a gift of my wealth/considered all my wealth a gift from Timon

73    with…dispense to do away with compassion

74    policy strategy, self-interested calculation

Act 3 Scene 3

3.3    Location: Sempronius’ house, Athens

7    touched tested (for quality—a touchstone is used to tell pure metals from base ones)

14    Thrive…over prosper on his money but give up on him

16    That he who my place i.e., at the top of his list of friends sense…first no reason why, in his need, he should not have turned to me first

18    in my conscience to my mind

20    backwardly poorly/slowly/in reverse order of priority

21    requite repay

22    argument of topic for

25    Had he had but…sake on account of my good will toward him

26    courage desire

27    faint weak

28    bates diminishes

29    goodly fine

30    politic cunning    crossed thwarted

31    set him clear make even the devil seem innocent    fairly virtuously/cleanly

32    foul wicked/dirty    Takes…wicked imitates virtuous behavior in order to be wicked    zeal religious devotion

33    set…fire i.e., begin wars in the name of religion

35    dead i.e., to him

36    wards locks

37    Many for many

38    sure securely (from arrest for debt)

39    liberal over-generous

40    keep his house stay indoors

Act 3 Scene 4

3.4    Location: Timon’s house, Athens

8    at once to all of you

10    the hour is the time

11    Labouring for getting on for, approaching

12    much i.e., late

15    on’t at it    wont accustomed    shine rise (like the sun)

16    waxed grown

17    prodigal wasteful

18    like the sun’s i.e., reaching a peak, and then declining

22    am of share your

23    t’observe to note and interpret

27    For…money i.e., the money he owes me was spent on the jewels

28    heart feelings/wish

29    Mark note, listen to    shows appears

31    e’en…’em it is as if your lord demands money to pay for the jewels that were a gift to him

33    charge employment

35    stealth stealing

38    much deep very great (amount)

39    confidence intimacy, trusted friendship    mine i.e., my master’s

40    his had equalled his loan would have been as great as that of your master

44    attend wait for    signify so much make this known

45    diligent dutiful/officious

47    in a cloud troubled/muffled up

51    certain certain sums of (in his reply Flavius plays on the sense of “secure, assured”)

55    preferred brought forward, presented

56    false disloyal

57    fawn show delight/grovel

58    take down swallow    maws throats/stomachs

59    stir me up provoke me

61    made an end parted company

62    reckon add up

63    serve do, suffice (Flavius plays on the sense of “do a servant’s duty”)

64    base dishonorable/lowborn

66    cashiered dismissed (from service)    worship used ironically

68    broader more plainly

69    rail rant

71    repair return

72    take’t…soul believe me    wondrously extraordinarily

73    comfortable cheerful    forsook abandoned

74    keeps remains in

76    if…health if he is so ill

78    make…gods i.e., not risk punishment after death for leaving debts behind him    clear unhindered/innocent

82    passage passing through/moving

83    free unrestrained/generous

84    retentive confining

87    Put in present your bill

93    Knock…’em Timon plays on the fact that    bill also means “long-handled weapon”    cleave split    girdle belt

95    sums amounts of money

97    Tell count

102    fall upon attack, punish

103    throw…at i.e., give up on

104    desperate irrecoverable/mad, reckless

Act 3 Scene 5

3.5    Location: inside Timon’s house (though the action is continuous from the previous scene)

1    put…me taken my breath away

4    What…so? Timon begins to plan the mock banquet

8    fitly conveniently    bid invite, summon

9    luxurs lechers, debauched men

12    distracted agitated/confused, maddened

15    Be…care do not worry about it

Act 3 Scene 6

3.6    Location: the senate house, Athens

1    voice vote    fault’s crime’s

2    Bloody bloodthirsty, vicious

3    emboldens encourages

4    bruise crush

7    virtues i.e., your virtuous selves

11    hot blood anger

12    stepped into i.e., incurred the penalties of (the image is of entering water)    past depth too deep, out of their depth

13    heed care, thought

14    fate his ill-fated deed

15    comely decent, becoming

16    soil tarnish    fact crime

17    which buys out redeems

18    fair noble/just

19    touched to death fatally damaged    touched hit, wounded/infected, defiled

21    sober serious/reasonable, controlled    unnoted hardly noticeable

22    behave control, manage

23    but…argument carried a point in a debate

24    undergo undertake    strict forced

27    form acceptable practice/lawful procedure

28    Upon the head into the category    which i.e., quarrelling

29    misbegot illegitimately conceived

31    suffer endure

32    breathe utter/take in

33    his wrongs the wrongs done to him    his outsides i.e., external to him, not essential

34    raiment clothing    carelessly casually

35    prefer promote, present

37    wrongs wrongs done to us    kill to kill

38    for ill an evil cause

40    gross obvious/wicked    clear innocent

41    bear tolerate, endure

42    under favour with your kind permission

43    captain soldier

44    fond foolish

47    repugnancy resistance

48    what…Abroad? i.e., why do soldiers go and fight

50    bearing plays on the senses of “childbearing” and “bearing the weight of a man during sex”    carry it win the day (continues to play on senses relating to pregnancy and sex)

52    irons fetters, shackles

56    gust outburst, battering blast

57    by mercy if seen mercifully

60    Weigh consider, judge

61    breathe speak

63    Lacedaemon Sparta (city in southern Greece)    Byzantium Istanbul (city in Turkey)

64    briber giver of bribes

70    made…’em dealt wounds out rather too plentifully

71    sin…him i.e., drunkenness

74    In…fury i.e., when drunk

76    cherish factions encourage dissent    inferred alleged/implied

80    parts good qualities

81    right…time military feats should have bought him the right to live out his natural life

83    deserts merits    to in addition to

84    for because

85    security safety/guaranteed return on a loan

86    pawn pledge, mortgage

87    Upon…returns as a means of guaranteeing his repayment of your mercy

89    in valiant gore i.e., by dying in battle

92    On…our at the risk of our highest

95    know recognize, acknowledge

101    sue plead    grace favor

104    spacious in effect has considerable implications/leads to exile in the wide world

107    dotage foolishness

109    shine sunshine

110    Attend…judgement expect a more severe punishment    not…spirit so as not to make us more angry

111    presently immediately

113    Only in bone as living skeletons

115    told counted    let out lent

118    balsam healing ointment    usuring practicing usury, inflicting cost for one’s own profit

120    ill unwelcome

121    worthy worthy of, befitting    spleen rage (the spleen was thought tobe the seat of extreme emotion)

123    lay for waylay/endeavor to get (plays on sense of “wager, bet”)    hearts affections, followers (plays on sense of “suit of cards”)

124    at odds in a state of conflict (sustains the gambling image)

125    brook tolerate

Act 3 Scene 7

3.7    Location: Timon’s house, Athens divers various

2    try test

4    tiring exhausting themselves/feeding (as a bird of prey tugs at flesh)    encountered met

5    low financially dire    several various

6    persuasion suggestion, evidence

7    many my near my many pressing obligations

8    conjured summoned, entreated

10    in debt obliged, committed to    importunate urgent

11    provision was out financial means were exhausted

13    of on account of    how…go how things stand now

14    so in the same situation

15    pieces gold coins

19    With…heart welcome with all my heart

22    Nor…men “swallows, like false friends, fly away upon the approach of winter” (proverbial)

23    stay delay

24    if…sound i.e., if your ears can feed on rough music

25    presently imminently

26    it…lordship that you do not resent the fact/that you do not view it to have been harsh and unfriendly

30    what cheer how are you banquet i.e., table, place settings, etc., since dishes are still forthcoming

32    so…beggar i.e., too poor to help you

35    cumber encumber, burden

37    covered dishes suggesting lavish hot food

38    cheer food

45    upon what for what reason

47    toward forthcoming

48    old man i.e., the old Timon

49    hold last/prove to be true

50    will i.e., will tell

51    conceive understand

52    spur eagerness

53    diet food    city feast formal banquet, where people sit according to rank

54    require demand/deserve

56    reserve still always keep something back

59    a score twenty

60    as they are i.e., no better than women really are/not wearing make-up/not falsely representing themselves

62    tag rabble

68    knot group    mouth-friends men whose friendship is all talk/men who can be won with feasts    Smoke steam/dishonesty, swindling

69    Is your perfection sums you up perfectly/is your consummate skill/is your foremost virtue

70    stuck and spangled pinned with jewels and sparkling

72    reeking steaming

75    trencher-friends friends won with feasts    trencher wooden plate    flies i.e., parasites

76    Cap…slaves i.e., always doffing their caps or bowing in a sycophantic manner    vapours i.e., insubstantial, worthless men    minute-jacks i.e., overly punctilious in their attentions    jack figure of a man that strikes the bell on a clock, usually every quarter of an hour

77    infinite endless/worst possible

79    Soft wait a moment    physic medicine

81    be let there be

82    Whereat at which

84    Of by

86    quality nature

87    Push! exclamation of impatience

89    humours moods    sways control

96    upon my bones intuitively/because of the bruises incurred by the stones

Act 4 Scene 1

4.1    Location: outside the walls of Athens

2    girdles in encircles

3    Matrons married women    incontinent sexually unrestrained

5    grave wise/dignified

6    minister govern    steads places    general filths common whores

7    green young/innocent

8    Do’t change/have sex    eyes i.e., sight    hold fast i.e., hold on to money

10    trusters those who trust you/creditors    Bound under contract to serve for a specified time

11    Large-handed grasping

12    pill plunder

13    o’th’brothel i.e., a whore

14    lined padded

16    Religion devotion

17    Domestic awe respect given to home and parents    neighbourhood neighborliness

18    Instruction teaching/knowledge    mysteries crafts, trades

19    Degrees social ranks    observances ritual, ceremony

20    confounding contraries ruinous opposites

21    incident liable to afflict

23    for stroke tobe struck    cold stiffening/caused by a chill

24    halt limp

25    liberty licentiousness

27    strive contend, wage war

28    riot debauchery    blains sores, blisters (perhaps venereal)

29    bosoms i.e., bodies (the image is of sowing seed in the bosom of the earth)

32    merely absolute    bear carry away

34    bans curses

36    kinder more caring/more natural, showing more kinship

37    confound destroy

Act 4 Scene 2

4.2    Location: Timon’s house, Athens

2    undone ruined

4    Let…gods may the gods hear me/as the gods are my witness

6    house household    broke bankrupt/broken up

8    take…arm i.e., support him in his misfortune

12    familiars…fortunes those who were his close friends when he was rich

14    picked robbed, emptied

15    dedicated…air beggar dedicated to life in the open air

16    all-shunned avoided by everyone

17    fellows fellow servants

18    implements furniture, utensils

19    livery servant’s uniform

21    bark ship

22    dying i.e., sinking, doomed

23    surges waves

26    latest last

29    knell funeral bell

33    glory magnificence/vainglory

38    pomp ceremony, splendor    what state compounds that constitutes magnificence

39    painted i.e., superficial, false

41    blood disposition

44    still mar always ruin

46    wretched poor/miserable

48    flung thrown himself    seat center/place of residence

49    monstrous unnatural

50    to…life any of life’s necessities

51    command purchase

52    inquire find

Act 4 Scene 3

4.3    Location: woods near Athens

1    breeding i.e., breeding infection    draw…humidity the sun was thought to draw putrid vapors from the earth

2    sister’s orb i.e., the moon (the earthly region    below, which was thought to be corruptible, unlike the heavens above)

4    residence gestation, time spent in the womb

5    dividant separable    touch test/afflict    several different

6    Not…nature i.e., not even human nature, which is subject to all afflictions, can experience good fortune without feeling contempt for others’ misfortune

9    Raise me promote, elevate

10    bear contempt hereditary endure contempt as though it came with their position (or birth)

11    native honour treated as if he was born with honor

12    pasture i.e., fortune, sustenance, what one gets in life    lards fattens

13    want lack of

14    purity of manhood human integrity

16    grece step, stair

17    smoothed made easy/smoothed by flattery    pate head

18    Ducks bows    golden i.e., wealthy    oblique indirect

19    level direct

20    direct straightforward

22    semblable likeness

23    fang seize, maul

24    of from    sauce flavor

25    operant potent, effective

27    votarist one bound by a vow

28    clear innocent, pure    this i.e., the gold

32    lug haul away

35    knit bind

36    hoar whitish-gray (the color of the scaly skin characteristic of    leprosy)/puns on “whore” (leprosy was often confused with syphilis)    place appoint to positions of high status

37    knee homage, the right to be knelt to

39    wappened sexually exhausted

40    spittle house hospital

41    cast…at vomit at the sight of    this i.e., the gold    embalms and spices preserves and perfumes (as one might a corpse)

42    th’April day i.e., youthful freshness

43    common whore i.e., because frequently trodden upon or plowed (both euphemisms for sex)    odds discord, conflict

44    rout company, gathering; plays on sense of “defeat, overthrow”

45    Do…nature act in accordance with your true nature    quick fast/alive

46    go keep going, be able to walk    thief i.e., the gold

47    keepers owners/jailers

48    for earnest as a deposit, a pledge Drum and Fife a drummer and a player of the fife (a flutelike instrument, often used for military music)

50    canker cancer/cankerworm (which eats plants and flowers)

54    Misanthropos “man-hater” (Greek)

56    something somewhat, a little

58    strange unacquainted, ignorant

61    gules red (heraldic term)

62    canons rules, edicts; plays on “cannons” (large guns)

63    fell fierce, cruel

65    cherubin look angelic appearance

66    lips rot off suggestive of the rotting effects of syphilis

70    wanting lacking

71    renew grow again (may play on a sense of “extend the repayment period for a loan”)

79    in some sort to some extent

82    brace pair

83    minion favorite, darling

84    Voiced so regardfully praised so highly, spoke of with such regard

87    use employ sexually

89    salt lecherous (season picks up on the culinary sense)    season prepare/spice, salt

90    tubs and baths sweating tubs and hot baths used to treat venereal disease

91    tub-fast sexual abstinence during the treatment

95    of late lately

96    whereof of which

97    penurious poverty-stricken    band i.e., of soldiers

98    mindless heedless, neglectful

100    But had it not been for    trod would have trodden

108    on a heap in ruins

116    up away

117    planetary plague i.e., a disaster caused by malign planetary influence    Jove supreme Roman god

118    Will resolves to    high-viced very wicked, full of vice

119    sick infected/infectious    skip omit, spare

121    Strike me strike (me is emphatic)    counterfeit matron married woman who feigns respectability

122    habit clothing/bearing

124    trenchant sharp, cutting    milk-paps nipples

125    window-bars open-work squares of a bodice/latticework of a window

126    leaf of pity list of those to be shown pity

127    set write

128    exhaust draw forth

130    doubtfully ambiguously    the…cut will have its throat cut/will be a cutthroat

131    mince chop it up    sans    remorse without pity    objects objections

133    proof tested strength

136    confusion ruin, destruction

139    counsel advice

140    Dost…not whether you do or not

142    forswear renounce

143    make…bawd make pimps give up making women into prostitutes

144    mountant raised (to catch the gold in, with a suggestion of skirts lifted for sex)    oathable able to keep an oath

146    agues fevers characterized by shaking

148    conditions characters/occupations

150    whore (your) whoring    burn him up i.e., with lust/with venereal disease

151    close fire hidden infection/enclosed heat/hot vaginas    predominate prevail over, dominate    smoke i.e., pious (and insincere or insubstantial) words

152    be no turncoats i.e., don’t turn against your true profession (prostitution)    your…contrary your efforts be thwarted    six months later/you suffer harmful venereal pains    six months later/you suffer for six months;    six months may refer to the maximum gestation period for secondary syphilis or to the period of imprisonment for prostitutes

153    thin roofs balding heads (a symptom of syphilis)

154    burdens of i.e., wigs made with hair from

156    Paint apply makeup    mire upon sink, get stuck in/defecate on

157    pox (syphilitic) plague

159    do plays on sense of “have sex with”

160    Consumptions wasting diseases (specifically syphilis, which decays the    bones)

161    sharp starved, wasted

162    mar ruin    spurring ability to use spurs/ability to have sex

163    title claim to possession

164    quillets fine distinctions, quibbles    Hoar decay/whiten (as well as rotting the bones, syphilis causes silvery ulcerations)    flamen priest

165    scolds…flesh preaches against sexual desire

166    down…nose syphilis causes the collapse of the nasal bridge

168    his…foresee to safeguard his personal advantage

169    Smells…weal loses the scent of the common good (hunting imagery)    curled-pate curly haired

170    braggarts boastful cowards

172    activity sexual activity

173    erection personal advancement/penile erection

175    grave bury, serve as a grave for

177    earnest advance payment, a deposit

184    it i.e., to be so

185    beagles hunting dogs/whores

186    Strike! Sound the drum!

187    sick of made ill by

188    Common mother i.e., the earth

190    Teems gives birth to/is fertile, flourishes    mettle spirit, essence (given the buried gold, probably puns on “metal”)

191    puffed inflated (with pride)

192    Engenders produces, breeds    toad thought to be poisonous

193    gilded gold-colored    eyeless venomed worm blindworm (legless lizard)/adder

194    crisp shining, clear (just possibly “marbled with clouds”)

195    Whereon on which    Hyperion’s belonging to the father of the sun, sometimes the sun god himself in Greek mythology    quickening life-giving

198    Ensear dry up    conceptious fertile

200    Go great be pregnant

202    marbled…above i.e., the heavens

204    marrows vitality, nourishing richness, figurative bone marrow    leas fields

205    liquorish sweet, tempting (plays on “lickerous,” i.e., lecherous)    draughts drinks/potions

206    unctuous oily

207    That so that    consideration reflection, reason

210    affect favor/imitate

212    would would rather    catch seize

213    but infected i.e., temporary, not inherent

216    slave-like habit lowly, servile clothing    care anxiety

217    yet still    soft in comfort

218    perfumes i.e., perfumed mistresses

220    putting on assuming/exhibiting    cunning skill, practices    carper cynic, fault finder

222    hinge thy knee i.e., kneel

223    observe follow, pay homage to

224    vicious strain immoral characteristic

225    Thou…thus this is how you were spoken to (i.e., flattered) previously

226    gav’st thine ears i.e., listened    tapsters barmen (who would greet all customers indiscriminately)

228    rascal a lowly commoner/a camp follower (in the following line the sense shifts to “rogues”)

233    boisterous rough    chamberlain servant responsible for the bedroom

234    put…warm i.e., warm your clothes by the fire

235    page thy heels wait on you like your page

236    skip…out i.e., jump to do your bidding

237    Candied encrusted, as if with sugar    caudle…taste i.e., revive you in the morning with a caudle (a warm, strengthening drink)

238    o’ernight’s previous night’s    surfeit excess, overindulgence

240    wreakful vengeful    trunks bodies

242    Answer face    mere absolute, unmitigated

248    caitiff wretch

250    vex torment

251    office task, role

252    Dost…in’t? Are you enjoying it?

255    habit outfit, i.e., manner

256    well good, well done

257    enforcèdly out of necessity    Thou’dst you would like (to be)

258    Willing misery voluntary poverty

259    incertain changeable, unreliable    crowned before sooner satisfied

260    The one i.e.,    pomp filling still i.e., never satisfied, always seeking more

261    high wish the height of its wishes    Best…content it is more miserable to be at the height of prosperity without contentment than to be contented and at the bottom of one’s fortunes    distracted agitated, mentally disturbed

265    breath i.e., advice

268    swath swaddling clothes, i.e., infancy    proceeded climbed/attained/graduated to

269    degrees steps/social ranks/university degrees

270    drugs drudges (menial servants; or possibly “medicinal drugs” that a qualified doctor might dispense)

272    riot debauchery    melted down wasted/exhausted sexually (with connotations of detumescence)

274    precepts of respect commands of those in authority/principles of respect/rules a respected person must live by

275    sugared game sweet (sexual) prey/delicious amusements

278    at duty at my command, available for service    frame devise

280    brush violent gust of wind

281    Fell fallen

284    sufferance hardship

285    hard in’t hardened to it

287    rag worthless scrap

288    put stuff To sexually penetrated/ejaculated in    stuff penis/semen (picks up on rag to play on the sense of “fabric”)

289    compounded conceived

290    hereditary by inheritance

291    worst socially lowest

293    yet still

295    prodigal spendthrift, wasteful person

298    leave permission

299    That I wish that, if only

301    mend improve

304    botched poorly repaired, patched up (as you will remain in your own company)

305    would it were wish it were botched (i.e., I wish you would continue to be discontent on your own/I wish you would leave me alone)

306    to sent to, conveyed

310    truest most honest

311    does…harm i.e., is not used to bribe and corrupt

312    a-nights at night

313    that’s that which is

319    humanity i.e., human experience

320    gilt gold, money/lavish adornments

321    curiosity fastidiousness, delicate refinement

322    medlar applelike fruit eaten when rotten/meddler, one who interferes/slang term for the vagina, hence also “whore”/person who has lots of sex (“to meddle” also meant “to copulate”)

326    An th’hadst if you had

327    unthrift wasteful    after his means for what he had/after he had spent everything

331    thou…dog i.e., only a dog would love you

336    confusion destruction, overthrow

339    beastly beast-like/irrational/low, disgusting    t’attain to gain, achieve

340    beguile deceive, outwit

341    peradventure as chance would probably have it

342    dullness slowness/stupidity    still thou livedst you would always live

345    unicorn…thee supposedly the fierce unicorn could be goaded into charging at a tree, where it would become trapped by embedding its horn in the trunk

346    conquest i.e., victim

348    german closely related    spots…life i.e., you would be blamed for the crimes of your relations    spots markings/crimes

349    thy…remotion your safety would rely on removing yourself elsewhere

351    thy…transformation what you would lose if you became an animal

352    hit upon it done so, pleased me

355    Yonder…painter in fact they do not appear until the beginning of Act 5; either Shakespeare did not correct his former intention to have the characters enter here, or Apemantus is speaking generally and simply means that the men are on their way

356    give way leave

360    cap top, foremost (playing on the literal sense of “fool’s headgear”)

363    stand by i.e., are compared to

366    I’ll I would

367    tongue i.e., speech

368    issue offspring

369    Choler…alive the fact that you are alive kills me with anger

379    But even except    mere necessities absolute fundamentals (basic means to survive, but the dominant sense here is “inevitabilities such as death”)

380    presently immediately

383    That so that    in through

384    dear costly/beloved

385    natural blood-related    sire father

386    Hymen Greek and Roman god of marriage    Mars Roman god of war

389    Dian i.e., Diana, Roman goddess of hunting and chastity

390    sold’rest unites    impossibilities incompatible things

391    with every tongue in every language/with the tongue of every person

392    touch touchstone

393    Think believe that

394    confounding odds ruinous conflict    beasts…empire animals will rule

401    Thy back i.e., turn around and go away

403    quit finished with, rid of him    Banditti outlaws, bandits

406    ort scrap, leftover    remainder remaining wealth    mere want utter lack    falling-from falling away, abandonment

408    noised rumored

409    assay test/attack

410    reserve withhold    shall’s shall we

416    Save thee God save thee (a standard greeting)

419    Both too you are both of these

420    want lack

421    want…meat lack much food/desire elaborate food

424    mast acorns    hips rose hips

426    mess serving of food

430    eat i.e., prey upon the wealth of    con offer

431    professed by trade/declared

432    shapes guises

433    limited officially regulated (the sense of “restricted” contrasts with    boundless)

434    suck…o’th’grape i.e., drink wine    subtle cunning

435    seethe boil/dissipate

436    scape hanging i.e., by dying of drink-induced    fever instead

439    protest profess

440    example you give you precedent through examples

441    attraction power to draw up

442    arrant absolute

444    resolves melts

446    composture compost

448    your…whip i.e., that restrain and punish you

449    Has unchecked theft possess limitless power to steal (or possibly “have filed to limit theft”)

453    Steal…howsoe’er if you steal less because I give you this gold, may gold destroy you in any case

455    Has he has

456    in…of out of hatred for

457    mystery profession

458    as as I would

460    true honest

462    yond yonder, that    ruinous ruined

463    monument memorial

464    wonder extraordinary example    evilly bestowed bestowed upon evil people/badly bestowed

469    rarely splendidly    guise fashion, custom

472    that…do who make it plain that they intend me harm, rather than those who do harm and pretend friendship

473    Has…eye he has seen me

475    Still always

483    knaves servants/rogues

486    undone ruined

488    disclaim’st renounce

489    Flinty hard-hearted, stony    give weep

490    thorough through

492    know recognize, acknowledge

494    entertain receive/employ

496    comfortable comforting

500    exceptless universal, making no exceptions

501    perpetual sober eternally grave, moderate

502    but only

504    fain willingly

506    fell cut down

508    oppressing distressing/persecuting/overwhelming

509    service servant’s post

511    Upon…neck i.e., by standing on and oppressing their previous master

512    though…sure however sure I am

513    subtle devious

514    usuring charging interest

517    suspect suspicion

520    merely purely, only

521    unmatchèd unequaled

524    For as for

525    hope i.e., the future

527    requite repay

528    singly uniquely

531    thus conditioned on this condition    from away from

536    blasted withered

Act 5 Scene 1

4    of from

7    breaking bankruptcy    try test

8    palm…highest “the righteous shall flourish like the palm tree” (Psalms 92:12)

9    tender offer

10    show…us show us to be honest    load reward

11    travail labor/travel    having possessions, wealth

13    visitation visit

15    intent planned work, project

16    Good…best perfect, excellent    air style, fashion

17    for his act when put into practice    but except

18    the…saying carrying out a promise    use custom

19    performance…it acting on a promise is as sure a sign of unhealthy judgment as writing a will is a sign of bodily illness

23    personating of himself representation of him (in his current circumstances)    discovery revealing

24    opulency affluence

25    stand for model as whip punish

28    Then…late we damage our own fortunes if we arrive too late to benefit from Timon’s wealth

31    serves is available

33    meet…turn play you at your own game/meet you at the turning (Timon may have been concealed by a stage pillar and is about to emerge as if from around a corner)

36    thou i.e., gold    rigg’st the bark sets the rigging on a ship

37    Settlest establishes

38    thy saints may your devotees    aye ever

40    Fit aptly, at the right time

42    late former

43    once really

45    open generous

46    retired withdrawn

50    influence astrological influence over human destiny (the invisible substance thought to stream from stars and planets supposedly governed one’s fate)

51    rapt absorbed by emotion

53    size quantity/glue applied to canvas before painting

56    them ungrateful men

58    shower heavenly downfall (continues astrological imagery)

67    therefore for that reason

69    counterfeit image, likeness (plays on the senses of “forgery/deception”)

71    lively lifelike

72    So, so passably

73    E’en so exactly, just    fiction literary creation/lies

74    smooth elegantly flowing/flattering, deceitful

75    thou…art your imitations of nature seem like the real thing/you show your true self in your deceit (natural may also have the sense of “foolish”)

78    monstrous overly large/unnatural

82    ill badly

86    never…but i.e., both of you

89    cog cheat    dissemble disguise the truth

90    patchery trickery

91    Keep keep him    bosom heart

92    made-up complete

97    draught sewer, cesspool

98    Confound destroy    course method, course of action

101    You…company even if you part company, neither of you is alone (as each man has a dual identity: honest man and villain)

104    thou…thou Timon addresses first one man, then the other    him i.e., the other man

107    pack be off

109    alchemist i.e., poet who transforms his subjects into something more splendid than they are in reality (and whose creations elicit payment); an alchemist seeks to turn base metals into gold

112    set…himself so self-absorbed

116    part role

119    still always

120    framed made    fairer kinder/more favorable

122    The…him may restore Timon to his former self

123    chance…may let things fall out as they will

131    cantherizing blistering and burning

134    Of…Timon i.e., we are worthy of nothing better than one another

139    What…thee the wrongs that we regret having done to you

140    one consent unanimous agreement

142    dignities high offices

143    wearing possession, employment

145    general gross publicly obvious

147    recanter one who retracts

148    withal moreover, with it

149    restraining in withholding

150    sorrowed sorrowful    render acknowledgment, apology (literally “payment of account”)

152    weigh…dram outweigh when measured with great accuracy    dram one eighth of an ounce

155    write in thee i.e., as if in an account book

157    witch bewitch

158    Surprise overpower (emotionally)

160    beweep weep at

164    Allowed endowed

166    Of…wild Alcibiades’ fierce attacks

175    sack plunder, pillage

177    stain i.e., pollution of rape

178    contumelious insolent, contemptuous

182    take’t at worst put the worst interpretation on it

183    answer i.e., be cut (plays on the sense of “utter a reply”)

184    whittle knife

185    prize…before love and value it more than

188    keepers jailers

193    nothing i.e., the oblivion of death

195    last…enough remain in that suffering state for a long time

199    bruit report, rumor

202    become befit

203    triumphers victorious warriors returning to the city in triumph

208    throes naturally occurring pains

209    nature’s fragile vessel i.e., the body

213    close enclosure

214    use need

216    sequence of degree order of social rank

217    whoso please whoever wishes

218    take his haste hurry

221    still always

223    everlasting mansion eternal dwelling, i.e., grave

224    beachèd verge beach at the edge    salt flood the sea

225    Who refers either to Timon or to his grave    embossèd foaming

227    be your oracle i.e., impart wisdom to you

233    Coupled to nature part of his character

235    strain stretch to their limits

236    dear extreme

Act 5 Scene 2

5.2    Location: Athens, seemingly just outside the city walls

1    painfully discovered revealed painful news    files ranks of troops

3    least lowest estimate

4    his…approach the speed of his march suggests that he will arrive imminently

6    stand much hazard are at great risk

7    one one who is    ancient long-established

8    in…opposed i.e., we were on opposite sides in this conflict

9    particular personal

12    imported concerned/communicated

13    fellowship partnership

14    In…moved undertaken, in part, for Timon’s sake

15    brothers fellow senators

17    fearful inducing fear    scouring swift movement of troops/cleaning of guns with scouring rods

19    fall defeat/capture    the snare are the trap we will be caught by

Act 5 Scene 3

5.3    Location: woods near Athens

3    outstretched his span i.e., lived beyond his desired time

4    there…man i.e., all men are beasts

6    character lettering    take with wax take a wax impression of it/copy it onto a wax tablet

7    figure kind of writing

8    aged i.e., experienced

9    set down encamped    this this time, now

10    Whose fall the fall of which    mark goal, target

Act 5 Scene 4

5.4    Location: outside the walls of Athens    powers troops

1    Sound proclaim by trumpet

2    terrible terrifying    parley trumpet summons to negotiation, during which a cease-fire was observed    above i.e., on the upper staging level, or gallery

4    all licentious measure every kind of licentiousness/extremes of licentiousness    wills desires

5    scope measure

6    slept dwelt/remained passive

7    traversed arms folded arms/weapons held crossed (as in a military drill—i.e., not being used in active warfare)    breathed expressed, uttered

8    vainly in vain    flush in full flood

9    crouching marrow previously inactive vitality

10    of itself of its own accord    breathless wrong i.e., wrongdoers who are out of breath from fear or through running away

12    pursy fat/short of breath    break his wind gasp for breath/fart

15    griefs grievances    conceit idea, thought

17    sent i.e., sent messages    balm soothing relief

19    Above their quantity greater than your    rages (or    griefs)

20    So in the same manner    woo entreat

22    means terms of peace/wealth

24    common indiscriminate

27    they i.e., those that have caused you grief

28    trophies and schools monuments and public buildings

29    private individual, personal

31    motives…out instigators behind your banishment

32    Shame…excess excessive shame for their lack of skill and effective policy

35    decimation…death the death of every tenth person

36    food…loathes i.e., death

38    hazard…die throw of a die (the singular of “dice” puns on the verb “to die”)

39    spotted tainted, guilty (shifting the sense away from “marked with dots”)

41    were were alive at the time (and did offend)    square just, fair

42    are are alive now

44    without outside (the city walls)

46    bluster violent storm

48    fold sheep pen    cull select

50    wilt will, want

54    rampired reinforced/blocked    ope open

55    So provided    gentle peaceful/honorable

57    Throw if you throw

58    token pledge

60    confusion ruin    powers troops

61    make their harbour have safe lodging

62    sealed completed, satisfied, ratified

64    unchargèd ports unassailed gates

66    set…reproof pick out for punishment and disgrace

67    atone appease

68    With…meaning by telling you of my nobler intentions

69    pass leave    quarter designated military lodgings

71    But…to without being dealt with by

72    heaviest answer strictest penalty

77    insculpture inscription

79    Interprets serves as an interpreter

81    caitiffs wretches

83    stay…gait do not pause as you walk by

84    These i.e., these words    latter recent

86    brain’s flow tears

87    niggard miserly    conceit imagination

88    Neptune Roman god of the sea    aye ever

89    low near to the edge of the sea/humble    faults forgiven either the wrongs done to Timon (forgiven by Alcibiades as he agrees peace with the senators) or Timon’s own loathing and abuse of humanity

90    memory memorial

92    olive olive branch, an emblem of peace

93    stint stop

94    leech doctor/cure, literally the parasitic worm used to treat various ailments, hence also possibly “bloodsucker”

THE TRAGEDY OF JULIUS CAESAR

Sir Francis Walsingham, Queen Elizabeth’s Secretary of State, recommended the study of history with an eye to its contemporary applications: “in the reading of histories as you have principally to mark how matters have passed in government in those days, so have you to apply them to these our times and states and see how they may be made serviceable to our age.” It was in this spirit that Sir Thomas North produced his translation of Plutarch’s Lives of the Most Noble Grecians and Romanes, the main source for Shakespeare’s dramatizations of the events leading to the deaths of Julius Caesar, Brutus and Cassius, Marcus Antonius and his beloved Cleopatra, and Caius Martius Coriolanus. Julius Caesar, performed at the Globe Theatre in 1599, was the first of the three plays in which Shakespeare followed Plutarch closely in exploring key moments of transition in the history of Rome.

Unlike Plutarch, though, Shakespeare begins with the people rather than the politicians. The common tradesmen are taking a day’s unofficial holiday in celebration of the return of the conquering Caesar. But the victory in question is not an imperial one: Julius Caesar has defeated another Roman general, Pompey the Great, in a civil war. The play will end with renewed civil war. Elizabethan political culture was much exercised by the dangers of, on the one hand, the civil strife concomitant upon uncertainty over the transmission of power and, on the other hand, the potential for tyranny if too much power were invested in an individual. In the opening scene the Tribunes—official spokesmen for the popular will—are worried that the military supremo is proving too popular. They demand the removal of the tokens honoring Caesar that have been draped over the statues in the Capitol. We learn a little later that for their pains in doing so they have been “put to silence.” This kind of detail lends support to Orson Welles’ influential 1930s production of the play with its jackbooted Caesar and its handling of Antony’s funeral oration as something out of a Nuremberg Rally.

We should, however, be cautious in fully endorsing such a reading. The conspirators are not disinterested idealists. Brutus, the most thoughtful of them, does not initially focus his fears on Caesar’s ambitions; such a prospect is conjured into him by Cassius’ cunning rhetoric. “The quarrel,” remarks Brutus in soliloquy, “will bear no colour for the thing he is.” He only persuades himself to join the conspirators by “fashioning” the argument that the act of crowning Caesar might itself be the egg that, when hatched, would unleash tyranny upon the state. The historical irony for Rome, and the personal tragedy for Brutus, is that the conspiracy itself proves to be the thing that divides the city and lets slip the dogs of a civil war that only ceases at the end of Antony and Cleopatra, when Octavius becomes Augustus and ushers in the imperial phase of Rome’s history.

For over a thousand years, Rome was the city of the world. The Romans ruled the greatest empire that had ever been seen. Even after its decline and fall, the name of Rome lived on for centuries by providing the western world with models of excellence in every dimension of human life from military technology to political sophistication to theory of moral character to cultural glories such as architecture and epic poetry.

Shakespeare’s England was a small, vulnerable, upstart nation near the northwestern edge of the known world. When Queen Elizabeth came to the throne, the country was in a state of near psychotic self-division as a result of her father’s break from that latter-day Roman empire, the universal Catholic Church. But in the course of her reign, aristocrats, intellectuals, seamen, poets, and theater people forged an amazingly bold new vision: that one day, their tiny island-nation might become a second Rome. They laid out the building blocks for the future. Naval power overcame the might of Spain and planted the name of the Virgin Queen on distant shores. Politicians honed a system of checks and balances between the two houses of parliament and the monarchy—a system based on the Roman model of senators, tribunes, and emperor, but with a more flexible legal system, based on common law “precedent” rather than a fixed code of rules. Educators opened grammar schools for the middle classes, steeping the future administrators of nation and empire in both the Latin language and the Roman character of firm backbone and stiff upper lip (known technically as stoicism). And Shakespeare’s actors staged epic dramas in which they told the heroic history both of their own nation and of the Romans who were their ideal. So it was that when Britannia came to rule the waves in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar was central to the education and character-formation of aristocrat, politician, and imperial civil servant alike. Mark Antony’s great speech that sways the popular will—“Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears”—was learned by rote in school and analyzed as the exemplary piece of persuasive oratory (not least because of its witty trope of denying its own force—“I am no orator”).

The year 1599, when the play was written and performed, was a time of intense political debate. The second Spanish Armada had been broken up by bad weather two years before, so superpower rivalry was no longer the most pressing issue of the day. The problem now was how to deal with a country that was apparently harboring rebels and terrorists who were a threat to the new world order. That country was Ireland. Was the answer negotiation or brute force?

The argument that prevailed might be described as the neoconservative position. It went something like this: England stood on the threshold of greatness. Having stood up to Spain, it had the potential to become the greatest empire in the modern world. And so to the classic conservative move: look to the past in order to understand the present. The greatest empire in history was that of the ancient Romans. But Rome hadn’t been built in a day. It had only achieved its power by building a mighty army and developing military technology of unprecedented sophistication. Above all, it needed a military genius, an all-conquering general who could hold whole continents in the palm of his hand. His name, of course, was Julius Caesar.

The leading exponent of this position was the Earl of Essex. He sponsored the authorship of historical works and translations of classical texts that supported his ideals of Roman virtue and fortitude. He offered himself to Queen Elizabeth as a modern Julius Caesar. In March 1599 he set off for Ireland at the head of a mighty army. In the autumn he skulked back to the queen’s court in London, having ignominiously failed to defeat the Irish rebels. Superior firepower could not cope with the guerrilla tactics of the insurgents. Shakespeare’s play was written in the fearful interim between the first motion against the insurrection and the realization of the hideous dream of failure.

Essex’s image of himself as Julius Caesar went to his head. His Rubicon moment came eighteen months later, when “assisted by sundry Noblemen and Gentlemen” (Shakespeare’s patron, the Earl of Southampton, among them), he marched against the queen herself, vainly imagining that the people of London would flood into the streets and offer him the crown. He was executed for his pains.

Shakespeare had a very different take on his material from that of Essex. He was fascinated by the assassination of Julius Caesar and its aftermath because this was the period in Roman history that asked the most fundamental questions about politics: does authority belong to the people, to an individual ruler, or to an abstraction called “the state”? What is the most effective form of government—a monarchy, an empire, an oligarchy, a republic?

At the beginning of the play, the long-established Roman republic, with its system of checks and balances (senators representing the patricians and tribunes the plebeians), is in crisis. If Caesar is not stopped, democracy will be destroyed. But are the men who try to stop him acting out of duty to the state or personal ambition? And what happens once the knife has gone in? Chaos, civil war, and then the events of the play’s sequel, Antony and Cleopatra, in which there is a failed attempt to divide rule between three men and then the rise to power of a new Caesar, Octavius, who would later be called Augustus, the inaugurator of the imperium.

Despite the fact that he was writing under Elizabeth, a queen-emperor who saw herself as another Augustus, and despite the apparent approval of Essex’s Irish expedition that he worked into the prologue of Henry V at exactly the time he was writing Julius Caesar, Shakespeare seems to have been genuinely skeptical about the imperial project associated with the name of Caesar. At the same time, he was horrified by the idea of mob rule, as witnessed in the scene when Cinna the poet is lynched because he happens to share a name with one of the conspirators.

The character who invites particular sympathy is Brutus, guardian of republican values, as he wrestles with the question of whether to be or not to be a conspirator. Cassius espouses the philosophy of Epicurus, who believed that the gods do not intervene in human affairs: what will be will be, and so there is no need to pay attention to omens and auguries. From this philosophy it is only a short step to that of Machiavelli—might is right and there is no such thing as a moral order. Brutus, by contrast, is portrayed as a stoic, a philosophy associated with the idea of duty and the cultivation of mental fortitude as a shield against the vicissitudes of fortune. The austere moralist Cato had killed himself rather than submit to Caesar’s rule, whereas Brutus follows those stoics who said that however bad life became it had to be endured by putting on the armor of “patience.” But in the last resort neither Cassius nor Brutus can maintain their position: Cassius has to accept the power of prophecy and Brutus commits suicide in the manner of Cato. Shakespeare is always interested in how words are confounded by deeds, how philosophical positions collapse under the pressure of action and circumstance.

Shakespeare must have had the heavy folio of North’s English translation of Plutarch open on his desk as he wrote. Read the “Life of Marcus Brutus” therein and you see the raw materials on which the dramatist’s imagination set to work. The glory of the theater is that it can bring the interior character to life. In Act 1, we see the public face of an apparently untroubled Brutus, but at the beginning of Act 2 Shakespeare conjures up the atmosphere of night, takes Brutus from his bed and places him alone on the bare boards of the Globe. The art of soliloquy then allows us to enter into that troubled mind, to weigh the greatness of the danger, to share the deep thoughts of the enterprise:

It must be by his death: and for my part,

I know no personal cause to spurn at him

But for the general. He would be crowned:

How that might change his nature, there’s the question.

There’s the question. Anton Chekhov, perhaps the greatest dramatist since Shakespeare, said that the business of the dramatist is not to provide solutions but to pose problems in the correct way. Julius Caesar doesn’t give us easy answers about the relationship of public duty to private will. Shakespeare was content to dramatize the problem and leave the rest to his audience.

A clock strikes, men wear doublets rather than togas, night-watchmen patrol and there are references to handkerchiefs: such purposeful anachronisms reveal that Shakespeare was a “modern-dress” dramatist, making the past speak to the present. To what degree should political power be concentrated in a single leader? Is the democratic process strong enough to withstand a potential tyrant or are there times when direct action on the street is the only possible course of action? Can we trust politicians to serve the people rather than their own interests? In addressing such questions, the play remains alive and full of troubling force in the twenty-first century.

KEY FACTS

PLOT: Julius Caesar has returned to Rome triumphant from the war against Pompey. The Roman republic is prepared to heap him with new honors, causing concern and dismay among some senators who fear that too much power is held by one man. Caius Cassius plots a conspiracy to murder Caesar, enlisting the support of the well-respected Marcus Brutus. Brutus has misgivings but is persuaded that Caesar’s death is necessary for the good of the republic. However, he rejects Cassius’ proposal that Mark Antony, close friend of Caesar, should also be killed. Brutus, Cassius, and their coconspirators stab Caesar to death at the senate house on the Ides of March. At Caesar’s funeral Brutus addresses the people and successfully explains the conspirators’ motives. However, Mark Antony speaks next and turns the mob against the conspirators, who are forced to flee from Rome. Mark Antony and Caesar’s nephew, Octavius, take command of Rome and lead an army against the conspirators. Brutus and Cassius are defeated at Philippi where they kill themselves rather than be captured.

MAJOR PARTS: (with percentage of lines/number of speeches/scenes on stage) Marcus Brutus (28%/194/12), Caius Cassius (20%/140/8), Mark Antony (13%/51/8), Julius Caesar (5%/ 42/4), Casca (5%/39/4), Portia (4%/16/2), Octavius Caesar (2%/19/3), Decius Brutus (2%/ 12/3).

LINGUISTIC MEDIUM: 95% verse, 5% prose.

DATE: 1599. Not mentioned by Meres in 1598, seen at the Globe by Swiss visitor Thomas Platter in September 1599. Alluded to in several plays and poems by other writers in the period 1599–1601.

SOURCES: Based on the biographies of Julius Caesar and Marcus Brutus, with brief reference to the life of Cicero, in Sir Thomas North’s English translation of Plutarch’s Lives of the Most Noble Grecians and Romanes (1579).

TEXT: 1623 Folio is the only early printed text. Exceptionally good quality of printing, perhaps set from the theater promptbook or a transcription of it. Some editors have detected signs of revision in the fact that Brutus is told twice of Portia’s suicide, and proposed that one or other account should be deleted, but in the theater this double testing of his stoic response is highly effective.

THE TRAGEDY OF JULIUS CAESAR

Julius CAESAR

CALPURNIA, his wife

Marcus BRUTUS, sometime friend of Caesar, then conspirator against him

PORTIA, his wife

A SOOTHSAYER

ARTEMIDORUS, a teacher of rhetoric

CINNA, a poet

Another POET

A CARPENTER

A COBBLER

FIRST, SECOND, THIRD, FOURTH and FIFTH PLEBEIANS

LUCIUS, Brutus’ young servant

PINDARUS, Cassius’ bondman

SERVANT, to Caesar

SERVANT, to Antony

SERVANT, to Octavius

A MESSENGER

FIRST, SECOND and THIRD SOLDIERS, members of Brutus and Cassius’ army

FIRST and SECOND SOLDIERS, members of Antony’s army

GHOST, Caesar’s ghost

Other Commoners, Senators and Soldiers

Act 1 Scene 11.1

running scene 1

Enter Flavius, Murellus and certain Commoners over the stage

FLAVIUSHence![1] Home, you idle creatures, get you home:

Is this a holiday? What, know you not,

Being mechanical,[3] you ought not walk

Upon a labouring day, without the sign[4]

5

Of your profession?— Speak, what trade art thou?

CARPENTERWhy, sir, a carpenter.

MURELLUSWhere is thy leather apron, and thy rule?[7]

What dost thou with thy best apparel on?—

You, sir, what trade are you?

COBBLERTruly, sir, in respect of[10] a fine workman, I am but as you would say, a cobbler.[11]

MURELLUSBut what trade art thou? Answer me directly.[12]

COBBLERA trade, sir, that I hope, I may use with a safe conscience, which is indeed, sir, a mender of bad soles.[14]

FLAVIUSWhat trade, thou knave? Thou naughty[15] knave, what trade?

COBBLERNay I beseech you, sir, be not out[16] with me: yet if you be out, sir, I can mend you.

MURELLUSWhat mean’st thou by that? Mend me, thou saucy fellow?

COBBLERWhy sir, cobble[19] you.

FLAVIUSThou art a cobbler, art thou?

COBBLERTruly sir, all that I live by is with the awl.[21] I meddle with no tradesman’s matters, nor women’s matters;[22] but withal I am indeed, sir, a surgeon to old shoes: when they are in great danger, I recover[23] them. As proper men as ever trod upon neat’s leather[24] have gone upon my handiwork.

25

FLAVIUSBut wherefore[25] art not in thy shop today?

Why dost thou lead these men about the streets?

COBBLERTruly, sir, to wear out their shoes, to get myself into more work. But

indeed, sir, we make holiday to see Caesar and to rejoice in his triumph.[28]

MURELLUSWherefore rejoice? What conquest brings he home?

30

What tributaries[30] follow him to Rome

To grace[31] in captive bonds his chariot wheels?

You blocks, you stones, you worse than senseless things:

O you hard hearts, you cruel men of Rome,

Knew you not Pompey?[34] Many a time and oft

35

Have you climbed up to walls and battlements,

To towers and windows? Yea, to chimney-tops,

Your infants in your arms, and there have sat

The livelong[38] day, with patient expectation,

To see great Pompey pass the streets of Rome:

40

And when you saw his chariot but appear,

Have you not made an universal shout,

That[42] Tiber trembled underneath her banks

To hear the replication[43] of your sounds

Made in her concave[44] shores?

45

And do you now put on your best attire?

And do you now cull out[46] a holiday?

And do you now strew flowers in his way

That comes in triumph over Pompey’s blood?[48]

Be gone!

50

Run to your houses, fall upon your knees,

Pray to the gods to intermit[51] the plague

That needs must light on this ingratitude.

FLAVIUSGo, go, good countrymen, and for this fault

Assemble all the poor men of your sort;

55

Draw them to Tiber banks, and weep your tears

Into the channel till[56] the lowest stream

Do kiss the most exalted shores of all.—

Exeunt all the Commoners

See where their basest mettle[58] be not moved:

They vanish tongue-tied in their guiltiness.

60

Go you down that way towards the Capitol,[60]

This way will I: disrobe the images[61]

If you do find them decked with ceremonies.[62]

MURELLUSMay we do so?

You know it is the feast of Lupercal.[64]

65

FLAVIUSIt is no matter. Let no images

Be hung with Caesar’s trophies.[66] I’ll about

And drive away the vulgar[67] from the streets;

So do you too, where you perceive them thick.[68]

These growing feathers plucked from Caesar’s wing

70

Will make him fly an ordinary pitch,[70]

Who else[71] would soar above the view of men,

And keep us all in servile fearfulness.

Exeunt

[Act 1 Scene 2]1.2

running scene 1 continues

Enter Caesar, Antony for the course, Calpurnia, Portia, Decius, Cicero, Brutus, Cassius, Casca, a Soothsayer, after them Murellus and Flavius

CAESARCalpurnia.

CASCAPeace, ho![2] Caesar speaks.

CAESARCalpurnia.

CALPURNIAHere, my lord.

5

CAESARStand[5] you directly in Antonio’s way

When he doth run his course. Antonio!

ANTONYCaesar, my lord.

CAESARForget not in your speed, Antonio,

To touch Calpurnia, for our elders say,

10

The barren touchèd in this holy chase

Shake off their sterile curse.

ANTONYI shall remember.

When Caesar says ‘Do this’ it is performed.

CAESARSet on, and leave no ceremony out. Music

15

SOOTHSAYERCaesar!

CAESARHa? Who calls?

CASCABid every noise be still: peace yet again! Music stops

CAESARWho is it in the press[18] that calls on me?

I hear a tongue shriller than all the music,

20

Cry ‘Caesar!’ Speak, Caesar is turned to hear.

SOOTHSAYERBeware the Ides of March.[21]

CAESARWhat man is that?

BRUTUSA soothsayer bids you beware the Ides of March.

CAESARSet him before me: let me see his face.

25

CASSIUSFellow, come from the throng: look upon Caesar. Soothsayer comes forward

CAESARWhat say’st thou to me now? Speak once again.

SOOTHSAYERBeware the Ides of March.

CAESARHe is a dreamer. Let us leave him: pass.

Sennet. Exeunt. Brutus and Cassius remain

CASSIUSWill you go see the order[29] of the course?

30

BRUTUSNot I.

CASSIUSI pray you do.

BRUTUSI am not gamesome:[32] I do lack some part

Of that quick[33] spirit that is in Antony.

Let me not hinder, Cassius, your desires;

35

I’ll leave you.

CASSIUSBrutus, I do observe you now of late:[36]

I have not from your eyes that gentleness

And show of love as I was wont[38] to have:

You bear[39] too stubborn and too strange a hand

40

Over your friend, that loves you.

BRUTUSCassius,

Be not deceived: if[42] I have veiled my look,

I turn the trouble of my countenance

Merely[44] upon myself. Vexed I am

45

Of late with passions[45] of some difference,

Conceptions[46] only proper to myself

Which give some soil,[47] perhaps, to my behaviours.

But let not therefore my good friends be grieved —

Among which number, Cassius, be you one —

50

Nor construe[50] any further my neglect

Than that poor Brutus, with himself at war,

Forgets the shows[52] of love to other men.

CASSIUSThen, Brutus, I have much mistook your passion,

By means whereof[54] this breast of mine hath buried

55

Thoughts of great value, worthy cogitations.[55]

Tell me, good Brutus, can you see your face?

BRUTUSNo, Cassius, for the eye sees not itself

But[58] by reflection, by some other things.

CASSIUS’Tis just,[59]

60

And it is very much lamented, Brutus,

That you have no such mirrors as will turn[61]

Your hidden worthiness into your eye,

That you might see your shadow:[63] I have heard,

Where many of[64] the best respect in Rome —

65

Except immortal Caesar — speaking of Brutus,

And groaning underneath this age’s yoke,[66]

Have wished that noble Brutus had his eyes.[67]

BRUTUSInto what dangers would you lead me, Cassius,

That you would have me seek into myself

70

For that which is not in me?

CASSIUSTherefore,[71] good Brutus, be prepared to hear:

And since you know you cannot see yourself

So well as by reflection, I your glass[73]

Will modestly[74] discover to yourself

75

That[75] of yourself which you yet know not of.

And be not jealous on[76] me, gentle Brutus:

Were I a common laughter,[77] or did use

To stale[78] with ordinary oaths my love

To every new protester,[79] if you know

80

That I do fawn on men, and hug them hard,

And after scandal[81] them, or if you know

That I profess[82] myself in banqueting

To all the rout,[83] then hold me dangerous.

Flourish, and shout

BRUTUSWhat means this shouting? I do fear the people

85

Choose Caesar for their king.

CASSIUSAy, do you fear it?

Then must I think you would not have it so.

BRUTUSI would not, Cassius, yet I love him well.

But wherefore do you hold me here so long?

90

What is it that you would impart to me?

If it be aught[91] toward the general good,

Set[92] honour in one eye, and death i’th’other,

And I will look on both indifferently.[93]

For let the gods so speed[94] me, as I love

95

The name of honour more than I fear death.

CASSIUSI know that virtue to be in you, Brutus,

As well as I do know your outward favour.[97]

Well, honour is the subject of my story:

I cannot tell what you and other men

100

Think of this life, but for my single self,

I had as lief[101] not be as live to be

In awe of such[102] a thing as I myself.

I was born free as Caesar, so were you:

We both have fed as well, and we can both

105

Endure the winter’s cold as well as he,

For once, upon a raw and gusty day,

The troubled Tiber chafing[107] with her shores,

Caesar said to me, ‘Dar’st thou, Cassius, now

Leap in with me into this angry flood[109]

110

And swim to yonder point?’ Upon the word,

Accoutrèd[111] as I was, I plungèd in

And bade[112] him follow: so indeed he did.

The torrent roared, and we did buffet[113] it

With lusty[114] sinews, throwing it aside,

115

And stemming[115] it with hearts of controversy.

But ere[116] we could arrive the point proposed,

Caesar cried, ‘Help me, Cassius, or I sink!’

I — as Aeneas,[118] our great ancestor,

Did from the flames of Troy upon his shoulder

120

The old Anchises bear — so from the waves of Tiber

Did I the tired Caesar: and this man

Is now become a god, and Cassius is

A wretched creature, and must bend[123] his body

If Caesar carelessly but nod on him.

125

He had a fever when he was in Spain,

And when the fit was on him I did mark[126]

How he did shake: ’tis true, this god did shake,

His coward lips did from[128] their colour fly,

And that same eye, whose bend[129] doth awe the world,

130

Did lose his lustre: I did hear him groan:

Ay, and that tongue of his that bade[131] the Romans

Mark him, and write his speeches in their books,

‘Alas’, it cried, ‘Give me some drink, Titinius’,

As a sick girl. Ye gods, it doth amaze me

135

A man of such a feeble temper should

So get the start of[136] the majestic world

And bear the palm[137] alone.

Shout. Flourish

BRUTUSAnother general shout?

I do believe that these applauses are

140

For some new honours that are heaped on Caesar.

CASSIUSWhy, man, he doth bestride the narrow world

Like a Colossus,[142] and we petty men

Walk under his huge legs and peep about

To find ourselves dishonourable graves.

145

Men at some time[145] are masters of their fates.

The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars[146]

But in ourselves, that we are underlings.

Brutus and Caesar: what should be in that ‘Caesar’?

Why should that name be sounded[149] more than yours?

150

Write them together, yours is as fair a name:

Sound them, it doth become the mouth as well:

Weigh them, it is as heavy: conjure[152] with ’em,

Brutus will start[153] a spirit as soon as Caesar.

Now in the names of all the gods at once,

155

Upon what meat[155] doth this our Caesar feed

That he is grown so great?[156] — Age, thou art shamed! —

Rome, thou hast lost the breed of[157] noble bloods! —

When went there by an age, since the great flood,[158]

But it was famed with more than with one man?

160

When could they say, till now, that talked of Rome,

That her wide walks encompassed but one man?

Now is it Rome indeed, and room[162] enough

When there is in it but one only man.

O, you and I have heard our fathers say

165

There was a Brutus once[165] that would have brooked

Th’eternal devil to keep his state[166] in Rome

As easily as a king.

BRUTUSThat you do love me, I am nothing jealous:[168]

What you would work[169] me to, I have some aim:

170

How I have thought of this and of these times

I shall recount hereafter. For this present,

I would not — so[172] with love I might entreat you —

Be any further moved.[173] What you have said

I will consider, what you have to say

175

I will with patience hear, and find a time

Both meet[176] to hear and answer such high things.

Till then, my noble friend, chew upon this:

Brutus had rather be a villager

Than to repute[179] himself a son of Rome

180

Under these hard conditions as this time

Is like[181] to lay upon us.

CASSIUSI am glad that my weak words

Have struck but thus much show of fire from Brutus.

Enter Caesar and his train

BRUTUSThe games are done, and Caesar is returning.

185

CASSIUSAs they pass by, pluck Casca by the sleeve,

And he will, after[186] his sour fashion, tell you

What hath proceeded worthy[187] note today.

BRUTUSI will do so: but look you, Cassius,

The angry spot doth glow on Caesar’s brow,

190

And all the rest look like a chidden[190] train:

Calpurnia’s cheek is pale, and Cicero

Looks with such ferret[192] and such fiery eyes

As we have seen him in the Capitol

Being crossed[194] in conference by some senators.

195

CASSIUSCasca will tell us what the matter is.

CAESARAntonio.

ANTONYCaesar?

CAESARLet me have men about me that are fat,

Sleek-headed[199] men, and such as sleep a-nights.

200

Yond[200] Cassius has a lean and hungry look:

He thinks too much: such men are dangerous.

ANTONYFear him not, Caesar, he’s not dangerous.

He is a noble Roman, and well given.[203]

CAESARWould[204] he were fatter! But I fear him not:

205

Yet if my name[205] were liable to fear,

I do not know the man I should avoid

So soon as that spare[207] Cassius. He reads much,

He is a great observer, and he looks[208]

Quite through the deeds of men. He loves no plays,

210

As thou dost, Antony: he hears no music:

Seldom he smiles, and smiles in such a sort[211]

As if he mocked himself, and scorned his spirit

That could be moved to smile at anything.

Such men as he be never at heart’s ease

215

Whiles they behold a greater[215] than themselves,

And therefore are they very dangerous.

I rather tell thee what is to be feared

Than what I fear, for always I am Caesar.[218]

Come on my right hand, for this ear is deaf,

220

And tell me truly what thou think’st of him.

Sennet. Exeunt Caesar and his train

CASCAYou pulled me by the cloak: would you speak with me?

BRUTUSAy, Casca, tell us what hath chanced[222] today

That Caesar looks so sad.[223]

CASCAWhy, you were with him, were you not?

BRUTUSI should not then ask Casca what had chanced.

CASCAWhy, there was a crown[226] offered him; and being offered him, he put it by with the back of his hand, thus, and then the people fell a-shouting.

BRUTUSWhat was the second noise for?

CASCAWhy, for that too.

CASSIUSThey shouted thrice: what was the last cry for?

CASCAWhy, for that too.

BRUTUSWas the crown offered him thrice?

CASCAAy, marry,[233] was’t, and he put it by thrice, every time gentler than other; and at every putting-by, mine honest neighbours shouted.

CASSIUSWho offered him the crown?

CASCAWhy, Antony.

BRUTUSTell us the manner of it, gentle Casca.

CASCAI can as well be hanged as tell the manner of it: it was mere[238] foolery, I did not mark it. I saw Mark Antony offer him a crown — yet ’twas not a crown neither, ’twas one of these coronets[240] — and as I told you, he put it by once: but for all that, to my thinking, he would fain[241] have had it. Then he offered it to him again, then he put it by again: but to my thinking, he was very loath to lay his fingers off it. And then he offered it the third time; he put it the third time by, and still as[243] he refused it, the rabblement[244] hooted, and clapped their chopped hands, and threw up their sweaty nightcaps,[245] and uttered such a deal of stinking breath because Caesar refused the crown that it had almost choked Caesar, for he swooned and fell down at it. And for mine own part, I durst[247] not laugh, for fear of opening my lips and receiving the bad air.

CASSIUSBut soft,[249] I pray you: what, did Caesar swoon?

CASCAHe fell down in the market-place, and foamed at mouth, and was speechless.

BRUTUS’Tis very like[252] — he hath the falling sickness.

CASSIUSNo, Caesar hath it not: but you, and I,

And honest Casca, we[254] have the falling sickness.

CASCAI know not what you mean by that, but I am sure Caesar fell down. If the tag-rag[256] people did not clap him and hiss him according as he pleased and displeased them, as they use[257] to do the players in the theatre, I am no true man.

BRUTUSWhat said he when he came unto himself?

CASCAMarry, before he fell down, when he perceived the common herd was glad he refused the crown, he plucked me[260] ope his doublet and offered them his throat to cut: an[261] I had been a man of any occupation, if I would not have taken him at a word, I would[262] I might go to hell among the rogues. And so he fell. When he came to himself again, he said if he had done or said anything amiss, he desired their worships to think it was his infirmity. Three or four wenches where I stood cried ‘Alas, good soul!’ and forgave him with all their hearts: but there’s no heed to be taken of them; if Caesar had stabbed[266] their mothers, they would have done no less.

BRUTUSAnd after that he came thus sad away.

CASCAAy.

CASSIUSDid Cicero say anything?

CASCAAy, he spoke Greek.

CASSIUSTo what effect?

CASCANay, and I tell you that, I’ll ne’er look you i’th’face again. But those that understood him smiled at one another, and shook their heads: but, for mine own part, it was Greek to me.[274] I could tell you more news too: Murellus and Flavius, for pulling scarves off Caesar’s images, are put to silence.[275] Fare you well. There was more foolery yet, if I could remember it.

CASSIUSWill you sup with me tonight, Casca?

CASCANo, I am promised forth.[278]

CASSIUSWill you dine with me tomorrow?

CASCAAy, if I be alive, and your mind hold,[280] and your dinner worth the eating.

CASSIUSGood, I will expect you.

CASCADo so. Farewell, both.

Exit

BRUTUSWhat a blunt[283] fellow is this grown to be!

He was quick mettle[284] when he went to school.

285

CASSIUSSo is he now, in execution

Of any bold or noble enterprise,

However he puts on this tardy[287] form.

This rudeness[288] is a sauce to his good wit,

Which gives men stomach[289] to digest his words

290

With better appetite.

BRUTUSAnd so it is. For this time I will leave you:

Tomorrow if you please to speak with me,

I will come home to you:[293] or if you will,

Come home to me, and I will wait for you.

295

CASSIUSI will do so. Till then, think of the world.[295]

Exit Brutus

Well, Brutus, thou art noble:[296] yet I see

Thy honourable mettle[297] may be wrought

From that[298] it is disposed: therefore it is meet

That noble minds keep ever with their likes[299]

300

For who[300] so firm that cannot be seduced?

Caesar doth bear me hard,[301] but he loves Brutus.

If I were Brutus now, and he were Cassius,

He[303] should not humour me. I will this night

In several hands[304] in at his windows throw,

305

As if they came from several citizens,

Writings all tending to[306] the great opinion

That Rome holds of his name — wherein obscurely[307]

Caesar’s ambition shall be glanced[308] at.

And after this let Caesar seat him sure,[309]

310

For we will shake him, or worse days endure.

Exit

[Act 1 Scene 3]

running scene 1 continues

Thunder and lightning. Enter Casca and Cicero

CICEROGood even,[1] Casca. Brought you Caesar home?

Why are you breathless, and why stare you so?

CASCAAre not you moved,[3] when all the sway of earth

Shakes like a thing unfirm? O Cicero,

5

I have seen tempests, when the scolding[5] winds

Have rived[6] the knotty oaks, and I have seen

Th’ambitious ocean swell, and rage, and foam,

To be exalted with[8] the threatening clouds:

But never till tonight, never till now,

10

Did I go through a tempest dropping fire.

Either there is a civil strife in heaven,

Or else the world, too saucy[12] with the gods,

Incenses them to send destruction.

CICEROWhy, saw you anything more wonderful?[14]

15

CASCAA common slave — you know him well by sight —

Held up his left hand, which did flame and burn

Like twenty torches joined; and yet his hand,

Not sensible of[18] fire, remained unscorched.

Besides — I ha’ not since put up[19] my sword —

20

Against[20] the Capitol I met a lion,

Who glazed[21] upon me and went surly by

Without annoying[22] me. And there were drawn

Upon[23] a heap a hundred ghastly women,

Transformèd with their fear, who swore they saw

25

Men, all in fire, walk up and down the streets.

And yesterday the bird of night[26] did sit

Even at noonday upon the market-place

Hooting and shrieking. When these prodigies[28]

Do so conjointly meet,[29] let not men say

30

‘These are their reasons, they are natural’,

For I believe they are portentous things

Unto the climate[32] that they point upon.

CICEROIndeed, it is a strange-disposèd time:

But men may construe things after their fashion[34]

35

Clean[35] from the purpose of the things themselves.

Comes Caesar to the Capitol tomorrow?

CASCAHe doth, for he did bid Antonio

Send word to you he would be there tomorrow.

CICEROGoodnight then, Casca: this disturbèd sky

40

Is not to walk in.

CASCAFarewell, Cicero.

Exit Cicero

Enter Cassius

CASSIUSWho’s there?

CASCAA Roman.

CASSIUSCasca, by your voice.

45

CASCAYour ear is good. Cassius, what[45] night is this?

CASSIUSA very pleasing night to honest men.

CASCAWhoever knew the heavens menace so?

CASSIUSThose that have known the earth so full of faults.

For my part, I have walked about the streets,

50

Submitting me unto the perilous night,

And thus unbracèd,[51] Casca, as you see,

Have bared my bosom to the thunder-stone:[52]

And when the cross[53] blue lightning seemed to open

The breast of heaven, I did present myself

55

Even in the aim and very flash of it.

CASCABut wherefore did you so much tempt the heavens?

It is the part of men to fear and tremble

When the most mighty gods by tokens[58] send

Such dreadful[59] heralds to astonish us.

60

CASSIUSYou are dull, Casca, and those sparks of life

That should be in a Roman you do want,[61]

Or else you use not.[62] You look pale, and gaze,

And put on fear, and cast yourself in wonder

To see the strange impatience[64] of the heavens:

65

But if you would consider the true cause

Why all these fires, why all these gliding ghosts,

Why birds and beasts, from[67] quality and kind,

Why old men, fools, and children calculate,[68]

Why all these things change from their ordinance[69]

70

Their natures and preformèd[70] faculties

To monstrous[71] quality, why, you shall find

That heaven hath infused them with these spirits

To make them instruments of fear and warning

Unto some monstrous state.[74]

75

Now could I, Casca, name to thee a man

Most like this dreadful night

That thunders, lightens,[77] opens graves and roars

As doth the lion in the Capitol:

A man no mightier than thyself, or me,

80

In personal action, yet prodigious[80] grown

And fearful,[81] as these strange eruptions are.

CASCA’Tis Caesar that you mean, is it not, Cassius?

CASSIUSLet it be who it is, for Romans now

Have thews[84] and limbs like to their ancestors;

85

But woe the while, our fathers’[85] minds are dead,

And we are governed with our mothers’ spirits:

Our yoke and sufferance[87] show us womanish.

CASCAIndeed, they say the senators tomorrow

Mean to establish Caesar as a king,

90

And he shall wear his crown by[90] sea and land,

In every place, save here in Italy.

CASSIUSI know where I will wear this dagger then:

Cassius from[93] bondage will deliver Cassius.—

Therein,[94] ye gods, you make the weak most strong;

95

Therein, ye gods, you tyrants do defeat.—

Nor stony tower, nor walls of beaten brass,

Nor airless dungeon, nor strong links of iron,

Can be retentive to[98] the strength of spirit:

But life being weary of these worldly bars[99]

100

Never lacks power to dismiss itself.

If I know[101] this, know all the world besides,

That part of tyranny that I do bear[102]

I can shake off at pleasure.[103]

Thunder still

CASCASo can I:

105

So every bondman[105] in his own hand bears

The power to cancel his captivity.

CASSIUSAnd why should Caesar be a tyrant then?

Poor man, I know he would not be a wolf,

But that he sees the Romans are but sheep:

110

He were no lion, were not Romans hinds.[110]

Those that with haste will make[111] a mighty fire

Begin it with weak straws.[112] What trash is Rome?

What rubbish,[113] and what offal, when it serves

For the base matter to illuminate

115

So vile[115] a thing as Caesar?— But, O grief,

Where hast thou led me? I, perhaps, speak this

Before a willing bondman: then I know

My[118] answer must be made. But I am armed,

And dangers are to me indifferent.

120

CASCAYou speak to Casca, and to such a man

That is no fleering[121] tell-tale. Hold, my hand:

Be factious[122] for redress of all these griefs

And I will set[123] this foot of mine as far

As who[124] goes farthest. They shake hands

125

CASSIUSThere’s a bargain made.

Now know you, Casca, I have moved already

Some certain of the noblest-minded Romans

To undergo with me an enterprise

Of honourable dangerous consequence;

130

And I do know by this,[130] they stay for me

In Pompey’s porch,[131] for now this fearful night

There is no stir or walking in the streets;

And the complexion[133] of the element

In favour’s[134] like the work we have in hand,

135

Most bloody, fiery and most terrible.

Enter Cinna

CASCAStand close[136] awhile, for here comes one in haste.

CASSIUS’Tis Cinna, I do know him by his gait.

He is a friend.— Cinna, where haste you so?

CINNATo find out you. Who’s that? Metellus Cimber?

140

CASSIUSNo, it is Casca, one incorporate[140]

To our attempts. Am I not stayed[141] for, Cinna?

CINNAI am glad on’t.[142] What a fearful night is this?

There’s two or three of us have seen strange sights.

CASSIUSAm I not stayed for? Tell me.

145

CINNAYes, you are.

O Cassius, if you could

But win the noble Brutus to our party—

CASSIUSBe you content. Good Cinna, take this paper Gives paper

And look you lay it in the praetor’s[149] chair

150

Where Brutus may[150] but find it. And throw this

In at his window; set this up[151] with wax

Upon old Brutus’ statue. All this done,

Repair[153] to Pompey’s porch, where you shall find us.

Is Decius Brutus and Trebonius there?

155

CINNAAll but Metellus Cimber, and he’s gone

To seek you at your house. Well, I will hie,[156]

And so bestow these papers as you bade me.

CASSIUSThat done, repair to Pompey’s theatre.—

Exit Cinna

Come, Casca, you and I will yet ere day

160

See Brutus at his house: three parts of him

Is ours already, and the man entire

Upon the next encounter yields him ours.

CASCAO, he sits high in all the people’s hearts:

And that which would appear offence in us,

165

His countenance,[165] like richest alchemy,

Will change to virtue and to worthiness.

CASSIUSHim, and his worth, and our great need of him

You have right well conceited.[168] Let us go,

For it is after midnight, and ere day

170

We will awake him and be sure of him.

Exeunt

[Act 2 Scene 1]2.1

running scene 2

Enter Brutus in his orchard

BRUTUSWhat, Lucius, ho?— Calls

I cannot by the progress of the stars

Give guess how near to day.— Lucius, I say!—

I would it were my fault to sleep so soundly.—

5

When,[5] Lucius, when? Awake, I say: what, Lucius!

Enter Lucius

LUCIUSCalled you, my lord?

BRUTUSGet me a taper[7] in my study, Lucius,

When it is lighted, come and call me here.

LUCIUSI will, my lord.

Exit

10

BRUTUSIt must be by his[10] death: and for my part,

I know no personal cause to spurn[11] at him

But for the general.[12] He would be crowned:

How that might change his nature, there’s the question.

It is the bright day that brings forth the adder,

15

And that craves[15] wary walking: crown him that,

And then I grant we put a sting in him,

That at his will he may do danger with.

Th’abuse of greatness is when it disjoins

Remorse[19] from power: and to speak truth of Caesar,

20

I have not known when his affections[20] swayed

More than his reason. But ’tis a common proof[21]

That lowliness[22] is young ambition’s ladder

Whereto the climber upward turns his face.

But when he once attains the upmost round,[24]

25

He then unto the ladder turns his back,

Looks in the clouds, scorning the base degrees[26]

By which he did ascend: so Caesar may;

Then, lest he may, prevent. And since the[28] quarrel

Will bear no colour for the thing he is,

30

Fashion[30] it thus: that what he is, augmented,

Would run to these and these extremities:

And therefore think him as a serpent’s egg

Which hatched, would as his kind[33] grow mischievous,

And kill him in the shell.

Enter Lucius

35

LUCIUSThe taper burneth in your closet,[35] sir.

Searching the window for a flint, I found

This paper, thus sealed up, and I am sure

It did not lie there when I went to bed.

Gives him the letter

BRUTUSGet you to bed again, it is not day.

40

Is not tomorrow, boy, the first of March?

LUCIUSI know not, sir.

BRUTUSLook in the calendar, and bring me word.

LUCIUSI will, sir.

Exit

BRUTUSThe exhalations[44] whizzing in the air

45

Give so much light that I may read by them.

Opens the letter and reads

‘Brutus thou sleep’st. Awake, and see thyself.

Shall Rome, etc. Speak, strike, redress.’ —

‘Brutus, thou sleep’st. Awake!’

Such instigations have been often dropped

50

Where I have took them up.

‘Shall Rome, etc.’ Thus must I piece it out:[51]

Shall Rome stand under one man’s awe? What Rome?

My ancestors did from the streets of Rome

The Tarquin[54] drive when he was called a king.

55

‘Speak, strike, redress.’ Am I entreated

To speak and strike? O Rome, I make thee promise,

If the redress will follow, thou receivest

Thy full petition[58] at the hand of Brutus.

Enter Lucius

LUCIUSSir, March is wasted fifteen days.

Knock within

60

BRUTUS’Tis good. Go to the gate: somebody knocks.—

[Exit Lucius]

Since Cassius first did whet[61] me against Caesar,

I have not slept.

Between the acting of a dreadful thing

And the first motion,[64] all the interim is

65

Like a phantasma,[65] or a hideous dream:

The genius[66] and the mortal instruments

Are then in council,[67] and the state of man,

Like to a little kingdom, suffers then

The nature of an insurrection.[69]

Enter Lucius

70

LUCIUSSir, ’tis your brother[70] Cassius at the door,

Who doth desire to see you.

BRUTUSIs he alone?

LUCIUSNo, sir, there are more with him.

BRUTUSDo you know them?

75

LUCIUSNo, sir, their hats are plucked about[75] their ears

And half their faces buried in their cloaks,

That by no means I may discover[77] them

By any mark of favour.[78]

BRUTUSLet ’em enter:—

[Exit Lucius]

80

They are the faction. O conspiracy,

Sham’st thou to show thy dang’rous brow by night,

When evils are most free?[82] O, then, by day

Where wilt thou find a cavern dark enough

To mask thy monstrous visage?[84] Seek none, conspiracy,

85

Hide it in smiles and affability

For if thou[86] path thy native semblance on,

Not Erebus[87] itself were dim enough

To hide thee from prevention.[88]

Enter the conspirators: Cassius, Casca, Decius, Cinna, Metellus and Trebonius

CASSIUSI think we are too bold[89] upon your rest:

90

Good morrow, Brutus, do we trouble you?

BRUTUSI have been up this hour, awake all night.

Know I these men that come along with you?

CASSIUSYes, every man of them; and no man here

But honours you, and every one doth wish

95

You had but that opinion of yourself

Which every noble Roman bears of you.

This is Trebonius.

BRUTUSHe is welcome hither.

CASSIUSThis, Decius Brutus.

100

BRUTUSHe is welcome too.

CASSIUSThis, Casca; this, Cinna; and this, Metellus Cimber.

BRUTUSThey are all welcome.

What watchful cares[103] do interpose themselves

Betwixt your eyes and night?[104]

105

CASSIUSShall I entreat a word?

They whisper

DECIUSHere lies the east: doth not the day break here?

CASCANo.

CINNAO, pardon, sir, it doth; and yon[108] grey lines

That fret[109] the clouds are messengers of day.

110

CASCAYou shall confess that you are both deceived:[110]

Here, as[111] I point my sword, the sun arises,

Which is a great way growing on[112] the south,

Weighing[113] the youthful season of the year.

Some two months hence, up higher toward the north

115

He first presents his fire, and the high east

Stands as the Capitol, directly here.

BRUTUSGive me your hands all over,[117] one by one. Comes forward with Cassius

CASSIUSAnd let us swear our resolution.

BRUTUSNo, not an oath: if not the face of men,[119]

120

The sufferance[120] of our souls, the time’s abuse;

If these be motives weak, break off betimes,[121]

And every man hence to his idle[122] bed.

So let high-sighted[123] tyranny range on

Till each man drop by lottery.[124] But if these —

125

As I am sure they do — bear fire enough

To kindle cowards, and to steel[126] with valour

The melting spirits of women, then, countrymen,

What need we any spur but our own cause

To prick us to redress? What other bond

130

Than[130] secret Romans that have spoke the word

And will not palter?[131] And what other oath

Than honesty to honesty engaged,[132]

That this shall be, or we will fall[133] for it?

Swear[134] priests and cowards, and men cautelous,

135

Old feeble carrions,[135] and such suffering souls

That welcome wrongs: unto bad causes swear

Such[137] creatures as men doubt. But do not stain

The even[138] virtue of our enterprise,

Nor th’insuppressive[139] mettle of our spirits,

140

To think that or[140] our cause or our performance

Did need an oath, when every drop of blood

That every Roman bears, and nobly bears,

Is guilty of a several[143] bastardy

If he do break the smallest particle

145

Of any promise that hath passed from him.

CASSIUSBut what of Cicero? Shall we sound[146] him?

I think he will stand very strong with us.

CASCALet us not leave him out.

CINNANo, by no means.

150

METELLUSO, let us have him, for his silver hairs[150]

Will purchase us a good opinion,

And buy men’s voices to commend our deeds:

It shall be said his judgement ruled our hands.

Our youths and wildness shall no whit appear,

155

But all be buried in his gravity.[155]

BRUTUSO, name him not: let us not break[156] with him,

For he will never follow anything

That other men begin.

CASSIUSThen leave him out.

160

CASCAIndeed, he is not fit.

DECIUSShall no man else be touched,[161] but only Caesar?

CASSIUSDecius, well urged.— I think it is not meet[162]

Mark Antony, so well beloved of Caesar,

Should outlive Caesar. We shall find of him

165

A shrewd contriver.[165] And you know his means

If he improve[166] them may well stretch so far

As to annoy[167] us all: which to prevent,

Let Antony and Caesar fall together.

BRUTUSOur course will seem too bloody, Caius Cassius,

170

To cut the head off and then hack the limbs —

Like wrath in death and envy[171] afterwards —

For Antony is but a limb of Caesar.

Let’s be sacrificers, but not butchers, Caius.

We all stand up against the spirit[174] of Caesar,

175

And in the spirit[175] of men there is no blood.

O, that we then could come by Caesar’s spirit

And not dismember Caesar! But, alas,

Caesar must bleed for it. And, gentle friends,

Let’s kill him boldly, but not wrathfully:

180

Let’s carve him as a dish fit for the gods,

Not hew him as a carcass fit for hounds.

And let our hearts, as subtle[182] masters do,

Stir up[183] their servants to an act of rage

And after seem to chide[184] ’em. This shall make

185

Our purpose[185] necessary, and not envious,

Which so appearing to the common eyes,

We shall be called purgers,[187] not murderers.

And for Mark Antony, think not of him,

For he can do no more than Caesar’s arm

190

When Caesar’s head is off.

CASSIUSYet I fear him,

For in the ingrafted[192] love he bears to Caesar —

BRUTUSAlas, good Cassius, do not think of him:

If he love Caesar, all that he can do

195

Is to himself; take thought[195] and die for Caesar.

And that[196] were much he should, for he is given

To sports, to wildness and much company.

TREBONIUSThere is no fear[198] in him; let him not die,

For he will live and laugh at this hereafter.

Clock strikes

200

BRUTUSPeace! Count the clock.

CASSIUSThe clock hath stricken three.

TREBONIUS’Tis time to part.

CASSIUSBut it is doubtful yet

Whether Caesar will come forth today or no,

205

For he is superstitious grown of late,

Quite from the main[206] opinion he held once

Of fantasy, of dreams and ceremonies.[207]

It may be these apparent[208] prodigies,

The unaccustomed terror of this night

210

And the persuasion of his augurers,[210]

May hold him from the Capitol today.

DECIUSNever fear that. If he be so resolved,

I can o’ersway him,[213] for he loves to hear

That unicorns[214] may be betrayed with trees,

215

And bears with glasses,[215] elephants with holes,

Lions with toils[216] and men with flatterers.

But when I tell him he hates flatterers,

He says he does, being then most flattered.

Let me work,

220

For I can give his humour[220] the true bent,

And I will bring him to the Capitol.

CASSIUSNay, we will all of us be there to fetch him.

BRUTUSBy the eighth hour. Is that the uttermost?[223]

CINNABe that the uttermost, and fail not then.

225

METELLUSCaius Ligarius doth bear Caesar hard,[225]

Who rated[226] him for speaking well of Pompey.

I wonder none of you have thought of him.

BRUTUSNow, good Metellus, go along by[228] him:

He loves me well, and I have given him reasons.[229]

230

Send him but hither and I’ll fashion him.[230]

CASSIUSThe morning comes upon’s:[231] we’ll leave you, Brutus.—

And, friends, disperse yourselves; but all remember

What you have said, and show yourselves true Romans.

BRUTUSGood gentlemen, look fresh and merrily.

235

Let not our looks put on[235] our purposes,

But bear it as our Roman actors do,

With untired[237] spirits and formal constancy.

And so good morrow to you every one.—

Exeunt. Brutus remains

Boy! Lucius! Fast asleep? It is no matter. Calls

240

Enjoy the honey-heavy dew of slumber:

Thou hast no figures,[241] nor no fantasies

Which busy[242] care draws in the brains of men;

Therefore thou sleep’st so sound.

Enter Portia

PORTIABrutus, my lord.

245

BRUTUSPortia, what mean you?[245] Wherefore rise you now?

It is not for your health thus to commit

Your weak condition to the raw cold morning.

PORTIANor for yours neither. You’ve ungently,[248] Brutus,

Stole from my bed: and yesternight, at supper,

250

You suddenly arose, and walked about,

Musing, and sighing, with your arms a-cross:[251]

And when I asked you what the matter was,

You stared upon me with ungentle looks.

I urged you further, then you scratched your head,

255

And too impatiently stamped with your foot:

Yet I insisted, yet you answered not,

But with an angry wafture[257] of your hand

Gave sign for me to leave you: so I did,

Fearing to strengthen that impatience

260

Which seemed too much enkindled, and withal[260]

Hoping it was but an effect of humour,[261]

Which sometime hath his hour with every man.

It will not let you eat, nor talk, nor sleep;

And could it work so much upon your shape[264]

265

As it hath much prevailed on your condition,[265]

I should not know[266] you, Brutus. Dear my lord,

Make me acquainted with your cause of grief.

BRUTUSI am not well in health, and that is all.

PORTIABrutus is wise, and were he not in health,

270

He would embrace the means to come by it.

BRUTUSWhy, so I do. Good Portia, go to bed.

PORTIAIs Brutus sick? And is it physical

To walk unbracèd,[273] and suck up the humours

Of the dank morning? What, is Brutus sick?

275

And will he steal out of his wholesome[275] bed

To dare[276] the vile contagion of the night?

And tempt the rheumy[277] and unpurgèd air

To add unto his sickness? No, my Brutus,

You have some sick offence[279] within your mind

280

Which by the right and virtue of my place[280]

I ought to know of: and upon my knees Kneels

I charm[282] you, by my once-commended beauty,

By all your vows of love and that great vow[283]

Which did incorporate and make us one,

285

That you unfold[285] to me, your self, your half,

Why you are heavy,[286] and what men tonight

Have had to resort to[287] you, for here have been

Some six or seven who did hide their faces

Even from darkness.

290

BRUTUSKneel not, gentle Portia. Raises her?

PORTIAI should not need, if you were gentle Brutus. Rises

Within the bond of marriage, tell me, Brutus,

Is it excepted[293] I should know no secrets

That appertain to you? Am I your self

295

But as it were in[295] sort or limitation?

To keep[296] with you at meals, comfort your bed

And talk to you sometimes? Dwell I but in the suburbs[297]

Of your good pleasure? If it be no more,

Portia is Brutus’ harlot,[299] not his wife.

300

BRUTUSYou are my true and honourable wife,

As dear to me as are the ruddy drops[301]

That visit my sad heart.

PORTIAIf this were true, then should I know this secret.

I grant I am a woman; but withal

305

A woman that Lord Brutus took to wife:

I grant I am a woman; but withal

A woman well-reputed, Cato’s[307] daughter.

Think you I am no stronger than my sex

Being so fathered and so husbanded?

310

Tell me your counsels,[310] I will not disclose ’em.

I have made strong proof of my constancy,[311]

Giving myself a voluntary wound

Here in the thigh: can I bear that with patience

And not my husband’s secrets?

315

BRUTUSO ye gods!

Render me worthy of this noble wife!

Knock

Hark, hark one knocks. Portia, go in awhile,

And by and by[318] thy bosom shall partake

The secrets of my heart.

320

All my engagements I will construe[320] to thee,

All the charactery[321] of my sad brows:

Leave me with haste.—

Exit Portia

Lucius, who’s that knocks? Calls

Enter Lucius and Ligarius Ligarius wears a kerchief

LUCIUSHere is a sick man that would speak with you.

325

BRUTUSCaius Ligarius, that Metellus spake of.—

Boy, stand aside.— Caius Ligarius, how?

LIGARIUSVouchsafe[327] good morrow from a feeble tongue.

BRUTUSO, what a time have you chose out, brave Caius,

To wear a kerchief? Would you were not sick!

330

LIGARIUSI am not sick if Brutus have in hand

Any exploit worthy the name of honour.

BRUTUSSuch an exploit have I in hand, Ligarius,

Had you a healthful ear to hear of it.

LIGARIUSBy all the gods that Romans bow before,

335

I here discard my sickness. Soul of Rome, Takes off the kerchief

Brave son, derived from honourable loins,

Thou like an exorcist[337] hast conjured up

My mortified[338] spirit. Now bid me run

And I will strive[339] with things impossible,

340

Yea, get the better of them. What’s to do?

BRUTUSA piece of work that will make sick men whole.[341]

LIGARIUSBut are not some whole that we must make sick?

BRUTUSThat must we also. What it is, my Caius,

I shall unfold to thee as we are going

345

To whom[345] it must be done.

LIGARIUSSet[346] on your foot,

And with a heart new-fired I follow you,

To do I know not what: but it sufficeth

That Brutus leads me on.

Thunder

350

BRUTUSFollow me, then.

Exeunt

[Act 2 Scene 2]2.2

running scene 3

Thunder and lightning. Enter Julius Caesar in his nightgown

CAESARNor heaven nor earth have been at peace tonight:

Thrice hath Calpurnia in her sleep cried out,

‘Help, ho! They murder Caesar!’ Who’s within?

Enter a Servant

SERVANTMy lord?

5

CAESARGo bid the priests do present[5] sacrifice

And bring me their opinions[6] of success.

SERVANTI will, my lord.

Exit

Enter Calpurnia

CALPURNIAWhat mean you, Caesar? Think you to walk forth?

You shall not stir out of your house today.

10

CAESARCaesar shall forth. The things that threatened me

Ne’er looked but on my back: when they shall see

The face of Caesar, they are vanishèd.

CALPURNIACaesar, I never stood on[13] ceremonies,

Yet now they fright me. There is one within,

15

Besides the things that we have heard and seen,

Recounts most horrid sights seen by the watch.[16]

A lioness hath whelpèd[17] in the streets,

And graves have yawned,[18] and yielded up their dead;

Fierce fiery warriors[19] fight upon the clouds

20

In ranks and squadrons, and right form of war,

Which drizzled blood upon the Capitol:

The noise of battle hurtled[22] in the air,

Horses do neigh, and dying men did groan,

And ghosts[24] did shriek and squeal about the streets.

25

O Caesar, these things are beyond all use,[25]

And I do fear them.

CAESARWhat can be avoided

Whose end[28] is purposed by the mighty gods?

Yet Caesar shall go forth, for these predictions

30

Are to[30] the world in general as to Caesar.

CALPURNIAWhen beggars die there are no comets seen:

The heavens themselves blaze forth[32] the death of princes.

CAESARCowards die many times before their deaths,

The valiant never taste of death but once.

35

Of all the wonders that I yet have heard,

It seems to me most strange that men should fear,

Seeing that death, a necessary end,

Will come when it will come.

Enter a Servant

What say the augurers?

40

SERVANTThey would not have you to stir forth today.

Plucking the entrails of[41] an offering forth,

They could not find a heart within the beast.

CAESARThe gods do this in shame of[43] cowardice:

Caesar should be a beast without a heart

45

If he should stay at home today for fear.

No, Caesar shall not. Danger knows full well

That Caesar is more dangerous than he.

We are two lions littered[48] in one day,

And I the elder and more terrible,

50

And Caesar shall go forth.

CALPURNIAAlas, my lord,

Your wisdom is consumed in[52] confidence.

Do not go forth today: call it my fear

That keeps you in the house, and not your own.

55

We’ll send Mark Antony to the senate house,

And he shall say you are not well today.

Let me upon my knee prevail in this. Kneels

CAESARMark Antony shall say I am not well,

And for thy humour[59] I will stay at home. Raises her?

Enter Decius

60

Here’s Decius Brutus, he shall tell them so.

DECIUSCaesar, all hail. Good morrow, worthy Caesar,

I come to fetch you to the senate house.

CAESARAnd you are come in very happy[63] time

To bear my greeting to the senators,

65

And tell them that I will not come today:

Cannot is false, and that I dare not, falser:

I will not come today. Tell them so, Decius.

CALPURNIASay he is sick.

CAESARShall Caesar send a lie?

70

Have I in conquest stretched mine arm so far

To be afeared to tell greybeards[71] the truth?

Decius, go tell them Caesar will not come.

DECIUSMost mighty Caesar, let me know some cause,

Lest I be Iaughed at when I tell them so.

75

CAESARThe cause is in my will, I will not come,

That is enough to satisfy the senate.

But for your private satisfaction,

Because I love you, I will let you know.

Calpurnia here, my wife, stays[79] me at home:

80

She dreamt tonight she saw my statue,

Which, like a fountain with an hundred spouts,

Did run pure blood, and many lusty[82] Romans

Came smiling and did bathe their hands in it.

And these does she apply for[84] warnings and portents

85

And evils imminent, and on her knee

Hath begged that I will stay at home today.

DECIUSThis dream is all amiss[87] interpreted.

It was a vision, fair and fortunate:

Your statue spouting blood in many pipes

90

In which so many smiling Romans bathed,

Signifies that from you great Rome shall suck

Reviving blood, and that great men shall press[92]

For tinctures, stains, relics[93] and cognizance.

This by Calpurnia’s dream is signified.

95

CAESARAnd this way have you well expounded it.

DECIUSI have, when you have heard what I can say:

And know it now, the senate have concluded

To give this day a crown to mighty Caesar.

If you shall send them word you will not come,

100

Their minds may change. Besides, it were[100] a mock

Apt to be rendered, for someone to say,

‘Break up the senate till another time

When Caesar’s wife shall meet with better dreams.’

If Caesar hide himself, shall they not whisper

105

‘Lo, Caesar is afraid’?

Pardon me, Caesar, for my dear, dear love

To our proceeding bids me tell you this,

And reason[108] to my love is liable.

CAESARHow foolish do your fears seem now, Calpurnia?

110

I am ashamèd I did yield to them.

Give me my robe, for I will go.

Enter Brutus, Ligarius, Metellus, Casca, Trebonius, Cinna and Publius

And look where Publius is come to fetch me.

PUBLIUSGood morrow, Caesar.

CAESARWelcome, Publius.—

115

What, Brutus, are you stirred so early too?—

Good morrow, Casca.— Caius Ligarius,

Caesar was ne’er so much your enemy

As that same ague[118] which hath made you lean.—

What is’t o’clock?

120

BRUTUSCaesar, ’tis strucken eight.

CAESARI thank you for your pains and courtesy.

Enter Antony

See, Antony, that revels long o’nights,

Is notwithstanding up.[123]— Good morrow, Antony.

ANTONYSo to most noble Caesar.

125

CAESARBid them prepare within: To Calpurnia or to a Servant

I am to blame to be thus waited for.— [Exit Calpurnia or a Servant]

Now, Cinna, now, Metellus, what, Trebonius,

I have an hour’s talk in store for you.

Remember that you call on me today:

130

Be near me, that I may remember[130] you.

TREBONIUSCaesar, I will:— and so near will I be Aside

That your best friends shall wish I had been further.

CAESARGood friends, go in, and taste some wine with me,

And we, like friends, will straightway go together.

135

BRUTUSThat[135] every like is not the same, O Caesar, Aside

The heart of Brutus earns[136] to think upon. Exeunt

[Act 2 Scene 3]2.3

running scene 4

Enter Artemidorus Reading a paper

ARTEMIDORUS‘Caesar, beware of Brutus, take heed of Cassius, come not near Casca, have an eye to Cinna, trust not Trebonius, mark well Metellus Cimber, Decius Brutus loves thee not, thou hast wronged Caius Ligarius. There is but one mind in all these men, and it is bent[4] against Caesar. If thou be’st not immortal, look about you: security[5] gives way to conspiracy. The mighty gods defend thee. Thy lover, Artemidorus.’

Here will I stand till Caesar pass along,

And as a suitor[8] will I give him this.

My heart laments that virtue cannot live

10

Out of[10] the teeth of emulation.

If thou read this, O Caesar, thou mayst live;

If not, the Fates with traitors do contrive.[12]

Exit

[Act 2 Scene 4]2.4

running scene 5

Enter Portia and Lucius

PORTIAI prithee, boy, run to the senate house.

Stay not to answer me, but get thee gone.

Why dost thou stay?

LUCIUSTo know my errand, madam.

5

PORTIAI would have had thee there and here again

Ere I can tell thee what thou shouldst do there.—

O constancy,[7] be strong upon my side, Aside

Set a huge mountain ’tween my heart and tongue:

I have a man’s[9] mind, but a woman’s might.

10

How hard it is for women to keep counsel.[10]—

Art thou here yet?

LUCIUSMadam, what should I do?

Run to the Capitol, and nothing else?

And so return to you, and nothing else?

15

PORTIAYes, bring me word, boy, if thy lord look well,

For he went sickly forth: and take good note[16]

What Caesar doth, what suitors press to him.

Hark, boy, what noise is that?

LUCIUSI hear none, madam.

20

PORTIAPrithee listen well:

I heard a bustling rumour[21] like a fray,

And the wind brings it from the Capitol.

LUCIUSSooth,[23] madam, I hear nothing.

Enter the Soothsayer

PORTIACome hither, fellow. Which way hast thou been?

25

SOOTHSAYERAt mine own house, good lady.

PORTIAWhat is’t o’clock?

SOOTHSAYERAbout the ninth hour, lady.

PORTIAIs Caesar yet gone to the Capitol?

SOOTHSAYERMadam, not yet. I go to take my stand

30

To see him pass on to the Capitol.

PORTIAThou hast some suit[31] to Caesar, hast thou not?

SOOTHSAYERThat I have, lady, if it will please Caesar

To be so good to Caesar as to hear me:

I shall beseech him to befriend[34] himself.

35

PORTIAWhy, know’st thou any harm’s intended towards him?

SOOTHSAYERNone that I know will be

Much that I fear may chance.

Good morrow to you. Here the street is narrow:

The throng that follows Caesar at the heels,

40

Of senators, of praetors,[40] common suitors,

Will crowd a feeble man almost to death:

I’ll get me to a place more void,[42] and there

Speak to great Caesar as he comes along.

Exit

PORTIAI must go in. Ay me! How weak a thing

45

The heart of woman is.— O Brutus,

The heavens speed[46] thee in thine enterprise.—

Sure, the boy heard me. Brutus hath a suit

That Caesar will not grant. O, I grow faint.—

Run, Lucius, and commend me[49] to my lord,

50

Say I am merry. Come to me again,

And bring me word what he doth say to thee.

Exeunt [separately]

Act 3 [Scene 1]3.1

running scene 6

Flourish. Enter Caesar, Brutus, Cassius, Casca, Decius, Metellus, Trebonius, Cinna, Antony, Lepidus, Artemidorus, Publius [Popilius Lena] and the Soothsayer

CAESARThe Ides of March are come. To the Soothsayer

SOOTHSAYERAy, Caesar, but not gone.

ARTEMIDORUSHail, Caesar. Read this schedule.[3]

DECIUSTrebonius doth desire you to o’erread[4] —

5

At your best leisure — this his humble suit.

ARTEMIDORUSO Caesar, read mine first, for mine’s a suit

That touches Caesar nearer.[7] Read it, great Caesar.

CAESARWhat touches us ourself shall be last served.[8]

ARTEMIDORUSDelay not, Caesar, read it instantly.

10

CAESARWhat, is the fellow mad?

PUBLIUSSirrah,[11] give place. To Artemidorus

CASSIUSWhat, urge you your petitions in the street?

Come to the Capitol. Caesar and his train move on

POPILIUSI wish your enterprise today may thrive. To Cassius

15

CASSIUSWhat enterprise, Popilius?

POPILIUSFare you well. Moves toward Caesar

BRUTUSWhat said Popilius Lena?

CASSIUSHe wished today our enterprise might thrive:

I fear our purpose is discoverèd.

20

BRUTUSLook how he makes to[20] Caesar: mark him.

CASSIUSCasca, be sudden,[21] for we fear prevention.

Brutus, what shall be done? If this be known,

Cassius or Caesar never shall turn back,[23]

For I will slay myself.

25

BRUTUSCassius, be constant:[25]

Popilius Lena speaks not of our purposes,

For look, he smiles, and Caesar[27] doth not change.

CASSIUSTrebonius knows his time: for look you, Brutus.

He draws Mark Antony out of the way.

[Exeunt Antony and Trebonius]

30

DECIUSWhere is Metellus Cimber? Let him go Caesar sits?

And presently prefer[31] his suit to Caesar.

BRUTUSHe is addressed:[32] press near and second him.

CINNACasca, you are the first that rears[33] your hand.

CAESARAre we all ready? What is now amiss

35

That Caesar and his senate must redress?

METELLUSMost high, most mighty and most puissant[36] Caesar, Comes forward

Metellus Cimber throws before thy seat[37] Kneels

An humble heart—

CAESARI must prevent thee, Cimber.

40

These couchings[40] and these lowly courtesies

Might fire[41] the blood of ordinary men,

And turn[42] pre-ordinance and first decree

Into the lane of children. Be not fond[43]

To think that Caesar bears such rebel blood[44]

45

That will be thawed from the true quality[45]

With that which melteth fools — I mean sweet[46] words,

Low-crookèd[47] curtsies and base spaniel-fawning.

Thy brother by decree is banishèd:

If thou dost bend and pray[49] and fawn for him,

50

I spurn[50] thee like a cur out of my way.

Know, Caesar doth not wrong, nor without cause[51]

Will he be satisfied.[52]

METELLUSIs there no voice more worthy than my own

To sound more sweetly in great Caesar’s ear

55

For the repealing[55] of my banished brother?

BRUTUSI kiss thy hand, but not in flattery, Caesar, Kneels

Desiring thee that Publius Cimber may

Have an immediate freedom of repeal.[58]

CAESARWhat, Brutus?

60

CASSIUSPardon, Caesar: Caesar, pardon.

As low as to thy foot doth Cassius fall, Kneels

To beg enfranchisement[62] for Publius Cimber.

CAESARI could be well moved if I were as you:

If I could pray to move,[64] prayers would move me.

65

But I am constant as the northern star,[65]

Of whose true-fixed and resting[66] quality

There is no fellow[67] in the firmament.

The skies are painted with unnumbered sparks,[68]

They are all fire and every one doth shine:

70

But there’s but one in all doth hold his place.

So in the world: ’tis furnished well with men,

And men are flesh and blood, and apprehensive;[72]

Yet in the number I do know but one

That unassailable holds[74] on his rank,

75

Unshaked of motion.[75] And that I am he,

Let me a little show it, even in this:

That I was constant Cimber should be banished,

And constant do remain to keep him so.

CINNAO Caesar— Kneels

80

CAESARHence.[80] Wilt thou lift up Olympus?

DECIUSGreat Caesar— About to kneel

CAESARDoth not Brutus bootless[82] kneel?

CASCASpeak hands[83] for me!

They stab Caesar Casca first, Brutus last

CAESAREt tu, Bruté?[84]— Then fall, Caesar. Dies

85

CINNALiberty! Freedom! Tyranny is dead!

Run hence, proclaim, cry it about the streets.

CASSIUSSome to the common pulpits[87] and cry out In the ensuing tumult, exeunt all but the conspirators

‘Liberty, freedom and enfranchisement!’ and Publius

BRUTUSPeople and senators, be not affrighted.[89]

90

Fly not, stand still: ambition’s[90] debt is paid.

CASCAGo to the pulpit, Brutus.

DECIUSAnd Cassius too.

BRUTUSWhere’s Publius?

CINNAHere, quite confounded with[94] this mutiny.

95

METELLUSStand fast[95] together, lest some friend of Caesar’s

Should chance—

BRUTUSTalk not of standing.[97] Publius, good cheer:

There is no harm intended to your person,

Nor to no Roman else: so tell them, Publius.

100

CASSIUSAnd leave us, Publius, lest that the people,

Rushing on us, should do your age[101] some mischief.

BRUTUSDo so, and let no man abide[102] this deed

But we the doers.

[Exit Publius]

Enter Trebonius

CASSIUSWhere is Antony?

105

TREBONIUSFled to his house amazed.[105]

Men, wives and children stare, cry out and run

As[107] it were doomsday.

BRUTUSFates, we will know your pleasures.[108]

That we shall die we know: ’tis but the time[109]

110

And drawing days out[110] that men stand upon.

CASCAWhy, he that cuts off twenty years of life

Cuts off so many years of fearing death.

BRUTUSGrant that, and then is death a benefit:

So are we Caesar’s friends that have abridged

115

His time of fearing death. Stoop, Romans, stoop,

And let us bathe our hands in Caesar’s blood

Up to the elbows and besmear our swords:

Then walk we forth, even to the market-place,[118] They smear their hands and weapons with Caesar’s blood

And waving our red weapons o’er our heads,

120

Let’s all cry ‘Peace, freedom and liberty!’

CASSIUSStoop, then, and wash. How many ages hence

Shall this our lofty scene be acted over,[122]

In states unborn and accents[123] yet unknown?

BRUTUSHow many times shall Caesar bleed in sport

125

That now on Pompey’s basis[125] lies along

No worthier than the dust?

CASSIUSSo oft as that shall be,

So often shall the knot[128] of us be called

The men that gave their country liberty.

130

DECIUSWhat, shall we forth?

CASSIUSAy, every man away.

Brutus shall lead, and we will grace[132] his heels

With the most boldest and best hearts of Rome.

Enter a Servant

BRUTUSSoft,[134] who comes here? A friend of Antony’s.

135

SERVANTThus, Brutus, did my master bid me kneel, Kneels

Thus did Mark Antony bid me fall down,

And being prostrate thus he bade me say:

Brutus is noble, wise, valiant and honest;[138]

Caesar was mighty, bold, royal and loving.

140

Say I love Brutus and I honour him,

Say I feared[141] Caesar, honoured him and loved him.

If Brutus will vouchsafe[142] that Antony

May safely come to him and be resolved[143]

How Caesar hath deserved to lie in death,

145

Mark Antony shall not love Caesar dead

So well as Brutus living, but will follow

The fortunes and affairs of noble Brutus

Thorough[148] the hazards of this untrod state

With all true faith.[149] So says my master Antony.

150

BRUTUSThy master is a wise and valiant Roman:

I never thought him worse.

Tell him, so please him come unto this place,

He shall be satisfied,[153] and by my honour

Depart untouched.[154]

155

SERVANTI’ll fetch him presently.[155]

Exit Servant

BRUTUSI know that we shall have him well to[156] friend.

CASSIUSI wish[157] we may: but yet have I a mind

That fears[158] him much, and my misgiving still

Falls shrewdly to the purpose.

Enter Antony

160

BRUTUSBut here comes Antony.— Welcome, Mark Antony.

ANTONYO mighty Caesar! Dost thou lie so low? To the body

Are all thy conquests, glories, triumphs, spoils,[162]

Shrunk to this little measure?[163] Fare thee well.—

I know not, gentlemen, what you intend,

165

Who else must be let blood,[165] who else is rank:

If I myself, there is no hour so fit

As Caesar’s death’s hour, nor no instrument

Of half that worth as those your swords, made rich

With the most noble blood of all this world.

170

I do beseech ye, if you bear me hard,

Now, whilst your purpled[171] hands do reek and smoke,

Fulfil your pleasure. Live[172] a thousand years,

I shall not find myself so apt[173] to die.

No place will please me so, no mean[174] of death,

175

As here by Caesar, and by you cut off,[175]

The choice[176] and master spirits of this age.

BRUTUSO Antony! Beg not your death of us:

Though now we must appear bloody and cruel,

As by our hands and this our present act

180

You see we do, yet see you but[180] our hands

And this the bleeding business they have done:

Our hearts you see not: they are pitiful,[182]

And pity to the general wrong of Rome —

As fire drives out fire, so pity pity[184] —

185

Hath done this deed on Caesar. For your part,

To you our swords have leaden[186] points, Mark Antony:

Our arms in[187] strength of malice, and our hearts

Of brothers’ temper,[188] do receive you in

With all kind[189] love, good thoughts and reverence.

190

CASSIUSYour voice[190] shall be as strong as any man’s

In the disposing[191] of new dignities.

BRUTUSOnly be patient till we have appeased

The multitude,[193] beside themselves with fear,

And then we will deliver you[194] the cause

195

Why I, that did love Caesar when I struck him,

Have thus proceeded.[196]

ANTONYI doubt not of your wisdom.

Let each man render[198] me his bloody hand.— Shakes hands with each of them in turn

First, Marcus Brutus, will I shake with you;—

200

Next, Caius Cassius, do I take your hand;—

Now, Decius Brutus, yours;— now yours, Metellus;—

Yours, Cinna;— and my valiant Casca, yours;—

Though last, not least in love, yours, good Trebonius.—

Gentlemen all: alas, what shall I say?

205

My credit[205] now stands on such slipp’ry ground

That one of two bad ways you must conceit[206] me,

Either a coward or a flatterer.—

That I did love thee, Caesar, O, ’tis true:

If then thy spirit look upon us now,

210

Shall it not grieve thee dearer[210] than thy death

To see thy Antony making his peace,

Shaking the bloody fingers of thy foes?

Most noble[213] in the presence of thy corpse,

Had I as many eyes as thou hast wounds,

215

Weeping as fast as they stream forth thy blood,

It would become[216] me better than to close

In terms of friendship with thine enemies.

Pardon me, Julius! Here wast thou bayed,[218] brave hart,

Here didst thou fall, and here thy hunters stand

220

Signed in[220] thy spoil and crimsoned in thy Lethe.—

O world, thou wast the forest to this hart,

And this[222] indeed, O world, the heart of thee.—

How like a deer, strucken by many princes,

Dost thou here lie?

225

CASSIUSMark Antony—

ANTONYPardon me, Caius Cassius.

The enemies[227] of Caesar shall say this:

Then, in a friend, it is cold modesty.[228]

CASSIUSI blame you not for praising Caesar so,

230

But what compact[230] mean you to have with us?

Will you be pricked[231] in number of our friends,

Or shall we on,[232] and not depend on you?

ANTONYTherefore[233] I took your hands, but was indeed

Swayed from the point by looking down on Caesar.

235

Friends am I with you all, and love you all,

Upon this hope, that you shall give me reasons

Why and wherein Caesar was dangerous.

BRUTUSOr else[238] were this a savage spectacle:

Our reasons are so full of good regard[239]

240

That were you, Antony, the son of Caesar,

You should be satisfied.

ANTONYThat’s all I seek,

And am moreover suitor, that I may

Produce[244] his body to the market-place,

245

And in the pulpit, as becomes a friend,

Speak in the order[246] of his funeral.

BRUTUSYou shall, Mark Antony.

CASSIUSBrutus, a word with you.

You know not what you do. Do not consent Aside to Brutus

250

That Antony speak in his funeral:

Know you how much the people may be moved

By that which he will utter.

BRUTUSBy your pardon: Aside to Cassius

I will myself into the pulpit first,

255

And show the reason of our Caesar’s death.

What Antony shall speak, I will protest[256]

He speaks by leave[257] and by permission,

And that we are contented Caesar shall

Have all true rites[259] and lawful ceremonies.

260

It shall advantage more than do us wrong.

CASSIUSI know not what may fall.[261] I like it not. Aside to Brutus

BRUTUSMark Antony, here take you Caesar’s body.

You shall not in your funeral speech blame us,

But speak all good you can devise of Caesar,

265

And say you do’t by our permission:

Else shall you not have any hand at all

About[267] his funeral. And you shall speak

In the same pulpit whereto I am going,

After my speech is ended.

270

ANTONYBe it so:

I do desire no more.

BRUTUSPrepare the body then, and follow us.

Exeunt. Antony remains

ANTONYO, pardon me, thou bleeding piece of earth, To Caesar’s body

That I am meek and gentle with these butchers.

275

Thou art the ruins of the noblest man

That ever livèd in the tide of times.[276]

Woe to the hand that shed this costly[277] blood.

Over thy wounds now do I prophesy —

Which like dumb mouths do ope their ruby lips

280

To beg the voice and utterance of my tongue —

A curse shall light upon the limbs of men:

Domestic fury and fierce civil strife

Shall cumber[283] all the parts of Italy:

Blood and destruction shall be so in use,[284]

285

And dreadful objects[285] so familiar,

That mothers shall but smile when they behold

Their infants quartered[287] with the hands of war:

All pity choked with custom of[288] fell deeds,

And Caesar’s spirit ranging[289] for revenge,

290

With Ate[290] by his side, come hot from hell,

Shall in these confines,[291] with a monarch’s voice

Cry havoc[292] and let slip the dogs of war,

That[293] this foul deed shall smell above the earth

With[294] carrion men, groaning for burial.—

Enter Octavius’ Servant

295

You serve Octavius Caesar, do you not?

SERVANTI do, Mark Antony.

ANTONYCaesar did write for him to come to Rome.

SERVANTHe did receive his letters and is coming,

And bid me say to you by word of mouth—

300

O Caesar! Sees the body

ANTONYThy heart is big:[301] get thee apart and weep.

Passion,[302] I see, is catching, for mine eyes,

Seeing those beads of sorrow stand in thine,

Began to water. Is thy master coming?

305

SERVANTHe lies tonight within seven leagues[305] of Rome.

ANTONYPost[306] back with speed and tell him what hath chanced:

Here is a mourning Rome, a dangerous Rome,

No Rome of safety for Octavius yet.

Hie hence,[309] and tell him so. Yet stay awhile.

310

Thou shalt not back till I have borne this corpse

Into the market-place: there shall I try[311]

In my oration how the people take

The cruel issue[313] of these bloody men,

According to the which[314] thou shalt discourse

315

To young Octavius of the state of things.

Lend me your hand.

Exeunt With the body

[Act 3 Scene 2]3.2

running scene 7

Enter Brutus and goes into the pulpit, and Cassius with the Plebeians

PLEBEIANSWe will be satisfied: let us be satisfied.

BRUTUSThen follow me, and give me audience,[2] friends.

Cassius, go you into the other street

And part the numbers:[4]

5

Those that will hear me speak, let ’em stay here;

Those that will follow Cassius, go with him

And public[7] reasons shall be renderèd

Of Caesar’s death.

FIRST PLEBEIANI will hear Brutus speak.

10

SECOND PLEBEIANI will hear Cassius, and compare their reasons

When severally[11] we hear them renderèd.

[Exit Cassius, with some of the Plebeians]

THIRD PLEBEIANThe noble Brutus is ascended: silence!

BRUTUSBe patient till the last.[13] Romans, countrymen, and lovers,[14] hear me for my cause and be silent, that you may hear. Believe me for[15] mine honour and have respect to mine honour, that you may believe. Censure[16] me in your wisdom and awake your senses, that you may the better judge. If there be any in this assembly, any dear friend of Caesar’s, to him I say that Brutus’ love to Caesar was no less than his. If then that friend demand why Brutus rose against Caesar, this is my answer: not that I loved Caesar less, but that I loved Rome more. Had you rather Caesar were living, and die all slaves, than that Caesar were dead, to live all free men? As Caesar loved me, I weep for him; as he was fortunate, I rejoice at it; as he was valiant, I honour him: but as he was ambitious, I slew him. There is tears, for his love: joy, for his fortune: honour, for his valour: and death, for his ambition. Who is here so base, that would be a bondman? If any, speak, for him have I offended. Who is here so rude,[26] that would not be a Roman? If any, speak, for him have I offended. Who is here so vile,[27] that will not love his country? If any, speak, for him have I offended. I pause for a reply.

ALLNone, Brutus, none.

BRUTUSThen none have I offended. I have done no more to Caesar, than you shall do to Brutus. The question of[31] his death is enrolled in the Capitol: his glory not extenuated,[32] wherein he was worthy, nor his offences enforced, for which he suffered death.

Enter Mark Antony with Caesar’s body

Here comes his body, mourned by Mark Antony, who, though he had no hand in

35

his death, shall receive the benefit of his dying, a place[35] in the commonwealth, as which of you shall not? With this I depart, that as I slew my best lover for the good of Rome, I have the same dagger for myself, when it shall please my country to need my death. Comes down from the pulpit

ALLLive Brutus, live, live!

40

FIRST PLEBEIANBring him with triumph[40] home unto his house.

SECOND PLEBEIAN[41]Give him a statue with his ancestors.

THIRD PLEBEIANLet him be Caesar.

FOURTH PLEBEIANCaesar’s better parts[43]

Shall be crowned[44] in Brutus.

45

FIRST PLEBEIANWe’ll bring him to his house with shouts and clamours.

BRUTUSMy countrymen—

SECOND PLEBEIANPeace, silence, Brutus speaks.

FIRST PLEBEIANPeace, ho.

BRUTUSGood countrymen, let me depart alone,

50

And, for my sake, stay here with Antony:

Do grace to[51] Caesar’s corpse and grace his speech

Tending[52] to Caesar’s glories, which Mark Antony —

By our permission — is allowed to make.

I do entreat you, not a man depart

55

Save I alone, till Antony have spoke.

Exit

FIRST PLEBEIANStay, ho, and let us hear Mark Antony.

THIRD PLEBEIANLet him go up into the public chair.[57]

We’ll hear him.— Noble Antony, go up.

ANTONYFor Brutus’ sake I am beholding[59] to you. Goes into the pulpit

60

FOURTH PLEBEIANWhat does he say of Brutus?

THIRD PLEBEIANHe says, for Brutus’ sake

He finds himself beholding to us all.

FOURTH PLEBEIAN’Twere best he speak no harm of Brutus here.

FIRST PLEBEIANThis Caesar was a tyrant.

65

THIRD PLEBEIANNay, that’s certain:

We are blest that Rome is rid of him.

SECOND PLEBEIANPeace, let us hear what Antony can say.

ANTONYYou gentle Romans.

ALLPeace, ho, let us hear him.

70

ANTONYFriends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears:

I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him.

The evil that men do lives after them:

The good is oft interrèd[73] with their bones.

So let it be with Caesar. The noble Brutus

75

Hath told you Caesar was ambitious:

If it were so, it was a grievous fault,

And grievously hath Caesar answered[77] it.

Here, under leave[78] of Brutus and the rest —

For Brutus is an honourable man:

80

So are they all, all honourable men —

Come I to speak in Caesar’s funeral.

He was my friend, faithful and just to me;

But Brutus says, he was ambitious,

And Brutus is an honourable man.

85

He hath brought many captives home to Rome,

Whose ransoms did the general coffers[86] fill:

Did this in Caesar seem ambitious?

When that the poor have cried, Caesar hath wept:

Ambition should be made of sterner stuff.

90

Yet Brutus says, he was ambitious,

And Brutus is an honourable man.

You all did see, that on the Lupercal,

I thrice presented him a kingly crown,

Which he did thrice refuse. Was this ambition?

95

Yet Brutus says, he was ambitious,

And sure he is an honourable man.

I speak not to disprove what Brutus spoke,

But here I am, to speak what I do know.

You all did love him once, not without cause:

100

What cause withholds you then, to mourn for him?—

O judgement! Thou art fled to brutish beasts

And men have lost their reason.— Bear with me:

My heart is in the coffin there with Caesar,

And I must pause till it come back to me.

105

FIRST PLEBEIANMethinks there is much reason in his sayings.

SECOND PLEBEIANIf thou consider rightly of the matter,

Caesar has had great wrong.

THIRD PLEBEIANHas he, masters?[108]

I fear there will a worse[109] come in his place.

110

FOURTH PLEBEIANMarked ye his words? He would not take the crown:

Therefore ’tis certain he was not ambitious.

FIRST PLEBEIANIf it be found so, some will dear abide it.[112]

SECOND PLEBEIANPoor soul, his eyes are red as fire with weeping.

THIRD PLEBEIANThere’s not a nobler man in Rome than Antony.

115

FOURTH PLEBEIANNow mark him, he begins again to speak.

ANTONYBut[116] yesterday the word of Caesar might

Have stood against[117] the world: now lies he there,

And none so poor[118] to do him reverence.

O masters! If I were disposed to stir

120

Your hearts and minds to mutiny and rage,

I should do Brutus wrong, and Cassius wrong,

Who — you all know — are honourable men.

I will not do them wrong: I rather choose

To wrong the dead, to wrong myself and you,

125

Than I will wrong such honourable men.

But here’s a parchment, with the seal of Caesar. Shows the will

I found it in his closet:[127] ’tis his will.

Let but the commons hear this testament —

Which, pardon me, I do not mean to read —

130

And they would go and kiss dead Caesar’s wounds,

And dip[131] their napkins in his sacred blood,

Yea, beg a hair of him for memory,

And, dying, mention it within their wills,

Bequeathing it as a rich legacy

135

Unto their issue.[135]

FOURTH PLEBEIANWe’ll hear the will. Read it, Mark Antony.

ALLThe will, the will! We will hear Caesar’s will.

ANTONYHave patience, gentle friends, I must not read it.

It is not meet[139] you know how Caesar loved you.

140

You are not wood, you are not stones, but men:

And being men, hearing the will of Caesar,

It will inflame you, it will make you mad;

’Tis good you know not that you are his heirs,

For if you should, O, what would come of it!

145

FOURTH PLEBEIANRead the will. We’ll hear it, Antony.

You shall read us the will, Caesar’s will.

ANTONYWill you be patient? Will you stay awhile?

I have o’ershot myself[148] to tell you of it.

I fear I wrong the honourable men

150

Whose daggers have stabbed Caesar: I do fear it.

FOURTH PLEBEIANThey were traitors: honourable men?

ALLThe will, the testament!

SECOND PLEBEIANThey were villains, murderers. The will, read the will.

ANTONYYou will compel me then to read the will:

155

Then make a ring about the corpse of Caesar,

And let me show you him that made the will.

Shall I descend? And will you give me leave?

ALLCome down.

SECOND PLEBEIANDescend.

160

THIRD PLEBEIAN You shall have leave. Antony comes down

FOURTH PLEBEIANA ring. Stand round.

FIRST PLEBEIANStand from[162] the hearse, stand from the body.

SECOND PLEBEIANRoom for Antony, most noble Antony.

ANTONYNay, press not so upon me. Stand far[164] off.

165

ALLStand back: room, bear back.

ANTONYIf you have tears, prepare to shed them now.

You all do know this mantle.[167] I remember

The first time ever Caesar put it on.

’Twas on a summer’s evening in his tent,

170

That day he overcame the Nervii.[170]

Look, in this place ran Cassius’ dagger through:

See what a rent[172] the envious Casca made:

Through this, the well-belovèd Brutus stabbed,

And as he plucked his cursèd steel away,

175

Mark how the blood of Caesar followed it,

As[176] rushing out of doors, to be resolved

If Brutus so unkindly[177] knocked or no,

For Brutus, as you know, was Caesar’s angel.[178]—

Judge, O you gods, how dearly Caesar loved him.—

180

This was the most unkindest cut of all.

For when the noble Caesar saw him stab,

Ingratitude, more strong than traitors’ arms,

Quite vanquished him: then burst his mighty heart,

And in his mantle muffling up his face,

185

Even at the base of Pompey’s statue —

Which all the while ran blood — great Caesar fell.

O, what a fall was there, my countrymen!

Then I, and you, and all of us fell down,

Whilst bloody treason flourished[189] over us.

190

O, now you weep, and I perceive you feel

The dint[191] of pity: these are gracious drops.

Kind souls, what weep you when you but behold

Our Caesar’s vesture[193] wounded? Look you here, Uncovers the body

Here is himself, marred[194] as you see with traitors.

195

FIRST PLEBEIANO, piteous spectacle!

SECOND PLEBEIANO noble Caesar!

THIRD PLEBEIANO, woeful day!

FOURTH PLEBEIANO, traitors, villains!

FIRST PLEBEIANO, most bloody sight!

200

SECOND PLEBEIANWe will be revenged.

ALLRevenge! About![201] Seek! Burn! Fire! Kill! Slay!

Let not a traitor live!

ANTONYStay, countrymen.

FIRST PLEBEIANPeace there, hear the noble Antony.

205

SECOND PLEBEIANWe’ll hear him, we’ll follow him, we’ll die with him.

ANTONYGood friends, sweet friends, let me not stir you up

To such a sudden flood of mutiny:

They that have done this deed are honourable.

What private griefs[209] they have, alas, I know not,

210

That made them do it: they are wise and honourable

And will no doubt with reasons answer you.

I come not, friends, to steal away your hearts:

I am no orator,[213] as Brutus is;

But as you know me all a plain blunt[214] man

215

That love my friend, and that they know full well

That gave me public leave to speak of him,

For I have neither wit,[217] nor words, nor worth,

Action,[218] nor utterance, nor the power of speech,

To stir men’s blood. I only speak right on:[219]

220

I tell you that which you yourselves do know,

Show you sweet Caesar’s wounds, poor poor dumb mouths,

And bid them speak for me. But were I Brutus,[222]

And Brutus Antony, there were an Antony

Would ruffle up[224] your spirits, and put a tongue

225

In every wound of Caesar that should move

The stones of Rome to rise and mutiny.

ALLWe’ll mutiny.

FIRST PLEBEIANWe’ll burn the house of Brutus.

THIRD PLEBEIANAway, then, come, seek the conspirators.

230

ANTONYYet hear me, countrymen, yet hear me speak.

ALLPeace ho, hear Antony, most noble Antony.

ANTONYWhy, friends, you go to do you know not what:

Wherein[233] hath Caesar thus deserved your loves?

Alas, you know not. I must tell you then:

235

You have forgot the will I told you of.

ALLMost true. The will: let’s stay and hear the will.

ANTONYHere is the will, and under Caesar’s seal.

To every Roman citizen he gives,

To every several[239] man, seventy-five drachmas.

240

SECOND PLEBEIANMost noble Caesar, we’ll revenge his death.

THIRD PLEBEIANO royal Caesar.

ANTONYHear me with patience.

ALLPeace ho.

ANTONYMoreover, he hath left you all his walks,

245

His private arbours and new-planted orchards,[245]

On this side Tiber. He hath left them you

And to your heirs for ever: common pleasures[247]

To walk abroad and recreate[248] yourselves.

Here was a Caesar: when comes such another?

250

FIRST PLEBEIANNever, never. Come, away, away:

We’ll burn his body in the holy place,

And with the brands[252] fire the traitors’ houses.

Take up the body.

SECOND PLEBEIANGo fetch fire.

255

THIRD PLEBEIANPluck down benches.

FOURTH PLEBEIANPluck down forms,[256] windows, anything.

Exeunt Plebeians With the body

ANTONYNow let it work. Mischief,[257] thou art afoot:

Take thou what course thou wilt.—

Enter Servant

How now, fellow?

SERVANTSir, Octavius is already come to Rome.

260

ANTONYWhere is he?

SERVANTHe and Lepidus are at Caesar’s house.

ANTONYAnd thither will I straight,[262] to visit him:

He comes upon a wish.[263] Fortune is merry

And in this mood will give us anything.

265

SERVANTI heard him say Brutus and Cassius

Are rid[266] like madmen through the gates of Rome.

ANTONYBelike[267] they had some notice of the people

How I had moved them. Bring me to Octavius.

Exeunt

[Act 3 Scene 3]3.3

running scene 7 continues

Enter Cinna the poet, and after him the Plebeians

CINNAI dreamt tonight[1] that I did feast with Caesar,

And things unluckily[2] charge my fantasy:

I have no will to wander forth[3] of doors,

Yet something leads me forth.

5

FIRST PLEBEIANWhat is your name?

SECOND PLEBEIANWhither are you going?

THIRD PLEBEIANWhere do you dwell?

FOURTH PLEBEIANAre you a married man or a bachelor?

SECOND PLEBEIANAnswer every man directly.[9]

10

FIRST PLEBEIANAy, and briefly.

FOURTH PLEBEIANAy, and wisely.

THIRD PLEBEIANAy, and truly, you were best.

CINNAWhat is my name? Whither am I going? Where do I dwell? Am I a married man or a bachelor? Then, to answer every man directly and briefly, wisely and truly: wisely I say I am a bachelor.

SECOND PLEBEIANThat’s as much as to say they are fools that marry: you’ll bear[16] me a bang for that, I fear. Proceed, directly.

CINNADirectly, I am going to Caesar’s funeral.

FIRST PLEBEIANAs a friend or an enemy?

CINNAAs a friend.

SECOND PLEBEIANThat matter is answered directly.

FOURTH PLEBEIANFor your dwelling, briefly.

CINNABriefly, I dwell by the Capitol.

THIRD PLEBEIANYour name, sir, truly.

CINNATruly, my name is Cinna.

FIRST PLEBEIANTear him to pieces, he’s a conspirator.[26]

CINNAI am Cinna the Poet, I am Cinna the Poet.

FOURTH PLEBEIANTear him for his bad verses, tear him for his bad verses.

CINNAI am not Cinna the conspirator.

FOURTH PLEBEIANIt is no matter, his name’s Cinna. Pluck[30] but his name out of his heart and turn him going.[31]

THIRD PLEBEIANTear him, tear him! Come, brands, ho! Fire-brands! To Brutus’, to They attack Cinna

Cassius’, burn all! Some to Decius’ house, and some to Casca’s; some to Ligarius’! Away, go!

Exeunt all the Plebeians [dragging Cinna]

[Act 4 Scene 1]4.1

running scene 8

Enter Antony, Octavius and Lepidus

ANTONYThese many, then, shall die: their names are pricked.[1] Shows a list

OCTAVIUSYour brother[2] too must die: consent you, Lepidus?

LEPIDUSI do consent.

OCTAVIUSPrick him down, Antony.

5

LEPIDUSUpon condition Publius shall not live,

Who is your sister’s son, Mark Antony.

ANTONYHe shall not live; look, with a spot[7] I damn him.

But, Lepidus, go you to Caesar’s house:

Fetch the will hither, and we shall determine

10

How to cut[10] off some charge in legacies.

LEPIDUSWhat, shall I find you here?

OCTAVIUSOr[12] here, or at the Capitol.

Exit Lepidus

ANTONYThis is a slight[13] unmeritable man,

Meet[14] to be sent on errands: is it fit,

15

The[15] three-fold world divided, he should stand

One of the three to share it?

OCTAVIUSSo you thought him,

And took his voice[18] who should be pricked to die

In our black sentence[19] and proscription.

20

ANTONYOctavius, I have[20] seen more days than you,

And though we lay these honours on this man

To ease ourselves of divers sland’rous loads,[22]

He shall but bear them as the ass bears gold,

To groan and sweat under the business,[24]

25

Either led or driven, as we point the way:

And having brought our treasure where we will,[26]

Then take we down his load, and turn him off[27] —

Like to the empty[28] ass — to shake his ears

And graze in commons.[29]

30

OCTAVIUSYou may do your will:

But he’s a tried[31] and valiant soldier.

ANTONYSo is my horse, Octavius, and for that

I do appoint[33] him store of provender.

It is a creature that I teach to fight,

35

To wind,[35] to stop, to run directly on,

His corporal[36] motion governed by my spirit,

And, in some taste,[37] is Lepidus but so:

He must be taught, and trained, and bid go forth —

A barren-spirited[39] fellow; one that feeds

40

On objects,[40] arts and imitations

Which, out of use and staled[41] by other men,

Begin his fashion.[42] Do not talk of him

But as a property.[43] And now, Octavius,

Listen[44] great things. Brutus and Cassius

45

Are levying powers.[45] We must straight make head:

Therefore let our alliance be combined,[46]

Our best friends made,[47] our means stretched,

And let us presently[48] go sit in counsel,

How covert[49] matters may be best disclosed,

50

And open[50] perils surest answerèd.

OCTAVIUSLet us do so, for we are at the stake[51]

And bayed about[52] with many enemies,

And some that smile have in their hearts, I fear,

Millions of mischiefs.[54]

Exeunt

[Act 4 Scene 2]4.2

running scene 9

Drum. Enter Brutus, Lucilius and the army. Titinius and Pindarus meet them

BRUTUSStand ho.[1]

LUCILIUSGive[2] the word, ho, and stand.

BRUTUSWhat now, Lucilius, is Cassius near?

LUCILIUSHe is at hand, and Pindarus is come

5

To do you salutation from his master.[5]

BRUTUSHe greets me well. Your master, Pindarus,

In his own change,[7] or by ill officers,

Hath given me some worthy[8] cause to wish

Things done, undone: but if he be at hand

10

I shall be satisfied.[10]

PINDARUSI do not doubt

But that my noble master will appear

Such as he is, full of regard[13] and honour.

BRUTUSHe is not doubted.— A word, Lucilius. Brutus and Lucilius speak apart

15

How he[15] received you: let me be resolved.

LUCILIUSWith courtesy and with respect enough,

But not with such familiar instances,[17]

Nor with such free and friendly conference[18]

As he hath used of old.

20

BRUTUSThou hast described

A hot[21] friend, cooling: ever note, Lucilius,

When love begins to sicken and decay

It useth[23] an enforced ceremony.

There are no tricks in plain and simple faith:

25

But hollow[25] men, like horses hot at hand,

Make gallant[26] show, and promise of their mettle:

Low march within

But when they should endure the bloody[27] spur,

They fall[28] their crests, and like deceitful jades

Sink[29] in the trial. Comes his army on?

30

LUCILIUSThey mean this night in Sardis to be quartered:[30]

The greater part, the horse in general,[31]

Are come with Cassius.

Enter Cassius and his powers

BRUTUSHark, he is arrived:

March gently[34] on to meet him.

35

CASSIUSStand ho.

BRUTUSStand ho. Speak the word along.

FIRST SOLDIERStand.

SECOND SOLDIERStand.

THIRD SOLDIERStand.

40

CASSIUSMost noble brother,[40] you have done me wrong.

BRUTUSJudge me, you gods; wrong I mine enemies?

And if not so, how should[42] I wrong a brother?

CASSIUSBrutus, this sober form of yours hides wrongs,

And when you do them—

45

BRUTUSCassius, be content.

Speak your griefs[46] softly. I do know you well:

Before the eyes of both our armies here —

Which should perceive nothing but love from us —

Let us not wrangle. Bid them move away:

50

Then in my tent, Cassius, enlarge[50] your griefs,

And I will give you audience.[51]

CASSIUSPindarus,

Bid our commanders lead their charges[53] off

A little from this ground.

55

BRUTUSLucilius, do you the like, and let no man

Come to our tent till we have done our conference.

Let Lucius and Titinius guard our door.

Exeunt. Brutus and Cassius remain

CASSIUSThat you have wronged me doth appear in this: They enter the tent

You have condemned and noted[59] Lucius Pella

60

For taking bribes here of the Sardians;

Wherein my letters, praying[61] on his side

Because I knew the man, was slighted off.[62]

BRUTUSYou wronged yourself to write in such a case.

CASSIUSIn such a time as this it is not meet[64]

65

That every nice[65] offence should bear his comment.

BRUTUSLet me tell you, Cassius, you yourself

Are much condemned[67] to have an itching palm,

To sell and mart[68] your offices for gold

To undeservers.

70

CASSIUSI, an itching palm?

You[71] know that you are Brutus that speaks this,

Or by the gods, this speech were else your last.

BRUTUSThe name of Cassius honours[73] this corruption,

And chastisement[74] doth therefore hide his head.

75

CASSIUSChastisement?

BRUTUSRemember March, the Ides of March remember:

Did not great Julius bleed for justice’ sake?

What villain touched his body, that did stab

And not for justice? What, shall one of us,

80

That struck the foremost man of all this world

But[81] for supporting robbers: shall we now

Contaminate our fingers with base bribes?

And sell the mighty space of our large honours[83]

For so much trash[84] as may be graspèd thus?

85

I had rather be a dog and bay[85] the moon,

Than such a Roman.

CASSIUSBrutus, bait not me,

I’ll not endure it: you forget yourself

To hedge me in.[89] I am a soldier, I,

90

Older in practice, abler than yourself

To make conditions.[91]

BRUTUSGo to,[92] you are not Cassius.

CASSIUSI am.

BRUTUSI say you are not.

95

CASSIUSUrge me no more, I shall forget myself.[95]

Have mind upon[96] your health: tempt me no further.

BRUTUSAway, slight[97] man!

CASSIUSIs’t possible?

BRUTUSHear me, for I will speak.

100

Must I give way and room[100] to your rash choler?

Shall I be frighted when a madman stares?

CASSIUSO ye gods, ye gods, must I endure all this?

BRUTUSAll this? Ay, more: fret till your proud heart break.

Go show your slaves how choleric you are,

105

And make your bondmen tremble. Must I budge?[105]

Must I observe[106] you? Must I stand and crouch

Under your testy humour?[107] By the gods,

You shall digest[108] the venom of your spleen

Though it do split you. For, from this day forth,

110

I’ll use you for my mirth, yea, for my laughter,

When you are waspish.

CASSIUSIs it come to this?

BRUTUSYou say you are a better soldier:

Let it appear so; make your vaunting[114] true

115

And it shall please me well. For mine own part,

I shall be glad to learn of[116] noble men.

CASSIUSYou wrong me every way: you wrong me, Brutus.

I said, an elder soldier, not a better.

Did I say ‘better’?

120

BRUTUSIf you did, I care not.

CASSIUSWhen Caesar lived, he durst[121] not thus have moved me.

BRUTUSPeace, peace, you durst not so have tempted him.

CASSIUSI durst not?

BRUTUSNo.

125

CASSIUSWhat? Durst not tempt him?

BRUTUSFor your life you durst not.

CASSIUSDo not presume[127] too much upon my love:

I may do that I shall be sorry for.

BRUTUSYou have done that you should be sorry for.

130

There is no terror, Cassius, in your threats,

For I am armed so strong in honesty

That they pass by me as the idle[132] wind,

Which I respect not. I did send to you

For certain sums of gold, which you denied me,

135

For I can raise no money by vile means:[135]

By heaven, I had rather coin[136] my heart

And drop[137] my blood for drachmas, than to wring

From the hard[138] hands of peasants their vile trash

By any indirection.[139] I did send

140

To you for gold to pay my legions,

Which you denied me: was that done like Cassius?

Should I have answered Caius Cassius so?

When Marcus Brutus grows so covetous,

To lock such rascal counters[144] from his friends,

145

Be ready, gods, with all your thunderbolts,

Dash him to pieces!

CASSIUSI denied you not.

BRUTUSYou did.

CASSIUSI did not. He was but a fool that brought

150

My answer back. Brutus hath rived[150] my heart:

A friend should bear his friend’s infirmities;[151]

But Brutus makes mine greater than they are.

BRUTUSI do not, till you practise them on me.

CASSIUSYou love me not.

155

BRUTUSI do not like your faults.

CASSIUSA friendly eye could never see such faults.

BRUTUSA flatterer’s would not, though they do appear

As huge as high Olympus.

CASSIUSCome, Antony, and young Octavius, come,

160

Revenge yourselves alone on Cassius,

For Cassius is aweary of the world:

Hated by one he loves, braved[162] by his brother,

Checked[163] like a bondman, all his faults observed,

Set in a notebook, learned and conned by rote[164]

165

To cast into my teeth. O, I could weep

My spirit from mine eyes! There is my dagger,

And here my naked breast: within, a heart

Dearer[168] than Pluto’s mine, richer than gold.

If that thou be’st a Roman, take it forth.[169]

170

I that denied thee gold will give my heart:

Strike as thou didst at Caesar, for I know,

When thou didst hate him worst, thou lov’dst him better

Than ever thou lov’dst Cassius.

BRUTUSSheathe your dagger.

175

Be angry when you will, it shall have scope:

Do what you will, dishonour[176] shall be humour.

O Cassius, you are yokèd with a lamb[177]

That carries anger as the flint bears fire,

Who, much enforcèd,[179] shows a hasty spark

180

And straight is cold again.

CASSIUSHath Cassius lived

To be but mirth and laughter to his Brutus,

When grief and blood ill-tempered[183] vexeth him?

BRUTUSWhen I spoke that, I was ill-tempered too.

185

CASSIUSDo you confess so much? Give me your hand.

BRUTUSAnd my heart too. They embrace

CASSIUSO Brutus!

BRUTUSWhat’s the matter?

CASSIUSHave not you love enough to bear with me,

190

When that rash humour[190] which my mother gave me

Makes me forgetful?[191]

BRUTUSYes, Cassius, and from henceforth

When you are over-earnest with your Brutus,

He’ll think your mother chides, and leave you so.[194]

Enter a Poet [with Lucilius and Titinius]

195

POETLet me go in to see the generals.

There is some grudge between ’em, ’tis not meet

They be alone.

LUCILIUSYou shall not come to them.

POETNothing but death shall stay me.

200

CASSIUSHow now? What’s the matter?

POETFor shame, you generals; what do you mean?[201]

Love and be friends, as two such men should be,

For I have seen more years, I’m sure, than ye.

CASSIUSHa, ha, how vilely doth this cynic[204] rhyme!

205

BRUTUSGet you hence, sirrah. Saucy[205] fellow, hence.

CASSIUSBear with him, Brutus, ’tis his fashion.[206]

BRUTUSI’ll[207] know his humour when he knows his time:

What should the wars do with these jigging[208] fools?

Companion,[209] hence.

210

CASSIUSAway, away, be gone.

Exit Poet

BRUTUSLucilius and Titinius, bid the commanders Prepare to lodge their companies tonight.

CASSIUSAnd come yourselves, and bring Messala with you

Immediately to us.

[Exeunt Lucilius and Titinius]

215

BRUTUSLucius, a bowl of wine. Calls

CASSIUSI did not think you could have been so angry.

BRUTUSO Cassius, I am sick of[217] many griefs.

CASSIUSOf your philosophy[218] you make no use,

If you give place[219] to accidental evils.

220

BRUTUSNo man bears sorrow better. Portia is dead.

CASSIUSHa? Portia?

BRUTUSShe is dead.

CASSIUSHow scaped[223] I killing when I crossed you so?

O, insupportable and touching[224] loss!

225

Upon[225] what sickness?

BRUTUSImpatient of my absence,

And grief that young Octavius with Mark Antony

Have made themselves so strong — for with her[228] death

That tidings[229] came — with this she fell distract,

230

And — her attendants absent — swallowed fire.[230]

CASSIUSAnd died so?

BRUTUSEven so.

CASSIUSO ye immortal gods!

Enter Boy [Lucius] with wine and tapers

BRUTUSSpeak no more of her. Give me a bowl of wine.

235

In this I bury all unkindness, Cassius.

Drinks

CASSIUSMy heart is thirsty for that noble pledge.

Fill, Lucius, till the wine o’erswell[237] the cup: Drinks

I cannot drink too much of Brutus’ love.

[Exit Lucius]

Enter Titinius and Messala

BRUTUSCome in, Titinius. Welcome, good Messala.

240

Now sit we close about this taper here

And call in question[241] our necessities. They sit

CASSIUSPortia, art thou gone?

BRUTUSNo more, I pray you.—

Messala, I have here receivèd letters, Shows letters

245

That young Octavius and Mark Antony

Come down upon us with a mighty power,

Bending[247] their expedition toward Philippi.

MESSALAMyself have letters of the selfsame tenor.[248]

BRUTUSWith what addition?

250

MESSALAThat by proscription[250] and bills of outlawry,

Octavius, Antony and Lepidus

Have put to death an hundred senators.

BRUTUSTherein our letters do not well agree:

Mine speak of seventy senators that died

255

By their proscriptions, Cicero being one.

CASSIUSCicero one?

MESSALACicero is dead,

And by that order of proscription.

Had you your letters from your wife, my lord?

260

BRUTUSNo, Messala.

MESSALANor nothing in your letters writ of her?

BRUTUSNothing, Messala.

MESSALAThat, methinks, is strange.

BRUTUSWhy ask you? Hear you aught of her in yours?

265

MESSALANo, my lord.

BRUTUSNow, as you are a Roman, tell me true.

MESSALAThen like a Roman bear the truth I tell,

For certain she is dead, and by strange manner.

BRUTUSWhy, farewell, Portia: we must die, Messala:

270

With meditating that she must die once,[270]

I have the patience to endure it now.

MESSALAEven so[272] great men great losses should endure.

CASSIUSI have as much of this in art[273] as you,

But yet my nature[274] could not bear it so.

275

BRUTUSWell, to our work alive.[275] What do you think

Of marching to Philippi presently?

CASSIUSI do not think it good.

BRUTUSYour reason?

CASSIUSThis it is:

280

’Tis better that the enemy seek us,

So shall he waste his means, weary his soldiers,

Doing himself offence,[282] whilst we, lying still,

Are full of rest, defence and nimbleness.

BRUTUSGood reasons must of force[284] give place to better:

285

The people ’twixt Philippi and this ground

Do stand but in a forced affection,[286]

For they have grudged us contribution.[287]

The enemy, marching along by them,

By them shall make[289] a fuller number up,

290

Come on refreshed, new-added[290] and encouraged,

From which advantage shall we cut him off

If at Philippi we do face him there,

These[293] people at our back.

CASSIUSHear me, good brother.

295

BRUTUSUnder your pardon.[295] You must note beside

That we have tried[296] the utmost of our friends,

Our legions are brim-full, our cause is ripe.

The enemy increaseth every day:

We, at the height, are ready to decline.

300

There is a tide in the affairs of men

Which, taken[301] at the flood, leads on to fortune:

Omitted,[302] all the voyage of their life

Is bound in shallows[303] and in miseries.

On such a full sea are we now afloat,

305

And we must take the current when it serves,

Or lose our ventures.[306]

CASSIUSThen with your will go on:

We’ll along[308] ourselves, and meet them at Philippi.

BRUTUSThe deep of night is crept upon our talk,

310

And nature must obey necessity,

Which we will niggard[311] with a little rest.

There is no more to say.

CASSIUSNo more. Goodnight.

Early tomorrow will we rise, and hence.

Enter Lucius

315

BRUTUSLucius. My gown.[315]—

[Exit Lucius]

Farewell, good Messala.—

Goodnight, Titinius.— Noble, noble Cassius,

Goodnight, and good repose.

CASSIUSO my dear brother,

This was an ill beginning of the night:

320

Never come such division ’tween our souls.

Let it not, Brutus.

Enter Lucius with the gown

BRUTUSEverything is well.

CASSIUSGoodnight, my lord.

BRUTUSGoodnight, good brother.

325

TITINIUS and MESSALAGoodnight, Lord Brutus.

BRUTUSFarewell, every one.

Exeunt [Cassius, Titinius and Messala]

Give me the gown. Where is thy instrument?[327]

LUCIUSHere in the tent.

BRUTUSWhat, thou speak’st drowsily?

330

Poor knave, I blame thee not: thou art o’er-watched.[330]

Call Claudio and some other of my men.

I’ll have them sleep on cushions in my tent.

LUCIUSVarrus and Claudio! Calls

Enter Varrus and Claudio

VARRUSCalls my lord?

335

BRUTUSI pray you, sirs, lie in my tent and sleep.

It may be I shall raise[336] you by and by

On business to my brother Cassius.

VARRUSSo please you, we will stand and watch your pleasure.[338]

BRUTUSI will not have it so: lie down, good sirs,

340

It may be I shall otherwise bethink me.[340] They lie down

Look, Lucius, here’s the book I sought for so:

I put it in the pocket of my gown.

LUCIUSI was sure your lordship did not give it me.

BRUTUSBear with me, good boy, I am much forgetful.

345

Canst thou hold up thy heavy eyes awhile

And touch[346] thy instrument a strain or two?

LUCIUSAy, my lord, an’t[347] please you.

BRUTUSIt does, my boy.

I trouble thee too much, but thou art willing.

350

LUCIUSIt is my duty, sir.

BRUTUSI should not urge thy duty past thy might.[351]

I know young bloods look for[352] a time of rest.

LUCIUSI have slept, my lord, already.

BRUTUSIt was well done, and thou shalt sleep again.

355

I will not hold[355] thee long. If I do live,

I will be good to thee.

Music, and a song Lucius falls asleep

This is a sleepy tune:— O murderous[357] slumber!

Lay’st thou thy leaden mace[358] upon my boy,

That plays thee music?— Gentle knave, goodnight.

360

I will not do thee so much wrong to wake thee:

If thou dost nod, thou break’st thy instrument,

I’ll take it from thee. And, good boy, goodnight. Takes away the instrument and reads

Let me see, let me see; is not the leaf turned down

Where I left reading? Here it is, I think.

Enter the Ghost of Caesar

365

How ill this taper burns. Ha? Who comes here?

I think it is the weakness of mine eyes

That shapes[367] this monstrous apparition.

It comes upon me: art thou any thing?

Art thou some god, some angel, or some devil,

370

That mak’st my blood cold, and my hair to stare?[370]

Speak to me what thou art.

GHOSTThy evil spirit, Brutus.

BRUTUSWhy comest thou?

GHOSTTo tell thee thou shalt see me at Philippi.

375

BRUTUSWell: then I shall see thee again?

GHOSTAy, at Philippi.

BRUTUSWhy, I will see thee at Philippi, then.

[Exit Ghost]

Now I have taken heart,[378] thou vanishest.

Ill spirit, I would hold more talk with thee.—

380

Boy, Lucius, Varrus, Claudio! Sirs, awake! Claudio!

LUCIUSThe strings, my lord, are false.[381]

BRUTUSHe thinks he still is at his instrument.—

Lucius, awake!

LUCIUSMy lord?

385

BRUTUSDidst thou dream, Lucius, that thou so cried’st out?

LUCIUSMy lord, I do not know that I did cry.

BRUTUSYes, that thou didst: didst thou see anything?

LUCIUSNothing, my lord.

BRUTUSSleep again, Lucius. Sirrah Claudio,

390

Fellow thou,[390] awake! To Varrus

VARRUSMy lord?

CLAUDIOMy lord?

BRUTUSWhy did you so cry out, sirs, in your sleep?

BOTH Did we, my lord? They get up

395

BRUTUSAy: saw you anything?

VARRUSNo, my lord, I saw nothing.

CLAUDIONor I, my lord.

BRUTUSGo and commend me[398] to my brother Cassius:

Bid him set[399] on his powers betimes before

400

And we will follow.

BOTHIt shall be done, my lord.

Exeunt

Act 5 [Scene 1]5.1

running scene 10

Enter Octavius, Antony and their army

OCTAVIUSNow, Antony, our hopes are answerèd.

You said the enemy would not come down,

But keep[3] the hills and upper regions:

It proves not so: their battles[4] are at hand.

5

They mean to warn[5] us at Philippi here,

Answering[6] before we do demand of them.

ANTONYTut, I am[7] in their bosoms, and I know

Wherefore they do it: they could be content[8]

To visit other places,[9] and come down

10

With fearful bravery,[10] thinking by this face

To fasten[11] in our thoughts that they have courage;

But ’tis not so.[12]

Enter a Messenger

MESSENGERPrepare you, generals.

The enemy comes on in gallant[14] show:

15

Their bloody[15] sign of battle is hung out,

And something to[16] be done immediately.

ANTONYOctavius, lead your battle softly[17] on,

Upon the left hand of the even[18] field.

OCTAVIUSUpon the right hand I: keep thou the left.

20

ANTONYWhy do you cross me in this exigent?[20]

OCTAVIUSI do not cross you: but I will do so.

March

Drum. Enter Brutus, Cassius and their army [Lucilius, Titinius, Messala and others]

BRUTUSThey stand, and would have parley.[22]

CASSIUSStand fast, Titinius, we must out and talk.

OCTAVIUSMark Antony, shall we give sign of battle?

25

ANTONYNo, Caesar, we will answer[25] on their charge.

Make forth,[26] the generals would have some words.

OCTAVIUSStir not until the signal. To his officers

BRUTUSWords before blows: is it so, countrymen? The armies advance toward each other

OCTAVIUSNot that we love words better, as you do.

30

BRUTUSGood words are better than bad strokes,[30] Octavius.

ANTONYIn your bad strokes, Brutus, you give good words:

Witness the hole you made in Caesar’s heart,

Crying ‘Long live! Hail, Caesar!’

CASSIUSAntony,

35

The[35] posture of your blows are yet unknown

But for[36] your words, they rob the Hybla bees,

And leave them honeyless.

ANTONYNot stingless too?

BRUTUSO yes, and soundless too,

40

For you have stol’n their buzzing,[40] Antony,

And very wisely threat[41] before you sting.

ANTONYVillains, you did not so,[42] when your vile daggers

Hacked one another in the sides of Caesar:

You showed your teeth[44] like apes, and fawned like hounds,

45

And bowed like bondmen, kissing Caesar’s feet;

Whilst damnèd Casca, like a cur,[46] behind

Struck Caesar on the neck. O you flatterers!

CASSIUSFlatterers? Now, Brutus, thank yourself.

This[49] tongue had not offended so today

50

If Cassius might have ruled.

OCTAVIUSCome, come, the cause.[51] If arguing make us sweat,

The proof[52] of it will turn to redder drops:

Look, I draw a sword against conspirators. Draws

When think you that the sword goes up[54] again?

55

Never, till Caesar’s three and thirty wounds

Be well avenged, or till another Caesar[56]

Have added slaughter to[57] the sword of traitors.

BRUTUSCaesar, thou canst not die by traitors’ hands

Unless thou[59] bring’st them with thee.

60

OCTAVIUSSo I hope:

I was not born to die on Brutus’ sword.

BRUTUSO, if[62] thou wert the noblest of thy strain,

Young man, thou couldst not die more honourable.[63]

CASSIUSA peevish[64] schoolboy, worthless of such honour,

65

Joined with a masquer[65] and a reveller.

ANTONYOld Cassius still.

OCTAVIUSCome, Antony, away.

Defiance, traitors, hurl we in your teeth.

If you dare fight today, come to the field;

70

If not, when you have stomachs.[70]

Exeunt Octavius, Antony and army

CASSIUSWhy now, blow wind, swell billow[71] and swim bark:

The storm is up and all is on the hazard.[72]

BRUTUSHo, Lucilius, hark, a word with you.

Lucilius and Messala stand forth

LUCILIUS My lord. Brutus and Lucilius speak apart

75

CASSIUSMessala.

MESSALAWhat says my general?

CASSIUSMessala,

This is my birthday: as this[78] very day

Was Cassius born. Give me thy hand, Messala:

80

Be thou my witness that against my will —

As Pompey was[81] — am I compelled to set

Upon one battle all our liberties.

You know that I held Epicurus[83] strong

And his opinion: now I change my mind

85

And partly credit[85] things that do presage.

Coming from Sardis, on our former ensign[86]

Two mighty eagles fell,[87] and there they perched,

Gorging and feeding from our soldiers’ hands,

Who to Philippi here consorted[89] us:

90

This morning are they fled away and gone,

And in their steads[91] do ravens, crows and kites

Fly o’er our heads and downward look on us

As[93] we were sickly prey; their shadows seem

A canopy most fatal,[94] under which

95

Our army lies, ready to give up the ghost.

MESSALABelieve not so.

CASSIUSI but believe it partly,

For I am fresh of spirit and resolved

To meet all perils very constantly.[99]

100

BRUTUS Even so, Lucilius.[100] To Cassius

CASSIUSNow, most noble Brutus,

The[102] gods today stand friendly, that we may,

Lovers[103] in peace, lead on our days to age.

But since the affairs of men rests still[104] incertain,

105

Let’s reason with[105] the worst that may befall.

If we do lose this battle, then is this

The very last time we shall speak together:

What are you then determinèd to do?

BRUTUSEven by the rule of that philosophy[109]

110

By which I did blame Cato[110] for the death

Which he did give himself — I know not how,[111]

But I do find it cowardly and vile,

For fear of what might fall,[113] so to prevent

The time of life — arming myself with patience

115

To stay[115] the providence of some high powers

That govern us below.

CASSIUSThen, if we lose this battle,

You are contented to be led in triumph[118]

Through the streets of Rome?

120

BRUTUSNo, Cassius, no: think not, thou noble Roman,

That ever Brutus will go bound to Rome.

He bears too great[122] a mind. But this same day

Must end that work the Ides of March begun.

And whether we shall meet again I know not:

125

Therefore our everlasting farewell take.

For ever and for ever farewell, Cassius.

If we do meet again, why, we shall smile;

If not, why then, this parting was well made.

CASSIUSFor ever and for ever farewell, Brutus:

130

If we do meet again, we’ll smile indeed;

If not, ’tis true this parting was well made.

BRUTUSWhy, then, lead on. O, that a man might know

The end of this day’s business ere it come:

But it sufficeth that the day will end,

135

And then the end is known. Come ho, away!

Exeunt

[Act 5 Scene 2]5.2

running scene 10 continues

Alarum. Enter Brutus and Messala

BRUTUSRide, ride, Messala, ride, and give these bills[1] Gives orders

Unto the legions on the other side.[2]

Loud alarum

Let them set on[3] at once, for I perceive

But cold[4] demeanour in Octavio’s wing,

5

And sudden push[5] gives them the overthrow.

Ride, ride, Messala: let them all come down.[6]

Exeunt

[Act 5 Scene 3]

running scene 10 continues

Alarums. Enter Cassius and Titinius

CASSIUSO, look, Titinius, look, the villains[1] fly:

Myself have to mine own[2] turned enemy:

This ensign[3] here of mine was turning back.

I slew the coward, and did take it[4] from him.

5

TITINIUSO Cassius, Brutus gave the word too early,

Who having some advantage on Octavius,

Took it too eagerly: his soldiers fell to spoil,[7]

Whilst we by Antony are all enclosed.[8]

Enter Pindarus

PINDARUSFly further off, my lord, fly further off.

10

Mark Antony is in your tents, my lord:

Fly, therefore, noble Cassius, fly far off.

CASSIUSThis hill is far enough. Look, look, Titinius:

Are those my tents where I perceive the fire?

TITINIUSThey are, my lord.

15

CASSIUSTitinius, if thou lovest me,

Mount thou my horse, and hide[16] thy spurs in him,

Till he have brought thee up to yonder troops

And here[18] again, that I may rest assured

Whether yond troops are friend or enemy.

20

TITINIUSI will be here again, even with[20] a thought.

Exit

CASSIUSGo, Pindarus, get higher on that hill:

My sight was ever thick.[22] Regard Titinius,

And tell me what thou not’st about the field. Pindarus goes aloft[23]

This[24] day I breathèd first. Time is come round,

25

And where I did begin, there shall I end.

My life is[26] run his compass.— Sirrah, what news?

PINDARUS O, my lord!

Above

CASSIUSWhat news?

PINDARUS Titinius is enclosèd round about

30

With horsemen, that make to him on the spur,[30]

Yet he spurs on. Now they are almost on him:

Now, Titinius. Now some light:[32] O, he lights too.

He’s ta’en.[33] And, hark, they shout for joy.

Shout

CASSIUS Come down, behold no more. Pindarus comes down

35

O, coward that I am, to live so long,

To see my best friend ta’en before my face.

Enter Pindarus

Come hither, sirrah.

In Parthia[38] did I take thee prisoner,

And then I swore thee,[39] saving of thy life,

40

That whatsoever I did bid thee do,

Thou shouldst attempt it. Come now, keep thine oath:

Now be a freeman, and with this good sword

That ran through Caesar’s bowels,[43] search this bosom.

Stand[44] not to answer: here, take thou the hilts, Pindarus takes the sword

45

And when my face is covered, as ’tis now, Covers his face

Guide thou the sword.— Caesar, thou art revenged,

Even with the sword that killed thee. Pindarus kills him

PINDARUSSo, I am free, yet would[48] not so have been

Durst I have done my will. O Cassius,

50

Far from this country Pindarus shall run,

Where never Roman shall take note of[51] him.

[Exit]

Enter Titinius and Messala Titinius wears a laurel wreath

MESSALAIt is but change,[52] Titinius, for Octavius

Is overthrown by noble Brutus’ power,

As Cassius’ legions are by Antony.

55

TITINIUSThese tidings will well comfort[55] Cassius.

MESSALAWhere did you leave him?

TITINIUSAll disconsolate,

With Pindarus his bondman, on this hill.

MESSALAIs not that he that lies upon the ground?

60

TITINIUSHe lies not like the living. O my heart!

MESSALAIs not that he?

TITINIUSNo, this was he, Messala,

But Cassius is no more.— O setting sun:

As in thy red rays thou dost sink tonight,

65

So in his red blood Cassius’ day is set.—

The sun of Rome is set. Our day is gone:

Clouds, dews[67] and dangers come: our deeds are done.

Mistrust[68] of my success hath done this deed.

MESSALAMistrust of good success hath done this deed.—

70

O hateful error, melancholy’s child,

Why dost thou show to the apt[71] thoughts of men

The[72] things that are not? O error soon conceived,

Thou never com’st unto a happy birth

But kill’st the mother[74] that engendered thee.

75

TITINIUS What, Pindarus? Where art thou, Pindarus?

MESSALASeek him, Titinius, whilst I go to meet

The noble Brutus, thrusting this report

Into his ears. I may say, thrusting it:

For piercing steel and darts[79] envenomèd

80

Shall be as welcome to the ears of Brutus

As tidings of this sight.

TITINIUSHie you, Messala,

And I will seek for Pindarus the while.—

[Exit Messala]

Why didst thou send me forth, brave Cassius?

85

Did I not meet thy friends? And did not they

Put on my brows this wreath of victory[86]

And bid me give it thee? Didst thou not hear their shouts?

Alas, thou hast misconstrued everything.

But hold thee, take this garland on thy brow: Puts wreath on him

90

Thy Brutus bid me give it thee, and I

Will do his bidding.— Brutus, come apace,[91]

And see how I regarded[92] Caius Cassius.—

By your leave, gods: this is a Roman’s part.[93]—

Come, Cassius’ sword, and find Titinius’ heart. Stabs himself

Dies

Alarum. Enter Brutus, Messala, Young Cato, Strato, Volumnius and Lucilius

95

BRUTUSWhere, where, Messala, doth his body lie?

MESSALALo, yonder, and Titinius mourning it.

BRUTUSTitinius’ face is upward.

CATOHe is slain.

BRUTUSO Julius Caesar, thou art mighty yet,

100

Thy spirit walks abroad and turns our swords

In our own proper[101] entrails.

Low alarums

CATOBrave Titinius,

Look whe’er[103] he have not crowned dead Cassius.

BRUTUSAre yet two Romans living such as these?—

105

The last of all the Romans, fare thee well:

It is impossible that ever Rome

Should breed thy fellow.[107]— Friends, I owe more tears

To this dead man than you shall see me pay.—

I shall find time, Cassius: I shall find time.—

110

Come therefore, and to Thasos[110] send his body.

His funerals shall not be in our camp,

Lest it discomfort[112] us.— Lucilius, come,

And come, young Cato: let us to the field.

Labio and Flavius set our battles[114] on:

115

’Tis three o’clock, and, Romans, yet ere night

We shall try[116] fortune in a second fight. With the bodies

Exeunt

[Act 5 Scene 4]5.4

running scene 10 continues

Alarum. Enter Brutus, Messala, [Young] Cato, Lucilius and Flavius

BRUTUSYet, countrymen: O yet, hold up your heads!

[Exit, fighting, followed by Messala and Flavius]

CATOWhat bastard doth not? Who will go with me?

I will proclaim my name about the field.

I am the son of Marcus Cato,[4] ho!

5

A foe to tyrants, and my country’s friend.

I am the son of Marcus Cato, ho!

Enter soldiers and fight

LUCILIUS And I am Brutus,[7] Marcus Brutus, I!

Brutus, my country’s friend: know me for Brutus! Young Cato falls

O young and noble Cato, art thou down?

10

Why, now thou diest as bravely as Titinius,

And mayst be honoured, being Cato’s son.

FIRST SOLDIER Yield, or thou diest. To Lucilius

LUCILIUS Only[13] I yield to die:

There is so much[14] that thou wilt kill me straight: Offers money?

15

Kill Brutus, and be honoured in his death.

FIRST SOLDIERWe must not: a noble prisoner!

Enter Antony

SECOND SOLDIERRoom, ho:[17] tell Antony, Brutus is ta’en.

FIRST SOLDIERI’ll tell the news. Here comes the general.

Brutus is ta’en, Brutus is ta’en, my lord.

20

ANTONYWhere is he?

LUCILIUSSafe, Antony, Brutus is safe enough:

I dare assure thee that no enemy

Shall ever take alive the noble Brutus:

The gods defend him from so great a shame!

25

When you do find him, or[25] alive or dead,

He will be found like Brutus, like himself.

ANTONY This is not Brutus, friend, but, I assure you, To First Soldier

A prize no less in worth. Keep this man safe,

Give him all kindness. I had rather have

30

Such men my friends than enemies. Go on,

And see whe’er Brutus be alive or dead,

And bring us word unto Octavius’ tent

How everything is chanced.[33]

Exeunt

[Act 5 Scene 5]

running scene 10 continues

Enter Brutus, Dardanius, Clitus, Strato and Volumnius

BRUTUSCome, poor remains[1] of friends, rest on this rock. Sits

CLITUSStatilius showed the torch-light,[2] but, my lord,

He came not back: he is or ta’en or slain.

BRUTUSSit thee down, Clitus: slaying is the word.

5

It is a deed in fashion. Hark thee, Clitus. Whispers

CLITUSWhat, I, my lord? No, not for all the world.

BRUTUSPeace then, no words.

CLITUSI’ll rather kill myself.

BRUTUSHark thee, Dardanius. Whispers

10

DARDANIUSShall I do such a deed?

CLITUSO Dardanius!

DARDANIUSO Clitus!

CLITUSWhat ill request did Brutus make to thee?

DARDANIUSTo kill him, Clitus. Look, he meditates.

15

CLITUSNow is that noble vessel full of grief,

That it runs over even at his eyes.

BRUTUSCome hither, good Volumnius, list[17] a word.

VOLUMNIUSWhat says my lord?

BRUTUSWhy this, Volumnius:

20

The ghost of Caesar hath appeared to me

Two several[21] times by night: at Sardis once,

And this last night, here in Philippi fields:

I know my hour is come.

VOLUMNIUSNot so, my lord.

25

BRUTUSNay, I am sure it is, Volumnius.

Thou seest the world, Volumnius, how it goes.

Our enemies have beat[27] us to the pit:

Low alarums

It is more worthy to leap in ourselves

Than tarry[29] till they push us. Good Volumnius,

30

Thou know’st that we two went to school together:

Even for that[31] our love of old, I prithee

Hold thou my sword-hilts,[32] whilst I run on it.

VOLUMNIUSThat’s not an office[33] for a friend, my lord.

Alarum still

CLITUSFly, fly, my lord, there is no tarrying here.

35

BRUTUSFarewell to you, and you, and you, Volumnius.—

Addressing Clitus, Dardanius, Volumnius, and Strato in turn

Strato, thou hast been all this while asleep:

Farewell to thee too, Strato.— Countrymen,

My heart doth joy that yet in all my life

I found no man but he was true to me.

40

I shall have glory by this losing day

More than Octavius and Mark Antony

By this vile[42] conquest shall attain unto.

So fare you well at once, for Brutus’ tongue

Hath almost ended his life’s history:

45

Night hangs upon mine eyes, my bones would rest,

That have but[46] laboured to attain this hour.

Alarum. Cry within: ‘Fly fly fly!’

CLITUSFly, my lord, fly!

BRUTUSHence: I will follow.

[Exeunt Clitus, Dardanius and Volumnius]

I prithee, Strato, stay thou by thy lord.

50

Thou art a fellow of a good respect:[50]

Thy life hath had some smatch[51] of honour in it.

Hold then my sword, and turn away thy face,

While I do run upon it. Wilt thou, Strato?

STRATOGive me your hand first. Fare you well, my lord.

55

BRUTUS Farewell, good Strato.—

Runs on his sword

Caesar, now be still:[55]

I killed not thee with half so good a will.

Dies

Alarum. Retreat. Enter Antony, Octavius, Messala, Lucilius and the army

OCTAVIUSWhat man is that?

MESSALAMy master’s man.[58] Strato, where is thy master?

STRATOFree from the bondage you are in, Messala,

60

The conquerors can but make[60] a fire of him:

For Brutus only[61] overcame himself,

And no man else hath honour by his death.

LUCILIUSSo[63] Brutus should be found. I thank thee, Brutus,

That thou hast proved Lucilius’ saying true.

65

OCTAVIUSAll that served Brutus, I will entertain[65] them.

Fellow, wilt thou bestow thy time with me?

STRATOAy, if Messala will prefer[67] me to you.

OCTAVIUSDo so, good Messala.

MESSALAHow died my master, Strato?

70

STRATOI held the sword and he did run on it.

MESSALAOctavius, then take him to follow thee,

That did the latest[72] service to my master.

ANTONYThis was the noblest Roman of them all:

All the conspirators save only he

75

Did that[75] they did in envy of great Caesar.

He[76] only, in a general honest thought

And common good to all, made one of them.

His life was gentle,[78] and the elements

So mixed[79] in him that Nature might stand up

80

And say to all the world ‘This was a man!’

OCTAVIUSAccording to his virtue let us use[81] him

With all respect and rites of burial.

Within my tent his bones tonight shall lie,

Most like a soldier, ordered[84] honourably.

85

So call the field[85] to rest, and let’s away,

To part[86] the glories of this happy day.

Exeunt

Textual Notes

F = First Folio text of 1623

F2 = a correction introduced in the Second Folio text of 1632

F3 = a correction introduced in the Third Folio text of 1663–64

Ed = a correction introduced by a later editor

SH = speech heading (i.e., speaker’s name)

List of parts = Ed

1.2.249 swoon spelled swound in F 289 digest = Ed. F = disgest

1.3.21 glazed = F. Sometimes emended to glared 134 In favour’s like = Ed. F = Is Fauors, like

2.1.257 wafture = Ed. F = wafter 278 his = Ed. F = hit 292 the = Ed. F = tho 327 SH LIGARIUS = Ed. F = Cai. (throughout scene)

2.2.48 are = Ed. F = heare

2.3.1 SH ARTEMIDORUS = Ed. Not in F

3.1.123 states = F2. F = State 125 lies = F2. F = lye 273 SH ANTONY = Ed. Not in F 294 SD Octavius’ = Ed. F = Octavio’s 302 for = F2. F = from

3.2.201 SH ALL = Ed. Lines assigned to the Second Plebeian in F 217 wit = F2. F = writ

4.2.37 SH FIRST SOLDIER = Ed. Not in F 38 SH SECOND SOLDIER = Ed. Not in F 39 SH THIRD SOLDIER = Ed. Not in F 105 budge spelled bouge in F 248 tenor spelled Tenure in F 339 will = F2. F = will it 385 Lucius spelled Lucus in F

5.1.44 teeth = F3. F = teethes 91 steads spelled steeds in F

5.3.103 whe’er = Ed. F = where 105 fare = Ed. F = far 107 more = Ed. F = mo 110 Thasos = Ed (after Plutarch). F = Tharsus 114 Flavius = F2. F = Flavio

5.4.7 SH LUCILIUS = Ed. Not in F 12 SH FIRST SOLDIER = Ed. F = Sold. 18 tell the = Ed. F = tell thee 31 whe’er = Ed. F = where

Act 1 Scene 1

1.1    Location: a public place in Rome

1    Hence! Getaway!

3    mechanical working men, artisans    walk be out and about

4    sign i.e., clothing, tools

7    rule measuring stick (plays on the sense of “decorum, discipline”)

10    in respect of compared with    fine workman skilled craftsman    but merely

11    cobbler shoe mender/one who mends clumsily

12    directly plainly/immediately

14    soles puns on “souls”

15    naughty wicked

16    be not out do not be angry/do not have holes in your shoes    mend you repair your shoes/improve your temper

19    cobble fix; plays on the sense of “have sex with”

21    awl shoe-mending tool used to prick leather/penis    meddle get involved/have sex    tradesman’s matters professional issues/sex/prostitution

22    women’s matters the concerns of women/sex or perhaps “vaginas”    withal nevertheless (puns on with all/awl)    Shoes plays on sense of “vaginas”

23    recover patch/restore to health (may play on sense of “cover with my body during sex”)    proper fine/handsome    trod upon plays on sense of “had sex with”

24    neat’s leather cowhide, i.e., shoes;    leather could also be slang for “vagina”    gone upon walked on/had sex with    handiwork possible connotations of masturbation

25    wherefore why

28    triumph victory/ceremonious procession in which the victors rode in chariots with their captives chained

30    tributaries prisoners of war (for whom a ransom would be demanded)

31    grace adorn

34    Pompey great Roman general defeated by Caesar at the battle of Pharsalus in 48 BC; he fled to Egypt where he was murdered

38    livelong entire

42    That so that    Tiber Rome’s river

43    replication reverberation, echo

44    concave hollowed out/curved

46    cull out choose for yourself

48    blood life-blood/relatives (specifically, his sons, who were also defeated by Caesar)

51    intermit stop

56    till…all i.e., until the water level rises from its very lowest to reach the highest banks

58    basest mettle lowly dispositions/base metal (an image from alchemy, the pseudoscience that sought to turn base metals into gold)    moved stirred, persuaded/changed (into gold)

60    Capitol Capitoline Hill, site of the temple of supreme Roman god Jupiter; used in the play as the location of the senate house

61    images statues of Caesar

62    ceremonies ornamental trappings of state/worshipful tokens

64    feast of Lupercal Roman festival held on February in honor of Lupercus, the god of shepherds; festivities centered around the Lupercal, a cave in which a wolf was believed to have suckled Rome’s founders, Romulus and Remus

66    trophies tokens of victory    about walk about (the city)

67    vulgar common people

68    thick numerous, thronging

70    pitch height (achieved by bird of prey before swooping)

71    else otherwise

Act 1 Scene 2

1.2    for ready for    course wearing nothing but goatskins, youths celebrating the festival of Lupercal ran round Palatine Hill striking women with strips of goat hide to promote fertility    Soothsayer prophet

2    ho a call for attention

5    Stand…course in order that Calpurnia should be touched by Antony, as an aid to fertility

18    press crowd

21    Ides of March March    Sennet trumpet call signaling a procession

29    order arrangement/proceedings

32    gamesome fond of sport/lively/merry

33    quick lively

36    now of late lately

38    wont accustomed

39    bear…Over are too unyielding and unfamiliar toward

42    if…myself i.e., if I have seemed distant, it is because I have directed all my anxieties inward

44    Merely entirely

45    passions…difference conflicting emotions/powerful feelings that have come between myself and my friends

46    Conceptions thoughts    only proper belonging only/only appropriate

47    soil stain/explanation

50    construe interpret, understand

52    shows outward manifestations

54    By means whereof as a result of which    buried kept to itself/suppressed/put to rest

55    cogitations thoughts, ideas

58    But except

59    just true

61    turn return/reflect

63    shadow reflection

64    of…respect most highly regarded men

66    yoke apparatus worn on the neck, used to restrict the movement of a captive or conquered enemy

67    had his eyes i.e., saw things for himself/saw things as the speaker did

71    Therefore hence/as for that

73    glass mirror

74    modestly without exaggeration    discover reveal

75    That…of i.e., your potential

76    jealous on mistrustful of    gentle noble/kind

77    common laughter subject of public ridicule    did use were I accustomed

78    stale make stale/depreciate/make into a laughingstock    ordinary common, banal

79    protester declarer of friendship

81    scandal scorn/slander

82    profess myself declare friendship

83    rout rabble/assembled company Flourish trumpet fanfare accompanying a person in authority

91    aught anything

92    Set…i’th’other i.e., present me with both

93    indifferently impartially

94    speed prosper

97    favour appearance/face

101    as lief as soon, rather be exist

102    such…myself i.e., a fellow man

107    chafing with fretting at/raging against

109    flood river

111    Accoutrèd dressed

112    bade invited/told

113    buffet it beat it back

114    lusty sinews vigorous muscles, strong arms

115    stemming cutting through hearts of controversy competitive hearts, contentious spirits

116    ere before

118    Aeneas legendary founder of Rome; Virgil’s Aeneid relates how he carried his old father,    Anchises, on his back as they escaped from the burning city of Troy

123    bend his body i.e., bow

126    mark note, observe

128    from…fly i.e., became pale (colour plays on the sense of “military flag,” the    lips being cowardly deserters)

129    bend gaze

131    bade ordered

136    start of advantage over

137    palm palm leaf, symbol of victory

142    Colossus giant; the Colossus of Rhodes, a gigantic statue of the sun god Apollo, supposedly stood astride the entrance to the harbor

145    at some time at times

146    our stars i.e., fate

149    be sounded be spoken/resound/be celebrated

152    conjure invoke spirits

153    start raise, awake

155    meat food

156    great powerful (plays on the sense of “fat”)    Age i.e., the present time

157    breed of ability to produce/supply of

158    the great flood feature of both the Bible and Greek mythology; in the classical flood, Zeus drowns all mankind except for Deucalion and his wife Pyrrha

162    room puns on Rome (the words were pronounced in a similar way)

165    a Brutus once i.e., Lucius Junius Brutus, who expelled the last King of Rome and founded the Roman republic    brooked tolerated, endured

166    state throne/kingship

168    nothing jealous in no doubt

169    work persuade    aim idea, understanding

172    so…you if I may entreat you in friendship

173    moved urged, persuaded

176    meet fitting    high important

179    repute consider

181    like likely    train retinue

186    after according to

187    worthy that is worthy of

190    chidden scolded, rebuked

192    ferret ferret-like, i.e., small and red

194    crossed challenged    conference debate

199    Sleek-headed well-groomed, smooth-haired

200    yond i.e., yonder, over there

203    given disposed

204    Would I wish

205    my name i.e., I

207    spare lean, gaunt

208    looks…deeds i.e., sees right through to the motives behind men’s actions

211    sort way

215    greater i.e., greater man

218    Caesar i.e., not    liable to fear

222    chanced happened

223    sad serious/downcast

226    crown laurel crown, symbol of kingship    put it by waved it away, declined it

233    marry indeed (literally, “by the Virgin Mary”)    gentler more courteously/with less insistence

238    mere complete

240    coronets smaller crowns, inferior to that worn by a king

241    fain willingly

243    still as whenever

244    rabblement crowd, rabble    chopped chapped, roughened

245    nightcaps a slighting reference to their headgear, not to caps worn in bed

247    durst dared

249    soft wait a moment

252    like likely    the falling sickness epilepsy

254    we…sickness i.e., our fortunes are falling, we are neglected

256    tag-rag ragged

257    use are accustomed    true honest

260    plucked me plucked (me is an intensifier)    ope open    doublet close-fitting Elizabethan man’s jacket

261    an if    a…occupation i.e., a working man, one of the crowd (plays on sense of “a man of action”)    taken…word taken him at his word (taken plays on sense of “struck”)

262    would wish

266    stabbed plays on sense of “penetrated sexually”

274    Greek to me i.e., unintelligible

275    put to silence i.e., removed from office (or possibly “put to death”)

278    promised forth engaged to dine elsewhere

280    mind hold inclination doesn’t change

283    blunt forthright/dull

284    quick mettle lively spirited, quick-witted

287    tardy sluggish, reluctant

288    rudeness rough, uncouth manner    wit intelligence

289    stomach appetite, inclination

293    home to you to your house

295    the world i.e., the state of Rome/your civic duty

296    noble begins an alchemical metaphor: “noble” metals (gold and silver) cannot be transmuted into base substances (though despite this, Cassius thinks he can alter Brutus)

297    mettle spirit, disposition (puns on “metal”)    wrought manipulated/transmuted

298    that…disposed its usual inclination/its natural disposition    meet right, fitting

299    their likes those like them

300    who i.e., who is

301    bear me hard tolerate me grudgingly, dislike me

303    He…me i.e., Brutus would not be able to sway my views (as I do his)/Caesar would still not be able to entice me

304    several hands different styles of handwriting

306    tending to concerning

307    obscurely covertly, subtly

308    glanced hinted

309    seat him sure seat himself most securely (in the chair of power), i.e., “take great care”

Act 1 Scene 3

1    even evening    Brought accompanied

3    moved upset, affected    sway order, rule, authority (plays on sense of “swinging movement”)

5    scolding clamoring/rebuking

6    rived split

8    exalted with raised up to

12    saucy insolent, defiant

14    wonderful astonishing, extraordinary

18    sensible of feeling

19    put up sheathed

20    Against close to/in front of

21    glazed stared

22    annoying harming

23    Upon into    heap crowd    ghastly terrified

26    bird of night the owl, considered a bird of ill omen; its cry was thought to herald death

28    prodigies unnatural things/bad omens

29    conjointly meet happen in unison, coincide

32    climate region    point upon are directed at, happen in

34    after their fashion in their own way

35    Clean utterly

45    what what kind of

51    unbracèd with doublet unbuttoned

52    thunder-stone thunderbolt

53    cross forked/hostile

58    tokens signs, omens

59    dreadful inspiring dread and fear    heralds messengers

61    want lack

62    use not ignore them

64    impatience anger

67    from…kind against their natures

68    calculate (are able to) interpret events

69    ordinance appointed function

70    preformèd established, innate

71    monstrous unnatural

74    state condition, state of affairs/commonwealth (i.e., Rome)

77    lightens flashes lightning

80    prodigious ominous/unnatural

81    fearful frightening    eruptions disturbances

84    thews sinews, muscles

85    fathers (noble) forefathers, ancestors

87    yoke and sufferance patience in servitude

90    by…land i.e., in all dominions

93    from…Cassius i.e., will commit suicide

94    Therein i.e., through suicide

98    be retentive to confine, restrict

99    bars prison bars/obstacles

101    know…besides let it be known by all the world

102    bear endure

103    pleasure will

105    bondman slave

110    hinds female deer/servants

111    make…fire i.e., achieve fame, power

112    weak straws i.e., the Roman people    trash twigs, hedge cuttings (i.e., paltry but flammable)

113    rubbish debris from decayed buildings    offal rubbish/wood shavings

115    vile base, corrupt

118    My…made I must answer for it (i.e., be punished/fight you)

121    fleering sneering    Hold, my enough, take my

122    factious prepared to form a faction

123    set…mine i.e., commit myself, proceed

124    who whoever

130    this this time, now    stay wait

131    Pompey’s porch colonnade built by Pompey in 55 BC to provide shelter for spectators attending the Theatrum Pompei (Pompey’s theater) that was constructed at the same time

133    complexion appearance/disposition    element sky, heavens

134    favour appearance/face

136    close concealed

140    incorporate To united to, part of

141    stayed waited

142    on’t of it

149    praetor high-ranking magistrate, i.e., Brutus

150    may…it i.e., cannot avoid finding it

151    set this up attach this

153    Repair make your way

156    hie hurry

165    countenance approval/face, appearance    alchemy pseudoscience that sought to turn base metals into gold

168    conceited conceived of, understood/expressed with an elaborate image

Act 2 Scene 1

2.1    Location: Brutus’ garden, Rome    orchard garden

5    When exclamation of impatience

7    taper candle

10    his i.e., Caesar’s; Brutus is in mid-thought

11    spurn strike, kick

12    general general cause, public good

15    craves requires    crown him that i.e., crown him

19    Remorse pity, compassion

20    affections emotions    swayed influenced, ruled (him)

21    proof experience

22    lowliness humility/pretended humbleness    ladder i.e., means of rising to power

24    upmost round highest rung

26    base degrees lower rungs/those of lower social status

28    the…is our cause for complaint cannot be justified on the grounds of his current behavior    colour good reason/pretext

30    Fashion contrive/fabricate, pervert    augmented i.e., once he has been given more power

33    as his kind like the rest of its species    mischievous harmful, dangerous

35    closet private room

44    exhalations meteors (considered bad omens, these were thought to consist of noxious vapors that had been drawn up, or “exhaled,” from the earth by the sun)

51    piece it out add to it, fill it out

54    Tarquin Tarquinius Superbus, the last King of Rome, who was expelled by Lucius Junius Brutus

58    petition request

61    whet incite (literally refers to sharpening of a knife)

64    motion suggestion/impulse

65    phantasma illusion, hallucination

66    genius attendant guardian spirit thought to influence a man throughout his life    mortal instruments human functions (mental and physical; these should obey the genius)

67    council intense debate, dispute    state condition/commonwealth

69    insurrection rebellion

70    brother brother-in-law; Cassius was married to Brutus’ sister

75    plucked about pulled down over

77    discover identify

78    mark of favour facial feature

82    free unconfined

84    visage face

86    thou…on pursue (i.e., maintain) your natural appearance

87    Erebus in classical mythology, the dark place through which the dead must pass before they reach the underworld, Hades

88    prevention being (recognized and) forestalled

89    are too bold intrude too boldly

103    watchful cares sleep-preventing anxieties

104    night i.e., sleep

108    yon yonder, those

109    fret adorn, lace

110    deceived mistaken

111    as i.e., where

112    growing on advancing toward

113    Weighing considering, taking into account

117    all over all of you

119    face of men i.e., troubled look of the people

120    sufferance suffering

121    betimes quickly

122    idle unoccupied/lazy

123    high-sighted ambitious, with the sight directed upward/soaring beyond view (image from falconry)    range move freely

124    lottery chance

126    steel make firm

130    Than than that of    secret trustworthy/concealed

131    palter equivocate, use trickery

132    engaged pledged, committed

133    fall i.e., die

134    Swear i.e., those who take oaths are    cautelous cautious

135    carrions corpses (used here of sick old men)

137    Such…doubt the sort of wretches one can have little faith in

138    even true, steady

139    th’insuppressive the indomitable, not suppressible

140    or either

143    several individual    bastardy i.e., act that shows he is no true, legitimate Roman

146    sound sound out, question

150    silver hairs i.e., old age/wisdom (silver also suggests money, an image picked up in    purchase and    buy)

155    gravity sober authority/wisdom

156    break speak, broach the matter

161    touched affected, i.e., killed

162    meet fitting

165    shrewd contriver cunning schemer/astute strategist    means resources/power

166    improve exploit, make good use of

167    annoy injure

171    envy malice

174    spirit influence/essence/disposition

175    spirit soul

182    subtle cunning

183    Stir up provoke    their servants i.e., our hands

184    chide rebuke

185    purpose purpose seem

187    purgers cleansers, healers (of the state)

192    ingrafted firmly implanted (gardening term referring to the practice of grafting a shoot from one plant onto the stem of another)

195    take thought become depressed, sunk in grief

196    that…should it would be extreme if he did

198    no fear nothing to fear

206    from the main contrary to the solid

207    ceremonies ritual divination of omens

208    apparent conspicuous, plainly visible

210    augurers Roman religious officials who predicted the future by interpreting a variety of signs and portents

213    o’ersway him influence him, change his mind

214    unicorns…trees supposedly the fierce unicorn could be goaded into charging at a tree, where it would become trapped when its horn got embedded in the trunk

215    glasses mirrors (into which the bear would gaze, distracted)    holes holes in the ground, booby traps

216    toils nets, snares

220    humour mood/disposition    true bent right inclination, proper direction

223    uttermost latest time

225    bear Caesar hard bear a grudge toward Caesar, dislike him

226    rated reproached, rebuked

228    by i.e., to

229    reasons i.e., reasons to love me

230    fashion him work on him, shape him to our purposes

231    upon’s upon us

235    put on show, reflect

237    untired inexhaustible (may play on the sense of “uncostumed” although this is not historically accurate)    formal constancy outward integrity, fidelity to one’s role

241    figures…fantasies imaginings

242    busy constantly active/interfering

245    mean you are you doing

248    ungently unkindly, rudely

251    arms a-cross conventional gesture of melancholy or introspection

257    wafture (dismissive) wave

260    withal in addition

261    humour (a bad) mood, (a disordered) temperament

264    shape physical appearance

265    condition state of mind

266    know recognize

273    unbracèd with clothing unbuttoned    humours dampness, noxious vapors

275    wholesome healthful

276    dare risk/defy

277    rheumy moist    unpurgèd impure (the sun having yet to purge its moisture)

279    sick offence harmful disorder

280    place position (as your wife)

282    charm conjure, entreat

283    that great vow i.e., the marriage vow

285    unfold reveal    half other half

286    heavy sad

287    resort to visit

293    excepted made an exception (that)

295    in…limitation within certain limits (legal phrase)

296    keep remain    comfort make comfortable, bring pleasure to

297    suburbs outskirts, the less tightly regulated parts of a city well-known for prostitution

299    harlot prostitute

301    ruddy drops i.e., blood

307    Cato Marcus Porcius Cato was known for his rigid moral integrity; as an ally of Pompey, he committed suicide rather than give in to Caesar

310    counsels plans/secrets

311    constancy fortitude

318    by and by imminently    bosom i.e., heart

320    construe explain

321    charactery writing, i.e., meaning    kerchief scarf generally worn about the head (especially by invalids)

327    Vouchsafe deign to accept

337    exorcist one who calls up spirits by magical rites

338    mortified deadened (by illness/by Caesar)

339    strive contend

341    whole healthy, well

345    To whom i.e., to meet the man to whom

346    Set…foot advance, lead on

Act 2 Scene 2

2.2    Location: Caesar’s house, Rome

5    present immediate

6    opinions predictions (based on study of the entrails of sacrificed animals)

13    stood on insisted on, gave weight to    ceremonies omens, portents

16    watch night watchmen

17    whelpèd given birth

18    yawned gaped open

19    fiery warriors i.e., comets, considered to be bad omens

22    hurtled clashed noisily

24    ghosts…squeal ghosts were traditionally supposed to have thin, high-pitched voices

25    use customary experience

28    end outcome    purposed determined, intended

30    to directed just as much to

32    blaze forth i.e., proclaim with meteors, fire

41    of…forth out of one of the sacrificial animal corpses

43    in shame of to shame

48    littered born

52    consumed in devoured by

59    humour whim, fancy

63    happy opportune

71    greybeards old men (often derogatory)

79    stays detains

82    lusty vigorous, lively, eager

84    apply for interpret as

87    amiss wrongly

92    press appeal/crowd forward

93    tinctures, stains, relics i.e., tokens marked with a martyr’s blood (tinctures also includes the sense “colors on a coat of arms”)    cognizance tokens/heraldic badge worn by a nobleman’s servant

100    were…rendered would be a likely joke

108    reason…liable decorum is overruled by my love

118    ague fever, sickness

123    notwithstanding up nevertheless out of bed

130    remember acknowledge, reward

135    That…same i.e., the fact that those who behave    like friends may not actually be so

136    earns grieves

Act 2 Scene 3

2.3    Location: a street near the Capitol, Rome

4    bent resolved/directed

5    security overconfidence, complacency    way opportunity/access    lover dear and loyal friend

8    suitor petitioner

10    Out of free from    teeth i.e., bite    emulation ambitious rivalry

12    contrive plot, conspire

Act 2 Scene 4

2.4    Location: outside Brutus’ house, Rome

7    constancy resolution, fortitude

9    man’s i.e., strong, virtuous

10    counsel secrets

16    take good note observe closely

21    bustling rumour agitated commotion    fray fight, noisy brawl/din, stir

23    Sooth in truth

31    suit petition, formal request

34    befriend i.e., help, protect

40    praetors magistrates (of whom Brutus is one)

42    void empty

46    speed prosper

49    commend me convey my greetings

Act 3 Scene 1

3.1    Location: on the way to and then within the Capitol, Rome

3    schedule document

4    o’erread read over

7    touches Caesar nearer affects Caesar more directly

8    served seen to, addressed/formally delivered (legal term)

11    Sirrah sir (term of address used to a social inferior)    place way

20    makes to approaches

21    sudden swift    prevention interruption, intervention

23    turn back return (alive)

25    constant steady, controlled

27    Caesar i.e., Caesar’s expression

31    prefer advance, promote

32    addressed prepared    second support

33    rears raises up

36    puissant powerful

37    seat chair of state/high status

40    These couchings this bowing, stooping    lowly courtesies humble (or “low”) bows

41    fire excite/incite to action

42    turn…lane cast…into the path/return (or transform)…to the narrow understanding;    lane may be a variant of “line” (i.e., “rule”) though many editors emend to “law”    pre-ordinance…decree previously established and fundamental laws

43    fond (so) foolish

44    rebel blood i.e., blood that will revolt against reason

45    quality nature, property/excellence

46    sweet flattering, sugary

47    Low-crookèd with body and knee bent low (both “low” and “crooked” have connotations of dishonesty)    spaniel-fawning doglike fawning (spaniels were proverbially submissive)

49    pray beg

50    spurn kick    cur dog

51    cause good reason

52    satisfied convinced (to grant a pardon)

55    repealing recalling (from exile)

58    freedom of repeal permission to be recalled/freedom resulting from being recalled

62    enfranchisement liberation

64    pray to move plead with others to act

65    northern star the only star in the sky that does not appear to move when viewed from earth

66    resting unchanging, stable

67    fellow counterpart, equal    firmament sky

68    sparks i.e., stars

72    apprehensive capable of perception and understanding

74    holds…rank maintains his position

75    of motion by movement of his own/by the persuasions of others

80    Hence be gone    Olympus in Greek mythology, the mountain home of the gods

82    bootless pointlessly, uselessly

83    hands i.e., his own hands; perhaps also those of the other conspirators

84    Et tu, Bruté? “And you (too), Brutus?” (Latin)

87    common pulpits public speaking platforms

89    affrighted frightened

90    ambition’s…paid i.e., the price for Caesar’s ambition has been paid with his death (and no one else will be harmed)

94    confounded with dumbfounded, confused by    mutiny chaos/revolt

95    fast firm

97    standing making a stand    good cheer cheer up, be heartened

101    age elderly personage    mischief injury, harm

102    abide pay the penalty for/remain with

105    amazed stunned/dismayed/alarmed

107    As as if

108    pleasures wills

109    time i.e., time of death

110    drawing days out prolonging of life    stand upon are uncertain about/attach importance to/demand to know

118    market-place i.e., the Forum, center of public life

122    acted over acted out/acted over again

123    accents languages

125    Pompey’s basis the pedestal of Pompey’s statue    along stretched out

128    knot group

132    grace honor (by following)

134    Soft wait a moment

138    honest honorable

141    feared felt reverence and awe for

142    vouchsafe permit, grant

143    be resolved learn

148    Thorough through    untrod state unprecedented state of affairs

149    faith loyalty, constancy

153    satisfied informed, reassured, convinced

154    untouched unharmed

155    presently immediately

156    well to as a good

157    wish hope    mind feeling, presentiment

158    fears doubts, mistrusts    still…purpose always proves horribly accurate    shrewdly astutely/seriously/dangerously

162    spoils plunder of war

163    measure extent, quantity

165    be let blood i.e., killed (literally, “bled” as a doctor’s patient was)    rank diseased/swollen

171    purpled blood-red    reek steam (with hot blood)

172    Live were I to live

173    apt ready, prepared

174    mean manner

175    cut off killed

176    choice best, most worthy    master leading

180    see you but you only see

182    pitiful full of pity, merciful

184    pity pity i.e., our pity for Rome drove out pity for Caesar

186    leaden dull, blunt, i.e., benign

187    in…malice though strongly hostile to Caesar/though strong with the power to harm

188    Of brothers’ temper with brotherly temperament    receive admit, embrace

189    kind gentle, well-meaning/brotherly, natural

190    voice vote

191    disposing distribution    dignities offices of state, formal roles

193    multitude common people

194    deliver you inform you of    Cause reason (plays on the sense of “grounds for legal action”)

196    proceeded taken action (plays on the sense of “taken legal action”)

198    render give

205    credit credibility/reputation    slipp’ry perhaps also literally, due to Caesar’s blood

206    conceit think of

210    dearer more acutely

213    Most noble addressed to Caesar’s spirit

216    become befit, suit    close come to an agreement, unite

218    bayed hunted by dogs until cornered    hart male deer; puns on “heart”

220    Signed in marked with    spoil slaughter, (blood of your) mangled body    Lethe the river of Hades, the classical underworld, which induced forgetfulness; here refers to Caesar’s death/oblivion

222    this i.e., this hart, Caesar

227    The enemies even the enemies

228    cold modesty sober moderation

230    compact agreement

231    pricked marked down

232    on proceed

233    Therefore for that reason (i.e., to be counted as a friend)

238    Or else otherwise

239    good regard just consideration

244    Produce bring forth

246    order ceremony

256    protest declare

257    leave permission, consent

259    true rites proper funeral rites

261    fall befall, happen

267    About i.e., in

276    tide of times course of history

277    costly dear, precious

283    cumber overwhelm, destroy/trouble, burden

284    in use commonplace, customary

285    objects sights

287    quartered in cut to pieces by

288    custom of constant exposure to    fell cruel, fierce

289    ranging roving, roaming

290    Ate Greek goddess of discord and vengeance

291    confines regions

292    havoc war cry signaling merciless slaughter    let slip unleash

293    That so that    foul wicked/stinking

294    With i.e., along with    carrion men rotting carcasses/corrupt men    groaning crying out

301    big swollen (with grief)

302    Passion grief, strong emotion

305    seven leagues twenty-one miles

306    Post ride quickly

309    Hie hence hurry away

311    try test

313    issue outcome (of the deed)

314    which results of which    discourse relate

Act 3 Scene 2

3.2    Location: the Roman Forum

2    give me audience listen to me

4    part the numbers divide the crowd

7    public given in public/concerning the public    renderèd given

11    severally separately

13    last end (of my speech)

14    lovers friends    cause grounds for action/explanation/subject of concern

15    for because of

16    Censure judge    senses minds, wits

26    rude uncivilized

27    vile lowly, contemptible

31    question of considerations behind    enrolled officially recorded

32    extenuated lessened, minimized    enforced exaggerated, emphasized

35    place…commonwealth i.e., his rights as a free man in the Roman republic

40    triumph pomp, ceremony

41    SECOND PLEBEIAN not the same man who left earlier to hear Cassius

43    parts qualities

44    crowned literally crowned/rewarded/surpassed

51    Do grace to honor, respect    grace listen courteously to

52    Tending relating

57    public chair pulpit, platform for public orations

59    beholding obliged, indebted

73    interrèd buried

77    answered paid for

78    leave permission

86    general coffers public treasury

108    masters sirs

109    worse i.e., worse tyrant

112    dear abide it suffer grievously for it

116    But only

117    stood against resisted, fought against

118    poor humble

127    closet cabinet

131    dip…blood i.e., as if Caesar were a martyr    napkins handkerchiefs

135    issue children

139    meet fit

148    o’ershot myself gone further than I intended

162    from back from    hearse coffin or stand on which the body rests

164    far further

167    mantle cloak

170    Nervii Belgian tribe of warriors defeated by Caesar

172    rent tear, slash

176    As as if it were

177    unkindly cruelly/unnaturally

178    angel favorite, dearest friend/protective spirit

189    flourished triumphed/prospered/brandished (its sword)

191    dint impression, mark    gracious virtuous/blessed

193    vesture clothing

194    marred spoiled, stained    with by

201    About! Get moving!

209    private griefs personal grievances

213    orator eloquent speaker, master of rhetoric

214    plain blunt plain-speaking and forthright

217    wit intelligence

218    Action gestures (used by a skilled orator to reinforce his words)

219    right on directly, truthfully

222    Brutus i.e., a skilled orator

224    ruffle up incite, enrage

233    Wherein for what

239    several individual    drachmas silver coins;    seventy-five would be a generous sum

245    orchards gardens

247    common pleasures public parks, pleasure gardens

248    recreate enjoy

252    brands burning logs    fire set fire to

256    forms benches    windows shutters

257    Mischief evil, harm

262    straight (go) straightaway

263    upon a wish just as I would have wished    merry in good spirits, inclined toward us

266    Are rid have ridden

267    Belike probably notice of news about

Act 3 Scene 3

3.3    Location: a street in Rome

1    tonight last night

2    unluckily…fantasy ominously burden my imagination

3    forth out

9    directly without evasion/immediately

16    bear…bang get a beating

26    he’s a conspirator the First Plebeian confuses Cinna with the conspirator of the same name

30    pluck tear, wrench

31    turn him going set him on his way

Act 4 Scene 1

4.1    Location: a private place, Rome

1    pricked marked down

2    Your brother Lucius Aemilius Paulus, a supporter of Brutus

7    spot mark (against his name); may play on the sense of “moral stain,” which would cause damn to resonate with its religious sense    damn condemn (legally)

10    cut…legacies reduce some of the cost entailed by Caesar’s legacies (to the people; the suggestion is that the will is to be altered)

12    Or either

13    slight worthless, insignificant

14    Meet fit

15    The…divided after Caesar’s fall, the Roman empire was divided into three parts, each ruled by one of the triumvirs (Octavius, Antony, and Lepidus)

18    voice vote (regarding)

19    black sentence sentencing of men to death    proscription branding of men as outlaws (which meant their property was confiscated)

20    have…days i.e., am older

22    divers sland’rous loads various burdensome accusations

24    business task/load

26    will want it

27    off away

28    empty unburdened, idle

29    commons public fields

31    tried experienced

33    appoint…provender provide him with plenty of food

35    wind turn sharply

36    corporeal bodily

37    taste degree, sense

39    barren-spirited dull-minded, lacking initiative

40    objects…imitations i.e., trivialities, curiosities, things of fashion

41    staled worn out, made stale

42    Begin his fashion i.e., he takes as fashionable

43    property means to an end

44    Listen hear

45    levying powers raising armies    make head muster troops

46    combined united, of one mind

47    made decided (upon), secured    stretched extended as far as possible

48    presently immediately    sit in counsel i.e., discuss, be advised

49    covert…disclosed hidden affairs may best be revealed

50    open visible, apparent    surest most securely and decisively

51    at the stake tied to a stake, like a bear being baited with dogs

52    bayed about surrounded

54    mischiefs evils, harms

Act 4 Scene 2

4.2    Location: a camp near Sardis (the capital of the ancient kingdom of Lydia, Asia Minor); outside Brutus’ tent, into which the action then moves

1    Stand ho halt

2    Give…ho pass on the command (to halt)

5    his master i.e., Cassius

7    change i.e., changed behavior, altered attitude    ill officers unruly, poor subordinates

8    worthy justifiable/substantial

10    be satisfied be resolved, have an explanation

13    regard respect

15    he i.e., Cassius    resolved informed

17    familiar instances signs of friendship

18    conference conversation

21    hot eager, devoted    ever always

23    useth…ceremony manifests itself with forced courtesy

25    hollow insincere    hot at hand eager at the outset

26    gallant fine, splendid    mettle vigor, spirit    march i.e., march played on drums

27    bloody i.e., spattered with blood from the horse’s sides

28    fall let fall    crests necks    jades worn-out horses

29    Sink…trial fail when put to the test

30    quartered billeted, lodged

31    horse in general entire cavalry

powers troops

34    gently nobly/in an unthreatening manner

40    brother brother-in-law

42    should i.e., could I possibly

46    griefs grievances

50    enlarge give free voice to

51    give you audience listen to you

53    charges troops    off away

59    noted disgraced, discredited

61    praying entreating

62    slighted off slightingly dismissed

64    meet appropriate

65    nice petty    bear his comment be subject to such criticism

67    condemned…palm to blame for your greed

68    mart trade, barter    offices positions of responsibility

71    You…last i.e., if you weren’t my friend Brutus, I’d kill you for saying this

73    honours gives honor to

74    chastisement punishment    hide his head i.e., is not enforced (with the suggestion of a head hung in shame)

81    But merely    supporting robbers i.e., permitting corruption

83    large honours great reputations/powerful positions

84    trash money

85    bay howl at

89    hedge me in restrict me, challenge my authority

91    make conditions manage affairs

92    Go to expression of dismissive contempt

95    forget myself i.e., lose my temper

96    Have mind upon remember, be concerned for

97    slight worthless, insignificant/thin, lean

100    way and room scope    choler rage

105    budge flinch/give way

106    observe honor, wait upon    crouch cringe

107    testy humour irritable mood

108    digest i.e., be obliged to swallow    spleen bad temper, anger (the spleen was thought to be the seat of strong emotions)

114    vaunting boasting

116    of from/about

121    durst…me would not have dared provoke me is such a manner

127    presume rely

132    idle useless/frivolous/inactive

135    vile means shameful methods (i.e., corruption, extortion)

136    coin turn into money

137    drop shed    drachmas silver coins

138    hard toughened with work/ungenerous    vile worthless, lowly, contemptible

139    indirection deceit, dishonesty

144    rascal counters worthless coins

150    rived split

151    infirmities flaws, weaknesses

162    braved challenged, defied

163    Checked rebuked/restrained

164    conned by rote memorized through repetition

168    Dearer more valuable    Pluto fabulously rich Greek god of the underworld    mine silver and gold mines

169    take it forth i.e., tear this heart out

176    dishonour…humour i.e., your dishonorable behavior shall be attributed to a bad mood

177    lamb i.e., the supposedly gentle Brutus

179    enforcèd acted upon by force (i.e., struck to create a spark)    hasty quick, brief

183    blood ill-tempered a disordered temperament (physical and mental health was thought to be governed by the four bodily fluids or “humors”; the excess of one would lead to illness or an imbalanced mood)

190    rash humour i.e., choler, the humor responsible for impetuous anger

191    forgetful irrational, badly behaved

194    leave you so i.e., leave it at that

201    mean i.e., think you are doing

204    cynic i.e., faultfinder (literally, a follower of Cynic philosophy, which disdained pleasure and enjoyment)

205    Saucy insolent

206    fashion manner

207    I’ll…time I’ll acknowledge his manner when he recognizes the proper occasion for it (time plays on the sense of “musical time, rhythm”)

208    jigging rhyming in a jerking and metrically unsophisticated manner

209    Companion rogue, rascal

217    of with

218    philosophy usually identified as stoicism, which valued endurance in the face of hardship, but according to Plutarch, Brutus was a Platonist

219    place room/precedence    accidental evils chance misfortunes

223    scaped escaped    crossed challenged, opposed

224    touching deeply felt

225    Upon as a result of

228    her i.e., news of her

229    That tidings i.e., news of Octavius and Antony’s power    distract mad, deranged

230    fire specifically, burning coals

237    o’erswell overflow

241    call in question discuss

247    Bending directing    expedition speedy setting forth/military enterprise    Philippi city in Macedonia

248    tenor drift, substance

250    proscription…outlawry i.e., legislation declaring some people to be outlaws punishable by death

270    must die once had to die some day

272    Even so in just such a manner

273    art practiced fortitude, learned behavior

274    nature natural feelings    bear it carry it off, maintain it

275    alive concerning those who are living/of present importance

282    offence damage/attack (the opposite of defence)

284    force necessity    place way

286    affection allegiance

287    contribution resources, supplies (including soldiers)

289    make…up increase its numbers

290    new-added reinforced, with augmented numbers

293    These…back behind us (supporting us/cut off from our enemy)

295    Under your pardon i.e., allow me to continue

296    tried put (successfully) to the test

301    taken…flood i.e., set sail on when it is in

302    Omitted neglected

303    bound in shallows confined to shallow waters

306    ventures investments at sea/enterprises

308    along go along

311    niggard fob off, stint

315    gown dressing gown

327    instrument musical instrument, perhaps a lute

330    art o’er-watched have been awake (perhaps on guard) for too long

336    raise rouse, wake

338    watch your pleasure remain awake and ready to respond to your needs

340    otherwise bethink me i.e., change my mind

346    touch i.e., play on

347    an’t if it

351    might capabilities, strength

352    look for need, expect

355    hold detain

357    murderous i.e., that gives the appearance of death

358    leaden mace heavy staff of office (used by a sergeant to arrest offenders by touching them with his mace)

367    shapes creates, forms    monstrous unnatural

370    stare stand on end

378    taken heart gathered my courage

381    false out of tune

390    Fellow thou thou, fellow

398    commend me convey my greetings

399    set…before set off with his troops early in the morning

Act 5 Scene 1

5.1    Location: near Philippi

3    keep keep to

4    battles battalions

5    warn challenge

6    Answering responding to/encountering for a fight    demand of ask

7    am…bosoms know their secrets

8    could be content would like

9    visit other places be elsewhere, take up different positions    come down attack (by surprise)

10    fearful bravery alarming bravery/a false show of bravery to hide their fear    face show

11    fasten fix the impression

12    ’tis not so they are unable to do so/they have no courage

14    gallant splendid, smart

15    bloody…battle red flag, a signal for battle

16    to is to, must

17    softly slowly, warily

18    even level, flat

20    exigent critical moment

22    have parley negotiation, during which hostilities were suspended

25    answer…charge respond when they attack

26    Make forth go forward

30    strokes blows

35    The…blows the nature of your blows, how you will strike

36    for as for    your words refers to Antony’s deceptively friendly words to the conspirators after Caesar’s murder, or perhaps to his flattering words to the people regarding Caesar’s love for them    Hybla town in Sicily, famed for its honey

40    buzzing plays on the sense of “rumor-mongering”

41    threat threaten

42    so i.e., give warning

44    showed your teeth grinned    apes i.e., fools

46    cur dog

49    This…ruled i.e., if Cassius had had his way, Antony would have been killed along with Caesar

51    cause grounds for hostility, central issue

52    proof trial (on the battlefield)

54    goes up is sheathed

56    another Caesar i.e., myself, Octavius Caesar

57    added slaughter to i.e., been killed by

59    thou…thee i.e., those hands are your own

62    if even if    strain family line

63    more honourable more honorably (than being killed by Brutus)

64    peevish foolish/obstinate/ill-tempered

65    masquer one who participates in masques (theatrical entertainments involving elaborate costumes and dancing)

70    stomachs courage, appetites (for battle)

71    billow wave    bark ship

72    on the hazard at stake

78    as this this

81    Pompey was Pompey was reluctantly persuaded into a disastrous final battle with Caesar at Pharsalus in 48 BC    set stake

83    Epicurus Greek philosopher who believed that the gods were indifferent to human affairs, and thus that omens did not influence the course of events

85    credit give credit to, believe    presage foretell events

86    former ensign foremost military banner

87    fell swooped

89    consorted accompanied

91    steads places    ravens…kites scavenging birds considered to be bad omens

93    As as if

94    fatal ominous, boding death

99    constantly resolutely

100    Even so, Lucilius Brutus finishes his private conversation with Lucilius

102    The may the

103    Lovers dear friends

104    rests still remain always

105    reason with consider

109    philosophy the antisuicide sentiment Brutus expresses is stoic

110    Cato Portia’s father, an ally of Pompey who committed suicide rather than surrender to Caesar

111    how i.e., why

113    fall happen    prevent…life cut short one’s natural lifespan

115    stay await

118    in triumph chained to the victor’s chariot during the triumphal return to Rome

122    great noble

Act 5 Scene 2

5.2    Location: the battlefield near Philippi    Alarum call to arms, usually with trumpet or drum

1    bills written commands

2    other side i.e., Cassius’ division of the army, located in another part of the battlefield

3    set on advance

4    cold unenthusiastic/miserable    Octavio’s i.e., Octavius’    wing division of the army

5    push attack

6    come down attack (by surprise)

Act 5 Scene 3

1    the villains i.e., Cassius’ own troops

2    mine own i.e., my own men

3    ensign military flag bearer

4    it i.e., the flag or banner

7    fell to spoil were slaughtered

8    enclosed surrounded

16    hide i.e., dig hard

18    here back here

20    even with i.e., as quick as

22    thick dim, poor    Regard watch

23    goes aloft i.e., exits and mounts to the upper staging level or gallery

24    This…first i.e., it is my birthday

26    is…compass has come full circle

30    on the spur rapidly

32    light alight, dismount

33    ta’en captured

38    Parthia now northern Iran

39    swore thee made you swear

43    bowels guts, intestines    search probe, i.e., stab

44    Stand wait    hilts sword handle

48    would…will had I been able to act as I wished, I would not have gained freedom in such a manner

51    take note of i.e., find

52    change exchange of advantages

55    comfort hearten, encourage

67    dews disease-ridden dampness

68    Mistrust Cassius’ doubt

71    apt readily believing

72    The…not? i.e., the apparent capture of Titinius

74    the mother i.e., the melancholy mind

79    darts arrows/spears    envenomèd poisoned

86    wreath of victory i.e., laurel wreath

91    apace quickly

92    regarded respected, esteemed

93    part role, duty/proper conduct

101    own proper very own    Low muted, quiet

103    whe’er whether

107    fellow equal

110    Thasos island in the north of the Aegean Sea, not far from Philippi

112    discomfort dishearten

114    battles battalions

116    try test

Act 5 Scene 4

2    bastard i.e., base person, one who is no legitimate Roman

4    Marcus Cato also Portia’s father

7    I am Brutus Lucilius lies in order to confuse the enemy and protect Brutus

13    Only…die I yield only to die

14    so much either Lucilius offers the soldier money or he refers to the abundance of honor to be gained from killing Brutus    straight straightaway

17    Room, ho make room

25    or either

33    is chanced has fallen out, come to pass

Act 5 Scene 5

1    remains remnants, survivors

2    showed the torch-light i.e., signaled to show that he had completed his reconnaissance mission

17    list hear

21    several separate

27    beat driven    pit trap for animals/grave

29    tarry wait

31    that…old that old friendship of ours

32    sword-hilts sword handle

33    office task    still continuing

42    vile ignoble, morally reprehensible

46    but…hour toiled with the sole aim of finding death/done nothing other than toil to arrive at this point

50    respect reputation

51    smatch smack, taste

55    still at peace    Retreat signal for the pursuing troops to cease

58    man servant

60    make…him i.e., cremate his body

61    only alone    overcame conquered

63    So in just such a way

65    entertain employ

67    prefer recommend

72    latest last

75    that what    envy of malice toward/jealousy of

76    He…them he alone joined the conspiracy out of honorable concern for the common good    honest honorable/genuine

78    gentle noble    elements i.e., of the universe (air, earth, fire, and water)/of “bodily humors”

79    mixed (harmoniously) combined

81    use treat

84    ordered treated

85    field battlefield

86    part share out

THE TRAGEDY OF MACBETH

Macbeth is Shakespeare’s shortest, quickest tragedy. Its colors are black and red. It summons up dusk and midnight and at last a poor player who struts and frets with empty sound and fury, his life a candle that is snuffed out, signifying nothing. But along the way we witness high passion, vaulting ambition, alliances made and broken. Macbeth himself is great in action but not in judgment. Give him a task on the battlefield and he will carry it through with aplomb. But give him words and he will be first easily led, then hesitant. His wife chides him for this, but ironically as the two of them wade deeper into blood he becomes more purposeful, she a nightmare-beset shadow of her former self.

In Shakespearean tragedy, the time is out of joint and the lead character is out of his accustomed role. Hamlet the scholar is happy to be presented with an intellectual puzzle, but unsure how to proceed when presented with a demand to kill. Macbeth the soldier, by contrast, relishes violent action but is restless when it comes to waiting for his reward. Hamlet meditates on the nature of providence, while Macbeth is prompted to take his fate into his own hands. Imagine Macbeth in Hamlet’s situation. He would have needed no second prompting. On hearing the ghost’s story, he would have gone straight down from the battlements and unseamed King Claudius “from the nave to th’chops.” His courage and his capacity to act are without question.

Macbeth is, however, more like Hamlet than appears at first glance. He has a conscience. When his ambition is stirred by the weyard sisters’ prophecies, he tries to slap it down (“Stars, hide your fires: / Let not light see my black and deep desires”), and when he returns to his castle he soliloquizes on the afterlife every bit in the manner of the Danish prince. But where Hamlet is profoundly alone, unable to bring himself to confide in Ophelia because Gertrude has destroyed his faith in womankind, Macbeth has a wife to take charge of him. She enters as he is concluding his conscience-ridden soliloquy and with a few brisk exchanges and put-downs (“When you durst do it, then you were a man”) she changes his mind and settles him to the terrible feat.

His conscience is still working after the regicide, as he is haunted by the sound of the voice crying “Sleep no more.” His wife, on the other hand, is cool and practical (“A little water clears us of this deed”). But as the play progresses, in one of Shakespeare’s finest structural movements, a reversal takes place. It is Lady Macbeth who sleeps no more, whose mind is emptied of everything save the night of the murder, who cannot wash away the blood (“All the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand”). Macbeth, by contrast, steeps himself so far in blood that it becomes easier to carry on than to turn back. He does not tell his wife about the plan to murder Banquo and Fleance, and by the fourth act, when he massacres Macduff’s innocent family, she has temporarily disappeared from the action. By the fifth, he is willing on the final encounter: “Blow wind, come wrack, / At least we’ll die with harness on our back.” The final thoughts inspired by his wife are fatalistic: she began by spurring him to take his destiny into his own hands, she ends as the provocation to his meditation on the meaninglessness of life.

Macbeth is a play about how dreams may become nightmares, how a castle that by day seems the pleasant seat of nesting birds is transformed by night into hell itself (with a grimly witty Porter at the gate). And how the world may be turned upside down: the sun refuses to rise the morning after Duncan has been killed and other strange phenomena are interpreted as disruptions of the natural order. The English court, in contrast, is represented as a haven, a place of grace and “healing benediction.” Malcolm’s stay in England serves as an education into virtue. His conquest of Scotland, with the worthy English Siward in support, is made to seem like a restoration of nature, the moving trees of Birnam symbolic of spring and rebirth. The play was written in the first few years after James I united the thrones of Scotland and England: Macduff’s final entrance with the tyrant’s head and his announcement that the time is free express hope for an end to the uncertainty about the nation’s future, which had attended the final years of the Virgin Queen’s reign.

Within weeks of James VI of Scotland becoming James I of England in 1603, Shakespeare’s acting company was given the title “The King’s Men.” In return for this honor, they were expected to play at court whenever required. They duly gave more command performances at royal events than any of their rivals: between ten and twenty shows per year for the rest of Shakespeare’s career. Macbeth is steeped in the preoccupations of the new king: the rights of royal succession, the relationship between England and Scotland, the reality of witchcraft, the sacred powers of the monarch (James revived the ancient custom of “touching” his subjects in order to cure them of scrofula, “the king’s evil”). And there was one enduring concern inherited from his predecessor’s reign: anxiety about high treason and Roman Catholic plots. The Porter’s reference to “equivocation” has often been seen as an allusion to the verbal cunning shown by Father Garnet, one of the Gunpowder Plot conspirators, during his trial in the early months of 1606.

Whether or not there were such things as witches was a fiercely debated subject in the period. In his treatise Of Demonology, King James affirmed that there were. He believed that nine times out of ten, witches were women, but women with unnaturally masculine features such as facial hair; that they were in league with the devil, that they had familiar spirits in the shape of cats and toads, that their most dangerous work consisted of conjuring up images of people and cursing them, that they sent succubi to remove the sexual lifeblood from men, that they caused disease in animals. One could establish whether or not a woman was devilishly possessed by a “witch mark” on her body, which would not bleed when pricked (when Shylock in The Merchant of Venice says “If you prick us, do we not bleed?” he means that Jews are not devilish in the way that witches are). The Macbeth witches answer to most of these characteristics: they are women with beards, summoning Grey Malkin the cat and Paddock the toad, while lines such as “I’ll drain him dry as hay” and “killing swine” suggest succubi and diseased livestock.

Yet no one in the play calls them “witches.” They are always the “weyard sisters.” The adjective denotes both their prophetic power and their waywardness, the sense that they exist in an untamed space beyond the margins of society. What is more, the earliest eyewitness account of Macbeth on stage, written by Dr. Simon Forman after he saw a performance in 1611, refers to them as “fairies or nymphs.” Macbeth’s source, Holinshed’s “Chronicle of Scotland,” variously calls them “weird sisters,” “fairies,” and “women in strange and wild apparel, resembling creatures of the elder world.” A woodcut in Holinshed shows them as rather grumpy but elegantly dressed ladies, certainly not bearded hags. A further complication is that the only surviving printed text of Macbeth seems to represent the play not as it was written by Shakespeare, but as it was revised for later performance, probably by the younger dramatist Thomas Middleton, who had written a play of his own called The Witch. There is a genuine possibility that Shakespeare intended the women to be “weyard sisters,” prophets akin to the classical sibyl, and that it was only with Middleton that they were converted into full-blown witches with double-trouble cauldron (Forman’s recollection of seeing the play in 1611 makes no mention of Macbeth’s return visit in the fourth act).

Why was King James so interested in witches? The main reason was that his ideology of kingship was closely bound to a cosmology of good and evil. He believed passionately in the idea that the monarch was God’s representative on earth, the embodiment of virtue, blessed with the power to heal his people and restore cosmic harmony. The idea that the devil was active in the world through the dark agency of witchcraft was the necessary antithesis of this vision. The imagery of Shakespeare’s play creates a pervasive sense of connection between the state and the cosmos: witness those signs of disruption in the order of nature reported by Lennox and Ross on the night of Duncan’s murder.

Another consequence of James’ theory of kingship was the idea that royal succession was divinely ordained rather than achieved arbitrarily through a struggle between rival candidates or a popular vote. It is therefore extremely significant that in Holinshed’s Chronicles Duncan’s anointing of his son Malcolm as Prince of Cumberland is a turning point in Scottish history: this is the moment when the principle of primogeniture is established in Scotland. In Holinshed, Macbeth is Duncan’s cousin and until this moment he has the right to the succession in the event of Duncan dying before Malcolm comes of age.

In the mid-twentieth century there was a tendency among critics to mock the Victorian scholar A. C. Bradley for treating Shakespeare’s characters as if they were real people, with a past and a life beyond that which is seen on stage. The shorthand term for this mockery was Bradley’s question “How many children had Lady Macbeth?” But Bradley has outlasted his critics: to a greater degree than any other writer prior to the flowering of the realist novel, Shakespeare did use language to create the illusion that his characters have an interior life and that there is a “back story” to his plots. The language of Macbeth is steeped in images of children, of birth, of inheritance, and future generations. The sons of Duncan, Banquo, and Macduff are all crucial to the action, and there is even a telling bit-part for the son of the English soldier Siward. No other Shakespearean tragedy has so many significant male children in the cast. Only Macbeth is without a son. Hence his appalled realization that he has a barren scepter in his hand, that his bloody deeds have been done only “to make them kings, the seed of Banquo kings.”

Shakespeare doesn’t usually portray married couples working together as partners. There are moments of exceptional tenderness between the Macbeths. Yet there is an emptiness at the core of their relationship. The play is scarred by images of sterility and harrowed by glimpses of dead babies. Is power in the end a substitute for love, ambition nothing but compensation for the sorrow of childlessness? It has to be assumed that Lady Macbeth means what she says when she speaks of giving suck and knowing how tender it is to love the babe that milks her: we can only assume that the Macbeths have had a child and lost it. Perhaps that is why they channel the energies of their marriage into the lust for power instead.

Shakespeare is the least autobiographical of great writers, but can it be entirely a coincidence that, a decade before, he too had lost a child, his only son Hamnet, and that in the years since then he had channeled all his creative powers not into a family, but into his work, his theater company, and the thrill of those extraordinary occasions when he found himself—a grammar boy from the provinces with no university education—witnessing the King of England and Scotland, with all his court, listening in rapt attention as his words were spoken from the platform of the banqueting hall in the royal palace?

KEY FACTS

AUTHORSHIP: There is no doubt about Shakespeare’s authorship of the bulk of the play, but it is probable that the printed text bears the marks of some theatrical revision, possibly by Thomas Middleton. In particular, the scenes involving Hecate seem to be additions by Middleton.

PLOT: Macbeth and Banquo, generals in the service of King Duncan of Scotland, are returning victorious from battle when they are hailed by three witches or “weyard sisters” who prophesy that Macbeth will become Thane of Cawdor and then King of Scotland, whereas Banquo’s descendants will be kings. The first part of the prophesy is soon fulfilled when Duncan rewards Macbeth’s loyal service: encouraged by this, and playing on her husband’s ambition, Lady Macbeth persuades him to murder Duncan while he is a guest at their castle. Malcolm and Donalbain, Duncan’s sons, flee to England for safety. Macbeth, now king, has Banquo murdered in an attempt to secure his own position, but Banquo’s ghost appears to him at a banquet. Macbeth visits the witches again. They warn him to beware of Macduff, a noble who has also fled to England, but assure him that he cannot be harmed by any man born of woman. Macbeth orders the murder of Macduff’s wife and children. In England, Malcolm tests Macduff’s loyalty and they then raise an army to march against Macbeth, but he, armed with the witches’ prophecy, believes himself invincible. As his enemies draw nearer, Macbeth learns that his wife is dead. He faces Macduff in combat but when he learns Macduff was born by cesarean section he realizes that he must face death. Malcolm is crowned King of Scotland.

MAJOR PARTS: (with percentage of lines/number of speeches/scenes on stage) Macbeth (29%/ 146/15), Lady Macbeth (11%/59/9), Malcolm (9%/40/8), Macduff (7%/59/7), Ross (6%/39/ 7), Banquo (5%/33/7), First Witch (3%/23/4), Lennox (3%/21/6), Duncan (3%/18/3), Second Witch (2%/15/3), Third Witch (2%/13/3), Porter (2%/4/1), Wife of Macduff (2%/19/1), Scottish Doctor (2%/19/2).

LINGUISTIC MEDIUM: 95% verse, 5% prose.

DATE: 1606? Certainly Jacobean rather than Elizabethan, to judge from its several compliments to King James. Performed at the Globe in April 1611 and perhaps at court in August or December 1606. References to “equivocation” and other allusions suggest written soon after trial of Gunpowder Plot conspirators (January–March 1606). The ship Tiger, mentioned in Act 1 Scene 3, sailed for the east in 1604 and returned after a terrible voyage in the summer of 1606.

SOURCES: Based on account of reigns of Duncan and Makbeth in “The Chronicles of Scotland,” from vol. 2 of Raphael Holinshed’s Chronicles of England, Scotland, and Ireland (1587 edition), with some use of material elsewhere in the Scottish chronicles. Shows awareness of the Stuart dynasty’s claim to lineage from Banquo. Some of the imagery is influenced by the language of Seneca’s tragedies. Hecate scenes incorporate material from Thomas Middleton’s play The Witch.

TEXT: 1623 Folio is the only early printed text. Its brevity suggests possible theatrical cutting. Good quality of printing, though with severe problems of lineation.

THE TRAGEDY OF MACBETH

KING DUNCAN of Scotland

A CAPTAIN in Duncan’s army

MACBETH, Thane of Glamis, later Thane of Cawdor, then King of Scotland

LADY MACBETH, his wife

A PORTER at Macbeth’s castle

SEYTON, servant to Macbeth

A DOCTOR

A GENTLEWOMAN, attendant upon Lady Macbeth

THREE MURDERERS

BANQUO, a thane

FLEANCE, his son

MACDUFF, Thane of Fife

LADY MACDUFF, his wife

MACDUFF’S SON

AN OLD MAN

SIWARD, Earl of Northumberland

YOUNG SIWARD, his son

DOCTOR at the English court

THREE WITCHES, known as Weyard Sisters

HECATE, Queen of Witches

Lords, Thanes, Attendants, Servants, Torchbearers, Soldiers, Drummers, a Messenger, Apparitions (including an armed head, a bloody child, a child crowned, a show of eight kings)

Act 1 Scene 11.1

running scene 1

Thunder and lightning. Enter three Witches

FIRST WITCHWhen shall we three meet again?

In thunder, lightning, or in rain?

SECOND WITCHWhen the hurly-burly’s[3] done,

When the battle’s lost and won.

5

THIRD WITCHThat will be ere[5] the set of sun.

FIRST WITCHWhere the place?

SECOND WITCHUpon the heath.

THIRD WITCHThere to meet with Macbeth.

FIRST WITCHI come, Grey Malkin.[9]

10

SECOND WITCHPaddock[10] calls.

THIRD WITCHAnon.[11]

ALLFair is foul, and foul is fair:

Hover through the fog and filthy air.

Exeunt

Act 1 Scene 21.2

running scene 2

Alarum within. Enter King [Duncan], Malcolm, Donalbain, Lennox, with Attendants, meeting a bleeding Captain

DUNCANWhat bloody man is that? He can report,

As seemeth by his plight,[2] of the revolt

The newest state.[3]

MALCOLMThis is the sergeant

5

Who like a good and hardy[5] soldier fought

Gainst my captivity.[6]— Hail, brave friend; To the Captain

Say to the king the knowledge of the broil[7]

As thou didst leave it.

CAPTAINDoubtful it stood,

10

As two spent[10] swimmers that do cling together

And choke their art.[11] The merciless Macdonald —

Worthy to be a rebel, for to that[12]

The multiplying[13] villainies of nature

Do swarm upon him — from the Western Isles[14]

15

Of kerns[15] and gallowglasses is supplied,

And Fortune on his damnèd quarrel[16] smiling,

Showed[17] like a rebel’s whore. But all’s too weak,

For brave Macbeth — well he deserves that name —

Disdaining Fortune, with his brandished[19] steel

20

Which smoked with bloody execution,

Like valour’s minion[21] carved out his passage

Till he faced the slave,[22]

Which[23] ne’er shook hands nor bade farewell to him

Till he unseamed him[24] from the nave to th’chops

25

And fixed his head upon our battlements.

DUNCANO valiant cousin, worthy gentleman!

CAPTAINAs[27] whence the sun ’gins his reflection,

Shipwrecking storms and direful thunders,

So from that spring[29] whence comfort seemed to come,

30

Discomfort swells.[30] Mark, King of Scotland, mark:

No sooner justice had, with valour armed,

Compelled these skipping[32] kerns to trust their heels,

But the Norwegian lord,[33] surveying vantage,

With furbished[34] arms and new supplies of men,

35

Began a fresh assault.

DUNCANDismayed not this our captains, Macbeth and Banquo?

CAPTAINYes,[37] as sparrows eagles, or the hare the lion.

If I say sooth,[38] I must report they were

As cannons overcharged with double cracks,[39]

40

So they doubly redoubled strokes upon the foe.

Except[41] they meant to bathe in reeking wounds

Or memorize[42] another Golgotha,

I cannot tell.

But I am faint, my gashes cry for help.

45

DUNCANSo well thy words become[45] thee as thy wounds:

They smack[46] of honour both.— Go get him surgeons.

[Exit Captain,

attended]

Enter Ross and Angus

Who comes here?

MALCOLMThe worthy Thane[48] of Ross.

LENNOXWhat a haste looks through[49] his eyes!

50

So should he look that seems to[50] speak things strange.

ROSSGod save the king.

DUNCANWhence cam’st thou, worthy thane?

ROSSFrom Fife,[53] great king,

Where the Norwegian banners flout[54] the sky

55

And fan our people cold.

Norway himself,[56] with terrible numbers,

Assisted by that most disloyal traitor,

The Thane of Cawdor, began a dismal[58] conflict

Till that Bellona’s bridegroom,[59] lapped in proof,

60

Confronted[60] him with self-comparisons,

Point[61] against point, rebellious arm gainst arm,

Curbing his lavish[62] spirit: and to conclude,

The victory fell on us—

DUNCANGreat happiness.

ROSSThat now Sweno, the Norways’[64] king,

65

Craves composition:[65]

Nor would we deign[66] him burial of his men

Till he disbursèd[67] at Saint Colme’s inch

Ten thousand dollars[68] to our general use.

DUNCANNo more that Thane of Cawdor shall deceive

70

Our bosom interest:[70] go pronounce his present death,

And with his former title greet Macbeth.

ROSSI’ll see it done.

DUNCANWhat he hath lost, noble Macbeth hath won.

Exeunt

Act 1 Scene 31.3

running scene 3

Thunder. Enter the three Witches

FIRST WITCHWhere hast thou been, sister?

SECOND WITCHKilling swine.

THIRD WITCHSister, where thou?

FIRST WITCHA sailor’s wife had chestnuts in her lap,

5

And munched and munched and munched.

‘Give me’, quoth[6] I.

‘Aroint thee,[7] witch!’ the rump-fed runnion cries.

Her husband’s to Aleppo[8] gone, master o’th’Tiger:

But in a sieve I’ll thither sail,

10

And like[10] a rat without a tail,

I’ll do,[11] I’ll do and I’ll do.

SECOND WITCHI’ll give thee a wind.

FIRST WITCHThou’rt kind.

THIRD WITCHAnd I another.

15

FIRST WITCHI myself have all the other,[15]

And the very ports they blow,[16]

All the quarters[17] that they know

I’th’shipman’s card.[18]

I’ll drain[19] him dry as hay:

20

Sleep shall neither night nor day

Hang upon his penthouse lid:[21]

He shall live a man forbid:[22]

Weary sennights[23] nine times nine

Shall he dwindle, peak and pine.[24]

25

Though his bark[25] cannot be lost,

Yet it shall be tempest-tossed.[26]

Look what I have.

SECOND WITCHShow me, show me.

FIRST WITCHHere I have a pilot’s[29] thumb,

30

Wrecked as homeward he did come.

Drum within

THIRD WITCHA drum, a drum:

Macbeth doth come.

ALLThe weyard[33] sisters, hand in hand,

They dance in a circle

Posters[34] of the sea and land,

35

Thus[35] do go about, about,

Thrice to thine and thrice to mine

And thrice again, to make up nine.

Peace,[38] the charm’s wound up.

Enter Macbeth and Banquo

MACBETHSo foul and fair[39] a day I have not seen.

40

BANQUOHow far is’t called[40] to Forres?— What are these,

So withered and so wild in their attire,

That look not like th’inhabitants o’th’earth

And yet are on’t?[43]— Live you, or are you aught To Witches

That man may question? You seem to understand me

45

By each at once her choppy[45] finger laying

Upon her skinny lips. You should be[46] women,

And yet your beards forbid me to interpret

That you are so.

MACBETHSpeak if you can: what are you?

50

FIRST WITCHAll hail, Macbeth: hail to thee, Thane of Glamis!

SECOND WITCHAll hail, Macbeth: hail to thee, Thane of Cawdor!

THIRD WITCHAll hail, Macbeth, that shalt be king hereafter!

BANQUOGood sir, why do you start[53] and seem to fear

Things that do sound so fair?— I’th’name of truth, To Witches

55

Are ye fantastical[55] or that indeed

Which outwardly ye show?[56] My noble partner

You greet with present grace[57] and great prediction

Of noble having[58] and of royal hope,

That he seems rapt withal:[59] to me you speak not.

60

If you can look into the seeds of time

And say which grain will grow and which will not,

Speak then to me, who neither[62] beg nor fear

Your favours nor your hate.

FIRST WITCHHail!

65

SECOND WITCHHail!

THIRD WITCHHail!

FIRST WITCHLesser than Macbeth, and greater.

SECOND WITCHNot so happy,[68] yet much happier.

THIRD WITCHThou shalt get[69] kings, though thou be none:

70

So all hail, Macbeth and Banquo!

FIRST WITCHBanquo and Macbeth, all hail!

MACBETHStay, you imperfect[72] speakers: tell me more.

By Sinel’s[73] death I know I am Thane of Glamis,

But how of Cawdor? The Thane of Cawdor lives,

75

A prosperous gentleman: and to be king

Stands not within the prospect[76] of belief,

No more than to be Cawdor. Say from whence[77]

You owe this strange intelligence or why

Upon this blasted[79] heath you stop our way

80

With such prophetic greeting? Speak, I charge[80] you.

Witches vanish

BANQUOThe earth hath bubbles, as the water has,

And these are of them. Whither are they vanished?

MACBETHInto the air: and what seemed corporal[83]

Melted as breath into the wind. Would[84] they had stayed.

85

BANQUOWere such things here as we do speak about?

Or have we eaten on[86] the insane root

That takes the reason prisoner?

MACBETHYour children shall be kings.

BANQUOYou shall be king.

90

MACBETHAnd Thane of Cawdor too: went it not so?

BANQUOTo th’selfsame[91] tune and words. Who’s here?

Enter Ross and Angus

ROSSThe king hath happily received, Macbeth,

The news of thy success, and when he reads[93]

Thy personal venture[94] in the rebels’ fight,

95

His[95] wonders and his praises do contend

Which should be thine or his: silenced with that,

In viewing o’er the rest o’th’selfsame day,

He finds thee in the stout[98] Norwegian ranks,

Nothing afeard[99] of what thyself didst make,

100

Strange images of death. As[100] thick as tale

Can post with post, and every one did bear

Thy praises in his kingdom’s great defence,

And poured them down before him.

ANGUSWe are sent

105

To give thee from our royal master thanks,

Only[106] to herald thee into his sight,

Not pay thee.

ROSSAnd for an earnest[108] of a greater honour,

He bade me, from him, call thee Thane of Cawdor:

110

In which addition,[110] hail, most worthy thane,

For it is thine.

BANQUOWhat, can the devil speak true?

MACBETHThe Thane of Cawdor lives:

Why do you dress me in borrowed robes?

115

ANGUSWho[115] was the thane lives yet,

But under heavy judgement[116] bears that life

Which he deserves to lose.

Whether he was combined[118] with those of Norway,

Or did line[119] the rebel with hidden help

120

And vantage, or that with both he laboured

In his country’s wreck, I know not:

But treasons capital,[122] confessed and proved,

Have overthrown him.

MACBETHGlamis and Thane of Cawdor: Aside

125

The greatest is behind.[125]— Thanks for your pains.— To Ross and Angus

Do you not hope your children shall be kings Aside to Banquo

When those that gave the Thane of Cawdor to me

Promised no less to them?

BANQUOThat, trusted home,[129] Aside to Macbeth

130

Might yet enkindle[130] you unto the crown,

Besides the Thane of Cawdor. But ’tis strange:

And oftentimes, to win us to our harm,

The instruments of darkness[133] tell us truths,

Win us with honest trifles,[134] to betray’s

135

In deepest consequence.[135]—

Cousins, a word, I pray you. To Ross and Angus; they converse apart

MACBETHTwo truths are told, Aside

As happy[138] prologues to the swelling act

Of the imperial theme.[139]—

I thank you, gentlemen.— To Ross and Angus

140

This supernatural soliciting[140] Aside

Cannot be ill, cannot be good: if ill,

Why hath it given me earnest[142] of success

Commencing in a truth? I am Thane of Cawdor.

If good, why do I yield to that suggestion[144]

145

Whose horrid[145] image doth unfix my hair

And make my seated[146] heart knock at my ribs

Against the use[147] of nature? Present fears

Are less[148] than horrible imaginings:

My thought, whose murder[149] yet is but fantastical,

150

Shakes so my single state[150] of man

That function[151] is smothered in surmise,

And nothing[152] is, but what is not.

BANQUOLook how our partner’s rapt.

MACBETHIf chance will have me king, why, chance may crown me Aside

155

Without my stir.[155]

BANQUONew honours come upon him,

Like our strange[157] garments, cleave not to their mould

But with the aid of use.

MACBETHCome what come may, Aside

160

Time[160] and the hour runs through the roughest day.

BANQUO Worthy Macbeth, we stay[161] upon your leisure.

MACBETHGive me your favour:[162]

My dull brain was wrought[163] with things forgotten.

Kind gentlemen, your pains are registered[164]

165

Where[165] every day I turn the leaf to read them.

Let us toward the king.—

Think upon what hath chanced,[167] and at more time, Aside to Banquo

The[168] interim having weighed it, let us speak

Our free[169] hearts each to other.

170

BANQUOVery gladly.

MACBETHTill then, enough.— Come, friends.

Exeunt

Act 1 Scene 41.4

running scene 4

Flourish. Enter King [Duncan], Lennox, Malcolm, Donalbain and Attendants

DUNCANIs execution done on Cawdor, or not[1]

Those in commission[2] yet returned?

MALCOLMMy liege,[3]

They are not yet come back. But I have spoke

5

With one that saw him die, who did report

That very frankly he confessed his treasons,

Implored your highness’ pardon and set forth

A deep repentance: nothing in his life

Became[9] him like the leaving it. He died

10

As one that had been studied[10] in his death

To throw away the dearest thing he owed[11]

As ’twere a careless[12] trifle.

DUNCANThere’s no art[13]

To find the mind’s construction[14] in the face:

15

He was a gentleman on whom I built

An absolute trust.—

Enter Macbeth, Banquo, Ross and Angus

O worthiest cousin,

The sin of my ingratitude even now

Was heavy on me. Thou art so far before[18]

That swiftest wing of recompense is slow

20

To overtake thee. Would[20] thou hadst less deserved,

That the proportion both of thanks and payment

Might have been mine. Only I have left to say,

More is thy due than more than all[23] can pay.

MACBETHThe service and the loyalty I owe,

25

In[25] doing it, pays itself. Your highness’ part

Is to receive our duties, and our duties

Are to your throne and state, children and servants;

Which do but what they should by doing everything

Safe toward[29] your love and honour.

30

DUNCANWelcome hither:

I have begun to plant thee and will labour

To make thee full of growing.— Noble Banquo,

That hast no less deserved, nor[33] must be known

No less to have done so, let me enfold[34] thee Embraces him

35

And hold thee to my heart.

BANQUOThere if I grow, the harvest is your own.

DUNCANMy plenteous joys,

Wanton[38] in fullness, seek to hide themselves

In drops of sorrow.[39]— Sons, kinsmen, thanes,

40

And you whose places are the nearest,[40] know

We will establish our estate[41] upon

Our eldest, Malcolm, whom we name hereafter

The Prince of Cumberland,[43] which honour must

Not unaccompanied invest him only,

45

But signs of nobleness, like stars, shall shine

On all deservers.— From hence to Inverness,[46] To Macbeth

And bind[47] us further to you.

MACBETHThe[48] rest is labour which is not used for you:

I’ll be myself the harbinger[49] and make joyful

50

The hearing of my wife with your approach:

So humbly take my leave.

DUNCANMy worthy Cawdor.

MACBETHThe Prince of Cumberland: that is a step Aside

On which I must fall down or else o’erleap,

55

For in my way it lies. Stars, hide your fires:

Let not light see my black and deep desires.

The eye wink[57] at the hand; yet let that be

Which the eye fears when it is done to see.

Exit

DUNCANTrue, worthy Banquo, he[59] is full so valiant,

60

And in his commendations[60] I am fed:

It is a banquet to me. Let’s after him,

Whose care[62] is gone before to bid us welcome:

It is a peerless[63] kinsman.

Flourish. Exeunt.

Act 1 Scene 51.5

running scene 5

Enter Macbeth’s Wife, alone with a letter

LADY MACBETH Reads ‘They met me in the day of success: and I have learned by the perfect’st report,[2] they have more in them than mortal knowledge. When I burned in desire to question them further, they made themselves air into which they vanished. Whiles I stood rapt in the wonder of it, came missives[4] from the king, who all-hailed me “Thane of Cawdor”, by which title before, these weyard sisters saluted me, and referred me to the coming on of time with “Hail, king that shalt be!” This have I thought good to deliver thee[7] — my dearest partner of greatness — that thou mightst not lose the dues of rejoicing by being ignorant of what greatness is promised thee. Lay[9] it to thy heart, and farewell.’

10

Glamis thou art, and Cawdor, and shalt be

What thou art promised: yet do I fear thy nature:

It is too full o’th’milk[12] of human kindness

To catch[13] the nearest way. Thou wouldst be great,

Art not without ambition, but without

15

The illness[15] should attend it. What thou wouldst highly,

That wouldst thou holily:[16] wouldst not play false,

And yet wouldst wrongly win. Thou’dst have,[17] great Glamis,

That which cries ‘Thus thou must do’ if thou have[18] it,

And[19] that which rather thou dost fear to do

20

Than wishest should be undone. Hie[20] thee hither,

That I may pour my spirits in thine ear

And chastise[22] with the valour of my tongue

All that impedes[23] thee from the golden round,

Which fate and metaphysical[24] aid doth seem

25

To have thee crowned withal.[25]—

Enter Messenger

What is your tidings?

MESSENGERThe king comes here tonight.

LADY MACBETHThou’rt mad to say it.

Is not thy master with him? Who, were’t so,

Would have informed for preparation?[29]

30

MESSENGERSo please you, it is true: our thane is coming.

One of my fellows had[31] the speed of him,

Who, almost dead for breath, had scarcely more

Than would make up his message.

LADY MACBETHGive him tending:[34]

35

He brings great news.

Exit Messenger

The raven[36] himself is hoarse

That croaks the fatal entrance of Duncan

Under my battlements. Come, you spirits

That tend on[39] mortal thoughts, unsex me here

40

And fill me from the crown to the toe top-full

Of direst cruelty. Make thick my blood,

Stop up th’access and passage to remorse,[42]

That no compunctious[43] visitings of nature

Shake my fell[44] purpose, nor keep peace between

45

Th’effect and it.[45] Come to my woman’s breasts

And take[46] my milk for gall, you murd’ring ministers,

Wherever in your sightless[47] substances

You wait on[48] nature’s mischief. Come, thick night,

And pall[49] thee in the dunnest smoke of hell,

50

That my keen[50] knife see not the wound it makes,

Nor heaven peep through the blanket of the dark,

To cry ‘Hold,[52] hold!’—

Enter Macbeth

Great Glamis, worthy Cawdor,

Greater than both by the all-hail hereafter![53]

Thy letters have transported me beyond

55

This ignorant[55] present, and I feel now

The future in the instant.[56]

MACBETHMy dearest love,

Duncan comes here tonight.

LADY MACBETHAnd when goes hence?

60

MACBETHTomorrow, as he purposes.[60]

LADY MACBETHO, never

Shall sun that morrow see!

Your face, my thane, is as a book where men

May read strange[64] matters. To beguile the time,

65

Look[65] like the time: bear welcome in your eye,

Your hand, your tongue: look like th’innocent flower,

But be the serpent under’t. He that’s coming

Must be provided for,[68] and you shall put

This night’s great business into my dispatch,[69]

70

Which shall to all our nights and days to come

Give solely[71] sovereign sway and masterdom.

MACBETHWe will speak further.

LADY MACBETHOnly look up clear:[73]

To alter favour[74] ever is to fear.

75

Leave all the rest to me.

Exeunt

Act 1 Scene 61.6

running scene 6

Hautboys and Torches. Enter King [Duncan], Malcolm, Donalbain, Banquo, Lennox, Macduff, Ross, Angus and Attendants

DUNCANThis castle hath a pleasant seat:[1] the air

Nimbly and sweetly recommends itself

Unto our gentle[3] senses.

BANQUOThis guest of summer,

5

The temple-haunting[5] martlet, does approve

By his loved mansionry[6] that the heaven’s breath

Smells wooingly[7] here: no jutty, frieze,

Buttress,[8] nor coign of vantage, but this bird

Hath made his pendent[9] bed and procreant cradle:

10

Where they most breed and haunt, I have observed

The air is delicate.[11]

Enter Lady [Macbeth]

DUNCANSee, see, our honoured hostess.—

The[13] love that follows us sometime is our trouble,

Which still we thank as love. Herein[14] I teach you

15

How you shall bid God yield us for your pains,

And thank us for your trouble.

LADY MACBETHAll our service

In every point[18] twice done, and then done double

Were poor and single[19] business to contend

20

Against those honours deep and broad wherewith

Your majesty loads our house: for those of old,[21]

And the late[22] dignities heaped up to them,

We rest your hermits.[23]

DUNCANWhere’s the Thane of Cawdor?

25

We coursed[25] him at the heels, and had a purpose

To be his purveyor:[26] but he rides well,

And his great love, sharp as his spur, hath holp[27] him

To his home before us. Fair and noble hostess,

We are your guest tonight.

30

LADY MACBETHYour servants ever

Have theirs,[31] themselves and what is theirs, in compt

To make their audit[32] at your highness’ pleasure,

Still[33] to return your own.

DUNCANGive me your hand,

35

Conduct me to mine host: we love him highly,

And shall continue our graces[36] towards him.

By your leave,[37] hostess.

Exeunt

Act 1 Scene 71.7

running scene 7

Hautboys. Torches. Enter a Sewer and divers Servants with dishes and service over the stage. Then enter Macbeth

MACBETHIf[1] it were done when ’tis done, then ’twere well

It were done quickly: if th’assassination

Could trammel up[3] the consequence and catch

With his surcease[4] success: that but this blow

5

Might be the be-all and the end-all — here,

But here, upon this bank and shoal[6] of time,

We’d jump[7] the life to come. But in these cases

We still[8] have judgement here, that we but teach

Bloody instructions,[9] which, being taught, return

10

To plague th’inventor:[10] this even-handed justice

Commends[11] th’ingredients of our poisoned chalice

To our own lips. He’s here in double trust:

First, as I am his kinsman and his subject,

Strong both[14] against the deed: then, as his host,

15

Who should against his murderer shut the door,

Not bear the knife myself. Besides, this Duncan

Hath borne his faculties[17] so meek, hath been

So clear[18] in his great office, that his virtues

Will plead like angels, trumpet-tongued, against

20

The deep damnation of his taking-off:[20]

And pity, like a naked new-born babe,

Striding[22] the blast, or heaven’s cherubin, horsed

Upon the sightless couriers[23] of the air,

Shall blow the horrid deed in every eye,

25

That[25] tears shall drown the wind. I have no spur

To prick the sides of my intent, but only

Vaulting[27] ambition, which o’erleaps itself

And falls on th’other.—

Enter Lady [Macbeth]

How now? What news?

LADY MACBETHHe has almost supped. Why have you left the chamber?

30

MACBETHHath he asked for me?

LADY MACBETHKnow you not he has?

MACBETHWe will proceed no further in this business:

He hath honoured me of late, and I have bought[33]

Golden opinions from all sorts of people,

35

Which would[35] be worn now in their newest gloss,

Not cast aside so soon.

LADY MACBETHWas the hope drunk

Wherein you dressed yourself? Hath it slept since?

And wakes it now, to look so green and pale

40

At what it did so freely? From this time

Such[41] I account thy love. Art thou afeard

To be the same in thine own act and valour

As thou art in desire? Wouldst thou have that

Which thou esteem’st[44] the ornament of life,

45

And live a coward in thine own esteem,

Letting ‘I dare not’ wait upon[46] ‘I would’,

Like the poor cat i’th’adage?[47]

MACBETHPrithee, peace.

I dare do[49] all that may become a man:

50

Who dares do more is none.[50]

LADY MACBETHWhat beast was’t, then,

That made you break[52] this enterprise to me?

When you durst[53] do it, then you were a man:

And to be more than what you were, you would

55

Be so much more the man. Nor time nor place

Did then adhere,[56] and yet you would make both:

They have made themselves, and that their fitness[57] now

Does unmake[58] you. I have given suck, and know

How tender ’tis to love the babe that milks me:

60

I would, while it was smiling in my face,

Have plucked my nipple from his boneless gums,

And dashed the brains out, had I so sworn as you

Have done to this.

MACBETHIf we should fail?

65

LADY MACBETHWe fail?

But[66] screw your courage to the sticking-place

And we’ll not fail. When Duncan is asleep —

Whereto the rather[68] shall his day’s hard journey

Soundly invite him — his two chamberlains[69]

70

Will I with wine and wassail[70] so convince,

That memory, the warder[71] of the brain,

Shall be a fume,[72] and the receipt of reason

A limbeck[73] only: when in swinish sleep

Their drenchèd natures lies as in a death,

75

What cannot you and I perform upon

Th’unguarded Duncan? What not put upon[76]

His spongy[77] officers, who shall bear the guilt

Of our great quell?[78]

MACBETHBring forth men-children only,

80

For thy undaunted mettle[80] should compose

Nothing but males. Will it not be received,[81]

When we have marked with blood those sleepy two

Of his own chamber and used their very daggers,

That they have done’t?

85

LADY MACBETHWho dares receive it other,[85]

As[86] we shall make our griefs and clamour roar

Upon his death?

MACBETHI am settled,[88] and bend up

Each corporal agent[89] to this terrible feat.

90

Away, and mock[90] the time with fairest show:

False[91] face must hide what the false heart doth know.

Exeunt

Act 2 Scene 12.1

running scene 8

Enter Banquo and Fleance, with a Torch [bearer] before him

BANQUO How[1] goes the night, boy?

FLEANCEThe moon is down: I have not heard the clock.

BANQUOAnd she goes down at twelve.

FLEANCEI take’t ’tis later, sir.

5

BANQUOHold, take my sword. There’s husbandry[5] in heaven: Gives his sword

Their[6] candles are all out. Take thee that too. Gives cloak? Diamond?

A heavy summons[7] lies like lead upon me,

And yet I would not sleep. Merciful powers,

Restrain in me the cursèd thoughts that nature

10

Gives way to in repose.

Enter Macbeth and a Servant with a torch

Give me my sword.— Who’s there? Takes sword

MACBETHA friend.

BANQUOWhat, sir, not yet at rest? The king’s abed:

He hath been in unusual pleasure,

15

And sent forth great largess[15] to your offices.

This diamond he greets your wife withal, Presents a diamond

By the name of most kind hostess, and shut up[17]

In measureless content.

MACBETHBeing[19] unprepared,

20

Our will became the servant to defect,

Which else should free have wrought.

BANQUO All’s well.

I dreamt last night of the three weyard sisters:

To you they have showed some truth.

25

MACBETHI think not of them.

Yet, when we can entreat an hour to serve,

We would spend it in some words upon that business,

If you would grant the time.

BANQUO At your kind’st leisure.

30

MACBETHIf you shall cleave[30] to my consent when ’tis,

It shall make honour for you.

BANQUO So[32] I lose none

In seeking to augment it, but still keep

My bosom franchised[34] and allegiance clear,

35

I shall be counselled.[35]

MACBETHGood repose the while.[36]

BANQUO Thanks, sir: the like to you.

Exeunt Banquo [with Fleance and Torchbearer]

MACBETHGo bid thy mistress, when my drink is ready,

She strike upon the bell. Get thee to bed.—

Exit [Servant]

40

Is this a dagger which I see before me,

The handle toward my hand? Come, let me clutch thee:

I have thee not, and yet I see thee still.

Art thou not, fatal vision, sensible[43]

To feeling as to sight? Or art thou but

45

A dagger of the mind, a false creation,

Proceeding from the heat-oppressèd[46] brain?

I see thee yet,[47] in form as palpable

As this which now I draw. Draws his dagger

Thou marshall’st[49] me the way that I was going,

50

And such an instrument I was to use.

Mine eyes are made the fools o’th’other senses,

Or else worth[52] all the rest. I see thee still,

And on thy blade and dudgeon[53] gouts of blood,

Which was not so before. There’s no such thing:

55

It is the bloody business which informs[55]

Thus to mine eyes. Now o’er the one halfworld[56]

Nature seems dead, and wicked dreams abuse

The curtained[58] sleep: witchcraft celebrates

Pale Hecate’s off’rings:[59] and withered murder,

60

Alarumed[60] by his sentinel the wolf,

Whose howl’s his watch,[61] thus with his stealthy pace,

With Tarquin’s[62] ravishing strides, towards his design

Moves like a ghost.— Thou sure[63] and firm-set earth,

Hear not my steps which way they walk, for fear

65

Thy very stones prate[65] of my whereabout

And take[66] the present horror from the time

Which now suits with it.— Whiles I threat,[67] he lives:

Words to the heat of deeds too cold breath gives.

A bell rings

I go, and it is done: the bell invites me.

70

Hear it not, Duncan, for it is a knell[70]

That summons thee to heaven or to hell.

Exit

Act 2 Scene 22.2

running scene 8 continues

Enter Lady [Macbeth]

LADY MACBETHThat which hath made them[1] drunk hath made me bold:

What hath quenched[2] them hath given me fire.— Hark! Peace!—

It was the owl[3] that shrieked, the fatal bellman

Which gives the stern’st[4] goodnight. He is about it.

5

The doors are open, and the surfeited[5] grooms

Do mock[6] their charge with snores: I have drugged their possets,

That[7] death and nature do contend about them

Whether they live or die.

Enter Macbeth Initially within or above or unseen by his wife; with bloody daggers

MACBETHWho’s there? What ho?

10

LADY MACBETHAlack, I am afraid they have awaked,

And ’tis not done: th’attempt and not the deed

Confounds[12] us. Hark! I laid their daggers ready:

He could not miss ’em. Had he[13] not resembled

My father as he slept, I had done’t.— Sees Macbeth

My husband?

15

MACBETHI have done the deed. Didst thou not hear a noise?

LADY MACBETHI heard the owl scream and the crickets cry.

Did not you speak?

MACBETHWhen?

LADY MACBETH Now.

20

MACBETHAs I descended?

LADY MACBETH Ay.

MACBETHHark!

Who lies i’th’second chamber?

LADY MACBETHDonalbain.

25

MACBETH This is a sorry sight. Looks at his hands

LADY MACBETHA foolish thought, to say ‘a sorry sight’.

MACBETHThere’s one[27] did laugh in’s sleep, and one cried ‘Murder!’

That they did wake each other: I stood and heard them.

But they did say their prayers, and addressed them[29]

30

Again to sleep.

LADY MACBETHThere are two lodged together.

MACBETHOne cried ‘God bless us’ and ‘Amen’ the other,

As[33] they had seen me with these hangman’s hands.

List’ning their fear, I could not say ‘Amen’,

35

When they did say ‘God bless us.’

LADY MACBETHConsider it not so deeply.

MACBETHBut wherefore[37] could not I pronounce ‘Amen’?

I had most need of blessing, and ‘Amen’

Stuck in my throat.

40

LADY MACBETHThese deeds must not be thought[40]

After these ways: so,[41] it will make us mad.

MACBETHMethought I heard a voice cry ‘Sleep no more,

Macbeth does murder sleep: the innocent sleep,

Sleep that knits up the ravelled[44] sleeve of care,

45

The death of each day’s life, sore labour’s bath,[45]

Balm[46] of hurt minds, great nature’s second course,

Chief nourisher in life’s feast’—

LADY MACBETHWhat do you mean?

MACBETHStill it cried ‘Sleep no more’ to all the house:

50

‘Glamis hath murdered sleep, and therefore Cawdor

Shall sleep no more, Macbeth shall sleep no more.’

LADY MACBETHWho was it that thus cried? Why, worthy thane,

You do unbend[53] your noble strength to think

So brainsickly of things. Go get some water

55

And wash this filthy witness[55] from your hand.

Why did you bring these daggers from the place?

They must lie[57] there: go carry them and smear

The sleepy grooms with blood.

MACBETHI’ll go no more.

60

I am afraid to think what I have done:

Look on’t again I dare not.

LADY MACBETHInfirm of purpose!

Give me the daggers. The sleeping and the dead Takes the daggers

Are but as pictures: ’tis the eye of childhood

65

That fears a painted[65] devil. If he do bleed,

I’ll gild[66] the faces of the grooms withal,

For it must seem their guilt.

Exit

Knock within

MACBETHWhence[68] is that knocking?

How is’t with me, when every noise appals me?[69]

70

What hands are here? Ha? They pluck out mine eyes.

Will all great Neptune’s[71] ocean wash this blood

Clean from my hand? No, this my hand will rather

The multitudinous[73] seas incarnadine,

Making the green one red.[74]

Enter Lady [Macbeth]

75

LADY MACBETHMy hands are of your colour, but I shame[75]

To wear a heart so white.[76]— I hear a knocking

Knock

At the south entry:[77] retire we to our chamber.

A little water clears[78] us of this deed:

How easy is it, then! Your constancy[79]

80

Hath left you unattended.— Hark! More knocking.

Knock

Get on your nightgown,[81] lest occasion call us

And show us to be watchers.[82] Be not lost

So poorly[83] in your thoughts.

MACBETHTo[84] know my deed, ’twere best not know myself.

Knock

85

Wake Duncan with thy knocking! I would thou couldst!

Exeunt

Act 2 Scene 3

running scene 8 continues

Knocking within. Enter a Porter

PORTERHere’s a knocking indeed! If a man were porter of hell gate, he should have old[2] turning the key.

Knock

Knock, knock, knock! Who’s there, i’th’name of Beelzebub?[3] Here’s a farmer that hanged himself on th’expectation of plenty:[4] come in time, have napkins enough about you: here you’ll sweat for’t.

Knock

Knock, knock! Who’s there, in th’other devil’s[6] name? Faith, here’s an equivocator that could swear in both the scales[7] against either scale, who committed treason enough for God’s sake,[8] yet could not equivocate to heaven: O, come in, equivocator.

Knock

Knock, knock, knock! Who’s there? Faith, here’s an English tailor come hither for stealing[11] out of a French hose: come in, tailor: here you may roast your goose.

Knock

Knock, knock, never at quiet! What are you? But this place is too cold for hell. I’ll devil-porter it no further: I had thought to have let in some of all professions that go the primrose[14] way to th’everlasting bonfire.

Knock

Anon, anon! I pray you remember[15] the porter. Opens the gate

Enter Macduff and Lennox

MACDUFFWas it so late, friend, ere you went to bed, That you do lie so late?

PORTERFaith, sir, we were carousing[18] till the second cock: and drink, sir, is a great provoker of three things.

MACDUFFWhat three things does drink especially provoke?

PORTERMarry,[21] sir, nose-painting, sleep and urine. Lechery, sir, it provokes and unprovokes: it provokes the desire, but it takes away the performance. Therefore much drink may be said to be an equivocator with lechery: it makes him and it mars[24] him; it sets him on and it takes him off; it persuades him and disheartens him; makes him stand[25] to and not stand to: in conclusion, equivocates him in a sleep, and, giving[26] him the lie, leaves him.

MACDUFFI believe drink gave thee the lie last night.

PORTERThat it did, sir, i’the[28] very throat on me: but I requited him for his lie, and, I think, being too strong for him, though he took[29] up my legs sometime, yet I made a shift to cast him.[30]

Enter Macbeth

MACDUFFIs thy master stirring? Our knocking has awaked him: here he comes. Porter may exit

LENNOXGood morrow, noble sir.

MACBETHGood morrow, both.

MACDUFFIs the king stirring, worthy thane?

MACBETH Not yet.

MACDUFFHe did command me to call timely[37] on him: I have almost slipped the hour.[38]

MACBETHI’ll bring you to him.

MACDUFFI know this is a joyful trouble to you, But yet ’tis one.[41]

MACBETHThe[42] labour we delight in physics pain. This is the door.

MACDUFFI’ll make so bold to call, For ’tis my limited[45] service.

Exit Macduff

LENNOXGoes the king hence today?

MACBETHHe does: he did appoint[47] so.

LENNOXThe night has been unruly.[48] Where we lay,

Our chimneys were blown down, and, as they say,

50

Lamentings[50] heard i’th’air, strange screams of death,

And prophesying[51] with accents terrible

Of dire combustion[52] and confused events

New hatched to[53] th’woeful time: the obscure bird

Clamoured the livelong[54] night. Some say the earth

55

Was feverous and did shake.

MACBETH’Twas a rough night.

LENNOXMy[57] young remembrance cannot parallel

A fellow to it.

Enter Macduff

MACDUFFO, horror, horror, horror!

60

Tongue nor heart cannot conceive[60] nor name thee!

MACBETH and LENNOXWhat’s the matter?

MACDUFFConfusion[62] now hath made his masterpiece.

Most sacrilegious[63] murder hath broke ope

The Lord’s anointed temple,[64] and stole thence

65

The life o’th’building.

MACBETHWhat is’t you say? The life?

LENNOXMean you his majesty?

MACDUFFApproach the chamber and destroy your sight

With a new Gorgon.[69] Do not bid me speak:

70

See, and then speak yourselves.—

Exeunt Macbeth and Lennox

Awake, awake!

Ring the alarum bell. Murder and treason!

Banquo and Donalbain! Malcolm, awake!

Shake off this downy[74] sleep, death’s counterfeit,

75

And look on death itself! Up, up, and see

The great doom’s image![76] Malcolm, Banquo,

As from your graves rise up and walk like sprites[77]

To countenance[78] this horror! Ring the bell.

Bell rings. Enter Lady [Macbeth]

LADY MACBETHWhat’s the business,

80

That such a hideous trumpet[80] calls to parley

The sleepers of the house? Speak, speak!

MACDUFFO, gentle lady,

’Tis not for you to hear what I can speak:

The repetition[84] in a woman’s ear

85

Would murder as it fell.—

Enter Banquo

O, Banquo, Banquo,

Our royal master’s murdered!

LADY MACBETHWoe, alas!

What, in our house?

BANQUOToo cruel anywhere.

90

Dear Duff, I prithee contradict thyself

And say it is not so.

Enter Macbeth, Lennox and Ross Perhaps with Attendants

MACBETHHad I but died an hour before this chance,[92]

I had lived a blessèd time, for from this instant

There’s nothing serious in mortality:[94]

95

All is but toys:[95] renown and grace is dead.

The wine of life is drawn,[96] and the mere lees

Is left[97] this vault to brag of.

Enter Malcolm and Donalbain

DONALBAIN What is amiss?

MACBETHYou are, and do not know’t:

100

The spring, the head, the fountain of your blood

Is stopped,[101] the very source of it is stopped.

MACDUFFYour royal father’s murdered.

MALCOLMO, by whom?

LENNOXThose of his chamber, as it seemed, had done’t:

105

Their hands and faces were all badged[105] with blood,

So were their daggers, which unwiped we found

Upon their pillows. They stared[107] and were distracted:

No man’s life was to be trusted with them.

MACBETHO, yet I do repent me of my fury,

110

That I did kill them.

MACDUFFWherefore did you so?

MACBETHWho can be wise, amazed,[112] temp’rate and furious,

Loyal and neutral in a moment? No man.

Th’expedition[114] of my violent love

115

Outrun the pauser,[115] reason. Here lay Duncan,

His silver skin laced with his golden blood,

And his gashed stabs looked like a breach[117] in nature

For ruin’s wasteful[118] entrance: there the murderers,

Steeped[119] in the colours of their trade, their daggers

120

Unmannerly[120] breeched with gore. Who could refrain

That had a heart to love, and in that heart

Courage to make’s[122] love known?

LADY MACBETH Help me hence, ho! Faints or feigns to do so

MACDUFFLook to the lady.

125

MALCOLMWhy[125] do we hold our tongues, Aside to Donalbain

That most may claim this argument for ours?

DONALBAINWhat should be spoken here, where our fate, Aside to Malcolm

Hid in an auger hole,[128] may rush and seize us?

Let’s away: our tears are not yet brewed.[129]

130

MALCOLM Nor our strong sorrow Aside to Donalbain

Upon[131] the foot of motion.

BANQUO Look to the lady.— Lady Macbeth may be helped off

And when we have our[133] naked frailties hid,

That suffer in exposure, let us meet

135

And question[135] this most bloody piece of work

To know it further. Fears and scruples[136] shake us:

In the great hand of God I stand, and thence[137]

Against[138] the undivulged pretence I fight

Of treasonous malice.

140

MACDUFFAnd so do I.

ALLSo all.

MACBETHLet’s briefly[142] put on manly readiness

And meet i’th’hall together.

ALLWell contented.

Exeunt [all but Malcolm and Donalbain]

145

MALCOLMWhat will you do? Let’s not consort[145] with them:

To show an unfelt sorrow is an office[146]

Which the false man does easy. I’ll to England.

DONALBAINTo Ireland, I. Our separated fortune

Shall keep us both the safer: where we are,

150

There’s daggers in men’s smiles; the[150] nea’er in blood,

The nearer bloody.

MALCOLMThis murderous shaft[152] that’s shot

Hath not yet lighted,[153] and our safest way

Is to avoid the aim. Therefore to horse,

155

And let us not be dainty of leave-taking,[155]

But shift away:[156] there’s warrant in that theft

Which steals[157] itself when there’s no mercy left.

Exeunt

Act 2 Scene 42.4

running scene 9

Enter Ross with an Old Man

OLD MANThreescore and ten[1] I can remember well,

Within the volume of which time I have seen

Hours dreadful[3] and things strange: but this sore night

Hath trifled former knowings.[4]

5

ROSSHa, good father,[5]

Thou see’st the heavens,[6] as troubled with man’s act,

Threatens his bloody stage: by th’clock ’tis day,

And yet dark night strangles the travelling lamp.[8]

Is’t night’s predominance[9] or the day’s shame

10

That darkness does the face of earth entomb

When living light should kiss it?

OLD MAN’Tis unnatural,

Even[13] like the deed that’s done. On Tuesday last,

A falcon, tow’ring[14] in her pride of place,

15

Was by a mousing owl[15] hawked at and killed.

ROSSAnd Duncan’s horses — a thing most strange and certain —

Beauteous and swift, the minions[17] of their race,

Turned wild in nature, broke their stalls, flung out,

Contending gainst obedience, as[19] they would

20

Make war with mankind.

OLD MAN’Tis said they ate each other.

ROSSThey did so, to th’amazement of mine eyes

That looked upon’t.

Enter Macduff

Here comes the good Macduff.—

How goes the world, sir, now?

25

MACDUFFWhy, see you not?

ROSSIs’t known who did this more than bloody deed?

MACDUFFThose that Macbeth hath slain.

ROSSAlas, the day,

What good could they pretend?[29]

30

MACDUFFThey were suborned:[30]

Malcolm and Donalbain, the king’s two sons,

Are stol’n away and fled, which puts upon them

Suspicion of the deed.

ROSSGainst nature still:

35

Thriftless[35] ambition, that will ravin up

Thine own life’s means![36] Then ’tis most like

The sovereignty will fall upon Macbeth.

MACDUFFHe is already named[38] and gone to Scone

To be invested.[39]

40

ROSSWhere is Duncan’s body?

MACDUFFCarried to Colmekill,[41]

The sacred storehouse of his predecessors

And guardian of their bones.

ROSSWill you to Scone?

45

MACDUFFNo, cousin, I’ll to Fife.

ROSSWell, I will thither.[46]

MACDUFFWell, may you see things well done there. Adieu,

Lest[48] our old robes sit easier than our new!

ROSSFarewell, father.

50

OLD MAN God’s benison[50] go with you, and with those

That would make good of bad, and friends of foes!

Exeunt

Act 3 Scene 13.1

running scene 10

Enter Banquo

BANQUOThou hast it now: king, Cawdor, Glamis, all

As the weyard women promised, and I fear

Thou played’st most foully[3] for’t. Yet it was said

It[4] should not stand in thy posterity,

5

But that myself should be the root and father

Of many kings. If there come truth from them —

As upon thee, Macbeth, their speeches shine[7] —

Why, by the verities[8] on thee made good,

May they not be my oracles as well,

10

And set me up in hope? But hush, no more.

Sennet sounded. Enter Macbeth as King, Lady [Macbeth as Queen], Lennox, Ross, Lords and Attendants

MACBETHHere’s our chief guest.

LADY MACBETHIf he had been forgotten,

It had been as a gap in our great feast

And all-thing unbecoming.[14]

15

MACBETHTonight we hold a solemn[15] supper, sir, To Banquo

And I’ll request your presence.

BANQUOLet your highness

Command upon[18] me, to the which my duties

Are with a most indissoluble tie

20

Forever knit.[20]

MACBETHRide you this afternoon?

BANQUOAy, my good lord.

MACBETHWe should have else[23] desired your good advice —

Which still[24] hath been both grave and prosperous —

25

In this day’s council:[25] but we’ll take tomorrow.

Is’t far you ride?

BANQUOAs far, my lord, as will fill up the time

’Twixt this[28] and supper: go not my horse the better,

I must become a borrower of the night

30

For a dark hour or twain.[30]

MACBETHFail not our feast.

BANQUOMy lord, I will not.

MACBETHWe hear our bloody cousins[33] are bestowed

In England and in Ireland, not confessing

35

Their cruel parricide,[35] filling their hearers

With strange invention:[36] but of that tomorrow,

When therewithal[37] we shall have cause of state

Craving us jointly. Hie you to horse. Adieu,

Till you return at night. Goes Fleance with you?

40

BANQUOAy, my good lord. Our time does call upon’s.

MACBETHI wish your horses swift and sure of foot,

And so I do commend[42] you to their backs. Farewell.

Exit Banquo

Let every man be master of his time

Till seven at night. To[44] make society

45

The sweeter welcome, we will keep ourself

Till supper-time alone: while[46] then, God be with you!

Exeunt Lords.

[Macbeth and a Servant remain]

Sirrah,[47] a word with you. Attend those men

Our pleasure?

SERVANTThey are, my lord, without[49] the palace gate.

50

MACBETHBring them before us.

Exit Servant

To be thus[51] is nothing, but to be safely thus:

Our fears in Banquo stick[52] deep,

And in his royalty of nature reigns that

Which would be feared. ’Tis much he dares,

55

And to[55] that dauntless temper of his mind,

He hath a wisdom that doth guide his valour

To act in safety. There is none but he

Whose being[58] I do fear: and under him

My genius[59] is rebuked, as it is said

60

Mark[60] Antony’s was by Caesar. He chid the sisters

When first they put the name of king upon me,

And bade them speak to him: then prophet-like

They hailed him father to a line of kings:

Upon my head they placed a fruitless[64] crown,

65

And put a barren[65] sceptre in my grip,

Thence to be wrenched with an unlineal[66] hand,

No son of mine succeeding. If’t be so,

For Banquo’s issue[68] have I filed my mind:

For them the gracious[69] Duncan have I murdered:

70

Put rancours[70] in the vessel of my peace

Only for them, and mine eternal jewel[71]

Given to the common[72] enemy of man

To make them kings: the seeds of Banquo kings.

Rather than so, come fate into the list,[74]

75

And champion me[75] to th’utterance!— Who’s there?

Enter Servant and two Murderers

Now go to the door, and stay there till we call.— To Servant

Exit Servant

Was it not yesterday we spoke together?

MURDERERSIt was, so please your highness.

MACBETHWell[79] then, now have you considered of my speeches? Know that it was he in the times past which held[80] you so under fortune, which you thought had been our innocent self: this I made good[81] to you in our last conference, passed in probation with you how you were borne in hand,[82] how crossed, the instruments, who wrought[83] with them, and all things else that might to half a soul and to a notion[84] crazed say ‘Thus did Banquo.’

FIRST MURDERERYou made it known to us.

MACBETHI did so, and went further, which is now our point of second meeting. Do you find your patience so predominant in your nature that you can let this go?

Are you so gospelled[88] to pray for this good man and for his issue, whose heavy hand hath bowed you to the grave and beggared yours[89] for ever?

FIRST MURDERERWe are men, my liege.

MACBETHAy, in the catalogue[91] ye go for men,

As hounds and greyhounds, mongrels, spaniels, curs,[92]

Shoughs,[93] water-rugs and demi-wolves are clept

All by the name of dogs: the valued file[94]

95

Distinguishes the swift, the slow, the subtle,[95]

The housekeeper,[96] the hunter, every one

According to the gift which bounteous[97] nature

Hath in him closed,[98] whereby he does receive

Particular[99] addition from the bill

100

That writes them all alike: and so of men.

Now, if you have a station[101] in the file,

Not i’th’worst rank[102] of manhood, say’t,

And I will put that business in your bosoms

Whose execution[104] takes your enemy off,

105

Grapples[105] you to the heart and love of us,

Who wear our health but sickly in his life,[106]

Which in his death were perfect.[107]

SECOND MURDERERI am one, my liege,

Whom the vile blows and buffets[109] of the world

110

Hath so incensed that I am reckless what

I do to spite the world.

FIRST MURDERERAnd I another,

So weary with disasters, tugged with[113] fortune,

That I would set[114] my life on any chance

115

To mend[115] it or be rid on’t.

MACBETHBoth of you know Banquo was your enemy.

MURDERERSTrue, my lord.

MACBETHSo is he mine, and in such bloody distance[118]

That every minute of his being thrusts[119]

120

Against my near’st of life:[120] and though I could

With barefaced power sweep him from my sight

And bid[122] my will avouch it, yet I must not,

For[123] certain friends that are both his and mine,

Whose loves I may not drop, but wail[124] his fall

125

Who I myself struck down. And thence it is

That I to[126] your assistance do make love,

Masking the business from the common eye

For sundry[128] weighty reasons.

SECOND MURDERERWe shall, my lord,

130

Perform what you command us.

FIRST MURDERERThough our lives[131]—

MACBETHYour spirits shine through you. Within this hour at most

I will advise[133] you where to plant yourselves,

Acquaint you with the perfect spy o’th’time,[134]

135

The moment on’t, for’t must be done tonight,

And something[136] from the palace, always thought

That I require a clearness. And with him —

To leave no rubs nor botches[138] in the work —

Fleance his son, that keeps him company,

140

Whose absence is no less material[140] to me

Than is his father’s, must embrace the fate

Of that dark hour. Resolve yourselves apart:[142]

I’ll come to you anon.

MURDERERSWe are resolved, my lord.

145

MACBETHI’ll call upon you straight:[145] abide within.—

[Murderers may exit]

It is concluded. Banquo, thy soul’s flight,

If it find heaven, must find it out tonight.

Exeunt

Act 3 Scene 2

running scene 10 continues

Enter Macbeth’s Lady and a Servant

LADY MACBETHIs Banquo gone from court?

SERVANTAy, madam, but returns again tonight.

LADY MACBETHSay to the king, I would attend his leisure

For a few words.

5

SERVANTMadam, I will.

Exit

LADY MACBETHNaught’s had, all’s spent,[6]

Where our desire is got without content:[7]

’Tis safer to be that which we destroy

Than by destruction dwell in doubtful[9] joy.

Enter Macbeth

10

How now, my lord? Why do you keep alone,

Of sorriest fancies[11] your companions making,

Using[12] those thoughts which should indeed have died

With them[13] they think on? Things without all remedy

Should be without regard:[14] what’s done is done.

15

MACBETHWe have scorched[15] the snake, not killed it:

She’ll close[16] and be herself, whilst our poor malice

Remains in danger of her former tooth.[17]

But let[18] the frame of things disjoint, both the worlds suffer,

Ere we will eat our meal in fear and sleep

20

In the affliction of these terrible dreams

That shake[21] us nightly. Better be with the dead,

Whom we, to[22] gain our peace, have sent to peace,

Than on[23] the torture of the mind to lie

In restless ecstasy.[24] Duncan is in his grave:

25

After life’s fitful[25] fever he sleeps well.

Treason has done his worst: nor[26] steel, nor poison,

Malice domestic,[27] foreign levy, nothing

Can touch him further.

LADY MACBETHCome on,

30

Gentle my lord,[30] sleek o’er your rugged looks:

Be bright and jovial among your guests tonight.

MACBETHSo shall I, love, and so I pray be you.

Let your remembrance[33] apply to Banquo:

Present him eminence,[34] both with eye and tongue:

35

Unsafe[35] the while, that we

Must lave our honours in these flattering streams

And make our faces vizards[37] to our hearts,

Disguising what they are.

LADY MACBETHYou must leave this.

40

MACBETHO, full of scorpions is my mind, dear wife!

Thou know’st that Banquo and his Fleance lives.

LADY MACBETHBut in them nature’s copy’s[42] not eterne.

MACBETHThere’s comfort yet: they are assailable:

Then be thou jocund.[44] Ere the bat hath flown

45

His cloistered[45] flight, ere to black Hecate’s summons

The shard-born[46] beetle with his drowsy hums

Hath rung night’s yawning[47] peal, there shall be done

A deed of dreadful note.[48]

LADY MACBETHWhat’s to be done?

50

MACBETHBe innocent of the knowledge, dearest chuck,[50]

Till thou applaud the deed.— Come, seeling[51] night,

Scarf up[52] the tender eye of pitiful day,

And with thy bloody and invisible hand

Cancel and tear to pieces that great bond[54]

55

Which keeps me pale.[55] Light thickens,

And the crow makes wing[56] to the rooky wood:

Good things of day begin to droop and drowse,

Whiles night’s black agents to their preys do rouse.[58]—

Thou marvell’st at my words: but hold thee still.[59]

60

Things bad begun make strong themselves by ill.

So prithee go with me.

Exeunt

Act 3 Scene 33.3

running scene 11

Enter three Murderers

FIRST MURDERER But who did bid thee join with us? To Third Murderer

THIRD MURDERERMacbeth.

SECOND MURDERERHe[3] needs not our mistrust, since he delivers

Our offices and what we have to do

5

To[5] the direction just.

FIRST MURDERERThen stand with us.

The west yet glimmers with some streaks of day.

Now spurs the lated[8] traveller apace

To gain[9] the timely inn, and near approaches

10

The subject of our watch.

THIRD MURDERERHark, I hear horses.

BANQUOGive us a light there, ho!

Within

SECOND MURDERERThen ’tis he: the rest

That are within[14] the note of expectation

15

Already are i’th’court.

FIRST MURDERERHis horses go about.[16]

THIRD MURDERERAlmost a mile: but he does usually,

So all men do, from hence to th’palace gate

Make it their walk.

Enter Banquo and Fleance, with a torch

20

SECOND MURDERER A light, a light!

THIRD MURDERER ’Tis he.

FIRST MURDERERStand to’t.[22]

BANQUO It will be rain tonight.

FIRST MURDERER Let it come down.[24] He puts out the torch

25

BANQUOO, treachery! Fly, good Fleance, fly, fly, fly! They attack Banquo

Thou mayst revenge.— O slave! He dies. Fleance flees

THIRD MURDERERWho did strike out the light?

FIRST MURDERERWas’t not the way?[28]

THIRD MURDERERThere’s but one down: the son is fled.

30

SECOND MURDERERWe have lost best half of our affair.

FIRST MURDERERWell, let’s away, and say how much is done.

Exeunt

Act 3 Scene 43.4

running scene 12

Banquet prepared. Enter Macbeth, Lady [Macbeth], Ross, Lennox, Lords and Attendants

MACBETHYou know your own degrees,[1] sit down: at first

And last the hearty welcome. They sit

LORDSThanks to your majesty.

MACBETHOurself will mingle with society[4]

5

And play the humble host:

Our hostess keeps her state,[6] but in best time

We will require her welcome.[7]

LADY MACBETHPronounce it for me, sir, to all our friends,

For my heart speaks they are welcome.

Enter First Murderer [at the door]

10

MACBETHSee, they encounter[10] thee with their hearts’ thanks.

Both[11] sides are even: here I’ll sit i’th’midst.

Be large in mirth,[12] anon we’ll drink a measure

The table round.— Moves to the door

There’s blood upon thy face. To First Murderer

FIRST MURDERER’Tis Banquo’s then.

15

MACBETH’Tis better thee[15] without than he within.

Is he dispatched?[16]

FIRST MURDERERMy lord, his throat is cut: that I did for him.

MACBETHThou art the best o’th’cut-throats.

Yet he’s good that did the like for Fleance:

20

If thou didst it, thou art the nonpareil.[20]

FIRST MURDERERMost royal sir, Fleance is scaped.[21]

MACBETHThen comes my fit[22] again. I had else been perfect,

Whole as the marble, founded[23] as the rock,

As broad and general[24] as the casing air:

25

But now I am cabined,[25] cribbed, confined, bound in

To saucy[26] doubts and fears. But Banquo’s safe?

FIRST MURDERERAy, my good lord: safe in a ditch he bides,[27]

With twenty trenchèd[28] gashes on his head,

The least[29] a death to nature.

30

MACBETHThanks for that.—

There the grown serpent lies: the worm[31] that’s fled

Hath nature that in time will venom breed,

No teeth for th’present.— Get thee gone: tomorrow

We’ll hear ourselves[34] again.

Exit Murderer

35

LADY MACBETHMy royal lord,

You do not give the cheer:[36] the feast is sold

That is not often vouched, while ’tis a-making,

’Tis given with welcome. To[38] feed were best at home:

From thence,[39] the sauce to meat is ceremony:

40

Meeting[40] were bare without it.

Enter the Ghost of Banquo, and sits in Macbeth’s place

MACBETHSweet remembrancer.[41]

Now, good digestion wait on appetite,

And health on both!

LENNOXMay’t please your highness sit.

45

MACBETHHere had we[45] now our country’s honour roofed,

Were the graced[46] person of our Banquo present,

Who may I rather challenge[47] for unkindness

Than pity for mischance.[48]

ROSSHis absence, sir,

50

Lays[50] blame upon his promise. Please’t your highness

To grace us with your royal company?

MACBETHThe table’s full.

LENNOXHere is a place reserved, sir.

MACBETHWhere?

55

LENNOXHere, my good lord. What is’t that moves[55] your highness?

MACBETHWhich of you have done this?

LORDSWhat, my good lord?

MACBETHThou canst not say I did it: never shake

Thy gory locks[59] at me.

60

ROSSGentlemen, rise: his highness is not well. The Lords begin to rise

LADY MACBETHSit, worthy friends: my lord is often thus,

And hath been from his youth. Pray you keep seat,

The fit is momentary: upon a thought[63]

He will again be well. If much you note him,[64]

65

You shall offend him and extend his passion:[65]

Feed, and regard[66] him not.—

Are you a man? Lady Macbeth and Macbeth speak aside

MACBETHAy, and a bold one, that dare look on that

Which might appal the devil.

70

LADY MACBETHO, proper stuff![70]

This is the very painting[71] of your fear:

This is the air-drawn[72] dagger which you said

Led you to Duncan. O, these flaws[73] and starts —

Impostors to[74] true fear — would well become

75

A woman’s story at a winter’s fire,

Authorized[76] by her grandam. Shame itself!

Why do you make such faces? When all’s done,

You look but on a stool.

MACBETHPrithee see there! Behold, look, lo![79]— How say you?

80

Why, what care I? If thou canst nod, speak too.

If charnel houses[81] and our graves must send

Those that we bury back, our monuments[82]

Shall be the maws of kites.

[Exit Ghosi]

LADY MACBETHWhat, quite unmanned[84] in folly?

85

MACBETHIf I stand here, I saw him.

LADY MACBETHFie,[86] for shame!

MACBETHBlood hath been shed ere now, i’th’olden time,

Ere[88] human statute purged the gentle weal:

Ay, and since too, murders have been performed

90

Too terrible for the ear. The time has been

That, when the brains were out, the man would die,

And there an end: but now they rise again

With twenty mortal murders[93] on their crowns,

And push us from our stools:[94] this is more strange

95

Than such a murder is.

LADY MACBETHMy worthy lord,

Your noble friends do lack[97] you.

MACBETHI do forget.—

Do not muse[99] at me, my most worthy friends, Aloud

100

I have a strange infirmity[100] which is nothing

To those that know me. Come, love[101] and health to all,

Then I’ll sit down.— Give me some wine: fill full.— A servant fills his goblet

Enter Ghost

I drink to th’general joy o’th’whole table,

And to our dear friend Banquo, whom we miss:

105

Would he were here! To all, and him, we thirst,[105]

And all to all.[106]

LORDSOur duties[107] and the pledge. They drink

MACBETHAvaunt,[108] and quit my sight! Let the earth hide thee! Sees the Ghost

Thy bones are marrowless, thy blood is cold:

110

Thou hast no speculation[110] in those eyes

Which thou dost glare with.

LADY MACBETHThink of this, good peers,

But as a thing of custom: ’tis no other,

Only it spoils the pleasure of the time.

115

MACBETHWhat man dare, I dare.

Approach thou like the rugged[116] Russian bear,

The armed[117] rhinoceros, or th’Hyrcan tiger:

Take any shape but that,[118] and my firm nerves

Shall never tremble: or be alive again

120

And dare[120] me to the desert with thy sword.

If trembling I inhabit[121] then, protest me

The[122] baby of a girl. Hence, horrible shadow!

Unreal mock’ry,[123] hence!— Why, so: being gone,

[Exit Ghost]

I am a man again.— Pray you sit still. To the Lords

125

LADY MACBETHYou have displaced the mirth,[125] broke the good meeting

With most admired[126] disorder.

MACBETHCan such things be,

And overcome[128] us like a summer’s cloud,

Without our special[129] wonder? You make me strange

130

Even to the disposition that I owe,

When now I think you can behold such sights

And keep the natural ruby of your cheeks

When mine is blanched[133] with fear.

ROSSWhat sights, my lord?

135

LADY MACBETHI pray you speak not: he grows worse and worse:

Question enrages him. At once,[136] goodnight.

Stand[137] not upon the order of your going,

But go at once.

LENNOXGoodnight, and better health

140

Attend his majesty.

LADY MACBETHA kind goodnight to all.

Exeunt Lords.

[Macbeth and Lady Macbeth remain]

MACBETHIt will have blood, they say: blood will have blood.

Stones have been known to move and trees to speak,

Augurs[144] and understood relations have

145

By magot-pies[145] and choughs and rooks brought forth

The secret’st[146] man of blood. What is the night?

LADY MACBETHAlmost at odds[147] with morning, which is which.

MACBETHHow say’st thou,[148] that Macduff denies his person

At our great bidding?

150

LADY MACBETHDid you send[150] to him, sir?

MACBETHI hear it by the way,[151] but I will send.

There’s not a one of them[152] but in his house

I keep a servant fee’d.[153] I will tomorrow —

And betimes[154] I will — to the weyard sisters:

155

More shall they speak, for now I am bent[155] to know

By the worst means,[156] the worst. For mine own good,

All[157] causes shall give way. I am in blood

Stepped in so far, that, should I[158] wade no more,

Returning were[159] as tedious as go o’er.

160

Strange things I have in head,[160] that will to hand,

Which must be acted ere they may be scanned.[161]

LADY MACBETHYou lack the season[162] of all natures, sleep.

MACBETHCome, we’ll to sleep. My strange and self-abuse[163]

Is the initiate[164] fear that wants hard use:

165

We are yet but young in deed.[165]

Exeunt

Act 3 Scene 53.5

running scene 13

Thunder. Enter the three Witches meeting Hecate

FIRST WITCHWhy, how now, Hecate? You look angerly.[1]

HECATEHave I not reason, beldams[2] as you are,

Saucy[3] and overbold? How did you dare

To trade and traffic[4] with Macbeth

5

In riddles and affairs of death;

And I, the mistress of your charms,

The close[7] contriver of all harms,

Was never called to bear[8] my part

Or show the glory of our art?[9]

10

And, which is worse, all you have done

Hath been but for a wayward[11] son,

Spiteful and wrathful, who, as others do,

Loves for his own ends, not for you.

But make amends now: get you gone,

15

And at the pit of Acheron[15]

Meet me i’th’morning: thither he

Will come to know his destiny:

Your vessels[18] and your spells provide,

Your charms and everything beside.

20

I am for th’air. This night I’ll spend[20]

Unto a dismal[21] and a fatal end:

Great business must be wrought[22] ere noon.

Upon the corner of the moon

There hangs a vap’rous drop[24] profound:

25

I’ll catch it ere it come to ground,

And that distilled by magic sleights,[26]

Shall raise such artificial[27] sprites

As by the strength of their illusion[28]

Shall draw him on to his confusion.[29]

30

He shall spurn[30] fate, scorn death, and bear

His hopes ’bove[31] wisdom, grace and fear.

And you all know, security[32]

Is mortals’ chiefest enemy.

Music and a song

Hark, I am called: my little spirit, see,

35

Sits in a foggy cloud and stays[35] for me.

[Exit]

Sing within: ‘Come away, come away’ etc.

FIRST WITCHCome, let’s make haste: she’ll soon be back again.

Exeunt

Act 3 Scene 63.6

running scene 14

Enter Lennox and another Lord

LENNOXMy former speeches have but hit[1] your thoughts,

Which[2] can interpret further: only I say

Things have been strangely borne.[3] The gracious Duncan

Was pitied of[4] Macbeth, marry, he was dead:

5

And the right-valiant Banquo walked too late,[5]

Whom you may say — if’t please you — Fleance killed,

For Fleance fled: men must not walk too late.

Who cannot[8] want the thought how monstrous

It was for Malcolm and for Donalbain

10

To kill their gracious father? Damnèd fact![10]

How it did grieve Macbeth! Did he not straight[11]

In pious[12] rage the two delinquents tear

That were the slaves of drink and thralls[13] of sleep?

Was not that nobly done? Ay, and wisely too,

15

For ’twould have angered any heart alive

To hear the men deny’t. So that I say

He has borne all things well,[17] and I do think

That had he Duncan’s sons under his key[18] —

As, an’t[19] please heaven, he shall not — they should find

20

What ’twere to kill a father: so should Fleance.[20]

But, peace! For from[21] broad words and cause he failed

His presence at the tyrant’s feast, I hear

Macduff lives in disgrace. Sir, can you tell

Where he bestows himself?[24]

25

LORDThe son of Duncan[25] —

From whom this tyrant holds[26] the due of birth —

Lives in the English court, and is received

Of[28] the most pious Edward with such grace

That the malevolence of fortune[29] nothing

30

Takes[30] from his high respect. Thither Macduff

Is gone to pray[31] the holy king, upon his aid

To wake[32] Northumberland and warlike Siward,

That by the help of these — with him above

To ratify[34] the work — we may again

35

Give to our tables meat,[35] sleep to our nights,

Free[36] from our feasts and banquets bloody knives,

Do faithful homage,[37] and receive free honours,

All which we pine for now: and this report[38]

Hath so exasperate[39] their king that he

40

Prepares for some attempt of war.

LENNOXSent he[41] to Macduff?

LORDHe did: and with an absolute[42] ‘Sir, not I’,

The cloudy[43] messenger turns me his back

And hums,[44] as who should say, ‘You’ll rue the time

45

That clogs[45] me with this answer.’

LENNOXAnd that well might

Advise[47] him to a caution, t’hold what distance

His wisdom can provide. Some holy angel

Fly to the court of England and unfold

50

His message ere he come, that[50] a swift blessing

May soon return to this our suffering[51] country

Under a hand accursed.

LORDI’ll send my prayers with him.

Exeunt

Act 4 Scene 14.1

running scene 15

Thunder. Enter the three Witches

FIRST WITCHThrice the brinded[1] cat hath mewed.

SECOND WITCHThrice and once the hedge-pig[2] whined.

THIRD WITCHHarpier[3] cries: ’tis time, ’tis time!

FIRST WITCHRound about the cauldron go:

5

In the poisoned entrails[5] throw.

Toad, that under cold stone

Days[7] and nights has thirty-one

Sweltered venom sleeping got,

Boil thou first i’th’charmèd pot. They dance around the cauldron

10

ALLDouble, double, toil[10] and trouble:

Fire burn, and cauldron bubble.

SECOND WITCHFillet[12] of a fenny snake,

In the cauldron boil and bake:

Eye of newt and toe of frog,

15

Wool[15] of bat and tongue of dog,

Adder’s fork[16] and blindworm’s sting,

Lizard’s leg and howlet’s[17] wing,

For a charm of powerful trouble,

Like a hell-broth boil and bubble.

20

ALLDouble, double, toil and trouble:

Fire burn, and cauldron bubble.

THIRD WITCHScale of dragon, tooth of wolf,

Witches’ mummy,[23] maw and gulf

Of the ravined[24] salt-sea shark,

25

Root of hemlock[25] digged i’th’dark,

Liver of blaspheming[26] Jew,

Gall of goat, and slips[27] of yew

Slivered[28] in the moon’s eclipse,

Nose of Turk and Tartar’s[29] lips,

30

Finger of birth-strangled[30] babe

Ditch-delivered[31] by a drab,

Make the gruel thick and slab:[32]

Add thereto a tiger’s chaudron,[33]

For th’ingredients of our cauldron.

35

ALLDouble, double, toil and trouble:

Fire burn, and cauldron bubble.

SECOND WITCHCool it with a baboon’s blood,

Then the charm is firm and good.

Enter Hecate and the other three Witches

HECATEO, well done: I commend your pains,

40

And everyone shall share i’th’gains.

And now about the cauldron sing

Like elves and fairies in a ring,

Enchanting all that you put in.

Music and a song: ‘Black spirits’, etc.

[Exit Hecate and the other three Witches?]

SECOND WITCHBy the pricking[44] of my thumbs,

45

Something wicked this way comes. Knock

Open, locks, whoever knocks.

Enter Macbeth

MACBETHHow now, you secret, black[47] and midnight hags?

What is’t you do?

ALLA deed without a name.

50

MACBETHI conjure[50] you, by that which you profess —

Howe’er you come to know it — answer me:

Though[52] you untie the winds and let them fight

Against the churches, though the yeasty[53] waves

Confound[54] and swallow navigation up,

55

Though bladed corn[55] be lodged and trees blown down,

Though castles topple on their warders’[56] heads,

Though palaces and pyramids do slope[57]

Their heads to their foundations, though the treasure

Of nature’s germens[59] tumble all together,

60

Even till destruction sicken,[60] answer me

To what I ask you.

FIRST WITCHSpeak.

SECOND WITCHDemand.

THIRD WITCHWe’ll answer.

65

FIRST WITCHSay, if thou’dst rather hear it from our mouths

FIRST WITCH Or from our masters?

MACBETHCall ’em: let me see ’em.

FIRST WITCHPour in sow’s blood, that hath eaten

FIRST WITCH Her nine farrow:[69] grease that’s sweaten

70

From the murderer’s gibbet[70] throw

Into the flame.

ALLCome high or low,

Thyself and office[73] deftly show!

Thunder. First Apparition, an armed head

MACBETHTell me, thou unknown power—

75

FIRST WITCHHe knows thy thought:

Hear his speech, but say thou nought.

FIRST APPARITIONMacbeth, Macbeth, Macbeth: beware Macduff,

Beware the Thane of Fife. Dismiss me. Enough.

He descends[78]

MACBETHWhate’er thou art, for thy good caution, thanks:

80

Thou hast harped[80] my fear aright. But one word more—

FIRST WITCHHe will not be commanded. Here’s another,

More potent than the first.

Thunder. Second Apparition, a bloody child

SECOND APPARITIONMacbeth, Macbeth, Macbeth!

MACBETHHad I three ears, I’d hear thee.

85

SECOND APPARITIONBe bloody, bold and resolute: laugh to scorn

The power of man, for none of woman born

Shall harm Macbeth.

Descends

MACBETHThen live, Macduff: what need I fear of thee?

But yet I’ll make assurance[89] double sure,

90

And take a bond[90] of fate: thou shalt not live,

That I may tell pale-hearted fear it lies,

And sleep in spite of thunder.

Thunder. Third Apparition, a child crowned, with a tree in his hand

What is this

That rises like the issue of a king

And wears upon his baby-brow the round[94]

95

And top of sovereignty?

ALLListen, but speak not to’t.

THIRD APPARITIONBe lion-mettled,[97] proud, and take no care

Who chafes, who frets,[98] or where conspirers are:

Macbeth shall never vanquished be until

100

Great Birnam[100] Wood to high Dunsinane Hill

Shall come against him.

Descend

MACBETHThat will never be:

Who can impress[103] the forest, bid the tree

Unfix his earth-bound root? Sweet bodements,[104] good!

105

Rebellious dead,[105] rise never till the wood

Of Birnam rise, and our high-placed Macbeth

Shall live the lease of nature,[107] pay his breath

To time and mortal custom.[108] Yet my heart

Throbs to know one thing: tell me, if your art

110

Can tell so much: shall Banquo’s issue ever

Reign in this kingdom?

ALLSeek to know no more.

MACBETHI will be satisfied: deny me this,

And an eternal curse fall on you! Let me know.

115

Why sinks that cauldron? And what noise is this?

Hautboys Cauldron sinks

FIRST WITCHShow.

SECOND WITCHShow.

THIRD WITCHShow.

ALLShow his eyes, and grieve his heart:

120

Come like shadows, so[120] depart!

A show of eight kings and Banquo last: [the eighth king] with a glass in his hand

MACBETHThou art too like the spirit of Banquo: down!

Thy crown does sear[122] mine eyeballs: and thy hair,

Thou other[123] gold-bound brow, is like the first:

A third is like the former.— Filthy hags,

125

Why do you show me this?— A fourth? Start,[125] eyes!

What, will the line stretch out to th’crack of doom?[126]

Another yet? A seventh? I’ll see no more:

And yet the eighth appears, who bears a glass

Which shows me many more: and some I see

130

That two-fold[130] balls and treble sceptres carry.

Horrible sight! Now I see ’tis true,

For the blood-boltered[132] Banquo smiles upon me,

And points at them for his.[133]

[Exeunt kings and Banquo]

What, is this so?

FIRST WITCHAy, sir, all this is so: but why

135

Stands Macbeth thus amazedly?[135]—

Come, sisters, cheer we up his sprites[136]

And show the best of our delights.

I’ll charm the air to give a sound,

While you perform your antic round,[139]

140

That this great king may kindly[140] say,

Our[141] duties did his welcome pay.

Music

The Witches dance and vanish

MACBETHWhere are they? Gone? Let this pernicious[142] hour

Stand aye[143] accursèd in the calendar!—

Come in, without[144] there!

Enter Lennox

145

LENNOXWhat’s your grace’s will?

MACBETHSaw you the weyard sisters?

LENNOXNo, my lord.

MACBETHCame they not by you?

LENNOXNo, indeed, my lord.

150

MACBETHInfected be the air whereon they ride,

And damned all those that trust them! I did hear

The galloping of horse:[152] who was’t came by?

LENNOX’Tis two or three, my lord, that bring you word

Macduff is fled to England.

155

MACBETHFled to England?

LENNOXAy, my good lord.

MACBETHTime, thou anticipat’st[157] my dread exploits: Aside

The flighty[158] purpose never is o’ertook

Unless the[159] deed go with it. From this moment

160

The[160] very firstlings of my heart shall be

The firstlings of my hand. And even now,

To crown my thoughts with acts, be it thought and done:

The castle of Macduff I will surprise,[163]

Seize upon Fife,[164] give to th’edge o’th’sword

165

His wife, his babes, and all unfortunate souls

That trace[166] him in his line. No boasting like a fool,

This deed I’ll do before this purpose cool.

But no more sights![168]— Where are these gentlemen? To Lennox

Come, bring me where they are.

Exeunt

Act 4 Scene 24.2

running scene 16

Enter Macduff’s Wife, her Son and Ross

LADY MACDUFFWhat had he done to make him fly the land?

ROSSYou must have patience, madam.

LADY MACDUFFHe had none:

His flight was madness: when[4] our actions do not,

5

Our fears do make us traitors.

ROSSYou know not

Whether it was his wisdom or his fear.

LADY MACDUFFWisdom? To leave his wife, to leave his babes,

His mansion and his titles[9] in a place

10

From whence himself does fly? He loves us not:

He wants[11] the natural touch, for the poor wren —

The most diminutive of birds — will fight,

Her young ones in[13] her nest, against the owl.

All is the fear and nothing is the love;

15

As little is the wisdom, where the flight

So runs against all reason.

ROSSMy dearest coz,[17]

I pray you school[18] yourself: but, for your husband,

He is noble, wise, judicious,[19] and best knows

20

The fits o’th’season.[20] I dare not speak much further,

But cruel are the times when we[21] are traitors

And do not know ourselves, when we hold[22] rumour

From what we fear, yet know not what we fear,

But float upon a wild and violent sea

25

Each[25] way and none. I take my leave of you:

Shall not be long but I’ll be here again.

Things at the worst will cease, or else climb upward[27]

To what they were before. My pretty cousin,[28]

Blessing upon you!

30

LADY MACDUFFFathered he is, and yet he’s fatherless.

ROSSI am so much a fool, should I stay longer

It[32] would be my disgrace and your discomfort.

I take my leave at once.

Exit Ross

LADY MACDUFFSirrah, your father’s dead, and what will you do now? How will you live?

SONAs birds do, mother.

LADY MACDUFFWhat, with worms and flies?

SONWith what I get, I mean, and so do they.

LADY MACDUFFPoor[39] bird, thou’dst never fear the net nor lime, the pitfall nor the gin.

SONWhy should I, mother? Poor[40] birds they are not set for. My father is not dead, for all your saying.

LADY MACDUFFYes, he is dead. How wilt thou do for a father?

SONNay, how will you do for a husband?

LADY MACDUFFWhy, I can buy me twenty at any market.

SONThen you’ll buy ’em to sell again.

LADY MACDUFFThou speak’st with all thy wit, and yet, i’faith, with wit enough for thee.

SONWas my father a traitor, Mother?

LADY MACDUFFAy, that he was.

SONWhat is a traitor?

LADY MACDUFFWhy, one that swears and lies.[51]

SONAnd be all traitors that do so?

LADY MACDUFFEveryone that does so is a traitor, and must be hanged.

SONAnd must they all be hanged that swear and lie?

LADY MACDUFFEvery one.

SONWho must hang them?

LADY MACDUFFWhy, the honest men.

SONThen the liars and swearers are fools, for there are liars and swearers enough to beat the honest men and hang up[59] them.

LADY MACDUFFNow, God help thee, poor monkey! But how wilt thou do for a father?

SONIf he were dead, you’d weep for him: if you would not, it were a good sign that I should quickly have a new father.

LADY MACDUFFPoor prattler,[63] how thou talk’st!

Enter a Messenger

MESSENGERBless you, fair dame. I am not to you known,

65

Though in[65] your state of honour I am perfect.

I doubt[66] some danger does approach you nearly:

If you will take a homely[67] man’s advice,

Be not found here: hence with your little ones.

To fright you thus, methinks, I am too savage:

70

To do[70] worse to you were fell cruelty,

Which is too nigh your person.[71] Heaven preserve you!

I dare abide no longer.

Exit Messenger

LADY MACDUFFWhither should I fly?

I have done no harm. But I remember now

75

I am in this earthly world, where to do harm

Is often laudable, to do good sometime

Accounted dangerous folly. Why then, alas,

Do I put up that womanly defence

To say I have done no harm?—

80

What are these faces?

Enter Murderers

FIRST MURDERERWhere is your husband?

LADY MACDUFFI hope in no place so unsanctified[82]

Where such as thou mayst find him.

FIRST MURDERERHe’s a traitor.

85

SONThou liest, thou shag-eared[85] villain!

FIRST MURDERERWhat, you egg?[86] Young fry of treachery! Stabs him

SONHe has killed me, mother. Run away, I pray you! Dies

Exit [Lady Macduff,] crying ‘Murder!’ [pursued by the Murderers]

Act 4 Scene 34.3

running scene 17

Enter Malcolm and Macduff

MALCOLMLet us seek out some desolate[1] shade, and there

Weep our sad bosoms empty.

MACDUFFLet us rather

Hold fast[4] the mortal sword, and like good men

5

Bestride[5] our downfall birthdom. Each new morn

New widows howl, new orphans cry, new sorrows

Strike heaven on the face, that[7] it resounds

As if it felt with Scotland and yelled out

Like[9] syllable of dolour.

10

MALCOLMWhat I believe I’ll wail;[10]

What know, believe; and what I can redress,

As I shall find the time to friend,[12] I will.

What you have spoke, it may be so, perchance.[13]

This tyrant, whose sole name[14] blisters our tongues,

15

Was once thought honest.[15] You have loved him well:

He hath not touched[16] you yet. I am young, but something

You may discern of him through me, and wisdom[17]

To offer up a weak, poor, innocent lamb

T’appease an angry god.[19]

20

MACDUFFI am not treacherous.

MALCOLMBut Macbeth is.

A good and virtuous nature may recoil[22]

In an imperial charge.[23] But I shall crave your pardon:

That[24] which you are my thoughts cannot transpose;

25

Angels are bright still, though the brightest[25] fell:

Though all things foul[26] would wear the brows of grace,

Yet grace must still look[27] so.

MACDUFFI have lost my hopes.

MALCOLMPerchance even there[29] where I did find my doubts.

30

Why in that rawness[30] left you wife and child,

Those precious motives,[31] those strong knots of love,

Without leave-taking?[32] I pray you,

Let[33] not my jealousies be your dishonours,

But mine own safeties. You may be rightly just,

35

Whatever I shall think.

MACDUFFBleed, bleed, poor country!

Great tyranny, lay thou thy basis sure,[37]

For goodness dare not check[38] thee: wear thou thy wrongs,

The title is affeered![39]— Fare thee well, lord.

40

I would not be the villain that thou think’st

For the whole space that’s in the tyrant’s grasp,

And the rich east to boot.[42]

MALCOLMBe not offended:

I speak not as in absolute fear of you.

45

I think our country sinks beneath the yoke:[45]

It weeps, it bleeds, and each new day a gash

Is added to her wounds. I think withal[47]

There would be hands uplifted in my right,[48]

And here from gracious England[49] have I offer

50

Of goodly thousands:[50] but, for all this,

When I shall tread upon the tyrant’s head,

Or wear it on my sword, yet my poor country

Shall have more vices than it had before,

More suffer, and more sundry[54] ways than ever,

55

By him that shall succeed.[55]

MACDUFFWhat[56] should he be?

MALCOLMIt is myself I mean, in whom I know

All the particulars[58] of vice so grafted

That, when they shall be opened,[59] black Macbeth

60

Will seem as pure as snow, and the poor state

Esteem[61] him as a lamb, being compared

With my confineless[62] harms.

MACDUFFNot in the legions[63]

Of horrid hell can come a devil more damned

65

In evils to top[65] Macbeth.

MALCOLMI grant him bloody,

Luxurious,[67] avaricious, false, deceitful,

Sudden,[68] malicious, smacking of every sin

That has a name, but there’s no bottom, none,

70

In my voluptuousness:[70] your wives, your daughters,

Your matrons[71] and your maids, could not fill up

The cistern[72] of my lust, and my desire

All continent[73] impediments would o’erbear

That did oppose my will.[74] Better Macbeth

75

Than such an one to reign.

MACDUFFBoundless[76] intemperance

In nature is a tyranny: it hath been

Th’untimely emptying of the happy throne

And fall of many kings. But fear not yet

80

To take upon you what is yours:[80] you may

Convey[81] your pleasures in a spacious plenty,

And yet seem cold.[82] The time you may so hoodwink.

We have willing dames enough: there cannot be

That vulture in you to devour so[84] many

85

As will to greatness dedicate themselves,

Finding it so inclined.

MALCOLMWith this there grows

In my most ill-composed affection[88] such

A stanchless[89] avarice that, were I king,

90

I should cut off[90] the nobles for their lands,

Desire his[91] jewels and this other’s house:

And my more-having[92] would be as a sauce

To make me hunger more, that I should forge[93]

Quarrels unjust against the good and loyal,

95

Destroying them for wealth.

MACDUFFThis avarice

Sticks deeper, grows with more pernicious root

Than summer-seeming[98] lust, and it hath been

The sword[99] of our slain kings. Yet do not fear:

100

Scotland hath foisons[100] to fill up your will

Of[101] your mere own. All these are portable,

With other graces weighed.[102]

MALCOLMBut I have none. The king-becoming[103] graces,

As justice, verity,[104] temp’rance, stableness,

105

Bounty,[105] perseverance, mercy, lowliness,

Devotion, patience, courage, fortitude,

I have no relish[107] of them, but abound

In the division of each several crime,

Acting it many ways. Nay, had I power, I should

110

Pour the sweet milk of concord[110] into hell,

Uproar[111] the universal peace, confound

All unity on earth.

MACDUFFO Scotland, Scotland!

MALCOLMIf such a one be fit to govern, speak:

115

I am as I have spoken.

MACDUFFFit to govern?

No, not to live. O nation miserable,

With an untitled[118] tyrant bloody-sceptred,

When shalt thou see thy wholesome[119] days again,

120

Since that the truest issue of thy throne

By his own interdiction[121] stands accused

And does blaspheme[122] his breed?— Thy royal father

Was a most sainted[123] king: the queen that bore thee,

Oft’ner upon her knees[124] than on her feet,

125

Died[125] every day she lived. Fare thee well.

These evils thou repeat’st upon[126] thyself

Hath[127] banished me from Scotland.— O my breast,

Thy hope ends here!

MALCOLMMacduff, this noble passion,

130

Child of integrity, hath from my soul

Wiped the black scruples,[131] reconciled my thoughts

To thy good truth and honour. Devilish Macbeth

By many of these trains[133] hath sought to win me

Into his power, and modest wisdom plucks[134] me

135

From over-credulous[135] haste: but God above

Deal between thee and me! For even now

I put myself to thy direction[137] and

Unspeak[138] mine own detraction: here abjure

The taints[139] and blames I laid upon myself

140

For[140] strangers to my nature. I am yet

Unknown to woman,[141] never was forsworn,

Scarcely[142] have coveted what was mine own,

At no time broke my faith, would not betray

The devil to his fellow, and delight

145

No less in truth than life. My first false speaking[145]

Was this upon myself.[146] What I am truly

Is thine and my poor country’s to command:

Whither indeed, before thy here-approach,[148]

Old Siward with ten thousand warlike men,

150

Already at a point,[150] was setting forth.

Now we’ll[151] together, and the chance of goodness

Be like our warranted quarrel. Why are you silent?

MACDUFFSuch welcome and unwelcome things at once

’Tis hard to reconcile.

Enter a Doctor

155

MALCOLMWell, more anon.— Comes the king forth, I pray you?

DOCTORAy, sir, there are a crew of wretched souls

That stay[157] his cure: their malady convinces

The great assay of art,[158] but at his touch —

Such sanctity[159] hath heaven given his hand —

160

They presently amend.[160]

Exit

MALCOLMI thank you, doctor.

MACDUFFWhat’s the disease he means?

MALCOLM’Tis called the[163] evil:

A most miraculous work in this good king,

165

Which often, since my here-remain[165] in England,

I have seen him do. How he solicits[166] heaven

Himself best knows: but strangely-visited[167] people,

All swoll’n and ulcerous, pitiful to the eye,

The mere[169] despair of surgery, he cures,

170

Hanging a golden stamp[170] about their necks

Put on with holy prayers: and ’tis spoken,[171]

To the succeeding royalty[172] he leaves

The healing benediction.[173] With this strange virtue

He hath a heavenly gift of prophecy,

175

And sundry blessings hang about his throne

That speak him[176] full of grace.

Enter Ross

MACDUFFSee who comes here.

MALCOLMMy countryman,[178] but yet I know him not.

MACDUFFMy ever-gentle[179] cousin, welcome hither.

180

MALCOLMI know him now. Good God betimes[180] remove

The means[181] that makes us strangers!

ROSSSir, amen.

MACDUFFStands Scotland where it did?

ROSSAlas, poor country,

185

Almost afraid to know itself. It cannot

Be called our mother, but our grave; where nothing[186]

But who knows nothing is once seen to smile:

Where sighs and groans and shrieks that rend the air

Are made, not marked:[189] where violent sorrow seems

190

A modern ecstasy.[190] The dead man’s knell

Is there scarce asked for who, and good men’s lives

Expire before the flowers in their caps,

Dying or[193] ere they sicken.

MACDUFFO, relation[194] too nice, and yet too true!

195

MALCOLMWhat’s the newest grief?

ROSSThat of an hour’s age doth hiss the speaker:[196]

Each minute teems[197] a new one.

MACDUFFHow does my wife?

ROSSWhy, well.

200

MACDUFFAnd all my children?

ROSSWell, too.

MACDUFFThe tyrant has not battered at their peace?

ROSSNo, they were well at peace[203] when I did leave ’em.

MACDUFFBe not a niggard of[204] your speech: how goes’t?

205

ROSSWhen I came hither to transport the tidings

Which I have heavily[206] borne, there ran a rumour

Of many worthy fellows that were out,[207]

Which was to my belief witnessed the rather,[208]

For that I saw the tyrant’s power[209] afoot.

210

Now is the time of help.— Your eye[210] in Scotland To Malcolm

Would create soldiers, make our women fight,

To doff[212] their dire distresses.

MALCOLMBe’t[213] their comfort

We are coming thither. Gracious England hath

215

Lent us good Siward and ten thousand men:

An[216] older and a better soldier none

That Christendom gives out.

ROSSWould I could answer

This comfort with the like.[219] But I have words

220

That would[220] be howled out in the desert air,

Where hearing should not latch[221] them.

MACDUFFWhat concern they?

The general cause?[223] Or is it a fee-grief

Due to some single breast?

225

ROSSNo mind that’s honest

But in it shares some woe, though the main part

Pertains to you alone.

MACDUFFIf it be mine,

Keep it not from me, quickly let me have it.

230

ROSSLet not your ears despise my tongue for ever,

Which shall possess them with[231] the heaviest sound

That ever yet they heard.

MACDUFFHum! I guess at it.

ROSSYour castle is surprised,[234] your wife and babes

235

Savagely slaughtered: to relate the manner[235]

Were, on the quarry[236] of these murdered deer,

To add the death of you.

MALCOLMMerciful heaven!

What, man, ne’er pull[239] your hat upon your brows:

240

Give sorrow words. The grief that does not speak

Whispers[241] the o’er-fraught heart and bids it break.

MACDUFFMy children too?

ROSSWife, children, servants, all that could be found.

MACDUFFAnd I must[244] be from thence! My wife killed too?

245

ROSSI have said.

MALCOLMBe comforted:

Let’s make us med’cines of our great revenge,

To cure this deadly grief.

MACDUFFHe[249] has no children.— All my pretty ones?

250

Did you say all? O hell-kite![250] All?

What, all my pretty chickens and their dam[251]

At one fell swoop?[252]

MALCOLMDispute[253] it like a man.

MACDUFFI shall do so,

255

But I must also feel it as a man:

I cannot but remember such things were

That were most precious to me. Did heaven look on

And would not take their part? Sinful Macduff,

They were all struck[259] for thee! Naught that I am,

260

Not for their own demerits,[260] but for mine,

Fell[261] slaughter on their souls. Heaven rest them now!

MALCOLMBe this the whetstone[262] of your sword. Let grief

Convert to anger: blunt not the heart, enrage it.

MACDUFFO, I could play[264] the woman with mine eyes

265

And braggart[265] with my tongue! But, gentle heavens,

Cut short all intermission.[266] Front to front

Bring thou this fiend of Scotland and myself:

Within my sword’s length set him. If he scape,[268]

Heaven forgive him too!

270

MALCOLMThis tune[270] goes manly.

Come, go we to the king. Our power[271] is ready:

Our[272] lack is nothing but our leave. Macbeth

Is ripe for shaking,[273] and the powers above

Put[274] on their instruments. Receive what cheer you may:

275

The night is long that never finds the day.

Exeunt

Act 5 Scene 15.1

running scene 18

Enter a Doctor of Physic and a Waiting-Gentlewoman

DOCTORI have two nights watched[1] with you, but can perceive no truth in your report. When was it she last walked?[2]

GENTLEWOMANSince his majesty went into the field,[3] I have seen her rise from her bed, throw her nightgown upon her, unlock her closet,[4] take forth paper, fold it, write upon’t, read it, afterwards seal it, and again return to bed; yet all this while in a most fast sleep.

DOCTORA great perturbation[7] in nature, to receive at once the benefit of sleep and do the effects of watching.[8] In this slumbery agitation, besides her walking and other actual performances, what — at any time — have you heard her say?

GENTLEWOMANThat, sir, which I will not report after her.

DOCTORYou may to me, and ’tis most meet[11] you should.

GENTLEWOMANNeither to you nor anyone, having no witness to confirm my speech.

Enter Lady [Macbeth], with a taper

Lo you, here she comes. This is her very guise,[13] and, upon my life, fast asleep. Observe her: stand close.[14] They stand aside

DOCTORHow came she by that light?

GENTLEWOMANWhy, it stood by her. She has light by her continually: ’tis her command.

DOCTORYou see her eyes are open.

GENTLEWOMANAy, but their sense are shut.

DOCTORWhat is it she does now? Look how she rubs her hands.

GENTLEWOMANIt is an accustomed action with her to seem thus washing her hands: I have known her continue in this a quarter of an hour.

LADY MACBETHYet here’s a spot.

DOCTORHark, she speaks. I will set down[24] what comes from her, to satisfy my remembrance[25] the more strongly.

LADY MACBETHOut, damned spot! Out, I say!— One: two:[26] why then, ’tis time to do’t.— Hell is murky.— Fie, my lord, fie, a soldier, and afeard? What need we fear who knows it, when none[28] can call our power to account?— Yet who would have thought the old man to have had so much blood in him?

DOCTORDo you mark that?

LADY MACBETHThe Thane of Fife[31] had a wife: where is she now?— What, will these hands ne’er be clean?— No more o’that, my lord, no more o’that: you mar[32] all with this starting.[33]

DOCTORGo to,[34] go to: you have known what you should not.

GENTLEWOMANShe has spoke what she should not, I am sure of that: heaven knows what she has known.

LADY MACBETHHere’s the smell of the blood still. All the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand. O, O, O!

DOCTORWhat a sigh is there! The heart is sorely charged.[39]

GENTLEWOMANI would not have such a heart in my bosom for the dignity[40] of the whole body.

DOCTORWell, well, well.

GENTLEWOMANPray God it be,[43] sir.

DOCTORThis disease is beyond my practice.[44] Yet I have known those which have walked in their sleep who have died holily in their beds.

LADY MACBETHWash your hands, put on your nightgown, look not so pale. I tell you yet again, Banquo’s buried; he cannot come out on’s[47] grave.

DOCTOREven so?[48]

LADY MACBETHTo bed, to bed. There’s knocking at the gate. Come, come, come, come, give me your hand. What’s done cannot be undone. To bed, to bed, to bed.

Exit Lady [Macbeth]

DOCTORWill she go now to bed?

GENTLEWOMANDirectly.

DOCTORFoul whisp’rings are abroad. Unnatural deeds

Do breed unnatural troubles: infected minds

55

To their deaf pillows will discharge their secrets.

More needs she the divine[56] than the physician.

God, God forgive us all! Look after her:

Remove from her the means of all annoyance,[58]

And still[59] keep eyes upon her. So, goodnight.

60

My mind she has mated,[60] and amazed my sight.

I think, but dare not speak.

GENTLEWOMANGoodnight, good doctor.

Exeunt

Act 5 Scene 25.2

running scene 19

Drum and Colours. Enter Menteith, Caithness, Angus, Lennox [and] Soldiers

MENTEITHThe English power is near, led on by Malcolm,

His uncle Siward and the good Macduff.

Revenges burn in them, for their dear[3] causes

Would to the bleeding[4] and the grim alarm

5

Excite[5] the mortified man.

ANGUSNear Birnam Wood

Shall we well meet them: that way are they coming.

CAITHNESSWho knows if Donalbain be with his brother?

LENNOXFor certain, sir, he is not: I have a file[9]

10

Of all the gentry: there is Siward’s son,

And many unrough[11] youths that even now

Protest[12] their first of manhood.

MENTEITHWhat does the tyrant?

CAITHNESSGreat Dunsinane[14] he strongly fortifies.

15

Some say he’s mad, others that lesser hate him

Do call it valiant fury: but for certain

He cannot buckle[17] his distempered cause

Within the belt of rule.

ANGUSNow does he feel

20

His secret murders sticking[20] on his hands,

Now minutely[21] revolts upbraid his faith-breach.

Those he commands move[22] only in command,

Nothing in love: now does he feel his title

Hang loose about him, like a giant’s robe

25

Upon a dwarfish thief.

MENTEITHWho then shall blame

His pestered[27] senses to recoil and start,

When all that is within him does condemn

Itself for being there?

30

CAITHNESSWell, march we on

To give obedience where ’tis truly owed:

Meet we the med’cine[32] of the sickly weal,

And with him pour we in our country’s purge[33]

Each drop[34] of us.

35

LENNOXOr so much as it needs

To dew[36] the sovereign flower and drown the weeds.

Make we our march towards Birnam.

Exeunt, marching

Act 5 Scene 35.3

running scene 20

Enter Macbeth, Doctor and Attendants

MACBETHBring me no more reports. Let them[1] fly all:

Till Birnam Wood remove[2] to Dunsinane,

I cannot taint[3] with fear. What’s the boy Malcolm?

Was he not born of woman? The spirits that know

5

All mortal consequences[5] have pronounced me thus:

‘Fear not, Macbeth: no man that’s born of woman

Shall e’er have power upon thee.’ Then fly, false thanes,

And mingle with the English epicures.[8]

The mind I sway by[9] and the heart I bear

10

Shall never sag with doubt nor shake with fear.

Enter Servant

The devil damn thee black, thou cream-faced[11] loon!

Where got’st thou that goose[12] look?

SERVANTThere is ten thousand—

MACBETHGeese, villain?

15

SERVANTSoldiers, sir.

MACBETHGo prick thy face and over-red[16] thy fear,

Thou lily-livered[17] boy. What soldiers, patch?

Death of[18] thy soul! Those linen cheeks of thine

Are counsellors to[19] fear. What soldiers, whey-face?

20

SERVANTThe English force, so please you.

MACBETHTake thy face hence.—

[Exit Servant]

Seyton![21]— I am sick at heart,

When I behold— Seyton, I say!— This push[22]

Will cheer[23] me ever, or disseat me now.

I have lived long enough: my way[24] of life

25

Is fall’n into the sear,[25] the yellow leaf,

And that which should accompany old age,

As[27] honour, love, obedience, troops of friends,

I must not look to have, but in their stead[28]

Curses, not loud but deep, mouth-honour,[29] breath,

30

Which the poor heart would fain[30] deny and dare not.— Seyton!

Enter Seyton

SEYTONWhat’s your gracious pleasure?

MACBETHWhat news more?

SEYTONAll is confirmed, my lord, which was reported.

MACBETHI’ll fight till from my bones my flesh be hacked.

35

Give me my armour.

SEYTON’Tis not needed yet.

MACBETHI’ll put it on.

Send out more horses: skirr[38] the country round:

Hang those that talk of fear. Give me mine armour.— Seyton gets the armor

40

How does your patient, doctor?

DOCTORNot so sick,[41] my lord,

As she is troubled with thick-coming[42] fancies

That keep her from her rest.

MACBETHCure her of that.

45

Canst thou not minister to a mind diseased,

Pluck from the memory a rooted sorrow,

Raze out[47] the written troubles of the brain,

And with some sweet oblivious[48] antidote

Cleanse the stuffed[49] bosom of that perilous stuff

50

Which weighs upon the heart?

DOCTORTherein the patient

Must minister to himself.

MACBETHThrow physic to the dogs, I’ll none of it.—

Come, put mine armour on: give me my staff.[54]— To Attendants, who arm him

55

Seyton, send out.[55] Doctor, the thanes fly from me.—

Come, sir, dispatch.[56]— If thou couldst, doctor, cast

The water of my land, find her disease,

And purge it to a sound and pristine[58] health,

I would applaud thee to the very echo,

60

That should applaud again.— Pull’t off,[60] I say.— To Attendants

What rhubarb,[61] cyme, or what purgative drug To Doctor

Would scour[62] these English hence? Hear’st thou of them?

DOCTORAy, my good lord: your royal preparation[63]

Makes us hear something.

65

MACBETHBring it[65] after me.— To Seyton or Attendants

I will not be afraid of death and bane,[66]

Till Birnam Forest come to Dunsinane.

DOCTORWere I from Dunsinane away and clear,[68] Aside

Profit again should hardly[69] draw me here.

Exeunt

Act 5 Scene 45.4

running scene 21

Drum and Colours. Enter Malcolm, Siward, Macduff, Siward’s Son, Menteith, Caithness, Angus and Soldiers, marching

MALCOLMCousins, I hope the days are near at hand

That chambers[2] will be safe.

MENTEITHWe doubt it nothing.[3]

SIWARDWhat wood is this before us?

5

MENTEITHThe wood of Birnam.

MALCOLMLet every soldier hew him down a bough

And bear’t before him: thereby shall we shadow[7]

The numbers of our host[8] and make discovery

Err[9] in report of us.

10

A SOLDIERIt shall be done.

SIWARDWe learn no other but the confident tyrant

Keeps[12] still in Dunsinane and will endure

Our setting down[13] before’t.

MALCOLM’Tis his main hope:

15

For where[15] there is advantage to be given,

Both more[16] and less have given him the revolt,

And none serve with him but constrainèd things

Whose hearts are absent too.

MACDUFFLet[19] our just censures

20

Attend the true event, and put we on

Industrious soldiership.

SIWARDThe time approaches

That will with due[23] decision make us know

What we shall say we have and what we owe.[24]

25

Thoughts[25] speculative their unsure hopes relate,

But certain issue strokes must arbitrate:

Towards which advance the war.

Exeunt, marching

Act 5 Scene 55.5

running scene 22

Enter Macbeth, Seyton, and Soldiers with Drum and Colours

MACBETHHang out our banners on the outward walls:

The cry is still ‘They come.’ Our castle’s strength

Will laugh a siege to scorn: here let them lie

Till famine and the ague[4] eat them up.

5

Were they not forced[5] with those that should be ours,

We might have met them dareful,[6] beard to beard,

And beat them backward home.

A cry within of women

What is that noise?

SEYTONIt is the cry of women, my good lord. Exit or goes to the door

MACBETHI have almost forgot the taste of fears:

10

The time has been my senses would have cooled

To hear a night-shriek, and my fell of hair[11]

Would at a dismal treatise[12] rouse and stir

As[13] life were in’t. I have supped full with horrors:

Direness,[14] familiar to my slaughterous thoughts,

15

Cannot once start me.[15]— Seyton reenters or comes forward

Wherefore was that cry? To Seyton

SEYTONThe queen, my lord, is dead.

MACBETHShe[17] should have died hereafter:

There would have been a time for such a word.[18]

Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow,

20

Creeps in this petty[20] pace from day to day

To the last syllable[21] of recorded time:

And all our yesterdays have lighted[22] fools

The way to dusty[23] death. Out, out, brief candle.

Life’s but a walking shadow,[24] a poor player

25

That struts and frets[25] his hour upon the stage

And then is heard no more. It is a tale

Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,[27]

Signifying nothing.

Enter a Messenger

Thou com’st to use thy tongue: thy story quickly.[29]

30

MESSENGERGracious my lord,

I should report that which I say I saw,

But know not how to do’t.

MACBETHWell, say, sir.

MESSENGERAs I did[34] stand my watch upon the hill,

35

I looked toward Birnam, and anon methought

The wood began to move.

MACBETHLiar and slave!

MESSENGERLet me endure your wrath if’t be not so.

Within this three mile may you see it coming:

40

I say, a moving grove.

MACBETHIf thou speak’st false,

Upon the next tree shall thou hang alive

Till famine cling[43] thee: if thy speech be sooth,

I care not if thou dost[44] for me as much.—

45

I pull in resolution,[45] and begin

To doubt th’equivocation of the fiend[46]

That lies like truth. ‘Fear not, till Birnam Wood

Do come to Dunsinane’, and now a wood

Comes toward Dunsinane.— Arm, arm, and out!

50

If this which he avouches[50] does appear,

There is nor[51] flying hence nor tarrying here.—

I ’gin[52] to be aweary of the sun,

And wish th’estate[52] o’th’world were now undone.—

Ring the alarum bell! Blow wind, come wrack,[54]

55

At least we’ll die with harness[55] on our back.

Exeunt

Act 5 Scene 65.6

running scene 23

Drum and Colours. Enter Malcolm, Siward, Macduff and their army, with boughs

MALCOLMNow near enough. Your leafy screens throw down,

And show[2] like those you are. You, worthy uncle,

Shall with my cousin, your right noble son,

Lead our first battle.[4] Worthy Macduff and we

5

Shall take upon’s what else remains to do,

According to our order.[6]

SIWARDFare you well.

Do[8] we but find the tyrant’s power tonight,

Let us be beaten if we cannot fight.

10

MACDUFFMake all our trumpets speak: give them all breath,

Those clamorous harbingers[11] of blood and death.

Exeunt. Alarums continued

Act 5 Scene 7

running scene 23 continues

Enter Macbeth

MACBETHThey have tied me to a stake: I cannot fly,

But bear-like[2] I must fight the course. What’s he

That was not born of woman? Such a one

Am I to fear, or none.

Enter Young Siward

5

YOUNG SIWARDWhat is thy name?

MACBETHThou’lt be afraid to hear it.

YOUNG SIWARDNo, though thou call’st thyself a hotter name

Than any is[8] in hell.

MACBETHMy name’s Macbeth.

10

YOUNG SIWARDThe devil himself could not pronounce a title

More hateful to mine ear.

MACBETHNo, nor more fearful.

YOUNG SIWARD Thou liest, abhorrèd tyrant: with my sword

I’ll prove the lie thou speak’st.

Fight and Young Siward slain

15

MACBETHThou wast born of woman.

But swords I smile at, weapons laugh to scorn,

Brandished by man that’s of a woman born.

Exit

Alarums. Enter Macduff

MACDUFFThat way the noise is. Tyrant, show thy face.

If thou be’st slain, and with no stroke of mine,

20

My wife and children’s ghosts will haunt me still.

I cannot strike at wretched kerns,[21] whose arms

Are hired to bear their staves:[22] either thou, Macbeth,

Or else my sword with an unbattered edge

I sheathe again undeeded.[24] There thou shouldst be:

25

By this great clatter, one of greatest note[25]

Seems bruited.[26] Let me find him, Fortune,

And more I beg not.

Exit. Alarums

Enter Malcolm and Siward

SIWARDThis way, my lord. The castle’s gently rendered:[28]

The tyrant’s people on both sides do fight,

30

The noble thanes do bravely in the war,

The[31] day almost itself professes yours,

And little is to do.

MALCOLMWe have met with foes that strike beside us.[33]

SIWARDEnter, sir, the castle.

Exeunt. Alarum

Enter Macbeth

35

MACBETHWhy should I play[35] the Roman fool and die

On mine own sword? Whiles I see lives,[36] the gashes

Do better upon them.

Enter Macduff

MACDUFFTurn, hell-hound, turn.

MACBETHOf all men else[39] I have avoided thee.

40

But get thee back: my soul is too much charged[40]

With blood of thine already.

MACDUFFI have no words:

My voice is in my sword, thou bloodier villain

Than terms[44] can give thee out.

Fight. Alarum

45

MACBETHThou losest labour.[45]

As easy mayst thou the intrenchant[46] air

With thy keen[47] sword impress as make me bleed.

Let fall thy blade on vulnerable crests:[48]

I bear a charmed life, which must not yield

50

To one of woman born.

MACDUFFDespair thy charm,

And let the angel[52] whom thou still hast served

Tell thee: Macduff was from his mother’s womb

Untimely[54] ripped.

55

MACBETHAccursèd be that tongue that tells me so,

For it hath cowed[56] my better part of man.

And be these juggling[57] fiends no more believed

That palter[58] with us in a double sense,

That keep[59] the word of promise to our ear

60

And break it to our hope. I’ll not fight with thee.

MACDUFFThen yield thee, coward,

And live to be the show[62] and gaze o’th’time:

We’ll have thee, as our rarer monsters are,

Painted upon a pole,[64] and underwrit,

65

‘Here may you see the tyrant.’

MACBETHI will not yield

To kiss the ground before young Malcolm’s feet

And to be baited with the rabble’s[68] curse.

Though Birnam Wood be come to Dunsinane,

70

And thou opposed,[70] being of no woman born,

Yet I will try the last.[71] Before my body

I throw my warlike shield. Lay on,[72] Macduff,

And damned be him that first cries, ‘Hold, enough!’

Exeunt fighting. Alarums

Enter fighting, and Macbeth slain

[Exit Macduff with Macbeth’s body]

Retreat and flourish. Enter, with Drum and Colours, Malcolm, Siward, Ross, Thanes and Soldiers

MALCOLMI would[74] the friends we miss were safe arrived.

75

SIWARDSome must go off:[75] and yet, by these I see

So great a day as this is cheaply bought.

MALCOLMMacduff is missing, and your noble son.

ROSSYour son, my lord, has paid a soldier’s debt:[78]

To Siward

He only lived but till he was a man,

80

The which no sooner had his prowess[80] confirmed

In the unshrinking station[81] where he fought,

But like a man he died.

SIWARDThen he is dead?

ROSSAy, and brought off the field. Your cause of sorrow

85

Must not be measured by his worth, for then

It hath no end.

SIWARDHad he his hurts before?[87]

ROSSAy, on the front.

SIWARDWhy then, God’s soldier be he!

90

Had I as many sons as I have hairs[90]

I would not wish them to a fairer death:

And so his knell is knolled.[92]

MALCOLMHe’s worth more sorrow,

And that I’ll spend[94] for him.

95

SIWARDHe’s worth no more.

They say he parted well and paid his score,[96]

And so God be with him! Here comes newer comfort.

Enter Macduff with Macbeth’s head

MACDUFFHail, king, for so thou art. Behold where stands[98]

Th’usurper’s cursèd head. The time is free:[99]

100

I see thee compassed[100] with thy kingdom’s pearl,

That speak my salutation[101] in their minds,

Whose voices I desire aloud with mine:

Hail, King of Scotland!

ALLHail, King of Scotland!

Flourish

105

MALCOLMWe shall not spend[105] a large expense of time

Before we reckon[106] with your several loves

And make[107] us even with you. My thanes and kinsmen,

Henceforth be earls, the first that ever Scotland

In such an honour named. What’s more to do

110

Which would be planted[110] newly with the time,

As calling home our exiled friends abroad

That fled the snares of watchful tyranny,

Producing forth the cruel ministers[113]

Of this dead butcher and his fiend-like queen,

115

Who — as ’tis thought — by[115] self and violent hands

Took off her life: this, and what needful else[116]

That calls upon us, by the grace of grace[117]

We will perform in measure,[118] time and place.

So thanks to all at once and to each one,

120

Whom we invite to see us crowned at Scone.

Flourish. Exeunt

The Songs (apparently by Thomas Middleton, used in stagings after Shakespeare’s retirement)

Song 1: at end of 3.5:

UNSEEN SPIRITSCome away, come away, Above

Hecate, Hecate, O come away!

HECATEI come, I come, I come, I come,

With all the speed I may,

5

With all the speed I may.

Where’s Stadlin?

UNSEEN SPIRITHere.

HECATEWhere’s Puckle?

UNSEEN SPIRITHere.

UNSEEN SPIRITSAnd Hoppo too, and Hellway too,

We lack but you, we lack but you.

10

Come away, make up the count.[10]

HECATEI will but ’noint,[11] and then I mount.

I will but ’noint, and then I mount.

Malkin, a spirit like a cat, descends

UNSEEN SPIRITSHere comes one down to fetch his dues,[13]

A kiss, a cull,[14] a sip of blood,

15

And why thou stay’st so long I muse,[15] I muse,

Since the air’s so fresh and good.

HECATEO, art thou come? What news, what news?

MALKINAll goes well to our delight:

Either come or else

20

Refuse, refuse.

HECATENow I am furnished[21] for the flight. Going up

Now I go, O now I fly,

Malkin my sweet spirit and I.

O what a dainty pleasure is this

25

To ride in the air

When the moon shines fair,

And feast and sing and toy and kiss!

Over woods, high rocks and mountains,

Over seas, our crystal[29] fountains,

30

Over steeples, towers, turrets,

We fly by night ’mongst troops of spirits:

No ring of bells to our ears sound,[32]

No howls of wolves, nor yelps of hounds,

No, nor the noise of water’s breach,[34]

35

Nor cannon’s throat our height can reach.

UNSEEN SPIRITSNo ring of bells to our ears sound,

No howls of wolves, nor yelps of hounds,

No, nor the noise of water’s breach,

Nor cannon’s throat our height can reach.

[Exeunt]

Song 2: in 4.1, before Macbeth’s entrance:

HECATEBlack spirits and white, red spirits and grey,

Mingle, mingle, mingle, you that mingle may.

FOURTH WITCHTitty, Tiffin, keep[3] it stiff in,

Firedrake, Puckey, make it lucky,

5

Liard, Robin, you must bob in.

ALLRound, around, around, about, about,

All ill come running in, all good keep out.

FOURTH WITCHHere’s the blood of a bat.

HECATEPut in that, O put in that!

10

FIFTH WITCHHere’s leopard’s bane.[10]

HECATEPut in a grain.

FOURTH WITCHThe juice of toad, the oil[12] of adder.

FIFTH WITCHThose will make the charm grow madder.[13]

HECATEPut in, there’s all, and rid[14] the stench.

15

SIXTH WITCHNay, here’s three ounces of a red-haired wench.[15]

ALLRound, around, around, about, about,

All ill come running in, all good keep out.

[Exit Hecate and the other three Witches]

Textual Notes

F = First Folio text of 1623, the only authority for the play

F2 = a correction introduced in the Second Folio text of 1632

F3 = a correction introduced in the Third Folio text of 1663–64

Ed = a correction introduced by a later editor

SD = stage direction

SH = speech heading (i.e., speaker’s name)

List of parts = Ed

1.1.1 SH FIRST WITCH = Ed. F = 1. (throughout) 3 SH SECOND WITCH = Ed. F = 2. (throughout) 5 SH THIRD WITCH = Ed. F = 3. (throughout) 10 SH SECOND WITCH = Ed. Line assigned to All in F 11 SH THIRD WITCH = Ed. Line assigned to All in F 12 SH ALL = Ed. At line 10 in F

1.2.1 SH DUNCAN = Ed. F = King (throughout) 11 Macdonald = Ed. F = Macdonwald 15 gallowglasses = Ed. F = Gallowgrosses 16 quarrel = Ed. F = Quarry 23 ne’er = Ed. F = neu’r

1.3.33 weyard always spelled weyard or weyward in F, never weird 40 Forres = Ed. F = Soris 59 rapt = Ed. F = wrapt 117 lose = Ed. F = loose 145 hair = Ed. F = Heire

1.4.49 harbinger spelled Herbenger in F

1.5.1 SH LADY MACBETH = Ed. F = Lady. (throughout) 8 lose = Ed. F = loose 12 human spelled humane in F 45 it = Ed. F = hit

1.6.0 SD Hautboys spelled Hoboyes in F (throughout) 5 martlet = Ed. F = Barlet 6 mansionry = Ed. F = Mansonry 10 most = Ed. F = must 23 hermits spelled Ermites in F

1.7.6 shoal = Ed. F = Schoole 11 th’ingredients spelled th’Ingredience in F 50 do = Ed. F = no

2.1.62 strides = Ed. F = sides 63 sure = Ed. F = sowre 64 way they = Ed. F = they may

2.3.150 nea’er = Ed. F = neere

2.4.8 travelling spelled trauailing in F 21 ate spelled eate in F 36 life’s = Ed. F = liues 51 SD Exeunt = Ed. F = Exeunt omnes

3.1.78 SH MURDERERS = Ed. F = Murth. (throughout the scene) 93 clept spelled clipt in F

3.3.1 SH FIRST MURDERER = Ed. F = 1. (throughout the scene) 2 SH THIRD MURDERER = Ed. F = 3. (throughout the scene) 3 SH SECOND MURDERER = Ed. F = 2. (throughout the scene) 9 and = F2. F = end

3.4.14 SH FIRST MURDERER = Ed. F = Mur. 88 human spelled humane in F 90 time = F2. F = times 165 in deed = Ed. F = indeed

3.5.26 sleights = Ed. F = slights

3.6.25 son = Ed. F = Sonnes

4.1.59 germens = Ed. F = Germaine 73 SD First Apparition = Ed. F = 1. Apparation 82 SD Second Apparition = Ed. F = 2 Apparition 92 SD Third Apparition = Ed. F = 3 Apparation 100 Birnam spelled Byrnam, Byrnan, Birnan, Byrnane, and Birnane in F Dunsinane = Ed. F = Dunsmane 128 eighth = F3. F = eight

4.2.1 SH LADY MACDUFF = Ed. F = Wife. 25 none = Ed. F = moue 81 SH FIRST MURDERER = Ed. F = Mur.

4.3.39 Fare = Ed. F = Far 121 accused spelled accust in F 148 thy = F2. F = they 188 rend = Ed. F = rent 270 tune = Ed. F = time

5.1.27–8 fear who = Ed. F = feare?who

5.3.23 disseat spelled dis-eate in F 38 more spelled moe in F 44 Cure her = Ed. F = Cure 58 pristine = Ed. F = pristiue

5.4.4 SH SIWARD = Ed. F = Syew. (throughout the scene; also Syw., at line 11 and Sey. at line 22)

5.5.41 false = Ed. F = fhlse 45 pull = F. Sometimes emended to pall

5.7.120 SD Exeunt = Ed. F = Exeunt Omnes

Act 1 Scene 1

1.1    Location: an open place

3    hurly-burly turmoil, uproar, strife

5    ere before

9    Grey Malkin a cat, the First Witch’s familiar (a spirit in animal form that carried out evil deeds for a witch)

10    Paddock the Second Witch’s familiar, a toad

11    Anon soon, in a moment

Act 1 Scene 2

1.2    Location: Scotland, outdoors, exact location unspecified    Alarum a trumpet call to arms

2    plight condition, appearance

3    newest state latest state of affairs

5    hardy bold/vigorous

6    captivity capture by the enemy

7    broil battle, tumult

10    spent exhausted

11    choke their art destroy their skill (i.e., weigh each other down and drown)

12    to that to that end, for that reason

13    multiplying…nature increasing numbers of evils within nature/growing numbers of unnatural rebel soldiers

14    Western Isles the Hebrides (islands west of Scotland) and possibly Ireland

15    Of kerns with lightly armed foot soldiers    gallowglasses soldiers armed with axes    supplied reinforced

16    quarrel dispute/hostile cause (“her damnèd quarry” would be an alternative reading)

17    Showed appeared/sexually displayed herself

19    brandished shining/flourished

21    minion favorite one, darling    carved…passage hacked his way through

22    slave villain (i.e., the rebel Macdonald)

23    Which who (i.e., Macbeth)

24    unseamed him ripped him in two (clothing metaphor)    nave to th’chops navel to the jaws

27    As…thunders just as destructive storms and dreadful thunder originate (like the Norwegian invaders) in the east, where the warming sun rises/just as when the sun begins to return at the spring equinox, it is accompanied by storms; ’gins begins    reflection shining/return

29    spring source (of water)/springtime    comfort encouraging news

30    swells wells up/becomes swollen    Mark note, pay attention

32    skipping lightly armed/nervously bounding/absconding    trust their heels run away

33    Norwegian lord i.e., Sweno (original pronunciation: “Norweyan”)    surveying vantage perceiving an advantage

34    furbished gleaming/revived

37    Yes…lion i.e., only as much as a weak creature would dismay a powerful predator

38    sooth truth    report tell (plays on the sense of “noise of a cannon firing”)

39    cracks charges of gunpowder

41    Except unless    reeking bloody/steaming (as the hot blood meets the air)

42    memorize make memorable    Golgotha “place of skulls” where Christ was crucified

45    become befit/honor

46    smack savor (plays on the sense of “the noise lips make in tasting” and so continues the idea of gashes as mouths)

48    Thane title of a member of the Scottish nobility (broadly equivalent to an English earl)

49    looks through appears in

50    seems to seems to be about to

53    Fife region on the east coast of Scotland

54    flout defy/mock

56    Norway himself i.e., Sweno, King of Norway    terrible numbers terrifying quantities of soldiers

58    dismal devastating/ominous

59    Bellona’s bridegroom i.e., Macbeth    Bellona Roman goddess of war    lapped in proof wrapped in armor of tried and tested strength

60    Confronted…self-comparisons i.e., matched him in every respect

61    Point sword’s point    arm weapon

62    lavish unrestrained, wild

64    Norways’ Norwegians’

65    Craves composition requests a peace treaty

66    deign condescend to permit

67    disbursèd paid out    Saint Colme’s inch Inchcolm, an island in the Firth of Forth (estuary on the east coast of Scotland)

68    dollars English name for the German thaler, as well as for silver coins from various northern countries

70    bosom interest closest, most intimate concerns    present immediate

Act 1 Scene 3

1.3    Location: a heath

6    quoth said

7    Aroint thee be off with you    rump-fed fed on rump (a generous cut of meat), hence greedy/with a well-fed vagina, hence lecherous    runnion abusive term for a woman (possibly plays on the abusive slang sense of “penis”)

8    Aleppo trading city in northern Syria    master captain Tiger the ship’s name

10    like in the guise of

11    do act/have sex (it was thought that witches often seduced their male victims)

15    other other winds

16    ports they blow a wind blowing from land would make a port inaccessible to a ship at sea

17    quarters directions/compass points

18    I’th’shipman’s card sailor’s chart/card showing the compass points

19    drain exhaust/drain sexually

21    penthouse lid eyelid (that projects like a top-heavy upper floor of a building)

22    forbid cursed

23    sennights weeks (seven nights)

24    peak and pine waste away and starve (perhaps with connotations of phallic detumescence)

25    bark ship

26    tempest-tossed tossed on the sea by storms

29    pilot steersman of a ship

33    weyard wayward; with the power to control or foresee destiny; the fact that there are three witches invites a comparison with the classical Fates (always spelled “weyard” or “weyward” in Folio; never “weird,” the spelling in the play’s source, Holinshed’s “Chronicle of Scotland”)

34    Posters swift travelers

35    Thus…nine the witches perform a ritualized dance or series of movements

38    Peace be still/be silent    charm magic spell    wound up prepared, ready

39    foul and fair darkly stormy yet bright in terms of military success (the phrase also resonates with the sense of “morally wicked and virtuous”)

40    is’t called is it said to be    Forres town in the northeast of Scotland, east of Inverness

43    on’t on it (the earth)    aught anything

45    choppy chapped

46    should be would appear to be

53    start flinch/react nervously/recoil

55    fantastical imaginary    indeed in truth/in deed

56    show appear to be

57    present grace immediate honor

58    having gain

59    rapt withal entranced, absorbed by it

62    neither…hate neither begs your favor nor fears your hate

68    happy favored by fortune/content

69    get beget, conceive

72    imperfect unclear/cryptic/incomplete

73    Sinel Macbeth’s father

76    prospect field of view/anticipation of the future

77    whence…intelligence where you got this strange information

79    blasted blighted/accursed

80    charge command

83    corporal physical, bodily

84    Would I wish

86    on of    insane root root of plant (probably henbane) that was reputed to cause madness if eaten

91    th’selfsame the very same

93    reads perceives, comprehends

94    venture risky involvement

95    His…his i.e., his personal feelings of awe and praises for you are both so great as to compete with one another (the result being that he finds himself silenced)

98    stout brave

99    Nothing afeard not at all afraid    what…make i.e., slaughter on the battlefield (strange images of death)

100    As…post messengers arrived as thick and fast as the tales they had to tell (though some editors emend “tale” to “hail,” which fits better with the subsequent poured down)

106    Only…thee only in order to usher you into his presence, not as a means of rewarding you

108    earnest pledge, foretaste

110    addition title

115    Who he who

116    judgement sentence

118    combined in league

119    line reinforce (metaphorically, “line the rebel’s garment”)    rebel i.e., Macdonald

122    capital deserving of the death penalty

125    behind yet to come

129    home fully

130    enkindle inflame, provoke

133    darkness i.e., the devil

134    trifles insignificant things

135    deepest consequence the profoundly serious outcome

138    happy fortunate    prologue preliminary actions/lines spoken by an actor before the beginning of a play    swelling growing/exalted    act division of a play (plays on the sense of “deed, action”)

139    imperial theme royal subject matter (theme plays on the sense of “subject that causes action”)

140    soliciting incitement

142    earnest pledge, foretaste

144    suggestion temptation, incitement

145    horrid frightful/bristling (like Macbeth’s hair)    unfix my hair make my hair stand on end

146    seated fixed, stable

147    use usual practice

148    less i.e., not as ghastly and terrifying

149    whose murder the enactment of which (this unusual use of murder reveals only too clearly what Macbeth’s thought is of)

150    single state unified existence/weak condition (state introduces a human body/body politic metaphor)

151    function…surmise usual powers of action are overwhelmed by speculation and imaginings

152    nothing…not only imaginings have any reality for me

155    stir stirring, taking action

157    strange unfamiliar    cleave…use do not cling snugly to the body’s contours until they have been worn many times

160    Time…day i.e., time is unstoppable and even the worst day has an end

161    stay wait

162    favour pardon

163    wrought preoccupied/stirred/worked on

164    registered recorded

165    Where…them i.e., in his memory

167    chanced happened    at more time when we have more time/at a later time

168    The…it i.e., having had time to consider it thoroughly

169    free frank, unrestrained

Act 1 Scene 4

1.4    Location: Scotland, exact location unspecified    Flourish trumpet fanfare signaling the arrival of a person of authority

1    or not or are not

2    in commission given a warrant to see the execution carried out

3    liege lord

9    Became befitted/honored

10    studied practiced/skilled

11    owed owned

12    careless uncared for

13    art craft, skill

14    construction interpretation, explanation/way of building itself

18    before ahead (in terms of merit)

20    Would…mine I wish that you were less deserving so that I might have had sufficient thanks and payment with which to reward you

23    all everything, all my thanks and payment

25    In…itself i.e., being a loyal servant is sufficient reward

29    Safe toward to safeguard

33    nor…so i.e., your equal worth must be recognized

34    enfold embrace

38    Wanton unrestrained/abundant

39    drops of sorrow i.e., tears

40    nearest closest to Duncan (i.e., relatives and favored nobles)

41    establish our estate settle the succession of the state

43    Prince of Cumberland the title given to the heir to the Scottish throne    which…only an honor that must not be the only one to be bestowed (i.e., other nobles will be favored too)    invest adorn, clothe

46    Inverness town in the north of Scotland, location of Macbeth’s castle

47    bind…you make me more indebted to you (as your guest)

48    The…you a period of rest that is not used to serve you seems like hard work/anything that is not done on your behalf is tedious

49    harbinger royal messenger

57    wink…hand shut itself to the deeds carried out by the hand    be come to pass

59    he…valiant Macbeth is just as brave (as you say); Duncan and Banquo have been conversing during Macbeth’s aside

60    his commendations praises given to him

62    care considerate solicitude

63    peerless without equal

Act 1 Scene 5

1.5    Location: Macbeth’s castle, Inverness

2    perfect’st report most accurate testimony

4    missives messengers

7    deliver thee report to you

9    Lay…heart reflect seriously on it/keep it secret

12    milk…kindness compassion/natural humanity

13    catch seize    nearest most obvious, most direct    wouldst want to

15    illness…it wickedness that must go with it    highly greatly/ambitiously

16    holily virtuously    play false be deceptive, treacherous

17    thou’dst have thou wouldst have, i.e., you want

18    have are to have

19    And…undone i.e., you fear carrying out the deed (murder) rather than its consequences (the crown)

20    Hie hasten

22    chastise rebuke

23    impedes hinders    golden round crown

24    metaphysical supernatural

25    withal with

29    informed for preparation sent news so that preparations might be made

31    had…of overtook

34    tending attention, care

36    raven considered a bird of ill omen

39    tend on attend    mortal deadly/human

42    remorse pity

43    compunctious remorseful, filled with conscience

44    fell fierce, cruel    keep maintain, preserve

45    Th’effect and it the outcome and my intention (purpose)

46    take exchange/consider, treat (as)/feed on    gall bile, bitterness    ministers agents/attendants

47    sightless invisible

48    wait on wait upon/lie in wait for    nature’s mischief human evil

49    pall envelop, wrap (as if with a pall or cloth used to cover a coffin)    dunnest darkest/murkiest

50    keen sharp (plays on the sense of “eager, fervent”)

52    Hold stop, desist

53    all-hail hereafter the future prophesied by the witches/the salutation of “king” that followed Glamis and Cawdor

55    ignorant unknowing

56    instant present moment

60    purposes intends

64    strange mysterious/unnatural/unfamiliar    beguile deceive

65    Look…time look ordinary, appear to be like everyone else

68    provided for prepared for, taken care of (relates to hospitality and to murder)

69    dispatch management

71    solely entirely, exclusively    sway rule

73    look up clear appear to be untroubled and innocent

74    alter favour change your accustomed facial expression

Act 1 Scene 6

1.6    Location: outside Macbeth’s castle    Hautboys players of oboe-like instruments Torches torchbearers

1    seat setting

3    gentle noble/made gentle by the air

5    temple-haunting nesting in or frequenting places of worship    martlet swift (type of bird)    approve prove, demonstrate

6    mansionry mansions, i.e., nests

7    wooingly enticingly    jutty projecting part of a building    frieze decorative section underneath the cornice of a building

8    Buttress support built against a main wall    coign of vantage advantageous corner

9    pendent hanging    procreant fertile

11    delicate pleasant, delightful

13    The…love while I am always appreciative of the love behind it, such devoted service can be troublesome (to me/to you)

14    Herein…pains by saying this I am encouraging you to ask God to reward me for your efforts (said in a light-hearted or self-deprecating manner)    yield reward

18    point aspect, detail

19    single weak    business affair/effort    contend Against compete with

21    those of old honors previously bestowed

22    late recent

23    rest your hermits remain your beadsmen (i.e., those who pray on behalf of others)

25    coursed chased

26    purveyor official sent ahead to make arrangements for his master’s food, lodging, etc.

27    holp helped

31    theirs i.e., their own servants    in compt held in trust (from the king)

32    audit account

33    Still…own always ready to return to you what is yours

36    graces favors

37    By your leave with your permission

Act 1 Scene 7

1.7    Location: within Macbeth’s castle    Sewer butler-like official in charge of serving meals    divers various    service portions of food

1    If…done if it were truly over and finished with when the action itself has been completed

3    trammel up entangle, trap (as in a net; may play on sense of “bind up a corpse”)    catch seize/ensnare

4    surcease ending, death    success a final outcome/good fortune (plays on sense of “succession of heirs”)    that but if only

6    bank and shoal river bank and shallow (though Folio’s “Banke and Schoole” could alternatively mean “bench and school,” pointing forward to the court and schoolroom imagery that follows, whereas “shoal,” an alternative spelling of “school,” emerges from the preceding fishing nets of “trammel” and “catch”)

7    jump risk/overleap

8    still always    here i.e., in this life    that in that

9    instructions lessons

10    th’inventor the teacher, he who composed the instructions

11    Commends presents, offers    chalice goblet (perhaps recalling the cup used in Holy Communion; Macbeth’s is poisoned because of the unholy nature of murdering a king)

14    Strong both i.e., both strong reasons

17    faculties kingly powers

18    clear faultless

20    taking-off murder

22    Striding sitting astride (as on a horse)/standing over to defend    blast storm/gale    cherubin cherubs (angels traditionally associated with the winds)    horsed on horseback

23    sightless couriers invisible messengers (i.e., the winds)

25    That so that    tears…wind tears (of sorrow but also a reaction to having the deed blown into the eye) will be so plentiful that they will calm the wind

27    Vaulting…th’other like arider attempting to vault into his saddle, ambition leaps too far and crashes to the ground on the other side of the horse/ambition spurs the horse over an obstacle and horse and rider fall

33    bought won

35    would should    newest gloss freshest luster

41    Such i.e., you are like the drunkard, bold only when inebriated    account deem, consider    Art…desire? Are you now afraid to be as brave and active as you would like to be (and claimed to be)?; act and desire suggest a reference to sexual potency

44    esteem’st value as    ornament of life i.e., the crown    ornament distinction/adornment

46    wait upon follow

47    cat i’th’adage “the cat would eat fish but she will not wet her feet”    adage proverb

49    do the verb can also mean “to have sex”

50    none i.e., no man (because killing the king would be dishonorable and unnatural; in the following line, however, Lady Macbeth understands “beast-like, irrational”)

52    break broach, reveal

53    durst dared

56    adhere agree, fit    make both i.e., make time and place adhere, create an opportunity

57    that their fitness their very suitability

58    unmake make incapable/destroy    given suck i.e., breast-fed a baby

66    But only    screw…sticking-place wind up your courage to the limit    sticking-place the point at which something is made tightly secure (here the metaphor may refer to the groove on a crossbow into which its cord is fitted, or to the peg on a musical instrument around which string is tightened)

68    Whereto the rather to which all the more readily

69    chamberlains servants who attended the royal bedchamber

70    wassail liquor/revelry    convince overcome

71    warder keeper, guard

72    fume vapor    receipt receptacle

73    limbeck apparatus for distilling (i.e., extracting the essence of a liquid)    swinish pig-like/coarse/drunken

76    put upon blame on/impose on

77    spongy i.e., absorbent, saturated with drink    officers servants

78    quell murder

80    undaunted mettle fearless/intrepid temperament (mettle was undistinguished from “metal” that may lead to a pun on    males/(chain) mails in the next line)

81    received understood, thought

85    other otherwise

86    As seeing as, given that

88    settled committed/determined/steady    bend up tighten

89    corporal agent bodily faculty/muscle

90    mock deceive/imitate

91    False deceptive/treacherous/artificial

Act 2 Scene 1

2.1    Location: Macbeth’s castle (probably an open-air courtyard within the building)

1    How…night how much of the night has passed, what time is it

5    husbandry thrift, economy

6    Their…out i.e., the stars are not visible

7    summons urge to sleep

15    largess gifts    offices servants’ quarters

17    shut up concluded his speech/went to bed/was wrapped up

19    Being…wrought i.e., being unprepared for Duncan’s visit my desire to entertain the king nobly and generously was hampered by a lack of provisions

30    cleave…consent agree with me, support me    when ’tis when the time comes

32    So provided that

34    bosom franchised heart free (of guilt)

35    counselled guided/open to your opinions

36    the while in the meantime

43    sensible perceptible (to the senses)

46    heat-oppressèd overwhelmed by heat/feverish

47    yet still    palpable tangible, capable of being touched

49    marshall’st guide    the…going i.e., toward my intention/to Duncan’s chamber

52    worth…rest more reliable than the other senses

53    dudgeon hilt    gouts drops

55    informs takes on a shape

56    the one halfworld one half of the world

58    curtained screened by the eyelids/veiled by bed curtains

59    Hecate’s off’rings sacrifices to Hecate, Greek goddess of witchcraft and night, associated with the moon (hence    pale)

60    Alarumed moved to action    sentinel guard, watchman

61    watch signal, watchman’s call

62    Tarquin Roman who raped Lucrece; he was the king’s son and this deed led to the overthrow of the Roman monarchy    ravishing intent on rape    design undertaking/scheme

63    sure stable

65    prate…whereabout betray my location    prate speak

66    take…it (in breaking the silence) take on (or “remove”) the acute horror of this moment that is so suitable for it    present immediate/pressing

67    threat threaten (to act)

70    knell toll of a bell rung at funerals or after a death

Act 2 Scene 2

2.2    Location: within Macbeth’s castle

1    them i.e., Duncan’s servants

2    quenched extinguished (fire)

3    owl considered a bird of ill omen whose cry heralded death    bellman one who rang a bell to announce a death/night watchman who rang a bell every hour

4    stern’st good night harshest and final good night (death)

5    surfeited sated, drunk    grooms male servants

6    mock make a mockery of/defy/imitate    possets hot spiced drinks often consumed before bed

7    That so that    contend about compete for, fight over

12    Confounds ruins, defeats

13    he i.e., Duncan

27    one…one Malcolm and Donalbain (although possibly the grooms)

29    addressed them prepared themselves

33    As as if    hangman’s hands perhaps a general reference to any executioner, though a hangman might have had bloody hands as he sometimes disemboweled the bodies of hanged men

37    wherefore why

40    thought…ways dwelt on in this manner

41    so to do so

44    ravelled unraveled, frayed    sleeve part of the arm of a piece of clothing/silk filament produced by untwisting a thicker thread

45    bath soothing bath/healing liquid

46    Balm healing ointment    second course main, most nourishing dish in a feast

53    unbend slacken, weaken

55    filthy witness i.e., Duncan’s blood

57    lie remain (plays on sense of “deceive”)

65    painted pictured/smeared (with blood)    do bleed is still bleeding/begins to bleed afresh (murdered corpses were thought to bleed in the presence of the murderer)

66    gild paint, as with gold-leaf (puns on    guilt)

68    Whence from where

69    Appals me makes me pale/terrifies me

71    Neptune Roman god of the sea

73    multitudinous numerous/containing many waves    incarnadine make red, stain with blood

74    green one red green sea entirely red/the green one (i.e., the sea) red

75    shame would be ashamed

76    white i.e., cowardly

77    south entry southern entrance to the castle

78    clears cleans/frees from accusation

79    constancy…unattended your firmness has abandoned you

81    nightgown dressing gown    occasion events/chance

82    watchers those who remain awake

83    poorly miserably/feebly, inadequately

84    To…myself i.e., being mentally    lost is preferable to acknowledging what I have done/if consciousness of what I have done is to be endured, I must abandon my former self

Act 2 Scene 3

2    old plenty of

3    Beelzebub common name of a devil    Here’s the Porter begins to imagine those arriving in hell

4    th’expectation of plenty presumably the farmer anticipated making a profit by hoarding his grain, only to be confounded by an abundant harvest and low prices; alternatively, he staked everything on a plentiful harvest that did not materialize    come in time you have come at a good time    napkins handkerchiefs (to wipe the sweat resulting from the heat of hell)

6    other devil another devil whose name escapes the Porter (though also suggestive of Macbeth)    Faith by my faith (a common oath)    equivocator one who uses words ambiguously, so that more than one meaning may apply

7    scales here specifically the scales of justice

8    for God’s sake a common oath, but also a reference to Catholics who used equivocation in court as a way of escaping prosecution

11    stealing…hose scrimping on the material used to make a pair of breeches/being too lecherous and dying of syphilis (tailors were popularly viewed as lustful and this one has let his penis steal out too often from his breeches; tail was slang for “penis”)    roast your goose heat up your tailor’s iron/have sex with your prostitute/contract venereal disease

14    primrose…bonfire seemingly attractive but sinful path to eternal damnation

15    remember give a tip to

18    carousing reveling/drinking toasts    second cock second crowing of the cockerel (3 a.m. or later)

21    Marry by the Virgin Mary    nose-painting i.e., reddening of the nose

24    mars spoils    sets…off creates a sexual urge but renders him impotent

25    stand…to get an erection and lose it    equivocates…sleep gives him erotic pleasure in a dream only

26    giving…lie deceiving him (as he cannot actually perform sexually)/laying him flat (as in wrestling)/leaving him without an erection/calling him a liar/making him urinate

28    i’the…me literally, in my throat/(deceiving) deliberately, outrageously    requited repaid (with violence)

29    took…legs made me incapable of walking, pulled my legs out from under me (as a wrestler would)    made a shift contrived

30    cast him throw him down/vomit

37    timely early/promptly

38    slipped the hour missed the designated time

41    yet ’tis one nevertheless it still is a trouble

42    The…pain tasks we take pleasure in cure any hardship they entail

45    limited appointed

47    appoint intend/determine

48    unruly disordered, turbulent

50    Lamentings cries of grief

51    prophesying foretelling/preaching/uttering solemnly    accents terrible terrifying utterances

52    dire combustion dreadful confusion/dangerous tumult    events outcomes

53    New hatched to newly born as offspring to/newly born into    obscure bird i.e., the owl, bird of darkness    obscure of darkness/hidden

54    livelong long-lasting

57    My…to it my youthful memory cannot remember one like it/I cannot remember one like it even during my youth

60    conceive imagine/comprehend, take in

62    Confusion disorder/destruction/disaster

63    sacrilegious unholy, profane (literally “sacrilege” is “stealing what is God’s”)    ope open

64    Lord’s anointed temple God’s consecrated house of worship/Duncan’s head or body (anointed with holy oil at his coronation)

69    Gorgon in Greek mythology, a female monster; anyone who looked at her was turned to stone

74    downy soft, comfortable    counterfeit imitator/likeness

76    great doom’s image image of Judgment Day, the end of the world when the dead were supposed to    rise from their graves

77    sprites spirits, ghosts

78    countenance face/be in keeping with

80    trumpet i.e., noise, clamor (a trumpet was also supposed to sound at Judgment Day)    parley conversation/negotiationbetween enemy forces (announced with a trumpet call)

84    repetition recital, report

92    chance moment/event/misfortune

94    mortality life

95    toys trifles, insignificant things    renown and grace honor

96    drawn drained (from a barrel)    lees dregs

97    left left in    vault wine cellar/world beneath the arched sky    brag boast, be proud

101    stopped ended/stopped-up

105    badged marked as if with a badge worn by liveried servants

107    stared looked stunned, horror-struck/gazed fixedly    distracted agitated/confused

112    amazed stunned/confused/dismayed    temp’rate calm, composed, restrained

114    Th’expedition the haste    violent passionate/impetuous (plays on the sense of “destructive, bloody”)

115    pauser provoker of hesitation and self-restraint (the faculty of reason)

117    breach flaw/gap in fortifications made by an onslaught of heavy blows

118    wasteful destructive

119    Steeped dyed/soaked

120    Unmannerly improperly    breeched covered, as if wearing breeches (puns on breach)

122    make’s make his

125    Why…ours? Why do we remain silent when this subject has most to do with us?

128    auger hole small hole drilled with a carpenter’s tool (auger), i.e., undetectable hiding place    rush…us Donalbain fears that his father’s murderer may now seek to harm him and his brother    seize ambush

129    brewed i.e., ready to be shown

131    Upon…motion ready to move

133    our…hid i.e., temporarily put aside our horror and distress/got dressed

135    question discuss/inquire into

136    scruples doubts

137    thence i.e., with God’s help

138    Against…malice I shall fight against the unknown purpose that lies behind this treasonous and hostile act

142    briefly quickly    manly readiness i.e., clothes/manly resolve

145    consort associate, accompany

146    office task/role

150    the…bloody i.e., the more closely one is related to Duncan the more likely one is to be murdered

152    shaft i.e., of an arrow

153    lighted alighted, landed

155    dainty of leave-taking scrupulous about formal goodbyes

156    shift away leave secretly    warrant justification

157    steals purloins/slips away

Act 2 Scene 4

2.4    Location: somewhere near Macbeth’s castle, Inverness

1    Threescore and ten seventy (years); a score is twenty

3    dreadful frightening    sore harsh, grievous

4    trifled former knowings made previous experiences insignificant

5    father respectful term of address for an old man

6    heavens sky/heavenly powers/roof over a    stage act deed/theatrical performance/division of a play

8    travelling lamp i.e., the sun

9    predominance greater power/ascendancy (as of a planet or star)    shame i.e., at the murder of Duncan

13    Even exactly

14    tow’ring mounting in order to swoop down on her prey (falconry term)    pride of place the highest point in her flight

15    mousing owl i.e., inferior bird that usually feeds on mice    hawked at attacked in flight

17    minions darlings, favorites

19    as as if

29    pretend intend

30    suborned bribed

35    Thriftless wasteful, unprofitable    ravin up devour greedily

36    life’s means resources necessary for survival/source of life (i.e., father)    like likely

38    named selected    Scone ancient city north of Perth, traditional location for Scottish coronations

39    invested formally given authority/dressed in the royal garments

41    Colmekill the western Hebridean island of Iona, the ancient burial place for Scottish kings

46    thither go there (to Scone)

48    Lest…new i.e., in case our former situation proves preferable to what is to come

50    benison blessing

Act 3 Scene 1

3.1    Location: the Scottish royal palace; exact location unspecified

3    foully wickedly, sinfully

4    It…posterity the kingship would not remain in your line of descendants

7    shine illuminate/look upon favorably

8    verities truths    made good fulfilled Sennet trumpet fanfare signaling a procession

14    all-thing unbecoming inappropriate in every way

15    solemn formal, ceremonious

18    Command upon lay your commands on

20    knit united, bound

23    else otherwise

24    still always    grave and prosperous wise and profitable

25    council i.e., of state officials who advised the king

28    this now    go…better if my horse does not go sufficiently quickly

30    twain two

33    cousins i.e., Malcolm and Donalbain    bestowed lodged

35    parricide murder of one’s father

36    invention fabrications, lies

37    therewithal with it, in addition    cause…jointly affairs of state claiming equal attention

42    commend entrust

44    To…welcome in order to make socializing more delightful

46    while until

47    Sirrah sir (term of address to a social inferior)    Attend…pleasure? Are those men waiting for me?

49    without outside

51    thus in this position, i.e., king

52    stick are fixed/pierce, stab

55    to in addition to    dauntless temper fearless temperament

58    being personage/existence

59    genius personal governing spirit    rebuked forcibly retrained/reproached

60    Mark…Caesar the Roman general Mark Antony was defeated by Octavius Caesar    chid upbraided, rebuked

64    fruitless useless/childless

65    barren infertile    sceptre ornamental rod held by a monarch (possible phallic connotations here)

66    unlineal not descended directly (from Macbeth)

68    issue offspring    filed defiled, corrupted

69    gracious generous/virtuous/possessed of divine grace

70    rancours bitter hatred/poison    vessel cup (perhaps recalling the Holy Communion cup)

71    eternal jewel i.e., soul

72    common…man i.e., the devil

74    list designated combat area at a tournament

75    champion me support/challenge, i.e., in combat    th’utterance the limit (death)

79    Well…ever these two speeches are lineated as verse in Folio, but so irregularly that they are likely to be mistakenly set as prose    he i.e., Banquo

80    held…fortune i.e., prevented you from improving your fortunes

81    made good demonstrated    conference conversation    passed in probation proved

82    borne in hand deceived    crossed thwarted    instruments means/agents

83    wrought worked

84    notion mind

88    gospelled filled with the teachings of the Gospel (the New Testament)

89    yours i.e., your issue, children

91    catalogue official list    go for pass for

92    curs dogs, especially watchdogs or sheepdogs

93    Shoughs lap-dogs    water-rugs long-haired water dogs (trained to retrieve waterfowl)    demi-wolves dogs that are half wolf    clept called

94    valued file list classified according to value

95    subtle wily

96    housekeeper watchdog

97    bounteous generous

98    closed enclosed

99    Particular…alike special distinction unlike the general list in which they all sound the same

101    station position/place to stand    file list/row (of soldiers)

102    rank quality/row (of soldiers)

104    execution enactment (plays on the sense of “murder”)

105    Grapples attaches tightly

106    in his life while he (Banquo) lives

107    perfect complete/entirely healthy

109    buffets blows/beatings

113    tugged with knocked about by

114    set stake, gamble

115    mend improve    on’t of it

118    distance hostility, discord

119    thrusts stabs

120    near’st of life vital parts

122    bid…it justify it on the grounds that it is my wish

123    For on account of

124    wail I must lament

126    to…love do wooingly entreat your help

128    sundry various

131    Though our lives— the First Murderer is interrupted as he declares that he and his companion will carry out the deed even if their lives depend upon it

133    advise inform

134    perfect spy o’th’time perhaps “exact awareness of the time (to do the deed),” though some editors suppose the line may be a reference to the Third Murderer

136    something some distance    always…clearness it being always remembered that I must be considered guiltless

138    rubs nor botches impediments or flaws

140    material of consequence

142    Resolve yourselves apart determine matters (or work up your resolution) in private

145    straight straightaway    abide remain

Act 3 Scene 2

6    spent wasted

7    content contentedness, peace of mind

9    doubtful uncertain, fearful

11    sorriest fancies wretched imaginings

12    Using entertaining

13    them…on i.e., past events/Duncan

14    regard thought, consideration

15    scorched slashed

16    close heal up    poor malice feeble animosity

17    her former tooth the snake’s original fang

18    let…suffer let the ordered universe collapse, heaven and earth perish

21    shake afflict/make tremble

22    to…peace have sent to death as a means of fulfilling our desires

23    on…lie Macbeth is thinking of the rack, a bedlike torture instrument that stretched the limbs

24    ecstasy frenzy

25    fitful restless/full of fits brought on by a high temperature

26    nor neither

27    Malice domestic civil war    foreign levy the raising of enemy armies by foreign countries

30    Gentle my lord my gentle (i.e., noble) lord    sleek smooth    rugged rough, troubled

33    remembrance attention, regard

34    Present him eminence show him respect, honor him

35    Unsafe…streams (our position) being unsafe at the moment, we must cleanse our reputation in streams of flattery/as long as we have to flatter in this way, we remain unsafe    lave wash

37    vizards masks

42    copy abundance/pattern from which copies (i.e., descendants) are made/lease (of life), i.e., legal “copyhold” is    eterne everlasting

44    jocund cheerful

45    cloistered in or around cloisters (covered walkways adjoining buildings)

46    shard-born born in dung

47    yawning sleepy (with connotations of “yawning open,” like the mouth of a bell that    peals to announce the arrival of night)

48    note noteworthiness/notoriety (puns on the sense of “musical note, chime”)

50    chuck chick (term of endearment)

51    seeling blinding (falconry term referring to the sewing together of a young bird’s eyelids for training purposes)

52    Scarf up blindfold    tender gentle/young    pitiful compassionate, merciful

54    bond bond of (Banquo’s) life/moral law that prohibits murder (the image is of a legal contract)

55    pale white with fear or cowardice (puns on “paled” meaning “fenced in”)

56    makes wing flies    rooky filled with rooks (often undistinguished from the    crow; both regarded as birds of ill omen)

58    rouse rouse themselves

59    hold thee still remain calm

Act 3 Scene 3

3.3    Location: about a mile from the Scottish royal palace

3    He…mistrust we need not suspect him    delivers Our offices brings details of our duties

5    To…just exactly in keeping with the in structions we received

8    lated belated    apace speedily

9    gain…inn reach the inn in good time

14    within…expectation on the guest list

16    go about are walked to the stables/are walked to cool them down

22    Stand to’t get ready/stand firm

24    come down i.e., the rain/the attack

28    way plan, thing to do

Act 3 Scene 4

3.4    Location: a banqueting hall in the Scottish royal palace

1    degrees ranks (according to which the guests would be seated)    at…last to everyone

4    with society among the guests

6    keeps her state remains in her throne    in best time at the appropriate moment

7    require her welcome ask her to welcome you

10    encounter respond to

11    Both…even there is an equal number of people sitting on each side of the table

12    large in mirth unrestrained in merry-making    drink…round drink a toast with every guest/all join in a collective toast

15    thee…within on your outside rather than within his body

16    dispatched killed

20    the nonpareil without equal

21    is scaped has escaped

22    fit paroxysm of fear    perfect complete/flawless/entirely sane

23    founded grounded, secure

24    broad and general widely ranging and universal    casing surrounding (but also, paradoxically, “enclosing”)

25    cabined confined (as in a cabin or hut)    cribbed shut up (as in a crib or cattle stall)

26    saucy insolent    safe taken care of, i.e., dead

27    bides remains

28    trenched trenchlike, deeply cut

29    least…nature very least of which would be fatal

31    worm baby snake

34    hear ourselves converse

36    give the cheer welcome your guests/participate in the merriment    the…welcome the feast that is not affirmed throughout to be one that is given warmly and freely seems like an event the guests are having to pay for    vouched avouched, guaranteed

38    To…home if it is only mere eating that is involved, one is better off at home

39    From thence away from home    ceremony courtesy

40    Meeting socializing (puns on meat)    bare basic/worthless

41    remembrancer one who reminds

45    had we we would have    country’s honour i.e., the nobility, the glory of Scotland    roofed under one roof

46    graced honored

47    challenge take to task, rebuke

48    mischance some mishap (preventing him from attending the feast)

50    Lays…promise brings his promise (to attend) into disrepute

55    moves stirs, affects/angers

59    gory locks hair matted with blood

63    upon a thought in a moment (the time it takes to have a thought)

64    note him pay attention to him

65    passion overwhelming emotion/fit of rage/seizure/outburst of madness

66    regard heed/look at

70    proper stuff absolute rubbish

71    painting…fear image of your fear itself/image created by your fear

72    air-drawn drawn like a picture in the air/drawn, as from a sheath, out of the air

73    flaws bursts of emotion (plays on the sense of “defects”)    starts nervous movements, fits, outbursts

74    Impostors to false versions, imitators of    become suit

76    Authorized originally told and affirmed as true by    grandam grandmother

79    lo look    How what

81    charnel houses buildings containing bones of the dead

82    monuments…kites only tombs shall be the stomachs of birds of prey

84    unmanned made feeble, unmanly    folly foolishness, mental weakness/sin

86    Fie an expression of disgust or indignation

88    Ere…weal before civil law cleansed and made peaceful the commonwealth    human of people/humane

93    mortal murders fatal injuries    crowns heads

94    stools seats (at the feast)/ thrones

97    lack miss/need

99    muse wonder

100    infirmity illness, weakness (physical or mental)

101    love…all Macbeth proposes a toast

105    thirst wish to drink/long to see

106    all to all may everyone drink to everyone else

107    duties loyalty and respect    pledge toast

108    Avaunt begone

110    speculation power of sight

116    rugged rough, shaggy, wild

117    armed armored (i.e., with a tough skin)    th’Hyrcan from Hyrcania, in classical times the region south of the Caspian Sea

118    that i.e., that of Banquo

120    dare…desert challenge me to a fight in a desolate place

121    trembling I inhabit trembling possesses me/if I remain indoors out of fear    protest declare

122    The…girl a baby girl/a girl’s doll    shadow ghost, illusion, dark thing

123    mock’ry imitation/impudent counterfeit

125    displaced the mirth put an end to the merriment

126    admired wondered at

128    overcome cover, overwhelm

129    special particular    make…owe cause me to feel (or view me as being) a stranger to my own nature

133    blanched whitened

136    At once all of you/immediately

137    Stand…once do not observe the protocol of leaving in order of rank

144    Augurs prophecies made by interpreting the behavior of birds    understood relations interpreted accounts/connections between things

145    magot-pies magpies (thought to be birds of ill omen, like choughs and rooks)    choughs crows

146    secret’st…blood most hidden murderer    What…night? What is the time of night?

147    at odds contending, striving

148    How say’st thou what do you say (to the fact)    denies his person refuses to come

150    send i.e., send a messenger

151    by the way indirectly

152    them i.e., the nobles

153    fee’d paid (to spy)    will will go

154    betimes speedily/early

155    bent determined

156    means methods

157    All…way all other affairs shall be put aside

158    should I even if I were to

159    were would be    tedious wearisome/time-consuming    go o’er going on

160    head (my) mind    to hand be carried out

161    scanned examined, scrutinized

162    season food preservative such as salt/period of time assigned to an event/time during which a plant ripens

163    strange and self-abuse strange self-abuse    strange extraordinary/alienating    self-abuse violation of myself/self-deception

164    initiate new, inexperienced    wants lacks/needs    hard use toughening, persistent experience

165    young in deed inexperienced in action (in deed puns on indeed)

Act 3 Scene 5

3.5    Location: unspecified. This scene is probably by Thomas Middleton, apparently added for performances after Shakespeare’s retirement

1    angerly angry

2    beldams hags

3    saucy impudent

4    trade and traffic have dealings with

7    close secret

8    bear carryout

9    art magic

11    wayward perverse, willful

15    pit of Acheron hell    Acheron a river in Hades, the classical underworld

18    vessels receptacles (presumably cauldrons)    provide prepare/be equipped with

20    spend use

21    dismal devastating/ominous    fatal deadly/destined

22    wrought brought about/performed

24    vap’rous drop in response to powerful enchantments the moon was supposed to release a foam that transformed the things it fell upon    profound deep, complex/hanging heavily

26    sleights tricks, cunning

27    artificial false/produced by artifice or magic

28    illusion illusory nature/power to deceive

29    confusion destruction/mental disorder, irrationality

30    spurn reject

31    ’bove above, beyond reach of    grace virtue/fortune/divine salvation

32    security confidence in one’s safety

35    stays waits   Come…etc. for text of song, see this page

Act 3 Scene 6

3.6    Location: Scotland, exact location unspecified

1    hit coincided with

2    Which…further i.e., there is no need for Lennox to elaborate    only I I only

3    borne tolerated/managed

4    pitied of lamented by    he was dead i.e., Macbeth only pitied Duncan after he was dead

5 walked too late was alive only too recently/was out too late at night (there are reverberations of death in the words:    walked often referred to the appearances of a ghost and late could mean dead)

8    cannot…thought does not think    want lack    monstrous unnatural

10    fact crime/truth

11    straight straightaway

12    pious loyal, dutiful

13    thralls captives, slaves

17    well i.e., for himself

18    under his key locked up

19    an’t if it

20    so should Fleance i.e., were Fleance to be imprisoned he too would be punished for killing his father

21    from as a result of    broad frank, unrestrained    cause…presence because he failed to attend

24    bestows himself is lodging

25    son of Duncan i.e., Malcolm

26    holds…birth withholds his birthright (the crown)

28    Of by    pious devout, holy    Edward Edward the Confessor, who ruled England from 1042 to 1066    grace honor/favor/divine virtue

29    malevolence of fortune i.e., Malcolm’s misfortunes

30    Takes detracts    respect courtesy/regard (for Malcolm)

31    pray ask, entreat (but surrounding references to Edward’s holiness add a religious sense)    upon his aid in aid of Malcolm

32    wake rouse, stir    Northumberland Earl (or possibly, people) of Northumberland, a county in the north of England    Siward son of the Earl of Northumberland

34    ratify sanction, approve

35    meat food

36    Free…banquets free our feasts and banquets from

37    homage acts of allegiance    free freely given/noble/unpolluted

38    report account (of the situation in Scotland)

39    exasperate exasperated (i.e., incensed)    their king i.e., Edward

41    he i.e., Macbeth

42    absolute resolved/blunt    ‘Sir, not I’ Macduff’s words to the messenger

43    cloudy frowning/gloomy    turns me i.e., turns (me is emphatic; the lord was not present)

44    hums i.e., makes a noise of displeasure    who should if to    rue regret

45    clogs burdens, hampers

47    Advise…caution serve to warn him    distance i.e., from Macbeth

50    that so that

51    suffering…accursed country suffering under an accursed hand

Act 4 Scene 1

4.1    Location: unspecified; an interior space, perhaps a cavern

1    brinded having fur marked with darker streaks (probably tabby)

2    hedge-pig hedgehog

3    Harpier the Third Witch’s familiar

5    entrails intestines or bodily insides generally/contents of the cauldron

7    Days…got for thirty-one days and nights has exuded poison produced while sleeping    Sweltered sweated, exuded

10    toil labor/dissent, turmoil    trouble effort/disorder/distress

12    fillet slice (of meat)    fenny muddy/from the fens (swamps)

15    Wool downy hair

16    fork forked tongue    blindworm adder/slow-worm (legless lizard)

17    howlet owlet, young owl

23    mummy substance used for embalming/dead flesh itself/substance made from dead bodies and used in magic (properly called “mummia”)    maw throat/stomach    gulf throat/stomach

24    ravined ravaged by hunger/glutted with its prey

25    hemlock poisonous plant

26    blaspheming i.e., denying Christian beliefs

27    slips sprigs/cuttings    yew yew tree (often planted in graveyards and associated with death)

28    Slivered cut off

29    Tartar person from Central Asia (like the Turk, a Muslim)

30    birth-strangled strangled at birth, probably by the mother (and thus unbaptized)

31    Ditch-delivered born in a ditch    drab prostitute

32    slab viscous, glutinous

33    chaudron intestines/insides in general Enter…Witches the following sequence (Hecate’s speech and the song) is probably by Thomas Middleton, apparently added for performances after Shakespeare’s retirement; there are six witches in the song (see this page)    ‘Black spirits’, etc. for text of song, see this page

44    pricking tingling

47    black deadly/evil/associated with the black arts

50    conjure call upon solemnly (plays on sense of “magically invoke”)    profess claim to know about/practice as a trade

52    Though even if

53    yeasty frothy

54    Confound destroy, overthrow    navigation shipping

55    bladed corn i.e., where the blade (leaf) is still folded around the seed-containing ear    lodged beaten flat

56    warders guards

57    slope bend down

59    germens seeds/essential parts    tumble all together collapse into whirling chaos/all fall at once

60    sicken grows nauseously sated/begins to be destroyed itself

69    farrow piglets    sweaten sweated

70    gibbet gallows

73    office function    armed armored, i.e., wearing a helmet

78    descends i.e., through the trapdoor

80    harped hit upon, guessed    aright rightly

89    assurance the Second Apparition’s promise/sense of personal security

90    bond contract, legal guarantee thou i.e., Macduff

94    round And top crown

97    lion-mettled of a lion’s temperament (fierce, regal, courageous)

98    chafes, who frets is roused and angry/enrages and vexes you

100    Birnam…him Birnam Wood moves itself to attack Macbeth at Dunsinane Hill (about ten miles north of Perth; Birnam Wood is about fifteen miles further northwest)

103    impress conscript, enlist into an army

104    bodements predictions

105    Rebellious dead i.e., Banquo, who will not stay in his grave

107    lease of nature natural lifespan

108    mortal custom death, the customary way of humanity/the usual length of human life/life’s rent (custom)

120    so in the same manner    eight kings supposedly descended from Banquo; James VI of Scotland and I of England, king when Shakespeare wrote the play, claimed descent from Banquo    glass magic mirror or crystal that could show the future

122    sear burn/dazzle

123    Thou other Macbeth now addresses the second king    gold-bound brow i.e., crowned head

125    Start gape/burst from your sockets

126    th’crack of doom peal of thunder at Judgment Day

130    two-fold…scepters two orbs and three scepters; probably refers to King James, the actual monarch of England and Scotland (two orbs), and titular king of Britain, France, and Ireland (three scepters)

132    blood-boltered clogged with blood/with hair matted with blood

133    his i.e., his descendants

135    amazedly stunned, bewildered

136    sprites spirits, mood

139    antic round bizarre, grotesque dance

140    kindly graciously, courteously

141    Our…pay our respectful behavior was an appropriate display of hospitality and reverence

142    pernicious ruinous

143    aye for ever

144    without you who are outside

152    horse horses

157    anticipat’st forestall, hinder    dread exploits fearsome enterprises (i.e., the intended murder of Macduff)

158    flighty fleeting, swift    o’ertook overtaken

159    the…it the action accompanies the intention promptly

160    The…hand i.e., the moment I decide to do something I will act upon that thought    firstlings first-born things

163    surprise ambush, attack, and seize

164    Fife the region of which Macduff is thane    give…o’th’sword i.e., slaughter

166    trace…line follow him in his lineage, are descended from him

168    sights visions

Act 4 Scene 2

4.2    Location: Macduff’s castle, Fife

4    when…traitors even when we have committed no treasonous act, fearful behavior makes us appear guilty

9    titles all to which he is entitled (lands, his thaneship)

11    wants…touch lacks natural instincts/family feeling

13    in being in

17    coz cousin (used for any relative, or as an affectionate term of address to a friend)

18    school control    for as for

19    judicious prudent, of good judgment

20    fits o’th’season violent and unpredictable disturbances of the current time

21    we…ourselves we are declared traitors though we do not recognize ourselves as such/when loyalties become confused and we do not know whom to trust

22    hold…fear make rumors out of the things we are afraid of

25    Each…none (being tossed) in every direction and thus never making progress

27    climb upward improve

28    pretty cousin i.e., Lady Macduff’s son

32    It…discomfort i.e., because I would weep/because I might be discovered by Macbeth’s spies

39    Poor pitiful/impoverished    lime sticky substance spread on branches as a means of catching birds    pitfall trap in which a cover falls over a hole    gin snare

40    Poor…for i.e., they are only set for superior birds

51    swears and lies vows and then breaks his word

59    hang up hang

63    prattler chatterer

65    in…perfect I am fully acquainted with your honorable status and reputation

66    doubt fear    nearly imminently/closely

67    homely plain, simple

70    do…you i.e., to harm you physically/not to warn you at all    fell fierce

71    nigh your person close to you

82    unsanctified unconsecrated, unholy

85    shag-eared with cropped ears (a punishment for criminals; the mutilated ear might have an uneven appearance); some editors prefer “shag-haired,” shaggy hair being a traditional attribute of stage villains

86    egg i.e., very young thing    fry spawn, offspring

Act 4 Scene 3

4.3    Location: the English royal court

1    desolate barren/lonely/miserable    shade shadowy or reclusive place

4    fast firmly    mortal deadly

5    Bestride…birthdom protect our fallen birthright (as one would stand astride and defend a fallen soldier on the battlefield)

7    that so that

9    Like…dolour the same cry of sorrow

10    wail lament

12    to friend favorable, on my side

13    perchance perhaps

14    sole name name alone

15    honest honorable

16    touched harmed    something…me you may detect something of him in me

17    wisdom you may deem it wisdom

19    angry god i.e., Macbeth

22    recoil degenerate, give way (plays on sense of “rebound like a firearm that has been shot”)

23    imperial charge royal command (charge plays on sense of “quantity of gunpowder in a firearm”)

24    That…transpose my (suspicious) thoughts cannot change you from what you really are

25    the brightest i.e., Lucifer, or Satan, the brightest angel who was cast out of heaven for defying God

26    foul sinful/dirty, tarnished    wear…grace assume the appearance of goodness (thus casting suspicion on true goodness)

27    look so look like itself

29    there i.e., Scotland    doubts suspicions

30    rawness vulnerability/incompleteness (without    leave-taking)

31    motives incentives (to loving, protective behavior)

32    leave-taking formal farewell/permission to depart

33    Let…safeties do not think that my suspicions are intended to shame and insult you, but that they arise from concern for my own security

37    basis sure foundation firmly

38    check restrain/rebuke

39    title is affeered (Macbeth’s) title is confirmed; plays on sense of “affeared,” i.e., Malcolm is frightened to claim his title

42    to boot in addition

45    yoke wooden apparatus worn on the neck of a captive or conquered enemy used to subdue and prevent escape

47    withal moreover

48    right rightful cause

49    England the King of England

50    thousands i.e., of soldiers

54    more sundry in more diverse

55    succeed follow (Macbeth; with a play on sense of “inherit the throne”)

56    What who

58    particulars individual features/detailed aspects    so grafted are so merged (as in horticulture: a shoot from one plant is grafted onto the stem of another)

59    opened revealed/unfurled (like a bud)

61    Esteem regard, value

62    confineless boundless

63    legions multitudes/armies

65    top surpass

67    Luxurious lustful    avaricious greedy for wealth

68    Sudden impetuous, violently hasty, unpredictable

70    voluptuousness lust for pleasure

71    matrons married women    maids virgins

72    cistern large water tank

73    continent restrictive/chaste/containing (perhaps with vaginal connotations)    o’erbear overflow/crush (with my body weight during rape)

74    will sexual desire/penis

76    Boundless…tyranny in human nature, excessive lack of control is a form of tyranny over the self

80    what is yours i.e., the Scottish throne

81    Convey manage, carry out (secretly)

82    cold chaste/lacking in sexual passion    hoodwink blindfold, i.e., deceive

84    so…inclined the amount of women who will offer themselves to a man in your royal position once they realize you desire them

88    ill-composed affection character constituted of evil/poorly constituted disposition

89    stanchless unstoppable

90    cut off kill

91    his i.e., one man’s

92    more-having greater wealth/greed for more

93    forge fabricate, invent

98    summer-seeming befitting summer, i.e., youth (lust may wane with age)

99    sword…kings i.e., means by which they died (e.g., in wars motivated by greed)

100    foisons plentiful resources

101    Of…own of your very own, belonging entirely to you (as king)    these i.e., these vices you mention    portable bearable, endurable

102    weighed counterbalanced

103    king-becoming befitting a king (plays on the idea of one who is about to gain kingship)

104    verity truthfulness    temp’rance moderation, self-restraint

105    Bounty kindness, generosity    lowliness humility

107    relish trace/taste for    abound…crime i.e., I am full of all possible aspects of vice    division category/variation    several individual

110    concord harmony, peace

111    Uproar bring into a state of uproar

118    untitled without rightful title

119    wholesome healthy

121    interdiction prohibition

122    blaspheme slanders/commits sacrilege (to the sainted Duncan)    breed his family line

123    sainted saintly, holy

124    upon her knees i.e., in prayer

125    Died…lived spent every day of her life in a state of holy readiness for death

126    repeat’st upon utter against/recount about

127    Hath…Scotland have destroyed any hope I had of returning to Scotland/are exactly those, which, in Macbeth, caused me to flee Scotland

131    scruples doubts

133    trains tricks, stratagems (i.e., sending an apparently sympathetic nobleman to try and lure Malcolm back to Scotland)

134    plucks withholds

135    over-credulous too readily believing

137    direction guidance

138    Unspeak…detraction take back the harmful things I said about myself    abjure renounce

139    taints (moral) stains

140    For as being

141    Unknown to woman i.e., a virgin    forsworn perjured, a breaker of oaths

142    Scarcely…own have hardly ever desired even what I myself owned

145    false speaking lie

146    this upon myself i.e., the false statements he made about his character

148    here-approach arrival here

150    at a point prepared, ready

151    Now we’ll set forth    the…quarrel may our success match the degree to which our cause is justified

157    stay await    cure kings were believed to possess a healing touch    convinces defeats

158    assay of art efforts of medical practitioners

159    sanctity holiness

160    presently amend immediately recover

163    the evil “the king’s evil,” i.e., scrofula, an inflammation of the lymph nodes, which the monarch’s touch was believed to cure

165    here-remain stay

166    solicits entreats (through prayer)

167    strangely-visited severely afflicted

169    mere absolute

170    stamp coin

171    ’tis spoken it is said

172    succeeding royalty king’s successors

173    benediction grace, blessing    strange inexplicable

176    speak him declare him to be

178    countryman i.e., fellow Scot    know recognize (presumably Ross’s clothing identifies him as Malcolm’s countryman, or perhaps Malcolm means that sorrow has so altered Ross that he seems like a different man)

179    ever-gentle ever noble

180    betimes hastily

181    means circumstances (more specifically, Macbeth)

186    nothing…nothing no one other than a fool

189    marked paid attention to

190    modern ecstasy commonplace frenzy    The…who i.e., no one bothers to inquire about who has died when they hear the funeral bell toll as death has become so common

193    or…sicken before becoming ill

194    relation report, account    nice detailed/accurate/extraordinary, strange

196    hiss the speaker mock the speaker (as the news is already out of date)

197    teems gives rise to, breeds

203    at peace i.e., dead (though Macduff continues to understand the sense of “untroubled”)

204    niggard of miser in

206    heavily sorrowfully/as a burden

207    out i.e., preparing for war/committed to rebellion

208    witnessed the rather further confirmed

209    power army    afoot on the march

210    eye i.e., you, your presence

212    doff cast off (as one would a garment)

213    Be’t let it be

216    An…out i.e., there is not an older or better soldier in all Christendom    gives out reports, proclaims

219    the like i.e., similarly encouraging news

220    would should    desert lonely, desolate

221    latch take hold of, receive

223    general cause i.e., the woes of Scotland    fee-grief grief owned by one person only (a term derived from legal language relating to property)

231    possess them with put them in possession of/cause them to become (demonically) possessed by    heaviest most sorrowful, grievous

234    surprised ambushed

235    manner way in which they were killed, details

236    quarry heap of deer killed at a hunt    deer puns on “dear”

239    pull…brows a conventional gesture of grief

241    Whispers whispers to    o’er-fraught overburdened

244    must…thence had to be away from home

249    He refers either to Macbeth or to Malcolm

250    hell-kite bird of prey from hell

251    dam mother

252    fell swoop cruel swooping down of the    hell-kite

253    Dispute fight against

259    struck killed violently and suddenly    Naught wicked, sinful person

260    demerits faults

261    Fell quibbles on the adjectival sense of “cruel”

262    whetstone stone on which swords are sharpened

264    play…eyes i.e., weep

265    braggart play on one who brags, i.e., gives out a braying cry/talks emptily and ceaselessly

266    intermission pause in action    Front to front face to face

268    scape escape

270    tune style (of speech)/tone/frame of mind

271    power army

272    Our…leave it remains only to obtain formal permission to depart (from the English king)

273    ripe for shaking i.e., ready to fall (like ripe fruit from a tree)    powers above heavenly powers

274    Put…instruments urge on their agents (us)/put on their weapons

Act 5 Scene 1

5.1    Location: Macbeth’s castle at Dunsinane Physic medicine

1    watched remained awake

2    walked sleepwalked

3    field battlefield (i.e., prepared for war)

4    closet cabinet

7    perturbation disturbance

8    effects of watching appearance and actions of waking    agitation disturbed state of mind/nervous activity

11    meet suitable    taper candle

13    guise custom/manner

14    close concealed

24    set down write down    satisfy meets the needs of, confirm

25    remembrance memory

26    One: two Lady Macbeth imagines she hears the striking of a clock or perhaps the bell she was to strike as a signal to Macbeth

28    none…account no one can hold us responsible as we are now so powerful

31    Thane of Fife Macduff

32    mar spoil

33    starting nervousness/fits, outbursts

34    Go to expression of reproof similar to “come, come” (probably directed at Lady Macbeth)

39    sorely charged grievously burdened

40    dignity worth, high status

43    be i.e., be well

44    practice medical skill

47    on’s of his

48    Even so? i.e., is that how it is

56    divine priest

58    annoyance injury (here self-harm)

59    still continually

60    mated bewildered

Act 5 Scene 2

5.2    Location: near Dunsinane Drum and Colours drummer and bearer of military flags

3    dear heartfelt/noble/grievous    causes motives for revenge, grounds for action

4    bleeding shedding of blood/bloody (alarm)    alarm call to arms

5    Excite…man rouse even a dead or insensible man

9    file list

11    unrough beardless, i.e., young

12    Protest declare, assert

14    Dunsinane i.e., the castle

17    buckle…rule i.e., legally (or morally) justify his grounds for fighting; the image is of a diseased and bloated belly one cannot buckle a belt around    distempered disordered/diseased    cause grounds for action/illness

20    sticking i.e., with blood

21    minutely every minute    upbraid reproach, censure    faith-breach breaking of (secular and spiritual) loyalty

22    move…love only obey because they are following orders, not out of love for their king

27    pestered diseased/troubled

32    med’cine cure/physician (i.e., Malcolm)    weal commonwealth, state

33    purge purgative medicine, used to cleanse the body

34    drop of blood/medicine

36    dew cover with dew    sovereign royal/excelling/healing

Act 5 Scene 3

5.3    Location: Macbeth’s castle at Dunsinane

1    them i.e., the thanes who have deserted him

2    remove move

3    taint lose courage/become stained

5    mortal consequences outcomes of human affairs    pronounced me proclaimed/pronounced judgment on me

8    epicures lovers of luxury

9    sway by rule with/govern myself by

11    cream-faced i.e., pale with fear    loon rogue/idiot/lowly youth

12    goose white, fearful/idiotic

16    over-red cover over with red

17    lily-livered with a liver as pale as a lily, i.e., cowardly (the liver was thought to be the seat of strong passions)    patch fool/rogue

18    of fall on    linen i.e., white

19    counsellors to i.e., teach, encourage others to    whey-face face the color of whey (white)

21    Seyton may be pronounced “Satan”

22    push attack/crisis

23    cheer comfort, encourage; puns on “chair,” i.e., (en)throne    disseat dethrone

24    way path/course/manner

25    sear withered condition (if associated with way of life)/withered (if applied to leaf)    yellow i.e., autumnal/decaying

27    As such as

28    stead place

29    mouth-honour insincere verbal expressions of respect

30    fain gladly

38    skirr scour, pass speedily through

41    Not so sick not so much physically ill

42    thick-coming thronging    fancies imaginings, delusions

47    Raze out erase, wipe out

48    oblivious inducing oblivion, forgetfulness

49    stuffed overfull/oppressed

54    staff rod of office/spear or clublike weapon

55    send out i.e., send out    more horses

56    dispatch hurry up    cast The water make a diagnosis by examining the urine

58    pristine original, former

60    Pull’t off either an instruction to remove a piece of armor that is proving difficult to put on or has been put on incorrectly, or Macbeth has changed his mind about wearing his armor at all

61    rhubarb plant used to make purgative drugs    cyme senna, a plant used to make purgative drugs and sometimes mixed with rhubarb for this purpose

62    scour cleanse, purge

63    preparation mobilized army/military proceedings

65    it probably the armor removed a few lines earlier

66    bane murder/destruction

68    clear safe/free/untroubled

69    hardly with great difficulty

Act 5 Scene 4

5.4    Location: near Birnam Wood

2    chambers private rooms (like the bedchamber in which Duncan was murdered)

3    nothing not at all

7    shadow conceal

8    host army    discovery military reconnaissance

9    Err be mistaken

12    Keeps remains (with connotations of defensive preservation)

13    setting down encampment for a siege

15    where…given while they could have advantaged Macbeth (through loyalty)/wherever it is possible to advantage the English forces/where military advantage must be conceded to the English (who are about to besiege the castle)/when they had the opportunity (i.e., were not confined to the castle during a siege)

16    more…revolt people of both high and low social status have deserted Macbeth

19    Let…event let an exact assessment be made only after the outcome of the actual battle

23    due appropriate, necessary (plays on the sense of “owing”)

24    owe own/are required to repay

25    Thoughts…arbitrate speculation deals with uncertain hopes; for a definitive outcome, combat must be the deciding factor

Act 5 Scene 5

5.5    Location: Macbeth’s castle at Dunsinane

4    ague fever

5    forced reinforced

6    dareful defiantly/boldly

11    fell of hair entire head of hair

12    treatise tale

13    As as if    supped full had my fill of horror/dined in the company of horrors (i.e., Banquo’s ghost)

14    Direness dreadfulness, horror

15    start me make me start

17    She…hereafter she should have died at a future time/she would have died at some point anyway

18    such a word i.e., news of her death

20    petty slow/insignificant

21    syllable most minute portion/basic element of a word    recorded written/narrated/remembered

22    lighted lit the way for (with a candle)

23    dusty i.e., characterized by the dust to which all mortals return

24    shadow insubstantial thing/illusion/ghost/actor (the theatrical sense is picked up in fool and player)    poor wretched/unskilled

25    frets wears out/worries his way through/rants and rages (in the manner of a bad actor)

27    Fury fierce passion/frenzy, madness/wild anger/violence

29    thy story quickly relate your news at once

34    did…watch was on guard

43    cling shrivel    sooth truth

44    dost…much do the same for me

45    pull in resolution (am forced to) rein in my firmness of purpose; some editors emend to “pall”

46    fiend i.e., the Third Apparition

50    avouches affirms

51    nor…here no point either fleeing from here or remaining

52    ’gin begin

53    th’estate the kingdom/condition/settled order

54    wrack ruin, destruction

55    harness armor

Act 5 Scene 6

5.6    Location: outside Macbeth’s castle at Dunsinane

2    show appear    uncle i.e., Siward

4    battle battalion

6    order arrangement, battle plan

8    Do i.e., if    power army

11    harbingers forerunners, messengers

Act 5 Scene 7

2    bear-like like a bear tied to a    stake and baited with dogs, a popular form of entertainment    course designated bout, during which the bear was attacked by dogs

8    is that is

21    kerns lightly armed foot soldiers

22    staves staffs used as weapons

24    undeeded without it having carried out any action

25    note reputation/notoriety (plays on the sense of “musical note”)

26    bruited loudly announced

28    gently rendered calmly (or easily) surrendered

31    The…yours i.e., you have almost won

33    strike beside us fight alongside us/deliberately miss when they strike at us

35    play…sword i.e., do as the Romans did and commit suicide when defeated

36    lives anyone living

39    men else other men

40    charged burdened; plays on the senses of “blamed/accused (of a crime)”

44    terms…out words can proclaim you to be

45    losest labour waste time

46    intrenchant unable to be cut

47    keen sharp (plays on the sense of “eager, fervent”)    impress make a physical impression, mark

48    crests helmets, heads

52    angel personal governing spirit/Lucifer

54    Untimely prematurely (Macduff was born by Cesarean section)

56    cowed overawed, intimidated    better…man i.e., courage, manly spirit

57    juggling deceiving/equivocating

58    palter equivocate

59    keep…hope only fulfill their promises verbally rather than in the manner we expected

62    show…o’th’time sideshow or public spectacle of the age

64    Painted…pole (your picture) painted on a sign, as an advertisement for the attraction    underwrit written underneath

68    rabble mob of commoners

70    opposed facing me/hostile to me

71    try the last attempt the extreme/undergo the utmost

72    Lay on set to, go about it

74    would wish

75    go off die    these i.e., those present

78    soldier’s debt i.e., death

80    prowess bravery

81    unshrinking station brave stand

87    before on the front of his body (which would show that he had died fighting honorably, not running away)

90    hairs puns on “heirs”

92    knolled tolled

94    spend expend (in tears)

96    score bill, amount owed

98    stands i.e., on a pole or lance

99    free liberated from tyranny

100    compassed…pearl i.e., surrounded by the finest nobles of Scotland (plays on the idea of being crowned)

101    salutation greeting

105    spend waste/pay out

106    reckon settle accounts

107    make…you i.e., by rewarding the thanes’ loyalty

110    planted…time performed now as befits the beginning of a new age

113    ministers agents

115    by…life i.e., committed suicide    self and violent her own violent

116    needful else other necessary things

117    grace of grace i.e., grace of God (the essence of grace itself)

118    measure due proportion

Song 1

10    the count the full number

11    ’noint anoint (apply an oil, perhaps in ritual manner)

13    dues what is owed to him

14    cull embrace

15    muse wonder

21    furnished prepared/equipped

29    crystal an alternative reading in the early musical sources is    mistress’

32    sound make noise/can be heard

34    breach breaking (waves)

Song 2

3    keep…in keep the gruel in the cauldron viscous

10    bane poison

12    oil venom

13    madder more potent, liable to provoke frenzy/red-colored (from the plant “madder” used in dyeing)

14    rid get rid of

15    wench girl/lass (red-haired people were sometimes associated with evil)

THE TRAGEDY OF HAMLET, PRINCE OF DENMARK

The mood of Hamlet is set by its opening exchange: “Who’s there?” “Nay, answer me.” The play creates the illusion of asking as many questions of its audience and interpreters as we may ask of it. Shakespeare won’t tell us who he is or where he stands. Instead, he makes us—and our culture—reveal ourselves. That is the source of his endurance and one of the reasons why Hamlet has long been regarded as his greatest, or at least his most characteristic, play.

The Prince of Denmark himself is the most famously interrogative of all dramatic characters. He is Shakespeare’s ultimate man of words. The actor who plays him has to learn over 340 speeches; the role has a higher proportion of its play’s words (nearly 40 percent) than any other in Shakespeare. Hamlet’s favorite intellectual move is to make an action that he witnesses—a player weeping, a skull tossed from an old grave—into the occasion for speculation: “What’s Hecuba to him, or he to Hecuba, / That he should weep for her?” “Where be your gibes now, your gambols, your songs, your flashes of merriment that were wont to set the table on a roar?” In watching or reading the play, we are moved, like Hamlet, to ask the big questions: What should we believe? How should we act? What happens after death? Whose version of the truth should we have faith in?

Horatio, the commentator who comes closest to being the voice of the audience, says that he “in part” believes stories about ghosts and portents. His qualifier is a watchword for the whole play. Humankind is in part a god-like creature, full of mental and verbal powers, “The beauty of the world, the paragon of animals.” But, to take the other part, we are also “quintessence of dust”—the politician, the lawyer, the heroic man of action (Alexander the Great), and the humble clown (Yorick) all end up in the same place.

Like the wood in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, but with tragic as opposed to comic consequences, Elsinore is a place where “everything seems double.” Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are a double act engaged to spy on Hamlet, with the result that he has “at each ear a hearer.” Hardly anyone in the play seems able to speak without producing a double epithet: “the sensible and true avouch / Of mine own eyes,” “the gross and scope of my opinion,” “post-haste and rummage in the land,” “the grace and blush of modesty,” and so on. Stage props also come in pairs: two contrasting portraits of two brothers, a pair of rapiers (one of which is sharpened and anointed for the kill), two skulls. Entrances seem to repeat themselves: the appearances of the ghost; Hamlet overheard in meditation, first with a book, later with his reflections on being and not being; the king and Gertrude in their respective private rooms after the trauma of the Mousetrap play; Ophelia’s two mad scenes.

The story of a son seeking vengeance for his father’s death is doubled after Hamlet kills Polonius: “by the image of my cause I see / The portraiture of his,” remarks Hamlet of Laertes. The motif is redoubled in the figure of Young Fortinbras out to avenge the defeat of Old Fortinbras. A further commentary is provided by the Player’s speech about Pyrrhus, son of Achilles, furiously seeking atonement for his father’s loss by slaughtering old King Priam. But this might be construed as a negative example: Priam himself is an “unnervèd father” and his slaughter moves a wife and mother, Hecuba, to distraction. If Hamlet were to become a killing machine like Pyrrhus, he would be diminishing himself to the inhumanity of his adversary, besides emotionally destroying his mother: that is his dilemma bounded in a nutshell.

Hamlet is a student, a model for the perpetual students and idealists who people later literature, especially in Germany and Russia. Like Shakespeare’s other highly intellectual drama, Troilus and Cressida, this is a play that debates the great questions of epistemology, ethics, and metaphysics. “Humanism,” the dominant educational theory of the sixteenth century, proposed that wisdom was to be derived from book learning. The student developed the arts of language through his rhetorical training, while collecting the wisdom of the ancients in the form of citations and sententiae copied into a commonplace book. Polonius’ maxims on how Laertes should behave when away from home, climaxing in the cliché; “to thine own self be true,” are classic examples. The art of “reason” was refined through the study of “common themes,” one of which was “death of fathers.” Reason and judgment were supposed to prevail over will and passion. The Stoicism of Seneca provided a model for the use of “philosophy” as protection against the fickleness of fortune and the vicissitudes of court politics.

Hamlet’s uncle must once have been a good student. He is a master of balanced rhetoric, the measure and decorum of his verse belying his crime against the order of nature and state. He thinks he knows, and that everyone in the court will accept, what is the appropriate length of time to mourn the death of a brother, husband, father. Hamlet despises such propriety. He is not interested in the “common” way of behaving. He speaks for the “particular,” the individual. “Mourning duties,” maintained for a set period, are to him mere outward show, the signs of a “seeming” with which he refuses to play along. He has “that within which passeth show”: the solitary self is set against social custom. He has returned from the university determined to “wipe away” all the customary wisdom of Stoic decorum, all that “discourse of reason,” which humanist theorists regarded as the gift that set men above the beasts. He will have nothing to do with “saws of books” or the codes of behavior that “youth and observation” are supposed to copy from their humanist texts. After encountering the ghost, he vows to fill his commonplace book (“my tables”) from experience instead of books. This new way of seeing is initially regarded by his fellow students Horatio and Marcellus as no more than “wild and whirling words,” madness brought on by an encounter with an evil spirit. But Hamlet knows what he is doing. He tries on his “antic disposition” as a way of testing the limits of the rational “philosophy” embodied by Horatio. Ophelia tells of how she witnessed Hamlet utter a sigh that seemed to “end his being.” That end is also a beginning: the birth of a new man dedicated to the proposition that the opposite of reason is not madness, but true feeling. Later, when Ophelia is mad, she is described as “Divided from herself and her fair judgement, / Without the which we are pictures or mere beasts.” When Hamlet feigns madness, by contrast, he speaks with true judgment, as even Polonius half-recognizes: “A happiness that often madness hits on, which reason and sanity could not so prosperously be delivered of.”

Hamlet is a political drama as well as a play about the journey of an individual self. It begins with portents betokening “some strange eruption to our state.” It holds up a mirror to a world of royalty, courtiers, politicians, and ambassadors, but also ordinary people: students, actors, gravediggers, even (on the margins) an underclass of “lawless resolutes” following Fortinbras and a “rabble” who wants Laertes to be king. “Denmark’s a prison”: Hamlet is cabined, cribbed and confined by his princely birth, by the machinations of statecraft, and by the limitations of the material world. In his melancholy, when he complains that he has lost interest in all gentlemanly pursuits (“custom of exercise”), he points to the “canopy” over the stage. The self-conscious allusion to the architecture of the Globe Theatre hints at how he finds his freedom: in play, first by pretending to be mad, then through theater. It is the arrival of the actors that reinvigorates him. Hamlet loves plays and the players because he recognizes the power of acting to expose the feigning of public life, the fact that courtiership and rhetorical decorum are themselves but performances. He comes to the truth through “a fiction” and “a dream of passion.” In this he can only be regarded as an apologist for the art of his creator.

Hamlet’s shortest soliloquy, after he has been fired up by the play-within-the-play, is very much in the style of the traditional stage revenger, such as Hieronimo in Thomas Kyd’s Spanish Tragedy: “Now could I drink hot blood / And do such bitter business as the day / Would quake to look on.” Hamlet is as capable of violent action as any other revenger—witness his cruel rejection of Ophelia and his casual lugging of Polonius’ guts into the neighboring room. Nor does he delay nearly so much as he tells us he is delaying. He has to establish the authenticity of the ghost, to ensure that it is not a devil sent to tempt him into evil action, and as soon as he has done this by watching Claudius’ reaction to the play he goes off to kill him; he doesn’t kill him at prayer because that would be “hire and salary, not revenge,” would send him to heaven not to hell; he then thinks that he has killed him in Gertrude’s closet; it turns out that he has killed Polonius instead and as a result he is packed off to England. As soon as he has tricked and dispatched Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, effected his daring escape via the pirate ship, and returned to Denmark, he is in a state of “readiness” and the revenge takes place during the duel.

But the style of the “hot blood” soliloquy is completely unlike that of the other solo speeches, which are all much longer and more introspective. It is from them that we derive our image of the character of Hamlet: in the first act, so disgusted by his mother’s hasty remarriage that he wishes he were dead; in the second, moved to self-disgust by the way in which the player can work himself into a frenzy for the fictional sorrows of Hecuba, while he himself has not yet done anything about his father’s murder; in the third, meditating on the pros and cons of suicide; and in the Quarto text of the fourth, still chiding himself when he compares his own inaction with the military activity of Fortinbras and his army (“How all occasions do inform against me / And spur my dull revenge!”). Hamlet’s self-analysis has led some commentators to wonder whether his failure to kill the praying usurper might be the result of procrastination, not calculation about whether he would be sending him to heaven or hell. The soliloquies present such a convincing picture of irresolution and inaction that even when it comes to the final scene it may occur to us that the killing of the king seems to be not so much the climax of Hamlet’s plans as an incidental consequence of Laertes’ quest for revenge for the deaths of his father and sister.

For the Romantics such as Goethe and Coleridge, Hamlet was the archetype of the sensitive man paralyzed into inaction by his sheer capacity for thought—which is to say an image of themselves as poets uneasily inhabiting the public sphere. Debatable as this reading is, there can be little doubt that Shakespeare’s innovation in Hamlet was to take the figure of the revenger from the old play and turn him into an intellectual, so making revenge into a moral dilemma as opposed to a practical task to be carried out through effective plotting. Hamlet’s problem is that his intelligence makes him see both sides of every question, whereas there is no place for debate and half-measure in the drama of revenge. The lesson from both the Old Testament and Greek tragedy, which was mediated to Shakespeare via Seneca’s Latin versions, was that action requires reactions: a crime in one generation demands the meting out of punishment in the next, an eye for an eye. Requital must be exact and complete. Hamlet does not kill the king while he is praying because that would send him straight to heaven, which does not correspond to the fate of Old Hamlet, who was murdered “grossly, full of bread, / With all his crimes broad blown.” It is one of the play’s many ironies that, immediately on Hamlet’s departure, the king acknowledges that his prayer for forgiveness is not working—if Hamlet had struck, he would have damned his enemy.

One of the paradoxes of the play is that the ghost of Old Hamlet comes from Purgatory, where he is confined in fire “Till the foul crimes done in his days of nature / Are burnt and purged away,” while Hamlet’s speech giving his reasons for not plunging his sword into his praying uncle implies that the act of penitence can instantly purge sin away and allow even a man who has committed the most terrible crime immediate access to heaven on his death. Purgatory is a Roman Catholic doctrine, the leap to grace supposed by Hamlet a Protestant one. At several points, the play engages with the great doctrinal disputes of the Reformation and Counter-Reformation. Hamlet, after all, longs to be back at Wittenberg, Martin Luther’s university, intellectual home of the Protestant revolution, in which authenticity of feeling is paramount and the key term is “conscience.” As Hamlet says at the end of “To be, or not to be,” “conscience does make cowards of us all.” In Elizabethan English, “conscience” means not only moral scruple but also “consciousness.” A polyglot dictionary of the period glosses the word as “witness of one’s own mind, knowledge, remorse.” It is Hamlet’s extreme self-consciousness that sets him apart from the traditional revenger. When alone on stage, reflecting on his own situation, he seems to embody the very nature of human being; it is “conscience” in its multiple senses that forms his self-image, his “character,” and in so doing makes it agonizingly difficult for him to perform the action that is demanded of him. Yet when he does come to act, he is decisive and ruthless. He reaches the point of “readiness” when he accepts—never easy for an intellectual—that what will be will be. Thereafter, he considers it “perfect conscience” to kill the king and has no compunction about his treatment of the former schoolfellows who have betrayed not only him but the precious virtue of friendship: Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, he says, “are not near my conscience.”

It is sometimes said that chance, not Hamlet, brings the plot to a resolution. Hamlet certainly believes that Providence is operating on his behalf, as witnessed by the good fortune of his having the means to seal Rosencrantz and Guildenstern’s fate. But the exchange of rapiers during the fencing match with Laertes is not a matter of chance, as is sometimes suggested. Many modern productions use the épée that had not been invented in Shakespeare’s time—a flexible foil that may be knocked from the hand, leading to the possibility of an accidental exchange of weapons. But Hamlet and Laertes duel with “rapier and dagger,” the commonest weapons for such an encounter, as illustrated in Vincentio Saviolo’s treatise on fencing skills, The Art of Practice (1595).

“Rapier and dagger”: on-guard position, as illustrated in Vincentio Saviolo’s English fencing treatise of 1595

“They change rapiers”: disarm and exchange by left-hand seizure, as illustrated in Henri de Saint-Didier’s French fencing treatise of 1573

The grip used for the rapier meant that it was very hard to remove from the opponent’s hand save by an advanced maneuver known as the “left-hand seizure”: Hamlet would have dropped his dagger to the ground and grabbed the hilt of Laertes’ rapier with his left hand, twisting it out of his grip; Laertes would have responded with the same action, resulting in the switch of weapons.

The move, which is illustrated in continental fencing handbooks of the period, is so skillful that Hamlet’s action must have been purposeful. He would not initially have seen that Laertes’ rapier was “unbated” (not blunted in the way that was customary to prevent the injury of gentlemen participating in sporting fights), but on receiving a “hit” his skin would have been pierced by the point. Realizing that Laertes is in earnest, not play, he instantly responds with the maneuver that makes the switch. Now he is in deadly earnest himself. Deeds take over from words, revenge is performed without further compunctious visitings of nature, and “the rest is silence.”

KEY FACTS

PLOT: Old Hamlet, King of Denmark, is dead and has been succeeded by his brother. The new king has also married Gertrude, the widowed queen. Hamlet, Gertrude’s son, is already distressed by his father’s death and the hasty remarriage; when his father’s ghost appears to tell him that he was murdered by his own brother, Hamlet vows revenge. To cover his intentions, he feigns madness. Polonius, councilor to the court, whose daughter Ophelia is all but betrothed to Hamlet, believes that his madness is caused by love. Spied on by Polonius and the king, Hamlet encounters Ophelia and violently rejects her. A company of actors arrives and Hamlet asks them to perform a play, hoping that its similarity to the murder of his own father will force the king to reveal his guilt. Hamlet’s suspicions are confirmed. He visits his mother, reviling her for her hasty marriage, and accidentally kills Polonius, who is hiding in the chamber. The king sends Hamlet to England, planning to have him murdered. Laertes, Polonius’ son, demands revenge for his father’s death. His sister, Ophelia, maddened by grief, has drowned. Hamlet returns and confronts Laertes at her funeral. The king, meanwhile, has plotted with Laertes to kill Hamlet in a fencing match in which Laertes will have a poisoned sword. The plot miscarries and Laertes dies. Gertrude drinks from a poisoned cup intended for Hamlet, and also dies. Hamlet, wounded by the poisoned sword, kills the king before he, too, dies. Young Fortinbras of Norway arrives and lays claim to the throne of Denmark.

MAJOR PARTS: (with percentage of lines/number of speeches/scenes on stage) Hamlet (37%/341/12), King (14%/100/11), Polonius (9%/86/8), Horatio (7%/105/9), Laertes (5%/60/6), Ophelia (4%/58/5), Gertrude (4%/70/10), Rosencrantz (2%/44/6), First Player (2%/8/2), Ghost (2%/15/2), First Clown (2%/34/1), Marcellus (2%/34/4), Guildenstern (1%/29/5), Osric (1%/19/1).

LINGUISTIC MEDIUM: 75% verse, 25% prose.

DATE: 1600? Not mentioned by Meres in 1598; registered for publication in summer 1602. Allusions to Julius Caesar (1599) in the dialogue suggest that it was performed after that play; a reference to Shakespeare’s Hamlet by the Cambridge academic Gabriel Harvey seems to date from before February 1601. The exchange concerning boy actors alludes to rivalries in the London theaters during 1600 and 1601, but it may have been inserted in the play some time after its original composition (the passage is absent from the Second Quarto text). An old Hamlet play, of unknown authorship and now lost, was extant in the late 1580s to mid-1590s; it is not known whether Shakespeare had any direct involvement with it.

SOURCES: Given the frequency with which Shakespeare reworked old plays, it may be assumed that the old Hamlet play was his chief source. The Danish prince Amleth is a revenger in the twelfth-century Historiae Danicae of Saxo Grammaticus, familiar to Elizabethan readers via a retelling in François de Belleforest’s Histoires tragiques (1570). In Belleferest, the Gertrude figure definitely begins her affair with her husband’s brother before the murder, in which she is suspected of complicity. The Player’s speech on the fall of Troy is influenced by the language of Christopher Marlowe’s Dido Queen of Carthage; Hamlet’s philosophizing sometimes resembles the tone of Michel de Montaigne’s Essais, but a direct link has not been proved.

TEXT: The First Quarto was published in 1603 under the title The Tragicall Historie of HAMLET Prince of Denmarke by William Shakespeare. As it hath beene diuerse times acted by his Highnesse seruants in the Cittie of London: as also in the two Vniuersities of Cambridge and Oxford, and elsewhere. Much shorter than the later texts, and with many garbled lines, it seems to be a reconstruction of an acting version. There are some notable differences from the later texts (e.g., Polonius called Corambis, “To be or not to be,” and the “nunnery” dialogue positioned with the “fishmonger” exchange, not after the arrival of the players), but some of the stage directions are valuable (e.g., “Enter Ofelia playing on a Lute, and her haire downe singing” for the mad scene). The Second Quarto, published in 1604/05, was clearly an “authorized” text, intended to displace the First Quarto, as may be seen from its title-page claim, “Newly imprinted and enlarged to almost as much againe as it was, according to the true and perfect Coppie.” Most scholars believe that the text derives from Shakespeare’s manuscript; over 4,000 lines long, it is unlikely to have been staged in full. The text in the 1623 Folio seems to have been set from the theater promptbook or a transcript of it. It has much fuller stage directions than the Second Quarto, and considerable textual variations: about seventy new lines are present, while about 230 Quarto lines are absent, including the whole of Hamlet’s last major soliloquy, “How all occasions do inform against me”—in Folio, he is not there to witness Fortinbras’ army. Hundreds of individual readings differ, strongly suggesting that the Second Quarto and Folio represent different stages in the play’s life. Some scholars regard the revision as systematic (e.g., making subtle changes to Hamlet’s relationship with Rosencrantz and Guildenstern), but it may have been more incremental and haphazard. Given the major differences, the editorial practice of conflation, which began with Nicholas Rowe’s insertion of the Second Quarto’s final soliloquy in his Folio-based text of 1709, has recently fallen into disrepute. We edit the Folio text, but include the Quarto-only passages (edited and annotated) independently at the end. Though Folio seems to have been set from a theatrical manuscript, it was also influenced by the Quarto tradition; so too, a modern edition of Folio can benefit from Quarto readings when the Folio text is manifestly erroneous, as it is on numerous occasions.

THE TRAGEDY OF HAMLET, PRINCE OF DENMARK*

HAMLET, Prince of Denmark

KING of Denmark, Hamlet’s uncle

GHOST of old Hamlet, former King of Denmark, Hamlet’s father

GERTRUDE, queen of Denmark, Hamlet’s mother

POLONIUS, councillor to the state of Denmark

LAERTES, Polonius’ son

OPHELIA, Polonius’ daughter

REYNALDO, Polonius’ servant

HORATIO, Hamlet’s friend and fellow student

FRANCISCO, another sentinel of the king’s guard

OSRIC, a courtier

PLAYERS, who take the roles of prologue, player KING, BAPTISTA and LUCIANUS

FORTINBRAS, Prince of Norway

A CAPTAIN in his army

Two CLOWNS, a gravedigger and his companion

Two MESSENGERS

A SAILOR

A PRIEST

AMBASSADOR from England

Lords, Soldiers, Attendants, Servants, Followers of Laertes

Act 1 Scene 11.1

running scene 1

Enter Barnardo and Francisco, two sentinels Meeting

BARNARDOWho’s there?

FRANCISCONay, answer me:[2] stand and unfold yourself.

BARNARDOLong live the king!

FRANCISCOBarnardo?

5

BARNARDOHe.

FRANCISCOYou come most carefully[6] upon your hour.

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

FRANCISCOFor this relief much thanks: ’tis bitter cold,

And I am sick at heart.

10

BARNARDOHave you had quiet guard?

FRANCISCONot a mouse stirring.

BARNARDOWell, goodnight.

If you do meet Horatio and Marcellus,

The rivals[14] of my watch, bid them make haste.

Enter Horatio and Marcellus

15

FRANCISCOI think I hear them.— Stand! Who’s there?

HORATIOFriends to this ground.[16]

MARCELLUSAnd liegemen[17] to the Dane.

FRANCISCOGive[18] you goodnight.

MARCELLUSO, farewell, honest soldier. Who hath relieved you?

20

FRANCISCOBarnardo has my place. Give you goodnight.

Exit Francisco

MARCELLUSHolla! Barnardo!

BARNARDOSay, what, is Horatio there?

HORATIOA piece of him.

BARNARDOWelcome, Horatio: welcome, good Marcellus.

25

MARCELLUSWhat, has this thing appeared again tonight?

BARNARDOI have seen nothing.

MARCELLUSHoratio says ’tis but our fantasy,[27]

And will not let belief take hold of him

Touching[29] this dreaded sight twice seen of us:

30

Therefore I have entreated him along[30]

With us to watch[31] the minutes of this night,

That if again this apparition come,

He may approve[33] our eyes and speak to it.

HORATIOTush, tush, ’twill not appear.

35

BARNARDOSit down awhile,

And let us once again assail[36] your ears,

That are so fortified against our story,

What we two nights have seen.

HORATIOWell, sit we down,

40

And let us hear Barnardo speak of this.

BARNARDOLast[41] night of all,

When yond[42] same star that’s westward from the pole

Had made his course t’illume[43] that part of heaven

Where now it burns, Marcellus and myself,

45

The bell then beating one—

MARCELLUSPeace, break thee off.

Enter the Ghost

Look where it comes again.

BARNARDOIn the same figure[47] like the king that’s dead.

MARCELLUSThou art a scholar;[48] speak to it, Horatio.

BARNARDOLooks it not like the king? Mark it,[49] Horatio.

50

HORATIOMost like: it harrows[50] me with fear and wonder.

BARNARDOIt would[51] be spoke to.

MARCELLUSQuestion it, Horatio.

HORATIOWhat art thou that usurp’st[53] this time of night,

Together with that fair and warlike form

55

In which the majesty of buried Denmark[55]

Did sometimes[56] march? By heaven I charge thee speak!

MARCELLUSIt is offended.

BARNARDOSee, it stalks away.

HORATIOStay! Speak, speak! I charge thee, speak!

Exit the Ghost

60

MARCELLUS’Tis gone and will not answer.

BARNARDOHow now, Horatio? You tremble and look pale.

Is not this something more than fantasy?

What think you on’t?[63]

HORATIOBefore my God, I might not this believe

65

Without the sensible[65] and true avouch

Of mine own eyes.

MARCELLUSIs it not like the king?

HORATIOAs thou art to thyself.

Such was the very armour he had on

70

When he th’ambitious Norway[70] combated:

So frowned he once when, in an angry parle,[71]

He smote the steelèd pole-axe[72] on the ice.

’Tis strange.

MARCELLUSThus twice before, and just at this dead hour,

75

With martial stalk hath he gone by our watch.

HORATIOIn[76] what particular thought to work I know not,

But in the gross and scope[77] of my opinion,

This bodes some strange eruption[78] to our state.

MARCELLUSGood now,[79] sit down and tell me, he that knows,

80

Why this same strict and most observant watch

So nightly toils[81] the subject of the land,

And why such daily cast[82] of brazen cannon

And foreign mart[83] for implements of war:

Why such impress[84] of shipwrights, whose sore task

85

Does[85] not divide the Sunday from the week:

What might be toward,[86] that this sweaty haste

Doth make the night joint-labourer with the day:

Who is’t that can inform me?

HORATIOThat can I,

90

At least, the whisper[90] goes so: our last king,

Whose image even but now appeared to us,

Was, as you know, by Fortinbras of Norway,

Thereto[93] pricked on by a most emulate pride,

Dared to the combat, in which our valiant Hamlet —

95

For so this side of our known world esteemed him —

Did slay this Fortinbras, who by a sealed compact,[96]

Well ratified by law and heraldry,

Did forfeit, with his life, all those his lands

Which he stood seized on[99] to the conqueror:

100

Against the which, a moiety competent[100]

Was gagèd[101] by our king, which had returned

To the inheritance of Fortinbras,

Had he been vanquisher, as, by the same cov’nant,[103]

And carriage[104] of the article designed,

105

His fell to Hamlet. Now, sir, young Fortinbras,

Of unimprovèd[106] mettle hot and full,

Hath in the skirts[107] of Norway here and there

Sharked up[108] a list of landless resolutes

For[109] food and diet to some enterprise

110

That hath a stomach[110] in’t, which is no other —

And it doth well appear unto our state[111] —

But to recover of us, by strong hand

And terms compulsative,[113] those foresaid lands

So by his father lost: and this, I take it,

115

Is the main motive of our preparations,

The source of this our watch and the chief head[116]

Of this post-haste[117] and rummage in the land.

Enter Ghost again

But soft,[118] behold! Lo, where it comes again!

I’ll cross it,[119] though it blast me. Stay, illusion!

120

If thou hast any sound or use of voice,

Speak to me:

If there be any good thing to be done

That may to thee do ease and grace to me,

Speak to me:

125

If thou art privy to thy country’s fate —

Which, haply,[126] foreknowing may avoid — O, speak!

Or if thou hast uphoarded[127] in thy life

Extorted[128] treasure in the womb of earth — ↓A cock crows↓

For which, they say, you spirits oft walk in death —

130

Speak of it: stay and speak!— Stop it, Marcellus.

MARCELLUSShall I strike at it with my partisan?[131]

HORATIODo, if it will not stand.[132] They attempt to strike it

BARNARDO’Tis here!

HORATIO’Tis here!

135

MARCELLUS’Tis gone!

Exit Ghost

We do it wrong, being so majestical,

To offer it the show of violence,

For it is as the air invulnerable,

And our vain blows malicious mockery.

140

BARNARDOIt was about to speak when the cock crew.

HORATIOAnd then it started like a guilty thing

Upon a fearful summons. I have heard

The cock, that is the trumpet to the day,

Doth with his lofty and shrill-sounding throat

145

Awake the god of day, and at his warning,

Whether in sea or fire, in earth or air,

Th’extravagant and erring[147] spirit hies

To his confine:[148] and of the truth herein

This present object made probation.[149]

150

MARCELLUSIt faded on the crowing of the cock.

Some say that ever gainst[151] that season comes

Wherein our Saviour’s[152] birth is celebrated,

The bird of dawning[153] singeth all night long,

And then, they say, no spirit can walk abroad:

155

The nights are wholesome,[155] then no planets strike,

No fairy talks,[156] nor witch hath power to charm,

So hallowed[157] and so gracious is the time.

HORATIOSo have I heard and do in part believe it.

But, look, the morn in russet[159] mantle clad,

160

Walks o’er the dew of yon high eastern hill.

Break we our watch up, and by my advice,

Let us impart what we have seen tonight

Unto young Hamlet, for upon my life,

This spirit, dumb to us, will speak to him.

165

Do you consent we shall acquaint him with it,

As needful in our loves, fitting our duty?

MARCELLUSLet’s do’t, I pray, and I this morning know

Where we shall find him most conveniently.

Exeunt

Act 1 Scene 21.2

running scene 2

Enter Claudius King of Denmark, Gertrude the Queen, Hamlet, Polonius, Laertes and his sister Ophelia, Lords Attendant

KINGThough yet of Hamlet our dear brother’s death

The memory be green,[2] and that it us befitted

To bear our hearts in grief and our whole kingdom

To be contracted[4] in one brow of woe,

5

Yet so far hath discretion[5] fought with nature

That we with wisest sorrow think on him

Together with remembrance of ourselves.

Therefore our sometime[8] sister, now our queen,

Th’imperial jointress[9] of this warlike state,

10

Have we, as ’twere with a defeated joy,

With one[11] auspicious and one dropping eye,

With mirth in funeral and with dirge in marriage,

In equal scale weighing delight and dole,[13]

Taken to wife; nor have we herein barred[14]

15

Your better wisdoms, which have freely gone

With this affair along. For all, our thanks.

Now follows that you know[17] young Fortinbras,

Holding a weak supposal[18] of our worth,

Or thinking by our late dear brother’s death

20

Our state to be disjoint and out of frame,

Colleaguèd[21] with the dream of his advantage,

He hath not failed to pester us with message

Importing[23] the surrender of those lands

Lost by his father, with all bonds of law,

25

To our most valiant brother. So much for him.

Enter Voltemand and Cornelius

Now for ourself and for this time of meeting,

Thus much the business is: we have here writ

To Norway, uncle of young Fortinbras —

Who, impotent[29] and bedrid, scarcely hears

30

Of this his nephew’s purpose — to suppress

His[31] further gait herein, in that the levies,

The lists and full proportions, are all made

Out of his subject. And we here dispatch

You, good Cornelius, and you, Voltemand,

35

For bearing of this greeting to old Norway,

Giving to you no further personal power

To[37] business with the king, more than the scope

Of these dilated articles[38] allow. Gives a paper

Farewell, and let your haste[39] commend your duty.

40

VOLTEMANDIn that, and all things, will we show our duty.

KINGWe doubt it nothing:[41] heartily farewell.—

Exeunt Voltemand and Cornelius

And now, Laertes, what’s the news with you?

You told us of some suit:[43] what is’t, Laertes?

You cannot speak of reason to the Dane[44]

45

And lose your voice:[45] what wouldst thou beg, Laertes,

That[46] shall not be my offer, not thy asking?

The head is not more native[47] to the heart,

The hand more instrumental[48] to the mouth,

Than is the throne of Denmark to thy father.

50

What wouldst thou have, Laertes?

LAERTESDread my lord,[51]

Your leave and favour[52] to return to France,

From whence though willingly I came to Denmark

To show my duty in your coronation,

55

Yet now I must confess, that duty done,

My thoughts and wishes bend again towards France

And bow them[57] to your gracious leave and pardon.

KINGHave you your father’s leave? What says Polonius?

POLONIUSHe hath, my lord:

60

I do beseech you, give him leave to go.

KINGTake thy fair hour, Laertes: time be thine,

And thy best graces[62] spend it at thy will.—

But now, my cousin[63] Hamlet, and my son—

HAMLETA[64] little more than kin and less than kind.

65

KINGHow is it that the clouds still hang on you?

HAMLETNot so, my lord:— I am too much i’th’sun. Aside?

GERTRUDEGood Hamlet, cast thy nightly colour[67] off,

And let thine eye look like a friend on Denmark.

Do not forever with thy veilèd lids[69]

70

Seek for thy noble father in the dust:

Thou know’st ’tis common,[71] all that lives must die,

Passing through nature to eternity.

HAMLETAy, madam, it is common.

GERTRUDEIf it be,

75

Why seems it so particular[75] with thee?

HAMLET‘Seems’, madam? Nay it is: I know not ‘seems’.

’Tis not alone my inky cloak, good mother,

Nor customary[78] suits of solemn black,

Nor windy suspiration[79] of forced breath,

80

No, nor the fruitful river in the eye,

Nor the dejected ’haviour[81] of the visage,

Together with all forms, moods,[82] shows of grief,

That can denote[83] me truly: these indeed seem,

For they are actions that a man might play,

85

But I have that within which passeth[85] show;

These but the trappings and the suits of woe.

KING’Tis sweet and commendable in your nature, Hamlet,

To give these mourning duties to your father:

But you must know your father lost a father,

90

That father lost, lost his, and the survivor bound

In filial obligation for some term

To do obsequious[92] sorrow. But to persever

In obstinate condolement[93] is a course

Of impious stubbornness: ’tis unmanly grief:

95

It shows a will most incorrect[95] to heaven,

A heart unfortified, a mind impatient,[96]

An understanding simple and unschooled.

For what we know must be and is as common

As any[99] the most vulgar thing to sense,

100

Why should we in our peevish[100] opposition

Take it to heart? Fie,[101] ’tis a fault to heaven,

A fault against the dead, a fault to nature,

To reason most absurd, whose common theme

Is death of fathers, and who still[104] hath cried,

105

From the first corpse till he that died today,

‘This must be so.’ We pray you throw to earth

This unprevailing[107] woe, and think of us

As of a father; for let the world take note,

You are the most immediate[109] to our throne,

110

And with no less nobility of love

Than that which dearest father bears his son,

Do I impart towards you. For[112] your intent

In going back to school in Wittenberg,[113]

It is most retrograde[114] to our desire,

115

And we beseech you bend you[115] to remain

Here in the cheer and comfort of our eye,

Our chiefest courtier, cousin, and our son.

GERTRUDELet not thy mother lose her prayers, Hamlet:

I prithee stay with us, go not to Wittenberg.

120

HAMLETI shall in all my best obey you, madam.

KINGWhy, ’tis a loving and a fair reply.

Be as ourself in Denmark.— Madam, come:

This gentle[123] and unforced accord of Hamlet

Sits smiling to my heart, in grace whereof,[124]

125

No jocund health[125] that Denmark drinks today

But the great cannon to the clouds shall tell,[126]

And the king’s rouse[127] the heavens shall bruit again,

Re-speaking[128] earthly thunder. Come away.

Exeunt. Hamlet remains

HAMLETO, that this too too solid flesh would melt,

130

Thaw and resolve[130] itself into a dew!

Or that the Everlasting[131] had not fixed

His canon[132] gainst self-slaughter! O God, O God!

How weary, stale, flat and unprofitable

Seem to me all the uses[134] of this world!

135

Fie on’t! O, fie, fie! ’Tis an unweeded garden

That grows to seed: things rank and gross[136] in nature

Possess it merely.[137] That it should come to this!

But two months dead: nay, not so much, not two.

So excellent a king, that was to[139] this

140

Hyperion[140] to a satyr, so loving to my mother

That he might not beteem[141] the winds of heaven

Visit her face too roughly. Heaven and earth,

Must I remember? Why, she would hang on him

As if increase of appetite had grown

145

By what it fed on, and yet within a month —

Let me not think on’t: frailty, thy name is woman! —

A little month, or ere[147] those shoes were old

With which she followed my poor father’s body,

Like Niobe,[149] all tears: why she, even she —

150

O, heaven! A beast that wants[150] discourse of reason

Would have mourned longer — married with mine uncle,

My father’s brother but no more like my father

Than I to Hercules.[153] Within a month?

Ere yet the salt of most unrighteous[154] tears

155

Had left the flushing[155] of her gallèd eyes,

She married. O, most wicked speed, to post[156]

With such dexterity to incestuous sheets!

It is not nor it cannot come to good:

But break my heart, for I must hold my tongue.

Enter Horatio, Barnardo and Marcellus

160

HORATIOHail to your lordship!

HAMLETI am glad to see you well:

Horatio — or I do forget myself. Recognizes him

HORATIOThe same, my lord, and your poor servant ever.

HAMLETSir, my good friend, I’ll change[164] that name with you.

165

And what make you from[165] Wittenberg, Horatio?— Marcellus.

MARCELLUSMy good lord.

HAMLETI am very glad to see you.— Good even,[167] sir.— To Barnardo

But what in faith make you from Wittenberg? To Horatio

HORATIOA truant[169] disposition, good my lord.

170

HAMLETI would not have your enemy say so,

Nor shall you do mine ear that violence,

To make it truster of your own report

Against yourself: I know you are no truant.

But what is your affair in Elsinore?

175

We’ll teach you to drink deep ere[175] you depart.

HORATIOMy lord, I came to see your father’s funeral.

HAMLETI pray thee do not mock me, fellow student:

I think it was to see my mother’s wedding.

HORATIOIndeed, my lord, it followed hard[179] upon.

180

HAMLETThrift,[180] thrift, Horatio! The funeral baked meats

Did coldly furnish forth the marriage tables.

Would I had met my dearest[182] foe in heaven

Ere I had ever seen that day, Horatio.

My father, methinks I see my father.

185

HORATIOO, where, my lord?

HAMLETIn my mind’s eye, Horatio.

HORATIOI saw him once; he was a goodly king.

HAMLETHe was a man, take him for all in all:

I shall not look upon his like again.

190

HORATIOMy lord, I think I saw him yesternight.[190]

HAMLETSaw who?

HORATIOMy lord, the king your father.

HAMLETThe king my father?

HORATIOSeason your admiration[194] for a while

195

With an attent[195] ear till I may deliver,

Upon the witness of these gentlemen,

This marvel to you.

HAMLETFor heaven’s love, let me hear.

HORATIOTwo nights together had these gentlemen,

200

Marcellus and Barnardo, on their watch,

In the dead waste[201] and middle of the night,

Been thus encountered. A figure like your father,

Armed at all points[203] exactly, cap-à-pie,

Appears before them, and with solemn march

205

Goes[205] slow and stately: by them thrice he walked,

By their oppressed and fear-surprisèd[206] eyes

Within his truncheon’s[207] length, whilst they, distilled

Almost to jelly with the act[208] of fear

Stand dumb and speak not to him. This to me

210

In dreadful[210] secrecy impart they did,

And I with them the third night kept the watch,

Where, as they had delivered, both in time,

Form of the thing, each word made true and good,

The apparition comes. I knew your father:

215

These[215] hands are not more like.

HAMLETBut where was this?

MARCELLUSMy lord, upon the platform[217] where we watched.

HAMLETDid you not speak to it?

HORATIOMy lord, I did;

220

But answer made it none. Yet once methought

It lifted up its head and did address[221]

Itself to motion, like as it would speak:

But even then the morning cock crew loud,

And at the sound it shrunk in haste away

225

And vanished from our sight.

HAMLET’Tis very strange.

HORATIOAs I do live, my honoured lord, ’tis true;

And we did think it writ down in our duty

To let you know of it.

230

HAMLETIndeed, indeed, sirs; but this troubles me.

Hold you the watch tonight?

MARCELLUSWe do, my lord.

HAMLETArmed, say you?

MARCELLUSArmed, my lord.

235

HAMLETFrom top to toe?

MARCELLUSMy lord, from head to foot.

HAMLETThen saw you not his face?

HORATIOO, yes, my lord, he wore his beaver[238] up.

HAMLETWhat, looked he frowningly?

240

HORATIOA countenance[240] more in sorrow than in anger.

HAMLETPale or red?

HORATIONay, very pale.

HAMLETAnd fixed his eyes upon you?

HORATIOMost constantly.

245

HAMLETI would I had been there.

HORATIOIt would have much amazed you.

HAMLETVery like, very like. Stayed it long?

HORATIOWhile one with moderate haste might tell[248] a hundred.

MARCELLUS and BARNARDO Longer, longer.

250

HORATIONot when I saw’t.

HAMLETHis beard was grizzly,[251] no?

HORATIOIt was, as I have seen it in his life,

A sable silvered.[253]

HAMLETI’ll watch tonight; perchance ’twill walk again.

255

HORATIOI warrant[255] you it will.

HAMLETIf it assume my noble father’s person,

I’ll speak to it though hell itself should gape

And bid me hold my peace. I pray you all,

If you have hitherto concealed this sight,

260

Let it be tenable[260] in your silence still,

And whatsoever else shall hap tonight,

Give it an understanding but no tongue.

I will requite[263] your loves. So, fare ye well:

Upon the platform ’twixt eleven and twelve

265

I’ll visit you.

ALLOur duty to your honour.

Exeunt [all but Hamlet]

HAMLETYour love, as mine to you: farewell.—

My father’s spirit in arms? All is not well:

I doubt[269] some foul play. Would the night were come.

270

Till then, sit still my soul: foul deeds will rise,

Though all the earth o’erwhelm them, to men’s eyes.

Exit

Act 1 Scene 31.3

running scene 3

Enter Laertes and Ophelia

LAERTESMy necessaries are embarked, farewell:

And, sister, as[2] the winds give benefit

And convoy is assistant,[3] do not sleep

But let me hear from you.

5

OPHELIADo you doubt that?

LAERTESFor Hamlet and the trifling of his favours,

Hold it a fashion and a toy in blood,[7]

A violet in the youth of primy[8] nature,

Froward,[9] not permanent, sweet, not lasting,

10

The suppliance[10] of a minute, no more.

OPHELIANo more but so?[11]

LAERTESThink it no more,

For nature crescent[13] does not grow alone

In thews[14] and bulk, but as his temple waxes,

15

The inward service of the mind and soul

Grows wide withal.[16] Perhaps he loves you now,

And now no soil nor cautel[17] doth besmirch

The virtue of his will:[18] but you must fear,

His greatness weighed,[19] his will is not his own;

20

For he himself is subject to his birth:

He may not, as unvalued[21] persons do,

Carve[22] for himself, for on his choice depends

The sanctity[23] and health of the whole state,

And therefore must his choice be circumscribed

25

Unto the voice and yielding[25] of that body

Whereof he is the head. Then if he says he loves you,

It fits your wisdom so far to believe it

As he in his peculiar[28] sect and force

May give his saying deed, which is no further

30

Than the main voice[30] of Denmark goes withal.

Then weigh what loss your honour may sustain

If with too credent[32] ear you list his songs,

Or lose your heart, or your chaste treasure[33] open

To his unmastered importunity.[34]

35

Fear it, Ophelia, fear it, my dear sister,

And keep[36] within the rear of your affection,

Out of the shot[37] and danger of desire.

The chariest[38] maid is prodigal enough

If she[39] unmask her beauty to the moon:

40

Virtue itself scapes[40] not calumnious strokes:

The canker[41] galls the infants of the spring

Too oft before the buttons be disclosed,[42]

And in the morn and liquid dew of youth

Contagious blastments[44] are most imminent.

45

Be wary then: best safety lies in fear.

Youth to[46] itself rebels, though none else near.

OPHELIAI shall th’effect of this good lesson keep

As watchman to my heart. But, good my brother,

Do not, as some ungracious[49] pastors do,

50

Show me the steep and thorny way to heaven,

Whilst, like a puffed[51] and reckless libertine

Himself the primrose path of dalliance treads,

And recks[53] not his own rede.

LAERTESO, fear me not.[54]

Enter Polonius

55

I stay[55] too long. But here my father comes.

A double blessing[56] is a double grace;

Occasion[57] smiles upon a second leave.

POLONIUSYet here, Laertes? Aboard, aboard, for shame!

The wind sits in the shoulder of your sail,

60

And you are stayed[60] for there. My blessing with you!

And these few precepts in thy memory

See thou character.[62] Give thy thoughts no tongue,

Nor any unproportioned[63] thought his act.

Be thou familiar,[64] but by no means vulgar.

65

The friends thou hast, and their adoption tried,[65]

Grapple[66] them to thy soul with hoops of steel,

But do not dull thy palm[67] with entertainment

Of each new-hatched, unfledged[68] comrade: beware

Of entrance to a quarrel, but being in,

70

Bear’t that th’opposèd[70] may beware of thee.

Give every man thine ear, but few thy voice:

Take each man’s censure,[72] but reserve thy judgement:

Costly thy habit[73] as thy purse can buy,

But not expressed in fancy;[74] rich, not gaudy:

75

For the apparel oft proclaims the man,

And they in France of the best rank and station

Are[77] of a most select and generous chief in that.

Neither a borrower nor a lender be,

For loan oft loses both itself and friend,

80

And borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry.[80]

This above all: to thine own self be true,

And it must follow, as the night the day,

Thou canst not then be false[83] to any man.

Farewell: my blessing season[84] this in thee!

85

LAERTESMost humbly do I take my leave, my lord.

POLONIUSThe time invites you. Go, your servants tend.[86]

LAERTESFarewell, Ophelia, and remember well

What I have said to you.

OPHELIA’Tis in my memory locked,

90

And you yourself shall keep the key of it.

LAERTESFarewell.

Exit Laertes

POLONIUSWhat is’t, Ophelia, he hath said to you?

OPHELIASo please you, something touching[93] the lord Hamlet.

POLONIUSMarry,[94] well bethought.

95

’Tis told me, he hath very oft of late

Given private time to you; and you yourself

Have of your audience[97] been most free and bounteous:

If it be so, as so ’tis put on[98] me,

And that in way of caution, I must tell you

100

You do not understand yourself so clearly

As it behoves[101] my daughter and your honour.

What is between you? Give me up the truth.

OPHELIAHe hath, my lord, of late made many tenders[103]

Of his affection to me.

105

POLONIUSAffection? Puh! You speak like a green[105] girl,

Unsifted[106] in such perilous circumstance.

Do you believe his tenders, as you call them?

OPHELIAI do not know, my lord, what I should think.

POLONIUSMarry, I’ll teach you: think yourself a baby

110

That you have ta’en his tenders for true pay

Which are not sterling.[111] Tender yourself more dearly;

Or — not to crack[112] the wind of the poor phrase,

Running[113] it thus — you’ll tender me a fool.

OPHELIAMy lord, he hath importuned[114] me with love

115

In honourable fashion.

POLONIUSAy, fashion[116] you may call it. Go to, go to.

OPHELIAAnd hath given countenance[117] to his speech,

My lord, with all the vows of heaven.

POLONIUSAy, springes[119] to catch woodcocks. I do know,

120

When the blood burns, how prodigal[120] the soul

Lends the tongue vows: these blazes, daughter,

Giving more light than heat, extinct[122] in both

Even in their promise, as it is a-making,

You must not take for fire. For this time,[124] daughter,

125

Be somewhat scanter[125] of your maiden presence;

Set your entreatments[126] at a higher rate

Than a command to parley.[127] For Lord Hamlet,

Believe so much in him that he is young

And with a larger tether may he walk

130

Than may be given you: in few,[130] Ophelia,

Do not believe his vows, for they are brokers,[131]

Not of the dye which their investments[132] show,

But mere implorators[133] of unholy suits,

Breathing like sanctified and pious bawds,[134]

135

The better to beguile.[135] This is for all:

I would not, in plain terms, from this time forth,

Have you so slander any moment[137] leisure,

As to give words or talk with the Lord Hamlet.

Look to’t, I charge you. Come your ways.[139]

140

OPHELIAI shall obey, my lord.

Exeunt

[Act 1 Scene 4]1.4

running scene 4

Enter Hamlet, Horatio, Marcellus

HAMLETThe air bites shrewdly:[1] is it very cold?

HORATIOIt is a nipping and an eager[2] air.

HAMLETWhat hour now?

HORATIOI think it lacks of[4] twelve.

5

HAMLETNo, it is struck.

HORATIOIndeed? I heard it not: then it draws near the season

Wherein the spirit held his wont[7] to walk. A flourish of trumpets and drums, perhaps also cannon

What does this mean, my lord?

HAMLETThe king doth wake[9] tonight and takes his rouse,

10

Keeps wassail,[10] and the swaggering upspring reels:

And as he drains his draughts of Rhenish[11] down,

The kettledrum[12] and trumpet thus bray out

The triumph of his pledge.

HORATIOIs it a custom?

15

HAMLETAy, marry, is’t:

And to my mind, though I am native here

And to the manner[17] born, it is a custom

More[18] honoured in the breach than the observance.

Enter Ghost

HORATIOLook, my lord, it comes!

20

HAMLET Angels and ministers of grace[20] defend us!

Be thou[21] a spirit of health or goblin damned,

Bring with thee airs from heaven or blasts from hell,

Be thy intents wicked or charitable,

Thou com’st in such a questionable shape[24]

25

That I will speak to thee: I’ll call thee Hamlet,

King, father, royal Dane. O, O, answer me!

Let me not burst in ignorance, but tell

Why thy canonized[28] bones, hearsèd in death,

Have burst their cerements,[29] why the sepulchre

30

Wherein we saw thee quietly inurned,[30]

Hath oped his ponderous[31] and marble jaws

To cast[32] thee up again. What may this mean,

That thou, dead corpse, again in complete steel[33]

Revisits thus the glimpses[34] of the moon,

35

Making night hideous,[35] and we fools of nature

So horridly[36] to shake our disposition

With thoughts beyond the reaches of our souls?

Say, why is this? Wherefore?[38] What should we do?

Ghost beckons Hamlet

HORATIOIt beckons you to go away with it,

40

As if it some impartment[40] did desire

To you alone.

MARCELLUSLook, with what courteous action

It wafts[43] you to a more removèd ground:

But do not go with it.

HORATIONo, by no means.

HAMLETIt will not speak; then will I follow it.

HORATIODo not, my lord.

HAMLETWhy, what should be the fear?

I do not set my life at a pin’s fee;[49]

50

And for my soul, what can it do to that,

Being a thing immortal as itself?

It waves me forth again: I’ll follow it.

HORATIOWhat if it tempt you toward the flood,[53] my lord,

Or to the dreadful summit of the cliff

55

That beetles o’er[55] his base into the sea,

And there assumes some other horrible form

Which might deprive[57] your sovereignty of reason

And draw you into madness? Think of it.

HAMLETIt wafts me still.— Go on, I’ll follow thee.

60

MARCELLUSYou shall not go, my lord. Holds him back

HAMLETHold off your hand.

HORATIOBe ruled: you shall not go.

HAMLETMy fate cries out,

And makes each petty artery[64] in this body

65

As hardy as the Nemean lion’s[65] nerve.—

Still am I called?— Unhand me, gentlemen.

By heav’n, I’ll make a ghost of him that lets[67] me!

I say, away!— Go on, I’ll follow thee.

Exeunt Ghost and Hamlet

HORATIOHe waxes[69] desperate with imagination.

70

MARCELLUSLet’s follow; ’tis not fit thus to obey him.

HORATIOHave after.[71] To what issue will this come?

MARCELLUSSomething is rotten in the state of Denmark.

HORATIOHeaven will direct it.[73]

MARCELLUSNay, let’s follow him.

Exeunt

[Act 1 Scene 5]

running scene 4 continues

Enter Ghost and Hamlet

HAMLETWhere wilt thou lead me? Speak; I’ll go no further.

GHOSTMark[2] me.

HAMLETI will.

GHOSTMy hour is almost come,

5

When I to sulphurous and tormenting flames

Must render up myself.

HAMLETAlas, poor ghost!

GHOSTPity me not, but lend thy serious hearing

To what I shall unfold.[9]

10

HAMLETSpeak: I am bound[10] to hear.

GHOSTSo art thou to revenge, when thou shalt hear.

HAMLETWhat?

GHOSTI am thy father’s spirit,

Doomed for a certain term to walk the night,

15

And for the day confined to fast in fires,

Till the foul crimes done in my days of nature

Are burnt and purged away. But[17] that I am forbid

To tell the secrets of my prison-house,

I could a tale unfold whose lightest word

20

Would harrow up[20] thy soul, freeze thy young blood,

Make thy two eyes like[21] stars start from their spheres,

Thy knotty[22] and combinèd locks to part

And each particular hair to stand on end

Like quills upon the fretful porpentine.[24]

25

But this eternal blazon[25] must not be

To ears of flesh and blood. List,[26] Hamlet, O, list!

If thou didst ever thy dear father love—

HAMLETO heaven!

GHOSTRevenge his foul and most unnatural murder.

30

HAMLETMurder?

GHOSTMurder most foul, as in the best[31] it is,

But this most foul, strange and unnatural.

HAMLETHaste, haste me to know it, that I with wings as swift

As meditation[34] or the thoughts of love

35

May sweep[35] to my revenge.

GHOSTI find thee apt,[36]

And duller[37] shouldst thou be than the fat weed

That roots itself in ease on Lethe wharf,[38]

Wouldst thou not stir in this. Now, Hamlet, hear:

40

It’s given out that, sleeping in mine orchard,[40]

A serpent stung me, so the whole ear of Denmark

Is by a forgèd process[42] of my death

Rankly[43] abused. But know thou, noble youth,

The serpent that did sting thy father’s life

45

Now wears his crown.

HAMLETO, my prophetic soul! Mine uncle!

GHOSTAy, that incestuous, that adulterate[47] beast,

With witchcraft of his wit, with traitorous gifts[48] —

O, wicked wit and gifts, that have the power

50

So to seduce! — won to his shameful lust

The will[51] of my most seeming-virtuous queen.

O Hamlet, what a falling-off was there!

From me, whose love was of that dignity[53]

That it went hand in hand even with the vow

55

I made to her in marriage, and to decline[55]

Upon a wretch whose natural gifts were poor

To those of mine!

But virtue, as it[58] never will be moved,

Though lewdness court it in a shape of heaven,

60

So lust, though to a radiant angel linked,

Will sate itself[61] in a celestial bed,

And prey on garbage.[62]

But, soft, methinks I scent the morning’s air;

Brief let me be. Sleeping within mine orchard,

65

My custom always in the afternoon,

Upon my secure[66] hour thy uncle stole,

With juice of cursèd hebenon[67] in a vial,

And in the porches of mine ears did pour

The leperous distilment,[69] whose effect

70

Holds such an enmity with blood of man

That swift as quicksilver[71] it courses through

The natural gates and alleys of the body,

And with a sudden vigour it doth posset[73]

And curd, like eager[74] droppings into milk,

75

The thin and wholesome blood: so did it mine,

And a most instant tetter[76] barked about,

Most lazar-like,[77] with vile and loathsome crust,

All my smooth body.

Thus was I, sleeping, by a brother’s hand

80

Of life, of crown and queen, at once dispatched:[80]

Cut off even in the blossoms of my sin,

Unhouseled, disappointed, unaneled,[82]

No reckoning[83] made, but sent to my account

With all my imperfections on my head.

85

O horrible, O horrible, most horrible!

If thou hast nature[86] in thee, bear it not;

Let not the royal bed of Denmark be

A couch for luxury[88] and damnèd incest.

But, howsoever thou pursuest this act,

90

Taint[90] not thy mind nor let thy soul contrive

Against thy mother aught;[91] leave her to heaven

And to those thorns that in her bosom lodge,

To prick and sting her. Fare thee well at once;

The glow-worm shows the matin[94] to be near,

95

And ’gins[95] to pale his uneffectual fire.

Adieu, adieu, Hamlet: remember me.

Exit

HAMLETO all you host[97] of heaven! O earth! What else?

And shall I couple[98] hell? O, fie! Hold, my heart;

And you, my sinews, grow not instant old,

100

But bear me stiffly up. Remember thee?

Ay, thou poor ghost, while memory holds a seat

In this distracted[102] globe. Remember thee?

Yea, from the table[103] of my memory

I’ll wipe away all trivial fond[104] records,

105

All saws[105] of books, all forms, all pressures past

That youth and observation copied there;

And thy commandment all alone shall live

Within the book and volume of my brain,

Unmixed with baser matter: yes, yes, by heaven!

110

O most pernicious[110] woman!

O villain, villain, smiling, damnèd villain!

My tables,

My tables: meet[113] it is I set it down

That one may smile and smile and be a villain;

115

At least I’m sure it may be so in Denmark. Writes

So, uncle, there you are. Now to my word:[116]

It is ‘Adieu, adieu, remember me.’

I have sworn’t.

HORATIO and MARCELLUS My lord, my lord!

Within

Enter Horatio and Marcellus

120

MARCELLUSLord Hamlet!

HORATIOHeaven secure him.

HAMLETSo be it.

HORATIOHillo, ho, ho, my lord!

HAMLETHillo,[124] ho, ho, boy! Come, bird, come.

125

MARCELLUSHow is’t,[125] my noble lord?

HORATIOWhat news, my lord?

HAMLETO, wonderful![127]

HORATIOGood my lord, tell it.

HAMLETNo, you’ll reveal it.

130

HORATIONot I, my lord, by heaven.

MARCELLUSNor I, my lord.

HAMLETHow say you, then, would heart of man once[132] think it?

But you’ll be secret?

BOTHAy, by heaven, my lord.

135

HAMLETThere’s ne’er a villain dwelling in all Denmark

But he’s an arrant[136] knave.

HORATIOThere needs no ghost, my lord, come from the grave

To tell us this.

HAMLETWhy, right, you are i’th’right;

140

And so, without more circumstance[140] at all,

I hold it fit that we shake hands and part:

You, as[142] your business and desires shall point you,

For every man has business and desire,

Such as it is: and for mine own poor part,

145

Look you, I’ll go pray.

HORATIOThese are but wild and whirling words, my lord.

HAMLETI’m sorry they offend you, heartily:

Yes, faith, heartily.

HORATIOThere’s no offence, my lord.

150

HAMLETYes, by Saint Patrick,[150] but there is, Horatio,

And much offence too. Touching this vision here,

It is an honest[152] ghost, that let me tell you:

For your desire to know what is between us,

O’ermaster’t[154] as you may. And now, good friends,

155

As you are friends, scholars and soldiers,

Give me one poor request.

HORATIOWhat is’t, my lord? We will.

HAMLETNever make known what you have seen tonight.

BOTHMy lord, we will not.

160

HAMLETNay, but swear’t.

HORATIOIn faith, my lord, not I.[161]

MARCELLUSNor I, my lord, in faith.

HAMLETUpon my sword.[163] Holds out his sword

MARCELLUSWe have sworn, my lord, already.

165

HAMLETIndeed, upon my sword, indeed.

GHOST Swear.

Ghost cries under the stage[166]

HAMLETAh ha, boy, say’st thou so? Art thou there, truepenny?[167]—

Come on, you hear this fellow in the cellarage:[168]

Consent to swear.

170

HORATIOPropose the oath, my lord.

HAMLETNever to speak of this that you have seen,

Swear by my sword.

GHOST Swear.

They swear

HAMLETHic et ubique?[174] Then we’ll shift our ground. Moves

175

Come hither, gentlemen,

And lay your hands again upon my sword:

Never to speak of this that you have heard,

Swear by my sword.

GHOST Swear.

They swear

180

HAMLETWell said, old mole. Canst work i’th’ground so fast?

A worthy pioneer![181] Once more remove, good friends.

HORATIOO, day and night, but this is wondrous strange!

HAMLETAnd therefore as a stranger[183] give it welcome.

There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, Aside to Horatio?

185

Than are dreamt of in our philosophy.— But come,

Here, as before, never,[186] so help you mercy,

How[187] strange or odd soe’er I bear myself —

As I perchance hereafter shall think meet

To put an antic[189] disposition on —

190

That you, at such time seeing me, never shall,

With arms encumbered[191] thus, or thus headshake,

Or by pronouncing of some doubtful[192] phrase,

As ‘Well, we know’ or ‘We could, an if[193] we would’

Or ‘If we list[194] to speak’ or ‘There be, an if they might’

195

Or such ambiguous giving out,[195] to note

That you know aught of me: this not to do,

So grace and mercy at your most need help you. Swear.

GHOST Swear.

They swear

HAMLETRest, rest, perturbèd spirit!— So, gentlemen,

200

With all my love I do commend me[200] to you:

And what[201] so poor a man as Hamlet is

May do t’express his love and friending[202] to you,

God willing, shall not lack. Let us go in together:

And still[204] your fingers on your lips, I pray.

205

The time[205] is out of joint: O, cursèd spite

That ever I was born to set it right!

Nay, come, let’s go together.

Exeunt

Act 2 Scene 12.1

running scene 5

Enter Polonius and Reynaldo

POLONIUSGive him this money and these notes, Reynaldo. Gives money and papers

REYNALDOI will, my lord.

POLONIUSYou shall do marvellous[3] wisely, good Reynaldo,

Before you[4] visit him, you make inquiry

5

Of his behaviour.

REYNALDOMy lord, I did intend it.

POLONIUSMarry, well said; very well said. Look you, sir,

Inquire me[8] first what Danskers are in Paris,

And how, and who, what means and where they keep,[9]

10

What company, at what expense, and finding

By this encompassment[11] and drift of question

That they do know my son, come[12] you more nearer

Than your particular demands will touch it:

Take you,[14] as ’twere, some distant knowledge of him,

15

As thus, ‘I know his father and his friends

And in part him.’ Do you mark this, Reynaldo?

REYNALDOAy, very well, my lord.

POLONIUS‘And in part him, but’, you may say, ‘not well,

But if’t be he I mean, he’s very wild;

20

Addicted[20] so and so’, and there put on him

What forgeries[21] you please: marry, none so rank

As may dishonour him — take heed of that —

But, sir, such wanton,[23] wild and usual slips

As are companions noted and most known

25

To youth and liberty.

REYNALDOAs gaming,[26] my lord.

POLONIUSAy, or drinking, fencing, swearing, quarrelling,

Drabbing:[28] you may go so far.

REYNALDOMy lord, that would dishonour him.

30

POLONIUSFaith, no, as you may season[30] it in the charge.

You must not put another scandal on him,

That he is open to incontinency;[32]

That’s not my meaning: but breathe his faults so quaintly[33]

That they may seem the taints of liberty,[34]

35

The flash and outbreak of a fiery mind,

A savageness[36] in unreclaimèd blood,

Of general assault.[37]

REYNALDOBut, my good lord—

POLONIUSWherefore should you do this?

40

REYNALDOAy, my lord, I would know that.

POLONIUSMarry, sir, here’s my drift,[41]

And I believe, it is a fetch of warrant:[42]

You laying these slight sullies on my son,

As ’twere[44] a thing a little soiled i’th’working,

45

Mark you, your party in converse,[45] him you would sound,

Having ever[46] seen in the prenominate crimes

The youth you breathe of[47] guilty, be assured

He closes[48] with you in this consequence:

‘Good sir’ or so, or ‘friend’ or ‘gentleman’,

50

According to the phrase and the addition[50]

Of man and country.

REYNALDOVery good, my lord.

POLONIUSAnd then, sir, does he this — he does — what was I about to say? I was about to say something: where did I leave?

REYNALDOAt ‘closes in the consequence’ at ‘friend or so’ and ‘gentleman’.

POLONIUSAt ‘closes in the consequence’, ay, marry.[56]

He closes with you thus: ‘I know the gentleman,

I saw him yesterday, or t’other day’,

Or then, or then, with such and such; and, as you say,

60

There was he gaming, there o’ertook in’s rouse,[60]

There falling out at tennis, or perchance,

‘I saw him enter such a house of sale’,

Videlicet,[63] a brothel, or so forth.

See you now;

65

Your bait of falsehood takes this carp[65] of truth:

And thus do we[66] of wisdom and of reach,

With windlasses[67] and with assays of bias,

By indirections[68] find directions out:

So by my former lecture[69] and advice,

70

Shall you my son. You have[70] me, have you not?

REYNALDOMy lord, I have.

POLONIUSGod buy[72] you; fare you well.

REYNALDOGood my lord.

POLONIUSObserve[74] his inclination in yourself.

75

REYNALDOI shall, my lord.

POLONIUSAnd let him ply his music.[76]

REYNALDOWell,[77] my lord.

Exit

Enter Ophelia

POLONIUSFarewell.— How now, Ophelia, what’s the matter?

OPHELIAAlas, my lord, I have been so affrighted!

80

POLONIUS With what, in the name of heaven?

OPHELIAMy lord, as I was sewing in my chamber,

Lord Hamlet, with his doublet[82] all unbraced,

No hat[83] upon his head, his stockings fouled,

Ungartered,[84] and down-gyvèd to his ankle,

85

Pale as his shirt, his knees knocking each other,

And with a look so piteous in purport[86]

As if he had been loosèd out of hell

To speak of horrors — he comes before me.

POLONIUSMad for thy love?

90

OPHELIAMy lord, I do not know, but truly I do fear it.

POLONIUSWhat said he?

OPHELIAHe took me by the wrist and held me hard;

Then goes[93] he to the length of all his arm,

And with his other hand thus o’er his brow

95

He falls to such perusal of my face

As[96] he would draw it. Long stayed he so.

At last, a little shaking of mine arm

And thrice his head thus waving up and down,

He raised a sigh so piteous and profound

100

That it did seem to shatter all his bulk

And end his being: that done, he lets me go,

And, with his head over his shoulders turned,

He seemed to find his way without his eyes,

For out o’doors he went without their help,

105

And to the last, bended their light[105] on me.

POLONIUSGo with me: I will go seek the king.

This is the very ecstasy[107] of love,

Whose[108] violent property fordoes itself

And leads the will to desperate undertakings

110

As oft as any passion under heaven

That does afflict our natures. I am sorry.

What, have you given him any hard words of late?

OPHELIANo, my good lord, but as you did command,

I did repel his letters and denied

115

His access to me.

POLONIUSThat hath made him mad.

I am sorry that with better speed[117] and judgement

I had not quoted[118] him: I feared he did but trifle,

And meant to wreck[119] thee. But beshrew my jealousy!

120

It seems it is as proper[120] to our age

To cast beyond ourselves[121] in our opinions

As it is common for the younger sort

To lack discretion. Come, go we to the king:

This must be known, which, being kept close,[124] might move

125

More grief to hide than hate to utter love.

Exeunt

Act 2 Scene 2

running scene 6

Enter King, Queen, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, with others

KINGWelcome, dear Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.

Moreover that[2] we much did long to see you,

The need we have to use you did provoke

Our hasty sending. Something have you heard

5

Of Hamlet’s transformation, so I call it,

Since not th’exterior nor the inward man

Resembles that it was. What it should be,

More than his father’s death, that thus hath put him

So much from th’understanding of himself,

10

I cannot deem[10] of. I entreat you both,

That, being of so young days brought up with him,

And since so neighboured[12] to his youth and humour,

That you vouchsafe your rest[13] here in our court

Some little time, so by your companies

15

To draw him on to pleasures, and to gather

So much as from occasions[16] you may glean,

Whether aught, to us unknown, afflicts him thus,

That, opened,[18] lies within our remedy.

GERTRUDEGood gentlemen, he hath much talked of you,

20

And sure I am two men there are not living

To whom he more adheres.[21] If it will please you

To show us so much gentry[22] and good will

As to expend your time with us awhile,

For the supply and profit[24] of our hope,

25

Your visitation shall receive such thanks

As fits a king’s remembrance.

ROSENCRANTZBoth your majesties

Might, by the sovereign power you have of[28] us,

Put your dread pleasures[29] more into command

30

Than to entreaty.

GUILDENSTERNWe both obey,

And here give up ourselves in[32] the full bent

To lay our services freely at your feet,

To be commanded.

35

KING Thanks, Rosencrantz and gentle Guildenstern.

GERTRUDEThanks, Guildenstern and gentle Rosencrantz.

And I beseech you instantly to visit

My too much changèd son.— Go, some of ye,

And bring the gentlemen where Hamlet is.

40

GUILDENSTERNHeavens make our presence and our practices[40]

Pleasant and helpful to him.

Exeunt [Ros. and Guild. with some Attendants]

GERTRUDEAmen.

Enter Polonius

POLONIUSTh’ambassadors from Norway, my good lord, Are joyfully returned.

45

KINGThou still[45] hast been the father of good news.

POLONIUSHave I, my lord? I assure you, my good liege,

I hold[47] my duty, as I hold my soul,

Both to my God and to my gracious king:

And I do think, or else this brain of mine

50

Hunts not the trail of policy[50] so sure

As I have used to do, that I have found

The very cause of Hamlet’s lunacy.

KINGO, speak of that: that I do long to hear.

POLONIUSGive first admittance to th’ambassadors:

55

My news shall be the fruit[55] to that great feast.

KINGThyself do grace[56] to them and bring them in.—

[Exit Polonius]

He tells me, my sweet queen, that he hath found

The head and source of all your son’s distemper.[58]

GERTRUDEI doubt[59] it is no other but the main:

60

His father’s death and our o’erhasty marriage.

Enter Polonius, Voltemand and Cornelius

KINGWell, we shall sift him.[61]— Welcome, good friends.

Say, Voltemand, what from our brother Norway?

VOLTEMANDMost fair return of greetings and desires.[63]

Upon our first,[64] he sent out to suppress

65

His nephew’s levies, which to him appeared

To be a preparation gainst the Polack,[66]

But, better looked into, he truly found

It was against your highness: whereat grieved

That so his sickness, age and impotence[69]

70

Was falsely borne in hand,[70] sends out arrests

On Fortinbras, which he, in brief, obeys,

Receives rebuke from Norway, and in fine[72]

Makes vow before his uncle never more

To give[74] th’assay of arms against your majesty.

75

Whereon old Norway, overcome with joy,

Gives him three thousand crowns[76] in annual fee

And his commission[77] to employ those soldiers,

So levied as before, against the Polack,

With an entreaty, herein further shown, Gives a paper

80

That it might please you to give quiet pass[80]

Through your dominions for his enterprise

On[82] such regards of safety and allowance

As therein are set down.

KINGIt likes[84] us well,

85

And at[85] our more considered time we’ll read,

Answer and think upon this business.

Meantime we thank you for your well-took labour.

Go to your rest: at night we’ll feast together.

Most welcome home!

Exeunt Ambassadors

90

POLONIUSThis business is very well ended.

My liege, and madam, to expostulate[91]

What majesty should be, what duty is,

Why day is day, night night, and time is time,

Were nothing but to waste night, day and time.

95

Therefore, since brevity is the soul of wit,[95]

And tediousness the limbs and outward flourishes,

I will be brief: your noble son is mad:

Mad call I it, for,[98] to define true madness,

What is’t but to be nothing else but mad?

100

But let that go—

GERTRUDEMore matter, with less art.

POLONIUSMadam, I swear I use no art at all.

That he is mad, ’tis true: ’tis true ’tis pity,

And pity it is true: a foolish figure,[104]

105

But farewell it, for I will use no art.

Mad let us grant him, then, and now remains

That we find out the cause of this effect,

Or rather say, the cause of this[108] defect,

For this effect defective comes by cause.

110

Thus[110] it remains, and the remainder thus. Perpend:

I have a daughter — have whilst she is mine —

Who, in her duty and obedience, mark,

Hath given me this: now gather, and surmise.[113] Shows a letter

The letter

‘To the celestial and my soul’s idol, the most beautified Ophelia’— That’s an ill Reads

phrase, a vile phrase: ‘beautified’ is a vile phrase. But you shall hear these,[115] ‘in her excellent white bosom’, these—

GERTRUDECame this from Hamlet to her?

POLONIUSGood madam, stay awhile: I will be faithful.[118]

‘Doubt thou the stars are fire, Reads

120

Doubt that the sun doth move,

Doubt[121] truth to be a liar,

But never doubt I love.

O dear Ophelia, I am ill[123] at these numbers: I have not art to reckon my groans; but that I love thee best, O, most best, believe it. Adieu. Thine evermore, most dear

lady, whilst this machine is to[125] him, Hamlet.’

This in obedience hath my daughter showed me,

And more above,[127] hath his solicitings,

As they fell out[128] by time, by means and place,

All given to mine ear.

130

KINGBut how hath she received his love?

POLONIUSWhat do you think of me?

KINGAs of a man faithful and honourable.

POLONIUSI would fain[133] prove so. But what might you think,

When I had seen this hot love on the wing —

135

As I perceived it, I must tell you that,

Before my daughter told me — what might you,

Or my dear majesty your queen here, think,

If I had played[138] the desk or table-book,

Or given[139] my heart a winking, mute and dumb,

140

Or looked upon this love with idle sight?[140]

What might you think? No, I went round[141] to work,

And my young mistress thus I did bespeak:[142]

‘Lord Hamlet is a prince, out[143] of thy star:

This must not be.’ And then I precepts[144] gave her

145

That she should lock herself from his resort,[145]

Admit no messengers, receive no tokens:

Which done, she took the fruits of my advice,

And he, repulsèd — a short tale to make —

Fell into a sadness, then into a fast,

150

Thence to a watch,[150] thence into a weakness,

Thence to a lightness,[151] and, by this declension

Into the madness whereon now he raves,

And all we wail for.

KINGDo you think ’tis this? To Gertrude

155

GERTRUDEIt may be, very likely.

POLONIUSHath there been such a time — I’d fain know that —

That I have positively said “Tis so’

When it proved otherwise?

KINGNot that I know.

160

POLONIUSTake this from this, if this be otherwise: Points to his head and shoulders?

If circumstances[161] lead me, I will find

Where truth is hid, though it were hid indeed

Within the centre.[163]

KINGHow may we try[164] it further?

165

POLONIUSYou know sometimes he walks four hours together

Here in the lobby.

GERTRUDESo he does indeed.

POLONIUSAt such a time I’ll loose[168] my daughter to him:

Be you and I behind an arras[169] then: To the King

170

Mark the encounter: if he love her not

And be not from his reason fall’n thereon,[171]

Let me be no assistant[172] for a state,

But keep a farm and carters.[173]

KINGWe will try it.

Enter Hamlet reading on a book

175

GERTRUDEBut look where sadly[175] the poor wretch comes reading.

POLONIUSAway, I do beseech you both away:

I’ll board[177] him presently. O, give me leave.—

Exeunt King and Queen

How does my good lord Hamlet?

HAMLETWell, God-a-mercy.[179]

POLONIUSDo you know me, my lord?

HAMLETExcellent, excellent well: you’re a fishmonger.[181]

POLONIUSNot I, my lord.

HAMLETThen I would you were so honest a man.

POLONIUSHonest, my lord?

HAMLETAy, sir: to be honest, as this world goes, is to be one man picked out of two thousand.

POLONIUSThat’s very true, my lord.

HAMLETFor if the sun breed maggots in a dead dog, being a good kissing carrion[188]— Have you a daughter?

POLONIUSI have, my lord.

HAMLETLet her not walk i’th’sun:[191] conception is a blessing, but not as your daughter may conceive. Friend, look to’t.

POLONIUSHow say you by that? Aside Still harping on my daughter: yet he knew me not at first; he said I was a fishmonger. He is far gone, far gone: and truly in my youth I suffered much extremity for love, very near this. I’ll speak to him again.— What do you read, my lord?

HAMLETWords, words, words.

POLONIUSWhat is the matter,[198] my lord?

HAMLETBetween who?

POLONIUSI mean, the matter that you read, my lord.

HAMLETSlanders, sir, for the satirical slave says here that old men have grey beards, that their faces are wrinkled, their eyes purging[202] thick amber or plum-tree gum and that they have a plentiful lack of wit, together with weak hams:[203] all which, sir, though I most powerfully and potently believe, yet I hold it not honesty[205] to have it thus set down, for you yourself, sir, should be old as I am, if like a crab you could go backward.

POLONIUSThough this be madness, yet there is method in’t.— Will you walk out of the air, my lord? Aside

HAMLETInto my grave?

POLONIUSIndeed, that is out o’th’air.— Aside How pregnant[210] sometimes his replies are! A happiness[211] that often madness hits on, which reason and sanity could not so prosperously be delivered of. I will leave him and suddenly[212] contrive the means of meeting between him and my daughter.— My honourable lord, I will most humbly take my leave of you.

HAMLETYou cannot, sir, take from me anything that I will more willingly part withal:[216] except my life, my life.

POLONIUSFare you well, my lord.

HAMLETThese tedious old fools.

Enter Rosencrantz and Guildenstern

POLONIUSYou go to seek my lord Hamlet; there he is.

ROSENCRANTZGod save you, sir! To Polonius

GUILDENSTERNMine honoured lord!

[Exit Polonius]

ROSENCRANTZMy most dear lord!

HAMLETMy excellent good friends! How dost thou, Guildenstern? O, Rosencrantz! Good lads, how do ye both?

ROSENCRANTZ As the indifferent[225] children of the earth.

GUILDENSTERNHappy,[226] in that we are not over-happy: On fortune’s cap we are not the very button.[227]

HAMLETNor the soles of her shoe?

ROSENCRANTZNeither, my lord.

HAMLETThen you live about her waist, or in the middle of her favours?[230]

GUILDENSTERNFaith, her privates[231] we.

HAMLETIn the secret parts of fortune? O, most true: she is a strumpet.[232] What’s the news?

ROSENCRANTZNone, my lord, but that the world’s grown honest.

HAMLETThen is doomsday near. But your news is not true. Let me question more in particular:[236] what have you, my good friends, deserved at the hands of fortune that she sends you to prison hither?

GUILDENSTERNPrison, my lord?

HAMLETDenmark’s a prison.

ROSENCRANTZThen is the world one.

HAMLETA goodly one, in which there are many confines,[241] wards and dungeons, Denmark being one o’th’worst.

ROSENCRANTZWe think not so, my lord.

HAMLETWhy, then, ’tis none to you; for there is nothing either good or bad but thinking makes it so: to me it is a prison.

ROSENCRANTZWhy then, your ambition makes it one: ’tis too narrow for your mind.

HAMLETO God, I could be bounded in a nutshell and count myself a king of infinite space, were it not that I have bad dreams.

GUILDENSTERNWhich dreams indeed are ambition, for the very substance[249] of the ambitious is merely the shadow of a dream.

HAMLETA dream itself is but a shadow.

ROSENCRANTZTruly, and I hold ambition of so airy and light a quality that it is but a shadow’s shadow.

HAMLETThen[254] are our beggars bodies, and our monarchs and outstretched heroes the beggars’ shadows. Shall we to th’court? For, by my fay,[255] I cannot reason.

BOTHwe’ll wait upon[256] you.

HAMLETNo such matter:[257] I will not sort you with the rest of my servants, for, to speak to you like an honest man, I am most dreadfully attended.[258] But, in the beaten way[259] of friendship, what make you at Elsinore?

ROSENCRANTZTo visit you, my lord, no other occasion.

HAMLETBeggar that I am, I am even poor in thanks; but I thank you, and sure, dear friends, my thanks are too[262] dear a halfpenny. Were you not sent for? Is it your own inclining? Is it a free visitation? Come, deal justly with me: come, come; nay, speak.

GUILDENSTERNWhat should we say, my lord?

HAMLETWhy, anything,[266] but to the purpose. You were sent for, and there is a kind of confession in your looks which your modesties[267] have not craft enough to colour: I know the good king and queen have sent for you.

ROSENCRANTZTo what end, my lord?

HAMLETThat you must teach me. But let me conjure[270] you, by the rights of our fellowship, by the consonancy[271] of our youth, by the obligation of our ever-preserved love, and by what more dear[272] a better proposer could charge you withal, be even[273] and direct with me whether you were sent for or no?

ROSENCRANTZWhat say you? Aside to Guildenstern?

HAMLETNay, then, I have an eye of[275] you.— Aside? If you love me, hold not off.

GUILDENSTERNMy lord, we were sent for.

HAMLETI will tell you why; so shall my[277] anticipation prevent your discovery, and your secrecy to the king and queen moult no feather.[278] I have of late — but wherefore I know not — lost all my mirth, forgone all custom of exercise;[279] and indeed it goes so heavily[280] with my disposition that this goodly frame, the earth, seems to me a sterile promontory,[281] this most excellent canopy, the air, look you, this brave[282] o’erhanging firmament, this majestical roof fretted with golden fire, why, it appears no other thing to me than a foul and pestilent congregation of vapours. What a piece of work is a man! How noble in reason, how infinite in faculty, in form and moving how express[285] and admirable, in action how like an angel, in apprehension[286] how like a god! The beauty of the world, the paragon of animals — and yet, to me, what is this quintessence[287] of dust? Man delights not me — no, nor woman neither, though by your smiling you seem to say so.

ROSENCRANTZMy lord, there was no such stuff in my thoughts.

HAMLETWhy did you laugh when I said ‘Man delights not me’?

ROSENCRANTZTo think, my lord, if you delight not in man, what Lenten[291] entertainment the players shall receive from you: we coted[292] them on the way, and hither are they coming to offer you service.

HAMLETHe that plays the king shall be welcome; his majesty shall have tribute[294] of me: the adventurous knight shall use his foil and target:[295] the lover shall not sigh gratis:[296] the humorous man shall end his part in peace: the clown shall make those laugh whose lungs are tickled o’th’sear:[297] and the lady shall say her mind freely, or the blank verse shall halt[298] for’t. What players are they?

ROSENCRANTZEven those you were wont[299] to take delight in, the tragedians of the city.

HAMLETHow chances it they travel? Their residence,[300] both in reputation and profit, was better both ways.

ROSENCRANTZI think their inhibition[302] comes by the means of the late innovation.

HAMLETDo they hold the same estimation[303] they did when I was in the city? Are they so followed?

ROSENCRANTZNo, indeed, they are not.

HAMLETHow comes it? Do they grow rusty?

ROSENCRANTZNay, their endeavour keeps in the wonted pace. But there is, sir, an eyrie[308] of children, little eyases, that cry out on the top of question and are most tyrannically[309] clapped for’t: these are now the fashion, and so berattle the common stages — so they call them — that many[310] wearing rapiers are afraid of goose-quills and dare scarce come thither.

HAMLETWhat, are they children? Who maintains ’em? How are they escoted?[312] Will they pursue the quality[313] no longer than they can sing? Will they not say afterwards, if they should grow themselves to common[314] players — as it is most like,[315] if their means are no better — their writers do them wrong, to make them exclaim against their own succession?[316]

ROSENCRANTZFaith, there has been much to-do on both sides, and the nation holds it no sin to tar[318] them to controversy. There was for a while no money bid for argument unless the poet and the player went to cuffs in the question.

HAMLETIs’t possible?

GUILDENSTERNO, there has been much throwing about of brains.

HAMLETDo the boys carry it away?[322]

ROSENCRANTZAy, that they do, my lord: Hercules and his load[323] too.

HAMLETIt is not strange, for mine uncle is King of Denmark, and those that would make mows[325] at him while my father lived, give twenty, forty, an hundred ducats a-piece for his picture in little.[326] There is something in this more than natural, if philosophy[327] could find it out.

Flourish for the Players

GUILDENSTERN There are the players.

HAMLETGentlemen, you are welcome to Elsinore. Your hands, come: the appurtenance[330] of welcome is fashion and ceremony: let me comply with you in the garb,[331] lest my extent to the players — which, I tell you, must show fairly outward — should more appear like entertainment[332] than yours. You are welcome: but my uncle-father and aunt-mother are deceived.

GUILDENSTERNIn what, my dear lord?

HAMLETI am but mad north-north-west:[335] when the wind is southerly I know a hawk from a handsaw.[336]

Enter Polonius

POLONIUSWell be with you, gentlemen.

HAMLETHark you, Guildenstern, and you too — at each ear a hearer: that great baby you see there is not yet out of his swathing-clouts.[339]

ROSENCRANTZHappily[340] he’s the second time come to them, for they say an old man is twice a child.

HAMLETI will prophesy: he comes to tell me of the players, mark it.— You[342] say right, sir: for a Monday morning, ’twas so indeed.

POLONIUSMy lord, I have news to tell you.

HAMLETMy lord, I have news to tell you. When Roscius,[346] an actor in Rome—

POLONIUSThe actors are come hither, my lord.

HAMLETBuzz, buzz![348]

POLONIUSUpon mine honour—

HAMLETThen came each actor on his ass—[350]

POLONIUSThe best actors in the world, either for tragedy, comedy, history, pastoral, pastorical-comical, historical-pastoral, tragical-historical, tragical-comical-historical-pastoral, scene individable,[353] or poem unlimited. Seneca cannot be too heavy,[354] nor Plautus too light. For the law of writ and the liberty, these are the only men.

HAMLETO[356] Jephthah, judge of Israel, what a treasure hadst thou!

POLONIUSWhat a treasure had he, my lord?

HAMLETWhy,

‘One[359] fair daughter and no more,

360

The which he loved passing well.’

POLONIUSStill on my daughter. Aside

HAMLETAm I not i’th’right, old Jephthah?

POLONIUSIf you call me Jephthah, my lord, I have a daughter that I love passing

POLONIUSwell.

365

HAMLETNay, that follows not.[365]

POLONIUSWhat follows, then, my lord?

HAMLETWhy,

‘As by lot,[368] God wot’,

and then, you know,

370

‘It came to pass, as most like[370] it was’ —

the first row[371] of the pious chanson will show you more, for look

where my abridgements[372] come.—

Enter four or five Players

You’re welcome, masters, welcome all.— I am glad to see thee well.— Welcome, good friends.— O, my old friend! Thy face is valanced[374] since I saw thee last: com’st thou to beard[375] me in Denmark?— What, my young lady and mistress! By’r lady, your ladyship[376] is nearer heaven than when I saw you last, by the altitude of a chopine.[377] Pray God your voice, like a piece of uncurrent gold, be not cracked within the ring. Masters, you are all welcome. We’ll e’en to’t[378] like French falconers, fly at anything we see. We’ll have a speech straight:[379] come, give us a taste of your quality:[380] come, a passionate speech.

FIRST PLAYERWhat speech, my lord?

HAMLETI heard thee speak me a speech once, but it was never acted, or if it was, not above once, for the play, I remember, pleased not the million: ’twas caviar[383] to the general. But it was — as I received it, and others, whose judgement in such matters cried[385] in the top of mine — an excellent play, well digested in the scenes, set down with as much modesty[386] as cunning. I remember one said there was no sallets[387] in the lines to make the matter savoury, nor no matter in the phrase that might indict[388] the author of affectation, but called it an honest method, as wholesome as sweet, and by very much more handsome than fine.[389] One speech in it I chiefly loved: ’twas Aeneas’[390] tale to Dido, and thereabout of it especially where he speaks of Priam’s[391] slaughter: if it live in your memory, begin at this line — let me see, let me see —

‘The rugged[393] Pyrrhus, like th’Hyrcanian beast’—

It is not so: it begins with Pyrrhus:

395

‘The rugged Pyrrhus, he whose sable[395] arms,

Black as his purpose, did the night resemble

When he lay couchèd[397] in the ominous horse,

Hath now this dread and black complexion smeared

With heraldry more dismal:[399] head to foot

400

Now is he total gules,[400] horridly tricked

With blood of fathers, mothers, daughters, sons,

Baked and impasted[402] with the parching streets

That lend a tyrannous[403] and damnèd light

To their vile murders: roasted in wrath and fire,

405

And thus o’er-sizèd[405] with coagulate gore,

With eyes like carbuncles,[406] the hellish Pyrrhus

Old grandsire[407] Priam seeks.’

So, proceed you.

POLONIUSFore God, my lord, well spoken, with good accent and good discretion.[409]

410

FIRST PLAYER‘Anon[410] he finds him

Striking too short[411] at Greeks: his antique sword,

Rebellious to his arm, lies where it falls,

Repugnant[413] to command. Unequal matched,

Pyrrhus at Priam drives, in rage strikes wide,

415

But with the whiff and wind[415] of his fell sword

Th’unnervèd[416] father falls. Then senseless Ilium,

Seeming to feel this blow, with flaming top

Stoops to his base, and with a hideous crash

Takes[419] prisoner Pyrrhus’ ear, for, lo, his sword,

420

Which was declining[420] on the milky head

Of reverend Priam, seemed i’th’air to stick:

So as a painted[422] tyrant Pyrrhus stood,

And, like[423] a neutral to his will and matter,

Did nothing.

425

But as we often see against[425] some storm

A silence in the heavens, the rack[426] stand still,

The bold winds speechless and the orb[427] below

As hush as death, anon the dreadful thunder

Doth rend the region,[429] so, after Pyrrhus’ pause,

430

Arousèd vengeance sets him new a-work,

And never did the Cyclops’[431] hammers fall

On Mars his[432] armours forged for proof eterne

With less remorse[433] than Pyrrhus’ bleeding sword

Now falls on Priam.

435

Out, out, thou strumpet Fortune! All you gods

In general synod[436] take away her power,

Break all the spokes and fellies[437] from her wheel,

And bowl the round nave[438] down the hill of heaven,

As low as to the fiends!’

POLONIUSThis is too long.

HAMLETIt shall to th’barber’s, with your beard.— Prithee, say on: he’s for a jig[441] or a tale of bawdry, or he sleeps: say on; come to Hecuba.[442]

FIRST PLAYER‘But who,[443] O, who had seen the mobled queen—’

HAMLET‘The mobled queen.’

POLONIUSThat’s good: ‘mobled queen’ is good.

FIRST PLAYER‘Run barefoot up and down, threat’ning the flame

With bisson rheum,[447] a clout about that head

Where late[448] the diadem stood, and for a robe,

About her lank[449] and all o’er-teemèd loins

450

A blanket, in th’alarm of fear caught up.

Who[451] this had seen, with tongue in venom steeped,

Gainst Fortune’s state[452] would treason have pronounced:

But if the gods themselves did see her then

When she saw Pyrrhus make malicious sport

455

In mincing with his sword her husband’s limbs,

The instant burst of clamour that she made —

Unless things mortal move them not at all —

Would have made milch[458] the burning eyes of heaven,

And passion[459] in the gods.’

POLONIUSLook, whe’er[460] he has not turned his colour and has tears in’s eyes. Pray you no more.

HAMLET’Tis well: I’ll have thee speak out the rest soon.— Good my lord, will you see the players well bestowed?[463] Do ye hear, let them be well used, for they are the abstracts[464] and brief chronicles of the time: after your death you were better have a bad epitaph than their ill report while you lived.

POLONIUSMy lord, I will use them according to their desert.[466]

HAMLETGod’s bodikins,[467] man, better: use every man after his desert, and who should scape whipping? Use them after your own honour and dignity: the less they deserve, the more merit is in your bounty.[469] Take them in.

POLONIUS Come, sirs.

Exit Polonius

HAMLETFollow him, friends: we’ll hear a play tomorrow.—

Dost thou hear me, old friend? To a Player Can you play The Murder of Gonzago?

A PLAYERAy, my lord.

HAMLET We’ll ha’t[474] tomorrow night. You could, for a need, study a speech of some dozen or sixteen lines which I would set down and insert in’t, could ye not?

A PLAYERAy, my lord.

HAMLETVery well. Follow that lord, and look you mock him not.—

[Exeunt Players]

My good friends, I’ll leave you till night. You are welcome to Elsinore.

ROSENCRANTZ Good my lord.

Exeunt [Rosencrantz and Guildenstern], Hamlet remains

480

HAMLET Ay, so, God buy ye.— Now I am alone.

O, what a rogue and peasant slave am I!

Is it not monstrous that this player here,

But[483] in a fiction, in a dream of passion,

Could force his soul so to his whole conceit[484]

485

That from her[485] working all his visage wanned,

Tears in his eyes, distraction[486] in’s aspect,

A broken voice, and his[487] whole function suiting

With forms to his conceit? And all for nothing!

For Hecuba!

490

What’s Hecuba to him, or he to Hecuba,

That he should weep for her? What would he do

Had he the motive[492] and the cue for passion

That I have? He would drown the stage with tears

And cleave the general ear with horrid[494] speech,

495

Make mad the guilty and appal[495] the free,

Confound[496] the ignorant and amaze indeed

The very faculty of eyes and ears. Yet I,

A dull and muddy-mettled[498] rascal, peak

Like John-a-dreams,[499] unpregnant of my cause,

500

And can say nothing: no, not for a king

Upon whose property[501] and most dear life

A damned defeat[502] was made. Am I a coward?

Who calls me villain? Breaks my pate[503] across?

Plucks off[504] my beard and blows it in my face?

505

Tweaks me by th’nose? Gives[505] me the lie i’th’throat,

As deep as to the lungs? Who does me this?[506]

Ha!

Why, I should take it, for it cannot be

But I am pigeon-livered[509] and lack gall

510

To make oppression bitter, or ere this

I should have fatted all the region kites[511]

With this slave’s offal:[512] bloody, bawdy villain!

Remorseless,[513] treacherous, lecherous, kindless villain!

O, vengeance!

515

Why, what an ass am I! Ay, sure, this is most brave,[515]

That I, the son of the dear murderèd,

Prompted to my revenge by heaven and hell,

Must like a whore unpack my heart with words

And fall a-cursing, like a very drab,[519] a scullion!

520

Fie upon’t, foh! About,[520] my brain! I have heard

That guilty creatures sitting at a play

Have by the very cunning[522] of the scene

Been struck so to the soul that presently[523]

They have proclaimed their malefactions:[524]

525

For murder, though it have no tongue, will speak

With most miraculous organ. I’ll have these players

Play something like the murder of my father

Before mine uncle: I’ll observe his looks,

I’ll tent[529] him to the quick: if he but blench,

530

I know my course. The spirit that I have seen

May be the devil, and the devil hath power

T’assume a pleasing shape, yea, and perhaps,

Out of my weakness and my melancholy,

As he is very potent with such spirits,[534]

535

Abuses me to damn me. I’ll have grounds

More relative[536] than this: the play’s the thing

Wherein I’ll catch the conscience of the king.

Exit

[Act 3 Scene 1]

running scene 7

Enter King, Queen, Polonius, Ophelia, Rosencrantz, Guildenstern and Lords

KINGAnd can you by no drift[1] of circumstance

Get from him why he puts on this confusion,

Grating[3] so harshly all his days of quiet

With turbulent and dangerous lunacy?

5

ROSENCRANTZHe does confess he feels himself distracted,

But from what cause he will by no means speak.

GUILDENSTERNNor do we find him forward[7] to be sounded,

But with a crafty madness keeps aloof

When we would bring him on to some confession

10

Of his true state.

GERTRUDEDid he receive you well?

ROSENCRANTZMost like a gentleman.

GUILDENSTERNBut with much forcing of his disposition.[13]

ROSENCRANTZNiggard of question,[14] but of our demands

15

Most free in his reply.

GERTRUDEDid you assay[16] him to any pastime?

ROSENCRANTZMadam, it so fell out that certain players

We o’erraught[18] on the way: of these we told him,

And there did seem in him a kind of joy

20

To hear of it: they are about the court,

And, as I think, they have already order

This night to play before him.

POLONIUS’Tis most true:

And he beseeched me to entreat your majesties

25

To hear and see the matter.

KINGWith all my heart, and it doth much content me

To hear him so inclined.

Good gentlemen, give him a further edge[28]

And drive his purpose on to these delights.

30

ROSENCRANTZ We shall, my lord.

Exeunt [Rosencrantz and Guildenstern]

KINGSweet Gertrude, leave us too.

↓Exit Lords↓

For we have closely[32] sent for Hamlet hither,

That he, as ’twere by accident, may here

Affront[34] Ophelia:

35

Her father and myself, lawful espials,[35]

Will so bestow ourselves that, seeing unseen,

We may of their encounter frankly judge,

And gather by him, as he is behaved,

If’t be th’affliction of his love or no

40

That thus he suffers for.

GERTRUDEI shall obey you.—

And for your part, Ophelia, I do wish

That your good beauties be the happy cause

Of Hamlet’s wildness: so shall I hope your virtues

45

Will bring him to his wonted way again,

To both your honours.

OPHELIAMadam, I wish it may.

[Exit Gertrude]

POLONIUSOphelia, walk you here.— Gracious,[48] so please you,

We will bestow ourselves.— Read on this book, To Ophelia

50

That show of such an exercise[50] may colour Gives a book

Your loneliness. We are oft to blame in this —

’Tis too much proved — that with devotion’s visage[52]

And pious action we do sugar o’er

The devil himself.

55

KINGO, ’tis true! Aside

How smart a lash that speech doth give my conscience!

The harlot’s cheek, beautied with plast’ring art,[57]

Is not more ugly to[58] the thing that helps it

Than is my deed to my most painted word.

60

O, heavy burden!

POLONIUSI hear him coming: let’s withdraw, my lord.

Exeunt [King and Polonius]

To a place from where they eavesdrop, while Ophelia pretends to read

Enter Hamlet

HAMLETTo be, or not to be, that is the question:

Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer

The slings[64] and arrows of outrageous fortune,

65

Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,

And by opposing end them? To die, to sleep —

No more — and by a sleep to say we end

The heartache and the thousand natural shocks[68]

That flesh is heir to: ’tis a consummation[69]

70

Devoutly to be wished. To die, to sleep:

To sleep, perchance to dream: ay, there’s the rub,[71]

For in that sleep of death what dreams may come

When we have shuffled off[73] this mortal coil,

Must give us pause: there’s the respect[74]

75

That makes calamity of[75] so long life,

For who would bear the whips and scorns[76] of time,

The oppressor’s wrong, the proud man’s contumely,[77]

The pangs of disprized[78] love, the law’s delay,

The insolence of office[79] and the spurns

80

That patient merit of[80] the unworthy takes,

When he himself might his quietus[81] make

With a bare[82] bodkin? Who would these fardels bear,

To grunt and sweat under a weary life,

But that the dread of something after death,

85

The undiscovered country from whose bourn[85]

No traveller returns, puzzles[86] the will,

And makes us rather bear those ills we have

Than fly to others that we know not of?

Thus conscience[89] does make cowards of us all:

90

And thus the native hue[90] of resolution

Is sicklied o’er with the pale cast[91] of thought,

And enterprises of great pith and moment[92]

With this regard their currents turn away,

And lose the name of action. Soft you[94] now,

95

The fair Ophelia.— Nymph, in thy orisons[95]

Be all my sins remembered.

OPHELIAGood my lord,

How does your honour for this many a day?

HAMLETI humbly thank you: well, well, well.

100

OPHELIAMy lord, I have remembrances[100] of yours,

That I have longèd long to re-deliver:

I pray you now receive them. Offers love tokens

HAMLETNo, no: I never gave you aught.

OPHELIAMy honoured lord, I know right well you did,

105

And with them words of so sweet breath composed

As made the things more rich: their perfume lost,

Take these again, for to the noble mind

Rich gifts wax poor when givers prove unkind.

There, my lord. Tries to hand over tokens

HAMLETHa, ha! Are you honest?[110]

OPHELIAMy lord?

HAMLETAre you fair?[112]

OPHELIAWhat means your lordship?

HAMLETThat if you be honest and fair, your[114] honesty should admit no discourse to your beauty.

OPHELIACould beauty, my lord, have better commerce[116] than with honesty?

HAMLETAy, truly, for the power of beauty will sooner transform honesty from what it is to a bawd than the force of honesty can translate beauty into his[118] likeness: this was sometime[119] a paradox, but now the time gives it proof. I did love you once.

OPHELIAIndeed, my lord, you made me believe so.

HAMLETYou should not have believed me, for virtue[122] cannot so inoculate our old stock but we shall relish of it: I loved you not.

OPHELIAI was the more deceived.

HAMLETGet thee to a nunnery.[125] Why wouldst thou be a breeder of sinners? I am myself indifferent honest,[126] but yet I could accuse me of such things that it were better my mother had not borne me: I am very proud, revengeful, ambitious, with more offences at my beck[128] than I have thoughts to put them in, imagination to give them shape, or time to act them in. What should such fellows as I do crawling between heaven and earth? We are arrant knaves all: believe none of us. Go thy ways to a nunnery. Where’s your father?

OPHELIAAt home, my lord.

HAMLETLet the doors be shut upon him, that he may play the fool nowhere but in’s own house. Farewell.

OPHELIAO, help him, you sweet heavens!

HAMLETIf thou dost marry, I’ll give thee this plague for thy dowry: be thou as chaste as ice, as pure as snow, thou shalt not escape calumny.[137] Get thee to a nunnery: go, farewell. Or, if thou wilt needs marry, marry a fool, for wise men know well enough what monsters[139] you make of them. To a nunnery, go, and quickly too. Farewell.

OPHELIAO heavenly powers, restore him!

HAMLETI have heard of your paintings[142] too, well enough. God has given you one face and you make yourself another: you jig, you amble[143] and you lisp, and nickname God’s creatures, and make[144] your wantonness your ignorance. Go to, I’ll no more on’t:[145] it hath made me mad. I say we will have no more marriages: those that are married already, all but one shall live: the rest shall keep as they are. To a nunnery, go.

Exit Hamlet

OPHELIAO, what a noble mind is here o’erthrown!

The courtier’s, soldier’s, scholar’s, eye, tongue, sword,

150

Th’expectancy[150] and rose of the fair state,

The glass of fashion[151] and the mould of form,

Th’observed of all observers, quite, quite down!

And I, of ladies most deject and wretched,

That sucked the honey of his music vows,

155

Now see that noble and most sovereign reason

Like sweet bells jangled out of tune and harsh,

That unmatched form and feature of blown[157] youth

Blasted with ecstasy.[158] O, woe is me,

T’have seen what I have seen, see what I see!

Enter King and Polonius From their hiding place

160

KING Love? His affections[160] do not that way tend,

Nor what he spake, though it lacked form a little,

Was not like madness. There’s something in his soul

O’er which his melancholy sits on brood,[163]

And I do doubt[164] the hatch and the disclose

165

Will be some danger, which to prevent,

I have in quick determination

Thus set it down:[167] he shall with speed to England

For the demand of our neglected tribute.[168]

Haply[169] the seas and countries different

170

With variable objects[170] shall expel

This something-settled matter[171] in his heart,

Whereon his brains still beating puts him thus

From fashion of himself.[173] What think you on’t?

POLONIUSIt shall do well. But yet do I believe

175

The origin and commencement of this grief

Sprung from neglected love.— How now, Ophelia?

You need not tell us what Lord Hamlet said:

We heard it all. My lord, do as you please,

But, if you hold it fit, after the play

180

Let his queen mother all alone entreat him

To show his griefs: let her be round[181] with him,

And I’ll be placed, so please you, in the ear

Of all their conference. If she find him not,[183]

To England send him, or confine him where

185

Your wisdom best shall think.

KINGIt shall be so:

Madness in great ones must not unwatched go.

Exeunt

[Act 3 Scene 2]

running scene 8

Enter Hamlet and two or three of the Players

HAMLETSpeak the speech, I pray you, as I pronounced it to you, trippingly[1] on the tongue: but if you mouth[2] it, as many of your players do, I had as lief the town-crier had spoke my lines. Nor do not saw the air too much with your hand, thus, but use all gently; for in the very torrent, tempest, and, as I may say, the whirlwind of passion, you must acquire and beget a temperance that may give it smoothness. O, it offends me to the soul to see a robustious[6] periwig-pated fellow tear a passion to tatters, to very rags, to split the ears of the groundlings,[7] who for the most part are capable of[8] nothing but inexplicable dumb shows and noise: I could have such a fellow whipped for o’erdoing Termagant:[9] it out-Herods Herod. Pray you avoid it.

A PLAYERI warrant[11] your honour.

HAMLETBe not too tame neither, but let your own discretion[12] be your tutor: suit the action to the word, the word to the action, with this special observance: that you o’erstep not the modesty[14] of nature; for anything so overdone is from the purpose of playing, whose end, both at the first and now, was and is to hold as ’twere the mirror up to nature, to show virtue her own feature, scorn her own image, and the very age and body of the time his form and pressure.[17] Now this overdone or come tardy off,[18] though it make the unskilful laugh, cannot but make the judicious grieve; the censure[19] of the which one must in your allowance o’erweigh a whole theatre of others. O, there be players that I have seen play, and heard others praise, and that highly — not to speak it profanely — that, neither having the accent of Christians nor the gait of Christian, pagan, nor no man, have so strutted and bellowed that I have thought some of nature’s journeymen[23] had made men and not made them well, they imitated humanity so abominably.[24]

A PLAYERI hope we have reformed that indifferently[25] with us, sir.

HAMLETO, reform it altogether. And let those that play your clowns speak no more than is set down for them, for there be of[27] them that will themselves laugh, to set on some quantity of barren[28] spectators to laugh too, though in the meantime some necessary question[29] of the play be then to be considered: that’s villainous, and shows a most pitiful ambition in the fool that uses[30] it. Go, make you ready.—

Exeunt Players

Enter Polonius, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern

How now, my lord, will the king hear this piece of work?

POLONIUSAnd the queen too, and that presently.[32]

HAMLETBid the players make haste.—

Exit Polonius

Will you two help to hasten them?

35

BOTH We will, my lord.

Exeunt [Rosencrantz and Guildenstern]

Enter Horatio

HAMLETWhat ho, Horatio!

HORATIOHere, sweet lord, at your service.

HAMLETHoratio, thou art e’en as just a man

As[39] e’er my conversation coped withal.

40

HORATIOO, my dear lord—

HAMLETNay, do not think I flatter,

For what advancement may I hope from thee

That no revenue hast but thy good spirits

To feed and clothe thee? Why should the poor be flattered?

45

No, let the candied[45] tongue lick absurd pomp,

And crook[46] the pregnant hinges of the knee

Where thrift[47] may follow fawning. Dost thou hear?

Since my dear soul was mistress of her choice

And could of men distinguish, her election[49]

50

Hath sealed[50] thee for herself, for thou hast been

As[51] one, in suffering all, that suffers nothing,

A man that fortune’s buffets[52] and rewards

Hath ta’en with equal thanks: and blest are those

Whose blood[54] and judgement are so well commingled

55

That they are not a pipe for fortune’s finger

To sound what stop[56] she please. Give me that man

That is not passion’s slave, and I will wear him

In my heart’s core,[58] ay, in my heart of heart,

As I do thee. Something too much of this.

60

There is a play tonight before the king:

One scene of it comes near the circumstance

Which I have told thee of my father’s death:

I prithee, when thou see’st that act afoot,

Even with the[64] very comment of thy soul

65

Observe mine uncle: if his occulted[65] guilt

Do not itself unkennel[66] in one speech,

It is a damnèd[67] ghost that we have seen,

And my imaginations are as foul[68]

As Vulcan’s stithy.[69] Give him heedful note,

70

For I mine eyes will rivet to his face,

And after we will both our judgements join

In censure[72] of his seeming.

HORATIOWell, my lord.

If he steal aught[74] the whilst this play is playing

75

And scape detecting, I will pay the theft.

Enter King, Queen, Polonius, Ophelia, Rosencrantz, Guildenstern and other Lords Attendant with his Guard carrying torches. Danish march. Sound a flourish

HAMLET They are coming to the play: I must be idle.[76]

Get you a place.

KINGHow fares[78] our cousin Hamlet?

HAMLETExcellent, i’faith, of the chameleon’s dish:[79] I eat the air, promise-crammed: you cannot feed capons[80] so.

KINGI have nothing with[81] this answer, Hamlet: these words are not mine.

HAMLETNo, nor mine now.— To Polonius My lord, you played once i’th’university, you say?

POLONIUSThat I did, my lord, and was accounted a good actor.

HAMLETAnd what did you enact?

POLONIUSI did enact Julius Caesar: I was killed i’th’Capitol:[86] Brutus killed me.

HAMLETIt was a brute[87] part of him to kill so capital a calf there.— Be the players ready?

ROSENCRANTZAy, my lord: they stay[89] upon your patience.

GERTRUDECome hither, my good Hamlet, sit by me.

HAMLETNo, good mother, here’s metal more attractive.[91]

POLONIUSO, ho! To King Do you mark that?

HAMLETLady, shall I lie[93] in your lap?

OPHELIANo, my lord.

HAMLETI mean, my head upon your lap?

OPHELIAAy, my lord.

HAMLETDo you think I meant country matters?[97]

OPHELIAI think nothing, my lord.

HAMLETThat’s a fair thought to lie between maids’ legs.

OPHELIAWhat is, my lord?

HAMLETNothing.[101]

OPHELIAYou are merry, my lord.

HAMLETWho, I?

OPHELIAAy, my lord.

HAMLETO, God, your only jig-maker.[105] What should a man do but be merry? For look you how cheerfully my mother looks, and my father died within’s two hours.

OPHELIANay, ’tis twice two months, my lord.

HAMLETSo long? Nay then, let the devil wear black, for I’ll have a suit of sables.[108] O heavens! Die two months ago, and not forgotten yet? Then there’s hope a great man’s memory may outlive his life half a year: but, by’r lady, he must build churches, then, or else shall he suffer not[111] thinking on, with the hobby-horse, whose epitaph is ‘For, O, for, O, the hobby-horse is forgot.’

Hautboys play. The dumb show enters

Enter a King and Queen very lovingly, the Queen embracing him. She kneels, and makes show of protestation unto him. He takes her up, and declines his head upon her neck: lays him down upon a bank of flowers: she, seeing him asleep, leaves him. Anon comes in a fellow, takes off his crown, kisses it, and pours poison in the King’s ears, and exits. The Queen returns, finds the King dead, and makes passionate action. The Poisoner, with some two or three Mutes, comes in again, seeming to lament with her. The dead body is carried away. The Poisoner woos the Queen with gifts: she seems loath and unwilling awhile, but in the end accepts his love.

Exeunt

OPHELIAWhat means this, my lord?

HAMLETMarry, this is miching malicho:[114] that means mischief.

OPHELIABelike[115] this show imports the argument of the play.

HAMLETWe shall know by these fellows: the players cannot keep counsel,[116] they’ll tell all.

OPHELIAWill they tell us what this show meant?

HAMLETAy, or any show[119] that you’ll show him: be not you ashamed to show, he’ll not shame to tell you what it means.

OPHELIAYou are naught,[121] you are naught: I’ll mark the play.

Enter Prologue

PROLOGUEFor us, and for our tragedy,

Here stooping to your clemency,

We beg your hearing patiently.

[Exit]

HAMLETIs this a prologue, or the posy of a ring?[125]

OPHELIA’Tis brief, my lord.

HAMLETAs woman’s love.

Enter [two Players as] King and his Queen [Baptista]

PLAYER KINGFull thirty times hath Phoebus’ cart[128] gone round

Neptune’s salt wash[129] and Tellus’ orbèd ground,

130

And thirty dozen moons with borrowed sheen[130]

About the world have times twelve thirties been,

Since love our hearts and Hymen[132] did our hands

Unite commutuai in most sacred bands.[133]

BAPTISTA So many journeys may the sun and moon

135

Make us again count o’er ere love be done!

But, woe is me, you are so sick of late,

So far from cheer and from your former state,

That I distrust[138] you: yet, though I distrust,

Discomfort[139] you, my lord, it nothing must,

140

For women’s fear and love holds quantity,[140]

In[141] neither aught, or in extremity.

Now, what my love is, proof[142] hath made you know,

And as[143] my love is sized, my fear is so.

PLAYER KINGFaith, I must leave thee, love, and shortly too:

145

My operant[145] powers my functions leave to do.

And thou shalt live in this fair world behind,

Honoured, beloved: and haply one as kind

For husband shalt thou—

BAPTISTA O, confound[148] the rest!

Such love must needs be treason in my breast:

150

In second husband let me be accurst!

None[151] wed the second but who killed the first.

HAMLETWormwood,[152] wormwood. Aside?

BAPTISTA The instances[153] that second marriage move

Are base respects of thrift,[154] but none of love:

155

A second time I kill my husband dead,

When second husband kisses me in bed.

PLAYER KING I do believe you think what now you speak,

But what we do determine oft we break.

Purpose[159] is but the slave to memory,

160

Of violent birth, but poor validity,

Which[161] now, like fruit unripe, sticks on the tree,

But fall unshaken when they mellow be.

Most[163] necessary ’tis that we forget

To pay ourselves what to ourselves is debt:

165

What to ourselves in passion we propose,

The passion ending, doth the purpose lose.

The violence of either grief or joy

Their own enactures[168] with themselves destroy:

Where joy most revels, grief doth most lament;

170

Grief[170] joys, joy grieves, on slender accident.

This world is not for aye,[171] nor ’tis not strange

That even our loves should with our fortunes change,

For ’tis a question left us yet to prove,

Whether love lead fortune, or else fortune love.

175

The great man down,[175] you mark his favourites flies:

The poor advanced[176] makes friends of enemies.

And hitherto[177] doth love on fortune tend,

For who not needs[178] shall never lack a friend,

And who in want[179] a hollow friend doth try,

180

Directly seasons him[180] his enemy.

But, orderly to end where I begun,

Our wills and fates do so contrary run

That our devices[183] still are overthrown:

Our thoughts are ours, their ends[184] none of our own.

185

So think thou wilt no second husband wed,

But die thy thoughts when thy first lord is dead.

BAPTISTANor[187] earth to me give food, nor heaven light,

Sport[188] and repose lock from me day and night,

Each opposite[189] that blanks the face of joy

190

Meet[190] what I would have well and it destroy!

Both here and hence[191] pursue me lasting strife,

If, once a widow, ever I be wife!

HAMLETIf she should break it now!

PLAYER KING ’Tis deeply sworn. Sweet, leave me here awhile:

195

My spirits grow dull, and fain[195] I would beguile

The tedious day with sleep.

BAPTISTA Sleep rock thy brain,

[He] sleeps

And never come mischance between us twain.

Exit

HAMLETMadam, how like you this play?

GERTRUDEThe lady protests[200] too much, methinks.

HAMLETO, but she’ll keep her word.

KINGHave you heard the argument? Is there no offence[202] in’t?

HAMLETNo, no, they do but jest,[203] poison in jest: no offence i’th’world.

KINGWhat do you call the play?

HAMLETThe Mousetrap. Marry, how? Tropically.[205] This play is the image of a murder done in Vienna: Gonzago is the duke’s[206] name, his wife, Baptista. You shall see anon: ’tis a knavish piece of work, but what o’that? Your majesty and we that have free souls, it touches us not: let the galled jade[208] wince, our withers are unwrung.[209]

Enter Lucianus

This is one Lucianus, nephew to the king.

OPHELIAYou are a good chorus,[211] my lord.

HAMLETI could interpret[212] between you and your love, if I could see the puppets dallying.[213]

OPHELIAYou are keen,[214] my lord, you are keen.

HAMLETIt would cost you a groaning[215] to take off my edge.

OPHELIAStill better, and worse.[216]

HAMLETSo[217] you mis-take your husbands.— Begin, murderer: pox, leave thy damnable faces, and begin. Come, the[218] croaking raven doth bellow for revenge.

LUCIANUSThoughts black, hands apt, drugs fit and time agreeing,

220

Confederate[220] season, else no creature seeing,

Thou mixture rank,[221] of midnight weeds collected,

With Hecate’s ban[222] thrice blasted, thrice infected,

Thy natural magic and dire property,[223]

On wholesome[224] life usurp immediately.

Pours the poison in his ears

HAMLETHe poisons him i’th’garden for’s[225] estate. His name’s Gonzago: the story is extant and writ in choice Italian. You shall see anon how the murderer gets the love of Gonzago’s wife. King stands

OPHELIAThe king rises.

HAMLETWhat, frighted with false fire?[229]

230

GERTRUDEHow fares my lord?

POLONIUSGive o’er the play.

KINGGive me some light. Away!

ALLLights, lights, lights!

Exeunt. Hamlet and Horatio remain

HAMLETWhy, let the strucken[234] deer go weep,

235

The hart ungallèd[235] play,

For some must watch,[236] while some must sleep:

So runs the world away.

Would not this,[238] sir, and a forest of feathers — if the rest of my fortunes turn Turk with me — with two Provincial roses[239] on my razed shoes, get me a fellowship in a cry of players, sir?

HORATIOHalf a share.[241]

HAMLETA whole one, I.

For thou dost know, O Damon[243] dear,

This realm dismantled[244] was

245

Of Jove[245] himself, and now reigns here

A very, very — pajock.[246]

HORATIOYou might have rhymed.[247]

HAMLETO, good Horatio, I’ll take the ghost’s word for a thousand pound. Didst perceive?

HORATIOVery well, my lord.

HAMLETUpon the talk of the poisoning?

HORATIOI did very well note him.

HAMLETO, ha! Come, some music. Come, the recorders.

For if the king like not the comedy,

255

Why then, belike, he likes it not, perdy.[255]

Come, some music!

Enter Rosencrantz and Guildenstern

GUILDENSTERNGood my lord, vouchsafe[257] me a word with you.

HAMLETSir, a whole history.

GUILDENSTERNThe king, sir—

HAMLETAy, sir, what of him?

GUILDENSTERNIs in his retirement[261] marvellous distempered.

HAMLETWith drink, sir?

GUILDENSTERNNo, my lord, rather with choler.[263]

HAMLETYour wisdom should show itself more richer to signify[264] this to his doctor, for for me to put him to his purgation[265] would perhaps plunge him into far more choler.

GUILDENSTERNGood my lord, put your discourse into some frame[267] and start not so wildly from my affair.

HAMLETI am tame, sir: pronounce.

GUILDENSTERNThe queen, your mother, in most great affliction of spirit, hath sent me to you.

HAMLETYou are welcome.

GUILDENSTERNNay, good my lord, this courtesy is not of the right breed.[273] If it shall please you to make me a wholesome[274] answer, I will do your mother’s commandment: if not, your pardon[275] and my return shall be the end of my business.

HAMLETSir, I cannot.

GUILDENSTERNWhat, my lord?

HAMLETMake you a wholesome answer: my wit’s diseased. But, sir, such answers as I can make, you shall command, or rather, as you say, my mother: therefore no more, but to the matter: my mother, you say—

ROSENCRANTZThen thus she says: your behaviour hath struck her into amazement[282] and admiration.[283]

HAMLETO, wonderful[284] son, that can so astonish a mother! But is there no sequel at the heels of this mother’s admiration?

ROSENCRANTZShe desires to speak with you in her closet[286] ere you go to bed.

HAMLETWe shall obey, were she ten times our mother. Have you any further trade[287] with us?

ROSENCRANTZMy lord, you once did love me.

HAMLETSo I do still, by these pickers and stealers.[290]

ROSENCRANTZGood my lord, what is your cause of distemper? You do freely bar the door of your own liberty,[292] if you deny your griefs to your friend.

HAMLETSir, I lack advancement.

ROSENCRANTZHow can that be, when you have the voice of the king himself for your succession in Denmark?

HAMLETAy, but ‘While[296] the grass grows’ — the proverb is something musty.

Enter one with a recorder

O, the recorder! Let me see. Takes the recorder

To withdraw[298] with you: To Rosencrantz and Guildenstern why do you go about to recover the wind of me, as if you would drive me into a toil?

GUILDENSTERNO, my lord, if[300] my duty be too bold, my love is too unmannerly.

HAMLETI do not well understand that. Will you play upon this pipe?

GUILDENSTERNMy lord, I cannot.

HAMLETI pray you.

GUILDENSTERNBelieve me, I cannot.

HAMLETI do beseech you.

GUILDENSTERNI know no touch of it, my lord.

HAMLET’Tis as easy as lying: govern these ventages[307] with your finger and thumb, give it breath with your mouth and it will discourse most excellent music. Look you, these are the stops.

GUILDENSTERNBut these cannot I command to any utterance of harmony: I have not the skill.

HAMLETWhy, look you now, how unworthy a thing you make of me! You would play upon me; you would seem to know my stops, you would pluck out the heart of my mystery,[314] you would sound me from my lowest note to the top of my compass,[315] and there is much music, excellent voice, in this little organ, yet cannot you make it speak. Why, do you think that I am easier to be played on than a pipe? Call me what instrument you will, though you can fret[317] me, you cannot play upon me.— To the entering Polonius God bless you, sir!

Enter Polonius

POLONIUSMy lord, the queen would speak with you, and presently.[319]

HAMLETDo you see that cloud that’s almost in shape like a camel?

POLONIUSBy th’mass,[321] and it’s like a camel indeed.

HAMLETMethinks it is like a weasel.

POLONIUSIt is backed like a weasel.

HAMLETOr like a whale?

POLONIUSVery like a whale.

HAMLETThen will I will come to my mother by and by.— Aside They fool[326] me to the top of my bent.— I will come by and by.

POLONIUSI will say so.

Exit

HAMLET‘By and by’ is easily said.

330

Leave me, friends.

[Exeunt all but Hamlet]

’Tis now the very witching time of night,

When churchyards yawn and hell itself breathes out

Contagion to this world: now could I drink hot blood

And do such bitter business as the day

335

Would quake to look on. Soft, now to my mother.

O heart, lose not thy nature;[336] let not ever

The soul of Nero[337] enter this firm bosom:

Let me be cruel, not unnatural.

I will speak daggers to her, but use none.

340

My tongue and soul in this be hypocrites:

How[341] in my words somever she be shent,

To give them seals[342] never my soul consent!

[Exit]

[Act 3 Scene 3]

running scene 9

Enter King, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern

KINGI like him[1] not, nor stands it safe with us

To let his madness range. Therefore prepare you:

I your commission will forthwith dispatch,[3]

And he to England shall along with you.

5

The terms[5] of our estate may not endure

Hazard so dangerous as doth hourly grow

Out of his lunacies.

GUILDENSTERNWe will ourselves provide:[8]

Most holy and religious fear[9] it is

10

To keep those many many bodies safe

That live and feed upon your majesty.

ROSENCRANTZThe single and peculiar[12] life is bound

With all the strength and armour of the mind

To keep itself from noyance,[14] but much more

15

That spirit upon whose weal[15] depends and rests

The lives of many. The cease[16] of majesty

Dies not alone, but like a gulf[17] doth draw

What’s near it with it: it is a massy[18] wheel

Fixed on the summit of the highest mount,

20

To whose huge spokes ten thousand lesser things

Are mortised[21] and adjoined, which, when it falls,

Each small annexment,[22] petty consequence,

Attends[23] the boist’rous ruin. Never alone

Did the king sigh, but with a general groan.

25

KINGArm you,[25] I pray you, to this speedy voyage,

For we will fetters put upon this fear,

Which now goes too free-footed.

BOTH We will haste us.

Exeunt Gentlemen [Rosencrantz and Guildenstern]

Enter Polonius

POLONIUSMy lord, he’s going to his mother’s closet:

30

Behind the arras I’ll convey myself

To hear the process.[31] I’ll warrant she’ll tax him home,

And, as you said, and wisely was it said,

’Tis meet[33] that some more audience than a mother,

Since nature makes them partial, should o’erhear

35

The speech, of vantage.[35] Fare you well, my liege:

I’ll call upon you ere you go to bed,

And tell you what I know.

KINGThanks, dear my lord.—

[Exit Polonius]

O, my offence is rank,[39] it smells to heaven:

40

It hath the primal eldest curse[40] upon’t,

A brother’s murder. Pray can I not,

Though inclination[42] be as sharp as will:

My stronger guilt defeats my strong intent,

And like a man to double business bound,[44]

45

I stand in pause where I shall first begin,

And both neglect. What if this cursèd hand

Were thicker than itself with brother’s blood,

Is there not rain enough in the sweet heavens

To wash it white as snow? Whereto[49] serves mercy

50

But to confront the visage of offence?

And what’s in prayer but this two-fold force,

To be forestallèd[52] ere we come to fall,

Or pardoned being down? Then I’ll look up:

My fault is past. But, O, what form of prayer

55

Can serve my turn?[55] ‘Forgive me my foul murder’?

That cannot be, since I am still possessed

Of those effects[57] for which I did the murder:

My crown, mine own ambition and my queen.

May one be pardoned and retain th’offence?[59]

60

In the corrupted currents[60] of this world

Offence’s gilded[61] hand may shove by justice,

And oft ’tis seen the wicked prize itself

Buys out the law. But ’tis not so above:

There[64] is no shuffling, there the action lies

65

In his true nature, and we ourselves compelled,

Even to[66] the teeth and forehead of our faults,

To give in[67] evidence. What then? What rests?

Try what repentance can. What can it not?

Yet what can it, when one cannot repent?

70

O, wretched state! O, bosom black as death!

O, limèd[71] soul that, struggling to be free,

Art more engaged! Help, angels, make assay![72]

Bow, stubborn knees, and heart with strings of steel, Kneels

Be soft as sinews of the newborn babe!

75

All may be well.

Enter Hamlet

HAMLETNow might I do it pat,[76] now he is praying: Draws

And now I’ll do’t. And so he goes to heaven,

And so am I revenged. That would be scanned:[78]

A villain kills my father, and for that,

80

I, his foul[80] son, do this same villain send

To heaven.

O, this is hire and salary,[82] not revenge.

He took my father grossly,[83] full of bread,

With all his crimes broad blown,[84] as fresh as May,

85

And how his audit[85] stands who knows save heaven?

But in our circumstance[86] and course of thought

’Tis heavy[87] with him: and am I then revenged,

To take him[88] in the purging of his soul,

When he is fit and seasoned[89] for his passage?

90

No. Puts up his sword

Up, sword, and know thou a more horrid hent:[91]

When he is drunk asleep,[92] or in his rage,

Or in th’incestuous pleasure of his bed,

At gaming, swearing, or about some act

95

That has no relish[95] of salvation in’t,

Then trip him, that his heels may kick at heaven,

And that his soul may be as damned and black

As hell, whereto it goes. My mother stays.[98]

This physic[99] but prolongs thy sickly days.

Exit

100

KING My words fly up, my thoughts remain below:

Words without thoughts never to heaven go.

Exit

[Act 3 Scene 4]

running scene 10

Enter Queen and Polonius

POLONIUSHe will come straight.[1] Look you lay home to him:

Tell him his pranks have been too broad[2] to bear with,

And that your grace hath screened and stood between

Much heat[4] and him. I’ll silence me e’en here.

5

Pray you, be round[5] with him.

HAMLETMother, mother, mother! Within

GERTRUDEI’ll warrant you,

Fear me not: withdraw, I hear him coming.

Enter Hamlet Polonius hides behind the arras

HAMLETNow, mother, what’s the matter?

10

GERTRUDEHamlet, thou hast thy father much offended.

HAMLETMother, you have my father much offended.

GERTRUDECome, come, you answer with an idle tongue.

HAMLETGo, go, you question with a wicked tongue.

GERTRUDEWhy, how now, Hamlet?

15

HAMLETWhat’s the matter now?

GERTRUDEHave you forgot me?

HAMLETNo, by the rood,[17] not so:

You are the queen,[18] your husband’s brother’s wife,

But — would you were not so — you are my mother.

20

GERTRUDENay, then, I’ll set those to you that can speak.

HAMLETCome, come, and sit you down, you shall not budge:

You go not till I set you up a glass[22]

Where you may see the inmost part of you.

GERTRUDEWhat wilt thou do? Thou wilt not murder me?

25

Help, help, ho!

POLONIUSWhat, ho? Help, help, help! Behind the arras

HAMLETHow now? A rat? Dead,[27] for a ducat, dead! Draws

POLONIUSO, I am slain!

[Hamlet] kills Polonius

GERTRUDEO me, what hast thou done?

30

HAMLETNay, I know not: is it the king?

GERTRUDEO, what a rash and bloody deed is this!

HAMLETA bloody deed: almost as bad, good mother,

As kill a king and marry with his brother.

GERTRUDEAs kill a king?

35

HAMLETAy, lady, ’twas my word.— Discovers Polonius

Thou wretched, rash, intruding fool, farewell.

I took thee for thy better: take thy fortune;

Thou find’st to be too busy[38] is some danger.—

Leave wringing of your hands. Peace. Sit you down,

40

And let me wring your heart, for so I shall,

If it be made of penetrable stuff,

If damnèd custom have not brazed[42] it so

That it is proof[43] and bulwark against sense.

GERTRUDEWhat have I done, that thou dar’st wag thy tongue

45

In noise so rude[45] against me?

HAMLETSuch an act

That blurs the grace and blush of modesty,

Calls virtue hypocrite, takes off the rose

From the fair forehead of an innocent love

50

And sets a blister there, makes marriage vows

As false as dicers’ oaths: O, such a deed

As from the body of contraction[52] plucks

The very soul, and sweet religion makes

A rhapsody[54] of words. Heaven’s face doth glow:

55

Yea, this[55] solidity and compound mass

With tristful[56] visage, as against the doom,

Is thought-sick at the act.

GERTRUDEAy me, what act,

That roars so loud and thunders in the index?[59]

60

HAMLETLook here, upon this picture, and on this, Shows her two pictures

The counterfeit presentment[61] of two brothers.

See what a grace was seated on his brow:

Hyperion’s[63] curls, the front of Jove himself,

An eye like Mars[64] to threaten or command,

65

A station[65] like the herald Mercury

New-lighted[66] on a heaven-kissing hill,

A combination and a form indeed

Where every god did seem to set his seal[68]

To give the world assurance of a man:

70

This was your husband. Look you now, what follows:

Here is your husband, like a mildewed ear,[71]

Blasting[72] his wholesome brother. Have you eyes?

Could you on this fair mountain leave[73] to feed

And batten[74] on this moor? Ha! Have you eyes?

75

You cannot call it love, for at your age

The heyday[76] in the blood is tame, it’s humble,

And waits upon the judgement: and what judgement

Would step from this to this? What devil was’t

That thus hath cozened[79] you at hoodman-blind?

80

O, shame, where is thy blush? Rebellious hell,

If thou canst mutine[81] in a matron’s bones,

To flaming youth let virtue be as wax

And melt in her own fire. Proclaim no shame

When the compulsive[84] ardour gives the charge,

85

Since frost[85] itself as actively doth burn

And reason panders[86] will.

GERTRUDEO Hamlet, speak no more:

Thou turn’st mine eyes into my very soul,

And there I see such black and grainèd[89] spots

90

As will not leave their tinct.[90]

HAMLETNay, but to live

In the rank sweat of an enseamèd[92] bed,

Stewed[93] in corruption, honeying and making love

Over the nasty[94] sty—

95

GERTRUDEO, speak to me no more:

These words like daggers enter in mine ears.

No more, sweet Hamlet!

HAMLETA murderer and a villain,

A slave that is not twentieth part the tithe[99]

100

Of your precedent lord,[100] a vice of kings,

A cutpurse[101] of the empire and the rule,

That from a shelf the precious diadem[102] stole,

And put it in his pocket!

GERTRUDENo more!

Enter Ghost

105

HAMLETA king of shreds and patches[105]—

Save me, and hover o’er me with your wings, Sees the Ghost

You heavenly guards!— What would you, gracious figure?

GERTRUDEAlas, he’s mad!

HAMLETDo you not come your tardy son to chide,

110

That, lapsed in time and passion, lets go by

Th’important[111] acting of your dread command? O, say!

GHOSTDo not forget: this visitation

Is but to whet thy almost blunted purpose.

But look, amazement on thy mother sits.

115

O, step between her and her fighting soul:

Conceit[116] in weakest bodies strongest works:

Speak to her, Hamlet.

HAMLETHow is it with you, lady?

GERTRUDEAlas, how is’t with you,

120

That you do bend your eye on vacancy

And with th’incorporal[121] air do hold discourse?

Forth at your eyes your spirits[122] wildly peep,

And, as[123] the sleeping soldiers in th’alarm,

Your bedded hair, like[124] life in excrements,

125

Start up and stand on end. O gentle son,

Upon the heat and flame of thy distemper

Sprinkle cool patience. Whereon do you look?

HAMLETOn him, on him! Look you how pale he glares!

His[129] form and cause conjoined, preaching to stones,

130

Would make them capable.[130]— Do not look upon me, To the Ghost

Lest with this piteous[131] action you convert

My stern effects: then what I have to do

Will want[133] true colour; tears perchance for blood.

GERTRUDETo who do you speak this?

135

HAMLETDo you see nothing there?

GERTRUDENothing at all, yet all that is I see.

HAMLETNor did you nothing hear?

GERTRUDENo, nothing but ourselves.

HAMLETWhy, look you there: look, how it steals away.

140

My father, in his habit[140] as he lived!

Look where he goes even now out at the portal.

Exit [Ghost]

GERTRUDEThis is the very coinage[142] of your brain:

This bodiless creation ecstasy is very cunning[143] in.

HAMLETEcstasy?

145

My pulse as yours doth temperately keep time,

And makes as healthful music: it is not madness

That I have uttered. Bring me to the test,

And I the matter will reword,[148] which madness

Would gambol[149] from. Mother, for love of grace,

150

Lay not a flattering unction[150] to your soul

That not your trespass,[151] but my madness speaks:

It will but skin and film[152] the ulcerous place,

Whilst rank corruption, mining[153] all within,

Infects unseen. Confess yourself to heaven,

155

Repent what’s past, avoid what is to come,

And do not spread the compost o’er the weeds

To make them ranker.[157] Forgive me this my virtue,

For in the fatness of these pursy[158] times

Virtue itself of vice must pardon beg,

160

Yea, curb and woo[160] for leave to do him good.

GERTRUDEO Hamlet, thou hast cleft my heart in twain.

HAMLETO, throw away the worser part of it,

And live the purer with the other half.

Goodnight. But go not to mine uncle’s bed:

165

Assume a virtue, if you have it not.

Refrain tonight,

And that shall lend a kind of easiness

To the next abstinence. Once more, goodnight:

And when you are desirous to be blessed,

170

I’ll blessing beg of you. For this same lord, Points to the body

I do repent, but heaven hath pleased it so

To punish me with this, and this with me,

That[173] I must be their scourge and minister.

I will bestow[174] him, and will answer well

175

The death I gave him. So, again, goodnight.

I must be cruel, only to be kind:

Thus bad begins and worse remains behind.[177]

GERTRUDEWhat shall I do?

HAMLETNot this by no means that I bid you do:

180

Let the bloat[180] king tempt you again to bed,

Pinch wanton[181] on your cheek, call you his mouse,

And let him, for a pair of reechy[182] kisses,

Or paddling in your neck with his damned fingers,

Make you to ravel[184] all this matter out,

185

That I essentially am not in madness,

But mad in craft.[186] ’Twere good you let him know,

For who that’s but a queen, fair, sober, wise,

Would from a paddock,[188] from a bat, a gib,

Such dear concernings[189] hide? Who would do so?

190

No, in despite of sense and secrecy,

Unpeg[191] the basket on the house’s top,

Let the birds fly, and like the famous[192] ape,

To try conclusions, in the basket creep,

And break your own neck down.

195

GERTRUDEBe thou assured, if words be made of breath

And breath of life, I have no life to breathe

What thou hast said to me.

HAMLETI must to England: you know that?

GERTRUDEAlack,

200

I had forgot: ’tis so concluded on.

HAMLETThis man shall set me packing:[201]

I’ll lug the guts into the neighbour room.

Mother, goodnight. Indeed this counsellor

Is now most still,[204] most secret and most grave,

205

Who was in life a foolish prating[205] knave.—

Come, sir, to draw[206] toward an end with you.—

Goodnight, mother.

Exit Hamlet tugging in Polonius

Enter King

KINGThere’s matter[208] in these sighs, these profound heaves,

You must translate: ’tis fit we understand them.

210

Where is your son?

GERTRUDEAh, my good lord, what have I seen tonight!

KINGWhat, Gertrude? How does Hamlet?

GERTRUDEMad as the seas and wind when both contend

Which is the mightier: in his lawless fit,

215

Behind the arras hearing something stir,

He whips his rapier out and cries, ‘A rat, a rat!’

And in his brainish apprehension[217] kills

The unseen good old man.

KINGO, heavy[219] deed!

220

It had been so with us, had we been there.

His liberty is full of threats to all:

To you yourself, to us, to everyone.

Alas, how shall this bloody deed be answered?[223]

It will be laid to us, whose providence[224]

225

Should have kept short,[225] restrained and out of haunt

This mad young man: but so much was our love,

We would not understand what was most fit,

But, like the owner of a foul disease,

To keep it from divulging,[229] lets it feed

230

Even on the pith of life. Where is he gone?

GERTRUDETo draw apart[231] the body he hath killed,

O’er whom his very madness, like some ore[232]

Among a mineral[233] of metals base,

Shows itself pure: he weeps for what is done.

235

KINGO Gertrude, come away!

The sun no sooner shall the mountains touch,

But we will ship him hence, and this vile deed

We must with all our majesty and skill,

Both countenance[239] and excuse.—

Enter Rosencrantz and Guildenstern

Ho, Guildenstern!

240

Friends both, go join you with some further aid.

Hamlet in madness hath Polonius slain,

And from his mother’s closet hath he dragged him:

Go seek him out, speak fair, and bring the body

Into the chapel. I pray you haste in this.

Exeunt Gentlemen [Ros. and Guild.]

245

Come, Gertrude, we’ll call up our wisest friends

To let them know, both what we mean to do

And what’s untimely done.[247] O, come away!

My soul is full of discord and dismay.

Exeunt

[Act 4 Scene 1]

running scene 11

Enter Hamlet

HAMLETSafely stowed.[1]

GENTLEMEN[2]Hamlet, Lord Hamlet! Within

HAMLETWhat noise? Who calls on Hamlet? O, here they come.

Enter Rosencrantz and Guildenstern With Attendants?

ROSENCRANTZWhat have you done, my lord, with the dead body?

HAMLETCompounded[5] it with dust, whereto ’tis kin.

ROSENCRANTZTell us where ’tis, that we may take it thence And bear it to the chapel.

HAMLETDo not believe it.

ROSENCRANTZBelieve what?

HAMLETThat I can keep[10] your counsel and not mine own. Besides, to be demanded of a sponge, what replication[11] should be made by the son of a king?

ROSENCRANTZTake you me for a sponge, my lord?

HAMLETAy, sir, that soaks up the king’s countenance,[13] his rewards, his authorities. But such officers do the king best service in the end: he keeps them, like an ape an apple, in the corner of his jaw, first mouthed[15] to be last swallowed: when he needs what you have gleaned, it is but squeezing you, and, sponge, you shall be dry again.

ROSENCRANTZI understand you not, my lord.

HAMLETI am glad of it: a knavish speech sleeps in[19] a foolish ear.

ROSENCRANTZMy lord, you must tell us where the body is, and go with us to the king.

HAMLETThe[22] body is with the king, but the king is not with the body. The king is a thing—

GUILDENSTERNA thing, my lord?

HAMLETOf nothing. Bring me to him. Hide[25] fox, and all after. Running

Exeunt

[Act 4 Scene 2]

running scene 11 continues

Enter King

KINGI have sent to seek him and to find the body.

How dangerous is it that this man goes loose!

Yet must not we put the strong law on him:

He’s loved of[4] the distracted multitude,

5

Who like not in their judgement, but their eyes,

And where ’tis so, th’offender’s scourge[6] is weighed,

But ne’er the offence. To bear[7] all smooth and even,

This sudden sending him away must seem

Deliberate pause.[9] Diseases desperate grown

10

By desperate appliance[10] are relieved,

Or not at all.

Enter Rosencrantz

How now? What hath befall’n?

ROSENCRANTZWhere the dead body is bestowed, my lord,

We cannot get from him.

KINGBut where is he?

15

ROSENCRANTZWithout,[15] my lord, guarded, to know your pleasure.

KINGBring him before us.

ROSENCRANTZHo, Guildenstern! Bring in my lord. Calls

Enter Hamlet and Guildenstern

With Attendants?

KINGNow, Hamlet, where’s Polonius?

HAMLETAt supper.

KINGAt supper? Where?

HAMLETNot where he eats, but where he is eaten: a certain convocation[21] of worms are e’en[22] at him. Your worm is your only emperor for diet: we fat all creatures else to fat us, and we fat ourselves for maggots: your fat king and your lean beggar is but variable service,[24] two dishes, but to one table. That’s the end.

KINGAlas, alas!

HAMLETA man may fish with the worm that hath eat[26] of a king, and eat of the fish that hath fed of that worm.

KINGWhat dost thou mean by this?

HAMLETNothing but to show you how a king may go a progress[29] through the guts of a beggar.

KINGWhere is Polonius?

HAMLETIn heaven, send thither to see. If your messenger find him not there, seek him i’th’other place yourself. But indeed, if you find him not this month, you shall nose him as you go up the stairs into the lobby.

KING Go seek him there. To Rosencrantz or Attendants

HAMLETHe will stay till ye come.

[Exit Rosencrantz or Attendants]

KINGHamlet, this deed of thine, for thine especial safety —

Which we do tender,[38] as we dearly grieve

For that which thou hast done — must send thee hence

40

With fiery quickness: therefore prepare thyself.

The bark[41] is ready and the wind at help,

Th’associates tend[42] and everything at bent

For England.

HAMLETFor England?

KINGAy, Hamlet.

HAMLETGood.

KINGSo is it, if thou knew’st our purposes.

HAMLETI see a cherub[48] that sees them. But come, for England! Farewell, dear mother.

KINGThy loving father, Hamlet.

HAMLETMy mother. Father and mother is man and wife: man and wife is one flesh, and so, my mother. Come, for England!

Exit

KINGFollow him at foot,[53] tempt him with speed aboard:

Delay it not, I’ll have him hence tonight.

55

Away! For everything is sealed and done

That else leans on[56] th’affair: pray you make haste.

[Exit Guildenstern and perhaps Rosencrantz]

And, England, if my love thou hold’st at aught[57] —

As my great power thereof[58] may give thee sense,

Since yet thy cicatrice[59] looks raw and red

60

After the Danish sword, and thy free awe[60]

Pays homage to us — thou mayst not coldly set[61]

Our sovereign process,[62] which imports at full,

By letters conjuring[63] to that effect,

The present[64] death of Hamlet. Do it, England,

65

For like the hectic[65] in my blood he rages,

And thou must cure me. Till I know ’tis done,

Howe’er my haps,[67] my joys were ne’er begun.

Exit

[Act 4 Scene 3]4.3

running scene 12

Enter Fortinbras with an army

FORTINBRASGo, captain, from me greet the Danish king:

Tell him that by his licence[2] Fortinbras

Claims the conveyance of[3] a promised march

Over his kingdom. You know the rendezvous.

5

If that his majesty would aught with us,

We shall express our duty[6] in his eye,

And let him know so.

CAPTAINI will do’t, my lord.

FORTINBRASGo softly[9] on.

Exeunt

[Act 4 Scene 4]4.4

running scene 13

Enter Queen and Horatio

GERTRUDEI will not speak with her.

HORATIOShe is importunate,[2] indeed distract:

Her mood will needs be pitied.

GERTRUDEWhat would she have?

5

HORATIOShe speaks much of her father; says she hears

There’s tricks i’th’world, and hems,[6] and beats her heart,

Spurns[7] enviously at straws, speaks things in doubt

That carry but half sense: her speech is nothing,

Yet the unshapèd use[9] of it doth move

10

The hearers to collection;[10] they aim at it,

And botch[11] the words up fit to their own thoughts,

Which,[12] as her winks and nods and gestures yield them,

Indeed would make one think there might be thought,[13]

Though nothing sure, yet much unhappily.[14]

15

GERTRUDE’Twere good she were spoken with, for she may strew

Dangerous conjectures in ill-breeding[16] minds.

Let her come in. Horatio goes to the door or may exit

To my sick soul — as sin’s true nature is — Aside

Each toy[19] seems prologue to some great amiss:

20

So full of artless jealousy[20] is guilt,

It[21] spills itself in fearing to be spilt.

Enter Ophelia, distracted With Horatio?

OPHELIAWhere is the beauteous majesty of Denmark?

GERTRUDEHow now, Ophelia!

OPHELIAHow should I your true love know Sings

25

From another one?

By his cockle hat[26] and staff,

And his sandal shoon.[27]

GERTRUDEAlas, sweet lady, what imports this song?

OPHELIASay you? Nay, pray you, mark.

30

He is dead and gone, lady, Sings

He is dead and gone.

At his head a grass-green turf,

At his heels a stone.

Enter King

GERTRUDENay, but, Ophelia—

35

OPHELIA Pray you, mark.

White his shroud as the mountain snow— Sings

GERTRUDEAlas, look here, my lord.

OPHELIALarded[38] with sweet flowers Sings

Which bewept to the grave did not go

40

With true-love showers.[40]

KINGHow do ye, pretty lady?

OPHELIAWell, God yield[42] you! They say the owl was a baker’s daughter. Lord, we know what we are, but know not what we may be. God be at your table!

KINGConceit upon[44] her father.

OPHELIAPray you let’s have no words of this, but when they ask you what it means, say you this:

Tomorrow is Saint Valentine’s day, Sings

All in the morning betime,[48]

And I a maid at your window,

50

To be your Valentine.[50]

Then up he rose,[51] and donned his clothes,

And dupped[52] the chamber door:

Let in the maid,[53] that out a maid

Never departed more.

KINGPretty Ophelia.

OPHELIAIndeed, la, without an oath, I’ll make an end on’t:

By Gis[57] and by Saint Charity, Sings

Alack, and fie for shame!

Young men will do’t,[59] if they come to’t,

60

By cock,[60] they are to blame.

Quoth she, ‘Before you tumbled[61] me,

You promised me to wed.’

‘So would I ha’ done, by yonder sun,

An[64] thou hadst not come to my bed.’

KINGHow long hath she been thus?

OPHELIAI hope all will be well. We must be patient, but I cannot choose but weep to think they should lay him i’th’cold ground. My brother shall know of it: and so I thank you for your good counsel. Come, my coach! Goodnight, ladies, goodnight, sweet ladies, goodnight, goodnight.

Exit

70

KINGFollow her close: give her good watch, I pray you. To Horatio

[Exit Horatio]

O, this is the poison of deep grief: it springs

All from her father’s death. O Gertrude, Gertrude,

When sorrows come, they come not single spies[73]

But in battalions. First, her father slain:

75

Next, your son gone, and he most violent author

Of his own just remove:[76] the people muddied,

Thick and unwholesome in their thoughts and whispers

For good Polonius’ death, and we have done but greenly[78]

In hugger-mugger[79] to inter him: poor Ophelia

80

Divided from herself and her fair judgement,

Without the which we are pictures or mere beasts:

Last, and as much containing[82] as all these,

Her brother is in secret come from France,

Feeds on his wonder,[84] keeps himself in clouds,

85

And wants[85] not buzzers to infect his ear

With pestilent speeches of his father’s death,

Wherein necessity, of matter beggared,[87]

Will nothing[88] stick our persons to arraign

In ear and ear. O, my dear Gertrude, this,

90

Like to a murdering-piece,[90] in many places

Gives[91] me superfluous death.

A noise within

Enter a Messenger

GERTRUDEAlack, what noise is this?

KINGWhere are my Switzers?[93] Let them guard the door.—

What is the matter?

95

MESSENGERSave yourself, my lord.

The ocean, overpeering[96] of his list,

Eats not the flats[97] with more impiteous haste

Than young Laertes, in a riotous head,[98]

O’erbears your officers. The rabble call him lord,

100

And, as[100] the world were now but to begin,

Antiquity[101] forgot, custom not known,

The[102] ratifiers and props of every word,

They cry ‘Choose we! Laertes shall be king.’

Caps,[104] hands and tongues, applaud it to the clouds:

105

‘Laertes shall be king, Laertes king!’

GERTRUDEHow cheerfully on the false trail they cry!

O, this is counter,[107] you false Danish dogs!

Noise within

Enter Laertes His followers remain at the door

KINGThe doors are broke.

LAERTESWhere is the king?— Sirs, stand you all without.[109]

110

ALL FOLLOWERSNo, let’s come in. At the door

LAERTESI pray you give me leave.

ALLWe will, we will.

LAERTESI thank you: keep[113] the door.— O thou vile king,

Give me my father!

115

GERTRUDECalmly, good Laertes. Restrains him or blocks his way

LAERTESThat drop of blood that’s calm proclaims me bastard,

Cries cuckold[117] to my father, brands the harlot

Even here, between[118] the chaste unsmirched brow

Of my true[119] mother.

120

KINGWhat is the cause, Laertes,

That thy rebellion looks so giant-like?—

Let him go, Gertrude: do not fear[122] our person:

There’s such divinity doth hedge[123] a king

That treason can but[124] peep to what it would,

125

Acts little of his will.— Tell me, Laertes,

Why thou art thus incensed.— Let him go, Gertrude.—

Speak, man.

LAERTESWhere’s my father?

KINGDead.

130

GERTRUDEBut not by him.

KINGLet him demand his fill.

LAERTESHow came he dead? I’ll not be juggled with:[132]

To hell, allegiance! Vows, to the blackest devil!

Conscience and grace, to the profoundest pit!

135

I dare damnation. To[135] this point I stand,

That both[136] the worlds I give to negligence,

Let come what comes, only I’ll be revenged

Most throughly[138] for my father.

KINGWho shall stay[139] you?

140

LAERTESMy[140] will, not all the world:

And for my means, I’ll husband[141] them so well,

They shall go far with little.

KINGGood Laertes,

If you desire to know the certainty

145

Of your dear father’s death, is’t writ in your revenge,

That, sweepstake,[146] you will draw both friend and foe,

Winner and loser?

LAERTESNone but his enemies.

KINGWill you know them then?

150

LAERTESTo his good friends thus wide I’ll ope my arms,

And like the kind life-rend’ring pelican,[151]

Repast[152] them with my blood.

KINGWhy, now you speak

Like a good child and a true gentleman.

155

That I am guiltless of your father’s death,

And am most sensible[156] in grief for it,

It shall as level[157] to your judgement pierce

As day does to your eye.

A noise within

ALL FOLLOWERSLet her come in!

Enter Ophelia

160

LAERTES How now? What noise is that?

O, heat dry up my brains, tears seven times salt Sees Ophelia

Burn out the sense and virtue[162] of mine eye!

By heaven, thy madness shall be paid by weight,

Till our scale turns[164] the beam. O rose of May,

165

Dear maid, kind sister, sweet Ophelia!

O heavens, is’t possible a young maid’s wits

Should be as mortal as an old man’s life?

Nature[168] is fine in love, and where ’tis fine,

It sends some precious instance[169] of itself

170

After[170] the thing it loves.

OPHELIAThey bore him barefaced on the bier,[171] Sings

Hey[172] non nonny, nonny, hey nonny,

And on his grave rains many a tear—

Fare you well, my dove.

175

LAERTESHadst thou thy wits and didst persuade revenge,

It could not move[176] thus.

OPHELIAYou[177] must sing ‘a-down a-down’, and you call him ‘a-down-a’. O, how the wheel[178] becomes it! It is the false steward that stole his master’s daughter.

LAERTESThis[179] nothing’s more than matter.

OPHELIAThere’s rosemary,[180] that’s for remembrance: pray, love, remember: and there is pansies,[181] that’s for thoughts. Gives real or imaginary flowers

LAERTESA document[182] in madness, thoughts and remembrance fitted.

OPHELIAThere’s fennel[183] for you, and columbines: there’s rue for you, and here’s some for me: we may call it herb-grace o’Sundays:[184] O, you must wear your rue with a difference.[185] There’s a daisy: I would give you some violets, but they withered all when my father died: they say he made a good end—

For[187] bonny sweet Robin is all my joy. Sings

LAERTESThought[188] and affliction, passion, hell itself,

She turns to favour[189] and to prettiness.

190

OPHELIAAnd will he not come again? Sings

And will he not come again?

No, no, he is dead:

Go to thy death-bed,

He never will come again.

195

His beard as white as snow,

All flaxen[196] was his poll:

He is gone, he is gone,

And we cast away moan.[198]

Gramercy[199] on his soul!

200

And of all Christian souls, I pray God. God buy ye.[200]

Exeunt Ophelia [and Gertrude?]

LAERTESDo you see this, you gods?

KINGLaertes, I must commune with your grief,

Or you deny me right. Go but apart,

Make choice of whom[204] your wisest friends you will,

205

And they shall hear and judge ’twixt[205] you and me:

If by direct or by collateral[206] hand

They find us touched,[207] we will our kingdom give,

Our crown, our life, and all that we call ours

To you in satisfaction. But if not,

210

Be you content to lend your patience to us,

And we shall jointly labour with your soul

To give it due content.

LAERTESLet this be so:

His means of death, his obscure burial —

215

No trophy,[215] sword, nor hatchment o’er his bones,

No noble rite nor formal ostentation[216] —

Cry to be heard, as ’twere from heaven to earth,

That[218] I must call in question.

KINGSo you shall,

220

And where th’offence is, let the great axe fall.

I pray you go with me.

Exeunt

Act 4 Scene 5

running scene 14

Enter Horatio with an Attendant

HORATIOWhat are they that would speak with me?

SERVANTSailors, sir: they say they have letters for you.

HORATIOLet them come in. [Exit Servant]

I do not know from what part of the world

5

I should be greeted, if not from Lord Hamlet.

Enter Sailor

SAILORGod bless you, sir.

HORATIOLet him bless thee too.

SAILORHe shall, sir, an’t[8] please him. Gives a letter There’s a letter for you, sir: it comes from th’ambassador that was bound for England, if your name be Horatio, as I am let to know it is.

HORATIOReads the letter ‘Horatio, when thou shalt have overlooked[11] this, give these fellows some means[12] to the king: they have letters for him. Ere we were two days old at sea, a pirate of very warlike appointment[13] gave us chase. Finding ourselves too slow of sail, we put on a compelled[14] valour, in the grapple I boarded them: on the instant they got clear of our ship, so I alone became their prisoner. They have dealt with me like thieves of mercy,[16] but they knew what they did: I am to do a good turn for them. Let the king have the letters I have sent, and repair[17] thou to me with as much haste as thou wouldst fly death. I have words to speak in your ear will make thee dumb, yet are they much too[19] light for the bore of the matter. These good fellows will bring thee where I am. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern hold their course for England: of them I have much to tell thee. Farewell. He that thou knowest thine, Hamlet.’—

Come, I will give you way[23] for these your letters,

And do’t the speedier that you may direct me

To him from whom you brought them.

Exeunt

Act 4 Scene 6

running scene 15

Enter King and Laertes

KINGNow must your conscience my acquittance seal,[1]

And you must put me in your heart for friend,

Sith[3] you have heard, and with a knowing ear,

That he which hath your noble father slain

5

Pursued my life.

LAERTESIt well appears. But tell me

Why you proceeded not[7] against these feats

So crimeful and so capital[8] in nature,

As[9] by your safety, wisdom, all things else,

10

You mainly were stirred up.

KINGO, for two special reasons,

Which may to you, perhaps, seem much unsinewed,[12]

And yet to me they are strong. The queen his mother

Lives almost by his looks, and for myself —

15

My virtue or my plague, be it either which —

She’s so conjunctive[16] to my life and soul,

That, as the star moves not but in his sphere,[17]

I could not but[18] by her. The other motive,

Why to a public count[19] I might not go,

20

Is the great love the general gender[20] bear him,

Who, dipping all his faults in their affection,

Would like the spring[22] that turneth wood to stone,

Convert his gyves[23] to graces, so that my arrows,

Too slightly timbered[24] for so loud a wind,

25

Would have reverted to my bow again

And not where I had aimed them.

LAERTESAnd so have I a noble father lost,

A sister driven into desperate terms,[28]

Who has — if praises may go back again[29] —

30

Stood challenger on mount[30] of all the age

For her perfections: but my revenge will come.

KINGBreak not your sleeps for that: you must not think

That we are made of stuff so flat and dull

That we can let our beard be shook with[34] danger

35

And think it pastime. You shortly shall hear more:

I loved your father, and we love ourself,

And that, I hope, will teach you to imagine—

Enter a Messenger

How now? What news?

MESSENGERLetters, my lord, from Hamlet:

40

This to your majesty, this to the queen.

Gives letters

KINGFrom Hamlet? Who brought them?

MESSENGERSailors, my lord, they say: I saw them not.

They were given me by Claudio:[43] he received them.

KINGLaertes, you shall hear them.— Leave us.

Exit Messenger

‘High and mighty, you shall know I am set naked[45] on your kingdom. Tomorrow shall I beg leave to see your kingly eyes, when I shall, first asking your pardon[46] thereunto, recount th’occasions of my sudden and more strange return. Hamlet.’ What should this mean? Are all the rest come back?

Or is it some abuse?[49] Or no such thing?

50

LAERTESKnow you the hand?

KING’Tis Hamlet’s character.[51] ‘Naked’ —

And in a postscript here, he says ‘alone’.

Can you advise me?

LAERTESI’m lost in it, my lord. But let him come:

55

It warms the very sickness in my heart

That I shall live and tell him to his teeth,

‘Thus diest thou.’

KINGIf it be so, Laertes —

As how should it be so? How otherwise? —

60

Will you be ruled by me?

LAERTESIf so[61] you’ll not o’errule me to a peace.

KINGTo thine own peace. If he be now returned,

As checking at[63] his voyage, and that he means

No more to undertake it, I will work him

65

To an exploit, now ripe in my device,[65]

Under the which he shall not choose but fall;

And for his death no wind of blame shall breathe,

But even his mother shall uncharge the practice[68]

And call it accident. Some two months since,

70

Here was a gentleman of Normandy.

I’ve seen myself, and served against, the French,

And they can well[72] on horseback; but this gallant

Had witchcraft in’t; he grew into his seat,

And to such wondrous doing brought his horse

75

As[75] had he been incorpsed and demi-natured

With the brave[76] beast: so far he passed my thought,

That I in forgery[77] of shapes and tricks

Come short of what he did.

LAERTESA Norman was’t?

80

KINGA Norman.

LAERTESUpon my life, Lamond.[81]

KINGThe very same.

LAERTESI know him well: he is the brooch[83] indeed

And gem of all our nation.

85

KINGHe made[85] confession of you,

And gave you such a masterly report

For[87] art and exercise in your defence,

And for your rapier most especially,

That he cried out, ’twould be a sight indeed

90

If one could match you. Sir, this report of his

Did Hamlet so envenom[91] with his envy

That he could nothing do but wish and beg

Your sudden[93] coming o’er, to play with him.

Now, out of this—

95

LAERTESWhat out of this, my lord?

KINGLaertes, was your father dear to you?

Or are you like the painting of a sorrow,

A face without a heart?

LAERTESWhy ask you this?

100

KINGNot that I think you did not love your father,

But that I know love is begun by time,[101]

And that I see, in passages of proof,[102]

Time qualifies[103] the spark and fire of it.

Hamlet comes back: what would you undertake

105

To show yourself your father’s son in deed

More than in words?

LAERTESTo cut his throat i’th’church.

KINGNo place, indeed, should murder sanctuarize;[108]

Revenge should have no bounds. But, good Laertes,

110

Will you[110] do this, keep close within your chamber.

Hamlet returned shall know you are come home:

We’ll put on[112] those shall praise your excellence

And set a double varnish on the fame

The Frenchman gave you, bring you in fine[114] together

115

And wager on your heads: he, being remiss,[115]

Most generous[116] and free from all contriving,

Will not peruse[117] the foils, so that with ease,

Or with a little shuffling, you may choose

A sword unbated,[119] and in a pass of practice

120

Requite[120] him for your father.

LAERTESI will do’t,

And for that purpose I’ll anoint my sword.

I bought an unction[123] of a mountebank

So mortal I[124] but dipped a knife in it,

125

Where it draws blood no cataplasm[125] so rare,

Collected from all simples[126] that have virtue

Under the moon,[127] can save the thing from death

That is but scratched withal:[128] I’ll touch my point

With this contagion,[129] that if I gall him slightly,

130

It may be death.

KINGLet’s further think of this,

Weigh what convenience both of time and means

May fit[133] us to our shape: if this should fail,

And that our drift[134] look through our bad performance,

135

’Twere better not assayed: therefore this project

Should have a back or second, that might hold,

If this should blast in proof.[137] Soft, let me see:

We’ll make a solemn wager on your cunnings.[138]

I ha’t:[139]

140

When in your motion you are hot and dry —

As[141] make your bouts more violent to the end —

And that he calls for drink, I’ll have prepared him

A chalice for the nonce,[143] whereon but sipping,

If he by chance escape your venomed stuck,[144]

145

Our purpose may hold there.—

Enter Queen

How now, sweet queen?

GERTRUDEOne woe doth tread upon another’s heel,

So fast they’ll follow: your sister’s drowned, Laertes.

LAERTESDrowned? O, where?

GERTRUDEThere is a willow[149] grows aslant a brook,

150

That shows his hoar[150] leaves in the glassy stream:

There with fantastic[151] garlands did she come

Of crow-flowers,[152] nettles, daisies and long purples

That liberal[153] shepherds give a grosser name,

But our cold[154] maids do dead men’s fingers call them:

155

There on the pendent[155] boughs her coronet weeds

Clamb’ring to hang, an envious sliver[156] broke,

When down the weedy[157] trophies and herself

Fell in the weeping brook. Her clothes spread wide,

And mermaid-like awhile they bore her up,

160

Which time she chanted snatches of old tunes,

As one incapable[161] of her own distress,

Or like a creature native and indued[162]

Unto that element: but long it could not be

Till that her garments, heavy with their drink,

165

Pulled the poor wretch from her melodious lay[165]

To muddy death.

LAERTESAlas, then, is she drowned?

GERTRUDEDrowned, drowned.

LAERTESToo much of water hast thou, poor Ophelia,

170

And therefore I forbid my tears. But yet

It is our trick:[171] nature her custom holds,

Let shame say what it will: when these[172] are gone,Weeps

The woman[173] will be out.— Adieu, my lord:

I have a speech of fire that fain would blaze,

175

But that this folly[175] douts it.

Exit

KINGLet’s follow, Gertrude:

How much I had to do to calm his rage!

Now fear I this will give it start again;

Therefore let’s follow.

Exeunt

Act 5 Scene 15.1

running scene 16

Enter two Clowns With a spade and a pickax

FIRST CLOWNIs she to be buried in Christian burial[1] that wilfully seeks her own salvation?[2]

SECOND CLOWNI tell thee she is: and therefore make her grave straight:[3] the crowner hath sat[4] on her, and finds it Christian burial.

FIRST CLOWNHow can that be, unless she drowned herself in her own defence?

SECOND CLOWNWhy, ’tis found so.

FIRST CLOWNIt must be se offendendo,[7] it cannot be else. For here lies the point: if I drown myself wittingly, it argues an act, and an act hath three branches: it is to act, to do and to perform: argal,[9] she drowned herself wittingly.

SECOND CLOWNNay, but hear you, goodman[10] delver—

FIRST CLOWNGive me leave: here lies the water; good: here stands the man; good: if the man go to this water, and drown himself, it is, will[12] he, nill he, he goes — mark you that. But if the water come to him and drown him, he drowns not himself: argal, he that is not guilty of his own death shortens not his own life.

SECOND CLOWNBut is this law?

FIRST CLOWNAy, marry, is’t: crowner’s quest[16] law.

SECOND CLOWNWill you ha’ the truth on’t? If this had not been a gentlewoman, she should have been buried out of Christian burial.

FIRST CLOWNWhy, there thou say’st:[19] and the more pity that great folk should have countenance[20] in this world to drown or hang themselves, more than their even Christian. Come, my spade. There is no ancient gentlemen but gardeners, ditchers[21] and grave-makers: they hold up Adam’s profession.[22]

SECOND CLOWNWas he a gentleman?

FIRST CLOWNHe was the first that ever bore arms.[24]

SECOND CLOWNWhy, he had none.

FIRST CLOWNWhat, art a heathen? How dost thou understand the Scripture? The Scripture says ‘Adam digged’. Could he dig without arms? I’ll put another question to thee: if thou answerest me not to the purpose, confess thyself[28]—

SECOND CLOWNGo to.

FIRST CLOWNWhat is he that builds stronger than either the mason, the shipwright, or the carpenter?

SECOND CLOWNThe gallows-maker, for that frame outlives a thousand tenants.

FIRST CLOWNI like thy wit well, in good faith: the gallows does well;[33] but how does it well? It does well to those that do ill: now thou dost ill to say the gallows is built stronger than the church: argal, the gallows may do well to thee. To’t again, come.

SECOND CLOWNWho builds stronger than a mason, a shipwright, or a carpenter?

FIRST CLOWNAy, tell me that, and unyoke.[38]

SECOND CLOWNMarry, now I can tell.

FIRST CLOWNTo’t.

SECOND CLOWNMass, I cannot tell.

Enter Hamlet and Horatio afar off Hamlet cloaked?

FIRST CLOWNCudgel thy brains no more about it, for your dull ass will not mend[42] his pace with beating; and when you are asked this question next, say ‘A grave-maker: the houses that he makes lasts till doomsday.’ Go, get thee to Yaughan:[44] fetch me a stoup[45] of liquor.

[Exit Second Clown]

In[46] youth, when I did love, did love,

Sings

Methought it was very sweet,

To contract-O-the[48] time, for-a-my behove,

O, methought there was nothing meet.[49]

HAMLETHas this fellow no feeling of his business that he sings at grave-making?

HORATIOCustom hath made it in him a property of easiness.[51]

HAMLET’Tis e’en so: the hand of little employment hath[52] the daintier sense.

FIRST CLOWNBut age with his stealing steps

Sings

Hath caught me in his clutch,

And hath shipped[55] me intil the land,

As if I had never been such.[56] Throws up a skull

HAMLETThat skull had a tongue in it and could sing once: how the knave jowls[57] it to th’ground, as if it were Cain’s[58] jaw-bone, that did the first murder. It might be the pate of a politician,[59] which this ass o’er-offices, one that could circumvent God, might it not?

HORATIOIt might, my lord.

HAMLETOr of a courtier, which could say ‘Good morrow, sweet lord! How dost thou, good lord?’ This might be my lord Such-a-one, that praised my lord Such-a-one’s horse when he meant to beg it, might it not?

HORATIOAy, my lord.

HAMLETWhy, e’en so, and now my lady Worm’s, chapless,[66] and knocked about the mazzard[67] with a sexton’s spade: here’s fine revolution, if we had the trick to see’t. Did[68] these bones cost no more the breeding, but to play at loggats with ’em? Mine ache to think on’t.

FIRST CLOWNA pickaxe and a spade, a spade,

Sings

For and[71] a shrouding sheet:

O, a pit of clay for to be made

For such a guest is meet. Throws up another skull

HAMLETThere’s another: why may not that be the skull of a lawyer? Where be his quiddities[75] now, his quillets, his cases, his tenures, and his tricks? Why does he suffer this rude[76] knave now to knock him about the sconce with a dirty shovel, and will not tell him of his action of battery?[77] Hum. This fellow might be in’s time a great buyer of land, with his statutes,[78] his recognizances, his fines, his double vouchers, his recoveries: is this the fine[79] of his fines and the recovery of his recoveries, to have his fine pate full of fine dirt? Will his vouchers vouch[80] him no more of his purchases, and double ones too, than the[81] length and breadth of a pair of indentures? The very conveyances[82] of his lands will hardly lie in this box; and must the inheritor[83] himself have no more, ha?

HORATIONot a jot more, my lord.

HAMLETIs not parchment made of sheepskins?

HORATIOAy, my lord, and of calf-skins too.

HAMLETThey are sheep and calves that seek out assurance in that.[87] I will speak to this fellow.— Whose grave’s this, sirrah?[88]

FIRST CLOWNMine, sir.

O, a pit of clay for to be made Sings

For such a guest is meet.

HAMLETI think it be thine, indeed, for thou liest in’t.

FIRST CLOWNYou lie out on’t, sir, and therefore it is not[93] yours. For my part, I do not lie in’t, and yet it is mine.

HAMLETThou dost lie in’t, to be in’t and say ’tis thine: ’tis for the dead, not for the quick:[96] therefore thou liest.

FIRST CLOWN’Tis a quick lie, sir: ’twill away again, from me to you.

HAMLETWhat man dost thou dig it for?

FIRST CLOWNFor no man, sir.

HAMLETWhat woman, then?

FIRST CLOWNFor none, neither.

HAMLETWho is to be buried in’t?

FIRST CLOWNOne that was a woman, sir; but, rest her soul, she’s dead.

HAMLETHow absolute[104] the knave is! We must speak by the card, or equivocation will undo us. By the Lord, Horatio, these three years I have taken note of it: the age is grown so picked[106] that the toe of the peasant comes so near the heels of our courtier, he galls his kibe.[107]— How long hast thou been a grave-maker?

FIRST CLOWNOf all the days i’th’year, I came to’t that day that our last king Hamlet o’ercame Fortinbras.

HAMLETHow long is that since?

FIRST CLOWNCannot you tell that? Every fool can tell that: it was the very day that young Hamlet was born — he that was mad and sent into England.

HAMLETAy, marry, why was he sent into England?

FIRST CLOWNWhy, because he was mad: he shall recover his wits there, or if he do not, it’s no great matter there.

HAMLETWhy?

FIRST CLOWN’Twill not be seen in him: there the men are as mad as he.

HAMLETHow came he mad?

FIRST CLOWNVery strangely, they say.

HAMLETHow strangely?

FIRST CLOWNFaith, e’en with losing his wits.

HAMLETUpon what ground?[122]

FIRST CLOWNWhy, here in Denmark: I have been sexton here, man and boy, thirty years.

HAMLETHow long will a man lie i’th’earth ere he rot?

FIRST CLOWNI’faith, if he be not rotten before he die — as we have many pocky[126] corpses now-a-days, that will scarce hold[127] the laying in — he will last you some eight year or nine year: a tanner[128] will last you nine year.

HAMLETWhy he more than another?

FIRST CLOWNWhy, sir, his hide is so tanned with his trade that he will keep out water a great while, and your water is a sore decayer of your whoreson[131] dead body. Here’s a skull[132] now: this skull has lain in the earth three-and-twenty years.

HAMLETWhose was it?

FIRST CLOWNA whoreson mad fellow’s it was: whose do you think it was?

HAMLETNay, I know not.

FIRST CLOWNA pestilence on him for a mad rogue! A[136] poured a flagon of Rhenish on my head once. This same skull, sir, this same skull, sir, was Yorick’s skull, the king’s jester.

HAMLETThis?

FIRST CLOWNE’en that.

HAMLETLet me see.— Takes the skull Alas, poor Yorick! I knew him, Horatio: a fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy.[142] He hath borne me on his back a thousand times — and how abhorred[143] my imagination is! My gorge rises at it. Here hung those lips that I have kissed I know not how oft.— Where be your gibes now, your gambols, your songs, your flashes of merriment that were wont to set the table on a roar? No[146] one now to mock your own jeering? Quite chop-fallen? Now get you to my lady’s chamber and tell her, let her paint an inch thick, to this favour[147] she must come. Make her laugh at that.— Prithee, Horatio, tell me one thing.

HORATIOWhat’s that, my lord?

HAMLETDost thou think Alexander[150] looked o’this fashion i’th’earth?

HORATIOE’en so.

HAMLET And smelt so? Puh! Places the skull on the ground or throws it down

HORATIOE’en so, my lord.

HAMLETTo what base uses we may return, Horatio! Why may not imagination trace the noble dust of Alexander till he find it stopping a bung-hole?[155]

HORATIO’Twere to consider too curiously[156] to consider so.

HAMLETNo, faith, not a jot, but to follow him thither with modesty[157] enough, and likelihood to lead it, as thus: Alexander died, Alexander was buried, Alexander returneth into dust; the dust is earth; of earth we make loam,[159] and why of that loam whereto he was converted might they not stop a beer-barrel?

Imperial Caesar, dead and turned to clay,

Might stop a hole to keep the wind away.

O, that that earth, which kept the world in awe,

Should patch a wall t’expel the winter’s flaw![164]

165

But soft, but soft, aside: here comes the king.

Enter King, Queen, Laertes, [a Priest] and a coffin with Lords Attendant

The queen, the courtiers — who is that they follow?

And with such maimèd[167] rites? This doth betoken

The corpse they follow did with desperate[168] hand

Fordo[169] it own life: ’twas of some estate.

170

Couch[170] we awhile and mark. They hide

LAERTESWhat ceremony else?

HAMLETThat is Laertes, a very noble youth. Mark. Aside to Horatio

LAERTESWhat ceremony else?

PRIESTHer obsequies[174] have been as far enlarged

175

As we have warrantise:[175] her death was doubtful,

And but that great command o’ersways[176] the order

She should in ground unsanctified[177] have lodged

Till the last trumpet.[178] For charitable prayer,

Shards,[179] flints and pebbles should be thrown on her.

180

Yet here she is allowed her virgin rites,

Her maiden strewments[181] and the bringing home

Of bell and burial.

LAERTESMust there no more be done?

PRIESTNo more be done:

185

We should profane the service of the dead

To sing sage requiem[186] and such rest to her

As to peace-parted[187] souls.

LAERTESLay her i’th’earth:

And from her fair and unpolluted flesh

190

May violets[190] spring! I tell thee, churlish priest,

A minist’ring angel shall my sister be

When thou liest howling.[192]

HAMLETWhat, the fair Ophelia! Aside to Horatio

GERTRUDESweets to the sweet. Farewell! Scatters flowers

195

I hoped thou shouldst have been my Hamlet’s wife:

I thought thy bride-bed to have decked, sweet maid,

And not t’have strewed thy grave.

LAERTESO, treble woe

Fall ten times treble on that cursèd head

200

Whose wicked deed thy most ingenious sense[200]

Deprived thee of!— Hold off the earth awhile,

Till I have caught her once more in mine arms:

Leaps in the grave

Now pile your dust upon the quick[203] and dead,

Till of this flat a mountain you have made,

205

To o’ertop old Pelion[205] or the skyish head

Of blue Olympus.

HAMLETWhat is he whose grief Comes forward

Bears such an emphasis?[208] Whose phrase of sorrow

Conjures[209] the wand’ring stars, and makes them stand

210

Like wonder-wounded hearers? This is I, Removes cloak

Hamlet the Dane. Leaps into the grave

LAERTESThe devil take thy soul! They fight

HAMLETThou pray’st not well.

I prithee take thy fingers from my throat,

215

Sir: though I am not splenitive[215] and rash,

Yet have I something in me dangerous,

Which let thy wiseness fear: away thy hand!

KINGPluck them asunder.

GERTRUDEHamlet, Hamlet!

220

HORATIO Good my lord, be quiet.[220] Attendants part them, and they come out of the grave

HAMLETWhy I will fight with him upon this theme

Until my eyelids will no longer wag.[222]

GERTRUDEO my son, what theme?

HAMLETI loved Ophelia: forty thousand brothers

225

Could not — with all their quantity of love —

Make up my sum. What wilt thou do for her?

KINGO, he is mad, Laertes.

GERTRUDEFor love of God, forbear him.[228]

HAMLETCome, show me what thou’lt do:

230

Woo’t[230] weep? Woo’t fight? Woo’t fast? Woo’t tear thyself?

Woo’t drink up eisel?[231] Eat a crocodile?

I’ll do’t. Dost thou come here to whine?

To outface[233] me with leaping in her grave?

Be buried quick with her, and so will I:

235

And if thou prate of mountains, let them throw

Millions of acres on us, till our ground,[236]

Singeing his pate against the burning zone,[237]

Make Ossa[238] like a wart! Nay, an thou’lt mouth,

I’ll rant as well as thou.

240

KINGThis is mere[240] madness,

And thus awhile the fit will work on him:

Anon, as patient as the female dove

When that her golden couplets[243] are disclosed,

His silence will sit drooping.

245

HAMLETHear you, sir: To Laertes

What is the reason that you use[246] me thus?

I loved you ever: but it is no matter.

Let[248] Hercules himself do what he may,

The cat will mew and dog will have his day.

Exit

250

KINGI pray you, good Horatio, wait upon him.—

[Exit Horatio]

Strengthen your patience in[251] our last night’s speech: To Laertes

We’ll put the matter to the present push.[252]—

Good Gertrude, set some watch over your son.—

This grave shall have a living[254] monument:

255

An hour of quiet shortly shall we see;

Till then, in patience our proceeding be.

Exeunt

Act 5 Scene 25.2

running scene 17

Enter Hamlet and Horatio

HAMLETSo much for this,[1] sir; now let me see the other:

You do remember all the circumstance?[2]

HORATIORemember it, my lord?

HAMLETSir, in my heart there was a kind of fighting

5

That would not let me sleep: methought I lay

Worse than the mutines[6] in the bilboes. Rashly —

And praise be rashness for it — let us know[7]

Our indiscretion[8] sometimes serves us well,

When our dear[9] plots do pall, and that should teach us

10

There’s a divinity that shapes our ends,

Rough-hew[11] them how we will—

HORATIOThat is most certain.

HAMLETUp from my cabin,

My sea-gown[14] scarfed about me, in the dark

15

Groped I to find out them,[15] had my desire,

Fingered[16] their packet, and in fine withdrew

To mine own room again, making so bold —

My fears forgetting manners — to unseal

Their grand commission, where I found, Horatio —

20

O, royal knavery! — an exact command,

Larded[21] with many several sorts of reason

Importing[22] Denmark’s health and England’s too,

With, ho, such bugs[23] and goblins in my life,

That on the supervise,[24] no leisure bated,

25

No, not to stay[25] the grinding of the axe,

My head should be struck off.

HORATIOIs’t possible?

HAMLETHere’s the commission: read it at more leisure. Gives a paper

But wilt thou hear me how I did proceed?

30

HORATIOI beseech you.

HAMLETBeing thus benetted round[31] with villainies —

Ere[32] I could make a prologue to my brains,

They had begun the play — I sat me down,

Devised a new commission, wrote it fair:[34]

35

I once did hold it, as our statists[35] do,

A baseness to write fair and laboured much

How to forget that learning, but, sir, now

It did me yeoman’s[38] service. Wilt thou know

The effect[39] of what I wrote?

40

HORATIOAy, good my lord.

HAMLETAn earnest conjuration[41] from the king,

As England was his faithful tributary,[42]

As love between them as the palm should flourish,

As peace should still[44] her wheaten garland wear

45

And stand a comma[45] ’tween their amities,

And many such-like ‘As’es[46] of great charge,

That on the view and know of these contents,

Without debatement further, more or less,

He should the bearers put to sudden death,

50

Not shriving-time[50] allowed.

HORATIOHow was this sealed?

HAMLETWhy, even in that was heaven ordinant.[52]

I had my father’s signet[53] in my purse,

Which was the model[54] of that Danish seal:

55

Folded the writ[55] up in form of the other,

Subscribed[56] it, gave’t th’impression, placed it safely,

The changeling[57] never known. Now, the next day

Was our sea-fight, and what to[58] this was sequent

Thou know’st already.

60

HORATIOSo Guildenstern and Rosencrantz go to’t.

HAMLETWhy, man, they did make love to[61] this employment:

They are not near my conscience; their defeat[62]

Doth by their own insinuation[63] grow.

’Tis dangerous when the baser[64] nature comes

65

Between the pass[65] and fell incensèd points

Of mighty opposites.[66]

HORATIOWhy, what a king is this!

HAMLETDoes[68] it not, think’st thee, stand me now upon —

He that hath killed my king and whored my mother,

70

Popped in between th’election[70] and my hopes,

Thrown out his angle[71] for my proper life,

And with such cozenage[72] — is’t not perfect conscience

To quit[73] him with this arm? And is’t not to be damned,

To let this canker[74] of our nature come

75

In further evil?

HORATIOIt must be shortly known to him from England

What is the issue[77] of the business there.

HAMLETIt will be short: the interim is mine,

And a man’s life’s no[79] more than to say ‘one’.

80

But I am very sorry, good Horatio,

That to Laertes I forgot myself;

For by[82] the image of my cause I see

The portraiture of his. I’ll count his favours.

But, sure, the bravery[84] of his grief did put me

85

Into a tow’ring passion.

HORATIOPeace, who comes here?

Enter young Osric Takes off his hat

OSRICYour lordship is right welcome back to Denmark.

HAMLETI humbly thank you, sir.— Dost know this water-fly?[88]

HORATIONo, my good lord.

HAMLETThy state is the more gracious,[90] for ’tis a vice to know him. He hath much land, and fertile: let[91] a beast be lord of beasts, and his crib shall stand at the king’s mess; ’tis a chough,[92] but, as I say, spacious in the possession of dirt.

OSRICSweet lord, if[93] your friendship were at leisure, I should impart a thing to you from his majesty.

HAMLETI will receive it with all diligence of spirit. Put your bonnet[95] to his right use: ’tis for the head.

OSRICI thank your lordship, ’tis very hot.

HAMLETNo, believe me, ’tis very cold: the wind is northerly.

OSRICIt is indifferent[99] cold, my lord, indeed.

HAMLETMethinks it is very sultry and hot for my complexion.[100]

OSRICExceedingly, my lord: it is very sultry, as ’twere, I cannot tell how. But, my lord, his majesty bade me signify to you that he has laid a great wager on your head: sir, this is the matter—

HAMLETI beseech you remember[104]—Gestures toward hat

OSRICNay, in good faith, for mine ease,[105] in good faith. Sir, you are not ignorant of what excellence Laertes is at his weapon.

HAMLETWhat’s his weapon?

OSRICRapier[108] and dagger.

HAMLETThat’s two of his weapons; but, well.[109]

OSRICThe king, sir, has waged with him six Barbary horses,[110] against the which he imponed,[111] as I take it, six French rapiers and poniards, with their assigns, as girdle, hangers[112] or so. Three of the carriages, in faith, are very dear to fancy, very responsive[113] to the hilts, most delicate carriages, and of very liberal conceit.

HAMLETWhat call you[114] the carriages?

OSRICThe carriages, sir, are the hangers.

HAMLETThe phrase would be more germane[116] to the matter, if we could carry cannon[117] by our sides: I would it might be hangers till then. But, on: six Barbary horses against six French swords, their assigns, and three liberal-conceited carriages: that’s the French bet against the Danish. Why is this ‘imponed’ as you call it?

OSRICThe king, sir, hath laid,[121] that in a dozen passes between you and him, he shall not exceed you three hits: he hath laid on twelve for nine, and that would come to immediate trial, if your lordship would vouchsafe the answer.[123]

HAMLETHow if I answer ‘no’?

OSRICI mean, my lord, the opposition[125] of your person in trial.

HAMLETSir, I will walk here in the hall: if it please his majesty, ’tis the breathing[126] time of day with me; let the foils be brought, the gentleman willing, and the king hold his purpose, I will win for him if I can: if not, I’ll gain nothing but my shame and the odd[129] hits.

OSRICShall I redeliver you[130] e’en so?

HAMLETTo this effect, sir, after what flourish[131] your nature will.

OSRICI commend[132] my duty to your lordship.

HAMLETYours, yours.—

[Exit Osric]

He does well to commend it himself, there are no tongues else for’s turn.[134]

HORATIOThis lapwing[135] runs away with the shell on his head.

HAMLETHe did comply[136] with his dug, before he sucked it. Thus has he — and many more of the same bevy[137] that I know the drossy age dotes on — only got the tune of the time and outward habit of encounter,[138] a kind of yeasty collection, which carries them through[139] and through the most fond and winnowed opinions; and do but blow them to their trials, the bubbles are out.

HORATIOYou will lose this wager, my lord.

HAMLETI do not think so: since he went into France, I have been in continual practice; I shall win at the odds.[143] But thou wouldst not think how ill all’s here about my heart, but it is no matter.

HORATIONay, good my lord—

HAMLETIt is but foolery; but it is such a kind of gain-giving[146] as would perhaps trouble a woman.

HORATIOIf your mind dislike anything, obey it: I will forestall their repair[148] hither, and say you are not fit.

HAMLETNot a whit, we defy augury:[150] there’s a special providence in the fall of a sparrow. If it[151] be now, ’tis not to come: if it be not to come, it will be now: if it be not now, yet it will come: the readiness[152] is all. Since no man has aught of what he leaves, what is’t to leave betimes?[153]

Enter King, Queen, Laertes and Lords, with [Osric and] other Attendants with foils and gauntlets, a table and flagons of wine on it

KINGCome, Hamlet, come and take this hand from me. Puts Laertes’ hand into Hamlet’s

155

HAMLETGive me your pardon, sir: I’ve done you wrong,

But pardon’t, as you are a gentleman.

This presence[157] knows,

And you must needs have heard, how I am punished

With sore distraction. What I have done

160

That might your nature,[160] honour and exception

Roughly awake, I here proclaim was madness.

Was’t Hamlet wronged Laertes? Never Hamlet:

If Hamlet from himself be ta’en away,

And when he’s not himself does wrong Laertes,

165

Then Hamlet does it not, Hamlet denies it.

Who does it, then? His madness. If’t be so,

Hamlet is of the faction[167] that is wronged,

His madness is poor Hamlet’s enemy.

Sir, in this audience,

170

Let my disclaiming from[170] a purposed evil

Free me so far in your most generous[171] thoughts

That I have[172] shot mine arrow o’er the house,

And hurt my brother.

LAERTESI am satisfied in nature,

175

Whose motive in this case should stir me most

To my[176] revenge: but in my terms of honour

I stand aloof, and will[177] no reconcilement

Till by some elder masters, of known honour

I have a voice[179] and precedent of peace,

180

To keep my name ungored.[180] But till that time,

I do receive your offered love like love,

And will not wrong it.

HAMLETI do embrace it freely,

And will this brother’s wager frankly[184] play.—

185

Give us the foils. Come on.

LAERTESCome, one for me.

HAMLETI’ll be your foil,[187] Laertes: in mine ignorance

Your skill shall, like a star i’th’darkest night,

Stick fiery off[189] indeed.

190

LAERTESYou mock me, sir.

HAMLETNo, by this hand.

KINGGive them the foils, young Osric. Cousin Hamlet,

You know the wager?

HAMLETVery well, my lord:

195

Your grace hath laid the odds[195] o’th’weaker side.

KINGI do not fear it: I have seen you both:

But since he is bettered,[197] we have therefore odds.

LAERTESThis is too heavy, let me see another.Looks over the foils

HAMLETThis likes[199] me well. These foils have all a length?

Prepare to play

200

OSRICAy, my good lord.

KINGSet me the stoups[201] of wine upon that table:

If Hamlet give the first or second hit,

Or quit[203] in answer of the third exchange,

Let all the battlements their ordnance[204] fire:

205

The king shall drink to Hamlet’s better breath,[205]

And in the cup an union[206] shall he throw

Richer than that which four successive kings

In Denmark’s crown have worn. Give me the cups,

And let the kettle[209] to the trumpets speak,

210

The trumpet to the cannoneer without,

The cannons to the heavens, the heaven to earth,

‘Now the king drinks to Hamlet.’ Come, begin:

And you, the judges, bear a wary eye.

HAMLETCome on, sir.

215

LAERTESCome on, sir.

They play

HAMLETOne.

LAERTESNo.

HAMLETJudgement.

OSRICA hit, a very palpable hit.

220

LAERTESWell, again.

KINGStay, give me drink.— Hamlet, this pearl is thine: Drinks, then puts the pearl in the cup?

Here’s to thy health.— Give him the cup.

Trumpets sound and shot goes off

HAMLETI’ll play this bout first: set by awhile.— Come.They play

Another hit; what say you?

225

LAERTESA touch, a touch, I do confess.

KINGOur son shall win.

GERTRUDEHe’s fat,[227] and scant of breath.—

Here’s a napkin,[228] rub thy brows: To Hamlet

The queen carouses to[229] thy fortune, Hamlet.

230

HAMLETGood madam.

KINGGertrude, do not drink!

GERTRUDEI will, my lord; I pray you, pardon me. Drinks

KINGIt is the poisoned cup: it is too late. Aside

HAMLETI dare not drink yet, madam: by and by.

235

GERTRUDECome, let me wipe thy face.

LAERTESMy lord, I’ll hit him now. To the King

KINGI do not think’t.

LAERTESAnd yet ’tis almost gainst my conscience. Aside

HAMLETCome, for the third: Laertes, you but dally.

240

I pray you pass[240] with your best violence:

I am afeard you make[241] a wanton of me.

LAERTESSay you so? Come on.

Play

OSRICNothing, neither way.

LAERTES Have at you now!

In scuffling[244] they change rapiers

245

KINGPart them: they are incensed.

HAMLETNay, come, again.Gertrude falls?

OSRICLook to the queen there, ho!

HORATIOThey bleed on both sides.— How is it, my lord? To Hamlet

OSRICHow is’t, Laertes?

250

LAERTESWhy, as a woodcock[250] to mine own springe, Osric:

I am justly killed with mine own treachery.

HAMLETHow does the queen?

KINGShe swoons to see them bleed.

GERTRUDENo, no, the drink, the drink — O my dear Hamlet —

255

The drink, the drink! I am poisoned.Dies

HAMLETO, villainy! Ho! Let the door be locked:

Treachery! Seek it out.

LAERTESIt is here, Hamlet. Hamlet, thou art slain:

No medicine in the world can do thee good,

260

In thee there is not half an hour of life;

The treacherous instrument is in thy hand,

Unbated and envenomed. The foul practice[262]

Hath turned itself on me: lo, here I lie,

Never to rise again. Thy mother’s poisoned.

265

I can no more. The king, the king’s to blame.

HAMLETThe point envenomed too!

Then, venom, to thy work.

Hurts the King

ALLTreason! Treason!

KINGO, yet defend me, friends, I am but hurt.

270

HAMLETHere, thou incestuous, murd’rous, damnèd Dane,

Drink off[271] this potion. Is thy union here?

Follow my mother.

King dies

LAERTESHe is justly served:

It is a poison tempered[274] by himself.

275

Exchange forgiveness with me, noble Hamlet:

Mine and my father’s death come not upon thee,

Nor thine on me.

Dies

HAMLETHeaven make thee free of it! I follow thee.—

I am dead, Horatio.— Wretched queen, adieu!—

280

You that look pale and tremble at this chance,[280]

That are but mutes[281] or audience to this act,

Had I but time — as this fell[282] sergeant, death,

Is strict[283] in his arrest — O, I could tell you.

But let it be.— Horatio, I am dead:

285

Thou liv’st: report me and my causes[285] right

To the unsatisfied.[286]

HORATIONever believe it.

I am more an antique Roman[288] than a Dane:

Here’s yet some liquor left.

290

HAMLETAs thou’rt a man,

Give me the cup: let go, by heaven, I’ll have’t.

O, good Horatio, what a wounded name —

Things standing thus unknown — shall live behind me!

If thou didst ever hold me in thy heart,

295

Absent thee from felicity[295] awhile,

And in this harsh world draw thy breath in pain,

To tell my story.

March afar off and shot within

What warlike noise is this?

Enter Osric

OSRICYoung Fortinbras, with conquest come from Poland,

To th’ambassadors of England gives

300

This warlike volley.

HAMLETO, I die, Horatio:

The potent poison quite o’er-crows[302] my spirit.

I cannot live to hear the news from England,

But I do prophesy th’election[304] lights

305

On Fortinbras: he has my dying voice,[305]

So tell him, with the occurrents[306] more and less

Which have solicited.[307] The rest is silence. O, o, o, o! Dies

HORATIONow cracks a noble heart. Goodnight, sweet prince,

And flights of angels sing thee to thy rest!—

310

Why does the drum come hither?

Enter Fortinbras and English Ambassador, with Drum, Colours and Attendants

FORTINBRAS Where is this sight?

HORATIO What is it ye would[312] see?

If aught of woe or wonder, cease your search.

FORTINBRASThis quarry[314] cries on havoc. O proud death,

315

What feast is toward[315] in thine eternal cell,

That thou so many princes at a shot

So bloodily hast struck?

AMBASSADORThe sight is dismal,[318]

And our affairs from England come too late:

320

The ears[320] are senseless that should give us hearing,

To tell him his commandment is fulfilled,

That Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are dead.

Where should we have our thanks?

HORATIONot from his mouth,

325

Had it th’ability of life to thank you:

He never gave commandment for their death.

But since, so jump[327] upon this bloody question,

You from the Polack wars, and you from England,

Are here arrived, give order that these bodies

330

High on a stage[330] be placed to the view,

And let me speak to th’yet unknowing world

How these things came about: so shall you hear

Of carnal, bloody and unnatural acts,

Of accidental judgements,[334] casual slaughters,

335

Of deaths put on[335] by cunning and forced cause,

And, in this upshot,[336] purposes mistook

Fall’n on the inventors’ heads: all this can I

Truly deliver.[338]

FORTINBRASLet us haste to hear it,

340

And call the noblest to the audience.

For me, with sorrow I embrace my fortune:

I have some rights of memory[342] in this kingdom,

Which now to claim my vantage[343] doth invite me.

HORATIOOf that I shall have also cause to speak,

345

And from his mouth whose voice[345] will draw on more:

But let this same[346] be presently performed,

Even while men’s minds are wild,[347] lest more mischance

On[348] plots and errors happen.

FORTINBRASLet four captains

350

Bear Hamlet, like a soldier, to the stage,

For he was likely, had he been put on,[351]

To have proved most royally: and for his passage,[352]

The soldiers’ music and the rites of war

Speak[354] loudly for him.

355

Take up the body: such a sight as this

Becomes the field,[356] but here shows much amiss.

Go, bid the soldiers shoot.

Exeunt marching. After the which a peal of ordnance are shot off

Textual Notes

Q1 = First Quarto text of 1603 (of uncertain authority)

Q2 = Second Quarto text of 1604–05

Q1/Q2 = a reading in which the First Quarto and Second Quarto texts agree

F = First Folio text of 1623

F2 = a correction introduced in the Second Folio text of 1632

Ed = a correction introduced by a later editor

SD = stage direction

SH = speech heading (i.e., speaker’s name)

List of parts = Ed

1.1.70 he = Q1/Q2. Not in F 72 steelèd = Ed. Q1/Q2 = sleaded. F = sledded pole-axe = F (Pollax). Sometimes emended to Polacks 104 designed = F2. F = designe 126 haply spelled happily in F 151 say = Q1/Q2. F = sayes 167 Let’s = Q1/Q2. F = Let

1.2.8 sometime = Q2. F = sometimes 67 SH GERTRUDE = Ed. F = Queen. 129 solid = F. Q2 = sallied, sometimes emended to sullied 134 Seem = Q2. F = Seemes 141 beteem = Q2. F = beteene 207 distilled = Q1/Q2. F = bestil’d 212 Where, as = Ed. F = Whereas 221 its = Q4. F = it 232 SH MARCELLUS and BARNARDO = Ed. F = Both. 249 SH MARCELLUS and BARNARDO = Ed. F = All. 254 walk = Q1/Q2. F = wake 260 tenable = Q1/Q2. F = treble

1.3.18 will = Q2. F = feare 23 sanctity = F. Q2 = safety. Ed = sanity whole = Q2. F = weole 48 watchman Q2. F = watchmen 68 new-hatched = Q2. F = vnhatch’t 77 chief spelled cheff in F 113 Running = Ed. F = Roaming 121 Lends = Q1/Q2. F = Giues 132 dye = Q2. F = eye 134 bawds = Ed. F = bonds

1.4.10 wassail = Q1/Q2. F = wassels 23 intents = Q1/Q2. F = euents 37 the = Q1/Q2. F = thee; 54 summit = Ed. F = Sonnet 64 artery = Ed. F = Artire

1.5.23 on spelled an in F 33 I = Q2. Not in F 38 roots = Q1/Q2. F = rots 48 wit = Ed. F = wits with = Q1/Q2. F = hath 50 to his = Q1/Q2. F = to to this 74 eager spelled Aygre in F 76 barked = Q1/Q2. F = bak’d 112–13 My tables, My tables = F (in one line). Q1/Q2 does not repeat 122 SH HAMLET = Q2. F = Mar. 123 Hillo spelled Ilio in F 146 whirling spelled hurling in F 150 Horatio = Q2. F = my Lord 174 our = Q1/Q2. F = for 194 they = Q1/Q2. F = there

2.1.1 this = Q1/Q2. F = his 3 marvellous spelled maruels in F 15 As = Q2. F = And 65 carp = Q2. F = Cape 118 feared = Q2. F = feare

2.2.0 SD with others F has the Latin “Cum alijs” 17 Whether…thus = Q2. Not in F (compositor’s eyeskip?) 46 lord? I = Q2. F = lord? 48 and = Q1/Q2. F = one 55 fruit = Q2. F = Newes 127 solicitings = Q2. F = soliciting 167 does = Q2. F = ha’s 200 that you read = Q2. F = you meane 203 lack = Q2. F = locke 218 SD Enter … Guildenstern placed one line later in F 230 favours = Q2. F = fauour 267 of = Q1/Q2. Not in F 277 discovery, and = Q2. F = discouery of 280 heavily = Q2. F = heauenly 282 firmament = Q2. Not in F 309 berattle = F2. F = be-ratled 314–15 most like = Ed. F = like most 346 Roscius, an = F (Rossius an). Q1/Q2 = Rossius was an 350 came = Q2. F = can 353 individable = Q2. F = indiuible 371 pious = Q2. F = Pons 374 valanced = Q2. F = valiant 383 caviar spelled Caviarie in F 388–9 as…fine = Q2. Not in F 389 One = Q2. F = One cheefe 400 total = Q1/Q2. F = to take 408 So, proceed you. = Q2. Not in F 413 matched = Q2. F = match 417 this = Q2. F = his 437 fellies spelled Fallies in F 443 mobled = Q1/Q2. F = inobled (throughout) 485 wanned = Q2. F = warm’d 512 bawdy = Q2. F = a Bawdy 515 Why = Q2. F = Who

3.1.33 here = Q2. F = there 48 please you = Q2. F = please ye 53 sugar = Q2. F = surge 77 proud = Q2. F = poore 82 would these = F. Q2 = would 93 away = F. Q2 = awry 104 I know = F. Q2 = you know 106 their perfume lost = Q2. F = then perfume left 116 with = Q1/Q2. F = your 133 nowhere = Q2. F = no way 142 paintings = Q1/Q2. F = pratlings 143 face = Q1/Q2. F = pace jig spelled gidge in F 153 And = Q2. F = Haue 175 this = F. Q2 = his

3.2.3 with = Q2. Not in F 14 o’erstep = Q2. F = ore-stop 22 nor no man = Ed. F = or Norman 45 lick = Q2. F = like 47 fawning = Q2. F = faining 48 her = Q2. F = my 64 thy = Q2. F = my 69 stithy spelled Stythe in F heedful = Q2. F = needfull 82 mine now. = Ed. F = mine. Now 122 SH PROLOGUE = Ed. Not in F 128 SH PLAYER KING = Ed. F = King. 137 former = Q2. F = forme 157 you think = Q2. F = you. Think 167 either = Q2. F = other 168 enactures = Q2. F = ennactors 208 wince spelled winch in F 217 mis-take = Ed. F = mistake your = Q1/Q2. Not in F 256 SD Enter … Guildenstern occurs four lines earlier in F 280 as you = Q2. F = you 316 speak = Q2. Not in F 321 mass = Q2. F = Misse

3.3.15 weal = Q2. F = spirit 19 summit = Ed. F = Somnet

3.4.4 silence = F. Sometimes emended to sconce = conceal 13 a wicked = Q2. F = an idle (probably picked up by compositor from previous line) 37 better = Q2. F = Betters 50 sets = Q2. F = makes 72 brother = Q2. F = breath 86 And = Q2. F = As 120 do = Q2. Not in F 121 th’incorporal = Q2. F = their corporall 125 on = Ed. F = an 150 a = F. Q2 = that 157 ranker = Q2. F = ranke 158 these = Q2. F = this 180 bloat = Ed. F = blunt. Q2 = blowt 242 mother’s closet = Q2. F = Mother Clossets

4.1.14–15 ape an apple = Ed. F = Ape. Q = an apple

4.2.7 ne’er spelled neerer in F 23 ourselves = Q2. F = our selfe 25 SH KING Alas…worm = Q2. Not in F (probably due to printer’s error) 48 them = Q2. F = him

4.4.13 might = Q2. F = would 42 yield spelled dil’d in F 73 sorrows come = Q2. F = sorrows comes 74 battalions = Q2. F = Battaliaes 84 Feeds = Q2. F = Keepes 110 SH ALL FOLLOWERS = Ed. F = All. 116 that’s calm = Q2. F = that calmes 145 is’t = Q2. F = if 146 sweepstake spelled Soop-stake in F 151 pelican = Q2. F = Politician 159 SH ALL FOLLOWERS = Ed. Not in F 177 sing a-down = Q2. F = sing downe 181 pansies = Q2. F = Paconcies 202 commune = Q2. F = common

4.5.9 ambassador = Q2. F = Ambassadours 11 SH HORATIO = Ed. Not in F

4.6.26 aimed = Q2. F = arm’d 29 has = Ed. F = was 57 diest = Ed. F = diddest 69 since = Q2. F = hence 72 can = Q2. F = ran 95 What = Q2. F = Why 138 cunnings = Q2. F = commings 145 How now = F2. F = how 164 their = Q1/Q2. F = her 165 lay = Q2. F = buy

5.1.1 SH FIRST CLOWN = Ed. F = Clown 3 SH SECOND CLOWN = Ed. F = Other 8 to = Q2. F = an 74 of = Q2. F = of of 75 quiddities = Q2. F = Quiddits 88 sirrah = Q2. F = Sir 123 sexton = Q2. F = sixeteene 169 of = Q2. Not in F 198 treble woe = Q2. F = terrible woer 207 grief = Q2. F = griefes 209 Conjures = Q2. F = Coniure 220 SH HORATIO = Q2. F = Gen. 230 Woo’t fast? = Q2. Not in F 243 couplets = Q2. F = Cuplet 251 your = Q2. F = you

5.2.31 villainies = Ed. F = Villaines 39 effect = Q2. F = effects 52 ordinant = Q2. F = ordinate 58 sequent = Q2. F = sement 62 defeat = Q2. F = debate 78 interim is = Q2. F = interim’s 92 say = Q2. F = saw 110 king, sir = Q2. F = sir King 119 bet = Q2. F = but 122 laid on = Q2. F = one nine = Q2. F = mine 134 turn = Q2. F = tongue 136 has = Q2. F = had many = Q2. F = mine 143 ill all’s = Q2. F = all 148 it = Q2. Not in F 173 brother = Q2. F = Mother 180 ungored = Q2. F = vngorg’d 250 own = Q2. Not in F 253 swoons spelled sounds in F 256 Ho! spelled How! in F 297 SD shot = Ed. F = shout 308 cracks = Q2. F = cracke 314 This = Q2. F = His 316 shot = Q2. F = shoote 343 now = Q1/Q2. F = are 344 also = Q2. F = alwayes 347 while = Q2. F = whiles

Second Quarto passages that do not appear in the Folio

Lines are numbered continuously, for ease of reference.

Following 1.1.117:

BARNARDOI think it be no other but e’en so:

Well may it sort that this portentous figure

Comes armèd through our watch, so like the king

That was and is the question of these wars.

5

HORATIOA mote[5] it is to trouble the mind’s eye.

In the most high and palmy state of Rome,

A little ere the mightiest Julius fell,

The graves stood tenantless and the sheeted dead

Did squeak and gibber in the Roman streets:

10

As stars with trains of fire and dews of blood,

Disasters in the sun, and the moist star

Upon whose influence Neptune’s empire stands

Was sick almost to doomsday with eclipse:

And even the like precurse of feared[14] events,

15

As harbingers preceding still the fates

And prologue to the omen coming on,

Have heaven and earth together demonstrated

Unto our climatures and countrymen.—

Following 1.2.59:

wrung from me my slow leave

20

By laboursome petition, and at last

Upon his will I sealed my hard consent.

Following 1.4.18:

This heavy-headed revel east and west

Makes us traduced and taxed of other nations:

They clepe[24] us drunkards, and with swinish phrase

25

Soil our addition: and indeed it takes

From our achievements, though performed at height,

The pith and marrow of our attribute.

So, oft it chances in particular men

That for some vicious mole of nature in them,

30

As in their birth — wherein they are not guilty,

Since nature cannot choose his origin —

By their o’ergrowth of some complexion,

Oft breaking down the pales and forts of reason,

Or by some habit that too much o’erleavens

35

The form of plausive manners, that these men,

Carrying, I say, the stamp of one defect,

Being nature’s livery, or fortune’s star,

His virtues else — be they as pure as grace,

As infinite as man may undergo —

40

Shall in the general censure take corruption

From that particular fault: the dram of eale

Doth all the noble substance often douse,[42]

To his own scandal.

Following 1.4.58:

The very place puts toys of desperation,

45

Without more motive, into every brain

That looks so many fathoms to the sea

And hears it roar beneath.

Following 3.2.143:

Where love is great, the littlest doubts are fear:

Where little fears grow great, great love grows there.

Following 3.2.188:

50

To desperation turn my trust and hope!

An anchor’s[51] cheer in prison be my scope,

Following 3.4.78 (before “What devil was’t”):

Sense sure, you have,

Else could you not have motion: but sure that sense

Is apoplexed, for madness would not err

55

Nor sense to ecstasy was ne’er so thralled

But it reserved some quantity of choice,

To serve in such a difference.

Following 3.4.79:

Eyes without feeling, feeling without sight,

Ears without hands or eyes, smelling sans all,

60

Or but a sickly part of one true sense

Could not so mope.

Following 3.4.165:

That monster, custom, who all sense doth eat

Of habits devil, is angel yet in this,

That to the use of actions fair and good

65

He likewise gives a frock or livery,

That aptly is put on.

Following 3.4.168 (before “Once more, goodnight”):

the next more easy,

For use almost can change the stamp of nature,

And either [] the devil, or throw him out

70

With wondrous potency.

Following 3.4.177:

One word more, good lady.

Following 3.4.200:

HAMLETThere’s letters sealed: and my two schoolfellows,

Whom I will trust as I will adders fanged,

They bear the mandate, they must sweep my way,

75

And marshal me to knavery. Let it work:

For ’tis the sport to have the enginer

Hoist with his own petard: and’t shall go hard

But I will delve one yard below their mines

And blow them at the moon. O, ’tis most sweet

80

When in one line two crafts directly meet.

Following 4.3.9:

Exeunt all [but the Captain]

Enter Hamlet, Rosencrantz and others

HAMLET Good sir, whose powers are these?

CAPTAIN They are of Norway, sir.

HAMLETHow purposed, sir, I pray you?

CAPTAINAgainst some part of Poland.

85

HAMLETWho commands them, sir?

CAPTAINThe nephew to old Norway, Fortinbras.

HAMLETGoes it against the main of Poland, sir,

Or for some frontier?

CAPTAINTruly to speak, and with no addition,

90

We go to gain a little patch of ground

That hath in it no profit but the name.

To pay five ducats, five, I would not farm it:

Nor will it yield to Norway or the Pole

A ranker rate, should it be sold in fee.

95

HAMLETWhy, then the Polack never will defend it.

CAPTAINYes, it is already garrisoned.

HAMLETTwo thousand souls and twenty thousand ducats

Will not debate the question of this straw!

This is th’imposthume of much wealth and peace,

100

That inward breaks, and shows no cause without

Why the man dies. I humbly thank you, sir.

CAPTAINGod buy you, sir.

[Exit]

ROSENCRANTZWill’t please you go, my lord?

HAMLETI’ll be with you straight: go a little before.

[Exeunt all but Hamlet]

105

How all occasions do inform against me,

And spur my dull revenge. What is a man,

If his chief good and market of his time

Be but to sleep and feed? A beast, no more.

Sure he that made us with such large discourse,

110

Looking before and after, gave us not

That capability and godlike reason

To fust in us unused. Now, whether it be

Bestial oblivion, or some craven scruple

Of thinking too precisely on th’event —

115

A thought which, quartered, hath but one part wisdom

And ever three parts coward — I do not know

Why yet I live to say this thing’s to do,

Sith I have cause and will and strength and means

To do’t. Examples gross as earth exhort me:

120

Witness this army of such mass and charge

Led by a delicate and tender prince,

Whose spirit with divine ambition puffed

Makes mouths at the invisible event,

Exposing what is mortal and unsure

125

To all that fortune, death and danger dare,

Even for an eggshell. Rightly to be great

Is not to stir without great argument,

But greatly to find quarrel in a straw

When honour’s at the stake. How stand I then,

130

That have a father killed, a mother stained,

Excitements of my reason and my blood,

And let all sleep, while to my shame I see

The imminent death of twenty thousand men

That, for a fantasy and trick of fame,

135

Go to their graves like beds, fight for a plot

Whereon the numbers cannot try the cause,

Which is not tomb enough and continent

To hide the slain? O, from this time forth,

My thoughts be bloody, or be nothing worth!

Exit

Following 4.6.43:

140

Of him that brought them.

Following 4.6.69 (before “Some two months since”):

LAERTESMy lord, I will be ruled,

The rather, if you could devise it so

That I might be the organ.

KINGIt falls right.

145

You have been talked of since your travel much,

And that in Hamlet’s hearing, for a quality

Wherein they say you shine: your sum of parts

Did not together pluck such envy from him

As did that one, and that, in my regard,

150

Of the unworthiest siege.

LAERTESWhat part is that, my lord?

KINGA very ribbon in the cap of youth,

Yet needful too, for youth no less becomes

The light and careless livery that it wears

155

Than settled age his sables and his weeds

Importing health and graveness.

Following 4.6.90 (before “Sir, this report”):

The scrimers of their nation,

He swore had neither motion, guard, nor eye,

If you opposed them.

Following 4.6.103:

160

There lives within the very flame of love

A kind of wick or snuff that will abate it:

And nothing is at a like goodness still,

For goodness, growing to a pleurisy,

Dies in his own too much. That we would do,

165

We should do when we would, for this ‘would’ changes

And hath abatements and delays as many

As there are tongues, are hands, are accidents,

And then this ‘should’ is like a spendthrift[168] sigh

That hurts by easing. But, to the quick of th’ulcer:

Following 5.2.105 (before “Sir, you are not ignorant of”):

170

Sir, here is newly come to court Laertes — believe me, an absolute gentleman, full of most excellent differences, of very soft society and great showing: indeed, to speak feelingly[173] of him, he is the card or calendar of gentry, for you shall find in him the continent of what part a gentleman would see.

HAMLETSir, his definement suffers no perdition in you, though I know, to divide him inventorially would dizzy[178] th’arithmetic of memory, and yet but yaw neither, in respect of his quick sail. But, in the verity of extolment, I take him to be a soul of great article and his infusion of such dearth and rareness as, to make true diction of him, his semblable is his mirror and who else would trace him his umbrage, nothing more.

OSRIC[185]Your lordship speaks most infallibly of him.

HAMLETThe concernancy, sir? Why do we wrap the gentleman in our more rawer breath?

OSRICSir?

HORATIOIs’t not possible to understand in another tongue? You will do’t, sir, really.

HAMLETWhat imports the nomination of this gentleman?

OSRICOf Laertes?

HORATIOHis purse is empty already: all’s golden words are spent.

HAMLETOf him, sir.

OSRICI know you are not ignorant—

HAMLETI would you did, sir. Yet in faith if you did, it would not much approve me. Well, sir?

OSRICYou are not ignorant of what excellence Laertes is—

HAMLETI dare not confess that, lest I should compare with him in excellence: but to know a man well were to know himself.

OSRICI mean, sir, for his weapon: but in the imputation laid on him, by them in his meed, he’s unfellowed.

Following 5.2.114:

HORATIOI knew you must be edified by the margent ere you had done.

Following 5.2.140:

Enter a Lord

LORDMy lord, his majesty commended him to you by young Osric, who brings back to him that you attend him in the hall: he sends to know if your pleasure hold to play with Laertes or that you will take longer time.

HAMLETI am constant to my purposes, they follow the king’s pleasure: if his fitness speaks, mine is ready. Now or whensoever, provided I be so able as now.

LORDThe king and queen and all are coming down.

HAMLETIn happy time.

LORDThe queen desires you to use some gentle entertainment to Laertes before you fall to play.

HAMLETShe well instructs me.

[Exit Lord]

Textual Notes

Q2 = Second Quarto text of 1604/05

Q3 = a correction introduced in the Third Quarto text of 1611

Ed = a correction introduced by a later editor

Act 1 Scene 1

*    List of parts: KING called Claudius in his first entry direction, but never named in the dialogue, so a theater audience would not know what he is called

1.1    Location: the gun terrace of the royal castle at Elsinore, Denmark

2    me Francisco asserts that, as the sentry on guard, he is the one who should be making the challenge    unfold reveal/identify

6    carefully…hour responsibly at your appointed time

14    rivals partners

16    ground country

17    liegemen…Dane sworn servants of the Danish king

18    Give God give

27    fantasy imagination

29    Touching concerning    of by

30    along to come along

31    watch remain awake during/keep guard through

33    approve corroborate the reliability of

36    assail attack

41    Last…all this very night past

42    yond yonder, that    pole Pole Star (i.e., North Star)

43    t’illume to illuminate

47    figure appearance/likeness

48    scholar i.e., one knowledgeable enough to know how to address a ghost; a ghost was thought to be unable to speak until spoken to

49    Mark it observe it closely

50    harrows wounds/distresses

51    would wants to

53    usurp’st wrongfully occupies (both the night and the form of the dead king)

55    Denmark the King of Denmark

56    sometimes formerly    charge order

63    on’t of it

65    sensible perceptible to the senses    avouch assurance

70    Norway King of Norway

71    parle negotiation

72    steelèd pole-axe halberd or similar long-handled weapon (tempered with steel) carried by the bodyguard of a king

76    In…not i.e., I don’t know exactly what to think    work occupy myself, engage

77    gross and scope general drift

78    eruption disturbance, turmoil

79    Good now a polite entreaty for attention

81    toils causes to toil    subject subjects

82    cast casting, manufacturing    brazen brass

83    mart trading

84    impress conscription

85    Does…week i.e., they work seven days a week including Sundays

86    toward impending/afoot

90    whisper rumor

93    Thereto…pride refers to Fortinbras, not Hamlet, the Danish king    pricked spurred    emulate ambitious, rivalrous

96    sealed compact formally certified agreement

99    seized on legally possessed of

100    moiety competent sufficient portion

101    gagèd pledged    had returned would have gone

103    cov’nant i.e., the    sealed compact

104    carriage…designed carrying out of the clause that had been drawn up in it

106    unimprovéd untested/undisciplined/uncensured    mettle temperament, spirit

107    skirts outlying parts

108    sharked up gathered up indiscriminately, as a shark does fish/seized upon like a predator    list troop    resolutes resolved people/desperadoes

109    For…enterprise i.e., men who will serve in return for food/men who will serve to feed the enterprise

110    a stomach courage/an appetite

111    state governing powers

113    compulsative compulsory

116    head origin

117    post-haste great speed    rummage turmoil, bustle

118    soft wait a moment    Lo look

119    cross it challenge it/make the sign of the cross at it/cross its path (believed to expose one to evil influence)    blast wither/destroy

126    haply perhaps

127    uphoarded hoarded up

128    Extorted wrongfully obtained

131    partisan long-handled spear

132    stand stop, remain

147    Th’extravagant and erring the wandering and straying (out of bounds)    hies hastens

148    confine specific region/place of confinement

149    probation proof

151    gainst in anticipation of/just before

152    our Saviour i.e., Jesus Christ

153    bird of dawning i.e., the cock

155    wholesome healthy (damp night air was usually viewed as noxious)    strike destroy with evil influence

156    talks whispers spells (some editors prefer Quarto’s “takes,” enchants/steals)    charm cast spells

157    hallowed holy    gracious full of divine grace

159    russet reddish-brown (from the coarse cloth of that color)

Act 1 Scene 2

1.2    Location: the royal castle at Elsinore

2    green fresh

4    contracted knit together

5    discretion good judgment, reason

8    sometime former

9    jointress widow with rights to property that she formerly owned with her husband

11    one…eye one eye looking cheerfully to the future and the other downcast and tearful

13    dole sorrow

14    barred ignored/excluded

17    that you know what you should know, that/what you already know

18    supposal estimate

21    Colleaguèd joined, allied    dream…advantage illusion of his superior position/dream of what he might gain

23    Importing concerning

29    impotent powerless, frail    bedrid bedridden

31    His i.e., Fortinbras’    gait proceeding    in…subject since the full number of troops mustered is drawn from his (the king’s) subjects

37    To for

38    dilated articles detailed, fully expressed terms

39    haste…duty speedy departure, rather than words, convey your dutifulness

41    nothing not at all

43    suit formal request

44    Dane Danish king

45    lose your voice waste your words

46    That…asking that I shall not give you rather than have you ask for it

47    native closely related

48    instrumental serviceable

51    Dread my lord my revered lord

52    leave and favour kind permission

57    bow them submit themselves    leave and pardon indulgent permission

62    graces qualities/virtues

63    cousin a general term for a relative

64    A…kind i.e., after his marriage to Gertrude, Claudius has become more closely (too closely) related to Hamlet, but the relationship is lacking in natural feeling    kind natural/familial/affectionate

67    nightly colour dark mourning clothes/gloomy demeanor

69    veilèd lids lowered eyes

71    common universal; in his reply, Hamlet engineers a dig at Gertrude by playing on the senses of “vulgar/whorish”

75    particular specific, personal

78    customary habitual to me/socially conventional

79    suspiration sighing

81    ’haviour…visage facial expression

82    moods outward expressions of mood

83    denote depict

85    passeth surpasses, exceeds

92    obsequious relating to obsequies (commemorative rites for the dead)    persever persevere

93    condolement grieving

95    incorrect disobedient

96    impatient unwilling to endure (suffering)

99    any…sense the most ordinary thing we may experience

100    peevish stubborn, willful

101    Fie expression of disgust or indignation

104    still always

107    unprevailing unavailing, pointless

109    most immediate i.e., heir

112    For as for

113    Wittenberg city in Germany, home to a well-known Protestant university

114    retrograde contrary

115    bend you incline yourself

123    gentle kind/noble    accord consent

124    grace whereof thanksgiving for which

125    jocund health merry toast    Denmark i.e., himself, king of Denmark

126    tell report/count out (i.e., a celebratory cannon shot will be fired for each toast)

127    rouse (drinking of a) full draught of liquor    bruit proclaim/celebrate

128    Re-speaking echoing, repeating

130    resolve dissolve

131    Everlasting i.e., God

132    canon law, decree

134    uses habits, customary practices

136    rank and gross coarsely profuse in growth

137    merely completely

139    to compared to

140    Hyperion Greek god of the sun, and one of the Titans    satyr mythological creature, part-man and part-goat (often associated with lechery)

141    beteem permit

147    or ere before

149    Niobe for boasting that she had more children than the goddess Leto, Niobe’s offspring were killed; she grieved until she was turned into a stone, from which tears continued to stream

150    wants…reason lacks the faculty of reason

153    Hercules famously strong Greek hero who completed twelve arduous labors

154    unrighteous wicked/insincere

155    flushing redness    gallèd sore, irritated

156    post rush (literally, ride swiftly)

164    change…you exchange the name of    servant for that of    friend/exchange the name of servant with you (and become yours)/mutually exchange the name of friend with you

165    make you from are you doing away from

167    even evening (also used in the afternoon)

169    truant lazy, negligent

175    ere before

179    hard close

180    Thrift economy    baked meats meat pies, pastries

182    dearest closest, greatest

190    yesternight last night

194    Season your admiration control your astonishment

195    attent attentive    deliver report

201    waste desolate expanse (puns on “waist”)

203    at all points in every respect    cap-à-pie from head to foot

205    Goes walks/passes along

206    oppressed and fear-surprisèd overcome and taken prisoner by fear

207    truncheon staff carried as a symbol of military authority    distilled dissolved

208    act action/influence

210    dreadful full of dread and fear

215    These…like my two hands are not more alike than the ghost was like your father

217    platform terrace on which guns were mounted

221    address…speak prepare itself for action as if it were about to speak

238    beaver visor of a helmet

240    countenance facial expression

248    tell count

251    grizzly gray

253    sable silvered black mixed with silver hairs

255    warrant assure

260    tenable capable of being held    still plays on the sense of “silent”

263    requite reward

269    doubt suspect/fear

Act 1 Scene 3

1.3    Location: within the castle

2    as whenever

3    convoy is assistant transport (for letters) is available

7    toy in blood amorous whim

8    primy in its prime/early/wonderful/sexually excited

9    Froward perverse/obstinate/willful/ungovernable

10    suppliance fulfillment/pastime

11    but so than that

13    crescent growing

14    thews bodily proportions, muscles    temple i.e., body (the temple of the soul)

16    withal with it

17    soil nor cautel stain nor deceit

18    will intent/(sexual) desire

19    weighed being considered

21    unvalued i.e., without rank

22    Carve choose (from the image of serving oneself meat; with sexual connotations)

23    sanctity inviolability/worthiness of religious respect

25    yielding consent

28    peculiar…force particular circumstances of rank and power

30    main voice general agreement    withal along with

32    credent credulous, trusting    list listen to

33    chaste treasure i.e., virginity (treasure was slang for “vagina”)

34    unmastered importunity unrestrained persistence

36    keep…affection i.e., do not advance headlong into the dangerous territory your affection might lead you into    rear back portion of an army, which moves last

37    shot maintains the military image, with suggestions of phallic attack

38    chariest most modest/cautious/frugal

39    If she i.e., if she does no more than    moon symbol of chastity

40    scapes escapes    calumnious strokes slanderous blows

41    canker cankerworm, a grub that destroys plants    galls wounds, destroys    infants…spring i.e., young plants

42    buttons be disclosed buds be open

44    blastments blights/withering

46    to against

49    ungracious ungodly

51    puffed swollen with pride and vanity

53    recks heeds    rede advice

54    fear me not do not worry about me

55    stay delay

56    double blessing i.e., a second chance to say goodbye to and receive the blessing of Polonius

57    Occasion opportunity    leave leave-taking, farewell

60    stayed waited

62    See thou character make sure that you inscribe

63    unproportioned immoderate/unruly    his its

64    familiar friendly, sociable

65    adoption tried worthiness to be adopted as friends having been tested

66    Grapple fasten firmly

67    dull thy palm i.e., by shaking hands too often

68    unfledged still unfeathered (i.e., new, untried)

70    Bear’t that th’opposèd manage it so that your opponent

72    censure judgment/opinion

73    habit clothing

74    fancy elaborate, fanciful style

77    Are…that are of a most distinguished and noble pre-eminence in their choice garments

80    husbandry economy

83    false dishonest, disloyal

84    season ripen    this i.e., his advice

86    tend await

93    touching concerning

94    Marry by the Virgin Mary    bethought thought of

97    audience hearing, reception

98    put on conveyed to/impressed upon

101    behoves befits, is appropriate for

103    tenders offers (Polonius subsequently shifts the sense to “offers of money”)

105    green inexperienced/gullible

106    Unsifted untested

111    sterling true currency    Tender…dearly take greater care of yourself/value yourself more highly/offer yourself at a higher rate

112    crack…of make broken-winded, i.e., wear out

113    Running the image is of urging a horse    tender…fool show yourself up to be a fool/show me to be a fool/present me with an illegitimate baby

114    importuned entreated persistently

116    fashion shifts the sense from Ophelia’s “manner” to “mere form/passing fancy”    Go to expression of dismissive impatience

117    countenance authority/confirmation

119    springes snares    woodcocks birds that were easily caught, hence regarded as stupid, gullible

120    prodigal prodigally, liberally

122    extinct…a-making i.e., both light and heat are extinguished in such passionate declarations even as they are being uttered

124    For this time for the time being

125    scanter more sparing

126    entreatments discussions/military negotiations

127    command to parley call from the enemy for the negotiation of terms (i.e., Ophelia is not obliged to meet with and possibly discuss surrender to Hamlet simply because he requests it)

130    in few in short

131    brokers negotiators/go-betweens/pimps

132    investments clothes

133    mere implorators out-and-out pleaders    suits requests/courtship (plays on the sense of “clothing”)

134    bawds procurers, pimps

135    beguile deceive    for all once for all/in sum

137    moment moment of

139    Come your ways come along

Act 1 Scene 4

1.4    Location: the gun terrace of the royal castle at Elsinore

1    shrewdly sharply, keenly

2    eager biting

4    lacks of is just before

7    held his wont has been accustomed    flourish trumpet fanfare accompanying a person in authority

9    wake stay up/revel    takes his rouse carouses

10    Keeps wassail revels/drinks heartily    the…reels drunkenly dances the upspring, a German dance

11    Rhenish German wine from area around the River Rhine

12    kettledrum type of drum often associated with the Danes    bray…pledge i.e., raucously celebrate the king’s fulfillment of his earlier promise to drain a full draught of liquor

17    manner custom

18    More…observance better being broken than observed

20    ministers of grace God’s messengers, angels

21    Be thou whether you are    health benevolence/salvation    goblin demon

24    questionable shape form that invites question

28    canonized consecrated, buried according to Christian rite (three syllables, stress on second)    hearsèd entombed

29    cerements grave clothes    sepulchre tomb

30    inurned enclosed/buried

31    ponderous weighty

32    cast vomit

33    complete steel full armor

34    glimpses…moon earth by moonlight, literally “flashes of moonlight”

35    hideous frightening, full of horror    fools of nature ignorant mortals/playthings of nature

36    horridly dreadfully/with horror    disposition ordinary temperaments/mental composure

38    Wherefore? Why?

40    impartment communication

43    wafts waves, beckons

49    a pin’s fee the (tiny) worth of a pin

53    flood sea

55    beetles o’er overhangs (like frowning eyebrows)

57    deprive…reason remove your reason from its position of control

64    artery thought not to convey blood, but the ethereal fluid known as “vital spirits”

65    Nemean lion supposedly invincible beast strangled by Hercules as one of his twelve labors    nerve sinew, tendon

67    lets hinders

69    waxes grows

71    Have after let’s follow    issue outcome

73    it i.e., the    issue

Act 1 Scene 5

2    Mark listen, pay attention to

9    unfold reveal

10    bound ready/under obligation

17    But were it not

20    harrow up distress/tear up

21    like…spheres individual stars and planets were thought to be contained within concentric hollow spheres that revolved around the earth

22    knotty…locks neat and carefully styled hair

24    porpentine porcupine

25    eternal blazon revelation of the secrets of the eternal world

26    List listen

31    in the best even at best

34    meditation thought

35    sweep swoop in sudden attack

36    apt fit/ready/responsive

37    duller…be you would be more sluggish

38    Lethe wharf the banks of the Lethe, the river of forgetfulness in the classical underworld

40    orchard garden

42    forgèd process fabricated account

43    Rankly excessively/foully

47    adulterate adulterous

48    gifts natural talents/presents

51    will sexual desire

53    dignity worth, excellence

55    decline Upon sink to

58    virtue, as it as virtue

61    sate itself become satiated/grow weary

62    garbage filth/animal entrails

66    secure carefree, unsuspecting

67    hebenon a poisonous substance—possibly “henbane” or “yew” (hebenus)

69    leperous distilment distillation causing leprosy-like symptoms (i.e., corrosion of the skin)

71    quicksilver liquid mercury

73    posset And curd clot, curdle

74    eager sour/acid

76    tetter eruption of the skin    barked about covered with a barklike crust

77    lazar-like leperlike

80    dispatched deprived through death

82    Unhouseled, disappointed, unaneled without having received Holy Communion (the “housel”), unprepared, and without having received extreme unction (being anointed with holy oil before death)

83    reckoning settling of debts    account i.e., judgment

86    nature natural feeling

88    luxury lust

90    Taint pollute

91    aught anything

94    matin morning

95    ’gins begins    uneffectual i.e., no longer providing light

97    host angels

98    couple add (to heaven and earth)

102    distracted distressed, agitated    globe world/head (plays on the name of the Globe Theatre)

103    table writing tablet, slate

104    fond foolish    records memories/written accounts

105    saws sayings, maxims    pressures impressions, stamps

110    pernicious destructive/wicked

113    meet fitting

116    word watchword/motto

124    Hillo…come Hamlet mockingly responds as if Horatio’s call were that of a falconer summoning his bird to return

125    How is’t how is it with you, how are you

127    wonderful astonishing, extraordinary

132    once ever

136    arrant downright/notorious

140    circumstance roundabout talk/details

142    as i.e., in the direction that

150    Saint Patrick the keeper of Purgatory

152    honest genuine (i.e., not an evil spirit)

154    O’ermaster’t repress it

161    not I i.e., I will not tell (not “I will not swear”)

163    sword i.e., the hilt of the sword (the shape of a cross)

166    under the stage accessed through the trapdoor, this region was often associated with hell

167    truepenny honest fellow

168    cellarage cellars

174    Hic et ubique? “Here and everywhere?” (Latin)

181    pioneer soldier whose responsibility it was to dig trenches    remove move

183    stranger i.e., one in need of hospitality

186    never…mercy never, as you hope for God’s mercy (Hamlet begins the oath)

187    How…soe’er however strangely or oddly

189    antic grotesque/fantastic/bizarre

191    encumbered entangled (i.e., folded)    headshake shaking the head

192    doubtful ambiguous

193    an if if

194    list wished ‘There…might’ there are those who might tell, if they could

195    giving out utterance/suggestion note indicate

200    commend me entrust myself

201    what whatever

202    friending friendship

204    still always

205    The time things generally, the age    out of joint dislocated, disordered

Act 2 Scene 1

2.1    Location: within the royal castle at Elsinore; this remains the location for all scenes until Act 4 Scene 3

3    marvellous marvelosly, extremely

4    you i.e., if you

8    Inquire me inquire (me is emphatic)    Danskers Danes

9    keep lodge

11    encompassment roundabout manner of talking    drift general aim

12    come…it you will come closer to the truth than you would were you to ask specific, pointed questions

14    Take you assume, affect

20    Addicted devoted or inclined to

21    forgeries fabrications    rank excessive/coarse

23    wanton boisterous/wild/lustful    slips flaws, foibles

26    gaming gambling

28    Drabbing using prostitutes

30    season…charge moderate the accusation

32    incontinency excessive sexual license

33    quaintly artfully, skillfully

34    taints of liberty faults resulting from too much freedom

36    savageness wildness    unreclaimèd untamed

37    Of general assault by which all men are affected

41    drift intention/plan

42    fetch of warrant legitimate stratagem

44    As ’twere as if he were    i’th’working in the handling, the manufacture

45    party in converse the person with whom you are conversing    sound question, probe

46    Having ever if he has ever    prenominate aforementioned

47    breathe of speak about (i.e., Laertes)

48    closes…consequence agrees with you in the following way

50    addition form of address

56    ay, marry yes, by the Virgin Mary, i.e., yes, of course

60    o’ertook in’s rouse overcome in his carousals (i.e., drunk)

63    Videlicet “that is to say” (Latin)

65    carp type of fish

66    we…reach we who are wise and widely perceptive

67    windlasses roundabout routes    assays of bias indirect ventures

68    directions the way things are really going

69    lecture lesson

70    have understand

72    buy i.e., be with

74    Observe…yourself observe his behavior in person/go along with his inclinations

76    ply his music (literally) practice his musical skills/(metaphorically) go his own way

77    Well very well

82    doublet close-fitting jacket with buttons down the front    unbraced undone

83    No hat Elizabethans usually wore hats indoors when in company

84    Ungartered falling down, untied (garters were bands that held the stockings in place)    down-gyvèd fallen down and resembling fetters (gyves)

86    purport meaning

93    goes…arm he backs away until he stands at arm’s length

96    As as if

105    bended their light i.e., directed their gaze

107    ecstasy frenzy, madness

108    Whose…itself the violent nature of which causes self-destruction

117    speed profit/promptness

118    quoted observed

119    wreck dishonor, ruin sexually    beshrew my jealousy curse my suspicion

120    proper…age i.e., typical of old men

121    cast beyond ourselves miscalculate/miss the mark (another angling metaphor)

124    close secret    move…love cause more unhappiness by concealment than unpleasantness by coming forward

Act 2 Scene 2

2    Moreover that in addition to the fact that

10    deem think, discern/judge

12    neighboured to familiar with    humour temperament

13    vouchsafe your rest consent to stay

16    occasions opportunities

18    opened revealed

21    more adheres is more attached

22    gentry courtesy

24    supply and profit fulfillment and advancement

28    of over

29    dread pleasures revered wishes

32    in…bent to the utmost

40    practices actions (perhaps playing on the sense of “schemes”)

45    still always

47    hold regard/uphold

50    policy shrewdness/statecraft

55    fruit i.e., dessert

56    grace honor (plays on sense of “prayer before a meal”)

58    distemper illness, derangement

59    doubt suspect    main chief concern

61    sift him question him (Polonius) closely

63    desires good wishes

64    Upon our first as soon as we raised the matter

66    Polack Polish/King of Poland

69    impotence frailty, helplessness

70    borne in hand deluded, taken advantage of    arrests orders to cease military activity

72    fine conclusion

74    give…arms attempt to use force

76    crowns gold coins (of varying values according to the countries they were used in)

77    commission authority

80    quiet pass safe passage

82    On…allowance i.e., according to conditions regarding the safety of Denmark and your permission for such an enterprise

84    likes pleases

85    at…time when we have the time for proper consideration

91    expostulate discuss/ask

95    wit intellect/good sense

98    for…mad Polonius means that it would be mad to attempt to define madness, but ends up implying, rather nonsensically, that the definition of madness is “being mad”

104    figure figure of speech

108    this…cause this defective behavior (Hamlet’s madness) has a cause

110    Thus…thus this is the current state of affairs, and now for the rest    Perpend consider

113    gather, and surmise collect your thoughts, draw your conclusions (or gather maybe a request to Claudius and Gertrude to draw closer and look at the letter)

115    these i.e., this letter/these phrases

118    faithful i.e., to the letter/in reading the letter fully

121    Doubt in this third line the sense shifts to “suspect”

123    ill…numbers poor at writing verse    reckon my groans count my groans/make my groans scan poetically

125    machine is to bodily structure belongs to

127    more above moreover

128    fell out occurred

133    fain willingly

138    played…table-book remained silent and withheld the information/assisted in conveying messages between them

139    given…winking closed the eyes of my heart

140    with idle sight complacently/without recognizing its significance

141    round roundly, in a forthright manner

142    bespeak address/speak angrily to

143    out…star beyond your reach/outside your destiny

144    precepts instructions

145    resort visits

150    a watch sleeplessness

151    lightness light-headedness    declension decline (plays on the grammatical sense)

161    circumstances circumstantial evidence

163    centre i.e., of the earth

164    try test

168    loose set loose (often used of an animal; sometimes with the sense of releasing the female to the male for sex, which would lend sexual connotations to encounter)

169    arras large tapestry wall hanging

171    thereon on that account

172    assistant…state policy adviser

173    carters cart drivers

175    sadly solemnly

177    board accost    presently immediately    give me leave a polite way of asking to be left alone

179    God-a-mercy God have mercy (i.e., thank you)

181    fishmonger plays on slang senses of “lecher” and “pimp”

188    good kissing carrion good piece of rotting flesh to kiss (carrion also suggests “whore”)

191    i’th’sun in public/in the sun (or “son”) that causes breeding    conception understanding/becoming pregnant

198    matter content (Hamlet plays on sense of “cause of a dispute”)

202    purging discharging    amber…gum tree resin

203    hams legs

205    honesty decent/honorable    old as old

210    pregnant meaningful/quick-witted (with childbearing connotations, continued in delivered of)

211    happiness fortuitousness

212    suddenly immediately

216    withal with

225    indifferent ordinary, average

226    Happy fortunate

227    button i.e., point at the very top of the cap

230    favours sexual favors (middle has vaginal connotations)

231    privates ordinary citizens/genitals

232    strumpet prostitute

236    particular detail

241    confines places of confinement    wards prison cells

249    substance…ambitious material that fuels ambition/stuff ambitious men are made of

254    Then…shadows i.e., if ambition is nothing but shadow, then only unambitious beggars have bodily substance; their shadows must then be made up of ambitious people such as monarchs and heroes outstretched reaching out ambitiously/elongated like shadows

255    fay faith

256    wait upon accompany (Hamlet emphasizes the sense of “serve”)

257    No such matter i.e., I’ll have no such thing    sort class

258    dreadfully attended poorly waited upon (with possible play on sense of “haunted by dire visions”)

259    beaten way well-trodden path

262    too…halfpenny too expensive at a halfpenny (i.e., worthless)/too expensive by a halfpenny (if the visitors are not being honest about the reason for their visit)

266    anything…purpose anything irrelevant, any lie you wish

267    modesties decency/sense of shame    colour disguise, excuse

270    conjure entreat, appeal to

271    consonancy harmony, friendship

272    what more dear whatever more precious thing    proposer questioner    charge urge, entreat

273    even level/honest

275    of on

277    my…discovery my saying it first means that you are not forced to reveal anything

278    moult no feather remain undiminished

279    custom of exercise usual pursuits/gentlemanly activities

280    heavily dejectedly    frame framework, structure (like canopy, may also evoke the physical structure of the theater building)

281    sterile promontory barren point of land jutting out into the sea

282    brave splendid    firmament sky    fretted adorned

285    express well-designed/expressive/exact

286    apprehension understanding

287    quintessence essence/purest form (literally the “fifth essence,” of which heavenly bodies were composed and supposedly present in all matter)

291    Lenten entertainment poor reception/meager employment, i.e., appropriate to Lent

292    coted overtook

294    tribute homage/payment

295    foil and target sword and shield

296    gratis for nothing    humorous moody or ill-tempered (with an imbalance of the four bodily “humors,” fluids thought to control mood)

297    tickled o’th’sear easily triggered (to laughter)    sear part of the mechanism involved in firing a gun

298    halt limp (if the actor playing the lady is interrupted by heckling from the audience the rhythm of his speech will be lost)

299    wont accustomed

300    residence remaining in their usual home

302    inhibition (city) ban on performing plays    late innovation recent political insurrection/new fashion for boy actors

303    estimation reputation

308    eyrie nest/brood    eyases young hawks    cry…question shrilly dominate the debate (i.e., the rivalry between child and adult acting companies)

309    tyrannically outrageously/vehemently    berattle…stages clamor against the public theaters (where the adult acting companies perform)

310    many…thither many fashionable young men hardly dare attend the public theaters as they are so afraid of being mocked by the playwrights working for the boy actors

312    escoted supported

313    quality (acting) profession    no…sing i.e., only until their voices break

314    common i.e., adult

315    like likely    means financial resources

316    succession future professions

318    tar incite    no…question the acting companies paid for the plots of no new plays unless they featured the quarrel between the children’s dramatists and the adult actors (or “without the playwright and the adult acting company coming to blows over the controversy”)

322    carry it away win the day

323    his load i.e., the world, carried on Hercules’ shoulders (possibly a reference to the emblem of the Globe Theatre)

325    mows mouths, grimaces    ducats gold coins

326    picture in little miniature portrait    more than natural i.e., unnatural

327    philosophy science    Flourish trumpet fanfare

330    appurtenance appropriate accompaniment    comply observe proper courtesies

331    garb appropriate manner    extent the behavior I extend    fairly courteously

332    entertainment welcome

335    but mad north-north-west only mad when the wind is in the north-northwest/only slightly mad (like a faulty compass that points north-northwest rather than north)

336    handsaw handheld saw (some editors emend to “hernshaw,” a type of heron)

339    swathing-clouts swaddling clothes in which a newborn baby was wrapped

340    Happily perhaps

342    You…indeed Hamlet pretends to Polonius that he is mid-conversation with his friends

346    Roscius a famous Roman actor

348    Buzz, buzz! dismissive exclamation made in response to idle gossip or old news

350    ass may pun on “arse”

353    scene individable a play observing the unities of time, place and action/a play whose genre is unclassifiable    poem unlimited dramatic verse (a play) that does not observe the unities of time, place, and action/a play whose genre is all-inclusive/a play that explores a general rather than a specific question (a rhetorical application of unlimited)    Seneca Roman writer of tragedies

354    heavy sorrowful/weighty    Plautus Roman writer of comedies    For…liberty for plays written according to the rules and for those that disregard all prescriptions

356    O…thou? In the Bible, Jephthah vowed to God that if he was successful in war he would sacrifice the first creature he met on his return home; he encountered his daughter but kept his word

359    ‘One…well’ lines from a well-known ballad    passing surpassingly, exceedingly

365    follows not is not logical/is not the next line

368    lot chance    wot knows

370    like likely

371    row line    chanson song

372    my abridgements things that cut me short/entertainment (in either case, the arrival of the players)

374    valenced fringed (with a beard)

375    beard defy, affront (plays on the usual sense)    By’r lady by Our Lady (the Virgin Mary)

376    your ladyship addressed to a teenage apprentice actor who plays women’s parts

377    chopine high woman’s shoe with a very thick platform sole    uncurrent not legal tender    cracked…ring i.e., broken, and therefore unfit for women’s roles, with play on the sense of “deflowered” (coins featured the monarch’s head within a ring; if the coin was damaged within the ring it was no longer valid)

378    e’en to’t go straight to it

379    straight straight away

380    quality skill

383    caviar…general i.e., wasted on the unappreciative multitude

385    cried…of was superior to    digested arranged

386    modesty restraint/propriety    cunning skill, artistry

387    sallets salads or their components (i.e., spicy parts, vulgar phrases)    savoury highly flavored

388    indict accuse    as…fine this line is missing from the Folio text, probably due to printer’s error (the same goes for the short line at the end of Hamlet’s speech)

389    handsome than fine seemly and graceful rather than showy

390    Aeneas’…Dido after the Trojan War Aeneas landed at Carthage, where Dido was queen; he told of his experiences and she fell in love with him

391    Priam king of Troy, killed by Pyrrhus during the attack on his city

393    rugged harsh, severe    Pyrrhus Achilles’ son; after the death of his father in the Trojan War, he took part in the conflict and was noted for his vengeful savagery    th’Hyrcanian beast the tiger of Hyrcania (land bordering the Caspian sea), known for its ferocity

395    sable black

397    couchèd hidden    ominous horse fateful wooden horse by which the Greeks gained access to Troy

399    heraldry more dismal i.e., blood, imaged as heraldic markings    dismal ominous, fatal

400    total gules entirely red (gules is a heraldic term)    tricked adorned/delineated (heraldic term for the sketching of a coat of arms)

402    impasted dried into a crust    parching scorching (because burning)

403    tyrannous harsh

405    o’er-sizèd covered, as if with size (a sticky substance used to treat paper)/rendered larger (through a thick covering of blood)    coagulate coagulated, congealed

406    carbuncles red gems supposed to emit light in the dark

407    grandsire grandfather (Priam had fifty sons and numerous grandchildren)

409    discretion judgment

410    Anon shortly

411    too short inadequately (presumably because of his old age)    antique old

413    Repugnant resistant

415    whiff and wind i.e., mere slicing through the air    fell fierce

416    Th’unnervèd the weakened    senseless incapable of feeling    Ilium Troy/the royal palace at Troy

419    Takes…ear i.e., the noise arrests him in mid-action

420    declining descending    milky white with age

422    painted motionless as if in a painting/blood-covered

423    like…matter suspended between his will and its effect

425    against in anticipation of/before

426    rack clouds

427    orb i.e., earth

429    region sky

431    Cyclops one-eyed giants who worked for the blacksmith god Vulcan making armor for the gods

432    Mars his Mars’ (Roman god of war)    proof eterne eternal impenetrability

433    remorse pity

436    synod assembly

437    fellies pieces of wood that form the rim of a wheel    wheel the wheel of fortune, according to the turns of which men rose or fell

438    nave central part of the wheel, the hub

441    jig a light, often bawdy, entertainment that took place after the main play and involved singing and dancing

442    Hecuba wife of King Priam

443    who whoever    mobled muffled/veiled

447    bisson rheum blinding tears    clout cloth

448    late recently    diadem crown

449    lank shrunken, empty    o’er-teemèd exhausted with childbearing

451    Who…seen whoever had seen this

452    state rule, government    pronounced spoken

458    milch milk-producing, i.e., tearful

459    passion (produced) grief

460    whe’er whether

463    bestowed lodged    used treated

464    abstracts summaries, epitomes

466    desert merit, worth

467    God’s bodikins by God’s little body    after according to

469    bounty generosity

474    ha’t have it    for a need if necessary    study memorize

483    But merely

484    conceit imagination

485    her i.e., conceit’s, imagination’s    wanned paled

486    distraction distress, agitation    aspect expression/glance

487    his…conceit all of his natural powers furnishing actions to match his imaginings

492    motive provocation (modern sense of “motivation” of a dramatic character did not yet exist, though    cue is clearly an actor’s term)

494    horrid terrifying, horrifying

495    appal make pale/shock    free innocent

496    Confound stun/confuse    the ignorant those who know nothing of the crime    amaze bewilder/terrify/stun

498    muddy-mettled dull-spirited    peak mope, languish

499    John-a-dreams general name for a dreamy person    unpregnant of sluggish toward, not prompted by

501    property regal identity/kingdom

502    defeat destruction

503    pate head

504    Pluck off pulls a tuft from

505    Gives…lungs? Calls me an outrageous liar?

506    me this this to me

509    pigeon-livered pigeons were proverbially gentle birds, supposed to lack    gall (bitterness/anger)

511    region kites sky’s birds of prey

512    offal intestines/remains

513    Remorseless pitiless    kindless unnatural

515    brave fine/bold

519    drab prostitute/slut    scullion lowest domestic servant

520    About about it, to work

522    cunning skill

523    presently immediately

524    malefactions wrongdoings, crimes

529    tent probe (as one would a wound)    blench flinch/turn pale

534    spirits i.e.,    melancholy

536    relative relevant/cogent/substantial

Act 3 Scene 1

1    drift of circumstance course of roundabout talk

3    Grating fretting/harping, dwelling querulously upon/wearing away

7    forward ready, inclined    sounded questioned, probed

13    disposition inclination

14    Niggard of question sparing in his questions/reluctant to initiate conversation    demands questions

16    assay try to tempt

18    o’erraught overtook

28    edge sharpness of inclination/incitement

32    closely secretly/privately

34    Affront come face to face with

35    espials spies

48    Gracious your grace (addressed to the king)

50    exercise devout practice (the book is presumably of a religious nature)    colour…loneliness account for the fact that you are alone

52    visage face, appearance

57    plastering art i.e., cosmetics

58    to…it compared to the cosmetics that improve it

64    slings catapults, ballista, cannons, or the missiles hurled by them    outrageous excessively wicked/violent, cruel

68    shocks violent blows/clashes with the enemy

69    consummation ending

71    rub obstacle (a bowling term)

73    shuffled off cast off/evaded/got rid of in a perfunctory or unsatisfactory manner    mortal coil bustle or turmoil of this mortal life

74    respect consideration

75    of…life continue for so long

76    scorns insults, mockeries

77    contumely insolence, contempt, insulting language or behavior

78    disprized undervalued/dishonored

79    office officeholders    spurns kicks

80    of…takes receives from those who are unworthy

81    quietus discharge of debts (i.e., death)

82    bare mere/unsheathed    bodkin dagger/awl/pointed instrument    fardels burdens

85    bourn boundary

86    puzzles bewilders, confounds

89    conscience consciousness/introspection/awareness of right and wrong

90    native hue natural color

91    cast tinge, shade

92    pith and moment substance and importance

94    Soft you wait a moment

95    orisons prayers

100    remembrances keepsakes, love tokens

110    honest chaste

112    fair beautiful

114    your…beauty your chastity should hold no dealings with your beauty/your chastity should not permit anyone to converse with your beauty

116    commerce interaction (Hamlet picks up on the sense of “sexual dealings”)

118    his its (i.e., honesty’s)

119    sometime once    paradox seemingly absurd statement/observation that contradicts commonly held beliefs

122    virtue…it virtue cannot be so successfully grafted onto an old sinful tree without some flavor of sin being retained

125    nunnery convent, playing on slang sense of “brothel”

126    indifferent honest moderately virtuous

128    beck command

137    calumny slander

139    monsters men with unfaithful wives were traditionally supposed to grow horns

142    paintings use of cosmetics

143    amble walk with an easy (or an exaggerated) motion    lisp speak in an affected manner

144    make…ignorance use innocence as an excuse for behavior that is willful/affected/promiscuous

145    on’t of it

150    expectancy hope

151    glass of fashion mirror on whose image men model themselves    form etiquette/ideal pattern

157    blown blooming

158    Blasted with ecstasy destroyed by madness

160    affections emotions

163    on brood brooding, like a bird sitting on eggs

164    doubt fear    disclose disclosure/hatching

167    set it down decided

168    tribute regular amount paid by one state to another, usually in return for peace

169    Haply perhaps/with luck

170    objects sights

171    something-settled matter somewhat fixed preoccupation (perhaps with medical sense “festering pus” or, sinisterly, “stagnant blood”)

173    fashion of himself his usual behavior, his old self

181    round blunt/severe

183    find him not fails to find the cause of his unhappiness

Act 3 Scene 2

1    trippingly nimbly

2    mouth declaim, speak pompously    as lief as soon, rather

6    robustious boisterous/unruly    periwig-pated wig-wearing

7    groundlings members of the audience standing in the yard in front of the stage, the cheapest place from which to watch

8    are capable of can understand    dumb shows mimes/unsophisticated spectacles

9    Termagant imaginary deity believed to have been worshipped by Muslims and represented in the old mystery plays as a violent, overbearing person    Herod biblical king who featured in the mystery plays as a raging tyrant

11    warrant assure

12    discretion judgment

14    modesty restraints    from i.e., far from

17    pressure stamp, impression

18    come tardy off performed inadequately    unskilful ignorant, unsophisticated

19    censure judgment/criticism    the which one one of whom    allowance admission, acknowledgment

23    journeymen laborers

24    abominably plays on the popular misconception that the word was derived from Latin ab homine, i.e., “away from man, unnatural” (previously spelled “abhominably”)

25    indifferently moderately well

27    of some among

28    barren apathetic/dull-witted

29    necessary question important aspect

30    uses does, practices

32    presently imminently

39    As…withal as ever my dealings with people brought me into contact with

45    candied sugared (i.e., flattering)

46    crook bend    pregnant ready

47    thrift profit

49    election choice

50    sealed designated (literally, placed a legally binding seal upon)

51    As…nothing like one who endures everything with fortitude and is not wounded by any of it    suffering undergoing/enduring (the sense then shifts to “is hurt by”)

52    buffets blows

54    blood passion

56    stop note produced by placing the finger over a hole in a wind instrument

58    core puns on the Latin cor meaning “heart”

64    the…soul your most insightful, penetrating consideration

65    occulted hidden

66    unkennel reveal (as a fox is driven out of its hole)

67    damnèd i.e., evil, devilish

68    foul black, grimy

69    Vulcan’s stithy the forge of Vulcan, Roman god of fire and blacksmiths    heedful note careful attention

72    censure…seeming forming an opinion of his appearance

74    steal aught gets away with anything    march i.e., march played on drums

76    idle unoccupied/mad

78    fares is (but Hamlet responds to the sense of “feeds”)

79    chameleon’s dish supposedly these reptiles fed on air

80    capons castrated cockerels fattened to make their meat more flavorsome

81    have nothing with gain nothing from    not mine nothing to do with my question (Hamlet responds to the sense of “do not belong to me”)

86    i’th’Capitol at Capitoline Hill, site of the temple of supreme Roman god Jupiter

87    brute brutal/stupid/animal (with obvious pun on Brutus)    part deed/role    calf fool

89    stay…patience await your permission (to start)

91    metal more attractive more magnetic metal (metal puns on “mettle” for an additional sense of “one of a more pleasing disposition”)

93    lie…lap recline upon your lap/have sex with you

97    country matters sex (country puns on “cunt”)

101    Nothing i.e., “no thing” (vagina)

105    your only jig-maker I’m your unrivaled composer of jigs (bawdy playlets)

108    suit of sables luxurious suit trimmed with dark-colored sable fur

111    suffer…on be forgotten    hobby-horse artificial horse fastened around the waist of one of the participants in a morris dance; the hobby-horse is forgot was a popular phrase    Hautboys oboelike instruments    protestation solemn declaration (of love)    passionate action gestures of extreme grief    Mutes i.e., other actors

114    miching malicho lurking iniquity, skulking mischief

115    Belike presumably    argument plot

116    counsel a secret

119    show sexual display    be not you if you are not

121    naught indecent/offensive

125    posy of a ring short (usually clichéd) verse motto engraved on a ring

128    Phoebus’ cart the sun god’s chariot

129    Neptune’s salt wash i.e., the sea (of which Neptune was god)    Tellus’ orbèd ground i.e., the earth (of which Tellus was goddess)

130    borrowed sheen reflected radiance

132    Hymen god of marriage

133    bands bonds

138    distrust fear for

139    Discomfort dismay, discourage

140    holds quantity are to be found in the same proportions

141    In…extremity they are either nonexistent or excessive

142    proof tried and tested experience

143    as…so my fear is just as great as my love

145    operant vital/active    leave to do cease to perform

148    confound destroy (i.e., do not say)

151    None no woman

152    Wormwood i.e., that’s bitter (the sharp-tasting plant was also used to purge the digestive tract of worms, so there may also be a suggestion of bringing forth gnawing guilt)

153    instances motives    move prompt

154    respects of thrift considerations of personal profit

159    Purpose…validity our intentions are subject to the weakness of memory, being passionate at the outset, but lacking in endurance

161    Which i.e., purpose

163    Most…debt it is inevitable that we should forget to fulfill our obligations to ourselves

168    enactures fulfillments, performances

170    Grief…accident i.e., one extreme of emotion turns to its opposite at the slightest event

171    aye ever

175    down fallen in fortune

176    poor advanced poor man who improves his station in life

177    hitherto up to this point (in the argument)    tend attend/serve

178    who not needs he who does not lack fortune

179    who in want he who, being in need    try test

180    seasons him ripens him into

183    devices plans    still continually

184    ends outcomes

187    Nor let neither

188    Sport…night let me be barred from recreation during the day and rest at night

189    opposite opposing force    blanks makes pale

190    Meet…destroy (may it) encounter and destroy everything that I would like to see prosper

191    here and hence in this and in the next world

195    fain willingly    beguile while away

200    protests makes declarations, vows

202    offence offensive matter (Hamlet shifts the sense to “actual injury/real crime”)

203    jest pretend, act

205    Tropically figuratively

206    duke’s i.e., king’s

208    galled jade saddle-sore old horse    wince kick out from pain    withers part of the horse’s back between the shoulder blades

209    unwrung not pinched or chafed

211    chorus actor who narrated or interpreted parts of a play

212    interpret provide dialogue as an actor does in a puppet show/act as a go-between    puppets possibly plays on a sense of “breasts/genitals”

213    dallying spending idle time together/flirting/having sex

214    keen quick/cutting

215    groaning the moans of a woman losing her virginity (or possibly subsequently, in labor)    take…edge deter my sharp wit/blunt my sexual appetite/cause me to lose my erection

216    better, and worse i.e., wittier, yet more insulting

217    So in just such a manner    mis-take…husbands swear insincerely to love and be faithful to your husbands (according to the marriage vow “for better or for worse”); plays on the idea of “mistaking” another man for one’s true husband, as Hamlet deems Gertrude to have done    pox i.e., a plague on it

218    the…revenge refers to lines from the anonymous True Tragedy of Richard III    raven considered a bird of ill omen whose cry heralded death

220    Confederate…seeing the occasion itself an ally, there being no one else to see me

221    rank virulent/pungent/foul

222    Hecate’s ban the curse of Hecate, goddess of witchcraft

223    dire property dreadful nature

224    wholesome healthy

225    for’s for his    His i.e., the king’s

229    false fire the discharge of blank cartridges from a firearm

234    strucken wounded

235    hart ungallèd uninjured male deer

236    watch remain awake

238    this the play/the verse just uttered    feathers i.e., elaborate plumes on a hat    turn Turk with abandon (like one renouncing Christianity to become a Muslim)

239    Provincial roses French roses from Provence (here rosettes, worn to hide the shoe fastenings and, like the    feathers, a feature of the actor’s garb)    razed shoes shoes with ornamental cuts in the leather    fellowship…cry partnership in a pack

241    share the major players in the Chamberlain’s Men had shares in the company’s assets

243    Damon either an allusion to the Greek tale of Damon and Pythias, famous for their great friendship, or used as a traditional pastoral name

244    dismantled stripped/deprived

245    Jove supreme Roman god

246    pajock either “patchock” (i.e., base, ragged fellow) or “peacock”

247    rhymed the word that might be expected to rhyme with    was is “ass”

255    perdy corruption of the French par dieu (“by God”)

257    vouchsafe permit

261    retirement withdrawal to his rooms    distempered out of humor (Hamlet chooses to understand the sense of “drunk”)

263    choler anger (provoked by an excess of bile, one of the four bodily humors)

264    signify communicate

265    purgation cleansing the body through bloodletting or the use of emetics or laxatives (Hamlet plays on the idea of eliciting confession; the senses of legal and spiritual purging are also relevant)

267    frame order    start swerve/recoil

273    breed kind/courtly breeding

274    wholesome healthy, sane

275    pardon permission (to leave)

282    amazement bewilderment/alarm

283    admiration astonishment, wonder

284    wonderful astonishing/excellent

286    closet private room

287    trade dealings (a deliberately derogatory term here)

290    pickers and stealers hands

292    liberty freedom from mental anguish (but a suggestive image of literal imprisonment)    deny refuse to tell

296    ‘While…grows’ the rest of the proverb is “the horse starves”

298    withdraw speak privately    recover…toil a hunting metaphor: the hunter would get to the windward side of the prey (recover the wind), allowing it to scent him and thus driving the animal in the opposite direction and into a net (toil)

300    if…unmannerly i.e., if I am overly bold in my behavior it is my love for you that is to blame

307    ventages holes (or stops)

314    mystery secret/craft, skill (playing an instrument)    sound question/produce music from

315    compass range

317    fret irritate/provide with frets (ridges for fingering on a lute)

319    presently straightaway

321    By th’mass by the Mass (a common oath)

326    fool…bent indulge me in my foolishness to the limit/force me to play the fool to the limit of my ability (or endurance)

336    nature natural feelings

337    Nero Roman emperor who murdered his mother

341    How…shent however much I rebuke and punish her verbally    somever to whatever extent

342    give them seals i.e., by acting upon them

Act 3 Scene 3

1    him i.e., his behavior

3    dispatch make ready/deal with promptly

5    terms…estate conditions or responsibilities of my position as king

8    provide prepare, equip ourselves

9    fear concern, responsibility

12    single and peculiar individual and private

14    noyance vexation/harm

15    weal welfare

16    cease cessation/decease

17    gulf whirlpool

18    massy massive/weighty

21    mortised fastened securely

22    annexment adjunct, hanger-on    petty consequence trivial attachment

23    attends accompanies    boist’rous massive/turbulent

25    Arm you prepare yourselves

31    process proceedings    tax him home reprove him thoroughly

33    meet fitting

35    of vantage in addition/from an advantageous position

39    rank foul-smelling/rotten

40    primal eldest curse God’s curse on Cain, the first murderer, who killed his brother Abel (biblical)

42    inclination…will my urge and determination to pray are equally strong

44    bound directed/tied/sworn

49    Whereto…offence? What is the point of mercy if not to confront sin face to face?

52    forestallèd prevented

55    turn need, purpose

57    effects benefits, acquisitions

59    th’offence i.e., the profits gained from committing the offense

60    currents courses, practices

61    gilded golden/bearing bribes    by to one side

64    There i.e.,    above, in heaven    shuffling evasion, deceit    the action lies the sin is laid bare/the case is admissible (legal metaphor, continued with evidence)

66    to…forehead in the very face

67    give in give, submit    rests remains

71    limèd caught as a bird is trapped by birdlime (sticky substance spread on branches)

72    assay a great effort/an attempt

76    pat opportunely, conveniently

78    would be scanned needs to be examined/would be interpreted as follows

80    foul sinful/treacherous/shameful; most editor’s prefer Quarto’s “sole”

82    hire and salary i.e., as if Hamlet had hired Claudius to do the murder and was now giving him his wages

83    grossly…bread i.e., in the grips of worldly pleasures, with no spiritual preparation (such as fasting)

84    broad blown in full bloom

85    audit account

86    circumstance…thought situation and way of thinking/limited condition and way of thinking/indirect way of thinking

87    heavy grave/gloomy

88    take him kill Claudius

89    seasoned prepared    passage journey into the next world

91    hent time to be seized at/opportunity

92    drunk asleep in a drunken stupor

95    relish trace, flavor

98    stays awaits

99    physic medicine (either Claudius’ prayer or Hamlet’s postponement of the murder)

Act 3 Scene 4

1    straight straightaway    lay home speak plainly, take to task

2    broad unrestrained

4    heat i.e., Claudius’ anger

5    round blunt/severe

17    rood Christian cross

18    queen perhaps this puns on “quean” (i.e., whore)

22    glass mirror

27    Dead…ducat i.e., I’ll bet a ducat (gold coin) he’ll soon be dead/I’ll kill him for a mere ducat

38    busy interfering, prying

42    brazed covered with brass, hardened

43    proof…sense fortified against feeling    proof armor

45    rude violent/harsh/offensive

52    contraction binding agreement (specifically the marriage contract)

54    rhapsody confused mass    glow i.e., blush for shame

55    this…mass i.e., the earth

56    tristful sorrowful    as…doom as if in anticipation of doomsday

59    index table of contents that prefaces the body of a book

61    counterfeit presentment painted representation

63    Hyperion Greek god of the sun, and one of the Titans    front forehead/face

64    Mars Roman god of war

65    station manner of standing    Mercury winged messenger of the Roman gods

66    New-lighted newly alighted

68    seal i.e., mark of approval

71    ear i.e., of corn

72    Blasting withering

73    leave cease

74    batten feed greedily    moor marshland/waste ground (may play on the sense of “dark-skinned person” to contrast with the fair mountain)

76    heyday…blood (youthful) period of sexual excitement

79    cozened cheated    hoodman-blind blindman’s buff (Hamlet imagines a blindfolded Gertrude being tricked into picking the wrong man)

81    mutine mutiny    matron mature married woman

84    compulsive…charge compelling sexual passion (of youth) attacks

85    frost i.e., age

86    panders acts as a go-between for/ministers to the gratification of    will sexual desire

89    grainèd engrained, indelible

90    leave their tinct abandon their color

92    enseamèd saturated with grease or pig’s fat, i.e., soiled from sexual activity

93    Stewed soaked/slowly boiled (puns on “stew”—i.e., brothel)    honeying exchanging endearments    making love talking amorously/having sex

94    nasty filthy/lewd/repellent    sty pigsty/place inhabited by whores and lustful people

99    tithe tenth part

100    precedent lord previous husband (precedent may have connotations of “exemplary/higher ranking”)    vice epitome of wickedness/buffoon or trickster from morality plays

101    cutpurse pickpocket

102    diadem crown

105    shreds and patches paltry bits and pieces/the multicolored clothing of a fool or clown

111    important urgent, pressing

116    Conceit imagination

121    th’incorporal the insubstantial

122    spirits vital spirits, a bodily fluid thought to be vital for life

123    as…th’alarm like soldiers awoken abruptly by a call to arms

124    like…excrements as if growths of hair had lives of their own

129    His…conjoined the combination of his appearance and his reason (for wanting revenge)

130    capable responsive

131    piteous pity-inspiring    convert…effects divert me from the grim deeds I intend to carry out

133    want lack    colour character, quality/motive, grounds/hue (colorless    tears rather than red blood)

140    habit clothing/demeanor    as as when/as if

142    coinage invention

143    cunning skillful/crafty

148    reword repeat

149    gambol spring away

150    unction ointment

151    trespass sin

152    skin and film form a thin skin over

153    mining corroding/undermining/sapping

157    ranker more abundant    virtue i.e., virtuous talk and rebukes

158    pursy short-winded/fat

160    curb and woo bow and entreat

173    That so that    scourge and minister agent of retribution

174    bestow dispose of/stow away    answer well justify/pay for

177    behind yet to come

180    bloat bloated/flabby/swollen with self-indulgence

181    Pinch wanton in pinching your cheeks leave marks that proclaim you a wanton (lewd woman)    mouse common term of endearment

182    reechy filthy, squalid (literally “smoky”)

184    ravel…out unravel (i.e., reveal) all this business

186    in craft through cunning, by design

188    paddock…gib toad, bat, tomcat (creatures popularly supposed to be the familiars of witches)

189    dear concernings important matters

191    Unpeg unfasten (thus letting the birds out)

192    famous…down a reference to a lost story; presumably the ape attempted to imitate the birds who had been released from the basket by climbing in, then leaping out in the hope of flying, only to succeed in breaking his neck    try conclusions experiment

201    set me packing cause me to be sent away at once/make me begin plotting

204    still…grave quiet, trustworthy, and dignified/dead

205    prating prattling, chattering

206    draw…you finish my dealings with you/haul you to your grave

208    matter significance

217    brainish apprehension headstrong conviction/deluded understanding

219    heavy sorrowful

223    answered accounted for

224    providence foresight/arrangements

225    short on a tight leash    haunt company

229    divulging becoming apparent

231    apart away

232    ore precious metal

233    mineral mine or its products

239    countenance confront/bear out

247    what’s untimely done i.e., Polonius’ premature death

Act 4 Scene 1

1    Stowed lodged (refers to Polonius’ body) plays on slang sense of “kept quiet”/”shut up”

2    GENTLEMEN i.e., Rosencrantz and Guildenstern

5    Compounded united, mingled

10    keep…own keep your secrets and not my own/follow your advice (and tell you where the body is) and yet keep my own secret    demanded of questioned by

11    replication response

13    countenance favor    authorities power, influence

15    mouthed taken into the mouth

19    sleeps in i.e., is wasted on

22    The…body Claudius has a physical body, but he does not possess true kingship/the body is here in the castle, like Claudius; however, he, not being dead, is not with Polonius/Polonius is with the true king, dead Hamlet senior, not with the usurping Claudius/Polonius is with God, rather than Claudius

25    Hide…after refers to a children’s game in which one person (the fox) hides and the others pursue him

Act 4 Scene 2

4    of by    distracted deranged/confused/foolish

6    scourge punishment    weighed considered

7    bear…even manage matters smoothly and evenly

9    Deliberate pause i.e., the result of careful consideration

10    appliance remedy

15    Without outside

21    convocation political assembly

22    e’en even now    diet a punning allusion to the Diet (i.e., assembly) of the German city of Worms

24    variable service different dishes in the same meal

26    eat eaten

29    progress official journey of state undertaken by the monarch

38    tender hold dear

41    bark ship

42    tend await    bent ready

48    cherub angel possessed of insight and knowledge

53    at foot closely

56    leans on appertains to

57    aught any worth

58    thereof…sense may give you an awareness of the value of my love

59    cicatrice scar

60    free awe voluntary submission, uncompelled deference

61    coldly set disregard/regard coolly

62    process command    imports at full is fully concerned with/conveys detailed instructions for

63    conjuring solemnly charging/conspiring

64    present immediate

65    hectic fever

67    Howe’er my haps whatever my fortunes

Act 4 Scene 3

4.3    Location: the Danish border (see “Second Quarto passages that do not appear in the Folio,” lines 81–139 on this page, for a longer version of this scene, in which Hamlet witnesses the army’s march and speaks his soliloquy “How all occasions do inform against me, / And spur my dull revenge”)

2    licence permission

3    conveyance of granting of/Danish escort for

6    duty respect    eye presence

9    softly slowly, carefully

Act 4 Scene 4

4.4    Location: within the royal castle at Elsinore

2    importunate insistent, pressing    distract agitated/deranged

6    hems makes “hmm” noises

7    Spurns…straws strikes out spitefully at trifles    in doubt of unclear meaning

9    use manner/utterance

10    collection a gathering of meaning    aim guess

11    botch patch, stitch clumsily together

12    Which which words    yield convey, deliver

13    thought intended

14    unhappily ominously near the truth/maliciously

16    ill-breeding mischief-making

19    toy trifle    amiss wrong, calamity

20    artless jealousy unskilled suspicion

21    It…spilt its excessive fear of being revealed ends up betraying it (“to spill” means both to destroy and to reveal)

26    cockle hat hat with a cockleshell on it, showing that the wearer had visited the Spanish shrine of Santiago (Saint James) of Compostela; a staff and sandals were also typical of such a pilgrim

27    shoon shoes

38    Larded strewn, covered

40    showers i.e., of tears

42    yield reward; a common way to express thanks    owl…daughter refers to the tale of a baker’s daughter who was turned into an owl after she had been ungenerous to Jesus when he begged for bread

44    Conceit upon fanciful thinking about/brooding on

48    betime early

50    Valentine sweetheart, supposedly the first person of the opposite sex one saw on Valentine’s Day

51    rose the sexual innuendo of Ophelia’s language suggests possible erectile connotations

52    dupped opened (perhaps punning on “tupped,” i.e., “had sex with”)    chamber door playing on vaginal connotations

53    maid virgin

57    Gis Jesus

59    do’t have sex

60    cock euphemism for God, plays on sense of “penis”

61    tumbled had sex with

64    An if

73    spies scouts sent ahead of the main army

76    remove removal    muddied stirred up

78    greenly foolishly

79    hugger-mugger secrecy

82    as much containing of as much significance

84    wonder bewilderment/doubt (about his father’s death)    in clouds in a state of confusion (or suspicion)/aloof and inscrutable

85    wants lacks    buzzers gossips, rumor-mongers

87    of matter beggared deprived of facts and solid evidence

88    nothing…ear not hesitate to accuse me to one listener after another

90    murdering-piece small cannon, which scattered its shot and so could kill more people

91    Gives…death kills me over and over

93    Switzers Swiss guards (mercenaries commonly employed in royal households)

96    overpeering…list rising over its boundary

97    flats flat or low-lying land near the shore

98    head insurrection

100    as as if

101    Antiquity ancient tradition

102    The…word (antiquity and custom are) the things that confirm and support every utterance

104    Caps thrown into the air in support

107    counter following the scent in the wrong direction (hunting term)    false disloyal/erring

109    without outside

113    keep guard

117    cuckold man with an unfaithful wife

118    between in the middle of    unsmirched unstained

119    true faithful

122    fear fear for

123    hedge protect

124    but…will only peep through at what it desires, and carry out little of its intention

132    juggled with tricked, deceived

135    To…stand I am fixed in this resolve

136    both…negligence I disregard both this world and the next

138    throughly thoroughly, completely

139    stay prevent

140    My…world by my will, not all the world shall stop me

141    husband manage

146    sweepstake indiscriminately (from gambling, where one person sweeps up all the stakes on the table)    draw gather

151    pelican supposedly this bird fed its young with its own blood

152    Repast feed

156    sensible feeling

157    level directly

162    virtue power, efficacy

164    turn the beam tilts the crossbar of the scales (i.e., tips in our favor)

168    Nature human nature    fine in refined by

169    instance sign, token

170    After…loves i.e., after Polonius, to the grave

171    bier movable stand on which a corpse is carried to the grave

172    Hey…nonny a refrain more usually associated with merry love songs

176    move affect (me)/persuade    move thus move me as powerfully as this does

177    You Ophelia assigns parts to the individuals in the room ‘a-down…a-down-a’ well-known refrains

178    wheel refrain    false…daughter refers to a story or ballad that remains unidentified

179    This…matter this nonsense is actually more meaningful than sane talk/this nonsense contains significance that is beyond the reach of sense

180    rosemary herb symbolizing remembrance

181    pansies flowers symbolic of love, named from French pensées (thoughts)

182    document lesson    fitted put together

183    fennel herb said to symbolize flattery    columbines flowers symbolic of infidelity    rue herb symbolizing repentance

184    o’Sundays on Sundays

185    difference variation on a coat of arms to distinguish different members or branches of a family (or Ophelia may simply mean “differently”)    daisy possibly symbolic of deception; alternatively, a springtime flower associated with love    violets flowers symbolic of faithfulness and of chastity

187    For…joy a line from a well-known song

188    Thought melancholy    passion extreme grief

189    favour charm, attractiveness

196    flaxen white    poll head, i.e., hair

198    cast away moan waste our laments

199    Gramercy great mercy

200    God buy ye goodbye (literally, “God be with you”)

204    whom whichever of

205    ’twixt between

206    collateral indirect

207    touched implicated

215    trophy memorial    hatchment tablet bearing the coat of arms of the dead person, placed over the tomb

216    ostentation ceremony

218    That so that    call in question demand an explanation

Act 4 Scene 5

8    an’t if it

11    overlooked looked over, read

12    means means of access

13    appointment equipment

14    compelled necessary    grapple forcible seizing of a ship for the purpose of boarding

16    thieves of mercy merciful thieves

17    repair come

19    too…matter i.e., inadequate to convey the importance of the issue    bore caliber of a gun (Hamlet’s words are bullets that are too small to fit)

23    way access

Act 4 Scene 6

1    my acquittance seal confirm my innocence

3    Sith since    knowing understanding/knowledgeable

7    proceeded not did not take legal proceedings    feats deeds/crimes

8    capital punishable by death

9    As…up i.e., given that it was greatly in the interests of safety and prudence to do so

12    unsinewed weak

16    conjunctive closely united (an astronomical term referring to proximity between planets)

17    sphere orbit; individual stars and planets were thought to be contained within concentric hollow spheres that revolved around the earth

18    but except, unless I were

19    count account, reckoning, indictment

20    general gender common people    gender kind/sort

22    spring…stone a spring with high levels of lime in its water would petrify a piece of wood placed in it

23    gyves fetters

24    Too slightly timbered i.e., too light

28    terms circumstances

29    go back again i.e., recall her as she was

30    on mount on high

34    shook with tugged (contemptuously) by

43    Claudio a bluff, an intermediary, or Shakespeare’s slip when he meant “Horatio”

45    naked destitute

46    pardon permission

49    abuse deceit    no such thing not what it seems, a trick

51    character handwriting

61    If so so long as

63    As checking at as a result of deviating from or aborting (a falconry term referring to the hawk turning away from its pursuit in mid-flight)

65    device devising

68    uncharge the practice acquit the plot from blame

72    can well are skilled    gallant fine young man

75    As as if    incorpsed of one body    demi-natured half of the same nature

76    brave splendid    passed my thought surpassed anything I could have imagined

77    forgery…tricks imagining feats of horsemanship

81    Lamond some editors prefer Quarto’s Lamord, with its hint of death (la mort, French for “death”)

83    brooch jewel/ornament

85    made…you testified to your skill

87    For…defence with regard to your skill and performance in self-defense

91    envenom embitter/poison

93    sudden immediate    play compete

101    begun by time generated by particular circumstances

102    passages of proof events that have proved it

103    qualifies weakens, diminishes

108    sanctuarize give sanctuary to, protect

110    Will you if you are to    close secluded

112    put on encourage/organize

114    in fine in conclusion, finally

115    remiss negligent, not vigilant

116    generous noble-minded

117    peruse examine carefully    foils light swords, blunted for use in fencing

119    unbated not blunted    pass of practice treacherous thrust/deliberately planned thrust

120    Requite repay, have revenge on

123    unction ointment    mountebank quack doctor who traveled around selling various remedies

124    I…it Laertes leaves unfinished the account of what happened when he did this; or perhaps he means “one need but dip a knife in it”; some editors prefer Quarto’s “so mortal that, but dip”

125    cataplasm medicated plaster, poultice    rare excellent

126    simples medicinal herbs

127    Under the moon i.e., anywhere, though gathering herbs by moonlight was thought to lend them extra potency

128    withal with it

129    contagion poison    gall graze

133    fit…shape suit our plan/fit us for the roles we are going to play

134    drift scheme, intention    look becomes visible

137    blast in proof explode when put to the test

138    cunnings skills (i.e., Laertes’ and Hamlet’s)

139    ha’t have it

141    As i.e., you should    bouts rounds in a fight

143    nonce purpose

144    stuck thrust

149    willow a tree associated with sadness and forsaken love

150    hoar grayish-white

151    fantastic elaborate/fanciful

152    crow-flowers buttercups/ragged robins (both types of wild flower)    long purples a type of purple orchid; the roots resemble testicles, hence the    grosser names

153    liberal freely spoken/licentious    grosser coarser/more vulgar

154    cold chaste

155    pendent drooping, overhanging

156    envious sliver malicious part of a branch

157    weedy made of wild flowers

161    incapable uncomprehending/insensible    distress affliction, calamity

162    indued adapted

165    lay song

171    trick way, habit

172    these i.e., his tears

173    woman…out the woman in me will be finished

175    folly i.e., his weeping    douts extinguishes

Act 5 Scene 1

5.1    Location: a graveyard near the royal castle at Elsinore    Clowns rustics

1    Christian burial suicides were not allowed Christian burial rites

2    salvation probably a malapropism for “damnation,” though perhaps the Clown suggests Ophelia was trying to get to heaven early

3    straight straightaway (plays on the sense of “not crooked”)    crowner coroner

4    sat held an inquest (with a play on the literal sense)

7    se offendendo perversion of se defendendo (Latin for “in self-defence,” a legal term); literally “in self-offence”

9    argal perversion of ergo (Latin for “therefore”)

10    goodman title for a person below the rank of gentleman and often followed by the individual’s occupation (here a delver or digger)

12    will…he whether he will or no

16    quest inquest

19    there thou say’st i.e., how right you are

20    countenance authority, permission    even Christian fellow Christians

21    ditchers ditch makers

22    Adam’s profession in the Bible, Adam’s job was to look after the Garden of Eden

24    bore arms had a coat of arms (the sign of a gentleman); with obvious play on sense of “limbs”

28    confess thyself the saying continues “and be hanged”

33    does well i.e., as an answer (the sense then shifts to “serves well”)

38    unyoke give up, stop laboring (literally, unyoke the oxen)

42    mend improve

44    Yaughan variant spelling of Vaughan, presumably the name of the local innkeeper, perhaps based on one near the Globe

45    stoup tankard

46    In…love this and the following stanza are loose versions of parts of Thomas Vaux’s poem “The Aged Lover Renounceth Love,” printed in 1557;    O and a may be the gravedigger’s grunts as he goes about his work

48    contract…behove pass away the time to my own advantage

49    meet (more) fitting

51    property of easiness something he can undertake with indifference

52    hath…sense is more sensitive/fastidious

55    shipped…land dispatched me into the earth (i.e., my grave/dust)    intil into

56    been such been a young man in love

57    jowls strikes, dashes (puns on “jowl”—i.e., jawbone)

58    Cain in the Bible, the first murderer; he killed his brother Abel

59    politician crafty schemer    o’er-offices lords it over (on account of his office as gravedigger)    circumvent cheat, outwit

66    chapless jawless

67    mazzard head (from the term for a drinking bowl)    revolution change/turn of the wheel of fortune    trick knack

68    Did…’em? Did these people cost so little to bring up that we may play games with their bones?    loggats a game where pieces of wood shaped like bowling pins were thrown at a stake fixed in the ground

71    For and and furthermore    shrouding sheet sheet in which the corpse was wrapped

75    quiddities…quillets subtleties, verbal distinctions, quibbling arguments    tenures (documents or cases relating to) conditions on which property is held

76    rude ignorant/rough    sconce head

77    action of battery litigation concerning physical assault

78    statutes legal documents that secured a debt on land and property (similar to a mortgage)    recognizances legal documents that formally acknowledged a debt    fines…recoveries legal processes concerned with securing the outright ownership of land;    double vouchers refers to the practice of having two people vouch for a claimant’s ownership of the land

79    fine…fines end of his fines (the sense of fine then shifts to “elegant, handsome” and then to “finely powdered”)

80    vouch guarantee

81    the…indentures land (i.e., his grave) only as long and wide as a legal document    pair of indentures two copies of an agreement drawn up on the same sheet of paper, which was then halved along a zigzag line to form documents that, when placed together, were a unique match

82    conveyances deeds relating to the transfer of land and property (plays on the sense of “light-fingered theft/sleight of hand”)    box deed box/coffin

83    inheritor i.e., owner

87    assurance in that security in legal documents

88    sirrah sir (used to a social inferior)

93    not lie the First Clown begins a series of puns on the senses of “dwell/fib”

96    quick living (in his reply, the First Clown plays on the senses of “quick-witted/speedy”)

104    absolute strictly accurate    by the card precisely (literally, according to either the sailor’s map or compass)    equivocation verbal ambiguity

106    picked over-refined/fastidious

107    galls his kibe chafes his chilblain

122    ground cause (but the First Clown responds to the literal sense of the word)

126    pocky diseased especially with the pox, i.e., syphilis

127    hold…in hold together long enough to be buried

128    tanner one who converts animal hides into leather by tanning (infusing with an astringent liquid)

131    whoreson wretched (an abusive intensifier used in a jocular manner)

132    Here’s a skull presumably one of the two thrown up earlier, but conceivably a third if he is still digging

136    A he    Rhenish German wine from the area around the River Rhine

142    fancy imagination

143    abhorred filled with horror    my gorge rises i.e., I feel like vomiting    gorge stomach contents

146    No…jeering? there’s no one left to laugh at the way you mocked and made fun of people    chop-fallen downcast/lacking the lower jaw

147    favour facial appearance

150    Alexander Alexander the Great, fourth-century King of Macedonia and one of the world’s most successful military leaders

155    bung-hole hole in a barrel stoppered with a bung

156    too curiously too closely/overly ingeniously

157    modesty moderation

159    loam mortar made of clay, sand, and straw

164    flaw squall, violent gust of wind

167    maimèd truncated, insufficient

168    desperate filled with spiritual despair, suicidal

169    Fordo destroy    estate status

170    Couch hide

174    obsequies commemorative rites for the dead

175    warrantise authorization    doubtful suspicious

176    o’ersways overrules

177    unsanctified not consecrated by the Church

178    last trumpet i.e., Doomsday, which would, according to the Bible, be heralded by the sound of a trumpet    For instead of

179    Shards fragments of broken pottery

181    strewments flowers strewn on the coffin or grave    bringing…burial bringing her to her final resting place accompanied by the funeral bell and burial rites

186    sage requiem solemn funeral chant    such rest pray for the same rest

187    peace-parted peacefully departed

190    violets the flower was associated with chastity

192    howling i.e., in hell

200    ingenious sense quick, intelligent mind

203    quick living (i.e., Laertes)

205    Pelion the mountain in Thessaly that, in Greek mythology, the warring giants piled on top of Mount Ossa in their attempt to scale    Olympus, the mountain home of the gods

208    emphasis strength of expression (a rhetorical term)

209    Conjures…stars casts a spell on the planets

215    splenitive hot-tempered (the spleen was thought to be the seat of the passions)

220    quiet calm

222    wag open and shut

228    forbear him leave him alone

230    Woo’t wilt thou    tear tear violently at (hair, clothing)/injure/destroy

231    eisel vinegar    crocodile i.e., something tough and dangerous, the creature that was supposed to shed copious hypocritical tears

233    outface defy/defeat

236    our ground the piled-up earth above us

237    burning zone sun’s orbit between the tropics

238    Ossa in Greek mythology, the mountain on which the giants piled Pelion in their attempt to reach Olympus    an if    mouth grimace/rant

240    mere complete

243    golden couplets baby birds covered in golden down    disclosed hatched

246    use treat

248    Let…day i.e., even Hercules could not stop Laertes from his tiresome rant/my turn will come and even Hercules (or the ranting Laertes) cannot stop me

251    in i.e., by remembering

252    present push immediate test (push may also be suggestive of the thrust of a weapon)

254    living lasting (but also implies that murdering Hamlet will serve as a memorial)

Act 5 Scene 2

5.2    Location: within the royal castle at Elsinore

1    this the pair enter mid-conversation;    this refers to what Hamlet has just been telling Horatio    see the other hear the other news

2    circumstance details

6    mutines…bilboes mutineers in shackles    Rashly on impulse (Hamlet then digresses before returning to his tale in line 13)

7    know acknowledge

8    indiscretion lack of forethought and prudence

9    dear important    pall weaken/become flat and stale

11    Rough-hew carve roughly

14    sea-gown short-sleeved, calf-length sailor’s gown made of coarse material    scarfed wrapped loosely

15    them i.e., Rosencrantz and Guildenstern

16    Fingered stole    in fine finally, in conclusion

21    Larded garnished, interspersed    several various

22    Importing concerning

23    bugs…life terrors to be feared were I to be allowed to continue living    bug hobgoblin, bogeyman

24    supervise reading (of the commission)    leisure bated time wasted

25    stay await

31    benetted round snared, surrounded as if in a net

32    Ere…play i.e., before my brain could begin to consider the issue, I had already taken action

34    fair in elegant handwriting

35    statists statesmen

38    yeoman’s i.e., efficient, loyal (a yeoman was an attendant in a royal household)

39    effect nature

41    conjuration entreaty

42    tributary country owing him a tribute (a regular payment after defeat in war)

44    still always (i.e., continue)    wheaten garland symbolic of peace

45    comma the mark of punctuation that indicated only a slight break between words, thus a symbol of closeness and connection between the two countries    amities friendship

46    ‘As’es phrases beginning with “as” (puns on “asses”)    charge importance/burden (continuing the play on “asses”)

50    shriving-time time for confession and absolution from sin

52    ordinant in control

53    signet signet ring, which acted as a seal

54    model…seal exactly the same as the seal used to secure the commission

55    writ letter/written command

56    Subscribed signed (in Claudius’ name)    th’impression the seal

57    changeling substitution, i.e., false letter (literally a fairy child substituted for a human one)

58    to…sequent followed this

61    make love to court, entreat

62    defeat destruction

63    insinuation ingratiating behavior/intrusive involvement

64    baser of lower social status/inferior

65    pass sword thrust    fell fierce    points swords

66    opposites opponents, enemies

68    Does…upon do you not think that it is now incumbent upon me

70    th’election i.e., the designation as king

71    angle fishing hook and line    proper own

72    cozenage deception (puns on “cousinage”—i.e., kinship)

73    quit requite, repay

74    canker spreading ulcer    come In spread to, generate

77    issue outcome

79    no…‘one’ is only as brief as the time it takes to say “one”

82    by…his i.e., in my situation (having a murdered father) I recognize his also

84    bravery extravagance, ostentatious display

88    water-fly i.e., buzzing insect

90    gracious blessed, fortunate

91    let…mess even if you are an animal yourself, provided that you own a lot of livestock you shall eat at the king’s table (mess)    crib animal’s food receptacle

92    chough jackdaw (i.e., chatterer)/chuff (i.e., rustic, churl)

93    if…leisure i.e., if the two of you have finished talking

95    bonnet hat (usually worn indoors when in company)

99    indifferent moderately

100    complexion constitution

104    remember probably “remember your courtesy,” a way of asking someone to put on their hat

105    for mine ease a polite way of resisting Hamlet’s request

108    rapier long, pointed, double-edged sword (the flexible épée of modern fencing had not yet been invented)

109    well very well, never mind

110    Barbary horses valued North African horses, noted for their speed

111    imponed wagered (impawned; or an affected coinage from the Latin imponere, meaning “to pile or lay on”)    poniards daggers    assigns accessories    as such as    girdle sword belt

112    hangers loops on sword belts, from which the sword was hung; often richly ornamented    carriages an affected word for    hangers dear to fancy pleasing to the fancy/delightfully tasteful

113    responsive…hilts well-matched to the sword handle    delicate finely made    liberal conceit elaborate design

114    call you do you mean by

116    germane relevant

117    cannon…sides “carriage” is the word for the wheeled support on which a cannon is mounted

121    laid wagered    in…nine famously incomprehensible and much-debated wager; Claudius bets that, in a series of twelve rounds, Laertes’ total number of hits will not exceed Hamlet’s by three or more, but it is unclear what is meant by “twelve for nine,” where “he” may be Claudius or Laertes    passes rounds    him i.e., Laertes

123    vouchsafe the answer be pleased to accept the challenge (Hamlet interprets answer more literally as “reply”)

125    opposition…trial presenting of yourself as an opponent in a contest

126    breathing time time for exercise

129    odd occasional/extra three

130    re-deliver you report back what you say

131    after what flourish according to whatever lavish gesture or manner of speaking you choose

132    commend entrust (part of a standard phrase, but Hamlet responds to the sense of “recommend, praise”)

134    for’s turn to do it for him

135    lapwing bird proverbial for youthful precocity as it left the nest soon after being hatched    shell…head may suggest that Osric has just put his hat on

136    comply…dug pay courteous compliments to his mother’s (or nurse’s) nipple

137    bevy company/group of birds    drossy worthless, impure    tune i.e., fashionable speech/general style

138    habit of encounter custom of social interaction/fashionable dress    yeasty frothy    collection i.e., of fashionable words and manners

139    carries them through enables them to successfully pass off/enables them to hold their own among    fond foolish    winnowed selective (literally refers to the blowing away of chaff from grain)    and…out yet test them by blowing on them and the bubbles will burst/test their opinions and they are lost for words

143    at the odds given the odds that have been laid

146    gain-giving misgiving, foreboding

148    repair coming

150    augury prophecy (literally, making predictions based on an interpretation of the behavior of birds)    there’s…sparrow i.e., God’s hand is in every slightest thing—alluding to Matthew 10:29

151    it i.e., his own death

152    readiness i.e., to meet death    has aught of really owns, can take with him

153    betimes early    gauntlets protective gloves used for fencing

157    presence assembly/royal company

160    nature natural feeling/filial loyalty    exception disapproval, objection

167    faction party

170    disclaiming from disavowal, denial of    purposed intentional

171    generous noble-minded/magnanimous

172    That I have as to think that I have

176    my…honour where my honor is concerned

177    will want, will have

179    voice (authoritative) endorsement    peace reconciliation

180    name ungored reputation uninjured

184    frankly freely, with no ill will

187    foil background material used to set off the luster of a jewel (shifting the sense away from “sword”)

189    Stick fiery off stand out and sparkle brilliantly

195    laid the odds backed

197    he is bettered Laertes is considered to be better    odds the advantage (Laertes is handicapped by having to score three hits over Hamlet)

199    likes pleases    have…length are all of the same length

201    stoups cups

203    quit…exchange repays Laertes (for winning the first two bouts) by scoring a hit in the third bout

204    ordnance cannon

205    better breath increased energy and vigor

206    union valuable pearl

209    kettle kettledrum

227    fat may suggest greasy/sweaty, but primary sense is corpulent, overweight

228    napkin handkerchief

229    carouses to toasts

240    pass thrust

241    make…me toy with me/indulge me    wanton spoilt child

244    scuffling fighting at close quarters    change exchange, probably via the maneuver known as “left-hand seizure” (see Introduction, on this page)

250    woodcock proverbially stupid, easily caught birds    springe snare

262    practice plot

271    Drink off drink up, drain    union pearl (plays on the sense of “marriage”)

274    tempered mixed

280    chance mischance/event

281    mutes silent onlookers/actors without speaking parts    act event/theatrical performance

282    fell cruel

283    strict rigorously just/unrelenting, stern    arrest taking into custody/halting (of my words)

285    causes grievances, grounds for revenge

286    unsatisfied uninformed/those who wish to know

288    antique Roman one of the ancient Romans, who viewed suicide as a noble alternative to an unworthy life

295    felicity happiness, bliss

302    o’er-crows triumphs over (an image from cockfighting)

304    th’election i.e., the selection of the next King of Denmark

305    voice vote/support

306    occurrents events

307    solicited prompted this    O…o! a dying groan is represented thus in several plays of the period    colours battle flags

312    would wish to

314    quarry…havoc mound of bodies proclaims total slaughter and destruction    quarry pile of dead game after a hunt

315    toward imminent/being prepared    cell small dwelling

318    dismal ominous/calamitous/depressing

320    The ears i.e., Claudius’ ears

327    jump precisely    question dispute/affair

330    stage platform    view general view

334    accidental judgements punishments happening by chance    casual occurring by chance

335    put on instigated/arranged    forced cause deliberate contrivance/false grounds

336    upshot conclusion, outcome

338    deliver report

342    of memory old/traditional/unforgotten

343    vantage advantage, favorable opportunity

345    voice speaking voice/vote    draw on encourage, rally the support of

346    this same i.e., the displaying of the bodies and explanation of events    presently immediately

347    wild bewildered/agitated

348    On on top of/as a result of

351    put on put to the test (as king)

352    passage journey into death

354    Speak i.e., let them speak

356    Becomes the field suits the battlefield    shows much amiss is very out of place

Second Quarto passages that do not appear in the Folio

5    mote spelled moth in Q2

14    feared = Ed. Q2 = feare

24    clepe spelled clip in Q2

42    often douse = Ed. Q2 = of a doubt

51    An anchor’s = Ed. Q2 = And Anchors

168    spendthrift = Ed. Q2 = spend thirfts

173    feelingly = Q3. Q2 = fellingly (in some copies) sellingly (in other copies)

178    dizzy = Q3. Q2 = dosie (in some copies) dazzie (in other copies)

185    SH OSRIC = F. Q2 = Cour. (for courtier)

THE TRAGEDY OF KING LEAR

Written soon after King James united the thrones of England and Scotland, and performed in his royal presence at Whitehall, King Lear reveals the dire consequences of dividing a united kingdom. In principle, the aged Lear’s decision to take voluntary retirement does not seem a bad thing: he is losing his grip on matters of state, his daughters and sons-in-law are “younger strengths” with more energy for government, and, most importantly, the division is intended to prevent a future civil war between rival claimants, which would have been a definite possibility in the absence of a son who would automatically inherit the whole kingdom. But can an anointed king abnegate his role at will? If he does, he certainly should not expect to retain the trappings of power. Goneril and Regan have a case for stripping him of his rowdy, extravagant retinue of one hundred knights.

Lear’s mistake is to link the division of the kingdom to a public show of affection. The two older sisters, well versed in the “glib and oily art” of courtly flattery, tell him what he wants to hear, but Cordelia cannot. She is one of the play’s truth tellers and simply lacks the capacity or the experience to dress her love in fine rhetoric. Lear knows that she loves him best, but we may assume that until this moment her love has always been expressed privately. As the youngest and unmarried daughter, Cordelia has probably never spoken publicly before the court. Lear’s intention for the opening scene is that it will be Cordelia’s coming out: she is supposed to give public expression to her great love and in return she will be rewarded with the richest portion of the kingdom and the most-prized husband. He does not bargain on her inability to play the role in which he has cast her. Kings and earls do not necessarily have to be blind to true virtue—witness the examples of Kent and France—but Lear, too long used to having his own way and hearing only the words of flatterers, has blinded himself. Only when he has been stripped of the fine clothes and fine words of the court, and has heard truth in the mouths of a fool and a (supposed) Bedlam beggar, does he find out what it really means to be human.

Where Macbeth and Othello are focused tightly upon a single plot line, the action of Lear greatly extends the technique of parallel plotting with which Shakespeare had experimented in Hamlet, where Laertes and Fortinbras serve as foils to the hero. In Lear, the Gloucester family plot is a sustained presence. Gloucester is another father who is blind to the true nature of his children; that blindness leads, in Shakespeare’s cruelest literalization of metaphor, to the plucking out of his eyes. Edmund corresponds to the wicked daughters; several of the play’s many letters pass between them. It is wholly appropriate that he should end up promised to them both. Like the king’s favorite daughter Cordelia, Edgar (who is the king’s godson) is unjustly exiled from home and excluded from parental care. It is fitting to the parallel structure of the twin plots that the play ends in the Folio version with him returning to take the reins of power, just as there is a certain, though very different, logic to Nahum Tate’s infamous Restoration-period rewrite with a happy ending, in which Edgar is married off to Cordelia.

Shakespeare never takes one side of a question. In the very opening lines of the play we discover that it is Edmund who has previously been unjustly exiled from home and excluded from parental care. Kent, the play’s best judge of character, initially describes Edmund as “proper”: he has the bearing of a gentleman, but his illegitimacy has deprived him of the benefits of society. Edmund’s first soliloquy makes a good case for the unfairness of a social order that practices primogeniture and stigmatizes bastardy; his discovery near the moment of death that “Edmund was beloved” is curiously touching. He is not, then, an uncomplicated stage “machiavel,” an embodiment of pure, unmotivated evil.

Astrology and astronomy were synonymous in the Elizabethan age: the signs of the times were read in the signs of the skies. King Lear is a play about bad times. The state drifts rudderless, child turns against parent, the clouds of war gather, the king and all around him totter on the brink of the abyss. So it is that Gloucester blames it all on the stars: “These late eclipses in the sun and moon portend no good to us.” Edmund, however, disputes this: “an admirable evasion of whoremaster man, to lay his goatish disposition on the charge of a star!” He argues that things often regarded as the product of the “natural order” are actually shaped by “custom”—for him, primogeniture and legitimacy would come into this category. The position articulated here is close to that of the sixteenth-century French essayist Michel de Montaigne in the closing section of his Apology of Raymond Sebond: any custom abhorred or outlawed by one nation is sure to be praised or practiced by another. But if you have nothing save custom, no divinely sanctioned hierarchy, then where does your value system come from? Montaigne’s answer is blind faith in God, whereas Edmund, like an apologist before his time for the political philosophy of Thomas Hobbes, commits himself to “nature” as a principle of survival and self-seeking.

Gloucester’s philosophical orientation, meanwhile, turns toward the stoic idea of finding the right timing for death. After his mock suicide he says, “henceforth I’ll bear / Affliction till it do cry out itself / ‘Enough, enough’ and die.” But he cannot sustain this position: when Lear and Cordelia lose the battle, he is found in “ill thoughts again,” wanting to rot. Edgar responds with more stoic advice: “Men must endure / Their going hence, even as their coming hither: / Ripeness is all.” But this idea of ripe timing doesn’t work out: by mistiming the revelation of his own identity to Gloucester, Edgar precipitates his father’s death.

The play’s pattern, then, is of stoic comfort not working. At the beginning of the fourth act Edgar reflects on his own condition and cheers himself up with thoughts about the worst, but then his father comes on blinded and he is instantly confounded—things are worse than before. If the case of Edgar reveals the deficiency of stoic comfort, that of Albany demonstrates the inadequacy of belief in divine justice. His credo is that the good shall taste “the wages of their virtue” and the bad drink from the poisoned “cup of their deservings.” This scheme works for the bad, but not for the good. In the closing scene, Albany tries to orchestrate events, to make order out of chaos, but each of his resolutions is followed by new disaster: he greets the restored Edgar, then immediately hears the news of Gloucester’s death, then the news of the two queens’ deaths; then Kent comes on, dying; then in response to the news that Cordelia is to be hanged, Albany says “The gods defend her!,” only for Lear to enter with her in his arms already hanged. The gods have not defended her. Then Albany tries to give power back to Lear—and he promptly dies. Then he tries to persuade Kent and Edgar to divide the kingdom, and Kent promptly goes off to die.

The final lines of the play—given to different speakers in the Quarto and Folio versions of the text—suggest that the lesson has been learnt that stoic comfort will not do, that it is better to “speak what we feel” than “what we ought to say.” The Folio’s ascription of this speech to Edgar makes more dramatic sense than the Quarto’s to Albany, since Edgar’s stripping down in Act 3 is an exposure to feeling, occurring in conjunction with Lear’s feeling with and for the poor, which makes him the character better prepared to voice this sentiment.

The stoic philosopher tries to be ruled by reason rather than passion. But for the great sixteenth-century humanist Desiderius Erasmus in his Praise of Folly, there is inhumanity in the notion that to be wise you must suppress the emotions. The most important thing is to “feel”—as Gloucester has to learn, to see the world not rationally but “feelingly.” Erasmus’ Folly points out that friendship is among the highest human values, and it depends on emotion. The people who show friendship to Lear (Fool, Kent disguised as Caius, Edgar disguised as Poor Tom and then as Peasant) and to Gloucester (Servants, Old Man) are not the wise or the rich.

We are ruled by our passions and our bodies; we go through life performing a series of different roles of which we are by no means in control. “All this life of mortal men, what is it else but a certain kind of stage play?” asks Erasmus’ Folly. Lear echoes the sentiment: “When we are born, we cry that we are come / To this great stage of fools.” In the great theater of the world, with the gods as audience, we are the fools on stage. Under the aspect of Folly, we see that a king is no different from any other man. The trappings of monarchy are but a costume: this is both Folly’s and Lear’s discovery.

The play ends on a note of apocalypse, millennial doom. A trumpet sounds three times to announce the final showdown. Then when Lear enters with his beloved daughter dead in his arms, loyal Kent asks “Is this the promised end?” He is thinking of Doomsday, but the line is also a sly allusion on Shakespeare’s part: in all previous versions of the Lear story, several of which would have been familiar to members of his audience, Cordelia survives and Lear is restored to the throne. The death of Cordelia is all the more painful because it is not the end “promised” by previous literary and theatrical tradition.

King Lear is a play full of questions. The big ones go unanswered. The biggest of all is Lear’s “Why should a dog, a horse, a rat have life, / And thou no breath at all?” In this world, there is no rhyme nor reason, no pattern of divine justice. Here again, Shakespeare departs strikingly from his source, the old anonymous play of King Leir, in which Christian providence prevails. Shakespeare reimagines his material in a bleak pagan world. In this, he not only looks back to the past, but also anticipates a future that is ours—a time when the old religious hierarchies and moral certainties have been stripped away.

But in a strange way an answer is to be found in Edgar’s reply to Kent’s line about the promised end. A question is answered with a question: “Or image of that horror?” It’s not really the end of the world; it’s an image of the end. Hamlet said that the player holds up a mirror to nature, but in King Lear we are reminded again and again that what you see in a mirror is an image, not the thing itself. Gloucester doesn’t really jump off the cliff: it’s all an elaborate game, designed by Edgar to teach his father a lesson. In uncertain times, we need images, games, and experiments as ways of trying to make sense of our world. We need plays. That is why, four centuries on, we keep going back to Shakespeare and his dazzling mirror-world in which everyone is a player.

Looked at in one way, the world of King Lear, with its images of doom, its mad king, its scheming ugly sisters, its fool, and its (pretend) mad Bedlam beggar, could not be further from ordinary life. But looked at another way, it is an image of ordinary things, but seen in extremity. It is a play that has more time for a language of ordinary things—garden water pots, wrens, and toasted cheese—than for the glib and oily art of courtly speech.

So is the whole play, like the “Dover cliff” scene, an elaborate game designed by Shakespeare to teach us a lesson? Only if we think of it as a lesson in feeling, not high-minded judgment. To be truly responsive to the play we must, as the final speech has it, “Speak what we feel, not what we ought to say.” To be human is to see feelingly, not to fall back on easy moralizing, the “ought to say” that characterizes people like Albany. And seeing feelingly has to do with our sympathetic response to the images that confront us, both on the stage and in the great theater of the world. Lear becomes human when he stops caring about one kind of image (the glorious trappings of monarchy) and instead confronts another: the image of raw human being, of a fool, and a Bedlam beggar, of poor naked wretches. Come the last trump, the play tells us, we will be judged by our fellow feeling for the dispossessed, not our status in society. In this, as in so much else, Shakespeare speaks not only for his own age, but for ours.

KEY FACTS

PLOT: Lear, King of Britain, decides to abdicate and divide his kingdom among his three daughters. When his beloved youngest, Cordelia, refuses to make a public declaration of love for her father she is disinherited and married to the King of France without a dowry. The Earl of Kent is banished by Lear for daring to defend her. The two elder daughters, Goneril and Regan, and their husbands inherit the kingdom. Gloucester, deceived by his bastard son Edmund, disinherits his legitimate son, Edgar, who is forced to go on the run to save his life. Lear, now stripped of his power, quarrels with Goneril and Regan about the conditions of his lodging in their households. In a rage he goes out into the stormy night, accompanied by his Fool and by Kent, now disguised as a servant. They encounter Edgar, disguised as a mad beggar called “Poor Tom.” Gloucester is betrayed by Edmund and captured by Regan and Cornwall, who put out his eyes. King Lear is taken secretly to Dover, where Cordelia has landed with a French army. The blind Gloucester meets but does not recognize Edgar, who leads him to Dover. Lear and Cordelia are reconciled, but in the ensuing battle are captured by the sisters’ forces. Goneril and Regan are both in love with Edmund, who encourages them both. Discovering this, Goneril’s husband Albany forces Edmund to defend himself against the charge of treachery. A knight appears to challenge Edmund and, after fatally wounding him, reveals himself to be Edgar. News comes that Goneril has poisoned Regan and then committed suicide. Before dying, Edmund reveals that he has ordered the deaths of Lear and Cordelia.

MAJOR PARTS: (with percentage of lines/number of speeches/scenes on stage) Lear (22%/188/10), Edgar (11%/98/10), Earl of Kent (11%/127/12), Earl of Gloucester (10%/118/12), Edmund (9%/79/9), Fool (7%/58/6), Goneril (6%/53/8), Regan (5%/73/8), Duke of Albany (5%/58/5), Cordelia (3%/31/4), Duke of Cornwall (3%/63/5), Oswald (2%/38/7).

LINGUISTIC MEDIUM: 75% verse, 25% prose.

DATE: 1605–06. Performed at court December 1606; draws on old Leir play (published 1605); seems to refer to eclipses of September and October 1605; borrows from books by Samuel Harsnett and John Florio that were published in 1603.

SOURCES: Based on The True Chronicle Historie of King Leir and his Three Daughters, an old play of unknown authorship that was in the London theatrical repertoire in the early 1590s, but makes many changes, including alteration of providential Christian to pagan language and the introduction of a tragic ending. The Lear story also appeared in other sources familiar to Shakespeare: The Mirrour for Magistrates (edition of 1574), Holinshed’s Chronicles (1587), and book 2 canto 10 of Edmund Spenser’s epic poem The Faerie Queene (1590). In all versions of the story before Shakespeare’s, there is a “romance” ending whereby the old king is restored to his daughter Cordelia and to the throne. The Gloucester subplot is derived from the story of the Paphlagonian king in book 2 chapter 10 of The Countess of Pembroke’s Arcadia by Sir Philip Sidney (1590): a blind old man is led to the top of a cliff from where he contemplates suicide because he has been deceived by his bastard son; the good son returns and encounters the bad one in a chivalric duel. The story was intended to exemplify both “true natural goodness” and “wretched ungratefulness”; a few chapters later (2.15), Sidney tells of a different credulous king who is tricked into mistrusting his virtuous son. The characters of “Poor Tom” and the Fool are entirely Shakespearean creations, though some of the language of demonic possession feigned by Edgar is borrowed from Samuel Harsnett’s Declaration of Egregious Popish Impostures (1603), a work of propaganda about Catholic plots and faked exorcisms that Shakespeare probably read because of the Stratford origins of one of the exorcizing priests, Robert Debdale. The language of the play and some of its philosophical ideas reveal that Shakespeare had also been reading The Essayes of Montaigne in John Florio’s English translation (1603).

TEXT: Published in Quarto in 1608 under the title M. William Shak-speare: HIS True Chronicle Historie of the life and death of King LEAR and his three Daughters. With the vnfortunate life of Edgar, sonne and heire to the Earle of Gloster, and his sullen and assumed humor of TOM of Bedlam: As it was played before the Kings Maiestie at Whitehall vpon S. Stephans night in Christmas Hollidayes. By his Maiesties seruants playing vsually at the Gloabe on the Bancke-side. This text was very poorly printed, partly because its printer (Nicholas Okes) was unaccustomed to setting plays and also because it seems to derive from Shakespeare’s own working manuscript, which would have been difficult to read. Quarto includes about 300 lines that are not in the 1623 Folio text, which was entitled “The Tragedy of King Lear” and has clear signs of derivation from the theatrical playbook (though, to complicate matters, the Folio printing was also influenced by a reprint of the Quarto that appeared in 1619 as one of the ten plays published by Thomas Pavier in an attempt to produce a collected Shakespeare). The Folio in turn has about 100 lines that are not in the Quarto, and nearly 1,000 lines have variations of word or phrase. The two early texts thus represent two different stages in the life of the play, with extensive revision having been carried out, either systematically or incrementally. Revisions include diminution of the prominence given to the invading French army (perhaps for political reasons), clarification of Lear’s motives for dividing his kingdom, and weakening of the role of Albany (including reassignment from him to Edgar of the play’s closing speech, and thus by implication—since it was a convention of Shakespearean tragedy that the new man in power always has the last word—of the right to rule Britain). Among the more striking cuts are the mock trial of Goneril in the hovel and the moment of compassion when loyal servants apply a palliative to Gloucester’s bleeding eyes. For centuries, editors have conflated the Quarto and Folio texts, creating a play that Shakespeare never wrote. We endorse the body of scholarship since the 1980s and the new editorial tradition in which Folio and Quarto are regarded as discrete entities. We have edited the more theatrical Folio text, but have corrected its errors (which are plentiful, since much of it was set in type by “Compositor E,” the apprentice who was by far the worst printer in Isaac Jaggard’s shop). The influence of Quarto copy on the Folio is of great assistance in making these corrections. Textual notes are perforce more numerous than for any other work by Shakespeare; several hundred Quarto variants are listed. All the most significant Quarto-only passages are printed at the end of the play.

THE TRAGEDY OF KING LEAR

LEAR, King of Britain

GONERIL, Lear’s eldest daughter

REGAN, Lear’s middle daughter

CORDELIA, Lear’s youngest daughter

Duke of ALBANY, Goneril’s husband

Duke of CORNWALL, Regan’s husband

King of FRANCE, suitor and later husband to Cordelia

Duke of BURGUNDY, suitor to Cordelia

Earl of KENT, later disguised as Caius

Earl of GLOUCESTER

EDGAR, Gloucester’s son, later disguised as Poor Tom

EDMUND, Gloucester’s illegitimate son

OLD MAN, Gloucester’s tenant

CURAN, Gloucester’s retainer

Lear’s FOOL

OSWALD, Goneril’s steward

GENTLEMAN, a Knight serving Lear

GENTLEMAN, attendant on Cordelia

SERVANT of Cornwall

HERALD

CAPTAIN

Knights attendant upon Lear, other Attendants, Messengers, Soldiers, Servants and Trumpeters

Act 1 Scene 11.1

running scene 1

Enter Kent, Gloucester and Edmund

KENTI thought the king had more affected[1] the Duke of Albany than Cornwall.

GLOUCESTERIt did always seem so to us: but now in the division of the kingdom it appears not which of the dukes he values most, for qualities[3] are so weighed that curiosity in neither can make choice of either’s moiety.

KENTIs not this your son, my lord?

GLOUCESTERHis breeding,[6] sir, hath been at my charge. I have so often blushed to acknowledge him that now I am brazed[7] to’t.

KENTI cannot conceive[8] you.

GLOUCESTERSir, this young fellow’s mother could; whereupon she grew round-wombed and had indeed, sir, a son for her cradle ere[10] she had a husband for her bed. Do you smell a fault?[11]

KENTI cannot wish the fault undone,[12] the issue of it being so proper.

GLOUCESTERBut I have a son, sir, by[13] order of law, some year elder than this, who yet is no dearer[14] in my account, though this knave came something saucily to the world before he was sent for: yet was his mother fair, there was good sport at his making and the whoreson[16] must be acknowledged.— Do you know this noble gentleman, Edmund?

EDMUNDNo, my lord.

GLOUCESTERMy lord of Kent: remember him hereafter as my honourable friend.

EDMUNDMy services to your lordship.

KENTI must love you, and sue[21] to know you better.

EDMUNDSir, I shall study deserving.[22]

GLOUCESTERHe hath been out[23] nine years, and away he shall again. The king is coming.

Sennet. Enter [one bearing a coronet, then] King Lear, Cornwall, Albany, Goneril, Regan, Cordelia and Attendants

LEARAttend[25] the lords of France and Burgundy, Gloucester.

GLOUCESTERI shall, my lord.

Exit

LEARMeantime we shall express our darker[27] purpose.

Give me the map there. Kent or an Attendant gives Lear a map

Know that we have divided

In three our kingdom, and ’tis our fast intent[29]

30

To shake all cares and business[30] from our age,

Conferring them on younger strengths while we

Unburdened crawl toward death. Our son[32] of Cornwall,

And you our no less loving son of Albany,

We have this hour a constant will[34] to publish

35

Our daughters’ several dowers,[35] that future strife

May be prevented now. The princes, France and Burgundy,

Great rivals in our youngest daughter’s love,

Long in our court have made their amorous sojourn[38]

And here are to be answered. Tell me, my daughters —

40

Since now we will divest us both of rule,

Interest[41] of territory, cares of state —

Which of you shall we say doth love us most,

That we our largest bounty[43] may extend

Where nature[44] doth with merit challenge? Goneril,

45

Our eldest born, speak first.

GONERILSir, I love you more than word can wield[46] the matter,

Dearer than eyesight, space and liberty,

Beyond what can be valued rich or rare,

No less than life, with grace,[49] health, beauty, honour:

50

As much as child e’er loved or father found:

A love that makes breath poor[51] and speech unable:

Beyond all[52] manner of so much I love you.

CORDELIAWhat shall Cordelia speak? Love and be silent. Aside

LEAROf all these bounds,[54] even from this line to this, Points to the map

55

With shadowy[55] forests and with champaigns riched,

With plenteous rivers and wide-skirted meads,[56]

We make thee lady. To thine and Albany’s issues

Be this perpetual.— What says our second daughter?

Our dearest Regan, wife of Cornwall?

60

REGAN I am made of that self-mettle[60] as my sister,

And prize[61] me at her worth. In my true heart,

I find she names my very deed[62] of love:

Only she comes too short, that[63] I profess

Myself an enemy to all other joys

65

Which the most precious square of sense[65] professes,

And find I am alone felicitate[66]

In your dear highness’ love.

CORDELIAThen poor Cordelia: Aside

And yet not so, since I am sure my love’s

70

More ponderous[70] than my tongue.

LEARTo thee and thine hereditary[71] ever

Remain this ample third of our fair kingdom,

No less in space, validity[73] and pleasure

Than that conferred on Goneril.— Now, our joy, To Cordelia

75

Although our last and least, to whose young love

The vines[76] of France and milk of Burgundy

Strive to be interessed,[77] what can you say to draw

A third more opulent than your sisters’? Speak.

CORDELIANothing, my lord.

80

LEARNothing?

CORDELIANothing.

LEARNothing will come of nothing: speak again.

CORDELIAUnhappy that I am, I cannot heave

My heart into my mouth: I love your majesty

85

According to my bond,[85] no more nor less.

LEARHow, how, Cordelia? Mend[86] your speech a little,

Lest you may mar[87] your fortunes.

CORDELIAGood my lord,

You have begot[89] me, bred me, loved me:

90

I return those duties back as are right fit,

Obey you, love you and most honour you.

Why have my sisters husbands if they say

They love you all? Happily when I shall wed,

That lord whose hand must take my plight[94] shall carry

95

Half my love with him, half my care and duty:

Sure I shall never marry like my sisters.

LEARBut goes thy heart with this?

CORDELIAAy, my good lord.

LEARSo young and so untender?[99]

100

CORDELIASo young, my lord, and true.

LEARLet it be so: thy truth then be thy dower,

For by the sacred radiance of the sun,

The mysteries of Hecate[103] and the night,

By all the operation[104] of the orbs

105

From whom we do exist and cease to be,

Here I disclaim all my paternal care,

Propinquity[107] and property of blood,

And as a stranger to my heart and me

Hold thee from this[109] for ever. The barbarous Scythian,

110

Or he that makes his generation[110] messes

To gorge his appetite, shall to my bosom

Be as well neighboured,[112] pitied and relieved

As thou my sometime[113] daughter.

KENTGood my liege[114]—

115

LEARPeace, Kent:

Come not between the dragon and his wrath.

I loved her most, and thought to set my rest[117]

On her kind[118] nursery.— Hence, and avoid my sight!— To Cordelia

So be my grave my peace, as here I give

120

Her father’s heart from her. Call France. Who stirs?[120]

Call Burgundy.— Cornwall and Albany,

[Exit Attendant]

With my two daughters’ dowers digest[122] the third.

Let pride, which she calls plainness,[123] marry her.

I do invest you jointly with my power,

125

Pre-eminence, and all the large effects[125]

That troop with[126] majesty. Ourself by monthly course,

With reservation of[127] an hundred knights

By you to be sustained,[128] shall our abode

Make with you by due turn: only we shall retain

130

The name and all th’addition to[130] a king: the sway,

Revenue, execution of the rest,

Belovèd sons, be yours, which to confirm,

This coronet part between you. Gives them coronet to break in half

KENTRoyal Lear,

135

Whom I have ever honoured as my king,

Loved as my father, as my master followed,

As my great patron thought on in my prayers—

LEARThe bow is bent and drawn, make[138] from the shaft.

KENTLet it fall rather, though the fork[139] invade

140

The region of my heart: be Kent unmannerly

When Lear is mad. What wouldst thou[141] do, old man?

Think’st thou that duty shall have dread to speak

When power to flattery bows? To plainness honour’s bound

When majesty falls to folly. Reserve thy state,[144]

145

And in[145] thy best consideration check

This hideous rashness. Answer[146] my life my judgement:

Thy youngest daughter does not love thee least,

Nor are those empty-hearted whose low sounds

Reverb no hollowness.[149]

150

LEARKent, on thy life, no more.

KENTMy life I never held[151] but as pawn

To wage[152] against thine enemies, ne’er fear to lose it,

Thy safety being motive.

LEAROut of my sight!

155

KENTSee better, Lear, and let me still remain

The true blank[156] of thine eye.

LEARNow, by Apollo[157]—

KENTNow, by Apollo, king,

Thou swear’st thy gods in vain.

160

LEARO, vassal![160] Miscreant! Puts his hand on his sword or attacks Kent

ALBANY and CORDELIADear sir, forbear.[161]

KENTKill[162] thy physician, and thy fee bestow

Upon the foul disease. Revoke thy gift,

Or whilst I can vent clamour from my throat,

165

I’ll tell thee thou dost evil.

LEARHear me, recreant,[166] on thine allegiance hear me!

That[167] thou hast sought to make us break our vows,

Which we durst[168] never yet, and with strained pride

To come betwixt our sentences[169] and our power,

170

Which nor[170] our nature nor our place can bear,

Our potency[171] made good, take thy reward:

Five days we do allot thee for provision

To shield thee from disasters[173] of the world,

And on the sixth to turn thy hated back

175

Upon our kingdom: if on the next day following

Thy banished trunk[176] be found in our dominions,

The moment is thy death. Away! By Jupiter,[177]

This shall not be revoked.

KENTFare thee well, king: sith[179] thus thou wilt appear,

180

Freedom lives hence and banishment is here.—

The gods to their dear shelter take thee, maid, To Cordelia

That justly think’st, and hast most rightly said.—

And your[183] large speeches may your deeds approve, To Goneril and Regan

That good effects may spring from words of love.

185

Thus Kent, O princes, bids you all adieu.

He’ll shape[186] his old course in a country new.

Exit

Flourish. Enter Gloucester with France and Burgundy, Attendants

CORDELIAHere’s France and Burgundy, my noble lord.

LEAR My lord of Burgundy,

We first address toward you, who with this king

190

Hath rivalled[190] for our daughter: what in the least

Will you require in present dower[191] with her,

Or cease your quest of love?

BURGUNDYMost royal majesty,

I crave no more than hath your highness offered,

195

Nor will you tender[195] less.

LEAR Right noble Burgundy,

When she was dear to us, we did hold her so,[197]

But now her price is fallen. Sir, there she stands:

If aught[199] within that little seeming substance,

200

Or all of it, with our displeasure pieced,[200]

And nothing more, may fitly like[201] your grace,

She’s there, and she is yours.

BURGUNDYI know no answer.

LEAR Will you, with those infirmities[204] she owes,

205

Unfriended, new-adopted to our hate,

Dowered with[206] our curse and strangered with our oath,

Take her or leave her?

BURGUNDYPardon me, royal sir:

Election[209] makes not up in such conditions.

210

LEAR Then leave her, sir, for by the power that made me,

I tell you[211] all her wealth.— For you, great king, To France

I would not from[212] your love make such a stray

To match you where I hate, therefore beseech you

T’avert your liking a more worthier way

215

Than on a wretch whom nature is ashamed

Almost t’acknowledge hers.

FRANCEThis is most strange,

That she whom even but now was your object,[218]

The argument[219] of your praise, balm of your age,

220

The best, the dearest, should in this trice[220] of time

Commit a thing so monstrous[221] to dismantle

So many folds of favour. Sure her offence

Must be of such unnatural degree

That monsters it,[224] or your fore-vouched affection

225

Fall into taint,[225] which to believe of her

Must be a faith that reason without miracle

Should never plant in me.

CORDELIAI yet beseech your majesty —

If for[229] I want that glib and oily art

230

To speak and purpose not,[230] since what I will intend

I’ll do’t before I speak — that you make known

It is no vicious blot, murder, or foulness,[232]

No unchaste action or dishonoured step

That hath deprived me of your grace and favour,

235

But even for want of that for which[235] I am richer:

A still-soliciting[236] eye and such a tongue

That I am glad I have not, though not to have it

Hath lost me in your liking.

LEAR Better thou hadst

240

Not been born than not t’have pleased me better.

FRANCEIs it but this? A tardiness in nature,[241]

Which often leaves the history[242] unspoke

That it intends to do? My lord of Burgundy,

What say you to the lady? Love’s not love

245

When it is mingled with regards[245] that stands

Aloof from th’entire point. Will you have her?

She is herself a dowry.

BURGUNDY Royal king, To Lear

Give but that portion which yourself proposed,

250

And here I take Cordelia by the hand,

Duchess of Burgundy.

LEAR Nothing: I have sworn: I am firm.

BURGUNDYI am sorry, then, you have so lost a father To Cordelia

That you must lose a husband.

255

CORDELIAPeace be with Burgundy.

Since that respect and fortunes[256] are his love,

I shall not be his wife.

FRANCEFairest Cordelia, that art most rich being poor,

Most choice forsaken,[259] and most loved despised,

260

Thee and thy virtues here I seize upon:[260]

Be it lawful,[261] I take up what’s cast away. Takes her hand

Gods, gods! ’Tis strange that from their[262] cold’st neglect

My love should kindle to inflamed[263] respect.—

Thy dowerless daughter, king, thrown[264] to my chance,

265

Is queen of us, of ours and our fair France:

Not all the dukes of wat’rish[266] Burgundy

Can buy this unprized[267] precious maid of me.—

Bid them farewell, Cordelia, though unkind.[268]

Thou losest here, a better where[269] to find.

270

LEARThou hast her, France: let her be thine, for we

Have no such daughter, nor shall ever see

That face of hers again. Therefore be gone

Without our grace,[273] our love, our benison.

Come, noble Burgundy.

Flourish. Exeunt. [France and the sisters remain]

275

FRANCEBid farewell to your sisters.

CORDELIAThe jewels of our father, with washèd[276] eyes

Cordelia leaves you. I know you what you are,

And like a sister am most loath to call

Your faults as[279] they are named. Love well our father:

280

To your professèd bosoms[280] I commit him,

But yet, alas, stood I within his grace,

I would prefer[282] him to a better place.

So farewell to you both.

REGANPrescribe not us our duty.

285

GONERILLet your study[285]

Be to content your lord who hath received you

At fortune’s alms.[287] You have obedience scanted,

And well are[288] worth the want that you have wanted.

CORDELIATime shall unfold what plighted cunning[289] hides:

290

Who[289] covers faults, at last with shame derides.

Well may you prosper.

FRANCECome, my fair Cordelia.

Exit France and Cordelia

GONERILSister, it is not little I have to say of what most nearly[293] appertains to us both. I think our father will hence tonight.

REGANThat’s most certain, and with you: next month with us.

GONERILYou see how full of changes his age is: the observation we have made of it hath not been little. He always loved our sister most, and with what poor judgement he hath now cast her off appears too grossly.[298]

REGAN’Tis the infirmity of his age: yet he hath ever[299] but slenderly known himself.

GONERILThe[300] best and soundest of his time hath been but rash. Then must we look from his age to receive not alone the imperfections of long-engrafted condition,[301] but therewithal[302] the unruly waywardness that infirm and choleric years bring with them.

REGANSuch unconstant starts[304] are we like to have from him as this of Kent’s banishment.

GONERILThere is further compliment[306] of leave-taking between France and him. Pray you let us sit together:[307] if our father carry authority with such disposition as he bears, this last surrender[308] of his will but offend us.

REGANWe shall further think of it.

GONERILWe must do something, and i’th’heat.[310]

Exeunt

Act 1 Scene 21.2

running scene 2

Enter Bastard [Edmund] With a letter

EDMUNDThou, nature, art my goddess: to thy law

My services are bound. Wherefore[2] should I

Stand in[3] the plague of custom and permit

The curiosity[4] of nations to deprive me

5

For that I am some twelve or fourteen moonshines[5]

Lag of[6] a brother? Why bastard? Wherefore base?

When my dimensions[7] are as well compact,

My mind as generous,[8] and my shape as true,

As honest madam’s issue?[9] Why brand they us

10

With base? With baseness? Bastardy? Base, base?

Who[11] in the lusty stealth of nature take

More[12] composition and fierce quality

Than doth within a dull, stale, tirèd bed,

Go to th’creating a whole tribe of fops[14]

15

Got[15] ’tween a sleep and wake? Well then,

Legitimate Edgar, I[18] must have your land:

Our father’s love is to the bastard Edmund

As to th’legitimate — fine word, ‘legitimate’ —

Well, my legitimate, if this letter speed[19]

20

And my invention[20] thrive, Edmund the base

Shall to th’legitimate.[21] I grow, I prosper:

Now, gods, stand up for bastards!

Enter Gloucester

GLOUCESTERKent banished thus? And France in choler[23] parted?

And the king gone tonight? Prescribed[24] his power,

25

Confined to exhibition?[25] All this done

Upon the gad?[26] Edmund, how now? What news?

EDMUNDSo please your lordship, none. Hides the letter

GLOUCESTERWhy so earnestly seek you to put up[28] that letter?

EDMUNDI know no news, my lord.

GLOUCESTERWhat paper were you reading?

EDMUNDNothing, my lord.

GLOUCESTERNo? What needed, then, that terrible dispatch[32] of it into your pocket? The quality of nothing hath not such need to hide itself. Let’s see: come, if it be nothing I shall not need spectacles.

EDMUNDI beseech you, sir, pardon me: it is a letter from my brother that I have not all o’er-read; and for[36] so much as I have perused, I find it not fit for your o’erlooking.[37]

GLOUCESTERGive me the letter, sir.

EDMUNDI shall offend either to detain or give it: the contents, as in part I understand them, are to blame.

GLOUCESTERLet’s see, let’s see. Edmund gives the letter

EDMUNDI hope for my brother’s justification he wrote this but as an essay or taste[42] of my virtue.

GLOUCESTERReads ‘This policy[44] and reverence of age makes the world bitter to the best of our times, keeps our fortunes[45] from us till our oldness cannot relish them. I begin to find an idle[46] and fond bondage in the oppression of aged tyranny, who sways,[47] not as it hath power, but as it is suffered. Come to me, that of this I may speak more. If our father would sleep till I waked him, you should enjoy half his revenue for ever and live the beloved of your brother, Edgar.’

Hum! Conspiracy! ‘Sleep till I wake him, you should enjoy half his revenue.’ My son Edgar? Had he a hand to write this? A heart and brain to breed it in? When came you to this? Who brought it?

EDMUNDIt was not brought me, my lord; there’s the cunning of it: I found it thrown in at the casement[54] of my closet.

GLOUCESTERYou know the character[55] to be your brother’s?

EDMUNDIf the matter[56] were good, my lord, I durst swear it were his, but in respect of that I would fain[57] think it were not.

GLOUCESTERIt is his.

EDMUNDIt is his hand, my lord, but I hope his heart is not in the contents.

GLOUCESTERHas he never before sounded you in this business?

EDMUNDNever, my lord: but I have heard him oft maintain it to be fit that, sons at perfect age[61] and fathers declined,[62] the father should be as ward to the son, and the son manage his revenue.

GLOUCESTERO villain, villain! His very opinion in the letter! Abhorred villain! Unnatural, detested, brutish villain! Worse than brutish! Go, sirrah,[65] seek him: I’ll apprehend[66] him. Abominable villain, where is he?

EDMUNDI do not well know, my lord. If it shall please you to suspend your indignation against my brother till you can derive from him better testimony of his intent, you should run[69] a certain course, where, if you violently proceed against him, mistaking his purpose, it would make a great gap in your own honour and shake in pieces the heart of his obedience. I dare pawn down[71] my life for him, that he hath writ this to feel[72] my affection to your honour, and to no other pretence of danger.

GLOUCESTERThink you so?

EDMUNDIf your honour judge it meet,[75] I will place you where you shall hear us confer of this, and by an auricular assurance[76] have your satisfaction, and that without any further delay than this very evening.

GLOUCESTERHe cannot be such a monster. Edmund, seek him out: wind[78] me into him, I pray you: frame[79] the business after your own wisdom. I would unstate myself to be in a due resolution.

EDMUNDI will seek him, sir, presently:[81] convey the business as I shall find means and acquaint you withal.[82]

GLOUCESTERThese late[83] eclipses in the sun and moon portend no good to us: though the wisdom of nature[84] can reason it thus and thus, yet nature finds itself scourged by the sequent effects:[85] love cools, friendship falls off, brothers divide: in cities, mutinies; in countries, discord; in palaces, treason; and the bond cracked ’twixt son and father. This villain of mine comes under the prediction: there’s son against father. The king falls from bias of nature:[88] there’s father against child. We have seen the best of our time: machinations, hollowness, treachery, and all ruinous disorders follow us disquietly to our graves. Find out this villain, Edmund: it[91] shall lose thee nothing. Do it carefully.— And the noble and true-hearted Kent banished! His offence, honesty! ’Tis strange.

Exit

EDMUNDThis is the excellent foppery[93] of the world, that when we are sick in fortune — often the surfeits[94] of our own behaviour — we make guilty of our disasters the sun, the moon[95] and stars, as if we were villains on necessity, fools by heavenly compulsion, knaves, thieves and treachers[96] by spherical predominance, drunkards, liars and adulterers by an enforced obedience of planetary influence, and all that we are evil in, by a divine[98] thrusting on: an admirable evasion[99] of whoremaster man, to lay his goatish disposition on the charge of a star! My father compounded[100] with my mother under the dragon’s tail and my nativity was under Ursa Major,[101] so that it follows I am rough and lecherous. I should have been that I am had the maidenliest[102] star in the firmament twinkled on my bastardizing.[103]

Enter Edgar

Pat[104] he comes like the catastrophe of the old comedy: my cue is villainous melancholy, with a sigh like Tom o’Bedlam.[105]— O, these eclipses do portend these divisions![106] Fa, sol, la, mi.

EDGARHow now, brother Edmund, what serious contemplation are you in?

EDMUNDI am thinking, brother, of a prediction I read this[108] other day, what should follow these eclipses.

EDGARDo you busy yourself with that?

EDMUNDI promise you, the effects he writes of succeed[111] unhappily. When saw you my father last?

EDGARThe night gone by.

EDMUNDSpake you with him?

EDGARAy, two hours together.

EDMUNDParted you in good terms? Found you no displeasure in him by word nor countenance?[117]

EDGARNone at all.

EDMUNDBethink yourself wherein you may have offended him, and at my entreaty forbear[120] his presence until some little time hath qualified the heat of his displeasure, which at this instant so rageth in him that with the mischief[121] of your person it would scarcely allay.[122]

EDGARSome villain hath done me wrong.

EDMUNDThat’s my fear. I pray you have[124] a continent forbearance till the speed of his rage goes slower: and, as I say, retire with me to my lodging, from whence I will fitly[126] bring you to hear my lord speak. Pray ye go. There’s my key: Gives a key if you do stir abroad,[127] go armed.

EDGARArmed, brother?

EDMUNDBrother, I advise you to the best: I am no honest man if there be any good meaning[130] toward you: I have told you what I have seen and heard, but faintly, nothing like the image and horror[131] of it. Pray you away.

EDGARShall I hear from you anon?[132]

Exit

EDMUNDI do serve[133] you in this business.—

A credulous father and a brother noble,

135

Whose nature is so far from doing harms

That he suspects none: on whose foolish honesty

My practices[137] ride easy. I see the business.

Let me, if not by birth, have lands by wit:[138]

All with me’s meet[139] that I can fashion fit. Exit

Act 1 Scene 31.3

running scene 3

Enter Goneril and Steward [Oswald]

GONERILDid my father strike my gentleman[1] for chiding of his fool?

OSWALDAy, madam.

GONERILBy day and night he wrongs me: every hour

He flashes[4] into one gross crime or other

5

That sets us all at odds. I’ll not endure it.

His knights grow riotous, and himself upbraids us

On every trifle. When he returns from hunting

I will not speak with him: say I am sick.

If you come slack[9] of former services

10

You shall do well: the fault of it I’ll answer.[10]

OSWALDHe’s coming, madam: I hear him. Horns within

GONERILPut on what weary negligence you please,

You and your fellows:[13] I’d have it come to question:

If he distaste[14] it, let him to my sister,

15

Whose mind and mine, I know, in that are one.

Remember what I have said.

OSWALDWell, madam.

GONERILAnd let his knights have colder looks among you: what grows of it, no matter: advise your fellows so. I’ll write straight[19] to my sister, to hold my course. Prepare for dinner.

Exeunt

Act 1 Scene 4

running scene 3 continues

Enter Kent Disguised

KENTIf but as will I[1] other accents borrow,

That can my speech defuse,[2] my good intent

May carry through itself to that full issue[3]

For which I razed my likeness.[4] Now, banished Kent,

5

If thou canst serve where thou dost stand condemned,

So may it come thy master whom thou lov’st,

Shall find thee full of labours.

Horns within. Enter Lear and Attendants [his Knights]

LEARLet me not stay[8] a jot for dinner: go get it ready.—

[Exit a Knight]

How now, what[11] art thou? To Kent

KENTA man, sir.

LEARWhat dost thou profess? What wouldst thou with us?

KENTI do profess to be no less than I seem; to serve him truly that will put me in trust, to love him that is honest, to converse with him that is wise and says little, to fear judgement,[14] to fight when I cannot choose and to eat no fish.

LEARWhat art thou?

KENTA very honest-hearted fellow, and as poor as the king.

LEARIf thou be’st as poor for a subject as he’s for a king, thou art poor enough. What wouldst thou?

KENTService.

LEARWho wouldst thou serve?

KENTYou.

LEARDost thou know me, fellow?

KENTNo, sir, but you have that in your countenance which I would fain call master.

LEARWhat’s that?

KENTAuthority.

LEARWhat services canst thou do?

KENTI can keep honest counsel,[28] ride, run, mar a curious tale in telling it, and deliver a plain message bluntly: that which ordinary men are fit for, I am qualified in, and the best of me is diligence.

LEARHow old art thou?

KENTNot so young, sir, to love a woman for singing, nor so old to dote on her for anything:[33] I have years on my back forty-eight.

LEARFollow me, thou shalt serve me: if I like thee no worse after dinner, I will not part from thee yet.— Dinner, ho, dinner! Where’s my knave?[35] My fool? Go you and call my fool hither.

[Exit another Knight]

Enter Steward [Oswald]

You, you, sirrah, where’s my daughter?

OSWALDSo[38] please you—

Exit

LEARWhat says the fellow there? Call the clotpoll[39] back.—

[Exit another Knight]

Where’s my fool? Ho, I think the world’s asleep.—

[Enter a Knight]

How now? Where’s that mongrel?

KNIGHTHe says, my lord, your daughter is not well.

LEARWhy came not the slave[43] back to me when I called him?

KNIGHTSir, he answered me in the roundest[44] manner, he would not.

LEARHe would not?

KNIGHTMy lord, I know not what the matter is, but to my judgement your highness is not entertained[47] with that ceremonious affection as you were wont: there’s a great abatement of kindness appears as well in the general dependants[48] as in the duke himself also and your daughter.

LEARHa? Say’st thou so?

KNIGHTI beseech you pardon me, my lord, if I be mistaken, for my duty cannot be silent when I think your highness wronged.

LEARThou but rememb’rest[53] me of mine own conception: I have perceived a most faint[54] neglect of late, which I have rather blamed as mine own jealous curiosity than as a very pretence[55] and purpose of unkindness. I will look further into’t. But where’s my fool? I have not seen him this two days.

KNIGHTSince my young lady’s going into France, sir, the fool hath much pined away.

LEARNo more of that, I have noted it well.— Go you and tell my daughter I would speak with her.—

[Exit a Knight]

Go you, call hither my fool.—

[Exit another Knight]

Enter Steward [Oswald]

O, you sir, you, come you hither, sir. Who am I, sir?

OSWALDMy lady’s father.

LEARMy lady’s father’? My lord’s knave: you whoreson dog, you slave, you cur![64]

OSWALDI am none of these, my lord, I beseech your pardon.

LEARDo you bandy[66] looks with me, you rascal? Strikes him

OSWALDI’ll not be strucken,[67] my lord.

KENTNor tripped neither, you base football[68] player. Trips him

LEARI thank thee, fellow: thou serv’st me and I’ll love thee.

KENTCome, sir, arise, away! I’ll teach you differences:[70] away, away! If you will measure[71] your lubber’s length again, tarry: but away, go to. Have you wisdom? So. Pushes Oswald out

LEARNow, my friendly knave, I thank thee. There’s earnest[73] of thy service. Gives money

Enter Fool

FOOLLet me hire him too: here’s my coxcomb.[74] Offers Kent his cap

LEARHow now, my pretty[75] knave, how dost thou?

FOOLSirrah, you were best take my coxcomb. To Kent

LEARWhy, my boy?

FOOLWhy? For taking one’s part that’s out of favour: nay, an[78] thou canst not smile as the wind sits, thou’lt catch cold shortly. There, take my coxcomb. Why, this fellow has banished two on’s[80] daughters and did the third a blessing against his will: if thou follow him, thou must needs[81] wear my coxcomb.— How now, nuncle?[82] Would I had two coxcombs and two daughters.

LEARWhy, my boy?

FOOLIf I gave them all my living,[84] I’d keep my coxcombs myself. There’s mine: beg another of thy daughters.

LEARTake heed, sirrah: the whip.

FOOLTruth’s a dog must to kennel: he must be whipped out when the Lady Brach[88] may stand by th’fire and stink.

LEARA pestilent gall[89] to me!

FOOLSirrah, I’ll teach thee a speech.

LEARDo.

FOOLMark[92] it, nuncle:

Have more than thou showest,[95]

Speak less than thou knowest,

95

Lend less than thou owest,

Ride more than thou goest,[96]

Learn more than thou trowest,[97]

Set[98] less than thou throwest;

Leave thy drink and thy whore,

100

And keep in-a-door,

And thou shalt have[101] more

Than two tens to a score.

KENTThis is nothing, fool.

FOOLThen ’tis like the breath of an unfee’d[104] lawyer: To Lear you gave me nothing for’t.— Can you make no use[105] of nothing, nuncle?

LEARWhy, no, boy: nothing can be made out of nothing.

FOOLPrithee tell him, so much the rent of his land comes to: To Kent he will not believe a fool.

LEARA bitter fool!

FOOLDost thou know the difference, my boy, between a bitter fool and a sweet one?

LEARNo, lad, teach me.

FOOLNuncle, give me an egg and I’ll give thee two crowns.[113]

LEARWhat two crowns shall they be?

FOOLWhy, after I have cut the egg i’th’middle and eat up the meat,[115] the two crowns of the egg. When thou clovest[116] thy crowns i’th’middle and gav’st away both parts, thou bor’st thine ass on thy back o’er the dirt: thou hadst little wit in thy bald crown when thou gav’st thy golden one away. If I speak like myself[118] in this, let him be whipped that first finds it so:

120

Fools had ne’er less grace[120] in a year, Sings

For wise men are grown foppish[121]

And know not how their wits to wear,

Their manners are so apish.[123]

LEARWhen were you wont to be so full of songs, sirrah?

FOOLI have used it,[125] nuncle, e’er since thou mad’st thy daughters thy mothers: for when thou gav’st them the rod[126] and put’st down thine own breeches,

Then they for sudden joy did weep, Sings

And I for sorrow sung,

That such a king should play bo-peep[129]

130

And go the fool among.[130]

Prithee, nuncle, keep a schoolmaster that can teach thy fool to lie: I would fain[131] learn to lie.

LEARAn[133] you lie, sirrah, we’ll have you whipped.

FOOLI marvel[134] what kin thou and thy daughters are: they’ll have me whipped for speaking true, thou’lt have me whipped for lying, and sometimes I am whipped for holding my peace. I had rather be any kind o’thing than a fool. And yet I would not be thee, nuncle: thou hast pared[137] thy wit o’both sides and left nothing i’th’middle. Here comes one o’the parings.

Enter Goneril

LEARHow now, daughter? What makes that frontlet[139] on? You are too much of late i’th’frown.

FOOLThou wast a pretty fellow when thou hadst no need to care for her frowning: now thou art an O without a figure.[142] I am better than thou art now: I am a fool, thou art nothing.— To Goneril Yes, forsooth,[143] I will hold my tongue, so your face bids me, though you say nothing.

145

Mum, mum, Sings

He that keeps nor[146] crust nor crumb,

Weary of all, shall want some.[147]

That’s a shelled peascod.[148] Points to Lear

GONERILNot only, sir, this your all-licensed[149] fool,

150

But other of your insolent retinue

Do hourly carp[151] and quarrel, breaking forth

In rank[152] and not-to-be endured riots, sir.

I had thought by making this well known unto you

To have found a safe[154] redress, but now grow fearful,

155

By what yourself too late[155] have spoke and done.

That you protect this course[156] and put it on

By your allowance, which if you should, the fault

Would not scape[158] censure, nor the redresses sleep

Which in[159] the tender of a wholesome weal

160

Might in their working do you that offence,

Which else were shame, that then necessity

Will call discreet proceeding.

FOOLFor you know, nuncle,

The hedge-sparrow fed the cuckoo[164] so long,

165

That it’s had it[165] head bit off by it young.

So, out went the candle, and we were left darkling.[166]

LEARAre you our daughter? To Goneril

GONERILI would you would make use of your good wisdom —

Whereof I know you are fraught[169] — and put away

170

These dispositions[170] which of late transport you

From what you rightly are.

FOOLMay not an ass know when the cart draws the horse?

Whoop, Jug![173] I love thee.

LEARDoes any here know me? This is not Lear.

175

Does Lear walk thus? Speak thus? Where are his eyes?

Either his notion[176] weakens, his discernings

Are lethargied — Ha! Waking?[177] ’Tis not so?

Who is it that can tell me who I am?

FOOLLear’s shadow.[179]

180

LEAR Your name, fair gentlewoman?

GONERILThis admiration,[181] sir, is much o’th’savour

Of other your new pranks. I do beseech you

To understand my purposes aright:

As you are old and reverend, should[184] be wise.

185

Here do you keep a hundred knights and squires,

Men so disordered, so debauched and bold,[186]

That this our court, infected with their manners,

Shows like a riotous inn: epicurism[188] and lust

Makes it more like a tavern or a brothel

190

Than a graced[190] palace. The shame itself doth speak

For instant remedy. Be then desired[191]

By her, that else will take the thing she begs,

A little to disquantity your train,[193]

And the remainders, that shall still depend[194]

195

To be such men as may besort[195] your age,

Which know[196] themselves and you.

LEARDarkness and devils!—

Saddle my horses, call my train together.— To a Servant

Degenerate[199] bastard! I’ll not trouble thee. To Goneril

200

Yet have I left a daughter.

GONERILYou strike my people, and your disordered rabble

Make servants of their betters.

Enter Albany

LEARWoe that[203] too late repents!— Is it your will? To Albany

Speak, sir.— Prepare my horses. To a Servant

205

Ingratitude, thou marble-hearted fiend,

More hideous when thou show’st thee in a child

Than the sea-monster!

ALBANYPray, sir, be patient.

LEARDetested kite,[209] thou liest. To Goneril

210

My train are men of choice and rarest parts,[210]

That all particulars of duty know

And in[212] the most exact regard support

The worships of their name. O, most small fault,

How ugly didst thou in Cordelia show!

215

Which, like an engine,[215] wrenched my frame of nature

From the fixed place, drew from my heart all love,

And added to the gall.[217] O Lear, Lear, Lear!

Beat at this gate, that let thy folly in, Hits his head

And thy dear judgement out!— Go, go, my people.

220

ALBANYMy lord, I am guiltless as I am ignorant

Of what hath moved[221] you.

LEARIt may be so, my lord.—

Hear, nature, hear, dear goddess, hear!

Suspend thy purpose if thou didst intend

225

To make this creature fruitful:

Into her womb convey sterility,

Dry up in her the organs of increase,[227]

And from her derogate[228] body never spring

A babe to honour her: if she must teem,[229]

230

Create her child of spleen,[230] that it may live

And be a thwart[231] disnatured torment to her:

Let it stamp wrinkles in her brow of youth,

With cadent[233] tears fret channels in her cheeks,

Turn all her mother’s pains[234] and benefits

235

To laughter and contempt, that she may feel

How sharper than a serpent’s tooth it is

To have a thankless child!— Away, away! Perhaps with Kent and Knights

Exit

ALBANYNow, gods that we adore, whereof comes this?

GONERILNever afflict yourself to know more of it,

240

But let his disposition have that scope

As dotage[241] gives it.

Enter Lear

LEARWhat, fifty of my followers at a clap?[242]

Within a fortnight?

ALBANYWhat’s the matter, sir?

245

LEARI’ll tell thee:— Life and death! I am ashamed To Goneril

That thou hast power to shake my manhood thus,

That these hot tears, which break from me perforce,[247]

Should make thee worth them. Blasts[248] and fogs upon thee!

Th’untented[249] woundings of a father’s curse

250

Pierce every sense about thee! Old fond[250] eyes,

Beweep this cause again, I’ll pluck ye out

And cast you, with the waters[252] that you loose,

To temper[253] clay. Ha? Let it be so.

I have another daughter,

255

Who, I am sure, is kind[255] and comfortable:

When she shall hear this of thee, with her nails

She’ll flay thy wolvish visage.[257] Thou shalt find

That I’ll resume the shape which thou dost think

I have cast off for ever.

Exeunt [Lear, perhaps with Kent and Knights]

260

GONERIL Do you mark that?

ALBANYI cannot be so partial,[261] Goneril,

To the great love I bear you—

GONERIL Pray you, content.[263]— What, Oswald, ho!—

You, sir, more knave than fool, after your master. To Fool

265

FOOL Nuncle Lear, nuncle Lear, tarry, take the fool with thee.

A fox, when one has caught her, Sings

And such a daughter

Should sure to the slaughter,

If my cap would buy a halter:[269]

270

So the fool follows after.

Exit

GONERILThis man hath had good counsel. A hundred knights?

’Tis politic[272] and safe to let him keep

At point[273] a hundred knights: yes, that on every dream,

Each buzz,[274] each fancy, each complaint, dislike,

275

He may enguard[275] his dotage with their powers

And hold our lives in[276] mercy.— Oswald, I say!

ALBANYWell, you may fear too far.

GONERILSafer than trust too far:

Let me still[279] take away the harms I fear,

280

Not fear still to be taken.[280] I know his heart.

What he hath uttered I have writ my sister:

If she sustain him and his hundred knights

When I have showed th’unfitness—

Enter Steward [Oswald]

How now, Oswald?

What, have you writ that letter to my sister?

285

OSWALDAy, madam.

GONERILTake you some company and away to horse:

Inform her full of my particular fear,

And thereto add such reasons of your own

As may compact[289] it more. Get you gone,

290

And hasten your return.—

[Exit Oswald]

No, no, my lord,

This milky gentleness and course of yours

Though I condemn not, yet, under pardon,[292]

You are much more at task[293] for want of wisdom

Than praised for harmful mildness.

295

ALBANYHow far your eyes may pierce I cannot tell:

Striving to better, oft we mar what’s well.

GONERILNay, then—

ALBANYWell, well, th’event.[298]

Exeunt

Act 1 Scene 5

running scene 3 continues

Enter Lear, Kent, Gentleman and Fool Kent disguised as Caius

LEARGo you before[1] to Gloucester with these letters. To Kent Acquaint my daughter no further with anything you know than comes from her demand out of[2] the letter. If your diligence be not speedy, I shall be there afore you.

KENTI will not sleep, my lord, till I have delivered your letter.

Exit

5

FOOLIf a man’s brains were in’s heels, were’t not in danger of kibes?[5]

LEARAy, boy.

FOOLThen, I prithee be merry: thy wit[7] shall not go slip-shod.

LEARHa, ha, ha!

FOOL Shalt[9] see thy other daughter will use thee kindly, for though she’s as like this as a crab’s[10] like an apple, yet I can tell what I can tell.

LEARWhat canst tell, boy?

FOOLShe will taste as like this as a crab does to a crab. Thou canst tell why one’s nose stands i’th’middle on’s[13] face?

LEARNo.

FOOLWhy, to keep one’s eyes of either side’s[15] nose, that what a man cannot smell out he may spy into.

LEARI did her[17] wrong—

FOOLCanst tell how an oyster makes his shell?

LEARNo.

FOOLNor I neither; but I can tell why a snail has a house.

LEARWhy?

FOOLWhy, to put’s head in, not to give it away to his daughters and leave his horns without a case.

LEARI will forget my nature. So kind a father!— Be my horses ready?

FOOLThy asses[25] are gone about ’em. The reason why the seven stars are no more than seven is a pretty[26] reason.

LEARBecause they are not eight.

FOOLYes, indeed: thou wouldst make a good fool.

LEARTo take’t again[29] perforce. Monster ingratitude!

FOOLIf thou wert my fool, nuncle, I’d have thee beaten for being old before thy time.

LEARHow’s that?

FOOLThou shouldst not have been old till thou hadst been wise.

LEARO, let me not be mad, not mad, sweet heaven!

35

Keep me in temper:[35] I would not be mad!—

How now, are the horses ready? To Gentleman

GENTLEMANReady, my lord.

LEARCome, boy.

FOOLShe that’s a maid[39] now, and laughs at my departure,

40

Shall not be a maid long, unless things[40] be cut shorter.

Exeunt

Act 2 Scene 12.1

running scene 4

Enter Bastard [Edmund] and Curan, severally

EDMUNDSave thee,[1] Curan.

CURANAnd you, sir. I have been with your father, and given him notice that the Duke of Cornwall and Regan his duchess will be here with him this night.

EDMUNDHow comes that?

CURANNay, I know not. You have heard of the news abroad:[5] I mean the whispered ones,[6] for they are yet but ear-kissing arguments?

EDMUNDNot I: pray you, what are they?

CURANHave you heard of no likely wars toward[8] ’twixt the dukes of Cornwall and Albany?

EDMUNDNot a word.

CURANYou may do then in time. Fare you well, sir.

Exit

EDMUNDThe duke be here tonight? The better — best!

This weaves itself perforce[13] into my business.

My father hath set guard to take[14] my brother,

15

And I have one thing, of a queasy question,[15]

Which I must act. Briefness and fortune, work!—

Enter Edgar Appears above and then enters below

Brother, a word: descend, brother, I say!

My father watches:[18] O sir, fly this place.

Intelligence[19] is given where you are hid;

20

You have now the good advantage of the night.

Have you not spoken gainst the Duke of Cornwall?

He’s coming hither, now, i’th’night, i’th’haste,[22]

And Regan with him: have[23] you nothing said

Upon his party gainst the Duke of Albany?

25

Advise yourself.[25]

EDGARI am sure on’t, not a word.

EDMUNDI hear my father coming, pardon me:

In cunning[28] I must draw my sword upon you: Draws

Draw, seem to defend yourself. Now quit you[29] well. Edgar draws

30

Yield: come before my father.— Light, ho, here!—

Fly, brother.— Torches, torches!— So, farewell.

Exit Edgar

Some blood drawn on me would beget[32] opinion Wounds his arm

Of my more fierce endeavour: I have seen drunkards

Do more than this in sport.— Father, father!

35

Stop, stop! No help?

Enter Gloucester and Servants with torches

GLOUCESTERNow, Edmund, where’s the villain?

EDMUNDHere stood he in the dark, his sharp sword out,

Mumbling of wicked charms, conjuring[38] the moon

To stand auspicious mistress[39]—

40

GLOUCESTERBut where is he?

EDMUNDLook, sir, I bleed.

GLOUCESTERWhere is the villain, Edmund?

EDMUNDFled this way, sir. When by no means he could—

GLOUCESTERPursue him, ho! Go after.

[Exeunt Servants]

45

By no means what?

EDMUNDPersuade me to the murder of your lordship,

But that I told him the revenging gods

Gainst parricides did all the thunder bend,[48]

Spoke with how manifold and strong a bond

50

The child was bound to th’father; sir, in fine,[50]

Seeing how loathly opposite[51] I stood

To his unnatural purpose, in fell[52] motion

With his preparèd[53] sword, he charges home

My unprovided[54] body, latched mine arm;

55

And when he saw my best alarumed[55] spirits,

Bold in the quarrel’s right,[56] roused to th’encounter,

Or whether ghasted[57] by the noise I made,

Full[58] suddenly he fled.

GLOUCESTERLet him fly far:

60

Not in this land shall he remain uncaught,

And found — dispatch.[61] The noble duke my master,

My worthy arch and patron,[62] comes tonight:

By his authority I will proclaim it,

That he which finds him shall deserve our thanks,

65

Bringing the murderous coward to the stake:[65]

He that conceals him, death.

EDMUNDWhen I dissuaded him from his intent

And found him pight[68] to do it, with curst speech

I threatened to discover[69] him: he replied,

70

‘Thou unpossessing[70] bastard, dost thou think,

If I would stand against[71] thee, would the reposal

Of any trust, virtue, or worth in thee

Make thy words faithed?[73] No: what should I deny —

As this I would, though thou didst produce

75

My very character[75] — I’d turn it all

To thy suggestion,[76] plot, and damnèd practice,

And thou must make[77] a dullard of the world,

If they not thought[78] the profits of my death

Were very pregnant[79] and potential spirits

80

To make thee seek it.’

Tucket[80] within

GLOUCESTERO, strange[81] and fastened villain!

Would he deny his letter, said he?

Hark, the duke’s trumpets! I know not where[83] he comes.

All ports[84] I’ll bar: the villain shall not scape:

85

The duke must grant me that. Besides, his picture[85]

I will send far and near, that all the kingdom

May have due note of him, and of my land,

Loyal and natural[88] boy, I’ll work the means

To make thee capable.[89]

Enter Cornwall, Regan and Attendants

90

CORNWALLHow now, my noble friend? Since I came hither —

Which I can call but now — I have heard strangeness.

REGANIf it be true, all vengeance comes too short

Which can pursue th’offender. How dost, my lord?

GLOUCESTERO, madam, my old heart is cracked, it’s cracked!

95

REGANWhat, did my father’s godson seek your life?

He whom my father named? Your Edgar?

GLOUCESTERO, lady, lady, shame would have it hid!

REGANWas he not companion with the riotous knights

That tended upon[99] my father?

100

GLOUCESTER I know not, madam: ’tis too bad, too bad.

EDMUNDYes, madam, he was of that consort.[101]

REGANNo marvel, then, though[102] he were ill affected:

’Tis they have put him on[103] the old man’s death,

To have th’expense[104] and waste of his revenues.

105

I have this present evening from my sister

Been well informed of them, and with such cautions

That if they come to sojourn at my house,

I’ll not be there.

CORNWALLNor I, assure thee, Regan.—

110

Edmund, I hear that you have shown your father

A child-like[111] office.

EDMUNDIt was my duty, sir.

GLOUCESTERHe did bewray[113] his practice and received To Cornwall

This hurt you see striving to apprehend him.

115

CORNWALLIs he pursued?

GLOUCESTERAy, my good lord.

CORNWALLIf he be taken, he shall never more

Be feared of doing harm: make[118] your own purpose,

How in my strength you please. For[119] you, Edmund,

120

Whose virtue and obedience doth this instant

So much commend itself, you shall be ours:[121]

Natures of such deep trust we shall much need:

You we first seize on.[123]

EDMUNDI shall serve you, sir, truly, however else.

125

GLOUCESTERFor him I thank your grace.

CORNWALLYou know not why we came to visit you?

REGANThus out of season,[127] threading dark-eyed night:

Occasions,[128] noble Gloucester, of some prize,

Wherein we must have use of your advice:

130

Our father he hath writ, so hath our sister,

Of differences,[131] which I best thought it fit

To answer from[132] our home: the several messengers

From hence attend dispatch.[133] Our good old friend,

Lay comforts to your bosom, and bestow

135

Your needful counsel to our businesses,

Which craves[136] the instant use.

GLOUCESTERI serve you, madam:

Your graces are right welcome.

Exeunt. Flourish

Act 2 Scene 22.2

running scene 5

Enter Kent and Steward [Oswald], severally Kent disguised as Caius

OSWALDGood dawning[1] to thee, friend: art of this house?

KENTAy.[2]

OSWALDWhere may we set[3] our horses?

KENTI’th’mire.[4]

OSWALDPrithee, if[5] thou lov’st me, tell me.

KENTI love thee not.

OSWALDWhy then, I care not for thee.

KENTIf I had thee in Lipsbury pinfold,[8] I would make thee care for me.

OSWALDWhy dost thou use[9] me thus? I know thee not.

KENTFellow, I know thee.

OSWALDWhat dost thou know me for?[11]

KENTA knave,[12] a rascal, an eater of broken meats, a base, proud, shallow, beggarly, three-suited,[13] hundred-pound, filthy, worsted-stocking knave, a lily-livered, action-taking,[14] whoreson, glass-gazing, super-serviceable finical rogue: one-trunk-inheriting[15] slave: one that wouldst be a bawd in way of good service, and art nothing but the composition[16] of a knave, beggar, coward, pander, and the son and heir of a mongrel bitch: one whom I will beat into clamorous whining if thou deny’st the least syllable of thy addition.[18]

OSWALDWhy, what a monstrous fellow art thou thus to rail[19] on one that is neither known of thee nor knows thee!

KENTWhat a brazen-faced varlet[21] art thou to deny thou knowest me! Is it two days since I tripped up thy heels and beat thee before the king? Draw,[22] you rogue, for though it be night, yet the moon shines: I’ll make a sop o’th’moonshine[23] of you, you whoreson cullionly[24] barber-monger. Draw. Draws his sword

OSWALD Away! I have nothing to do with thee.

KENTDraw, you rascal: you come with letters against the king, and take vanity the puppet’s[26] part against the royalty of her father: draw, you rogue, or I’ll so carbonado[28] your shanks: draw, you rascal, come your ways.

OSWALDHelp, ho! Murder! Help!

KENTStrike, you slave! Stand, rogue, stand, you neat[30] slave, strike! Beats him

OSWALDHelp, ho! Murder! Murder!

Enter Bastard [Edmund], Cornwall, Regan, Gloucester, Servants

EDMUNDHow now, what’s the matter? Part!

KENTWith you,[33] Goodman boy, if you please: come, I’ll flesh ye: come on, young master.

GLOUCESTER Weapons? Arms? What’s the matter here?

CORNWALLKeep peace, upon your lives: he dies that strikes again. What is the matter?

REGANThe messengers from our sister and the king.

CORNWALLWhat is your difference?[39] Speak.

OSWALDI am scarce in breath, my lord.

KENTNo marvel, you have so bestirred your valour.[41] You cowardly rascal, nature disclaims in[42] thee: a tailor made thee.

CORNWALLThou art a strange fellow — a tailor make a man?

KENTA tailor, sir: a stone-cutter or a painter could not have made him so ill,[44] though they had been but two years o’th’trade.

CORNWALLSpeak yet, how grew your quarrel?

OSWALDThis ancient ruffian, sir, whose life I have spared at suit[47] of his grey beard—

KENTThou whoreson zed,[48] thou unnecessary letter!— My lord, if you will give me leave, I will tread this unbolted[49] villain into mortar and daub the wall of a jakes with him.— Spare my grey beard, you wagtail?[50]

CORNWALLPeace, sirrah!

You beastly[52] knave, know you no reverence?

KENTYes, sir, but anger hath a privilege.[53]

CORNWALLWhy art thou angry?

55

KENT That such a slave as this should wear a sword,

Who wears no honesty.[56] Such smiling rogues as these,

Like rats, oft bite the holy cords[57] a-twain

Which are too intrinse t’unloose,[58] smooth every passion

That in the natures of their lords rebel,[59]

60

Being[60] oil to fire, snow to the colder moods,

Revenge, affirm, and turn their halcyon beaks[61]

With every gall[62] and vary of their masters,

Knowing nought, like dogs, but following.—

A plague upon your epileptic visage![64] To Oswald

65

Smile you my[65] speeches, as I were a fool?

Goose,[66] if I had you upon Sarum plain,

I’d drive ye cackling home to Camelot.

CORNWALLWhat, art thou mad, old fellow?

GLOUCESTERHow fell you out? Say that.

70

KENTNo contraries hold more antipathy

Than I and such a knave.

CORNWALLWhy dost thou call him knave? What is his fault?

KENTHis countenance likes[73] me not.

CORNWALLNo more, perchance, does mine, nor his, nor hers—

75

KENTSir, ’tis my occupation[75] to be plain:

I have seen better faces in my time

Than stands on any shoulder that I see

Before me at this instant.

CORNWALLThis is some fellow

80

Who, having been praised for bluntness, doth affect

A saucy[81] roughness, and constrains the garb

Quite from his nature. He cannot flatter, he:

An honest mind and plain, he must speak truth!

An[84] they will take it, so: if not, he’s plain.

85

These kind of knaves I know, which in this plainness

Harbour more craft[86] and more corrupter ends

Than twenty silly ducking[87] observants

That stretch[88] their duties nicely.

KENTSir, in good faith, in sincere verity,[89]

90

Under th’allowance[90] of your great aspect,

Whose influence,[91] like the wreath of radiant fire

On flickering Phoebus’[92] front—

CORNWALLWhat mean’st by this?

KENTTo go out of my dialect,[94] which you discommend so much. I know, sir, I am no flatterer: he that beguiled[95] you in a plain accent was a plain knave, which for my part I will not be, though[96] I should win your displeasure to entreat me to’t.

CORNWALLWhat was th’offence you gave him? To Oswald

OSWALDI never gave him any.

It pleased the king his master very late

100

To strike at me, upon his misconstruction:[100]

When he, compact[101] and flattering his displeasure,

Tripped me behind, being[102] down, insulted, railed,

And put upon him such a deal of man[103]

That worthied him,[104] got praises of the king

105

For him attempting[105] who was self-subdued:

And, in the fleshment[106] of this dread exploit,

Drew on me here again.

KENTNone[108] of these rogues and cowards

But Ajax is their fool.

110

CORNWALLFetch forth the stocks![110]—

You stubborn ancient knave, you reverent[111] braggart,

We’ll teach you.

KENTSir, I am too old to learn.

Call not your stocks for me: I serve the king,

115

On whose employment I was sent to you:

You shall do small respects, show too bold malice[116]

Against the grace[117] and person of my master,

Stocking his messenger.

CORNWALLFetch forth the stocks! As I have life and honour,

120

There shall he sit till noon.

REGANTill noon? Till night, my lord, and all night too.

KENTWhy, madam, if I were your father’s dog

You should not use[123] me so.

REGANSir, being his knave, I will.

Stocks brought out

125

CORNWALLThis is a fellow of the self-same colour[125]

Our sister[126] speaks of. Come, bring away the stocks!

GLOUCESTERLet me beseech your grace not to do so:

The king his master needs must take it ill

That he so slightly valued in his messenger,

130

Should have him thus restrained.

CORNWALLI’ll answer[131] that.

REGANMy sister may receive it much more worse

To have her gentleman abused, assaulted. Kent put in the stocks

CORNWALLCome, my lord, away.

Exeunt. [Gloucester and Kent remain]

135

GLOUCESTERI am sorry for thee, friend: ’tis the duke’s pleasure,[135]

Whose disposition all the world well knows

Will not be rubbed[137] nor stopped. I’ll entreat for thee.

KENTPray do not, sir. I have watched[138] and travelled hard:

Some time I shall sleep out, the rest I’ll whistle.

140

A good man’s fortune may grow out at heels.[140]

Give[141] you good morrow.

GLOUCESTERThe duke’s to blame in this: ’twill be ill taken.

Exit

KENTGood king, that must approve[143] the common saw,

Thou out[144] of heaven’s benediction com’st

145

To the warm sun. Pulls out a letter

Approach, thou beacon[146] to this under globe,

That by thy comfortable[147] beams I may

Peruse this letter. Nothing[148] almost sees miracles

But misery. I know ’tis from Cordelia,

150

Who hath most fortunately been informed

Of my obscurèd course,[151] and shall find time

From[152] this enormous state, seeking to give

Losses their remedies. All weary and o’erwatched,[153]

Take vantage,[154] heavy eyes, not to behold

155

This shameful lodging.

Fortune,[156] goodnight: smile once more, turn thy wheel! Sleeps

Enter Edgar Appears above and then enters below

EDGARI heard myself proclaimed,[157]

And by the happy[158] hollow of a tree

Escaped the hunt. No port is free, no place

160

That guard and most unusual vigilance

Does not attend my taking.[161] Whiles I may scape,

I will preserve myself, and am bethought[162]

To take the basest and most poorest shape

That ever penury in[164] contempt of man

165

Brought near to beast: my face I’ll grime with filth,

Blanket my loins, elf[166] all my hairs in knots,

And with presented[167] nakedness outface

The winds and persecutions of the sky.

The country gives me proof and precedent

170

Of Bedlam[170] beggars, who with roaring voices

Strike in their numbed and mortifièd[171] arms

Pins, wooden pricks,[172] nails, sprigs of rosemary,

And with this horrible object,[173] from low farms,

Poor pelting[174] villages, sheepcotes, and mills,

175

Sometimes with lunatic bans,[175] sometime with prayers,

Enforce their charity. Poor[176] Turlygod, poor Tom!

That’s something yet:[177] Edgar I nothing am.

Exit

Enter Lear, Fool and Gentleman

LEAR’Tis strange that they[178] should so depart from home

And not send back my messengers.

180

GENTLEMANAs I learned,

The night before there was no purpose in them Of this remove.

KENTHail to thee, noble master! Wakes

LEARHa? Mak’st thou this shame thy pastime?

KENTNo, my lord.

FOOLHa, ha, he wears cruel[186] garters. Horses are tied by the heads, dogs and bears by th’neck, monkeys by th’loins, and men by th’legs: when a man’s over-lusty at legs,[187] then he wears wooden nether-stocks.[188]

LEARWhat’s he that hath so much thy place[189] mistook

190

To[190] set thee here?

KENTIt is both he and she:

Your son[192] and daughter.

LEARNo.

KENTYes.

195

LEARNo, I say.

KENTI say, yea.

LEARBy Jupiter, I swear, no.

KENTBy Juno,[198] I swear, ay.

LEARThey durst not do’t:

200

They could not, would not do’t: ’tis worse than murder

To do upon respect[201] such violent outrage.

Resolve[202] me with all modest haste which way

Thou might’st deserve or they impose this usage,[203]

Coming from us.[204]

205

KENTMy lord, when at their home

I did commend[206] your highness’ letters to them,

Ere I was risen from the place that showed

My duty kneeling, came there a reeking[208] post,

Stewed[209] in his haste, half breathless, panting forth

210

From Goneril his mistress salutations,

Delivered letters, spite of intermission,[211]

Which presently[212] they read: on those contents

They summoned up their meiny,[213] straight took horse,

Commanded me to follow and attend[214]

215

The leisure of their answer, gave me cold looks:

And meeting here the other messenger,

Whose welcome I perceived had poisoned mine —

Being the very fellow which of late

Displayed[219] so saucily against your highness —

220

Having more man than wit[220] about me, drew.

He raised the house with loud and coward cries:

Your son and daughter found this trespass worth

The shame which here it suffers.

FOOLWinter’s[224] not gone yet if the wild geese fly that way.

225

Fathers that wear rags Sings

Do make their children blind,[226]

But fathers that bear bags[227]

Shall see their children kind.

Fortune, that arrant[229] whore,

230

Ne’er turns the key[230] to th’poor.

But, for all this, thou shalt have as many dolours[231] for thy daughters as thou canst tell[232] in a year.

LEARO, how this mother[233] swells up toward my heart!

Hysterica passio,[234] down, thou climbing sorrow:

235

Thy element’s[235] below!— Where is this daughter?

KENTWith the earl, sir, here within.

LEARFollow me not: stay here.

Exit

GENTLEMANMade you no more offence but what you speak of?

KENTNone. How chance the king comes with so small a number?

240

FOOLAn thou had’st been set i’th’stocks for that question, thou’dst well deserved it.

KENTWhy, fool?

FOOLWe’ll set thee to school to[243] an ant to teach thee there’s no labouring i’th’winter. All that follow their noses are led by their eyes but blind men, and there’s not a nose among twenty but can smell him that’s stinking.[245] Let go thy hold when a great wheel runs down a hill lest it break thy neck with following: but the great one that goes upward, let him draw thee after. When a wise man gives thee better counsel, give me mine again:[248] I would have none but knaves follow it, since a fool gives it.

250

That sir[250] which serves and seeks for gain, Sings

And follows but for form,[251]

Will pack[252] when it begins to rain,

And leave thee in the storm.

But I will tarry, the fool will stay,

255

And let the wise man fly:

The knave turns fool that runs away,

The fool no knave, perdy.[257]

Enter Lear and Gloucester

KENTWhere learned you this, fool?

FOOLNot i’th’stocks, fool.

260

LEAR Deny[260] to speak with me? They are sick, they are weary,

They have travelled all the night? Mere fetches,[261]

The images of revolt and flying off.[262]

Fetch me a better answer.

GLOUCESTERMy dear lord,

265

You know the fiery quality of the duke,

How unremovable and fixed he is

In his own course.

LEARVengeance, plague, death, confusion![268]

Fiery? What quality? Why, Gloucester, Gloucester,

270

I’d speak with the Duke of Cornwall and his wife.

GLOUCESTERWell, my good lord, I have informed them so.

LEARInformed them? Dost thou understand me, man?

GLOUCESTERAy, my good lord.

LEARThe king would speak with Cornwall: the dear father

275

Would with his daughter speak, commands, tends,[275] service.

Are they informed of this? My breath and blood!

Fiery? The fiery duke? Tell the hot duke that —

No, but not yet: maybe he is not well.

Infirmity[279] doth still neglect all office

280

Whereto our health is bound: we are not ourselves

When nature, being oppressed,[281] commands the mind

To suffer with the body. I’ll forbear,

And am fallen[283] out with my more headier will,

To take the indisposed and sickly fit

285

For the sound[285] man. Death on my state! Wherefore Sees Kent

Should he sit here? This act persuades me

That this remotion[287] of the duke and her

Is practice[288] only. Give me my servant forth.

Go tell the duke and’s[289] wife I’d speak with them,

290

Now, presently: bid them come forth and hear me,

Or at their chamber-door I’ll beat the drum

Till it cry sleep to death.

GLOUCESTERI would have all well betwixt you.

Exit

LEARO me, my heart, my rising heart! But, down!

FOOLCry to it, nuncle, as the cockney[295] did to the eels when she put ’em i’th’paste alive: she knapped[296] ’em o’th’coxcombs with a stick and cried ‘Down, wantons, down!’ ’Twas her brother that, in pure kindness to his horse, buttered his hay.[297]

Enter Cornwall, Regan, Gloucester, Servants

LEARGood morrow to you both.

CORNWALLHail to your grace!

Kent here set at liberty

300

REGANI am glad to see your highness.

LEARRegan, I think you are. I know what reason

I have to think so: if thou shouldst not be glad,

I would divorce me from thy mother’s tomb,

Sepulch’ring[304] an adult’ress.— O, are you free? To Kent

305

Some other time for that.— Belovèd Regan,

Thy sister’s naught:[306] O Regan, she hath tied

Sharp-toothed unkindness, like a vulture,[307] here. Points to his heart

I can scarce speak to thee. Thou’lt not believe

With how depraved a quality — O Regan!

310

REGANI pray you, sir, take patience: I have hope

You[311] less know how to value her desert

Than she to scant her duty.

LEARSay? How is that?

REGANI cannot think my sister in the least

315

Would fail her obligation: if, sir, perchance

She have restrained the riots of your followers,

’Tis on such ground and to such wholesome end

As clears her from all blame.

LEARMy curses on her!

320

REGANO, sir, you are old:

Nature in you stands on the very verge[321]

Of her confine: you should be ruled and led

By some discretion[323] that discerns your state

Better than you yourself. Therefore, I pray you,

325

That to our sister you do make return:

Say you have wronged her.

LEARAsk her forgiveness?

Do you but mark how this becomes the house:[328]

Dear daughter, I confess that I am old; Kneels

330

Age is unnecessary.[330] On my knees I beg

That you’ll vouchsafe[331] me raiment, bed and food.

REGANGood sir, no more: these are unsightly tricks:

Return you to my sister.

LEARNever, Regan: Rises

335

She hath abated[335] me of half my train,

Looked black upon me, struck me with her tongue

Most serpent-like upon the very heart.

All the stored vengeances of heaven fall

On her ingrateful top![339] Strike her young bones,

340

You taking[340] airs, with lameness—

CORNWALLFie, sir, fie!

LEARYou nimble lightnings, dart your blinding flames

Into her scornful eyes! Infect her beauty,

You fen-sucked[344] fogs drawn by the powerful sun

345

To fall and blister!

REGANO the blest gods! So will you wish on me

When the rash mood is on.

LEARNo, Regan, thou shalt never have my curse:

Thy tender-hafted[349] nature shall not give

350

Thee o’er to harshness. Her eyes are fierce, but thine

Do comfort and not burn. ’Tis not in thee

To grudge my pleasures, to cut off my train,

To bandy hasty words, to scant my sizes,[353]

And, in conclusion, to oppose the bolt[354]

355

Against my coming in: thou better know’st

The offices of nature,[356] bond of childhood,

Effects[357] of courtesy, dues of gratitude:

Thy half o’th’kingdom hast thou not forgot,

Wherein I thee endowed.

360

REGANGood sir, to th’purpose.[360]

Tucket within

LEARWho put my man i’th’stocks?

Enter Steward [Oswald]

CORNWALLWhat trumpet’s that?

REGANI know’t my sister’s: this approves[363] her letter,

That she would soon be here.— Is your lady come? To Oswald

365

LEARThis is a slave, whose easy-borrowed[365] pride

Dwells in the sickly[366] grace of her he follows.—

Out, varlet, from my sight!

CORNWALLWhat means your grace?

Enter Goneril

LEARWho stocked my servant? Regan, I have good hope

370

Thou didst not know on’t.[370] Who comes here? O heavens,

If you do love old men, if your sweet sway[371]

Allow[372] obedience, if you yourselves are old,

Make it your cause, send down, and take my part!—

Art not ashamed to look upon this beard?[374]— To Goneril

375

O Regan, will you take her by the hand? Regan and Goneril join hands

GONERILWhy not by th’hand, sir? How have I offended?

All’s not offence that indiscretion[377] finds

And dotage terms so.

LEARO sides,[379] you are too tough!

380

Will you yet hold?— How came my man i’th’stocks?

CORNWALLI set him there, sir: but his own disorders[381]

Deserved much less advancement.[382]

LEARYou? Did you?

REGANI pray you, father, being weak, seem so.

385

If till the expiration of your month,

You will return and sojourn with my sister,

Dismissing half your train, come then to me:

I am now from home, and out of that provision

Which shall be needful for your entertainment.[389]

390

LEARReturn to her? And fifty men dismissed?

No, rather I abjure[391] all roofs, and choose

To wage[392] against the enmity o’th’air,

To be a comrade with the wolf and owl,

Necessity’s[394] sharp pinch! Return with her?

395

Why, the hot-blooded France, that dowerless took

Our youngest born, I could as well be brought

To knee[397] his throne and, squire-like, pension beg

To keep base life afoot.[398] Return with her?

Persuade me rather to be slave and sumpter[399]

400

To this detested groom.[400] Points at Oswald

GONERILAt your choice, sir.

LEARI prithee, daughter, do not make me mad.

I will not trouble thee, my child, farewell:

We’ll no more meet, no more see one another.

405

But yet thou art my flesh, my blood, my daughter —

Or rather a disease that’s in my flesh,

Which I must needs call mine: thou art a boil,

A plague-sore, or embossèd carbuncle,[408]

In my corrupted blood.[409] But I’ll not chide thee:

410

Let shame come when it will, I do not call it:

I do not bid the thunder-bearer shoot,

Nor tell tales of thee to high-judging Jove.

Mend[413] when thou canst, be better at thy leisure:

I can be patient, I can stay with Regan,

415

I and my hundred knights.

REGANNot altogether so:

I looked not for[417] you yet, nor am provided

For your fit welcome. Give ear, sir, to my sister,

For those that mingle[419] reason with your passion

420

Must be content to think you old, and so —

But she knows what she does.

LEARIs this well spoken?

REGANI dare avouch[423] it, sir: what, fifty followers?

Is it not well? What should you need of more?

425

Yea, or so many, sith that[425] both charge and danger

Speak gainst so great a number? How in one house

Should many people under two commands

Hold amity? ’Tis hard, almost impossible.

GONERILWhy might not you, my lord, receive attendance

430

From those that she calls servants, or from mine?

REGANWhy not, my lord? If then they chanced to slack ye,[431]

We could control[432] them. If you will come to me —

For now I spy a danger — I entreat you

To bring but five-and-twenty: to no more

435

Will I give place or notice.[435]

LEARI gave you all—

REGANAnd in[437] good time you gave it.

LEARMade you my guardians, my depositaries,[438]

But kept a reservation[439] to be followed

440

With such a number. What, must I come to you

With five-and-twenty? Regan, said you so?

REGANAnd speak’t again, my lord: no more with me.

LEARThose wicked creatures yet do look well-favoured[443]

When others are more wicked: not being the worst

445

Stands[445] in some rank of praise.— I’ll go with thee: To Goneril

Thy fifty yet doth double five-and-twenty,

And thou art twice her love.

GONERILHear me, my lord:

What need you five-and-twenty, ten, or five,

450

To follow in a house where twice so many

Have a command to tend you?

REGANWhat need one?

LEARO, reason not the need! Our[453] basest beggars

Are in the poorest thing superfluous:

455

Allow not[455] nature more than nature needs,

Man’s life is cheap as beast’s. Thou art a lady;

If[457] only to go warm were gorgeous,

Why, nature needs not what[458] thou gorgeous wear’st,

Which scarcely keeps thee warm. But for true need —

460

You heavens, give me that patience, patience I need!

You see me here, you gods, a poor old man,

As full of grief as age, wretched in both.

If it be you that stirs these daughters’ hearts

Against their father, fool[464] me not so much

465

To bear it tamely: touch me with noble anger,

And let not women’s weapons, water drops,

Stain my man’s cheeks! No, you unnatural hags,

I will have such revenges on you both,

That all the world shall — I will do such things —

470

What they are yet I know not, but they shall be

The terrors of the earth! You think I’ll weep:

No, I’ll not weep: I have full cause of weeping,

Storm and tempest

But this heart shall break into a hundred thousand flaws,[473]

Or ere[474] I’ll weep. O fool, I shall go mad! Exeunt [Lear, Gloucester, Kent and Fool]

475

CORNWALLLet us withdraw: ’twill be a storm.

REGANThis house is little: the old man and’s[476] people

Cannot be well bestowed.[477]

GONERIL’Tis his own blame[478] hath put himself from rest

And must needs taste his folly.

480

REGANFor his particular,[480] I’ll receive him gladly,

But not one follower.

GONERILSo am I purposed.

Where is my lord of Gloucester?

Enter Gloucester

CORNWALLFollowed the old man forth: he is returned.

485

GLOUCESTERThe king is in high rage.

CORNWALLWhither is he going?

GLOUCESTERHe calls to horse, but will[487] I know not whither.

CORNWALL’Tis best to give him way:[488] he leads himself.

GONERILMy lord, entreat him by no means to stay.

490

GLOUCESTERAlack, the night comes on, and the high winds

Do sorely ruffle,[491] for many miles about

There’s scarce a bush.

REGAN O, sir, to wilful men

The injuries that they themselves procure[494]

495

Must be their schoolmasters. Shut up your doors:

He is attended with a desperate train,[496]

And what they may incense him to, being apt

To have[498] his ear abused, wisdom bids fear.

CORNWALLShut up your doors, my lord, ’tis a wild night.

500

My Regan counsels well: come out o’th’storm.

Exeunt

Act 3 Scene 13.1

running scene 6

Storm still. Enter Kent and a Gentleman, severally

KENTWho’s there, besides foul weather?

GENTLEMANOne minded[2] like the weather, most unquietly.

KENTI know you. Where’s the king?

GENTLEMANContending[4] with the fretful elements;

5

Bids the wind blow the earth into the sea

Or swell the curlèd waters ’bove the main,[6]

That things might change or cease.

KENTBut who is with him?

GENTLEMANNone but the fool, who labours to out-jest[9]

10

His heart-struck injuries.[10]

KENTSir, I do know you,

And dare, upon the warrant[12] of my note

Commend[13] a dear thing to you. There is division —

Although as yet the face of it is covered

15

With mutual cunning — ’twixt Albany and Cornwall,

Who have — as[16] who have not, that their great stars

Throned and set high? — servants, who seem no less,[17]

Which are to France[18] the spies and speculations

Intelligent of[19] our state. What hath been seen,

20

Either in snuffs[20] and packings of the dukes,

Or the hard rein[21] which both of them hath borne

Against the old kind king, or something deeper,

Whereof perchance these are but furnishings.[23]

GENTLEMANI will talk further with you.

25

KENTNo, do not.

For confirmation that I am much more

Than my out-wall,[27] open this purse and take Gives a purse

What it contains. If you shall see Cordelia —

As fear not but you shall — show her this ring, Gives a ring

30

And she will tell you who that fellow[30] is

That yet you do not know. Fie on this storm!

I will go seek the king.

GENTLEMANGive me your hand. Have you no more to say?

KENTFew words, but, to effect,[34] more than all yet:

35

That when we have found the king — in[35] which your pain

That way, I’ll this — he that first lights on him

Holla[37] the other.

Exeunt [separately]

Act 3 Scene 2

running scene 6 continues

Storm still. Enter Lear and Fool

LEARBlow winds and crack your cheeks! Rage, blow,

You cataracts[2] and hurricanoes, spout

Till you have drenched our steeples, drown the cocks![3]

You sulphurous and thought-executing fires,[4]

5

Vaunt-couriers[5] of oak-cleaving thunderbolts,

Singe my white head! And thou, all-shaking thunder,

Strike flat the thick rotundity o’th’world!

Crack nature’s moulds,[8] all germens spill at once

That makes ingrateful man!

FOOLO, nuncle, court holy-water[10] in a dry house is better than this rain-water out o’door. Good nuncle, in, ask thy daughters’ blessing: here’s a night pities neither wise men nor fools.

LEARRumble thy bellyful! Spit fire! Spout rain!

Nor rain, wind, thunder, fire, are my daughters.

15

I tax[15] not you, you elements, with unkindness:

I never gave you kingdom, called you children;

You owe me no subscription.[17] Then let fall

Your horrible pleasure: here I stand, your slave,

A poor, infirm, weak and despised old man:

20

But yet I call you servile ministers,[20]

That will with two pernicious[21] daughters join

Your high-engendered battles[22] gainst a head

So old and white as this. O, ho, ’tis foul![23]

FOOLHe that has a house to put’s[24] head in has a good head-piece:

25

The codpiece[25] that will house Sings

Before the head has any,[26]

The head and he shall louse,[27]

So[28] beggars marry many.

The man that makes[29] his toe

30

What he his heart should make

Shall of a corn[31] cry woe,

And turn his sleep to wake.

For there was never yet fair woman, but she made[33] mouths in a glass.

Enter Kent Disguised as Caius

LEARNo, I will be the pattern of all patience:

35

I will say nothing.

KENTWho’s there?

FOOLMarry, here’s grace[37] and a codpiece: that’s a wise man and a fool.

KENTAlas, sir, are you here? Things that love night

Love not such nights as these: the wrathful skies

40

Gallow[40] the very wanderers of the dark

And make them keep their caves. Since I was man,

Such sheets of fire, such bursts of horrid thunder,

Such groans of roaring wind and rain, I never

Remember to have heard: man’s nature cannot carry

45

Th’affliction nor the fear.

LEARLet the great gods,

That keep this dreadful pudder[47] o’er our heads,

Find out their enemies now. Tremble, thou wretch,

That hast within thee undivulgèd crimes

50

Unwhipped of[50] justice: hide thee, thou bloody hand,

Thou perjured, and thou simular[51] of virtue

That art incestuous: caitiff,[52] to pieces shake,

That under covert and convenient seeming[53]

Has practised on[54] man’s life: close pent-up guilts,

55

Rive[55] your concealing continents and cry

These dreadful summoners grace. I am a man

More sinned against than sinning.

KENTAlack, bare-headed?

Gracious my lord, hard[59] by here is a hovel:

60

Some friendship will it lend you gainst the tempest.

Repose you there while I to this hard house[61] —

More harder than the stones whereof ’tis raised,

Which even but now, demanding[63] after you,

Denied me to come in — return and force

65

Their scanted[65] courtesy.

LEARMy wits begin to turn.

Come on, my boy: how dost, my boy? Art cold?

I am cold myself.— Where is this straw, my fellow?[68]

The[69] art of our necessities is strange,

70

And can make vile things precious. Come, your hovel.—

Poor fool and knave, I have one part in my heart

That’s sorry yet for thee.

FOOLHe[73] that has and a little tiny wit, Sings

With hey, ho, the wind and the rain,

75

Must make content with his fortunes fit,

Though the rain it raineth every day.

LEARTrue, boy.— Come, bring us to this hovel.

Exeunt [Lear and Kent]

FOOLThis is a brave[78] night to cool a courtesan.

I’ll speak a prophecy ere I go:

80

When priests are more in[80] word than matter;

When brewers mar[81] their malt with water;

When nobles are[82] their tailors’ tutors;

No heretics[83] burned, but wenches’ suitors;

When every case in law is right;[84]

85

No squire in debt, nor no poor knight;

When slanders do not live in tongues;

Nor cutpurses[87] come not to throngs;

When usurers[88] tell their gold i’th’field,

And bawds[89] and whores do churches build,

90

Then shall the realm of Albion[90]

Come to great confusion:[91]

Then comes the time, who[92] lives to see’t,

That going[93] shall be used with feet.

This prophecy Merlin[94] shall make, for I live before his time.

Exit

Act 3 Scene 33.3

running scene 7

Enter Gloucester and Edmund Carrying torches

GLOUCESTERAlack, alack, Edmund, I like not this unnatural dealing. When I desired their leave[2] that I might pity him, they took from me the use of mine own house, charged me on pain of perpetual displeasure neither to speak of him, entreat for him, or any way sustain him.

EDMUNDMost savage and unnatural.

GLOUCESTERGo to;[6] say you nothing. There is division between the dukes, and a worse matter than that. I have received a letter this night — ’tis dangerous to be spoken — I have locked the letter in my closet.[8] These injuries the king now bears will be revenged home;[9] there is part of a power already footed. We must incline to the king: I will look[10] him and privily relieve him. Go you and maintain talk with the duke, that[11] my charity be not of him perceived: if he ask for me, I am ill and gone to bed: if I die for it — as no less is threatened me — the king my old master must be relieved. There is strange things toward,[13] Edmund: pray you be careful.

Exit

EDMUNDThis courtesy forbid thee[14] shall the duke

15

Instantly know, and of that letter too:

This[16] seems a fair deserving and must draw me

That which my father loses: no less than all.

The younger rises when the old doth fall.

Exit

Act 3 Scene 43.4

running scene 8

Enter Lear, Kent and Fool Kent disguised as Caius

KENTHere is the place, my lord. Good my lord, enter:

The tyranny of the open night’s too rough

For nature[3] to endure.

Storm still

LEARLet me alone.

5

KENTGood my lord, enter here.

LEARWill’t break my heart?

KENTI had rather break mine own. Good my lord, enter.

LEARThou think’st ’tis much that this contentious storm

Invades us to the skin so: ’tis to thee,

10

But where the greater malady[10] is fixed

The lesser is scarce felt. Thou’dst shun a bear,

But if thy flight lay toward the roaring sea

Thou’dst meet the bear i’th’mouth.[13] When the mind’s free,

The body’s delicate:[14] the tempest in my mind

15

Doth from my senses take all feeling else

Save what beats there. Filial ingratitude!

Is it not as[17] this mouth should tear this hand

For lifting food to’t? But I will punish home.[18]

No, I will weep no more. In such a night

20

To shut me out? Pour on, I will endure.

In such a night as this? O Regan, Goneril,

Your old kind father, whose frank[22] heart gave all —

O, that way madness lies: let me shun that:

No more of that.

25

KENTGood my lord, enter here.

LEARPrithee go in thyself: seek thine own ease:

This tempest will not give me leave to ponder

On things would hurt me more. But I’ll go in.—

In, boy, go first.— To the Fool

You houseless poverty—

30

Nay, get thee in.— I’ll pray, and then I’ll sleep.

Exit [Fool]

Poor naked wretches, wheresoe’er you are, Kneels

That bide[32] the pelting of this pitiless storm,

How shall your houseless heads and unfed sides,[33]

Your lopped and windowed[34] raggedness, defend you

35

From seasons such as these? O, I have ta’en

Too little care of this! Take physic,[36] pomp,

Expose thyself to feel what wretches feel,

That thou mayst shake the superflux[38] to them

And show the heavens more just.

Enter Edgar and Fool Within the hovel

EDGARFathom and half,[40] fathom and half! Poor Tom!

FOOLCome not in here, nuncle, here’s a spirit.[41] Help me, help me!

KENTGive me thy hand. Who’s there?

FOOLA spirit, a spirit: he says his name’s poor Tom.

KENTWhat art thou that dost grumble[44] there i’th’straw? Come forth.

Edgar comes out, disguised as a mad beggar

EDGARAway! The foul[48] fiend follows me! Through the sharp hawthorn blow the winds. Hum! Go to thy bed and warm thee.

LEARDid’st thou give all to thy daughters? And art thou come to this?

EDGARWho gives anything to poor Tom? Whom the foul fiend hath led through fire and through flame, through ford and whirlpool, o’er bog and quagmire, that hath laid knives[50] under his pillow, and halters in his pew, set ratsbane by his porridge,[51] made him proud of heart, to ride on a bay trotting-horse over four-inched bridges, to course[52] his own shadow for a traitor. Bless thy five wits! Tom’s a-cold. O, do[53] de, do de, do de. Bless thee from whirlwinds, star-blasting and taking! Do poor Tom some charity, whom the foul fiend vexes:[54] there could I have him now — and there — and there again, and there.

Storm still

LEARHas his daughters brought him to this pass?[56]

Couldst thou save nothing? Wouldst thou give ’em all?

FOOLNay, he reserved a blanket,[58] else we had been all shamed.

LEARNow, all the plagues that in the pendulous[59] air

60

Hang fated[60] o’er men’s faults light on thy daughters!

KENTHe hath no daughters, sir.

LEARDeath, traitor! Nothing could have subdued nature[62]

To such a lowness but his unkind daughters.

Is it the fashion that discarded fathers

65

Should have thus[65] little mercy on their flesh?

Judicious punishment! ’Twas this flesh begot

Those pelican[67] daughters.

EDGARPillicock[68] sat on Pillicock-hill: alow, alow, loo, loo!

FOOLThis cold night will turn us all to fools and madmen.

EDGARTake heed o’th’foul fiend: obey[70] thy parents, keep thy word’s justice, swear not, commit not[71] with man’s sworn spouse, set not thy sweetheart on proud array. Tom’s a-cold.

LEARWhat hast thou been?

EDGARA servingman, proud in heart and mind, that curled my hair, wore gloves[74] in my cap, served the lust of my mistress’ heart, and did the act of darkness with her: swore as many oaths as I spake words, and broke them in the sweet face of heaven: one that slept in[77] the contriving of lust, and waked to do it: wine loved I dearly, dice[78] dearly, and in woman out-paramoured the Turk: false of heart, light of ear, bloody of hand: hog in sloth, fox in stealth, wolf in greediness, dog in madness, lion in prey. Let not the creaking[80] of shoes nor the rustling of silks betray thy poor heart to woman: keep thy foot out of brothels, thy hand out of plackets,[81] thy pen from lenders’ books, and defy the foul fiend. Still through the hawthorn blows the cold wind, says suum, mun,[83] nonny, Dolphin my boy, boy sessa! Let him trot by.

Storm still

LEARThou wert better in a grave than to answer[85] with thy uncovered body this extremity of the skies. Is man no more than this? Consider him well. Thou ow’st the worm no silk, the beast no hide, the sheep no wool, the cat no perfume.[87] Ha? Here’s three on’s[88] are sophisticated. Thou art the thing itself: unaccommodated man is no more but such a poor bare, forked animal as thou art. Off, off, you lendings![90] Tears off his clothes Come, unbutton here.

Enter Gloucester with a torch

FOOLPrithee, nuncle, be contented: ’tis a naughty[91] night to swim in. Now a little fire in a wild field were like an old lecher’s heart, a small spark, all the rest on’s body cold. Look, here comes a walking fire.[93]

EDGARThis is the foul Flibbertigibbet:[94] he begins at curfew and walks till the first cock:[95] he gives the web and the pin, squints the eye and makes the hare-lip, mildews the white wheat, and hurts the poor creature of earth.

Swithold[97] footed thrice the old, Chants?

He met the nightmare[98] and her nine-fold;

Bid her alight,

100

And her troth plight,[100]

And, aroint[101] thee, witch, aroint thee!

KENTHow fares your grace?

LEARWhat’s[103] he?

KENTWho’s there? What is’t you seek?

GLOUCESTERWhat are you there? Your names?

EDGARPoor Tom, that eats the swimming frog, the toad, the tadpole, the wall-newt[106] and the water,[107] that in the fury of his heart, when the foul fiend rages, eats cow-dung for salads, swallows the old rat and the ditch-dog,[108] drinks the green mantle of the standing[109] pool, who is whipped from tithing to tithing, and stocked, punished and imprisoned, who hath had three[110] suits to his back, six shirts to his body:

Horse to ride, and weapon to wear,

But mice and rats and such small deer[113]

Have been Tom’s food for seven long year.

Beware my follower. Peace, Smulkin,[115] peace, thou fiend!

GLOUCESTERWhat, hath your grace no better company?

EDGARThe[117] prince of darkness is a gentleman:

Modo[118] he’s called, and Mahu.

GLOUCESTEROur flesh and blood,[119] my lord, is grown so vile, To Lear

120

That it doth hate what gets[120] it.

EDGARPoor Tom’s a-cold.

GLOUCESTERGo in with me: my duty cannot suffer

T’obey in all your daughters’ hard commands:

Though their injunction be to bar my doors

125

And let this tyrannous night take hold upon you,

Yet have I ventured to come seek you out

And bring you where both fire and food is ready.

LEARFirst let me talk with this philosopher.—

What is the cause of thunder? To Edgar

130

KENTGood my lord, take his offer: go into th’house.

LEARI’ll talk a word with this same learnèd Theban.[131]—

What is your study? To Edgar

EDGARHow to prevent[133] the fiend and to kill vermin.

LEARLet me ask you one word in private. They talk apart

135

KENTImportune[135] him once more to go, my lord: To Gloucester

His wits begin t’unsettle.[136]

GLOUCESTERCanst thou blame him?

Storm still

His daughters seek his death. Ah, that good Kent!

He said it would be thus, poor banished man!

140

Thou sayest the king grows mad: I’ll tell thee, friend,

I am almost mad myself. I had a son,

Now outlawed from my blood:[142] he sought my life

But lately, very late. I loved him, friend:

No father his son dearer. True to tell thee,

145

The grief hath crazed my wits. What a night’s this!—

I do beseech your grace— To Lear

LEARO, cry you mercy,[147] sir.—

Noble philosopher, your company. To Edgar

EDGARTom’s a-cold.

150

GLOUCESTERIn, fellow, there, into th’hovel: keep thee warm. To Edgar

LEARCome let’s in all.

KENTThis way, my lord.

LEARWith him;

I will keep still[154] with my philosopher.

155

KENTGood my lord, soothe[155] him: let him take the fellow. To Gloucester

GLOUCESTERTake him you on.[156] To Kent

KENTSirrah, come on: go along with us. To Edgar

LEARCome, good Athenian.[158]

GLOUCESTERNo words, no words: hush.

160

EDGARChild[160] Rowland to the dark tower came,

His word[161] was still: fie, foh and fum,

I smell the blood of a British man.

Exeunt

Act 3 Scene 53.5

running scene 9

Enter Cornwall and Edmund

CORNWALLI will have my revenge ere I depart his[1] house.

EDMUNDHow, my lord, I may be censured, that nature[2] thus gives way to loyalty, something fears[3] me to think of.

CORNWALLI now perceive it was not altogether your brother’s evil disposition made him seek his[5] death, but a provoking merit set a-work by a reprovable badness in himself.

EDMUNDHow malicious is my fortune — that I must repent to be[7] just! Shows a letter This is the letter which he spoke of which approves[8] him an intelligent party to the advantages of France. O heavens! That this treason were not, or not I the detector!

CORNWALLGo with me to the duchess.

EDMUNDIf the matter of this paper be certain, you have mighty business in hand.

CORNWALLTrue or false, it hath made thee Earl of Gloucester. Seek out where thy father is, that he may be ready for our apprehension.[14]

EDMUNDIf I find him comforting the king, it will stuff his suspicion[15] more fully.— I Aside will persevere in my course of loyalty, though the conflict be sore between that and my blood.

CORNWALLI will lay trust upon thee, and thou shalt find a dear father in my love.

Exeunt

Act 3 Scene 63.6

running scene 10

Enter Kent and Gloucester

GLOUCESTERHere is better than the open air, take it thankfully. I will piece out[1] the comfort with what addition I can: I will not be long from you.

Exit

KENTAll the power of his wits have given way to his impatience:[3] the gods reward your kindness!

Enter Lear, Edgar and Fool Edgar disguised as Poor Tom

EDGARFrateretto[5] calls me, and tells me Nero is an angler in the lake of darkness. Pray, innocent, and beware the foul fiend.

FOOLPrithee, nuncle, tell me whether a madman be a gentleman or a yeoman?[7]

LEARA king, a king!

FOOLNo, he’s a yeoman that has a gentleman to[9] his son, for he’s a mad yeoman that sees his son a gentleman before him.

LEARTo have a thousand[11] with red burning spits

Come hizzing[12] in upon ’em—

EDGARBless thy five wits!

KENTO pity! Sir, where is the patience now

15

That you so oft have boasted to retain?

EDGARMy tears begin to take his part so much Aside

They mar my counterfeiting.[17]

LEARThe little dogs and all,

Trey,[19] Blanch and Sweetheart, see, they bark at me.

20

EDGARTom will throw his head[20] at them. Avaunt, you curs!

Be thy mouth or black or[21] white,

Tooth that poisons[22] if it bite,

Mastiff, greyhound, mongrel grim,[23]

Hound or spaniel, brach[24] or him,

25

Or bobtail tyke[25] or trundle-tail,

Tom will make him weep and wail:

For, with throwing thus my head,

Dogs leapt the hatch,[28] and all are fled.

Do[29] de, de, de. Sessa! Come, march to wakes and fairs and market towns. Poor Tom, thy horn[30] is dry.

LEARThen let them anatomize[31] Regan: see what breeds about her heart. Is there any cause in nature that make these hard hearts?— You, sir, I entertain[33] for one of my hundred; To Edgar only I do not like the fashion of your garments: you will say they are Persian;[34] but let them be changed.

Enter Gloucester At a distance

35

KENTNow, good my lord, lie here and rest awhile.

LEARMake no noise, make no noise: draw the curtains.[36]

So, so, we’ll go to supper i’th’morning. Sleeps

FOOLAnd I’ll go to bed at noon.

GLOUCESTERCome hither, friend: where is the king my master? To Kent

40

KENTHere, sir, but trouble him not: his wits are gone.

GLOUCESTERGood friend, I prithee take him in thy arms;

I have o’erheard a plot of death upon him:

There is a litter[43] ready, lay him in’t

And drive toward Dover,[44] friend, where thou shalt meet

45

Both welcome and protection. Take up thy master:

If thou shouldst dally half an hour, his life,

With thine and all that offer to defend him,

Stand in assurèd loss. Take up, take up,

And follow me, that will to[49] some provision They carry Lear

50

Give thee quick conduct. Come, come, away.

Exeunt

Act 3 Scene 73.7

running scene 11

Enter Cornwall, Regan, Goneril, Bastard [Edmund] and Servants

CORNWALLPost[1] speedily to my lord your husband; To Goneril show him this letter: the army of France is landed.— Gives a letter Seek out the traitor Gloucester.

[Exeunt some Servants]

REGANHang him instantly.

GONERILPluck out his eyes.

CORNWALLLeave him to my displeasure. Edmund, keep you our sister[5] company: the revenges we are bound to take upon your traitorous father are not fit for your beholding. Advise[7] the duke where you are going, to a most festinate preparation: we are bound to the like. Our posts[8] shall be swift and intelligent betwixt us. Farewell, dear sister: farewell, my lord of Gloucester.[9]

Enter Oswald

10

How now? Where’s the king?

OSWALDMy lord of Gloucester hath conveyed him hence:

Some five- or six-and-thirty of his knights,

Hot questrists[13] after him, met him at gate,

Who, with some other of the lord’s[14] dependants,

15

Are gone with him toward Dover, where they boast

To have well-armèd friends.

CORNWALLGet horses for your mistress.

GONERILFarewell, sweet lord, and sister.

Exeunt [Goneril, Edmund and Oswald]

CORNWALLEdmund, farewell.—

20

Go seek the traitor Gloucester,

Pinion him[21] like a thief, bring him before us.

[Exeunt other Servants]

Though well we may not pass[22] upon his life

Without the form of justice, yet our power

Shall do a court’sy[24] to our wrath, which men

25

May blame but not control.

Enter Gloucester and Servants

Who’s there? The traitor?

REGANIngrateful fox! ’Tis he.

CORNWALLBind fast his corky[27] arms.

GLOUCESTERWhat means your graces?

Good my friends, consider you are my guests:

30

Do me no foul play, friends.

CORNWALLBind him, I say. Servants bind him

REGANHard, hard. O, filthy traitor!

GLOUCESTERUnmerciful lady as you are, I’m none.

CORNWALLTo this chair bind him.— Villain, thou shalt find— Regan plucks his beard[34]

35

GLOUCESTERBy the kind gods, ’tis most ignobly done

To pluck me by the beard.

REGANSo white,[37] and such a traitor?

GLOUCESTERNaughty[38] lady,

These hairs which thou dost ravish[39] from my chin

40

Will quicken[40] and accuse thee. I am your host:

With robbers’ hands my hospitable favours[41]

You should not ruffle[42] thus. What will you do?

CORNWALLCome, sir, what letters had you late from France?

REGANBe simple answered,[44] for we know the truth.

45

CORNWALLAnd what confederacy have you with the traitors

Late footed[46] in the kingdom?

REGANTo whose hands you have sent the lunatic king? Speak.

GLOUCESTERI have a letter guessingly[48] set down,

Which came from one that’s of a neutral heart,

50

And not from one opposed.[50]

CORNWALLCunning.

REGANAnd false.

CORNWALLWhere hast thou sent the king?

GLOUCESTERTo Dover.

55

REGANWherefore to Dover? Wast thou not charged at peril[55]—

CORNWALLWherefore to Dover? Let him answer that.

GLOUCESTERI am tied to th’stake[57] and I must stand the course.

REGANWherefore to Dover?

GLOUCESTERBecause I would not see thy cruel nails

60

Pluck out his poor old eyes, nor thy fierce sister

In his anointed[61] flesh stick boarish fangs.

The sea, with such a storm as his bare head

In hell-black night endured, would have buoyed[63] up

And quenched the stellèd[64] fires:

65

Yet, poor old heart, he holp[65] the heavens to rain.

If wolves had at thy gate howled that stern[66] time,

Thou shouldst have said ‘Good porter, turn the key.[67]’

All[68] cruels else subscribe: but I shall see

The wingèd vengeance[69] overtake such children.

70

CORNWALLSee’t shalt thou never. Fellows,[70] hold the chair.—

Upon these eyes of thine I’ll set my foot.

GLOUCESTERHe that will think to live till he be old,

Give me some help! O cruel! O you gods! Cornwall grinds out his eye

REGANOne side will mock another: th’other too.

75

CORNWALLIf you see vengeance—

SERVANTHold your hand, my lord:

I have served you ever since I was a child,

But better service have I never done you

Than now to bid you hold.

80

REGANHow now, you dog?

SERVANTIf you did wear a beard upon your chin, To Regan

I’d shake[82] it on this quarrel.— What do you mean?

CORNWALLMy villain?[83] They draw and fight

SERVANTNay, then, come on, and take the chance of anger.[84]

85

REGANGive me thy sword. A peasant stand up thus? To a Servant

Kills him

SERVANTO, I am slain! My lord, you have one eye left

To see some mischief on him.[87] O! Dies

CORNWALLLest it see more, prevent it. Out, vile jelly! Puts out Gloucester’s other eye

Where is thy lustre now?

90

GLOUCESTERAll dark and comfortless. Where’s my son Edmund?

Edmund, enkindle all the sparks of nature[91]

To quit[92] this horrid act.

REGANOut,[93] treacherous villain!

Thou call’st on him that hates thee: it was he

95

That made the overture[95] of thy treasons to us,

Who is too good to pity thee.

GLOUCESTERO, my follies! Then Edgar was abused.[97]

Kind gods, forgive me that, and prosper him!

REGANGo thrust him out at gates, and let him smell

100

His way to Dover.

Exit [a Servant] with Gloucester

How is’t, my lord? How look you?[101]

CORNWALLI have received a hurt: follow me, lady.—

Turn out that eyeless villain: throw this slave

Upon the dunghill.— Regan, I bleed apace:[104]

105

Untimely[105] comes this hurt. Give me your arm.

Exeunt

Act 4 Scene 14.1

running scene 12

Enter Edgar Disguised as Poor Tom

EDGARYet better thus,[1] and known to be contemned,

Than still contemned and flattered.[2] To be worst,

The lowest and most dejected thing of fortune,

Stands still in esperance,[4] lives not in fear:

5

The[5] lamentable change is from the best,

The worst returns to laughter. Welcome, then,

Thou unsubstantial air that I embrace!

The wretch that thou hast blown unto the worst

Owes nothing to thy blasts.

Enter Gloucester and an Old Man

10

But who comes here? My father, poorly led?[10]

World, world, O world!

But[12] that thy strange mutations make us hate thee,

Life[13] would not yield to age.

OLD MANO, my good lord, I have been your tenant and your father’s tenant these fourscore[15] years.

GLOUCESTERAway, get thee away! Good friend, be gone:

Thy comforts can do me no good at all,

Thee[18] they may hurt.

OLD MANYou cannot see your way.

20

GLOUCESTERI have no way and therefore want no eyes:

I stumbled when I saw. Full oft ’tis seen

Our means secure us,[22] and our mere defects

Prove our commodities.[23] O dear son Edgar,

The food of thy abusèd[24] father’s wrath!

25

Might I but live to see thee in my touch,

I’d say I had eyes again!

OLD MANHow now? Who’s there?

EDGARO gods! Who is’t can say, ‘I am at the worst’? Aside

I am worse than e’er I was.

30

OLD MAN’Tis poor mad Tom.

EDGARAnd worse I may be yet: the worst is not[31] Aside

So long as we can say ‘This is the worst.’

OLD MANFellow, where goest?

GLOUCESTERIs it a beggar-man?

35

OLD MANMadman and beggar too.

GLOUCESTERHe has some reason,[36] else he could not beg.

I’th’last night’s storm I such a fellow saw,

Which made me think a man a worm: my son

Came then into my mind and yet my mind

40

Was then scarce friends with him. I have heard more since.

As flies to wanton[41] boys are we to th’gods:

They kill us for their sport.

EDGARHow should this be? Aside

Bad is the trade[44] that must play fool to sorrow,

45

Ang’ring itself and others.— Bless thee, master!

GLOUCESTERIs that the naked fellow?

OLD MANAy, my lord.

GLOUCESTERGet thee away: if for my sake

Thou wilt o’ertake us hence a mile or twain

50

I’th’way toward Dover, do it for ancient love,[50]

And bring some covering for this naked soul,

Which I’ll entreat to lead me.

OLD MANAlack, sir, he is mad.

GLOUCESTER’Tis the time’s plague,[54] when madmen lead the blind.

55

Do as I bid thee, or rather do thy pleasure:

Above the rest,[56] be gone.

OLD MANI’ll bring him the best ’pparel[57] that I have,

Come[58] on’t what will.

Exit

GLOUCESTERSirrah, naked fellow—

60

EDGARPoor Tom’s a-cold.— I cannot daub it[60] further. Aside

GLOUCESTERCome hither, fellow.

EDGARAnd yet I must.— Bless thy sweet eyes, they bleed. Aside

GLOUCESTERKnow’st thou the way to Dover?

EDGARBoth stile and gate, horseway and footpath. Poor Tom hath been scared out of his good wits: bless thee, good man’s son, from the foul fiend!

GLOUCESTERHere, take this purse, thou whom the heav’ns’ plagues Gives a purse

Have humbled to all strokes:[67] that I am wretched

Makes thee the happier:[68] heavens, deal so still.

Let the superfluous[69] and lust-dieted man,

70

That slaves your ordinance,[70] that will not see

Because he does not feel,[71] feel your pow’r quickly,

So distribution should undo excess,

And each man have enough. Dost thou know Dover?

EDGARAy, master.

75

GLOUCESTERThere is a cliff, whose high and bending[75] head

Looks fearfully in the confinèd[76] deep:

Bring me but to the very brim[77] of it

And I’ll repair the misery thou dost bear

With something rich about me:[79] from that place

80

I shall no leading need.

EDGARGive me thy arm:

Poor Tom shall lead thee.

Exeunt

Act 4 Scene 24.2

running scene 13

Enter Goneril, Bastard [Edmund] and Steward [Oswald]

GONERILWelcome, my lord:[1] I marvel our mild husband

Not met us on the way.— Now, where’s your master?

OSWALDMadam, within, but never man so changed.

I told him of the army[4] that was landed,

5

He smiled at it: I told him you were coming,

His answer was ‘The worse’: of Gloucester’s treachery

And of the loyal service of his son

When I informed him, then he called me ‘sot’[8]

And told me I had turned[9] the wrong side out.

10

What most he should dislike seems pleasant to him;

What like, offensive.

GONERILThen shall you go no further. To Edmund

It is the cowish[13] terror of his spirit,

That dares not undertake:[14] he’ll not feel wrongs

15

Which tie[15] him to an answer. Our wishes on the way

May prove effects.[16] Back, Edmund, to my brother:

Hasten his musters[17] and conduct his powers.

I must change[18] names at home and give the distaff

Into my husband’s hands. This trusty servant

20

Shall pass between us: ere long you are like[20] to hear —

If you dare venture in your own behalf —

A mistress’s[22] command. Wear this; spare speech. Gives a favor

Decline your head: this kiss, if it durst speak, Kisses him

Would stretch thy[24] spirits up into the air.

25

Conceive,[25] and fare thee well.

EDMUNDYours in the ranks of death.[26]

Exit

GONERILMy most dear Gloucester!

O, the difference of man and man!

To thee a woman’s services[29] are due:

30

My fool[30] usurps my body.

OSWALDMadam, here comes my lord.

Exit

Enter Albany

GONERILI have been worth the whistle.[32]

ALBANYO Goneril,[33]

You are not worth the dust which the rude[34] wind

35

Blows in your face.

GONERILMilk-livered[36] man,

That bear’st a cheek for blows, a head for wrongs,

Who hast not in thy brows an eye discerning[38]

Thine honour from thy suffering.

40

ALBANYSee thyself, devil!

Proper[41] deformity seems not in the fiend

So horrid as in woman.

GONERILO vain[43] fool!

Enter a Messenger

MESSENGERO, my good lord, the Duke of Cornwall’s dead,

45

Slain by his servant, going to put out

The other eye of Gloucester.

ALBANYGloucester’s eyes?

MESSENGERA servant that he bred,[48] thrilled with remorse,

Opposed[49] against the act, bending his sword

50

To his great master, who, threat-enraged,[50]

Flew on him and amongst them felled him dead,

But not without that harmful stroke which since

Hath plucked him after.[53]

ALBANYThis shows you are above,

55

You justices,[55] that these our nether crimes

So speedily can venge.[56] But, O, poor Gloucester!

Lost he his other eye?

MESSENGERBoth, both, my lord.—

This letter, madam, craves a speedy answer: Gives a letter

60

’Tis from your sister.

GONERILOne way I like this well: Aside

But being widow, and my Gloucester with her,

May all[63] the building in my fancy pluck

Upon my hateful life: another way,

65

The news is not so tart.[65]— I’ll read, and answer.

[Exit]

ALBANYWhere was his son when they did take his eyes?

MESSENGERCome with my lady hither.

ALBANYHe is not here.

MESSENGERNo, my good lord, I met him back[69] again.

70

ALBANYKnows he the wickedness?

MESSENGERAy, my good lord: ’twas he informed against him,

And quit the house on purpose that their punishment

Might have the freer course.

ALBANYGloucester, I live

75

To thank thee for the love thou showed’st the king

And to revenge thine eyes.— Come hither, friend:

Tell me what more thou know’st.

Exeunt

Act 4 Scene 34.3

running scene 14

Enter with Drum and Colours Cordelia, Gentleman and Soldiers

CORDELIAAlack, ’tis he: why, he was met even now

As mad as the vexed[2] sea, singing aloud,

Crowned with rank fumiter[3] and furrow weeds,

With burdocks,[4] hemlock, nettles, cuckoo-flowers,

5

Darnel,[5] and all the idle weeds that grow

In our sustaining corn. A sentry send forth;

Search every acre in the high-grown field

And bring him to our eye.—

[Exit a Soldier]

What[8] can man’s wisdom

In the restoring his bereavèd[9] sense?

10

He that helps him take all my outward worth.[10]

GENTLEMANThere is means, madam:

Our foster-nurse of nature is repose,[12]

The which he lacks: that[13] to provoke in him

Are many simples operative, whose power

15

Will close the eye of anguish.

CORDELIAAll blest secrets,

All you unpublished virtues[17] of the earth,

Spring with my tears! Be aidant[18] and remediate

In the good man’s distress! Seek, seek for him,

20

Lest his ungoverned rage[20] dissolve the life

That wants the means[21] to lead it.

Enter Messenger

MESSENGERNews, madam:

The British powers are marching hitherward.

CORDELIA’Tis known before: our preparation[24] stands

25

In expectation of them. O dear father,

It is thy business that I go about:

Therefore great France[27]

My mourning and importuned[28] tears hath pitied.

No blown[29] ambition doth our arms incite,

30

But love, dear love, and our aged father’s right:

Soon may I hear and see him!

Exeunt

Act 4 Scene 44.4

running scene 15

Enter Regan and Steward [Oswald]

REGANBut are my brother’s powers set forth?

OSWALDAy, madam.

REGANHimself in person there?

OSWALDMadam, with much ado:[4]

5

Your sister is the better soldier.

REGANLord Edmund spake not with your lord at home?

OSWALDNo, madam.

REGANWhat might import[8] my sister’s letter to him?

OSWALDI know not, lady.

10

REGANFaith, he is posted[10] hence on serious matter.

It was great ignorance,[11] Gloucester’s eyes being out,

To let him live: where he arrives he moves

All hearts against us. Edmund, I think, is gone,

In pity of his misery, to dispatch

15

His nighted[15] life: moreover, to descry

The strength o’th’enemy.

OSWALDI must needs after[17] him, madam, with my letter.

REGANOur troops set forth tomorrow. Stay with us:

The ways[19] are dangerous.

20

OSWALDI may not, madam:

My lady charged my duty[21] in this business.

REGANWhy should she write to Edmund? Might not you

Transport her purposes by word? Belike,[23]

Some things I know not what. I’ll love thee[24] much,

25

Let me unseal the letter.

OSWALDMadam, I had rather—

REGANI know your lady does not love her husband,

I am sure of that: and at her late being here

She gave strange oeillades[29] and most speaking looks

30

To noble Edmund. I know you are of her bosom.[30]

OSWALDI, madam?

REGANI speak in understanding. Y’are,[32] I know’t.

Therefore I do advise you, take this note.[33]

My lord is dead: Edmund and I have talked,

35

And more convenient[35] is he for my hand

Than for your lady’s: you may gather more.[36]

If you do find him, pray you give him this, Gives a token or a letter

And when your mistress hears thus much from you,

I pray desire her call[39] her wisdom to her.

40

So, fare you well.

If you do chance to hear of that blind traitor,

Preferment falls on him that cuts him off.

OSWALDWould I could meet,[43] madam, I should show

What party I do follow.

45

REGANFare thee well.

Exeunt

Act 4 Scene 54.5

running scene 16

Enter Gloucester and Edgar Edgar dressed like a peasant

GLOUCESTERWhen shall I come to th’top of that same hill?[1]

EDGARYou do climb up it now: look how we labour.

GLOUCESTERMethinks the ground is even.

EDGARHorrible steep.

5

Hark, do you hear the sea?

GLOUCESTERNo, truly.

EDGARWhy, then, your other senses grow imperfect

By your eyes’ anguish.

GLOUCESTERSo may it be, indeed:

10

Methinks thy voice is altered and thou speak’st

In better phrase and matter[11] than thou didst.

EDGARYou’re much deceived: in nothing am I changed

But in my garments.

GLOUCESTERMethinks you’re better spoken.

15

EDGARCome on, sir, here’s the place: stand still. How fearful

And dizzy ’tis to cast one’s eyes so low!

The crows and choughs[17] that wing the midway air

Show scarce so gross[18] as beetles: halfway down

Hangs one that gathers samphire,[19] dreadful trade!

20

Methinks he seems no bigger than his head.

The fishermen that walk upon the beach

Appear like mice, and yond[22] tall anchoring bark

Diminished to her cock,[23] her cock, a buoy

Almost too small for sight. The murmuring surge,

25

That on th’unnumbered idle pebble[25] chafes,

Cannot be heard so high. I’ll look no more,

Lest my brain turn and the deficient[27] sight

Topple[28] down headlong.

GLOUCESTERSet me where you stand.

30

EDGARGive me your hand: you are now within a foot

Of th’extreme verge: for all beneath the moon

Would I not leap upright.[32]

GLOUCESTERLet go my hand.

Here, friend’s[34] another purse: in it a jewel Gives a purse

35

Well worth a poor man’s taking: fairies and gods

Prosper it[36] with thee! Go thou further off:

Bid me farewell, and let me hear thee going.

EDGARNow fare ye well, good sir.

GLOUCESTERWith all my heart.

40

EDGARWhy I do trifle[40] thus with his despair Aside

Is done to cure it.

GLOUCESTERO you mighty gods! Kneels

This world I do renounce, and in your sights

Shake patiently my great affliction off:

45

If I could bear it longer, and not fall

To quarrel with your great opposeless[46] wills,

My[47] snuff and loathèd part of nature should

Burn itself out. If Edgar live, O, bless him!—

Now, fellow, fare thee well. He falls forward

50

EDGARGone, sir: farewell.—

And yet I know not how conceit[51] may rob Aside

The treasury of life, when life itself

Yields[53] to the theft: had he been where he thought,

By this[54] had thought been past. Alive or dead?—

55

Ho, you sir! Friend! Hear you, sir! Speak!—

Thus might he pass[56] indeed: yet he revives.—

What[57] are you, sir?

GLOUCESTERAway, and let me die.

EDGARHadst thou been aught[59] but gossamer, feathers, air —

60

So many fathom down precipitating[60] —

Thou’dst shivered[61] like an egg: but thou dost breathe,

Hast heavy substance, bleed’st not, speak’st, art sound.

Ten masts at each[63] make not the altitude

Which thou hast perpendicularly fell:

65

Thy life’s a miracle. Speak yet again.

GLOUCESTERBut have I fall’n or no?

EDGARFrom the dread summit of this chalky bourn.[67]

Look up a-height[68] the shrill-gorged lark so far

Cannot be seen or heard: do but look up.

70

GLOUCESTERAlack, I have no eyes.

Is wretchedness deprived that benefit,

To end itself by death? ’Twas yet some comfort

When misery could beguile[73] the tyrant’s rage

And frustrate his proud will.

75

EDGARGive me your arm. Helps him up

Up, so. How is’t? Feel you your legs? You stand.

GLOUCESTERToo well, too well.

EDGARThis is above all strangeness.

Upon the crown o’th’cliff what thing was that

80

Which parted from you?

GLOUCESTERA poor unfortunate beggar.

EDGARAs I stood here below, methought his eyes

Were two full moons: he had a thousand noses,

Horns whelked[84] and waved like the enragèd sea.

85

It was some fiend:[85] therefore, thou happy father,

Think that the clearest[86] gods, who make them honours

Of men’s impossibilities, have preserved thee.

GLOUCESTERI do remember now: henceforth I’ll bear

Affliction till it do cry out itself

90

‘Enough, enough’ and die. That thing you speak of,

I took it for a man: often ’twould say

‘The fiend, the fiend’: he led me to that place.

EDGARBear free[93] and patient thoughts.

Enter Lear Dressed with weeds

But who comes here?

The[94] safer sense will ne’er accommodate

95

His master thus.

LEARNo, they cannot touch[96] me for crying: I am the king himself.

EDGARO thou side-piercing sight!

LEARNature’s above art in that respect. There’s your press-money.[98] That fellow handles his bow like a crow-keeper.[99] Draw me a clothier’s yard. Look, look, a mouse! Peace, peace, this piece of toasted cheese will do’t. There’s my gauntlet:[100] I’ll prove it on[101] a giant. Bring up the brown bills. O, well flown, bird! I’th’clout, i’th’clout: hewgh![102] Give the word.

EDGARSweet marjoram.[103]

LEARPass.

GLOUCESTERI know that voice.

LEARHa? Goneril with a white beard? They flattered me like a dog[106] and told me I had[107] the white hairs in my beard ere the black ones were there. To say ‘Ay’ and ‘No’ to everything that I said ‘Ay’ and ‘No’ to was no good divinity.[108] When the rain came to wet me[109] once and the wind to make me chatter, when the thunder would not peace[110] at my bidding, there I found ’em, there I smelt ’em out. Go to, they are not men o’their words: they told me I was everything: ’tis a lie, I am not ague-proof.[111]

GLOUCESTERThe trick[113] of that voice I do well remember:

Is’t not the king?

115

LEARAy, every inch a king.

When I do stare, see how the subject quakes.

I pardon that man’s life. What was thy cause?[117]

Adultery?

Thou shalt not die: die for adultery? No.

120

The wren goes to’t[120] and the small gilded fly

Does lecher[121] in my sight. Let copulation thrive,

For Gloucester’s bastard son was kinder to his father

Than were my daughters got[123] ’tween the lawful sheets.

To’t, luxury,[124] pell-mell, for I lack soldiers.

125

Behold yond simp’ring dame,

Whose face between[126] her forks presages snow,

That minces virtue[127] and does shake the head

To hear of pleasure’s name:

The fitchew[129] nor the soilèd horse goes to’t

130

With a more riotous[130] appetite. Down from the waist

They are centaurs,[131] though women all above:

But[132] to the girdle do the gods inherit,

Beneath is all the fiends’:

There’s hell,[134] there’s darkness, there is the sulphurous pit: burning, scalding, stench, consumption. Fie, fie, fie! Pah, pah! Give me an ounce of civet,[135] good apothecary,[136] sweeten my imagination: there’s money for thee.

GLOUCESTERO, let me kiss that hand!

LEARLet me wipe it first: it smells of mortality.[138]

GLOUCESTERO, ruined piece of nature! This great world

140

Shall so[140] wear out to nought. Dost thou know me?

LEARI remember thine eyes well enough. Dost thou squinny[141] at me? No, do thy worst, blind Cupid:[142] I’ll not love. Read thou this challenge, mark but the penning of it.

GLOUCESTERWere all thy letters suns, I could not see.

145

EDGARI would not take[145] this from report: it is, Aside

And my heart breaks at it.

LEARRead.

GLOUCESTERWhat, with the case[148] of eyes?

LEARO, ho, are you there with me? No eyes in your head, nor no money in your purse? Your eyes are in a heavy case,[150] your purse in a light, yet you see how this world goes.

GLOUCESTERI see it feelingly.[152]

LEARWhat, art mad? A man may see how this world goes with no eyes. Look with thine ears: see how yond justice[154] rails upon yond simple thief. Hark, in thine ear: change places, and handy-dandy,[155] which is the justice, which is the thief? Thou hast seen a farmer’s dog bark at a beggar?

GLOUCESTERAy, sir.

LEARAnd the creature run from the cur? There thou mightst behold the great image of authority: a[159] dog’s obeyed in office.

160

Thou rascal beadle,[160] hold thy bloody hand!

Why dost thou lash that whore? Strip thy own back:

Thou hotly lusts to use[162] her in that kind

For which thou whip’st her. The usurer[163] hangs the cozener.

Through tattered clothes great vices do appear:

165

Robes and furred gowns hide all. Place[165] sins with gold,

And the strong lance of justice hurtless[166] breaks:

Arm it[167] in rags, a pigmy’s straw does pierce it.

None does offend, none, I say, none: I’ll able ’em.[168]

Take that of me, my friend, who have the power

170

To seal th’accuser’s lips. Get thee glass eyes,

And like a scurvy politician[171] seem

To see the things thou dost not. Now,[172] now, now, now.

Pull off my boots: harder, harder: so.

EDGARO, matter and impertinency[174] mixed! Reason in madness! Aside

175

LEARIf thou wilt weep my fortunes, take my eyes.

I know thee well enough: thy name is Gloucester.

Thou must be patient; we came crying hither.[177]

Thou know’st the first time that we smell the air

We wail and cry. I will preach to thee: mark.

180

GLOUCESTERAlack, alack the day!

LEARWhen we are born, we cry that we are come

To this great stage of fools. This a good block:[182]

It were a delicate[183] stratagem to shoe

A troop of horse with felt: I’ll put’t in proof,[184]

185

And when I have stol’n upon these son-in-laws,

Then kill, kill, kill, kill, kill, kill!

Enter a Gentleman [with Attendants]

GENTLEMANO, here he is: lay hand upon him.— Sir,

Your most dear daughter—

LEARNo rescue? What, a prisoner? I am even

190

The natural fool[190] of fortune. Use me well,

You shall have ransom. Let me have surgeons:

I am cut to th’brains.

GENTLEMANYou shall have anything.

LEARNo seconds?[194] All myself?

195

Why, this would make a man a man of salt[195]

To use his eyes for garden water-pots,

I will die[197] bravely, like a smug bridegroom. What?

I will be jovial.[198] Come, come, I am a king,

Masters,[199] know you that?

200

GENTLEMANYou are a royal one, and we obey you.

LEARThen there’s life in’t. Come, an you get it, you shall get it by running. Sa,[201] sa, sa, sa. Running, Attendants

Exit

GENTLEMANA sight most pitiful in the meanest wretch, follow

Past speaking of in a king! Thou hast a daughter

205

Who redeems nature[205] from the general curse

Which twain[206] have brought her to.

EDGARHail, gentle[207] sir.

GENTLEMANSir, speed you:[208] what’s your will?

EDGARDo you hear aught, sir, of a battle toward?[209]

210

GENTLEMANMost sure and vulgar:[210] everyone hears that

Which can distinguish sound.

EDGARBut, by your favour,[212]

How near’s the other army?

GENTLEMANNear and on speedy foot: the main[214] descry

215

Stands on the hourly thought.

EDGARI thank you, sir: that’s all.

GENTLEMANThough that[217] the queen on special cause is here,

Her army is moved on.

Exit

EDGARI thank you, sir.

220

GLOUCESTERYou ever-gentle gods, take my breath from me:

Let not my worser spirit[221] tempt me again

To die before you please!

EDGARWell pray you, father.

GLOUCESTERNow, good sir, what are you?

225

EDGARA most poor man, made tame to fortune’s blows,

Who, by the art of known[226] and feeling sorrows,

Am pregnant[227] to good pity. Give me your hand:

I’ll lead you to some biding.[228] Takes his arm

GLOUCESTERHearty thanks:

230

The bounty and the benison[230] of heaven

To[231] boot, and boot.

Enter Steward [Oswald]

OSWALDA proclaimed prize![232] Most happy!

That eyeless head of thine was first framed flesh[233]

To raise my fortunes. Thou old unhappy traitor, Draws

235

Briefly thyself remember:[235] the sword is out

That must destroy thee.

GLOUCESTERNow let thy friendly hand

Put strength enough to’t. Edgar interposes

OSWALDWherefore, bold peasant,

240

Darest thou support a published[240] traitor? Hence,

Lest that th’infection of his fortune take

Like hold on thee. Let go his arm.

EDGAR’Chill[243] not let go, zir, without vurther ’casion.

OSWALDLet go, slave, or thou diest!

EDGARGood gentleman, go your gait,[245] and let poor volk pass. An ’chud ha’ bin zwaggered out of my life, ’twould not ha’ bin zo long as ’tis by a vortnight. Nay, come not near th’old man: keep out, che vor ye,[247] or I’se try whether your costard or my ballow[248] be the harder. ’Chill be plain with you.

OSWALDOut, dunghill!

250

EDGAR’Chill pick[250] your teeth, zir: come, no matter vor your foins. They fight

OSWALDSlave, thou hast slain me. Villain, take my purse:

If ever thou wilt thrive, bury my body

And give the letters which thou find’st about me

To Edmund, Earl of Gloucester: seek him out

255

Upon the English party.[255] O, untimely death! Death! He dies

EDGARI know thee well: a serviceable[256] villain,

As duteous to the vices of thy mistress

As badness would desire.

GLOUCESTERWhat, is he dead?

260

EDGARSit you down, father: rest you.

Let’s see these pockets: the letters that he speaks of

May be my friends. He’s dead: I am only sorry

He had no other deathsman.[263] Let us see. Opens the letter

Leave,[264] gentle wax, and manners, blame us not:

265

To know our enemies’ minds we rip their hearts:

Their papers is more lawful.

Reads the letter

‘Let our reciprocal vows be remembered. You have many opportunities to cut him off: if your will[268] want not, time and place will be fruitfully offered. There is nothing done[269] if he return the conqueror: then am I the prisoner, and his bed my jail, from the loathed warmth whereof deliver me, and supply the place for your labour.[270]

Your — wife, so I would say — affectionate servant,[271] Goneril.’

O, undistinguished space[272] of woman’s will!

A plot upon her virtuous husband’s life,

And the exchange my brother! Here in the sands

275

Thee[275] I’ll rake up, the post unsanctified

Of murderous lechers: and in[276] the mature time

With this ungracious[277] paper strike the sight

Of the death-practised[278] duke: for him ’tis well

That of thy death and business I can tell.

280

GLOUCESTERThe king is mad: how stiff[280] is my vile sense,

That I stand up and have ingenious[281] feeling

Of my huge sorrows. Better I were distract,[282]

So should my thoughts be severed from my griefs, Drum afar off

And woes by wrong imaginations[284] lose

285

The knowledge of themselves.

EDGARGive me your hand:

Far off, methinks, I hear the beaten drum.

Come, father, I’ll bestow you with a friend.

Exeunt

Act 4 Scene 64.6

running scene 17

Enter Cordelia, Kent and Gentleman Kent still disguised

CORDELIAO thou good Kent, how shall I live and work

To match thy goodness? My life will be too short,

And every[3] measure fail me.

KENTTo be acknowledged, madam, is o’erpaid.[4]

5

All[5] my reports go with the modest truth,

Nor[6] more nor clipped, but so.

CORDELIABe better suited:[7]

These weeds[8] are memories of those worser hours,

I prithee put them off.

10

KENTPardon, dear madam,

Yet[11] to be known shortens my made intent:

My[12] boon I make it, that you know me not

Till time and I think meet.[13]

CORDELIAThen be’t so, my good lord.— How does the king?

15

GENTLEMANMadam, sleeps still.

CORDELIAO you kind gods,

Cure this great breach in his abusèd nature!

Th’untuned and jarring senses, O, wind up[18]

Of this child-changèd[19] father!

20

GENTLEMANSo please your majesty

That we may wake the king: he hath slept long.

CORDELIABe governed by your knowledge, and proceed

I’th’sway[23] of your own will. Is he arrayed?

Enter Lear in a chair carried by Servants

GENTLEMANAy, madam: in the heaviness of sleep

25

We put fresh garments on him.

Be by, good madam, when we do awake him:

I doubt of[27] his temperance.

CORDELIAO my dear father! Restoration hang Kisses him

Thy medicine on my lips and let this kiss

30

Repair those violent harms that my two sisters

Have in thy reverence[31] made!

KENTKind and dear princess!

CORDELIAHad you[33] not been their father, these white flakes

Did challenge[34] pity of them. Was this a face

35

To be opposed against the jarring winds?

Mine enemy’s dog though he had bit me

Should have stood that night against my fire,

And wast thou fain,[38] poor father,

To hovel thee with swine and rogues forlorn[39]

40

In short[40] and musty straw? Alack, alack!

’Tis wonder that thy life and wits at once[41]

Had not concluded all.[42]— He wakes: speak to him.

GENTLEMANMadam, do you: ’tis fittest.

CORDELIAHow does my royal lord? How fares your majesty?

45

LEARYou do me wrong to take me out o’th’grave:

Thou art a soul in bliss,[46] but I am bound

Upon a wheel of fire,[47] that mine own tears

Do scald like molten lead.

CORDELIASir, do you know me?

50

LEARYou are a spirit, I know: where did you die?

CORDELIAStill, still, far wide![51]

GENTLEMANHe’s scarce awake: let him alone awhile.

LEARWhere have I been? Where am I? Fair daylight?

I am mightily abused.[54] I should ev’n die with pity

55

To see another thus. I know not what to say.

I will not swear these are my hands. Let’s see:

I feel this pinprick. Would[57] I were assured

Of my condition!

CORDELIAO, look upon me, sir, Kneels?

60

And hold your hand in benediction o’er me:

You must not kneel. Stops him from kneeling?

LEARPray, do not mock me:

I am a very foolish fond[63] old man,

Fourscore and upward, not an hour more nor less,

65

And to deal plainly,

I fear I am not in my perfect mind.

Methinks I should know you and know this man,

Yet I am doubtful, for I am mainly ignorant

What place this is, and all the skill I have

70

Remembers not these garments, nor I know not

Where I did lodge last night. Do not laugh at me,

For, as I am a man, I think this lady

To be my child Cordelia.

CORDELIAAnd so I am, I am. Weeps

75

LEARBe your tears wet? Yes, faith. I pray, weep not:

If you have poison for me, I will drink it.

I know you do not love me, for your sisters

Have, as I do remember, done me wrong:

You have some cause, they have not.

80

CORDELIANo cause, no cause.

LEARAm I in France?

KENTIn your own kingdom, sir.

LEARDo not abuse me.

GENTLEMANBe comforted, good madam: the great rage,[84]

85

You see, is killed in him. Desire him to go in:

Trouble him no more till further settling.[86]

CORDELIAWill’t please your highness walk?

LEARYou must bear with me. Pray you now, forget and forgive:

I am old and foolish.

Exeunt

Act 5 Scene 15.1

running scene 18

Enter with Drum and Colours Edmund, Regan, Gentlemen and Soldiers

EDMUNDKnow of[1] the duke if his last purpose hold, To a Gentleman

Or whether since[2] he is advised by aught

To change the course: he’s full of alteration

And self-reproving:[4] bring his constant pleasure.

[Exit Gentleman]

5

REGANOur sister’s man is certainly miscarried.[5]

EDMUND’Tis to be doubted,[6] madam.

REGANNow, sweet lord,

You know the goodness I intend upon you:

Tell me but truly — but then speak the truth —

10

Do you not love my sister?

EDMUNDIn honoured[11] love.

REGANBut have you never found my brother’s way

To the forfended place?[13]

EDMUNDNo, by mine honour, madam.

15

REGANI[15] never shall endure her: dear my lord,

Be not familiar[16] with her.

EDMUNDFear not. She and the duke her husband!

Enter with Drum and Colours Albany, Goneril, Soldiers

ALBANYOur very loving sister, well be-met.

Sir, this I heard: the king is come to his daughter,

20

With others whom the rigour[20] of our state

Forced to cry out.[21]

REGANWhy[22] is this reasoned?

GONERILCombine together[23] gainst the enemy,

For these domestic[24] and particular broils

25

Are not the question here.

ALBANYLet’s then determine

With th’ancient of war[27] on our proceeding.

REGANSister, you’ll go with us?

GONERILNo.

30

REGAN’Tis most convenient:[30] pray, go with us.

GONERILO, ho, I know the riddle.[31]— I will go. Aside

Exeunt both the armies. [Albany remains]

Enter Edgar Disguised

EDGARIf e’er your grace had speech with man so poor,

Hear me one word.

ALBANYI’ll overtake you.[34]— Speak.

35

EDGARBefore you fight the battle, ope[35] this letter: Gives a letter

If you have victory, let the trumpet sound[36]

For him that brought it. Wretched though I seem,

I can produce a champion[38] that will prove

What is avouchèd[39] there. If you miscarry,

40

Your business of the world hath so an end,

And machination[41] ceases. Fortune loves you.

ALBANYStay till I have read the letter.

EDGARI was forbid it.

When time shall serve, let but the herald cry[44]

45

And I’ll appear again.

Exit

ALBANYWhy, fare thee well: I will o’erlook[46] thy paper.

Enter Edmund

EDMUNDThe enemy’s in view: draw up your powers.[47]

Here is the guess of their true strength and forces Offers a paper

By diligent discovery,[49] but your haste

50

Is now urged on you.

ALBANYWe will greet the time.[51]

Exit

EDMUNDTo both these sisters have I sworn my love,

Each jealous[53] of the other, as the stung

Are of the adder. Which of them shall I take?

55

Both? One? Or neither? Neither can be enjoyed

If both remain alive. To take the widow

Exasperates, makes mad her sister Goneril,

And hardly[58] shall I carry out my side,

Her husband being alive. Now then, we’ll use

60

His countenance[60] for the battle, which being done,

Let her who would be rid of him devise

His speedy taking off.[62] As for the mercy

Which he intends to Lear and to Cordelia,

The battle done and they within our power,

65

Shall[65] never see his pardon, for my[66] state

Stands on me to defend, not to debate.

Exit

Act 5 Scene 25.2

running scene 19

Alarum within. Enter, with Drum and Colours, Lear, Cordelia and Soldiers over the stage and exeunt. Enter Edgar and Gloucester

EDGARHere, father,[1] take the shadow of this tree

For your good host.[2] Pray that the right may thrive.

If ever I return to you again,

I’ll bring you comfort.

5

GLOUCESTERGrace go with you, sir!

Exit [Edgar]

Alarum and retreat within

Enter Edgar

EDGARAway, old man! Give me thy hand, away!

King Lear hath lost, he and his daughter ta’en:[7]

Give me thy hand, come on.

GLOUCESTERNo further, sir: a man may rot even here.

10

EDGARWhat, in ill thoughts again? Men must endure

Their going hence, even as their coming hither:

Ripeness[12] is all: come on.

GLOUCESTERAnd that’s true too.

Exeunt

Act 5 Scene 35.3

running scene 20

Enter in conquest, with Drum and Colours, Edmund, Lear and Cordelia as prisoners, Soldiers, Captain

EDMUNDSome officers take them away: good guard,[1]

Until their greater pleasures[2] first be known

That are to censure[3] them.

CORDELIAWe are not the first To Lear

5

Who with best meaning[5] have incurred the worst.

For thee, oppressèd king, I am cast down:[6]

Myself could else out-frown false fortune’s frown.

Shall we not see these daughters and these sisters?

LEARNo, no, no, no! Come, let’s away to prison.

10

We two alone will sing like birds i’th’cage:

When thou dost ask me blessing, I’ll kneel down

And ask of thee forgiveness: so we’ll live,

And pray, and sing, and tell old tales, and laugh

At gilded butterflies,[14] and hear poor rogues

15

Talk of court news, and we’ll talk with them too —

Who loses and who wins, who’s in, who’s out —

And take[17] upon’s the mystery of things,

As if we were God’s spies:[18] and we’ll wear out

In a walled prison packs and sects[19] of great ones

20

That[20] ebb and flow by th’moon.

EDMUNDTake them away.

LEARUpon such sacrifices,[22] my Cordelia,

The gods themselves throw incense.[23] Have I caught thee?

He that parts us shall bring a brand[24] from heaven

25

And fire us hence like foxes. Wipe thine eyes:

The good years shall devour them, flesh and fell,[26]

Ere they shall make us weep: We’ll see ’em starved[27] first. Come.

Exeunt [Lear and Cordelia, guarded]

EDMUNDCome hither, captain, hark.

Take thou this note, go follow them to prison. Gives a paper

30

One step I have advanced thee: if thou dost

As this instructs thee, thou dost make thy way

To noble fortunes. Know thou this: that men

Are as the time is; to be tender-minded[33]

Does not become[34] a sword. Thy great employment

35

Will not bear question:[35] either say thou’lt do’t

Or thrive by other means.

CAPTAINI’ll do’t, my lord.

EDMUNDAbout it, and write happy[38] when th’hast done.

Mark, I say, instantly, and carry[39] it so

40

As I have set it down.

Exit Captain

Flourish. Enter Albany, Goneril, Regan, Soldiers

ALBANYSir, you have showed today your valiant strain,[41]

And fortune led you well. You have the captives

Who were the opposites[43] of this day’s strife:

I do require them of you, so to use[44] them

45

As we shall find their merits and our safety

May equally determine.

EDMUNDSir, I thought it fit

To send the old and miserable king to some retention[48]

Whose[49] age had charms in it, whose title more,

50

To pluck[50] the common bosom on his side

And turn[51] our impressed lances in our eyes

Which do command them. With him I sent the queen,[52]

My reason all the same, and they are ready

Tomorrow, or at further space, t’appear

55

Where you shall hold your session.[55]

ALBANYSir, by your patience,[56]

I hold you but a subject of[57] this war,

Not as a brother.

REGANThat’s as we list[59] to grace him.

60

Methinks our pleasure[60] might have been demanded

Ere you had spoke so far. He led our powers,

Bore the commission[62] of my place and person,

The which immediacy[63] may well stand up

And call itself your brother.

65

GONERILNot so hot:

In his own grace[66] he doth exalt himself

More than in your addition.[67]

REGANIn my rights,

By me invested, he compeers[69] the best.

70

ALBANYThat[70] were the most if he should husband you.

REGANJesters do oft prove prophets.

GONERILHolla,[72] holla!

That eye that told you so looked but asquint.[73]

REGANLady, I am not well, else I should answer

75

From a full-flowing stomach.[75]— General, To Edmund

Take thou my soldiers, prisoners, patrimony:[76]

Dispose of[77] them, of me: the walls is thine:

Witness the world[78] that I create thee here

My lord and master.

80

GONERILMean you to enjoy[80] him?

ALBANYThe let-alone[81] lies not in your good will.

EDMUNDNor in thine, lord.

ALBANYHalf-blooded[83] fellow, yes.

REGANLet the drum strike and prove my title thine. To Edmund

85

ALBANYStay yet, hear reason. Edmund, I arrest thee

On capital treason, and, in[86] thy arrest,

This gilded serpent.[87] For your claim, fair sister,

I bar it[88] in the interest of my wife:

’Tis she is subcontracted[89] to this lord,

90

And I, her husband, contradict your banns.[90]

If you will marry, make[91] your loves to me,

My lady is bespoke.[92]

GONERILAn interlude![93]

ALBANYThou art armed, Gloucester: let the trumpet sound:

95

If none appear to prove upon thy person

Thy heinous, manifest, and many treasons,

There is my pledge:[97] I’ll make it on thy heart, Throws down a glove

Ere I taste bread, thou art in nothing[98] less

Than I have here proclaimed thee.

100

REGANSick, O, sick!

GONERILIf not, I’ll ne’er trust medicine.[101] Aside

EDMUNDThere’s my exchange: what[102] in the world he’s

That names me traitor, villain-like he lies. Throws down a glove

Call by the trumpet: he that dares approach,

105

On him, on you — who not? — I will maintain

My truth and honour firmly.

Enter a Herald

ALBANYA herald, ho!

Trust to thy single virtue,[108] for thy soldiers, To Edmund

All levied in my name, have in my name

110

Took their discharge.

REGANMy sickness grows upon me.

ALBANYShe is not well: convey her to my tent.—

[Exit Regan, led]

Come hither, herald. Let the trumpet sound

And read out this.

A trumpet sounds

HERALDReads ‘If any man of quality or degree[115] within the lists of the army will maintain upon Edmund, supposed Earl of Gloucester, that he is a manifold traitor, let him appear by the third sound of the trumpet: he is bold in his defence.’

First trumpet

HERALDAgain!

Second trumpet

HERALDAgain!

Third trumpet

Trumpet answers within

Enter Edgar armed His helmet visor down

120

ALBANYAsk him his purposes, why he appears

Upon this call o’th’trumpet.

HERALDWhat are you?

Your name, your quality, and why you answer

This present summons?

125

EDGARKnow, my name is lost

By treason’s tooth bare-gnawn and canker-bit:[126]

Yet am I noble as the adversary

I come to cope.[128]

ALBANYWhich is that adversary?

130

EDGARWhat’s he that speaks for Edmund Earl of Gloucester?

EDMUNDHimself: what say’st thou to him?

EDGARDraw thy sword,

That, if my speech offend a noble heart,

Thy arm may do thee justice: here is mine. Draws

135

Behold, it is my privilege —

The privilege of mine honours[136] —

My oath and my profession. I protest,[137]

Maugre[138] thy strength, place, youth and eminence,

Despise thy victor sword and fire-new[139] fortune,

140

Thy valour and thy heart, thou art a traitor:

False to thy gods, thy brother and thy father,

Conspirant[142] gainst this high illustrious prince,

And from th’extremest upward[143] of thy head

To the descent[144] and dust below thy foot

145

A most toad-spotted[145] traitor. Say thou no,

This sword, this arm and my best spirits are bent[146]

To prove upon thy heart whereto I speak,

Thou liest.

EDMUNDIn wisdom I should ask thy name,

150

But since thy outside looks so fair and warlike,

And that thy tongue some say[151] of breeding breathes,

What safe and nicely[152] I might well delay

By rule of knighthood, I disdain and spurn.

Back do I toss these treasons to thy head,

155

With the hell-hated lie[155] o’erwhelm thy heart,

Which, for they[156] yet glance by and scarcely bruise,

This sword of mine shall give them instant way,[157]

Where they shall rest forever. Trumpets, speak! Draws

Alarums. Fights Edmund falls

ALBANYSave him,[159] save him!

160

GONERILThis is practice,[160] Gloucester:

By th’law of war thou wast not bound to answer

An unknown opposite: thou art not vanquished,

But cozened and beguiled.[163]

ALBANYShut your mouth, dame,[164]

165

Or with this paper shall I stop it.— Hold, sir.—

Thou worse than any name, read thine own evil. To Goneril

No tearing, lady: I perceive you know[167] it. Shows her the letter

GONERILSay, if I do, the laws are mine, not thine:

Who can arraign[169] me for’t.

Exit

170

ALBANYMost monstrous! O, know’st thou this paper?

EDMUNDAsk me not what I know.

ALBANYGo after her: she’s desperate: govern[172] her.

[Exit a soldier]

EDMUNDWhat you have charged me with, that have I done,

And more, much more: the time will bring it out:

175

’Tis past and so am I.— But what art thou To Edgar

That hast this fortune on[176] me? If thou’rt noble,

I do forgive thee.

EDGARLet’s exchange charity.[178]

I am no less in blood than thou art, Edmund:

180

If more, the more th’hast[180] wronged me.

My name is Edgar, and thy father’s son. Removes his helmet

The gods are just, and of our pleasant[182] vices

Make instruments to plague us:

The dark[184] and vicious place where thee he got

185

Cost him his eyes.

EDMUNDTh’hast spoken right: ’tis true,

The wheel[187] is come full circle: I am here.

ALBANYMethought thy very gait did prophesy[188] To Edgar

A royal nobleness: I must embrace thee.

190

Let sorrow split my heart if ever I

Did hate thee or thy father!

EDGARWorthy prince, I know’t.

ALBANYWhere have you hid yourself?

How have you known the miseries of your father?

195

EDGARBy nursing them, my lord. List[195] a brief tale,

And when ’tis told, O, that my heart would burst!

The bloody proclamation[197] to escape

That followed me so near — O, our lives’ sweetness!

That we the[199] pain of death would hourly die

200

Rather than die at once! — taught me to shift

Into a madman’s rags, t’assume a semblance[201]

That very dogs disdained: and in this habit[202]

Met I my father with his bleeding rings,[203]

Their precious stones new lost, became his guide,

205

Led him, begged for him, saved him from despair,[205]

Never — O, fault! — revealed myself unto him

Until some half-hour past, when I was armed.

Not sure, though hoping, of this good success,[208]

I asked his blessing, and from first to last

210

Told him our pilgrimage:[210] but his flawed heart —

Alack, too weak the conflict to support —

’Twixt two extremes of passion, joy and grief,

Burst smilingly.

EDMUNDThis speech of yours hath moved me,

215

And shall perchance do good: but speak you on:

You look as you had something more to say.

ALBANYIf there be more, more woeful, hold it in,

For I am almost ready to dissolve,[218]

Hearing of this.

Enter a Gentleman With a bloody knife

220

GENTLEMANHelp, help, O, help!

EDGARWhat kind of help?

ALBANYSpeak, man.

EDGARWhat means this bloody knife?

GENTLEMAN’Tis hot, it smokes:[224]

225

It came even from the heart of — O, she’s dead!

ALBANYWho dead? Speak, man.

GENTLEMANYour lady, sir, your lady; and her sister

By her is poisoned: she confesses it.

EDMUNDI was contracted to them both: all three

230

Now marry in an instant.

EDGARHere comes Kent.

Enter Kent

ALBANYProduce the bodies, be they alive or dead:

Goneril and Regan’s bodies brought out

This judgement of the heavens, that makes us tremble,

Touches us not with pity.— O, is this he?— Sees Kent

235

The time will not allow the compliment[235] To Kent

Which very manners urges.

KENTI am come

To bid my king and master aye[238] goodnight:

Is he not here?

240

ALBANYGreat thing[240] of us forgot!

Speak, Edmund, where’s the king? And where’s Cordelia?—

See’st thou this object,[242] Kent? Points to the bodies

KENTAlack, why thus?

EDMUNDYet Edmund was beloved:

245

The one the other poisoned for my sake

And after slew herself.

ALBANYEven[247] so. Cover their faces.

EDMUNDI pant for life: some good I mean to do,

Despite of mine own nature. Quickly send —

250

Be brief in it — to th’castle, for my writ[250]

Is on the life of Lear and on Cordelia:

Nay, send in time.

ALBANYRun, run, O, run!

EDGARTo who, my lord? Who has the office?[254]

255

Send thy token of reprieve. To Edmund

EDMUNDWell thought on: take my sword,

Give it the captain.

EDGARHaste thee, for thy life. To a Gentleman

[Exit Gentleman]

EDMUNDHe hath commission from thy wife and me

260

To hang Cordelia in the prison and

To lay the blame upon her own despair,

That she fordid[262] herself.

ALBANYThe gods defend her! Bear him hence awhile. Edmund is borne off

Enter Lear with Cordelia in his arms Gentleman and others following

LEARHowl, howl, howl! O, you are men of stones:

265

Had I your tongues and eyes, I’d use them so

That heaven’s vault should crack. She’s gone for ever!

I know when one is dead and when one lives:

She’s dead as earth. Lend me a looking-glass:

If that her breath will mist or stain the stone,[269]

270

Why, then she lives.

KENTIs this the promised end?[271]

EDGAROr image of that horror?

ALBANYFall and cease![273]

LEARThis feather stirs: she lives! If it be so,

275

It is a chance which does redeem all sorrows

That ever I have felt.

KENTO my good master! Kneels

LEARPrithee, away.

EDGAR’Tis noble Kent, your friend.

280

LEARA plague upon you, murderers, traitors all!

I might have saved her: now she’s gone for ever!—

Cordelia, Cordelia! Stay a little. Ha?

What is’t thou say’st?— Her voice was ever soft,

Gentle and low, an excellent thing in woman.—

285

I killed the slave[285] that was a-hanging thee.

GENTLEMAN’Tis true, my lords, he did.

LEARDid I not, fellow?

I have seen the day, with my good biting falchion[288]

I would have made him skip: I am old now,

290

And these same crosses[290] spoil me.— Who are you?

Mine[291] eyes are not o’th’best: I’ll tell you straight.

KENTIf fortune brag of two[292] she loved and hated,

One of them we behold.

LEARThis is a dull sight.[294] Are you not Kent?

295

KENTThe same,

Your servant Kent: where is your servant Caius?[296]

LEARHe’s a good fellow, I can tell you that:

He’ll strike, and quickly too. He’s dead and rotten.

KENTNo, my good lord, I am the very man—

300

LEARI’ll[300] see that straight.

KENTThat from your[301] first of difference and decay

Have followed your sad steps.

LEARYou are welcome hither.

KENTNor[304] no man else: all’s cheerless, dark and deadly.

305

Your eldest daughters have fordone[305] themselves,

And desperately[306] are dead.

LEARAy, so I think.

ALBANYHe knows not what he says, and vain[308] is it

That we present us to him.

Enter a Messenger

310

EDGARVery bootless.[310]

MESSENGEREdmund is dead, my lord.

ALBANYThat’s but a trifle here.

You lords and noble friends, know our intent:

What comfort to this great decay[314] may come

315

Shall be applied. For[315] us, we will resign,

During the life of this old majesty,

To him our absolute power:— you, to your rights To Edgar and Kent

With boot[318] and such addition as your honours

Have more than merited. All friends shall taste

320

The wages of their virtue, and all foes

The cup[321] of their deservings.— O, see, see!

LEARAnd my poor fool[322] is hanged! No, no, no life?

Why should a dog, a horse, a rat have life,

And thou no breath at all? Thou’lt come no more,

325

Never, never, never, never, never!

Pray you undo this button:[326] thank you, sir.

Do you see this? Look on her, look, her lips,

Look there, look there! He dies

EDGARHe faints! My lord, my lord!

330

KENTBreak, heart, I prithee, break.

EDGARLook up, my lord.

KENTVex not his ghost:[332] O, let him pass! He hates him

That would upon the rack[333] of this tough world

Stretch him out longer.[334]

335

EDGARHe is gone, indeed.

KENTThe wonder is he hath endured so long:

He but usurped[337] his life.

ALBANYBear them from hence. Our present business

Is general woe.—

340

Friends of my soul, you twain To Kent and Edgar

Rule in this realm, and the gored[341] state sustain.

KENTI have a journey,[342] sir, shortly to go:

My master calls me, I must not say no.

EDGARThe weight of this sad time we must obey:

345

Speak what we feel, not what we ought to say.

The oldest hath borne most: we that are young

Shall never see so much nor live so long.

Exeunt with a dead march

Textual Notes

Q = First Quarto text of 1608

F = First Folio text of 1623

F2 = a correction introduced in the Second Folio text of 1632

Ed = a correction introduced by a later editor

SD = stage direction

SH = speech heading (i.e., speaker’s name)

List of parts = Ed

EDMUND sometimes spelled Edmond, often referred to in directions and speech headings as Bastard

1.1.24 SD one…then = Q. Not in F 26 lord = F. Q = Liege 29 fast = F. Q = first 30 age = F. Q = state 31 Conferring = F. Q = Confirming strengths = F. Q = yeares 31–6 while…now = F. Not in Q 40–1 Since…state = F. Not in Q 50 found = F. Q = friend 55–6 and…rivers = F. Not in Q 59 of Cornwall = F. Q = to Cornwell, speake 70 ponderous = F. Q = richer 74 conferred = F. Q = confirm’d 75 our…love = F. Q = the last, not least in our deere loue 77 interessed = Ed. F = interest draw = F. Q = win 80 SH LEAR Nothing?…Nothing. = F. Not in Q 96 sisters = F. Q = sisters, to loue my father all. 103 mysteries = F2. F = miseries. Q = mistresse night = F. Q = might 111 shall…bosom = F. Q = Shall 129 shall = F. Q = still 144 falls = F. Q = stoops Reserve thy state = F. Q = Reuerse thy doome 151 pawn = F. Q = a pawne 152 ne’er = F. Q = nor 157 SHLEAR = Q. F = Kear. 158 SHKENT = Q. F = Lent. 160 Miscreant = F. Q = recreant 161 SHALBANY…forbear. = F. Not in Q SH CORDELIA some editors expand F’s Cor. to Cornwall 163 gift = F. Q = doome 168 strained = F. Q = straied 169 sentences = F (corrected). F (uncorrected), Q = sentence 172 Five = F. Q = Foure 173 disasters = F. Q = diseases 174 sixth = F. Q = fift 175 next = Ed. F, Q = tenth 180 Freedom = F. Q = Friendship 187 SH CORDELIA = F (corrected). Some editors expand to Cornwall. Q = Glost. 206 Dowered = F. Q = Couered 218 object = F. Q = best object 227 Should = F. Q = Could 230 will = F. Q = well 231 make known = F. Q = may know 241 but = F. Q = no more but 245 regards = F. Q = respects 248 king = F. Q = Leir 256 respect and fortunes = F. Q = respects / Of fourtune 264 my = F. Q = thy 279 Love = F. Q = vse 284 SH REGAN = F (Regn). Q = Gonorill 285 SHGONERIL = F. Q = Regan 288 want = F. Q = worth 289 plighted = F. Q = pleated 290 with shame derides = F. Q = shame them derides 297 not been = Q. F = beene 307 sit = F. Q = hit

1.2.1 SH EDMUND = Ed. F, Q = Bast. (throughout) 13 tirèd = F. Q = lyed 18 fine word, ‘legitimate’ = F. Not in Q 21 to th’legitimate = F. Sometimes emended to top the legitimate 24 Prescribed = F. Q = subscribd 37 o’erlooking = F. Q = liking 50 wake = F. Q = wakt 52 you to this = F. Q = this to you 62 declined = F. Q = declining 72 that…writ = F. Q = he hath wrote other = F. Q = further 87–90 This…graves = F. Not in Q 92 honesty! ’Tis strange = F. Q = honest, strange strange 95 stars = F. Q = the starres 96 spherical = F. Q = spirituall 99 a star = F. Q = Starres 101 I should = F. Q = Fut, I should. 102 maidenliest spelled maidenlest in F and Q 103 bastardizing = F. Q = bastardy 104 Pat = F. Q = Edgar; and out 105 sigh…o’Bedlam = F. Q = sith like them of Bedlam 106 Fa…mi. = F. Not in Q 111 writes = F. Q = writ 125–8 I…brother? = F. Not in Q 129 I am = F. Q = go arm’d, I am

1.3.0 SD Steward = F. Q = Gentleman 2 SH OSWALD = Ed. F = Ste. Q = Gent. (throughout) 13 I’d = F. Sometimes emended to I’ll 14 distaste = F. Q = dislike 16 have said = F. Q = tell you 19 so. = F. Q = so. I would breed from hence occasions, and I shall, That I may speak: 19 course. Prepare = F. Q = very course, goe prepare

1.4.1 will = F. Q = well 6 So…thy = F. Q = thy 7 SD Horns…Attendants = F. Q = Enter Lear 36 SD Enter Steward appears one line later in F 42 SH KNIGHT = F (spelled Knigh here and on two other occasions in Act 1 scene 4). Q = Kent daughter = Q. F = Daughters 44 SH KNIGHT = F. Q = seruant (throughout) 48 of kindness appears = F. Q = apeer’s 55 purpose = F. Q = purport 61 SD Enter Steward placed one line later in F 65 these = F. Q = this your pardon = F. Q = you pardon me 67 strucken = F. Q = struck 71–2 Have…So = F. Q = you haue wisedome 77 SH LEAR Why, my boy? = F. Q = Kent. Why Fool? 84 all my = F. Q = any 87 the Lady Brach = F. Q = Ladie oth’e brach 89 gall = F. Q = gull 92 nuncle = F. Q = vncle 103 SH KENT = F. Q = Lear 111 one = F. Q = foole 120 grace = F. Q = wit 122 And = F. Q = They to = F. Q = doe 130 fool = F. Q = fooles 139 You = F. Q = Methinks you 142 frowning = F. Q = frowne 146 nor crust = F. Q = neither crust nor crumb = Q. F = not crum 148 shelled spelled sheal’d in F, sheald in Q 163 know = F. Q = trow 168 I = F. Q = Come sir, I your = F. Q = that 170 transport = F. Q = transforme 174 This = F. Q = why this 176 weakens, his = F. Q = weaknes, or his 177 Ha! Waking? = F. Q = sleeping or wakeing; ha! sure 179 SH FOOL Lear’s shadow. = F. Assigned to Lear in Q 181 This admiration, sir = F. Q = Come sir, this admiration 190 graced = F. Q = great 202 SD Albany = F. Q = Duke (throughout) 203 Woe = F. Q = We 204 Speak…my = F. Q = that wee prepare any 208 SH ALBANY Pray…patient. = F. Not in Q 209 liest = F. Q = list 210 My = F. Q = list my are = F. Q = and 221 Of…you. = F. Not in Q 233 cadent = F. Q = accent 237 Away, away! = F. Q = goe, goe, my people? 239 more of it = F. Q = the cause 248 thee worth them = F. Q = the worst 249 Th’untented = F. Q (uncorrected) = the vntender 250 Pierce = F. Q (uncorrected) = peruse 250 thee! Old = F. Q = the old 252 loose = F. Q = make 253–4 Ha?…daughter = F. Q = yea, i’st come to this? yet haue I left a daughter 257 flay spelled flea in F and Q 260 that = F. Q = that my Lord 263–4 Pray…sir = F. Q = Come sir no more, you 271–83 SH GONERIL This…SD Enter Steward = F. Q = Gon. What Oswald, ho. 283 How now, Oswald? = F. Q = Oswald. Here Madam. 284 What = F. Q = Gon. What 292 condemn = F. Q = dislike 293 at task = F. Q (uncorrected) = alapt. Q (corrected) = attaskt 296 better, oft = F. Q = better ought

1.5.0 SD Enter…Fool = F. Q = Enter Lear. 12 tell = F. Q = not tell 35–6 Keep…now, = F. Q = I would not be mad, keepe me in temper, I would not be mad, 37 SH GENTLEMAN = F. Q = Seruant.

2.1.2 you = Q. F = your 6 ear-kissing = F. Q = eare-bussing 16 act…work = F. Q = aske breefnes…helpe 27–8 pardon…I = F. Q = pardon me in crauing, I 35 SD Enter … torches = F. Q = Enter Glost. 38 Mumbling = F. Q = warbling 39 stand = F. Q = stand’s 47 revenging = F. Q = reuengiue 48 the thunder = F. Q = their thunders 54 latched = F. Q = lancht 55 And = F. Q = but 58 Full = F. Q = but 65 coward = F. Q = caytife 71 would the reposal = F. Q = could the reposure 73 should I = F. Q = I should 76 practice = F. Q = pretence 79 spirits = F. Q = spurres 81 O, strange = F. Q = Strong 82 said he? = F. Q = I neuer got him, 83 where = F. Q = why 89 SD Enter … Attendants = F. Q = Enter the Duke of Cornwall 91 strangeness = F. Q = strange newes 99 tended = F. Q = tends 104 th’expense…of = F. Q (uncorrected) = these—and wast of this. Q (corrected) = the wast and spoyle of 113 bewray = F. Q = betray 127 threading = F. Q = threatning 128 prize = F. Q (corrected) = poyse 131 differences = F. Q (uncorrected) = defences best = F. Q (corrected) = lest thought = Q. F = though 132 home = F. Q (uncorrected) = hand 135 businesses = F. Q = busines

2.2.1 dawning = F. Q (corrected) = euen. Q (uncorrected) = deuen 13 worsted-stocking = Q (corrected). F = woosted-stocking. Q (uncorrected) = wosted stocken 14 whoreson = F. Q = knaue, a whorson super-serviceable finical = F. Q = supersinicall 17 clamorous spelled clamours in F 22 since = F. Q = ago since 24 you = F. Q = draw, you 33 if = F. Q = and 45 they = F. Q = hee years o’th’trade = F. Q = houres at the trade 46 SH CORNWALL = F. Q = Glost. 52 know you = F. Q = you haue 57 the holy = F. Q = those 58 too intrinse = Ed. F = t’intrince 60 fire = F. Q = stir the = F. Q = their 61 Revenge = F. Ed = Reneage 62 gall = F. Q = gale 63 dogs = F. Q = dayes 65 Smile spelled Smoile in F, smoyle in Q 68 What = F. Ed = Why 72 fault = F. Q = offence 83 An…plain = F. Q = he must be plaine 89 faith, in = F. Q = sooth, or in 92 flickering = Q (flitkering). F = flicking 101 compact = F. Q = coniunct 106 fleshment = F. Q = flechuent dread = Q. F = dead 111 ancient = F. Q (corrected) = miscreant. Q (uncorrected) = ausrent 118 Stocking = F. Q (corrected) = stopping. Q (uncorrected) = stobing. 129 he = F. Q = hee’s 135 duke’s = Q. F = Duke 138 travelled spelled trauail’d in F and Q 143 saw = F. Q (uncorrected) = say 148 miracles = F. Q (corrected) = my wracke. Q (uncorrected) = my rackles 150 most = F. Q (uncorrected) = not 154 Take = F. Q (uncorrected) = Late heavy spelled heanie in F 160 unusual spelled vnusall in F 166 hairs = F. Q = haire 171 arms = F. Q = bare arms 172 Pins = F. Q (uncorrected) = Pies 173 farms = F. Q = seruice 175 Sometimes = F. Q = Sometime 177 SD Enter…Gentleman = F. Q = Enter King 180 SH GENTLEMAN = F. Q = Knight (throughout) 182 this = F. Q = his 184 thy = Q. F = ahy 186 heads = F. Q = heeles 187 man’s = Q. F = man 197–8 By…ay = F. Q = No no, they would not./ Kent. Yes they haue 203 impose = F. Q = purpose 209 panting = Q. F = painting 212 those = F. Q = whose 213 meiny = F. Q = men 224–32 SH FOOL Winter’s…a year. = F. Not in Q 234 Hysterica spelled Historica in F and Q 239 the = Q. F = the the number = F. Q = traine 245 twenty = F. Q = a 100 247 upward = F. Q = vp the hill 248 have = Q. F = hause 250 serves and seeks = F. Q = serues 261 have…the = F. Q = traueled hard to; travelled spelled travail’d in F 261 fetches = F. Q = Iustice 271–2 SH GLOUCESTER Well…man? = F. Not in Q 274 father = F. Q (uncorrected) = fate 275 commands, tends, = F. Q (corrected) = commands her. Q (uncorrected) = come and tends 276–7 Are…Fiery? = F. Not in Q 296 knapped = F. Q = rapt 301 you = Q. F = your 303 mother’s tomb = Q (corrected). F = Mother Tombe. Q (uncorrected) = mothers fruit 313–19 SH LEAR Say?…blame. = F. Not in Q 322 her = Q. F = his 345 blister = F. Q = blast her pride 369 SH LEAR = F. Q = Gon. stocked = F. Q = struck 395 hot-blooded = F (uncorrected). F (corrected) = hot-bloodied. Q = hot bloud in 407 boil spelled Byle in F 453 need = F. Q = deed 456 is = F. Q = as. Sometimes emended to is as 465 tamely = F. Q = lamely 473 flaws = F. Q = flowes 482 SH GONERIL = F. Q = Duke 484 SH CORNWALL = F. Q = Reg. 486–7 SH CORNWALL Wither…horse = F. Not in Q 488 SH CORNWALL = F. Q = Re. 490 high = F. Q = bleak

3.1.1 Who’s there, besides = F. Q = Whats here beside 12 note = F. Q = Arte 16–23 Who…furnishings = F. See “Quarto passages that do not appear in the Folio,” p. 2077, for alternative lines in Q 30 that = F. Q = your 35–6 in…this = F. Q = Ile this way, you that

3.2.8 all = F. Ed = an germens spelled germaines in F 12 wise…fools = F. Q = wise man nor foole 15 tax = F. Q = taske 21 will…join = F. Q = haue…ioin’d 38 are = F. Q = sit 45 fear = F. Q = force 51 of = F. Q = man of 55 concealing continents = F. Q = concealed centers 63 you = F. Q = me 72 That’s sorry = F. Q = That sorrowes 73 little tiny = Ed. F = little-tyne. Q = little tine 76 Though = F. Q = for 77 True, boy = F. Q = True my good boy 78–94 SH FOOL This…time. = F. Not in Q

3.3.0 SD Edmund = F. Q = the Bastard with lights. 3 perpetual = F. Q = their 9 footed = F. Q = landed 12 if = F. Q = though 13 strange things = F. Q = some strange thing

3.4.8 contentious = F. Q (corrected) = tempestious. Q (uncorrected) = crulentious 9 skin so: = F (corrected). F (uncorrected) = skin: so: 12 thy = Q. F = they roaring = F. Q (uncorrected) = raging 18 home = F. Q = sure 19–20 In…endure = F. Not in Q 22 all = F. Q = you all 29–30 In…sleep = F. Not in Q 32 storm = F. Q = night 34 lopped = F. Q = loopt 40 SH EDGAR Fathom…Tom! = F. Not in Q 45–6 blow the winds = F. Q = blowes the cold wind 46 Hum!…bed = F. Q = goe to thy cold bed 47 Did’st…thy = F. Q = Hast thou giuen all to thy two 48–9 through fire = Q. F = though Fire 49 and through flame = F. Not in Q ford = Q. F = Sword 52 Bless = Q. F = Blisse 53 O…de. = F. Not in Q Bless = Q. F = blisse 56 Has = F. Q = What. Ed = What, have 57 Wouldst = F. Q = didst 60 light = F. Q = fall 70 word’s justice = F. Q = words justly 77–8 I dearly = F. Q = I deeply 83 says…nonny = F. Q = hay no on ny boy, boy = F. Q = boy, my boy, sessa = Ed. F = Sesey. Q = cease 85 a = F. Q = thy 90 lendings!…here = F. Q (corrected) = lendings, come on. Q (uncorrected) = leadings, come on bee true 92 on’s = F. Q = in 94 foul = F. Q = foul fiend till the = Q. F = at 95 squints = F. Q (corrected) = squemes. Q (uncorrected) = queues 99 alight = F. Q = O light 109–10 stocked, punished = F. Q = stock-punisht 110 hath had three = Q. F = hath three 115 Smulkin = F. Q = snulbug 119 my…vile = F. Q = is growne so vild my Lord 131 same = F. Q = most 147 you = F. Ed = your 160 tower came = F. Q = towne come

3.5.9 were not = F. Q = were

3.6.9–10 SH FOOL No…him. = F. Not in Q 17 They = F. Q = Theile 23–4 mongrel grim, Hound = Ed. F = Mongrill, Grim, / Hound. Q = mungril, grim-hound 24 him = F (Hym). Sometimes emended to lym 25 tyke = Q (tike). F = tight 29 Do…Sessa! = F. Q = loudla doodla 32 these hard hearts = F. Q = this hardnes 34 Persian = F. Q = Persian attire 35 and rest awhile = F. Q = awhile 37 So, so, we’ll = F. Q = so, so, so, / Weele i’th’morning = F. Q = i’th’morning so, so, so 38 SH FOOL And…noon = F. Not in Q 48 Take up, take up = F. Q (corrected) = Take vp the King. Q (uncorrected) = Take vp to keepe

3.7.2 traitor = F. Q = vilaine 7 Advise = Q. F = Aduice festinate spelled festiuate in F and festuant in Q 33 none = F. Q = true 44 answered = F. Q = answerer 56 answer = F. Q = first answere 58 Dover? = F. Q = Dover, sir? 61 stick = F. Q = rash 62 as his bare = F. Q (corrected) = on his lowd. Q (uncorrected) = of his lou’d 63 buoyed = F. Q (corrected) = bod. Q (uncorrected) = layd 65 rain = F. Q = rage 66 howled that stern = F. Q = heard that dearne 91 enkindle = F. Q = vnbridle

4.1.6–10 Welcome…comes = F. Q = Who’s 10 poorly led = F. Q (corrected) = parti, eyd 14–15 these fourscore years = F. Q = this forescore 19 You = F. Q = Alack sir, you 42 kill = F. Q = bitt 48 Get thee away = F. Q = Then, prethee, get thee gon 49 hence = F. Q = here 60 daub = F. Q = dance 62 And…Bless = F. Q = Blesse 65 thee…son = F. Q = the good man 70 slaves = F. Q = stands 72 undo = F. Q = under 76 fearfully = F. Q = firmely

4.2.10 most…dislike = F. Q = hee should most desire 13 terror = F. Q (uncorrected) = curre 16 Edmund = F. Q = Edgar 18 names = F. Q = armes 28 O…man! = F. Not in Q 30 My fool = F. Q (corrected) = A Foole. Q (uncorrected) = My foote body = F. Q (corrected) = bed 32 whistle = F. Q (corrected) = whistling 41 seems = F. Q (corrected) = shewes 44 SH MESSENGER = F. Q = Gent. 48 thrilled = F. Q = thrald 50 threat-enraged = F. Q = thereat inraged 55 justices = F. Q (corrected) = Iustisers. Q (uncorrected) = your Iustices 65 tart = F. Q = tooke

4.3.0 SD Gentleman = Ed. F = Gentlemen. Q = Doctor 2 vexed = F. Q = vent 3 fumiter = Ed. F = Fenitar. Q = femiter 4 burdocks = Ed. F = Hardokes. Q = hor-docks 6 sentry spelled Centery in F, centurie in Q send = F. Q = sent 10 helps = F. Q = can help 19 distress = Q. F = desires 28 importuned = F. Q = important 29 incite = F. Q = in sight

4.4.6 lord = F. Q = lady 13 Edmund = F. Q = and now 16 o’th’enemy = F. Q = at’h army 17 madam…letter = F. Q = with my letters 18 troops set = F. Q = troope sets 24 Some things = F. Q = Some thing 29 oeillades spelled Eliads in F, aliads in Q 43 meet = F. Q = meet him should = F. Q = would

4.5.0 SD Edgar = F. Q = Edmund 1 I = F. Q = we 21 walk = Q. F = walk’d 48 bless him = F. Q = blesse 67 summit = F. Q = summons 76 How is’t? Feel = F. Q = how feele 84 whelked spelled wealk’d in F enragèd = F. Q = enridged 86 make them = F. Q = made their 96 crying = F. Q = coyning 100 piece of toasted = F. Q = tosted 101–2 I’th’clout, i’th’clout: hewgh = F. Q = in the ayre, hagh 106 Goneril…beard? = F. Q = Gonorill, ha Regan, 111–12 ague-proof = F. Q = argue-proofe 123 were = Ed. Not in F, Q 135 consumption = F. Q = consumation 135–6 civet…sweeten = F. Q = Ciuet, good Apothocarie, to sweeten 138 Let me = F. Q = Here 142 this = F. Q = that 144 thy = F. Q = the see = F. Q = see one 155 change places, and = F. Not in Q 159 dog’s obeyed = F. Q = dogge, so bade 164 tattered clothes great = F. Q = tottered raggs, smal 165–70 Place…lips = F. Not in Q; Place sins = F. Ed. = Plate sin 172 Now…now. = F. Q = no now 179 wail spelled wawle in F, wayl in Q 183 shoe = F. Q = shoot 184 felt = F. Q = fell I’ll…proof = F. Not in Q 187 hand…Sir = F. Q = hands upon him sirs 191 surgeons = F. Q = a churgion 196 water-pots = F. Q = water-pots, Ay, and laying autumn’s dust. / Gent. Good sir— / Lear. 197 smug bridegroom = F. Q = bridegroome 199 Masters = F. Q = my maisters 201 Come = F. Q = nay 202 Sa…sa. = F. Not in Q 204 a daughter = F. Q = one daughter 211 sound = F. Q = sence 214 speedy foot = F. Q = speed fort 225 tame to = F. Q = lame by 230 bounty…benison = F. Q (uncorrected) = bornet and beniz 231 To…boot = F. Q (corrected) = to boot, to boot. Q (uncorrected) = to saue thee 234 old = F. Q = most 247 I’se spelled ice in F 248 ballow = F. Q (corrected) = bat. Q (uncorrected) = battero 255 English = F. Q = British 261 these = F. Q = his the = F. Q = These 262 sorry = F. Q = sorrow 271 affectionate servant, Goneril = F. Q = your affectionate seruant and for your own Venter, Gonorill 272 will = F. Q = wit 283 severed = F. Q = fenced

Act 4 Scene 6 = Ed. F = Scæna Septima

4.6.0 SD Gentleman = F. Q = Doctor 18 jarring = F. Q = hurrying 24 SH GENTLEMAN = F. Q assigns this and the next line to the Doctor, and the following two lines to a Gentleman 27 of = F. Q = not of temperance. = F. Q = temperance. / Cord. Very well. / Doct. Please you draw neere, louder the musicke there, 35 opposed = F. Q = exposd jarring = F. Q = warring 36 enemy’s = F. Q = iniurious 49 do…me? = F. Q = know me. 64 not…less = F. Not in Q 85 killed = F. Q = cured him. = F. Q = him and yet it is danger to make him euen ore the time hee has lost

5.1.3 alteration = F. Q (uncorrected) = abdication 11 In = F. Q = I, 17 not = F. Q = me not 19 Sir…heard = F. Q = For…heare 24 and particular broils = F. Q = dore particulars 27 proceeding. = F. Q = proceeding. / Bast. I shall attend you presently at your tent. 41 And machination ceases = F. Not in Q loves = F. Q = loue 48 Here = F. Q = Hard guess = F. Q = quesse true = F. Q = great

5.2.1 tree = F. Q = bush 13 SH GLOUCESTER And…too. = F. Not in Q.

5.3.2 first = F. Q = best 26 good years = F. Q = goode 40 down. = F. Q = down. / Cap. I cannot draw a cart, nor eate dride oats, / If it bee mans worke ile do’t. 48 send = F. Q (uncorrected) = saue retention = F. Q (uncorrected) = retention and appointed guard 49 had = F. Q = has 60 might = F. Q = should 63 immediacy = F. Q = imediate 67 addition = F. Q = aduancement 70 SH ALBANY = F. Q = Gon. 77 Dispose…thine: = F. Not in Q 84 SH REGAN = F. Q = Bast. thine = F. Q = good 86 thy arrest = F. Q = thine attaint 87 sister = Q. F = sister 88 bar = Ed. F = bare 91 loves = F. Q = loue 94 let…sound: = F. Not in Q 95 person = F. Q = head 97 make = F. Q = proue 101 medicine = F. Q = poyson 115 lists = F. Q = hoast 117 by = F. Q = at 118 SH HERALD = F. Q = Edmund 127–8 Yet…cope = F. Q = yet are I mou’t / Where is the aduersarie I come to cope with all 135–6 my…honours — = F. Q = the priuiledge of my tongue, 139 Despise = F. Q = Despite 142 Conspirant = F. Q = Conspicuate 144 below thy foot = F. Q = beneath thy feet 146 are = F. Q = As 151 tongue = F. Q = being 152 What…delay = F. Not in Q 153 rule = F. Q = right 154 Back = F. Q = Heere 155 hell-hated lie o’erwhelm = F. Q = hell hatedly, oreturnd 156 scarcely = Q. F = scarely 161 war = F. Q = armes wast = F. Q = art 165 stop…sir = F. Q = stople it 166 name = F. Q = thing 171 SH EDMUND = F. Q = Gon. 182 vices = F. Q = vertues 183 plague = F. Q = scourge 199 we = F. Q = with 206 fault = F. Q = Father 210 our = F. Q = my 221 SH EDGAR = F. Q = Alb. 222 SH ALBANY Speak, man. = F. Not in Q 223 SH EDGAR = F. Q assigns line to Albany 225 O, she’s dead! = F. Not in Q 226 Who…man. = F. Q = Who man, speake? 228 confesses = F. Q = hath confest 233 judgement = F. Q = Iustice 234 is this = F. Q = tis 264 you = Q. F = your 280 you, murderers, traitors = F. Q = your murderous traytors 286 SH GENTLEMAN = F. Q = Cap. 289 him = F. Q = them 294 This…sight. = F. Not in Q 297 you that = F. Q = that 301 first = F. Q = life 308 says = F. Q = sees 326 sir. = F. Q = sir, O, o, o, o. 327–8 Do…there! = F. Not in Q 330 SH KENT = F. Q = Lear 341 realm = F. Q = kingdome 344 SH EDGAR = F. Q = Duke

Quarto passages that do not appear in the Folio

Lines are numbered continuously, for ease of reference.

Following 1.2.78:

EDMUND[1]Nor is not, sure.

GLOUCESTERTo his father, that so tenderly and entirely loves him. Heaven and earth!

Following 1.2.111:

as of unnaturalness between the child and the parent, death, dearth, dissolutions of ancient amities, divisions in state, menaces and maledictions against king and nobles, needless diffidences, banishment of friends, dissipation of cohorts, nuptial breaches, and I know not what.

EDGARHow long have you been a sectary astronomical?

EDMUNDCome, come,

Following 1.3.15:

Not to be overruled. Idle old man, That still would manage those authorities That he hath given away! Now by my life Old fools are babes again, and must be used With checks as flatteries, when they are seen abused.

Following 1.4.112:

FOOLThat lord that counselled thee to give away thy land,

Come place him here by me, do thou for him stand,

The sweet and bitter fool will presently appear:

The one in motley here, the other found out there.

LEARDost thou call me fool, boy?

FOOLAll thy other titles thou hast given away, that thou wast born with.

KENTThis is not altogether fool my lord.

FOOLNo, faith, lords and great men will not let me, if I had a monopoly out, they would have part on’t: and ladies[28] too, they will not let me have all the fool to myself, they’ll be snatching.

Following 1.4.179:

I would learn that, for by the marks of sovereignty, knowledge, and reason, I should be false persuaded I had daughters.

FOOLWhich they will make an obedient father.

Following 2.2.127:

His fault is much, and the good king, his master,

Will check him for’t: your purposed low correction

Is such as basest and ’temnest[36] wretches

For pilf’rings and most common trespasses

Are punished with.

Following 3.1.7:

tears his white hair,

Which the impetuous blasts with eyeless rage

Catch in their fury, and make nothing of,

Strives in his little world of man to out-scorn,

The to-and-fro-conflicting wind and rain:

This night wherein the cubdrawn bear would couch,

The lion and the belly-pinchèd wolf

Keep their fur dry, unbonneted he runs,

And bids what will take all.

Replaces 3.1.16–23:

But true it is, from France there comes a power

Into this scattered kingdom, who already

Wise in our negligence, have secret feet

In some of our best ports, and are at point

To show their open banner.

Now to you:

If on my credit you dare build so far

To make your speed to Dover, you shall find

Some that will thank you, making just report

Of how unnatural and bemadding sorrow

The king hath cause to ‘plain.

I am a gentleman of blood and breeding,

And from some knowledge and assurance,

Offer this office to you.

Following 3.6.12:

EDGARThe foul fiend bites my back.

FOOLHe’s mad that trusts in the tameness of a wolf, a horse’s health, a boy’s love, or a whore’s oath.

LEARIt shall be done, I will arraign them straight,

Come sit thou here most To Edgar

learnèd justice.—

Thou, sapient sir sit here. To the Fool

No, you she foxes—

EDGARLook where he stands and glares. Want’st[70] thou eyes at trial, madam?

Come o’er the bourn,[72] Bessy, to me—

FOOLHer boat hath a leak, Sings

And she must not speak

Why she dares not come over to thee.

EDGARThe foul fiend haunts poor Tom in the voice of a nightingale, Hopdance cries in Tom’s belly for two white herring,

Croak not black angel, I have no food for thee.

KENTHow do you sir? Stand you not so amazed,

Will you lie down and rest upon the cushings?

LEARI’ll see their trial first, bring in their evidence.—

Thou robèd man of justice, take To Edgar thy place—

And thou, his yoke-fellow of equity, To the Fool

Bench by his side:— you are To Kent o’th’commission,

Sit you too.

EDGARLet us deal justly.

Sleepest or wakest thou, jolly shepherd?

Thy sheep be in the corn,

And for one blast of thy minikin mouth,

Thy sheep shall take no harm.

Purr, the cat is grey.

LEARArraign her first, ’tis Goneril. I here take my oath before this honourable assembly, she[94] kicked the poor king her father.

FOOLCome hither, mistress. Is your name Goneril?

LEARShe cannot deny it.

FOOLCry you mercy, I took you for a joint-stool.[98]

LEARAnd here’s another whose warped looks proclaim

What store her heart is made on:[100] stop her there!

Arms, arms, sword, fire! Corruption in the place!

False justicer, why hast thou let her scape?

Following 3.6.50:

KENTOppressed nature sleeps:

This rest might yet have balmed thy broken sinews,

Which, if convenience will not allow,

Stand in hard cure.—

Come help To Fool

to bear thy master:

Thou must not stay behind.

Exeunt. [Edgar remains]

EDGARWhen we our betters see bearing our woes,

We scarcely think our miseries our foes.

Who alone suffers, suffers most i’th’mind,

Leaving free things and happy shows behind,

But then the mind much sufferance doth o’erskip,

When grief hath mates, and bearing fellowship:

How light and portable my pain seems now,

When that which makes me bend, makes the king bow:

He childed as I fathered. Tom away!

Mark the high noises and thyself bewray

When false opinion, whose wrong thoughts defile thee,

In thy just proof repeals and reconciles thee.

What will hap more tonight, safe scape the king:

Lurk, lurk.

Exit

Following 3.7.105:

SERVANTI’ll never care what wickedness I do,

If this man come to good.

SECOND SERVANTIf she live long,

And in the end meet the old course of death,

Women will all turn monsters.

FIRST SERVANTLet’s follow the old earl, and get the Bedlam

To lead him where he would: his madness[128]

Allows itself to anything.

SECOND SERVANTGo thou: I’ll fetch some flax and whites of eggs

To apply to his bleeding face. Now heaven help him!

Following 4.1.65:

Five fiends have been in poor Tom at once: of lust, as Obidicut, Hobbididence, prince of dumbness, Mahu of stealing, Modo of murder, Flibbertigibbet[135] of mopping and mowing, who since possesses chambermaids and waiting-women. So, bless thee, master

Following 4.2.35:

I fear your disposition:

That nature, which contemns i’th’origin

Cannot be bordered certain in itself.

She that herself will sliver and disbranch

From her material sap perforce must wither

And come to deadly use.

GONERILNo more, the text is foolish.

ALBANYWisdom and goodness to the vile seem vile:

Filths savour but themselves. What have you done?

Tigers, not daughters, what have you performed?

A father, and a gracious agèd man,

Whose reverence even the head-lugged bear would lick,

Most barbarous, most degenerate, have you madded.

Could my good brother suffer you to do it?

A man, a prince, by him so benefited!

If that the heavens do not their visible spirits

Send quickly down to tame the vile offences, it will come,

Humanity[155] must perforce prey on itself,

Like monsters of the deep.

Following 4.2.39:

that not know’st

Fools do those villains pity who are punished

Ere they have done their mischief. Where’s thy drum?

France spreads his banners in our noiseless land,

With plumèd helm, thy state[161] begins threat,

Whilst thou, a moral fool, sits still and cries

‘Alack, why does he so?’

Following 4.2.43:

ALBANYThou changèd and self-covered thing, for shame

Bemonster not thy feature. Were’t my fitness

To let these hands obey my blood,

They are apt enough to dislocate and tear

Thy flesh and bones: howe’er thou art a fiend,

A woman’s shape doth shield thee.

GONERILMarry, your manhood mew[170]—

Enter a Gentleman

ALBANYWhat news?

Following 4.2.77:

Enter Kent and a Gentleman

KENTWhy the King of France is so suddenly gone back, know you no reason?

GENTLEMANSomething he left imperfect in the state, which since his coming forth is thought of, which imports to the kingdom so much fear and danger that his personal return was most required and necessary.

KENTWho hath he left behind him general?

GENTLEMANThe Marshal of France, Monsieur La Far.

KENTDid your letters pierce the queen to any demonstration of grief?

GENTLEMANAy, sir,[184] she took them, read them in my presence,

And now and then an ample tear trilled down

Her delicate cheek: it seemed she was a queen over

Her passion, who, most rebel-like,

Sought to be king o’er her.

KENTO, then it moved her.

GENTLEMANNot to a rage: patience and sorrow strove[190]

Who should express her goodliest. You have seen

Sunshine and rain at once: her smiles and tears

Were like a better way: those happy smilets,

That played on her ripe lip seem not to know

What guests were in her eyes, which, parted thence,

As pearls from diamonds dropped. In brief,

Sorrow would be a rarity most beloved,

If all could so become it.

KENTMade she no verbal question?

GENTLEMANFaith, once or twice she heaved the name of ‘father’

Pantingly forth, as if it pressed her heart:

Cried ‘Sisters, sisters! Shame of ladies, sisters!

Kent, father, sisters! What, i’th’storm, i’th’night?

Let pity not be believed!’ There she shook

The holy water from her heavenly eyes,

And clamour moistened her: then away she started

To deal with grief alone.

KENTIt is the stars,

The stars above us, govern our conditions,

Else one self mate and make could not beget

Such different issues. You spoke not with her since?

GENTLEMANNo.

KENTWas this before the king returned?

GENTLEMANNo, since.

KENTWell, sir, the poor distressèd Lear’s i’th’town;

Who sometime, in his better tune, remembers

What we are come about, and by no means

Will yield to see his daughter.

GENTLEMANWhy, good sir?

KENTA sovereign shame so elbows him: his own unkindness,

That stripped her from his benediction, turned her

To foreign casualties, gave her dear rights

To his dog-hearted daughters: these things sting

His mind so venomously, that burning shame

Detains him from Cordelia.

GENTLEMANAlack, poor gentleman!

KENTOf Albany’s and Cornwall’s powers you heard not?

GENTLEMAN’Tis so, they are afoot.

KENTWell, sir, I’ll bring you to our master Lear,

And leave you to attend him: some dear cause

Will in concealment wrap me up awhile.

When I am known aright, you shall not grieve

Lending me this acquaintance. I pray you go

Along with me.

Exeunt

Following 4.6.27:

CORDELIAVery well.

DOCTORPlease you, draw near.— Louder the music there!

Following 4.6.35:

To stand against the deep dread-bolted thunder,

In the most terrible and nimble stroke

Of quick cross lightning? To watch — poor perdu! —

With this thin helm?

Following 4.6.89:

GENTLEMANHolds it true, sir, that the Duke of Cornwall was so slain?

KENTMost certain, sir.

GENTLEMANWho is conductor of his people?

KENTAs ’tis said, the bastard son of Gloucester.

GENTLEMANThey say Edgar, his banished son, is with the Earl of Kent in Germany.

KENTReport is changeable. ’Tis time to look about: the powers of the kingdom approach apace.

GENTLEMANThe arbitrament is like to be bloody. Fare you well, sir.

KENTMy point and period will be throughly wrought,

Or well or ill, as this day’s battle’s fought.

Exit

Following 5.1.13:

EDMUNDThat thought abuses you.

REGANI am doubtful that you have been conjunct

And bosomed with her, as far as we call hers.

Following 5.1.17:

GONERILI had rather lose the battle than that sister

Should loosen him and me.

Following 5.1.21:

Where I could not be honest,

I never yet was valiant. For this business,

It touches us as France invades our land,

Not bolds the king, with others whom I fear,

Most just and heavy causes make oppose.

EDMUNDSir, you speak nobly.

Following 5.3.55:

At this time

We sweat and bleed: the friend hath lost his friend;

And the best quarrels, in the heat, are cursed

By those that feel their sharpness:

The question of Cordelia and her father

Requires a fitter place.

Following 5.3.219:

EDGARThis would have seemed a period

To such as love not sorrow, but another,

To amplify too much, would make much more,

And top extremity.

Whilst I was big in clamour, came there in a man,

Who, having seen me in my worst estate,

Shunned my abhorred society, but then finding

Who ‘twas that so endured, with his strong arms

He fastened on my neck and bellowed out

As he’d burst heaven, threw me on my father,

Told the most piteous tale of Lear and him

That ever ear received, which in recounting

His grief grew puissant and the strings of life

Began to crack: twice then the trumpets sounded,

And there I left him ‘tranced.

ALBANYBut who was this?

EDGARKent, sir, the banished Kent, who in disguise

Followed his enemy king and did him service

Improper for a slave.

Textual Notes

Q = First Quarto text of 1608

Q2 = a correction introduced in the Second Quarto text of 1619

Ed = a correction introduced by a later editor

SH = Speech heading (i.e., speaker’s name)

Robert Armin took over as company clown after Will Kempe left the Chamberlain’s Men in 1599. A playwright as well as the author of joke-books, he practiced a more intellectual form of comedy than Kempe, full of witty verbal pyrotechnics: his style is given full rein in such parts as Lear’s Fool, Feste in Twelfth Night, and the sour Lavatch in All’s Well That Ends Well.

Act 1 Scene 1

1.1    Location: the royal court, Britain

1    affected favored

3    qualities…moiety their qualities are so evenly balanced that the most careful scrutiny cannot distinguish between either man’s share

6    breeding upbringing (plays on the sense of “conception”)    charge cost (plays on the sense of “accusation, blame”)

7    brazed made brazen, hardened

8    conceive understand (Gloucester then plays on sense of “become pregnant”)

10    ere before

11    fault transgression/loss of scent during a hunt/vagina

12    undone plays on the sense of “not copulated with”    issue outcome/child    proper handsome/worthy/rightful

13    by…law legitimate    some year about a year

14    dearer more beloved (plays on the sense of “more expensive”)    account estimation (plays on the financial sense)

16    whoreson i.e., bastard (here used affectionately)

21    sue entreat, seek

22    deserving to be worthy of (your esteem)

23    out away (perhaps abroad or in the house of another nobleman; it was common for a nobleman’s son to be educated in the house of another important family)    Sennet trumpet call signaling a procession    bearing a coronet carring a small crown (denoting inferior rank)/wearing a wreath or garland about the head (must be of material that can be broken in half)

25    Attend wait on, look after

27    darker secret (with sinister connotations)

29    fast intent firm intention

30    business official duties/exertion/anxiety

32    son i.e., son-in-law (like Albany)

34    constant will unshakeable intention    publish proclaim, make public

35    several dowers individual dowries    that so that

38    sojourn stay

41    Interest possession

43    bounty generosity/gift

44    nature…challenge natural affection, combined with merit, makes a claim

46    wield express

49    grace virtue

51    makes breath poor makes words insufficient/renders one breathless (in the attempt to express it)    unable inadequate

52    all…much i.e., all possible expressions of the amount of love

54    bounds territories

55    shadowy shady    champaigns riched rich open countryside

56    wide-skirted meads extensive meadows

60    self-mettle same temperament/same substance (“metal”)

61    prize…worth value myself in equal terms

62    deed action, performance/bond, legal document

63    that in that

65    square of sense guiding principle governing the senses/(physical or mental) region of the senses

66    alone felicitate only happy

70    ponderous weighty

71    hereditary by inheritance

73    validity value

76    vines…Burgundy Lear characterizes France and Burgundy by their assets: vineyards and cattle pastures

77    interessed admitted, given a share    draw attract/receive, collect/pull forth (as one “draws lots”)

85    bond duty (with connotations both of a binding legal agreement and of restrictive shackles)

86    Mend improve

87    mar spoil

89    begot conceived, fathered    bred raised, brought up

94    plight pledge, promise

99    untender hard/cruel (plays on the sense of “not young”)

103    Hecate Greek goddess of witchcraft and the moon

104    operation movement and astrological influence    orbs planets

107    Propinquity…blood close ties of kinship

109    this this time (or Lear gestures toward himself)    Scythian person from Scythia, an ancient region extending over much of eastern Europe and Asiatic Russia, notorious for its    barbarous inhabitants

110    generation children/own people    messes small groups of people who eat together/portions of food, meals/disgusting concoctions/troubled, confused conditions

112    neighboured treated with hospitable kindness

113    sometime former

114    liege lord, one to whom feudal duty and service was owed

117    set my rest stake everything (card-playing term)/repose, be at ease

118    kind affectionate (in the manner of a family member)    nursery care    avoid leave

120    Who stirs? Get on with it!/Why don’t you move?

122    digest absorb, incorporate

123    plainness frankness, plain speaking    marry her be her dowry/get her a husband

125    large effects extensive trappings

126    troop with accompany

127    With reservation of reserving the right to have (legal language)

128    sustained maintained, supported

130    th’addition to the title and honors of    sway authority, rule

138    make…shaft avoid the arrow (of my anger)

139    fork barbed arrowhead

141    thou kings are almost always addressed, respectfully, as “you”; Kent is unmannerly in his use of the familiar “thou”

144    Reserve thy state retain your sovereignty

145    In…consideration with wise and careful reflection

146    Answer…judgement I’ll stake my life on my opinion

149    Reverb no hollowness do not reverberate hollowly (i.e., emptily/insincerely)

151    held regarded, valued    pawn a pledge, surety

152    wage deposit as security

156    blank center of a target/line of sight (Kent asks to be the means to help Lear see better)

157    Apollo Greek and Roman sun god

160    vassal servant/wretch    Miscreant villain (literally, “infidel, unbeliever”)

161    forbear stop, desist

162    Kill…disease i.e., Lear has got things the wrong way around    foul disease loathsome, festering disease/syphilis

166    recreant traitor

167    That in that, since

168    durst dared    strained excessive/unnatural

169    sentences pronouncements, decisions

170    nor…   nor neither…nor    place status, rank

171    potency power    made good being carried into effect/shown to be valid/secured, defended

173    disasters misfortunes

176    trunk body

177    Jupiter supreme Roman god

179    sith since

183    your…   approve may your actions prove the truth of your grand statements

186    shape…   course behave in his usual manner    Flourish trumpet fanfare signaling the arrival of an important person

190    rivalled competed    in the least at the lowest

191    present dower immediately available dowry

195    tender offer

197    hold her so consider her to be    dear (i.e., beloved/worth a great deal)

199    aught anything    little seeming substance insignificant (or physically small) thing/one who totally refuses to play a part

200    pieced augmented, increased

201    fitly like justly please

204    infirmities deficiencies    owes owns

206    Dowered with given as a dowry    strangered made a stranger, disowned

209    Election…up choice is impossible

211    tell you inform you of/enumerate

212    from…stray stray so far from your love as

218    your object your focus, the object of your sight (the apple of your eye)

219    argument theme    balm soothing ointment

220    trice mere moment

221    monstrous unnatural    dismantle strip off (the    folds of the metaphorical cloth of favor)

224    monsters it it becomes monstrous    fore-vouched previously sworn

225    Fall into taint (must) come under suspicion    which…me i.e., and to believe in all reason that she had committed such a monstrous offense would require a miracle

229    for (your anger is) because    want lack

230    purpose not not intend to do what I say

232    foulness wickedness/moral impurity

235    for which i.e., for lack of which

236    still-soliciting constantly entreating, self-seeking

241    tardiness in nature natural slowness

242    history account (of an action)

245    regards…point irrelevant concerns

256    respect and fortunes status and wealth

259    Most choice forsaken most desirable when rejected

260    seize upon take possession of (legal term)

261    be it lawful provided it is lawful

262    their may refer to either the gods or to Lear and Burgundy

263    inflamed glowing, ardent

264    thrown…chance cast to my luck (gambling metaphor)

266    wat’rish well watered (with rivers)/wet, feeble

267    unprized unvalued (may play on a sense of “priceless”)

268    though unkind though they are cruel (or “lacking in natural familial affection”)

269    where somewhere, place

273    grace favor (with connotations of “divinely sanctioned mercy”)    benison blessing

276    washèd i.e., wet with tears

279    as…named by their true names

280    your professèd bosoms i.e., the love you claim to have for him    commit entrust; perhaps with connotations of “confine (to prison)”

282    prefer advance, promote

285    study concern, endeavor

287    At fortune’s alms as a charitable gift from fortune    scanted stinted, withheld/slighted, neglected

288    are…wanted deserve to be deprived of the love you have failed to show (to others)

289    plighted cunning secret cunning/deceitful promises

290    Who…derides those who hide their faults will in the end be shamed and mocked

293    nearly closely

298    grossly obviously

299    ever always    slenderly slightly

300    The…rash even at his best and healthiest he was impulsive    look expect

301    long-engrafted condition long-implanted tendencies

302    therewithal in addition to that    choleric irascible, hot-tempered, impulsive/bilious; one of the four “humors” or temperaments thought to be related to an excess of bile in the constitution

304    unconstant starts unpredictable fits

306    compliment etiquette, ceremony

307    sit together i.e., get together, confer    carry maintain, manage    disposition frame of mind

308    last surrender recent yielding (of authority)    offend harm

310    i’th’heat immediately

Act 1 Scene 2

1.2    Location: the Earl of Gloucester’s residence

2    Wherefore why

3    Stand in endure/stand still under

4    curiosity scruples, fussiness    nations i.e., society

5    moonshines months

6    Lag of behind (i.e., younger than)    base illegitimate (also low/unworthy/dishonorable)

7    dimensions physical proportions    compact composed

8    generous noble    true well-proportioned/authentic, true to his father’s likeness

9    honest madam’s issue a legitimate child

11    Who i.e., we bastards who    take require/receive

12    More…quality a more complex creation and more vigorous disposition

14    fops weak fools

15    Got conceived

18    As the same as

19    speed succeed

20    invention scheme

21    to th’legitimate advance to (or “take over”) the place of the legitimate son; editors sometimes emend this to “top the legitimate”

23    choler anger    parted departed

24    Prescribed restricted, limited

25    exhibition an allowance, maintenance

26    gad spur of the moment

28    up away

32    terrible dispatch fearful and hasty stowing away

36    for as for

37    o’erlooking reading

42    essay or taste test

44    policy…age policy of revering the old (policy also suggests the “strategic cunning” of the elderly)    the…times i.e., our youth, our prime

45    fortunes inheritance    relish savor, enjoy

46    idle useless    fond foolish

47    sways rules    as…suffered only insofar as it is allowed to do so

54    casement window    closet private room

55    character handwriting

56    matter subject matter    in…that given the contents

57    fain willingly

61    at perfect age being mature

62    declined old/ill

65    sirrah sir (used to social inferiors and children)

66    apprehend arrest    Abominable often, popularly, “inhuman, unnatural” (from the incorrect belief that the word was derived from the Latin ab homine, i.e., “away from man”)

69    run…course proceed securely    where whereas    proceed perhaps with legal connotations (in keeping with apprehend and testimony)

71    pawn down pledge

72    feel test, feel out    pretence intention, purpose

75    meet suitable

76    auricular assurance i.e., by hearing for yourself    have your satisfaction resolve yourself of any doubt

78    wind…him insinuate yourself into his confidence for me

79    frame devise, arrange    unstate…resolution give up my rank and wealth to be resolved on this matter

81    presently immediately    convey manage, undertake

82    withal therewith

83    late recent

84    wisdom of nature human reason/natural science    scourged punished

85    sequent effects subsequent events

88    bias of nature natural inclination (a bowling image; the bias refers to the curving path taken by a weighted ball)

91    it…nothing i.e., it will advantage you

93    excellent foppery supreme foolishness

94    surfeits excesses    disasters misfortunes

95    on i.e., by

96    treachers traitors    spherical predominance the dominant influence of a particular planet at one’s birth

98    divine celestial, supernatural

99    evasion shuffling excuse    whoremaster i.e., lecherous, whore-using    goatish lustful    charge responsibility

100    compounded had sex    the dragon’s tail the constellation Draco

101    Ursa Major (constellation of) the Great Bear (or Plough)    rough cruel, violent

102    maidenliest most virginal    firmament sky, heavens

103    bastardizing conception out of wedlock

104    Pat on cue    catastrophe conclusion    comedy play    my cue could also mean “designated role”

105    Tom o’Bedlam i.e., a madman (from the Saint Mary of Bethlehem hospital in London, an institution for the insane)

106    divisions conflicts, discords (plays on the sense of “musical variations”)    Fa…mi Edmund hums a musical scale to himself

108    this the

111    succeed follow    unhappily unluckily, by misfortune

117    countenance bearing, demeanor/facial expression

120    forbear avoid    qualified cooled, lessened

121    mischief…person harm caused by your presence

122    allay abate, calm

124    have…forbearance i.e., restrain yourself and stay away from him

126    fitly at an appropriate time

127    abroad out of the house

130    meaning intention

131    image and horror horrific true picture

132    anon soon

133    serve help/trick, deceive

137    practices plots

138    wit intelligence, ingenuity

139    meet fitting    fashion fit shape to my purposes

Act 1 Scene 3

1.3    Location: Goneril and the Duke of Albany’s residence

1    gentleman man of gentle (i.e., noble) birth attached to a royal household    chiding rebuking

4    flashes breaks out

9    come slack fall short

10    answer be answerable for

13    fellows fellow servants    question conflict, a dispute

14    distaste dislike

19    straight straightaway    to i.e., and tell her to

Act 1 Scene 4

1    as will I perhaps “as I intend” (but most editors opt for the Quarto “well”—i.e., “as well as being disguised”)

2    defuse confuse, disorder

3    full issue complete outcome

4    razed my likeness erased my true appearance

8    stay wait

11    What…profess? What is your occupation? (Kent shifts the sense of    profess to “claim, declare”)    wouldst thou do you want    us Lear continues to use the royal plural pronoun

14    judgement i.e., God’s judgment/the judgment of fellow men    cannot choose have no other option    to…fish i.e., only to eat a hearty diet of meat/not to eat fish on Fridays like a Roman Catholic/not to have sex with prostitutes

28    keep honest counsel keep secrets like an honorable man/keep secrets that are honorable    mar…tale spoil an elaborate story

33    anything “thing” plays on the sense of “vagina”

35    knave rogue/servant

38    So if it

39    clotpoll idiot

43    slave servant/villain

44    roundest bluntest

47    entertained received, treated hospitably    wont accustomed (to receive)

48    general dependants servants as a whole

53    rememb’rest remind    conception notion, thought

54    faint slight/lazy, halfhearted    jealous curiosity mistrustful fastidiousness

55    very pretence real intention

64    cur dog

66    bandy exchange looks as an equal (literally, “bat to and fro” as in tennis)

67    strucken struck, beaten

68    football played by the lower classes (unlike tennis)

70    differences class distinctions

71    measure…length be knocked flat to the floor    lubber clumsy lout    tarry stay    go to an expression of impatient dismissal

73    earnest part-payment in advance

74    coxcomb fool’s headgear with a crest like a cock’s comb

75    pretty fine-looking/clever

78    an…sits i.e., if you cannot please those in power

80    on’s of his

81    needs necessarily

82    nuncle contraction of “mine uncle”    Would I wish

84    living property, possessions

88    Brach bitch

89    pestilent gall troublesome irritation

92    Mark pay attention to

95    owest own

96    goest walk

97    trowest believe

98    Set…throwest don’t stake everything on the throw of the dice

101    have…score i.e., make a profit    score twenty

104    unfee’d unpaid

105    use employment/profit

113    crowns coins (the sense then shifts to “eggshells,” “royal headgear,” and “head”)

115    meat edible contents

116    clovest split

118    like myself i.e., foolishly

120    grace favor, patronage

121    foppish foolish

123    apish silly

125    used it made it my custom

126    rod punishment cane

129    bo-peep a child’s game (in which an adult alternately conceals and reveals his or her face)

130    the fool among among fools

131    fain gladly

133    An if

134    marvel wonder

137    pared trimmed

139    frontlet ornamental headband/band worn around the forehead at night to smooth wrinkles

142    figure accompanying digit (to make it a number higher than zero)

143    forsooth in truth

146    nor…crumb i.e., no part of the loaf

147    want some need something/experience need

148    peascod pea pod

149    all-licensed licensed to speak entirely freely

151    carp complain

152    rank excessive, uncontrolled

154    safe certain

155    too late all too recently

156    course behavior    put it on encourage it

158    scape escape    redresses sleep punishments be neglected

159    in…proceeding might offend and shame you but which, in the interests of maintaining a healthy state, must be deemed a prudent course of action

164    cuckoo young cuckoo, hatched from an egg its mother had laid in another bird’s nest

165    it’s had it it had its    it young the young cuckoo

166    darkling in darkness

169    fraught equipped (literally “freighted”)

170    dispositions moods

173    Jug a form of “Joan,” often used as a generic name for a prostitute

176    notion understanding    discernings Are lethargied power of discernment is asleep

177    Waking? Am I awake?

179    shadow reflection/ghost/shadow cast by the sun/imitator, actor

181    admiration air of wonder    o’th’savour of the flavor

184    should i.e., you should

186    bold presumptuous, audacious

188    epicurism gluttony/pleasure seeking

190    graced honorable    speak call

191    desired requested, entreated

193    disquantity your train reduce your retinue

194    depend be your dependants, serve you

195    besort befit, suit

196    know…you i.e., know their place, and yours

199    Degenerate having lost the qualities proper to a family member

203    that to he who

209    kite bird of prey, scavenger

210    rarest parts splendid qualities

212    in…name uphold the honor of their names with the most careful consideration (or “…in every respect”)

215    engine piece of machinery

217    gall bitterness

221    moved provoked, angered

227    increase procreation

228    derogate degenerate, debased

229    teem be fertile, have children

230    spleen malice

231    thwart perverse, obstinate    disnatured unnatural

233    cadent falling    fret erode, wear

234    pains efforts (also suggests labor pains)    benefits kindnesses

241    dotage foolish old age

242    at a clap with one blow

247    perforce by force, uncontrollably

248    Blasts violent gusts of wind

249    untented festering (literally, not probed and cleaned surgically)

250    fond foolish/doting

252    waters…   loose i.e., tears

253    temper moisten    clay i.e., earth, the ground

255    kind benevolent/possessed of natural familial love    comfortable comforting

257    visage face

261    partial biased

263    content content yourself, i.e., be quiet

269    halter hangman’s noose

272    politic prudent, shrewd

273    At point armed and ready    that so that

274    buzz rumor    fancy whim

275    enguard protect, defend

276    in at (his)

279    still always

280    taken defeated, captured

289    compact confirm, consolidate

292    under pardon if you’ll pardon my saying so

293    at task taken to task, blamed

298    th’event the outcome (will tell)

Act 1 Scene 5

1    before ahead

2    demand out of questions prompted by

5    kibes chilblains

7    wit intellect    slip-shod in slippers (worn for chilblains)

9    Shalt i.e., thou shalt

10    crab sour-tasting crab apple

13    on’s of his

15    side’s side of his

17    her i.e., Cordelia (though Goneril is just possible)

25    asses idiots/donkeys (i.e., Lear’s servants)    the seven stars the Pleiades

26    pretty ingenious

29    again back again (refers either to an intention to reclaim sovereignty, or to Goneril’s withdrawal of Lear’s privileges)

35    temper my right state of mind

39    maid virgin

40    things penises

Act 2 Scene 1

2.1    Location: the Earl of Gloucester’s residence    severally separately

1    Save thee God save thee (a common greeting)

5    abroad out there, in circulation

6    ones i.e., the news, regarded as plural    ear-kissing arguments rumored, whispered topics, not established truths

8    toward impending

13    perforce of necessity

14    take arrest

15    queasy question dangerous, uncertain nature

18    watches is on guard, on the lookout

19    intelligence information

22    i’th’haste in haste

23    have…Albany i.e., have you spoken in support of Cornwall and against Albany/have you spoken critically about Cornwall’s hostility to Albany

25    Advise yourself consider

28    in cunning to deceive (Gloucester; though playing on the fact that it is Edgar who is being tricked)

29    quit you acquit yourself

32    beget…endeavour give the impression that I fought more fiercely    fierce violent/brave/zealous

38    conjuring invoking    the moon i.e., Hecate, goddess of the moon and of witchcraft

39    stand auspicious mistress favor him as his patroness

48    bend direct

50    fine conclusion

51    loathly opposite deeply opposed, horrified

52    fell savage, ruthless

53    preparèd unsheathed    charges home makes a direct attack on

54    unprovided unprotected    latched caught

55    alarumed stirred, roused

56    quarrel’s right rightfulness of my cause    encounter fight

57    ghasted frightened

58    Full very

61    found—dispatch once found, he shall be killed

62    arch and patron chief patron

65    stake i.e., place of execution

68    pight determined    curst angry

69    discover reveal his plans

70    unpossessing unable to take possession of land and property (illegitimate children could not legally inherit)

71    would stand against stood against, contradicted    reposal placing

73    faithed believed

75    character handwriting

76    suggestion incitement to evil    practice scheme

77    make…world think the world very stupid

78    not thought did not think    profits i.e., benefits to Edmund

79    pregnant…spirits fertile and powerful temptations (literally, evil spirits)

80    Tucket personal trumpet call, here signaling the arrival of Cornwall

81    strange unnatural    fastened confirmed, determined

83    where why

84    ports seaports/gates of walled towns

85    picture could also mean “description”

88    natural naturally loyal and loving to one’s family (plays on the sense of “illegitimate”)    work the means find a way

89    capable able to inherit

99    tended upon attended, waited on

101    consort company (often pejorative)

102    though…affected if he is ill-disposed

103    put him on incited him to

104    th’expense the spending

111    child-like i.e., obedient, loving    office duty/service

113    bewray inform on, expose    his practice Edgar’s plot

118    make…please to achieve your ends, use my means and authority in any way you wish

119    For as for

121    be ours i.e., work for us, join our household

123    seize on take possession of (legal term)

127    out of season inconveniently, unconventionally    threading finding a way through (sewing image)    dark-eyed quibbling on the idea of a needle’s eye

128    Occasions events/circumstances    prize importance

131    differences disputes

132    from away from

133    attend dispatch wait to be dispatched

136    craves…use requires immediate action

Act 2 Scene 2

2.2    Location: outside the Earl of Gloucester’s residence severally separately

1    dawning it is actually before dawn; we later learn that the moon shines

2    Ay in fact, Kent is not a servant at this house; perhaps Kent opens up an opportunity to abuse Oswald

3    set put, lodge (Kent plays on the sense of “fix, make stuck”)

4    mire mud

5    if…me i.e., if you would be so kind (Kent pretends to take the expression literally)

8    Lipsbury pinfold the pound for stray animals in Lips-town (i.e., “between my teeth”)

9    use treat

11    for as

12    knave rogue (two lines later the sense shifts to “servant”)    broken meats scraps of food

13    three-suited servingmen were permitted to have three outfits a year    hundred-pound far more than a servingman’s income; possibly a contemptuous reference to those who bought knighthoods from James I for £100    worsted-stocking i.e., servant/unable to afford silk stockings (worsted is a woollen fabric)    lily-livered cowardly, with a bloodless liver (the organ thought to be the seat of strong emotions)

14    action-taking litigious    whoreson bastard    glass-gazing vain    glass mirror    super-serviceable ready to do any kind of service    finical fussy

15    one-trunk-inheriting owner of (or heir to) no more than would fit in a single trunk    bawd pimp    service plays on the sense of “sex”

16    composition combination    pander go-between/pimp

18    addition attributes/title/mark of honor added to a coat of arms (ironic)

19    rail rant, heap abuse

21    varlet rogue

22    Draw draw your sword

23    sop o’th’moonshine i.e., beat you to a pulp (so that you resemble either a soggy piece of bread lying under the moon’s light, or the blancmange pudding called moonshine)

24    cullionly rascally    barber-monger frequenter of barbers (i.e., vain fop)

26    vanity the puppet i.e., Goneril, imagined as a puppet (or dressed-up woman) who is the personification of vanity

28    carbonado slash diagonally, like meat prepared for broiling or grilling    come your ways come on then

30    neat trim, foppish

33    With you i.e., I’ll fight with you    Goodman boy a contemptuous and belittling form of address (used to Edmund)    Goodman a man below the rank of gentleman    flesh ye initiate you (into fighting; from the practice of feeding dogs bits of freshly killed meat in order to excite them for prey)

39    difference argument

41    bestirred your valour worked up your courage (ironic)

42    disclaims in disowns    tailor made thee i.e., his only worth lies in his fancy clothes

44    ill badly

47    suit…beard his own request, because his old age required it

48    zed…letter “z” was regarded as    unnecessary because “s” could be used instead and there was no “z” in the Latin alphabet

49    unbolted unsifted (plays on the sense of “unmanly/impotent”— a “bolt” was a term for the penis)    jakes privy, toilet

50    wagtail tail-wagger, obsequious person/womanizer

52    beastly brutish

53    a privilege license to express itself

56    honesty honor, integrity

57    holy cords sacred bonds (family or matrimonial ties)    a-twain in two

58    too intrinse t’unloose too intertwined to be disentangled    smooth flatter, indulge

59    rebel i.e., against reason

60    Bring…fire i.e., feed the fire of their masters’ passions

61    halcyon beaks the kingfisher (halcyon) was thought to act as a weather vane if dried and hung up

62    gall irritation    vary change

64    epileptic visage seeing Oswald smiling away his insults, Kent compares his expression to that of an epileptic, grimacing involuntarily

65    my at my    as as if

66    Goose proverbially stupid bird;    cackling suggests that Oswald may be laughing    if…Camelot i.e., if I had you at my mercy, I’d send you running home in fright; the exact nature of this reference is unclear, though, as Camelot was sometimes identified with Winchester, some suspect a jibe about a “Winchester goose” (i.e., a prostitute/venereal disease)    Sarum Salisbury, in Wiltshire    Camelot legendary city that was home to King Arthur

73    likes pleases

75    occupation habit, business

81    saucy insolent    constrains…nature forces the style (of speaking) away from its true purpose

84    An if    so so be it    plain honest (his excuse for his rudeness)

86    craft cunning    corrupter corrupt

87    ducking observants bowing attendants

88    stretch…nicely strain to perform their duties to the last detail

89    verity truth

90    allowance approval    aspect face/planetary position (in comparing Cornwall to a powerful planet, Kent mocks a courtier’s flattery)

91    influence astrological influence

92    Phoebus the Greek and Roman sun god    front forehead

94    dialect usual manner of speaking

95    beguiled deceived

96    though…to’t even if I should incur your displeasure by refusing (to be a knave) when asked

100    misconstruction misinterpretation

101    compact colluding (with the king)

102    being and I being

103    deal of man great show of manliness

104    worthied him earned him honor/made him a hero

105    attempting…self-subdued attacking one who offered no resistance

106    fleshment excitement of a first success    dread exploit fearsome military enterprise (sarcastic)

108    None…fool there is not one of these rogues and cowards who cannot make a fool of a man like Ajax (the great Greek warrior was famously stupid; Cornwall is the subject of this dig)

110    stocks instrument of public punishment in which the offender sat with his ankles and sometimes wrists confined

111    reverent old and revered (sarcastic)    braggart boaster

116    bold malice impudent hostility

117    grace sovereignty

123    use treat

125    colour type

126    sister sister-in-law, i.e., Goneril    away here/there (Cornwall directs where the stocks are to be placed)

131    answer be responsible for

135    pleasure will

137    rubbed deflected (from bowling where the “rub” is the obstacle that disrupts the path of the ball)

138    watched gone without sleep

140    out at heels worn out (literally, coming through one’s stockings or shoes; an appropriate phrase for one whose feet are poking out of the stocks)

141    Give…morrow Goodbye

143    approve prove    saw saying

144    out…sun proverbial for going from good to bad; Kent means that Regan will prove worse than Goneril

146    beacon i.e., the sun    this under globe i.e., the earth

147    comfortable comforting, encouraging

148    Nothing…misery the miserable are almost the only people to see miracles

151    obscurèd course secret (and “disguised”) course of action/dimmed fortunes

152    From away from (i.e., in France)    enormous state disordered situation (or country)

153    o’erwatched worn out by lack of sleep

154    vantage advantage

156    Fortune…wheel! Fortune was traditionally depicted as a woman turning a wheel that raised humans up and cast them down

157    proclaimed publicly declared an outlaw

158    happy opportune, fortunate

161    attend my taking wait to catch me

162    am bethought have decided

164    in…man despising mankind (in particular, man’s claim to be superior to beasts)

166    elf tangle (into “elflocks” or messy knots of hair)

167    presented openly displayed

170    Bedlam the Saint Mary of Bethlehem hospital in London; a number of those who were released became    beggars

171    mortifièd deadened

172    pricks spikes

173    object sight    low humble, lowly

174    pelting paltry, insignificant

175    bans curses

176    Poor…Tom! the sorts of cries the beggars would utter; several sixteenth-century accounts refer to beggars calling themselves “poor Tom”    Turlygod unexplained; perhaps a deliberately nonsensical name

177    That’s something yet i.e., at least as Poor Tom I have some form of existence    Edgar…am as Edgar I do not exist/I renounce my identity as Edgar    Gentleman presumably one of Lear’s reduced retinue of knights

178    they i.e., Regan and Cornwall

186    cruel puns on “crewel” (i.e., wool used for stockings)

187    over-lusty at legs as a servant, too ready to run away (perhaps plays on the sense of “too eager for sex”)

188    nether-stocks stockings

189    place position (as Lear’s messenger)

190    To as to

192    son son-in-law

198    Juno wife of    Jupiter, the supreme Roman god

201    upon respect upon consideration/against the respect due to a king and his representatives

202    Resolve make clear to, inform    modest moderate, reasonable    which way why, how

203    usage treatment

204    Coming from us when you were sent by me

206    commend deliver

208    reeking steaming (with sweat)    post messenger

209    Stewed hot and drenched in sweat

211    spite of intermission in spite of interrupting me/in spite of his halting breath

212    presently immediately

213    meiny retinue    straight straightaway

214    attend…answer wait until they had time to answer

219    Displayed…against openly behaved so impudently toward

220    man than wit courage than sense    drew drew my sword

224    Winter’s…way i.e., there is more stormy weather (trouble) on the way

226    blind i.e., to their father’s needs

227    bags money bags

229    arrant downright/notorious

230    turns the key opens the door/provides sexual favors

231    dolours griefs (puns on “dollar,” a silver coin)

232    tell relate/count

233    mother i.e., hysteria (frequently a female affliction thought to arise from the womb or, in men, the abdomen; characterized by breathlessness and agitation)

234    Hysterica passio the Latin term for hysteria

235    element rightful environment    below i.e., in the womb

243    to school to i.e., to learn from    ant…i’th’ winter i.e., the ant gathers food only in the summer when it is abundant; similarly, men work only when there is profit to be gained from a patron who is at the height of his fortunes

245    stinking i.e., with the stench of decaying fortunes

248    again back again

250    sir man

251    form appearances, outward show

252    pack pack up, be off

257    perdy by God (from the French par dieu)

260    Deny refuse

261    fetches tricks, stratagems (Lear goes on to employ the sense of “bring”)

262    flying off desertion

268    confusion destruction, overthrow

275    tends attends, awaits

279    Infirmity…bound illness always makes us neglect the duties that, when healthy, we are bound to carry out

281    oppressed overwhelmed/afflicted

283    fallen…will angry with my more headstrong impulse

285    sound healthy    my state royal state

287    remotion removal

288    practice deceit, cunning    Give…forth release my servant

289    and’s and his

295    cockney squeamish or affected woman/town dweller not used to hardier country ways    i’th’paste alive alive into the pie (being too squeamish to kill them first)

296    knapped hit    o’th’coxcombs on the heads    wantons frisky creatures

297    buttered his hay another example of misguided kindness (horses dislike grease)

304    Sepulch’ring entombing    adult’ress i.e., as you could not possibly be my daughter if you were not glad to see me

306    naught wicked/worthless

307    vulture recalls the Greek legend of Prometheus, who was punished for stealing fire from the gods by having his liver perpetually gnawed by vultures

311    You…duty you are more likely to undervalue her worth than she is to neglect her duty

321    verge…confine limit of her domain (i.e., you are near death)

323    discretion (person of) good judgment    state personal condition (imaged as a country; ironic glance at the sense of “kingship”)

328    becomes the house befits the royal line or family

330    unnecessary superfluous, useless

331    vouchsafe permit    raiment clothing

335    abated deprived

339    top head

340    taking infectious

344    fen-sucked…blister noxious vapors produced by sunshine on swampy ground were considered to be infectious and so to cause blistering

349    tender-hafted delicately framed, gently disposed

353    scant my sizes reduce my allowances (of food and drink, etc.)

354    oppose the bolt lock the door

356    offices of nature natural filial duties

357    Effects outward marks

360    to th’purpose get to the point

363    approves confirms, bears out

365    easy-borrowed easily assumed

366    sickly diseased, corrupt    grace favor/royalty

370    on’t of it

371    sway authority, rule

372    Allow sanctions, approves

374    beard gray beard, symbol of his age

377    indiscretion poor judgment

379    sides bodily frame, ribcage

381    disorders misconduct

382    much less advancement less favorable treatment

389    entertainment hospitable reception

391    abjure renounce

392    wage…o’th’air battle against the hostility of the open air

394    Necessity’s need’s, deprivation’s

397    knee kneel before    squire-like like a servant or follower    pension financial allowance

398    afoot going

399    sumpter packhorse, beast of burden

400    groom manservant

408    embossèd carbuncle swollen tumor

409    corrupted blood diseased lineage

413    Mend improve

417    looked not for did not expect

419    mingle…passion apply rational judgment to your impulsive behavior

423    avouch declare, affirm

425    sith that since    charge and danger expense and the risk of riotous behavior

431    slack ye treat you negligently

432    control discipline

435    place or notice room or acknowledgment

437    in…it it was about time you did so

438    guardians, my depositaries trustees

439    kept a reservation reserved the right

443    well-favoured good-looking

445    Stands…praise is, in relative terms, worthy of some praise

453    Our…superfluous even our most wretched beggars have something, however poor, that is more than they absolutely need

455    Allow not if you do not allow

457    If…gorgeous if being sumptuously dressed simply entailed wearing sufficiently warm clothes

458    what…wear’st your magnificent clothes

464    fool…much don’t make me such a fool as

473    flaws fragments

474    Or ere before

476    and’s and his

477    bestowed lodged, accommodated

478    blame fault (that he)    put…rest turned himself away from repose/deprived himself of peace of mind

480    his particular him individually

487    will will go

488    give him way let him go, give him scope

491    ruffle rage, bluster

494    themselves procure bring on themselves

496    desperate train retinue of dangerous men

498    have…abused be misled by what he is told

Act 3 Scene 1

3.1    Location: somewhere out in the open, not far from the Earl of Gloucester’s residence severally separately

2    minded…unquietly in the same restless and disturbed mood as the storm

4    Contending battling against/competing with

6    main mainland

9    out-jest drive out with jokes

10    heart-struck injuries in juries that strike to the heart

12    warrant…note basis of what I have observed (about you)

13    Commend…you entrust you with an important matter

16    as…high i.e., like anyone to whom fortune has given power and royal authority

17    seem no less seem to be only servants (but are really spies)

18    France the King of France    speculations observers

19    Intelligent of bearing information about

20    snuffs resentments    packings plots

21    hard rein harsh curbing (equestrian metaphor; puns on “reign”)    borne maintained

23    furnishings superficial trappings

27    out-wall outward appearance

30    that fellow i.e., Kent

34    to effect in importance

35    in…this to which end you employ your efforts that way while I go this way

37    Holla shout to

Act 3 Scene 2

2    cataracts floods/waterspouts    hurricanoes waterspouts

3    cocks weathercocks

4    thought-executing fires i.e., lightning (as swift as thought/thought-destroying)

5    Vaunt-couriers forerunners

8    nature’s moulds the molds in which nature makes living creatures    germens seeds

10    court holy-water courtly flattery

15    tax…with accuse…of

17    subscription allegiance

20    ministers agents

21    pernicious destructive/wicked

22    high-engendered battles battalions created in the heavens    head plays on the sense of “army”

23    foul wicked/bad (weather)

24    put’s put his    head-piece helmet/brain

25    codpiece penis (literally, appendage worn on the front of a man’s breeches to cover and emphasize the genitals)    house find a house for itself, i.e., have sex

26    any i.e., any shelter

27    louse get lice (in pubic and head hair)

28    So…many in this way beggars end up with a string of mistresses (or “end up not only with a woman but a quantity of lice”)

29    makes…make values most what he should value least/considers his penis (sex) more important than his heart (love/moral integrity)

31    corn may suggest a syphilitic sore

33    made…glass practiced smiling or pouting in a mirror

37    grace…codpiece royalty and a fool (fools sometimes wore exaggerated codpieces and were proverbially well-endowed)

40    Gallow gally, i.e., frighten    wanderers…dark nocturnal animals

47    pudder pother, tumult

50    Unwhipped of unpunished by

51    simular faker, pretender

52    caitiff villain, wretch

53    seeming false appearances, deception

54    practised on plotted against

55    Rive split open    continents containers    cry…grace beg for mercy from these terrifying    summoners (officers who summoned the accused to court)

59    hard near

61    hard house pitiless household (Gloucester’s house, under the authority of Cornwall and Regan)

63    demanding (when I was) asking urgently

65    scanted withheld

68    fellow servant (but with connotations of “companion”)

69    The…strange necessity has a strange skill

73    He…day adapted from Feste’s song at the end of Twelfth Night    and a a very    wit possibly plays on the sense of “penis”    make…fit make his happiness fit his fortunes/be content with the fortune that he deserves

78    brave fine    cool i.e., cool the lust of    courtesan courtier’s mistress, high-class prostitute

80    in…matter more concerned with words than substance (i.e., do not practice what they preach)

81    mar spoil (i.e., water down for their own profit)

82    are…tutors i.e., teach their tailors about fashion

83    heretics religious dissenters, conventionally punished with burning at the stake    wenches’ suitors i.e., who are afflicted with the burning effects of syphilis

84    right just

87    cutpurses thieves who cut the strings of money bags hanging at their victims’ waists    throngs crowds

88    usurers moneylenders, notorious for charging excessively high interest    tell…i’th’field count their money openly

89    bawds pimps

90    Albion ancient name for Britain

91    confusion destruction, overthrow

92    who whoever

93    going…feet walking will be done on foot (perhaps simply meaning “things will return to normal”)

94    Merlin in the legendary history of Britain, the reign of Lear precedes that of Arthur by centuries

Act 3 Scene 3

3.3    Location: the Earl of Gloucester’s residence

2    leave…pity permission to help, take pity on

6    Go to expression of impatient dismissal

8    closet private room/cabinet

9    home thoroughly    power army    footed ashore    incline to support, side with

10    look look for    privily relieve secretly help

11    that so that    of by

13    toward imminent

14    courtesy forbid thee forbidden kindness (to Lear)

16    This…deserving i.e., my action should be worth a good reward

Act 3 Scene 4

3.4    Location: Location outside a hovel somewhere out in the open, not far from the Earl of Gloucester’s residence

3    nature human nature

10    greater malady i.e., mental suffering

13    i’th’mouth face to face    free free of worry, untroubled

14    delicate sensitive

17    as as if

18    home soundly

22    frank generous

32    bide endure

33    sides bodies (with visible ribs)

34    lopped and windowed full of holes

36    physic medicine (often a purgative)    pomp splendor, ostentatious display (i.e., rich and powerful people)

38    superflux superfluity, excess (flux was used for a discharge of excrement from the bowels, the result of a purgative)

40    Fathom and half Edgar calls as though he is measuring the depth of the water in the hovel, as a sailor might in a leaking ship    Fathom about six feet

41    spirit evil spirit, demon

44    grumble mutter, mumble

48    foul wicked

50    knives…pew the devil was believed to tempt men to damnation by leaving them the means of committing suicide (even in church)    ratsbane rat poison

51    porridge vegetable or meat soup    bay reddish-brown    four-inched four inches wide (the devil gives one the arrogance to try and perform extremely difficult feats)

52    course hunt    for as    five wits five mental faculties (common wit, imagination, fantasy, estimation, and memory)

53    do…de the sound of chattering teeth?    star-blasting being afflicted by the malign influence of the stars    taking being infected with disease/malign influence of the stars

54    vexes torments    there…there perhaps Edgar snatches at parts of his body as he tries to catch lice or the devil; or he may grab or point at the air around him

56    pass state, predicament

58    reserved a blanket kept a blanket (to cover himself)

59    pendulous overhanging

60    fated…faults destined to punish men’s faults

62    subdued nature reduced human nature

65    thus…flesh refers to Edgar’s self-mutilation

67    pelican young pelicans supposedly fed on their mother’s blood; they were proverbial for filial cruelty

68    Pillicock…Pillicock-hill possibly part of an old nursery rhyme, but    Pillicock is slang for penis and    Pillycock-hill the female genitals    alow…loo possibly from “halloo” (cry to incite dogs in a hunt), perhaps an imitation of a cock’s crow, or simply a nonsensical sound

70    obey Edgar begins a paraphrased version of five of the Ten Commandments

71    commit not i.e., do not commit adultery    on proud array in overly fine clothes

74    gloves i.e., a mistress’ gift, displayed by being worn in one’s    cap

77    slept in i.e., dreamed of

78    dice i.e., gambling    out-paramoured the Turk had more lovers than the Turkish Sultan, famous for his harem    light of ear eager to listen to gossip

80    creaking…silks i.e., the sounds of a fashionable woman walking

81    plackets openings in skirts/vaginas    keep…books i.e., do not sign a loan agreement

83    suum, mun presumably Edgar imitates the sounds of the wind    nonny often used as part of a refrain in popular songs    Dolphin…by perhaps Edgar addresses an imaginary horse;    sessa is a cry of encouragement used in hunting or may derive from the French cessez (“stop”)

85    answer face, encounter

87    cat no perfume the secretions of the anal glands of the civet cat are used to make perfume

88    on’s of us    sophisticated not simple or natural    unaccommodated unprovided for (i.e., not wearing clothes)

90    lendings clothes that are “lent” only, not part of him

91    naughty nasty, wicked

93    walking fire i.e., Gloucester and his torch

94    Flibbertigibbet the name of a devil (all of the devils Edgar mentions are to be found in Samuel Harsnett’s 1603 Declaration of Egregious Popish Impostures)    curfew i.e., nightfall

95    cock cockcrow    web…pin cataract of the eye    squints causes to squint

97    Swithold probably Saint Withold, apparently a protector from harm    footed thrice walked three times    old wold, downs

98    nightmare evil female spirit supposed to settle upon a sleeper’s chest, inducing bad dreams and feelings of suffocation    nine-fold perhaps the imps who attend her

100    her troth plight give a solemn promise (to do no more harm)

101    aroint begone (used to witches and demons)

103    What’s who’s

106    wall-newt i.e., lizard on the wall

107    water i.e., water newt

108    ditch-dog i.e., dead dog in a ditch    mantle scum

109    standing stagnant    whipped the standard punishment for vagabonds    tithing parish

110    three…shirts the clothing allowance of a servant

113    deer animals

115    Smulkin the name of a devil (that, according to Harsnett, took the form of a mouse)

117    The…darkness the devil

118    Modo…Mahu the names of two devils

119    flesh and blood i.e., children (Gloucester is thinking of Edgar, Goneril, and Regan)    vile debased, corrupted

120    gets begets, conceives

131    Theban i.e., Greek philosopher (from Thebes)

133    prevent forestall, thwart

135    Importune urge

136    t’unsettle to be disturbed

142    blood lineage, family

147    cry you mercy excuse me

154    keep still remain

155    soothe indulge, humor

156    him you on him along with you

158    Athenian i.e., Greek philosopher (from Athens)

160    Child…came perhaps a line from a lost ballad about the legendary French hero Roland (Child was the title for a young man seeking knighthood)

161    word password/customary saying    still always    fie…man the cry of the giant in the children’s tale of Jack the giant killer

Act 3 Scene 5

3.5    Location: the Earl of Gloucester’s residence

1    his i.e., Gloucester’s

2    nature natural familial affection

3    something fears somewhat frightens

5    his i.e., Gloucester’s    provoking…himself Edgar’s sense of his own worth, provoked into action by Gloucester’s reprehensible badness/a provoking quality in Gloucester, which incited Edgar’s reprehensible wickedness

7    to be of being

8    approves proves    an intelligent party a spy, an informer

14    apprehension arrest

15    his suspicion suspicion of Gloucester

Act 3 Scene 6

3.6    Location: unspecified; presumably an outbuilding on the Earl of Gloucester’s estate

1    piece out supplement

3    impatience anger/inability to bear suffering

5    Frateretto the name of a devil; in Harsnett he is associated with a “fiddler,” which perhaps suggests    Nero, the first-century Roman emperor who famously played the fiddle while Rome burned    lake of darkness presumably the Stygian lake of the classical underworld, but a phallic fishing rod and vaginal dark lake may also be implied; perhaps Nero’s murder of his own mother is glanced at—she reportedly asked to be stabbed in the womb as this was where her son had grown    angler fisherman/thief

7    yeoman land owner below the rank of gentleman

9    to as    mad sense now shifts to “angry”

11    a thousand i.e., a thousand devils

12    hizzing hissing    ’em them i.e., Goneril and Regan; the Quarto text continues at this point with an imaginary “arraignment” of Goneril (see “Quarto passages that do not appear in the Folio,” on this page)

17    mar my counterfeiting spoil my pretence

19    Trey…Sweetheart names for bitches—even his female dogs, he imagines, have turned against him; their names may suggest Lear’s daughters (“tray” can mean “pain, affliction,” “blanch” can mean “to deceive,” “to flatter”)

20    throw his head unclear; presumably a threatening gesture of some sort    Avaunt begone

21    or black or either black or

22    poisons i.e., with rabies

23    grim fierce

24    brach bitch    him male

25    bobtail tyke small dog with a tail that has been bobbed (cut short)    trundle-tail dog with a long, curling tail

28    hatch lower half of a divided door

29    Do…de apparently the sound of chattering teeth again    Sessa! cry of encouragement used in hunting or may derive from the French cessez (“stop”)    wakes annual parish fairs (frequented by beggars)

30    horn beggars carried drinking horns on strings round their necks

31    anatomize dissect

33    entertain employ

34    Persian i.e., gorgeous, luxurious

36    curtains Lear imagines that he is in a curtained bed

43    litter vehicle containing a bed, here apparently drawn by horses

44    Dover port on the south coast

49    to…conduct i.e., hastily guide you to the necessary supplies for your journey

Act 3 Scene 7

3.7    Location: the Earl of Gloucester’s residence

1    Post

5    sister sister-in-law, i.e., Goneril

7    Advise counsel, urge    duke i.e., the Duke of Albany    festinate preparation hasty preparation of troops

8    posts messengers    intelligent possessed of information

9    lord of Gloucester Edmund’s new title (though when Oswald uses it, he refers to Edmund’s father)

13    questrists seekers

14    the lord’s i.e., Gloucester’s

21    Pinion him bind his arms

22    pass…justice issue a death sentence without a formal trial

24    do a court’sy bow, yield

27    corky withered, dry

34    plucks his beard a highly insulting gesture

37    white i.e., old, dignified

38    Naughty wicked

39    ravish seize forcibly, pluck

40    quicken come to life

41    hospitable favours welcoming (facial) features

42    ruffle treat roughly/snatch

44    Be simple answered answer straightforwardly

46    late footed recently landed

48    guessingly without certain knowledge

50    opposed i.e., to the dukes

55    charged at peril commanded on peril of your life

57    tied to th’stake like a bear in the popular sport of bearbaiting    stand endure    course designated bout, during which the bear was attacked by dogs

61    anointed i.e., holy (having been anointed with holy oil at the coronation)

63    buoyed swelled, risen

64    stellèd starry

65    holp…rain i.e., by weeping    holp helped

66    stern cruel, unyielding

67    turn the key i.e., to let them in

68    All…subscribe i.e., in such circumstances, all other cruel people would sanction a kind action

69    wingèd vengeance i.e., vengeance of the gods

70    Fellows servants

82    shake…quarrel i.e., defy you (or “challenge you to a fight”) over this cause    What…mean? What do you think you are doing?

83    villain servant

84    chance of anger risk of what anger may bring (in a fight)

87    mischief on him injury done to him

91    sparks of nature warmth of natural filial affection

92    quit requite, avenge

93    Out expression of impatience and disgust

95    overture disclosure

97    abused wronged, maligned

101    How look you? How are you?

104    apace rapidly

105    Untimely at the wrong time (with war imminent)    Exeunt here the Quarto text has an additional sequence in which loyal servants apply a palliative to Gloucester’s eye sockets (see “Quarto passages that do not appear in the Folio,” on this page)

Act 4 Scene 1

4.1    Location: somewhere out in the open, not far from the Earl of Gloucester’s residence

1    thus i.e., a beggar    contemned despised

2    contemned and flattered despised secretly though flattered to your face

4    esperance hope

5    The…laughter the most miserable kind of change is a decline in fortunes; when things are at their worst they can only get better

10    poorly led led by a poor man/led in a way unsuitable to his status

12    But were it not    mutations changes/fickleness

13    Life…age we would not accept old age

15    fourscore eighty

18    Thee…hurt i.e., you may be punished for helping me

22    means secure us wealth gives us false security, overconfidence    mere defects sheer deficiencies

23    Prove our commodities turn out to be benefits

24    abusèd deceived

31    is not has not yet arrived

36    reason rationality, sanity

41    wanton unruly/cruelly mischievous

44    trade course of action/practice

50    ancient love old affection

54    plague affliction

56    the rest all

57    ’pparel apparel, clothing

58    Come…will whatever may come of it

60    daub it put on a false face, pretend

67    strokes blows, afflictions

68    happier more fortunate

69    superfluous immoderate, extravagant, overindulgent    lust-dieted fed solely by pleasure

70    slaves your ordinance subjects your laws to his desires

71    feel empathize, feel compassion (sense then shifts to “experience”)    quickly soon/while he is alive/sharply

75    bending overhanging

76    confinèd channeled (between England and France)

77    brim edge

79    about me that I have on my person

Act 4 Scene 2

4.2    Location: outside Goneril and the Duke of Albany’s residence

1    my lord i.e., Edmund

4    army i.e., French army

8    ‘sot’ fool

9    turned…out turned inside out, got things the wrong way round (clothing metaphor)

13    cowish cowardly

14    undertake take action

15    tie…answer oblige him to respond    on the way i.e., that we expressed during the journey here

16    prove effects be fulfilled    brother brother-in-law, i.e., Cornwall

17    musters gathering of troops    conduct his powers escort his forces

18    change exchange    distaff spindle for weaving, common symbol of womanhood or wifeliness

20    like likely

22    mistress ruler/lover    favor love token

24    thy Goneril starts to use the more intimate pronoun to Edmund    spirits plays on sense of “penis”

25    conceive understand/imagine (with procreative connotations)

26    death plays on sense of “orgasm”

29    services sexual services

30    fool i.e., Albany    usurps wrongfully possesses

32    worth the whistle worth looking for (from the proverb “it is a poor dog that is not worth the whistling”)

33    Goneril…face the Quarto text has a longer dialogue in which Albany berates Goneril (see “Quarto passages that do not appear in the Folio,” on this page)

34    rude rough

36    Milk-livered pale-livered, cowardly (cowardice was associated with lack of blood in the liver and milk with women)

38    discerning…suffering that can distinguish between what may be honorably tolerated from what must not be endured

41    Proper…woman deformity does not seem as abhorrent in a devil (to whom it is appropriate) as it does in a woman

43    vain stupid/worthless

48    bred brought up in his household    thrilled pierced, moved    remorse pity (for Gloucester)

49    Opposed opposed himself    bending aiming, directing

50    threat-enraged enraged by the threat

53    after i.e., to death

55    justices (divine) judges    nether earthly

56    venge avenge, punish

63    all…life demolish the dream (of having Edmund) that I have constructed, leaving me with the life I hate

65    tart sour

69    back going back

Act 4 Scene 3

4.3    Location: the French camp, near Dover. The Quarto text precedes this scene with another one in which Kent and a Gentleman discuss the French king’s return to France and Cordelia’s concern for her father (see “Quarto passages that do not appear in the Folio,” on this page)    Colours military banners    Gentleman perhaps the same man that Kent gave instructions to in Act 3 Scene 1

2    vexed angry, turbulent

3    rank fumiter abundant fumitory (a vigorously growing weed)    furrow weeds weeds that grow in the furrows of ploughed fields

4    burdocks weeds with prickly flower heads or burs    hemlock plant producing a potentially lethal sedative    cuckoo-flowers name given to various wild flowers growing when the cuckoo calls (i.e., May/June)

5    Darnel type of grass that grows as a weed among corn    idle useless

8    What…wisdom what can human knowledge do

9    bereavèd stolen, lost

10    outward worth worldly goods

12    repose rest, sleep

13    that…operative there are many effective medicinal herbs that can induce that in him

17    unpublished virtues secret powers (of herbs)

18    aidant helpful    remediate remedial, healing

20    rage frenzy

21    wants the means i.e., lacks the sanity

24    preparation equipped military force

27    France i.e., the King of France

28    importuned importunate, pressing

29    blown swollen with pride/corrupt

Act 4 Scene 4

4.4    Location: the Earl of Gloucester’s residence

4    ado fuss

8    import mean, contain

10    posted hurried

11    ignorance folly

15    nighted darkened (literally, and in terms of his fortunes)    descry discover

17    after go after

19    ways roads

21    charged my duty swore me to obedience

23    Belike perhaps/probably

24    I’ll love thee Regan switches to the familiar    thee to cajole him—   love implies the promise of favors, sexual or otherwise

29    oeillades amorous glances    speaking eloquent

30    of her bosom in her confidence/sexually intimate

32    Y’are ye (you) are

33    take this note note this well

35    convenient fitting

36    gather more infer the rest

39    call…her have more sense

43    meet i.e., meet him

Act 4 Scene 5

4.5    Location: somewhere out in the open, near Dover

1    that same hill the hill I mentioned (i.e., the cliff Gloucester described at the end of Act 4 Scene 1)

11    phrase and matter style and sense

17    choughs jackdaws or other birds of the crow family    wing fly across    midway i.e., middle regions of

18    gross large

19    samphire aromatic plant used in pickling; it was picked from cliffs by men suspended on ropes

22    yond yonder, that    bark small ship

23    her cock (the size of) her cockboat, a small boat towed behind a ship

25    th’unnumbered idle pebble countless insignificant pebbles

27    the deficient my defective

28    Topple topple me

32    leap upright jump up in the air

34    Here, friend’s here, friend, is

36    Prosper it cause it to prosper

40    trifle play

46    opposeless irresistible

47    My…nature the smoldering wick and hated remains of my life

51    conceit imagination

53    Yields submits willingly

54    this this time, now

56    pass die

57    What who (Edgar adopts another persona)

59    aught anything

60    precipitating falling headlong

61    shivered shattered

63    at each end to end

67    bourn boundary (between land and sea)

68    a-height on high    shrill-gorged shrill-throated

73    beguile cheat

84    whelked twisted

85    fiend i.e., tempting him to the sin of suicide    happy father fortunate old man (father was a form of address for an elderly man, though Edgar plays with the literal sense)

86    clearest brightest, purest    make…impossibilities acquire honor for themselves by performing things that are impossible in the human world

93    free untroubled

94    The…thus were he (Lear) in his right mind, he would never permit himself to dress like this (or possibly “Gloucester’s senses will not be able to withstand seeing his master like this”)

96    touch accuse, blame/lay hands on

98    press-money money paid to military recruits when they were conscripted (Lear seems to imagine he is recruiting an army)

99    crow-keeper scarecrow/person employed to scare crows from the crops    Draw…yard draw your bow to its fullest extent (the length of a longbow’s arrow, which, at about thirty-six inches, was the same as the length of a cloth seller’s measuring rod)

100    gauntlet armored glove thrown down as a challenge to a duel

101    prove it on make good my cause against    brown bills long-handled weapons, painted or varnished brown and topped with ax-like blades; or soldiers carrying such weapons    well flown, bird the language of falconry, here used to describe an arrow’s flight    I’th’clout cloth at the center of an archer’s target

102    hewgh perhaps Lear imitates the sound of the arrow as it flies through the air or hits the target    word password (continues Lear’s military fantasy)

103    Sweet marjoram Edgar invents a password that relates to Lear’s headgear and to the plant’s alleged medicinal properties in treating brain disorders

106    like a dog i.e., as if they were fawning dogs

107    had…there i.e., was wise even while I was still a child

108    divinity theology

109    me i.e., my teeth

110    peace be still

111    ague-proof immune to fever and shivering

113    trick characteristic, individual quality

117    cause charge, offense

120    goes to’t does it, has sex

121    lecher fornicate

123    got begot, conceived

124    luxury lechery, lust    for…soldiers i.e., more sex means more children to man his army

126    between…snow forecasts frigidity between her legs

127    minces virtue affects chastity    shake the head i.e., in disapproval

129    fitchew polecat/prostitute    soilèd fed with green fodder, so lively, skittish

130    riotous unrestrained, lustful

131    centaurs mythical creatures that were human above the waist and horse below; reputed to be lustful

132    But…girdle only as far as the waist    inherit possess, have power over

134    hell slang term for the vagina    sulphurous suggests both hell and syphilis    burning…consumption alludes to painful syphilitic burning, odor and decay (consumption)

135    civet perfume

136    apothecary person who prepared and sold drugs, spices, perfumes, etc.

138    mortality being human/death

140    so similarly

141    squinny squint

142    Cupid Roman god of    love, traditionally depicted as    blind or blindfolded    challenge written challenge to a duel    penning style/handwriting

145    take…report believe it if I heard it reported

148    case sockets

150    heavy case sorrowful predicament

152    feelingly literally, through touch/with great emotion

154    justice judge    simple humble

155    handy-dandy take your pick (from the child’s game of guessing which clenched hand contains something)

159    a…office given authority, even a dog will be obeyed

160    beadle parish officer, responsible for punishing thieves, prostitutes, and vagabonds

162    use employ sexually    kind manner

163    usurer moneylender, notorious for charging excessively high interest    cozener cheat

165    Place…gold i.e., when sins are committed by the rich

166    hurtless harmlessly

167    it i.e., sin

168    able ’em authorize them

171    scurvy politician despicable schemer

172    Now…now perhaps comforting Gloucester, perhaps distracted by his boots

174    matter and impertinency sense and nonsense

177    hither i.e., into this world

182    block style of hat or mold for hats (perhaps Lear removes his headgear)/ block from which to mount a horse/tree stump (stage may even give rise to a sense of “scaffold and executioner’s block”)

183    delicate ingenious

184    put’t in proof try it out

190    natural fool born fool (as opposed to a professional jester)

194    seconds supporters (as for a duel)

195    salt i.e., tears

197    die plays on the sense of “orgasm”    bravely handsomely

198    jovial cheerful/majestic (like Jove, king of the gods)

199    Masters sirs

201    Sa…sa hunting cry, from French ça (“that’s it,” “it’s there”)

205    nature i.e., human nature    general curse curse of original sin

206    twain Adam and Eve (but also suggests Goneril and Regan)

207    gentle noble

208    speed you (may God) prosper you

209    toward impending

210    vulgar widely known

212    by your favour if you would be so good

214    main…thought sight of the main army is expected hourly

217    Though that though    on special cause for a special reason (i.e., to find Lear)

221    worser spirit evil angel/bad side of my nature

226    known…sorrows deeply felt sorrows I have experienced

227    pregnant…pity disposed to compassion

228    biding dwelling

230    benison blessing

231    To…boot in addition, and may it benefit you

232    proclaimed prize i.e., a man with a price on his head    happy fortunate

233    framed flesh conceived and born

235    thyself remember recall your sins (i.e., prepare to die)

240    published proclaimed

243    ’Chill…’casion I shall not let go, sir, without further occasion (cause); for his new persona, Edgar adopts a West Country accent in which he substitutes “v” for “f” and “z” for “s”;    ’Chill I shall

245    your gait on your way    An…vortnight if I could have been killed by boasting, I would not have lasted a fortnight (or “it would have been shorter by a fortnight”)

247    che vor ye I warrant you, I promise you    I’se I shall    costard head (literally, a large apple)

248    ballow cudgel

250    pick knock out with the cudgel    foins sword thrusts

255    party side

256    serviceable eager to serve, ready to do anything

263    deathsman executioner

264    Leave give me leave, permit me

268    will desire/lust    want not is not lacking

269    done achieved

270    for your labour as a reward for your efforts/as a place for sexual activity

271    servant lover

272    undistinguished space limitless scope    will lust

275    Thee…up I will bury you (Oswald)    post unsanctified unholy messenger

276    in…time when the time is ripe

277    ungracious wicked, sinful    strike blast/afflict

278    death-practised whose death is plotted

280    stiff stubborn

281    ingenious sensitive, intelligent

282    distract mad

284    wrong imaginations illusions

Act 4 Scene 6

4.6    Location: the French camp, near Dover

3    every…me all my efforts will be inadequate

4    o’erpaid i.e., already more than enough

5    All…truth everything I have told you is the simple truth (or possibly “may all reports of me be unexaggerated and accurate”)

6    No…clipped neither overstated nor abbreviated

7    suited dressed

8    weeds clothes

11    Yet…intent to have my identity known now would spoil the plan I have devised

12    My…it the favor I ask is    know me not do not acknowledge me

13    meet suitable

18    wind up put in tune (by tightening the pegs on a stringed instrument)

19    child-changèd changed by his children

23    I’th’sway…will as you see fit, under your own authority    arrayed dressed (appropriately)

27    doubt of fear for    temperance self-control

31    reverence i.e., position deserving respect, venerable state

33    Had you even if you had    flakes locks of hair

34    Did challenge would have demanded    of from

38    fain obliged

39    rogues forlorn destitute vagabonds

40    short i.e., broken up (and hence less comfortable)

41    at once at the same time

42    concluded all come entirely to an end

46    bliss i.e., heaven

47    wheel of fire i.e., one of hell’s tortures of the damned; recalls Ixion, who, in Greek mythology, was bound to a wheel of fire for attempting to seduce the queen of the gods    that so that

51    wide wide of the mark, confused

54    abused wronged, ill-treated/deluded

57    Would…condition! I wish I could be sure of what state I am in!

63    fond silly

84    rage frenzy

86    further settling his mind is more settled

Act 5 Scene 1

5.1    Location: the British camp, near Dover Drum and Colours soldiers with military flags and a drum beating

1    Know of find out from    last purpose most recent intention

2    since subsequently    advised persuaded/warned    aught anything, i.e., any news

4    self-reproving self-reproach    constant pleasure fixed wishes

5    miscarried come to harm

6    doubted feared

11    honoured honorable

13    forfended place forbidden place, i.e., Goneril’s vagina

15    I…her I cannot stand her

16    familiar too friendly/sexually intimate

20    rigour…state harshness of our government

21    cry out i.e., protest in pain

22    Why…reasoned? Why are we discussing this?

23    Combine together i.e., let us combine our two armies

24    domestic…broils private internal squabbles

27    th’ancient of war experienced senior officers

30    convenient suitable, seemly

31    know the riddle understand your enigmatic request, see your trick (Regan wants to keep a suspicious eye on Goneril)

34    I’ll overtake you presumably Albany calls after those who have or are in the process of departing

35    ope open    letter i.e., the letter Oswald was carrying from Goneril to Edmund

36    sound i.e., sound a summons

38    champion one who fights in single combat

39    avouchèd declared, affirmed    miscarry lose the battle and die

41    machination plotting

44    cry make the proclamation

46    o’erlook read over

47    powers troops

49    discovery intelligence gathering, reconnaissance

51    greet the time be ready when the time comes

53    jealous suspicious, mistrustful

58    hardly with difficulty    carry…side fulfill my side of the agreement (with Goneril)/achieve my own (power-seeking) ends

60    countenance authority

62    taking off murder

65    Shall i.e., they shall

66    my…debate my position relies on action not discussion

Act 5 Scene 2

5.2    Location: not far from the battlefield, near Dover    Alarum trumpet call to arms

1    father form of address for an old man

2    host i.e., shelter    retreat trumpet call signaling retreat

7    ta’en (are) captured

12    Ripeness readiness/the right time

Act 5 Scene 3

5.3    Location: the British camp, near Dover

1    good guard guard them carefully

2    greater pleasures the wishes of more important people (i.e., Goneril, Regan, Albany)

3    censure judge, sentence

5    meaning intentions

6    cast down humbled by fortune/defeated in battle/dejected

14    gilded butterflies actual butterflies/lavishly dressed courtiers    poor rogues wretched fellows

17    take…things understand the secret inner workings of the world

18    God’s spies spying on the world on God’s behalf/looking at the world from a lofty vantage point, like God    wear out outlive

19    packs and sects cliques and factions

20    That…th’moon i.e., whose fortunes ebb and flow like the tides

22    sacrifices refers to either Cordelia’s sacrifice for Lear or their joint loss of freedom

23    throw incense i.e., like priests performing the sacrifice

24    brand…foxes alludes to the practice of smoking foxes out of their holes

26    flesh and fell flesh and skin (i.e., entirely)

27    starved dead

33    tender-minded sensitive, soft-hearted

34    become befit, suit

35    bear question permit discussion

38    write happy count yourself fortunate

39    carry manage

41    strain lineage

43    opposites opponents

44    use treat

48    retention detention, confinement

49    Whose refers to the king    charms bewitching spells    title name of king/legal entitlement (to land and power)

50    pluck…bosom draw the sympathies of the common people

51    turn…them i.e., turn our conscripted soldiers’ weapons against ourselves

52    queen i.e., Cordelia

55    session hearing in a court of justice

56    by your patience if you’ll excuse me

57    subject of subordinate in

59    list please

60    pleasure…demanded wishes might have been asked

62    commission authority

63    immediacy closeness, connection

66    grace merit

67    your addition the honors or titles you bestow on him

69    compeers equals

70    That…most i.e., he would be most fully invested with your rights

72    Holla whoa, stop

73    asquint crookedly, distortedly

75    full-flowing stomach a stomach full of anger (where stomach is used like “heart” for the seat of the passions)

76    patrimony inheritance

77    Dispose of use, deal with    walls Regan images herself as a fortress surrendering

78    Witness the world let the world witness

80    enjoy i.e., have sex with him as your husband

81    let-alone permission or refusal to give it

83    Half-blooded illegitimate (fellow is contemptuous)

86    in i.e., along with

87    gilded serpent i.e., Goneril    For as for

88    bar it prevent its advancement (legal term)

89    subcontracted engaged for a second time, entered into a contract that is subsidiary to her marriage contract with Albany

90    banns proclamation of marriage (spelled “banes” in Folio, perhaps playing on “evildoings”)

91    make…to woo, make advances to

92    bespoke spoken for

93    interlude brief comic play (i.e., “What a farce!”)

97    pledge challenge/pledge to fight    make it i.e., make it good

98    nothing no way

101    medicine drugs (i.e., poison)

102    what whoever

108    single virtue unaided courage or strength

115    quality or degree noble birth or high rank    lists catalogue of soldiers

126    canker-bit eaten away by cankerworms (grubs that feed on plants)

128    cope encounter, fight with

136    honours…profession i.e., as a knight

137    protest declare

138    Maugre despite    place position, rank

139    fire-new i.e., brand new, freshly minted

142    Conspirant a conspirator

143    upward top, crown

144    descent lowest part, sole

145    toad-spotted toads’ spots were believed to contain venom

146    bent resolved/tensed for action

151    say assay, evidence

152    nicely in strict keeping with the rules

155    hell-hated lie the lie I hate as much as hell

156    for they since they (the treasons)    by off

157    instant way an immediate passage (to your heart)

159    him probably a call to Edgar to spare Edmund’s life so that a confession can be obtained from him

160    practice trickery

163    cozened and beguiled cheated and deceived

164    dame woman

167    know recognize

169    arraign indict, bring to trial

172    govern restrain

176    fortune on good fortune to defeat

178    charity forgiveness

180    th’hast thou hast (i.e., you have)

182    pleasant pleasurable (sexually so in this case)

184    dark literally and metaphorically    vicious immoral    got begot, conceived

187    wheel wheel of fortune

188    prophesy suggest, foretell

195    List listen (to)

197    bloody proclamation i.e., the sentence of death pronounced on him

199    the…die would repeatedly suffer pain as bad as death

201    semblance outward appearance

202    habit clothing/guise, appearance

203    rings i.e., eye sockets

205    despair the spiritual hopelessness that precedes suicide

208    success outcome (in the duel with Edmund)

210    pilgrimage course of events/period of exile/spiritual journey    flawed cracked

218    dissolve i.e., in tears

224    smokes i.e., steams with hot blood

235    compliment etiquette (of greeting)

238    aye forever (Kent is aware he is dying)

240    Great thing vital matter

242    object sight

247    Even exactly

250    writ written order (for execution; a legal term)

254    office task, responsibility

262    fordid killed

269    stone specular stone, a crystalline substance used to make mirrors

271    promised end the death Lear expected (when he divided the kingdom)/Judgment Day, the end of the world (the sense that Edgar understands)

273    Fall and cease! either Albany calls for the end of the world, or he wishes for Lear to die and be put out of his anguish

285    slave villain/wretched servant

288    falchion curved sword

290    crosses troubles, frustrations

291    Mine…o’th’best failing sight was believed to be a sign of approaching death    straight in a moment

292    two…hated perhaps “two people she first loved and then hated”; it is not entirely clear who the    one Kent refers to is

294    dull sight refers either to Lear’s dim eyesight or to the motionless Cordelia

296    Caius the only mention of the name Kent assumed when he was in disguise

300    I’ll…straight I’ll attend to that in a moment

301    your…decay the beginning of the change and decline in your fortunes (may also suggest mental decay)

304    Nor…else completes Kent’s previous, unfinished sentence with “and no one else” as well as beginning his current one with “neither I nor anyone else (is welcome)”

305    fordone killed

306    desperately as a result of the spiritual despair that precedes suicide

308    vain…him it is useless for us to tell him who we are

310    bootless pointless

314    this great decay noble ruin, i.e., Lear

315    For as for    resign handover

318    boot advantage, additions    addition titles, honors

321    cup painful experience (plays on the related sense of “drinking vessel”)    see, see something attracts Albany’s attention, presumably to Lear

322    fool i.e., Cordelia (fool was a term of endearment), but recalls Lear’s Fool as well

326    this button may refer to Cordelia’s (hoping to help her breathe) or Lear’s own (if he is once again afflicted by “the mother,” the hysteria that causes one to struggle for breath)    sir it is unclear whom Lear addresses here

332    ghost spirit

333    rack torture instrument that stretched the limbs

334    longer for a longer period of time/to longer physical dimensions

337    usurped stole, made illegal use of (beyond its rightful length)

341    gored wounded, bleeding    sustain support/keep alive

342    journey i.e., to death

Quarto passages that do not appear in the Folio

1    SH EDMUND = Ed. Q = Bast. (throughout)

28    ladies = Q (corrected). Q (uncorrected) = lodes

36    basest and ’temnest = Q (corrected). Q (uncorrected)= belest and contaned

70    Want’st = Q2. Q = wanst

72    bourn = Ed. Q = broome

94    she kicked = Ed. Q = kickt

98    joint-stool = Q2. Q = ioyne stoole

100    on = Ed. Q = an

128    madness = Q (corrected). Q (uncorrected)= rogish madnes

135    Flibbertigibbet spelled Stiberdigebit in Q    mopping and mowing = Ed. Q = Mobing, & Mohing

155    Humanity = Q (corrected). Q (uncorrected) = Humanly

161    state begins threat = Q (corrected) (threat spelled thereat). Q (uncorrected) = slayer begin threats

170    mew = Q (corrected). Q (uncorrected)= now

184    Ay, sir, = Ed. Q = I say

190    strove = Ed. Q = streme

THE TRAGEDY OF OTHELLO, THE MOOR OF VENICE

For Shakespeare’s original audience, “the Moor of Venice” would have instantly suggested a meeting of the familiar and the strange, of east and west. “Venice” was synonymous with European sophistication, “Moor” with the atmosphere of the Orient, of North Africa and the Middle East. Yet the short Italian novel on which the play is based makes little of the Moor’s status as an outsider. Written by Giraldi Cinthio, it was one of a series of exemplary stories concerning marital infidelity. Its purpose was to show how “it sometimes happens that without any fault at all, a faithful and loving lady, through the insidious plots of a villainous mind, and the frailty of one who believes more than he need, is murdered by her faithful husband.” In Venice, a Moor, dear to the senate because he has served the interests of the republic in battle, marries a virtuous lady called Disdemona. The Venetian lords decide to change the guard in Cyprus and the Moor is chosen as commandant. Disdemona insists on going with him; they arrive safely in Cyprus (no storm, no Turks). The Moor’s ensign or standard-bearer falls in love with Disdemona, who does not reciprocate. The ensign assumes that this is because she is in love with his superior, the corporal. His love for Disdemona turns to hate and he decides that if he cannot have her, nor should the Moor. He accordingly plots to make the Moor jealous of the corporal, thus destroying them both.

Venice was notorious for the number and openness of its courtesans, and the laxness of its wives. It was the pleasure capital of Europe, a city of sexual tourism. Cinthio’s Disdemona, however, is “impelled not by female appetite but by the Moor’s good qualities”: she is an atypical Venetian woman. Shakespeare intends his Desdemona to be regarded in the same way, even as the men in the play exploit the stereotypical image of Venetian women. Iago pumps up Rodorigo’s desire on the quayside with talk of female lechery and he plays on Othello’s fear that his wife might revert to type, reminding the Moor that Venetian women are habitual sexual deceivers:

I know our country disposition well:

In Venice they do let heaven see the pranks

They dare not show their husbands: their best conscience

Is not to leave’t undone, but kept unknown.

Visiting Venice in the 1590s, Sir Henry Wotton remarked on the difficulty of distinguishing between whores and virtuous wives on the streets—the presence in the play of Bianca the courtesan is telling here. In the overhearing scene, Othello fails to make exactly this distinction as to which woman, wife or courtesan, Iago and Cassio are talking about. Iago’s seemingly casual references to Desdemona’s “appetite” and “will,” his view of Venetian women as sexual beasts, soon cause Othello to be convinced that his wife’s hand is hot and moist, traditional signs of sexual license. The division between wife and whore is horribly dissolved in the fourth act, where home is turned into brothel, and Desdemona twice called strumpet and thrice whore, culminating in the savage lines “I took you for that cunning whore of Venice / That married with Othello.” Only when he has killed her does Othello rediscover the true coldness of her chastity—though in speaking of Desdemona thus, we should not regard her as the icy maiden of Petrarchan poetic tradition, for in the scene before Othello’s arrival in Cyprus she proves herself adept in feisty and sexually knowing banter with her male interlocutors.

Othello is ill at ease with the language of double entendre because he is an “extravagant and wheeling stranger” who works within a very different poetic register. His verbal sphere is rich in allusion to an exotic other world filled with Arabian trees and turbaned Turks in Aleppo, not to mention “The Anthropophagi and men whose heads / Grew beneath their shoulders.” “Valiant Othello, we must straight employ you / Against the general enemy Ottoman,” says the Duke of Venice early in the play. The audience hears a consonance between the names of the captain-general “Othello” and the general enemy “Ottoman.” This would have been especially apparent if, as is likely, the original pronunciation of the hero’s name was Italianized as “Otello.” Othman was the name of the founder of the mighty Ottoman or Turkish Empire, the great rival civilization to Christianity. Othello’s name suggests his origin in the Ottoman territories, against which he is now fighting. The clash of Christian against Turk was one of Shakespeare’s major additions to his source.

To Shakespeare and his contemporaries, Turk, Arab and Moor all represented the Islamic “other,” but they were not necessarily homogenized into a single image of generic “barbarianism.” Arabic culture was frequently associated with learning and civilization, in contrast to the prevailing images of Turk and Saracen. A Barbar could be “brave” rather than “barbarous”: George Peele’s Battle of Alcazar in Barbary, a play based on real recent historical events, has both “a barbarous Moor, / The negro Muly Hamet” and a “brave Barbarian Lord Muly Molocco.” A Moor could help you out in your war against the Turk—or, for that matter, the Spaniard. How you judged the Islamic “other” depended not only on ideological stereotype but also on the particularities of diplomatic liaison and changing allegiance in a world of superpower rivalry. At the end of Alcazar, the evil Moor Muly Mahamet is defeated. The throne of Barbary goes to Abdelmelec’s virtuous brother, who is also called Muly Mahamet and who was a real historical figure. His ambassador Abd-el-Oahed ben Massaood visited the Elizabethan court in 1600 in order to explore the possibility of forming an alliance to conquer Spain with a mixture of the English navy and African troops. Shakespeare’s company played at court that Christmas, so he may have seen the Barbarian delegation in the flesh. The surviving portrait of the ambassador is perhaps the best image we have of what Shakespeare intended Othello to look like (see plate section).

Peele’s play mingled historical matter with a more general sense of the barbarian, the other, the devilish—bad Muly Mahamet surrounds himself with demonic and underworld associations. Audiences would have come to The Moor of Venice with the expectation of something similar, but witnessed a remarkable inversion whereby a sophisticated Venetian is the one who comes to be associated with the devil and damnable actions.

The primary usage of the term “Moor” in early modern English was as a religious, not a racial, identification: Moor meant “Mohamedan,” that is to say Muslim. The word was frequently used as a general term for “not one of us,” non-Christian. To the play’s original audience, one of the most striking things about the figure of Othello would have been that he is a committed Christian. The ground of the play is laid out in the first scene, when Iago trumpets his own military virtues, in contrast to Cassio’s “theoretical” knowledge of the art of war (Cassio comes from Florence, home of such experts in the theory of war as Machiavelli):

And I—of whom his eyes had seen the proof

At Rhodes, at Cyprus and on others’ grounds,

Christened and heathen…

These lines give an immediate sense of confrontation between Christian and heathen dominions, with Rhodes and Cyprus as pressure points. Startlingly, though, the Moor is fighting for the Christians, not the heathens.

Again, consider Othello’s response to the drunken brawl in Cyprus:

Are we turned Turks, and to ourselves do that

Which heaven hath forbid the Ottomites?

For Christian shame, put by this barbarous brawl!

Such Christian language in the mouth of a Moor, a Muslim, is inherently a paradox. It suggests that Othello would have been assumed to be a convert. The “baptism” that Iago says he will cause Othello to renounce would have taken place not at birth but at conversion. The action of the play re-converts Othello from Christianity, through the machinations of Iago. In this sense, it is fitting that Iago appeals to a “Divinity of hell” and that Othello acknowledges at the end of the play that he is bound for damnation.

The notion of conversion was crucial in the Elizabethan perception of the relationship between European Christianity and the Ottoman Empire. The phrase to “turn Turk” entered the common lexicon. Islam was as powerful an alien force to Europeans in the sixteenth century as Communism was to Americans in the twentieth. To turn Turk was to go over to the other side. It could happen in a number of different ways: some travelers converted by a process of cultural assimilation, others who had been captured and enslaved did so in the belief that they would then be released. It is easy to forget how many English privateers became Ottoman slaves—on one occasion, two thousand wives petitioned King James and parliament for help in ransoming their husbands from Muslim captivity.

Othello dies on a kiss, an embrace of black and white, perhaps a symbolic reconciliation of the virtues of west and east, Europe and Orient, but the public image he wants to be remembered by in the letter back to Venice is of confrontation between Christian and Turk, with himself as the defender of Christianity in Aleppo, a point of eastern extremity in Syria. In smiting himself, Othello recognizes that he has now become the Turk. By killing Desdemona he has renounced his Christian civility and damned himself. He symbolically takes back upon himself the insignia of Islam—turban, circumcision—that he had renounced when he turned Christian. He has beaten a Venetian wife and traduced the state. He has been turned Turk. Not, however, by the general Ottoman but by the “supersubtle” Venetian, the “honest” Iago.

As Shakespeare adds the Turkish context to the story that was his source, so he takes away the simple motivation of being in love with Disdemona that Cinthio gave the ensign. Iago has sometimes been considered motiveless, utterly devilish. It was a convention of Renaissance drama that what a character says in soliloquy is to be believed, yet it is barely possible to credit Iago’s paranoid claim that both Othello and Cassio have been in his bed. Emilia is one of Shakespeare’s strongest-minded female characters: she robustly condemns the sexual double standard whereby men are allowed their extramarital affairs and women are not. One cannot rule out the possibility that she has been unfaithful to Iago (Gregory Doran’s Royal Shakespeare Company production hinted at an affair with Lodovico), but the idea of Othello making love to her is absurd.

Jealousy over the matter of promotion is sufficient explanation for the first part of Iago’s plot, whereby Cassio’s weakness for the bottle leads to his being cashiered. But why does Iago then go so much further, utterly destroying the general on whose patronage he depends? Othello asks the question at the end of the play: “Will you, I pray, demand that demi-devil / Why he hath thus ensnared my soul and body?” But Iago refuses to answer: “Demand me nothing: what you know, you know: / From this time forth I never will speak word.” It sounds like a deliberate challenge to the audience to work it out for themselves. No one has risen to that challenge better than the Romantic critic William Hazlitt, who regarded the love of play-acting as the key to Iago’s procedure:

He is an amateur of tragedy in real life; and instead of employing his invention on imaginary characters, or long-forgotten incidents, he takes the bolder and more desperate course of getting up his plot at home, casts the principal parts among his nearest friends and connections, and rehearses it in downright earnest, with steady nerves and unabated resolution.

Exactly because he is scriptwriter, director and stage-villain rolled into one, Iago is a compelling presence in the theater. And he is given the largest part. It would have been easy for him to dwarf the other characters, as Edmund can dwarf Edgar in King Lear. Shakespeare’s challenge was to make Othello rise far above Iago’s other dupe, Rodorigo. To be reduced to a gibbering idiot over the matter of a misplaced handkerchief is to be duped indeed. But the mesmerizing effect of the poetic writing is such that we never think of Othello as foolish or laughable, not even in the temptation scene of the third act in which Iago twists every word, every detail, to the advantage of his plot. Instead, we turn the Moor’s own phrase back on to him: “But yet the pity of it, Iago! O, Iago, the pity of it, Iago!”

Desdemona inspires our pity not because she is pitiful, but because her courage in going against her father’s will, in following her husband to the far frontier of the Venetian empire in Cyprus, and in generously speaking out for Cassio, becomes the cause of her death. Othello inspires our pity because he also inspires our awe, above all through his soaring language. For the Renaissance, the twin powers of rational thought and persuasive language, oratio and ratio, were what raised humankind above the level of the beasts. The tragedy of Othello is that Iago’s persuasive but specious reasoning (you’re black, you’re getting on in years, Venetian women are notoriously fickle …) transforms Othello from great orator (“Rude am I in my speech,” he says with deftly rhetorical modesty as he proceeds to bewitch his listeners with an anything-but-rude narrative “Of moving accidents by flood and field, / Of hair-breadth scapes i’th’imminent deadly breach”) to savage beast. And yet in the dignity of his two last speeches, first poised and public, then tender and intimate, there is a linguistic fortitude that turns Othello back into something human, something magnificent.

KEY FACTS

PLOT: Othello the Moor, a general employed by the Venetian state, has secretly married Desdemona, a daughter of the senator Brabantio. Iago, an ensign nursing resentment against Othello, enlists the help of Rodorigo, a disappointed suitor of Desdemona. They wake Brabantio in the middle of the night with the news of his daughter’s elopement. Brabantio takes the case to the senate where, learning that she has married Othello of her own accord, he disowns his daughter. Othello is immediately ordered to the Venetian colony of Cyprus to repel a threatened Turkish invasion. Desdemona sails with her husband, taking with them her companion Emilia, who is also Iago’s wife, and Othello’s lieutenant Michael Cassio, newly promoted over Iago’s head. Once in Cyprus, Iago plants the suspicion in Othello’s mind that Desdemona has been unfaithful to him with Cassio. He engineers a drunken brawl for which Cassio is blamed and dismissed by Othello. Desdemona intercedes on Cassio’s behalf but her constant pleas to Othello for his reinstatement only serve to convince Othello that Cassio is her lover. Iago acquires a treasured handkerchief that belonged to Desdemona and uses it as “proof” of the affair. Increasingly maddened by jealousy, Othello orders Iago to kill Cassio and strangles Desdemona himself. Emilia discloses her husband’s plot and Othello, tormented by grief and remorse, kills himself. Iago, after murdering his own wife, is left to the justice of the Venetian state.

MAJOR PARTS: (with percentage of lines/number of speeches/scenes on stage) Iago (31%/272/12), Othello (25%/274/12), Desdemona (11%/165/9), Cassio (8%/110/9), Emilia (7%/103/8), Brabantio (4%/30/3), Rodorigo (3%/59/7), Lodovico (2%/33/4), Duke of Venice (2%/25/1), Montano (2%/24/3).

LINGUISTIC MEDIUM: 80% verse, 20% prose.

DATE: 1604. Performed at court, November 1604; apparently uses Knolles’ Historie of the Turkes, published late 1603; probably postdates the period when theaters were closed due to the plague from May 1603 to April 1604. The Turkish wars in the eastern Mediterranean were of interest to King James, who had written a poem about the 1571 naval battle of Lepanto, which was reprinted in 1603, the year of his accession to the English throne. Some scholars, however, argue for a slightly earlier date.

SOURCES: Based on a novella in Giovanni Battista Giraldi Cinthio’s Gli Hecatommithi (1565), perhaps read in a 1584 French translation by Gabriel Chappuys. Context probably provided by Richard Knolles, The Generall Historie of the Turkes (1603), Sir Lewis Lewkenor’s translation of Gasparo Contarini’s The Commonwealth and Government of Venice (1599) and John Pory’s translation of Leo Africanus’ Geographical Historie of Africa (1600).

TEXT: There are two early texts, markedly different from each other: a Quarto published in 1622 and the First Folio of 1623. The Folio contains over 150 lines that are not in the Quarto. The Quarto has fuller stage directions, a handful of lines that are absent from the Folio, and a large number of oaths that were watered down or omitted in the Folio, as a result of the prohibition on stage swearing. In all, there are about a thousand verbal variants. The two texts seem to derive from different theatrical manuscripts, the Folio possibly having being set from a transcript by Ralph Crane, scribe to the King’s Men. Scholars are divided as to whether the Folio-only passages, which include Othello’s “Pontic sea” speech and Desdemona’s willow song, are theatrically purposeful additions or theatrically pragmatic cuts. We respect the integrity of the Folio text, but in correcting its manifest errors—which are many, largely due to the presence of “Compositor E,” the apprentice who was the poorest of the Folio’s typesetters—we have been greatly helped by the existence of the Quarto.

THE TRAGEDY OF OTHELLO, THE MOOR OF VENICE

OTHELLO, the Moor (a general in the military service of Venice)

BRABANTIO (a senator) father to Desdemona

CASSIO, an honorable lieutenant

IAGO, a villain (Othello’s flagbearer)

RODORIGO, a gulled gentleman

DUKE of Venice

SENATORS

MONTANO, Governor of Cyprus

GENTLEMEN of Cyprus

SAILORS

CLOWN (servant to Othello)

DESDEMONA (daughter of Brabantio) wife to Othello

EMILIA, wife to Iago

BIANCA, a courtesan

(Officers, Messenger, Herald, Musicians and Attendants)

Act 1 Scene 11.1

running scene 1

Enter Rodorigo and Iago

RODORIGONever tell me![1] I take it much unkindly

That thou, Iago, who hast had my purse

As if the strings were thine, shouldst know of this.[3]

IAGOBut you’ll not hear me: if ever I did dream

5

Of such a matter, abhor me.

RODORIGOThou told’st me

Thou didst hold him[7] in thy hate.

IAGODespise me

If I do not. Three great ones[9] of the city,

10

In personal suit[10] to make me his lieutenant,

Off-capped[11] to him, and by the faith of man,

I know my price, I am worth no worse a place:

But he, as loving his own pride and purposes,

Evades them with a bombast circumstance[14]

15

Horribly stuffed with epithets of war,[15]

Nonsuits my mediators.[16] For ‘Certes’, says he,

‘I have already chose my officer.’

And what was he?

Forsooth,[19] a great arithmetician,

20

One Michael Cassio, a Florentine[20] —

A fellow almost[21] damned in a fair wife —

That never set a squadron[22] in the field

Nor the division[23] of a battle knows

More than a spinster,[24] unless the bookish theoric,

25

Wherein the toga’d consuls[25] can propose

As masterly as he. Mere prattle[26] without practice

Is all his soldiership. But he, sir, had th’election;[27]

And I — of whom his[28] eyes had seen the proof

At Rhodes,[29] at Cyprus and on others’ grounds,

30

Christened[30] and heathen — must be beleed and calmed

By debitor and creditor:[31] this counter-caster,

He — in good time[32] — must his lieutenant be,

And I — bless the mark![33] — his Moorship’s ancient.

RODORIGOBy heaven, I rather would have been his hangman.

35

IAGOWhy, there’s no remedy: ’tis the curse of service;[35]

Preferment[36] goes by letter and affection,

And not by old gradation,[37] where each second

Stood heir to th’first. Now, sir, be judge yourself

Whether I in any just term[39] am affined

40

To love the Moor.

RODORIGOI would not follow[41] him then.

IAGOO, sir, content you:

I follow him to serve my turn[43] upon him.

We cannot all be masters, nor all masters

45

Cannot be truly[45] followed. You shall mark

Many a duteous and knee-crooking[46] knave

That — doting on his own obsequious bondage —

Wears out his time,[48] much like his master’s ass,

For nought but provender,[49] and when he’s old, cashiered:

50

Whip me[50] such honest knaves. Others there are

Who, trimmed[51] in forms and visages of duty,

Keep yet their hearts attending on[52] themselves,

And throwing but shows of service on their lords,

Do well thrive by them,

55

And when they have lined their coats[55]

Do themselves homage:[56] these fellows have some soul,

And such a one do I profess myself. For, sir,

It is as sure as you are Rodorigo,

Were[59] I the Moor, I would not be Iago:

60

In following him, I follow but myself.

Heaven is my judge, not I for[61] love and duty,

But seeming so, for my peculiar[62] end,

For when my outward action doth demonstrate[63]

The native[64] act and figure of my heart

65

In compliment extern,[65] ’tis not long after

But I will wear my heart upon my sleeve

For daws[67] to peck at: I am not what I am.

RODORIGOWhat a full[68] fortune does the thick-lips owe

If he can carry’t[69] thus!

70

IAGOCall up her father:

Rouse him, make after[71] him, poison his delight,

Proclaim[72] him in the streets, incense her kinsmen,

And though[73] he in a fertile climate dwell,

Plague him with flies: though that[74] his joy be joy,

75

Yet throw such chances[75] of vexation on’t

As it may[76] lose some colour.

RODORIGOHere is her father’s house, I’ll call aloud.

IAGODo, with like timorous accent[78] and dire yell

As when, by night and negligence, the fire

80

Is spied in populous cities.

RODORIGOWhat, ho, Brabantio! Signior Brabantio, ho!

IAGOAwake! What, ho! Brabantio, thieves, thieves!

Look to your house, your daughter and your bags![83]

Thieves, thieves!

85

BRABANTIOWhat is the reason of this terrible summons? At a window[85]

Above

What is the matter there?

RODORIGOSignior, is all your family within?

IAGOAre your doors locked?

BRABANTIOWhy? Wherefore[89] ask you this?

90

IAGOSir, you’re robbed. For shame, put on your gown![90]

Your heart is burst, you have lost half your soul:

Even now, now, very now, an old black ram[92]

Is tupping[93] your white ewe. Arise, arise!

Awake the snorting[94] citizens with the bell,

95

Or else the devil[95] will make a grandsire of you.

Arise, I say!

BRABANTIOWhat, have you lost your wits?

RODORIGOMost reverend[98] signior, do you know my voice?

BRABANTIONot I: what are you?

100

RODORIGOMy name is Rodorigo.

BRABANTIOThe worser welcome.

I have charged[102] thee not to haunt about my doors:

In honest plainness thou hast heard me say

My daughter is not for thee: and now in madness —

105

Being full of supper and distemp’ring draughts[105] —

Upon malicious knavery dost thou come

To start[107] my quiet.

RODORIGOSir, sir, sir—

BRABANTIOBut thou must needs be sure

110

My spirits[110] and my place have in their power

To make this bitter to thee.

RODORIGOPatience, good sir.

BRABANTIOWhat tell’st thou me of robbing?

This is Venice: my house is not a grange.[114]

115

RODORIGOMost grave[115] Brabantio,

In simple[116] and pure soul I come to you.

IAGOSir, you are one of those that will not serve God if the devil bid you. Because we come to do you service and you think we are ruffians, you’ll have your daughter covered[119] with a Barbary horse: you’ll have your nephews neigh to you: you’ll have coursers[120] for cousins and jennets for germans.

BRABANTIOWhat profane[121] wretch art thou?

IAGOI am one, sir, that comes to tell you your daughter and the Moor are making[123] the beast with two backs.

BRABANTIOThou art a villain.

125

IAGOYou are a senator.

BRABANTIOThis thou shalt answer.[126] I know thee, Rodorigo.

RODORIGOSir, I will answer anything. But I beseech you

If’t be your pleasure[128] and most wise consent —

As partly I find it is — that your fair daughter,

130

At this odd-even[130] and dull watch o’th’night,

Transported with[131] no worse nor better guard

But with[132] a knave of common hire, a gondolier,

To the gross[133] clasps of a lascivious Moor:

If this be known to you and your allowance[134]

135

We then have done you bold and saucy[135] wrongs:

But if you know not this, my manners tell me

We have your wrong rebuke. Do not believe

That, from[138] the sense of all civility,

I thus would play and trifle with your reverence.[139]

140

Your daughter — if you have not given her leave[140] —

I say again, hath made a gross[141] revolt,

Tying her duty, beauty, wit[142] and fortunes

In[143] an extravagant and wheeling stranger

Of here and everywhere. Straight[144] satisfy yourself:

145

If she be in her chamber or your house,

Let loose on me the justice of the state

For thus deluding you.

BRABANTIOStrike[148] on the tinder, ho!

Give me a taper![149] Call up all my people!

150

This accident[150] is not unlike my dream:

Belief of it oppresses me already.

Light, I say, light!

Exit [above]

IAGOFarewell, for I must leave you:

It seems not meet[154] nor wholesome to my place

155

To be producted[155] — as, if I stay, I shall —

Against the Moor, for I do know the state,

However this may gall[157] him with some check,

Cannot with safety cast[158] him, for he’s embarked

With such loud reason[159] to the Cyprus wars,

160

Which even now stands in act,[160] that, for their souls,

Another of his fathom[161] they have none,

To lead their business: in which regard,

Though I do hate him as I do hell-pains.

Yet for necessity of present life[164]

165

I must show out a flag and sign[165] of love,

Which is indeed but sign. That[166] you shall surely find him,

Lead to the Sagittary[167] the raisèd search,

And there will I be with him. So farewell.

Exit

Enter Brabantio with Servants and torches

BRABANTIOIt is too true an evil: gone she is,

170

And what’s to come of my despised time[170]

Is nought but bitterness. Now, Rodorigo,

Where didst thou see her?— O, unhappy[172] girl!—

With the Moor, say’st thou?— Who would be a father?—

How didst thou know ’twas she?— O, she deceives me

175

Past thought![175]— What said she to you?— Get more tapers:

Raise all my kindred.— Are they married, think you?

RODORIGOTruly, I think they are.

BRABANTIOO heaven! How got she out? O treason[178] of the blood!

Fathers, from hence trust not your daughters’ minds

180

By what you see them act. Is there not charms[180]

By which the property[181] of youth and maidhood

May be abused? Have you not read, Rodorigo,

Of some such thing?

RODORIGOYes, sir, I have indeed.

185

BRABANTIOCall up my brother.— O, would you had had her!—

Some one way, some another.— Do you know To Rodorigo

Where we may apprehend her and the Moor?

RODORIGOI think I can discover[188] him, if you please

To get good guard and go along with me.

190

BRABANTIOPray you lead on. At every house I’ll call:

I may command[191] at most.— Get weapons, ho!

And raise some special officers of might.—

On, good Rodorigo: I will deserve your pains.[193]

Exeunt

Act 1 Scene 21.2

running scene 2

Enter Othello, Iago, Attendants with torches

IAGOThough in the trade[1] of war I have slain men,

Yet do I hold it very stuff[2] o’th’conscience

To do no contrived[3] murder: I lack iniquity

Sometime to do me service. Nine or ten times

5

I had thought t’have yerked[5] him here under the ribs.

OTHELLO’Tis better as it is.

IAGONay, but he prated[7]

And spoke such scurvy[8] and provoking terms

Against your honour

10

That with the little godliness I have

I did full hard forbear him. But I[11] pray you, sir,

Are you fast[12] married? Be assured of this,

That the magnifico[13] is much beloved,

And hath in his effect[14] a voice potential

15

As double as the duke’s: he will divorce you,

Or put upon you what[16] restraint or grievance

The law — with all his might to enforce it on —

Will give him cable.[18]

OTHELLOLet him do his spite;

20

My services which I have done the signiory[20]

Shall out-tongue his complaints. ’Tis[21] yet to know —

Which, when I know that boasting is an honour,

I shall promulgate[23] — I fetch my life and being

From men of royal siege,[24] and my demerits

25

May speak, unbonneted,[25] to as proud a fortune

As this that I have reached. For know, Iago,

But that I love the gentle Desdemona,

I would not my unhousèd[28] free condition

Put into circumscription and confine[29]

30

For the sea’s worth.[30] But look, what lights come yond?

Enter Cassio [and Officers] with torches

IAGOThose are the raisèd[31] father and his friends:

You were best go in.

OTHELLONot I: I must be found.

My parts,[34] my title and my perfect soul

35

Shall manifest me rightly. Is it they?

IAGOBy Janus,[36] I think no.

OTHELLOThe servants of the duke’s? And my lieutenant?—

The goodness of the night upon you, friends!

What is the news?

40

CASSIOThe duke does greet you, general,

And he requires your haste-post-haste[41] appearance

Even on the instant.

OTHELLOWhat is the matter,[43] think you?

CASSIOSomething from Cyprus, as I may divine.[44]

45

It is a business of some heat:[45] the galleys

Have sent a dozen sequent[46] messengers

This very night at one another’s heels,

And many of the consuls, raised and met,

Are at the duke’s already. You have been hotly called for:

50

When, being not at your lodging to be found,

The senate hath sent about three several quests[51]

To search you out.

OTHELLO’Tis well I am found by you.

I will but spend a word here in the house

55

And go with you.

[Exit]

CASSIOAncient, what makes he[56] here?

IAGOFaith,[57] he tonight hath boarded a land caract:

If it prove lawful prize, he’s made for ever.

CASSIOI do not understand.

60

IAGOHe’s married.

CASSIOTo who?

IAGOMarry,[62] to—

[Enter Othello]

Come, captain, will you go?

OTHELLOHave with you.[63]

CASSIOHere comes another troop to seek for you.

Enter Brabantio, Rodorigo, with Officers and torches And weapons

65

IAGOIt is Brabantio. General, be advised:[65]

He comes to[66] bad intent.

OTHELLOHolla,[67] stand there!

RODORIGOSignior, it is the Moor.

BRABANTIODown with him, thief! They draw

70

IAGOYou, Rodorigo? Come, sir, I am for you.

OTHELLOKeep up[71] your bright swords, for the dew will rust them.

Good signior, you shall more command with years

Than with your weapons.

BRABANTIOO thou foul[74] thief,

75

Where hast thou stowed[75] my daughter?

Damned as thou art, thou hast enchanted her,

For I’ll refer me to[77] all things of sense —

If she in chains of magic were not bound —

Whether a maid so tender,[79] fair and happy,

80

So opposite[80] to marriage that she shunned

The wealthy curlèd[81] dearling of our nation,

Would ever have — t’incur a general mock[82] —

Run from her guardage[83] to the sooty bosom

Of such a thing as thou: to fear, not to delight.

85

Judge[85] me the world if ’tis not gross in sense

That thou hast practised on[86] her with foul charms,

Abused her delicate youth with drugs or minerals[87]

That weakens motion:[88] I’ll have’t disputed on:

’Tis probable and palpable to thinking.

90

I therefore apprehend and do attach[90] thee

For an abuser of the world, a practiser

Of arts[92] inhibited and out of warrant.—

Lay hold upon him: if he do resist,

Subdue him at his peril.

95

OTHELLOHold[95] your hands,

Both you of my inclining[96] and the rest:

Were it my cue to fight, I should have known it

Without a prompter.— Whither[98] will you that I go

To answer this your charge?

100

BRABANTIOTo prison, till fit time

Of law and course[101] of direct session

Call thee to answer.

OTHELLOWhat if I do obey?

How may the duke be therewith satisfied,

105

Whose messengers are here about my side

Upon some present[106] business of the state

To bring me to him?

OFFICER’Tis true, most worthy signior:

The duke’s in council and your noble self,

110

I am sure, is sent for.

BRABANTIOHow? The duke in council?

In this time of the night? Bring him away;

Mine’s not an idle cause: the duke himself,

Or any of my brothers[114] of the state,

115

Cannot but feel this wrong as ’twere their own:

For if such actions may have passage free,[116]

Bond-slaves and pagans shall our statesmen be.

Exeunt

Act 1 Scene 31.3

running scene 3

Enter Duke, Senators and Officers With torches

DUKEThere’s no composition[1] in this news They sit at a table

That gives them[2] credit.

FIRST SENATORIndeed, they are disproportioned;[3]

My letters say a hundred and seven galleys.

5

DUKEAnd mine a hundred forty.

SECOND SENATORAnd mine two hundred:

But though they jump[7] not on a just account —

As in these cases where the aim reports,

’Tis oft with difference — yet do they all confirm

10

A Turkish fleet, and bearing up to Cyprus.

DUKENay, it is possible enough to judgement:

I[12] do not so secure me in the error

But the main article I do approve

In fearful sense.

15

SAILORWhat ho, what ho, what ho!

Within

Enter Sailor

OFFICERA messenger from the galleys.

DUKENow? What’s the business?

SAILORThe Turkish preparation[18] makes for Rhodes:

So was I bid report here to the state

20

By Signior Angelo.

[Exit Sailor]

DUKEHow[21] say you by this change?

FIRST SENATORThis cannot be

By no assay[23] of reason: ’tis a pageant,

To keep us in false gaze.[24] When we consider

25

Th’importancy[25] of Cyprus to the Turk,

And let ourselves again but understand

That as it more concerns the Turk than Rhodes,

So[28] may he with more facile question bear it,

For that[29] it stands not in such warlike brace,

30

But altogether lacks th’abilities[30]

That Rhodes is dressed in:[31] if we make thought of this,

We must not think the Turk is so unskilful

To leave that latest[33] which concerns him first,

Neglecting an attempt[34] of ease and gain

35

To wake and wage[35] a danger profitless.

DUKENay, in all confidence, he’s not for Rhodes.

OFFICERHere is more news.

Enter a Messenger

MESSENGERThe Ottomites,[38] reverend and gracious,

Steering with due course toward the isle of Rhodes,

40

Have there injointed them[40] with an after fleet.

FIRST SENATORAy, so I thought. How many, as you guess?

MESSENGEROf thirty sail: and now they do restem[42]

Their backward course, bearing with frank[43] appearance

Their purposes toward Cyprus. Signior Montano,

45

Your trusty and most valiant servitor,[45]

With his free[46] duty recommends you thus,

And prays you to believe him.

[Exit Messenger]

DUKE’Tis certain then for Cyprus.

Marcus Luccicos, is not he in town?

50

FIRST SENATORHe’s now in Florence.

DUKEWrite from us to him: post-post-haste,[51] dispatch!

FIRST SENATORHere comes Brabantio and the valiant Moor.

Enter Brabantio, Othello, Cassio, Iago, Rodorigo and Officers

DUKEValiant Othello, we must straight employ you

Against the general enemy Ottoman.[54]—

55

I did not see you: welcome, gentle[55] signior, To Brabantio

We lacked your counsel and your help tonight.

BRABANTIOSo did I yours. Good your grace, pardon me:

Neither my place[58] nor aught I heard of business

Hath raised me from my bed, nor doth the general care[59]

60

Take hold on me, for my particular[60] grief

Is of so floodgate[61] and o’erbearing nature

That it engluts[62] and swallows other sorrows

And it is still itself.[63]

DUKEWhy? What’s the matter?

65

BRABANTIOMy daughter! O, my daughter!

SENATORSDead?

BRABANTIOAy, to me:

She is abused,[68] stol’n from me and corrupted

By spells and medicines bought of mountebanks;[69]

70

For nature so prepost’rously[70] to err —

Being not deficient, blind, or lame of sense[71] —

Sans[72] witchcraft could not.

DUKEWhoe’er he be that in this foul proceeding[73]

Hath thus beguiled[74] your daughter of herself,

75

And you of her, the bloody[75] book of law

You shall yourself read in the bitter letter

After[77] your own sense: yea, though our proper son

Stood[78] in your action.

BRABANTIOHumbly I thank your grace.

80

Here is the man: this Moor, whom now it seems

Your special mandate for the state affairs

Hath hither brought.

ALLWe are very sorry for’t.

DUKEWhat, in your own part, can you say to this? To Othello

85

BRABANTIONothing, but[85] this is so.

OTHELLOMost potent, grave[86] and reverend signiors,

My very noble and approved[87] good masters:

That I have ta’en away this old man’s daughter,

It is most true: true I have married her;

90

The very head and front[90] of my offending

Hath this extent, no more. Rude[91] am I in my speech,

And little blessed with the soft phrase of peace;

For since[93] these arms of mine had seven years’ pith,

Till[94] now some nine moons wasted, they have used

95

Their dearest[95] action in the tented field,

And little of this great world can I speak

More than pertains to feats of broils[97] and battle,

And therefore little shall I grace my cause

In speaking for myself. Yet, by your gracious patience,

100

I will a round[100] unvarnished tale deliver

Of my whole course of love: what drugs, what charms,

What conjuration[102] and what mighty magic —

For such proceeding I am charged withal[103] —

I won his daughter.

105

BRABANTIOA maiden never bold,

Of spirit so still and quiet that her motion[106]

Blushed at herself: and she, in spite of nature,

Of years,[108] of country, credit, everything,

To fall in love with what she feared to look on!

110

It is a judgement maimèd and most imperfect

That will confess perfection so could err

Against all rules of nature, and must be driven

To find out practices[113] of cunning hell

Why this should be. I therefore vouch[114] again

115

That with some mixtures[115] pow’rful o’er the blood,

Or with some dram,[116] conjured to this effect,

He wrought[117] upon her.

DUKETo vouch this is no proof,

Without more wider and more overt test[119]

120

Than these thin habits[120] and poor likelihoods

Of modern seeming[121] do prefer against him.

FIRST SENATORBut, Othello, speak:

Did you by indirect[123] and forcèd courses

Subdue and poison this young maid’s affections?

125

Or came it by request and such fair question[125]

As soul to soul affordeth?[126]

OTHELLOI do beseech you,

Send for the lady to the Sagittary

And let her speak of me before her father:

130

If you do find me foul in her report,

The trust, the office[131] I do hold of you

Not only take away, but let your sentence

Even fall upon my life.

DUKEFetch Desdemona hither.

135

OTHELLOAncient, conduct them: you best know the place.— To Iago

[Exeunt Iago and Attendants]

And, till she come, as truly as to heaven

I do confess the vices of my blood,[137]

So justly[138] to your grave ears I’ll present

How I did thrive in this fair lady’s love,

140

And she in mine.

DUKESay it, Othello.

OTHELLOHer father loved me, oft invited me,

Still[143] questioned me the story of my life

From year to year: the battle, sieges, fortune,

145

That I have passed.[145]

I ran it through, even from my boyish days

To th’very moment that he bade me tell it,

Wherein I spoke of most disastrous[148] chances,

Of moving[149] accidents by flood and field,

150

Of hair-breadth scapes[150] i’th’imminent deadly breach,

Of being taken by the insolent[151] foe

And sold to slavery, of my redemption thence,

And portance[153] in my traveller’s history,

Wherein of antres[154] vast and deserts idle,

155

Rough quarries, rocks, hills whose head touch heaven,

It was my hint[156] to speak: such was my process.

And of the cannibals that each other eat,

The Anthropophagi[158] and men whose heads

Grew beneath their shoulders: these[159] things to hear

160

Would Desdemona seriously[160] incline,

But still the house-affairs would draw her thence,

Which ever as she could with haste dispatch,

She’d come again, and with a greedy ear

Devour up my discourse: which I observing,

165

Took once a pliant[165] hour, and found good means

To draw from her a prayer of earnest heart

That I would all my pilgrimage[167] dilate,

Whereof by parcels[168] she had something heard,

But not intentively.[169] I did consent,

170

And often did beguile her of[170] her tears,

When I did speak of some distressful stroke[171]

That my youth suffered. My story being done,

She gave me for my pains a world of kisses:[173]

She swore, ‘In faith ’twas strange, ’twas passing[174] strange,

175

’Twas pitiful, ’twas wondrous pitiful!’

She wished she had not heard it, yet she wished

That heaven had made her[177] such a man. She thanked me,

And bade me, if I had a friend that loved her,

I should but teach him how to tell my story,

180

And that would woo her. Upon this hint[180] I spake:

She loved me for the dangers I had passed,

And I loved her that she did pity them.

This only is the witchcraft I have used.

Here comes the lady: let her witness[184] it.

Enter Desdemona, Iago, Attendants

185

DUKEI think this tale would win my daughter too.

Good Brabantio,

Take[187] up this mangled matter at the best:

Men do their broken weapons rather use

Than their bare hands.

190

BRABANTIOI pray you hear her speak:

If she confess that she was half the wooer,

Destruction on my head if my bad[192] blame

Light on the man!— Come hither, gentle mistress. To Desdemona

Do you perceive in all this noble company

195

Where most you owe obedience?

DESDEMONAMy noble father,

I do perceive here a divided duty.

To you I am bound for life and education:[198]

My life and education both do learn[199] me

200

How to respect you. You are the lord of duty,

I am hitherto[201] your daughter. But here’s my husband,

And so much duty as my mother showed

To you, preferring[203] you before her father,

So much I challenge[204] that I may profess

205

Due to the Moor my lord.

BRABANTIOGod be with you! I have done.

Please it[207] your grace, on to the state affairs.

I had rather to adopt a child than get[208] it.

Come hither, Moor:

210

I here do give thee that with all my heart

Which but[211] thou hast already, with all my heart

I would keep from thee.— For your sake,[212] jewel, To Desdemona

I am glad at soul I have no other child,

For thy escape[214] would teach me tyranny,

215

To hang clogs[215] on them.— I have done, my lord. To the Duke

DUKELet me speak like yourself,[216] and lay a sentence

Which, as a grise[217] or step, may help these lovers.

When remedies are past,[218] the griefs are ended

By seeing the worst, which late[219] on hopes depended.

220

To mourn a mischief[220] that is past and gone

Is the next[221] way to draw new mischief on.

What cannot be preserved when fortune takes,[222]

Patience[223] her injury a mock’ry makes.

The robbed that smiles steals something from the thief:

225

He robs himself that spends[225] a bootless grief.

BRABANTIOSo let the Turk of Cyprus us beguile,[226]

We lose it not, so long as we can smile.

He[228] bears the sentence well that nothing bears

But the free comfort which from thence he hears:

230

But he bears both the sentence and the sorrow

That, to[231] pay grief, must of poor patience borrow.

These[232] sentences, to sugar or to gall,

Being strong on both sides, are equivocal.

But words are words: I never yet did hear

235

That the bruisèd[235] heart was pierced through the ears.

I humbly beseech you proceed to th’affairs of state.

DUKEThe Turk with a most mighty preparation makes for Cyprus. Othello, the fortitude[238] of the place is best known to you, and though we have there a substitute of most allowed sufficiency,[239] yet opinion, a more sovereign mistress of effects, throws[240] a more safer voice on you: you must therefore be content to slubber the gloss of your new fortunes with this more stubborn[241] and boisterous expedition.

OTHELLOThe tyrant custom, most grave senators,

Hath made the flinty[243] and steel couch of war

My thrice-driven[244] bed of down: I do agnize

245

A natural and prompt alacrity[245]

I find in hardness,[246] and do undertake

This present wars against the Ottomites.

Most humbly therefore bending[248] to your state,

I crave fit disposition[249] for my wife,

250

Due reference[250] of place and exhibition,

With such accommodation[251] and besort

As levels with[252] her breeding.

DUKEWhy, at her fathers.

BRABANTIOI will not have it so.

255

OTHELLONor I.

DESDEMONANor would I there reside,

To put my father in impatient thoughts

By being in his eye.[258] Most gracious duke,

To my unfolding[259] lend your prosperous ear,

260

And let me find a charter[260] in your voice

T’assist my simpleness.[261]

DUKEWhat would you, Desdemona?

DESDEMONAThat I love the Moor to live with him,

My downright violence[264] and storm of fortunes

265

May trumpet to the world. My heart’s subdued[265]

Even to the very quality[266] of my lord.

I saw Othello’s visage in his mind,

And to his honours and his valiant parts[268]

Did I my soul and fortunes consecrate:[269]

270

So that, dear lords, if I be left behind

A moth[271] of peace, and he go to the war,

The rites[272] for why I love him are bereft me,

And I a heavy interim shall support

By his dear[274] absence. Let me go with him.

275

OTHELLOLet her have your voice.[275]

Vouch[276] with me, heaven, I therefore beg it not

To please the palate of my appetite,

Nor to comply with heat[278] — the young affects

In my defunct[279] and proper satisfaction —

280

But to be free[280] and bounteous to her mind:

And heaven[281] defend your good souls that you think

I will your serious and great business scant[282]

When she is with me. No, when light-winged toys[283]

Of feathered[284] Cupid seel with wanton dullness

285

My speculative[285] and officed instrument,

That[286] my disports corrupt and taint my business,

Let housewives make a skillet[287] of my helm,

And all indign[288] and base adversities

Make head[289] against my estimation!

290

DUKEBe it as you shall privately determine,

Either for her stay or going: th’affair cries[291] haste,

And speed must answer it.

A SENATORYou must away tonight.

OTHELLOWith all my heart.

295

DUKEAt nine i’th’morning here we’ll meet again.

Othello, leave some officer behind,

And he shall our commission bring to you,

And such things else of quality and respect[298]

As doth import[299] you.

300

OTHELLOSo please your grace, my ancient:

A man he is of honesty and trust:

To his conveyance[302] I assign my wife,

With what else needful your good grace shall think

To be sent after me.

305

DUKELet it be so.

Goodnight to everyone.— And, noble signior, To Brabantio

If virtue no delighted[307] beauty lack,

Your son-in-law is far more fair[308] than black.

A SENATORAdieu, brave Moor: use Desdemona well.

310

BRABANTIOLook to her, Moor, if thou hast eyes to see:

She has deceived her father, and may thee.

Exeunt [Duke, Senators and Officers]

OTHELLOMy life upon her faith! Honest[312] Iago,

My Desdemona must I leave to thee:

I prithee let thy wife attend on her,

315

And bring them after in[315] the best advantage.

Come, Desdemona, I have but an hour

Of love, of worldly matter and direction[317]

To spend with thee: we must obey the time.[318]

Exeunt [Othello and Desdemona]

RODORIGOIago—

320

IAGOWhat say’st thou, noble heart?[320]

RODORIGOWhat will I do, think’st thou?

IAGOWhy, go to bed and sleep.

RODORIGOI will incontinently[323] drown myself.

IAGOIf thou dost, I shall never love thee after. Why, thou silly gentleman?

325

RODORIGOIt is silliness to live when to live is torment: and then have we a prescription[326] to die when death is our physician.

IAGOO villainous! I have looked upon the world for four times seven years, and since I could distinguish betwixt a benefit and an injury, I never found man that knew how to love himself. Ere[329] I would say I would drown myself for the love of a guinea-hen,[330] I would change my humanity with a baboon.

RODORIGOWhat should I do? I confess it is my shame to be so fond,[331] but it is not in my virtue[332] to amend it.

IAGOVirtue? A fig![333] ’Tis in ourselves that we are thus or thus. Our bodies are our gardens, to the which our wills are gardeners: so that if we will plant nettles or sow lettuce, set[335] hyssop and weed up thyme, supply it with one gender of herbs or distract[336] it with many, either to have it sterile with idleness or manured with industry, why, the power and corrigible authority[337] of this lies in our wills. If the beam[338] of our lives had not one scale of reason to poise another of sensuality, the blood[339] and baseness of our natures would conduct us to most preposterous conclusions:[340] but we have reason to cool our raging motions, our carnal stings, our unbitted[341] lusts, whereof I take this that you call love to be a sect or scion.

RODORIGOIt cannot be.

IAGOIt is merely a lust of the blood and a permission of the will.[343] Come, be a man. Drown thyself? Drown cats and blind puppies. I have professed me thy friend and I confess me knit[345] to thy deserving with cables of perdurable toughness: I could never better stead[346] thee than now. Put money in thy purse: follow thou the wars: defeat[347] thy favour with an usurped beard: I say, put money in thy purse. It cannot be long that Desdemona should continue her love to the Moor. Put money in thy purse. Nor he his to her: it was a violent commencement in her, and thou shalt see an answerable sequestration.[350] Put but money in thy purse. These Moors are changeable in their wills. Fill thy purse with money. The food that to him now is as luscious as locusts[352] shall be to him shortly as bitter as coloquintida. She must change for youth:[353] when she is sated with his body, she will find the errors of her choice: therefore put money in thy purse. If thou wilt needs damn thyself, do it a more delicate[355] way than drowning. Make all the money thou canst. If sanctimony and a frail vow betwixt an erring[356] barbarian and supersubtle Venetian be not too hard for my wits and all the tribe of hell, thou shalt enjoy her. Therefore make money. A pox of[358] drowning thyself! It is clean out of the way: seek thou rather to be hanged in[359] compassing thy joy than to be drowned and go without her.

RODORIGOWilt thou be fast[360] to my hopes if I depend on the issue?

IAGOThou art[361] sure of me. Go, make money. I have told thee often, and I re-tell thee again and again, I hate the Moor: my cause is hearted;[362] thine hath no less reason. Let us be conjunctive[363] in our revenge against him: if thou canst cuckold him, thou dost thyself a pleasure, me a sport. There are many events in the womb of time which will be delivered. Traverse,[365] go, provide thy money. We will have more of this tomorrow. Adieu.

RODORIGOWhere shall we meet i’th’morning?

IAGOAt my lodging.

RODORIGOI’ll be with thee betimes.[369]

IAGOGo to,[370] farewell. Do you hear, Rodorigo? As Rodorigo leaves

RODORIGOI’ll sell all my land.

Exit

IAGOThus do I ever make my fool my purse,

For I mine own gained knowledge should profane,[373]

If I would time expend with such a snipe[374]

375

But[375] for my sport and profit. I hate the Moor:

And it is thought abroad[376] that ’twixt my sheets

He has done my office:[377] I know not if’t be true,

But I, for mere suspicion in that kind,[378]

Will do[379] as if for surety. He holds me well,

380

The better shall my purpose work on him.

Cassio’s a proper[381] man. Let me see now:

To get his place and to plume up[382] my will

In double knavery. How, how? Let’s see:

After some time, to abuse Othello’s ears

385

That he[385] is too familiar with his wife.

He hath a person[386] and a smooth dispose

To be suspected, framed[387] to make women false.

The Moor is of a free[388] and open nature,

That thinks men honest that but seem to be so,

390

And will as tenderly[390] be led by th’nose

As asses are.

I have’t: it is engend’red:[392] hell and night

Must bring this monstrous[393] birth to the world’s light.

[Exit]

Act 2 Scene 12.1

running scene 4

Enter Montano and two Gentlemen

MONTANOWhat from the cape[1] can you discern at sea?

FIRST GENTLEMANNothing at all: it is a high-wrought flood:[2]

I cannot, ’twixt the heaven and the main,[3]

Descry[4] a sail.

5

MONTANOMethinks the wind hath spoke aloud at land:

A fuller blast ne’er shook our battlements.

If it hath ruffianed[7] so upon the sea,

What ribs[8] of oak, when mountains melt on them,

Can hold the mortise?[9] What shall we hear of this?

10

SECOND GENTLEMANA segregation[10] of the Turkish fleet:

For do but stand upon the foaming shore,

The chidden[12] billow seems to pelt the clouds:

The wind-shaked surge, with high and monstrous mane,[13]

Seems to cast water on the burning bear[14]

15

And quench the guards[15] of th’ever-fixèd pole.

I never did like molestation[16] view

On the enchafèd[17] flood.

MONTANOIf that the Turkish fleet

Be not ensheltered and embayed,[19] they are drowned:

20

It is impossible to bear it out.

Enter a [Third] Gentleman

THIRD GENTLEMANNews, lads! Our wars are done:

The desperate tempest hath so banged the Turks

That their designment[23] halts. A noble ship of Venice

Hath seen a grievous wreck and sufferance[24]

25

On most part of their fleet.

MONTANOHow? Is this true?

THIRD GENTLEMANThe ship is here put in,

A Veronesa.[28] Michael Cassio,

Lieutenant to the warlike Moor Othello,

30

Is come on shore: the Moor himself at sea,

And is in[31] full commission here for Cyprus.

MONTANOI am glad on’t: ’tis a worthy governor.

THIRD GENTLEMANBut this same Cassio, though he speak of comfort

Touching[34] the Turkish loss, yet he looks sadly

35

And pray[35] the Moor be safe; for they were parted

With foul and violent tempest.

MONTANOPray heavens he be,

For I have served him, and the man commands

Like a full[39] soldier. Let’s to the seaside, ho!

40

As well to see the vessel that’s come in

As to throw out our eyes for brave Othello,

Even till we make the[42] main and th’aerial blue

An indistinct regard.

THIRD GENTLEMANCome, let’s do so;

45

For every minute is expectancy

Of more arrivancy.[46]

Enter Cassio

CASSIOThanks, you the valiant of the warlike isle,

That so approve[48] the Moor. O, let the heavens

Give him defence against the elements,

50

For I have lost him on a dangerous sea.

MONTANOIs he well shipped?

CASSIOHis bark[52] is stoutly timbered, and his pilot

Of[53] very expert and approved allowance;

Therefore my hopes, not[54] surfeited to death,

55

Stand in bold cure.

[VOICES]A sail, a sail, a sail!

Within

CASSIOWhat noise?

[VOICES]The town is empty: on the brow o’th’sea[58]

Stand ranks of people, and they cry ‘A sail!’

60

CASSIOMy hopes do shape him for[60] the governor. A shot is heard

GENTLEMANThey do discharge their shot of courtesy:[61]

Our friends at least.

CASSIOI pray you, sir, go forth

And give us truth who ’tis that is arrived.

65

GENTLEMANI shall. Exit

MONTANOBut, good lieutenant, is your general wived?

CASSIOMost fortunately: he hath achieved[67] a maid

That paragons[68] description and wild fame,

One that excels the quirks[69] of blazoning pens,

70

And in th’essential[70] vesture of creation

Does tire the engineer.[71]

Enter Gentleman

How now? Who has put in?[72]

GENTLEMAN’Tis one Iago, ancient to the general.

CASSIOHe’s had most favourable and happy speed:[74]

75

Tempests themselves, high seas and howling winds,

The guttered[76] rocks and congregated sands,

Traitors ensteeped[77] to enclog the guiltless keel,

As[78] having sense of beauty, do omit

Their mortal[79] natures, letting go safely by

80

The divine Desdemona.

MONTANOWhat is she?

CASSIOShe that I spake of, our great captain’s captain,

Left in[83] the conduct of the bold Iago,

Whose footing[84] here anticipates our thoughts

85

A sennight’s[85] speed. Great Jove, Othello guard,

And swell his sail with thine own powerful breath,

That he may bless this bay with his tall[87] ship,

Make love’s quick[88] pants in Desdemona’s arms,

Give renewed fire to our extincted[89] spirits—

Enter Desdemona, Iago, Rodorigo and Emilia [with Attendants]

90

O, behold,

The riches of the ship is come on shore! Kneels

You men of Cyprus, let her have your knees.—

Hail to thee, lady! And the grace of heaven,

Before, behind thee, and on every hand

95

Enwheel[95] thee round! Rises

DESDEMONAI thank you, valiant Cassio.

What tidings can you tell of my lord?

CASSIOHe is not yet arrived, nor know I aught

But that he’s well and will be shortly here.

100

DESDEMONAO, but I fear. How lost you company?

CASSIOThe great contention of sea and skies

Parted our fellowship.[102]— But, hark! A sail.

[VOICES]A sail, a sail! A shot is heard

Within

GENTLEMANThey give this greeting to the citadel:[104]

105

This likewise is a friend.

CASSIOSee for the news.

[Exit Gentleman]

Good ancient, you are welcome.— Welcome, mistress.—

Let it not gall[108] your patience, good Iago,

That I extend my manners: ’tis my breeding[109]

110

That gives me this bold show of courtesy. Kisses Emilia

IAGOSir, would she give you so much of her lips

As of her tongue[112] she oft bestows on me,

You would have enough.

DESDEMONAAlas, she has no speech.[114]

115

IAGOIn faith, too much:

I find it still,[116] when I have leave to sleep.

Marry, before[117] your ladyship, I grant,

She puts her tongue a little in her heart

And chides[119] with thinking.

120

EMILIAYou have little cause to say so.

IAGOCome on, come on: you are pictures[121] out of door, bells in your parlours, wild-cats in your kitchens, saints in your injuries, devils being offended, players[122] in your housewifery,[123] and housewives in your beds.

DESDEMONAO, fie upon thee, slanderer!

125

IAGONay, it is true, or else I am a Turk:[125]

You rise to play[126] and go to bed to work.

EMILIAYou shall not write my praise.

IAGONo, let me not.

DESDEMONAWhat wouldst write of me, if thou shouldst praise me?

130

IAGOO gentle lady, do not put me to’t,

For I am nothing if not critical.

DESDEMONACome on assay.[132] There’s one gone to the harbour?

IAGOAy, madam.

DESDEMONAI am not merry, but I do beguile[134]

135

The thing I am by seeming otherwise.

Come, how wouldst thou praise me?

IAGOI am about it, but indeed my invention[137]

Comes from my pate[138] as birdlime does from frieze,

It plucks out brains and all. But my muse[139] labours,

140

And thus she is delivered:

‘If she be fair[141] and wise, fairness and wit,

The[142] one’s for use, the other useth it.’

DESDEMONAWell praised! How if she be black[143] and witty?

IAGO‘If she be black, and thereto[144] have a wit,

145

She’ll find a white[145] that shall her blackness fit.’

DESDEMONAWorse and worse.

EMILIAHow if fair and foolish?

IAGO‘She never yet was foolish that was fair,

For even her folly[149] helped her to an heir.’

150

DESDEMONAThese are old fond[150] paradoxes to make fools laugh i’th’ale-house. What miserable praise hast thou for her that’s foul[151] and foolish?

IAGO‘There’s none so foul and foolish thereunto,[152]

But does foul pranks[153] which fair and wise ones do.’

DESDEMONAO heavy[154] ignorance! Thou praisest the worst best. But what praise couldst thou bestow on a deserving woman indeed, one[155] that, in the authority of her merit, did justly put on the vouch of very malice itself?

IAGO‘She that was ever fair and never proud,

Had tongue[158] at will and yet was never loud,

Never lacked gold and yet went never gay,[159]

160

Fled[160] from her wish and yet said “Now I may”,

She that being ang’red, her revenge being nigh,

Bade her wrong stay and her displeasure fly,

She that in wisdom never was so frail

To change[164] the cod’s head for the salmon’s tail,

165

She that could think and ne’er disclose her mind,

See suitors following and not look behind,

She was a wight,[167] if ever such wights were—’

DESDEMONATo do what?

IAGO‘To suckle[169] fools and chronicle small beer.’

DESDEMONAO, most lame and impotent conclusion! Do not learn of him, Emilia, though he be thy husband. How say you, Cassio? Is he not a most profane and liberal[172] counsellor?

CASSIOHe speaks home,[173] madam: you may relish him more in the soldier than in the scholar. Cassio takes Desdemona’s hand and they converse apart

IAGOHe takes her by the palm: Aside ay, well said, whisper. With as little a web as this will I ensnare as great a fly as Cassio. Ay, smile upon her, do: I will gyve[176] thee in thine own courtship.[177] You say true, ’tis so, indeed: if such tricks as these strip you out of your lieutenantry, it had been better you had not kissed[178] your three fingers so oft, which now again you are most apt to play the sir[179] in. Very good: well kissed, and excellent courtesy![180] ’Tis so, indeed. Yet again your fingers to your lips? Would they were clyster-pipes[181] for your sake!— Trumpet within The Moor! I know his trumpet.

CASSIO’Tis truly so.

DESDEMONALet’s meet him and receive him.

CASSIOLo,[184] where he comes!

Enter Othello and Attendants

185

OTHELLOO my fair warrior!

DESDEMONAMy dear Othello!

OTHELLOIt gives me wonder great as my content

To see you here before me. O my soul’s joy!

If after every tempest come such calms,

190

May the winds blow till they have wakened death!

And let the labouring bark[191] climb hills of seas

Olympus-high[192] and duck again as low

As hell’s from heaven! If it were now to die,[193]

’Twere now to be most happy, for I fear

195

My soul hath her content so absolute

That not another comfort like to this

Succeeds[197] in unknown fate.

DESDEMONAThe heavens forbid

But that our loves and comforts should increase,

200

Even as our days do grow!

OTHELLOAmen to that, sweet powers!

I cannot speak enough of this content:

It stops[203] me here: it is too much of joy.

And this, and this, the greatest discords be Kisses her

205

That e’er our hearts shall make!

IAGOO, you are well tuned now! Aside

But I’ll set down[207] the pegs that make this music,

As honest as I am.

OTHELLOCome, let us to the castle.— To Desdemona

210

News, friends: our wars are done, the Turks are drowned.

How does my old acquaintance of this isle?—

Honey, you shall be well desired in Cyprus:

I have found great love amongst them. O my sweet,

I prattle[214] out of fashion, and I dote

215

In mine own comforts.[215] I prithee, good Iago,

Go to the bay and disembark my coffers.[216]

Bring thou the master[217] to the citadel:

He is a good one, and his worthiness

Does challenge[219] much respect.— Come, Desdemona,

220

Once more, well met at Cyprus.

Exeunt Othello and Desdemona [with Attendants. Iago and Rodorigo remain]

IAGODo thou meet me presently at the harbour.— To an Attendant as he exits

Come hither. To Rodorigo If thou be’st valiant — as they say base[222] men being in love have then a nobility in their natures more than is native to them — list[223] me: the lieutenant tonight watches[224] on the court of guard. First, I must tell thee this: Desdemona is directly[225] in love with him.

RODORIGOWith him? Why, ’tis not possible.

IAGOLay thy finger thus,[227] and let thy soul be instructed. Mark me with what violence she first loved the Moor, but[228] for bragging and telling her fantastical lies. To love him still for prating?[229] Let not thy discreet heart think it. Her eye must be fed: and what delight shall she have to look on the devil? When the blood is made dull[231] with the act of sport, there should be a game to inflame it and to give satiety a fresh appetite, loveliness in favour,[232] sympathy in years, manners and beauties, all which the Moor is defective in. Now, for want of these required conveniences,[233] her delicate tenderness will find itself abused, begin to heave the gorge,[234] disrelish abhor the Moor: very nature will instruct her in it and compel her to some second choice. Now, sir, this granted — as it is a most pregnant[236] and unforced position—who stands so eminent[237] in the degree of this fortune as Cassio does? A knave very voluble,[238] no further conscionable than in putting on the mere form of civil and humane[239] seeming for the better compass of his salt and most hidden loose affection? Why, none, why, none. A slipper[240] and subtle knave, a finder of occasion, that has an eye can stamp[241] and counterfeit advantages, though true advantage never present itself: a devilish knave. Besides, the knave is handsome, young, and hath all those requisites in him that folly[243] and green minds look after. A pestilent complete[244] knave, and the woman hath found him already.

RODORIGOI cannot believe that in her: she’s full of most blessed condition.[245]

IAGOBlessed fig’s-end![246] The wine she drinks is made of grapes. If she had been blessed, she would never have loved the Moor. Blessed pudding![247] Didst thou not see her paddle[248] with the palm of his hand? Didst not mark that?

RODORIGOYes, that I did, but that was but courtesy.

IAGOLechery, by this hand: an index[250] and obscure prologue to the history of lust and foul thoughts. They met so near with their lips that their breaths embraced together. Villainous thoughts, Rodorigo! When these mutabilities[252] so marshal the way, hard[253] at hand comes the master and main exercise, th’incorporate conclusion. Pish! But, sir, be you ruled by me: I have brought you from Venice. Watch you[255] tonight: for the command, I’ll lay’t upon you. Cassio knows you not. I’ll not be far from you. Do you find some occasion to anger Cassio, either by speaking too loud, or tainting his discipline,[257] or from what other course you please, which the time shall more favourably minister.[258]

RODORIGOWell.

IAGOSir, he’s rash and very sudden in choler,[260] and haply may strike at you: provoke him that he may, for even out of that will I cause these[261] of Cyprus to mutiny, whose[262] qualification shall come into no true taste again but by the displanting[263] of Cassio. So shall you have a shorter journey to your desires by the means I shall then have to prefer[264] them, and the impediment most profitably removed, without the which there were no expectation of our prosperity.[265]

RODORIGOI[266] will do this, if you can bring it to any opportunity.

IAGOI warrant[267] thee. Meet me by and by at the citadel: I must fetch his necessaries ashore. Farewell.

RODORIGOAdieu.

Exit

270

IAGOThat Cassio loves her, I do well believe’t:

That she loves him, ’tis apt[271] and of great credit.

The Moor — howbeit[272] that I endure him not —

Is of a constant, loving, noble nature,

And I dare think he’ll prove to Desdemona

275

A most dear[275] husband. Now, I do love her too,

Not out of absolute lust — though peradventure[276]

I stand accountant[277] for as great a sin —

But partly led to diet[278] my revenge,

For that[279] I do suspect the lusty Moor

280

Hath leaped into[280] my seat, the thought whereof

Doth — like a poisonous mineral — gnaw my inwards:

And nothing can or shall content my soul

Till I am evened with him, wife for wife,

Or failing so, yet that I put the Moor

285

At least into a jealousy so strong

That judgement cannot cure. Which thing to do,

If this poor[287] trash of Venice, whom I trace

For[288] his quick hunting, stand the putting on,

I’ll have our Michael Cassio on the hip,[289]

290

Abuse him to the Moor in the right garb[290] —

For I fear Cassio with my night-cap[291] too —

Make the Moor thank me, love me and reward me

For making him egregiously[293] an ass

And practising upon[294] his peace and quiet

295

Even to madness. ’Tis here,[295] but yet confused:

Knavery’s plain face is never seen till used.

Exit

Act 2 Scene 2*

running scene 5

Enter Othello’s Herald with a proclamation

HERALDIt is Othello’s pleasure, our noble and valiant general, that upon certain tidings now arrived, importing the mere perdition[2] of the Turkish fleet, every man put himself into triumph:[3] some to dance, some to make bonfires, each man to what sport and revels his addition[4] leads him, for besides these beneficial news, it is the celebration of his nuptial.[5] So much was his pleasure should be proclaimed. All offices[6] are open, and there is full liberty of feasting from this present hour of five till the bell have told[7] eleven. Bless the isle of Cyprus and our noble general Othello!

Exit

[Act 2 Scene 3*]

running scene 6

Enter Othello, Desdemona, Cassio and Attendants

OTHELLOGood Michael, look you to the guard tonight:

Let’s teach ourselves that honourable stop[2]

Not to outsport discretion.[3]

CASSIOIago hath direction what to do,

5

But notwithstanding, with my personal eye

Will I look to’t.

OTHELLOIago is most honest.

Michael, goodnight: tomorrow with your earliest[8]

Let me have speech with you.—

Come, my dear love, To Desdemona

10

The[10] purchase made, the fruits are to ensue:

That profit’s yet to come ’tween me and you.—

Goodnight.

Exeunt [Othello, Desdemona and Attendants]

Enter Iago

CASSIOWelcome, Iago: we must to the watch.

IAGONot this hour, lieutenant: ’tis not yet ten o’th’clock. Our general cast[14] us thus early for the love of his Desdemona, who let us not therefore blame: he hath not yet made wanton[16] the night with her, and she is sport for Jove.

CASSIOShe’s a most exquisite[17] lady.

IAGOAnd, I’ll warrant her, full of game.[18]

CASSIOIndeed, she’s a most fresh and delicate[19] creature.

IAGOWhat an eye she has! Methinks it sounds a parley[20] to provocation.

CASSIOAn inviting eye, and yet methinks right modest.

IAGOAnd when she speaks, is it not an alarum[22] to love?

CASSIOShe is indeed perfection.

IAGOWell, happiness to their sheets! Come, lieutenant, I have a stoup[24] of wine, and here without[25] are a brace of Cyprus gallants that would fain have a measure to the health of black Othello.

CASSIONot tonight, good Iago: I have very poor and unhappy[27] brains for drinking: I could well wish courtesy would invent some other custom of entertainment.

IAGOO, they are our friends. But one cup: I’ll drink for you.

CASSIOI have drunk but one cup tonight, and that was craftily qualified[30] too, and behold what innovation[31] it makes here: I am infortunate in the infirmity and dare not task my weakness with any more.

IAGOWhat, man? ’Tis a night of revels: the gallants desire it.

CASSIOWhere are they?

IAGOHere at the door. I pray you call them in.

CASSIOI’ll do’t, but it dislikes me.[36]

Exit

IAGOIf I can fasten but one cup upon him,

With that which he hath drunk tonight already,

He’ll be as full of quarrel and offence[39]

40

As my[40] young mistress’ dog. Now, my sick fool Rodorigo,

Whom love hath turned almost the wrong side out,

To Desdemona hath tonight caroused[42]

Potations pottle-deep;[43] and he’s to watch:

Three else of Cyprus, noble swelling[44] spirits —

45

That[45] hold their honours in a wary distance,

The very elements[46] of this warlike isle —

Have I tonight flustered[47] with flowing cups,

And they watch[48] too. Now, ’mongst this flock of drunkards

Am I to put our Cassio in some action[49]

50

That may offend the isle.— But here they come:

Enter Cassio, Montano and Gentlemen Servants following with wine

If consequence do but approve[51] my dream,

My boat sails freely, both with wind and stream.[52]

CASSIO’Fore heaven, they have given me a rouse[53] already.

MONTANOGood faith, a little one, not past a pint, as I am a soldier.

55

IAGOSome wine, ho!

And let me the cannikin[56] clink, clink, Sings

And let me the cannikin clink.

A soldier’s a man,

O, man’s life’s but a span:[59]

60

Why, then, let a soldier drink.

Some wine, boys

CASSIO’Fore heaven, an excellent song.

IAGOI learned it in England, where indeed they are most[63] potent in potting: your Dane, your German, and your swag-bellied[64] Hollander— Drink, ho!— are nothing to your English.

CASSIOIs your Englishman so exquisite in his drinking?

IAGOWhy, he drinks you[67] with facility, your Dane dead drunk: he sweats not to overthrow your Almain:[68] he gives your Hollander a vomit ere the next pottle can be filled.

CASSIOTo the health of our general!

MONTANOI am for it, lieutenant, and I’ll do you justice.[71]

IAGOO sweet England!

King Stephen[73] was and-a worthy peer, Sings

His breeches cost him but a crown:[74]

75

He held[75] them sixpence all too dear,

With that he called the tailor lown.[76]

He was a wight of high renown,

And thou art but of low degree:

’Tis pride that pulls the country down:

80

Then take thy auld[80] cloak about thee.

Some wine, ho!

CASSIOWhy, this is a more exquisite song than the other.

IAGOWill you hear’t again?

CASSIONo, for I hold him to be unworthy of his place that does those things. Well, heav’n’s above all, and there be souls must be saved, and there be souls must not be saved.

IAGOIt’s true, good lieutenant.

CASSIOFor mine own part — no offence to the general, nor any man of quality[88] — I hope to be saved.

IAGOAnd so do I too, lieutenant.

CASSIOAy, but, by your leave, not before me: the lieutenant is to be saved before the ancient. Let’s have no more of this: let’s to our affairs. Forgive us our sins! Gentlemen, let’s look to our business. Do not think, gentlemen, I am drunk: this is my ancient, this is my right hand, and this is my left. I am not drunk now: I can stand well enough, and I speak well enough.

GENTLEMENExcellent well.

CASSIOWhy, very well then: you must not think then, that I am drunk.

Exit

MONTANOTo th’platform,[98] masters. Starts to leave Come, let’s set the watch.

[Exeunt Gentlemen?]

IAGOYou see this fellow that is gone before: To Montano

100

He’s a soldier fit to stand by Caesar

And give direction. And do but see his vice:

’Tis to his virtue a just equinox,[102]

The one as long as th’other. ’Tis pity of[103] him.

I fear the trust Othello puts him in

105

On some odd time of his infirmity

Will shake this island.

MONTANOBut is he often thus?

IAGO’Tis evermore his prologue to his sleep:

He’ll watch[109] the horologe a double set,

110

If drink rock not his cradle.

MONTANOIt were well

The general were put in mind of it.

Perhaps he sees it not, or his good nature

Prizes the virtue that appears in Cassio

115

And looks not on his evils: is not this true?

Enter Rodorigo

IAGOHow now, Rodorigo? Aside to Rodorigo

I pray you, after the lieutenant, go.

[Exit Rodorigo]

MONTANOAnd ’tis great pity that the noble Moor

Should hazard[119] such a place as his own second

120

With one of an ingraft[120] infirmity:

It were an honest action to say so

To the Moor.

IAGONot I, for this fair island:

I do love Cassio well and would do much

125

To cure him of this evil.— Cry within

But, hark! What noise?

Enter Cassio pursuing Rodorigo

CASSIOYou rogue! You rascal!

MONTANOWhat’s the matter, lieutenant?

CASSIOA knave[128] teach me my duty?

I’ll beat the knave into a twiggen bottle.[129]

130

RODORIGOBeat me?

CASSIODost thou prate, rogue? Strikes Rodorigo

MONTANONay, good lieutenant: Stops him

I pray you, sir, hold[133] your hand.

CASSIOLet me go, sir,

135

Or I’ll knock you o’er the mazzard.[135]

MONTANOCome, come, you’re drunk.

CASSIODrunk? They fight

IAGOAway, I say: go out and cry a mutiny.— Aside to Rodorigo

[Exit Rodorigo]

Nay, good lieutenant— Alas, gentlemen—

140

Help, ho!— Lieutenant— Sir Montano— Sir—

Help, masters![141]— Here’s a goodly watch indeed! Bell rings

Who’s that which rings the bell?[142]— Diablo, ho!

The town will rise.[143] Fie, fie, lieutenant!

You’ll be ashamed[144] for ever.

Enter Othello and Attendants With weapons

145

OTHELLOWhat is the matter here?

MONTANOI bleed still: I am hurt to th’death. He dies! Attacks Cassio?

OTHELLOHold, for your lives!

IAGOHold, ho! Lieutenant— Sir Montano— Gentlemen,

Have you forgot all sense of place[149] and duty?

150

Hold! The general speaks to you. Hold, for shame!

OTHELLOWhy, how now, ho! From whence ariseth this?

Are we turned Turks,[152] and to ourselves do that

Which heaven hath forbid the Ottomites?

For Christian shame, put by this barbarous brawl!

155

He that stirs next to carve[155] for his own rage

Holds his soul light:[156] he dies upon his motion.—

Silence that dreadful[157] bell: it frights the isle

From her propriety.[158]— What is the matter, masters?

Honest Iago, that looks dead with grieving,[159]

160

Speak: who began this? On thy love,[160] I charge thee.

IAGOI do not know. Friends all but now, even now,

In quarter[162] and in terms like bride and groom

Devesting them[163] for bed: and then, but now —

As if some planet had unwitted men[164] —

165

Swords out, and tilting[165] one at other’s breasts

In opposition bloody. I cannot speak

Any beginning to this peevish odds,[167]

And would[168] in action glorious I had lost

Those legs that brought me to a part of it!

170

OTHELLOHow comes it, Michael, you are thus forgot?[170]

CASSIOI pray you pardon me: I cannot speak.

OTHELLOWorthy Montano, you were wont[172] to be civil:

The gravity and stillness[173] of your youth

The world hath noted, and your name is great

175

In mouths of wisest censure.[175] What’s the matter

That you unlace[176] your reputation thus

And spend your rich opinion[177] for the name

Of a night-brawler? Give me answer to it.

MONTANOWorthy Othello, I am hurt to danger:

180

Your officer, Iago, can inform you —

While I spare speech, which something now offends[181] me —

Of all that I do know, nor know I aught[182]

By me that’s said or done amiss this night,

Unless self-charity be sometimes a vice,

185

And to defend ourselves it be a sin

When violence assails us.

OTHELLONow, by heaven,

My blood[188] begins my safer guides to rule,

And passion — having my best judgement collied[189] —

190

Assays[190] to lead the way: if I once stir,

Or do but lift this arm, the best of you

Shall sink in my rebuke. Give me to know

How this foul rout[193] began, who set it on,

And he that is approved[194] in this offence,

195

Though he had twinned[195] with me, both at a birth,

Shall lose me. What, in a town of war[196]

Yet wild,[197] the people’s hearts brim-full of fear,

To manage[198] private and domestic quarrel?

In night, and on[199] the court and guard of safety?

200

’Tis monstrous.[200] Iago, who began’t?

MONTANOIf partially[201] affined, or leagued in office, To Iago

Thou dost deliver more or less than truth,

Thou art no soldier.

IAGOTouch[204] me not so near:

205

I had rather have this tongue cut from my mouth

Than it should do offence to Michael Cassio,

Yet, I persuade myself, to speak the truth

Shall nothing wrong him. This it is, general:

Montano and myself being in speech,

210

There comes a fellow crying out for help,

And Cassio following him with[211] determined sword

To execute upon him. Sir, this gentleman indicates Montano

Steps in to Cassio and entreats his pause:[213]

Myself the crying fellow did pursue,

215

Lest by his clamour — as it so fell out —

The town might fall in fright: he, swift of foot,

Outran my purpose, and I returned then rather[217]

For that I heard the clink and fall of swords

And Cassio high in oath,[219] which till tonight

220

I ne’er might say before. When I came back —

For this was brief — I found them close together

At blow and thrust, even as again they were

When you yourself did part them.

More of this matter cannot I report.

225

But men are men: the best sometimes forget:[225]

Though Cassio did some little wrong to him,[226]

As men in rage strike those that wish them best,

Yet surely Cassio, I believe, received

From him that fled some strange indignity,[229]

230

Which patience could not pass.[230]

OTHELLOI know, Iago,

Thy honesty and love doth mince[232] this matter,

Making it light to Cassio. Cassio, I love thee,

But never more be officer of mine.

Enter Desdemona, attended

235

Look, if my gentle love be not raised up.

I’ll make thee an example.

DESDEMONAWhat is the matter, dear?

OTHELLOAll’s well, sweeting:[238]

Come away to bed.— Sir, for your hurts, To Montano

240

Myself[240] will be your surgeon.— Lead him off.

[Exeunt some with Montano]

Iago, look with care about the town

And silence those whom this vile brawl distracted.[242]—

Come, Desdemona: ’tis the soldiers’ life

To have their balmy[244] slumbers waked with strife.

Exeunt [all but Iago and Cassio]

IAGOWhat, are you hurt, lieutenant?

CASSIOAy, past all surgery.

IAGOMarry, heaven forbid!

CASSIOReputation, reputation, reputation! O, I have lost my reputation! I have lost the immortal part of myself, and what remains is bestial. My reputation, Iago, my reputation!

IAGOAs I am an honest man, I had thought you had received some bodily wound; there is more sense[252] in that than in reputation. Reputation is an idle and most false imposition:[253] oft got without merit and lost without deserving: you have lost no reputation at all, unless you repute yourself such a loser. What, man, there are more ways to recover[255] the general again: you are but now cast in his mood — a punishment more in policy than in malice — even so as one would beat his offenceless dog to affright an imperious lion. Sue to[257] him again and he’s yours.

CASSIOI will rather sue to be despised than to deceive so good a commander with so slight,[260] so drunken and so indiscreet an officer. Drunk? And speak parrot? And squabble? Swagger? Swear? And discourse fustian[261] with one’s own shadow? O thou invisible spirit of wine, if thou hast no name to be known by, let us call thee devil!

IAGOWhat[264] was he that you followed with your sword? What had he done to you?

CASSIOI know not.

IAGOIs’t possible?

CASSIOI remember a mass of things, but nothing[268] distinctly: a quarrel, but nothing wherefore. O, that men should put an enemy in their mouths to steal away their brains! That we should, with joy, pleasance,[270] revel and applause transform ourselves into beasts!

IAGOWhy, but you are now well enough: how came you thus recovered?

CASSIOIt hath pleased the devil drunkenness to give place to the devil wrath: one unperfectness shows me another, to make me frankly[274] despise myself.

IAGOCome, you are too severe a moraler.[275] As the time, the place and the condition of this country stands, I could heartily wish this had not befallen: but since it is as it is, mend it[277] for your own good.

CASSIOI will ask him for my place again: he shall tell me I am a drunkard! Had I as many mouths as Hydra,[279] such an answer would stop them all. To be now a sensible man, by and by a fool, and presently a beast! O, strange! Every inordinate[280] cup is unblessed, and the ingredient is a devil.

IAGOCome, come, good wine is a good familiar[282] creature, if it be well used: exclaim no more against it. And, good lieutenant, I think you think I love you.

CASSIOI have well approved it,[284] sir. I drunk?

IAGOYou or any man living may be drunk at a time,[285] man. I tell you what you shall do. Our general’s wife is now the general: I may say so in this respect, for that[286] he hath devoted and given up himself to the contemplation, mark,[287] and denotement of her parts[288] and graces: confess yourself freely to her, importune her help to put you in your place again. She is of so free,[289] so kind, so apt, so blessed a disposition, she holds it a vice in her goodness not to do more than she is requested. This broken joint between you and her husband entreat her to splinter,[291] and, my fortunes against any lay[292] worth naming, this crack of your love shall grow stronger than it was before.

CASSIOYou advise me well.

IAGOI protest,[295] in the sincerity of love and honest kindness.

CASSIOI think it freely,[296] and betimes in the morning I will beseech the virtuous Desdemona to undertake[297] for me: I am desperate of my fortunes if they check me.

IAGOYou are in the right. Goodnight, lieutenant: I must to the watch.

CASSIOGoodnight, honest Iago.

Exit Cassio

300

IAGOAnd what’s he then that says I play the villain?

When this advice is free[301] I give, and honest,

Probal[302] to thinking, and indeed the course

To win the Moor again? For ’tis most easy

Th’inclining[304] Desdemona to subdue

305

In any honest suit: she’s framed as fruitful[305]

As the free elements. And then for her

To win the Moor — were’t to renounce his baptism,

All seals[308] and symbols of redeemèd sin —

His soul is so enfettered[309] to her love

310

That she may make, unmake, do what she list,[310]

Even as her appetite[311] shall play the god

With his weak function.[312] How am I then a villain

To counsel Cassio to this parallel[313] course

Directly to his good? Divinity[314] of hell!

315

When devils will the blackest sins put on,[315]

They do suggest[316] at first with heavenly shows,

As I do now. For whiles this honest fool

Plies[318] Desdemona to repair his fortune,

And she for him pleads strongly to the Moor,

320

I’ll pour this pestilence[320] into his ear,

That she repeals him[321] for her body’s lust,

And by how much she strives to do him good,

She shall undo her credit[323] with the Moor.

So will I turn her virtue into pitch,[324]

325

And out of her own goodness make the net

That shall enmesh them all.—

Enter Rodorigo

How now, Rodorigo?

RODORIGOI do follow here in the chase,[327] not like a hound that hunts, but one that fills up the cry. My money is almost spent; I have been tonight exceedingly well cudgelled,[329] and I think the issue will be I shall have so much experience for my pains, and so, with no money at all and a little more wit,[330] return again to Venice.

IAGOHow poor are they that have not patience!

What wound did ever heal but by degrees?

Thou know’st we work by wit, and not by witchcraft,

And wit depends on dilatory[334] time.

335

Does’t not go well? Cassio hath beaten thee,

And thou, by that small hurt, hath cashiered[336] Cassio.

Though other things grow fair against[337] the sun,

Yet[338] fruits that blossom first will first be ripe.

Content thyself awhile. In troth,[339] ’tis morning;

340

Pleasure and action make the hours seem short.

Retire thee: go where thou art billeted.

Away, I say! Thou shalt know more hereafter.

Nay, get thee gone.

Exit Rodorigo

Two things are to be done:

345

My wife must move[345] for Cassio to her mistress:

I’ll set her on:

Myself the while[347] to draw the Moor apart

And bring him jump[348] when he may Cassio find

Soliciting his wife: ay, that’s the way.

350

Dull not device[350] by coldness and delay.

Exit

Act 3 Scene 13.1

running scene 7

Enter Cassio, Musicians, Clown

CASSIOMasters, play here: I will content your pains:[1]

Something that’s brief, and bid ‘Good morrow, general.’ Music

CLOWNWhy masters, have your instruments been in Naples,[3] that they speak i’th’nose[4] thus?

MUSICIANHow,[5] sir? How?

CLOWNAre these, I pray you, wind instruments?

MUSICIANAy, marry, are they, sir.

CLOWNO, thereby hangs a tail.[8]

MUSICIANWhereby hangs a tale, sir?

CLOWNMarry, sir, by many a wind instrument[10] that I know. But, masters, here’s money for you: Gives money and the general so likes your music that he desires you, for love’s[11] sake, to make no more noise[12] with it.

MUSICIANWell, sir, we will not.

CLOWNIf you have any music that may not be heard, to’t again: but, as they say, to hear music the general does not greatly care.

MUSICIANWe have none such, sir.

CLOWNThen put up[17] your pipes in your bag, for I’ll away: go, vanish into air, away!

Exeunt Musicians

CASSIODost thou hear me, mine honest friend?

CLOWNNo, I hear not your honest friend: I hear you.

CASSIOPrithee keep[20] up thy quillets. There’s a poor piece of gold for thee: Gives money if the gentlewoman[21] that attends the general be stirring, tell her there’s one Cassio entreats her a little favour of speech: wilt thou do this?

CLOWNShe is stirring, sir: if she will stir hither, I shall seem[23] to notify unto her.

Exit Clown

Enter Iago

CASSIOIn happy time,[24] Iago.

25

IAGOYou have not been a-bed, then?

CASSIOWhy, no: the day had broke

Before we parted. I have made bold, Iago,

To send in to your wife: my suit to her

Is that she will to virtuous Desdemona

30

Procure me some access.

IAGOI’ll send her to you presently,[31]

And I’ll devise a mean[32] to draw the Moor

Out of the way, that your converse and business

May be more free.

Exit

35

CASSIOI humbly thank you for’t.— I never knew

A Florentine[36] more kind and honest.

Enter Emilia

EMILIAGood morrow, good Lieutenant: I am sorry

For your displeasure,[38] but all will sure be well.

The general and his wife are talking of it,

40

And she speaks for you stoutly: the Moor replies

That he you hurt is of great fame[41] in Cyprus

And great affinity,[42] and that in wholesome wisdom

He might not but refuse you: but he protests he loves you

And needs no other suitor[44] but his likings

45

To bring you in again.

CASSIOYet, I beseech you,

If you think fit, or that it may be done,

Give me advantage of[48] some brief discourse

With Desdemon alone.

50

EMILIAPray you come in:

I will bestow you where you shall have time

To speak your bosom[52] freely.

CASSIOI am much bound to you. [Exeunt]

Act 3 Scene 2

running scene 7 continues

Enter Othello, Iago and Gentlemen

OTHELLOThese letters give, Iago, to the pilot, Gives him letters

And by him do my duties[2] to the senate:

That done, I will be walking on the works,[3]

Repair[4] there to me.

5

IAGOWell, my good lord, I’ll do’t.

OTHELLOThis fortification, gentlemen, shall we see’t?

GENTLEMENWe’ll wait upon your lordship.

Exeunt

Act 3 scene 3

running scene 7 continues

Enter Desdemona, Cassio and Emilia

DESDEMONABe thou assured, good Cassio, I will do

All my abilities in thy behalf.

EMILIAGood madam, do: I warrant[3] it grieves my husband

As if the cause were his.

5

DESDEMONAO, that’s an honest fellow. Do not doubt, Cassio,

But I will have my lord and you again

As friendly as you were.

CASSIOBounteous madam,

Whatever shall become of Michael Cassio,

10

He’s never anything but your true servant.

DESDEMONAI know’t: I thank you. You do love my lord:

You have known him long, and be you well assured

He shall in strangeness[13] stand no further off

Than in a politic[14] distance.

15

CASSIOAy, but, lady,

That policy may either last so long,

Or feed upon such nice and waterish[17] diet,

Or breed[18] itself so out of circumstances,

That I being absent and my place supplied,[19]

20

My general will forget my love and service.

DESDEMONADo not doubt[21] that: before Emilia here

I give thee warrant[22] of thy place. Assure thee,

If I do vow a friendship, I’ll perform it

To the last article: my lord shall never rest,

25

I’ll watch him tame[25] and talk him out of patience;

His bed shall seem a school, his board a shrift:[26]

I’ll intermingle everything he does

With Cassio’s suit. Therefore be merry, Cassio,

For thy solicitor[29] shall rather die

30

Than give thy cause away.[30]

Enter Othello and Iago

EMILIAMadam, here comes my lord.

CASSIOMadam, I’ll take my leave.

DESDEMONAWhy, stay and hear me speak.

CASSIOMadam, not now: I am very ill at ease,

35

Unfit for mine own purposes.

DESDEMONAWell, do your discretion.[36]

Exit Cassio

IAGOHa? I like not that.

OTHELLOWhat dost thou say?

IAGONothing, my lord; or if — I know not what.

40

OTHELLOWas not that Cassio parted from my wife?

IAGOCassio, my lord? No, sure, I cannot think it,

That he would steal away so guilty-like,

Seeing your coming.

OTHELLOI do believe ’twas he.

45

DESDEMONAHow now, my lord?

I have been talking with a suitor[46] here,

A man that languishes in your displeasure.

OTHELLOWho is’t you mean?

DESDEMONAWhy, your lieutenant, Cassio. Good my lord,

50

If I have any grace[50] or power to move you,

His present reconciliation take,[51]

For if he be not one that truly loves you,

That errs in ignorance and not in cunning,[53]

I have no judgement in an honest face.

55

I prithee call him back.

OTHELLOWent he hence now?

DESDEMONAAy, sooth;[57] so humbled

That he hath left part of his grief with me

To suffer with him. Good love, call him back.

60

OTHELLONot now, sweet Desdemon: some other time.

DESDEMONABut shall’t be shortly?

OTHELLOThe sooner, sweet, for you.

DESDEMONAShall’t be tonight at supper?

OTHELLONo, not tonight.

65

DESDEMONATomorrow dinner,[65] then?

OTHELLOI shall not dine at home:

I meet the captains at the citadel.

DESDEMONAWhy then, tomorrow night, on Tuesday morn,

On Tuesday noon, or night; on Wednesday morn:

70

I prithee name the time, but let it not

Exceed three days. In faith, he’s penitent:

And yet his trespass,[72] in our common reason —

Save that they say the wars must make example

Out of her best[74] — is not almost a fault

75

T’incur a private check.[75] When shall he come?

Tell me, Othello: I wonder in my soul

What you would ask me that I should deny,

Or stand so mamm’ring[78] on. What? Michael Cassio,

That came a-wooing with you, and so many a time —

80

When I have spoke of you dispraisingly —

Hath ta’en your part: to have so much to do

To bring him in![82] Trust me, I could do much—

OTHELLOPrithee, no more: let him come when he will:

I will deny thee nothing.

85

DESDEMONAWhy, this is not a boon:[85]

’Tis as I should entreat you wear your gloves,

Or feed on nourishing dishes, or keep you warm,

Or sue to you to do a peculiar[88] profit

To your own person: nay, when I have a suit

90

Wherein I mean to touch[90] your love indeed,

It shall be full of poise[91] and difficult weight,

And fearful to be granted.

OTHELLOI will deny thee nothing:

Whereon,[94] I do beseech thee, grant me this,

95

To leave me but a little to myself.

DESDEMONAShall I deny you? No. Farewell, my lord.

OTHELLOFarewell, my Desdemona, I’ll come to thee straight.[97]

DESDEMONAEmilia, come.— Be as your fancies[98] teach you:

Whate’er you be, I am obedient. Exeunt

[Desdemona and Emilia]

100

OTHELLOExcellent wretch! Perdition[100] catch my soul,

But I do love thee! And when I love thee not,

Chaos is come again.

IAGOMy noble lord—

OTHELLOWhat dost thou say, Iago?

105

IAGODid Michael Cassio, when you wooed my lady,

Know of your love?

OTHELLOHe did, from first to last: why dost thou ask?

IAGOBut for a satisfaction of my thought,

No further harm.

110

OTHELLOWhy of thy thought, Iago?

IAGOI did not think he had been acquainted with her.

OTHELLOO, yes, and went between us very oft.

IAGOIndeed?

OTHELLOIndeed? Ay, indeed. Discern’st thou aught[114] in that?

115

Is he not honest?

IAGOHonest, my lord?

OTHELLOHonest, ay, honest.

IAGOMy lord, for aught I know.

OTHELLOWhat dost thou think?

120

IAGOThink, my lord?

OTHELLO‘Think, my lord?’ Alas, thou echo’st me,

As if there were some monster in thy thought

Too hideous to be shown. Thou dost mean something.

I heard thee say even now, thou lik’st not that,

125

When Cassio left my wife: what didst not like?

And when I told thee he was of[126] my counsel

Of my whole course of wooing, thou cried’st ‘Indeed?’

And didst contract and purse[128] thy brow together

As if thou then hadst shut up in thy brain

130

Some horrible conceit:[130] if thou dost love me,

Show me thy thought.

IAGOMy lord, you know I love you.

OTHELLOI think thou dost,

And for[134] I know thou’rt full of love and honesty,

135

And weigh’st thy words before thou giv’st them breath,

Therefore these stops[136] of thine fright me the more,

For such things in a false[137] disloyal knave

Are tricks of custom,[138] but in a man that’s just

They’re close dilations,[139] working from the heart

140

That passion cannot rule.[140]

IAGOFor Michael Cassio,

I dare be sworn I think that he is honest.

OTHELLOI think so too.

IAGOMen should be what they seem,

145

Or those that be not, would they might seem none.[145]

OTHELLOCertain, men should be what they seem.

IAGOWhy then, I think Cassio’s an honest man.

OTHELLONay, yet there’s more in this!

I prithee speak to me as to thy thinkings,

150

As thou dost ruminate, and give thy worst of thoughts

The worst of words.

IAGOGood my lord, pardon me:

Though I am bound to every act of duty,

I am not bound to that[154] all slaves are free.

155

Utter my thoughts? Why, say they are vile and false,

As where’s that palace whereinto foul things

Sometimes intrude not? Who has that breast so pure,

Where no uncleanly[158] apprehensions

Keep leets[159] and law-days and in sessions sit

160

With[160] meditations lawful?

OTHELLOThou dost conspire against thy friend,[161] Iago,

If thou but think’st him wronged and mak’st his ear

A stranger to thy thoughts.

IAGOI do beseech you,

165

Though I perchance am vicious[165] in my guess —

As I confess it is my nature’s plague

To spy into abuses, and oft my jealousy[167]

Shapes faults that are not — that your wisdom,

From one that so imperfectly conceits,[169]

170

Would take no notice, nor build yourself a trouble

Out of his scattering[171] and unsure observance.

It were not for your quiet nor your good,

Nor for my manhood, honesty and wisdom,

To let you know my thoughts.

175

OTHELLOWhat dost thou mean?

IAGOGood name in man and woman, dear my lord,

Is the immediate[177] jewel of their souls.

Who steals my purse steals trash, ’tis something, nothing;

’Twas mine, ’tis his, and has been slave to thousands:

180

But he that filches from me my good name

Robs me of that which not enriches him

And makes me poor indeed.

OTHELLOI’ll know thy thoughts.

IAGOYou cannot, if[184] my heart were in your hand,

185

Nor shall not, whilst ’tis in my custody.

OTHELLOHa?

IAGOO, beware, my lord, of jealousy:

It is the green-eyed monster which doth mock[188]

The meat it feeds on. That cuckold[189] lives in bliss

190

Who, certain of his fate, loves not his wronger:[190]

But, O, what damnèd minutes tells[191] he o’er

Who dotes, yet doubts, suspects, yet soundly loves!

OTHELLOO misery!

IAGOPoor and content is rich and rich enough,

195

But riches fineless[195] is as poor as winter

To him that ever fears he shall be poor.

Good heaven, the souls of all my tribe defend

From jealousy!

OTHELLOWhy? Why is this?

200

Think’st thou I’d make a life of jealousy,

To follow[201] still the changes of the moon

With fresh suspicions? No: to be once in doubt

Is to be resolved. Exchange me for a goat[203]

When I shall turn the business of my soul

205

To such exsufflicate[205] and blowed surmises

Matching thy inference.[206] ’Tis not to make me jealous

To say my wife is fair, feeds well, loves company,

Is free of speech, sings, plays and dances:

Where virtue is, these are more virtuous:

210

Nor from mine own weak merits[210] will I draw

The smallest fear or doubt of her revolt,[211]

For she had eyes, and chose me. No, Iago,

I’ll see before I doubt; when I doubt, prove;

And on the proof, there is no more but this:

215

Away at once with love or jealousy.

IAGOI am glad of this, for now I shall have reason

To show the love and duty that I bear you

With franker spirit: therefore, as I am bound,

Receive it from me. I speak not yet of proof:

220

Look to your wife, observe her well with Cassio,

Wear your eyes thus, not jealous nor secure.[221]

I would not have your free and noble nature,

Out of self-bounty,[223] be abused: look to’t.

I know our country[224] disposition well:

225

In Venice they do let heaven see the pranks[225]

They dare not show their husbands: their best conscience

Is not to leave’t undone,[227] but kept unknown.

OTHELLODost thou say so?

IAGOShe did deceive her father, marrying you:

230

And when she seemed to shake and fear your looks,

She loved them most.

OTHELLOAnd so she did.

IAGOWhy, go to[233] then:

She that so young could give out such a seeming,

235

To seel[235] her father’s eyes up close as oak,

He thought ’twas witchcraft. But I am much to blame:

I humbly do beseech you of your pardon

For too much loving you.

OTHELLOI am bound[239] to thee for ever.

240

IAGOI see this hath a little dashed your spirits.

OTHELLONot a jot, not a jot.

IAGOTrust me, I fear it has.

I hope you will consider what is spoke

Comes from your love.[244] But I do see you’re moved:

245

I am to pray you not to strain my speech

To grosser[246] issues nor to larger reach

Than to suspicion.[247]

OTHELLOI will not.

IAGOShould you do so, my lord,

250

My speech should fall into such vile success[250]

Which my thoughts aimed not. Cassio’s my worthy friend.

My lord, I see you’re moved.

OTHELLONo, not much moved:

I do not think but Desdemona’s honest.[254]

255

IAGOLong live she so; and long live you to think so!

OTHELLOAnd yet, how nature erring from itself—

IAGOAy, there’s the point: as — to be bold with you —

Not to affect[258] many proposèd matches

Of her own clime,[259] complexion and degree,

260

Whereto we see in all things nature tends—

Foh, one may smell in such a will[261] most rank,

Foul[262] disproportions, thoughts unnatural.

But pardon me: I do not in position[263]

Distinctly[264] speak of her, though I may fear

265

Her will, recoiling to her better judgement,

May fall[266] to match you with her country forms

And happily[267] repent.

OTHELLOFarewell, farewell.

If more thou dost perceive, let me know more:

270

Set on thy wife to observe. Leave me, Iago.

IAGOMy lord, I take my leave. Starts to leave

OTHELLOWhy did I marry? This honest creature doubtless

Sees and knows more, much more, than he unfolds.

IAGOMy lord, I would I might entreat your honour Returns

275

To scan[275] this thing no further: leave it to time.

Although ’tis fit that Cassio have his place,[276]

For sure he fills it up with great ability,

Yet, if you please to put him off awhile,

You shall by that perceive him and his means.[279]

280

Note, if your lady strain his entertainment[280]

With any strong or vehement importunity,

Much will be seen in that. In the meantime,

Let me be thought too busy[283] in my fears —

As worthy cause I have to fear I am —

285

And hold her free,[285] I do beseech your honour.

OTHELLOFear not my government.[286]

IAGOI once more take my leave.

Exit

OTHELLOThis fellow’s of exceeding honesty,

And knows all quantities,[289] with a learnèd spirit,

290

Of human dealings.[290] If I do prove her haggard,

Though that her jesses[291] were my dear heartstrings,

I’d whistle[292] her off and let her down the wind

To prey at fortune.[293] Haply, for I am black

And have not those soft[294] parts of conversation

295

That chamberers[295] have, or for I am declined

Into the vale of years — yet that’s not much —

She’s gone. I am abused,[297] and my relief

Must be to loathe her. O curse of marriage!

That we can call these delicate[299] creatures ours

300

And not their appetites! I had rather be a toad

And live upon the vapour of a dungeon

Than keep a corner[302] in the thing I love

For others’ uses.[303] Yet, ’tis the plague to great ones,

Prerogatived[304] are they less than the base:

305

’Tis destiny unshunnable, like death:

Even then this forkèd plague[306] is fated to us

When we do quicken.[307] Look where she comes:

Enter Desdemona and Emilia

If she be false, heaven mocked[308] itself!

I’ll not believe’t.

310

DESDEMONAHow now, my dear Othello?

Your dinner, and the generous[311] islanders

By you invited, do attend[312] your presence.

OTHELLOI am to blame.

DESDEMONAWhy do you speak so faintly?

315

Are you not well?

OTHELLOI have a pain[316] upon my forehead here.

DESDEMONAWhy, that’s with watching.[317] ’Twill away again:

Let me but bind it hard, within this hour Offers her handkerchief

It will be well.

320

OTHELLOYour napkin[320] is too little: He pushes away the handkerchief and it drops

Let it alone. Come, I’ll go in with you.

Exit

DESDEMONAI am very sorry that you are not well. Following him

EMILIAI am glad I have found this napkin: Picks up the handkerchief

This was her first remembrance[324] from the Moor:

325

My wayward husband hath a hundred times

Wooed[326] me to steal it, but she so loves the token —

For he conjured her[327] she should ever keep it —

That she reserves[328] it evermore about her

To kiss and talk to. I’ll have the work ta’en out,[329]

330

And give’t Iago: what he will do with it

Heaven knows, not I:

I nothing[332] but to please his fantasy.

Enter Iago

IAGOHow now? What do you here alone?

EMILIADo not you chide: I have a thing for you.

335

IAGOYou have a thing for me? It is a common[335] thing—

EMILIAHa?

IAGOTo have a foolish wife.

EMILIAO, is that all? What will you give me now

For the same handkerchief?

340

IAGOWhat handkerchief?

EMILIAWhat handkerchief?

Why, that the Moor first gave to Desdemona,

That which so often you did bid me steal.

IAGOHast stol’n it from her?

345

EMILIANo, but she let it drop by negligence.

And, to th’advantage,[346] I, being here, took’t up.

Look, here ’tis.

IAGOA good wench: give it me.

EMILIAWhat will you do with’t, that you have been

350

So earnest to have me filch it?

IAGOWhy, what is that to you? Snatches it

EMILIAIf it be not for some purpose of import,

Give’t me again: poor lady, she’ll run mad

When she shall lack[354] it.

355

IAGOBe[355] not acknown on’t: I have use for it.

Go, leave me.

Exit Emilia

I will in Cassio’s lodging loose this napkin

And let him find it. Trifles light as air

Are to the jealous confirmations strong

360

As proofs of holy writ:[360] this may do something.

The Moor already changes with my poison:

Dangerous conceits[362] are in their natures poisons,

Which at the first are scarce found to distaste,[363]

But with a little act[364] upon the blood,

365

Burn like the mines of sulphur. I did say so:

Enter Othello At a distance

Look, where he comes! Not poppy,[366] nor mandragora,

Nor all the drowsy syrups of the world

Shall ever medicine thee to that sweet sleep

Which thou owed’st[369] yesterday.

370

OTHELLOHa, ha, false to me?

IAGOWhy how now, general? No more of that.

OTHELLOAvaunt,[372] be gone! Thou hast set me on the rack:

I swear ’tis better to be much abused

Than but to know’t a little.

375

IAGOHow now, my lord?

OTHELLOWhat sense had I in her stol’n hours of lust?

I saw’t not, thought it not, it harmed not me:

I slept the next night well, fed well, was free[378] and merry:

I found not Cassio’s kisses on her lips.

380

He that is robbed, not wanting[380] what is stol’n,

Let him not know’t and he’s not robbed at all.

IAGOI am sorry to hear this.

OTHELLOI had been happy, if the general camp,

Pioneers[384] and all, had tasted her sweet body,

385

So[385] I had nothing known. O, now, for ever

Farewell the tranquil mind; farewell content;

Farewell the plumèd[387] troops and the big wars

That makes ambition virtue! O, farewell!

Farewell the neighing steed and the shrill trump,[389]

390

The spirit-stirring drum, th’ear-piercing fife,[390]

The royal banner, and all quality,[391]

Pride,[392] pomp and circumstance of glorious war!

And, O, you mortal engines,[393] whose rude throats

Th’immortal Jove’s dread clamours[394] counterfeit,

395

Farewell! Othello’s occupation’s gone.

IAGOIs’t possible, my lord?

OTHELLOVillain, be sure thou prove my love a whore; Grabs him

Be sure of it: give me the ocular proof,

Or by the worth of mine eternal soul,

400

Thou hadst been better have been born a dog

Than answer my waked wrath!

IAGOIs’t come to this?

OTHELLOMake me to see’t, or at the least so prove it

That the probation[404] bear no hinge nor loop

405

To hang a doubt on, or woe upon thy life!

IAGOMy noble lord—

OTHELLOIf thou dost slander her and torture me,

Never pray more: abandon all remorse,[408]

On horror’s head horrors accumulate,

410

Do deeds to make heaven weep, all earth amazed,[410]

For nothing canst thou to damnation add

Greater than that.

IAGOO grace! O heaven forgive me!

Are you a man? Have you a soul? Or sense?

415

God b’wi’you,[415] take mine office. O wretched fool,

That lov’st to make thine honesty a vice!

O monstrous world! Take note, take note, O world,

To be direct and honest is not safe.

I thank you for this profit,[419] and from hence

420

I’ll love no friend, sith[420] love breeds such offence.

OTHELLONay, stay: thou shouldst be[421] honest.

IAGOI should be[422] wise, for honesty’s a fool

And loses that[423] it works for.

OTHELLOBy the world,

425

I think my wife be honest and think she is not:

I think that thou art just and think thou art not.

I’ll have some proof. My name, that was as fresh

As Dian’s[428] visage, is now begrimed and black

As mine own face. If there be cords,[429] or knives,

430

Poison, or fire, or suffocating streams,

I’ll not endure it. Would I were satisfied!

IAGOI see you are eaten up with passion:

I do repent me that I put it to you.

You would be satisfied?

435

OTHELLOWould? Nay, and I will.

IAGOAnd may: but, how? How satisfied, my lord?

Would you the supervision[437] grossly gape on?

Behold her topped?[438]

OTHELLODeath and damnation! O!

440

IAGOIt were a tedious difficulty, I think,

To bring them to that prospect:[441] damn them then,

If ever mortal eyes do see them bolster[442]

More[443] than their own. What then? How then?

What shall I say? Where’s satisfaction?[444]

445

It is impossible you should see this,

Were they as prime[446] as goats, as hot as monkeys,

As salt[447] as wolves in pride, and fools as gross

As ignorance made drunk. But yet, I say,

If imputation[449] and strong circumstances

450

Which lead directly to the door of truth

Will give you satisfaction, you might have’t.

OTHELLOGive me a living reason she’s disloyal.

IAGOI do not like the office,

But sith I am entered in this cause so far —

455

Pricked[455] to’t by foolish honesty and love —

I will go on. I lay[456] with Cassio lately,

And being troubled with a raging tooth

I could not sleep. There are a kind of men

So loose of soul that in their sleeps will mutter

460

Their affairs: one of this kind is Cassio.

In sleep I heard him say, ‘Sweet Desdemona,

Let us be wary, let us hide our loves’:

And then, sir, would he grip and wring my hand,

Cry ‘O sweet creature!’ then kiss me hard,

465

As if he plucked up kisses by the roots

That grew upon my lips, laid his leg

O’er my thigh, and sigh,[467] and kiss, and then

Cry, ‘Cursèd fate that gave thee to the Moor!’

OTHELLOO monstrous! Monstrous!

470

IAGONay, this was but his dream.

OTHELLOBut this denoted a foregone conclusion:[471]

’Tis a shrewd doubt,[472] though it be but a dream.

IAGOAnd this may help to thicken other proofs

That do demonstrate thinly.

475

OTHELLOI’ll tear her all to pieces.

IAGONay, yet[476] be wise: yet we see nothing done,

She may be honest yet. Tell me but this:

Have you not sometimes seen a handkerchief

Spotted with strawberries in your wife’s hand?

480

OTHELLOI gave her such a one: ’twas my first gift.

IAGOI know not that, but such a handkerchief —

I am sure it was your wife’s — did I today

See Cassio wipe his beard with.

OTHELLOIf it be that—

485

IAGOIf it be that, or any it was hers,

It speaks against her with the other proofs.

OTHELLOO, that the slave[487] had forty thousand lives:

One is too poor, too weak for my revenge.

Now do I see ’tis true. Look here, Iago,

490

All my fond[490] love thus do I blow to heaven.

’Tis gone.

Arise, black vengeance, from thy hollow hell!

Yield up, O love, thy crown and hearted[493] throne

To tyrannous hate! Swell, bosom, with thy fraught,[494]

495

For ’tis of aspics’[495] tongues!

IAGOYet be content.

OTHELLOO, blood, blood, blood!

IAGOPatience, I say: your mind may change.

OTHELLONever, Iago. Like to the Pontic sea,[499]

500

Whose icy current and compulsive[500] course

Ne’er feels retiring ebb, but keeps due on

To the Propontic[502] and the Hellespont,

Even so my bloody thoughts with violent pace

Shall ne’er look back, ne’er ebb to humble love,

505

Till that a capable[505] and wide revenge

Swallow them up. Now, by yond marble[506] heaven, Kneels

In the due reverence of a sacred vow

I here engage[508] my words. Attempts to rise

IAGODo not rise yet. Kneels

510

Witness, you ever-burning lights above,

You elements that clip[511] us round about,

Witness that here Iago doth give up

The execution[513] of his wit, hands, heart,

To wronged Othello’s service! Let him command,

515

And to obey shall be in me remorse,[515]

What[516] bloody business ever. They rise

OTHELLOI greet thy love,

Not with vain thanks, but with acceptance bounteous,

And will upon the instant put thee to’t:[519]

520

Within these three days let me hear thee say

That Cassio’s not alive.

IAGOMy friend is dead:

’Tis done at your request. But let her live.

OTHELLODamn her, lewd minx![524] O, damn her, damn her!

525

Come, go with me apart: I will withdraw

To furnish me with some swift means of death

For the fair devil. Now art thou my lieutenant.

IAGOI am your own for ever.

Exeunt

Act 3 Scene 4*

running scene 8

Enter Desdemona, Emilia and Clown

DESDEMONADo you know, sirrah,[1] where Lieutenant Cassio lies?

CLOWNI dare not say he lies anywhere.

DESDEMONAWhy, man?

CLOWNHe’s a soldier, and for me to say a soldier lies, ’tis stabbing.[4]

DESDEMONAGo to: where lodges he?

CLOWNTo tell you where he lodges is to tell you where I lie.[9]

DESDEMONACan anything be made of this?

CLOWNI know not where he lodges, and for me to devise a lodging and say he lies here or he lies there, were to lie in mine own throat.

DESDEMONACan you inquire him out, and be edified[10] by report?

CLOWNI will catechize[11] the world for him, that is, make questions, and by them answer.

DESDEMONASeek him, bid him come hither: tell him I have moved[13] my lord on his behalf and hope all will be well.

CLOWNTo do this is within the compass of man’s wit, and therefore I will attempt the doing it.

Exit Clown

DESDEMONAWhere should I lose the handkerchief, Emilia?

EMILIAI know not, madam.

DESDEMONABelieve me, I had rather have lost my purse

20

Full of crusadoes:[20] and but my noble Moor

Is true of mind and made of no such baseness

As jealous creatures are, it were enough

To put him to ill thinking.

EMILIAIs he not jealous?

25

DESDEMONAWho, he? I think the sun[25] where he was born

Drew all such humours[26] from him.

EMILIALook where he comes.

Enter Othello

DESDEMONAI will not leave him now till Cassio

Be called to him.— How is’t with you, my lord?

30

OTHELLOWell, my good lady.— O, hardness to dissemble![30]— Aside

How do you, Desdemona?

DESDEMONAWell, my good lord.

OTHELLOGive me your hand. This hand is moist, my lady.

DESDEMONAIt hath felt no age nor known no sorrow.

35

OTHELLOThis argues fruitfulness[35] and liberal heart: Partially aside?

Hot, hot, and moist. This hand of yours requires

A sequester[37] from liberty, fasting and prayer,

Much castigation,[38] exercise devout,

For here’s a young and sweating devil here

40

That commonly rebels. ’Tis a good hand,

A frank[41] one.

DESDEMONAYou may, indeed, say so,

For ’twas that hand that gave away my heart.

OTHELLOA liberal hand: the[44] hearts of old gave hands,

45

But our new heraldry is hands, not hearts.

DESDEMONAI cannot speak of this. Come now, your promise.

OTHELLOWhat promise, chuck?[47]

DESDEMONAI have sent to bid Cassio come speak with you.

OTHELLOI have a salt[49] and sorry rheum offends me:

50

Lend me thy handkerchief.

DESDEMONAHere, my lord. Offers him a handkerchief

OTHELLOThat which I gave you.

DESDEMONAI have it not about me.

OTHELLONot?

55

DESDEMONANo, indeed, my lord.

OTHELLOThat’s a fault. That handkerchief

Did an Egyptian to my mother give:

She was a charmer, and could almost read

The thoughts of people: she told her, while she kept it,

60

’Twould make her amiable[60] and subdue my father

Entirely to her love, but if she lost it

Or made a gift of it, my father’s eye

Should hold her loathèd and his spirits should hunt

After new fancies:[64] she, dying, gave it me,

65

And bid me, when my fate would have me wived,

To give it her:[66] I did so; and take heed on’t,

Make it a darling like your precious eye:

To lose’t or give’t away were such perdition

As nothing else could match.

70

DESDEMONAIs’t possible?

OTHELLO’Tis true. There’s magic in the web[71] of it:

A sibyl,[72] that had numbered in the world

The sun to course two hundred compasses,[73]

In her prophetic fury[74] sewed the work:

75

The worms were hallowed[75] that did breed the silk,

And it was dyed in mummy[76] which the skilful

Conserved of[77] maidens’ hearts.

DESDEMONAIndeed? Is’t true?

OTHELLOMost veritable: therefore look to’t well.

80

DESDEMONAThen would to heaven that I had never seen’t!

OTHELLOHa? Wherefore?

DESDEMONAWhy do you speak so startingly and rash?[82]

OTHELLOIs’t lost? Is’t gone? Speak, is’t out o’th’way?[83]

DESDEMONABless us!

85

OTHELLOSay you?

DESDEMONAIt is not lost, but what an if[86] it were?

OTHELLOHow?[87]

DESDEMONAI say it is not lost.

OTHELLOFetch’t, let me see’t.

90

DESDEMONAWhy, so I can, but I will not now.

This is a trick to put me from my suit:

Pray you let Cassio be received again.

OTHELLOFetch me the handkerchief: my mind misgives.[93]

DESDEMONACome, come,

95

You’ll never meet a more sufficient[95] man.

OTHELLOThe handkerchief.

DESDEMONAA man that all his time

Hath founded his good fortunes on your love,

Shared dangers with you—

100

OTHELLOThe handkerchief.

DESDEMONAIn sooth,[101] you are to blame.

OTHELLOAway!

Exit Othello

EMILIAIs not this man jealous?

DESDEMONAI ne’er saw this before.

105

Sure, there’s some wonder[105] in this handkerchief:

I am most unhappy[106] in the loss of it.

EMILIA’Tis not a year or two shows us a man:

They are all but stomachs, and we all but food:

They eat us hungerly,[109] and when they are full

110

They belch[110] us.

Enter Iago and Cassio

Look you, Cassio and my husband.

IAGOThere is no other way: ’tis she must do’t.

And, lo, the happiness![113] Go and importune her.

DESDEMONAHow now, good Cassio, what’s the news with you?

115

CASSIOMadam, my former suit: I do beseech you

That by your virtuous[116] means I may again

Exist, and be a member of his love

Whom I with all the office[118] of my heart

Entirely honour. I would not be delayed.

120

If my offence be of such mortal[120] kind

That nor[121] my service past, nor present sorrows,

Nor purposed[122] merit in futurity,

Can ransom me into his love again,

But[124] to know so must be my benefit:

125

So shall I clothe me in a forced content,

And shut[126] myself up in some other course,

To fortune’s alms.[127]

DESDEMONAAlas, thrice-gentle Cassio,

My advocation[129] is not now in tune;

130

My lord is not my lord; nor should I know him,

Were he in favour[131] as in humour altered.

So help me every spirit sanctified

As I have spoken for you all my best

And stood within the blank[134] of his displeasure

135

For my free speech! You must awhile be patient:

What I can do I will, and more I will

Than for myself I dare: let that suffice[137] you.

IAGOIs my lord angry?

EMILIAHe went hence but now,

140

And certainly in strange unquietness.

IAGOCan he be angry? I have seen the cannon

When it hath blown his ranks[142] into the air,

And like the devil from his very arm

Puffed his own brother:[144] and is he angry?

145

Something of moment[145] then. I will go meet him:

There’s matter in’t indeed, if he be angry.

Exit

DESDEMONAI prithee do so. Something, sure, of state,[147]

Either from Venice, or some unhatched practice[148]

Made demonstrable here in Cyprus to him,

150

Hath puddled[150] his clear spirit: and in such cases

Men’s natures wrangle with inferior things,

Though great ones are their object. ’Tis even so,

For let our finger ache, and it indues[153]

Our other healthful members[154] even to a sense

155

Of pain. Nay, we must think men are not gods,

Nor of them look for such observancy[156]

As fits the bridal. Beshrew[157] me much, Emilia,

I was — unhandsome[158] warrior as I am —

Arraigning[159] his unkindness with my soul,

160

But now I find I had suborned the witness,[160]

And he’s indicted falsely.

EMILIAPray heaven it be state matters, as you think,

And no conception nor no jealous toy[163]

Concerning you.

165

DESDEMONAAlas the day! I never gave him cause.

EMILIABut jealous souls will not be answered so;

They are not ever jealous for the cause,

But jealous for they’re jealous: it is a monster

Begot upon[169] itself, born on itself.

170

DESDEMONAHeaven keep the monster from Othello’s mind!

EMILIALady, amen.

DESDEMONAI will go seek him.— Cassio, walk hereabout:

If I do find him fit, I’ll move your suit

And seek to effect it to my uttermost.

Exeunt [Desdemona and Emilia]

175

CASSIOI humbly thank your ladyship.

Enter Bianca

BIANCASave[176] you, friend Cassio!

CASSIOWhat make you[177] from home?

How is’t with you, my most fair Bianca?

Indeed, sweet love, I was coming to your house.

180

BIANCAAnd I was going to your lodging, Cassio.

What, keep a week away? Seven days and nights?

Eight score eight[182] hours? And lovers’ absent hours

More tedious than the dial[183] eight score times?

O weary reck’ning![184]

185

CASSIOPardon me, Bianca:

I have this while with leaden thoughts been pressed:

But I shall, in a more continuate[187] time,

Strike[188] off this score of absence. Sweet Bianca, Gives her Desdemona’s handkerchief

Take[189] me this work out.

190

BIANCAO Cassio, whence came this?

This is some token from a newer friend:[191]

To[192] the felt absence now I feel a cause.

Is’t come to this? Well, well.

CASSIOGo to, woman!

195

Throw your vile guesses in the devil’s teeth,

From whence you have them. You are jealous now

That this is from some mistress, some remembrance;

No, in good troth, Bianca.

BIANCAWhy, whose is it?

200

CASSIOI know not, neither: I found it in my chamber.

I like the work well. Ere it be demanded[201] —

As like enough it will — I would have it copied:

Take it, and do’t, and leave me for this time.

BIANCALeave you? Wherefore?

205

CASSIOI do attend here on the general,

And think it no addition, nor my wish,

To have him see me womaned.[207]

BIANCAWhy, I pray you?

CASSIONot that I love you not.

210

BIANCABut that you do not love me.

I pray you bring[211] me on the way a little,

And say if I shall see you soon at night.[212]

CASSIO’Tis but a little way that I can bring you,

For I attend here: but I’ll see you soon.

215

BIANCA’Tis very good: I must be circumstanced.[215]

Exeunt

Act 4 Scene 1

running scene 8 continues

Enter Othello and Iago

IAGOWill you think so?

OTHELLOThink so, Iago?

IAGOWhat, to kiss in private?

OTHELLOAn unauthorized kiss!

5

IAGOOr to be naked with her friend in bed

An hour or more, not meaning any harm?

OTHELLONaked in bed, Iago, and not mean harm?

It is hypocrisy[8] against the devil:

They that mean virtuously, and yet do so,

10

The devil their virtue tempts, and they tempt heaven.

IAGOIf they do nothing, ’tis a venial[11] slip:

But if I give my wife a handkerchief—

OTHELLOWhat then?

IAGOWhy, then, ’tis hers, my lord, and being hers,

15

She may, I think, bestow’t on any man.

OTHELLOShe is protectress of her honour too:

May she give that?

IAGOHer honour is an essence that’s not seen:

They[19] have it very oft that have it not.

20

But, for the handkerchief—

OTHELLOBy heaven, I would most gladly have forgot it.

Thou said’st — O, it comes o’er my memory

As doth the raven[23] o’er the infectious house,

Boding[24] to all — he had my handkerchief.

25

IAGOAy, what of that?

OTHELLOThat’s not so good now.

IAGOWhat if I had said I had seen him do you wrong?

Or heard him say — as knaves be such abroad,[28]

Who having by their own importunate[29] suit,

30

Or voluntary dotage[30] of some mistress,

Convincèd[31] or supplied them, cannot choose

But they must blab—

OTHELLOHath he said anything?

IAGOHe hath, my lord, but be you well assured,

35

No more than he’ll unswear.

OTHELLOWhat hath he said?

IAGOWhy, that he did:[37] I know not what he did.

OTHELLOWhat? What?

IAGOLie—

40

OTHELLOWith her?

IAGOWith her? On her: what you will.

OTHELLOLie with her? Lie on[42] her? We say ‘Lie on her’ when they belie her. Lie with her! That’s fulsome:[43] handkerchief — confessions — handkerchief! To confess and be hanged for his labour: first to be hanged and then to confess: I tremble at it. Nature[45] would not invest herself in such shadowing passion without some instruction. It is not words that shakes me thus. Pish! Noses,[46] ears and lips. Is’t possible? Confess? Handkerchief? O devil!

Falls in a trance

IAGOWork on,

My medicine[49] works! Thus credulous fools are caught,

50

And many worthy and chaste dames even thus,

All guiltless, meet reproach.[51]— What, ho? My lord?

My lord, I say! Othello!—

Enter Cassio

How now, Cassio?

CASSIOWhat’s the matter?

55

IAGOMy lord is fall’n into an epilepsy.

This is his second fit: he had one yesterday.

CASSIORub him about the temples.

IAGOThe lethargy[58] must have his quiet course:

If not, he foams at mouth and by and by

60

Breaks out to savage madness. Look he stirs:

Do you withdraw yourself a little while,

He will recover straight. When he is gone,

I would on great occasion[63] speak with you.

[Exit Cassio]

How is it, general? Have you not hurt your head?

65

OTHELLODost[65] thou mock me?

IAGOI mock you not, by heaven.

Would you would bear your fortune like a man!

OTHELLOA hornèd man’s a monster and a beast.

IAGOThere’s many a beast then in a populous city,

70

And many a civil[70] monster.

OTHELLODid he confess it?

IAGOGood sir, be a man.

Think every bearded[73] fellow that’s but yoked

May draw[74] with you: there’s millions now alive

75

That nightly lie in those unproper[75] beds

Which they dare swear peculiar:[76] your case is better.

O, ’tis the spite of hell, the fiend’s arch-mock,

To lip[78] a wanton in a secure couch

And to suppose her chaste! No, let me know,

80

And knowing what I am, I know what she shall be.

OTHELLOO, thou art wise: ’tis certain.

IAGOStand you awhile apart,

Confine yourself but in[83] a patient list.

Whilst you were here o’erwhelmèd with your grief —

85

A passion most unsuiting such a man —

Cassio came hither: I shifted him away,[86]

And laid[87] good ’scuses upon your ecstasy,

Bade him anon[88] return and here speak with me,

The which he promised. Do but encave[89] yourself

90

And mark the fleers,[90] the gibes and notable scorns

That dwell in every region of his face,

For I will make him tell the tale anew,

Where, how, how oft, how long ago and when

He hath and is again to cope[94] your wife.

95

I say, but mark his gesture. Marry, patience,

Or I shall say you’re all[96] in all in spleen,

And nothing of a man.

OTHELLODost thou hear, Iago?

I will be found most cunning in my patience,

100

But — dost thou hear? — most bloody.

IAGOThat’s not amiss,

But yet keep time[102] in all. Will you withdraw? Othello withdraws

Now will I question Cassio of Bianca,

A housewife[104] that by selling her desires

105

Buys herself bread and cloth: it is a creature

That dotes on Cassio — as ’tis the strumpet’s[106] plague

To beguile[107] many and be beguiled by one.

He, when he hears of her, cannot restrain[108]

From the excess of laughter. Here he comes.

Enter Cassio

110

As he shall smile, Othello shall go mad,

And his unbookish[111] jealousy must conster

Poor Cassio’s smiles, gestures and light[112] behaviours

Quite in the wrong.— How do you, lieutenant?

CASSIOThe worser that you give me the addition[114]

115

Whose want[115] even kills me.

IAGOPly Desdemona well, and you are sure on’t.[116] Lowers his voice

Now, if this suit lay in Bianca’s power,

How quickly should you speed![118]

CASSIOAlas, poor caitiff![119]

120

OTHELLOLook how he laughs already! He laughs

IAGOI never knew woman love man so.

CASSIOAlas, poor rogue, I think, indeed, she loves me.

OTHELLONow he denies it faintly,[123] and laughs it out.

IAGODo you hear, Cassio?

125

OTHELLONow he importunes him

To tell it o’er: go to, well said,[126] well said.

IAGOShe gives it out that you shall marry her:

Do you intend it?

CASSIOHa, ha, ha!

OTHELLODo ye triumph,[130] Roman? Do you triumph?

CASSIOI marry? What? A customer?[131] Prithee bear some charity to my wit: do not think it so unwholesome.[132] Ha, ha, ha!

OTHELLOSo, so, so, so: they laugh that wins.

IAGOWhy, the cry[134] goes that you marry her.

CASSIOPrithee say true.

IAGOI am a very villain else.[136]

OTHELLOHave you scored me?[137] Well.

CASSIOThis is the monkey’s own giving out: she is persuaded I will marry her, out of her own love and flattery,[139] not out of my promise.

OTHELLOIago beckons me: now he begins the story.

CASSIOShe was here even now: she haunts[141] me in every place. I was the other day talking on the sea-bank[142] with certain Venetians, and thither comes the bauble, and falls me[143] thus about my neck— Embraces him

OTHELLOCrying, ‘O dear Cassio!’ as it were: his gesture imports[144] it.

CASSIOSo hangs and lolls and weeps upon me, so shakes and pulls me. Ha, ha, ha!

OTHELLONow he tells how she plucked[146] him to my chamber. O, I see that nose of yours, but not that dog I shall throw it to.

CASSIOWell, I must leave her company.

IAGOBefore me, look where she comes.

Enter Bianca

CASSIO’Tis such another[150] fitchew! Marry, a perfumed one!— What do you mean by this haunting of me?

BIANCALet the devil and his dam[152] haunt you! What did you mean by that same handkerchief you gave me even now? I was a fine fool to take it. I must take out the work? A likely piece of work,[154] that you should find it in your chamber and know not who left it there. This is some minx’s[155] token, and I must take out the work? There, give it your hobby-horse:[156] She gives him the handkerchief wheresoever you had it, I’ll take out no work on’t.

CASSIOHow now, my sweet Bianca? How now? How now?

OTHELLOBy heaven, that should[159] be my handkerchief!

BIANCAIf you’ll come to supper[160] tonight, you may: if you will not, come when you are next prepared for.

Exit

IAGOAfter her, after her.

CASSIOI must: she’ll rail[163] in the streets else.

IAGOWill you sup there?

CASSIOYes, I intend so.

IAGOWell, I may chance to see you, for I would very fain speak with you.

CASSIOPrithee come. Will you?

IAGOGo to: say no more.

[Exit Cassio]

OTHELLOHow shall I murder him, Iago? Comes forward

IAGODid you perceive how he laughed at his vice?

OTHELLOO, Iago!

IAGOAnd did you see the handkerchief?

OTHELLOWas that mine?

IAGOYours by this hand: and to see how he prizes the foolish[174] woman your wife! She gave it him, and he hath giv’n it his whore.

OTHELLOI would have him nine years a-killing. A fine woman! A fair woman! A sweet woman!

IAGONay, you must forget that.

OTHELLOAy, let her rot and perish, and be damned tonight, for she shall not live. No, my heart is turned to stone: I strike it, and it hurts my hand. O, the world hath not a sweeter creature: she might lie by an emperor’s side and command him tasks.

IAGONay, that’s not your way.[183]

OTHELLOHang her! I do but say what she is: so delicate with her needle, an admirable musician. O, she will sing the savageness out of a bear. Of so high and plenteous wit and invention![186]

IAGOShe’s the worse for all this.

OTHELLOO, a thousand, a thousand times! And then, of so[188] gentle a condition!

IAGOAy, too gentle.[189]

OTHELLONay, that’s certain. But yet the pity of it, Iago! O, Iago, the pity of it, Iago!

IAGOIf you are so fond over her iniquity, give her patent[191] to offend, for if it touch not you, it comes near nobody.

OTHELLOI will chop her into messes.[193] Cuckold me?

IAGOO, ’tis foul in her.

OTHELLOWith mine officer?

IAGOThat’s fouler.

OTHELLOGet me some poison, Iago, this night: I’ll not expostulate[197] with her, lest her body and beauty unprovide[198] my mind again: this night, Iago.

IAGODo it not with poison: strangle her in her bed, even the bed she hath contaminated.

OTHELLOGood, good: the justice of it pleases. Very good.

IAGOAnd for Cassio, let me be his undertaker:[202] you shall hear more by midnight.

Enter Lodovico, Desdemona and Attendants

OTHELLOExcellent good.

A trumpet within

What trumpet is that same?

205

IAGOI warrant something from Venice.

’Tis Lodovico: this comes from the duke.

See, your wife’s with him.

LODOVICOSave you, worthy general!

OTHELLOWith all my heart, sir.

210

LODOVICOThe duke and the senators of Venice greet you. Gives a letter

OTHELLOI kiss the instrument[211] of their pleasures. Opens letter and reads

DESDEMONAAnd what’s the news, good cousin[212] Lodovico?

IAGOI am very glad to see you, signior.

Welcome to Cyprus.

215

LODOVICOI thank you. How does Lieutenant Cassio?

IAGOLives, sir.

DESDEMONACousin, there’s fall’n between him and my lord

An unkind breach:[218] but you shall make all well.

OTHELLOAre you sure of that?

220

DESDEMONAMy lord?

OTHELLO‘This fail you not to do, as you will—’ Reads

LODOVICOHe did not call: he’s busy in the paper.

Is there division ’twixt my lord and Cassio?

DESDEMONAA most unhappy one: I would do much

225

T’atone[225] them, for the love I bear to Cassio.

OTHELLOFire and brimstone!

DESDEMONAMy lord?

OTHELLOAre you wise?[228]

DESDEMONAWhat? Is he angry?

230

LODOVICOMaybe th’letter moved him,

For, as I think, they do command him home,

Deputing Cassio in his government.

DESDEMONATrust me, I am glad on’t.[233]

OTHELLOIndeed?

235

DESDEMONAMy lord?

OTHELLOI am glad to see you mad.[236]

DESDEMONAWhy, sweet Othello?

OTHELLODevil! Strikes her

DESDEMONAI have not deserved this.

240

LODOVICOMy lord, this would not be believed in Venice,

Though I should swear I saw’t. ’Tis very much:[241]

Make her amends, she weeps.

OTHELLOO devil, devil!

If that the earth could teem[244] with woman’s tears,

245

Each drop she falls would prove a crocodile.[245]—

Out of my sight!

DESDEMONAI will not stay to offend you. Starts to leave

LODOVICOTruly, an obedient lady:

I do beseech your lordship, call her back.

250

OTHELLOMistress!

DESDEMONAMy lord? Returns

OTHELLOWhat would you with her, sir?

LODOVICOWho, I, my lord?

OTHELLOAy, you did wish that I would make her turn:

255

Sir, she can turn,[255] and turn, and yet go on

And turn again: and she can weep, sir, weep:

And she’s obedient,[257] as you say, obedient:

Very obedient.— Proceed you in your tears.—

Concerning this, sir, — O well-painted passion![259] —

260

I am commanded home.— Get you away:

I’ll send for you anon.— Sir, I obey the mandate,

And will return to Venice.— Hence, avaunt!

[Exit Desdemona]

Cassio shall have my place.[263] And, sir, tonight

I do entreat that we may sup together:

265

You are welcome, sir, to Cyprus.— Goats and monkeys![265]

Exit

LODOVICOIs this the noble Moor whom our full[266] senate

Call all[267] in all sufficient? Is this the nature

Whom passion could not shake? Whose solid virtue

The shot of accident nor dart of chance

270

Could neither graze nor pierce?

IAGOHe is much changed.

LODOVICOAre his wits safe? Is he not light of brain?

IAGOHe’s that he is: I may not breathe my censure[273]

What he might be: if[274] what he might he is not,

275

I would to heaven he were!

LODOVICOWhat, strike his wife?

IAGOFaith, that was not so well,[277] yet would I knew

That stroke would prove the worst!

LODOVICOIs it his use?[279]

280

Or did the letters work upon his blood

And new-create his fault?

IAGOAlas, alas!

It is not honesty in me to speak

What I have seen and known. You shall observe him,

285

And his own courses will denote[285] him so

That I may save my speech: do but go after,

And mark how he continues.

LODOVICOI am sorry that I am deceived in him.

Exeunt

Act 4 Scene 2*

running scene 9

Enter Othello and Emilia

OTHELLOYou have seen nothing then?

EMILIANor ever heard, nor ever did suspect.

OTHELLOYes, you have seen Cassio and she together.

EMILIABut then I saw no harm, and then I heard

5

Each syllable that breath made up between them.

OTHELLOWhat, did they never whisper?

EMILIANever, my lord.

OTHELLONor send you out o’th’way?

EMILIANever.

10

OTHELLOTo fetch her fan, her gloves, her mask, nor nothing?

EMILIANever, my lord.

OTHELLOThat’s strange.

EMILIAI durst,[13] my lord, to wager she is honest,

Lay down my soul at stake:[14] if you think other,

15

Remove your thought, it doth abuse your bosom:

If any wretch have put this in your head,

Let heaven requite it with the serpent’s curse![17]

For if she be not honest, chaste and true,

There’s no man happy: the purest of their wives

20

Is foul as slander.

OTHELLOBid her come hither: go.

Exit Emilia

She says enough, yet she’s a simple bawd[22]

That cannot say as much. This[23] is a subtle whore,

A closet[24] lock and key of villainous secrets:

25

And yet she’ll kneel and pray, I have seen her do’t.

Enter Desdemona and Emilia

DESDEMONAMy lord, what is your will?

OTHELLOPray you, chuck, come hither.

DESDEMONAWhat is your pleasure?

OTHELLOLet me see your eyes: look in my face.

30

DESDEMONAWhat horrible fancy’s this?

OTHELLOSome[31] of your function, mistress: To Emilia

Leave procreants[32] alone and shut the door:

Cough or cry ‘Hem’ if anybody come.

Your mystery,[34] your mystery: nay, dispatch.

Exit Emilia

35

DESDEMONAUpon my knee, what doth your speech import? Kneels

I understand a fury in your words.

OTHELLOWhy, what art thou?

DESDEMONAYour wife, my lord, your true and loyal wife.

OTHELLOCome, swear it, damn thyself

40

Lest, being[40] like one of heaven, the devils themselves

Should fear to seize thee: therefore be double damned:

Swear thou art honest.

DESDEMONAHeaven doth truly know it.

OTHELLOHeaven truly knows that thou art false as hell.

45

DESDEMONATo whom, my lord? With whom? How am I false?

OTHELLOAh Desdemon! Away, away, away! Weeps

DESDEMONAAlas the heavy[47] day! Why do you weep?

Am I the motive of these tears, my lord?

If haply[49] you my father do suspect

50

An instrument of this your calling back,

Lay not your blame on me: if you have lost him,

I have lost him too.

OTHELLOHad it pleased heaven

To try me with affliction, had they rained

55

All kind of sores[55] and shames on my bare head,

Steeped[56] me in poverty to the very lips,

Given to captivity me and my utmost hopes,

I should have found in some place of my soul

A drop of patience: but, alas, to make me

60

The fixèd figure[60] for the time of scorn

To point his slow and moving finger[61] at!

Yet could I bear that too, well, very well,

But there where I have garnered[63] up my heart,

Where either I must live, or bear no life,

65

The fountain[65] from the which my current runs

Or else dries up: to be discarded thence!

Or keep it as a cistern[67] for foul toads

To knot and gender[68] in! Turn thy complexion there,

Patience, thou young and rose-lipped cherubin:[69]

70

Ay, here look grim[70] as hell!

DESDEMONAI hope my noble lord esteems me honest.[71]

OTHELLOO, ay, as summer flies are in the shambles,[72]

That quicken[73] even with blowing. O, thou weed,

Who art so lovely fair and smell’st so sweet

75

That the sense aches at thee, would thou hadst never been born!

DESDEMONAAlas, what ignorant[76] sin have I committed?[78]

OTHELLOWas this fair paper, this most goodly book,

Made to write ‘whore’ upon? What committed?

Committed? O, thou public commoner,[79]

80

I should make very forges of my cheeks,

That would to cinders burn up modesty,

Did I but speak thy deeds. What committed?

Heaven stops[83] the nose at it and the moon winks,

The bawdy wind that kisses all it meets

85

Is hushed within the hollow mine[85] of earth

And will not hear’t. What committed?

DESDEMONABy heaven, you do me wrong.

OTHELLOAre not you a strumpet?[88]

DESDEMONANo, as I am a Christian:

90

If to preserve this vessel[90] for my lord

From any other foul unlawful touch

Be not to be a strumpet, I am none.

OTHELLOWhat, not a whore?

DESDEMONANo, as I shall be saved.

95

OTHELLOIs’t possible?

DESDEMONAO, heaven forgive us!

OTHELLOI cry you mercy,[97] then:

I took you for that cunning whore of Venice

That married with Othello.— You, mistress, Calls

Enter Emilia

100

That have the office opposite[100] to Saint Peter

And keeps the gate of hell![101] You, you, ay, you!

We have done our course:[102] there’s money for your pains.

I pray you turn the key and keep our counsel.[103] Gives money

Exit

EMILIAAlas, what does this gentleman conceive?[104]

105

How do you, madam? How do you, my good lady?

DESDEMONAFaith, half asleep.[106]

EMILIAGood madam, what’s the matter with my lord?

DESDEMONAWith who?

EMILIAWhy, with my lord, madam.

110

DESDEMONAWho is thy lord?

EMILIAHe that is yours, sweet lady.

DESDEMONAI have none. Do not talk to me, Emilia:

I cannot weep, nor answers have I none

But what should go by water.[114] Prithee, tonight

115

Lay on my bed my wedding sheets: remember,

And call thy husband hither.

EMILIAHere’s a change indeed!

Exit

DESDEMONA’Tis meet[118] I should be used so, very meet.

How[119] have I been behaved, that he might stick

120

The small’st opinion on my least misuse?

Enter Iago and Emilia

IAGOWhat is your pleasure, madam?

How is’t with you?

DESDEMONAI cannot tell. Those that do teach young babes

Do it with gentle means and easy tasks:

125

He might have chid me so, for, in good faith,

I am a[126] child to chiding.

IAGOWhat’s the matter, lady?

EMILIAAlas, Iago, my lord hath so bewhored her,[128]

Thrown such despite[129] and heavy terms upon her,

130

That true hearts cannot bear it.

DESDEMONAAm I that name, Iago?

IAGOWhat name, fair lady?

DESDEMONASuch as she said my lord did say I was.

EMILIAHe called her whore: a beggar in his drink

135

Could not have laid such terms upon his callet.[135]

IAGOWhy did he so?

DESDEMONAI do not know: I am sure I am none such. Weeps

IAGODo not weep, do not weep. Alas the day!

EMILIAHath she forsook[139] so many noble matches?

140

Her father? And her country? And her friends?

To be called whore? Would it not make one weep?

DESDEMONAIt is my wretched fortune.

IAGOBeshrew[143] him for’t!

How comes this trick[144] upon him?

145

DESDEMONANay, heaven doth know.

EMILIAI will be hanged if some eternal villain,

Some busy and insinuating rogue,

Some cogging,[148] cozening slave, to get some office,

Have not devised this slander: I will be hanged else.

150

IAGOFie, there is no such man: it is impossible.

DESDEMONAIf any such there be, heaven pardon him!

EMILIAA halter[152] pardon him! And hell gnaw his bones!

Why should he call her whore? Who keeps her company?

What place? What time? What form?[154] What likelihood?

155

The Moor’s abused by some most villainous knave,

Some base notorious knave, some scurvy[156] fellow.

O heavens, that such companions[157] thou’dst unfold,

And put in every honest hand a whip

To lash the rascals naked through the world

160

Even from the east to th’west!

IAGOSpeak within door.[161]

EMILIAO, fie upon them! Some such squire[162] he was

That turned your wit the[163] seamy side without

And made you to suspect me with the Moor.

165

IAGOYou are a fool: go to.

DESDEMONAAlas, Iago,

What shall I do to win my lord again?

Good friend, go to him, for, by this light of heaven,

I know not how I lost him. Here I kneel:

Kneels

170

If e’er my will did trespass gainst his love,

Either in discourse[171] of thought or actual deed,

Or that[172] mine eyes, mine ears, or any sense

Delighted them, or any other form,

Or that I do not yet,[174] and ever did,

175

And ever will — though he do shake me off

To beggarly divorcement — love him dearly,

Comfort forswear[177] me! Unkindness may do much,

And his unkindness may defeat my life,

But never taint my love. I cannot say ‘whore’:

180

It does abhor[180] me now I speak the word:

To do the act that might the addition[181] earn

Not the world’s mass of vanity[182] could make me.

IAGOI pray you be content: ’tis but his humour.[183]

The business of the state does him offence.

185

DESDEMONAIf ’twere no other—

IAGOIt is but so, I warrant. Trumpets within

Hark, how these instruments summon to supper!

The messengers of Venice stays[188] the meat:

Go in, and weep not: all things shall be well.

Exeunt Desdemona and Emilia

Enter Rodorigo

How now, Rodorigo?

RODORIGOI do not find that thou deal’st justly with me.

IAGOWhat in the contrary?

RODORIGOEvery day thou daff’st me[193] with some device, Iago, and rather, as it seemsto me now, keep’st from me all conveniency[194] than suppliest me with the leastadvantage of hope. I will indeed no longer endure it, nor am I yet persuaded toput up[196] in peace what already I have foolishly suffered.

IAGOWill you hear me, Rodorigo?

RODORIGOI have heard too much, and your words and performances are no kin together.

IAGOYou charge me most unjustly.

RODORIGOWith naught but truth: I have wasted myself out of my means. The jewels you have had from me to deliver Desdemona would half have corrupted a votarist:[203] you have told me she hath received them and returned me expectations and comforts[204] of sudden respect and acquaintance, but I find none.

IAGOWell, go to,[206] very well.

RODORIGOVery well’! ‘Go to’! I cannot go to, man, nor ’tis not very well: nay, I think it is scurvy, and begin to find myself fopped[207] in it.

IAGOVery well.

RODORIGOI tell you ’tis not very well. I will make myself known to Desdemona: if she will return me my jewels, I will give over my suit and repent my unlawful solicitation: if not, assure yourself I will seek satisfaction[211] of you.

IAGOYou have said[212] now.

RODORIGOAy, and said nothing but what I protest intendment[213] of doing.

IAGOWhy, now I see there’s mettle[214] in thee, and even from this instant do build on thee a better opinion than ever before. Give me thy hand, Rodorigo: thou hast taken against me a most just exception,[216] but yet I protest I have dealt most directly in thy affair.

RODORIGOIt hath not appeared.

IAGOI grant indeed it hath not appeared, and your suspicion is not without wit and judgement. But, Rodorigo, if thou hast that in thee indeed which I have greater reason to believe now than ever — I mean purpose, courage and valour — this night show it: if thou the next night following enjoy not Desdemona, take me from this world with treachery and devise engines[223] for my life.

RODORIGOWell, what is it? Is it within reason and compass?[224]

IAGOSir, there is especial commission come from Venice to depute Cassio in Othello’s place.

RODORIGOIs that true? Why then Othello and Desdemona return again to Venice.

IAGOO, no. He goes into Mauritania[228] and taketh away with him the fair Desdemona, unless his abode be lingered[229] here by some accident, wherein none can be so determinate[230] as the removing of Cassio.

RODORIGOHow do you mean, removing him?

IAGOWhy, by making him uncapable of Othello’s place: knocking out his brains.

RODORIGOAnd that you would have me to do?

IAGOAy, if you dare do yourself a profit and a right. He sups tonight with a harlotry,[235] and thither will I go to him. He knows not yet of his honourable fortune: if you will watch his going thence — which I will fashion[236] to fall out between twelve and one — you may take him at your pleasure. I will be near to second[237] your attempt, and he shall fall between us. Come, stand not amazed[238] at it, but go along with me: I will show you such a necessity in his death that you shall think yourself bound to put it on him. It is now high[240] suppertime, and the night grows to waste: about it.

RODORIGOI will hear further reason for this.

IAGOAnd you shall be satisfied.

Exeunt

Act 4 Scene 3

running scene 9 continues

Enter Othello, Lodovico, Desdemona, Emilia and Attendants

LODOVICOI do beseech you, sir, trouble yourself no further.

OTHELLOO, pardon me: ’twill do me good to walk.

LODOVICOMadam, goodnight. I humbly thank your ladyship.

DESDEMONAYour honour is most welcome.

OTHELLOWill you walk, sir?— O, Desdemona!

DESDEMONAMy lord?

OTHELLOGet you to bed on th’instant, I will be returned forthwith. Dismiss your attendant there: look’t be done.

Exeunt [Othello, Lodovico and Attendants]

DESDEMONAI will, my lord.

10

EMILIAHow goes it now? He looks gentler than he did.

DESDEMONAHe says he will return incontinent,[11]

And hath commanded me to go to bed,

And bid me to dismiss you.

EMILIADismiss me?

15

DESDEMONAIt was his bidding: therefore, good Emilia,

Give me my nightly wearing,[16] and adieu.

We must not now displease him.

EMILIAI would you had never seen him.

DESDEMONASo would not I: my love doth so approve[19] him

20

That even his stubbornness,[20] his checks, his frowns —

Prithee unpin me[21] — have grace and favour.

EMILIAI have laid those sheets you bade me on the bed.

DESDEMONAAll’s one.[23]— Good father, how foolish are our minds!—

If I do die before, prithee[24] shroud me

25

In one of these same sheets.

EMILIACome, come, you talk.[26]

DESDEMONAMy mother had a maid called Barbary:[27]

She was in love, and he she loved proved mad[28]

And did forsake her. She had a song of ‘willow[29]’,

30

An old thing ’twas, but it expressed her fortune,

And she died singing it: that song tonight

Will not go from my mind: I[32] have much to do

But to go hang my head all at one side

And sing it like poor Barbary. Prithee dispatch.

35

EMILIAShall I go fetch your nightgown?

DESDEMONANo, unpin me here.

This Lodovico is a proper[37] man.

EMILIAA very handsome man.

DESDEMONAHe speaks well.

40

EMILIAI know a lady in Venice would have walked barefoot to Palestine for a

touch of his nether[41] lip.

DESDEMONAThe poor soul sat singing by a sycamore[42] tree, Sings

Sing all a green willow:

Her hand on her bosom, her head on her knee,

45

Sing willow, willow, willow.

The fresh streams ran by her, and murmured her moans,

Sing willow, willow, willow:

Her salt tears fell from her, and softened the stones,

Sing willow—

50

Lay by these[50]— To Emilia

Willow, willow— Sings

Prithee, hie thee:[52] he’ll come anon—

Sing all a green willow must be my garland. Sings

Let nobody blame him, his scorn I approve—

55

Nay, that’s not next.— Hark, who is’t that knocks?

EMILIAIt’s the wind.

DESDEMONAI called my love false love, but what said he then? Sings

Sing willow, willow, willow:

If I court more women, you’ll couch[59] with more men!—

60

So, get thee gone, goodnight. Mine eyes do itch:

Doth that bode[61] weeping?

EMILIA’Tis neither here nor there.

DESDEMONAI have heard it said so. O, these men, these men!

Dost thou in conscience think — tell me, Emilia —

65

That there be women do abuse[65] their husbands

In such gross kind?[66]

EMILIAThere be some such, no question.

DESDEMONAWouldst thou do such a deed for all the world?

EMILIAWhy, would not you?

70

DESDEMONANo, by this heavenly light!

EMILIANor I neither by this heavenly light:

I might do’t as well i’th’dark.

DESDEMONAWouldst thou do such a deed for all the world?

EMILIAThe world’s a huge thing: it is a great price[74]

75

For a small vice.

DESDEMONAIn troth, I think thou wouldst not.

EMILIAIn troth, I think I should, and undo’t when I had done. Marry, I would not do such a thing for a joint-ring,[78] nor for measures of lawn, nor for gowns, petticoats, nor caps, nor any petty exhibition:[79] but for all the whole world, why, who would not make her husband a cuckold to make him a monarch? I should venture[81] purgatory for’t.

DESDEMONABeshrew me, if I would do such a wrong

For the whole world.

EMILIAWhy, the wrong is but a wrong i’th’world, and having the world for your labour, ’tis a wrong in your own world, and you might quickly make it right.

DESDEMONAI do not think there is any such woman.

EMILIAYes, a dozen, and as many to th’vantage[87] as

Would store[88] the world they played for.

But I do think it is their husbands’ faults

90

If wives do fall.[90] Say that they slack their duties

And pour our[91] treasures into foreign laps,

Or else break out in peevish[92] jealousies,

Throwing restraint upon us, or say they strike us,

Or scant[94] our former having in despite:

95

Why, we have galls,[95] and though we have some grace,

Yet have we some revenge.[96] Let husbands know

Their wives have sense like them: they see and smell

And have their palates both for sweet and sour,

As husbands have. What is it that they do

100

When they change[100] us for others? Is it sport?

I think it is. And doth affection[101] breed it?

I think it doth. Is’t frailty that thus errs?

It is so too. And have not we affections?

Desires for sport? And frailty, as men have?

105

Then let them use[105] us well: else let them know,

The ills we do, their ills instruct us so.

DESDEMONAGoodnight, goodnight: heaven me such uses[107] send

Not[108] to pick bad from bad, but by bad mend!

Exeunt

Act 5 Scene 15.1

running scene 10

Enter Iago and Rodorigo

IAGOHere, stand behind this bulk:[1] straight will he come.

Wear thy good rapier bare,[2] and put it home.

Quick, quick, fear nothing; I’ll be at thy elbow.

It makes us or it mars[4] us: think on that,

5

And fix most firm thy resolution.

RODORIGOBe near at hand: I may miscarry[6] in’t.

IAGOHere, at thy hand: be bold, and take thy stand. Conceals himself

RODORIGOI have no great devotion to the deed,

And yet he hath given me satisfying reasons.

10

’Tis but a man gone. Forth, my sword: he dies. Draws

IAGOI have rubbed this young quat[11] almost to the sense, Aside

And he grows angry.[12] Now, whether he kill Cassio

Or Cassio him, or each do kill the other,

Every way makes my gain. Live Rodorigo,[14]

15

He calls me to a restitution large

Of gold and jewels that I bobbed[16] from him

As gifts[17] to Desdemona:

It must not be. If Cassio do remain,

He hath a daily beauty in his life

20

That makes me ugly: and besides, the Moor

May unfold[21] me to him: there stand I in much peril.

No, he must die. But so: I heard him coming.

Enter Cassio

RODORIGOI know his gait, ’tis he.— Villain, thou diest! Makes a sword-thrust

CASSIOThat thrust had been mine enemy indeed,

25

But that my coat[25] is better than thou know’st:

I will make proof[26] of thine. Draws and wounds Rodorigo

RODORIGOO, I am slain! He falls; Iago comes forward and stabs Cassio on the leg

[Exit Iago]

CASSIOI am maimed for ever. Help, ho! Murder, murder! He falls

Enter Othello

OTHELLOThe voice of Cassio: Iago keeps his word.

30

RODORIGOO, villain that I am!

OTHELLOIt is even so.

CASSIOO, help, ho! Light! A surgeon!

OTHELLO’Tis he. O brave[33] Iago, honest and just,

That hast such noble sense of thy friend’s wrong!

35

Thou teachest me.— Minion,[35] your dear lies dead,

And your unblest[36] fate hies. Strumpet, I come:

For of[37] my heart those charms, thine eyes, are blotted,

Thy bed, lust-stained, shall with lust’s blood be spotted.

Exit Othello

Enter Lodovico and Grattano

CASSIOWhat, ho! No watch? No passage?[39] Murder, murder!

40

GRATIANO’Tis some mischance: the voice is very direful.[40]

CASSIOO, help!

LODOVICOHark!

RODORIGOO wretched villain!

LODOVICOTwo or three groan. ’Tis heavy[44] night;

45

These may be counterfeits: let’s think’t unsafe

To come in to[46] the cry without more help.

RODORIGONobody come: then shall I bleed to death.

Enter Iago With a light and weapons

LODOVICOHark!

GRATIANOHere’s one comes in his shirt,[49] with light and weapons.

50

IAGOWho’s there? Whose noise is this that cries on murder?

LODOVICOWe do not know.

IAGODo not you hear a cry?

CASSIOHere, here! For heaven sake, help me!

IAGOWhat’s the matter?

55

GRATIANOThis is Othello’s ancient, as I take it. To Lodovico

LODOVICOThe same indeed: a very valiant fellow. To Gratiano

IAGOWhat are you here that cry so grievously?

CASSIOIago? O, I am spoiled,[58] undone by villains!

Give me some help.

60

IAGOO me, lieutenant! What villains have done this?

CASSIOI think that one of them is hereabout,

And cannot make away.

IAGOO treacherous villains!— To Lodovico and Gradano

What are you there? Come in, and give some help.

65

RODORIGOO, help me there!

CASSIOThat’s one of them.

IAGOO murd’rous slave! O villain! Stabs Rodorigo

RODORIGOO damned Iago! O inhuman dog!

IAGOKill men i’th’dark!— Where be these bloody thieves?—

70

How silent is this town!— Ho! Murder, murder!—

What may you be? Are you of good or evil? To Lodovico and Gratiano

LODOVICOAs you shall prove[72] us, praise us.

IAGOSignior Lodovico?

LODOVICOHe, sir.

75

IAGOI cry you mercy. Here’s Cassio hurt by villains.

GRATIANOCassio?

IAGOHow is’t, brother? To Cassio

CASSIOMy leg is cut in two.

IAGOMarry, heaven forbid!—

80

Light, gentlemen. I’ll bind it with my shirt.

Enter Bianca

BIANCAWhat is the matter, ho? Who is’t that cried?

IAGOWho is’t that cried?

BIANCAO my dear Cassio! My sweet Cassio! O Cassio,

Cassio, Cassio!

85

IAGOO notable strumpet! Cassio, may you suspect[85]

Who they should be that have thus mangled you?

CASSIONo.

GRATIANOI am sorry to find you thus: I have been to seek you.

IAGOLend me a garter.[89] So.— O, for a chair

90

To bear him easily hence!

BIANCAAlas, he faints! O Cassio, Cassio, Cassio!

IAGOGentlemen all, I do suspect this trash[92]

To be a party in this injury.—

Patience awhile, good Cassio.— Come, come;

95

Lend me a light. Shines light on Rodorigo

Know we this face or no?

Alas, my friend and my dear countryman

Rodorigo? No. Yes, sure: yes, ’tis Rodorigo.

GRATIANOWhat, of Venice?

IAGOEven he, sir: did you know him?

100

GRATIANOKnow him? Ay.

IAGOSignior Gratiano? I cry your gentle pardon:

These bloody accidents[102] must excuse my manners

That so neglected you.

GRATIANOI am glad to see you.

105

IAGOHow do you, Cassio?— O, a chair, a chair!

GRATIANORodorigo?

IAGOHe, he ’tis he.—

O, that’s well said:[108] the chair! Attendants bring in a chair

Some good man bear him carefully from hence:

110

I’ll fetch the general’s surgeon.—

For[111] you, mistress, To Bianca

Save[112] you your labour.— He that lies slain here, Cassio,

Was my dear friend: what malice was between you?

CASSIONone in the world, nor do I know the man!

115

IAGOWhat, look you pale?— O, bear him out o’th’air. To Bianca

Stay you, good gentlemen.— Look you pale, mistress?— Attendants bear off

Do you perceive the[117] gastness of her eye?— Cassio and Rodorigo

Nay, if you stare,[118] we shall hear more anon.—

Behold her well: I pray you look upon her:

120

Do you see, gentlemen? Nay, guiltiness will speak,

Though tongues were out of use.

[Enter Emilia]

EMILIAAlas, what is the matter? What is the matter, husband?

IAGOCassio hath here been set on in the dark

By Rodorigo and fellows that are scaped:

125

He’s almost slain, and Rodorigo quite dead.

EMILIAAlas, good gentleman! Alas, good Cassio!

IAGOThis is the fruits of whoring. Prithee, Emilia,

Go know of Cassio where he supped tonight.— To Bianca

What, do you shake at that?

130

BIANCAHe supped at my house, but I therefore shake not.

IAGOO, did he so? I charge you go with me.

EMILIAO, fie upon thee, strumpet!

BIANCAI am no strumpet, but of life as honest[133]

As you that thus abuse me.

135

EMILIAAs I? Fie upon thee!

IAGOKind gentlemen, let’s go see poor Cassio dressed.[136]—

Come, mistress, you must tell’s another tale.

Emilia, run you to the citadel

And tell my lord and lady what hath happed.—

140

Will you go on afore?— This is the night Aside

That either makes me or fordoes me quite.[141]

Exeunt

Act 5 Scene 2*

running scene 11

Enter Othello and Desdemona in her bed Othello with a light

OTHELLOIt is the cause,[1] it is the cause, my soul:

Let me not name it to you, you chaste stars:

It is the cause. Yet I’ll not shed her blood,

Nor scar that whiter skin of hers than snow,

5

And smooth as monumental alabaster:[5]

Yet she must die, else she’ll betray more men.

Put[7] out the light, and then put out the light.

If I quench thee, thou flaming minister,[8]

I can again thy former light restore,

10

Should I repent me: but once put out thy light,

Thou cunning’st pattern[11] of excelling nature,

I know not where is that Promethean[12] heat

That can thy light relume.[13] When I have plucked thy rose,

I cannot give it vital[14] growth again:

15

It needs must wither. I’ll smell thee on the tree. Kisses her

O balmy breath, that dost almost persuade

Justice[17] to break her sword! One more, one more.

Be thus when thou art dead, and I will kill thee

And love thee after. One more, and that’s the last. Kisses her

20

So sweet was ne’er so fatal.[20] I must weep,

But they are cruel tears: this sorrow’s heavenly,

It strikes[22] where it doth love. She wakes.

DESDEMONAWho’s there? Othello?

OTHELLOAy,[27] Desdemona.

25

DESDEMONAWill you come to bed, my lord?

OTHELLOHave you prayed tonight, Desdemon?

DESDEMONAAy, my lord.

OTHELLOIf you bethink yourself of any crime

Unreconciled as yet to heaven and grace,

30

Solicit[30] for it straight.

DESDEMONAAlack, my lord, what may you mean by that?

OTHELLOWell, do it, and be brief: I will walk by.

I would not kill thy unpreparèd spirit,

No, heavens forfend![34] I would not kill thy soul.

35

DESDEMONATalk you of killing?

OTHELLOAy, I do.

DESDEMONAThen heaven have mercy on me!

OTHELLOAmen, with all my heart!

DESDEMONAIf you say,[39] I hope you will not kill me.

40

OTHELLOHum!

DESDEMONAAnd yet I fear you, for you’re fatal then

When your eyes roll so: why I should fear I know not,

Since guiltiness I know not, but yet I feel I fear.

OTHELLOThink on thy sins.

45

DESDEMONAThey[45] are loves I bear to you.

OTHELLOAy, and for that thou diest.

DESDEMONAThat death’s unnatural that kills for loving.

Alas, why gnaw you so your nether lip?

Some bloody passion shakes your very frame:

50

These are portents, but yet I hope, I hope,

They do not point on me.

OTHELLOPeace, and be still!

DESDEMONAI will so. What’s the matter?

OTHELLOThat handkerchief which I so loved and gave thee

55

Thou gav’st to Cassio.

DESDEMONANo, by my life and soul!

Send for the man and ask him.

OTHELLOSweet soul, take heed, take heed of perjury:

Thou art on thy death-bed.

60

DESDEMONAAy, but not yet to die.

OTHELLOPresently:[61]

Therefore confess thee freely of thy sin,

For to deny each article[63] with oath

Cannot remove nor choke the strong conception[64]

65

That I do groan withal.[65] Thou art to die.

DESDEMONAO, heaven have mercy on me!

OTHELLOI say, amen.

DESDEMONAAnd have you mercy too! I never did

Offend[69] you in my life, never loved Cassio

70

But with such general warranty[70] of heaven

As I might love: I never gave him token.

OTHELLOBy heaven, I saw my handkerchief in’s hand.

O perjured woman, thou dost stone[73] my heart,

And makes me call what I intend to do

75

A murder, which I thought a sacrifice:

I saw the handkerchief.

DESDEMONAHe found it then:

I never gave it him. Send for him hither,

Let him confess a truth.

80

OTHELLOHe hath confessed.

DESDEMONAWhat, my lord?

OTHELLOThat he hath used[82] thee.

DESDEMONAHow? Unlawfully?

OTHELLOAy.

85

DESDEMONAHe will not say so.

OTHELLONo, his mouth is stopped:

Honest Iago hath ta’en order[87] for’t.

DESDEMONAO, my fear interprets! What, is he dead?

OTHELLOHad all his hairs been lives, my great revenge

90

Had stomach[90] for them all.

DESDEMONAAlas, he is betrayed and I undone!

OTHELLOOut, strumpet! Weep’st thou for him to my face?

DESDEMONAO, banish me, my lord, but kill me not!

OTHELLODown, strumpet!

95

DESDEMONAKill me tomorrow, let me live tonight!

OTHELLONay, if you strive[96]—

DESDEMONABut half an hour!

OTHELLOBeing done,[98] there is no pause.

DESDEMONABut while I say one prayer!

OTHELLOIt is too late.

Smothers her

Emilia at the door

EMILIAMy lord, my lord! What, ho! My lord, my lord! Within

OTHELLOWhat noise is this? Not dead? Not yet quite dead?

I that am cruel am yet merciful:

I would not have thee linger in thy pain: so, so.

105

EMILIAWhat, ho? My lord, my lord! Within

OTHELLOWho’s there?

EMILIAO, good my lord, I would speak a word with you! Within

OTHELLOYes.— ’Tis Emilia.— By and by.[108]— She’s dead.

’Tis like[109] she comes to speak of Cassio’s death.—

110

The noise[110] was high. Ha, no more moving?

Still as the grave. Shall she come in? Were’t good?—

I think she stirs again. No. What’s best to do?

If she come in, she’ll sure speak to my wife:

My wife, my wife! What wife? I have no wife.

115

O insupportable! O heavy hour!

Methinks it should be now a huge eclipse

Of sun and moon, and that th’affrighted globe

Did yawn at alteration.[118]

EMILIAI do beseech you Within

120

That I may speak with you, O, good my lord!

OTHELLOI had forgot thee.— O, come in, Emilia.—

Soft,[122] by and by: let me the curtains draw.— Draws the bed curtains and unlocks the door

Where art thou? What’s the matter with thee now?

Enter Emilia

EMILIAO, my good lord, yonder’s foul murders done!

125

OTHELLOWhat? Now?

EMILIABut now, my lord.

OTHELLOIt is the very error[127] of the moon:

She comes more nearer earth than she was wont,[128]

And makes men mad.

130

EMILIACassio, my lord, hath killed a young Venetian

Called Rodorigo.

OTHELLORodorigo killed? And Cassio killed?

EMILIANo, Cassio is not killed.

OTHELLONot Cassio killed? Then murder’s out of tune,

135

And sweet revenge grows harsh.[135]

DESDEMONAO, falsely,[136] falsely murdered!

EMILIAAlas! What cry is that?

OTHELLOThat? What?

EMILIAOut, and alas![139] That was my lady’s voice.

140

Help, help, ho, help! O lady, speak again! Opens the bed curtains

Sweet Desdemona! O sweet mistress, speak!

DESDEMONAA guiltless death I die.

EMILIAO, who hath done this deed?

DESDEMONANobody: I myself. Farewell.

145

Commend me to my kind lord. O, farewell! Dies Dies

OTHELLOWhy, how should she be murdered?

EMILIAAlas, who knows?

OTHELLOYou hear her say herself it was not I.

EMILIAShe said so: I must needs report the truth.

150

OTHELLOShe’s like a liar gone to burning hell:

’Twas I that killed her.

EMILIAO, the more angel she, and you the blacker devil!

OTHELLOShe turned to folly,[153] and she was a whore.

EMILIAThou dost belie[154] her, and thou art a devil.

155

OTHELLOShe was false as water.

EMILIAThou art rash as fire, to say

That she was false: O, she was heavenly true!

OTHELLOCassio did top[158] her: ask thy husband else.

O, I were damned beneath all depth in hell,

160

But[160] that I did proceed upon just grounds

To this extremity. Thy husband knew it all.

EMILIAMy husband?

OTHELLOThy husband.

EMILIAThat she was false to wedlock?

165

OTHELLOAy, with Cassio. Had she been true,

If heaven would make me such another world

Of one entire and perfect chrysolite,[167]

I’d not have sold her for it.

EMILIAMy husband?

170

OTHELLOAy, ’twas he that told me on[170] her first:

An honest man he is, and hates the slime[171]

That sticks on filthy deeds.[172]

EMILIAMy husband?

OTHELLOWhat needs this iterance,[174] woman? I say thy husband.

175

EMILIAO mistress, villainy hath made mocks with[175] love.

My husband say she was false?

OTHELLOHe, woman;

I say thy husband: dost understand the word?

My friend, thy husband: honest, honest Iago.

180

EMILIAIf he say so, may his pernicious[180] soul

Rot half a grain a day! He lies to th’heart:

She was too fond of her most filthy bargain.[182]

OTHELLOHa?

EMILIADo thy worst:

185

This deed of thine is no more worthy heaven

Than thou wast worthy her.

OTHELLOPeace,[187] you were best—

EMILIAThou hast not half that power to do me harm

As I have to be hurt.[189] O gull, O dolt,

190

As ignorant as dirt! Thou hast done a deed —

I care not for thy sword — I’ll make thee known,[191]

Though I lost twenty lives.— Help, help, ho, help!

The Moor hath killed my mistress! Murder, murder!

Enter Montano, Grattano and Iago

MONTANOWhat is the matter? How now, general?

195

EMILIAO, are you come, Iago? You have done well,

That men must lay their murders on your neck.

GRATIANOWhat is the matter?

EMILIADisprove this villain, if thou be’st a man: To Iago

He says thou told’st him that his wife was false:

200

I know thou didst not, thou’rt not such a villain.

Speak, for my heart is full.

IAGOI told him what I thought, and told no more

Than what he found himself was apt[203] and true.

EMILIABut did you ever tell him she was false?

205

IAGOI did.

EMILIAYou told a lie, an odious, damnèd lie:

Upon my soul, a lie, a wicked lie.

She false with Cassio? Did you say with Cassio?

IAGOWith Cassio, mistress! Go to, charm[209] your tongue.

210

EMILIAI will not charm my tongue; I am bound to speak:

My mistress here lies murdered in her bed—

ALLO, heavens forfend!

EMILIAAnd your reports have set the murder on.

OTHELLONay, stare not, masters: it is true indeed.

215

GRATIANO’Tis a strange truth.

MONTANOO, monstrous act!

EMILIAVillainy, villainy, villainy!

I think upon’t, I think: I smell’t: O villainy!

I thought so then. I’ll kill myself for grief.

220

O villainy! Villainy!

IAGOWhat, are you mad? I charge you get you home.

EMILIAGood gentlemen, let me have leave to speak:

’Tis proper I obey him, but not now.

Perchance, Iago, I will ne’er go home.

225

OTHELLOO, O, O! He falls on the bed

EMILIANay, lay thee down and roar,

For thou hast killed the sweetest innocent

That e’er did lift up eye.[228]

OTHELLOO, she was foul![229] Rises

230

I scarce did know you, uncle:[230] there lies your niece,

Whose breath, indeed, these hands have newly stopped:

I know this act shows horrible and grim.[232]

GRATIANOPoor Desdemon! I am glad thy father’s dead:

Thy match was mortal[234] to him, and pure grief

235

Shore[235] his old thread in twain. Did he live now,

This sight would make him do[236] a desperate turn,

Yea, curse his better angel from his side,

And fall to reprobance.[238]

OTHELLO’Tis pitiful, but yet Iago knows

240

That she with Cassio hath the act of shame

A thousand times committed: Cassio confessed it,

And she did gratify his amorous works[242]

With that recognizance[243] and pledge of love

Which I first gave her: I saw it in his hand:

245

It was a handkerchief, an antique[245] token

My father gave my mother.

EMILIAO heaven! O heavenly powers!

IAGOCome, hold your peace.[249]

EMILIA’Twill out, ’twill out. I peace?

250

No, I will speak as liberal[250] as the north:

Let heaven and men and devils, let them all,

All, all, cry shame against me, yet I’ll speak.

IAGOBe wise, and get you home.

EMILIAI will not. Iago threatens to stab Emilia

255

GRATIANOFie, your sword upon a woman?

EMILIAO thou dull[256] Moor! That handkerchief thou speak’st of

I found by fortune and did give my husband,

For often, with a solemn earnestness —

More than indeed belonged[259] to such a trifle —

260

He begged of me to steal’t.

IAGOVillainous whore!

EMILIAShe give it Cassio? No, alas! I found it,

And I did give’t my husband.

IAGOFilth,[264] thou liest!

265

EMILIABy heaven, I do not, I do not, gentlemen.

O murd’rous coxcomb![266] What should such a fool

Do with so good a wife?

OTHELLOAre there no stones[268] in heaven

But what serves for the thunder?— Precious[269] villain! He runs at Iago but is disarmed; Iago stabs Emilia

270

GRATIANOThe woman falls: sure, he hath killed his wife.

[Exit Iago]

EMILIAAy, ay! O, lay me by my mistress’ side.

GRATIANOHe’s gone, but his wife’s killed.

MONTANO’Tis a notorious[273] villain. Take you this weapon

Which I have recovered[274] from the Moor:

275

Come, guard the door without:[275] let him not pass,

But kill him rather. I’ll after that same villain,

For ’tis a damnèd slave.

[Exeunt Montano and Gratiano]

OTHELLOI am not valiant neither,

But every puny whipster[279] gets my sword:

280

But why should honour[280] outlive honesty?

Let it go all.

EMILIAWhat did thy song bode, lady?

Hark, canst thou hear me? I will play the swan,[283]

And die in music:—

Willow, willow, willow— Sings

285

Moor, she was chaste: she loved thee, cruel Moor.

So come my soul to bliss, as I speak true,

So speaking as I think, alas, I die. Dies

OTHELLOI have another weapon in this chamber:

It was a sword of Spain, the ice-brook’s temper:[289]

290

O, here it is. Uncle, I must come forth. Finds sword

GRATIANOIf thou attempt it, it will cost thee dear: Within

Thou hast no weapon, and perforce[292] must suffer.

OTHELLOLook in upon me then and speak with me,

Or, naked[294] as I am, I will assault thee.

[Enter Gratiano]

295

GRATIANOWhat is the matter?

OTHELLOBehold, I have a weapon:

A[297] better never did itself sustain

Upon a soldier’s thigh. I have seen the day

That, with this little arm and this good sword,

300

I have made my way through more impediments

Than twenty times your stop:[301] but — O vain boast! —

Who can control his fate? ’Tis not so now.

Be not afraid, though you do see me weaponed:

Here[304] is my journey’s end, here is my butt

305

And very sea-mark[305] of my utmost sail.

Do you go back dismayed? ’Tis a lost[306] fear:

Man[307] but a rush against Othello’s breast

And he retires. Where should Othello go?

Now, how dost thou look now? O ill-starred[309] wench,

310

Pale as thy smock,[310] when we shall meet at compt,

This look of thine will hurl my soul from heaven,

And fiends will snatch at it! Cold, cold, my girl?

Even like thy chastity. O cursèd, cursèd slave![313]

Whip me, ye devils,

315

From the possession of this heavenly sight,

Blow me about in winds, roast me in sulphur,

Wash me in steep-down[317] gulfs of liquid fire!

O Desdemon! Dead, Desdemon! Dead! O, O!

Enter Lodovico, Cassio [carried in a chair], Montano and Iago [prisoner] with Officers

LODOVICOWhere is this rash and most unfortunate man?

320

OTHELLOThat’s he that was Othello: here I am.

LODOVICOWhere is that viper? Bring the villain forth.

OTHELLOI[322] look down towards his feet, but that’s a fable:

If that thou be’st a devil, I cannot kill thee. Wounds Iago

LODOVICOWrench his sword from him.

325

IAGOI bleed, sir, but not killed.

OTHELLOI am not sorry neither: I’d have thee live,

For in my sense[327] ’tis happiness to die.

LODOVICOO thou Othello, thou was once so good,

Fall’n in the practice[329] of a cursèd slave,

330

What shall be said to thee?

OTHELLOWhy, anything:

An honourable murderer, if you will,

For nought I did in hate, but all in honour.

LODOVICOThis wretch hath part confessed his villainy.

335

Did you and he consent in Cassio’s death?

OTHELLOAy.

CASSIODear general, I never gave you cause.

OTHELLOI do believe it, and I ask your pardon.

Will you, I pray, demand that demi-devil

340

Why he hath thus ensnared my soul and body?

IAGODemand me nothing: what you know, you know:

From this time forth I never will speak word.

LODOVICOWhat? Not to pray?

GRATIANOTorments[344] will ope your lips.

345

OTHELLOWell, thou dost best.

LODOVICOSir, you shall understand what hath befall’n —

Which, as I think, you know not. Here is a letter

Found in the pocket of the slain Rodorigo,

And here another: the one of them imports[349]

350

The death of Cassio to be undertook

By Rodorigo.

OTHELLOO villain!

CASSIOMost heathenish and most gross![353]

LODOVICONow here’s another discontented[354] paper

355

Found in his pocket too: and this, it seems,

Rodorigo meant t’have sent this damned villain,

But that belike[357] Iago in the interim

Came in and satisfied him.[358]

OTHELLOO thou pernicious caitiff![359]—

360

How came you, Cassio, by that handkerchief

That was my wife’s?

CASSIOI found it in my chamber,

And he himself confessed it but even now

That there he dropped it for a special purpose

365

Which wrought[365] to his desire.

OTHELLOO fool, fool, fool!

CASSIOThere is besides in Rodorigo’s letter

How he upbraids Iago, that he made him

Brave[369] me upon the watch, whereon it came

370

That I was cast:[370] and even but now he spake —

After long seeming dead — Iago hurt him,

Iago set him on.

LODOVICOYou must forsake this room and go with us: To Othello

Your power and your command is taken off,

375

And Cassio rules in Cyprus. For this slave,

If there be any cunning cruelty

That can torment him much and hold him long,[377]

It shall be his. You shall close[378] prisoner rest

Till that the nature of your fault be known

380

To the Venetian state.— Come, bring away.

OTHELLOSoft you; a word or two before you go.

I have done the state some service, and they know’t —

No more of that. I pray you, in your letters,

When you shall these unlucky deeds relate,

385

Speak of me as I am: nothing extenuate,[385]

Nor set down aught in malice. Then must you speak

Of one that loved not wisely but too well:

Of one not easily jealous, but being wrought,[388]

Perplexed[389] in the extreme: of one whose hand,

390

Like the base[390] Judean, threw a pearl away

Richer than all his tribe: of one whose subdued[391] eyes,

Albeit unused to the melting mood,

Drops tears as fast as the Arabian trees[393]

Their medicinable[394] gum. Set you down this,

395

And say besides, that in Aleppo[395] once,

Where a malignant and a turbaned Turk

Beat a Venetian and traduced[397] the state,

I took by th’throat the circumcisèd dog

And smote him, thus. Stabs himself

400

LODOVICOO bloody period![400]

GRATIANOAll that is spoke is marred.

OTHELLOI kissed[402] thee ere I killed thee: no way but this,

Killing myself, to die[403] upon a kiss. Kisses Desdemona

Dies

CASSIOThis did I fear, but thought he had no weapon,

405

For he was great of heart.

LODOVICOO Spartan dog,[406] To Iago

More fell[407] than anguish, hunger, or the sea!

Look on the tragic loading of this bed:

This is thy work.— The object poisons sight,

410

Let it be hid. Gratiano, keep[410] the house,

And seize upon[411] the fortunes of the Moor,

For they succeed on[412] you.— To you, lord governor, To Cassio

Remains the censure[413] of this hellish villain:

The time, the place, the torture: O, enforce it!

415

Myself will straight aboard, and to the state

This heavy[416] act with heavy heart relate.

Exeunt

Quarto passages that do not appear in the Folio

Following 1.3.354 (after “errors of her choice”):

she must have change, she must.

Following 1.3.370:

RODORIGOWhat say you?

IAGONo more of drowning, do you hear?

RODORIGOI am changed:

Following 2.1.89:

And bring all Cyprus comfort!

Following 3.1.23:

CASSIODo, good my friend.

Following 3.1.44:

To take the safest occasion by the front

Following 3.4.96:

DESDEMONAI pray, talk me of Cassio.

OTHELLOThe handkerchief!

Following 4.2.185:

And he does chide with you.

Following 5.2.100:

DESDEMONAO, lord, lord, lord!

Textual Notes

Q = First Quarto text of 1622

Q2 = a correction introduced in the Second Quarto text of 1630

F = First Folio text of 1623

F2 = a correction introduced in the Second Folio text of 1632

F3 = a correction introduced in the Third Folio text of 1663–64

F4 = a correction introduced in the Fourth Folio text of 1685

Ed = a correction introduced by a later editor

SH = speech heading (i.e., speaker’s name)

List of parts based on “The Names of the Actors” at end of F text, with additional information provided in parenthesis

RODORIGO spelled thus in F (throughout). Q = Roderigo throughout EMILIA spelled Aemilia in F (throughout)

1.1.1 Never = F. Q = TVsh, neuer 4 But = F. Q = S’blood, but 25 toga’d = Q (toged). F = Tongued 29 Cyprus spelled Ciprus in F (and elsewhere) 33 bless = F. Q = God blesse 68 full = Q. F = fall thick-lips = Ed. F = Thicks-lips. Q = thicklips. 75 chances = F. Q = changes 90 Sir = F. Q = Zounds sir 91 soul: = Ed. F = soule 117 Sir = F. Q = Zouns Sir 120 jennets for germans spelled Gennets for Germaines in F 123 making = F. Q = now making 163 hell-pains = Ed. F = hell apines. Q = hells paines 166 sign. That = Ed. F = signe) that

1.2.41 haste-post-haste = Ed. F = haste, Post-haste 70 You, Rodorigo? Come = F (corrected). F (uncorrected) = You Rodorigo, Come 98 Whither = F2. F = Whether 103 I do = Q. F = do

1.3.24 gaze. When = Ed. F = gaze, when 58 nor = Q. F = hor 62 and = Q. F = snd 66 SH SENATORS ambiguously spelled Sen. in F 84 your = Q. F = yonr 100 tale = Q. F = u Tale 110 maimed spelled main’d in F imperfect = Ed. F = imperfect. 117 wrought upon = Q. F = wtought vp on 118 SH DUKE = Q. Not in F 119 overt = Q. F = ouer 122 SH FIRST SENATOR = Q. F = Sen. 136 till = Q. F = tell 152 slavery, of = Q. F = slauery. Of 154 antres spelled Antars in F 155 rocks, hills = F. Q = rocks and hils 157 other = Q. F = others 158 Anthropophagi spelled Antropophague in F 161 thence = Q. F = hence 169 intentively = Q. F = instinctiuely 173 kisses = F. Q = sighes 190 speak: = Ed. F = speake? 217 lovers. = F. Q = louers / Into your fauour 222 preserved = Q. F = presern’d 243 couch = Q. F = Coach 245 alacrity = Q. F = Alacartie 256 there reside = Q. F = therorecide 263 I love = F. Q = I did loue 289 against = Q. F = againsf 318 the = Q. F = the the 330 guinea-hen spelled Gynney Hen in F 335 thyme spelled Time in F 338 beam = Ed. F = braine. Q = Ballence 341 scion spelled Seyen in F 356 supersubtle = F. Q = a super subtle 374 a snipe = Q. F = Snpe 377 He = Q. F = She

2.1.2 SH FIRST GENTLEMAN = 1. Gent in F 9 mortise = Q. F = Morties. 10 SH SECOND GENTLEMAN = Q. F = 2 13 wind-shaked surge = F3. F = winde-shak’d-Surge mane spelled Maine in F 18 SH MONTANO = Ed. F = Men. 21 SH THIRD GENTLEMAN = Q. F = 3 27–8 in…Cassio = Ed. F = in: A Verennessa, Michael Cassio 42 th’aerial = Ed. F = th’Eriall 44 SH THIRD GENTLEMAN = Q. F = Gent. 47 Thanks, you = Ed. F = Thankes you, 54 hopes = Ed. F = hope’s 56,103 SH [VOICES] = Ed. F = Within 71 engineer spelled Ingeniuer in F 97 tell of = F. Q = tell me of 101 of sea = F. Q = of the sea 155 indeed, one = Ed. F = indeed? One 155 authority spelled authorithy in F 176 gyve = F2. F = giue 180 courtesy spelled Curtsie in F 181 clyster-pipes = Q (Clisterpipes). F = Cluster-pipes 222 hither = Q. F = thither 229 prating? = Q. F = prating, 237 fortune = Q. F = Forune does? = Q. F = do’s: 241 has = Q. F = he’s 252 mutabilities = F. Q = mutualities 260 haply spelled happely in F 277 accountant spelled accomptant in F 283 evened spelled eeuen’d in F for wife = Q. F = for wift 290 right = F. Q = ranke 291 night-cap = Q. F = Night-Cape

2.2.6 present = Q. F = presenr 7 Bless = F. Q = Heauen blesse

[Act 2 Scene 3] = Ed. Scene is continuous in F

2.3.24 stoup = Ed. F = stope 49 to put = Q. F = put to 66 Englishman = Q. F = Englishmen 80 Then = Q. F = And auld = Ed. F = awl’d. Q = owd 92 Forgive = F. Q = God forgiue 94 left = F. Q = left hand 96 SH GENTLEMEN = Q. F = Gent. 126 You = F. Q = Zouns, you 140 Sir Montano—Sir = Ed. F = Sir Montano: 143 lieutenant! = F. Q = Leiutenant, hold, 146 I bleed = F. Q = Zouns, I bleed 149 sense of place = Ed. F = place of sense 181 me — = Ed. F = me. 201 leagued = Ed. F = league 238 well, = F. Q = well now, 269 O, = F. Q = O God, 282 familiar = Q. F = famillar 288 denotement = Q. F = deuotement 293 stronger = Q. F = stonger 297 check me = F. Q = check me here 307 were’t to = Q. F = were to 335 Does’t = Ed. F = Dos’t 346 on: = Ed. F = on. Q = on, 347 the while = Ed. F = a while

3.1.8 tail spelled tale in F 24 SH CASSIO = Q. Not in F

3.2.7 We’ll = F3. F = Well

3.3.5 fellow. Do = Ed. F = Fellow, Do 71 In faith = F4. F = Infaith 73 example = Ed. F = example) 79 with = Q. F = wirh 82 much— = Ed. F = much. 105 you = Q. F = he 154 that all = Q. F = that: All free = F. Q = free to 158 Where no = Ed. F = Wherein. Q = But some 167 oft = Q. F = of 168 wisdom = F. Q = I intreate then 175 What = F. Q = Zouns. 183 I’ll = F. Q = By heauen, I’le 203 Is = F. Q = Is once 205 exsufflicate spelled exufflicate in F 208 dances = F. Q = dances well 278 put = F2. Not in F 289 learnèd = Ed. F = learn’d 290 human spelled humane in F (and elsewhere) 329 talk to = Q. F = talke too 384 Pioneers spelled Pyoners in F 406 lord— = Ed. F = Lord. 409 horror’s = Ed. F = Horrors 432 I see you = F. Q = I see sir, you 466 laid = F. Q = then layed 492 thy = Q. F = the 498 mind may = F. Q = mind perhaps may 501 Ne’er feels = Q2. F = Neu’r keepes

3.4.34 It hath felt = F. Q = It has yet felt 68 lose’t spelled loose’t in F 84 Bless = F. Q = Heauen blesse 90 I can, but = F. Q = I Can sir, but 99 you— = Ed. F = you. 119 honour. I = Ed. F = honor, I 169 born spelled borne in F 172 hereabout = F3. F = heere about 182 lovers’ = Ed. F = Louers 191 friend: = Ed. F = Friend,

4.1.42–3 Lie…That’s = F. Q = lye with her, Zouns, that’s 83 list. = Q. F = List, 85 unsuiting = Q (corrected). F = resulting 111 conster = Q. F = conserue 113 you, lieutenant = F. Q = you now Leiutenant 117 power = Q. F = dowre 131 I marry = F. Q = I marry her 140 beckons = Q. F = becomes 143 and falls me = F. Q = by this hand she fals 163 I = F. Q = Faith I 205 I…Venice = F. Q = Something from Venice sure, 206 Lodovico: this comes = Ed. F = Lodouico, this, comes 208 Save you = F. Q = God saue the 248 an obedient = Q. F = obedient 285 denote = Q. F (corrected) = deonte. F (uncorrected) = deuote

4.2.34 nay = Ed. F = May 49 haply spelled happely in F (and elsewhere) 52 I = F. Q = Why I 70 Ay spelled I in F 173 form, = Ed. F = Forme. 193 daff’st spelled dafts in F 198 I = F. Q = Faith I 222 the = Q. F = rhe 224 within = Q. F = within,

4.3.18 I = Q. F = I, 21 favour = F. Q = fauour in them 24 before, = F. Q = before thee, 34 Barbary spelled Brabarie in F 42 singing = F (corrected). F (uncorrected) = sining 47 Sing…willow = Ed. F = Sing Willough, &c. (and elsewhere)

5.1.1 bulk = Q. F = Barke 46 in to = Ed. F = into 115 him out = Q. F = him

5.2.39 say = F. Q = say so 61 Presently = F. Q = Yes, presently 184 worst = Q. F = wotst 274 have = F. Q = haue here 347 not. Here = Ed. F = not) heere 361 wife’s = Q. F = wiues 390 Judean = F. Q, F2 = Indian

List of parts: gulled duped, deceived

Act 1 Scene 1

1.1    Location: Venice (street)

1    Never tell me! expression of disbelief    much unkindly with great resentment/dissatisfaction

3    this i.e., Desdemona and Othello’s elopement

7    him i.e., Othello

9    great ones i.e., noble, influential men/official dignitaries

10    suit formal request, entreaty

11    Off-capped removed their hats (a mark of respect)

14    bombast circumstance elaborate evasive talk, wordy circumlocution

15    epithets of war military terms

16    Nonsuits my mediators thwarts the request of my intermediaries (from the legal term “nonsuit” meaning the withdrawal of a lawsuit)    ‘Certes’ certainly

19    Forsooth in truth arithmetician i.e., mere theorist (in military matters)/mathematician (Florence was known for its bankers)

20    Florentine person from Florence (then a city-state in northern Italy)

21    almost…wife a man with a beautiful wife was    damned because he was bound to be cuckolded; perhaps Shakespeare originally intended Cassio to be married, or else the line refers to an imminent or a narrowly avoided wedding (Bianca later claims that Cassio is going to marry her); but editors have struggled to make sense of the line, and a printer’s error is possible; the most satisfactory emendation would be limned (depicted, portrayed), which fits with Iago’s emphasis on Cassio’s effeminacy, as he compares him first to a wife and then to a spinster

22    squadron group of soldiers in a square formation/small detachment of soldiers

23    division…battle disposition of a battalion

24    spinster woman who stays at home spinning    unless except for    theoric theory

25    toga’d consuls toga-wearing councillors    toga garment worn by citizens of ancient Rome    propose discourse, hold forth

26    prattle idle talk

27    had th’election was chosen

28    his i.e., Othello’s

29    Rhodes island in the Mediterranean Sea, between Cyprus and Greece    Cyprus Mediterranean island to the south of Turkey

30    Christened converted to Christianity    beleed unable to move, as a ship is without wind (the nautical metaphor continues with calmed)

31    debitor and creditor i.e., book-keeping/a book-keeper (another dig at the arithmetician Cassio)    counter-caster one who employs counters in making calculations, an accountant

32    in good time opportunely (sarcastic)

33    bless the mark apologetic expression used to excuse the mention of something unpleasant or profane    his Moorship a contemptuous reference to Othello, varying “his worship” or “his lordship”; the term “moor” could be applied to a person of either African or Middle Eastern origin, and was often used to refer to someone from Barbary in north Africa; it was also used to mean “Muslim”    ancient ensign (i.e., soldier who carries the military banner)

35    service being a servant/military duty

36    Preferment promotion    letter and affection personal recommendation and favoritism

37    old gradation the traditional way of advancing steadily up the ranks

39    term manner, way    affined bound

41    follow serve

43    serve my turn serve my own purposes (serve plays on the notion of being a servant)

45    truly loyally    mark note, observe

46    knee-crooking bowing

48    time lifetime/time as a servant

49    provender food    cashiered (he’s) dismissed/discarded

50    Whip me whip (me is emphatic)

51    trimmed dressed up, adorned    visages outward appearances

52    attending on waiting on, serving

55    lined their coats i.e., got all they can/lined their purses

56    Do themselves homage serve their own interests exclusively

59    Were…Iago if I was Othello I would not wish to be a servant like me/if I were in Othello’s position I would not be fooled by a self-seeking servant

61    not I for I am not one for, I do not serve out of

62    peculiar personal

63    demonstrate display, manifest

64    native innate, natural    figure form/appearance

65    compliment extern external show

67    daws jackdaws (small birds of the crow family, proverbially foolish)/fools

68    full perfect, complete    owe own

69    carry’t carry it off, manage it

71    make after pursue

72    Proclaim denounce

73    though even though

74    though that although

75    chances possibilities

76    As it may that may cause it to

78    like timorous accent such terrifying tones

83    bags moneybags

85    Above i.e., on the upper staging level or gallery

89    Wherefore why

90    gown coat/senator’s robes

92    ram a proverbially lustful beast

93    tupping mounting sexually; the    ram was proverbially lusty, hence slang for “lecher”

94    snorting snoring (also picks up on the bestial imagery of the previous lines)    bell alarm bell

95    devil i.e., Othello (the devil was popularly imaged as black)    grandsire grandfather

98    reverend respected

102    charged ordered    haunt loiter, lurk

105    distemp’ring draughts intoxicating drinks

107    start startle, disrupt

110    spirits…place disposition and my position of authority

114    grange isolated house in the country

115    grave dignified, respected

116    simple honest

119    covered a term for copulation between a stallion and a mare    Barbary horse i.e., Othello    Barbary region in northern Africa including Morocco, Algiers, Tripoli and Tunis    nephews grandsons

120    coursers large powerful horses    jennets small Spanish horses    germans close relatives

121    profane irreverent/foul-mouthed

123    making…backs i.e., having sex

126    answer answer for, be held responsible for

128    pleasure wish

130    odd-even time that is neither day nor night—i.e., around midnight

131    Transported with be transported by

132    But with i.e., than    knave servant, lackey

133    gross lustful/vile

134    allowance permission

135    saucy insolent

138    from contrary to    civility civilized behavior

139    your reverence the respect due to you/you, a respected person

140    leave permission

141    gross monstrous, flagrant/indecent

142    wit intelligence, good sense

143    In i.e., to    extravagant and wheeling roaming and roving    stranger foreigner

144    Straight immediately

148    Strike…tinder i.e., strike a light

149    taper candle

150    accident event

154    meet appropriate    wholesome beneficial, conducive    place position (as Othello’s ensign)

155    producted produced as a witness

157    gall annoy    check reprimand

158    cast cast off, dismiss    embarked engaged, committed

159    loud reason resounding support

160    stands in act are underway    for i.e., to save

161    fathom ability

164    life livelihood

165    sign show, display (plays on the sense of “military flag”)

166    That in order that

167    Sagittary inn or house named after Sagittarius, a centaur (half-man, half-horse) famed for his archery; centaurs were associated with lust, so Sagittarius, always depicted with bow and arrow, may be seen as a type of bestial Cupid    raisèd search search party roused from sleep

170    my despisèd time the miserable remainder of my life/the remainder of my life in which I will be scorned for what has happened

172    unhappy misfortune-causing/ill-fated

175    Past thought beyond belief (or “understanding”)

178    treason…blood rebellion against her family/revolt of the (sexual) passions

180    charms spells, enchantments

181    property rightful nature    maidhood girlhood, virginity

188    discover reveal

191    may command have the authority to demand aid

193    deserve your pains reward you for your trouble

Act 1 Scene 2

1.2    Location: Venice (outside the Sagittary)

1    trade (mercantile) dealings/craft

2    very stuff fundamental material (stuff maintains the metaphor of    trade with its senses of “fabric or goods for exchange/materials for manufacture”)

3    contrived premeditated    iniquity wickedness

5    yerked stabbed with a sudden movement    him i.e., Rodorigo

7    prated spoke insolently/told tales, blabbed

8    scurvy contemptible

11    I…him I restrained myself with great difficulty from attacking him/I tolerated him with great difficulty

12    fast firmly

13    magnifico i.e., Brabantio, one of the foremost noblemen, or Magnifici, in Venice

14    in his effect at his disposal    a…duke’s a powerful influence/an influence that is potentially double that of the duke    voice influence/vote

16    what whatever    grievance hardship, oppression

18    cable rope, i.e., scope

20    signiory Venetian governing body

21    ’Tis…know it is not yet known

23    promulgate declare publicly

24    siege throne, i.e., rank    demerits merits, deserts

25    unbonneted with my hat off (i.e., respectfully, modestly)/without removing my hat (i.e., on terms of equality)    proud great, splendid

28    unhousèd unconfined

29    circumscription and confine enclosure and confinement

30    sea’s worth i.e., treasure lying under the sea    yond yonder, over there

31    raisèd roused from sleep/angered

34    parts personal qualities    title legal rights as a husband/high military rank    perfect unblemished, guiltless

36    Janus Roman god with two faces

41    haste-post-haste speedy, urgent

43    matter business

44    divine guess

45    heat urgency

46    sequent successive

51    several quests separate search parties

56    makes he is he doing

57    Faith truly    boarded seized (a vessel) by force/had sex with    caract carrack, large Spanish ship used in war or as a merchant vessel (implicitly loaded with “treasure,” a euphemism for “vagina” or “chastity”)

62    Marry by the Virgin Mary (a common oath; puns on married)

63    Have with you I’ll join you

65    advised warned

66    to with

67    Holla whoa, stop

71    up i.e., in their sheaths

74    foul abhorrent/wicked/ugly/dirty, black

75    stowed Brabantio unwittingly continues the nautical imagery: “to stow” is to store cargo on a ship or in a sexual sense “fill with the penis”

77    refer me to entrust myself to (the authority of)

79    tender young/gentle/meek    fair beautiful/unstained/pale-complexioned, white

80    opposite opposed

81    curlèd i.e., with elegantly styled hair    dearling darlings, favorites

82    a general mock universal scorn

83    her guardage the guardianship of her father

85    Judge…world let the world judge    gross in sense blatantly obvious

86    practised on worked cunningly on, deceived

87    minerals mineral potions or poisons

88    motion normal faculties/perceptions    disputed on debated formally

90    attach arrest

92    arts…warrant magical practices that are forbidden and illegal

95    Hold hold back, halt

96    of my inclining on my side

98    Whither…I where do you want me to

101    course…session the proper process of a judicial hearing (or “…of an immediate judicial hearing”)

106    present immediate, urgent/current

114    brothers…state fellow senators

116    have passage free i.e., go unrestrained

Act 1 Scene 3

1.3    Location: Venice (duke’s residence/council chamber)

1    composition consistency

2    them i.e., the news

3    disproportioned inconsistent

7    jump agree, coincide    just account exact amount 8    aim guess

12    I…sense this discrepancy does not make me so overconfident that I fail to recognize and fear the main point (i.e., that the Turkish fleet is making for Cyprus)

18    preparation force prepared for war

21    How…by what do you make of

23    assay test/endeavor    pageant show, spectacle/trick

24    in false gaze looking in the wrong direction/deluded

25    Th’importancy the importance

28    So…it so can he (the Turk) win it (Cyprus) with less arduous conflict

29    For that because    brace state of defensive readiness

30    th’abilities the strength/resources

31    dressed in equipped with

33    latest last

34    attempt undertaking/attack

35    wage risk

38    Ottomites members of the Ottoman Empire—i.e., Turks    reverend and gracious i.e., senators

40    injointed them joined themselves    after following (in the rear; nautical term)

42    restem…course hold once again to their former course

43    frank open

45    servitor servant

46    free unconstrained, willing    recommends informs/commends himself to

51    post-post-haste immediately/speedily

54    general enemy Ottoman i.e., universal enemy to all Christians

55    gentle noble

58    place position (as a senator)    aught anything

59    the general care concern for the public interest/widespread anxiety at current events

60    particular personal

61    floodgate i.e., torrential (like water released when a floodgate is opened)

62    engluts consumes

63    is still itself i.e., is unchanged or undiminished by other    sorrows

68    abused wronged/misused/deceived

69    mountebanks charlatans/quack doctors

70    prepost’rously unnaturally    err stray/blunder/sin

71    sense perception, discernment, reason

72    Sans without

73    proceeding manner of behaving/course of action

74    beguiled cheated/deprived/bewitched

75    bloody death-dealing (witchcraft was punishable by death)

77    After…sense according to your own interpretation (however harsh)    our proper my own

78    Stood…action were the accused party in your lawsuit

85    but except

86    grave respected, wise, dignified

87    approved proven/esteemed

90    head and front highest extent (literally, “head and forehead”)

91    Rude uncultivated/rough

93    since…pith i.e., since I was seven years old    pith strength

94    Till…wasted i.e., until nine months ago    wasted passed away/waned/squandered

95    dearest worthiest, most valuable/best-loved    tented covered with military tents

97    broils turmoil, conflict

100    round blunt, plain

102    conjuration invocation of spirits/spells

103    withal with

106    motion natural inner impulses/physical movement

108    years age (Othello is older than Desdemona)    credit reputation

113    practices tricks/treachery/schemes

114    vouch assert, affirm

115    mixtures potions, medicines (perhaps with connotations of “unlawful sexual intercourse”)    blood passions/sexual appetite

116    dram small draft, dose

117    wrought worked

119    test evidence/trial

120    habits clothes (i.e., appearances)

121    modern seeming commonplace appearance    prefer put forward

123    indirect devious, deceitful    forcèd courses forcible means

125    question conversation

126    affordeth grants, yields naturally

131    office official position

137    blood nature/passions/anger

138    justly exactly/truthfully    present legal term meaning “to lay before a court”

143    Still continually

145    passed experienced/got through

148    disastrous unlucky/calamitous

149    moving changeable/emotionally stirring    accidents events    flood and field water and land/sea and battlefield

150    scapes escapes    i’th’imminent deadly breach in the gap in a fortification (made by a battery), which presents an imminent danger of death

151    insolent proud, overbearing

153    portance bearing/conduct

154    antres caves    deserts idle empty wildernesses

156    hint occasion/opportunity    process story, account

158    Anthropophagi man-eaters

159    these…hear in order to hear these things

160    seriously earnestly    incline be disposed mentally/lean in physically

165    pliant suitable, accommodating

167    pilgrimage i.e., his life’s journey and its adventures    dilate relate/expand upon

168    parcels small parts

169    intentively intently, with close attention

170    beguile her of coax from her (perhaps a deliberate shift from the sense of “cheat” employed by the duke in line 74)

171    stroke blow

173    kisses could mean “gentle touches”

174    passing surpassingly, exceedingly

177    made her created her to be/made for her

180    hint opportunity/indication

184    witness testify to

187    Take…best i.e., make the best of a bad situation

192    bad mistaken/wrongful

198    education upbringing

199    learn teach

201    hitherto thus far

203    preferring promoting/esteeming

204    challenge claim, assert as a right

207    Please it if it please

208    get beget, conceive

211    but were it not that

212    For your sake because of you

214    escape transgression/elopement

215    clogs blocks of wood attached to the neck or leg to prevent escape

216    like yourself on your behalf/as you would speak if you were calm    lay apply    sentence opinion/saying, maxim

217    grise flight of stairs/single step

218    remedies are past it is too late for remedies    griefs hardships, suffering/distress

219    late recently

220    mischief misfortune/wicked action

221    next nearest

222    takes takes away/seizes hold/strikes

223    Patience…makes enduring it patiently enables one to make light of the injury inflicted by fortune

225    spends engages in/exhausts/expends (perhaps with the suggestion of tears)    bootless pointless/incurable

226    beguile cheat/deprive

228    He…hears he who derives only the easy comfort of such a saying certainly bears out your maxim (bears the sentence plays on the sense of “undergoes judicial sentence”)    free easy/unrestrained/costless

231    to…borrow must try to abate his grief with the scant resources of patience    poor unfortunate/feeble/impecunious

232    These…equivocal i.e., such maxims are just as sweet as they are bitter, so they are equally valid in whichever fashion they are applied

235    bruisèd crushed, battered    pierced affected, moved (i.e., soothed)    through the ears i.e., by words

238    fortitude strength

239    allowed sufficiency acknowledged ability, demonstrable competence    opinion public opinion    effects events/outcomes

240    throws…you votes for you as the more secure choice    slubber soil, smear

241    stubborn difficult/unyielding    boisterous rough, violent

243    flinty hard, stony    couch bed (in addition to the nature of war in general, Othello also refers to having to sleep on the ground in one’s armor)

244    thrice-driven i.e., extremely soft, having had the lightest feathers separated from the rest three times over    down fine feathers of young birds    agnize acknowledge

245    alacrity readiness

246    hardness hardship/a hard bed

248    bending…state submitting (possibly bowing) to your authority as duke

249    fit disposition suitable arrangements

250    reference…exhibition assignment of lodgings and financial maintenance

251    accommodation provision/lodgings    besort suitable company

252    levels with equals/befits

258    eye sight

259    unfolding ensuing speech/explanation    prosperous favorable

260    charter permission/privilege

261    simpleness unassuming disposition/guilelessness/foolishness

264    violence violation of convention/extreme strength of feeling    storm of fortunes the tempestuous nature of my lot/the disruption of my privileged life

265    subdued Even to entirely submissive to/wholly conquered by

266    very quality fundamental nature

268    parts qualities

269    consecrate dedicate solemnly, devote

271    moth i.e., insignificant creature/creature that hovers idly/source of expense

272    rites rites of love/rights, privileges

274    dear heartfelt/costly

275    voice support, consent

276    Vouch witness

278    comply with heat submit to sexual desire    young affects youthful passions

279    defunct…satisfaction no longer active (defunct, dead) desire for sexual satisfaction

280    free generous

281    heaven may heaven    that if

282    scant neglect/diminish

283    toys trifles/Cupid’s arrows

284    feathered alludes either to Cupid’s wings or to his arrows    Cupid Roman god of love (traditionally depicted as a blind boy with wings)    seel blind (literally to sew up the eyes of a young hawk for training purposes)    wanton dullness post-coital lethargy

285    speculative…instrument i.e., eyes, official faculties of vision

286    That so that    disports (sexual) entertainments

287    skillet cooking pot    helm helmet

288    indign unworthy, dishonorable

289    Make head advance/raise troops    estimation reputation

291    cries calls for

298    quality and respect significance and relevance

299    import concern

302    conveyance escorting

307    delighted delightful

308    fair beautiful/pale/virtuous    black ugly/dark-complexioned/wicked

312    Honest honorable/virtuous/truthful

315    in…advantage at the most favorable opportunity

317    direction instruction

318    time i.e., current urgency of affairs

320    heart friend

323    incontinently immediately/loosely, unchastely

326    prescription ancient right/doctor’s prescription

329    Ere before

330    guinea-hen female turkey or guinea fowl/prostitute    change exchange    baboon i.e., an idiot (monkeys were also associated with lechery)

331    fond doting, infatuated/foolish

332    virtue nature/power/moral strength

333    A fig! coarse exclamation of dismissive contempt, often accompanied by the thrusting of the thumb between the index and middle fingers

335    set plant    hyssop an aromatic herb    gender type

336    distract divide    sterile with idleness unproductive as a result of neglect

337    corrigible authority power to correct

338    beam bar from which the scales of a balance are suspended/the balance itself    poise counterbalance

339    blood passions    preposterous perverse/illogical/monstrous

340    conclusions outcomes    motions impulses, emotions    carnal stings sexual urges (with phallic connotations)

341    unbitted unbridled, unrestrained    sect or scion cutting or shoot

343    will personal inclination/sexual desire

345    knit tied firmly, committed    perdurable indestructible

346    stead help, support

347    defeat…beard disfigure your face with a false beard (or perhaps “by growing a beard”)

350    answerable sequestration corresponding separation

352    locusts fruit of the carob tree    coloquintida colocynth, a    bitter apple

353    change for youth exchange Othello for a younger man/because she’s young (and therefore changeable)

355    delicate enjoyable/elegant/ingenious    Make raise    sanctimony holiness

356    erring roving/blundering/sinful    barbarian person from Barbary/uncivilized savage    supersubtle extremely refined/supremely cunning

358    pox of plague on    pox plague, venereal disease    clean…way entirely the wrong measure to take

359    in for    compassing achieving/sexually embracing    joy sexual pleasure/Desdemona

360    fast reliable/constant    issue outcome

361    art i.e., may be

362    hearted grounded in the heart

363    conjunctive united    cuckold him make him a cuckold (i.e., a man with an unfaithful wife)

365    Traverse move (a military command)

369    betimes early

370    Go to expression of dismissive impatience

373    profane abuse/treat irreverently

374    snipe fool, dupe/type of bird

375    But except

376    abroad i.e., widely

377    done my office performed my role (i.e., had sex with my wife)

378    in that kind of that nature

379    do…surety proceed as if it were a certainty    holds me well has a good opinion of me

381    proper handsome/fine/accomplished

382    plume up glorify/put a feather in the cap of

385    he i.e., Cassio

386    person presence/appearance    dispose disposition/manner

387    framed formed    false unfaithful (to their husbands)

388    free frank/generous

390    tenderly easily

392    engend’red conceived

393    monstrous unnatural, deformed

Act 2 Scene 1

2.1    Location: a port in Cyprus

1    cape headland

2    high-wrought flood agitated sea

3    main sea

4    Descry catch sight of

7    ruffianed behaved as a ruffian, i.e., raged

8    ribs strengthening timbers in the framework of a ship    mountains mountainous waves

9    hold the mortise keep their joints secure

10    segregation dispersal

12    chidden rebuked, repelled (by the shore)    billow ocean swell

13    mane puns on “main” (i.e., sea)

14    burning bear the constellation Ursa Minor (used for navigation)

15    guards the two stars in Ursa Minor that were second in brightness to the Pole Star    pole the Pole Star or North Star

16    like molestation similar turbulence

17    enchafèd furious, roused

19    embayed sheltered in a bay

23    designment enterprise

24    sufferance damage

28    Veronesa ship from or built in Verona (city in northern Italy)

31    in…here on his way here with full delegated authority

34    Touching regarding    sadly serious, grave

35    pray i.e., prays

39    full complete, perfect

42    the…regard the blueness of the sea and the sky one indistinguishable sight

46    arrivancy people arriving

48    approve praise, testify to the worth of

52    bark ship    pilot ship’s captain

53    Of…allowance acknowledged to be a man of proven expertise

54    not…cure not being fatally overindulged, remain confident of a good outcome (medical metaphor: “surfeit” refers to the gastrointestinal problems that result from too much food and drink)

58    brow o’th’sea i.e., a cliff top

60    shape him for imagine it to be

61    shot of courtesy welcoming cannon shot

67    achieved won

68    paragons excels    wild unrestrained/excited    fame report

69    quirks clever conceits/verbal tricks    blazoning praising/proclaiming/vividly descriptive

70    th’essential…creation the innate God-given beauty of body or soul    vesture clothing

71    tire the engineer exhaust the writer trying to describe her (tire, picking up on vesture, puns on “attire”)    engineer author

72    put in i.e., arrived at the harbor

74    speed haste/good fortune

76    guttered jagged    congregated sands massed sands, i.e., sandbanks

77    ensteeped immersed in water    enclog obstruct

78    As as if    omit neglect

79    mortal deadly

83    in…of to be escorted by

84    footing landing    anticipates…speed occurs a week earlier than we had expected

85    sennight’s week’s    Jove supreme Roman god

87    tall brave/flne/tall-masted

88    quick lively/rapid/burning

89    extincted extinguished

95    Enwheel encircle

102    fellowship company, i.e., group of ships

104    citadel fortress (where a garrison would have been stationed)

108    gall vex, irritate

109    breeding upbringing

112    tongue i.e., in speaking incessantly/in kissing

114    has no speech is not a great talker/has been rendered silent with embarrassment at Iago’s words

116    still always    leave a free moment/permission

117    before in the presence of

119    chides scolds

121    pictures i.e., silent/attractive in appearance    bells i.e., noisy and jangling    parlours nods at the original meaning of the word: “room set aside for conversation”

122    players triflers as opposed to serious workers

123    housewifery housekeeping    housewives hussies, whores

125    Turk i.e., an infidel, not to be trusted

126    play with sexual connotations    work do chores/have sex

132    assay try/put me to the test

134    beguile divert attention from

137    invention inventiveness

138    pate head/brains    birdlime sticky substance spread on twigs to catch birds    frieze coarse woolen cloth

139    muse inspiring goddess    labours toils/is in the process of giving birth (a sense continued with delivered)

141    fair beautiful/fair-haired    wit intelligence, perhaps playing on a “genital” sense

142    The…it i.e., wisdom will make use of fairness;    use plays on sense of “sexual employment”

143    black dark-haired and/or complexioned

144    thereto in addition

145    white fair-complexioned person (puns on “wight,” meaning “person,” and possibly “wit,” witty fellow)    blackness plays on sense of “vagina”    fit suit/fit into during sex

149    folly foolishness/lewdness    to an heir to marry an heir/get pregnant

150    fond foolish

151    foul ugly/black

152    thereunto in addition

153    foul pranks lewd acts

154    heavy grievous/burdensome

155    one…itself one whose virtue is so powerful that it rightfully compels the approving testimony of malice itself

158    tongue i.e., speech, plays on sense of “oral sex”    at will when she wanted, plays on sense of “will”—carnal desire/penis

159    gay showily dressed

160    Fled…may denied her own wishes even when she knew she might indulge them/denied her lover until she chose

164    change…tail i.e., have (adulterous) sex    cod’s head penis    salmon’s tail vagina

167    wight person, plays on “white” meaning “target” (vagina)

169    suckle breastfeed    chronicle small beer concern herself with trivial matters

172    liberal freely spoken/licentious

173    home directly    in the in the role of a

176    gyve shackle

177    courtship courtly manners (plays on sense of “wooing”)    You…indeed Iago mockingly pretends to speak to Cassio    tricks fashionable mannerisms, courtly practices

178    kissed…fingers a gesture of courtesy to a lady

179    sir i.e., well-bred gentleman

180    courtesy bow, courteous gesture

181    clyster-pipes tubes used for anal administration of medicine or enemas

184    Lo look

191    bark sailing ship

192    Olympus-high as high as Mount Olympus, the home of the Greek gods

193    to die my time to die

197    Succeeds can follow

203    stops arrests/chokes    here at this very moment/in my heart or throat

207    set down loosen

214    prattle chatter    out of fashion contrary to my usual manner/unfashionably    dote behave foolishly/indulge

215    comforts happiness

216    coffers boxes, trunks

217    master ship’s captain

219    challenge claim, require

222    base low-born/unworthy

223    list listen to

224    watches…guard is on duty at the guardhouse

225    directly completely

227    thus i.e., on the lips    Mark me note, recollect

228    but only

229    prating chattering    discreet discerning, prudent

231    dull sluggish    act of sport sex    a game sexual play/a new quarry

232    favour appearance    sympathy similarity

233    required conveniences necessary correspondences (or “advantages”)

234    heave the gorge retch    disrelish find distasteful

236    pregnant evident    position proposition, assertion

237    eminent…degree i.e., first in line    eminent high/conspicuous    degree step

238    voluble inconstant/glib    conscionable ruled by conscience

239    humane courteous/kindly    seeming appearance    compass achievement    salt lecherous

240    slipper slippery    subtle cunning    occasion opportunity

241    stamp coin    advantages opportunities    true genuine/honest

243    folly foolishness/lewdness    green young/inexperienced    after out for    pestilent poisonous/confounded

244    complete perfect, consummate

245    condition disposition

246    Blessed fig’s-end! exclamation of dismissive contempt    fig’s-end vagina    The…grapes i.e., she’s as mortal (and open to desire) as the next person

247    pudding sausage/penis

248    paddle stroke/play with her fingers

250    index table of contents/preface (plays on the sense of the pointing “forefinger”)    obscure hidden

252    mutabilities changes, signs of sexual fickleness

253    hard close    main may contribute to the language of hands and fingers with a play on the French main (“hand”)    exercise action/sexual act    incorporate carnal, united in one body

255    Watch you remain alert, be on the lookout    for…you I’ll bestow on you the leading role in carrying out our plan/I’ll give you instructions about what to do

257    tainting his discipline casting aspersions on his military skill

258    minister provide

260    choler anger    haply perhaps/with any luck

261    these i.e., the people

262    whose…again i.e., who will not be appeased

263    displanting uprooting, supplanting

264    prefer promote, advance

265    prosperity success

266    I…opportunity it will bring about any opportunity for me

267    warrant assure    his i.e., Othello’s

271    apt likely/appropriate    of great credit very believable

272    howbeit…not although I cannot bear him

275    dear beloved, precious (with grim play on the sense of “costly”)

276    peradventure perhaps/probably

277    accountant accountable

278    diet feed

279    For that because

280    leaped into plays on the sense of “mounted sexually”    seat official place/saddle/(wife’s) vagina

287    poor…Venice i.e., Rodorigo    trace follow

288    For on account of    stand…on continues to respond to my incitements (suggestive of urging dogs on in a hunt)

289    on the hip at a disadvantage

290    right garb way I plan/most effective manner

291    night-cap wife/(wife’s) vagina; Iago suspects Cassio of having sex with Emilia

293    egregiously monstrously, shamefully

294    practising upon scheming against

295    ’Tis here i.e., the plan exists/the plan is in my head

Act 2 Scene 2

2.2    Location: Cyprus

2    mere perdition total destruction

3    triumph public celebration of victory

4    addition rank/occupation

5    nuptial marriage

6    offices kitchens, pantries

7    told counted, struck

Act 2 Scene 3

2.3    Location: Cyprus (the citadel)

2    stop restraint

3    outsport discretion make merry beyond the bounds of prudence

8    with your earliest at your earliest convenience

10    the…ensue i.e., though married, Othello and Desdemona have yet to consummate their union

14    cast dismissed

16    wanton sportive/amorous/lascivious    Jove the supreme Roman god was known for his amorous encounters with beautiful women

17    exquisite accomplished, perfect

18    full of game sexually sportive, lustful

19    delicate charming/dainty/elegant

20    sounds a parley issues a summons (literally, to military negotiations)

22    alarum call to arms

24    stoup cup, tankard

25    without outside    brace pair    gallants fine young men disposed to pleasure    fain gladly    have a measure i.e., drink a toast

27    unhappy unfortunate

30    craftily qualified skillfully diluted

31    innovation alteration/revolution    infortunate unfortunate, unlucky

36    it dislikes me it displeases me/I do it reluctantly

39    offence aggression, readiness to take offense

40    my…dog the overindulged lapdog of a young lady    sick lovesick

42    caroused drunk as a toast

43    Potations pottle-deep half-gallon drafts    watch remain alert, be on the lookout (for a chance to provoke Cassio)

44    swelling proud

45    That…distance who are very conscious of protecting their honors (and thus quick to take offense)

46    elements essence, typical constituents

47    flustered made drunkenly excitable

48    watch are awake

49    action deed/fight

51    approve prove, bear out

52    stream current

53    rouse large quantity of drink

56    cannikin small drinking vessel

59    span brief period (literally, span of the hand)

63    most…potting big drinkers

64    swag-bellied with a belly that sags heavily

67    drinks you drinks (you is emphatic)

68    Almain German    pottle half-gallon drinking vessel

71    do you justice i.e., match you in the amount you drink

73    King Stephen twelfth-century King of England    and-a a

74    crown gold coin of varying value in different countries

75    held considered

76    lown loon, rascal, base person

80    auld old

88    quality rank

98    th’platform the terrace on which guns were mounted and where the night watch stood guard    set the watch mount the guard

102    just equinox exact equal    equinox moment when day and night are of equal length

103    pity of a pity about

109    watch…set remain awake during two revolutions of the clock (horologe)

119    hazard…second risk as important a place as lieutenant

120    ingraft engrained

128    knave rogue/servant, low-ranking person

129    twiggen bottle wicker basket (i.e., Rodorigo’s body will be criss-crossed with wounds and bruises)

133    hold hold back

135    mazzard head

141    masters sirs

142    bell town alarm bell Diablo devil (Spanish)

143    rise rise up/riot

144    ashamed filled with shame/dishonored

149    place (your) official positions

152    turned Turks converted to Islam/betrayed ourselves    that…Ottomites attack each other, which the heaven-sent storm prevented the Turks from doing to us; may also allude to Islamic prohibitions against alcohol/internecine strife

155    carve i.e., with his sword

156    light of small value    he dies i.e., I’ll kill him

157    dreadful inspiring dread and terror

158    From her propriety out of its rightful ordered state

159    grieving distress, sorrow

160    love loyal affection for me

162    quarter conduct toward one another    terms speech/relations with one another

163    Devesting them undressing themselves

164    unwitted men deprived men of their senses

165    tilting thrusting

167    peevish odds senseless quarrel/headstrong conflict

168    would wish

170    are thus forgot have forgotten yourself in this way

172    wont accustomed

173    stillness calmness/sobriety

175    censure judgment

176    unlace undo (the strings of a purse in order to spend the contents)

177    opinion reputation

181    offends hurts

182    aught anything

188    blood passion/anger    safer guides i.e., reason, judgment

189    collied blackened, obscured

190    Assays attempts

193    rout brawl

194    approved proved (guilty)

195    twinned…birth been my twin

196    town of war garrison town

197    wild excitable, unruly, not entirely under control

198    manage conduct

199    on…safety! at the guardhouse and while on duty protecting public safety

200    monstrous unnatural, outrageous (ironically, a mere full stop stands in the way of the answer to Othello’s question)

201    partially…office if, being personally predisposed (to Cassio) or allied (to him) because of your official roles

204    Touch test/accuse/provoke    near intimately/closely

211    with…him determined to use his sword upon him (execute plays on sense of “put to death”)

213    his pause him to stop

217    rather For that the more rapidly because

219    high in oath cursing loudly

225    forget forget themselves

226    him i.e., Montano

229    indignity insult, affront

230    pass let pass

232    mince make light of

238    sweeting sweetheart, darling

240    Myself…surgeon i.e., I will ensure that you receive good medical care/dress your wounds

242    distracted confused/caused disorder among

244    balmy soothing

252    sense physical feeling, i.e., pain    idle useless/empty

253    imposition thing imposed on one by others

255    recover regain (the favor of)    cast…mood dismissed in his fit of anger

257    Sue to petition, entreat

260    slight worthless    indiscreet foolish, lacking sound judgment    speak parrot babble repetitively/speak rubbish

261    discourse fustian speak elaborate nonsense

264    What who

268    nothing wherefore no reason for it

270    pleasance pleasure

274    frankly openly, unreservedly

275    moraler moralizer

277    mend it improve matters

279    Hydra in Greek mythology, the many-headed snake that re-grew two heads for every one that was cut off    stop stop up, silence

280    inordinate immoderate

282    familiar friendly (but quibbles on the sense of “malign attendant spirit”)

284    approved it found it to be so through experience

285    a time some time

286    for that (namely) that

287    mark, and denotement observation

288    parts personal qualities    importune crave, entreat; plays on negative senses of “pester, annoy/solicit for purposes of prostitution”

289    free generous, but plays ambiguously on secondary sense of “sexually available”; Iago’s speech is open to a negative construction throughout    apt ready, willing

291    splinter set with a splint

292    lay wager/lying down a woman (for sex)    crack damage (with sexual, anatomical overtones)

295    protest declare, avow

296    think it freely believe so unreservedly    betimes early

297    undertake take on the matter/vouch    desperate of hopeless about    check halt

301    free freely given/generous/frank

302    Probal probable, credible, reasonable

304    Th’inclining disposed to be sympathetic/yielding    subdue win over

305    framed as fruitful created as generous

308    seals pledges/tokens

309    enfettered shackled, enslaved

310    list desires

311    appetite inclination/sexual desire

312    function capabilities, intellectual faculties (weak because he is so enamored of her); possible play on the sense of “sexual potency”

313    parallel i.e., to Iago’s scheming intentions

314    Divinity theology

315    put on urge, incite (men to commit)

316    suggest tempt

318    Plies solicits, works on

320    pestilence plague/wickedness

321    repeals him tries to get him reinstated

323    credit trust/reputation

324    pitch sticky black tarlike substance

327    chase hunt    fills…cry makes up one of the pack

329    cudgelled beaten    issue outcome

330    wit sense

334    dilatory slow/delaying

336    cashiered (got) dismissed

337    against exposed to

338    Yet…ripe i.e., the dismissal of Cassio demonstrates that our plan is blossoming and will ensure that the eventual outcome (fruit) of our schemes is successful

339    troth truth

345    move entreat, solicit

347    the while meanwhile

348    jump precisely

350    device scheming

Act 3 Scene 1

3.1    Location: Cyprus (governor’s residence/citadel) Musicians music was traditionally played outside a bridal bedroom at dawn

1    content your pains pay for your efforts

3    Naples southwestern Italian city

4    i’th’nose with a nasal twang like that of the Neapolitan accent/like one whose nasal tissue has been damaged by syphilis, of which there was a high incidence in Naples

5    How what

8    tail penis (though the Musician hears “tale,” i.e., story)

10    wind instrument sense has now shifted to “flatulent anus”

11    love’s the love you bear him/Othello’s lovemaking with Desdemona

12    noise plays on nose

17    up away

20    keep…quillets hold back your quibbles

21    gentlewoman female attendant    stirring up and about (but in his response the Clown shifts the sense to “sexually arousing”)

23    seem arrange, contrive

24    In happy time (you have come at) an opportune moment

31    presently immediately

32    mean method

36    A Florentine i.e., even a Florentine (one of Cassio’s own countrymen)

38    displeasure being out of favor

41    fame reputation

42    affinity family/connections    wholesome sound, beneficial

44    suitor petitioner

48    advantage of a favorable opportunity for

52    bosom heart, inmost thoughts

Act 3 Scene 2

2    do my duties convey my respects

3    works fortifications

4    Repair return/make your way

Act 3 Scene 3

3    I warrant I’m sure

13    strangeness aloofness, unfriendliness

14    politic discreet/expedient

17    nice and waterish insubstantial and thin (or possibly “luxurious and succulent”)

18    breed…circumstances renew itself out of various events/generate so few opportunities (for my reinstatement)

19    supplied filled

21    doubt fear

22    warrant assurance, guarantee

25    watch him tame tame him by preventing him from sleeping (a method for training hawks)

26    board a shrift table (shall seem) a confessional

29    solicitor pleader/representative/lawyer (legal language is continued with cause)

30    away up

36    do your discretion obey your own judgment

46    suitor petitioner (Desdemona unconsciously puns on the sense of “lover”)

50    grace virtue/favor with you

51    present reconciliation take restore him to your favor immediately/accept the reconciliation he now seeks

53    in cunning deliberately

57    sooth truly

65    dinner lunch

72    trespass fault, offense    common reason everyday judgment

74    best best men    not almost hardly even

75    check reprimand

78    mamm’ring stammering hesitantly

82    in i.e., into favor

85    boon favor graciously granted

88    peculiar particular, personal

90    touch test

91    poise heaviness, importance/balance, equipoise (making choice hard)    difficult weight hard to assess or weigh

94    Whereon as a result of which

97    straight straightaway, very soon

98    fancies inclinations, whims

100    Perdition destruction/damnation    catch seize

114    aught anything

126    of…Of in my confidence during

128    purse furrow, knit

130    conceit imagining/idea

134    for because

136    stops hesitations/abrupt pauses

137    false treacherous

138    custom habit

139    close dilations secret delays/hidden accusations

140    rule control, restrain

145    seem none not be men/not seem to be anything at all, not convince in the slightest

154    that…free the thing that even slaves are not bound to do (i.e., speak their thoughts)

158    uncleanly morally impure

159    leets courts held by some manorial lords    law-days days on which courts of law meet    sessions sittings of the law court

160    With together with

161    thy friend i.e., Othello

165    vicious wicked/faulty/blameworthy

167    jealousy suspicious nature/anxious vigilance

169    conceits conjectures, imagines

171    scattering wild/random/disordered    observance observations/dutiful care

177    immediate closest

184    if even if

188    mock…on taunts the victim (the jealous man) that gives it life    mock torment/delude/ridicule

189    cuckold man with an unfaithful wife

190    wronger i.e., his wife

191    tells counts

195    fineless limitless

201    follow…suspicions imitate the waxing moon by growing in suspicion/like a madman, respond to each new phase of the moon with new suspicions

203    goat proverbially lecherous animal

205    exsufflicate puffed-up    blowed blown-up/whispered/fly-blown (i.e., putrid, full of flies’ eggs)

206    inference conclusion/implication

210    merits qualities/worth

211    revolt disobedience, infidelity

221    secure free from doubt/overconfident

223    self-bounty inherent generosity/good nature

224    country contains a pun on “cunt” (a similar quibble on “con” may lie within conscience)

225    pranks sexual mischief

227    undone plays on sense of “not copulated with”

233    go to expression of dismissive contempt

235    seel sew (as a young hawk’s eyes are for training purposes)    oak a closely grained wood

239    bound indebted (plays on sense of “tied, shackled”)

244    your love love for you

246    grosser larger/more lewd    issues conclusions    larger broader/coarser    reach “stretch, aim” (verb) or “scope, range” (noun)

247    suspicion mere conjecture

250    success outcome

254    honest chaste/virtuous

258    affect like, prefer

259    clime…degree country, race, and rank

261    will inclination/willfulness/sexual appetite    rank rebellious/corrupt/rancid, foul-smelling/lascivious

262    Foul abhorrent/morally impure/dirty, blackened/choked with foreign matter    disproportions deformities/lack of symmetry

263    in position in this assertion

264    Distinctly specifically

266    fall…forms come to compare you with men of her own nationality (conceivably country puns on “cunt”)

267    happily perhaps/with pleasure

275    scan examine

276    place official position (though fills it up generates a vaginal sense)

279    means methods/intentions

280    strain his entertainment urge his reinstatement

283    busy over-zealous/interfering

285    hold her free consider her innocent, plays on negative sense of “sexually available”

286    government self-control

289    quantities dimensions, aspects

290    dealings behavior/interaction/sexual dealings    haggard wild (a haggard is an untamed female hawk)

291    jesses straps fastened around the legs of a hawk to help keep it attached to the falconer

292    whistle…wind set her free (a falconer dismissed a hawk with a whistle; unwanted hawks were released in the same direction as the wind was blowing)

293    prey at fortune fend for herself, hunt randomly    Haply, for perhaps, because

294    soft…conversation pleasing sociable accomplishments

295    chamberers fashionable men who frequent ladies’ chambers

297    abused wronged/deceived

299    delicate charming/pleasure-seeking

302    corner nook/vagina

303    uses sexual employment

304    Prerogatived privileged, advantaged

306    forkèd plague horned affliction (cuckolds were traditionally supposed to grow horns)

307    do quicken are conceived

308    mocked deceived/flouted/parodied

311    generous noble

312    attend await

316    pain…forehead suggestive of the cuckold’s horns

317    watching not sleeping

320    napkin handkerchief

324    remembrance love token

326    Wooed entreated, enticed

327    conjured her entreated her/made her swear

328    reserves keeps

329    work ta’en out embroidery copied

332    I nothing I am nothing to him/I know nothing    fantasy whim/desire

335    common unremarkable/vulgar/open to use by all    thing plays on the sense of “vagina”

346    to th’advantage opportunely, taking the advantage

354    lack miss/need

355    Be…on’t do not admit that you know anything about it

360    holy writ scripture

362    conceits ideas/imaginings

363    distaste be distasteful

364    act action

366    poppy opium    mandragora sedative made from the root of the mandragora, or mandrake, plant

369    owed’st owned

372    Avaunt get away    rack torture device that stretched the limbs

378    free unconstrained, untroubled

380    wanting missing

384    Pioneers foot-soldiers, the lowest kind of soldier

385    So as long as

387    plumèd wearing helmets adorned with feathers

389    trump trumpet

390    fife flute-like instrument, often used in military music

391    quality essential nature

392    Pride glory/proud magnificence    pomp and circumstance splendid display and ceremony

393    mortal engines deadly machines (i.e., cannon)    rude rough, raucous

394    Jove’s dread clamours i.e., thunder, Jove’s weapon

404    probation proof

408    remorse pity/penitence

410    amazed full of terror and consternation

415    God b’wi’you God be with you, i.e., goodbye    O wretched fool Iago addresses himself

419    profit profitable lesson

420    sith since    offence hurt (to me)/antagonism (in my friend)

421    shouldst be seem to be

422    should be ought to be

423    that that which

428    Dian i.e., Diana, Roman goddess of chastity and the moon

429    cords…streams i.e., means of committing suicide, or perhaps murder

437    supervision sight that you are gazing down on    grossly blatantly/coarsely

438    topped mounted sexually

441    prospect point from which they might be viewed

442    bolster share a bed/have sex

443    More other    own i.e., own eyes

444    satisfaction proof/freedom from doubt (plays on the sense of “sexual fulfillment”)

446    prime lecherous    hot sexually excited

447    salt lustful    wolves reputed to be libidinous, especially females    in pride in heat    fools idiots/lewd people    gross great/coarse

449    imputation…circumstances attribution and convincing circumstantial details

455    Pricked spurred

456    lay shared a bed

467    sigh Iago moves into the present tense to give his account an air of horrible immediacy

471    foregone conclusion event that had already occurred

472    shrewd doubt grievous suspicion

476    yet as yet

487    slave villain

490    fond foolish/doting/infatuated

493    hearted fixed in the heart

494    fraught burden

495    aspics asps (venomous snakes)

499    Pontic sea Black Sea

500    compulsive onward-flowing, driven

502    Propontic Sea of Marmora (situated between the Aegean and the Black Sea)    Hellespont the Dardanelles (the strait between the Aegean and the Sea of Marmora)

505    capable capacious

506    marble i.e., dappled with clouds/hard and indifferent

508    engage pledge, commit

511    clip embrace

513    execution action, performance    wit mind

515    remorse (an act of) compassion (for Othello)

516    What…ever whatever the bloodthirsty business

519    to’t to the test

524    minx lewd, wanton woman/prostitute

Act 3 Scene 4

3.4    Location: Cyprus (presumably outside the citadel)

1    sirrah sir (used to a social inferior)    lies lodges (the Clown puns on the sense of “to fib”)

4    stabbing an offense one may be stabbed for

9    lie…throat fib outrageously

10    edified instructed (the Clown plays on the sense of “spiritually improved”)

11    catechize question; the catechism is a form of instruction used by the Church in which a person answers a set of questions about the Christian faith

13    moved petitioned/persuaded

20    crusadoes Portuguese gold coins    but were it not that

25    sun…Drew just as the sun was supposed to draw noxious vapors from the earth

26    humours moods (literally, bodily fluids thought to govern a person’s temperament)

30    dissemble deceive/disguise one’s feelings

35    fruitfulness generosity/fertility/sexual liberality    liberal open/generous/licentious

37    sequester seclusion/separation

38    castigation chastisement/corrective discipline    exercise religious observances

41    frank free/generous/sexually open

44    the…hearts i.e., whereas once people gave away their hands (in marriage) together with their hearts, nowadays people give away their hands without their hearts

47    chuck chick (term of endearment)

49    salt…rheum miserable running cold

60    amiable lovable

64    fancies loves

66    her i.e., my wife    heed careful attention

71    web weave

72    sibyl prophetess

73    compasses annual circuits, i.e., years

74    prophetic fury frenzy of prophetic inspiration

75    hallowed holy, consecrated

76    mummy medicinal substance obtained from mummified bodies

77    Conserved of prepared/preserved from

82    startingly and rash abruptly and impetuously

83    out o’th’way misplaced

86    an if if

87    How? What?

93    misgives is filled with suspicion/foreboding

95    sufficient competent, able (with unwitting sexual connotations)

101    In sooth truly

105    wonder extraordinary or magical quality

106    unhappy unfortunate/miserable

109    hungerly hungrily

110    belch burp/vomit

113    happiness good fortune (at meeting Desdemona)

116    virtuous good/effective

118    office duty/functioning

120    mortal fatal

121    nor neither

122    purposed…futurity the merit I intend to display in the future

124    But merely    be my benefit content me/be my gain (as I will know the worst)

126    shut…in confine/devote myself to

127    To fortune’s alms relying on the charity of fortune

129    advocation advocacy, pleading (on your behalf)

131    favour appearance    humour mood

134    within the blank at the center of the target/at point-blank range

137    suffice content

142    his ranks Othello’s troops

144    brother brother-in-arms, dearly loved comrade

145    moment momentous importance

147    of state connected with state affairs

148    practice plot, treachery

150    puddled muddied

153    indues brings

154    members limbs

156    observancy…bridal proper attentions as those that befit the wedding

157    Beshrew curse

158    unhandsome inadequate

159    Arraigning indicting, accusing

160    suborned the witness bribed or influenced the witness to give false evidence

163    toy fancy, nonsensical notion

169    Begot upon conceived from

176    Save God save (common greeting)    friend friend/lover

177    make you are you doing

182    Eight score eight i.e., 168 (the number of hours in a week)    score twenty

183    dial (hours on the) clock

184    reck’ning counting/total, account

187    continuate uninterrupted

188    Strike…score settle this account/repay my sexual debt with copulation

189    Take…out copy this embroidery for me

191    friend lover, mistress

192    To…cause I now discern a cause for the absence I have suffered

201    demanded asked after

207    womaned with a woman or paramour

211    bring accompany

212    soon at night soon, tonight/early this evening

215    circumstanced subject to circumstances, i.e., accept the situation

Act 4 Scene 1

8    hypocrisy…devil i.e., by seeming to do something wicked, but in fact having virtuous intentions

11    venial light, pardonable

19    They…not those that have lost it often still appear to possess it

23    raven a bird of ill omen, whose cry was thought to herald death    infectious disease-ridden

24    Boding predicting ominously (i.e., making its croaking cry)

28    abroad out and about, at large

29    importunate persistent

30    voluntary dotage willing infatuation

31    Convincèd conquered sexually    supplied filled up, satisfied sexually

37    did plays on the sense of “had sex (with)”

42    lie on tell lies about    belie slander

43    fulsome repulsive/lustful

45    Nature…instruction i.e., I would not be losing consciousness and suffering a fit (passion) without good reason    invest clothe, envelop    shadowing darkening/ominous    instruction reliable information

46    Noses displaced image of the penis    lips also the vaginal labia

49    medicine poison

51    reproach disgrace

58    lethargy faint, torpor

63    on great occasion about an important matter

65    Dost…me? Othello thinks that Iago is referring to the growth of a cuckold’s horns on the head 68    hornèd cuckolded

70    civil city-dwelling/civilized

73    bearded i.e., adult    yoked married/constrained and oppressed by wrongs

74    draw pull the plow like a yoked ox

75    unproper improper/not entirely their own

76    peculiar their own

78    lip kiss    wanton lover/lewd woman    secure couch carefree bed

83    in…list within the bounds of patience

86    shifted him away got rid of him/used a ruse to get him out of the way

87    laid…ecstasy gave convincing explanations about your frenzy

88    anon shortly

89    encave conceal

90    fleers sneers

94    cope have sex with

96    all…spleen entirely overcome by violent passion

102    keep time remain steady and controlled

104    housewife hussy, prostitute

106    strumpet whore

107    beguile cheat    beguiled charmed, ensnared

108    restrain refrain

111    unbookish unlearned/ignorant    conster construe

112    light merry

114    addition title (of lieutenant)

115    Whose want the lack of which

116    on’t of it

118    speed succeed, prosper

119    caitiff wretch

123    faintly without serious intent/unconvincingly

126    said done

130    triumph exult, gloat (literally “hold a victory procession,” an ancient    Roman celebration during which shackled captives were paraded through the streets)

131    A customer? i.e., Marry a whore?/I, who pay her for sex?    bear…wit be more charitable toward my judgment;    wit plays on the sense of “penis”

132    unwholesome unsound/diseased (i.e., with venereal disease)

134    cry rumor

136    else if it is not so

137    scored me wounded me/got one over on me sexually

139    love and flattery love for me and self-flattery

141    haunts follows, hangs around

142    sea-bank seashore    bauble plaything/worthless trifle

143    falls me falls (me is emphatic)

144    imports signifies, shows

146    plucked drew    nose probably a surrogate for the penis

150    such another just another, a commonplace    fitchew polecat (known for its foul smell and lechery; also a term for a prostitute)

152    dam mother

154    piece of work puns on the senses of “prostitute” and “sexual act”

155    minx whore

156    hobby-horse prostitute

159    should must

160    supper also suggests sex

163    rail rant abusively

174    foolish stupid/lewd

183    your way the right attitude or course of action

186    invention imagination

188    so…condition such a well-bred nature/such a sweet and kind disposition

189    gentle yielding

191    patent license    touch affect/provoke

193    messes portions of meat

197    expostulate argue, remonstrate

198    unprovide disarm

202    his undertaker the one to undertake the task of dealing with him

211    instrument…pleasures i.e., the letter containing their instructions

212    cousin general term for any relative other than parent or sibling

218    unkind breach unnatural separation, unfriendly quarrel

225    T’atone to reconcile

228    wise in your right mind

233    on’t of it

236    mad i.e., insane enough to publicly welcome Cassio’s promotion and make your love for him obvious

241    very much too much

244    teem be fertile, conceive

245    crocodile because crocodiles were supposed to weep insincere tears

255    turn introduces the additional meanings of “have sex”/”change her affections”    go on continue (to have sex/change affections)

257    obedient compliant (plays on sexual sense)

259    well-painted passion well-faked sorrow

263    my place i.e., as governor of Cyprus/as Desdemona’s lover

265    monkeys proverbially lustful creatures

266    full complete, entire

267    all…sufficient competent in everything

273    censure judgment (quibbling on the sense of “condemnation”)

274    if…were if he is not what he might be (i.e., mad), I heartily wish he was (as only madness would explain and partly excuse his behavior)

277    well good    would I wish

279    use habit

285    courses will denote actions will signify

Act 4 Scene 2

4.2    Location: Cyprus (within the citadel)

13    durst dare

14    at stake as the stake in the    wager

17    serpent’s curse after the serpent’s temptation of Eve in the Garden of Eden, God cursed him and decreed that he should be the lowest and most reviled of all creatures

22    bawd procuress

23    This i.e., Desdemona    subtle cunning

24    closet…key cabinet (or room) complete with lock and key

31    Some…function behave as one in your role (as a bawd) should

32    procreants breeders, fornicators

34    mystery trade, occupation    dispatch hurry up

40    being…heaven resembling an angel

47    heavy sorrowful

49    haply perhaps

55    sores afflictions

56    Steeped immersed

60    figure number (on a clock face)

61    finger i.e., hour hand of a clock

63    garnered stored

65    fountain spring, source

67    cistern pond/water tank

68    knot and gender copulate    Turn…there turn your face toward it/change your appearance (or nature) when you see it

69    cherubin angel (correctly “cherubim,” one of the biblical orders of angels)

70    grim cruel, unforgiving/ugly

71    honest truthful, but more specifically “sexually faithful,” “chaste”

72    shambles slaughterhouse

73    quicken…blowing give life even though they deposit their eggs in rotting meat

76    ignorant unwitting

78    committed Othello picks up on the senses of “committed adultery” and “fornicated”

79    commoner prostitute

83    stops stops up, closes    moon a symbol of chastity    winks closes its eyes

85    mine cave

88    strumpet harlot, prostitute

90    vessel body

97    cry you mercy beg your pardon

100    office opposite opposing job    Saint Peter heaven’s gatekeeper

101    gates of hell vaginal connotations (hell was a slang term for the vagina)

102    done our course finished our business/had our bout of sex

103    counsel secret

104    conceive think, imagine

106    asleep stunned

114    go by water be expressed through tears

118    meet fitting    used treated

119    How…misuse? What must I have done to cause him to attach even the slightest condemnation to my most minor misconduct?

126    a…chiding i.e., know little of being rebuked

128    bewhored her called her a whore

129    despite contempt/malice/abuse    heavy serious/angry/violent/distressing

135    callet drab, trull, whore

139    forsook declined/given up

143    Beshrew curse

144    trick delusion

148    cogging cheating    cozening deceiving

152    halter hangman’s noose

154    form manner, way

156    scurvy contemptible

157    companions rogues    unfold reveal, expose

161    within door i.e., more quietly

162    squire fellow (contemptuous)

163    the…without inside out (with the seams on the outside)

171    discourse course, process

172    that if

174    yet still

177    forswear abandon

180    abhor revolt (puns on whore)

181    addition title, name

182    vanity worthless finery

183    humour mood

188    stays await    meat food

193    daff’st me put me off, deflect me    device trick/stratagem

194    conveniency opportunity

196    put up endure, tolerate

203    votarist nun

204    comforts encouraging hopes    sudden respect imminent esteem and favor    acquaintance familiarity/sexual intimacy (possibly with pun on “quaint,” i.e., vagina)

206    go to Rodorigo shifts the sense to “have sex”

207    fopped deceived, cheated

211    satisfaction recompense

212    said had your say

213    protest intendment declare I have the intention

214    mettle spirit, vigor

216    exception objection    directly straightforwardly/fairly

223    engines plots against

224    compass range

228    Mauritania region in north Africa consisting of parts of Morocco and Algeria

229    abode be lingered stay be prolonged

230    determinate decisive

235    harlotry harlot

236    fashion…out arrange to occur

237    second support, back

238    amazed dumbstruck, stunned

240    high fully    grows to waste is passing/being wasted

Act 4 Scene 3

11    incontinent immediately, plays on sense of “loosely, unchastely”

16    nightly wearing nightclothes

19    approve commend

20    stubbornness inflexibility, obstinacy/ruthlessness, ferocity

21    unpin me i.e., loosen or detach parts of my clothing (sleeves etc. were secured on with pins)/ unpin my hair or remove my hair accessory

23    All’s one it makes no difference/all right    Good father i.e., God in heaven

24    thee i.e., before you    shroud lay, wrap (ready for burial)

26    talk talk nonsense, talk on idly

27    Barbary a form of Barbara, but the name has obvious north African associations

28    mad insane/wild/faithless

29    willow the tree symbolized lost or unrequited love

32    I…to it is all I can do not to

37    proper handsome/accomplished

41    nether lower (possibly with bawdy implication)

42    sycamore type of fig tree or, as now, a species of maple; puns on “sick amour”

50    Lay by these put these aside (presumably parts of her clothing or accessories)

52    hie thee hurry yourself

59    couch lie, sleep

61    bode foretell

65    abuse deceive, wrong

66    gross kind a great way/a coarse manner

74    price prize

78    joint-ring ring consisting of two joined halves    lawn fine linen

79    exhibition gift

81    venture risk (going to)

87    to th’vantage in addition, besides

88    store populate    played gambled/had sex

90    fall succumb sexually    duties marital and sexual duties

91    our…laps the semen that is due to us into other women’s vaginas

92    peevish senseless/perverse/willful

94    scant reduce/withhold    our former having what we had before/our former financial means    despite spite, malice

95    have galls are capable of feeling bitterness and resentment    grace charm/virtue/mercy

96    revenge desire for revenge

100    change exchange    sport entertainment/sex

101    affection desire, lust

105    use treat/employ sexually

107    uses habits (of thought)

108    Not…mend not to learn bad habits from the bad behavior of others, but to learn from such examples to improve myself

Act 5 Scene 1

5.1    Location: Cyprus (a street)

1    bulk framework projecting from the front of a shop, a stall

2    bare unsheathed    put it home drive it firmly to the target

4    mars destroys

6    miscarry go wrong, fail

11    quat pimple    to the sense raw, to the tenderest part

12    angry inflamed/enraged

14    Live Rodorigo should Rodorigo live

16    bobbed cheated

17    gifts i.e., supposed gifts

21    unfold reveal

25    coat (thick) overcoat/metal-plated garment worn under outer clothing

26    proof trial

33    brave excellent/noble

35    Minion whore (addressing Desdemona)

36    unblest unholy, damned    hies hastens

37    of out of, from

39    passage passersby

40    direful dreadful, dismal, horrible

44    heavy overcast, gloomy

46    come in to approach

49    in his shirt in his nightshirt/without a jacket

58    spoiled badly damaged, injured    undone ruined

72    prove discover by testing, find    praise appraise

85    may you suspect do you have any suspicions about

89    garter band worn to hold up the stocking or as a belt or sash (Iago requires it for use as a tourniquet)

92    trash worthless stuff, whore (i.e., Bianca)

102    accidents events/mishaps

108    said done

111    For as for

112    Save…labour don’t bother to try and help Cassio, leave him alone

117    the…eye her terrified look    gastness terror, dread

118    stare i.e., gaze fixedly in horror (suggestive of guilt and an imminent confession)

133    honest chaste

136    Cassio dressed i.e., Cassio’s wound bandaged

141    fordoes me quite ruins me completely

Act 5 Scene 2

5.2    Location: Cyprus (citadel/governor’s bedroom)

1    cause offense/reason for action

5    alabaster used for the construction of funeral monuments

7    Put…light quench the torch or candle and then extinguish Desdemona’s life

8    flaming minister i.e., the torch or candle    minister servant

11    cunning’st pattern most skillfully made model (cunning reverberates with its sense of “deception”)

12    Promethean in Greek mythology the Titan Prometheus created humankind, for whom he also stole fire from heaven

13    relume relight

14    vital living

17    Justice traditionally depicted as a blindfolded woman carrying scales and a sword

20    fatal deadly, destructive/doomed

22    strikes delivers a blow/withers (used of frost)/destroys (used of God or of malign planetary influence)

27    Ay yes; Folio’s “I” could mean both “I” and “ay” (yes) and sound identical

30    Solicit beg forgiveness

34    forfend forbid

39    say say so, say that

45    They…you apparently alludes to the sin of loving a human more than God

61    Presently imminently

63    article item forming part of an accusation

64    conception belief/plan

65    do groan withal suffer with/am in labor with (playing on sense of pregnancy: conception)

69    Offend sin against, commit a crime against

70    warranty authorization

73    stone harden, turn to stone

82    used had sex with (Desdemona responds to a more general sense of “employed”)

87    ta’en order made arrangements

90    stomach appetite

96    strive struggle

98    Being done i.e., as I am resolved to do the deed/while it is being done    is no pause must be no hesitation

108    By and by in a moment (addressed to Emilia)

109    like likely

110    noise i.e., following the attack on Cassio    high loud

118    yawn at alteration gape open at this great change in nature

122    Soft wait a moment    curtains bed curtains

127    error roaming, wandering off course/mistake

128    wont accustomed

135    harsh jarring, discordant

136    falsely wrongfully, unjustly

139    Out, and alas! i.e., alas (out is an intensifier)

153    folly lewdness

154    belie slander

158    top mount sexually    else otherwise—i.e., if you do not believe me

160    But were it not

167    chrysolite precious stone, a name given to various gems including the topaz

170    on of

171    slime viscous substance/semen

172    filthy deeds whorish or impure sexual acts

174    iterance iteration, repetition

175    made mocks with made sport of/made a mockery of

180    pernicious destructive/villainous

182    filthy bargain i.e., Othello    filthy dirty, black

187    Peace…best you’d be better off remaining silent

189    be hurt endure pain inflicted by you    gull dupe

191    make thee known expose you

203    apt likely

209    charm put a spell on, i.e., silence

228    lift up eye i.e., look up to heaven

229    foul corrupt/wicked/guilty of an accusation

230    uncle i.e., Gratiano, presumably Brabantio’s brother

232    grim cruel, merciless

234    mortal fatal

235    Shore…thread an allusion to the three Fates: one spun the thread of a man’s life, another measured it and the third cut it

236    do…turn i.e., kill himself; “despair” or “desperation” are terms for the state of spiritual hopelessness thought to precede suicide    turn act

238    reprobance rejection by God (suicide is a sin)

242    works sexual acts

243    recognizance token

245    antique ancient

249    peace be silent

250    liberal…north freely as the north wind

256    dull stupid (plays on the sense of “dark”)

259    belonged was appropriate

264    Filth foul thing/whore

266    coxcomb fool (from the headgear of a professional fool, which resembled a cock’s comb)

268    stones thunderbolts

269    Precious utter, out-and-out

273    notorious obvious, evident

274    recovered taken

275    without from the outside

279    whipster worthless wretch

280    honour good reputation    honesty integrity (for which honour is gained)

283    swan…music proverbially, swans sang just before they died

289    the ice-brook’s temper tempered (i.e., made hard) by immersing it in the water of an ice-cold brook

292    perforce of necessity

294    naked unarmed

297    A…sustain i.e., a soldier never wore a better one    sustain maintain a fixed position

301    your stop the obstruction presented by you

304    Here various possibilities: “in this place”/“this sword” (i.e., don’t be afraid, this will be my rather than your death)/Othello uses the sword to indicate the part of himself he is going to stab/Othello gestures to Desdemona or indicates the sword (with emphasis on my)    butt goal, target (archery term)

305    sea-mark boundary of the flow of the sea/landmark used in navigation

306    lost wasted

307    Man…rush use a mere reed

309    ill-starred ill-fated

310    smock woman’s undergarment    compt the day of reckoning, Judgment Day

313    slave i.e., himself/Iago

317    steep-down extremely steep

322    I…feet i.e., to see if Iago, like the devil, has cloven feet

327    in my sense according to the way I feel

329    practice scheming, treachery

344    Torments torture

349    imports concerns/indicates

353    gross vile/monstrously evident

354    discontented filled with discontent

357    belike probably/perhaps

358    satisfied him provided him with answers and explanations (relating to the issues raised in the letter)

359    caitiff wretch

365    wrought…desire worked in accordance with his wishes

369    Brave challenge, confront    whereon as a result of which

370    cast dismissed

377    hold him long keep him alive under torture for a long time

378    close securely confined

385    extenuate diminish, disparage

388    wrought worked on/worked up

389    Perplexed distressed, tormented, agitated

390    base unworthy    Judean may allude to Judas Iscariot, the Judean disciple who betrayed Christ, or to Herod, the jealous Judean king who accused his wife Mariamne of adultery and had her executed

391    subdued overcome (by emotion)

393    Arabian trees i.e., myrrh trees, which drip with the gum resin

394    medicinable myrrh was used in astringent and expectorant tinctures

395    Aleppo city in Turkey

397    traduced slandered

400    period conclusion

402    kissed…thee perhaps another reference to Judas, who famously identified Christ to his enemies by kissing him; he later killed himself

403    die with shading into sense of “orgasm”

406    Spartan dog a particularly fierce breed of hunting dog

407    fell fierce/cruel

410    keep guard, secure/remain in/seize

411    seize upon take legal possession of

412    succeed on descend to, pass to

413    censure judgment/sentencing

416    heavy sorrowful

THE TRAGEDY OF ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA

Antony and Cleopatra is Shakespeare’s most luxuriant tragedy. The action sprawls around the Mediterranean world as it gives historical form to the mythical encounter between Venus (the embodiment of love) and Mars (the god of war). The play is structured upon a series of oppositions: between female and male, desire and duty, the bed and the battlefield, age and youth, and, above all, Egypt and Rome.

Henry Cockeram’s English Dictionary, published in the same year as Shakespeare’s First Folio, has an entry for Cleopatra: “an Egyptian Queen, she was first beloved of Julius Caesar; after, Marcus Anthonius was by her brought into such dotage that he aspired the Empire, which caused his destruction.” The idea that a great lawgiver or warrior could be destroyed by the lure of sexual desire was commonplace in the period. An earlier dictionary reminded the reader of how King Solomon in the Bible “exceeded all men in wisdom and knowledge” but “nevertheless was by dotage on women brought unto idolatry.” The primary definition of “dotage” was “to be mad or peevish, to play the fool (as old folks do).” To dote was to go against reason; to fall too far in love was to lose one’s wits. At the same time, the word was used with reference to old age: senility atrophies the powers of reason and makes an old person become a child again.

“Nay, but this dotage of our general’s / O’erflows the measure” says a Roman soldier in the very opening line. From the Roman point of view it is a monstrous embarrassment that one of the three men who rule their great empire should be disporting himself like an infatuated teenager. Perhaps he is indeed entering his dotage, approaching the second childhood of old age. From the Egyptian point of view, the power of desire is, on the contrary, something that transcends the petty world of tribal politics. Antony is torn between the two worlds: one moment he kisses Cleopatra and says “The nobleness of life / Is to do thus,” yet the next he says “These strong Egyptian fetters I must break / Or lose myself in dotage.”

Romanness meant controlling the passions within the restraint of reason, but in Egypt love is imagined as something that neither can nor should be controlled or measured. Its capacity is infinite. The love of Antony and Cleopatra “finds out new earth, new heaven.” And love’s medium is poetry: in this play Shakespeare gives his lyrical powers freer rein than ever before or after. Though the opening lines are spoken by a Roman, their style is loyal to Cleopatra: the sentence overflows the measure of the pentameter line, preparing the way for the liquid imagery of Egypt—with the fertile river Nile at its heart—that will overcome the measured rigidity of Rome.

Against the grain of the Renaissance idealization of the age of Augustus, Antony and Cleopatra depicts Octavius as a mealymouthed pragmatist. The play is concerned less with the seismic shift from republic to empire than with the transformation of Mark Antony from military leader to slave of sexual desire: “Take but good note, and you shall see in him / The triple pillar of the world transformed / Into a strumpet’s fool.” To Roman eyes, eros renders Antony undignified to the point of risibility, but the sweep of the play’s poetic language, down to its closing speech (“No grave upon the earth shall clip in it / A pair so famous”), celebrates the fame of the lovers, whose imagined erotic union in death is symbolic of cosmic harmony. Octavius himself has to admit that the dead Cleopatra looks as if “she would catch another Antony / In her strong toil of grace”: “toil” is sweatily sexual, but “grace” suggests that even the most Roman character of them all is now seeing Antony and Cleopatra as something other than self-deluding dotards. The aura of Cleopatra’s last speech is still hanging in the air; the power of the poetic language has been such that a sensitive listener will half-believe that Cleopatra has left her baser elements and become all “fire and air.” She is, as Charmian so superbly puts it, “A lass unparalleled”: just one of the girls, but also the unique queen and serpent, embodiment of the Nile’s fertility and the heat of life itself.

Although the “Life of Marcus Antonius” shows more than usual interest in the main female character, the historical structure of Plutarch’s narratives is always premised on the lives of his male heroes. Shakespeare’s play alters this focus to emphasize the death of the woman, not that of the warrior, as the climax of the story. The female perspective stands in opposition to the male voice that orders the march of history. In tone and language Antony and Cleopatra may be described as a “feminized” classical tragedy: Egyptian cookery, luxuriant daybeds, and a billiard-playing eunuch contrast with the rigors of Roman architecture and senatorial business.

At the end of the drama, young Octavius Caesar is left in sole charge of the empire. He will become Augustus, who was regarded as the embodiment of enlightened imperialism—a model for the ambitions of Shakespeare’s patron, King James. But all the poetry of the play has been on the Egyptian side. From Enobarbus’ entranced memory of the barge at Cydnus to the final enrobing for the serpent’s kiss of death, the language of Cleopatra works its magic upon the listener. Theater’s power to create illusion is of a piece with her seductive arts.

She is the consummate actress, able to change her mood on a whim, to keep all around her guessing as to whether she is in earnest or at play. Linguistically, she has a marvelous gift of combining a tone of lightness and wonderment with a sexily down-to-earth robustness (“O happy horse, to bear the weight of Antony!”). She is also the only woman in Shakespeare’s tragedies to have a wit comparable to that of comic heroines such as Rosalind in As You Like It and Portia in The Merchant of Venice. “Can Fulvia die?” she asks with feigned incredulity, playing on the double entendre where to die meant to have an orgasm (Roman wives, she implies, are frigid creatures). Cleopatra is a grown-up Juliet: utterly confident in her body, she relishes her own sexuality and is the dominant partner in the relationship. There is, however, a darker side to her powers. She uses both her sexual allure and her regal authority not only to seduce and to charm, but also to manipulate and to emasculate. She savages the messenger who brings news she does not want to hear. Her principal courtiers are women, Charmian and Iras. Plutarch complained that the affairs of Antony’s entire empire were determined by these two women of the bedchamber who frizzled Cleopatra’s hair and dressed her head. The only men in her entourage are a eunuch, Mardian, and a Greek, Alexas, whose name was synonymous with homoerotic desire.

Historically, Cleopatra’s allegiance was to the Greek as opposed to the Roman world. Her family, the Ptolemies, were Macedonian Greeks. Though some modern productions have played with notions of her blackness, imagining her as a kind of female Othello, Shakespeare’s contemporaries did not regard her as black. George Abbott, who was born within two years of Shakespeare, made the point explicitly in his Brief Description of the Whole World wherein is particularly described all the Monarchies, Empires, and Kingdoms of the same:

Although this country of Egypt doth stand in the self same climate that Mauritania doth, yet the inhabitants there are not black, but rather dun, or tawny. Of which colour Cleopatra was observed to be; who by inticement, so won the love of Julius Caesar, and Antony. And of that colour do those runagates (by devices make themselves to be) who go up and down the world under the name of Egyptians, being indeed but counterfeits and the refuse of rascality of many nations.

“Tawny” was an orange-brown color, associated with the sun, but clearly differentiated from the blackness of the Moors of Mauritania. It was the color of “gipsies,” who claimed to come from Egypt. Whereas lago insults Othello with racial abuse directed at his black features, the Romans insult Cleopatra by calling her a gipsy, associating her with a tribe famous for indolence, vagrancy, theft, fortune-telling and verbal wiles, magic, and counterfeiting—exactly the characteristic of Shakespeare’s representation of Cleopatra’s court.

Gipsies were often associated with beggars, and part of the paradox that is Cleopatra comes from the sense in which the opposite poles of regality and beggary meet in her. Antony begins his journey with the claim that “There’s beggary in the love that can be reckoned,” while Cleopatra ends hers by recognizing that the dungy earth is both “The beggar’s nurse and Caesar’s.” Refusing to demean herself by begging in supplication to Caesar, she welcomes the beggar-like Clown instead and purchases the asp that she will nurse at her breast. It seems that her main reason for refusing to surrender to Caesar is a refusal to undergo the shame of public display: “scald rhymers” will write ballads about her and

…The quick comedians

Extemporally will stage us and present

Our Alexandrian revels: Antony

Shall be brought drunken forth, and I shall see

Some squeaking Cleopatra boy my greatness

I’th’posture of a whore.

This is one of Shakespeare’s most daring self-allusions: he is the scald rhymer, his actors the quick comedians extemporally staging the revels. Antony has been “brought drunken forth” in the person of Richard Burbage, and the “squeaking Cleopatra” who speaks these lines—in the full knowledge that boy actors were sometimes described as the players’ whores—is Burbage’s cross-dressed apprentice, a young man in his late teens or at most his very early twenties (a sobering thought, given that Cleopatra is now considered the supreme Shakespearean role for a mature female actor).

We do not know what role, if any, Shakespeare wrote for himself in Antony and Cleopatra. Probably a small one. But there is no doubt as to which role corresponds most closely to his own point of view. Shakespeare was a realist as well as a romantic, a skilled politician as well as a supreme poet; he was equally capable of imagining Antony’s dramatic trajectory as a rise and as a fall. He was perpetually both inside and outside the action, both an emotionally involved participant in the world he created and a wryly detached commentator upon it. In the play, his own perspective is that of an Egyptian in Rome and a Roman in Egypt, as in earlier life his viewpoint had been that of a country outsider in London. So he invented a new character, the only major player in the story who is absent from the historical source: Enobarbus. Intelligent, funny, at once companionable and guardedly isolated, full of understanding and admiration for women but most comfortable among men (there is a homoerotic frisson to his bond with Menas and his rivalry with Agrippa), clinically analytical in his assessment of others but full of sorrow and shame when his reason overrides his loyalty and leads him to desert his friend and master, Enobarbus is as rewarding a role as any Shakespeare wrote. And it might just be the nearest thing anywhere in his complete works to a considered self-portrait.

KEY FACTS

PLOT: Following the assassination of Julius Caesar and the battle of Philippi, Mark Antony, Octavius Caesar, and Lepidus are the joint rulers of the known world. Antony, however, is captivated by Cleopatra, Queen of Egypt, and neglects his responsibilities to spend time with her in Alexandria. This scandal is the talk of Rome and creates a rift between Antony and young Octavius Caesar. News comes from Rome that Antony’s wife is dead. More urgently, the power of the triumvirate is being challenged by Pompey. Antony is forced to return to Rome and resume his responsibilities. When it is suggested that he should cement the alliance with Octavius by marrying his sister, Octavia, Antony agrees. Back in Egypt, the news of Antony’s marriage sends Cleopatra into a jealous tirade. On the brink of war, Antony and Octavius make peace with Pompey. Shortly afterward, however, Antony learns that not only has Octavius attacked Pompey after all, but he has also spoken scornfully of Antony in public and has had Lepidus imprisoned on dubious charges. Antony sends Octavia back to negotiate with her brother while he returns secretly to Alexandria. News arrives in Rome that Antony and Cleopatra have crowned themselves and their children kings and queens in Alexandria. Octavius declares war on Egypt. The Egyptian forces lose the sea-battle of Actium when Antony deserts the battle to follow Cleopatra’s fleeing ship. Antony is consumed with shame and despair. However, hearing that Octavius has offered to make a secret treaty with Cleopatra, he rouses himself for a second, victorious battle. On the eve of the third battle, Antony’s soldiers are nervous and fear bad omens. Even the faithful Enobarbus deserts him. The Egyptian fleet surrenders and Antony, in his fury, accuses Cleopatra of betraying him to Octavius. She retreats from his anger to her monument and sends a false report that she is dead. On hearing this, Antony attempts suicide and is brought to Cleopatra’s monument to die in her arms. Rather than be captured and enslaved by the Romans, Cleopatra also kills herself. With all his enemies eliminated, Octavius returns victorious to Rome.

MAJOR PARTS: (with percentage of lines/number of speeches/scenes on stage) Mark Antony (24%/ 202/22), Cleopatra (19%/204/16), Octavius Caesar (12%/98/14), Enobarbus (10%/113/12), Pompey (4%/41/3), Charmian (3%/63/10), Lepidus (2%/30/6), Menas (2%/35/3), Agrippa (2%/28/7), Dolabella (1%/23/3), Eros (1%/27/6), Scarrus (1%/12/4).

LINGUISTIC MEDIUM: 95% verse, 5% prose.

DATE: 1606–07. Perhaps performed at court Christmas 1606 or Christmas 1607. Registered for publication in May 1608 (though not actually published prior to the First Folio); it seems to have influenced a play by Barnabe Barnes that was performed and published in 1607.

SOURCES: Closely based on the “Life of Marcus Antonius” in Plutarch’s Lives of the Most Noble Grecians and Romanes, translated by Thomas North (1579); there are some exceptionally close verbal parallels. The main addition is the character of Enobarbus, who is only mentioned very briefly in Plutarch. Shakespeare also seems to have known Samuel Daniel’s Cleopatra (1594, a play written to be read rather than performed); Daniel, in turn, seems to have been influenced by Shakespeare when revising his play in 1607.

TEXT: The First Folio of 1623 is the only early text. Apparently set from a scribal transcript of Shakespeare’s manuscript, it is notably inconsistent in the spelling of proper names and has a plethora of minor errors but few major ones.

THE TRAGEDY OF ANTONY AND CLEOPATRA

MARK ANTONY, a triumvir of Rome

An AMBASSADOR for Antony, a schoolmaster

CLEOPATRA, Queen of Egypt

SELEUCUS, Cleopatra’s treasurer

Octavius CAESAR, a triumvir of Rome

LEPIDUS, a triumvir of Rome

OCTAVIA, sister to Octavius Caesar and later wife of Antony

Sextus Pompeius (POMPEY), a rebel against the triumvirs

A SOOTHSAYER

SERVANTS of Pompey

A BOY SINGER

A CAPTAIN of Antony’s army

A CLOWN

Attendants, Eunuchs, Sentries, Guards, Soldiers and Servants

Act 1 Scene 11.1

running scene 1

Enter Demetrius and Philo

PHILONay, but this dotage[1] of our general’s

O’erflows the measure:[2] those his goodly eyes,

That o’er the files and musters[3] of the war

Have glowed like plated[4] Mars, now bend, now turn

5

The office[5] and devotion of their view

Upon a tawny[6] front. His captain’s heart,

Which in the scuffles of great fights hath burst

The buckles on his breast, reneges[8] all temper

And is become the bellows and the fan

10

To cool a gipsy’s[10] lust.

Flourish. Enter Antony, Cleopatra, her Ladies [Charmian and Iras], the Train, with Eunuchs fanning her

Look where they come:

Take but good note, and you shall see in him

The triple[12] pillar of the world transformed

Into a strumpet’s[13] fool. Behold and see.

CLEOPATRAIf it be love indeed, tell[14] me how much.

15

ANTONYThere’s beggary[15] in the love that can be reckoned.

CLEOPATRAI’ll set a bourn[16] how far to be beloved.

ANTONYThen[17] must thou needs find out new heaven, new earth.

Enter a Messenger

MESSENGERNews, my good lord, from Rome.

ANTONYGrates me![19] The sum.

20

CLEOPATRANay, hear them,[20] Antony.

Fulvia[21] perchance is angry, or who knows

If the scarce-bearded Caesar[22] have not sent

His powerful mandate[23] to you: ‘Do this, or this;

Take in[24] that kingdom, and enfranchise that:

25

Perform’t, or else we damn thee.’

ANTONYHow,[26] my love?

CLEOPATRAPerchance?[27] Nay, and most like.

You must not stay here longer: your dismission[28]

Is come from Caesar, therefore hear it, Antony.

30

Where’s Fulvia’s process?[30] — Caesar’s I would say. Both?

Call in the messengers. As I am Egypt’s queen,

Thou blushest, Antony, and that blood of thine

Is Caesar’s homager:[33] else so thy cheek pays shame

When shrill-tongued Fulvia scolds.[34] The messengers!

35

ANTONYLet Rome in Tiber[35] melt, and the wide arch

Of the ranged[36] empire fall: here is my space.

Kingdoms are clay: our dungy[37] earth alike

Feeds beast as man. The nobleness of life

Is to do thus: when such a mutual[39] pair They embrace

40

And such a twain[40] can do’t, in which I bind,

On[41] pain of punishment, the world to weet

We stand up peerless.[42]

CLEOPATRAExcellent falsehood!

Why did he marry Fulvia and not[44] love her?

45

I’ll seem[45] the fool I am not. Antony

Will be himself.

ANTONYBut stirred[47] by Cleopatra.

Now, for the love of Love and her soft hours,

Let’s not confound[49] the time with conference harsh;

50

There’s not a minute of our lives should stretch[50]

Without some pleasure now. What sport[51] tonight?

CLEOPATRAHear the ambassadors.

ANTONYFie,[53] wrangling queen,

Whom everything becomes,[54] to chide, to laugh,

55

To weep, whose every passion fully strives

To make itself in thee fair and admired.

No[57] messenger but thine, and all alone

Tonight we’ll wander through the streets and note

The qualities[59] of people. Come, my queen,

60

Last night you did desire it.— Speak not to us. To the Messenger

Exeunt [Antony and Cleopatra] with[61] the Train

DEMETRIUSIs Caesar with Antonius prized so slight?

PHILOSir, sometimes when[62] he is not Antony,

He comes too short of that great property[63]

Which still[64] should go with Antony.

65

DEMETRIUSI am full[65] sorry

That he approves[66] the common liar who

Thus speaks of him at Rome; but I will hope

Of better deeds tomorrow. Rest you happy.[68]

Exeunt

[Act 1 Scene 2]

running scene 1 continues

Enter Enobarbus, Lamprius, a Soothsayer,* Rannius, Lucillius, Charmian, Iras, Mardian the Eunuch and Alexas

CHARMIANLord Alexas, sweet Alexas, most anything Alexas, almost most absolute[1] Alexas, where’s the soothsayer that you praised so to th’queen? O, that I knew this husband which you say must charge[3] his horns with garlands!

ALEXASSoothsayer.

SOOTHSAYERYour will?

CHARMIANIs this the man? Is’t you, sir, that know things?

SOOTHSAYERIn nature’s infinite book of secrecy

A little I can read.

ALEXASShow him your hand. To Charmian

ENOBARBUSBring in the banquet[10] quickly: To Servants within wine enough Cleopatra’s health to drink. Servants bring fruit and wine

CHARMIAN Good sir, give me good fortune. Holds out her hand

SOOTHSAYERI make not, but foresee.

CHARMIANPray then foresee me one.

SOOTHSAYERYou shall be yet far fairer[15] than you are.

CHARMIANHe means in flesh.

IRASNo, you shall paint[17] when you are old.

CHARMIANWrinkles forbid!

ALEXASVex not his prescience:[19] be attentive.

CHARMIANHush!

SOOTHSAYERYou shall be more beloving[21] than beloved.

CHARMIANI had rather heat my liver[22] with drinking.

ALEXASNay, hear him.

CHARMIANGood now,[24] some excellent fortune: let me be married to three kings in a forenoon[25] and widow them all: let me have a child at fifty to whom Herod of Jewry may do homage.[26] Find me to marry me with Octavius Caesar and companion me with my mistress.

SOOTHSAYERYou shall outlive the lady whom you serve.

CHARMIANO, excellent! I love long life better than figs.[29]

SOOTHSAYERYou have seen and proved[30] a fairer former fortune

Than that which is to approach.

CHARMIANThen belike[32] my children shall have no names: prithee, how many boys and wenches[33] must I have?

SOOTHSAYERIf every of your wishes had a womb,

35

And fertile every wish, a million.

CHARMIANOut,[36] fool! I forgive thee for a witch.

ALEXASYou think none but your sheets are privy to[37] your wishes.

CHARMIANNay, come, tell Iras hers.

ALEXASwe’ll know all our fortunes.

ENOBARBUSMine, and most of our fortunes tonight, shall be drunk to bed.[40]

IRASThere’s a palm presages[41] chastity, if nothing else. Holds out her hand

CHARMIANE’en as the o’erflowing Nilus presageth famine.[42]

IRASGo, you wild[43] bedfellow, you cannot soothsay.

CHARMIANNay, if an oily palm[44] be not a fruitful prognostication, I cannot scratch mine ear. Prithee tell her but a workaday[45] fortune.

SOOTHSAYERYour fortunes are alike.

IRASBut how? But how? Give me particulars.

SOOTHSAYERI have said.[48]

IRASAm I not an inch of fortune better than she?

CHARMIANWell, if you were but an inch of fortune better than I, where would you choose it?

IRASNot[52] in my husband’s nose.

CHARMIAN Our worser thoughts heavens mend. Alexas — come, his fortune, his fortune! O, let him marry a woman that cannot go,[54] sweet Isis, I beseech thee, and Iet her die too, and give him a worse, and let worse follow worse, till the worst of all follow him laughing to his grave, fifty-fold[56] a cuckold! Good Isis, hear me this prayer, though thou deny me a matter[57] of more weight: good Isis, I beseech thee!

IRASAmen, dear goddess, hear that prayer of the people! For as it is a heartbreaking to see a handsome man loose-wived,[59] so it is a deadly sorrow to behold a foul[60] knave uncuckolded: therefore, dear Isis, keep decorum and fortune him accordingly.

CHARMIANAmen.

ALEXASLo, now, if it lay in their hands to make me a cuckold, they would make themselves whores, but they[64]’d do’t!

Enter Cleopatra

ENOBARBUSHush, here comes Antony.

CHARMIANNot he, the queen.

CLEOPATRASaw you my lord?

ENOBARBUSNo, lady.

CLEOPATRAWas he not here?

CHARMIANNo, madam.

CLEOPATRAHe was disposed to mirth, but on the sudden

A Roman thought[72] hath struck him. Enobarbus?

ENOBARBUS Madam?

CLEOPATRASeek him and bring him hither. [Exit Enobarbus]

Where’s AIexas?

75

ALEXASHere, at your service. My lord approaches.

Enter Antony with a Messenger

CLEOPATRAWe[76] will not look upon him: go with us.

Exeunt. [Antony and Messenger remain]

MESSENGERFulvia thy wife first came into the field.[77]

ANTONYAgainst my brother Lucius?

MESSENGER Ay,

80

But soon that war had end, and the time’s state[80]

Made friends of them, jointing their force[81] gainst Caesar,

Whose better issue[82] in the war from Italy

Upon the first encounter,[83] drave them.

ANTONYWell, what worst?

85

MESSENGERThe nature of bad news infects the teller.

ANTONYWhen it concerns the fool or coward. On!

Things that are past are done with me. ’Tis thus:

Who[88] tells me true, though in his tale lie death,

I hear him as he flattered.

90

MESSENGERLabienus[90] —

This is stiff[91] news — hath with his Parthian force

Extended[92] Asia: from Euphrates

His conquering banner shook, from Syria

To Lydia[94] and to Ionia, whilst—

95

ANTONYAntony, thou wouldst[95] say.

MESSENGERO, my lord!

ANTONYSpeak to me home,[97] mince not the general tongue,

Name Cleopatra as she is called in Rome,

Rail[99] thou in Fulvia’s phrase, and taunt my faults

100

With such full licence as both truth and malice

Have power to utter. O, then we bring forth weeds

When our quick[102] minds lie still, and our ills told us

Is as our earing. Fare thee well awhile.

MESSENGERAt your noble pleasure.

Exit Messenger

Enter another Messenger

105

ANTONYFrom Sicyon[105] how the news? Speak there.

SECOND MESSENGERThe man from Sicyon—

ANTONYIs there such an one?

SECOND MESSENGERHe stays[108] upon your will.

ANTONYLet him appear.—

[Exit Second Messenger]

110

These strong Egyptian fetters I must break,

Or lose myself in dotage.—

Enter another Messenger with a letter

What[111] are you?

THIRD MESSENGERFulvia thy wife is dead.

ANTONYWhere died she?

THIRD MESSENGERIn Sicyon.

115

Her length of sickness, with what else more serious

Importeth[116] thee to know, this bears. Gives him the letter

ANTONYForbear me.[117]—

[Exit Third Messenger]

There’s a great spirit gone. Thus did I desire it:

What[119] our contempts doth often hurl from us

120

We wish it ours again. The present pleasure,

By revolution low’ring,[121] does become

The opposite of itself. She’s good, being gone.

The hand could[123] pluck her back that shoved her on.

I must from this enchanting[124] queen break off:

125

Ten thousand harms, more than the ills I know,

My idleness[126] doth hatch.—

Enter Enobarbus

How now, Enobarbus?

ENOBARBUSWhat’s your pleasure, sir?

ANTONYI must with haste from hence.

ENOBARBUSWhy, then, we kill all our women. We see how mortal[129] an unkindness is to them: if they suffer[130] our departure, death’s the word.

ANTONYI must be gone.

ENOBARBUSUnder a compelling occasion, let women die.[132] It were pity to cast them away for nothing, though between them and a great cause they should be esteemed nothing. Cleopatra, catching but the least noise[134] of this, dies instantly: I have seen her die twenty times upon[135] far poorer moment. I do think there is mettle in death which commits some loving act upon her, she hath such a celerity[136] in dying.

ANTONYShe is cunning[138] past man’s thought.

ENOBARBUSAlack, sir, no: her passions are made of nothing but the finest part[139] of pure love. We cannot call her winds and waters sighs and tears: they are greater storms and tempests than almanacs[141] can report. This cannot be cunning in her; if it be, she makes a shower of rain as well as Jove.[142]

ANTONYWould[143] I had never seen her.

ENOBARBUSO sir, you had then left unseen a wonderful piece of work,[144] which not to have been blest withal[145] would have discredited your travel.

ANTONYFulvia is dead.

ENOBARBUSSir?

ANTONYFulvia is dead.

ENOBARBUSFulvia?

ANTONYDead.

ENOBARBUSWhy, sir, give the gods a thankful sacrifice. When it pleaseth their deities to take the wife of a man from him, it shows[152] to man the tailors of the earth: comforting therein,[153] that when old robes are worn out, there are members to make new. If there were no more women but Fulvia, then had you indeed a cut,[154] and the case[155] to be lamented. This grief is crowned with consolation: your old smock[156] brings forth a new petticoat, and indeed the tears live in an onion that should water this sorrow.

ANTONYThe business[160] she hath broachèd in the state Cannot endure my absence.

ENOBARBUSAnd the business you have broached here cannot be without you, especially that of CIeopatra’s, which wholly depends on your abode.[161]

ANTONYNo more light[162] answers. Let our officers

Have notice what we purpose. I shall break

The cause of our expedience[164] to the queen,

And get her leave to part.[165] For not alone

The death of Fulvia, with more urgent touches,[166]

Do strongly speak to us, but the letters too

Of many our contriving[168] friends in Rome

Petition[169] us at home. Sextus Pompeius

170

Hath given[170] the dare to Caesar and commands

The empire of the sea. Our slippery[171] people,

Whose love is never linked to the deserver

Till his deserts are past, begin to throw[173]

Pompey the Great[174] and all his dignities

175

Upon his son, who, high[175] in name and power,

Higher than both in blood and life,[176] stands up

For the main[177] soldier, whose quality going on,

The[178] sides o’th’world may danger. Much is breeding

Which, like the courser’s[179] hair, hath yet but life

180

And not a serpent’s poison. Say[180] our pleasure,

To such whose place is under us, requires

Our quick remove[182] from hence.

ENOBARBUS I shall do’t.

[Exeunt separately]

[Act 1 Scene 3]

running scene 1 continues

Enter Cleopatra, Charmian, Alexas and Iras

CLEOPATRAWhere is he?

CHARMIANI did[2] not see him since.

CLEOPATRASee where he is, who’s with him, what he does. To Alexas

I[4] did not send you: if you find him sad,

5

Say I am dancing, if in mirth, report

That I am sudden sick. Quick, and return. [Exit Alexas]

CHARMIANMadam, methinks if you did love him dearly,

You do not hold[8] the method to enforce

The like[9] from him.

CLEOPATRAWhat should I do I do not?

CHARMIANIn each thing give him way:[11] cross him in nothing.

CLEOPATRAThou teachest like a fool, the way to lose him.

CHARMIANTempt[13] him not so too far. I wish, forbear:

In time we hate that which we often fear.

Enter Antony

15

But here comes Antony.

CLEOPATRAI am sick and sullen.[16]

ANTONYI am sorry to give breathing[17] to my purpose—

CLEOPATRAHelp me away, dear Charmian! I shall fall.

It cannot be thus long:[19] the sides of nature

20

Will not sustain it.

ANTONYNow, my dearest queen—

CLEOPATRAPray you stand[22] further from me.

ANTONYWhat’s the matter?

CLEOPATRAI know by that same eye[24] there’s some good news.

25

What, says the married woman[25] you may go?

Would she had never given you leave to come.

Let her not say ’tis I that keep you here.

I have no power upon you: hers you are.

ANTONYThe gods best know—

30

CLEOPATRAO, never was there queen

So mightily betrayed! Yet at the first

I saw the treasons planted.

ANTONYCleopatra—

CLEOPATRAWhy should I think you can be mine, and true —

35

Though you in swearing shake the thronèd gods —

Who have been false[36] to Fulvia? Riotous madness,

To be entangled with those mouth-made[37] vows

Which break themselves in swearing![38]

ANTONYMost sweet queen—

40

CLEOPATRANay, pray you seek no colour[40] for your going,

But bid farewell and go: when you sued staying,[41]

Then was the time for words: no going then.

Eternity was in our[43] lips and eyes,

Bliss in our brows bent:[44] none our parts so poor

45

But was a[45] race of heaven. They are so still,

Or thou, the greatest soldier of the world,

Art turned the greatest liar.

ANTONYHow now,[48] lady?

CLEOPATRAI would I had thy inches:[49] thou shouldst know

50

There were a heart[50] in Egypt.

ANTONYHear me, queen:

The strong necessity of time commands

Our services awhile, but my full heart

Remains in use[54] with you. Our Italy

55

Shines o’er with civil swords;[55] Sextus Pompeius

Makes his approaches to the port[56] of Rome.

Equality[57] of two domestic powers

Breed scrupulous faction: the hated,[58] grown to strength,

Are newly grown to love: the condemned Pompey,

60

Rich in his father’s honour, creeps apace[60]

Into the hearts of such as have not thrived

Upon[62] the present state, whose numbers threaten,

And quietness, grown sick of rest, would purge[63]

By any desperate change. My more particular,[64]

65

And that which most with you should safe[65] my going,

Is Fulvia’s death.

CLEOPATRAThough age from folly could not give me freedom,

It does from childishness. Can Fulvia die?

ANTONY She’s dead, my queen. Gives her the letters

70

Look here, and at thy sovereign leisure read

The garboils[71] she awaked: at the last, best,

See when and where she died.

CLEOPATRAO most false love!

Where be the sacred vials[74] thou shouldst fill

75

With sorrowful water? Now I see, I see,

In Fulvia’s death how mine received shall be.

ANTONYQuarrel no more, but be prepared to know[77]

The[78] purposes I bear, which are, or cease,

As you shall give th’advice.[79] By the fire

80

That quickens Nilus’ slime, I go from hence

Thy soldier, servant, making peace or war

As thou affects.[82]

CLEOPATRACut my lace,[83] Charmian, come!

But let it be:[84] I am quickly ill and well,

85

So Antony loves.[85]

ANTONYMy precious queen, forbear[86]

And give true evidence[87] to his love, which stands

An honourable trial.

CLEOPATRASo Fulvia told me.

90

I prithee turn aside and weep for her,

Then bid adieu to me, and say the tears

Belong to Egypt.[92] Good now, play one scene

Of excellent dissembling,[93] and let it look

Like perfect honour.

95

ANTONYYou’ll heat my blood[95] no more!

CLEOPATRAYou can do better yet, but this is meetly.[96]

ANTONYNow, by sword—

CLEOPATRAAnd target.[98] Still he mends,

But this is not the best. Look, prithee, Charmian,

100

How this Herculean[100] Roman does become

The carriage of his chafe.

ANTONYI’ll leave you, lady.

CLEOPATRACourteous lord, one word:

Sir, you and I must part, but that’s not it:

105

Sir, you and I have loved, but there’s not it:

That you know well. Something it is I would:

O, my oblivion[107] is a very Antony,

And I am all forgotten.[108]

ANTONYBut[109] that your royalty

110

Holds[110] idleness your subject, I should take you

For idleness itself.

CLEOPATRA’Tis sweating labour[112]

To bear such idleness so near the heart

As Cleopatra this. But, sir, forgive me,

115

Since my becomings[115] kill me when they do not

Eye[116] well to you. Your honour calls you hence:

Therefore be deaf to my unpitied folly,

And all the gods go with you. Upon your sword

Sit laurel[119] victory, and smooth success

120

Be strewed before your feet.

ANTONYLet us go. Come:

Our[122] separation so abides and flies

That thou, residing here, goes yet with me,

And I, hence fleeting, here remain with thee.

125

Away!

Exeunt

[Act 1 Scene 4*]

running scene 2

Enter Octavius [Caesar] reading a letter, Lepidus and their Train

CAESARYou may see, Lepidus, and henceforth know

It is not Caesar’s natural vice to hate

Our great competitor.[3] From Alexandria

This is the news: he fishes, drinks and wastes

5

The lamps of night in revel. Is[5] not more manlike

Than Cleopatra, nor the Queen of Ptolemy[6]

More womanly than he. Hardly gave audience,[7] or

Vouchsafed[8] to think he had partners. You shall find there

A man who is th’abstract[9] of all faults

10

That all men follow.

LEPIDUSI must not think there are

Evils enough to darken all his goodness:

His faults in him seem as the spots of heaven,[13]

More fiery by night’s blackness; hereditary

15

Rather than purchased,[15] what he cannot change,

Than what he chooses.

CAESARYou are too indulgent. Let’s grant it is not

Amiss to tumble[18] on the bed of Ptolemy,

To give a kingdom for a mirth,[19] to sit

20

And keep[20] the turn of tippling with a slave,

To reel[21] the streets at noon, and stand the buffet

With knaves that smell of sweat: say this becomes him —

As[23] his composure must be rare indeed

Whom these things cannot blemish — yet must Antony

25

No way excuse his foils[25] when we do bear

So great weight in his lightness. If he filled

His vacancy[27] with his voluptuousness,

Full surfeits[28] and the dryness of his bones

Call on him for’t. But to confound[29] such time

30

That drums[30] him from his[31] sport, and speaks as loud

As his own state and ours, ’tis to be chid

As we rate[32] boys, who, being mature in knowledge,

Pawn their experience to their present pleasure

And so rebel to[34] judgement.

Enter a Messenger

35

LEPIDUSHere’s more news.

MESSENGERThy biddings[36] have been done, and every hour,

Most noble Caesar, shalt thou have report

How[38] ’tis abroad. Pompey is strong at sea,

And it appears he is beloved of those

40

That only have feared[40] Caesar: to the ports

The discontents[41] repair, and men’s reports

Give him[42] much wronged.

CAESARI should have known no less.

It hath been taught us from the primal state[44]

45

That he[45] which is was wished until he were,

And the ebbed[46] man, ne’er loved till ne’er worth love,

Comes deared[47] by being lacked. This common body,

Like to a vagabond[48] flag upon the stream,

Goes to and back, lackeying[49] the varying tide,

50

To rot itself with motion.

[Enter another Messenger]

SECOND MESSENGERCaesar, I bring thee word

Menecrates and Menas, famous[52] pirates,

Make the sea serve them, which they ear[53] and wound

With keels of every kind. Many hot inroads[54]

55

They make in Italy: the borders maritime[55]

Lack blood[56] to think on’t, and flush youth revolt.

No vessel can peep forth but ’tis as soon

Taken[58] as seen, for Pompey’s name strikes more

Than could his war resisted.

60

CAESARAntony,

Leave thy lascivious wassails.[61] When thou once

Was beaten from Modena,[62] where thou slew’st

Hirtius and Pansa, consuls, at thy heel

Did famine follow, whom[64] thou fought’st against —

65

Though daintily[65] brought up — with patience more

Than savages could suffer. Thou didst drink

The stale[67] of horses and the gilded puddle

Which beasts would cough at. Thy palate then did deign[68]

The roughest berry on the rudest[69] hedge.

70

Yea, like the stag when snow the pasture sheets,[70]

The barks of trees thou browsèd.[71] On the Alps,

It is reported thou didst eat strange flesh

Which some did die to look on: and all this —

It wounds thine honour that I speak it now —

75

Was borne so like a soldier, that thy cheek

So[76] much as lanked not.

LEPIDUS ’Tis pity of[77] him.

CAESARLet his shames quickly

Drive him to Rome: ’tis time we twain[79]

80

Did show ourselves i’th’field,[80] and to that end

Assemble we immediate council. Pompey

Thrives in our idleness.

LEPIDUS Tomorrow, Caesar,

I shall be furnished to inform you rightly

85

Both what by sea and land I can be able[85]

To front[86] this present time.

CAESARTill which encounter,

It is my business too. Farewell.

LEPIDUS Farewell, my lord. What you shall know meantime

90

Of stirs[90] abroad, I shall beseech you, sir,

To let me be partaker.

CAESARDoubt not, sir,

I knew it for my bond.[93]

Exeunt

[Act 1 Scene 5*]

running scene 3

Enter Cleopatra, Charmian, Iras and Mardian

CLEOPATRACharmian!

CHARMIANMadam?

CLEOPATRAHa, ha. Yawns

Give me to drink mandragora.[4]

5

CHARMIANWhy, madam?

CLEOPATRAThat I might sleep out this great gap of time

My Antony is away.

CHARMIANYou think of him too much.

CLEOPATRAO, ’tis treason!

10

CHARMIANMadam, I trust not so.

CLEOPATRAThou, eunuch Mardian!

MARDIANWhat’s your highness’ pleasure?

CLEOPATRANot[13] now to hear thee sing. I take no pleasure

In aught an eunuch has: ’tis well for thee

15

That, being unseminared,[15] thy freer thoughts

May not fly forth of Egypt. Hast thou affections?[16]

MARDIANYes, gracious madam.

CLEOPATRAIndeed?

MARDIANNot in deed,[19] madam, for I can do nothing

20

But what in deed is honest[20] to be done:

Yet have I fierce affections, and think

What Venus[22] did with Mars.

CLEOPATRAO, Charmian,

Where think’st thou he is now? Stands he, or sits he?

25

Or does he walk? Or is he on his horse?

O happy horse, to bear the weight of Antony!

Do bravely,[27] horse, for wot’st thou whom thou mov’st?

The demi-Atlas[28] of this earth, the arm

And burgonet of men. He’s speaking now,

30

Or murmuring ‘Where’s my serpent of old Nile?’

For so he calls me. Now I feed myself

With most delicious poison. Think on me

That am with Phoebus’[33] amorous pinches black

And wrinkled deep in time. Broad-fronted[34] Caesar,

When thou wast here above the ground, I was

A morsel[36] for a monarch, and great Pompey

Would stand and make[37] his eyes grow in my brow:

There would he anchor his aspect,[38] and die

With looking on his life.[39]

Enter Alexas from Antony

40

ALEXASSovereign of Egypt, hail!

CLEOPATRAHow much unlike art thou Mark Antony!

Yet, coming from him, that great med’cine[42] hath

With his tinct[43] gilded thee.

How goes it with my brave[44] Mark Antony?

45

ALEXASLast thing he did, dear queen,

He kissed — the last of many doubled kisses —

This orient[47] pearl. His speech sticks in my heart.

CLEOPATRAMine ear must pluck it thence.

ALEXAS‘Good friend,’ quoth[49] he,

50

‘Say the firm[50] Roman to great Egypt sends

This treasure of an oyster, at whose foot,

To mend[52] the petty present, I will piece

Her opulent throne with kingdoms. All the east,

Say thou, shall call her mistress.’ So he nodded,

55

And soberly did mount an arm-gaunt steed[55]

Who neighed so high[56] that what I would have spoke

Was beastly dumbed[57] by him.

CLEOPATRAWhat, was he sad, or merry?

ALEXASLike to the time o’th’year between the extremes

60

Of hot and cold, he was nor sad nor[60] merry.

CLEOPATRAO well-divided disposition! Note him,

Note him, good Charmian, ’tis the man;[62] but note him.

He was not sad, for he would shine on those

That make[64] their looks by his: he was not merry,

65

Which seemed to tell them his remembrance lay

In Egypt with his joy: but between both.

O heavenly mingle! Be’st thou sad or merry,

The violence[68] of either thee becomes,

So does it no man else.— Met’st thou my posts?[69]

70

ALEXASAy, madam, twenty several[70] messengers.

Why do you send so thick?[71]

CLEOPATRAWho’s[72] born that day

When I forget to send to Antony

Shall die a beggar. Ink and paper, Charmian.

75

Welcome, my good Alexas. Did I, Charmian,

Ever love Caesar so?

CHARMIANO, that brave Caesar!

CLEOPATRABe choked with such another emphasis.

Say ‘the brave Antony’.

80

CHARMIANThe valiant Caesar.

CLEOPATRABy Isis, I will give thee bloody teeth,

If thou with Caesar paragon[82] again

My man of men.

CHARMIAN By your most gracious pardon,

85

I sing but after you.

CLEOPATRAMy salad days,

When I was green[87] in judgement, cold in blood,

To say as I said then. But come, away,

Get me ink and paper.

90

He shall have every day a several greeting

Or I’ll unpeople Egypt!

Exeunt

[Act 2 Scene 1*]

running scene 4

Enter Pompey, Menecrates and Menas, in warlike manner

POMPEYIf the great gods be just, they shall assist

The deeds of justest men.

MENECRATESKnow, worthy Pompey,

That what[4] they do delay, they not deny.

5

POMPEYWhiles[5] we are suitors to their throne, decays

The thing we sue for.

MENECRATESWe, ignorant of ourselves,

Beg often our own harms, which the wise powers

Deny us for our good: so find we profit

10

By losing of our prayers.

POMPEYI shall do well:

The people love me, and the sea[12] is mine;

My powers[13] are crescent, and my auguring hope

Says it will come to th’full. Mark Antony

15

In Egypt sits at dinner,[15] and will make

No wars without[16] doors: Caesar gets money where

He loses hearts: Lepidus flatters both,

Of[18] both is flattered, but he neither loves,

Nor either cares for him.

20

MENASCaesar and Lepidus are in the field:

A mighty strength[21] they carry.

POMPEYWhere have you this? ’Tis false.

MENASFrom Silvius, sir.

POMPEYHe dreams. I know they are in Rome together,

25

Looking for[25] Antony. But all the charms of love,

Salt[26] Cleopatra, soften thy waned lip!

Let witchcraft join with beauty, lust with both,

Tie up the libertine in a field of feasts:

Keep his brain fuming:[29] epicurean cooks

30

Sharpen with cloyless[30] sauce his appetite

That[31] sleep and feeding may prorogue his honour,

Even till a Lethe’d[32] dullness—

Enter Varrius

How now, Varrius?

VARRIUSThis[33] is most certain that I shall deliver:

Mark Antony is every hour in Rome

35

Expected. Since he went from Egypt ’tis[35]

A space for further travel.

POMPEYI could have given less matter[37]

A better ear.[38] Menas, I did not think

This amorous surfeiter would have donned his helm[39]

40

For such a petty war: his[40] soldiership

Is twice the other twain. But let us rear[41]

The higher our opinion, that our stirring

Can from the lap[43] of Egypt’s widow pluck

The ne’er lust-wearied Antony.

45

MENASI cannot hope[45]

Caesar and Antony shall well greet together;[46]

His wife that’s dead[47] did trespasses to Caesar:

His brother[48] warred upon him, although I think

Not moved[49] by Antony.

50

POMPEYI know not, Menas,

How lesser enmities may give way to greater.

Were’t not that we stand up against them all,

’Twere pregnant[53] they should square between themselves,

For they have entertainèd[54] cause enough

55

To draw their swords. But how the fear of us

May cement their divisions, and bind up

The petty difference, we yet not[57] know.

Be’t as our gods will have’t! It[58] only stands

Our lives upon to use our strongest hands.

60

Come, Menas.

Exeunt

[Act 2 Scene 2*]

running scene 5

Enter Enobarbus and Lepidus

LEPIDUS Good Enobarbus, ’tis a worthy deed,

And shall become you well, to entreat your captain

To soft and gentle speech.

ENOBARBUSI shall entreat him

5

To answer like himself:[5] if Caesar move him,

Let Antony look[6] over Caesar’s head

And speak as loud as Mars.[7] By Jupiter,

Were I the wearer of Antonio’s beard,

I[9] would not shave’t today!

10

LEPIDUS’Tis not a time for private stomaching.[10]

ENOBARBUSEvery time

Serves for the matter that is then born in’t.

LEPIDUSBut small to greater matters must give way.

ENOBARBUSNot if the small come first.

15

LEPIDUSYour speech is passion:

But pray you stir no embers up. Here comes

The noble Antony.

Enter Antony and Ventidius

ENOBARBUSAnd yonder Caesar.

Enter Caesar, Maecenas and Agrippa

ANTONYIf we compose[19] well here, to Parthia.

20

Hark,[20] Ventidius. They converse apart

CAESARI do not know, Maecenas, ask Agrippa.

LEPIDUS Noble friends,

That which combined[23] us was most great, and let not

A leaner[24] action rend us. What’s amiss,

25

May it be gently[25] heard. When we debate

Our trivial difference loud, we do commit[26]

Murder in healing wounds. Then, noble partners,

The rather for[28] I earnestly beseech,

Touch[29] you the sourest points with sweetest terms,

30

Nor[30] curstness grow to th’matter.

ANTONY’Tis spoken well:

Were we before our armies, and to[32] fight,

I should do thus.

Flourish

CAESARWelcome to Rome.

35

ANTONYThank you.

CAESARSit.

ANTONY Sit, sir.

CAESAR Nay then.[38] Caesar sits, then Antony

ANTONYI learn you take things ill which are not so,

40

Or being,[40] concern you not.

CAESARI must be laughed at

If, or[42] for nothing or a little, I

Should say myself offended, and with you

Chiefly i’th’world:[44] more laughed at that I should

45

Once name you derogately[45] when to sound your name

It not concerned me.[46]

ANTONYMy being in Egypt, Caesar,

What was’t to you?

CAESARNo more than my residing here at Rome

50

Might be to you in Egypt: yet if you there

Did practise[51] on my state, your being in Egypt

Might be my question.[52]

ANTONYHow intend you,[53] ‘practised’?

CAESARYou may be pleased to catch at[54] mine intent

55

By what did here befall me. Your wife and brother

Made wars upon me, and their contestation[56]

Was theme for you:[57] you were the word of war.

ANTONYYou do mistake your business. My brother never

Did urge me[59] in his act: I did inquire it,

60

And have my learning[60] from some true reports

That drew[61] their swords with you. Did he not rather

Discredit my authority with[62] yours,

And make the wars alike against my stomach,[63]

Having[64] alike your cause? Of this my letters

65

Before did satisfy you. If you’ll patch[65] a quarrel,

As matter whole[66] you have to make it with,

It must not be with this.

CAESARYou praise yourself

By laying defects of judgement to me, but

70

You patched up your excuses.

ANTONYNot so, not so:

I[72] know you could not lack, I am certain on’t,

Very necessity of this thought, that I,

Your partner in the cause gainst which he[74] fought,

75

Could not with graceful[75] eyes attend those wars

Which fronted[76] mine own peace. As for my wife,

I[77] would you had her spirit in such another:

The third o’th’world is yours, which with a snaffle[78]

You may pace[79] easy, but not such a wife.

80

ENOBARBUSWould we had all such wives, that the men might go to wars with the women!

ANTONYSo much uncurbable,[82] her garboils, Caesar,

Made out of her impatience — which not wanted[83]

Shrewdness of policy[84] too — I grieving grant

85

Did you too much disquiet. For that you must

But[86] say I could not help it.

CAESARI wrote to you:

When rioting[88] in Alexandria you

Did pocket up my letters, and with taunts

90

Did gibe[90] my missive out of audience.

ANTONYSir,

He fell upon me ere admitted,[92] then.

Three kings I had newly[93] feasted, and did want

Of what I was i’th’morning. But next day

95

I told[95] him of myself, which was as much

As to have asked him pardon. Let this fellow

Be nothing[97] of our strife: if we contend,

Out of our question[98] wipe him.

CAESARYou have broken

100

The article[100] of your oath, which you shall never

Have tongue to charge me with.

LEPIDUSSoft,[102] Caesar!

ANTONYNo, Lepidus, let him speak.

The honour is sacred which he talks on now,

105

Supposing[105] that I lacked it. But, on, Caesar:

The article of my oath—

CAESARTo lend me arms and aid when I required[107] them,

The which you both denied.

ANTONYNeglected rather:

110

And then when poisoned hours had bound me up

From mine own knowledge.[111] As nearly as I may,

I’ll play the penitent to you: but mine honesty

Shall[113] not make poor my greatness, nor my power

Work without it. Truth is that Fulvia,

115

To have me out of Egypt, made wars here,

For which myself, the ignorant motive,[116] do

So far ask pardon as befits mine honour

To stoop in such a case.

LEPIDUS’Tis noble spoken.

120

MAECENASIf it might please you to enforce no further

The griefs[121] between ye, to forget them quite

Were to remember that the present need

Speaks to atone[123] you.

LEPIDUS Worthily spoken, Maecenas.

125

ENOBARBUSOr, if you borrow one another’s love for the instant,[125] you may, when you hear no more words of Pompey, return it again: you shall have time to wrangle in when you have nothing else to do.

ANTONYThou art a soldier only. Speak no more.

ENOBARBUSThat truth should be silent, I had almost forgot.

130

ANTONYYou wrong this presence,[130] therefore speak no more.

ENOBARBUSGo to, then![131] You considerate stone.

CAESARI do not much dislike the matter, but

The manner of his speech: for’t cannot be

We shall remain in friendship, our conditions[134]

135

So diff’ring in their acts. Yet if I knew

What hoop should hold us staunch,[136] from edge to edge

O’th’world I would pursue it.

AGRIPPAGive me leave, Caesar.

CAESARSpeak, Agrippa.

140

AGRIPPAThou hast a sister[140] by the mother’s side,

Admired Octavia: great Mark Antony

Is now a widower.

CAESARSay not so, Agrippa:

If Cleopatra heard you, your reproof[144]

145

Were well deserved of rashness.

ANTONYI am not married, Caesar: let me hear

Agrippa further speak.

AGRIPPATo hold you in perpetual amity,[148]

To make you brothers and to knit your hearts

150

With an unslipping knot, take Antony

Octavia to his wife, whose beauty claims

No worse a husband than the best of men,

Whose[153] virtue and whose general graces speak

That which none else can utter. By this marriage

155

All little jealousies[155] which now seem great,

And all great fears which now import[156] their dangers

Would then be nothing. Truths[157] would be tales,

Where now half-tales be truths. Her love to both[158]

Would each to other, and all loves to both

160

Draw after her. Pardon what I have spoke,

For ’tis a studied, not a present[161] thought,

By duty ruminated.

ANTONYWill Caesar speak?

CAESARNot till he hears how Antony is touched[164]

165

With what is spoke already.

ANTONYWhat power[166] is in Agrippa,

If I would[167] say, ‘Agrippa, be it so’,

To make this good?

CAESARThe power of Caesar, and

170

His power unto[170] Octavia.

ANTONYMay I never,

To this good purpose that so fairly shows,[172]

Dream of impediment![173] Let me have thy hand.

Further this act of grace,[174] and from this hour

175

The heart of brothers govern in our loves

And sway our great designs!

CAESARThere’s my hand: They clasp hands

A sister I bequeath you, whom no brother

Did ever love so dearly. Let her live

180

To join our kingdoms and our hearts, and never[180]

Fly off our loves again!

LEPIDUSHappily, amen!

ANTONYI did not think to draw my sword gainst Pompey,

For[184] he hath laid strange courtesies and great

185

Of late upon me. I must thank him, only

Lest my remembrance[186] suffer ill report:

At[187] heel of that, defy him.

LEPIDUSTime calls upon’s.

Of[189] us must Pompey presently be sought,

190

Or else he seeks out us.

ANTONYWhere lies he?

CAESARAbout the Mount Misena.[192]

ANTONYWhat is his strength by land?

CAESARGreat and increasing, but by sea

195

He is an absolute master.

ANTONYSo is the fame.[196]

Would[197] we had spoke together! Haste we for it.

Yet, ere[198] we put ourselves in arms, dispatch we

The business we have talked of.

200

CAESARWith most gladness,

And do invite you to my sister’s view,[201]

Whither straight I’ll lead you.

ANTONYLet us, Lepidus, not[205] lack your company.

LEPIDUSNoble Antony,

205

Not sickness should detain me.

Flourish. Exeunt all. Enobarbus, Agrippa, Maecenas remain

MAECENASWelcome from Egypt, sir.

ENOBARBUSHalf the heart[207] of Caesar, worthy Maecenas! My honourable friend, Agrippa!

AGRIPPAGood Enobarbus!

210

MAECENASWe have cause to be glad that matters are so well digested.[210] You stayed well by’t in Egypt.

ENOBARBUSAy, sir, we did sleep day[212] out of countenance and made the night light with drinking.

MAECENASEight wild boars roasted whole at a breakfast, and but[214] twelve personsthere. Is this true?

ENOBARBUSThis was but as a fly by[216] an eagle: we had much more monstrous matter of feast, which worthily deserved noting.

MAECENASShe’s a most triumphant[218] lady, if report be square to her.

ENOBARBUSWhen she first met Mark Antony, she pursed[219] up his heart upon the river of Cydnus.

AGRIPPAThere she appeared indeed, or my reporter[221] devised well for her.

ENOBARBUSI will tell you

The barge she sat in, like a burnished[223] throne,

Burned[224] on the water: the poop was beaten gold,

225

Purple the sails, and so perfumèd that

The winds were lovesick with them: the oars were silver,

Which to the tune of flutes kept stroke, and made

The water which they beat to follow faster,

As amorous of their strokes.[229] For her own person,

230

It beggared all description: she did lie

In her pavilion, cloth-of-gold of tissue,[231]

O’er-picturing[232] that Venus where we see

The fancy out-work nature: on each side her[233]

Stood pretty dimpled boys, like[234] smiling Cupids,

235

With divers-coloured[235] fans whose wind did seem

To glow[236] the delicate cheeks which they did cool,

And what they undid did.

AGRIPPAO, rare[238] for Antony!

ENOBARBUSHer gentlewomen,[239] like the Nereides,

240

So many mermaids, tended her i’th’eyes,[240]

And made[241] their bends adornings. At the helm

A seeming mermaid steers: the silken tackle[242]

Swell[243] with the touches of those flower-soft hands

That yarely[244] frame the office. From the barge

245

A strange invisible perfume hits the sense

Of the adjacent wharfs.[246] The city cast

Her people out upon her, and Antony,

Enthroned i’th’market-place, did sit alone,

Whistling to th’air, which, but for vacancy,[249]

250

Had[250] gone to gaze on Cleopatra too,

And made a gap in nature.

AGRIPPARare Egyptian![252]

ENOBARBUS Upon her landing, Antony sent to her,

Invited her to supper: she replied

255

It should be better he became her guest,

Which she entreated. Our courteous Antony,

Whom ne’er the word of ‘No’ woman heard speak,

Being barbered[258] ten times o’er, goes to the feast,

And for his ordinary,[259] pays his heart

260

For what[260] his eyes eat only.

AGRIPPARoyal wench![261]

She made great Caesar[262] lay his sword to bed.

He ploughed her, and she cropped.[263]

ENOBARBUSI saw her once

265

Hop forty paces through the public street

And, having lost her breath, she spoke and panted,

That[267] she did make defect perfection,

And, breathless, pour breath forth.

MAECENASNow Antony must leave her utterly.

270

ENOBARBUSNever! He will not.

Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale[271]

Her infinite variety: other women cloy

The appetites they feed, but she makes hungry

Where most she satisfies. For vilest[274] things

275

Become themselves in her, that the holy priests

Bless her when she is riggish.[276]

MAECENASIf beauty, wisdom, modesty, can settle

The heart of Antony, Octavia is

A blessèd lottery[279] to him.

280

AGRIPPALet us go.

Good Enobarbus, make yourself my guest

Whilst you abide here.

ENOBARBUSHumbly, sir, I thank you.

Exeunt

[Act 2 Scene 3]

running scene 5 continues

Enter Antony, Caesar, Octavia between them

ANTONYThe world and my great office[1] will sometimes

Divide me from your bosom.

OCTAVIAAll which time

Before the gods my knee shall bow my prayers

5

To them for you.

ANTONYGoodnight, sir. My Octavia,

Read[7] not my blemishes in the world’s report:

I have not kept my square,[8] but that to come

Shall all be done by th’rule.[9] Goodnight, dear lady.

10

OCTAVIAGoodnight, sir.

CAESARGoodnight.

Exeunt [Caesar and Octavia]

Enter Soothsayer

ANTONYNow, sirrah:[12] you do wish yourself in Egypt?

SOOTHSAYERWould I had never come from thence, nor you thither.[13]

ANTONYIf you can,[14] your reason?

15

SOOTHSAYERI see it in my motion,[15] have it not in my tongue.

But yet hie you[16] to Egypt again.

ANTONYSay to me, whose fortunes shall rise higher,

Caesar’s or mine?

SOOTHSAYERCaesar’s.

20

Therefore, O Antony, stay not by his side:

Thy demon,[21] that thy spirit which keeps thee, is

Noble, courageous, high unmatchable,

Where Caesar’s is not. But near him, thy angel[23]

Becomes afeared, as[24] being o’erpowered: therefore

25

Make space enough between you.

ANTONYSpeak this no more.

SOOTHSAYERTo none but thee, no[27] more but when to thee.

If thou dost play with him at any game,

Thou art sure to lose, and of that natural luck

30

He beats thee gainst the odds. Thy lustre thickens[30]

When he shines by: I say again, thy spirit

Is all afraid to govern thee near him,

But, he[33] away, ’tis noble.

ANTONYGet thee gone.

35

Say to Ventidius I would speak with him:

Exit [Soothsayer]

He shall to Parthia. Be it art or hap,[36]

He hath spoken true: the very dice obey him,

And in our sports my better[38] cunning faints

Under his chance. If we draw lots, he speeds:[39]

40

His cocks do win the battle still of mine

When it[41] is all to nought, and his quails ever

Beat mine, inhooped,[42] at odds. I will to Egypt:

And though I make this marriage for my peace,

I’th’east my pleasure lies.— O, come, Ventidius,

Enter Ventidius

45

You must to Parthia: your commission’s ready,

Follow me and receive’t.

Exeunt

[Act 2 Scene 4]

running scene 5 continues

Enter Lepidus, Maecenas and Agrippa

LEPIDUSTrouble yourselves no further: pray you hasten

Your generals after.[2]

AGRIPPASir, Mark Antony

Will e’en[4] but kiss Octavia, and we’ll follow.

5

LEPIDUSTill I shall see you in your soldier’s dress,

Which will become you both, farewell.

MAECENASWe shall,

As I conceive the journey, be at the Mount[8]

Before you, Lepidus.

10

LEPIDUSYour way is shorter.

My purposes do draw[11] me much about:

You’ll win two days upon me.

BOTHSir, good success!

LEPIDUSFarewell.

Exeunt

[Act 2 Scene 5]2.5

running scene 6

Enter Cleopatra, Charmian, Iras and Alexas

CLEOPATRAGive me some music: music, moody food

Of us that trade[2] in love.

ALLThe music, ho!

Enter Mardian the Eunuch

CLEOPATRALet it alone. Let’s to billiards: come, Charmian.

5

CHARMIANMy arm is sore, best play with Mardian.

CLEOPATRAAs[6] well a woman with an eunuch played

As with a woman. Come, you’ll play with me, sir?

MARDIANAs well as I can, madam.

CLEOPATRAAnd when good will[9] is showed, though’t come too short,

10

The actor[10] may plead pardon. I’ll none now.

Give me mine angle:[11] we’ll to th’river. There,

My music playing far off, I will betray[12]

Tawny-finned[13] fishes: my bended hook shall pierce

Their slimy jaws, and, as I draw them up,

15

I’ll think them every one an Antony,

And say ‘Ah, ha! You’re caught!’

CHARMIAN’Twas merry when

You wagered on your angling, when your diver[18]

Did hang a salt-fish[19] on his hook, which he

20

With fervency[20] drew up.

CLEOPATRAThat time? O times!

I Iaughed him out of patience, and that night

I laughed him into patience, and next morn,

Ere the ninth hour, I drunk him to his bed,

25

Then put my tires and mantles[25] on him, whilst

I wore his sword Philippan.[26]—

Enter a Messenger

O, from Italy

Ram[27] thou thy fruitful tidings in mine ears,

That long time have been barren.

MESSENGERMadam, madam—

30

CLEOPATRAAntonio’s dead! If thou say so, villain,

Thou kill’st thy mistress. But well and free,

If thou so yield[32] him, there is gold, and here Offers gold

My bluest veins to kiss: a hand that kings Offers her hand

Have lipped,[34] and trembled kissing.

35

MESSENGERFirst, madam, he is well.

CLEOPATRAWhy, there’s more gold.

But sirrah, mark, we use[37]

To say[38] the dead are well: bring it to that,

The gold I give thee will I melt and pour

40

Down thy ill-uttering throat.

MESSENGERGood madam, hear me.

CLEOPATRAWell, go to,[42] I will.

But there’s no goodness in thy face if Antony

Be free and healthful; so tart a favour[44]

45

To trumpet such good tidings! If not well,

Thou shouldst come like a Fury[46] crowned with snakes,

Not like a formal[47] man.

MESSENGERWill’t please you hear me?

CLEOPATRAI have a mind to strike thee ere thou speak’st:

50

Yet if thou say Antony lives, ’tis well,[50]

Or[51] friends with Caesar, or not captive to him,

I’ll set thee in a shower of gold[52] and hail

Rich pearls upon thee.

MESSENGERMadam, he’s well.

55

CLEOPATRAWell said.

MESSENGERAnd friends with Caesar.

CLEOPATRAThou’rt an honest[57] man.

MESSENGERCaesar and he are greater friends than ever.

CLEOPATRAMake thee a fortune from me.

60

MESSENGERBut yet, madam—

CLEOPATRAI do not like ‘But yet’: it does allay[61]

The good precedence. Fie upon ‘But yet’!

‘But yet’ is as a jailer to bring forth

Some monstrous malefactor.[64] Prithee friend,

65

Pour[65] out the pack of matter to mine ear,

The good and bad together: he’s friends with Caesar,

In state of health thou say’st and, thou say’st, free.

MESSENGERFree, madam? No: I made no such report.

He’s bound[69] unto Octavia.

70

CLEOPATRAFor what good turn?[71]

MESSENGERFor the best turn i’th’bed.

CLEOPATRAI am pale, Charmian.

MESSENGERMadam, he’s married to Octavia.

CLEOPATRAThe most infectious pestilence[74] upon thee!

Strikes him down

75

MESSENGERGood madam, patience.

CLEOPATRAWhat say you?

Strikes him

Hence, horrible villain, or I’ll spurn[77] thine eyes

Like balls before me! I’ll unhair thy head!

She hauls him up and down

Thou shalt be whipped with wire and stewed in brine,

80

Smarting in ling’ring pickle![80]

MESSENGERGracious madam,

I that do bring the news made not the match.

CLEOPATRASay ’tis not so, a province I will give thee,

And make thy fortunes proud:[84] the blow thou hadst

85

Shall make thy peace[85] for moving me to rage,

And I will boot[86] thee with what gift beside

Thy modesty can beg.

MESSENGERHe’s married, madam.

CLEOPATRARogue, thou hast lived too long!

Draw a knife

90

MESSENGERNay then, I’ll run.

What mean you, madam? I have made no fault.

Exit

CHARMIANGood madam, keep yourself[92] within yourself.

The man is innocent.

CLEOPATRASome innocents scape not the thunderbolt.[94]

95

Melt Egypt[95] into Nile, and kindly creatures

Turn all to serpents! Call the slave again.

Though I am mad,[97] I will not bite him: call!

CHARMIANHe is afeard to come.

CLEOPATRAI will not hurt him.

[Exit Charmian]

100

These hands do lack nobility that they strike

A meaner[101] than myself, since I myself

Have given myself the cause.—

Enter the Messenger again [with Charmian]

Come hither, sir.

Though it be honest, it is never good

To bring bad news: give to a gracious[104] message

105

An host of tongues,[105] but let ill tidings tell

Themselves when they be felt.

MESSENGERI have done my duty.

CLEOPATRAIs he married?

I cannot hate thee worser than I do

110

If thou again say ‘Yes.’

MESSENGERHe’s married, madam.

CLEOPATRAThe gods confound[112] thee! Dost thou hold there still?

MESSENGERShould I lie, madam?

CLEOPATRAO, I would thou didst,

115

So[115] half my Egypt were submerged and made

A cistern[116] for scaled snakes! Go, get thee hence!

Hadst thou Narcissus[117] in thy face, to me

Thou wouldst appear most ugly. He is married?

MESSENGERI crave your highness’ pardon.

120

CLEOPATRAHe is married?

MESSENGERTake[121] no offence that I would not offend you.

To punish me for what you make me do

Seems much unequal.[123] He’s married to Octavia.

CLEOPATRAO,[124] that his fault should make a knave of thee,

125

That art not what thou’rt sure of! Get thee hence,

The merchandise[126] which thou hast brought from Rome

Are all too dear[127] for me: lie they upon thy hand,

And be undone by ’em!

[Exit Messenger]

CHARMIANGood your highness, patience.

130

CLEOPATRAIn praising Antony, I have dispraised Caesar.

CHARMIANMany times, madam.

CLEOPATRAI am paid for’t now. Lead me from hence:

I faint! O Iras, Charmian! ’Tis no matter.

Go to the fellow, good Alexas, bid him

135

Report the feature[135] of Octavia: her years,

Her inclination,[136] let him not leave out

The colour of her hair. Bring me word quickly.

[Exit Alexas]

Let him[138] for ever go.— Let him not, Charmian,

Though he be painted[139] one way like a Gorgon,

140

The other way’s a Mars.— Bid you Alexas To Iras

Bring me word how tall she is.— Pity me, Charmian,

But do not speak to me. Lead me to my chamber.

Exeunt

[Act 2 Scene 6]2.6

running scene 7

Flourish. Enter Pompey at one door, with Drum and Trumpet, at another, Caesar, Lepidus, Antony, Enobarbus, Maecenas, Agrippa, Menas with Soldiers marching

POMPEYYour hostages I have, so have you mine,

And we shall talk before we fight.

CAESARMost meet[3]

That first we come to words, and therefore have we

5

Our written purposes[5] before us sent,

Which, if thou hast considered, let us know

If ’twill tie up[7] thy discontented sword

And carry back to Sicily much tall[8] youth

That else[9] must perish here.

10

POMPEYTo you all three,

The senators alone[11] of this great world,

Chief factors[12] for the gods: I do not know

Wherefore[13] my father should revengers want,

Having a son and friends, since Julius Caesar,

15

Who at Philippi the good Brutus ghosted,[15]

There saw you labouring for him. What was’t

That moved[17] pale Cassius to conspire? And what

Made the all-honoured, honest[18] Roman, Brutus,

With the armed rest, courtiers[19] of beauteous freedom,

20

To drench[20] the Capitol, but that they would

Have one[21] man but a man? And that is it

Hath made me rig my navy, at whose burden

The angered ocean foams, with which I meant

To scourge[24] th’ingratitude that despiteful Rome

25

Cast on my noble father.

CAESARTake your time.

ANTONYThou canst not fear[27] us, Pompey, with thy sails.

We’ll speak[28] with thee at sea. At land thou know’st

How much we do o’er-count[29] thee.

30

POMPEYAt land indeed

Thou dost o’er-count[31] me of my father’s house:

But since the cuckoo[32] builds not for himself,

Remain in’t as thou mayst.[33]

LEPIDUSBe pleased to tell us —

35

For this is from the present[35] — how you take

The offers we have sent you.

CAESARThere’s the point.

ANTONYWhich do not be entreated to,[38] but weigh

What it is worth embraced.[39]

40

CAESARAnd what[40] may follow,

To try a larger fortune.

POMPEYYou have made me offer

Of Sicily, Sardinia, and I must

Rid all the sea of pirates. Then to send

45

Measures of wheat to Rome: this ’greed upon

To part[46] with unhacked edges, and bear back

Our targes[47] undinted.

CAESAR, ANTONY and LEPIDUSThat’s our offer.

POMPEYKnow, then,

50

I came before you here a man prepared

To take this offer. But Mark Antony

Put me to some impatience, though I lose

The praise of[53] it by telling. You must know

When Caesar and your brother were at blows,

55

Your mother came to Sicily and did find

Her welcome friendly.

ANTONYI have heard it, Pompey,

And am well studied[58] for a liberal thanks

Which I do owe you.

60

POMPEYLet me have your hand: They shake hands

I did not think, sir, to have met you here.

ANTONYThe beds i’th’east are soft, and thanks to you,

That called me timelier[63] than my purpose hither,

For I have gained by’t.

65

CAESARSince I saw you last, there’s a change upon you.

POMPEYWell, I know not

What counts[67] harsh fortune casts upon my face,

But in[68] my bosom shall she never come

To make my heart her vassal.

70

LEPIDUSWell met here.

POMPEYI hope so, Lepidus. Thus we are agreed:

I crave our composition[72] may be written

And sealed between us.[73]

CAESARThat’s the next to do.

75

POMPEYwe’ll feast each other ere we part, and let’s

Draw lots who shall begin.

ANTONYThat will I, Pompey.

POMPEYNo, Antony, take the lot:[78] but, first

Or last, your fine Egyptian cookery

80

Shall have the fame.[80] I have heard that Julius Caesar

Grew[81] fat with feasting there.

ANTONYYou have heard much.

POMPEYI have fair[83] meanings, sir.

ANTONYAnd[84] fair words to them.

85

POMPEYThen so much have I heard,

And I have heard, Apollodorus[86] carried—

ENOBARBUSNo more of that: he did so.

POMPEYWhat, I pray you?

ENOBARBUSA certain queen to Caesar in a mattress.

90

POMPEYI know thee now. How far’st[90] thou, soldier?

ENOBARBUSWell,

And well am like to do, for I perceive

Four feasts are toward.[93]

POMPEYLet me shake thy hand. They shake hands

95

I never hated thee: I have seen thee fight,

When I have envied thy behaviour.[96]

ENOBARBUSSir,

I never loved you much, but I ha’ praised ye

When you have well deserved ten times as much

100

As I have said you did.

POMPEYEnjoy thy plainness,[101]

It nothing ill becomes[102] thee.

Aboard my galley[103] I invite you all.

Will you lead, lords?

105

CAESAR, ANTONY and LEPIDUSShow’s the way, sir.

POMPEYCome.

Exeunt. Enobarbus and Menas remain

MENASThy father, Pompey, would ne’er have made this treaty.— Aside You and I have known,[108] sir. To Enobarbus

ENOBARBUSAt sea, I think.

MENASWe have, sir.

ENOBARBUS You have done well by water.

MENASAnd you by land.

ENOBARBUSI will praise any man that will praise me, though it cannot be denied what I have done by land.

MENASNor what I have done by water.

ENOBARBUSYes, something you can deny for your own safety: you have been a great thief by sea.

MENASAnd you by land.

ENOBARBUSThere I deny my land service. But give me your hand, Menas. If our eyes They shake hands had authority, here they might take[120] two thieves kissing.

MENASAll men’s faces are true,[121] whatsome’er their hands are.

ENOBARBUSBut there is never a fair woman has a true[122] face.

MENASNo slander. They steal hearts.

ENOBARBUSWe came hither to fight with you.

MENASFor my part, I am sorry it is turned to a drinking. Pompey doth this day laugh away his fortune.

ENOBARBUSIf he do, sure he cannot weep’t back again.

MENASYou’ve said,[128] sir. We looked not for Mark Antony here. Pray you, is he married to Cleopatra?

ENOBARBUSCaesar’s sister is called Octavia.

MENASTrue, sir, she was the wife of Caius Marcellus.

ENOBARBUSBut she is now the wife of Marcus Antonius.

MENASPray ye, sir?[133]

ENOBARBUS’Tis true.

MENASThen is Caesar and he forever knit together.

ENOBARBUSIf I were bound to divine[136] of this unity, I would not prophesy so.

MENASI think the policy[137] of that purpose made more in the marriage than the love of the parties.

ENOBARBUSI think so too. But you shall find, the band[139] that seems to tie their friendship together will be the very strangler of their amity: Octavia is of a holy, cold and still[141] conversation.

MENASWho would not have his wife so?

ENOBARBUS Not he that himself is not so, which is Mark Antony. He will to his Egyptian dish[144] again: then shall the sighs of Octavia blow the fire up in Caesar, and — as I said before — that which is the strength of their amity shall prove the immediate author[146] of their variance. Antony will use his affection where it is. He married but his occasion[147] here.

MENASAnd thus it may be. Come, sir, will you aboard? I have a health[148] for you.

ENOBARBUS I shall take it, sir: we have used our throats in Egypt.

150

MENASCome, let’s away.

Exeunt

[Act 2 Scene 7]2.7

running scene 8

Music plays. Enter two or three Servants with a banquet

FIRST SERVANTHere they’ll be, man. Some o’their plants[1] are ill-rooted already: the least wind i’th’world will blow them down.

SECOND SERVANTLepidus is high-coloured.[3]

FIRST SERVANTThey have made him drink alms-drink.[4]

SECOND SERVANTAs they pinch[5] one another by the disposition, he cries out ‘No more’, reconciles them to his entreaty, and himself to th’drink.

FIRST SERVANTBut it raises the greater war between him and his discretion.[7]

SECOND SERVANTWhy, this it is to have[8] a name in great men’s fellowship: I had as lief have a reed that will do me no service as a partisan[9] I could not heave.

FIRST SERVANTTo be called into a huge sphere and not to[10] be seen to move in’t, are the holes where eyes should be, which pitifully[11] disaster the cheeks.

A sennet sounded. Enter Caesar, Antony, Pompey, Lepidus, Agrippa, Maecenas, Enobarbus, Menas, with other Captains [and a Boy Singer]

ANTONYThus do they, sir: they take[12] the flow o’th’Nile

By certain scales[13] i’th’pyramid. They know,

By th’height, the lowness, or the mean,[14] if dearth

15

Or foison[15] follow. The higher Nilus swells,

The more it promises. As it ebbs, the seedsman

Upon the slime and ooze[17] scatters his grain,

And shortly comes to harvest.

LEPIDUSYou’ve strange serpents there?

ANTONYAy, Lepidus.

LEPIDUSYour serpent of Egypt is bred now of your mud by the operation of your sun: so is your[21] crocodile.

ANTONYThey are so.

POMPEYSit, and some wine! They sit and drink A health to Lepidus!

LEPIDUSI am not so well as I should be, but I’ll ne’er out.[25]

ENOBARBUSNot till you have slept.— Aside I fear me you’ll be in[26] till then.

LEPIDUSNay, certainly, I have heard the Ptolemies’[27] pyramises are very goodly things: without contradiction, I have heard that.

MENASPompey, a word. Aside to Pompey

PMOPEYSay in mine ear what is’t. Aside to Menas

MENASForsake[31] thy seat, I do beseech thee, captain, Aside to Pompey And hear me speak a word.

POMPEYWhispers in’s ear Forbear[33] me till anon.— This wine for Lepidus!

LEPIDUSWhat manner o’thing is your crocodile?

ANTONYIt is shaped, sir, like itself, and it is as broad as it hath breadth: it is just so high as it is, and moves with it own organs: it lives by that which nourisheth it, and the elements once out of it, it transmigrates.[37]

LEPIDUSWhat colour is it of?

ANTONYOf it[39] own colour too.

LEPIDUS’Tis a strange serpent.

ANTONY’Tis so. And the tears[41] of it are wet.

CAESARWill this description satisfy him?

ANTONYWith the health that Pompey gives him, else[43] he is a very epicure. Menas whispers again

POMPEYGo hang, sir, hang! Tell me of that? Away! Aside to Menas

45

Do as I bid you.— Where’s this cup I called for?

MENASIf for the sake of merit[46] thou wilt hear me, Aside to Pompey

Rise from thy stool.

POMPEYI think thou’rt mad. The matter?[48] Aside to Menas

Pompey and Menas step aside and converse apart

MENASI have ever held[49] my cap off to thy fortunes.

50

POMPEYThou hast served me with much faith.[50] What’s else to say?—

Be jolly, lords. To the others

ANTONYThese quicksands,[52] Lepidus,

Keep off them, for you sink.

MENASWilt thou be lord of all the world?

55

POMPEYWhat say’st thou?

MENASWilt thou be lord of the whole world? That’s twice.

POMPEYHow should that be?

MENASBut entertain[58] it,

And, though thou think me poor, I am the man

60

Will give thee all the world.

POMPEYHast thou drunk well?

MENASNo, Pompey, I have kept me from the cup.

Thou art, if thou dar’st be, the earthly Jove:

Whate’er the ocean pales[64] or sky inclips

65

Is thine, if thou wilt ha’t.

POMPEYShow me which way.

MENASThese three world-sharers, these competitors,[67]

Are in thy vessel. Let me cut the cable,[68]

And when we are put off,[69] fall to their throats:

70

All there is thine.

POMPEYAh, this thou shouldst have done

And not have spoke on’t.[72] In me ’tis villainy:

In thee’t had been good service. Thou must know,

’Tis[74] not my profit that does lead mine honour:

75

Mine honour, it. Repent that e’er thy tongue

Hath so betrayed[76] thine act: being done unknown,

I should have found it afterwards well done,

But must condemn it now. Desist,[78] and drink. Joins the others

MENASFor this, I’ll never follow thy palled[79] fortunes more:[81] Aside

80

Who seeks and will not take when once ’tis offered,

Shall never find it more.

POMPEYThis health to Lepidus! They drink

ANTONYBear him ashore. I’ll pledge[83] it for him, Pompey.

ENOBARBUSHere’s to thee, Menas!

85

MENASEnobarbus, welcome!

POMPEYFill till the cup be hid.[86]

ENOBARBUSThere’s a strong fellow, Menas. Points to an Attendant who is carrying off Lepidus

MENASWhy?

ENOBARBUSA[89] bears the third part of the world, man: see’st

90

not?

MENASThe third part then he is drunk: would it were all,

That it might go on wheels![92]

ENOBARBUSDrink thou: increase the reels.[93]

MENASCome.

95

POMPEYThis is not yet an Alexandrian feast.

ANTONYIt ripens towards it. Strike the vessels,[96] ho!

Here’s to Caesar!

CAESARI could well forbear’t.[98]

It’s monstrous[99] labour when I wash my brain

100

And it grow fouler.[100]

ANTONYBe a child o’th’time.[101]

CAESAR‘Possess[102] it’, I’ll make answer.

But I had rather fast from all[103] four days

Than drink so much in one.

105

ENOBARBUSHa, my brave[105] emperor! To Antony

Shall we dance now the Egyptian Bacchanals[106]

And celebrate[107] our drink?

POMPEYLet’s ha’t, good soldier.

ANTONYCome, let’s all take hands

110

Till that the conquering wine hath steeped our sense

In soft and delicate Lethe.[111]

ENOBARBUSAll take hands:

Make battery to[113] our ears with the loud music,

The while[114] I’ll place you, then the boy shall sing.

115

The holding[115] every man shall beat as loud

As his strong sides can volley.[116]

Music plays. Enobarbus places them hand in hand.

BOYThe Song

Come, thou monarch of the vine, Sings

Plumpy Bacchus[118] with pink eyne!

In thy fats[119] our cares be drowned,

120

With thy grapes our hairs be crowned.

Cup us[121] till the world go round,

Cup us till the world go round!

CAESARWhat would you more? Pompey, goodnight. Good brother,[123]

Let me request you off:[124] our graver business

125

Frowns at this levity. Gentle lords, let’s part:

You see we have burnt our cheeks.[126] Strong Enobarb

Is weaker than the wine, and mine own tongue

Splits what it speaks: the wild disguise[128] hath almost

Anticked[129] us all. What needs more words? Goodnight.

130

Good Antony, your hand.

POMPEYI’ll try you[131] on the shore.

ANTONYAnd shall, sir. Give’s your hand.

POMPEYO, Antony,

You have my father’s house. But what,[134] we are friends?

135

Come down into the boat.

ENOBARBUSTake heed you fall not.—

[Exeunt all but Enobarbus and Menas]

Menas, I’ll not on shore.

MENASNo, to my cabin.

These drums, these trumpets, flutes! What![138]

Let Neptune[139] hear we bid a loud farewell

140

To these great fellows. Sound and be hanged! Sound out!

Sound a flourish, with drums

ENOBARBUSHo, says a.[141] There’s my cap. Throws his cap in the air

MENASHo! Noble captain, come.

Exeunt

[Act 3 Scene 1]3.1

running scene 9

Enter Ventidius as it were in triumph, the dead body of Pacorus borne before him, [with Silius and other Roman officers and soldiers]

VENTIDIUSNow, darting Parthia,[1] art thou struck, and now

Pleased fortune does of Marcus Crassus’[2] death

Make me revenger. Bear the king’s son’s body

Before our army: thy Pacorus,[4] Orodes,

5

Pays this for Marcus Crassus.

SILIUSNoble Ventidius,

Whilst yet with Parthian blood thy sword is warm,

The[8] fugitive Parthians follow. Spur through Media,

Mesopotamia,[9] and the shelters whither

10

The routed fly. So thy grand captain Antony

Shall set thee on triumphant[11] chariots and

Put garlands on thy head.

VENTIDIUSO Silius, Silius,

I have done enough. A lower place,[14] note well,

15

May make[15] too great an act. For learn this, Silius:

Better to leave undone, than by our deed

Acquire too high a fame when him we serve’s away.

Caesar and Antony have ever won[18]

More in their officer than person. Sossius,

20

One of my place[20] in Syria, his lieutenant,

For quick accumulation of renown,

Which he achieved by th’minute,[22] lost his favour.

Who does i’th’wars more than his captain can,

Becomes his captain’s captain, and ambition —

25

The soldier’s virtue — rather makes choice of[25] loss,

Than gain which darkens[26] him.

I could do more to do Antonius good,

But ’twould offend him, and in his offence[28]

Should my performance[29] perish.

30

SILIUSThou hast, Ventidius, that[30]

Without the which a soldier and his sword

Grants scarce distinction. Thou wilt write to Antony?

VENTIDIUSI’ll humbly signify what in his name,

That magical word of war, we have effected,

35

How with his banners and his well-paid ranks

The ne’er-yet-beaten horse[36] of Parthia

We have jaded[37] out o’th’field.

SILIUSWhere is he now?

VENTIDIUSHe purposeth[39] to Athens, whither, with what haste

40

The weight[40] we must convey with’s will permit,

We shall appear before him. On there, pass along!

Exeunt

[Act 3 Scene 2]3.2

running scene 10

Enter Agrippa at one door, Enobarbus at another

AGRIPPAWhat, are the brothers[1] parted?

ENOBARBUSThey have dispatched[2] with Pompey, he is gone.

The other three[3] are sealing. Octavia weeps

To part from Rome, Caesar is sad, and Lepidus

5

Since Pompey’s feast as Menas says, is troubled

With the green sickness.[6]

AGRIPPA’Tis a noble Lepidus.

ENOBARBUSA very fine[8] one: O, how he loves Caesar!

AGRIPPANay, but how dearly he adores Mark Antony!

10

ENOBARBUSCaesar? Why, he’s the Jupiter of men.

AGRIPPAWhat’s Antony? The god of Jupiter!

ENOBARBUSSpake you of Caesar? How, the non-pareil![12]

AGRIPPAO Antony! O thou Arabian bird![13]

ENOBARBUSWould you praise Caesar, say ‘Caesar’: go no further.

15

AGRIPPAIndeed, he plied them both with excellent praises.

ENOBARBUSBut he loves Caesar best, yet he loves Antony:

Ho! Hearts, tongues, figures,[17] scribes, bards, poets, cannot

Think, speak, cast,[18] write, sing, number, ho,

His love to Antony. But as for Caesar,

20

Kneel down, kneel down and wonder!

AGRIPPABoth he loves.

ENOBARBUSThey are his shards[22] and he their beetle. So: Trumpet within

This is to horse. Adieu, noble Agrippa.

AGRIPPAGood fortune, worthy soldier, and farewell.

Enter Caesar, Antony, Lepidus and Octavia

25

ANTONYNo further,[25] sir.

CAESARYou take from me a great part of myself:

Use[27] me well in’t. Sister, prove such a wife

As[28] my thoughts make thee, and as my farthest bond

Shall pass on thy approof. Most noble Antony,

30

Let not the piece[30] of virtue which is set

Betwixt[31] us as the cement of our love

To keep it builded, be the ram to batter

The fortress of it: for better might we

Have loved without this mean,[34] if on both parts

35

This be not cherished.

ANTONYMake me not offended in[36] your distrust.

CAESARI have said.[37]

ANTONYYou shall not find,

Though you be therein curious,[39] the least cause

40

For what you seem to fear. So the gods keep[40] you,

And make the hearts of Romans serve your ends.

We will here part.

CAESARFarewell, my dearest sister, fare thee well.

The elements[44] be kind to thee, and make

45

Thy spirits all of comfort. Fare thee well.

OCTAVIAMy noble brother! Weeps

ANTONYThe April’s[47] in her eyes: it is love’s spring

And these the showers to bring it on. Be cheerful.

OCTAVIASir, look[49] well to my husband’s house, and—

50

CAESARWhat, Octavia?

OCTAVIAI’ll tell you in your ear. Whispers to Caesar

ANTONYHer tongue will not obey her heart, nor can

Her heart inform her tongue — the[53] swan’s-down feather,

That stands upon the swell at full of tide,

55

And neither way inclines.

ENOBARBUSWill Caesar weep? Enobarbus and Agrippa speak aside

AGRIPPAHe has a cloud[57] in’s face.

ENOBARBUSHe were the worse for that were he a horse,

So is he, being a man.

60

AGRIPPAWhy, Enobarbus,

When Antony found Julius Caesar dead,

He cried almost to roaring, and he wept

When at Philippi he found Brutus slain.

ENOBARBUSThat year, indeed, he was troubled with a rheum;[64]

65

What willingly he did confound[65] he wailed,

Believe’t, till I wept too.

CAESARNo, sweet Octavia,

You shall hear from me still:[68] the time shall not

Outgo[69] my thinking on you.

70

ANTONYCome, sir, come:

I’ll wrestle with you in my strength of love.

Look, here I have you, thus I let you go, Embraces him

And give you to the gods.

CAESARAdieu. Be happy!

75

LEPIDUSLet all the number of the stars give light

To thy fair way.

CAESARFarewell, farewell!

Kisses Octavia

ANTONYFarewell!

Trumpets sound. Exeunt

[Act 3 Scene 3]3.3

running scene 11

Enter Cleopatra, Charmian, Iras and Alexas

CLEOPATRAWhere is the fellow?[1]

ALEXASHalf afeard to come.

CLEOPATRAGo to, go to.— Come hither, sir.

Enter the Messenger as before

ALEXASGood majesty,

5

Herod of Jewry[5] dare not look upon you

But when you are well pleased.

CLEOPATRAThat Herod’s head

I’ll have: but how,[8] when Antony is gone

Through whom I might command it?— Come thou near.

10

MESSENGERMost gracious majesty.

CLEOPATRADidst thou behold Octavia?

MESSENGERAy, dread[12] queen.

CLEOPATRAWhere?

MESSENGERMadam, in Rome.

15

I looked her in the face, and saw her led

Between her brother and Mark Antony.

CLEOPATRAIs she as tall as me?

MESSENGERShe is not, madam.

CLEOPATRADidst hear her speak? Is she shrill-tongued or low?

20

MESSENGERMadam, I heard her speak: she is low-voiced.

CLEOPATRAThat’s[21] not so good: he cannot like her long.

CHARMIANLike her? O Isis! ’Tis impossible.

CLEOPATRAI think so, Charmian: dull of tongue and dwarfish!

What majesty is in her gait?[24] Remember,

25

If e’er thou look’dst on majesty.

MESSENGERShe creeps:

Her motion and her station[27] are as one.

She shows[28] a body rather than a life,

A statue than a breather.[29]

30

CLEOPATRAIs this certain?

MESSENGEROr I have no observance.[31]

CHARMIANThree in Egypt cannot make better note.

CLEOPATRAHe’s very knowing,

I do perceive’t. There’s nothing in her yet:[34]

35

The fellow has good judgement.

CHARMIANExcellent.

CLEOPATRAGuess at her years, I prithee.

MESSENGERMadam, she was a widow.

CLEOPATRAWidow? Charmian, hark.

40

MESSENGERAnd I do think she’s thirty.

CLEOPATRABear’st thou her face in mind? Is’t long or round?

MESSENGERRound, even to faultiness.

CLEOPATRAFor the most part, too, they are foolish that are so.

Her hair, what colour?

45

MESSENGERBrown, madam: and her forehead

As[46] low as she would wish it.

CLEOPATRAThere’s gold for thee.

Thou must not take my former sharpness ill.

I will employ[49] thee back again: I find thee

50

Most fit for business. Go, make thee ready.

Our letters are prepared.

[Exit Messenger]

CHARMIANA proper[52] man.

CLEOPATRAIndeed, he is so: I repent me much

That so I harried[54] him. Why, methinks, by him,

55

This creature’s no such thing.[55]

CHARMIANNothing, madam.

CLEOPATRAThe man hath seen some majesty, and should know.

CHARMIANHath he seen majesty? Isis else defend,[58]

And serving you so long!

60

cleopatraI have one thing more to ask him yet, good Charmian:

But ’tis no matter. Thou shalt bring him to me

Where I will write. All may be well enough.

CHARMIANI warrant[63] you, madam.

[Exeunt]

[Act 3 Scene 4]3.4

running scene 12

Enter Antony and Octavia

ANTONYNay,[1] nay, Octavia, not only that —

That were excusable, that, and thousands more

Of semblable import[3] — but he hath waged

New wars gainst Pompey, made[4] his will, and read it

5

To public ear,

Spoke scantly[6] of me, when perforce he could not

But pay me terms of honour: cold and sickly

He vented[8] them, most narrow measure lent me:

When the best hint[9] was given him, he not took’t,

10

Or did it from his teeth.[10]

OCTAVIAO my good lord,

Believe not all, or if you must believe,

Stomach[13] not all. A more unhappy lady,

If this division chance,[14] ne’er stood between,

15

Praying for both parts:

The good gods will mock me presently[16]

When I shall pray, ‘O, bless my lord and husband!’,

Undo[18] that prayer, by crying out as loud,

‘O, bless my brother!’ Husband win, win brother,

20

Prays and destroys the prayer, no midway

’Twixt these extremes at all.

ANTONYGentle Octavia,

Let[23] your best love draw to that point which seeks

Best to preserve it. If I lose mine honour,

25

I lose myself: better I were not yours

Than yours so branchless.[26] But, as you requested,

Yourself shall go between’s. The meantime, lady,

I’ll raise the preparation[28] of a war

Shall stain[29] your brother. Make your soonest haste,

30

So[30] your desires are yours.

OCTAVIAThanks to my lord.

The Jove of power make me most weak, most weak,

Your reconciler! Wars ’twixt you twain would be

As if the world should cleave,[34] and that slain men

35

Should solder up the rift.

ANTONYWhen it[36] appears to you where this begins,

Turn your displeasure that way, for our[37] faults

Can never be so equal that your love

Can equally move with them. Provide your going,[39]

40

Choose your own company, and command what[40] cost

Your heart has mind to.

Exeunt

[Act 3 Scene 5]

running scene 12 continues

Enter Enobarbus and Eros Meeting

ENOBARBUSHow now, friend Eros?

EROSThere’s strange news come, sir.

ENOBARBUSWhat, man?

EROSCaesar and Lepidus have made wars upon Pompey.

ENOBARBUSThis is old. What is the success?[5]

EROSCaesar, having made use of him[6] in the wars gainst Pompey, presently denied him rivality,[7] would not let him partake in the glory of the action, and not resting here,[8] accuses him of letters he had formerly wrote to Pompey, upon his own appeal seizes him: so the poor third is up,[9] till death enlarge his confine.

10

ENOBARBUSThen, world, thou hast a pair of chaps,[10] no more,

And throw[11] between them all the food thou hast,

They’ll grind the one the other. Where’s Antony?

EROSHe’s walking in the garden, thus, and spurns[13] Imitates Antony’s angry walk

The rush[14] that lies before him, cries, ‘Fool Lepidus!’

15

And threats[15] the throat of that his officer

That murdered Pompey.

ENOBARBUSOur great navy’s rigged.[17]

EROSFor Italy and Caesar. More,[18] Domitius:

My lord desires you presently.[19] My news

20

I might have told hereafter.

ENOBARBUS’Twill be naught,[21]

But let it be. Bring me to Antony.

EROSCome, sir.

Exeunt

[Act 3 Scene 6]3.6

running scene 13

Enter Agrippa, Maecenas and Caesar

CAESARContemning[1] Rome, he has done all this, and more

In Alexandria. Here’s the manner of’t:

I’th’market-place, on a tribunal[3] silvered,

Cleopatra and himself in chairs of gold

5

Were publicly enthroned: at the feet sat

Caesarion,[6] whom they call my father’s son,

And all the unlawful issue[7] that their lust

Since then hath made between them. Unto her

He gave the stablishment[9] of Egypt, made her

10

Of lower Syria, Cyprus, Lydia,

Absolute queen.

MAECENASThis in the public eye?

CAESARI’th’common show-place[13] where they exercise.

His sons he there proclaimed the kings of kings:

15

Great Media, Parthia and Armenia

He gave to Alexander: to Ptolemy he assigned

Syria, Cilicia[17] and Phoenicia. She

In th’habiliments[18] of the goddess Isis

That day appeared, and oft before gave audience,

20

As ’tis reported, so.

MAECENASLet Rome be thus informed.

AGRIPPAWho,[22] queasy with his insolence

Already, will their good thoughts call from him.[23]

CAESARThe people knows it, and have now received

25

His accusations.

AGRIPPAWho does he accuse?

CAESARCaesar: and that having in Sicily

Sextus Pompeius spoiled,[28] we had not rated him

His part o’th’isle. Then does he say he lent me

30

Some shipping unrestored.[30] Lastly, he frets

That Lepidus of the triumvirate

Should be deposed and, being,[32] that we detain

All his revenue.

AGRIPPASir, this should be answered.

35

CAESAR’Tis done already, and the messenger gone.

I have told him Lepidus was grown too cruel,

That he his high authority abused,

And did deserve his change. For[38] what I have conquered,

I grant him part, but then in his Armenia

40

And other of his conquered kingdoms, I

Demand the like.

MAECENASHe’ll never yield to that.

CAESARNor must not then be yielded to in this.

Enter Octavia with her Train

OCTAVIAHail, Caesar, and my lord! Hail, most dear Caesar!

45

CAESARThat ever I should call thee castaway![45]

OCTAVIAYou have not called me so, nor have you cause.

CAESARWhy have you stol’n[47] upon us thus? You come not

Like[48] Caesar’s sister: the wife of Antony

Should have an army for an usher, and

50

The neighs of horse[50] to tell of her approach

Long ere she did appear: the trees by th’way[51]

Should have borne men, and expectation fainted,

Longing for what it had not: nay, the dust

Should have ascended to the roof of heaven,

55

Raised by your populous troops.[55] But you are come

A market-maid to Rome, and have prevented[56]

The ostentation[57] of our love, which, left unshown,

Is often left unloved. We should have met you

By sea and land, supplying[59] every stage

60

With an augmented greeting.

OCTAVIAGood my lord,

To come thus was I not constrained, but did it

On my free will. My lord Mark Antony,

Hearing that you prepared for war, acquainted

65

My grievèd ear withal,[65] whereon, I begged

His pardon for[66] return.

CAESARWhich soon he granted,

Being an abstract[68] ’tween his lust and him.

OCTAVIADo not say so, my lord.

70

CAESARI have eyes[70] upon him,

And his affairs come to me on the wind.

Where is he now?

OCTAVIAMy lord, in Athens.

CAESARNo, my most wrongèd sister. Cleopatra

75

Hath nodded him to her. He hath given his empire

Up to a whore, who[76] now are levying

The kings o’th’earth for war. He hath assembled

Bocchus, the King of Libya, Archelaus,

Of Cappadocia,[79] Philadelphos, King

80

Of Paphlagonia,[80] the Thracian king, Adallas,

King Malchus of Arabia, King of Pont,[81]

Herod of Jewry,[82] Mithridates, King

Of Comagene,[83] Polemon and Amyntas,

The Kings of Mede and Lycaonia,[84]

85

With a more larger list of sceptres.[85]

OCTAVIAAy me, most wretched,

That have my heart parted betwixt two friends

That does afflict[88] each other!

CAESARWelcome hither:

90

Your letters did withhold our breaking forth[90]

Till we perceived both how you were wrong led[91]

And we in negligent danger.[92] Cheer your heart,

Be you not troubled with the time[93] which drives

O’er your content these strong necessities,

95

But let determined[95] things to destiny

Hold unbewailed their way. Welcome to Rome,

Nothing[97] more dear to me. You are abused

Beyond the mark[98] of thought, and the high gods,

To do you justice, makes his[99] ministers

100

Of us and those that love you. Best of comfort,

And ever welcome to us.

AGRIPPAWelcome, lady.

MAECENASWelcome, dear madam.

Each heart in Rome does love and pity you.

105

Only th’adulterous Antony, most large[105]

In his abominations,[106] turns you off

And gives his potent regiment[107] to a trull

That noises it[108] against us.

OCTAVIAIs it so, sir?

110

CAESARMost certain. Sister, welcome: pray you

Be ever known to patience,[111] my dear’st sister!

Exeunt

[Act 3 Scene 7]3.7

running scene 14

Enter Cleopatra and Enobarbus

CLEOPATRAI will be even with thee, doubt it not.

ENOBARBUSBut why, why, why?

CLEOPATRAThou hast forspoke[3] my being in these wars,

And say’st it is not fit.

5

ENOBARBUSWell, is it, is it?

CLEOPATRAIf[6] not denounced against us, why should not we

Be there in person?

ENOBARBUSWell, I could reply: Aside

If we should serve[9] with horse and mares together,

10

The horse[10] were merely lost. The mares would bear

A soldier and his horse.

CLEOPATRAWhat is’t you say?

ENOBARBUSYour presence needs must puzzle[13] Antony,

Take from his heart, take from his brain, from’s time

15

What should not then be spared. He is already

Traduced[16] for levity, and ’tis said in Rome

That Photinus an eunuch and your maids

Manage this war.

CLEOPATRASink Rome,[19] and their tongues rot

20

That speak against us! A charge[20] we bear i’th’war,

And as the president[21] of my kingdom will

Appear there for[22] a man. Speak not against it,

I will not stay behind.

Enter Antony and Canidius

ENOBARBUSNay, I have done.

25

Here comes the emperor.

ANTONYIs it not strange, Canidius,

That from Tarentum and Brundusium[27]

He could so quickly cut[28] the Ionian Sea

And take in[29] Toryne?— You have heard on’t, sweet?

30

CLEOPATRACelerity[30] is never more admired

Than by the negligent.

ANTONYA good rebuke,

Which might have well becomed[33] the best of men,

To taunt at slackness. Canidius, we

35

Will fight with him by sea.

CLEOPATRABy sea, what else?

CANIDIUSWhy will my lord do so?

ANTONYFor that he dares us to’t.

ENOBARBUSSo hath my lord dared him to single fight.

40

CANIDIUSAy, and to wage this battle at Pharsalia,[40]

Where Caesar fought with Pompey. But these offers,

Which serve not for his vantage, he shakes off,

And so should you.

ENOBARBUSYour ships are not well manned,

45

Your mariners are muleteers,[45] reapers, people

Ingrossed[46] by swift impress. In Caesar’s fleet

Are those that often have gainst Pompey fought.

Their ships are yare,[48] yours heavy: no disgrace

Shall fall[49] you for refusing him at sea,

50

Being prepared for land.

ANTONYBy sea, by sea.

ENOBARBUSMost worthy sir, you therein throw away

The absolute[53] soldiership you have by land,

Distract[54] your army, which doth most consist

55

Of war-marked footmen,[55] leave unexecuted

Your own renownèd knowledge, quite forgo

The way which promises assurance,[57] and

Give up yourself merely to chance and hazard

From firm security.

60

ANTONYI’ll fight at sea.

CLEOPATRAI have sixty sails, Caesar none better.

ANTONYOur overplus[62] of shipping will we burn,

And with the rest full-manned, from th’head[63] of Actium

Beat th’approaching Caesar. But if we fail,

65

We then can do’t at land.—

Enter a Messenger

Thy business?

MESSENGERThe news is true, my lord: he is descried.[66]

Caesar has taken Toryne.

ANTONYCan he be there in person? ’Tis impossible[68]

Strange that his power[69] should be. Canidius,

70

Our nineteen legions thou shalt hold by land

And our twelve thousand horse. We’ll to our ship:

Away, my Thetis![72]—

Enter a Soldier

How now, worthy soldier?

SOLDIERO, noble emperor, do not fight by sea:

Trust not to rotten planks.[74] Do you misdoubt

75

This sword and these my wounds? Let th’Egyptians

And the Phoenicians[76] go a-ducking: we

Have used[77] to conquer standing on the earth

And fighting foot to foot.

ANTONYWell, well, away!

Exeunt Antony, Cleopatra and Enobarbus

80

SOLDIERBy Hercules,[80] I think I am i’th’right.

CANIDIUSSoldier, thou art. But his whole action[81] grows

Not in the power on’t. So our leader’s led,

And we are women’s men.[83]

SOLDIERYou keep by land

85

The legions and the horse whole,[85] do you not?

CANIDIUSMarcus Octavius, Marcus Justeius,

Publicola and Caelius are for sea,

But we keep whole by land. This speed of Caesar’s

Carries[89] beyond belief.

90

SOLDIERWhile he was yet[90] in Rome,

His power[91] went out in such distractions as

Beguiled[92] all spies.

CANIDIUSWho’s his lieutenant, hear you?

SOLDIERThey say one Taurus.

95

CANIDIUSWell I know the man.

Enter a Messenger

MESSENGERThe emperor calls Canidius.

CANIDIUSWith news the time’s in labour, and throws forth[97]

Each minute, some.

Exeunt

[Act 3 Scene 8]3.8

running scene 15

Enter Caesar [and Taurus] with his army, marching

CAESARTaurus!

TAURUSMy lord?

CAESARStrike not by land. Keep whole,[3] provoke not battle

Till we have done at sea. Do not exceed[4]

5

The prescript[5] of this scroll: our fortune lies Gives him a scroll

Upon this jump.[6]

Exeunt

[Act 3 Scene 9]3.9

running scene 15 continues

Enter Antony and Enobarbus

ANTONYSet we our squadrons on yond side o’th’hill

In eye[2] of Caesar’s battle, from which place

We may the number of the ships behold

And so proceed accordingly.

Exeunt

[Act 3 Scene 10]3.10

running scene 15 continues

Canidius marcheth with his land army one way over the stage, and Taurus, the lieutenant of Caesar, the other way. After their going in, is heard the noise of a sea-fight. Alarum Enter Enobarbus

ENOBARBUSNaught, naught, all naught! I can behold no longer:

Th’Antoniad, the Egyptian admiral,[2]

With all their sixty,[3] fly and turn the rudder:

To see’t mine eyes are blasted.[4]

Enter Scarrus

5

SCARRUSGods and goddesses,

All the whole synod of them!

ENOBARBUSWhat’s thy passion?[7]

SCARRUSThe greater cantle[8] of the world is lost

With very ignorance.[9] We have kissed away

10

Kingdoms and provinces.

ENOBARBUSHow appears the fight?

SCARRUSOn our side, like the tokened pestilence[12]

Where death is sure. Yon[13] ribaudred nag of Egypt —

Whom leprosy o’ertake![14] — i’th’midst o’th’fight

15

When vantage[15] like a pair of twins appeared

Both[16] as the same, or rather ours the elder,

The breeze[17] upon her, like a cow in June,

Hoists sails and flies.[18]

ENOBARBUSThat I beheld:

20

Mine eyes did sicken at the sight and could not

Endure a further view.

SCARRUSShe once being loofed,[22]

The noble ruin of her magic, Antony,

Claps[24] on his sea-wing and, like a doting mallard,

25

Leaving the fight in[25] height, flies after her.

I never saw an action[26] of such shame:

Experience, manhood, honour, ne’er before

Did violate so itself.

ENOBARBUSAlack, alack!

Enter Canidius

30

CANIDIUSOur fortune on the sea is out of breath

And sinks most lamentably. Had our general

Been what he knew himself,[32] it had gone well.

O, he has given example for our flight

Most grossly[34] by his own!

35

ENOBARBUSAy, are you thereabouts?[35] Why, then, goodnight indeed.

CANIDIUSToward Peloponnesus[36] are they fled.

SCARRUS’Tis easy to’t,[37] and there I will attend

What further comes.

CANIDIUSTo Caesar will I render[39]

40

My legions and my horse: six kings already

Show me the way of yielding.

ENOBARBUSI’ll yet follow

The wounded chance[43] of Antony, though my reason

Sits in the wind against[44] me.

[Exeunt separately]

[Act 3 Scene 11]3.11

running scene 16

Enter Antony with Attendants

ANTONYHark! The land bids me tread no more upon’t:

It is ashamed to bear me. Friends, come hither.

I am so lated[3] in the world that I

Have lost my way forever. I have a ship

5

Laden with gold: take that, divide it: fly

And make your peace with Caesar.

ALLFly? Not we.

ANTONYI have fled myself and have instructed cowards

To run and show their shoulders. Friends, be gone:

10

I have myself resolved upon a course

Which has no need of you. Be gone.

My treasure’s in the harbour: take it. O,

I followed that[13] I blush to look upon.

My very hairs do mutiny,[14] for the white

15

Reprove the brown for rashness, and they them[15]

For fear and doting. Friends, be gone. You shall

Have letters from me to some friends that will

Sweep your way[18] for you. Pray you look not sad

Nor make replies of loathness:[19] take the hint

20

Which my despair[20] proclaims. Let that be left

Which leaves itself. To the seaside straightway:

I will possess you[22] of that ship and treasure.

Leave me, I pray, a little.[23] Pray you now,

Nay do so, for indeed I have lost command:[24]

25

Therefore I pray you, I’ll see you by and by.

Sits down

[Exeunt Attendants]

Enter Cleopatra led by Charmian, [Iras] and Eros

EROSNay, gentle madam, to him, comfort him.

IRASDo, most dear queen.

CHARMIANDo? Why, what else?

CLEOPATRALet me sit down. O Juno![29]

30

ANTONYNo, no, no, no, no!

EROSSee you here, sir?

ANTONYO fie,[32] fie, fie!

CHARMIANMadam!

IRASMadam, O good empress!

35

EROSSir, sir—

ANTONYYes, my lord,[36] yes; he at Philippi kept

His sword[37] e’en like a dancer while I struck

The lean and wrinkled Cassius, and ’twas I

That the mad[39] Brutus ended: he alone

40

Dealt on lieutenantry,[40] and no practice had

In the brave squares[41] of war: yet now, no matter.

CLEOPATRAAh, stand by.[42]

EROSThe queen, my lord, the queen!

IRASGo to him, madam, speak to him:

45

He’s unqualitied[45] with very shame.

CLEOPATRAWell then, sustain[46] me. O!

EROSMost noble sir, arise, the queen approaches.

Her head’s declined,[48] and death will seize her, but

Your comfort[49] makes the rescue.

50

ANTONYI have offended reputation,[50]

A most unnoble swerving.[51]

EROSSir, the queen!

ANTONYO, whither hast thou led me, Egypt? See

How I convey[54] my shame out of thine eyes

55

By looking back what I have left behind

’Stroyed[56] in dishonour.

CLEOPATRAO my lord, my lord,

Forgive my fearful sails! I little thought

You would have followed.

60

ANTONYEgypt, thou knew’st too well

My heart was to thy rudder tied by th’strings[61]

And thou shouldst tow me after. O’er my spirit

Thy full supremacy thou knew’st, and that

Thy beck[64] might from the bidding of the gods

65

Command me.

CLEOPATRAO, my pardon!

ANTONYNow I must

To the young man[68] send humble treaties, dodge

And palter[69] in the shifts of lowness, who

70

With half the bulk o’th’world played as I pleased,

Making and marring fortunes. You did know

How much you were my conqueror, and that

My sword,[73] made weak by my affection, would

Obey it on all cause.[74]

75

CLEOPATRAPardon, pardon!

ANTONYFall not a tear, I say. One of them rates[76]

All that is won and lost. Give me a kiss: They kiss

Even this repays me.

We sent our schoolmaster:[79] is a come back?

80

Love, I am full of lead.[80] Some wine

Within there and our viands![81] Fortune knows

We scorn her most when most she offers blows.

Exeunt

[Act 3 Scene 12]3.12

running scene 17

Enter Caesar, Agrippa and [Thidias,] Dolabella with others

CAESARLet him appear that’s come from Antony.

Know you him?

DOLABELLACaesar, ’tis his schoolmaster,

An argument[4] that he is plucked, when hither

5

He sends so poor a pinion[5] of his wing,

Which[6] had superfluous kings for messengers

Not many moons gone by.

Enter Ambassador from Antony

CAESARApproach, and speak.

AMBASSADORSuch as I am, I come from Antony:

10

I was of late as petty[10] to his ends

As is the morn-dew on the myrtle leaf[11]

To his grand sea.[12]

CAESARBe’t so. Declare thine office.[13]

AMBASSADORLord of his fortunes he salutes thee, and

15

Requires[15] to live in Egypt, which not granted,

He lessens his requests, and to thee sues[16]

To let him breathe[17] between the heavens and earth,

A private man in Athens: this for him.

Next, Cleopatra does confess thy greatness,

20

Submits her to thy might, and of thee craves

The circle[21] of the Ptolemies for her heirs,

Now hazarded[22] to thy grace.

CAESARFor Antony,

I have no ears to his request. The queen

25

Of[25] audience nor desire shall fail, so she

From Egypt drive her all-disgraced friend[26]

Or take his life there. This if she perform,

She shall not sue unheard. So to them both.

AMBASSADORFortune pursue thee!

30

CAESARBring[30] him through the bands.—

[Exit Ambassador, attended]

To try thy eloquence now ’tis time. Dispatch.[31] To Thidias

From[32] Antony win Cleopatra. Promise,

And in our name,[33] what she requires: add more,

From thine invention, offers. Women[34] are not

35

In their best fortunes strong, but want will perjure

The ne’er touched vestal. Try thy cunning,[36] Thidias:

Make[37] thine own edict for thy pains, which we

Will answer[38] as a law.

THIDIASCaesar, I go.

40

CAESARObserve how Antony becomes his flaw,[40]

And what thou think’st his very action speaks[41]

In every power that moves.[42]

THIDIASCaesar, I shall.

Exeunt

[Act 3 Scene 13]3.13

running scene 18

Enter Cleopatra, Enobarbus, Charmian and Iras

CLEOPATRAWhat shall we do, Enobarbus?

ENOBARBUSThink,[2] and die.

CLEOPATRAIs Antony or we[3] in fault for this?

ENOBARBUSAntony only, that would make his will[4]

5

Lord of his reason. What though you fled

From that great face of war, whose several ranges[6]

Frighted each other? Why should he follow?

The itch of his affection[8] should not then

Have nicked[9] his captainship, at such a point,

10

When half to half the world opposed, he being

The meerèd question.[11] ’Twas a shame no less

Than was his loss, to course[12] your flying flags

And leave his navy gazing.[13]

CLEOPATRAPrithee, peace.

Enter the Ambassador with Antony

15

ANTONYIs that his answer?

AMBASSADORAy, my lord.

ANTONYThe[17] queen shall then have courtesy, so she

Will yield us up.

AMBASSADORHe says so.

20

ANTONYLet her know’t.

To the boy Caesar send this grizzled head,

And he will fill thy wishes to the brim

With principalities.

CLEOPATRAThat head, my lord?

25

ANTONYTo him again. Tell him he[25] wears the rose

Of youth upon him, from which the world should note

Something particular: his coin, ships, legions,

May be a coward’s, whose ministers[28] would prevail

Under the service of a child as soon

30

As i’th’command of Caesar. I dare him therefore

To lay his gay caparisons[31] apart

And answer me declined,[32] sword against sword,

Ourselves alone.[33] I’ll write it: follow me.

[Exeunt Antony and Ambassador]

ENOBARBUSYes, like enough, high-battled[34] Caesar will Aside

35

Unstate his happiness,[35] and be staged to th’show

Against a sworder.[36] I see men’s judgements are

A parcel of[37] their fortunes, and things outward

Do draw the inward quality after them

To suffer all alike. That he should dream,

40

Knowing[40] all measures, the full Caesar will

Answer[41] his emptiness. Caesar, thou hast subdued

His judgement too.

Enter a Servant

SERVANTA messenger from Caesar.

CLEOPATRAWhat, no more ceremony? See, my women,

45

Against the blown[45] rose may they stop their nose

That kneeled unto the buds. Admit him, sir.

[Exit Servant]

ENOBARBUSMine honesty[47] and I begin to square. Aside

The loyalty well held to fools does make

Our faith[49] mere folly. Yet he that can endure

50

To follow with allegiance a fall’n lord

Does conquer him that did his master conquer,

And earns a place i’th’story.[52]

Enter Thidias

CLEOPATRACaesar’s will?

THIDIASHear it apart.[54]

55

CLEOPATRANone but friends:[55] say boldly.

THIDIASSo, haply,[56] are they friends to Antony.

ENOBARBUSHe needs as many, sir, as Caesar has,

Or[58] needs not us. If Caesar please, our master

Will leap to be his friend: for[59] us, you know,

60

Whose[60] he is we are, and that is Caesar’s.

THIDIASSo.

Thus then, thou most renowned: Caesar entreats

Not[63] to consider in what case thou stand’st,

Further than he is Caesar.

65

CLEOPATRAGo on: right royal.[65]

THIDIASHe knows that you embrace not Antony

As you did love, but as you feared him.

CLEOPATRAO!

THIDIASThe scars upon your honour, therefore, he

70

Does pity as constrainèd[70] blemishes,

Not as deserved.

CLEOPATRAHe is a god and knows

What is most right:[73] mine honour was not yielded,

But conquered merely.[74]

75

ENOBARBUSTo be sure of that, Aside

I will ask Antony. Sir, sir, thou art so leaky

That we must leave thee to thy sinking, for

Thy dearest quit[78] thee.

Exit Enobarbus

THIDIASShall I say to Caesar

80

What you require[80] of him? For he partly begs

To be desired[81] to give. It much would please him

That of his fortunes you should make a staff

To lean upon. But it would warm his spirits

To hear from me you had left Antony

85

And put yourself under his[85] shroud,

The universal landlord.

CLEOPATRAWhat’s your name?

THIDIASMy name is Thidias.

CLEOPATRAMost kind messenger,

90

Say to great Caesar this in deputation:[90]

I kiss his conqu’ring hand: tell him I am prompt

To lay my crown at’s feet, and there to kneel:

Tell him from his all-obeying breath[93] I hear

The doom[94] of Egypt.

95

THIDIAS’Tis your noblest course:

Wisdom and fortune combating together,

If[97] that the former dare but what it can,

No chance may shake it. Give me grace to lay

My duty on your hand.

100

CLEOPATRAYour Caesar’s father[100] oft— Offers him her hand

When he hath mused[101] of taking kingdoms in —

Bestowed his lips on that unworthy place

As[103] it rained kisses.

Enter Antony and Enobarbus

ANTONYFavours?[104] By Jove that thunders!

105

What art thou, fellow?[105]

THIDIASOne that but performs

The bidding of the fullest[107] man and worthiest

To have command obeyed.

ENOBARBUSYou will be whipped. Aside

110

ANTONYApproach there!— Ah, you kite![110]— Now, gods and devils, Calls for Servants

Authority melts from me of late. When I cried ‘Ho!’,

Like boys unto a muss,[112] kings would start forth

And cry ‘Your will?’ Have you no ears? I am

Antony yet.— Take hence this jack[114] and whip him.

Enter a Servant Other Servants follow

115

ENOBARBUS’Tis better playing with a lion’s whelp[115] Aside

Than with an old one dying.

ANTONYMoon and stars!

Whip him. Were’t twenty of the greatest tributaries[118]

That do acknowledge Caesar, should I find them

120

So saucy[120] with the hand of she here — what’s her name,

Since she was[121] Cleopatra? Whip him, fellows,

Till like a boy you see him cringe[122] his face

And whine aloud for mercy. Take him hence.

THIDIASMark Antony!

125

ANTONYTug him away: being whipped,

Bring him again. The jack of Caesar’s shall

Bear us an errand to him.

Exeunt [Servants] with Thidias

You were half blasted[128] ere I knew you: ha?

Have I my pillow left unpressed in Rome,

130

Forborne[130] the getting of a lawful race,

And by a gem of women, to be abused

By one that looks on feeders?[132]

CLEOPATRAGood my lord—

ANTONYYou have been a boggler[134] ever,

135

But when we in our viciousness grow hard —

O, misery on’t! — the wise gods seel[136] our eyes,

In our own filth drop our clear judgements, make us

Adore our errors, laugh at’s while we strut

To our confusion.[139]

140

CLEOPATRAO, is’t come to this?

ANTONYI found you as a morsel cold upon

Dead Caesar’s trencher:[142] nay, you were a fragment

Of Gneius Pompey’s[143], besides what hotter hours

Unregistered in vulgar fame[144] you have

145

Luxuriously[145] picked out. For I am sure,

Though you can guess what temperance[146] should be,

You know not what it is.

CLEOPATRAWherefore is this?

ANTONYTo let a fellow that will take rewards

150

And say ‘God quit you!’[150] be familiar with

My playfellow, your hand, this kingly seal[151]

And plighter[152] of high hearts! O, that I were

Upon the hill of Basan,[153] to outroar

The hornèd herd! For I have savage cause,[154]

155

And to proclaim it civilly,[155] were like

A haltered neck[156] which does the hangman thank

For being yare[157] about him.— Is he whipped?

Enter a Servant with Thidias

SERVANTSoundly, my lord.

ANTONYCried he? And begged a[159] pardon?

160

SERVANTHe did ask favour.

ANTONYIf that thy father live, let him repent To Thidias

Thou wast not made his daughter, and be thou sorry

To follow[163] Caesar in his triumph, since

Thou hast been whipped for following him. Henceforth

165

The white hand[165] of a lady fever thee,

Shake thou to look on’t. Get thee back to Caesar:

Tell him thy entertainment:[167] look thou say

He makes me angry with him. For he seems

Proud and disdainful, harping on what I am,

170

Not what he knew I was. He makes me angry,

And at this time most easy ’tis to do’t,

When my good stars that were my former guides

Have empty left their orbs[173] and shot their fires

Into th’abysm[174] of hell. If he mislike

175

My speech and what is done, tell him he has

Hipparchus, my enfranchèd bondman,[176] whom

He may at pleasure whip or hang or torture,

As he shall like to quit[178] me. Urge it thou.

Hence with thy stripes! Be gone!

Exit Thidias [with Servant]

180

CLEOPATRAHave you done yet?

ANTONYAlack, our terrene moon[181] is now eclipsed

And it portends alone[182] the fall of Antony.

CLEOPATRAI must stay his time.[183]

ANTONYTo flatter Caesar would you mingle eyes[184]

185

With one that ties his points?[185]

CLEOPATRANot know me yet?

ANTONYCold-hearted toward me?

CLEOPATRAAh, dear, if I be so,

From my cold heart let heaven engender hail

190

And poison it in the source, and the first stone

Drop in my neck:[191] as it determines, so

Dissolve my life! The next Caesarion[192] smite,

Till by degrees the memory of my womb,

Together with my brave Egyptians all,

195

By the discandying[195] of this pelleted storm

Lie graveless, till the flies and gnats of Nile

Have buried[197] them for prey!

ANTONYI am satisfied.

Caesar sets down[199] in Alexandria, where

200

I will oppose his fate.[200] Our force by land

Hath nobly held, our severed navy too

Have knit again, and fleet,[202] threat’ning most sea-like.

Where hast thou been, my heart? Dost thou hear, lady?

If from the field I shall return once more

205

To kiss these lips, I will appear in blood:[205]

I and my sword will earn our chronicle:[206]

There’s hope in’t yet.

CLEOPATRAThat’s my brave lord!

ANTONYI will be treble-sinewed, hearted, breathed,[209]

210

And fight maliciously.[210] For when mine hours

Were nice[211] and lucky, men did ransom lives

Of me for jests. But now I’ll set my teeth

And send to darkness all that stop me. Come,

Let’s have one other gaudy[214] night: call to me

215

All my sad[215] captains: fill our bowls once more:

Let’s mock[216] the midnight bell.

CLEOPATRAIt is my birthday:

I had thought t’have held it poor,[218] but since my lord

Is Antony again, I will be Cleopatra.

220

ANTONYWe will yet do well.

CLEOPATRACall all his noble captains to my lord! To Charmian and Iras

ANTONYDo so, we’ll speak to them, and tonight I’ll force

The wine peep through their scars. Come on, my queen,

There’s sap in’t yet.[224] The next time I do fight

225

I’ll make death love me, for I will contend[225]

Even with his pestilent scythe.

Exeunt [all but Enobarbus]

ENOBARBUSNow he’ll outstare[227] the lightning. To be furious

Is to be frighted out of fear, and in that mood

The dove will peck the estridge;[229] and I see still,

230

A diminution in our captain’s brain

Restores his heart.[231] When valour preys on reason,

It eats the sword it fights with. I will seek

Some way to leave him.

Exit

[Act 4 Scene 1]4.1

running scene 19

Enter Caesar, Agrippa and Maecenas with his Army, Caesar reading a letter

CAESARHe calls me boy, and chides as[1] he had power

To beat me out of Egypt. My messenger

He hath whipped with rods, dares me to personal combat,

Caesar to Antony. Let the old ruffian[4] know

5

I have many other ways to die: meantime

Laugh at his challenge.

MAECENASCaesar must think,

When one so great begins to rage, he’s hunted

Even to falling. Give him no breath,[9] but now

10

Make boot[10] of his distraction: never anger

Made good guard for itself.

CAESARLet our best heads[12]

Know that tomorrow the last of many battles

We mean to fight. Within our files[14] there are,

15

Of those that served Mark Antony but late,[15]

Enough to fetch him in.[16] See it done,

And feast the army. We have store[17] to do’t

And they have earned the waste.[18] Poor Antony!

Exeunt

[Act 4 Scene 2]4.2

running scene 20

Enter Antony, Cleopatra, Enobarbus, Charmian, Iras, Alexas with others

ANTONYHe will not fight with me, Domitius?[1]

ENOBARBUSNo.

ANTONYWhy should he not?

ENOBARBUSHe thinks, being twenty times of better fortune,[4]

5

He is twenty men to one.

ANTONYTomorrow, soldier,

By sea and land I’ll fight: or[7] I will live,

Or bathe[8] my dying honour in the blood

Shall make it live again. Woo’t[9] thou fight well?

10

ENOBARBUSI’ll strike, and cry ‘Take all.[10]’

ANTONYWell said. Come on.

Call forth my household servants, let’s tonight

Enter three or four Servitors

Be bounteous at our meal.— Give me thy hand:

Thou hast been rightly honest.[14]— So hast thou.—

15

Thou, and thou, and thou: you have served me well,

And kings have been your fellows.[16]

CLEOPATRAWhat means this? Aside to Enobarbus

ENOBARBUS’Tis one of those odd tricks[18] which sorrow shoots Aside to Cleopatra

Out of the mind.

20

ANTONYAnd thou art honest too:

I wish I could be made so many men,

And all of you clapped up[22] together in

An Antony, that I might do you service

So good as you have done.

25

ALLThe gods forbid!

ANTONYWell, my good fellows, wait on me tonight:

Scant[27] not my cups, and make as much of me

As when mine empire was your fellow too

And suffered[29] my command.

30

CLEOPATRAWhat does he mean? Aside to Enobarbus

ENOBARBUSTo make his followers weep. Aside to Cleopatra

ANTONYTend me tonight:

Maybe it is the period[33] of your duty.

Haply[34] you shall not see me more, or if,

35

A mangled shadow. Perchance[35] tomorrow

You’ll serve another master. I look on you

As one that takes his leave. Mine honest friends,

I turn you not away, but, like a master

Married to your good service, stay till death.

40

Tend me tonight two hours, I ask no more,

And the gods yield[41] you for’t.

ENOBARBUSWhat mean you, sir,

To give them this discomfort?[43] Look, they weep,

And I, an ass, am onion-eyed.[44] For shame,

45

Transform us not to women.

ANTONYHo, ho, ho!

Now the[47] witch take me if I meant it thus!

Grace[48] grow where those drops fall! My hearty friends,

You take me in too dolorous[49] a sense,

50

For I spake to you for your comfort,[50] did desire you

To burn[51] this night with torches: know, my hearts,

I hope well of tomorrow, and will lead you

Where rather I’ll expect victorious life

Than death and honour. Let’s to supper, come,

55

And drown consideration.[55]

Exeunt

[Act 4 Scene 3]

running scene 21

Enter a Company of Soldiers

FIRST SOLDIERBrother, goodnight: tomorrow is the day.[1]

SECOND SOLDIERIt will determine one way.[2] Fare you well.

Heard you of nothing strange about the streets?

FIRST SOLDIERNothing. What news?

5

SECOND SOLDIERBelike[5] ’tis but a rumour. Goodnight to you.

FIRST SOLDIERWell, sir, goodnight.

They meet other Soldiers

SECOND SOLDIERSoldiers, have careful[7] watch.

THIRD SOLDIERAnd you. Goodnight, goodnight.

They place themselves in every corner of the stage

SECOND SOLDIERHere we: and if tomorrow

10

Our navy thrive, I have an absolute[10] hope

Our landmen will stand up.

FIRST SOLDIER’Tis a brave[12] army, and full of purpose.

Music of the hautboys is under the stage

SECOND SOLDIERPeace! What noise?

FIRST SOLDIERList,[14] list!

15

SECOND SOLDIERHark!

FIRST SOLDIERMusic i’th’air.

THIRD SOLDIERUnder the earth.

FOURTH SOLDIERIt signs well,[18] does it not?

THIRD SOLDIER

20

FIRST SOLDIERPeace, I say! What should this mean?

SECOND SOLDIER’Tis the god Hercules,[21] whom Antony loved,

Now leaves him.

FIRST SOLDIERWalk. Let’s see if other watchmen

Do hear what we do.

25

SECOND SOLDIERHow now, masters?[28]

ALLHow now? How now? Do you hear this? Speak together

FIRST SOLDIERAy. Is’t not strange?

THIRD SOLDIERDo you hear, masters? Do you hear?

FIRST SOLDIERFollow the noise so far as we have quarter.[29]

30

Let’s see how it will give off.[30]

ALLContent. ’Tis strange.

Exeunt

[Act 4 Scene 4]

running scene 22

Enter Antony and Cleopatra with others

ANTONYEros! Mine armour, Eros!

CLEOPATRASleep a little.

ANTONYNo, my chuck.[3] Eros! Come, mine armour, Eros!

Enter Eros With armor

Come, good fellow, put thine iron[4] on.

5

If fortune be not ours today, it is

Because we brave[6] her. Come.

CLEOPATRANay, I’ll help too, Antony.

What’s this for? Picks up a piece of armor

ANTONYAh, let be, let be! Thou art

10

The armourer of my heart. False,[10] false: this, this!

CLEOPATRASooth,[11] la, I’ll help: thus it must be. She helps arm him

ANTONYWell,[12] well,

We shall thrive now. See’st thou, my good fellow?

Go, put on thy defences.[14]

15

EROSBriefly,[15] sir.

CLEOPATRAIs not this buckled well?

ANTONYRarely,[17] rarely:

He that unbuckles this, till we[18] do please

To doff’t[19] for our repose, shall hear a storm.

20

Thou fumblest, Eros, and my queen’s a squire[20]

More tight[21] at this than thou: dispatch!— O love,

That thou couldst see my wars today, and knew’st[22]

The royal occupation,[23] thou shouldst see

A workman[24] in’t.—

Enter an armed Soldier

Good morrow to thee! Welcome!

25

Thou look’st like him[25] that knows a warlike charge:

To business that we love we rise betime[26]

And go to’t with delight.

SOLDIERA thousand, sir,

Early though’t be, have on their riveted trim[29]

30

And at the port[30] expect you.

Shout. Trumpets flourish

Enter Captains and Soldiers

CAPTAINThe morn is fair. Good morrow, general.

ALLGood morrow, general.

ANTONY’Tis well blown,[33] lads.

This morning, like the spirit of a youth

35

That means to be of note,[35] begins betimes.—

So, so. Come, give me that. This way, well said. To Cleopatra

Fare thee well, dame.[37] Whate’er becomes of me,

This is a soldier’s kiss: rebukable Kisses her

And worthy shameful check[39] it were, to stand

40

On more mechanic compliment.[40] I’ll leave thee

Now, like a man of steel.— You that will[41] fight,

Follow me close. I’ll bring you to’t.— Adieu.

Exeunt. [Cleopatra and Charmian remain]

CHARMIAN

CLEOPATRALead me.

45

He goes forth gallantly. That[45] he and Caesar might

Determine[46] this great war in single fight!

Then Antony — but now…Well, on.

Exeunt

[Act 4 Scene 5]4.5

running scene 23

Trumpets sound. Enter Antony and Eros A Soldier meets them

SOLDIERThe gods make this a happy[1] day to Antony!

ANTONYWould[2] thou and those thy scars had once prevailed

To make me fight at land!

SOLDIERHadst thou done so,

5

The kings that have revolted[5] and the soldier

That has this morning left thee would have still

Followed thy heels.

ANTONYWho’s gone this morning?

SOLDIERWho?

10

One ever near thee: call for Enobarbus,

He shall not hear thee, or from Caesar’s camp

Say ‘I am none of thine.’

ANTONYWhat say’st thou?

SOLDIERSir,

15

He is with Caesar.

EROSSir, his chests and treasure

He has not with him.

ANTONYIs he gone?

SOLDIERMost certain.

20

ANTONYGo, Eros, send his treasure after: do it:

Detain no jot, I charge[21] thee. Write to him —

I will subscribe[22] — gentle adieus and greetings;

Say that I wish he never find more cause

To change a master. O, my fortunes have

25

Corrupted honest men! Dispatch.[25]— Enobarbus!

Exeunt

[Act 4 Scene 6]4.6

running scene 24

Trumpets sound. Enter Antony and Eros Flourish. Enter Agrippa, Caesar, with Enobarbus and Dolabella

CAESARGo forth, Agrippa, and begin the fight.

Our will is Antony be took[2] alive:

Make it so known.

AGRIPPACaesar, I shall.

[Exit]

5

CAESARThe time of universal peace[5] is near:

Prove this a prosp’rous day, the three-nooked[6] world

Shall bear the olive[7] freely.

Enter a Messenger

MESSENGERAntony is come into the field.

CAESARGo charge Agrippa

10

Plant those that have revolted in the van[10]

That Antony may seem to spend his fury

Upon himself.

Exeunt. [Enobarbus remains]

ENOBARBUSAlexas did revolt, and went to Jewry[13] on

Affairs of Antony, there did dissuade[14]

15

Great Herod[15] to incline himself to Caesar

And leave his master Antony. For this pains

Caesar hath hanged him. Canidius and the rest

That fell away[18] have entertainment but

No honourable trust. I have done ill,

20

Of which I do accuse myself so sorely,

That I will joy no more.

Enter a Soldier of Caesar’s

SOLDIEREnobarbus, Antony

Hath after thee sent all thy treasure, with

His bounty overplus.[24] The messenger

25

Came on my guard,[25] and at thy tent is now

Unloading of his mules.

ENOBARBUSI give it you.

SOLDIERMock not, Enobarbus.

I tell you true: best you safed[29] the bringer

30

Out of the host.[30] I must attend mine office

Or would have done’t myself. Your emperor

Continues still a Jove.

Exit

ENOBARBUSI am alone[33] the villain of the earth,

And feel I am so most.[34] O Antony,

35

Thou mine of bounty, how wouldst thou have paid

My better service, when my turpitude[36]

Thou dost so crown with gold! This blows[37] my heart.

If swift thought[38] break it not, a swifter mean

Shall outstrike[39] thought, but thought will do’t, I feel.

40

I fight against thee? No, I will go seek

Some ditch wherein to die: the foul’st[41] best fits

My latter part of life.

Exit

[Act 4 Scene 7]4.7

running scene 25

Trumpets sound. Enter Antony and Eros Alarum. Drums and trumpets. Enter Agrippa [and others]

AGRIPPARetire,[1] we have engaged ourselves too far:

Caesar himself has work,[2] and our oppression

Exceeds what we expected.

Exit

Alarums. Enter Antony, and Scarrus wounded

SCARRUSO my brave emperor, this is fought indeed!

5

Had we done so at first, we had droven[5] them home

With clouts[6] about their heads. A retreat sounds

Far off

ANTONYThou bleed’st apace.

SCARRUSI had a wound here that was like a T,

But now ’tis made an H.[9]

10

ANTONYThey do retire.

SCARRUSwe’ll beat ’em into bench-holes.[11] I have yet

Room for six scotches[12] more.

Enter Eros

EROSThey are beaten, sir, and our advantage serves[13]

For a fair victory.

15

SCARRUSLet us score[15] their backs

And snatch[16] ’em up, as we take hares behind!

’Tis sport to maul a runner.[17]

ANTONYI will reward thee

Once for thy sprightly comfort,[19] and tenfold

20

For thy good valour. Come thee on.

SCARRUSI’ll halt[21] after.

Exeunt

[Act 4 Scene 8]

running scene 25 continues

Alarum. Enter Antony again, in a march, Scarrus with others

ANTONYWe have beat him to his camp: run one before

And let the queen know of our gests.[2] Tomorrow,

[Exit a Soldier]

Before the sun shall see’s, we’ll spill the blood

That has today escaped. I thank you all,

5

For doughty-handed[5] are you, and have fought

Not as[6] you served the cause, but as’t had been

Each man’s like mine: you have shown all Hectors.[7]

Enter the city, clip[8] your wives, your friends,

Tell them your feats, whilst they with joyful tears

10

Wash the congealment[10] from your wounds, and kiss

The honoured gashes whole.[11]—

Enter Cleopatra

Give me thy hand. To Scarrus

To this great fairy[12] I’ll commend thy acts,

Make her thanks bless thee.—

O thou day[13] o’th’world, To Cleopatra

Chain[14] mine armed neck, leap thou, attire and all,

15

Through proof of harness[15] to my heart, and there

Ride on the pants triumphing![16] They embrace

CLEOPATRALord of lords!

O infinite virtue,[18] com’st thou smiling from

The world’s great snare uncaught?

20

ANTONYMy nightingale,

We have beat them to their beds. What, girl! Though grey

Do something[22] mingle with our younger brown, yet ha’ we

A brain that nourishes our nerves[23] and can

Get[24] goal for goal of youth. Behold this man:

25

Commend[25] unto his lips thy favouring hand. She offers Scarrus her hand

Kiss it, my warrior: he hath fought today

As if a god in hate of mankind had

Destroyed in such a shape.[28]

CLEOPATRAI’ll give thee, friend,

30

An armour all of gold: it was a king’s.

ANTONYHe has deserved it, were it carbuncled[31]

Like holy Phoebus’ car.[32] Give me thy hand:

Through Alexandria make a jolly march,

Bear our hacked targets[34] like the men that owe them.

35

Had our great palace the capacity

To camp[36] this host, we all would sup together

And drink carouses[37] to the next day’s fate

Which promises royal peril.[38] Trumpeters,

With brazen[39] din blast you the city’s ear,

40

Make mingle[40] with rattling taborins,

That[41] heaven and earth may strike their sounds together,

Applauding our approach. Trumpets sound

Exeunt

[Act 4 Scene 9]4.9

running scene 26

Enter a Sentry and his Company, Enobarbus follows

SENTRYIf we be not relieved within this hour,

We must return to th’court of guard:[2] the night

Is shiny[3] and they say we shall embattle

By th’second hour i’th’morn.

5

FIRST WATCHThis last day was a shrewd[5] one to’s.

ENOBARBUSO, bear me witness, night—

SECOND WATCHWhat man is this?

FIRST WATCHStand close,[8] and list him. They stand aside

ENOBARBUSBe witness to me — O thou blessèd moon —

10

When[10] men revolted shall upon record

Bear hateful memory, poor Enobarbus did

Before thy face repent!

SENTRYEnobarbus?

SECOND WATCHPeace! Hark further.

15

ENOBARBUSO sovereign[15] mistress of true melancholy,

The poisonous damp of night[16] disponge upon me,

That life, a very rebel[17] to my will,

May hang no longer on me. Throw my heart

Against the flint[19] and hardness of my fault,

20

Which, being dried with grief,[20] will break to powder

And finish all foul thoughts. O Antony,

Nobler than my revolt is infamous,

Forgive me in thine own particular,[23]

But let the world rank[24] me in register

25

A master-leaver and a fugitive.[25]

O Antony! O Antony! He sinks down and dies

FIRST WATCHLet’s speak to him.

SENTRYLet’s hear him, for the things he speaks

May concern Caesar.

30

SECOND WATCHLet’s do so. But he sleeps.

SENTRYSwoons[31] rather, for so bad a prayer as his

Was never yet for sleep.

FIRST WATCHGo we to him.

SECOND WATCHAwake, sir, awake! Speak to us!

35

FIRST WATCHHear you, sir?

SENTRYThe hand of death hath raught[36] him.

Drums afar off

Hark! The drums demurely[37] wake the sleepers.

Let us bear him to th’court of guard:

He is of note:[39] our hour is fully out.

40

SECOND WATCHCome on, then,

He may recover yet.

Exeunt [with the body]

[Act 4 Scene 10]4.10

running scene 27

Enter Antony and Scarrus with their Army

ANTONYTheir preparation is today by sea,

We please them not by land.

SCARRUSFor both,[3] my lord.

ANTONYI would they’d fight i’th’fire or i’th’air,[4]

5

We’d fight there too. But this it is: our foot[5]

Upon the hills adjoining to the city

Shall stay with us. Order for sea is given:

They have put[8] forth the haven,

Where their appointment[9] we may best discover,

10

And look on their endeavour.

Exeunt

[Act 4 Scene 11]

running scene 27 continues

Enter Caesar and his Army

CAESARBut being charged[1] we will be still by land,

Which, as I take’t, we shall,[2] for his best force

Is forth to man his galleys. To the vales,[3]

And hold[4] our best advantage.

Exeunt

[Act 4 Scene 12]

running scene 27 continues

Alarum afar off, as at a sea-fight. Enter Antony and Scarrus

ANTONYYet[1] they are not joined: where yond pine does stand,

I shall discover all. I’ll bring thee word

Straight, how ’tis like to go.

Exit

SCARRUSSwallows have built

5

In Cleopatra’s sails their nests. The augurers[5]

Say they know not, they cannot tell, look grimly,

And dare not speak their knowledge. Antony

Is valiant and dejected, and by starts[8]

His fretted[9] fortunes give him hope and fear

10

Of what he has and has not.

Enter Antony

ANTONYAll is lost:

This foul Egyptian hath betrayèd me:

My fleet hath yielded to the foe, and yonder

They cast their caps up, and carouse together

15

Like friends long lost. Triple-turned whore![15] ’Tis thou

Hast sold me to this novice, and my heart

Makes only wars on thee. Bid them all fly:

For when I am revenged upon my charm,[18]

I have done all. Bid them all fly. Be gone!

[Exit Scarrus]

20

O sun, thy uprise[20] shall I see no more.

Fortune and Antony part here, even here

Do we shake hands. All come to this? The hearts

That spanieled[23] me at heels, to whom I gave

Their wishes, do discandy,[24] melt their sweets

25

On blossoming Caesar, and this pine[25] is barked

That overtopped them all. Betrayed I am.

O this false soul of Egypt! This grave[27] charm

Whose eye becked[28] forth my wars and called them home,

Whose[29] bosom was my crownet, my chief end,

30

Like a right gipsy[30] hath at fast and loose

Beguiled[31] me to the very heart of loss.

What, Eros, Eros!—

Enter Cleopatra

Ah, thou spell![32] Avaunt!

CLEOPATRAWhy is my lord enraged against his love?

ANTONYVanish or I shall give thee thy deserving

35

And blemish Caesar’s triumph.[35] Let him take thee

And hoist thee up to the shouting plebeians.[36]

Follow his chariot like the greatest spot[37]

Of all thy sex. Most monster-like, be shown[38]

For[39] poor’st diminutives, for dolts, and let

40

Patient[40] Octavia plough thy visage up

With her preparèd[41] nails!

Exit Cleopatra

’Tis well thou’rt gone

If it be well to live. But better ’twere

Thou fell’st into[43] my fury, for one death

Might have prevented many. Eros, ho!

45

The shirt of Nessus[45] is upon me. Teach me,

Alcides,[46] thou mine ancestor, thy rage:

Let me lodge Lichas[47] on the horns o’th’moon,

And with those hands that grasped the heaviest club[48]

Subdue my worthiest[49] self. The witch shall die.

50

To the young Roman boy she hath sold me, and I fall

Under this plot. She dies for’t. Eros, ho!

Exit

[Act 4 Scene 13]4.13

running scene 27 continues

Enter Cleopatra, Charmian, Iras, Mardian

CLEOPATRAHelp me, my women! O, he’s more mad

Than Telamon[2] for his shield: the boar of Thessaly

Was never so embossed.[3]

CHARMIANTo th’monument![4]

5

There lock yourself and send him word you are dead:

The soul and body rive[6] not more in parting

Than greatness going off.[7]

CLEOPATRATo th’monument!

Mardian, go tell him I have slain myself:

10

Say that the last I spoke was ‘Antony’,

And word it — prithee — piteously. Hence, Mardian,

And bring me how he takes my death. To th’monument!

Exeunt

[Act 4 Scene 14]

running scene 27 continues

Enter Antony and Eros

ANTONYEros, thou[1] yet behold’st me?

EROSAy, noble lord.

ANTONYSometimes we see a cloud that’s dragonish,[3]

A vapour sometime like a bear or lion,

5

A towered citadel, a pendent[5] rock,

A forkèd mountain, or blue promontory[6]

With trees upon’t that nod unto the world

And mock[8] our eyes with air. Thou hast seen these signs:

They are black vesper’s[9] pageants.

10

EROSAy, my lord.

ANTONYThat which is now a horse, even with a thought[11]

The rack[12] dislimns and makes it indistinct

As water is in water.

EROSIt does, my lord.

15

ANTONYMy good knave[15] Eros, now thy captain is

Even such a body: here I am Antony,

Yet cannot hold this visible shape, my knave.

I made these wars for Egypt,[18] and the queen —

Whose heart I thought I had, for she had mine,

20

Which whilst it was mine had annexed unto’t

A million more, now lost — she, Eros, has

Packed[22] cards with Caesar, and false-played my glory

Unto an enemy’s triumph.[23]

Nay, weep not, gentle Eros, there is left us

25

Ourselves to end ourselves.—

Enter Mardian

O, thy vile lady!

She has robbed[26] me of my sword.

MARDIAN

My mistress loved thee and her fortunes mingled[28]

With thine entirely.

30

ANTONYHence, saucy[30] eunuch. Peace!

She hath betrayed me and shall die the death.

MARDIAN

And that she has discharged.[33] What thou wouldst do

Is done unto thy hand:[34] the last she spake

35

Was ‘Antony! Most noble Antony!’

Then in the midst a tearing groan did break

The name of Antony: it was divided[37]

Between her heart and lips: she rendered[38] life,

Thy name so buried in her.

40

ANTONYDead, then?

MARDIANDead.

ANTONYUnarm, Eros: the long day’s task is done

And we must sleep.— That[43] thou depart’st hence safe To Mardian

Does pay thy labour richly. Go.— Exit Mardian

45

Off, pluck off! Eros unarms him

The seven-fold[46] shield of Ajax cannot keep

The battery[47] from my heart.— O, cleave, my sides!

Heart, once be stronger than thy continent,[48]

Crack thy frail case!— Apace,[49] Eros, apace!—

50

No more a soldier: bruisèd pieces,[50] go.

You have been nobly borne.— From[51] me awhile.—

Exit Eros

I will o’ertake thee, Cleopatra, and

Weep for my pardon.— So it must be, for now

All length[54] is torture: since the torch is out,

55

Lie down and stray no further. Now all labour

Mars what it does: yea, very[56] force entangles

Itself with strength. Seal[57] then, and all is done.—

Eros!— I come, my queen.— Eros!— Stay[58] for me:

Where souls[59] do couch on flowers we’ll hand in hand

60

And with our sprightly port[60] make the ghosts gaze.

Dido[61] and her Aeneas shall want troops,

And all[62] the haunt be ours.— Come, Eros, Eros!

Enter Eros

EROSWhat would[63] my lord?

ANTONYSince Cleopatra died,

65

I have lived in such dishonour that the gods

Detest my baseness. I, that with my sword

Quartered the world and o’er green Neptune’s back[67]

With ships made cities,[68] condemn myself to lack

The courage of a woman, less noble mind

70

Than she which by her death our Caesar tells

‘I am conqueror of myself’. Thou art sworn, Eros,

That when the exigent[72] should come, which now

Is come indeed, when I should see behind me

Th’inevitable prosecution[74] of

75

Disgrace and horror, that on my command

Thou then wouldst kill me. Do’t: the time is come:

Thou strikest not me, ’tis Caesar thou defeat’st.

Put colour in thy cheek.

EROSThe gods withhold[79] me!

80

Shall I do that which all the Parthian darts[80] —

Though enemy[81] — lost aim, and could not?

ANTONYEros,

Wouldst thou be windowed[83] in great Rome and see

Thy master thus with pleached[84] arms, bending down

85

His corrigible[85] neck, his face subdued

To penetrative[86] shame, whilst the wheeled seat

Of fortunate Caesar, drawn before him, branded

His baseness that ensued?[88]

EROSI would not see’t.

90

ANTONYCome, then. For with a wound I must be cured.